Alphablog - D

D is for Double Date Night

On Saturday the 19th we met up with some friends for a double date night. A few months ago Clinton's best friend Robert asked if we would want to meet up with him and his fiance Ashley to go see a comedy show. The comedian was Anthony Jeselnik who is not really my speed (offensive comedy), so I was definitely more in for the social aspect of the evening.

We decided to meet for dinner first and Clinton and I were in charge of picking where. Clinton thought a steakhouse would be a good choice since the other half of our part is sort of picky. He picked the steakhouse at Rawhide since it happened to be very near the venue. I sort of tried to warn him that the place wasn't exactly known for fine cuisine - it's an old western town with saloons and shootouts and stuff and it's more about the novelty than anything else, kind of like the Renaissance Festival. We went anyway and, well... it was a little bit of a disaster, ha! The food was pretty blah - frozen garlic bread, rubbery/inedible corn on the cop, and Clinton's steak was the most undercooked steak in the history of undercooked steaks - and then the service wasn't good, either. This all sounds like we had a pretty irritating time but honestly, it's the company that counts and we were all laughing and having a fun time, so whatever! It was the first time I had met Ashley so it was good that we finally all got a chance to hang out.

After we ate, we headed over to the venue where the show was, grabbed some drinks, and settled in for some laughs. I liked the opening act - I think her name was Cameron something? She was pretty funny and interacted with the crowd a lot, which was cool. After that, Jeselnik came on and did his show, and it was kind of what I expected - it wasn't my cup of tea, but I didn't have a miserable time or anything - but the guys were cracking up, so that was kinda funny to watch. After the show we all stood around in the parking lot shooting the breeze and joking around for another hour or so, before I had to bow out since I was the only one who had to work the next morning.

Despite the comical dining experience and the not so comical comic, I still had a great night, and I'm really glad we went.

Alphablog - C

C is for Concert.

An AFI concert, to be exact. It was easily one of the best shows I've ever been to, and I've been to some pretty good shows if I do say so myself.

Clinton is a huge AFI fan. He is the reason I started listening to them back in 2004 - I was totally just trying to be cool when he said I should listen to them like "oh yeah, totally, they sound great!", coming from the girl who, at the time, listened to almost exclusively soft pop rock (think Snow Patrol, The Killers, Keane, etc). Clinton has pretty diverse taste in music, however, and has opened my eyes to more than one band but by far, his biggest success with me (and perhaps most surprising) has been AFI. I'm definitely not on the same level of fandom as he is, but they are for sure one of my favorite bands now.

They started releasing sort of creepy black and white video snippets and photos over the past few months on social media to get people talking, and then it was announced that their new album, Burials, was to be released on October 22nd. Excited is an understatement. Excited probably works to describe my feelings on this news, but I don't think that my husband has looked forward to something so much in... well, possibly ever. So when I found out that they would be coming through Arizona, I decided to snatch up a couple tickets the second they went available for pre-sale.

The concert was on Sunday, October 20th and the album release buzz coming from everyone at the venue waiting for the show was almost palpable. We stood in line with the rest of the crowd for the sold-out show just itching to get inside. There was even a tiny child there who we got a kick out of. I mean, the kid was probably only about 6 years old so whether or not he should have been there was pretty questionable, but he looked pretty cool in his little patch-covered, punky denim vest.

We got in and milled about for a bit until the first opening act came on. The openers were The Coming and Touche Amore - a lot of people there knew all of the Touche Amore songs, but neither of us had ever heard of them. Marquee Theatre is standing room only and your spot is dependent on how early you get there, how packed the show is, and how aggressive you are. Considering we got there at a decent time, the fact that it was a sold out show, and how completely unaggressive I am in public, we still managed to be standing in a pretty decent spot, about 30 feet back from center stage. A circle pit formed to the left of us, but not near enough to bother us. The closer it got to the main show though, the more people started crowding in and packing tight to get closer to the stage. We decided to move back so that we could see better (Clinton said he wanted to "take it all in") and not be crushed. We wound up almost smack dab in the middle of the place which worked out great. Another circle pit (tangent: I do NOT get moshing. At all. It is dangerous and seems painful and you miss the show?? Why do people do this??) formed right in front of us w/ about 2 people in between, but the security at the show was super on top of things and stayed right there the whole show, holding the perimeter so it didn't get out of hand. It was actually pretty perfect for us because there was an opening that we ended up being able to see right past. Serendipity is not just a John Cusak movie, my friends.

