Random Thursday

1.  Hubs made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies yesterday and they were DELISH.
2.  We went swimming tonight at the gym and dreamed of our future selves lounging in our backyard pool summer 2013.  It's going to be a-mazing.
3.  1 more night of my city's winter parking ban =1 more late night walk to move my car.

Getting Scrappy

I have been making progress on my wedding scrapbook.  I've got several pages on the go and I'm proud of it.

Getting started with my wedding scrapbook was challenging.  I was too focused on thinking about pictures and events chronologically.  This "order" mindset was keeping me from ideas I had for future page layouts farther out in the process.  For example, I knew exactly what paper I wanted to use for our cake cutting photos when I saw it at the store weeks ago.  I finally took the time to put together this layout and it works just as I was picturing it in my mind!   

I've been skipping around from pre-wedding, to ceremony, to reception photos and it's been working out nicely for me. I've also found that focusing on 2 page layouts at a time to get paper and photo layout down is key to getting started.  Sometimes it takes time to figure it out and I may play around with papers and layouts for a couple of days here and there until I finally jump in and go for it.

I haven't finished 100% of any page layouts.  My goal is to get several pages (or maybe all?) blocked out with paper selections and general layout before getting too focused on embellishments and journaling.

Here's an example of the most recent layout I put together. I toyed with this paper for awhile.  Originally, I thought I would use it for "the kiss" ceremony photos. After playing around with the photos, I found that "the unity candle" photos worked better with the color. 

I had an old odd length piece of offwhite lace that looked great on the paper and added texture. I spent awhile moving the lace around to figure out where to use it.  I ended up using it symmetrically on the outside edges of the layout.  I didn't have quite 24 inches of lace so I improvised adding an offwhite block of fabric to disguise that the lace wasn't 1 continuous piece.

I'll probably end up adding journalling or embellishments to the white blocks of fabric. 

Apologies in advance for the poor photo quality.  I hope to someday purchase a new point and shoot camera for better blogging!

BEFORE

  
AFTER

March Recipe 1: Pasta With Shrimp & Eggplant

I have been on seafood kick recently.  I have never cooked with shrimp until I tried this recipe.  I purchased shrimp that were already peeled, deveined, and cooked so that I didn't really need to worry about correct prep.


The recipe is from The Woman's Day Everyday Cookbook.  

The recipe calls for olive oil, eggplant, pasta, red and yellow bell pepper, red onion, dried oregano, shrimp, olives, feta cheese and parsley.

I used homemade pasta that I picked up at the local farmer market a few days before. I used red and green pepper since I couldn't find a yellow pepper at the grocery store.  I skipped the olives and I skipped the parsley garnish. 

I added the feta cheese after I took the photo below.

Ouila!

Learning to Run

I have recently connected with a co-worker on the subject of running.  She asked if I was a runner and I mentioned that I am a "want-to-be."  I have tried running.  I've run outside and I've run on treadmills but I have never really stayed with it.

One of my 30/30 goals is to run a 5k color run.  Why a color run?  Because it makes running look like more fun.  Seriously.

My vision of this event is that I'll be able to run it at my pace the whole 3.1 miles of it without stopping. 

I've recently connected with a running group here in Vermont based out of an athletic store. The group I joined is a beginners group.  We meet on Wednesday nights to run outside together.  We have a training schedule.  We are invited to run together Saturday mornings and Monday evenings to stay motivated.

If you have never run with a group, I recommend it.  For me, it is motivating to have other people running beside me at my level.

I'll admit, I was skeptical about running outside in February/March/April Vermont weather.  I mean, I'm normally bundled up in sweatshirts and slippers inside with the heat on so I had reason for concern.  Much to my surprise I actually like running outside in this weather.  Once you start running, you don't even notice the cold or the snow.  Okay, you might notice the snow.

I'll be training with this group through the months of March and April.  In early May the group will run in a 5k race together.

Soon thereafter, I hope to run in a 5k color run!

February Recipe 2: Quiche

This was very easy to throw together.  I used the first recipe I found online and made slight modifications.  I didn't have any heavy cream so I used a little more milk and cheese.  I also added in some green pepper and tomato.

The quiche was a hit with Hubs.  It's a repeatable meal for sure!

Random Thursday

It's late but it's still Thursday!

1.  I ate Vietnamese food for the first time this week.  To prep for pronunciation of the word "Pho" I watched this video.  And then I watched this, and this. The Pho was okay.  I prefer Thai food for sure.

2.  We haven't bought cereal in 2 weeks in hopes of eating down our warm cereal options.  I have successfully finished a box of cream of wheat.  I can't wait to have cold cereal again.

3.  I have been making good progress on my wedding scrapbook. You can expect blog post updates soon.

4.  Even though I am Facebook vacationing, I have had to log in twice from work for work.

5.  I am never using a knife in the kitchen again.

The Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge

If you haven't found yourself rocking out to Macklemore's Thrift Shop song already, please click on that link and get yourself hooked.

Several blogs I follow have been participating in the Macklemore Thrift Shop Challenge.

via Young House Love

Challenge accepted!  Hubs and I spent some time thrifting a local second hand store to see what kind of fun things we could find.

Here I am, getting read to pop some tags with the $20 I had in my pocket!

I was able to find a few of the thrifted items that are bragged about in the song including:

1.  "They had a broken keyboard, I bought a broken keyboard"

(Actually, they also had an organ....that only cost $10! WHET?!)

 2.  "Passin' up on those moccasins someone else's been walkin' in"

 3.  "I'm in this big a$$ coat, from that thrift shop down the road"

Amazing right? $40 and it could be yours.

So. Much. Fun.

Here are some other fun things found:

A Twilight hard cover book for just $3

Skis for just $5

A sweet old school video camera - remember when they looked like that?

You're wondering, did we buy anything during this extravaganza?  YES!

I spent a few minutes browsing through the CD selection and became the cool 5th grader I never was and bought myself two Britney CDs.  Couldn't resist.  I also picked up the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack for some Indian jams.  3 CDs for $5.  I've been rocking out in my car all week.