Alright already!!!!!

I know I know I know.. I have been MIA for a few weeks. Sorry guys. My trip to NC was a whirlwind that only got crazier when I got back to Brooklyn. Work has been insane.. insane... insane. I have more to do than I could get done in 3 months of overtime. Sorry all you young promising lawyers out there but recruiting you guys.. really blows!!! It's just a mountain that grows and grows and never lets up or slows down. Even with 2 of us doing it full time now.. just nuts. Lunch has become a thing of the past. I try my hardest to get there as early as I can and work through lunch and pray I can leave by 6:30 or 7:00 at the earliest.. anyway.. let's see... what have I been up too lately....

I went home for my birthday as you all know. Had a great trip.. a little hectic .. but great none the less. The picture up there is of the birthday cards Stephen made for me.. yes those are real butterfly wings. The lower left black and white is a clue to what my presents were ...



This is the amazing devils food coconut cake that Stephen made for me when I got back from NC on the 12th. The first occupant of my cake cover and it tasted like heaven!!! Stephen has vowed to make me a different cake every year for my birthday.. no two alike.. so far so good :)



I spent my actual birthday morning with my best friend Ellen. I spent the night there after taking Stephen to the airport in Raleigh on Sunday afternoon.. Ellen made me another type of coconut cake.. her mothers recipe. She and David sang happy birthday that night and we had cake before we went to bed. Ellen and I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning talking and then in the morning I was awakened by Ellen and Mr. Seth and their bounty of birthday presents!!! So many presents I had to choose my favorite to represent the pile.. that's right folks, those are true vintage PanAm glasses .. amazing! Getting to spend my birthday with Ellen really made the day. It's so relaxing and nice to hang with those who know you best.

I drove home in the early afternoon to hang out with and eat dinner with my Aunt B. I haven't gotten to spend that much time with Aunt B since I don't even know when. We talked and ate dinner in and generally had a fantastic visit. Made it hard to come back to NY.



This is part of my birthday present from Stephen.. a set of pots and pans to add to our camping equipment. He also gave me a camp stove... and.... we are going camping in the Catskills in 2 weeks!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!! We have always been "if it can't be cooked on/in/over the fire you don't eat it on a camping trip" kind of folks but .. I am totally down with being able to whip up coffee and warm soup on a stove. He knows me too well :)



The biggest surprise on my birthday came from my sweet daddy. A mandolin!!!!!! A black one at that... I am SO sure that if Jack White has a mandolin it's a black one so I was super thrilled by this!! For those of you who don't know, the mandolin has the same strings as violin (an instrument that I have been playing since I was 9) so though it's a different musical concept for my brain to pluck instead of bow I am still in familiar territory. I played David Shingler's when we were in Maine for awhile and fell head over heels .. I have always been a fan of mandolin players of all shapes and sizes but had never played it myself until then... when I have 2 seconds to sit down I will really learn how to play it... for now it's just this amazing present that was a total surprise sitting like a wink from my dad in the corner of the living room.. such an amazing gift.

So I was in NC for my older brother Page's 40th birthday party.. it was a great party and a good time was had by all. It was so nice to see everyone.. I got spend a lot of time with Gram and John and Mariel were home with Zin so we saw them too. I wish I could be more eloquent about how much I loved my trip home and how it made me feel and all of that but ... I tired ya'll. Really tired. I feel like all I do is run to work and run home and try to spend some time with Stephen before passing out and doing it over again. This is no way to live folks.... seriously... I am not living. Just surviving... barely. Reaching the end of my quickly fraying rope here. I just want a vacation. A real vacation where I can go away and not come back for about 5 weeks or so... just want to get away from everything and clear my head. I feel foggy. I hate that feeling.

This weekend I was in Miami for a bachelorette party for one of my work buddies. Yeah, I don't want to hear it. "if you are so tired why were you at a bachelorette party in South Beach?? Hmmmm? That's why you are so tired .. you are having to much fun!!" ...um. No. I was tired before I went and frankly feel no worse for the wear now. Not to mention when I was originally invited it sounded like a great idea.. how was I to know I would be so drained for Fall OCI ??? At any rate I had a great time ...I literally sat on the beach on Saturday and just stared out at this.....


... no reading .. no iPod.. just water.. and sky.. and the occasional topless chick. Yeah you can go topless on Miami beaches. No, I did not partake. This was my first real bachelorette destination get away like this and will most definitely be my last. I had an amazing time seriously.. but all that dancing and hanging out wears a girl out and frankly I was so homesick for Stephen I could hardly stand it. Even Malani, the bachelorette herself, said that this was her last bachelorette party she planned to attend :) She was done in too!! It was good times but at some point in your life you have really had enough of beating drunk guys away from your behind and screaming "I'm married!!!!!.. Yes..MARRIED (point to rings on left hand)!!!!!!" over the music. I passed that point long before this trip and I was brutally reminded of just how much I despise single guys that hang out in clubs this weekend. That's all I am going to say about that. The highlights of the trip were hanging out at the pool and on the beach with Malani and the rest of the girls. We had a great time visiting and enjoying ourselves and I am super excited to see everyone again at the wedding next month :)

So there you have it, Madam Ellen aka Blog Watcher Nazi ;) this is a fast forward of what I have been up to with no emotion thrown in because I have been too tired to really go into the way I feel about things. But I am glad we did this.. we will have to it again real soon :)
Seriously though... I am hanging on by a thread here people. Can't you tell??!!?!! Let's hope there is some light at the end of the tunnel soon .. working on keeping my spirits up but just mentally and physically exhausted with a capital E. Will try to update more regularly.. I know these marathon posts are a bit much.
xoxo