again, i apologize.

i am still very sorry for being m.i.a. 

but, 

i can tell you a little bit about what i have been doing.

i accepted a new position at a new consulting company

in richmond, virginia

that i am very excited about! 

a little bit more responsibility

and a little less stressful environment. 

i am very excited! 

but this meant saying goodbye to all of my wonderful coworkers

i hope to keep in touch with them

and would like to publicly thank them

for all that they have taught me in the last four years! 

i also took and passed the praxis 2 for earth science, 

in the hopes that in the next few years 

i may move on towards the teaching field. 

i have extensively been researching evening classes

for teacher licensure programs

and met with education professionals in the area about my future transition.

(becoming a teacher is hard work...!)

hopefully 

i will have a little more "rachel time"

to accomplish my hugely-long to-do list 

finally upload pictures from JANUARY

i have to start that etsy shop

finish a lot of craft projects

get ready for my baby sister's graduation

potentially start marathon training

start organizing curriculum

plan some vacations

(including obx with my family,

beach with the girls,

delfest!!!!

and to chicago in a week and a half

to see my fav les!)

so happy spring,

and here's to new beginnings ( : 

hi!

sorry i have been m.i.a. 

SO much going on.

good stuff! 

just a lot of stuff! 

dogsitting

(no longer sure i could handle 2!)

tests

trying to set up my etsy shop

(clearly not as timely as i would have liked)

exciting surprises from my main man

(wicked!)

visiting friends

learning to fry wontons

running 1/2 marathons

you know,

the usual ( :

i saw this today.

thought it was too cute! 

the following was found posted very low on the refridgerator door: 

dear dogs & cats:

the dishes with the paw prints are yours and contain your food. 

the other dishes are mine and contain my food.

placing a paw print in the middle of my plate does not stake a claim for it becoming your food and dish, 

nor do i find it aesthetically pleasing in the slightest.

the stairway was not designed by nascar and is not a racetrack.

racing me to the bottom is not the object.

tripping me doesn't help because i fall faster than you can run.

i cannot buy anything bigger than a king-sized bed. 

i am very sorry about this.

do not think i will continue sleeping on the couch to ensure your comfort.

however, dogs & cats can actually curl up in a ball when they sleep.

it is not necessary to sleep perpendicular to each other,

stretched out to the fullest extent possible.

i also know that sticking tails straight out 

and having tounges hanging out on the other end to maximize space

is nothing but sarcasm. 

for the last time, there is no secret exit to the bathroom!! 

if, by some miracle, 

i beat you there and manage to the get the door shut, 

it is not necessary to claw, whine, meow, try to turn the knob

or get your paw under the edge in an attempt to open the door.

i must exit through the same door i entered.

also,

i have been using the bathroom for years. 

canine/feline attendance is not needed.

the proper order for kissing is:

kiss me

THEN go smell the other dog or cat's butt

(or your own)

i cannot stress this enough. 

( : 

snow!!!!

i just saw lovey's blog had this fantastic entry,

and i thought i'd recopy part of it here. 

we did get snow this morning

i say this morning

because we stayed out until 2 am

and it was freezing

but there was no snow yet! 

i shoveled more than 6 inches at 11 am

and by noon,

nobody could tell,

theres more than 6 inches on top of it already! 

i came back inside,

and h made me some fantastic french toast

from challah bread.

no lies.

h is a great french toaster,

but this was THE best!

and i did try going to the store yesterday afternoon

for pizza, chips, salsa, and cookie dough.

and it was PACKED! 

so without further ado, 

here is how we richmonder's do:

1. someone says snow is coming to central virginia

2. we richmonders start paying attention

3. someone says it's coming to richmond

4. we richmonders really start paying attention

5. someone brandishes the word "accumulation"


done. finished. over. we who call richmond home all-out lose our minds.
in the case of snow, it happens like this:

Tuesday morning: The word "accumulation" is used.

Tuesday afternoon: Accumulation confirmed. All weekend plans put on stand-by or out-right canceled.

Tuesday evening: First trip to supermarket for bread, milk, wine, beer and cookie dough.

Wednesday morning / afternoon: Calls around town for sleds begin (for the record, Richmond.com is one step ahead. No one has them; Pleasant's is expecting a shipment on Friday).

Wednesday evening: Local news does a story about the run on supermarkets for bread and milk. Second trip to supermarket for extra bread and milk, plus frozen pizzas and non-perishables, because you never know.

