next stop, Hatfield, PA...

tomorrow my roommates and i are going to PA for NYE weekend...

i am excited to see E&Rs house now that they are owners and all we hear about is how much R has been "slaving" E.. i'll be sure to take photos of her handy work. ;)

we are planning to go to the eagles/bills game, and that is exciting, but what has me most excited is the soft pretzels. i am a soft pretzel addict and it wasn't until last time i was there that i realized Philly is known for their pretzels and that in PA pretzels stores are as common place as Dunkin' Donuts are in MA... it seems like every little plaza has one.. i honestly had a hard time sleeping last night thinking of the delicious pretzels that i will soon be noshing! in fact i am trying to plan our driving route to incorporate one of these little mom and pop stores on the way!

i think that getting a pretzel tray would be a delicious accent to our NYE celebrations.. what goes better with beer than pretzels?

in doing research for a delicious looking pretzel photo i happened upon this blog, Gas-tron-o-my. i think she lives in Philly, or at least Pennsylvania. it was so delightful to see someone else that incessantly takes photos of her food. maybe i should start something like this up for the CNY...

the much anticipated year in review.... ;)

I've had a great time assembling these photos into an album for everyone to enjoy! It was a nice way to relive the moments before i close the chapter on 2007.

almost all of you blog readers are in this album.. see for yourself how you impacted my year!

please feel free to leave comments underneath the pictures if you feel compelled!

happy new year!

2007: A Year in Review

holy christmas batman!!

well, the holidays have come and gone.. it's almost time to get back to normalcy..

i got so many nice things this year for christmas! the most exciting though, was my tomtom! i never put two and two together and realized that the logo is indicative of a tomtom, the drum, duh... i think because their radio ads talk about tomtom not jeffjeff, etc that i always associated it with a name and not the musical instrument.



looking at their logo now i don't see how i could have missed that.

i downloaded some "celebrity" voices for it.. i have yoda and darth vader.. yoda is probably the closest.. the darth vader voice is obviously done by a british or irish person, there is hint of an accent in there.. then i got ozzy and sharon osborne.. neither one is really good, but it's funny to hear them swear at you to "take the F**ng motorway". :) apparently for a limited time after the world series curt schillings voice was free, but i missed it.. :(

this morning i went to another acupuncturist for my heel pain.. he was this tiny little asian man. he talked a lot in a very hard to decipher asian accent. i think she told me that acupuncture should work for me, and 80% of the people with the same or similar problems have had success in pain relief, or been cured. he said it should take around 3 sessions, but no more than 6. if it isn't working after 6 sessions then it won't work. he put about 5-7 needles in my foot/ankle and put a heat lamp on it and also hooked up a machine that ran some electrical currents through the needles. i've never had the electric currents before.. it kind of pulsed. at first i didn't really feel any major pain relief, i walked on it a little out to the car and didn't notice too much pain, but i think that is pretty typical of the problem at that time of day.. the real test will be if i have significant pain tomorrow morning.. that is when it's always the worst..

oh, another thing he said was that there is poor circulation to the heel (not sure if that was specific to just me, or to heels in general) so i'm guessing that i'll have to go at least 3 times...

the town i go to to have this done is called Clifton Springs.. it's really cute. there are some gorgeous houses on the drive there in the town of Phelps that are made of cobblestones it looks like. this one house is all cobblestones, and so is the barn and the horse stable.. so cool...

ryans birthday and SLIs party

cath had a free pizza voucher for trappers, so we went there to eat pizza and celebrate ryans birthday. the boys showed us how not to jump rope. however, they were the only ones that even tried, so i am sure it was as hard as they made it look.

after dinner SLI was having a party. AMC and E were there, we quizzed each other with 80's trivial pursuit questions. as much as i love the 80s i am really not knowledgeable at all about what happened those years. those questions were crazy hard.



i took pictures of the evenings events here..

all night i kept getting texts and picture texts of the Mrs Claus's night out.. here are a couple...









if i could play the VM i had this morning from LK i would. it was priceless. her "on the floor" photos in her photo album made so much more sense having heard the VM. oh, so precious! i think next years Mrs Claus's night out in MA should be earlier in the year so i can attend!!

