Thanksgiving, cont...

Thanksgiving weekend with Michelle in town from Dallas was great! We had a lot of fun running around the city, eating good meals and shopping. We did many things that were new to me and Michelle had some great ideas of things she wanted to do.

- On Thanksgiving, after the parade, we went to lunch at Garage in Greenwich Village. It was a nice restaurant with jazz music and they had a 3-course price-fixed meal that day. It was good – my favorite parts were the brie I got for the appetizer and the pumpkin-crème-brulee. Although, the turkey was pretty good as well.

- Thanksgiving was a long event-filled day. We also went to a bar near my house and watched the Cowboys game (with Jets fans, of course). The Cowboys were winning pretty good, so we left early and went to see a movie. We saw “August Rush”. It was okay, but pretty far-fetched and I never like that in a movie.

- Friday, we got up and went to Clinton Street Bakery – I’ve been dying to go there! It was good. Their biscuits that came with our eggs were especially good!

- I was on a mission to find something for making my own Christmas cards this year. We went to the Garment District where you can find every kind of craft store imaginable. I especially enjoyed the bead stores – Michelle even put together her own necklace for a whopping $8. I will have to go back there and make my own!

- We went to the NHL store so I could buy my new Reebok tennis-shoes. I’ve already run in them and like them quite a bit, I think!

- We shopped at Tiffany so Michelle could get a gift. It was madness shopping in Tiffany and walking around 5th Avenue. Crowds of people everywhere.

- Friday is free-night at the MOMA, so we went there for a while. They mostly have really weird “art”(?) that made laugh! But, there are also some cool paintings (i.e. Starry Night is there).

- The Symphony at Lincoln Center. I love seeing anything at Lincoln Center. The setting is just so beautiful. This was my first time to see the New York Philharmonic (other than seeing their concerts in the park, which are an entirely different, yet still awesome experience). They were extraordinarily good and so animated, making them more fun to watch.

- Cocktails and dessert at the Rainbow Room. This was a great experience. It was my first time, since moving here, to go up in any of the really tall buildings at night. The view was gorgeous (same building as Top of the Rock, but a few floors down). It was fun and a good experience, but cocktails there are ridiculously overpriced!

- Saturday was another terrific brunch. This time at Penelope’s, another place I hadn’t tried. I loved it. Very cute, extremely good service, and great food! We split eggs that were scrambled with feta and asparagus…great combination! And we also split the Nutella filled French toast, which was as good as it sounds. Brunch comes with free drinks and we each had the apple-cider mimosa…great twist on the original!

- We had a lot of fun shopping at the Holiday Market in Grand Central Station. I was excited to have found the cutest baby gifts for all these people I know having babies over the next 2 months! I managed to shop for myself some, too, and got a really cool new ring that I’m very excited about. I also ended up with a necklace that I’m afraid I’ll never actually wear. I wonder if I can return it?

- Took in the fall foliage at Central Park.

- Went to the Billy’s Bakery for yummy cupcakes. I hadn’t been to this one in a while and it was great! I especially enjoyed listening to the two 14(ish)-year-old girls we shared our table with. NYC children intrigue me greatly.

- Ate dinner at Casellula – a wine & cheese restaurant that opened up several months ago next door to my apartment. I still hadn’t been yet, but it’s always packed full of people! We enjoyed wine, cheese for an appetizer, and split their mac & cheese and a sandwich. All of which was delicious!

- I made Michelle indulge me on Saturday night by getting home early so I could watch the big MU/KU game. It was a good game with a great outcome! Go Tigers!

- Sunday afternoon, we went to tea in The Rotunda at The Pierre Hotel. It is a gorgeous room to have tea in. And, it was fun to have my first traditional tea experience since moving to NYC! This picture is from last year...their Christmas tree is not up yet this year, but you get an idea of what the painted Rotunda looks like.

A fantastic Thanksgiving weekend, for sure!

