Hey, Y'all!

Comfort Food Saturday: Antipasto

 
Marcus and I lived in Queens for several years, as many of you know, and we frequented an amazing little salumeria that cured their own meat and made their own cheese.  Everything I ever ate from there was incredible.  We used to go pick up some antipasto, ravioli salad and a nice, crusty loaf of bread, then sit and indulge in a nice Italian feast.  Since we've moved away, there have been days where we'd give ANYTHING for some of that food. In fact, I brought home 2 quarts of balsamic ravioli salad from NYC when I went for BlogHer last year.  We decided to splurge a little this week and buy some good-quality meats, some fresh cheese and a few other odds and ends to make our own antipasto.  It was worth every single penny we spent. 

We used Boar's Head meats, some from the deli's refrigerator, others that we had cut fresh.  Publix has a good fresh mozzarella, so we got some of that, along with some fresh veggies, then we picked some fresh herbs from my garden.  Assembling it was almost as much fun as eating it. (Almost.)

This antipasto, alongside some pasta salad and a nice loaf of crusty bread, makes for a perfect summer dinner.

ANTIPASTO

*Use as much or as little of each cold cut as you want.  We used a large Ziploc container and filled it to the top, eyeballing the ingredients.

• Mortadella (with pistachios)
• Sopressatta
• Prosciutto
• Hard Salami
• Pepperoni
• Fresh Mozzarella Cheese
• Red onion, sliced into rings, then cut in half
• Pepperoncini peppers, sliced into rings
• Green onion (2, diced)
• 1 small bottle Newman's Own Olive Oil and Vinegar salad dressing

Cut meats and cheese into cubes and place into a bowl.

 
Add peppers and onions and entire bottle of dressing. Stir well, then refrigerate, stirring every hour.  Serve well-chilled.

 
Enjoy!

Lofty Intentions and Chicken

WARNING: The following is random drivel. You've been warned.

I keep reminding myself at about 3pm each day that I want to start a week  in the life photo project. Yesterday, I went as far as setting the camera on my nightstand.  Of course, when you get a tiny visitor in your room at 5:30am who watns to snuggle up then falls back asleep and spreads out so much that he runs his dad out of the room at 6:15am, you kind of forget details like that.  Now it's almost 4th of July and my goal was to do the project during a very ordinary week (without holidays and road trips, you see), so we'll put it back on the shelf for now. But it WILL happen. Oh yes.

We've sort of been holed up in our own little world lately. It's SO hot. We've tried to take Dean to the park as much as possible, but even he's figured out it's too hot sometimes.  He now asks to visit Chick-Fil-A when he wants to go to the playground, which is fine with me. They have a big, clean play area and I can sit there and sip a sweet tea while he climbs.  Yesterday, Marcus dropped us off there then went to pick up a few groceries.  While we were there, Dean told me he was hungry.  I reminded him that this place ONLY serves chicken and he said he'd try it.  I bought a small kids' meal and a lemonade for myself, assuming I'd be the one who actually ended up eating the 4 nuggets and waffle fries.  Dean looked warily at the nugget, which I tore in half and dipped in a little ketchup. He licked it, then stuffed it into his mouth and declared it "Tasty."  We're calling this a huge parental victory people.  It took me nearly three and a half years, but my boy has now ingested chicken voluntarily. Amen.

Our life these days seems full of afternoon rainstorms that don't last nearly as long we we'd like, tiny boys' underpants (which really are the cutest things), fresh fruit and dinosaurs.  The rest of our summer is filling up with plans, as we head to my mom and dad's for the 4th of July, then to visit the Lanes in Virginia in late July.  We continue to work on using the potty and it's going really well. So well, in fact, that Dean scored a trip to the movie theatre to see Kung Fu Panda 2 this weekend.

 
Going to the movies is totally fun, especially when you sucker your parents into buying the Kung Fu Panda 2 snack pack, none of which you will eat, so your mom has to drink her Coke Zero out of a goofy Kung Fu Panda cup. Bwahaha.

 
Helping with the yard work.  Wisteria = the devil.  Also, why are you so huge, child?

Our week at a glance

 
Mooooooooooom, do these black ballet flats go with my new big boy undies?  I like them. Sorry I trashed the living room. (again)

 
Dean has started calling his father "Marcus," probably because he heard all of us calling him that a lot on vacation. When he says it, it sounds like "Mah-cus."  Here he can be seen explaining how to catch a bluegill.

