New Thing #18--31 Days of Fun, Days 22-31

Day 22-26:
You guessed it. Slacked, have no recollection or written account of what I did, probably did nothing cool. Wahwahwah, worst blogger ever. Moving on.


Day 27:
On this day we had our big August Birthday Bash! Three of our friends (plus me!) all have a birthday within a week of each other, so four-ish years ago we started having a big birthday party for all of us! Derrick is the best & really took the reins on this party & planned an awesome relay race that led into a photo scavenger hunt throughout the surrounding towns. My team came in third of four, but I got a kick-ass, creepy cat statue, so all is well in the world.

Highlights of the relay race & scavenger hunt--a friend puking up watermelon into our sink, flipping off a car full of friends as they tried to take a surveillance-type photo of us for points, taking a big group photo with strangers who were having some sort of party in front of their house & the series of ridiculous shots we took on the town beach. Yay!

After all that fun nonsense we all gathered in the cellar, which D had set up like a theater with rows of seats (adorable) & reviewed everyone's photos for point tallying. Then the night continued on as normal, with lots of food, laughs, drinks & gifts.

D made this delicious chocolate hazelnut cake--mmmm! This is one of the very few photos we took that night--whoops.

Day 28:
Due to the approaching hurricane (later downgraded to tropical storm)Irene, the day of the party was unfortunately quite dreary, which cancelled our plans of having the party outside with a fire, torches, badminton & the like.

The day after the party D & I woke (after 4 hours of sleep) to a loud bang. We never figured out what it was, but we were up. The rain & wind was picking up & after a short while we lost power. Luckily we have a gas stove, so I made pancakes & we basically lounged for the rest of the day. We worked on a puzzle that we last worked on probably about 2.5 years ago, we napped, we read, we ate, we listened to our battery powered radio, we napped some more.

At 7:30am D braved the outdoors to take in the mail we forgot to take in the previous day--we were worried the wind would make the mailbox fly open.

Some time around 6pm or so the weather had quieted down & we decided to go for a drive to get out of the house. I was lazy & chose to go out wearing what I had been wearing all day, which were essentially my pajamas. Normally I am anti-pajamas in public, but I figured they looked kinda sporty & it was a tropical storm, dude! Rules need not apply, amiright?

Our neighborhood fared pretty well, but just two roads away had some serious damage, mostly in the way of large branches or trees that were no longer standing. We moseyed on down to the beach & watched the crazy ocean for awhile. The big waves were coming fast & on a diagonal, leaving only about 10 feet of actual beach free of water (though it sometimes was covered by particularly big waves). Nuts!

On the way home we stopped to get some ice to pack our fridge & freezer & geez, it was eerie out. You don't realize how much noise & light is generated just by electricity & gadgets until it's gone. We got home, lit about 300 candles & went about making dinner & sorting out the fridge & ice situation. After some aggravation we finally sat down to watch an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on our charged laptop & not 5 minutes went by til the power came back! It was a slight bummer because it was nice being free of electrical distractions & sort of camping out in our house, but it was a relief to know that we'd have power the next day. Oh, roughing it!

My cutenesses! Lu enjoyed the stormy weather like any awesome cat would.

Days 29-30:
See days 22-26.

Day 31:
Something fun that I've never done before is turning 28! Holy crap, that's old. I donned my new polka dot dress & prepared for the day, feeling spunky & happy.

My birthday self-portrait for birthday #28. My hair still looked pretty good from my haircut the previous day, nice! (growing out my hair is on hold, as waiting for hair to grow is boring)

D was lovely enough to take the day off with me, & we finally went for breakfast on the patio at Crazy Burger. So. Freaking. Good. Zucchini latkes? A grilled cinnamon bun?? A GRILLED CINNAMON BUN!?! Good gravy, that was tasty.

We popped back home to gather some things & headed over to Beavertail for some relaxing time by the sea rock climbing,ridiculous photo shoots, sea glass hunting, basking in the sun & getting our clothes wet from playing in the gorgeous water too much.

