18 Days...

HusBean is off work today, so I'm taking advantage of this by getting him to help me move and load up some furniture I will be selling at a consignment shop. (*side note* - I backed his car in to the mailbox this morning... he's not happy about this.)

In theory, we have guests coming from DC that are supposed to arrive late tonight, but there is a possibility that they will be stopping overnight in Charlotte, NC first and coming here tomorrow. I'm actually ok with that, it will give us a little more time to finish shoveling the random stuff that needs packing out of the guest room!

I finished some major sewing projects yesterday and now am down to one that has to be done before we leave. It is a sundress made from a vintage floral sheet (an idea seen by my client, on Pinterest). It's a fun project but will take a little adaptation of my current pattern (changing the neckline, re-sizing a little).  I'm hoping to get started on that tomorrow.

I got started embroidering the sneakers last night and should be able to get them finished up today, ready to ship tomorrow or Saturday morning. I like to embroider while sitting on the couch with the dogs, watching TV. It's a little down time but I'm still being productive.

I'm hoping to get my teapot collection and a lot of the not-immediately-necessary kitchen stuff packed up today, in addition to packing/wrapping/prepping any furniture that I've managed to empty (bookshelves, dressers, etc.).

I will also probably take some time to walk the dogs with my good friend Cass, who has five dogs of her own.  We usually walk them about 4-5 times a week, often along the canal that runs parallel to the Savannah River. Those days it is a 5-7 mile walk, which is great for us AND the dogs.  Other days, we do a hike/jog/walk around the Frisbee golf course at a local park.

The Countdown Begins... Again! - 19 Days

In 2006 I moved from Vancouver, Washington to Key West, Florida at the behest of my then boyfriend (now HusBean). 

I started a countdown of sorts then, detailing the various details that needed to fall in to place in the time before I left the West Coast. 

As of today, there are 19 days until we pull out of the driveway here in Georgia, headed West. 

I have reserved a 24' Budget truck and towing dolly, we will be towing my Honda Civic behind the truck, and driving the Honda Element separately.  My Mom and our good friend Andy are flying out on May 11 to make the trip back with us. 

The menagerie will be in the Element (two dogs, three cats, and hopefully 1 skunk if she shows up by then), which should provide for plenty of comical entertainment.

The house is not packed, but I have started sorting everything in it into X categories: Keep/Long term storage, keep/take to Mom's house, sell, donate/give away, and garbage!  I obtained a packing tape kit from a U-Haul store that has several color coded rolls, each printed with a different room or "fragile", "open first", or "storage."  These will prove very helpful when loading the truck in an efficient and logical manner!

In the numerous times that I've moved, I've found it helpful to start with all the sentimental stuff and decor. Make it look less homey and it will be easier to dismantle! I've taken almost everything off the walls, and have been gathering up framed pictures and memorabilia. 

Today we sorted through the garage, double checking to make sure that Stinkerbell was not trapped in there somewhere, but I also threw some things away and did a little pre-sorting of what is out there. Fortunately I had sorted/packed the majority of the fall and Christmas decor, into labeled clear plastic bins of various sizes.  Those can then be packed, several at a time in larger cardboard boxes, labeled for long term storage. 

I do have a few sewing jobs to complete before I pack up my machine, but I'm hoping to get those knocked out in the next week.

I also have two pair of sneakers to be embroidered, and a few other pair that may arrive before we leave. 

We are also trying to inventory the contents of our pantry and deep freezer, we're throwing a buffet/fundraiser/party on Cinco de Mayo, planning to cook up a bunch of stuff that wouldn't do well traveling for a week, then feeding it to local friends for a suggested donation. 

Chaos and Turmoil

I've decided I need to get back to blogging, if for no other reason than we are moving back across the country in a little under three weeks. Some may remember the initial trip, heading east. Now we're headed back, but with more animals.

The house is in total disarray, I have taken on several sewing clients/projects that need to be done before I depart, and of course there is all the cleaning, packing, organizing, etc.  All this made more difficult by stress.

