"Home Church" Away from "Home Church"

Since my parents spent the majority of the day in the hospital with my grandma, we didn't go to Chinatown for church today. Instead, Howard and I along with my younger brother went to the local church for Sunday service. It's the church where hubs and I actually got married, so when we go there, I always have a mix of emotions (if you've been reading my blog, you know that I would've preferred to just have a small destination wedding to avoid being stared at all day!).

I just snapped this quick picture near the end of service around the time of the collection of offering because I still love just how beautiful the wood ceiling looks! I wanted to get married there because it was where I went to worship for 6 months a few years ago when I was taking a breather from my home church, but that ceiling definitely was an added plus!

Love Card

A friend recently requested a custom engagement card. Since I didn't have any information about the couple, I chose to do a clean and simple look since I wouldn't have to be very specific. I knew I was going to use some silhouettes from the "Sweethearts" cartridge, so I decided to use a 4 in by 9 in card base.

The couple was cut at 5 inches while the balloon was cut at 1.5 inches from the Sweethearts cartridge. The "LOVE" sentiment was cut at 3 inches from the "Simply Sweet" cartridge. To make it a bit more interesting look, I cut the "LOVE" sentiment in black and in red and trimmed the heart portion to glue on top. I posted this picture last week or so.

Even though I knew the card was going to be primarily black and white, I still wanted it to be a little bit more colorful so I added eyelets using my Crop-A-Dile through the top white and black layers of the card. The last touch was using a bottle of red Stickles to outline the balloon.

I thought it was pretty cool that I was able to incorporate eyelets and Stickles since I haven't used either of those things in ages. Though the card as a whole is fairly simple, I really enjoyed putting it together!

"Too Many Feels"

I've mentioned it before, but I am definitely not all up on the current lingo. I have, however, seen how some younger folk (haha) use the phrase "too many feels" to express a lot of emotions or feelings. Well, today was a day where I could totally use those three words even though I would sound completely ridiculous if I said it out loud to anyone but Howard, haha.

I was a bit nervous this morning before the 8th grade graduation since I feel weird at times knowing I'm just a sub at the school and not a full-time teacher. I knew I'd be seeing some students' parents I haven't seen in a while. In actuality, I wasn't really feeling the greatest either, and I knew I'd have to drive all the way to and from school. That compounded the anxiety I was already having.

Then the graduation itself was bittersweet. The montage video of pictures is always touching because the last song used is usually a slower, more meaningful one whereas the beginning ones are more upbeat. When the graduates' picture are shown on the projector, it definitely makes my eyes fill with a few tears. But it gets worse when the class stands up and turns their tassels while facing the audience! Since I still sat in the staff row directly behind the kids, I was right there as two of the girls turned around with tears in their eyes. Then to make it worse, the mom of one of the students was asked to end the ceremony with a prayer, and she was already bawling from the slideshow!

After the ceremony itself, I went to the luncheon. I love getting to spend time with my former colleagues. I sat next to the wife of one of the other teachers who is also the oldest sister of one of my former students. She's currently pregnant with her second child and is due very soon. We got to talking about why I left teaching along with the importance of raising children. I definitely felt a ton of emotions then when I was explaining to her why the job I had at the end of last summer just didn't work out for me. It's really intense when I think or talk about it because it's as if I can make myself experience all the anxiety and tension all over again.

Lastly, when I left school, I stopped by my parents' house to get my mom so that we could visit my grandmother who isn't doing very well. It was a brief visit, but it was so hard seeing her the way she was. With everything that had already occurred in the morning, I was so close to just getting in my car and crying all the way home.

All these "feels" definitely made me a tired girl tonight, and I'm looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning without any alarms! Good night all! Have a wonderful weekend!

School Bus Card

This school bus card was made for a custom order. The customer wanted cards to thank her students and parents who gave her gifts at the end of the school year. The only guidance I was given was that they had to be thank you cards, so it was very open for interpretation. I decided to do something school-related, of course, especially since I very rarely use my cartridges that have those images on them! In fact, I actually had to add "Cartridge: Locker Talk" to my list of labels since apparently I never used it before (at least on something that I posted on my blog since I know I used it once before).

