Good Bye Summer :(

SCHOOL STARTS MONDAY!! WHAT?!?! Okay.. so technically, Friday, but luckily I don't have classes on Friday. Don't get too excited. That doesn't mean long weekends. It just means I will be sitting in work instead of sitting in class. Where did this summer go??

Mark and I caught up on a few movies recently. We went to see Night at the Museum 2 at the dollar theater in Tally. It was cute. Of course, not as good as the 1st, but still enjoyable. I loved Amy Adams, but then again, when don't I? Mark got Seventeen Again and Hannah Montana from his Netflix (he does love me! haha). Seventeen Again was actually really cute!! I was impressed with Zac Efron's acting skills. I am watching Hannah Montana right now... hopefully it's a good one! :)

Nothing else too exciting here. My little brother moved into his first college apartment at Penn State last week, and my baby sister is now on Facebook. Crazy!

The next few days will be filled with cleaning, (hopefully) relaxing, and mentally preparing myself for the semester. Not to mention a much needed haircut - almost back to my color al'naturale!

Have a good week everyone!

Claire's Visit to the ATL

Claire was just here visiting in the ATL and we had the best time! We fit soo much into a few days, and it was great just to chat and hang out. Here are a few snap shots from her visit.

We went on the CNN tour, the aquarium, World of Coke, Atlanta History Museum, and a Braves game. Along with breakfast at the Flying Biscuit (yum!) and a few other stops around town! We also went out one night for Kiran's Birthday (Happy Birthday Kiran!) at the cutest place with Bellini's.

This pictures aren't exactly in order, so bear with me! :)

The Swan House at the Atlanta History Center. How's this for a front yard?

Claire and I went to the Farmer's Market, picked out a recipe, and gathered all of our ingredients. We decided to make turkey burgers. I included the link for the recipe below. http://www.bonappetit.com/magazine/fasteasyfresh/2009/08/grilled_turkey_burgers_with_cheddar_and_smoky_aioli
Ours didn't turn out quite like the picture, but they were still pretty tasty! Burgers, beer, and a movie - it was a fun night! :)



Fireworks post Braves game! I had a blast at the game! I was cheering for both teams, but I was hoping the Braves would pull through for Claire. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. On a good note, the Phillies won! haha... I was a very conflicted fan! :)

Welcome to Turner Field, Home of the Atlanta Braves!

Overview shot of the field from our AWESOME seats.




Two Atlanta icons - Coke and Chic Fila. The Cow does the Chop. For real.

Inside Centennial Olympic Park!

Here is a glance of our trip. Well, Claire's trip and my staycation. I had such a great weekend with such a great friend! :) Thanks for coming to visit!!

Making up for lost time...

Good news! I have internet again!! Woohoo! I think that calls for some photo uploads. Some of these will be a little old, but they are still good! :)

Here is a picture from 4th of jully weekend. We were in Brigantine with Mark's family. I was so glad that Amanda came since I normally don't get to see her very often.

Brittany - you look so old in this picture!!!

It was also Jayne's birthday in July, and we celebrated while we were in PA by having a cookout at Mark's parent's house. The cake was delish and had chocolate covered strawberries on top. I learned how to play pinochle and had fun hanging out with everyone!

My Mom turned 50 recently, and we had a surprise birthday party for her while we were in town. It was a lot of fun! Bon, Dean, and Geno stopped over which was nice. Here is a picture of her blowing out the candles on her "Over the Hill" cake.

Here is Derka and my Mom's new dog, Sophie. Derka and Sophie are friends.... obvi.

June 12, 2009. Mark and I celebrated our -1 year anniversary! Of course I ate raw cookie dough while making this cookie cake. Unfortunately, I used cookie dough that was recalled three days later. The story didn't end well for me!

Derka with her dinosaur bone on her doggie bed. She is just so darn cute! :)

This picture is so blogtastic. Story is, I went to this cute pet store and it was one of those situations where you are the only one in the store, the owner is talking with you and helping you, and you feel like you have to buy something. The store had lots of little trinkets and toys for tiny little toy dogs (aka NOT Derka). I ended up buying a "make your own dog treats" kit. I've had it for almost 6 months, and decided to bake the dog treats. They weren't hard to make and Derka liked them (although she wouldn't think twice before eating bugs or dirt), but I think I'll stick to the store bought treats from now on.


