What is New?

It has been too long!

Anyways, here is what's going on lately...

Quick wedding update: Mike and I are tentatively planning on October 2011 for the wedding at The Desert Botanical Gardens in Tempe.:) More to follow as soon as I take time and figure it out!

School is moving forward at what seems like an incredibly fast pace. 5 months remain until I graduate and can take my licensing exam! YAYAYAY! Excited but scared at the same time. Hoping I get a job quickly! Cross your fingers for me!

I am currently in my community health rotation. I got a slow start as I wasn't assigned to a clinical agency until week 3 out of 8. I am going to a homeless shelter that is affiliated with Phoenix Children's. I hope to get a job at that hospital, so I am making more connections! Gotta love networking! I am such a nerd, I made my own business cards! I've already given out a few, which is really exciting!

Anyways, the time I have spent at the shelter has been extremely rewarding! I love it more than I ever imagined. It is truly amazing how resilient people are regardless of the challenges they constantly face. I am working in the shelters wellness clinic with an absolutely amazing RN!

I am currently putting together a donation drive to have baby showers for the homeless pregnant women. It's called Showers for Strangers! I am very excited about getting it together. I just hope people are willing to donate at work! If not I will make my friends do it. haha.

In other news...

The kitten, Uzi, is getting so big! He is a trouble maker! He will be getting declawed in one month and I cannot wait. He is destroying our carpet!

Also, Mike and I booked our tickets to PA for Christmas! I am very excited.

This is the first year that Mike and I will have a full sized tree in the house for the holidays and I am so anxious to make the decorations. I am going to make snowflakes out of doilies and fabric stiffener!

I also need to think about Halloween...it will be here before I know it!

I Sort Of Fell of the Blogger Wagon..Oops!

Uhhh...where did two months go?

Time is moving quickly which is a good thing in my book. The more time that passes the closer I am to graduating! yay!!! I am in my second to last semester at Chamberlain. I'll be graduating in February '11. Woohoo!

Mom is looking to take a Hawaii getaway after I graduate. Would be reallll nice to go there with Mike for a week! I want to go real bad. But let's see if finances will permit such luxury. Plane tickets are around 600 per person from Phoenix. Good news is that mom can get a suite for 200/ week since she works for a resort back in PA. Hoping it all works out. So much to plan. So little time...as usual. I want to go snorkeling and surfing and drink on the beautiful beach. (I miss the beach A LOT) I love to swim in the ocean.

So, obviously, the wedding planning has been put on hold. Mike and I discussed it and decided that we are in no rush to have a wedding if its going to put a strain on us financially. Not worth it. Will be easier when we are a two income household and we can actually afford to save. We are thinking maybe late 2011 like October, November or something. Or maybe early 2012. It would be a nice time to have a wedding since the weather is beautiful here that time of year. Not hot but not cold. A nice getaway for my east coast family. Speaking of which, Mike and I returned from our PA trip in late June. Here's a couple pics.

In other news, Mike and I have been watching so many shows an movies. Gotta love Netflix! We are now all caught up with the HBO True Blood series. We love it. We are also in the second season of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Very funny. We also finished watching Party Down. Also very funny. Yesterday we watched New Moon. Meh. Kristin Stewart is terrible. She sucks the life out of the story. I am thoroughly disappointed with the movie translation of an amazing story. The movie takes away from the adventure and intricate details. Yes, I loved the Twilight Saga Books. Overall though, I have to say, that I like the Sookie Stackhouse novels better. I have read all 10 and they are far more adult and I love the mystery in them. They are addictive. I highly recommend them to anyone who loves fantasy stories. My next read will be The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. This series has gotten a lot of attention recently and I was to see what the hype is all about. Hoping I can begin this one soon. It is listed at 7.15 on the Kindle right now.

Mike and I went to see Inception last night and it was epic! I can't spend the time to write all of what I think of it here right now. Just go and see.

Also, we got a new kitten named Uzi. He is a sweetie. Cute and expensive as he's already had 3 vet visits and I've had him for 3 weeks. Yikes!

Think Green

I am 99.9% sure that I have decided on the wedding colors; lime green, black, and white. The black and white will also incorporate the damask patterns. Very classic and clean! My mom terms it "organic". Whatever it is. I love it. Here are some pictures that inspire some creativity!

I'm going to be sending save the dates as soon as Mike and I are set on the venue and date. I want to give relatives and friends as much notice as possible since many will be travelling to be with us.

Glendale Civic Center provides round tables, linens, and all the dinnerware for the wedding. I figure I can ask them for black tablecloths if I go with them. Then I can just buy or make damask ones for a few of the tables, like shown above.

