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1. You probably heard that it was a little cold this week in some places. My little corner of Pittsburgh got down to -10 on Monday night/Tuesday morning. That resulted in ice on the inside of the windows, lots of time spent in sweats, and more static electricity than I’ve experienced in my life. We also had two Golden Retrievers that were all, “we don’t care what the temperature is, we want to play in the snow, so what if your eyelashes are frozen from sticking your head out the door, stop yelling for us to come in, because la,la,la,la… we can’t hear you.”

2. While we were in subzero temperatures, I saw on Instagram that if you throw boiling water into the air, poof! It vaporizes. I totally tried it and it worked! SO COOL. Then, I wanted to do it again and take a video of it, but my Chief Culinary Consultant talked me out of it, saying once was enough and I could get burned. Turns out, he knows what he’s talking about. Two hours later, I saw this post on Buzzfeed about all the people who got burned trying that trick. Yikes! It’s a good thing I have a grown-up looking out for me :)

3. Over the holidays, I was introduced to a new Pittsburgh-based company called Romeo Delivers. Their mission is to provide innovative ways to express romance, happiness, and love through custom-made products. They sent a package to my Chief Culinary Consultant based on their subscription service for men; each month, members receive a kit of unique, romantic gifts to personalize for the lady in their life. The packages include a mix of handcrafted and machine-made products ranging from textiles and paper goods to wood, glass and metal parts.

Romeo Delivers Christmas Box

The package my CCC received had an ornament covered in chalkboard paint with a package of chalk to customize it, wooden gift tags, sticky notes, and a gift-wrapping guide. I thought everything was so cute! Plus, I actually used the gift wrapping guide! A very cool concept.

If you’re interested in trying it out, Romeo Delivers is offering Brown Eyed Baker readers a $10 discount until February 5th by signing up here. That means you could try it out for a month for only $2!

4. My mom bought me a new pair of slippers for Christmas, thanks to all of your great recommendations!

new slippers!

She originally got me the L.L. Bean Wicked Good Moccasins, but Duke was a little too interested in all of the fur on the outside. They’re not cheap and I didn’t want him to ruin them, so I exchanged them for the Wicked Good Clogs. I love them! Highly recommend!

5. The last time I received a StitchFix shipment, I took pictures and documented everything that I received. I know a lot of you have had questions about StitchFix in general and my experience with them; is a review-style post something you would be interested in seeing?

6. A couple of nights ago, I made homemade peanut butter for the first time. For being the huge peanut butter lover that I am, I shocked myself at taking so long to do this! I LOVE it! It tastes so fresh, and… wait for it… peanutty :) Like, exponentially peanuttier than any store bought peanut butter I have tried. I don’t think there is any going back for me!

7. Can you believe that up until last week I didn’t own a set of stainless steel mixing bowls? I have a set of nesting glass mixing bowls and a set of nesting ceramic mixing bowls, but I had been growing increasingly nervous about using the glass bowls in a double-boiler situation after cracking one of my mom’s doing just that (oops, sorry Mom!). I bought this set from Chef’s catalog and oh my goodness, I am in love.

8. Last night, Jamie from My Baking Addiction posted a photo on Instagram of a bag of multi-colored marshmallows. Not just any marshmallows. Lucky Charms marshmallows. As in, a whole bag of just the marshmallows. As a kid, we weren’t allowed to buy the “fun” cereal, but by high school, I had spent enough time at other kids’ houses to know how awesome the little marshmallows in Lucky Charms were. Turns out, you can BUY these! My mind was blown. You can put them in your cereal, in your hot chocolate, or eat them by the handful. Jamie said you can get these at Nuts.com, which, doh! I order often from there, but I never actually bothered to look at all of the other things that they sell besides nuts (they sell a lot of awesome stuff!). I’ve been missing out!

9. After Christmas, I treated myself to something that I had been lusting after for some time…

New Canon 85mm 1.2 lens

This Canon 85mm f/1.2 has officially replaced the 50mm 1.4 lens as my “portrait-style” lens. The photos I’ve taken with it so far are absolutely beautiful! It lets in a ton of light, produces a really sharp subject, along with a gorgeous bokeh (i.e. shallow depth of field, blurred background). I can’t wait to play around with it a little more!

10. TGIF! I wish you a great weekend with an abundance of relaxation time!

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