Gossip Girl

Last year, I did not watch much TV at all. This year, I decided I wanted to get back into it and find some new shows to watch. Gossip Girl has become one of my favorites (a guilty pleasure, I guess). Tonight, it paid off when I saw one of the main stars going into a restaurants near the bar where we watched the Cowboy's game. It was Ed Westwick (aka Chuck). He creeps me out on the show, but he looked pretty nice in person. I stopped dead in my tracks, pointed to him and said to Michelle, "That guy's famous". We were really close to him and I'm sure he heard...he was trying to act like he didn't. Since he's not too well known yet, he probably enjoyed it a bit. In case you don't know who he is, here's a pic I ripped off the Internet (I wasn't brave enough to ask for one of my own!).

HAPPY THANKSGIVING...

...from the Macy's Day Parade!

















This is a terrible pic of me (we got there at 6AM)!
But, here's Michelle & I with the SHREK balloon!

It was a MUCH better parade experience this year than last. Last year it was FREEZING and pouring rain. This year, it was 60 degrees and blue skies. It was fun and totally worth getting up before dawn. See pics here, from both the parade and going to see the blowing up of the balloons last night.

Texas Trip

My trip to Texas was very refreshing, despite the circumstances. It was great to spend so much quality time with my family. Friday morning we went to the funeral home - mom, Uncle Don, Beth, Beau, and Don's girlfriend. It was a disaster. My mom and uncle had gone in a year prior to pre-arrange the funeral and pay for it. They thought it was a done-deal. Nope! Still several more decisions to make and lots more to pay for. Plus the people there could not get ANYthing right. It was frustrating. My mom had been doing really well, but this kind of multiplied everything and she wasn't doing so good that night. My dad and I sat with her for a couple of hours that night going through all the papers to determine what else they had done wrong. We had to go back Saturday morning to fix more things. For instance, the PINK casket they were going to put my grandma in. My mom had said she wanted her in the same type of casket as my grandpa and we KNOW he wasn't buried in PINK and my mom said Grammy would NEVER choose pink for herself either. My mom was pretty irate when she noticed the papers said pink. And that was just one of many mistakes they made. A lot of my family, including all 4 grandparents are buried at this place - Restland- and my family still has 6 more plots there. After this weekend, we're seriously contemplating selling the plots, taking a vacation, and getting cremated when we die!

The weekend wasn't all bad though. The service - a simple graveside service- on Sunday turned out very nice. The casket was silver, not pink! The weather could not have been better. There were lots of family and friends there. My mom, sister and I each had friends come and that was very much appreciated. There were also old friends of my grandma's there - some of them looked fantastic! My dad spoke and did a great job and really got the old ladies riled up when he talked about how competitive she was - she REALLY was and those ladies had experienced it first-hand being in bridge club together for so many years. One old lady, whose husband had worked with my grandpa, informed me that her tall, dark, handsome, and timid grandson lives in NYC and she and my mom had already arranged to get him my number. Ha! Brian's (my bro-in-law) dad did the pastoral part of the service. He kept calling my uncle, Don, Ray. My mom's name is Kay, so throughout the service, he kept saying "Kay and Ray". It was hysterical. People tried to correct him at first, but he wasn't listening, so we just let it go. My uncle will forever be "Ray", now. Afterwards, some family came over to my mom's house for light snacks, the Cowboys game, and catching-up. It was nice. Ryder and I had fun playing outside.

Other things we did over the weekend:
-2 meals at Chik-fil-a, where else?
-Friday night was a celebration night for my dad's 60TH, which was on Monday. So glad I could be there to celebrate. We went to a seafood place for dinner (name is escaping me right now) and then over to Beth's for this delicious cake she'd bought him. This was just a little celebration in pre-view of the real celebration to take place in January in Whistler, CA!
-A trip up to the nursing home to gather some of my grammy's belongings. We left most of her things there - they can maybe use it for other people who don't have much. The ladies who work up there were so sweet to my mom. One nurse was especially saddened about Grammy passing away. Nice to know she was in a place where people really cared about her!
-A trip to the Plano Junior League Christmas Bazaar with mom and Beth. We love these things! Lots of fun things to look at, food samples, etc... We each bought a little something for gifts.
-Mani/Pedi with mom. We went to a great place I found last time I was home and thoroughly enjoyed our treatments!
-Went to see the movie, Bella , with mom. Beth had recommended it. We did not like it. Too slow moving, not enough of a plot! Beth said we should support it because it has good life-lessons (it's pro-life). My mom said we certainly did our part!
-Found and drove by the plot of land that is widely suspected to be where Bush is going to build his post-presidency home....it's just a few houses down from where Cheney lived before heading to DC.
-Lunch in Snyder Plaza followed by delicious cookies from JD's Chippery!

