A Blast from the Past — Prom

 

Oh prom….

I love prom season. Even now. Last Friday night Eric and I went for a walk in our neighborhood and saw a bunch of kids getting  ready for prom. It was really cute.

My first prom was Eric’s senior prom. We had actually only been dating a few months. I had actually started making my prom dress only three or four weeks after our first date but just didn’t tell anyone because he hadn’t officially asked me yet. I didn’t want to be presumptuous but I also didn’t want to have to crank out a dress at the last minute. I absolutely love this dress still. The back did a really intricate cross with the straps, which unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of here.

My favorite things about this photo are:

1) Eric’s glasses and the collar button…it was the look for tuxes that year, he’s so cutting edge 

2) My shoes (hot)

3) The necklace which I bought on our choir trip to London. I still have it and actually considered wearing it at our wedding.

 

 

 

 

My Senior Prom

This is the only photo I could find of my senior prom. I actually hosted a “pre-prom” party this year because I wanted an excuse to serve mini quiche. We had a great time with lots of friends and family stopping by to see us all in our dresses. I actually made and designed this dress. You can’t see the detail at all…but, it had a really pretty lace insert. I stressed out over that dress, and it’s actually the reason I didn’t make my wedding dress.

Things I love about this photo:

The flamingos. I actually forgot about this until just now but every month for an entire year, my mom, Nicole and I stole the flamingos from my neighbor’s front yard when they were out of town or on a walk. We’d decorate them and then put them back. Ah the things we did to amuse ourselves in Central PA.

Both of my proms were at the Valencia Ball Room in York. We had dinner at both and Eric and I really did have a fabulous time both nights. We never had a limo, but Eric was very excited to borrow his dad’s Mazda 626. Both years we went to after prom parties at friends’ houses where we watched awful movies and played board games until dawn. Great fun. 

Eric actually hadn’t had a great junior prom–more or less ditched at the dance–and I remember hearing the story from a mutual friend of ours and saying how much it sucked because he was such a nice guy. Who knew that so many years later we’d be married.

While we’re at it…check out Michelle Obama’s prom dress. Thanks Natalie for being such a great hostess.

A Failure and A Pick Me Up

I am by no means a prolific cook. I don’t claim to be. I mess up a lot. But sometimes, it confuses the crap out of me.

For example, it is not hard to make soup. I’ve done it before! So, after Easter, when we had a bit of the ham bone left, I thought, I’ll freeze it and we’ll make a ham bean soup. I buy it from Campbells all the time…

Last week I decided to defrost the ham bone and give it a whirl. Seemed simple enough. Soak the beans overnight (or all day while I’m at work–This is the first time I’ve done that, I was shocked at how those little suckers puffed up.) So, I get home, add the beans, onion, ham bone and tomato into a pot per the directions. Simmer for two hours. Remove the ham bone. Simmer for two hours more.

I go to remove the bone and could barely breath. It smelled awful. I couldn’t bring myself to call it there. So, I decide, “maybe it’s just not done.” I keep cooking. another 2 hours go buy. I’m thinking, “this is gross.” Eric is refusing to come into the kitchen because he thinks it smells so bad.

So, instead of being the logical, reasonable person (who spent ~70 cents on this meal) and just get rid of it. I decide, to let it sit. So it sat. Until Friday, when I swore up and down I was going to eat it.

Friends. I do not know what happened to that little soup but it sucked. And I still can’t bring myself to throw it away.

I did however decide I needed a quick, yummy meal. So I made baked mac and cheese instead and served breaded eggplant on the side. Soo much better than my yucky, yucky soup.

A Cinco de Mayo

Last night Eric and I skipped dinner and had a mini-Cinco de Mayo fest on our balcony.

Cinco de Mayo

We actually also used the only wedding gift we had left that we haven’t used yet, the tray which you see above. It was excellent.

Eric and I love Mexican food and tequilla so we absolutely adore Cinco de Mayo. We even celebrated at my office. We had Mexican breads (I had a yummy empanada style lemon flavored one) then for lunch we got a taco platter from Rubios. It was so delicious and I ate so much that I actually didn’t have dinner at all –which combined with the drinks in the evening, meant that I was asleep on the couch before the end of American Idol. Ah well…there’s always next year.

A Cat

I haven’t really posted too much on this blog about our cat, Foxy. We adopted her from the Pet Orphan’s Fund in Van Nuys almost 3 years ago. She’s incredibly social and comes out when we have friends over, follows me from room to room when I’m at home and usually runs to the door to great me when I get home from work. 

