Thanks so much to those who nominated me as a blogger for the “Happening List” on BucksHappening.com. I feel all sorts of special. If only you guys realized I’m not so happening at all (unless watching Big Bang Theory marathons with my fiance and eating way too many Winter Oreos is “happening”).
I am completely flattered and would love for my readers (ahem, my mom and Pete’s mom) to vote for me here if you want to spread the love. The top 5 winners of each category (in my case, “people”) will be announced here on Monday, March 12th. The winners will remain listed on the site for a year and given the opportunity to add info about their business. Plus, the winners will also receive an official 2012 Happening List award from Bucks Happening, which sounds mysterious enough to make me want to pimp myself shamelessly.
So, without further ado…
Thanks again to Angela and Tina at Bucks Happening for the love…you guys are fantabulous (and I’m not just saying that to get your votes!).
Yesterday I asked my Twitter friends for some requested topics for my blog since I’ve been lacking ideas (apart from wedding related geekiness, which I am sure no one finds particularly interesting except for our moms). Jenn Hall asked for “more chinchillas,” so ask and ye shall receive!
Meet Maude, who I got six years ago during college…she was my top secret, on-campus mascot. Maude had a snuggle buddy named Ethel for four years, but unfortunately she passed away (sad face). Even though Ethel isn’t around anymore, Maude still tries her best to befriend a very terrified Betty White.
A clueless Betty White contemplates whether or not the wind will blow our roof off. *As a side note, I realize I should make the bed more often.
She had no idea Maude was pining for her from afar.
A sneaky Maude tip toes up toward Betty White’s brown feet.
(Still clueless.)
This is her “MOM WTF WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME MAUDE WAS RIGHT NEXT TO ME!” face.
This is her “seriously, this chinchilla needs to get a grip” face.
Not really sure what face this is, but I thought it was cute.
Um, they are totally besties.
Hopefully that’s enough chinchilla love to hold you guys over for a little bit. In case you may have forgotten, we have five pets (yes, we’re those people).
Cadbury is a major beyotch, but I still love her. I rescued her from the SPCA, where they told me she was a he. I also took her to a vet which confirmed she was in fact a he. I was concerned about why her testicles were invisible, but figured the vet knew better than me. Needless to say, I got a new vet when I found five baby bunnies on my kitchen floor. I thought Betty had pooped and that her turds were running across the floor because it was 6am and I was delirious.
I was told by several vets and a handful of message boards not to be surprised if none of the babies made it because Cadbury was incredibly aggressive with them, which meant I had to feed them on my own. One ended up passing away, but the others were healthy and given happy homes.
I kept the runt of the litter, Applesauce. He looks nothing like his mom and if he had a Match.com account, one of his “likes” would be running around his cage with a stuffed apple in his mouth. I heart him, even though he poops at an inconceivable rate.
Here’s Willie Nelson and his boyfriend Eeyore:
Sometimes Willie Nelson likes to do bad things to Eeyore, but I guess you could say he’s just hugging him really hard.
Thanks to Jenn for requesting more chinchilla stuff on the blog, I hope our freckle-eared chinchilla hit the spot! To everyone else out there, I’d love suggestions for topics you’d like me to cover on here! I’ll be sure to write posts covering the ideas my Twitter pals suggested (including a Betty White separation anxiety update and some photography tips).
I haven’t really written at all about our wedding plans, so I figured I should share some of our vendors with you guys now that things seem to be coming together smoothly. We’ve decided on an incredibly intimate ceremony and reception in our own backyard this September with our parents and siblings & their significant others (and Betty White). Having our immediate family gathered together at a long farm table, enjoying a locally-grown, delicious meal together is our vision of what our reception will be like. We’re not doing things traditionally by any means, so we’re looking forward to coming up with ways to personalize the wedding to make it our own.
Our fantabulous vendors will be attending tomorrow’s Lovesick Expo at World Cafe Live, an earth-friendly, guy-friendly, budget-friendly wedding event. If you’re engaged (or even if you’re not), consider swinging by between 11am-3pm to chat with some amazingly talented people (tickets are only $6.50 online).
First up is the first vendor we booked, Morrissey Photo, a husband and wife team who couldn’t be any cuter. We really love their artistic style and can’t wait to have them capture the day. They’re very laid back and totally up for our ideas, so we are smitten.
For our caterer, we wanted to have as much locally grown, fresh food as possible, which is why we went with Joshua’s Catering, based right around the corner in Jenkintown. We were blown away by how much the owner, David, was on the same page as us from the very beginning. Pete had someone to ramble with about red worms and composting and I had someone to gush with about local cheeses and wanting to raise chickens. We’ve been throwing some menu ideas back and forth, and we can’t wait for our tasting.
Our florist, Love ‘n Fresh Flowers, is a petite, sustainably managed, urban flower farm and floral design studio with locally grown flowers. We really wanted stunning, quirky flowers—from my bridal bouquet to his boutonniere—so we’ll be working with the owner, Jennie Love, to create some sweet floral accents.
It was important to us to have a non-denominational officiant, which is why we were drawn to Journeys of the Heart since they’ll craft the ceremony based on our own style and personality. They work with couples to personalize the ceremony by sharing their individual story creatively and with a good sense of humor.
We selected Naila, one of their officiants, because we connected with her bio instantly (anyone who references “The Princess Bride” and uses the word “goober” in their officiant writeup is a-ok in my book).
Our only non-Lovesick vendor (but still equally as awesome) is Luke Cleary, our ceremony and cocktail musician. When we first started discussing wedding plans, we talked about how nice it would be to have a guitarist playing classic and contemporary songs in our own backyard. Luckily Luke is well versed in old-school numbers, but also knows a lot of our favorites like David Bowie—he even taught a group of students an entire Bowie concert at the School of Rock.
