I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

Living

Cray Cray!!

I would love to wake up and it be some point in the future. After the closing date, after the packing, after the moving, after the unpacking. I just want to wake up and having that craziness all done with. I would love that.

I know I can’t fast forward because well, that is just not possible. Also, because I would miss out on so much, like Pricer’s mom’s bday, my visit to see Amanda, and my nephews all being in a play together, etc.

Our current place was rented and the new people want to move in early. Really early! Like 10+ days early. Thankfully they will pay us for it but it still puts a crunch on things that we did not anticipate before. But when it comes down to getting 1/3 of the months rent… we will jump and get it to work.

I’m helping on on someone’s project this week for a deadline. I don’t care about it. I don’t want to stay late tonight to work on it. But I have to and I know that I will enjoy working on the details when it comes down to it. I would rather catch up on my Sketchbook 4 class of Project Life tonight. Oh well, at least the OT helps offset the time from the taking Monday off for watching the Boston Marathon.

I know that I shouldn’t get to wrapped up in styling our place since we are not even there yet but I can’t help think about it. I am just so excited about it new beginnings and starting over in a place that is OURS. I feel our bedroom is in the worst shape since at this point it’s just a mash up of things right now. I don’t want to continue that so I’ve been glued to design blogs and shopping sites trying to pin things that we might like. (Check out this board– it’s totally cray cray)

I’m just feeling a little overwhelmed with everything that I am juggling in my head and in real life.

Oh, this weekend… I can’t wait to pack, scrapbook, and attempt to clear my mind of the things that are cluttering it all up.

What is making you cray cray at this point? What are you up to this weekend to clear your head?

Hair of the Dog

oh hello hangover.

well, it’s not that bad. I need some breakfast and then I’ll rally. Plus that bottle of perseco that Price is opening up as I type well be awesome.

Saw Hunger Games last night with Pricer and Emily. Then we had to have Zuni Rolls and drinks at Parish Cafe. Dinner lasted 3 1/2 hours. amazing.

Price is taking us on the Whale Watch today!!!! More on that to come.

And Hey Em…

Gushing

This is my niece Cara.

She is a Halloween baby. She will be 2 later this year. I love this age.

When we saw her this past weekend I brought with me a flower headband for her. She was a little skeptical at first but did a good job wearing it… and smelling it.

 

 

The headband was a hit as she wore it, took it off, smelled it, and then tried to put it back on herself. adorable.

hmmm I found your camera lens cap.

 

Obviously she has a play phone already. She can ‘call’ her friends and her boyfriend. They hold hands at daycare!

here you smell it too

Playing around with Tante Lisette (tante= aunt in dutch)

she is a ham and she knows it!

Can’t wait to see everyone again next month when I go down to see my 3 nephews playing in a community production of Beauty and the Beast. 🙂

spring… a new beginning

So if you’ve been following along you’d notice some posts about us looking for a place to buy. It’s been a rollercoaster ride for us with finding places online that look great but are not right for us for various reasons from location, work to do, utility costs, etc. The biggest thing is that it was hard not to get our hopes us for any one place because we had to look at the whole situation together.

Well, it seems like it is all coming together for us since seeing a place for the second time, putting an offer on it, getting a counter offer, and accepting it this weekend. Actually all in less than 24 hours. Crazy. It’s exciting, nerve-wracking, stressful, exhilarating, and so much more.

Right now everything is GO! GO! GO! since closing is scheduled for 4.30. eek!

Fingers crossed it all goes swimmingly. 🙂

The Pioneer Woman Sings!

To top off a relaxing day off from work yesterday filled with PJ’s, scrapbooking, eating cold leftovers, and a Jersey Shore marathon, I went to see The Pioneer Woman speak at The Coolidge in Brookline. The ever so lovely Ree Drummond was doing a stop in the area at Brookline Brooksmith for her new book, The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Food from My Frontier. She was first doing a talk at the Coolidge (the most adorable independent movie theater ever (that serves wine!)) and then a signing back at the Brookline Booksmith.

