"Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness." Robertson Davies.

G sent this to me this morning. Not sure if I buy the glandular part but it goes back to what I am always saying. You need to spend EVERY day waking up thinking about the little things that will bring you happiness. Like my walk home every day. I love it. I love the sounds and the people and the action. Or my coffee with skim milk and two french vanilla creamers. If I just have one creamer, not as happy. But for some reason two really does it. Or the smell of my hair when I put this over-priced, leave-in conditioner my mom gets me with shea butter. I could spray that crap on as perfume. Or eat it. :)

Holy crazy week Batman! I went to Philadelphia yesterday to meet with this company that I might start contracting with in January. I might be leaving my current firm which all seems so crazy to me. I guess I made a good impression though and A said they loved me! So we shall see. I can't really believe I might be leaving where I am but I kind of already know it's time. I am just sort of not growing much at all at this point. Which is really quite boring for me. I'm going out to CA for a week in November for my review so we shall see how that goes. I know they will not give me a big raise due to the state of the business. Or at least they will make some mention of that regardless of what they could do and that will be the end of it. I am excited about working with A and this other firm so that's good. Man, could I really be a freelancer??? I guess I could. I guess I just have to decide to do it and do it! I'm uber excited too since my friend M is coming into town this weekend and we will play on Saturday evening. Nothing too crazy due to the ear saga but we have to go to her favorite bar called Rudy's. It has this giant pig out front that makes me think of her every time I pass it. Not because she is a piggy. Well maybe Ms. Piggy but only in the nicest most muppety fun way. :)

I'm happy to report that things continue to get better with the ear situation although not as quickly as I would like. I'm still hearing the sound of my own voice when I talk and when I'm quiet, I just hear my heart beating in my head. It is actually quite nice when falling asleep at night but REALLY annoying the rest of the time. This weekend G forced me to be very chill given that I'm still not really all better. We did do some returning of a few wedding gifts which was fun because we are now getting a bunch of gift certificates back! We are going to use the ones from Pottery Barn to get lamp shades for the bedroom. And we bought a meat tenderizer at C&B. G also made me a very yummy dinner on Saturday. Chicken Souvlaki. I'm putting it out into the universe that G should be a master chef and I can run the restaurant. Maybe we move to Nicaragua and open a restaurant! But first, we are thinking of signing up for a cooking class here in the city. I really enjoy cooking but G has just that natural skill. Thank you whoever decided I would be blessed with a man that loves to cook! We also went back to this place called El Centro for brunch in Hell's Kitchen. While it's not La Playita in Hermosa, it's as close as we have been able to find. Now we just need a place that serves Machaca!

Still can't hear...but couldn't STAND being at home any longer. I think I could work remotely for sure but I would have to be able to go out of the apartment sometimes which was not really an option given how snotty I still was yesterday. But today, much better despite how insane I'm still feeling with the steroids. I think I have roid rage. ha! I'm off to the doctor again tomorrow morning to see if there are other things they can do to help the hearing issue. I know my ears are really inflamed but come on people! A whole week of this? I had to cancel going to B's wedding this weekend since I don't think all the travel will be good for me. In fact I know it wouldn't but I still feel really bad about it. But that will mean I can relax this weekend and perhaps do a load of laundry since I have been so far under a rock this past week.

Sorry I haven't been around lately. I have literally been on the verge of losing my hearing for over 4 days now. I have a severe middle ear infection in both ears. You name it, I'm on it. Vicodin, steroids, antibiotics, ear drops. Nothing seems to really be working too well. I am going back to the doctor today to see if there is more they can do. Not sure why this has kept me from blogging other than I'm so miserable I couldn't fake enjoying writing right now. :) I know, I'm a big baby but so what! I'm working from home AGAIN which I'm getting really sick of doing actually. I am trying a new tactic of no tv so i'm sitting in silence. My best friend J and her hubby/my buddy L were here visiting this past weekend. It was soooooo great to see them but I felt horrible that I was not 100%. Thank god I have such good friends that forgive me for being a drug-crazed deaf woman. Oh and we had possibly the world's best gnocchi ever at this place in the east village. And I can't actually taste very much so that's impressive. I wonder what it REALLY tastes like!

