Friday Things

1. I whipped up a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake for Driscoll’s Berries, which they’re featuring on their site this week. Be sure to check out my tips for making the perfect cheesecake, as well as the recipe. You’re going to love this very berry and summery cheesecake!

2. A couple of weeks ago, I asked for some opinions on e-readers. Thank you for all of the feedback! My friend leant me her Kindle Paperwhite and I’ve been using it for a few days now, flipping back and forth between that and the Kindle app on my iPad (reading the same book). So far I think the Paperwhite is definitely better for reading – much easier on the eyes and the look mimics that of a book. Plus, it’s smaller (can easily fit in my purse) and much lighter (I can hold it with one hand!). My only complaint is that it was a little sluggish when trying to browse for books, but realistically, I’d probably do all of my browsing/purchasing through Amazon.com on my desktop anyway. I didn’t think I would ever do it, but I just might jump on the e-reader train after all.

3. A couple of weeks ago, my Chief Culinary Consultant and I, along with his parents, drove over to West Virginia and toured the Homer Loughlin China Co., which is where Fiestaware is manufactured. We had finally decided to go with Fiestaware for our everyday dishes and since we only live a little over an hour away from the factory, we thought it would be fun to do a tour and then get our dishes. It was amazing to see how much is actually done by hand; such meticulous work!

Look at all those colors! I can see how people get a little addicted to buying all the different colors of Fiestaware. I already have my sights set on changing things up for each season, but for the time being we settled on a combination of plum and lemongrass, along with white serving pieces. Do you have any favorite Fiesta color combinations?!

4. Thank you to everyone who chimed in with recommendations for a dog bed for Einstein. I ended up ordering the Orvis Tempur-Pedic Deep Dish Dog Bed; Einstein has had it for a couple of weeks now and seems to love it.

We have a little sitting area in our bedroom, which has now become his little bedroom. He goes back and forth at night between his bed and the floor in the master bathroom. I woke up one morning to find him like this:

I thought the bed would take some coaxing, but all it took was sitting on it and inviting him over; he crawled in and curled up. From that point on, he got in all on his own!

5. Speaking of dogs, did you hear about Chase the Bat Dog? Chase was a Golden Retriever who acted as the “bat dog” (in lieu of a bat boy) for a minor league baseball team. He passed away earlier in the week and there were some articles about him. He looks so happy retrieving those bats! If the story itself wasn’t enough to get me severely choked up, I had to go ahead and browse the photos from his “retirement ceremony”… I then traveled further down the rabbit hole and watched the tribute video, which left me sobbing. So, yeah. Consider yourself warned.

6. Sorry, one more dog story. I also read about Dutchess the blind therapy dog this week. Totally melted my heart.

7. I’m doing some preliminary searching for a potential house to rent somewhere in the vicinity of Kiawah Island or maybe Hilton Head. Does anyone have any recommendations?

8. I am a few years past the big 3-0, but these 30 Signs You’re Almost 30 are all spot-on.

9. Thanks to Jessica, I am now following Candace Cameron on Twitter and Instagram. I so loved DJ Tanner when I was a tween. Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I still catch Full House reruns on TV during the day!

10. TGIF! I hope you see sunnier skies this weekend than we had this week!