Vodka and vanilla beans

I'm pretty sure that my friend Holly and I are going to look like this when we grow up:

Anyway, one day recently she messaged me to pick my brain regarding my vast and extensive knowledge of homemade vanilla.  She was concerned about the cost of purchasing vanilla beans and the required Vodka vs buying ready made extract.

Let's backtrack a minute to how I acquired my vast and extensive knowledge:  Several years ago I had decided to 'refresh' my current vanilla stash by adding a few more beans and more vodka.  Usually you allow this concoction to steep for a good long while before using it but since I had added it into my normal every day bottle of vanilla I didn't really think about that.  So one night I fixed myself a cup of homemade hot cocoa, adding a spash of vanilla to the mix.  It wasn't until I crawled into bed a little while later with a little bit of a spinning head that I realized I had basically added straight up alcohol to the cup.  This story has brought about tons of laughter over the years.

Having just made Christmas cookies and lamenting the entire time that I needed to make vanilla I was ready for this conversation.  We quickly scouted out beans, discussed whether we needed rot gut Vodka or top shelf and set a plan into action.  We opted to buy a larger quantity of beans and split them between us.  So the order was placed and we waited.

In the mean time I was buying groceries when I remembered that I needed to buy vodka for this adventure.  Thankfully the people of Walmart anticipate that moms heading through the checkout line are going to need this and place it on an end cap.

I threw a bottle on the belt and forgot about it while dropping all of my other groceries onto the belt.  Making my way to the register I realize that the cashier had double bagged the bottle, folded the bags over and was handing it to me through the little pass-thru like it was contraband.

It kind of threw me off so I just tossed the bag into my purse and didn't really think anything else about it.  Until the minute that we were walking out the door for our Small Group study on Thursday night.  I was like "Oh, wait!"

Tim was like "What the heck?"

And I was like "I have vodka in my purse."

Thankfully he knows that this is run of the mill daily stuff for me - not the vodka - just weird stuff like having something odd in my purse so he just went with it.

Anyway, the vanilla beans finally came in the mail!

So I unwrapped them, asked Miss E to split the package into two and got an envelope ready to mail to Holly.

I have a small scale near my desk since I mail packages often, but it wasn't until Miss E brought Holly's portion of the beans to me that I realized this whole transaction could be summed up as weird.

Holly and I...we are good Jesus girls!  Our one hang up is Diet Dr Pepper and suddenly I feel as though this entire vanilla process has turned us into alcohol buying, bean weighing crazy people.

The finished vanilla is going to be super amazing though!