New Years Eve 2008-2009

We hosted NYE at the Leland house. I had a blast. From what I remember. I'll let the pictures tell the story

Steve, me & T while we're all sober And then the Irish Car Bombs

Lisa and Dan

Tammy, me & Laura. We'll look much different in following photos

Dan punching me. Not sure why. Jackass. He's so meanLizzie and Andy

Steve & Laura

Carlos w the thumbs up

Rafael's beautiful creation. I've started to call it the munchkin tree even though it's something fanc y and French.

Rafael busting into dessert.

Me busting in...

Now add some sangria

And some fAncy (actually, the iPod post-fAncy)

equal = Boogie!

White boys dancing

Wait...what's happening..

Charming...

Night-night

Sleep tight

Hope your 2009 kicks ass!

Christmas in NYC

Christmas was quiet and relatively uneventful this year. I came home to the cat in her jingle bell elf collar which I thought was mean. But she seemed ok with it, so who am I to argue? Christmas itself was nice-- just me and the folks. Gifts then out to dinner. And the traditional Christmas Day movie-- "Slumdog Millionaire" (excellent!).
The next day I went out to Long Island to see Lara and get some bridesmaid dress shopping in. The shopping wasn't so successful, but the time with Lara was. I also learned that Long Island Railroad is run by mean idiots who only post what track a train is on 5 mins. before it's scheduled to leave creating a herd that rushes into tunnels. And then sometimes-- they just cancel a train. No warning. No reason. Just never shows up.
Eventually, I got on a train and back into the city for a little Marymount reunion. Say all you want about Facebook, but I've had a couple of awesome times this past year because I reconnected with people from Facebook. This was one of those nights. We met at our old stomping grounds and everything fell right back into place. It was awesome. Did I saw that already?
Saturday was my parents' favorite pastimes-- shopping and a movie. I reaped the rewards of that one-- a lovely navy cocktail dress and "Doubt". Sometimes it's nice being an only child.
And that was it! Home on Sunday. It was a quick trip, relatively quiet and drama-free. Which I think is the perfect trip home.

Me, Carmen & Bel at the Amity Coffeeshop where we spent EVERY morning before school

Carmen & Bel at the Cafe Carlyle. So grown-up!

December in brief

I was soooo bad about blogging in December. And it’s not because there was nothing to report. It just got away from me. Here are some highlights:

Food- Had some excellent food this winter. I’m biased but my favorite was at mk. It’s a fine dining spot in town and through work, I know the chef. Turns out, the restaurant is going to be on “Check, Please!” so he had to fill the dining room for the night they were filming. The day before, I ran into him and he told me to bring a couple friends for dinner-- he'd comp the meal. I'm sorry-- free me? Yeah. As a result, the lamb was the best I’ve ever had.

Mindy & Alex on our way home from mk.

Friends- I really love my dinners w friends—esp. the one-on-one girl dinners (that wasn’t supposed to sound as nasty as it did). Dinner usually leads to post-dinner drinks and sometimes new friends are made and the camera comes out. Dec. was no exception.

Me, Laura and our new friend, JP the bartender.

Sports- Other than winning my Fantasy Football League, sports were a bummer for me in Dec. The Badgers packed it in early this season and the Jets kept breaking my heart. So I hitched my wagon to my roommate’s ‘Bama express and of course, it got derailed at the SEC Championship game. It was one of those nights that sucked but was still fun bc of alcohol. Good, old alcohol.

Lisa and Mandy while hopes were as high as their drinks

Post-loss, dancing the blues away

Parties- This year’s annual holiday parties had a couple new additions including the Sherer family holiday party. Rob is Tim’s friend from HS and his family has an annual party at Christmas. Tim said he wanted me being the DD that night as his Christmas present. I thought I’d be annoyed being sober in the ‘burbs with a bunch of drunk guys around. But it was a blast. They were still funny and clever—even w a bottle of Ouzo down. Who knew?

Shannon & Tim at the Ugly Christmas Sweater Party doing, I'm not sure what

My sexy ugly sweater

I think these two pictures do a nice summary of my December. Well, actually, of my life...

Me with friends at Joanna's lovely Christmas party. Looking and acting like a grown-up Me at Luke & Jesse's afterwards. It was the SAME night. The grown-up is gone.