Officially a graduate

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Meg from A Practical Wedding for including me in her wedding graduate series!  


I used her blog as a cheap free form of therapy all through my planning process.  Now that I've come out the other side full of knowledge (pictures look better in the rain) and enlightenment (it's OK to have an emotional moment in the middle of David's Bridal over a dress you picked up off of the mother-of-the bride rack) I'm honored to be able to share my experience with all of you.


Because I will never tire of showing off our wedding pictures...


We sat at a sweetheart table decked out with baby's breath, a vintage tablecloth, and a bottle champagne. My sister surprised us with a slideshow full of funny pictures.

There were actual CHILDREN actually INVITED.  

In twenty years, we might be attending the wedding of these two.  Love connection anyone?

My first attempt at bouquet making turned out pretty damn good.  I might have found my new profession.  I'm not joking. 

Weddings are awesome.

all photos by the rad Jorge Garcia.

project: picture picks

I recently made these picture picks for my mom's 50th birthday party.  I highly recommend crafting some up for the next shindig you are attending/planning/crashing.  People love looking at old pictures.  People also love food.  Put the two together and have your guests eating and reminiscing for as long as it takes them to plate up a few crab cakes and crudites.  I chose the least embarrassing photos of my mom throughout the years.  If you are mean to your loved ones, I recommend using a smattering of the most hideous, fugly, completely and utterly mortifying pictures you can get your hands on.  

The best part is that the project takes less than a hour and uses products you most likely already have.  Free and quick?!  This is my kind of project. 


Tools:

• some old photos
• scissors
• cardstock
• glue, I used hot glue, could also use any glue suitable for paper
• toothpicks

1. scan the photos

2. using a photo editing software, crop to any size you want.  Mine were about 1.5" x 3".

3. print out on cardstock

4. cut out with scissors

5. place the cardstock photo face down, add a small drop of glue, place the toothpick in glue

6. when the glue is dry, stick into anything!  like cupcakes!  or carrot sticks!  or chicken wings!

If you don't have accessibility to a scanner or photo editing software, another method is to use a color copier on regular paper.  

Etsy has food?! What?!

Stop what you are doing.  Buy these caramels.  

From Have It Sweet's Etsy shop, I almost died during my first bite.  Side note:  why did it take me this long to discover that I can order SNACKS off of Etsy?  Not just any snacks, but, vegan, colorful, bacon flavored, penis shaped, snacks delivered straight to your front door.  If someone out there could combine those four descriptives into one edible delight, I would be your best friend forever.  Oh wait...bacon and vegan don't go together.  Whatever, I can dream.  

Back to the caramels.  They are sweet and salty and chewy and buttery and chocolaty and spicy.  The heat from the cayenne pepper is perfectly balanced with the sweet of the chocolate with a kick from the fleur de sel.  The 1/4 lb log of caramel currently lives in my desk drawer at work.  Right next to the steak knife that I cut it with.   That's right, don't mess with me, I have a weapon.

picture from Have It Sweet's Etsy shop.  

post not sponsored, i just really like caramel.

on keeping his loins tingly

Did you make a collage of your face today?  Yea, didn't think so.  At least my mouth is closed in all these pictures.


This hodgepodge was made to show a few of my hairstyles over the past four years.  Can we look at the one at the top left circa 2003 please?!  OH MY.  My head looks like a bowling ball with hair.  I'm off to the salon tomorrow for a cut and color, which is when I always tempt myself to go back to my original reddish-brown color.  Adam only knows me as a blonde and prefers me stick with that, but sometime I have fantasies about a life where I don't have to dye my roots.  A world where I don't have to sell my first born to afford some good highlights nor spend three hours of my life at the salon.


Ahhhh....to be a brunette again....I would be rolling around in all the free time and extra cash!


But, alas, as Patti Stanger would say, the blonde hair "gets his penis up."


I relayed this to a coworker today who exclaimed, "I'm so sick of all you married people only doing things your husbands want and not things that you want."


Let's discuss this.  Before I was married, I would have said the same thing.  I'm all about the independent woman who does what she wants when she wants to with whatever hair color she's sporting that week.  But, men are mostly* visual creatures.  Their brains are wired to respond to what they see, instead of what they hear or feel, unlike women.  Keeping my hair blonde, although not my personal choice, is a small compromise I'm willing to make for his happiness.  That sounds really dramatic.  