Vamoose Adventures begin anew. Today G and I will be heading down to West VA for the annual Capon trip. We are taking the Vamoosebus line. It's this bus line run by Hasidic Jews that runs from NY to DC. They show movies and it reminds me of the efficiency of buses in Europe. I've done Greyhound and it's pretty nasty so Vamoose is a welcome change. I'm not feeling too hot today so I hope sitting on a bus for 5 hours doing nothing will be good for me. Somehow I imagine it's not but one can brainwash oneself into thinking it is! G is out buying us Mets gear so that we can rub it in to all of the relatives that are Nats fans this weekend. I love how into sports New Yorkers get. Basically whatever they are into, they do it with lots of gusto! I also just ate a totally amazing grilled cheese sandwich. This did nothing to help my attempts at dieting but the sick part of me was really happy about it. I will be good the rest of the day.

Lets Go Mets!!!! The game last night was amazing and insane. There were so many people on the 7 train and then at the stadium that it's good I have gotten over my fear of small spaces! And the subway train had no air conditioning and it was still packed! All in all, getting the playoff tickets was worth it. G had a blast and I'm happy that we got to do something so very NY. People in my office left work at like 1:30pm for a 4pm game and no one cared! It was as if it was expected. Tonight I NEED to do laundry and packed for our trip. We leave for Capon Springs tomorrow after we get off of work and I'm SO excited. I can't wait to see SLY running all over the place! I will have to send pictures to everyone or maybe I can figure out how to post some up here. That will be my blogging challenge for next week.

I LOVE Greek food. TG took G and I out for an amazing dinner last night. We had a blast and met one of her co-workers which was nice. Tonight is the Mets game and G is uber excited. I'm just happy about the prospect of leaving work early! In other news I think I am getting my commute down to 20 minutes each way give or take street light timing. Not bad. I am really digging this whole walking to/from work thing. It is a wonder that I haven't lost a ton of weight. Perhaps it is the insanely large jar of chocolate that A keeps in her office across the hall from me. Literally, it's impossible to resist. I have managed to to get it down to one mini peppermint patty or 3 hershey kisses per day. That is still a staggering amount of chocolate considering if it were not there I would just eat the freaking sugar free chocolate pudding I have in the fridge. ugh. I have 1.5 hours left to go before I take off so I should make it look like I'm working.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. - Ferris Bueller
I love this quote for so many reasons. One Mattew Broderick is just so cute you could pinch his cheeks. And the major two is living here in New York, you really do need to stop and look around or you could miss so much. Every day on my walk to work I see something different. It truly amazes me how many people there are milling about in the street. It's funny because I'm really looking forward to my weekend at Capon coming up but I'm also still so fascinated by this city. I feel like because of how busy things have been I'm not even close to seeing everything there is to see or doing everything there is to do. It's like I'm Lewis & Clarke but I got lost trying to find the west. On a culinary note, I made a yummy chicken piccata-ish dish last night. I pretty much just took whatever I could find in the kitchen and whipped it up. Tonight my friend TG is taking G and I to dinner on her expense account. Woo hoo! Nothing like friends with expense accounts. Thank you universe for giving them to me. Now I need a friend with a boat!

