Trade-In Tuesday (Almost!!)

Woo hoo! It is Memorial Day, we're hanging here on the couch watching the Flying V....ok, get your minds out of the gutter people, the classic "Mighty Ducks" is on and who doesn't love watching Pacy...I mean Charlie turning Gordon into a father figure, Banks finally being accepted by the team and Fulton making the game winning shot. QUACK!

Ok, enough about that. This past weekend, Brandon and I took our first major husband-wife plunge and BOUGHT A NEW CAR! Here is a peek at what our new little whip looks like. I will be sure to get "new car" pictures once we pick it up tomorrow night (now the title is making sense??).

We went with the Jeep Patriot Sport, which is their lowest model but still offers the 4WD we wanted, it has the "power group" upgrade which means we have power windows and locks instead of manual (funny to think cars are even still made with crank windows) and of course some other nice features like Sirius XM Radio for a year, Bluetooth activation and a nice big trunk. One thing I am most looking forward to is letting our dogs ride in the trunk and not trash the rest of the car.

I am most looking forward to going down to one car. We've toyed with the idea for quite some time now of getting rid of both cars and getting one new one, especially since I work in the city five days a week and use a car roughly one weekend day. I was always the one to bring it up and generally the one to also back out of it, but we finally bit the bullet. I hated the idea of having two car payments since my car was not paid off and this way is going to save us not only that, but the insurance on the other car and many other things. I think we're going to be able to work it out quite fine and I am looking forward to saving that extra money!

So, that was our big weekend. Nothing else too crazy this weekend. We had our weigh-ins and B lost a whopping 9.6 lbs this week. Nuts! (I almost hashtagged that...to much Tweeting lately?). We're on to week two and hope we can stay on the wagon like we have been. It is SO much easier to do Weight Watchers together than when I was just doing it myself. Not as easy to cheat when we're both making meals that are good for us!

Check back later this week for some more complete new car pics. I also start my online summer classes this week so I'm about to start getting wicked busy, but I am totally ready to jump right into it!

Ta-ta for now!

xo

L

Oh me, oh my.

Today was....annoying. I decided to sleep in a little later than usual and planned to ride a later train in and just ride the subway to work, but then after I got up and took the dogs out, I realized it was a good temperature out and wanted to walk. So after much hustling, moving my car and a little (lot) of sweating, I actually made it on the 7:30a train when I was shooting for the 7:47a train.

I got into the city  like normal and began my walk to work. Approximately 3 blocks in, I sincerely regretting my decision. It was not just a nice temperature out, it was humid. as. hell. Lets just say that I had to put my hair up about 5.5 blocks in and after my 1.5 mile walk to work I had to check for pit stains. If this humidity keeps up the odds are good I won't be wearing my hair down one single day this summer to work.

Anyways, my mid-day went well and I was looking forward to my soccer game this evening...until about 4:00 when it was the heaviest downpour I've ever seen (ok, not ever, but it was a lot of rain). Then the thunder and lightening began. I thought for sure the game would be called. Then the rain stopped. Then it started again. And stopped again. So, I stayed after work as planned for a solid 2ish hours, got ready for soccer and hopped on the subway for a lovely 45 minute ride up to Harlem for my 8:00 game. I got off the subway, walked halfway to the field and just before arriving ran into people from the 7:00 game...leaving the field. The games had been cancelled. I checked my phone only to find out that they waited until 7:00 when the first games started to call the games off. Our team found out around 7:15, myself on the other hand, with no service on the subway, found at 7:45. So that was cute.

Well, I got home around 9:00, no big deal, I was over it at that point. Until...I saw Lola and Muppet playing with my mouth guard. Yes, you read that, the dog ate my retainer. It was on my nightstand, I will guarantee you that Lola was the one to initiate this little playtime. I also guarantee you that when dogs find a "new toy" they are far more interested in it than any toy they've owned for the last few months. So, lets just say that the mouthguard wasn't even salvageable (yuck!) and there were in fact pieces of it missing. And mind you, this was no Sports Authority mouthguard. This was dentist-molded-expensive mouthguard. So, you can imagine the mood I was in.

