Maybe it’s just me or maybe it’s because I’m married, but as a woman in my mid twenties I feel like there is constantly the question of how I will manage my future. What do I want from my life? Do I want to be a powerful career woman? Do I want to take a few years off to stay home with kids? Do I want to skip all of that to do something that I’m really passionate about? Even big websites are telling me that I can’t have it all! Sometimes I’m just so envious of the women who know what they want their futures to look like. Whatever the answer, I’m fascinated by women who have this all figured out and are happy with their choices.
Recently I went to a networking event and one of the women speaking had twin two year-old boys. She told us the story of how she was on bed rest for the last three months of her pregnancy. Every day her husband brought her zero gravity chair to work. Every day she worked from a reclining position. Eventually she went into labor—while she was on a conference call. AND THEN she called the group back on the way to the hospital!!! Eventually, her husband told her that she should really tell them what was going on.
I listened to this story and thought, “Wow that’s amazing, but that’s not at all what I want!” As much as I want to listen to others, I know that this is something that I have to decide for myself. I hear som many different messages coming at me from every angle. I don’t have the answers to what that future will look like and who may or may not be in it, but hopefully I will sometime. In the meantime, I guess I’ll keep this strange fascination with the women who know.
This weekend we finally experimented with kale chips. I’d never eaten one but saw them popping up again and again and decided that they were worth a try. I washed the kale, tossed it in grape seed oil (I prefer grape seed to olive oil when cooking because of how each handles high heat.), added a touch of salt and baked them for 15-25 minutes at 350 degrees. I know 15-25 minutes is a huge window. The first batch I made I used a lot less kale. It shrunk down so much that I piled the second batch pretty high. Basically you want the chips to cook until they are crispy but not burnt.
The result: at first we thought they were great, but as Peter and I snacked on the after taste became overwhelmingly kale-y and we got burnt our pretty quickly. The funny thing is that the next day we went over to a friend’s house for dinner. Guess what she brought out for an appetizer?! The difference was that she squeezed lemon on the kale before baking and it really cut down on that kale taste. I think we’re still a bit kaled out, but if we decide to make them again, we’ll definitely be adopting her lemon trick for our recipe.
Have you ever cooked kale chips? Do you love them or hate them? Let us know!
Saturday night I finally tried the famous sock bun tutorial. I had high hopes after watching the video and seeing the gorgeous results, but let me be honest: layered hair makes this really difficult!! I spent half of my Saturday night rolling and re-rolling my hair trying to get it right. In the end my bun wasn’t tight enough. I woke up in the morning with the sock mixed in with my covers. I think the combination of my restless sleep habits and the loose bun, didn’t make for ideal results. This is what it looked like right after I took it down.
Forgive the bad iphone photos.
By the time Peter got home to assist with a photo, I’d been awake for 45 min and this is what it looked like.
My hair is naturally curly so I was surprised that the curl fell so quickly. Regardless, I’d love to get better at making a sock bun. Does anyone have any tips for working with layered hair or making a tighter bun?
I’m not usually a big fan of brands. I might like a thing or two from one brand and a couple of things from another, but I never completely identify any one of them—except kate spade. If you took the kate spade brand and made her into a person, I would SO want to be her. Sticking with the traditional one year anniversary gift, Peter got me some really adorable thank you notes by kate spade.
Then because an order got messed up at work, Apple sent me a FREE kate spade iphone case.
I’m completely obsessed with both of my new acquisitions! Unfortunately, I’ve wandered over to the website and I’m finding so many other things that I have to have…
This weekend was Peter’s and my one year anniversary. It was fun to look back at photos of our wedding day and remember our DIY projects and laughing about seeing all of our wedding flowers in Leanne’s fridge before the wedding.
It was sweet to think back on how excited I was before the ceremony.
We felt giddy as we thought about the silly moments after the ceremony.
And we got excited about the years to come.
Thank you to all our friends and family for your sweet little notes, texts, calls, and gifts. We’ve loved celebrating with you even when you’re far away!
