In other news...

On the domestic front, I have been making a lot of desserts recently.  I have a new obsession with Jello.  I love it. Eating it, making it...everything.  So I have some pictures of my first Jello ventures and more will follow as I continue to explore!

My first Jello mold attempt!

  The top layer is regular Jello and the bottom is Jello with cream cheese.

My second creation.

My next Jello creation was for the 4th of July! It was a process, but really good and worth it!

My last dessert of late was an oreo cake for "C's" Dad's birthday.  The man thinks that Oreo' s are among some of the best creations EVER! So I made him a cake that looked just like one!  I can't take credit for the recipe, only the execution...lol.  The recipe was found on the Philadelphia Cream Cheese website.

totally yummy oreo cake!

 

Getting Married!!!

Big changes have been happening for gay New Yorkers and it has been wonderful!!!! We went through two weeks of hell at the end of June waiting for the NY senate to vote on marriage equality.  It was an emotional roller coaster, but in the end the decision came down in our favor!  We went into Manhattan that night to join hundreds of people outside of The Stonewall Inn.  It was an amazing feeling and all we could do was cry we were so happy.

 This was a Friday night and that Sunday was NYC Pride.  Needless to say it was an amazing Pride filled with so much love and hope!!!  We were so proud to be there and to be able to be a part of the festivities.

Governor Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, and NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn at the parade!

 

  The law actually went into effect today and over 800 couples are being married today!!!!  So, "C" and I are getting married on FRIDAY!!! I can' t believe that in 5 days I will be a married woman.  This is a tremendous victory for equality and I can only hope that NY will help lead the way for the rest of the states.

Recipe!

I have been making this amazing chili at least once a week for the past three weeks and it is sooo good so I thought I would share.  It is super easy and delicious?  O and to give credit where credit is due, I found this in "Family Fun" magazine's April issue.  The only thing I added was the garlic.

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili

Ingredients:

2 medium sweet potato- peeled and cut to 1/4in. chunks

1 large onion- diced

1 tbsp garlic- minced

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 can diced tomato with juice

2 cans black beans- drained and rinsed

2 cups vegetable broth

½ tsp. ground cumin

1 tbsp chili powder

Directions:

Heat oil in large pot, Cook onions and garlic about 5 min. or until onion is soft.

Stir in chili powder and cumin, and then add broth and sweet potatoes.  Stir well to combine

Bring to a gentle boil, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer about 15 min. or until potatoes are tender.

Add tomatoes and beans and continue to simmer, uncovered, until heated through.

Serve over rice.  I like it with some salsa verde on top.

Long Time No Post

Hey guys, Betty here.   So much has happened since our last post.  We just got back from vacation, we have started the Couch to 5K running program, tried a few healthy new recipes, and are doing Relay for Life this Saturday.  OK fun stuff first!  We went to spend time with my Gramma for our vacation.  My Gramma lives in Fenwick Is., DE, so it was awesome! We went to Ocean City, MD to the boardwalk to ride banana bikes and play mini golf.

Betty on banana bike in OC, MD

 We also went shopping in Rehobeth and Salisbury.  It was super relaxing and fun.  My Gramma also got a new fire pit for the backyard, so we had a fire every night and actually got pretty good at it by the end!

Our last day we took Gramma to Seacrets in Ocean City for lunch and it was absolutely beautiful.  Seacrets is like one of the top hot spots in OC during the summer.  It has like four stages and eight bars and is all sand and palm trees, its great! But during the day in pre-summer its a beautiful outdoor space that the old people like to go to for lunch.  All in all it was a wonderful vacation and so awesome to spend some family time!

Seacrets OC, MD

"C" and I have also decided to try to get into some kind of shape and have started the couch to 5k running program.  So far it is going really well! We are at the end of week 4 and still going strong.  This will be my first time running in the summer and I am already not thrilled with the heat, but hey more sweating is more calories right?  Along with the running we are trying to eat better.  I don't mean diet because we aren't counting calories or anything, but we are eating more naturally and trying to eat more veggies and less meat, etc.  So far it is going pretty well.  This post is getting a little long and I need to get some errands done today, so I will cut the update off here and will update our new recipes and such later.