Did you know the fourth largest mall in America is in Houston? That's right, you heard it here first. It comes close to the biggest mall I have ever encountered not including SouthCoast plaza of course. We were in Houston this past weekend for the wedding of our good buddy J. The wedding was lovely and the reception was at Rice University. A beautiful campus I must say. And I really enjoyed Houston surprisingly. I say surprisingly since I guess I assumed that since Texas is so conservative that I would hate everyone there but everyone was actually really really nice and I got a good dose of southern hospitality. Other than participating in Houston's favorite pastime (shopping), G and I did what every red-blooded American should do in Houston, we visited the space center. I got SLY this great shirt that has the NASA logo on it and it says, "I need my space." ha. Not sure why but that just cracks me up. :) We also visited the Museum of Fine Arts where there was an exhibit called Best in Show with all this art featuring our four legged friends, doggies. Very cute. There was also a little cat exhibit but it was kind of creepy and there was a flat screen showing a cat lapping up milk on a loop. A little weird. The museum is fantabulous though and I highly recommend it if you visit. I thought of my good friend J while looking over some Rothkos and other artists I know she loves.

Telephone Bar - I swear in New York you can find anything. Last night we went to a bar called Telephone Bar. Why is it called this you might ask? Well because there are UK telephone booths outside and in. That's it. Period. It was for this college event G helped put together. It was fun and there were some cool folks but of course I didn't get enough sleep and didn't manage to get up for the gym. ARGH. Tonight is the Yankees game which should be fun. We just had a little pre-happy hour to get peeps in the mood. Now if I could just get to bed before 11 tonight. I am in this weird place with work right now where I'm just totally over it. I need to figure out my work situation.

Whew, that was an amazing ride. My parents were here this weekend. Of course we had fun but there was some preparation I should have thought of ahead of time. One, my mother is not a fan of walking, two that restaurants might be a bit loud for her. Don't get me wrong, we had a GREAT time but I could have prepared her better for it. Yesterday was nice and relaxing. We watched football and forced ourselves to not think about all the stuff we needed to get done at work. We also watched part of our wedding video which was really cool. Today I'm just working away and having a drink with some people after work. Tomorrow I have tix for the Yankees game so G and I will be going to that. Should be fun. I miss LA though. Things have been good but lately I have been surrounded with overly mopey people and I can't say it's not starting to wear on me. I mean, even I can't hold the world up.

Start Spreading the News, the parentals get here today...that's right, the folks arrive this afternoon in my fair city. I am SO excited to see them. I have devised all sorts of culinary delights for us to partake in while they are here. First we will go to Nacional, a tapas place in the West Village. Then tomorrow day we will be having brunch near Central Park and then dinner in Hell's Kitchen at Taboon, a yummy middle eastern restaurant down the street. K and I will for sure be going shopping in Soho and G/J are going to the Mets/Nationals baseball game. I LOVE New York. The apartment is not really where I want it to be with my mother coming but I'm over it. I guess at the age of 30 I should at some point stop worrying about what she thinks! So there are boxes. So I have no coffee table. So my TV is on top of boxes full of books. It's my business kapeche? Or however you spell that word! I managed to get this great corporate rate for this fancy hotel call the ROYALTON over in the theater district. I want to go see this new broadway show at some point called Spamalot. It's based off of a Monty Python movie. Need to see if I can get tickets for it. Off to the work grid. Boo hiss.

Quote for today:
Be sincere; be brief; be seated." --Franklin D. Roosevelt, Thirty-second U.S. president

I made chicken cacciatore last night for dinner. It was not too bad but WAY too many green peppers for my taste. JC said I should try it with mushrooms. I will not give up yet then.

Tonight I'm having dinner with my friend TG from LA. I'm excited to try a new restaurant here in the city. I could literally eat out every single meal for breakfast, lunch and dinner for a year and never eat anywhere twice for a year. It's nuts how many options there are.

The UN is having all kinds of meetings here this week so I have had to walk to work since the bus runs right into where all the streets are blocked off. I think I will continue walking to work from now until it gets too cold. Thank you UN for disrupting mid town east siiiiiddddeee.

