Time to Indulge

So these are the things I've treated myself to while hubby is in Brazil:

Painting Christmas pottery with my mom, E, and L.

My favorite 'Chicken and Wild Rice Chowder'... B doesn't like it so I always make it for myself when he's away.

Pedicure! (I did it myself, aren't you proud?!)

My Silver Lining(s)

About a week ago I did this team-building activity at a work meeting. We had to read through a list of values and eventually narrow-down the list to the two that we felt were most important in our lives. It was a really difficult task because I had to eliminate things that I really did value (like 'having a family' and 'honesty'). I eventually chose 'doing the right thing' and 'hope'. I felt that with these two values combined, I could justify the other things that I had had to cross off. We just found out on Friday that B got laid off, and at a time like this, hope really comes in handy. Here are my silver linings:
1. Family.
2. Friends that love us.
3. Students that care about me.
4. The simple life.
5. Good books.
6. Good food.
7. A home of our own.
8. Health.
9. Reruns of True Blood.

The Monster Mash

My sister made this video and sent it to me. I nearly died laughing. M was online, so I immediately shared it with her. You can see from her blog what a success it's become. Enough with words, just watch the darn thing already!

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/MnAXuj8i029mTvwR

Baltimore Beer Fest '09

Lots of fun with friends... too bad none of us really liked any of the beers :-p They were apparently too "fancy-schmancy" for us (or we're too simple for them).

Bruno's Quote of the Day: 'When I drink beer, I get a little loose. Then I speak English the better!'

Golf Tourney Postponed

...and I can't say I mind. Thank you rainy weather!

"Refreshed" is an understatement

As you all know, I've been fighting a cold all week. I came home yesterday, absolutely exhaustified -- to the point where I went straight to bed. Of course, I couldn't fall asleep right away because my mind was spinning and wide awake. So I played on Facebook and read emails. Finally, at about 5:30 I was ready to take a nap. A nap that lasted until 5:30 AM when my alarm went off. I never even heard B come home or get into bed! I only knew he was there because I saw him at 1AM when I got up for a drink of water. After all that sleep, today was the first day, EVER, that I sprang out of bed the first time my alarm sounded. Maybe I should just sleep for 12 hours every night :-p

Go, go Gadget Grocery List!

Check out my new toy at http://www.smartshopperusa.com/! All I have to do is speak into the recorder and it keeps track of my grocery list for me. Then before I go to the store, I just press "print" and voila! How randomly cool and unnecessary! Love it!

"I'm twenty-nine and thirteen months"

...says hubby. Turns out that 30 doesn't hurt so bad :)

B and I took off from work on Friday in order to drive up to Giants' Stadium for the last concert ever. Mind you, Giants' Stadium is in New Jersey, aka: Bruce-land. Naturally, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band sent the stadium out of business in style. Thirty-one songs. Three hours and ten minutes of Heaven. Our seats were awesome (probably some of the best that we've ever had), and B and I spent the entire time jumping, singing, and dancing together. According to the women sitting behind us, we were "the most adorable couple ever"... yeah, that's right!

We drove home and continued the celebration with one of our most favorite things: an "appetizer party" for two. Today is B's actual birthday, so I took him to Annapolis for THE BEST cream of crab soup in the whole world. We followed that up with a trip to the mall to pick out a watch. Does he have great taste or what?! Check out that watch that he chose! All in all, despite the scariness of leaving his 20's behind, I think it's safe to say that B has had a pretty good 30th birthday.

International Dinner Night... a success!

With the help of several ESOL colleagues, I organized a special potluck dinner night for our ESOL students, their families, and their favorite teachers. We had 8 out of our 13 students attend, along with several teachers (special shout-out to J + hubby and S + Nico for coming!), and even our principal. Yay! We enjoyed food from China, Korea, India, Brazil, Ireland, USA, El Salvador, and Ethiopia. I think my favorite "new" food was the papusas from El Salvador. They are these yummy cheese-filled things with salsa. Seriously, you can't go wrong with that! I think I was the most pleasantly surprised by the Korean food because, well, it looked weird and I was pretty sure I wouldn't like it. Turns out it was ok. I took a couple pictures before my battery died. You can appreciate the decorations and some of the food from these pics. Enjoy!

Painted Pottery!

I tried to match the colors and design on my bowl to the fabric on our new chair. Not bad, huh?

U2... it's catch-up time!

Here are some photos that you've all been waiting for! B and I went to see U2 last Tuesday night at Fedex Field. It's probably the reason why I didn't blog at all last week. I was pooped! The concert was "ok". Actually, we were both disappointed by the poor sound quality. Frankly, if they're not going to make sure that the sound is equally good in all directions, then they should sell tickets to a "360 degree" show. Our seats were slightly behind the stage (imagine sitting by the back left corner of the stage). As a result, there were horrible echoes and reverberations. Sometimes we couldn't even recognize what song was starting -- and this was U2 -- I mean, come on! We should've recognized EVERYTHING! Also, the stage was ridiculous (and I mean that in every sense of the word). Ok, but enough of the complaining. Bono and his posse rocked the stage. They did an awesome version of one of their new songs. They danced around the stage and nearly brought me to tears when they dedicated one of their songs to an Iranian woman who's been on house-arrest forever. Enjoy some pics of the crazy stage.

Yardsale Yahoos

[aka: my mom and me]

Last night my mom spent the night at my place -- Bruno was already on his way to NYC for a Springsteen concert. Girls' night meant eating at the local diner and then watching an hour of Private Practice before calling it a night. This morning, we woke up at the butt crack of dawn and dragged all our most precious "junk" out to my community yardsale. We were actually pretty successful and downsized a lot! The best part was that a donation place from Baltimore was stopping by afterwards to pick up anything we didn't want to take back home with us. I'm feeling footloose and fancy-free now! Gotta love yardsales :)