Cut a littlle off the top

Oh boy, I wish I was a savvy coupon shopper! I save them, even cut them out sometimes but ultimetly ALWAYS forget to bring them along with me...

I just read a blog post where this woman spends on average $40 a week on groceries for her and her husband. GAH! I do my best, but that puts me to absolute shame! Is she serving canned soup and grilled cheese sammies (which actually sounds positively delish right now)?!

Spencer and I were invited over for dinner last week and I noticed a "dinner list" on Anika's fridge. She had every meal planned out. Can I do that? I am so ruled by my minute-to-minute emotions, I'm unsure if I can stick to a plan, but by golly I'm gonna give it a shot. And even if no one reads this bloggie blog, posting decrees such as this out in public often solidify my determination to complete the assignment. So here goes:

Monday: grilled sausage & corn. creamy red bliss potatoes
Tuesday: Turkey & artichoke stuff'd shells & salads
Wednesday: Slow cooker chicken cordon bleu & zucchini pie (yes, again)
Thursday: salmon burgers & garden cous cous
Friday: asian lettuce wraps & corn chowda

Will I save money? If we are invited over somewhere, we'll bump a meal to the weekend, I suppose.

On a succesful note - I did manage to pick up about 80% of my produce from the truck guy I just found. Farmers markets are swell - if you can take off a thursday afternoon just to go shopping...

wish me luck! any grocery saving tips out there?

cook, eat, repeat

I'm eventually posting a recipe today. Spencer mocked my dreams of a zucchini pie - and then literally ate his words as he gobbled bite after bite. I'll preface this by stating: I am NOT a cook. but i love cooking. and praise.

I didn't grow up "surrounded by great cooks". My cooks were good, but lacked that passion and joy for cooking that warrants "greatness". So I grew up making mac n' cheese, microwaved butter balls and pb & j sammies. When I first moved into my own apartment i was poor and busy spending what money I did have on drinking and dancing. So my go-to-recipes included jim beam and ginger ales and cheese steak subs to-go (oh metabolism, i miss you so much!)

The time came when Spencer and I moved in together and the domestic bug started biting. We also lived with his sister, who was a very good cook. Rachael Ray was my first real teacher. Her recipes weren't complicated and didn't require foreign techniques or ingredients. And she "eyeballed" it, which is the 2nd reason I don't measure things while cooking. (the first being - why dirty up something else to clean?) As i grew as a home cook, my appreciation for delicious food developed as well. Now, I'll eat anything and I find a simple joy in whipping up something awesome for my friends and family.

This recipe is a combination of 3 recipes I found here, there and everywhere.

savory summer squash pie

1 frozen pie crust (or make your own if you are insane and haven't ever seen an episode of "semi homemade")
2-3 good sized zucchini
1 cup(ish) ricotta cheese
1 cup(ish) shredded cheese (I used mozz, but i imagine a combo of cheeses would be cool - parm, Gruyere - get crazy - just keep it at a cup)
Half of a sweet onion all chopped up (or maybe a shallot? oh! or some scallion?!)
1 egg
some Olive oil
some garlic
parsley

Get your oven ready at 400 F. toss some garlic into that olive oil and let it sit and get all gorgeous. Slice that zucchini, toss some salt on it and let it soak up all that sodiYum while you mix the cheese.

mix the ricotta, egg, onion, most of the cheese and some parsley together. Take the remainder of the shredded cheese and press it into the bottom of the pie crust. YUM.

toss the garlic oil with the zucchini slices.

then layer! ricotta mix first, then zucchini slices, then ricotta, then zucchini. i sprinkled some salt & pepper over each zucchini layer and topped the whole kitten kaboodle with some more cheese. Cover that bad boy with some foil and get to cookin'

30 minutes later take the foil off until it browns.

Now wait for it. Let her sit for a few minutes to set or you'll have a delicious, but messy pie slice on your hands!

i wish i had made 2 so i could have some leftovers for lunch today!

WOW

My face here pretty much reflects how i felt on my wedding day. wow. like, W-O-W style wow. like, wow-a-palooza.

It wasn't as though i was surprised to see my friends and family there - heck I invited 'em, hand addressed every single envelope in fact during a routine tuesday marathon of Law & Order SVU. When I turned the corner it felt like I had been hit in the face with pure love and joy. a feeling of being in the exactly right place at the exactly right time- which has got to be one of the rarest feelings on the planet. prior to this day, my happy place was imagining a pug puppy in a bow tie and top hat. now its this. this sur/real moment in my life.

So on tough days; at work, in my marriage, with my family, when the dog yanks me down the stairs in the morning - i'm fortunate to have this little memory to escape to. all my nerve endings get tingly just thinking about it.

where is your happy place?

STOP what you are doing

And read this post from a practical wedding.

choosing metaphor of total correctness

Oh boy. Call your momma

why hello,

I'm aliiiive!

and frankly kind of surprised Im still allowed to post things on my page. apparently it is permissible to disappear into the real and then return.

and im still reading blogs even though im not posting my own. That is a very surprising gift I received at the tail end of this wedding planning awesome/nonsense. I had never really read any blogs. they were for nerds.

but i knew i was a nerd, so am i really surprised? blog reading has become a part of my routine now. and i am so thankful I get to laugh and cry with complete strangers. people i oddly care about without ever having met or spoken or written to.

