19 September 2011

First Visit of The Year

This past weekend marked my first visit to Annapolis for the year. Usually I go up for Labor Day weekend, but since I thought I would be living up there that fell through. . but anyways, it was fabulous and full of a bunch of good food!!

Nic's new ability to have Friday nights off as well made it seem like a long weekend so we were both quite content (makes me super excited for an actual long weekend. . three nights of cuddling? oh heck yes!). But back to the recap. I let Nic take over the plans for the weekend once we got there because he seemed to have quite a few surprises up his sleeve. It was actually quite adorable. One of his friends new girlfriend flew into BWI five minutes later than I did on Friday which made a perfect timing situation for a double date. Nic took us all to The Abbey which is this fantastic burger place in Baltimore, Nic actually got a peanut butter burger which sounds atrocious but don't knock until you've tried it. I hate to admit it but it was really good.  I've realized I would never ever want to live in Baltimore (except this one street we drove by which was absolutely GORGEOUS) because as a whole it seems rather scary. .

Saturday was spent with my first experience of the PA Dutch Amish Market. It's also absolutely amazing. I thought Nic was crazy when he tells me the stories of how him and his roommates make bets on just eating two pancakes and an egg sandwich, but now it all makes complete and total sense. While the pancakes are huge, it's more the fact that they are SO filling. I had one pancake and bacon and couldn't even finish the last three bites of my pancake, or the bacon, but it was so incredible. Yum. Afterwords Nic surprised me by taking me to the jewelry store Zacharies where he had me help him pick out the stone for his class ring. It was so special that he wanted me there to help him pick out something that is going to be so meaningful to him for the rest of his life. We decided on a gorgeous diamond cluster antique style ring, with a spectacular sapphire. I'm obsessed. We also got to look at sparklies for me, and I fell in love with one thing in particular, but that's for later discussion. ;)

In case you ever get into this situation don't try opening a wine bottle without a wine bottle opener unless you're a de-corker wizard. . A word to the wise, just don't be lazy and go out into the cold air and get an opener. A car key won't work and your pizza will get cold while you're trying.

Sunday was also another surprise day. Over Valentine's weekend last year we found this restaurant called The Wild Orchid. It's a cute little restaurant out of the way that is decorated in, well, orchids and it's just so presh. On Sundays they have a brunch with complimentary mimosas, un-id-carding waitors, and delicious food. I had been wanting to go again but decided not to say anything and let Nic do his thing. Low and behold he surprised me by taking me there and I was able to have the Crab and Spinach souffle which is just to die for, I totally recommend it! And my mimosa. Yum!!


We then ran into his friend at Starbucks, had a little chat, and proceeded to the Maryland Zoo. I have a ridiculous love/hate relationships with zoos. I love looking at the animals and just going to them and then once I'm there I hate how cruel it is that these poor babies have to live in such tiny enclosures their whole life. . . Nevertheless we had a great trip. Here are my two favorite pictures:

Cutest little penguin that just sat there


I loved Nic taking charge and planning the weekend. While it sadly meant I didn't get to catch up with any of the girlfriends like I had planned :( I still have parents weekend in October and goodness knows I am going to need a sanity break during those three days. .

Now that I'm back home I want nothing more than to go back. I know I should be grateful that I even got to visit, but lets be honest, I would much rather be living there and I'd be much happier if I was. Oh well.

Ciao! Hope everyone else had a fabulous weekend! xoxox

11 September 2011

A Trip to Church

If you know me well you will know that I am both not religious and very religious at the same time. It's quite the juxtaposition. .


Unlike most people when large things go "wrong" in my life I turn away from God instead of toward him. I like to know why things are happening the way they are, while they are, not to wait for some divine intervention where I "see the light" and understand.  After an incident three summers ago I completely turned away from God and have maybe gone to church 10 times. . a fact that I'm not necessarily proud of (but one of those times was to a confession -- quite impressive if I don't say so myself). Striking out with Maryland so many times in such a short time frame made me think that maybe I should try and let the big man back in instead of being so stubborn, I mean it really can't hurt, right?  So after much "encouragement" from my parents and Nic, I decided to go back and what better day than today.

Quick background: My family is Catholic. I got detention the first day of first grade in my private Catholic school (I'm actually slightly proud of this haha), I don't have the best mouth in the world (I'm quite a sailor at times), I am really bad at remembering prayers except a select few (like 5) that I really like, I think my particular parish has too much money and it perturbs me, I want to be married in a Catholic "ceremony", and I really do love God and know he exists, I just kinda get pissed at him sometimes.

