The Felixstowe of America

Oh my, I found Felixstowe over here. Quite funny actually.

Jenny and Frankie from England are visiting. They flew into Atlantic City last weekend, Trev and I drove down on Tuesday night and then Wednesday we drove back home. They're now in NYC until Monday when they drive up to Cape Cod.

Anyway, back to Atlantic City. I'd been told it was the Las Vegas of the east coast. So so NOT! It really is a beaten up old seaside town. Sad really. Can't say I'd go back. I know that some of you won't even know where Felixstowe is, but it's a seaside town 10 miles from where my family lives. While it's OK, it's rundown, had little investment and has potential.

So, Jenny and Frankie have been going around Manhattan, enjoying it all. They're off to a baseball game tonight, while Trev and I will probably either find a bar and wait for them or go home and sleep (didnt' get a lot of sleep last night). We've found some nice restaurants since they've been here, all in Hoboken so far. I think weekend we're going to go off and try for something inthe city. should be fun.

The nice weather went away, and it's chucking down rain again. Hopefully it'll be nice for the weekend.

I get my hair done tomorrow - I think I'm going to go red again....I'm fed up with all the blond stuff. We'll see. Watch for a photo next week!

Something I learnt yesterday

As you know Saturday's are our day of mammouth gym training sessions - usually I manage to do the cardio, Billy and pilates class having eaten something beforehand. Usually it's not too big, just a bacon sandwich or a single egg on toast. Anyway, yesterday Melissa came down from Glastonbury and on Friday night we say Legally Blonde the musical (very good BTW), and before she left on Saturday morning we went out to a diner for breakfast.

I spent some time educating Trevor on that he should be eating proteins and not just carbs (ie eggs and bacon, not french toast) as it'l lgive him more energy. And you know what? We both faired really well. We didn't run out of energy, we weren't particularly hungry at the end. So, a new tradition has emerged.....large breakfast on Saturday mornings, followed by the training sessions.

Who knew?

BTW - summer has arrived - it was about 70 yesterday and gorgeous. I love this weather.

Update to Spring

The blossom is out. It's beautiful. I'll take a picture later and post it. Now I'll continue to update my Itunes from my balcony. Sitting out here is fabulous. Welcome to spring:)

Spring is FINALLY here...

It's beautiful. There's the start of blossom on the trees, the temperature was around 60F yesterday and is planned to get over 70 this weekend. How fabulous. it means I get to wear my red spring coat all the more:)

Most important thing we're doing today - our medicals for our green card. Can you believe that after all this time we're finally at the point of getting to the end. I'm quite excited. I'm not sure Trev thinks I am - he keeps saying I don't really want a green card, I'm not interested, I don't support him etc etc...but that's just not true. There are just some things I can't work on - however last night there was a bit of a furore when I couldn't find my passport, which we also need a copy of. It wasn't in the one of two places I thought it was....luckily I had the time to sit and think and realized it had probably fallen down the back of the filing cabinet. Phew! That's exactly where it was. Panic over.

The plumber is coming today to fix the spare shower so that Jenny and Frankie (who visit next week) can have a hot shower. Oh yeah for builders!

I'm off with Melissa to see Legally Blonde the musical tonight. Trev's coming into town and we'll have dinner, but then us girls will go off to the theatre. I just love living here. What fun is that!

This week I managed to refinish all the floors in the kitchen, living room and hall - they look amazing. That means that this weekend's job is to do the same in the bedrooms. Ready for Jenny and Frankie we have to tidy the crap up in the spare room. In doing our taxes last weekend we ended up filing every little piece of paper all over the bed. Oh what joy.

My ass was kicked in the gym again last night - I always amaze myself that I can do a full-on hour of weight training. Billy pushes me to the edge...and while I do a lot of complaining I always feel fabulous when I'm done. That's why I'm back tomorrow for more of the same I guess.

Our weekend is

A compliment or two

OK, so I'm a sucker for a compliment. I've had two within 24 hours.

1) I was talking with someone I'm helping manage. She doesn't work for me - she works in the sister group to mine. However, the team she's on she has no direction or management. After dealing with an issue or two for her she asked me if she should email my boss to tell her how wonderful I was. Cool eh? I was blase enough to say that my boss already knew how fabulous I was but that if she wanted to to knock herself out. LOL

2) I have someone who returned to work yesterday after maternity leave. She had twin and had been out since the beginning of December. She thinks I look thinner........

