Nov292010

Forgiving Student Loans? Sign me up!

So, y’all know I have a crapload of student loan debt, right? Apparently my mother was talking about it at a luncheon she was at yesterday as I received a phone call from her, then she passed the phone over to her cousin, C. C has a graduate degree and probably a fair amount of loan debt. She told me about “some program” where you work for “the government” for about a year or “helping someone run a farm in West Virginia” and they forgive your debt. I was only somewhat intrigued as she wasn’t really clear and, well, I was too busy to Google it at that moment.

But hours later I did and discovered that one of the programs she was talking about was AmeriCorps. They have so many options all across the country of things to do to help people out. The loan forgiveness part is still unclear, but how cool! I figure if I look in area with heavy snowfall, I could find out if I really did want to live in such a climate. Steve is more of a “let’s stay here for another year” then figure things out kinda guy. Maybe it just means traveling to places with snow to satisfy that cold weather itch. I just don’t know.

Yeah, I do realize this blog is all over the place, but thanks for reading!

Nov282010

I Miss Snow and Cold Weather

I have an itch… to get out of Florida and back to the cold weather. Seriously, I hate it here. It has been in the 80s all week. Some may find that dreamy, but I find it to be the worse possible thing ever. It’s the holidays for Pete’s sake! I demand cold/ see your breath weather for months on end! I demand the smell of snow in the air and the anticipation of waking up to a light dusting in the mornings. I even demand icy windshield’s that make me late for work because I forgot to leave early enough to scrape it off.

I want to wear sweaters, thick socks, scarves and cute hats that I’ve knit up. Honestly, even though I made fun of them, I’d even wear Uggs… that is if I won a pair. I want to have my knitting mojo back! Seriously, the desire to knit is so freaking low that I can barely stand it. But that’s not the only reason I want to live in a cold climate again. The only real way my sheep farm will work is in a cold climate. The colder the weather, the more wool will grow and the more yummy yarn I’ll eventually have.

Oh, by the way, I was totally doing my research at Barnes & Noble yesterday and reading Barnyard in your Backyard. It was a good beginner’s guide to raising several breeds of animals, including sheep, geese, and rabbits. The biggest issue is finding a place warm enough for the ducks and geese and cold enough for the sheep to grow excesses of wool. I did learn that it wouldn’t take acres and acres of space for these animals too. They don’t need hundreds of acres, just enough for grazing, shelter and frolicking. We might even be able to do is on 10 acres to begin with. The hardest part is picking the location because then it’s a whole lot more research and finding funding.

Sigh. One day my dream will come true. Sheep2Skein, here I come!

Nov252010

Designing our Holiday Cards

Tonight I decided to spend my down time after Thanksgiving dinner festivities working on our holiday cards, thank you cards, and a few photo books on Shutterfly. I have a few coupon codes, plus all our pictures – professional, mine and Cathy’s – were all uploaded to Shutterfly, so it’s about time to work on them. My biggest problem is picking which pictures to use! There are so many great pictures between the wedding day itself and our Trash the Dress session 2 days later. Jessie and Jason Emeric took some truly phenomenal pictures of us laughing and having a grand time and I have a strong feeling that their pictures will be on both the thank you and holiday cards.

This pictures is another possibility as it’s one of my fave from the wedding day itself. Tough decisions!

I’m still awaiting the disc from Emeric, which hopefully will arrive soon as our free book code expires on November 30th!

When you make holiday cards, do you use their templates and pop pictures in or do you upload a full design? I typically have been uploading my own design whenever I make cards of any type, but the ones in Shutterfly are actually super cute!

Also, for those still awaiting the Trash the Dress pictures, I will post them once they arrive! I don’t want to post the slide show as there’s a few I didn’t like how I looked in them, so y’all will just have to wait a bit longer. =D

Nov252010

Happy Thanksgiving!

I may complain and be overly paranoid about having children “this late in life,” but I know I am truly thankful for what I do have.

