Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Every year as we practically roll our overstuffed bodies down my grandparent's driveway post-Thanksgiving, it seems unfathomable that in less than 24 hours we'll all be heading back for leftovers...

Yet every year we do. Tommorow, despite my overstuffed-ness will be no exception.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thaanksgiving holiday!

Wedding Wednesday 9/54

We are 1/6th of the way there. And probably have about 1/6th of what we need done, done.

I don't have much to add in terms of wedding junk this week. Planning this soiree long distance is pretty irritating. Why? Because I have about a billion ideas a day and really just want to go home and say "hey, Jamaal, what do you think of xyz?" But that doesn't happen because I am an engaged 27-year old lady still shacking up with her parents. Oh yeah.

One thing he did ok without a second though were the stamps. Have I mentioned these before? I totally have, haven't I?

Well if not, here they are, in all of their splendiferous nerdiness:
I think the bottom is greyed out due to copyright shizz from the source. But you get the idea. These are from 1982 (the year of my birth!) and it will take four stamps per envelope to have enough postage sufficient for our wedding invites. Right now you are probably thinking or saying "WHY" or "WTF" Honestly, I don't know. Because I like birds. Birds are awesome. I am nerdily obsessed with them. I would like to rock a navy blue envelope for the invites, and think four bird stamps would look colorful and interesting against the dark blue backgroud. Of course, I would have loved to have done something vintage-y and chic like this:
But I am too dang lazy to go 'trolling for vintage matchy stamps when I could find some on ebay still in full-sheet format, rocking birds and state flowers, set to go. So that's what's happening for postage on the outside.

Our reply cards are going to be in postcard format, and for that little adventure, I have purchased (finished purchasing, I now have enough!) some tropical birds to go on the replies:
These are a little brighter and more flamboyant than their state bird/state flower counterparts, but that's ok, I like how they look! Of course this is about a nickel over the going rate for postcards (last I checked they cost .27 to mail) but since I bought these at face value, I only wasted about $5 on them. Not too shabby.

We will be sending out save the dates before the invitation suite finds it's way to the mail. I thought I could sneak these in with Christmas greetings, but the reality is that there is no way in HELL that is going to happen, LOL. Even though Printable Press has about a 7 day turnaround time, I'll still want to get envelopes and make liners and get special stamps blah blah blah blah blah. So yeah. Instead of searching high and low for more bird-themed vintage postage, I think I'll head on over to zazzle and design something cool.

I love zazzle and have had excellent luck designing postage there. I can't copy and paste the products, but here's a link if you're so inclined. I'll be making my holiday stamps over there too. Last year I used this image, and while I hate to repeat, Mr. Cardinal is very hard to resist:



He is so red and delicious.

Anyways, that's my postage saga for now. There's still a ton of trolling to be done on ebay, as I realized I'm about 5 sheets short of my stamp goal for the state birds. Right now though, I have to go donate some platelets! I've been taking iron like a fiend to boost that hemoglobin, and I'd love to leave the blood bank with some "product" over the holiday...my neighbor fighting ALL is back in the hospital, and while he is just fighting a fever and some med-related side effects (as far as we know, no leukemia relapse) he might be in need of a boost tomorrow...even if my platelets aren't a good match for him, knowing that other people like me are willing to donate this week makes me feel great. I do it for people like my little neighbor and because I am grateful that I am healthy enough to be a donor - I'm so thankful that I am able.

SO that's that. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

When in Doubt, DIY

I went to Whole Foods and Williams Sonoma last night at Derby Street.
Srsly, Derby St is glorious, rivaled now only by Legacy Place in Dedham (which has a Paper Store AND a Paper Source, a WFM, a Loft, and *sigh* Anthropologie). Because Dedham is a bit far of a post-work drive for me, my loyalty to Derby St remains secure...especially since they're putting a Chipotle in there.

Anyways, I picked the perfect time to hit up WFM, 6pm on the Monday before Thanksgiving. By Wednesday morning the parking lot there will be inpenetrable, and the store will be full of three types of people: foodies intent on making some sort of elaborate Martha Stewart-esque stuffing for their free range turkey, people who forgot an essential ingredient and are forced to WFM because Shaw's ran out of cinnamon (me, usually), and the truly desperate, looking for anything pre-made that will sufficiently impress the crowd at Aunt Mabels, or *gulp* their future mother-in-law's. Jamaal is smart and has decided he is brining wine to my grandma's.....but I digress.

