clever title here

It seems like everywhere I turn these days, people are talking about how much they love fall, and sharing pictures of colorful leaves and cozy sweaters and steaming coffee mugs with the Anne of Green Gables quote, "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers."

Well Anne, I have to disagree.  Admittedly, the weather this week hasn't been too bad, but after three straight days of cold rain, last Friday I looked at the attorney I share an office with and said, "Well, it's official.  I'm going to be in a bad mood until May."

On my way home from work I remembered that I didn't have a dinner plan, so I crossed my fingers that there was a frozen pizza in the freezer, or at least a few stray hot dogs in the back of the fridge.

When I got home, I immediately changed into my warmest clothes, and just as I was grumpily wrapping myself in a quilt, Matt walked in the door with two bags from the grocery store and told me not to come into the kitchen until dinner was finished.

Don't have to tell me twice.

And a little while later he served salmon with a honey dijon reduction, a salad, and fresh asparagus.  And then for dessert, homemade crab dip and Fritos.

Now that is my kind of dessert. I'm not a cake person, not even on my birthday.  Stick a candle in a bowl of Doritos and I'm a happy girl.

We did some (rainy) house hunting this weekend.  We still haven't picked one, but there are some prospects and I've been thinking about paint colors for weeks.  In fact, in a moment of unbridled home improvement enthusiasm tonight, I declared myself Captain of the Paint Patrol.

Listen.  No one was more shocked than I was when those words came out of my mouth.  I painted my bedroom a lovely shade of sea foam green when I was in ninth grade, but since then the only thing I've painted is my nails.

On a semi-weekly basis.

It's like I've been training for 13 years to paint a house.

On Monday I woke up to not only some sun, but also a notification from Facebook that Michelle and I had been Facebook friends for nine years.  

Nine years and just as humble as ever.  

My very first memory of Michelle is from freshman year of college.  I was in her dorm room and she was raving about this new calendar she got that was keeping her so organized and on track.  I was so inspired by her organizational breakthrough that I asked if I could see it.  She pulled it off the wall to show me, and there was only one thing written on that calendar, a standing appointment every Monday from 8-10.  It said, "The Bachelor."

Facebook put together a little collage of our friendship, and the pictures on my page were of both of us.  At my wedding.  Down the shore.  Riding posing on a bicycle built for two we found in the shed at Matt's family's beach house.

And then Michelle sent the pictures from her collage.  And aside from two pictures of our apartment, they are all pictures of me.  

Me at my wedding.  

Me holding Michelle's niece.  

Me putting the star on the Christmas tree.

It's like Michelle is my personal paparazzi.

I can only hope she's available when we buy a house to come and photograph me in my role as Captain of the Paint Patrol.  

I'll try to schedule the painting sessions around the Bachelor.  

call him special agent matt

Well, the rest of the Pope weekend was uneventful for those of us in the Philadelphia suburbs.  Saturday was the perfect fall day, so I went for a long walk, got a fancy coffee, wandered the thrift store, went to Trader Joe's and Target, and ended at Burlington Coat Factory in search of a new pair of jeans.

I've been hearing that boot cut jeans are back in style, which is something I've been waiting for since about 2002.  However, there have been a lot of styles I've totally bought into and then later regretted.  I'm looking at you bubble shirts and parachute pants.  So I decided to text my sister just to make sure boot cut jeans really and truly are popular again, because if there's one thing Emily knows how to do it's give an honest opinion.

So I sent her a text that said, "When I say boot cut jeans, you think ____."

Do you know what she said?

Boots.

Thanks Em.

In the end she assured me they were in style again, so I bought a pair and I can't remember the last time I was so happy with a purchase.

Speaking of purchasing things, I wore my new jeans the next day as we went house hunting.  Matt and I have looked at houses with our realtor a few times now, and each time has been significantly better than the first when I cried before we even left our apartment because WHAT IF WE PICK THE WRONG HOUSE AND RUIN OUR LIVES AND OUR FUTURE AND THE FUTURES OF THE NEXT GENERATIONS?

And Matt said, "Laur, take a deep breath, we're not buying a house today."

He was right, and I haven't cried since.  I just bring my little list of very important priorities along (window over the kitchen sink, good view of the sunset, and a nice patio or deck) and throw out as many HGTV terms as I can.

