A Toast to New Beginnings

Mother of God I'm bad at blogging. I'm apparently really not cut out for this. Oh well.

I thought I'd write because tomorrow is going to be the start of some new things and I'm excited. My new job starts tomorrow and FINALLY, after four years of working as an assistant teacher and twiddling my thumbs out of boredom each work day AND busting my ass in off-hours to get my Master's and a few licenses, will be using my brain and my teaching skills (run-on...deal with it). It's going to be a challenge for sure...I'll be a special educator in a specialized high school program, but it will feel good to (cheese alert) finally be working hard to learn as much as possible and be the best teacher I can be. I even have my very own office! With a window! I feel pretty important, as you can probably tell ;)

Secondly, I'm going to meet with a personal trainer tomorrow in hopes that I will be able to start some kind of personal training regimen. With my dramatically increased paycheck (which would sound braggy if I weren't talking in terms of teacher salaries...), I've decided it's time to make an investment in my health. I'm hoping to work with her maybe twice a week and then on my own a couple times a week to just...be healthier. I'll let you all (Meghan and Emily) know how it goes!

It feels sooo good to not be in school anymore and to finally have the qualifications and time to lead the life that I've been working toward for the past couple years. I feel like this is kind of the beginning of lots of cool changes...although I don't yet know what the others will be!

You gotta take the time to appreciate the good things, right?

Kickass Chicks

For some reason, I've been very sensitive to the ways women are portrayed in the media recently. Maybe it's because I've been watching too much t.v. and waaaaay too many movies, but the juxtaposition between a disgustingly traditional laundry detergent ad that states "Women love [some random adjective] laundry" (that inspired me to yell "MEN DO LAUNDRY TOO!" at the t.v.) and shows like Chuck that have such badass, stiletto-wearing, take-no-prisoners characters as Sarah (see below) is striking.

So, along these lines, I would just like to state for the record that Sarah from Chuck, Lady Marian from Robin Hood (with the exception of being saved by the title hero at the end of the movie...so predictable, blah), and the Black Widow from Iron Man 2 rock my world. Amanda Peet's helpless, pathetic character from 2012 on the other hand...vomit. Come on people, it's 2010 (or, 2012 as the case may be)...

Flo. Rida.

I am going to be here in two days:

Can. Not. Wait.

Whales.

Jon took me on a whale watch yesterday as an anniversary present after hearing me complain for years about how I'd always wanted to do one but could never convince anyone to go with me. The whale watch was sponsored by the New England Aquarium and took us out the Stellwagen Bank Marine Sanctuary, which is a protected area of ocean north of the tip of Cape Cod.

We saw tons of dolphins and several humpback whales right up next to the boat...it was very cool. I even saw a dolphin jump out of the water and do a spin, like they do at Sea World. The pictures don't do the experience justice at all because we forgot the memory card for Jon's camera, so these are all cell phone pics:

Probably the best picture we have.

This is the tail of a humpback as it dove into the water. It was a really cool sight, but it just looks like a black dot here.

Whale.

Another whale.

The tell-tale plume that allowed us to spot the whales from a distance.

Lots of people on board...particularly really tall, European men who wouldn't move to let the children see the whales.

Jon eating, per usual.

Even though it was rainy and gross in Boston, it was a beautiful day out on the water.

Coming back into the city.

Image of the Custom House Tower, just because I thought it looked cool.

All in all, it was a fun experience...and allowed me to cross something off my bucket list, as Jon said.

Alot.

Funny article about grammar. (click here)

Clean.

I found this book at the house of the kids I was babysitting last night. It has all kinds of cool recipes (formulas?) for household cleaners, like laundry detergent and wood polish. A lot of them use some seriously hippie ingredients like essential oils, but I'd love to throw out (or, as the book suggests, bring to a local toxic waste disposal site) all of my Clorox and Windex and use natural ingredients to clean. The closest I've gotten so far is throwing used lemons into the disposal to clean it out and make the sink smell good...I highly recommend it.

Pretty.

I drove past this house yesterday on my way to babysitting in a nearby town...a rich town. The picture doesn't really do the house justice (especially because it was raining), but I'd like to live here.

Yum.

Usually I am able to resist donuts as I generally find them overwhelmingly sweet, but for some reason I am addicted to these sprinkle-covered balls of deliciousness from Dunkin. These are the "Spring Munchkins," but they essentially have the same ones throughout the year with different colors. I allow myself to get two on Friday mornings because, well, I deserve it :)

Clarification

Just so you guys know, the text below the pictures in the previous few posts are links. I need to change the font so that is more obvious...

