This Shouldn't Be Allowed

On Monday when I was driving home from my weekend in DC, I stopped at the Leesburg Outlets to grab a few pairs of flip-flops and shorts from J. Crew. It was hot.

So hot, in fact, that when I got back to my car after battling the Memorial Day crowds for 3 or so hours, the thermometer said it was 107 degrees.

That's right. 107. In May.

I forgot to take a picture of that particular event. Fortunately for this blog (and unfortunately for heat hating me) when I got in my car after work yesterday, I was yet again graced by a three-digit temperature reading. 103 degrees. Gross.

It's not even summer yet.

I'm Praying For Snow

I saw this picture while looking at a YahooNews photo stream and dreaming of snow. It was too amazing to not share with the world (or at least my family who are probably the only ones who ever read this). Right now, it is 43 degrees and rainy. Today's high was in the 50s. It feels like summer!

Where did our winter go?

Rebecca Valk walks to her office in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in near whiteout conditions Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2011. A monster storm began to bear down on the middle of the nation Tuesday, threatening to leave up to a third of the nation covered in brutal winter weather. 

(AP Photo/Poughkeepsie Journal, Spencer Ainsley)

Eat, Pray, ♥

Two weeks ago I decided to head up to DC to spend Labor Day weekend with Mik and Jenny... boy, has it been two weeks already? Time certainly has flown this year!

Anyway, I headed up on Saturday morning and with only a small amount of difficulty (and about a 10 minute detour) I found Mik's new apartment complex and gosh, it sure is nice! I'd live there in a heartbeat. Mik, as it turned out, had gone home for the day for a belated birthday celebration for his mom, so Jenny and I decided to make it a girls day.

We decided to go see Eat, Pray, Love since we both wanted to see it, and if I hadn't seen it with her I would have either seen it by myself or had to wait for the dvd release... It was pretty good. Jenny and I came out of it convinced that we needed to move to Italy, or maybe Bali, or even India, because they just looked so darn amazing... and then of course, there was the food in Italy. As Rachel Ray would say, "Yumo."

I think the lesson I took away most from Eat, Pray, Love, was that you should enjoy life, food, and yourself, without caring (exactly) what other people think... It's ok to not be a size 00, because really, people will love you for who you are, not what you look like or the size of your jeans, or at least they should...

To complete our girl's day, we decided to get pedicures. Oh. My. Gosh. This pedicure was by far, hands down, blow your socks off, the best one I've ever had in my entire life. Granted, I've had about five total, but still, it was amazing. And now my toes are a pretty shade of purple, "Damsel in a Dress" purple to be exact... I feel so pretty!

Saturday evening Mik and his fam came back to DC and we all headed down to the Nissan Pavilion to see a Jimmy Buffett concert! Boy was that an experience. I've never seen so many people in Hawaiian shirts and pirate costumes. Even more fascinating was the number of men who felt compelled to don a Hawaiian grass skirt, lei, and coconut bra... wow.

On Sunday, Mik had to get up super early (by which I mean 7) to go to a soccer game, so Jenny and I slept in... love doing that! We were going to head to the beach, but when we realized that it was going to be about 75 degrees and that good ol' Earl was still slightly wreaking havoc on the ocean, meaning that there were still crazy riptides and currents and stuff, we decided to nix that idea. Instead we ended up going into DC to get cultured.

But first, Mik joined us for lunch in the city at a really neat pub/restaurant, R.F.D. Washington, that my dad would die for, thanks to their spectacular selection of beer, which includes over 30 variates on tap and over 300 bottled. The food was also phenomenal. Then we got CUPCAKES! Yum. Red Velvet Cupcakery is right down the street from R.F.D. Washington, so we each picked out a cupcake to have for dessert... with dinner. We were far too full to eat them then. My favorite was the B-Day cupcake.
Then Mik went home to start on his homework... lame... and Jenny and I headed up to the Mall to get cultured. Thanks to summer hours, we were able to check out the new evolution exhibit at the Museum of Natural History and then finish up the evening with the National Air and Space Museum, which neither of us had been to in a while. It was kinda neat, and sad, to see how they've sort of removed Pluto from the planets exhibit.
As we were leaving to get on the Metro, we noticed a huge crowd moving towards the Capitol building so, being the nosy people we are, we decided to check it out. A friendly police man informed us that the National Symphony Orchestra was giving a concert in about 15 minutes, so we decided to stay and listen for a while. It was really neat. We had to go through metal detectors to get in, but then we got to sit on the lawn of the Capitol and listen to the NSO. They played a few famous, yet obscure pieces, and then in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission, they played a medley of music from the film Apollo 13. I was excited because that is one of my favorite scores of all time! Then, they played the march from Raiders of the Lost Arc, which made Jenny happy because that's one of her favorites!

