White people

I think I've written about this before, but it bears repeating. I absolutely adore the blog Stuff White People Like that was re-introduced to me by the Princess.

Seriously. This blog is hilarious and accurately portrays many aspects of Nathan and I's life.

For instance,

White People like Musical Comedians.

If you find yourself at a corporate retreat where you have to put on a skit for the other employees in your office, it’s always a good idea to suggest doing a funny song. The rest of your group will get very excited and start work immediately on some clever lyrics. Do not worry about the music part, if you have more than two white males on your team, it is certain that one of them can play the guitar.

White People like Study Abroad.

If you need to make up your own study abroad experience, they all pretty much work the same way. You arrived in Australia not knowing anybody, you went out to the bar the first night and made a lot of friends, you had a short relationship with someone from a foreign country, you didn’t learn anything, and you acquired a taste for something (local food, beer, fruit). This latter point is important because you will need to be able to tell everyone how it is unavailable in your current country.

White People like Recycling.

Recycling is a part of a larger theme of stuff white people like: saving the earth without having to do that much.

Recycling is fantastic! You can still buy all the stuff you like (bottled water, beer, wine, organic iced tea, and cans of all varieties) and then when you’re done you just put it in a DIFFERENT bin than where you would throw your other garbage. And boom! Environment saved! Everyone feels great, it’s so easy!

White People like Expensive Sandwiches.

In most cities, if you need to find a cache of white people get yourself to a sandwich shop. Generally these places aren’t open for dinner, have a panini press and are famous for their bread. There are always vegan options and the selection of meats and cheese are strongly European.

White People like Kitchen Gadgets.

If you find yourself in a conversation about these things, a good way to say a little but mean a lot is to mention that you “find the consumer models to be poorly built, my friend, a chef, brings me with him to a restaurant supply shop that’s not open to the public. The stuff there is real quality, it’s where I get all of my pans.”

If this is too big of a risk, you should just throw out a combination of these words: “le Creuset, Calphalon, All Clad, Williams Sonoma, and Sur Le Table.” White people go so nuts when they hear these words, you won’t even have to finish your sentence.

White People like Apple Products.

It is also important that white people are reminded of their creativity, and remember you need a Mac to creatively check email, creatively check websites, and creatively watch DVDs on planes.

White People like Tea.

If you find yourself in a situation with a white person, acceptable things to say include “I’m really into tea right now,” or “my favorite thing is to get a nice cup of tea and curl up in a chair with a good book.” But do not remind them about the role of colonialism in tea, it will make them feel sad.

I mean, it's good to be able to laugh at yourself, right?

Our brand of entertainment

Yesterday, Nathan and I:

1. Cleaned the entire apartment and picked up all the clutter that accumulates after trips and a week of working.

2. Trapped flies in between the window panes to entertain Miss Marple (and, thus, us!)

3. Watched 4 episodes of Season 1 of the OC

4. Read short stories

5. Attempted to watch an episode of Heroes, and

6. While watching the above, I knit and Nathan worked on his speed-solving Rubik's cube skills using his new book he picked up at the MIT Co-op.

Good day, yes?

Weekend Update.

Whew--you get tired really quickly when you're at work all day!

That's the main thing I learned this week. I've seriously become a little old lady. I'm rising with the sun and going to sleep around 9:00 pm. I guarantee you that last night we were both asleep by 9:30 pm. I woke up at 7:30 am this morning. Wow.

Waking up so early is not so bad though because I have a lot of things to do today. Pre-work, I cleaned a different area of the apartment every day. Today, we have to clean the entire thing. And write some thank you notes. And plan some meals. And do the baking for the week. And print off some calendars to schedule subsequent meals/cleaning/etc.

I would add jogging to that list, but I left my shoes at work. Nathan came by yesterday afternoon to meet some people (because only three of us were still there by 4:30 pm) and I was so excited that I left my shoes. Oh well.

Work so far has been great. I do way, way, way, way more than answer phones and it's great to work around really smart, ambitious, inspiring people that also recognize that you are smart, ambitious and inspiring. Also, on a superficial level, we have a fancy coffee machine that makes me chai every morning. Love it.

Pretension?