Thursday morning / afternoon: Spend workday obsessively checking the forecast. More calls for sleds. Search online for sleds, but decide against them because you can't believe how much sleds actually cost.

Thursday evening: Meet friends out for drinks or dinner because you never know when you'll get out again. Realize you forgot to buy bagels. How could you forget bagels? Third trip to supermarket.

Friday morning: Alternate staring out window for snow and consulting forecast for exact snow start time. Cancel the rest of weekend plans.

Friday afternoon: Weather.com reports that it is snowing in your area. Run to window. Spend at least one hour yelling at weather.com because it is clearly not snowing. Ask boss about company inclement weather policy. Complain about said policy. Wait an hour; ask boss if company is closing early.

Friday evening: Fourth trip to supermarket on the way home for last-minute necessities, like chocolate and fancy hot cocoa. Alternate staring out window and watching local news for exact snow start time. Watch the Closings scroll to see if your work is closed on Monday, because you never know.

Friday night: Snow finally begins. Call/text all of your friends and family to see if it's snowing in their area and to make sure they're OK in the storm. Update Facebook status to reflect snowfall in case you missed anyone. Order pizza so you don't have to break into rations too soon.

Saturday morning: Marvel at snowfall. Fling pets / children into the snow so they can marvel and so you have pictures for your Facebook page.

Saturday afternoon: Drive or trudge to nearest hill and attempt to sled on a cookie sheet/shower curtain/trashcan lid/pool float.

Saturday evening: Meet friends for out for drinks or dinner to celebrate snow.

Sunday: Eat leftover pizza and stare out window, watching snow melt. Obsessively watch Closings list. Feel happy when the county you once lived in announces closing and then sad because you never became a teacher and now you have to go out, clean off the car and then go to work tomorrow. Plus you've got all that bread and milk to eat.

enjoy the snow! 

or your weekend, wherever you are,

and be safe ( :

less is more.

i have been loving reading everyone's resolutions lately!

i am pretty good with resolutions.

in 2008 i resoluted

resolved

to stop drinking soda

and start a blog

and be at peace with my life.

in 2009 i resolved to

take more pictures

learn to be a good pet owner

get outside more.

i did pretty well.

in 2010

i will resolve to:

(monetary guidelines in parentheses)

drink more water (free).

moisturize (about $10/month).

do more yoga (more than i anticipate).

spend less and save more (hopefully beaucoup $).

put v in dog therapy class (up to $100).

run a half marathon ($135 and cashing out my ff miles).

take more pictures ($0).

learn web design ($?).

see more live music (at least $150).

waste less (less $).

 one of my themes this year

with the exception of moisturizing & taking pictures & seeing music
(you get the point)

is a friend's mom's favorite quote:

less is more. 

(i always used to be a bratty child

and say

"no pat...

less is LESS than more."

now i know.)

so we shall see friends...

all help & encouragement is much appreciated.

ooopsies.

gentle readers,

after brief recklessness

with my most favorite beer

my computer is now

completely

dead.

and off to the factory it goes.

and $700 out of my pocket flies.

sad days.

may be short on post for a bit.

so sorry.

please forgive.

love,

me

snow day(s)...

had a wonderful snow day yesterday

and a second wonderful day

in the making

today!

our neighbors are

absolutely

without-a-doubt

wonderful!

we woke up yesterday morning

(let's be real - afternoon)

and they were shoveling our front steps!

 yesterday afternoon

we took the pup

and played in the snow

with m and her bf

who loved v

(even if their kitties didn't)

and served us delicious hot cocoa!

we relaxed
(and played with the new computer)

and then went to our first christmas party of the season!

don't worry,

only 1 block away!

good music

good drinks

good friends

and a few good tacky sweaters

(photos to come).

today we got up

(h woke me up telling me

that he loved me more

than paula dean loves butter

how sweet!)

got ready

and walked to ellwood thompson's with the pup

for some farm-fresh eggs

potatoes & bacon

(from the hot bar)

sourdough bread

(to-die-for)

and coffee.

plan for today:

finish decorating tree at h's dads

finish up holiday present crafts (knitting, mostly)

cleaning up

more relaxing

( ;

less than a week to christmas!

i hope there's a little bit of snow left for an

(almost)

white christmas!

sighs.

h ordered a new laptop from hp a few weeks ago.

(if you signed up for verizon fios you got a $299 gift card for hp)

he is like a little kid waiting for christmas morning.

