Lindi and I like wine... but specifically, we really like sweet wine that is not even the teensiest dry. Not even one wine-particle of dryness. Yuck. And really, really not red wine. Want to know why? I bet you do... so, Lindi used to really like red wine, and I was sort of okay with it. Then we went to Italy last summer, which was spectacular EXCEPT for the day we went on a wine tour of the Chianti region. We went to several different wineries, tried lots of different kinds of (red) wine, ate little bruschetta and salami and so on. Well. It was all well and good until Lindi started to feel sick. And then sicker. And then she sat out of the tour of one of the wine cellars because the musty, red wine-y smell was making her stomach even more upset. It was finally the end of the day, and it seemed like things were going to be okay... but then we were on our little tour bus (it probably held about 20 people total) and we were making our way down the windy, twisty road back to Florence. Lindi said she was feeling even sicker. And THEN one of the other tour-goers announced that she had forgotten her camera at the last place we had stopped, so we turned around, went BACK up the twisty turny road, got the camera, and even though Lindi made it that far, she totally did not make it down the road a third time. She told me that she was really afraid she was going to throw up, so one of the other women sitting near us gave us a paper bag that she had from buying souveniers. Lindi DID throw up, into the bag, and that was (sort of) okay until the bag broke. On me. And then she threw up more, mostly on me. I rubbed her back and while she cried and was sick and my mother did her best to wipe vomit off of the parts of our bodies she could reach. We got back to Florence, where we were staying for the month, and had to walk about six blocks, covered in vomit, to get back to our apartment. It turns out she (and subsequently, me) was coming down with the stomach flu, and it only lasted about two days... but that first day was really, really bad. Did I mention that this was only our fourth day in Italy? Anyway, that's why we don't like red wine anymore. (Or the clothes we were wearing that day.)
Okay, so now that you know that story, please put it out of your mind and focus on the delicious, non-vomit-related wine I'm about to tell you about.
Although that put red wine basically out of the running, we still wanted to find a yummy white wine for the occasional nice dinner at home. We looked for a long time, tried lots of different kinds of wine over a period of a year or so, and then we discovered the moscato grape.
Okay, so now that you know that story, please put it out of your mind and focus on the delicious, non-vomit-related wine I'm about to tell you about.
Although that put red wine basically out of the running, we still wanted to find a yummy white wine for the occasional nice dinner at home. We looked for a long time, tried lots of different kinds of wine over a period of a year or so, and then we discovered the moscato grape.
It didn't look anything like those grapes, of course, because it was in wine form. We first tried the Barefoot Moscato, made in California, and then tried lots of other varieties of moscato wines. Our favorites are the first one we tried, and the Beviamo Moscato d'Asti from Italy. The Barefoot is about $7-8 per bottle, and the Beviamo is about $12. They are both very delicious. Even if you aren't super keen on the whole wine thing, if you DO want to try some, I would reccomend one of these two. I think they are technically dessert wines, but that didn't stop us from totally drinking them with dinner.
And that, I have to say, pretty much sums up what I know about wine. Red wine= yucky, lots of other kinds of wine= bleh, moscato wine= yum!
Here's my big news: we're starting a juice cleanse! We certainly aren't super unhealthy, but we love to bake... so we bake a LOT. After seeing this documentary, we thought we would try juicing. You basically cut out all sugar, flour, meat, caffeine and alcohol and only eat vegetables, fruit, legumes and nuts for two weeks. I completely forgot to take a "before" fridge picture, but it looked a lot like this guy's fridge: veggies and fruit, sure, but also lots of leftovers, yogurt, eggs, meat, pasta, rice, condiments, cheese and so on. And we pretty much always have some sort of cake/cookie/pie/pastry/quickbread in the house. Mm... yummy. But for now, we packed up all of our "no" foods and put them in the spare fridge at Lindi's mother's old house. No chocolate mousse or ranch dressing for us!
Now, our fridge looks like this. It is like the healthy tetris game of fridges, because just when I thought nothing else could fit, Lindi said, "Helen... there's a whole other bag of carrots and tomatoes behind the fridge door..."
Last night, we decided to make peach-apple-ginger juice when we got home from the store and discovered that several of the more-ripe peaches had gotten a little dented during the ride home.
