I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Etc.

25 things while 25

I hope this year brings about positive change, a light heart, joyous moments, and many things learned and lived. I’m happy to be turning 25 today.

I’m totally stealing an idea and scrapbooking layout from Kelly Purkey. Last year she posted 27  for her to do when she turned 27 and she recently posted about how she did on those 27 things.

I’m working on my list of 25 things to do while 25. I’ll finish later and, of course, create a scrapbook layout.

1) Learn to crochet

2) travel to a new state

3) travel to a new country

4) read 2 books a month

5) see a celtics game

6) go on a roadtrip

7) learn to sail on the charles river

8) take a class on making bread

9) organize all my important paperwork

10) scan old family photos (copying what Price did 2 years ago)

11) go on a duckboat ride

12) try to ski (and not break a bone)

13) reach 500 yelp reviews

 

Suggestions??

I’m exhausted.

I ended my 24th year on a high note. This past weekend was busy and a lot of fun but I’m so ready for bed, and not the work week to start!

I went back home to go into the City (NYC) to see Avenue Q for my birthday. I love that I grew up so close to Manhattan. Just a 50 minute train ride and I’m in the city the never sleeps. I am no expert on the island or the 5 boroughs but I love being in New York. I always take a deep breath in once I get out of Grand Central. Some might think it is too busy, too crowded, or too dirty but I love it and I breathe in that energy. New York City is the exact reason I truly believe the Boston is a confused big town.

      

My mom and I saw Avenue Q on Saturday afternoon. (Price hung out with my stepdad @ Cigar Factory Outlet in South Norwalk to smoke cigars and play poker).  I have wanted to see Avenue Q for a very long time. I listen to the soundtrack often and find the whole thing hilarious. My favorite song is ” The Internet is for Porn.” My mom had no idea what the musical was about- just about a puppet that moves to avenue q. So when the song “Everyone’s a little bit racist” started she learned quickly this was no Sesame Street. The show was fantastic! Everything was great from the singing, puppets, songs, story, actors, music, and set. Fantastic. I love (off)broadway!!!!!!!!

  

Once we were back in CT we all got together for some dinner out at Cafe Mirage. I even got a candle in my bread pudding. so cute

    

My dad had to go to FL  but we will get too see each other in a few weeks to celebrate then. 🙂

Can’t wait to see what my 25th year brings!

PS- Yes, I am rocking red/orange/yellow cowboy boots in the picture outside avenue q. I got them in Santa Fé 2 years ago and the are so amazing.

Whoopie

I find the word Whoopie hilarious. One word and so many applications.

Whoopie cushion… whoopie pie.. making whoopie… Whoopi Goldberg. Or Whoopi Goldberg is a stretch but still great.

So when I decided to make Pumpkin Whoopie Pies in November I was so excited. 1) never had a whoopie pie before 2) first time making whoopie pies 3) Price helped. Price does not normally help me in the kitchen because I’m generally on a mission in the kitchen. Things are always so rushed so making dinner 1 person in the kitchen is easier than 2 bumping in to each other- one day we will coordinate the kitchen dance. At least there are nights when Price watches me cook while sitting on a chair while we chat about the day.

Maybe someone would argue that there is no need to scrapbook about baking Whoopie Pies but I enjoyed the night so much that I had to. Since I’m a goof about the word whoopie I gave it extra attention and made each chipboard letter different. Plus I really liked the pink polka dot paper from Stampin’ Up! so I had to use that and I basically worked the page around that.

Solid and patterned papers, chipboard letters, inks (white and soft suede), wire, and scalloped edge punch are from Stampin’  Up!, Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint in Worn Lipstick, ribbon

Pumpkin Whoopie Pie with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe is HERE!

Tone deaf boozie folks + singing= best Friday night idea

Last Friday night Price and I went to Jacob Wirth for their Friday night sing along. There is the guy, Mel Stiller, who plays the piano so you can sing along. This guy is some song savant. Sure he has been doing this since 1989 but I am soo impress that you can request like 500 songs for him to play. It  was our first time to we were a bit new to the yelling out song pages the overall protocal but we got the hang of it and had a blast. At first we were with some Meetup people and then Emily and her friend Kevin came. So a dinner and some singing turned into a 4 and 1/2 hour experience with horse voices at the end of the night.

