Curly J's Wedding-My Faves (and it's her birthday)

In honor of Curly J's birthday, which is today, I will go ahead and list some of my favorite moments from her wedding.

The Food.... I was elated to learn that I had been seated directly beside the shrimp and grits and prime rib station.  Location is everything, right?  There were also mini chicken cordon blue bites, salad, a pasta station, etc.  Everyone mentioned some delicious stuffed mushrooms during cocktail hour but I must have missed those while doing pictures.

The Cake...Cake is always awesome at weddings.  But this one was made by the girlfriend of the brother of the bride (got it?).  I thought it tasted awesome and looked good and I thought it was sweet of the bride to trust her brother's girlfriend with such a huge task.  She did a really good job.

Bride, MOH, and
Flower Girl

The Speeches....You could tell that the people giving the speeches (sister of the bride, college BFF of the groom) really knew the bride and groom well.  They were very heartfelt and funny speeches, including some serenading by the Best Man to the Groom.  I may have teared up a bit during the speech by Curly J's sister.

The Dancing....As you know, I was really passionate about my dancing at this wedding.  One of my favorite moments ever in the history of weddings (that I have been to) occurred when the DJ played "Forever" by Chris Brown (no, I do not like Chris Brown, but I do like his song).  If you are familiar with Pam and Jim's wedding from The Office, then you know that everyone danced down the aisle to that song (copying the original YouTube video).  Well somehow when the DJ played this song everyone formed two lines and we all danced down it.  Awesome.  I then yelled for everyone to "bring it in" to the center of the dance floor.  B apparently thought this was the most hilarious thing I'd ever done.  PS-I swear, I am actually normally really shy in situations where I don't know people.

The Friendships....I love getting together with lots of my friends at one time (we missed you Mo, passionately).....

Plus my parents were there and they are my friends too.

The After-After Party....-The After-Party was going well until everyone decided they wanted to go to sleep (well that is, the people who actually made it to the after-party).  B and I did not want to go to sleep so we made our own after-after party by walking to the local Cook-Out down the street.  If you aren't from NC you probably aren't familiar with Cook-Out, but it is awesome.  Just check out that menu.  I also may have looked like a crazy girl coming from prom as I was still wearing my bridesmaid dress and flip flops.  We took our food back to the hotel and spread it out in one of the nice lobby couch areas to eat.  I was elated to discover that they'd given us a free corn dog.  After that we were ready for bed.  (PS-Mo I know you would have totally stayed up late with me and walked to Cook-Out, right?)

So that was the wedding weekend.  I will leave you with this one last picture of me dancing.  If you are a fan of the hit TV show How I Met Your Mother, please note that in this scene I was trying to copy one of Marshall's dance moves from the season one episode 'OK Awesome'.

...and all those dance moves are why it was perfectly fine for me to eat that extra corn dog at 2 am.

Happy Birthday Curly J!
You had a great wedding and I'm sorry you have to go back to work tomorrow!

Wordless Wednesday-Dance Moves!

My homies and I have mad dance skillz as you can tell from these photos.  (Ok well we try at least.) (Ok well it was mostly me and B dancing for much of the time but still, I caught some photos of some other people.)

apparently this is the hot new dance

such intense moves the camera can't take a clear pic

my signature one hand in the air move

Dancing is definitely one of my favorite things about weddings (even though I just make up my moves as  I go).  I'm scared of the pictures the real photographer took.  I kind of felt like she was following me around at times because of all my hot moves.  At least it helps to burn calories from all the free food and drinks.

Rehearsal Dinner-FOOD Baby Alert!

My friends and I all had big plans to after-party back at our hotel after the rehearsal dinner.  The problem was that we ate an insane amount of food at the rehearsal dinner and were unable to do anything other than just pass out in our beds.

But let's back up to the rehearsal. 
Here is some good rehearsing action.....

I'm specifically including this pic from the rehearsal because the groom took it.  Right after he took it, he said something like "perfect shot".  He must not have noticed that his fiance's eyes were mostly closed in the shot.

My hair is wayyyyyy tooo long. Luckily I only have a few more weeks before I'm getting it cut.

After we rehearsed, we met up with our boyfriend/husbands back at this really tall building in Durham, The University Club.  We were up on the 17th floor so it was a really neat view. 

picture from here

We had some appetizers and drinks including skewers with cheese, tomato and pesto shrimp.  Awesome.  I want to recreate them.

Then it was time for the feast.