Feed the fruit, several pieces at a time, into the juicer. Use the compressor to push them down into the grinder slowly- the slower the better, because you get more juice that way. If your pulp trap is full, empty it once during the process. We usually do. Ours came with a handy little brush/scoop thingy that's awesome for cleaning the grinder and scooping out the pulp.
Enjoy your delicious juice! We just made this recipe up, but you can find lots of other recipes here.
Now, our fridge looks like this. It is like the healthy tetris game of fridges, because just when I thought nothing else could fit, Lindi said, "Helen... there's a whole other bag of carrots and tomatoes behind the fridge door..."
We normally spend a bit under $300/mo. for groceries here in the Bettencourt-Chase household, and so I think we may actually stay around that. It depends on how long this haul of veggies and fruit lasts. We're aiming for at least a week to a week and a half, but since we're new to the whole juicing world, we'll have to see. I've included a list below of what we bought yesterday (and really feel free to skip this part if you could care less about what kinds of veggies we bought and how much they were, hah.)
Sam's Club:
1 lb. mixed greens: $3.98
Two 1 lb. baby spinach at $3.98 each: $7.96
Two 5 lb. bags of carrots at $2.98 each : $5.96
5 lb. broccoli florets: $4.98
Two 5 lb. bags granny smith apples at $5.98 each: $11.96
5 lb. new potatoes: $3.48
3 lb. lemons (about 10 lemons): $3.48
3 lb. cherub tomatoes: $4.98
6 large mangoes: $6.48
3 lb. red grapes: $5.98
One pineapple: $2.98
Total after tax: $70.87
Walmart:
3 bunches kale at $.98 each: $2.94
4 canteloupe at $.98 each: $3.92
Celery: $1.98
7 lb. peaches at $.98/lb.: $6.86
1 bunch radishes: $1.48
3 lb. oranges: $2.98
4 cucumbers at $.68 each: $2.72
One 3 lb. green cabbage: $1.58
3/4 lb. ginger root at $2.98/lb.: $1.68
1 coconut: $2.28
5 cans chick peas (to make hummus) at $.66 per can: $3.30
1 jar tahini: $6.23
Total after tax: $39.75
Total overall: $111.62
We almost never buy "treat" (read: expensive) fruits like strawberries, grapes and mangoes unless they are on sale, but since we weren't buying anything EXCEPT fruits and vegetables, we decided to get just a special few things so we won't just be eating spinach and carrots for weeks. Also, it was awesome that canteloupe were on sale for only $.98 each and peaches were on sale for $.98/lb.! The oranges were also on sale. I think we'll probably juggle the two stores, getting things in bulk at Sam's and things on sale or that we can't get in bulk at Walmart. We shall see. :)
We got our juicer in the mail on Wednesday (yay Amazon! We got this very, very excellent Breville juicer when it was on sale for $99 last week) and so we've actually already made several juices. We've tried apple-canteloupe-spinach-lemon (way better than it sounds!), plum-apple-lemon and cucumber-bell pepper-tomato. The first two are good, but Lindi said the third one was not so awesome. I wasn't home so I didn't try it, but she isn't a huge fan of bell peppers and said it overwhelmed the other veggies instead of tasting like V8, which is what she was going for.
Last night, we decided to make peach-apple-ginger juice when we got home from the store and discovered that several of the more-ripe peaches had gotten a little dented during the ride home. 
Apple-Peach-Ginger juice:
3 large, ripe peaches
2 green apples
About 1 in. of fresh ginger
De-pit the peaches and cut the fruit into small enough pieces that it will fit into the juicer feed. (We can put most things in there whole, so far, but the apples were too big this time.) You can leave the seeds in the apple- they'll get discarded.
Have any of you ever done a juice cleanse? Or just juiced for fun? I would love to hear what you think about it. (I would also LOVE to get your favorite recipes.) Hooray!
Sooo, I know I said this recipe would be "coming soon," and I didn't REALLY mean "in the next thirty minutes" when I said that, but then I realized that I have something really exciting to tell you all tomorrow and shrimp and grits don't really jive with said big announcement. They're too full of... butter, cheese, bacon.... mmm....
But tonight, you all totally get the recipe. Because it is amazing.
