At the moment…

… reflecting on the life of a great man, who left this world far too soon. MLK is such an inspiring leader, take a moment to read/watch some of his speeches, his words will move you.

… finished all the final touches for my husband’s birthday extravaganza.

… I’m also using MLK’s quote as an inspiration to keep up my winter running. There is a half marathon in Delaware coming up in March that my husband and I also say we will run. I think this is our year.

… slightly obsessed with the band Haim, I’ve been listening to their album on repeat for weeks straight. They play in Philly in May, not sure I can wait that long to see them live.

… realizing that I did a similar blog post only twice last year, one being January 15th, guess this is my thing in January.

… we are trying to decide where to go on our next travel adventure, somewhere in Central or South America. Any recommendations???

… sad that the fire station on our block moved over the weekend to their new station. I’m going to miss the fire engine going down our block and saying Hi to the guys on my daily walk with Daisy, their absence is already noticed.

… looking forward to a short work week!

Tootles!

The one with all the talk of Fall

Last weekend I went down to Virginia/DC to visit some friends and I was kicking myself for not packing a couple tank tops  (it was a freakishly hot weekend for October) and days later I’m relaxing in my favorite hoodie snuggling under the blankets with hot chocolate and a good book. I think its officially fall now on the east coast. I’m so glad, because I love fall! Everything is pumpkin, the leaves turn orange and maroon (Go Hokies!) and you just want to be outside enjoying the beautiful cool weather (why can’t it be like this all the time?!?). I seen a bunch of bloggers post this ode to fall, so I’m hopping on the bandwagon.

This fall I will be:

• Making: some delicious pumpkin treats
• Cooking: some vegetarian recipes from the Moosewood cookbook
• Drinking: some Cadbury drinking chocolate. We had this on our flight to New Zealand and I’ve been obsessed ever since
• Reading: a bunch of books that have been collecting dust on my bookshelf
• Wanting: to finally be able to see my favorite band in concert
• Looking: forward to a girls weekend in CA with my mom
• Playing: with Daisy dog
• Wasting: nothing, I hate being wasteful
• Sewing: nada.  Although I do have a halloween costume I could make, guess at some point in my life I thought I would actually learn to sew
• Wishing: we could win the lottery and move to New Zealand
• Enjoying: the leaves as they change colors
• Waiting: to figure out what’s next
• Wondering: what to make for dinner tomorrow
• Loving: my happy little family in our little corner of the world
• Hoping: to go to the Finger Lakes for a long weekend this month
• Marveling: at how beautiful the world can be
• Writing: this post
• Baking: sugar cookies with a wedding shower mix from 3 years ago (we didn’t die)
• Needing: a pedicure
• Smelling: fall scented candles and rain
• Wearing: dresses, totally obsessed with dresses!
• Following: the Royal family, somehow I’m hooked on Royal family gossip
• Noticing: that my husband has some man sexy legs!!
• Knowing: that I’m very fortunate
• Thinking: that I should wake up early tomorrow, maybe go to the gym, oh but I likely will oversleep
• Feeling: happy
• Bookmarking: photography tips and tricks
• Opening: good bottles of wine
• Giggling: at my husband, he his hilarious when you get him going
• Practicing: my French

Dave the Builder

A couple weeks ago, shortly after coming back from vacation, I caught my husband reading this:

 

…watching home repair You Tube videos and working on a few very random home projects like this (duct work maintenance):

Coincidentally, my 7 year-old nephew (who we visited with on vacation) is also really into ‘construction/carpentry’, probably knows more than the average homeowner about home repairs and as Dave said, “has better tools than I do.”

I think someone felt one upped by a 7 year-old.

At the moment…

…I have totally failed on the February Photo Challenge I blogged about at the beginning of this month. I wanted to experiment with my phone to take pictures, but my phone is on the blink. I’ll take a photo and then I can’t pull up the images, plus I realize the quality of the photos totally sucks. And my laptop is also dying a slow death, so I haven’t been uploading any photos on my computer, afraid I might see the blue screen of death before backing them up. Maybe next month? Maybe I’ll just get an iPhone and Mac and solve all my problems?

