I mowed the lawn this weekend...and it looks darn good.
I think I am more into the patterns the lawn mower leaves than I am actually mowing the lawn.
I am obsessed with a good looking lawn.
Well edged, maintained, green and weed free.
I drive the husband crazy over this.
Pulling weeds should be bottled up into a pill for people with anxiety or stress.
Call me crazy but its cathartic.
Our lawn is finally perking back up.
Our landscaping is unbelieveable...if I might say myself.
After almost 4 years in our house our lanscaping, shrubage and trees are well established.
The maple tree I drove home in the trunk of my Honda Accord is now taller than our two story house. Our pussy willow bushes are over 15 feet tall. Our magnolia and tea olive buses have tripled in size. Growth is abundant!
The knockout roses and azaleas are in full bloom. Beauuuuutiful. Pink, Pale Pink, White.
We transplanted several stalks of hostas this year since they outgrew the beds they were in last year and we planted lots of calladium. Green leaves with pink tips. yes Please.
The garden is fully planted.
All of our zucchini and squash were started from organic seeds inside the house.
We have garlic, potatoes, onions, zuch, squash, cucumbers and several tomato varities.
We potted basil and cilantro and they are flourishing. We decided to pot the herbs this year vs put them in the garden. Hopefully this will help us maintain them as they rapidly grow into the summer months.
I have a history of going to the dr for one thing and coming out with a completely different diagnosis and new problem.
A few months ago I went to the ER for an appendicitis...to find out I was ovulating for the first time on my own in 13 years, not suffering from an appendicitis. BUT....through all of the tests they found a mass on my liver. Nice little present, huh? I sure didnt ask for that, but isnt it crazy how you can find out so many more things about yourself when going for something completely different!?
Turns out the benign mass is probably (not definite) a result of long term birth control/oral contraceptive use. #2,435,682 why I don't use oral contraceptives anymore. I will have another CT with contrast in June to make sure the masses have not metastasized. Yup there are TWO.These lovely masses make me high risk for my next pregnancy. Peaches and creme. Thankful they are benign.
Next visit .... yesterday.
I have been experiencing extreme hip pain and pain down my right leg. After weeks of PT nothing has helped and it has only gotten worse. Sitting for anymore than a few minutes became torture. After they prescribed all kinds of DRUGS....which made me feel crazy and filled my cabinet to the extreme of a pharmacy we got to the bottom of IT. MRI and Nerve Study complete....No pinched or compressed nerve. Phew. Just a blocked and dilated ureter!?!?!! a blocked what? Now we are waiting for a CT Scan and further testing before they determine how to proceed. The dr. mumbled something about surgery. Hopefully non invasive. They still dont know if this is causing the hip pain and pain down my leg. After googling all this like a crazy lady I have discovered that this can cause low back/hip pain. The blocked ureter is on my left side and the pain is on my right. Sympathy pain?
Now I am racking my brain trying to figure out if I missed some symptoms for this blockage. Im sure the pain overshadowed it all. Or I am just superwoman. Ha. I wish.
You never know what you are going to get when you go to the dr.
I am thankful I am here to type about it.
I am also thankful for amazing health insurance and a very flexible boss/company that makes this all a lot less stressful.
Our final full day in NYC we headed into the city around 9:30 AM. Jen and Jason had a baby naming , Naomi and Jeff were meeting up with her cousin and Philip and I headed back to my cousins for brunch and fun times with the kids. Jordana even showed off to us that she knows what the potty is, what its meant for and that she can sit on it herself. BIG GIRL is just barely 14 months old!!!
It was a much needed relaxing morning. No walking up and down the city streets. Heaven to my sore sore feet.
After brunch we met up with Naomi and Jeff at MoMa, The Museum of Modern Art after lunch. I was so excited about going to this museum. Much more up my alley than the Metropolitian (sorry honey!)
There were countless mind boggling exhibits and pieces of art.
This one caught my eye. Zippers to the eyes of the world.
It made such a strong statement. Sometimes I wish I could put zippers on Asher's eyes so that I could shield him from things.
You can't visit the MoMa without visiting the Warhol exhibit.
...and the wall off TUSHY.
Yes... I have my hands on someone's behind!