#2 is all I need to feel better.....maybe all this exercise is working.

On the subject of exercise I now have a new regime....

Mon - off
Tues - 15-20mins cardio, 1 hour pilates class
Weds - off
Thurs - 15-20mins cardio, 1 hour with Billy the trainer
Fri - off
Sat - 10mins cardio, 1 hour with Billy the trainer followed by 1 hour pilates class*
Sun - 15-20mins cardio, 1 hour yoga class

*I am still amazed that I can do that.... I have to eat plenty of protein before I start (bacon and eggs....and a great excuse). Still - pretty cool eh?

My boss is having a procedure this week - she's had lumps in her breast before, but this procedure sounded nasty. They lie you face down, give you a local, then insert a need the diameter of a pencil (!) and then take a biopsy. She's not allowed to move for 3 days. Owwwweeeeee. She should have the results by Monday but still, that seems such a long time to wait. I hope all is well with her....

My red coat

I just have to say that while I may have worried about buying my red coat when I went shopping with Melissa, I've had so many compliments that I love it:) Let's hope I can continue to be so bold!!!!

On a sadder note, my heart goes out to my friend Penny who's mum passed away last weekend after a short illness. While she's in a better place now, it doesn't always help to cope with the loss. I'm thinking of you my friend - take care and look after yourself.

Goodness gracious me....

So I've not posted in a while....it's been an interesting few days. I'll warn you now, this will be a long one:)

The end of last week started well. Trev got home on Thursday and we hung out, work wasn't too bad. On Friday afternoon I was supposed to get my hair cut and coloured as I hadn't done it in over 3 months. It was the first time in ages that I wished I was in England where taxi drivers know where to go. It never really occurred to me in London where taxi drivers have to take "the knowledge" test. It's a big thing - you can get in any London cab and they'll take you where you want to go. Well....I left work with 30mins to get to my appointment. Thinking I'd hop in a cab it would be plenty of time to get to Soho. Well......the flipping cab driver didn't know where to take me, he drove around, cost me a fortune, where I ended up in the wrong part of town and nowhere near the salon. End result - no haircut and I stomped off home. Not a good start to the weekend. It was nice having Trev home again and we went off back into the city for dinner at a Comedy Club - we saw Craig Ferguson. He's the English guy from the Drew Carey Show....he also has a late night show I think. He was pretty good - but not as good as John Oliver who we saw a few weeks ago.

Saturday was a normal day - my mammouth training session (cardio, Billy, pilates) and then hanging out at home eating everything in sight as i was so hungry:):) Oh well, at least I had worked off all the calories before I ate. Saturday night we were really boring and stayed home.

Sunday is when the drama started. The day started normal enough - bit of work, off to yoga, lunch with the guys upstairs. It was raining hard and had been for some time - there was a front coming through and it was all over the telly but we thought it wasn't that bad. When we got back from lunch we bumped into other neighbours who were surveying our garage and the water leaks. There were loads.....and loads....and loads. Turns out that in the basement the water was leaking where it usually did plus a load of other places. While it wasn't loads of inches, there was a LOT of water. On the 2nd floor, both neighbours had water coming through walls and ceilings....it made us not want to check out apartment. Every single apartment had some kind of leak. For whatever reason we got off really lightly with just a leak in the little bathroom. Then, later that day the power went out. On top of this there was a fire a block away where a lumber yard had gone up in smoke - to check out the pics of that and the water in our town click this http://hoboken411.com/archives/6530

Anyhow, enough said - but we're still waiting for estimates etc. It's been crazy - something we just don't need. Oh well, until this gets fixed my list of items that I need from the builder gets longer and longer. The fun thing was we had a building party - got a load of candles, put the grill on, brought food and ate and drank merrily until the power came on around 10. We love our neighbours - what a great crowd!

Oh yea! Work has been crazy as always. Enough said.

Why is it winter again?

Ok, so I thought it was April - doesn't that mean rain and warmer temperatures? I even bought a new spring coat (in bright red!!) for the occasion. It's flipping freezing here - it snowed briefly over the Easter holiday and today the temperature is 37 degrees as I leave for work . What the hell is that? Ridiculous!

