New Adventures!

So, today I learned some basic rappelling and rock climbing stuff!!!  It was a great morning out with Officer BF and our friend Jim.  We were up on the mountain near TZ Rock (for all my locals!) and I got to learn about knots, carabiners, harnesses and who knows what else.  I did two descents and managed to get myself back up the slope both times.  It was a great time but I want gloves next time!  My hands are sore and tired...I used lots of muscles that haven't been used like that before.

Friday night was girls night with Heather and Linda.  Wine, cheese, crackers, fruit and Wii..it was so much fun.  I'm so lucky to have great friends at work.  They were a long time coming but totally worth the wait.  Question of the night: what is Mr. Potato Head's first name??  We think it's Matt...

Saturday morning Officer BF and I took the motorcycle up to the Renaissance Faire for his sister's birthday.  We had a great time with her and the kids and I tried mead for the first time.  Yummy!!  I was not aware that the first glass was such a big deal and there's an embarrassing video floating around somewhere of it...but it was fun.  Hands free drinking is NOT my strength!  The people watching at the Faire is half the fun and the Birds of Prey exhibit/show was a big hit.  The kids are so much fun to do stuff with...Danielle has GREAT kids!

It's back to school Wednesday for teacher meetings.  We have assigned seats at our staff meeting...I'm still not sure how I feel about that.  What do you think?

More trips!

What a whirlwind the last week has been!

I drove up to Shrewsbury, MA last Saturday to see visit Christine and her hubby Mike for their son's christening.  I stopped by their house Sat. evening and got to see her for the first time since Thomas and it was such a great time.  Little Thomas is a sweetie and I even got to hold him for a few minutes!  How is it that babies always smell so good?  I've known Christine since kindergarten so seeing her always feels like coming home a bit.  There is something about friends who have known you forever...

Our friends Jackie and Don were at the Christening on Sunday with their little girl Eva who is 11 months old.  It was great to catch up with them and Eva and I had a nice time together while her parents got a chance to eat.  Jackie is another friend I've known forever so the two days were just fantastic for that reason alone.

After our respective busy weekends, Officer BF and I drove up to Point Judith, RI and took the ferry over to Block Island for the week.  It was such a great vacation, we haven't really gone away like this together.  Block Island is about 10 square miles total, they advertise as the smallest town in the smallest state!  We left the car at the ferry and spent the week on bikes or walking everywhere.

Monday afternoon we pretty much crashed at the B&B we were staying in.  We'd been up since 6:30 and were just exhausted!  We took a siesta and then headed out for our first dinner.  The dinner was good (clam chowder!) but the bike ride after was the most memorable!  We decided to take a night ride up to Mohegan's Bluffs but somehow missed the turn off to get there.  Oops!  We ended up taking a 4-5 mile loop and had a good laugh about it.  At least we worked off some of dinner, right?

Tuesday AM we made it to the bluffs...not an easy ride!  It was almost entirely uphill and I was tired when we got there.  The views were instantly reviving, simply gorgeous!

There is also a section where you can take a giant staircase down to the beach.  Again, gorgeous views and it was nice to wade in the ocean.  The shore is very rocky and it was a little cool out so we didn't swim, but took some great photos.

Wednesday we stayed nearer to town.  We rented chairs, sat on the beach and read.  It was a Hobday-style beach day.  Again, no swimming, but it couldn't have been more relaxing.

Thursday we rode out to a nature preserve on the north end of the island.  There's a lighthouse you can walk to from the end of the road, about a half-mile down the beach, which we did.  It was a fantastic view and great workout.  I bought some local honey on the ride back which I'm looking forward to enjoying in tea and some other recipes.  (I have to get moving on the healthy recipe resolution!)

Thursday afternoon I went for a massage (lovely!) that was included in our 2nd hotel package.  I love massages!  It was followed by my favorite dinner out of the week.  The food was amazing and the view was even more so.  I had lobster mac & cheese.  I couldn't resist trying it.  It was outstanding and not nearly as heavy as I thought it might be.  The lobster was sauteed with mushrooms and the sauce was more of a sherry cream sauce with a little cheese.  It was perfect.  The whole night was perfect....

Until Lauren the klutz slipped and cut her big toe open on the jetty outside the hotel.  A night reading on the ocean turned into a night reading in the room.  Still nice, but not quite what we'd planned!

 On this vacation I'd say that I tried one new workout, riding the bikes, and we tried more than 5 new restuarants.  Back to reality this week and back to work next week!

Book club!

As a kid my sister Erin nicknamed me "Read-y Head"  I'm pretty sure it was in retaliation for something mean I said to her, but it stuck because it was true.  I love to read and there are times when it's all I want to do.  This year I did a lot of reading for school so I didn't read as much for pleasure as I would have liked so this goal is good for reminding me to do something I really love.  My beach trips gave me time to catch up on books I'd been wanting to read, and I still have a stack on my bedside table waiting to be read (or finished.)  Here's my list so far of the books I consider "real literature."  I will admit to some pieces of brain-candy in between some of these, I do love a good trashy chic-lit read now and then!

The Sharper Your Knives, The Less You Cry by Kathleen Finn
     A great memoir from someone who attends the Cordon Bleu in France.  I love the stories about the teachers, the successful (and some failed) recipes and how much work it takes to learn the classic French techniques.


