Weekend Ups and Down

Weekend Ups

1. Freaking delicious dinner on Friday night. I swear to God I just want to move into Il Casale. Or better yet... I could just hire them to be my personal chefs and cook dinner for me every night? Yes, yes, I will put that on my "when I win the lottery" list. The list is long friends.

2. Bruins Game! A few weeks ago my friend Becca messaged me to see if Eric and I want to go to a Bruins game with her. I haven't been to a game in a few years (read: since they have been good) so I was psyched. Plus I haven't seen Becca in way too long. We ended up having a great night, and the Bruins won!

3. Boston weather still hasn't realized it's December and I am loving every second of it. Eric and I went for a really long walk on Sunday and it literally changed my Sunday around. I swear no matter how exhausted and crappy I feel, a walk outside is always a good solution.

Weekend Downs

1. I slept crappy all weekend. Friday night I just had trouble sleeping for no apparent reason. Then Saturday I went to bed late and obviously still woke up at 7am. Why oh why? I really am just not good at losing sleep. Yes, hiring a night nurse for my future babies is on my "when I win the lottery" list too.

2. I had class on Saturday. God I hate class. I know it will be worth it when I reach Masters + 15 credits and get a pay raise. But until then, having class on Saturdays should be outlawed. Also on the outlaw list? Getting out of class 25 minutes late and classes on Mondays which I also have right now. Mental note to self: In the same way your 7th grade math teacher declared you "not a back of the room person," you are also not an in-class person, take only online classes from now on. PS. Eric is right, you do enjoy self torture.

Tell me the ups and downs of your weekend. Also, check back tomorrow for a giveaway! :)

Letters to Me

On the way to work the other day, I heard Brad Paisley's Letter To Me and it gave me the idea for this blog post. You can see the lyrics here, or watch the music video. Basically, the song is a letter to his 17 year old self. I thought it might be fun to do a post with letters to myself at different ages. I hope you'll join in and write a letter to your younger self in the comments or on your own blog.

Dear 10 Year Old Self,

Do not... I repeat do not EVER think it's a good idea to systematically steal every single item from your enemy's backpack on a day when he has particular annoyed you. If you do, please think of a better way to do it than signing out and heading to the "bathroom" every five minutes for one whole afternoon. That is bound to raise red flags. Duh. I promise fifth grade will not last forever.

Dear Middle School Self,

That black binder with all the "cool kids" name on it won't matter in a few years so don't bother celebrating the day your name gets on it. Instead celebrate the life long friends you have made, the Spice Girls dances you have made up, the notes that have been passed, the 20 million hours on the phone, and the other luxuries of middle school. Oh and please resist the drama and speak to Tiff at 8th grade graduation, in fifteen years you won't remember what the argument was about, but you will be in each other's weddings.

Dear 17 Year Old Self,

You love life right now, and what's not to love? You've got amazing friends, decreased homework in the form of senior slump, the ever-amazing "free blocks" and seriously competitive bowling games. Be thankful for these simple pleasures every day. I know this sounds crazy but your parents borrowing "your" (aka their) car for one day will NOT be the end of the world.

Dear College Self,

You will not spend one single moment of your life contemplating what you should have been doing in college vs. what you did do. Guess what? It didn't matter at all that you left college the very first night you arrived to go visit a friend from high school. You still made best friends. In only a few short years what you did over the weekend, whether or not you went out or stayed in won't matter at all. What will matter is the meals enjoyed with friends, Boston traditions like ice skating and tree lighting, watching TV with roommates, and summer nights in the pool. Don't judge: quality guys can be found at bars, best friends may at first seem to be your opposite, just because someone is in a different phase than you, doesn't mean they are in the wrong one.

Dear First Year Teacher,

This is going to be a hard year and all the advice in the world is not going to change that. Kids are going to test you, parents are going to test you, your principal is going to test you. You will pass. You will question teaching. You will question yourself. You will spend almost every waking hour trying to figure out how to be a better teacher. You will become a better teacher. Remember, the first year of almost everything sucks. Marriage won't follow this pattern for you, so you have that to look forward to. That AND you will never ever be a first year teacher again.

Dear Wedding Planning Kelly,

aka Kelly "I f- hate weddings!",

Don't discuss the wedding on Sundays and/or after 8:00pm. Don't argue about things you don't care about. Please figure out a better way to record and edit your guest list. Don't let one single person tell you that you will miss wedding planning when it is over, you won't. The wedding will be worth it though.

What would you say to your younger self?

All I Want For Christmas...

I don't know what my deal is but I really enjoy when bloggers that I read make their Christmas wish lists. Yes, I know we have everything we want and need, but it's fun to add to our own internal wish lists with the ideas of others. Who knows, you may even get an idea for someone you need to shop for by reading my list.

