Philadelphia Flower Show 2015


Earlier this month, I headed to Pennsylvania for our annual trip to the Philadelphia Flower Show with my Mom! The theme this year was Celebrate the Movies.



I loved it especially because when you walked in, there were movie compilations playing on a giant screen above you and it smelled my popcorn (which is one of my favorite smells).


If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am a big fan of the Miniature Landscape portion of the show. I think we accidentally discovered that Miniature Landscape Design is only at the show every other year. Or, they hide it every other year and my Mom and I can't find it. Regardless, we didn't see it this year, which was a major bummer. BUT I think our interaction with a blue ribbon winner still made the show a success?


Here's a lesson we learned at this year's show: If you're going to be critical of the plants, do it very quietly. We got to this section and I said to my Mom "How did this win a blue ribbon? The flowers look dead!". And my Mom said "Linda McCarthy is in the Cactus and Succulent Society!" and then the woman next to us said "I'm Linda McCarthy". We just about died.

Linda told us a lot of great information though (I'm hoping she didn't hear me say that her flowers looked dead) including: you can buy plants at Lowes and enter them and also sometimes you need grow lamps in your house (she has a "basement full of them"). I don't think my Mom and I will go the grow lamp route, but its good to know that's an option!

The flower displays at the show are always really beautiful, especially the ones that have to do with the theme, but my favorite part by far is always the plants (Linda's forte) and the bonsai display (My Mom loves the dioramas but there is always a line and I feel like you can't look at them for too long with out the people behind you breathing loudly).

This bonsai was 30 years old! That's as old as John! And they had one that was 77 years old which is almost as old as my Nanny! I'm just fascinated.


Groot? (Sometimes I do watch movies!)


I loved this one...look how perfectly round it is! And no dead flowers...I totally understand why this one won a blue ribbon!


Some of the flowers in the Celebrate the Movies section...

The Magic Carpet from Aladdin!


The House from Up (I loved this one so much)!


I have no idea what this is from but I loved it!


My Mom has gotten really great at making picture collages on her phone. She can make one in under 30 seconds, I'm not even joking. Here are two of my faves from the day:


This one is a compilation of all the penis like plants we saw that day that my Mom decided to Instagram with the caption "And now for the phallic competition! #peepeeflowers". The bottom right ones are particularly upsetting to me, thanks Mom!


See you next year, Flower Show!

Is the Winter Over?


I feel like whenever there's an extreme weather situation, I automatically forget all previous extreme weather situations. For example every time it snowed this winter I thought to myself "IT WILL NEVER BE WARM AGAIN!". But I can promise that when its 100 degrees in July and I'm melting on the subway platform I will think to myself "WHEN WILL IT BE COLD AGAIN?"


My ideal temperature is somewhere around 52 degrees. Actually its 43 degrees but I don't think that's socially acceptable to say (every time I say it someone yells at me) so let's say its the cold side of 52 degrees.

Since its almost Spring (read: the point of year where temperatures begin to increase to an unacceptable level) I thought I'd dump some of the snow pictures I've take all winter on the blog.

Don't they look nice? New York in the snow is beautiful!

Lies. Here's a realistic photo.


Is the Fall yet?

John's 30th Birthday

On Friday, John turned 30! It was a weekend full of celebrating (and so much cake), starting with cake and games on Friday night with our friends (this picture is the first time I ever used the timer on my phone! Jon set it up beautifully and I recommend that you befriend him for his timer skills).


On Saturday night we went to Barcade with our pockets full of quarters for his birthday party. I was able to reserve a big table in the back for our group, which was great. Everyone had a place to put their coats and bags and a place to sit when the exhaustion from too many arcade games. Here's the guys playing NBA Jam, which is apparently a super intense game?


We got a beautiful cake and whoopie pies from our friend Teress' friend, Veronika. She did such an incredible job and the cake was delicious (want a cake? Email me and I'll connect you with Veronika!).


John hates the Happy Birthday song. He doesn't like to sing it and he doesn't like to have it sung to him. He especially doesn't like when a group of 20 of his friends scream it at the top of their lungs in a crowded bar. He was pretty mortified, but my heart was so full while we were signing...it was kind of the best.





