Sunday, July 31, 2011

Celebrating

Happy Birthday, Jacob & Michelle!

It always sort of amazes me when the schedule gods grant us one of those nights where almost everyone has the same night off.  That just doesn't happen a lot when all your friends are residents.

Tonight we got together to celebrate Jacob and Michelle's victory lap of their 20's at Tate's.

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I was driving and a teensy bit worn out from our garage sale extravaganza this morning, and sometimes when I'm tired I feel like I'm sitting back and watching things instead of actively participating.  I felt that way tonight, but in a very content and peaceful way.

I love our friends and I'm so thankful that residency brought us all together, and that even more important, we have each other to get through residency with.

I love our city, and I'm so thankful that we've gotten to live here for 10 years and watch this city grow and change as downtown becomes somewhere you'd actually want to be.

See, now usually it's too much wine that makes me all "I wuv you guys" but tonight?  Tonight it's a clear head and calm heart that's letting me look out at this life and feeling my gratitude.

And the best part?

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No hangover when you get drunk on gratitude.

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Confessions of a Yard Sale Addict

It’s Yard Sale Day!

I've hosted my fair share of yard/garage sales.  In fact, I think this is probably my 6th - but this was my favorite.  Why, you ask?  (You did ask, didn’t you?)

Location: Other than the house I had growing up which was in a neighborhood but on the corner of a busy street, this was the best location I've been in.  Location is everything for garage sales.  Jamie's neighborhood is known for weekend garage sales, and lots of people told us they spent their Saturdays mapping out routes to go from one Ardmore sale to the next.  (Apparently, there's an app for this!)

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Friends: I was with some of my best friends.  Not only did this help us increase the amount of stuff we had to sell, but it made the morning so much more fun.  We were amazingly organized too - Jamie had the great idea to use different colored stickers, and then we just kept a piece of paper out where we wrote down each person's sale under their name based on the colors.  When someone asked if we would "go any lower," we'd look at the color and holler at the person - "Liz, 50 cents on this?"  Usually without looking, the other person agreed.  (We were also sharing the baby-sititng of Ethan, which just meant lots of passing around the cuteness.  Look at that face!)

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Mission: Because we were all pretty much on the same mission: get rid of our stuff.  I think when you have a garage sale you have to decide ahead of time: is my goal to make some coin or is to empty my closets?  (For the record, I think if you've got bigger stuff to sell and you don't want to budge on price, go with Craigslist.  I had a few things I didn't want to waver on and though lots of people ask about them but no one took 'em home.)  (I don’t have another garage sale pic, just another Ethan cuteness pic… so here you go.)

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To that extent, we actually had a large pile of "FREE" stuff at the end of the driveway.  I think this is a great way to lure kids and men to your sale, which gives the mommas more time to peruse without someone begging to move on.  Just sayin'.

Weather: If you live in the South, you should probably think about hosting your garage sale in late May or early September to avoid having it be a million degrees out.  Oh wait... HAHAHAHA.

Despite the heat, I think our sale was a success!  I went to Jamie's with my car full of 2 suitcases of things, 3-4 boxes and a Tupperware tub.  After the sale and goodwill drop off, I went home with just the Tupperware tub with a few "keepers" to try again on ebay or Craiglist.

And, enough money to buy the birthday boy & girl a drink tonight at Tate's!  Not to mention... an empty closet.  That is downright priceless.

Getting rid of stuff is cathartic.  Getting a few dollars for getting rid of stuff is rewarding.  Getting a few dollars for getting rid of stuff and spending the day laughing and chatting with your friends is downright fun.

Friday, July 29, 2011

The Drill

If you must get 8 fillings replaced (yes I said, 8), then you should probably do it in a dentist's office that looks like this:

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And has massaging chairs:

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And 2 of your best friends work there and can come give you a hug.  (Donna, you're excused... having a 4 week old is a good reason to not be there.)

But despite all those lovely amenities,

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it's still a cavity drilling.  or 8.

(Okay, I'm only getting 2 done at a time.)

(And for the record, I swear I take good care of my teeth.  I have floss in every purse I own!  I just, apparently, have terrible teeth.  Sigh.)