AFI came out, and the place trembled with excitement. Clinton yelled so loud I thought he was going to burst a blood vessel. Davey Havok greeted the crowd, and thanked the openers.The air was electri, and suddenly, the opening chords of The Leaving Song Pt. II ripped through the air and the crowd burst to life.

Don't waste your touch, you won't feel anything
Or were you sent to save me?

A few songs in they played their first single from the Burials, I Hope You Suffer.
EVERY person there sang it, which just goes to show how desperate the fan base has been for new material. It was awesome.

Seriously, every single thing about the show was spectacular. They sounded amazing. It is the absolute worst when you go to a show and it sounds nothing like the record, or they use a backup track the entire time - the whole band was spot on but seriously, I've got to give it to Davey - that dude can sing his damn face off while jumping and dancing all over the whole place. Maybe there's something to being a straight edge vegan...

I got a little sad at one point in the concert when they played The Leaving Song because I had a really terrible time for a few months in 2005 and listened to that album a lot, particularly that song - and even though none of that stuff is an issue anymore, hearing that song just brought me back to the way that I used to feel. That's the awesome thing about music though, it's so powerful - you may not want to remember those things but it's a visceral reaction. I'm not complaining because it happens on the opposite end where I hear songs that make me unreasonably happy as well.

That small bit aside, I had a fantastic time. The crowd was rowdy but we were in a good spot, the band sounded stunning, the setlist was really perfect (no stuff nobody has ever heard), my darling husband was insanely happy (He said it was the the second best day of his life), they gave us two encores, and we got to witness Davey prove his Total Fucking Rockstar status when he STOOD on the crowd and sang his beautiful heart out.

It was a show totally worth staying out past midnight for on a Sunday night - I wouldn't change a single thing.

Alphablog - B

B is for Bones.

Bones is one of my favorite tv shows. When we first started watching it I was not a huge fan - I thought it was cheesy. The truth is, it is cheesy, but that is part of the charm. You really grow to love the characters and this week, one of America's favorite tv couples finally tied the knot, and it was perfect.

I just wanted to keep a reminder of it here in my little corner of the internet.

Alphablog - A

I've decided to do a little blog project wherein I write every day for 26 days. I've been neglecting the blog for other creative outlets, but I'd like to try and make it a habit, so this is my attempt at giving it a little more attention. Let's get started!

[note: This post is actually from Wednesday, October 23rd, but I went out that night and forgot to hit 'Publish', so there will be another post later today!]

A is for Anniversary.

On October 6 we celebrated our one year anniversary! It's a funny thing to say because when people ask how long we've been married and we say a year they always come back with something about being newlyweds, but we've actually been together for 8 years, and known each other for almost 10! But we have a new anniversary now, a married anniversary, and so yes - it has only been a year.

Our wedding was fantastic - so filled with love from every single direction, and I still reflect on it often. I know that the wedding is just one day in a whole life, but I will always remember it fondly and I don't think I will ever stop looking at the photos. It was such a joyous day and it still makes me so happy to think of it.

My friend/photographer put together this slideshow - she said that she tells clients they are only up for a couple months, but mine is still up, so I'll keep looking at it for as long as it's there!

http://www.dreamboxphotography.com/archive/whitneyclinton.html

It's an odd thing, really. In some ways, it's amazing how fast the year has gone, but it also feels like we've been married forever. I realize that that is a terribly cliché thing to say, but it's true. Something funny happened to me recently - I was looking through old Facebook stuff recently, and I saw something where I said, "my boyfriend and I recently adopted our dog" and it looked so weird! I couldn't even fathom calling Clinton my boyfriend, it just sounded so strange! I laughed and told him about it and he agreed that it did sound really odd.