Happy Birthday, Babe. And thanks to everyone who helped us celebrate! 



On Wednesdays I Jab Myself with a Needle (Alternate Title: I Have a Chronic Illness)

I'd like to say at the outset that I'm not writing this so that you feel bad for me. I'm writing it because when you poke around online about chronic illness, its not easy to find stories of youngish people who are living with something like this. What I've found via internet searches and social media hashtags make me feel a little bit gloom and doom. I sometimes feel like because my Instagram isn't consumed by pictures of my illness and my treatment that I didn't really fit anywhere in the community of people who have what I have.

But I think there must be other people who have the same mindset about their chronic illness that I have, so I'm sending this into the internet. If you're someone who has a chronic illness (or you know someone who has one) and what you read here sounds familiar, then I hope I provide you with a little less gloom and a little more glitter.
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I come from a family of "it could be worse!"-ers. Any time something annoying/upsetting/bad happens, there's a resounding chorus of "it could be worse!" in my head. Its how I was raised and I'm thankful for that on nearly a daily basis. It reminds me that I'm so lucky in so many ways.

But I read somewhere recently that having the outlook on life of "someone has it worse than me" sometimes can invalidate the feelings you have about a particular issue or situation. For me, I think that is absolutely true when it comes to my chronic illness. It could be worse. So, so much worse. But I'm 27, I have a chronic illness and it fucking sucks. I don't curse a lot on this blog but there it is.

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Three days before I started my Masters program at Penn, I got a fever.

Rewind. I had just moved back in with my parents after living in New York for five years and immediately upon my return, I got a sore throat. And a post nasal drip. I went to my primary care physician's office twice and saw two different physician's assistant. Both times they told me I was fine, but after whining at my second appointment, the guy caved and gave me an antibiotic.

Two days later and three days before I was supposed to start at Penn, I woke up with a rash on my arms and a fever. The next day I was supposed to start my Graduate Assistantship in the School of Education but when I woke up that morning, I was so exhausted and had such a temperature that I had to call in sick...on my first day of work (cue a lot of crying and a hefty dose of anxiety over making a terrible first impression). Instead of going to my first day of work, I went back to the doctor that day and saw another physician's assistant.

"Mono," she said "you definitely have Mono. That't why you have the rash on your arms...its the antibiotics reacting to the Mono in your system." I told her that I had had Mono my Junior year of college and that I was pretty sure that't not what it was. "You definitely have Mono," this non-doctor told me. "Stop and get your blood taken on the way out and we'll confirm." This was on a Thursday morning.

Late Friday afternoon I still felt terrible and the Doctor's office called. "You need to come in tomorrow morning" the receptionist said. "And you need to bring your parents". Let me tell you that hearing you have to go see the doctor on a Saturday morning AND bring your parents is something no 22 year old wants to hear.

We went to the office early on that Saturday morning (me in sweatpants, my dad in a sports coat and my Mom with a full face of makeup on-when we get bad medical news in my family, we like the people we're with to be dressed to the nines) and the doctor told me he thought I might have Lupus.

Lupus.

Lupus.

Lupus. Immediately the chorus of "this could have been so much worse than Lupus" started in my head.

He sent me to the hospital to get a million tests (maybe I had a bacterial infection from the wisdom teeth I had removed two weeks before?). They took so many vials of blood that they made me wait an hour before I left. I went home and slept the rest of the day.

After that scary Saturday, I started to feel better. I started school and my Assistantship and I started to make peace with the fact that I might have Lupus.

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The doctor called a week later to say I didn't have Lupus (seriously?!) but that my numbers from my blood work were all out of whack. Basically all of the numbers they check for when you get blood drawn? Mine were all wrong. He referred me to a specialist (which I think is the sign of a good primary care physician) and told me to come back in six months.

I went to see the specialist and he took more blood. Three months later my numbers were still wrong, but I felt fine. Other than being exhausted all the time, I was back to normal...but I was in graduate school and commuting to Philadelphia and working and driving to New York every other weekend to see John. Being exhausted seemed like it was expected at this point in my life.