Price is my ying to my yang. I am loud and a bit wacky but he is collected and quite, until he has a few beers. In fact I kinda skimmed over the fact that this meetup for a sing along. He was stunned when he found out about 2 hours before getting there. Luckily, he was a good sport and went along with the whole thing- just like the time we went to see Tony and Tina’s Wedding in NYC and he ended up getting pulled into the ‘show’ and going the can can.

I was so excited that I got 2 songs played that I requested. First Ring of Fire (#360) and Don’t Stop Believin’ (#369). How can you not love Johnny Cash and Journey?!?!?! For a while Mel was saying it was too early for Don’t Stop Believin’ until a few others yelled back how it was good then. But I think the $5 tip I put in the jar right in front of him helped too.

 

 

And here we have Kevin purposely butchering “you’ve lost that lovin’ feeling”:

Made my day

So I was having a ‘Case of the Mondays’ today. The thing that kept me going through the day was that I was wearing fleece lined pants today. Soo cozy….

Well all this craptasticness changed when I check my RSS feed at lunch and saw that Diana at Front n Center gave me the Beautiful Blog award. So trilled!!!!!

 So here I am out of my Monday funk getting to award a few of my favorite blogs with this lovely award and share 7 random things about me.

1. I have never seen Pulp Fiction

2. I can’t dance. Really, I have no rhythm. I try to count in my head but it only gets confusing.

3. Love the show Glee.

4. I’m currently growing my hair out for my Halloween costume. Needs another 6-8 inches.

5. I am agnostic but LOVE to read books on religion and too a class on world religions this past summer.

6. I can’t go to a place without yelping it.

7.  House centipedes terrify me to the point of frozen stuff or running as fast as I can.

So I pass this award on to…

Nutmeg Polymath

Fake Ginger

Emily- My Place

So now you have to pass this award on to 3 fellow bloggers and share 7 random things about yourself. Spread the wealth!

Snow Bunnies!!

This past 4 day weekend has been great with New Year Eve Day off to relax, a mellow Wii filled New Years Eve, sleeping in, great TV, lots of cooking (including some new recipes), snow, and naps.

One of the most exciting things was getting to paint my nails. To most this sounds like nothing to be excited about but in architecture school nails get destroyed quickly. I still have burns on my fingers from run ins with the hot glue gun. That sticky, hot bastard!

Pricer waiting for the T on our way for dinner. It was snowing and windy and waiting any longer would have made us late so we cabbed it down there.

Most importantly Price and I celebrated our 5 year aniversary on Saturday by going out to dinner at Teatro in Boston. It’s hard to believe that its already been 5 years. Time flies when you’re having fun 🙂

On Saturday I took the rabbits out while Price shoveled the snow. It was the first time they had ever been in the snow!!!  They are just so damn cute!!!!

 

 

Jack did not really enjoy the snow as much as Bunny. He was curious but he is generally mellow (unless he knows he is getting raisins) so he just hung out, a bit unimpressed.

 

 

  

Bunny loved the snow. She was running around, well hopping around, and digging in the snow.

I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay

This year was the first time the Price and I did Christmas cards together. You know the ones with photos, the ones where the whole family is dressed in white shirts and jeans sitting on the beach… Well since it’s just us I figured it would be best to have a little fun with the whole thing. I decided we needed a theme, and what theme best describes Christmas and freezing Boston weather…. LUMBERJACKS!

The folks at Gap also made it their mission to throw as much paid at the general public as possible this season. A few weeks ago when shopping around for Christmas presents Price found the most amazing (he thinks annoying) hat ever!  Since buying it I try to wear it whenever possible, even on the ‘warm’ days and it is not really needed. So with hat in hand I had to think of a way of incorporating it into the Christmas card… which is how a theme of lumberjack came about. Emily suggested props to make the photo more authentic (and hilarious) which is why there is an ax. Plus we would just be weirdos wearing plaid, and me with my hat.

So Price was a good sport setting up the camera and timer to take a bunch of photos with us. There were so many outtake photos since I was not sure if I wanted the picture to look American Gothic like. So at the last-minute we would crack up when trying to look serious. Enjoy…

 

  

Photos were adjusted using Maggie Holmes’ Photoshop Actions. Love them!

Merry Valentine’s Eve

I am a little, okay- A LOT, horrified that while out at the food store getting food for the buns that I saw a large display of Valentine’s Day crapola. Today is Christmas Eve!!!!!

