Defying Gravity

Just because I'm in a book club doesn't mean I have 100 cats or wear a moo-moo. Book clubs CAN be fun and I happen to LOVE mine and everyone in it! We are "Back of The Book" and there are 10 of us and we all come from different walks of life and different personalities but we all mesh SO well and I look forward to hanging out with these gals once a month! Each meeting, we gather at one of our members house to eat, drink, talk a little gossip and a lot of laughter, oh and we talk about the previous months' book! Having said that, since I <3 Halloween, Wicked, and of course book club~ I wanted to host October's book club when we read......wait for it.....WICKED duh!

There's nothing more I love than a good "themed party"! And thanks to Pinterest, it made my "themed party" much easier! So, I took pictures of my materials, what I did, and how I did it. I really wanted to go ALLLL out...yellow brick road, full decorations all over my house and the whole nine yards but didn't have the time to dedicate to transforming my house into "Oz". Regardless...everyone dressed in "costume" (didn't have to be Wicked related) and we had a BLAST!

So, while this "decor" is not my typical decor style, I just had to put it up because it looked so WICKED! teehee

**Sidenote: The 3D hat on the witch scares Chris everytime he walks out the front door. I think I may leave it up till Halloween. <insert evil laugh here>

The only thing I was SURE of, was that I wanted to make these cupcakes for dessert!! Anyone that knows me knows I love to make cupcakes but I've not gotten to the point where I'm using "fondant" for cakes or decorating cupcakes...This tidbit will be useful in a second. I started with my cupcake batter. I wanted to make it a little more festive so good coloring it was!!

I also realized that I am NO true cupcake queen since I only have a cupcake baking dish that holds 6. Oh well. While one batch was cooking, I could be decorating the other batch! Ready for the oven...excuse me looking a mess after a long workday but I had to provide proof that I baked them myself!

While they were baking I decided to start on the "Wicked witch's legs" to be sticking out of the cake. I wanted to make them my own and as easy as possible so I got Licorice Twizzlers for the legs (blechhh I hate licorice). For the witch hat I got York Peppermint Patties and Hershey's Kisses, I used cupcake icing to stick the kiss to the patty to make the hat!

***CONFESSION***

As you know, I confessed to not using fondant. But, there was no candy I could think of that I could use to form the "ruby red slippers" for my cupcakes...So....yeah...I sure did.....I had to warn everyone

 DO NOT TO EAT THE SLIPPERS!

Non-edible slippers...but time to make the legs anyway!

Now, the first leg was done and a hundred more to go. Ok, so only 16. I did 8 wicked witch-cakes for my small party!

Ready for the final product?

To make the book club extra "Halloweenie" I wanted to make "Trick or Treat" bags for my friends along with "Special Goblets" to take home as a souvenir and a thank you for dressing in costume! We also had "Melted Witch Punch" :)

Once I got my book club stuff squared away, it was time to start working on my costume!! Since I was the hostess, I thought what better person to be than "Elphaba" (The Wicked Witch)! So, I got my entire costume from my mother's closet. It consisted of a long sleeved velvet floor length gown (she doesn't wear anymore) with a separate cape, a pair of black gloves with feathers around the wrist and the longest fake black fingernails you've ever seen glued to the fingers. The hat is the only thing that I bought and it was $2 at Walmart and the "hair" was attached to the hat! Oh, I lied, I bought a "witch kit" that consisted of a witch nose and chin. It was hard to get it to stay on but it just brought the entire costume together. My sister, Destanee, joined book club this month and she dressed as "Glinda" (The Good Witch)! 

Here are the rest of my book club buddies and their costumes!

Megan (Miss Mario), Sarah (Justin Bieber), Ashlie (Sookie Stackhouse), Sue (The Skipper), Kellie (Lurline~ Queen of the Fairies from Wicked), Me (Elphaba), Destanee (Glinda), Erin (Miss Martini), Tee (The Book Fairy) 

Once upon a time...

***WARNING***BLOG CONTAINS MUSHY LOVEY DOVEY MATERIAL***

As a little girl, you always dream about meeting PRINCE CHARMING. Tall, dark, handsome, and coming to rescue you on a white horse. There comes a point when you may think you'll never get there. Until you stop looking and BAM! There he is! That is what happened to me. I always think about and am grateful for having found my "Prince Charming"..FINALLY! Lord knows I kissed my share of frogs, so I thought I would share our story. You may not want to hear it but I want to relive it..from the beginning...and one day, when we're older and can't remember how it all began, I'll have this to look back on.

It was July 2009 and I had just graduated from NSU and began working at Homeland Healthcare. One of the training classes with three other new employees, in walks Chris. I remember his big blue eyes and trying not to blush. If you ask Chris what he remembers about that day, he will say my butt. Go figure. He likes big butts and he cannot lie. HOW ROMANTIC! He used to come in my office to "talk to my officemate" and I used to do the same. Any excuse to talk to each other. I know what you're thinking. You think we met at work, fell in love, and the rest is history. Not quite the case! We became good friends over the next few months and neither thought the other was interested. Which, clearly, was not the case! I told all of my friends he was everything I was ever looking for but I thought it was a dead end road. He wasn't interested, he lived an hour away, he just got out of a relationship (as did I), the odds were just against us!

I will never forget when I got his phone number. People from work were going to tailgate for the LSU Florida game and we exchanged numbers to meet up on campus. Chris had some liquid courage and called and text all day until I got there. That game is when it all began! After spending all day together and walking from one tailgate spot to another, Chris stopped to get some chapstick. I asked if I could have some and he puckered up so I went in for the kill. Although Chris will tell you that he did. See, before this game, there was lots of flirting but neither of us would budge. Chris never had to chase anyone and neither did I so, being the stubborn beings that we are, it took foreverrrrrr to break down the friendship wall and move forward. I guess you could say we have Burts Bees to thank.

(This picture was not the first ACTUAL kiss...But it was that DAY, so I had to include it!)

After that day, we were still not "officially" dating but God knows we wanted to be! The next time we saw each other was the weekend of NSU Homecoming 2009. The weekend we decided later was when we "officially" started dating. October 25, 2009. He was living in Deridder at the time and every weekend we would make an excuse to see each other until I finally kidnapped him the weekend of Thanksgiving and Missy & Doug Gibbons' wedding.

We started "dating" 2 days after this picture was taken!

While we were in Ruston for the wedding, we decided we should just move in together! After about a month of dating and we were moving in on December 15. Talk about the fast track! It's so cliche' but when you know, you know!



So, here we are almost 2 years later! Still stealing his Burts Bees kisses and living in our townhouse. We've had our ups, downs, good times, and bad, been through births, deaths, hangovers, and heartbreaks~ just like any normal functioning relationship. I don't know what the future holds but I know it's with him and that's all I need to know. I am thankful to have such a patient, loving, funny, sweet, hard working and handsome guy to share my day to day life with. I know I make him crazy some MOST times and I always joke and say "I don't know why you love me but I'm glad you do" and I am. He makes me want to do better, dream bigger, be a better person. Like a fine wine, I like to think that we both just get better with time.