My Life On The Line: update

Showing posts with label update. Show all posts

Sunday, August 21, 2011

I'm still alive, I swear. But it's not like my 10 glorious followers are sitting in front of their computers, like, "OMG WHAT IS SHE UP TO?!" I mean, I like to think one of you 10 lovely readers misses me, but reality says you probably didn't notice I was gone.

ANYWAYS.

After three weeks of working 5 straight days (horrible, I know), I should be back to my almost-normal schedule now. Except, my boss wants to take away my free Thursdays, and make me work. Effective immediately. Yay moneys! BOO no sleeping in!

Oh, and that's yet another day I won't have to work on wedding stuff. And we're 7 weeks away from the Big Day. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't freaking out about this.

Friday night was spent starting on veil construction. Oh yes, I'm making my own veil. Because I'm completely insane. Actually, it's because my step-dad's sister bailed on making a veil for me, and the prices people charge for these things is completely insane. $200 for some fluffy shit and sequins? I don't think so. I have hands and free time and hot glue... I can do this for cheap!

So after 30 tense minutes of wandering around Joann's in search of the right supplies... I came home with $29 worth of tulle, fishing line, and hair combs. I didn't get the sparkley rhinestones... Yet. If I can assemble the veil without it looking ghetto, then I'll tackle sparkles. I know I'm good at sparkles.

I searched the internets for the best tutorials, only to find that there are none. Well, there are tutorials, but they suck. I think tulle is just really hard to capture on video. It's like Bigfoot or Nessie or the Chupacabra. It's elusive. And I don't think there's one universal method to veil-making. So I kind of had to watch some videos, use my brain, and just go fot it.

Luckily, I bought like, 7 yards of tulle. That's like, 189 square feet of elusive fluffy crap. Which looks like a ghostly aparition when it's bunched up on your couch and you've had a few glasses of wine. But yeah, I had enough extra tulle to experiment.

Did I mention Skip hates tulle? Because he spent like a solid hour sitting on the couch yelling, "I F%$#ING HATE TULLE! OMG! IT'S ITCHY! GET IT OFF MEEEE!" And I was yelling back, "STOP MOVING! YOU'RE GOING TO SCARE THE GHOST AWAYYYYY!"

So attempt numero-uno was a bust.

But the second attempt was mostly a success. I think if I glue on some sparkly stuff, no one will notice my terrible fishing line sewing skills. But I'll need to do that sober, because hot glue is (duh) hot. And tulle is (duh) elusive. I don't need an ER visit in my life right now.

What I do need in my life is glorious wedding shoes. And Skip needs 3 inches of height in his life, so I don't look like a giant standing next to him at the altar. Seriously. Dillards had super glorious sparkletastic wedding shoes, but they would've made me look like an Amazonian queen. Which would be great, if Skip wasn't vertically challenged. Well, he's not challenged... He's just not gifted. We're like, the same height. So he's freakishly tall, but not tall enough that I can wear glorious heels.

So the other insane thing I'm doing this weekend... Is taking Skip out to help me find wedding shoes. Basically, I just need him there as a reference piece. So I can stand next to him and be like, "Yep, you're still short. These shoes are out." Or "ZOMG THESE ARE THE SHOES." Skip will probably hate this process, but it needs to happen. I can't keep buying and returning shoes like a crazy person because they're too tall.

That's all that's really going on right now... Well, there's probably other stuff, too, but nothing really interesting.

I promise I'll try to update this more frequently. For reals, this time!

Ghosts, goblins, and sparkles,

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Finding Purpose

Since I first started this blog, I have struggled to find its purpose. Is it a diary, a food blog, a photography blog? Maybe a wedding blog? A travel blog? A blog I neglect because I'm too lazy to remember to update it?

Sadly, the latter is most true.

Anyhoo... I've really been wanting to get back into the swing of blogging, so I've been trying to figure out what it is I want to do with this blog. My life is going through so many changes right now, that it's hard to find just one single purpose. I can't just blog about food or photos or my wedding. I can't just blog about my weight loss journey, or all the places we've traveled to. I can't just blog about nothing.

So, dear readers (yes, plural, as I'm hoping there are at least two of you), I ask you to bear with me, as I try to find my blogging niche. I can't promise that my entries will always be interesting, but I'm hoping that there will be more of them. It's quantity over quality, right? Right?!

This post needs a picture. Of food.

Wow, this picture is blurrier than I thought it would be... But, through the fuzz, you'll see that these are mushrooms. Happy, delicious little mushrooms, sauteing in marsala wine. Because this photo is from a series of photos I took the other night while cooking Skip his favorite meal, Chicken Marsala.

I really hate making him this dish. Really. This is is favorite dish that I make, and it's hard to make it the same way every single time. I always feel like it's never as good as the first time I made it for him. It's a lot of pressure, for a simple meal. My palms get sweaty, the veins in my forehead start to pop out... It's just stressful.

For whatever reason, I thought this most-stressful-meal-ever would be a good candidate for an attempt at food blogging. Which was a really stupid idea, because I don't use a recipe for this. I just kind of wing it. But I thought, for some stupid reason, that I would be able to blog about it. And then, I kind of forgot to take some vital pictures. So I don't even have all the steps. I'm a food blogging failure.

BUT. I'm not a funny failure, so here are the steps, as recorded by my camera.

Step One: Arrange the ingredients, so that no one can actually tell what most of them are. Take this photo with a "cool" and "artistic" angle, to highlight the green onions... That you didn't actually use, because you forgot them.

Step Two: Take a picture of the ziploc containing the chicken breasts... Because you're funny, and labeled them "chicken boobs." Heh heh. Boobs.

Step Three: Take a cool overhead shot of the chopped green onions. Yes, yes, the same ones you forgot to use in this recipe. People will think it's artsy.

Step Four: Start seasoning the chicken. Then, halfway through, remember that you should be taking pictures. Wash one hand, and pick up the camera. Then, snap this photo of your other hand fondling the chicken boobs.

Step Five: Illustrate that you should not leave chicken unattended on the counter. Put it in the fridge, and then take a picture of it in the fridge to show the world that you're thinking about food safety, and you have a lot of crap in your fridge.

Step Six: See the container of sliced strawberries on top of the giant tub of butter, and decide it's time for a healthy snack. Cover the sliced strawberries with Hershey's syrup. Consume them in no more than three bites, using only your hands. Spoons are for losers.

Step Seven: Take a blurry/artistic picture of the canned green beans simmering on the stove. Put that candle in the background, because it looks cool.

Step Eight: Take a photo of the boiling potatoes from an interesting angle... And then realize that boiling potatoes are not, in fact, interesting... From any angle.

Step Nine: Take an overhead shot of the mushrooms cooking... Screw the chicken you just cooked in this same pan. Nobody needs to know that you actually cook the chicken in this recipe. The mushrooms are the star. And nobody needs to know that you put the wine in the pan too... You can't give away ALL your cooking secrets!

Step Ten: Show a semi-blurred picture of the chicken on a plate. Because this looks incredibly appetizing. Oh, and sneak in that little blue bowl of onions to the left... Because YOU FORGOT THEM, YOU MORON.

Step Eleven: Use this picture of the meal your significant other cooked the next night... Because it looks far more appetizing than the chicken marsala you made. Oh, and he used cool little sauce swooshes, and you can't do that with marsala.