However, now that I've ranted about how "annoying" this day was, I want to shine light on why none of these things truly matter at all. Not even a bit. A few months ago, I heard a song called "Clouds" by a young man named Zach Sobiech. He was 17 years old at the time he wrote it and dying from Osteosarcoma. When he knew he only had so much time left on earth, he made a choice to just live. He  is an amazing inspiration to millions who have heard his story and he makes you realize that really, your bad days just aren't so bad. He inspires you to look at the good things that happened in your day and that the bad things, like frizzy hair, a cancelled soccer game or a dog chewed mouth guard are really, not all that bad.

So, I know that you all have 22 minutes of your life that you will sit goofing around on the computer. Next time you have that 22 minutes, please please please, watch this video and I dare you not to be inspired.

Oklahoma...

Why Weight?

So, I've done Weight Watchers on and off for the last 3ish years or so. It is honestly the only program that I've ever really found to actually work for me that I can still also enjoy life while I'm doing it. It really teaches you a way to eat and gives you a whole new perspective when you're making choices. Last week, I got an email from them that offered 6 months of Weight Watchers for 50% of the cost. This was a deal I couldn't pass up and one that I was hoping I could make a "family" event...

Well, I did it. The husband and I joined WW last Thursday and today we'll go for our first weigh in. I am looking forward to doing this together because as someone who has done it with others in the past, this makes things 10x easier. You influence each other to make better decisions when you're out, what you're doing, etc, and we could both use that. However, in order to prepare for today's weigh in, we basically went on a binge this weekend....

I wanted to make sure that my husband would commit to it with me and so I told him that this weekend, he should get all his last fix's in before we weigh in. In the future, we can still indulge in some of these things, but WW makes you not want to do that and really does help you make better and more informed decisions about what you're eating.

So I am happy to say that this weekend, between my husband and myself, we had: Press 195 -- amazing sandwiches. It sort of reminds me of Lost Dog Cafe down in Arlington which is a-mazing sandwich place with almost anything you can imagine. We also enjoyed a crab cake sandwich and lobster roll from Louie's Oyster Bar and Grille while my mom was visiting me. And B's final meal, what he declared he would absolutely eat this weekend after he told me he would in fact sign up with me...Five Guys. Yep, I'm pretty sure his car still smells like fries this morning. I had myself some black noodles from a Thai food place in town because I'm not a big burger girl..

This afternoon, we will go weigh in and begin this little journey to getting our bikini bodies back...ha! Most importantly though, I am looking forward to having a support system and someone who is working towards a similar goal with me. I think that it will help us both make better decisions, lose some weight and maybe even save some money!!

Not much else to report. We saw The Great Gatsby in 3D last night. It was a good movie, some great details and I really enjoyed that they used modern music to bring it to relate to today's crowd. I would suggest it to others!

Signing off for now! Go Arsenal!!
L

Back in the High Life Again

Some of you who know me may know that I have an odd obsession with Steve Winwood songs. Well, actually, I think its only 2 of them that I really know, but hey, who's counting? In all honesty though, long ago while living at 39 Cameron Avenue, my sister and I owned a boombox, which in the early '90s, was lucky enough to also have a record player on top. This, my friends, is when I was introduced to Steve Winwood with my very own album. Yup, you read that right. I owned a Steve Winwood album. I owned that of course, along with a Tracy Chapman album, Steve Miller Band and The Fraggle Rock theme song. Eclectic taste, huh?

Anyways, all of that above was nearly irrelevant but the song was in my head and I am BACK in New York after four long weekends of not being here. It begins to take a toll on you when you basically live out of suit cases for weeks/weekends. I am glad to be back but must recap on the wonderful vacation to the South with the husband.

We started our adventures in Charleston, SC. We'd been wanting to go there for quite some time, so the wedding we were invited to in Pawley's Island gave us the perfect opportunity for a little getaway. So, here we go, vay-cay through a series of pictures.

We started our trip out at Magnolia Plantation and Gardens. Beautiful, lots to see and do. We just wandered the gardens but there are also swamp tours, boat rides and probably much, much more but we were trying to just get our feet wet here, so we stuck to just looking at flowers and water and none of the other interactive experiences.

I asked Brandon to go over on the bridge so I could attempt to get artsy and take a photo from afar. He apparently also took this as a cue to do his ever popular "thinker pose." I think he's a natural, but then again he's my favorite.

 Here we are on the bridge together, taking a nice lovely self portrait. Some nice guy came and took one of us as well, but my arm fat in the photo overwhelms me too much to post it anywhere, so, deal with it. This is it.

I took this picture myself and I happen to think it was the best picture taken the entire trip. I like the colors, the focus, all that jazz. It almost makes me feel like I've learned how to use my fancy camera. Almost.

This little guy was just hanging out at Magnolia Plantation. As some of you may know, though it was never blogged here, I was slightly obsessed with the peacocks in the Royal Palace Gardens in Madrid while on our honeymoon. I was actually so obsessed that I followed them around for a solid 45 minutes until I'm pretty sure one of them just wanted to get rid of me and spread his feathers. I'm also pretty sure that this was would have been much prettier if he's spread his feathers, but I didn't have 45 minutes to spend chasing him around because I was starvin' Marvin at this point and it was time to feed my food baby.

 

This is the Citadel. It is a really amazing and pristine campus. There were several tributes on the campus to fallen soldiers, as well as planes, tanks, and various other war-related pieces.

Then we ate at Hominy Grill. Oh. My. Yum. They had awesome grits, which I ate with virtually every meal I had. I had an awesome biscuit and some eggs. Brandon got the Shrimp and Grits because he'd read about them and all the reviews were spot on. Next time, we'll be sure to lunch here because I hear they have a killer Fried Green Tomato Sandwich and I *loveee* fried green tomatoes.

Other meals we enjoyed while in Charleston and would highly recommend...

1. Magnolia's - This restaurant serves delicious and traditional southern food. The meal was a heavy one, but we balanced it out on night 2 with a lighter meal, so it was all good. This was my birthday dinner from my in-laws, so we had a good time here. We started with Fried Green Tomatoes. These were over grits naturally and had some country ham in them. #amazing...I had the Shellfish over Grits for dinner, because I was obviously trying to float away in a sea of grits. Again, amazing flavors. Brandon had the special, Cashew Crusted Wahoo over a tomato and corn something or other. We finished up with a Blueberry Crisp with lemon ice cream and this resulted in me having to sprinkle pepper on it to make myself stop eating. Ultimately, I'm not really sure you will go wrong with anything you order here, its all a matter of personal preference.
2. Husk - Night 2. Perfect portions. Perfect flavor. Perfect atmosphere. Perfect meal. After devouring dinner on night one, we both declared that we'd like to go a little bit lighter on night 2. We'd made a reservation at Husk on a whim because we'd been recommended it by several people. For those of you that don't know, its apparently really difficult to get a reservation at, but probably because it was just the 2 of us, we managed to find something for 6:15. We started with a ham plate which was #amazeballs and had about 5 different types, some seeded mustard and pickles. Sounds like a weird combo, but oh so good. Dinner consisted of pheasant on my part and two different kinds of pork for B's dish. It was light, flavorful and was spot on for what we wanted. We topped it off with a delicious Strawberry Rhubarb pie dish. 

Bottom line, if you can get reservations at these places, then just do it. Told them I sent you. Or maybe not.

Just a taste of some beautiful Charleston houses that we would very easily and happily move into if ever given the opportunity.

We capped off the week with a little Brandon & Liz Lemon photoshoot, which I do think went swimmingly...wouldn't you agree?

And, here is my boo and I at the wedding. It took place at a beautiful golf course, wonderful weather. The bride and groom looked amazing and the evening was great. We always have an awesome time with Brandon's college buddies and this lived up to our expectations. We're looking forward to doing it again in August for Greg & Meghan's wedding!

Well, there you have it. We're back in the high life again...I guess that could mean we're rejuvenated after our vacation. Take it as you will, but basically, we're back in NY.

Alright, its late, I had a busy night and its time for me to go lay down and get some shut eye!

xo!

L

South-of-the-Border

Well, just thought I'd shoot a quick goodbye to my non-existent readers before my main squeeze and I head on down south to Dixie Land...well, not quite, but we are going South of the Border to South Carolina.

We will be in Charleston from tomorrow to the wee early hours of Friday morning when we head to Pawley's Island for Brandon to golf and me to do...something? I'm thinking of going for a run and then hopefully we can check in early! Either way, I'll find something to do.

Anywho, adios for the next few days, and I wouldn't expect an update until at least Monday at the earliest...but at this point, even that's debatable.

Until next week!
xo!
L

Cinco de Sunday

I'm sitting here waiting for the latest Mad Men to start and thought I'd recap the weekend! On Friday after work I trekked back down to the V-A for Lauren's Last Fling Before the Ring! We had a wine tour planned with some amazing girls. I honestly have the best time hanging out with these ladies and love to get down to VA any chance that I get. Here are some lovely photos from the weekend, which was beautiful!

