Hair & Makeup Trial

Welp, I'm officially a bad blogger. My apologies for the long delay in posting. I'll blame it on a combination of bad weather, food poisoning, a nasty cold, and general wedding fatigue. I'll address the last one in another post (probably?) but for now, I'll keep plowing through our busy Christmas planning extravaganza.

I wasn't really sure what to expect going into my hair trial, to be honest. I have very, very, very fine and thin blonde hair, and many times in the past attempted updos have left me looking quite bald. I really wanted to avoid that. I spent quite a bit of time looking around Pinterest trying to find photos that I thought would work with my hair. I wanted an updo with some volume, and with details on the side so when my veil, which is nearly opaque, is on, you can still see that my hair is done up.

Here are the ideas I brought in:

via Wedding Window

via The Knot

We tried a couple of variations, and this is what we ended up with:

Side View

From the back

Front View

At the time, I really liked it. The side wisps drove me nuts, within the hour I'd tucked them behind my ears. But now, with some distance, I'm not sure how I feel. I like the way it looks from the front, but I really don't like the side view. I'm not sure how to fix that, but when I go back in April I'm going to try again.

The other thing is that, by the time we'd gotten the braid and the poof, she had almost no hair left to make the bun at the bottom. As such, Lady A and I are going to start looking around for extensions. I've never worn them before, but I think it make be the solution we're looking for. My plan is to try to find a set of real hair clip-ins. I'll let you know how that goes!

As for the makeup, that I was less thrilled with. It didn't look bad, at all, but I made the mistake of telling her I don't wear a lot of makeup normally, so I think she was afraid to use very much on me. As a result, it actually is much softer than what I wear when I'm dressing up to go out. Unfortunately, I didn't get a great photo, but here you go:

30 minutes post trial

Obviously, there needs to be a more permanent lipstick solution. The other thing is that we're having a formal evening wedding, and I don't know that this is enough "umph" to match that. I'm also seriously considering seeing if they do lashes. As you can see, I get crinkly eyes when I smile, and I think I'd like to have some more definition.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Recipes?

Mostly Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

Growing up, I used to love the freezer chicken pot pies. On a cold, wet day, they were the perfect comfort food. As an adult, and especially as one who tries to pay attention to what I eat, I've avoided pot pies altogether. Between the fat and the sodium, I haven't even wanted to try.

But, with the Polar Vortex descending, I found myself craving crusty, gooey, chicken and veggies. So, I ran around the internet a bit, but never quite found something that was perfect. The recipe below borrows a bit from a couple of easily accessed recipes, but I mostly just threw stuff into the pot.

Mostly Homemade Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 Tube low-fat crescent rolls (or biscuits of your choice)
• 1.5 cups chicken broth
• 3/4 cups chopped onions (or a sprinkle of dehydrated onions, if you hate onions like I do)
• 1 cup potato, chopped
• 1 cup carrots, chopped
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 1 large chicken breast, cut into pieces
• 3/4 cup reduced fat milk
• 1/4 cup AP flour
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. In a large pan, bring broth to a boil
3. Stir in all vegetables except peas, return to a boil, then let simmer for 5-6 minutes
4. Add chicken and frozen peas, return to boil, then let simmer for 5 minutes
5. In a separate bowl, slowly whisk milk into flour until well blended
6. Add flour mixture into chicken mixture and stir well. Turn heat to medium and allow to thicken, approximately 5 minutes
7. Add thyme, salt, and pepper, mix well. 
8. Coat individual ramekins (or a larger dish, your choice!) with PAM or another non-stick spray
9. Lay one biscuit into the bottom of the ramekin, and pour 1/4 of chicken mixture over biscuit. Layer additional biscuit over top of chicken mixture. Repeat for remaining ramekins. 
10. Place all ramekins on a baking sheet and slide into oven for 14 minutes, or until biscuit on top is golden brown. 

Om nom nom. This was really great, and we actually fought over the leftovers. I may decide to forgo the bottom biscuit in future. While tasty, I'm not sure it outweighed the added calories. Otherwise, this was very yummy.

Oh, and as always use caution when opening canned biscuits. I was chatting with a friend while I made these, and he sent me this:

True life, people. I get tense just watching this.

Delicious Desserts - Macarons

If you read my previous post, you'll have seen that I was not 100% on the cake train. Although, if there were an actual train of cake, I could probably get on-board with that. Anyway, when we were still deciding whether or not to do cake, we decided to bring in another dessert option.

