Snow Day 2009

We got about 8 inches of snow at my house yesterday. My office never closes, but after my ice-accident last year, I have a really hard time driving into the office on days when the roads aren't clear. Luckily, I have an understanding boss who lets me work from home. So I did! I had 3 training sessions so I did need to get a lot done, but I took some time during lunch to wander outside with Maureen (who didn't have to work).



I shoveled a bit of the giant snow drift that piled up outside our door.


Once 5:00 arrived, we headed over to the Ramshead Tavern for their Snow Day Happy Hour. Essentially, 11 AM-7PM 2.50 beers. Nice. It also happened to be lobster night. By guessing the weight of Thom, the giant lobster...Maureen won Thom! Who weighed in at 8.1 lbs. My friends and I ate quite well...

(Myself, Mark, Maureen, and Rick)

Oh no! The giant lobstah claw got Mark's nose!

All in all, a fun snow day/evening!

Oh Wine, How I Love Thee (in moderate amounts!)

It's no secret to those who know me well that I enjoy wine. Now, I don't know as much about wine as some folks, but I know what I like and why I like it. And I'm learning more and more all the time about how wine is made, the grapes it comes from, how to taste it, etc. Since I never really had any wine (or alcohol, for that matter) until I turned 21, I've had to increase my knowledge exponentially since then!

I first started drinking wine on a regular basis (like once a week) with my roommates in my house in SC the last year that I lived there. We cooked dinner together once a week or so, and would open a bottle of wine to go with it. At that point, my knowledge of wine/food pairing was limited to red with beef and white with chicken and seafood (which, while it's somewhat accurate, isn't so much a hard and fast rule like I thought). We would get a $6 bottle and have some with dinner. Oddly enough, you can buy wine in the grocery store in SC (unlike in MD where you have to go to a liquor store), so we would pick up whatever was cheap at the store. I'm such a wine snob now that I don't think I could drink much of whatever we had then!

My current roommate Maureen knows a lot about wine, and has taught me a lot as well. I read stuff about wine, and my boyfriend (can I still say it's weird to write that!) knows a lot about wine as well. So, I'm surrounded by folks who like good wine. Maureen and I go through a couple of bottles a week with dinner, post-work, etc. So, when our local wine store has their dollar days sale (a dollar over cost...so no retail mark-up), we often buy a case or two since it's a good deal. This time, we went a bit overboard and bought about 4 cases.



That is our table once we took it all out of the boxes. Yikes! This time, I also bought mostly higher end wine (like $15-$20 a bottle normal retail). Maureen averaged about the same. Since we have a lot of parties where we just tell people to grab a bottle off the rack and open it, Mo decided that we should write the price we paid for the wine in paint pen on the bottom of the bottle. That way, we can say, "Pick one under $12!". Parties are not the place to drink really nice wine...that's best for a good dinner!

Wine rack in the kitchen

I also got another wine rack for the basement to store "extra" wine (the bottles that won't fit on our rack in the kitchen) and wine we are storing to age and and drink in a few years (or ten).

To be super-organized, I put tags on the bottles that are aging with the name of who owns it, what it is, and if I knew, the price paid for it on the back of the tag. Cool, huh?

Here are a few of my favorites that were purchased:

These two are kind of a pair (from the same producer but different vineyards) and will live on the rack for about 10 more years



This is a nice dry rose that will go well with a seafood grill night on the deck

This went into my homemade red sauce yesterday...and the rest went into my tummy with a spaghetti and meatball dinner. Yum!

A nod to my Charlestonish roots


For a nice Italian dinner

Aging on the rack for awhile

A Spanish Rioja...a nod to the Spanish branch of my family (Hi Jeff and Sara!)

Tasty port.

This ought to last us until summertime, I hope! I prefer red wine in the winter, so we'll have to consume that first..and try the whites once we hit summer!

Slacker...

I've really been a blogging slacker the past few weeks. But it's because I've been busy, I promise! My normal blogging time has been filled by work, and my evening time by my usual evening activities. So, here is a quick update on what I've been up to...bullets again. Sorry! I'll get better about blogging regularly...really!

