Accepted!!

I got into the NYC Half Marathon!! I have been needing something to jump start me back into 

running and this is it! The race is March 20 2011-I can't wait!!!

Less than six weeks...

...until this one comes home!! OH MY GOODNESS!!! I AM SO EXCITED!!!!!!

All Cats Go to Heaven

We got Rosy when I was six years old. She was our second cat and we loved her so.

I remember picking her out-she was so tiny! She was such a good kitty-she let me dress her up in my doll clothes and push her around in my doll stroller (unfortunately I don't have these photos on this computer). She loved chasing birds around our yard and once in a while would bring us one, so proud of her catch. She got along really well with Goldie the goldfish-loved to stick her paws in his bowl. Other pets came and went, but Rosy still stuck around. My dad was convinced she'd outlive us all. He pretended to hate her but we know he loved her just as much as the rest of us.

After a good 19 years, Rosy finally decided it was time to go. It is going to be so strange to go home for Christmas and not have Rosy around-napping on her mat and meowing away.

Rest in Peace Rosy!! We will miss you!!

Halloween 2010

This was the first Halloween in a while that I actually dressed up. And I think it was a success. Remember this white dress...from the white party this summer...

Well, I got crafty and turned it into this....

Thanks to a little bit of cutting, some gold items from American Apparel, and some safety pins, my white sundress became my Egyptian tunic/dress thing. I was actually pretty pleased with how it turned out. And not really sad to modify my dress, I didn't like it much to begin with...Here are more photos from Halloween...

Karen as a duckie, Jen rocking the 20's vibe, and Erin the Egyptian

Justin Beiber made an appearance, complete with hand bedazzled jacket and hat

Anita the geek and Antoine Dodson

My favorite costume of the night-NYC stockbroker, complete with coke remnants...

Jen, Betty White, Alice in Wonderland, and the Queen of Hearts

All in all it was a good night. After the party at Kristin and Ruthy's some of us went down to the LES to dance the night away. It was a good time but suffice it to say that New Yorkers on Halloween are crazy...don't think I'll be making any more Halloween trips to the LES...

How was your Halloween? Did you dress up?!?

Funny NYC articles

I came across a couple of funny articles about NYC...

50 Reasons to Be Pretty Damn Euphoric You Live in NYC

8.4 Million New Yorkers Finally Realize NYC is a Horrible Place to Live

Pretty much opposite articles but still hilarious! Enjoy!

My latest...

...fav song
...movie I'm dying to see
...adventure I'm planning
...treat I crave all the time
...other movie I'm so excited for! already have tickets!
...potential client location for the next 3 or so months...hm
...favorite TV show

This day in history...

Does anyone else like to read about what happened on this day in history? I always find it kind of interesting. Maybe it's just me. Well, in my boredom at work today I decided to look at this day in this history of my life, or more specifically my gchat. And I've decided to share it with you...

2006-All I gchatted about was stressing over the jr core. Financial homework! Ah! Systems quiz! Ah! That was basically how I spend my entire jr year of college...

2007-I had ZERO gchats from Oct 26, 2007. Guess why. I was here. In NYC. Doing the first of my 3 flyout interviews with none other than Deloitte. Funny that I'm right here again 3 years later...

2008-I must have been baking something delicious because the few gchats I found were all about people wanting some of whatever I was making. Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cookies? I have no idea...

2009-I was bored at work, chatting about boys with Mika, freaking out about studying for FAR, just a regular day

and today? Let's see...topics range from Halloween, to boys, to roommate day at Deloitte, to hunting and making jerky. Even though work has been boring times 10, it's been an interesting day on gchat. Ha ha ha

Work Field Trip!

I loved field trips in elementary school (and let's be honest, in jr high, high school, and college). There is something about leaving whatever you are supposed to be doing, to go do something else that is exciting. And yes, that sentence didn't make much sense. Whatever.

