Some updates

Things have been busier and more fun now that Ben is off for a couple of weeks, and I've had last time to blog. :-) That's fine with me!

Woo! Another list!! Things we have done this week:

• Put up decorative shelves in living room (pictures to come once we level the shelves for real!)
• Put up bookshelf for DVDs in living room and put away ALL DVDs. Yay!
• Put up two small bookshelves in our bedroom and put away ALL non-school books. Double yay!
• Completely cleaned the kitchen (it needed it!)
• Got my car's stupid tie rod fixed for almost $100 less than our first quote....woo!
• Got my car re-inspected for free, and IT PASSED
• Got Ben's car inspected, and IT PASSED the first time
• Took our paperwork to the DMV to finally register the darn cars only to find out we needed signed gift affadavits from our parents since they titled the cars over to us
• Faxed the gift affadavits to our parents
• Kept our fingers crossed something else insane doesn't come up at the DMV next time!
• Baked some yummy cookies based on an episode of Bobby Flay's Throwdown we saw on Food Network

It's been a good week so far! I am really hoping to have our car issues resolved by the end of it, though! We'll see. :-)

Monday, Monday

My day, in list format:

• Woke up early, had coffee, messed around on the internet, g-chatted with friends
• Saw my hubby when he woke up later (so much better than not seeing him til the evening!)
• Got ready to go, drove to the county office, waited in line, got our statement of non-assessment for both of our cars (woo!)
• Returned Ben's library book
• Drove to Jiffy Lube, got an oil change
• Drove to Dobb's Auto to get my car inspected
• Waited over an hour
• Found out I need a stupid inner tie rod on ONE of my tires
• Almost cried in Dobb's when they told us how much it would cost
• Drove home to mull things over/get a few more quotes on stupid inner tie rod/contemplate my unemployment/lack of money/bad luck
• Rode to Bed, Bath, and Beyond with my husband :-)
• Bought some decorative shelves for our living room wall (yay gift cards/store credit!)
• Came home
• Signed up with a temp. agency online
• Ate leftover spinach dip and watched Food Network
• Laughed at Ben's Tyler Florence/Sandra Lee inspired pasta sauce concotion :-)

UGH. All in all, things definitely could have been worse today, but I am disappointed that instead of getting our car junk completely taken care of we just have more to deal with. BLAH. I am grateful that I got to spend the whole day with Ben though. I probably would have that breakdown in the car place without him! And I am telling myself that these are normal moving/getting married/being a grown-up things we're dealing with here so I should probably just handle them without whining, but oh well!

Here's to a happy Tuesday! :-)

Cupcakes!

First of all, I am happy to report that late last week motivation struck me. Look at the progress I made in our second bedroom!

That's right, you're seeing floor! :-)

Yes, that may be a pile of unpacked boxes taking up one corner of the room.

I am so relieved to be able to access this room more easily! And once we get a couple of bookcases and perhaps a folding table, I'll be able to unpack and put away the rest. I can't wait!

Yesterday, I made cupcakes!!! :-) Woo! I used a 1-2-3-4 cake recipe that I found online. It's basically like my mom's, but didn't require separating the eggs or folding in the egg whites. And I must say, the cake tastes delicious! It's very fluffy and soft. YUM.

I also used an easy vanilla icing recipe that came from the back of the Sprinkles cupcake mix box. It's VERY sweet and VERY buttery, but that is exactly what Ben likes in an icing, so it worked for him! And it was easy to make, so it worked for me. :-) Here is a link to the recipe if you're interested.

And, I went crazy decorating the cupcakes too! I dyed the frosting with food coloring, got out my decorating kit, and had some fun. Here are the results! :-)

Happy to have an excuse to break out the cupcake tree (thanks, Kate!!)

Close-up of my "technique" Haha

These teal ones were some of my favorites

Like a dummy, I did not halve the cake recipe. And although the icing recipe says it is for 12 cupcakes, it ices DOUBLE that. Yeah. 24 iced cupcakes. Yikes. :-)

Our Saturday was extra-nice. We went to Kohl's and Hobby Lobby in the evening (we're trying to avoid the tax-free crowds!! :-) We didn't buy much, but it was fun to look around. And all I know that is on the docket for today is grocery shopping. I've been trying to decide how I want to print off all of the wedding photos our family and friends took, so I may print a few today at Wal-Mart. I am thinking I'll go with Shutterfly for the majority of them, but I haven't quite decided yet. It's expensive to ship 220 photos! :-) I've also been majorly sidetracked by editing some of the pictures with Picnik. It's so much fun! I bet it would be even more fun with the premium version. :-) Maybe someday.

I hope everyone else is having a nice relaxing weekend. Ben's last day of work for his summer job was Friday, so I'm really looking forward to hanging out with him for the next couple of weeks before he starts school again. :-)

Wedding Reception

It's becoming a weekly ritual! Kelly's Korner is hosting another blog carnival about weddings, and I'm happy to jump on board again! :-) Here are my posts about my wedding dress and our ceremony.

We held our wedding reception at the Civic Center in my hometown. We considered having the reception at the same site as the wedding, but we were all really concerned about the heat outdoors in July. Not to mention the cost of renting a tent--goodness gracious, I had no idea how expensive they were!

As always, my post has tons of pictures! Consider this fair warning. :-)

When Ben and I arrived, we danced to "Then" by Brad Paisley. I spent basically the whole few months before the wedding tearing up every time I heard the song, but we were so happy and relieved to be at the wedding reception that we tuned it out a bit. :-)

First dance

Then, my dad and I danced to "Daughter" by Loudon Wainwright. Such a sweet song, but also a little bit quirky, which is perfect for me and my dad. :-) We were also afraid we'd both be in tears, but it didn't happen that way!

Daddy and me

Ben and his mom danced to an Elvis song, "Memories". So sweet!

Ben and Deborah

We decorated the tables with 5 vases each of hot pink Gerber daisies; each vase held one or two flowers. I saw a similar table layout in a DIY wedding book pretty early after we got engaged, and I knew that was what I wanted--simple, but pretty. We ordered the flowers online from www.fiftyflowers.com--a great experience! My family is now also proud owners of 100 vases in varying sizes....let us know if you need any! Haha.

Table flowers

You can also see a box of gum balls on the table in the picture above. Those were our favors! We had favor issues, up til almost the last minute. Favors were one of Ben's duties, and we decided we wanted personalized M&Ms. I ordered the clear 2 inch by 2 inch boxes to put them in, but when it was time to order the M&Ms we realized that they were expensive enough as it was, but also that my boxes were HUGE and would hold way more M&Ms then we could afford! :-) We looked and looked online for other favors, and were pretty set on jelly beans when I saw this idea on a website. Ben promptly ordered 33 POUNDS of gum balls (green and pink, of course!), and my bridesmaids helped me box them up the week before the wedding. It worked out perfectly--the boxes I bought held exactly 8 gum balls each.

We put the extra gum balls on the table seen below. It held a frame that had a picture of Ben and I from each year that we dated. It also held the purple scrapbook of our travels and adventures up until we got engaged. There were also 3 small albums of various pictures--our engagement, wedding planning, and showers. I saw people standing around looking at the pictures during the evening, and it just made me so happy!

My photographer's picture of the memory table

We had yummy food, too, and Ben and I made a point to actually eat before we started going around the room to talk to everyone! Well, I ate some, but my dress corset was a little too tight to allow too much eating! I did stay hydrated though. :-)

We also had a great DJ at our reception, and I only wish I could have danced more! My photographer got some great shots of everyone dancing together.

Uncle Larry and me

Like most wedding receptions, Ben and I spent a lot of time talking to all of our guests. This picture cracks me up...because, well, I'm cracking up! :-) And, if you notice, Ben is already messing with his wedding band. I guess it's so weird for him to be wearing a ring that he just cannot leave it alone....still! :-)

Ben, me, Jen, my dad, and Mrs. Crumpler

I'm not sure why people don't get to practice for these things, but our cake cutting showed our lack of expertise! We took a huge chunk out of the bottom layer of the cake! :-)

Cutting the cake

Laughing at our giant mess

No cake smashing for us :-)

Our bouquet toss and garter toss were funny because our younger cousins caught both! Ben's second cousin caught my bouquet, and my first cousin caught the garter. Both of them are in middle school, so I thought it was perfect! :-)

Alex with the bouquet

Eric, getting ready to catch the garter

We didn't have any sort of exit with sparklers or rice or anything. We did fake an exit with the photographer early on in the night--just Ben carrying me out the door! :-) And we did do a last dance. Then we said our goodbyes, left the reception room, and spent at least half an hour finding suitcases, transferring stuff from one car to another, and finding people's keys. Ben got a little bit frustrated, I think! :-) But we got on the road eventually, and I wore my wedding dress all the way to our hotel.

