STW: The Food

Okay, so I inadvertantly abandoned my plans of describing the charm of a Small Town Texas Wedding, but fret not, ITS BACK with my favorite part of a Small Town, FOOD!

For most people, finding a caterer & tasting food for the reception is a big part of planning a wedding. For us, we knew right away what food we would be serving. Weddings in my area are fondly referred to as "Beer & BBQ weddings" because they serve just that--cold beer & tasty barbeque! Lately, more weddings in the area have been straying from the traditional "eats" and serving Chicken Fried Steaks or Mexican Food, but the meal is still served buffet style.

Barbeque is such an amazing part of where I live...just down the street is Texas Monthly's #1 BBQ in the state of Texas, Snow's BBQ and another local made the top 50!



The grub at our reception consists of:
Barbeque Beef, Pork (& maybe Sausage)
Noodles **see below
Green Beans
Hot Potatoes
Plus the requisite fixins': Bread, Pickles, Onions, Peaches (its a Texas thing)

My mom personally didn't want to do noodles & potatoes together, but when she mentioned dropping noodles from the menu, CityBoy demanded to have noodles!!!



Noodles in my neck of the woods are phenomenal and are a very tasty part of my heritage.
doodly doodly do do doodly dodo doodly (going back in time)...

In 1854, a ship docked in Galveston, Texas holding 500 immigrants from Lusatia, an area in Germany comprising parts of Saxony and Prussia... The Wends. Now, I'm sure 99.99% of you think I'm making up a group of people, but they existed. The Wendish Language is now considered a dead language but in those days was a trigger of persecution. The Prussians insisted the Wends speak and use the German language, going so far as to Germanize many Wendish names. The Wends were also required to join the Evangelical Reform and abandon their pure Lutheran faith. Rather than abandon their language and faith, they made plans to immigrate to America.
The Wends settled in Lee County and built a church in Serbin, Texas (just outside my hometown). This church is one of the oldest churches in America in continual use since its construction. PS--its gorgeous. My great-grandparents are buried at the cemetary there.

Fast forward to today. One of the most present aspects of Wendish culture through our community is Noodles. Although the Wends most certainly did not enjoy their Noodles with BBQ, I've grown up eating the Noodles of my ancestors with some of the FANTASTIC Texas BBQ in our area! In fact, my hometown is the home of the State of Texas Noodle Cook-Off!!

Here's a recipe for Noodles from the Texas Wendish Heritage Society:

Wendish Noodles

One egg
One half egg shell of water (about 3 tablespoons)
One and one-half to two cups of flour

Beat egg and water together. Add a sprinkle of salt and enough flour to form a stiff dough. Roll out thin on a pastry cloth. Let stand to dry, turning over occasionally. Cut into thin strips when dry but still pliable. Cook in a rich chicken broth until tender. Chopped parsley, chopped green onion tops, and a dash of nutmeg may be added for flavor, if desired.

PS-- The Wends are also known for making these Gems...

Just a Quick Post

My Personal Favorite.... I love this kid.

I love you, Sister!!!

Today, after a wonderfully short day at work (we had a firmwide happy hour 3-5...I bartered for more drink tickets and realized way later that a 5th margarita would mean I couldn't drive myself home....needless to say, I'm fuzzy), I got home, threw on some flip flops and trotted down to get the mail with Mia in tow.

I recently went on an ordering spree, I seriously don't remember what all I ordered, but I was expecting things....so I opened my tiny mailbox and saw a package!! I hastily pulled it out and saw my sister's name in the return address!! UNEXPECTED package, yay!!

Mia dragged me to the "potty spot" as I struggled to hold all the mail and my keys and my cell phone and Mia's leash while opening the package....

Inside I found a Box of Chewy Lemonheads, a CD, and a card...

Hello Sister,
This is your Valentine card, with a "Busy-season" care package. Also includes engagement pictures!! Enjoy! And, I'll see you soon-ish.
Love,
Cara

Wahoo!!! Not only did she hit the nail right on the head with the Lemonheads....I bought the same exact box over the weekend for movie night, but Engagement Pictures!! Yay!

