Christmas Is Coming!

And there's nothing you can do to stop it!

Normally, I wouldn't use my blog to whine or complain. But I'm about to do both - so feel free to skip this one if you want.

This has been a weird holiday season for me. I was home in Indiana with my parents for 3 weeks, currently am in New York City, and leaving tomorrow for Michigan.

We didn't put up a tree; our only Christmas decoration is a poinsettia. It's red.

I didn't make any cookies. At all. None.

And we're not buying presents.

This is also the first year that I'm not going to see my parents at all on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. Technically, we celebrated when my brother was home from Denver - that was fun. So - I've sort of already had Christmas with them. But it's still going to be weird.

And Tony and I have to sleep in separate beds because of flooding in his parent's basement. I'm not especially happy about this. I would at least like to be in the same room with him on Christmas Eve night. Actually, don't get me started on this one - it kind of makes me mad.

So...Christmas. My favorite time of year. Usually. I might just have to chalk this one up as "Epic Fail".

Don't get me wrong - I haven't forgotten about why I celebrate and how thankful I am for Jesus' birth.

But I'm still going to miss the cookies. And the tree. And my parents. And my husband.

wildink.wordpress.com/2006/12/

Guess Why It's My Favorite

So, as the four of you know - there are a lot of things that I love about New York. I love walking around. I love the wonderful food out here. And I love discovering places in my neighborhood. Especially food places...

One of my top destinations, and if you come and visit me in NYC it will be on the tour, is Dessert Delivery. I LOVE THIS PLACE! I love walking in there and trying the different cookies they have there - delicious. But I have found my absolute favorite thing there.

And here it is...

HOT CHOCOLATE!!!

WITH ***SPRINKLES***
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And let me tell you, these are the best SPRINKLES in the world. They are made of real sugar or real something - no gummy plastic taste* - just crunchy sweetness. LOOOVE THEM!!! And I love this hot chocolate. Seriously. It makes me happy.


* don't get me wrong - I will take sprinkles any way I can get them.

East-Coasting It

I forgot how early the sun sets out here. Once day light savings time ends - it's over. No more sunshine. I mean it. Not exaggerating here (not that I would ever do that). Sunset was at 4:41 a couple of days ago. The problem with that...wait...

Here are the PROBLEMS with that:

1. The sun sets at 4:41
2. It starts getting darker at 3:00
3. That's right 3:00. BEFORE OPRAH! Not that I watch it much, but just try to imagine watching Oprah in the dark - in the afternoon!

But we still have leaves on most of the trees out here - thank you Atlantic Ocean. And I'm still wearing my Michigan jacket. But mostly because I don't have a Fall jacket. One day was cold enough that I did put on my puffy black coat. And I LOVE finding out what I left in my pockets the last time I wore it. Sometimes I find money - which is awesome! This year I found lipgloss. That was OK. I mean, I like lipgloss, but it's not money. But I haven't checked all my pockets yet, so maybe there's $20 in there for me somewhere.

I doubt it. We were poor in school. I'm sure those pockets were thoroughly checked last February. And March. I probably checked again in March.

You MUST Go To This Blog

please! Promise me you'll go at least once. I'm sitting at my computer. Crying. I'm sure the 3 of you aren't surprised by that statement, but it's because I'm laughing so hard. SOOOOOOO HARD!!! It combines 2 of my favorite things:

1. Cake (especially with buttercream icing)
2. Silly Mistakes

So here's the blog: http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Oh my goodness. It's sooooooooooooooo funny!!!

2 Months Without Me???

How could the two of you stand it? My guess is that you probably went on with your lives. You know, moving, getting new jobs, and other things. Well, I've been doing stuff too. SO there.

But not really. I haven't been doing anything. And it's getting super boring. And I hate that quote about boredom being for people with weak minds or no imagination or whatever. I can't remember it anyway. AND whoever said it in the first place was probably some incredibly spoiled person with unlimited resources. Of course he's never going to be bored. He's dumb.

But I did roast some peppers today in preparation for tonight's dinner. Chicken with some roasted peppers and some cheese. I'm sure there is a nicer name for it - probably in the cook book - but I don't want to get up and look for it. So far the Latino guys in my apartment think it smells good. Thanks Guys! And thanks for cleaning my floor after all the drilling and painting and crown moulding removing that happened today.

