October 4

I wanted to wait until late tonight to post for today so that I could document all the stuff that happened. It started out like a normal Saturday. A little sleeping in and then launched into tidying the house. Greg was gone for the first part of the day so I worked alone. Then I settled in for a little study time.
First in honor of a lovely chilly fall day I lit a candle in my tart burner which melted a hazelnut flavored soy tart from this candle place. I got a couple tarts as a free sample and I am really liking them. They are natural soy wax that doesn't release any nastiness into the air, and the smell was wonderful and not too overwhelming. I bought the tart melter at the drug store and it came with 3 tarts that I had to toss out, they were so overpowering and fake smelling. Not these. The whole house smells like warm hazelnut coffee. Yummy.

Then I settled in for some email checking, bill paying, and finally studying on the sofa. Got a couple chapters read and started reading articles for my microeconomics class. I did take a break to make some no-knead bread from this blog post which involved a run to the store a block away for a jar of wheat germ. The dough is rising in the fridge now and I will bake it up tomorrow. Not sure yet what I want to make. Then a little snooze on the couch until Greg came home. Several months ago Greg got us tickets to a show for tonight so the nap was a good idea.

We headed up to Harlem and stopped at Strictly Roots for dinner. A West Indian place that also happens to be vegan. It doesn't look like much but this dish of sweet and sour tofu and veggies was amazingly full of flavor. Greg had BBQ'd seitan, plantains, and potatoes. After dinner we headed over a couple blocks to this place...

Maybe you've heard of it, the World Famous Apollo Theater. We had tickets to the Jenny Lewis show at the Apollo. It was fun to visit such an iconic theater I've seen so many times on TV. The theater was in pretty good shape and had the nicest staff around. We were seated up in the balcony with a perfect view of this giant chandelier.

Then we were surprised with an opening set by comedian Sara Silverman. She was very funny and as vulgar as ever. No flash photography meant not so great pictures, sorry.

Then Jenny Lewis and her band performed and did a great job. We really enjoyed the show. The only time I was not having a good time was when Jenny had the entire house up on their feet to dance along for the final song. The entire balcony started bouncing and made me really nervous. I mean come on, that is an old theater and the entire floor was visibly moving up and down. That I didn't enjoy but otherwise it was a lot of fun.
The best part is this concert was that it was perfect for an old fart like me. I went to a lot of shows in my youth but I tend to avoid them now because I no longer love standing for hours in smoky bars listening to too loud music and not getting home until the wee hours of the morning. Not at the Apollo. First we had real seats and got to sit the entire time (plus the NY smoking ban meant no smoke). The music was loud but the show was over by 10:30pm and I was home in time to catch the opening of SNL for the spoof of the debate (gotta love Tina Fey!). So it was a great night and the perfect end to a good day.

October 3

These are photos from my nightly commute waiting for the 7 train after 10pm. The one really annoying thing is that at 10pm it still runs express so I have to be careful to get on the right train! This is usually the spot I stand and usually the time I call Greg to let him know I am above ground and that I will be home in a few minutes. Sometimes he comes to the station to meet me and walk me home (so sweet!). This is also my first sight of the Empire State Building at night when I get to find out what color it is. You can see it in the upper left of the photo, a little green triangle. This is acutally one of my favorite parts of living in Sunnyside is that I get to check out the ever changing colors of the ESB. The view from my street is lots better but harder to photograph at night without a tripod.

October 2

This photos is entitled, Dinner at Breakfast. The one problem I am having with my new graduate student schedule is food. I often eat 3 meals a day at work and lets just say I don't always make the best choices. Especially when it comes to dinner with my study group. Peer pressure and a plethora of junk food, fried foods, and other delicious debacles available to me are not a good combination (a + and - of working in the village is tons of food options). When I am on my game I have been using Sunday to pre-cook some dinners to take to work. When that doesn't happen I am forced to cook dinner during my breakfast. Today I cooked up some stir-fry using tofu (in the photo), leftover veggies from the CSA and some rice I cooked up last night at 10pm when I got home from studying. This is 2 days worth, some for tonight's dinner before class and some for tomorrow at lunch since I don't think I will be studying tomorrow night. A girl needs a break!

October 1

These photos were from the weekend which means I am already cheating but they signify a big change to my everyday life now that fall is here. We can finally use the oven again! I love foods baked, broiled, or otherwise cooked in the oven and since the weekends are the only time we get around to cooking these days, our weekends are filled with homemade pizza and and these homemade crackers.

