Let me start off by saying that Tequila is no way to end a night of drinking if your plan for the following day is to study your ass off!!!  Last night we hung out with some Dickinson friends celebrating a 30th birthday - fun was had by all!  Don't know why, but at midnight, I pulled out the tequila and the very tasty passion fruit William Sonoma margharita mix.  I didn't even have much - one cup.  It's not like I was doing shots or anything!  Tequila and I just don't see eye-to-eye. 

Add to that the JACKHAMMERING AT 6AM and you can see that my day got off to a bumpy start. (convenient that I left the tequila out of my post about the construction noise, right?) 

Adam, spend the day at the Eagles game, a fun outing until a minute before the game ended.  I tuned in at the end and happened to watch the final nail being hammered in - yikes!   He sent me this photo around 4pm, before the start.  Looks like pretty good seats.  He came home bright red from being in the sun all day, and suprisingly sober.  :-)

Adam football

I sent a photo of my surroundings in response.  I had planned to study in a different public library today (rotating around locations until I find the ideal study locale).  Apparently, none of the libraries are open on Sundays.  I didn't want to sit at a Starbucks or another shop, because I didn't want to have to buy food, or worry about my stuff if I ducked in to the ladies room quickly (from the gallons of tea I drink!).  I ended up in the 12th floor (recently remodeled) lounge in my office building.  Didn't see a soul the whole day.  Its a great weekend study place, but won't work during the final week. 

Study central

I got in a little over 4 hours of studying, which I was happy with, but I really needed to do more -- almost caught up.  Going to and squeeze in a little more reading now before bed.   

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We woke up this morning at 6AM to sounds of jackhammering at the construction site next door.  JACKHAMMERING NOISES AT 6AM ON A SUNDAY!!!  A ginormous (i love that word!) office building, for Comcast, is being built on the block next to ours.  I understand that construction is behind schedule, and the weather is agreeable to getting this stuff done, I even understand that we live in a business-area with few residential buildings, BUT, there is just NO EXCUSE for 6am ON A SUNDAY!! 

And, we had friends staying here.  AND, its still stiffling hot out, so shutting the windows to block some of the noise, made for a different, uncomfortable sleeping situation. 

I know its probably futile, but I would really love to call city hall and complain!!!  Actually, there are plenty of little old ladies with plenty of time on their hands living in our building -- I hope one of the little bitty activists is going to town on this.  How can they authorize a construction permit to start at 6AM ON A SUNDAY!!!

Do I sound bitter?  BECAUSE I AM! 

Update: Spoke to our REIT Analyst (she follows the company that is constructing the building) and she said that since they use plenty of union-workers, they had to get authorization to do that work.  Ugh, city approved.  Construction is supposed to be done by March - HOPEFULLY, they will get this noisy-outside work done quickly.  I've got my fingers crossed for a sudden frost to sweep through the area - Unlikely since its still in the upper-70s around here.

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The Scary Closet

Last weekend my mom came down.  She and I went shopping - always fun and then we tackled some purging/organizing throughout the apartment.  This is our "scary" closet... we still had boxes packed from our "didn't move" and we never put away our camping stuff after our trip got cancelled...

Success!

Once we decided we were staying put for awhile, we bought a new bookshelf from IKEA, but never got around to making it look nice - Mom was in heaven making magic happen.

Adam - the expectant uncle

This past weekend, we went to my brother-in-law's place.  Adam helped them assemble furniture and get the baby room ready.  Amazingly enough, I actually got some studying in and then spent the rest of the day gossiping with my sister-in-law. 

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Adam and I were cooking fiends today!!!

The day started off with a big egg & bacon breakfast, with momosas, of course. as we watched Federer beat Nadal in the Wimbledon finals.  A perfect start to an enjoyable Sunday.  The match went to 5 sets and at the start of the 5th set it was impossible to predict who would come out on top.

Adam cooked Dan's "Heart Attack" spaghetti sauce, which took hours and hours to simmer and perfect this afternoon.  Meanwhile, I made tuna noodle salad, prepped my salad fixin's for a week of lunches, made potato salad and string bean salad (for the baseball picnic dinner I'm going to tomorrow night), and then, after dinner was cleaned up, I got motivated to make banana bread... of yeah, and Adam (my loving husband) grilled up my skirt steak, which is also for tomorrow.  The only thing I didn't get to was the fruit salad, but I just didn't have it in me anymore.

I also ironed a bunch of clothes tonight while I watched The 4400 and managed to cram in some work - Wow, what a day!  It always feels good getting up for work on Monday morning knowing that my outfit is already ironed, my lunch is prepped, and my workout clothes are ready to go. 

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On Saturday night we had friends come over for fondue dinner and a night of games.... so we had to unpack the fondue kit, one of the first things I had packed last summer (it was wrapped in newspaper dated July 20, 2006!).  With the help of our guest, (I admit, not very hostess-like) I rummaged through four additional kitchen boxes looking for extra fondue spears, before realizing they were with our utensils and weren't even packed!!!