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Famous Last Words

Famous last words: I was talking to my Mom on Sunday and said something about how I was looking forward to my "low key do nothing weekend."

Sorta forgot about the fact that I was supposed to be part of a 4-family garage sale this weekend.  So there's that.

Spent my day off getting ready for it.  I know garage sales are a ton of work, but I really love them.  People say all the time they'd rather just take the stuff to Goodwill and donate it - which is what I do at the end of the sale - but I LOVE garage sales.  You don't really make wads of cash at them - in fact, most of the things I sell end up selling for 50 cents or $1.  But I just like seeing my stuff go home with someone who is excited about it.  I guess it's because I'm not really an impulse shopper, so almost everything I own I picked out with the intention of loving or using... (or was given to me by someone I care about with that same intention), and it's sort of reassuring to feel like something I once enjoyed will now bring someone else that same enjoyment.  I know, sort of silly.

But that's what makes spending your day off from work in a hot room (we hadn't had the a/c on in our spare guest room) pricing items for 50 cents totally worth it.

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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Christmas in July

Ever since Matt started sketching out plans for our back porch reno, I started surfing Pinterest for the perfect patio couch.  I fell in love with this style:
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And I was super excited when I found one on a website that was marked down to about 1/2 of what I'd been seeing it for on other sites.  Click, click, click and it was mine!

Until... UPS decided it wasn't.  For nearly 10 days, they kept telling us it was lost.  Lost!  I was a little perplexed... I sort of assumed that it would be a rather large package and I was little confused as to how one might just "lose" a package that size.  Bless my husband's heart, because he stayed on them for a week patiently but unwavering in his demand that they find it.  He is Dale Carnegie meets Donald Trump when it comes to making things happen.

And lo and behold, 10 days later...they found it!

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Easy to see how you could lose a package this size, right?

Monday, July 25, 2011

Sigh.

Watching my mom and sis turn north on US-52 while I head south made me sad.

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I hate good-byes.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Cute As A Button Baby Shower

Dearest Darling Baby 4C,

We so can't wait to meet you.  And you, my dear, are lucky enough to have the sweetest and kindest momma in the world.  We threw her a little party just to remind her of that and help her get ready for you.

Love,

All your Winston-Salem Aunties

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Saturday, July 23, 2011

Party Prep

Seriously, how do you expect me to get anything done when this is happening?


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But!  Lots of shower prep work to be done today.  Thank goodness my mom is back to help me.  My mom is superwoman.  We even managed to squeeze a little shopping in to our shower prep...

Katie and I love taking our Mom to Coldwater Creek and helping her pick out outfits, because I guess we both feel a little indebted for all those days when we dragged her into Abercrombie & Fitch or prom dress shopping and she had to stand there while we tried on 8 million things in the dressing room.  (Or worse, broke down in tears because NOTHING FIT WAH WAH WAH.)  But this time, something terrible happened in Coldwater Creek.  I started texting my sister pictures of clothes that I WAS TRYING ON.

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And even worse?  She approved.  (Although she said I need to belt it.)

I would like to believe that Coldwater Creek has just gotten hipper.  Not whatever the opposite conclusion would be…

But look at this cute Chambray skirt!  (The top is from there too.)

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My mom is probably appalled because what was her "safe" zone for shopping is no more.

The weekend passed by in a blur of pink poufts and melted white chocolate and glue funning, but everything was ready to go for Sunday afternoon!  I am quite certain I could not have done it without my momma there to help, and hopefully she had a teensy bit of fun hanging out with me as we went down my uber-OCD to do list (sorted by date, location and activity.  I’m painful.)

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We are ready to party with baby 4c!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Hanging with Mom

It's been such a fun weekend with my momma here visiting.  I bet she had no idea she would come to visit and I would put her to work.  That'll teach her to visit!  Hopefully she had as much fun as I did...

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Hot glue gunning...

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Cooking...

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More cooking... this time for Matt & our 2 neighbors who are doing the deck construction...

