Food is expensive... Heck... A wedding is expensive!

November 29, 2012 thdpr

I know I am not telling anyone anything new here but... man! We just started talking to caterers and florists... and wow! Things can really add up. Dan and I are both pretty money conscious so it hit us hard when we saw the first catering proposal. Wow.Here's the thing... normal weddings are expensive... our wedding will be even more so because it has to be kosher. Thus, we have to pay for a person to be onsite the whole time to supervise the kashrut and we have to pay for special dishes and silverware... Kosher meat is 2 to 3 times as expensive as non-kosher meat... oy! What we do for our beliefs... but that's the point, right?I (Talia) believe that kashrut, keeping kosher, and a lot of Jewish halacha (law) is about being mindful. I can't just eat in any restaurant or any place. I have to be mindful.So ... Judaism is keeping us mindful at our wedding too. :) Unfortunately, it's not all good mindfulness. We had to cut down our guest list for the final time the other night... oy... that was hard. There are definitely people that I would love to come to the wedding but I just don't have the space. I hope everyone understands... making my wedding guest list was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life!We are sending out save-the-dates soon and many of you have been contacted by us with the password to the wedding details section.Anyway, wedding is trucking along!

Picture Previews!!!

November 12, 2012 thdpr

YAY! We got a couple of teasers from Max! Holy cow! I can't wait to see the rest!

Engagment Pictures

November 11, 2012 thdpr

We finally got our act together! With all my work event craziness and Dan's general busy-ness... we hadn't had time to schedule our engagement pictures. It's been six weeks since we got engaged and since we are planning a March wedding... we need to get cracking on those Save-The-Dates!I was perusing Facebook the other day and noticed a friend of mine, Max Gerson, is shooting professional pictures on the side. And DAMN! He is good. :) I talked to Dan about maybe using Max for a photo shoot... He saw some of his pictures and agreed. So we planned for today, November 11... until Max told me that it was going to be snowy and gross. It was at that moment that I kinda freaked out. Dan's worried about people having time to make plans to get to the wedding (I agree) and we need to get the save-the-dates out.I have the designer in place, she is just waiting for the pics. So after going round and round with Max... me throwing out crazy ideas, he coming back with viable ones... we settled on some concepts. Dan wanted straight pics, Max and I were kind of excited about something a bit more dramatic. We looked at the weather and decided today, Sunday, would be the day. It was cold but beautiful.We started in Civic Center Park, near the wedding venue, and shot all around. Yes, there were homeless folk hanging out but nothing crazy happened... but we were COLD! From there, we moved on to T he Cruise Room at The Oxford Hotel. AMAZING location. It opened the day after prohibition ended in 1933 and is downtown Denver's first bar. It was fashioned after one of the lounges on the Queen Mary. Original chrome and neon reflect onto the wall panels depicting light-hearted “toasts” from around the world. Utterly FUN to shoot pictures! The staff at McCormicks was amazing. They let us take pictures no problem and we came WAY before the bar was open. They have a free jukebox with songs from another era on actual 45s (records)... it kept us entertained and Max caught some great shots of us dancing. We also entertained the McCormicks patrons who watched us shoot through the glass doors. It's was Dan's first time taking pictures in public like that and he kept saying, "Babe! They are staring at us!" "We are keeping them quite entertained!"All in all, it was an awesome day and I think we got some beautiful pictures out of it. Max is quite talented, has great ideas but isn't too pushy. He let us take some of the shots we wanted too (even if they aren't as good)!So vendors to recommend - I loved shooting engagement pictures in downtown Denver. Don't be afraid to call your favorite bar or restaurant and ask if you can shoot before they open.Engagement pictures photographer - Max Gerson!!I'll be sure to post pictures when I get them! :)

When the 'fun' starts to wear off...