I waited for Mia to do her thing, then dragged her as fast as possible to the front office to pick up my expected package, and headed home to look at the pictures!!!!

Expect pictures tomorrow!!

AND MORE pictures sometime in the coming weeks!! Mrs. Avocado of Weddingbee fame is going to be taking some pictures of CityBoy and I this weekend, I'm super excited!!!

Thank You Gods of the Accounting World

I miraculously received an email today:

Students

Due to the change implemented by the TSBPA the course has changed.

I will be posting the syllabus sometime next week on Spring Break.

There will be a group research project and individual projects. We will meet one time, that is the last class day on Sunday to take the final exam.

Please look for the syllabus online by Wednesday.

Do not come to class tomorrow or this weekend. We will meet on the last Sunday as mentioned. The final exam will count 40% of the grade.

I'm not sure which change implemented by the Texas State Board of Public Accountancy means I don't have to give up SIX Saturdays & Sundays, but I'm thinking it means we're going to be doing ALOT of research for those group/individual projects...bummer.

Regardless...this definitely alleviates some of my stress and I'm planning on using my Saturday to work on STDs, yay!

Dance Party!!!!

We are funny people.

We laugh.

Alot.


So, it only makes sense that when we're stressed out, we get REALLY goofy! Last night, immediately after my stressed out STDs in the Middle of Busy Season post, CityBoy starts rocking out to some Bob Marley and dancing around our apartment.

He managed to get me up off the couch and into the office, which was CLEAN thanks to my sickday on Monday (I can't sit still)... where we were reminded of one of our favorite pasttimes...DANCE PARTY!!


doodly doodly doodly do doodly do.... (...that's the flashback noise)

City Boy lived in an absolute HOLE back in Lubbock. But, I guess if you're a single guy and your girlfriend lives in the "Trendy College Townhouses," you get your fill of the amenities and you can shack up across town in a 1 bedroom apartment...

I HATED that apartment, but it was cheap and CityBoy was out of town or at my place alot, so it worked. This place was the classic bachelor pad, furnished only with a Big Screen TV, a Desk for his computer and a Futon. The bedroom? One GIANT closet/storage room.

One day, I decided to clean the "bedroom" and CityBoy was so excited when he got home!! He just stood in the middle of the room and said "Man, we could host a Dance Party in here..."

After that, we had lots of bedroom "dance parties" and danced around to CityBoy's strange iTunes mixes. I was starting to miss those crazy moments...its good to know we can put Busy Season on the backburner and let our hair down...

Thanks Babe....I needed a Dance Party...

Things are gonna get worse before they get Better...

....Man oh Man is that true for me!

In the midst of the busiest time of year, I decided to enroll myself in a weekend class!! When I signed up, I was blissfully unaware of how downright TIRED I would be after a hard week pounding out financial statements, but here I am, totally wiped and I'm giving away the 2 days a week I don't have to spend in front of my dual monitors and 10-key!!




To make matters worse, I just passed the big 6-month mark and Miss Manners says STDs should be headed out the door! 1) Our STD is stuck in the design phase (the one con of having a graphic designer for a sister, when you don't pay, you don't make demands) 2) CityBoy STILL hasn't talked to his Mom/StepDad and Dad/StepMom to get their additions to our guest list and 3) My mom still hasn't sent me the elusive Excel file with everybody that matters' addresses!!!

I feel like I've smacked into the planning wall. The big stuff is done and I can't seem to get anything else done... Anybody else feel like they've hit a Wall at some point in their planning?

Stamped!

Ack...well, its Fuzzy, but this is the Proof of the Stamp we're ordering from Paperwink for our Thank Yous! It looks so weird to see our names together with my future last name!!!
We also ordered one for my Mom & Dad for the Invitations and one for my sister since she found them!

As soon as it comes in, I'll test it for y'all and post some pictures!

Dress Love...

Everytime I walk past J.Crew or Anthropologie, I fall harder...

Now that its getting warm outside, my favorite stores are starting to display the most adorable sundresses and I'm dreaming about the perfect rehearsal dinner dress!

