Three Hours

During my final year of college, my parents, my sister and I took a family trip to Arizona over spring break.  It was the first time I had done anything over spring break since I had been in school, so despite the fact that it was a family trip to a place I really didn't care to go I was excited.  There were good parts of that trip.  The grand canyon was good.  The park ranger-guided moonlight walk around the rim was one of my favorite parts of the trip.  But then there was Phoenix.  I hated it the moment we landed and got off the plane.  It was blistering hot, as if I could feel my fair skin actually frying.  And it was just the beginning of March.  Everything was brown and orangish-red with barely any green insight, besides the spiny cacti.  The city itself was sprawled out and sad-looking to me.  We went to fancy hotels that my sister had managed to reserve since she's a travel agent.  But that didn't make me like it there.  It was still so hot and devoid of all the things that I love about Ohio in March.  Back in Cincinnati things were about to bloom, daffodils and hyacinths would be popping up through the ground soon.  Birds would begin singing their happy songs and making their nests.  But there, in Phoenix, it was hot and everything around me felt dead.  It felt as if the sun had set everything on fire and burned it to the ground with it's insufferable rays.  I disliked everything I encountered in and around that arid, dusty city.

Fast-forward to 7 years later.  After 10 months of working in the wonderful and fairly close city of Chicago, Antoine finds out his next consulting gig is in Phoenix.  Antoine was over-joyed to find another consulting job and by the opportunity to rack up more frequent flier miles.  I was wary, with good reason.  I knew my Texas born fella could handle his heat, but I also knew that Phoenix and I didn't see eye to eye.  Then I find out that Phoenix doesn't participate in day-light savings time, so in March when we lost an hour here in Cincinnati, Phoenix sat on its lazy ass and did nothing.  So instead of being a two hour time difference between Cincinnati and Phoenix, it was now three.  And what a difference three hours makes.

When Antoine is going into work, I'm going to lunch.  When I'm getting home and eating dinner, he's working.  When he's leaving the office, the office that has no cell phone reception, I'm starting to get sleepy.  When he's getting back to his hotel with his dinner, I've either fallen asleep on the couch or am about to pass out in bed.  Our schedules are off.  And techology seems to be against us.  Half the time he doesn't receive my texts.  And when we face-time, when he finds time to face-time, the signal is all scramble.  When he manages to call me on his way to or from work, the connection is lousy.  Let me repeat, I do not like you Phoenix!

So, for right now, I'm frustrated.  I know there are reasons to be thankful for this project.  I am thankful that Antoine has a job that he enjoys and I am thankful for all those perks of consulting, the frequent flier miles and hotel points will make planning our honeymoon so much easier.  But right now, I don't care about those perks.  Instead I am anxiously waiting for August to roll around and for this project to be finished.  Then, hopefully, he can find something on the east coast, a little closer to home.  Hopefully.

Weekend in Instagram

 This weekend was a mix of rain and beautiful sunshine.  It rained most of Friday, so Antoine and I decided to order a pizza from Dewey's, one of my favorite pizza places (lately we've been getting the Ryan's Inferno, which is never spicy [yay!] but always hits the spot everytime) for dinner.  After the delicious pizza we got into our pajamas and prepared ourselves for the last five episodes of the Walking Dead (which we had been saving up).  God, I love that show!  It's so flippin' good.

 While we were watching the Walking Dead I painted my nails with some crackle polish I had recently found on clearance at Sally's. It was my first attempt at crackle polish and I gotta say, I'm a fan.

 Saturday morning I woke up to find that my new pair of glasses had arrived.  I got them from coastal.com.  They have this promotion where your first pair of glasses are free (as long as your Rx isn't too crazy), so all you have to pay is $10 for shipping!

According to my weather app on my phone it said Saturday was supposed to be dreary...but it was gorgeous.  The purple tulips in our window flowerbox were loving the sunshine.

Since the weather was so lovely we decided to add a trip to Home Depot to our list of errands.  I picked up some herbs to plant (rosemary, basil and cilantro for now) and some new seeds to sew (including pickling cucumbers, broccoli rabe, brussel sprouts, and romaine).

