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).        

A Blog Related to Food--yes, again!

So I feel like I am constantly blogging about food.  I was joking that I should change the title from Cat's Blog to something related to food.  I decided that since I hosted my annual St. Patrick's Day parties this weekend (yes, parties as in two), I would blog about those, but as I began to write said posts I found they too involved food, especially since I didn't take any pictures at the parties.  Perhaps I should go around and take pictures of my St. Pat's decorations to change things up and keep it festive.  :)  Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all! 

Something Borrowed? Not So Much

Something old
Something new
Something borrowed
Something blue

I thought I had everything covered, but as it turns out I need something borrowed.  My grandmother gave me a piece of jewelry for the something old.  The dress is new.  And I have a blue anklet.  (Is that spelled correctly?  It doesn't look right.)  I was going to borrow my Mom's veil and that would take care of my something borrowed.  She brought it to my dress fitting earlier in the month.  Unfortunately, it didn't quite match.  My dress is ivory and Mom's veil is white.  Darn it.  So now I have to find a veil, which I'm probably making more complicated than it needs to be.  I had no idea how many options there are or how expensive they are.  So if anyone wants to go veil shopping holler my way.  I also have to find something to borrow from someone. 
Hey, look, I finally wrote a blog that was NOT about food.  Enjoy because I hosted two St. Patrick's Day parties this weekend so future blogs will involve food, perhaps too much food. 

A Weekend of Wedding Stuff and Food

I've been trying to think of non-wedding and non-food topics to blog about, but since nearly the entire weekend involved food and wedding stuff, apparently, now is not a good time to try to come up with new blog topics.  I'll start with food and do wedding stuff later in the week.  So I was successful with no chocolate on Weds, Thurs, Fri, and Sat.  Today was one of my two cheat days (the wedding food tasting).  I even said no, when my BOSS offered me a Samoas cookie (which by the way I love).  I told her I'd given up chocolate for Lent so she tried to give me a shortbread cookie, but thankfully, I don't like those so no cookies for me.  Go me!  I was at an engaged couple seminar all day yesterday and they had banana bread, that looked fabulous, but sadly, I passed on that too thanks to the chocolate chips.  Thankfully, there was also some delicious pumpkin bread and zucchini bread that I could choose from.  And yes, today was my cheat day, but I didn't cheat too much.  I had one cookie that contained chocolate and one other dessert had a tiny bit of chocolate in it.  So there may be one more cheat at the St. Pat's party, but then I did not allow myself any more cheats.  I'm slightly concerned that I seem to be loading up on pita chips, and yes, you guessed it, hummus, since giving up the chocolate.  I guess there are worse things I could be eating, but let's just hope my sodium levels don't skyrocket.  Okay, that's enough babbling about food.  I'm really going to have to start thinking or else after the wedding, I'll have nothing to blog about besides food and I'm sure you all can only take so many food blogs.   

Bye Bye Chocolate

So I did it, well, I made the decision to do it anyway.  I decided to give up chocolate for Lent (with the two aforementioned exceptions--see my previous blog if this does not ring any bells).  I was successful on day 1.  I got rid of most of the chocolate in my house minus the candy bowl, which I have successfully avoided.  Someone even offered me a chocolate covered marshmallow on Wednesday and I politely told her that it looked delicious and I would love one, but I gave up chocolate for lent.  She was very kind about it.  Of course the day before Lent, was just awful.  My awesome fiancé knew I was going to try to give up chocolate for Lent and I wanted one last hurrah so he went to Mrs. Fields and bought cookie cups.  Yum!  Additionally, I "might" have consumed some eggless chocolate chip cookie dough Tuesday night.  We do have the food tasting on Sunday so that may be 1 of my two cheats, but given that I'm not a HUGE fan of chocolate cake (I prefer white cake), I may not even end up cheating.  If things actually go well between now and Easter, I wonder if I can finally successfully cut back on my sweet treats on a more regular basis--or at least until the wedding ha ha.     

To Chocolate or Not Chocolate?

So once again I am considering giving up chocolate for Lent.  I eat a lot of sweets, like too many.  I have a bad sweet tooth.  I was fairly successful last year, more successful than any previous years.  I did allow myself three cheats (I know, I know, that's not really successful if you cheat three times, but someone told me you can cheat on Sundays so if that's true, I only cheated once).  But give me some credit, I passed up chocolate on Valentine's Day last year.  And I work at a place where there is a lot of chocolate on Valentine's Day.  The cheats were:  food tasting (on a Sunday), a wedding, and my annual St. Patrick's Day party (Sunday).  We have our wedding food tasting on Sunday and I'm hosting my St. Pat's party the following weekend so I thought well, maybe I could just give up chocolate for the second half of lent.  That's better than nothing, right?  Then I thought, why not just do like last year and allow myself my same cheats (no wedding this year, but I do have one dinner event that will likely include chocolate desserts, maybe I can get some willpower for that and only cheat twice).  So by the time you read this, I should have made my decision, but I actually wrote this blog ahead of time even though it won't post until after Lent has begun.  To be on the safe side, I have removed most chocolate from my house.  There are a few Hershey Kisses lying around that someone gave me for Christmas, but I think I'll be safe around those.  If they were chocolate chip cookies or brownies, we might have a problem on our hands.  :-) 

Potholes_____ (Fill in the Blank)

I'm getting a little fed up with all the potholes around here.  There is one street very close to where I live that I have to take to get to most places (work, the gym, the grocery store, etc.) and there are so many potholes that even if you drive around one to avoid it you end up hitting another one.  So here is my pathetic attempt at being funny.  You can pick which "definition"  you like best.

