The U-Pick Strawberry Experience

Last Saturday Becky and I did something we have been talking about doing for several years, but have never actually gotten around to doing together... strawberry picking! We almost missed it again this year because Becky had just returned from a work trip and we were tired, but I happened to go ahead and call the farm anyways and learned it was the last weekend of the season. So off we went into rural suburban New Jersey. This was our second experience sort of expecting to head off into nowhere for farmy goodness and ending up in a housing development. But there were strawberries!

Interesting difference in nomenclature: in NJ apparently this picking yourself phenomenon is known as PYO:

And here is photo-proof that we each picked some:




















Since we drove almost an hour each way to get there, we both figured we needed to stay long enough to make it worthwhile.... so we picked $20 worth of strawberries. Therefore we needed to brainstorm (and furiously google) all kinds of delicious things to do with fresh strawberries. We made strawberry shortcake, french toast (with homemade bread) with strawberries, and Becky ate them as salad dressing. We also have a freezerful of frozen berries, tops on and topless. It amounted to a very delicious weekend! Enjoy some pictures:





Please excuse my issues learning to format!

More Photos

In case you're not exhausted with our engagement photos yet, our fantastic photographer (fantastic fotografer? phantastic photographer?), Becca Dilley, posted a few more on her blog today.

Engagement Pictures

This week we finally (impatient much?) got back our engagement pictures from Becca Dilley, our awesome wedding photographer! Yay! Here are a few for your enjoyment:

A Wedding Makes a Family

Although Becky made such a lovely announcement introducing me to her adoring fans, I too am severely afflicted with procrastination. It has therefore taken me several weeks to work up to contributing to the blog! But, in honor of Blogging for LGBT Families Day over at Mombian, I join you loyal fans of Becky.

So many same-sex couples seem to consider themselves "family" before/without any sort of marriage or commitment ceremony. LGBT people have a long tradition of dependence on "chosen family," which apparently goes hand-in-hand with a whole lot of rejection and lack of understanding from families of origin. That’s not really my style.

Becky and I have lived together for five years. We've moved together, made life changing decisions together, adopted kittens together. But somehow, to me, this big party we're planning for November is when we become family. In some ways it’s a silly designation - legally in some states it will be a few weeks before that, and in most states it will be never (or at least, in all probability, a very long time from now). Emotionally we’ve kind of been family for a long time. But only kind of, and that’s where it’s not such a silly designation. November 6th, for me (us?), is the real deal. We’re going to stand up in front of all of the family and friends who care to make the trip and make a commitment. She’s joining my family, and I’m joining hers. In the families we each come from, making this commitment of marriage is also an essential stop on the road to having children. As a couple we will be each other’s family, and we will be laying the groundwork for the growing family we hope to have someday.

Some people probably assume that we’ve waited so long to get married because it wasn’t legal or we were already chosen family. It’s not really the case though. Of course I’d love to have all of the legal rights that come along with actual marriage. I’d love to not have to deal with getting marred in one state, reaffirming a civil union in another, and having a legally unrecognized ceremony and party for family and friends in a third. But we’re doing this now because now is when we’re both ready to commit to being a family. That’s pretty powerful stuff, if you think about it too long.

Yup, Still Alive

The last couple of weeks have been crazy busy.

First there was crazy prepping for our Midwestern Adventure.

Then Amanda came to visit.

Then we flew to WI and went to my mom's graduation. Check it out--my mom's all grown up! (She's the second from the right in that picture).

Then we hung out in FDL for a couple days. One day included a bike ride. The last time either Carrie or I rode a bike was a long time ago. The pain lasted for several days.

Then we drove to Minnesota. On the way there, we encountered more pro-life billboards than I've seen in the last 5 years. Twas a bit odd.

Then we embarked on crazy wedding planning, which included
2 brides
2 mothers of brides
1 reception food/wine tasting
4 florists
4 cake tastings
2 rehearsal dinner venues scoped out (yes, more food)
1 meeting with minister
1 hotel scoped out
1 invitation planned
6 bridal shop visits (separately)

and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting...in addition to 1 awesome engagement photo shoot. We've only gotten to see one picture so far, but I'm very excited for the rest!

It was possibly the most exhausting vacation ever, but I'm glad we got so much done. And after spending the last week stuffing my face with every food I could imagine, it's almost a relief to not have eaten until I felt sick today. Except for secretly there's a new carton of ice cream in the freezer and I want to eat the whole thing right now. Trying to save it for tomorrow...

Vegetables

Since apparently not all of you are as interested in planning my wedding as I am, I guess I shall have to post about something else from time to time. And what more exciting thing could I find to talk about than vegetables?

