#171 He Loves Chocolate Mousse

There's an empty spot in my heart tonight.

Because tonight I took down my Christmas tree.

The good news is, that Christmas 2015 is just a little more than 10 months away.

So start that shopping!

Okay, I kid.

This winter has been pretty chilly. And what goes better with chilly weather than chili--the food? Every year, Hubby's work holds a chili cook-off. I forced his coworker, Drew, to enter. So he forced me to come over and cook it with him.

I guess it was a fair trade.

Drew has a TV in his kitchen.

It was the highlight of my day.

Drew wasn't impressed with my excitement.

I'd post a picture of the chili, but the pictures I took weren't so flattering. I was more concerned with getting a bowlful to test taste.

The recipe we used was Pioneer Woman's (who else's?!) Chipotle Chicken Chili. It was delicious, but didn't take first place. A traditional beef chili did, so I don't truly consider it a loss, especially since one of the judges voted us for first, and especially especially since Drew took last place last year.

Anything above that is definitely improvement in my book.

The next day some of our favorite people came over to watch the Super Bowl with us. 

Before the game, we watched the movie Gone Girl. If you haven't seen it, all I'll say is, it was crazy.

Hubby had to leave the movie half way through to start making game day snacks.

He may or may not have given me a little lip about missing the end of the movie. But then I reminded him that he was the one that chose to make rotisserie chicken wings, homemade potato skins, and queso instead of buying frozen apps.

He did an amazing job. I made sure to save his Snapchat of it all since I was almost too eager to take this picture:

 

The potato skins were amazing. I probably could have eaten half the platter. The wings were a little too spicy for me, but the meat was incredibly tender. Hubby is a perfectionist and hates his queso, but I loved it.

This past weekend I went shopping with Drew and while we were chatting with a salesperson I saw this:

Naturally, I needed to take a picture of it.

The next day, my sister-in-law and I made a family dinner to celebrate my Gram's 82nd birthday.

 

Doesn't she look good for 82? I keep crossing my fingers that it's hereditary.

Gram loves strawberry desserts, so I made her my strawberry trifle. 

Almost half of my family are babies when it comes to fruit in their desserts. Thank goodness I have been delivered of this. For the nose wrinklers, I made chocolate mousse.

Chocolate mousse is Hubby's favorite. So really, I made chocolate mousse for Hubby. I used Bon Appetit's Classic Chocolate Mousse recipe. I expected the mousse to be much harder to make. The only thing that surprised me was that it calls for 1/4 cup of espresso or strong coffee. I've never noticed a coffee flavor in any classic chocolate mousse that I have tasted before. It wasn't a horrible flavor, but if you aren't expecting it or if you aren't a coffee lover, you might not like it.

 
Chili not chilly, good friends, good food, and a birthday celebration--yeah, my last two weekends have been pretty wonderful.

#123 He Shovels

Here are the top ten things you must know about the past month of my life.  These things have literally given me brain freeze which has forbidden me to post about anything else.  I think of something wonderful to write about, but when I realize I haven't addressed these issues, I come to a stand still.

1. It has been ridiculously cold in New Jersey.

I don't know what is going on with my state.  We've experienced cold when it should be warm, and hot when it should.  We've had freezing weather one day, then fall like weather the next; we've had comfortable spring like weather followed by days that are well below freezing.

2. Hubby was away in LA when New Jersey started to get crazy cold.

While Hubby was away, I heard on the radio that the temperature has been so low in New Jersey that if you are under the age of 40, you have never experienced such temperatures before in your lifetime.

That, of course, does not take into consideration those who have visited a location that experiences these temperatures regularly.  In that case, however, I have to wonder why you were even there to start with!

I was afraid for Hubby's sake that he would miss out on this life changing experience.  Lucky for him, the cold has been persistent.

3. The school that I teach at already has four snow days to make up.

Four days!*  And winter isn't even over yet!

*I don't event want to mention the delayed openings we've had.

4. New Jersey has had more snow this year infinity times more than last year.

Out to breakfast with Hubby one Saturday morning last October I jumped like a child on Christmas morning at the sight of monster snowflakes which within moments covered the shopping plaza with a white blanket of beauty.

And that was all the snow I saw last year.

I'm not going to lie, this saddened me a little.*

*Okay, a lot.

5. We had more days off last year for hurricane weather than winter weather.

Hurricane Sandy and her vicious winds brought so many downed trees and therefore power outages that we were off three days last year because of Sandy.  It got to a point where it was actually annoying to be stuck home for another day in a row.

