Twilight Party Awesomeness!

 

So I've been wanting to do this for years. Decorate the house in black and red and throw the ultimate Twilight themed girls night party. This year I finally got to! And good timing too... now we're out of books and movies to look forward to. I've spent months collecting goodies and ideas for this. And I think it turned out well! No, I'm not a twihard. In fact I think that's the dumbest name ever. I don't think about the books and movies much, except around November when the movies are released.

Well, and when I found decorations in stores on clearance. 

The 'paintings' on the back wall are from the Twilight tablecloth, bought on clearance. (I paid $0.50)

I had so much fun putting this party together. So I thought I would share the pictures with you, and my decorating secrets. I'm estimating that I spent about $100 on the whole thing (not including food, and purchased over several months...ok some items I bought a couple of years ago. Hey, I already told you I've been wanting to do this for a while.) And almost everything I bought can be re-purposed for other parties. Mostly Halloween, but that's ok, its my favorite holiday anyway! 

First let me cover my rules to party decor:

1. Never pay full price for anything. (Only broke this rule twice.)

2. Only purchase that which can be re-purposed for other parties. (Maybe $3 of all of my decor broke this rule. I mean really what do I do with the extra plates, No Ordinary Party Twilight banner and extra table cloth, that I didn't cut up?)

For instance, the photo above... vase purchased at thrift store, paper lanterns came in a few Halloween party kits purchased after Halloween at discounted prices. Same with the ribbon and vampire lips. The black paper fan decor at the top of the photo, ok well those I bought at full price, but the do follow rule number two. So that gives me some credit right?

These apples on sticks as I like to call them were given to me by my mother in law. I have no idea where or when she got them, but I think they are fabulous and perfect for Twilight! And maybe a Fairy Tale party in the future. :)

Every party needs themed candy. I found quite the selection of red and black candy to fit the theme. 

A few blood dripping candles added a nice touch.

This part was fun. Take plastic table cloths, from the dollar store, pin to ceiling. Then purchase tulle (online, I bought a whole bolt and used the whole thing. Yes, that was 40 yards) and pin where necessary. Hang danglies, accessories and pretty things. Or spooky, depends on what look you are going for. TIP: this is easiest when you have enough chairs to play "don't touch the floor" or if you have minions to hand you things, like dropped pins. I don't have minions, I have chairs.

So lets see it put together shall we?

(this one was taken before the party, don't mind the hole in the ceiling, the kitchen is still under construction)

oh, well we're not quite done here...

I made the banner with pre-cut letters, tape, ribbon and paper. The letters are taped on, so they and the banner can be reused for other parties.

I found these large chess pieces at Hobby Lobby. Yup, half price.

Before the food

Bella's wedding inspired room. Before I remembered to add some purple. Don't mind the giraffe, he's ceramic, and I didn't feel like moving him...

I added some purple flowers.

And some purple bows. Its hard to see, but there are paper butterflies on the wall. They came with the paper lanterns, but I didn't want them stuck on the lanterns, so I taped them to the wall instead.

Do you know how hard it is to find Fire and Ice tulips? They are expensive if you do find them. So I used a frame I already had and drew one myself. The Thirsty printout, as well as the other printouts I used, came from blog.hwtm.com/search/twilight  - so many great ideas on her blog. 

Now I realize, the Ultimate Twilight Party, is not just about the decor... Bring on the Twilight food!

Everything had a name. Most of the ideas I collected off of blogs and Pinterest. 

Twilight Food Menu

I stuck to vampire 'bite' size food

Bella's Bites- breaded ravioli with pasta dipping sauce

Jasper's Southern Deviled Eggs

Victoria's Chips and Salsa - you know, to match her red hair

Wolf Bites - Stuffed Mushrooms

Phil's Phyllo Cups - filled with chocolate mousse

Alice's Wedding Appetizers or Meadow Flowers - melted brie in phyllo cups with jelly or fruit on top

Vampire Bites - well these can really be anything

Wolf Dip - I had this card ready hoping a friend would bring Wing Dip :) She did, it was delicious!

Charlie's Chips and Dip

Charlie's Berry Cobbler - I wanted to make this, but didn't have the time.

Salad a la Rosalie - Also didn't get made, and I was going to leave out the glass.

Fire and Ice Tulips - Stuffed strawberries (with cheesecake filling) You could also used cheese stuffed tomatoes.