Some HOTLANTA pictures from Claire's visit to come soon! :)

Bon Appetit!

On Friday Mark was coming up to visit and I was in the mood to cook, and that is exactly what I did. I decided to attempt to make homemade ravioli. I use the word attempt because I really had no idea how this would turn out. However, I am excited to say the attempt was successful and we had delicious cheese ravioli with pesto for dinner. It really is not that difficult to make ravioli, and it is actually a lot of fun!


http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/the-best-of/homemade-ravioli-with-ricotta-cheese-filling-recipe/index.html

I used this recipe and then topped the ravioli with a traditional basil pesto. I stuck with the traditional cheese ravioli for my first batch, but I am excited to try all different kinds soon!Honestly, the most difficult part of making the ravioli was rolling out the dough. I don't have the pasta roller attachment for my KitchenAid mixer, but hopefully one day! :) Then making homemade ravioli would be a breeze!

On another cooking note, Mark and I went to see Julie and Julia on Sunday afternoon. I thought it was really cute! It made me realize how much I am not interested in learning French cooking!! After the movie, Mark turned into a little Julia Child. It was borderline ridiculous. We decided to make a ravioli lasagna with the leftover ravioli and Mark was taking charge in the kitchen. Somehow I still got stuck with cleaning up... haha!

PS - CLAIRE IS COMING TO VISIT TOMORROW! :) :) :) I am super excited (in case you couldn't tell!).

PPS - Still don't have internet, so pictures to come soon. On a good note, Comcast did adjust my bill and gave me free HBO for a year! yay! Now everything should be working soon... I hope!

The Blog is Back in Town!

Hey There!

So I apologize for not updating my blog ever. While I take partial responsibility for this, I do place much of the blame on Comcast. I have not had internet at my place for about 2 weeks now, and my cable has been sketchy for approximately the same time frame. I keep calling them to be told that they need to "look into some things" and "do some research". They then promise to look into things and call me back shortly and then I never hear from them. I am calling AGAIN when I get home from work today... we'll see how that goes. Anyways, I hope to back to full blogging mode again soon.

I do have a few notes for now though....

1) Mark and I were in PA visiting family towards the end of July. We celebrated my Mom's 50th birthday with a surprise party, and later celebrated Mark's Mom's birthday with a BBQ. In between the two birthday celebrations, we tried to fit in as much wedding planning as possible.

*We had our meeting at Riverdale Manor (where our wedding will be!) and did our taste testing of the menu. I am so excited and very happy with our meal choices!

*I HAVE A WEDDING DRESS!!! :) I can't write much about it here because Mark can't know anything about it. If you would like more details, I would love to share!!

*We have picked out bridesmaids dresses! They are so pretty and will look so nice on all the lovely ladies in the bridal party.

*Mark's cousin, Mandy, is working on designing Save the Date cards for us. We met with her to discuss what we were looking for and we should be getting the proofs soon. That design will carry on through the invitations and so on and I am so excited that she is working on this for us!

*We are working on finalizing our DJ and photographer for our big day.

Plus, lots of other brainstorming and researching for other aspects of our wedding.

I ALMOST FORGOT!! So Mark is planning our honeymoon and I will not know the destination until, well, we step on the plane I suppose. I believe Mark is in the process of booking our honeymoon now and is looking at flights. I believe it is somewhere warm and tropical, but I'm not sure! All I know is that I need my passport! Exciting!!

Let's see... that is most of the wedding updates for now. The general colors for the wedding are green and yellow, which will look so pretty with in June at Riverdale Manor! I am so excited for the wedding!

I have other updates which I will write about soon... some cooking adventures and new books and movies that I am enjoying.

Derka is doing well... she has some dry skin which we trying to cure. Any suggestions? I am going to the pet store for some moisturizing doggie shampoo this afternoon. Hopefully that will solve our problem.

I will upload some pictures once I have internet. Who knows when that will happen. :(

Lastly, Claire (a roomie and bestest from Millersville) is coming to visit ON THURSDAY!!!!! YAY! I am sooooooo excited!! We are going to do lots of fun Atlanta things which I will most definitely blog about! :)

I will update soon. I missed blogging. and yes, this post was partially motivated by seeing Julie and Julia yesterday afternoon. haha love it!

