Project 365: Day 250

Another Pinterest recipe!!!

I'm quite the homemaker these days, aren't I?

Rosemary Skillet Chicken w/ red potatoes and cremini mushrooms - YUMMY!!! The only thing missing is a cast iron skillet. Instead, I fried the chicken (to crisp up the skin) in a standard tefelon pan and then transferred the chicken and drippings into a baking pan to finish the cooking.

It tastes PRETTY great, but I think once I do get myself a nice big cast iron skillet, it will be even MORE delicious!

Anyone interested in checking out a delicious and pretty easy recipe, you can check it out here: http://chimeraobscura.com/mi/yep-more-chicken/#more-4719.

P.S. Happy Halloween!!!

Project 365: Day 249

Spaghetti Squash!!!

Yum, Yum, Yum!!

I'm so excited that I finally got to try this recipe that I found like 6 months ago on Pinterest. This morning just as I was about to go grocery shopping, I decided that I was going to take advantage of the fall season and buy me some spaghetti squash.  I took out my trusty iPad and looked up the recipe from the grocery store parking lot. After reviewing it for a couple of minutes I realized that it was actually SUPER easy - cut open the spaghetti squash, scoop out gunk, brush it with olive oil, bake for 30-40 minutes (open side down, oven at 375). Then, use a fork to scrape the sides into "spaghetti"

After that, all I had to do was top it with meatballs, spaghetti sauce, and cheese and pop it back in the oven until the cheese melted!

Due to Hurricane Sandy, our work email was down all day so I had some extra time on my hands and decided to take it up a notch by making homemade spaghetti sauce (in the crock pot, of course) and homemade turkey meatballs!

The meal was a HUGE success, if I do say so myself! If you haven't tried spaghetti squash before, now is the time to do it. It's hard to find outside of the fall season so take advantage and buy one now. It was absolutely DELICIOUS!!!!

Project 365: Day 248

Invitations!!!

I am soooooooo excited, our invitations are all basically DONE!!! After looooong hard work they are all packed up and ready to go (for the most part).  This is all I can show you for now, I'm not going to mail them out until Christmas time, but in my personal opinion, they are AWESOME! All in all, I cut out 1,100 pieces of paper and used 1000 photo splits, 7 tape runners, and basically every spare moment for the last week - but it was worth it!

A HUGE thank you to my friend Jessie who designed them for me, I cannot even tell you how excited I am to send them all out!!!!

Project 365: Day 247

Time to clean up my bathroom from the weekend! It takes a lot of makeup to look this good ;-)

Project 365: Day 246

Time for our annual pumpkin carving party!! This year Jessie, Robyn, and Mat hosted it at their house. It was an absolutely gorgeous day for lawn games and pumpkin carving!!

Crystal pulled out my favorite - zombie pumpkin!

After the pumpkin carving was done, I played my first ever game of hammerschlagen.  Basically the game is played with a stump of wood with nails tapped inabout 1 inch. Each person gets their own nail and on their turn they get one swing in an attempt to drive their nail into the stump. The first one w/ their nail flush with the wood wins.  Nick was playing the game with a 'twist'... you flip the hammer in the air and catch it before you hit your nail. He was actually pretty good! (The rest of us played it safe without the flip, and he still beat us!)

The first time I ever saw this game was at another party here in Denver, where they played with an ax! I was NOT a fan of that version as tossing axes into the air whilst drinking beer doesn't sit well with me. This version was a bit more tame and so I decided to join it - and turns out... this game is FUN!

Once the sun set, we lit all the pumpkins and put on our costumes!

(my pumpkin all lit up!)

 

There were some pretty good costumes. We had Leonardo (of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Hulk Hogan, Pac Man and a Pac Man ghost, among others.

 

 

I didn't have a costume lined up so I went to Jessie and Robyn's basement and let the girls throw something on me. I think I ended up dressing up like my future self... I spent the rest of the night telling Nick that this was what he had to look forward to! haha.

One of my favorite costumes of the night was Cheato and Colleen who dressed up like characters from The Labrynth (the awesome 80's moving w/ David Bowie!)

 We ended the night out at the bar where Halloween was in full effect. We saw Bob Ross, Gonzo, and a very convincing Katy Perry! 

 

 The holiday season has officially begun!



Project 365: Day 245

Doug, Aimee, Kevin, Nick, and I went to see Grace Potter on Friday night. Good show, good company. What more can you ask for?

Project 365: Day 244

Winter is coming!!! Winter is coming!!!

Our first "real" snow of the year - 24 hours later and it's still on the ground! I think I'm about as ready for the winter as these trees are:

O well, like it or not.. it's coming!

