Monday, June 18, 2012

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue

This was the theme I chose for a good friend's bridal shower on May 20th.  This post is several weeks delayed seeing as how the wedding is in one week, but better late than never I guess.

I wanted to make this day special for the bride-to-be and I had a lot of fun planning and preparing for the party.  I planned a brunch and like I always do,  made way too much food.  I asked all of the guests to bring their favorite "old" recipe for the bride to "borrow" to start her collection.  My gift to her was a personalized recipe binder to hold the recipes from all of her guests.  I received one of these at my shower and every time I look at it, it makes me smile and remember all of the people who attended my bridal shower.  Hopefully it will have the same effect on her.

Everything turned out exactly how I wanted it to and it was a wonderful day!

Blue mason jars inspired the color scheme
Party favors and place setting

Who doesn't love a mimosa bar?



Personalized water bottles to reflect the bride's future name
Dessert bar

Not to toot my own horn, but these were SO GOOD!



The recipe tree




Tuesday, June 12, 2012

30 What?!

Recently, I had an epiphany.  I'm pushing 30.  Okay, okay, I know I'm only 27 but I can see 30 on the horizon.  I turn 28 one month from today which means that 30 is only two years away.  GASP!

The reason for this realization is my butt.  Yes, you read that right.  My butt!  I don't know when it happened but somewhere along the line I lost my tight little tushy and it's become overwhelmingly full of dimples.  Not only on my tush, but they are creeping down the back of my thighs!  Ack!  Ladies, I'm sure most of you can relate?

Every morning I look in the mirror and analyze the ever-expanding dimple clan.  When did this happen?  I acknowledge that I'm no longer 95 pounds and a size zero but I'm not a large person and I'd prefer it if my butt didn't resemble a golf ball.  I've dropped a few pounds this year and overall I'm very happy with my appearance and current weight.  I just need to tighten up a bit.  This is something I've been working on, but the dimples don't seem to be dwindling.  I blame this on the fact that I'm pushing 30.  You always hear people say results take a lot longer to get the older you get.  I always figured this was true, but in my mind I'm still 23 so the results should be immediate.  Why 23 is the age I'm stuck at in my head?  I have no idea.  All I know is that the toning needs to occur at a faster pace than it is.

So a few weeks ago I decided that this little issue of mine called for drastic measures.  I work in a high-rise building in downtown Portland.  32 stories or 576 stairs to be exact (not including the additional 4 stories or 76 stairs of the parking structure).  I know this because every day for the past four weeks I've decided to climb my ever-so bumpy butt all the way to the top and back down again.  Holy moly!  It's so hard!!  I'm definitely noticing some results though.  On. My. Fingers......My fingers!  My fingers of all things are becoming noticeably thinner and my wedding ring keeps sliding around.  As for my butt?  Nadda.  It still looks the same.  It's just not right.   I guess I have many days of stair climbing ahead of me, which I might add, is an art form.  I had no idea! I realized that when I climb stairs I only use the balls of my feet and push off from there.  This was making my quads extremely sore and doing nothing for my butt which defeated the point entirely.  I concluded that when I climb the stairs I have to make a conscious effort to push off with my entire foot while squeezing intently, and only then does it actually work my butt.  I'm sure I look totally constipated.

Have you noticed how you climb stairs?  I challenge you to pay attention.  It's harder than you think.


Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Coincidence? Or Does Someone have a Sense of Humor?

An awkwardly placed advertisement next to today's breaking news! Pretty fitting I'd say!


Think Positive. Think Positive. Think Positive.

This is the mantra I've been chanting to myself lately because this has been a rough couple of weeks emotionally.  These days, I pretty much have weekly appointments with the fertility specialist.  After the appointment with my doctor on Monday I tried to remain optimistic.  However today was another appointment and I'm trying to dig deep for some positive thinking.  I'm pretty bummed out right now because it's official.  I have a very laaaazzzzzy ovary.