So once dinner is done - I'll probably be bored again. Maybe I'll take another sample GRE on line and see if my score goes up. Probably won't; especially since I ended my previous sentence with a preposition.

Search and Rescue

Well, this Labor Day Weekend we had Jon, Michelle, and The Girls out to New York.

It was A-MA-ZING!!!

I had missed them all SOOOOOO MUCH and we had so much fun. They left Sunday afternoon. And today I finally started getting everything back in order. We're still in the Search and Rescue phase of Operation: Get Our Place Back to Normal. I might be willing to just sit around a little bit longer and let everything slip in to the "Recovery" phase.

I can't wait to see them again. And soon, I will be posting some pictures of our awesome, wonderful, too fast visit. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. I certainly see no reason not to - when the only other thing I have to look forward to is like, 8 LOADS OF LAUNDRY.

Suck it laundry.

It Only Took Us 2 Months

We have a TV! And it's huge!!!

I love having it - and we have cable too:)

In Ann Arbor we had a TV, but no cable. Fine. Whatever. We were super busy with B School and hanging out with friends and whatever else we did for 2 years.

When we moved to New York, we had cable, but no TV.

That. I thought. Was unacceptable.

Sometimes I would stand next to the cable box, put my ear up to it, and see if I could hear Bravo.

Now I can't get enough of Discovery Health Channel. Right now I'm watching "I didn't know I was Pregnant". Can you imagine??? That would be awesome! Slash, INCREDIBLY FRIGHTENING!!!

Anyway - I love TV. Thank you Samsung:)

Can You Read My Blog?

Sing it! Like that song, "Can you reach my friend? You're the only one who can..." I'm pretty sure Tansasser knows this song. Anyway...

Weirdness...

For some reason I can't access 2 of the blogs I usually read because I "haven't been invited". This cuts my weekly entertainment by 34%. Kitty and I are getting pretty bored...

How to Tell if You're Overly-Emotional

Ask yourself these simple questions:

1. Do you almost cry at the grocery store when you hear Stevie Wonder playing his harmonica solo in "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues"? Not live. Just over the speakers at the Food Emporium.

2. Do you almost cry at the grocery store because they don't have corn tortillas? This is New York! Shouldn't there be corn tortillas everywhere???

3. Do you cry in your sleep when you dream that your friends are all staying in a different room at summer camp? Thanks A LOT Sara, Meg, E, and Carm! How dare you!

4. Do you get SUPER EXCITED when you get something addressed to you personally? Does it almost make you cry before you even know what is is?


If you answered "YES" to any of these questions - you're probably Overly-Emotional. If you answered "NO" to all of these questions - you're probably my husband. Or Kevin. You could be Kevin too.

Favorite Thing I Saw on the Subway Today...

Actually, it was yesterday. But I didn't like the way "yesterday" looked in the title.

But here it is: my favorite thing (that happened yesterday)

After rehearsal, I got down to the subway platform. And it was hot. SO HOT...New York sort of sucks in the summer - mostly because the subway platforms are...SO HOT. People are standing around. Sweating. Looking down the tracks to see if the train is coming...no train. People keep standing around. Reading their books. Wiping the sweat from their faces. Smallish, 50ish, normal looking woman, stops reading her book and checks the tracks again. Still no train. It's...SO HOT. People are getting sweatier and sweatier, and by people, I mean me.

Then.

Finally.

Here comes the train! Yeah!

Except.

It's the C Train.

And I want the E Train.

So, we go back to sweating and wiping and reading.

And then...

Here it comes...

THE E TRAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the smallish, 50ish, normal looking woman walks up to the edge of the platform and FLIPS OFF the subway driver! What??? People are dumb, and by people, I mean this lady. Does she really think the driver had anything to do with when the train arrives at the platform? Can the subway driver take the scenic route? Or get lost? Or pick up a friend before coming to get us? Or stop at Wendy's to get a Frosty?

The answer is...NO!

She wasted her Flip.

Now I'm going to try to post a picture....