We ultimately didn't end up finding a house this weekend.  Matt and I both worked from home on Monday, and I tried to look at some more online listings that morning, but my internet was acting funny.  And then I tried to print something for work and discovered my printer wasn't working either,

I was so happy my very own IT guy was sitting on the couch and could employ a method other than my tried and true strategy of unplugging the offending device three times and saying a Hail Mary.

"My printer isn't working," I told Matt, "Could you take a look at it?"

"Sure," Matt said, "Although it may just have something to do with our wireless profile.  I had to update some information."

Well yes, that would explain it.  Evidently the information that had to be updated was the name.  And it didn't occur to me that I should connect to the FBI surveillance van internet.

Our future neighbors are going to think we are nuts.

At least I'll look cute in my new jeans.

I can only hope they will permanently change the city's name

Well, hello.  I'm coming to you live from the Pope's home away from Rome.

I wish I could take credit for the catchy "home away from Rome" slogan but I have to give the credit to local government who has put it on their website and every billboard in the area.

However, I do have tons of other papal puns and no audience for them because I'm the only member of my family who stayed in the Pope's home away from Rome this weekend.  Work was closed for my parents and Matt on Friday, so they all fled to the Jersey shore to escape the projected chaos in Philadelphia, and I'm still here holding down the fort and watching my parents' dog and bird.

Just when you thought my life couldn't get more glamorous.

In the end, the projected chaos didn't come to pass.  I had a meeting scheduled for late Friday afternoon about 25 miles from here, and I considered just calling in because I was anticipating the highways to be a mess.

I was so wrong.  There was no one driving.  It was a (holy) ghost town.

Growing up, I went to Catholic elementary school.  We didn't have a cafeteria, so we ate at our desks, and moms would volunteer to watch us in our rooms during lunch.  When I was in second grade, we had a nun as our lunch monitor once a week.  Her name was Sister Madeline, and I have no idea how old she actually was, but to my seven year old self she seemed like she was at least a hundred and five.

She was a teeny tiny old lady with round glasses and white curly hair peeking out of her habit.

And she was strict.

Sister Madeline used to grade our journals while we ate, and I will never forget the time she called me over to her desk in the middle of lunch.  I was a big time rule follower in second grade, so I know I wasn't breaking any of Sister Madeline's major lunch-related rules like throwing out the crusts of my sandwich or eating my dessert first.

As my nerves and I approached her desk, I saw it.

My journal.  And a red pen.

"Laura," she said, "this sentence that you wrote says, 'Time to come in for dinner,' my mom yelled.'  Your mother doesn't yell.  She calls."

Noted.

Sister Madeline was also big on manners, and might be part of the reason my New Year's resolution in my journal that year was to put my napkin on my lap.

I can remember her telling us that you should always use your best manners and keep things neat and tidy just in case the Pope comes to town.

"Don't chew with your mouth open, what if the Pope drops by?"  

"Throw away all your trash and make sure to wipe your desk off, what if the Pope comes to town?"

I don't know if Sister Madeline is still alive, because according to my calculations she would be about 132 years old by now, but I thought of her Friday as I drove to my meeting down a highway I've driven hundreds of times.  On Friday, for the first time ever, there was a crew of about 50 PennDOT workers picking up trash in the median.

"Wow" I thought, "Is the Pope coming to town or something?"

And I laughed and laughed because yes he is and those highway workers must have had Sister Madeline as their teacher too.

I'll just be over here with my napkin on my lap all weekend.

You never know when the Pope is going to drop in.

take me back

I know every is all excited about today being the first day of fall, but I'll be honest and share an unpopular opinion here that I do not love fall.  I think it's because every day is one day closer to winter, so I spend the season being filled with increasing dread.  I'm considering moving full time to the Excellence resort in Punta Cana until May, contingent upon the fact that I win the lottery.  Cross your fingers for me.

i wish i had an atlas on hand

Well, I sat down to write this post on Thursday night but quickly became distracted by all things presidential debate.  And by that I mean talking back to the television, reading twitter, and texting Emily.

She's such a political junkie.