I did the convincing when we decided to adopt her. Eric wasn’t so into it but was willing to make the compromise since he know how desperately I wanted a pet. That means I usually handle feeding and tending to her and Eric pays attention to her when she hops up in his lap.

Last night when I got home from work, we noticed that Fox was limping. I wasn’t too concerned but we did check to see if she cut her paw or had any pain when we touched her leg. She seemed fine, so I figured it was just a muscle and went about my business. My opinion is that we’ll take a few days to see how she does before getting too concerned.

Two hours later, I realize, Eric is carrying her from room to room in the apartment. He carried her to the couch so she could cuddle with us while we watched AI, then he carried her to bed when I was ready to go to sleep.

She’s definitely feeling better this morning and was up poking a round while I got ready for work. But really, God only knows what’s going to go on while I’m at work today. For all I know, I could come home to her in a motorized cart Eric’s devised so she doesn’t have to put weight on her leg. Heaven help us if we have kids.

A Grip

Did you ever have one of those days where you feel like you’ve got your act together? Those days are rare for me and today I’m having one. In fact, I’m hesitant to type it because I feel like it might all fall apart.

I actually have accomplished the following (in addition to my job). Today I:

Set up accounts to track all my expenses online. (Okay, in truth this was Eric and it was yesterday but it’s a big deal for me)

Started a pot roast in the slow cooker before I left for work.

Got all my birthday cards/gifts etc. ready for the month of May.

Did some grocery shopping on my lunch.

Donated some books to the library while picking up a book I had on hold.

And it’s not even 5 o’clock yet.

Go me.

A Girls-Only Camping Trip

Last Friday, Kelli and I packed up the car and headed north to Ojai for the weekend. We’ve both been camping countless times, but neither without adult supervision or a boy who steps in to run the show. We both knew we were more than capable of fairing for ourselves for a weekend, but it was nice to prove it.

Friday night we didn’t arrive on site until after 9. You aren’t able to make reservations at the site so they were unfortunately full when we arrived, leaving us with two options: sleep in the car or hike back about 200 feet to a clearing where people had apparently camped before. We opted for hiking back, starting a fire and pitching our tent so we could make some food and hit the hay pretty quickly. Still, it was about midnight until we got to sleep.

 

Rose Valley Lake

 

 

Saturday, we woke up early and had breakfast started before 8. It wasn’t much longer until we were ready to hike out, following a trail that left from behind our campsite. While I’m not sure of the altitude we climbed, I was struggling. Kelli seemed to handle it well, scrambling up the mt. in stride. Still, since I was sucking more wind that the Goodyear Blimp, we worked our way up at a pretty slow pace. I eventually made it to the top, giving Kelli ample opportunity to stop and stretch along the way. We hiked along the ridgeline for another half mile or so before looking out over the coast and checking out the Chanel Islands in the distance before heading down.

 

Looking down into our campsite

 

The Channel Islands are way out there I promise

 

 

No sooner had we started back down the mountain, than I hiked out of my boot–literally–the sole completely pulled away from the boot.

 

Stupid Shoe

 

 

While I wasn’t sure how I would make it back down, I knew I had sandles in my pack to change into if I needed to. Eventually I decided to tear off the sole, and hike down with the remaining portion of my boot.

When we got back down, we realized several sites were open, so we quickly moved camp. Switching sites only took a few minutes and it was completely worth it. We had a fire pit and a picnic table and no sooner had  we set up site that a ranger came through who, I’m fairly certain, would have booted us had he seen us in the other site.

We hung out in the shade for a little while, watching some of the other campers set up their sites while I repaired my boot with some bandaids I had packed for emergencies. We were even treated to some lovely flute music by a campsite a few plots down from us. Since it had cooled off a little, we decided to hike back to a waterfall that was about a 1/4 mile from camp. It was cool at the base of the falls, but it was a pretty mild stream coming down. I’m not sure if it’s a greater waterflow earlier in the year but I’m sure it would be pretty.

 

Kelli checks out the falls

 

 

After coming back from the falls, Kelli chopped up tons of veggies for a yummy foil pack, we started an exceptional fire and were further entertained by the musicians a few sites down who despite their extensive reputare of music, had the exceptional ability to make every song sound exactly the same. 

We packed it in Saturday night after I found myself dozing off next to the campfire. I slept great that night after bundling myself up in 3 pairs of socks, two pants, several tops a jacket and a hat–no bikini for this babe. 