November 2, 2012 thdpr

Don't be deceived... getting married is still fun! I just realized that planning a wedding involves WAY more details than I ever thought possible! Guest lists and rings and chuppah and ketubah and decor and outfits and dresses and most of all, making sure everyone is happy and feelings don't get hurt!Thank G-d I have three dear friends/co-workers helping me plan... except we all got sidelined by our two biggest work events that are taking place next week. That is the only bummer of us all working together. So planning is on a hiatus until CHOICES and Men's Event are over and then we will get back down to it!Oh I just can't wait to get started again!!! :) I am working with this awesome chick on designing my wedding invitations. Brooke at Paper Candy is doing a custom design for us and I am SO excited. Being a pseudo designer... finding the right invitation design was VERY hard...Oh wait... no talking about wedding planning until next Friday... oops...:o)Until then, friends...

We are getting married!

October 24, 2012 thdpr

It's all so exciting! Stay tuned for information! And read about our engagement here - How Does Our Garden Grow?

Carrot-Ginger Soup

May 29, 2012 thdpr

After all that cheese and dairy, it's time for something soothing and hearty. I made this soup for my boyfriend this weekend. He was coming home from a trip to London and Paris and I thought he might enjoy something simple but hearty. The ginger was an added bonus to help settle his stomach if the flight was rough. I know when I travel, I don't always feel like eating something heavy. This is a fairly simple recipe and I can't even remember where it came from, an online recipe site, but I did add my own spicing to it.I'm going to remind you, read the recipe all the way through before you start. Trust me, I've made that mistake before and I have some tips at the end.

Carrot-Ginger Soup

Ingredients:

1 tbsp margarine
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled and diced
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced or grated
2 tsp coriander seeds*
4 cups vegetable broth
dash salt and pepper, to taste
Nutmeg, cloves, chili powder/cayenne pepper - optional

Preparation:

First thing, I started to make this mistake, prep all your vegetables before you start the recipe. Chop your onions, carrots and mince your ginger. Have them ready in prep bowls before you start sauteing the onions.
In a large soup pot, cook the onions in margarine until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add carrots, ginger and coriander seeds* and cook, stirring for a few more minutes.
Add the vegetable broth and bring to a low simmer. Cover and cook for at least 25 minutes, or until carrots are very soft. (This was about 50 minutes for me... but make sure you aren't boiling off the liquid too much)
Transfer the soup to a blender or food processor and puree, working in batches if needed. I did not blend it into oblivion. I left it a touch chunky.
Add a dash of salt and pepper and other spices. Serve hot, re-heating if necessary.

After I had blended the soup, I started playing with spices. It can be a bit bland so I added nutmeg and just the smallest dash of cloves. Too much cloves will make it almost sweet. I added a dash of spice with the chili powder (or you can use ground cayenne pepper). Again, be careful - it is easy to over-season and you DO have the ginger in there. It comes out with a nice bite but tastes good.*I could not find coriander seeds where I was shopping so I used ground coriander. I added a bit when I added the carrots to the onions but put more in after the blending.The key is to taste the whole way through. You can also add white potatoes or sweet potatoes if you want some more starch in it.

Carrot-Ginger Soup

May 29, 2012 thdpr

Carrot-Ginger Soup

Ingredients:

1 tbsp margarine
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 pounds carrots, peeled and diced
1 tsp fresh ginger, minced or grated
2 tsp coriander seeds*
4 cups vegetable broth
dash salt and pepper, to taste
Nutmeg, cloves, chili powder/cayenne pepper - optional

Preparation:

First thing, I started to make this mistake, prep all your vegetables before you start the recipe. Chop your onions, carrots and mince your ginger. Have them ready in prep bowls before you start sauteing the onions.
In a large soup pot, cook the onions in margarine until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Add carrots, ginger and coriander seeds* and cook, stirring for a few more minutes.
Add the vegetable broth and bring to a low simmer. Cover and cook for at least 25 minutes, or until carrots are very soft. (This was about 50 minutes for me... but make sure you aren't boiling off the liquid too much)
Transfer the soup to a blender or food processor and puree, working in batches if needed. I did not blend it into oblivion. I left it a touch chunky.
Add a dash of salt and pepper and other spices. Serve hot, re-heating if necessary.