"You trow the cricket in da water and da fishy bites it--CHOMP, Mahcus."

 
Look! A rare photo of me! I do exist!

Whatever, lady. It's hot. Let's get a juice box.

 

Deano Lane'll make ya JUMP JUMP! (on the couch!) (which is a no-no!) (but still cute!) (in big boy undies!)

 

Mooom, I appreciate that you and Mahcus are "show people," really, I do.  However, I do not care about these Tony Awards of which you speak.  Hook me up with some Princess and The Frog.

Don't call us show people, son.

The one thing I didn't get a picture of that OH, I wish I would have was Dean and me watching his lovey, Stu, in the washer last night. We had a bit of a traumatic evening--Dean was stung by a yellowjacket 3 times. He was such a trouper about it though. Between his screams of pain, he made sure to say "thank you" to me for putting ice on his stings and to his dad for applying hydrocortisone cream.  With all that excitement, we all lost track of how long it had been since our last potty break, so we had a little accident on the living room floor. Poor Stu got a little damp, so into the washer he went.  Dean was nervous for him, so I let him pour in the detergent and we sat right in front of the door and watched Stu roll around in the suds.  It was one of those perfectly simple moments. I got to steal lots of top-of-the-head kisses and we sang a lot of songs.  And once Stu was all clean, to bed they went.

Today, we head to Birmingham Children's Theatre to see one of our former students in The Little Red Hen. I'm so, so excited and I hope Dean loves it.  Something tells me he will, being the son of show people.

All Tied Up

I'm having my tubes tied on Friday.

DISCLAIMER! If reading about my ladybits makes you uncomfortable, look away! (DAD!) Go read Food Lush or something.

Ok, you  asked for it.

Ever since learning we wouldn't be able to have more children last year, Marcus and I have spent countless hours discussing our family-planning options.  The big V, IUDs and  many other things came up, but I ultimately decided, not that long ago, that I want to get my tubes tied.  Before  I (or anyone else) could talk myself out of it, I called my OBGYN and talked with the nurse. That was last Monday.  She offered me a surgery slot last Thursday. Seeing how we'd need to arrange childcare and the like, we put it off until this week.

This decision was both incredibly difficult and very easy to make.  Over the past few months, I have truly come to be at peace with the fact that I can't have another baby.  It still sucks, but I can live with it. What I can't live with is the slap-in-the-face of having to use various forms of birth control.  (I'm serious, Dad, go away.)  Hormonal methods are not an option for me, as they could interfere with my kidney function or my blood pressure, so it was to be IUD, snippity snip or party hats for us from here on out.

No, thanks.

I considered a copper IUD (Paragard), but learned that my uterus is retroverted and short-in-stature (like the rest of me), so I would  likely "expel" the device.  Haunted by visions of  an IUD flying across the room and smacking some poor actor  in the face during rehearsal was enough to take that option off the table. (Not to mention the extra cramps and bleeding often associated with those. NO WAY.)

I have a pre-op appointment on Wednesday,  followed by labwork, where they'll likely have to jab me in the hand to get the blood they need. (I have AWFUL veins.)  Assuming that all goes well, I go in bright and early Friday morning, have my surgery, then come home the very same day.  Our buddy Mia is moving in to help take care of Dean for as long as we need her to over the weekend and I intend to take it extremely easy until I feel like I can handle things on my own again.  The timing is great--I go back to work in mid-December, and by then I'll be all healed up and ready to climb the countless flights of stairs from my office in the basement to the rehearsal halls on the main floor.

I have to tell you, and I know I've said it before, I have the best blog friends.  I shared this news with a  couple of my close blogging girl friends last week and they graciously volunteered to take over the site on Friday to keep you updated. Christy will be my point-person, giving real-time updates as she's able.   Frema will be throwing support my way from Indiana while surfing the internet to research locations for a future blog friends getaway because MY MERCY do we need it.

Molly convinced me to  have two people on board for updates. Here's her take on things:

I would like to be your person in the event that you fly the coop prior to hospital check-in.  "Jen could have had her tubes tied," I will report to your readers, "but instead she is eating string cheese...with a tabby cat...named Santiago...in Mexico." 

