It's my birthday...

Shirt from my sis. She knows me too well :)

They say that "today is the first day of the rest of your life." For me that was never truer than it is today. Today will be the last time that I age. I turn 29 and will stay 29 forever! (mwahaha)

No, seriously, today is my birthday, and I have to admit, it has been a pretty great day. My wonderful husband got me a gift card and a custom tulip bouquet (they lasted longer with our plant-eating cats than the last 2 rose bouquets did!), kids all made me some absolutely wonderful birthday cards (complete with what I thought were a ridiculous number of candles, until Data informed me that he had counted them all twice and there were exactly 29....), I had an amazing buffalo chicken and blue cheese wrap for dinner, and I got spoiled rotten. I even made a rhubarb pie for dessert:

And then I blew out the candles :/

That's a whole lot of wax on my pie.... I even had some candles that had burned all the way down and scorched the crust (the black spot in the upper left corner). I guess that's what you get when you get "old" lol.

I am really excited to see what my last year of my 20s has to offer. It's been quite the bumpy road so far, but I am totally happy with where I am. :D

Tasty Tuesday - Rhubarb Pie

It's days like today that I really miss my great grandma. Her birthday is just a few days before mine and I think of her often on my birthday (not to mention her birthday would have been yesterday). She died just a few weeks after my 15th birthday from cancer and I took it really hard. She was an amazing woman who I thought could take on anything. She had a strength and determination (some would call it sheer stuborness) in her that I have never been able to match. I have admired her (or the rose colored memory of her) for years, and know that she is watching over me and urging me on as I go through my life and try to live up to the great qualities she had.

So what does my great granma have to do with pie? Well, for my birthday each year, I make a rhubarb pie from her recipe. There are a number of reasons for this. 1) I make a lot of cakes for other people, so I am pretty tired of making cake by the time my birthday rolls around 2) with the sheer number of birthdays, anniversaries, and reunions in my family during August, I am sick of EATING cake and 3) my grandma's birthday is the day before mine, and we are the only people who really like rhubarb in our family, so we make a pie to share. (my grandma was her daughter. I'm not sharing a pie with a dead lady. I'm not THAT crazy...)

This year, I wasn't able to visit with my grandma, so I had to eat my pie by myself (and, yes, I ate the majority of it by myself... so much for losing weight!). It turned out so amazing this year, that I have to admit that it was probably the best pie I have ever made. Therefore I thought I would share it with you so you can have an aweome birthday (or any day) pie!

Nonie’s Rhubarb Pie

4 c rhubarb, chopped

1 ½ c sugar (I typically cut this amount in half because I like mine tart)

6 T flour

½ tsp salt

2 T butter

½ tsp orange zest

Double pie crust

Brush pastry w/ butter and chill

Mix sugar, orange zest, flour, salt. Mix in rhubarb.

Put in shell & dot w/ butter

Cover w/ top crust, crimp edges, vent

Bake at 450 F for 10 min

Lower to 350 F, cover edges of crust and bake for 45 min.

Enjoy!