Monthly Archives: December 2010

Dec312010

Happy New Years Eve!

We are continuing our tradition of hanging out, just the 2 of us, and having a very low key evening. Tonight it’s pork chops, black eyed peas and The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2. I didn’t realize that Steve wasn’t a fan of Countdown shows, but I DID know he likes the Traveling Pants girls. This is part of why I love this man.

Hope everyone has a wonderful and safe New Years Eve and a minimal hangover tomorrow morning!

My 2011 welcome post will come either later or tomorrow.

Cheers, y’all!

Personal photo... ushering in 2010

Dec292010

Farewell to you, 2010..

Dear 2010,

You were an amazing year for me.

We kicked off our time together by saying goodbye to my sporty fun Mazda3 with the tiny back seat and bought a new car… a responsible “mom” car for our future babies and all their sporting equipment and toys. I also quit a job that I was crazy about and so many amazing co-workers that I still miss – thank goodness for Facebook! – with the promise of a brighter future in South Florida.

I graduated from East Carolina University with my MBA degree and discovered that I really do love networking and database coding/ design. It’s always been a bit of a passion of mine to do graphics and web design, but I had no idea that I liked databases as well. We didn’t do anything with either the degree or the newfound passion, but maybe in 2011.

I moved from gorgeous hilly, cool-weathered Chapel Hill, NC back to hot, sticky Miami – the place I swore I’d never live again – but with a then-fiance in tow. We helped my folks with their mortgage and saved up some cash. Because of this move, I expanded my online circle and met some truly amazing people – yay Twitter! – and rekindled old friendships in the area.

I also spent 6 days in Las Vegas with the love of my life, my younger brother and his girlfriend [whom I already consider a sister] for our itty bitty wedding and honeymoon. It was totally fun and low-key and, quite frankly, addicting! We all can’t wait to go back to Vegas. Hopefully we can follow up this trip with an anniversary trip in 2011.

You also brought me some severe financial problems. You see, I’ve been looking for a job for 16 months now. 16 very long months. Sure sure, I started before you were around, but also during your entire existence, so I can still throw it in here. My goals and focus for this elusive job has been ever changing and now I just want something that can pay my bills, but that’s 2011’s problem now!

I did want another tattoo during your lifetime, but that will have to also wait until 2011.

Thanks for the memories. The good most certainly outweigh the bad!
Love,

Dec272010

The Actual Reception Location

Seeing as it’s now less than 3 weeks from our wedding reception, my folks called us outside Saturday afternoon to start discussing the logistics and layout of the tents, tables, food, drinks, etc. I’d posted pictures on here not long ago of the yard where the party was going to be held… well that’s totally changed! Rather than party in the big open yard with bad lighting and trenches where dad pulled all the trees out, we’re having it in the yard between their house and ours.

Dad decided to hang a few more light strands around the yard to increase the lighting. It’s a gorgeous area with tons of plants and natural beauty already in place. AKA zero need for additional décor! The strung lights cast plenty of light, but there will also be several spot lights around the yard. Over by the tents, there will be more lights. Good thing my father is so crafty as there are electrical outlets all over the yard perfect for additional lighting.

He’s also going to buy mulch to even out the ground so no one else trips like I did a few weeks ago. I’ve been checking the weather and it is going to be the perfect Miami “winter” with a high of 73* and a low of 53*. So much for my idea of wearing a cute dress! More like a cute sweater with a pair of jeans and maybe boots.

The plant house in the middle of the area

The large tree surrounded by seating, the appetizer/ drinks tent

The food tent

The whole area taken from the area where the seating tents will be located

We still need to make the favors. I bought 100 sheets of origami paper to make the candy dishes and 7lbs of candy. Also need to…
* organize the guest book canvas boards and markers
* make the flags for the centerpieces
* order the food!
* make sure we can borrow tents and chairs from Cathy’s family or else find a place to rent
* buy the centerpieces (6″ plants) and plant sleeves [or maybe make them]
* find table cloths
* clean our house!
* and probably several other things

Dec272010

Relaxing Weekend & A Big Decision

Hello dear blog friends! I hope y’all had a wonderful family and friend filled holiday weekend. Ours was pretty low-key as we didn’t travel anywhere. Friday night we went to my brother’s girlfriends’ family’s house to celebrate Nochebuena. Never before had I been to a pig roast and it was a lot of fun – as all their parties are – and the food was amazing. Certainly not for the vegetarians out there. We had loads of pork, boiled yucca, black beans, rice, salad, fruit, veggies and tons and tons of desserts. On Saturday, we slept super late, met with my parents about party logistics (post later today), then went to visit my cousins from DC and their ridiculously adorable 16 month old daughter.

We also made the decision to try to conceive (TTC) and, regardless of our child situation, we will begin the adoption process in 2 years. We do still want a lot of kids. The adopting will be a child (or sibling pair) no younger than about 5 or 6 years old. We want time to bond with them, but don’t necessarily want to adopt babies. There’s so many older kids also needing homes and we want to help them.

There was also lots of job searching, a tentative decision to focus on a few select areas of the country to move too, did about 843 loads of laundry, and baked a ton!

I hope your weekend was fantastic as well!

Dec252010

Merry Christmas!

I may be Jewish, but I love Christmas and Christmas carols. For many years, I’ve even had a Christmas tree. I still have it, but it’s packed away somewhere and our house is too small to put it up. Sad face.