Special Note to Eric: I know you hate when I do this, I promise you get your own list and it's probably going to include camera bags. Yes, I need more than one. But didn't you tell me to get you two pairs of sneakers? I knew we were meant to be.

Long Sleeved Shirts

Due to my newfound obsession with sweater dresses, I need some long sleeve shirts to wear under them on cold days. I especially need black and white, since I already have this exact shirt in purple and blue. I highly recommend the JCrew Outlet since they have nice ones for reasonable prices, but I'm really not picky :)

Camera Strap

Totally copying Caroline here, I want this!

Running Tights

As always, I have high hopes of continuing to run in the winter. Most likely this running will happen on the treadmill but hey, it's still running. Sure the Lululemon ones would be fantastic, but I also saw some C9 ones that looked pretty nice at Target too.

Boots, Boots, Boots

I'm kind of loving boots right now. Caroline has these and I have boot envy. I previously though they could never be found again but I just found them on Zappos so now I want them.

Of course I always love gift cards to my favorite stores. Who doesn't really?

What do you want for Christmas this year? Share :)

Thankful for Family

I hope everyone who celebrates had a great Thanksgiving weekend, or just a good weekend in general :) I have really enjoyed the past few weeks where I have blogged about the many things I am thankful for. I could easily do it for another month but with Thanksgiving behind us, I think I will finish up today with the number 1 thing that I am thankful for. My family. This includes my little-family, aka Eric and me, as well as my Mom, Dad, sister, brother, and all of Eric's family. I am very lucky to have all nine of these people constantly supporting me and making my life much more fun.

This weekend was a 4 1/2 day weekend for us so we had a lot of time for fun with family and friends. We started the weekend with an impromptu party with Eric's friends. My one condition of having the party was that Eric had to clean up for it and I came home on Wednesday to a sparkling clean house. I swear Eric has speed-ability when he really wants to get things done. I think it's the multi-tasker in me that always makes things take way longer than they should! We also made it look like we planned to have people over all along with our party snacks. I was baking brownies when I took this picture. Just call me impromptu party extraordinaire.







As always at my own get-togethers, I failed to take many pictures but I did capture this keeper of Eric and his friend Brian.







Fun facts about Brian: He is 31 and still drinks Keystone Light. Brian is partially responsible for Eric and my meeting + dating. Brian married us!



Thanksgiving Day was spent at Eric's parent's house. This is year 2 of us doing Thanksgiving at one house and Christmas at another and I continue to love the ease and lack of stress involved. There is something to be said for trying every ridiculous plan before getting married and then finally having a good plan once you do! Oh, and something else to be said for not hating each other at end of every holiday. I mean, what?







Fun facts about Libby the dog: She knows how to give hugs (see above). She is the first Poodle I have known without the ridiculous Poodle hair cut. When she goes for a "walk" she jumps the vast majority of the time.



Fun facts about Nana: She loves my used Vera Bradley bags. She (usually) refuses to smile for pictures. She gets mad at Eric if he does not smile in a picture.







A lovely brothers + cousin shot. Take note of Mike's new tattoo of Dribble.



Friday was spent at my parents house where I seriously failed to take pictures, except this ridiculous one of Caroline, Jake and Eric. Oops.









Saturday we said goodbye to Thanksgiving and got into the Christmas mode. Both families got together to get some Christmas trees.





























Once the tree was safely in the house, I went into Boston for dinner with my family. Japanese food is always so eventful!







Then we all joined back together for a big game of Liars Poker, which I now declare the only form of Poker I like. Not sure if this was a made up game or not, but it was fun nonetheless.







The weekend ended today with my mom's fabulous brunch starring my favorite apple french toast.







The rest of the day was spent in super productivity mode. I crossed all but one item off my to do list, which is great because I have a super busy week ahead. I still have grand plans to blog though, so let's hope I do!

How was your weekend? What was the best thing you did?

Thoughts on Health

Today I am thankful for my health.

Yes, my stomach hates me as always. Yes, I have spent the past week semi-successfully fighting the cold that Eric and all of my students have. But in the grand scheme of things, these little problems are actually very, very small. Considering the number of germs I must be exposed to on a daily basis, my immune system does a pretty good job... and that's only on the little germs- colds, flus etc. God only knows what things I do that I don't even KNOW about that cause terrible long term illnesses. Oh sure, I obviously don't smoke, I eat healthy etc, but it seems like SO much causes cancer these days I can't even keep track of it all, let alone actually avoid all of these things. It can be overwhelming at times.

It's so overwhelming actually that I've spent the vast majority of my adult life ignoring most of the claims. I've done everything I need to to stay healthy in the short term. I eat healthy food because my stomach will immediately punish me if I do not. I exercise because my stomach and my mind will immediately punish me if I do not. I wash my hands because I will immediately get a cold if I do not. I get plenty of sleep because I will immediately get a cold/lose my mind if I do not. Fortunately for me, a lot of these "short term" solutions will also help me in the long term. But what about things that do not affect me in the short term? Especially claims that maybe are not 100% proven but certainly could be true?