Today we got to go on a field trip for work! The parter on my last engagement got tickets to the David Letterman show! Me and 14 of my coworkers got to go as her guests! I actually don't watch David Letterman. I don't think he's that funny-I prefer Jay Leno. Nonetheless, I was rather excited to leave work early to go. I definitely felt like a tourist waiting in line with a couple hundred other people trying to get in. Thankfully we had real tickets so we got to bypass them all. Ha.

I don't know anything about the film world so it was interesting to go see what filming a show is all about. We actually watched the taping of Friday night's show. So if you watch David Letterman, look for me in the audience on Friday. I was rather disappointed to find out that the show didn't actually air live. Kind of takes the fun out of it. We got to see David Letterman interview Michael J Fox and Shaun White. I am so out of the loop that I had to do some google research to find out why both of these people are a big deal right now. Just FYI-the 25th Anniversary edition of Back to the Future is being released this week (Michael J Fox) and there is some new skateboarding xbox, PS360, something gaming system game being released this week. It was really cool to see Michael J Fox and to hear about his Parkinson's foundation and what they are doing to find a cure. It made me want to go back to school to become a geneticist a little bit...Shaun White was not that exciting-but maybe it's because I'm not really into snowboarding/skateboarding.

All in all, it was a lovely way to spend the afternoon. Definitely beats freezing in my cube all afternoon...

Halloween Anxiety

i am the worst at halloween...just a taste as to how bad at halloween i am here are a few photos from past halloweens for your viewing pleasure..

Halloween 2007-no photos. we did not do anything

Halloween 2008- we decided to forego dressing up and went to dinner and a scary movie. we went and saw The Haunting of Molly Hartley. it was so terrible that we ended up leaving half way through and calling it a night early

Halloween 2009-probably my most successful halloween in a few years. we went to a 7 deadly sins party and i was supposed to be wrath. not quite sure if i pulled it off, but definitely a step up in the dressing up department from the previous year (which is not hard to do considering we did not dress up...)

i always say that i hate halloween but that's not true. i think halloween is actually really fun especially here in new york. everyone seems to get really into it. there is a big parade (of course, nyc loves their parades), lots of parties and halloween events. i just am never ready for it. around july/august i start thinking that i should get a jump start on a halloween costume, to avoid the happenings of the year before. inevitably it gets to be the week before halloween and i realize i have no idea what to dress up as and have nothing to wear. welp. here we are again. approximately a week before halloween and i am drawing a blank. suggestions for a great costume would be appreciated...

INDIA!

Goodness. So much for doing a photo a day...eek. I have not been the best blogger (obviously) but I intend to get back on the blogging bandwagon. Perhaps I'll do a large summer catch-up post, but for now I will leave you with this:

http://tracyjeanmills.blogspot.com/2010/10/india.html

Remember when I posted about going to India? Well, I finally went!! It was so amazing and I loved almost every bit of it! We were there for only 5 days and I definitely could've spent at least another week there. Above is a link to my friend Tracy's blog. She is quite the blogger and photographer and she's a bit more on the ball then I am when it comes to blog posting. So check out her blog and you can see a glimpse of some of my adventures in the motherland!!

August 3-Lunch with Taylor!

My friend Taylor was in town for the day so we met up for lunch!

So fun to see him and catch up!

August 2-My front porch

obviously i need to work on my photo taking skills. and on remembering to take a photo during the day. when i was walking home tonight i realized i didn't take a picture of anything! so you get a glimpse of my porch. i kind of love my building. it is just steps away from riverside park. if i lean my head out of my window i can see the hudson and new jersey across the way!

august 1-CPA bet celebration

Andrea and I have great home teachers. Way back in April when I was "studying" (more like not studying) for the CPA my home teacher and I made a bet as to who would pass the CPA first. Whoever passed first got dinner cooked by the other person. Luckily for me, I managed to study enough to pass the CPA and I won the bet!! Today hometeacher paid up with an amazing lasagna dinner. YUM.

Return to blogging...

whoa. how on earth is it august already?!? where has the summer gone?? obviously, i have been the worst at blogging. but i have decided to return to blogging! remember last august when i did a photo a day for most of the month? well, i have decided to do that again this month to jump start the blogging and to force me to take more photos. not only have i fallen off the blogging bandwagon, i have also fallen off the photo taking bandwagon. so here it goes! happy august 1st!