I'm sure who compiled this list because it seems a little silly, but apparently this is a list of 106 books the internet thinks are pretentious.
Books I've read: 38, but to be completely honest, the number, if I actually read everything I was supposed to for class, should be closer to 50.
1. Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
2. Anna Karenina
3. Crime and Punishment
4. Catch-22
5. One Hundred Years of Solitude
6. Wuthering Heights
7. The Silmarillion
8. Life of Pi
9. The Name of the Rose
10. Don Quixote
11. Moby Dick
12. Ulysses
13. Madame Bovary
14. The Odyssey
15. Pride and Prejudice
16. Jane Eyre
17. The Tale of Two Cities
18. The Brothers Karamazov
19. Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
20. War and Peace
21. Vanity Fair
22. The Time Traveler’s Wife
23. The Iliad
24. Emma
25. The Blind Assassin
26. The Kite Runner
27. Mrs. Dalloway
28. Great Expectations
29. American Gods
30. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
31. Atlas Shrugged
32. Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
33. Memoirs of a Geisha
34. Middlesex
35. Quicksilver
36. Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
37. The Canterbury Tales
38. The Historian : a novel
39. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
40. Love in the Time of Cholera
41. Brave New World
42. The Fountainhead
43. Foucault’s Pendulum
44. Middlemarch
45. Frankenstein
46. The Count of Monte Cristo
47. Dracula
48. A Clockwork Orange
49. Anansi Boys
50. The Once and Future King
51. The Grapes of Wrath
52. The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
53. 1984
54. Angels & Demons
55. The Inferno
56. The Satanic Verses
57. Sense and Sensibility
58. The Picture of Dorian Gray
59. Mansfield Park
60. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
61. To the Lighthouse
62. Tess of the D'Urbervilles
63. Oliver Twist
64. Gulliver’s Travels
65. Les Misérables
66. The Corrections
67. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
68. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
69. Dune
70. The Prince
71. The Sound and the Fury
72. Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
73. The God of Small Things
74. A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
75. Cryptonomicon
76. Neverwhere
77. A Confederacy of Dunces
78. A Short History of Nearly Everything
79. Dubliners
80. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
81. Beloved
82. Slaughterhouse-Five
83. The Scarlet Letter
84. Eats, Shoots & Leaves
85. The Mists of Avalon
86. Oryx and Crake : a novel
87. Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
88. Cloud Atlas
89. The Confusion
90. Lolita
91. Persuasion
92. Northanger Abbey
93. The Catcher in the Rye
94. On the Road
95. The Hunchback of Notre Dame
96. Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
97. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
98. The Aeneid
99. Watership Down
100. Gravity's Rainbow
101. The Hobbit
102. In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
103. White Teeth
104. Treasure Island
105. David Copperfield
106. The Three Musketeers

Urba-lates

One of the Princess' sisters is a certified instructor for Pi-Yo which is a Pilates-Yoga fusion class. I've been thinking of marketing my own brand of Pilates fusion--Urba-lates.

What is Urba-lates you ask? It's what is required of you if you take th 5:10 Red Line from Kendall Square. I guarantee that you will not be able to sit down. Most likely, you will not be able to reach a handrail to steady yourself. Sounds bad, right?

If you think about all the health benefits, however, it's really like getting a glitzy workout with about 500,000 of your fellow exercisers. I like to think of it as a subsidized, city-wide gym kind of situation.

Seriously, attempting to balance in heels with no hand rails while the train jerkily (and I mean very jerkily) accelerates and stops is an amazing workout for your core. I've been trying to think how I could simulate this in a DVD format so that I can charge two easy payments of $19.95 for my expertise.

I'll keep you posted on my entreprenurial ways and maybe one day soon you too can experience Urba-lates!

6:00 am

Good gracious, 6:00 am is early! I am going to jog today on my lunch break, because I just can't force myself up earlier than this (I tried).

I promise I'll get those NC pictures up at some point--probably this weekend.

The new job is going great so far. I think I've pretty much mastered the phone system which is the hardest part, I would think. I have a very official electronic pass card to get into the office and a shiny new email. It's pretty exciting. I'm already working on a special project and that's super fun.

Hopefully Nathan will hear something soon. He called his potential employer yesterday and asked if they needed anything else from him (subtext: you said you'd let me know something last week and it's now this week!). Turns out, they couldn't get in touch with one of his references so he had to give them a new one. How long were they going to try?

Today I'm hoping to get more done on the commute. The T is very, very crowded in the afternoons when I'm coming home, but I'm hoping to get some knitting done this morning.