She left this morning to go down to Charlotte to hang out with Katie.  It's much easier to say good bye when I know she's only 90 minutes away and that she'll be back in a few days!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Teaser

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Construction happening at our house.  Just a teaser of what’s going on…

Friday, July 15, 2011

Buddy’s Buzzcut

It's that time of year again!  It's a million degrees outside and my little pup is uncomfortable...
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So we let him take his clothes off and run around naked.
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(I don't want to hear it, Yo-yo, he loves it.)

Thursday, July 14, 2011

A Call to Arms

I have wonderful friends.  Just wonderful.  When I realized that Jamie's baby shower was in less than a week and my to-do list was a mile long, I sent out a plea email:

"Please come make decorations.  I will pay you in pizza and wine."

They came.  They helped.  They poufed.

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We are (almost) ready for a baby shower.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Sunday Morning Stroll

After all the walking we did on Saturday, I was somewhat amazed when the alarm went off that Jamie and I were actually mobile.  I think I was expecting to be as sore as after a half marathon, considering we had basically done that.  (Did I mention Jamie is nearly 7 months pregnant?  I tried to keep my complaints in perspective, assuming any degree of tiredness or overheating I felt was tenfold for her.  Troo-per.  Trooper.)  Anyways, we were up, and we had a few more things on our checklist.  Mostly "sight-seeing" this morning, but of course that meant more walking.

We headed down to Battery Park, walking along Wall Street to get there.  When I’m in this area, I always try to picture my then-28 year old Dad fitting into the hustle and bustle of Wall Street, as he did when he worked his first year for Merrill in the city.  It just doesn't click - I'm picturing the man who now loves to go to bed at 7:30 pm (I know where I get it from) and comes home on his lunch break to eat a tuna sandwich and sit with the back door open to our patio to watch the hummingbird feeder.  It amuses me to picture him on these busy New York streets (and my mom, back home in Jersey with baby Michael!) but it never fails to remind me when I'm here, that I know just a small part of my parents life and through very biased lenses.  Which is what every child does, of course, and maybe is part of the reason why I write this blog… so my one-day kids can read about their then-29-year old mom and how she took an excessive amount of pictures of her dog?  Hmm, or not…

Okaaay, back on topic...  where we were?

Oh right, a random walk down wall street.

(Get it??)

Let's just fast forward to Battery Park.  Statue of Liberty!  I’ve never done one of those harbor tours where you get to seen Lady Lib up close, but even from afar she is pretty impressive.  Makes you feel American just looking at her.

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Jamie and I took our time switching out every lens on the camera to get the perfect shot of Miss America, and then we hopped on the subway for our next walking adventure.

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In all my trips to NY, I had somehow never SEEN the Brooklyn Bridge.  Ya'll, it's AMAZING.  Seriously, just a marvel of architecture.  The night before I had been trying to figure out where the pedestrian walkway to BB started so I ended up on the Wikipedia page and read the history about it, so I think I was even more taken aback having a little bit of background.

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Jboo and I walked to the first structure, marveling and snapping shots along the way, and making sure we stayed in the "ogling tourist lane" and not the "frustrated bikers trying to get a workout/commute in" lane.  Once we got to the first structure, we realized we were running out of time to get back before our flight and oh yea, it was a million degrees out, so we called a day and started the long warm trek back.

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Just in case anyone was paying attention, yes that is the same outfit I wore Friday night.  Now you know my secret for packing light.

Blessedly, our travel home was uneventful.  Well, actually our gate changed FOUR times in 15 minutes, but I'm still calling that uneventful in comparison.  It felt like a whirlwind weekend but I think Jamie, baby 4c and I managed to fit a lot in to our short trip.

See New York-y things: check (Lady Lib, Central Park, Brooklyn Bridge, WTC)
Eat delicious things: check (Sprinkles, Wafel Truck, Shake Shack)
Navigate subway system without getting lost: Check (thank you, NYC app)
Visit friends: check (most important part of our trip: "blog friend" becomes "real life friend" - thanks for your hosting us in your lovely city-home, K!)

Success.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Twelve Hours, Twelve Miles

We....

