for the love: March 2010

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

The Help

I started reading Kathryn Stockett's The Help last night. Though it was nearly midnight when I picked up the book, I literally could not stop myself from turning the next page. I read until my eyes would no longer stay open. And then, when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, I read more.

By the light of my book lamp and with my head ducked under the covers so as not to disturb my husband, I read. And I was transported. I left my bedroom, my thoughts of work and my life behind and stepped into the 1960s deep South. And from the moment I put the book down, I've been dying to get back.

There's a very good chance ya'll might not hear from me again until I finish this book. If you're looking for something to keep you entertained while I'm gone, I've got just the book for you... :)

*When labeling this post, I realized this is first time I've used the label "books." Yet there are 13 posts labeled "tv talk." 122 posts and I've yet to write about a book? Holy crap, this blog is even more superficial than I thought. I'm sad for me.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Welcome to the Jungle!

I hosted a baby shower for my sweet friend Michelle nearly three weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to sharing pictures of it with you. I hope the baby's arrival is a bit more timely than this post!

Michelle and I have been friends since we met in college ten years ago. {eek - we're getting old!} We've been sorority sisters and roomates and have taken countless roadtrips & vacations together. She's one of my closest friends and I was so excited to plan her baby shower. This will be Michelle and her husband Frank's first child - a boy they're naming Tyler. We're all so excited to meet the little guy!

I chose a jungle theme for Baby Tyler's big bash and I think it turned out really cute.

Because I am totally insane, I decided to make all the food for the party myself rather than get it catered. For 40 people. I was probably the only one who didn't realize the inherent lunacy in this plan. I started cooking when I got home from work on Friday and quickly realized I had hours of cooking to do. So, I called in reinforcements. {I'm pretty sure my sister anticipated my panic and was waiting by the phone for my inevitable call for help.} Luckily, my sister and friend Katie agreed to come over and help me cook & put together the favors.

We took a break from bagging favors to make a little midnight snack...

Yep, smores. On my gas stove.

I think the jolt of sugar helped keep me awake until I finished cooking at 3am. Some of the smores did actually make it into the favor bags.

{forgive the tacky handwritten tags. My etsy seller flaked out on me and never got me the tags I ordered.}

But back to the shower.

The little animals are made from sugar. How cute are they? I found them online and had to have them.

We played a few games...

but most of the time was spent opening up all this loot!

Who knew tiny babies need so much stuff?!?

As far as parties without booze go, I'd say this was a good one!

*Thanks to my talented friend Jenny for sending me some great pictures. Check out her blog at Jenny Ann Photography. (Only some of the pictures in this post were taken by Jenny. The crappy point and shoot pictures are all me.)

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

happy birthday to me

It's my birthday!

The first of many, many 29th birthdays to follow. We'll call this one my 29th Birthday, to be followed next year by my 29th Birthday, The Sequel, my 29th Birthday, Part III...you get the picture. I think it should work out just splendidly. After all, my grandmother still says she's 43. Nevermind that her youngest child is 45. I see nothing wrong there....

I've decided that these sandals have to be mine. So, I'm heading to Bloomingdale's with my Friends & Family 20% off coupon to pick them up. Happy Birthday to me - from me! If you want to get yourself a present too & would like the Bloomie's coupon, shoot me an email and I'll be happy to send it to you.

In honor of my birthday {humble, aren't I?} I thought we'd play a little "On This Day in History." So, I hit the interwebs to do a bit of research. Turned out to be a bit of a buzz kill. Some not so great stuff has gone down on March 24th. A sampling:

In 1989, the Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in Alaska's Prince William Sound and began leaking 11 million gallons of crude oil.
In 1944, in occupied Rome, the Nazis executed more than 300 civilians in reprisal for an attack by Italian partisans the day before that killed 32 German soldiers.
In 1930, the planet Pluto was named. {We all know how well that worked out.}
In 1765, Britain enacted the Quartering Act, requiring American colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers.

However, there were a few bright spots:

In 2002, Halle Berry became the first African-American performer to win a best actress Oscar, for her work in "Monster's Ball."
In 1973, the album "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd was released.
In 1955, Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" opened on Broadway for 694 performances.
In 1898, the first automobile was sold.
In 1883, long-distance telephone service was inaugurated between Chicago and New York City.
In 1837, Canada gave blacks the right to vote.

