Livin' the Dream!

 Yesterday, I lived the dream!  I didn't go to school yesterday, but rather spent the day doing things I needed to do.  I took a sick day because of a strep throat, but other than that I felt well enough to have my own little adventure.

In the morning I drove to Maine to go to the Kittery Outlets.  The Crate and Barrel there had some great buys, so I got centerpieces, and turquoise tea light holders.


This lantern will be the centerpiece filled with sand and starfish.  Cute huh?

I ran to Ann Taylor Loft and got some new school clothes.  It was so nice to get some really great deals, and to spend the morning doing somethings for me. 

On the way home I made a stop at Kelly's Famous Roast Beef for a...wait for it...LOBSTER ROLL!  My favorite meal is a Lobster Roll!  I love 'em, can't get enough of 'em!

Look at all that lobster meat!!

Upon arrive back in Boston, I picked up Nic from the Prudential Building where he was visiting a firm and we went home.  I left again to get my hair cut and then dropped Nic's car off for service at the Acura delaership  (Not a part of living the dream). 

I was in a bit of a hurry as we had a nice dinner to get to.  I got all dressed up in a new pretty ATL dress, heels, full make up, new hair do, and off we went to the new Legal Seafood 2nd floor.  The food was out of this world.  This is not your average Legal Seafood, it's not even the same menu. 

As you can see it looks a little different than the normal Legal Seafood!

I enjoyed Oysters from the raw bar, then a mussle appetizer served on a crustini with a delish tomato/red peper sauce.  My main course was, can you guess?  LOBSTER again.  I had the most delectible butter paoched lobster served with a lobster ginger butter sauce with mussles and churrizo.  We enjoyed our dinner so much, then hopped in a cab and went home to our sweet baby doggy who smiles at us when she's excited.

Maizey is NOT scary, she's smliing.  Our dog smiles, and this is the first I've caught on camera.  It looks pretty bad, but she is just so happy to see us that she's smiling.

So while my day was packed, it was a great day.  I really felt like I was Living the Dream.  I feel like I could use one day like that a month.  Is that why teachers get enough sick days to cover one "sick day" per month...hmmm!

Cake Class

As promised....

Cake Class has begun.  Nicole and I are two classes in, and have already crafted lovely cakes with a cute fish on them.

My Cake is on the left, Nicole's is on the right. 

Ready to decorate

Base or Crumb coat done! 

Nicole working hard.  She did her cake in her wedding colors.  The picture does it no justice.

Nicole and me, thrilled with the way our first cakes turned out!

My fishie.  It looks way better in person.  Well it did, until we ate it :)

In an effort to NOT eat the entire cake myself, (especially since I know how the frosting was made), I brought the cake down to Eileen's.  The kids dug in.  Connor told me my cake was "Perfect."  I'll go down there any time to have my ego fed.  They're so excited that next week is cupcake week.

ZZZZZZing

I've heard over and over that weddings can bring out the worst in people.  I have learned this tthrough personal experience in the last month.  I was ZZZZZinged by someone who I thought things were cool with.  Apparently, things weren't cool like chill, fine, no problem, they were cool like Cold, Icy, BIG problem. 

Upon receiving said ZZZing via email, I quickly responded in an off the cuff email back.  I did not however hit send.  In the past I probably would have.  For sure...actually. 

Over the last year I've come to a realization-you never know what someone is going through, so you should always be kinder than necessary.  I don't mean that people have a license to walk all over me, but I mean that I will respond in a positive way.  If I can't then I will not respond.  Either way, I've been nicer than necessary.  There have been situations that came up at school or in my personal life where someone was less than friendly.  Instead of getting upset or ZZZZinging back, I've worked to be kind.  It's not easy.  Let me tell you.  I'm half Italian-we wear our feelings on our faces.

I hope the situation that arose will be the only one involving our wedding that fits the saying "Weddings bring out the worst in people."  But if it's not-I'll try to be kinder than necessary.

Save the Dates...Part 2

I did it!  I mailed them!  They're going out today.  I'm so excited to have that part done.  I posted a few pics of the process I used to get them together, now I can post the finished product.