 While we were at Home Depot, Antoine and I were gawking at these gorgeous forsythias.  We ended up leaving, going to the grocery store and then going back to pick up two of them.  Since we bought the house about two and a half years ago we've had these evergreen shrubs on either side of our porch.  When we bought the house they were fine, but over time they've slowly begun to die.  So we've had our eye out for something to replace them...and the forsythia seemed like a great choice.

 They're hardy and vibrant, yet have a delicate look to them up close.  And they really pop next to our blue house.  I'm in love.

 Here's the sad, dying shrubs that Antoine ripped out of the ground.

On Sunday we took it easy and didn't do much of anything, mainly because I wasn't feeling too hot.  But I did whip up a delicious smoothie for breakfast.  I got the idea for The Novice Chef's recent post on green(ish) smoothies.  I took her recipe and tweaked it a little, since I have a bag full of frozen blueberries in the freezer and I'm not a pineapple fan.  I went for non-fat greek yogurt, frozen blueberries, fresh strawberries, a fresh banana, and a couple handfuls of spinach.  I ended up having to add a little OJ to mine, since my blender sucks.  I gotta say, I was a bit skeptical about not being able to taste the spinach, but I figured Jessica wouldn't lie to me.  And she didn't.  With all that other tasty, fruitiness in there you really can't taste the spinach.  I even gave it to Antoine to try (and he had no idea what I had put into it since he was in the livingroom the whole time) and after he took a sip I told him there was spinach in it and he thought I was kidding.  And seriously, they're super addictive.  I actually had two of them yesterday and I'm craving another one already!

Sunlight

Because it's Friday and I really can't think right now, I thought why not subject these fine folks to more pictures of the Cheese-man.  I took these one afternoon when Cheese was hanging out under the dining room table, in the sunlight.  Consider it round two of experimenting in manual with Cheesy as my muse...

Happy Friday all!  I hope you have some wonderful weekend plans in store.  Antoine and I have plans to go to brunch downtown with my sis and brother-in-law.  We're going to Mayberry, one of my favorite area brunch spots.  But this will be my first time there since they switched to their new location, so I'm very excited!

It's Like Junior High Again!

For about a month and a half now, I've been painting my nails at least 2 or 3 times a week, experimenting with different color combos and techniques.  It all makes me feel like I'm in Junior High again.  When I was in Junior High I would lock myself in my bedroom for hours (without the windows open, to my parents' constant dismay) and paint my nails, blue with big yellow stars, cute little hearts and glitter, and ladybugs with little googly-eyes.  It was one of my "things".  Once I got to High School I kind of grew out of it.  I continued to paint my toenails, but I left my fingernails alone...until now.  I've noticed a big resurgence in fun fingernail painting, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon and experiment a little.  Hell, I still had a huge case full of nail polish to have fun with, some actually from my Junior High days (which I then proceeded to throw out).

I'm not what you call a girly-girl.  I don't wear a lot of jewelry (most of the time none, except for my engagement ring), so painting my nails in a cute and often sparkly way to be a little girly without feeling uncomfortable.  Also, since I've been painting them regularly I've noticed that they're really growing.  This is partly because the nail polish makes them really quite hard so they don't break as easily, but also because I really don't bite them when they're painted.  If you look at the first couple of shots you can kind of see how much they've grown compared to the last couple.  Also, it gives me something to do with my hands while I'm watching tv.

Rainbow Cupcakes

One of my favorite blogs that I follow is The Dainty Squid.  Kaylah is a cat lovin', tattooed, creative lady living in Northern Ohio.  She sports the most awesomest hair ever and wears amazing vintage outfits that I couldn't begin to pull off.  And since I've been reading her blog I've wanted to try out her Colorful Cupcakes tutorial.  So, I added it to my 27 things before 28 list (#8).  And then the day after my birthday I made them!

 I followed Kaylah's tutorial exactly, using white cake mix and buying the Wilton food coloring gels she suggested (love them! A sample pack of 12 colors was only $10 on Amazon).  I ended up doing 5 different colors: pink, yellow, green, blue and purple.  When it came to filling the cupcake liners, with about half of them I just randomly threw in different color (see above).