6. The novelty of how cold it has been in New Jersey amazed me at first.

Then I stepped outside early in the morning and after five minutes of trying to defrost my car I began to wonder where the feeling in my gloved finger tips had gone.  It was that moment that I decided I was done with the cold.*

*Let me not forget to mention that the frost was INSIDE my car because there was moisture on the floor from melted snow, etc.  Boy, wasn't that fun!

7. Although there have been enough snow storms that I could compete in the Winter Olympics event of Snow Shoveling* I have only had to shovel snow once.

We have street parking and a short distance of sidewalk to shovel, however, shoveling is shoveling.  It's a thankless task that although you start it thinking, "Golly gee, I'm going to use this instead of my workout today", by the time you have shoveled for five minutes you are ready to plop down on the snow, curse your workout, and cry like a baby.

Thank you Hubby for keeping me from having to do this too often.

*I'm working on the proposal for this event.  It seems like a 'duh' event to me.

8. For the first time in my life, I have disliked snow.

While I was attempting, horribly, to climb on top of a foot of snow to push snow off the top of my Hummer, a man across the street from me said, "You know what I think?"

Me: "What's that"

Man: "I think that when they (nods towards the bar he's shoveling for) go to pay me I'm going to say, I want a ticket to Florida. (He pauses to shovel a little more).  I'm done with this snow!"

Me: Sounds good to me.

Man: "And that'll be a ONE way ticket!"

While I wouldn't agree with the location (Let's see...Rain everyday?  Retirement capital of America?  No thanks....) I certainly shared the sentiment.  I've definitely said, "I'm tired of snow", "I hate the cold" multiple times already.

9. I've allowed myself to grow so sick of the added bite to the temperature that I've forgotten to just deal with it and try to find some beauty in it. 

I know, I know, the cold and the snow starts to give us all cabin fever, especially during a year like this.  We've been treated roughly.  We've had to bundle up.  We've had to start our cars early.  We've had to shovel and scrape.  But, let's face it, we can't change it.  If we can't change it, we might as well try to find a little beauty in it.  After all, things that are beautiful aren't always the most pleasant.

10. Gram turned 81 today.

I know this one is totally un-snow related, but let's see if I can work it in.  Last year when we threw Gram a surprise 80th birthday party it snowed the night before.  So much that I had to wear my fuzzy furry boots with my party dress so that I wasn't heel deep in snow as I filled my car with party supplies.

My Gram rocks.  If you want to know how we celebrated her birthday this year, go over to The Orange Strainer.

Final Note: You would think with a post like this that I would have beautiful pictures compiled of the snow to share with you.  Sorry to disappoint.

#103 He is an Artist

A little over a year ago, I got my first tattoo.  It was a strange and wonder filled occasion, which you can read about here.  Just for the record, I've never been one who dreamed of getting tattoos.  At the age that my younger brother was begging my parents for a tattoo (they said no), I was just begging to be allowed to listen to the Beatles (true story....my parents really made me hide under a rock during my mid-teens).  

I didn't make the plunge for my tattoo until I was 25 +1.  I had considered getting one before then, but never felt any pressing need to do it.  Something drastically changed once the needle stopped churning.  Suddenly, I had an empty canvas and thousands of thoughts for new tattoos and would have gladly hopped back onto the tattoo artist's chair if not for the sore spot I was currently nursing and the lack of cash in my pocket.

I wanted to somehow incorporate my love for writing into a tattoo, but I also wanted it to flow from what I had just gotten done.  I gave the project to Hubby because I didn't feel like thinking about it.  Hubby, despite what he claims, is a fantastic artist in a variety of different medium.  

Here are two examples from when we first started dating:

The amount of artistic creations I received from him when we were dating were not only numerous, but they were quality art for a teenager to be producing with simple materials as pencil, construction paper, etc.

A comma is something a writer uses, whether correctly or incorrectly, so I decided I wanted to tattoo the shape of a comma in a lacy print around my current tattoo.  Just like my first tattoo, it also holds a double meaning.  A comma is a pause between parts of a sentence.  Pausing is something I constantly have to remind myself to do when I get angry, upset, stressed, etc.  It's a good reminder for us all to put life on pause for a minute before we get worked up over anything.

Hubby was patient with me, as always.  He designed two or three different styles before we decided that the lace design would be an extremely large tattoo, one that I did not want to sit for.  After a little Googling, I discovered the watercolor tattoo style and fell in love.

While Hubby did not design my tattoo, he helped by sketching out the idea for how to incorporate the comma with watercolor splashes

Deciding on what tattoo to get was a culmination of many months of thought, design, rejection, and talking with Hubby.  But it was really my grandmother who pushed me to go ahead and get it.

When my brother and I got our first tattoos together, we kidded my grandmother about getting one.  My grandmother loves a challenge though, and soon the joke became a reality.

You'll remember from this post that Gram turned 80 this year.

