BridalBrunch.

With the wedding of the beautiful Alyssa this past weekend, I had the privilege of being a part of it by providing her, her bridesmaids and wedding day helpers with an early (read: true love for Alyssa to be up that early on a Saturday) morning brunch.

I had offered to help Alyssa with whatever she might need and suggested that if no one else was making her a breakfast, I could take one more thing off of her plate and do it for  her. On my wedding day friends of mine prepared a wonderfully delicious breakfast for us and it was such a wonderful gift. It was one less thing to stress over and one less thing for my family or bridesmaids to take care of.

I found out that the brunch was a go Thursday evening when I got home from Alyssa's Bachelorette Breaking Dawn movie premier (ensue the stress) and I then went straight to the planning. Pinterest was a life saver and I was able to come up with a number of different ideas of what to make and with the help of the husband I was able to edit it down to making just a few mini bite size brunch ideas.

So Friday consisted of working 9 hours, planning what to make, making a grocery list, watching the Santa Clause parade with the Little Miss, buying groceries  picking the husband up at the train station and staying up until 2am to bake. In the end I was pleased with the results and from the feedback from the wedding party the food was a hit.

The menu consisted of fruit skewers, bacon and cheddar scones (receipt here, except I lightly rolled in balls and put in muffin tins to cook), 8 minute mini cinnamon rolls (I roughly followed this receipt), mini blueberry muffins, yogurt parfaits  orange-cranberry punch and store bought (I know shame, but I got lazy when it was 930 and I was just then getting groceries) mini doughnuts.

So in about 3 hours of baking (thank you husband for the help before you went to play video games) and 0 hours of cleaning, I was able to make a hot mess of the kitchen and what I would like to think was a pretty kick butt brunch, for a pretty kick butt lady.

Internet!

You do not know how much you miss having the internet until it is gone.

I have been living for the past week and a half with only my cell phone for internet. One would think this is sufficient, and it is kind of sad how much I have come to depend upon the internet for my everyday life, but I truly was missing having my computer.

On a typically day, I wake up and listen to the local radio station online and at times the Country station from Hamilton that I have grown to love. I then use the computer for a little bit of everything from blogging, facebooking, shopping and job applications. Not to mention we do not have cable, our TV is not yet hooked up and my computer does not have a disc drive. Therefore, I watch Netflix and other TV shows online, and I LOVE my TV show.

So after having my brother meet the internet guy who was supposed to call ahead of time and didn't, and after my having to replace the co-auxiliary face plate (I am calling it this, but I have no idea what I did or how I managed to do it, but I feel pretty proud of myself for being successful), I now have internet!

Oh the joys of moving. With internet successfully hooked up, we are onto flooring today. So the hopes are, I head home after work (before going to see Breaking Dawn Part 2!!!) and there should be a brand new shinny floor all across my apartment. Exciting things in the Hartford home!

Alone.

I tried my hardest not to cry the first night Brent left. I was thankful to be staying with a friend for a few days so I wasn't alone. Simply sleeping in a bed alone was new. Since being married a year and a half ago Brent and I have spent one night apart. I don't think I knew right away just how hard it would be to be working in different cities. I am now moved into what is supposed to be our apartment and the more time I spend there, the more nights I go home from work to an empty apartment, I cannot help but feel more alone then I have in a long time.

Brent is in Vaughan and I am in Chatham throughout the week. On weekends he comes home to Chatham and I would like to say that all is wonderful and magical, but to be honest it is harder then we thought. For me it took a lot to fall into being married. To having things that were 'mine' and having them not be where I left them. To be considerate of someone else when I went to get groceries  or when I wanted to just watch Gilmore Girls all day and night for weeks straight (yes Brent puts his foot down on this sometimes, and it was hard for me to handle). We then fell into a place of living together, we took on roles like he cooked and washed the cutlery and I did the laundry and general house cleaning. Brent took out the garbage and I got the groceries  It was wonderful, it worked. Obviously these things were not set in stone, but we enjoyed the roles we took on and everything worked.

Now however, with me being alone in an apartment for the first time ever! Yes, I went from my parents house, to having room mates in university, back to my parents house and then to a house with my husband. As a result, there may currently be a bag of garbage sitting at the door and I only have one knife left clean. I know I have to do these things myself. That I cannot wait for Brent to come home on Saturday and help me.  I want life to be normal with Brent on the weekends, but it's hard for life to be normal when it is only two nights and there is so much you want to do.

