My Husband Rocks

This is overly embarrassing to admit, but: I got lost coming home last weekend.

I'm a creature of habit and have always taken the same route. Mark takes a different, slightly faster way. When I left his parents' house Saturday morning, I decided to take Mark's route - I've ridden it several times with him, just hadn't driven it myself.

I'm dutifully looking for my exit and then suddenly I'm heading over a bridge I've never seen before.

I called Mark in an absolute panic and the his first response to "I'm lost!" was "Do you want me to come find you?".

He didn't laugh - which, in hindsight, I completely deserved. He didn't question how I got there (for the record, I ended up on Staten Island - so far off the path I should have been going it's slightly pathetic). He didn't ask why I didn't have the GPS on.

He just wanted to know if I needed him to come find me. I declined because the whole reason I was traveling solo was so he could play football with some friends, but knowing he'd come if I really needed him made me calm down a lot.

He stayed on the phone with me for the next twenty minutes as I got the GPS set up, rerouted myself and made my way back to NJ - all the time trying to be supportive and comforting from a distance. My husband rocks.

Pictures from Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

We were up bright and early on Thanksgiving to head into the city to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We were very thankful to decently warm weather (nearly balmy for November) and no rain!

The crowd was, as expected, a little crazy. Here you can sort of make out the white police van that was swallowed up by the throngs of people. They hoised the kids up to sit on top so they could get a better view.

But these kids had the best seat in the house. Could you imagine being able to watch the parade from your bedroom window?

And onto the parade! Spiderman led things off.
Followed by Tom Turkey.
Kermit

The Energizer Bunny
Seasame Street's Float

Abby Cadabby

Fireman

Pikachu

Shrek

Spongebob - he got the biggest cheer out of everyone, no joke.

Sailor Mickey

Buzz Lightyear (to the rescue!)

Snoopy

Mr. Peanut

Horton

Hello Kitty

Smurf

Pilsbury Doughboy

And the star of the show, Santa coming into town!

He was super jolly.

The crowd, despite being very large, was pretty tame and we had a great time. It was really neat to get to see it in person after so many years of watching it on TV.

It also knocked another goal off my 101 list:

28. Go to the Thanksgiving Day parade.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

NaNoWriMo Win

My wordcount for NaNoWriMo officially passed 50,000 tonight, so I'm officially considered a winner:

I'm super excited, but not done yet. I have to finish the story. And then, I'm planning to edit this one. This is the first year that I've finished NaNo loving my story as much as I did when I started. I'm hoping that means good things for the editing process!

Happy Thanksgiving

I’m thankful for so much this year.

I’m thankful that Mark and I both have great jobs that we both like, and that afford us plenty of time together.

I’m thankful we’re both healthy.

I’m thankful that we both made smart financial decisions when we were really young so we’ll be in a great position to buy a house when we start looking in a few weeks.

I’m thankful that we have both the money and time to do some traveling. I’m really looking forward to the trips we have in the works for 2010.

I’m thankful that we were surrounded by our family and friends when we said our vows this summer. I love looking through the wedding pictures and seeing everyone just as happy and excited as we were.

I’m thankful that our families are both continuously supportive and excited as we build our life together. I’m thankful we’ll be getting to spend time with all of them this weekend.

I’m thankful for my friends, both online and in real life. They’re always a source of comic relief and make me smile every day.

And, most of all, I’m thankful for my husband. He is more than I ever dreamed of. I don’t know what I did to get so lucky, but I’m thankful everyday that I did.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Almost Thanksgiving

Just a few hours and Mark and I will be heading north to spend the weekend with our families.

As much as I like to cook, being a guest puts us on light duty this year, so all I had to make was a dessert. I cooked up this baby on my lunch hour today:

It's a Chocolate cake with apples and hazelnuts - and it's gluten free! It's my first attempt at gluten free baking and I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out - here's hoping it tastes as good as it looks and smells!

We're also shaking up tradition a little this year and heading into the city to watch the big parade. I'll be tweeting some pictures from the parade so if you're interested you can follow along here.

Hope you all have a safe, happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

My Husand Rocks

This month, the routine at our house has been pretty much the same. We're out of the house by 7:45 am to catch the train. When I get out of work, I either run to the gym or run errands and finish just in time to to meet Mark at the train a little after 6 pm.

Then, I sit down to write while he makes dinner, cleans up and watches TV or whatever else is on the agenda for the evening. Every night, rather than complaining about everything falling on him, he encourages me to write and asks how my story is going.

It means the world to me that he understands how much I love to write and is willing to take on some extra work to let me spend November with my fingers glued to the keyboard, again. He rocks.

101: Take a class for fun

Last week, my friend and I took a class for fun. (One of my 101 goals!) Our community offers adult education classes - this one taught glass fusing.

Really, it was more like craft hour for adults (we were even in an elementary school art room!), but it was fun! We were taught how to cut glass, and then we each got two glass discs to decorate. The teacher took them home to do the actual fusing and put a wire ring in them so they can be hung up - we should be getting them back soon.

These are Nicole's - I super love her snowman one - doesn't it look sort of like a snowglobe?

And these are mine - I'm excited to see the final product!

AC Weekend

So, as expected, our weekend in AC was a bit of a wash out. Although, looking at the pictures now, I think it was a little less grey than it was the last time we were there:



The weather kept us mostly inside. We caught up with Andy, Brian and Clark and headed to FireWaters. I have no idea what happened with this picture, but the lights are kind of cool.

The rest of Friday was a bunch of gambling and dinner at P.F. Chang's. The weather was slightly better on Saturday so we ventured down to the Pier and the outlets for some shopping. I got some pretty exciting stuff - including new MAC blush. I feel so fancy having such nice makeup!

Of course, when we were at the Pier we had to take the obligatory pictures. This one is Mark, checking out the still-stormy seas:

Inside the trop, though, it was snowing! You can't tell from the pictures, but they had machines that blew tiny soap bubbles down every fifteen minutes. It was really neat and looked very much like real snow. It was the first time we've been there for holiday decorations to be up - they looked fantastic!

As always, we had a blast!

Halfway!

Today is the halfway point of NaNoWriMo - and I'm actually up to halfway too! I wrote more than 5,000 words today (after not writing Friday or Saturday) and my brain is fried... but I'm on track!

Looks like we're in for another rainy weekend.

Last time we mad a trip to AC, the remnants of a tropical storm were making their way up the coast. It looked like this:



Tomorrow, we'll be heading down again - and guess what? We're getting hit with the remnants of a tropical storm. They're anticipating flooding tonight and high winds and rain through out stay. Awesome!