I love it!

Getting more excited to plan and design my wedding. :)

3-Week Recap? :)

It's has been too long since I have posted. Damn you, critical care nursing class!

Anyways, I'm trying to recollect the past 3 or so weeks since my last post.....

Critical care is going surprisingly well. I had my first exam this past Wednesday and did pretty well all things considered. It was over the cardiac chapters, which are killers. We have to learn the pathology of the heart condition along with all of the monitoring systems that are used. I find the equipment more intimidating than the condition. Now we have moved quicky on to pulmonary and neuro. Next test Friday. I have to work on my study guide today before its too late and I'm kicking myself for being lazy. Week 4 of 8 of this class begins tomorrow. Almost halfway through. Time flies!

As soon as I have this course completed its time for a much needed two weeks off of school. Mike and I are taking a little vacation, which I'm really looking forward to.

We are considering getting another kitty soon. We found one we liked last night but he was already adopted. We decided that we should wait until we are back from PA to get a new cat. Its still really exciting! I have wanted a kitten for a long time. Aurie needs a companion. :)

The HOA of our community has been a real pain in the ass. About two weeks ago we received a letter from them asking us to clean up the pollen in our front yard. Ugh. Pollen? Really? So Mike and I went to his Aunt's and then his dad's to pick up some yard work equipment. We got home later that day around 5pm and found that one of our trees lost a few big branches due to some high winds earlier that day. So we spent 3 hours outside cleaning it all up to the best of our ability. We were sore for a few days after. Still haven't gotten around to it, but we were planning on writing to the HOA about how absolutely ridiculous their request was. There is pollen all over the common areas of the community. Annoying. We have a love/hate relationship for sure.

My mom is making headway on the wedding planning. We received our invitation and rsvp a couple of weeks ago. The invitation is very cute. I'm very excited for her. I'm excited for the wedding. I'm going to get to see so many friends. :)

I will try to blog more than I have been.

Getting the Ball Rolling

Got home an hour ago from the Glendale Civic Center. Mike and I had an appointment with their event coordinator there to tour the venue and talk prices. We liked it. It is a very nice, basic venue that lets you have a good amount of freedom as far as decisions.

We really liked their "Fountain Court" area for the ceremony. It's $1000 just to have the ceremony out there. But then its 900 to have the reception in their banquet hall. So about 2 grand total for the venue. Seems silly that the ceremony site costs more than the reception hall. Hmmm...

We are going to ask her what it would cost to have both the wedding and the reception outside. I'm hoping it won't be too hot for an outdoor wedding in May.

My philosophy is that if its going to cost 2k to get married at the civic center why not spend a tad more and do what we initially wanted, the Desert Botanical Garden. Will be checking that out shortly! If the difference is negligible I would go with the garden. However, the 2k at the civic center covers so much. Chairs, Tables, a coordinator, etc.. Sometimes you just cannot pass up a deal.

The catering is a whole separate animal. They have a minimum of $38 per person, which isn't terrible. The bar options are plentiful. They even sell margaritas by the gallon. Um, yes, please. :) The quote for the catering plus alcoholic beverages was near 7k. I expected this. But man does this all add up kinda fast! At least I'm finding this out now and not a few months from now.

Soooo..."how are we paying for this?" is whats running through my mind right now. Being broke is no fun. Can I graduate, get a good job, and make 60k a year now? k. thanks.

Madonna of the Kitchen

I just spent about 3 to 4 hours in my kitchen and now I am exhausted....

I made Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Chocolate Chip Buttercream Frosting. The picture below is off the Martha Stewart website. Mine do not look like this. The cupcake itself is good. It came out really moist. My only complaint is that all the chocolate chips fell to the bottom. It was an intense recipe. Instead of just adding eggs like you usually would I had to take 5 egg whites and make a meringue and then fold it in to the batter. Weird. I had never made meringue before. It was labor intensive. I had to sit there with the mixer on for a long time. We only have a hand mixer so my thumb gets tired from pressing on the button.

The frosting...ugh. I think its too sweet (and that's saying something cause I have a sweet tooth) and Mike thinks its not sweet enough and it tastes like sour cream. Awesome. This is not my idea of good frosting. Damn me for not using my mom's butter icing recipe and using Martha's buttercream recipe. Will never do that again. I'm tempted to scrape the icing off the cupcakes and make my mom's icing. Hmmmm....