DONE!

It's official. I finally got my FAR score (75 is passing...cut it close) and

have now passed all 4 parts of the CPA exam!!!

YAY!!!!!

Back on the face of the planet

So I had to fall off the face of the planet for a bit to study for the CPA and it's nice to climb back on. I had quite a lovely weekend-I just LOVE the weekend. I never realized how much until full time employment came around.

Friday night I went to a dinner party. My wonderful friend Jen cooked us all dinner and it was so yummy!! I've decided that I need to start cooking more-at least once or twice a month. Sad that it has come to that. I think I've eaten more cereal dinners since moving here than I did in college.

Saturday we went to brunch at Schiller's Liquor Bar down on the lower East side. It was really good! I don't think I'm much of a fan of the LES though. 1-It's like a million miles away from us and takes ages to get down there and 2-it's super dirty and gross down there. Unfortunately a lot of the good restaurants are down there, so I guess it's worth the trip.

Saturday afternoon I went to the Sotheby's auction display! I think that may be one of my favorite things I have done in the city. The coming auction is entitled Magnificent Jewels and it features all kinds of amazing jewelry! It was like being a museum-except better because you could actually touch and try on the jewelry! I loved it!! I also went and saw "How to Train Your Dragon." I LOVED it! Such a cute movie-definitely recommend it to everyone to see! I ended the evening with a trip to Korea Town to do kareoke for a friend's birthday. It was quite the experience and so much fun!

It was a wonderful weekend and I'm so excited to not have to study for at least another 2 months! Yay!

Remember...

...how it was 90 degrees today. IN APRIL.

...and remember how I had to be inside ALL day doing "virtual training"

...and remember how it's supposed to be the nicest for the next week?...and how I have to study for the CPA so I can't go out and enjoy it...

8 days until I take my last CPA (hopefully) and can have some kind of life again! Pray that I study hard enough to pass!!

The first day of Spring!!

So fitting that today was the first day of spring!! Today I had the loveliest Saturday and just wanted to share! I need to get better at taking pictures-I have hardly taken any since I've been here! The day started out with a favorite Saturday morning ritual-AM spin class at NYSC and a yummy scone from here. I decided to take the scone to the park and hang out there for a bit-people watching and enjoying the sunshine. It was so wonderful!

After a super long shower and an after spin nap I gathered up my FAR notecards and notes, this book that I'm reading for book club, a blanket, and my sunglasses. I spent the afternoon in Central Park with some of my favorites! We lounged in the sun, chatted, rode bikes (ps-I've made the executive decision that I'm buying a bike! yay!), and loved the sunshine. Definitely didn't even touch my notes or the book...oops. It has been SO nice these past few days I just can't get enough of it!

After we all left the park I decided to go down in Riverside park and sit by the water. I had never gone down there and it was so great! I just love being down by the water-I definitely will be going back. I sat by the water until it got too cold. I finished the evening with dinner here and an evening showing of Alice in Wonderland. I actually really loved it! I am not usually a huge Tim Burton fan but the movie was pretty good!

Such a lovely Saturday! Hooray for spring!!!

The hangover truck

So apparently NY is very into St Patrick's day. I read somewhere that NYC has the largest St Patrick's day parade in the world! Unfortunately, I didn't know this until the day before and had to work rather than attend the parade. This city really loves their parades...Macy's day parade, Yankees parade, Chinese New Year parade, Puerto Rican day parade, Halloween parade-you name it, there is a parade for it. And of course yesterday all of the bars were full to the brim with St. Patty's day celebrators. I definitely wore green to work for the occasion and I may have joined the bar crowd for a bit (of course sipping my club soda with cranberry juice) for a work happy hour.