Cleaning, and Baseball, and Minnesota. Oh My!

Hi all.  I am taking a break from cleaning.  I have been super lazy about cleaning recently, which is totally not like me.  So, I came home today and started cleaning like a madwoman!  I have dusted the whole house, straightened up, vacuumed (the new vacuum from my previous post is still awesome! Highly recommended.), swiffered the kitchen and bathroom and cleaned the microwave and toilet.... I am tired just typing all that.  Anyway, it had to be done and I feel so much better now that things are clean. I think it's a sickness, but I really feel a huge weight is lifted off my shoulders when the house is clean.

"C" and I are going to CitiField to see the METS play tmrw night!  I think they are on a serious losing streak, but I don't care I just love being there.  The stadium is beautiful and I love stadium food!  We are going as part of the Pride Alliance of Long Island's "Out@Citi" event, so hopefully it will be a fun night with "family"!  We will have to post pictures.  Speaking of gay, "C" showed me this awesome video of Rep. Steve Simon from Minnesota commenting on Minnesota's proposal of a gay marriage ban.  So I thought that I would share it with y'all.

Reconnecting

Hi, "Betty" here.  Sorry it has been like over a week since I have said anything on here.  As "C" said it was our anniversary this past week!  It was amazing to be able to celebrate 7 wonderful years with the best person I know.  So, between Passover at the In-laws and our anniversary, it made for a week with very little down time.  Anyway, I have been thinking about my past a lot recently.  I don't know what set me off, but it had me thinking about my Mom and high school and old friends.  I was especially focusing on a teacher who really was like my mentor through high school and my first year of college.  I was at one point an art major, well art education major.  So, not really good enough for fine arts, but still artsy and somewhat talented.  In high school I lived in the art room and my art teacher was one of my best friends.  I came out to her before I came out to any other adult and she helped me through.  She left my high school and started teaching art ed at the college that I wanted to go to during my senior year of high school.  I was upset that she was leaving me in my most important year, but it was pretty awesome when she was one of my professors in college.  Then I came out to my parents and ended up going through a lot of drama and was kind of an emotional wreck for a while.  My work started hardcore dropping and so there were strains on our professional relationship, which turned into strains on our personal relationship.  I ended up changing my major and we just didn't see each other again.  I always felt bad that I had let someone who had done so much for me just drift away.  In my defense, it was a REALLY rough period.  I think I only passed one class that next semester.  I eventually recovered and came out the other side with a degree in communications.  Anyway, I had been thinking a lot about this lost friend and mentor so I looked her up online and called her.  I am not sure what I was expecting.  The last time we talked it was about my drop in work quality and that I was changing majors.  But it was awkward and kind of cold, not the warm loving person I remember.  I guess I was kind of stuck in the past and I suppose that there is an amount of time that becomes too great to overcome and say what should have been said long ago.  I said that I just had been thinking of her and that I really wanted her to know that even though I let the ball drop I appreciated everything she did for me back then.  She thanked me, said it was nice for me to call and to drop her an email sometime.  I am not sure what I was searching for, but I didn't find it.  Something that was supposed to make me happier has actually made me feel really sad...

Anniversary!

Hey all, it's C here! Today is our 7 year anniversary. I'm super excited. I've been really excited about this anniversary for over a month now, back when I bought B's present. AND the weather is actually kind of nice, which is good considering how horrible it has been around here lately.

Every year on our anniversary we go to The Melting Pot, which is a wonderful and delicious fondue restaurant. If you haven't been there, and they have one in your area, I totally recommend it. Or another fondue restaurant. It's a really romantic date night. It takes a while to eat, since you have to cook your own food in the fondue pot, and it really gives you a chance to talk and connect over dinner.  And, they always include us in whatever card/gift they are giving out to couples celebrating their anniversary, which we appreciate.  Plus, where could you go wrong with chocolate fondue for dessert?!?

