Ducklings

Last fall and early this spring, there was a pair of mallard ducks who would occasionally come up to our porch and eat the seed under the bird feeder. Well, nature must have taken its course, because now the female is coming around with babies! The male, however, has not been spotted. What a deadbeat! :-)

There are five ducklings and they are so cute. They come charging up in this little pack and just attack the food on the ground. A few seconds later, momma duck shows up to keep watch. Today was nice enough that I was able to leave the back door open and when they came by to eat (twice!), I could hear them making the most adorable little sounds.

I hope they keep coming back each year!

Reminiscing

During my visit to D.C., Amanda and I had a lot of "Do you remember when...?" moments. It was fun to remember all the funny and weird things that happened during college. That got me to thinking that I should somehow make note of the interesting little stories that I remember from my K-12 and college years. So I've decided that occasionally, I'm going to share a story from those times so that everyone can have a laugh and so that I can be sure to remember them for years to come.

My first reminiscing post goes back to high school, my freshman year to be exact. It's the story of the one and only time that I can remember cheating on a test. Yes, dear readers, I, Katie Wolford, have cheated on a test in my life. *Hangs head in shame* But let me repeat- it was the only time! I swear!

So, to set this up, my very good friend Peggy Sue (name changed to protect the not so innocent) and I were in the same science class. Although both of us were "smart kids" and usually very studious students, neither of us had actually studied for a test that was coming up. I can't remember why- I think we just didn't care about the subject and kept putting it off. But whatever the reason, we were both a little unsure on test day. Before class, we came up with our plan to communicate with one another during the test. Here's how it went...

Whenever we had tests, we sat 2 to a table with a person at each end facing one another. It was supposed to discourage cheating (you couldn't see the other person's paper) but it actually helped us in the end. Our plan was that if one of us was stuck on a question, we'd sigh, signaling to the other that we needed an answer. The person who was stuck would use her fingers to indicate 2 numbers, the first being the tens digit of the question on which she was stuck and the second being the ones digit. So if I were stuck on question twelve, for instance, I'd flash ten then two. Then if the other person thought she knew the answer to that question, she'd use sign language to indicate the letter that was the correct answer. A flat hand meant "no clue". Now of course, we had to be very subtle about it. It's not like we could just hold up a huge "B" sign. And apparently we were subtle enough because we managed not to get caught and to do quite well.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not sharing this because I'm trying to gloat or anything. In fact (and this going to make me sound super dorky), to this day, I still feel a little guilty about this. It's just something that has always stuck with me and I thought it would be fun to share.

Still debating

A few days ago, I saw an ad for the Atlanta spinoff of Say Yes to the Dress. I had two reactions. On one hand, I was relieved. I hadn't heard a peep about it and the lady at TLC that I contacted never responded, so I was starting to think the show had fallen through. Having gone through all of that hassle and drama for nothing would have been a disappointment, plus I'm sure that if the show had fallen through, people would have thought I was just making crap up- you know, lying about a show and saying I was on it just to sound cool. So I was relieved to hear that it actually was a go.

On the other hand, seeing the ad brought up the whole to watch or not to watch debate again. I have a feeling that I'm going to end up watching it, although I really don't want to. I don't want to watch because I don't want to pick apart everything I do and how I look on there, plus I'm not game to relive Lori, the owner, calling me fat on national television. Not the happiest moment of my life! But I think I'll probably end up watching it just so that I can set people straight on what really happened. Having gone through filming, I can tell you that there is NOTHING realistic about reality television. However, I know that many people believe that what they see on those types of television IS reality. So there will be people who see me on there and think that the edited story they show is actually what happened.

Going back and forth on this, I've found myself wondering a few times whether I should have even done the show. And although it's causing a bit of emotional upheaval at the moment, I have to say that I think I would still do it again. Of course, this could very well change after seeing the show, but for now, I'm contented with my choice. Yes, I cried, and yes, millions of people are going to get to learn about my insecurities over having gained a bunch of weight, and that's not going to be 100% pleasant. But I neither said nor did anything that I would be ashamed to say/do in person. I was just me while I was there and I'm glad that I can say that.

