The No good, very bad day

Remember this book? Yesterday started & ended in a weird way. I woke up nice & early, walked Evie, got dressed & planned on taking the bus. I went to talk to Erik before leaving & he noticed a spot on my sweater. Then, when I looked in the mirror, I saw another one. It definitely needed to be dry cleaned and I could not get away with wearing it. So, at the last minute, I had to change.

I planned on taking the bus to work because now that it is dark out here, I don't want to bike home at night. I don't have the blinky lights on me or my bike and I just think it's dangerous. Plus, it's the start of the rainy season and it's going to get colder here. Anyway, planned on taking the bus to get to work by a certain time to get to the client for a meeting. As I left the house and ran across the street to the bus stop, I saw the bus pulling away.

Next bus in 8 minutes.

Couldn't wait 8 minutes or else I'd be late so my other option was to bike. I ran back to the house, hopped on my bike(in high heeled boots), and raced to work.

My co-workers & I were leaving our office and the elevator got STUCK. We were going down & suddenly it slowed down and did a little jump. A voice came on saying something about technical difficulties. We got to the next floor & thankfully the doors opened. Whew. We were shaking & scared! Got to the meeting a little late but we made it.

Yesterday at work, it just seemed like everything was going wrong. People weren't delivering things when they said they would, we had to move meetings, and the day was jam packed.

When I went to leave the office, it was raining! Of course, I didn't bring any rain gear. Walked to the bus stop with my bike, put the bike on the bus, and rode home.

Ahhhh I was thankful to get home & put the day behind me. No matter how strange a day is, it is always great to come home to Erik & Evie. Plus, in the scheme of things, I never look at a day like that as horrible. SO what, I got frustrated, stuck in an elevator, & rained on. At least I had seen that episode of Bear Grylls where he taught me how to handle a plummeting elevator! haha

The Bread Maker

This weekend was pretty low key. After our Friday night out, we chilled all weekend. On Saturday, we walked Evie & got take out lunch. We watched hockey & relaxed. On Sunday, I worked at the gymnastics gym all afternoon. It was pouring rain all morning until about Noon.

While I was at the gym, Erik made us dinner AND bread. He got a book about baking bread so he whipped up a few loaves. It was wonderful to come home to have dinner made for us to enjoy. He also made us a potato/mushroom/kale stew which was good!

After dinner, we watched this strange-ish movie called Surrogates. I don't ever remember hearing about this movie in the theatre & it came out in 2009. It's a science fiction film that made me think of Avatar & Minority Report. From IMDB: Set in a futuristic world where humans live in isolation and interact through surrogate robots, a cop (Willis) is forced to leave his home for the first time in years in order to investigate the murders of others' surrogates.

It was OK & a mix of those other two movies I mentioned. If you're looking for something on Netflix Instant Watch, go for it.

3 Years in SF

It was this week, back in 2007, that Erik and I drove across the country to live in SF. Hard to believe it has been three years. When I originally signed up to come live/work out here, my contract was for 18 months. Time flies. We've done a lot in the past year & had a lot of fun out here. Here is our recap after One Year and Two Years...


Last November around this time, Tara & Erik came out to visit. We had so much fun!

Last November, my Dad came out for Thanksgiving! We hiked Land's End, went to a car show, had Thanksgiving dinner, & went to a 49ers game.

Union Sq Tree

Hiking Lands End

We went home to CT for Christmas

Got to spend time with friends

Kimmy & I went to NYC. Got to meet the HAIR cast & dance on stage!!

Marla came to visit end of Dec/January.

Evie had her little photo shoot

We took a weekend trip to Lake Tahoe

Evie got ready for her ski lesson

The Squaw Valley Experience


Went to Boston for Kimmy's birthday

Palm Springs!

Had such a fun time at the BNP Paribas Open

Stopped in Venice Beach

Erik started his beer making

Turned 30!

