OKra

I used to hate okra. A few years ago, I realized it was because I wasn't of fan of how it had been cooked. At the farmer's market one day, a woman told my mom to try to saute okra in a little cumin. From then on, I was a fan of okra. 

When I met Paul, he wasn't a fan of vegetables of pretty much any sort, so I made it my mission to get him to try vegetables. I have to say, he now loves squash, zucchini, and... okra. Just like me, he just hadn't been a fan of how it had been cooked for him before.

I hate the idea of slimy okra, but sauteing it, you don't get that at all. Just cut the cap off, but only to the seam at the top. Use a little spray oil, and sprinkle with cumin and a little onion powder. Saute until they change color and get soft. 

We have this at least once a week because we've found out... okra can be OK! 

Top of the Hops

We had a great time at Top of the Hops yesterday!

 We all met at Cary and David's house (I drove as an anniversary gift to them) and headed downtown. We got there right before it started and lines were already out the door! Luckily, Paul and I had VIP tickets so we were able to go on through without waiting. I had to do a little work when I got there, so it was a good time to knock that out before the rest of our group got through the line.

 Got our little cups and began tasting!

 Since the two of us had VIP tickets, we slipped off for a little bit to grab food and taste some beers that weren't on the main floor. The food wasn't mentionable, but the beer infused ice cream with peanut brittle from Parlor Market was pretty amazing.

 I think it's safe to say the boys had fun... (Please note Paul's pretzel necklace that's almost gone. He wasn't sure about them when I made them, but he was glad he had them once we were there)

After most of us had gotten "beer-ed out," we made an executive decision that the only food to eat after a beer festival was the one and only Waffle House.

 So with that, we ordered!

Hope you guys are having a wonderful weekend.

Cheers to the Weekend

Ahhhhh... the weekend. There's nothing I love than sleeping later and rolling out of bed, only to walk next door to the coffee shop for breakfast.

 Sausage biscuits and grits for two, please! It's been a productive day so far, but I'll give a you a sneak peek at something my sister and I worked on yesterday...

 Our Save-the-Dates! We've got to address them now, but I'm so ready to send them out and for people to see them. One day, I'm going to do some blogs on our wedding process. This was actually one of the most fun and actually one of the least expensive items because we designed them and Paul got them printed through one of his sources. 

I've been growing my hair out for about a year now and now I'm even more on a mission to grow my hair out for the wedding. I got my hair trimmed this morning and afterwards I was still feeling in the beauty mood. I was next to the mall (which I NEVER go to), so I went to check out makeup. I've heard nothing but amazing things about MAC shadows, so I decided to give a few a try (not without a little sticker shock paying!).

 I had to run into Target for a few things and decided it was probably a good time to go through my makeup and get a new bag. (Who am I? I'm not really big into makeup!) I've had mine since freshman year of college (six years), so I think it was a good move.

Love my new bag (on the left)! The old one (on the left) was feeling pretty sad.

We'll be heading in about an hour to the Top of the Hops beer festival. I'll report back later!

Bravo!

This has been such a busy week for us! We've had something every night after work and I'm ready for a little break. I'm hoping that Sunday and be a day of rest! Until then...

Yesterday evening my office has our annual awards ceremony, which I worked during, live streaming the ceremony online, and operating Twitter, Facebook, and all that jazz while the program was happening. 

 After it was over, it was time to have some down time and go to dinner. We always seem to eat in the neighborhood, so I suggested another restaurant we don't go nearly enough, Bravo!

 A little limontini never hurt anyone...

 My favorite dish is actually not an entree, but the bruschetta appetizer. I always get them to add goat cheese and chicken and call it dinner!

 I could eat it every day of my life and be completely happy.

We were glad for a moment to relax!

Here's to the weekend (packed with community bike ride, a beer festival and more)!

Running

If you haven't noticed, it's hot outside. I mean, HOT. Paul and I went to Pub Run yesterday, put on my Fleet Feet the last Wednesday of the month. You can choose to run/walk either 2 or 4 miles (I chose the 2). 

All I can say is, after it was said and done, I needed water!

Others chose another beverage...

After waiting for quite a while, we had a tasty dinner with some of our running friends and Mary Grace even joined us. We got the "Down Under," a glorified shrimp BBQ pizza.

Pretty delicious. Hopefully the rest of the week I can workout in our air conditioned gym downstairs!

Chair Envy

Like I said in a previous post, I've had some chair envy lately. Thanks to Pinterest, I've been seeing pictures of Tolix chairs everywhere.

What's a Tolix chair? This:

... is a Tolix chair. A designer French bistro chair.

After pinning photos like this:

I started the search for some of my own. But, there was one problem... every chair I found was about $125-300 each. This wasn't going to work for me.

I began searching on Overstock (a suggestion I had from Young House Love) and found these pretty chairs. Silver, industrial, and (most importantly for our space conscious apartment) stackable.

Though (whaamp whaamp wha), they were out of stock. Signing up for notifications to let me know when they were back in stock, I got an email this morning telling me it was time to buy.

Now, as most of you know, I'm not going to stop there with such a good deal. I searched for coupon codes and look what my total ended up being...

Yep, that's right. Less than $200 for 4 chairs that would have cost me $500+ somewhere else. Not only did I find a $10 coupon code, shipping is always $2.95 on Overstock, no mater what it is! I call this a victory. Now let's get them here!