I'm really looking forward to warmer temperatures....I guess I have a few more weeks to wait.

Another milestone

OK, so I'm reviewing my day at home working to catch up - it ended with a trip to the gym - 20 mins cardio and an hour's pilates class.

My class on a Tuesday is at 7.45pm so it's quite late, and quite frankly I really have no desire to get my ass to exercise that time of night. Usually I find that the class is by someone called Rebecca and it's really a waste of time. She takes so long to warm up and then between each exercise is a few mins while she decides what to do next (WTF?). I found out last Friday when i was there that the class is now taken by my Saturday pilates teacher, Millie. Millie is awesome!

So here's the milestone. I went to the class. That doesn't sound like much, does it? Well, it is. I really didn't feel like going, my head hurt, I was tired as I'd been up since 5.15am and I really didn't want to go. But because it was Millie's class i went. Amazing eh? Well, it is to me.

I went to the gym BECAUSE I WANTED TO. That's a huge milestone. Crazy eh?

Still I wish I was a size 8....but it's never to be.

In other news, Trev is back after his trip to the Uk. His visa was approved, his passport arrived in record time and now he's in Atlanta for work. He's back on Thursday - can't wait.

Tomorrow I'm off to a fund raiser event. It costs $100, but you get make up, goodies, facials, champagne and appetizers. Should be a riot.

Getting my hair done on Friday - the big question is....should I stay the same or make a change? Decisions decisions.....it will consume me until Friday so all suggestions are welcome!

Visit to Melissa's

Had a great Easter weekend at Melissa's in Glastonbury, Connecticut. We had a lot of fun. Some pics attached...going clockwise.

1) Melissa - making a call to the plumber (more on that later!), 2) Meet Lilly, 3) me in my new Jeans...do you think they make me look thinner?, 4) Spike...the old lady of the house, 5) Lilly and I.

The weekend went by so, so fast. On Friday I arrived later than planned and we went to dinner on the water. When we got home we played with the dogs for a while. Spike is 14 and she's the grand old lady - it's quite funny watching her when Lilly who's nearly 1 is playing with her. Lilly has so much energy - ALL THE TIME. She's so cute you just play with her back.

On Saturday, after sorting the plumber out (Melissa has water problems!), we went shopping to the outlet mall where, as usual when I'm near a shop, i found lots of things to buy that I never knew I needed. I picked up a new pair of jeans from Eddie Bauer as my others were a little big - do you think they make me look thinner.....it's hard to decide, but I like them anyway. Saturday afternoon on the way home we dropped off to a Thai restaurant for dinner. Old farts that we are we were both tucked up in bed by 10pm on a Saturday night. Oh well - we had fun anyway!

Sunday was also lovely. Because of the water issues (Sunday there was zero water) we relocated to Melissa's mum's house for Easter dinner. I felt so awful as I didn't prepare a thing...but it was lovely with lots of friends and family around. I was back on the train at 4pm so it's nice having a couple of hours to do nothing before work tomorrow. We had lots of chats about college and drinking games. The funniest was finding that a freshman in college plays flippy cup with water. For those of you wanting to know what flippy cup is talk to the queen...my daughter Rachel:)

Was a great weekend............Melissa is coming to NYC in a couple of weeks and we're going to see Legally Blonde the musical. Yeah! Can't wait.

Penny, I'm thinking of you.

Guilty

OK, I have to admit my guilt. I just ate a Kaiser roll (just the bottom of it though) with bacon, cheese and 2 runny fried eggs. Yummmmy...

The week that was

Funny bus story first. So, yesterday morning, I'm getting ready for work, I have my packed lunch, my bag, my music, headphones coat, umbrella etc and head out the door. I get the bus stop with loads of time to spare (it's a 2 min walk!!) and start looking for my ticket. Frantic, I turn my bag out on the pavement and cannot find my bus pass anywhere. I couldnt' believe it - I'm usually so organized. Then, I can't find my work pass either, so assume I've left it at home. Annoying, but surviveable. I get out $2.30 for the fare and get on the bus. I sit down for no more than a minute........and realize that both my office pass and bus pass are attached to my pants! How dumb is that. I immediately thought I should write about that. Hahaha. Dumbass.

