Adding Monsters to Thrifted Paintings
Chris McMahon painted monsters into these otherwise boring thrift store paintings… wow.
For those of us who are not as artistically inclined, prints of these paintings can be purchased at deviantART for a few bucks.
Lazy Date Night
This week has been tough. I’ve been clocking in extra time at work to help students’ finish their science projects and ST has been busy coaching his first season of baseball. We were so tired one night, we ordered Chinese takeout for dinner. It’s a bad week when we have to resort to that. On the bright side, I used Grub Hub for the first time and it was pretty neat.
Anyway, a lazy date night was in order for Friday.
Lately I’ve been enjoying Lauren’s blog and her recipe posts literally make me salivate. So for our lazy date night, I decided to make petite lasagnas. There’s no need for me to re-post her recipe, since her instructions are great. I just tweaked a few things according to what I had available.
I used sausage instead of beef. I’ve been limiting ST’s red meat consumption to the occasional steak when we go out for dinner. So we don’t have beef in the house. My Texan has been a champ about this. I chopped up some onions and squeezed the Italian sausage out of their casings. I love this part. I used two spoons to break up the sausage into petite lasagna-appropriate pieces. Later, I poured half a jar of pasta sauce in just to cut out an extra step.
I added goat cheese to the ricotta because I wanted to finish it up.
Then I built each wee lasagna from the bottom up: dumpling wrapper, ricotta mix, meat mix, dumpling wrapper, ricotta mix, meat mix, mozzarella cheese.
Since I used dumpling wrappers, these little guys took 12 minutes longer to bake. No biggie. My sweet husband went out to buy these from one of the Chinese markets in the neighborhood.
I took them out once the cheese was sufficiently browned.
Not bad! The addition of goat cheese was subtle but yummy. The dumpling wrapper doesn’t get as crisp as the wonton ones, but it worked. I plan to make a veggie version for my dear Helene.
We spent the evening watching Grimm (our guilty pleasure), Community’s Law & Order parody (my favorite episode to date), Storage Wars, and Big Bang Theory. Bada-ba-zinga!
Not the most eventful night, but it was perfect.
What do you do to de-stress from a particularly long week?
Our Chinese Fiesta – The Ceremony
I have no idea how we got to Tillman Chapel on time. We kind of just looked at the clock and freaked out because it was 15 minutes before the ceremony was supposed to start. My cousin Winnie dashed downstairs to get the car and somehow we found ourselves in front of the chapel with five minutes to spare.
In those 5 minutes, I became overwhelmed with emotion. I can’t explain it. I knew that once I walked through those doors, I would never be the same. I totally broke down and cried. Jiwon led us in prayer.
And then I was fine. One minute I was bawling, the next guffawing. I don’t remember what we were laughing about, but I do remember that God lifted away all my fears and anxiety. Once again, it was go time.
While we were outside, guests picked up our wedding programs. Kim had to redo them after my dad “helped.”
Our friends played the hits.
The procession began and the VIPs rolled in. ST’s adorable grandma was holding one of our flags! Back then, my grandma could still walk. She has since injured her hip and stuck in a wheelchair. I’m thankful she was able to walk down the aisle at our ceremony. Good thing Tillman Chapel has a short aisle! My MIL looks like a G while my mom positively sashayed down the aisle.
Our mamas lit the candles.
Then, this song started playing. Please play it. Not only is it a great song, it took me forever to figure out how to embed a music player.
Here I AmI first heard this song in college. The moment I heard it, I knew I wanted to walk down the aisle to it. Sounds kind of psycho, I know, but I chose this song like 6 years before I even knew ST existed. Luckily, we have some talented friends who performed the song beautifully.
My sweet junior bridesmaids were so beautiful.
Then two of my favorite girls walked in. They put up with hours of wedding babble and anxieties.
Then, my maids of honor – my sisters.
Our ring bearer Chris and nieces Carmina and Liana stole the show. I love how Chris was so serious and careful with our ring bowl. Side note: Our lovely nieces carried pomander balls made of orchids down the aisle. I forgot to tell them that they were just for decoration. Confused, the girls tore orchids off the balls. Too cute.
Finally, it was my turn. There were cameras flashing and music swelling, but all I saw was him and that look on his face. Seriously, my first thought was, “Wow, he looks like James Bond.” I think it was the suit. Seeing ST for the first time was my favorite part of the ceremony.
And the rest…
Well, the rest is history.
After the ceremony, we took pictures for over an hour. It was pretty brutal. My veil was tugged so often I took it off. But I can’t complain – everything was perfect. My only regret was that we’d planned to thank our parents and present our mothers with special bouquets. We completely forgot about our speeches and lost the bouquets. It’s okay – our moms know they’re loved.
Before long, we were whisked away to Grand Central Station and the Love Statue in Midtown West.