Hello from New Jersey!!

Hi All!  Greetings from New Jersey!  I've been here since Sunday evening for a work conference.  It's been really great!  A bit overwhelming because of all the info, but very informative.  I've been able to contribute a lot, and make a lot of new contacts.  Overall, a successful trip!

Tonight I drove up from where I'm staying (The Morris Plains area) up to my sister's house (Westchester County, NY) to have dinner with her and her husband.  It was a little bit of a drive, but we had a lot of laughs and a delicious dinner!

Steph made a sausage and feta cheese quiche, and it was so delicious!

Steph had a log of Jimmy Dean sausage, so we browned up half of it in a pan.  She used half a tube of Pillsbury rolls as the crust of the quiche.  She mixed together the cooked sausage, crumbled feta, onion and olives, and put that evenly over the un-cooked crust.  Then she added 4 eggs mixed with milk over the top.  Baked for about 20-30 minutes, and it was delicious!!!

My awesome sister, posing with her delicious quiche!!

A Masterpiece!!

Monday Matters....One Day Late

1. I'm late in my Monday Matters Post this week.  We spend most of our day yesterday either on an Airplane or in the Airport, and I totally forgot about putting something together.  We went on vacation last week, and yesterday was our travel home day....


2. Last week we visited my father in law, and we went to both Disney's Magic Kingdom and Islands of Adventure/Universal for one day each.  It was so much fun and I plan on blogging about everything with pictures this week!


3. Let's talk about Disney for a minute.  Not the rides, not the ridiculous amount of strollers and how often they hit you in the ankles, not even the character appearances.  Let's talk about the bakery on Main Street.  Heaven.  Absolute heaven.


4. During said day-trip to Islands of Adventure, I got to see HARRY POTTER!!!  I cannot tell you how exciting it was.  Seriously.  So Exciting.  I walked through Hogsmeade, Honeydukes, Zonkos, Ollivanders; I went to Hogwarts; I saw the Three Broomsticks AND The Hogs Head; I even drank some Butterbeer!  Everything about the day was just awesome.




Hogwarts






Me, posing in Honeydukes with a Chocolate Frog

5. We headed down to Sanibel on Saturday and on the way there stopped in to visit one of Scott's friends in Fort Myers.  We visited with their family, and then went to a hockey game before heading west to Sanibel.  


6. On Sunday we went to a wedding in Sanibel, which was a lot of fun.  The rain held out for a beach ceremony and then we danced the night away!!


7. We are now home, and I am fighting a ferocious head cold.  I don't know what caused it, but my head feels like a balloon....And it's about to pop.


8. So now back to the real world.  I'm hoping to do some more cooking and baking this week.  


9. Speaking of the real world, it's time to make a regimented exercise schedule.  I had been doing really well before vacation (and before my awesome bout of Poison Oak), and I want to get back on track. Throughout vacation, I did some workouts with Scott (he does crossfit with a friend, so he and I did a couple of travels WODS together throughout the week), and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  But it's time to get serious again.  I cancelled my membership at the gym (even though it was only $15 / month, I hardly went at all, and always felt like I was in a 10th grade popularity contest when I went).  So now, it's home workouts and work workouts (you really have no excuse not to work out when work provides a free gym).  

Running through New Jersey

I'm traveling for work AGAIN this week.  I did take a new job a few weeks ago, but being that I'm working on the system that is being deployed into the company based in MA, I guess I sort of figured that I'd be staying there most of the time.  But, I did have to do two back-to-back weeks of travel.  Last week, I was in Rochester, NY.  I decided that I don't like Rochester that much, and my family should not worry about me ever wanting to move there.  In all honesty, there's nothing there.  Even the Panera was empty at 7:45 in the morning....I mean, come on!  You go to the Panera on Reservoir Ave in Cranston, and it's PACKED!

The other reason I could never make Rochester my home?  Well, all the people who think there are "amazing Italian restaurants" there.  Seriously.  There's this guy there (who shall remain nameless) who happen to be in Raynham the week before I was in Rochester.  And he asked for a place for he and his wife to go to dinner.  I suggested either the North End or Federal Hill.  I mean, you're in the Providence/Boston Area?  You go get Italian food.  He poo-pooed the suggestion, saying that he could get Italian food any time he wanted at home.  All he talked about was "chicken french" ...It's so good, it's amazing, you can't get it any where else, BLAH BLAH BLAH.  What's chicken french, you ask?  It's chicken francaise, over a bed of escarole.  When I found out that it was over escarole, I told him about how I love escarole, and when I was young, my mom used to make escarole and beans....He followed with a story about how an old Italian lady used to make him greens and beans often when he was a kid, too.  I just shook my head.  In any case, Rochester didn't hold much for me (I just read that Ragu came originally from Rochester...I guess that should say something about the Italian-ness of the town, huh?)

Now, I'm in New Jersey.  In Piscataway, NJ, to be exact.  So far, I haven't found too much here, although I also haven't made much of an effort.  So far, my schedule has been about 8am-5:30pm, with a short break for lunch.  Then, back to the hotel, work out, shower, eat, watch tv, go to bed.  I'm currently in the watch tv moment right now.  The hotel is connected to a Ruby Tuesday, so in my laziness tonight, I decided to just get room service.  While it was easy, it wasn't necessarily delicious, either...But maybe I'm just a food snob.  However, I was able to make smart (or not so smart) choices, based on my Points Plus.

Tonight, after I got back from work, I went down to the "fitness center" here at the Hotel.  BTW - The Fitness Center consists of 2 treadmills, 1 elliptical machine, 1 recumbent book, and some hand weights.  No, I'm not kidding.  In any case, I did a half hour on the treadmill.  That's 10 minutes more than I did yesterday.  I was able to do a run-walk combination.  Last night, I ran 2 intervals at .25 miles and then about .10 miles with walking in between.  Tonight, I ran 2 intervals at .25 and then 3 intervals at .10 miles with walking in between.  While I wasn't able to do more of the .25 intervals, I did do extra of the .10 intervals.  My leg just still can't handle that much running.  Even now, I've been back in the room for almost 3 hours and my leg is still sore.  Damn that torn PCL!  But in any case, there are improvement, and I need to just take it slow!  If I try to do too much too fast, I'll hurt myself even further.

Here's to hoping that I find a few things to do here in Jersey during the rest of the week that I'm here.  So far, it is better than Rochester, and I'll be going out for "Team Dinner" tomorrow....I'm hoping it's better than the team dinner at the "Italian" restaurant in Rochester, HAHA!

At the end of the day, I've basically come to the conclusion that I'm too much of a homebody to enjoy traveling.

25 Random Facts

Here are a number of facts about me, the first two (which I won't count to the 25) are that I stole this idea from that "25 Random Facts" of Facebook that went Viral in 2008/2009.  I'm going to try to state a number of things that I didn't say back then!

1. I have to go to Rochester on September 19-22 for Work.  I've never been to Rochester before.
2. I love baking.  I'm sure you've seen this from previous blog entries.
3. I'm not a fan of cleaning, but I can't stand my house to be dirty.  It always seems to be messy.....
4. My husband and I have gotten into bike riding.  I love it and wish I did it more often.
5. I live in a condo, and can't wait to move out.
6. I want to build a house on at least 1+ acres in Barrington.  I hope I'm able to do that one day.
7. I have a love-hate relationship with caffeine.  To little = headache, too much = headache.
8. I don't understand the fascination with the word "pasta."  Growing up, it was either macaroni or spaghetti.  Pasta was just if you made it by hand....
9. I watched "Inglourious Basterds" the other day for the first time.  I loved it, and will definitely watch it again.
10. I love all movies made by Mel Brooks.
11. I tore my PCL 5 months before my wedding (on Christmas Eve).  It still hurts when I try to run.
12. My sister is getting married in June and I am the MOH.  Techinically I'm the "Matron" of Honor.  I hate the word Matron...It sounds so old.
13. I am newly obsessed with the 2004 Movie "The Phantom of the Opera."  I saw it at PPAC in Middle School, and it scared the crap out of me.  I have a new found love for the music.
14. I love dirty Martinis.  With 3 olives. 
15. I went to the ENT because I've been having a lot of issues with my ears.  Apparently I have arthritis in my jaw and it affects my ears.  I can't eat bagels or chew gum.
16. I don't like being taken advantage of, and I don't like being lied to.  
17. Hockey is my favorite sport.  Football is my second favorite.
18. I am transitioning into a new job.  I will soon be an individual contributor again.  I can't wait.
19. I get frustrated very easily.  I need to remember to take more big breaths.
20. We had a huge hurricane (Hurricane Irene) over the weekend that a lot of people didn't take seriously.  They actually reclassified it to a "Tropical Storm" but there are still areas that don't have power.
21. It should usually take me 45 minutes to drive to work.  Lately it's been taking almost an hour because of construction on Rte 44.  They're supposed to be doing this construction until Spring 2012.  JOY.
22. I have been trying to lose weight.  I have thus far lost 14 lbs on Weight Watchers.  I need to exercise more in order to boost the weight loss.  I get distracted easily.
23. I have more cookbooks than I know what to do with.  I hardly use any of them.
24. I have a facebook account, but I'm very upset with the new privacy settings.  You can now tag people in your posts and pictures, even if they're not your friends.  That doesn't seem very private to me!
25. I love Mexican Food.  And I love drinking Margaritas and Sangria with my Mexican Food.