Hey all! It's "Betty" here.  So, I am a huge goober when it comes to musicals and it surprisingly comes from my right wing mother and not my gay father. My mom would always clean on the weekends, which is where my neat-freak side comes from, and while she was cleaning she would have Turner Classic Movies or American Movie Classics on. I was an only child and had to help clean before I could go out with friends, so I ended up watching a lot of musicals. Long story short, I fell in love with them. I have always thought that life would be more interesting if people actually broke out into song and dance in the middle of the street. There is almost always a happy ending and the suspension from reality is a nice break sometimes. Anyway, I watched one of my favorite musicals today at work (I work in a nursing home), "The Harvey Girls" with Judy Garland.  Judy Garland is one of my favorite people and it has been so long since I have seen this movie I completely forgot how awesome it was!  There is a scene at the beginning of the movie when Judy gets off the train that has to be one of the biggest musical numbers MGM ever did.  It is amazing!
 


It was really nice to revisit one of my old favorites and watching it made me remember spending time with my mom. It has been almost 7 years since I got kicked out and even though my mom was a huge bitch about me coming out, I miss her like crazy.

FCKH8

We really like this video, but warning, don't watch it if you're easily offended by cursing.



They also made this anti-bullying video:



On their website FCKH8 they have shirts, buttons, stickers, and wristbands you can buy with cute sayings on them like "Some chicks marry chicks, get over it," "Don't b h8n on the homos," and "some kids r gay, that's okay." We really like their message and in your face approach.

A Little Bitter Today...

I'm starting to get really fucking bitter about straight weddings and marriages.  I'm so SICK of seeing pictures of people's weddings on facebook, and how happy they are, and all the congratulatory posts on their wall.  I'm sick of having to attend weddings, engagement parties, and bridal showers.  I'm sick of smiling and pretending to be happy about how fortunate they are that their friends and families, and the government, want to recognize and celebrate their union.  I know I should be happy for them, and I truly am happy for anyone who can find happiness in this life, but I find the inequality of it really hurtful and upsetting.  And then these lucky straight people always have to find something to complain about.  Their dress wasn't perfect, the photographer sucked, the DJ played a song they didn't like... It frustrates me that people can't seem to understand how we feel.  When I told my mother I wanted to marry B (or are we calling her Betty now?), she literally asked me WHY I wanted to get married.  If we were a straight couple together for 7 years, people would be asking us why we WEREN'T married already!  When my (straight) sister got engaged, my mother told everyone she ever met in the world and has never been happier.  Yes, I AM happy for my sister and her fiance, but I want people to be happy for me also...

What A Weekend

So we decided to take a break from domesticity this weekend and actually go to a bar with friends. We went to Ginger's Bar in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  It's great hole in the wall kind of "family" bar.  We are not into the club scene, so this bar is perfect for us.  There's something really special about being in a small, gay bar with friendly bartenders and feeling completely comfortable.  7 rum and cokes later, and you're singing Total Eclipse of the Heart at the top of your lungs, accompanied by the drunk strangers down the bar.  That's the fun part.

The not so fun part happens on the long subway ride home, and once you finally get home at 5:30 in the morning and end up praying to the porcelain god and shaking uncontrollably on the floor for 8 hours.  B is insisting that I inform you all that I'm only talking about myself, she may have gotten sick once and was fine.  However, she did wake up at 3:30 in the afternoon still drunk.

Obviously we need more practice outside of the realm of domesticity, or we just need to stay in our box.  Time to watch lesbian movies and cuddle on the couch...

I guess it's my turn...