 

I attended the speaking arrangement with Lena, Amanda, and Megan, as well as my coworker Rebecca.  Rebecca didn’t know all too much about Ree so this was a perfect introduction to her as she explained her roots, 2-week obsession of Sun-in, and random musings along the way.

To start the night, Ree explained that she has been enjoying Boston but the stactic cling here is something she was struggling with. Her signature flowly tops just don’t work when they are clung to you. (I completely understand.) She shared her story of spraying starch all over herself, as well as her ride’s car, and rubbing her self down with drier sheets. I hope that she shares this on her blog. (updated! She did!)

Ree had a power point going on behind her as she spoke. Of course there was some Marlboro Man added into the mix.

And photos of the kids. As angels. From mall kiosks.

Ree explained that she started her blog in May of 2006 with some stories and basic photos from a point & shoot… and the rest is history. She explained how the blog grew from Confessions, to include Cooking, and more. At first she would start a new blog for new segments, like Cooking, but then she rolled it all into 1 place under the “The Pioneer Woman Umbrella.” The blog prompted 4 books, TV appearances on national news shows, and then her own cooking show on the Food Network.

To finish the night she sang to her One True Love… Charlie.

Amazing.

It was a fantastic experience and I am so glad that I got to attend the packed event. After Ree spoke at The Coolidge she went across the street for the book signing portion of the night. The line was insane so Rebecca and I grabbed her hubs from Sbucks and we had really good Thai food at a tiny shop down the road.

Perfect P-Widdy-Dub-Diddy-Diddy-Dub-Dub night.

Won’t you be my neighbor?

photo unrelated to blog. I took it yesterday and just love it.

As much as Price and I would love to get the hell out of Dodge (Boston/New England) we have been coming around to the idea of sticking around for a bit longer than we originally planned. So we calculated what we would be spending on rent over the next few years and what we realized is that is would basically suck to continue to rent. Sure there are benefits when it comes to maintenance, such as the woman upstairs from us flooded her apartment and the building management is dealing with the damage to our apartment. But at what cost does that come to?

We decided to do some online searching for what and where we could afford in the Boston area and have begun to look at places. We saw 3 places this past weekend in East Boston.

First Listing: This was actually a single family house.  It is located behind another house that has 3 units in it. This is 2 story, 3 bedroom + 2 bath house. I like this most because of the face that there is so much room in it, including a full basement and pull down attic. The kitchen layout is horrible which I really dislike but still trying to envision how we would make it work. This was the most expensive one we looked at but again, it was the largest.

Second Listing: This one looked like it could be viable option because of it’s price, it is a 2 bedroom + office, the kitchen is old but the layout would make for an easy update, and there are washer dryer hook ups in the unit. However, after further discussing it, we decided that it had a weird layout, no view (balcony looked onto a parking lot), and a 3rd story walk up. Yes, we would hire movers to haul all those boxes and furniture up there but I am more concerned with the day to day stuff requiring trips up the flights of stairs… like my heavy purse, groceries, and baby carrier.

Third Listing: Right away we dismissed this last one because of the uneven floors. It had new flooring, kitchen, bath but the bones were not good.

So it was an interesting start to our search process.

Besides looking in East Boston, we are going to drive to other areas that we are unfamiliar with this weekend so we can see if we would want to look at any houses/condos in that area. I have to admit that I am being a bit stubborn about looking in different areas. Not because of any good reason, only because of commute times. Our current commute is 35 minutes on the train so I would like to reduce that (by a lot) if possible. The train ride from Maverick (in East Boston ) is 6 minutes, but could be a longer walk. Places like Malden only have an 11 minute train ride so we are going to look there as well as Chelsea, which would only have about a 20 minute. Oh the possibilities.

These are the things I have been considering for each of the places we look at…

we are looking for a 2 bedroom, 1 bath places in the 850+ sf range

within a mile of a train station or bus stop

house > 2nd floor > 1st floor > 3rd floor

laundry in unit > laundry in building’s basement

deeded parking > resident permit parking (long shot)

old kitchen  + low price > new kitchen + high price

With all that said…

What things did you consider when buying your place? What were your must haves and wants? What suggestions do you have? What did you learn from the process? Did anything scare you that you were not expecting?