I really wish I had pictures of the buffet but sadly I was way too focused on eating.  It's definitely one of the best buffet style dinners I have ever had.  It featured..........normal salad, black bean salad, grilled veggies, cauliflower and broccoli, fingerling potatoes (that were awesome), mashed potatoes, prime rib (or some kind of meat) with gravy, sea bass with a citrus sauce, turkey and cranberry sauce, rolls, etc.  Seriously it was awesome.  We all agreed that the turkey was some of the best we had ever had.  Plus we had a girl at our table who went to culinary school and I think she agreed that the food was awesome.

So basically we ate tons of food and that was before dessert which included a buffet of pies (key lime!) and cakes (cheesecake!) and cookies (chocolate chip!) which of course I also ate.

At this time we finally decided to stop eating since we were all stuffed and feeling as though our dresses no longer fit.  Lucky for us Curly J and Non-Curly M decided to give us gifts!

Our gift bags included some really cute bags (see below), some super awesome bridesmaid jewelry, a pashmina and a lovely  hand written note.  Very awesome gifts.  I think she got the bags from Etsy but I will have to check when she gets back from the honeymoon.

So basically we ate a bunch and decided to save the after-party for the next day so we could rest up for the main event....

Are you jealous you missed one of the best buffets ever?

Do you like my cool new bag?

Bridesmaid Jewelry aka Will Work for Nut Butter

This weekend I went to the awesome wedding of Curly J.  I will give you some more details about the wedding later this week.  But first, let's talk about my big project...

J decided she wanted some "fun" jewelry for the bridesmaids to wear.  She showed me some pictures of things that I didn't really know how to make but I said if she picked out all the beads, I would string them together for us.  She had some flower beads made by a seller on Etsy (whose name I cannot remember right now).  Then we selected other beads that we thought would go well with them and then I attached everything together.  I though they ended up looking pretty good.

Each necklace was little different which I thought was nice.

As my reward for being a jewelry consultant, Curly J got me this awesome gift basket filled with some locally made nut butters and accompaniments (crackers, apples, chocolate, etc).  The nut butter was made by Big Spoon which is a local roaster and nut butter company in Durham.  This stuff was good.  We had cashew, almond and peanut.  I enjoyed the peanut the best.  It was just a little sweet and had a great nutty texture.  I liked putting some of the peanut butter and some honey on a graham cracker as a snack.

I'm still recovering from all the food and dancing this weekend, so I will get back with you on more details of the wedding soon.

What do you think of the bridesmaid jewelry?

Have you ever had fresh nut butter?

Brief TV Talk....

It's a busy day.  Work for 4 hours followed by travel to Durham to start the festivities for Curly J's wedding so here are my brief thoughts on TV...........

How I Met Your Mother-So Barney will eventually settle down.  I saw that coming.  Do we want him to be with Robin or not?  That is the question.  I'm still a little torn.  Also I totally called that Lily was pregnant as soon as we first saw her throw up.  I'm so smart.

Glee-Wow.  That episode got deep.  I really liked it though.  But I fast forwarded through a few of the solo performances.  Does that make me dumb?  Sometimes I get annoyed when they power sing songs that I have never heard before.  Jane Lynch was great in this episode though.

One Tree Hill-This was definitely meant to be a series finale.  Now they are going to have to stir up some drama to keep things going next season (perhaps Nanny Mary-twin sister of psycho Nanny Carrie comes back for revenge).  I hear they are trying to get Lucas and Peyton to come back.  Do people like them?  I was honestly never a fan of Lucas but that might because cause I just never really liked CMM. 

Modern Family-I thought this was a great ep and I'm looking forward to the finale.  Very good physical comedy in this episode with Cameron in the baby pool and banging into the glass door.  Plus I loved Phil cheerleader tossing Clair over the wall and then them riding the tandem bike and tumbling down the hill.  Plus it was nice to see Haley and Alex bond.  Good stuff.

The Office-I do not like all these guest stars.  I think they just need to focus on the funny people they already have now that Steve Carell is gone.  I did enjoy Pam trying to thwart Creed.  Plus Ryan had some good lines (like when he mumbled to Stanley that he'd live forever).  The Jim/Dwight interaction was good as always. 
"What's your daughter's name? PeePee."
"No, it's PeePa." 

Parks and Recreation-I LITERALLY enjoyed this.  I loved Ron's circle desk, Donna's spaceship keyboard and April's mobile station.  I busted out laughing when I saw Ron's face after his incident with the torch. 
"I have cried twice in my life. Once when I was seven and I was hit by a school bus. And then again when I heard that Li'l Sebastian had passed."  RIP Li'l Sebastian.

OK, so what did you think of all the finales this week?
How as the Grey's Anatomy finale?  I'm really hoping it's not as intense as last year.  I don't think I can take that again.

Wordless Wednesday-Hobie Pop Quiz

Pop Quiz...

What is going on with Hobie????????

A-He purchased a royal wedding style hat in hope of attending Curly J's wedding this weekend.

