Mincemeat Tarts

Happy Thanksgiving! Our family tradition is to home bake mincemeat tarts for the holidays. Mincemeat is a sweet filling mixture of raisins, apples, & currants. We make our own pie dough from scratch, but not like Grandmary used to make it. She was a lover of Crisco! It always did make her pie crust flakey, but I stick with butter. It's those little personal choices that shift family traditions, but in memory of Grandmary & my family I can't be with this holiday I will share these little tarts with the family that is near.

So this is our first Thanksgiving as a married couple! The Macy's day Parade is on & we will visit my cousin at his new house with his fiancée & other family. We are excited to share our wedding albumn & share our new life & love with everyone. We will Skype with family that is far away & it was requested that we dance the chicken dance, last year was the start of that tradition!

Enjoy this holiday & remember those family traditions from ages ago & the new traditions that can start at any crazy moment :)

My Lemonade Maker

There are many reasons I am marrying Marc, but one of his best qualities is making lemons into lemonade.  I have a feeling this may be a recurring section.  Planning our wedding we choose and compromised on so many details.  The weather, though, is something that no bride can choose.  The weather reports have looked like rain for the wedding, but they are turning around and we may have sunshine instead, yeah!

When I was at the height of my panic Marc suggested that if it did rain we reenact Jack Vettriano's painting 'Singing Butler.'  What a great man, making lemonade for me.

Loving My Life

Love the Life you Live, Live the Life you Love.  As silly as this sounds, I just found this saying to include here on the website and it made me realize I need to follow this saying. 

I dream about the future all the time.  About the career I want to have, about the house I want, about the dog I want, about the kids I want.  These are all wonderful things for which to dream.  But what about today? What about this afternoon, the lunch I will share with Marc? Will I enjoy that time, or will I just rush through it to get to my practice wedding hair appointment?

We currently live in 530 sqft, with no bedroom door and two crazy cats.  It is a small, but wonderful studio in the heart of Portland, Oregon.  We love the location and especially the western, sunset views.  Pink is our favorite nighttime color, as the sun sets behind city high-rise buildings and the coastal mountains.  But I do complain about the lack of storage space, and the lack of privacy, and the lack of good sleeping that occurs due to our wild cat Puma who lives for and loves 4:30 am!

I am living a wonderfully privileged life, and although there are aspects I love, I don't always show my gratitude for those, instead I complain about those things which I don't love.  Maybe today needs to be the day to start seeing this saying every time I log onto my blog and remember to be grateful for my blessings today, and to not worry so much about my future blessings.

I do love the life I am living, the life of Mrs. Wife.

My man's stomach

John Adams wrote in a letter (1814), 'The shortest road to men's hearts is down their throats,' and later came the saying 'a way to a man's heart is through his stomach.' I certainly have a stomach lover.

My mom came to visit over Memorial weekend to help with some of the last minute wedding details.  Though we didn't get everything on our list accomplished we did make great strides on our projects, and we managed to cook some wonderful meals for my husband-to-be.

Since he is Italian I have adopted his roots and learning to be the Mama in the household which includes trying to get my thin man a good square meal at least once per day.  Pork chops are one of his favorites, and I was able to learn a better way to prepare them so they look incredibly appetizing and taste a little better too.  We also made a chili-lime-shrimp fettuccine.  And with these meals we included a starch and a salad, which are often overlooked by Marc, but he seemed to really enjoy this weekend.

I am amazingly blessed with a future husband that loves ethnic food, can handle a little spice, and is willing to trying anything once.  He is a good sport and if he doesn't love something I have made he kindly encourages me to try again, but is somehow able to make diplomatic suggestions on how the meal could be improved.  He is wonderful with spices and seasoning and has encouraged me to be more adventurous in my cooking.  I don't mind being the primary cook, in fact I really achieve satisfaction from the smile and (nearly) licked clean plate.  I'm glad I have a champion in my corner encouraging me to try new dishes and techniques, and when he does help in the kitchen he is fantastic with meats and (again) seasoning.

Now I just need to learn how to prepare and shop for an entire week's worth of meals.  Always a new challenge ahead for the Mrs. Wife.

Options

Entering this new-to-me world of blogging I have entered the hearts and minds of many women broaching this same subject of 'wife.'  There are opinions on this issue ranging from livid that women are feeling the pressure of living up to a romanticized view of the Stepford Wife, to placid assurance that doing all the household chores and looking the part of a supermodel are obtainable on the one income that your husband must be bringing home.

I feel that life is a work in progress and that we are never quite there, but always can be striving to get there.  All aspects of life are ever changing as we grow as individuals and shifting as our wants and needs and social and economic status change.  Where is this 'there' that I want to be? Well, today I want to be a wife.  I want to get married to my fiance and be his partner, his Wingspouse as he climbs his own corporate ladder. And I also want to be a career woman. I am striving to build my own career before we have children. I want to have options, I want to choose my path, not just be forced into a mold. I am lucky enough to have a partner that is willing and able to let me live out my dreams.  Marc makes a good enough income that not only does he want me to pursue my dreams he will be able to financially allow me to follow them.  I never before thought I would be in this position, but here I am and I am grateful I have this choice.  Many women don't have the choice they are forced in one direction or another.  Right now, my 'there' is 'here' choosing to follow my dream of being a career wife while learning to be a good partner.

The Meaning of Wife

I just finished reading The Meaning of Wife: A provocative look at women and marriage in the twenty-first century by Anne Kingston.

It was an interesting book to read over the last few months while I was preparing to get married on June 12.

The book begins with the process of becoming a wife, the bride phase, in which I am thoroughly entrenched.  The white tulle dress, the butter cream frosting, which shade of lavender, all those questions surrounding the party.  Marc & I thankfully have focused also on the marriage not just the wedding, though those details have made the last year full of choices and compromises.

There was a small section on how to be a wife which was centered on the bedroom. And although I'm sure this is important, I was wanting more ideas of how to be a good wife while remaining a fulfilled woman.  It was hinted that this superwoman ideal is not realistic since there are few role models who succeed at being a wife, a mother, and a career woman, but I still believe this is a realistic option, perhaps just not all at the exact same moment.

Most of the book was then concentrated on abused wives, divorced former wives, and the monetary value of a wife. So, the negative aspects of being a wife were highlighted and the end of a marriage therefore the end of being a wife was also highlighted.  So, this really was a social look into the meaning of 'wife' not a guide to learn.

I have other books that I may read on this subject, but I suppose the experience of being a wife will help teach me on how to be the best wife to my future husband.