Friday, September 25, 2009

new name needed!

So...I'm not planning a wedding anymore.  Haven't been for 13 months, almost. I think its time for a new name.  I like the useless ramblings part...but, what to follow?  Any suggestions?  Adam and I are coming up on the joys of residency - he's applied to about 20 programs and is starting to schedule interviews, all within the months of Nov and Dec - so something tied to this upcoming adventure would be appropriate - but i'm not married (haha, knee slapper) to the idea.

Thoughts?

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Am I going to die?

So...I've been sitting in the board room at work watching my coworkers stand in groups of four, place respirator masks on their face, then place bio hazard helmets over their masks and proceed to have crap sprayed in their faces while they march in place, shake their heads and make sure they don't smell the pungent spray. Lovely! I can't wait for my turn!

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

it's been one whole year!

oddly... in the days leading up to our 1st anniversary I found myself longing to be working on wedding projects again!  Am I crazy?!?  Then, today at work, I had the realization that I had finally stocked up on a decent amount of sick time and realized that its because I haven't been sick this year (knock on wood!).  Its surely the lack of all the stress of planning a wedding, albeit a fabulous one if I do say so myself, alone, from across the state and making almost EVERYTHING!  However, it was so much fun and I got to play with a lot of new ideas and toys!  It felt like it was getting old after doing both Heather's wedding as well as my brother's wedding, but I wouldn't have it any other way!  Maybe I just need to get back into making something, anything... I haven't made any jewelery at all since I made my wedding earrings the night before the wedding.  However, I have been organizing, cleaning, sorting, and organizing again...which does feel good, and considering that we'll be moving in a little more than six months (where is the pivotal question, here) all my organizing and purging is a good thing.  However, I don't get to bask in the moments during the day when someone says "You MADE that?!  That's beautiful!"  It is a good feeling.  So...here's to making something....and soon!

So, back to the actual title of the post.  Adam and I celebrated our one year anniversary this holiday weekend (and the perks of getting married around any holiday is soo nice for the prospect of vacations in the future.  My parents were married around July 4th, my brother got married around memorial day and we were labor day...maybe its in our family's blood....but I swear, none of it was planned!  Adam did have to work, both on Sunday, our actual day, as well as yesterday for Labor day, so no trip this year, but its just as well...we've been paying for a lot lately -- new computers, phones, residency applications, board exam fees...etc. etc. etc.  Friday night was Zoo Brew, a fundraiser at the local zoo....which was AWESOME and we'll definitely be back again as soon as they do the next one.  For a small donation of $25 to the zoo, one receives a fun little shot glass, actually about 3.5 oz that has the zoo logo on it and the Zoo Brew logo as well.  Not glass- plastic, but definitely sturdy enough to keep and reuse.  We then were handed a brochure of the listings of all the beers available to sample.  In all, there were 20 tables with 85 different brews from 38 different brewers!  Heaven!!  You simply walked around from table to table and handed them your shot glass.  They were supposed to fill to the 2 oz mark, but most of them filled you up all the way!   Most of the tables were different brews from single breweries, so you could try different brews to compare instantly... At least that's what we did.  I saw many people (mostly women :/ ) who obviously would have been happy with their Miller light (ugh!) but we definitely enjoyed it all!  Not that we had some from every brew...we can't hold our alcohol that well!  But in all, Adam had 15 samples and I had 13 samples.  We had tried many of them before, and some we knew we didn't like, so we didn't get them even if we hadn't tried the specific brew.  I personally found 2 new favorites that I would definitely like to have again.  It was a perfect event to start off our anniversary weekend...especially for those of you who have heard our stories from the honeymoon.... Lots of local breweries in Colorado, people!

Other perks of the night...I went to purchase a Yazoo (Nashville based brewery) pint glass ...we've begun a nice collection of pint glasses picked up when we travel... Adam wasn't with me at the time, he was talking to the couple that joined us for the evening... and I definitely scored a free pint glass!  I was ready to pay and everything!  He was just like, nah...keep it, but don't tell anyone!  Now...it could have been b/c he was nice and they're cool, local, micro-brewers, or that he didn't want to deal with the fact that he was going to have to process my credit card when there was about 30 people in line waiting for samples...or he could have just thought I was cute!  (we'll go with the latter!)  In any case, I got a free pint glass, ended up collecting lots of new and different bottle caps, for an as-of-yet unrealized craft project....if only I could solder better!...and to top it off, I found 5 bucks!  Score a free buddy's bar b que sandwich at the end of the night.  A perfect meal to top off two hours of beer sampling!  The event was actually 3 hours, but we were all ready to go after two.... So much fun, though, and definitely worth it to go again. If anyone wants to join us next time, let me know!  May 28 and Sept 3 2010 will be the next events...if we're still in Memphis that is!