Lindi found this recipe, called "in a hurry shrimp n' grits," over at the blog Eat, Live, Run. We were looking for something fun and fast to make for dinner, and shrimp was our one "luxury purchase" choice for the week. (Yep! We're all graduated and everything, and now we are MORE POOR than when we were still in college! Funny how that works. So, we get to choose one "special" non-basic food item per week or two weeks, depending on when we got shopping. This week, the $5 bag of shrimp was it.)
The original recipe was just for one, and we messed with the quantities a bit to make it more along the lines of what sounded good to us. The biggest change was the bacon. People, I love bacon, and you know what? I was a vegetarian for most of my life. True story. I was a vegetarian growing up because my whole family was, until I was about 16 and decided to start eating some meat on my own when I was out with friends or whatever. I really only ate chicken and turkey, though, because not having any red meat for the majority of my life meant that my body was very unhappy when I tried to eat it.
I ate some meat until I came to college, and my freshman year I decided on my own to be a vegetarian again. That lasted a few years, but then my doctor put me on an elimination diet to try and figure out why I have migraines, and most non-meat proteins were eliminated. I couldn't eat nuts, cheese or soy, so I started eating some chicken and turkey again. Then, I started going out to Lindi's grandmother's house for dinner a lot... and if you eat there, you eat whatever she puts in front of you. Seriously. Depression-era food thinking. She makes a whole bunch of food for every meal that people are there to eat, but it almost all includes some sort of meat. (Salads with ham! Bread made with bacon grease!)
Anyway. That's the very long-winded story of how I, the former vegetarian, was won over to the bacon camp.
Doesn't that look scrumptious? Here's how you can make your own:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup quick grits
2 cups water
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2/3 cup shredded cheddar cheese
2 tsp butter
5 slices bacon (We use the low-sodium kind because otherwise it is sooooo salty.)
15 large, pre-cooked shrimp, deveined with the tails off
3 tsp minced garlic
4 scallions, chopped
1. Boil the water, then cook the grits with the salt and pepper according to the directions on the box. As soon as the water is absorbed, move off the burner and mix in the butter and cheese.
2. While the grits are cooking, cook the bacon in a large skillet on medium heat until crispy. Remove the bacon, but not the grease.
3. Add the shrimp to the pan and cook until they are a bit brown and heated through. (The original recipe called to use raw shrimp and only cook them for 30 seconds, but Lindi and I have an uncooked meat phobia and so we use pre-cooked shrimp instead.)
4. Take the shrimp out of the skillet. Crumble the bacon and put back into the skillet with the chopped scallions and garlic. Saute for about a minute.
5. Spoon the cheesy grits into two bowls and add the bacon-scallion mixture on top. Top with shrimp.
6. Enjoy the cheesy, bacony goodness!
As I said last week, I'm just going to post a few photos from each week instead of every day. So here's the first go at the new way!
That's our neighbor's cat, Moose. Yikes. Now it looks like all I think about is cats. Please ignore that coincidence... because doesn't she have the prettiest eyes?
Fresh-from-the-garden cherry tomatoes.
Annnnnnd shrimp and grits! The recipe will be coming soon. We made it earlier in the week and it was DELICIOUS. It was also the first time I've ever had grits, which was really weird to Lindi, but hey. I didn't grow up in the South. At any rate, they were pretty yummy.
And so, for good measure, I bring you... more cats! Atticus, that spastic fluffball, has discovered water. He's not one of those (rare) cats that enjoys baths (sadly), but yesterday when I got home from work, Lindi said, "So... today I was cleaning the bathroom and Atticus jumped up and curled up in the sink, which wasn't completely off, and he just stayed there. Even after he realized he was getting wet. It was adorable and weird."
My parents' cat Jak is that way, too. He will jump up on the counter and bat the water around like it's a toy.
Atticus has also taken to sticking his paws in All Things Water. If we have a cup of water sitting on the coffee table, he knocks it over. When he goes to drink out of his waterbowl, apparently now he has to use one paw to drag it to THE MIDDLE OF THE KITCHEN FLOOR. Maybe we have an OCD cat? I don't know, but I keep having visions of Lindi finding me one morning, dead on the kitchen floor amidst shards of ceramic and puddles of water, from where I tripped over the cat's bowl when I went to get a drink of water in the middle of the night. Yeesh. As a result, I move the bowl back to where it belongs at least five or six times a day.