Potholes=one of life's great mysteries.  If we can build bridges and tunnels to connect far away places to each other, how come we can't stop a few holes from forming every year?

Potholes=a conspiracy with the tire companies

Potholes=a conspiracy with mechanics who do alignments

Potholes=your tax dollars at work (when they finally get fixed)

Potholes=just another thing to complain about in the winter

Potholes=an obstacle course for the average driver

Potholes=an explanation for random pains in unusual places (I hit one last week and it hurt!)

Potholes=one of the strangest blog topics in Cat's blog yet

Have a good one everyone and watch out for those potholes. 

Oh What the Heck, Here's Another Wedding Post

So as you may recall, I went shopping with 5 of my 6 bridesmaids back in December.  We (eventually)_ found a dress and life moved on.  If I remember correctly, the dress they tried on in the style we picked was a dark blue (that's what was in stock).  We ordered it in a color called lapis (first time I'd heard that word, maybe I need to get out more).  Anyway, I didn't love that shade of purple.  I really wanted a darker purple (like eggplant or plum), but this dress didn't come in that shade.  Oh, well, such is life.  We'd finally found a dress, I guess I couldn't be picky about colors.  This was more of a medium purple.  Or so I thought.  You see in the catalog they sent me home with, the picture of the lapis dress looked medium purple, but when I went to get a swatch a few weeks ago, it was much darker.  So I was confused.  I know swatches and catalogs aren't always exact matches so after much pondering and confused expressions, I e-mailed the four bridesmaids who I knew had ordered their dresses and asked if I could come see the dress.  Being the nice people they are, two of the girls e-mailed me back quite quickly and I went to see one of them on Friday.  And it is a dark purple.  Yay!  I was so happy.  It ended up being what I wanted.  :-)  The bridesmaid who I visited said she liked the color.  Double yay!  So I guess sometimes some things just work out nicely.  If only all wedding planning could work out so nicely. 

A Blog NOT about Food for a Change

So I'll give you a break from food for a post or two and move back to wedding stuff.  I had my first fitting on Saturday.  The store was BUSY.  Apparently, not only are a lot of people shopping for wedding gowns at this time of year, but they are also shopping for prom dresses.  I'm impressed people are getting prom dresses this early.  I did not buy either of my prom (junior or senior) dresses until April or May. Of course we also had our prom later than a lot of schools.  Anyway, at the rate things are going the alterations will cost more than the dress.  I got a good deal on the dress so that's part of the reason the alterations seemed so high.  I needed a bustle put on (fairly standard for most dresses I believe and that wasn't too expensive) and the straps were a little big so it wasn't much to fix those, but a hem is $175.  Yikes!  But I was NOT wearing 3-4 inch heels.  Not happening.  If I did I'd be taller than my other half and he wasn't thrilled about that.  I don't blame him. Plus I don't know how to walk in heels that high.  I don't want to fall down the aisle.  I'm klutzy enough as it is.  So that took care of fitting one.  Fitting two is in another couple of months.  If I lose weight I may need to have it taken in, which would be nice.  On the other hand, if I don't lose weight, I could save some money and not need it taken in ha ha.  Since the fitting was coming up, I went and got shoes a few weeks ago.  I won't say where I got them, but let's just say the store was BUSY (and it was a week night) and finding shoes was not an easy task.  The shoe piles were a "bit" disorganized.  But I found some.  I also got a swatch recently to send to the florist (a.k.a. my fiancé's uncle).  I have no idea what I want for flowers so my (helpful, kind) friend Megan sent me some pics.  I also found one in a magazine so we'll see what he comes up with.  I'm glad I have helpful friends.  :-)  So that's the latest in wedding land.  Have a good one!    

The Last Half Day of Vegan Week

Day 7 of vegan week was a partial vegan day.  To make it a full week, I only had to go vegan for half the day.  So basically my plan was to have a vegan breakfast and lunch, but not dinner.  That turned out to be a good thing since my fiancé and I had a date night planned for that night.  I ordered a salad with chicken on top.  It came with some much missed honey mustard dressing.  I also ate two rolls, with delicious cinnamon butter.  Oh, and before we went out, I had a nice glass of milk.  So while, minus the goat cheese, vegan week was a success, I'd never make it as a real vegan.  I'd miss going out to eat, dairy, and of course my sweets and seafood.  I would however, be willing to do an annual vegan week.