I found this gorgeous dress from J.Crew:



In pink with polka dots? It also comes in Ivory, but I'm thinking white or anything close to white at a Backyard Rehearsal Dinner is probably a bad idea! I am loving the Citron color above though, I have a shirt that color and everytime I wear it someone comments on it!!

I apologize in advance for the tinyness of the dress pics from Anthropologie. I absolutely LOVE Anthropologie and these dresses are exactly why!!

I loooove this strapless Teal dress! As a "Busty" girl, empire waist things look great on me and I'm loving the bow!

Another Anthro beauty! My only concern with this one is the horizontal stripes...yikes!

Okay, so this final Anthropologie dress isn't really one I picked out for me, but rather one for my MOM! My mom is super cute and trendy and a traditional MOB dress would NEVER do her justice. I hope she doesn't wear shapeless "old lady dresses" even when she's 90!!

Do you think a Mother of the Bride could pull this off??

Aruba, Jamaica, Oooh I wanna take ya to ?????

Over lunch with my client today, the Partner on the job started talking about traveling. The more everyone at the table started discussing where they had been and their experiences there (the Controller at our Client had recently gone to New Zealand, how fun! I wonder if he ran into Bret & Jemaine?), and I realized how little I have traveled!!

The travel discussion of course led to the inevitable question of "Where are you going on your Honeymoon?"

Our PLAN (nothing definite yet) is to go to New York! However, I think if we had unlimited resources and maybe a little more time, we'd love to travel somewhere exotic and not so...domestic. Don't get me wrong, neither of us has been to New York and we LOOOVE Chicago and cities in general, so it seems like a perfect fit. I can dream though, right?

If I could go ANYWHERE, my top 3 Honeymoon spots would be:

1) London, I have ALWAYS wanted to go to London! I think realistically, I'd like to combine it with a whole European excursion though!

2) Somewhere Tropical (BESIDES Mexico or Hawaii), maybe Fiji...

3) Japan. I am fascinated by Japanese culture and I think it would be very interesting, although the language barrier does scare me a bit!

Where would you go if you could go anywhere?

We're lopsided!

There are many pros to CityBoy's family being far away (good excuses to travel...no fights for where we spend Christmas (I'm selfish)), but the biggest con we've run into for the wedding [outside of his family have to travel across the country from Michigan & Florida to Rural Texas] is the bridal party!!

I probably could have expanded my bridal party to 10 girls or more, but when it came time to shorten the list, the smallest I could get was 5...the 5 ladies I'm having are SUPER important to me and are people I want to stand up for me in my wedding. However, CityBoy was having a hard time rounding up 5 guys who would have the time and money to travel to Texas for his (second) wedding!

So, CityBoy will be having 3 guys...5 girls...doesn't add up!

For the processional, the guys will be at the front with CityBoy and the girls will walk in separately, but the problem we're having is: Do we go for a lopsided look and have 5 girls on one side and 3 guys on the other or do we have MOH and Best Man on our respective sides and then a strange conglomeration of BMs & GMs on both sides?

My mom seems to think the strange conglomeration (with a groomsman and two bridesmaids next to the MOH or Best Man), but I think lopsided won't look horrible... Thoughts?

On the way out, our MOH and Best Man will walk together and then the two Groomsmen get to be pimps and have a lady on each arm!! They love that idea!

Bride-mares!

So last night, I definitely had my first Wedding-related Nightmare! I don't remember everything, but I do remember it was the day of my wedding and I couldn't get ready at home like I'd planned, so I was getting ready at my grandparents house surrounded by family and everything was going wrong!

First of all, I'd forgotten to ask people to be Ushers & House Party so our ushers showed up in Jeans & T-shirts and I was freaking about who was going to serve cake! Then, I'd had my hair done in an updo (which I don't plan on doing) and it started falling minutes before the ceremony, so I was rushing to fix it!

I woke up from that dream so freaked out I couldn't fall asleep for quite awhile!! So, I've decided first thing this weekend, I'm going to call up our Ushers & House Party and clue them in to their participation (okay, okay, I'm going to ask nicely, but I'm hoping they all say yes!)

Has anyone else had Bridal Terrors??