Have I mentioned how grateful I am to live in the part of Arizona with seasons?
It’s been snowing on and off here since early November, so it feels weird that fall is officially over and winter is officially beginning.
OK, I’m a little late to the bread baking trend.
I didn’t really get into it when the pandemic first started, but over the past year, I’ve started getting a little more interested in making my own bread.
I’d like to formally thank inflation for that. I’m not about to spend $6 on a loaf of bread when I can buy a bag of flour for $1.50.
I’ve also really, really, been trying to live more sustainably. Being able to buy flour in bulk or in paper bags, honey in refillable glass jars from our local beekeeper and cardboard containers of salt is a lot better than buying bread loaves wrapped in plastic bags and tags.
Plus, fresh bread is WAY better.
At the start of this year, I picked a simple recipe to play around with: a no-knead crusty french bread recipe that used all-purpose flour.
(It’s the King Arthur No-Knead Crusty White Bread recipe.)
It took about six months to get the recipe to work for me, my oven and my 7,000-foot elevation, but I finally perfected it, and I wanted to share my modifications with you!
I’m here with a new feature-y type of post I suppose…
Shit I’ve been loving lately!
Every so often, like, a few times a month, I stumble upon some cool shit I want to share with friends. I usually post some of this stuff on Instagram and get questions about it, or if I REALLY love something, I annoy the absolute shit out of my friends and family with videos of it.
“LOOK! MOM! LOOK HOW COOL THIS IS!”
Like, for example, I bought a new bread box-slash-cutting board (keep on reading for details), and posted a video on Instagram of it (keep on reading for video, also), and had SIX people ask for details on it.
For a niche kitchen gadget? Seems like a lot.
So, I wanted to start a new little feature series detailing some of the shit I’ve been loving lately. It won’t all be things I’ve bought, but will also be random things I’ve been infatuated with as of late. Authors and artists, apps and websites, games, retailers, activities and hobbies… nothing’s off the table, really.
Mother Nature dumped, like, six inches of snow on us last night.
Which, yunno. Awesome, but a day late!
I spent this past weekend yurt camping with friends at Arizona Nordic Village. We got back yesterday morning, and we could have used the snow Friday instead of Monday!
Regardless, it was a great weekend.
Finally, a slow month with a good amount of reading!
I finished six books in November, which made it way more productive than October. I started the month off with a horrible cold, but luckily, several holiday weekends and some flights to and from Texas gave me plenty of time to knock several books off my list.
It’s CHRISTMAS SEASON!
I haven’t really been a huge fan the past few years, but having Ryan and Yukon in my life makes the season a little better.
I was gone for most of the holiday season last year on a long-term work assignment, so it’s really nice to be physically here in Flagstaff for ALL of the holidays.
Ryan and I put up my shoddy little fake tree last year while I was home for Thanksgiving, but this year, I knew I wanted to get an actual tree.
So, earlier this month, I bought a Christmas tree permit from our forest, and this past Saturday, Ryan, Yukon and I spent a day down on the Mogollon Rim Ranger District picking out a tree.
I’m starting this with a FULL disclaimer: It’s STILL fall and I’m STILL not ready to put up Christmas decorations… but with that said, I am big on doing my holiday shopping early and planning ahead. So here we are!
Also, it’s been a while since I’ve made a gift guide!
I’ve been pretty meh on gift guides for the last few years. They’re typically just laden with affiliate links* to the same four products at Nordstrom, and a lot of the stuff is pretty generic. Like, I really want my gift to be something the recipient will actually like, you know?
*OK, yes, there are some affiliate links in my post below. Look — Flag rent is getting EXPENSIVE! But this isn’t a cash grab and I didn’t solely post things just because they’re affiliate links. I genuinely put some time and thought into this post, promise!
Ryan and I didn’t give each other gifts last year because my flight home from my work assignment in California was pretty expensive… and he wasn’t working at the time, so we just spent our Christmas weekend together.
But, this year I’ve been spending a little more time perusing the internet (I was just sick for like, a full week) and I found a few cute things I wanted to share.
Especially now that holiday parties are a thing again.
October wasn’t as productive reading-wise as the past few months. I’d like to formally thank the Vegas fiasco (part 1, part 2) for that.
Two back-to-back weekends in Vegas — plus my birthday party the weekend before — didn’t really leave a whole lot of time for reading.
But, I did read two books this month, at least. Which, honestly, isn’t too bad. I think it’s actually the goal I set at the beginning of the year.
IT HAPPENED!
After an awful last weekend in Vegas, I was soooo cautiously optimistic because I didn’t think it would actually happen, but it did!
Ryan and I just got back from an awesome weekend at the When We Were Young music festival at the Las Vegas Festival Grounds.
IT WAS THE BEST DAY OF MY SAD LITTLE EMO LIIIIFEEEE.
We had our first hard frost (and a low of 22 degrees!) earlier this week here in Flagstaff, which means our gardening season is effectively over.
I’d hung up some plastic sheeting last week to try to get my tomatoes to ripen while nighttime temps were flirting with the 30s, but lo and behold, nature had other plans. The plastic sheeting fell down while we were in Vegas, and that was it. It dropped down to the low 20s, and my lone three remaining vegetable plants — the tomatoes, pickling cucumbers and zucchini — all died off.
So, I wanted to take a second to recap my very first gardening season here in Flagstaff.