He's a cutie.
My parents' cat Jak is that way, too. He will jump up on the counter and bat the water around like it's a toy.
Atticus has also taken to sticking his paws in All Things Water. If we have a cup of water sitting on the coffee table, he knocks it over. When he goes to drink out of his waterbowl, apparently now he has to use one paw to drag it to THE MIDDLE OF THE KITCHEN FLOOR. Maybe we have an OCD cat? I don't know, but I keep having visions of Lindi finding me one morning, dead on the kitchen floor amidst shards of ceramic and puddles of water, from where I tripped over the cat's bowl when I went to get a drink of water in the middle of the night. Yeesh. As a result, I move the bowl back to where it belongs at least five or six times a day.
He's a cutie.
Last night, Lindi played around with Melissa's hair and makeup. Melissa is getting married on Labor Day (eee!) and her dress is a totally rockin', tea-length, vintage-looking number that was dreamed up by the same designer who made a lot of dresses for Jackie O. and Marilyn Monroe. It's super cute- all white tulle and beading with a petticoat underneath to make it flare out. She's going to wear red heels with it! She wanted to practice a sort of pin-up look. Here's how to get the look: after finishing your base makeup (concealer, foundation, etc.) brush translucent powder over your entire face with a large brush. Then use pale pink or cream eyeshadow on your lids, thick black liquid eyeliner that comes to a bit of an up-turned point at the corners, and lash-extending mascara or fake eyelashes. Then, use a red lip pencil around the contours of your lip, fill in with an appropriate shade of red lipstick for your skin tone and top off with a bit of clear gloss. You can also use a bit of blush just on the apples of your cheeks. Simple AND stunning!
What do you think?
We bought a box of filo dough last week and made baklava, and it was delicious- but it only took up one roll of dough out of the two that came in the box. we knew we wanted to make something else, but what to make?
We settled on spanakopita, the flakily deliciously amazing spinach pastries from Greece. Mm. Then, while looking at recipes, we realized we only had one out of three types of cheeses required to make real spanakopita. Fail.
Lindi had already started chopping the veggies up, and when we realized our lack of various cheeses, she said, "Maybe... I can just make it up?"
Why, yes. Yes you can.
So, this is an amazingly yummy pastry thing that tastes a lot like spanakopita, but is not.
Makes 8 pastries
Ingredients
4 oz. feta cheese
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups fresh baby spinach
5 scallions
1 can chicken breast (like tuna in a can, but chicken. NOT a whole chicken in a can.)
Pepper to taste
1/2 t basil
1/2 t thyme
16 sheets filo dough
Melted butter mixed wth a little olive oil, or cooking spray
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Chop the scallions and baby spinach leaves into smaller pieces, roughly 1/4-inch.
3. Drain the canned chicken breast as you would drain tuna and stir together the vegetables, feta, chicken, egg and spices until well mixed.
4. On a clean, dry surface, lay out a sheet of filo dough and spray with cooking spray OR brush with melted butter.
5. Repeat for a stack of four layers of dough.
6. Cut the dough in half lengthwise. Put a heaping spoonful of dough on one end of the pastry, then fold the dough over toward you to cover the filling and make a triangle shape. Fold away from you to cover the triangle again, then toward you, etc. (The same way you make a paper football!) You can find picture instructions here if my wordy instructions are confusing.
7. When you have a little flap at the end of the dough strip and the rest is folded up into the triangle, brush with a little butter/spray and stick it down to the rest of the pastry. Brush/spray the top of the pastry lightly and place on a cookie sheet. Repeat steps 4-7 until you run out of filling and dough.
8. Bake until the tops of the pastry are lightly browned.
9. Enjoy how your life is changed forever by the flaky amazingness.
You'll probably have extra dough sheets, so you can either double the filling recipe and make lots of savory pastries, or you can do what we did and prepare the dough the same way, but fill with sweet stuff. Lindi made chocolate peanut butter pastries with semi-sweet chocolate chips and a dollop of peanut butter, plain chocolate pastries (with just chocolate chips) and chocolate-coconut flake-dried cranberry pastries. Yum!! I can think of lots of different fillings you could add: berries, peaches, cooked apples, white chocolate, caramel... mm. Just be careful not to use anything too soupy, or the dough will get soggy.
