Pizzeria Bianco

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of having dinner with Cinnamon and Andrew. They're in town for the holidays to visit Andrew's family. Luckily, they took some time out to have dinner with Chris and I before we leave town to visit our families.

We went to the famed Pizzeria Bianco. They know a couple food writers who wrote a book about pizza. Apparently Pizzeria Bianco was rated the best pizza in the US by these guys. I've heard the pizza is great too so we decided it would be worth the wait. Cinnamon and Andrew arrived first and they were told it would be a two and a half hour wait. Chris and I arrived about 45 minutes later. We sat outside, drank wine, ate snacks, and caught up. The company was great. Since Cinnamon and Andrew live in Chicago, we don't see each other very often and it was great catching up.

We were finally seated for dinner sometime after 9pm. I'm not exactly sure, but we must have waited over three hours for a table. We ordered the Wiseguy, Italian sausage and onions and the Rosa, onions and pistachios. Both were very delicious. Pizzeria Bianco's pizza has a very distinct smoky flavor which sets it apart from any pizza I've ever had. The salami on the antipasto plate and the cappuccino after the meal were also favorites.

It was a wonderful, wonderful night and a great party of this year's holiday season.

Quote of the Day

"No starting the engine unless you're going to drive somewhere."
- Chris

Chocolate Star Bakery

The other day I complained about a company that gave poor service online. Today I discovered a Scottsdale company that gave GREAT online service.

I ordered cookies for a client today from Chocolate Star Bakery. While I personally haven't eaten their cookies, they looked good! The site was super easy to use and very clean. So I placed an order and even got to specify what day I wanted the cookies to arrive!

What really impressed me was that I got a phone call only 20 minutes after I placed the order. The nice lady from Chocolate Star Bakery called to see what I wanted on the card to accompany the gift. She took the note and confirmed the cookies would be shipped today. Now that's customer service!

I will definitely be doing business with Chocolate Star Bakery again.

It's Time to Plan a Wedding

Chris and I have been engaged for almost 6 months. Wow, the time has gone so fast. When we got engaged, we decided that we wouldn't plan a wedding for a year or so. We wanted to see how living together would be. (Most important! Especially after dating from different cities the entire time we were together.) Living together is great...really, really great. And we've been talking about a wedding.

For some reason, this whole topic makes me nervous. I haven't entirely figured out what it is about my wedding that freaks me out, but I'll announce it when I do. It feels like there's so much expectation wrapped around the event that it's just easier to be overwhelmed. Most days when I think about a wedding, I feel overwhelmed so I stop.

Over Thanksgiving, my parents brought up the topic. They're very supportive and relaxed about it. They just wanted to know what year we were planning on getting married. Because their 40th wedding anniversary is 2009 and they're planning a big family event. (Which is going to be so awesome! It's such a blessing that they're still together and in a healthy relationship after all these years.) They didn't want to have two major family events in the same year - wedding and anniversary party - since none of us have that kind of vacation. Well, my father does, but what can you expect after 35+ years with the same company? They offered us first pick and said they'd be totally flexible with scheduling their event. My parents are awesome.

Hearing the year 2009 and imagining a wedding that far away was hard. I don't think I want to wait that long to get married. We're happy and we're sure we want to be committed to each other forever. So I told my parents that we would get married in 2008 and we would celebrate their anniversary in 2009. That was all fine and good until the glass of wine I had at dinner wore off and I realized what I had done.

I committed to planning a wedding.
In 2008.
And 2008 was only a month and a half away.

I haven't been freaking out since that realization, but only because I'm not thinking about it. Typical avoidance behavior...but it works so well! Time isn't on my side so I have to face the music. It's time to plan a wedding.

Comments