Question of the Day

First of all, thanks to everyone who commented yesterday on the colors. You guys really helped and when I get back from the States at the end of April I'll probably start ordering towels and other accessories to go with that bathroom.

Onto the Question of the Day!

This is inspired by a conversation that my best friend and I had last week.

Do you think it's appropriate for a couple to have a large wedding, register for gifts and request a shower if they both have been previously married?



Your thoughts?

Decorating Help

OK...I need help with decorating.

This is the tile on my bathroom wall:





















This is the tile on the bathroom floor:















What's a coordinating color I could use for bathmat, towels, etc? I was thinking perhaps a dark gold or a brown, but I don't like things being too matchy. As far as a different color that would compliment it, I'm really not sure.

Any suggestions?

Confessions

- I love veggies and I love broccoli, but I refuse to eat it if it's only the stems, I have to have the flowery part of it on top to be able to eat it

- I use light cream for a pasta sauce that I make. I may have took a few sips of it while cooking. Ok...like six sips. It's good!

-Although I'm excited to go to the States, I'm already nervous. I hate flying and I hate leaving Boomer behind. I always feel like he's going to think I abandoned him.

-We have a new American family that moved into our complex. Am I happy? No...because it's this chick I know from Bible Study and her son, who is around 8, interrupts us all throughout the Bible Study. If you can't control your children, especially those that are that old, then I have issues with you as a person and as a parent. Also..they have a German Shepard who wants to bark at Boomer and I everytime we go outside. Umm...that's not going to fly. (I'm sure you guys think I'm awful for not liking someone that goes to Bible Study with me, but I feel like keeping it real)

-Putting together my wine rack was one of the highlights of my day. Does that make me an alcoholic or a handyman?

- I watched Precious last night and cried. I also watched a National Parks documentary in which they released the wolves into Yellowstone. I cried at that too.

Photoshop Sunday

I've been working a lot lately on editing photos and using textures. From time to time I get in these moods where I like to use one type of editing and use it on a variety of different pictures. This post is going to be about those photos. I've tried to do almost a postcard with some of them, others not so much.

Veggie, Veggie, Fruit, Fruit!

Just a few lyrics from an old Disney attraction.

Seriously though, I am going to discuss fruits and veggies today. Why? Well..why not?

I've been on a health kick since Sean deployed. Partly because I want to take better care of myself and partly just because I want to look smokin' hot.

Part of that of course is dependent on exercise, but the other part is my eating habits. I've never really had an aversion to fruits or vegetables, so that makes it a lot easier for me. However, I get bored just eating things like carrot sticks and tomatoes so I have to mix it up a bit.

My favorite way to get some fruit and veggies in my diet is a Green Monster. I first heard about them from Megan and I couldn't wait to try it myself. Basically the way I make mine is to add a whole banana, a whole kiwi, sliced with skin on, skim milk, a big handful of spinach leaves, some vanilla yogurt and strawberries if I have them. Blend it all up and there you go. A perfect way to get in some fruits and veggies.



I've also been roasting a lot of my vegetables. Carrots roasted with olive oil and sprinkled with thyme is delish. Did you know carrots taste sweet after they've been roasted? It's true. Today I roasted some asparagus with olive oil, kosher salt, fresh ground pepper and a sprinkle of garlic salt. Heavnely!



Do you guys have any veggie or fruit dishes you'd like to share? I'd love to hear them!

Your Happy Place

I'm kind of at a loss of what to talk about today.

Today has been a rainy, low-key day. I've worked out, watched Have You Heard About the Morgans and also managed to split open my finger on a blender blade while washing it. I swear...I was never accident-prone as a child and so I'm making up for it as an adult.

Since it is one of those days and I need a bit of brightness on a gloomy day, I'll talk about a happy subject. Where is your happy place? As in, where in your travels have you been that being there or even thinking about it just made you happy?

I have a couple.

First would be Rocky Mountain National Park and quite honestly, national parks in general make me happy. I think they are gorgeous and I always feel so alive when I'm in one of them.



My second place would be anywhere Disney. Walt Disney World is my favorite, but I love Disneyland too. I've been to both of them twice and I'd love to go back, but I'm thinking Disneyland Paris might have to suffice for the time being. Yes, I know it's a theme park, but I love it. All the detail they put in it and the atmosphere makes me feel like a kid again. I can't wait to go back!

I'm In Love....

With spring! In the last week spring has EXPLODED here in Italy. The trees have color, flowers are blooming, it's warm enough that I can tan outside and the smell of fresh cut grass pervades the air.

