Hello everyone, I hope you're enjoying a lovely weekend! Things are pretty lovely and mellow here; the girls are crafting, the snow is falling, and we're hoping to get out and finally see Frozen later today. If you're looking for some good reads/visuals, I've got you covered in this week's edition of Hey Internet, Keep Being Awesome:

- 25 happiest cities in Canada (according to Instagram).

- #9 on this list of 10 cities where you're most likely to achieve the American dream! 

- Middle School: not so bad.

- The important thing about yelling.

- Animals sitting on capybaras.

- Redefining girly.

- This is what happens when a kid leaves traditional education.

- On click bait headlines. And baby rhinos.

- Reforming a picky eater: step one.

- What the most iconic women’s figure skaters are up to now.

- Give motherhood a microphone...in Boston.

- I’m Queen Amidala, who are you?

- 10 houseplants that clean indoor air.

Image credit: Pinterest

Even though the process can become messier and the results less perfect, I love baking with kids. It makes for a fun project (just this week we had a friend of Laurel's over for a baking play date -- so fun!), offers yummy rewards, and you can choose to work in some math teaching if you like. Laurel and I recently tried a new (to us) cookie recipe from Lori Longbotham's Luscious Lemon Desserts that was just delightful; a lovely twist on basic sugar cookies. Below I've edited the steps and added notes to offer some shortcuts and tips, as well as ideas for incorporating kids into the process. Enjoy!

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Old-Fashioned Lemon Sugar Cookies
Makes 4 dozen cookies

• 1 2/3 cups sugar (split)
• 2 teaspoons pure lemon oil (split)
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• ½ teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/3 cup finely grated lemon zest (approximately 6 lemons worth)
• 1 large egg
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter 2 large non-stick baking sheets. (I recommend using Silpat mats. You don't need to spray or butter the mat and the cookie bottoms always come out perfect.)
2. Stir together 2/3 cup sugar + 1 teaspoon lemon oil in a small bowl. Set aside.
3. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. (I never sift anything and it seems to work out fine. Laurel is old enough to measure out ingredients but with younger kids you can hand them the measured out ingredients to dump and mix in the bowl.)
4. Using a hand or standing mixer, beat the butter, remaining 1 cup of sugar, remaining 1 teaspoon of lemon oil, and lemon zest until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat until well blended. Add the flour mixture and lemon juice and beat until just blended. (Experienced and steady-handed kids can be tasked to work the hand mixer or turn on the standing mixer and keep an eye on consistency. If you are using a standing mixer, make sure you lock the mixer in the down position before your kid turns it on. Just in case!
5. Form balls with tablespoonfuls of dough. Roll them in the sugar-lemon oil mixture (from step 2) to coat well and place about 3 inches apart on baking sheets. Flatten each ball with the bottom of a glass until about 2 inches round and 3/8 inch thick. Sprinkle each one with a pinch of the sugar-lemon oil mixture. (Laurel and I split the dough. I followed the steps here -- except that I forgot the final sprinkling step -- and she rolled out her dough on a floured surface and cut it with cookie cutters. This dough was much softer than traditional sugar cookie dough so it was harder to roll out and cut, but Laurel was determined! One thing that helped was to use shapes with simple patterns/edges. Both versions were delicious!)
6. Bake, one sheet at a time, for 8-10 minutes until edges are lightly browned. Remove from baking sheet and cool on a wire rack. (I popped the sheets in two at a time and kept an eye on them. It worked fine!)

Image credit: Suat Eman via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Today, Jules shares a recipe perfect for Super Bowl Sunday (or any day really):

