6 Months Later

I still can't believe I have been at my new job for 6 months already. In some ways it feels like just yesterday I was looking for a job and stuck in my basement but yet in other ways that feels like a lifetime ago already, and I've put it so far behind me, hoping not to look back. To say that the last 6 months at work have been awesome and such a great experience would be an understatement. I truly feel so appreciative for the opportunity I've been given and it continues to amaze me every day just how much more I enjoy work.

I felt like I needed to talk about my new job again on my blog. Since in many ways it has been the main driver behind my lack of posting lately. The days and weeks have just been flying by since I "went back to work." That is what I say anyway. Not that I wasn't working before this, but I just felt so disconnected from everything before. I really feel like such a new person since I have started this new job.

I'm not going to lie, I do still think about it from time to time, and remember just how unhappy I was. I honestly believe that I was truly depressed by my old job and the situation that was not good for me. Switching jobs was the best thing I have ever done. It truly made me realize just how much I was missing out on before and how just how much experience I actually didn't have. I was actually brought into my current job a level lower than my coworker who is the exact same age and has the exact same amount of experience. Yet it is the difference in experience that makes all the difference.

I certainly don't regret or begrudge her that I am a level below. Truth be told I'm actually 100% ok with it and feel like it is the appropriate level for me. I know I still have a lot of learning and catching up to do. But one thing I do know for sure is that every single day I am at my job is a day that I am learning new things and catching up my skills, and most importantly enjoying every crazy day that is thrown my way. I feel am grateful for this opportunity and feel like it was absolutely meant to be. While it's not perfect and does have it's challenges, there is no such thing as a perfect job, but this one is def a match for me for the time being that's for sure!!! (even if it means less posts on my blog for the time being....)

Easter at The Manor

This year for Easter we went back to The Manor again. We went three years ago before our wedding for Easter with my family. It was an easy choice to pick to go back to again this year, since it was going to be a small holiday. Mike's parents were away on their first European Adventure (to London & Paris), and it meant no one would have to cook or clean. We had a wonderful time and definitely enjoyed the delicious spread they put out. I think my favorite still has to be the mushroom soup, I love that soup.

Here's a couple pictures of us before dinner (although not the best quality since I stole them from Mom's shutterfly - Mom if you're reading this can you send me the actual attachments? k, thanks!) 

5 Years Already

Five years, that's how long it's been now since we bought our house. I just looked back on here and I have a post from our second anniversary in our house, crazy to think that was three years ago already. It's funny to see how much has changed in our lives since we moved into our house. I would not have pictured us here this long and also now with our little furry buddy.

The more interesting topic of being in this house for five years now becomes where and when do we want to go from here? Although I have no interest in moving in the immediate future, we have no long term plans to stay here. We are getting closer to talking about, more in just the hypothetical, of where we want to move to, because honestly we have no idea, which is really the harder part. As long as Mike is at his current job we couldn't consider moving further south in Jersey since he needs to be able to commute to Westchester. So that again puts us in the position of not moving yet, which is ok too.

I'd like for us to move closer to one set of parents. Realistically I don't see us moving to Long Island, so that means Jersey. We really don't know much about towns further south of us in more central Jersey. I have no idea of where we would even start from. Plus I would wan't to be any further away from my Mom either, so no more than an hour from my Mom and then ideally no more than 1/2 hour from Mike's parents so we could be closer there. I have no idea where that criteria puts us geographically. And forget about adding in searching for good school districts, taxes that aren't another mortgage payment, and a decent house we could actually afford, and the idea of moving just becomes even more daunting.

I am happy with our actual house, and the up keep and maintenance involved. We have everything we could possibly need at this stage in our lives, but that's not going to be the case forever. We also don't want to be moving to our 'forever' house 10 years from now and starting all over there. I'm really not into the maintenance and work involved with moving into a new house right now. I know how much work will be involved with starting all over again and in a more long term house. As much as I wanted to put in new countertops here in this house, I know now that it's not worth it for the amount of time we plan to stay here and also for resale, especially since our house has lost so much of it's value (we won't even go there right now).

If I had my way I would sell our house in a year and move to Manhattan for just a year, and then settle down buy a house and start a family. But who knows if that is even feasible, it certainly isn't practical, but life experiences aren't always practicalities! And we'd never have that opportunity again. Of course moving to Manhattan and then ultimately trying to find and buy a house a year after that probably isn't the easiest thing to do either, we'd probably end up spending all our weekends house hunting the whole time we were living in the city. I get the impression finding our next house is not going to be an easy quest!