John & Sherry (and Clara) might be the coolest people. I am running a few years behind them in regards to marriage, house - gulp- kids. Their blog gives me inspiration to keep going with a smile on my face and tackle on the crazy projects I dream up without fear or dread. everything will turn out fabulous

Nakiya is a funny, upbeat, unpretentious foodie ( yes. possible.). I go to her to day dream about food before (or after) my lunch break and anytime I need to get the DL on a local restaurant. Or when I want to try and win free stuff.

Katie thinks up the most fantastic party ideas and generally lives her life with a bubbly sarcasm i could just gulp down. She loves her family so much and it is so obvious and delightful.

Sarah is so young and excited about the mundane things life has to offer. Her blog is a refreshing reminder that finding the fun is easy, and worth it. and keep dreaming.

and Meg. oh meg - her blog has become my inspirational quote of the day calender. And her musings and reflections and wtf?!'s mean more now after my wedding and in my marriage than they did before. she just gets it...why can't everybody get it?!

And more than that, these lovely ladies have introduced me to a slew of hysterical and meaningful blogs I dabble in from time to time or am just discovering. Oh if there were more hours in a day...

married with kittens

pioneer woman


catalog living

THANK YOU!!

A post-wedding "what's up"

Ahhh. its over. Months - nay - YEARS of planning has finally come to an end. And our final product was a wedding day so perfect we can hardly believe our luck. To have so much love and support thrown in your direction at one time is blissfully overwhelming - and the perfect kick off to a marriage.

'Cause lemme tell you...I had fun planning and being engaged and all, but being married is waaaay more awesome then anyone lets on. I feel like spencer and I shall this little secret with eachother that makes everything cooler- and more fun.

The picture above is of me at one of my most bridal moments. Spencer is working his way towards the cake table and Im antsy to get to the cuttin' of cake and get back to the cuttin' a rug. But the dress looks fab, doesn't it? and the cake...yum...

So now i get my life back. Actually I am sort of getting a new and improved life. I transition from my current job to my new job this week and with that comes the shiny 9-5 scheduled i dreamt about all through college and this past year. With a settle routine in place I'm hoping to carve time for all the fun projects I've put on hold.

Once i catch up on my sleep....

A life led through magazines

I am a magazine junkie. Something about those glossy, fluffy throw away booklets conjures up joy and relaxation in my soul. So, naturally every time I visit the grocery store I allow myself a few minutes to browse thru the racks and make the perfect selection. The mags I gravitate to seem to reflect where I am in my life (hour, day, year, whatever) Today I was torn between Real Simple (organizational techniques for every personality!) and Sophisticated Hairstyles (looking for a new wifey/i got a 9-5 now coif). While I eventually caved and got a copy of OK!-there is no shame in that-I returned to a thought I've had many times over. A reflection on my life lived through magazines.

It all started with Highlights. Bright and cheery pictures, light stories in BIG print and a fabulous picture search game in every issue. I was growing and learning and Highlights was my perfect match, I can remember dreaming I would be a Highlights contributor one day. Ah, the simple life...

Next came a brief - but passionate - relationship with Teen Bop. If there were articles in that magazine I surely don't remember. I was all about glossy pull-out posters of Joey MacIntyre. My first crush. I put my Highlights editor-in-chief dreams aside to quietly pursue a relationship with a boy who wore topless top hats.

High School days came and I remember feeling very adult. Very grown up and craving womanly knowledge. I read Glamour and Cosmo by the pool everyday that summer. Also know as: The Tan Summer. My mags were well worn and stained with tanning oil. My best friend and I would read the horror stories aloud to one another and pass the magazines back and forth - vowing to apply the sex tips we had just learned...once we had a sex life. Looking back it was probably the only time a magazine became a social tool, a necessary accessory. Hmm...maybe THAT was the simple life...

After high school, i took myself much more seriously. I decided that Cosmo and other similar mags made women look like silly, boy crazy airheads more concerned with mastering the art of fellatio than become the first female president. I was at a loss..where would I go from here? I played around with newspapers for a while, but their complicated folds and smudgy print took all the fun out of it. An old roommate had a copy of a magazine I had long scoffed for being 98% advertisement. It was love at first read. My new accessory, new obsession. I had found VOGUE.

Now, VOGUE deserves to be in all caps. It's an institution, a planet, and state of mind. I kept every months magazine (and still have them) for 2 years straight because I was convinced they were historical property. And I imagined a great granddaughter of mine one day uncovering them and thanking me through the ages that I'd had enough sense to save them. The articles discusses art, culture and politics in a sophisticated way. Holding a copy was like holding a ticket into a flashy and elite world I longed to live in. While we aren't as close as we use to be...I will always keep a place in my heart for VOGUE magazine.

< enter college life here > this means I was primarily reading textbooks and could only occasionally sneak in a gossip magazine now and again.

When I became engaged- you guessed it - for about a year straight I read every wedding magazine put on the shelf. It was great at first. I was finally allowed to read them now that I was one of the engaged people. the blessed. ha! But after the honeymoon period (with the magazines-not my husband) ended I found I was ready to move on. They really all say the same things over and over. Plus, once I decided to forgo a "traditional" wedding, reading them just made me second guess myself and drove me a little craz(ier)y.

Thankfully we bought a new house around that time so I immersed myself in home design mags. Eh. It was more frustrating than anything. Can't somebody publish a glossy HD mag that doesn't require me to have unlimited funds?!

So now I a married woman. I still love VOGUE and OK! and People and yada yada but today I was looking at A LIFESTYLE magazine for the organization article. So as a part-time magazine anthropologist I'd have to declare - Im a little bit of a grown up. Whats next for me? TIME? Travel? The New Yorker? Fit Pregnancy?

I'll see you in the aisles....