I am thankful for, in no particular order:
… my family
… my friends – strictly online or real-life
… my best friend and my 2 amazing godsons
… you, my blog readers
… having a puppy snuggle my belly and a fat cat snuggle my feet every night while I sleep
… the few hours a day that I get to spend with Steve
… our weekends together
… my creativity
… my ability to walk, talk, and breathe freely
… having a roof over my head
… not being subjected to sheer misery on a daily basis at my previous job
… my health
… so much more!

And certainly, I am the most thankful for my fantastic husband. We are celebrating 3 years together this Sunday, the 28th (though there is debate about that) and I couldn’t be more thankful and lucky that he came into my life. This is truly a case of kissing a lot of frogs before finding my perfect match. No, not “prince” because I, quite frankly, never wanted a prince. I wanted an equal in my life, someone that respected me, loved me, cherished me and had fun with me exactly as I am. I received all that and even more the day I agreed to meet Steve after months of emailing and IMing.

The date of our anniversary is under debate as our first date had some pretty major hiccups. My friends Nichole and Miles started texting and calling frantically before I was done with my first course. It turns out their apartment complex was on fire so our date was cut majorly short. We had our second date 3 days later and that is when Steve thought the official date was. To me it will always be November 28th. <3

OK, so this turned into an anniversary-type post as well. I’m still a newlywed!

Nov242010

Making Apple Butter, Attempt #1

So tonight I decided to make apple butter. My contribution to our huge joint family Thanksgiving is the biscuits I made last week (smaller and lots more) and figured I’d give apple butter a try to serve with them.

I’d found a recipe last week that looked pretty simple. Last night I bought all the ingredients that we didn’t have and after hubby left for work tonight, I started chopping up the apples.

Ingredients
4 pounds of Granny Smith (or other sweet/tart) apples peeled and cored
1/3 cup fresh pressed apple juice (not from concentrate)
2/3 cup maple syrup (or use dark brown sugar)
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Ground cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and/or cloves to taste

I tossed everything into a big pot like the recipe said. First the apples, then the juices, then the sugar and spices go in last. I covered the pot and kicked the stove to medium high (6-7 on my stove) and let it boil.

Oh, my modifications are:

4lb mini Granny Smith apples (I didn’t take the coring into account so it ended up being less)
Martinelli apple juice instead of fresh pressed
I only used Ginger and Cinnamon as I didn’t have other spices

After boiling, I stirred everything to ensure the mixture coated all the apples, then turned the stove down to 2-3 and simmered for 30 minutes.

After making sure they were soft enough (OK, so I used a potato masher to test this), I scooped about a cup at a time into my mini food processor to puree the heck outta the apples. There’s still some chunks. I fail at this sometimes. Also, had I used the immersion blender from my wedding registry, it probably would’ve turned out a lot smoother.

It was still pretty wet, like apple sauce, so I dumped everything back into the pot and simmered it for 15 minutes at a time to “dry it out” as suggested by my twitter friend Susan. It took well over 2 hours to get the right consistency, and burned the whole entire bottom of the pot. Le sigh. Maybe I’m not meant to make apple butter.

I’m going to test it again in the morning. Right now it’s cooling and then going into the fridge. Fingers crossed!

Nov232010

Why do the holidays arrive earlier every year?

Is it just me or do the winter holidays arrive earlier every year? I may not celebrate Christmas, but I do put up a tree. (don’t judge) I thought the “acceptable” time frame to put up the tree was the weekend after thanksgiving.. You know, after spending the day shopping during Black Friday.

This afternoon, November 23, I witnessed the building of what I thought was a cool little tiki in the middle of Coral Gables. After posting the picture to twitter and Facebook, I was told that it’s for the nativity scene that particular restaurant/ hotel puts up every year. Really? It’s still November.

Granted, the holiday of my upbringing, Chanukkah begins on December 1st, but it’s not a commercialized holiday. Our little menorah sits in the window and you get 8 days of gifts. In my family they were always useful things like socks, clothes other stuff like that. Every so often we got fun stuff, but it was definitely a practical holiday for my family.