Also, I would suggest eating these fresh out of the oven. They're best that way. If you DO have leftovers, try to avoid heating them up in the microwave if you have access to a toaster oven or regular oven. I heated a few up for lunch today in the microwave, and they got kind of squishy. (They were still pretty freakin' delicious, though...)
We settled on spanakopita, the flakily deliciously amazing spinach pastries from Greece. Mm. Then, while looking at recipes, we realized we only had one out of three types of cheeses required to make real spanakopita. Fail.
Lindi had already started chopping the veggies up, and when we realized our lack of various cheeses, she said, "Maybe... I can just make it up?"
Why, yes. Yes you can.
So, this is an amazingly yummy pastry thing that tastes a lot like spanakopita, but is not.
Makes 8 pastries
Ingredients
4 oz. feta cheese
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups fresh baby spinach
5 scallions
1 can chicken breast (like tuna in a can, but chicken. NOT a whole chicken in a can.)
Pepper to taste
1/2 t basil
1/2 t thyme
16 sheets filo dough
Melted butter mixed wth a little olive oil, or cooking spray
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Chop the scallions and baby spinach leaves into smaller pieces, roughly 1/4-inch.
3. Drain the canned chicken breast as you would drain tuna and stir together the vegetables, feta, chicken, egg and spices until well mixed.
4. On a clean, dry surface, lay out a sheet of filo dough and spray with cooking spray OR brush with melted butter.
5. Repeat for a stack of four layers of dough.
6. Cut the dough in half lengthwise. Put a heaping spoonful of dough on one end of the pastry, then fold the dough over toward you to cover the filling and make a triangle shape. Fold away from you to cover the triangle again, then toward you, etc. (The same way you make a paper football!) You can find picture instructions here if my wordy instructions are confusing.
7. When you have a little flap at the end of the dough strip and the rest is folded up into the triangle, brush with a little butter/spray and stick it down to the rest of the pastry. Brush/spray the top of the pastry lightly and place on a cookie sheet. Repeat steps 4-7 until you run out of filling and dough.
8. Bake until the tops of the pastry are lightly browned.
9. Enjoy how your life is changed forever by the flaky amazingness.
You'll probably have extra dough sheets, so you can either double the filling recipe and make lots of savory pastries, or you can do what we did and prepare the dough the same way, but fill with sweet stuff. Lindi made chocolate peanut butter pastries with semi-sweet chocolate chips and a dollop of peanut butter, plain chocolate pastries (with just chocolate chips) and chocolate-coconut flake-dried cranberry pastries. Yum!! I can think of lots of different fillings you could add: berries, peaches, cooked apples, white chocolate, caramel... mm. Just be careful not to use anything too soupy, or the dough will get soggy.
Also, I would suggest eating these fresh out of the oven. They're best that way. If you DO have leftovers, try to avoid heating them up in the microwave if you have access to a toaster oven or regular oven. I heated a few up for lunch today in the microwave, and they got kind of squishy. (They were still pretty freakin' delicious, though...)
Three words: A Practical Wedding. Those three words will change your life, if you're planning a wedding, or if you're already married.... or maybe if you're neither. When we were planning ours, I realized how easy it was to get wrapped up in the crazy. A Practical Wedding is an astounding community of women (and a few men!) headed up by Meg, with Alyssa and Lauren helping out.
The site has DIY how-to tutorials, advice about dilemmas like tricky family situations and the decision to change your last name, scads of beautiful photos and (my favorite!) wedding graduate posts from people who have been through the process. We've been married for almost a year, and I still read it- especially for the "reclaiming wife" series that Meg and the gang started recently. (I also love how when I read the wedding grad posts, I often think... "Exactly. That's exactly how it is." Because it is.)
I remember when I first found the site- several months into heavy-duty wedding planning- and it was like a breath of fresh air. I read through the entire archives in about one weekend, and when it was done, I sent Meg an email telling her how inspirational the site had been to me, and how sad I was that it was over once I had worked my way through all of the back-posts. I just wanted to keep reading! And Meg (who, busy lady that she is, sent me an email back) responded that I shouldn't worry, because it wasn't over in the slightest... I just would get to read it in real time like the rest of Team Practical.