Exhausted

I promise a real update about our trip to NC soon, but for now I have a lot of things to get done:

1. Clean the apartment,

2. Satiate the cat's need for affection,

3. Cook enough food to sustain Nathan tomorrow, because:

I START MY NEW JOB TOMORROW!!!!!!!!

Friday Fill-ins

1. A smile is what makes you fully dressed. 2. Cranium or Scrabble Poker or Crononauts is my favorite board or card game. 3. I would love to have more salmon in my life and less mosquitos. 4. When I think of the Summer Solstice, I think of the wedding of the Princess and EnviroCop. 5. I just remembered I need to print our boarding passes. 6. One of my favorite song lyrics goes like this: This isn't who it would be if it wasn't who it is. 7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to getting minimal sleep, tomorrow my plans include Brew and View and catching up with old friends, Saturday I will party at the nuptials of the Princess and EnviroCop and have dinner with Roommate BFF and Sunday, I want to get some rest before a very busy week! And, not a Friday Fill-in, but if I had to act like a cheesy teenager and describe the upcoming weekend with lyrics, I would choose these: There are few things pure in this world anymore, and home is one of the few We'd have a drink outside maybe run and hide, if we saw a couple men in blue But to me it's so damn easy to see that your people are the people at home Well I been away but now I'm back today and there ain't a place I'd rather go I feel home when I see the faces that remember my own I feel home when I'm chillin outside with the people I know I feel home, and that's just what I feel Cause home, to me, is reality and all I need is something real We're feeling alright headin out tonight maybe off to a dark driveway I say now, some feel bored, and some are looking for more, but we all just decide to stay We got nothing to do, but when I look at you I see something that I know and love And with the crack of a smile we all stay awhile, we know from home their ain't nothin above Well in the end, we can all call a friend, well that's something that I know as true In a thousand years, and a thousand tears, I'll come finding my original crew Cause to me throughout eternity there is somewhere we are welcome to go I said it's something free that means a lot to me, when I'm with my friends I feel home I feel home when I see the faces that remember my own I feel home when I'm chillin outside with the people I know I feel home, and that's just what I feel Cause home, to me, is reality and all I need is something real Home to me is reality and all I need is something real, I feel home

Public Service Announcement

Wherefore, The Environmental Cop is a very long blog pseudonym,
And Wherefore, The Environmental Cop's job is too hip for such an unwieldy name,
And Wherefore, Readers have the right to request a change of pseudonym,
Therefore, Henceforth, per request, the Environmental Cop shall be referred to as EnviroCop.

BTW: He's marrying the Princess in TWO DAYS!

True Life: Boston

1. Nathan and I just walked to Coolidge Corner to go into The Gap, but could not because of this. It looked b-a-d.

2. We left and bought Cherry Garcia Frozen Yogurt. Um...can we say delicious over a banana?

3. I have big news for you on Monday!

4. This drove me crazy today. About a hundred million drunk people got on the T today to go here. I mean, I'm all for celebrating, but drunk people annoy me to no end.

5. Our best friends are getting married the day after tomorrow and I.Cannot.Wait.

6. Graduation paperwork will be filled out tomorrow and guess what? No diplomas for us until December! Gee, thanks.

7. Tomorrow is: Sonic AND Brew and View. Mmmm....Nacho Mama. Love it.

8. My sorority BFF and I had a great chat about books the other night and felt like grown-ups.

9. UBurger is sooo good, but way too much food. Next time, Nathan and I are splitting a veggie burger and I will not be talked into another frappe!

10. We just went into a store where a guy asked me if it was still hot outside. Um...you have a bit too much Yankee in you when you think 73 is hot. For realsies.

Three words.

Respond to each question with only three words:

Tattoo on the low back?
Not so much

Your hair?
Better when straightened

Cheesecake?
Um, yes please!

Your dream last night?
Cat got job.

Your favorite drink?
Diet Cherry Limeade

The room you're in?
Our clean bedroom

George Bush?
He's from Texas!

Your fears?
Irrational and silly.

Nipple rings?
Gross me out.

Who did you hang out with last night?
My sweet husband

Your best friend?
Is a handful.

One of your wish list items?
More Vineyard Vines.

The last thing you did?
Brushed my teeth.

Ketchup?
Oh so tasty.

The computer?
Beautiful white BabyMac.

Your life?
Fun new adventure.

Your mood?
Pretty really excited.

What are you thinking about right now?
Plans for tomorrow.

Your summer?
Cooler than NC.

Your relationship status?
Oh so married!

Boston=College?