A lot of times, people will ask things like, "So how is married life," and the truth is, it is exactly the same - sort of. We were together for quite a while before (including 5 years of shacking up) so really, nothing has changed other than the rings on our fingers, a piece of paper, our titles, and my name. So why does it feel so different? Our lives are exactly the same as they were before we got married. We loved each other, we were happy together, we were committed, and there was never really any doubt to our relationship - but somehow, we are even happier now. More than one person told us that we were ruining a good thing - that couples who are together forever get married and then end up hating each other. I don't know, I think those people probably just didn't really belong together in the first place. Even though nothing has technically changed, there is just a more secure feeling that comes with knowing you've got a partner for life. I'm pretty stoked about my partner - I think he is kind of awesome. So yes, things are the same, but they're also different. Life as a Reissig is a thousand times better than life as Reissig and a Martini.

We honeymooned in Las Vegas - we've been there plenty of times before, but our honeymoon was more chill - all about relaxing, and eating as much gourmet food as we could get our hands on. We ate at Todd English's Olives at the Bellagio, and it was amazing - one of the top two meals we've ever had - and so we decided to go back there for our anniversary. It's not 100% decided yet, but we have kicked around the idea of going back and doing this every year.

We exchanged the traditional paper gifts - I commissioned an artist to do a drawing based off of a photo (featured in the above slideshow!) taken of the spot where we had our ceremony, and he found someone to make paper flowers - the song on them is "our song", they are made to match our wedding colors, and some of the flowers are made out of wedding photos.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early, and headed to Vegas. We got there around lunchtime. I had told Clinton he could decide what we were going to do, where we were going to stay for the night, etc. - all that really mattered to me was that we eat at Olives, and possibly go check out a place I had seen my friend post about a few days earlier. When we arrived, we went to the Mirage just to look around and check things out since we had never been there before - he scoped it out beforehand and had some plans including lunch at BLT Burger, and an afternoon at the Secret Garden to see dolphins and the jungle cats from the Sigfried and Roy shows.

After eating our fill and walking around the Secret Garden and watching a dolphin training session (so cute!) we still had some time to kill before our dinner reservation, so we decided to go check-in at the hotel and then walk around the shops at Caesar's Palace for a while. We stayed at the Bellagio, which was a surprise to me. Clinton decided it was worth it - we were only staying one night, and it was our anniversary, after all! Plus it was super convenient to be staying in the same place as the restaurant, so we didn't have to deal with driving or a cab or anything. I was very happy to stay there - it's on my bucket list! The room was gorgeous - I took a bunch of photos to save for inspiration down the line. We were in a blue room, but we passed a few others with open doors that were orange, yellow, and green - they all seemed to have a color scheme but similar design elements.

After wandering around the shops for a bit, we decided to head back to our room and get ready for our date, and then we promptly decided that a mirror double-selfie was totally necessary for this momentous occasion. It's not every day that you celebrate your 1-year anniversary, after all!

There's a secret at Olives, and beyond the fantastic food, this is the real reason to go - you can sit on the patio and watch the famous fountains! There is one catch - you cannot reserve a patio table. You can make a reservation, and then ask to be seated on the patio once you get there, but they won't hold a prime table for anyone. Trust me though, the wait is worth it! Sitting outside by candlelight, devouring a mouth-watering meal and watching the fountains dance is a magical experience. We arrived for our reservation and told the hostess we would like to wait for a patio table, and then sat at the bar. We were there for about an hour and a half which sounds like a long time, but it passed quickly. We ordered drinks and chatted between ourselves and even met another couple there celebrating their 22nd wedding anniversary! If I recall correctly, their names were Eric and April, and they were so lovely.

After 2 drinks each (you don't even want to know how much 4 drinks and a tip are at an expensive restaurant, ha!) we were finally seated. Our waitress brought out the standard bread basket which, by the way, is not standard at all. They serve delicious bread and flatbreads with 2 a mix of olives and 2 kinds of tapenade. Sooooo tasty. Clinton ordered an appetizer and a side, while I ordered a main dish, and we shared everything. It was, of course, to die for. Between the two of us we've now tried 7 things there, and I haven't had a single regrettable bite. I sometimes dream of eating at Olives - that's how good it is! It was so lovely to watch the fountains lit up at night and celebrate in such a charming spot.

We had talked about going to a show after dinner, but we were both tired since we had gotten up so early and had a pretty long day, so we decided that we just wanted to go back to our room and relax. Well, we obviously needed to take some more photos first! What can I say, I just love pictures.