It’s been nice being able to plan everything together with Pete—I’m thrilled he is actually interested in things like boutonnieres and ceremony decor (gasp). He’s even gone a bit crazy on Pinterest lately, which is my favorite way to collect wedding inspiration. I’ll be sure to share some of our DIY ideas soon, we’re really excited to incorporate things like canning (ginger peach jam favors, yes please!) and home brewing. Fun times! Anyway, that’s our geeky wedding news, I’ll be back to posting photos of Betty White in no time, pinky swear.
To celebrate Pete’s birthday and New Year’s Eve, we headed to The Nest Bed in the Poconos for our first ever B&B experience. I chose this location in particular because it’s modern and surrounded by nature (plus there’s an irresistible golden-doodle named Tulo). I can’t recommend it enough to those of you who are looking for a weekend getaway to the Poconos.
The steam shower with subway and honeycomb tiles was my favorite, and the stained glass accents around the entire house were gorgeous.
Here’s a small glimpse into the room we passed through whenever we headed upstairs to our room. This is also where Tulo greeted us by running up to us with a magazine in his mouth in the morning.
Seriously, how cute is that face?
I loved all of the attention to detail at The Nest Bed. From the adorable napkins accessorizing the ah-mazing homemade breakfast and dinner to the artwork hanging on the walls, the B&B felt like home and was filled with warmth from the lovely owners, Marko and Sally. They even had some retro pinball machines in the basement (I finally found something I could beat Peter at), along with a ping pong and pool table. I want them to adopt me, please (sorry mom and dad).
Say hello to Tulo for us if you visit. He will steal your heart instantly.
Pete and I spent our New Year’s Eve night dining at a local cafe (chocolate cake noms!) and taking goober-y photos of each other, followed by watching awful infomercials in bed and falling asleep to The Big Bang Theory.
Since it was Pete’s birthday, I decided we should do something he enjoys, even if the mere thought terrified me. That’s what birthdays are for after all, right? Anyway, I volunteered to go skiing with him at Shawnee Mountain, even though I don’t have a single athletic bone in my body. Pete had gone skiing a couple of times before so I was fully prepared to get owned, which is certainly what happened.
Here’s a video of Pete going down the bunny slope…which didn’t seem very “bunny”-ish to me at the time…but now looking back at the video, I suppose it’s a pretty skimpy hill.
Alright, so let me preface this next one by saying that the video below was my last attempt going down the hill. My first attempt was mere seconds after Pete slammed my ski boots on me. As a side note, for those of you who have never worn ski boots before, imagine clomp-clomp-clomping around like a deranged Frankenstein while the pro skiers gasp at how much you lack grace in your many layers. I wore 2 pairs of tights, two pairs of thigh high socks, jeans, a thermal, a t-shirt, a hoodie, a snowsuit, a giant puffy coat, waterproof gloves, and a helmet (oh, and underwear). It almost reached the 50s that day. Needless to say, I was a sweaty mess and my glasses kept fogging up while I was attempting to learn how to ski.
Anyway, Pete sent us right on our way to the weird treadmill thing that takes people up to the top of the hill if they want to avoid the ski lift (yes, please). That alone was terrifying. Having to shimmy out onto the hill made my heart drop. Pete made it look easy since he had done it before. He told me to follow behind him, so I tried and tumbled instantly. Meanwhile, Pete couldn’t stop himself, so he went all the way down to the bottom of the hill as I struggled to get back on my feet without sliding down. This went on for about 10 minutes until I unsnapped my boots and slowly walked down the hill like a defeated goober, with 3-year-olds whizzing past me and laughing at my blatant failure. I decided I was done trying until we had our group lesson an hour later.
During the lesson, I learned how to stop (or “make pizza,” as our instructor called it) and turn. Despite the class, I still managed to ski straight down the hill at a rapid speed (rather than zig-zagging) during my first post-lesson attempt down the bunny slope. I tried my best to dodge fallen snowboarders while screaming “PIZZA!” and other vulgarities not worth mentioning. Needless to say, I fell flat on my face.
Like I said, this video was my last attempt before we left and I managed to not fall (although you’ll see I came very close several times). Note the little child skiing past me effortlessly as I celebrate my victory. So sad. By the end of the day, my body hated me and I was incredibly sore, but at least I can say I tried something new and had fun doing it (despite the look of pure terror on my face).
What did you guys do to celebrate the New Year festivities?
My two major crushes sum up my thoughts so well. Pete and I are going to be exploring a few “firsts” this New Year’s, so I’ll just leave that open-ended and vague until I post a recap early next week.
I enjoy illustrating cute critters, catching typos in magazines, watching Wonder Years marathons in my pjs with my lad, cuddling my menagerie of pets and geeking out with my Google Reader.
Thanks again to Angela and Tina at Bucks Happening for the love…you guys are fantabulous (and I’m not just saying that to get your votes!).
Photo courtesy of 
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For our caterer, we wanted to have as much locally grown, fresh food as possible, which is why we went with 
Photos courtesy of 
Our florist, 
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It was important to us to have a non-denominational officiant, which is why we were drawn to 
Photo credit: 
Anyway, Pete sent us right on our way to the weird treadmill thing that takes people up to the top of the hill if they want to avoid the ski lift (yes, please). That alone was terrifying. Having to shimmy out onto the hill made my heart drop. Pete made it look easy since he had done it before. He told me to follow behind him, so I tried and tumbled instantly. Meanwhile, Pete couldn’t stop himself, so he went all the way down to the bottom of the hill as I struggled to get back on my feet without sliding down. This went on for about 10 minutes until I unsnapped my boots and slowly walked down the hill like a defeated goober, with 3-year-olds whizzing past me and laughing at my blatant failure. I decided I was done trying until we had our group lesson an hour later.
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