SWEETNESSSS

Holy, crap! Tastespotting is back up!!!! AMAZING!!!

Other amazing news, Carin and I have a blog now:

OMFGPD

That business means, Oh my fucking god! PERFECT DAY! It's really just fodder for us to fuel our boredom at work, and post things we like and things we do, eat, make, etc. CHECK IT OUT.

I'm working on getting healthy!! I know...it's weird. But when I realized I have gained 18 lbs since probably this time last year (EEEEEK!) I was like ENOUGH! I need to get fit..having an office job shouldn't be an excuse.

I'm doing this without a gym, so I'm on a running program where I run for about 15-20 mintues (mixed with power walking) every other day or so. I'm going to start doing weights and other sculpting exercises. I am weighing and trying to control portions. Wish me luck!

My target weight is back to 135. Let's see how it goes.

Friday the 13th. WTF

• Fender bender less than one mile away from work. RRRRR! This was the first time ever I hit someone (i've made it til 25!) but my bumper has a bit of blemish, since i decided to hit a pick up trucks compared to say, a mini cooper. My poor baby.
  
• tastespotting.com shut down until further notice. Went to get my daily fill of food porn to be met with a note from the notcot.org owners stating that it was not under their domain control anymore. What the hell?
  
• i have such awful gas. i'm very sorry for this news.
  

Other than that the day has been fine. It's crawling along at a snail's pace, but whatevs. It's friday! Tomorrow I am BBQ'ing for friends and family and on Sunday another BBQ at my cousins for Father's Day.

Also, in exciting news of other people's lives, one of my oldest friends (oldest meaning I've known them for a while- since I was 6 actually) and best friends has decided to take the plunge with her boyfriend. Happy news! I will be taking on the role of bridesmaid along with Megha; her older sister will be her Matron of Honor. Even bigger news? It's going to be next month!!! Crazy, huh? But, she has everything planned pretty much- she's probably planned since forever, so I think it's going to be great! I'm excited about helping to plan yet another shower and bacholorette night. I'm going into wedding over drive, which isn't exactly good for me. I love to plan parties and entertain, and I already have many ideas to when I finally take that step in my life. It's a bit sick.

Perhaps I will post excerpts from my 'Binder of Crazy', which is a collection of several years worth of pictures, articles, etc pulled from magazines and the internets of things I just like. There is a section on house ideas, food things, clothes, jewelry, make up, hair, health, etc, but also the section -Possible ideas for major life events for myself (or people I know). Included is bridal shower ideas, wedding ideas, my idea for my perfect wedding dress, and other things. In my head, it will all be awesome; hand it off to my friends and all the questions are answered for them. I've decided later in my life I am indeed a bit of a control freak. Oh well.

SATC/BSG=enough TV abbreviations to fill up my Netflix with.

Last night, Beth and I had our customary dinner date. We try to meet up every month or so for dinner and banter about our adult lives- the ups, downs, and everything in between. We changed it up and got some Middle-eastern/Mediterranean food at Evelyn's in the Bruns, which was mostly a ghost town, except for the summer stand-bys and locals. After enjoying some taro milk bubble tea ( I haven't had it in quite a long time) and a run in with Steve D. (who was surprised and almost a bit too pleased to know that the new College Pharmacy once held a laundromat...) Beth and I decided to go see Sex and the City The Movie. She is the fan- I remember her and Susie watching a beat up VHS season in our living room- also it was the same time SATC came on TBS.

I never watched SATC, save the times I had to watch it for some gender class I took my senior wintersession. It was the same time the super crazy boxed set came out, and one of the girls in my class had it. So after our lesson, we would stick around and watch a couple of episode, cos my TA was cool like that. I enjoyed what I watched, but I guess since I never had HBO I never got into it.

Anyway, I think I'm long over due for some SATC! Seriously! Apparently the outfits aren't as fabulous in the beginning, but who doesn't dream about living it up in Manhattan and having lots of cute clothes? I know I do all the time. Do people who live outside the NY metro area think that everyone lives such fabulous lives? I wonder, I wonder. I've just added seasons 1-6 on my Netflix queue. It'll have to battle out Battlestar Galactica (another tv show that I'm just getting into courtesy of my nerd guy friends), which I'm finishing up season 1 with (tonight!).

Would Carrie Bradshaw think Lee Adama was cute? Questions, questions.

I need a long weekend for my vacation!

So, I've been back from vacation for a couple of days. I feel relaxed, rested, and finally my sunburn has gone away! My cousin's wedding was beautiful, and hopefully I can post some pictures up here of my trip. My camera kind of pooped out on my after the first day, but my cousin sent me hers with my parents who arrived two days later.

I'm looking forward to this weekend coming up- other than the extra day off, I will be going to yet another wedding, which is ultimately going to be a high school class reunion. It should be a lot of fun to see everyone again, mainly peeps that I haven't seen since senior year.