Monday morning while Clinton was getting ready I enjoyed looking out our window - there were some really cool clouds forming, and I liked looking down at the pool area - seriously, even the pools at the Bellagio are beautiful!

We checked out and put our bags in the car, then went back in to have breakfast at a sweet little cafe overlooking the pools (where I had the best breakfast sandwich, it was on a delicious rosemary bun!) and relax for a little bit longer. After that, we decided to check out The Cosmopolitan - a friend of mine had posted a photo from there recently that intrigued me, and I wanted to check out The Chandelier, a 3-story bar/club inside that is just one huge chandelier! I seriously, seriously wish that photos could do this place justice, but they simply can't. I'm a sucker for a shiny thing so I could hardly contain my excitement. Clinton was literally in the middle of a sentence when I burst out with, "Oh my GOD, this is the prettiest thing I have ever SEEN!" It was stunning, and we didn't even get a chance to go inside! Something about it being 10am, apparently people don't go to bars then... weird. Still though, it was just beautiful, and I was amazed at the detail and level of planning that must have gone into making it.

After I had gotten my fill of the sparkle, we walked around the strip for a bit, finishing up with a walk past the Bellagio lake for one last look at my new favorite hotel and Olives, and then we made our way back home.

It was a fabulous anniversary, and I look forward to many, many more of them.

Five Things

1) Debbie's Retirement
Last Friday was my mother in law's last day of work EVER. Pretty exciting! Her husband was out of town for work and I didn't want her to have to go home to an empty house on such a momentous occasion, so I had Clinton tell her to meet us at our place for dinner at 6 (but that was a trick!). I had the idea to do a little mini scavenger hunt leading her to meet us at her favorite restaurant. Since it was last-minute and there would only be about an hour from the time that she got home until she was supposed to meet us, I didn't want to make it too complicated, so I just did little poems instead of puzzles for clues.

After work we made a quick stop at Party City and then headed to her house to decorate the driveway/carport and place the clues, and then we headed to the restaurant to snag a seat, place the final poem, and wait for her arrival.

She was so giggly and happy when she arrived, it was so cute! She said that it was a really fun end to her day, so I'm glad we threw together this little last minute celebration.

After dinner we took her out to see a movie of her choice - Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2. It was a fun night for sure.

2) Saturday Night Shenanigans
I had to work Saturday but in the evening we spent some time with three of my thirteen nieces and nephews. Madison had a birthday recently and we got her a gift card to Hobby Lobby because she looooves all things crafty. The deal was that on the next free weekend, we would take her to spend it. Her brother Jaxon was with us too, but she wanted a girls night, so Jaxon and Clinton hung out at our place playing video games while I took Madi and Sydney to Hobby Lobby. She was awesome in there, I loved watching her! She was just blazing through the place throwing things in the cart left and right, ha! She made off with quite the haul. While we were there, the girls helped me pick out the finishing touch for Clinton's anniversary present, and it was so cute how excited they were to be in on the secret.

After HL and before heading home, I took the girls for froyo - they said no boys allowed! Sassy.

On the way home we stopped to pick up some Taco Bell for the boys, and after eating we all headed over to the playground at our apartment. Jaxon ended up hurting his heel playing, so I went back inside with him for more video games while Clinton hung back to play make believe firefighters with Syd and Madi. Later, Clinton told me that after they were done playing they went for a walk around the complex all holding hands, and Madi told him, "You're more than an uncle to me - and trust me, that means a lot! You're more like my best friend," and Sydney chimed in with, "Yeah, you're our best friend!"

Please excuse me while I just melt all over the place. Clean-up in aisle 1, we've got a Reissig puddle here.

Eventually we took them all home where the girls immediately jumped in the pool for some night swimming and Clint and I spent a little bit of time with my sister and her husband. It was a good night!

3) Clevelend Inidans
The Indians are in the playoffs! I became an Indians fan because my grandfather was one. He passed several years ago, but I have his old jacket and even got to bring it with me to a game at Progressive Field in 2011 - it was a surreal experience.