I won't tell you which side of the political spectrum I land on.  But let's just say that when Matt and I were packing for vacation two weeks ago I mentioned we needed to put something on our gray suitcase to set it apart from all of the other gray suitcases.  I was envisioning something along the lines of a cute bandanna tied to the handle or some colorful ribbons on the zippers.

Five minutes later Matt proudly said, "Mission accomplished."  I walked into the bedroom to see the suitcase with a giant NRA sticker front and center.

Life is full of surprises.

We were going to the Dominican Republic, specifically Punta Cana, for our vacation.  We booked the trip back in February and we looked online every few months since then to see how much a first class upgrade would cost.  Unfortunately it always cost way too many dollars, but as we were waiting at the gate an hour before takeoff, Matt said, "Just for fun, I'm going to ask the agent how much an upgrade would cost."  It turns out it's much cheaper if you wait until the last minute, so we upgraded to first class.

I pulled out the camera so I would be ready to document the whole fancy experience and that's when I made the unfortunate but well-timed realization that I'd only packed one part of the two part camera charger.

And then Matt traversed the airport to find an electronics stand where he found a universal charger that cost ten bucks on Amazon but at the airport cost "an arm an a leg."

Vacation is so relaxing.

But the money we spent to upgrade our tickets PLUS the money for the camera charger still didn't equal what a first class ticket cost three months ago, so in my mind, we technically saved money.

I'm all about a bargain.

But please enjoy the following photos of us in first class.  They were definitely not free.

I hate the taking off portion of an airplane ride so I was very on edge as we taxied down the runway.  Matt took the window seat and kept trying to make me feel better by telling me he took an aerospace class in college and some technical mumbo jumbo about airspeed above the wing and below the wing, but sitting in a metal tube with hundreds of other people launching into the atmosphere isn't my idea of a good time.  I closed my eyes and kept telling myself that flying in an airplane was safer than driving down 476 south at rush hour, which I do every day.

Once we got to cruising altitude I had a blast.

And a Bloody Mary.

Or two.

Our vacation was pretty much the following things on repeat:

Pool
Beach
Pina Coladas
Nachos
Zip Lining
Horseback riding
Reading
Swimming

And after a glorious eight days in Punta Cana, we landed back home in Philadelphia last Saturday night.

We got to baggage claim before our suitcases did and we weren't sure which direction the belt would rotate, so Matt went to one side and I went to the other so we would be ready for anything.  I got to my position and the woman next to me leaned over and whispered, "Excuse me, but do you know what state Philadelphia is in?"

Listen.  I actually looked around for a few seconds to see if I was on some sort of hidden camera prank show.  I didn't see any camera crews so I said, "Yes, I do.  It's in Pennsylvania."

"Oh thank you!" she said, "For the life of me, I just could not remember!"

She was from California.

When the man one the other side of me heard she was from California he said, "Wow, that's a long way from the Dominican Republic."  And she said, "Oh yes, it sure is.  But we were in Punta Cana."

I've never been more anxious to see an NRA emblazoned suitcase.

There's no place like home.

Or Philadelphia.

with age comes wisdom. and i have lots.

Well, hello.  I'm coming to you live from vocal rest.

Of course, the vocal rest is completely self-imposed and not formally diagnosed by a medical professional, but on my way to work this morning I experienced sudden, severe pain in the vocal cord region during an overenthusiastic rendition of Uptown Girl.

I just can't hit those notes like Billy can.

Anyway, I've officially been 27 years old for one week now, so I thought I'd write a post about 27 things I've learned since I turned 27.

And then I realized that's a lot of things to learn in just seven days and I'm not that observant or ambitious.  So, since 7-2=5, please enjoy a more manageable list of 5 things I've learned since I turned 27.

1- In my younger years, I used to be able to stretch my birthday celebrations for several days on either side of my actual birthday.  Tonight, I got home from work and realized I'd not only forgotten to take something out for dinner, but also to run the dishwasher.  So my feeble attempt at dinner was to serve Matt a slice of leftover birthday cake that I'd cut with a steak knife.  On a paper plate.  With a soup spoon, our only clean utensil.  

I tried to sell it to Matt under the guise of "Isn't this so fun?! And festive?  Birthday cake on my one week birthday anniversary!  You can't possibly expect a girl to cook dinner on her one week birthday anniversary!" 

