Early Week Ramblings

New Girl and I went to Legal Sea Foods for dinner last night for the best clam chower and a mixed greens salad. We discussed our plans for a weekend in NYC in December and shared stories from Thanksgiving. For the longest time, I had mixed feelings about New Girl, as I’m sure was evident by reading my blog (I know BSG picked up on it). But after our trip to Wisconsin, I really have grown to appreciate her personality and the fact that she can be loud and kinda silly and still be successful. Previously I would only enjoy her outside of work (and even then not all the time), but I am now able to also enjoy working alongside her. I can even handle her talking about her boyfriend constantly. I don’t know if it’s just God’s grace or what, but I’m glad that my feelings have changed.

Tonight I had a happy hour with the President of my company at the Ritz. Then Bible study, which I was excited for – I’ve missed those girls! And then scrubbing the kitchen floor on my hands and knees! Our kitchen floor is disgusting. Let me just say: Swiffer is not acceptable as a sole method of cleaning floors, whether wet Swiffer or dry Swiffer . . it doesn’t cut it. Swiffer is for “Quick! Clean the floor! Someone’s coming over!” not for “We are normal, cleanly people who take proper precautions to make sure that our living conditions portray that we are normal, cleanly people”. I went out and bought a bucket and some floor cleaner last night along with a scrub brush, so that floor is going to shine!

Mom and Farmtown Grandma were on speaker phone tonight as I told the story of The Lobbyist's visit. My cute Grandma asks me if it bothers me that he's a lobbyist (because she's thinking that all lobbyists are Jack Abramoff) and I explain the purpose lobbyists serve and that not all are corrupt. She ends the conversation by saying "Only time will tell . . . You will maybe not mind his receding hairline because you like his personality." Which let's be honest, I don't really care about his age or his hair (or lack thereof). Like Grandma said, "Only time will tell".

ManchVegas Thanksgiving

As was to be expected, I had a fabulous time in New Hampshire! It's always hard to leave when you're having quality time with such great people. BF's fiance's family is so hospitable and generous and FUN. The only disappointing part of the trip was not coming up with a way to marry into their family.

BF and her fiance have had a long distance relationship the entire time, so being able to be around them and get to know him has been such a blessing. The first time I met his family I told her, "You HAVE to marry him. His family is so cool!" Not to mention the fact that he is extremely high quality himself. I'm so happy for her and so thankful that God has allowed us to spend so much time together since I've moved.














I'll always cherish the memories we made this week . . laughing so hard we nearly stopped breathing . . sleepovers in the King-sized bed and late-late night talks . . wayyy too many cookies . . Sal's pizza and Back Room tenders . . and seeing my best friend in love.

New Hampsha, here I come

The plan is to leave in two hours for Baltimore in order to miss the worst of rush hour traffic. From there, I will fly to ManchVegas, New Hampshire for Thanksgiving with BF's fiance's family. I just finished baking the pumpkin cookies and feel a little sick. All I've eaten today is banana bread and cookie dough - blech.

I'm so excited to go! The plan is: Day 1: outlet shopping in Maine, Day 2: Thanksgiving, Day 3: Trans-Siberian orchestra, Day 4: BF's fiance's dad's wedding (got that?). Not only do I get to spend another four whole days with BF, but AMC will be there tonight passing through (They're my married couple friends from Omaha who have family in NH).

I doubt I'll post until next week, but I'll be busy taking pictures for you all to see!

Have a great Thanksgiving!

What a difference a workout makes

Just to give you a picture of what my weekend has looked like thus far:

I did, in fact, see the new James Bond flick with BSG. I thought it was great and definitely recommend it if you're into that type of movie. We grabbed a bite to eat at Clyde's afterward and, I somehow missed it before, but they have the best fries ever!

Saturday morning, I slept until 11am. Sad. But what's worse is that I then spent a good three hours in my pajamas on the internet. I cleaned out my closet and put a decent sized dent in it so my clothing now barely fits, as opposed to not fitting at all. I did attend the karaoke fundraiser, but no singing for me. Our group of four went on to a couple of other bars and before we knew it, it was after 1am. I got on the internet again and didn't get to sleep until 3am. . .

Which means that I slept until NOON today. NOON. And then spent another two hours in my
pajamas on the internet.

My point is that my weekend has been highly unproductive. Lazy. And a good indication that, in addition to having a shopping addiction, I have also formed a dependency to my computer.

