Fresh Berry Tiramisu from Maggianos

Ladyfingers, marscapone cream, strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, a chocolate star lemon cookie, and $1 donated to Make-A-Wish. (It was yummy! I think doing a good deed cancels out calories!) Apologies for the dark picture.

A few years ago I made a similar recipe by Giada De Laurentis that was featured in Bon Appetit. Excellent recipe and pretty easy to make. Here is the link to the recipe: Strawberry Tiramisu

Bits of Antique Bling

Over the past few weeks, I had a chance to wander through several antique malls. I was looking for old keys and blingy bits of old jewelry that I could remix into new necklaces. I have strict price guidelines when I antique - no more than a dollar for keys and no more than 5 dollars for a bag of broken jewelry pieces. I didn't have any luck finding skeleton keys, but was able to get a bunch of old keys in interesting shapes and some old sparkly earrings.

I have wanted to experiment with chandelier crystals as pendants
for necklaces, and found these:

Couldn't resist these sparklers!
One for a necklacefor me and one for a friend.
In great shape, usually ones like these cost a lot more:

Two boxes with old earrings and pins, four dollars each:

In box number one:

In box number two (sorry, a bit blurry):


These clip-on earrings are missing their mates.
No problem, soon they will become pretty necklaces! Really love the one on the left!

Stay tunes to see what becomes of these old earrings and keys!

Antique Market of Williamston
Harvest Antiques and Collectibles of Holland

Hot Rock Pizza - Troy

A few weeks ago my friend Jenni had a $20 for $10 voucher for Hot Rock Pizza in Troy, so we met there to try out this interesting pizza place. The place has an Tuscan decor with lots of brick and a comfortable seating area perfect for families or groups.


You can order items individually, but they also have a wonderful buffet that has salad, soup, pizza, pasta, bread, and desserts. If you are thinking CiCi's pizza, think again! This is excellent pizza with a choice of deep dish with a crunchy crust and thin pizza which is baked in a wood fired stove. They have your normal cheese, pepperoni, and sauage pizza, but also interesting varieties such as Chicken Alfredo, Pesto, and Hawaiian. The buffet is $7.49 for all you can eat. Drinks are not included. I thought they kept the buffet stocked with more varieties of pizza than you could ever try!



You may know that I love bread! The cheesy bread and the garlic knots were good enough to make an entire meal out of them. I thought the salad bar had a nice selection as well (if you desire to be a bit more healthy). The desserts were brownies and apple pie pizza - nothing to write home about, but who cares if you have stuffed yourself with pizza!

Hot Rocks Pizza is located on Big Beaver in Troy near John R.

Sweet Summer

Last week I ran into a friend who mentioned that she still checks in here every so often, hoping that maybe something new had been posted. I have been a deep disappointment to my one loyal reader!

But joy, sweet summer has arrived! It has been 2 busy years of adjusting to new teaching positions and a year filled with many visits with a sick friend. But I am hoping and praying for God's grace to have a bit of a breather from change and stress. Right now I am still involved at school teaching photography for kids camp, so it doesn't quite feel like summer vacation yet. And at home I am fervently cleaning the depths of my closets, so no time for playing yet. But I'm hoping for time for some gardening, making some jewelry, sitting outside, drinking ice tea, and reading on my iPad. And maybe I will actually cook a new recipe. So my goal is at add a few new posts each week this summer and hopefully you will be able to join me as I attempt to restore my creative musings during this summer.

-Picture enhanced using MobileMe app
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad