Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!


Happy Thanksgiving, friends and family! I hope you all are having a wonderful day filled with good food, loved ones, happy times, and gratitude. I have a lot to be thankful for this year: the best husband I could ever have hoped for, a wonderful family, great friends, a new home in a new city filled with opportunity, good health, and a very cute dog, to name just a few of the many blessings I'll be giving thanks for today.

I love you all and am thankful for you! I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The Awesome Original Second Time Arounders

I know I'm posting this pretty late, but in case anyone checks in tonight or early tomorrow, I have info about my dad in the Macy's Thanksgiving parade! He and the rest of the 500-or-so Second Time Arounders are scheduled to perform in front of Macy's at 11:06 a.m., so they will definitely be on within ten minutes before that time and ten minutes after. So if you're watching, make sure you're in front of the TV then!

I've been having a great visit with my dad this week, so I'll be sure to post about that soon! Tonight he headed out to New Jersey to meet back with the band for rehearsal, then stayed in a hotel there so he could be ready to leave on the buses at 2:15 in the morning! They have to rehearse in front of Macy's at 3:30a.m. or so, then go back to the hotel for breakfast, then return for the start of the parade at 9:00. So those will be some tired 'Rounders! But I'm sure it's a blast for them.

Hooray Rounders! And Happy Thanksgiving!

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Rats! (Literally)

I had another very New York experience today involving a rat in the subway. Yes, I saw a rat in the subway, but that has happened before. And those suckers are every bit as big as in the tales you've heard. But today, not only did I see the rat...I saw it after it RAN INTO MY FOOT. I was just standing there, minding my own business, waiting for my train. I felt something bump into my foot and Eric said, "Oh! A mouse!" as it scurried away from my foot. Ick!!! Thankfully I had boots on, so there was no risk of rat-to-skin contact.

That is one thing I miss about DC - the Metro. The subway isn't awful; I've really gotten used to it alright. But the Metro was always so clean and well-lit and easy to figure out. The subway...well, isn't. I can assure you that in my three years in DC, I never even saw a rat, let alone had one physically accost me. Score one for DC!

In other news, Eric and I were able to have breakfast with my cousin Jacob this morning! He's in the US on business from Budapest and he is spending the day in New York. He was kind enough to fit us in to his hectic schedule, so we met him at the Seinfeld diner (known in real life as Tom's Restaurant) for breakfast. It was great to see him and catch up!

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend! Go Gators!

Friday, November 21, 2008

Just to Brighten Your Day

TGIF, everyone! Enjoy your weekend!

Thursday, November 20, 2008

Christmas is Coming

Today I met Eric for lunch (because I no longer have to stay in the house and study all day!!!), and after lunch we passed by Rockefeller Center to see how the Tree setup is coming along. The tree is up, but won't officially be lit until December 3rd (and we're planning to go for the festivities!). That thing is HUGE. Check out all the scaffolding around it so people can get at it and put the lights and such on:


And here it is from the front...it's behind the giant Swarovski banner. Can't wait for it to be revealed in all its glory!


They also put up all these angels by the fountains along the walk up to Rockefeller Center:


So many stores have also already put up their Christmas window displays and decorations, so we'll have lots of Christmas spirit to take pictures of this season! So stay tuned for that as Christmas approaches.

We have a very fun couple of weeks coming up. As I mentioned, my dad is coming to visit for Thanksgiving. He arrives on Monday night, then on Tuesday we'll spend the day sight-seeing and Tuesday night we're going to see the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, featuring the Rockettes! I'm very excited about that. Wednesday we'll do some more sight-seeing until he has to leave for rehearsals, because he is marching with the Second Time Arounders Marching Band from good ol' St. Petersburg, FL in the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade! So please, watch for him if you're watching the parade this year! If I find out where in the parade they'll be positioned, I'll let you know. But there's approximately a bajillion of them coming for this, so they should be hard to miss!

While my dad is at rehearsal on Wednesday, Eric and I are going to head over to Central Park to see the parade balloons being inflated. Then on Thanksgiving, we'll go watch my dad march in the parade before coming back and cooking dinner for him before he has to leave. Over the weekend, we'll probably do something to celebrate Eric's 26th Birthday (yay!), which is actually on Monday. THEN on Tuesday we have tickets to a taping of the Daily Show, and Wednesday will be the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree Lighting! So, it will be a jam-packed, super-fun couple of weeks. Stay tuned for lots of pictures, I'm sure!