Anyway, for now we celebrate another milestone in this house, five years. It was supposed to be the 3-5 year house, but that clearly doesn't exist in this economy that's for sure. Let's just hope it isn't the 10 year house!!!

I'm Back

Well it's been about 2 months to be exact from my last post. This is probably the longest hiatus I've had since I started by blog almost 4 years ago, which is crazy to think about that I have been keeping this blog for the last 4 years documenting so many wonderful things that have happened in our life. A lot of has happened in those last 4 years, got married, got a puppy, taken some great trips, seen so many of our beautiful nieces and nephews born and so much more. Of course there were some downs in there as well but we won't focus on that because honestly life is good right now and I have so much to be thankful for!

I think part of my lack of writing recently has been my new job that I got 5 months ago. Life has been so much busier, and also so much more fulfilling. I haven't taken the time to sit down and write at all. Quite frankly I've had no desire to sit down at my computer when I can be off doing other things, but that doesn't mean I've abandoned my blog (although I had thought about it briefly after some negative things happened last year, but I'm not going to let that stop me). I am going to try and dedicate some more time to keeping up with my writing, I do enjoy writing about all the things going on in our lives. So that means I do have some catching up to do on a couple things that have happened over the last 2 months that I haven't been blogging. Stay tuned for more to come!

Idina at Carnegie Hall

The last time my Mom and I went to go see Idina Menzel was at Lincoln Center with the NY Philharmonic back in 2011. We had the best time going to see her then and of course we had the best time going to see her again, this time at Carnegie Hall. This concert was actually supposed to be back in October, it was originally scheduled for the day that Hurricane Sandy hit the NY/NJ area pretty hard, then they rescheduled for a couple weeks later, which turned out to be the night before my first day of work but because the NY/NJ transit was hit so hard from the storm and things weren't back up and fully functioning they pushed the concert out to January, which worked out well for us and of course it was well worth the wait. 

This time it was me, Mom and Barbra, who is also a huge Idina Menzel fan as well. We all met in the city for the concert. I drove in from our house and was amazed at my ability to parallel park in a super tight spot right in midtown on the first try, just have to throw that in there. After a little dinner we were ready for the main event. I'd never been to Carnegie Hall before but it was beautiful. Here's some pictures of the concert hall and me before the show. 

 

The show itself was absolutely wonderful, she is such a talented woman, it's such a gift she has to be able to sing like that. We enjoyed the show from start to finish. She sang a few songs from Wicked which are probably our favorite, she always sings "For Good" acoustic. She opened though with "The Wizard and I," which was amazing.  And she sang some other Broadway show songs from Rent, which are always a lot of fun, I love "Take me or Leave Me," which I hadn't heard her sing live before (at least that I remember anyway). She sang "Don't Rain on My Parade," which how could you not love her singing that song. And she is just so funny, she was joking the entire time, cracking jokes about being from Long Island, which was hysterical. It was such a wonderful concert to see her live, I'm sure this won't be the last time we go see her in concert that's for sure!!!

Lessons Learned from My First Christmas

I know I will want to remember this story one day, the time I hosted my first Christmas! I only posted our menu from our Christmas dinner but never got to talk about how the day went. We were 12 people for the day, My Parents, Matt & Nohra, Mike's parents, Nick & Stephanie, Mike's Grandma and Nohra's Mom, Susan. It was the perfect little crowd. 

It was very chaotic when everyone arrived and bringing all the presents to our house this year and trying to open them all, everyone at once. I can't even imagine the amount of presents that would be involved if there were grandchildren. I honestly had no idea who got what this year and didn't get to see any of the gifts, but once that was squared away and we had room in the living room we were on our way to the food. 

The first blip of the day happened during our appetizer course. I had everything set up on the coffee table in the living room, all the cheese and crackers, the hot appetizers, all the little sides and such. I was finally just about to sit down for the first time and Mike was carrying over a tray of food so I went to go make room for the tray and I picked up a wine glass from the top and my "strength" literally broke the glass. It shattered right over all the food and poor Susan. So that was fun, we had to clean that all up, I was so disappointed, I still can't even believe the class broke like that. 

