Happy Christmas Dad

It has been brought to my attention every Sunday evening for the past 10 months or so that my blog needs to be updated. It is brought to my attention by my dad who does not like the flickr representation of his trip to New York City. I therefore decided that the best Christmas gift I could give the man who has it all would be a new blog post.



So, here you go dad. This is a recent picture of me and you are no longer the last post. Have a very happy Christmas!

Mom and Dad Came to Visit

You read that correctly. My parents came to New York to visit their favorite daughter. It was fantastic. Now, since the batteries in my camera recently died back in November, I was unable to take any pictures. However, you have no need to fear. With the help of flickr, I will be able to photographically represent their entire trip.

First my parents:
Mom:

Dad:


They flew in early Thursday morning. That night we ate delicious Italian food (even though they were out of salmon) and saw Lauren Graham and Oliver Platt in "Guys and Dolls."


Friday, mom and I got facials:


Dad met up with us and we got pizza and went to Rice to Riches (so delicious). Dad had spent the day walking back and forth from Times Square to Grand Central just to get us tickets to see "In the Heights." Sorry I didn't teach you about the "shuttle" beforehand.


Saturday we had brunch at Alice's Tea Cup (a place that I'm pretty sure my mom wishes she was at with all of her granddaughters) and then took a nap before having a delicious Valentine's Dinner at Jane.


We went to church on Sunday and then had a delicious tuna fish sandwich at Union Square Cafe for lunch. We sat at the bar and were served by a Brigham look-alike. He even gave me free cookies, I'm a fan!


Monday we went to the Guggenheim and then to Gramercy Tavern for dinner. It was delicious (the restaurant more so than the Gugg). Tuesday I had to abandon them in order to go to school but we met up for lunch and cupcakes before I sent them on their way. Thanks for coming to visit mom and dad. I had a blast!

It Kind of Fits Into a Theme

Last Wednesday I realized that it was Ash Wednesday (it helped that there were lots of people that had remembered and had gone to mass thus allowing me to remember) and got excited about Lent. Although I am not a Catholic, I do enjoy "giving something up" for lent. Plus, it fits the theme of my life this year--better myself (yes, quite impossible, I know).

Anyway, the difficult part is determining what to give up. For instance, one year it was boys--this was more out of coincidence than self-control, but who's keeping track? Well, this year I wanted to challenge myself even more, so I decided that this year for lent I would give up not blogging. Meaning, I'm going to blog during lent. Now I've left this loosely defined because I don't want to over commit myself and then be disappointed. I always succeed at my lent goals. I figure if I just get one post in during these 40 days, I'm good. For all of your sakes, let's hope I do more though. (Basically I mean dad's sake since I'm pretty sure he's the only one who still checks this thing).

Happy Lent!

The Goal Setting Continues

It's important to set goals for yourself and then measure your performance against those goals. Is this not how we grow?

I had a goal to be in bed by 11. It's 11:29. In order to be in bed by 11, I had to complete all of my homework and write my Leadership report. I have two sentences done on the Leadership report and none of my corporate finance read. Luckily, the report is only a page, and I think I'm far enough in the corporate finance chapter that he won't lecture past what I've read tomorrow; therefore, I should make it to bed before midnightish. All I want in life is to go to bed before 3 AM just one night. Just one. I feel the waking up at 7 won't be as painful then.

That is all...I set goals....I fail....The recession sucks!

(yes, I did just blame my inability to achieve goals on the recession. no, it isn't logical. don't worry about it.)

A Whole New Year

I've never been a big New Year's Resolution maker...so why should this year be different? Yes, I'm "goal-oriented" (or so I've told everyone I've interviewed with lately), but I don't think I should only make goals at the beginning of each year.

So, as this year began, I decided that I should better myself and the world. The plan was to give up red meat. I had heard how producing one pound of red meat wasted some insane amount of water. Growing up in a desert, I've always found myself sensitive to water conservation. There's also the methane gas situation. And finally, it's not all that good for you. Since I don't typically eat a lot of red meat anyway, I thought this would be a great to help out the environment. In fact, I soon imagined myself turning into a vegetarian and liking it. (I have no idea what drugs I was on when imagining this--I love meat and can't imagine myself as a vegetarian although nothing is wrong with those of you who are)

I think I lasted a week before I was forced with my first challenge: restaurant week and the friends got reservations at a steak house. Seriously? I professed that I don't eat red meat and tried to leave it at that. The peer pressure. The internal desire for a giant juicy steak. In the end, success. I was able to pawn my spot in the reservation off of on someone else to eliminate the temptation.

The next day, while walking home from school barely breathing due to the freezing cold temperature and bitter wind, I ducked into my favorite coffee shop. Daily special: angus beef chili pot pie with corn bread. Comfort food like that on a freezing cold day when I'm hungry meant there was really no other option. It was delicious!

The next day I went to bake with my friend Stephanie...made a delicious dulce de leche bread pudding with chocolate chunks....she made me dinner. I love home made, non-take out food. Spaghetti with buffalo. More red meat.

These two set backs only made me more determined to pursue my new non-red meat lifestyle.

It didn't last long. My friend Carrie came into town today and took me to dinner, a steak house. Yes, I could have had fish or chicken or pork or lamb or veggies...but no, I had a steak. It was good. Not delicious though. So, it's back on. I don't eat red meat so stop trying to make me!!