Minnesota Bloggers cooking class

Just got done with an informational interview with an attorney, chugged my mocha becuase I never know what to do with my hands (so now I'm shaking like crazy), and am sweating profusely (per the ush) sooooo we'll see how this recap goes. meep!

 

 

Friday night we had our MN Bloggers Cooking Class! Andrea's mom hosts at her home way up der nort, in Forest Lake, MN. The theme was "lettuce...." I think it was "lettuce have fun" or "lettuce cook" but it was a pun involving lettuce, which I'm always down with. All the dishes involved, duh, lettuce! Lo and I teamed up to make lettuce chicken wraps (which I actually replicated last night for dinner, and they were just as tasty!)

 

I took a picture of Lo cutting because it was silly.

 

luh you. ;-) 

Andrea and Lindsey teaming up for the chicken caesar salad pizza (ceasar? caesar? casear? I'm convinced as long as you have 2 a's and one e, nobody will notice if that word is spelled wrong).

Cheeseburger salad! I got over my fear of luke-warm ground beef (since this dish was done first) and tried it: twas delishus.

Our awesome lettuce wraps:

BLT pasta salad:

 

 

and lastly, the chicken caesar pizza:

 

 

Reggie was our mascot. He trembled for approximately 1.5 hours by Britt's feet, before he relaxed. So sweet. So tiny.

 

Andrea made these little paint-stick prompts for us to discuss on our blogs (and at class). I'd have to say the strangest thing I've eaten was probably at my friend's barbecue a few years ago.. they had all sorts of "weird" meat: camel, bison, alligator, etc. I sampled some of the least scary sounding ones.

and then because it was Channing Tatum's birthday, and because he's somehow become the MN Blogger's unofficial mascot, Andrea made everyone a mini-chan-fan. I took clean cut channing. Love me a man in a sport coat.

 

 

and then Channing blew out his birthday candle! (I promise we're not delusional).

 

The night came to a close, and Andrea, Jess, Lauren and I decided to go to running aces for un beverage to decompress. Reggie said "Bai!!!!"

and I ended up having one glass of wine that gave me the spins. Woops. #lightweight.

So there you have it! If you're a MN blogger and haven't come to an event yet, please please pleeaasseeee COME. We'd love to have you :) EVEN if you don't swoon over Channing Tatum. ;-)

Wedding DIY: bow bracelets (bridesmaid gift)

Today I bring you a dainty DIY -- surprise, surprise, another wedding project! My idea came from this pin, originally:

(via)

I think the caption said something like, "thanks for helping us tie the knot!" -- I love a good wedding pun. I had been working with floral wire when I made the monogrammed hangers, so I thought this may be another project I could utilize it for. 

 

Floral wire runs about $4 at Michael's, if you know a man you likely have free access to pliers, and..well.. I hope you have a pen. Not pictured: 8 feet of plain necklace-type chain, from Michael's, and a "jewlery kit" (with the little claspy-things), each $4. 

Total for this project: $12.00 (for 5 bracelets!) 

SO, here's how you do it:

1.) about an inch up from the end of the wire (I like to leave it on the roll until a later step), wrap the wire around the pen (like above). This gives it a nice rounded form.  (and ignore my stress-cuticle in the above photo.. O_o.. gross).

2.) Move the pen adjacent to the first loop, and make a second loop. Make sure that both pieces that will form the "tails" of the bow are on the same side of the wire that crosses over them.  (You can see in the above photo, both parts of what will be the "tails" are on the back side of that wire that's the bottom of the loop).

3.) Take the tails and cross them. In #2, you'll see they are running parallel. Just make sure they point on opposite sides of the "loop" they belong to. Does that make sense, at all? Then, take the "tail" that's still connected to the roll of wire, and bring it up and "over" the loops (see above photo), and then bring it back down behind it (this forms the central "knot").. like this: 

4.) Ta-da! bow. Cut off the rest of the roll of wire. I then use the ridges on the nose of the pliers to file down the tips since cutting can make them pretty sharp. I then used a combo of my fingers and the pliers to flip the tails of the bow out a little bit. I liked the way it looked better than the straight one.

