Married!!!

We are officially married!! Hooray! Our wedding was absolutely perfect. The weather was perfect, the food was incredible, and we're still eating wedding cake every night! It was so great having all of our out-of-town guests and hanging out at the hotel all weekend! We had a great time and it's so wonderful to be married to the love of my life! It's hard to believe it's all over already! But, now we have a honeymoon to plan for, so that's exciting!! We should be getting our wedding pictures in about 4-6 weeks, so hopefully I'll be able to upload some of them. For now, it's back to work and back to normal at least for a little while.

We've gotten a lot of awesome kitchen gadgets, which I'm excited to blog about. The first one I wanted to mention was one we used last weekend -- a pasta roller for our Kitchenaid Stand Mixer. I always loved fresh pasta, and now I can make it myself! It was so easy to do and didn't take long at all! The basic recipe was simply flour, water, eggs, and salt. I mixed it up in the kitchenaid and kneaded it for a little bit. The dough was a little dry, so I added a touch of water. I was afraid to add too much though andit remained pretty dry. After letting it sit for 20 minutes, it was time to roll it into sheets. I followed the directions on the pasta roller -- splitting the dough into 4 pieces and rolling each one. At first I thought it wasn't going to work, because the dough was breaking apart as it went through the roller. I just kept at it, and after about 4-5 times through, it started looking like pasta dough! It came out in long, thin sheets. Once that was done, the next part was really easy! I just attached the fettucini cutter to the kitchenaid and fed each sheet of dough through it. It cut a ton of perfect, fresh fettucini. We boiled it for about 3-4 minutes and added some sauce that we got from a farmer's market and piave cheese from Di Bruno Brothers. It turned out amazing and I can't wait to make more very soon!

More kitchen gadget reviews to come along with another Stitch Fix box at the end of the month!!

Everything New

I didn't realize how long it had been since my last blog. Things have changed a lot since then! We've moved and we've both got new jobs, and our wedding is getting so close -- just over a month away! All of the last minute details and planning are in full force now. I wanted to get back to writing reviews and other blog posts, which are always fun. I'm trying out a new service called Stitch Fix to try out some new clothes. We also got a ton of great kitchen gadgets from the bridal shower, so I can review those as well as recipes I make with them on here too! I wanted to write first about my very first Stitch Fix. Stitch Fix is a new concept where, for $20, you get a personal stylist who will pick out 5 items of clothing for you. They come in a box along with a note from the stylist and cards to show you what you can wear with each item. Each item has a price, and you can then try everything on and then decide what, if anything, you would like to buy and keep. The $20 you spent for the styling fee goes towards any purchases you make, and if you buy all 5 items, you also get 20% off. Whatever you don't want, you just mail back, in a pre-paid shipping bag that comes with the order. If you'd like to sign-up, click on this link to you my referral ID: http://stitchfix.com/sign_up?referrer_id=3590198. For my first fix, I only took a few pictures. Next time I will take more. I kept two items and sent three back. The first item I received was a beautiful blue and white button-down blouse with 3/4 sleeves. I really loved it and wanted to keep it, but it didn't fit quite right. It was tight in my arms and hips, and big up top. The next item I received was a cute summery dress. I seemed a little big for me and overpowering since I'm so short. I felt like it would look great on a taller person. The next thing I almost kept were a pair of pink skinny jeans. I never wear skinny jeans and I don't like them on me, but these were the best I've ever tried on. I was tempted to keep them, but they were $79 and I wasn't sure I'd ever feel comfortable in them since they are so tight.

Pink Skinny Jeans and Navy/White Striped Top

Above is a picture of the skinny jeans along with the fist thing I actually kept and bought - a navy blue and white striped top. It is really soft and comfy and I can wear it with jeans on casual fridays at work, which is great. My style card also shows it on tip of a dress with a bright yellow skirt. I actually have a very similar dress, so I may try that out.

Coral Chiffon Dress

The last item is also one I kept. It is pictured above. It is a coral chiffon dress. I really like that I can dress it down a little for work with a sweater or blazer and dress it up. I'm planning on wearing it to a wedding we're going to in a few weeks with sparkly gold shoes and gold jewelry.

Overall, I was really impressed with my first stitch fix. I just schedule a new one to come on June 30th, and I'm excited to see what I get next! I'm sure the more you do it the better it gets since your stylist stays with you and will get to know more about what you like and don't like each time.It's a lot of fun and I recommend it to anyone to try.

Thinking about blogging

I feel like I never have much to say on my blog, despite having random ideas of things I could post about throughout each day. It's been longer than I thought since my last blog! Since then, a lot of exciting stuff has happened -- mainly, I got engaged!!! Yay! We are so excited and are having a lot of fun planning our wedding, which will be next summer! :D We have a lot of our vendors set  and only need to figure out a few smaller things like invitations, ceremony music, and then all the smaller details like the exact menu and music, making table numbers and place cards and any other printed things, favors for the guests, hotel gift bags, the possibility of a chuppah and/or a ketubah, and making or getting some decorations and candles to place around the venue.

