Picture 27

Although, I didn't throw up again on Day 27, I still felt lousy--first sick day in a LONG time--so I spent much of the day here.

Picture 26

Warning:  This one is going to be a bit gross.

Yep, I went there.  I posted a picture of a toilet.  Day 26 started out normal enough. Work, grocery shopping, baking, then went to a friend's house for dinner.  Right before dinner I felt a little warm and really thirsty.  I didn't think too much of it at first until, well, let's just say it's a good thing I had a napkin close by.  I cleaned myself up, hurried out of there, and proceeded to get sick again and got to spend some "quality time" by the toilet, ugh!, when I got home. Husband had the stomach bug earlier in the week, I guess he shared it.  :-(

Picture 25

My secret Santa gave me a scarf and this Christmas ornament.

Picture 24

Didn't have to work on day 24 due to the weather so I watched this--and I'm dorky and enjoy historical stuff and Christmas so I'm sure it's no surprise that I enjoyed this movie.  I learned quite a bit too!

Picture 23

Went to another fun holiday

party on Day 23.

Picture 22

I went to a Christmas party and didn't take a single picture there.  WHAT?!  So here is what I brought--my "famous" Christmas wreath.

Picture 21

Celtics Game

Pic 20

Festive Nails for two upcoming Christmas parties.

Picture 19

Cake is all right, but I LOVE cookie cake.  I saw a Groupon for a Mrs. Fields cookie cake a while ago and I bought it.  I told my husband he could use it to buy me a cookie cake for my birthday.  Unfortunately, when he was going to do it, he realized you need to give them 24 hours notice so no cookie cake for me on my birthday.  (I had plenty of other cakes before that so no worries.)  So he surprised me and came home on a random Wednesday in December with my cookie cake.  It was delicious.  I'm embarrassed to tell you how much of it I ate.  It was also delicious for the following week and later on after I froze some of it and then thawed that at a later date to munch on.

Picture 18

Don't have much to share from today, so here is a pic of our nativity.

Picture 17

We're doing Secret Santa at work.  You're supposed to do one $5.00 gift a week for three weeks and then on the last week a $10 gift.  Here is what I got for my first gift last week (well, techincally by the time this posts, it'll be more like two weeks).  It's festive!  I wore it to a Christmas party the other day.

Picture 16

Over the years I've had different light up Christmas decorations out front.  I had Christmas presents for a while, but someone acccidentally ran those over--no, it wasn't me and it wasn't the husband either.  I had a penguin, but that died.  It was cute too.  I had some type of sleigh thing once upon a time too, I can't remember exactly how that looked, but that died too.  So this year I bought a reindeer at Home Depot for $19.99.  Hopefully, it lasts awhile.  I've noticed since then that two other people in my neighborhood have the same decoration.

Picture 15

Every year my friend Megan and I go to a chocolate buffet.  It is delicious, but thank goodness it is only once a year because it is a bit pricey and we're always SO FULL afterwards.  It probably wasn't totally smart of me to plan a chocolate buffet and a holiday party in the same day, but such is life.  Here are some of the chocolate treats we enjoyed.

Picture 14

I made this trifle for a small holiday gathering my husband and I were having the next day.  I am pleased to report that it was delicious--and yes, I'm biased, but the attendees enjoyed it too!  I may make it for Christmas Eve.

Pic 13 Hello December!

December sure came quickly!  How did that happen?  And the December calendar is filling up!  I usually bake treats for holiday parties, gifts for co-workers, etc.  This year I got smart and decided that instead of doing it all on one long day, I'd do some of it ahead of time.  So here you can see brownies that will turn into Christmas trees and faceless reindeer cookies.  Perhaps in a future post, you'll see the completed product.

Pic 11

I bought this a couple of days ago, but I never took a picture of it so here it is.

Pic 10

I have nothing exciting to post today.  I went to work, then went to a work-related meeting.  So here is my annual picture of my Christmas village.

Pic 9

I decorated my Christmas tree today.  I love the holidays!