So there you have it. Check back on Friday for updates. If you hear from Christy, it means all went  well and I'm recovering nicely. If you hear from Molly....who knows. Shannan will update the Twitter universe.

You should also know that Christy thinks I planned my surgery for November so I'd have good blog fodder for NaBloPoMo.  The truth? The world may never know.

Also, feel free to ask me questions.  The main reason I chose to share this with you all is because it will likely help someone at some point.  So ask  away! (And thanks for caring.)

** The only thing I do ask is that if you're a "real-life"  friend (especially if you live in Montevallo) that you  keep this info to yourself. I don't need all  my husband's students asking him how my tubal went. :)

Time Suck

Marcus and I are going through a breathtakingly mature phase that involves us sitting on our couch eating cookies and watching Autotune the News on Youtube for at least an hour each night after Dean goes to bed. (If you're going to hit that link, be sure you scroll down and watch their "Bed Intruder Song.")  We also spend countless hours Facebook stalking people and cruising the net for little useless nuggets of wisdom.  Tonight I spent close to 30 minutes searching for a good chicken pot pie recipe, even though neither Marcus nor I even LIKE chicken pot pie. (And you know Dean's views on poultry.)

I visited Cake Wrecks 3 separate times today because the most recent post featured "Dueling Banjos" as background music.  Marcus is sitting here playing some game where you build little towns.  When we first got married, we would sit on a trivia site, a site whose name escapes me right now, taking pop culture quizzes.  In fact, we got so into it that we started writing our own quizzes to submit to the site and they liked them so much that they gave us an award.  Could we please be a bit more geeky?

I say all this so that I can ask you to tell me your favorite time-sucking internet sites.  You know you have them.  You can look over at my blogroll and see where I spend a lot of my time, but you should also know that I've almost always got my Skype window open so I can chat with Shannan and my Tweetdeck is rarely closed.

What's your favorite guilty pleasure website? 

Profound Randomness (Now with more parentheses!)

For some reason, I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself to write something profound. Or profoundly funny. Or both.  I guess it could be because BlogHer is so close and I want my front page to be full of awesome! writing! when people I meet there visit.  Or it could be that it's Monday. Or that I'm between jobs and the most profound thing I've done all day was combining a manufacturer coupon with a store coupon, thus getting two, count 'em, two dollars off my baby wipes.  I should probably just go to the kitchen and bake something. 

I did manage to drag poor Marcus and Dean to Target, where I bought the most amazing control-top pantyhose I've ever owned and scored some beach toys for 48 cents. (It should be noted that I will probably ruin the pantyhose the first time I try to put them on and should, therefore, have bought two pairs.  Alas.) Then we came home and entertained ourselves by presenting Dean with a big bowl of spaghetti for lunch and watching him slurp noodles. (It's the little things, folks.)  I'd like to be able to report that we've been outside frolicking in the warm summer breeze, but A) there's no breeze in Alabama in July and B) it's hot, y'all.  Every Sunday, I wake up and wonder if there would be a good day that week to hit the zoo.  Then I go outside to get the paper and I have a heat stroke and decide that if it's this hot at 6:30am, there's no way any of us will survive a trip to the zoo unless we can go at midnight. (Unfortunately, they're not open then.)

We find different things to busy ourselves with indoors.  Sometimes it's family Play-Doh tournaments, other times it's me reading cookbooks and suggesting I make fun new desserts, only to have Marcus say, "I'd rather just have the chocolate thing." (the chocolate thing being this)  Sometimes we throw Dean into the bathtub to "swim" because he refuses to go into his blow-up pool on the deck. "Nope.  Hot," he whispers when we ask if he wants to go swimming outside.  Our library doesn't do story time in the summer, which seems very silly to me. I mean, wouldn't that be the ideal time to do story time?  When the little darlings aren't in school and need intellectual stimulation in the form of literacy-building activities???     ??  Dean and I did take a free Kindermusik class a couple of weeks ago. Aside from the fact that they spell music with a K (SUCH a pet-peeve of mine), it was ok.  Unfortunately, it was JUST ok.  We mistakenly got put into the 6 months to 2 years class when I think Dean would have liked the 2-4 year old class a lot better.  He had a pretty good time, but a lot of the exercises were just not active enough to hold his attention.  If they do another free demo day, we'll go and try again, but I definitely want us to TRY again before we commit to 6 class sessions at nearly $10 a pop.  I wish we had a Gymboree around here...