Evidence of our silly photo shoot AND my new dress. Leggings were added at the beach as I didn't want to recreate the great butt flashing of birthday 2010.

One of the first things we did was head up my favorite rock, which forms a sort of platform & seating area. First I noticed this:

Seagull crab snacklings, I presume.

And then I noticed this:

Whaaaat?? It's like a seagull saw an owl's pellet, got jealous & decided to make one that was even more badass. Seriously, this was about the size of a golf ball, & while I didn't touch it (gross), it seemed to be made entirely of shell & bone. Crazy!! Up til my birthday I didn't even know seagulls made pellets; what a treat!

It was such a beautiful day; pretty ideal in every way, really. You can really see how the waves have carved out gentle ridges in the rock. Love!

Afterwards we had a few people over for a little family-feelin' cookout followed by s'mores around the fire. And I got presents!

I was given a lot of fantastic things for my birthday (funny t-shirts, pretty jewelry, books & a bunch of Lush stuff to name a few), but two took the prize. Derrick, being the mastermind that he is, not only got me an amazing banjo (which I have been pining over for quite some time--pictures to follow), but he also booked a trip for he & I to go to California! In three weeks!! We'll be visiting my friend & her boyfriend & going to a sing-a-long of the Sound of freakin' Music at the Hollywood Bowl (ohmygodicannoywait!), along with attending a taping of the Ellen show, hopefully getting a behind the scenes lot tour(Stars Hollow!), sticking my feet in the Pacific Ocean & eating a lot of good food! It's going to be soooo fun & I cannot wait. I've been kicking myself for all 3-4 years that my friend has lived out there for never actually making a visit happen, but now it is thanks to my leetle husband.

And as August & my birthday passes us by (it has always been so bittersweet), so does my sort of successful 31 Days of Fun Project. My posting record wasn't great, but it was better than it normally is. I hope you enjoyed my mundane fun times & I hope to wow you with a few better clam handles in the months to come.

If you'll excuse me, I have to go pretend to understand & study chemistry. Ugh. I am so screwed.


PS if you're good at chemistry, help!

New Thing #18--31 Days of Fun, Days 20-21

Day 20:
We found out that the strike was over!!! D said he's never been so happy to go back to work, ever. It is definitely a relief, & here's hoping that they don't go back on strike if the company decides to suck again. So, yeah, awesome.

I then went to work, tried a $40 per pound cheese, headed home, called 911 because of an accident on 95, swung by Target & then went to work on catching up with these here blog entries. Not bad, not bad.

Day 21:
We went out to breakfast because, yay, no strike! We can do stuff again! We saw our favorite waitress & she informed us that she knows our friend Shannon. Oh, Rhode Island! Afterwards we did some errands, which included getting a delicious peach pie at Schartner Farms to share with Tristan & Laurel, as they were coming over so Tristan could hook up our outdoor speakers for us. It all looks & sounds great, so yay! Now we don't have to blast music from the parlor when we want to listen to music while we're outside. A plus, for sure.

While I waited for dinner to cook I tied up some of our cayenne peppers to dry on a string. We planted a cayenne pepper bush in our garden this year, & holy hell do we have a lot of cayenne peppers. What's cool is that once they're dry we'll be able to make our own cayenne powder. Cool! Behold my rudimentary cayenne bundle, which is currently hanging over our kitchen sink.

Disregard the overall crappiness of this picture, along with the window in need of a wash. Look at the peppers we grew!

What I didn't know & have learned is that cayenne peppers only turn red after you pick them & they start to dry. Huh! The plan is to add to this string as we pick peppers. It's gonna be huge, dudes. Huge.

New Thing #18--31 Days of Fun, Days 15-19

Day 15:
Not much happened. I went back to work (drag) & the second week of the strike & picketing started for D. Good times, good times. I do think, however, that we watched a bunch of Psych episodes while folding laundry. So there was that!

Day 16:
Rinse & repeat. Add excessive worrying about the strike & there you have it. Ick.