The amazing thing is that once I forced myself into my workout clothes and up the three flights of stairs to the exercise room I felt a sudden burst of energy. After an hour of calorie burning, I went back to my apartment and accomplished more in one hour than I had in the last 48. I finished cleaning my closet, finished emptying out my suitcase (and yes, it's been 6 days since I've been back), made an important phone call to Southwest, and ate a healthy meal.

So get off the internet, Friends! and go work out!

The Kids

I don't know how I forgot to post this one. I got to see "the kids" back home. Their older brother (7) was upstairs playing on the computer as usual. He just loves his computer games!

These two are 4 1/2 now, but I started watching them when they were only 3 weeks old! Premature, so tiny, and so adorable.

They gave me big hugs when I came over and had to show me all of their new things and/or new tricks . . like Caroline's somersaults. Visiting them is quite an exercise for the neck, because they are all talking at the same time, vying for my attention, wanting to show me something or tell me something. I miss them!

My Name

There are 764,920 people in the U.S. with the first name L.
Statistically the 57th most popular first name.
More than 99.9 percent of people with the first name L are female . . thank goodness!

There are 320,966 people in the U.S. with the last name P.
Statistically the 68th most popular last name.

There are 818 people in the U.S. named L P.

So my name isn't super original. It's a pretty all-American name. But I like it!

My Trip Home

I wasn’t ready to come back to D.C. . . until I headed to work yesterday morning. I had such a great time at home that I wasn’t quite ready to leave. My second visit home really only confirmed that Nebraska isn’t the right place for me . . not now and probably not ever again, but who knows. I love it there . . not just the people, either, but I really love the place. I just know I wouldn’t be happy there.

My trip home was packed - couldn't have been more packed.

I . .
- had dinner with my family and two grandmas at El Bee’s Mexican
- visited AG and her husband, felt Baby Girl kick!, and ate Valentino’s pizza
- hung out at a new bar with Shae
- visited a cute jewelry store in F-town, had lunch at Runza with Uptown Grandma and Mom
- had a home-cooked breakfast with my parents
- went wedding dress shopping with BF, who by the way, is engaged!
- had dinner at Biaggi’s with BF’s parents
- had a hair appointment and catch-up time with Cousin Joy
- went to my cousin’s wedding and hung out with Mom's side of the family
- had a sleep-over with my sister (which included Ben & Jerry's)at her cute college house
- went to church
- had brunch with my family at Farmhouse (my brother even drove in to see me)
- went to a friend’s baby shower
- visited the twins and their brother (the kids I used to nanny)
- went to Baby Triston’s dedication at church
- had dinner with AMC’s friends and family at Lazlo’s to celebrate the baby dedication and L’s b-day
- had lunch at Charleston’s and went shopping with BF

*Note how excited I was to eat at places I can't eat out here*

Running on low fuel

*Sigh* I'm home! Back for my cousin's wedding and to see my family and friends.

I pulled an all-nighter on Election Night and hung out with The Lobbyist and a co-worker. I learned how to play craps and blackjack and had some more good conversation with The Lobbyist until he drove me to the aiport at 5am. I think he thinks I think he's too old (based on a few comments he's made). It's not his age that bothers me; I'm just not sure . . don't know if we'll get together back in D.C. or not. We did exchange emails yesterday. We'll see . .

The twelve hour travel day wasn't so awful. It's the first time I've been able to sleep well on a plane. I actually slept through the entire take-off twice! The worst part of the day involved TSA (shocker!). The lip gloss that had made it's way past security on my first flight somehow couldn't make it through on the way back. I cried out, "But this is my absolute favorite lip gloss of all time; and it's been discontinued!" (and that's a direct quote). The guy must've thought I was crazy. I turned around and headed to the gift shop for a ziplock bag. The gift shop was closed. I ripped open a plastic utensils bag, threw the lip gloss inside and hurried back to the security line. Not good enough. I turned around again, ran back to the check-in and asked United to please throw my lip gloss into one of my checked bags. Ridiculous.

Back in Nebraska, I met up with my parents, sister, and two grandmothers for my favorite Mexican food, including the best fried ice cream in the world! Today I've had lunch with Uptown Grandma and I'm headed to Omaha to meet up with a few friends (separately) today. I thought I was caught up on sleep but suddenly I'm beginning to feel pretty tired.

