Wine and Meeko (a.k.a. My First Raccoon)

Last week my friend, Elspeth, and I decided to FINALLY use the Living Social deal for The Winery at Bull Run that we had purchased way back in July (read: it was about to expire).

So, we made plans to meet at the winery after work on Friday. . . . We left our respective locations at exactly the same time. I made it there on time, she got there an hour and a half later. . . . That's the difference between going to Centreville from Sterling and going there from Arlington. Gotta love that Northern VA traffic.

Anyway, while I was waiting, I decided to walk around the property a little bit and just enjoy nature. It was a beautiful night and it had been a little too long since I had spent more than a few minutes outside, especially outside in a deliciously cool, woodsy/field smelling spot.

A view from the winery

The Winery at Bull Run

The cool hearth/stone space where I sat for a little
while just enjoying the November evening.

Once Elspeth finally got there we did a wine tasting and enjoyed the yummy bread and cheese basket that the Living Social deal got us. The wines were all really good. I probably would have bought a bottle or two if I were feeling rich enough, but since I (1) barely ever drink and (2) am very happy with wine that costs under $10, I decided that a $29 splurge was above my price grade for the moment.

When I got home, I had another exciting event. I saw my first raccoon (I think). 

It was huge, sort of adorable, and digging through my dumpster. I acted like a huge city girl and sat in my car taking pictures with my phone . . . I felt like my college roommates who got excited when they saw cows or ducks or most "wildlife" in general.

I may or may not have even waited for him (her?) to climb back out so that I could get a better shot.

It was so big!

I was super surprised at how much he looked
like Meeko from Pocahontas!

Pigs May or May Not be Flying Right Now. . . .

Why yes. I did just win in Words with Friends by more than 100 points. 

Thanks for noticing.

This will probably never happen again.

Ever.

Why Yes! That is a Lot of Stickers

Thanks for noticing!

I've been keeping up the gym going (and super fun sticker system) for a healthy six weeks now. I'm extremely proud of (and amazed at) myself for my spectacular dedication.

And it's paying off! As of my last "weigh-in" I'd lost almost 5 inches total (they measure various places on your body every 4ish weeks) and about 2 pounds.

But what was probably the crowning moment of my gym-results experience so far was when someone that I hugged commented on my arms and asked if I was working out! Score!

Check out my stickers below. Love the Hello Kitty encouragement stickers my parents sent me for my birthday : )  Also, check out my calendar. It's kind of awesome.

In June, I made it three times a week
that's every week day I didn't have class! 

In July I gym failed on my birthday week
but that was mostly because of a school project
Notice that I went four times last week!
Would have gone five, but Batman IMAX was more important.

In Memoriam

via

Yesterday I lost a cherished family member.

But, don't worry. It wasn't a person.

It was the Buick.

For those of you who aren't aware, the Buick was an amazing car that I 

sort of inherited from my grandmother while I was in high school. 

It was huge, it was red (inside and out), and it was probably the 

most comfortable car I've ever been in. 

Seriously. I could have lived in it.

I started driving the Buick during my junior year of high school after a deer 

destroyed the front and right side of my van. It still had its PA 

license plates, which I thought was super cool.

We had quite a time together. . . Here are a few of the moment's I'll never forget.

We were together when I returned to driving after breaking my foot . . .

and when I slid it under the back bumper of a jeep that same afternoon

what a nice welcome back to driving experience.

We were together when the Buick was the only car in our arsenal 

that could get up the driveway during a snow event

especially snowmagaddon 

and snowpocalypse 

once the van left the driveway, it didn't come back up for a week.
the Buick was back up that afternoon.

We were together when the Buick hit the 100,000 mile mark

on 2/16/2012 two days after what would have been

Grandmommy's 96th birthday ♥

Happy 100,000 miles Buick.
I'll miss you terribly.

We were together when I was driving to Ocean City, NJ 

and basically broke down in Towson, MD

And we were (almost) together when I rented my first car

(thanks to the Towson incident)

my first rental car!

We were together when I bought my new car

(an almost direct result of the Towson incident)

We were together for one last time after I lost my wisdom teeth

(thanks to the squirrels that incapacitated my new car)

We had a great ride together . . . I 'll miss you!

