I haven't posted on here in a while, and it's always hard figuring out what to write after it's been so long! I'm just going to write what has been happening lately, and I'm sure posts will flow from there :)

So, most importantly, Lakeside Wiener Wagon and BBQ is open for the season!!! Tim and I went there yesterday! Tim got two street dogs (with grilled corn, garlic mayo, and parmesan cheese), a pulled pork taco (with cilantro cole slaw), and I got the porker (hotdog with pulled pork, coleslaw, and pickles) as well as the pulled pork sandwich, which also had coleslaw and pickles :) Everything was SO delicious! We then went and watched Guardians of the Galaxy II...I feel like it was just us, but we weren't thrilled with it. Everyone else in the theatre was enjoying it, but Tim and I both like the darker side of Marvel movies, and we felt like this movie was FULL of one-liners to make the audience laugh. It was pretty disappointing, but we were happy to get out of the house and spend time together :)

Friday I had to work part of the day. Rebecca and the kids weren't feeling well, so I didn't go there afterwards. I was in a productive mood, so I decided to take care of one of the rooms upstairs that we don't currently use for anything besides storage. I didn't realize how unorganized it was and just plain messy.

Our cat was pretty excited because she got to come up with me. We normally keep the upstairs closed off in the cold seasons because it isn't heated.

 The majority of stuff that had been in this corner was all wedding stuff. I went through it, kept what I wanted (or couldn't part with), and the stuff in the back left will probably be given to good will.

 This area looks SO much better. I don't know why we never used those book shelves for anything (doh!). Now all our extra blankets and pillows are in one area, and my extra books and kids books that didn't fit on our shelves downstairs are now organized :)

 Old magazines were gone through and will be given to the library, and our kid toys now fit all in one box, since all the kid books are on the shelf :)

It was SO rewarding to be done! I've got one more disastrous closet upstairs to go through, and one downstairs that's filled with winter coats, Tim's old cymbals and Loot Crate boxes lol, but after that, we won't have a ton of extra crap. It will feel so great. Getting rid of stuff is such an exhilarating feeling!

This morning I went and got groceries around 6:30am, then got home and made some yummy bacon hash. It's super easy to make, is super filling, and besides the bacon is really good for you! This is a recipe I found back when we were on the ketogenic diet.

Bacon Hash

6 slices bacon

2 cups chopped cauliflower

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 teaspoon garlic powder

salt

black pepper

1. Cook bacon in a medium skillet over medium heat until crispy. Remove from pan and cool, then crumble.

2. Drain some of the bacon grease*. Add chopped cauliflower, diced onion, and minced garlic to the skillet with the remaining bacon grease. Cook about 8 minutes over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until cauliflower starts to brown and becomes tender. Add garlic powder, and salt and pepper to taste. Add bacon. Stir until combined, remove from heat.

3. Make a sunny-side-up egg and put it on top :) In the photo, I accidentally cooked mine too long, which is why it looks like part of the egg's skin has been removed because it has been :) It got a little crunchy, and I hate when that happens! You could always do scrambled eggs as well, I'm just partial to sunny-side-up :)

*I'll leave that up to you as to how much bacon grease you want to leave in the pan. I don't like a lot of grease in my food, but you do need some of the grease because it adds flavor. So just eyeball it. You can always add more grease back in the pan if you want.

Kind of a random post, but hopefully I'll get back into the swing of posting more often! Now that summer is coming soon, I'm sure we'll be doing a lot more. I'd also like to start baking more and learning new techniques, so I'll be sure to share everything on here :)

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Day 4 in Portland, Pt. 2

 After spending our morning exploring downtown Portland, we ventured out to Cape Elizabeth. I wanted to see at least one lighthouse before going home. Actually, we really went there because the food truck, Bite Into Maine, aka the "best" place for lobster, is based there. I made sure that even though Tim doesn't like seafood, we had lobster for one meal. Well, I did-he got their caprese sandwich, which he apparently didn't realize had tomatoes and basil on it lol. He wished he had gotten their grilled cheese. Oh well.

This was my favorite meal on our trip. I will say Tim did try my lobster roll (and hated it haha), so I give him props! I got the Picnic Style Lobster Roll. The roll is grilled in butter, then has a layer of coleslaw, lots of butter, and celery salt. Oh, and THEN you take that container of extra butter and pour it all over. SO delicious. I also got some clam chowder, but the chowder Heather and I had gotten in Boston was way better. This one had sand in it. Wash those clams better! That blueberry soda bottle in the first photo is now in our kitchen. We've got a small collection of different drinks that were special to us-like the wine bottle from Chatéau Chantel from my bachelorette party to a few different pops we've tried while on vacation. Every time I look at them, they bring back good memories :)

 I was so insanely happy eating this roll. I was also thinking of my arteries closing up...I'm pretty sure I took a plant enzyme! I will say that I don't think having this much lobster (or butter) so quickly was a good idea. I got super sick that night. But it was worth it lol.