Detention

My favorites are #3 and #9.

Awesome.

Great way to kill time.

Wine and Food Phun!

Having heard about the Phantom Gourmet Wine and Food Phest from a friend of Jon's, I enlisted the one person I know around here who would be willing to stuff her face with me, Devin, and headed into the Bayside Expo Center.

Devin!

What sounds like it could have been a classy affair (aside from the spelling of Phest) turned out to be a cluster beep of slightly overweight 20-something alcoholics standing in huge lines for mini pieces of Boston's tastiest treats and plastic shot glasses of random wines.

Despite the trashiness, we sampled some really delicious items.

(Note: please forgive the horrible quality of the pictures. It's hard to work with dim fluorescent lighting and I forgot about macro mode...)

We were handed this list when we got in...

We wanted to make it to every table but quickly discovered that it was easier to get the food than the wine and that, despite the size of the samples, we filled up quickly.

Some of the goodies:

Meatballs...yum.
No better combo than steak and giant fortune cookies.
This was called White Gazpacho and was essentially a cold, ground up mixture of almonds, garlic, olive oil...and some other stuff that I missed. It was a really interesting flavor but a little overwhelming on the garlic side...which is saying something coming from me.

Super delicious wedding cake. For some reason, Devin and I were the only ones making beelines for the dessert tables.

Lobster arancini - fried rice balls in lobster bisque.

Those of you who know me (which is all of you) know how much I hate seafood, particularly shellfish, but this was actually quite good. Probably because it was 99% cream and fried rice...

Cluster f at the Bayside Expo Center

Bread...of course.

Double fisting mini-wine.

The ultimate item was the meatballs scooped out of giant wheels of parmigiano reggiano. I know it looks repulsive but they were sooo yummy...maybe because I could eat a whole block of parm in one sitting.

Feeling fat and happy :)

Over It

I definitely believe that you have to experience a long winter in order to truly appreciate summer, but it's getting to the point here in Massachusetts where we have 1 nice day to every 20 gross days. Maybe it's old age, but I'm over it. I want to move to here:

Love

Having recently (and finally ) squeezed the last pearly drops of Pantene out of my gigantic BJ's bottles that have been in my shower for moooonths, I found myself perusing (which actually means to read closely, did you know that? but not in this case...) the aisles of CVS for a new shampoo. Yes, yes, I know...it's not very chic to buy your cosmetics at CVS but I am a) a teacher (an assistant, at that) b) a grad student c) not all that chic to begin with. So I stumbled upon this:



I don't know what drew my eye to it (maybe the shiny bottle...) but I decided to buy it because I found the scents, Rosemary Juniper and Rosemary Mint, intriguing. Plus, I didn't know what sulfates are, but if they're advertising that there aren't any in it then they must be bad and well, hey, I don't want them anyway!

So I'm in love with these shampoos. Turns out sulfates are rumored to be carcinogens and Lord knows I need less of those in my life. But more importantly (but really probably less importantly), they smell so good and my hair feels so clean now. I'm sure they're full of all kinds of other nasty chemicals, but it smells like you're washing your hair with a delicate herb garden. And no, you don't end up smelling like lamb, in case you were worried (like I was). It's definitely more an emphasis on juniper and mint than on rosemary (who am I kidding? what the hell is juniper?)

Anyway...I highly recommend.

(Sidenote)

Please reference the "Things That I Want" post a few posts down, dated Feb 2009. I just read it and got really depressed because I realized I have accomplished none of those things yet. Sigh. I'm closer than ever, but still poor and insanely busy...and contemplating extending my second license into a second master's. I'm getting close to an iPhone, though...so there's that!

A Fresh Start

How do you like the new look? I figured a fresh start required a fresh template. It's simple, I know, but hopefully the thoughts I jot down here will be SO riveting that a jazzier background would just distract from their amazingness (right...).

Well, I have a lot of work to do, so I'm only going to leave with one thought. Buy these:



Oatmeal Dark Chocolate. And (relatively) healthy (for a dessert). Yum squared. Need I say more?

Wow, remember this blog?

So, it's been over a year since my last post. I'm sure many of you ("you"...as though there are actually any readers out there)have assumed that this blog is dead. But no! Here I am.

I have been inspired to start blogging again by a number of things. A combination of life events and hours spent reading food blogs and blogs of good friends (you know who you are) has reminded me how, despite having a totally directionless, relatively unpopular blog, I miss posting things here. So...stay tuned for some new thoughts, most of which will probably be food related.