Quarter Life Crisis???

Fortunately not yet! But considering that today marks my quarter-century milestone, I feel like one should be coming on pretty soon...

via

Fortunately I have lots of friends who will help me be a whole parade to make it all better!

Happy Birthday to Me!

A Prairie Home Companion!

 On Saturday I got what was probably one of the best (and honestly only) Memorial Day presents of my life... I got to go to a live taping of A Prairie Home Companion!

I got to see Garrison Keillor, Guy's All Star Shoe Band, Sue Scott, Tim Russell, Mr. Fred Newman, and all the rest of the Prairie Home crew. It was kind of awesome. And it was all thanks to my friend Elspeth and her parents, who gave me their extra ticket to the Memorial Day show at Wolf Trap.

One of my favorite parts of the show happened before the show even started. About 15 minutes before the live taping began, Garrison and Sara Watkins, one of his guest singers, walked all through the lawn at Wolf Trap singing song after song and signing autographs and taking pictures with the audience. It was so cool that he did that. Even cooler, Garrison was somehow able to sing and sign autographs and take pictures at the same time... he barely even hesitated when someone shoved a book and pen into his face or wrapped their arm around him for a picture. It was nuts.

Also nuts was Sara Watkins' outfit. I so wish I could pull that off. (She's the one in the hat with hipster glasses and a microphone.) Elspeth and I both decided that she is quite possibly our new favorite singer.

Once the show started it was pretty much like listening to the radio, only instead of watching the road wiz by (cause we usually listen to it in the car) you actually got to watch them on stage. 

Guy's All Star Shoe Band

And while it was pretty uneventful on stage (the pictures below were taken during the Guy Noire story) it was very cool to be able to see Mr. Fred Newman doing the sound effects.

From left to right: Mr. Fred Newman, Tim Russell, Sue Scott, and Garrison

Elspeth and I also tried this "great" technique of taking pictures through binoculars in an attempt to get a better close up picture... it kind of worked, but it was hard to take a picture that wasn't blurry. It's hard to stabilize a camera and binoculars and take a picture all at the same time.

When they started the power milk biscuits song a sign lit up on the side of the stage, which was cool. There was also a sign that said "on air" that lit up when the show was live on air.

During the break we went up to the balcony area of Wolf Trap to see what it looked like from up there... it was cool to see the stage from a different perspective (aka way closer and from above).

After the show was over and it was time to leave, the parking lot was literally a parking lot, since the traffic flow at Wolf Trap isn't exactly spectacular. We saw lots of people hanging out in the parking lot (rather than hanging out in their cars, in the parking lot, while burning lots of gas... that's what we were doing. And blasting some Sara Watkins music). People were throwing frisbees and nerf thingys, drinking wine, and doing what I would generally think of as lite tailgating, since they didn't have cooking implements and stuff. However, the best was definitely these people, who actually went so far as to spread their blanket out on the pavement and have a full blown picnic.

If you feel like listening to the show, you can get to it here. Just choose the 5/26 show. 

Or, you can just listen to clips... my favorites had to be "You and Me" (one of Sara Watkins' songs) and Guy Noir

Becoming an American

This weekend something awesome happened... PEOPLE CAME TO VISIT ME!

That's right folks, I had my first official prolonged, non-family member visit. KT and Jason, two of my friends from college, braved the terrible Friday afternoon east coast traffic to make their way down to my side of the potomac!

When they got here, we headed down to Old Town for a stroll down the waterfront, dinner, and some of the best ice cream I've ever had (chocolate orange... yum!).

I also told them about the amazing water goblet playing guy that is usually by the Torpedo Factory on the weekends.

Side note: check out this video of him playing What Child is This?

Anyway. Saturday was the most important. Saturday was the day Jason became a true American. Having never been to America's capitol before, he was pretty jazzed to check out all the sights.

The first stop: the Pentagon Memorial. On our way over (we had to walk to the memorial from the Pentagon bus station), we were questioned by a guard who wanted to know if we had security passes. Apparently we took the wrong path and ended up in a secure location by accident. Whoops. Crisis averted, we made it to the memorial itself.