Faced with a lot of choices (which maybe, just maybe, I can tell you about soon!), Nathan and I were thinking back on the good ole days of college:
Basketball games, Brew and View, the Quad, lots of free stuff--you know, the usual.

And then it hit me--living in Boston is very much like going to college with a million other people. Want to hear my reasoning?

1. As soon as you get here, you are Bostonian and now living on the "east coast." I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but to Bostonians, the east coast means Boston. Not New York, not Maryland and most certainly like some place like North Carolina. We have not lived previously on "the east coast."

College indoctrination at orientation is much the same way. You've made it to a place and suddenly most of our wardrobe should be true blue (if you attended UNC Asheville as Nathan and I did) or green, navy blue or red in Boston (depending on who is playing--the Celtics or the Red Sox).

2. As mentioned above, as soon as you enter college, you suddenly have a team that you cry over, rejoice in and love very intensely. It's definitely the same way here in Boston. When this happened last night, people ran and drove up and down our little street screaming and blowing their horns. We didn't have a television, but we don't need one. We found out the Celtics won as soon as our neighbors knew.

3. College immediately sets you up with these common memories--remember Humanities 124? Remember orientation?

The T is much the same way. Remember the day the train just stopped for 20 minutes? Remember that day it actually ran on time?

4. Shared spaces become yours during college too. OUR Quad, OUR dining hall, OUR dorms.

Good gracious, here in the Boston you have pride-inspiring shared spaces coming out your ears. OUR Boston Common, OUR Charles River.

5. Remember (for those of you who went to Asheville) how steam would back up in the boiler in Governor's Hall and the fire department was always arriving? Guess what? The same thing just happened to the building next door. Can't we talk about how awesome it is to wake to the sound of TWO firetrucks congregating outside your building?

6. One of the really great things about college is that you're poor, but there is free or reduced price stuff EVERYWHERE to entertain you on a budget. Very much the same here. You're poor, but check these things out!

7. Arguably, one of the best parts of college is the random holidays. My brother has already warned me that the fact that you aren't in college anymore really hits you when it's time for fall break and, suddenly, that isn't a given anymore.

But, have no fear! These holidays still exist in the fair city of Boston! Yesterday was Bunker Hill Day, but you also get to throw such holidays as Evacuation Day and Patriots Day in the mix. Love it!

So there you have it. The good college times aren't over! They just morphed into good "we know we're the best city" times. And hey, we're the NBA champions!

Phone calls

You know how Nathan and I have been waiting for some pretty significant phone calls relating to possible employment? Well, I finally got one today and now I'm in a tizzy. I wasn't expecting the news this call held and I now feel like I am at quite the decision crossroads. Obviously, I can't discuss specifics here, but just send thoughts and prayers our way while I try to figure out which path to take.

Oh, and Nathan did get a call today that he should be getting another call today or tomorrow morning. Vague? Yeah...we thought so too.

The suspense is killing.

A surprise in the mail!

Before we get to the surprise, I have a few more baking pictures to share. Here are my muffins, golden-brown from the oven:

By the way, did you know muffins could go bad really quickly? We woke up this morning and wanted muffins, but they smelled terrible! We had to settle for bagels after church.Here are some pretzel sticks I made to go with hummus:
And here is my surprise from Lisagh over at Grosgrain Garage:
How cute! A tissue holder and notecards! Thanks, Lisagh!

Success.

Eggplant parm and the blueberry muffins were both a rousing success. The muffins taste JUST LIKE Earthfare's vegan blueberry muffins so they are a super duper success.

It has been wedding present extravaganza over here. We've used to so many wedding presents the past few days and it's been so fun!

Still no words on jobs, so it's another unemployed weekend for us, but we have high hopes for Monday.

Oh, and if anyone was jonesing to gift us with something, Nathan and I really need one of these trolley carts.

Friday Fill-ins

1. Traveling to a tropical locale is high up on my bucket list.
2. My favorite quote is Teach us to make the most of our time so that we may grow in wisdom; it's from Psalm 70.
3. Getting married and going to Bulgaria inspired me to start blogging.
4. Strawberries are best from Vaughan's Veggies.
5. I asked Kendra (dressed like a bunny rabbit) about her collapsed lung in the last dream I remember having.
6. The most enjoyable time to go for a walk is early morning on the beach or around 6ish in the neighborhood.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to finding out if I have a job, tomorrow my plans include cleaning the apartment and possibly going to Harvard Square and Sunday, I want to looking forward to a work week and packing for the wedding extravaganza of the Princess and the Environmental Cop that we're leaving for on Friday!

