HAPPY HOLIDAYS

From a very cold and snowy land of cheese, wishing you all a very merry christmas. And an invitation to join us in Jamaica next year instead.

Sending TCKITW and TCKITWv4.0 mucho hugs and kisses, and sending the rest of my family just hugs. Miss you guys!

--K

LOUIS!

This deserved it's own post. On Friday night, after our dinner and drinks out with my coworkers, I wanted to head out even more. Blondie talked me out of it, said he wanted to head home. I was a bit bitchy, b/c I really wanted to go out.

We walk into our apartment, and I realize that Blondie has dug out all of our stockings (one for me, him, and one each for our cats). And he had stopped to buy a little Xmas tree - and had put a few decorations on it. It was so beautiful.

On top of that, I had been eyeballing these Xmas Oreo cookies (Oreos with candy cane bits in the creme), and he had picked up a pack of those. So I'm standing there about half crying, really touched that he had done this, when he said "You haven't gotten all your presents", and pointed towards the little tree again.

I realized there is a bag hidden behind the little tree so I head over to it, and HOLY SHIT. Blondie bought me my LOUIS VUITTON bag!

I had been talking and talking and talking about getting myself a LV bag - it's been over a year now, but keep talking myself out of it - we are on a budget, and it's not cheap to live here. And I could not justify pulling the trigger and purchasing my bag.

He called my friend from work, and she tricked me into telling her the bags I was looking at (she said she was buying her mom one for Xmas, and couldn't figure out which one she liked most - and asked which ones I had liked b/c she knew I had done a lot of research). Then she went and met Blondie and the rest is history.

I've spent the weekend petting my purse, being paranoid about someone stealing my purse, and generally wanting to cuddle it. It gets tucked in a dustcover every night so that the cats don't get to it.

Um, I REALLY started bawling after I saw my bag. I LOVE MY HUSBAND.

--K

Jon Stewart, Paul Rudd and me

So on Wednesday this past week, me, Blondie and a couple of our friends had VIP tickets to a taping of The Daily Show. It felt like Monday and Tuesday took forever to get through, but FINALLY it was Wednesday. My friend and I were off early to head over - we met Blondie and her man at the show. We were early, and it was freezing cold, so we stopped in at a local bar for a drink before the start. We were all very giddy, and cracking jokes, and it was eagerly that we headed in for our show.

It was insane actually being in the studio where they film it. If you are anything like me, then everything thrills you. I was just grinning my head off, looking around the room, thinking "But I've seen this on the TV!" We were only seated for about 30 minutes before the warm-up comedian came out. He was actually really funny and got the audience riled up. And then he introduced...

JON STEWART!!!! We erupted when he first came out. Everyone was cheering and whooping it out. And he was RIGHT THERE. The studio is not that big, and we had awesome seats (go VIP tickets!). He did some Q&A with the audience, and then we launched into the show. They pretty much tape the show in real-time. They really only have a 3 hour turn around time from taping to airing, so it was really impressive to watch him nail everything. No retakes, no stuttering, no getting tripped up on his words...

Paul Rudd was also really awesome - he did this great riff on his kids, how he keeps his scotch and wine on the bottom shelfs of his kitchen, the cutlery in the middle, and the cereal on top so his kids can't get to that. After Paul Rudd, Jon did his hand off to Stephen Colbert, but before they did the taped version, they did some chatting between them - and it was the funniest thing ever.

We left floating on air and headed down to our bar to hang out for the evening. Our bartender bought us all a round of shots, and we spent the rest of the evening just reliving everything.

Friday I got news that I will be needing to go to SF every 4-6 weeks for the next 6 mos at least. I am excited about it, I miss California so this is nice for me. And it gives Blondie a few days at a time without someone being like "want to go get beers tonight?"

After my news, I headed with some of my coworkers out for the evening. We went shopping for a bit before calling our significant others to meet us for drinks and dinner. We had a great time just laughing and catching up with everyone. It was my core group at work, and it was like our unplanned Xmas celebration.

Yesterday I drug Blondie down to the gym - I went for a run, and Blondie did some elliptical. After our workout, we headed out for lunch. We went to a different bar this time - split some chicken bites, and I had some fish tacos while Blondie had a burger. A few beers, and the tiredness kicked in. We stopped at our drugstore before heading home and crashing out for the day.

Today I got up and did one of my P90X DVD's (I do them in whatever order I feel whenever I feel like) before we headed up to catch a morning show of the new Harry Potter. After our movie, we went out for a late lunch, before stopping at our bakery to buy a loaf of bread. We both came home and dozed for a bit before watching the Jets FINALLY win a game. Now it's time for the Packers - but without Aaron Rodgers. We are holding our breath, hoping for a miracle. BEAT THE PATRIOTS!

Tuesday starts my vacation - we are off to Chicago for a few days before hitting The Land of Cheese to hang with Blondie's family. I'm ready for vacation!

--K

A Good Week. No Snow.

The temperature is dropping here in NYC, which means that winter has officially hit. We've had 1 day of snow flurries, but for the most part, it's in the 20's in the morning (with windchill in the teens) and 30's in the evenings. The good thing about it being uber cold in the mornings is that about 4 minutes into my walk to the subway, I'm completely numb. And nothing hurts anymore. A little warmer, and I wouldn't be numb for any of my walk - and it would just be completely miserable.

So our week started out well - we hit up our bar to watch the Jets/Patriots game on Monday. And while the Jets basically rolled over and died, it was still fun getting to hang out with everyone. Our local crew was there, and our bartender was just so funny (die hard Jets fan, Irish, and a cusser - it's an awesome combination). We were up until about 1:30 am Tues morning, just laughing and having a good time.

