100 Days to the Wedding!

Chris and I were taking a short break from wedding planning for the past week or so. It was getting to the point where it was all wedding, all the time. It was my idea to take a break but it wasn't too tough to get Chris to agree to it.

Now the planning is back on, with just 100 days to go! 

I planted flower seeds back in June with the hopes that I could use some of the cut flowers for the wedding. Everything I planted is labeled as blooming through the fall or until frost. I can't get too attached to any particular bloom because some or even all of them may not be doing well at that time. (Luckily we have a local flower farm nearby, and we'll be talking to Dorothy about what she'll have available in the fall.) I thought the "green envy" zinnias I planted would be my favorite flower. I couldn't wait when I saw this first bud. 

Here are the flowers. I love the color when they first bloom. Now some of the pink and red zinnias are starting to bloom and I think they will be a great complement to the green.  

I'm going to bake cupcakes for the wedding. Here is my second test batch of carrot cake cupcakes. The recipe I used called for adding a little crushed pineapple and it was great. This was my first try using decorating tips for the icing. I'll be testing some chocolate cake recipes next, as per request from Chris. If anyone knows any good chocolate cake recipes I'd love to hear about them. 

Another big wedding project I'll be working on is sewing table runners. I finally found this fabric to use. The pattern is called Bavarian Toile. Just finding the fabric was a long project. I liked these Amy Butler patterns, but Chris didn't love any of them. "Too girly." We even spent hours in a fabric store one day and left with nothing. I think finally settling on a fabric is what made me feel like we deserved a break from wedding stuff. 

Here's a close-up. So now all I have to do is take these 11 yards and sew 13 table runners. Easy, right? 

I know that I was worried that planning a wedding in 5 months wouldn't be enough time, but now I can't imagine mulling over all these decisions for a year or more! Deadlines are my friend. 

Gorgonzola!

This is my new favorite veggie meal. Chris deserves all the credit. Okay, maybe Ocean Boulevard deserves a little credit, because the inspiration for this meal came from a dinner we had there last spring. 

Kale recently replaced collards as my favorite leafy green. I wash it well, remove the stem in the middle of the leaves, and tear the leaves up a bit. I put a little butter into a pan and add the kale. Once it has cooked for a few minutes I add a little honey and balsamic vinegar, cook for another minute or two and it's done! 

To go with the kale for our dinner pictured above, Chris dabbed a little olive oil on some slices of bread and toasted them. Then he caramelized some onions and topped it all off with some gorgonzola cheese. 

The Pastoral Outer Banks

Here's a shot of a cow-bird symbiosis unfolding in Currituck County. When we first drove by one the birds was sitting on the cow's back. 

Chris and I went kayak fishing on the Mann's Harbor side of the old bridge. Here is Chris catching bait with his cast net. 

He caught several fish for live bait, but we didn't catch anything with our poles. According to Chris we should have gotten started at 5 a.m., which didn't happen. This is probably never going to happen. We paddled around instead.