Vacation in New York

We are in New York for a vacation/anniversary and let me just tell ya, I'm not a cussin woman but SON OF A MOTHER! It is damn cold! We arrived today around 12:30. Our room was not ready and we did not have all the clothing and gear necessary for a walk around NYC in 35 degree windy weather. We froze our butts off! We waited in line to get show tickets and my feet began to hurt from the freezing cold. Oh, I also had on boots which are not good walking around shoes and not much insulation. I had planned on changing shoes but like I said, no room yet.

We froze in line and got hypothermia on our feet and fingers. We were wanting to see Young Frankenstein and eventually got the tickets and wee were on our way. About this time it starts snowing....Like I said... damn cold!

We got back to our hotel, room was ready, and we began to layer for the evening. We were all good to go and set out to find a restaurant to eat at. We began doing the Brad and Tammy thing which is to walk aimlessly around with no purpose and no plan and then get mad at each other because we can't find anything. The crowds are crazy packed in every restaurant and packed on the streets (see picture below) with an hour wait for every one so we find a little scottish restaurant. We walk in around 6:30. We had been walking around aimlessly for about 30 minutes. The girl tells us that it will be 20 minutes. 20 minutes turns into 30, then 40 minutes. Now it's 7:10 and we finally get seated. We tell our waitress that we have to make an 8:00 show and could we speed up the process. I guess maybe since I had a southern accent and she was scottish, she didn't understand what I was saying. We got our food at 7:40 and woofed down about half the food and we headed out (I had a small panic attack at this point. I have them sometimes when I get nervous/excited. I was okay after a few minutes) nearly running to the show.

The show was really good and funny. Brad and I did think that there were one too many songs and that some of them could have been cut. We enjoyed it though. As we come out of the show around 11:00, its snowing and damn cold! We go into a cafe, eat some cake and cheesecake, grab a Starbucks, and head back to the hotel.
It has been a fun day so far.

Tomorrow the high temp is low 30's with snow and winds of up to 30 mph. We will be going to the MET and Chelsea Market to stay out of the cold. I'll keep you posted on the freezing cold weather and all the other stuff we are doing.

Wish you were here!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. Now on to Christmas! I already have my Christmas songs downloaded on my iPod. This morning I listened to Christmas to Remember by Amy Grant and was singing out loud around the house while Brad was sleeping. I love that song. It is one of my favorites. Brad and I will begin decorating the tree tonight.
Ho Ho Ho!

A Dream I had...
Dreams always seem to me like glimpses into our psyche or something we experienced the day or days before, but I can't figure this one out. I woke up this morning at 6:40. Mad at myself for not getting to sleep longer on a holiday break, I vowed to stay under covers and pray the alphabet. I do that alot when I can't sleep. Many of you have been prayed for. I usually only get to the middle of the alphabet but this time I made it all the way to R. I finally fell asleep till 9:00. Wonderful.
During that sleep time I dreamed that Brad quit his job and became an environmentalist that focused mainly on the preservation of sharks. He would take their DNA and study it. He had this big warehouse with 4 sharks that were in big long round tubes and only their heads were sticking out. You had to be real careful 'cause they could snap at you. Well, one of the sharks gets out and escapes. Brad and his co-workers (I don't know who they are. no recognizable faces) begin scowering the area looking for the shark. They are all concerned because Kindergarteners are playing at a playground near the warehouse and what if it attacked them. I say, "But the shark is just gonna flop around. He can't grab anything." The co-worker with no recgnizable face says, "Oh they can jump up." So we start searching everywhere for the shark. We end up in Patti A.'s new home and we look around. I notice that her new house is exactly like my new one except for a large breakfast nook across from an antique kitchen and then several steps go up to a patio on top of the building that her house is in. I don't know why her house is in a building. It's wonderful, though. I am screaming in my dream 'cause it is a perfect patio for a large garden like the one in the movie, Bed of Roses. We leave her house, guess we didn't find the shark, and I see Patti at a table with her husband and I start telling her how I hate my house and wish I had hers and the garden part is just like in the movie, You've Got Mail. And I repeat that several times...just like You've Got Mail...just like You've Got Mail. Okay, there was no garden part in that movie except maybe for the end?

That is where I wake up and start to try and figure out what the heck that meant. Maybe this time it was purely random thoughts. 'cause Brad...an environmentalist? In your dreams!