The insanity of that motivated me to do some serious unpacking on Sunday while Adam was playing golf. 

Take a look at the chaios!!!

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I actually unpacked quite a few things that we didn't even feel like we were missing, so I ended up repacking them to pass on to my cousin who just moved out of his parents house.  Believe it or not, there are still over 10 boxes that we haven't touched.  A few of them are our fine china, which are just going to stay in their boxes until the one time a year we have a worthy special event.

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I spent Fathers Day biking along the Lambertville D&E canal with my dad & Margit, and of course, Barney, their adorable yorkie puppy, who they seem to take everywhere with them.  I wouldn't mind them bringing the dog with them, except that they have turned into "THOSE" people, (you know the type)... they call themselves "Mom" and "Papa" to the dog, and actually made reference to Barney being my brother (GAG ME).  Its especially unusual to hear coming from my dad.

Anyway... we biked a few miles along the canal and then enjoyed a tasty lunch on the back porch of the Lambertville Station Restaurant.

Papa & Margit enjoying the ride

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It took me much longer than normal to upload photos and I had been waiting for thew photos to comment on the wedding.....  On Saturday afternoon I went to a wedding as the "And Guest" for an old high school friend.  I had a nice time because the families of Dave, my date, and the other groomsmen were also invited to the wedding, so I knew more people at the event than I had been expecting to...  It's a little odd drinking so early in the afternoon (the wedding was at 12:15 and the reception ended at 4:30pm), but the weather was PERFECT for the wedding...  The wedding was held in an old mansion along the Delaware River, just north of Philly.  The cocktail hour and lunch buffet were indoors and then there was some brief time for cake cutting and a little bit of dancing in the enclosed back porch.  Not quite sure why all of the eating didn't take place there.  By the time everyone was done eating there barely an hour for the dancing and cake cutting - felt a little rushed to me... 

I had been worried about the fact that the wedding was supposed to be Black Tie, but that ended up being completely thrown out the window.  None of the male guests were in tuxs outside of the immediate family and the groomsmen.  My dress was perfect for the occasion.... it was nice to recycle this dress, since I have worn it two college weddings and figured I wouldn't be able to wear it again.  Not the best photo of me, but here it is anyway.  Dave my date is on the right.  Kevin is also a buddy from high school - actually, he had a crush on my sister for a long time.... 

Old Highschool Friends

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We enjoyed a delightful, spur-of the moment trip to Jersey on Sunday.  As Adam and I were sitting on the couch enjoying the NYTimes debating how we would spend the day, my mom called to say that her "Germany company" had cancelled last-minute and she had food for 5 and noone to eat it with her.  Adam hasn't seen my mom since February and I haven't seen her much either, so we hopped in the car for a visit.  The weather was perfect for a leasurely drive. 

We enjoyed sitting on the porch, taking in some nature, while drinking Fuzzy Navels.  Then we had a tasty dinner of pork tenderloin, potato salad, broccoli salad, and tomato/basil salad -- I love sald-centric dinners!  So summery!  We also got a big kick out of answering questions from one of my mom's coffee table books. 

If..., (Questions For The Game of Life)

James Saywell

If you had to pick one person you knew to become President of the USA, who would you select?: My answer: Wild Willy, of course!

If you could be a circus performer, what would you be? My answer: Lion tamer and/or high wire walker.  Adam picked trapezee artist, which I thought was fun too!

If you could pick one crime in history to find the answer to, which would it be?: My answer: Who shot JFK.

The book was tons of fun and apparently there are three in the series.  I think I'm going to get one since it was such a great conversation starter... lots of the questions were so vague that we had to discuss the parameters before we could answer.

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I had been looking forward to this weekend for a long time and it definitely lived up to its expectations.  Many Dickinson friends descended on Philly this weekend to see friends that had been living abroad for three years.  We were lucky enough to visit them in Japan.  We had a blast!  Check out all of the Dickinson Alums in attendance! 

We are still recovering from the weekend.... 

the best one, maybe?

Enjoying a night of Friends

Best of all - those friends that stayed at our apartment are the people that will also be attending a wedding in November - so pretty much the same group of us will be partying again in a few short months.  Can't wait!

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I have been looking forward to this weekend since February.  The friends that we visited in Japan are relocating to the States and before they settle down in Savannah, they are are stopping off in Philly for a visit.  We put the word out to all of our Dickinson friends months ago and tons of people are descending on the city for the occasion.  People are coming from Boston, Richmond, DC, and Tampa! 

Back when these plans were hatched, we had thought that we would have moved into our new house by now (GRRRR!!!) and told quite a few people that they could crash with us - 3Br and a basement, plenty of room!  Well, since we're still in our apartment, its going to be a little cramped.  We have 5 people staying with us!  We had to borrow areobeds and blankets from friends & family to accomodate everyone!

In honor of our weekend, here's a photo from our Spring Break 00 trip to Key West, where I learned that I don't have sea legs, not even a little bit.  4 out of the 8 of us will be hanging out this weekend!!!  

Scan0016

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