We had plenty of wine and "blood" colored drinks. And don't forget the "sparkling" water!

And if you do serve food that needs eating utensils:

Don't forget the sign that says "Welcome to Forks"

Games!!!

Activities to do at a Twilight party:

As it turns out, we had the most fun watching/ mocking the Twilight films.

But I did have set up Name that Vampire!

I had forms to fill out

Since we were too distracted by the movies. I still have the prize on my mantle, a Golden Onion!

I should probably remember to throw that away soon, before I end up with a moldy golden onion.

All in all, it turned out to be a fabulous evening with good food and great friends! 

Now to turn the house around for the Nightmare Before Christmas - Christmas party. Don't worry, the black ceiling gets to shine at the Christmas party too... I planned this out well... stay tuned!

The Snow White dress

It's finally fall!!!!!!! And do you know what that means?
Cooler weather... kinda, sorta, maybe. I do live in Texas. But more importantly Texas Renaissance Festival!!! And Halloween!!!!
So many reasons to make costumes and decorations and cool food!

So its been awhile since I last posted. Surprise surprise. So a quick update on food. I don't even know how long we lasted on the Paleo diet. I doubt it was 30 days! With the approach of fall, and the traveling I did for work, it was easy to not cook. And if I don't cook, we don't eat Paleo. We're thinking that we are just going to try to Real food it as much as we can through the Holidays. We'll see how that goes.

On a more exiting note, did I mention that its Renfest season??!!!??!?!?!!!! Yey!!!!!

So I actually made costumes this year. Lets re-phrase that, I am in the process of doing so. Since it was Fairy themed weekend, I felt the need to transform into a fairy. I was bored of the dress I used last year, and this year it dawned on me that the purple corset that was given to me would work very well. All I needed was a skirt... Lots of tulle and fabric leaves, and just like magic, I had a skirt! I added wire to some of the leaves to give them structure.

That was for last weekend. It was a friend's birthday wish that we all camp for the weekend out at the Renfest camping grounds like we did last year for her birthday. Just in case you were wondering, no, we didn't sleep in the camper/motor-home featured in the photo. We used tents. And this year, I was smart enough to insist to the husband that we bring the BIG tent. When was the last time you tried to put on a corset in a two person tent? Yeah, that's what I thought.

My second project... still unfinished.  So you know that Snow White and the Huntsman movie that came out this year. I may or may not have, during the movie instantly decided that I needed her outfit. Turns out you can buy it online! Well, a cheap crappy version for about $50. Or you can have someone hand sew it for what looks to be probably close to $300. I know some people might just throw out the money for that and order it online. Those are the people with extra cash on a tree out back, and the sense to be ordering a costume they need close to Halloween, back in June. That's just not me. So I bought a pattern.

Ever used a sewing pattern? It's so complicated, its ridiculous. Its like they expect you to know what you are doing. I mean really, if you are going to give vague instructions, then at least add in more pictures/diagrams. With a few phone calls to Mom, I figured most of it out. Well so far. Its not quite done...

It took me one hour to do one sleeve. Then about 45 minutes to do the second one. I'm totally proud of them. See the eyelet holes? I found out you can buy pliers for that. Its soooooo easy!!!! 

Now I just have to do the back! Lace up of course. The instructions called for a zipper. I laughed. That would require the sizing to be correct...

Oh, and  I have to make the outer dress.

 See the green part? Wish me luck with the puffy sleeves. 

Good thing we are not going back to Faire until the middle of November.... This might take me a while.

Oh, and the other thing I remembered to bring camping this year? 

Glow sticks!!!!!!

New Plan

So the second month of Insanity didn't go so well. In fact it didn't exist at all. The husband's knee started to hurt and since he had a wedding to go to in a few weeks, we called off Insanity until we returned from vacations. Yes that's vacations plural. He went to a wedding in Alaska and I went to a family reunion in North Dakota. We each had a great time. :) I plan on being together for our next vacation. :)
Anyway, so when we returned he actually got back into his fencing classes which took time and energy away from Insanity. And I have been cleaning the house... Ok yeah, watching the Olympics mostly (at the in-laws house because we dont have cable and NBC SUCKS.)

We also kept saying that we would get back into the Real Food plan. And that wasn't happening. So after our vacations of not so healthy food we decided to do one better.