Between my husband's enthusiasm for football and mine for good food, Super Bowl Sunday is like a national holiday in our house. Chili is a Super Bowl staple and it's an easy crowd pleaser because it's typically a one pot meal that can feed a hungry crowd. Most often prepped with fatty ground meat, loads of cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips, I'm tweaking tradition here and whipping up a reduced fat white chicken chili that is a treat for the eyes but also a really unexpected and refreshing surprise for the palate; all while staying true to those chili roots and remaining a heady and satisfying one pot meal. Enjoy!
Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cups roasted and salted almonds
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 slice toasted whole wheat bread
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 2 celery ribs, diced
• 1 jalepeno pepper, finely diced
• 1 small can green chili peppers
• 1 teaspoon, ground cumin
• ½ teaspoon coriander
• ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1.5 pounds shredded chicken (white meat)
• 2 (15 ounce) cans cannelini (white) beans, drained
• 4 cups low sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup white wine*
• Salt and pepper
• ¼ nonfat Greek yogurt
• Shredded smoked cheese (gruyere works beautifully)
• Fresh cilantro
• Sliced lime

1. In very large stockpot, heat oil on low heat. While oil heats, puree almonds, garlic, and toast to a fine puree. Add a tablespoon of water if it needs a little moisture to process. Add this paste to the hot oil and stir well for about 20 seconds.
2. Add onion, celery, jalepeno, canned chili peppers, cumin, coriander, and cayenne pepper. Cook for just another minute. Add shredded chicken, beans, broth, and wine. Cook partially covered for at least 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add salt and pepper to taste.
3. Spoon into bowls and top with a dollop of yogurt, a touch of shredded cheese, fresh cilantro, and a squeeze and slice of lime.

*Note: The wine does cook off, but if you'd rather not use wine in this dish, you can replace the wine with 1/2 cup of apple cider vinegar.

Image credit: Rainbow chili print by PragyaK via Etsy

Happy February! While I don't pay much attention to Valentine's Day from a commercial standpoint -- Jon and I don't exchange gifts -- the day does offer a fun inspiration point for crafts and food around our house. (Plus, I love the colors red and pink!) As I've mentioned before, I adore Pinterest and decided to round up 10 pretty craft and treat ideas that caught my pinning eye. Oh, and if you need a Pinterest invite, drop me a line and I'll be happy to send you one! Enjoy!

Valentine's Day Crafts

1. I love the simple and chic of this pop-up Valentine.

2. Brilliant. Turn your collection of random broken crayons into Valentine's that will craft it forward.

3. Pretty heart ornaments.

4. Pinned from my archives: crepe paper rosebud Valentine's cards.

5. I'm tempted to make one of these DIY scratch off cards for Jon. So cute!

6. A pretty printable Valentine's book.

Valentine's Day Treats

7. Red velvet brownies. YES.

8. Easy cut out cupcakes.

9. You could totally serve this as a healthy Valentine's Day snack.

10. Figs for Valentine's Day? Brilliant and easy. Also high in fiber.

All images via Pinterest.

Because I'm all about reducing physical and emotional clutter in life (I'm even speaking about this topic at BlissDom next month), I'm thrilled to join Asha Dornfest of Parent Hacks and Meagan Francis of The Happiest Mom to host a conversation on The Best Ideas For Getting Organized at The Motherhood. Join us tomorrow -- Monday the 23rd -- from 1-1:30 pm EST to chat about simplifying and streamlining your home, schedule, and life. No complicated technical know-how is required to participate in the chat -- it's basically like commenting in on status updates. You will need a logon at The Motherhood to participate, so hop on over and register now. You can also submit questions in advance if you like.
Image credit: Parent Hacks

Every holiday season since becoming a designer, I feel guilty when the holiday cards start rolling in because I'm too busy with design work to tend to my own cards. One year I embraced this reality and sent out cards in March; otherwise, I don't get around to it. However, this year, thanks to a kind offer from the folks at Minted (where I have had some designs represented), I actually will send out holiday cards this month! Read on to check out my thoughts on Minted's holiday cards, as well as to learn how to win a $150 gift certificate to Minted!
Minted is a paper goods site built largely on the talents of indie designers -- most of the collection is generated from design competitions. Bizarrely, just before Minted reached out to me, I was thinking of how nice it would be to design a holiday timeline card (if I had time, that is). So when I looked at the site and realized they have something similar, I figured it was fate. Even though it wouldn't be my design going out as our holiday greeting, it would be awesome to simply get it done. Because I love the reconnection that happens around holiday cards.

As you will see from a quick peek, Minted has a ton of options. I recommend rounding up your candidate photos prior to browsing so you can narrow down your search by number of photos to include and orientation. Here's how my process went.

