Almost Famous?

I gave you my friend Christina's recap here about the time we were extras in a Reese Witherspoon movie.

And I followed up a year later here talking about it.

I recently found out that they FINALLY have a release date for this, on December 17, 2010.  I was really excited to see it!

But, I just saw the trailer.  It was pretty cool seeing them in outfits I remember, but gotta say...it looks like a pretty lousy movie.  The trailer didn't capture my attention at all.

If you're in Google Reader, you probably can't see it, but click over to my blog to watch the Trailer clip that I have embedded in this post.

'How Do You Know' Theatrical Trailer @ Yahoo! Video

What do you think?  Does this seem like a movie you would want to see?

Random Musings

Today I saw a post on Bakerella, and she made this gorgeous cake:

Which makes me think she must read my blog.  While she gets points for technical talent, it does seem eerily similar to this cake I made last year, doesn't it?  That one pop of hot pink heart?

Its still super hot outside in DC, but it was such a crappy summer, that I think Fall will be a welcome change...maybe the temperature shift will also change our moods and make our hearts a little lighter.  Which means, I'm already planning my Fall shopping.  I'm making my list now, and think I should make a post with all my must-haves.  And it definitely includes these clogs:

I can't believe I forgot to tell you guys about this, but in June, I did some catering for a baby shower, and blogged about the mini georgia peach pies that I made:

That night, I was sitting on the couch with Tyler watching TV, and the email on my cell was blowing up...I was getting dozens of comments on my blog post from complete strangers.  I couldn't figure out where they were coming from...I had over 30 at this point, when I probably average 6 comments per blog post.  So I log into my Site Reader and Google Analytics, and my hits are out of control...over 1000 just that day.  What is going on?!

Turns out, someone at Pillsbury googled their name, found my post, and decided to feature it on their Facebook page:

638 people liked my post?  149 people left comments?  WOW!  I was super flattered that so many people liked my recipe.  In fact, a few weeks later a stranger reposted her version of my recipe, warranting even more comments and "likes".  Makes me think I really need to do some more baking and photographing :)

One of my very dearest friends Christina, who I called my FIF or internet friend, is also an amazing cook, home decorator, blogger, and photographer.  She is branching out into taking pictures of people, and did a shoot of my nephew, Drew.  

Go visit her blog to see more pictures, but I think she is unbelievably talented, and I'll be hiring her soon to take some pictures of Tyler and I...Christmas card ordering is right around the corner!

The husband's role

I get bloodwork.  Ultrasounds.  Swords shoved into my uterus, oh excuse me, I mean an HSG.  What does my husband get?


An orgasm in a doctor's office.  Hardly seems fair, right?


Don't get me wrong - I could not ask for a more supportive husband.  As I've been dying on the couch after my HSG test, he is completely doting on me, and I know that he would undergo any of these procedures in a heartbeat to spare me the pain.  I'm a lucky bitch.


But, I'm still crazy jealous.  However, since the whole sperm analysis process was somewhat foreign to us, I thought I'd blog about it as well.  He's probably going to murder me when he finds out this is on the internet.  Oops.


So, for a sperm analysis, you can't ejaculate for 3 days prior.  I'm not sure if this is for a more concentrated sample, or for a larger sample.  Either way, husband was less than pleased to hear about having to abstain.  Friday the 30th was convenient for him, and I thought he could just walk in, so his abstinence began July 28th.  However...they don't take Friday appointments.  So we scheduled one for the following Tuesday.  Which was still basically 3 days away, so...the abstinence continued.


Monday night, he realizes he can't get out of work for the Tuesday appointment, and has to push it off until Thursday.


You think your husband gets bitchy sometimes?  Try a man who hasn't had a release in over a week.  Holy bad mood.  Thats over double the longest that poor man has had to go in the 10 years I've been with him, and I felt so bad for him.  This, combined with the fact that I couldn't have sex in prep for my HSG test...our house has been SUPER tense this week.   It ended up being 10 days before he was able to go in for his appointment.