The other thing that makes me feel better about it is that there have to be other girls in my position. I know I'm not the only bride-to-be in America who is battling self image issues while trying to select such an important garment. I'm sure I'm not the only girl who has been made to feel badly about herself due to a casual comment by an employee. And if someone out there sees my breakdown and feels comforted to know that she's not alone in her situation, well then it was worth the hurt and the embarrassment.

Oh, and p.s.- if I do decide that I want to watch it, I'll be hosting a watching party at my place. We can all drink every time I have to shout "That is totally out of context!!!!". :-)

D.C. rocks my socks!

So, um, D.C. kinda totally rocks my socks. Maybe it's just because I have a super awesome host and hostess (Amanda and Parveen are the bessssst!), but I just love this place! Ok, so now that the gushing is out of the way, here's what's happened so far...

I got up super early on Sunday and drove to Cleveland to catch a flight in to Baltimore. The flight itself was pretty good- short (about an hour) and right on time. I could have done without the five minutes or so of wicked turbulence toward the end, but everything can't be perfect. Once I landed, I texted Mike and Amanda to let them know that I was safely landed. I put my phone down for a second to undo my seatbelt and when I picked it up again to text my mom, it was all spazzed out. It had completely locked up and wouldn't do anything. So the whole time that I'm walking from the plane to the front of the airport, I'm trying to fight my phone into some semblance of functioning while also figuring out what the heck I was going to do to get in touch with Amanda. Argh! Luckily, she tried calling and my crazed phone was still able to connect incoming calls. So, we figured out where we each were and met up. REUNION TIME!!!!

Much girl talk ensued and we made it in to the city. Amanda actually lives in D.C. proper and the apartment that she and her bf share is GORGEOUS. I would take pics and post them except that feels a tad creepy and stalkerish. Suffice it to say, it's very, very cool and they have marble countertops and I hate them (in a very loving way) for it. :-) Parveen made us dal (yum!) for lunch and we vegged out until the evening, at which time I was introduced to the glory that is Ben's Chili Bowl. Best cheese fries EVER. You get what looks like a fully popped container of Jiffy Pop, except that when you peel back the foil, you are greeted with a loaf of fries smothered in delicious cheesy goodness. There was no kidding myself into thinking that this would help me regain my figure but hey, I had barely eaten anything else that day and it was a D.C. staple that needed to be tasted.

Today, I was a big girl and took the Metro all by myself so that I could check out wedding bands at Tiffany. I thought the Metro would be intimidating but it's not. It's very user-friendly, well-marked, and clean. I'm liking this whole public transportation thing. I met Amanda after work and we went to the Museum of American History. There were some neat exhibits there that I really enjoyed- Dorothy's ruby slippers from the Wizard of Oz, several inaugural gowns worn by First Ladies throughout history, and some 300+ year-old violins, to name a few. After that, we had some delicous Mexican food at Guappo's, followed by a trip to Target to purchase no-bake cookie supplies. Just like old times!

Thus far, I've had a blast catching up with a great friend and exploring D.C. On tomorrow's agenda: International Spy Museum, purchasing (fingers crossed) some t-shirts from the fire station, a few more Smithsonian museums, as many of the monuments as I can fit in, and then dinner and a movie with Amanda and her friend. Woot!

Let us eat cake

I've been a bit behind in posting this because I've been trying to catch up on other stuff, but we found a bakery for the wedding!!! This was the last big item on our list and now it's done. Woohoo!

We've had cake tastings at six or seven different places over the past few months and it's been a trip trying to select just one. There were just so many factors to consider- taste and texture of the cake, the fillings and the frosting (one place's frosting tasted like Crisco straight from the can- yuck!), size of slices, cost, and so on. Trying to figure out how to combine all those things to get one ideal choice was getting confusing!

