One Month!

(see how i’m blogging regularly!  amazzzzing right?)

I’m sorry if this wedding takes over the blog… it’s taking over my brain!

One month from today is my wedding!  Crazy.  I’ve been engaged for over a year, and that felt like I had forever till the wedding.  Now?  It’s going FAST!

(from when we got engaged.  showin’ off my rock)

This weekend my oldest brother is coming to town

Next weekend, my other two brothers, plus my sis in law and niece are here, and my friend/maid of honor Callie is coming for my bachelorette.  Callie was responsible for this stellar engagement gift last year

Face cake.  Heck yes.

My bachelorette?  It’ll be us drinking and doing paint our own pottery.

We keep it mature.

Then, it’s 4th of July weekend… Which means drinking and fireworks with my family

A weekend off… And wedding weekend!   This is going to go fast!

Best planning I’ve done?

Shoes.

I might have two pairs now?

But look at these shoes I found yesterday

(from Zappos)

So, married blogger friends-how crazy am I going to get in the next month?

Unmarried blogger friends-I’m sorry if you hate wedding stuff!  You can be helpers by telling me your favorite cake! (cake + frosting combo).  I’m doing a small cutting cake (2 tier) plus cupcakes so I get to have LOTS of flavors!

…rounds up to dead

Thanks for all the birthday wishes!

I’m now 25.  25 rounds up to 50.  And 50?

well…

it rounds up to dead.

I’m buying wrinkle cream tonight.

I got woken up on my birthday with these pretty flowers

Plus cupcakes

And diamonds.  In the form of earrings.

The fiance?  He’s a keeper.

The fiance offered to make me breakfast, but since we leave earrrrrly to take him to work (and his offer was for scrambled eggs… which are def not my favorite) I waited and made myself a birthday breakfast

Chocolate chip pancakes + strawberries + whipped cream + syrup = dessert.  But it’s ok because it was my birthday.  And I round up to dead anyways…

In the afternoon I made an amazing discovery

That is wine.

At a nail salon.

I love anywhere and everywhere that gives out free drinks.

I used to go to a waxing place that gave out free wine, but that makes sense since a glass of wine always makes me more willing to take my pants off in front of strangers…

anyways….

The fiance and I went out for dinner at a place called Tabla.  They have a 3 course fixed price menu.  I adore fixed price menus as it means you HAVE to order multiple things.

I started with seared ricotta and nettle gnudi, with wild mushrooms

True story:  I won’t eat cheese on its own much.  But if you fry it so it’s crispy I wanna have its babies.

Then I had pasta with pork sugo

They make their own pasta I think.  It was amazzzing.  Not huge portions, sadly, as I could shove a lot of carbohydrates in my face given the chance.

Then I had farrotto primavera, which is farro (a grain) cooked risotto style.

It had asparagus and chevre.  Mmm. Carbs and cheese were clearly the theme of the night.

You could do a wine pairing with each course.

I clearly did.

The I came home and decided this was a good choice.

Also a good choice?

Taking advil before bed.  I’m getting too old to drink like this….

Happy Birthday!

Sorry I’ve been MIA this week.  I made the brilliant choice to repaint a few rooms, and refinish some furniture, before the fiance’s mama came to visit.

(turns out that was a poor choice)

Plus, as an early birthday present to the fiance, this munchkin came into our home

(sad note-we don’t have Shelby anymore… We got her from my cousin because they didn’t think they could keep here anymore, but they missed her too much, so we let them have her back!)

Painting + kitten + trying to clean the house has made us pretty busy

But Takeout is a fun little monster

Cats are not smart.  But they’re cute

And as I said, it was an early birthday gift because today the fiance turns 27.

He’s old.

So Happy Birthday to my stylish

Mature

Loving

Future husband.

Happy Birthday baby!

Baby brother has promised a post where he COOKS soon!

Talent

There are things I am good at

Like making slightly weird, totally non-breakfast meals that are delicious

(that’d be mozzarella and asparagus in a whole wheat sub roll.  whatevs, it worked)

I’m good at finding a balance in life

Half a plate of biscuits and gravy with ham, half a plate of fruit with yogurt.  You need both.

I’m talented at making dinners I don’t have to share

Tofo = no hi to the fiance

But honestly, there are things I’m not so awesome at.

The other night, when we watched Duke win (Duke, btw, now my favorite team ever.  Mostly because the fiance won 300 bucks from his brackets) I made delicious dinner.  But, looking at the picture, presentation is not always a talent of mine

Fried okra (made it for the first time OH MY GOODNESS it was heaven), spinach, ribs, and beans.  The okra looks disgusting, I know.

Trust me, it was delicious.

Another thing I lack talent in?

Steak.  See, I like mine cooked to where it’s really really dead.  Some would call it burnt.  I know that not everyone wants their steak like that.  So while I ate the tofu above, I fed the fiance steak.  I tried to not overcook it?

I succeeded a little too much.  Blooood.  Gross.

I’m sorry for showing you that.

I’m even more sorry the fiance ate it all.

Now I’m off to work on one of my greatest talents

Red wine consumption.

Don’t tell me it’s not a talent.  Some days, it’s all I’ve got.

Learning

Last year was my first Easter not at home. And, I realized the other day that since last year on Easter my old camera (before the current broke-face one) was broken, I had Easter pictures on my phone to share!

I probably should learn to be nicer to my cameras, huh?

Anyways….

The fiance was, at the time, simply the boyfriend.  He lived in a studio apartment, I lived in a crazy duplex (the fridge door fell off the first week I lived there) with two other girls.  And I was finishing up student teaching in the projects, writing my work sample, and BSing my way through action research.

This was the first real holiday I’d had on my own.  It was  learning experience.

I hate hardboiled eggs.  I’m not a big egg person in general.  But I was quite insistent on dying eggs.

The fiance made ones with Weezer logos.  He does that to anything he can.  I’ve learned to accept it, because it’s basically never going to change.

I did learn something no one had taught me in my childhood

Drinking totally helps.

My mom sent us little beach buckets filled with stuff (because she knew I was already doing some real baskets)

We got toys from her

(I also learned that things like making me an Easter basket do not occur to the fiance at all.  This year, he bought me clothes.  And said I can put them in my basket if I want.  I like Ann Taylor and all, but it’s no Cadbury mini eggs)

When we went to Easter morning mass I learned that saying things like “I’m going to dress up for church today” (we’re generally jeans to church type of people) does not translate to my fiance as “YOU should dress up too”, and he stared at me when we got to church and asked “why didn’t you tell me not to wear jeans?”

Lesson learned.  Hinting never works.

I made Easter dinner.

It was lamb meatballs, couscous, and asparagus.  One thing I learned in childhood-when asparagus is in season, eat it like there’s no tomorrow.

(also, if you look closely, there’s totally a Christmas stocking up.  Awesome)

I tried to give the fiance some taziki on it.  But he saw me grating cucumber.  That was a a no… I’m still learning how to make him eat.

What’s the first holiday you did not at home?