Also blowing out their birthday candles today are: fashion designers Bob Mackie and Tommy Hilfiger; Harry Houdini {though not so much with the blowing out of candles since he's dead}; TV personality Star Jones; NFL great Peyton Manning {whom I love despite the fact that he went to UT - Go Gators!}; Thomas E. Dewey, unsuccessful presidential candidate of the infamous "Dewey Defeats Truman" headline; Fatty Arbuckle {no idea who he is, but what a name!}; and my personal favorite, whom it is an honor to share a birthday with....

Jim Parsons, aka Sheldon Cooper, one of the most hilarious and talented actors on television. Happy Birthday Jim! I'm honored to share the day with you. Give me a call - we'll share a piece of cake!

Hope you all have a great day! And don't forget to email me if you want the Bloomingdale's 20% off coupon!

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

free pastry day at the 'bucks

Did anyone else make it to Starbucks this morning for Free Pastry Day? Nothing like a Skinny Vanilla Latte and a most definitely not skinny piece of banana loaf to start the day off right.

Now if only they could have Calorie Free Pastry Day...

Monday, March 22, 2010

today was NOT a good day

In fact, it sucked. With a capital "S". {Sorry Mom, I know you hate that word. But it did.}

Let's go on vacation, shall we?

Ahhh, that's better.

I think recapping our 1st Anniversary trip is just the ticket to get me out of this Monday-funk.

The Mister and I decided to give each other the traditional first year anniversary gift of paper - plane tickets! We wanted to go somewhere relaxing, rather than a trip full of activities and sightseeing. {We did NYC over Thanksgiving. Fun but exhausting.} I love nothing more than lounging by a pool or on a beach with a good book & stack of food and fashion magazines, but The Mister can get bored with that pretty quickly. So we needed somewhere with activities other than sitting pool side. We could only get a few days off work, so we also needed something relatively close so we didn't waste half the trip traveling. The Atlantis resort in Paradise Island, Bahamas was the perfect solution for us. They have plenty of pools & beaches, but also water slides & a lazy river to keep The Mister entertained. They also have great restaurants and a casino for night-time entertainment.

We decided to invite my family along for the trip because we thought it would be fun to have a big group. And no one is more fun {or nutty} than my family! Unfortunately, my brother and sister-in-law in Boston couldn't make the trip, but my parents and sister were able to join us.

The first day of our trip was our actual one year anniversary. We decided to celebrate with an anniversary dinner at Bobby's Flay's Mesa Grill.

If you're looking for my family, check the bar!

The food was amazing. Everything they put on our table was delicious. I had a chicken quesadilla that will forever be the chicken quesadilla all other quesadillas fail to live up to. The cilantro jalepeno mashed potatoes were heavenly. {I figure it will get pretty expensive flying back and forth to the Carribean to get these, so I'm going to attempt to recreate these at home.} Pork tenderloin you could cut without a knife. And perfect margaritas to boot. It was so good that The Mister and I sweet talked our way back in on our last night without a reservation.

Day two was spent lounging pool side and floating up and down the lazy river. Dinner was at a cute seafood restaurant. We turned in early after a long day in the sun.

We woke up on day three and absolutely stuffed ourselves at the breakfast buffet. I'm pretty sure I gained 3 pounds in pancakes alone. Against my better judgment, I put my gluttonous rear in a bathing suit and went back to the pool. We spent most of the day riding the slides and tubing down the lazy river. It was perfection.

Dinner was at Carmine's - an Italian restaurant with a location in Times Square, known for their GIANT family style portions. I'd eaten at the NY location years before and it was just as good as I remember. They certainly lived up to their reputation for large portions!

This is what was left AFTER we all finished eating.

How cute are my parents?

After dinner we hit up the casino for some gambling & cocktails. I'm not a big gambler, but I played a bit and it was fun to watch. And my sister cleaned up playing roulette.

The Atlantis has some amazing aquariums. You can walk underground and look at the sharks, rays and fish. It's really neat. And not a bad idea for the morning when you're a wee bit hungover and not quite ready to face the sun. Or so I've heard...

We named this guy "Jim Halpert". He was a Big Tuna.

