Monthly Archives: May 2013

An Open Letter

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Hello loyal readership,

Again, I find myself excusing my blog absence lately. And, again, I find myself thanking you for your gracious patience despite the serious lack of posts around here. I do, actually, intend to get back to my regular schedule of blogging (for real this time) next week. Summers are so wonderfully fun and busy yet lazy and relaxing in all the best ways, are they not?

In addition to this lengthy, spread-out, three-week official move from Cincy to the Roc City and subsequent month-long unpacking and organizing spree, my awesome parents and Ted came to town for a visit over the past six days, so justifiably, my time was much better spent hanging out with these fabulous people, eating a lot of stellar food, and touring beautiful upstate NY rather than stuck inside with my face planted in my laptop. That, I do not apologize for. 

I’ll have a full recap of all the great places we explored coming your way soon, but for now…a sneak peak of our afternoon on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls this weekend – gorgeous! You can even glimpse a bit of a double rainbow (upper rainbow very faint, lower rainbow a little brighter) in the bottom left corner. More to come!! 

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Can you believe it’s almost JUNE!? Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! We sure did! Thanks mom & dad! :)

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Recipe for an Awesome Monday Night

1 part tap dance class

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1 part campfire, melted campfire cone goodness, beer, and girlfriends

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Monday night done right!

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Amen.

If you’ve never made yourself a campfire cone stuffed with chocolate, caramel, butterscotch, marshmallows, nuts, toffee, MnMs, coconut, etc. (and preferably topped with butter pecan or vanilla bean ice cream!) roasted over an open fire with a cold beer sitting right beside you…you should get on that immediately.

Also, I don’t say this nearly enough, but I feel SO LUCKY to have made such incredible friends in Rochester. These ladies really are the best. I had a lot of acquaintances and great, fun work friends (with whom I only occasionally got together with outside of work) in Cincinnati, but I also really struggled for nearly two years to find a solid group of friends in Cincinnati as a newlywed, in a new state, intent on spending time with her new husband and building her career, and working with people mostly younger (as in, still in college or recent college grads) than I was, who had vastly different agendas, priorities, and work ethics than I did. And, with the exception of my wonderful Allyson, I never really did make those true blue friends. And it left a void in my otherwise wonderful existence. It felt like something was missing. I definitely worried about how I’d make friends, knowing absolutely nobody, when I learned I’d be moving to Rochester. Finding good friends gets exponentially more challenging after college, I think. But almost instantly I was welcomed by these ladies. And within a few months I had a solid core group of friends – from work, from book club, from church, from random happenstance meetings – from all over. They are wonderful and strong and talented and passionate and adventurous and whip smart and funny and compassionate and a complete joy to be around. And I feel really grateful to have them. All of them.

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Ace in Action

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Ted captured a great little video clip of one of our awesome blue crays, Ace, flipping…literally!

Adult crayfish molt their shell a few times a year (that’s what the second, only slightly more translucent, blue thing is in the tank when you watch the video), and after they molt, their new shell isn’t quite hard yet (until they eat either old molted shell, which is full of calcium that hardens their new shell). While their new shell is still hardening, crays are extra vulnerable to attack from predators, so they’re on high alert for a few days (and total garbage disposals too…Ace will eat anything, and lots of it, after she molts). Even though Ace’s tank is her own and there’s not a predator in sight, just the reflection of Ted walking by her tank sent her into a panic. And this zipping-around-the-tank maneuver is what happens when crays panic…(or get a random burst of energy). I love her little claws wide open and ready to snip at the very end!

Check her out here!

Ace and Gigi are the greatest :)

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On Backyard Cookouts, Sparklers & Food Galore

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After our Saturday morning aerial arts workshop adventure (if you missed it, you can read – and see! – all the shenanigans in yesterday’s blog post), Shawnda and I dragged our aching jelly bodies to meet Becca at Aladdin’s Natural Eatery for a long, lazy, and tasty lunch of Greek and Mediterranean food. We shared a massive plate of pitas and hummus, and then we ordered two delicious gyro salad plates and a phenomenal pistachio and broccoli with goat cheese cream sauce and basil linguini dish. Everything was excellent. Lazy midday girl lunches are always so perfect! Life’s little luxuries, right? :)

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And only a few hours later we all met up again at Shawnda and Chris’ house for a sweet backyard cookout. Chris grilled up awesome hamburgers and hot dogs (first cookout of the year…mmm!), I brought blackberry beer, Becca baked homemade oatmeal chocolate chip sea salt cookies (which we devoured), and we sat outside enjoying the cool spring weather, some music, lots of conversation and laughter, and some sparklers (my very first sparklers ever….and I didn’t die….and it was fun!) with their adorable little boys before they headed off to bed. Once it got a little too chilly to stay outside, we wrapped ourselves in blankets and headed inside for some wine and girl talk. A totally lovely evening!