Pic 12 The Last Day of November

Despite the weather, I tend to love November--the days off, Thanksgiving, decorating for the holidays begins, etc.  This November has flown.  I ended the month with a little Christmas shopping.  I went to Kohls and bought a few gifts, then went to the grocery store, then had to go back to Kohls because they never gave me my gift receipts.  Here is one of the gifts I bought.  I just think they are so cute.  Hopefully, the recipient does too.  (If not, I now have gift receipts lol).

And once again, I've fallen way behind in blogging!  Hopefully, I can finish 30 days of pictures in under 60 days...

Pic 8

My hometown does a holiday stroll the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  I didn't take too many pictures that night, but I did take pictures of the ice sculptures, even though I'm not really a Pokemon fan.  I can still appreciate the hard work that went into making them.

Pic 7

I went Black Friday shopping with my mom during the day and out for dinner and drinks with friends that night.  I tried some strawberry martini drink.  It was tasty!

Pic 6 Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving overall was good--I got up around 8:00, did a short work out (still wasn't feeling great), cranked up the heat in the bathroom, and figured a cold shower (remember we still had no hot water) wouldn't be that bad since I was pretty warm--WRONG!  It was freezing!  Then I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, read some of the Black Friday ads, and made this appetizer.  It's supposed to be a turkey although it does look a little alien like.  Then it was off to my parents' house for Thanksgiving.  We had a nice day.  That night I put up my Christmas village and my husband did a little shopping.  

Pic 5 Nov. 23rd

I had the day before Thanksgiving off from work and I was thrilled about it.  I had an electrician coming in the morning to fix my living room heat--it only worked part time and I planned to spend the rest of the day relaxing.  A little exercise, a little cleaning, and then a nice relaxing day.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen.  The electrician did fix my heat, but I felt so lousy that day--darn colds!--that I wasn't really enjoying my day.  I did some cleaning and I forced myself to do a short work out, but I spent a lot of time running for tissues. Later that afternoon, I went in the bathroom to get the laundry and noticed a puddle near the hot water heater--you know at 3:00 the day before a holiday weekend.  So I spent the next hour or more on the phone trying (unsuccessfully) to find a plumber to come fix it.  No luck!  It kind of ruined an all ready not so great day.  (Hence the picture of the hot water heater).

Pic 4

I took my car in to get somethig fixed a few weeks ago and they told me it wasn't worth it to fix it because it would cost more than my car is worth.  They also told me my car wouldn't pass inspection. I really didn't want a new car.  I was kind of hoping that by the time I needed a new car, they'd have created something that made cars last for 100 years, but alas technology is not there yet.  It's the only car I've ever owned.  And the thought of car shopping, haggling with dealers, etc. made me feel ill, so I guess I kind of lucked out and managed to buy a car from a family member--that came with its own stress, but I got through it.  Anyway,  I've had happy times, stressful times, and expensive times with that car, but a tiny part of me will miss it.  So long Mal.  It's been quite a ride.

Pic 3

One of my co-workers surprised me with birthday cupcakes a few days early.  They were carrot cake, YUM!  It was such a sweet surprise.  :)

Pic 2

Shh, it was raining too hard to get a good picture on Day 2 so this was technicaly taken on Day 1, but I was still there and everything on Day 2, it just wan't such good picture taking conditions.  This is the view from our hotel room (we were in Maine for a wedding).

Pic 1 2016

In keeping with tradition, I am once again doing my 30 pictures in 30 days posts. Of course me being me, it may very well turn into 30 pictures in 60 days.  I did start taking pictures a couple of days ago so I have a little bit of a back up in case I start to slack off. :)  Picture one is from my friend's wedding on Nov. 19th.