The key stress factors both entail loss; almost 2 months ago my best girlfriend here in Georgia (she had also been renting our guest room since October) was killed in a car accident. She was the passenger and the driver's blood-alcohol level was .165.  The other loss is that our pet skunk Stinkerbell has been missing for almost two full days. She has gotten out of the house once before, but came back in just a few hours.

I am packing, cleaning, sorting, looking for a skunk, grieving my friend, and being excited about our next evolution.

From time to time I am featured as an interviewee or guest blogger over at Human In Recovery, under the Monthly Manic Mondays with Marisa theme.

More to come!

Housewifery: Day (I don't want to count that high)

I quit my job in February of 2011. At the time, there were medical things that made life complicated (turns out there still are, but there were more pressing ones then), work was DRAMA filled and not worth the pay, and I was burned out there, anyway.

It's been almost two years. It has gone REALLY fast.

I've spent my time getting our fledgling hot sauce business off the ground and creating recipes that are healthy, delicious, and/or use our sauces as an ingredient.

I had to say goodbye to our much loved senior Boxer dog, Buster, and have welcomed two young goofball Boxers (Bento and Rousey) into our home.

I have become involved with a group of business women that promote small business, the local economy, and give back to worthy community charities.

I bought a sewing machine for $50 at a friends' estate sale and have been remembering all of the things my Grandma taught me as a youngster. I have a huge stack of fabric in my craft cupboard and took advantage of a sale at Joann's that netted me 15 patterns for $1 EACH.

I've been sewing wrap dresses inspired by Diane Von Furstenburg, and recently started a fundraising project turning donated people sweaters into doggie sweaters. The "upcycled" (this is a popular term with the hipsters and on Etsy, which, let's face it, is mostly hipsters anyway) sweaters are sold in my Etsy shop and then 50% of the profits is donated to a different animal rescue every month. (November is STARS, December will be Boxer Butts and Other Mutts, which is where Bento came from).

I've been hand-embroidering sneakers like crazy, mostly for weddings, but some for softball teams, family pictures, etc.

I've also been traveling a lot, taking trips to Oregon two to three times a year and also to Arizona, California, New York, Virginia, Washington DC, and very nearly Chicago. I'm hoping to take a month and do a big cross-country road trip next year... we'll see if I end up with the time.

Mostly, I get up every day and try to be a good animal mommy and housewife, try to ignore my fibromyalgia instead of whine about it, and try to clean at least one thing.

Sometimes it's even me.

Bleach Designs

I attended a "Crafting Day" this afternoon at a friend's house. It ended up being just she and me, which was actually great!

She had several projects going, we did some string art and then she bleach dyed a couple of shirts and a skirt. It looked so easy, I decided to try it myself.

On my way home I picked up the necessary items (plain green shirt $5, bleach pen $3).

I googled "How long do I leave bleach on a shirt" and chose this page for my answer.

I've seen this kind of thing on Pinterest before, but I free-handed the feather while looking at a drawing of a peacock feather.

I love it.

Left Pic: Before.  

Center Pic: while bleach was setting - about 10 minutes.

Right Pic: after a rinse in hydrogen peroxide and water (1/10).

Facebook Explained: Home Screen

Is your newsfeed clogged up with status updates? Is your ticker driving you crazy? Hate timeline?

If you have no idea what any of those things mean, this tutorial is for you!  It will be a little bit long, so there is a "jump" (kind of a shortcut that gives a preview of the post here, and if you want to read the whole thing you can click just below where I say "Here it is!" below to see the rest).

When you log in to Facebook, your screen probably looks a little like this:

This may seem like a lot to take in, just as it is!

I'm going to break this screen down into components, and you will learn what each component does and how to navigate it and/or change it.

Ready for the "Jump"?  Here it is! (it will take you straight to the rest of the post!)

Facebook, Explained.

I'm going to start a series of tutorials for Facebook.

You could say I am inspired by my parents and those of their generation, who aren't familiar with all of the ins and outs, especially since major components of it seem to change in a big way on a regular basis.

I'll start tomorrow.

