Weddings

I love weddings. When I was a young child I would drape my mom's white slip, which was edged with lace, over my head and pretend I was a bride. I started collecting Martha Stewart Wedding magazines way before I met Mr. Right. And by the time I met Mr. Right, I already had 2 years worth of her inspiration-filled magazines.

I have two great friends getting married this Fall. I've packaged together some great bridal magazines to send to one, and now after flipping through the pages myself, I really want to have another wedding. It's crazy I know. I definitely see a renewing of the vows somewhere in the future.

I've added several wedding and entertaining links to my blog. I sure wish I had known about these when I was planning my wedding. At least I can pass them along now.

It's the details that make each wedding unique and special. Our wedding wasn't anything to be featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, but I did try to make it personal so that our guests could envision what our relationship was like. Here are a few shots of the 'details' of our wedding.
























Pictures taken by the talented Jenny Evelyn Prater, of Jenny Evelyn Photography LLC.

V Day 2010

Well our first Valentine's Day wasn't quite what I had anticipated. I envisioned an entire day of activities and QT (quality time) with my hubby. We planned to attend early church, the Roanoke Symphony concert, and then come home to cook a delicious meal.

Instead, I woke up at 6 a.m. with a headache. One of those nagging headaches that lasts all day.Three Aleve and two Sudafed didn't relieve it until about 7 p.m. I was able to make it through church and the first half of the symphony concert. But then I had to come home and crash on the couch.

When I finally felt better, we opted to eat McAlister's for supper, and we were satisfied.

On Monday night we made our Valentine's Day dinner. I'd like to thank America's Test Kitchen, The Pioneer Woman, Rachael Ray, and Paula Deen for the recipes that made our meal quite tasty.

Mr. Price chose a Maple Glazed Pork Tenderloin recipe from America's Test Kitchen. But in the end, we decided it wasn't worth all the work. Probably because we are amateur cooks. No offense to ATK.

The Pioneer Woman's recipe for Roasted Potatoes was great! The secret ingredient - dry white wine!

I'm sure Rachael Ray's recipe for fresh green beans and toasted almonds would have been great if I hadn't burned them both!! Yep. Check out the pictures below for the visual. Our kitchen smelled like an ashtray! That's why I would like to also thank Bird's Eye Steamfresh Sweet Peas. Even though you were the back up, you still accented our meal quite nicely.

For dessert we had Paula's Red Velvet Cupcakes that I managed to make during the break we had between church and the symphony.

Word of the Day

I have always wanted to increase my vocabulary. Several years ago I bought the book 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary and well it has been gracing my bookshelf with its presence ever since. I think I've looked at it maybe once. Sometimes I feel as though I am at a loss for words. I know there is a word to describe my feeling or circumstance, but I can't come up with anything in the moment. So I thought I'd come up with a word of the day/week/month to help me (finally, maybe) increase my vocab.

Several weeks ago my husband uttered this single word in his sleep early one morning. Oh the joys of being a newlywed. The new and exciting things you learn about your partner. Believe me you can't possibly know everything about a person before you marry them. And I've learned my husband occasionally talks in his sleep!

"Gingerly" he said while sleeping.

"Gingerly?" I lay there thinking, "What is he talking about?"

Gingerly...o0hkaay. I don't think I have ever heard the word. If I have, I don't remember. He was amused when I told him what he said. We both got a kick out of it, but I guess you would've had to be there. And now, strangely, the word keeps popping up. I heard it on a movie and TV program we watched, and I've noticed that one of my favorite bloggers likes to use the word.

So here's what it means. Although, I suspect you already know!

Gingerly
as an adverb - with great care or caution, warily
as an adjective - cautious, careful, wary.

Gingerly first appeared in English in the 1500s. It can be traced back to the Latin word 'genitum' or 'genitus' meaning 'well-born'.

'Genitum' being another form of 'gignere' to beget, and 'gens' also meaning race or people.

The form of the word today was probably adopted from an old French word 'gensor' meaning noble, high-born. And therefore the original sense of the word was elegantly, daintly, and was often referred to walking or dancing with dainty steps. The way we use the word today, gently and very cautiously, did not become widespread until the 1700s.

Maybe my husband's, in his sleep, ramblings will inspire another Word of the Day!

sources: Dictionary.com Word Detective World of Words

Valentine Fun

Valentine's Day is just a few days away Ladies and Gents!! Are you ready? I just love these heart cards from Paper-Source. I love the simplicity.



I also love this heart banner that blogger stephmodo made. It's so creative. It sure beats the heart doily banner I have hanging in our apartment.



Brush up on your Valentine's Day history with a quiz on Martha Stewart's website...here.

Hubby and I are going to have a low key V-day. We are going to cook a surprise meal together. The surprise is that I don't know what we are going to cook until Sunday. Mr. Price is creating the menu. I am in charge of the dessert, and that's going to be red velvet cupcakes. IF I can find some red food coloring!! I'll post pictures. SO tune back in later.

Snow Day

This makes the second weekend in a row that we have been hit with a snow storm. The snow started falling early Friday morning then turned to sleet later in the day. We’ve seen every type of precipitation during the past two days.

If you've ever been snowed in, you know how easy it is to catch cabin fever. Now, I’m no expert, having only been snowed in three times, but here’s what I suggest to make the most of your circumstances:

Safety First. Be prepared for power outages. We have flashlights with fresh batteries. And just in case something goes wrong with the water system, I bought a 2.5 gallon jug of water. Now that’s not enough to bathe with, but we should have plenty of drinking water.



Rent movies. We are Netflixers. But since there was no chance Netflix was going to get us a movie before the storm, I ran by the library to rent some movies for FREE! (Take that Netflix!) I picked up the following movies: North by Northwest, an Alfred Hitchcock movie; Open Range with Kevin Costner and Robert Duvall, just because I felt like seeing a ranch type movie; and lastly Me and You and Everyone We Know. This one sparked my interest because it won several awards at various film festivals in 2005.





Have plenty of warm food and snacks. Lots of down-time makes you graze on all kinds of unhealthy foods. We made a 13X9 pan of brownies yesterday and ate ¾ of the pan within hours. I stocked the pantry full of ingredients for chili, southwestern soup, and this great mushroom soup.






Don’t skimp on your snow equipment. Buy the best snow shovel you can, it will prevent headaches in the long run. Hubby had to make some repairs to our snow shovel, because we skimped.



Have a pair of sunglasses. When it snows 6 – 10 inches there’s a pretty white blanket that covers the landscape, and when the sun finally comes out, that landscape will blind you!

Have a good book to read. I asked my Facebook friends to suggest books for me to read. I got a few responses. I chose to check out A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson. My father-in-law suggested it, and it has been recommended to me in the past with rave reviews. I read a few chapters aloud last night to my husband, and we were laughing out loud.

Lastly, get out there and enjoy it! That’s right, act like you are 20 years younger than you really are. You’ll have so much fun!

Happy Weekend!

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. We are experiencing our second snow storm! Although this time it's not quite as adventurous as the last(being snowed in at the Super 8). We are happy and thankful to be at home with food, power, water and heat! It started snowing at about midnight last night and didn't stop until about 2 hours ago. We ventured out at about 4 o'clock. Here's how it looks in our neck of the woods.