I finally ordered and received my Warby Parker specs. The delay between voting and receiving was my bad, not theirs. I took a while to actually sit down and order them, but once I did, I had them within a week! After much mulling over your feedback, John’s feedback and my own preferences, I decided on the Roarks in Amber.

What do you think?

Yesterday, I declared Fall Festival Day in our household. John and I both had the day off from work and school, so we got together with some neighbors and carved pumpkins and roasted some pumpkin seeds. At the idea of carving pumpkins, John and I went a little crazy and bought one big pumpkin to carve up a Jack-O-Lantern, three little pumpkins to make votive candle holders and a mum for the front door. I thought I would share with you the two recipes I made to celebrate fall and pumpkin carving: roasted pumpkin seeds and spiced peanuts. John loves the roasted pumpkin seeds so much, we’re going to a pumpkin patch Friday afternoon to get another pumpkin to carve, so I’ll hold off on the pumpkin pictures until then.

I also have developed an obsession with mason jars.

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So, the dress has been found, the deposit has been put down, and I’ve started dreaming about how to accessorize her! Of course, I’m not a super awesome fashionista, so the thoughts in my head were a bit jumbled and confused: what better way to sort them out then visually combining some ideas?

Of course, this is a fairly sensitive post so this is the last call for…

…to scram. Love you, hugs and kisses, and we’ll see you in the next post.

there’s more to this article. keep reading…

Toffee is my flavor for fall. I’m obsessed with it. Can’t get enough of it. I’ve been taking my toffee in two forms lately: latte and cookies. My in-laws also showed me how toffee can make box brownies taste fancy!

The toffee latte is the perfect latte in my opinion. Unlike some flavors like vanilla and caramel, toffee doesn’t cover up the espresso flavor but complements it. At the bakery I work at, we use toffee nut, which is a great change from hazelnut. One of my favorite things about working behind the counter at a bakery that also serves latte and cappuccinos is creating new flavor combinations. And yes, I have named my favorite creation the Charlatte.  After having people call me that randomly for years, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to actually create a Charlatte. The perfect blend of sweet nutty flavor and espresso is a caramel and toffee latte from B.K. Bakery, which you can order by it’s name, the Charlatte. If you order it anywhere else, make sure to tell them to half the syrups or else they might do full syrups of both flavors which I’ve had, and it’s all wrong. If you’re in Jefferson City stop by B.K. on Fridays and Saturdays, and I’ll make you one.

Another great way to use toffee is in brownies. Buy some Symphony bars and some brownie mix. Make the brownie mix and pour half of it in the pan. Lay out the Symphony bars to create a layer of chocolate toffee goodness. Cover it evenly with the rest of the brownie mix, and bake as instructed on the box. AMAZING!

My new favorite cookies, though, are oatmeal toffee cookies from Southern Living’s Ultimate Cookbook. These cookies look like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but bite into them and ta-da! TOFFEE! The best part of these cookies (other than the taste of course) is the fact that I can whip up the dough in 15 minutes. Sorry for the lack of pictures. Make your own with the recipe after the jump! there’s more to this article. keep reading…

Last week, Ace and I hit month numero uno of being engaged! And in that relatively short amount of time, we have gotten quite a bit done: we found, booked, and contracted a venue; found and are in the process of booking a photographer; confirmed our officiant; figured out food and dessert logistics; confirmed our wedding party; confirmed our musicians; decided on our color palette and overall design branding. And, oh yeah, I found and bought my dress! Eep!

And it’s safe to say that I was incredibly blown away by how quickly things fell into place. You see, as someone who has been reading wedding blogs for a while and had quite a few friends get married in recent years, I’d heard many of the horror stories about the difficulties of wedding planning. About roadblocks and stumbling stones and dead ends. Yet this has truly been wedding planning as I never expected it. And I must say, it’s been pretty damn awesome, and I’m still reeling at how, well, breezily things have gone so far. Part of the equation has been some sheer fortune. And another decent part has been a lot of support from family and friends. But a dash (well, maybe a crazy amount) or preparedness definitely didn’t hurt!

Here are the few nuggets of wisdom we’ve gleaned…maybe they can be helpful to you too?

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Whilst searching for some musica for our fabulous speakeasy Halloween shindig*, I stumbled across this. It is…basically one of the coolest vids ever. And I guess I’m kind of late on sharing it, but just in case you haven’t seen it:

* I think there should be a post about this party soon. Because I kid you not, we speakeasy girls are planning an amazeballs party on a pretty small budget. Of course, saying I will be blogging about something is usually the death-knell for that subject’s blog post…so go ahead and place your bets on whether it makes it to elevensies or not.

So I have already shared our goals with you. Which could only mean one thing in the planning process — it’s inspiration board time!!

But let’s be honest for a sec, k? There’s a whole lot of inspiration that we’re gathering from in planning this affair, and a good amount of it doesn’t fit into visual stimuli. So rather than putting together a straight-up inspiration board, I’ve gathered an inspiration amalgamation.*

It’s a bit much, honestly. So I’m throwing it all after the jump. Be brave and have a look!

there’s more to this article. keep reading…

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the end is nigh.

on love and delight

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