So I put the cupcakes and remaining icing (remaining because at this point I still have 9 cupcakes cooling) in the fridge to see if it will set up a little. It is a really thin icing. Why??? Because I think I am a baker and can tweak recipes. Once again this is an epic fail. Basically buttercream icing has 3 components; an obscene amount of softened unsalted butter, an entire pound of confectioner's sugar, and a tsp of vanilla extract. Now let me tell you what I put in it. I started with the recipe. Tasted it. Hated it. So I put 3 tbsp of Crisco in it to cut the sugar a bit. Then I could still feel the powdered sugar in my mouth so I added about a tbsp or two of milk. BIG MISTAKE! Now its thin and apparently tastes like sour cream. Awesome (sarcasm). Just writing this is making me want to go throw it all out. Yuck.

Overall Michael rating: 7 out of 10

I guess I can't complain. Now I have 33 of these cupcakes. Definitely giving some of these away.

Before I went on the cupcake adventure I made Club Chicken Salad. This is a great breakdown of a chicken club sandwich. Mike and I enjoyed a very light and late (just about 4pm) lunch with this on a flour tortilla. A wrap basically.

This recipe was also pretty involved. But I would say worth it. Basically, anything with bacon in it is worth it. :)

You take bacon and bake it in the oven on aluminum foil. When it is ready to be flipped you move it to one side of the pan and put chicken breasts seasoned with salt and pepper on the other side. I added Montreal Chicken seasoning for a little extra something. So basically you are baking the chicken in the rendered bacon fat. Awesome (no sarcasm, it's really awesome). Then you chop up some celery, red onion, celery stalk leaves, and some tomatoes. This required the most time. I bought little cherry tomatoes because I figured it would be easier. It was! Except seeded them was a disaster as I frequently got tomato juice and seeds all over my WHITE shirt. Then I just added some mayo and white vinegar. Then I chopped up the chicken, crumbled the bacon, and tossed it all together. The outcome was a really refreshing spin on chicken salad.

Overall Michael rating: 7 out of 10

I think he low balled my chicken salad. But apparently he said he tasted some seeds in a few bites. He probably just got some residual tomato seeds that I missed.

Meal plan for this coming week: Cayenne Rubbed Chicken with Avocado Salsa (this will be our second time making this because its amazing), Seared Spicy Fajitas (beef) with grilled onions and red pepper (and of course a few wedges of lime), and Broccoli and Cheddar Quiche (excited about this as I've only ever made Spinach and Swiss or Mozzarella Quiche and Mike is a little sick of it. haha)

Now I am off to make flashcards of normal and abnormal arterial blood gases,normal blood counts, and the dreaded electrolytes. Critical Care starts Wednesday. Yikes!

Flight of Ideas

It has been 9 days since my last post. Woops! I have really dropped the ball on the every other day thing. However, I pretty much stick to that when it comes to the wonderful cookies and cream ice cream in the freezer :P

Item 1.

The shoes I ordered for my mom's wedding came about two weeks ago. They are no where near as blue as in the picture (which I copied into a previous post). They are teal actually. I got the largest size of them that Forever21 sold......They are too small. Bummer. But maybe its a blessing in disguise as teal and black may not work so well. So I am ordering these instead cause they come in a bigger size and they are red, which will go awesome with the black dress and some gerbera daisies (mom's wedding flower of choice).

Item 2.

Mike has vetoed the cupcake tower idea because he hearts cake. So I am going to let it go and let him eat cake. :)

I found another cake that I love. It would look neat to add some red to it. Maybe some of the layers are piped with red instead of blue or something.

Item 3.

Still trying to find a time to make an appointment at the Glendale Civic Center. Our schedule and the wedding coordinator's just never match up!

Item 4.

I saw a really cool idea online today. On the Style Me Pretty blog. This couple had their guests keep their name cards and write notes to them on the back and then hang them up on a tree that was on a table during the reception. The cards looked like luggage tags and they had a little satin string on the end. Very cute.

I've also been thinking about having a table of different candies on a table. Sort of like a candy bar. Glendale Civic Center will put one together for you. I have to figure out how flexible they are with things. I could do a lot on my own. Like finding candies that match our wedding colors and collecting cool jars or something.

Also found really cute favors. They are called "Cupcake in a Jar". One couple that Style Me Pretty featured got these as favors. The label is very cute. The picture won't paste so here's the link.

http://www.stylemepretty.com/wp-content/plugins/montage_maker/imgs/clear.gif

Anyways, the label reads "We love you like a fat kid loves cake. Thanks for celebrating with us."

So many ideas! Can't wait to see how it all turns out! :)