What the hell is going on?????

Stick a fork in it

I’m DONE!!!!!!!!

 

My last class was last night. It was a rough push for this final review but it came out well and the review was great. Typical comments of ‘ you could have done this…’, ‘did you consider….?’ ‘ I appreciate that you did this….. because….’. There were positive and negative comments which is fine. I designed a school into an exisiting Big Box store which has its own design challenges there but I had never done any school work before. This project idea came to me because there is a collision of schools that were built in the 60’s that need expansions or major renovations and a lot of vacant Big Bix stores (in Oct commerical real estate reached a 12% vacancy rate in MA). Some people design schools as a specialty so it was pretty nice to get some positive feedback since was my first school design.

 

As soon usual things came down to the end. I was printing right until I had to pin-up. Luckily, it was only 5 big sheets for this final review instead of all the process reviews with sketch paper pinned up and several 8.5×11’s photos tacked up there.

The hardest part about presenting a project is the printing. In this case I had a 1/8th inch scale plans at the last review which were too big to visually process so i reduced them to 1/16th.  I also reduced the sections and elevations to 1/16th so they would directly line up with the plans. this was a fail in layout design… they would have read better larger. Oh well, hind sight is 20×20.

Plus color on your computer is really different than color printed. This is a continuly problem but I thought I solved it by picking a LIGHT blue in illustrator. My sky blue  in my elevations is screaming blue (see first image). Again, oh well.

 

My model was awesome though. It was 4 slices that came together to be 40″x60″. That’s right, my model was 5′ long- just slightly smaller than me! It came apart in 12 pieces 4 roof sections, 4 second floor sections, and the 4 first floor sections. Price was a MAJOR part of getting my model done- umm he was my slave labor on wed and thursday. He was amazing and so helpful. I really would have been screwed without him. I love him so much for killing his hands for me.

Once I get to relax a bit I will finish the couple of walls that we forgot about as we were moving from section to section so quickly, the 3 exterior walls that I ran out of time to print and cut, and the columns that decided they did not like the frantic car rides from home> work> school.

It seems really bizarre to be done. It really has not sunk in yet, granted it has not even been 24 hours. Things will really be done when I don’t have to register and take classes in January again.

So today I am celebrating my FREEDOM!! by going out to go shopping at lunch. Finally a lunch that is not devoted to homework!

 

Fundays- December

Everyday should be a holiday.

Boston thinks this. They have so many holidays, and so many parades. No joke. In 2009 there were over 25 parades that celebrated everything from St Patrick’s Day, Independence Day (even Greek), Gay Pride, neighborhoods, revolutionary war battles, pets, nationalities, etc. So if the city of Boston can have Evacuation Day, Patriots’ Day, or Bunker Hill Day there can be National Cookie Day.

December- National Tie Month

12/1- National Pie Day

12/2- National Fritters Day

12/3- Jazz Day

12/4- National Cookie Day & Wear a Beard of Bees Today Day

12/5- International Volunteer Day & Walt Disney’s Birthday

12/6- National Gazpacho Day (seems out of season to me)

12/7- Cotton Candy Day & Anniversary of Pearl Harbor (1941)

12/8- National Brownie Day

12/9- National Pastry Day

12/10- Human Rights Day

12/11- National Noodle Ring Day

12/12- Poinsettia Day

12/13- Violin Day

12/14- National Bouillabaisse Day

12/15- National Lemon Cupcake Day

12/16- National Chocolate Covered Anything Day

12/17- National Maple Syrup Day

12/18- Bake Cookies Day

12/19- National Oatmeal Muffin Day

12/20- National Sangria Day (the 21st must be the unofficial hangover day!)

12/21- Look At the Bright Side Day & National Flashlight Day (check your batteries)

12/22-  International Arbor Day & Winter Solstice

12/23- Fools Day

12/24- National Egg Nog Day

12/25- Christmas and Pumpkin Pie Day

 

12/26- National Candy Cane Day

12/27- Visit the Zoo Day and & National Fruitcake Day (confession: I love fruitcake!)

12/28- Card Playing Day, Eat Vegetarian Day

12/29- Broadway Day

12/30- National Bicarbonate of Soda Day (baking soda)

12/31- National Champagne Day & Check Smoke Alarms Day

Have Fun this Month!