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Like I said, I can't make heads or tails of all the baseball sized zucchini in the fridge. I'm running out of ideas.

Luckily, I have a website called Pinterest which has given me a lot of ideas. One I found this weekend was for Chocolate Zucchini Bread. I wanted this to be something I could eat for breakfast, so I left out the chips and it was the perfect sweetness.

It was really easy to mix up and I was surprised at how easily the zucchini grated.

This was a great recipe! We even brought it for desert to the concert series and everyone loved it.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread Recipe (I halved the recipe for one loaf)

Summer Concert Series

We're finally breaking through the rain! The past week was filled with rain and rained out a fun event we were supposed to go to, a summer concert series in our neighborhood. But, they rescheduled it for last night! So, we got Cary, David, and MG together and made a night of it.

A big spread of hummus, strawberries, cheese, dips, and meats on the lawn (including fried chicken because they were out of baked whole chickens, which is another story itself).

 For a rescheduled event, it was a great group of people.

Here with our buddies (Paul was off shooting photos for the magazine)!

Clever Recipes

I feel like we've really been hitting it out of the park lately with Pinterest recipes. Tonight I took a spin with Philly Cheesesteak Sloppy Joes, but I made it with ground turkey, wheat rolls, and Worchestershire Sauce instead of steak sauce. Instead of cheese sauce, we just topped with a little pepper jack cheese. Along with the casserole from last night that still won't end!

 This afternoon I was lucky enough to get to go hang out at Sneaky Beans to be a part of their training for their new coffee system they are trying out (Clever Coffee Dripper). I wrote a story that'll be up on the website/Facebook tomorrow.

Hope you guys had a great weekend!

Ballin'

One of my favorite things is that Paul likes to go shopping with me. (Not clothes shopping, I can't even imagine what that would be like) We've been on a mission to find a few pieces for our new apartment and for the past few weeks, we keep visiting a flea market that constantly is getting new furniture. Yesterday, I was also on a mission to find blue Ball jars for wedding decor.

I knew of one booth that always had these jars (I had purchased from him before) and I got a steal of a deal. Five jars for $5 each. I was pretty proud of myself.

We also went to the flea market to find a desk for me to use. Space is at a premium, but I still wanted a space to work on my computer and craft without it being the couch. Walking along, we found this great dining table with two drop leaves. We had thrown around the idea of a small dining table and metal chairs like this:

And knew this could be the first piece of the puzzle.

It's very versatile and when not in use, we can keep the leaves down. When I need to work, pull one up. Voila! We were pretty excited about this purchase.

After leaving the flea market (read: no air conditioning in the warehouse), we went back to our neck of the woods and had milkshakes at Brent's. There is nothing better than a nutella milkshake. It wasn't all fun and games, we were actually there to interview one of their employees for a story coming out next week.

After our day, I knew we'd want something lighter for dinner and I had found just the recipe on Pinterest. Especially when we had three zucchinis the size of baseball bats from Paul's grandparents backyard, this was a perfect way to use some of them up. Recipe here.

Our only difference was not using tomato because we didn't have one. Making this again, I might microwave the potato slices for 30 seconds-1 minute. They were still a little firm when it was done.

Next to garlic chicken (also a Pinterest recipe), it was a perfect end to the day.

Finished by watching The Dark Knight so you-know-who can get psyched about going to see the next one. It's just a little too violent for me!

Catch Up

I always feel like I'm playing catch up! It's been a crazy few weeks here with wedding planning, work, and what not. We're currently under a huge thunderstorm and I'm just crossing our fingers it's over so that we can go to an outdoor concert tonight. It's looking a little iffy! (Note: it's been cancelled)

Now that I can cross venues, wedding dress, catering, photography, tables/chairs/linens off the list, I'm down to just picking flowers before turning to smaller details of wedding planning. There's definitely a sense of relief there and I feel like I can poke my head out and start working on other parts of my life! I have a huge bug to get craftsy and creative and I'm bound and determined to get started on that ASAP. I'm thinking my own desk/craft area and a few projects around the apartment... so many ideas!

Til next time, look at one of my recent projects, our wedding website! The save-the-date cards we designed should be here Monday, so start looking for them soon.

'merica!

Happy Fourth to you! We've had a pretty jam packed day of celebrating. This morning, we went to the neighborhood parade which can only be described as precious We had a great time with friends and a tasty lunch of tomato tarts, figs, casseroles, burgers and other great food.

Afterwards, I went with Erin and my mom to try on dresses at David's Bridal and I actually found one! Even better, I BOUGHT it. So, check that off the never ending to-do list!

This evening we joined our friends at an architecture salvage store, Old House Depot, which always has a great Fourth of July party.

Great food, drinks, and we even had time to peruse the store. I'm on a mission to find an old salvaged "W" from a sign. We scored an awesome hutch/entry table at the flea market this past weekend and I saw a bunch of old letters from signs, but apparently W is not a common letter.

 Beer and drinks in bathtubs

From there, we went and took Paul's nephews to see a huge fireworks display in Richland. They had so much fun watching this display. The fireworks went on for almost 40 minutes, but they were patient to watch it all.

Hope you have a great holiday! It's a little weird to be going back to work again tomorrow.