Dean will be going back to Mother's Day Out this year. We've got him signed up for Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He had such a great time last year and blossomed so much with the extra (and different) attention.  I think it's good for him to have a break from me and I think the structure this provides is excellent.  He's on a schedule that works well, he gets lots of social interaction and, probably most importantly, they are just better at arts and crafts than I am. He brought home some super-cute creations last year that I'd look at and go, "Man. I have a Master of Fine Arts degree and there's no way I could have thought to do that."  The Mother's Day "let's make a baby food jar into a lady bug" project was our favorite with the "Christmas wreath made entirely out of your child's handprints" coming in a close second.  Here at home, a craft project usually consists of Dean making monkeys with his rubber stamps until he gets bored and does a face-plant onto the ink pad. (You should see his nose-print art, though.)

This is going to be a weird week, I can already tell.  Next Wednesday is Marcus's 40th birthday, then Thursday I leave for BlogHer (ohmigaaaaaaaaaaaaah), Marcus's show opens and we get one week closer to back-to-school.  Maybe we'll try to squeeze in that trip to the zoo.  Or maybe we'll just be weenies and go to the movies. If I were a bettin' girl, I'd put money on the movies.

HOTel

Our air conditioner broke on Tuesday evening.  Marcus and I had been out for our first date night in a looooong time, so BJ the Manny was here with Dean. BJ noticed it was a little warm, but assumed it's because, and I quote, he's a "bear," and thought nothing of it.  When we arrived home, I went up to check on the sleeping bebe only to discover warm air shooting out of our vents.  This happened once before because our A/C froze from being turned down too low, but after a few hours, it thawed and was back to normal.  We turned it off and hoped this was the case this time, too.  It wasn't.

As soon as BJ left, Dean woke up crying because he was hot. We got him some cold water to drink and brought him, along with all or bedtime stuff, down to the living room where the three of us camped out on the couches for the night.  We were actually fairly comfortable under the ceiling fan and with the box fan pointed at us.  Fortunately, i remembered to put pillows down on the floor in case Dean rolled off.  At 2am, I opened my eyes to find him on said pillows. I"m not sure whether he rolled off the couch or just decided it would be neat to sleep on throw pillows, but whatever.  He woke up around 6:30 Wednesday morning, looked around and, realizing we were all in the living room, said, "Cool!"  He was very concerned about his daddy, who slept on the couch while Dean and I shared the sectional.  I assured him his daddy was fine and we began our day.

Around noon it got unbearable.  We put Dean in the car, hoping he'd get a nap while we drove around aimlessly, enjoying the car's A/C.  A call had been made to our A/C repairman, but we'd had to leave a message.  Dean slept about 20 minutes. Finally, we went home and ate a lot of popsicles.  Around 4:00, my dad called to say he and my mom would treat us to a hotel stay for the evening.  We were out the door 20 minutes later.

Marcus found a great deal on priceline.com and we ended up at a hotel featuring free dinner AND breakfast.  The room was great, the food was good and we had a blast in the pool.  It was like our own little mini-vacation. Now here's the thing about our son:  he LOVES hotels. He thinks it's his lot in life to touch every single thing in a hotel room and he's mildly obsessed with hotel bath tubs.  The first thing he did was pick up the phone, which we promptly unplugged, lest the little dear rack up a thousand dollar phone bill by calling Belize or something.  He then got into the closet, rode on the luggage rack, discovered the satellite radio (and danced), then popped up the footrest on the recliner, where he spent most of the evening hiding under a blanket. And he stripped, because OF COURSE he did.He ran around like an insane man for hours.  We finally caught him at 10pm (TEN PEE EMMMMMM) and made him lie down.  Eventually he gave out and so did we.  On Thursday morning, we discovered him lying sideways on the bed, spread out like the letter X.

 After reluctantly checking out of the hotel, we came home, let Dean nap under the fan, then smiled all the way to the bank when the A/C guy told us our repair would be EXTREMELY affordable.  (Like, so affordable we didn't have to use a credit card--score!)  It's delightfullly cool now and we're all rejuvenated from our one-night vacation. AND AND AND!  Tonight we have REAL plans with REAL friends who also have REAL children! Adult conversation! Squee!  Other children for Dean to play with and fun to be had and pizza to be eaten! Squee some more!  In case you couldn't tell, we're really, really excited. Squee! (one for the road)

Budget, Schmudget

Talking about money makes me squinchy.  When I was single, balancing my checkbook stressed me out as much as an algebra test used to in high school.  Once Marcus came along and introduced me to online banking, things got easier. Where our money's concerned, two heads really are better than one.