Fear not, after some creative thinking and a perusal of the freezer contents, we managed to scrape together meatball sandwiches.

-------------------------

2- My memory is going.  On my actual birthday, I left the house without my wallet.  The really unfortunate part was that I didn't realize I'd forgotten it until I was at the drive through window picking up the birthday beverage I'd ordered.  And then after work I drove seven minutes out of the way to go to the bank and pulled right up to the ATM.  

Without my wallet.  

Because I'd forgotten that I'd forgotten it.

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3- I am suddenly using phrases that are popular among the more senior crowd.  I have three brand new colleagues, all of whom I believe are closer in age to my younger sister than to me.  During a conversation with two of them the other day I used the phrase "burr under the saddle," and one laughed and said, "That's my grandmother's favorite phrase!"

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4- In a conversation with the third colleague and some others the following day, we were discussing the high schools and colleges we attended and when, and trying to figure out if we knew any of the same people.  She said, "Wow, you graduated in 2010?  You don't look like you'd be so old!" 

I am choosing to focus on the part that she thinks I appear youthful, not the fact that she thinks a 2010  college graduate is old.

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5- I'm no longer into pop music.  When I'm not listening to Uptown Girl, I'm listening to Dan Fogelberg.  My current favorite is his 1981 hit, Leader of the Band.

Today I was thinking about how Michelle and I rented a place at the beach for Memorial Day weekend a few years ago because young! And carefree! And then we got down there and turned on the tunes and Michelle said, "Okay, here's a tough question.  In Leader of the Band, where did the singer's two brothers go?"

EASY, one went to Chicago, and the other to St. Paul.

So I think the final thing I've learned is that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

As long as I bring my wallet along.

because summer will be over soon and i will miss all this green and blue

treadmills should come with air bags

I had to travel for work last week and had reservations at my standard hotel.  I checked in around 4:00 on Monday afternoon and was given directions to room 357 that did not include stairs because even though the hotel is under new ownership, the ground floor is still the third floor and I am still confused.

I settled into my room, and Monday and Tuesday nights were problem free.  However, when I returned to the hotel after my meeting on Wednesday, I noticed that I had no towels or washcloths to speak of, which was unfortunate because I wash my hands obsessively when I'm in a hotel and I had to dry them with the hairdryer.

After my hands were dry, I walked to the phone to call the front desk to rectify the towel situation, the air conditioner made a very loud pop and shut off.

Well, that's convenient.

No AC.

In a hotel room.

In August.

So, I called the front desk and let them know about the towel shortage and air conditioner explosion and was told someone would be right up.  And 45 minutes and 100 degrees later I asked Matt how long he thought was reasonable to wait for a repairman to come.

He said five minutes.

I AM A PUSHOVER.

At that very moment a knock came at the door, and in came Barry the maintenance man with a giant cup of coffee and a can of spackle.  I don't know much about AC repair, but I was immediately skeptical of his tool repertoire.

After Barry gave the AC unit the once over, he said he was going to go downstairs to check the breaker.  Two minutes later, the air conditioner came sputtering back to life in a cloud of smoke and a blaze of sparks, accompanied by the smell of something burning.

It was like my own personal fireworks show.

Barry came back up and said, "Okay! It's all fixed!"

"There were lots of sparks," I said, "and do you smell that terrible smell?"

"Oh yeah," Barry said, "the smell is totally normal.  Since the unit has been shut off for a while, it's just the dust and chemicals moving around again."

Lovely.

Barry told me the room would be back in tip top shape in half an hour, so I decided to go to the hotel gym while I waited for my sauna to cool down and the smell to go away. Please note for the record that I travel for work about once a month and never have I ever used a hotel gym.  This was my first foray into the hotel gym arena.

And my last.

I found my way to the gym and hopped on a treadmill.  I set the speed at my standard 3.9 because, as I always say, why run when you can just walk?

And walk I did, until I was a mile in and humming along to Blake Shelton and the treadmill suddenly shut off.  I almost catapulted over the front because INERTIA.  And I was an object in motion.

I hopped right off that thing and sped back to my room only to discover that I still had no towels and the room had "cooled" to a brisk three hundred and twelve degrees.

After a few calls back and forth to the front desk, I packed my bags and waited for Barry to return with keys to a new room a few doors down.  I unpacked my bags in my new room and and put my slippers on and then went over to the AC to adjust the temperature, and this happened.

Where's the spackle when you need it?

vote for me

It seems like everywhere I turn these days, someone is talking about the presidential election that's happening in the not-quite-near-enough-future.

Since there's already upwards of twenty candidates, I figured I'd toss my name in the ring too because what's one more?  In fact, I've had my platform established since I was in third grade, a whopping nineteen (ohmygosh I'm old) years ago.

If I were president I would make everyone live in a manchine.

I meant mansion, obviously.  My spelling has improved since 1996.  And my nine year old self was evidently VERY IMPRESSED with the idea of a mansion because I initially wrote "castle" and crossed it out.

I would make there be seat belts on the bus.

I would make all Catholic schools, but half day.

I think it's as good a platform as any, really.  See you on the campaign trail.

i can't pass along any math info but i do have other advice

Well, my brain was fried this morning.  I had a few big meetings yesterday and then a terrible thunderstorm kept me up last night and by this morning, I felt like I was in a fog.

I gave work the old college try, but I had to complete a report for my boss to justify how many staff I need next year, and it involved math and I just could not make it happen.  So I sent Matt a text that said, "S.O.S.  If it takes five paralegals 40 hours each to work on 350 cases, how long would it take six paralegals to work on the same number of cases?"

I know.

That's sad.

But on my best day I'm no mathematician, so after a bad night of sleep and an early morning, a math equation with a tricky variable was a mountain I could not climb.

Matt responded that it would take six paralegals 33.14285714 hours to complete the work and so I wrote, "Using the same math, it would take six paralegals 33 hours...." and just crossed my fingers that when I clicked send my boss wouldn't reply and ask what math I was referring to exactly.

Because then I'd have to admit that I'd outsourced that particular task.

Anyway, tonight I decided to open my notes app to get some post ideas, because I knew I had a bunch of old notes in there where I'd jotted down things down I wanted to remember to write about.

And here is what I found.

So basically, I've got nothing, except a lot of confusion and a questionable situation involving the first lady, a jury, and a guillotine.

However, I do know what "wedding wardrobe forget stuff" means.

A friend of mine is getting married later this month, and she asked if I had any advice for the big day.

And of course, I did.

When Matt and I got married, our reception was at a beautiful old inn and restaurant.  We stayed there overnight after the reception, and had reservations there for brunch the next morning.

And the brunch there is FANCY.

So, the morning after our wedding, as I proceed to get dressed for my first fancy brunch as someone's wife, I discovered that I had really fallen short in the packing department.

Because here is what I had in my bag: a pair of brown knockoff Ugg boots, a royal blue turtleneck cable knit sweater, and a pair of old, thin, black leggings that I typically reserve for cold, snowy days to wear UNDER MY PANTS because I am firmly in the camp of "leggings on their own are not pants."

Since skipping brunch was obviously not an option, it was either wear my wedding dress or wear my unfortunate getup.  I felt that the wedding dress would draw more attention, so I decided to wear the leggings and turtleneck sweater.  I figured that I would be fine as soon as we were seated.  From the neck up I looked totally appropriate.

So, we entered the restaurant, led to a table, and then the hostess said, "Brunch is served buffet style."
And the buffet table was set up right in the middle of the formal dining room.

I have never perused a brunch buffet so quickly.  I think I grabbed about eight pieces of french toast and some of bacon and rushed back to my seat before any other diners had the chance to notice my questionable outfit and absence of substantial pants.

I felt like Jo in Little Women, when she stands too close to the fireplace at the party and burns the back of her dress and has to shimmy along the wall so no one sees.

So my advice to my friend, the bride, was to make sure to pack an appropriate, complete outfit in your overnight bag.

And marry somebody who is good at math.

my favorite niece

I mentioned a few months ago that my brother and his wife were expecting a baby.  The baby was due August 3rd, although I was selfishly "predicting" that the baby would be born on July 30th so that I could take the day off and "miss" a training at work.

Well, my brother called me while I was in a meeting on July 9th.  He didn't leave a voicemail, so I quickly texted him to see what was up.

SOUND. THE. ALARMS.

