Week 31

Today is my Department's holiday party so I ordered this little black dress on Sunday to wear during the holiday season. It actually is a size too big but I didn't have the energy or time to deal with an exchange so I am just living with it. At least it is comfortable and cheap. Last weekend we had a fun time bowling with our small group on Saturday. My center of gravity must be really off because I did terribly and Greg beat me both games. That must be it right?!?! He can't possibly be getting better at bowling in his wacky hurl the ball down the lane with tons of spin style right?! Then on Sunday I baked a double batch of my Grandmother's sugar cookies because we were hosting a cookie decorating party on Tuesday with our home group. Once a month we skip the bible study and just have fellowship time and this week we thought we would decorate cookies. I was a little nervous that there wouldn't be space for everyone to work (and I didn't want people decorating cookies on the couch!) but it worked out perfectly. The 7 girls all ended up at the table and the 5 guys gravitated over to the Wii and competed in archery. We had a really nice time and everyone made adorable cookies (and ate lots of them too!!!). Grace provided us with naked gingerbread to decorate along with my sugar cookies so there were plenty to go around. I should have taken a before picture to show the set up but after 2 hours of decorating this is what it looked like. And the whole group packing up their cookies to take home. So much fun and really pretty easy to throw together. We decided not to have our annual Christmas party this year for the communion team just because we are so short on time and I am so short on energy these days so this was an easy way to share the season with people on a smaller scale.

Oops, did I miss June?

Wow, I am not sure I have ever gone this long without blogging. Sorry MOM! I am sure you are probably the only one still checking this page. June was a crazy month. Early on I found out that a position was opening up in the Biology Office, a position I have had my eye on and THE position that had sent me back to school in order to be eligible for it someday. Once I expressed an interest in the job it was like jumping on an express train that was running 100 miles per hour. I was all of a sudden appointed into the interim position and had to begin training immediately since the woman leaving (one of my bosses) gave only 2 weeks notice. At the same time I had to identify and begin training my own replacement in the lab. So long story short I am the acting interim Director of Administration for the Biology Department and the Center for Genomics and Systems Biology at NYU. It is a very exciting move and while I have hit the ground running thanks to my past experience here it has been all uphill and has required long hours. In addition to my work chaos I was also taking a summer intensive marketing course at the same time. I am glad that the class is now over. The only thing that really happened in June besides work was my birthday. My 33rd birthday fell the day before my marketing final so you can probably imagine that I didn't do a lot of celebrating that day. I did wake up to this balloon curtain hanging in the living room curtesy of my sweet husband. And the ladies at work weren't going to let me get away without acknowledging the day either. They brought me up a little gift of too cute earrings and a cupcake with my name on it. So sweet and just what I needed at the end of a crazy day. The necklace I am wearing was a birthday gift from my boss who also wouldn't let me get away with skipping my birthday. So so sweet of them all. I saved the real festivites for the following Saturday. Greg and I went out for a very fattening lunch at one of our favorite neighborhood mexican restaurants. I am not used to eating a ton of food at one sitting anymore and totally over did it. I had to lie down after lunch and take a nap because I thought my belly would explode. Oops! Goes to show how much my eating had changed after all my weight watchers time. That evening we had made plans to go on a cruise around the waters of NYC with my dear friend Marcela who is moving away to Rhode Island soon. I am wearing a strapless dress in this photo. Don't worry, I wasn't naked in the back of a cab! We had a great time hanging out on the boat, catching up with old friends, enjoying lots of Michael Jackson hits (in tribute), and taking in the sights. We even caught a glimpse of this great rainbow over Brooklyn (much more vibrant in person). It was a lovely way to spend my birthday.

New baby!