Go Cubs: Reflections from a Red Sox fan

I wouldn't describe myself as a huge sports fan.  I don't understand football and when my husband watches it, if I'm in the same room as him I'm usually reading, doing work, or on the computer.  I do like hockey and went to a big hockey university, but I can't say that I watch it regularly now, but I did very much enjoy going to a hockey game a couple of weeks ago.  I enjoy basektball well enough, but I don't regularly watch it.  I find myself tuned into socc er during World Cup, but otherwise, don't watch that much and of course I love the Olympics, but it's not like those are on all the time.  I do however, pay some attention to baseball.  I'm not saying I could tell you any cool stats or name players on any teams besides the Red Sox or Yankees, but I grew up in a baseball house.  My dad watched the Red Sox regularly when I was a kid.  My husband watches them now.  I would watch games here and there in my childhood. I can remember my first Red Sox game--it was so cold and the game went on for ages and the Sox lost badly--it's kind of amazing I went back actually.  I started paying attention again in high school because it seemed "cool to do so" and I had a little crush on Nomar Garciapara.  I got really into the Sox in college.  It was so easy to hang out with friends and watch tv in the dorms that we often hung out and watched Sox games.  Then I went to graduate school in Boston.  I was there the year they lost the division series to the Yankees (you know when everyone said Francona should have pulled Pedro out) AND I was there in 2004 when it seemed hopeless that they would win--no, it seemed impossible.  I turned off game 4, then put it back on with my eyes half shut only to be SHOCKED that they won that game--and boy was that a late night--and the next three.  People in the city were so happy.  There was just a happy vibe when you'd be out and about.  I remember one T driver practically dancing from happiness talking about the game. And that was before they won the world series, gosh that was an exciting week.  My friends and I, and people where I was working, studying, and interning were SO HAPPY when they won.  So so happy!  So my point (because believe it or not I do have one) in all of this is despite not being a huge sports fan, I get what it feels like to see "your" team lose and not make the World Series year after year and how exciting it is when they FINALLY do win because admit it, you did wonder if you'd ever see a win in your lifetime, even though you're not that old, but you knew it had been a long time since they won.  So...when I heard the Cubs had a shot at the series, I was "Go Cubs" all the way. I've been to Wrigley and enjoyed it, but my main reason for wanting the Cubs to win was that I understood how it felt to have such a long streak without a World Series win.  So even though I generally don't watch baseball if the Red Sox aren't playing,  I did find myself tuning into the World Series this year.  And then getting nervous and having to turn off the game.  And then there was game 7.  OMG  If it were a movie you wouldn't believe it, they're up, they're not, they're tied, what do you mean there's a rain delay?  It's MIDNIGHT!  I should have been in bed hours ago.  I have to work in a few hours!      Well, I fell asleep during the rain delay and woke up the next morning too nervous to put on the phone or tv or anything, but  I finally did and I was so happy for the Cubs, exhausted, but happy--I was also annoyed that I was that tired and didn't get to actually see the win--thank goodness for YouTube!  So while I may not be a true Cubs fan, I was pretty happy to see them win.  Go Cubs!      

Trying to Leave Philadelphia

And before you knew it, two weeks has passed and you still haven't finished writing about a weekend trip to Philadelphia.  Let's get this done!
So as you may remember, we had a good weekend in Philadelphia, which is more than I can say for our departure from Philadelphia.  Our taxi was supposed to pick us up at 5:30.  I was worried we were cutting it close because our flight was at 7:15 and aren't you supposed to get to the airport about a month before your flight departs these days?  Anyway, the taxi arrived at 5:40 so from about 5:32 until 5:40 we were starting to worry, but the driver showed up and as it was a Sunday evening there wasn't much traffic.  I think we got to the airport around 6:00.  Didn't take us too long to check in and get through security so we headed to our gate.  Mike stayed at the gate and I went in search of a Christmas ornament--that's my new thing now when I travel.  I get an ornament from each new place I visit.  Actually, it's not really that new.  I've been doing it for a few years now.  As I was walking back to our gate, I heard some woman on he cell phone complaining that her flight was departing an hour late now.  I thought, "Geeze that stinks, glad that's not me."  Little did I know...I got back to the gate and couldn't find Mike.   Well, that was weird. He didn't seem like the type to just ditch me ha ha.  So I pulled out my cell phone to call him and saw I had a missed call from him. Turns out they moved our gate AND (bet you're not surprised) our flight was leaving an hour late.  Ironically (or not), the last time I tried to leave Philly (from a connecting flight elsewhere) our flight left an hour late.  So we decided to buy and eat an overpriced dinner.  Seriously, why is airport food so expensive? I guess they know you're starving and you can't exactly leave the airport and come back so you'll just pay the ridiculous prices.  Finally, boarded our flight only to be told the airport we were flying to had ONE runway open so we couldn't leave for over and hour.  WHAT?!  Seriously?  I was going to spend more time waiting to take off than the length of the flight.  Let's just say I was glad we didn't have to work on Monday.  We almost were going to come back Monday and go to work on Tuesday.  Thank goodness we didn't do that because by the time we finally got to the airport, got back to the car, and got home it was nearly midnight.  At least it was a short flight.  If I had to sit on a plane for over an hour and then have a 6 hour flight or something, I'd be a big grump!
So there ya' go, a month later, I'm caught up on a two 1/2 day trip lol.  Happy Thanksgiving!    