My brother kept me posted throughout the afternoon and by the time I got home I had so much nervous energy that I changed the sheets on our bed, rearranged the kitchen cabinets, went for a long walk, and ironed three pairs of shorts.

I've never ironed shorts before in my life and I haven't since.

I didn't know what to do with myself.

Finally, when there was no baby by 10:00, I sat down to paint my nails.  I painted my toes blue and my fingers pink because we didn't know if the baby was boy or girl and I am an equal opportunity aunt.

And then at 11:00, when there was still no baby, I repainted my fingers blue because even though I thought girl all along I was having an eleventh hour change of heart.

And THEN I got into bed where I laid wide awake the entire night except for maybe twenty minutes when I fell asleep and had a dream that it was TWIN BOYS.

I woke up at the crack of dawn and picked my sister up and we walked laps at the mall because there was nothing left in my tiny apartment to clean or organize and did I mention the nervous energy?

Then we went to Panera where we got iced caramel lattes, and just as we sat down my brother texted "Not much longer now."

I looked at Emily and said, "DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD LEAVE? I FEEL LIKE WE SHOULD LEAVE."

She wasn't about to argue, so we left.

We went to my parents' house and Emily made me a grilled cheese sandwich and I ate exactly one bite.  And then I made the executive decision that we needed to go to Target and pick out a boy outfit and a girl outfit.  We picked out the cutest outfits in the store and then we walked around.

And around.

And around again.

And then we discreetly hid our outfits on the very back of a rack and walked next door to TJ Maxx because I promise you we had looked at every piece of merchandise in Target.

Twice.

And when we looked at every piece of merchandise in TJ Maxx, we went back to Target, re-secured our outfits, and began walking through the purse department for the fourteenth time when my brother called and said, "You have a niece!"

We left for the hospital as soon as my dad got home from work and even though baby A had to spend her first night in the NICU, we got to go up and see her.

Sidenote: we had to scrub in to the NICU and I really felt like I was on Grey's Anatomy.  As I was sudsing up at the sink and saw a doctor pass by I really had to resist the urge to yell, "Push one of epi! We're going to need a CT, and page cardio!"

Anyway, to the surprise of no one, she was the most adorable little peanut in the world.

My sister and I went back to the hospital for a few hours the next day and got to hold our new favorite family member to our heart's content.

When baby A is older, I'll apologize for my blue nails in these pictures.

But I hope she will appreciate that even though my nails were the wrong color when I met her for the first time, my shorts were crisply ironed.

the best and easiest homemade iced coffee

I've never done a "how to" post before, but I have to share this.

Iced coffee is one of my favorite treats, and Dunkin' Donuts is my favorite place to get it.  In fact, I've written about my love of Dunkin' Donuts a time or ten on this blog.

I'm not exaggerating.

There was the time they falsely advertised pumpkin flavored beverages.

And the time Emily had to low brow it at DD instead of her usual Starbucks.

And of course, the time I incorrectly counted my change and didn't have enough to pay my bill and so I pretended I did not speak English.

Unfortunately, a large iced coffee at my beloved DD runs upwards of three American dollars, and since I haven't won the lottery yet I decided I should figure out how to make my own version at home.  After many trial runs, I think I've finally perfected my recipe.

Most recipes I found online involved cold brewing coffee for days, but I didn't think that would work for me because I already have an economy sized box of K-cups and also, I do not own the cheesecloth required to strain the coffee grounds, nor do I know where to buy it.

First, brew hot coffee, add a tiny bit of sugar, and freeze in ice cube trays.  I make a bunch at once and keep it in a bag in my freezer.  I like to make some cubes big and some tiny so that I can fit as many as possible in my cup.

A little caffeine maximization, if you will.

When I wake up each morning, I fill a glass with the coffee cubes and pour milk over them.  I add a spoonful of sweetened condensed milk if I'm in the mood to take a walk on the wild side.

Or really, a walk of any kind.  Because S.C.M. isn't exactly low calorie.

I stir it all up and let the ice cubes melt while I dry my hair and do my makeup, and it's perfect by the time I'm ready to walk out the door.

Since I've been making my own iced coffee, I haven't even had the urge to visit Dunkin' Donuts.

But obviously, I will have to go back sometime.  I'm going to need new blog material eventually.