Staying Sane on their wedding day!

So last week I shared their menu and the schedule. This week I'm sharing how I'm going to stay sane.


Making Ahead Butternut squash soup- Actually really easy to make but I need to make a lot. I'm guessing one batch is good for about 1-2 tables. Can be frozen!
Shredded chicken (Pasta Bar)- We are thinking two good size roaster chickens, I plan on putting them in the crock pot and let it work its magic. The resulting meat will be tender and almost fall off the bone. I can then freeze it and warm it the day of.
All four sauces can be prepped ahead and frozen and warmed up that day. I'm hoping to get big squirt bottles and cut the opening big enough and have them in a water bath. Seems much easier than attempting to have 4 pans and ladles of sauce going.
Stuffed Mushrooms- I can prep these and freeze them already stuffed. Day of I just need to pop them in the oven!
Spinach Balls- Same as the stuffed mushrooms. I believe one of the brides to be is making it, since her late future mother in law taught her how, I just need to pop them in the oven day of.
Mozzarella Bites- Need time to marinate so I can make those on the 11th and just keep them refrigerated.
Cheese and Cracker Tray- This I want to cheat on, you can buy 2 lbs of pre-sliced cheese at BJ's for around $10. So for about $30-40 I can have that completely taken care of, I just need to arrange on a tray!


Day Of Wedding Mini Lasagnas- they need to be made that day, they just taste better freshly made!
Pasta- needs to be cooked that day as well, especially if gluten free!
Vegetables- for the veggie tray and grilling/roasting need to be cut that morning. I might employ wegmans for that part and just cook and serve but I need to talk to the brides first since the cost will be slightly up, but much less of a headache on my part!



I've already requested the 11th off for prep and picking up supplies. Friday I'm loading our car with everything, we and our 14 month old son will need plus coolers of frozen and refrigerated food and all my supplies for cooking/serving. I'm hoping the hotel will let us use their fridge until Saturday morning. I'll probably be at the wedding site for easily 12 hours prepping/cleaning up as well as some partying. I highly doubt I'll get much chance to eat myself. I'm really hoping I can get the 14th completely off. I know for a fact I will not be able to make it in for my 8-4 shift. The wedding is an hour and a half away, too far of a drive after an exhausting day.

Over it

I used to love my job, like I love all my jobs. I'm so over it now though...


I work in a residential home of 24, independent, adults with mental illness and/or substance abuse problems.
Luckily my house is usually quiet and peaceful. Until we got one resident. I mean yes sometimes its stressful, but lately its been insane.
I've taken two mental health days in the last month and its not enough! Tonight I actually came home and had a drink instead of going to bed. I'm also sleep deprived but right now I'm fuming.

Everything just has been falling apart. I'm losing responsibilities due to it not actually being in my job title but I've done some of them a long time. Watching someone else fuck it up after it was so perfect is a disappointment.
Yet, I don't want to work in this field.

I want to just quit and follow my dreams now. Sadly its not a reality.

Its also difficult because I make too much money but yet have nothing to show for it. My grocery budget is literally $120 a month but I don't qualify for food stamps. I don't qualify for medicaid but I'd love to drop my medical plan at work to be able to buy more groceries.

Quitting looks better every day.

I'd love to find a job, in a gay marriage state, in the cloth diaper industry. If necessary I'll start my own business. But this...this life I'm living now is depressing.

I can't give the time and energy to my two most important people because this job just drags me down.

This isn't how life should be lived...

Wedding Menu!

Yes I think we have finally decided on a menu, for our friends wedding. Just shy of the month before their wedding!
As well as a loose schedule of the day!


Schedule of Events with Menu included
1 pm Ceremony
Cocktail hour with signature cocktails and heavy hors d'oeuvres to follow To be served: Mini Lasagnas (meat filled and vegetable filled), Stuffed Mushrooms (gluten free and vegetarian), and the one of the bride's late mother's Spinach Balls.

4 pm Dinner At the tables: Butternut Squash Soup and Salad with Maple Dijon Dressing. Also possibly a white and red wine at each table or hard cider (yum!) Head Table first, to slowly be followed by the other tables is the buffet style Pasta Bar. Four types of sauces: Meaty Marinara, Marinara, Alfredo, and Pesto. Two types of pasta: Long and Short (haven't decided which kind or if both will be gluten free). Two choices of toppings: Shredded Chicken and Roasted/Grilled Vegetables. Obviously shredded cheese.