I really love what this site stands for, and I was excited after our wedding to write my own wedding grad post. Now, I still recommend this to anyone who is newly engaged or who is stressed out by planning. It's just that spectacular.
Do any of you newlyweds, not-so-newlyweds, or engaged people have any favorite wedding sites?
The site has DIY how-to tutorials, advice about dilemmas like tricky family situations and the decision to change your last name, scads of beautiful photos and (my favorite!) wedding graduate posts from people who have been through the process. We've been married for almost a year, and I still read it- especially for the "reclaiming wife" series that Meg and the gang started recently. (I also love how when I read the wedding grad posts, I often think... "Exactly. That's exactly how it is." Because it is.)
I remember when I first found the site- several months into heavy-duty wedding planning- and it was like a breath of fresh air. I read through the entire archives in about one weekend, and when it was done, I sent Meg an email telling her how inspirational the site had been to me, and how sad I was that it was over once I had worked my way through all of the back-posts. I just wanted to keep reading! And Meg (who, busy lady that she is, sent me an email back) responded that I shouldn't worry, because it wasn't over in the slightest... I just would get to read it in real time like the rest of Team Practical.
I really love what this site stands for, and I was excited after our wedding to write my own wedding grad post. Now, I still recommend this to anyone who is newly engaged or who is stressed out by planning. It's just that spectacular.
Do any of you newlyweds, not-so-newlyweds, or engaged people have any favorite wedding sites?
Have any of you heard of this? Art House Co-op is doing their sketchbook tour for the second year, and I am so excited! I wanted to do it last year, but didn't find out about it until a few weeks after the cut-off date. This year, I'm signing up early. 
You can sign up for the project at the Art House Co-op website. The deadline is October 31st. Have any of you ever done this before? Or are you thinking about doing it this year?
Photos from here, here and here.
As you can see, I've made some pretty major changes here at Bettencourt Chase. I completely forgot to take a "before" photo of the blog, so if you are a newcomer, I suppose you'll just have to trust me. I redesigned the layout and the header, added pages (the home page, an "about us" page, and ones for our Etsy and Bettencourt Chase photography) and switched up some things in the sidebar. (Check out those brand new, super cute gawkerverse badges! I love the spool of thread.) I think it will make the blog easier to navigate, and if nothing else, it's definitely prettier to look at. My favorite part is that the pictures are SO BIG now. It rocks.
I'm also going to switch things up a bit with posting. Instead of putting up a weekly/bi-weekly 365 post, I'm just going to post my favorite photo or several photos from each week. I'm also going to start a new series called the "best of"- which can be about anything. A few of the ones that I have lined up are "The best sugar cookie recipe," "The best wedding blogs," "The best quick projects for home," "The best places to buy stationery" and more! If you have a request, just let me know.
In other news, I have a job. It was a long, terrifying search after I was laid off from the job I thought I was going to have for a while in the beginning of April and then gradutated from college in May. I started looking and applying for new jobs in March, and I must have submitted my resume to at least three dozen companies. I had several interviews, and even second interviews with companies, but everything moved so slowly. Lindi has been applying at lots of places as well, and is having the same problem.
Then, out of desperation (because those sneaky bills don't just go away because you graduated into a terrible job market!) I took a part-time, month-long job working in the office for a small staffing service here in Fayetteville. I filed, did phone interviews, did paperwork, checked references... and then the woman I worked for asked if I wanted her to submit my resume to a company that was looking for a receptionist. I said sure, they interviewed me twice... and I got the job!
I'm the receptionist for a construction company named APAC Central in their corporate offices. APAC builds flat things, more or less: highways, roads, parking lots, tennis courts. They also sell gravel, sand and concrete from their dozens of plants, quarries and factories in the Arkansas/Oklahoma/Missouri area. I sort mail, count money, run payments, answer the phones and issue checks. Is it my dream job? No. But I am so very grateful to have found a job. Paychecks are important. It's also actually really nice to have a job, with normal hours, that I can leave at the office when I walk out the door. It frees up a lot of time for craftiness, baking and photography, which is amazing.
I've been working here for two weeks- two whole weeks of steady, 8 to 5, grown up work. It's a weird feeling to not be in school any more, but I'm settling in. Things are good.
