fortunately/unfortunately

Fortunately it's Friday! And I am leaving work at 1:00 today!
Unfortunately Friday is also my Weight Watchers weigh in day and this morning I was up 1.8 pounds...grrr.

Fortunately I am giving my notice at work in just one week...next Friday.
Unfortunately the thought of having the "I'm quitting" conversation with my boss really scares me!

Fortunately I'm still loving the look of my new bangs.
Unfortunately I haven't quite mastered styling them (and flattening the cowlicks that always stopped me from having bangs) so sometimes they look a bit wonky (today for example.) And they could already use a trim.

Fortunately Hanna and I are going to be spending the weekend at my friend, B's house. Her bf is going to be away and K needs to study so it will be a fun girls weekend!
Unfortunately wait...there is nothing unfortunate about that!

Mac Attack! (and some other random things)

• This is my first ever post coming from my shiny new MacBook Pro. So far I love it! It definitely is going to take some time to get used to but it's not as complicated as I thought it would be. My sister gave me a little lesson last night and helped me get it all set up. Yesterday I went shopping with my mom and my sister, I was planning on just buying the laptop at the Apple store. BUT...my wonderful mother surprised me completely and bought it for me. I was literally so surprised I started crying! I feel so lucky and grateful that my parents did this for me so I can put the money I would have spent towards other grad school expenses. I also ended up getting a cool printer for free!
• Speaking of my mother...today is her birthday! We are going out to eat tonight with our family and some friends. My sister and I are also going to take her out tomorrow to this cool wine bar.
• My brother is also in his last high school musical this weekend, I went to see him on Wednesday and I'm going again tonight with everyone after the birthday dinner.
• No final decision on what school I will be going to yet but I will keep you informed!
• I'll be posting an update on my 2010 goals very soon...mostly about weight watchers.
• This is my 300th post!

I'll leave you with my first experiment with Photo Booth. Stunning right?

featured!

Today I am a little overwhelmed with the whole grad school situation (I'll fill you in later.) But...on a happier note...I am being featured over at Raindrops and Roses today! Go check it out!

Also, the weather is gorgeous and it's almost the weekend...so I'm trying to stay optimistic.

Happy Weekend!

hanna's birthday party (and the rest of the weekend)

This weekend was a lot of fun. Friday I called out of work (I actually did today too...I'm a slacker I know...but I need to use up my days) and K and I met up with some family friends at our favorite Mexican restaurant. After being lazy most of the morning and running some errands in the afternoon of course. My parents were out of town so we stayed over at their house. The next morning was my Broadway Babies show. The show went well and I am happy it's over for now, I don't think I will be able to do the next session but I may do it again in the fall. Then we met up with our friends B and M to see "Alice in Wonderland" and went out to dinner. The movie was really good, we saw it in IMAX 3-d which was pretty cool.

Sunday we cleaned and cooked all day for Hanna's 1st Birthday party, which was basically just my parents and brother coming over for dinner but I have to say...I got a little into it.

The birthday girl, who is desperate need of a haircut.

I made K stop at Party City on the way home from the grocery store.

The birthday dog cake, dog owners let me know if you want the recipe. Hanna and Gryffin (my parent's dog) both loved it.

Our family.

Hanna enjoying her cake.

We were being a little silly after the party.

happy weekending!

I called out of work today and have been being lazy all morning. Which is amazing. K and I have a pretty busy weekend planned so I'll be sure to give you a full recap on Sunday or Monday.

Unfortunately, I am still waiting to hear something from School #1. The waiting sucks so I am attempting not to think about it. Whenever I do I start to panic about the fact that my whole life is up in the air and will be drastically changing in just a few months.

Have a wonderful weekend!

all the crap I did this weekend (featuring pictures!)

I went to Philadelphia with my best friends! I had never really been to Philly, except for the airport, so it was nice to see it. Except a lot of the places we were seemed kinda dirty...maybe it was from all the snow?

But before I went I had my interview at School #1. After careful consideration of your advice this is the outfit I went with. I think it worked and I didn't feel overly formal. It was a pretty laid back interview which seemed to go well, hopefully I should know something soon. Please ignore the creepy expression on my face...I was concentrating. K was supposed to take it for me but he was walking the dog and I had to get going.