Today I'm learning how to make a hyper-link with my friend Elizabeth.

Oh, New York, Thank You.

So, I've just moved back to New York City after a 2 year break in Ann Arbor. After being back here for 2 1/2 weeks now here's a list of some of the things that I love about The City:

1. The Cops - Oh my gosh, they're everywhere! Maybe it's just the neighborhood I live in now, but I see them all the time. I saw about 30 of them today standing around for what I assume was An Important Cop Meeting. They were handing out orange vests, and walkie talkies. Something was going down - I was sure. Then they went to get pizza. No kidding, that's what I heard them say.

2. The Bakeries - Oh my gosh, they're everywhere! There is a really good one very close to where I live now on 2nd between 52nd and 51st. It's called Buttercup Bake Shop (http://www.buttercupbakeshop.com) and it's soooooooooooo good!

3. Walking - I can walk everywhere. And I do. Mostly I have to. Because we don't have a car. I can take the subway too - which is awesome. But I'm getting a kick out of getting places under my own power. On an average day so far, I 've been walking between 1.5 and 3 miles. We walked 6 one Sunday wandering to and around Central Park.

4. Central Park - I love it.

But my favorite thing so far is what happened courtesy of the New York Public Library. I love books. I love to buy them. But. I read A LOT. And that gets expensive and we're mostly poor now because moving is expensive. So, after getting some suggestions from dear friends about what good books to read, I trotted off to the local branch and checked out four books.

While I was reading the first book in my pile, on page 54...there were BOOGERS!!! Dried up, nasty, old BOOGERS! And this wasn't even a booger book. If I was reading Sci Fi or something I would have been more understanding. But this was a memoir. Five Men Who Broke My Heart by Susan Shapiro. I assume it was another woman reading this book. And she picked her nose and stuck it on page 54. And then there were more. Ugh. So gross. She's gross. Whoever she was. Made me think that maybe I should go back to buying my books.

Boogers.

I liked the book though. It was really good.

A note about my Sci Fi comment. I feel I am entitled to say this since I married The King of the Nerds. That makes me the de facto Queen of the Nerds. And I love them all.

Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned

It has been 3 months and 6 days since my last posting.

Ugh.

So, what's happened? Oh, you know, nothing much. Just Graduation, Leaving All My New Friends, Going to A Very Special Wedding, Family Vacation to the Grand Canyon, Going to My First East Coast Wedding (also special), Moving...you know, the usual.

Now, if I was a fancy person all the items in the list above would be hyper-links and you could click on them and I would have posted pictures and crazy-hilarious/ surprisingly-touching write ups to go along with it all. But I'm not fancy -AND- I don't know how to do it. I have my white cord (white cord would also be a hyper-link because it's a crazy-hilarious story), but still don't know what to do with it. Because E, and Sara, and Meg, and Marmina moved away. It's their fault. Blame them.

So since I didn't do any fancy stuff - I read their fancy blogs today. And boy was there a lot of catching up to do. I'm caught up - but now I'm really, really sad. Like a lot, not a little bit.

Right now, I would give just about anything to make everybody come back to Ann Arbor in September. Maybe we could do one more year? Please. I'll even let you finish your summers wherever you are now.

Crying on the internet is stupid. So I'm going to shower and leave my apartment and go work on my lines.

Betty Jo

First Entry - --

Why Still Waters? You might ask. Or not. You might not ask that. Especially if you're Elizabeth (more on her later) because you already know. For those of you who aren't this particular person, let me explain. It all goes back to my grandma...Betty Jo. (someday I will insert a picture here, but can't do it now on my crap-top. And I don't have a camera - more on both of these things later.)

Betty Jo was the first person who figured out/accused me of being sneaky. She was smart. I am sneaky. For those of you who know me - don't be surprised. I usually do seem pretty quiet and very innocent looking so no one else knew either, except for Grandma and I would sit there quietly/innocently being sneaky and she would say to me, "Still waters run deep." Which basically meant - I know what you're up to.

I also briefly thought about calling this blog "Put Some Elbow Grease Into It!" Which was something else my grandma liked to say to me A LOT. But Still Waters sounds nicer than Elbow Grease. Especially if you're sneaky.