Lauren, the bride, with Molly and myself on the party bus! Dontcha just love our props?

These ladies go way back and are of course, Team Bride! Here is Beth, Corinn & Erin.

Our beautiful Kelley was shining through and with us all day long. Love these girls to pieces. And don't our Derby hats look fabulous? From left to right: Jenny, myself, Melanie, Molly, Elizabeth, the Bride, Lauren, Kari, Corinn & Nicole.

Lovely Bovi-DeMatteo ladies: Lauren, Corinn, Tina, Vicky & Amanda.

Some more beauties: Lauren, Melanie, Katie & Elizabeth.

Bovi sisters or Charlie's Angels? You decide! Lauren, Amanda & Corinn

The whole group in front of Cana Vineyard. Gorgeous day, gorgeous ladies, gorgeous vineyard!

And of course, a silly one where I thought it'd be a great idea to pick up the bride! 

I love this candid!

And the day was complete with  Corinn posing by her Lamborghini out front...

I also got to visit my lovely college roommate, Jane, this morning at her new place (which she's had almost a year now!). We had a great little breakfast catching up and I hope to see more of her in the future! We're already hoping to plan a little Marymount reunion this summer if we can swing it with everyone else!

On Tuesday, we are off to Charleston until Friday, when we head down to Pawley's Island for the weekend for a wedding. I am looking forward to a vacation, and more importantly, to a fun time with my husband, who I haven't seen much over these last few weeks of traveling!

Toodles!

L

13.1 x 5

Well, I'm back from California. I'm also back from DC. I'm also headed back to DC this weekend. Then I'm headed to Charleston & Pawley's Island next Wednesday through Sunday. Phew!

So, I got back from California last Thursday evening and after asking my boss for Friday off three (3) ( Yes, t-h-r-e-e) times, he finally agreed. So, home I came, unpacked, repacked, packed up laundry and the car and on Friday morning headed out to Jersey, met my mom, packed up her car and headed down to DC. And why, might you ask, did I do all this traveling? Well, my friends, because I'm also crazy enough to sign up for yet another half marathon. Yes, 13. 1 miles. My 5th one. So, here is the recap...

I ran the Nike Women's Half Marathon in DC and I have to say, Nike puts on a good race. Myself and three friends entered Nike's lottery back in December as a group, all or nothing, to get into this race. What you might not know is that this race (which has been held in San Francisco as a full and half marathon for a number of years) is nearly twice as much as your normal half marathon, mostly because at the end of the race you're rewarded with an above average race medal in the form of a Tiffany & Co. necklace. Yes, I've finally earned a medal that I will wear for more than 30 minutes after my race!

These two photos are from the race wall at the Nike Georgetown store. The wall read, "We Run DC," and was made up of all of the runners names. The picture on the right is a stitch of our group that ran!

And that of course, is me with my name. I have to say, I am sort of impressed that I look so "alive" given what the 18 hours of travel prior to this consisted of.

On the left, our shoes (clockwise from left: Molly, Corinn, Jenny, me. I know that was some important info). On the right, one of our amazing supporters, Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Tanya were up bright and early to support us on the course. I honestly have the best group of girlfriends around. 

All of us just past mile 2. I started in the corral just ahead of the other girls and wore my favorite and most fitting shirt for a 1/2 marathon -- Where the ___ is the finish line? You feel free to fill in the blank.

And, my stitch of the photo above, along with our pretty finisher shirt up top and of course, our Tiffany's necklace. The other side has the race name, date and location on it.

All us finishers at brunch. And of course, one of our cutest fans, Sydney, with the sign she made for us. Like I said, I have some amazing family & friends -- a total of 16 of us went to brunch. They were up early, cheering on our crazy asses, and celebrating our finish over some food and cocktails. What better way to spend a post race morning.

And, my beautiful flowers that mi madre and my sister got me for finishing my race. They are still alive and well and the three of us had a wonderful weekend!

So, that is my photo recap of my weekend 1/2 marathon. I am signed up for the Brooklyn one on the 18th of May, but we'll see if that happens. I had some knee and hip pain during this past one, so I have to see how I feel over the next week or so and then decide where to go from there.

Alright, its late and its my bedtime!

Toodles!

L