I’d love to have some input.

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

“I’m sorry I wake you up at 5am everyday” present

I’ve been working some cray hours at work. Since I hate staying late I have been getting up super early to be able to work extra hours and in piece and quite before my phone starts ringing or I get blasted with emails.

As a result to me getting in work from 6:15-6.30 I get up at 5am. As hard as I try to be quiet, I still make noise or forget something and have to put our bedroom light on. I feel bad that I keep waking Pricer up. So as a little “I’m sorry I wake you up at 5am everyday” present I got him an iPhone 4S earlier tonight.

As much as my iPhone has FaceTime, the best part of Price having a new iPhone is that he can do it with his family whenever he wants. Tonight he called up his brother and got to say hi to family back in NY. The cutest was when his little nephew was asking Price why he was all dressed up, not knowing we just got home from work. Adorable.

20120218-103415.jpg

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

A Sea of Blue: The Giants’ Super Bowl 46 Parade

So I played a bit of hooky today and skipped out on work to see the Giant’s parade!!! My brother went to the parade when they won the 2007 Super Bowl so we decided to go in and see it together this time. So after work Monday I decided to just go, threw some clothes in a bag, and I hightailed it out Newton to drve down to Greenwich, where I stayed at home for the night. He came by this morning and we went into The City.

We took the West Side Highway down to TriBeCa where we parked to be able to walk down to the parade route. Well, the streets were insane and we ended up being directed back up North along West Broadway to Leonard Street, where we could cut over Broadway, to then go back South. That is when things got even more complicated. Once we got to Worth Street we were stuck since they were not letting anyone cross Worth or Broadway. After being stuck at an intersection for a bit we decided to head back and with some luck noticed a parking garage pass-thru that was not barricaded (well) and we ended up being able to pass through and get to Lafayette. This was much less crowded and we ended up getting a spot at Worth and Lafayette that is where they turned to get to City Hall. We got spots about 3 people in from the barricades. For the parade I ending up perching myself up on a barricade around a crossing walk post which gave me a better vantage point since it put me a little bit higher up.

Our first glimpse of the parade

Jack Ballard

 

 

The Lombardi Trophy. (Manning on was on the other side of the float)

Justin Tuck

See that arm on the left waving?!?! That’s Eli Manning. That’s my only pic of him. ha!

 

Joining the band!

Running backs… running

 

After the parade we headed up to Little Italy and we had lunch there. Obviously the TV’s where showing the key ceremony at City Hall so we caught part of that too. A quick walk back to the car and we were on our way back up to CT. I grabbed my over night bag at home, said bye to the dogs and then I was on my way back up to Newton.

I do have to admit that while my heart belongs to the Giants, the Boston/New England teams have much better parades. There were several things that they could have done to make it more enjoyable for the spectators. Overall, I felt that they missed the mark with the timing of the parade. There were periods of time when 2-3 minutes would go by and there would not be a float so people actually ended up leaving and missing out on some at the end. They should have been much closer together, like the Celtics 2008 Championship Parade. Also when they did go by they were really fast. Thankfully, my camera was able to do a pretty good job of keeping up on the continuous shooting setting.

I’m so glad I was able to go to The City to see the Super Bowl parade and have a nice time.

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive. 

Collin Kartchner Studios- Photos and Review

For my Mom’s birthday I decided that I would get us a photography session while we were in Utah attending Spark: The Event in October.  To me, the obvious choice for a photographer was Utah Valley Photographer Collin Kartchner. I came across his work from his wife’s blog, Dear Lizzy. Liz is a scrapbooker and her blog captures their well photographed life’s moments, which she happens to scrapbook. Obviously. I loved the look of the photos on the blog, and in Collin’s portfolio and on his blog. His photos and videos capture a multitude of emotions through poses and angles but I really loved his play with light.

We met Collin near the location he had in mind to take us. We ended up by some beaten up buildings in the Pleasant Grove/Lindon area, which is South of Salt Lake City. My mom was skeptical of the locale but went along with it since she has not other choice but to follow my sparkly heels in the weeds. I love the juxtaposition of getting dressed up and sitting in a barn so I happily wobbled along to the different areas where we took the photos.