Which leads us to our current state of financial craziness--we are about to buy a car.  A truck, to be more accurate.  Marcus's beloved El Diablo tuckered out on I-65 in May, so we've been a one-car family for almost 2 months. Honestly, if it had to happen, it was the best timing ever.  It's summer, I'm not working, Marcus has very few things that actually require him to go into his office at the University these days (he's not teaching in the summer session, much to his chagrin), and we pretty much do everything together, so having one car is fine right now. However, Marcus is in a show in Birmingham later this summer and will need to be gone several evenings a week for rehearsal.  Dean and I don't want to be home-bound, plus we'll need 2 cars once school starts back in the fall.  Marcus has been searching for weeks and has finally found a good truck to buy. (knock wood)  This means we'll soon have a car payment, something we've never had as a married couple.  My car was paid for when we got married, then we bought his dad's old car with cash when my car was totalled.  El Diablo was a 1988 model (translation: Not Expensive) and we bought her with cash, too.

Now here comes the fun part--I'm not working (that I know of) in the fall either. This isn't a surprise--we knew I wouldn't have a show at the Shakespeare Festival and we knew in March that I wouldn't be teaching at Montevallo in the fall.  We socked money away from my last job to pay for Dean's school in the fall and we paid off our one credit card. These two things mean we'll have the cash to pay our truck payments. YAY. The fact that I'm not working, however, means we will have to watch our trips to the Bass Pro Shop, MARCUS  and breakfasts at Chick-Fil-A, JEN and get potty trained already, DEAN monthly spending a bit closer.  Here are some things we've discussed:

*Grocery budgets.  We usually shop on Sunday or Monday for the week.  I try to do menu plans for dinner and breakfast and lunch are usually inexpensive. We are going to get a bit stricter about our food budgets, though.  We'll figure out exactly how much we want and need to spend on food, keeping in mind that we are foodies and enjoy eating good things like fresh produce.  I feel lucky that Dean's such a good eater and I'm not willing to compromise on food. We like to cook, it's something we do together and the fact that I need to watch my salt and cholesterol means we should try to prepare our own meals from scratch so that we know exactly what is in them.  I'd rather forego a new t-shirt or skip the dollar spot at Target for a couple of weeks than stop buying good food. Things we WILL sacrifice include coffee cakes from the Publix bakery, random donut purchases and candy, none of which we need anyway and half of which usually get tossed.  I'll continue clipping coupons and shopping store specials and I'll also buy things in bulk whenever I can, though our incredibly crappy cabinets make it hard to stock up on too much at one time.

*Entertainment.  We cancelled our Netflix months ago because we just weren't using it. Our cable package includes HBO and Cinemax, as well as cheap movies on demand, which I think we've used one time.  We are usually so behind on our tv shows that we don't really have time to watch movies.  If we're out of shows on the DVR, we turn on VH1 Classic.  Marcus actually tapes the one-hit wonders show. He got mad at me last week because I deleted the one featuing "In A Big Country."  But I digress. 

*Date night.  In a nutshell, Marcus and I very, VERY rarely get a date night.  Instead, we do lunch dates.  When Dean's at school, we meet for lunch once a week at our favorite Montevallo restaurant.  This saves us about $80 in the long run if you consider what we would pay for a sitter, gas, dinner and a movie.  When we do have sitters, we usually do it when one of our students has BEGGED for time with Dean and we usually pay them with free use of our washer/dryer for the night and a crockpot full of food.  It's a pretty sweet deal.

*Extras.  We never use the internet on our phones (I know, we're SOOO 20th century), so we're ditching it.  That will save us nearly $50 a month.  No, we don't have iPhones or Blackberries.  We both pretty much live tethered to our laptops, though, if that helps your opinion of us.  We also mow our own lawn, do a lot of our own home repairs (not always well, but we try) and try to stretch our dollars as far as possible on things like cleaning supplies, paper products and other miscellaneous household goods.  I buy things like toilet paper and paper towels on sale and with coupons, so it's rare that I pay over $5 for big packs of either.  We currently have a 12 pack of TP in our linen closet that I got for $3.25.  I really like figuring out how to save money and always feel like I've accomplished something when I can combine store sales and coupons. It's like I'm pulling a fast one on CVS. (Am dork.)