1st Annual Mrs Claus's Night Out - CNY version

last night most of us met at Santangelos for our girl dinner. both my sisters made it. it was another pregnancy meeting, per usual. :)

here are the pictures i took.

this afternoon i was shopping in the Towne Center and SH talked me into getting waxed. i told her i couldn't get waxed and then go out into public (Target) like she wanted to. she didn't care, she said i would be fine..

well.... i was far from fine. people were looking at me in Target like i was a burn victim. and SH and JH didn't seem to be in any sort of hurry. they lazily looked in all the aisles. finally i had to call my savior MB to come and pick me up.

christmas has come early!

my prayers have been answered!

http://www.cbsradio.com/press_center/releases/pressrelease083059-12-21-2007.html

i realize that most of you could care less, but i'm elated that "donnie banaduce" (as cath puts it) is gone and adam is still there!!!


i stole this from the message boards. :)

adam carolla

holy hits batman...

so since my Adam Carolla post from this morning i have been searched and clicked on by people searching google blogsearch at least 19 times for that post. totally insane how fast google blog search picked up my entry. it's pretty damn close to real time since the first hit came at 1130 and my post went up at 11ish...

these people seem to have their collective fingers on the pulse of this situation.

in AC related news, i wrote an email to a bunch of the "front office" at CBS. i know that each and every piece of "feedback" is read and considered here, so i would think that at the very least it will be read by them. hee hee..

laughed out loud..

leave it to JBP..

this has to be my favorite xmas card of the season...



inside she wrote, "hope this adds a little color to your holidays!".

if she only knew that EH gave me a black santa doll last year! i'm going to have to drag that out this year.

say it isn't so...

the adam carolla show is apparently on hiatus this week (scheduled). but AC was "sick" the previous 3 shows.... there is something definitely amiss. he is never sick.. or comes to work when he is sick. i kept hearing DB say that his contract was re-upped for another year and 100K more... ugh.. anyway, i think there might not be any more ACS... :( i hope that danny bonaduce leaves the show cause he ruins it.. i'm crossing my fingers that AC and Teresa will be back without DB on jan 2nd..

there is all sorts of crazy speculation as to what is happening on the internets.. here is a particularly funny post with a bunch of "adam advice". the last one is my favorite i think..

since TACS has not been on for over a week now i've had to otherwise occupy my ears all day.. so i've found a bunch of interesting things:

the dave dameshek show podcasts... he used to be a sports guy on TACS in '06

dr drew does a mid afternoon show that is podcasted

i've been listening to old podcasts of the "sports guy" talking about betting lines with cousin sal...

and old podcasts of the LOST producers dancing around story lines

i even found this totally random podcast that comes out of dublin, called "the eagle lounge" and "rapid news" it's only updated on mondays though. :(

what do you listen to? obviously i'm desperate for anything...

thursday january 31st, 9pm.

LOST is coming back on the air at the end of january.. i've been scavenging any type of LOST info i can gather lately and have found that the show is taking over Greys space in the thursday night line-up starting in the february book... from the ABC podcasts i've learned they've completed filming the first 8 episodes of season 4. their original plan was to run 16 consecutive episodes per year for the next 3 years (48 episodes left) resulting in the end of the show. i'm wondering how the strike is going to impact this plan. my thinking is we will get a split season again.. not the 16 shows in a row. :( damn writers strike! give them their cut already!

last night MB and i saw a preview of The Kite Runner. it's been some time since i read the book, but from what i remember it was very true to the book. such a sad story.. i think i cried for 3/4ths of the movie. :) at least until the homeless man came in with about a half hour of the movie left and sit right next to me.. he was very loud and kept talking when he took off his coat, asked if one of the two seats next to me was occupied... ugh. he made me so mad.. the labored breathing was enough to annoy me, but then the smell started wafting towards me when he took off his coat. it smelled like he had vomited milk or cheese into his pants and then just sat in it for a couple weeks. then the coughing started.. he sounded like he had black lung.. i kept expecting after one of his coughing fits to hear wet mucous-y flem hit the floor in front of us. he also felt it necessary to comment out LOUD about what was happening in the movie.. and reading some of the subtitles out LOUD... ugh...i had a hard time really paying attention to the rest of the movie for the smell, the coughing and the out loud comments. it really soured the ending for me. ugh. but if you go see it, more than likely you will not encounter such a vile person and will probably love the depressing story! merry christmas!

