Happy Friday

Thursday afternoon, heading home from work.  Shot while waiting for my bus.

Happy Friday, friends. I don't have anything too exciting announce- other than the fact that it is Friday (as you all are aware), and that makes me very, very happy. It's been an odd and busy sort of week and I am extremely thankful for the weekend. I thought I'd share a collection of photos I snapped over the past few weeks with you all. I don't think I do this enough, and I'd like to change that. So from now on readers, please expect a few random photo posts. I hope you don't mind.

Self portrait, snapped Thursday afternoon while playing around with the new Visual Supply Co. app.  Please excuse my appearance- I woke up yesterday two hours late and panicked with no time to get ready for work.  Like I said, I'm very happy today is Friday.

A quite afternoon at Independence Hall.

Heidi, all prepped for her walk during the deluge we were greeted with Saturday night.

Simpson House Tea Room, Chester Springs, Pennsylvania

This past weekend, Dan and I were fortunate to have my parents visit us over the Easter holiday weekend.  On Saturday my mom and I visited the Simpson House Tea Room in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania while Dan and our fathers went golfing.  The visit to the tea room for a traditional English tea was a first for both of us and we really had such a wonderful time.  

The Simpson House Tea Room is located in a restored farmhouse that dates back to the 1890s in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania.  The decor is bright and airy without being too overly sentimental.  It recalled, what I would imagine, as an English cottage.  We enjoyed a traditional full afternoon tea, or "low tea", that consisted of a mixture of savory and sweet finger sandwiches, scones, and sweet confections.

Simpson House offers an assortment of over 100 loose teas ranging from Black teas, to Rooibos to a variety of Green teas.  

Our "Royal Tea", as it was described, included a pot of tea for each of us.  We both ordered from the Easter specialty menu which included approximately 6 or so seasonal teas.  My mom enjoyed a Black tea infused with white chocolate chunks and I chose a caramel Rooibos tea that was divine.  The caramel flavor seemed to develop throughout my meal- I really wish I had inquired about the possibility of purchasing the tea to take home!  My mom really enjoyed hers as well and it smelled delicious.  Our individual pots included an ample amount of tea that carried us through the meal and remained warm until the very last sip.

The meal began with a choice of three house made soups.  I chose a tomato basil soup and my mom went with a Pennsylvania Dutch Chicken Corn soup that appeared to be lighter than the typical chicken corn soups I am used to seeing.  The soups were paired with salads composed of fresh greens with what I believed was a raspberry vinaigrette.

My Weekend in Pictures

Happy Monday everyone.  This weekend was a quiet one for Dan, Heidi, and I.  With the rainy, cool weather on the East Coast we weren't really up for doing too much running around and opted to stay indoors where it was warm and cozy.  I actually preferred this because I got a bunch of work done on projects that I wanted to do for myself.  I thought I'd share a few of the photos with you.

We had an embarrassing amount of brown, mushy bananas is the freezer that were just waiting to be used up so I made deliciously moist Banana Blueberry muffins on Saturday morning.  I'll be sharing that recipe with you later this week - it's a winner, for sure.  I also used some of that banana to make Banana Coconut pancakes on Sunday morning.  Those were also quite delicious.

I nearly finished my Wiksten Tank.  Isn't it lovely?

Wiksten tank, in progress.

I really struggled with the neck line.  I'm not quite sure what happened but I think I'm going to pull out my stitches and try it again.  It's also gaping a little bit in the front and back, but it's nothing that I can't live with and I think with a little tweaking I can get a better fit in the future.  I really like the pattern and for the most part (excluding that curved hemline!) it's a quick one to sew up.  I'll definitely be making more for my spring wardrobe.  

I also turned these little guys:

Into this:

Isn't it fantastic?!  I'm ridiculously excited about my new desert terrarium.  Here are a few more shots:

Aerial View

Detail, showing the terrarium's curious little inhabitant.

Please excuse the photos.  I snapped them with my phone but I intend to get some better shots with  my camera in natural light.  I'll be doing a post dedicated to this terrarium detailing the materials, cacti and succulents used.  Readers, I am seriously in love with this.

A few more highlights included finally watching the English-version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  We saw the Swedish-version a few months back and had been really looking forward to the 2011 film.  I'm completely enwrapped in the second book, The Girl Who Played with Fire, so viewing the film served as a nice little recap for me.  AND Sunday was the season premiere of The Killing.  Ah, yes.

I hope you all had a fantastic weekend, as well!  I'm looking forward to a four day work week (hooray!) so Monday doesn't seems quite so bad. :)