..is bittersweet. All the sunshine and the flowers-intoxicating. A sweet distraction from the big changes that are happening in our lives. The first half of 2014 is almost over and I feel like I am just waking up and seeing all the changes that are still yet to come. Durham suddenly feels a little less like home.has been bittersweet.Our favorite family in Durham had to move away. They are now an ocean away and although I am looking forward to visiting them, Durham feels a little empty. Bun also just finished his last day at Greenwood School which was a huge part of our lives for the last year and a half. Soon there will be new schedules, new camps and new Pre-K. We’ll have to find new buddies at the park and step outside our comfort zone to make new playdates. June will different. Thats the meaning of May The photos are from a recent visit to the American Tobacco Campus in Downtown Durham 
Category: Friends
Friendships and The Other Woman
Lucky in friendship. Its something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I don’t know how I’ve managed to hit the friendship jackpot over and over in my life, because personally I think I am such a crappy friend. If I had to rate myself, I would give myself a solid 6/10, so it amazes me that cool, hip, funny, wonderful women want to be friends with me. { Note to self: Increase friendship score}
Last night I went and watched The Other Woman with a friend in a real movie theater. I say real because I went from watching a movie in a theater every weekend 10 years ago to one movie every century. It was really nice to squeeze in some girl bonding time with my friend, who will sadly be moving away. I still haven’t processed how I’m going to cope with her moving away back to her home country.
The movie itself was everything I expected it to be, there were no big surprises just, goofy Leslie Mann, Cameron Diaz looking slightly haggard and Kate Upton’s boobs having a fabulous time. There were lots of laughs, shots of tequila, lots of talk of lady part maintenance and Nicki Minaj and her fabulous butt. It was comforting and funny and sweet.
As Grown Up as it Gets
Photo by the awesome J
As much as I adore spending time with my toddler and also as much as I like having the Parents around to hang out, it is so nice to have weekends that are filled with friends. This weekend we got to catch up with most of our good friends around town, being grown ups and still taking the toddler along.
Saturday, we spent our afternoon at Fullsteam Brewery a place I’ve mentioned before because its one of our favorite places in Durham, and I think it does a great job of capturing Durham’s current scene. We met up with our friends and their kids. The kids socialized, the grown ups socialized, beer was consumed, tacos and samosas sampled from the food trucks parked nearby and an overall sense of saturday-ness prevailed. Bonus: I dressed up and got out of my mom summer uniform of capri/shorts and tee.
Sunday, we got to see mor friends and watch football (Yaaay Cowboys!!! Booo Panthers), make slime with the kids, eat pizza on a friends deck and enjoy the slight chill thats been hanging in air at dusk lately.
My stink eye for Bratty Bun
My only gripe with sunday was that my kid was being a total S%$&head. I think we are entering a new era of toddlerhood- there was hitting, grabbing and all around unpleasantness from Avi when it came to playing with the other kids. I wonder what happened to my sweet little boy who was never grabby about toys and would walk away from a conflic? I hope its something he and I can work through because it is absolutely horrible to be that kid’s mom. But I’m hopeful, that these are just some growing pains that we’ll have to both go through. I don’t want to completely crush his spirit but Hitting and grabbing are not ok in my book of discipline
I’m linking this up with Mandy from The Haps, Stepping Out Saturday Linky, since I was so happy for dressing up!
Honey Honey How it Thrills Me
I just had my first dance party with my son. I love typing this sentence.
If you know me in real life, you know how much I like parties and dancing at parties. Hell, I don’t even have to be drunk to break out my funky moves. Yeah,I’m that girl, you know the one who will dance any time the music starts, I dance at weddings, new years eve parties, random Friday nights in our living room. I will dance with you and anyone who is around and mostly I will dance with my friends and my parents and my family and my love. And now I will dance with my son.
And of course we had ABBA playing while Bun and I broke out into our impromptu goofy dance. Bun did his Butt dance to Super Trooper from ABBA, and I just flung myself around the room.
For a brief second I thought about grabbing the camcorder and recording it but I didn’t want to interrupt our groove thang….ya know. I guess this post will have to suffice for this first memory. I’m sure there will be many dance parties to follow.
Watch out kid, I think we’ll have to make your 2nd birthday party a dance party.
I just had my first dance party with my son.
This is an old photo of me dancing with a very dear friend on a random friday night in his living room.
Trio
Fran and Jesse, two of our good friends came over for dinner . Jesse and the bun and laylster just had a special bond
Faint
I had a dumb day two days ago, I fainted at work, in my boss’s office no less. It was really embarrasing and sort of scary, becasue I hadn’t fainted before. But everything is okay with the husib and I was poked and prodded by doctors and their needles and they also took a lot of blood and an EKG. But the nice thing was, we got to see a quick glimpse of husib who is much larger even in these few short weeks.
I am so excited for my friend Jessica who finds out tomorrow if she is having a boy or a girl! Yaaaaay! Sending good vibes her way.