• Getting ready to go to Disney World for the Princess Half Marathon! Woohoo! Getting ready as in running (got myself up to 11 miles), shopping for my outfit, getting new running shoes, watch, etc. I use big races as an excuse to update my running gear. For more details on my running, see my running blog. We leave on Thursday after work and I am so excited!
• Singing the Rachmaninoff Vespers at Chorale. And on my own...via cyberbass.com . I highly recommend this tool to any choral singer that needs some "woodshedding" of notes and rhythms. I really love the music, but it's sometimes in 6-7 part harmony which is tough! And it will be interesting to see if it comes together before the concert...
• I had my first voice lesson in many years on Saturday. I hate hate hate singing by myself, but know it is necessary to improve. I don't ever want to have to sing as a soloist, but I want to improve my choral singing. So, I must subject myself to criticism! It was very valuable though...she told me all the things I'm doing incorrectly that I knew I was doing incorrectly...but she also taught me how to fix them. That helps a lot!
• I've been trying to get a handle on little things in my life that keep coming up...like organizing and cleaning and such. It seems like every time I think I have everything complete, something else comes up!
• I've also been trying to spend more time with my boyfriend. Boyfriend...so weird for me to say! But he is, and as much as it makes me feel 12 years old to have a "boyfriend", I do. And he's great! But, we are both very busy people, and it can be difficult to find time together. So when we are both available, that's where I am. And it keeps me busier...but I'd much rather be spending time with him than "accomplishing" little tasks. Considering I see him only one or two nights a week...it's a small sacrifice! That's what I get for dating an opera singer, I guess. :)

I think that's it for now. Look for more posts later...I'm gonna try to post some photos!

Where My Money Goes...

If you look at my blogroll you'll see that I read a few personal finance blogs. Personal finance is something I'm interested in, but I wouldn't say I'm obsessed with it. I started out my career working at a bank...and while I'm not a math person, I love making numbers match up. Like balancing a checkbook. And figuring out where money is going. As I've written in previous posts, in the past few years I've gotten ahold of my financial life and spending tendencies. I'd say at the age of 30, I'm pretty financially stable (let's hope it stays that way!). I spend enough money to enjoy myself and my life (some dinners out, nice things, etc), but I manage to save a fair amount as well (for the most part...but depends on the month!).

In any case, one thing that my detail-oriented, slightly obsessed with organization self loves is Mint.com. With a little bit of input from me, it tracks all of my accounts (checking, savings, credit card, 401K, etc.), my net worth, and gives me nice pretty graphs to track my spending. It's great! I've been using Mint for about 6 months now, so today I did a breakdown analysis of where I've been spending my money. There were a few interesting things that I noticed.

• The Entertainment Category was dominated by spending on the Arts. 63%. That makes me happy. Mostly towards opera tickets and other musical performances. This category contains other spending like movies, books, music (iTunes, etc).
• Food was interesting as well. 37% to groceries, 32% to restaurants, 23% to wine (more on that in another post to come...with pictures!), and 4% to fast food. I'd like to cut the restaurants down...but I'm glad the fast food isn't more than it is!
• 44% of personal care is hair. Shows where my priorities are in that department, I guess!
• Travel was only 5% of my entire spending. With 2 big trips this spring mostly paid for, I expected it to be much higher!
• Health and fitness was 3% of the total, and Sports was 95% of that. Mostly race entry fees and running gear. Gotta stay in shape, you know! Better than $100 a month for a gym membership!
• Shopping was dominated (64%) by my 30th birthday diamond earring purchase. I was surprised, however, that I spent as much as I did on clothes (28%). I always think that I don't buy clothes that often...but apparently I do!
• Overall, Food was my biggest expense at 24% of the total. Followed by Home at 17% (which includes rent, home furnishings, but not bills/utilities). Shopping accounted for 16% of the total (again, the earrings contributed to that, I think). Those were the big 3. Kinda what I expected, but still interesting to see on paper.

All in all, I think I do a pretty good job of spending on things that are meaningful and that I need. It's also comforting to always know exactly where it is going by using Mint!

Catch Up

Whew! It's a been a busy week or two in Page's Book of Life! Between participating onstage in a production of Brigadoon, a Chorus Girl dinner, a few trips to Baltimore, and some busy days at work things have been rocking along! So, yet again I'm resorting to a bullet point update. Hopefully I'll have some photos and some more detailed reports on my adventures later this week. For now...

• Brigadoon- Was actually a good production. I was part of the onstage "acting" chorus and got to wear an ugly dress. Well, as our conductor put it, "it looks like you stole the curtains out of my living room." At first, it just looked like a colonialish calico dress to me...but as I started looking, I realized more and more that it did look like a curtain! Oh well. At least I had a lot of fun in the show. For once, I felt like I had an idea of what I was doing prior to opening night!
• Maureen and I bought a new Cuisinart Coffeemaker that grinds the beans itself automatically, and then brews the coffee. Delicious! I have found, though, that I need to use a bolder coffee bean to get the flavor I like because the fancy coffeemaker takes a lot of the bitterness out. Which is a good thing!
• Work has been busy. There is a new initiative in our department that has almost doubled the number of online classes I teach. While I like the fact that the day goes quickly, it has been a bit of an adjustment for me.
• It's only a little over 2 weeks until I go to Disney World for the Disney Princess Half-marathon! Very exciting...no explanation necessary. :)

Well, that's it for now. Hopefully more on my life later...