Have any of you had any big changes in your life lately?
((ps. Also? This is my 100th post! Yaaay!))
 |
| This is what I see. Hopefully this is what you see, too. |
I'm also going to switch things up a bit with posting. Instead of putting up a weekly/bi-weekly 365 post, I'm just going to post my favorite photo or several photos from each week. I'm also going to start a new series called the "best of"- which can be about anything. A few of the ones that I have lined up are "The best sugar cookie recipe," "The best wedding blogs," "The best quick projects for home," "The best places to buy stationery" and more! If you have a request, just let me know.
In other news, I have a job. It was a long, terrifying search after I was laid off from the job I thought I was going to have for a while in the beginning of April and then gradutated from college in May. I started looking and applying for new jobs in March, and I must have submitted my resume to at least three dozen companies. I had several interviews, and even second interviews with companies, but everything moved so slowly. Lindi has been applying at lots of places as well, and is having the same problem.
Then, out of desperation (because those sneaky bills don't just go away because you graduated into a terrible job market!) I took a part-time, month-long job working in the office for a small staffing service here in Fayetteville. I filed, did phone interviews, did paperwork, checked references... and then the woman I worked for asked if I wanted her to submit my resume to a company that was looking for a receptionist. I said sure, they interviewed me twice... and I got the job!
I'm the receptionist for a construction company named APAC Central in their corporate offices. APAC builds flat things, more or less: highways, roads, parking lots, tennis courts. They also sell gravel, sand and concrete from their dozens of plants, quarries and factories in the Arkansas/Oklahoma/Missouri area. I sort mail, count money, run payments, answer the phones and issue checks. Is it my dream job? No. But I am so very grateful to have found a job. Paychecks are important. It's also actually really nice to have a job, with normal hours, that I can leave at the office when I walk out the door. It frees up a lot of time for craftiness, baking and photography, which is amazing.
I've been working here for two weeks- two whole weeks of steady, 8 to 5, grown up work. It's a weird feeling to not be in school any more, but I'm settling in. Things are good.
Have any of you had any big changes in your life lately?
((ps. Also? This is my 100th post! Yaaay!))
So, I sort of very, very vaguely remember that this happened:
That wasn't even that long ago. It was like six months ago. That's not really that long. And you see that huge lump on the right with one little mirror sticking out the side? THAT'S MY CAR. At the time, this was all pretty awful, because our entire city pretty much shut down, we couldn't even get out of our parking lot, our gas bill for the month was about a gazillion dollars, and yadda yadda yadda.
But now, our little part of the country is pushing some records for days in a row with triple-digit temperatures. Today, I walked out of my nice air conditioned office into the oven that is the outdoors, and then got in my car. Which was hotter. So hot, in fact, that when I opened the windows to let out the sweltering air, the outside air felt like a cool breeze. That is just crazy talk.
I'm ready for fall.
Our fourth of July was so much fun! It was a few weeks ago, but we just got around to processing the photos. We spent it out at Lindi's grandmother's house, cooking out and watching the boys set off fireworks. Neither of us had ever tried to take photos of fireworks in action before, so it was a fun first. Here's what our evening looked like:
It was so much fun!
Darby and Stephen were married this Saturday, July 9th. Their wedding was gorgeous- just like them!
They ordered four cheesecakes in various flavors and peach cobbler from a local bakery to serve as their wedding and groom's cakes. Delicious!
They had all purple, blue and yellow flowers- and lots of different types! The bridesmaids all had different flowers, and Darby, the bride, had all the flowers in each of their bouquets incorporated into hers. It was lovely.
Darby and Stephen were married by their friend Jim and Geshe Thupten Dorjee, a highly respected Tibetan monk who teaches at the University of Arkansas.
Lindi was up on a super high balcony during the ceremony- check out the amazing shots she got from above! I think it looks a little like a jungle... even though it is actually in Northwest Arkansas. (I do have to say that because the ceremony was outside, it FELT a little like we were in a jungle...)
The venue, The Trees at Waterside, had a neat lighting system that turned the floor and walls all different colors. It was fun for the dance party! I think this is one of my favorite photos of the night:
Subscribe to:
Posts
(Atom)
Search
Blog Archive
What we write about
Subscribe
Posts
All Comments