An Embarrassment to Californians

So, I am an embarrassing Californian. I arrived in LA today to the news that I would need to rent a car and drive from the airport to my hotel and consequently, the rest of the week. Yikes!

Despite having a CA driving license, I haven't really driven in at least a year and a half. The last time was Christmas 07, but I literally drove through the neighborhood to the grocery store, and I think that was it. Suffice it to say, I am a bit out of practice.

Naturally, I was nervous about brushing off the old skills on the 405. I've been a passenger on this route what feels like 100 times, so I just had to suck it up and go for it. And I prayed most of the way. At least I had a basic idea of what to expect, I am familiar with the CA freeways.

Anyway, I rented a snazzy new hybrid, headed out to the 405 and was relieved that there was traffic. I know...the only person driving in LA who was pleased, but it is a lot easier to drive at 20 miles per hour than at 65. And as an aside, how is it that there is heavy traffic between 3:30 and 4pm? Where are these people going?

The good news is, I felt comfortable enough driving that I can do it again. Next hurdle will be having passengers in the car...but at least then you get a navigator.

Thank you for everyone who assured me I could do it! And mom, for the prayers, because I know you had your doubts.

Football Food

With playoff games today, I have to admit that my favorite part about football is the food. Especially when the teams you are rooting for (or the local teams, if they are different) are out of the race, it is time to focus on the extras.

I am obsessed with this dip, a co-worker shared the recipe with me and I love it so much I'm sharing with everyone. I gave it such a strong word of mouth campaign over the holidays, the dip became the Christmas joke. But, the family enjoyed and said they'd probably make it again.

And yes, it will be served at my Superbowl party, regardless of which teams make it all the way.

Buffalo Wing Dip

1 block cream cheese, softened
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup diced celery
1 cup ranch dressing (out of the bottle is fine)
1 cup Frank's Hot Sauce
***many people feel 1 cup is too much heat, so if you are not a hot and spicy lover, try it with 3/4 cup Franks
2 cups chicken (I do shredded, but you can do diced as well)

Combine all ingredients in a bowl, pour into baking pan, top with additional shredded cheddar. Bake at 375 for 35 min or until bubbly on top.
Serve with Tostios scoops and celery sticks.

It isn't the most beautiful dip, but it basically tastes just like a buffalo wing dipped in blue cheese, except your fingers stay much cleaner.

Have a great game day!

Brrrr!

So obviously it is super cold and that isn't really news enough to blog about, but I do love discussing the weather, so I thought I'd mention just a couple of things about the crazy cold.

The first cold weather noteworthy thought is the plane landing on the Hudson River. Absolutely incredible story, and very New York the way everyone has a connection to the story, from my friends who normally take the ferry, that became a rescue ferry, to work, to a coworker who took the exact same flight home for Christmas. I can't imagine standing out in that freezing river on Thursday, if there were ever a time for an emergency river landing, January really isn't it. But, it all worked out, which is amazing. As a side note, I find it interesting when big news stories break, the networks come up with a name and use that as the tag to lead you into the 11 o'clock news or to the website. This story, "The Miracle on the Hudson". It is a true description, but just funny how every story gets a dramatic name.

Also to note in the cold winter months is the sidewalk of New York. Buildings and restaurants are always hosing down their sidewalk in front of their buildings to clean them from dirt, dog pee, and whatever else ends up on the sidewalk. In the summer, this is a blessing because nothing smells worse that dog pee mixing into the humid air, making the sidewalk reek. However, today I discovered something that may be grosser. Dog pee slushy. Seriously, it is so cold there are tons of little yellow slushies on the sidewalk because the pee just freezes in place. Ewww!

But this is January in New York, so you gotta take it for what it is. And I'm CA bound on Tuesday, which will literally help take the chill off.

Book Club!

So one of the only things I really carve out time for and make sure I leave work with plenty of time for is book club. There is something so fun about getting together with other young women to chat about books, movies, work, and everything else imaginable. I think why it is really fun is because it isn't my usual group of friends, so there are new points of views and stories on life, current events, and of course, books.

I hosted the group at my apartment tonight; we thought it would be a nice change of pace from crowding a bunch of chairs around one table at Starbucks or a wine bar. I discovered a new fake out dessert that was so delicious, I'm totally making it again. Basically, you put 10 or so chocolate chips on a crescent roll before rolling it up and then bake as usual; it is basically a chocolate croissant. I sprinkled them with powdered sugar right out of the oven and served warm, they were delicious.

Our last book we read was Old Filth, which was an interesting book about a British lawyer who had success outside of London following WW2, Filth stands for "failed in London, Try Hong Kong". I don't know if I'm really recommending the book (def not to the degree I'm recommending the chocolate crescents) but it was really interesting.

For this next month, we are reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I don't know if it would be my first choice, but it looks interesting. Plus, part of my reason for being in book club is to expand my reading options and try things I wouldn't otherwise read. Since I have a couple of cross-country plane rides coming up, I figure that's a good one to read on the plane.

Not all the books we read are favorites, but here is my list of books out of nearly 2 years of book club I highly recommend: Loving Frank, The Time Traveler's Wife, Digging to America, Interview with a Vampire, Revolutionary Road, The Namesake, Balzac and the Little Chinese Princess and the unofficial book club book (because we've all read it, but not officially for the club) The Other Boyelyn Girl.

A Real Grown Up?