Philadelphia Day 2

On our next (and last) day in Philadelphia we got up, got ready, and had another included delcious breakfast.  I hadn't had a donut since last year, but since I was eating junk all weekend, I had one.  It was fine, but I should have stuck with those delcious cinnamon rolls instead.  Then we checked out of our hotel, stored our luggage and took a taxi to Independence Hall.  It was only a mile away, but neither one of us had an umbrella because we're smart like that and it was pouring so a taxi seemed the way to go.  I at least had a jacket, but that only did so much good when we stood in the rain waiting to go through security twice later on that morning.  We got our tickets at the vistiors' center, then got soaked waiting to go through security, then finally got into Independnece Hall for our tour.

 









After that, we waited in the rain again to go see the Liberty Bell.  I like history so I enjoyed seeing both places.

 I wanted to go see the Constitution Center since I am a dork and took a college course on the Constitution, but it was only a little after 11 and it didn't open until noon so we went back to the Vistitors' Center for a little while to kill time.  Hung out there for a half hour or so then headed to the Constitution Center because we thought it was going to be a bit of a walk, but it was across the street so we stood in the cold counting down the minutes until it opened.  It wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it well enough.

We then hopped on the hop on hop off bus and rode it over to One Liberty Plaza (with a quick pic of the Rocky Statue and stairs).  The views were much better than the day before, the staff was friendly, and we didn't have to stand in the rain (the sun was out now).

 We were hungry after that (it was well past lunch time) so we decided to go back to Reading Terminal Market for lunch.  We still had some time to kill so we wandered around a little bit, got cookies from Insomnia Cookies (place I'd read about on some travel site), and eventually went back to our hotel around 5 to wait for our 5:30 taxi because we didn't really have any other place to go for a half hour.  Getting home was a bit of a process, but I'll save that for another post and end this on a happy note.
It was a good day in Philadelphia.

 

Philadelphia

Our first full day in Philadelphia, we got up, got ready, and had the included breakfast at the hotel. I swear that cinnamon roll was one of the best cinnamon rolls I've ever had and I'm not just saying that because I haven't had one in YEARS.  It was delicious.  We then took a taxi to the stadium where the Philadelphia Phillies play so we could tour the stadium.  It was a pretty good tour.  I know nearly nothing about that baseball team, but I still enjoyed the tour.

Then it was off to Independence Hall to do a hop on hop off bus tour of the city.  We got off at the Eastern State Penitentiary and did a guided tour there.  I wasn't sure about touring a jail, but that was pretty interesting.  Our guide was informative and interesting.  After the tour, we had time to poke around a little.  Saw Al Capone's cell, which was MUCH nicer than any of the othe cells in there.

 Then we got back on the bus to head to One Liberty Plaza, which is a tower with a nice view of the city.  Unfortunately, it was raining when we got there and they said the visibility was zero so they let us exchange our voucher for the next day (so nice!, not all towers do that.)  We were going to get back on the bus, but decided to walk instead.  We walked by City Hall (a pretty cool looking building) and then to Reading Terminal Market, where there are WAY too many food choices. It's amazing.  We hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was now 5:00 so we chowed down.  Late lunch, snacks, and a variety of desserts to go (and ice-cream while we were there).  It's amazing I didn't gain 10 pounds with all those treats!   We made a stop at the Hard Rock Cafe so Mike could get a t-shirt got back to the hotel a little after 6, but nothing too touristy was still open and we weren't hungry for dinner since we ate lunch so late.  So we had a quiet night in.