Now that those quick bits are out of the way, I'll get into why I'm writing a post about this. During mass I wasn't exactly happy. Everything Father Ennis was saying was great, but nothing was "popping out at me" and grabbing my attention and pulling me back to God like I thought it would. Yes, I really thought this was going to be THAT easy once I put a little effort into it. . But there were two immediate goods that occurred. One: Father Ennis is the cutest little old man who I absolute adore, and I always enjoyed listening to him speak, and still do. Two: The entire mass was based on the concept of faith and the forgiveness of sins (for those of you who aren't religious, I will take a pause here for you to chuckle and say "no effing way man", lol). It isn't until right now after getting into a tiff with Nic where I realized how pertinent mass was to me today. It's not that I don't necessarily have faith or trust because I do, it's more that I'm not the best when it comes to completely putting myself in someone else's hands and trusting that whatever they are going to do will be the right decision and I need to work on it, both with the people in my life and especially with God.

Look at me going on a religious inspired ramble. Whodathunkit.

The moral of this entire blog post is that I'm going to "let God back in" and put faith in people and realize that things happen. Sometimes they're great, or horrible, or okay, and sometimes they're just downright strange but I'm not always going to know why and that's just a-oh-kay.

I also am going to stop using so many quotations marks. Goodness.

Ciao. xoxo

As an side thought: I realize this may come off wrong to some people. . hmm, no se. If it does though, no mocking/mean/rudeness was intended. Just stating. xoxoxo.

09 September 2011

Procrastination?

I've been sitting here for two hours trying to convince myself to work on my micro study guide and not crawl into my bed under all of my comfy blankets and put on a good movie. . . I've failed on making any progress with the study guide but I have kept myself out of my bed, so it's still an absolute accomplishment in my opinion.

On a good procrastination note, I have discovered three things and because I know you are just sitting there procrastinating doing something important yourself, I'll list them and I'm giving full warning that they are quite random:

1. I really like pumpkin. This isn't exactly something I JUST discovered, it's more of something I just became completely aware and appreciative of. . I've also become aware that World of Beer (I don't really like beer so this bar never really made sense to me until now) has a pumpkin beer!! How delicious does that sound?!!? I've wanted it for a few days now and but have failed in my excursions to get someone to go with me. It has actually turned into what I am deeming a quest, and resulted in a trip downtown last night where I was promised said beer but instead got tricked to a show and them a dirty shirley or two. Now lets be honest here, dirty shirleys definitely aren't pumpkin beer they still result in happiness -- especially when the bartender is nice and packs them with cherries.

2. Bad situations can lead to really good days. I woke up late today - lies, I snoozed my alarm and refused to get out of bed until 9 this morning when I have to leave by 9:20 to get to work on time - so I was stressing and got to work to find all of our registers were going bonkers and something in the store was beeping every single minute. An obnoxious beeping, like the beeping that goes completely through you and makes you want to jump off a bridge beeping. Well, after an HOUR of dealing with it we finally figured it out (someone turned the wrong switch off last night. . . ) hallelujah! Of course once that was resolved the crazy spoiled Windermere, DP, Isleworth wives came in in their groups cackling like the little evil witches they truly are.  Quick fact: these women think that because their husbands make bank they can go around acting like their shit doesn't smell (french, whoops) while it's really stinkier than the rest of ours. . Anyways, I got yelled at quite a few times, had to suck up to a few ladies, got told my math was clearly off (it wasn't btw, you have no idea how much I wanted to say "see, you're wrong asshole" but didn't), froze all day because the ladies had the store at 70, and I was terribly hungover, which is my fault but that's not really an important aspect, all I know is I was horribly hungover. Yet despite that list of ridiculousness I had a fabulous day. Absolutely fabulous. I got to mock all of the uppity ladies with my lovely coworkers, heard them call each other bitches (mind you they're like sixty, wearing Lilly, and never ever say anything mean typically) and got sent on a "sanity run" to Panera for emergency chocolate chip cookies. .

3. This is more of a to-do for you. Go to pandora, make a station entitled "lisztomania, by Phoenix", prepare to be made pretty happy. Music can make anything better, and this music makes me want to dance around with a big ole grin on my face.  lol.

The end. I think I will now go actually get to cracking on this stupid guide. .

Ciao! xoxoxo

04 September 2011

Forty-Eight Hours

The last forty eight hours have been absolutely crazy. About a week ago I discovered Harford Community College in Bel Air, Md. It has a nursing program that starts in the summer and is the only school I've been able to find that has a time line that fits perfectly with the plan I have in my head. That being said, I applied to take two prerequisite classes at the school in order to get an extra point on my nursing application because I "attended Harfod for regular classes". This went swell. . I got into my Micro class. . and had to wait for the Dean of Sciences to give me permission to get into the A&P2 class. . . this permission FINALLY came on Thursday and I decided that I'm moving up. . .

My next issue to tackle was an apartment that would allow Eevah, and not have a full year lease in class I ended up getting into a nursing school back in Florida. Well, for the last forty eight hours I've played email and phone tag with about fifteen people, and none of them work. They're either not available, or a whole year lease, or they won't allow a dog. . . So low and behold I have the opportunity to go to Maryland be happy and live there, but the means (or would it be livelihood? now that's a question. . ) isn't there.

All in all, Florida really needs to just let me go already and Maryland needs to get it's shit together.

Ciao. xoxo.