5.) (Not pictured) I cut the long chain to what I thought would fit a wrist (and fixed it after fitting it), and assembled the clasp/loop. I then strung it through both sides of the loops of the bow and, voila:

 

Bow bracelet! I only hope I guesstimated the sizes for the girls correctly. It's hard to visualize someone and then try to picture their wrists. :-/ .. worst case scenario, it doesn't fit, and I take it home to my "shop" to remedy it quick with another strand of $4 chain.

 

I bought the linen bags for $5 (for 12) and I had the tags from my escort card project. I love them! I've added them to the bag with the earrings I also purchased for each girl (which resemble my earrings, but are square).

I just wanted to say something about my DIY's. (Mostly before I do a post about how I'm going to hand-calligraphy all of the invitations and you all think I'm nutty). I'm sure some people may look at the long list of DIY's under the wedding tab and think I'm a perfectionist, or that I obsess over the details. I know nobody (or very few people) will notice the writing on the envelopes. I'm sure not a lot of people will appreciate the time that went into the escort cards. And honestly? Escort cards could have been done WAY quicker, but that's not the point. The point, for me, is that I absolutely love spending time on wedding-related DIY's.

I like being creative, I like making things... I'm also (obviously) really excited about the wedding and marrying M. I also know the day itself will go by quick! I use this time crafting, preparing, to prolong that excitement about the day as much as I can. SO, that's why I DIY. Not because I'm anal about details, not because I think most people will even notice, not because if my wedding doesn't have hand-calligraphied envelopes I'll JUST.DIE., but because I truly love expending energy towards what will undoubtedly be the best day of my life.

mush over, hope you liked the bracelets :)

This Weekend I...

I'm linking up my weekend recap with with Sar and Syndal

This weekend I..

met up with some blogger-bitties for HH on Friday after work.

(Jess, Syndal, Jen, Lauren)

"Just one drink" quickly spiraled into 3 glasses of wine and a table full of appetizers.
I had told M he should come over after work and that we'd go have a mini-date-night in downtown. Well, I filled up pretty quickly on appetizers and ended up buying M dinner out of guilt.
He was quite the trooper, showing up to an all girl (blogger) happy hour. He said it was really nice to meet some of the girls I talk about, though, and that the girls seemed like nice people. Even you, Lo. ;-)

He drove me home, and I passed out during the Gopher's game on the couch.

This weekend I...
got my oil changed, like any good boring adult. This was made doubly fun since I made an 8 a.m. appointment for Saturday (WHY?!) and needed M to bring me back to my car the next morning. It was nice to have someone to chat with at the car shop, and he even stopped and got us Starbucks before coming to meet me.

This weekend we...
GOT A NEW COUCH.
Once again, hi, I'm a boring adult. but OMG it was so exciting. We had this slipcovered nightmare in the living room for the last 2 years. One day a few months ago when I was getting my oil changed, I wandered into the Slumberland outlet store next to Midas (on Excelsior in St. Louis Park- for you locals) when I saw this pretty:

 

annnnddd then I saw THIS pretty: 

and nearly bought it on the spot.
A few months went by,..and as a part of my birthday present for this year, M said I could finally go pick out a couch. Of course, this beauty popped back into my head, so last weekend we were putzing around and stopped by the Slumberland outlet again, and she was still there! (they had 7 others available when we bought ours, so RUN AND GET ONE if you're looking for a couch). We bought it on the spot, and picked it up this weekend.

Here's what it looked like before:

aannnnd after:

I am in love.
TJ approves, as well.

This weekend I...
went over to my parents house on Saturday night with M to have dinner. My brother was working, but it was still nice to get to hang out with my mom and dad.
The guys talked about their fishing trip, and I stared at the wall.
Just kidding, but last year was the first year M got to go along on my dad's annual fishing trip to Canada. I got to listen to them talk about it for 2 months prior to the trip, and a month after.
Well, they're gearing up to go in May again, so the fishing talk has geared back up again.

