Peanut Butter Cookies and Fun...

Last weekend, I had my 19th birthday bbq with my family, which was fun!

We planned on having it in my backyard, but we got rained out from the monsoons!

Soooo...we moved all 12 people into my living. My tiny living room.

I got to take a lot of picture with my new camera though!

My love and I got a Canon Rebel T1i for my birthday and I LOVE it.

I've taken over a thousand pictures since I got it 8 days ago.

I've also been messing around with the new Brother sewing machine that my Grandma Jenkins sent me for my birthday! When I opened it, I freaked out because I've been wanting a new sewing machine for a while. Immediately I took it out of the package and started sewing a new shirt, which turned out amazing. It started like this:

and ended like this:

(I think I'm going to cut off the fringes because it looks like braids!)

It took me a while to figure out what to do with the back because I have a crappy tattoo on my upper back that I got when I was 15, and I work in a public library, so I want it semi-covered up. I was extremely happy with what I came up with!

Next time I make a shirt like this, I need to make a pattern for it. I didn't even think about it! Stupid.

I have a friend at work that has a niece staying with her for 2 weeks and she has Celiac Disease. I don't necessarily like hearing that people have it, but I get really excited because that means I get to cook delicious food for someone who will actually appreciate it! I put together a little bag for her with some gluten free banana muffins, Tinkyada rice noodles, and gluten free peanut butter cookies. The peanut butter cookies were SO delicious and simple, that I thought I would share it.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Dairy Free and Gluten Free

1 cup sugar, plus some for coating

1 cup peanut butter (crunchy or creamy)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 egg

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the sugar and peanut butter together. You can use regular egg beaters or by hand, like I did. Mix in the baking powder. Lastly, add the egg until just mixed. Roll into 3/4 inch balls, and roll in sugar. Place on a greased pan. (I like to keep a little bowl of olive or sunflower oil with a brush to brush the oil onto the pan. It gives the cookies a crispy bottom!) Flatten the cookies out with a fork, making a checker design(#). Bake for about ten minutes. Allow to cool on the pan for a few minutes, then let cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.

Then devour.

On Friday, I had an event with my teens at the library that was pretty fun. There is an aquatic center in my town that is city owned, so I am part of a partnership with the aquatic center and the library I work at. One of the events we planned was a free day of swimming. It was especially exciting because the pool was only open to our teens. When the pool is open during regular hours to the public, it is usually at full capacity which is awful. This time, there were only 25 of us in the whole pool! Now, I need to tell you what the 'pool' consists of. It has a huge hot tub, 2 water slides, a lap pool, a lazy river, and a shallow kids area. So that is a ton of space when there are only 25 of us! The line for the slides are always long, but this time, there wasn't one! The teens were really happy about this. I originally wasn't planning on swimming, but I brought my swimsuit with me, just in case the teens got bored and I needed to play a game with them. Needless to say, they really wanted me to swim with them. So I got my suit on and they all just wanted to go the slide with me. Did I mention the stairs to the slide are 3 flights? After the slides, we played Shark and Minnows, aka A TON OF FREAKIN' SWIMMING. It was a blast though, and I really liked that the teens had fun.

So Vince and I are getting a new (to us) car! We are painstakingly saving for a NEW new car, but we wanted an old beater to get us through the winter, take short road trips, camping, disc golf, etc. So on Monday, we are getting a 1982 Volvo 245 GLT Turbo. That's a long name. Pretty much an old volvo wagon. I'm stoked because there's a ton of room and we have a friend that's a mechanic that will work on it for us if Vince works on his mountain bikes!

Lastly, I'm getting a new tattoo this week! I'm going to do something similar to this on my left front shoulder under my collar bone:

or this:

with some shadowing in the background to make it pop. I may or may note have the needle on it.

I'm a huge crafter so I think this is a great little representative and reminder of who I am. I might through a little thimble in there as well, I'm not sure. I guess I have to figure it out soon, though!