I got the recipe from Everyday Dish and last weekend we experimented with different flavors. I made veggie crackers using a blend of seasonings that you would find in stuffing or dumplings. Greg went with curry for his choice and both batches turned out really well. Homemade crackers are quick and easy, free of preservatives or ingredients you should avoid like trans fats and high fructose corn syrup, and you can make them any flavor you want. I might try sugar and cinnamon next!

October Blogging

Wow, has it really been 2 weeks since I blogged? Where does the time go? Well my time goes to studying. My classes are going really well so far and that is mostly due to my daily study sessions after work. We have formed a little study group in the lab. 4 graduate students, all in different programs, meeting together to keep each other company as we work on our various assignments. 6-10pm you can find me in the graduate student lounge with the group studying my heart out. It doesn't leave time for much else unfortunately. I have even given up weeknight TV and resorted to watching only my very favorite shows on DVD on the weekends (Greg is really great about taping stuff for me. I call him G-vo!).

A lot of the scrapbook blogs I read are focusing on daily living and documenting the everyday so I thought since I don't do anything interesting these days I would share photos of my everyday for the month of October. Hopefully it will be simple enough that I can keep up with it in addition to my studies!

Bracelets

Sorry I have been MIA. I've been trying to establish good study habits each day after work. My first night of class is tonight, Financial Accounting and Reporting. Should be fun. In the meantime I thought I would finally share the bracelet and earring set I recently shipped out to my mom. Craft club was such an inspiration. I couldn't stop working with beads for several days after it was over.
This set was almost too cute to part with! I hope she is enjoying it. Then I got inspired to make another bracelet for myself featuring my favorite color, brown.
And matching earrings are so easy to make! Next I made another bracelet that involved snipping open a silver bangle and wedging a stone bead into the gap. This is one I wear stuck up on my arm instead of dangling on my wrist. Love it! I bought a bunch more beads recently that I can't wait to play with... when I have some time that is. So many great ideas, so little time!

**Blogger keeps rotating my photos which is really annoying. Anyone else having this issue?

I will survive!

Orientation was good but exhausting. Hours and hours of presentations, activities, networking, and eating. I pretty much came home each day and went straight to bed. I did get lots of questions answered about degree requirements and got a chance to meet the rest of my core group as well as form a study group for the semester.

At one point my accounting professor visited or core group to talk about our class this Thursday and that is when it hit me, I START CLASSES IN 3 DAYS! I have so much to do to prepare. Chapters and articles to read and a new calculator to master. Yikes! I will be in the reading room the next 3 nights. Good thing I got to see it on my building tour!

Big Day Tomorrow

I was leaving for work this morning when I opened the front door and a box fell into the house. One of my neighbors must have accepted it yesterday and left it there for us. I decided to take a couple minutes to open it instead of saving it for tonight and this is what I found inside!

My mom, dad, and sister sent me a care package for school. My mom even included this little book with notes about how proud they are of me and how to handle the challenge and what not. This nearly drove me to tears!


(Sorry, Blogger will only upload these photos sideways for some weird reason!)
Then it was full of new school supplies. My favorite has to be the pencil pouch (I love organizational containers after all) and the new crayons. Remember how great it was to get a box of fresh and sharp crayons? I do!
I love it all, thanks family! And it is here just in time since my first day of school is tomorrow. I have a 2 day intensive orientation starting this Saturday. I am pretty nervous but happy to finally get some of my questions answered. Have a great weekend everyone. I will be heading to bed early tonight because tomorrow is going to be a big day!

Baby Shower Planning Part 2

Sorry, I realize now that there was no punch in any of the photos yesterday. I left it in the freezer until the very last moment. It is an orange-pink color when it is made. It seemed to go over well at the shower. Now, on to the party itself.

Games:
What shower is complete without shower games. Games are the thing most women dread about going to showers and who can blame them. Have you ever done a Google search for "Baby Shower Games"? Some of the games out there are 1.) disgusting (melted candy bars in diapers) 2.) embarrassing (diapering each other with rolls of paper towels) or 3.) Non-PC (guessing how big mom's belly really is). I looked high and low for some entertaining games to play at the shower that would not be gross, too embarrassing and wouldn't offend anyone. There were actually several games that fit the bill but here are the games I chose for us to play.

