Spring Snow!

Although snow in spring is not uncommon (remember the very 2nd day of spring?) this time I am not talking about the frosty kind. Last week all of a sudden the whole neighbourhood burst into color with spring blossoms popping up everywhere. I makes me so happy to see this after a long and bare winter! Many walks in the sunshine were taken to admire the big fluffy pink and white balls appearing around town. But only a week later there are signs of this colorful burst coming to an end. I walked outside into what seemed like a wintry wonderland this morning. The blossoms have begun falling down, one by one in a blizzard of white.
When I returned to the park to visit these beautiful cherry blossoms again I was saddened by the pink massacre laying on the ground. No more cherry blossoms. :( With only 8 weeks (okay, that's still a long time) of Springiness left I am defiantly enjoying the warmer (but not scorching) weather, trips to the park, cherry blossoms, tulips and daffodils and even those annoying birds that remind me at 5am that i should get out of bed.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Peeps! I hope you had a blessed one filled with yummy Easter food and family fun. My Easter was a boring one spent recovering from a night out in NYC and playing with Gumby while the husband had to go into work. :( The closest I came to getting Easter Eggs were the peeps that I had bought at an A&P closing down sale. Perhaps next year I will be more organized and put a little more effort into Easter.

Hot Cross Scones?!?

Its Easter Weekend and in the spirit of being a good little domestic wife I invited my friend, Jen over today to bake some Hot Cross Buns from scratch. (A feat I have never tried before.) Perhaps with all the "Just add milk and eggs" baking I'v been doing over the past couple of years (thanks Betty Crocker) my baking skill have somewhat deminished, or maybe it was just a odd recipe because they turned out looking more like scones then the picture perfect "buns" my mom used to bring home from "Pick 'n Pay" grocery store around Easter time back home.

This is how it all went down:
At this point I was still pretty hopeful. Looking good!
Myself and my sous chef... after a little bit of a flour in the face!

BUT then... they came out the oven. :( No sign of any hot crosses, so I improvised with some white icing.

Our "Hot Cross Scones"

They were still yummy though!

AND THIS IS WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE LOOKED LIKED. (maybe next time?)

HAPPY EASTER!

oooooooo... we half way there!

Who knew one little card could make me so happy?!? Well on Tuesday afternoon when this little sucker arrived in the mail it took me a while to stop my happy dance. My husband eventually grew tired of my obnoxious "I'M LEGAL!" song and I calmed down to examine my new "Employment Authorization Card" (my first photo I.D with my new name, YAY!) courtesy of the US government. I am officially one step closer to becoming an American citizen.

This little piece of plastic allows me to work and to finally leave the US (or more importantly allow me back in!) Alas, there were no last minute flights to South Africa so unfortunately my Easter vacation shall not be spent back home. :( But a trip shall be made soon, perhaps after the Summer.

Immigration kinda sucks. But after filling it about 9 different forms and sending the government more money then my car is worth, I am finally seeing the results. YAY YAY U.S.A!

My Sunday Project: Gallery Wall

I call this my Sunday Project, but to be honest, I have actually been slowly working on our "Gallery Wall" ever since we moved into our apartment in December. I do mean slowly though... collecting various cool picture frames from different stores over the past few months, finding just the right pictures to print out and collecting/making up some artwork. Today was finally the day that I dedicated to finishing my little domestic project.

Please note: I usually rush things and can't be bothered to follow the guide lines like first cutting out newspaper silhouettes of your picture frames and hanging them on the wall to see how it will look which is shown how to do here

My stack of things to be hung:

Instead of using nails (I want my deposit back!) I used these sticky Velcro picture frame hangers. MUCH EASIER then nails and easy to correct skew mounting! yay!

BEFORE:

TADAAAA! AFTER:

I want to keep changing and adding new things to this wall. I defiantly need something to represent South Africa since I already have my map of New York and my 2 Peruvian Llamas to represent all our different cultures.

That weekend feeling

Its FRIDAY! woohoo!

I love the feeling that Fridays bring, especially a lovely sunny Friday like today. Spring is surrounding us with beautiful colours, lush grass between our toes and wide open car windows.

With the warmer weather upon us, salads are a lunch-time must but I have always been a bit boring when it comes to eating my greens. So in the spirit of more exciting lunch time dining I shall share with you today's lunch: Roasted Apple and Cheddar Salad

Happy weekend!

Ferret Love

Introducing... Gumby!

This past weekend was a very exciting one in the Alvarez household. For the longest time, Mike and I have wanted a pet ferret and after many spare hours spent eyeballing the cute little fur balls at our local Pet store, we finally took the plunge this Saturday and obtained our new family member. As soon as we saw our beloved ferret curled up in the litter box of the cage we demanded that he be ours and that we were taking him home! After a very exciting car ride, we set Gumby (named after the green clay figure from the old kid's tv show) loose in his new apartment. It took him only a few minutes to discover the soil in my flower pot and we realized we had a bit more 'ferret-proofing' to do! Gumby is a such a fireball and spent ages playing, sniffing out his new hiding spots and getting into mischief, he later passed right out and had a snooze with daddy. We love our new 'son' very much, welcome home Gumby!

Torpedo of DOOM!

Charlie Sheen's "Violent Torpedo of Truth/Defeat is Not an Option" tour landed in New York city last night and after watching a tv segment at 5pm about how ticket sales were bombing and selling for as low as $5 I decided to drive down to NYC with my friend to try get in on some of the crazy before Sheen either dies of a drug overdose or his 15min of fame run out.



Unfortunatly, when we got to Radio City Music Hall (and after paying an insane $9 for street parking) we became lost in the ticket scalping game. I am quite a loser when it comes to things like that. It is against my natural instinct to walk up to dodgy, homeless looking gentleman and hand over money for a piece of paper that I don't even know is legit. In my mind the evening would have gone something like this: Run to Radio City Music Hall, arrive last minute, people are desperate to get rid of their tickets, we quickly get 2 tickets at $15 a pop and we gracefully head inside for a good laugh and probably a lot of disspointment. BUT, instead, this is how the evening really turned out: Run to Radio City Music Hall, arrive last minute with about 30 other people looking for tickets, go up to a few people who turned out wern't scalpers, bumped into 1 guy only selling for Sunday's show, got asked out for coffee by a French Canadian who didn't know who Charlie Sheen was, got cold waiting outside for 30min, it began to rain and we headed back to Westchester to watch Russell Brand's new movie "Arthur". So, although our mission was a total failure at least we tried and ended up having a fun adventure anyways.

This is me trying to get 2 tickets... yeh, im a big dork!