So we wanted a website to put wedding info on. And I wanted the website to be one that we own ourselves. And I wanted us to have an “us” website. Because I like websites and a fresh Wordpress install is just so much fun.

Thus MissyandErica.com was born and pretty much all it has right now is wedding info, although that is not all it will ever have going forward. Feel free to check that out if you’re curious. We filmed a video greeting. Some of the wedding details are still getting firmed up, but you can get the gist of it. I know some folks are itchy to book flights and accommodations and/or otherwise plan their weekends, so that should help you get started.

It was a fun little project. We both worked on it. It actually helped push us through our lengthy to-do list, because it made more apparent which pieces of info we were missing and what we needed to nail down immediately, sooner, and later.

I gave my mom a sneak preview last week and she immediately (albeit accidentally) shared it with all her facebook friends. If mom likes it, it’s good.

Enjoy.

Harvard Professor Nancy Cott last week on the social meaning of marriage, as paraphrased by Courage Campaign Institute Chair Rick Jacobs while liveblogging Perry vs Schwarzenegger, aka the Prop 8 Trial:

The ability to marry, to say I do, is a civil right. It demonstrates liberty. This can be seen in American history when slaves could not legally marry. As unfreed persons, they could not consent. They lacked that very basic liberty of person to say I do which meant they were taking on the state’s obligates and vice versa. A slave could not take on that set of obligations because they were not free.

…

People remain unaware that in marrying, one is exercising the right of personal freedom. They don’t tend to equate the civil rights aspects to it. It’s only those who cannot marry at all who are aware of the extent to which marriage is an expression of basic civil rights.

This has been bouncing around in my head, blowing my mind grapes, since I first read it yesterday. I’ve never seen the argument for marriage as a civil right made exactly this way.

(also tumbld)

We’ve been trying to figure out what to do about wedding photography. We’re leaning away from hiring a photographer for wedding day. But we also wanted some really nice photos of us that didn’t involve Missy holding the camera at arm’s length. So when our friend Becca Dilley mentioned that she was participating in the Portraits with a Heart fundraiser for the Leukeumia-Lymphoma Society, we jumped on that. We weren’t really sure what to expect, but we knew Becca would be fun to hang with and is a great photographer. And we were totally right.

We hemmed and hawed a bit on the matching vests. Are matching outfits too cheesy? Maybe a little, but I think it worked. That blue vest really brings out Missy’s eyes. And don’t down vests and jeans just scream autumn in Minnesota?

For the former and current Twin Citizens in the house, the location is on the Minnehaha Creek trail in the vicinity of the Lyndale Ave bridge. Minnehaha Creek is one of my favorite places in all of the Twin Cities. You’d never know you were smack in the middle of south Minneapolis.

View the whole set.

See more of Becca’s photography on flickr, find out more about her services at beccadilley.com, and check out her blog for a running tally of recent projects (like ours).

Thanks, Becca!

Dutch baby pancake with sauteed apples OH YEAH.

Originally uploaded by missymw.

See the set for the recipe. I had my first (and last) dutch baby pancake almost four years ago and it was memorable. This one lived up to the memory. Every Christmas Eve that we’re at home, this is breakfast.

Missy’s Christmas gift from my sister arrived in its own special box on Christmas Eve.

This guy is my favorite. Full-screen it to see what each pose is called.

These gingerbread yoga people are courtesy of Baked Ideas.

Every time I tweet about this, I get asked what our recipe is, so I thought I’d publish for posterity. I forget where we got it from, but it started out as a veggie chili recipe. After the first batch we decided it was a little too lean, so we added the turkey to it.

Ingredients:
1 package ground turkey
1 15 oz can black beans
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
1 head cauliflower or broccoli
2 potatoes or sweet potatoes
1 onion (white, yellow, sweet, whatever)
4-ish large carrots
whatever seasonings you like

Preparation:

1. Brown up the turkey and season heavily. I usually use some combo of cayenne pepper or chili powder, garlic powder, basil, poultry seasoning, onion powder, stuff like that.
2. Chop up all your vegetables.
3. Put everything in the crockpot.
4. Season again. I usually just add extra garlic powder and chili powder or cayenne pepper at this point. Stir.
5. Set the crockpot on low for 6 hours.
6. Season again partway through (if you happen to be home). Stir again.
7. Eat!

Usually I do the meat browning and can opening while Missy does all the peeling and chopping. Takes us about 15-20 minutes.

You could substitute fresh tomatoes if you want. We definitely like the sweet potatoes over regular potatoes. They add a little more sweetness which is a nice contrast and also plays nicely with the heat of the cayenne or chili. And they’re healthier. It never had enough kick until I started adding a third round of seasoning partway through the cooking.

Obviously, if you left the turkey out or substituted soy crumbles it’d be vegetarian. Vegan, even (I think). If you’re accustomed to eating meat, this mix of vegetables – especially with broccoli or cauliflower – gives it a lot of texture. I don’t think you’ll miss the meat, necessarily. But, like I said, we found it to be a little too lean for our tastes.

What I like about it is it’s so lean. You can eat until you’re stuffed, but you won’t get that gross, I’m-full-of-meat feeling since you digest vegetables differently. I know some people have trouble feeling satisfied without meat or more fat, so a spoonful of sour cream in your bowl goes a long way, too.

If you have any genius ideas for modifications or substitutions, do share.

Enjoy!

Totally worth the 7:33 minutes of your life.

(I also tumbld it, if you’re into that.)

As we say in Minnesota, oh fer cute.

Originally uploaded by The Official White House Photostream.

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, sit for a family portrait in the Green Room of the White House, Sept. 1, 2009. (Official White House Photo)

Photo by Annie Leibovitz/Released by White House Photo Office

This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House.