Game 1: Mystery Baby Items. I filled a bag with random baby items (you are supposed to use a diaper bag but someone had already bought that off the registry in this case and I didn't want to buy a 2nd one). I tried to get things that would be hard to figure out but not too hard. Baby comb, bottle, pacifier, aspirator, butt paste, baby lotion, baby powder, digital thermometer, diaper, travel wipes, bottle brush, teething ring, and rattle (baby food jar, baby spoon, etc the possibilities are endless). Let each guest reach into the bag and feel around at the items sight unseen for 1 minute. Then they write out as many as they can remember and identify. We only had 1 mom in our group so I didn't make it too obscure. You could get really specialized if you had more moms there. The person who gets the most correct wins a prize. The mom keeps the bag of goodies.

Game 2: Baby Items MSRP. I combined games 1 and 2. As I pulled the items out of the bag to reveal them in game 1, I had a friend put them back into their packages and place them on a tray. I handed out a card with the items listed (40 pack of diapers for instance, since only 1 diaper had been in the bag). Next we had everyone guess how much these items cost in today's market. Let them know that you have rounded the prices to the closest 25cents. I let them work for a while and then announced that no item was over $10. That created quite a stir since some people were way off base. Then I went through and read off each item and had people call out their guesses. Then I told them the real price. The one with the most exact answers won a prize. Mom of course still got the goodies. This was pretty funny since no one knew how much stuff really cost and their guesses were pretty out there. Our mom was the worst with 0 correct! Don't underestimate this game!

Game 3: Multitasking Mommy. I picked one game that was pretty funny and a little embarrassing. I bought about 15 pairs of baby socks (a few multi packs) in various colors. We unpaired them and put them in a big pile on a chair. Each playgoer took a turn trying to match up the socks as quickly as possible....but there's more. We gave them a baby (a bear) and a phone. All the guests made crying baby sounds while the "mom" tried to sooth her baby, hold the phone to her ear and match the socks together. It was harder than it sounded and really funny to watch people as the bear would slip from their arm or they would forget to sooth the baby and the guests would just cry louder. The "mom" with the fastest time won a prize. Great game!




Prizes:
Since this was a ladies shower we chose prizes that were from a local jewelry store that has inexpensive but nice items. I also threw in a few 1 month certificates to our lab coffee club. Definitely get a few extra gifts. We had 1 tie and not enough necklaces for them to choose from.

Gifts:
Gift opening time was pretty straight forward for us. Just make sure there is someone there to feed the mom-to-be gifts so she can stay seated (it keeps things moving along too) and pack items up once she is done. Another person to keep notes on who gave what and to keep all gift receipts in one place is also helpful. And don't be afraid to pass those items around. Everyone loves to hold the little clothes and toys and coo over them!



Favors:
What party is complete without a favor to send home with the guests to thank them for their attendance and gift. I put together some easy and inexpensive favors for the guest. I found these little pads of paper and tissues at Micheal's in the dollar spot that were black and white. I tied them together with a little blue ribbon (also from Micheal's dollar spot). At Micheal's I also found bags of colored M&Ms specifically for favors. I bought 2 bags each of blue and white, mixed them together and put them into little wax bags I already had. Trimmed with decorative scissors and punched for more ribbon. Next was a little thank you note that I made and had the mom-to-be sign. Lastly this was all put into a little white bag. These were also in clearance at Micheal's for 1.99 for 3 bags. They were meant to be decorated and I tried stamping them with paint but it didn't take so I left them blank. Super cute and kept with my color scheme for the party.


Timing:
Lastly a note on our timing. We started with mingling and punch. We had baby Lucy join us at our party and this mingling time gave everyone a chance to ooh and aah over the baby while the guest trickled in. Next we ate and talked, then games in quick succession. We followed games with cake and while everyone was savoring the butter cream frosting we watched the mom open her gifts. Here are some photos of the guests enjoying themselves.

Our Mom-To-Be, Indrani due in just 3 weeks

Baby Lucy and her friend Marcela

Managed to get one shot of me! And a couple guys did end up getting into the party!

Mingling and punch!

Overall, it was a huge success. Of course I had lots of help with setting up, food buying and transporting things to work. In the end not only did we get to honor our co-worker and her little boy on the way, I got to try out a bunch of party ideas I had been collecting over time. Hopefully some of these ideas can help you plan your next party!

Baby Shower Planning Part 1

I had the pleasure of planning a baby shower last week for a co-worker. I had originally wanted everyone to come to my house on a Saturday afternoon but some serious scheduling conflicts had arisen and the only free Saturday was 6 days before the mom-to-be's due date. We didn't want to risk a cancellation due to an early delivery so we planned the shower for after work last Friday. I want to share some photos of the event and some of the ideas I used to make it fun, sophisticated, and easy!

