zucchini bread anyone?

This last month has flown by! Next thing I know we will be in Florida for our pictures, back to pack and then moving...

My parents came to Indianapolis this weekend to visit. (AWW) Jesse and I took them around the Carmel area and to the apartment complex we will be living at. I think they liked it, and I am sure it made them feel better knowing where we will be. My mom and I went shopping while dad and Jesse went to Champs. Apparently they did not realize we were going to shop till be dropped because two hours into shopping they called to ask where we were. We had only been to two stores and hadn't even made it to the Fashion Mall to shop for my engagement picture outfits. After mom and I were tired shopping, around 5:30, the boys came to get us and take us to dinner. We ended up at Mitchell's, which is a nice seafood place at Clay Terrace.

Anyways...back to the subject of the post. My parents came this weekend, and they brought me fresh produce from the garden. Zucchini and fresh green beans. Well, last night (Sunday) Jesse pan fried some organic chicken breasts and made fresh green beans with bacon, onions, and tomatoes for dinner. It was yummy. I decided to make zucchini bread, but realized that I had gotten rid of my loaf pan in the move. Then I tried to find my cupcake tins. Luckily, I did find them, they were in the garage in probably the last Rubbermaid I went through. After that hassle, I went home and peeled and seeded the zucchini, then shredded them by hand. When I was done I made the mix to put in the tins. I had originally planned to make a bunch and give to Dave, take to work, and eat. But of course, after the first batch of 12, I ran out of flour, sugar and eggs. Soooo off to the store I went. When I got back I made one more batch before calling it a night. Luckily the effort paid off because the muffins are so yummy and moist! I also liked the addition of using freshly grated nutmeg by me! I will no doubt make many more batches in the weeks to come.

Take-n--Make

So, I went to this Take-n-Make party at Jesse's boss's house (Melanie). Basically, you bring the meat so you can be picky and do whatvever cut you like or the quality and so forth. Then you take it in plastic bags. When you get to the place, they have stations set up. You make one meal per station, for a total of five meals. It was $30 for 5 meals plus the cost of meat. The meals sound yummy and all we have to do is take them out of the freezer to thaw and then bake them or grill or what not. (Assuming our freezer doesn't go out again). I will keep you updated on the results. We have stuff for hot chicken subs, Italian chicken foil packets, Western Casserole, Asian Pork, and Cilantro Citrus chicken. Mmm...I am making myself hungry.


I also bought some mixes for some dessert type cheese balls, salad dressings, and this amazing dip. SO, I guess you will all have to come over to visit me and Jesse, huh??

Moving on up to the Northside....

I feel like singing the Three's Company song.

Today was the last straw for us at the Gardens of Canal Court. I mean... you would think the 5 refridgerator/freezer outages would have been enough, but today they told us that we were looking at October before we would get a two bedroom. (We have been on the waitlist since March) October as in months after we told them we wanted to move, and October as in 2 months after they told me two weeks ago. Basically they strung us along because they knew they could. Well, I guess it wasn't in their favor because we had enough of their crap. Air conditioner breaking on top of the fridge/freezer outages, and not getting us in into a two bedroom---all added up finally got to us.

We went apartment hunting last week, but ultimately the kitchen was a deal breaker for me. It was like a galley kitchen---something I refer to as a hallway kitchen. Not enough room for me and Jesse, and I know that I would be telling him to "move" all the time. Also, there was a shortage of cabinet space. If you have seen our kitchen, we have a lot of dishes and serving plates and gadgets so we need lots of cabinets!

So today, after being told by the apartment people they can't get us in until October (maybe October at that), we went apartment hunting again and found Providence at Old Meridian. Providence is located in Carmel, Indiana, and I'm not excited about it because now I will be able to drop what people in this state refer to as the "Carmel bomb", no I am excited because it is somewhere with a working fridge! How strange that something like that would excite me. I am also excited about it being closer to shopping, the grocery store, hospitals, and doctors, not to mention far away from street shootings.

This place seems top of the line; we will have to keep ya'll updated on how it turns out after we live there for a while. It has an outdoor pool and hot tub. A workout facility, tanning beds, an onsite postal office, dry cleaning drop off and pick up, a movie theatre, virtual golf, and a bunch of other things that seem nice but we will probably not use often. The kitchen in the "Georgetown" (the apartment floorplan we selected) is open and spacious. We can even put our kitchen table in there. There is also an area that can be used as a desk in the kitchen. The bedrooms are good sized and the closets in the bedrooms are huge!!!!! I just can't wait. I believe a quote from me to Jesse tonight was: "If we ever get in a fight, I can just go into my closet and sit." That is how nice and huge they are. They even have the double racks to fit even more stuff! We have a balcony and an outdoor storage closet outside just off the balcony. We have a graden tub!! --and the great thing about that is that it has a shower hookup too, so it's not JUST a bath tub. I am just too excited about this place.

The downside for me is that it is further from school and my job. But in all fairness Jesse has that commute everyday to work in summers. Also, there is a charter bus that picks up in Carmel (6-8am) for $2 and drops you off downtown. It also picks up at night (4-6pm)downtown and drops you off at Carmel for an additional $2. So that is an option. I will keep you updated after we move in on the place. Everyone will have to come visit us because now we will have a spare bedroom. Also, we are pretty close to the Fashion Mall! Watch your wallets men.

