Christmas is what you make of it

Happy Holidays from Team Smelkins!

We don't have a kitty, but we put a stocking up for the kitty
we hope to have some day in the future!

Is it Christmas already?! The holidays don't feel as if they even began because they weren't ushered in by the intense amount of family togetherness that I am used to being surrounded by this time of year. Ignoring my opinion on the subject, decorations and presents found their way to the Pacific Northwest and the holiday cheer snuck into our apartment. Honestly, I'm grateful for the care packages that ninja-ed their way into our apartment because it eases the strange heartache I feel about not spending Christmas engulfed by my insane family traditions.

The sight that greets you when you walk in our front door!

Cinnamon scented pine cones! Cinnamon is the best scent of the holidays season.

Reindeer towels & oven mitts (not pictured)

Jingly snow man door hanger

Our Christmas-tree-shaped rosemary plant sunning itself on the window sill!

Christmas presents! Hooray!!!

Christmas presents under our rosemary tree!

Tomorrow (Christmas day) Matt and I will open the presents we've received. Afterwards we're going to watch Home Alone and bake homemade pizza with sausage and zucchini.  For desert we will gorge ourselves on ice cream and the chocolate pumpkin spice cake I baked recently.

Thanks google images

Our plans are no more complicated than that. In the evening, I might wrap the presents we bought for our friends and family just because it seems like such a strange thing to do on Christmas day!

I am excited to start new traditions during our first married Christmas season and to make relaxation & togetherness our #1 priority. This year has been such an incredible and eventful year for us and I am happy to entertain an uneventful holiday season. 

Christmas is what you make of it and this year, it's all about the low key love.

The following is a reading from a small group I participate in that I would like to share with you.

 "Sometimes it's hard to know what to make of Christmas. It seems to have such a multitude of meanings.

Is it only a punctuation mark in the change of the season and the turning of the years?

Or is it only a chance to discover amidst the frenzied, frantic busyness of our lives, a time of stillness and quiet and rest?

Or is it only an excuse to celebrate a little, to indulge ourselves a little, in the abundance of the season -- food and drink and music and gifts shared with family and friends?

Or is it only an evil plot by corporations to keep us forever trapped in a vicious cycle of getting and spending on things we neither truly need nor want?

Or is it only a time to carry on family traditions, whether those traditions still mean much to us or not, because they reconnect us with our childhoods, our families, and all those who have come before us?

Or is it only a time, when the world around us seems cold and barren, to celebrate what is best within the human spirit -- our capacity for love, concern and generosity, not only for friends and family, but for all humankind, especially those who may not share in our abundance?

Or is it only a time when we affirm, that as the sun just began its return on the longest, darkest nights of the year, that there is hope for our own lives and our world even during the darkest times of our lives, a time when we remind ourselves of this hope by decorating everything around us with light, a time when we affirm with our effort that perhaps one day there will be peace on earth and goodwill toward all?

Or is it only a time when we celebrate in story and song the birth of a child born as a savior to his people, a child not born to royalty, but to humble parents in humble beginnings, reminding us in a different way that salvation comes unexpectedly in the unlikeliest of times and in the unlikeliest of places and that love must become incarnate to become real?

Or is it something completely else?"

-- Reverend James Kubal-Komoto, Saltwater Church

Wednesday Wise Up: Farewell Food Funk

I think I am finally out of my food funk. For a while, Matt and I have been subsisting mainly on homemade burritos, fish sticks and ragu spaghetti sauce for dinner. I just haven't been inspired to work in the kitchen and create tasty dinner dishes. 

Monday marked a changed cook in the kitchen. I made poppy seed rolls at lunchtime to eat with sandwich fixings. For dinner, I made a creamy garlic & spinach sauce to go on top of fusilli pasta. Afterwards, I fixed up a chai spice concentrate to put in my tea. On Tuesday, we enjoyed a late lunch of sage-rubbed chicken with roasted butternut squash & pecans. That night we enjoyed hot buttered rum while I tried my hand at making yogurt.

Today, I haven't the time to create anything special but I am plotting deliciousness in the near future - chocolate pumpkin spice cake with caramel sauce and spiced wine. Oh how I love food! Just in case you want to cook and bake along with me, I have the recipes and links I used listed below.

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Poppy Seed Rolls from French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano

Makes 12

1 egg

1 tbsp water

1 1/3 cups plain yogurt

4 tbsps olive oil

2 1/2 cups unsifted flour

2 tbsps sugar

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp poppy seeds

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix together egg and water. Reserve. Whip the yogurt and olive oil to a smooth consistency. Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Make a well and pour the yogurt-oil mixture into the center. Using your fingertips, mix into a smooth dough. Make 12 round rolls and place on baking sheet. Brush with egg/water mixture and top with a sprinkle of poppy seeds. Bake for about 30 minutes or until the rolls are golden.