 With the other half I carefully layered the colors in a rainbow pattern.  This took more time and patience.  But it was totally worth it!  I ended up getting two different flavors of frosting: chocolate and lemon.  Antoine's not crazy about chocolate frosting, but I am!

Needless to say, I spent the majority of that weekend eating cupcakes!  But I was okay with that, since it was my birthday weekend and all.

You know, as far as taste goes, these cupcakes are pretty standard.  I mean, it is just box mix.  But now I know that there's something to the phrase "you eat with your eyes first".  These cupcakes were just so much fun and so colorful that I felt they tasted better than they actually were.  I'd highly recommend this tutorial to anyone, especially for a kids birthday or something.  The response I got when I posted some of these photos on Facebook was pretty intense.  Everyone was in awe...if they only knew just how easy they are to make.  And how much fun they were to eat!

1.)  Read Jane Eyre
2.)  Go to Midpoint Music Festival
3.)  Romantic cabin weekend with Antoine
4.)  Start jogging
5.)  Make at least 4 LP books for Etsy
6.)  Finally watch Casa Blanca and Citizen Kane
7.)  Go camping with Amanda and Aaron
8.)  Make rainbow cupcakes
9.)  Go canoeing
10.)  Visit Cuyahoga Valley National Park
11.)  Learn to shoot photos manually
12.)  Embroider/needlepoint something
13.)  Gather, scan, and print family photos
14.)  Make a miniature book
15.)  Make blueberry jam from scratch
16.)  Have another drunken, long-distance tweeting party
17.)  Make most of the Xmas gifts I give this year
18.)  Get a pedicure this summer
19.)  Try 5 new (or new to me) Cincinnati restaurants: one down, four to go
20.)  Have an unplugged day with Antoine
21.)  Learn to French braid
22.)  Buy yarn from a fancy yarn store
23.)  Blow dry my hair less (doing good so far!)
24.)  Go to the "World's Longest Yard Sale"
25.)  Learn to make latte art
26.)  Plant a better garden
27.)  Hang more of our Rob Jones prints/posters

Experimenting in Manual

Remember my 27 things before 28 list?  Well, you may recall (but probably not) #11 on that list, learn to shoot manually.  Just to clarify, that's shoot completely in manual with my camera, not a gun.  Anyway, turns out it's not as hard as I thought it was going to be.  I mean, I've got a long way to go, but with a little reading and some experimentation, I was actually able to produce some half-way decent shots.  And here's proof, my first batch of semi-successful manual experimentation shots: 

Naturally Cheesy was my first test subject.  I mean, he's so cute.  I love taking pictures of the guy!

1.)  Read Jane Eyre
2.)  Go to Midpoint Music Festival
3.)  Romantic cabin weekend with Antoine
4.)  Start jogging
5.)  Make at least 4 LP books for Etsy
6.)  Finally watch Casa Blanca and Citizen Kane
7.)  Go camping with Amanda and Aaron
 8.)  Make rainbow cupcakes
9.)  Go canoeing
10.)  Visit Cuyahoga Valley National Park
11.)  Learn to shoot photos manually
12.)  Embroider/needlepoint something
13.)  Gather, scan, and print family photos
14.)  Make a miniature book
15.)  Make blueberry jam from scratch
16.)  Have another drunken, long-distance tweeting party
17.)  Make most of the Xmas gifts I give this year
18.)  Get a pedicure this summer
19.)  Try 5 new (or new to me) Cincinnati restaurants: one down, four to go
20.)  Have an unplugged day with Antoine
21.)  Learn to French braid
22.)  Buy yarn from a fancy yarn store
23.)  Blow dry my hair less (doing good so far!)
24.)  Go to the "World's Longest Yard Sale"
25.)  Learn to make latte art
26.)  Plant a better garden
27.)  Hang more of our Rob Jones prints/posters