While in Philly we hit up Geno's for OFFICIAL Philly Cheesesteaks. As a true Cheesesteak fan I was excited for my first and had pretty high expectations.

Here I go. My first bite. And I must say, while it was good, I have had better. In fact I'm pretty sure this pizza place by my parents' house has better Cheesesteaks. And it's in Maryland...take that Philly.

That night I came out of the blog closet under this very creepy chandelier. What is this, seriously? It looks like something from Jurassic Park.

Then I got pretty wasted. No pictures of that...at least none I am posting.

The next morning I got up early to drive home because my parents had given K and I tickets to see a show, which was at 2:00. I literally barfed the entire way down I-95. I couldn't stop when I got home...so we had to miss the show. My mom was a little mad...but she got over it and invited us to dinner. By then I could eat.

And that was my weekend!

v-day weekend wrap up and some random thoughts

-K and I both got our taxes done. Last year I got a pretty big return so I was hoping for the same thing again, sadly that wasn't the case, but at least I didn't owe anything.

-One of these just opened up by my parent's house. It is so good!

-There is a bird caught in our dryer vent, this has happened about 6 times since we have lived in our apartment and it is SO ANNOYING! It's making all kinds of noise right now. We told them about it, them being the apartment management, on Friday and they still haven't come to get it out. I need to do laundry and I'm not sure it turning on the dryer would kill it or drive it out.

-We didn't do anything big for Valentine's Day but it was still very nice. K surprised me with flowers and a latte in the morning then we went out to brunch.

My pretty flowers!

i blame the superbowl for a lack of creative title

Over the weekend Maryland experienced a ginormous and insane blizzard...and I missed it. From the coverage on the Weather Channel my mom, brother and I were not sure if there would be a Maryland to come home to, or just a white blob. But, we made it back safely and K was kind enough to wait until I got back so I could "help" him excavate my car. My helping basically involved climbing into snow banks then screaming "I've fallen and I can't get up!" and trying to make ice sculptures out of the snow on the roof of my car.

Marylanders are going to be talking about this snow for literally years to come so it is a little sad I won't be able to truly commiserate. Boston didn't get a speck of snow but it was bitter cold so all we couldn't really do anything but eat and drink. Sad I know. We also went to see Avatar (my sister and mom hadn't seen it yet) and my brother said he was very happy with his audition.

Forgive me Jillian Michaels, I needed the 5 sticks of butter and bacon in my Carbonara to keep warm. Like whale blubber.

I tried to burn off some of the calories by climbing in our hotel window and jumping on the beds with my brother a la Spiderman.

It didn't work. I need to get back to the Shred tomorrow. I'm also thinking about Weight Watchers online...anyone done it before?

As far as I know I still have my interview with School #1 tomorrow, but I won't be surprised if it doesn't happen.

escape from the snow

My brother is in the process of auditioning for musical theater programs at colleges (he is a senior in high school.) Saturday he has an audition at Emerson College in Boston which is one of his top choices. Since my parents have been taking him to most of them somehow it was decided that I would take him this weekend to give them a break (and get a free weekend trip.) Our plan was to fly to Boston on Saturday morning, go to the audition, spend the night with my sister (she goes to Boston College) then fly home on Sunday.

HOWEVER, a mega blizzard is supposed to hit Baltimore tomorrow and go through Saturday so there would be no way we could fly out Saturday morning and make the audition in time. My mom decided that she would just leave tomorrow morning and drive my brother so they could beat the snow. Since I was planning on being away this weekend she asked if I wanted to go along for the ride.

We are going to leave tomorrow morning and I am going to call out sick from work. I was planning on calling out sick on Monday anyway because I have my interview at School #1 (so it will be a long illness.) Ha. Gotta use those sick days before I quit!

Hopefully K and Hanna will be ok snowed in without me. He is going to go shopping tomorrow for frozen pizza and beer survive the storm. What else do guys really need?