No, not the squishy human kind but the electronic kind. Greg's and my contract with T-Mobil was set to expire in May so Greg had been researching our options for a very long time. Then a couple weeks before going to block island my Blackberry stopped functioning altogether. It wouldn't hold a charge and couldn't accept calls, emails or texts. It was like that for over a week and then started working again. So frusterating. Greg's phone had been on deaths door for a long long time so the combination of the two forced our hand a little. Instead of waiting for the new Palm phones like we had intended we decided to switch to ATT and get iphones. Well, we are in love with our new babies. The best thing about them are of course all the applications you can buy. I have been loving the apps that track my weight watcher points, graph my weight loss, my "lady" calendar, tip calculator, to-do list maker, and games among others. Yesterday I took the day off from work to go shopping with the girls at the outlet mall in Riverhead. At one point I found 2 dresses that I loved that would both work for a wedding I am going to in August but I couldn't decide. So I had my friend Marcela use my phone to take photos of the dresses so I could look at them and think about the decision while I shopped. I even emailed them to Greg to get his opinion at work. I have never had a phone with a camera before. So cool! I chose the brown one by the way! Then after shopping we decided to have dinner before the drive back to NYC. I used the "AroundMe" app to find all restaurants in the area, then I used the google maps app to get directions in real time to drive there. So cool! Then after dinner I used my tip calculator to determine how much to pay.
I am loving my new phone!

New specs

Greg recently switched over to my (much better) insurance plan and has been getting caught up on dental work, physicals, and an eye exam. He even got some new specs! Real cute honey! This photo was taken while we were out to Sunday brunch with our home group. A group of people who all live in our neighborhood and also attend the same church. We went to one of our favorite little Mexican places in the neighborhood, De Mole. Our group of 13 almost filled the entire restaurant but they were very nice and accommodating. It was a lot of fun!

Wall Decor

I am a little late in posting this but a week ago last weekend Greg finally got around to hanging up these cool letters I got for Christmas. They are from Viva Terra and are made of upcycled tin (misprinted tin that would have been discarded). It took us so long to get around to hanging them because they were supposed to be hung by screws and none of the holes on the backs were uniform in position to line up easily. We were dreading the immense task of measuring and marking everything so they would hang straight and level. Well I got the brilliant idea to use double sided foam tape instead. That way there will be less damage to the wall and they would be a lot easier to hang in a straight line. It worked great. They are light enough for the tape to hold them up. A fun addition to our kitchen.

Ouch!

Last night coming home late from studying at work I fell down the stairs of the subway. Well, fell DOWN is probably not the right way to put it since it implies actually moving down the staircase. I sort of fell ON the stairs. They were covered in subway slime/grease and my feet just flew out from under me. I was holding on to the rail but it didn't really help because it happened so fast I couldn't even react, I was just on my back. Fortunately I mostly landed on my still ample arse. Unfortunately the stairs are metal so my arse hurts today and I have one big purple bruise so far (no photos today, lucky for you). Also unfortunate was that there were witnesses, kind ones who asked if I was OK but witnesses just the same which was slightly humiliating. I am very thankful I didn't hit my head at all or my back very much and also very thankful that my computer wasn't in the bag slung across my back because I am pretty sure I would have smashed it.

The incident definitely put a damper on my evening and I am feeling it all over my jolted body today but all in all I am thankful it wasn't more serious!

Forget me not!

Wow, January was a whirlwind. Once the holidays were over I launched right into huge work projects and intensive classes. I have my final intensive class (and final exam) tonight and then I look forward to settling back into a normal work/school routine. And with that I hope to get back to more normal posting habits as well. I have a few updates for you all starting tomorrow and will be making an effort to pull my camera out once again. Can you believe I took just 1 photo in January and it was of a co-worker. I have to fix that pronto! OK, I have to study for my test....