:)

Indecision

I've often thought that I should have a particular theme for this blog and stick to it.  The problem with this is that I, myself, am WAY too ADD to do this.

One day I am crafty, one day I am cooking, another day I am ranting about something or reminiscing a favorite memory. I just can't narrow it down because it's a real representation of what is swirling around in my mind.

I love photography, home decor, and am constantly making things out of other things. I love animals (we have 5 pets) and love to travel.

Today I don't really feel inspired by anything, I have a lot of hot sauce work to do and that's kind of taking over my brain today.

So I'll leave you with a cute picture of our puppy.

Bad, Bad, Bad.

Facebook has been the death of this blog.


I'm not giving up, but it's been so much easier to just post little bursts of things on FB than collect my thoughts here in one cohesive post at a time. I have managed to post somewhat regularly to our food/recipe blog, but that's different.


All of last year was crazy. As you can see, the last two posts were nearly five months apart!


As much as I'd like to blame all of my problems on Facebook, that really isn't fair.


The true culprit is Depression and Anxiety. I have acquired them both genetically, and once I quit my job they started to creep back in. I held them both at bay for most of last year with Lexapro, something I had been on since about 2003, but I started to wean myself off of it due to several side effects I didn't want to cater to anymore (the worst being VERY vivid nightmare/hallucinations nightly for the last five years).


Going off of any kind of medication can be difficult, and I did this as slow as possible - I took almost three months! Choosing to go OFF of a depression and anxiety medication over the holidays (and during the darkest point in the year) was probably not the most fabulous choice, but I suffered through (as has my HusBean, friends, and family).


I was hoping originally to not be on any kind of medication for depression OR anxiety, but have found that at least during the winter, I just can't do it by myself. "It" being life.


Last year was largely overshadowed with medical issues in our household, fibroid for me, the decline and eventual passing of our family dog, the near-passing of one of the cats, getting HusBean on a new regimen to battle his Diabetes... and then I was diagnosed with PCOS in December.  In the process of that diagnosis I was referred to a new primary care doctor (I chose to leave the last one when she wasn't interested in removing the fibroid) who I finally met with this week.


I have suffered from neck/back and random joint pain and chronic fatigue for many years and no doctor has ever done much about those complaints. Sometimes they would have me sit up straight, feel my back and say "you're fine" or prescribe me a sleep aid so I can sleep through the night and not be so tired during the day.


This new doc listened to my history and my complaints and while she is having the lab run some blood tests to rule out other things, she is calling it Fibromyalgia for now. You can go read about it for yourself, but the main thing to understand is that it is not a disease, but more a name for a group of symptoms that have no other identifiable cause.  The symptoms are often exacerbated by depression, they generally go hand-in-hand but it is not a matter of the body pain being "all in your head"... it's real, and it is exhausting.


The doctor prescribed me a new depression medication (hooray!) which is known to also help somewhat with fibro symptoms.


Another thing that is helping with depression and anxiety is that we got a new dog! After Buster passed we decided to wait awhile before getting another dog, as having three cats, a dog, and an exotic can be a lot to manage at once, but we happened upon this guy and fell in love.

I learned about him from a Boxer Butts and Other Mutts (a rescue organization) on Facebook (see! It's good for something!) that my cousin is associated with.

I was in Portland in late January and saw his picture on their profile. I copied it to my phone and sent it to HusBean, and that was pretty much it. By the time I got back to Georgia everything had been settled and we drove to Asheville, NC to pick him up the very next day!

We have named him Bento, HusBean says it is because he is our little happy-meal. He is just over a year old and still quite energetic, so there is no sleeping all day for me anymore and we go on 1/2 mile to 1.5 mile walks daily.


I'm hoping to get back in the routine of blogging here, and other creative projects (and housework!) soon.

Headboard Adventures

I made a headboard last week.


We've been sleeping on the floor for 3 years. Okay, not ON the floor, but the box springs are on the floor. When we moved from Key West, the bed was on it's last legs and we elected not to drag it with us and have it likely deteriorate further.


The aging dog really enjoyed being able to get on the bed easier (he has since passed away - in the beginning of September) and the cats and skunk appreciate the accessibility as well.