It was a great weekend!

TRAINING - WEEK 7

Bad, bad week of training...and the trip to Texas isn't even a excuse, because I did bad at the beginning of the week!

Sunday - ran 6 miles
Monday - exended stretching / yoga
Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - nothing
Thursday - nothing
Friday - ran 3 miles
Saturday - ran 3 miles

LAST weekend

I never got around to blogging about my weekend over a week ago! My friend, Julie, was in town along with her friend, Veronica. One of the highlights was that I FINALLY found my black boots! And I've already put them to great use. I found them at Century 21....didn't think I would. It was the last pair of this particular style left and amazingly it was my size, which always seems to be the first to go, not the last! Since it was the display pair, they were also on sale for super cheap!! Yippee! Kind of makes up for the brown ones I got at the cute store on the UWS.

We also went to see Legally Blonde! Yes, I'd seen it before, but I still LOVED it! Such a fun show....I could even see it a 3rd time!

We ate a a really cute Italian place in Greenwich Village - we had brunch, so it wasn't really Italian. It was delicious and definitely a place I'd like to go back to!

Wednesday night, I got to meet up with my high school friend, Maggie, for dinner. It was GREAT to see her! She was in town for the Chocolate Show -- she works in PR and her client had a booth there. It sounded like a lot of work, but a fun job!! We went to dinner with her college friend and her husband and co-worker. We ate in the Meatpacking District at a Mexican restaurant that turned out to be really good. It was a fun evening!

Home!

As of last night, I've suddenly found myself back in Texas. My Grammy passed away yesterday. I was able to get a flight out very quickly and it actually didn't cost too much. I found out around 1:30 that I should head home, booked a flight, talked to my boss, ran home to pack, and was at the airport by 4:00 for a 5:00 flight. It couldn't have gone any smoother! Despite the circumstances, I am glad to be home! I've been craving a trip to Texas (it's been since May!) and Christmas just wasn't coming quickly enough. I haven't seen Beau since he was 2.5 months old and now he's 8 months old! I played with the boys a lot today and they are adorable!

My family is doing just fine. Grammy had Alzheimer's and really had not been the person we knew for some time now. So, it's not as though we've lost someone who was just in our life yesterday. And we are very confident that she is in a much better place today.

My father once called her a "saint" to me. I looked at him like he was crazy - who in this world likes their mother-in-law?? But, my dad had a lot of respect for her. I grew up 700 miles away from her, only seeing her a few times a year. After moving to Texas, I tried to watch and understand why my dad valued her so highly. She was an amazingly strong, independent, Christian woman. She not only went to church faithfully, she served daily. I had the opportunity to live with her for short-stints a few times - once during the internship I did in Dallas during college and a few times when I was making moves between places after college. She was literally serving in some way 6 out of 7 days each week. Taking her blind friend to lunch and to shop for clothes; taking Grace, who had never had a driver's license, to every church function; taking gifts and food to the elderly who could no longer get out of their house or nursing home; manning the clothes closet at church. She was ALWAYS going strong up until just a few years ago.