Since I wanted a timeline approach, I started by selecting the Yearline Card collection. This rendered 216 options -- an unwieldy number for someone who likes to peruse all the options, but my process was then narrowed down a lot because the family photo I wanted to use was vertical in orientation and most of the Yearline cards require horizontally oriented photos. I clicked View All and did a quick first pass to identify vertically oriented candidates, ruling out anything that looked too Christmas-y (I prefer non-denominational cards) or didn't fit my style. Here were my final candidates -- all lovely, but I share my narrowing down process below.

Wish Banner

I love how simple and modern this Wish Banner card is. I also love that you can include four photos on the front -- I definitely had enough photo candidates to utilize this layout. However, I've been noticing this font around a lot lately in both personal and commercial work so I ruled this one out. (Note: you can change font styles and sizes but I wanted to land on a design quickly and not have to make a lot of stylistic edits.

Bowtie

This Bowtie card is classic and pretty, with a little whimsy added via the bird. However, six photo windows on the front meant more time obsessing over photo choices, plus I didn't think my vertically oriented family photo would fit well in any of the boxes.

A Big Hello

The minimalism of this Big Hello design appealed to me. After all, I designed a pair of cards inspired by the word Hello earlier this year! However, the red and green colorway was too Christmas-y for me and even though there are two blue colorway options that are lovely, after looking at the red/green, I kept thinking Christmas even when looking at the blue options.

Float + Joy

This Float + Joy design is really lovely and elegant. However, I ruled it out because I wanted more color pop, plus the photo window was too narrow for my family photo.

Joyful Modern Wreath

This Joyful Modern Wreath design is pretty and basically fit my parameters, but I wasn't struck by the must send response I was looking for.

Mod Joy

Ultimately, I chose Mod Joy! I don't know if it's the unconventional colorway (I am obsessed with yellow right now), the fun family photo in the example, or the fact that JOY is such a representative word for us this year, but I saw this design and it felt like the perfect one. And I love the pop of the color on the interior and the fact that the color is called sunshine, which is perfect given that the family photo I wanted to use was from our trip to California.

Once I settled on Mod Joy, I selected the quantity, paper options, and format and inserted photos and text. I bypassed the options to upgrade the envelopes, include envelope liners, and print return labels (all good options to have though), and asked in the comments whether they would consider adjusting the JOY text box slightly so the word JOY ran in full down the center of the section. And that was it, within an hour, my cards were done and ordered!

Within 24 hours I received my proof (and they took care of my design edit to the JOY box -- yay!) and approved it and my cards are expected to arrive early next week. Totally awesome! In short, the experience was great. While yes, in an ideal world, I would love to design my own holiday cards, when that isn't an option, truly, the next best thing for me is to support another indie designer.

And now, you can enter to win a gift certificate and get your cards out too! Minted kindly offered to match the $150 credit they offered me (I needed to order 150 cards so this helped defray my order total by almost half...thank you, Minted!) to you. Pretty cool, no? Here's how to enter to win:

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THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED
Congrats to winner Tara!
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Rules:

Simply leave a comment below about this fantastic giveaway. (If you're so inclined I'd love to hear what you think about my design options or anything else you love from the Minted site!)

US entrants welcome to enter.

One comment per person (please do not leave comments from multiple e-mail addresses). Anonymous or SPAM-like comments will be removed. Note that your e-mail address will not be published or shared! Leaving just your first name or first name + initial in the name field is perfectly fine.

Entry period closes at noon EST, Monday, December 12, 2011.

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*One lucky winner (selected using Random.org) will receive a $150 Minted gift certificate! Sweet!

Hello everyone -- apologies for the radio silence! I considered posting from the road but decided to be present and immerse myself in Camp Mighty. It was a wonderful trip, not only for personal/professional reflection and connection, but also to witness and be a part of awesome change. Thanks to the fundraising efforts by Camp Mighty attendees, plus a donation from the Ace Hotel (amazing, btw, if you find yourself in Palm Springs), we raised $25,000 for charity: water, which translates to clean water for 1,250 people. AMAZING. I'm now in recovery mode with work and home matters, but meanwhile, here are some fun ideas to consider in this week's Weekly Blueprint:
November 16: I'm fairly certain these gingerbread men will be caught and eaten.

