Life Lately {Winter 2016 Edition}

Hi…. uh, is this thing on?

* taps mic *

Hi friends, remember me!?

Let me remind you: long, long ago in a faraway place, I used to cook and bake yummy things, take pictures and then ramble on for thousands of nonsensical words until your brain melted out of your ears share them with you in my littler corner of the interwebs. I know, I know – it’s been awhile. I mean, I hope you understand! We’ve had quite a busy year, as you can see…

[ september nineteenth, two thousand fifteen ]

[ downtown vancouver ]

[ seattle & surrounding islands from the 73rd floor of the sky view observatory ]

[ cannon beach, oregon ]

See?! You name it, it happened in 2015 (which was simultaneously the most wonderful and most stressful year of my life)! We’ve been all over the place, planned and attended bridal showers and bachelorettes (well, I did at least), watched some of our closest friends tie the knot, WE GOT MARRIED, and – get this – we bought a house!! REAL LIFE! We’re like, almost kinda adults now. I mean, not really at all, but we’re making a valiant attempt at pretending we’re good at adulting!

So you see, I’m basically a new person now – new name, new tax filing status, new address. I’ve never moved before (well, as far as the United State Postal Service knows, I’ve never moved), but I’ve learned quickly that this whole address changing thing is quuuuuuuite a pain in the butt. And then changing your name on top of it all?! Peter, you’re lucky I like you.

(believe me, I tried to convince him to change his name instead.. but you can guess how that turned out)

Regardless of the PITA-ness of changing our address, I love our new place. The turd, as Peter affectionately calls it, is a three-family in East Boston – within walking distance from the airport and a 5 minute train ride into Boston. Our tenants barely speak English, and we are without a doubt the minority in the neighborhood. It couldn’t be more perfect! Between the reggaeton bumping at 2am (on a weekday) to the smoke detectors beeping for new batteries from every apartment (for months straight) – it’s like an adventure every day. And just wait until summer – I hear people flock to the streets for a month-long fiesta! Okay, maybe that’s not exactlyyy what happens, but I think we’re in for quite an exciting ride ahead!

So I have a couple of things I want to share with you guys – just some articles and recipes that I’ve been obsessing over lately and think you’ll appreciate too. But before we get into that, I have something kiiiiiiind of super-crazy-exciting for you – OUR WEDDING PHOTOS!!!

Our special day was captured by our good friend, Will, and his lovely wife, Beth. They are two of the kindest, most creative and wonderful souls that we know – and they were brave enough to spend the *entire* day with Peter, myself and our obnoxiously loud wonderfully caring families and friends – all 265+ of them (no, that is not a joke). There aren’t enough words to accurately express how much I love these photos and the two people who captured each and every moment so perfectly – so just take a peek. I hope you enjoy them as much as we have :)

september nineteenth, two thousand fifteen.

…they are all AMAZING, amiright?!

Now here’s a brief little glimpse into what’s been rolling around in my brain (and my stomach) lately –

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Now that we live in little españa, i.e., East Boston (…is that PC? #sorrynotsorry), we’re surrounded by every type of Latin American cuisine you could possibly dream of. In Talia-world, this means I need to try and make all of these delicious things at home instead (hey, I never said I was logical)! So naturally, I’ve been cooking nothing but heuvos rancheros, chilaquiles and all. things. taco.

As if I needed another reason to love Chrissy Teigen. Her new cookbook? It needs to find its way to my kitchen shelf ASAP. If you don’t know who she is, check out this excerpt. Just stop. I love her.

Let’s talk serious for one hot second. I was recently introduced to Brené Brown via a TED talk she gave at TEDxHouston back in 2010. Brené is self-titled researcher + storyteller who has spent the last thirteen years studying vulnerability, courage, worthiness and shame. I know this stuff is a little heavy for my silly little corner of the internet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that her words (and the three books I just bought) are going to have a pretty profound impact on my life in the near future. So to start – I HIGHLY recommend you watch her TED talk. Checkity check it out.

And last, but certainly not least – with a monumental birthday on the horizon (#30 – eek!), I’ve got just one thing on my mind: cake. I may not love to celebrate my birthday, but I’ll be damned if I don’t have cake! Here are a couple of delicious things I’ve had my eyes on lately:

     . I don’t even like chocolate cake, but THESE PHOTOS. drooooooool.

     . Because, cardamom.

     . Funfetti in the form of a cookie cake. IS THIS REAL LIFE?!

     . To satisfy my obsession with oreos (I know, not a cake. hush).

     . And, of course, a list like this wouldn’t be complete without a s’mores cake.

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SO. Now that my year-long wedding hiatus is officially OVAAA, you should expect big things from this little blog – or at least something slightly more than two posts in an eight month time span… #bloggerfail.

I have this cool little Amazon thing I want to share with you soon, lots of ideas for a website redesign (oh, Miiiiiichael), and roughly 293792835 new recipes to tell you about! Though, as it stands, I’m pretty sure that 90% of them are new muffin recipes….

You can just call me the muffin (wo)man.

* mic drop *