B started it, so I guess now I should introduce myself to the blogosphere. I'm C, the younger one in the relationship (sure it's only 15 months, but I always rub it in). I work 12 hour nights, so I'm typically cranky. I am not exactly neat or completely "balanced" and am generally the one who makes the messes that B talks so fondly about cleaning up. I'm very politically aware/active. I am a HUGE baseball fan (Let's go METS!), and super excited for today's season opener. I'm the middle child born into a Jewish family, and can confirm that the stereotype of a Jewish mother (a woman intensely loving, but controlling to the point of smothering and attempting to engender enormous guilt in her children via the endless suffering she professes to have experienced on their behalf) is accurate. I'm the only (openly) gay member of my immediate or extended family, and the coming out process has not been easy. I'm proud of who I am, I'm proud of my beautiful, loving relationship, and have decided that I'm living my life for me and my partner. Or, at least, I'm attempting to...

Introducing B

Hi all! So my partner kind of wants this blog to be somewhat anonymous for a while (in case we suck...LOL.) So I thought I would introduce myself as much as I can while still being anonymous. I'm B, the cleaning, organizing, artistic, only child of this relationship. I know, artistic and "neat freak" don't generally go together. But, its not my fault, I am the child of a gay father and an overbearing, "cleanliness is close to Godliness," right wing fundamentalist mother. As a result I love music, dancing, musicals, old movies, cooking, art (making and observing), and straightening, cleaning, and organizing. I guess you could say I don't mind making a mess, as long as it gets cleaned up after... thoroughly! LOL.

Anyway, so I decided to make the first truly "domestic" post to the blog. The rest of this post will probably only appeal to pet owners and neat freaks like me. We have two cats. You may have noticed them in our profile pic. A tortie and a tuxedo, and they are awesome! But, their cat hair and the food and litter they drag everywhere are not awesome. So, my baby got me a new vacuum! Which may sound lame, but I was totally excited about it (I know insert joke about lesbians and carpets.) But I was excited because I love when things are clean. It works so well I thought I would post a pic and a description, in case anyone out there is in the market for a new vacuum.

It's the Hoover Windtunnel Pet Rewind Plus. It has awesome suction, great pet hair removal tools for the extension, it's light, the handle folds down, and the filter is cleanable so you don't have to replace it. It's worked wonders so far. I love it!

Thanks for letting me introduce myself and next time I won't be so long winded.:-)

~ B

Awesome Video

So apparently this video has been around for a while, but we just discovered it tonight and its awesome! Check it out.

Date Night!

Tonight we went out for a dessert date.  We've both been working a lot so it was really nice to reconnect a little.  We made dinner together at home, then we went out for dessert at this great bakery on Bell Blvd in Bayside called Martha's Country Bakery.

The bakery is really cute. It has a country feel inside with cozy wooden booths, nice decorations, and friendly servers.  Whenever we go out we try to get a feel of what the crowd is like and if it seems safe to hold hands or show a little affection to each other. I don't know if many straight people realize all the shit that GLBT couples have to think about just going out on a date.  Martha's is surrounded by bars and restaurants and you never know when there might be a drunken asshole or two around.  Despite maybe a couple of looks, we ended up feeling totally comfortable.  Our dessert date was really great!  We ordered lattes and slices of cake.

Welcome!

Welcome to our blog.  We're new at this, so bear with us.  We've been together for 7 years, and we're "domestic partners," which really doesn't mean anything legally, except that we can be under the same health insurance.  We've been engaged for over 2 years, and will get married when the ridiculous laws in this country catch up to reality.  And we are, in fact, pathetically domestic, which means we'd rather stay in on a Friday night cuddling on the couch than go out and be crazy.  Not that we can't go crazy at times, we can and do, which I'm sure you'll learn later if you continue to read this blog.  We plan to write about our lives, experiences as a lesbian couple, and thoughts and opinions on the world around us.  Hopefully this blog will be entertaining, while showing that gay couples are just like "normal" couples, and should be given the same rights and treated equally.