Together We Shall Go Until We Die

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Just a little romance for your Tuesday viewing pleasure.  6 years ago, my heart started going pit-er-pat just thinking about a certain something, someone, slowly making its/his way into my life.

I love the way I feel when I reminisce about the time leading up to our first kiss.  Those butterflies that make your stomach ache with excitement and anticipation come rushing back every time.

I knew he was something special from the beginning.  I knew he wasn't going anywhere.  I just knew.

6 years ago my life completely changed; I had met my better half.  And I have cherished every day since.

Long Weekend Recap

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Hello, everyone! I hope you all are doing well! We just got back from a 4 1/2 day stint in Kansas and it was definitely well worth the 11 hour drive.  My family was awesome and I felt truly blessed as I looked around and took everything in.  Knowing I have all of them in my life makes me ooze happiness and I am thankful for each and every single one of them.  Some highlights of the trip include ::

• Extended family Christmas - all the siblings between my mom and stepdad (there are 5 of us and we're all married) gathered at my folks house to celebrate a few days early.  All 9 of the kids opened presents, we had some incredible bite-sized peanut butter pies and sat around for hours chatting and making each other laugh.  It was the perfect welcome home!
• My brother had a work party on Friday afternoon so I insisted my nieces and nephew come over to play.  A nerf war ensued - for hours, my husband, mom, stepdad and the kids hid behind forts and army crawled around the basement, laughing hysterically the whole time.
• Friday night pizza and a game - my favorite kind of night
• Friday Night Lights the movie - it is weird to see Billy Bob Thornton play the role of coach.  The movie is good but it's just not the same seeing Connie Britton married to BBT and not Eric Taylor.  I did however learn that my stepdad lived in Odessa, TX during Permeon's hay day.  He described everything about it and I couldn't help but listen in awe!
• Saturday my husband took me out to visit my father's grave.  Last Wednesday marked 18 years without my father.  I hadn't been to visit his grave in a long while but it felt really good.  
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - holy me oh my, this movie ruled.  If you're a fan of the book or just a fan of Daniel Craig (oh, Mikael), I suggest you clear an afternoon/evening and spend it watching this film.  
• Christmas lights! We drove through a display, checked out a house with lights set to music on the radio and admired it all.  While listening to Christmas music the whole time, of course.
• Baking - my stepdad and I made pumpkin pies, I made a raspberry chocolate trifle and we all worked together in the kitchen to prepare dinner.
• Family arrived late afternoon, we opened presents and ate, then spent the remainder of the evening playing nearly all the boardgames we all got for each other (can you tell what kind of family we are?!)
• After we said our goodbyes, we journeyed over to my stepbrother's house for their annual Christmas night party.  I reunited with a friend I've known for 22 years (whoa!), made friends with a childhood friend of my brothers and ate the crap out of Georgia's world-famous hummus.
• We finally made it back home to Louisville with just enough time in the evening to exchange gifts with each other.  

What a holiday! How were all of yours? I'd love to hear! And if you don't celebrate Christmas, I'd still love to hear how your weekends were!

Here's to a terrific last week of 2011!

xoxo

Weekend Recap

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Hello again!  How are you?  How were your weekends? Excellent, I hope!  Our weekend was one of the best weekends and I'm feeling so very warm and fuzzy as a result.  Some highlights include ::

• Chicago visitors!!!  Some of our bestest friends came in for a weekend visit and it was glorious.  The time flew by unfortunately (as it always does) but we made the most of it.
• Pizza + wine/beer + fire.  Oh yes.  So.  Cozy.
• Morning coffee + chats.  I can't get enough!
• Baby shower - only two more months to go until we meet the newest addition to our extended family.  
• Champagne + euchre = perfection (except for losing to the boys)
• MY PARENTS!!  They arrived safely and right in time for dinner!  
• Tofurkey roast/pot roast dinner.  It was so tasty and so awesome to have the dinner table completely full with so many of my all-time favorite people.  
• Taboo night - Taboo is super fun with teams of 3, let me tell you.  Us girls totally ruled that one.
• Apple pancake brunch - a great way to send off the friends.  
• Bears victory!
• Delicious manicotti followed by some awesome r n' r.  I love weekends.

It's good to be back, it's good to be with family and it's good to be excited about Thanksgiving!  Here's to a wonderful week ahead!