Once we were able to enjoy what was left of our appetizers that weren't soiled, we were ready for the main event. We started off with our salad and pasta course. It was around then when we were getting ready to put the beef tenderloin in the oven, Stephanie noticed it was frozen solid. Mike's Mom had bought beef tenderloin for Christmas dinner, which we usually have at her house, and she had given it to us to serve with dinner. She gave it to us on Sunday night when we were down there for dinner, but Mike and I didn't realize it was frozen, so we just put it in the fridge when we got back to our house. Stephanie was then trying to come up with ways to defrost these huge chunks of beef. She wrapped them in saran wrap and filled the sink with scolding hot water. We eventually got them slightly defrosted and put them in the oven, well these things took forever to cook and were still pretty rare. Good thing we had nine pounds of ham, looking back that was also far too much ham for just 12 people, note to self for next time. 

Finally it was make your own K cup for coffee for dessert. We had the giant coffee pot all ready to go only to realize Mike and I didn't have any coffee grinds in the house since we're so used to using our kureig that we didn't even remember to buy coffee! Oh well. 

Other than that it was a great night, I guess everything can't go perfect, especially since it was my first time hosting Christmas dinner. I'm glad Christmas only comes once a year though. Here's some pictures of our Christmas dinner. 

Reflections on 2012

Well it's now past a full month into 2013 and I'm behind on my blog again. It's not that I haven't had time to write but I honestly do have to be in a certain mood to sit and write and it just hasn't always hit me. Maybe this morning I will catch up on a bunch of my draft posts that are sitting in the folder.

The last few years I have written a reflections post on some of the things that happened in our lives that year. Looking back on this year I know the biggest change for me was moving on to my new job. Finally being able to move on was a huge burden lifted off my shoulders. When I look back on 2012 I'm just so happy that I was able to move onwards and upwards from a bad situation. Now that I am three months in my new job I can see even more clearly (not that I couldn't then either) that my job was just so wrong for me and was impacting me so much in my life. I feel like as I started my thirties I started it in a really good place.

Which brings me to my next reflection, I turned the big 3-0 in 2012, which I know is a milestone birthday, starting out a new decade of my life, leaving my 20's behind. I am happy to leave my first job and company behind. I feel like I am starting this decade with a new slate and a new outlook. My 30th birthday was the best birthday I've ever had. I was surrounded by almost every important person in my life (except my out-of-staters, my southerners). It really was the best birthday I ever could have asked for, just having everyone there meant the world to me. And the beautiful party my husband and Mom put together for me was the best!

All of the families continue to grow and the kids are growing up way too fast! I can't believe how big they keep getting, too quickly I might add, I need them to slow down. I only wish that I could see them more often. Every time I see them they've gotten so big, I want to see more of their personalities and how much they are growing and learning every day! This is technically part of 2013 (so doesn't necessarily belong in my 2012 reflection) but already this year we've got two new nephews!!! Both Isaac and Jayden are big brothers to their new little brothers, Evan and Bryce, I can't believe two more little babies already! I hope we get to meet the boys soon. Look at how much my little Gabby and Olivia have grown this year, they're so stinking cute!

Speaking of families growing, ours officially grew by 1 new member in 2012. Only in an official capacity, Stephanie was already put of our family long before the title but I couldn't have asked for a better sister-in-law either, and we had so much fun at their wedding, everything was absolutely beautiful!!! And I will say Mike gave a pretty awesome best man speech too.

Unfortunately we didn't have any big trips planned for 2012, which you know I'm kind of bummed about but we couldn't do it with my job situation. But I have big plans for this year and next year to make up for it, if I can get Suzy Orman, I mean Mike (the budget guy) on board with it. There was plenty of fun little trips though. Mike and I did a weekend in DC, and we explored the Hamptons over the summer.

I'm actually kind of glad 2012 is behind me now, it wasn't necessarily the best year but I know going forward things are def looking up. I know I'm in a good place with work, and have much to be thankful for, all of our friends and family and all of the beautiful, healthy little babies in our life! And of course our Rocky too, 2012 was rough on him too with his surgery last year but he's doing much better now thankfully. I'm excited to see what 2013 is going to bring our way!