He gets there, and is shown his room.  They have very recent magazines, as well as a very outdated DVD.  I'm not sure which was his preferred media.  


So, the one thing about these clinics is that you can either make a sample at home, and bring it in within two hours, or you can make a sample in the office.  My husband would whole heartedly recommend taking care of business at home.  The rooms are right next to each other, and you can hear every single hallway conversation.  Not to mention, they have a strict 30 minute timeline in the rooms.  I'm not sure how they let you know your time is up, but I can't imagine its anything other than awkward.


All in all...not the worst experience ever.  He said the staff was nice, and while it was a bit awkward because he didn't know what to expect, it is a pretty painless experience.


I'm super jealous.

A walking Target ad

I took pictures to post an outfit of the day, but first skimmed through my Google Reader...and was excited to see that Jenny from Not Just a Pretty Face was wearing the exact same dress.  I love seeing how other bloggers style pieces that I have as well!  Mine is gray, not that pretty green, but I still love this dress!

I love the pairing of the pretty pleats with a wide, black studded belt.  And of course, the cardigan to make it all work-friendly.

And, the funniest part?  I just realized that every single piece is from Target.  I can't get enough of that store.  Maybe because its the only clothing retailer where I live?!

Dress, tank, belt, cardigan and heels - Target.

Chambray shirt

Another thing I love right now are chambray shirts.

After eyeing them at J. Crew..

Urban Outfitters...

Banana Republic...

And dozens of others, I was pretty excited to come across one at Target.  Unfortunately, I can't find it on their website to link up, but it was under $20, and pretty nice quality.  I envision it in the summer to fall transition with white jeans and neutral wedges, but its so hot out right now, I paired it with black shorts and black flats, for a casual Friday at work.

Shirt:  Target.  Shorts:  Express.  Flats:  Forever21.  

Just call me Bree Van De Kamp

We had new neighbors move in across the street, and I thought, what better way to welcome them to a very established and close knit street, than to stop by with baked goods?!  I decided to take cupcakes.

I actually made more than this, but put a few on a platter to take pictures :)

The strawberry ones were absolutely delicious, and 100% not on my diet.

The lemon ones, however, were!  I made soda cupcakes, and they were delicious!  No one could believe that they didn't have oil...eggs...butter, etc!  Lots of bloggers have put out different versions of these, different types of sodas with different types of cake mix.

Diet Lemon Cupcakes

1 box of Lemon cake mix

1 can of Sprite Zero

Mix, and bake according to directions on the box.  

For the icing, I used the following recipe by Grin and Bake It!

Low-fat Cream Cheese Icing                                                                                                                         
8 oz. light cream cheese, softened
1 c. marshmallow cream
1 tsp.  fresh lemon juice
1 tsp.  vanilla extract
1 c.  powdered sugar
In a medium bowl, stir together the cream cheese, marshmallow creme, lemon juice, and vanilla until well combined.  Then gradually beat in the powdered
sugar.
Makes 1 3/4 cups

NOTES : The use of marshmallow creme instead of butter in this easy frosting recipe keeps the fat, calorie and cholesterol counts low.  To simplify clean-up, spray the measuring cup with non-stick spray before attempting to measure out the marshmallow cream!



However, after ringing the doorbell for three nights in a row, no one ever answered, so I took them to work.  And even three days later, they were a huge hit!  I can't tell you how much I miss my DSLR though, after looking at the terrible cell phone pictures above :(

My Life with Droid

Its hard to post without a camera, since we all know posts without pictures are worthless.


So what have I been up to?  Here's whats on my cell phone.


I gave into the romper trend.  I adore it, my husband hates it.

My girls BFF Bermuda came to play for a few days.  

I started planning an engagement party for Tyler and I's BFFs.  Expect lots more posts on this after its over! 

We got a new foster, Cody.  He was actually just placed in his forever home yesterday, and he is SO happy to be with his new family.

I found a solid wood desk on Craigslist for free, and brought it home to sand and paint it for my new office.  But my sweet husband got a head start on it for me!  