(he currently is using my laptop as his computer is slowly dying.)

every day he gets up and checks the hp website.

it was still in production 5 days after the estimated ship date.

thought someone was going to reach through the phone...

but yesterday

it shipped!

today it was ready to be accessed on fedex's website.

it's currently in shanghai, cn.

"is there a shanghai in connecticut?"

he asks at 7:15 am,

"what's the abbreviation for connecticut?"

"ct," i say.

wishful thinking.

on the way out the door for v's walk,

"how long do you think it'll take to get here from china?"

on the way back into the house from the walk,
"do you know which way the tradewinds go?

is it faster to fly from china to here?

how long is the flight to china?"

shouting from the shower,

"if it shipped at 4 pm, is that our time or china's time?

what time is it in china now?"

getting dressed,

"can you refresh the fedex page?

anything changed?"

on the way out the door,

"what if it's like castaway?!
and the plane crashes
the there are fedex boxes everywhere
and a local finds them

and steals my laptop

and goes back to his island

and listens to itunes?"

"it is coming with an american power cord,"

i say.

"well it does have a battery,"

he replies,

"what if it doesn't make it!?"

one step out the door,

"you'll be here to sign for it, right?"

poor guy.

making himself sick over it.

h,

 if you're reading this,

it's now been updated.

it will arrive on december 22

at 10:30 am.

but it's still in shanghai, connecticut for now.

love,

me.

advice.

i was just speaking to my good

albeit unemployed

friend

(here's your long-awaited shout-out)

d.

he told me he's no longer fretting

that he is unemployed,

because

if you are unemployed for 6 months

and you anticipate living to approximately 70 years,

that is 0.007% of your life.

so don't fret friends

who may be job-searching.

it's no a big deal

in the long run.

blessed&thankful. amen.

last night we did our first annual (can i say that?) girls night christmas dinner at my house. i have been friends with all but one of these girls since i was 12, and some of them since i was 5! most of us (now) live in richmond, with the exception of b, who lives in new orleans and was home for the holidays.


i got 2 rotisserie chickens, made pw's mashed potatoes, and rachael ray's soup-ed up boxed stuffing with walnuts & apples & red wine. everyone brought a dish: l's baked mac&cheese, lu's cheesy broccoli&rice, e's squash casserole, e's green bean casserole, jenny's sweet potato puree, k's pumpkin pie... it was SO delicious. 


but the best part was the friendship. i love these girls and we've been through really thick and really thin. there have been babies and marriages made, relationships broken, families changed, hearts and minds broken, but we have all come out okay - okay, and together. 


here's to many more! 


happy thanksgiving!

happy howl-o-ween!

we only had a few trick-or-treaters before we hit up our list of parties... but a good time was had by all!

 

mr. green & miss scarlett in the hall with the knife and the rope, respectively.

and after hours of searching & hot gluing, c became a very successful chiquita banana lady: 

 

uh oh.

so yesterday was my first personal training appointment that the gym forced me to attend. i met with steven who first yelled at me about having no goals, and then made me feel like an idiot for not tracking my caloric intake. so i decided that i would write everything i eat in a day down. on tweetwhatyoueat. i'm in front of a computer, or with a cell phone all day, so why not? 

apparently i am under-eater. i should be consuming AT LEAST 2,000 calories/day to maintain my current weight (135 lbs) and body mass index (22%). i'm not even getting close. oops. i already inputted all of yesterday and today (w/ projected dinner): 

i suppose you can't see, but the total for today is 1,317 calories (yesterday was 952). there is NO way, that if i ate the "active lifestyle" estimate of 2,600 calories i would maintain my weight. are they crazy? am i crazy? 

still debating if personal training is worth it. sigh.

 

photo shoot.

photo shoot for inserts for our new address cards (below) from paper source in dc. that store is my addiction. the cards should be in the mail shortly... ( ;

lots to catch up on.

has it really been 3 WHOLE months? no way. besides the fact that i have crashed 2 computer this summer, i have a whole list of other excuses, promise!

-at the time of my last post, i was recovering from m's wedding at delfosse vineyards near charlottesville, va. h&i stayed the night and enjoyed a very southern wedding brunch complete w/ shrimp & grits before heading to monticello on sunday.


-h's & my birthday celebrations (june 16 & 15, respectively). i got a toddy coffee maker, pretty cool! if you have instructions on how to use this effectively, please let me know! i have to experiment.

-4th of july beach trip w/ the fam & h... was great! it went by too fast! but the house was perfect, and the company was unbeatable.

