And we have a winner!

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We picked our officiant today. After a lot of contemplation we decided to go with the person who was going to be there for both our rehearsal and the ceremony. Even with the extra cost it just felt right for us. I posted on "The Knot" message board about these two guys and both came highly recommended. But I found out that the one we were going to go with may have been picking and choosing to come to certain rehearsals and not others. Even if that was not true, I just did not want to have any doubt in my mind. It's funny because I did not think this would be a difficult vendor for me to choose but so far this has been the most challenging part.

I am excited to check something else off the list of wedding planning. So far we have a location, coordinator, dress, photographer and a few other small things taken care of. Next thing to tackle will be our STD's and first for that project is our engagement pictures. We are taking them next Sunday. I am so excited. I am currently trying to figure out what to wear and where to take the pictures. My progress on my 5 pounds in 5 weeks is coming along very well. So now I feel like I can get excited about picking out a few nice outfits for the occasion. We are going to try and save on postage this Christmas and do our STD's as our Christmas card. I am ordering generic postcards from Vista Print with a great picture of us on the front. I am hoping to add some personal details like a stamp and some other things on the back.

Thanks for all your input ladies and now I am off to the next thing!

Thanksgiving Menu!!

OK ladies (cus let's face it no boy's read this) I am proud to present my first attempt at a Thanksgiving menu. I researched many of my cookbooks and websites. I love "Real Simple" and I got several great ideas for side dishes there as well. Above is a picture of my end table with all of the different books and recipe cards I went though last night. (notice that none of the following is from the WW book, hey I tried) So here you go:

Breakfast (for watching the parade and after the Turkey Trot)
Sour Cream Coffee Cake - My family recipe, best in the world. VERY Yankee traditional cake.

Dinner/Lunch
Hearts of Romain with walnuts and Parmesan - Real Simple
Cornbread muffins with homemade spiced pumpkin butter - combination of a few recipes
Mashed sweet potatoes (covered in marshmallows) YUM - Joy of Cooking
Creamed Onions - My future mother in law's recipe and Joy of Cooking
Glazed Carrots - My mom's family recipe  and in Joy of Cooking
Turkey or Ham - I am buying it pre-made. I don't think my oven would cook it right, I know I cheat.

Desert
Cinnamon Coffee in French Press
Bourbon Pecan Pie - Real Simple
Pumpkin Pie - Homemade by my future mother in law.

So what are your thoughts? I am super excited. I know it is a lot of food for a smaller group. I am going to half both the creamed onions and the mashed sweet potatoes. I just cant have Thanksgiving without either of them. Now I am going to work on finding ways to make them just a little bit healthier. Ugh...

And just in case you read my blog about grocery shopping and you questioned weather I actually am THAT anal. Here is the front of my fridge:

Notice both the shopping list and my menu. I also have coupons cut and the Target add up there for my next trip. (I will not spend crap loads of money next time!) Psychotic Impressive I know.

Officiant Update

Fiance and I interviewed several officiants for the wedding. We met with two that we both really liked. I need your advice though. One of them was super laid back, a pastor, has done a friend's wedding and will be there for both the rehearsal and the wedding, but costs a bit more than I would like to pay. The other one was recommended by like 10 people on the knot, was SUPER nice and right on top of all of the details of the service. WF and I really loved him BUT he does not come to rehearsals. That makes us super nervous. But he was perfect other than that.

What should I do? Do I trust that the one guy who does not do rehursals will fo a great job? Ugh I hate this.

So It Begins

Last night as I was baking brownies for our semi weekly dinner with the girls with Kelly and Janet I decided to start to plan out my table layout for Thanksgiving. I am hosting the holiday at my house for the first time. I am super nervous about hosting. I have never made Thanksgiving dinner and I feel a bit ill equipped. BUT I am going to do my best to blow my guests minds with my home making skills and creative genius in the kitchen. Fiance's mom and grandpa are coming so I have to keep it pretty formal and I would like to make it a really special evening.

So first things first, the table. I don't have any new and fancy stuff for the table yet so I am trying to work with what we have and buy things sparingly. I was originally thinking I would just use my regular white dishes and then buy chargers or something. Then WF suggested we use the china I inherited from my grandma, great idea! So after some confusion about what dish was what I finally laid it all out. What do you guys think? The silverware we inherited from Fiance's mom. I thought she would get a kick out of us using it. I am planning on buying a tablecloth and then using a runner.

Just for a better look at the pattern I took a picture up close: 

I know the pattern is not really holiday like, but I still love it. Don't you?

Just cause my dog is so cute, he was helping. 

This is fiance and Harry staying out of my way as I plan. Just had to put that up! 

Some addional inspiration for my thanksgiving table. I am thinking warm, rustic, organic, family.

 

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More ideas and planning to come. Next is menu and centerpices. Oh BOY!

Grocery Shopping Tips

So I always tell you guys how organized I am but I never really share any helpful tips. So I thought I would share my thoughts on grocery shopping. It is a task that at one point I hated and now I look forward to. I read one girls blog about this last week and though well crap I do that and more. So here is my attempt to help you all out!

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Grocery Shopping:

1. Plan out your menu. I do this every time I go shopping. I really feel it is a good way to save money and time in the end. I usually take about 30 minutes before I head out to the store to go through my fridge and pantry and see what I already have. I then look for recipes that might go with what I already have. Marking on my list any additional items I might need to buy.

2. Try a new meal. I always pick one new meal every trip to attempt. This time it was eggplant parm. I have never made it before and was always intimidated by it. But I put the items on my list and bought everything I needed.I never try something new that has lots of ingredients I would never use again. I try to use what I have while still mixing it up.