The annual Walk for MS

Annual Bay to Breakers messy Sunday morning


An unforgettable experience in New Orleans


Attended a Giants Game


Habitat for Humanity fun

Lots of fun in Napa, like always


Evie, enjoying her strolls in GGP

More tennis....US OPEN

Visited Burlington, VT

Went to Sarah's wedding in VT

Spent Labor Day with family & friends


Another fun year living in California....

Happy 45th Anniversary...

...to the Sound of Music. One of my all time favorite movies!! I watched this movie a bajillion times growing up and still watch it a few times per year. This week on Oprah, she had the entire cast from the movie on her show. This hasn't happened in 45 years! It was very exciting to see everyone. And...the actors who played the children are writing a book about their experience making the film & what happened to them after the success of the movie.

Here is a clip from Oprah:

Ragazza

Last night, Erik and I tried out a new restaurant just around the block from us called Ragazza. Ragazza is a new Italian restaurant with wood fire pizza. We are always searching for good pizza in CA so we decided to try it out.

Overall, this restaurant was underwhelming & overpriced. I think it was similar to Flour & Water, which everyone raves about but I didn't think was that great. These specialty pizza/Italian places like to give you a small, dry pizza and overpriced salads and call it a meal. I realized that we don't have that great of pizza out here because all of the true Italians are east of Chicago. Think about it. The true, FOB Italians came over from Italy, thru Ellis Island, and settled in NY. You think large Italian families are going to make a trek out to CA to open a pizza place - I think not.

Anyway, we started with the mixed lettuce salad. This salad was truly lettuce with salad dressing on it. Yes, like the mixed greens you buy in a bag at Safeway for $3.50. Then, we had the margarita pizza & added portobello mushrooms on top. For dessert, we shared the olive oil cake with ice cream.

This is the new neighborhood hot spot & it was an hour wait to get in. Unfortunately, the food wasn't worth the hour wait and I probably wouldn't go back. I think that I just have to come to grips with the fact that we don't have good pizza out here & satisfy my pizza craving when I go back East.

Yosemite

In about a week or so, Erik & I will have been out here in SF for THREE years. Can you believe it? Since being out here, I have done a LOT. I've run through the Redwood Forest, seen the Hollywood Walk of Fame, drank wine in Napa, Sonoma & Santa Barbara, been to snowy Lake Tahoe, partied in San Diego, visited the desert of Palm Springs, and seen the muscle men of Venice Beach. One thing we haven't done yet is....Yosemite!

For anyone who knows me, I am not a camper. Erik loves it. I have told him that I would go camping for one or two nights. I definitely want to experience Yosemite and so I would camp while there. Yosemite has been on our list of 'To -Visit' but it recently came to the forefront again when I saw Oprah go there!

It was a pretty funny show of her & her BFF Gayle went camping in Yosemite. They camped in a pop-up trailer, hiked, rode mules, and went fly fishing. It was only for two days but they saw some awesome sights & had a great time.

So, I think we are going to plan a trip to go this summer. Apparently the sites fill up fast so you can reserve your spot for the summer, in the winter! Should be quite the adventure!!

Giants Parade

Wednesday was a very exciting day in SF! The World Series Champs came downtown for their victory parade! The parade started at Washington & Montgomery, came down Market St, and finished at Civic Center-in front of City Hall.



First of all, I rode my bike to work. BLOCKS before Civic Center, I saw people were walking downtown to get in their space for the parade. As I continued biking down Market St, I saw dividers on the sidewalk to keep fans off the street.

Once I got to Union Sq, people were getting louder. They were cheering, chanting, & making noise with their noisemakers. The fans were cheering for the bikers! haha. We were the pre-parade entertainment, I guess. They wanted to hi-five everyone. I declined because I cannot ride a bike and hi-five strangers without falling off a bike.

After I got to work, my co-worker and I went back outside to see the crowd. It was crazzzzzy!! We could only get onto Market St. Getting up Montgomery was impossible. Downtown was decorated in orange & black and everyone was excited. People were going into the streets BEFORE they shut the street down. You can see here that the train was stuck in the street!