Weekend Recap

{my mom's haunted living room, and this picture does not do it any justice...}

Being home means two different things to me.  The obvious is being home, where I live, in my house. The other is being home in Kansas with my entire family.  I enjoy both and can honestly say it's amazing to "be home".  I am so tired and exhausted and thankful for a safe journey, and I am also so overjoyed and full of love from being home.  Not to mention I already miss them all terribly.  It was a great trip all in all.  Some highlights include ::

• Coffee talk with my mom
• Play time with the kids
• Family dinner with homemade lasagna and cupcakes that the girls and I made/frosted
• Family game time
• Family bowling
• Dinner out with my cousins (one of who just got engaged!)
• Drinks with my stepbrother & stepsister-in-law
• Watching 9-year-olds play football (my nephew looked great out there, even though they lost)
• More Aunt Mimi time - the littlest one and I got a lot of hang time in and it was pretty much awesome.  
• Halloween party! Our whole family came over, the kids dressed up and my mom created tons of game stations for them all to win tickets.  She put out a ton of prizes like an arcade and they went nuts.  It was hilarious!
• On our drive home we listened to The Great Gatsby in its entirety.  
• Bears win!

How were your weekends? Heart warming, I hope.  Even though I'm not nearly ready enough for it to start, here's to a great week! 

Thursday's Randoms

This past weekend, I could really feel the smiles several states away when I heard the news that two of my good friends got engaged!  It's left me grinning ear to ear :)  Via

Speaking of getting engaged...I love this photo.  And I'm definitely feeling it.  The love, that is.  Good ole Max Wanger.

Gus just wanted to let you know that yes, this is very true, and,  yes, he is indeed the brains behind this work of art.

Doesn't Gwyneth look gorgeous in this photo?  Her loose waves and giant smile really draw you in!  Via here found here

This dress is screaming my name.  I love the cut, the fit, the print, the simple colors.  It's such a fun dress to embrace my inner astrologist.  The price isn't half bad, either!

P.S., wouldn't any of these look great paired with this dress right now?

I love leaving you all with a sweet note most weeks, and this week is no exception.  Ali has so many amazing recipes on her blog, Gimme Some Oven.  These caramel apple cider cookies have me drooling.  I can't get rid of the desire to bite into that gooey caramel center!

Anything inspiring you today?  I hope the weather is nice wherever you are and that your day is happy!  We're here with my family now and I'm all smiles :)

Friday's Fancies + Have a romantic weekend!

Friday's Fancies by meaganpie featuring sterling silver stud earrings

Sheer black blouse, $70
Nina Ricci satin skirt, $1,050
Christian louboutin pumps, $825
Coral clutch, $40
Dean Davidson sterling silver stud earrings, $132
Kenneth Jay Lane amethyst ring, £110

Happy Friday, everyone!  I'm so happy it's here because we're that much closer to our celebration tomorrow!  This week's Friday's Fancies is all about dressing up for the love of my life and celebrating in style.  While we minimal plans for celebrating, we are going out for brunch, doing some exploring around our new city and spending the rest of the day in our home, eating a home-cooked meal (which includes that cake) and drinking champagne.  I can't wait!

And just because I couldn't resist...

My heart is going pit-er-pat!  Happy anniversary, my love.  I'm so glad you spilled beer on me that one night so many years ago.

* Photos by Raegan Stremel

Feeling the Love

Since Saturday is our first wedding anniversary (eeps!) I wanted to sort of dedicate this week to the special occasion.   I can't believe an entire year has passed - it's both incredibly exciting and sort of sad!  Sad because it means it's been a year since we've been in Napa, had both our families together and camped with our friends at Point Reyes.  Sad because I don't think we're considered newlyweds any longer (but that's ok).  But it's mostly very exciting :)

Since we just bought this awesome house, we're not exchanging gifts on Saturday.  After all, the paper part of the anniversary really is the deed to our house.  Perfect, right?  So since we have had a crazy last month and a half, I think we'll be spending the day recreating our cake, drinking champagne and being all lovey-dovey at home.  Sounds good to me.

We didn't save the top of our cake.  Not only were we in California for the wedding but it just kind of grosses me out to freeze something and eat it a year later.  So we opted to recreate our cake instead!

It was the best tasting wedding cake ever.  While the design didn't quite turn out like I wanted (they just didn't understand me at the bakery!) and they didn't transfer the cake onto the tree log cake stand like I insisted (that still bothers me) it was still the most delicious and appreciated cake in wedding history.  No joke.  That little cake topper was made by our friend and best man, Alex and we've had it on display ever since.  I can't wait to get in the kitchen and bake my first cake since moving in.  It's a silver cake with custard and fresh berries with a buttercream frosting.  Should be easy enough, right?  

We've got several bottles of our wedding wine leftover that we've been saving for special occasions such as this.  It's a vintage mountain cuvee from 2000 that tastes dreamy and when you pop the cork, the aroma of the wine takes me right back to the special day!  We also plan to pop open the Mumm champagne we served as well, but that goes without saying!

Even though we won't be exchanging gifts, I'd love to copy these ideas to have something in the years to come.  A picture within a picture seems like a really fun idea and it's pretty easy to make that happen.

Last, I can't wait to go through our "guest book" and all the cards we were sent and feel my heart swell from all the love.