I am fine with the bed being low to the ground, that doesn't bother me. Having no space UNDER the bed is ok, too, as there is then nowhere for things to get lost or small animals to hide.


It has always seemed to me that a headboard makes a bed look "real".  When we dumped the old bed, we agreed that we would not purchase any bedroom furniture unless it was what we really loved, and we would save up for it. 


Working at P1 gave me the opportunity to pick up some very nice coordinating pieces for pretty affordable prices, but they never had a headboard and/or bed that was quite right.


I decided a few months ago that I would just MAKE a headboard. I've seen DIY stuff on HGTV showing the many different ways of creating the beast, so I decided to do the cheapest/lightest/nicest looking thing and this is the result.

I purchased four pieces of foam-board that are 1/2" thick and laid them next to each other, placing five 1" dowels (are they still dowels if they are square?) on the ends and on the seams, adding 1/2" dowels across the tops for reinforcement and two more 1/2" in strategic (and clearly scientific) positions, hot gluing them all into position.

It was originally my intention to nail the wood pieces together, but the nails I had were too thick and started to split the wood, so I decided a hot-glue-and-staple-gun route was better.

I also stapled the seams between the foam pieces on the front side to help keep them together.

Time for batting and fabric! I bought one bag of quilt batting in a Twin bed size, which turned out to be perfect when folded in half long-wise.

Used the staple gun to attach the batting to the form, down the center and all around the edges.

I laid out my fabric and discovered that when I had calculated how much I would need, I had been intending to use the foam boards the other direction, which was shorter. Oops.


I went ahead and fastened it (staple-gun of course) in a centered position, leaving equal sized blanks strips on the ends.

Fortunately I have some lovely fabric from my still-planned third incarnation of the big ottoman. The craft store always has it in stock, so I can pick up more if I need to. 


I cut two strips off an end, folded and hot-glued the edge, then hot-glued AND stapled the strips on the ends of the headboard.

I have to say, it kinda looks like I meant to do that, and I think I like the look of it better than if the light-colored fabric had reached all the way to the end.

Right now, the headboard is just on the floor (the 1" dowels make great feet to hold the thing up at the perfect height) between the bed and the wall, but it's lightweight enough that I can hang it on the wall if we ever raise the bed and build/buy a bed frame.


Yay!

Life Keeps Truckin'

My one devoted fan (Hi Lou!!) reminds me that this venue has been neglected of late.

This year has been a hectic one at our house...

In January I was diagnosed with a grapefruit-sized uterine fibroid (rather uncomfortable to house, if you were wondering).

In February I decided to quit my job at Pier 1 due to my physical limitations (thanks, Grapefruit) and the increasing drama caused by employees that wanted nothing more than to make my job difficult (and thought that would make theirs easier). Also in February The Chou was poisoned somehow (we don't know how) and went into major kidney failure. We thought his time was up and were emotionally wrecked for a couple of weeks, but after 24 hours of fluids at the vet and another week and a half of fluids given at home, he recovered almost fully! He's on a special diet now and has lost about 3lbs since then.

My last day of work was mid-March, and I was originally scheduled for surgery to remove the fibroid on March 29th. On March 16th, my HusBean's contract at work changed, which meant our health insurance changed... which meant no insurance until April 1st. The surgery had to be rescheduled and they wouldn't even look at a calendar until I provided proof of new insurance so they could send it through pre-approval all over again. Also in March my Mom decided she needed help with her last big project at work before retirement, so on a Sunday afternoon she asked me to fly out that Tuesday and help. We booked the ticket and I went to Portland for two weeks.

I got back from Portland on HusBean and I's third anniversary (April 12th) and I had a few weeks to try and get caught up at home, get the surgery re-scheduled, and pack before heading to NYC in mid-May for a week.

The night before my trip we had a visit from the Heartlife Homeschool Co-op while on their road-trip through The South. It was wonderful to have them here (all over the floor and in a tent in the back yard), spend some good time with Kevin and meet lots of new friends.