Our last tasting was at the Zoo- they have an in-house bakery- and I was starting to feel a bit overwhelmed. We had our choices roughly narrowed down to 2 options: place 1 had great cake and absolutely amazing decorating skills but the prices was ridiculous (over $7 per slice!), while place 2 had fantastic prices but we weren't 100% confident that the decorating would be up to par. So going into the Zoo tasting I was thinking great, another one to add to the list.

Turns out, our decision was made super easy- the Zoo's bakery is AWESOME! Seriously, the Zoo is just getting better and better as this whole wedding planning thing goes along. The first thing that really impressed me was that they whipped up samples of a custom cake flavor just for us to try. We kind of have our hearts set on having one tier of the cake be coconut with lime filling and even though they don't have coconut cake on their flavor list, they made it for us. And it was soooo good. It even had yummy chunks of coconut in the cake. The rest of the cake flavors we sampled were just as good and their frosting was perfect- not too sweet, no fatty/greasy taste, and not heavy at all. To top it all off, their price for fondant cakes is unbeatable. Plus, their head baker is totally up for tackling either of the super unique cake ideas that we have.

So yeah, I'm a pretty happy camper! Now if I could just stop craving their coconut cake, life would be much better. :-)

Reaping what I sowed

The garden has finally started yielding fruit! Well, vegetables, but you know what I mean. Thus far, I've harvested green onions, 2 heads of lettuce (the other 8 were eaten by the groundhog- see yesterday's entry for pics of the culprit), a cucumber, and a handful of little yellow pear tomatoes. There are several cucumbers, yellow summer squashes, and Roma and heirloom tomatoes about to come ready, so yay for that!

But what's really got me excited is that I have a baby bell pepper on one of my pepper plants!!!! Why is this the most exciting thing to happen in the garden thus far? Well, last year, I had 3 bell pepper plants and never had a single pepper. The plants put out tons of flowers but never any fruit. Ugh, I was not happy with those pepper plants. This year, I put in pepper plants with the understanding that it might be another fruitless year for them. For the last month or so, it seemed like history would repeat itself- I had lots of flowers but no fruit. So you can imagine my joy when this morning, I spotted this little gem…


YAY!!!! I don't even care if the groundhog eats it before I get to harvest it. The fact that the plant actually made a pepper is enough for me. Woot!

I would also like to share a handy little gardening tip that I learned this spring. If you grow cucumbers on a trellis, you save them from insects and slugs and whatnot and also keep them from having the yellow spots that can occur in the spot where the cucumber touches the ground.




See? Perfectly shaped and not a blemish in sight!

Pat Catan's rocks

A little while back, while visiting Mike in Cleveland, I was introduced to what is probably one of THE coolest stores I have ever been in: Pat Catan's. It's a craft mega mall- basically Michael's but a hell of a lot cheaper- with the most glorious array of items perfect for the wedding. 100ish dollars later, I walked away with ribbon, supplies for all the cocktail table and cocktail bar decorations, and two awesome black eiffel tower vases with flowers for the buffet table.

I was so stoked to find those vases. I have been looking for something tall and slender to use as decoration for the buffet table and just couldn't find anything that looked decent but didn't cost an arm and a leg. So when I came across these, I snagged them gleefully. In fact, I'm pretty sure I squealed and did a little happy dance in the middle of the floral department. Yup, I was that person and darn proud of it!

Check it out- the pic's not that great, but you get the idea. The buffet table is actually 3 curved tables put together to form a wave and we'll have one of these in the center of the first and third tables. The middle table will have a cool black feather arrangement that's already part of the room's decor. Free decor- yay!

I also submit for your viewing pleasure a picture of Fiona waking up from a nap in a very awkward position, followed by a series of photos of the groundhog who is getting very fat off of the parsley in our herb garden. Oh, and he also ate the top halves off of every single one of my 8 heads of lettuce that were this close to being ready to harvest. Darn him- he's lucky he's so cute!