Hangin' out

I feel kinda bad. I've been hanging out in my hotel room for the past few hours . . instead of "lit dropping" in neighborhoods . . . because hello, everyone is at work and won't be checking their mailbox before voting anyway! I (we, rather) think it's pointless to be rallying more voters today. What's done is done. But I feel bad, because that is why we're here . . to help and we're not doing it (anymore).

Tonight is the party in Green Bay for which I'll be able to get semi-dressed-up. Unfortunately, at this point, I'm too exhausted to care. And I'm dreading my 6am flight tomorrow morning! I'll be flying all the way back to D.C., hanging out at the airport for 4 hours and then catching a flight to Nebraska. (It's complicated, so I won't bother explaining the excess travel.) I'll just be happy once I land in Nebraska tomorrow night!! Only 24 more hours!

Waupaca

I've traveled here (Waupaca, Wisconsin) with 6 other DC folks, one being New Girl. Despite the lack of local volunteers, which leaves us with even more work to do, things have gone well. We've spent our days knocking on doors and reminding our supporters to vote tomorrow. We've called them, too. Our nights have been spent at the local bars, playing fussball, shooting pool, telling stories, and my favorite . . . singing karaoke. One of the many highlights has been New Girl getting hit on by a very large, large man (375 lbs. large) who told her, "I bet I can guess your weight by picking you up". Talented people these Wisconsinites.

As I'm sure you know, tomorrow is Election Day! I'm excited - nervous excited. Don't forget to go out and vote Everyone! . . unless you plan to vote for a Democrat, hehe. I'm not saying that I would never vote for a Democrat. I always take all the issues into consideration. However, Nancy Pelosi scares the crap out of me and there are too many important issues at stake in this election to not vote the party line. Again, so sad I can't vote! If I were actually voting this year (in Nebraska), I would vote for Pete Ricketts - not because I don't like Ben Nelson, but because you can't completely claim to be an independent when you have a D behind your name and you work in D.C. Partisanship is a big deal. Not to mention the fact that Ricketts is a good guy. He has some good ideas, a solid background in business, and the ability to partner with Senator Hagel, a fellow Nebraska Senator, in looking out for our state.

With that, I'm headed to bed.

-ing

Leaving in five minutes. Feeling like crap. Eating chocolate fudge cake for comfort. Missing my per diem check. Bringing two suitcases. Thanking my roommate for driving me to the airport (so I don't have to metro with those two suitcases). Hoping I feel better and have a great time.

Off to Wisconsin

So I currently have FOUR flight itineraries sitting in my inbox. Coincidentally, I have THREE flight itineraries sitting on my credit card. Ouch! Gonna have to take care of that asap . . like by maybe winning the lottery. I couldn’t not buy one of those plane tickets, because #1. I want to see my cousin get married and visit all my friends that I have not seen in almost 5 months, #2. I have to celebrate Thanksgiving with a family even if it’s not my family, and #3. obviously, I have to go home for Christmas. I found a Christmas flight for only $232 which is as cheap as you'll ever get to go home, but when I selected it, it jumped to $536. There is no way! I don’t love my family that much (just kidding, family . . but seriously, I wouldn’t pay that much). Thanks to BSG’s mention of kayak.com, I found the cheapest available flight out of all the travel websites. So for $355, I’m going home for the holidays next month. I sure hope they don’t expect me to bring any Christmas gifts.

My first of four trips is tomorrow as I fly out to lovely Wisconsin to campaign. I was hoping to get my things together last night, but my roommate, sick with mono, went to bed at 7pm so it was lights out . . . and suddenly sharing a room became very inconvenient. Tonight, I hauled to get home before she did to basically call dibs on the room, which means lights on until I was done packing! Did I mention that I am now sick, too? Perfect timing since I’ll be traveling for 11 days. Ugh. I only have 8 ½ days of work left this month, which is insane! My company is so great; they’re giving us the entire week off for Thanksgiving (and Christmas, too). . so between that and my travels this coming week, only two weeks of work in November! Honestly, I think I'm going to feel so lazy not being at work . . but I can handle lazy just this once.

*Hopefully I'll be able to post before I get to Nebraska, but I might be too busy eating cheese (and taking pictures of myself eating cheese) to post these next five days in Wisconsin.

Fall Weekend Pics

"Bug" (his nickname) dressed as a frog at his 1st birthday party.

Walker roots for the best team in college football! (His dad got him out of that frog costume the first chance he got.)

Me and "the shower" . . yes, the whole thing was attached to him. You can imagine how funny it was when he tried to dance.

Marine Corps Marathon

Iwo Jima (where the marathon ended)