We hung out for a few hours and watched the hockey game,... and I caught my parents' cat, Lucky winking at me.

He says, "I got you."

This weekend we....
woke up early and headed back to St. Paul to meet my parents at church. It was doughnut Sunday, so we stopped downstairs after mass for doughnuts and coffee and chatted with my parents' friends.

After church, we stopped by Target and did some shopping, and then had every intention of stopping by some open houses on the way home (we nosey, yo).. buuuuttt after swinging by the house, I ended up falling asleep for 2 hours. When I woke up we went and grabbed a late lunch/early dinner at Woodfire Grill in St. Louis Park.

Since then, we've been hanging out at home.
I made a pathetic attempt at writing a cover letter and just wasn't feeling it, so I gave up. My brain was mushy and the words were not coming out eloquently, so I'll take a stab at it tomorrow. Wah.

Hope you all had a good weekend as well!

Kelly

Sweet potato tapenade

 

Hi there, It's been a while (and I always seem to blank on Thursdays) but I'm linking up with Katie and Steph for their Saw it, Pinned it, Did it linkup.

 

Okay, this is a teensy bit of a cheat. I had made these a LONG time ago but technically it IS from a Pinterest pin, and they're just too great not to share with the masses through a linkup.

 

 

Here's the original pin:

(via)



I LOVE me som Smitten Kitchen. Her photos make food that I wouldn't even eat look good.

Here's my stab at it:

 



Up today is a delightfully strange little meal that can also double as an appetizer! 

Like sweet potatoes? 

Like goat cheese and candied pecans and onions? You're going to LOVE this. 

This recipe is based off a smitten kitchen recipe I found.

If you look at smitten kitchen's photo though and feel bad that you can't get the "tapenade" (really it's more of a salad, or bruschetta, but tapenade sounds super fancy) to pile perfectly on top of each potato, don't feel bad. I clearly couldn't either.

Things you'll need (this fed M and I, so 2 servings):

• 2 sweet potatoes (depending on size and # of people eating....)
• 1 bag of celery 
• 1 red onion 
• goat cheese (one of those teensy Chevre logs will do) 
• red wine vinegar
• small handful of candied pecans, about half of a 1/4 cup, depending on your preference

 (If you can find candied ones, great, if not, NBD. I had candied some for a salad earlier in the week. In case you're wondering how the hell to "candy" pecans: rough chop them, put some butter in a pan and heat it on the stove, toss the pecans in as well as a tbsp or 2 of sugar, stir until sugar starts to melt and turn sticky and coats the pecans. Take off QUICKLY after this happens -otherwise they burn- and put them on a cutting board to dry. Don't put them on a paper towel and watch them stick, like I did the first try. woops.)

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 
• Chop up the sweet potatoes into rounds (if it's skinny enough), otherwise I halved some of them so they were all around the same size.
• Toss sweet potatoes in olive oil and salt and pepper, lay on cookie sheet in single layer, and bake for 20 minutes before flipping once. (cook for 10 more minutes after you flip).
• While sweet potatoes are cooking chop 3/4 bag of celery (I had like, 4 stalks leftover) I'd estimate it was 1 1/2 cups of celery, and half a red onion into teensy pieces:

•  Mix red onion, celery, candied pecans, and 3/4 sleeve of goat cheese (I'd estimate it was 1/4 a cup)  in a bowl
• Add approx 2 tbsp of red wine vinegar (Sorry, I don't measure these things. Just drizzle it on until it's lightly coated, but not DRENCHED. ya dig?) and mix it all together

 

Spoon the salad/tapenade mixture on top of the sweet potatoes and eat! 

If you're more patient than I am, you can spoon them so there is just a little pile on top of each individual potato (which is how I did it when I made this as an appetizer once!), alas, I was not this time. Just make sure you get a bite of sweet potato with a bite of salad. So tasty. 

Bon apetit!

This Weekend I..