Day 17:
I was off this Wednesday & after D picketed we headed out to East Matunuck & met up with his aunt & "little" cousins. We spent some time in the water (it was super seaweed-y that day!) & caught up with the family. It was a much needed relaxing time in the sun by the ocean.

Also, we did something that was really hard. We resisted Crazy Burger. It was murdah! But we were good doobies & opted to save our pennies--not knowing how long we'd have them--& instead made super yummy falafel at home. Behold, thrift & control!

Day 18:
See days 15 & 16. I'm pretty sure I'm really boring. Maybe I said something crazy & hilarious to Lucy the cat, though. In fact, I'm sure of it.

Oh! I tried canary melon at work. It was pretty good! Really sweet & juicy. I've been on a bizarre melon kick the last few days. Bizarre because other than watermelon, I've never really like melon all that much. However, today I noticed that after my two slices of cantaloupe my throat felt kinda weird. Hmmmm...

Day 19:
After work, I swung by the library to pick up the book on qigong that I reserved. While there I perused the books-for-sale shelves & picked up a Roald Dahl children's book for myself & a Goosebumps by RL Stine book (holy nostalgia! they also had a Fear Street book) for D for a total of $.50. Nice! Additionally, I renewed my human-animal interaction/psychology book (super interesting so far!) & paid part of my ludicrous $5-6 late fees. Oops. Vacation makes you forget about due dates & stuff. Head hung in shame, I drove home.

After lounging around for a bit & nearly dozing off, the boy & I decided to head out to the beach. This time we went to Charlestown Beach, which was suggested to D by a co-picketer. We got there late so we luckily didn't have to pay to park, & the beach was populated but not overly crowded. The sand was super soft (compared to the coarse sand of East Matunuck that I love anyway) & there was quite a drop-off to get to the water. There is also a pretty epic view of Block Island, which looks deceptively close from the shore. We laid on our towels (forgot the blanket in the car because we were both space cadets yesterday) & read for awhile. Ate some cantaloupe. I fell asleep in my book & woke to D piling sand in the bend of my knee.

Mr. Husband chose to go in the water, but by this point it was about 5:30pm, the air had cooled & the water felt frigid to me, not refreshing (I really am getting old). So I people-watched while D swam around like a cute-cute (sorry).

Later, we headed home, showered the sunblock & saltwater off of ourselves, made a quick dinner & headed to a friend's to play some games. One game in, though, I was struck with my random lady plague, turned white as a sheet & had to be whisked home by my loving husband. Bummer! At least my team won the one game of Identity Crisis we got to play.

Once home I crawled into bed & watched about 7 minutes of Corner Gas (we are huge fans of this odd & entertaining Canadian show) until I fell asleep & stayed asleep 'til 10am this morning. Aaaaaaaah :)

More coming soon, I swear!

New Thing #18--31 Days of Fun, Days 8-14

Holy crap, can you say "worst project do-er ever"?!? Shameful. Tsk, tsk, tsk. I'm so behind on posting that I don't even remember what I did on certain days (because I also managed to forget to write stuff down). Also, some of these are kinda lame. Ok, without further ado, let's go!

Day 8:
I made refrigerator pickles with our own garden-grown cucumbers!

Behold my fancy crinkle-cut knife in the foreground. First time using it for pickles. It made me stupidly happy.

Unfortunately, I wasn't totally into these pickles this time around. I thought they tasted weird. Their taste bummed me out, despite the cuteness of their crinkles. D liked them though, but maybe he was just being a darling husband, because there's still a metric buttload in the fridge. It's totally possible he was, because that's what he is all the time, anyway. *smush*

Also, while watering the plants in our backyard I noticed that the bird's nest on the crook of our gutter that had been vacant since after the spring birdies left is once again occupied with red-breasted robins. Yay! So cute.

We have tons of these in our backyard. I chose this photo (not my own!) because the bird looks hilariously indignant.