17

17 years of waking up with the same man.
17 years of having the same arguments over the same issues.
17 years of the same annoying habits.
17 years of washing his clothes and cooking his meals.
17 years of him forgetting things and me having to remind him.
17 years of knowing every fault and every secret.
17 years of anticipating his move.
17 years of knowing glances when it's time to leave.
17 years of some pretty amazing trips together.
17 years of finishing his sentences.
17 years of laughing at the same jokes.
17 years of him chasing me around the house.
17 years of supporting each others dreams and desires.
17 years of liking the same movies.
17 years of liking the same music. oops, not that one.
17 years of me crying on his shoulder and him telling me it'll be okay.
17 years of him crying on my shoulder and me telling him it will be okay.
17 absolutely wonderful years with Brad.

I love you!

Halloween or Bust!Umm..kind of a bust really

Halloween in our new house! How exciting! People are telling us, "In your new neighborhood, you will have people from all over town dropping their kids off to trick-or-treat. It's gonna be crazy. You better load up on the candy." OMG! Really? That is gonna be awesome! I go to the store and spend around $50 on the large candy mix bags. Looking at the bags, I think maybe I don't have enough so I get blowpops. I also have two bags of bubble gum on the side that I will dump at the last minute. You can't put gum and chocolate together 'cause then the chocolate starts tasting like gum..
I have a large black cauldron that I have used for years...never have filled it the brim. This year, it's overflowing and some candy is sticking out of the top. I can only get 1/2 a bag of blowpops in the cauldron and even if I wanted to get the gum in, there's no way. I have to get a small bowl to put that in. We are ready!

My friend Viviana comes over for pre-candy dinner..pizza with bread sticks.




We get to talking about shows that make us laugh (i.e. Office, Conchords, Arrested Development, British comedy) and
we start hearing the kids coming. Our doorbell is broken which is terrible because the one night of the year you need your doorbell is Halloween.
It makes a terrible buzzing noise when you push the button and then we smell plastic burning. Not good.
The kids start knocking on the door. Some try the doorbell even though it says to not use it. Read people or else you are gonna burn my house down! It begins! Here we go! We all start taking turns running to the door. This is gonna be a fun night!

A couple kids show up,
trick-or treat!
oh, you look so cute in your spiderman costume!
Thank you

trick-or-treat
Um, what are you supposed to be?
I'm a Scream, gothic, witch ghost
oh..umm..nice

trick-or-treat
OMG! love your costume! how original!
(This girl was Michelle Obama and had a sign that says "Michelle Obama for first lady' . She may have been 10 years old and was dressed in a green straight line dressed with tights and dress shoes. Too cute)

trick-or-treat
You aren't even dressed up!
(this happened alot with the older kids. They didn't even have bags. We all agreed they only got one piece of candy and it wasn't the chocolate)

So, we had maybe 50 kids on Halloween night and a ton of candy left over. What happened?? Where are all the kids? It was getting close to 9:00 and still not very many kids. We decided to walk to a block party that was going on at the end of our street and see what's going on down there. Lots and lots of people but still not a huge turnout like we thought we would see. It was mostly adults with costumes that they obviously thought were sexy but these ladies were 20-40 lbs too large for their tiny S&M/Bad Catholic girl costumes. There were a few bounce houses and some guy talking on a micrphone with little kids. There were supposed to be buffalo wings somewhere but we didn't see any. We did see one little girl eating celery which we thought was funny on the day that you are supposed to be candy gluttons.

The kids had the best costumes and two that just made me laugh out loud were..















THE ROBOT

THE PLUMBER

Complete with Butt crack!

We walked around for a little bit but then we left 'cause Viv had to pee and it was starting to get boring. So the Halloween passing-out-candy-to-hundreds-of-kids-Night was kind of a bust. The only fun that was had was me and Viv talking till midnight about all the old movies we love and screwin' around on the computer. Well, actually the night was alot of fun!

So where were all the kids? Is Halloween not the big thing it used to be? Do people go to schools and churches to have Fall parties? Hmmm....sad really.We have tons of candy left. Anybody want a box of Milk Duds and a piece of bubblegum????

Tired of people being rude and me being the one to have to hold my tongue
Can you relate at all?

Flight of the Conchords. My new favorite show. It is about two guys from New Zealand who try to make it as a rock band in the U.S. They are terrible and the show centers around their miserable personal lives and the completely and utterly terrible songs they write. As they go through some crazy event in their lives, a song emerges. It is hilarious. It is on HBO I believe but you can Netflix it. There are a bunch of their clips on YouTube. Here is a clip of one of their songs.