Day 7: A Love Playlist by Guest Blogger Tara

I'm so excited to have Tara guest posting for me today! I've looked up to her for a long time (she's practically like a sister!). Tara graduated from BYU's PR program, and has always been a role model in my life. Plus, she's just so cool. She always knows what's the latest and greatest, and she has great style. Be nice to her and enjoy her words!

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hello hello!

i'm tara, and i blog over at blogs by tara (and i also have a new running blog, monster feet), but i tweet a lot more than i blog (follow me!!). i live in philadelphia, by way of upstate new york and provo, utah. i've known hayley since she was just a little young thing, and her blog is a not-so-secret love of mine. i was delighted when she asked if i would guest post for this fun v-day series, and i hope you enjoy what i have to share!

i'm so excited to spread the word about one of my favorite times of the year, a fun celebration known as "love week." my amazing friend lindsay coined the term during our freshman year at BYU (05-06...i know, i'm OLD) as a way to bridge the time between her birthday, february 8th, and valentine's day. since then, i've been celebrating love week no matter where i live.

celebrating love week is pretty simple:

• wear at least one of the official love week colors every day: red, pink, white, purple, and brown (for chocolate!)
• love everyone
• no moping about being single - it's about loving your friends and family, too!
• listen to the love week soundtrack every day

(via)

i have so many great memories of love weeks past. in its inagural year, my entire floor woke up on valentine's day to roses and chocolate from the boys in our ward who were all in on the fun. in 2007, lindsay and i made dozens of those sliced pillsbury cookies and walked around provo delivering the cookies and the yearly soundtrack to all of our friends. in 2009 we spent an entire day compiling the soundtrack, burning cds, and started the week off with a soundtrack release party, complete with a step-and-repeat background and subsequent photoshoot.

lindsay always ended the week with her "finale outfit," that usually included her trademark red velour tracksuit, a pink shirt, and lots of red, pink, and gold heart shaped jewelry. along with her trademark crazy curly hair and one-of-a-kind contagious laugh, you couldn't help but feel the love.

as you can tell, love week holds a very special place in my heart. although i'll most likely be single on v-day this year, love week gives me (and you!) the opportunity to remember that we can give and find love to and from so many people in our lives.

with that, i present to you the 2012 LOVE WEEK SOUNDTRACK! i hope you enjoy it, listen to it daily, and wear it out just like i wore out my backstreet boys CD in 1999 from too many spins around the discman ;).

there are two ways to listen - through this spotify playlist OR my youtube playlist. i suggest the youtube version, since it has some songs/versions that i couldn't add on spotify.

1.  the power of love - huey lewis and the news
2. 5 years time - noah and the whale
3. how sweet it is (to be loved by you) - james taylor
4. always - atlantic starr
5. we found love - rihanna
6. you've got the love (the xx remix) - florence + the machine
7. perfect for me - ron pope
8. lover to lover - florence and the machine
9. sunday kind of love - etta james
10. you are the one i love - jon mclaughlin
11. the book of love - the magnetic fields
12. crazy love, vol. 2 - paul simon
13. love on top - beyonce
14. lonely boy - the black keys
15. falling in love at a coffee shop - landon pigg
16. got it good - jem
17. drunk on love - rihanna

(p.s. see past years' soundtracks here and here!)

i would LOVE to hear your favorite love songs as well, so leave them in the comments. happy love week to all!!

Apple Galette by Kylie

I know I've been an absolutely terrible blogger this week... My schedule has been packed! But somehow we made it to Denver this weekend for a med school interview. And my darling friend Kylie agreed to guest post for me! Thanks Ky! She is so cute and I highly recommend you follow her blog! she has the best recipes and is such a beautiful writer. Enjoy!


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When Hayley asked me to guest blog for her this weekend, I simply couldn't say no. I was introduced to Hayley's blog through our mutual friend Maureen and she remains, to this day, my inspiration for blogging. So here we are faced with a bit of sadness since Halloween is over and a reason to celebrate, November has just begun! We are in serious need of something fall-ish to indulge in.