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Creamy Garlic & Spinach Sauce

Makes about 3 cups sauce, good for 1 lb of pasta

3 tbsp olive oil

4 - 5 cloves garlic

1 bunch spinach or about 2 big handfuls

1/4 - 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper (or more to taste)

1/4 - 1/2 tsp salt (or more to taste)

pinch of crushed red pepper (or more to taste)

1 cup heavy cream

1 1/4 cup milk

3 tbsp flour

1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese, plus more to top the pasta

Saute the garlic in the olive oil. Add the spinach one handful at a time and cook until just wilted, seasoning with the pepper, salt and crushed red pepper. Then add the heavy cream and 1 cup of the milk to the pan and heat until boiling. While that heats, whisk together the flour and remaining milk then slowly add it to the sauce, mixing all the while. Reduce heat to a simmer and let thicken, stirring occasionally. Once thick, add the parmesan cheese and stir until it is a homogeneous mixture. Serve over pasta with extra parmesan cheese on top as desired!

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Chai Spice Concentrate

Makes about 28 cups of Chai

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

pinch freshly ground black pepper (optional, but I prefer the concentrate with this additional)


Empty the condensed milk into a jar or plastic container with a tight-fitting lid that you will want to keep the concentrate in. Stir in the sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pepper. Store in the refrigerator. Mix 2 - 3 tbsp into 1 cup of black tea (preferably Assam or Darjeeling tea). Sip and Enjoy!

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Rubbed Sage Marinade (a recipe from the McCormick Rubbed Sage bottle)

Enough for about 2 or 3 lbs of chicken

3 - 4 tbsp olive oil

1 1/2 tbsp rubbed sage seasoning

1 1/2 tsp seasoned salt

1/2 tsp garlic pepper

Mix all the ingredients and spread over the entire surface of the chicken pieces, including under the skin. Cook chicken as desired.

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Butternut Squash with Pecans and Blue Cheese by Nigella Lawson
Serves 8 as a side dish


4 1/2 lbs butternut squash
3 tablespoons olive oil
6 stalks fresh thyme or 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup pecans
1 cup crumbled Roquefort or other blue cheese
Salt and pepper to taste


Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Halve the squash, leaving the skin on, and scoop out the seeds, then cut into 1 inch cubes; you don't need to be precise, just keep the pieces uniformly small. Put the squash into a roasting tin with the oil. Strip the leaves from 4 stalks of thyme, and sprinkle over the butternut squash. (If you can't get fresh thyme, use dried.) Roast in the oven for about 30-45 minutes or until tender. Once out of the oven, remove the squash to a bowl and scatter the pecans and crumble the cheese over it, then toss everything together gently. Check seasoning and add the last of the thyme, torn into small sprigs to decorate.
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Hot Buttered Rum from Full Circle's Holiday Recipe eBook
Makes about 8 drinks


1 stick unsalted butter, softened
2 cups light brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
pinch ground cloves
pinch salt
24 oz dark rum
boiling water

In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Refrigerate until almost firm. Spoon about 2 tbsp of the butter mixture into a small mug. Pour about 3 oz of rum into the mug and then top with boiling water.
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Homemade Yogurt

This recipe is a little lengthy, so I will just link the post at The Frugal Girl blog whose recipe I followed exactly. The jar of yogurt I opened this morning was perfectly set and tasty! I can't believe I have let big companies make my yogurt for so long when it is so easy.
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Saturday Share: Thanksgiving come and gone, Wedding!, and Making Friends is Hard To Do

I've been a little neglectful of you, blog world. But my real life has felt super crazy as of late. Do not fear!, I have plenty to update you on but don't expect much insightful commentary. I just don't know if I have it in me tonight. 

Also, just to let you all know, Matthew and I lost the charger for our camera battery. So all the pictures in this post are from our camera phones. Not the most spectacular pictures, but at least they're somethin'!

Okay. So let me start with what has kept me away from you all for so long:

The enchanting wedding of Mr. & Mrs. E (officially!). This wonderful couple was married the Friday after Thanksgiving which made the holiday super hectic and extremely memorable. I felt so special and blessed to be able to share this day with my friends because it had been too long since I had seen the lovely pair AND now we we have newly wed friends! I was so excited to be in their wedding party (my very first time!) and I even did a reading during the ceremony (such a beautiful reading - click here to read). 