I hope you all have nice weekends and if you are in areas that are getting snow you are prepared with your own store of food, alcohol, and lots of shows on your dvr!

99 problems

Ok, not trying to be a Scrooge here but it is hard to be in the Christmas spirit with a horrible cold that kept me up all night. And on top of the lack of sleep the cold meds I took this morning have made me feel like the living dead. And not the hot Cullen variety either.

At least I will have plenty of time to sleep tomorrow when I am snowed in. Yes, we are expected to get 20 INCHES of snow tonight through tomorrow. And when Maryland gets that much snow life pretty much stops. As a state we are not prepared and people fly into a severe panic.

If I was going to be snowed in during the month of February I really wouldn't care...but I have Christmas shopping to do and this is going to force me to do it after work next week. Scary thought. It's supposed to be a "White Christmas" on Christmas...not a "White Before Christmas" for a reason. And that reason is that snow hinders shopping.

Anyways, sorry to whine. Bah Humbug.

done...done and done!

I feel like I keep saying this, but in advance, I am sorry if my blogging is sub-par this week. It's supposed to be crazy at work (this is our busy time of year) and I have a lot of shopping and Christmas stuff to do after work.

I had a productive and fun weekend at my parents. Saturday my mom and I spent the whole day shopping, it was kind of like sprinting from store to store grabbing stuff then moving on to the next store. I was exhausted when we got home. Mom got a lot of stuff she needed, but I still have a bunch of presents to buy.

Sunday we went out to breakfast, my parents have this new habit of going to this diner every Sunday morning and it is really delicious! We are actually going to go there after opening presents on Christmas morning this year. After breakfast I got to work on all of my applications and...here is the exciting news...I finished them all! And as of this morning all of the supplemental information is also in the mail! Yipee!

I am still waiting on if I will have to take any extra coursework but my mom asked a couple girls she knows from her school that are in the program (at my top choice school) and they said a lot of people do have to take something but it isn't a big deal.

So now the waiting game begins!

little silly thing for your Friday morning...

Attention Twilight fans! (I refuse to use the term Twi-hard) Or fans of cats!

If you haven't seen this yet...check it out.

It's seriously hilarious.

I will probably be pretty absent from blogging until Sunday or Monday. I am leaving work early today for this training thing then spending the weekend at my parents. K will be in New Jersey visiting his family and going to a Giants game so I am going to hang out with my mom, go Christmas shopping and finish my applications.

Hope you all have lovely weekends!

and now I am not eating until Christmas

I'm back! Not that I went anywhere, I just took some time away from the computer over the long weekend...hopefully work will not be too busy today so I can catch up on all of your blogs! Even though it was only 4 days it felt like a much longer time off of work (amazing) and I also probably ate enough food to cover about 3 weeks. I feel like I gained 10 pounds but I am way to scared to get on the scale.

Here is a little recap of my weekend, as usual I didn't take any pictures...I'm thinking about making "take more pictures" my New Years resolution:

Wednesday: K and I went out and bought our NEW TV! (it was our Christmas present to each other) We ended up get the 46" Samsung LCD. Now that I have an HD TV it seems like I haven't even really been watching TV all these years. I would highly recommend Samsung, our TV was very easy to set up and works great.

Thursday: Thanksgiving! We (K and I) started off the day by going to a Thanksgiving wine tasting at this cute local wine store then we headed over to my parents house. It was just my parents, siblings, K, me and the pups so we had a relaxing day watching the parade, the dog show, some movies and of course eating!

Friday: My mom, sister and I opted to go to some wineries instead of shopping, so we spent most of the day doing that. Maryland has a lot of small cute wineries and several of them are pretty close to where I live.

Saturday: We all headed over to College Park for the University of Maryland vrs. Boston College (where my sister goes) football game. Even though I hate football and it was very windy/cold, it was still a lot of fun tailgating.

Sunday: In the morning, K and I went shopping for a fake tree and Christmas decorations, last year we didn't decorate our apartment at all which was a little sad. We got a great deal on a tree from Target that was labeled wrong and some other fun decorations. I spent the afternoon decorating while K studied for finals then we went back over to my parents for Chinese food and to help decorate their tree (which is where all my ornaments are.)


