long island's battle of the burger.

When I included a state fair or festival on my bucket list for this summer, I didn't really have anything specific in mind, so when my dad came to me with this idea to go to Long Island's 'Battle of the Burger' competition, a light bulb kind of went off. Basically, all you had to do was show up with an appetite and taste burgers - as an avid burger lover, I found these reasonable terms.

At the end of this day I was calling myself Fatness Everdeen, and the odds were definitely not in my favor, but it was well worth the belly ache. When you walk in they give you a wrist band and a chip for voting, and from there on out it's beer, burgers, and lines. There were ten restaurants competing for best LI burger, and I'll give it to about five or six of these places - they had good burgers. We waited in line for all ten, but missed out on one because all of the ones left at our second to last stop were still very much live cow, so we passed on it. Their loss really.

After the fourth or fifth burger I was really starting to feel super full, especially with two bottles of beer down as well, but I felt like it was my civic duty (okay, maybe not) to try all ten so that my vote would be fair. But obviously, being who I am, I kept the voting chip for my summer book. I used my friend Meagan's though and we decided together to give it to Old Field's, which had awesome burgers with crunchy onions and a delicious sauce. They also topped their burger with a little buffalo instead of a plain old toothpick (I kept that too, obviously, and it definitely helped their cause when it came down to choosing my fave).

This was a really rad way to spend a Sunday, and even though we had to roll ourselves out of the park, it was really fun to pretend we were food critics for an afternoon.

a to z.

I saw this a to z post done by Ann-Marie and thought it would be a nice little addition to my fifty random facts post and to add to my about me page. (Note: hers didn't have a letter T, so I added my own!)

A. age: twenty-three.

B. bed size: full.

C. chore that you hate: dishes.

D. dogs: one little devil dog named lucas.

E. essential start to your day: cooofffffeeeeeee.

F. favorite color: purple.

G. game: to watch, baseball + soccer to play.

H. height: five foot seven.

I. ideal day: a day of shopping, crafting, blogging, reading, and movies with r.

J. job title: nanny.

K. kids: none, but I've always felt like my true calling is to be a mom, which is why I love being a nanny so much.

L. lives: on long island in new york.

M. movie: titanic, always titanic.

N. nicknames: less.

O. overnight hospital stays: never, knock on wood.

P. pet peeves: loud chewers, slow mall walkers, & bad drivers.

Q. quote from a movie: "she doesn't even go here!" from mean girls. But to be honest, I have entire conversations using only movie quotes so it's pretty hard to pick just one, but "rule number 76, no excuses, play like a champion", right?

R. right or left handed: right.

S. siblings: none, and I hate it.

T. type of music: indie + folk, but I listen to a lot of different things. One Direction, anyone?

U. university: of scranton.

V. vegetable you hate: peas.

W. what makes you run late: I can never get my tush out of bed.

X. x-rays you’ve had: ankle, hand, teeth, chest, head.

Y. yummy food that you make: chicken wrapped in pancetta with leeks and mashed potatoes.

Z. zoo animal: elephants.

guacamole grilled cheese.

I will never eat grilled cheese the same way again - even though I have since made a plain grilled cheese at three in the morning after coming home from a night out. But I digress.

This grilled cheese (adapted slightly from this recipe) was just ridiculous. R and I could not stop talking about how good it was the whole way through eating them and then for days after. Heck, we're still talking about it.

For the (amazing) guac:
// two ripe avocados
// two small tomatoes or one large
// about a third of a red onion, minced
// garlic clove, minced
// two tablespoons cilantro, chopped
// one tablespoon fresh lime juice
// half teaspoon course salt
// half teaspoon ground black pepper

For the rest of the sandwich:
// crusty bread
// the cheese of your choice (we used cheddar)

Six steps standing between you and the best grilled cheese of your life:
1// mash the peeled avacado in a bowl.
2// add minced onion, garlic, lime juice, cilantro, salt + pepper to the mashed avocado.
3// gently stir in the tomato - we used a lot of tomato because we love chunky guac with juicy tomato, but add the tomato based on your taste.
4// butter one side of each slice of bread, place on the grill or in a heated pan & add a piece of cheese to each slice.
5// spread guac on one half of a sandwich as soon as the cheese starts melting and the bread browns.
6// smush the halves together, cut in the shape of your choice, and scarf (with a little bit of sour cream if you so choose).

I don't think I can stress enough how delicious this sandwich is. I am really passionate about guacamole, and this batch we made was so perfect that the sandwiches were that much better because of it. It's all very life changing.

summer book // update 1.

On my bucket list I included making a summer book. I haven't scrapbooked in a while, and I have truly forgotten how passionate I am about paper products and embellishments and just the whole process that is creating something with your own two hands. I bought a mini book from Elise Joy (not the one pictured, just one with a plain chipboard cover, which is no longer available). I get a lot of inspiration from her (maybe too much) and getting into her blog has made me remember what I used to love about crafting and I think that I have a lot in common with her, so it's hard not to get inspired!

I had a hard time getting into this project because I haven't scrapbooked in such a long time, I felt like I kind of lost my groove (for about five minutes until I got started and then I was unstoppable). I couldn't fit anything together the way I wanted to and I was afraid to mess up the pages of the book, but then I just went for it and before I knew it I had documented half the summer. I am now up to date, but not all of the pages are completely finished because I need to make a trip to the craft store to get some more labels so that all of the pages don't have the same type of label for journaling.

This was a plain chipboard cover, and I used elise's stamp  and staz on black ink to cover it. I wrote in a few things I love about summer that have some kind of appearance in this book.

I skipped decorating the back of the cover and the first page for now, but covered the back of that page with washi tape and included my summer bucket list image. The right page is a picture of me and my two best friends, Alyssa and Meagan on Meg's 22nd birthday. I forgot that I wanted to timestamp that page, but I did use american crafts thickers and a recollections embellishment.

This spread was all about Atlantic City, which was on my bucket list. I included my one cent gaming voucher just for giggles, some journaling on the striped page, and a couple of my favorite pictures from the trip. I used washi tape and thickers again, a smash date stamp, and arrow post its from target for journaling.

In this spread the left page is a picture of Max in his adorable hooded pirate towel from a day we played with his splash pool. I used a recollections sticker here too, and between the two pages I put my ticket from the One Direction concert with some journaling and the wrist band we got on the back. On the right I put a picture of my dinner from smash burger and a movie ticket from a date night with my friend Meagan.

And that's what is pretty much finished so far! I am having so much fun putting this together and I really think my passion for scrapbooking and paper projects is making a vicious comeback. I'm really excited about that.