The pictures really do them no Justice, but here they are:

Now it's on the figuring out what the invitations will look like!

Dress shopping

I did my first little bit of dress shopping, which made me self conscious and feel that I should be running two times a day.  Yikes!

About two weeks ago I said something to Nic about wanting a cute shorter dress from WHBM for the wedding.  He was appalled and preceded to describe the dress he thought I should wear.  He clearly sees me differently than I see myself since he described a sleek trumpet style gown.

The girl Nics accompanied me to Priscilla of Boston to tryout these dresses my Nic was describing.   I tried on a bunch, and had a few laughs, took some pics, but mostly I learned that I can NOT pull off the Trumpet style.  At least not yet ;)

Whenever I'm with the girl Nics we have an adventure.  Sometimes it's to the mall in a snowstorm, getting ID'ed for the movies, Michael's to collect items for our cake class (More on that later), getting traffic warnings in Waltham, Bunco nights, Margarita's for you guessed it...Margaritas, or any host of other things.  This time it was sneaking out of the bridal salon.

Let me back up...

Priscilla of Boston is going out of business and liquidating their gowns.  I thought I should go and look-maybe it would prove to be worth the while.

I called the salon and they said no appointments, just come in.  Cool I thought... 

It was raining pretty good on Tuesday.  We decided around 3pm that we'd leave school to go try on dresses.  We bolted out of school piled in my car, drove into the city, and found a parking spot on the very trendy Newbury Street.  Walked quickly to the salon heads down trying not to get soaked. And then we arrived to...

NO service.  The salon had apparently taken going out of business to the next level- Open, but no sales people to help you find your perfect dress.  The Nics ran around the salon grabbing dress after dress for me to try.  The two of them got quite a show as they got me in and out of dresses.  The three of us had lots of laughs and a great time on our own in the changing room.  We were checked on two times by an uninterested sales woman.  As they pulled me out of the last gown, the woman came in and told us there was a fee to try on gowns.  Huh?  A fee you say?  You MUST be kidding!
I looked at the Nics and said let's go, I am not paying a fee to try on a gown, especially when the lady didn't even help us.  No way.  They should be working for my business, there is now way I'm even entertaining a gown from here now.  Had they mentioned that on the phone, we wouldn't even have come in!

We quickly walked to the elevator boarded, and repeatedly pressed the close button.  It was just like on TV, as the lady walked up to stop us, the doors closed and we were off.  Nicole had butterflies because she made eye contact with the lady as we bolted, but Nikki and I just laughed.
We made it back to the car quickly and without being chased or getting too wet.  I was afraid of bad karma after that, so I passed along my parking pass that was good for another 1.5 hrs to the car pulling into my spot.  Had to get some good juju out there to make up for my ducking out!

Oh September, you're back

This summer was great!  We spent the majority of it in Virginia, with a few visits here and there.  We made it to NY for my Dad's retirement party, and Maizey and I went to Martha's Vineyard to visit Eileen, Rosemary and Beau.  Needless to say, I am not ready for school to start.  I could use a few more weeks of doing domestic and wedding things before working work back into the mix.

I have a new job this year.  I will be working in 4 different elementary schools in Belmont as a curriculum specialist in math and science.  I'm looking forward to this, but will miss the Chenery gang immensely.
The teachers go back Tuesday, followed by the kids  Wednesday.  180 weekdays days from Wednesday, will be summer again.  Yay! Even though school doesn't start for 2 more days.... Let the countdown to summer begin!  

There are a few other countdowns going on in my world as well.
 The count down until May 3rd is a biggie.  The last day of school for me before I leave for my wedding.  Can't wait for that one in 243 days!  And of course the sound down to May 10th- wedding day! 250 Days:)

Half Marathon count down is 126 days away.  There are a lot of looooong runs in my near future.  Good thing I have the best running buddy in the world.  Love that Maizey Blue!

Two of my favorite gals are pregnant and due within a week of each other in January.   Their count down is somewhere around 130.  Lucky girls will get to stay home from school with their new bundles for a little while after that too.

So, yes, while you are back September, I won't curse you too much because you've brought Michigan Football back, and you'll be gone soon.