To preface this, I had the opportunity during college to live in Paris not once, but twice, during two different May Terms. The last time I was there, in 2009, I lived right off of La Place de la Madeleine. Big, beautiful Neo-Classical church, on a site line down La Rue Royale towards La Place de la Concorde. I know all of that might mean nothing to you, but the salient point here is that in the Place Madeleine is a pretty little shop called Ladurée, of macaron fame. It isn't their biggest shop, but that didn't make it any less tempting. I did manage to avoid eating macarons every single day, but definitely managed to make a few visits every week.

Left to Right: Raspberry, Coffee, Pumpkin Spice, Pistachio (2), Lavender White Chocolate

What all of that means for the wedding, really, is that I wanted macarons. And, luckily for me, there's a wonderful little French cafe in Des Moines called La Mie. My mom goes there quite a bit, uses it for informal meetings for work, and she raves about their macarons.

So, on Monday, BM S, Brother E, his girlfriend A, Mr. C and I met at La Mie to taste some macarons. As BM S is expecting a little bee in July, she abstained from any of the creme filled (aka raw egg) macarons, but she did get to help me taste my favorite, raspberry. We decided we're going to order 300 macarons (for 150 guests), in each flavor except the Lavendar White Chocolate. It didn't do a lot for me. The coffee didn't either, but Mr. C loves coffee so I figured I'd give him that one.

Mmm.....macarons

Now, two questions remain. First, we have to pick up the macarons the day before the wedding as the cafe is closed on Sundays, and find enough refrigerator storage to keep them all cold. This may mean spreading them out between bridesmaids, their parents, and some local family friends with the hope that they all get to the venue in time. I'm also going to try talking to our caterers to see if they have storage space for them in a big fridge somewhere.

The other question is, how do we want to display them? I'll come back to that, I promise. For now, I'm going to leave you hanging :)

Delicious Desserts - Cake

I will be perfectly honest, Mr. C and I are not huge cake people. I mean, if somebody sets a piece of cake in front of me, I will eat it, although that may be more of a statement of my willpower than my cake preference. Mr. C is pretty much in the same boat. Ice cream, pie, tortes, cookies, crepes, custards, you name them, we eat them. But cake definitely isn't our go to.

However, when we mentioned our thought of ditching cake altogether to our respective parents, they suggested that even if the tow of us didn't want cake, most people come to a wedding expecting cake. And, as much as we are okay with changing things up, we figured this was not the hill to die on.

So, on Thursday we found ourselves at the local grocery store, tasting cake. And, I will admit, as there were pieces of cake (mostly in cupcake form) set in front of me, I ate them and they were yummy. Because I'm a bad blogger, I didn't take any pictures. We tried four flavors; vanilla, chocolate, champagne, and red velvet. The vanilla and chocolate tasted pretty average. Not bad, but hey if we were going to have cake it may as well be delicious. And look pretty.

Imagine this, except two tiers and without the flowers on the side - via The Knot

Going in, I knew that we wanted to do a couple of smaller tiers, then the rest in sheet cakes. We chose two flavors; champagne and red velvet. In the tasting, the champagne cake was violent, neon pink. The baker said they actually tint it, and for our cake she'd have them tone it down to a pale blush. Perfect, non? So, we're doing that on the top layer, and the red velvet on the bottom. Then we'll do two sheets, one of each. Also, for no charge, they're going to add our monogram to the top of each of the cut sheet pieces.

For not having been thrilled about the idea of cake, I'm actually pretty happy with how it is going. Our initial plan is to have the florist drop off a ribbon for the baker to use, but after thinking about it for awhile, I want to see if they can do something that is edible. If not, ribbon is fine, but a little painted gold band would be lovely. We got a beautiful serving set as a gift from family friends of Mr. C, which was totally unexpected but that I am very happy to have. Now, the only thing is to find a cake stand!

It's not heaven...

It is our new cutting board!

Mr. C's mom is awesome, and gave it to me in an awesome cutting board in the shape of my beloved home state. Mr C. and I both decided that we'd prefer to keep it looking pretty, so he hung it up over our sink in a place of honor.

Awesome, right?

This is both a chance to show off my awesome gift, and also a lead-in to what Id id over my Christmas vacation. We started off in CT at Mr. C's family family for "Fakemas" and too much junk food, then headed back to my homeland from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day. It was awesome, and we also got SO much wedding planning done! Over the next few days, I'll break down the various appointments/tastings/trials that we had to catch you up, but for now, here's an overview:

Thursday
- Dinner at Rehearsal Dinner Option #1

Friday
- Cake Tasting
- Wedding Catering Tasting
- Venue Visit

Saturday
- Linen Rental Visit
- Bridesmaid Dresses Ordered

Sunday
- Engagement Photos
- Mom's Dress Ordered

Monday
- Hair and Makeup Trial
- Macaron Tasting
- Florist Meeting

Tuesday
- Lunch at Rehearsal Dinner Option #2

In addition to all of that, I also got my likely wedding shoes (yay!), got most of the work done on the wedding website, and have a design for our Save the Date magnets that is now awaiting a final proof of an engagement photo before heading off to the printers.