Tuesday, Tuesday da da da da da da
Have you ever thought about what a useless day Tuesday is? I say this all the time. Think about it. Monday, you just had a weekend so it's not so bad. Wednesday is HUMP DAY. Thursday is ALMOST Friday. And Friday is of course Friday. And Saturday/Sunday, don't need to comment. But Tuesday, a pointless day. So I have decided that I have to make Tuesday something really unique. I have to figure out a reason for Tuesday. So far, I am thinking of it as my laundry/making dinner night. But that is just not exciting. I think maybe I'll make this the night I do yoga so I will have it to look forward to. oooooo, perfect! Okay, now must find yoga class.

In other news, I'm thinking of taking a class on being a life coach. I just think I might be really good at that. I need to talk to Mo more about it.

It's been quite a while since I have written anything. I have been having an insane year. We are now living in New York City and so much has happened I wouldn't even know where to begin. G had a job in DC. Then no job. Now we are in NY. We are married. I'm 30 and I'm not really sure what is next for me. I'm sort of thinking about getting another job. One of the things I have decided to do is re-dedicate myself to updating this blog. My friend JD has a blog that she updates all the time and she really wanted me to get back into this. Especially since I'm not in California anymore it will hopefully be a good way for me to keep in touch with my very good friends out there. Plus being in NY there is so much happening to me I think it will be good for me to have a place to write it all down. This past weekend we went out with G's parents to this yummy restaurant owned by Bobby Flay called Bar Americain. YUM. We also went to Bed, Bath and Beyond and or bathroom is gorgeous now! I'm so happy. Tonight Fresh Direct is delivering our groceries so I'm happy about cooking this week. I need to get back into it!

SLY was born Friday, July 22nd in the evening. Right around 9pm EST. I am so happy I'm bursting. I have never known what it felt like to love someone so instantly without knowing them. I flew home on a red eye (5 hours delayed) to see her. I spent less than 48 hours with her and it was so amazing. I'm so happy to have gone to be with them. But now there is fear running through all of us. She is jaundice. Now I KNOW she will be okay but I can't help but worry about her and my sister. They are staying at the hospital right now. Sofia is under a light to help get her more sun to her skin and get rid of the yellow tint. I guess it's called the bely rubin? level that is too high. They are also feeding her a bottle on top of the breast milk so she is getting enough nutrients. I guess her weight went down too much too fast but now they are in the hospital which is where they should be right now. I know everything will work out. She just needs to be under the light for about 16 hours and continue to eat and everything will be fine. I just wish I was there with them. While all of this is going on, my father is still in the hospital for this gallbladder infection. They think they found the right antibiotics for him so hopefully he will be getting out tomorrow. We don't know yet. My mother is being so strong. I'm having stupid fights with my fiance. It's just too much for all of us right now.

Remain seated. My sister is having the baby. She will be in Arlington hospital and my Dad is in Alexandria hospital. I'm leaving tonight on a red eye for my third weekend in a row back in DC. I can't believe this is all happening. I'm so excited!!! I got to hear one of her contractions on the phone. I guess they are starting to come more rapidly now. I wonder if she will get the drugs to make her feel better. This is so crazy!!! I wish I could just leave work but we have a new person starting on Monday and I need to prepare for her arrival! I better get to work but just needed to write about the exciting news. I can't believe this is all happening. My Dad is doing okay. They are still not letting him eat anything yet since they are not sure if they will have to perform surgery to take the gallbladder out.

This is my first entry into my blog. I hope that I will keep this up well into the future. Seems weird that I'm just now doing this for the first time. I have been going through a tough time with my Dad lately so I thought this might be a good outlet for me. My father has colon cancer. In fact, right now he is in the hospital since he has an infection. The think it might be his gall bladder. I mean, doesn't he have enough going on???? I hope to start writing on this everyday. I think it will be good for me. I bet there are other people out there going through the same thing and who knows, maybe they will find this useful. Or not. I don't know. This isn't sounding very catchy yet. I heard I'm supposed to make this interesting. I don't feel very interesting right now.