we’re heading to kansas city tomorrow in celebration of six months of marriage! we’re staying with some of my family & i am so excited. my cousin, danielle, & her husband, corey, are the definition of the word, “cool.” they’ve seriously got it goin’ on. we’ve also planned a lunch date with a good friend whom we haven’t seen in awhile. what better way to celebrate than with friends & family?
i’m packing light. a change of clothing & a pack of film.

i love trips like this.

there is something about winter that has my mind thinking about food. fresh food. those kinds of food that are so out of season my carbon footprint is something that i won’t mention to anyone. i feel like my husband, the sustainable farmer, is becoming very disappointed when i come home with a bag full of tomatoes, cantaloupe, oranges, & pineapple. yeah, pineapple. it’s getting pretty bad.
but there is light here in columbia, missouri. that light is in the form of these {two} {restaurants} that use as much local & as much in season foods as possible. oh, i love these places. the photos above are from {here} while enjoying our lunch date. i’m still dreaming about my steamed kale.

& as we are on the topic of food… & local food at that… i promised i’d share with you my cookie recipe that is THE BEST COOKIE RECIPE EVER. seriously. EVER. once the cookies are out of the oven, i can’t stop. it is almost impossible to wait for them to cool.
& i have {patric chocolate} to thank, a local business in columbia that makes the most amazing chocolate. this recipe is adapted from their recipe with a few changes. enjoy!

ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt (don’t substitute for another salt, it will not taste as good)
1 tsp baking soda
two sticks unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp real vanilla extract
1 egg
1 cup dark chocolate chips

preheat oven to 375 f. combine flour, salt, & baking soda in bowl. in a separate bowl, cream the butter by hand or with mixer. add sugar, vanilla, & egg to the butter mixture & beat to combine. beat flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined. stir in chocolate chips. drop by rounded teaspoons onto baking sheet (i use parchment paper instead of greasing my pan). bake for 10 minutes. remove from oven & let cool on racks… that is, if you can wait that long. 🙂

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& on another note, we’re continuing to work hard on our etsy shop. we’re aiming for the first week of february! so, we’ll keep you updated, friends.
also, my {best friend} & her love opened up their shop recently. {third hand thrift} is the cutest little shop with the best vintage finds at reasonable prices. they also have a {blog}! check it out!

woah, that was a lot! enjoy that recipe & let me know if you like it. enjoy your day.

little moments from our trip: a nest found on one of our walks, blown weeds against the cool blue of the river, a perfect scarf worn by one of luke’s younger brothers, the thickest fog i’ve seen, a new friend who greeted us at our cabin, & a dried leaf very similar in character to {this} birch wood found on our last trip with the family.

i miss the quiet of that trip, but it is also nice to be back into the schedule of classes. i feel a little restless, though. life has been so full lately. when it is not full, i feel like something is missing. i think my response, rather, should be to relax during those times of quiet.

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i have had a lot of ideas & thoughts swimming around in my head recently. thoughts about…
+ where life will lead us
+ how to regularly exercise my creative talents in hopes of becoming a better “artist” or “photographer” or “hobbyist” or whatever you would like to call it.
+ ways to better spend my morning. if you have thoughts on this, let me know. i’d love to hear how you spend your mornings & the ways you relax before beginning a new day.
+ what kind of mother i will be. this is weird for me because luke & i do not want to have children for awhile, but still, i continually wonder about how we will raise our babes & the decisions we will make. this might be due to the hours of reading in my child development class, but who knows!
+ ways to spend less money. i realize that above i wrote about feeling “restless” & the need for life to feel “full,” but i hope to get over this… & quick! i’d like to work less & make more, plan more, grow more. i’ve decided to not purchase anything but necessities (food basically) for the next month. there are so many ways to stretch our budget! i must research these ideas…

anyway, i hope you enjoyed a bit of my ramblings. sometimes its nice to just write. not edit. simply record my thoughts.

thanks for reading, friends.