Casual Weekdays

My office has a casual dress code. Casual as in jeans are acceptable...even the norm every day. It can be a little difficult to become accustomed to such casualness. It's always entertaining to watch someone transition from a corporate type of job wearing suits or at least "business casual" wear every day, to working at my company. I went through the process myself. You look around and see all of your coworkers in jeans...but something about getting up in the morning and putting jeans on to go to work every day doesn't feel right. But, you don't want to feel out-of-place at the office in nice business wear...so you settle for nice pants and a sweater most days, and jeans on Friday or occasionally. A few weeks/months later, you've transitioned to jeans 3 days a week, and nicer clothes the rest of the time. The final step is when jeans are the norm. That's where I am now...

I have a closet full of nice clothes that I don't wear to work anymore! I still need them occasionally...for the once in a blue moon client visit or when I want to look nice at church or a social event. But when I get up in the morning, I tend to go for comfort over looks. It's gotten so bad that some days recently I haven't even worn jewelry, and very little make-up. This is a serious change from the days when I worked at the bank and walked out of the house looking like I should be heading to Wall Street! I'm trying to get back into the swing of dressing nicely and being "put together" during the day. It's difficult, though, when most coworkers don't really seem to care! Perhaps if I can force myself to wear something nicer than jeans and a sweater 2 days a week, then I'll get out of the "look" rut that I'm in right now.

It's always funny at the office when someone dresses up though. If I wear a skirt, people start asking if I have an interview. It's kind of funny...I think, "Do you really think I'd just wear a skirt and sweater to an interview?" If I'm wearing a suit...then you should worry. But even then, I think I'd probably change in the bathroom of McDonald's or something. Usually, I'm wearing nicer clothes if I have a date. My boyfriend has a job where he is often wearing a suit...so if I'm meeting him for dinner, I try to wear something a little dressier. It's no fun to take a woman wearing jeans, a ratty sweater, and sneakers out to dinner!

At least when I look at the management here, I know that promotions aren't based on how you look or dress!

Fabulous Weekend in New York

I seriously don't think I could have asked for a better way to celebrate my 30th and Maureen's 40ishth birthday. Of course, there were a few glitches here and there...a couple of tense moments...lots of tiredness...but overall, I think the weekend was pretty perfect!

On Friday afternoon, 4 of us hopped on the train headed for Penn Station in New York (the other 4 had left earlier in the day).

Lauren and I waiting in the train station

Our train was a bit delayed, but eventually we got to the City, and headed to our hotel- the Westin Times Square. It was quite lovely!

Night view from our window

After meeting up with the rest of the group, we headed to dinner at La Masseria, a small Italian restaurant a few blocks from our hotel. It was fabulous...I had a Veal chop with Black Truffle Sauce..yummy, yummy! We shared a few desserts...my favorite was the Limoncello Tiramisu.

Sharon and Mo


Ellen Corby and I

Everyone was having fun playing with cameras

Since it was almost midnight and my birthday, we headed back to the hotel. The bar closed at 12 AM, so we headed up to the room where Maureen happened to have a giant bottle of champagne.

A little dancing and silliness...and then we decided to go back to our rooms. Lauren thought it would be appropriate to give me my birthday gifts...a crown, a pretty pretty princess skirt, and a tshirt that reads, "Let me explain that to you through interpretive dance". Of course, I had to model my gifts.

Sleepy Princess...:)

Saturday morning brought breakfast with an old friend, and at 1 PM...I attended my very first performance at the Metropolitan Opera! It was fantastic! We saw Rigoletto. All of the singers were fabulous...with a few minor issues here and there...which you can expect from live performance. As usual, I cried at the end...tragic operas tend to do that to me.

After the opera, we walked to La Bonne Soup for dinner- where I had a filet, pomme frites, and a lemon tart. Most of us were tired, so we headed back to the hotel bar. When I got back, there was a message from the front desk letting me know I had a package. Lo and behold, a certain special someone had sent me Port and truffles from my favorite place...with instructions to share (Thanks, J!). Before sharing, we hit the hotel bar for a quick drink. And then, the cupcakes showed up.

Attempting to figure out which wine goes best with cupcakes

Everyone was tired, so we moved the party to my room...complete with pajamas. This also allowed us to enjoy the port and the truffles.

Pajama party!

Port and truffles...yummy!

Lauren deciding on a truffle


Yum!

Phyllis was not sure about the wasabi truffle

Sunday morning, I got up and drank my coffee by the window..looking out at the city.

Once we got moving, there was a little French Bistro on 9th ave that was calling our name...and was very tasty!

Since there were a couple of hours to kill before our date with Wicked!, we did a little shopping and a little wandering around Central Park.

And then...it was time for Wicked!


It really was a phenomenal show. Sometimes, Broadway shows don't live up to the hype...but this one did. I enjoyed it immensely!

Another dinner...this one at 5 napkin burger (where I suprisingly didn't have a burger because I wasn't feeling well)...and back to the train station to head home. Our train was delayed in the station for about 30 minutes...another of the few glitches of the weekend.

So there you go...my lovely birthday weekend in the City!