Movie in the Park

Every summer we look forward to Film Night in the Park when our little downtown San Anselmo hosts a movie night a couple of times a month in our little park.

Film Night features outdoor films around SF and Marin. There is no fee but it is kosher to make a donation to the organization:

http://www.filmnight.org/

Tonight we will be going to see Wall-E and I’ve put to gether an easy picnic so we can all enjoy food and wine while watching our movie in the park.

Need:

1 suitcase on rolling wheels (Stuff with pillows and blankets)

Food:

Pan Fried Raviolis

Proscuitto, Gyuryre and Carmelized Onion Pizza on Focaccia Bread

Roasted Eggplant and Zuchinni Pizza with Herbed Goat Cheese

Greek Pizza on Flatbread

Paper Lanterns

Here is an easy project for any party or event. I made these paper lanterns (without lights).

Need: 8 pieces of scrapbooking paper, double sided tape, pencil, cardboard, compas

Directions: The dimensions of your paper will determine the size of your lantern. I used 12″x12″ paper therefore I measured out on the cardboard a circle with the compas measuring 12″ across. Cut the cardboard circle out, cut it in half and used it as a stencil. Next fold the 8 pieces of paper in half and then trace the half circle onto the folded sheet of paper so that when you cut it out it will unfold into a full circle.

Once you have all 8 pieces of paper folded, traced and cut out you get to start esembling the lantern. Take the backside of one of your folded circles and put the double sided tape along the edge. Take the next folded circle and align it on top of the other one, pressing them together firmly so the tape adheres.

Repete this with all of the folded circles untill they are all taped and stacked on top of one another. Tape the outside of the top folded circle and take the bottom folded circle and adhere them together.

Spicy Pickled Carrots

The inspiration for these carrots is driven purely from Tartine Bakery. When you order a panini at Tartine they pair them with these wonderfully spicy and tart pickled carrots.

Due to my Fit Club, I’ve been eating carrots a lot; so I thought that these carrots would bring variety to my day to day snacks.

Need: Jar, carrots, white wine vinegar, water, garlic, onions, hot chili pepper, sage, thyme and oregano

Directions: slice carrots to fit into jar. Measure out a water-vinegar mixture equaling a ratio of 2:1 (ex: 2 cups water, 1 cup vinegar). Remove skin from garlic and smash the garlic. Slice the onions length wide. Slice chili pepper in half add all of the above to the jar with the carrots. Sprinkle in fresh or dried herbs to you liking.  Add the water-vinegar mixture and refrigerate.

I enjoy these about a day after marinating in the vinegar mixture. This is a quick pickling process and is not meant to be refrigerated.

42 Park Road, Fairfax, CA

Our wedding will be held where the Fairfax Town Hall meetings are held (also known as the Fairfax Womens Club, but Lenny prefers to refer to it as the Town Hall)

The building was created in and is surrounded by a natural habitat of trees and a creek that runs behind the hall.

For the wedding we will have both indoor and outdoor seating

registry

Lenny and I are fortunate to have a nice home and wonderful surroundings. We we’re pretty simple and don’t feel we need items such as one would order off of a registry. Therefore, we will not be doing a typical registry and we don’t expect anyone to bring gifts to the wedding. If you do choose to bring a gift we would love for you to help us out with cash, for our mortgage fund or home depot gift certificates so that one day our house will be all fixed up and ready for a party at our own home!

Yelp FitClub

For those of you that don’t already know what I do for work, my life is composed of calling businesses every day and spreading the good word of the Yelp ad program to biz owners.

Let’s do some comparisons to what Jacqui used to do:

As a teacher I would play dodgeball with the kids.
As a yelper I play phone tag with businesses.

As a teacher I bring my own lunch.
As a yelper the company supplies us with odwalla, frozen burritos, soda, kettle chips and bagels!

Long story short, I’ve been living the good life and it is time for a reality check.

YELP FITCLUB

Over a span of 6 weeks we will work together and challenge one another to get into shape and not fall into the +20 lb hole that most yelpers fall into.

What this means to me are consistent workouts, moving to a more alkaline diet, continuing my “no sugar” rule for 6 more weeks.

My goal is to loose 20 lbs.

MyFitnessPal – Calorie Counter

For the Record

I had mentioned in a previous post that Lenny was romantically challenged. For the record that statement was an overexaggeration and is false. Here is supporting evidence:

He officially proposed to me, on a hike in front of a waterfall, he removed my ring, asked me to marry him, I said yes, he put the ring back on and our dog Lucy was our witness.

Hotels for Bourcy/Fitzhugh Wedding

Tips for hotels

By now if you all are looking at this I’ll assume you got the golden ticket to the Bourcy-Fitzhugh wedding. There are plenty of hotels in and around Marin but I recommend that you make reservations ASAP because Nascar is in town that weekend so hotels will and have already filled up quickly.

I have 15 rooms blocked out at the Courtyard Marriott in Larkspur, CA. Feel free to call around for better rates, I can hold these rooms until a week before the wedding.

For any questions email or call me!

Breathe deeply . . . Its Friday

You know it is Friday when:

One third of your office pod is gone
You cheers to a beer at 3:30
The bus driver skips stops to get home early, even when the bus is not half full.
The green peace marketers are not outside of my office.

getting engaged and planning a wedding

Who thought getting married and planning a wedding would be easy?

{insert} I raise my hand

My fiance and I have been together for 5 years so it was almost a mutual agreement to get married, he let me choose the ring and we started planning the wedding before we made the official announcement that we were engaged! Good thing I don’t mind that he is romantically challenged.

I thought planning a wedding was easy, and the second I start planning I get a thousand questions popped on me that I have no answer for: does the reception space allow any caterer, do you want the caterers to provide plates, are there service fees involved, who do you hire to clean up after the wedding is over and everyone is drunk?

I’m confident I’ll pull everything together, but here are my favorite back pocket secrets to planning this wedding so far:

pingg.com
stylemepretty.com
diybride.com