Having married a Protestant, our kids will be celebrating both Christmas and Chanukkah and can decide on their religious paths when they’re old enough.

Did you marry someone with a different religious background? How do you handle the holidays between visiting families and with kids, if you have any?

Nov212010

Productive Day & Opening a Business?

Today was very productive in my world.

* I created a logo for my friend Kelly’s church group’s event. It’s super cute and pending the next set of edits.

* I did loads of research for sheep farms. Yep, totally random! Hubby and I started talking about where we want to be in 5 years and what we wanted to have accomplished. Having a sheep farm would be pretty damn amazing for so many reasons, and also because…

* I registered the domain name for my YARN SHOP! While I may not be a really experienced knitter having only been crafting goodies since late 2006, it is still a passion of mine. Nothing would make me happier than having my own yarn shop.

One day, eventually, the Fletcher’s will be the proud owners of Sheep 2 Skein Yarn Shop in a state yet to be determined, but definitely somewhere up north.

Sure, owning our own business will certainly take a lot of capital, which is also why the sheep farm would be helpful. Shearing sheep for wool apparently makes a decent amount of money. Sure sure, a sheep farm costs a crapload of money too. We have quite a few things to sort out.

Also, owning a business will make my life super flexible for having kids once we find a really reliable manager and staff.

In a perfect world, right? Well, at least I bought the domain. LOL

Nov212010

Getting Pregnant Over 35 vs Adoption

I know, I’m not the best when it comes to picking topics.

For the record, I am actually still 34. I turned 34 2 months ago, but since I’m close enough, and likely wouldn’t be getting pregnant for a few months at minimum, this research totally counts for my situation.

I’ve been doing all sorts of research on pregnancy, taking charge of my fertility (thanks for that book reco, ladies!), and getting pregnant after 35. I’ve become startlingly aware of the odds of getting pregnant within 6 months of actively trying. For over 35s, it’s something like 10-12% which is crazy low, not to mention disheartening. Women in their 20s have upwards of 50% within 1-2 months. Really, body. Why must you suck so much? Oh, and that 10-12% is reduced by being “overweight;” it’s in quotes because it refers to any poundage that makes you overweight.

And me? I’m definitely in the overweight category. I don’t believe in the BMI charts in any way, shape, or form, but rather what my mirror says. To me, they’re a complete farce. My last doctor said they’re complete BS and to ignore them whole heartedly. I’ve stopped weighing myself as numbers don’t mean anything; only my being healthy does. However, getting pregnant is easier if you’re not overweight. Disheartening again.

I wouldn’t change waiting until my 30s to get married for anything. I definitely needed the extra time to grow up, gain perspective, and know myself better. Not very many people know that I was engaged previously; at 21. I guarantee that I would have been divorced very soon afterwards. It was a horrible, rotten relationship and he treated me like absolute dirt. But I was young and stupid… and he was my first real relationship so what did I know. But I digress. My life is infinitely better for staying unmarried until my mid-30s.

Also, the older you are, the higher the likelihood is for birth defects, both physical and mental. I think. I’m going off memory here, so I might be wrong. But basically, we’re trying to decide if we’re going to take a chance or just start the adoption process. We both want children and always considered adoption if after X years we hadn’t conceived. It seems as though those X years will be way less than before. We hadn’t picked out a number yet, so it remains “X years.”

But it also means that getting pregnant will be more difficult. Sure, I always wanted to get pregnant and birth a baby, but am I being selfish with that wish? If there are so many kids in need of loving homes, shouldn’t we just go that route off the bat? My friend Sarah and her husband always planned on adopting and I think it’s totally brilliant. I’ve participated in several adoption discussions on Twitter and it’s pretty eye-opening.

Sigh. Getting older sucks. And I’m depressing myself with all this research, even if I do love the topic!

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