The most amusing thing to me about St Patrick's day in the city is the day afterwards. As we were walking back from lunch in Battery Park today (did I mention that it was almost 70 degrees outside? i am LOVING it!) we passed a tabasco truck. Apparently these trucks appear all over the city today only, serving up bloody marys for those with crazy hangovers (apparently those help with a hangover?) from too much celebrating last night. What?!? Gotta love NYC...

6 months!!

Today I realized that today marks 6 months since I moved to NYC! Whoa! Has it seriously been six months already?!? Sometimes I still feel new to the city and others I feel like I've been here for ages! Crazy!!

In other news-I finally get to see Jamie Cullum perform live again tomorrow!! AH! I am so excited!! Last time I saw him was in Reno and that was quite the adventure. Driving to Reno (seriously, there is nothing between SLC and Reno), getting lost once we got to Reno, trying to scalp the extra tickets (quite unsuccessfully-but we did make some great ticket scalper friends). I even got to meet him (of course I was so starstruck I couldn't put together a coherent sentence)!! I cannot wait for tomorrow!!

Jamie, me, and Mika at Johnny Rocket's-don't worry, that smile was

plastered to my face the rest of the night...

ps-Coke at 9pm=bad idea. just for future reference...

The landlords might hate me.

I think our landlords think I'm ridiculous. It all started the first month that we lived in our apartment. I got home late one night. It was rainy and terrible outside and I was excited to just get in the apartment and relax. I hiked up the 5 flights of stairs to our apartment, got out my keys, and tried to open the door. For some reason, I could not unlock the door! No matter which way I turned the key, which lock I unlocked (and locked and unlocked again) the door would not open. Roommate was out, I was new to the city and didn't really know anyone that lived close, definitely didn't know any of our neighbors, I was stuck. I camped out on our stairs for a bit, thinking maybe if I gave it a rest for a second I'd be able to unlock the door and get into my apartment, but to no avail I just couldn't get it open!

Finally, after about half and hour maybe 45 minutes of trying, I gave up and had to call the landlord. How embarrassing to have to call the landlord and tell them you can't open the door. He said he'd be out to our building in about 30 minutes so I pulled out my book and started reading on the stairs while I waited. He arrived as promised and I apologized for making him come out in the rain so late. He then turned to the problematic door and opened it in about two seconds making me feel like a complete idiot. Turns out I just wasn't turning the key hard enough. Seriously? He was incredibly nice about it and assured me that he had to come out for another call anyways and left after giving me a lesson in unlocking the door. I am convinced he went home and told his family about the dumb girl that just moved in and can't unlock her own door.

Fast forward to about a week ago when I called to complain that our apartment was an ice box. Andrea actually called the day before and they came and "fixed it" but nothing the apartment was still freezing so called again. Don't worry-our apartment is like a sauna now. We have the fans on and the windows open...

Yesterday after a long day at work I come home to find a note on our building door alerting all of us tenants that due to a MAJOR leak there would be no hot water until 5pm the next day. But don't worry-the cold water is still working. Ha. Awesome. One day-I suppose that's manageable. Good thing I did my hair that morning.

So today I come home, looking forward to taking a hot shower. Turn on the bathroom hot water faucet-ice cold. Hm. Let it run for a while. Still ice cold. Page the landlord and he returns my call. I tell him the hot water isn't working and he asks me if I'm sure, because it should be working. I reply that I'm pretty sure, turned on the water, let it run, still cold. Should I let it run longer? Turns out that the plumber forgot to flip the hot water switch or the pump or something plumber-y like that. The landlord said he'd be in early in the morning to fix it. Hm. Day 2 without hot water.

We have this interesting neighbor in our building. He's actually one of the only people I've met that lives in this building. Bless his heart he is nice, but strange. Every time we see him, he's complaining about something in the building and apparently the landlords have stopped answer his pages because he calls so frequently about silly little things.