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Walked around the World Trade Center site, and into the beautiful hushed St Peter's Church.  The last time I was here, there was just a big hole in the ground, so it was amazing to see the new growth.  It's a comforting reminder of what it means to be American: you get knocked down by awful and unfair events, but you never stay down.  And often you get back up and you're stronger and more beautiful when you started.  Yay, America.  Yay, New York.  It really hit me how much this city had been through almost a decade ago (!!).  I was holding back tears walking through the tribute at St Peter's, as the visual images really brought the event back to it's full magnitude for me.

Jamie and I walked outside into the bright sun and just sort of looked at each other and sort of did a little shake... like, wow.  That really happened huh?

And then we...

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Attempted to go to Battery Park, only the Subway that was intended to take us there wasn't running so we were waiting in line for a shuttle bus with a million other people in the blazing heat when I said "Hey! How about we go in Starbucks and get some water and reevaluate our plans?"  This went over very well with my tough but still 26 week pregnant friend, so we did.

Our new plan was to take the subway to meet Kathryn at Rockefeller to go to top of the Rock.  WHen we popped out of the subway, we....

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Were in Times Square!  Which made us laugh because when we were making our NYC plans Jamie and I kept saying to each other over and over again "But we definitely don't need to go to Times Square. We don't have ANY interest in going to Times Square."  And here we were.  And it was just as busy and crazy and touristy as we had both remembered, so we put our heads down and pushed through the crowds to find Kathryn.  Before we knew it, we...

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were staring out at the most amazing views of the city.  Like my airplane post, seeing a world from this high up does weird things to my brain.  I feel like part of a huge world and a tiny world all at once.  I almost have to stop looking after awhile.  We snapped lots of pictures up here.  All 3 of us are nuts about our cameras, and having a playground of a vista like that was heaven to all of us.  The tricky part was finding someone who would take one of the 3 of us. 

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After we managed to find someone, we...

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refueled at the Wafel Truck.  Matt called me at this point, and asked what we were up to.  “Eating a waffle!” I exclaimed.  “Eating a waffle?” he asked, a bit confused.  (It was, after all, about 3:00 pm.)  If only he had called an hour later, so I could tell him we…

were watching a roller disco in Central Park.  (I have watched this video so many times on my phone and I can never quite decide who is my favorite person in this clip to watch.)  Just so much unbridled happiness in this clip.  Everyone who was there looked like they were pretty much having the best Saturday ever.  From there, we…

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megs and jamie bethesda

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wandered our way through Central Park, ending up in Bethesda Terrace.  It had beautiful lighting and gorgeous architectural details.  So, we took a few pictures.  Just a few.  I swear.  It was getting close to evening and time for baby Q to wind down, so Jamie and I were on our own for a bit.  We…

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explored the Met for a bit (air-conditioning!) and then recharged our bodies with a little pre-dinner cupcake from Sprinkles.  It was tiny.  I swear.  Jamie and I had just truly hit our sugar buzz, when Kathryn, our amazing tour guide / city hostess, came back to take us back to Soho for dinner.  We…

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ate at the quaintest little restaurant called Freeman’s.  It was tucked down a little alleyway off the Bowery, and I never in a million years would have found it on my own but thank heavens Kathryn did because my life needed those shrimp and corn fritters.  (Basically, fancy hush puppies.  But that is not a complaint, not one bit.)  My only complaint about this place was the emo, uber-casual waiter.  “So, like, are we having any drinks tonight?” is not a way to win points for great service.  (His service was actually fine, his attitude was just bizarro.  And the food more than made up for his quirkiness.  It is New York, right?)  Dinner flew by in what felt like a matter of minutes while our conversation ran the gamut of everything from roasting chickens to New York real estate.  (Both topics that make me a teensy bit squeamish feeling.)  The check arrived, we headed out into the night and before we knew it, we were hugging our old/new (Jamie/me) friend good-bye as we got ready to go in different directions at the subway.  Once we got back to our hotel room, I reported to Jamie that we…

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walked close to twelve miles in the twelve hours we had been out.  Twelve miles!  We might have only had one had what amounted to barely more than one day in New York City, but I think we did a good job making the most of our time there.  We had a few things left to see on Sunday, but we had packed in some classic NYC sights, some delicious food and some quality time with our friends.  We…

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went to NYC.