Friday, November 01, 2002

Today is one of those days when I woke up, lay there in bed, and told Geoff, repeatedly, "I'm worried!" "About what?" he would ask. "Everything!" I would whine.

I'm better now. It's always better after I get up, get out of bed, and get moving for the day.

I have the day off today. I have a practice session scheduled for today at noon with Aggie, the hair stylist who will be doing my hair on the day of the wedding. Then at 2:40, I am going to the dentist. Is it weird that I am uncomfortably nervous about seeing the hair stylist, but I'm only excited and eager to see the dentist?

Thursday, October 31, 2002

Last night's wedding preparation: the coloring of the hair. My hair color was looking pretty bad. See?



My roots were looking even worse.



So I spent a few hours last night coloring my hair the color of "Sienna Luster," and now my roots look like this.



And my hair looks like this.



I like it! (Well, I like the color. It still has quite a bit of that post-traumatic-haircolor frizziness.) I'm hoping it stays this color, roots and all, until at least the wedding. It should still look pretty good in two weeks and two days, right?

Wednesday, October 30, 2002

By popular demand, I hereby present to you:

The Invitations, and What They Look Like

Here is what a whole bag of mostly finished invitations looked like, back before they were sent off to their destinations:



Here's the back of the envelope:



Here's what they look like from the front, unopened:





Detail of the date at the bottom (and the little glittery glued-on round things):



And here's what they look like opened!



Opened detail -



I'm not sure the pictures do them justice, but you get the idea, right?
Here is the story of the love knot cookies.

So, I found this recipe in Martha Stewart Weddings (apparently that should have been my first clue right there - I keep hearing that Martha Stewart recipes can't be trusted!) for love knot cookies. They're sort of a sugar cookie that's rolled and tied in a knot and, if you're Martha, partially dipped in (white) chocolate. I had been thinking that fortune cookies would be a cool favor for the wedding, to go along with the Asian Infusion Theme (TM by Laurie), but then I realized something very important: I don't really like fortune cookies much! Love knot cookies sounded cool, and not too much trouble, since I love making cookies. It's not a brand new skill, like the invitations or the flower arranging; it's a time tested talent! I decided that I needed to make a test batch, though, to decide whether the "knot" part of the love knot cookies would be too big of a pain in the ass to deal with.

The first batch. I first tried to make the cookies last week sometime. The only ingredients in Martha's recipe were flour, butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla. It was a very dry dough. As I was mixing the ingredients together, I noticed little wormies in the dough. Ugh. I threw out the dough.

The second batch. After I threw out the wormy dough, I got out my brand new bag of flour. I checked for worms. No worms. I mixed up the ingredients. I mixed and I mixed and I mixed, but the bowl was still half full of a powdery substance that could not possibly be rolled out into knots. I decided to knead the dough by hand. I picked up the ball of dough, and I mooshed the dry flour and other ingredients into the ball of dough. Some of it stuck. Some of it didn't. I kept mooshing. I mooshed and I mooshed and I mooshed, but the bowl was still a third full of powdery stuff. It had been about fifteen minutes since I starting mixing and mooshing. I threw out the dough.

The third batch. I decided that the recipe of dry ingredients could bite me. I looked online for a new recipe, and every other love knot cookie recipe that I found had eggs in it. Aha! I printed off one of the recipes (six eggs!) and took it with me to my mom's last weekend. On Sunday, we started making the dough. Mom pointed out the canisters on her counter, and took the lids off of the two that contained flour and sugar. I measured everything out and mixed it up. This time, there was plenty of liquid in the dough. In fact, this time there was too much liquid in the dough. The dough was about as liquid as very thin pancake batter. And, as a bonus, it had a couple of worms in it.

We added cornmeal and birdseed to the dough. Then we baked it and put it in the backyard for the birds to eat.

It's worth noting that we did realize what had happened with this third batch was not the recipe's fault. It turned out that when I thought I was adding flour, I was really adding powdered sugar (I don't keep powdered sugar in a canister on the counter!), and I had even thought to myself, while I was scooping it out, that its texture was funny - "ooh, her flour is different than what I use!" I thought. That didn't stop me from scooping three cups of it out and pouring it into the mixing bowl, though.

So, to sum up. Worms in flour or powdered sugar? Bad. Powdered sugar instead of flour? Bad. Love knot cookies? A pain in the ass.

I'm thinking about making sugar cookies instead.

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

If you would be willing to help me figure out how to add comments to this blog, would you email me and let me know that? I'd be really grateful!
Hi, I'm Jessie. I'm getting married in 18 days, but I am only freaking out about it some of the time.

Today's wedding-related purchase: a guest book platter. Not only is it a cool idea, but the woman who makes the platters is extra super nice - I spoke to her on the phone today when I called to see whether or not I could get one of the oval shaped platters in time for the wedding, and she was full of helpful hints and information about her products.

I am a total spazz today. I'm not upset, I don't feel bad, I just can't focus on anything for more than a few minutes. Is this just how it's going to be for the next 2 and a half weeks? (Did I mention Geoff's sister Stephanie arrives here in Chicago - to stay with us - the Monday before the wedding? I figure that means there's now less than two weeks before The Festivities begin. Urg.)
Testing!
18 days to go until the wedding!