But she was fearless.  She knew what she wanted, and exactly how she wanted it.

I kept checking on her the entire time and her worst complaint after it was all over was that she was uncomfortable with how she was sitting.  She couldn't have cared less about the needle rubbing across her skin, only that she was sitting in an awkward position the entire time.

I love her.

We switched seats, and then it was my turn!

I was a little more of a wimp.  The tattoo artist, Frank, who was awesome, had me laying down for the start of my tattoo.  I couldn't manage to find a comfortable position.  I kept flipping my head from left to right, then my arm started falling asleep, then it started shaking from the falling asleep, and I was an absolute complete mess.

We took a break half way through so I could switch into a sitting position.  That made the end a million times better.

I told Gram a butterfly is a typical girl tattoo, but hers is certainly much more classy than any I've seen so far.

She was pretty excited.

When I was taking pictures of Gram's tattoo, Jon wanted a picture with her so he twirled her around so that her tattoo was in the shot.

He's a cutie.

He tried to do the same with me, but Gram didn't know how to use my camera, so my tattoo got slighted.

Jonathan started laughing and I had to capture the moment.

Sorry.

I just love that face.

I asked Hubby at a pretty inopportune time later that night to take a picture so I could blog about it.  This is why we have a little glare going on.  This was the best picture where the glare wasn't in such an awkward spot and my neck didn't look so much like a giraffe's.

And that's what I get for wanting what I want when I want it.

  

#88 He Wants to Grow Old Together

"If you live to be 100, I hope to live to be 100 minus a day so I never have to live without you,"

~Winnie the Pooh

Most of us aren't too fond of the idea that each year we grow a little older.  Bones begin to crack, skin begins to crinkle, and the thought of going to bed at 7:00 suddenly seems a perfectly normal and natural thing to do.  In fact, we wonder what was wrong with us all those years that we fought bedtime.

After I turned 26 I decided that from that point on I would only celebrate anniversaries of my 25th birthday.  This year, for example, I celebrated my 25th birthday for the third time.

I know that I'm only kidding myself.  I know in my bones that I'm 27.  And when my dreaded 30th birthday comes, despite the fact I'll tell everyone I'm 25 (for the sixth time), I'll know.  

My Gram turned 80 yesterday.  To celebrate such a monumental occasion my mom planned a surprise party at Villa Mannino in Bordentown.  

I'm sorry, but I have to say it.  There isn't any better looking 80-year-old woman out there.

It's hard to truly convey who my Gram is and all the life, love, and energy that is a part of knowing her.  But here's a small start:

She wears heels.  Often.
She walks in the city in heels.  And doesn't complain.
She maintains her pool.  Without any help.  In wedges.
She lets you borrow her car.  Without question, without concern; other than for your safety.
She cooks.  For everyone and anyone.
She is hospitable.  If she has known you forever or she just met you she will care for you like you are her own.
She is selfless.  Ask for the shirt off her back and she will find a way to give it to you.
She is caring.  Sincerely caring.  She is one of the people that make this world a better place.

So we celebrated the wonder that is Gram with champagne and white wine, her favorite.

Pretty packaged presents.

A bounty of balloons.

And entertainment from all her grandchildren.

I don't think she stopped smiling.

My little brother, Joel, a much more eloquent and entertaining speaker than I, got everyone to share a little love for Gram.  We laughed, and cried happy tears, thinking of all the goodness and blessings Gram has bestowed on all who know her.

We had cake which on the outside looked like any typical birthday cake...

but on the inside was mind blowing.  Spongy vanilla cake with smooth whipped cream and strawberries--yum, yum, yum!  It made me desperately want summer so that I could make my strawberry shortcake trifle.

Joel's friend Tyler enjoyed the cake too.  He got a little jealous of all the pictures I was taking of it, so I snapped a quick one of him.

And one of hubby too.  Doesn't he look positively dreamy in his vest and tie?

The overall wish of all the guests was that they might all look as good as Gram when they reach 80.

This is my wish too.

It was in the midst of all this, when I recognized that growing old is what you make it.  If you focus on the fact that you're sagging in places that you didn't even know could sag, that you have lost count of your gray hairs, or that you suddenly shake your finger at little rascals and threaten to call the cops on them; you simply have become old.  But if you look at life's problems and take Gram's philosophy that Joel quoted of, "Screw it!" you'll always be young at heart.

I know I'll never love the number I am in age, but I know that I want to grow old and I want to be like Gram as I do it.  I want to exemplify youth in old age and live life to its absolute fullest.  And as I do it, I also want to remember the seventeen-year old-lovers of my youth who promised each other that they could never live one moment apart.  Remembering this, I'll treasure my husband more and more with each passing day we share together as one.