Sunday, we got up and tour down camp and headed out to the Piedra Blanca Formations hiking a quick and easy “two miles” each way. The walk (I hesitate to call it a hike) was simple but pretty and we had a few stream crossings that unfortunately my shoe did not survive.

After our hike and a snack, we hit the road and were back in LA by 3:30. It was a great weekend and definitely a success. Now I just have to secure myself some new boots before we hit the trails again.

A Typical Boy

This weekend Kelli and I are packing up Eric’s SUV and heading here:

(Hopefully sans snow.) I’m really excited.

So, last night I’m at home, engrossed in Lost. Eric bursts through the door, having just finished a session at the studio. 

“You know you’re going to need wood and matches this weekend, right?” Oh how he underestimates me…I’ll have a full report of our trip on Monday.

An Easter Weekend

I love Easter. The flowers, the sunshine, the Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Eggs.

We had a really nice weekend. On Saturday, we had lunch with our friend’s whose baby girl we hadn’t seen since November. She’s so cute and her little personality cracks me up. I love kids at this age. Here she is posing with Eric’s CD (even babies love it!).

Sunday started out early for us. We got up at 4 (that’s AM) to head over to the Hollywood Bowl for a sunrise service. My excitement was twofold. One – for the service. Two – to finally see the inside of the bowl. I was actually awake before my alarm went off, I’d like to thank our Tommy-Lee-lookalike neighbor for that.

Eric really champed up, for not being a morning person he was awake and happy on our walk over. Although, he didn’t really appreciate my efforts to capture the moment for posterity.

We got settled inside just before the service started. I was bundled up with a knit scarf, mittens and vest and a cozy blanket over my lap. The music was beautiful but more exciting for me was watching/listening to the birds wake up and start zooming around. 

When we got home, we were both pretty awake, and we had made plans the night before for a yummy breakfast of homemade home fries and swiss and mushroom eggs. 

We both took long naps before tackling the cleaning and cooking for our Easter dinner. We were making our usual ham, broccoli salad, and au gratin potatoes. I decided to throw in a recipe I found for a lemon-cornmeal bunt cake.

The trick was, I don’t have a bunt pan. So I though, I’ll just make a loaf…

Woops. At least I thought far enough ahead to put the pan underneath it. So, we set it aside, it tastes fine but I wouldn’t have eaten it if I was at someone elses house, so it didn’t get served.

Still, we had a great dinner with Kelli, Will and Chris who brought over yummy treats as well. We’ll be eating leftovers most of this week–Ham Salad, Quiche and Macaroni, Broccoli and Ham, and I think I’m going to try my hand at a Ham Bean Soup as well.

A Knitting Update

We had a fantastic Easter yesterday and because it went so well and I slept in a little this morning, I forgot my camera. Update to come tomorrow. In the meantime, I preloaded some photos on Friday to update you on the knitting front. 

I started this sock two years ago. It’s the Potomous by Cookie A. I’m now onto the gusset. Don’t ask me why I decided this would be an appropriate first sock. It’s challenging. Now that I have a simple pair under my belt, these are cruising along much easier.

This is a little Anthro-inspired headband that I made out of some leftovers. I love the flower, which is a little hard to see in this photo. I think it looks awesome on Susan. I see more of these in my future.

This is a wrap, actually, the pattern is called “It’s a Wrap” this one is made of yarn that my mom bought from my great-grandmother’s estate sale. It turned out so well, that I made a second one of these in yellow. 

When I shared this at knitting, someone (I can’t remember who) commented that it must be really old yarn. And actually I was thinking about it, and it might not be too old. I actually remember my great-grandmother she lived to be 106 and while I’m not 100% sure of the year, I think I was 10 or so when she passed away. Her family had a really cool farmhouse and when they sold it, most of the items inside were sold off at the estate sale.

I love that even though my great-grandmother didn’t know me as an adult, we have a little connection. Pretty neat.

A Reason to Love L.A.

These photos are from the end of February when Eric’s parents came to visit. Later this month, they’re taking a trip to the Grand Canyon and Sedona to do some major hiking and wanted to test their skills here in LA. So, hike we did. I love this city. All these photos were taken within 5 miles of our apartment–except for the photo on the beach which I had to add because I think my husband is really handsome.

This trail head starts right behind the Griffith Observatory and when you hike up to the top, you can actually see all of LA. It’s a better view than Mullhauland because you’re able to see downtown, the West side and the Valley all at once. It wasn’t too challenging of a hike, maybe 3 miles roundtrip and well worth the effort.