So WFM was blissfully empty, and by empty I mean only about a dozen carts were 'trolling the produce section. I walked around and around, trying to decide what kinds of apples would be best for my pies. I wasn't going to use 100% granny smith as one recipe called for, but as a hater of pink lady and gala apples, my choices were limited. Then I had to choose pears. The usual bartlett and danjou were hard as a rock, and yes, I have been vanquished by rock-hard pears before. Because Whole Foods is awesome, I whipped out my iPod and connected to their free wi-fi and googled "pears for a pear pie." Well INTERNETS you FAILED me. Every recipe I found called for "pears." Um specifically please? I gave up after a few websites, as a small, impeccably dressed man kept sighing at me: I was blocking the pomegranates. I finally gave up and bought the ripest pear I could find, a comice pear, which come to find out, does not taste particularly good baked or poached. Crap.

After finishing up at WFM, where I left a mere $36 poorer (holiday specials WHAT?!) I decided to drive on over to Williams Sonoma. The people in that store are decidedly weird - they always always stare as I walk in, as if someone under the age of 45 could not possibly be using anything in their store - but it's the only place around I knew I could get a reliable pastry rolling pin and a fluted pie crust cutter. I picked up what I needed, having to crawl over an irritable employee to get the pie crust cutter, and made my way to the cash register where an urgent, hushed conversation was taking place between the cashier and a customer.

The customer wasa woman my age, maybe a little younger, short with long dark hair. The cashier was around my age also, tall and blond with an effeminate voice. "Ohmahgah I just don't know if we'll have any!" he exclaimed.
The woman said "You have too...come on it's Thanksgiving, you HAVE to have some."
Cashier "No, no I mean we WILL have some, it's just that it's kind of been reserved for weeks and I don't know if I can get you any."
What the hell were they talking about? Pie plates? Turkey roasters?
Woman: "I just don't know what I'm going to do then. Do they have any in Portland? Can you call the Portland Maine store, please??" Her tone was becoming desperate.
Cashier: "well I can see what time they close."
While he was on the phone, another store employee came over and said "We have dried. We always have that, I can sell you dried orange rind."
Woman: "No, no I NEED the fresh!"
Wait.
What?
This woman was freaking out about orange rind? SERIOUSLY?!
I started to open my mouth, ready to explain that for whatever she was willing to pay for freshly grated orange rind she could buy a microplane and some oranges, and with a little finesse and practice and very little effort, have a pile of her own freshly grated orange rind...
BUT
She left in to much of a flurry and huff for me to help her.
I will say though, she certainly entertained me while I was waiting to pay.
I'll be wondering about that lady on Thanksgiving...wondering if she really drove to Portland for her fresh orange rind....wondering what the hell she was making that needed it....wondering if anyone nice took pity on her and told her that she could totally do it herself...

So I failed to post this weekend

Whoops. Kind of let blogging fall by the wayside. I had material too dang it! I was going to write about how busted up I looked on Friday, that I felt old and worn down...then I was going to write about my surprising rejuvenation at a spa party I attended Saturday afternoon...and usually I have something to ramble about by Sunday....not the case this weekend.

Why do Mondays make me more cranky than any other day? On a work week as short as this, I should be happy to go into the office and get things done, right? Not so! I found myself as irritable as any other Monday. Maybe it's because I feel a little run down (sore throat, headache) or maybe because I feel like I have a ton to do (make pies, entertain friends over weekend, craft) but the smallest things have been setting me off. Like the girl who wedged herself between me and my seatmate on the bus (our bus has some seats that are parallel to the sides of the bus, not the traditional row seats) and then refused to put her hands on her lap and had her pointy elbows sticking into my sides.