I want to thank each and everyone of you who had a helping hand in our big day.  Even if you weren't actually at the wedding - so many of you lovely readers of mine helped me plan and prepare and left me full of more excitement than I ever thought possible!

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

* All images via Pinterest (except the cake)

Jack and Anjelica

Anjelica Huston and Jack Nicholson were on-and-off sweethearts for 13 years.   The pictures of them together are so beautiful - I particularly love the photo of them with him in his robe and her in her bikini, smoking.  It shows they were playful, romantic and loved to have a good time.  After reading about their relationship, I'm intrigued.  In the beginning of Huston's acting career, she starred alongside Nicholson for several films, was around for Roman Polanski's arrest (at Nicholson's home), and suffered the agony of being the lover of a boy, not a man, who was very famous.  Through the years, he was with many other women and even fathered a child with another woman a year before their relationship finally ended.  She noted that breaking up with Nicholson was harder than any death she's survived.

"...There is really no justice in love. You can't go into something emotional with a bargain in mind. You have to love unequivocally. You have to be direct in your emotions otherwise you can't expect anyone to deal directly with you."


So eloquently put!  


For more, you can read this 2008 article from The Independent and/or be on the lookout for her upcoming memoir. 

Images 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

Five Years!

Five years ago, the love of my life kissed me for the first time.

It also means that we got engaged 2 years ago!

Here's to many, many, many more kisses!  Happy anniversary (or "faux" anniversary as he has started calling it)!

Your embrace

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"Hoping that my life will not sway further than the embrace of your arms" - Dulce Maria Loynaz

Why Marriage?

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By Mari Nichols-Haining
Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,
With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body...

Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me,
Who won't hold them against me,
Who loves me when I'm unlikable,
Who sees the small child in me, and
Who looks for the divine potential of me...

Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night
With someone who thanks God for me,
With someone I feel blessed to hold...

Because marriage means opportunity
To grow in love in friendship...

Because marriage is a discipline
To be added to a list of achievements...

Because marriages do not fail, people fail
When they enter into marriage
Expecting another to make them whole...

Because, knowing this,
I promise myself to take full responsibility
For my spiritual, mental and physical wholeness
I create me,
I take half of the responsibility for my marriage
Together we create our marriage...

Because with this understanding
The possibilities are limitless.

Inna also read this during our ceremony and it was beautiful.  I love it for its simplicity, its bluntness, its truth, its beauty...

Thank you Inna!

A reading

Chinese Poem


I want to be your friend forever and ever
When the hills are all flat
and the rivers run dry
When the trees blossom in winter
and the snow falls in summer,
when heaven and earth mix -
not till then will I part from you.


This was one of two readings that our dear friend Inna read during our ceremony.  It warms my heart :)

Love is...

... when (to celebrate a clean bill of health from your dentist), your husband buys you flowers and a box of truffles to celebrate!

Love ya, B xx

Happy Annivesary, Bitchka!

 

  

 Today is our 4-year anniversary.  I can't believe how fast the time has flown.   

  

  

 

All photos by the fabulous Raegan Stremel (website still under construction but don't let that hold you back cause the girl is goooood).

L-o-v-e

Mr. & Mrs. Armel Eugene Dixon! The two best grandparents a kid could have.

These photos were taken on November 10, 1956.  My grandpa was 16, my grandma 14!  And they were madly in love until the day they died.  This is the relationship in my life that defined what love is.  Just hours before these pictures surprisingly arrived at my desk, I was talking about my grandparents and how their role in my life really taught me exactly what I needed to know to make life and love work.  Opening up the envelope from my mother and finding these two pictures gave me goosebumps and tears in the best possible way.  I can't tell you how much I love moments like these. So I needed to share.

Last night

When I went to pick my husband up late from work, and locked the car keys inside the car with the engine running:



When my husband called the AAA, rushed back home in a cab and wasn't mad at me at all:

V-day Gifts

Since I posted about my love for this holiday that most people hate, I thought I would add to it with some lovely gift suggestions. 

For him:

Men our age really need a tie, whether they want it or not.  There are many occassions to wear it.  Business meetings, the obvious, necessitate a tie for a lot of young professionals.  Weddings definitely necessitate a tie for the most part.  Dates (pending on the tie - I'm thinking a black, skinny tie will do the trick). 

So thanks to Martha, you can buy a tie and wrap it with love!

A nice bottle of booze.  What man can refuse that?  Mine certainly can't.

For her (moi):

When is there a better time to buy intimate wear for your woman!?  I quite fancy these (in case you're reading, and you know who you are)

I also enjoy jewelry and perfume, accessories and wine/champagne.  While we were in Calistoga, we stopped and bought a bottle of vintage chardonnay for the occassion.  And I always love having cake on V-day.  And flowers.  And delicious food :)