Oh What a Night!

So it's a good thing I'm not a travel agent because I can't book a flight to save my life. I am trying to book a flight for June 30-July 5 for this conference I am going to in Philly. Easy enough, right? Well... I thought I had the right days, picked out the best times, and entered in my credit card info. Double checked everything, make that triple checked everything, and hit submit. Check my gmail and guess who booked the non-refundable/non-transferable flight for the wrong dates?? That's right... I did! Luckily I spoke with a lovely woman at Delta who voided my flight at no charge. I think she felt bad for that I was that dumb to book a flight for the wrong dates. Now if only I could book the flight that I actually need...

Question for everyone: Can you text and talk at the same time?

Not that I need to be doing both that frequently, but I'm wondering if it's possible and Mark wouldn't let me find out. I have the Verizon Envy 2 phone and I think if I'm talking on speaker phone with the phone open (as shown to the right) it would work. Let me know if anyone has done this because now I'm just curious! :)

A Collection of Everyday Occurances

Hello Everyone!

Things have been a bit crazy. Nothing exciting, but things to keep me busy! Let me fill you in.

1) Derka had a tail injury.

Derka has what is called "happy tail" which is prone to injuries because she is just so darn happy and excited. I believe that it is healed now (I took her doggie tail cast off last night) and it is looking good! She injured her tail while Mark and I were in San Antonio and Derka was being boarded. We thought it was healing, but she continued to irritate it around my apartment. Without getting too graphic, lets just say that a happy tail and a bleeding tail are a super bad combination and although my apartment is slightly devoid of artwork, a gory Jackson Pollock just wasn't a good fit.

Fast forward a bit, we took Derka to the vet where they shaved her tail a bit and bandaged it all up. Keeping a bandage on a happy tail is quite difficult, and Derka quickly became a red neck dog with the addition of a little duct tape. That was the only thing she couldn't easily and quickly chew through! While she no longer has her red neck dog bandages on, she does still look very silly. Her tail is shaved and she looks like a balloon dog! At least she is finally all healed up! :)

2) I just finished week 3 of my running plan!! Yay!

It's going really well and it is easing me into running which is exactly what I needed. Previously, I rushed into it and then I would get shin splints/ankle problems/etc which would be super discouraging and then I would have to stop which left me back at square 1! Now I am enjoying running which I am really excited about because I think I will stick with it!

3) I killed a huge bug today.

It was horrible. Possibly the worst thing EVER. Mark thinks it was a Palmetto bug (which looks like a cockroach). All I know is it was super nasty and there was a lengthy battle between myself and the bug. If you are against the inhumane treatment of bugs then do not read any further. I had to get this bug before the bug got me, which did not leave me with many options. I threw a phone book at it several times, jumped on the phone book, and eventually flushed it down the toilet. It was horrible and I was traumatized.. but I triumphed!

On another note, I have been reading a lot which has been great! I am worried that I just read books that have been made into movies (that I haven't seen yet) or are being made into movies (Those marked with a *) which makes me feel super lame. Since the end of the semester, I have read the following books:

- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

- In Defense of Food

- The Reader*

- My Sister's Keeper*

- Confessions of a Shopaholic*

Jodi Picoult is my new favorite author. I just bought another book by her called Nineteen Minutes which my sister recommended. Any other book recommendations would be warmly welcomed! :)

I also want to mention that I made my first trip ever to the batting cages!

"Ms. Stoeger, my plastic surgeon doesn't want me doing any activity where balls fly at my nose."

I wasn't horrible, but I also wouldn't say that I was good. Luckily I had a good instructor with me! :) I did slow pitch soft ball and it was still kinda hard to hit the ball. I had fun though, and I look forward to going again!

Well... I think that may be it. I will try to update more frequently so the posts aren't a million years long!!

Coming Up...

I will be in Philly over the 4th of July for a conference and in Hollidaysburg/Philly area July 17th-July 26th for my Mom's 50th Birthday, some wedding planning, visiting with friends and family, and so on. Let me know if you'll be around and want to meet up!! :)

PS - On Friday, June 12 it will be 1 year until the Green Wedding!! It's the FINAL COUNTDOWN!!

I believe that is all for now! It's about time, right?! Have a wonderful week! :) I'll update again soon!