My week in NYC was amazing and it was wonderful to get to spend some sister-time with HusBean's sister Katie and our nephew Jackson. I don't think I've even finished blogging the trip! I honestly don't even remember everything that happened in the last part of May, other than again trying to get caught up at home (laundry, Hot Sauce sales, etc.). (Also during my trip HusBean told me that our siamese - Maui - had escaped when the kids were leaving on Friday... the silly cat hid out in the bushes and around the neighbors houses for four days before finally allowing HusBean to catch him)

In June we had a lovely visit from Emily & Celeste while on their road-trip through The South. They only stayed a night, but we packed a lot into their time here! Scott made fresh pasta (with their help) and the next day I took the ladies downtown Augusta to see the James Brown statue, have lunch (AND DESSERT!)at Boll Weevil and tromp through a few antique shops before sending them on their way.

My surgery was on June 16th, and I spent two nights in the hospital, going home on Saturday morning. I spent the first week sleeping in the guest room, since the master bed is on the floor and thus much harder to get out of for someone with no abdominal muscles. After that first week I was able to both go off of the Percocet and move back into the master bedroom.

My Mom flew out on July 3rd to spend twelve days with us, she had just retired after 44 years (Wow!) and deserved a vacation. Unfortunately, she spent a lot of the time helping out around the house and a TON of time cooking, but we had a lot of fun planning healthy meals and just hanging out together. And shopping. We did some shopping. :)

While I was in the hospital, our Boxer - Buster - developed a UTI and Scott had to take him to the vet to get checked out and get antibiotics. Ever since then he's been going slowly downhill... He'll be 13 tomorrow (which is CRAZY old for a Boxer) and has arthritis in his back end. In the weeks following the UTI he didn't seem to be getting much better - was drinking GALLONS of water a day and peeing every hour - so we ended up taking him back in to get checked out. After some blood tests he has been diagnosed with Cushing's Disease.

Yesterday morning after he got off the bed, he was walking through the bedroom door and suddenly fell over. I jumped up and ran to him, expecting that he had just dropped dead. He was still breathing, but limp. I called HusBean to come home, we pulled the dog onto a blanket and carried him to the door to head to the vet. When we set him down to open the door he suddenly sat up, then stood up, and walked himself out the door to the car.

After some more tests the vet thinks that Buster's heart is dropping beats periodically and that he likely fainted. Since he is a VERY senior dog, we are not going to put him through xrays and additional medication, we just got a prescription for better pain meds - Arthritis specific - and he acts like he is feeling better.

Our friend Dean arrived from San Angelo, TX last night to spend a few days with us for HusBean's birthday (today!).

When would I have had time to write? It's all I can do to wash the laundry, much less get it folded and put away! I have managed to keep the kitchen clean and keep up with Hot Sauce orders...

Trends - OWLS!!

I had no idea that I was so in to home decor until I worked at Pier 1. My 2.5 years there made me realize what fun it is to make my home an expression of my taste and a fun creative outlet.

Of course, between the pay and how much I spent at the store (despite my discount), we are probably saving money since I quit my job, but I'm still a fan of decorating and also of P1.

My current obsession is with Owls. My boss at P1 got me into it because her mother had loved owls and therefore my boss' daughter loved them. This made me start noticing owls. Fortunately, owls are all the rage right now anyway and I didn't have to look far.

I believe that this was my first owl purchase - a cute necklace from Target that I picked up in Charleston while I was there for a P1 meeting.

After that we started getting owl merchandise at P1 and I picked up a doormat and some figurines...

I LOVE the doormat and will likely keep it out all year (although I may sub my cute bat at Halloween) but like to change up the other Front Door Area stuff. Right now I want to transition from my spring stuff to summer and am looking for cute inexpensive ways to do that.

I designed the "spring" wreath currently on the door and am thinking I want to make one for summer with owls in it - but still in bright summery colors. Something along these lines color-wise. These might work hooked into a grapevine wreath... they're a little more fall-colored though. Along that idea-line, these are brighter...

And of course, Etsy is a fabulous place to find all sorts of wonderful things.