Holy cow guys.
Last post was Tuesday, huh? Woops.
I had posts sitting waiting to be published and then the end of the week just flew by...annnnddd here we are on Sunday night!
I didn't take many photos this weekend, and I guess I'd be lying if I said "sorry" for it, because I'm not. Sometimes not everything is photograph-worthy, and sometimes I'm just enjoying the moment too much.

Thursday and Friday I had a continuing legal education (CLE) seminar all day.
In order to remain in good standing as a lawyer, you have to attend 40 credits worth of CLE's during the "reporting period" (3 years, in this case). This particular 2-day seminar was free for newly admitted lawyers, and was 15 credits. 

 

The days were long, as any 8 hour day of something can be, but enjoyable (mostly). It's encouraging and a bit depressing to hear about lawyers with great jobs, and how to get there. 

With how terrible the job market is, things can be frustrating. But I would never tell someone NOT to go to law school. Maybe I'll write a post about that someday soon. 

The other benefit of the seminar was that a few of my friends who have moved out-state for clerkships or jobs were back in town, so we all got together Thursday night after Day 1 for dinner and drinks. My friend Dana (and bridesmaid) stayed with me Wednesday and Thursday night, and Thursday night our friend Kevin stayed with us too so he didn't have to drive all the way back to Stillwater and back in the morning. 

This weekend I..

fell asleep on the couch at 9:30 while trolling Pinterest Friday night

This weekend I..

went bridesmaid dress shopping and to lunch with Dana on Saturday. She just tweeted me to tell me she bought hers offline. Woop! 3 down. 

When I got home Saturday TJ was being extra snuggly and needy. At one point he curled up so close to my face his head was smooshed into mine.

I love that little guy so much. :)

M came home from a work meeting and we decided to see a matinee of Silver Lining's Playbook.
It was SO. GOOD. I really don't want to give too much away, but it's about how Bradley Cooper deals with some issues he has, as does Jennifer Lawrence, and their interaction with one another. (wow, vague much?) Just go see it. It was funny, and a bit awkward, and a sweet story. M absolutely loved it too, so it's definitely not a "chick flick" if that's what it looks like.  

Afterwards, we used the Applebee's gift card that M won from bowling at my work holiday party.

 

It was really nice. We had a lot of fun chatting, and split a blondie brownie with ice cream and cream cheese sauce for dessert (to this day, one of my most favorite desserts. My dad used to take me after dance when I was little and we'd always get one.) 

This weekend TJ...

got a little protective and aggressive Sunday morning. M went for a run with a co-worker, got home, and propped his feet up on the coffee table. TJ must've picked up on a scent he didn't like because he began "marking" M's shoes. (When cats wipe their cheeks on things, they're leaving their scent and "marking" their territory). BUT he was doing it SUPER hard, and just smashing his whole face onto M's shoes. It was equal parts hysterical and weird. 

I mentioned last week that TJ freaks out when asked if he wants his dinner ("deeeeeeeeeeeenur?!") or treats ("twwweeeeaattttsssss!?"). Well, I got it on film on Saturday before the movie:

He cracks me up.
That's about it for the weekend.
Sunday involved a trip to the grocery store, a nap, an SVU marathon and an itunes movie, "Hello I Must Be Going."
Hope you all had a good weekend!

I linked up with Sar and Syndal for Volume 18 of "This Weekend I"
Head on over and link up your weekend posts!

Kelly 

How I make my money, honey

  LOOK OUT. Posting 2 days in a row. Or, if you weren't waiting with baited breath last night when I posted at 9, 2 in ONE DAY. Don't get used to it peeps.. but I have a MORBID fascination with what people do/how they wind up in their jobs..so I figured I'd join the fun.   If you haven't gathered by now, I just graduated from law school and took the bar exam. (What? The months of whining/anxiety/desperation dripping off this blog wasn't a clue?!)   Let's back up a smidge. According to my mother, I've been saying I wanted to be a lawyer since the 4th grade. My earliest memory of that may have been 7th or 8th grade, but I'm not one to argue. My great grandpa, grandpa, great uncle were all lawyers, and my uncle currently is one. He's actually a partner at the firm I work at. Go on, roll your eyes, not that I feel the need to defend myself but there's a certain "ah" moment people have when I tell them I have family at the firm. I have never ONCE done a project for him. Less to do with keeping things fair, more to do with the fact that he's an insane Type-A and doesn't really let anyone do anything for him.   Anyway, I went to the University of Minnesota-Duluth, up der on da nort shore. You may have seen it in the news with the catastrophic flooding/earthquake looking streets last month. I graduated with a B.A. in English. I knew I wanted to go to law school, and unless you're doing patent law, the undergrad degree makes zero difference. SO, I did something I enjoyed.   From there, I went to WMCL in St. Paul. This is also where my entire family has gone to law school.

