Pic 18

Each December, I try to read one Christmas book.  Here is this year's selection, which I have been reading each night before bed, including day 18. 

Picture 17

On this day, my Secret Santa gave me maple syrup.  Once again, I'm having issues rotating the picture so just turn your head sideways or turn your computer sideways ha ha. 

Picture 16

We did Secret Santa at work again this year. This is what I got from my Secret Santa on the first day.  It is a kitchen towel that has a recipe for cookies on it. 

Picture 15

At our annual friends' holiday party, I won this at the Yankee swap. 

Picture 14

I made the chocolately melting snowman cookies to take to Mike's friend's house on the night of Picture 14.  I also made some more and the candy things on the side for a holiday party on the next day. 

 

 

Picutre 13

I went out with two of my friends tonight (on the day of picture 13 that is) 

.  My friend Melissa made me these wine glasses as a Christmas present.  So cute! 

Picture 12

I made these for some people at work and some of the kids in the family.  They are Christmas tree lollypops. 

Picture 11

Sorry for the delay in blog posts.  I've been sick.  I hate to sound like a whiner and complain about a cold as I do get colds pretty often--comes with the job I guess--but this one hit me hard.  I actually went to bed early Friday and Saturday and with any luck will do so tonight and I spent much of yesterday in bed so the blogging did not happen.  Anyway, this pic is to show me making progress with the present wrapping on day 11.  But shh, I forgot to take it on day 11 so I may be a little off on which presents were actually wrapped then. 

Picture 10: Dec. 9th

I take a jazz dance class.  Dec. 9th was our last class until 2015.  We danced to a Christmas song.  In honor of that, one of the ladies in our class brought Christmas hats and headbands for us to wear.  It was kind of cute.  At the end of class, our teacher took pictures of all of us. 

Picture 9

Today I worked, went to a meeting, and worked out so I was struggling for a pic.  I decided to take a picture of the book I've been reading before bed each night including the night of day 9.  It's a pretty good book.  My friend gave it to me for my birthday last year. 

Picture 8

On Dec. 7th, I went out to brunch with some friends to celebrate my birthday.  Do you think I remembered to take any pictures at brunch?  NO!  Did I take a picture of the delicious cookie cake my friend Jill made me?  NO!  So here is a picture of one of my gifts, which actually comes in quite nicely because the bag I take to work is literally falling apart so this timing is fabulous.  My friend Kate gave it to me on the 7th.  I should have taken a picture of the bag because she ran out of gift bags so she put it in a Disney princess bag. 

Picture 7

I went to a Christmas party and I didn't take a single picture.  I remembered this at the end of the party so instead here is a picture of the fruit tree I made for the party.  I think I have taken a picture of this in previous years for my blog so I must be more creative in the future.  Either that or do the 30 days of pictures in a different month. 

Picture 6

Two people told me I had to watch a show called "Newsroom" so I Netflixed it on Friday and so far I am liking it. 

Picture 5

Why, you ask, do I have a picture of a watch that says 9:00? It is to symbolize my long day.  I spent the day at a rather long workshop instead of at my usual job.  Then I had a meeting for about an hour.  Following that I went to my ballet class--I was late.  :(  Then it was home to quickly inhale a bagel, change, and head off to our Homeowners' Associations' Annual Meeting.  So by the time I finally got home it was 9:00--hence the picture.  It was a rather long day.  I was glad the next day was Friday. 

Picture 4: Dec. 3rd

One of my co-workers/friends is having a baby in a month.  Her baby shower was Dec. 3rd so here is a picture of the cute cake. 

Picture 3

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a couple of baby showers to go to this week.  On Tuesday night, I made chocolate crunch bars for one of the showers.  In case you don't know what those are, basically, it's a brownie and a Rice Krispie treat combined--brownie at the bottom, Rice Krispie treat at the top.  Yep, they're GOOD.  :) 

Picture 2

Monday I worked a little late, but neglected to bring my gym clothes to work with me so I came home, changed, and then went to the gym.  After the gym, I had to go shopping at a store I don't particularly love for some gifts for two upcoming baby showers.  I also had to run an errand for work so by the time I got home and was done for the night, it was after 8:00.  Combine that with the fact that I hadn't had dinner and had stuff to do and well, let's just say it was the beginning of what would be a week filled with too many late nights.  I forgot to take a picture of any of the gifts I bought before wrapping/packaging them so here is a picture of one of the baby cards--my mom makes cards.  I think she does a nice job.  :)  I'm having issues rotating this on here so turn your head sideways and you'll see it looks better.  :)  Sorry about that. 

 

 

 

The Annual 30 Days of Pictures Posts

So I'm a bit torn as it's taken me months to write about the time leading up to my wedding, but usually, at this time of year, I like to do my 30 days of pictures so I think the wedding stuff may get interspersed with some picture blogs.  Ironic that I go for three weeks without writing anything and then you'll get a day or two with two blog posts.  Perhaps some year, I'll mix things up and do my 30 pictures during another part of the year, but for now, here it goes:  Nov. 30th is Picture 1.  I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'm posting a picture of my Christmas tree since I often do that in my 30 Days posts.  Technically I put the tree up a couple of days before the 30th, but I didn't get it decorated until today (I am writing this on the 30th, but I know it won't post for a couple of days). 

Two Days to Go

The Wednesday before my wedding, I went to work as usual, but the rest of the day was certainly not typical, well, I guess it was in a sense that I was doing a lot of running around and that can be normal for me some days, much as I don't enjoy it.  But let's rewind a bit shall we?  I went from work to the bridal store to pick up my wedding dress--so exciting and thankfully, it still fit.  Actually, as I found out on Friday morning, it was a tiny bit big.  Following dress pick up--Mom and Grammy met me there--it was back home.  My mom had kindly made tags for my favors (you know the things that say thanks for coming and have a date on them.  We did a little play on words since the favors were sweet treats and in addition to the thanks they said something along the lines of it was "sweet" of you to come to join us.  Tying these on the bags took longer than I thought.  I had been telling my friend and co-worker Melissa about this and she kindly offered to come over and help me.  At first I was reluctant to accept her help, as I didn't want to bother her, but in the end I gladly accepted and thank goodness.  It went to much quicker with two people.  We tied all the tags on, made sure the candies were set--wrapped and had stickers on them, and defrosted the mini loaves of bread.  Melissa left when everything was set and I inhaled some lunch and finished writing out my thank you cards to the wedding party.  Then it was off to the gym then back here to hustle to change and go get a pedicure.  They told me the whole pedicure would take 45 minutes.  My appointment was at 6:00 and I had to meet with the priest who was marrying us at 7:30--more on that in a bit.  So I figured that gave me plenty of time even if they were running a few minutes late.  WRONG!  They were over a half hour late taking me for my appointment.  I told them I really should leave by 7:15, but could leave at 7:20 if I absolutely had to.  I didn't get out of there 'til 7:25--plus I had to walk to the car so add another 2 minutes and then drive to the church.  Thanks to all this rushing, I ruined two of my toes--the polish I mean, not my actual toe.  I had a nail polish that was fairly close to the color on my toes so I filled in the chipped spots and I don't think it was too noticeable.  I know how petty I sound, but considering pedicures aren't cheap, I wanted it to last longer than 2 minutes!  I apologized to the priest many times.  My fiancé was all ready there and I know he wasn't thrilled about me being late, but he managed to chat with the priest 'til I got there.  The actual meeting (which I was 10 minutes late for--thank goodness for no traffic) was no more than 15 minutes long.  So the meeting when well, despite me being embarrassed about being late, but the priest gave us a homework assignment--we had to write how we met and what we liked about each other.  I stopped by my parents' house to pick up a few more favor tags, talked to Mom and Gram for a few then back home to put the defrosted mini loaves of bread in the bags, do my homework assignment, do some last minute stuff for work since I was going to be away, and eat some dinner.  It was nearly midnight by the time I went to bed.  My brother arrived (he took a late evening flight) a little before 3am.  I heard him come in--my fiancé let him in and got him situated--got up said a quick hello then tried to get some sleep until the alarm went off at 6:30am.  But we'll pick up there in a future blog post. 

Three Days to Go

My wedding was on a Friday.  On that Tuesday, I went to work.  When I got home from work, I had a voicemail from my mother asking if I wanted to go to the Christmas Tree Shop.  My grandmother loves that store and there aren't any too close to her so she enjoys going when she comes up to visit.  So I met Mom and Grammy at CTS and did a little shopping.  After that, it was home for a few to work on favors and go to the gym.  Post-gym time, it was off to my parents' house to have dinner with them and Grammy.  Dinner was good and following that I was determined to have one last night out as a single lady--nothing too crazy, just some trivia and a drink.  Had a good time though.  Then home to bed and only three days to go. 

Two Weeks to Go...One Week to Go

I think I may win the award for world's worst blogger.  I'm behind on writing my own blog and on reading my friends' blogs.  Thank goodness Thanksgiving break is coming up soon so I can have a couple of days off and MAYBE just maybe get caught up.  So let's go back to wedding land for a bit, shall we?  The last couple of weeks before the wedding are an interesting time in the bride-to-be's life.  On the one hand, there is so much to do, but on the other hand you're in a bit of a waiting period.  The seating chart is done (finally!), the bills have been paid (thank goodness!), it's not quite time for last minute meetings, and it's a bit too early to package the favors (because you know they're still in your freezer).  So what do you do?  You find yourself agreeing to go to out to lunch or dinner with your friends nearly every day--not on purpose but because you finally have some down time, and suddenly, it's all come at once and you worry your dress will not fit in two weeks!  And then suddenly it's a week before your wedding and there is a DJ to meet with, a videographer to meet with, a photographer to phone conference with, a priest to meet with, and guests to pick up from the airport.  And it's finally feeling real, all the planning and saving and more planning and more saving (and spending!) and suddenly you're getting your eyebrows waxed and then your grandmother has just arrived from Florida and is waiting at the airport for you.  Yeah, about that, my poor grandmother, called me from her cell phone (which in itself is impressive because she's not big on the cell and only uses it for emergencies) to say she was at the airport and her flight was being delayed a couple of hours.  I hadn't left for the airport yet so not a big deal for me, but stunk for her that she had to wait around all that time.  So I headed out to meet my fiancé a bit later as he works near the airport so she was flying in to and we were going to get her together.  Well, low and behold we are about 20 minutes away from the airport when her plane is about 30 minutes away from landing when I get a text from the airline saying she's landed. WHAT?!  You (you being the airline) can't tell me she is getting in an hour and a half late and then tell me she's landing now when she's not due to land for another 30 minutes.  Yes, nice that you made up time in the air, but not so nice that Gram is now going to arrive at an airport she doesn't particularly love and there will be no one waiting for her yet.  Yep, nice granddaughter I am.  Thankfully, she is a good person and was very forgiving of me not being there to meet her as soon as she landed.  And she was very patient through the traffic home.  I cooked a nice dinner to make up for it for her, my fiancé, and my parents.  It was great to hang out and catch up.  :)  And when I went to bed that night, I only had three days left of work until "The Big Day."  :-) 

What I Learned on Election Day 2014 (this post has very little to do with the election)

Normally, I enjoy days off from work.  Yesterday was not one of those days, (okay it wasn't all bad and I did get to sleep in), but rather than directly whine about it, I will share a "Top 10" list with you.  And since yesterday was Election Day I will add two bonus comments about politics--so my top 10 is really a top 12...Fear not, I will be back on the wedding blog train in a few days. 

What I Learned On Election Day 2014 (in no significant order)


12.  Election Day brings out the best, worst, and funniest on some people's Facebook posts.

11.    Politicians will still call you and bother you even right after you get home from voting.

10.   Apparently, my non-existent sense of direction exists sometimes!

9.  When you put a pot of water on the stove to boil and then run upstairs to "quickly" print something, do not forget that said water is still on stove when your printer does not behave as the water will completely boil away and you will wonder what that strange burning smell is.

8.  Mcjob is a real word (my not knowing this may have contributed to us living up to our trivia team name of "We Suck at Trivia" last night, it may have been our worst game yet.)

7.  You are NOT allowed to bring a bottle of water into the Social Security Office.

6.  If you do bring a bottle of water in to the SS office, you will be asked to leave and come back without your water.  When you return, you will not know where to check in and be too scared to ask for help since you just got in trouble for having water--seriously, people, water?  Water?  Really?  I had a sore throat!  I'm almost afraid to ask why they don't want you to bring in water as it's probably something scary or ridiculous.

5.  The SS office should more clearly label the kiosk where you need to check in. 

4.  You ARE allowed to bring a bottle of water into the DMV, but if you've just been to the SS office, you may think this is not allowed and thus out of fear you may leave your bottle of water at home and then sit at the DMV thirsty for over an hour.

3.  You should NOT forget your book at home when going to the DMV as there is only so much time one can spend playing Words with Friends, reading e-mails, and checking Facebook on your  phone. 

2.  You should NOT go to the DMV when you are hungry.  If you do go to the DMV when you are hungry, do NOT schedule an appointment for two hours after you arrive at the DMV because you will NOT have time to eat lunch and get to your appointment on time so you will have to wait until after 4:00 to eat lunch.  (Eating lunch at 4:00 will mean you don't eat dinner until close to 9:00, which is getting too close to bed time and may result in you not feeling good.  On the other hand, even though politics annoys you at times, you may stay up too late watching election results come in because you are a bit dorky).

(This post reminds me of a Laura Numeroff book [You know If you do x then y will happen, which will then make z happen, etc. etc.)]) 

1.  I love my husband, but if I did it all over again, I'm not sure I would go through with this whole name change thing.   I think I would just keep my maiden name.      

Ahh the (dreaded) Seating Chart

In the weeks and months leading up to the wedding, people constantly asked me how wedding plans were going (usually good) and "Are you stressed?"  For the most part, I was not too stressed.  Yes, not having a priest was a bit stressful (but a bit comical too) and not getting reply cards back on time was a bit stressful, but the first thing I freaked out about was losing our florist (and that all turned out fine in the end).  Actually, that's not entirely true, we were a "bit" stressed about the total cost of everything, but that was on-going and we didn't so much freak out about that as know we were going to be cutting it close with what we saved and what we needed.  Once the flower situation was resolved, I didn't stress again too much until it came time to do the seating chart.  We were supposed to put 8-10 people at a table.  Some tables were so easy. We had one family that comprised 10 people so that was easy.  But most tables were not quite so easy.  Person A could not sit with person B for legitimate reasons.  Person C could not sit near person D for legitimate reasons.  Person E could not sit with Person F for not so legitimate reasons, but I'm a bit of a people pleaser so I was determined to make it work.  Person G did not want to sit with Person H.  And I wasn't sure about Person I sitting near Person J.  You get the idea. At one point my fiancé said, just let people sit where ever they want, don't do a seating chart.  Once we finally separated the people that needed to be separated and granted a few special requests (this took about three drafts), we thought all was peachy...Then we showed it to our parents. 
My parents had a few minor concerns, but they were easy fixes.  My husband's parents had bigger changes to make.  So we made them. And then at the last minute one of their relatives was unable to make the wedding so we had to redo the chart again.  Life was finally looking peachy, when we realized we had a table of 6 and two tables of 7, we figured one table of 7 might be doable, but if we were supposed to have 8-10 to a table, we probably should have most of the tables within that range.  So back to the map AGAIN.  It took some finagling and we had a couple of people who were invited that didn't really know anyone so we did the best we could to sit them with people who we thought had things in common with them, but we're not perfect.  Most people seemed content in the end and those that weren't were at least polite enough not to complain to our faces.  :)  Let's just say I was glad to finally hand in the seating chart. 

Wedding Favor Preparations a.k.a. the reason some people think I'm crazy :)

Are you impressed?  I blogged last week and I'm blogging again this week.  Think I can go three for three?  You'll just have to check back next week and see.  Let's talk wedding favors a.k.a. the reason some people thought I was crazy.  My fiancé and I were having a hard time trying to decide what to do for wedding favors.  We wanted to do something people would like or actually use, but we didn't want to spend a fortune.  My fiancé liked the idea of having his face on a piece of chocolate--I was like you mean on the wrapper and he said no, on the actual chocolate.  I couldn't so much find that, but it was an "interesting" idea. 
I bake a lot so I thought what if I baked something for a favor?  But it would have to be something I could freeze because I didn't want to be baking for possibly 200 people two days before the wedding.  After some pondering, I decided to make mini loaves of bread.  I made:  apple, banana, blueberry, cinnamon, pumpkin, and zucchini.  Pumpkin made the most in one batch so I made a few more pumpkins than other flavors, but otherwise, it was about 22-30 loaves of each flavor. I made a bunch 4th of July weekend (you know because what else would you do in a kitchen without air conditioning on a 90 degree day, but stand in front of an oven set at 350 degrees for 4 hours) and made more over the next few weeks.  Often times I doubled the recipe and I could get 10-16 loaves out of a batch.  The bad thing about baking ahead of time was that I was running out of room.  I had company one night and forgot to warn them not to open the freezer--they were greeted by a mountain of bread and I was greeted by a look of shock and comments like, what the heck.  It was a good conversation piece.  And eventually, I did run out of room in the freezer--I needed to save a little from for actual food so I had to bring 20 loaves to my parents' freezer--in the picture you can't see it, but freezer door was filled too.

Two days before the wedding, when I emptied the freezer, my fiancé was like, wow, our freezer looks huge now that it's so empty.  Anyway, since my fiancé did want chocolate and we couldn't find chocolate he could put his face on, I ordered mini chocolates and put our picture on the wrapper.  We also bought Hershey Kisses and Peanut butter cups and stickers with our last initial on them so everyone got a mini loaf of bread, 2 Hershey kisses, 2 peanut butter cups, and one other mini chocolate.  You see baking 175ish loaves of bread was not enough, I had to also make mini chocolates that said thank you and individually wrap all of those (I wrapped and labeled all the bread too), and put the stickers on the kisses, and cups.  We'll save assembling the favors for another blog post.  In the end a few of my friends did think I was crazy, BUT they also said they really enjoyed the favors so I guess sometimes my crazy ideas work out just well thank you. 

Reply Cards

I wonder if I still have any blog followers out there since it's been a month since I've posted anything.  I had to go back an reread my last few posts since it's been so long.  I should just take a September hiatus from blogging every year since I never do a good job blogging in September because work is so busy.  Maybe I can be like the tv shows and do blog reruns or something ha ha.  I know work is a lousy excuse, but it's true.  My friends with September birthdays always get their cards late (sorry!).  And my once clean house is suddenly filled with clutter.  It gets better by October, but at times in Sept, Oct feels a long ways away.  Anyway, I'm HOPING to be a better blogger this month.  For now, it's back to wedding talk.  Today, let's talk about reply cards.  We asked our guests to RSVP to our wedding by June 30th. I sent three invitations to foreign countries and told them they could save a stamp and just e-mail me their RSVP.  In this day and age, I find it strange that you cannot put stamps for foreign countries on your reply cards.  I felt bad that they would have to pay for postage.  One friend e-mailed me and the other two people mailed their cards back.  I tell you this because my cousin who lives in what some would call the middle of nowhere had to drive a half hour to the post office to buy a US stamp and mail me a reply (and she wrote a nice note).  She managed to do this and get the card sent back to the US ON TIME.  Meanwhile, some other guests of ours who live quite close could not do the same.  I gave them a few days after the deadline and then started asking for replies. One had a legitimate reason for not replying yet, another plain ol' forgot (she was forgiven as she is a good friend and usually reliable), and another in her words is always late (she was forgiven too), and one seems to have really gotten lost in the mail, but others just hadn't gotten around to it.  I understand for some people it depends on work, baby-sitters, etc., but we did send our save the dates out 9 months before the wedding so it's not like they didn't know about it.  And the reply cards have stamps on them so really all you have to do is check yes or no and then if you checked yes, please check chicken, beef, vegetarian.  My friend Joanne told me that after she got married she always RSVPed to weddings right away.  I think in the future I will do that too.  (I think I always reply to weddings on time, but sometime I do it closer to the deadline.)  On the due date, we were still missing replies from 30 people!  We did eventually hear from everyone, which some married people have told me was not the case for their wedding--I was like what did you do?  Did you order them a meal or not?  I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that.  And while two people canceled, they did so BEFORE the final counts were due so we were fortunate to have all the yesses actually show up to our wedding because I have heard that does not often  happen.  We are fortunate to have such good friends and family.  Anyway, back to the reply cards, I have been to many weddings so I always check the boxes and mail the card back.  I didn't know that some people write notes on the reply card.  We got some "can't waits," a sarcastic comment from my brother (that is normal), a nice note about my shower, and a funny sweet note about how one of my friends in her words "squealed like a little pig" when she got the invitation.  I think I may have to save them for the scrapbook, which is going about as well as the blogging is right now.  Oh, well, I have a week off in December ha ha          

It Felt Like Christmas

Okay, I confess, I'm being wicked lazy with this blog.  I'm tired and have a few things to do, but I feel guilty about not blogging for a while so this'll be a short one.  After the shower, for quite a few days I kept coming home and finding a box at the door.  It was like Christmas! I was like a kid on Christmas.  I was so excited!
I'm not sure the recycling people loved me with all the boxes that came out.  I have to wonder about some of the stores' packaging policies.  We got a few small (size wise) gifts in really big boxes.  Wouldn't it make sure sense to send them in smaller boxes?  I'm sure there's a method to their madness, I just don't know what it is--hence why I am probably not a good packer, which you can hear more about in another blog, when I finally get to packing to come home from the honeymoon.  At the rate I'm going, I should get to that around the time of my one year anniversary.  I'll try to do better, but September is one of my busy months at work so it may take me a while. 