Anyway, I'm watching the season finale of The Office at work, and I'm trying my best not to laugh out loud. I think this has been the best episode of the season...OMG! I just got the point where they're in the supermarket. However, this NBC player really does suck and is taking too much time to load.

photoshop rookie

So, I made this picture up there for my blog. I'm pretty proud of it, though it kind of denotes that this is some sort of food blog. But yeah...maybe it will evolve to one. Those cupcakes get me hungry, so I try not to look at them too much. I'm very proud of the little font job I did in the corner there...you like it? I know you do.

Carin and I are talking about starting a blog, since all day at work we IM each other with this cute dress we saw at shopbop or anthropologie, or this neato designed so and such; this and that. We couldn't figure out if we wanted to concentrate on food, fashion, stuff we do, art, design, or whatever, so we decided to do a theme of sorts. It will be called A/The Perfect Day, and we'll basically just discuss things that we should have/do/eat/wear/etc that would make it a wonderful day. All encompassing and hopefully a good excuse to take pictures and link to otherwise frivolous things. It's good to be a little frivolous, I think.

As in other news, I've decided that I do want to go to grad school, so I'm looking to take the GRE's in fall. I'm signing up for an online course this summer (I will need it for math), and study. Megha has decided (at press time, hehe) that she will be taking her GMATs, so we're going to try to get a study weekend or two over the summer and be huge nerds about it. Oh so reminiscent of those days at the College Ave student center, eating fries from Wendy's and studying for Economics and Political theory. Funtimes!

i'm also 25 now. I had a great, great, great birthday outing with friends in Manhattan. A group of us went out to dinner at Le Souk for family style Moroccan dishes and belly dancers (female and male alike). Afterwards, the dancing and drinks were on at Mannahatta lounge on Bowery. I bought bottle service and danced in my 3 inch purple satin Nina pumps (with bows and peeptoe!) until 4 in the morning. I was very proud of myself for doing that. I'm very grateful to my friends who made it out for either event; especially those who I hadn't seen in ages or hadn't partied with in ages.

On my actual birthday, Nick brought me to L'Ecole (I made the reservations, though. Last year's birthday dinner was impromptu, though I had sent him a list of 5 restaurants I wanted to eat at, hmpf) for a wonderful 5 course prix fixe menu. I had foie gras for the first time, and I wasn't fond of it- it was in pate form. However, the food and atmosphere was superb, and I also got to visit the Muji store in Soho, which I had wanted to go to for some time. Frivolous items were purchased. I bought one of those 6 colored pens-those fat barrelled pens with rainbow colors, that you constantly clicked to change the colors. Perfect for writing notes to your friends. Those pens were the shit in elementary school.

Twenty-five doesn't seem any different, only now I can rent a car. Though, I don't know when I'll need to do that anytime soon. Perhaps, on a whim I will rent a luxury car and pretend I'm a baller.

Vacation is in less than a week, and I cannot wait. Work is getting to me, and I think this past week has been the worst in a while. Ugh. Need.Masters.Now.

Hey! You're part of it.

I went to a show on Thursday night. It has been ages since I've been to a show like that, and I loved every minute of it. It was Piebald's final NYC show; the third to last show (The final two being in their hometown, Boston). If it Weren't for Venetian Blinds... & We Are the Only Friends We Have is always in heavy rotation on my i-pod and are two such feel-good albums. I put them on, and I'm instantly in a good mood. I haven't seen Piebald live since sometime in the early aughts back when Skate and Surf use to be a big thing. The show was bittersweet and fun and I felt like a kid again. Denny and I felt nostalgic for shows like that since most of the bands that would put on a show of that caliber have since broken up or have fallen into obscurity.

We talked about our fantasy line up for shows that will never happen. We limited to those whose band members were still alive and had the option to choose their set lists. Mine:

1. The Get UP Kids (sans The Guilt Show. They can play On the Wire though. Must play all songs from Something To Write Home About and Four Minute Mile)
2. New Order
3. Smashing Pumpkins (w/ Jimmy Chamberlain)
4. Death Cab for Cutie
5. The Smiths
6. Piebald (just because their final show has been one of the best shows i've been too)

Since, I've been nostalgic for Piebald, old Saves the Day, Get up Kids, Bouncing Souls, Lifetime, Midtown. It's all I've been listening to.

press.

I haven't updated in a while. Sorry.

Anyway, with my writing, i got the chance to answer in the popular website Apartment Therapy's the Kitchn food section:

How can I find Good Decaffeinated Tea?

And Bentley's, a specialty grocery store asked to use an article penned by me and my coworker Cynthia about making the perfect glass of iced tea:

Making the Perfect Glass of Iced Tea

Check them out :)