Painting Pottery

Another fun birthday festivity that took place, and I forgot to tell you about, was pottery painting.  Funke Fired Arts was running a Valentine's promotion at the time, where if you painted two of the same pieces the second one was half off.  Pretty sweet deal.  Plus it gave us an opportunity to check out their relatively new pottery painting section of their studio, called the Atrium.  When you walk in, it looks like most pottery painting places, an assortment of fired pottery to paint and a variety of glazes.  However, they also have a huge water feature sitting in the back of the room (?), idea books filled with instructions on how to create different effects, many of there pottery pieces are very quirky and fun (even A and I had a hard time choosing what we wanted to paint because there were so many we liked) and wide variety of stencils, sponges, fabrics, etc. to create textures and designs on your piece.  They gave us a brief run through and then let us go for it.  Basically, you pick what you want to paint, fill out a form describing that and providing all your info so they can call you when it's ready to be picked up and then you're off.  There's no time limited and no charge for firing.  So, if you want to spend all day working on a light switch cover...you can, and you just have to pay the price listed on the back of that piece. 

Antoine and I decided to take advantage of the promotion and each painted an oversized mug.  Perfect for cereal or soup...or a gigantic cup of coffee!

They had decorated the studio with paper hearts for Valentine's day.  It was really quite adorable.

Antoine decided to try something different with his piece and use some fishnet type fabric to create texture.  We both really liked how it turned out.

 Antoine and I both had a great time, and we're already talking about going back soon.  Another nice thing about the Atrium is they let you bring in snacks and drinks, so it'd make a great date night or girls night.  And it's perfect for kids.  Since we went in the beginning of February and it is in an atrium, it was a bit nippy in there, so I suggest wearing layers!  They fire the pottery depending on how many pieces they have, and we were luckily that they were firing a batch that day (Saturday), so on Monday I got the call to pick our stuff up.  And since it was around Valentine's day, they wrapped them in red tissue paper and put them in a Funke Fired paper handle bag for us...a nice touch.  Everyone was super friendly, and I couldn't recommend it more!

Senate

My birthday (you know, that thing that happened a month ago but I was too sick to post about it until now) fell on a Thursday this year, which meant no celebrating day of with Antoine since he was still in Phoenix.  Bummer.  But no worries, this lady didn't spend her birthday sitting at home in her pjs!  Nope, my sis and brother-in-law came to the rescue and took me out to dinner.  We decided to go to one of the new-ish places downtown that was on my list to try (you may remember #9 from my list of 27 things before 28).  I decided to go with the Senate, known for their gourmet hot dogs and duck fat fries.

Now, the Senate is one of the several trendy restaurants that have popped up on Vine St (in OTR) over the last couple years.  I've always heard really good things about it and the other surrounding restaurants (A Tavola, Taste of Belgium, etc.), but I've always worried about going.  Trendy restaurants like that have a habit of being a little intimidating to types like me, making me feel out of place, like I'm not cool enough to be there. Like I'm back in school and I'm trying to sit at the "cool table" while wearing my marching band uniform (I wasn't actually in band, just choir).  But you know, I had absolutely no reason to stress!  The second we walked in, the very friendly manager/host welcomed us and was very accommodating even though there were no tables available.  We opted to sit at the bar, and the bartenders couldn't have been nicer.  And the food, well, let's get to that...

Christian opted for some duck fat fries to start.  They were quite tasty, but not as tasty as the poutine...

The poutine.  Umm, yeah, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.  It was so very delicious!  I think I made an "mmm" sound every time I took a bite!

We all decided to go for a hot dog.

Michelle went for the Trailer Park, a hot dog wrapped in bacon, topped with american cheese, coleslaw and crushed Grippo' s BBQ chips.

I think Christian had the hot dog of the day, but unfortunately I can't remember what it was.

I got the Lindsay Lohan, yeah, that's what it's called.  An all beef hot dog with goat cheese, caramelized onions and mixed greens tossed in balsamic.  I can't say YUM loud enough.  It was insanely good and insanely messy.  When I go back I'm going to have a hard time getting something besides the poutine and the Lindsay Lohan.

Even though Michelle and I were incredibly full, we thought we really should get a dessert...since it was my birthday and all!   We chose the chocolate and bourbon bread pudding, on the recommendation of one of the bartenders.  It was super rich, almost too rich.  But it was warm and drizzled with caramel sauce, so I was a happy lady in the end.

