6 things that make me happy

I was tagged by the ever so stylish Chic 'n Cheap NYC Wedding to name 6 things that make me happy & seriously I was thrilled, I just started this little blog so being tagged put a big smile on my face :-)

So here are the 6 things that come to mind at this very moment that make me happy...

1. My lovie dovie, aka mi amor, aka my loves. On valentine's day 2 years ago he drew a little stick figure saying "hug me please" in spanish and I ended up framing it because it made me so happy. (btw he doesn't speak spanish but I do) He is the love of my life and no matter how bad my day is, I can just think of him & I get happy again.

2. Mi familia. I have a very small family & we are very close. It makes me happy to have them around and experiance life with them.

3. My soon to be sister in law (her bf), mother in law (her bf) & father in law. My loves family met my family last weekend and hit it off, I had been nervous about them meeting but it went absolutley great!

4. My iphone. I know how terrible is it for me to be listing a device, but it's my right hand man!

5. Sales. I love it when I want something & it's on sale.

6. comments on my new blog yay! Seriously I get so happy when someone leaves a comment!

I'm tagging
1. Nymphont
2. The Frugal Fabulous Wedding
3. Anna and the ring
4. A Ten Thousand Wedding
5. The Adventures of Bunny and Chip
6. The Relentless Bride

Iphone App: Wedding Related

ok ladies I could not wait till next week to give you some more iPhone apps, because I just found out today that theknot.com now has there own iPhone app for free!
The low down: Great quick way to find out answers to the 150+ top wedding questions & you can post your wedding questions and instantly get answers from other brides-to-be. What it's not- does not sync to your knot.com account & does not show the regular boards from the knot.


and weddingwire.com has an app too!
The low down: Shows all kinds or vendors in your area, and like most apps that are based on a particular website, it does not sync with your weddingwire account.

DIY Recipe Cards

speaking of cooking...how cute are these recipe cards by Leo on the Loose! *here*

and these by Creature Comforts *here*

iPhone App: All Recipes

In October 07 , my contract ended with my precious cellphone provider and I was off to the iPhone store and since then my iPhone and I have been best buds. I needAllrecipes.com iPhone app aka the dinner spinner!
The Low Down: gives you the ability to search for recipes, save them as a favorite, read the reviews for the recipe and has the ability to email the recipe. What it doesn't do is it does NOT sync with your allrecipes.com account and doesn't have ALL the recipes & this my friend pisses some people off who have been using allrecipes.com for years. I'm cool with it not syncing, cause when I am using it I'm trying to find something quick and that I don't know about. And now for the recipes I've found thanks to the dinner spinner!
my iphone, seriously. It's like my own personal assistant. It tells me when helps me decide what I should cook, tells me when I have eaten too much, allows me to read blogs on the go etc etc. I'm always on the look out for new apps but I try & only get the free ones. So since sharing is caring, from time to time I will tell you guys about the apps I love, they will almost always be free, I think the most I have paid is $3 for one, literally just that one. So today I present the recipes I found while working out on the elliptical at the gym while trying to find a recipe for a work potluck.

1. Tex Mex Black Bean Dip

2. Jalapeno Popper Spread

3. Dog Food Dip -ya the name kind of put me off too, but it is freaking good & EVERYONE loved it.
   

Last year I dropped my external hard drive! and even though people tell you that, it's possible to get the data, let me tell you it comes with a hefty price, a price I was not willing to pay. The only thing I had in the external hard drive were my pictures for the last 4 years, luckily I had backed them all in my flickr account. When you have a pro account ($20 a year) you can upload unlimited pictures to flickr and have the ability to download your pictures with the image quality that you initially uploaded but what flickr doesn't have is the ability to MASS download all your pictures. what the heck! They expect me to download over 2000 pictures?! INDIVIDUALLY! So for the past year I have googled on how to get all my pictures from flickr back to my new external hard drive and my MAC laptop, and finally I have found the one! Flickredit It's a free program that allows you download all your pictures from flickr and put them back in to your trusty (ha ha) computer. So at last I have all my pictures back!
By now you know my love of lists and excel, so *here* is a template of the excel list I have to keep my photos organized and make sure they are fully backed up!

Flickredit Feature List:

• Display your Flickr Photos and Sets
• Display your Not in Set, Recent, Favorites, Contacts and Group photos
• Search photos based on date and tag
• Backup your Flickr Photos and Sets
• Backup Title, Description, Tags, and Copyright and store them into the IPTC header of the images.
• Upload new photos to Flickr (including asynchronous upload)
• Edit Photo and Set info, add comments to Photos and Sets
• Rotate photos
• Delete photos or Sets
• View a photo or selected photos slideshow
• Switch between multiple Flickr users

BYO Drink Dispencers

I adore the look of the drink dispensers at outdoor wedding but until I know whether we pick a venue that allows us to byo drinks, I must walk away from these cute mason jar drink dispensers that intimate weddings blogged about and at $24.95 from Victorian Trading Company that's a great price compared to the ones I've been eying from Sur La Table that is now on sale $47.96 but keep in mind the mason jar one is only 1 gallon and the Sur La Table one is 2 gallon, so technically the Sur La Table is a better price for what you get. I would want both, the mason jar one to keep in the fridge for my crystal light & the Sur La Table for partying! The chalk board sign is sold separately for 4.96. How cool would it be to have all four of these drink dispensers at a wedding!
Mason Jar 1 gallon dispencer from Victorian Trading Company
2 gallon dispencer from Sur La Table
Glass Beverage Jar Hot or Cold Drinks