Any physical appearance aspects that you have changed or kept due to your partner's asking?  Annoyed by woman "giving in" to their husbands wishes?  

*besides when it comes to eyelashes 

ladies, put away your weird eyelash cream

Scene:


me at the table on the internet, him on the couch.  TV on.  Latisse commercial comes on. (you know, the magical prescription only eyelash grow gel that could make you blind)


Him: Why would anyone need this strange chemical to grow their lashes?


Me: Because this commercial is telling us women that if we don't have long, thick, luxurious lashes we won't be able to awkwardly dance with a cute boy at our blonde friend's birthday party.  We will be lonely and sad and cry all night long over the fact that no man will every love us and our stubby lashes.


Him:  I married you and have not once looked at or noticed your lashes.  

Eating This Week 7

I discovered the peppery, crunchy goodness of radishes last week.  I put them on veggie burgers and chopped some up with cucumber for a little side salad.  Anyone have any luck at roasting radishes?  


Yesterday, I dug my crockpot out of the closet and cooked up a humongo pork shoulder with root beer sauce.  I used a recipe out of my Taste Of Home cookbook, but wasn't happy with the results.  The sauce wasn't flavorful enough and my pork didn't exactly fall off the bone.  This could be due to the fact that the pork shoulder could have been slightly too big for my crockpot and I had a hard time cutting all the fat off.  Nothing like spending a Sunday afternoon cutting the skin off a pork.  It's edible, just not ohmygosh mouthwatering edible.  


A week full of lots of leftover pork sandwiches:

• Monday - Lunch: leftover pork and salad,  Dinner: coconut rice with chicken
• Tuesday - Lunch: leftover coconut rice, Dinner: leftover pork sandwiches with salad
• Wednesday - Lunch: veggie burger with radish/cucumber salad, Dinner: twice baked potatoes and broccoli
• Thursday - Lunch: buy out, Dinner: buy out (I have quilting class.  Adam is on his own, which translates into either peanut butter and jelly or mac n cheese)
• Friday - Lunch: veggie burger and canned soup, Dinner: pasta with turkey sausage
• Saturday and Sunday - a combo of eggs, tuna sandwiches, BLTs, and pancakes.  Not all at the same time, that would be gross.  

ok, that was dumb

Cue scene, Friday afternoon, snow storm:


I arrived home early from work, the snow accumulated about 12" with more on the way, perfect scenario for homemade granola bars.  Specifically, thick, chewy granola bars from The Smitten Kitchen.  With my snow boots zipped up, I trekked out to the health food store a few blocks away for the ingredients.  Anyone who lives in an apartment in a city with the grocery store in walking distance knows the pain of carrying bags home.  For those who live in such luxuries as houses, let me explain:  usually, I get to the store with a list, and of course fill the basket with more than I can comfortably carry.  Especially during a snow storm, when I think that I need to stock up on hundreds of canned goods.  What am I doing with a can of beets anyway?  So, I leave the store, struggling to carry eight bags filled with unneeded groceries in a blizzard, uphill, on snow covered sidewalks.  It's not too bad, I've learned to put up with the pain of my fingers almost falling off, that is, until I reach the front door of my building and need to balance all the bags on one hand while finding my keys and opening the door with the other.  Oh yea, lots of fun.  


So this was me on Friday.  I went to the store for rolled oats and raisins, yet came back with cans of organic coconut water, a years supply of mint tea, agave nectar, and a million other things I honestly do not need.  I managed to enter the building without incident, even took the elevator ride to the 5th floor without losing a finger.  My keys went into the lock of the apartment door, at which point I decided to take off my dirty boots to leave in the hallway.  While balancing eight hundred bags, I kicked off my boots, walked into the apartment, closed the door, and that was that.  I did it!  I made it back to my apartment unscathed while carrying a thousand bags uphill in a snowstorm storm!!  I am the greatest woman of all time!


The granola bars came out delicious.  Ooey gooey, chewy, and yummy.  


Fast forward to six hours later, Adam goes to take out the trash.  He opens the door and hears a little jingle, jingle.  


I LEFT MY KEYS IN THE DOOR.  On the OUTSIDE of the door.  I have a feeling that I A) won't be going to the grocery store by myself in a while, and B) won't live this one down.