My previous post, the Pumpkin Scones, were going to be my staple recipe for this weekend.  However, if you read what happened, you'll understand why I started over.  I don't really feel like spending time describing their dense texture and all so just take my word when I say, they weren't up to my standards of baking.

Luckily, I came back and made something even better, Apple Galette. What is a Galette? It is a type of French flat, free-form pastry crust that is garnished with your favorite toppings. Constantly reading food magazines and blogs I had noticed that these desserts were gaining popularity so I decided to give it my own spin.

Apple Galette

Crust:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

2/3 cup crisco (shortening)

2 tbsp milk

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

Filling:

4 large cortland apples (sliced)

3 tbsp cinnamon (more to taste)

1/2 tbsp all-spice

1/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp flour

Glaze:

1 large egg

1/4 cup sugar

2 tbsp milk



Preheat oven to 425 degrees F and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper (Again, easy removal and clean up!)



The crust is a recipe passed down from my grandmother (hence the crisco) and must not be messed with much, the less "working in" the better because this will allow the crust to be light and flakey.



Mix salt and flour together. Slowly "fork" in crisco until clumps are smaller than a pea. Combine milk and vinegar in separate container and slowly mix into flour mixture. Form a ball in plastic baggy and place in fridge for 20 minutes.

To roll out: use two pieces of LARGE saran wrap.  Wet the counter with water so that it does not move about. Roll to desired thinness and don't forget to flip over at some point. (Lift saran on top layer and place back on top, then flip and do the same).

Filling, simply combine all ingredients to taste and don't forget to try an apple slice to make sure you added enough spices to your liking.  Also, make sure apples are sliced thin.

Place crust on baking sheet and add apple mixture to the middle of crust. Fold crust edges up over some of the apple and drizzle with glaze!

Bake at 425 degrees F for 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown, cool and enjoy!

Now thats what I call a Galette :)

Guest Post: Ashley from Sloanbook

i'm so excited to have Ashley from Sloanbook as our second guest post of the week. Ashley is beautiful and i love reading her blog. she is so beautiful (and i secretly covet her puppy Katinka). I asked her to talk a little about her wedding and her relationship with her husband, Kevin. enjoy! :)

Hey lovely readers of The Newlywed Pingrees!

I'm Ashley and write over at Sloanbook. I am so excited to be guest posting for Hayley today! I was thrilled when she asked me to write while she is on her amazing trip! I absolutely adore her blog and think she is the most sweetest girl ever! Unfortunately I just moved away from where she is at so we never got to meet up but I feel that we would be very good friends!  And I think our husbands would be too :)

Today I am going to tell you a little about my wedding including what I wore and a special moment. My husband is Kevin and we were married almost 3 years ago on August 8, 2008. We were married in the Denver, Colorado LDS temple for time and all eternity. Incase you are wondering the date is 08.08.08 which according to the Chinese culture is a very lucky day to be married!

Because Kevin and I were engaged on June 3, 2008 and married on August 8, 2008 we didn't have a lot of time to plan the wedding. I was attending Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah at the time of the engagement which means there are a lot of wedding dress stores in the area. My mom flew into town and we started looking around.  We found out that for the majority of wedding dress stores you needed to buy a dress at least a few months in advance of the wedding so you could order the dress and do multiple fittings. I definately did not have 4 or 5 months! Plus after spring term at BYU I was going to be living back home in Colorado so multiple fittings would be almost impossible.

My mom and I went into Allyse's Bridal at the University Mall because they had dresses in different sizes so you wouldn't need to order one. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted and when my mom suggested the dress I didn't want to try it on.  Honestly, I didn't really like the dress.  She basically told me I should try it on just to see, so I did and I am glad I did!

As soon as I tried it on I fell in love with it!  My mom loved it too and I am so glad that she pulled it off the rack and made me try it on! I chose to get it in ivory instead of pure white. I liked how it was a little different than other typical LDS wedding dresses. One of my favorite parts of the dress is the back.