The specialist told me what symptoms to look out for and to keep coming back every six weeks to check on my numbers. I had no symptoms for the entire Fall semester. My numbers started to return to normal and the whole thing seemed like it was just a fluke. A really scary fluke.

Christmas passed and the Spring semester started. I felt the same as I had felt for most of the Fall: productive, missing John, loving my program at Penn and my new friends there but still...exhausted. All normal things, I thought.

And then in February my ankle started to hurt. Not a lot, just a dull ache. I had what felt like 900 papers due and I was so, so tired. Joint pain was one of the symptoms I was supposed to look out for, but I was driving a lot to Philadelphia and New York (maybe I had drivers ankle, is that a thing?) and it didn't seem like that big of a deal. Until one night a few weeks later, I came home from work after running our major admissions event for three days straight and preparing for a job interview I had later that week at Columbia. I was trying on the new dress my Mom had gotten me for my interview (because she's the best Mom).

I came out in my dress (which was a great dress) and my Mom looked a little bit horrified. Which was upsetting because I thought I looked great! But then I saw she was looking at my left foot and realized what was wrong. My ankle, foot and up my calf looked like it had gotten sunburned..and I realized it was hurting more than it had.

Back to the specialist we went later that week. More blood work showed that my numbers were all out of whack again. And I finally got a diagnosis: a type of autoimmune arthritis which was currently only in my ankle.

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The doctor seemed confident that I had a relatively mild case that had resulted from that weird (not Mono) virus I had earlier that year. He prescribed me an NSAID to take to bring down the inflamation that I had and that was it. My Mom and I high tailed it to Sephora because we like to buy lipstick when we're upset and slowly but surely I started to make peace with my autoimmune system and my achy joints.

I kept seeing my Rhuematologist until I was ready to move back to New York that summer. At which point he said I absolutely needed a Rheumatologist in NYC and that I needed to stop wearing crappy flats and sandals from Target because apparently I needed shoes "with support" (kill me).

I found a doctor who I like (after a relatively terrible experince at NYU Langone) even though her office is so far east it might as well be in the river. I got on a treatment plan that worked (more or less) and I embarked on my new life of living with John and working my first full time job. I had a few flare ups here and there, but all of them were pretty mild (I know now) and we got them under control pretty quickly all things considered.
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But then this summer I got sick with the most significant flare I've had to date. I was sick for almost four weeks before I decided that I should go back uptown and basically into the East River to see my doctor. She said I needed to get an MRI so down I went to take a nap in radiology (I fall asleep every time, the loud noises lull me to sleep for some reason?). Two days later she called to say I needed to come in the following week and that maybe I wanted to bring someone with me.

So my parents drove to the city from Pennsylvania, my dad in a sports coat and me and my Mom with a full face of make up on and we walked into the Hospital for Special Surgery on a beautiful autumn day after nearly ten weeks of aching and exhaustion and puffy joints. My doctor showed us my MRI and said that my arthritis had spread. That we needed to take a more aggressive stance with my treatment to prevent further joint damage and to make me stop feeling like a 90 year old woman. I needed to go on an injection that I would give myself every other week. A nurse would come to my house to teach me how to inject myself, and the medication would get delivered to my door.

I smiled and said that was fine. I looked at my parents and they smiled. My Dad went to get the car out of the garage and I went into the bathroom and promptly crumpled into tears. Until that exact moment, I hadn't felt like a sick person.

I felt totally normal except that sometimes I had to take pills. I felt like a person who sometimes got exhausted really easily. I felt like a person who occasionally walked to SoHo on her lunch break and then couldn't go to Spin class later that night because her joints were just done for the day. I felt like a person who was occasionally homicidal on a packed train because I just wanted to sit down and I didn't look like a person who needed a seat...and how do you say to a stranger, "Excuse me sir, but I have an autoimmune arthritis and could I please have your seat?" I felt like a person who occasionally had to make the trek to the East River to see her specialist.

And then I realized that I felt like a sick person. For four years I had felt like a sick person who had a chorus of "it could be worse" singing in my head.