garage envy..

it's no surprise that we are getting tons of snow lately here in the northeast..it snowed on and off all day yesterday. so much so that when i braved the treacherous road conditions to run to the P&C for cookie supplies i had to brush my car off a 2nd time in the parking lot, for it had gotten completely covered in the 10 minutes i was inside.

i had little to no problem busting my way out of the driveway yesterday and figured that i would be okay this morning too...

because the snow just kept coming all weekend "we" (read, mike) didn't bother snowblowing this weekend. this morning i was made sadly aware that i would not be able to just barrel out of the driveway per usual.. we had to have a "family shoveling/snowblowing" party at 8am this morning to remove the knee deep snow that had accumulated.

i am scared to own my own place now, if it hadn't been a team effort i would still be shoveling snow out of that driveway... i'll just have to get a place right next door so MB can snowblow my driveway for me before work each morning. :)

i'm definitely not getting a place either unless it has a garage. i'm so envious of the people whose cars are completely snow free in the parking lot. :( someday, that will be me. maybe i'll look for a place with a heated driveway too. that has to be worth the money.. i'll have to keep my eyes peeled for how to do that on HGTV.

christmas mode - fully engaged

i was able to tick so many things off my list this weekend. i made my cookies swap cookies, did most of my shopping, wrapped all the presents i have, wrote out more christmas cards and watched the finale of survivor. good times!



on saturday, kate and i also went to the SU game. i hadn't been since high school. it was just like i remembered, only this time i was old enough to buy beer. :) eric devendorf tore his ACL though. :( when i mentioned this to EH she siad "good, i don't like him." so not the christmas spirit.

i am kind of shocked that todd won survivor. i thought for sure he would have pissed off more people on the jury. i was very sad to hear that denise is doing so badly since she has returned home. :(

annie the musical comes to syracuse.

Wednesday night the roommates and i went to see Annie as a part of our famous artists broadway series. we smartened up this time and brought our binoculars (more on this later) because our seats are up pretty high... our seats are right on the end of the 3rd row which is nice because we are on the edge... but it also sucks, cause we are right on the edge, and everyone has to walk by us to get in and out. catch 22.

another thing that is unpleasing to me about our seats is they seem very narrow and close together. the three of us pour ourselves into the seats and then hold our breath till halftime.. i think it would be in our best interest to fast from now until the next show (chicago, jan 16th).

okay, after we squeeze into the seats and i pull out my binoculars.. i got the small camera binoculars that MB has, i was stoked because they were binoculars... with a camera inside.. i was beyond excited cause i would have phat photos for all of you to see by the end of the night!! however as i'm wrangling around with them MB informs me there are no batteries in them. wtf... what good are batteryless camera spygoggles? i was furious... so you will all suffer. no photos. ugh.

i probably hadn't seen or thought about Annie since i was a child and i found out i had almost completely forgotten the storyline. for at least 3/4 of the show "annie" had a red straight haired bowl cut. i was very disappointed that she didn't have curly hair.. but alas, at the end she "gets ready for a party" and bam! the curly red wig came out!

the dog that played sandy was great too. so well trained. i wish there was more sandy time though.

if the show was in town longer than 3 days i would recommend it to people, but since it's gone and moved on to another city tht would be pointless. if it comes to your city though, check it out.

there is a big nor'easter rumored to be coming to town this weekend, i was at work late tonight preparing the page.. should have real info by the end of the night.

i made an appointment with a new accupuncturist, this time he is covered by my insurance. its over an hour away though, so i will need to figure something out if my treatment is going to take multiple visits.. his office hours are 9-4 on wednesdays. i have high hopes though.

happy birthday sarah!

today is SHs birthday.. she is 28... she's getting so old.

incredible...

i decided not to go to the gym tonight and give my heel the night off (see previous entry) and boy am i glad i did.. the couple of things i have experienced since 6pm tonight are mind blowing.. and 200% blog worthy..