My Time Capsule

At the end of my birthday night it was time to open my time capsule. I'm pretty sure it was in the 5th grade that we had to put together a small time capsule in class that we would then open on our 30th birthdays. This thing has been sitting in my parents attic for the last 20 years collecting plenty of dust. I waited for the day to finally take it down. Not going to lie I did not assemble the best time capsule, it was kind of disappointing actually, I put some of the strangest things in it.

After many glasses of wine later I had a grand old time opening the random box of crap junk. Some of the more useless items that I put in was a plethora of Kids Newsweek type magazines. It wasn't like one or two, or of something that was a particularly big news event that year. I put in like 30 of these weekly additions. I also put in like 2 notebooks with like 5 pages each filled out. Also on the random list was a Christmas stocking with the words let it snow written on it,  some random children's books, a barbie "poster" along with a barbie doll that clearly was not my favorite judging by her hair our outfit. There was also McDonalds happy meal toys, a troll doll, some random pin, oh there was "Belle" earrings from Beauty & the Beast.

The "best" items in there had to be a paper mache thing that I had made of a "dogfish" - don't ask. A fake spider that we used to chase Matthew around the house with. And a charm necklace when I was really little, but that was about it. I wish I could say there was something in there really exciting or worth saving but there wasn't. Lesson learned for when I help our kids make their own time capsule one day not to put 50,000 newsweek magazines....

Holiday Gala

My new job definitely comes with a lot of fun perks. First of all I cannot even begin to communicate the amount of free food I've consumed over the past month. The first day of my new job there was a team lunch, the second day there was an HR department lunch. This week on Monday there was another team lunch for our training event, Tuesday was another HR department lunch, Wednesday I sat in on a Marketing Strategy Session (or I could have attended a lunch-and-learn session) and Thursday night was a dinner with my client team, and that is only two weeks right there. In between there was plenty of other events as well.

They do a lot of team building events to say the least. One of those events is their annual Holiday Gala event in which they invite the entire company AND spouses to one of the nicest reception halls in the area. Our friends Joe & Gina got married here and the reception was incredible. Mike was in for the event once he heard where it was being held. It actually was a lot of fun to be able to see all of my HR colleagues at such a nice event. And it was great to have an excuse to get a new dress and get all dressed up. Although finding a dress was quite the process but that's a whole other story, in the end the dress did work out! We had a great time at the party and definitely enjoyed the food!

LOVE this picture of me and the hub!

 Here's me in my sexy little cocktail dress for the occasion, 

I was a little worried at first but the black tights with it worked out perfectly! 

 One other perk, here is my Holiday Gift too!

Boy I love it here! :-)

My New Job!

I must admit t's been quite a while since my last post. No I didn't give up on my blog. This has probably been my longest gap in over three years of writing of posting. But it's for very good reason. I started my new job, a little bit over a month ago now and life has been so busy since 'going back to work.' I finally logged in to write some updates, since I've had some things to write about, including the new job and I noticed I have 17 draft titles in my folder. Three of them were titled, "My First (1/2) Week," then "My First Two Weeks" and also "New Job (as a placeholder), but I never got around to writing any of those posts so looks like I'll have to make up for lost time and try to cover my whole first month.

Let me start by saying I could not possibly be any happier with my new job. I feel like a new person and a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Prior to starting my new job I was so depressed and upset about my job, being so isolated and stuck in my house every day. All of those feelings have gone away and I am ready to tackle the world again. When I've seen friends lately they've even commented how much happier I seem without having that weigh me down and I feel like I'm back to my old self, it's amazing how much a bad job situation can weigh on you.

I was so excited for my first day. I made Mike take a picture of me before I left for work. I know if I my Mom was home with me that morning she would have taken a picture for sure. I was so happy when I got to the office and I started meeting everyone, my new teammates and my fellow HR colleagues. Everyone was extremely nice and welcoming. On my first day my new manager and teammates took me out to lunch, little did I know how many lunches I would be going out to since starting there. I am a bit sorry that I did not write sooner so I could capture my initial feelings on making the transition and my initial thoughts but life was just too busy with so many things going on in November and writing after work was definitely not going to happen.

It's definitely been a transition, getting up early again, getting dressed and commuting into the office, but I absolutely love it. I feel like getting up in the mornings I have a purpose and look forward to seeing what each new day in the office will bring. I work with an amazing team, it's a much smaller team and organization from where I came from, but I think this really is the perfect fit for me. It took a really long time for things to work out with this job but it was meant to be and totally worth the wait. My manager even confided that she knew I was the person she wanted to hire from the first interview which made me feel really good. She's also an amazing person and manager, she's so passionate and energetic, but also extremely thoughtful and strategic in her role and you can tell she is making a huge difference to her clients and the business.

Every day I leave the office feeling like I have learned something new and gotten exposure to so many things I never had the opportunity to do in my old job. I am touching so many things that I never did before. Just yesterday I got the opportunity to interview a candidate for a role in my clients organization, and also facilitated a conversation with a manager and employee to help them build a project and identify some key deliverables. Earlier this week my manager also had a full day meeting with our small team to educate us on the processes but also as a team building exercise to help us learn more about one another so we can build a trusting relationship. I love that she is helping to educate us and help us to build our skills so we can be successful in the role, it's not just throwing us in.

I really can't say enough about how happy I am with making the move to my new role. I love going to work every day and being there with my peers and learning new things. I think there really is so much I will learn and grow in this role and I could not be more excited! More to come on my new role and company for sure!!!

A New Chapter

This has been a post that I've hoped the day would come that I could finally write for so long and yet I hardly know where to start and what I even want to say now that it is finally here. The majority of the past two years have been a long road for me in terms of work. It's impacted me in more ways that I can count or even voice. Before I move on tomorrow and start a clean slate I feel like I want to vent my feelings so that I can remember it and then move forward. It's been such a big part of my life I feel like I would be doing a disservice by not addressing it since I have used this blog as my personal journal to document my life.

As I've said in the past I have never had an issue with sharing my feelings and our lives with our family and friends and whoever chooses to read it. I would have hoped that my personal blog would never be used against me in any way but perhaps that was a naive thought. I know this continues to be the internet and I feel like I've never had anything that I've said on here that I wouldn't have said in person to someone. In the end I am only voicing my personal feelings and what I have been though.

Tomorrow, I will start a new chapter in my life and move on to a new job at a new company. I've never done that before. I started with my first company almost 10 years ago. I was just 20 years old, not even old enough to drink when I joined. There are certainly many reasons for me wanting to move on to a new company and not that I need to justify my reasons to anyone as I'm sure many people would understand. No longer are the days of lifetime employment where people stay with one company for their entire career. What works for you at 20 doesn't always work for you at 30, as was true in my case. Don't get me wrong I was very fortunate to have a good career with an extremely solid and reputable company for 10 years. I got a lot of good experience that opened many doors for me in terms of even thinking aout leaving. But it was also time for a change to see what else is out there and find something that is a better fit for me.

The absolute biggest factor for me in looking for a change was working from home full time. This just was not a fit for me. Both from a job perspective but also from a personality perspective it was not a match. And I think most people would understand that. I was stuck at home for days on end without seeing another person. The only time I would get out of the house would be to go to the gym. There was no interaction of seeing people at work and talking to them about projects or even just life. There was no routine of getting up and getting dressed in the morning. I would get up and just lie in bed usually till about 8:00 when I would throw on some crappy clothes, take Rocky out and then head down to the basement. It truly was so isolating and depressing. I am a people person, I need and want to be around people and work with them on a daily basis. I am not opposed to going into the office. This alone had such a huge impact on me and my life.

Which leads me to my next point, some separation in our family. With Mike working there as well there's separation for us. Often there's many days, if not the majority when we are both working from home. That's a lot of time to spend together. To know if the other person has had a good day or bad. To not go to work and come back home and sit down and have a meal together and discuss your day. We lost all of that.

My job literally made me upset and depressed. I am not afraid to admit that. It made me cry at times. Maybe some people would look at that as silly, but I am being perfectly honest. I know that everyone has tough times at work, which is why it is work, but still there was very little that I enjoyed about my job lately and I'm not going to get into the specifics of it. I tried my very best to make the best of it, and I never gave up or stopped trying while I was there, but quite honestly I wanted more and I do feel that I am capable of more than I was handed. But the mental aspect of the job and being home alone every day really got to me. It was extremely difficult for me at times to try to remain positive. I was grateful that I had a job and one that paid the bills and that I was not out of work. It was difficult on my friends, family, and especially my husband to watch me go through this and to be so unhappy at my job and the situation was in. 

I tried my very hardest to get out of it, and it took a long time. Longer than I was expecting that's for sure. Although I did have some opportunities presented to me last year I don't think I was fully ready to move on, and also due to my financial obligations. Over the last two years I ended up interviewing in person at over 9 different companies. They were all extremely well known and prestigious companies. The interviewing part itself was also a long and stressful process as well. Many hours spent preparing for the interviews, the logistics of getting to and from the interviews. And the sitting through the countless hours of questions and interrogations, plus waiting to hear back from the companies as well. 

In the end it took almost 5 months for it to work out with my new company. Five long months of back and forth and waiting and the anxiety of not knowing if it was going to work out or not. I tried to remain as optimistic as possible, although there were a couple of times were it did get very difficult. But I know that some things in life are worth waiting for and the timing of it worked out all the better for me, and financially as well, it was worth the wait. I am glad that I will start my 30s in a new job and in a better place in my life, one that I know I will be happier in. 

All that said I know I am walking away on my terms and with good experience that helped open doors for me. I really don't feel the need or want to get into all of the specifics of my role and the situation that I was in. I am excited to move on to a clean start with a new company. One where I wil be able to be in an office with a team. One where I can hopefully have an impact and will be a better fit for me all around especially personality wise. So far from what I can tell I'm very excited about the team and environment, out of all the companies I interviewed with I truly believe this one was meant to be and this is the place for me. 

I do want to put the past behind me and not talk about it again. All of my friends and family have been extremely supportive to me during the difficult time that I was going through. They supported me and listened to me vent and provided words of wisdom. For that I cannot thank them enough. I am lucky to have such wonderful family and friends. And I know Mike is the happiest of them all to see me move on so he can finally stop hearing about it all this. I'm very excited to start my new job tomorrow and see all that it brings! 

Sandy Hits NJ

Last week was quite a week here in New Jersey and the rest of the tri-state area. Hurricane Superstorm Sandy rolled through here and left a huge path of destruction in her wake. I'm not going to lie, Mike and I didn't really prepare for the storm. Not that we could have done much or had much to do but I think I did learn my lesson from what we've seen happen over the past week.

It's been over a week and things still aren't 100% back to normal just yet. Thankfully our area was not very hard hit however it has been absolutely unreal to see the destruction that occurred at the Jersey shore and other areas. Like most people in the tri-state area we were among the millions that lost power. Thankfully ours was only out for less than 48 hours so it was not too bad. There are still people today that are without power. Even the gym is still without power by us. Our power went out on Monday night when the storm hit land and then we got it back on Wednesday afternoon.

Day one was just about learning about the storm and the damage. We did go out on Tuesday morning to see what happened. In our little development the damage was pretty minimal but part of the siding off the peaks of the houses did come right off in the storm, but they've already come out and replaced it. The tree branches and damage up here also seemed pretty minmal. When I finally talked to my Mom on Wednesday she said the amount of trees down in the neighborhood by them was unbelievable and that Long Island suffered a significant amount of downed tree damage. They were able to get their power back on Wednesday morning, but Mike's parents were without power all the way through Saturday.

Our biggest quest on Tuesday morning was finding coffee since there was no power to make any. It took us about 2 hours of driving around to find a place that was open. We finally found a combination Burger King/Popeye's Chicken (such a strange combination) that was open and serving coffee, that was all we needed. It was warm and had power and coffee. I think I need to purchase a coffee pot like my Mother in Law has (that you can make coffee on the stove top) for going forward in case of any future power failures.

After we had our coffee and then stayed for lunch as well we returned back home to the cold, dark house. We spent the rest of Tuesday just on the couch. I was lucky enough to have my kindle and Mike used the radio on his phone to listen to the radio and pass the time. Finally when it was really dark we headed out to dinner, since the town right next to ours still had their power. The pizza place we originally wanted to go to was so crowded, since everyone else had the same idea, we decided to try the Italian place right next door. While we were able to get a seat right away we learned our lesson of why it was not crowded. At the end of our meal when our check came, I was shocked to learn that the mushroom ravioli special I had ordered was at the price of $25. That's right $25 for mushroom ravioli's. Our whole bill had come to $70 for one appetizer (stuffed artichoke), my mushroom ravioli, Mike had eggplant parm, and one glass of wine and a coke, and it was $70. I mean at least we were warm, but we will not be going back to that place again.

On Wednesday after we once again secured our morning coffee, we decided to venture out to the mall to pass the time. We headed over to the Garden State Mall in Paramus and were amazed to see the amounts of people that had not just come to pass the time but also to seek refuge. There were hundreds of people camped out on the floor in the middle of the mall using the outlets that were there. They had brought not just cell phones to charge but entire surge protectors filled with gadgets. We were amazed at the amount of people there just sitting using their computers. I even saw a woman with a hair dryer at one point. The food court was more crowded than at Christmas time and we couldn't get a table so we ate our lunch standing up. Needless to say we were so excited when we returned home from the mall to find out that our power had been restored.

The rest of the week for us was uneventful as we enjoyed having our power back but as we watched and learned of all of the devastation in the area it was surreal. Everything came to a standstill, public transit was hit especially hard. The tunnels were all closed, some still, the tunnels were entirely flooded as well as subway stations. It really was unreal.

Then came the gas crisis part. Since power was still out in many areas then it became a problem for people to get gas at the few stations that were open resulting in huge, huge lines. People waiting with their cars and with gas cans, and violence was erupting. They put into place in New Jersey the odd/even system to help ease some of the congestion at gas stations while they finish restoring the power and getting gas to the stations that have run out too quickly.

Now over a week later life is slowly returning to normal for most people. Although many people have lost their homes, so sad. Mass transit is finally starting to run again and get back up to speed, more every day. It's amazing how much the whole area was shut down from this storm and the impact that it's had. Hopefully things can get back to normal soon.

Anniversary Dinner

I can't believe we're married 2 years already. I feel like this anniversary really crept up on us so quickly. I was originally hoping that we could have gone on vacation again for our anniversary to celebrate but unfortunately with the uncertainty of my job situation we weren't able to make it happen. So we shelved our vacation plans sadly. I was hoping we could've gone somewhere but maybe it's better we didn't do anything and it looks like we might have a big vacation to look forward to next year.

We didn't plan anything big for our anniversary this year, given it was on a Tuesday, and I also had to teach step class at the gym that night. Mike was really understanding about me having to teach. We were doing the quarterly release launch that night so I couldn't get out of it. So he decided to make us some late dinner reservations. I had been dying to go to a 'real' steak house for so long so Mike suggested we finally go to Morton's to celebrate and was able to get us an 8:30 reservation. After I got home from the gym and literally showered and got ready in all of 15 minutes (total) we were off to dinner.

The place was empty but it was nice, it was a random Tuesday night at 8:30 after all. We got seated in this nice booth where we were able to sit next to each other. Since Mike had made us a reservation indicating that it was our anniversary we even got 'special' menu's printed up with the date and saying "Happy Anniversary  on top which I thought was a nice touch.

We started off our feast of eating with some fantastic wine, I had a wonderful pinot noir, which was also accompanied by delicious onion bread, I love onions and bread, so together it was perfect. For our first course I strayed from the iceberg wedge salad to instead get this delicious chopped salad. I changed my mind when I saw this one had both cucumbers and avocado in addition to everything the wedge salad had, it was an excellent choice. Mike went with the lobster bisque which he said was really good too. Keep in mind the pictures are not the best quality since 1) they were with my terrible cell phone which the camera is not good to begin with and 2) I was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible in taking them and couldn't use the flash (per Mike) as it would draw attention.

For our main course I ordered the 6oz filet mignon. I prob should have gotten it medium rare, even though I'm not big on pink I think mine could have been slightly juicier, but it's my own fault. I tasted Mike's steak and it was fantastic. And even though the 6oz steak was pretty small, I couldn't finish it! I had to take a picture of the last bite that I left behind. Mike said that was probably like $8 worth of steak right there but I ran out of room. With our meal we also ordered the horseradish mashed potatoes and the sauteed spinach and button mushrooms. OMG the spinach and mushrooms were fantastic, I took the leftovers of that home with us, that might have been my favorite part.

Finally when we ordered our meals they asked if we wanted one of the warm desserts so Mike ordered us the upside down apple pie. Oh man even though I was so full this apple pie was delicious, it was warm and had green raisins and the vanilla bean ice cream, it was totally worth making room for. It was a delicious finish to our meal.

One of the other nice touches to our meal was that because Mike had put down it was our anniversary they also took a picture of us. I'm so glad they did. Keep in mind this is a scanned copy of the picture but I think it came out great. I'm glad I got a photo of us on our second anniversary!