A Hero In My Eyes

October 19, 2011 thdpr

If wearing eyeglasses was a club, I would be getting my 30 year pin in a couple of years along with a tacky gold wristwatch...I might have run for president. There might have been a messy power struggle and a splinter group who later rejoined because they knew I was the best thing for the eyeglasses crew since the invention of nose pads.Okay... that fantasy is all well and good but let's get to the point. I wear glasses. I've worn them since I was three years old. That first pair had little loop arms to go around my tiny ears and a bugs bunny on the side. I was waaaay cool. Actually, what was cool was being able to see. My parents thought I was 'special' when I was little because I always knocked things off the table. Water glasses, wine glasses, sauce, pretty much anything in arms reach for me was destined for the floor. They never really 'got it' but it wasn't until I was screened in pre-school at the JCC that they found out I was knocking things over because I couldn't see and had NO depth perception! My mom told me recently that when I got my glasses for the first time she heard me gasping in the backseat during the drive home. She asked what was wrong and I asked her if she knew there were trees outside. Yup, that is how nearsighted I was. Couldn't see the trees in the yard.Over the years I became a connoisseur of glasses... well... when I got older... until high school I had some interesting choices... tortoise-shell with pink tint... oh yeah...In fact, here is a gallery of some of my glasses over the years:

I hope you enjoyed that... eep... but we are here to talk about my hero. You see the newest frames? Very cute, yes? I love them. I got them back in May actually. Why haven't you seen them? Well, gee... if you live in Colorado and we talk regularly it could be because I have just begun wearing them! Yes I know it is October. But in the entire history of me wearing glasses, this is the first time I can recall having so many issues. Maybe it's just my old eyes but I had to go back and get the prescription redone because my eyes just couldn't take it. Then I just couldn't get the frames to fit my face right. They just hurt all the time. Well... I wasn't very smart about it. You see, I picked a doctor on my insurance (yes I have insurance now and it is SO exciting!) who was near my apartment... not near work... but I live downtown. And the shops downtown close at the end of the business day... meaning I haven't been able to get back into my glasses place to get them fixed! Totally my own fault... super lame and a bummer... I've just been working on average of 60 hours a week lately. Long and busy days don't lend for running out to get my glasses fixed. So on a recent and rare day when I was home during business hours I went it.Shane (that is the fabulous Shane Wheeler for those of you playing the home game) sat me down and we talked about the issues. He measured my face, fixed the glasses and brought them back. With a flick of his magically fingers he fixed the glasses! He made a few adjustments and all the sudden I could SEE!!! I could see and they didn't hurt!!! It was a magical day and Shane, well Shane earned the title of glasses hero. He truly saved the day. The people at Vision Care Specialists

in Denver have been incredible. Spending time with me to get the right pair, the right prescription, and the right fit. We talked about prescription sunglasses and decided we would try to find a pair. Well, goodness gracious, my glasses hero comes through AGAIN! He finds me a pair that look amazing on my face and fit within my insurance budget. I walked out of there feeling amazing. He solved my glasses issues and found me affordable sunglasses with a flick of his optician magic wand! It was amazing. I went back to pick up the sunglasses the other day and his fabulous compatriot, Julie (who is the trendy and fabulous fairy of hot glasses), made some minor tweaks to my glasses and fitted my sunglasses on me! What a joy!!!But truly, I have been without insurance for 12 years. This is not so great being a girl who wears glasses. I have paid way too much for my glasses and gone to all manner of optometrists but I have received the most amazing and kind service with Vision Care Specialists.Thanks to Shane and Julie for fixing me up!

HackerPocalypse 2011 - The Lesson

September 13, 2011 thdpr

If you would like to start this journey with me by reading part one, HackerPocalypse 2011 - The Story, please feel free.So yesterday, I told you the emotional parts, the sadness and sorrow of the losing 10+ years of email and memories. Today I am going to talk technical. If this has happened to you, here are the things you need to know.First of all, though I am a very savvy web person, I think I was the victim of a spam email. It looked like it was coming from Google. It was identical to their emails. It was about security. They didn't ask for my username and password, just told me about some security features. I checked the reply to address and it looked right. I clicked on the link in the email and it took me to (what looked exactly like) a Google page. It asked me to login to my email and then said I had updated my security settings.Looked totally legit but I think that is the only possible way they got my login information.I jumped out of bed when I was made aware about the situation (more on that here) and took action immediately. When I couldn't login to my account, I contacted Google and reported it. This caused the hackers to not be able to log back in. It is important to read ALL the steps first and try to follow them in order because you may give the hackers a chance to hack again if you don't. Many of these steps may only be Gmail centric since I am not familiar with other programs.