My co-worker told me about the Paleo diet. You know, the Cave man diet. It's basically taking Real food and removing dairy,grains and legumes (dont forget peanuts in this one). The husband and I were on the way to the grocery store and I was listing off the grocery list in my head and commenting on how I wanted to make some quinoa bites because I had found a new recipe recently that looked good. Of course they had cheese and grain which was what I was contemplating cutting out of my diet for a while and the husband simply said "Ok lets do that. Its not that much different than the real food thing anyway". I was actually a little shocked. (And slightly disappointed, I wanted to try that recipe!) And I'm pretty sure he agreed before I even mentioned the cheat day, but also before I mentioned no peanut butter. Although without bread, what good is peanut butter to him anyway?

Cheat day. That is what will make a big difference I think. Now its not a matter of can we get to the 30 day mark. We have no time limit this time. We're just going to see how long it lasts.

So far, I feel that food is a lot simpler now. It's only been week one though. And we did very well I might add. I am afraid we will run out of things to cook though. Its not that there are not options, it's just that as much as I would like to experiment with new recipes, finding them, getting the proper ingredients for them and actually making them just doesn't seem to happen.

I did try a few new things this week and I am glad that I did.

After we had consumed all of the farmers market chicken, (no grains or cheese means a lot more protein, especially since the husband fenced three times this week) I realized that whole foods is actually a fantastic place to get ground meats. The animal my not be local but they do fresh grind in the store so its actual meat and not fillers. With some ground turkey and pork I made mini no oat and no cheese cabbage rolls.

Then I found a new recipe for baked halibut (we need to finish the Alaska halibut we have in the freezer) I didn't follow the recipe exactly so I'll just give an over view of what I did do.

Herb Wine Halibut

Preheat oven to 450. Sprinkle herbs and lemon/garlic no salt seasoning in bottom of glass baking dish. Place halibut over herbs and sprinkle with salt and pepper. I had about 3  4oz pieces in an 8*8 Pirex. Pour 1/2 cup white wine (love the box wine in the fridge, drink or cook with it for months!) over the fish and then drizle a bit of olive oil on the fish. Loosly cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.
Then there were some instructions about reducing the sauce with some lemon juice but since I kinda cut the recipe in half I skipped that part. The halibut was pretty good. It turns out you can make it without a gross can of cream of mushroom soup!

Today's recipe was the real winner. Even though today is the cheat day (Ok to be fair yesterday was too since we had tickets to the Lion King Broadway show we went out for sushi) I found a new desert that totally fits both real food and the paleo diet. Actually this one came from my co-worker and when I heard about it she said that she was surprised at how creamy it was. I honestly was like duh, smoothies with banana are creamy. I was still shocked when I made it.

Banana Ice Cream

Take frozen bananas ( I have them to make banana bread) and throw them in the food processor. Add a splash of vanilla. And a teaspoon/tablespoon? (didn't measure) of honey. Blend, blend, scrape sides and blend some more. When you have a creamy ice cream texture you are done. Enjoy!
Variations:
For about 3 bananas add 2 Tbs of cocoa powder = Chocolate Ice Cream
Add frozen strawberries (these take a bit longer to blend) to either the plain or the chocolate. :)

Amazing!!!!!

Insanity Recovery Week

Recovery week

We just finished recovery week of our Insanity program. That means month one is done! I don't know if I've really improved much and I'm really scared for month two. Its supposed to be more intense that month one and month one tried to kill me! I'll just have to push through. The good news is that I have not injured my back again. :)

As far as our diet goes... we've tried to follow the recommended meal plans. I don't like using some of the processed foods but it makes the calorie control easier. I've been taking 4 small meals to work. I say meals but really they are snacks. Insanity recommends that I eat 5 "meals" per day, each 300 calories. For me that's usually:

Breakfast:
1 cup Oatmeal with handful of berries and 1/8 cup of slivered almonds.
or 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt with a bit of honey and vanilla and 1/4 cup grape nuts with some berries - there is a surprising amount of protein in Greek yogurt!

Mid morning and afternoon snack favorites:
half of a whole wheat English muffin (yes, its processed) with a tbs of natural peanut butter and half a banana sliced, then I eat the other half of the banana with it
1/2 cup of cottage cheese and some berries and/or slivered almonds
Greek yogurt as mentioned above
2 hard boiled eggs with fruit
Triscuits with about an ounce of Blue Heron Farm goat cheese - totally local and the best thing ever!!!!