Okay, so honestly, table salt is more interesting to me. But apparently one is supposed to consume more vegetables than salt, so I'm giving them a shot.

Anyway, apparently US government guidelines recommend eating 5 fruits and vegetables a day!(or they did until a recent update to give you personalized recommendations...that still end up about the same). But thank goodness I'm not Australian...Australians apparently need 5 veggies and 2 fruits per day. I guess it takes more fruit & veg to fight off the extra rays coming through the hole in the ozone? :P

So, as part of a general effort to be healthier, I'm trying to kick up the fruit and veg eating...I'm now up to several days in a row where I've eaten at least one or the other. Yes, laugh all you want, but it is an improvement. Sad, huh?

Since I am not a particular fan of either category of foods, I'm in search of creative, tasty ways to fit them in. Tonight we had fried rice for dinner and loaded it up with carrots, peas, broccoli, and cauliflower, in addition to chicken. It was delicious (and made 6 servings, so now I have lunch for the next two days!) But by far the best vegetable disguise I've found so far is my grandma's zucchini pancakes (recipe below). My grandma and my mom used to make these, and when I looked at the recipe last week, I figured there must be a typo because there's no way that my grandma's had that much zucchini in them! But I decided to just follow the recipe and see how it went, and sure enough, they tasted exactly like I remembered from childhood. Carrie and I split a batch, which meant that we each ended up eating an entire zucchini--quite a feat for me! And I enjoyed it!

Zucchini Pancakes

• 2/3 cup Bisquick
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 2 tablespoons butter

Instructions

In mixing bowl, stir together Bisquick, cheese and pepper. Stir in beaten egg until mixture is just moistened. Fold in zucchini. Melt butter on griddle/frying pan. Cook small pancakes 2-3 minutes for each side or until brown. Recipe makes about 12-15 small pancakes.

I started by melting 1 Tbsp of butter and cooked half the pancakes, then threw in the rest of the butter rather than having it all in the pan at the start. I also particularly like that this recipe gave me a good excuse to use my little food processor--grating zucchini is a breeze with that! And finally, I'm a stovetop girl, but my mom reports that if you are inclined to use an electric frying pan, 360° works well for these. Since they're cooked in butter, they don't really need anything on them, but I suspect either butter or sour cream would be delicious with these. Enjoy!

Our Own Wedding Snark

Someone posted recently on a discussion board asking for non-cheesy bridal shower games.

Me (outloud, not actually typing reply): Uh, there are no non-cheesy shower games. It's how they work.
Carrie: Yeah, they're in the same category as "bridesmaid dresses you can wear again" and "favors people will actually use"

Announcement & Conundrum

So, to all my loyal, faithful blog readers, who have supported me through the years, I have an announcement to make. And I hope this change in the blog will not affect the journalist quality posts that you have come to expect from me over these past....13 posts. But I am pleased to announce that "Adventures of a Midwestern East Coast Liberal" now has a second blogger. Some of you may have met her. Her name is Carrie.

Yeah, I guess getting married means you share everything?

In sad news, if adding her as a blogger means she doesn't count as a blog reader anymore, then I think my readership may have just declined by about half. Oh well.

Also, this presents a bit of a problem for me/us. You see, the title of the blog is "Adventures of a Midwestern East Coast Liberal"...so what now? ...Two Midwestern East Coast Liberals? ...Some Midwestern East Coast Liberals? Keep the title and say who cares? Change it completely? Maybe something that reflects our outgoing, partying ways--like "Notes From Our Couch"? Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

Wedding-planning Perspective

There's way too much insanity involved in planning a wedding. Or at least in websites devoted to planning a wedding. It seems that for every sane person I encounter on theknot.com, there are a hundred who are completely insane. (This seems to vary by board--the local Twin Cities board and DIY boards seem pretty chill overall, but don't even bother with Snarky Brides. Those women don't even know what "snark" means...hint, it's different from "b*tch"). If you have never encountered that website and have no idea what I'm talking about, count your blessings and move on.

And of course I've gotten sucked into reading several wedding style blogs, with their gorgeous pictures of designer dresses and outdoor receptions with twinkly lights and perfectly coordinated linens and thousands of dollars of flowers. Or the vintage weddings where the bride painstakingly scoured antique stores for the past 12 years to find the perfect vintage accessories that coordinate with the vintage dress she had altered to fit her size 0 self (not to mention the placecards that have 1940s typewriter buttons attached...not 1930s or 1950s models, mind you.) And then there's the DIY weddings, where the bride and her 15 closest friends started a sweatshop to assemble the world's largest collection of paper products, favors, centerpieces, name cards, table runners, vases, drinking straws, flip-flop baskets, and any other number of things that it wouldn't even occur to me to need for a wedding. And she happens to have friends/family who are professional bakers/florists/hairdressers/ministers/bartenders so the entire wedding costs $7.93. And kudos to all those brides for making it work. And I say "brides" because rarely is a second partner or groom mentioned other than in passing--certainly no second person had any substantial role in the planning of this event.