So on a Wednesday night in October my Mom and Becca came to sit with me while the nurse taught me how to inject myself. My Mom bought me washi tape with skulls and hearts to mark injection days in my planner.

Every other Wednesday night, I come home from work and take my medicine out of the fridge. I let it warm up while I cook dinner and after I do the dishes, I inject myself with the medicine that at this point is really working. Sometimes it hurts more than others. I've started blasting remixes of I Wanna Dance with Somebody and singing the lyrics at the top of my lungs when I stick myself to take the edge off.

Since October, I've gotten progressively better. I was able to wean myself off of some of the other treatments I've been taking, I've been able to start Spinning again (three classes last week, which was huge for me) and two weeks ago I walked all over SoHo on my lunch break and went to the gym at night. I still get tired, and my joints sometimes still ache, but overall I feel like me again.

I still don't really feel like I fit anywhere in terms of my illness. I'm still not crazy about what I find on social media and I certainly don't fit with the elderly people who sit in the waiting room with me at my Rhuematologist's office.

I'm 27 years old and I've got a chronic autoimmune disease; its unlikely that I will ever not have to live with this. But when I got diagnosed I bought a boat load of lipstick. And when my doctor told me I had to go on an injection, I went out for pizza with my parents. And on nights when my injection hurts a lot, John hugs me so tight I feel like I might pop like a balloon.

When I feel sick I sit on my couch with my cats. But when I don't feel sick (which is more likely than not these days) I go out with my friends to Happy Hour, I go on adventures in the city with John, I go to Spin class and I Instagram pictures of my cats. Sometimes I Instagram a picture of my injection or an ice pack on my ankle, but most times its Dilly and Zula. Because my illness is a part of my life, a crappy part of my life. But its not my whole life.

And when all else fails, I blast some Whitney and sing in my kitchen at the top of my lungs.




2015: The Year I Do Whatever I Feel Like Doing (Tinted Eyebrows Edition)

A few Fridays ago, I stopped at my neighborhood threading salon to get my eyebrows done before the weekend. I had let them grow in because apparently natural brows are in this year, and if its one thing my Italian ancestors gave me, its "natural" brows. 

WELL the nice lady did a beautiful job (after telling me that I should have never waited as long as I did to come in) and then she told me I needed to tint them. Ten minutes, $15 and they would last for a week. "Will I have eyebrows like Kim Kardashian? Or Julianna Margulies?" I asked. "Meh," she said "I think they'll look great". 

I hesitated but then I remembered that I decided 2015 would be the year I did whatever the heck I feel like. So I said yes, and five minutes later this is the picture I sent John, who was on a trip with his friends. Needless to say, he was concerned. 

Did I mention I'm also growing my hair out? Its rough in the appearance department these days, friends. 


Here's the result! I'm almost three weeks in and I think I love them? I haven't penciled my eyebrows in since I got them tinted, so I've saved I think at least 15 minutes (I don't take a lot of time with my makeup). Frankly, I'd like them to be a little darker than they are, but I think I have to trust the professionals on this one.

You're welcome for this picture of me.


HAPPY SNOW DAY!

Happy Snow Day to YOU! Enjoy this Meowtin...my Mom sent it to me last week :)


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When Your Husband Works Nights

When your husband works nights, you spend a lot of time with your cats. You also take too many pictures of them.


You binge watch television (this season, a lot of British television). You go to spin class and to yoga class and when you get home, you have the constant conversation with yourself about why you shouldn't have to vacuum or put the laundry away since you just peddled a bike for 60 minutes and or/bent your body into a pretzel.

You see your friends a lot, which is wonderful.

You eat a lot of toast with peanut butter and eggs and smoothies for dinner because cooking for one singular person is harder than it seems. You call your parents and you Facetime your sister. You Gchat with your husband who is 30 miles away at his desk. You blog on this here blog and you tell yourself that you will not surrender to sleep because you will be awake when your husband comes home from work!



Sometimes he doesn't work too late and when that happens you're downstairs and awake when he walks in the door. The cats jump off of you and to the door to see him, because sometimes they are more like dogs than cats. Then the two of you pace around the kitchen, talking and laughing because he's so happy to be home and you're so happy that you made it to 10:45. Then you make lunches for the next day. You put on a brave "let's watch some TV together face," but most nights you're in bed 25 minutes after he walks in the door.