Martha's Vineyard....In more than a few words

So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately about how I needed to write in my blog, and yet, I haven't done it.  Well, here is the long awaited post.

We recently got back from Martha's Vineyard, which I think was one of the best vacations we've been on since our Honeymoon.  Now that I say that, it is the first vacation we've been on since our Honeymoon.  Either way, we had a great time.  We rented a house with 3 other couples, and had a fabulous time! 

Noteworthy things from our trip I would like to share:

• Definitely bring your bike, as in your bicycle.  It's great exercise, and bringing my bike helped me lose almost 3 pounds on my vacation (I ate and drank what I wanted, but I tried to make decent decisions and count my points, but went over my daily quota almost every day...The exercise definitely helped!).  Although - I would research the directions before you try to go somewhere on the bike.  We wanted to ride to Aquinnah from Edgartown (which is a 20 mile ride), and after 19.5 miles, we were still only 2.5 miles away from home....So research would have been a good idea.
• I biked on 4 different occasions last week. 
• The first day, we went on a little adventure with 2 of our friends to find a beach, and rode about 4 miles. 
• The next day, we rode to Oak Bluffs from the house (in Edgartown), and while it should have been just 5 miles to get there, it took us 12 miles because we got lost.  Plus the 5 home, we totalled 17 miles. 
• The next day, we tried to ride to Aquinnah, and that was a lost cause, with 22 miles of going nowhere. 
• And finally, on Friday, we rode our bikes through Edgartown and into Chappaquiddick, for a total of 17 miles.  And since I calculate my weight-watcher activity points, and I get more points if I averge over 12-mph, I tried to keep my speed up so that I could get more points (and therefore not feel super guilty about my food/drink choices).
• Definitely go with friends.  I love my husband, but it's awesome to go on a trip with friends.  We knew everyone we were travelling with, but I really feel that we were able to make some strong friendships while we were on vacation, and that made me really happy. 
• Do everything you can.  We really had a ball.  We visited as much as we could, and we even jumped off a 15-20' bridge into the water - it was such a rush, and super fantastic!  I think next time, we'll be able to be more prepared, and have a specific list of things we want to do/see - things that we missed this time. 
• Don't kill yourself bringing food over.  So a lot of people had advice for us, where to go, places to check out - and these suggestions were awesome..  The only piece of advice that I didn't like (in hindsight) was to bring as much food as possible, instead of buying it on the island.  Why?  Well, we were told that the prices on the island were much higher, but they really weren't that different, except in the meats (and obviously if you were eating out 3 times a day)...I killed myself bringing food and carrying it on the ferry, etc.  Next time, I think the only thing we would bring would be the meats.  Everything else, I would buy there.  I was so frustrated with what I had to carry there, that I refused to bring anything home with me, and left everything (except the massive bottle of Kettle One that was on sale and a box of cookies I finished yesterday).

All in all, we had a great trip.  I m excited to plan another trip sometime soon...Although with all the weddings we have next year, I'm sure we'll be able to plan a vacation around then!