This weekend we threw a party that I declared a “saying of goodbye to the outdoors – with s’mores.” It was raining, but held off for about an hour or so while we made our treats around the campfire. Eventually it got to be too heavy and we scampered back inside, “full of marshmallow“.

An excellent way to serve a large group s’mores is to take everything out of their packages. I recruited two friends to help me unwrap the supply of Hershey bars I had and break them up into segments of three. I put them on a platter with already-broken-in-half graham crackers and put the marshmallows in a bowl. Then I passed the skewers to the left, followed by the marshmallows, followed by the platter, and it worked out really well since everyone was naturally in a circle around the campfire.

This is Corny McCorn Pants, but I will never, ever get over the deeply happy feeling of having my home full of friends. It’s… indescribable. There is nothing that makes me happier, and with the recession sucking the money out of almost everyone it’s such a nice evening out for people for way less than ten bucks a person (if you count the subway and everyone bringing a block of cheese or bottle of wine or six pack or box of crackers or something.) And it gives me the motivation to REALLY clean my house. Win-win.

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photo credit: flickr user AviatorDave / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Sunday we were at Scott and Liz’s house for a party, and I noticed a bag of oyster crackers sitting open on the counter. I grabbed a handful, threw one in my mouth, and walked back towards the garden where the party was going on. It was dry and harder than I expected, and they were a little bland, but it wasn’t a big deal. A few more chews, though, let out a burst of awful taste (liver, I found out later) that completely overwhelmed my mouth. I doubled back quickly to spit it out in the trash can. Scott’s a foodie, so my conclusion was that they were the kind of cracker only a person with a refined taste would appreciate. I checked the package to see what kind of awful stuff they were serving at this party anyway, and then I was completely horrified.

I found Honey, their springer spaniel, gave her the rest of my handful, and apologized for eating her treats.

1. My new library cabinet. Two hours before the eBay auction ended, I put in a max bid for $300 and snapped my laptop shut to avoid temptation of over-bidding. Out of 18 bids, mine was the highest, and I snagged it for $225 which is nothing short of completely ridiculous. I could easily turn around and sell this for $500. It took $160 to get it here; I hired two hipster guys off of Craigslist who would have been even cheaper if they didn’t get stuck in traffic. They drove from Brooklyn to Long Island, loaded it up and dropped it off at our apartment. I’m slowly filling the 60 drawers up. (Well, 57. Three of the drawers are still full of the Dewey decimal system cards.) We went to pick it up ourselves, but it didn’t fit in the car. It is way bigger than I realized when I was bidding; five feet tall and three feet wide. We’ll be filling the drawers for years to come.

2. Realizing I know my chocolate chip cookie recipe by heart. I made cookies from scratch this weekend with minimal measuring and entirely from memory. I didn’t get to take photos before they got hoovered.

3. Throwing a party and having lots of people come. My house was filled with new friends this weekend, and older ones, too. We discovered an application called Remote that lets guests request songs in my iTunes library from their iPhones. It made for a cool mix of music all night.

Some of my photos from the party are below. Normally I’m not a “post tons of photos of my friends” kind of blogger, but flipping through I realized that everyone I had photos of are “internety people” (they started a Twitter hashtag for our party, which is so nerdy and fun), so I figured it was fair game. I didn’t get everyone, though! I quit taking pictures early in the night and someone grabbed my camera for part of it, but there are people missing from the photos. If you have links to them, send them to me!

We had people sleeping on our air mattresses and couch. Having overnight guests is a tiny bit stressful (mostly because of the dogs), but I have a religious-like devotion to hosting houseguests. I think it is very important to open one’s home up and share your space with friends in the intimate, overnight-stay sense, even if it disrupts your schedule a bit, and to do it well. The reward is making close friends with people, because you really bond when everyone is sitting around drinking coffee and eating pancakes in their PJs.

PS – Dave, you left your underwear here. Phase one is complete!

I met Katy at SxSW this year and she invited me to a get together her company hosted last night.  We emailed back and forth about the details for a bit.

“I have a total girl question” I wrote, “what are you wearing?”

She said that, because it was mostly nerdy developer guys (and we say “nerdy” in the nicest way) she tries to “hold down the fort” in cute tops and high heels. Since I rarely get out of my sweats all day, let alone ever put on fancy shoes, I jumped at the chance don four-inch heels and go to a party. Healthy feet be damned!

The event was held in one of those only-in-New York, 100-year-old former factory loft spaces, and the floor beams had wide spaces between them. This meant anyone with tall, skinny heels on their shoes, like me, would be walking across the room and suddenly go all awkward and nearly “bite it” as one of these shoe spikes found the exact spot to sink into (usually with an involuntary “WAAAAHHH!”, wide eyes, and floppy outstretched arms).