On Monday, we were going to just make pancakes in the apartment for breakfast, but when Jenny decided that Bisquick pancakes weren't going to cut it, we decided to go to the restaurant Eggspectations. Boy was I glad we did... that place is amazing! Best french toast ever. Period. Then, on my way home, I decided to check out a new (to me) outlet mall and try to find some good Labor Day discounts... It worked! I managed to get a bathing suit for only $4. Perfect.

All in all, it was a pretty exciting and satisfying weekend... The perfect way to end the summer.

The Capitol is really pretty at night

Thus It Continues...

Life really is weird. Today marked the first day of my second year at home... hopefully my last (no offense mom and dad).

Three days ago I was accepted to a graduate program that starts six days from now... Apparently the admissions committee didn't think it would be a problem for me to move across the state/maybe to a new state, find an apartment, find a job, and get settled in a little over a week. So I'll be going next year, unless life decides to throw another curve ball and I get offered an amazing new job in an amazing local for an amazing amount of money...

Right.

So, for now I guess I'll just stick it out for another year with the rents. Get ready for more fun tales of my mom and her Giants, ballets, and exciting getaways with my friends... when they have time in their busy lives for me!

I'm Itchy

One of my least favorite things about summer, aside from the sweltering heat, is the ease with which you can get itchy.

Today (well all week actually) I'm suffering from mosquito bites I got while picking beans and tomatoes in the garden last night and the after-effects of the minor sunburns I got by not reapplying sunscreen often enough while at the shore last weekend.

I can't wait for fall.

What a Week.

Well. If ever there was a week that made me want to pour myself a (very) stiff drink, this past week would be it!

On Sunday (a week ago) mom, Mitchell, and I came home from Vermont after a very lovely two week vacation with lots of family.

My troubles started Monday morning when I tried to start the Buick. It didn't (start that is). So I got my mom to come jump it. I thought nothing of it and went to work. A couple hours later, however, when I was done work and I tried to start my car nothing happened. I tried to jump it. Nothing.

Finally, my brother got it started, took it to the shop, and was told it probs just needed a new battery. So we went to an auto parts store where the idiot old man told me and my brother that we had somehow managed to switch the polarity of the battery by jumping it with the positive clamp on the negative battery part and vice versa, and that we should try going somewhere else. Now, even I know that if you tried to do something as silly as that it will not switch the polarity, rather it would spark a ton and possibly blow up. Meanwhile, I tried to restart my car, and in the five minutes it had been off, the battery had died again. So, rather than try to jump it again, we got a second opinion and he gave me a new battery. The car started right up and all was fine.

On Tuesday morning I got in my car, turned it on (quite successfully), and started to drive to work. Then I noticed something. My breaks were barely working. Needless to say, I went straight to the shop this time, dropped off my car, and trekked through the very very hilly downtown region (in the hot and humid Virginia summer heat) to work. Yuck.

Well, this time I was kind of concerned because I was planning on driving to Ocean City, NJ the next morning and I was pretty sure that driving a car with little to no breaking ability would be rather inadvisable.

A little more than several hours later, I got a call from the mechanic telling me that my car needed a new master cylinder (to fix the break problem), two new tires (apparently mine weren't safe anymore), new break pads, and new rotors. Great. When I picked up my car that afternoon I was happy to find that my breaks offered resistance when I attempted to stop my car.

Ocean City, here I come!

Wednesday started out fine, but then, about 2 hours into my trip I noticed that it was a little warm in my car. I turned up the A/C and nothing happened. So I'm thinking, great, my A/C is on the fritz. But at least nothing catastrophic has happened... I can deal with a little humidity.