I keep trying to think of ways I can make money while I'm home. I have been trying a chocolate business from home, which is a lot of fun and people seem to love seeing pictures of the chocolates I make, but unfortunately, it's not exactly lucrative. I had a few orders, but factoring in the cost of supplies barely has me breaking even...if not at a loss. I've also been working on Amazon Mechanical Turks -- where you complete short tasks to earn amazon money. They're pretty good, but generally you get about $.01 to $1.00 for each task, so it's more for a slight amazon discount than anything else. It can be frustrating when the tasks don't work, but overall it's ok. I tried signing up for some random work from home things too -- most seem pretty scammy, but some may pan out. Who knows. I applied for one today where you transcribe audio into text. I had to pass a typing test and submit a resume, so I'll see where that goes. It seems slightly more legit. It will take a few days for them to get back to me, it says, so we will see. It's amazing to me and kind of sad and aggravating that in this day and age of computers, high speed internet, and video chat, that anyone needs an actual office anymore. I honestly don't get the point of having one for any company. I never really did. Unless it's a storefront for customers, it just seems like a complete waste of money.

Anyway that's my rant for the day, haha!

PS -- After a brief google search, I found that even a magazine that always takes the corporations side, a conservative, business-minded magazine agrees with me! Maybe I'm not hopeless corporation material yet! Maybe some day, some forward-thinking company will understand me and hire me for my brilliant ideas ;) Meanwhile, I'll just contemplate them to myself while all the companies continue to do things wrong and stupidly.

Seriously, check out this Forbes Article.

Subway Ride

Last night, we took a long subway ride down to Brooklyn to see a Nets game at the new Barclay's Center! The game was great, but something that happened on the subway really stuck with me and made me remember how good people can be.

A few stops after we got on, two tough-looking guys got on our car. One big guy sat next to me and his friend sat across from us. I was a little wary of them and held on a little tighter to my boyfriend and my bag. A few stops later, a man got on with a speaker and microphone. "Oh no, a performance now..." I was thinking. The guy started to talk, doing imitations of the subway announcements, making crazy noises, and just being hilarious. He did a great impression of all of the subway announcement voices, and it was really funny. The best part was the two 'scary' guys near us absolutely loved it! I watched them slowly start to smile and by the end, they were cracking up and laughing so hard, it was hard not to laugh myself. They loved it so much that they kept searching for dollars to give to the guy before he got off of our car. It was just a good reminder not to make snap judgements on people and that people are generally good and generous, and just need to laugh sometimes. Throughout that one subway ride, it was great to see a car full of bored-looking people thinking about their own lives and problems stop to listen and smile or laugh at the hilarious subway performer. I hope I come across that performance again sometime!

Keep On Trying!

Well after a day or so of being upset about not getting that last job I interviewed for, I stopped looking at the company with rose colored glasses and realized that yes, the job sounded great, but it wasn't perfect. There were some things I didn't like about it and I'm sure something even better will come up.

I applied to a few this morning and am keeping with my scheme of applying only to jobs that I really want and would be happy with. I know that sounds logical, but when you're looking for jobs, I've found that I used to apply to anything I was remotely qualified for, no matter the company or position. Now I am only applying to places that I genuinely like and would be excited about.

In the meantime, I'm trying to enjoy my time off as much as I can. It's rare to have this kind of time to just do what I want to do and not worry about a schedule or work. I'm catching up on shows, reading, blogging, cooking and baking a lot and that's been a lot of fun. I"ve actually gotten to try out some Pinterest recipes I pinned! I'm sure I'll eventually find a job where people see my qualifications, but until then, it's nice to enjoy the time without a job.

Rejection

Well, I didn't want to post about the fact that I had a job interview last week because I didn't want to jinx anything. As it turns out, it didn't matter, since this afternoon I got a rejection letter from the company. The job seemed so perfect - it was easy to get to, part-time, great hours, and what seems like a truly fun and cool office environment. I thought I was more than qualified for the job, which was basically doing QA on their website for restaurant listings and menus. The people I met were very nice and the office had some very cool features.

This morning, I got a form email from the company stating that "After reviewing your background and qualifications, we find that we do not have an appropriate position for you at this time." It's very disheartening knowing that I could do that job -- probably better than anyone else they hired. I would be good at it and I would have liked it, and yet they don't feel I'm qualified. I have held more complex positions and excelled. I've been out of the corporate world for a while and took some time to focus on another field. That may have been my biggest mistake -- no one seems to take my application or qualifications seriously.

Anyway, it's just very frustrating. It seemed so perfect....but I guess it wasn't. What I really wish is that I could start my own business. Unfortunately, you need money for that and the only way to get money is to get a job.

Fondant Part 2

So, the marshmallow fondant was fun to make and tastes good...very sweet...but yesterday I tried to use it. That proved to be harder than it seemed. I added a lot of confectioners sugar to the marshmallow mixture to try to get it as smooth and non-sticky as possible. It stored well and when I first rolled it out, it worked well. The first few cupcakes, I used a glass to cut circles in rolled fondant and place them on top of cupcakes that I had pre-iced with a touch of buttercream that works as a glue. They worked really well and look great, but the fondant was a little too thick and make the cupcakes way too sweet. The next few, I tried to roll thinner, but as the fondant warmed up, it became more and more sticky. It got to the point where when I rolled it out, I couldn't pull it up from the table or the rolling pin. I got a bunch more done, at a slow pace, but finally gave up when it became extra sticky.

Th cupcakes themselves taste good, and the fondant does look good, but I don't know if I'd bother with it again. I think they still taste better with regular icing. They may not look as perfect as well-done fondant, but they are much easier and taste better.