This happened as I was heading for the door, right in front of these two girls who looked at me completely disgusted that I had gotten so drunk that I couldn’t walk properly. They watched for a moment as I tried to unstick my self, but the weight of my step had wedged my heel in too tight for a simple back-track and pull out. I thought I could brace myself on the wall to my right, but it was juuuuust far enough away to seem reachable and still make me look like a complete idiot as I flailed for it and missed.

“Are you ok?” one of them asked, and I started to laugh. What else was there to do?

“I’m stuck in the floor! My damn heel!” I pointed, and they got it, and started laughing, too.

Eventually I was saved and struck up a conversation with them.  I may not be remembered for my killer good looks or brilliant business ideas, I can be remembered as the lady who got her shoe caught and looked completely drunk doing it.

I’m ok with this.

Have an awesome weekend.

“Total eye candy.”
Bake it Pretty has a fantastic assortment of cupcake papers, vintage toppers and birthday candles, and a huge variety of sprinkles, sugars and “jimmies”.  I’m really like the photography, too. It’s professional looking and I can imagine that all of the tiny-scale photo shoots were a really fun time. It makes the store fun to browse.  The best part about this online shop, though, is the prices.  I’ve been noticing a lot of these specialty baking stores popping up around the interwebs (the designer cupcake papers are getting huge!) and decided to do some comparison shopping.  Trust me, if you want something special, buy it here.

This quirky cake topper was my favorite cake out of the bunch, so I bought it.  I’m excited to have it peddling around the top of my birthday cake!  Woo hoo!

Visit her on etsy or at bakeitpretty.com

{p.s. If you call after you’ve placed your order in a bit of a panic because you’re spacey and forgot to change your address with PayPal, so your package is going to be sent to the WRONG address, she’s REALLY nice about changing it for you. Ahem.}

Rob and I love parties. The latest brewing is a party to celebrate Oregon’s admission to the United States, 150 years ago, the anniversary of which happens to be on February 14, the date of that OTHER holiday people like to fuss over. While designing the invites, Rob asked me if Oregon was anything fun, like how Missouri is the “show me” state. I did a quick search on Wikipedia and we burst into an adolescent fit of laughter. Turns out Oregon is the “Beaver State”. Awesome.

I know I’m getting beer brewed in Oregon, but I’m trying to think of other stuff to do, too. Any ideas?

So there’s this poem about crying called “Yesterday I Cried” by Iyanla Vanzant. I won’t put it here, but you should Google it. I went through something like that on Saturday. I was pretty drunk, to tell you the truth, and the fact that I was intoxicated made all of the “hold it together” we all have just sort of go away, and when it did, all I had left was a whole lot of sad that came bubbling up. I was happy, too, of course, I was with dear friends and they rock my world. But boy oh man, all that sad just came slamming up through my body, totally unexpectedly, and it hit me in the back of my face, and I gasped and put my hands to my cheeks to hold it all in, but it was too big, and it came gushing out of the front, sending me scrambling for tissues and privacy.

I cried and I cried and I cried, sitting on the floor of the bathroom with my knees pulled up to my forehead. I forgot to lock the door, though, and my buddy Jake came in having to pee and I probably scared him half to death. Jake is really a wonderful dude, so he sat with me, and I told him that I had decided to cry out all of the unhappy all at once, and it was taking a while, and I made him cry, too, which I felt bad about. And then I felt better. And then I threw up.

That is all.

Saturday was our fourth annual Christmas/Hanukkah party. It was all the usual: old friends, new friends, lots of food, lots of wine, {sandwich eating}, random drunk guys knocking on the door wanting beer, YouTube celebrities, arguments about religion, shenanigans, and epic dreidel competitions.

Stu! and Carissa came over early to help me frost the sugar cookies. We tried to spell out “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hanukkah”, but a few letters broke.

They were supposed to be frosted with red, green, blue and white frosting, but the red was way closer to pink that any sort of Christmasy color.

Oh well, they were delicious anyway.

Just for fun, one of my new favorite people, Rebecca Coriss and her world-famous YouTube video! I hadn’t met her before our party, and she didn’t know anyone that was going to be there (I don’t think), except her boyfriend and our buddy David. I’m glad she decided that she was going to come be a part of festivities instead of being shy. We did our best to make her feel awkward by making her sit front and center on the couch while we all gathered around and watched her YouTube video on the big screen, but she took it all in stride. Hats off to you, Rebecca. Hope you had fun.

