Cookie Jar Love

I am an absolute lover of all things cooking and baking but during the summer months I spend as less time in the kitchen as I possibly can. I become a bit lazy, both in the physical sense and in the creative sense. I don't spend as much time trying new recipes or complicated ones at that but more throwing together very generic dinners together. You know, like salads or sandwiches or even busting out a can of stew. Oh yah...don't judge..I totally did it this week.

So The Hubs has been dropping hints about cookies or something chocolate or sweet. My sweet wants his sweets! Who can blame him but in all honesty I would rather do anything else then turn on the oven. Which leads me to my next point...you don't have to turn on the oven to have a great treat.

No bake cookies, ya'll! It didn't even occur to me until The Hubs, who is not a baker, mentioned it. Duh! Why in the heck didn't I think of that.

Chocolate Oatmeal No Bakes

~1/2 C butter
~2 C sugar
~ 1/2 C milk
~4 Tbsp of cocoa 
~1/2 C peanut butter
~4 C quick rolled oats (Instant Quaker type)
~2 tsp of vanilla 

Add the butter, sugar, milk and cocoa in a pan and bring to a rolling boil.

Remove pan from the heat. I then put the peanut butter into the chocolate mix, just to melt it slightly. And you can do all of these next steps in the same pan by adding the next three ingredients into the sauce pan but I prefer to use a big mixing bowl. Pour the choc/pb mix into your bowl with the oats and add the vanilla.

Then drop, by spoonfuls onto wax paper, your cookies.

I then put them in the fridge to set up. Then they are ready for your enjoyment.

Mmmmm...mmmmm....chocolatey goodness! Be sure to pair it with a big glass of milk-can't go wrong here!

Oregon Coast-Last Phase

I know that I took over 200 pictures and I know that I would absolutely love to talk to you all day about the wonderful vacation but I need to get back to creating, painting, sanding etc so this will be the last post about our vacation...at least for awhile. I'm not making definite promises that I won't from time to time pull out a couple pics. :)

So we attempted to go crabbin' one day but all we caught were starfish...

I highly recommend getting a tide schedule, if there is such a thing, if you are going crabbin'. One of our pots got stuck under the pier and we had to venture back out around 10pm to try to free it. Luckily though when we got there a nice man had wrestled with it for 45 minutes and it was just laying on the dock, empty but laying on the dock nonetheless, waiting for its rightful owner.

Everywhere you look there is an amazing amount of plant life; everything is green and overflowing. I didn't snap any photos but the hydrangeas grow rampant here-I'm completely jealous! We walked through "tunnels" made of plants and trees...

There are flowers growing everywhere. They are all along side the highway, they are growing on hillsides, in between rock walls, up driveways to houses and it seems to be effortless and natural.

We went to Agate Beach but didn't find any agates. It was fun anyway just to be on the beach, taking in the salty air and listening to the waves crash against the shore. While we were there I snapped some photos of the houses on the beach; I was thinking to myself what a wonderful life it would be to live on the beach and absorb this beauty every day.

Look at the windows! GORG!

It then occured to me that while I may never be able to have a place on the beach I can certainly make a coastal oasis at home and no one is around to stop me or tell me that I can't. That is the beauty of having your own home, your own design and your own willpower-You can do anything you like! So if I am going to create a special "oceanic" place for me then I better get started creating my concept and figuring which space to take over. First a spot in our house...next, who knows maybe the world! :)

Oregon Coast-Part Two

Hi there folks! I'm back to share another adventure from our Oregon Coast trip. Today it is all about lighthouses. I desperately love the look of lighthouses and I was dying to see one up close and then to my surprise I saw a sign stating that we could. It was from then on a mission to check out Yaquina Head.

This amazing piece of land, 19 acres I believe, has so much to offer and the fee to enter the site was very reasonable; it was only $7.00 per vehicle (which is good for 3 days-Score!) so The Hubs, MIL, FIL and I loaded up in our car and set out to scope this place out.

As we made our way through the crowd of people we entered the lighthouse. I was like a kid in a candy store; there were so many things to see like the architecture or the antiques they had in some of the rooms. I caught a picture of the Oil Room.

Everything was very well maintained and clean. I would assume that the government pays for people to keep this place prestine and tip-top shape but from what I hear, in the mid 1800's there were many laborers painting, polishing, farming and cleaning to fill their days while at the lighthouse. Being a lighthouse keeper seems like a very lonely job but I am thankful there were folks out there willing to perform this work so that I and generations behind me can take in all it's beauty. Anyway back to the lovely pictures...we were finally let loose to walk up the stairs to the top and boy, oh boy was it a trek.

We climbed stair after stair after stair...it went on for what seemed like forever.

But we finally made it to the top! Woohoo! And then once at the top it was crammed with people, it was hot and I was having another moment...an anxiety ridden moment and like the elevator incident, needed to get the heck out of dodge so we made the trek back down the stairs. It was way easier than up!