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Sorry for the late post. We had a wonderful Christmas in Seattle with family. The highlight of course was getting to see this little elf again. My sister and brother-in-law and of course Misha the dog.The rest of our trip went by pretty quickly and ended in a nasty case of food poisoning/stomach flu. The whole house got it which was not fun. We managed to make it home on the plane though it was the most nauseating 7 hours of my life! Greg and I rested and recovered at home the last few days of the year enjoying the break from work. We rang in the new year by going to bed early and then spending some time reviewing our 2008 goals and setting some new 2009 goals (our annual tradition since starting this practice during pre-marital counseling). Nice and low key, the way we like it.

Overall it was an excellent vacation. Thanks for counting down the month with me! Happy New Year!

December 24

1 Day till Christmas and what would I like to see

A happy family under the tree

We woke up to another 5 inches of snow in the morning. Not a problem except we needed to get to Greg's parent's house which is up a big hill. After digging out the car and struggling to get chains on the tires with my dad we finally made our way over to their house. Greg's family celebrates Christmas on Christmas Eve so we spent the entire day over there enjoying good meals, great decorations, gifts, and fun time spent together. Greg's Aunt Lisa and Uncle John as well as little dog Molly were up from Colorado for the holiday and it was great to see them. Especially John who we had not seen since our wedding almost 8 years ago and as well as Molly who I had never met.

Greg's mom is an amazing decorator and Christmas is no exception. There were twinkling lights everywhere!
The photos don't really do it justice and I certainly didn't shoot everything.

You can see, everyone had fun opening gifts too. It was a fun day. Marry Christmas Eve!

December 23

2 Days till Christmas and what would I like to see

A gift wrapping frenzy

We made it safely to Seattle despite all the difficult weather around the US. We were so thankful to have a place on the plane since there were 165 standby passengers trying to get on our flight out of Denver. We arrived in Seattle and got home safely. This was the picture from the bedroom window in the morning. They don't handle snow very well here, but that is a whole separate post. We had been shipping gifts directly to Seattle all along so we spent our first morning here sorting and wrapping gifts. Snow outside the window, Christmas music playing on the laptop and me in my Christmas jammies, all made for a nice morning. Then we got a ride over to the Cruikshank house. The ladies went out for a little shopping excursion (I found a couple pairs of shoes), the boys stayed home to shovel the driveway and putter around doing whatever men do to kill time. Then in the evening we all went out to dinner. It was a nice day all around.

A couple other things I wrapped up:

Homemade tissue holders.Love these because they have contrasting pretty fabric inside too that you see when you change out the tissues!

I also ordered a needle felted sculpture for Greg's Aunt of her little pooch Molly. Unfortunately Portland where the artist lives was really snowed in and without power for days so the sculpture had to be shipped express mail and won't be here in time so I wrapped up some photos. (Update: The sculpture arrived on Christmas Eve morning! It is so cute in person and we were able to wrap it up!)

December 21

4 Days till Christmas and what would I like to see
A homemade dragon softie

Meet Stuart the tiny dragon. I finished him this morning and wanted to introduce you to him before he flies off to Seattle to meet his new caretaker, Ewan.

He is just a baby dragon, not yet able to use his tiny wings, nor spit fire. He likes to nap in my new green bowl. He thinks it is good camouflage. I found the pattern here.

December 20

5 Days till Christmas and what would I like to see
A Cruikshank traditional activity

Each year when we spend Christmas at home, Greg and I have a tradition of doing a big puzzle on Christmas Day (It is usually a gift). We didn't want to miss out on our tradition this year but doing a puzzle on vacation isn't always possible so I found a cool New York City puzzle at Barnes and Noble recently, picked it up and put it under the tree. We opened it Saturday night and got started. There is no pressure to finish it before we leave, in fact I think it will be nice to work on it when we get back.

We don't actually approach puzzles the same way. I like to start with making the boarder, Greg does not. I like to start working on it and then do nothing else for days where as Greg likes to work a little here and a little there. None the less, we have a good time putting it together each year and then we often share the puzzle with a friend (since I don't like to do the same puzzle twice). Perfect with this one because all the pieces came in a little suitcase! (Sorry, Blogger is rotating my photo for some reason!)