first one... i walked from my car to the house tonight and took note of the neighbors cat mewing loudly at the neighbors door to be let in. that made me think of the across the street neighbors cat and how we have not seen him since patty left. he was a patty groupie.. when i got inside cath asked me if i had noticed anything... "no, besides the white cat crying at SLs door, no...." she said, "no, way more tragic.." my heart skipped a beat.. wtf... she then proceeded to tell me that the house nearly burnt down. the live, cute little pine tree in the front corner of the house caught on fire this afternoon. and an angel a fireman just happened to be driving by on his way home from work and stopped by and put it out for us. MB said he was about to come into the front of the house from the back room and was looking to the porch and thought "wow, it's foggy out.. wait, are those flames?". it was the fireman with a fire extinguisher putting out the fire was torching the tree. it's a miracle that the porch didn't catch on fire. it must have been faulty christmas lights that sparked the inferno... scary!!


note the snow was shoveled out of the front lawn by the good samaritan firefighter.

in an effort to stay alive this year (and also because we can't find the table top tree) we're going with the following christmas tree. it requires no lights, and no ornaments for the dogs to knock off and break, and no pine needles to vacuum up. the only downside, no "underneath" to put the presents.



the second insane thing is google has rolled out it's street view for most of boston. check out how crazy this is.. click each one for the link... here are all the different apts i lived in in boston in chronological order.


this is where i stayed for about a week while i looked for an apt.. i had one week to find a place cause "crazy" MK was going to lose her s*** if she came back from vacation and i was staying here..


i lived here for at least 3 years with a revolving door of roommates, KG, GH, SB, and at least 3 or more randoms

i lived in the house on the right here for at least 3 years. i lived with JT the whole time, with JBP, TG, J, and SB taking turns in the 3rd bedroom for 6mos at a time. this was a great apt, we had a driveway!


my favorite year + spent in boston was when i lived in this house. things were good then... oh how i miss brighton. note the painting van taking up prime parking real estate on the street. ***amendment*** LK, CR, CS, JK, CR and Matt something were my roommates at this time.. it was a lot..


we lived on the 1st floor here and the bottom two windows were my bedroom windows. i had 3 bedroom windows. made for a very noisy room. i could hear the neighbor to the lefts phone ring in the summer when the windows were open. ***amendment*** this place was just LK and i...ahhhhh, heavenly after having 4 other roommates in brighton... but a lot of the time it was just me as LK was off falling in love during this time.

google maps are the coolest things ever!! google inc is the coolest company ever. i want to work for them!

here are a couple other dewllings of interest that i could find....


jbp's dewlling


kgs dewling (i think)

woo who

i got a gift today. a furry little dog that barks a christmas carol. i can't wait to see how the animals react to it at christmas time, i bet the murph-man can destroy it in under 10 minutes... i hope my SS person has been getting my gifts, i've not yet delivered one to their desk... so i just have to assume they received them. :)

my heel is killing me today.. like, i am considering amputation typed pain.. i've had this affliction for a long time now.. LOOONG time. i can remember waking up and immediately putting on my slip on sneakers in somerville to lessen the pain back when i was living with LK.. i really started paying attention to the pain in february of this year when MK and i were marathon walking around england for nearly a week. i attributed the pain then to all the walking i wasn't used to.. since then i have been living with a constant dull pain in the morning when i stumble down the hallway to my shower. generally by the time i am done with my shower the pain is a background, ignorable ache. at the end of the day right before bed the pain starts to creep back in. and that's been my every day for probably years now. recently KWs mom talked about how she had just had a cortisone shot to her heel. she has the same pain that i do. it's called "Plantar Fasciitis".. she exclaimed how she would rather give birth again than have another cortisone shot... :(

i think i need to visit the acupuncture gods again... this will be a good test.

birthdays abound!!

the next couple of weeks i know 7 people with birthdays.. march is quite the popular time for baby making!!

speaking of baby making this weekend cath and i went to SFs baby shower. it was a good time, like all the other times i've driven out to their massive home. cath and i took a lot of mental notes on how the proceedings were set up and the games we played, etc. cath even walked away with the game sheet leftovers. :)


to protect the identity of the innocent, i've altered this photo.. she didn't want her pic on the blog, and i think this sufficiently obscures it..