House of the Seven Sisters

     Pretty good story,  a quick read.  The relationships between the sisters, their lives and the family bakery that they run...I really like it

The Wise Woman by Phillipa Gregory
     This one creeped me out a bit but was good.  I got hooked on Phillipa Gregory with The Other Boleyn Girl a few years ago and will read just about anything she writes.  The Virgin Earth is still my favorite by her, I think.

The Girl with The Dragon Tatoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire by Steig Larson
      These  are two of the biggest summer hits so I won't say much.  I loved them both, they're very intense and were GREAT beach reads as well as being well written!  Now I just need to wait for the 3rd to come out in paperback

The Spanish Bride by Laurien Gardiner
    Another Catharine of Aragon story.  I am ADDICTED to novels about Henry VIII, his wives and daughters.  This was a great one, though it's always a sad story. 

The Winter Prince by Cheryl Sawyer
  I love period English stories...can't really tell you why.

Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
    I really didn't love this as much as I wanted.  The story is well done, but I think Amy Tan has written better books. 

Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy
    I really enjoyed this.  It wasn't a challenging read, but the intertwining stories in the books are so great.  I loved that it took me more than the first half of the book to really see how all the short stories were starting to touch on one another.  I don't think I've read anything by her I didn't like.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
     There is nothing on the book to tell you what it's about...so I won't ruin it.  Just read it.  The book is great and really emotional.  Thanks to Erin for passing it on!

Okay, so there are the first 10 books.  I'm going to try to do a better job of tracking books because I know there have to be more than these...I'm just blanking at the moment.  Also...do you think I can count books that I read for my grad classes but was surprised to like?  If so, I'll have 2 more to add...Gung Ho! and The Outsiders.  

I'm off to do some more relaxing.  I'd love some recommendations for what to read next...I'm planning to start Racing in the Rain this afternoon.

Week in review

It's been a great week overall...even though it didn't always feel like it!

First:  I finished my 2 summer classes!  6 more credits finished, which puts me at 12 total so far this year.  I spent almost 8 hours working on stuff Wednesday but it's ALL done.  I'm not sure I'll make to the 20, I've heard that the class I'm registered for this fall is really tough.  But, I'm more than halfway finished with this goal which is HUGE.  P.S. I got As!

2nd:  I am completely moved in, though not entirely unpacked and organized.  Things are moving slowly in the right direction.

3rd:  Another new restaurant!  We went to Iron Horse in Westwood, NJ on Wednesday with a friend of Officer BF's from the army.  It was a good time and the food was good.  We had sandwiches (yummy Reuben!) and the boys split wings.

4th:  I made it to the gym 3 times and went running this week!  I went to spinning twice and cardio kick-boxing.  The kick-boxing is fun and a great full body workout, I think.  I am back on track and have officially lost all the weight I gained on vacation and then some.  Yup, that's right, I'm officially down 10lbs.  That's the halfway point!!!

We're leaving in a bit to go upstate to spend some time with bf's family.  His nephew is getting bigger by the day so I'm looking forward to some baby time while he's still a baby.  There's a pool at his mom's house so I going to work on my tan as much as the upstate sun will allow.  My running stuff is also packed and ready to go....can't lose momentum on the workout streak!

Have a great weekend!

It's August already?

Okay, so it's been almost a month since I've written, but it's been a busy one!  I've moved, been to 3 different beaches and plenty of other stuff as well.  On the goals front, I've been to 1 new restaurant, will be dropping 3 bags of stuff off to Goodwill today and tried a new class at the gym.  I've read 7 books as well, I'll have to start a list of what I've read this week to check how I'm doing on the "literature" resolution.  Not too bad all things considered.  I dropped another lb, only to gain 2 back during my last beach trip.

So, here's the brief overview of July.  The week after the party I spent 2 days on LBI with my mom and aunt Eileen.  We had a lot of fun talking, swimming, reading on the beach, the usual beach activities.  It was nice to get a jump start on the summer with a couple of days away and I bought a new beach chair.  I think it's the first one I've bought that was actually worth buying and it's been well-used already.

After LBI it was home for a couple of days then off to DE with Officer BF.  We had a fantastic time...and totally forgot to take a single picture!  It rained the first day so we had time to relax, watch movies and unwind.  The next few days were spent taking a bike ride, going out to eat, visiting the beach/boardwalk and just enjoying being away for a bit.  We had a particularly funny lunch when I decided to teach the man how to crack crabs.  It did NOT go as planned...he wouldn't even try it after watching me start it off.  Turns out he's not a fan of do-it-yourself seafood.  So, that was a half dozen crabs just for me, YUM!  We stopped at the outlets on the way out of DE and did some serious damage.  We both needed some staples (tanks, Ts, etc) and picked up an ipod player for the condo as well.  I think it maxed out his shopping time for the next few months, but we made it fun.

The yearly family beach trip to NC was the next week.  I'll post photos instead of detailing what happened.  It was a great week, and a little crazier than expected...but that's another story entirely.  The highlights were the beautiful beach, Mom's b'day celebration, really hot morning runs and the fishing boat trip.

The fishing boat

Bluefish...the star of dad's ceviche

Electric Lemonades on the last night

The week since OBX has been spent moving.  All of my stuff is now out of Nyack and in PR.  I have my work cut out for me this week.  There are boxes and bags of stuff in the condo that need unpacking, more stuff that needs to be tossed or given away as I go through things and LOTS of organization to finish.  We're doing well with compromises so far, here's hoping that it continues!