Anniversary adventures

First off I have to say that The Weather Channel and I are not bff's. It lied to me this past weekend, telling me it was going to thunderstorm basically constantly. I was completely fooled on Saturday because it started out overcast. After taking my bridesmaid dress for alterations and hitting up a couple of stores, I basically battened down the hatches and watched tv and movies figuring it would rain any second. Any second.

Sunday, Matt and I decided to go out for our anniversary dinner. We started out by taking a walk on my old college campus (I say that like I didn't drop out) and then grabbed dinner (gnocchi with shrimp and asparagus... *drool*) . I was still waiting on that rain, so the walk was really our only time outdoors. We went back to his apartment for gift exchanging and tv watching. I thought it had to start raining soon. Any time now...

Monday I decided where the weather people could put it and we headed out for the whole day. The whole amazing, sunny, gorgeous day. I stopped waiting for it to rain because at that point I knew the truth. The Weather Channel lied. And I got a sunburn (but only a little one) Apparently SPF 100 wasn't enough.

Matt always finds me the nicest flowers:

Ice cream stop before exploring. White chocolate raspberry and raspberry sorbet. ALWAYS with rainbow sprinkles.

The Connecticut River:

Gillette's Castle:

Found this little dude by the castle. Matt almost stepped on him (on accident!) He slithered over to a wall and was going in and out. Totally neat. I think he's a milk snake?

Devil's Hopyard:

Hope everyone else had a fantastical weekend. I promise I'm not turning this into a nature/scenery blog. I'll have more makeup-y stuff for you as soon as I do something worthwhile (and it doesn't melt back off from the humidity)

Long weekends should really last a month or two

Memorial Day means different things to different people. Of course it's a day to remember those lost, but it also means time off from work for some, time to spend with family and, for me, my anniversary with Matt. I'm not completely sure where he came up with Memorial Day weekend, but I just go with it. I'm not very good at remembering dates, so I guess it's kind of helpful anyway. This year we're at 4 years. We don't have anything special planned (or anything whatsoever planned actually) I know that's awful to some people, but we're both fairly low key about things like this. We just went on vacation 2 weeks ago anyway, so that was like an early present for us both. Hope everyone else is having a great start to your own weekend and that you are doing something relaxing.

Last weekend, I got to see my bestie Kristen again and we went shopping in Providence, RI. It was nice to just wander the mall, have a pretty awesome dinner and then just chill at my house watching tv and funny YouTube videos. Even though I have a lot to do this weekend, I miss her face and wish we could do it all over again.

I did attempt to do some makeup last weekend (both days!) and while I'm not especially happy with either, I figured I would post for the sake of having something to say. So here is my Sunday look for when I went out with Kristen. I was trying to do something different with the liner, but wound up hating it once I saw these pictures and changed it to just a normal cat eye before I left.

Going backwards to Saturday, I decided to try mixing yellow and teal-ish blue to be a little more "summery." Again not really thrilled with it, but it was ok I guess. Matt and I just went bopping around to some of the state/town parks around us. Ultimately they were all pretty disappointing after the awesome placed we'd been on vacation. Then we couldn't find the place we wanted for dinner, so we wound up somewhere neither of us wanted to go for not-so-great Mexican food. At least there was a Storage Wars mini-marathon on tv that night, so it made things a little better.

Now I'm off to eat a(nother) cupcake from Yellow Bird Cupcakes. Last night I had a to-die-for salted caramel one. Think I'm going to try the lemon today. If you're ever in the area, it's probably the best thing that ever happened to the mall.

Cape Cod 2012 (part 2)

Day 3 of my trip to Cape Cod started with putting on my very favorite outfit of the trip. I found this dress at ModCloth and just felt really prettyful all day. 

Then it was off to play some mid-day mini-golf at an awesome Pirate-themed course I'd spotted last trip. It's been my goal for a year and a half now to go.

Matt said not to take any pictures of him, but I accidentally got his back in this one... don't tell.

The Guardian of the Gift Shop:

After mini-golf, it was off to Provincetown with Matt's parents. His mom and I stopped in a jewelry store called Zinnia where she accidentally got locked in last year when they closed. This time everyone made it out without incident and I scored a great statement necklace (with matching earrings) If you're ever in Provincetown and they're open, stop in. This set cost me $20 and the staff there are amazingly sweet.

Down the street from Zinnia, I found the West End Salon. If any of you watch Tabatha's Salon Takeover on Bravo, you may have seen it. I just stood outside squealing about how I could hear Dougie answering the phones, but never did go in.