After the musem we picked up "dirty water dogs" and a potatoe knish from a street vendor.
A must have in the city.
I also snagged some Mr. Softee which would've made my grandfather so proud. Anytime we would visit him in the Bronx we would ALWAYS get Mr. Softee. It's purely the best.
We also stopped at Trump Tower to get Starbucks and snapped a few cute photos of the 2 of us.
The building was spectacular.
We headed to the East Village for an early original NY Pizza dinner at Totonno's. If you haven't been and you are in the city you must go. Crispy crust and grease dripping from the tip. Perfection.
The guys were having a "who has the biggest double chin contest" while waiting for Jen and Jason to arrive. Lovely, right? Boy do we love them. It must have been the buy one get one free beer they were drinking.
We ordered delicious pizza and salad and feasted.
We rolled ourselves out of the restaurant and headed up to Broadway to see a show...
Jeff chose to see the Broadway musical, The Book of Mormon for his birthday. I've seen many Broadway shows, but this one surpassed them all. Tickets now are sold out, nearly impossible to get, and the show has been compared to the Producers- 4 stars. Who knew Jeff knew so much about BROADWAY?!?!
This was by far one of the best broadway shows we have ever seen. I have seen A LOT of shows in my lifetime but this had the perfect combination of all things broadway. GENIUS.
After the show we took a stroll through the city before retreating to the car and back to Creskill for the night. We were exhausted. What an awesome trip!
Can you tell she had fun?
yes she will kill me for posting this photo.
but it captures the essence of our entire trip.
acting ridiculous and lots of laughter
Jason was a trooper. He lugged cupcakes from Magnolia Cupcakes all evening so that we could eat them when we got home that night. Thanks J, it was totally worth it!
6 am came awfully early the next morning.
Jason go up early to take Philip and I to the airport since we got bargain tickets and we were at the mercy of the flight gods for arrival and departure times.
What an amazing yet exhausting trip. We are so lucky to have such wonderful and fun friends to travel with. A couples weekend was much needed and we made sure to live every minute of it up....like we were "young" and childless!
Day 2 Began at 9 am. We got to sleep in. I dont think either of us wanted to get out of bed. We spent the night at Jason's mom's place in Creskill, NJ only 20 minutes from the city.
She prepared a FEAST of food. I am not sure how I missed a photo of it but it was a Jewish girl/guy's dream. It was a true combo of my mom and mother in law and their breakfasts. Yum.
Our bellies were full and we headed into the city for a BUSY day.
We split up guys and girls so that we could all do what we wanted to do.
Girls shop. Guys drink beer and drink more beer.
The guys took our brand new video camera and captur
ed some of their ridiculousness which as you can imagine had to be heavily edited.
while we went shopping and set off fraud protection on our credit cards...which then triggered a call to the guys cells phones...even better, busted!
Naomi and I sitting in a bus stop...even though we never took the bus. Ha!
Radio City Music Hall
We stopped a Bloomingdales and snagged some cute shoes, pictured below and then headed to Bergdorf Goodman's for a delicious salad lunch.
Around 5 PM we met up with the boys in China Town.
They were a sight to be seen after spending all afternoon at different brewery's and bars throughout the city.
We headed to Brooklyn via the subway for dinner at Peter Luger's.
The menu consists of steak, steak and more steak.
You order steak.
Period.
We ordered Steak for 6.
One plate was medium rare, the other medium.
In addition we ordered hashbrowns, steamed broccoli, creamed spinach and a baked potato.
Philip and Jeff got WAY TOO INTO THE STEAK
They were literally drooling over it.
I refuse to post the video.
Then the server's came out and sang happy birthday.
Jeff turned 30 the day after our we returned from the trip and I had turned 30 earlier in the week...lots of celebrating!
They brought out a bowl of their famous whipped cream...called Shlag.
We also ordered a ice cream fudge sundae that was amazing and we all dug in and shared.
and then things started to get gross...
After dinner we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant and headed back into the city to Time Square where we went to see JB Smoove from Curb Your Enthusiasm at Caroline's Comedy Club.
It was below average. Too much cursing and not enough funny. Oh well!