Idiosyncrasies

So one night before bed, Jesse and I got into a conversation about towels. Yes, towels. You see he has this thing about hanging the towel up after you get out of the shower and are done using it. I have this thing about dropping it some place and forgetting about it.

Growing up...I (along with my sisters) used one towel per bath/shower. Each time I took a shower, I got a new towel. Jenni on the other hand liked to use two at once. One for her hair and one for her body. Until college, I always did the one towel per shower/bath and then a new towel each time. I thought that this was normal--and did until Jesse told me otherwise.

In college, I began reusing (gasp!) my towels because it was a pain to do laundry. However, I still had quite a few towels so that I did not have to reuse them more than a few times. In Costa Rica, I had to reuse towels, but because they never really dried I had a rotation of about three towels that I would reuse. When I met Jesse and we started sleeping at each other's place. I realized that he expected me to reuse my towel. Okay, I can handle that...not too wierd. However, I always would slip up and leave it crumpled on the floor in the bathroom, living room, his room, my room, (depending on whose place we were at). OOps! Not every girl can be perfect can she? Well, other times I would not forget to hang it but would real quick get it up there on the towel bar and stuff it down so it would hang. Basically I would twist the towel and shove it onto and over the bar to make it stay. I often would get criticized by Jesse and he would do an impersonation of how I hang up my towels...he was usually spot on.

Anyways, one night in bed we were talking about towels and why I am so horrible about hanging them up or even how I hang them. It was then I told him that growing up I ever reused towels and when I go home to visit my parents, I still don't. So I guess, I just would relapse sometimes and not think. He told me he had never heard of using new towels each shower. He was like thats like what you do at a hotel....he could not believe the thought. I was like--that's why I have so many towels. Then he talked about how you would have to do laundry all the time or that when you did laundry it would take like 5 loads just for towels. I guess I never thought about it like that...PLUS, I thought everyone did this!!!! I guess this is just another Neeley family trait. We girls like our towels fresh and clean! In doing my best to go green, I guess I will just try harder to hang up my towel so that it drys and I do not have to get a towel each time I shower. :)-

Wedding Planning

Well, its not as easy as it might sound. I hate decisions and wedding planning is not like shopping! If it was that easy, I would have it done done done!

Jesse and I made a trip to Pensacola after finals and did some wedding stuff. We met with Patsy Brown (our wonderful photographer! really visit her website- www.patsybrown.com). We saw the church, it is just magnificent and beautiful on its own. We stopped in at Jackson's and talked with the lady about our reception. We also went to Christopher Kelly's hair salon to talk about reserving the day-which I need to do. We also went to Betty Weber's (THE cake lady!) to cake test. If you are having a wedding in Pensacola, FL, there is no doubt in my mind you have come across Betty Weber's name. She is known by every wedding vendor and highly recommended. We tasted her cake and saw her work, it is just AMAZING. I think we are going with Butta and Chocolate Chip. I love how it's called butta instead of butter and I will say it like that to anyone who wants to know what type of cake we have-- "it's butta!"

We did make it to the outlet mall in Destin and we found some awesome things from Le Creuset. The blue color matches Jesse's Old Britian Castle Blue dishes that do not have as many serving pieces as the pink or other dishes. So I bought us some salt and peper shakers, a spoon rest, and a sugar and creamer thing. I could have gotten more but I didn't know we were going to ship it rather than pack it. Jesse got a tageie and is pumped about cooking with it. I am pumped to eat his cooking! We also picked up some more Old Britain Castle Blue dishes to add to our set. It's funny how buying kitchen stuff is exciting to me. But it is!!!

We spent most of yesterday, Thursday, May15, in the airport. It was crappy weather and I was glad to get to my bed by the end of the day. We had some screamers on the plane and of course they sat close to us. The flights were also real bumpy and turbulent. After taking a taxi home, taking a hot bath and getting ready for bed...I realize we have no contact stuff. So at 1:30 in the morning, Jesse and I head to the store for contact solution. I am sans bra and can barely see. Luckily we got it and headed home and the rest was ZZZZzzzz.