worst gifts ever.. adam carolla had a great segment today about the worst gifts ever where he goes on and on about receiving some crappy tools and how he has to hold his face with two hands into a smile and say thank you through gritted teeth. it made me laugh so hard i was crying at work. i've definitely felt like that before. of course danny stepped all over adam the whole segment. i feel like lately adam has been more short than usual with danny and more apt to make blatant fun of him. that gives me hope that danny's contract won't be renewed at the end of this year. that would be a GREAT christmas present from the radio gods.

today was the first day of secret santa here at work. :( i got nothing. i wonder if noone drew my name...

one down.. 2 to go..

i'm quickly learning that in order to get the sox games you have to get the "package tickets".. and the package tix can be costly...



i bought the phillies 5 pack for 4 today.. i figure MB, myself, and E&RH can go to the sox game in june. lets hope EH can keep it together. it's june 16th. i have 4 or 5 other phillies games. i'm hoping caguarna wants to take some off my hand.. :) i think they like the phillies.

seattle and chicago ticket packs are way more games - thus, way more expensive. i'll just have to take my chances and try to get single game tix for those stadiums.. :(

in the meantime, i casually tried to get sox tickets at almost 11am (they went on sale at 10), i was put into the electronic waiting room. i left and went to the shower and at 430 when i got back i was still in the waiting room. i wonder if AEC got any tickets...

catch up

there are many things lately that i have been "saving" in my head for the blog.. i'm going to attempt to purge my mind right now..

1. winter... a love affair!
i must not have ever had a pair of true snow tires. i know i've had all weather, or hybrids, but these snow tires i have make me feel like a tank out there on the roads. such a contrast from last year when i would slip and slide all through the parking lot and once i even went off the road and *almost* got stuck. it was treacherous.. even driving in the rain was horribly scary for me. but not now.. i am king of the road, especially now that winter is here to stay. also adding to my winter delight is my driver side windshield wiper and my rear window defroster. i tasked MB with buying me a new wiper and he came through big time. the wiper is one solid piece of what seems like rubber, it is sort of floppy and curls towards the windshield when i pull the wiper arm away, but when it's pressed up against my windshield it flattens out and drags most everything in its way.. pure love!! i think i am going to buy another set to replace my crappy passenger side wiper. my rear window defroster is a slice of pure heaven!! i went for at least 5 years in my old tan accord with a broken rear defroster. it was highly inconvenient, but i could get away with it since there were usually a handful of snowfalls in MA... last winter was the first time i was in a vehicle where i was able to use the hell out of the rear defrost, and boy did i! this year is no different. this morning i didn't even bother brushing it off and by the time i got down to the corner by the F'ville center my windshield was transparent again! life is good in the CNY.

2. spotty email
for some inexplicable reason i haven't been getting my emails either at all, or in a timely manner. so if you have written me and were expecting a response and haven't heard from me, try resending your message

3. mrs claus's night out CNY style
years ago (at least 4 i think) JBP started organizing an annual night out at christmas time for all our female friends. it was our christmas present to each other. there are some very memorable moments that were born from MCNO... i'm always bummed that i can usually not make them in boston any more.. so this year i decided to take the reindeer by the horns and set up my own MCNO - the CNY version.. it's looking like December 21st would be the best night for everyone. i'm looking way forward to it and will surely take photos for the blog audience.

4. baby shower
this weekend is SFs baby shower. i can't wait! cath and i went shopping yesterday. we'll be taking notes for SBs upcoming showers.

christmas meme...

i've seen this christmas meme going around and it's made me thing a lot about our traditions. so i'm posting it here so i can elaborate and share. :)

1. Christmas tree up yet?
no, cath is having a hard time locating the fake table top tree. plus we'll have zillions of dogs here for christmas, so a full sized tree is really not an option. plus we don't live in a mansion yo!

2. Any Christmas decorations up yet?
oh yeah, cath has conveniently been off of work the past two days so it looks like christmas came threw up all over the place.