Finding Space

As you may remember from the last blog, I have generous friends and family members (as does my fiancé--now husband--can't get used to saying that) so I received quite a few gifts at my bridal shower.  It took three cars to get everything home--mine, my Mom's, and my Mom's friend's.  Getting home was actually kind of comical.  My fiancé took my car and filled it up so there was no room for me so I went with my mom.  Someone also made me take balloons home so I had to hold those so my mom could see to drive, which meant I couldn't see a thing.  Anyway, we got everything home, chatted for a bit, and then I set to work rearranging my kitchen and bathroom so I could fit my fabulous new gifts.  Apparently, I am a slow worker because by 10:00 I still had a lot left to do and I hadn't done a thing to get ready for work the next day.  I finally stopped, got my stuff ready to go back to work the next day (paperwork, made lunch, etc.) and eventually went to bed.  I took that Friday off from work because I had a personal day left to use that was soon going to expire.  It was nice to sleep in, but truth be told I spent some of the day catching up on work paperwork (um, aren't you NOT supposed to do work on your day off?).  The rest of the time, I did manage to get most of my stuff put away and I made a huge dent on my thank you notes.   I'd like to tell you I finished writing them all that day, but that would be a lie.  It took a few more days. 

Bridal Shower

So as I was getting ready to blog about some of the latest in "wedding land," I realized I never blogged about my bridal shower.  So here it goes...My bridal shower was a little over a month ago and it was fabulous.  Actually, I should rephrase that, my showerS were a little over a month ago and THEY were fabulous.  My co-workers threw me a shower too.  I got some nice gifts, delicious cake, and several people wore purple since that is my wedding color.  One of the organizers even wore purple gloves to cut the cake!  Who knew! 

 

My non-work shower was also wonderful and a little overwhelming.  I knew the date (my schedule is a little crazy so I had to know when it was), but not all the details.  My fiancé drove me over and we walked in and all of a sudden people realized we were there and started clapping.  It was funny because I could hear some of their voices as I was walking up the stairs, but they didn't see me right away.  I didn't really know what to do so I started to walk around to all the tables and say hi to everyone and thank them for coming.  Goodness knows I've helped throw many showers, but it was strange to be on the other side.  I had so much fun though.  I normally don't like being in the center of attention, but I embraced it and enjoyed myself.  After some mingling, a funny trivia game with questions about my fiancé and me that people had to answer, and some delicious food, it was time to open presents.  OMG, I cannot believe how generous people are.  It took me days to find spots for everything (that's a whole other blog in itself).  I could not believe how much stuff I got.  We had quite a few things on our registries and well, let's just say we received most of them (and then some).  Oh, and did I mention that when they cut into the cake, it was purple inside?  :) 

Parking Rules Do Not Apply

I'm going to give you a break from wedding blogs for a post to talk about something else.  I'd love to tell you it's something amazing and exciting, but it's not, it's parking.  Yes, parking.  Now as many of you know, I am a rule follower (well, most of the time, anyway;  people constantly tell me I need to break a few rules and they also say it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission).  So when I go somewhere, I generally park legally.  I did once get a parking ticket for being parked in a spot that was supposed to be vacated at 8:00 because I was still there at 9:00--oops!  I did however, pay my ticket in a timely fashion.  We have assigned spots where I live so not only do I always park in my driveway and have my better half park in his spot (soon to officially be his spot and not just my second spot :-)), I always make my visitors park in visitor parking (what a concept, huh?).  Sadly, not everyone else is as rule follower.  I've lost track of how many times someone other than my fiancé or me have parked in my second parking spot.  A couple of days ago, my fiancé went to the grocery store.  He came home and pulled over to the side of the road for approximately two minutes--with the car running--to unload the groceries.  In the time he did that, someone drove past him and parked in his spot.  ANNOYING!  So I kept staring out the window to see if the car would ever leave.  It did a few minutes later so I yelled my fiancé to go move his car.  (He had moved it to guest parking as there was no other place to go).  Well, in the approximately 5-10 minutes it took him to put  his shoes on, go to the guest spot, start his car, and drive to his real spot, SOMEONE ELSE parked in his spot. Thankfully, he got down there when the person was still in sight so she moved, but seriously, people, there is a guest spot within walking distance, why can't you have your guests park there?  It's not just around here.  I go to the gym 5-6 times a week (less if it's a crazy week, but you get the point).  With the exception of snowy Januaries when everyone is back at the gym and there are snowbanks taking up parking spots, there is usually PLENTY of parking.  It's not some tiny lot.  Well, several times in the past week or two, I have gone to the gym, parked (legally) seen plenty of spaces and yet there have been several cars that just decided to randomly park on a grassy area near the entrance.  I've seen people do this at the mall too and I just wonder, are people that lazy?  And how can you be that lazy and not be able to walk a few more feet if you are GOING TO THE GYM.  It can't be handicapped people because there are handicapped spaces free (speaking of which, I find it rude when non-handicapped people park in handicapped spaces and when people leave their shopping carriages in the middle of spaces instead of walking 5 more feet to the carriage corral).   I just don't get it.  So there's my parking rant.  We'll probably go back to wedding stuff tomorrow.  Have a good night!   

The Challenges Of Make Up

I think I may have mentioned on here before that I don't wear make up too often.  I'm sure I'd look better with it, but I'm lazy.  Getting up at 6:30 is early enough thank you, I am NOT getting up any earlier to put on make up.  I wear make up to work 11 times a year.  This year I wore it 12 times because of my work bridal shower. I will wear it if I'm going out some place nice in the evening or if I'm going to a wedding or party or whatever.  But on a typical day like today for example when I am not working and spending much of today cleaning and reading, there is no make up on this face.  So given my limited make up knowledge, I was NOT doing my own wedding make up.  After some research I found a place that was only slightly obnoxiously expensive as opposed to obnoxiously expensive as most other places were.  I went for my trial appointment last Friday and the woman was very nice.  I warned her that I do not wear a lot of make up and I am indecisive.  She was nice and patient, but my right eye would not stop watering.  My allergies were out of control--yet only in one eye, strange.  Anyway, despite my misbehaving eye she did what she could and assured me she would get waterproof make up for the wedding day--yes, please!  Because combine allergies with a girl who cries at everything and I'm going to need it!  Well, I had a few friends over that evening and they said the make up looked good, but by the end of the evening, my eye was watering up so much that I started to look like a raccoon.  A little later I morphed into a baseball player.  One of my friends asked if I was getting ready to try out for the Red Sox.  Bring on the waterproof! 

Wedding Planning: A Few Bumps Along the Road

They say when you plan a wedding, no matter how hard you try, something is going to go wrong.   In most instances people don't notice or it's something so small that the bride and groom notice, but no one else really does.  I guess the same goes for planning a wedding.  There will be problems, but in the end most of them have a way of working out.   So in tonight's blog I'd like to share a few of the problems we've had (besides trying to figure out the seating chart of course because most of my married friends have told me that's a pain so I'm going to just guess that is the norm, and actually
4-5--I've lost track, attempts later, it seems like we have a seating chart that will work). 