Thursdays are for baking

Actually, I think Thursdays are for working and for casual dinners that make you excited for Friday, but as we are still jobless, today was for baking.

I just got off the phone with my absolute BFF (who is leaving Saturday for Costa Rica) and she was quite amazed that I made bagels today, so I promised to post pictures for her.

Nathan boiled them because I was scared of flipping them in the hot water and he also dusted them with the grated parmesan. We used this recipe.
They turned out really well, but they were a bit less chewy than we were hoping. They were sort of like really good pizza crust. Quite yummy however. Nathan's other favorite food, besides bagels, is hummus and so I whipped some of that up this morning too using this recipe and adding in Cholula hot sauce. Here's a shot of the two paired together--yum! I really liked being in complete control of everything in these two foods and it was a lot cheaper to make them, especially considering how much food Nathan can put away! :-)
I also promised Absolute BFF that I would post the recipe of the bread I made yesterday. It is called Cottage Loaf and is a delicious sandwich bread that is soft and dense (like store-bought bread) but with extra protein (from its secret ingredient--cottage cheese).

It's from a super old copy of the Moosewood cookbook I picked up in a used bookstore in Asheville. This cookbook is so old that is has a chapter on fish dishes--something you would never see in a "vegetarian" cookbook today. Here's the recipe:

Oil a 2-quart casserole dish.
Proof the yeast (1 tablespoon) in the warm water (1/4 cup).
Heat the cottage cheese (1 cup) to lukewarm. Mix together the cottage cheese, honey (2 tablespoons), onions (2 tablespoons minced), butter (2 tablespoons melted), dill (2 tablespoons fresh), salt (1 teaspoon), and egg (1). Stir in the yeast. Stir in the whole wheat flour (1 cup). Gradually add white flour (2 cups) until the dough is stiff enough to knead.
Knead for a few minutes on a floured surface. The dough will be very sticky (quite true!) and, if it's impossible to knead, add a little more flour. Place the dough in a well-oiled bowl, turn to coat all sides with oil and cover it with a cloth. Let the dough rise for one hour. Punch the dough down, shape it in a round ball and place it in the oiled casserole dish. Let the dough rise another hour.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350 for about 40 minutes. Brush the top lightly with melted butter or oil just after removing it from the oven.

The bread was delicious and completely eaten by the end of the day. Nathan normally doesn't like homemade bread very much, so its annihilation was a great compliment!

Next up: baked eggplant parmigiana and blueberry muffins. Until we get jobs, we have nothing to do but sit by the phone and wait for interviews and offers and cook. So here's to a less-inspired week (culinary-wise) next week!

House Tour!

Hoorah! It finally cooled off enough here that I woke up this morning, cleaned, baked and took pictures of the new apartment. So here we go!

First, how cute are these slippers? I've been wearing them all week (until it got unbearably hot) to unpack. They are the Vera Bradley Cambridge pattern and a gift from my Mama.