I thought the back of the school bus was very fitting for the end of the year. The image was cut from "Locker Talk" (one of my first few cartridges!) at 3.75 inches. I have to say that this was a rather frustrating image to use! A lot of the older cartridges have all the pieces cut as one layer, so that means you'd have to cut out the yellow part, the red part, and the gray part in EVERY color. Thankfully, with the Gypsy or with Cricut Craft Room, you can hide certain cuts to separate them. It also makes it easier to mass produce. Unfortunately, even though I hid certain cuts, not all of them showed as an option to hide, so they cut anyway as you can see in the picture below. 

Although the cut was a little frustrating, I still was happy with the image as a whole because of how detailed it was. This is how the first black layer looked.

The "thanks" sentiment was cut from the "Wild Card" cartridge at 0.667 inches. It seems like an odd measurement, but it's in proportion to the other images on the page since each page is supposed to have all the elements for one card. It's kind of interesting how I cut out a lot more sentiments now instead of automatically stamping them. I think that with some cards, it makes it more complete. For this one, I cut it out in red and then in black and just created a shadow with the black layer since there was no option for a shadow cut on the cartridge.

I thought the back needed a little extra something, so I used Stickles to fill in one of the circles! I'm sure it would've been more interesting to add the glitter glue to more of the circles, but it actually used up a lot of my small bottle so I kept it as is.

Lately, I've also been using an extra black mat in my layering before I put the patterned paper on the card. I think it looks better that way even though it is an extra step.

The picture shows 5 cards, but it was a complete set of 6. I consider 6 a set because I can get all the patterned paper layers from one sheet of 12x12 paper. I'm rather happy with how this card turned out and am happy I got to use what might be an otherwise obscure image!

Celebrating Father's Day

Celebrating holidays usually means making plans with Howard's family and with my family. Since we postponed Father's Day celebrations with my dad, we didn't have our official dinner yet. We did go out to church on Sunday with my parents as always, and then after service and Sunday School, we joined them for lunch.

We went to a Shanghai restaurant on Mott St (can't quite remember the name), and my Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Emma were there too. It was a surprise seeing them since my uncle is back in NY for a bit. Though it's bad saying I have favorites, I can't help it! Haha, they're my favorite aunt and uncle out of my dad's side because they live next door to my parents, so that means I grew up with them always there. My older brother Jonathan and I would just leave the house through the kitchen sliding door, walk in the backyard, and then let ourselves into their house to play with our cousin Stephen. Steve did the same thing and came over all the time too. Then when I was older, I used to hop in their car to get dropped off for high school since I didn't mind getting there early and my cousin had to go for jazz band during 0 period (my brother took the bus later for 1st pd). Nowadays, they're helping Howard and me because we're renting our apartment from them, so it's always nice having meals with them.

We split a bunch of dishes including noodles and then three different orders of dumplings including pan fried dumplings of which I ate one (oo, living life on the edge!).

The xiao long bao (or soup dumplings) were more my speed. I didn't have any soup spillage as I nibbled off the top portion to slurp the soup.

We unfortunately had to sit in traffic on the way home from church, so we didn't have as much time at home as I had anticipated. It worked out though. We headed back out to Howard's parents' house and all 6 of us (yay, almost 7 because my sister-in-law is due at the end of July!) hopped in the van to go to a restaurant in Brooklyn called Marietta. I was happy to see that we were able to park right across the street! I love when it works out like that. The decor when we first walked in was interesting. I said to Howard that I liked the place already because they decorated with potatoes, haha.

We sat at the end of the restaurant by the windows where we could see people from the neighborhood just lounging on the street with their lawn chairs. This, however, was the view I had since my back was to the window. There were a few other people in there, so I took this picture after they left. I liked the country-esque feel to the place.

We split the Charcuterie Plate ($16), which included "Brown Jam, Cheek, Mousse, Ham" as listed on the menu. It was a sampling of all the items that could have been ordered individually. 

At the top of the plate is the country ham, which the waitress said was their version of prosciutto. On top was their homemade shaved sesame butter (pretty sure that's what it was, and I just asked hubs for comfirmation). I didn't try any of that because I'm not a fan of prosciutto or those types of cured or salty meats other than pepperoni on pizza or salami in a sandwich every once in a while. I think everyone like it though.