We headed outside to view the landscape from a deck like platform. We saw a ton of seabirds and more of the coast.

As we were walking to the car, having thought that we had come to see what they offered, we saw others taking in trails. The Hubs and I knew that while it looked like fun, it would probably take quite a bit of time out of our day to walk the trails. Instead we saw a staircase going down to the waters edge and people were down there. We ventured down and took in the views of Cobble Beach. It was appropriately named seeing as the entire beach to the water's edge was rocks, or cobble stones :). It was a little rocky, no pun intended, navigating around the beach and you definitely needed to be cautious. While down here though we saw tons of mussels, driftwood and other sea life.

The Hubs even talked me into touching an anemone. It was super strange as it was slowing closing up around my finger.

It was all so wonderful and I am incredibly grateful that I had the opportunity to not only see a lighthouse up close and personal but to walk inside and check out the surroundings. There is quite a bit to see and it is clear why the $7.00 day pass is good for 3 days; you may need all three days to enjoy the amount of beauty this place has to offer.

Oregon Coast- Part One

Hey there, the long wait is over...I have the Oregon pics dowloaded and I am going to share a little with you now.

After a rocky start, let's just say that 25mph curves at 60mph does not cooperate with the stomach-blech, we finally reached our destination. I will spare you the horrific details and the hostility that was the car trip down and move right along to happy, sunshine-y details.

We had gorgeous weather the very next day so it made the trip worth it. We made our way into Depoe Bay and did some sight seeing, more like shopping, and then my favorite part of the day was when the FIL wanted to go into an old book store. I was in love! The musty smell, the oodles of old books had me at "hello". I found my way into the very back corner, behind file cabinets and seriously lost myself in the decor books. I saw some inspiration photos that I mentally socked away for another day.

Isn't it absolutely breathtaking; I mean wow! This place, I believe, is called Devils Punch Bowl. And from the picture below I can see why.

It's a huge cavern that is at least 100 feet from the viewing place and the water rushes in and crashes against the rocks in the middle. Stunning but a tiny bit scary at the same time.

The rest of the trip, as you will soon see a bit later, was typical coastal weather; low 60's and foggy/drizzly/wet but it was a refreshing change from the 90 degree weather we had just left.

I am going to give you a cliff's notes version of the next few days and I am going to apologize up front for some of the pictures quality, we didn't have the best lighting and enviornment for film.

We saw the sea lion caves...

Side note to anyone who doesn't do well in small spaces (moi), you may want to forgoe the underground cave where you take an elevator 200+ feet into a cave with 15+ other people on the ride with you. I had a moment, or two, and wanted to claw/bite/scratch my way out of there as fast as I could. The outside area is way more tolerable for you peeps like me.

We went to an oyster farm....

Yes, those are all oyster shells-Shut The Front Door! I even took pictures of the gentlemen schucking the oysters. They were very hard at work but allowed me to enter their domain and snap some shots.

We played in the water, the freezing, felt like something biting you water.....

The Hubs and one of the nieces skipping rocks in the waves

me being a nerd and posing, oh and I am too big of a wimp to play in the water

Well that is all I can possibly cram into this post; it's getting late and I would like to chill out and read a bit before bed. There will be more to come though, I promise! Until then I will leave you with a quote that pretty much summarizes my feelings of this trip, er the ocean in general.

"The sea, once it casts it's spell, holds one in it's net of wonder forever" ~Jacque Cousteau

Shop Update

I am still downloading all 200+ photos from our Oregon coast vacation so once that is complete then I can actually post about our trip and show you some pretty stuff.

In the meantime, I thought that I would show you an update on The Hub's shop. He has been working incredibly hard; the man never stops working. It's a sickness but god bless him because you know there is no darn way anything would get done around here without him! :) Anyway with the help of his brothers and a friend, and maybe even the dad, the shop has trusses. After that was complete The Hubs has been hard at work getting the perlins on (that may or may not be what they are called); they look like rafters in a ceiling-sort of.

See...those thingy-ma-bobs! Anyway this baby is going to be HUGE!! I can't wait because I believe I have narrowed down the design on my home office/craft room and when this shop is done I can actually move crap out of it and into here.

While The Hubs is hard at work (love ya babe!), I am just fiddling around with a couple simple craft projects that I will show you soon...well if they turn out. :)

Oh and in totally unrelated news...Spokane Valley has finally put in a Hobby Lobby.

My dear friend and I spent an hour and a half in this store; we did 3 rounds around the entire store and I swear I could live here. There is so much to see and ideas coming at you from all sides and the place is massive. I didn't want to leave but sadly the folks at Hobby Lobby weren't fond of the idea of me setting up a cot and moving in. :) I am itching to go back!! Have a great weekend!