Cute, Punny Valentine's Day Gifts and "Big" News!

You may be able to gather from the title of this post that I'm not sharing a recipe with you today. Instead, I have other fun things to share!! Remember earlier in the week when I gave you some last minute gift ideas for Valentine's Day? If you remember, they were rather "punny" gifts that involved plays on words. If you don't know me, you may not know that I looove puns. All my friends and family know how much I love puns; it's kind of one of "my things." So, I have to warn you that what I'm about to share is incredibly punny. You may groan slightly or wince a bit at the extreme punny-ness, but you can't say I didn't warn you. ;) I put together several mini gifts for Mike to show him how much I love him (in a super dorky way). Check 'em out!

Peanuts.

Fiber One bars.

Echinacea Complete Care tea.

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish.

Raisins.

SoBe Life Water fuji apple pear water.

Target brand (Up & Up) hand sanitizer.

Bananas, obviously.

I had so much fun putting these together!! I did put these together rather last minute, so the little signs weren't all that fancy or nice looking. But in the end that didn't really matter. What mattered was the messages I was sending! The dorky, punny love messages. :) I tried to keep most of the gifts on the healthier side too. There were plenty of candies I could have used to do this, but I opted for items that are a bit better for you. I honestly could have found so many more items for this fun little project! I basically just walked around Target looking at the names of various products and brainstorming possible phrases I could make with them!

Now I'll move on to the "big" news I referenced above. There are two things I did this week that are rather substantial.

1) I joined the gym! I haven't belonged to a gym in probably about 3 years... I've pretty much only been running for the past few years (with other activities like ultimate frisbee mixed in from time to time). That's not a lot of variety! Although these activities have kept me fit and healthy, there was something inside me telling me I needed a change. So, I took the plunge and joined the gym! And I got an excellent deal on my membership cost too. I am psyched about it!

Love this.

2) I bought a new CAR!!! Well, the car itself is used but it's new to me. Woohoo!!

My new wheels:

It's a 2008 Subaru Outback. I will be saying farewell to my current car, a 1998 Subaru Forester, next week when I go pick up the new car. My Forester has been great, but at 144,000 miles and 14 years old, it was time to move on... Sad but exciting!

So, that's my "big" news. :)

Happy Friday, friends! Enjoy your weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day...And a New Blogging Venture!

Hey friends and happy Valentine's Day! I have a few recipes waiting in the wings to share with you, but I have been right out straight these past several days and literally haven't had any spare time to prepare the blog posts. But in the meantime, I wanted to wish you all a lovely Valentine's Day! Whether you have a significant other or not, I think Valentine's Day is a wonderful holiday to celebrate the people you love and let them know how much they mean to you. I feel so blessed to be celebrating Valentine's this year with my fiance, Mike. Next year on this holiday I will call him my husband. Wow!! ♥

I'm not going to bombard you with Valentine's ideas for sweet treats to make since it is the night before, after all...and if you're making a delectable dessert for the holiday, chances are you already have your recipe! But I bet there's a chance that some of you out there might be scrambling for last minute gift ideas, so I have a fun one for you.

Check out this link (which has several great ideas), and in particular, look at #10. That's my favorite! You can easily make up all sorts of cute phrases to tell someone how much you care about and love them using food! Candy, snacks, food, etc. etc., etc... I'm telling you, the possibilities are endless. You could...

1) Buy Riesen candies and tell the person all the riesens you love them.

2) Give them nuts because you're nuts about them.

3) Give them a pear and tell them that you make the perfect pear.

4) Or how about an orange...and say "orange you're glad you're my valentine?"

5) I'm bananas over you! (obviously give them a banana :))

These are just a few ideas. And they can work for significant others, family members, kids, coworkers, etc. Anyone would appreciate adorable (and edible!), cute little gifts like these! And I would imagine that if you go to the store and stand in front of any shelf of food or display of candy, you could come up with many more ideas than the few I've listed here. Plays on words like these are some of my favorite things!! Just ask anyone who knows me. I am constantly coming up with puns and plays on words. After writing about this cute gift idea, it's seeming so much fun to me. I am thinking that I may just have to put a last-minute basket of things like this together for Mike.... Hmmmm. Shhh, don't tell!!

And on a completely different note, I wanted to share with you my second blog I just started! It's a blog all about beer.

You likely know, if you're a regular reader, that I am a big fan of craft beer and that Mike and I homebrew together. Well, I thought it would be fun to chronicle our beer adventures together on a blog! So, last week I began "Craft Beer Loving Girl." I'd love for you to check it out! I will probably only post there once a week or so, but you should definitely head on over and let me know what you think. :) I just had a random thought, looking at this picture above. Should I name the blog "Will Run For Beer" instead of "Craft Beer Loving Girl"?? What do you think???

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day today! I'll be back soon with a delicious recipe for chocolate chunk toffee bars. ;)

Valentine's Day Treats!

I have to admit that I will not be baking any special treats for Valentine's Day this year... And it saddens me! I love this holiday, most especially for the endless recipes out there for delicious, Valentine's Day themed goodies! I could spend hours exploring recipes in cookbooks and online. Sometimes I do. :) This year I'll be on vacation out of the country during Valentine's Day, so there will be no baking in the Barbershop.... :-( I thought I'd still share some super fun (and mostly very easy!) ideas with you though in case you're still wondering what you'd like to make for that special someone.

KraftFoods is always a favorite of mine for perusing recipe ideas. They have many simple recipes, as well as many healthy ones! And I always love websites that share recipe ratings. I make a habit of reading what others think of the recipe before I try it! Check out the following two ideas. One is a chocolatey recipe for Chocolate & Mocha Sweetheart Brownies....mmmmm. And one is a lighter, fruity recipe (low in calories!) for cute Strawberry and Chocolate Gelatin "Cupid's" Cups (pictured above). They both look super easy!

If you want to get a little fancier and spend more time in the kitchen, I might suggest these two recipes. They look so pretty!!! One is for Truffle Tarts with Raspberries. How delightful do these look? And another idea is this recipe for a classic Valentine's dessert due to its color, Red Velvet Cake. Delicious and appealing to the eye! Red Velvet Cupcakes or Red Velvet Cake Balls would be fun too! Boy, the options are endless...

Or how about the festive treat of chocolate covered strawberries? How can you not love these?!

I would suggest going "all out" too and making ones with white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, etc... :)

Yet another fun idea (I know, I'm going wild here, forgive me) is to make your own Valentine's fortune cookies! That would be so fun. You could really get creative with making your own fortunes!! :) Kids and adults alike would like those. My mom always makes traditional sugar cookies, shaped as hearts, topped with a delicious frosting that she tints pink...then she places a fun conversation heart on each of the cookies...

I would always look forward to these cookies each year. My mom's sugar cookies are definitely the best!

And for adults, a delicious Valentine's cocktail is a must, right?! This drink, Dos Amores, looks amazingly delicious. As do all of these on this site... Or maybe this unique liqueur, Hum? It looks quite yummy!! Be creative too...make your own! ;-)

However you celebrate Valentine's Day this year, I hope it is a LOVEly one for you! I hope you might be inspired to bake something delicious after reading this post too. ;-) Happy Valentine's Day, family and friends!