March 8, 2008

March 7, 2008, we began Spring Break of our 2L year. By we, I mean Jesse and I. We flew out of Bloomington, Illinois around 10 or 11 am on that Friday, the 7th. But in order to do that we had to leave Morton by 8:30. If you know me and Jesse, waking up when we could be sleeping in is not something we do.
So we finally get on the plane and Jesse sat by the window. But when he sat down he quickly got up. He had sat on something wet in his seat...(by the location of the liquid I'm pretty sure it was a little kid's "accident". So Jesse rang the bell for the flight attendant and because of how full the plane was could only offer Jesse a blanket to sit on. Poor guy, at least he got a free drink out of it!!! We finally get in the air and of course I start getting a headache and hot and just want to be on the ground.
I could tell this wasn't going to be a good day. I thought I was going to get sick, but luckily I saved myself and Jesse from that embarrassment. We landed in Atlanta and had a long lay over...we went to lunch at Sweetwater Brewing Company in Concourse B. It was crowded and loud and I wanted nothing more to get a cocktail, but my stomach couldn't bear it. Instead I ordered a water and hamburger. It was delicious and I finally started feeling a little better. We ran to some stores like Bath and Body and Jesse got his shoes shined. But we still had like two hours to waste before our flight to Pensacola. We ended up going to another place for drinks, and my tummy decided to behave...Some how the time finally passed and we got on the plane...I thought we'd never take off. We waited on the air strip behind a whole line of planes probably for over 30 minutes. When we finally got in the air, it was a little bumpy but the flight was short. I was sooooo happy to land in Pensacola and be done with air travel for the day. Jesse's parents picked us up at the airport and we went back to his house. Jesse and I hottubbed to relieve some tension from the day of travel and then we went to dinner at Dharma Blue. MMMM such good sushi!

Saturday we layed out by the pool and got some sun. There's nothing better than being by the pool and laying out when you know its snowing back home! That night Jesse decided he wanted to go out to eat at Jackson's. I had heard so much about this place and was excited to finally go...I was especially excited to have the key lime phyllo purse. (dessert is like the best part of any meal) Mrs. Pace was so cute and helped me find a shawl to wear over my dress in case I got cold. I got ready to go and so did Jesse...we sure do clean up well! That night Jesse parked a few blocks away but I didn't think about it really. We started to walk towards the restaurant and then he wanted to take a round about way to get there through the park. He said he wanted to show me Plaza Ferdinand so we walked through and stopped in front of a water fountain. We hugged...and thats when it happened. He told me he loved me and asked if I loved him (well this is how I remember it but let me tell you I was so shocked that my memory probably escapes me a little), he got down on his knee and proposed. I, of course, said yes. I made him put the ring on my finger and I could not take my eyes off it! We somehow made it to Jackson's, but frankly I don't remember walking there at all. I do remember grinning ear to ear and looking down at my hand to make sure it was real. One of the servers had ESP or something and asked "so how did he do it?" They brought us champaign and I honestly was so excited that I couldn't read the menu or process anything other than how sparkly my ring was and how happy I was to be engaged to the man of my dreams and the love of my life! I ordered the special which was three types of meat over risotto and Jesse had a filet with bearnaise sauce. The meal was amazing and we finished it off splitting a dessert of the key lime phyllo purse. On the way home Jesse decided it would be funny to walk in and pretend we didn't get engaged (because they were in on it the entire time). So he took the ring and put it back in his pocket, but he nor I could keep a straight face so we nixed that idea. (I made him put the ring back on my hand!) When we got back to his house, it was so cute, you could see his mom in the kitchen from their breezeway. She saw that we were home and ran to get Mr. Pace...then they came into the kitchen when we were walking in. She asked about dinner but then couldn't wait any longer and came and gave us big hugs. They broke out some champaign and let us use their gold goblets from their wedding night. I used "Lucy" and Jesse used "Jim". It was the perfect night. We ended the night by hottubing...and I'm sure I went to bed before Jesse like always.

The rest of the week went entirely too fast. We ate at McGuires once, went there for drinks a few times, went to his grandmother's house for dinner, went to Jaime's (amazing!), and also made a meal at home. I must say that I was well fed over Spring Break and I probably left Pensacola 5 pounds heavier than I arrived. We visited with his parents, grandparents and Jesse's friends Jimmy, Jeremy and Winston. I even went to curves with Mrs. Pace and got to show off my rock :) It was an amazing break and release from school. I was sad to leave but so excited to show my mom my ring!

Since then We've decided on a date and location...January 3, 2009 in Pensacola, Florida. And on March 29 I found my wedding dress. Just like my sister Jenni said--it was the first dress I tried on. I went and looked at other places but it was the one, and I went back and ordered it. My mom and Christine were by my side helping me the entire day! It is so exciting but let me tell you, there are endless decisions that come along with a wedding...and there is plenty of things for me to blog about!

Friday, May 18

Well, once again it's been awhile since I posted. Was it because I was busy? Yes...was it because I had nothing to write about? not really but perhaps at the time I thought so. I finally finished my first year of law school--No more being a 1L. I took my last final on May 9, and what a relief it was when it was 11 o'clock and all my finals were complete. My sister Jenni and Erik came with my dad and mom to help me move my stuff out of my apartment in the ghetto because I will be moving into another aparment next fall. And then we moved me into my parents house; which I have been since Sunday and I move Sunday to live with Jenni and Erik for the summer and will be working at Nash, Nash, Bean and Ford. I'll write more about my job when I find about it.
I am away from Jesse and miss him desperately but I know I will get to see him on the weekends so that will give me something to look forward to. I also am going to make Jenni go on walks with me and plan to go with her to watch Erik's softball games. I think I will be quite busy--but that seems to be the story of my life. I return to Indianapolis in August and actaully start school before everyone else because I am doing a class to get certified as a mediator...and then I am pretty sure I have an internship next fall with the Housing Department but will find out more throughout summer...that's all for now.

I am going shopping in Bloomington to get some work clothes and spend time with my momma...