 See! That happened. And because everybody loves a photo of me in my wizard garb:

  SO, it's quite obvious to say I'm going to be a lawyer (knock on wood) come November. In the meantime, I am a law clerk.   I realize that not many people have any real idea what it is lawyers do. Believe me, it's not as glamorous as Law & Order, or The Good Wife, but I honestly still really like it. Therefore, I find people are further confused when I tell them I'm a clerk. What does a clerk do all day? It varies from firm to firm.   I work in a mid-sized (20 attorneys) primarily real estate, bankruptcy, and construction law, law firm. We do a smidge of personal injury, railroad work, property tax appeals for a chain store, and serve as the city attorney for a TEENY tiny town of 200. Mostly, we represent a good handful of banks. So, we do all their commercial loans (think, tens of millions of $$), and in the last few years, all their foreclosures.   Yesterday, for example, I was highlighting a ginormous stack of sales ratio studies for our property tax appeals. To uncomplicate it as much as possible, if the ratio of property tax assessments in the area to actual sales prices is LESS than 90% it's indicative that there was an "unequal assessment" and further grounds for an appeal. Why would you appeal property taxes if they assessed you too high? For most people, residential taxes wouldn't make much of a difference. You may save a couple hundred bucks. Our client is a chain store, and they may save $50,000. SO, makes a diff. Haha.   Before I took the bar exam, I was doing research for a railroad case. Most of what I do is legal research. What that means is the partner will call me into their office and say "mkay, so, here's the background of the case. We have A and B. We represent A. An employee of B was injured in such-n-such manner. The employee is suing the employer under X, Y, Z theory. Well, the employee said in the initial report that he was ACTUALLY injured doing something different. If that's true, statute P doesn't apply, but theory D might. AND now B is suing us for indemnification under contract Q. Figure out if we're liable."   That was obviously simplifying things, but it's just a hypo. I obviously have to be careful what I say.. attorney-client privilege and whatnot.   So, from there I hop on the interwebz, and our legal databases, and start trying to piece together how the statutes, the cases, the contracts we have with the other party work together. It's a giant puzzle. Sometimes it's intensely overwhelming trying to figure out where to start, but when it comes together it can be fun! Or at least, I like it.   My favorite thing I've done recently is drafting a response letter to opposing counsel. Initially attorneys do a lot of informal communication and jockeying. They'll send letters that basically say, "look.. dude.. you don't stand a chance, here's the law that says Y, so we can settle this now and save everyone time and money, or we can take it to court." and then the other side replies. I sometimes wonder how effective these letters are, BUT they're fun to write! You have to do a bunch of research, include the favorable law, be persuasive, address the issues THEY raised in their letter and try to dismiss/distinguish them, and SOMETIMES be a lil' bit sassy in the process. All in about a page and a half.   Anyway, that was rambly, but a small sampling of some of the stuff I do here. It's really all over the map and I could keep going for pages and pages, but the legal research comprises about 90% right now. When I'm an actual attorney, I'll be the lowest on the totem pole wherever I am so that won't change much, but there will be more brief writing and whatnot.   Hope I didn't bore you all to death. Sometimes I wonder how much/little people want to know/care about what I do, what law school is like, etc. Maybe I'll open a post up to questions in the future. Also, I feel like the oddball because reading these link ups, 90% of people are in creative fields like marketing, advertising, etc. Haha. Oh well. I'll always be the suit.