On to the tour! This is what you see when you come up the stairs. We've only met one of our neighbors, but she was really sweet.
These bookshelves greet you when you open the door. They are one of my favorite things in the house. Love them.
To the right of the door is our home office area (haha). It's a desk, but it's really convenient.
Here's a better shot of the bookshelves.
And here's a better shot of our home office.
On the right when you walk in is the door to our bedroom.
Love, love, love our bedding and the plate on the wall was a gift to my grandparents on their 50th anniversary.
Here's a shot of the washstand and out into the hall. Yes, we have plastic tubs and a box of bubble wrap behind our door. What are you going to do? We ran out of storage and you can only see it when you stand at this window. The door to the left of the washstand is our very deep closet.
Here's a shot of the dresser, the shoe tree and another window.
I forgot to take close-ups of the arrangements on the furniture, but everything is either white stoneware or pressed-flower photo frames. Now we're back in the hall looking toward the kitchen. The photo on the left is one of our engagement portraits that Nathan's sister had framed for us and on the right is a collage of wedding cards I made.
On the left is our teeny tiny bathroom.
Here's a shot of the bathroom window.
Monogrammed B towels! Love them! They are from a resort near Nathan's grandmother's house. The resort's name starts with a B so all of their towels are monogrammed with Bs. She loves the towels so much that everyone on her side of the family has a set.
This is looking into our teeny tiny kitchen.
Another shot of the kitchen. If you look closely in the upper left corner you can see a Rubik's cube. For those of you who don't know, Nathan is a Rubik's cube whiz, so I put up a shelf in the kitchen to display his collection and so he can hang out in the doorway and absently play with them and talk to me while I cook. The other night we found a Boston Celtics Rubik's Cube that I think he needs! Oh, and in this picture you can see the bread I baked this morning cooling. So yummy.
Here's the sink with my magnolia cutting board (gift from my mother-in-law) and owl salt and pepper shakers that were my grandmother's. The cutting board we use is bamboo and propped behind the dish rack.
Here's a shot of over our stove. The plate has ladybugs on it and says
Thank for the food we eat. Thank you for the world so sweet. Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you God for everything. On the hutch is my grandmother's sifter and a cute potholder given to me by Yankee BFF.
Here's a shot of all the magnetic poetry that is awaiting visitors!
Directly across from the bathroom is our living room. Here's a wide shot and you can see the bay window.
Here's one of our end tables and Miss Marple's dining area.
The couch with UNC Asheville throw!
Nathan and his computer on my grandmother's sewing machine cabinet.
Dining room table with Vera Bradley placemats and wedding photos. I'm typing this from that very spot! We spend a lot of time here because three windows keep this room cool.
The other side of the room.
Wouldn't you like to stop by and eat some cookies with us? They are whole-wheat dark chocolate chunk--yummy!

So that's the apartment. I love everything except how bare the walls are. Nathan hates stuff on the walls especially if it is not a picture of us. It was a struggle to get him to hang those two plates. I'm very much the opposite--I like gallery-style walls that are covered. We'll see how it ends up.

Hope you enjoyed the tour!

Yummy

So we first ate this panzanella at Yankee BFF's house last week. I just made it again and OH MY GOODNESS go run and make it right now. It's so super delicious. Last week we ate it with tequila lime shrimp, but tonight we're having it by itself because we can't handle the thought of heating up anything. It's incredibly delicious and once you buy the ingredients for the vinaigrette it is pretty cheap--only the cost of the vegetables. Yum, yum.

Again, here's the recipe: Barefoot Contessa Panzenella.

Too Darn Hot

I could post pictures of our now completely unpacked apartment or talk about how Bostonians refer to Boston as "the east coast" or tell you about our total Bostonian adventure tonight (DD iced coffee and a walk around Coolidge Corner) but, frankly, it's too darn hot to do anything but lounge and lie very still in hopes of catching some breeze. Hopefully it'll cool down soon and I can regale you with stories and photos (including how I just pulled a North Carolina in the self checkout line of Stop and Shop and yelled "Any of y'all got a Stop and Shop swipey card I can borrow?")

Boston Mix

I love mix cds. Love, love, love them. Nathan and I used to make them for each other all the time. We made one for the Princess and the Environmental Cop when they got engaged. Part of BFF Bev's present to us bridesmaids was a mix cd crafted by her. I love them.

I learned the beauty of the mix at an early age from my brother who, honestly, makes some of the best mix cds in my life. His cds are like Nathan's--much more crafted than mine will ever be.

Well, my brother and sister-in-law made us a mix cd for the big NC to Boston move and I thought I'd share the track list with you since we still have a few more things to hang on the walls before I can take pictures of the finished place.

1. Dirty Water///The Standells
2. Boston///Augustana
3. Vineyard///Jackopierce
4. I'm Shipping Up to Boston///Dropkick Murphys
5. Boston///Kenny Chesney
6. MTA///Kingston Trio
7. Entering Marion///John Forster
8. Tessie///Dropkick Murphys
9. Sweet Baby James///James Taylor
10. Please Come to Boston///Jackopierce
11. Where Everybody Knows Your Name///Gary Portnoy
12. Sweet Caroline///Neil Diamond
13. Carolina in My Mind///James Taylor

Friday Fill-ins

1. Idle hands are waiting to knit something.
2. I love Arbonne Ginger Citrus scrub or B&BB Need a Margarita? scrub in the shower.
3. My favorite time of the day is when Nathan and I lay in bed and talk.
4. The last tea I drank was homemade soy chai that I brewed myself--complete with chai spices ground by my mother-in-law that I brought back from France.
5. I like to sleep with the windows open in the Summer.
6. My mother always said make the next right decision and you'll end up where you need to be.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I’m looking forward to exploring the Boston Public Library and finishing unpacking, tomorrow my plans include cleaning the apartment and playing with the Baby Girls and Sunday, I want to find a church to visit and explore the neighborhood with Nathan!