On days when he works very late, you take all of your electronic devices upstairs and you walk up the stairs. You brush your teeth and wash your face and do battle with the rosacea you've suddenly developed on your face with some heavy duty lotion. Then you get into bed with all of your electronics...you peruse Facebook, you click around on Instagram, you look around to see whats trending on Twitter, you start a new draft of a blog post...you start to read your book. And most nights, without fail, you fall asleep before your husband gets home with your phone and your glasses and your iPad and your laptop around you. When he gets home, your husband moves the laptop to the bedside table, puts the iPad in its case, puts your glasses safely on your bedside table, and plugs your phone in so that its charged for the next day. Sometimes you remember him kissing you goodnight, and even when you don't remember you know that he did.

And suddenly it is the morning. Its time for you to go to work while your husband is fast asleep. You take a shower and pad around the bedroom trying to silently get dressed. You kiss him goodbye and whisper "have a good day at work." You grab your bag and your breakfast, you head out the door. You get on the subway and get to your office. You work all day and take the subway home.

You are greeted by two cats who sometimes they think they are dogs...when your husband works nights.

A Post about Entertainment in 2015

Do you ever feel like you're consuming an awful lot of entertainment?

I was thinking about that recently while Becca, Shannon and I were watching The Interview on YouTube ("I want to watch it so I can have a conversation about it, in case anyone asks" said Becca. And I agreed with her. This is the state of our lives-make of that what you will).

I started thinking about all the other things I've already watched/read/listened to/attended in 2015 and we're not even a full 30 days into the year yet.

So I'm going to start making note of all the entertainment I'm absorbing and then I'm going to share some of it with you (you're welcome). Because watching/reading/attending something seems a lot more productive to me if I'm "recommending" things to you ;)


Peaky Blinders! Alyssa and I watched two seasons of Peaky Blinders when I was home between Christmas and New Years Eve. It starts Cillian Murphy (who I think I love?) who is the head of a British crime family in the 1920s. You have to pay very close attention because they are mumblers and they are British, so they're kind of hard to understand/hear, but we loved it! Season three is being shot now and we can't wait. Our favorite part of the whole show is when the 12 year old tells his (depressed, anxiety ridden) brother that he and his friends do coke "but only for special occasions" and that he should definitely have some before his big bar reopening. Clearly this is a much watch show!


The Interview! As mentioned above, Becca, Shannon and I watched this on a Saturday night while we ate left over gluten free pizza (parrrrrty). It was predictably terrible, but not nearly as terrible as I thought it was going to be. The movie definitely confirmed that I am strangely attracted to Seth Rogen but think that James Franco is a total weirdo. Major Perk: Joesph Gordon-Levitt is in the movie for three seconds and he's surrounded by puppies...its really great.



A Discovery of Witches! The first book of the trilogy, I hopped on this bandwagon because Marni and Teress were both reading them. They're about a witch and a vampire (I know, guys, but trust me?) and a secret book and also they go back in time. The books are on the longish side (more than a 1,000 pages each on my iPad mini, but I make my words kind of big) but I think they're worth it. I'm 2/3 of the way done with the second book and will keep you posted once I finish it.

Stay tuned for more riveting entertainment reviews in 2015 :)


I Love Three Day Weekends

This weekend was so fun! Our friends Tim and Julia came for the weekend on Saturday, our foster cat, Oreo, went home to his family and I got to spend time with his Mom's and his baby human brother (who I love so much!), we went to the ballet at BAM, AND Becca bought a wedding dress!

The heavy metal bar on our block, Lucky 13, moved to a new location early this month (we sure will miss seeing those topless lady's having a cigarette outside the place!) and a new place opened up on Friday. Their new sign didn't seem to be ready yet so they opted for a piece of loose leaf paper.


Here's Becca in her bridal robe waiting for the consultant to pull the two dresses she was choosing between! I think the socks add a particularly elegant touch. 