Then, just outside of Towson, MD, I noticed the heat sensor light up. It stayed on for about 2 minutes, turned off for about 45 seconds, and then came on again. I called mom and she said that my fluids were probably low and I should pull off at the next exit. The road I got off on happened to house a Merchants Tire and Auto, so I pulled in there, figuring that they'd be able to tell me what was going on with my car. They told me it will be about an hour and fifteen minutes before they can look at my car, so I went to the nearby Towson Town Center, a gargantuan four story mall to chill out.

I was a little frazzled by the whole affair and super bummed by this unexpected delay to my sunbathing plans, but I can chill in a random city with the best of them. When I got back to the shop, the Merchant's guy quite calmly told me that I would certainly not be driving to Jersey anytime soon in my car and that I was basically lucky that I (by which I mean my car and its engine) hadn't blown up yet. Then he (still quite calmly) told me that it would take a day and about $1,200 to fix the broken upper intake valve on my engine that was apparently leaking antifreeze all over... or something to that effect.

Well as you can imagine, a twelve hundred dollar car repair, and the fact that I was three hours from home, sort of frayed my usually cool, calm, and collected exterior, but to make an already way too long story short, my parents decided that the Merchants guys were silly and that I should take the Buick to a dealer because it would at the very least be cheaper. So I drove down the street and around the corner to Jerry's.

When I got there I noticed that some kind of liquid was pouring out of my car. Like literally pouring. Great. So, when the Jerry's guy came out, I told him what the Merchant's guys said and he said that they were full of crap. He looked under the Buick's hood and saw, basically right away, that the problem was a broken water pump, which would cost a heck of a lot less to fix than that gasket thingy. Perfect.

The only problem was that by this time it was about 5:45 and they closed up shop at 6, so I wasn't going to be going anywhere in the Buick that night. Fortunately, my genius papa suggested I rent a car to get me the final three hours I had to the beach. So I had Enterprise fix me up with a little economy rental and I was back on the road after, you know, a short little side trip. No big deal.

But the beach was amazing and totally worth it! I got to see KT and Jason and meet all of KT's family. At times I must admit I was a little overwhelmed by the Italianness of them all but I loved every minute of it! My car got fixed on Thursday, I picked it up on Saturday, and now, Sunday, so far so good... hopefully I didn't just jinx myself...

My little Hyundai Accent rental... it's so cute isn't it!

KT, Jason, and Me on the boardwalk at Ocean City

We are so lame.

He Made It!

To anyone who has become invested in my brother's travels through Iceland over the past month and a little bit, I'm happy to say that he made it home safe and sound this afternoon.

We are all very excited, relieved, and a little daunted by the fact that he has about a million pictures for us to see.

Don't Ya Just Love Weddings?

Last weekend, by which I actually mean last, last weekend, my friend KT and I were lucky enough to go to the wedding of two of our friends from college, Joe and Jasmine. We had a really good time and it was great seeing everyone again.

The happy couple

Dr. Yorty! Words can not describe how excited we were to see her!

This one's for you Lisa : )

Typical us.

Rain! Finally!

After what seems like weeks and weeks of hot, hot weather that seems unbearably dry and muggy all at the same time, we're finally getting a wet spell. Fingers crossed for a slightly cooler Saturday!

In other news, my brother has started his solo journey around Iceland. Fingers crossed for his safe arrival on at the airport in three weeks!

Stkkysomer, 269 km from where he started this morning. Tomorrow he plans to take a ferry north to the west fjords. He also said that he met a very nice Isreali couple and some locals.

Happy 23rd Trip Around The Sun To Me!

I'm celebrating yet another trip around the sun today. It's been a day punctuated with phone calls and birthday calls from Iceland, family visiting from Vermont, and a super yummy dinner of pork loin and squash topped off with a delicious snow man cake, just so we can pretend that it's winter again.

The only thing that would make this day better would be Grampa making a toast to my age (especially if he's off by a couple years). I guess the phone call suffices for now. < 3

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Birthday America!

My Mother, the Kitty Whisperer

The new kitty (I call her little kitty right now, we're still working on her name) joined our house last night. Snickers seems pretty hesitant about her (there were lots of hisses and growls), but Frisk, mellow as ever, continued to prove why she is my cat, by sniffing little kitty and then walking away.