Day 9:
Had our monthly girls' night at my friend Crystal's house. (Hi, Crystal!) It was nice eating mostly bad-for-us food, drinking wine & catching up on happenings & gossip with the ladies. We had missed the prior month's gathering & a good night was had by all! There was also the added fun of colorful conversation & quotes regarding pregnancy, labor & all sorts of other lady business. Here, here!

Day 10:
This day was spent working & coming home to clean & pack for our weekend trip with friends to Vermont. Ayup.

Day 11:
D & I were Vermont-bound on this day. Neither of us had ever been to Vermont before! Isn't that nuts?

We were staying just over the New Hampshire border & drove through Franconia Notch to get to our destination, which was our friend's uncle's winter mobile home on a country road. I hadn't been through the White Mountains since I was about 13, and it was really nice to make the drive as an adult. Holy crap, is it gorgeous. It's nice to be able to appreciate it now.

Here's a through-the-window-of-a-moving-car shot I took as we were nearing the park.

While on the road you pass the historic site of what was once the Old Man in the Mountain. RIP Old Man, RIP.

Once we arrived at "camp," we got settled, mingled, relaxed & tore through some trails with the ATV. Oh yes, the ATV. It was my first time ever on one, & let me tell you, it's pretty frightening at first.

Here I am on my first ATV ride with Tristan. Photo by Kyle.

It's also really, really fun. It's startling because you feel really high up on the vehicle, in addition to feeling fairly unsafe while zipping down a narrow, bumpy as hell dirt "road" lined with large trees, ditches, rocks, puddles & not-super-far-away hilly cliff-like things. All of those things also make it exhilarating.

I drove it a couple times too, & holy crap is that fun. I took it out onto the main road shortly after the above photo was taken (& by taking it out on the main road, I mean I missed the turn off trail back to our plot of land) & brought it up to almost 40MPH uphill. Good times!

Also, ATVs turn Derrick into a little, maniacal boy. Also fun!

Day 12:
It was Friday morning, & we woke smelling of the prior night's campfire. After spending some time in the woodsy Vermont air, drowsily reading by the still-smoldering fire, Derrick & I made a big breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon & toast for everyone. Afterwards, we took our morning constitutional to become one with nature & aid digestion.

On this!

We also had a golf cart to play around in! It's pretty funny how driving vehicles that are not actual cars is still super fun as a "grown up." We all had a blast using this thing, & it came in handy for the multiple golf cart vs ATV races/apple battles that were held in the yard.

D & I were saying how much we'd love to have a golf cart someday, but how it would probably get out of hand & we'd use it to make the 60-foot trip to the mailbox.

Also on this day we went to Littleton, NH to go to a big candy store & get lunch at the Littleton Diner. It's been featured on the Food Network's 50 Best Breakfasts. It was so cool inside (I forgot to take a picture like a ninny) & I had a locally stone-ground buckwheat pancake, which was featured on the show, because hey, it's supposed to be really good! And it was delicious. Nutty, a little chewy & smothered in VT maple syrup. Please sir, may I have some more?

Day 13:
After spending the entire morning & a couple hours of the afternoon lazing about & reading under the apple trees after a breakfast of pancakes, some of us got antsy. So most of us piled into a car & headed to nearby NH Forest Lake. After a whirlwind of a trip, which included me in the most uncomfortable "bitch seat" in a car ever & getting "lost" on a steep, winding dirt road in the middle of the woods we finally got to our destination.

D'aaaaaaaaaaaaaw!

Oh, right. The view.

Right?? Also, that dog was adorable.

Agent Cooper, is that you?

The day was pleasantly warm but not hot, so despite having my bathing suit with me I wasn't planning to swim. But after sticking my feet in the cool, amazingly clear water I decided that I just had to go in. I was only in for about 10 minutes (which was enough, it was cold!), but it was lovely & I'm glad I made the effort of getting & changing into my suit & all that business. Beauteous!