Side note: sorry for the less-than-perfect quality of pictures in this post. For once in my life, I didn't have the camera with me (gasp!), so I used my cell phone camera! Not bad for a phone camera, right?

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Test Free is the Way to Be!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that the I now live in a test-worry-free household. For the first time in...well...EVER, neither Eric nor I have any tests hanging over our heads or looming in our future. Well, unless I get into grad school. Then there will be more tests. But in the definite foreseeable future, we are TEST FREE!

As I so joyously posted, Eric's test worries ended on Friday when he found out he passed the bar. Man, what a weight has been lifted since we found that out. Not that we doubted he would pass, but it was so nice to know for sure. Yesterday we found out his score on the multi-state portion of the exam, and he did really well! Again, nothing unexpected there. We celebrated on Friday with a nice Italian dinner out and some wine, then ice cream and a movie at home. Very nice!

And, as you also know, I took the Psych GRE a week and a half ago. I don't know what I got yet, but I'm not worried about it anymore because there's nothing I can do about it now! I feel pretty confident that I did just fine.

And today, I finally took the regular GRE! Halleluia, it's over! And...I did really well! Much better than I expected. It was so great to see all my hard work pay off. I'm so glad to be done. Now I can start enjoying my days again. No more full days of nothing but studying! I can catch up on emails, go shopping, clean the house, cook nice dinners for my husband, exercise, take the dog for a walk, read a book for pleasure, plan a vacation, watch movies, post aimlessly on this blog, get my hair cut, start working on the 2009 Achilles calendar, make our holiday plans, and so many more fun things that I have been putting off for the last six weeks. Aaaah, what a relief.

Of course, I can't completely relax yet. I still have to write my personal statement and actually get my grad school application in the mail. So, I'll work on getting that together for the rest of this week, and by Friday I should be totally done with the application process! What a relief. I'll be stress-free for Thanksgiving and my dad's visit! And after that it will be job search time...but I don't want to think about that just yet.

Really? A life with no more tests? I can't even imagine!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

New Year's in November

This afternoon Eric and I did some walking around and shopping. One of our stops was the Herald Square Macy's, which is gigantic. Seriously - 9 floors of shopping madness. I'm not sure how one would ever seriously shop there. It just seems like a tourist attraction. Of course, it's already all decked out for Christmas, which certainly gets you in the spirit...even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet!

The main floor of Macy's, all Christmas-ed up

We stopped in to Macy's for one very interesting reason: to see the new New Year's Eve Ball! Apparently the ball that has dropped in Times Square since 2000 is being retired this year, and they recently unveiled the new 2008 edition. It is currently on display in Macy's, so we had to stop by to see it! It was stunning. Not as big as I would have expected, although apparently it is double size of previous balls. It is a 12 foot geodesic sphere, weighing 11,875 lbs., covered in 2,668 Waterford crystals and powered by over 32,000 lights. If you want to read more about the new ball and the history of the balls past, click here.

Apparently this new ball can create over 16 million colors and billions of different patterns. We stayed and watched it for probably 10 minutes, and did see some pretty patterns, but I guess we didn't even see a fraction of what it can do!

The New Year's Eve Ball: A sample of the different colors and patterns we saw!

Eric and the Ball

Me and the Ball

This really was a pretty cool thing to see. Eric even touched it. So, this year when you're watching the New Year's Eve Times Square festivities on TV, you can tell all your friends that you know someone who touched that ball that's being dropped! HAPPY NEW YEAR (soon enough)!

Friday, November 14, 2008

PASS!

ERIC PASSED THE BAR!

Word had gotten out that bar exam results were going to be posted this morning at 9:00 a.m., so Eric went in to work a little late so he could stay home and check the website right at 9:00. I got up to sit with him for moral support (although having me there peering over his shoulder may actually have made him even more nervous). Shortly after 9:00, the website stopped loading, so we knew either they were in the process of posting the results, or they were already up and all 12,000 NY state bar exam-takers were currently trying to log in to see their scores. It took us 45 minutes to get all the pages to load but when we did, this is what was waiting for us:

"The New York State Board of Law Examiners congratulates you on passing the New York State Bar Examination!"