Whew...typing about all that made me tired, it was a jam packed weekend...I feel like I need a nap. Too bad I am back at work today :(

the weekend ended with a surprise

Saturday was a very nice day. K and I dropped Hanna off at my parents and headed over to movies to see "New Moon." I actually thought it was really good but I could see how if you didn't know the story it might be slow at times. It was also hilarious to hear 12 year olds scream every time Jacob Black appeared sans shirt.


Sunday my sister came home from college so I went to get her at the airport then hung out with my family during the day while K studied for finals. I was planning on staying for dinner but decided to head home to relax and clean up around the house a little bit.



That is when the surprise happened.



But first...a little back story.



As I mentioned last week, Friday was my friend L's last day at work as well as a couple of other people so there was this big happy hour at the Outback Steakhouse (classy, I know.) I was not planning on staying long but as I got there people were all buying L shots and she was talking about how she had to drive home (she lives about 35 minutes away and I live only about 2 minutes from the Outback.) As she was getting a bit tipsy I offered up sleeping over at my place as an option. She agreed and I figured that since I had to wait with her anyways...why not just keep drinking? Which is what we did...until about 11 pm when I called K to come rescue us.

We got home and K made up our futon in the office for L to sleep on...and she passed out in her work clothes. At around 6:30 she woke us up and asked if we could take her to go get her car. She did seem in a hurry to leave but I figured she was just concerned about her husband worrying and that she was uncomfortable from being in her work clothes all night.

That morning I noticed Hanna kept going in and playing around on the futon, she like to "dig" on blankets, so I didn't take the sheets off. We didn't notice anything strange in that room...in fact K did homework in there on Sunday. Then when I got home from my parents and we were cleaning up he went into the office to take off the sheets. All I heard him say was "Oh my God."

There was a huge dried pee stain on the futon. I guess that's why L was in such a hurry to leave and why Hanna was playing in there (gross puppy.)

Fortunately, the damage doesn't seem to be too bad but it is so awkward. She is not a close enough friend for me to call her out about it (nor do I anticipate seeing her much to ever in the future) but I wish she had told us right away so we could clean it while it was...fresh.

If you were in my place...would you tell her? She had to have noticed when she woke up. And why do people pee when they get drunk? I have never done that and I have been drunk many, many times. So nasty.

Insert Clever Title Here

Here are the things I considered blogging about yesterday: Farmville on Facebook (I'm obsessed), my hair (getting it done somewhere new tomorrow), statement necklaces (want some), and what I was made for dinner last night (chicken and sausage cacciatore with grape tomatoes.)

Here is what I actually blogged about: nothing

The reason: It was (well, still is) cold, gray and rainy out and I felt very blah. The only thing I was motivated to do yesterday was crawl into bed and sleep, which I couldn't do. Or watch season 1 of True Blood again, which I also couldn't do (stupid work.) I did, however, cook the aforementioned amazing dinner for K and I since he is leaving today for New Jersey to visit his family and friends.

Which means I will be alone during this cold, gray and rainy weekend and plan on being very lazy. Ok, that's not completely true. I really need to start getting my application crap together, requesting transcripts, finding people to write letters of recommendation etc... So maybe only 95% lazy. Oh and I am also (as I mentioned) getting my hair done.

In other news...all of this rain is making me really wish I had better rain gear. I now have the boots but I need a rain jacket...any ideas where I could find a cheapish one that isn't ugly and in a basic color that wouldn't look weird with red boots? (click on the link to see what my boots look like)

Weekend Recap

As soon as I got to my car on Friday I literally started sobbing. Friday was such a perfect summation of all of the things I hate about my job and I just couldn't take it. I think now that I have a plan and something I know I actually want to do it makes it hard to deal with all of the crap.

After venting to my mom during the car ride home and to K when I actually go home I felt a bit better. We had a nice relaxing evening catching up on the dvr and eating Qudoba.

Saturday morning I had Broadway Babies, even though it is only an hour, it is so much fun to be working with kids again. It makes me very optimistic about becoming a teacher!