Since this post is already insanely long, I will save a post about our honeymoon for another time. Our honeymoon was in Blowing Rock, NC, and it was way too short, but really sweet! :-) Hope you enjoyed seeing our wedding reception!

Fun recipes

Last night, Ben and I cooked our dinner and dessert! That's quite an accomplishment for us, and both of them turned out really well. I thought I'd share the recipes!

For dinner, we made Pioneer Woman's Farfalle with Zucchini. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a .pdf of that particular recipe up on her site (maybe it will be in her cookbook!), but the steps are pretty easy. We used chicken broth instead of wine, corn starch instead of Arrowroot, and dried spices instead of fresh ones. Here is what ours looked like:

It was yummy, but a little heavy on the onions for me. Ben loved it! And we have plenty leftover, as you can imagine!

For dessert, I made a blueberry cake from this book that my wonderful best friend Jen gave me for Christmas.

I bought blueberries on Sunday and was planning to make muffins, but this cake was really easy!

Here is (part of!) the final product. It was good for dessert, and it was delicious for breakfast this morning with my coffee!

Here is the recipe if you want to try it:

Shenandoah Valley Blueberry Cake

Ingredients:

1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup butter, softened

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (do not thaw)

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees and generously grease a 9 inch square or round pan.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl, and stire with a fork to mix well.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the butter and sugar, and beat with a mixer at high speed until well combined.
4. Add the egg and beat well for 1 to 2 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl, until the mixture is smooth and light
5. Stir in half of the flour mixture, then half the milk, mixing just enough to keep the batter fairly smooth and well-combined.
6. Add the remaining flour, then the rest of the milk, mixing gently
7. Stir in the blueberries
8. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes or until the cake is golden.

The final result, as I mentioned, was really tasty! The cake was nice and fluffy and it was just sweet enough for me.

I ended up making that blueberry cake last night because I was on a quest for a relatively easy homemade yellow/white cake and vanilla icing. That is Ben's favorite combination for cakes, and it sounds simple enough to make, but finding easy recipes was harder than I thought it would be! I'm thinking the cake part might end up being a basic 1-2-3-4 cake that my mom makes a lot--not the simplest (it involves separating eggs, whisking whites, beating butter and sugar for crazy amounts of time!) but very, very delicious. As for icing, I'm at a loss. I love cream cheese icing, but Ben's not a huge fan. And I've seen lots of cooked icing recipes for vanilla icing that are way too complicated for me! Any suggestions for easy cakes or icings??

P.S. No progress on the second bedroom. Yes, I am ashamed! :-)

What we've been up to!

In reverse order, this weekend we have:

• Worked on organizing our bathroom with a new little shelving unit. You can see the edge of my picture from my last post there. I'm so happy to have everything in this room put away!

• Picked up our new TV that Ben's friends got for us (him!) as a wedding gift! We just got it yesterday evening, and we're both really enjoying it. I also spent some time yesterday cleaning the living room and dining area....again. I feel like every single time I get things cleaned up and organized, more stuff ends up out there that needs to be put away!

Mostly clean floor near the couch. This used to be where we had our computers hooked up, but I finally cleared enough space in the extra bedroom to set up the laptop and the printer. Yay!

The dining area is clean and organized too!

TV up-close. It's really nice, and we're really grateful!

• Organized the second bedroom--not quite on my list of accomplishments this past weekend (gotcha!! :-). I have a new goal of unpacking at least 2 boxes per day to see if that helps. I get so overwhelmed trying to do the whole room at once. So far, my goal for today has not been reached. I'll keep you posted!

Laptop in its new home!!

• Discovered Creve Coeur Lake!! This is related to what we did on Friday, but on Sunday we headed to Creve Coeur Lake and walked one of the trails around it. So beautiful!!

Cute bridge

My least favorite part about the lake!