Tuesday night, I went with some of my coworkers to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A coworker's mother is on the board, so we got into an exhibit pre-opening. It was open bar and appetizers, and we got to see the exhibit in private without a ton of other people there. It was amazing. The Met is a fantastic space - it's so beautiful and breathtaking. The room that our cocktail reception was in was filled with old greek statues, and the ceiling was entirely windows. Everyone was dressed very nicely, and again, I just got so tickled, that all I could think was "HOLY SHIT! I'm in the Met! In NYC! On a private exhibition showing! OMG. In case I forgot, I LIVE IN NYC!"

Wednesday and Thursday we took it easy. I've been working out hard-core again, but my eating-right mode at night isn't so good - I'm fine during the day, I get in an awesome workout each morning and eat healthy and properly during the day, but as soon as I get home at night (or on the walk home), I start getting out of my mind nuts about food. It's the season I know, and I've said to myself that as long as I keep working out and eating right during the day, I can go crazy at night.

The reason I said all that was that on Wed and Thurs, we ordered in some greasy yummy food each night. And just stayed in and watched TV. It was nice because it's been sooooo cold out!

Friday was my office holiday party - we had a potluck early afternoon, and then headed to the bar for an open bar and white elephant gift swap. I got a good gift - a box of Ghiradelli's and a giftcard to Starbucks. I'm quite happy. After the party ended, I felt like just hanging with Blondie, so I bowed out of the next bar, and stopped on the way home to buy garlic bread and meatballs. I got home that night and we split a bottle of wine and made a huge pot of spaghetti.

Yesterday I went down and ran, and was proud of myself because my speed is back to my old running speed. I was sick for about 9 days over Thanksgiving, and still am not quite over whatever it is, and my running speed had dropped about .2 - I'm normally a 5.5 mph, but it had gone down to 5.3 mph since I started running after the sick. Yesterday, I booked through at 5.7 and 5.5 mph, didn't drop any lower - and felt really really good with myself. It was hard, but I garnered up the willpower and stuck with it. It's the first step in feeling really healthy again.

After the run, I baked a cinnamon cake and we ate on that all day yesterday afternoon - it was a healthier cake in that only egg beaters were reqd to make it (and the cake mix). No extra oil or butter was called for.

Today I did yoga and got all stretchy again. We had our groceries delivered since it's a flood outside right now - the storm front that's dropping all the snow on the midwest is dropping all the rain on us (it's warmer today so it can't snow yet).

This week will be an awesome week - first on deck, VIP tickets to a taping of the Daily Show!!!! That's on Wednesday and I CAN'T WAIT! We also plan to visit our bar, and I have to do a night stint for work this week on Friday. Next week we are off to the midwest (and all that f'ing snow) for the holidays. We are going to stop in Chi-town and visit Slick, before heading up to the Land of Cheese to see Blondie's family.

--K

NYC in the winter

Our Thanksgiving weekend ended as follows: Friday = do absolutely nothing; Saturday = do absolutely nothing; Sunday = do absolutely nothing. It was *lovely*.

I did make it back to the gym - I forced myself down on Friday after Thanksgiving and felt great from the moment I set foot on the treadmill. I just did a walk on Friday, while carrying handweights, and then Saturday I started running again. It went really well - I was suprised simply because to this day, I'm still hacking stuff out of my lungs. But running doesn't seem to make things worse. Which is good because I'm about to start training for my half.

Okay, so last week was pretty low key. We didn't have much going on. I had a late Thursday night for work, but it was fine, because I took Friday off.

We woke up Friday and headed out around 10 am. We went to Rockefeller Center first to scope out the Xmas tree, and all the decorations they have out. It was beautiful. I don't like a real Xmas tree for the most part, I'm pretty much an artificial tree girl, but the Rock Center tree is just something you have to see. After checking out the tree, we braved the Best Buy madness to get Blondie a new router. And then it was back to Times Square for lunch - we had been craving Red Lobster, so we stopped in for some seafood (and biscuits) and beer (and biscuits).

After lunch we headed just a few blocks down to see the King Tut exhibit at the Discovery Exhibition Center. This was amazing. They had set up a museum in the space that discussed King Tut's lineage and life, and then they had a bunch of artifacts from King Tut's tomb. It was pretty crazy to see it all. The exhibit goes out at the end of January, but then at the beginning of March, they are bringing in a Pompeii exhibit - which I'm also uber excited about.

On Saturday we met up with Little Dragon and her hubby to see Billy Elliot on Broadway - a show that blew me out of the water. This wasn't one that was on my list, but I'm so glad we went anyway. The kid that played Billy Elliot was an amazing dancer, which again, leads me into "OH MY GOD, I wish I could dance!" It's pretty pathetic. After our show, we headed for several beers before Blondie and I caught the train to Brooklyn.

Sweetie J is in town for the week, and we went to meet up with her and some of her friends for dinner. It was a great night - full of good company and most excellent food.

Today we've stayed in. I've been working out hardcore again, and today I felt like I needed to stretch so I did my yoga DVD instead of a cardio based exercise. I feel great now - all loosey goosey and relaxed. The only problem is that I think I broke my nose somehow - I have no idea what I did, but my nose is KILLING me. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to have glasses on, everything that involves my nose is bad. It's not black and blue, and it's not swollen, but the bone itself has something seriously wrong with it.

Yay. Oh Yay. :) Okay, I'm off to finish off our Harry Potter marathon. This week is another monster work week, but at least on Friday we have our work Xmas party. I have a private museum exhibition I'm going to on Tuesday, and tomorrow we are off to our bar to watch the Jets/Patriots game.

--K