5 pm Cake and Such

6:30 pm Light hors d'oeuvres Mozzarella Bites, Veggie Tray, Cheese and Crackers (this might get cut altogether!)

8 pm Cut off alcohol! We have to vacate the property by 10 pm when the park closes its gates. If you aren't gone, they will lock you in and call the local police. I'd rather avoid that!



I also plan on putting together a picnic basket for the brides with two bottles of wine or hard cider, and everything that was served that night. They are under the impression that they will actually eat during the festivities. We laugh at them all the time about this!

Seems like a lot of food, and a lot of prep! Next post I'm going to post how I plan on stay sane through all of this!

Catering VS DIY

My friends are overbudget already and that does not include alcohol or food!!!


Now they think hiring a caterer will be cheaper...
I strongly disagree. When we looked into catering it was easily $2000 if not more. $300 covered the cost of our meal and I was lucky enough that Sparky loaned me her catering supplies for the weekend since her restuarant didn't have any events that weekend.

Our menu was simple but everyone loved it!
Herb Rubbed Pork Tenderloin Baked Ziti Salad Garlic Bread

I would love to cater their wedding with either a full buffet menu or heavy hors d'oeuveres. I can easily do it for $500 or less. Plus even though Sparky passed away it doesn't mean I no longer have connections at Sparky Town. Or that I didn't plan on asking everyone I know for their platters to borrow.



Sadly they are so focused on small simple ideas that they are not seeing the larger picture. Which would save them $1500 easily!

Did you get a professional caterer, or did you or a friend/family member take the DIY route for your wedding?

I need a vacation!

Work has been stressful lately and its not my dream career. It just pays the bills.
And unfortunately I don't just have the money to take time off or start up my own business.

So I'm thinking of creating a long weekend, in order to get household project finished before it gets cold. Seeing how I'd love to get the house in order, finish painting the cabinets, and turn the ironing board cabinet into a spice rack! I'd also love to make our nightstands using old wooden boxes and create our pot and pan rack out of old bike rims. I need time though. And entertainment for Max, because sometimes his naps mean a break for me too!

I wish I could afford to be able to go out for about every meal though, there's some new restuarants I'd love to check out!


So the question is, if you could have a vacation what would you do?

wedding help

So I've been meaning to post. Just when life should settle down...it gets crazier. Max is about to turn one. And he's finally getting a tooth! Not going to be like his dai, and have to gum his way through his first birthday. He's such a champ at eating, and chewing. I'm sure he's hating the pain, just as much as Krystal is with her chronic tooth pain. Yet, one he can eat a raw carrot that's not been grated I'm sure he'll appreciate his teeth. Good friends of ours also decided to get married. Since we've been there, done that x2 we thought we'd help out. It turned into a week plus of helping with the invites. They turned out pretty awesome if I say so myself and I got to sort of learn and play with inkscape along the way. I also offered to cater since I've been there, did that with wedding #2. I think it'll be fun and much more challenging than our menu. Since they want a cocktail hour and a sit down dinner via buffet. Plus alcohol. I'm trying to figure out a way to make this work. I know I will but I want to give them something amazing while still keeping it frugal. Which for me would nix a lot of the alcohol but it is something they want. So I'm sure I'll start working on a series about their wedding, to hopefully help out others. I haven't really been able to find all the information I've been looking for and would love to help the wedding scene because it doesn't have to be as expensive as everyone thinks it should be.

Chicken Wing Burgers

So I'm without pictures for this post but I promise to take them the next time I make these again! I was standing in line at Wegman's deli counter which is so cleverly placed near Olde World Cheese. I looked down and saw in a refrigerated case that Yancey Fancy Buffalo Wing Cheddar now comes in slices. My brain started turning and I thought what if I got some ground chicken and made burgers with the two? We were moving in a few days time and I already planned on Faux Ribs and marinated Chicken breasts with a few Hoffman hot dogs for the meats. So of course I added on Chicken Wing Burgers! As I was getting ready to form my chicken patties, my mom who was dicing an onion for me for Cold Broccoli salad offered to dice up some more for the chicken patties. I recently had a delicious, spicy burger from a coworker that had onions in it so I thought why not? I brought them out to the grill and let the one side cook, flipped and put the slices on the cooked side so that it would be perfect by the time that the other side was cooked. We didn't have as much help with moving as we thought we would. However, I had two other people try them besides me and they thought they were delicious! I served the burgers on potato hamburger buns. However, I do have a few revisions to try out next time: 1. I'd love to add diced celery to the meat with the onion 2. Get some bleu cheese dressing to help knock down the heat They are delicious reheated as well!