B-He is trying to camouflage himself as a lamp so that we don't notice him eating our dinner and socks.

C-He has seasonal allergies (like his mom) and was attempting to eat his tail off so the vet made him wear this contraption for a few days to let it heal up.

Go ahead and submit your answers!

HandMade Birthday Presents by Me!

Because I like a good challenge, I decided that this year I would try to make all my friends their birthday presents.  Isn't that what most people want for their 30th birthday (most of my friends are turning 30 this year)??

So we started off with $hanzles back in February.  This was when I had a lot of motivation and decided I could make hard/awesome stuff for everyone.  So I sewed her this little pouch in NC State colors (yay WolfPack!).  It only took me a billion hours to make.  (That might be an exaggeration.   The pattern is pretty simple).  I also made her some earrings.  I thought that I'd promised to make her yellow earrings.  Turns out I was supposed to make her green ones.  Oh well, now she has some yellow ones and still no green ones.  It's the thought that counts, right?

Then it was off to Curly T and Beezus5, the late April, early May birthdays.  This was when I really got into making t-shirt scarves.  I tried really hard on Curly T's and ended up with something pretty decent.  That is me modeling it below.  It looked much better when she wore it.  She put the flower part up around her neck.

Beezus5's was made at the last minute.  Her t-shirt scarf was still shedding a little when I gave it to her.  But she couldn't be mad because I spent most of my time on her graduation present which I gave her the same week as her bday.  Again, thought that counts, right?

So far, I have been able to make all the birthday gifts.  Don't feel bad though if your birthday is later in the year and I end up making you something really terrible or giving you a gift card.  I'm not sure how long this creativity can last.

Do you like handmade gifts?

PS-The t-shirt scarf is actually pretty easy to make if you want to give someone a handmade gift. 

TV-Best and Worst from Last Week

Blogger (aka the thing that makes this blog work) broke last week and all my posts have not been fixed yet.  This was going to be an awesome post on Friday but now it's Monday and I forgot some of the things I was going to say, so it's just mediocre.  Sorry.

JM's Best and Worst of TV last week...

Best.....
Fringe
-Uh, that ending was pretty crazy.  Pacey Peter better be around next year.

Modern Family
-Phil Diving onto Hayley's car.  Best thing I've ever seen.  I demanded that B rewind it for me to watch again. 
-I also enjoyed Phil taping the laptop shut
-The flashback of Cameron carrying Mitch to bed when he was sick

Cougar Town
-Dr. Kelso as Jules' Dad.
-Ok I can't really remember what happened, but I'm sure it was awesome because this show is awesome.

How I Met Your Mother
-Zooey and Ted break up!
-Ted's 'Barney as an architect' dream.
-Robin's 3 scenario's for how it was going to go down with Ted and Zooey and of course slapping him in the face.  I always love a good face slap.

Glee Prom
-I'm not going to lie...I loved it when they sang 'Friday' and really most of the songs in that episode.
-I honestly really liked all the girl's prom dresses. 
-The acapella version of that Adele Song was pretty cool.

The Office
-I thought this episode was a huge improvement over last week.  Apparently I did not like Will Farell on there.
-The Fist
-Jim blackmailing Dwight in to doing Jazz Hands
-Pretty much everything Jim did this episode (I loved the shot of him at his 10:30 lunch break)
-Creed is the new boss!

Community
-Did anyone else notice the Cougar Town/Laurie and Travis cameo?  Awesome

Parks and Recreation
-The fact that there were two episodes this week!
-Ron Swanson Dancing
-Drunk Leslie
-Jerry on top of the car
-Banjo Music and Rob Lowe's joyful reaction to it
-The return of the Pit Song by Andy's Band
PS-I now have a crush on Adam Scott

Worst....
How I Met Your Mother
-Zooey's tape recording of Ted.  I can't believe I liked that girl for even 3 episodes!

One Tree Hill
-Quinn's photo shoot. 

Glee
-Anytime Artie raps, I cringe.

Modern Family
-The Good Dog/Bad Dog treats pitch

Grey's Anatomy
-Although I knew it would happen, I'm still mad at Karev for betraying Meredith
-I really hope Audrey from 24 stays to be with Henry instead of moving to Germany
-Also what was up with the previews form next week?  They spoiled something kind of major.

The Office
-Scary Gabe.  He's freaking me out a little.

Mother's Day and The Zoku

For Mother's Day I decided to give my mom the best gift of all...some quality time with me.  For Christmas, B and I got my parents a Zoku.  Oh, what?  You don't know what a Zoku is?  It's a Popsicle maker.  You freeze this contraption and then you can make Popsicles that freeze in 7-9 minutes.  Amazing, right?  Well they still had not used it.  Even though they said they loved it.  So I decided to go ahead and make some pops for my mom.