Maybe I'll have to head to Hobby Lobby and just make some stuff myself. :) Maybe get some fabric and make little tiny stuffed owls to put on the wreath myself with some coordinating gerbera heads.

Hmm... I see some crafting in my future!

__________________________________________

Target has some super cute bathroom accessories,

Also at P1:
Cute Owl Mug
Salt & Pepper shakers
LED Candle
Owl wall decor
Owl paintings - I like the blue-ish background one best
Cute greeting card with feathery accents
LOVE LOVE LOVE this stuffed owl toy (I bought the Zebra for my sister)

And a bunch more cute stuff coming in Fall... Gosh, you'd think I still work there.

Had some fun creating an Etsy treasury, too.

When you get caught between the Moon...

I have to admit, Katie and I got a LOT accomplished that Tuesday morning while my nephew was in school.

After the donut shop we continued our journey to the Flat Iron district.

Conveniently located just across the street was something on Katie's NYC bucket list: Eataly. I had never heard of the place, but according to Katie it is somewhere Mario Batali and other Food Network folks like to shop, which is enough to interest me! (random vague side note: I saw a guy there that I KNOW is on tv, but I haven't figured out who he is yet...)

The whole place is one big store, make that HUGE store, but broken down into different areas and stalls and mini-shops and restaurants.

I got a big kick out of the boards next to the Vegetable Butcher:

But also really enjoyed all the different shapes and colors of foods and drinks. I was in foodie/photo heaven!

I think I could have stood at the pasta counter eternally...

...but we had to hop back on the subway and pick up the little man from pre-school and head home for a nap.

MORE Tuesday (to be continued...)

...Now I Need a Little Give And Take...

On Tuesdays and Thursdays my nephew attended pre-school.

Katie and I dropped him off just before 8a on Tuesday and made a quick stop at the Starbucks nearby before getting on the subway headed for Chelsea.

We got off the subway and walked down 21st Street (I think) to the Chelsea Market.

We walked through starting from the Food Network end where Masaharu Morimoto has his restaurant and bought freshly baked bread twists from a bakery before coming out onto 9th Avenue where we circled back around and took 21st to 10th Avneue and up the stairs to the High Line.

I won't go into a full description of the High Line (I'll let Wikipedia do that for me), but I will summarize by saying that it is a former raised railroad track converted into a park.

At one point it runs beneath the Standard Hotel.

The landscape design was very nicely done and I could have spent all day up there.

We walked to the end of the High Line and then headed toward the Flat Iron district. On the way we came across a fancy donut shop.

We were much more impressed with the decor in the shop than the donuts, the prices, OR the customer service...

but how often do you get to disco while peeing?

(Tuesday's escapades to be continued...)

Style!

I know, I know, I'm all over the place.

Travel blog, home decorating, cooking, animals... what's next? Should I focus?

NAH.

I'm feeling very style-maven-ish today, particularly excited because I'm expecting the arrival of a pair of FREE shoes from Shoedazzle. I've been a member for about a year and a half and love it so far. As long as I remember to "skip the month" by the 5th, I don't get charged unless I am buying a pair of shoes, and hot stylin' shoes for $40 plus shipping? Awesome. I earned myself enough points to get a free pair and they are on track to arrive on my doorstep this afternoon.

Cute, No?

I'm thinking of pairing them with something along these lines:

(Jeans from Saks, top from HSN, necklace from etsy, bag from ebay)

If you are remotely interested in the shoedazzle thing, let me send you an invite and I'll get more points (MORE FREE SHOES, HOORAY!).

There's Nothing You Can't Do...

When we last left our heroine (that'd be me), I had spent the Saturday of my trip to New York City walking and walking and walking, eating, karaoke-ing, walking some more, and finally sleeping.

Sunday morning my nephew Jackson had a birthday party to attend, so I was able to sleep in a little while until he and Katie returned. Most of the day was spent entertaining Jackson and trying to keep him out of the way so Katie could pack for their move to Virginia.

We decided to get pizza for dinner, so we walked a few blocks away to Famiglia Pizzeria. We had them make us a large - half "Veggie" and half "Fresca" (basically a margherita).