…totally rocking my half marathon training, thanks to my super awesome training partner (best-husband-ever!). I was following a seven week training plan and slowly increasing my long run every week, with some 4-5 mile days during the week. I managed to do 9 miles on a treadmill (snow outside) and find a couple days where it wasn’t too windy out to get in my 10 and 11 miles, over the last 2 weekends.

…thinking this is going to be a great year of running. Already thinking of doing another half marathon next month and joined the lottery for the Broad Street 10 miler in May.

…excited to visit New Orleans again and enjoy some good Cajun food!

…J’aime beaucoup parler français! I’m totally loving my French class. It’s hard to find time to practice daily, but I’m starting to get the basics down.

…designing in my head a whole new everything for our bedroom.

…so excited that I am now a preferred member of an airline! Now I understand why people just book flights just to fly in order to get enough miles to maintain their status. PHL-PHX-AUK-SFO-IAD-PHL, might be my plans for next weekend.

…this preferred status is part of my problem, you see I’m addicted to travel. Oh how I wish travelling the world could be my job!

January = Longest Month Ever

January has been such a long month! A good month, with lots of reasons to celebrate, but still long.  

Reason #1 to celebrate, I got a promotion at work!

Reason # 2 to celebrate, Dave was born! 

Looking forward to a short month. Hope you enjoy the last day of January.

 

(Picture: via)

At the moment…

…I’m super excited because I got a promotion at work today! Long overdue, but well deserved. Unfortunately with how promotions work at my company, I likely won’t get promoted for another 10 years, so I’m enjoying the moment while it lasts

…I’m loving the 2012 Project 365 photobook I made and just got in the mail yesterday. It’s a fun view into my life in 2012. Not sure if I will do it again, but it has made me realize how important it is to take photos of life.

…I’m missing Homeland. Dave and I watched the first season in the fall last year and because we found out it was Showtime Free Preview this past weekend, watched the entire second season in 24 hours. I’m totally hooked and counting down to the start of the third season.

…Finding it so hard to get motivation to run more than 4 miles on the treadmill. I came up with a training plan and getting some long runs in on the weekends, but struggling with treadmill running during the week.

…Love making all kinds of lists in my new planner by Erin Condren. My super organized list making self from 3rd grade is making a come back (I use to make a ‘Nightly To Do’ list for myself)

…Totally behind on blogging about our fun European adventure last fall

…Excited to start my French class next week

…Planning some birthday fun for my husband

Girl Shows

Happy New Year!

I’m not sure what it is, but I seem to have a slight obsession with TV shows that have ‘girl’ in the title. I’m not normally a big TV watcher, but occasionally I’ll get hooked on a show. First it was Gilmore Girls. I lived with roommates, just got a Netflix account and was trying to ‘beat the man’ by getting my monthly money’s worth of renting. I never really watched the show when it was on the air, but I was hooked the first episode. The fast talking, funny real life references were great, although I wasn’t such a fan of the way the show ended.

Then I discovered New Girl. This show is so hilarious!A refreshing comedy that stands out from all the crap on regular cable TV.

Then there was Girls. I spent a weekend with my friend Kate who has HBO on demand, we watched 1 episode and then went on to watch the whole season before the weekend was over. The first season was only 10 episodes, but I don’t know what I’m going to do when the second season starts up again soon. I might just have to wait till the season is over and do another marathon episode weekend.

And lastly, there was Gossip Girl. I somehow caught the first episode on a random lazy Sunday afternoon and 3 episodes later I was DVRing every episode I could find. This really wasn’t a quality show, but it was like the train wreck that I just had to keep watching. I even watched seasons out of order and then found out Netflix had the seasons streaming online. I’m glad the show ended this year (I thought GG was Dorota). Needless to say, I wasted days of my life on a crap TV show, but I did take away some fashion tips and spots to check out in NYC.

2013 will be a year with less TV in my life, unless of course there is a good show out there with ‘girl’ in the title.

cozy coze

The air seems to be getting colder and colder here in the mid-Atlantic. It would be so nice to have a nice cozy fireplace to keep us warm. I’m slightly jealous of the houses around us with fireplaces, especially when you can smell the warmth outside.

Maybe in our next house, it’s sure to make the wish list. Guess a picture of the fireplace on the TV will do for now. Stay warm out there!

Leap!

Happy Leap Day!

via 

Love: is in the air

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Love doesn’t make the world go round, love is what makes the ride worthwhile – Elizabeth Browning