Pic from Zoku site

After our lovely mother's day lunch B and my Dad went golfing so I decided to go get some ingredients and make some pops with my mom.  I decided to make Lemon Cream Pops because my mom likes lemon.  I had already pre-frozen the Zoku a few weeks ago when trying to encourage my mom to use it.  So it was all ready to go.  I just mixed up the ingredients, inserted the stick and poured in the mixture.  Voila!  Frozen pops.  It was then time to use the magic tool to remove the pops.  This was a little harder than I thought.  (This video makes it look insanely easy).  My hand was sore after a couple of them took a few turns to remove.  But alas, I was able to make 6 pops without freezing them overnight.  It was pretty cool.  It took a little more time than I thought to do all the steps but I think now that I know how to use it, it will be faster next time.  The recipe I made was not as sweet as I like but my mom said she liked the pops.  Next time I might just try pouring juices in there and maybe some fruit bits instead of buying weird ingredients for a recipe (agave nectar?).

I didn't have my camera so here is a pic from the Zoku Blog

So that was the Zoku.  Do you have one?  Have you ever heard of it?
What did you do for Mother's Day?

Race for the Cure and Tie Dye...

This weekend was the Komen Race for the Cure 5K.  I was the team captain and since I have such a passion for t-shirt decor I decided to go all out on my team t-shirts.  I wanted something awesome with no puffy paint so I decided to go for tie dye.  Fortunately AC Moore did not have all the sizes I needed in white so I ended up buying gray t-shirts.  The gray t-shirts ended up being awesome once they were tie dyed.

How To Make Awesome Inspirational 5K T-shirts....

1-Buy shirts

2-Wash shirts

3-Tie Dye shirts with a tie dye kit from the craft store

4-Wash shirts again

5-Stencil shirts with stencils, a stencil brush and fabric paint (I stenciled a big T and G on each shirt)

6-Write on the shirts with a fabric marker (I wrote out the rest of the team name in fabric marker)

7-Let the shirts dry for 3 days and then wash them again so your friends get tie dye all over their bodies while running.

Now here are some pictures.  It was a great event.  There were thousands of people there.

harassing Hobie at 6 in the morning

pre-race

look at all those people and look at the starting line way up there

post-race, looking good

doesn't B look great in tie dye?

post race team pic

riding the shuttle back to the cars

My time for this race was 55 minutes.  I know what you are thinking.  That is really slow.  Well it took us 15 minutes to get to the starting line and about 10 more minutes before we could actually start jogging.  There was so many people there...which is good.  My team ended up raising over $1300!  Thanks to everyone who ran with me, raised money and donated money.  Go Team Gumby!

JM's Mini TV Wrap Up

OK, I'm going straight from memory here without looking up any quotes or anything...

How I Met Your Mother-Beer brings guys together.  Lily and Robin were awesome in this episode.  Ted and Zooey... not so much.  I liked the montages of the drinking especially Marshall walking towards a mirror thinking it was another dude.

One Tree Hill-Can people really find out that they are pregnant from a drug test sample that you gave to someone to give to someone to give to someone to join the Air Force?  And also, do you really just take in some random urine for a drug test for the Air Force?  Wouldn't they monitor that a little better?  This week's 'I Hate Quinn' moments involved a spray tan.  Very exciting.  Please have her move in with Lucas and Peyton.

Modern Family-Let's see.  Gloria was wearing some weird pants.  Manny obviously has a walking stick.  Jay sheds a tear.  And Cam is not a mother, he is a man. 

Cougar Town-This show is awesome.  I loved the end when Grayson tells Travis he loves him and Travis says "thanks for making it awkward, man" and Grayson says "yeah I'm sorry, I knew it as soon as it came out".  Good stuff.  Watch this show if you don't already.

The Office-I have not watched this week's Office yet due to the birth of Beezus5.  GASP.  But let's talk about last week.  I cried about 5 times....when Dwight read Michael's letter and they played paintball, when Jim said goodbye, when Pam ran up to Michael shoe-less at the airport and then watched his plane fly away.  Jeez.  I'm just not sure I'm ready for the Michael Scott-less Office.

UPDATE-OK I lied.  I watched the Office late night when I got home.  It was decent but I just felt a little empty after watching it.  I also freaked out at the Michael-less opening credits.

I hear there was a Mere/Der twist on Grey's Anatomy last night.  I'm excited to find out what that is.  Don't tell me.  Was it good?  I'm also really excited about the Fringe finale tonight.  It should be pretty crazy and awesome.  I also need to catch up on Happy Endings but I'm still liking what I've seen of it so far.

What did you watch this week?

*pics from TVfanatic.com