Don't get me started on facebook. Why I even throw status updates on there is beyond me, but when I tried to be funny this morning, one of Jam's friends commented right away about how I shouldn't use a Kindle when my fiance is in publishing. This friend looooves giving advice and opinions, and since I've only met her once and feel like I shouldn't judge her, I try to be lighthearted about it. I don't get into with her, not even the time she told me that she knew Jamaal longer than any of his other friends (untrue) and that they talked about him proposing to me for a long time and she helped him weigh all the pros and cons and that I should know that it wasn't a decision he made lightly. Um ok, am I supposed to be grateful? Because honestly, that kind of makes it sound like he was simply capitalizing on what he thought may be his only opportunity to pin a lady down and marry her. UGH. So back to the Kindle, LOL. What annoyed me is 1. she doesn't even know Jam doesn't work in print publishing anymore, he works in E-PUBLISHING - oh yeah, and that's E for Electronic 2. by "Kindle app" I meant "Kindle application on my iPod 3. Jam told me he wanted to buy me a Kindle for Christmas (ok now typing this I am actually quite amused by the know it all friend) and 4. My mother is a damn librarian, I am NEVER EVER going to give up buying books, borrowing books from the library, reading a tangible book in my HAND for a soul-less piece of technology. Harumph. I only have the Kindle app because it makes reading in bed a lot easier, i.e. I don't have to put on my extraordinarily dorky camping headlamp to read a book.

I'm dying to say something to this girl, but it's so not worth it. I want to say "um I said nothing about you buying your 8 year old the juicy, coach, uggs and abercrombie products she put on her Christmas list, so you stay the eff off my facebook status and mind your own business when it comes to my ipod apps." Hor. LOL.

But see what I'm saying about the rage? On any other weekday, I probably wouldn't have even bothered responding!

Eh well.

I am off to get some soup and try and do something prodcutive today besides fight with adobe reader and drink tea. I get to go to Whole Foods today and buy pie supplies. It's kind of pathetic, the extent to which I am looking forward to going to Whole Foods, but there it is. I just hope they have the blackberries I'll need and that they're not 8.99/lb.

Happy Monday all :)

Wedding Thursday 8/54

Good LORD these past two weeks have been KILLER!
I made it though - I made it through the meeting with my ArchEnemy.
It was actually kind of sad - today I realized that what she really is is not particularly evil or nasty or bitchy - she is totally and completely insecure. That's what makes her so unbearable. It's weird because she is actually smart, totally knowledgeable in her field, she scares the CRAP out of people, and hell, if her paycheck can buy some Donna Karan boots, she must being doing well for herself. Inside though, I think she might be scared as hell.
Of what I don't know, it's certainly not of me. Maybe she has a mean boss or maybe she lives in fear of losing her job. Whatever it is, it's making her a terrible person, and for that I only have pity.

Oh don't worry, I still intensely dislike her ;)

For now I have a few weeks that stretch ahead of me with nothing stressful scheduled beyond my usual inane conference calls and the occasional donation of platelets. Oh, and I have to bring a snack to book club on December 3rd. Don't let me forget that! I just seriously paused blogging to envision my snack - who does that? I was thinking about pie bites and Christmas cookies and maybe cake pops for about a minute there, when I realized I had stopped typing. WOW.

Of course there's Thanksgiving too. If there is one thing I love about the holidays, it's the visiting. Jamaal is coming up to visit and we've made plans to catch up with some friends we haven't seen in a while. So nice. Love having an excuse to get together with people. I also love any excuse to make a pie, so I will definitely be recreating last year's Grandma Ople's Apple Pie,

sans overdone crust, hopefully a new and improved pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream and no cracking on the top,



AND I really want to make this apple blackberry pie, though maybe substitute the apples for pears...or probably some of the apples for pears, as pears can get mushy. Of course I am doing this almost solely for the purpose of using my leaf and turkey cookie cutters on the crust. Yes lame, but also DELICIOUS!
Ok enough about food. Wedding stuff. I don't have much to add this week since things are moving at a snails pace lately.

We finally had a wedding success: the photographer. Did I mention meeting with him already? If not, he's a family friend who first photographed my sister and I in 1987...then I landscaped for him in high school and did some work for him in the production room, stuff like putting together, in order, stacks of hundreds of bridal proofs, putting proofs in album order, etc. We're pretty tight and he would impart little bits of photographic wisdom upon me from time to time. I can't believe that I've remembered it all these years (9? 10 years?) later, but for some reason, it still occupies a part of my brain. This will make working with James so easy - why? OK for example, I know that lighting is important and that the best light of the day is either morning or later afternoon light. So I didn't even make a tentative schedule of the day until I talked to James. He was like 'wait. what? you waited to make a timeline?' I'm sure most brides go in and tell him how things are going to go, but I knew it's best to wait for his OK, especially since the photographs are so important to me.