Then during the afternoon K and I went shopping (he got new sneakers and something special for his Halloween costume) and then to a movie. We saw "Couples Retreat" which was definitely not the best movie ever, but it was funny. Plus the previews were amazing...especially "New Moon!" We also had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, which was very yummy. They have this miso salad with crab and shrimp that I am obsessed with.

Sunday we went over to my parent's house to watch football and eat. Which is pretty much our standard Sunday ritual. My mom made one of my favorite meals...these shredded pork taco/burrito things. It was a nice relaxing day.

I was dreading coming into work today but so far it doesn't seem so busy so perhaps all the OT might get cancelled (knock on wood)? I'm going to plan for the worst and hope for the best on that one!

By the way...last night I had a dream that I was Kim from Real Housewives of Atlanta. I was mad because Kandi started dating Big Papa too. Very strange!

Ye Old Weekend Wrap Up

Our good friends M and B just bought a new townhouse right near the Maryland Renaissance Festival which is convenient for K and I, since we love the Ren Fest! We all went yesterday and had a great time eating, drinking and being merry.

Us with the King!

We got really into putting our heads in holes.

Jousting

See what I mean about the heads in holes?

The Rouges, a bagpipe band K really likes

Huzzah!

Rainy Friday Rambling

It's pouring rain here today and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.

Too bad the rain boots I ordered are not getting delivered until Monday. What do you think?

I have been really wanting Hunter's but just couldn't justify spending that much on rain boots. These seem to have the same style and were much more reasonably priced, yet not just cheap knockoffs. They also had really good reviews from the other people who bought them. I'm pretty excited since I can't even remember the last time I owned rain boots and they will definitly come in handy walking Hanna!

Since it is so yucky out K and I are going to hang out at home tonight and start watching Season 1 of True Blood. As if I don't have enough TV shows already!

Happy {rainy} Friday!

Labor Day Movie Critic

Boy, was it hard to wake up this morning, especially given the realization that I probably won't have any days off of work until say...Thanksgiving.

My Labor Day weekend was very nice, K and I hung out on Saturday, went to a party on Sunday then pretty much hung out with my family all day on Monday.

For some reason we also saw a lot of movies, so I thought I would play movie critic, in case you are looking for a movie to watch sometime soon.

Coraline: We got this from On Demand on Friday night and since we don't have 3-D glasses laying around the house, we had to rent the regular version. That being said it is still a very entertaining movie. It reminded me a bit of the "Nightmare Before Christmas." K liked it too and he doesn't normally like cartoon movies. B+ would be my grade.

Inglourious Basterds: At first I wasn't sure what I thought about this movie, going into the theater I thought it was based on a true story so I found it a little...shocking. Once I suspended reality I liked it a lot. It has a good mix of war, humor, and actual storyline. I'll give it an A-.

Notorious: It's the story of the life of Notorious B.I.G (which was pretty short and tragic.) The beginning was good but it did get a little slow towards the end. I may have enjoyed it more if I was a big fan of hip hop. C

District 9: Definitely my favorite of the 4, it is very fast paced and holds your attention for the whole movie. It is documentary style for most of it and doesn't have any super famous actors which makes it seem like it could really be happening. Go see it while it is in theaters still! A

I also watched the whole thing of Not Without My Daughter on TV on Saturday for the first time...why does Sally Field play the same character in every movie she makes?

Weekend Review and Hanna

I had a wonderful weekend with my friends, the Mexican lasagna turned out awesome and I will share the recipe soon. On Saturday we went to Boordy Vineyards where you can get a tour, tasting and a glass all for only $5. We brought a picnic and had a great time enjoying the beautiful farm/vineyards and drinking great wine. It was great to catch up and spend a weekend with the girls.


In other news...Hanna is getting spayed tomorrow. K will be dropping her off in the morning then she will have the surgery and stay over night. I am going to call out of work on Tuesday so I can pick her up and be with her. Please keep my little puppy girl in your thoughts! I know it is routine surgery and we have a very capable, caring and experienced vet, but I can't help but be a little worried.


Here are some pictures of her (and Gryffin) that we took at the beach: