cupcakes for friday.

i had a really really bad day yesterday. so i did what any girl would do. i got all sad and pouty and looked for a fix. turns out, i found two fixes!
1. to cheer me up, TH took me to lunch...on top of his office building! they have a cool rooftop patio that overlooks the white house and the washington monument, and the poor little normal people on the street. he had to get special permission for me to come to the exclusive members only rooftop, and he even stole me some contraband skittles from the break room. yes sir.

oh yes, this is a normal day for me. lunch on a roof. please pass the liver pate.

secondly, and decidedly much more important, i went home and made cupcakes. ming's cupcake 14, to be exact, devils food cupcakes with my own magic creamcheese frosting recipe. drooool city. i also added mini choco chips to the batter and used butter instead of shortening. they are absolutely without a doubt the best cupcakes i've ever made. which is not saying much because literally for the past year i have burned everything i have tried to make. anyway, i was restraining myself all night to run into the kitchen and steal one.
success!! don't they look good enough to eat? well, they are. when i woke up this morning, a cupcake was missing...seems like TH had the same idea i did, but he was smart enough to actually go through with it. hmph.

onto the weekend...happy friday everyone! what are you up to this weekend? we're moving a dear friend, then headed to virginia's eastern shore! i'm so excited - in all my 20 something years of living in virginia, i've never been. i'm crossing my fingers we see wild ponies.

this is how my day goes.

wake up. nudge TH to get up and go running. go back to sleep.
wake up. TH is still there! nudge, nudge. ok, he's up. he runs. i sleep.

shower. work.

mid-day: meet TH for lunch. he sees me from down the street and waves. we make silly faces at each other. then he sticks his arms out and runs toward me to give me zombie hugs. yes, nearly every day he does this. it is always funny and i pretend to be embarrassed, but i love it.

finish work. go home. procure food (bare bones fridge lately, folks!).

watch the daily show and make fun of politicians.

and that, my friends, is my life. i love it.

doesn't the bow-tie just kill you? i love it!

food updates.

alright, here's the skinny.

there are some amazing foodie places opening up soon that will make me nice and not skinny for this summer. like i care. i'm drooling just thinking about eating all this food.

i'm about to drop the restaurant bombs on you. ready? here's what i've been anticipating:

wagamama: opening late summer 2010 in penn quarter.
crumbs bakery: opening summer 2010 in union station.
we, the pizza: opening early summer 2010 in capitol hill.
carmines: opening spring 2010 in penn quarter.
BLT burger: not sure. it's coming.
flip burger: chinatown? not sure, again.

anyway that's it for now. any restaurants you've heard of? share, friends.

ps, super top secret shhh.

seahorse.

i got a new shirt from french connection that i thought was totally hip and fresh. i tried it on for TH last night and here's how it went:

i showed him the shirt. "whaaa...hahaha...did you ever think you'd buy a shirt like that? haha"
i'm putting on the shirt. "what! are you kidding me?"
i show him the shirt. (at this point, nearly rolling around on the floor laughing) "come on! you look like a seahorse in that! are you serious?!"

was my pride hurt? a little. am i still going to wear the shirt? you bet. on every single date with TH for the next couple weeks. anyway, seahorses are awesome and cool and plus the men have babies too if you are a seahorse. i'm cool with that.

i couldn't find a link to the shirt, but it looks like this, only without the skirt part. i still think it's cute.

finding good services in dc.

for some reason, while i love dc, some things have been impossible to find here.
e.g. awesome massage therapist, hairstylist, dry cleaner, tailor

well, last night i made some headway. i have a reoccurring lower back and right shoulder pain from previous injuries in my life. and you see, poor little me needs some relief sometimes. and TH is likely to file for an annulment if i keep begging him for back massages.
What I like in a massage therapist:
Close to my office
If I request you work on certain areas, please do not feel the need to spend 10 minutes there and the remainder on my legs and feet. I don't care about that unless I'm going in for a relaxation massage (which make me feel so pampered and luxurious!)
Pressure. Pressure. Pressure.
Recommendations of how to keep the area loose so I don't have to get a weekly massage.

So i called around yesterday and found: Eye Street Massage Therapy. I only did a 30 minute massage (I recommend doing this on your first visit because sometimes 60 minutes ends up being a waste of time if its a bad therapist) and Pam worked out so many knots in my back and focused on all the right spots. I am SO HAPPY. I finally found a massage therapist!

pancake weekend.

what a whirlwind weekend.

friday, spent with at the nationals game with LQ and fam and dangerously delicious pies with hannah and robbie.

friday looked like this:

saturday: i had a foreign object in my eye and sat around the house all day moping and holding a hot washcloth over my eye. headed to the doctor today to figure it out. but i did make some amazing fluffy lemon ricotta pancakes.

saturday night: hungarian movie at the avalon with friends, then diner food at american city diner in friendship heights. and you know - it really was friendship heights. ha. ps american city diner has the BEST chocolate malts. yum.

sunday TH and i spoke in church. we stayed up until 4am prepping our talks and it was quite nice. i learned a lot and got to meet some new people on sunday, which was really nice. i also made buttermilk pancakes to give us strength before church, and we both agreed they were the best pancakes we've ever had. sunday evening we went to dinner at danni and jess's in reston. they are such a cool couple and inspired us to be more calm. we like calm people, maybe because we are so high strung all the time!! it's so nice to be invited to dinner and to share a fun night talking with friends.

here's to a great week!

and i just ordered a new camera, so excited!

weekend.

have a good one.

i will be cleaning, shopping, baking, baseball-gaming, film-festivaling, churching, and dining with friends.

and looking for cameras.

via a collection a day

on the hunt for a new camera.

i am really, really excited about this. after 9 years of lusting after a good camera, i've finally saved some money and thanks to my friend, tax return, i can afford it!

b and h is my new best friend.

have any suggestions for a beginner camera? i'm looking at canons, just because i've heard lenses are easier to find for these cameras.

hooray!

happy earth day!

in honor of earth day, i will:

only use lights i need.
leave the space heater off (i know, i'm horrible!).
eat vegetarian.
walk or use public transportation.
pick up litter.

i try to do most of these every day anyway, but i wear skirts almost every day and this office FREEZING - the space heater comes on most days for a few minutes at a time. i'm working on it.

Earth Day celebration this sunday on the Mall! we can walk there from our house - i'm so excited. now i just need to convince TH to leave church a little early, but oh that reminds me of another thing: we've been asked to speak in church on sunday. oh the horror of public speaking.

sweatpants.

did i ever tell you i wore sweatpants on my first date with TH?
well, i did.

he took me biking and i had no idea what to wear, so i went with the sensible choice: sweatpants. i think my saving grace was that when he picked me up i was wearing a hot striped skirt with a red shirt. so at least he knew what i looked like outside of sweatpants.

now, we are married. and the other day i was really cold, so i put on my big powder blue terry cloth bath robe over my clothes and sat on the couch. TH walked in and he's like "oh great". haha, flashbacks to the sweatpants, dear TH? it was a funny sight, and point taken, but geez whats a girl to do when she is cold all the time?

some realizations from yesterday.

cheese makes everything better.
it's a done deal, Glee was way better last season.
walks around the block are most of the time just what the doctor ordered.
if you are friendly, you will probably get a return customer.
i don't like going to bed so early. i feel boring.

back in business.

i was deathly ill yesterday, and back to about 80% today. took off work and had delirious sleep all day. i hate sick dreams - mine are always so disturbing.

the weekend was really fun - spent with family and friends. attended a lovely piano recital that has inspired me to start either piano or voice lessons again. i need more music in my life. also inspired me to see my friends more often. i really really like them. we went to jenny's neck of the woods to buy fabric for curtains and see her new house. it was so so nice and made me cry tears of jealousy that i cannot yet afford a house and i live in a shoebox. a well-located shoebox, but still a tiny little thing. lizzie was at her finest, as she always is. our favorite of the weekend was when TH asked her what the difference between rivers and oceans is, and she thoughtfully paused and said "ducks". i'm still floored by that answer!!

we rode bikes and played in the neighborhood. it's so cute and we can't wait for them to move in soon so we can play there more!

a few things.

1. i added a nice camera app to my iphone, hipstamatic. it has 3 different lens settings that make all the pictures look yellowy and old. i like it lots.

2. we really like capitol hill living. and making good friends who treat us to pizza and lots of laughs and business ideas. thanks n+j!

3. i got another haircut. i am slightly obsessed. 12 inches in 3 weeks, yikes! i danced home from the salon and threw on an edith piaf record and pretended i was a french girl. bonjour!

the beforethe after

i'm ready for summer now!

this weekend is going to be great. making curtains with my sister and seeing her new house. TH is working on our house. we get to go to a piano concert with our pretty and witty friends. and lots of other fun activities. trying to keep it relaxed this weekend, we've been busy for much too long.
have a great weekend!

perfect days.

last sunday was perfect. like put it down in the books perfect.
church. sun. QT with husb. dinner with family. walks around our neighborhood.

looking for a repeat this weekend. hear that, sunday weather?

my heart is home.

turns out a 3.5 hour train ride to nyc makes for a nice short 2 day trip.

working during the day, but a night out shopping and eating with my bestie last night made for an unforgettable 24 hours in nyc. i really miss jess and it was so good to see her! she hung out with me on wedding day and made me laugh all day. i love her lots.

what i ate in 24 hours:
lunch at defontes near gramercy (italian tuna sub). they have the best bread!
shopping in soho at muji and uniqlo.
2 mini cupcakes at baked by melissa - cinnamon was heartbreakingly good.
dinner at red bamboo. their chicken tastes like chicken. it's weird. and awesome.
dessert at eileen's special cheesecake. the best cheesecakes i've ever eaten.
breakfast at absolute bagels, my fav bagel spot. again, heartbreakingly good.
quick lunch at a pizza spot before taking off on the bolt bus.
but not before grabbing some cookies from levains! (and now i'm hearing all this buzz about their cinnamon rolls, too. i'll be checking it out soon.

yes, the diet starts this week, my friends. if you ever need food recommendations, don't ask me unless you are taking me with you because i get super depressed to know other people are eating my favorite foods.

but let's not kid ourselves, i really, really, really miss this city.

can i move back now, please?

good good weekend.

long time friend, El blodgie came over friday for a few hours of girl talk and catch up. girl talk is really the thing that solves everything, especially when it's someone who has known you for 15 years. tortilla coast later with TH on friday - just a block away - we thought it could become our spot, but it was gross and we felt robbed. $35 for 2 enchiladas and diet cokes is not ok. and i forgot how young the crowd is there. i don't mean in age, but like the excitable people that i can't handle. snobbish much?

saturday we had brunch at le bon cafe, yum! strada and egg sandwiches were really good there. then we headed to 14th street, aka furniture world. we picked up 3 side tables at miss pixies, my new favorite vintage furniture store. much more affordable than its neighbors, and a very wide variety of things. and also some really nice farm tables in the back of the store that if our apartment were bigger, we'd definitely pick up.
we went to a friends wedding reception, lit sparklers and sent them off, and called hannah and robbie to go to see Date Night with us. oh man - really really funny movie. and i had too much popcorn and got sick, story of my life. but really great to hang out with friends and enter somewhat back into normal society. we've been a bit of cave dwellers as of late.

sunday was church, brunch at cafe montmarte in eastern market, then home for a long nap. we met TH's family at union station for dinner with sister-in law visiting from baltimore. so fun to see everyone and hang out on a sunday.

the weather was beyond amazing this weekend and i thought, gee i really like being married to TH. he's pretty great.

today i'm working from home today and tomorrow because nuclear summit is shutting everything down in DC. i might head out of town just for tonight...but where?

friday.

the view from our hotel in guatemala at lake atitlan.

dying to be back there right now. we had a fantastic honeymoon and were worlds away from anything else. with the crazy weather right now (i'm hot! i'm sneezing from the pollen! i'm pouring down rain!) i'd love to be poolside, bathing in the sun again.

have a great weekend dears! we're being home design mavens, and going to a wedding reception. and going to church at our new building for the first time since moving - we're really excited to meet new people living near us. crossing my fingers i don't make a fool out of myself.

kisses.

money burning holes in our pockets.

TH jokes that everytime we leave the house we spend $500. in all fairness, most of the time we end up taking things back and not really ever spending $500. BUT we have discovered that furnishing a house from nothing is pretty expensive. we've found some good deals, and already rotated 2 rounds of furniture through the house and back out the craigslist door. but last night i think we made some honest progress.

we went to pick up an old mid-century modern desk and it was scribbled all over - it needed to be refinished in a bad way. not about to throw down a lot of money on what will turn out to be a huge project (and would likely never happen anyway). so we scrapped it and went to west elm, bought a rug and a small parsons desk (it's so teeny and cute!) and picked up a bookshelf from another craigslister. and sold some of our furniture last night on craigslist. this post is a commercial for craigslist, i know, but i love me some good deals on old furniture. and i found the cord for our record player last night and i played some rhapsody in blue and danced for TH. i am a graceful dancer, just ask our neighbors beneath us - they probably thought we were having an elephant tap dance. womp womp.

so this saturday we are on the hunt again for some smaller furniture (end tables, nightstands, side chair, etc) and then we can start filling in the holes with accessories. house accessories. i think my sister and i are getting together next week to make curtains for our new houses (they just bought a house in manassas). so, things are moving along. i am happy.

making a house a home is HARD work! i hope we can make it work. i'm tired of clutter.

spiders! we have a plan!

so, as promised, The Hill is Home featured my spiders question on their blog today. besides completely freaking me out (a mama spider crawled in and laid eggs during the winter?! get out mama! get out!), it seems like we may be able to do something about it.

see the answer here, in the Ask Nichole segment. Thanks Nichole for the help!!

in other news, our apartment is starting to come together ever so slightly.

2 news items that do not go well together.

the blog The Hill is Home is going to feature my spiders question tomorrow, so I'll link it then. Stay tuned for what I hope will be good advice! At this point, we've killed about 15 spiders. 2 on the inside of the car. *Shudder*

Also, I just heard that Dangerously Delicious Pies is finally open on H St! They have sweet and savory pies and are open till midnight during the week and 3:30 am on weekends!!

weekend review.

allergies? i have a headache. probably slight allergies because EVERY single plant in DC is in bloom right now. It's beautiful, but making me stuffy nosed and headached. But I think worth it. The other night we were walking around at night and cherry blossoms and dogwoods and magnolia trees were in full bloom everywhere, and tulips bright and beautiful - it looked like a movie set for Spring. it did not feel real, but i felt really lucky to be living here!

this weekend was completely different than what i thought it would be. we were planning on getting our apartment fixed up a bit. instead, we had breakfast with friends, my dad showed up after seeing the cherry blossoms and we all went to eastern market for the afternoon to check out the flea market and eat pickles from "in a pickle" (yum!), and then TH and i just slept and were lazy the rest of the afternoon.

we had such beautiful weather this weekend, but there was one problem. friday night i realized that our car is being taken over by spiders!!! my literal worst worst fear in life is now encapsulating the car i drive. it's awful. TH thinks they are just banana spiders, but i'm worried they are aggressive because one of them was standing up on its back legs like it was trying to intimidate me. i was freaking freaking out. we got a car wash friday night to get rid of them, but didn't work - we found 3 more last night. what are we supposed to do?? TH says to just wait it out - they will go away - but i say we dip the car in spider-be-gone and then burn it and buy a new one? that seems to me the only logical choice.

oh and also we played candyland with lizzie yesterday and then we made her answer questions and she had the funniest answers like:
what's your favorite food - "soup"
who is your boyfriend - "ernie"
what color are your eyes - "black"

but we made her answer the questions while doing funny things like standing on her head or sticking out her tongue. she is a lot of fun. thanks for having us over, family!

full bloom.

today is the day to see the cherry blossoms. or yesterday, but unless you have a time machine it is too late (ps if you do have a time machine, let's talk). they are out in full bloom, and so are the tourists (aren't you glad we have beautiful weather, tourists? rain just drives the tourists inside to stores and restaurants - there is nothing worse than crowded stores with soggy people.)

last night we had to pick up TH's bikes from my old house and ride them to DC. i forgot how much i love riding bikes in the city! we went super fast with the sun setting, and took a short walk around the tidal basin. i'm now convinced - there is no better way to travel around dc. bikes are the answer...i just need to get one that i fit on!

Have a fabulous weekend! We'll be getting internet at home, going to a party at an old grad school buddys house, crepe party, lots of conference watching, and possibly some purchasing of home decor for the apartment. maybe paint, too!

enjoy this video that has nothing to do with the cherry blossom festival.

april.

really? march is over? that was fast.

my mind is all a jumble with renewable energy, home decor, cybersecurity, how to be a wife, budgeting, etc. i'm kind of having trouble getting started. i guess this goes back to me thinking that once i cross something off my list, everything will be so much easier. like when i wanted bangs and a goldfish, and i thought life would be just perfect once i got those things. well i cut bangs and they are ok and i got a goldfish and it died. and i was never that much happier to be honest. i'm so naive, but i thought after the wedding was over and it was just me and TH, things would be so much easier. but life doesn't stop and guess what - it is kind of hard to meld two lives together! i love living with TH and being married, but there are some things that are hard to get used to. like snoring and the exponential daily growth of the laundry pile.

work is crazy, too, and if i can just finish this paper i will be eternally happy and my woes will be no more...you know, until the next big project comes along which is already metaphorically sitting on my lap. i think what i need in my life is a saturday. so...2 days to go. i think i can manage.

ps i have made peace with the brown couch. thanks for your suggestions, especially jay.
pps i am repainting the kitchen. i feel like i need a football jersey every time i walk in, that's how grossly blue it is. maybe something more like this...