I thought I was going to wreck today as I was driving and smelt the sweet smell of fresh-cut grass. It's by far my favorite smell in the world and everytime I smell it, I have the feeling that spring and summer are on their way.

I'm loving life right now, I'm not sure if it's because it's spring or I'm just that much in love with Italy at the current time. I'm sure something in the next week will make me rethink this blog, but in the meantime Italy and I are on good terms. I think once I really learn Italian, I'll love it even more.

One of the things that I recently discovered (as in found out yesterday) is that we can buy raw milk here. In fact, there are little dispenser shacks all through the city and communities. I know where the nearest one to me is, now I just need to go investigate it. Anyone else drink raw milk out there? I never have, but feel as if it's time I tried it.



Oh and one last thing, any of the Europe ladies have experience wiith EasyJet? I'm leaning towards using them more than RyanAir, as they fly out of main aiports and from what I've seen are quite cheap. At least cheaper than RyanAir for most of the places I want to go. Thoughts? Experiences?

Wednesday Wish List

Just a few items on my wish-list.



A new pair of Asics Gel Nimbus. They are my favorite shoe to run in and it's high time I got a new pair.



The Canon 24-70mm lens. I WANT this lens. Too bad it's a bit pricey.



Love this shirt. Screams summer to me. Forever 21 of course!



Ever since I saw this dress on the Forever 21 website I wanted it. I went back a few days ago to buy it and it was nowhere to be seen. So...if you see it in the store, get me a size medium and I'll send money to you. I'm not even joking!

Tuesday Tidbits

- I put this on Facebook, but I've added a new goal to my deployment goals list. I want to run a 5K sometime this year. I'm sure for some this may seem like a paltry goal, but I'm not a runner. So, it's a good goal for me.

-Nothing hits the spot like a snack of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds

-Watching Vienna in the audience of Dancing in the Stars made me want to yak. Jake...you are dead to me!

-I'm ramping up my efforts once again to learn Italian. My goal is to work on it for 30 minutes a day. My Italian friend, Roberta, will also be used in this goal. I actually got a few more Italian grammar books at the library yesterday and the guy checking out the books to me started rattling off in Italian. I picked up the book, pointed at it and said, "I'm not there yet."

- Forever 21 advertises this as a shirt on it's website. I believe that is a dress, because if it is a shirt, why is she not wearing pants?



-Do you guys ever check out the Awkward Family photos website? I know I've mentioned it on here before, but if you don't look at it, you should. I found this little gem today on there.



It's obvious they are on a cruise. My question is, what made her think that was appropriate evening attire? I'm honestly curious as to the thought process behind that decision.

Question of the Day

Do you think the show The Biggest Loser is helpful or harmful?

Meaning, do you think the format of the show, contestants losing massive amounts of weight in a short time is healthy for them?

I ask, because I've been watching the season where Helen won and I have to admit, when I looked at pictures of her after she lost the weight I thought she looked kind of sickly. Then I questioned even further when I read an interview with her, where she said before the finale she was going to the gym three times a day for two hours at a time.



Granted I'm all about exercise and eating healthy, but six hours a day at the gym? I personally think that is overdoing it.

*I'm no personal trainer...just my two cents!*

Your thoughts?

Villa Valmarana

Yesterday I ended up exploring a nearby villa with a fellow blogging friend and her group of friends. It was just what I needed. I got out of the house, I got to explore a new place, I got to take plenty of pictures AND I got to eat delish Thai/Japanese food. Saturdays don't get much better than that.

The villa we visited was Villa Valmarana, just down the road from La Rotunda. Here's the website if you wish to read more about it.

Now a few pictures from the day.



Villa Valmarana



I love the scrollwork



Some of the garden in the front of the villa



Early spring flowers coming out



A back view of Mt. Berico



Loved the plants around the villa



Supposedly the villa gets it's name from these dwarf statues that are around it. I believe there were 17 in all.

Somewhat Controversial

I'm sure what I write in this post might be a bit controversial, so in advance, if you don't agree with me, that's fine. However, please keep your comments civil.

In light of recent events, both in the blogging world and in my world, I've been thinking a lot about our military and the war we are involved in.

I have to admit that a good portion of the time I wonder what exactly it is our husband, boyfriends, friends and family members are doing. I wonder if it is worth it for us to keep losing people. I'm not saying that I think these people are dying in vain or sacrificing for nothing, but sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. How much longer are we going to be there? How long before there is some other country and situation that we feel the need to step in? I think sometimes we take the world police role too far.