-july 11 i won a free ice cream party from edy's & invited h's neighborhood. v was abused by screaming children with stick fingers and one little girl nearly cried when we told her she couldn't have h's mullet wig. ( :

-we went rafting with the rivermen on the new river in mid-july with some coworkers & friends. it was so great, we're going again for the gauley (eek!) in september!


-my last weekend in northern virginia we went to baltimore for the day w/ m to go to the aquarium and inner harbor. this was the peak of my apartment hunting craze and i nearly decapitated my ever-loving boyfriend. poor guy. it was a great day, tho! i'm sad to miss mrs. m!
-I MOVED! on august 1, back to my hometown of richmond. i love my new neighborhood. precisely after i moved, i spent 3 straight weeks traveling for work. i now work from home, so i have to be extra-diligent about my blogging, i mean, working. it helps when you don't have a computer! i've spent the last month or so decorating, and really trying to make this place feel like home. i'm pretty happy with it! ( :


i've been missing my friends, and my family that lives up north, and my sister, but overall, i feel like a huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders! i finally feel happy, and relaxed, and at home! more pictures & updates to come.

hi again.

it's way too late to post, but i'm still alive... it's been a crazy week. a's last week in town, trying to get ready for another weekend while recovering from last weekend. going to a vineyard this weekend for m&m's wedding...!! seems like we've been planning this thing forever, right?

i'm excited for a weekend of dancing and doggies and driving, oh my!

( :

and DEFINITELY looking forward to some moonbeans coffee next week!

b-day weekends!

this weekend was super-packed with lots of birthday activities!

friday we made a delicious dinner & went to dave&busters with my girlfriends. every night out in short pump we run into someone we most likely don't expect to see... this time it was el's first bf (hehe). we did not get shot, thank goodness! we played trivia until we ran out of money (although now even arcades are all on plastic) & it was past midnight...

saturday morning we woke up early and took a walk with v around carytown. i stopped for a coffee at jean jacques, and then to visit our friend j who works at williams bakery (owned by our friend summer's family). we got some "bugs" (vanilla cake bites with chocolate frosting & cute butterfly designs on them) for my family for lunch and a very delicious double carrot cake for h's brother's birthday (also saturday). they had some fondant cakes that were going out later that day in the fridge that were GORGEOUS. they do wedding cakes, too!


we had lunch at my dad's for my stepmom's birthday in the west end and then off to the southside to have dinner with h's family for his bro's 20th. h nearly conned his bro into having dinner at olive garden. after we had properly stuffed ourselves, we went home, devoured the carrot cake, and watched harry potter until i got tired & cranky. ( :



sunday was the triplets birthday! we got them all fishing poles, which they fought with, and they received a lot of nerf guns, which they fought with. i think at age 8, they'd fight with anything. their mom was tricky, and somehow kept thier birthday venue a secret, so first we had to make a trip to the library (where they had been told their party was), before going to the dump, where they were puzzled until they realized why they were there- to throw out their booster seats!



after knocking each other in the head, we headed to the real party - g force karts! the kids played laser tag & played on inflatables while the "chaperones" went go karting. i could have gotten the "driving miss daisy" award, but it was super-fun. then there was more playing and singing at red robin and time to go home, open up the presents, and get ready for bed. but not without shoving gum in the others' hair! l's bumper sticker is right, living with triplets is NEVER boring!

convo.

sd: you in the office this week?

me: i may be in tomorrow though, why?

sd: I'm writing a book, and I have writers block

me: what?
sd: oh yeah, I meant to ask if it's okay to write a book about you

sd: I'll give you 18%

me: james wants to know if there will be a section on how to cook rabbit.
sd: tell him no, but the vilan in the book is a chicken

sd: who makes his stronghold in a walmart sporting goods section

sd: sorry, I just smoked some crazy shit some guy was selling by the subway in Redhook

and thought I'd write a book

me: oh yea? whatever you do, don't rub the pcbs on the rental car, they don't like that.

sd: that's also a lie

sd: i was just curious if you were going to be in the office tomorrow

sd: i may be there and I could use someones time to waste

me: what does gop stand for?
sd: grand ol' party

sd: although I've never been to a good one

sd: jk, Pittsburgh is probably 80% Republican

sd: not the rich kind, the racist, homophobic evil-doer hater kind
me: okay. gotta go. bye.

867-5309.

goodbye horrible telly...

...and hellooo wonderful gadget!!

so if we're friends in real life, please let me know... i've got a new cell number now!

(it's not really 867-5309)