Looks like I'll be rocking my custom jersey and grandad's jacket for a bit! #tribepride

4) Sunday Family dinner
Sunday we planned on having Tom and Debbie over for dinner and to watch football and the Kids Cookoff on Food Network (cutest show ever, by the way). During the day my friend and her family dropped by since they were on our side of town, so that was nice. My husband is a total crazypants and riled her kids up as he always does, and her husband said that he's just waiting until we have kids so he can get them all worked up too. Agh! I'll have to keep an eye on that one... ha!

Dinner was Braised Short Ribs on Parmesan Polenta with Balsamic Glazed Toasted Asparagus, and Toasted Baguette. It was delicious.

5) Harry Potter News
I AM SUPER EXCITED ABOUT SOMETHING.

http://www.mugglenet.com/app/news/show/7209

Enough said.

Pinspiration 5/5 + a bonus project.

For Pinspirations 1-2 see HERE.
For Pinspirations 3-4 see HERE.

For my 5^th and final (well, not final, but the final one of at least 5 that I promised myself I would do) little Pinterest project, I made over an old shoebox to hold my many pens/markers/pencils, as well as a few extras like exacto knives and paint brushes.

The Pinterest caption: Shoe box + paper towel tubes = storage for pens and other office/art supplies.



I did mine in red/tan since it was going in the office/2nd bedroom and the color palette in there is cream/red/brown/tan.

Easy as pie, and a fair amount cuter than the Ziploc freezer bag they were previously stored in. I'll probably take those rolls out and cut them down some more so they're not sticking over the top, but the sun was setting and I wanted to snap some pics in decent lighting.

I covered the inside in a plain tan cardstock with some very light texturing just so things wouldn't slide around as easily. The outside looks like burlap, but it's just a patterned cardstock. I cut and measured individual pieces for each side of the box. It's totally up to you, but I covered the bottom of the box too even though nobody will ever see it, I'm just a little anal that way. After the paper was all on I just hot glued some twine around the edges and the middle to make it look a little more finished, and then just organized my writing/drawing utensils by type and color. fin.

When I went to put it away on the desk I looked at my bookshelf and decided that while I was at it, I was also going to attempt a fairly popular design element and organize the small bookshelf in that room by color. (Are you sensing a pattern? You should see my color-coded closet. It's ridiculous.)

Color-coded bookshelves are all over the blogosphere and design/decor magazines. A quick Google search comes up with a cornucopia of options.

I personally am not a huge fan of full wall rainbow so if I had a large bookshelf I wouldn't do it that way. I might still color block, but not in a rainbow pattern, and I would break it up with small decor items and books stacked in different directions. To each their own, though. I sort of caught some flack about this when I posted a photo of my finished product on Facebook, and then when I was looking for a link to show people that yes, this is in fact a thing that people are doing, I came across THIS Apartment Therapy article explaining why people do this. It wasn't the article that struck me though - it was the comments.

WOW. People get really unnecessarily mad at other people's design choices. Seriously, really angry and rude and judgmental. There were a lot of comments saying that this was a disgusting thing to do, and people who do this must buy their books strictly for looks and have no respect for books and never read them - so on and so forth. I mean... I like books, and I read all of the books that I have, and I happen to already have a fairly varied assortment of colored spines - but I also like things to look cute. So, you know, whatever. If any of my readers are the super angry commenters from that post then please feel free to skip the rest of this entry!

I took everything off the bookshelf and arranged the books into stacks based on color. I moved the piles around a few times before I was satisfied with them, and then added a few small pieces for visual interest like a Dwight Schrute bobblehead and beet stress ball, a Rubik's Cube, a photo from a friend's wedding, a souvenir box from our recent Seattle trip, and a small glass vase filled with bookmarks.

#ravenclawpride

I like it. I think it looks cute and cohesive and adds both some fun color and some much needed structure/organization to what is currently a very disorganized room. Now I did have to sacrifice some books for this to work - for example, I just really can't bring myself to separate books in a series, so anything like that (*ahem* like, oh, I don't know, 10 Harry Potter books) will wind up in a new home. It looks a lot better though. It was cluttered before and in addition to books held things like old cameras and previous years' taxes, which needed to be put away somewhere better anyway!

Suck it, haters.

 



Have you made any controversial design decisions? Have you ever typed up a blog post and felt absolutely ridiculous writing the words "controversial design decision"? Because I know someone who has...