I never thought I would miss him like this. I never thought I would not be able to deal with the noises I hear at night and the idea of going home to an empty apartment. Brent and I did long distance our entire dating and engaged relationship except for the odd month during a summer here and there. We longed for the weekends together and we were able to in many ways stop life and enjoy our time together. Now however it doesn't work like that. With my new job I will be working every other Saturday and with our new apartment it feels like there is always something that can be done.

The light at the end of the long distance tunnel for us is Europe (hopefully in the spring) and work experience. The more wonderful work experience we get the closer we are to a full time job. The closer we are to a full time job means the closer we are to maybe one day having jobs in our field, that we love, ideally in Chatham. For now however, I am learning to live on my own.  I will get over my hatred for washing cutlery and hopefully be able to enjoy the time Brent and I get to spend together instead of being sad about what Sunday night holds.We are praying and hoping that in the end we are stronger in our relationship and better for it.

Red.

So I just want red lips. Taylor Swift type red lips. 

Like this. 

Source.

I have been trying everything and failing big time. Zellers currently is closing in town, and that means sales. I have waited and waited for the prices to be right and finally the cosmetics were down to 50 percent off, which meant I was willing to buy some bright red lipstick. A look I have been drying to try, and yes my love of Taylor Swift may play a part in that. Anyways I went with the CoverGirl Outlast lip stain in 425. When first put on it looks great, However, as the day goes on, and by day I mean like an hour later, it tends to just accentuate all of your lips flaws. So if there are areas with a groove or anything along those lines, you lips are no longer a perfect pouty red. I then bought, also by CoverGirl a natural lip colour in a similar shade of red (250 Cabernet), in hopes that it would go over the stain and everything would work out. Nope. I didn't read it carefully enough and in the end it is more of a heavy lip balm then a lip stick. Which I am starting to like just on its own to add a punch. 

After two failures, I figured it was time to call in the big guns. Yes Pinterest. I don't know why I did not start there sooner. I now know what I need to buy next time I see it on sale and I will soon have the red lips I am striving for. 

Thus far however, what I have works if I remember to reapply and not lick my lips. I even received a compliment at church. I am not convinced if I can pull it off as both my brother and sister in law laughed at me, but I am going to keep trying. 

What do you think? Too much?

(Now as I post the pictures in the same article I realize that my red is no where near Taylor red. O well, I  kind of like it.)

Pumpkins&PlayDough

Monday was my last day off before starting work again. It was my last day of watching little Miss Jemma for potentially a while and so we decided to have an adventure, well I decided and she is a baby so she went along with it. It was freezing cold outside and raining which resulted in no outdoor play. I came prepared for indoor adventures.

We carved a pumpkin and made homemade play dough. It was a lot of fun and kept us busy. Miss Jemma loved every minute of it and I enjoyed spending time with my favourite little girl.

To carve pumplins I figured it needed to result in as little and quick of clean up as possible. I laid out a sheet on the living room floor and while watching a recording of Taylor Swift on Katie. I cut the top off, hid the knife and we went to town. Jemma loved pulling the guts out and then putting random objects back into the pumpkin saying 'uh-oh' and then reaching in and taking them back out. She also loved putting the top of them pumpkin back on perfectly. It was all a lot of fun, minus the eating of the pumpkin guts that Miss Jemma kept doing, it was fun and totally within her abilities. When finished we simply put the pumpkin outside and rolled up the dirty sheet.

Flowing the dancing to Taylor Swift and carving a pumpkin we concluded our afternoon with making play dough. This activity did not go as planned, but the end result was still fun. With Little Miss standing on a chair I tried to get her to help and stir in some of the ingredients  which she really couldn't grasp and just wanted to throw it around. This was followed by me not being able to find the salt, which turns out if you want the play dough to last more then a day, is needed. So we made it without salt and Miss J had fun smushing the end product. I am sad it didn't last, but it was so easy to make and was so fun to play with I am totally going to be making more of this with Jemma in the years to come.

Here is the recipe I used for the play dough (thank you Pinterest). Just remember, don't try substituting sugar for salt. It totally doesn't work. The play dough then becomes kind of wet in the following days. Also, the more food colouring, the cooler the colour. Try it out.