The rest of the trip was spent swimming, sleeping, reading and eating. It was the perfect first anniversary. I'm already looking forward to our next vacation...

Saturday, March 20, 2010

today was a good day.

It was 78 degrees and sunny here today. Blue skies and birds chirping. An absolutely gorgeous day.

Naturally, I spent the majority of the day on the couch napping & watching tv.

I know, I know. But after being out of town for five days, our dvr was full. And the couch was so comfortable.

I did leave the house to pick up Chick-fil-A for lunch. That counts for enjoying the great outdoors doesn't it? No?

Once the tivo was empty, I did go out onto the porch to flip through magazines. At about six, I went to Super Target to look for curtain rods and print some pictures. Of course, I left there with a full cart and no curtain rods. Isn't that always the case at Target? Maybe if I could avoid the clothing & book sections I could get out of there for under $100. But what would be the fun in that?

I found some really cute dresses. For a steal. Gotta love Tar-jay!

These pictures aren't great. The dresses are a lot more flattering in person. I'll try to remember to take a picture when I wear the dresses. I think the first two will be great for work with a cardigan. And the sundress will be great for something comfy to bum around when the miserable summer heat returns.

Also in my cart: Tater Tots, a box of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and the ingredients to make chicken enchiladas again. Note to self: Don't shop hungry. It was a damn miracle the package of spring Oreos didn't make it into my cart.

The Mister and I stayed in tonight and watched a movie because we're clearly ~~lazy and perhaps a bit hungover from last night~~ awesome, fun people. We watched Four Christmases. We added it to our Netflix queue in November and just now received it. They weren't kidding when they said it would be a "very long wait."

Okay, I've gotta jet. Time to wrestle The Mister for the remote control. He's been watching a show about global warming on the History channel for the past 20 minutes. Not gonna fly. With 600 channels, there has to be a Golden Girls repeat on one of them...

Thursday, March 18, 2010

"You guys give up or are you thirsty for more?"

I'm back, baby! And I've got so much to share with you.

The 1st Anniversary vacation was heavenly. So relaxing. So much delicious food. So many strawberry margaritas. We'll get to that.

Then there's the baby shower I hosted for a friend of mine nearly two weeks ago. Pictures are coming! {So's Christmas. I know.}

I made the most delicious chicken enchiladas last week. Seriously, I'm dreaming of enchiladas. I'm composing love notes to Jessica at The Novice Chef for bringing them into my life. I almost divorced The Mister when I found out he ate the last of the leftovers for lunch and didn't save me any. I figured it would be okay because then I could just marry Jessica and she could make me chicken enchiladas all the time. But then I remembered she was already married. And thus probably not into chicks. So I decided to forgive The Mister. But I'm still dreaming of chicken enchiladas.

I finally got the new lighting fixtures installed in the house. That is what we call progress friends!!! {three exclamation points totally warranted here.} I'm a decorating commitment-phobe on the road to recovery. Mom, I'll post pictures soon.

I read The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd. {Author of The Secret Life of Bees} And really enjoyed it. And then found out they made a movie based on the book. Cool. Starring Kim Basinger. Not cool.

And then there was cake.

The top tier of our wedding cake to be exact. It spent 365 days camped out in our freezer and on Saturday, we finally ate it! It didn't taste half bad either.

It was stored in a tupperware container {Which took up an entire shelf in the freezer - I'm loving the newfound freezer space!} Inside the tupperware, the cake was wrapped in two layers of aluminum foil.

And then two layers of plastic wrap.

Here's the before:

And after:

Once you scraped off the revolting fondant that was not supposed to be within 10 feet of our wedding cake, it was pretty tasty. A bit dry, but otherwise not bad. Still, I think I'll be happier next year when we can just order a fresh cake from a local bakery. {And certainly not from the prima donna who decided my cake would "look better" in fondant, despite the fact that HE wrote on the top of the order form in giant capital letters "NO FONDANT". This is what he told my mom when she called to politely complain about the mistake. The words sorry were not used. Oh well. I didn't even notice there was fondant on the cake until I ate a piece at brunch the next day. ha!}

I'm hoping to survive Friday at the office tomorrow and then meeting the girls for some {12} drinks tomorrow night. I'll be back Saturday with...well, an actual post.