By the time we left Provincetown, it was getting late. We ate dinner closer to where we were staying and called it a night. The next morning, Matt and I said goodbye to his parents (who are still in Cape Code as I type) to do some adventuring before heading home. Our first stop was Fort Hill in Eastham where we took a walk.

Then to the Nauset Light Beach in Eastham where I spent way too much time running towards the water and then running away when it touched me (it was cold!) This was not coincidentally the same thing all the other 3-12 year old kids were doing...

And finally to the Coast Guard Beach in Eastham. By the time we got here, I was pretty exhausted and thirsty, so we didn't go far (and in fact didn't even go to the beach, but down towards the bike trails)

We ended our time there by getting some delicious seafood (shrimp for me, clams for him) and then heading home. I miss being there already and definitely recommend going if you can (perhaps during the "off" season so as to avoid flocks of people) 

(This is just my portion of the driving. Matt's dad drove us around a lot)

Cape Cod 2012 (part 1)

I got home from my mini-vacation last night and am already feeling bummed to be home. It was nice to get away, though, and forget about everything going on back home. We left on Thursday morning for our 2.5 hour journey to Cape Cod and came home Sunday night. I took lots of pictures, so I'll try not to bombard you tooooooo bad!


This is just before I left. I didn't want to dress up too much just to sit in a car driving.

The Narwhal in a sailor hat necklace was most important, though.

I didn't really take any pictures on day 1, so we skip to day 2. We headed to a nearby marsh area where I saw this little cutie trying (and failing) to find food.

Then we headed to Hyannis to check out a record store Matt likes. I couldn't resist taking some pictures of this fun guy, though.

After checking out the smaller shops, we headed to the Cape Cod Mall. It's basically just a mall like any mall, so no pictures there (though it does have a nice 2 floor Barnes and Noble that I poked around for a bit!)

To end the night, Matt and I went to Sea Street/Cold Storage beach. It was my first time on a beach at night, the sand was really cold! 

I think this is one of my favorite pictures from the whole trip:

I became overly fascinated by the patterns left in the sand once the tide went out:

This brings us 50% of the way through our trip! I hope to have the rest of the pictures posted within the next few days. I'm also getting prints done and I think I want to make a scrap book to surprise Matt with (something we can put pictures from future trips in, too) 

Sorry to all of you for being a bad reader/commenter while I was gone. We didn't have computer access and blogging/blog reading on my phone is a pain. It was nice to be slightly off the grid for a few days anyway.

I said no mayonnaise

I appreciate you all bearing with me. Matt and I have been dealing with some junk lately. Not with each other (we're super good!) but just life junk that's not appropriate to blog about. It's stressful, though, and I haven't been doing much with hair or makeup or dressing up (I keep getting over-emotional, so I've even been skipping mascara!) Next week, though, we're going on a long weekend to Cape Cod with his parent. I hope to have lots of awesome pictures to share when I get back!

In the meantime, I wanted to talk to you guys about food. I haven't done so in a while and I figure most of you probably eat, too, so what the hey! Being a shrimpitarian, sometimes feeding me can be a little obnoxious. My mom gave up on me long ago and basically just leaves me to my own devices. That's cool by me, though, because once in a while I'll make up something that actually turns out really well.

This is a veggie meatloaf. It's made with Gimme Lean sausage (don't use the hamburger, sooooo gross) and roasted potato. The downside of the fake meat is it doesn't make fat/juice which would usually help keep the potatoes moist, so I used some olive oil. You can see there were a couple of casualties, but still tasty.

I also have been playing with different combinations for stir-fry. So far my winning things are broccoli, corn, yellow peppers, orange peppers, onions and mushrooms. Eggplant didn't work so well, it didn't cook nice and the texture was a little foam-like. Carrots are eh, I could leave them. Shrimp is a delicious add-in, but not necessary. Here is a shot of one I made before the sauce went on. It's so much nicer looking. 

See? All brown and boring. The crispy noodles probably negate the health factor of the veggies, too.

Matt isn't especially fond of my cooking, so I mostly only make things for myself and (on rare occasions) my mom. His heart (well, stomach) still belongs with his mom's cooking. I haven't eaten much she's made (usually if we're eating together, it's at a restaurant), but what I have had was delicious. I guess I understand why I'll never get more than a silver medal. 

This is where I leave you by saying if you have a shrimpitarian-friendly recipe to share with me, I would not be angry about it!