We were slightly confused about the way it was laid out, the benches are arranged by the birth year of each victim, and some face one south while others face north. We also couldn't quite figure out why there were several benches representing children who were younger than 10-years-old. Our guess was that they had gone to work with a parent that morning. I've since done some more research on the memorial and I discovered that the benches represent everyone that died in the Pentagon as well as each passenger on the plane, which explains the 3-year-old kid. The direction the bench faces is determined by whether that individual was in the Pentagon (facing the south) or on the plane (north).

Next stop: The Mall! While there we acted like tourists, took tons of pictures, and I bought a free map to help prevent homeless hypothermia for $0.50. Yes I know I was probably scammed... but the other day I bought three books at goodwill and was only charged $1.30 when I should have been charged at least $6, so I guess we're even now.

Our LONGEST stop: The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History... we spent about four hours there.

Our biggest FAIL: Our attempt to see the movie Hugo in 3-D. It's supposed to be AMAZING, so we decided to carve two hours out of our sightseeing schedule to see it at a movie theater in Chinatown. Added bonus, at around 4:00 (the movie was at 4:20) it started raining and by that point our legs were very tired from walking around all day. So we trekked the eight blocks to Chinatown (in the cold rain) and made it to the movie theater at 4:17. Unfortunately. The movie was sold out. Bummer. So we walked back to the Mall and went to the Air and Space Museum for 30 min instead.

The birthday dinner: Our other friend Jenny's birthday also happened to be on Saturday and she happened to be in town visiting her bf, so we all met up in Chinatown for dinner. We had Mongolian BBQ. It was delish.

A final act of culture: While we were eating the rain stopped, so since it was still earlyish and Jason really wanted to, we trekked back to the Mall and walked up to see the rest of the major sites, including the Washington Monument, WWII Memorial, Korean War Memorial (a first for me), and the Lincoln Monument.

Then we walked to Foggy Bottom metro, got a free shuttle ride back to the Pentagon (thank you weekend track work) and finally got a bus home about 30 min later.

It was an awesome day. And, Jason officially became an American.

Birthday Cake Art

My cousin Megan and I made this amazing cake for my brother's birthday last Saturday.

We tossed around the idea of making him a gun (he has a lot of those), but didn't like it. In the past we've made him a racoon (when he shot one in my aunt's backyard) and a deer (he's shot one of those too).

And then, my aunt suggested we make him a kayak cake... and a genius idea was born.

We decided to create a kayaking scene!

Megan molded the kayak using orange starbursts
(I thought Mitchell's was orange, but apparently it's actually red... whoops)

We thought it would be funny if we depicted Mitchell crashing...
He loved it.

We used balloon candles as the paddle... it broke in the crash
and the arm (which belonged to a Bratz doll my aunt had lying around)
represents Mitchell struggling to grab one half of his paddle.

The rocks are made out of chocolate raisonetts and donut holes.
The trees are icing-, sprinkle-, and dyed-green noodle- covered ice cream cones.
We also used Swedish fish 'cause we thought they were cool.
The cake itself is funfetti cake (best. ever.) with rainbow chip icing.
We used a spray to "paint" the icing blue and green

A side note: The Bratz doll that I cut the arm off of is now a resident of my apartment because my aunt refused to let me leave it at her house... she thinks it's going to haunt me and has advised me to dispose of it some where far far away from anywhere that I am.

Home Sweet Apartment

I know this is a highly anticipated, long awaited moment for many of you (ie my family). It's still a work in progress, but my mom kept yelling at me, so here it is...

Welcome to My Apartment!

 It literally took me about three hours to screw in (by hand) the three screws used to hang the mirror and two black picture frames... I think my walls are plaster pretending to be concrete. I opted for command strips to hang the other frames.

My "accent wall." It's actually darker and a greener teal in real life. The previous tenants picked out this color, I think I would have picked out something different, but it's growing on me.

Eventually I think I'm going to hang a few more pictures on this wall, but I think I'm going to get a drill first...

My utility shelf for extra cooking things... I'll also use it when I use my rice cooker and George Forman, since there isn't any counter space for them in the kitchen. 

Awesome pots and pan wall. My dad made the frame... Isn't it adorable?

If you click "read more" you can see more pictures.

Better Late Than Never!

♥ Megan and Nate's Wedding ♥

Love my family.