 It was such a beautiful area! We weren't as impressed as most people though because Michigan has lighthouses and the Great Lakes. Maine is supposedly known for their views, but I think Michigan is almost better.

 I had fun going around looking for shells and cool rocks.

 We were here for a good hour, just roaming around, climbing on different rocks. It was fun!

I loved how these walking trails were right next to the water.

After that we drove around for a while, having no clue what to do next. We thought it would have been fun to drive up the coast, but knowing we had a long car drive the next day made that not so appealing. We ended up going to a few book stores and then found a place for pizza (I was SO disappointed, it was terrible. What a way to end our trip!). We took it back to our hotel and watched some more American Pickers.

We left around 6:30am to drive home. I saw the sunrise as we were packing up the car and sprinted over to the beach, wanting to enjoy it one last time. It was the perfect way to end our trip. Our drive home lasted 17 hours. We listened to the podcast Serial the whole way home-I don't know how else we could have lasted that whole ride! It was also our anniversary, so we got to spend every waking moment with each other, in a car lol.

We got home around 11:30pm and walked in to the smell of cat. The guy feeding our cat for us apparently didn't think of cleaning out her litter box. It smelled SO bad. We immediately cleaned up the house and made it smell good before going to bed. Eww.

The best part of our vacation was we had five days of travel and five days to relax at home. Win-win for Tim and I. 

We spent the first day at home playing Gears of War 4. We've played the first and second ones together, so it was fun :) I made sure I had bought a frozen pizza for dinner before we left because I knew we wouldn't want to go anywhere that day.

The next day was back to working out. The kitty stayed next to me the whole time. She definitely missed us.

I was feeling very baker-like, so I wore my new cupcake socks, my "Bake love, not war" shirt, and ate the lemon shortbread cookie from Two Fat Cats. 

I also ate half the whoopie pie. I was nice and saved some for Tim :)

That's about the end of our vacation! I'm so happy we went, even with my car's oil issue costing so much beforehand. I believe it's more important to travel even when stuff like that happens. The way traveling makes you feel, making you forget about work and the stresses of life and exploring new places and the experience of trying new foods, is worth not having that money saved in the bank. Can't wait for our next trip! I think this fall may finally be the time we go to Seattle :)

Day 4 in Portland, Pt. 1

Day 4 in Portland was awesome :) I woke up around 6:30am and went across the street to Old Orchard Beach. They are well known for their pier, which has a bunch of restaurants and also an amusement park with a ferris wheel by the beach. I can imagine during the summer that this is the place to be. There is also a block of tourist shops that were closed down for the season (our motel was actually closing down four days after we left! we made it the perfect time to go, cheap!). I had such a cold but relaxing time taking photos. There were less than 5 people on the beach, all taking photos or enjoying each other's company while the sun came up. It was so beautiful.

After that, Tim and I drove back to Portland for breakfast. We walked about a mile in super windy conditions-thankful for the sun that day so it wasn't super freezing! We were both laughing because it was just so windy lol. We had breakfast at Marcy's Diner, which was such a unique experience. We were seated at the counter and could watch the chef make breakfast while they blared music Tim used to listen to like 10 years ago, more heavy music. It was such a cool experience, besides the fact that we couldn't really hear haha!

 We then walked down near the harbor. The thing I loved about Portland is there's not just one "downtown". They have all different sections, and they're all busy! You walk downtown Manistee, and there's nobody out enjoying life. You walk downtown Portland in the pouring rain, and you come across 100 people. Imagine when it's sunny, like it was this day. I just loved it!

Tim and I came across this alligator outside an ice cream shop, and I jokingly told him to pose by it, and he did it lol :)

 Tim didn't mind exploring by the harbor, but I know he was doing it especially for me :) 

 haha

Portland used to have a love locks bridge, like Paris; however, due to the heaviness of the locks, also like Paris, the bridge started to fall apart. They ended up taking down all the locks but kept a small portion of them in memoriam. I was so happy we came across them :)

The Standard Baking Co. supposedly makes the best pain au Chocolat in town. Pain au chocolat is literally pastry dough filled with chocolate and covered with some sugar. Sadly, they hadn't made any that day, so I ended up just getting a regular croissant. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I hadn't just eaten a massive breakfast :)

We went to a few more shops, including a Christmas shop. It's tradition that everywhere we go on an anniversary trip, I get a Christmas ornament. This year I got one that didn't quite scream us, but oh well :) It's of two snow shoes and it says Portland, Maine on it. 

Here's Tim letting me shop while on his phone lol

 After that we went back to the Holy Donut and got a BUNCH more donuts :) Our favorite is still the dark chocolate donut. We should have just gotten a dozen of those!