3. What are you asking for Christmas?
a tom tom. so i can get some cool tom tom voices like curt schilling or mr T..

4. What do you usually do on Christmas Eve?
when it was just the 5 of us we used to open 1 present each (usually pajamas) and then pile into the van and drive around fancy neighborhoods looking at lights and declaring house without lights as jewish homes. now that the family has more than doubled we will prob just sit around and have some wine talking about being pregnant and childbirth.

5. What do you usually do on Christmas Day?
sleep in as late as possible, get a good spot in the tv room for opening presents and wait for the breakfast casserole to be done. we used to go to a movie on christmas night after the presents were all opened, but now we just sit around talking about being pregnant and childbirth.

6. Do you own any Christmas clothes or jewelry?
no, i'm pretty sure i have nothing... maybe a pair of socks with christmas lights on them.

7. Do you use white or colored Christmas lights?
i like all one color strings. and lately i am obsessed with the LED lights. i should buy some now so "when" i have my own house i will have lights already.

8. Do you cook Christmas cookies?
no. never i don't think. but this year i am being tasked with making 4 dozen peanut butter cookies with the kisses in the middle for the cookie exchange.. i'm a great direction follower, so i am not too worried.

9. Do you buy Christmas presents for your whole family?
no.. :) we draw names and set a limit. its so much better this way. i usually end up asking for an item that costs the limit, so whilst christmas shopping i usually end up buying lots of things for myself. :) i can't help it.

10. How many friends do you buy presents for?
pretty much noone..

11. Do you believe in Santa Clause?
no.

12. Favorite Christmas songs?
Mele Kalikimaka is my favorite, then feliz navidad. i think i just like them cause they are in different languages. i can't help but think of the new kids on the block christmas album i used to have at this time of year though.

13. Would you rather it be a white Christmas, or a warm Christmas?
oh, white is the only way to go!

14. Was last years Christmas a good one?
sure.. the best Christmas's for me though are ones in which i can go see a movie. i love that tradition.

15. Which Christmas color do you like better?
what???

16. Do you get a real Christmas tree, or is it artificial?
cath has given up on real trees a long time ago, and i cannot remember the last time i lived in a house that put one up. probably 9 or 10 years ago was the last time in medford. it was real i believe.

17. When you get older, will you get a real or artificial tree?
i think i will get a real one. adam carolla talked about this on this mornings show.. about how there is nothing like smelling a christmas tree in your house, and how its also a reminder of wealth. i think when possible i will get a real one. not too big though, i am short.

18. Do you hang stockings?
yes. my sisters and i have handmade felt stockings that our aunt CG made when we were born that we have been using for all our lives now. the stocking stuff is a big favorite part of christmas since that is usually my only surprise.

19. When opening presents, does your family all open them at the same time?
no. we've been taking turns. we open them in rounds until we can't all open a round, then SBH opens her gifts for another half hour.

20. Do you get up early on Christmas day?
not if i can help it. getting up early is a foolish tradition.

21. Does your family eat breakfast before or after opening presents?
after, sometimes during if there are a lot of gifts.

22. Do you have a favorite ornament you hang on the tree?
i don't think so. like i said i haven't had a tree in probably 10 years. but i have been collecting hallmark ornaments in 2-3 series for at least 10 years, so when i do get my own tree i'll have a great base of ornaments.

23. What Christmas movie do you like to watch the most?
probably the one i've watched most consistently over the years is "love actually" or "a christmas story". i just love when the dogs come in and eat all the dinner... with all the animals here at holidays i can see that happening here at some point.

24. What do you like better, Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
christmas day. i love presents and putting them away/using them.

weekend's over

it's time to get back into the habit of going to work. :(

this past friday i went to the company holiday party. it was fun.. the food wasn't out of this world like i expected, but it was okay. i straightened my hair for the event, then i didn't take any pictures with me in them. :) i didn't take many pictures at all really. i was rather disappointed when i looked at them as there were few, a lot of them were blurry..

in any case, here they are.

as i sit here typing this, cath is dancing around because she is not going to work tomorrow. she has called in so she can "organize" aka, go to the casino.

i'm glad i went to papa gallo when i did, as predicted plans to go this weekend fell through.