Everything in Excess
Thanksgiving is one of the few days that its absolutely okay to be as indulgent as possible. In fact, at Thanksgiving dinner, after I gave thanks, I raised a toast “To excess.” I know , I know, excess isn’t really a positive value , but every once in a while , I think it is absolutely okay to be indulgent, especially in our current day culture of all pervasive guilt. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the guilt actually stops anyone from bad behavior- we still consume too much, waste too much, want too much, dirty up too many dishes, have too much clutter, etc, etc. And most of the time, I really do try to be a better human being and I feel guilty about all the ways my existence is damaging the planet and corrupting society and bloating our society but it is nice to have a day to indulge without the guilt. Really, isn’t that the spirit of Thanksgiving – to thank the world for its shower of bounty and all things good in life. So, that is exactly what I did on thanksgiving- ate too much, drank too much, used too many ingredients in my recipes, simply because I could and most of all, I had too much fun.
J stuffing mushrooms, while giving “Layla’s pathetic face”
Anyway, that was my rant and onto the fun stuff. For Thanksgiving this year, J and I spent the morning and afternoon cooking up our contributions to our Potluck thanksgiving dinner. We had decided on a non traditional thanksgiving menu so my contributions were.
Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms>>>>>Recipe
Green Beans with coconut>>>>> Recipe
Smashed Eggplant w/ Malaysian Roti ( Baigan Bharta)>>>>>>Recipe
Catfish in Yoghurt Sauce ( Doi Maach) >>>>>> Recipe
Around 5:30 we headed over for dinner and started on our night of drinking. There was about 10 people and there were nearly 20 bottles of wine, which I am happy to say were all consumed by the end of the night. As for the food, there was Goat Cheese with Fig sauce, my mushrooms and Eggplant and spinach dip for appetizers. For our main entrees and side dishes we had Turkey with Mole Sauce, mashed potatoes, asparagus with pinenuts, brussel sprouts, green beans, mustard greens with Kielbasa, sweet potatoes and so many more dishes. For dessert, we had homemade sweet potato pie and chocolate pecan pie.
It was a great thanksgiving.
Here comes the holidays!
Thanksgiving is definitely one of my favorite holidays ever! This year we are going to a pot luck at our friend DS’s house and we are required to bring one dish and one bottle of wine per person, so 2 dishes and 2 bottles of wine for me and J . But I’m in a cooking mood, so I’m thinking I’ll actually make a few things.
So far, my menu ideas are
Stuffed mushrooms- appetizer
Shepherd’s pie- entree
green bean casserole – side
or
green beans with coconut-side
I might also make some sort of potato dish. Also, I feel like I might cook a bigger meal later into the holiday week, b/c J wants thanksgiving turkey leftovers, so it might be fun to have a random big meal a few days after thanksgiving.
In other news, I am leaving for India in less than 3 weeks and my Mom has already left to get things ready for the weekend. I am starting to get really excited.
And on the day after….
The day after the wedding was very mellow! We met up with our set of friends who had stayed in Brighton and went to breakfast at the Silver Fork Lodge. After breakfast we met up with everyone at the Lodge and spent the whole day like a snow day. Everyone just relaxed and played pool, or blackjack or watched a foot ball game. Some people relaxed and gossiped around the fire while other people cooked delicious meals. It was a wonderful, warm, family day and J and I couldn’t have asked for anything more.
We found cans tied to the car and the windows decorated with ” Just Married” the next day.
Watching the game late at night
Playing pool on a snowy night
We know how to win at Black Jack
Early morning breakfast
All things Bridal
Wednesday Oct 3rd was a complete opposite from my gruelling tuesday. It was a beautiful, sunny , fall day in the mountains and it was also the day of my Bridal Shower! We ate a fabulous breakfast at our hotel and then my mom and I drove to downtown SLC, near Uprock Records for my bridal. I chose to do my bridals near graffiti walls and gritty urban backdrops and my photographer did a fantastic job of it! I had originally been really hesitant about shooting bridals but it was a really fun photoshoot and i enjoyed feeling like a model!
After the photoshoot was over my mom and I spent some alone time and got a manicure and pedicure and soon after that it was time for my Bridal Shower!
My Bridal shower was hosted at my friend KD’s house and it was cohosted by HotHotJJ and KD. HotHotJJ had sent out invitations in advance with a surprise theme! The party started with everyone eating delicious appetizers of pears and cheese and socializing. Then KD asked 3-4 people to go into a room to work on a “secret project” We also had a delicious dinner of Pasta and Salad and a cheesecake for dessert. Everyone seemed to be hanging out and having a good time. At the end of the night KD and JJ showed me their secret project, which was a handmade scrapbook and each page was designed by a different person and had wedding advice for me.
It was so wonderful to be with all my female friends and relatives all under one roof and I love having a handmade book of advice.
P.S J’s friends were also really creative about his bachelor party- They set up every kind of musical instruement that they had in a room and all the boys just had a really long jam session. From what J told me, it was apparently really fun.
Orange You Grape 