3. Go over your basics and write those down too. I used to walk around the store and just have all my basics I knew I should get. But for some reason I would end up with doubles of things or forget other items. So I take the extra minute or two to write everything down and check to make sure if I really need everything.

4. Have a plan of attack when heading into the store. I always have a budget in mind for what I can spend on food on each trip. I come in knowing that all the frill items I might want to buy (like wine and maybe hair products)will be put on the end of the check out line and if I am over my budget on things we really need I start to make cuts. Although you might annoy the check out guy a bit, you are sticking to your budget and that's never a bad thing.

5. Stick to the outside rim of the store. People always walk up and down all the isles. It is so not necessary. You just don't have to do that. Most of the time items in the isles are processed and packaged, therefore not as good for you and they cost more money. It's true! So think about what you really need from isle four before you walk down it. Look at what is listed on the isle marker and then look at your list. It will save you time and money in the end.

6. Check the dates. I always check the dates on all my dairy products. You will find that the newer stuff is in the back of the row and if you take those two extra seconds to not grab the front carton of milk you might add a week onto the shelf life of the item!

7. Use a pre-made list. I love Real Simple's grocery list. Its organized by the flow of the grocery store. So as you walk through each section of the store is will be the next section on your list. It also has space to fill in extra things you need and even reminds you to buy certain household items that I usually don't think of when I grocery shop. Like trash bags and hand soap. I got mine from WF last year for Christmas but I know he got it from Target.They have lots of these types of things out there though. Its worth the investment!

8. Write out your menu. Don't just write down the ingredients you need for your dishes on your list but then on a separate note pad write out what you planned to make. I keep mine on the fridge and it looks like a menu, then when I make it I cross it off. I also write out the cookbook I got it from and the page number. That way those days that I am like ugh I have nothing to cook, I can just look at my menu on the fridge and realize I have all the fixings to make meal A,B and C. It saves me time, money and having to think about dinner too much!

I hope these thoughts help you! They make my life easier! Let me know if any of you have any other ideas to save money and time while grocery shopping. I always like to try new things!

Worst.Week.Ever.

Yes I know it is only Wednesday. But this week STINKS! I can't belive my luck. I have just totally fallen apart since this weekend and have had sever (yes several) mini breakdowns.

First Monday morning I did not have the right stuff for my normal lunch. I was pretty pouty about that, if I had only known I would have just gotten back in bed right then. Then while out at lunch running 10 errands I still have to get done I had a panic attack as I realized that I forgot to take my sweet sweet puppy out to go pee in the morning. Fearing the worst I promptly headed home to let him out. No big deal except I was on the other end of town and drove about 30 minutes north to go home. Ugh. Well about 5 minutes away from home I remembered that I did let him out. Double ugh! So I figured I would drop off my dry cleaning. After checking my pile of stuff three and four times I realized the the fabulous dress I borrowed from my friend Kelly was GONE! No where to be found at all. I went home checked everywhere as well as in my car and it was no where to be found at all. So after calling everyone I could who might know where the dress was I resigned to the fact that it was gone. So then I had to replace the dress. I called every store in central Texas where they might carry the dress and finally found it at a store on the other end of town. As we all know in Austin driving from one end of the city to the other during rush hour BLOWS! So I finally made it home two hours later than normal. Stupid MOPAC.

My dog had no food and neither did we. So I went to HEB to remedy that situation. Well I get there and there are NO GROCERY CARTS! Goodness really? Really!? So after asking several people to help me find one and no response I caved and just grabbed a small arm basket. I proceeded to rush through grabbing absolute necessities. I proceeded to hit a kid in the head, who was sitting on the floor in the middle of HEB (REALLY! Thanks crazy mom for thinking that was a good idea) So I got home and had a small panic attack in my closet while folding laundry. WF rescued me and put me promptly to bed.

Determined to make Tuesday better I got to work. I tore though the start of this huge project. Well at about 3 I realized that I had been processing this whole thing wrong!!! I have to now do it all over again and my boss got on me about how I cost us a bunch of time and money. I ended up crying in the bathroom for a while, all the while freaking out that they are going to fire me.

All in all this week had gotten off to a crappy start. If I don't get fired I am hoping to make up for my mistake and get more organized and on top of everything. I still feel horrible about Kelly's dress and I still want to shoot myself in the foot when I think about mistake I made at work. I have to make this better! What the heck is going on with me!

Amazing Halloween Pumpkin Carving Skills

I must start off by telling you all the WF and I have been known to get just a little crazy about holidays. In the next few months I will be posting our decorations for Thanksgiving and Christmas. We both love to decorate our house and this year will be the first time we get to do the our house together! Whooo WHO!

Last night we attempted to carve a pumpkin. I say attempted because when we went to the store to buy said pumpkin there were like three left and all of them were deformed AND they were out of the carving kits so we had no tools to help us out. So we when free style with our somewhat deformed pumpkin. I think we did a pretty good job. Here is the result:

I know you are totally blown away! Anyway, here are some other features of our Halloween decorations in the house. Remember this year we held back because of all the stuff that has recently went down in our lives. This is a reserved house for us:

This is our balcony, you cant tel but it looks awesome with our pumpkins!

This is our skeleton on our end table. It is complete with smoke effects!

Hanging on the door when you walk into the house is this scary guy!

This is us last night trying to take a picture of us with our pumpkin. You get the idea!

WF and I are taking my niece trick or treating this weekend, I am super excited. I will be dressing up like a pirate. We are also handing out candy too! I am pumped! I hope you guys have fun this weekend. Remember to be safe and don't eat any opened or shady candy! That's solid advice from this Yankee!