 

The bridal boutique was having a Badgley Mischka trunk show when we arrived. The dresses were so beautiful...they even had a bridal skirt, which I have no idea how you would wear but I kind of wish I had worn it to my wedding!


The weather was terrible when we left for Becca's dress appointment (it was frozen, too-I took a header down our front stoop) and it kept up all day. The weather plus the holiday weekend made the city feel empty, which is always my favorite!


I hope your weekend was the best, too! 

A New Hobby: Embroidery

A few months ago, Becca emailed me to tell me about an interesting person she had met the night before at a dinner party, Rebecca. "She was so nice!" she wrote to me "and she makes these beautiful things!" I clicked on over to Rebecca's Etsy store and resisted the urge to buy everything in her shop because I wouldn't know what to do once everything arrived.

I've been wanting to learn how to embroider for a few years now (after I tried my hand at cross stitching a while back and it proved to be one of the most stressful experiences of my life) and I was so excited to see all of Rebecca's beautiful designs.

When my Mother-in-law asked what I wanted for Christmas, I asked for the Color Wheel Sampler, which looked like it would teach me all the stitches I needed to know. I started it during the few days that I was at my parents' house between Christmas and New Years and luckily for me, my cross stitching Mom knew all the stitches and was able to teach me (and we didn't even yell like we usually do when we do a craft-we're notorious for our yarn fights in Michael's, which is when we yell at each other about how much yarn I need for a particular project and what colors are the best).

When I got back to Brooklyn, I spent a full morning binge watching Downton Abbey (I am almost on to Season 4!) and made some serious progress on it!



My favorite stitch so far are the French knots (the purple ones)...I just want to keep making them and think I could easily make hundreds before I got tired of them, they're so cute!

My least favorite is the Blanket stitch (see below) because I am terrible at it and also I stuck myself with the needle and made myself bleed. Don't worry, I ripped these out and started over...these really are the worst, they look like I did them with my eyes closed.



Dilly and Zula like when I embroider a lot more than when I crochet because its smaller and they can cuddle right on top of me, which they're into. My MIL also got me The Sequel Sampler, which seems to be a more advanced introductory sampler. The sticky up thread one looks like its going to be challenging?

I'm looking forward to tackling the Paisley DIY Sampler after I master all the stitches and build up a more substantial thread collection. You can also subscribe to Rebecca's shop and you get a sampler every month! Its on my To Do list for 2016 and I'm so excited (is it too early to start making plans for 2016? It seems like maybe it is?).


So if you're in the market for a 2015 hobby, I say embroidery may be it! I love, love, love all of Rebecca's designs and I have to say that the Color Wheel was the perfect first project. So go, go, go and buy one! I can't wait to see your progress!

Christmas 2014


This Christmas was our second married Christmas and the first one that we spent with John's family in Albany. I'm very lucky: I've got wonderful in-laws, but your first Christmas away from your family isn't an easy thing. We had a wonderful time though, and John even surprised me and helped me check an item off my bucket list!


Do you know that this year no one knew if the people in our Christmas card was us or not? I used a great (I thought) picture of John and I walking into the Pacific Ocean in Crescent City. The picture is of our backs and we're pretty far from the camera...my Grandmother, Aunt Cristina and a few of our friends asked who the strangers were in our Christmas card. Not strangers! Us! Those people on our Christmas card are us!


John took his first stab at child's toy assembly this Christmas! He's pretty good at it and thankfully carries a multi-tool with him at all times which is perfect for those tiny screws.

And now: BUCKET LIST! Two days after Christmas, I shot a gun!

I know, don't I look like someone who has "shoot a gun" on her Bucket List? Well its been on my list forever and two days after Christmas, John took me to our friend Tyler's house. Tyler has a house about a million acres of land and he taught me how to shoot! We started with a BB gun (which I didn't like because you have to pump it and I just don't have the upper body strength for that) and then we moved on to a .22 which required much less arm strength. I even wore John's goofy hat. My aim is not so great but I think that maybe with some time I could get better! I want to go to a range the next time so that I can shoot a target that looks like a person and pretend I am on NCIS LA (have I mentioned my love of LL Cool J before?).


If you celebrated, I hope your Christmas was lovely, too!