November 18: Lace up. Skating opens at Frog Pond.

November 18: Lace up again. Winter skating opens at Patriot Place.

At your leisure: Start chipping away at homemade holiday gifts. My friend Gabrielle has a lovely sibling gift tradition with lots of project ideas -- these could be used for any family members.

At your leisure: Paint some pottery. Related to above, Laurel loves painting pottery for holiday gifts. The functional items such as coffee mugs and plates are always a huge hit!

At your leisure: I love Thanksgiving. Check out last year's episode of Life.Style (or simply the associated link wrap) for decor, recipe, and travel toy ideas.

At your leisure: Make a big batch of magic salt -- perfect for all of the cooking coming up this holiday season and great for giving as gifts. We've gifted this salt to family and friends who say that it's now the only salt they use!

At your leisure: Try a new recipe. I made Santa Rosa Valley Salad last night (super, super yum), and plan on making one or both of these spinach dishes this week.

Image credit: felt ice skate ornaments by recycledparts via Etsy

Pursuant to yesterday's yummy food post, I wanted to share two tasty spinach-happy dishes my co-host Heather brought to our friend Nicola's baby shower. Not only were these dishes fantastically yummy (seriously, the guests could not stop raving), but given that my roughage consumption tends to plummet with the cold weather (and close of CSA season), I love how excited these dishes got me about eating leafy greens. Enjoy!
Heather's Spinach Salad

Salad:

About 8 oz baby spinach leaves

1 cup pecan halves or pieces

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1 cup crumbled gorgonzola or other blue cheese

Dressing:

3 tablespoons regular olive oil

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Salt and pepper

Mix salad contents in a serving bowl. Place dressing ingredients in a jar or lidded bowl and shake vigorously to mix. Drizzle dressing over salad just before serving.

Spinach Pasta Salad
(Heather said she found this recipe on Recipes.com)

Ingredients

1 (12 ounce) package farfalle pasta

10 ounces baby spinach, rinsed and torn into bite-size piece

2 ounces crumbled feta cheese with basil and tomato

1 red onion, chopped

1 (15 ounce) can black olives, drained and chopped

1 cup Italian-style salad dressing

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 lemon, juiced

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1. In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook pasta until al dente, rinse under cold water and drain.

2. In a large bowl, combine the pasta, spinach, feta cheese, red onion, and olives.

3. Whisk together the salad dressing, garlic, lemon juice, garlic salt, and pepper. Pour over salad and toss. Refrigerate for 2 hours and serve chilled.

Image credits: Christine Koh

This past weekend I co-hosted a secondhand baby shower for my friend Nicola (when I offered to host a shower, Nicola asked me to repeat the eco-theme) along with my two friends Heather and Heather. Both Heathers brought awesome dishes that I wanted to share (the guests could not stop raving about the food!). I'll share one recipe below and two (related) others in a separate post. I ate many servings of these dishes and wasn't shy about asking if I could hang onto some leftovers. Enjoy!
 

Santa Rosa Valley Salad
(Serves 6; Heather doubled the recipe for the shower)

SALAD:

1 box Near East Original long grain and wild rice mix, cooked as directed

Juice of one lemon

3 half chicken breasts (cooked and diced)

4 green onions (chopped)

1 red bell pepper (diced)

3 oz. peapods (ends removed and then halved)

2 medium avocados, diced

1 cup chopped pecans, toasted

DRESSING:

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp. Dijon mustard

1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. sugar

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1. Combine dressing ingredients in blender. Put in lidded container and refrigerate. (May be made a day in advance.)

2. Mix all salad ingredients (except avocados and pecans). Combine with salad dressing and refrigerate 2-4 hours. Before serving, add avocados and pecans.

Editor's Note: Heather got this recipe from her mother-in-law. I did a quick Google search and saw that there are similar recipes of the same title submitted by users to other food sites. If you happen to know of the original source feel free to share and I will happily credit here!

Image credit: Christine Koh