If Dean would come on with the potty training, we'd save a good amount each month on diapers, both regular and the overnight variety.  He's not feeling it. In fact, he hates his little frog potty so much that we're ditching it and going with a seat that fits onto the big toilet. This is NOT a good example of economicalizing, but you do what you gotta, right? (I'm pretty sure I just invented the word "economicalizing."  I can tell you're impressed.)

With menu planning, coupon clipping and careful attention to our random spending (like on York peppermint patties!), we should be fine even with the added car note.  However, if anyone would like to hire me to write things for them or better yet, to sit on my couch reading blogs and drinking Coke Zero, I'm all over it.

The first week

My first week back at work went quite well.  I commuted each day from home, which was good for all of us. It eased us into the transition and made sure I got a good amount of Dean time each day.  He's adjusting beautifully to our new schedule and loves having BJ around more. 

I fell right back into the rhythm of my job, as I hoped I would.  Once I spent a day remembering the nuts and bolts of this particular theatre, I was able to dive in and work on prepping for my show.  It felt good to use those parts of my brain again. I was especially proud to be able to do my job and still be a mom.  I made Dean's lunch every day and put him to bed every night.  This week will be a little different, as I'll be spending a few nights away from home, but I've already made his lunches for the week and a few dinners to keep him and Marcus from eating hot dogs every night  give the guys some variety. 

Instead of the apartments the theatre usually uses for housing, I'm staying in an extended-stay hotel for the duration of my contract. At first, that seemed like a drag, but then I realized something:  SOMEONE ELSE WILL CLEAN THE ROOM!  They will make the bed, bring me fresh towels, even run the little dishwasher in my kitchenette.  That?  Sounds heavenly.  I'm going to be very spoiled.  Fortunately, this means I can save my energy for Mondays when I'm sure I'll have plenty to clean up around my house.

 When we are in the rehearsal hall (where we rehearse before moving to the theatre), we put down spike tape on the floor to show where the set will be.  I needed to tape the floor out on Saturday, but didn't really have much other work to do, so Dean came with me.  He had a blast playing with my friend Tanya and running around the big empty room.  He even found a yoga ball in a corner, which entertained him for MINUTES! 

Dean has started showing a real interest in music. He's always been drawn to music, but his interest is maturing a bit, if you will.  Ever since he was a tiny baby, he'd stop whatever he was doing if some music came on, and he'd usually dance or sing along.  The other night, he went up to the theatre with Marcus and walked up to the piano onstage. Instead of running up and banging on it, he climbed up onto the bench and carefully plucked out several notes with his index finger.  Our friend Laurie, who's our music director for the department, said, "You need to encourage that! Most babies that age just bang on it. He's got a respect for the instrument."  He did the same thing with the piano in the rehearsal hall on Saturday--climbed up and started gingerly playing single notes.  I started playing piano by ear when I was 4, then took lessons for 10 years before dropping out to devote more time to dance.  What I'm saying is it's in his blood.  We're not going to push, but we are going to encourage his interest.  Inside I'm squeeing because OMG, how cool would it be to have a little musical prodigy?

On Friday, Marcus cancelled his rehearsal so he and Dean could go to the Expo at the Bassmaster Classic. (For those of you who are clueless as to such things like I am, it's a fishing thing.)  They came home with a giant bag full of fish-related swag, including a set of Mardi Gras beads with wooden bass on them.  Dean makes me wear them around the house. 

Dean had to wear credentials while they were at the Expo.  How hilarious is THAT?

That's about it for us this week.  Next week is going to be insane.  I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking forward to it.

Have you entered my giveaway?  Don't miss your chance to win a super-cute bib from the great folks at Jaq Jaq Bird!  Giveaway ends 2/28.

My heart...

belongs to these guys.

Marcus, his clone and me.

For my birthday, Marcus had this gorgeous painting of the Chrysler Building matted and framed for me.  We bought it just after we moved here and accessorized our entire living room around the colors.  Marcus is a wonderful, creative gift-giver and a fantastic husband, especially since he accepts the fact that sometimes my hair looks like that.

I lurv him. 
 

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all.