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{Meg channeling Carmen San Diego}

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{These cookies are dangerous…}

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{Sparklers! I’m a little terrified…}

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{But they’re so FUN!}

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{This = Awesome. I love summer!}

Thanks for inviting us over for such a wonderful evening (to follow such an epic day!)

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Epic Aerial Arts Adventures

{Don’t miss the best picture of the day at the very bottom!}

How can your day not start out awesome when you are instructed to “park in the lot by the red elephants and yellow smile benches”?

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Awesome, right?

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And this is where it all gets even more supremely awesome. A few months back Meg, Shawnda and I bought LivingSocial deals for an epic sounding hour-and-a-half Aerial Arts Sampler Class at Aerial Arts of Rochester, a studio that specializes in circus arts! As if there was any doubt…RIGHT UP MY ALLEY.

I have been anxiously awaiting this class for weeks! We were so stinking excited!

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After all the necessary precautions, waiver signings, safety briefings, proper stretching, and warnings of how sore we would be tomorrow and where (blah blah blah), we were divided into small groups to learn a few basic positions on the aerial silks, the hoops, and the yoga hammocks.

First up…

Aerial Silks

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The Hoop

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Yoga Hammocks

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Clearly, this was just about the most fun class I have ever taken.

The silks were my favorite with the hoop coming in a close second. Fortunately, they offer classes in both (and as soon as I can afford to, I’m signing up!) And I totally saw a trapeze in there as well that I can’t wait to get my hands on!

Running away to join the circus…kind of a dream come true. I have a rather fond affinity for anything circus related.

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They did, in fact, warn us that we would likely be quite sore in several spots.

They, apparently, weren’t kidding.

We were physically exhausted after class – I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired from a workout before! It took about 30 minutes for the motion sickness nauseous feeling to completely subside (turns out spinning upside down for extended lengths of time will really mess with your equilibrium until your body gets used to it). My arms felt like total jelly for the next two days, and I have some vicious victory bruises in all kinds of great locations! And I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

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Worth it?

Absolutely!

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And now it’s time for my absolute favorite photo of the day….

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{Graceful butterfly pose: Nailed it.}

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Checking In & Catching Up

First things first:  Thanks for bearing with me in my blog absence. I try not to escape from this old blog too much, but sometimes it’s just not feasible to keep up. And, truth be told, I probably won’t be around quite as often for the next two weeks either, but fear not: once we’re all settled, regularly scheduled blogging will resume!

The townhouse is coming along quite nicely. The kitchen is about 98% finished (I have few small fun projects up my sleeve for it yet!), the guest room/office is set up my parents visit this week, our bedroom and bathroom are done, and I have the rest of the place all unpacked, organized, and clean just in time for Ted to arrive with the next load of stuff for me start all over again with. Of course, we have zero furniture in the whole joint except for our bedroom set and a blow up air mattress for my parents, so the place looks super clean and organized…and bare…but, baby steps. We’re getting there and I’m loving it so far!

Onto the good stuff!

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On Thursday night I finally tried Dogtown for the first time with three friends after volunteering with the supper program. Rochester is famous for its white hots (and its love of garbage plates, which totally gross me out – click the link to read about them), so even though the menu was packed with nasty garbage plates and awesome dogs (including a Cincinnati style chili & cheese dog!) I tried a plain old Rochester white hot with sweet potato fries…and it was really good. Simple but really delicious. Consider me a convert to the Rochester white hot!

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After dinner, I met up with my YP book club group at The Little Theatre for a 9:30 showing of The Great Gatsby. And it was just as terrible as expected. It wasn’t boring or unbearable and, thankfully, it didn’t even feel like it was two-and-a-half hours long. It just wasn’t amazing. The gangta rap music they played throughout the movie (set in the 1920s, mind you) was kind of ridiculous, and the costumes (which I had hoped would be the movie’s saving grace), weren’t that spectacular after all. The acting wasn’t awful, but it was a little cheesy and nobody really stood out as stellar. And while Baz Luhrman’s very eclectic style and across-the-screen-writing and music and camera angles worked for Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge, it just didn’t work for Gatsby. I’m glad we saw it; we had fun seeing it together (and, of course, the Book Thieves are always fun to hang out with!), but we’re happy to move on to our next great read!

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Friday night Becca and I saw Venus in Fur in the theatre’s Nextstage, which was definitely interesting and thought provoking (and funny). And that was only the start to the weekend… :) Stay tuned!

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M.I.A

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This week you may notice a pronounced lack of blog posts.

Sorry! But don’t worry, you’re not alone.

(And here’s a pretty picture of a magical flower arrangement left over from Saturday’s opening night performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the theatre to make up for it. Since it’s pretty much stunningly gorgeous, you can just pretend they’re from me to you…don’t waste the pretty.)