Day 14:
On this day we headed home. You know how it is heading home from a vacation? No matter how short of long it is, ugh. Just ugh. You're sad to be leaving & you aren't looking forward to the voyage home. You just want to BE there! Luckily, the trip back to RI wasn't too bad (I was helped by candy & a brief nap), & singing Mumford & Sons on the winding highway through the mountains didn't hurt either. Once we got home we made a quick dinner & vegged, all the while trying to get our cat to not hate us for leaving.

Though, before we left VT we took a drive down the road from the campsite, to a farm that had a sign boasting their own maple syrup & belted galloway cows, one of my favorites. We drove around their property looking for a sugar shack, cows, a farm stand or any sign of life, really. We found only a cute piece of property where no one was home but a slightly-too-skinny horse (grumble) & a lovely li'l donkey. No one was home & no syrup was to be had, boohoo!

Stay tuned...

New Thing #18--31 Days of Fun, Days 3-7

I'm backed up already, oi vey! I'm the worst. Ok, fun(ish) attack starting now!

Day 3:
On this day I FINALLY signed up for my Chemistry class *grooooooooooooan*
I need to manage a C for these credits to transfer over to URI & then I will officially get my degree & slap it up on the wall next to D's. Also, this was my first venture over to the Knight campus of CCRI & it is the ugliest building on the planet. Take a look!

This is from the Wikipedia page.

A friend told me it is supposed to be a boat? All I know is that it is horrendous & imposing as you drive up the road & the inside is dank, dreary & outdated. Hopefully it houses easy Chemistry classes!

Afterwards I made a Spinach Orzo, a recipe of my Mom's that she used to make a lot when we were kids. So good & heartwarming, & D loves it too!


Day 4:
Um, I worked. It was a crappy day. Afterwards I got a nice hug from D though!


Day 5:

I worked all night, came home & made a bowl of homemade kettle corn. This time around I remembered to use my Dad's technique & voila! Best batch I've made in a long time....so I ate it all. D came home late from a friend's house & he was all hopped up on blue Mountain Dew. I chased him around the house at midnight while he laughed like a maniac. Aw, love! How am I supposed to resist a goofy guy as cute as this, anyway?

Day 6:
After talking/obsessing about our cats for a couple hours, I randomly sang this song at work, much to the amusement of my co-worker: "Stick it in yer butthole, fart it on out!"

Later, we went out to Mexican with friends, where we spoke of in-utero babies & made a plan to bring lots of stuff to make mojitos when we go camping. I also made my requisite Polish comments. Or jokes. Good-natured jokes!

Day 7:

Yesterday was D's first day of picketing for the strike at work. Of course it poured buckets on the poor masses & he came home soaking wet & exhausted. Being close to anyone on strike is a first for me, & when it is this close to home it is scary. Hopefully it gets resolved quickly & favorably. If you are a customer of Verizon, get the facts & make your opinions known to the company. Any little bit helps.

In brighter, less heart palpitation-inducing tidbits, I took the pouring rain as an opportunity to don my plaid galoshes & splash in puddles as I ran a couple errands. It is strange how fun that can be!

New Thing #18--31 Days of Fun, Day 2

Day 2 of Fun was all in all a great day (minus the $95 "speeding" ticket I got in front of my grandparents' house), but the main awesomeness was a trip to the zoo with my cousin Marissa.


After having a brief conversation about sloths, we decided we both wanted to go to the zoo. So we did! It was nice spending time with Maris (especially because I missed her birthday) & it was lovely seeing my animal friends at the zoo. Great day!

I also came home with a new pet. Meet Lucy's new best friend!

The remainder of my day was filled with small but lovely visits with other family members & friends, & buying a $70 jacket & $40 skirt for a grand total of $36. Score!

Til next time!

New Thing #18--31 Days of Fun, Day 1

On August 1st I managed to convince my boss to let me leave work two hours early!

It was dead as a doornail in there, & it was making my brain leak out of my ear. I got home & got to spend even more time with my husband, yaaaay! We had dinner, followed by a few episodes of Dollhouse while folding a month's worth of laundry. Still preferable!