Exhausted

Max is almost 10 months old now and getting into everything! He has an army crawl going on, only pulling up onto us to stand. Hasn't figured out quite yet how to stand and walk. Summer is upon us and that means hot days and trying to do fun things around naps and lunch. I honestly can't believe he's about to be 1 in August! Summer also means I'll be taking some more days off of work. Its been a long time since I had a day off besides my regular days and June 7th cannot come soon enough. But I will start blogging more soon, we are moving on June 22nd and finally getting internet at home again.

Dream job?

What's your dream job? Why is it your dream job?

I'm passionate about cloth diapers. Yet, I don't want to own a store, though I wouldn't mind working for one. I'm also passionate about people cloth diapering when they just don't have the money to use disposables but really don't have the money for the start up cost and/or the accessibility to be able to wash and dry them.
I think these foundations giving people cloth diapers is amazing and I know that I qualify for free diapers but yet I continue to buy them because I know someone has it worse than me.
Honestly I want to start a sliding scale ( read no cost or low cost) diaper service with modern cloth diapers, no prefolds and covers, to families in need. In order to be able to financially keep the charity side afloat I see the need to make a wash your stash service available to the public.
My problem: I don't know where to start.

2 lbs and arthritis

Max had a weight check today and he gained 2 lbs in two weeks. I'm thrilled!

He's always been a slow gainer and so at his 7 month appointment when he lost 10 ozs we decided to do our best. I'm attributing the amazing gain to being able to just breastfeed on demand for a week and a half, no pumping and no bottles plus he ate about three avocados on top of his love of solids.
Can I mention how I loved not pumping? I despise it so much, would love to buy a new pump but don't really feel like it makes much sense. Also tacked a visit for myself when we took Max in. It's official, I have arthritis in my spine. It has been quite the bother lately and its time I took a more proactive approach.Travelling the internet this evening looking at my passion cloth diapers. Time to either get serious about this blog or let it fall to the wayside... only way to make it happen is to find time, not wait for it to happen.

Dai, what is that?

I consider myself genderqueer. I was on testosterone for about a year and during that time came to accept myself. I never took a high dose since the doctor I was seeing wanted to ease my body into it. I started of with intramuscular injections but never found the guts to give them to myself. I switched to the patch for awhile but found it rather expensive and a pain. I ended up switching to subcutaneous injections which I did on my own until poking myself with a needle became too much, strangely enough its been four years since that experience.
For awhile over a year ago- almost two years ago, I performed as a drag king with the name "Froggy" which was bestowed to me from a fellow king due to my voice reminding her of The Little Rascals.

Two and a half years ago I married the most important woman in my life in Burlington, VT by a drag queen Amber LeMay. New York was still not legalizing same sex marriage and not that we were impatient, we just wanted to start our life together.
We've moved a handful of times, always in the same area in the last three years since we started living together. The longest we've stayed in one spot recently is where we currently live and we have only been there for a year and a half.

Six months ago we became first time parents. We shocked family and friends when we annouced that my wife was not carrying our child, that it was indeed myself. It confused many. They thought but your becoming a male, no longer knew what pronouns to use regarding myself. It was an interesting time.
However, I was lucky to have a relatively easy pregnancy- minus the first three months of intense morning sickness and despite Max being four days late; I had the natural birth I had hoped for.
I said it, natural birth. Not only did I shock everyone with getting pregnant, I also had a midwife and doula even though I did give birth in the hospital. We also cloth diaper and I am breastfeeding. Yet, I still don't identify as female.
I also don't go by mom or any of its variations or dad or any of its variations. Just dai, pronounced like 'day', though sometimes we do call me daidai.

I plan on writing about whatever I feel is important though do realize more often than not it probably will be about being a parent.