Halloweenie

As I'm sitting here on Halloween night eating the candy that's left because we had NO trick or treaters i'm feeling a bit sad.  I love Halloween.  I love dressing up and I usually plan my costume months in advance.  That being said, this year I have failed.  I feel like I'm not into the young bar scene anymore, and by that I mean that I do not want to dress up as a sexy mouse, bunny, cop(been there), firefighter etc.  I want to dress up in something FUN, but the venue for this sort of thing doesn't really exist here. Nathan and I "dressed up" as loggers this year which basically meant that we wore plaid. Insert long droned woooooo here.

In past years our apartment was on the busiest trick or treating street in town.  We had hundreds of kids.  I used to dress up and hand out candy and I genuinely enjoyed myself.  Our new house: on a dead end street with no kids.  All these things have lead to a very low key Halloween this year. In an attempt to feel more in the spirit I'm going to post some photos of past Halloween costumes:

That's me-- Rockstar Barbie-- in the center :)

The group costume from junior year in High School-- we took 1st place!

Sophomore year of college (please see the sexy cop comment from above)

I was a Fembot from Austin Powers the next year:

 That year I was also a Butcher:

The cast of the board game Clue:

Colonol Mustard, Miss Scarlett, Mr. Green, Mrs. White

Ohhhh... that kind of biker.

 We thought: well our friends all think we're old anyway....

This year:

Next year.... I will most certainly be dressing up!!!!

I guess you could call me the "sentimental" type!

 After our Wedding last year we had sooo much extra stuff and just plain old planning stuff left over that our entire spare bedroom at the apartment was full.  In fact, we stopped referring to it as the Spare Bedroom and just called it the Wedding Room.  This was fine and excusable when we were still planning, but months after the big shindig and it was all still there? Not OK.

I finally had an intervention with myself and said ..."Brandi, enough is enough.  Just because the crap is in there, doesn't mean you get to have another wedding. This is embarrassing."  And so I cleaned her out.  It took a lot of pushing to actually throw things away, but I did it.  However, being the sentimental schmuck that I am, I saved one of each item and put them in a tote box for any time that I wanted to indulge and take a trip down memory lane.

And without further ado 

(sidenote: i'm not sure that this is the proper way to spell ado but I googled it and it told me to use this)

My Wedding Memorabilia Tote:

Curious about the dice?  I had a Vegas Bridal Shower! :)

All of the actual "planning" books

                       

Our wedding favors.  See packets with wildflowers. The back has a quote from our wedding song: These are the Days by Van Morrison.

The RSVP card that we sent along with our invitations... I forgot to take a photo of our invitation which is framed in our living room.

My Bachelorette Party Shirt!  Ain't a Hussey No More! 

(For those of you who don't know, my maiden name was Hussey).

Above:  The bouquet and bonnet my sister made for me for the rehearsal.  It's made of all the ribbons and things from gifts from my shower.  I think I get my creativity from her. (see below for a shot of me wearing the bonnet and the bachelorette tee)

Left: The bag my mom got me as a bridal shower gift... came in handy to carry around everything I needed for the big day!

                                 

Homemade Place Cards

Awesome sunglasses purchased for the entire wedding party by our groomsman, Joel Lacoss.

My champagne flute that I hand painted for the morning of the wedding.  I also painted one for all the girls and moms so we could have champagne! Here's a shot of all of them and of us toasting by Josh Ainsworth (our photographer)....

                                         

My garter.... ordered from Etsy.  Something old, new, borrowed, and blue all in one. :)

Shoes (duh)

Close up of my shoe!

Ring Bearer "Pillow" to go with the birch theme.

My tag from my dress.

Nathan and my Dad's :)

Some of the drink napkins we ordered

The programs that Nathan and I made... he's a very good stamper!

All our wedding cards :)

I'm extremely happy that I save all of this stuff so I can go back and look.  It was such a fantastic day, and I most certainly worked hard on it.  The best part after all the planning and the big day were finally over... I get to be married to the most amazing man.

***With a very strange/amazingly exciting turn of events, on the day I started this post my best friend (the beautiful lady from a couple posts back) got engaged!  I can't wait to help her with her day and see all of the memorabilia from her wedding.  Congratulations Kaylan and Chris!!

All Things "Fally"

This word, fally, seems to keep coming out of my mouth.  I am fully aware that it is not, nor has it ever been, an actual word.  It just seems to really capture my feelings for this most wonderful time of the year.  I'll use it in a sentence for you: "I love that tie! It's so fally."  :)

I should tell you: I LOVE fall.  Fall is MY season.  Spring...sure it's nice. Summer... ya, that's ok too.  Winter...well, I live in Northern Vermont.  Fall is where it's at.  I love everything about it.  The smell of the air, the crunch of the leaves and the excitement I get about bringing out my scarves! I love the leaves changing, and the apple picking and the apple cider.  I've grown to actually love cider even more this year as I've discovered the art of mixing it with Rum.

I love it so much that a mere trip to the clothesline inspires me to grab the camera and snap some photos of the back yard in all it's orangy, fally glory:

Ahh... doesn't it just make you feel so fally!

A Little Comfort Food... and Drink.

I should start by saying last week was a very emotional week in the life of moi.  If you asked me why... I couldn't really tell you.  However, all was well with the world again when my best friend Kaylan came to visit.  She lives in Virginia right outside of DC and we don't see each other as much as we'd like to.

Turns out she wasn't having the best of days either, so we decided it was time for some good ole fashioned comfort food.

Meet Kaylan:

ya... I bet you wish your BFF was this pretty :)

We had Kaylan's (or I think originally the Coulter's) version of Shepard's Pie.  Shepard's Pie traditionally has got to be one of the most delicious things ever created... but this version, wow! I didn't know it could get better!  It was in a pie crust, with mixed veggies instead of just corn, mashed potatoes and ground turkey.  She also threw a few secret ingredients in... and I was in love. Here it is pre-potato:

While it was baking we decided to try out a drink I had seen on Pinterest via Nutmeg Nanny's blog:

Our version was a little less pretty than the original... and we didn't quite have all the ingredients, but we made it work!  And it wasn't half bad.  We used a Chardonnay/Pinot Grigio blend wine (Ecco Domani), added some slices of honey crisp apples, a little honey, some nutmeg and cinnamon.  We finished it off with a little sugar and cinnamon around the rim of the glass, and a cinnamon stick! It screamed fall and "my best friend is here to visit so we're going to do this thing right!"  

We finished an amazing night with Sex and the City 2 and a little snuggling on the couch.  Sam, Bubba and Meredith were also very excited to see Auntie Kaylan.  :)  

My point?  Sometimes you just need a little quality time with your bestest.