I feel like I'm perched on the edge of Niagara Falls - the river is pulling me down stream towards the deafening falls: snow's on the ground, Christmas decorations are up in Macy's already...  Before I can even blink, Thanksgiving will be here and it'll be a full rush down the falls all the way to January. I'm going to emerge from the whirlwind of the holidays and with one month to go for the wedding!! Ahhhh, slow down time! Slow down!! I have so many DIY projects and so little time!!! :-)

Project 365: Day 243

I made my first stuffed shells ever! They were pesto and chicken stuffed shells and they were pretty good, in my humble opinion.  I think next time I'll add some water to the pan or cover them when I bake them because the shells did dry out a bit - or I can just cover them with more cheese which is what I think the author of the recipe did. Nonetheless, they were pretty good for a first go around. The filling was delicious!

and of course I got the recipe from Pinterest. But if anyone is interested in trying them out, you can find the it posted here: http://joelens.blogspot.com/2010/05/pesto-chicken-stuffed-shells.html.

YUMMY!

Project 365: Day 242

wow, sorry i've been absent this week. I'm DIY'ing my wedding invitations (which I am SOOOOOO excited about) and it has been consuming my every spare moment. BUT I haven't forgotten about my picture-of-the-day.

On Tuesday Nick and I went for a lovely evening stroll through Cheesman Park. I really love living near the park, a walk from our house, around the park and back is exactly 1 hour. It's quiet and peaceful in the evenings and lots of times we have the park practically all to ourselves.  We couldn't believe how warm it was, what a lovely October we had this year. 

Project 365: Day 241

Went shopping in Boston this week and fell in love w/ a pair of Michael Kors heels.... not sure if i'm going to keep them or not but I LOVE THEM!!!

Project 365: Day 240

Look what's right outside of my window right now!

I have to say this is one of the most beautiful Autumn's I have ever experienced. I don't know if it's because it's been especially colorful, or particularly warm, or if it is just that the sky's a little bit bluer ever since Nick proposed... Whatever the reason, I am enjoying this season more than any I can remember. What a beautiful time of year.

Project 365: Day 239

It feels like FOREVER since I hung out w/ Aimee, but finally on Saturday we got back together for a night out on the town. First we went to Sam's for a little evening brewski and a visit w/ Aimee's boyfriend, Kevin.

And then we were off!

My friend Randi Barnard has a fashion line (Frankie Rae Designs) that she showed at Denver Fashion Week this year. Unfortunately I missed it, BUT fortunately, she had an encore performance Saturday night! Aimee, Nick, and I went down to Larimer Square's Suite 200 to check out her show!! Sadly, I didn't get any great pictures of her stuff, but I did manage to catch a couple shots.

She actually designed dresses for Aimee and me for a wedding we were in last year and she borrowed Aimee's dress to show off at the fashion show!

Here's Aimee rockin' it herself on Annie's wedding day.

 And this is the dress Randi made for me! (it wasn't in the fashion show though :-( booo) it's pretty neat to have a dress designed especially for you... and Randi did a pretty good job if I do say so myself!

After the show, da club was bumpin and we were even visited by some sailors!

Good times!

Project 365: Day 238

Arrived home from Boston around 5pm Friday Night - after a looooong week away. Nick and I headed straight out for dinner (since there was no food left in the house!). We had a Groupon to an Ethiopian place on East Colfax (called Axum) so we decided to check it out. It was pretty good! This was our shared meal - two chicken dishes, three vegetarian dishes, and one beef dish all served on the traditional spongy bread. 

We also got a little basket of this bread on the side. The idea is to eat with your hands and use the bread as a vehicle to get all the goodness into your mouth. YUMMY! We had a lovely dinner out and then went home to enjoy the comfort of our little abode.

Project 365: Day 237

Fall colors are a-glow in New England!!

Project 365: Day 236

oh the thrills of flying through Chicago....

It seems like every flight in the terminal is delayed. I was originally supposed to get to Boston around dinner time. Then a colleague of mine scheduled a meeting smack dab in the middle of the day and it was JUST too close to keep the flight. I rescheduled for my current flight which was supposed to land in Boston at 10pm. As of right now we're delayed until a 12:30 arrival. That doesn't put me at my hotel until 1:30am at the earliest probably won't crash until 2-2:30 and I have to be at the office at 8:30am for a customer demo! I'm sure I'll just be a ball of energy tomorrow!

Can't wait to get home on Friday. I'm not traveling next week!

**UPDATE** I didn't actually get to my hotel until 4:30am!! The flight was delayed another two hours after I posted this! boooo.

Project 365: Day 235

Oh the thrills of scientific conferences....

I did go out for some beers with a colleague of mine afterwards though... that was nice!