We spent 45 minutes taking the photos. Collin asked about us, our hobbies, our jobs… which prompted lots of laughs from the stories my mom had from work and her less than PC approach to retelling these stories. There were even some hilarious demonstrations caught in the act. All in the name of loosening up to take lots and lots of photos around the buildings.

After our photo session, Collin sent us on our merry way to Thai Ruby, a restaurant that he suggested highly. The man not only knows how to take great photos but he knows his quality Thai food. 🙂

In all Collin took over 320 photos for us to cull through. We received a link to the album he put online for us to go through and select 20+ of them for him to edit. Once he was done with the edits he emailed me a few of them for review and to be able to order 1 as a large print for Christmas for my mom (see top photo). I then received a flash drive of all the photos in the mail.

I can’t stop raving about my experience working with Collin. I look forward to venturing to the beautiful Beehive State again and scheduling another session with him.

Collin Kartchner Studios

collin@collinkartchnerstudios.com

Utah Valley, UT

801.472.6010

2012 Goals and Wishes

I am a planner. I love to plan out events, weekends, vacations… you name it. It is how it gets me through the hum drum of daily life. I get to work and I plan on what I am going to make for dinner and what I am going to do that night. I love countdowns. It has me set my heart on something to look forward to.

Now that doesn’t mean that I don’t get disappointed. I was planned on going to Greece this spring. It was the thing that was getting me through this project phase. It was something fun that Pricer and I were going to be able to experience together. But things get messy and the trip was canceled completely. What was I going to look forward to now? I’m still looking forward to getting to meet and visit Amanda in May… some 91 days from now. But I need more.  I need to know we will have lots of fun things going on this year to look forward to.

I was feeling a little lost with the sudden change in events and the plan B coming into place and all the other things floating around in my head so the other night I insisted we did this:

We just started to rattle off things that we planning and hoping to do this year. Big plans. New goals. Dreams. Trips. Foolish hopes. Fun things. Promises. Silly things. Seeing these things will us develop plans to make them happen.

Some of the things we want to do will come true. And others won’t. But I’m learning that is okay because for everything I don’t do there on the blackboard, there are 2 other fun things that we did instead. It’s all about making it work and having fun.

What are your goals this year? What do you hope to do? What do you already have planned? Are you counting down until then? Please share  them with me!

 

An Instagramed Birthday

yesterday was my 27th birthday, man I’m old…

I had been harassing Rachel about picking a day when I could visit her and her 3 kiddos since I have so much PTO (paid time off). Last week she happened to pick yesterday and I was delighted since it would be a day off from work on my birthday.

Before heading up to the Granite State, I stopped to get some bagels from Kupels.

We chatted and had some bagels. Then the kids thought my purse was the best thing in the world and went through everything in there. There was some coupon de-organization and Nivea lip care stick stealing. Maybe some was eaten too…

Being silly with my winter headband.

Contemplated stealing this little guy…

Gnome… before she went to take a nap.

I was requested to stay and watch a movie but had to head back to have some dinner with Pricer. Must make a plan for another play-date. 🙂

I was welcomed home by these flowers from my nephews and niece!

Every year (except last year- long story) Price and I make pizza on my birthday. We went to the grocery store and grabbed what we needed to whip up the birthday pizza. It was mash-up of things in the fridge…like leftover taco meat. I forgot my pineapple for it, but it was still great. Already looking forward to the leftovers for tonight.

Then Pricer gave me my presents. He gave me the CHEESIEST card ever. I really can’t believe that 1) someone wrote it 2) it was put into production. I was cracking up because it was so awful. Love it! I had told me that I liked a necklace from Kate Spade when I went shopping in the mall last weekend. He remembered and got it for me. Plus he got me a wrap dress and a shirt to wear with it from Banana. sweet!

It was a great, relaxing birthday.

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Thanks for visiting. Please leave me a comment to provide some feedback. I appreciate all the comments I receive.