If You'd Like Chicken, Please Have it for Lunch...

Mr. Barrettes spoke with our potential catering company yesterday and we're up to our eyeballs in heavy hors d'oeuvres. My mouth waters just reading the list of potential players:

-French crepes with boursin cheese, asparagus, and fire roasted peppers

-Grilled fig and goat cheese crostini

-Salmon tartare on potato gaufrette with creme fraiche and caviar

-Tandoori grilled prawn with mint and cilantro aioli

-Lobster spring roll with avocado and spicy red
grapefruit aioli

-Wild mushroom crostini with pancetta and triple cream brie

-Black pepper herb crusted beef tenderloin with sun-dried tomato chutney, horseradish cream

-Petite croque-monsieur with black forest ham, havarti, swiss and cranberry mustard

And the list goes on and on.... How are we ever going to decide when there are something like 45 options to choose from? There is a veggie list, a shellfish list, coastal fish list, poultry list, meat list, hot list, cold list, stationary list, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

At the very least we have decided against chicken. Sorry chicken, its not that I don't love you. I eat you often, and I assume most of my guests do as well. But you're just not special enough to make the list for the big day. You taste the same all the time. Even if you're marinated, fried, skewered, glazed or roasted, you still taste like chicken. We're not flying to Napa Valley to eat chicken.

How did you decide what to keep and what to cut?

photo source

Save The Dates are in the States!

With our monogram complete, it was time to start putting together our Save The Dates. I knew I was going to spend a pretty penny on our invitations so I wanted to make the STDs myself. Postcards are sooo IN these days! I create all my graphics on my MacBook using iWorks 09 Pages.

As you can see I just printed the monogram on the front of the card stock and the following on the back:

I have been known to get carried away with fonts. There are just so many beautiful free fonts available! I decided to stick with Snell Roundhand for our names, Baskerville (italic) for the date and location, and Champignon for sentences. I stretched out the fonts to fit by using the 'character' slide, located in the Inspector.

They were printed on the heaviest cardstock the printer had at the time, (hey, I live on Guam, I have to take what I can get) which was not as thick as I had hoped for. Actually they were a bit flimsy, but I kept reminding myself that my invitations were going to be really pretty. Anyway, they were also given a UV coating to keep the ink from running/fading/smearing. I highly recommend this, the gloss effect was a nice touch.

What I forgot to account for was my stamp. I didn't realize when I ordered them from Stamps.com that they would be so big! Wait until you affix your stamp to address the cards!!! I had to scrap about 60 cards and re-do them because the stamp covered the names of my guests.

I sent those babies out in the mail and am happy that they are stuck on refrigerators across the country!

How do you feel about postcards vs. magnets?

Cohabitation Styles

(source)

I have to admit, Mr. Barrettes is not the first boyfriend I've lived with. (Although to be fair, I told him I would not move in with "boyfriends" any longer. He took the hint.) I lived with 2 previous boyfriends. Now before you gasp in horror please consider that I am 29 years old; it might be scary if I was only 20.

Cohabitating with men is definitely a learned skill and I cannot be happier that I have nestled into my shared-living style before marriage. Some say it takes the fun out of it, but I'm all for learning experiences and I'm thankful to have learned a few things before I lived with Mr. Barrettes. I'm the cleaner. I don't mind doing dishes, completing laundry(what's with men and not folding?), general clutter-removal, scrubbing tubs, floors or any other dirty surface. While I can cook for myself, cooking for others is not my strongest suit, especially not for Mr. Barrettes.

We have different needs when it comes to food. The man is almost 200 lbs. of muscle. He needs to eat. Real food. A lot. Me? Dinner could be a turkey sandwich and a handful of carrots. Don't get me wrong, I can eat, but during normal daily life I'm a pretty simple foodie. Mr. Barrettes, on the other hand, knows his way around the kitchen and isn't afraid to show it. Never have I tasted an herb-crusted tuna steak at a restaurant better than his. Meat and potatoes? Fuhgetabouit. His creations always have texture and color and a hint of I-don't-know-what. Tell me to create something and I'll only ever whip you up a vegan lasagna.

We live very well together and respect and accept each other's strengths and weaknesses. Something that has taken me 10 years do to.

Personal time is also something I've learned is important. Sometimes it's nice to be busy doing separate things. I love my computer time and sometimes I just want to read for hours. Uninterrupted time is sacred these days in the world of constant communication. Have you sat by yourself for 2 hours and written in a journal with your real handwriting lately? Me neither, but I'm trying. I'm learning when you have filled your personal reserve of energy, you have more energy for others.

If this applies, are you happy you lived with a partner before marriage? Or do you wish you hadn't?