Invitations:
Because of our scheduling conflicts we ended up picking a date that was fairly short notice. I decided to use evite.com to send my invitations in order to maximize the time people had to shop and prepare for the shower. Paper invitations would have been cuter but evite worked out just as well and can even be customized with your own photos, clip art or scans.

Decorations:
Our conference room at work is actually a great space with big bright windows, clean lines, and ample room to move around. However, I wanted my guests to feel like they were at a party and not a meeting or even happy hour. I asked everyone to come in "party attire" and wanted the room to have on party attire too! I started by cleaning the room as best I could and breaking up the 4 tables that make up our conference table which fill the entire middle of the room into 2 separate banks of tables pushed up against the walls. This left the center of the room totally open. I covered them with cheap disposable white table clothes. One set of tables for gifts and games and the other held all the food and drinks. Next I found some super cheap ($1) paper lanterns in the clearance section of Michael's. They are marketed for kids to paint and decorate. Then I made these Martha Stewart tissue paper balls to hang from the ceiling. They sell kits of these at Michael's but I figured I have tons of tissue paper, I could probably make them myself. Sure enough Martha had instructions on her website. I will say that the large and medium balls turned out best. The small balls (1/3 of a large ball) were not so great. I hung them from the ceiling over my 2 sets of tables. SOOOOOO CUTE!!!



Drinks:
I decided to have a signature drink at the shower and wanted to go with a traditional punch. This Rose wine punch is a recipe that I got from my friend Katie years ago and served it at my wedding and at other summer parties in the past. I brought my punch bowl in from home and we drank it from wine glasses sporting my new wine charms. I provided GUS (Grown Up Sodas) for the mom-to-be and anyone else who wanted a non-alcoholic beverage although the wine punch is mostly juice in case you were wondering.


Here is the punch recipe:
Rose Wine Slush Punch
1.5L of Rose wine (2 standard bottles)
1 Can frozen orange juice
1 Can frozen white grape juice
1 Can frozen lemonade
1.5 Cans of water
2 Liter bottle of 7-up

Thaw the juices and combine them with the wine and water. Mix together in a large container and freeze through (do this the day before). Once frozen break up into chunks and put into your punch bowl. The wine prevents this from freezing rock hard. Pour 7-up over the top, stir and let thaw until it is a slushy consistency. If you don't have a punch bowl I am told you can scoop the frozen mixture into a cup about 1/2 to 2/3 full and then pour 7-up to the top. Give it a quick stir to combine. You may need more 7-up for this method.

Food:
It is always best to keep party foods simple and tasty. All of our food came from Whole Foods and was purchased the day of the event. We decided to offer some build your own brioche sandwiches as our centerpiece. Here was the menu:
-Split mini brioche rolls (with a couple flavored sandwich spreads)
-Thin sliced meets and cheeses (salami, prosciutto, grilled chicken breasts, cheddar, and Jarlsberg)
-Antipasti Platter (olives, mini mozzarella balls, artichoke hearts, roasted red pepper, and pepperoni slices)
-Cheese and mini toasts (Camembert and goat cheese)
-Fruit salad
-Tossed green salad (Spinach, Romaine, Candied pecans, dried pear, balsamic vinaigrette, and crumbled blue cheese)
-Cake for dessert
The best part was that people could add almost any of those items to their roll to make a sandwich or eat them separately. Everything was devoured by our guests. Do remember your mom-to-be's dietary restrictions. She isn't supposed to eat soft cheeses, cured meats, and many seafood items. Make sure she has some food options. We made sure our guest of honor had a salad set aside with no blue cheese, we provided her with chicken breasts for her sandwiches and some hard cheeses so she wouldn't be left out.




At this point the room was pretty much ready for the party. More tomorrow!

More beads?!

This week has been a whirlwind. After craft club I launched right into planning a baby shower for a co-worker. Always more work than you think it will be. I will post about it next week (the shower is tonight). Our labor day weekend was very nice. I have just 2 weeks off in September before school starts so we used the time to relax at home together and do some home improvements like caulking the shower, hanging a curtain rod, touch up painting in the kitchen after our doorbell system was moved a few months ago, and things like that. Plus more time for jewelry making! Craft club inspired me to create a few more pieces which I will share next week. One was shipped off to my mom and I don't want to post about it until she receives it. But one beading project I will share is this:
These are wine glass charms. For the baby shower we are going to enjoy a nice wine punch using wine glasses we keep here at work (we are having the shower at work) and I wanted a way for people to keep track of their glasses because we don't have any extras to swap out if they lose tabs on them. I found some earring hoops my mom sent me years ago for card making, added some beads and dangly charms and went to town. Super quick and easy to make. A great gift idea!