Congratulations, Eric! There was never a doubt in my mind that you would pass. You worked so hard and I knew it would pay off. You should be very proud of yourself. And even if you're not, I'm probably proud enough for both of us! I love you. Congratulations, Mr. Eric W., Esquire!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

At Last - Our Apartment!

It's been a long time coming, but I'm FINALLY posting pictures of our apartment! Forgive my tardiness, I just couldn't seem to get my life together to take pictures when the place was looking its best. So, without further ado, I present to you the humble W. abode! Please join me for a tour...

This is what you see when you first walk in the door. To the left is the coat closet, and then a hallway (where the bathroom and bedroom are). To the right is the dining area and kitchen, and straight ahead is the living room.

Here's the kitchen. Well, one side of it anyway. Pretty much your standard apartment kitchen. We do miss the pass-thru window our kitchen in our DC apartment had, I must say. But this kitchen has giant cabinets! They're so tall, we had to invest in a step stool or I'd never be able to reach the top two shelves.

This is our "extra large foyer" turned dining room, as seen from our living area. Also, our front door and jam-packed coat closet. The kitchen is to the left.

Another view looking back towards the dining room from the living room. Again, the kitchen is to the left of the dining area, and you can also see our "office."

Here's a closer view of the "office." This is where all the GRE studying magic happens (but not for much longer!). I put that desk together myself, you know...well, with minimal help. I'm pretty handy.

The right side of our living room. Isn't Achilles a great model? He makes it look so homey.

And the left side of the living room. Please excuse the fact that I did not think to turn off the TV, so now I have some random girl's face in my picture. Also, I'd like to draw your attention to the Gators shrine in the middle of the bookshelf. Go Gators!

One last general shot of the living room, because I need some opinions. We're thinking about getting a rug for the living room, to cover most of the floor in that area, and we're thinking maybe some sort of deep red, probably patternless. Thoughts? Suggestions?

This is the oh-so-lovely view out of our living room window. If you look past that really ugly building in front of us, you can see New Jersey. Fancy schmancy.

This is what you see if you look down out of our living room window. Check it out - we have a view of trees! Actually, that gray patio is our sundeck (out of the picture, there are lounge chairs, grills and patio tables), and the area with the yellow trees is a little courtyard with benches and chairs to sit in. So, that's nice.

Back inside. This is that hallway that I mentioned, that is to the left when you first walk in the door. That's the bathroom ahead on the left, and our bedroom is off to the right.

That bathroom I mentioned...huge mirrors, but minimal storage. "Minimal storage" seems to be pretty standard in New York.

The bedroom, with my lovely model assisting me once again.

Bedroom from another angle. Also, Achilles from another angle.

And, one last view of the bedroom. Achilles' little home is in the corner on the left. We're trying to figure out what to hang to fill that blank space above his crate and the TV/bookshelf. Anybody have any suggestions?

And that's our New York home! Please allow me to add that the couch you saw pictured above does pull out into a queen-sized bed, and we have another memory foam pad that can make that floor you saw pretty comfortable as well. So, we're well-equipped for visitors, and all are welcome!

Sunday, November 9, 2008

The Colors of Fall

Thanks to everyone for thinking of me yesterday during my test! I think it went pretty well, but it will be a little while before I find out. I felt like it went about as well as my practice tests had been going, which was all I was looking for. So, hopefully I won't be disappointed. I have the general GRE a week from Tuesday, and then I'll be done with my tests. The rest of my application materials are almost ready to go, also...I'm waiting on one more letter of recommendation, and need to put together my personal statement, but other than that all my letters and transcripts are set to go. So, I'm making progress!

After yesterday's test, I decided to take the rest of the weekend off from GRE stuff. I needed a break! Yesterday we didn't do much, because the weather was awful - pouring rain! Yuck. We did have lunch out near our apartment, then stayed in and watched the Gators (hooray for another win!). Then today we decided to just go out for a walk to enjoy the fall colors. Everything is so pretty! You got to see some of the pretty colors in the pictures from Heather's visit, but here's a few from today:

Lamppost!

Ice skating at Wollman Rink (this is where we saw David Blaine back in September)

On the bridge in Central Park

Beautiful Central Park scenery

Hanging out on some rocks with some leaves

Waterfall!

And last but not least, my favorite scenery of all :-)

Have a nice week, everyone!