Project 365: Day 234

.... cheating today! I'm in Chicago but I spent the entire day in a conference room in a hotel. Not very inspiring and I have to admit, I forgot to take a picture. I'll do better tomorrow but in the meantime, I took a cool picture of a church on Saturday so I thought I'd share it with you!

Project 365: Day 233

On the road again....

Flying into probably my least-favorite airport... O'Hare.

O well!! So glad that I got to spend the night at home.  Can't wait to get back to D-town on Friday, I miss my fiance already!

Project 365: Day 232

Thanks to some great advice from my dad, I changed my plans and flew back to Denver for 24 hours at home w/ my honey.  I got back to the apartment just as Nick's last shift for the Great American Beer Fest was ending and met up with him and our friends for dinner and drinks. After dinner, we went to 1Up which is a bar in LoDo with old school arcade games. The games are cheap (25 cents for frogger!) and so is the beer ($3 Coors Light).  We spent a good chunk of our evening playing a ski ball tournament.

After 1Up we walked down the street for some Karaoke and Bethany and I sang Gangsta's Paradise by Coolio... it was a pretty great night.

Project 365: Day 231

Today was an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day in Wisconsin. The drive from Madison to Whitewater just lovely - the combination of fall colors, red barns, and silos was Americana at it's best.  I met a colleague of mine in 'downtown' Whitewater for lunch and then we headed to the University for our meeting. On our way through campus I spied some cheerful little orange flowers warming in the afternoon sun.

Soon the flowers will be gone for the season, and the next time I see them I'll be a married woman!! For now, I'm just enjoying the blooms as long as I can. :-)

Project 365: Day 230

So I'm walking through the University of Wisconsin, Madison today and much to my surprise, look what I saw:

Scooters!!!

I miss my scoot scoot more than anything else from Taiwan! ok well first my friends, then the food, and then my scooter - a VERY CLOSE third.

But the crazy thing about scooters in Wisconsin versus scooters in Taiwan is not that the actual scooters are different... it's the way that they park!

The scooter lots in Wisconsin are completely organized, spacious, and a good metaphor for the American view of personal space (and just for how much space we have in general here in the states).

In Taiwan, you would almost NEVER see a parking situation like this one. Everyone parked in their own scooter space, each with plenty of breathing room. No, in Taiwan it is completely taken as a standard that in order to park almost anywhere you have to physically move someone else's scooter to make room for your own.

Almost on a daily basis, I would roll up to the edge of the road, get off my scooter, and literally lift some random stranger's scooter off the ground and move it to the side to make room for my own. And this was OK. Not only OK it was expected! ahh Wisconsin, the land of milk and cheese... and endless scooter parking!!!

Project 365: Day 229

Tomorrow I'm embarking on a 9-day business trip....torture for this travelling salesman.

Ok, it's not that bad. Honestly I'm happy with the places I'm visiting and the customer's I'm meeting, but 9 days in a row is pretty long for me and if I had to guess about what my disposition will be a week from today, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't want to be around me. None-the-less, as with any job there are perks (working from home) and there are downsides (travel) and you have to take the good with the bad.

Unfortunately, this weekend is ESPECIALLY BAD because I'm missing my favorite weekend of the year: Great American Beer Fest. It is literally one of the most fun things we do all year and has completely changed the way I drink beer (or at least changed the beer that I prefer to drink!). For the last several years we have been volunteering with Nick's colleagues to pour beer Friday night and Saturday afternoon for the festival. It's a real labor of love, pouring (and drinking beer for free) for 4 hours each shift.

BUT this weekend I have to be in Wisconsin for work during the festival.  Since pouring beer for GABF is such a coveted role, I was afraid that if I just missed the festival all together, I would be black-listed from future GABF volunteering opportunities (or at least put to the bottom of the list) so, to stay in the good graces of the GABF, I spent Wednesday volunteering for the less glamorous role of setting up for the GABF. Definitely not even close to as fun as pouring, BUT I got two free tickets to next years GABF, so it wasn't a complete loss. And thus my picture of the day: Kegs for days and days.....

Project 365: Day 228

I finally made my "blessing bags"

The Race for the Cure inspired me to do something for the community, and I had this idea from Pinterest floating around in the back of my mind for about a year so I finally got my act together to make them. I made 19 zip lock bags that we are going to keep in our car throughout the fall and the holiday season and give them out to people in need. Each bag contains: crackers, granola bars, wet wipes, fruit cups, chap stick, razors, a tooth brush, toothpaste, deodorant, tissue, band aids, a comb, lotion, a bar of soap, and some chocolate.  I bought all of the stuff yesterday and then spent the morning (before work) putting the bags together. 

Another successful Pinterest project!