1.  Wedding Party Changes:  Quite a few months ago one of my bridesmaids had to excuse herself from the wedding because she is having a baby right around my wedding date.  Obviously, I was happy for her and understood.  She's still been a fabulous "honorary" bridesmaid and helped with my bachelorette party.  Since we had one more bridesmaid than groomsmen, I didn't worry about trying to find someone else to even things out.  But then two months ago one of my fiancé's groomsmen had to excuse himself from the wedding--he is not having a baby close to our wedding date ha ha.  My fiancé panicked a bit (shh don't tell him I told you that), but asked one of his friends if he would be willing to fill in.  His friend, Joe quickly said yes, and all was right with the wedding party again.  Joe was originally going to bring up the bread and wine at our wedding, but since we "promoted" him to groomsmen, it meant I got to ask my friend Natalie to do that instead.  She kindly said yes because she is awesome. 

2.  Flowers and Florists:  In May, we found out our florist's health wasn't good and he unfortunately had to excuse himself from doing our wedding flowers.  We understood and wished him good health, but I'll be honest I panicked a bit.  I hadn't really thought at all about flowers because he was taking care of everything.  It was someone we knew and that was going to be his wedding present to us.  I had sent him a few pictures--but truthfully, some of those pictures were stuff my friend Megan had found me (Megan rocks).  Our wedding package included centerpieces so it simply meant we would use their centerpieces and not get a credit for that so that part was easy enough, but I had NO clue on bouquets.  It also meant I now had 15-20 vases lying in my guest room that I didn't know what to do with because I wasn't sure another florist could use them.  Well, it turned out the florist who was doing our centerpieces, although not thrilled about it, was willing to use our vases--thank goodness because the 90 day return deadline had passed and I didn't know anyone in desperate need of 15-20 vases.  After a little digging around, it turned out one of my fiancé's groomsmen's girlfriend was  willing to do our flowers.  yay!  Thankfully, she has been very patient since I know so little about flowers. 

And finally (well for this post anyway)

3.  The Priest:  The priest who was supposed to marry us took a medical leave. No problem, the assistant priest can marry us.  On Monday I found out the assistant priest has been reassigned to another church.  No problem, the new priest will just marry us, right?  Right???  Well, when I was at church this weekend, I found out the new priest does not work on Fridays.  Did I mention my wedding is on a Friday night?!  I don't have a yay for this problem yet because it has not yet been resolved,  but I would think the church would find us someone, right???  We did pay them and sign a contract.  Perhaps God is trying to tell me something?   Do you think he's mad at me for all those weeks I did not go to church?

I'll keep you posted.  In the mean time you can look forward (or not) to blog posts on make up and my awesome friends.   :) 

Political Ads

I try not to mix politics and blogs, but this one is irritating me so I'm throwing it out there.  In the past two weeks, I have gotten the same ad approximately 6 times (maybe it was only 5, but either way, that's a lot of times to send the same ad).  It is some political group encouraging me to call Senator X and tell Senator X that Y is bad.  It also complains about the way Senator X voted for stuff in the past.  For the record, let me state that I am registered as undeclared (much to my father's dismay, I think he nearly had a heart attack, when I registered to vote and did not wish to declare a party), but I do try to vote in every election.  Anyway, these ads are in color and on heavy paper.  As someone who has had to print, copy, and distribute ads for my job, I know that heavy paper and colored ink are NOT cheap so if these people are sending me this ad 6 (or maybe only 5) times, I imagine they are doing the same thing to many others, right???  How much money are they spending?!  Couldn't they take all that money they are spending on repetitious ads and actually use the money to SOLVE SOME OF THE ISSUES they are so concerned about.  I googled them and they have something about prosperity on their website.  Is it very prosperous to send the same ad 5/6 times???  I think not, but what do I know!    So their ads go straight to my recycling bin, but now I'm thinking I could be creative with them.  I could give them to my neighbors for their fire place in the winter.  I could use them to catch dripping paint for painting projects.  I could bind them all into a book and then mail them back to the people that sent them.  What do you think?  Got any creative ideas for me?   

Another Wedding Blog: The Church Stuff

This blog is a little random and all over the place, but the underlying theme is church stuff.  So as you may remember, I'm getting married in a church.  My fiancé and I took that test back in March and we were quite nervous to get our results since he misunderstood some of the questions. Well, a little over a month after we took the test, we got our results and we didn't do so badly.  In fact the woman who went over the results with us was a sweetheart and found it kind of funny that Mike misunderstood the drug use question.  One less thing to worry about
We met with the church coordinator a few weeks after that and things went well, except that as we were leaving the church coordinator noticed I had a flat tire.  Trying to find someone to change a flat at 8:00 on a Wednesday night proved challenging, but not impossible.  We got it sorted out and I was able to successfully get to work the next day. 
And on a final church related note, we now have no idea who is marrying us.  The priest that was going to marry us switched churches.  The assistant priest was going to marry us, but he was just reassigned so hopefully, the new priest who started this past weekend (who we have not met) will marry us.  A part of me is wondering if I'm going to show up at the church for my wedding and all the guests will be there and there will be no priest.  Then what do we do?  Maybe there'll be a JP in the audience?  :-)

The Bachlorette Party

So a while back, I mentioned that my bachelorette party was coming up, but in typical me fashion, I got busy with life and never blogged about it.  Despite my nerves and my not wanting to wear a bathing suit, I had a wonderful weekend.  Three of us went up on a Friday night.  We had dinner near our hotel then hung out at the hotel for a little while before bed time.  The next morning it was off to Aqua Zumba, which turned out to be quite fun--despite having to wear a bathing suit in public (well, semi-public).  I didn't know anything about Aqua Zumba, but it's basically Zumba in the water.  I usually go to Zumba twice a week (though the past couple of weeks, I've only made it once a week, because I keep having appointments, meetings, etc. during one of the classes) so my maid of honor thought it would be a fun thing for me to do.  After that, it was back to the hotel, where one of my friends had brought/made enough food to feed a small army.  It was good!    We hung out for a bit then went on a boat ride.  I have to confess I was worried about the weather because when we got up that morning it was not pretty, but by the time we went on the boat, it was pretty nice out.  After the boat ride, it was back to the hotel for drinks and a game called The SoonlyWed Game.  In this game, a couple of my friends asked my fiancé some questions ahead of time and videotaped his answers.  I had to guess his answers.  There are different things you can do for right or wrong answers.  In my case, my maid of honor had made stickers that made her think of me (i.e. milk because I drink a lot of milk, ballet shoes because I do ballet, purple shoes because I like purple, etc.).  If I got a question wrong, I  had to wear a sticker all night.  If I were right, I had to give a sticker to someone.  Let's just say I had to wear quite a few stickers.  Some of my fiancé's answers were a little (okay a lot) off from what I though he'd say. My married friends assured me that in that game this was normal as they'd scored similar right/wrong answers when they'd played.  After the game and a little more hanging out, we went to dinner.  Then it was out for a few drinks.  All in all it was a fun night.  I'd post pics, but my camera battery died and I charged it and no luck.  I think it's time for a new battery so that's on this week's to do list. 