Before, with an ugly reddish stain.

Sanded down to the wood.  He has since started painting it a luxe glossy white.

Tyler changed work schedules again, and took lots of naps with the dogs.

It took a few weeks, but we finally convinced Cody that the crate isn't a scary place.  He seemed to think it was, and then I found all three of the dogs napping in their crates.  Good dogs :)

And with that, I'm pretty much caught up.  Life is really, really boring right now.  I do have a cupcake post and an OOTD post to share tonight though, so peek back soon!

Oh dear.

I had a really rough day, and was working in my upstairs office while the dogs were playing - Tyler is out to a movie with a friend.


I then realized that its a little too quiet, and went to find out why the dogs weren't barking and running around.

At first glance, they appear to have killed a fellow Bichon.  Turns out, they merely all worked together to destroy a pillow.  They weren't too happy when I cleaned all the pieces up and left them with nothing to play with.


Oh, and little guy with the teal diaper?  Thats our newest foster, Cody.  We think we've already found him his forever home, just waiting for all the paperwork to go through!

And it all comes tumbling down

My doctor called today to discuss the results of one of the tests.  They aren't good.  In fact, they're pretty damn bad.  Bad enough that she wants to skip straight ahead to IVF and begin now, before anything gets any worse.

In the meantime, we're rescheduling the test for again next month.  She says its probably not a false negative, in fact, she thinks this test makes the situation look better than it actually is.  But, just to be sure...we'll test again.

I teared up quite a bit in my car after I got her call.  My sweet husband, like always, was calm, kind and supportive.  I'm trying desperately to keep my mind and heart positive until we know more for sure.  Its just hard to not think that our journey might actually be over before it even began.

Diary of an Unborn Child

I was cleaning out what is about to be my new office, and came across some paperwork from my RCIA class, as I became a Catholic.  One worksheet in particular really hit me.  It is political, and its VERY pro-life, and if that offends you, you should probably not continue reading.  This is pretty harsh to those that are pro-life, and made me cry, just as it did the first time I read it.


----------
Diary of an Unborn Child


October 5 - Today my life began. My parents do not know it yet, I am as small as a seed of an apple, but it is I already. And I am to be a girl. I shall have blond hair and blue eyes. Just about everything is settled though, even the fact that I shall love flowers.


October 19 - Some say that I am not a real person yet, that only my mother exists.  But I am a real person, just as a small crumb of bread is truly bread. My mother is. And I am.


October 23 - My mouth is just beginning to open now.  Just think, in a year or so I shall be laughing and later talking.  I know what my first word will be:  MAMA.


October 25 - My heart began to beat today all by itself.  From now on it shall gently beat for the rest of my life without ever stopping to rest!  And after many years it will tire.  It will stop, and then I shall die.


November 2 - I am growing a bit every day.  My arms and legs are beginning to take shape. But I have to wait a long time yet before those little legs will raise me to my mother's arms, before these little arms will be able to gather flowers and embrace my father.


November 12 - Tiny fingers are beginning to form on my hands. Funny how small they are!  I'll be able to stroke my mother's hair with them.


November 20 - It wasn't until today that the doctor told mom that I am living here under her heart.  Oh, how happy she must be!  Are you happy, mom?


November 25 - My mom and dad are probably thinking about a name for me.  But they don't even know that I am a little girl.  I want to be called Kathy.  I am getting so big already.


December 10 - My hair is growing.  It is smooth and bright and shiny.  I wonder what kind of hair mom has.


December 13 - I am just about able to see.  It is dark around me.  When mom brings me into the world it will be full of sunshine and flowers.  But what I want more than anything is to see my mom.  How do you look, mom?


December 24 - I wonder if mom hears the whispering of my heart? Some children come into the world a little sick. But my heart is strong and healthy.  It beats so evenly: tup-tup, tup-tup. You'll have a healthy little daughter, mom!


December 28 - Today my mother killed me.