Besides helping me with all things photography, he also perused the Barns brochure to help us come up with a decorative scheme. Last week I was bitching about the paper lantern thing, how we'd need our own ladder etc (still mildly irritated about this) He flipped through the pages, came to the last photo and said "This. This right here. This is what you need to do. I LOVE IT." Luckily Jam and I totally loved the setup too - it's just that an outside opinion confirming the awesomeness of a decorating scheme is kind of nice...we need the validation.
So here it is:
I am not so sure how the orange-y thing will look with navy....but I think I kind of love the orange. The bridesmaid dresses will be navy, my dress is ivory, and the bouquets are going to be a bright mix of fall dahlias. It works, right? The centerpieces are totally neutral. I notice these are green - ours will be glass jars with ivory votives and fall colored details. I like the idea of sparkly/embossed mini pumpkins as our centerpieces...so basically, I am getting comfortable with this set up. I wish we were rich and could rent the chiavari because they are gorgeous, but alas, I'd rather put the $1200 we'd have to spend on chair rental towards a honeymoon on the beach and a spa treatment a day because I am selfish like that!

Anyways, this will save us some time and effort, and I think some cash, with which I can't exactly argue! So here's what we'll have to do to decorate this:

String lights, wrap poles in chiffon, set up centerpieces, set up just married banner (so cute), set up guest book/card/escort card table, set up candy bar. I really love how this sounds as opposed to "make 50 LED throwies, string up 50 paper lanterns from barn rafters" Sooo much better. This also means that I can sneak over to the Barns to help with the initial chores and be back in my hotel room around 10 am or so. Here's how the day should go:

ass-early: wake up and do the sh*t that I will have inevitably left to the last minute
8:30 am: head to Barns
9 am: help with initial set up...of course I will have a team of 20 people to do this. LOL.
10 am: get kicked out of Barns by Jam/family
10:15 am: get back to hotel room, pop bottle of champagne, shower (with champagne in shower with me ha ha ha)
11 am: hair done
12 pm: drinking. makeup.
1 pm: mill around. drink.
1:15 pm: put on dress, start to head out
1:40 pm: leave for church
2 pm: music starts
2:15-2:30pm: head down aisle, try not to faint
3pm: ceremony ends
3:30pm: receiving line ends
4:00pm: get to Barns after church pics
4:45pm: photog promises formal shots will be done, catch the last 15 mins of cocktail hour with bridal party
5pm: get the party started
You get it!

So yeah, very good stuff this week. As for this coming week (THANKSGIVING! YAY!) Jam promises to have his guest list modifications complete and to help me pick out an invitations suite. I am still heavily leaning towards this one, though I told Jam that he obviously has a say and that you really can't go wrong with Printable Press:
I am falling in love with this one too though, so a change is entirely possible:
Jam also loved my favorite invite format from the DIY Wedding Invite class I went to at the Paper Source over the summer, so that works too. It's nice when we just agree.

Make that Wedding Thursday

I have a meeting with the previously blogged about ArchEnemy tomorrow.
I am dreading it.
I spent most of the day trying to catch up on a pile of paperwork I determined that she might find possible "impressive" and failed.
I've spent the last five hours at home (HOME! Even during ANTM AND Glee) on this stupid excel file.

Yes, I'm that scared about my meeting with her.

You think I can get away with throwing some Captain Morgan in my DD mediumcreamnosugah tomorrow??!

Needless to say, Wedding Wednesday is way the hell out of my mind til tomorrow at 10:30. For now, it's back to excel....

An Actual Conversation

Allison: I love "Empire State of Mind." I know I shouldn't love a NYC song that hard...but I do. And it's Jay-Z, sooo yeah.

Jam: Oh yeah, that IS a great song.

Allison: I love the part about the cabs.

Jam: What part's that?

Allison: "Yellow cab, gypsy cab, dollar cab, holla back."

Jam: *silence, then* "HEY!! We've been in all THREE!!"

I can't believe I'm admitting this...but yeah, I really will miss our adventures in New York.
Not that we won't still have them when we pop down for a visit, but somehow, it won't be the same....