and hot cocoa for dessert….hopefully this will make my head cold go away. Feeling pretty gross today. Gotta feed that cold though right? Stay tuned for more meaningful blog posts….when I get my head on straight. Passover is this week though…and that means lots of soup can be had.

Not what I had for dinner tonight (i took the picture from online)...but doesn't matzo ball soup sound divine? Happy passover!!!

I missed Passover at my grandmothers this year, but got to experience it in SF at a friends house. Thanks Todd and Amanda. One of the main things I miss about not doing it with family though…are my grandma’s homemade egg noodles. I’m not sure if the below is the recipe she uses…but it looks awful close. So…I’ll share it with you today…and try it later this week.

Makes 5 dozen rolled egg noodles

Ingredients

* 6 eggs, beaten
* 1/2 cup water
* 1/4 cup potato starch
* salt
* oil, for pan

Directions

1. Mix hot/warm water with potato starch.
2. Slowly add to beaten eggs, stirring well — it should not be lumpy.
3. Salt to taste.
4. Heat small teflon pan or skillet.
5. First wipe with oil on a paper towel.
6. Using a ladle, ladle a thin, even amount into the pan.
7. Fry on medium heat.
8. When set flip and then immediately remove/flip to plate.
9. With wetter side up, roll as tight as possible.
10. Slice into 1/4 inch circles.
11. Do not unroll.
12. Continue frying until no egg mixture is left.
13. Mix the egg mixture each time before you ladle into the frying pan or potato starch will all sink to bottom.
14. Serve in chicken soup.
15. Can be made a couple days in advance and placed in a air tight container in the refrigerator.

When I first started thinking about getting married, and I started trolling the wedding blogs, I was always drawn to the photos of the shoes that the bride and wedding party wore. I’m still a little torn as to what I’m going to wear.

Here is my dilemma. I always wanted to wear sneakers at my wedding. I’m a converse kind of girl. I love the photos. I think its adorable.

One thing that makes these photos so cute though are the fact that all the groomsmen and bridesmaids are wearing them too….

I’m a converse girl…but Mick is an Adidas guy. So when he was buying custom shoes for his dudes…he went with Adidas. I am letting him have this. It’s his wedding too. Now here is the rub. I don’t think that Converse will look good in photos with all of his Adidas, so do I get a pair of matching shoes with his dudes? My dress is ivory, and the color of the shoes would likely be white….if I went with Adidas.

Where Mick has decided to do custom shoes for his dudes, I am having my girls all wear different color shoes, based off of our colors, and gathering inspiration from this photo. They can buy any shoe…just in the color assigned. I know that some of my girls dislike heels as much as I do and I want them to be comfortable.  Comfort first.

So again…my problem. I hate heels, so those were never an option. If I wear sneakers, I can’t pick a color, unless its all of them. Offbeat Bride has some really great shoe posts, including one on flats. Do I just find a cute pair of flats?

HydraHeart makes custom bridal flats. She can make them in a custom fabric, and if I was to go in this direction, I could get a fabric that incorporated ALL of our colors, and maybe that can be my fun shoe solution?

I am a huge fan of colored shoes. I guess if I can’t go the Converse route….I should just go the bright color route.

W

What are your thoughts on the shoes for a bride? Comfort on my special day comes first…but I of course want to look good. It’s my wedding after all.

I just bought 1.5 yards of this vintage fabric from Little Green Notebook’s stash. She was selling some of her old stuff…and I scored with this. Now the question is…what do I do with it?

Not sure how many of you know that I was in a sorority in college. San Diego State- Kappa Delta, Beta Rho Chapter, 1996. I am not your typical sorority girl. Never have been and never will be…and thats why I liked KD and they liked me. Since moving to the bay area, I haven’t had too much interaction with the house.  Being an alumni is difficult when you dont live close. However, some of my sisters are my best friends, a few in my wedding, and since Facebook blew up…I have been in contact with more now than ever.

Which brings us to the Shamrock and Run. A few of you may know that Stephanie Anderson, of Biggest Loser fame was in fact in my sorority. Well, due to her being a huge motivator to all of us, and this years philanthropy choice being a good one…I’ve decided to make the trek down to SD to do the 5K.

It will be a great opportunity to see many of my sisters that I haven’t seen in years, in addition to meeting the current Kappa Delta’s and seeing how our house is holding up. It will also be great motivation for me to get running in the next 3-4 weeks. I can’t even run a mile…let alone a 5K. More about how I’m going to attempt this in a later blog entry. A picnic following the race will be a nice opportunity to catch up with my old friends.

This year, Kappa Delta Sorority is in partnership with Prevent Child Abuse America and Olive Crest Organization of Mission Valley to raise money for this important cause.

The Cause:
After nearly 30 years of partnership with Prevent Child Abuse America, Kappa Delta Sorority has been able to raise $10 million towards this organization.

20% of the 5K Walk/ Run’s proceeds will be sent to Prevent Child Abuse America Nationally while 80% will stay here in San Diego in the Mission Valley community to benefit the Olive Crest Organization targeted towards helping the lives of neglected and abused children.