I had intended to try multiple kinds of pizza and cheesecake while in New York, only managed to have two different restaurant's offerings of pizza, and only ended up having cheesecake (although six different varieties) from the Whole Foods next door to where I was staying.

We went to bed at a reasonable hour Sunday night to prepare for our big morning out on Monday.

Katie had acquired tickets for the two of us to attend a taping of the Wendy Williams show. I will admit that I had never heard of Wendy Williams, but watched a clip or two of her on youtube before leaving on my trip, so I thought I had an idea of what I was in for.

I had no idea that I was going to be in for a crazy dance party and that Katie and I would have a ton of air-time. Wendy Williams herself is a riot, and the taping segments were fun, but the REAL entertainment is the audience-warmer, Kevin.

Kevin is a hoot. He gets everyone up and dancing and singing and laughing. He flirts with the entire audience and made us all feel welcome and like there was nowhere else in New York we would rather be RIGHT THEN.

If you are in the audience, you are instructed to dress "fashionably", so I decided this was probably my one chance to wear heels and get away with it. I chose a pair that are pretty awesome, but that I also have quite a bit of experience wearing, so that I wouldn't be uncomfortable walking a fair distance or standing in them for quite awhile. Unfortunately, we were running a little bit late, so we walked much faster than those shoes are intended for, and I ended up with blisters on my feet on only my third day in New York.

After getting back to the apartment we watched the playback of our appearance on the show, took naps (thank goodness for 2.5 year olds that take naps!) and I finished off the evening with a big salad and some middle eastern and Indian food from Whole Foods.

Fortunately, they healed quickly and I had several other pairs of shoes to wear throughout the week to avoid making the injuries any worse.

It's Up To You...

A week ago at this time I was gallavanting through NYC.

My nephew Jackson is two-and-a-half, and wakes up every day around 6a or 6:30a. When you are all living in a tiny apartment, there is not much sleeping in. Kevin had come up from Richmond for the weekend, so the four of us went to Central Park together for a walk and a little bit of running-around time.

Kevin took Jackson back to the apartment and Katie and I hopped on the subway to 42nd/Times Square. We walked through Times Square (Lego store!) and over to Rockefeller center before getting back on the subway and heading to the Soho area.

We walked from there to Ground Zero (quite a walk!) by way of Bowery, through Little Italy and down Church Street and Broadway.

This is one of the buildings under construction (many things under construction there of course).

St. Paul's Chapel is a Trinity Church is across the street from Ground Zero and has survived many New York disasters. It was opened in 1776 and was one of the only buildings in the area left standing in the "Great Fire" of 1776. When the World Trade Center collapsed, it again was nearly untouched and became a haven for rescue workers.

Katie and I took the subway back uptown and I got to take a little nap while Jackson was still sleeping.

Saturday evening we went to dinner at Dhaba, a fabulous Indian restaurant. We then met friends for drinks at Me Bar, which is next to the Empire State Building (and located in the top of a LaQuinta, of all things).

After taking an obligatory picture of the landmark, we continued on to Boho (West) for some Karaoke. Katie had apparently been touting my abilities as a vocalist, so I was thrown into singing a couple of songs. I chose "Everything" by Michael Buble (which I have never sung publicly before, and had forgotten completely about the a Capella key change at the end... OOPS!) and Katie chose for me to sing "Stay" by Lisa Loeb. I was backed up significantly by the rest of the patrons.

There was a rather large group of people from New Jersey that inundated the bar shortly after we arrived. After they pretty much took over the place (and managed to gas us out more than once - thanks, dude) we decided to call it a night and parted ways with the girls that had come out with us.

Kevin, Katie and I took the subway back up to Times Square and then walked through so I could take some pics with all of the lights.

We then ducked in to the M&M's store about 10 minutes before closing since none of us had ever been to one. I picked up a postcard for my Dad, and Kevin picked up what turned out to be some VERY expensive M&M's.

We got back on the subway and headed uptown to the apartment, crashing into bed (the couch for me) soon after.