Anchor Hocking 2.5-Gallon Barrel Jar

Online Shopping Tip

Every time I buy something online I google for a promo code, this has helped me at least 3 out of 5 times, sometimes it's free shipping other times it's 25%, but the other day I was on a website that offered 15% for new customers, it just showed up automatically but me being the skeptic that I am, still goggled for a promo code, and it ended up being free shipping so the 15% was a better deal. I took off the promo code but then didn't know how to get back that 15% offer, even after I closed the browser it still was not showing me the banner for the 15% off, then I remembered that I read on the 9 secrets to online bargain hunting via MSN to delete cookies! and voila! it worked! I got my 15% off! Apparently the cookies was making the web site think I was not a new customer.

Free Ultra Hair Workshop

Thanks to Bella Sugar, I just found out about Ulta offering two free hair workshops! I really need help in that subject, I'm notorious for wearing my hair in a pony tail or bun when at work & in college my friends would make fun of me when we would go out & I would never fix the back of my hair (only curled the front)

These are the date & times, find out the Ulta nearest you *here* and make your appoitment by calling 1-800-968-5823

Turn Up the Volume:

July 11: 10 p.m.–12 p.m.

July 12: 11 a.m.–1 p.m.

July 18: 10 a.m.–12 p.m.

Tame Your Mane

July 19: 11 a.m.–1 p.m.

July 25: 10 a.m.–12 p.m.

July 26: 11 a.m.–1 p.m.

August 1: 10 a.m.–2 p.m.

Get your drink on

Having an open bar is something that is important to me, my fiancee and both are families, that being said, having an open bar is freaking EXPENSIVE! There are many choices out there, and in the end it doesn't matter what you choose as long as you are happy with it in the long run. So I've been told by the world wide web that these are my choices:

1. Cash bar - Nope.
2. Have wine & beer - Nope I don't drink beer & there is only so much wine I can handle, so if I don't care for events that only have wine & beer then why would I subject my guests to only those choices?
3. Have open bar for an hour or two then switch to cash bar- Nope, I want my guests to come and celebrate with us & not have to pay for anything at the reception, 1/2 of them are coming from the east coast and spent a good amount of money on a plane ticket & hotel, so I don't want them to fork over some more money.
   
4. Open bar. Yup this is the only choice. It's expensive but it's something that was #1 on our list of things we want from a venue.
   

So now what? Now we have to decide whether we pay per person which can range anywhere between $30-$60 for a 5 hour reception or whether we pay per drink which can range anywhere from $6-$12, I think what we are going to have to do is go through our guest list and estimate how many drinks everyone will have and based on those calculations decide whether we pay per person or per drink. We also may decide on a venue where we can bring in our own alcohol and for that I will be using a drink calculator! Here are some that I have found:

• Evite.com has a good one where you put the percentage of light, medium & heavy drinkers & then it tells you the how much alcohol, wine & liquor you need, but it doesn't tell you what type of liquor you need.
• perfectplanning.net has one that includes alcohol, wine & liquor but also has how many soft drinks you will need.
• thatsthespirit.com not only tells you how much alcohol, wine & liquor you need, but also tells you the average price you are going to spend on buying it.
  

Here are some recommendations for a wedding reception with 100 guests:

Real Simple:

• Red Wine: 12 bottles
• White Wine: 12 bottles
• Champagne: 20 bottles
• Beer: 120 bottles
• Vodka: 4 bottles
• Gin: 2 bottles
• Rum: 2 bottles
• Bourbon: 2 bottles
• Scotch (blended): 1 bottle

USA Bride:

Beer:9 Total Cases

* 3 Domestic cases
* 3 Imported cases
* 3 Light cases

Wine:5-8 Total Cases

* 3-4 Chardonnay cases
* 1-2 White Zinfandel cases
* 1-2 Cabernet Sauvignon cases

Champagne

* 1-2 cases

Hard liquor

* 5 liters vodka
* 3 liters gin
* 2 liters rum
* 2 liters scotch
* 2 liters bourbon
* 750ml vermouth
* 3 liters kahlua

Others to Consider (1 liter of each)

* Bailey’s Irish Cream
* Grand Marnier
* Amaretto
* Sambuca
* Brandy
* Frangelico
* Chambord

the knot has some averages:

• Beer: 5 to 6 cases
• Whiskey: 1 liter
• Bourbon: 1 liter
• Gin: 2 to 3 liters
• Scotch: 2 liters
• Light rum: 1 liter
• Vodka: 5 liters
• Tequila: 1 liter
• Champagne: 1 to 1 1/2 cases
• Red wine: 2 cases
• White wine: 3 1/2 cases
• Dry vermouth: 1 bottle
• Sweet vermouth: 1 bottle

Freaking Never Ending To Do List

I freaking LOVE this "Freaking Never Ending To Do List". I make to do list all the time, I do them on my iphone, on my moleskine notebook, on scrap paper etc etc but thanks to Leo on the Loose I will now be doing my lists on stylish paper and also writing up The Dreamy Blog Topics To Post List!