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In addition to the lack of blogging, my body will be noticing a lack of sleep (due to business or the fact that the sun is rising and shining by 5:30 in the morning is anybody’s guess), my body will also be noticing a lack of running this week, and my fridge and pantry have noticed a lack of food.

Moving will do that to you…but it means we’re in/continually working on being in! And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

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This glorious ‘welcome home’ basket greeted us upon our first arrival into our new home on Friday (most glorious is the ‘your first meal in your new home is on us’ free pizza coupon…and the hot cocoa which one would think would be a weird gift and entirely unnecessary in mid-May, but was actually a perfect treat because Mother Nature can’t get with the program and it snow flurried on Sunday…and yes, I blurred out any reference to our new pad’s name and address). We were also greeted by a host of other welcome surprises including fresh new carpeting throughout, new kitchen flooring, new doors throughout, fresh paint, a new wooden cutting board countertop in the kitchen, and a gorgeous brand new stove and oven. YES. I am also pleased as punch about the honest-to-God-real-live pantry, and oodles of cabinets, countertops, and storage space I have in this lovely kitchen. I shall never take it foregranted! 

So now begins the task of unloading, unpacking, organizing (rinse and repeat two more times) and living room furniture shopping, which will overtake my running, grocery shopping, and blogging time for the next week or so. I’ll try to drop by once or twice to update you on any excitement. Otherwise, thanks for all the love and good vibes and I’ll be back soon! Have a great week!

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“Possessed by intense life”

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Last night our chill young professionals book club met for some excellent company, delectable nosh and cocktails, and – of course – riveting and thoughtful discussion of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald…much like every other book club in America likely did since the highly-anticipated new Baz Luhrman flick is due to hit theatres nation-wide today. (I said we were chill – and generally smart, awesome, and funny too – not highly original.) Also, this book is a classic. A classic most of us have not read since it was force-fed to us in high school, so it was definitely time to give it another, more worldly and mature, read.

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{Photo credit to book-clubber Ali!}

On our menu: Open-faced cucumber sandwiches, a veggie tray, crab and avocado salad in petite fillo cups, flaky spinach phyllo pastries, freshly baked warm pumpkin muffins with butter, olives, strawberries, brownies, Oreos, deviled eggs (with the book’s references to East Egg & West Egg, it was impossible not to jump at the opportunity to whip up some of these puppies!)…and wine, beer, champagne and mint juleps!

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Old sports in attendance: We welcomed a handful of awesome new members last night for a grand total of 13 (five or six of whom were male, making for a fairly even gender mix…take that book club stereotype!) What a great group and fun meeting! We’ve all agreed to meet again next Thursday night at The Little Theatre for an evening showing of the new Great Gatsby movie. Despite the film’s less than stellar reviews, I’m looking forward to hanging out with the group again and ogling some seriously glamorous eye candy!

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My overall thoughts: Oh, to be poor and happy! Sure beats rich, empty, and careless any day. (We did, in fact, engage in a host of much deeper thoughts and conversations over the course of our two-hour meeting…but that pretty much sums it up for me!)

What we’re reading next: A Pig in Paris

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Also, to recap, my theatre education department partner-in-crime and I accompanied our ten teenage Stage Door Design Project students to see our first preview performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Wednesday night. The world in our version of this masterpiece is simply stunning – the costumes, the lighting, the gorgeous music from our composer – utterly breathtaking and magical. A feast for the senses! And it’s good for a few laughs, too. You should probably get yourself to Geva Theatre Center to see it ASAP!

And….and….and….TODAY IS MOVING DAY 1!!!!!!!!!

Ted arrives early this afternoon with the first load of our stuff and we start moving in this weekend. Ted will make three trips from Cincinnati in all, and he won’t officially be here for good with the last of our stuff until early June, but it’s finally, actually happening y’all! Send some good vibes our way, please! :)

Have a great weekend!

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Linkjoyment

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For your brain power/creative energy pleasure…

SWEET Shadow Dance Group, a must watch!

This short little New Yorker article is hilarious because it’s so true.

Sure there are some flaws, but at least someone is TRYING to do something to help…I love it!

This is asinine. An embarrassment to humanity.

This article is incredibly powerful and eye-opening. A true must read.

I just don’t even know what to think of this!

These photographs are phenomenal!

Right on! Now this is what I’m all about!

Crazy cool!

Seriously, the BEST if you’re in need of a good laugh!

This is SO interesting. Fascinating!

So is this…

Enjoy!

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No Apologies for Flower Power

So, I know some of you are like, “If I see another flower picture on this blog, I quit.” Totally valid. For such an unflowery person, I sure have been overloading my blog with a lot of flowery pictures lately. But with a gorgeous upstate NY spring in full bloom – blooms that stick around for only about a week and a half, might I add – after six long blustery long months of winter…sorry, I’m not sorry about all the spring-joyment flower pictures. That being said: more flowers!

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