strawberries in paris

A long time coming…

Life these days is consisting of quality time with my someone very special and mi familia. Not so much cooking, but still lots of photography and fun events. 

I think I originally started this blog to document my joys in life. It’s funny how you find yourself in a totally new scenario every couple of years and the joy is different but always very good. 

My life has taken a turn onto a path with someone especially good at soaring over the jumps and holding on tight in the curves. It will be fun to see how this path winds. 😁

  College Park, MD

  Baltimore Country Club, Baltimore, MD

Camden Yards, Baltimore, MD

Five Years.

Here I sit in one of the most French laden establishments in Baltimore. Patisserie Poupon! I’ve been here before when my fancy camera was still exciting and novel and took some fun pictures.

This post is all about reflection. Two days from now is Five Years of Strawberries in Paris. It has been a sweet, fun, fast paced, sorrowful and joyful ride.

It’s amazing how much I have grown up in five years. I finally feel like my head is on straight and my priorities are falling into place as they finally should be. Hard work, good health, lots of love to and from my family and cherished times with my true friends. There really is one word to sum it all up: Gratitude.

I am grateful for all of this. I’m grateful for the energy I have to keep on going. I’m grateful for my readers and my supporters. I’m grateful that my cousin is two miles from here in the best hospital in the world and is healing slowly but surely. I’m grateful that I am finally in a place in my career when I can be sending emails at 11 pm for a clinical trial setup and have the biggest smile inside. The Lord takes us on a path and it is always much later do we see his reasons and wisdom.

I can’t wait to see where I am in 5 more years. But there is no rushing that!

So if you are reading this, I hope you as well can have some time today to sit back and see how things have changed in the past five years for yourself. I hope that your ride has also been amazing, not necessarily happy at all times, but still amazing.

Wordless Wednesday: Turning 30 was the best…

Monday Night Baking Night

Cookies. It was a cookie filled evening tonight. 😀 120 to be exact! A double batch of this NY Times recipe. Which I have made here and here. It has kinda become a staple “favor” recipe for me and people go bonkers for it, so what’s not to love! Looking up that old link reminded me that I called my 27th birthday celebration at Woodberry Kitchen a LoveFeast. Well a LoveFeast is surely happening again this Saturday at Black Ankle. Even though I will be 2 days shy of 30 years old, it is going to be a grand celebration. I mean, look at this place. HEAVEN. and then there will be salted chocolate chip cookie favors. 😀

Anyways, I baked and I baked. Phone calls to Jen-Jen, Momma, and Abuelita kept me entertained as I skedaddled along. It helped having made the dough last night. Actually this recipe CALLS for that. Helps the gluten relax or some s**t like that. 😀

In addition to working on that “secret” project this weekend, I made sure I spent some good time doing things I actually enjoy. 🙂 Like making these tags for the cookie favors! A glimpse of this is just one little detail I have in store for the decorations of the breezeway on Saturday! Ahhhhh I can’t wait!!!

The other thing that has been keeping me entertained, has also been costly. 😛 I’ve been shopping!! On the Lilly Pulitzer website (sales baby!). As you can see below, the prints are soooooo pretty.

and I’ve been shopping around downtown Frederick. 😀 Took back some things to Talbots and scored a major deal on these pink patent pumps! 80% off the normal price! Then hopped over to Viniferous and picked up the bottle of rose that I had special ordered for me. They gave me a nice little birthday discount! So sweet- thanks Luke! And I hope I won’t have buyers remorse when the girls and I savor this baby after Black Ankle on Saturday!

And I decided that I needed to start reading again. Hours of Bravo and Lifetime movies just aren’t cutting it for me. The Paris Wife seems pretty good so far!  So other than this latest music addition…. I’ll be sending my baby secret project into cyberspace tomorrow, if you have a second, send some good vibes that way. It’s gonna take all I can to get that thing to work!

Wordless Wednesday: Birthday Cakes of Late