I'm Baaack

Hello Blog Readers,
   Are you still out there? Have you given up on me?  I'm still alive and well, just drastically slacking on the blog.  June is a BUSY month at work--at least the first few weeks so it's no surprise that I didn't blog then, but by the end of June when I have free time again you'd think I'd be back on here, right?  Well, I had every intention of doing so, but my computer had other ideas.  One night I went on my computer and the battery was low so I plugged it in to charge it and it didn't seem to be charging.  I tried to make sure everything was connected and noticed a wire seemed to be coming out so I put some electrical tape on it and it started charging.  A couple of minutes later, I heard a LOUD pop and saw a flash of light. Let's just say that was the end of my adapter.  It scared the you know what out of me.  I quickly (and nervously unplugged it).  I'm not sure if it was the wire I saw popping out or what that caused the noise and light, but then I was paranoid that there'd be a fire or something.  Could it have been sparks I saw?  Who knows.  But that meant no more computer use for a while.  Thank goodness for phones that connect to the internet.  I was going to get one at Staples, but I found one cheaper on Amazon so I ordered that.  I saved some nice $, but I had to wait a little while for it to come in hence the no blogging.  I do not like blogging on my phone. But anyway, I'm back now so you can expect some more wedding related posts and me being me probably something about food too.  Happy 4th!     

Thanksgiving in April

I meant to post this in April, but then life got in the way and it didn't happen.  Better late than never, I suppose, right?  We had a lot of snow this winter.  It took a long time for it to melt.  If you know me at all or if you've read some of my previous posts, you know I like to decorate for the holidays--not just Christmas, but Thanksgiving, Easter, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, etc.  Anyway, I have a Thanksgiving turkey decoration that I put outside in early November.  Normally, I take it down in late November or early December.  This year, I guess I forgot to take it down.  It snowed, it snowed again, it snowed a lot.  Eventually, the snow melted, by sometime in April it was finally almost gone.  One day I got in my car to go to work and something caught my eye.  I wondered, what in the world is that?!  Let me remind you it was APRIL!  I walked over to the front of my house and there was the Thanksgiving turkey.  OOPS!  It's not uncommon for me to put my decorations away for various holidays and find a stray one left behind a couple of days later, but not over 4 months later.      

The Complex World of Healthy Eating

So as you've probably gathered from previous blog posts, I'm trying (at least most days) to eat healthier.  I'll confess this partially stems from wanting to look good on my wedding day, but even before I was engaged, I was trying to make better choices when it came to food.  At a doctor's appointment several years ago, my doctor told me I was overweight.  She said I wasn't a lot overweight, but technically I was overweight.  It was a good wake up call, but I love sweets.  It's hard to undo a life time of sweet treats and bad eating habits in a short period of time--okay, maybe for some people it's not, but I've definitely had my ups and downs.  Anyway, as I've tried to eat healthier, I'd researched various diets, plans, methods, whatever, and talked to a bunch of people.  There are very few things all of these websites, people, plans, etc. agree one.  You can see why people get frustrated and confused!  I experienced some confusion myself recently.  Bear with me, this may be a long one.  Many "experts" agree that exercise is important as is drinking lots of water.   I do both of those things and that makes sense to me anyway.  Beyond that the only food anyone seems to agree on is vegetables, but they don't all share the same views on which veggies are best.  I've never done any of those diets where you have to order special foods/drinks.  I did Weight Watchers a while ago (the on-line version) and it wasn't horrible.  I can see why people like it and I have a friends and a relative who have had success with WW.  However, I found an app on my phone that does similar things to what I was doing with the WW on-line and it was FREE, whereas WW costs money.  So when my membership expired, I didn't renew it.  I did The Biggest Loser with friends a few years ago and I did quite well with that.  The fact that I was saving for a wedding and the winner won money helped.  I'm not a big meat eater so no Atkins for me (that is the one where you have to eat a lot of meat, right?  Maybe I have my diets mixed up).  I tried the vegan thing and I like my dairy too much.  A workshop and two friends are all about organic food to help with better eating/lifestyle choices.  After researching that I was scared to eat anything--clearly, that didn't last long as I still like to eat, but yikes.  I would like to tell you I was convinced to eat all organic stuff, but I can't.  Organic is expensive.  I suppose you could argue that isn't it worth it in the long run?  Probably, but if it comes to buying all organic or saving for a trip to Europe, I'm sorry, I'm buying the bad stuff and going to Europe.  Anyway, I did switch a few things to organic--milk, spinach, and some snacks.  Two people told me that if you ate organic and tried to go back to non-organic, you wouldn't like it.  I tried it after a week or two and had no problem, HOWEVER, I was trying to find organic spinach a couple of weeks ago and the grocery store was out.  My fiancé went to another store and they were out too so he bought me the regular stuff.  OMG, it tasted awful!  I guess you really do get used to organic once you eat it for a few months.  Finally, a friend of mine and a few co-workers of mine have done the Whole 30 food plan.   I was reading up on this a few days ago.  They make a pretty convincing argument, and OMG, how many foods have chemicals in them?!?!  It's as scary as the non-organic food stuff my friend showed me, but again, you all know I like my dairy. 
So my point in rambling about all this is one day you read meat is good, the next it's bad, the next drink more milk, the next don't drink milk. Fruit is good, fruit is bad.  Diet soda is worse than regular soda (I don't drink soda so that one actually doesn't bother me).  Eat low fat, eat no fat, eat only the fat.  I don't know that society will ever agree on a "best food" plan so I guess you just have to do what works for you--and in my case eat fewer sweets.  :)       After all that rambling, I do believe I've lost the point of my blog. So for now, I'm off to drink water, lift some weights, and maybe eat some spinach.  :)  Stay healthy all. 

I used to like to shop...

Usually I like shopping.  There are two types of shopping, I almost NEVER enjoy.  One is going to a certain store to buy things on baby registries.  The problem is I can never find anything.  It says aisle three and I go to aisle three and there it is NOT.  Despite this, if I ever decide I can handle having a child, I will probably register at this store because there are only so many baby stores close by.  The other type of shopping I do not like is bathing suit shopping.  Shopping for clothes is usually fun, same with Christmas shopping, book shopping, even grocery shopping is fine (except on weekends, I learned that the hard way).  Anyway, my bachelorette party is this weekend.  I am nervous and excited.  I was told I needed a bathing suit.  I had a bathing suit I did not hate. I bought it two years ago, but at the end of last summer the clasp broke.  So last week, I went to the store to find one.  Bathing suit shopping is painful.  Some of my friends equate it to a mild form of torture.  First you have to find one that fits.  Then you need one with a little support.  As my godmother would say, I'm not as "gifted" in that area as some people, but you want to stay in place.  I don't do bikinis so that rules out half the suits.  I just want a decent tankini or a one piece that doesn't break the bank account.  You'd think that would be easy enough, right?  WRONG!  If you want to feel bad about the way you look (which really I can do without help ha ha), just go bathing suit shopping.  When did my arms get so fat?  Why aren't these exercise to reduce armpit fat working?  Why does half a tankini cost $35?    Why does this suit make me look fat?  Well, you get the idea.  I did finally buy one.  It didn't work any miracles, but the good thing abut burning so easily is I can usually hide under a t-shirt.  I'm not sure I can get away with that at the indoor pool this weekend.  I hope if you have to go bathing suit shopping any time soon, it goes much better and happier for you.  So while I am looking forward to this weekend, if anyone takes a picture of me in a new bathing suit, you will NOT be seeing it on here or hopefully, anywhere.  My friend told me to bring a camera this weekend and take lots of pics.  I plan to, but if anyone takes a pic of me in my new suit, we are no longer friends.  ha ha.  :-p  Have a fabulous weekend!      