A special thanks to my awesome sister and brother-in-law for a great birthday dinner.  They're the best!

Wedding Talk

It's been almost two and a half months since Antoine and I got engaged and there hasn't been nearly enough wedding talk on here.  Don't get me wrong, I have no intention of subjecting you delightful folks to inspiration boards and various other forms of wedding porn.  Because, that's just not my thing.  Weirdly enough, I went through a spurt way before we got engaged when that shit was my drug of choice.  But then, all of sudden I cooled the f#@k down and now I really could care less about that stuff.  Since I've been engaged I haven't bought a single wedding magazine, mainly because I'm not a magazine person.  But also because...meh.  And I really have no intention of ever buying one.  And as far as blogs go, I only read one wedding related blog and that's A Practical Wedding.  The most grounded and significant wedding/marriage blog EVER!  Or at least in my opinion. It talks about the important stuff, the stuff that goes beyond wedding favors and matching bridemaid's dresses.  You know, things like emotional connections, commitment, and not losing your sense of sense.  It's the shit, you should check it out.

When A and I got engaged we always thought we'd like a long engagement, for several reasons.  A long engagement gives you time to save up money and, for me in particular, save up vacation time for the honeymoon!  It gives you time to plan and decide on things without being in such a hurry.  My sister and brother-in-law had a long engagement, about as long as ours.  Michelle always told me she liked the extra time to plan, that she felt like she didn't have to rush.  I thought, "Sweet! That makes perfect sense!"  Only thing I forgot, my sister and I are totally different.  She's known to be indecisive.  Actually, her inability to make decisions is quite legendary.  Me, on the other hand, I like to make decisions at the drop of a hat.  I tend to go with my gut, and I tend not to second guess those gut reactions.  That's something Antoine and I have done throughout our relationship, even with the big decisions, and they've all worked out.  So, what's my point.  We're only 2 1/2 months into our 1 1/2 year long engagement...and we've pretty much got everything figured out.  And no, I'm not exaggerating...

Photographer:  CHECK!  One of my high school friends, who lives and shoots in Cleveland, has a agreed to photograph our wedding and do our engagement shots.  And it won't cost us nearly as much as most wedding photographers our there.  And bonus, I know her, she's super nice and talented, and will make us relative shy people feel super comfortable!

Guest list:  CHECK!  There was a some brief arguing about this, but we came to a good compromise and ended up with a nice, balanced guest list of about 50 people...the smallest we could get without seriously offending my parents and without leaving out some important people to us.  50 guests will keep it fairly intimate and hopefully not make me too uncomfortable...I have socially awkward tendencies when I'm in front of a group of 5 or more.

Ceremony:  All figured out!  We know exactly where we want to get hitched, it's within our budget, and since we've still got over a year to go it shouldn't be difficult to reserve!  More on that later...

Reception:  We've decided to have our reception at Arnold's Bar and Grill downtown.  Lucky for us, our date was free and everything sounds perfect.  As far as wedding receptions go, it's going to be relative inexpensive, cozy and laid back, just how we want it!  Since they've written us in their books and we're planning a meeting in October to discuss specifics, I think that might count as a CHECK!

Music for the ceremony:  CHECK!  My wonderfully talented cousin and her equally talented boyfriend have agreed to perform a couple of our favorite songs, songs that mean something to us as a couple, at the ceremony.  It won't be your traditional wedding processional, but that's what we like about it!  And we like that family is involved.

Invitations:  We found the perfect invites on Etsy, and what do you know, they are just the right price!   Another big decision made!  One that we happened to make one weekend afternoon, just after we got engaged.

Bridesmaids/Groomsmen:  CHECK!  This was obvious to us when we first got engaged.  We knew we didn't want a ton of people in our wedding party, just the select few that are super important to us and have meant something to our relationship.  For me, I knew without thinking, I wanted my best friend in the world, my hlp Amanda, and my dear sis standing up next to me on that important day!  And for Antoine, he knew he want his best bud Cory and his brother.  Easy as pie.