Gorgeous views

Since my family spent the weekend at my aunt and uncle's lake house in VA, I thought it was only fair that Ben and I hit up a lake ourselves! It wasn't quite the same, but it still made for a fun afternoon! :-)

• Played putt-putt! On Friday evening, we went to play miniature golf at a course we found online. Unfortunately I forgot my camera (Ben called me a bad blogger! :-), and I grabbed this picture from the road as we drove back by it Sunday on our way to the lake. It was out in the middle of no where and seemed a little bit abandoned when we got there. BUT it was only $2/person to play, and although the course was a little rundown, we had fun. Yes, Ben won.

Cornfields! I loved seeing a more rural part of the area.

Clip art to represent our putt putt game. Cute, huh?

So, that was our past few days in a nutshell. Today I am heading to Wal-Mart (woo!) and probably swinging by the post office to run some errands. And hopefully reaching my 2 box quota in here!!!

Craftiness!

For the most part this week, I've been very slug-like and in a bit of a funk. I'm slowly coming to terms with the idea that I might not be able to work in the field I really want to work in right now. It's hard to accept that idea, especially since I spent an extra two years in school to earn my degree in that field. And since, for the most part, I feel really confident about my ability to do that kind of job well. It's intimidating enough filling out job applications and going to interviews for jobs that I know I can do, but it's even worse for jobs I don't have experience in or specific skills for. BUT, I do know that things will work out one way or another. I haven't completely given up hope about getting a job in my field, and I'm keeping my eyes open for any promising jobs out there at all.

All that to say, I've spent a lot of time this week watching TV on the couch! However, Friday I woke up in a much better state of mind, and I randomly decided to do a crafty project!

Here's what I did. By the way, every time I start a post like this, I completely mean to upload the pictures first and type the text around them, and every single time I get caught up in what I want to say and forget to do that!!! ARGH. Anyway! :-)

While we have tons of framed pictures sitting in the floor that need to be hung up around the apartment, we didn't have any that really fit into the color scheme of our bathroom. So I used some stuff I had around here to make put together something that works!

First, I searched the internet for pictures I might want to use. Harder than I thought it would be! I couldn't decide what a good "bathroom" wall picture might consist of, and searching around for ideas wasn't yielding much useful information. So I eventually decided that something abstract might work, and I ended up finding what I wanted by searching Google images for "aqua blue tiles".

Here are the two pictures that I liked:

I'm pretty sure they're pictures of actual tiles people could use in their bathrooms. Which would be cute. But which is way beyond me and our rental apartment! Haha.

I then used good old Microsoft Publisher to arrange the images the way I would want them to look in a print. I am sure there are better programs to do this with, but Microsoft Publisher and I are old friends!

Here is my computer screen as I was laying out the images:

And here is the final result printed out:

Yes, although Microsoft Publisher and I are good friends, the page layout screen and I DO NOT GET ALONG. I have the worst time getting the settings where I want them so that what prints out looks remotely like what I see on the screen. In this instance, the fact that the edges were cut off didn't really matter too much because I was using a mat later, so I just let it go.

I originally had only 6 larger pictures of the tiles on the print, but I think it looks better with a few more smaller tiles.

I had an old frame that used to hold this wacky picture:

I had it above my desk in grad school, along with some big letters that said, "Laugh"...a reminder that I needed frequently during grad school! It's just some goofy pictures of us and our friends, and I definitely want to re-frame it somehow. :-)

Anyway, since the picture I printed was so much smaller than the frame, I had to give it some sort of background. I improvised by using the back sides of scrapbook paper, but I hope to get a large piece of white posterboard at some point so the background doesn't have any seams. The scrapbook paper works for now, though!

Background in progress

I also had some old picture mats lying around left over from a different project. (And left over from days when I did not immediately return any un-used item to the store for my money back!!). I really liked the grayish/blackish/silvery one when I bought it, and I'm so happy to be finally be using it now! I thought it would frame the picture really nicely and look good sort of floating on the white background.

Print with mat

I only took pictures of the final product (which I really like!) once it was on the wall, which led to some weird flash issues.

Close-up on wall

Full picture on wall (that is not brown wood to the right--it's a shadow; someday I will show how uniquely our apartment is shaped!!)

But you can see how the basic concept turned out. And I just taped the print to the mat and the mat to the background so I could switch the picture or the mat out pretty easily. And take it apart when I get my posterboard for the background. And perhaps position the print at an angle at some point! I am just glad to have something that coordinates with our bathroom colors, which you can see in our shower curtain below.

Shower curtain

And I'm very glad to have one more picture frame off the floor and on the wall!