Another topic - I'm excited as I've been asked to go to London for work. Yeeeeha. I have a 3 day meeting to attend Tues-Thurs May 8-10 so I'm travelling the previous Thurs night so I can hang out with family and friends. Tim is around, but Mum and Dad are in Turkey. I know they'll be bummed, but hey ho - I get to see them in the summer so no biggie. I won't have a whole lot of time except on the weekend but I should be able to see a few people and catch up. Very very excited.....especially as I get to travel business class.

Not much else went on this week. I went to IKEA on Monday night and picked up some stuff that makes me more organized. Certainly my tiny closet has more space now - I love it that I can spend $50 and get some really sturdy drawer sets that hold a boatload. I can't say that was the final bill - but I did pick up shelves for the bathrooms, under the bed storage boxes, stuff for the office so it was a good trip. I've also figured out the shelving I want for the other side of the closet and the laundry room so that's cool too.

My exercise routine since Sunday has been zilch. Embarrassing. I didn't go to Pilates on Tuesday night as I was playing with my IKEA stuff (!) btu I thought it was OK as I'd checked w/Billy about Wednesday morning. However, he cried off very very late Tuesday night and I didn't see the note until I was about to leave on Wednesday. Then Thursday I tried to muster the effort to at least go and do 30 mins of cardio, and I couldn't be bothered. Luckily I'm seeing Billy tomorrow at 10.30am and if I go at 9.30am and do 45 mins cardio I'll feel at least I've exhonorated myself. I'll also miss Saturday Pilates and Sunday Yoga as I'm off to Connecticut to see my friend Melissa.

Trevor got his visa renewed in London but he won't be able to fly back until Sat 14th so that'll be half a weekend blown off AGAIN. Oh well.... at least he's legal again. that's the good thing. I miss him not being around. While I know we really like our own space these days, especially as we're both working so hard - I miss him when he's not around. It makes me realize I need to be more proactive about getting some friends outside of work. While our neighbours are great I'm not sure there's anyone who I'd consider close. The boys upstairs are who we get on best with....but they're not what I'd call close friends. I think that's my late new year's resolution.

Jamaica is coming along nicely. I've booked Rachel's ticket. For Peter and Carrieanne I need to wait a while. Peter has applied for a class and if he gets in he won't make it. For Carrieanne, I miss her. She doesn't call at all these days and we exchange maybe a single text a month. I hope everything's OK - I'd love for her to join us but I'm guessing it just won't happen.

Penny, I'm thinking of you. In between work, "A", "a", and your mum I hope you're still keeping up with exercise and yoga and you sound like a different person - hang in there. If you need to talk, call me.

OK, I thought this would be a quick ramble but clearly I had a lot on my mind.

Bye

Giving women a bad name

As you know the bus is now my chosen method of transportation. This morning I got on the bus, was impressed that we had a female bus driver - "yeah to equality" I thought. How was it in less than 2 miles she completely screwed that up.

First, she kept stopping at each bus stop to rearrange the wing mirrors. Important on a bus, I was OK with it, although still thought she could have done it at the bus depot. Then she had to make a tight turning into 14th St......and she blew it. We were waiting for her to nudge forward, then she had to reverse - it was cringeworthy. By that time I'm guessing she was stressing out too - because then SHE WENT THE WRONG ROUTE.

So instead of getting to work on time, it make me 20mins late. Not too terrible, but such an embarrassment to us women who see ourselves as equals to the male population.

Another new discovery

Skype. All I can say is - brilliant!

It started when Trev's cellphone bill came in from when I was in England and it was over $200. Ouch! Now, given he's off to Holland, Germany and England we didn't want a repeat performance.

So.... I looked online and had heard about Skype. It's an internet based telephone service. If you call another Skype customer it costs zero. Did you hear that? Zero. Nada. Nothing.

What i also found out is that you can use Skype and call actual phones and cellphones. So, I tried it with Mum and Dad in Turkey. While not a perfect line....I still got to talk to them for 0.17 Euros a minute. I sent Trev off to Europe with my USB headset - and now I find out you can buy actual phones from Amazon to plug into your PC, so you don't have to use a headset. I think that's terrific!