For as long as I can remember (aka since 1993-ish), I have celebrated Christmas with my best friend beginning with our road trips to Newton, NC up until last year at her house in Jacksonville. I know we’ve missed a few years here and there, but this year it seems especially noticeable to not be with her and my godsons. It doesn’t help that the last time we saw each other was last Christmas. And I miss her so so much.

This year, Steve and I went to our extended family’s house for Nochebueno (Christmas Eve). I ate my first whole roasted pig – well, not the whole pig obviously! – that was roasting in a fire pit all day. And it was delicious! We were surrounded by family, friends and new friends with lots of fantastic food. And even better desserts including my cinnamon sugar biscotti and double chocolate chip and walnut cookies. (Entry with both those to come.) Huge thanks to the entire Torres clan for having us over!

I hope you all have a wonderful family and friend filled weekend whether you celebrate Christmas or not! I know I certainly will be taking advantage of my amazing husband being off work tomorrow.

Dec212010

Biological Clock Made Worse by 16 & Pregnant

I have a not-so-secret vice. I love 16 & Pregnant and Teen Mom. The girls on Teen Mom are like “friends” of mine to the point that Steve and I talk about them on a somewhat regular basis when something similar happened in our lives. OK, not so regularly, but you know what I mean.

This season I’ve only sorta watched 16 & Pregnant, but when I saw that tonight’s episode was 90 minutes AND about adoption, I knew I had to watch. I have never cried during a show more then during this one. I can’t even imagine how difficult a decision putting your child up for adoption was for a 16 year old, but wow. Ashley handled herself quite well and, in the end, she made the right decision for her baby. The good thing is her family adopted the baby so seeing her was easier than for Caitlyn and Tyler.

It’s no secret that we want to adopt. We’ve been discussing it a lot more recently. I don’t know when it will happen or how many we will have biologically before starting the process. We have also said that it doesn’t matter how many children we end up with and how they arrived (adoption vs biologically), we will love them all individually. I truly don’t understand why someone would fight for a child to adopt and make a member of their family only to push them aside bc they have a child biologically.

I sprained my ankle last Sunday and while I desperately needed to take pain pills and pain relievers, I was really hesitant to do so. The possibility of my being pregnant is pretty slight, but I still don’t want to risk it. Am I insane? Yes. But I also know what medication can do to a fetus so early on. Instead I keep it up as much as I can and keep an ice pack on it. 3 days ago a big bruise surfaced on the outside of my heel. This morning I noticed more bruising at the base of 4 of my toes. Sexy. But yet, I won’t take pain meds of any kind.

Yes, I’m that worried. I’m 34 years old and never had a [real] pregnancy scare. I track everything with an iPhone app and am heavily considering buying a basal body thermometer to really track things. The last few days I’ve had a low-grade fever, but sort of wonder if it was simply ovulation. Who knows. I’m not up on all that stuff yet since we aren’t “trying” to get pregnant right now. We’re not not trying either, but that’s besides the point.

In a perfect world we would have insurance and be able to support a baby and all costs associated with a pregnancy. In reality, breastfeeding and cloth diapers will remove a big chunk of costs for the first few months.

So much to think about and do before we can get pregnant or start the adoption process.

Dec202010

Chocolate Chip-Walnut Cookies

What? How do those relate to babies, weddings or knitting?

Well, the next month 26 days is all about testing desserts for our reception. These are potential winners! My favorite site for recipes is definitely Annie’s Eats as she has stuff from every imaginable category, but is a great writer to boot! So yes, I took her Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe and split the chips to about 3/4 cup and added 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts. OK, more like “chopped then smashed up even smaller by hand” walnuts.

In case there was any doubt how big these suckers were...

Last weekend I broke in our new KitchenAid Stand Mixer by whipping up Annie’s Challah recipe. While delicious, I’m really not sure how she got such a huge loaf. It was delicious and been requested to have a presence at the reception. Guess I’ll be playing with it a lot more in the coming weeks.

Check her site out, and be sure to let me know what kinda stuff you’ve made!

Dec182010

Chocolate Favors!

OK, so favors. They’re not necessary, but I still think they’re adorable. No, i’m not talking about some little trinket our guests will throw in a drawer, stick on a shelf or throw away… I’m talking about food! More specifically, chocolate Kisses!

Yep, I decided on Kisses bc they’re a lot bigger than M&Ms and they come wrapped. I don’t really want to be touching food people are going to be eating.

Here’s my next choice… the packaging. Do I buy the 2x2x2 boxes and decorate them, or make boxes? Tonight at the bookstore, I was flipping through one of Martha Stewart’s big books of crafts and found a super cute origami candy dish.

So of course, I had to rip a piece of paper out of my little notebook and make one…

Background removed in PhotoShop

I was digging around online to find out the size of standard origami paper, which seems to come in a huge variety of sizes, and found the image below. It’s made of felt sewn together in 4 spots and might just be easier to make. If I find a rotary cutter and a thick mat, I can cut big felt pieces down to size.

Another option, made of felt

The thing with the paper dishes, is I’d buy a bunch of 12×12 scrapbook paper and cut them all down to 6×6. I’m fairly sure it could work.

The other option is to buy some 2x2x2 cardboard boxes and twine to tie them shut. The paper and felt boxes have that personal DIY touch, whereas the boxes have none. Hmm… What to do? What to do?

What would you do?

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