Get your our Friday Fill-ins here.

Teasers

Here are a few teaser pictures to hold you over until we get unpacked and I can post pictures that prove we don't live in squalor.

Here's Miss Marple enjoying her top-floor view. She really likes the windows and likes to stare at the cats in the windows across the street.Here's Miss Marple cozying up to the espresso maker which I am finally getting the hang of. You have to manually tell it to stop brewing shots--that's what a fun lesson to learn!
Here's a shot of the kitchen. Truly, almost the entire kitchen is in this picture. That room is TINY. I'm quite proud of our dish display. I'll try and get some better pictures of it at some point. And, yes, the fridge is not full-size which is great because we can easily store stuff on top of it.
Here's Nathan all gussied up before he headed out to an interview.
This is the afternoon we moved in so everything is in disarray. Still, you can see the bay window and how large the room is. Very exciting!
We've been eating a lot of pumpkin bread around these parts. Here's a Baby Girl with a mini-loaf.
And another Baby Girl with a loaf. Nathan kept asking Baby Girl #2 for a nibble of her pumpkin bread and she kept refusing. Finally, Baby Girl #1 let Nathan have a bite of hers.
Nathan and Miss Marple on the way to New Jersey all snug in the UHaul.
Also, today I found out that I was a runner-up for a contest over at Grosgrain Garage and I'm so excited! I can't wait to see what I won! I hope that someday when things settle down I can do give-aways too.

Unpacking

I have literally been unpacking since I posted this morning. My feet hurt. I am tired. I decided to take a break until Nathan comes home.

Buried.

We're still buried under a mound of boxes here. We did go to the grocery store last night which (for right now) is an easy one mile walk away. Very exciting. I love Trader Joe's.

We finally found our flatware so that we could eat and this morning we are going to attempt to fire up the espresso machine. I'll let you know how that goes--I'm a little scared even though I was a barista for 3 years.

Miss Marple is loving all of the windows and being able to look out on the city. She's also enjoying getting stuck in boxes and having to figure out how to get out of them.

Hopefully tons of unpacking will happen today and I put some pictures up of our lovely little place.

The Move

It has been an exhausting weekend for us. We packed up the truck Friday afternoon and hit the road early Saturday morning. We drove I-95 to New Jersey and we hit lots of rain along the way. Thankfully we missed the violent storms in DC and Baltimore and just caught the rain, but it was still very tiring driving for Nathan.

We got to Yankee BFF's house around 6ish and proceeded to have a wonderful evening with her and her family. We had yummy tequila-lime grilled shrimp and panzanella and sat around and talked about life outside. It was great to catch up with her.

We left New Jersey very early yesterday and had a pretty uneventful drive to Boston. We ended up at the wrong office at first and sat around in the parking lot for a while before we figured out where we needed to be. Unfortunately, on our way to the correct office we got into an accident. It was the other person's fault and no one was injured thankfully. I didn't even know we had been in an accident until Nathan told me--that's how big UHauls are!

Our UHaul was fine, but the other guy's car was messed up in a pretty serious way. I mean, he hit a UHaul...that messes you up. Anyway, within one hour of being in Boston we had to call the police and deal with all that. My brother and the girls came to hang out with me and Miss Marple while Nathan took care of stuff with the police. My brother kept commenting on how chill we were in the situation--I chalk it all up to study abroad! Our travels have really mellowed me out. Besides, we had bigger fish to fry yesterday like moving all of our stuff in to the apartment.

So we finally made it to the apartment later in the afternoon and my brother and Nathan completely unloaded the truck while the girls and I placed boxes in the right rooms and tried to tidy up some.

Our apartment is gorgeous and a lot bigger than I thought it would be. As soon as we're unpacked I'll post pictures. The kitchen is unbelievably tiny though and the girls started calling it "the really tiny kitchen."

We all went to dinner last night at Wagamama and had delicious noodley, coconut soupy dishes. Mmmm...I have leftovers! Then we bought Charlie Cards and came home to crash.

The sun really does rise earlier here and Nathan and I were both awake around 6:30. It was alright though because we had stuff to do before his interview. It's at 10:30 this morning and I have an interview at 1:30 this afternoon. Hopefully good things come from them!