During my reading in the ceremony, I proceed to blush violently all over my chest, neck and face (which I didn't notice but is pretty typical for me). After the departing processional, the wedding coordinator hunted me down and gave me cortisone cream because she thought I was breaking out in hives (I'm sure most of the crowd thought so too)! But really, the wedding was amazing and I loved all the Persian dancing. What great memories for everyone to look back on!

While in Houston for the wedding, some of my family was able to drive in to visit which eased the sting of spending my first Thanksgiving away from them. I have been very diligent in requiring my thoughts to not linger on the strangeness of spending holidays without my family of origin (and I know Matt feels similarly). I am so thankful to my mom and grama for coordinating the trip and bringing along my favorite niece!

There were only two major downsides to this trip. Matthew wasn't able to come with me to see our friends and family. Obviously, getting Black Friday as your day off is impossible in the retail world. This also meant the poor boy had to spend thanksgiving by himself (playing video games and eating burritos). The second major pitfall was that there was not enough down time amidst the madness to get in as much super quality friend time that I wanted. Le sigh. You can't win 'em all, eh?

Travelling over the Thanksgiving holiday wasn't as awful as I thought it might be. However, my flight to Houston left 30 minutes later than scheduled so I nearly missed my connecting flight in DFW. I must say, I love running through airports at top speed. My flight back to Seattle was uneventful except for the fact that I forgot how long it takes to wait in line to check a bag - I almost missed this flight altogether because I didn't allot enough time before take off to get myself checked in (I was the last person to board the plane).

On the flight back, there were clear blue skies until we hit the Washington state border (I swear!). Then all I could see from my window seat was clouds and fog. Before we landed, the pilot was giving us an update on the local time and weather and said it was a "nice day" in Seattle with overcast skies and 50 degree weather!

Now it is back to work making money AND friends! Matt and I are both trying really hard to cultivate new friendships to help make us feel more at home in WA. It's not easy when all I can think about is how awesome my friends down South are. In the past, I wasn't so intensely aware of how hard it is to form friendships because school was always the perfect venue to create bonds with other people my age. But now that we have both graduated, we are having to seek other ways of building a support system.

In an attempt to follow through on this notion, we were brave little socialites last night. We were invited to a karaoke bar with a few of my co-workers from Olga's and decided to tag along. At first, things felt a little awkward but the night ended up being a lot of fun for both of us. Karaoke may not be soul searching conversation, but it was a step in the right direction.

Yesterday, I got off work annoyingly early so I had 3 hours to kill before picking Matt up from work. So I drove down to a nearby park to hike around and enjoy the partly sunny day! Here are a few pictures from my trip:

Oh the views from the Seattle Coast!

Such a pretty area!

Wild mushrooms I saw - Anyone know if they're edible?

Fern plants growing from the tree. Strange!

All bundled up in my winter coat and gloves, I hiked around the few miles of trails for about 2 hours. I enjoyed the quiet, the fall leaves under my feet, and the way the trail meandered the small plot of forest in the middle of a city. I was looking forward to stopping by the beach at the end of my hike to watch the sunset over the Puget Sound. I could already tell it was going to be a gorgeous sunset by the orange colored forest floor I was walking on.

As I got nearer to the beach, I saw a park ranger truck slowly driving around and then heard him calling into his megaphone, "Will the owner of the white Toyota please report back to their vehicle. The park is now closed and your vehicle will be locked inside." Eeeek! I panicked, flagged down the ranger, and ran back to the parking lot to collect my car. Apparently the park closed at 4pm and he had already been waiting 15 minutes for me. 

Unfortunately, in my rush to leave and not be locked inside the state park, I completely missed the sunset. I was really bummed about missing out but eagerly anticipate other trail rambling adventures (that will include better park sign reading).

Also, since I am posting pictures, here is one from a few weeks ago when we were experiencing relentless rain. The ground was so saturated that the water started to flood our back sidewalk and courtyard area.

 Another older picture we took on a walk around a nearby neighborhood. I love this mailbox made in the shape of an airplane! Too cute!

Well, I'm sorry this post wasn't more coherent or inclusive. I feel as if so much has happened in the past two weeks. I will be better in the future about updating more often, promise. I have three days off in a row next week, so expect some introspection then.

What we're into this week:

• Matt is playing Skyrim (still) and Saints Row: The Third, which I think is an absolutely ridiculous game but he is really enjoying.
• I'm reading Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon. This is my first time reading a Stephen King novel (not counting Duma Key that Matt and I listened to on our insanely long drive to WA) and I am enjoying the experience. King has a unique writing style.
• Here is a quote that has been roaming around in my thoughts lately, "A straight line may be the shortest distance between two points, but it is by no means the most interesting." From the show Doctor Who, stated by the Third Doctor.