We've been working with a fertility specialist for the past few months, and so far all of my tests have come back great.  This is good news and bad news.  Good news because there is nothing glaringly wrong with me that they can fix, but bad news because clearly one of my ovaries is not working well, if at all, and they don't know why - other than the whole Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome mumbo jumbo - which I'm still not fully convinced I have.  But anyways, last month my doctor put me on a new medicine and it worked beautifully.  I actually had my first "normal" cycle in over a year.  Yay!  However, based on past evidence we knew this month would be more difficult, so she doubled my dosage.

Monday when I went in for my mid-cycle evaluation to see how I was responding to the medicine we determined that the response was less than stellar.  There was nothing of notable size.  She could tell that there were eggs in there but they were taking a vacation.  (Maybe they wanted to be back in Arizona?  I know I sure do.)  They looked nothing like what they expect them to look like halfway through a cycle.  She looked at me with a look of dissapointment and asked if I was okay.  Okay?  Of course I'm okay.  I had a feeling this was going to happen.  I was hopeful the medicine would work this month but I tried not to get my hopes up.  I know my body pretty well and my ovary is tired.

That was Monday.  I was still feeling pretty optimistic because she said we'd give it a few days and check again on Friday.  Well, today is Friday and there was no change at all. They said I could go back in next week to check again but most likely this month is a waste and I will not ovulate.  This sucks.  I know that's not a very descriptive, blog-worthy word but it's the truth.  It just sucks.  Not to mention, each one of these appointments costs a few hundred dollars and insurance doesn't cover any of it.  This is an expensive month and I have nothing to show for it.  Not even hope.  Did I mention this sucks?

I don't mean to come off negative.  I'm just really disappointed which translates into crankiness so I apologize to anyone who's experienced uptight Emily lately.  Like I said, I've had to dig deeply for some positive thinking.  Through writing this blog and reflecting on our situation I've come to realize the silver lining is that I have six good months out of the year where we can try for a baby.  And I'm still young...ish.  I'm only 27 and I still have at least eight really good baby-making years left.  Some women don't have that luxury.  I'm thankful for the time I have, since time is what we need.




Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Are You Pinterested?

I am! Everyone is talking about it.  Pinterest.com. Have you heard of it?  Its an amazing little site.  I'll fully admit that it took me a while to figure out why this website was gaining so much popularity.  So you just "pin" things to your "boards" and then people can see what you like?  What's the point of that?  LAME.  Clearly, I didn't get it.


After more friends urged me to try it, I gave it another shot.  Okay, this is kind of cool.  There are SO many good ideas on there.  About EVERYTHING.  Recipes, shower ideas, workouts, decorating ideas, fashion, how to's, and the list goes on and on and.....on.  Time and time again, I have found things online that I have liked and when I try to go back and find it, I can't.  Pinterest is now the solution to this problem.  You can "pin" ideas from different websites onto your idea boards so everything is in one central location for you to reference.  Pretty cool I'd say.

As with everything, this website isn't without its downfalls.  The biggest bummer about this new craze is that there are no original ideas.  You throw a party with a certain theme or decoration and inevitably someone says, "Ooo, did you get that idea from Pinterest?  I saw that on there".  It kinda stinks because secretly we all want to take credit for these great ideas and now we can't because all of our friends saw the same idea.  Meh, its still worth it in my opinion.  I guess if you think about it, there are no original ideas.  Even before Pinterest, someone would see an idea from somewhere, copy it, and then someone else would copy it.  Its just the way things operate.  If you ask me, Pinterest needs to come up with a "private" board setting so that people can pin in secrecy.  What if you are throwing a surprise party and the guest of honor is on Pinterest and has access to your boards?  Its not much of a surprise party if they can see all of your ideas!  I'm on a quest to get Pinterest to give you the option of private boards.  Who's with me?  Unless they already have this option and I'm just dense?  If that's the case, then someone should fill me in. 


Below is a decoration I made courtesy of Pinterest.  Its so simple, yet I wouldn't have ever known how to do it without seeing it on Pinterest first.  So yes, I am Pinterested!


Supplies:  10 pieces of tissue paper (I find the glossy kind works better), scissors and pipe cleaners

Stack the paper and then fold width-wise, accordion-style

Tie a pipe cleaner around the center


Cut the ends off.  Can be rounded or jagged. 

Peel back from center, layer by layer 


Done!  Hang from ceiling with fishing line