Hospital chic

I'm starting to feel right at home in a gown, with my oh-so-fabulous bracelets. 

Self medicating with beer and ice cream

Today was my HSG test.  Today was also one of the most miserable days of my life.


I arrived at the doctor's office and filled out paperwork.  I have a new skill - super fast medical history writer-outer.  Seriously, I can crank those forms like no one's business.  For some reason, the health system I'm in always does medical ID bracelets, so as usual, I got two of those as well.  


I get to the back, put on my gown, and go fill out yet more paperwork with the Xray tech.  After entering in all of my information, she then had me lie down on the table, and took some regular Xrays before the doctor came in.


The doctor starts to explain the procedure, all the while scrubbing up, putting on gloves, and preparing her equipment.  The first thing she does is take the biggest syringe I've ever seen with a needle the size of a pencil, and opens the sterile packaging.  I then immediately started looking for an escape route - no one said anything about needles...I was out.


She must have seen the pure fear on my face, because she immediately explained the needle wasn't for me - she was using it to get the dye out of the glass bottle.  I thought the worst was over.  


The procedure began like your typical pap smear - the doctor had me scoot down...no, farther.  Butt to the edge, please.  Yes, just a bit more.  In spite of my pedicure, freshly shaved legs and bikini area, and meticulous grooming (I'm not the only one who does this before an OB/GYN appointment, right?), its still the most vulnerable position you could imagine.


She shows me the speculum, which I've seen once a year since I was 14.  No big deal.  However, hers was a custom model with razor blades on the edges, because I immediately felt the most intense, stabbing pain in my vagina.  It went downhill from there.  I'm grabbing the edges of the table, and forgetting to breathe.  Then, she begins to feed the tube up through my cervix into my uterus.  All the while, they're explaining that most women feel a little cramping.  A little cramping?  I always thought I had a high pain tolerance, but if I weren't already lying down, I'm pretty sure I would have already passed out.


They had issues getting my cervix centered, so had to try again.  At this point, I'm white knuckled, pulling at my face, and trying desperately to take "deep slow breaths" as the techs keep telling me.  They're finally in and then, they blow up the balloon thats on the end of the tubing, and I can't fight the tears, the pain is so intense.  I don't know why it hit me so hard when they kept saying its no big deal to most women.


Everything just washed over me - its so FUCKING unfair.  I've been through so much trying to get pregnant, and it just kills me at how easy it is for so many other people.  Isn't it bad enough to deal with the emotional pain?  Isn't it the worst to want to expand my and Tyler's family and not be able to?  To not be able to live my life according to my plan?  To have my whole world on hold because - oops - I might be ovulating tonight?


No, I have to lie on a table, showing my cervix to a stranger, and trying to not crawl out of my skin.  The tears just stream down my cheeks, filling my ears with salty sadness.  I wouldn't wish infertility on my worst enemy.


Once the balloon is in place, to hold the tubing stable, they begin to inject the dye.  The offer to let me watch on the screen, but I'm too busy wishing I hadn't just cut my fingernails, so I could have better scratched out my eyeballs.  


When its over, they explain to me that all of the dye acted exactly as it should - it went through my tubes beautifully, and that I have no blockage.  They did also tell me that I have a tilted uterus, but I didn't get a chance to ask what that really means.


Google leads me to believe that there are some fertility issues that can result from a tilted uterus, which concerns me.  I really want to talk to my doctor on Monday to see what her opinion is.  One of the common symptoms of this is pain during intercourse, which is something that I actually do deal with, and have been for the last three years or so.  I've been to doctors twice, thinking that there might be an obstruction that caused this recent pain...because lets face it, I've been sleeping with the same man since I was 16, so the only thing that really could have changed is me, and apparently this was it.


So like usual, back to the drawing board.  No blockage, no major issues, no explanation.  I should be grateful, but I wish we could just find a problem, so we could develop a solution.


And?  Its been 11 hours since my procedure, and I am still on my deathbed.  I have heating pads and alcohol, and I keep wincing at the stabbing pain in my abdomen.  Won't be doing this one, again.  