I know that they are still looking for additional sponsors as well, so if this topic hits you personally, or just tugs at your heartstrings and you have something to contribute…let them know. shamrock.betarho@gmail.com

I’ve had a few commissions over the past week, and am still have some to be done. I wanted to share..as I always do.

I have a few 2T’s on hand…so a walrus was requested.

Can you do a Gi? With an Australian Flag? You bet.

Feed me icecream? Sounds delicious.

Drop me a line if you need some baby clothes!

This might be the coolest thing I’ve seen in a while as far as furniture goes. Don’t know how much it is…dont care, as I’m going to just sit and drool. Resource Furniture is full of gems…check out the site. All of their space saving furniture is fantastic.

you would THINK its just a couch

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I am marrying a non-Jew. I’m OK with that. The heart wants what the heart wants. I haven’t been terribly religious for the better part of my adulthood, but I still wanted to find a way to incorporate some Jewish traditions into my non-Jewish wedding. The ceremony wont be officiated by a rabbi, and will incorporate our own thoughts and ideas, but for me as well as my family, I wanted to add a few familiar touches.

A chuppah is out. Our venue doesn’t really appear to be chuppah friendly, but the area where we are getting married is an alcove that sort of resembles a chuppah in its own right. Its built in, so we will make it work.

I saw this explanation and love it… The bride and groom are escorted to the Chuppah. On their wedding day, the bride and groom are viewed as equal in status to a queen and king. As such, they should be escorted and not walk alone. As they are escorted to the Chuppah, joyful music and singing also accompany them.

With that, we will likely be escorted…regardless of the chuppah being there or not.

The main tradition that I wanted incorporated into the ceremony is the breaking of the glass. 

The wedding ceremony ends when the grooms steps on and breaks a glass. The custom of breaking a glass under the is derived from the Talmud. It is written that a rabbi broke a vase during a wedding feast in order to warn those present against excessive joy. Even during times of great joy, we should remember the tragic destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.

I think that we might take the less religious explanation of the glass breaking and go with the following story. Maybe we will have it read by the person who marries us.

The breaking of the glass at the end of a wedding ceremony serves to remind us of two very important aspects of a marriage.  The bride and groom – and everyone – should consider these marriage vows as an irrevocable act – just as permanent and final as the breaking of this glass is unchangeable. But the breaking of the glass also is a warning of the frailty of a marriage.

That sometimes a single thoughtless act, breech of trust, or infidelity can damage a marriage in ways that are very difficult to undo – just as it would be so difficult to undo the breaking of this glass. (Bride) and (Groom) knowing that this marriage is permanent, you should strive to show each other the love and respect befitting your spouse and love of your life. Our prayer today is that their lives together would be longer than it would take to fit these broken pieces of glass back together again.

And…there will definitely be a Hora at the reception.

The most recent Spam comment left on my blog…  I mean…its a valiant effort….

Hi! I want to say thanks for an interesting site about a subject I have had an interest in for a long time now. I have been lurking and reading the posts avidly so just wanted to express my thanks for providing me with some very good reading material. I look forward to more, and taking a more active part in the discussions here.

So a week ago I decided it was time to detoxify my body (and loose a little weight in the process) so I went ahead and started The Master Cleanse.  Mick was leaving for Vegas and I was going to be home alone for almost a week…figured it was the perfect time to start.

Most people who attempt to cleanse their body using The Master Cleanse go a total of 9-10 days. Today is day 7 for me and I have thrown in the towel.

The Master Cleanse is a lemon cleanse that consists of 6-12 glasses of the below ingredients.

• 2 Tablespoons Fresh Lemon Juice
• 2 Tablespoons Rich Maple Syrup
• 1/10 Teaspoon Cayenne Pepper Powder – or to taste (as much as you can stand)
• 8 ounces (250 milliliters of Pure Water

I tended to just make a large batch of the lemonade sans water and add it to my water all day. 1 cup of maple syrup, 1 cup of lemon, and add the cayenne to each individual glass.

Basically, I’m didn’t eat for a week.  You are also supposed to drink a herbal laxative tea at night, and do a salt water flush in the morning for the first few days to clear your system…so with the lemonade all you are doing is ingesting fluid. And TMI, but you eventually stop pooping. These two things flush all that out of you, till your intake and output is all liquid.

My Experience with it this time around….

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We are still working out the logistics of our bar set up. Do we host the bar, do we do a cash bar with wine on the table and a signature drink? We need to figure out what we can afford with our budget, but we are leaning toward the latter. We need to chat with our catering manager and see what the pricing for that would be, but all of this talk of signature drinks got me thinking…what would we choose?

Mick is a bourbon guy, and Im not really a huge fan, so do we just go with one or two? I would feel bad being selfish and not letting him have bourbon, because after all…its his thing. Maybe Mick has the Mick’s Manhattan?

I also got to thinking that whatever we do decide on…likely has to be supplied by the bar, so we cant get too crazy with ingredients…but here are a few that I found to sound absolutely refreshing, summery and delish! These all came from The Knot’s Signature Cocktail Page... What would YOUR signature cocktail be? (more…)