My favorite was the chicken and foie gras mousse, but I couldn't detect how it was any different than regular chicken liver other than the fact that it had a stronger liver taste. Of course, it was incredibly smooth compared to chopped liver. That was paired with the cherry marmalade. 

Below that you can see the little brown patty, which was the seared pork cheek. I don't really know how to describe it other than it was like pork, haha. The whole grain mustard that was served with it was really good though. I would put that mustard on EVERYTHING. I like the Gulden's spicy brown mustard, but this totally trumps it.

Lastly, the stuff in the little jar was the Tennessee brown jam, which is "whipped pork shoulder." It definitely had a kick to it and had a smoked flavor to it. I tried it and said to Howard, "Do you know what this tastes like? Spaceship Earth." That really was the best way to describe it because the smokiness reminded me of the smell during the scene where they show the burning of Rome! It was so exact! Later when I had some more, Spaceship Earth was still the first thought that popped into my head. This was my second favorite on the platter.

We were given grilled country bread to eat with it. When we got this plate, I said to Howard that they could've given us 6 pieces instead of the 5 since there was 6 of us! Haha, I mean, I get that 5 was probably the serving, but it would've been a nice gesture. When she came back later on, she asked if we wanted more bread to finish the charcuterie plate since we still had a little bit of stuff left, but we said it was okay. We just ate it with the remainder of bread or just ate it plain. As Howard and I looked up the menu just now to get the item descriptions and prices, I saw that the grilled country bread was $2. I wonder if we would have been charged if we had said yes to the bread.

The other appetizer we got to share was the Roasted Beets ($11). This was delicious! But then again, I love roasted beets in any form. It is served with black quinoa, lemon ricotta, and lamb's leaf lettuce. The quinoa gave the dish some texture. I admit I probably could have just eaten this whole dish as an entree, and I definitely would have been satisfied. When we were leaving the restaurant, we passed by two girls who were sharing it as well, and I would've reached over and grabbed some if the thought of eating other people's food wasn't so disgusting. Oh, and if it weren't rude and against all proper rules in a civilized society.

For the entrees, Howard ordered the Rib and Tail ($23), which is seared ribeye, lime, red chile, fresh herbs, and oxtail sauce. He said that one of the herbs had an intense flavor and was also a little spicy. I think he enjoyed it more when everything was put together in one bite. They didn't ask how he wanted the steak cooked, but it was kind of thin and served medium.

I ordered the Long Island Whiting sandwich ($13) that came with red cabbage slaw and "Comeback" sauce. Though I tasted the sauce in the larger bottle, I ended up eating it without it because the waitress said they were spicy. I was already pushing it by having fried food. For me, it definitely didn't need the sauce anyway. It was really crispy, and the fish wasn't at all overcooked. Since they piled on so many fillets of fish on the bread, I didn't actually eat it as a sandwich. I used my fork and knife to eat it and didn't finish all the bread either because that was grilled as well. Haha, that's why bread can be so good in terms of taste when you eat out, but in terms of what I should and should not eat, I like plain ol' bread. With so many foods that I should avoid because of my health issues, if I'm going to eat things that might upset my stomach, I'm going to be picky about it. So I enjoyed the fish a lot and just had about half of the bread instead. The slaw had some tang to them too, so it worked well with the fish. I should have eaten more bites of both of the things together.

My mother-in-law had Crispy Skin Arctic Char ($21), my father-in-law and sister-in-law had Extra Fancy Memphis Fried Chicken ($16), and my sister-in-law's husband had Blue Crab Spaghetti ($18). An appetizer of the Ham and Cheese Heirloom Grits was also ordered for the table though I didn't try that since I didn't want to push it trying something rich. I didn't take pictures of any of their dishes, haha. They did take pictures of their own though as you can see below!

Dinner was really delicious, and because it was Father's Day and not Mother's Day, we didn't have to deal with heavy crowds at restaurants. We were able to get home fairly early in comparison to other dinners, so it was a pleasant day!