Bouquet Christmas Ornaments

If you'll recall from a few posts back, Mr. C and I recently attended the wedding of some friends in South Carolina, and the bride gave me her bouquet at the end of the night. I was determined to do something nice with it, but hadn't decided between a couple of options.

Well, the groom is in town this week and won't be again before Christmas, so it was now or never. I decided to start with the ornament, and if I had extra petals I'd talk to the groom and see if the jewelry is something his bride would like.

I've been keeping my eyes open for awhile trying to find clear ornaments. Hah. You'd think with all of the shops putting Christmas things out before Halloween that it wouldn't be tough, but after visiting three local big boxes I ended up driving to the nearest Hobby Lobby. I picked up the ornaments (50% off!) and honestly that's really all I needed. Initially I was thinking of doing one big ornament, but once I got started I realized I had plenty to fill four pretty decent size ornaments. I am going to try to get some ribbon to tie to the hooks so they can hang them a little more festively, but all in all this is a relatively inexpensive craft.

One nearly completed ornament

Mr. C was off at his second to last grad school class of the semester tonight, so I took some time to put everything together. Really it was pretty simple. I'd put her bouquet into a vase to let the flowers dry after the wedding, so I carefully broke it down. There were two colors of roses, some lilies, some sort of dark berry, these little green globes, and a couple of different sizes of leaves. She also had little red crystals in the bouquet, so I put one of each of those in each ornament. It took me about half an episode of Once Upon a Time.

Strips of invitation and curled hearts

I also saved their invitation, and cut it into thin strips to make into little hearts. Each strip I folded into half, then wrapped around the skinniest part of a mechanical pencil. Initially I thought I'd hot glue the pieces of the heart together, but I think they are staying together well enough on their own.

The Moose really enjoyed helping clean up the spare paper

All in all, I am very very happy with how this turned out. We're meeting up with the groom on Wednesday, and I can't wait to give this to him. Originally I was going to wrap it in Christmas paper as a surprise, but I want to make sure he knows what it is so he packs it carefully for the trip back home.

The end result!

November: A Month of Challenges

So I've been planning awhile (and talked in this post) about participating in NaNoWriMo this month. I'm three days in and only at 2,160 words, but my parents and Mr. C's parents have been here, so there hasn't been much time for writing. The good news is, when I do sit down, I'm able to churn out quite a bit of content pretty quickly. So far, we're flowing pretty well.

Mom & Dad P seeing the sites

This November I've also decided to try "No Spend November." I have a bad habit of letting little purchases sneak up on me; Target and CVS are the worst. I'm in no way in trouble financially, but I think taking the month to see what I really need will help. Basically, I'm cutting out all of my impulse buys and reexamining what it is that I really need. Hopefully this will help the holidays hurt a little less. Yesterday morning I went out and got the things I know I'll have to restock anyway; shampoo, conditioner, and toothpaste. Toiletry and makeup wise, which is an area I tend to splurge a bit, I should be all set. Here's a list of what I'm going to avoid and how I'm going to try to mitigate the purchase:

• Clothing - I refreshed a couple of months ago, and right now my wardrobe is in a good place. I could use another pair of khaki's, but those can wait until December. 
• Household goodies - Ugh, this is a tough one. I love buying new candles and little things to set around. If there's something I really can't live without, I'll see if it is something I can DIY. 
• Gifts - This is another hard one. I love buying little things for Mr. C, plus the holidays are fast approaching. I already have a couple of gifts for certain individuals, and hopefully can look at things to make for those who are left. Plus, no more little bottles of Coke Zero for Mr. C magically appearing in the apartment. 
• Toiletries/makeup - Like I said, I should be set here, and actually have a return to make to CVS. 
• Dinner - This is probably the easiest trap to fall in. Luckily, with our folks being here, we've got TONS of leftovers from the dinners out we've had, and they've been buying. So we'll live on those for a few more days, then I'll get back into cooking again. I also need to be better about getting supplies for lunches, instead of depending on leftovers that don't always happen. 

So, that's the plan. I know I have some expenses that I can't avoid; student loan payments, co-pays for PT and my dermatologist visit next week, gas, things like that, but I'm going to try to manage everything else as best as I can. I'll try to remember to touch base and fill you in on how it goes!