Contact Gmail or your email provider. Get passwords reset and changed. Make it clear that you do not have access and believe you were hacked. The hackers set up my fail safes (security question, default phone number to text password to, and secondary email account) to their information.
Once you gain access, in Gmail there is a little button on the very bottom right of the page. It says this:

Last account activity: 10 minutes agoDetails

The "Details" is the button. Press that and a record of where you are logging in comes up. Chances are, they are using something to cloak their location. Don't try to catch them here. Just press: This account does not seem to be open in any other location. However, there may be sessions that have not been signed out. Log out from all other sessions. This will force the hackers out if they are still in your account.

The next step is to go to the mail settings. Press the button for Forwarding and POP/IMAP. Most likely they created a new reply to address. It should look a lot like your real address but be on ymail, hotmail, etc. I think they choose ymail since if you are reading fast, it looks like gmail.

IMMEDIATELY disable the forwarding. They set it to forward all incoming mail and delete them from your inbox. Save changes at the bottom.

Now that you have kicked them out of your email, let's do some damage control. Look in the trash folder for all your email that was dumped. I am pretty sure they have written a program to dump all into the trash.
Find the emails they sent to your contacts. They "bcc'd" everyone but you can still see the names. DO NOT USE YOUR CONTACT BOOK YET. Copy and paste those names into an email and let everyone know you are not in Madrid or London, you have not been held up at gun point, and it's your call if you want to tell them to send you money or not... ;)
Once you have sent those, it's time to recover email. In the trash, press the check box at the top of the navigation, you know, so it selects all. Once all 100 emails in the trash are selected, a little piece becomes highlighted under the navigation. It says, All 100 conversations on this page are selected. Select all xxx conversations in Trash. The second part of this is a link. If you click it, you will select all emails in the trash. I highly suggest just doing that to save your emails. I could not save mine, please save yours!
Click the Move To button and move them all to your inbox. If you have utilized filters/folders, you can easily archive those back. You will have to trash some and save others. This will be, most likely, tedious but better than losing everything like me!
You can do all that later, it will take time. For now, you are good. We have more to do.
Be sure you change ALL of your passwords. Do not make them all the same. Sorry, it's for your own good. Change characters, change numbers, change cases... make them different! In my case, they had logged onto my Facebook so I knew they had more information.

Make it a little complicated to be safe. Like your password could be HacKersSucK'2011 or hackersSUCK_2011 or hackerSuck/2011 or hacker$$uck'1969 ... lots of options to use random characters. Get creative but jot it down in a safe, non-web, place.

Now, here is where they really get nasty. Remember in number 5 when I said not to use your contact book yet? Yeah, well there was a good reason. I didn't notice this until 7 or 8 hours into the clean up of my mess. Those jerks messed up my contact list! They used a program to add the tiny word "in" after every email address... all 500 of them! Had I not used the "copy from the BCC" method, I would have sent a bunch of emails and gotten them all bounced back. This is why my instructions to you are important and purposeful.

Gmail has a nice feature where you can restore you contacts to a previous point. I restored mine to the night before the hacking and voila! All fixed. Easy enough but not top priority when you get hacked.
P.S. What I mean by the word "in" appended to your emails, all my contacts looked like this: SuzyQin@blankmail.com when her real email would have been SuzyQ@blankmail.com. Devilish suckers, huh?

I hope this hard earned education of mine is helpful to people out there. Please, leave me a comment and tell me if this information helped you out of a hacking situation. I just think these people are the lowest of the low. Fine, email our friends, they aren't stupid enough to think we went on a surprise vacation to Madrid but to systematically destroy our electronic storage? Unconscionable. So inhumane and truly shows people with a lack of morals and care for anyone but themselves.If you haven't yet, and would like to read the story of my experience (and not just my tips and lessons) please read my blog here: HackerPocalypse 2011 - The Story