I can't wait to tell my kid when he's 16 and being a shithead all the things I went through to have him here.  How very much I loved him even before his conception.  One day I'll tell him how much his daddy and I would talk about what he might be like - interests, personality, passion.  We might have our differences, because what parent-child relationship doesn't, but he will always know how very loved he is...how very wanted he was...how much completion and pure joy he will bring our family.  

Its about darn time!

Tyler and I have been together for going on 11 years.  11 years of summers and spring breaks and winter holidays...and we have never taken a vacation together.  Out of town funerals?  You bet.  Weddings?  Yessir!  The occasional overnighter at a location within driving distance?  Sure.  But no fabulous vacations.


Well, SUCK IT, history.  Cuz today, we booked our tickets to go to Puerto Rico for five glorious days the last week of October.  

Tyler has been best friends with Joel since they graduated highschool.  They lived together for like 6 years, and have worked together maybe the last 4 or 5.  Joel started dating Jessie, and I couldn't help but fall in love a little bit, too.  We became close, and last year I got her a job at my company, so now WE work together too!  They are a couple that is very special to us, and we're so blessed to have them as friends.

They are getting married in Puerto Rico next April, and so are headed out in October to meet with vendors and finalize details.  And they invited us along!

Jessie and I ordered the tickets at work today, and both could not stop bouncing in excitement all day.  Even picking our seats on the plan was incredibly exciting.  A tropical vacation - thats amazing.  But five days drinking, sunning and laughing with your best friends?  Thats a once in a lifetime opportunity.


76 days, bitches.  I can't freaking wait.


Has anyone been?  Any recs of what we have to do, where we have to eat, where we have to stay??  xoxo

Go Skins!

Tyler and I are pretty big Washington Redskins fans.  I'd argue its in my blood - my father inherited season tickets from his father, and I think they've been in the family since like the 60s.  I sang the words to "Hail to the Redskins" instead of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  Tyler certainly knows more about the sport, but we are both passionate about the burgundy and gold.


For our two year wedding anniversary, we knew that we wanted to take the day off work, and spend time together.  Then we decided to head out to Redskins Park to watch training camp.  It was the first time that either of us had been, and we had a fabulous time.  Tyler brought his dad's camera, and we got some great shots.


McNabb before practice.

McNabb having a good time warming up.

Haynesworth doing...nothing.  Worthless bum.

Rex Grossman looked pretty solid today.

Galloway in tall shorts...or are they capris?!

Devon Thomas - think he'll be my next jersey.  Sick tattoos.

Will Montgomery - he went to highschool with Tyler.

We had some mutual friends in college.  This was the last time I saw him, like four years ago.  My hair was very short back then!  

Moss and Cooley:

It was probably a rather unconventional way to spend your second wedding anniversary, but I know Tyler loved every second of it, which means every second of it was more than worth it to me.  

GO SKINS!

Happy Two Year Anniversary

Two years ago...


I woke up at 6am after spending the night in the wedding hotel with my 7 amazing bridesmaids.  I drove as fast as I could back to the house Tyler and I already shared, so that we could practice our First Dance for two hours.  What a waste, haha, we still managed to do a terrible job.  Then I left to get ready for the big day.


I got my hair done:

And put on the prettiest dress I have ever owned.

I touched up my make up...

I met up with Tyler to fix his boutenniere..

And then we took some pictures.

And then it was time to walk down the aisle...

Exchange our vows...

And exchange our first kiss...

And join the world as Mr and Mrs...

Tyler, the day I married you, you changed my entire world.  You're kind and generous, humble and thoughtful.  You're smart and god-fearing, and funny and spiritual.  You're the most amazing human being I have ever met, and I am so blessed to not only know you, but be able to call you mine.  I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you.

You can't see it from Google Reader, but if you click over to my blog, I've embedded a clip from our wedding video in this post :)  Its short, and its SUPER sweet and worth the extra click!