Maybe I'm being selfish about it because I fear for my husband and his friends everyday. Maybe it's because I've seen friends of ours and the mental and physical effects this war has had on them. I've cried at times watching how painful it is for these young men to continue on with their life and blame themselves for friends they could not save. Everytime we are notified that someone in one of our battalions has been killed or injured I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and feel selfish when I think, "Thank God it wasn't my husband"



I don't question the devotion our soldiers have to our country, but sometimes I do really question why we continue to fight the wars we are fighting at the high cost it has on our soldiers and their families.

A Runner I'm Not...

I don't know if I've mentioned this lately on here, but as part of my workout regimen, I've been doing the Couch to 5K program. I'm not a runner by any stretch of the imagination and this is probably the 3rd time in the past two years that I've attempted to do this program. Inevitably, something happens and I never finish the program, but I swear one of these days I will. Currently I'm on Week 4, but I've been doing the program a lot longer. I usually repeat weeks though until I feel more comfortable with running longer amounts of time. I'm not sure I'll ever be a long-distance runner, but one of these days I'd love to be able to say I've completed a 5K.

Also, I didn't say this yesterday, but I wanted to say thank you to all of those that commented on my friends post. It means a lot to hear from others out there and I always feel better knowing that I have friends out there in blogging land, even if I've never met you.

Finally, does anyone have any suggestions for good lingerie sites besides Victoria Secret and Fredericks? I'm looking for a few items for my upcoming boudoir shoot and I want some different websites to look at.

Wordless Wednesday: Hint of Mint

Happy St.Patrick's Day!

Even though I don't really celebrate it. You'd think with the Irish sounding last name that I currently have that I would, but not so. I'm hoping maybe next year Sean and I can go to Ireland to celebrate though. I'm all for field trips on holidays!

In honor of St. Patrick's Day here's a green-themed picture

I Feel Like Goldilocks

If you've been around my blog for any amount of time, you've probably read one of my posts where I lament the fact that I've had a tough time making friends since I became an Army wife. So..if you don't want to read another one of those posts, you probably don't want to keep reading.

Tonight I went to dinner with a friend and a few of her friends. There were times at dinner I felt very awkward, because they all go out with each other multiple times during the week and almost every weekend. I've been out once with them and decided it was not a good idea for me to go out with them again until all of our husbands got back. I just think it inevitably leads to problems.

Anywho..I was sitting there thinking that I felt like Goldilocks, because I feel like I haven't found a friendship yet that is a right fit.

"This friend is a bit too wild, this friend has a family to care for, this friend is a bit too tame, this friend is in a differnet place in their life...etc."

It's just so frustrating to me that I don't have one person here that if something awful were to happen I could call them up and talk to them about it. Instead I have to wait 6 hours until it's a decent time to call my best friend back home. Thank God for her, because I don't know what I'd do without her, but it would just be nice to have someone here too.

Monday Musings

Just a collection of scattered thoughts I've been collecting today.

-Why is the engagement of David Schwimmer newsworthy? There's got to be something else more interesting happening in the world.

-One day of 60 degree weather doesn't mean you should break out the booty shorts and flip-flops.

-My dog makes me laugh everyday. Yesterday we went on a walk and found a flower that someone had picked and laid on the ground. I picked it up to show it to him and he promptly bit the top off it.

-I got the nicest e-mail from a fellow blogger today. It made my day!

- You know you've been watching too much True Blood when you start having dreams about the characters. Although I'm not complaining about my Erick dream from a few nights ago. *wink*

-Who else is jazzed about March Madness? Speaking of...I need to go do my brackets ASAP!

-Why do the weirdest people add me as contacts on Flickr? It's like I'm a creepy magnet or something

FRG Meetings

I just posted this on my Facebook, but I decided to go ahead and do a post on it here.

Let me start out by saying I love kids, I love my friends who have kids and one of these days I do want kids, but everytime I go to an FRG meeting I feel like it pushes my desire to have kids farther and farther back on my timeline.

I don't know if it's because I don't really know most of the women or we just have a plethora of badly behaved children,but everytime I'm at an FRG meeting with tons of kids I just want to scream.

I think it's because the women who have children in our group talk about nothing but their children, not TV shows, not their husbands, not their interests. It's all kids...all the time. Also I witnessed several diaper changes while I was eating as well as a mother who ate a piece of food that her child spit out. Maybe if I was a parent I wouldn't be bothered twice by those things, but the reality is that currently I am not and I was a bit grossed out by both those occurences. Diapers don't really bother me, but while I'm eating? I just find that inappropriate.




Am I the only one who feels this way after an FRG meeting?

Snapshot Saturday

I miss him



And these:



Did I mention I have the social life of an 80-year-old woman these days? It's true. Except I don't knit.

Yet.