You can really see in this photo how much Malia looks more like Michelle and Sasha looks more like Barack.

Coming from me, you’d assume that an item about bicycles would be Minneapolis-related, but it’s not! It’s about Detroit!

Believe it or not, people in the Car Capital of the World love their bikes. And there is a huge movement to create a culture here that is friendlier to two wheels than four.

One such project would develop about 400 miles of bicycle lanes throughout Detroit. All it would take is some paint, new signs and a little cash, said Scott Clein, who heads the Detroit office of Giffels-Webster Engineers.

The firm, along with other key partners, mapped out every one of those miles with the city’s cooperation and a Michigan Department of Transportation grant. Clein and a support staff spent 18 months on the project, studying Detroit and trying to connect its waterways, landmarks and neighborhoods.

I frankly can’t fathom biking around Detroit. Like, can you see one of Eight Mile’s four lanes (in each direction) or one of Telegraph Rd’s four lanes (in each direction) being a bike lane? Or turning the dividing section in the middle of those roads into a bike highway (except that would totally screw with the Michigan Left)?

This is Eight Mile Rd, just east of Telegraph, looking back west. Four lanes in both directions, a boulevard in the middle, and a “Michigan left” just ahead of you.

View Larger Map

Crazy.

And!

Over the past weekend, an estimated 2,000 cyclists came to the city for the 8th annual Tour De Troit – nearly double the number that showed up last year. Its goal is in part is to raise funds for the Corktown-Mexicantown Greenlink, which could link these key communities to the Detroit riverfront.

One great example already exists. The Dequindre Cut Greenway, an urban recreational path, officially opened in May. The 1.2-mile greenway, developed through a public, nonprofit and private partnership, offers a pedestrian link between the Riverfront, Eastern Market and many of the adjacent residential neighborhoods. Formerly a Grand Truck Railroad line, the Dequindre Cut is a below-street level path that features a 20-foot-wide paved pathway, which includes separate lanes for pedestrian and bicycle or rollerblading traffic.

I must see this on my next trip home. Even though it’s waaaay on the east side, and my folks live waaaaay on the west side, and I’ll surely have to drive to it.

The comments are good, too. I appreciated the discussion about the appropriateness of spending money on these types of projects (and the sources of funding) given the financial difficulties the city faces.

Simply reading Detroit bikers comment on where they live and ride reminds me of the scale of the area we’re talking about. From my parents’ house in the northest/westest corner of the city to most points downtown or on the east side is 15+ miles. 15 miles from downtown Minneapolis gets you to the I-494/I-694 loop that generally separates the first-ring and second-ring suburbs. Detroit is just so much bigger.

This also reminds me that I haven’t spent any of my adult life in Detroit (except for that one year I was unemployed, which didn’t count). I have no desire to move back, but I really wonder what it would be like to live and work downtown or somewhere else that’s not the suburbs where the Catholic schools I attended are. What would it be like to live in a part of Detroit that actually mirrors many of the things that I like best about Minneapolis?

This article has kind of blown my mind grapes.

My friendly neighborhood citizen journalism outfit, The Uptake, posted a message from Austan Goolsbee of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers on August 20, the day the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure (CARD) Act of 2009 (aka the Credit Card Bill of Rights) took effect.

Today, I got a message from Discover Card about changes to my account. My Discover Card is my primary credit card.

SUMMARY OF CHANGES

INTEREST RATES

• Annual Percentage Rate (“APR”) increases for paying late or exceeding your credit limit. We will no longer increase your APRs on your existing credit card balances if you pay late or exceed your credit limit. Your APRs on new transactions may increase to a Default Rate only if you fail to make a payment when due. However, if we increase your APRs for new transactions to a Default Rate, we may, as described below, periodically review your Account to determine if your APRs should be reduced….
• Grace Period. Your grace period for new purchases is changing, which may help reduce your finance charges….

FEES

• Overlimit Fee. We will no longer charge an Overlimit Fee….
• Pay-by-Phone Fee. We will no longer charge a Pay-by-Phone Fee….
• Balance Transfer and Cash Advance Transaction Fees. If you make a balance transfer or take a cash advance, the maximum transaction fees will be increasing to 5% of the amount of each new balance transfer or cash advance, as applicable, with a minimum of $10….

PAYMENTS

• How Payments are Applied. Payments made in excess of the Minimum Payment Due will now generally be applied to high APR balances first. This may help you pay off your high APR balances sooner….
• Minimum Monthly Payment. The Minimum Payment Due calculation is changing, which may result in a higher required monthly payment. Making a higher monthly payment will help you pay down your balances faster….
• Payment Processing Time. Mailed payments received at our processing facility will be credited to your Account on the same day if received by 5PM local time, instead of the current 1PM cut-off time….

YOUR RIGHT TO REJECT CHANGES
You have the right to reject some of the above changes in accordance with the instructions described below…. If you reject these changes, we will close your Account, but you will have the option to pay down your balance over time, in accordance with the then-current terms of your Cardmember Agreement.

So, you know, it worked! Selfishly, I wish it had been in place five years ago (bygones), but better late than never. This will help millions of other people struggling to manage their debt. When you’re in dire straits like that, every single dollar makes a difference.

I’m sure there will be some unforeseen consequences down the line or the credit card issuers will come up with some other ways to gouge you. I’m also utterly pleased that I am no longer in the position of having to worry about whether I’m close to my limit or will be able to pay off my balance every month. But it’s good to know that if I ever find myself in that position again there will be less insult to the injury.

P.S. I’m still salty that my Lynx-themed Discover Card was deactivated now that Discover is no longer a WNBA sponsor.