Two things before I continue...I realize this post has been mostly stream of consciousness...and I apologize, but I don't feel like fixing it tonight.  Secondly, I promise we're not alcoholics.  We just tend to drink in spurts when we find opportunities to try new beers!

As for the rest of our weekend...Since Adam had to work on Sun and Mon, we decided to go out for a nice dinner on Sat.  After asking the social workers for their favorite restaurants (I work with a bunch of foodies!) we chose to go downtown and eat at Circa Restaurant ( http://www.circamemphis.com/ ).  A local small restaurant that has fabulous food!  Here's was our menu for the night:

Appetizer:

a sampler of our choosing of three regular apetizers.  We chose Crawfish Beignets - with roasted red pepper remoulade, Proscuitto Wrapped Asparagus roasted and served with creamy gorzonzola (my favorite!), and Beef Wellington. Adam also had some creme of tomato soup and they brought out a small appetizer (an amuse bouche, if you will - add a french accent to that one) of the evening that the chef had prepared for all guests - salmon merangue on a small baguette. Also very yummy!

Dinner: We each had a glass of wine paired with our meals

Adam - Sorghum Cured Rack of Lamb with sweet potato shiitake flan and cranberry-rosemary jus; Wine - Earthquake, Zinfandel 2006 (Lodi, California): Huge, black, spicy, endless… guaranteed to rock your world!

Moi - Roasted Quail with Delta cheese gritts (I'm lacking the actual description b/c this was a new menu item and I couldn't copy it from the website!); Wine - Bliss, Merlot 2006 (Mendocino, California) Merlot-everybody-loves; cute, easy, uncomplicated

Desert:
Il Diplomatico - coffee-rum soaked sponge cake with dark chocolate mousse, raspberry sauce

Oh my goodness....words are not enough for how good this was!  It was served with fresh strawberries and blueberries in the raspberry sauce as well and we added some french press coffee to go along with it.  Yum!  Then, they brought out two chocolate covered strawberries as an anniversary treat.  Always tell the restaurant you're making dinner reservations for your anniversary!  You never know!  The strawberries were appropriate as well, because our hotel sent us champagne and chocolate covered strawberries to our room the second night of our honeymoon.



So in all, fantastic food!  We had a good time...we payed for it, but it was fun to get dressed up for our first anniversary and go out for a lovely meal.  Memphis was having a street music festival this weekend so we walked around for a bit before going home for the evening.  We had planned on taking a carriage ride around the city (not quite as romantic if you've got a carriage ride through central park floating through your head, but would have been fun all the same).  However, we were stuffed and really tired, so we decided to call it an evening. We did decide that we want to incorporate something similar in our house one day.. perhaps as a divider between a kitchen and dining room that would otherwise be somewhat open:

Circa wine display

Sunday wasn't much as Adam was at the hospital until 8:30 pm, so I ordered a pizza when he was on his way home and we got out the rest of our wedding cake top to eat on our actual anniversary.  I have to say that we were skeptical, and I also have to say that we actually ate most of the cake we brought back from the wedding shortly after the honeymoon as we didn't want to waste perfectly wonderful cake after having it sit for a year in the freezer.  So we left a good hefty two slices and proceeded to wrap it... first in freezer paper, then a layer of plastic wrap, and then finally, a layer of foil.  And there it sat, in the back corner of our little freezer for a year, until I dug it out an let it thaw on Sunday.  When we unwrapped it, it smelled like fresh cake!  It looked and felt fresh and not freezer burnt, and definitely not dry.


So, we dug in....and in about 10 minutes that sucker was gone!  It was soo yummy!  We definitely should have left the whole top for the anniversary, but we never thought it would have been this good!  So, for those of you yet to be wed, save that cake (make sure its a good fresh cake to begin with), and then wrap that sucker with all your force, let it age for a year in the freezer, nearly forgotten....and then when it thinks you've abandoned it, pull it back out and celebrate one year of marriage.  Our year has been as wonderful as our cake - a bit unconventional, but yummy, fresh tasting, despite a year of age, and definitely leaving you wanting more, lots more of that wedding cake (and the marriage!)