I wasn’t kidding about the drunk guy, either. He pounded on my front door mid-party. A few of my guests were outside smoking and tried to get beer out of them…? Dunno. They came in leaving him behind, so he knocked, and I opened the door while my friend Dan hissed behind me “Amber! Just close the door!”

“No, no, dude,” I said. “I totally got this.” (I wasn’t DRUNK drunk, but I wasn’t… well… anyway)

“Can I get a beer?!” he asked loudly. It was clear he was already really drunk.

“Um… this is a private party? So no?” I guess I should have just given him a beer, but he was weird and I didn’t want to turn my back to him.

“YOU MEAN I CAN’T GET NO BEER? AWWW MAN!”

“Yeah, dude, um… Merry Christmas?” I said, and I shut the door.

Good old Bed Stuy.

The rest of the party went fairly well, although I can’t figure out how my stove got coated with wine, and I burned the roof of my mouth on the homemade pizza.

Ah well. Merry Cristmas and Happ Hanukkah.

1. Keep steadfast in your hunt for the perfect purse. It will be worth it in the end.

2. If you don’t read the paper, cancel your subscription.

3. Irish car bombs are fun! But only once.

4. Meeting people in real life from flickr is fun and not creepy! (Happy anniversary, G!)

5. You have to let bread rise twice, or it won’t be as pretty. If you can’t wait, though, it’ll still taste good having risen only once. Also, if you need it to keep for several days, undercook it a little bit. When you’re ready for a slice, cut off your slightly doughy portion and finish it in the toaster over. Fresh bread for days! Make sure you keep it wrapped tightly in plastic wrap, though, or it will mold.

6. Tow truck drivers really do say “ten four!”

7. Seriously, don’t buy hard to register cars, like, say, vintage Volkswagons you can’t drive. Really. Really. Just don’t.

8. I build pretty snazzy shelves!

9. It’s fun to get up the day after Thanksgiving if you have fun guys to hang out with. And totally worth it if you want to score a Wii.

10. Speaking of Wii’s, you really do need to respect that they are “physical activity”.

11. I don’t need an expensive bed.

12. I don’t need two Thanksgiving dinners.

13. Photography is not too hard to learn. You should get a book, though, to help.

14. To clean vomited calamari out of your car: 1. Make your husband do it. 2. Be smug in the fact that you have something with which to mock certain friends with for a good long while.

15. There are a lot of REALLY amazing people in Puerto Rico who will help you should you find a dirty hurt dog and want to adopt them.

16. Dogs > diamonds.

17. 50mm lenses are AWESOME!

18. The iPhone is NOT over-hyped. It is awesome.

19. The only marriage anyone should ever have an opinion on is their own.

20. Rainbow Christmas > White Christmas.

21. Bringing your own shopping bags to the grocery store isn’t too hard once you get into the habit, and so much nicer than lugging gross, bad-for-the-earth plastic bags that cut into your hands.

22. When you are too sick to decorate your Christmas tree, it is wonderful to have friends come over and do it for you.

23. When you are part of a family, you can make up silly phrases, words, and songs and then use them on a regular basis. (In our family, some of them are, “Happy Dog Face”, “Happy Dog Foot”, “Uncertain Foot”, “Kind Words”, “Furminating”, “Snearaly”, “Sweetie Ears” and “Puppy Pile”. Also, the “Mountain Laurel Song” and the Song for Chubby Dogs.)

24. Rob and I have nearly the same political views. I honestly didn’t check before I married him, but I’m glad that worked out.

25. Bring your camera everywhere.

26. You can’t split a White Castle Crave Case three ways without risking a horrible stomach ache.

27. I learned a lot about the real estate and geography of western Brooklyn. In fact, I’m pretty much an expert on western Brooklyn neighborhoods.

28. Keep your eye on Tino. He’ll escape.

29. Ask tons of “stupid” questions if you’re confused about your health insurance. It will save you hundreds of dollars.

30. Dogs get colds! Who knew?!

31. Peeps are fun!

32. The dogs like goldfish, and so do I.

33. My husband makes breakfast in bed for me on my birthday. SCORE!

34. Good photography comes from the heart and soul and eyes. It does not come from the camera.

35. If you’re feeling blue, throw a dinner party with true friends who don’t care that you threw it together last minute. It will be good for your soul.

36. Margarine is the devil.

37. It’s ok to make $350,000 impulse purchases for sentimental reasons. Wait, hang on, this one I’m not sure about yet.

38. Ehhhhhh, you can cut your own hair. Well, I can.

39. If you have no dishwasher, you need to just buckle down and handwash on a regular basis, otherwise you will be stuck with Mount Dishmore.

40. Podcamp people are cool.

41. Living in Brooklyn suits me.