People climbed up anywhere they could, to see the parade


Little Gians Fan

Here I am looking totally crazy. Hahaha

Sarah holding the free sign we got

This guy stood up on the pole & was telling people what to do. I don't know who he thought he was but he was giving people advice on where to go & stand.

Anyway, we didn't stay outside for the parade but glad we went out to see everything before it started. We left when the cops showed up to shut down the street & corral everyone. It was fun though! It's pretty fun living in the World Series city. Everyone is just full of excitement! Now, we just have to see how expensive our tickets are for next season :-)

Holy Ceiling

After coming home from a fun weekend, Erik and I discovered something not so fun in our apartment. Little clues showed us that something was wrong with our ceiling. We noticed something dripping in the corner of our hallway. Then, we noticed that the light in the hallway was orange instead of bright light. Then, we noticed something dripping in our medicine cabinet. Then, we looked up to see a few bubbles in our ceiling & we saw something dripping from the bubbles!

At 430 am, we awoke to big drops hitting the bucket we set up to catch any water. The ceiling was now one big bubble! I was convinced that the ceiling bubble was going to break and spill everywhere. I put in an urgent maintenance request for someone to come over.

Yesterday, the contractors showed up in the morning was I was leaving for work. I ended up staying home so they could come over and work on the ceiling. They pulled out half of the ceiling to find a leaking pipe. The pipe was dripping down the wall, into the light fixture, and causing the ceiling to bubble. Surprisingly, the bubble was NOT full of water. It was just puffed out due to the moisture/humidity.

Today, the guys came back to replace the pipe. They had to get up into the apt upstairs to open up part of their floor to adjust the pipe. But, the pipe is now fixed. Next week, they will come back to patch the ceiling. What a pain!

Happy Halloween from Evie

Since I wasn't here to post Evie's annual photo on the blog for Halloween, here it is! This year, Evie is a SHEEP!

Bahhhhhh!

Weekend in CT

So last weekend, I flew home on Thursday AM. I arrived in Hartford around 630. Dad picked me up and we stopped for pizza on the way home. On Friday, Kimmy came home so we got to hang out. We went out shopping for a little while, then had more pizza with the family on Friday night. I also got to see Marla & Tara on Friday night!! Friday was also the day I surprised my Grandparents & it was so much fun. We went over to their place on Fri AM to go out to breakfast. My Mom walked in the house & then I did. They were shocked!!

Saturday, I got my hair done(so much cheaper in CT!!) Then, we all went out to dinner to celebrate my Grandpas 80th bday(he turned in July), Grandma's birthday & Their 60th Wedding Anniv. It was so much fun to be together.





Kaitlin, Kimmy, Erin, & Me with Grandma & Grandpa. Just missing our other cousin, Brigid who lives in WI.

Grandma & Grandpa with their three children

All of us cousins with my Aunt Ann

After dinner, we went back to my parents to watch the Giants game. The party ended early because everyone was tired!

On Sunday, I stopped by Erik's house to see his parents. Then, it was off to the airport. I was very very very sad to say goodbye. I just think that if I get this upset when it's time to leave, then it doesn't make sense to live so far away. We have been out in CA for 3 yrs and it has never gotten easier......

Book Review: Harry Potter

Well, I have sworn I would never read Harry Potter. This is not my type of book nor did I care to give into the hysteria that is Harry Potter. I finished my book and wanted something to read on the plane so I took Harry Pottery & the Sorcerer's Stone from my Mom. I finished it during my flights!

Harry is pretty cute. I felt bad for him that he didn't know he was a wizard and that he had to live with his family that was mean to him. He does like to get himself in trouble though! The first book was interesting & a quick read. I took the second book, too. I will read that one this week. I think I might watch the first movie, too.

Don't think I will be showing up in Harry glasses to any movies anytime soon but I will admit the book was cute.