Lunch
1/2 baked local chicken breast (sometimes with spinach, mushrooms and cucumbers) on "sandwich thins" - yes also a processed bread product
baked local chicken or tuna wrap on home made whole wheat tortillas - that reminds me I should make some more tortillas- I usually add spinach, mushrooms and cucumbers to this too
And lets be honest, I've gone to Freebirds for a burrito bowl a couple of Fridays. They are a bit large so I usually only eat half, then the rest at dinner.

Dinner-
Since I've been getting home late, once I'm done with my work out its around 8ish and I don't want much. So sometimes its just a bowl of watermelon cubes. We've been really big on watermelon lately.

Loved the pattern in the waternellon!
And for those of you following ,
as you can see we still don't have a back-splash...

The husband works out a few hours before I do and even sometimes is not up for much for dinner, When he decides he wants dinner he mixes some tuna with a little bit of mayo and mustard and then a couple of large spoonfuls of minced onion. He uses my handy mini food processor for the onion. The onion is amazing in the tuna. The he hollows out a few tomatoes and fills them with the tuna. It's pretty fabulous for a canned tuna dish. :)

This week my favorite was some baked local chicken with a side of sauteed local squash, local mushrooms and some onion, and slices of local heirloom tomatoes with a bit of Italian (brought back from our Italy trip) balsamic vinegar.

That whole meal would be "real food" approved had I not run out of my whole wheat bread crumbs. Shoot, I was close to that store where I get them and forgot to get more... Anyway my chicken is just usually coated in mustard and whole wheat breadcrumbs and then baked. Totally real food awesomeness!

Local chicken, squash, mushrooms and heirloom tomatoes
(that's a salad plate, so the portions are actually small)

I figure veggies and fruit shouldn't really count for calories because I really need to encourage the consumption of them in this house. I do realize that there is still a lot of sugar in fruit though.

 If I could just eliminate sugar that would help me incredibly. Weekends are my downfall. This weekend I had dessert at Ray's on Friday. Ray's is a great restaurant near us that serves local foods and natural free range meats. And local fruit!

Ray's Gourmet Country grill -  Nectarine Tart

Then on Saturday I happened to drive by Ooh La La and tried the small vanilla cake gelato and the Italian cream cupcake.... Apparently I was missing Italy?

I think if I can figure out how to control/eliminate a lot of sugar from my diet I might make more progress with this Insanity exercise program. Wish me luck on month two!

Week one.

See, I had this plan. Basically a new years resolution. Well, many of them.

1. post more on my blogs.... yep, clearly that didn't happen.

2. Clean office. I'd post a picture but its quite disturbing. Think hoarders but with short piles. Scary, I know. But I couldn't clean it this weekend because I hurt my back. Maybe next weekend?

3. Finish projects. Well..., its just that I'm not sure what projects I have because I cant find them. See above.

4. Eat real food more constantly... that didnt really work either. I've even gone back to eating some unhappy animals. I do try to make it to the farmers market as often as possible to pick up eggs and chicken breast. The chicken breast there is delicious. I cover it in some mustard and then whole wheat bread crumbs and bake it. I've actually been doing that once a week or so which makes me happy. Real food, happy chickens (well, you know what I mean) and its easy and healthy and incredibly delicious. In fact the one week I did not make it to the market and we had to get chicken from the grocery store. ( I know, sad chickens.) The husband asked what I did differently to it, cause it wasn't as good. My only explanation was that it came from the store. He was quite surprised! And I was happy. All the more reason for me to go to the farmers market!
Just as we were getting back into the real food, the husband bought Insanity.

5. Complete Insanity. Wait what? This so was not on my original list....Although with the way work has been going lately, I'm not sure that I am entirely sane. So mission complete?