Isn't she a cutie?

I love how little her tail is. Maybe that's why Frisk tolerates her...

Yes. She is sleeping. What a weird kid.

Really?

When I was in Hallmark today I was informed that they would be revealing the new Christmas ornament collection on July 10 and that I should really be there. Umm really? July?

I guess they take Christmas in July very seriously at Hallmark.

Ahh Nature.

This really huge bug was hanging out on our front walk today. Yuck.

Happy First Day of Summer

Three years ago today I was in Australia. Three years and a week ago I was in New Zealand. Be jealous.

This is the museum that was in the movie Bridge to Terabithia.

New Zealand sheep!

If you look closely, the island on the far left is the one where Steve Irwin was stabbed by a sting ray and died.

A bird sanctuary in Australia

Feeding kangaroos at the zoo. I saw several roadkill kangaroos later that day. It was pretty sad.

Beach in Australia where we saw a cassowary

Standing above the canopy of the rainforest that the movie Ferngully was based on.

Sunset on our second to last day in Australia.

Things I Love about Summer

It's officially starting to feel like summer outside... today it was about 95 degrees, humid, alternately very sunny and then kinda stormy. I'm not so sure how I feel about summer starting, I sort of wish it could stay early spring or late fall forever, but I thought I'd share some of the reasons that I decide to tolerate summer (as opposed to moving to Antarctica for the duration of my fourth favorite season).

1. The beach! While I almost never go (ie. one trip every other year) summer is certainly the best time to take a trip down to the outer banks (the only beaches worth going to). There is nothing better than the soft beachy air, playing in the waves, and walking along the water at twilight. Oh and reading books on the beach and pretending that I have the ability to tan isn't all that bad either :)

2. The cut grass smell. I love the smell of freshly cut grass and it often permeates the air in the summertime.

3. My Birthday! Yay for birthdays. Since my birthday is in the summer it makes me like the season just a little bit more :) Although this year will be the first year in a while that I'm not celebrating with my Vermont family and that's kinda sad...

4. The free iPod touch with a mac purchase deal. Yes, I finally broke down and replaced my laptop with a shiny new MacBook Pro. Thank you Apple store for throwing a shiny new iPod Touch into the deal! And thank you new computer that will close without a heavy object on top of it to keep the lid shut.

5. Summer flowers and the vegetable garden. Spring is pretty because lots of flowers are blooming and the trees are flowering and all that, but for some reason I like summer flowers better. I think they smell nicer or something. And there is nothing better than eating steamed zucchini and yellow squash straight from the garden!

6. Visiting Vermont. We have taken a trip up to Vermont to visit our family up there almost every single year in my entire life. Summer and Vermont are synonymous in my mind. (It took me about 12 tries to figure out how to spell synonymous... literally).

7. My new bathing suit. I haven't purchased a bathing suit in three years. That's right. Three. That's how often I go swimming/have a need for a suit. Unfortunately, over Christmas when I was in Florida and needed a bathing suit, I realized that all the elastic parts in my favorite six-year-old bikini had dry rotted and that my newer three-year-old one no longer fit. So I hit the streets and searched high and low for a suit that fit my slightly smaller than normal chest and pretty average rear. It was difficult, stressful, and quite frankly a little depressing but I finally found a miracle in the form of spandex that actually made me do a happy dance in the fitting room... For once, I think God actually smiled on me!

8. Cute critter shorts and flip-flops. Nothing makes yours truly happier than a pair of shorts decorated with cute little whales or zebras. Also summer is a much better time to wear flip-flops.

9. Bug noises. Not the bugs themselves, those are one of the low points of the summer. But I love sleeping with my windows open and being able to hear the cows mooing and the crickets chirping and the cicadas singing. It's such a friendly noise.

10. The reality TV season. By reality TV, mind you, I do not mean to imply that trashy stuff like the Bachelor or Bachelorette, Dance your A** Off, Jersey Shore, or likewise. When I say reality TV I refer to such quality television as So You Think You Can Dance, The Next Food Network Star, Design Star, and several other gems. So excited.