The Facts of Life

You take the good, you take the bad,
you take them both and there you have
The Facts of Life, the Facts of Life.

That theme song perfectly described my day yesterday…

Good- wake up early to do homework.

Bad- I suddenly realize that I left my chicken soup out of the counter at work. The story behind this is that it was still completely frozen at lunch on Tuesday even though I put it in the fridge on Monday to defrost. Planning on taking it out for a few hours would help it thaw so I could have lunch on Wednesday. However I realized I never put it away.

Bad- I wanted to toast bagels for Price and myself. Our toaster oven has a mind of its own so it can either take a long time 1 day or go quickly the next. The smoke detector going off before 8am is a sign that 1) it toasted quickly yesterday 2) I burned the bagels. But I ate it anyway, yep I did. Burned bagels are awful.

Bad- Get to work. Fears confirmed that my soup is ruined. Throw out a big container- like 3 lunches- of soup.

Good- I’m getting faster at doing Photoshop. I really struggle with it so things seem to be looking up. I love learning new things and pressure but I was hating on Photoshop yesterday.

Bad- Right before leaving for class I hear people discussing the meeting tomorrow, the meeting all this struggling in Photoshop is for. Although the client accepted the invite for 4pm they can’t do it then. I have to leave for class before finding out the new time.

Good- although I had to ‘listen’ to my crazy teacher for an hour and a half I enjoyed class because 1) I got to read magazines in class. 2) Today for some reason he mentioned space shuttles and the technological faults behind them (Challenger and Columbia), except he was wrong and someone told him that. That does not seem like a big deal but no one speaks in class, well we just mumble to ourselves when he says things like “WWII demolished Japan” and “You know what I’m trying to say…” 200 times a class.

Good/Bad- My boss emails me that the meeting is now at 10am. FML. Sooo glad to know so I can get in early but damn that’s a big loss of prep time!

Good- Get home- vent to Pricer about my day and go through the mail…. Christmas/birthday presents I ordered arrive, check from my dad, and Liz Kartchner’s new book!

Aretha Franklin performs at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony in New York December 2, 2009.

Good- While doing homework I watched the tree lighting at Rockefeller Center and then Glee. (Aretha Franklin needs a new stylist)

Bad- Go to bed way too early at 11.30 but I decided that I needed to survive the day getting up at 5 and not having a meltdown because of Photoshop and Revit. Now need to stay up even later on Thursday and just about everyday until the final review.

I think that is crap, stress, and mood swings lead to my dream of being held hostage by Kirk Cameron. Yep, Growing Pains’ Kirk Cameron.  So here goes…. for some reason I am being held hostage. He is the guard for this operation. He tells me that he really does not want to see anything bad happen to me, since he is a Christian. Things even get to the point that he tells me he is willing to let me go if I agree in Creationism. I really want to go but I can’t agree. So I beat him with his crocoduck poster (seen above) and escape.

 Let’s see what today brings.

Pass- Scrapbooking Page

I have slowly been catching up on scrapbooking. Like photos that are 2-3 years old. They have been hanging out in a folder just waiting for some love and attention. The problem is lack of time and that I keep adding more pictures to this folder so things keep getting shuffled around. Well, I have been taking some time to get organized- but then it all went to hell- and do some quick scrapbooking. Like 15 minute pages.

This page is from January 2007! I took this picture of Price to commemorate his passing grade on his Segment 1 portfolio. ( Our school requires 2 portfolios of work to date to be submitted before being able to move on. Portfolio, like everything else at out school, sucks the life out of you. Plus, it is subjective and list of people who fail on their first attempt is quiet impressive. ah hem, we both failed the first submission. Mine stung even more because I took a portfolio class right before submitting. Super….) Well we went to school on the night of studio registration to find out if he passed or not, and then register for classes. After receiving the good news we went out to a bar to celebrate.

Solid paper, adhesive, chipboard, ink, and corner rounder punch are from Stampin’ Up!, patterned letters are from Martha Stewart, date stamp is from 7 gyspies, and patterned papers are unknown.

This is the current state of chaos out office is in. ALL MY FAULT! ALL MY CRAP! Thankfully Price is the most amazing boyfriend in the world and lets it get this bad without killing me. I promise it will be clean by Christmas!