Bridesmaids dresses:  I've been in a wedding before, I've worn the traditional bridesmaid dress from David's Bridal...and then, after the wedding, I've donated it to Good Will because I obviously was never going to wear it again.  That's the nature of most bridemaids dresses...and it's not cool.  So I knew from the beginning that I wanted my bridesmaids to pick out their own dresses, dresses that didn't match each other and weren't from some bridal store.  Dresses that hopefully wouldn't cost them anywhere near $100 or more.  And most importantly, I wanted them to wear a dress that they would actually wear again...and not as some zombie bridesmaid Halloween costume!  I gave them a couple guidelines, knee length with a slightly vintagey feel, and gave them a color palate to work with...the rest is up to them. 

Officiant:  We've got a little idea in our heads that we think will be pretty perfect, but more on that later...

Cake:  Sure, wedding cakes are pretty, but that's about all they're good for...to look at!  I've never eaten a piece of wedding cake and said afterwards, "Oh my, that was absolutely delicious!" And I'm not a huge fan of cake, in general.  Antoine and I thought, "Who says we need to have a traditional wedding cake!?  We could care less about the whole cutting the cake and feeding each other thing!"  So, we decided to to change it up and go with something we know is delicious, something locally produced by people who know their stuff, and something that has warm fuzzy relationship memories tied to it.  When we thought about all these things two places popped into our heads...Dojo and Abby Girl Cupcakes.  These are our two favorite places to get a sweet treat in Cincinnati.  We're going to have a couple Dojo gelato cakes and a variety of our favorite Abby Girl Cupcakes.  The cupcakes will double as our favors, since we'll have single cupcake containers and enough for everyone to take one home!  So, yeah, that's pretty much another CHECK right there!

Flowers:  I've always kind of wanted to do my own flowers, for some reason.  I love flowers and I like being crafty, so the idea of sitting around with my bridesmaids and my mom the day before the wedding, putting together bouquets and tiny centerpieces sounds awesome to me.  After some research, I've decided to go with Blooms by the Box, and narrowed down the colors (lavendars, light greens, light pinks, creams and little pops of purple...think Larkspur) and a basic idea of the types.  So, I guess that's a CHECK!

Dress:  Umm, CHECK!  (Shh, don't tell my mom...I've promised to go dress shopping with her, because it's one of those things that's important to her.)  So, I've always had my eye on this one J. Crew dress, since forever, or at least the last couple of years.  So, when it went on sale just after we got engaged and had an additional limited-time extra discount on top of that and free shipping I jumped on it.  I had never tried it on before (or anything J. Crew for that matter), I totally guessed on the size, but I got it and I'm kind of in love with it!  It's going to need some alterations, mainly in the hem, but that's no big deal.  So, yeah, that's done!  And it only cost me $250...which is pretty cheap, as far as wedding dresses go.

Registry:  CHECK!  I get the point of registries, I do.  They make sense, some of the time.  But you gotta admit, they've become something of a wedding beast monster!  I mean, really, do you think someone is going to buy you that $600 flat screen tv?  Really!?  And for Antoine and I, who already have a house full of pretty much everything we need (a lot of it fairly new), it seems a little like a waste.  So, what we've opted to do is a relatively minimal Amazon registry with some of those things that we do need for the house (all of our selections being ones that offer free shipping or Super Saver shipping), and we also created a Honeymoon registry.   We opted to go with a homegrown honeymoon registry through my lovely sister, the travel agent, instead of one of those online honeymoon registries that charge fees to either the bride and groom or their guests.  And speaking of honeymoons...

Honeymoon:  CHECK!  It's pretty much planned.  Down to where we're are staying every night of the trip.  We'll be spending a little less than three weeks exploring all the awesomeness of the West Coast, from Seattle to L.A.  It is going to be magically, deliciously spectacular!!  I'm so excited!

To say things are coming along nicely might be a bit of an understatement.  And I know that things will not always go as smoothly as they have so far, I'm not a complete fool!  But so far, things are pretty peachy!  And I'm really digging the progress we've made!