Let's Talk Make Up

Okay, I'll be honest, I don't wear make up that often.  I mean I probably should, but I'm lazy, yes, lazy.  No, not even so much lazy as I don't like getting up early.  I get up for work at 6:30am and that is early enough for me thank you very much.  If I were to wear make up to work each day, I'd have to get up earlier than 6:30 and 6:30 is early enough.  I wear make up to work approximately 11 days a year.  I'm totally serious on that number.  If you really wanted to know, I could even tell you which 11 days I usually wear it.  This year I will wear it 12 days because my job is throwing me a bridal shower so I will likely get up a few minutes early and put make up on that day. By the way, when I say make up I mean like foundation and lipstick/gloss.  That's it.  I can't stand having stuff put on my eyes.  I'm weird, I know.  Aside from the 11 (or in the case of this year 12) days I wear make up to work, I will also wear it for weddings, parties, and other special events.  Oh, and I do dance so during the years when I participate in the yearly show, I am required to wear make up.  That's amusing.  A lady in my class tried to do my eyes once and I was in a back bend, I didn't even know I could do a back bend, but every time she came near my eyes I kept backing away and I was nearly in a back bend.  Anyway, the reason I bring all this is up is because I figure for my own wedding I should probably wear make up.  It would be nice if I could look good in the pictures.  And if I want to look good (or at least better than I do now), someone other than me should do my make up.  Um, do you have any idea how much it costs to get your make up done, especially if it's for your own wedding!  Holy cannoli!  Including a trial and day of application, many places wanted to charge $200!  For that price, they should be able to make me look good for a month!  I just hope the person who has to deal with me is patient and has good aim because when she comes near my eyes I may find I can do a back bend again... 

Weird Weather

So I don't know about where you live, but where I live we have had some wacky weather.  Of course I often think we have weird weather so that's probably not saying much.  A week or two ago it was near 80 degrees one day and back in the 40s two days later.  A friend of mine who lives in a much warmer climate kindly invited me to visit her--okay, let's be honest, I kind of invited myself--last year at this time of year and I had a lovely trip (you can scroll back a while and read blogs on it if you're interested).  We were joking that I should come again this year, but with trying to save for  a wedding and honeymoon, it just was not a realistic possibility.  Then a few days ago I woke up and there was SNOW, yes, SNOW on the ground.  I'd almost put out the patio furniture a day or two before that, good thing, I didn't.  Did I mention that two days before the snow came it was in the 70s? I told her I'd be buying a plane ticket that evening.  Unfortunately, I didn't play the lottery so I couldn't win hence no plane ticket, but good grief after this winter, it was sure tempting!  I will admit the snow was light, they didn't even have to plow and it was gone by the time I got home from work, but still, snow, now??!?  Once when I was in college, we had a few flakes in MAY. UGH!  I am on vacation this week and given that it's nearly May this should be a lovely week to be on vacation and enjoy the outdoor weather, but I guess Mother Nature didn't get the memo.  It'll probably be nice when I go back to work next week.  Sigh  :-(  The good thing about yucky weather is that it does cause one to get things done that one might otherwise procrastinate because one has time to do them.  It also allows a person time to catch up on blogging.  :-)  Nonetheless, I'm still hoping for sunshine and warm weather before the week is through.      

One Final (at least for this month) Post on Chocolate

So have you been wondering how I did with my (mostly) chocolate-free Lent?  Oh, yes, I'm "sure" you've been losing sleep waiting to hear the results.  Someone told me you can cheat on Sundays so I "might" have had a brownie one Sunday during Lent (but only one Sunday).  Other than that, I was successful.  You are fully aware that I cheated twice--St. Patrick's Day party food and wedding food tasting.  Otherwise, I was a good girl and mind you it was pretty darn hard on the last day.  The Saturday night before Easter, my fiancé and I went out.  He ordered dessert, which was a brownie sundae, which he could not finish.  He offered me some and given that Lent was ending in FOUR hours I was tempted.  I even tried to rationalize that in several time zones it was no longer Lent, but alas I was a good girl--close call, but I didn't eat the brownie.  I was so excited to eat chocolate on Easter (yes, I have problems, I know) that I had a slice of cookie cake and a brownie and sadly, they weren't that good.  (The brownie was a cute Easter brownie, thank you Pinterest).  I thought perhaps I'd made the recipe wrong--my fiancé would tell me if the brownies did not taste good--don 't get me wrong, he's a wonderful person, but he likes his brownies, if something were wrong, I'd know.  But he (and everyone else) enjoyed them just fine thank you.  Well, after six weeks of (mostly) no chocolate, chocolate just didn't taste as great to me as it used to.  In fact the sweet I enjoyed the most was the Monkey bread I put out with the appetizers--let's just say I didn't log my calories that day (yeah, I had a piece of Mom's non-chocolate bunny cake too--it's shaped like a bunny, don't go thinking I started eating bunnies and that was yummy as always).  Between Easter and the cake tasting the following day, I do believe I need to give up chocolate again to recover from those two days.   

Let's Talk About Cake

Hello Bloggers!  I'm back!  Yay!  Over the past couple of weeks when I've been slacking on my blog I thought of several things I wanted to blog about, but do you think now when I finally have time to blog that I can remember a single one of them? NO!  So we're just going to talk about cake today.  My fiancé and I did our cake tastings (yes, plural, the reception site sent us to two places).  Let's just say it's a good thing I scheduled these for AFTER Lent was over (you know since I wasn't eating chocolate).  Let's just say cake tasting is a bad idea if you're still trying to lose 10 more pounds before your wedding.  I've seen all the TV shows so I know you can do cool things with cakes.  I've been to enough weddings to know wedding cakes look beautiful.  I did not know how many decisions a person had to make when selecting a cake.  There are so many designs, flavors, fillings, frostings, etc.  It was deliciously overwhelming.  Lemon, strawberry, peanut butter, chocolate, cream cheese, raspberry, Bailey's, Amaretto, cherry, buttercream,--and those are just the fillings that I can remember!  Don't even get me started on flavors, frostings, mixing and matching, etc.  I mean there were a few flavors I knew I wouldn't like--I don't really like lemon, but flavors I thought I wouldn't like turned out to be quite tasty.  Let's just say I'm glad I blocked out a good chunk of time at the gym on each of the two cake tasting days. 

Hello Again and Good-bye Chocolate

I'm kind of looking forward to eating chocolate again.  I fully intend to eat some chocolate on Easter and the week after (we have our cake tasting that week and I have friends coming over for dinner on that Friday night who have all ready requested a chocolate dessert).  But after that, I'm going to try to go chocolate free again--well, semi-chocolate free--until the wedding.  I'm finally shedding a couple of pounds so if it takes limited chocolate to do it then bye bye chocolate.  That being said, I plan to eat dessert at my bachelorette party--um, the bakery with the second best cupcakes in the state are in the city where it's being held so clearly I need to have one, though truth be told, I may not have a chocolate one.  And our annual work party in June always comes with delicious chocolate treats so I'll make an exception for that.  I'm sure there'll be other festivities here and there between now and the wedding so while I won't be as good as I was for Lent, I plan to keep trying to eat healthier.  11 pounds to go!     

Excuses for Why I'm Lacking on the Blog Posts

So work is going to be BUSY for the next couple of weeks so I'm warning you now, I'll be slacking on the blog.  But hopefully, when I'm back I'll have wedding updates, more semi-funny stories (I have a few in mind), and knowing me a post or two about food.  Until then, try not to miss me too much.  And if I'm not back before then, keep an eye out for new posts at the end of the month.  Have a good one all! 