Every now and then I feel like I am really an adult. I mean, I know, everyone is technically an adult at 18, but then you go to college where your parents still do a lot of taking care of you (financially, emotionally, sometimes unwontedly). Then, the first year or so out of college, you’re the youngest person at your job, you still have friends in college and probably aren’t making enough money at this first job to really outgrow the cheap beer and ramen soup college-days habits. So, the transition to being a real adult really goes from about 18 to 24.

So I’ve spent the last two years out of college doing some serious growing up and all of a sudden, I feel like a real adult. Two things last week brought me to this conclusion:

1. Skiing
2. Traveling for work

I just feel very grown up having booked a ski weekend with my girl friends for February. I feel like it is something characters on TV do and I used to thing, wow, that’d be cool to do one day. And the day is here; it isn’t going to be a glamorous trip (5 people in a condo for 4! Hello air mattress!), but we have the time off of work, the money to split accommodations, and the good group of friends to go with. The only un-adult part of the trip for me is that I have never skied and am nervous for the beginner lesson and bunny slopes. But that’s okay, overcoming my fear of skiing is very mature of me.

The other adult moment is traveling for work. It just sounds so important to say “I’ll be out of town on business”. Plus, it is exciting because in Advertising, you usually have to earn your stripes in order to get to travel, so part of the grown up aspect of the situation is that I worked my butt off and it is showing. I’m excited about that. I’ll be in LA for about a week working on a print shoot and TV shoot. Don’t want to post all the details all over the world wide web (you never know who is reading!) but suffice it to say, it is going to be fun, very busy, and pretty cool.

Other things that make me feel more adult: Britney Spears has been famous for 10 years, I have friends getting married, I have friends from high school having babies, when my sister was age- she was pregnant. Crazy.

I’m now declaring my 25 year old self a grown up.

All My Single Ladies...

Women who live alone have a bad reputation; stereotypes of crazy cat women or sitting home eating hagen daz watching soap operas all weekend are common. I think every woman that lives alone thinks about these as the really scary future you avoid.

But there is something about women who live alone that people don't realize. You have to do everything around the house alone:

I finally got a new rug for my living room; I was shopping/looking for about 3 months and found a rug at Crate and Barrel in Costa Mesa over Christmas about to be discontinued. Nothing like being totally relaxed on vacation and then knowing there are only 20 in the country left to help me narrow 3 months of shopping down to a purchase. So, the rug came yesterday, I hit Home Depot on the way home from work for a rug pad and I was ready to go.

Putting down the rug pad was nice and easy, stuck it in place and then started to heave and unroll the rug. Of course, the unrolling messed up the rug pad, so there was some additional lifting and positioning of the rug.

Then, I had to lift the couch little bits at a time to get the rug underneath the couch. The lifting wasn't too terrible because I was just putting a couple of inches under the couch and I was pleased with how the rug looked.

Then, after a couple hours of watching TV, eating dinner, and looking at the rug, I decided that I want more of it under the couch and closer to the wall, to show off more wood floor up by the TV. So, like any rational woman who lives alone, I start pushing and shoving the couch off of the rug so that I can reposition the carpet and then move the couch back.

It wasn't as smooth sailing as I envisioned. The logic of lifting and sliding the couch, and the angles to do so was correct, but really required it 2 people to move both the rug and the couch. However, once you move everything into awkward places and then realize the rug is too heavy for you to lift or roll, you just improvise in order to get the living room back together.

The happy ending of the story is that I now have a rug I really like in a position I really like. The moral of the story is Friday night at 10pm, alone, is not really a good time to move furniture. But...at least the heavy lifting is better for me than hagen daz.

Check out the new look:

The colors aren't great in these, but after all the work in moving the furniture, I was too lazy to use my camera and just took these on my phone and emailed to myself.

Is it Friday yet?

Wow this week has been long, and it is only Wednesday. I knew coming back from vacation would be tough; the office was closed Christmas Eve through the 5th, but it is amazing how your body really does adjust to vacation mode. I've been exhausted every night leaving work this week, I think this weekend will be a great chance to recoup. And unfortunately, it means I have not yet hit the gym post work...so I'm not doing so hot on the "go to the gym more" resolution. I did play tennis Monday night, so I'm not a total slug.

Of course, it doesn't help that all the little projects we put off "until after the holidays" "in the New Year" "in Jan" are now here and upon us. All the things I didn't want to do before Christmas, I still don't want to do. But now, there is no good reason to not get things done.

However, I am not complaining. I have a very good job and at the moment, job security. That is truly a blessing right now, especially in New York. I am just surprised at how hard it is to get back into the groove.

It will only make the weekend so much sweeter! 2 more days!

Sunday in the Park

Today we went ice skating in Central Park. I've never actually been ice skating and for the 4 years in Boston and the last 2 winters in New York, I've avoided it for fear of falling, the cold, the money to spend to slip and fall on the ice.

But today, I tried it out- I was very nervous but also excited, we had a 6 person group and were ready to take on the tourists in the park.

The great news is, I didn't fall. No one in our group did, and if they had, it wouldn't necessarily be because of their skating skills, but rather the skills of everyone around us. I wasn't super fast or steady, but once I got the hang of it, I could move easily at the pace of the crowd and didn't create an ice hazard. Some of the clumsy skaters and children were a hazard.

I really enjoyed skating and will go again this winter, though probably to a different rink, both to save money and check out the others in the city. I'm pushing for the Natural History Museum Polar Bear rink!

After skating we went to get beers and snacks, and were able to catch part of the football game. It really was a perfect January Sunday.