I've been telling my husband I want to get in shape and I need his help. I'm not sure he was listening. I think what really happened was that he finally decided how he was going to get in shape, and I was welcome to try the program. I don't think he really expected me to. The program is exactly what it sounds like. Insanity. Exercise moves intended to use your own body to kill yourself, I mean, get your self toned and in overall better shape.
The problem is, other than I only made it to day 4 before I injured my back and am now a few days behind... the Insanity program gives you guidelines on how to eat while completing their 60 day program  It boils down to calorie counting. The majority of the suggested meals include real foods. But when it comes to your grains, buying "whole wheat" sandwich thins and English muffins is easier than trying to calculate calories of the home made whole wheat product. The husband actually snatched product out of my hands while we were in the store because I kept reading the labels and making funny faces and disappointing noises.
I only hope that after the 60 day program we can find a balance of real foods that stay within a decent calorie range for both of us.
The plus side is that by the end of the 60 days I just might be able to do a normal push-up. For now I'll just stick to the GP's (girl push-ups or gold points as the husband called them).

Ok, off to bed now. If I can make it out of my office with out tripping and re-injuring my back....

To eat or not to eat.

*note to readers: this post did get a bit long, i'll try and post more often this year to keep them shorter

That is the question.

Cliche, I know. But this seems to be a never ending question. In even its simplest forms, why is food always an issue? Even when we cared little about what food, or food like substances we were eating, what to have for dinner was always a dilemma. 

But now we are more informed of the consequences of our food choices. I suppose, to some degree we were aware before. But now we feel that our decisions related to food matter.. At least from one perspective of the situation. I think one of us is just along for the ride, and he's not the one actually cooking.

Thanks to kitchen remodeling and the holidays, our "Real Food" concentration flew out the door closely followed by old sink, stove top, counter, oven, fridge and microwave.

While all of these items have been replaced (we are still missing the back splash and the refinishing of the cabinets) our attentiveness of "Real Food" has not. 

We did however do a beginning of the year purge of most of our condiments in the fridge. This was mostly due to the fact that the majority of our food items were residing in the old fridge hooked up in the garage because we were too lazy to move them into the new fridge. And when we killed the power to install the dishwasher, the old fridge did not automatically kick back in when power was restored...This also led to an impromptu emergency cooking of six alaskan halibut filets and two large salmon filets which turned out to be an amazing dinner and, well, food for the entire week. (Sorry, no decent photos of that)

Throughout the holidays we kept saying that once we got back from vacation we would start the food challenge again to help make up for our poor eating decisions that come with holiday baking. However, coming back to a still unfinished kitchen was hardly motivating. I also have been working late hours which is not conducive to many home made meals.

On top of all of that, here is the new dinner dilemma...

I watched a video online... you know, the ones about how commercialized, meat has become. The kind of video that PETA would produce in the interest of vying for humanely raised animals. The kind of video that makes you wonder who would work for such companies, and do they hire criminals with violent tendencies as an 'acceptable' outlet for their anger? The kind of video that makes you understand why meat in the supermarket is so much cheaper than that at the farmers market. The kind of video that makes you cry.

Yes, I watched one of those.

I also skimmed over some articles that re-emphasized what they put in ground meat and how important it is to, if you are buying meat at all, buy freshly ground meat guaranteed to have nothing added to it. Especially pink stuff.

And then I realized I had one more pack of ground turkey in the fridge. 

Do you understand my problem?  I have new constant debates in my head for every meal.

That became the weekend of meatloaves and veggie meat balls. Because one of us watched some of the video and thought to HIMSELF "hmmm I'm kinda hungry, and I want a burger". 

Veggie meat balls - for lack of a better term

Surprisingly though, they came out well. A bit on the pasty side. Thus the beginning of the quest for the perfect veggieball recipe. Eggplant is my new friend. I just have to figure out how to cook it.

The week after my unfortunate encounter with said video and week of meatloaves and veggieballs, I found free range chicken eggs and chicken breast a the farmer's market. This may have to be a weekly thing, when I can get there. I really like the idea of happy chickens.

I didn't make it to the farmers market this morning for happy chicken because I opted to pick up some raw whole milk, cheese and eggs that I think are from happy chickens from a farm that travels in from Brenham, TX every other week. (Brenham, TX is the home of Bluebell ice cream, a local Texas favorite) I have not tried this farm before and I don't think I've ever had raw milk, but I love the idea. (I do need to find out about the eggs though, it was raining and there was a long line behind me so I didn't ask too many questions.)

So here I am, on Superbowl weekend dreading going to the store.Not because of the crowd, but because I don't know what to eat.

And as much as I hate it, I have Texas brisket in the fridge which I think will make a very nice sandwich on the 'real food' bread I bought today. 

"happy cow, happy cow, happy cow"......

I love this...