And yet I still occasionally go in spurts of thinking maybe it's not insane. Maybe I want the perfect flowers and the fancy invitations and perfectly-chosen favors and need the colors on the Save-the-Date postcard to exactly match the bridesmaids' dresses. And then I remember that the flowers only last a day, the invitations go on the fridge and then in the trash, the favors either get eaten or go in the trash, and no one is going to hold up that postcard to one of my sisters' dresses on our wedding day (because it too, will be in the trash by that point). And what everyone is going to remember from that day is the fun they had spending time with us and with other friends and family. And hopefully they will remember the love that Carrie and I share, which is, after all, the reason that this wedding is happening in the first place.

I think planning a wedding truly together has involved some unique challenges, but I wouldn't have it any other way--it's how Carrie and I do everything. Pretty much the only thing we haven't worked together on is picking bridal gowns--we're planning that to be a surprise for each other the day of the wedding. But having two people who care pretty equally about flowers, cake, readings, etc. means that a lot more collaboration and compromise are involved. And of course there are two mothers of the bride, so there's even more opinions on everything! But fortunately all four of our parents have been lovely and helpful and very supportive of us.

Anyway, I'm currently on a spurt of "we should spend how much on flowers?" and "can we just have M&Ms for favors?" but I'm sure I'll eventually swing back to the opposite end of the spectrum. But I hope that no matter what, I don't ever lose sight of why we're getting married in the first place because that's more important than any of the details!

Catching Up

Well now that it has been exactly six months since I last posted...

Oops.

Anyway, I don't make any promises to post daily, but I'll try to get back on averaging more than twice per year. :P

So, since my last post, there have been a few events in my life. In reverse chronological order, these events include:

Easter
Our 6th (dating) anniversary
Valentine's Day
My Birthday
Carrie's Birthday
Christmas
St. Nicholas Day *
Thanksgiving
Veterans Day *
Halloween

Okay, so I skipped a couple snow days, MLK Day, and Presidents Day. But you get the idea...

Those two starred dates are of particular importance, though they may seem a bit odd to most.

On Veterans Day (November 11), Carrie had the day off work; meanwhile, I had an awful day at work. I came home to find that Carrie had not only made dinner but also made a delicious-looking peanut butter pie. That was pretty much the best ending to a day that I could have asked for. But after dinner, Carrie gave me a book that she had made for me. (Backstory: for our first anniversary, I colored a children's book-style book for Carrie called "The Story of Us", which chronicled our meeting and adventures over the first year.) The book Carrie gave me was called "The Story of Us: Part 2". She had used photos of us to illustrate the important events in our relationship in the nearly 5 years that had passed since I wrote the first book. The book ended with "Carrie realized she needed to ask Becky a very important question..."at which point Carrie pulled out a beautiful diamond and sapphire ring and asked me to marry her. Of course I said yes!

This, of course, left me with the difficult task of trying to "propose" to her in a way that was still a surprise. It's a lot harder to plan a surprise when the other person is expecting it! This did not mean that I didn't have an idea for how to propose...I just had to figure out how to make it a surprise. A couple years ago, I had shown Carrie the pattern for Sheldon, a knit turtle, and she declared him to be the cutest knitted thing she'd ever seen. Over a year ago, I bought the yarn to make him and had been planning to use him in my proposal ever since. The catch? He was definitely the most difficult project I'd ever set out to knit...and despite having purchased the yarn long ago, I hadn't started yet. And of course I couldn't work on him at home (or during my week off at Thanksgiving w/ Carrie's family), because that doesn't do much for surprises.

I ordered Carrie's ring (which I had already picked out) and set off knitting like mad on my lunch breaks, on the bus, before Carrie got home, etc. The ring arrived at the beginning of December, and I finished my turtle on the evening of December 5, just in time for...

St. Nicholas Day!!! What magic--a gift-giving occasion built in right at the time I needed one. Thanks, random eastern Wisconsin tradition! :D (For any of you unfamiliar with the holiday, perhaps Wikipedia can help). So this year, on St. Nicholas Day, Carrie unwrapped her new turtle friend, sporting some nice bling.

Meet Sparkles

And since then, we've kept very busy planning our wedding and trying to keep up with everything else going on in life. But life is good, and I'm very excited for this next chapter in it!