I'm talking about things like taking a daily multi vitamin (which I used to not do because it immediately made my stomach feel terrible), avoiding BPA plastics, using aluminum free deodorant, limiting time with a cell phone attached to my head and along this same lines avoiding unnecessary XRays at places like the airport. This is the stuff I am not as good at. The funny thing is, if I had immediate stomach pain right after putting on deodorant, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, I would've given it up years ago.

Finally, at the old age of 27 I have decided it's time to get more serious about some of the long term health stuff. Recently, I've made some big changes that I hope will be better for me in the long term.

1. I've started taking a daily Multivitamin and Omega-3 supplements. As I mentioned earlier, I have not had good luck with Multivitamins, but I finally decided to splurge on a brand called Rainbow Light. Rainbow Light actually puts some natural stomach-helpers like ginger into their vitamins which helps me to avoid any pain or discomfort after taking them. I have been taking Rainbow Light Calcium/Magnesium pills for awhile with success and the transition to the Multivitamin has been very smooth. I've even been able to handle the version with Iron (not pictured above) because my last blood test revealed I was a little low in iron. Finally, I've had success recently taking one of the pills (it's 3 per day) in the early morning which is something I could never do even long before my stomach issues. If only I could somehow receive an insane discount on these ridiculously priced Vitamins, I would be singing my praises from the roof tops. Hmm, maybe they should give me free vitamins to sing their praises from the roof tops?

2. I have 100% given up deodorant with aluminum in it. Starting about a year ago I began using some of the natural deodorants on days when I knew I'd be home most of the time or at least not in a place where I was likely to sweat. I just feared that they would not work as well. Guess what? I've fully switched over and so far I haven't had any smelling problems... at least that I know about :) The only thing I haven't tried yet is hot yoga, we shall see how that goes!

On my agenda next in tackling my water cooler. You know the office water colorer? Eric and I actually have one of those at home because we like bottled water and don't like buying a million plastic bottles. It's cheaper and easier. My mom has been on me about how this is in fact NOT a good idea because the water bottles are probably filled with BPA (even though they claim they are not) and BPA is absolutely terrible for you. As always, I know she is right so I finally found a local company that will deliver in glass bottles. I'm sure it will be more expensive but I like that it's a family business so I'm willing to pay a little extra. I told Eric today that I am making it my mission of the week to set up this new company so, I'll keep you posted!

It's also probably possible to go broke on health... but then again what's the point of saving money if I don't make it to 30? Something to think about!

What are some things you do for your long term health?

Dribble

Yesterday was a sad day. We had to say goodbye to Eric's family dog: Dribble. Today I'm thankful for her for providing amusement, cuddles and love for the past seven years that I have known her.

Dribs in photos:

<3

Three Day Weekends

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I love three day weekends. For me it just makes a huge difference to have that extra day as far as getting my mind off work and having enough time to get some things done but also just have fun :)

I missed a few days of posting what I'm thankful for, so to make up for it, I have quite a few things I am thankful for today.



I am thankful for Veterans.









I am thankful to have a busy life, full of great things.

Saturday was a pretty busy day, in a good way. In the morning, I headed to a town nearby to see one of my student's perform in a play. I've mentioned this particular girl many times, as this is her second year in my class. She did a great job remembering her lines and it was the perfect play for her because it was low key, but really cute.



After that I headed home and ate lunch with my mom and got our dining room hutch delivered. It's hard to get me excited about furniture, but I actually love the new hutch because now we can display some of the stuff we got for our wedding and it gives us more storage space which is always useful.



Then, Eric and I headed up to Nashoba Valley Winery with his family to do our second annual wine tailgate.





























We keep meaning to do it when it's warmer out, but a busy fall made this the first available weekend for everyone. On a positive note, the holiday spiced cranberry apply wine was available already and that is my favorite so I was happy. I also had like 4 jackets on... so I was pretty warm.




I am thankful for Shutterfly and TripAdvisor. Yes, I am aware of random combination of the two. I've spent the morning catching up on my DVR (does anyone else watch the new show Unforgettable? I love it), making Christmas cards and starting to plan our trip to Seattle/Vancouver for next summer. I love how easy Shutterfly makes it to create Christmas cards, photo books, calendars etc. I love that TripAdvisor feeds my need to read about every possible option for trips before I start formally planning. I'm right now just trying to narrow down where exactly we will go, besides Seattle and Vancouver. I'm thinking maybe a trip to San Juan islands, or Victoria or something else, but I'm not sure what makes sense, how long I need at each place etc. If you have any experience traveling in the Pacific Northwest I would appreciate any advice :) In the meantime, I will continue to play on TripAdvisor.


I hope everyone had a great weekend! What did you do?