Wedding Stuff

Getting excited about my bachelorette party! Since it's an out of town trip, it's going to be small (thank goodness, less tipsy girls to keep track of, the task of which can be likened to herding cats...) I'm leaving tonight in t-minus one hour and forty minutes. We'll do wine and munchies tonight (cheesecake bites!) then farmer's market in the morning in ATL. Mani/pedis at 10 am, lunch plus free wine tasting at 12 pm, then some shopping at H&M followed by going back to my MOH's to recharge and change. Dinner at Holy Taco followed by dancing at Cosmo Lava in ATL (or wiggling in my case, but a bum knee isn't really going to stop me).

While I've been killing time waiting for my fiance to get home from class (he has the civic, so we're swapping cars at 5:30 so I can go), I've been compiling fun songs for our wedding playlist. Not on this list is the processional (Cannon D), exit music (Ave Maria), first dance (At Last, Etta James), Father/Daughter dance (What a Wonderful World), Attendant Intro Songs (undecided), Bouquet Toss Song (All the Single Ladies) and Garter Toss Song (Another One Bites the Dust), plus we're doing a final dance to our song (Crazy by Aerosmith).

Despite being bored...

Ok, however, despite being bored in earlier post, I must still crow about how excited I am about my new horsey shirt! Yay for more horsey shirts :)

 Pretty in pink! Epic :)

Bored

Really getting tired of being injured. First the broken ribs, now the quad tear at my knee. I can't even go out and work a pony for fear of making the tear worse and keeping me grounded longer. The doc says it'll take a solid 4 weeks to heal, and that I can get back on the horse for light work in a couple weeks, but I am tired of this bullshit. And I sure as hell want to STOP injuring myself...

Recipe time!

Winter is coming, so what better time to cook? Post your favorites and tag your friends, and then tell them to post one and tag you back to share the wealth. 

A cool weather favorite in my household: Pumpkin and Sausage Soup

I found this recipe online and tweaked it because we LOVE spicy. I know some people hear pumpkin and say "What?" but I PROMISE this recipe is amazing!!! The original is here and is not very spicy, and if you can't do hot at all, you can do it with non spicy smoked sausage (ahem, Debbie Gray!): http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pumpkin-and-sausage-soup/detail.aspx but if you like spicy like we like spicy, then continue reading below. Oh yeah, and for a vegetarian twist, you can use veggie broth and substitute the meat with something else. It won't be the same, but I think it'll still work. Be prepared to SHARE because even with the reduced amounts I posted below, this recipe makes a LOT of soup.

Ingredients

• 1 pound HOT andouille sausage, sliced and diced how you like it
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 1/4 cups chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 1/2 pounds pumpkin puree
• 4 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• Cayenne pepper to taste (I think we used at least a tablespoon or two, the volume of this soup is crazy even with cutting the chicken stock amount back to 4 cups instead of 7)

Directions

1. Brown sausage in skillet with 2 tablespoons butter.
2. Add onion and cook until soft/translucent. Add thyme and pumpkin and cook approximately 5 minutes.
3. Add broth and brown sugar and stir well. Cover and simmer over low heat for 45 minutes, or until pumpkin is tender/good and squishy.
4. Stir in cream and remaining 2 tablespoons butter (probably best if you soften or melt the butter first). Heat but do not boil too furiously. This is the point where you stir furiously and really work that cream in. Serve with some good bread and don't forget to pour yourself a glass of your favorite alcohol. Make it a big one ;)

Quote of the Day :)

You see a mouse-trap. I see free cheese and a challenge.

Pony Wars

 Well played, pony. You win this round, but next time I shall prevail.

Funk Day

Kind of in a funk this morning that is based on remnants of last night. I'm still really hurt over my mom's disinterest in my wedding. I'm also really concerned that maybe I hurt my knee worse than I thought I did. I still haven't been able to saddle up and actually ride for almost a week now. I'm worried that I've torn something that is slowly separating further, which is about how it feels. Every once in awhile, I feel a little fibrous snap or pop surrounding my knee cap, almost like how it feels when you pull a scab off skin that's not ready to release it, so it stretches, twinges, and inevitably releases and hurts, except this is internal.

I feel like I'm just winding myself up tighter and tighter, but I hesitate to call busy friends and try to get them to play boo-hoo sounding board or shrink when they definitely have more important things going on in their lives other than my problems. At the root of it all, I feel lonesome. I second guess myself and wonder if I should even bother some of my friends and acquaintances... I mean, I don't want to invite myself over and cramp someone's style. I feel like such a common theme in my life, be it with family, best friends, casual friends, anybody, is that I invest so much of myself and put so much effort into maintaining the relationship that they don't have to. It makes me feel like a pest and like my relationships are unbalanced, and it makes me sad.