I'm worried that I'm going to be the next on the do not answer list...

my apartment is freezing. not just kind of cold-ish. but actually freezing. i have never had a radiator until moving here, but from what i understand they are generally supposed to be warm in the winter, thereby keeping the house warm.

our radiators are like metal ice cubes. i might as well be living in an igloo. actually. an igloo is probably warmer than our apartment right now (supposedly igloos are warm? perhaps it has something to do with the furry coats eskimos wear...). with the imminent snowstorm there's a chance i might freeze to death (and yes, i'm being dramatic).

and about this snowstorm. NY is FREAKING OUT. all schools were cancelled this afternoon (when it wasn't even snowing!). i got a handful of emails from work telling me to be sure to take work home, just in case the snow makes it impossible to get to work tomorrow. how considerate of them! i'm interested to see what this city is like in a "blizzard"...

please

can I have one of these??

what a morning

today i saw the craziest thing on the subway. a full on brawl. 9am. 2 train going from 72nd downtown. me and andrea are sitting, riding down to work and these two people start arguing. a larger man and a small lady (although i guess lady wouldn't be the right word when you read what's comes next). all of a sudden they start pushing each other.

then all hell breaks loose. they stand up (mind you it's a full, moving train) and the girl tries to push the guy. HE PUSHES HER BACK! what on earth kind of man pushes a girl who is about half his size?!? she flies back, hits the subway pole and falls to the ground. all the while, her coffee is flying all over the place, people are trying to break it up, and me and Andrea are watching in disbelief. the girl picks herself off the floor and goes back at him for more!

luckily, the train pulled into the 34th street station and a couple guys pulled the girl off the train (much to her dismay) and away from the man to end the fight. then the man sits back down and continues to read his coffee sodden paper like nothing happened. SERIOULSY? what on earth could two perfect strangers be fighting about at 9am. and seriously man? you think it's ok to physically assault a girl who obviously is no threat to you? some people are just crazy.

and that's how i started my friday morning. luckily the rest of the day was a little quieter...

one month!

yes. i am slightly obsessed. but i'm fine with that. one month until i get to see this one in concert!!

Gone in seconds!

A couple days ago my fav singer in the whole wide world announced a small concert in NYC. Today was the day that tickets went on sale! I was online-ready-at noon. Tried to get through. Site down. Tried again. Site still down. Twenty-five minutes later I finally made it through. Tickets gone. Sad. Come to find out, tickets sold out in mere seconds!! Seconds! Way to go Jamie. At least I have tickets for his big show the next day.

In other news, today I went to a friend's viola recital at Juilliard. It was so wonderful and the pieces were beautiful!! I loved seeing people perform who were so passionate about what they were doing. I've been doing some thinking and I think I need to find something to be completely passionate about...

So here's my question for you readers (if anyone still actually reads this....):

What are you passionate about??

Sick Day

Today I took a sick day. Not to go do something fun. Not to just have a random day off. But because I was actually sick.

Sick days are BORING.

My sick day involved...watching last nights bachelor in my bed, taking a trip to the fairway in my sweats and uggs-looking like a hot mess, napping through a few episodes of gossip girl season 2 (I am more than ready for new GG episodes), trying to watch Days and giving up when I realized it's been years since I've watched and had no idea what was going on (since when is Carly back?!?) watching The Lizzie McGuire Movie, sleeping through some silly shows on the Disney channel, and watching Mamma Mia.

I'm ready to not be sick and go back to real life!

Finally February

Wow. Was it just me or was January the longest month ever. Seriously, I'm pretty sure it lasted for about 10 years. January was a decent month...some highlights (sans pictures because I didn't take any) include....

• a fab birthday dinner with all of my fav NY friends put on by my great roommate
• not working in NJ anymore
• 2 shows: The Fantasticks and South Pacific
• seeing the NY Ballet put on my favorite production-Sleeping Beauty

All-in-all, January was a decent month but I'm glad to see it go. I'm getting anxious for spring and sunshine and February is bringing me one month closer!!!

India!

Yes. I know I have other things to blog about-like Christmas break, New Years Resolutions, my crazy adventures in New Jersey, and my imminent quarter-century turn, but right now I'm going to blog about INDIA.

Want to go? September 22th. 8 days. $999 including round trip airfare from NYC, hotels, and tours. Come. It's going to be amazing!!