Quote 'Em On It

Funny quotes from the past couple of weeks:

It's my sister's birthday today.
Oh, nice, how old is she?
Um, she's either 13 or 100, I forget.


Well, when we show up to go over our results, I'm afraid they might not let us get married.
Why?
M accidentally checked off the box that says "Unsure" to the question"your partner has a problem with drugs."
WHAT?
He thought it said does not apply instead of unsure. (um, yeah, there may be a future blog post about this one). 


What's that thing on your chin?
A zit (she says as she turns bright red).
A zit?  Oh, well, are you going to do anything about that?
Um, maybe wear make up to work more than 11 days a year.  Hopefully, it'll go away in a few days.
I think my brother had a zit in his ear once.  He had it cut out.  Maybe you can just cut it off your chin.


What did you draw?
You.
Me?
Yes, it said to draw something heavy so I drew you.

St. Pat's Party Part 2

I don't have a ton to report about the family St. Patrick's Day party.  In addition to most of the food from the previous party (minus trifle and jalepeno poppers) I also made Irish broccoli cheese pie, Irish egg and potato salad and THREE people brought soda bread.  So that plus the loaf I made meant we had FOUR loaves of soda bread for nine people (two people got sick and didn't make it and one person didn't come, but still four loaves would have been a lot for 12 people too!).  Two people took their loaves home and I brought one and a half to work the next day.  People did eat, but I sure had a lot of leftovers.  Thankfully, my co-workers ate some of the sweets.  I ate soup all week and although the soup is good, I was sure glad to be done with it on Thursday.  The rainbow was mostly eaten, but what little remained became a delicious fruit salad.  And in case you're wondering, yes, I did cheat as planned and sample some of the chocolate treats at the St. Pat's party.  But be proud because Thursday night at work there were LOTS of chocolate treats at our evening meeting and I did not have one (I did however, try a  non-chocolate apple cupcake--yum!)  Back on track this week.  BTW if you want any St. Patrick's Day punch, I have one and a half pitchers left so come on over.  :) 

Frosting Here, Frosting There, Frosting Everywhere--except on the cupcakes

As you saw in the last blog, I made many foods for my St. Pat's party.  I made a couple of things ahead of time and froze them (the bread and the mint chocolate brownies).  For the week leading up to my St. Pat's party, I tried to make one thing each night so I wouldn't be scrambling at the last minute. Certainly, some things would have to be made at the last minute, but the chocolate balls and fruit dip I could do early.  On Wednesday night (the party was on Friday), I made green velvet cupcakes.  I figured I'd make the frosting then too, but wait 'til the next day to frost the cupcakes.  So I made the frosting and thought what the heck it was almost 10:00 and I usually stay up 'til 10:30, might as well frost a few cupcakes now and I can do the rest tomorrow.  It's too late to do much else.  So I began to frost some cupcakes with white frosting (I planned to do the green ones the next day).  I'm not entirely sure what happened next, but as I went to unplug the mixer and move the bowl somehow the mixer cord hit the bowl...and the bowl (full of frosting) fell...and shattered (it was plastic not glass thankfully, but still).  It was now after 10:00 on a work night and I had a lovely mess of frosting to clean off my floor, cabinets, and counters.  Not to mention cleaning up broken pieces of bowl.  When I finally got that all cleaned up, I decided I would CAREFULLY make more frosting, but alas, I didn't have enough confectioners sugar left.  So now I had wasted all those ingredients, lost a bowl, only frosted a couple of cupcakes, and clearly not going to be in bed at a reasonable hour. 
Long story short, I bought sugar the next day after work and did manage to make frosting and frost cupcakes without breaking anything else.  Still didn't get to bed on time, but the frosting sure tasted good. 

St. Patrick's Day Party Part 1

Every year I host two St. Patrick's Day parties.  I host one for my friends and one for my family.  So Friday night was the friends' party.  About 20 people came.  It was a random assortment of friends.  I had friends from college, work, and friends I've been friends with since high school or earlier (yep, some people I've been friends with since I was just a little kid came too).  It was a little crowded, but we managed.  Per usual I made too much food.  One friend brought potato skins and jalepeno poppers (or whatever they're called).  Another friend brought tortilla chips and spinach and artichoke dip.  And one friend brought green chocolate chip cookies.  My gluten-free friend brought gluten-free brownies.  And various people brought beverages.  I made two St. Patrick's Day punches, one with rum and one with no alcohol.  Both were good in my opinion.  I also made a soup that I always make (I believe the soup is St. Patrick's Day themed strictly because it has potatoes in it.)  Instead of my usual Irish cheesecake or previous St. Patrick's Day ice-cream cake, I made a St. Patrick's Day trifle (brownies, green pudding, and Cool Whip).  I also did green veggies (and carrots) and dip, a rainbow of fruit with clouds (marshmallows) and a pot of gold (peanut butter cups) and homemade Irish fruit dip.  Let's not forget my Irish soda bread, leprechaun hat cookies, green velvet cupcakes (must tell you the frosting story about those in a future blog post) with homemade frosting, shamrock cookies, mint chocolate brownies, Irish chocolate balls, and green chocolate shamrocks.   Oh, and I made a cheese dip shaped like a shamrock (it had scallions on it) and served it with crackers.  My fiancé said it looked more like a cross than a shamrock, but I tried.  Are you hungry because I have leftovers of many foods?  I'll gladly give you some.  :-)      

Pedometers and Rings

Have you ever forgotten to wear something and just felt weird without it?  Or kept thinking you lost it?  I remember one day ages ago I forgot to wear my watch and I always wear a watch.  Somehow I just didn't put it on that day and I kept going to check the time and ooh, nothing there.  It drove me crazy!  Well, for the past couple of years I have worn a pedometer.  In fact I even keep a back up in case one breaks--I buy the cheap ones so that happens every now and again.  Well, the other day my pedometer died and so did the back up one!  So now I keep thinking I lost it. I'll go to sit down and be like omg, what did I do with my pedometer now?  It's going to be a long few days 'til I get a new one. On a similar note, my fiancé and I went to look at wedding bands the other day and found one.  The jeweler needed to keep my engagement ring for a few days so he could fit the shape properly.  That's fine and dandy, but again after wearing the ring for so long I felt weird without it.  For years, I did not wear a ring on that finger so you'd think it'd feel perfectly normal, but no.  The first day I panicked at one point and really thought I lost my ring.  After that, I just felt weird without it.  But then of course I started to wonder if I would get used to it after a couple of days and then feel weird to wear it again.  On a slightly unrelated note, I wondered if anyone would notice I didn't wear a ring--they didn't and we had a joke response planned.  The same day we picked out the rings was also the day we had to take our church test so we were going to tell everyone that the test didn't go so well so I gave the ring back.  We don't get our results for a while, but my dear sweet fiancé told me he misunderstood one of the questions (in his defense there were some double negatives on there, which my English professors would not have approved of) and so for a question about partner's drug use he put unsure instead of disagree (he thought it was does not apply).  UGH!  Of course everyone else finds this hilarious though his mother was a little mad at him (not really, mad, she did find it funny too, but she did give him the look).  So now we're all worried that they're going to think someone in the relationship has a drug problem instead of just a reading comprehension problem.  :-p  I wanted to try to end this post with a double negative, but it's not been a short day so I don't know if I can successfully do that.  Have a good one! (Or should I say don't have a bad one).