We were exhausted after the show and decided to head back to Creskill for a good nights rest before Day 3. We didn't get to bed till 1 am which is way past our bed time! What an awesome day with friends in the BIG APPLE!
April 1, 2011 we boarded a plane at 6 AM to head to NYC!
We had plans to meet up with friends later that day for the weekend, but we decided to go up early to celebrate our 5 year anniversary and visit with some family.
Philip has never really had an opportunity to experience NYC as a tourist so we decided to tackle "NYC in One Day" revised.
We arrived at the Laguardia airport at 7 am. We headed to my cousins apartment to drop off our luggage with her doorman (so we didnt have to shlep it all over the city)
We bundled up (it was raining, snowing and windy and in the 30's).
We ended up running into my cousin on the street and said a quick hello and went on our merry way.
We were headed to Rockefellar center!
Rockefellar center had the tinniest most narrow escalator!
And Philip looked so darn cute I couldn't resist!
The ice skating rink at Rockefellar Center was still being used in April!
The full view of Rockfellar!
Even though it was freezing the flowers were already in bloom at Rockefellar
The timing was just right for us to catch the taping of The Today show with Kathie Lee and Hoda! We even got on TV several times! Amanda and Asher were at home watching us!
Our next stop was Ground Zero and the National Hall Museum
It is amazing to see the rebuild at Ground Zero.
How can you not love that hat...hahaah?!?
We stopped at the Federal Hall National Memorial
We got to see the stone that George Washington took oath on!
And touch the railing that he held on to during his address
Philip was in history heaven.
It's important to note that we got lost and turned around several times trying to get to this memorial. At one point we walked in a complete circle. I was less than impressed since it was cold and raining, but we laughed together!
We had scheduled to meet my Aunty Betsy at the Russian Tea Room for lunch.
I had not seen her in what felt like forever so this was a special treat for us all.
The Russian Tea Room is a sight to be seen. It is the most gaudy place I have been to in a long time, but well worth the visit!
Aunt Boots and Philip started off the meal with a flight of Vodka Shots!
The menu was full of Russian Delights so we all decided to try something new.
Philip ate Borscht and actually liked it.
He had never even eaten beets before!
I had a wild mushroom and goat cheese crepe. It was delicious!
Did I mention the place was Gaudy?
They sold the little Russian Dolls in the "gift shop"
Loving on my Aunt Boots.
I wish she lived closer to us!
The Russian Team Room is known for this tree...
You have to have someone escort you up to the "ballroom" to see it and they only turn on a spotlight for you. Weird huh? The eggs that dangle from the tree branches are worth 20k-40k EACH! Yes you read that right!?!?!?
They are also known for this Bear.
Inside the Bear is a fish tank full of goldfish.
Again.. no light, just a spotlight.
So weird.
and YES that is Philip punching the bear in the crotch!?!?!
After we said goodbye to my Aunt Betsy we headed out into the rain and on a walk through Central Park. If you have ever been to Central Park you know that the squirrels come eerily close to you. I was inches away from this squirrel. Crazy creatures!
We caught another couple taking photos of themselves in Central Park with this view so we offered to photograph them together in exchange for our very own photo together.
Our first photo together on our 5th Anniversary!
Our walk through Central Park was intentional. We were going to the Metropolitian Museum of Art. After a lovely hike we arrived at our destination...I am not sure at this point I realized how much MORE walking we would be doing at the museum. It was HUGE!
We made it through approximately 1/2 of the exhibits. I ended up finding a cozy bench in the middle of several sculptures where I stretched my aching hip and propped up my sore feet.
Im pretty sure we walked well over 10 miles by this point.
Did I mention that Philip was in HEAVEN?
After we finished up at the museum we headed back to my cousins so we could spend some time with the kids before bed time and rest our feetsies.
We got to kiss this sweet face..
and play with this big boy...
(that is my cousin Robin...not me)
Our Cousin Amy who also lives in the City came in to visit while we were there!
I cant stand her cuteness. She is such a little city girl.
Jordana stands in front of the window looking out into the city!
Spencer made me about 10 ice cream cones.
Make believe of course!
Around 8 pm our buddy Jason arrived and his mom came by and scooped us all up in her car.
Off to Cresskill NJ we went for Chinese food and a weekend full of friends and lots of laughter....