 THEN we went to yet another bakery. I had heard of this cute little place from Bakingdom, who had taken a trip to Portland the last year with her husband. 

 I, of course, wasn't hungry after being to breakfast, so I just got a whoopie pie and a lemon cookie, two of her recommendations. SO delicious! Looking back now at the below photo, I definitely wish I had gotten some pie!

I was glad we walked around so much, probably about three miles, because after this, we were off to Cape Elizabeth, where delicious lobster and views of the ocean awaited us :)

Day 3

Considering it's been four months since we went on our vacation to Portland, I figured I should probably finish up talking about it haha!

Day 3 we woke up to pouring rain. I immediately was in a sad mood because it's so much harder to explore when it's raining, and I also had wanted to photograph the sunrise by the ocean. Tim didn't let that put a damper on the day though, and we decided to proceed with our plans. I put on my new shirt from King Arthur Flour and off we went.

 We went downtown and tried going for breakfast, but the place we wanted to go to had a long wait. So we went to Denny's. If I'm completely honest, it was the worst food I had on the trip, but I think that also had to do with me being upset it was raining :) After Denny's, Tim realized how much his non-waterproof coat was getting soaked, so off we went to the mall. It is amazing shopping with a guy because it always seems that they find what they're looking for IMMEDIATELY. We literally walked into Old Navy, and right in front of the guy's section was a navy blue rain coat, in just his size. If we had been looking for a coat for me, we would have been there all day! We shopped around a bit more, and I bought a winter coat and a couple shirts from Aeropostale (going out of business, so 75% off!). It was about 11am by now, so we decided to go downtown Portland and check out what we could while it rained.

We looked up a comic book shop and went there first. They not only sold comics, but cds, vinyls, old consoles, incense, etc, Tim bought some magic cards there.

There was also a sock shop nearby! It is literally a shop full of socks. I bought some that had cats that were reading on them, as well as some cute little socks with cupcakes on them for my niece, and some wool turquoise and purple socks for my mom for Christmas.

We happened upon Otto's Pizza, which was a highly rated pizza joint in Portland on yelp and trip advisor, but I didn't know they had a shop downtown where you can purchase by the slice! I was so excited!

I believe Tim got a sausage and pepperoni slice, but I was more adventurous, and it really paid off. I got a spicy pulled pork and scallion pizza. I always compare pulled pork to Josiah's food truck, and I have to say this place wins for the perfect spicy sweet pork. Josiah's isn't spicy at all. It was out of this world good. So good that I ate 80% of it before realizing I hadn't taken a photo of it, and I wanted to remember it for sure. 

Look at that clump of sweet pork! Mmmmmmmmm...

After we had walked around for a couple hours and were completely drenched head to foot (even with my umbrella), we decided to go to one more stop before heading back to our motel and see the rest of downtown the next day.

We decided to go to Holy Donut, and it was the best decision we made on our trip!

Holy Donut is the coolest place. They make all of their donuts with Maine potatoes, and they are just brilliant. Best donuts ever. Everyone else agrees with us because we got there around 2pm on a week day, there was a line, and they only had three types of donuts left. They sell out A LOT.

We got the dark chocolate sea salt, pomegranate, and possibly plain? I can't remember because the dark chocolate sea salt took over my brain. It was the BEST donut I will possibly ever have in my entire life. It tasted like the most amazing chocolate cake. You could tell they use the highest quality ingredients. You could taste every bit-the butter, the cocoa, the chocolate chunks. It was SO good.

As soon as we tasted this donut, we decided to come back the next day for more :) We also got some hot drinks: me a hot cider and Tim a mocha. It was the perfect food after being cold and wet for so long :)

Pomegranate was delicious too, but this picture bugs me because of that black spot on the right! I wish I had seen it before taking the photo! It makes it look like a not-so-perfect donut, but it was definitely good too :)

After we got back to our motel and got into some dry (yes!) clothes, we decided to go watch "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" at a local theatre. I had read the book and loved it, and expected the movie to be pretty darn good. I was sadly disappointed :( What should have been a PG-13 scary/slightly creepy movie was made for kids. There were a couple Tim Burton parts for sure (like the eyes in the end and the kid that cuts up things and puts them back together weirdly), but other than that, it just didn't quite cut it. Super disappointing, but not awful.

We were pretty hungry after the movie, so we looked around for a fast food place, seeing as it was around 10pm. We found a local burger place that was based at an old train station that is actually open 24 hours! We got burgers with fries that had no flavor and even though they were made in front of us tasted like they had been sitting for a while...it was still fun trying a new place :) 

After a long day of walking around, we finally got back to our motel. Each night we watched American Pickers lol and fell asleep (and woke up during the night) to the sound of the train LOUDLY going by our motel window that we couldn't shut because it was also the vent in the bathroom :) That's what you get when you only spend $60/night! It's those things, however, that help us remember our trip :)