She was also always there for me when I lived closer to her and my parents were far away. The first years at college when I didn't have a drivers license, she'd hop in her car on a Friday, drive all the way to Waco just to pick me up and take me back to Dallas for a weekend of shopping. Then, do the drive again on Sunday to get me back to school. She helped me purchase my very first car...after the last one my parent's bought was totalled...she took me all over the metroplex searching car lots, helped me search the classifieds in the paper, etc... until we found exactly the car I was looking for. After moving to Dallas, I could call her for anything and often did. If ever I stopped by her house, I was sure to go home with a bag full of apples (her favorite). As a child, when we arrived to Dallas from Missouri for Christmas or summer vacation, she was sure to have the fridge stocked with Blue Bell Cookies & Cream ice cream (my favorite that could not be bought in Columbia) and she was sure to take us to our favorite stores...like the ESPRIT store in uptown. She invited me and a friend to come for spring break our sophomore year and carted us around to wherever we wanted to go. She was very giving and sweet and a great grandma!

Honestly, we aren't terribly sad. A little bit, but mostly just grateful to have had her at all and thankful she is in heaven today and it will be only a short while before we meet her again. I think the saddest part for me is realizing I now have no grandparents left. Kind of like the end of an era or something. I was very blessed with 4 amazing grandparents who were the friends of many and admired by lots.

TRAINING - WEEK 6

This past week was one of my favorite times to run in Central Park. Because of the marathon on Sunday, there was lots of activity going on in the park with people getting things ready. I love to run through the empty bleachers, imagining them filled with cheering spectators, and across the finish line. During my run on Sunday, I ended up in the mess of a crowd that was out for the marathon. I got to see some of the runners running their last 1/2 mile. These were people who would be crossing the finish line close to 8 hours after starting. They were all jogging and still actually looked pretty strong. It was inspiring to watch them.

It's now less than a month until my 15k. Here's my training update for the week!

Sunday - extended stretching & yoga
Monday - ran 5 miles
Tuesday - 20 minutes biking / strength training
Wednesday - Rest
Thursday - ran 4 miles
Friday - 20 minutes biking / strength training
Saturday - ran 3 miles

The Police

The Police

I got to see The Police in concert on Friday night. It was a GREAT concert. Going into it, I honestly had no idea what The Police sing (I'm pretty ignorant about music in general). But, the tickets were free through work and I figured it was a great opportunity to see Sting live! Plus, I had a feeling I would know some of their songs anyway. Turns out I did know the majority of the songs they played. It was the best concert at MSG I’ve been to so far. Sting is an incredible singer and the percussionist guy was awesome. My friend, Ilyse, from church went with me. We ate at Empanada Mama beforehand. It’s just a block from my apartment, but I hadn’t been there in over a year and have been wanting to go back. It was really good!

Halloween and LatherUp

My first Halloween in NYC was a blast! Last year, I was on the Chinatown bus back from DC so I missed Halloween all together. Since last year, I’ve been wanting to experience the crazy parade that goes on down in Greenwich Village. Tonya’s been in town for work again so I went out with her and a bunch of her co-workers (including 2 of the people we went to Maine with in July). We first went to dinner at John’s Pizzeria on Bleecker. I hadn’t been before and it was really good. After great meatball pizza and wine, we ventured out into the crowds. It was really crowded and we got up to the parade route and couldn’t see a thing. It was a little disappointing to miss the parade, but I don’t think any of us cared too much. There were tons of people on the street in costume to keep us entertained. We walked around a while and ended up at a karaoke bar for a long time. It was a fun night, but I was out way too late for a work-night. I felt awful on Thursday morning! Stay tuned for pics from the night…

Thursday night, I got to relax a little after being so tired all day from Halloween. During Spa Week, I wanted to go get a facial, in addition to my massage, but the place where I wanted to go, LATHER, was all booked-up. So, they let me purchase the facial during Spa Week for future use at the spa week price– nice! It was an amazing place! It smelled so wonderful and was really pretty and clean. When you first walk into the spa, they give you a plush robe and Crocs to put on. I’ve never put on Crocs before and they were really comfortable. After changing, they sent me to the waiting area, which was very comfy and had cheese, crackers, cookies, juices, coffee, water, etc…. Then, I was escorted to my facial. It was great too – everything smelled soooo good! And, I got a $110 facial and great spa experience for only $50!! Luckily, I bought 2 at the Spa Week price and will go back in a month!