Some details:  My dress, veil, and headpiece were all from Allyse's Bridal.  My diamond earrings were from Nordstrom. My light blue shoes were Calvin Klein from Zappos (not pictured). I wore Bare Minerals makeup done by myself.  My favorite hairdresser in Fort Collins, Colorado (where I am living now) did my hair really early the morning of the wedding. So there you have it!

A special moment was during our reception in Windsor, Colorado. It started raining really hard and most everyone was drenched but halfway through it stopped and a beautiful rainbow came out.  I'm not sure how many people have rainbows at their weddings :)

If you have any questions you can find me at Sloanbook. Have a great day readers! Hopefully you enjoyed it. Thanks again Hayley! :)

Guest Post: Kiss Me Kaitlin

I am so excited to have Kaitlin guest posting for me. She is beautiful and talented, and she is one of my dearest friends and role model. all the photos are her own unique work. enjoy her work and words!

First off I want to thank Hayley for asking me to guest post on her blog! All my friends and roommates are close followers so it’s an honor really… and I know they are all so jealous right now. Hi guys! Hayley and I were friends freshman year at BYU and its been so great getting to know her and following her on her journey. Not to sound too reminiscent but I remember the first time she brought “Chin” (am I allowed to call him that?) around to meet our group of friends, we took one look at them together and knew that he would be around for a lot longer than just a little while. 

Now that I’ve shamlessly bragged, I can start on what Hayley asked me to talk about. Photography. Now I know what you are thinking because I think it too… “Just what we need, another blonde Mormon girl who owns a nice camera and knows how to give everyone unatural alien eyes, calling herself a photographer” Now wouldn’t that be annoying. What I really want to talk about is how to manage to be creative and original in a world full of photographers/bloggers/scrapbookers/cupcakebakers/whatever else you love to do. 

Now adays, we have so many opportunities to do the things we love. Things are accessible to us, if you don’t know how to do something, you can easily hop on youtube and watch a 5 min tutorial and suddenly you are a master. We live in a culture where DIY is no longer cheap and tacky, but cool and inventive. A lot of this applies to the world of photography and blogging. Fancy cameras are a dime a dozen, there are many options in every sort of price range which is great because it allows for anyone to learn and create new talents, but on the other hand it can also depreciate the value of the creative insights of photographers when we have the idea that anyone can do it. 

So how do you set yourself apart, how do you try and break that mold. My new philosiphy is that you don’t try to. Don’t try to be anything but yourself. Do things because you love them. For a while I told my mom that I didn’t want to be a “Photographer” because it was what everyone wanted to do. I put off doing the thing that I loved just because I hated the connotation it had of being unoriginal or overdone. That was so silly of me. Do what you love, despite what others may think, and tell the truth when you do it. 

“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.” – C.S. Lewis 

 I don’t think I’m an amazing photographer, I am always really critical of myself and my work. I am amazed when someone actually wants to hire me to take pictures of them because I think that they will for sure hate every picture I take of them. I don’t own 6 different lenses, I don’t have lots of lighting equipment, I don’t know a ton about photoshop or html, so what qualifies me to get to do this. I do it just because I love it. Not because I can make a profit, not because “everyone is doing it, and not even because I want to be the hip new photographer on the block. I do it because I love the way that light looks through my lens, because I love the sound of the shutter, because I love how my heart feels when I just captured what was in my mind (and even because I LOVE it when people make it their profile picture on facebook, seriosuly the biggest honor ever). I take pictures because I feel like when I do I am telling the truth and putting a little bit of me into something concrete and constant. 

So even though we may seem to be a dime a dozened amongst photographers, bloggers, cupcake bakers, musicians, painters, writers, reality TV stars ect… you never really are, because no one can ever do anything quite like you can.

“All I know is, if you don't figure out this something, you'll just stay ordinary, and it doesn't matter if its a work of art or a taco, or a pair of socks! Just create something... new, and there it is, and its you, out in the world, out side of you and you can look at it, or hear it, or read it, or feel it... and you know a little more about... you. A little bit more than anyone else does... Does that make any sense at all?” – P.S. I Love You 

Feel free to stalk my here and here

kissmekaitlin.blogspot.com

kaitlinmariephotography.tumblr.com

XOXO
Kaitlin