November and December

In November and December, we saw a lot of performances at the Kennedy Center, hosted some holiday dinners and had out of town company.

November 10th - We saw a concert with Lang Lang that was essentially a masters class for 100 local piano students between the ages of 8 and 18.  It was fascinating to watch him work with these students.  We had also had a first tier seat on the side so we could watch him play.

November 22nd - We hosted Thanksgiving dinner and all ate too much.

November 23rd - We saw Jekyll & Hyde, starring Constantine from American Idol in the lead.  This was a very enjoyable show.

November 27th - The Kennedy Center dedicated the new Rubenstein Organ with a free concert.  They showed a time lapse video of the installation of the pipe organ that was just amazing and the instrument is beautiful.

December 13th - Merry Tuba Christmas at the Kennedy Center.  This was the 39th anniversary of this holiday tradition founded by Harvey Phillips in which tuba, sousaphone, and euphonium players from around D.C. play traditional Christmas music.  It is always a packed event; the audience fills pretty much the entire Grand Foyer.

December 15th - The National Symphony Orchestra Holiday Pops concert, with New York Voices.  They made it snow inside the Concert Hall. 

December 22nd - Irving Berlin's White Christmas.  They changed some of the songs from the movie (my favorite holiday movie) and rearranged the story a little bit, but did get all the big numbers in there.  This time they made it snow in the Opera House.

December 23rd - The Annual Messiah Sing-a-Long.  My sister got here just in time for us to go to the Kennedy Center for the sing-a-long.  I've been trying to do this since I moved here and have never made it.  We had a blast!  They have soloists for the arias and restatives, and the audience sings the choruses.  The Kennedy Center has been doing the sing-a-long since 1971.

December 24th - We (Jim, Sara and I) went to the Newseum.  If you haven't been, this is one of the coolest paid entry museums in D.C. and totally worth the price.  Especially since the ticket lets you in on two consecutive days.  That evening, we hosted Jim's mom and sister for our traditional spaghetti dinner.

Dinner on the Water

Ok, so it was really brunch, but I'm still counting it.  Back in the fall, Jim bought a Groupon for a two-for-one brunch cruise on The Nina's Dandy, which we used on May 20th.

I'm going to start by saying we almost didn't make it on the boat.  I was positive that we boarded down at one end of the waterfront in Alexandria.  Not so much.  By the time Jim finally asked, we had to hightail it a couple of blocks to the other end and just made it.  They took our picture as we got on and I would share it with you because it's a great picture of Jim, but I look like butt.  They made me take my sunglasses off (which are prescription) and took the picture before I could get my real glasses on and I'm squinting into the sun.  Lovely.  So you get this one instead of us on the deck of the boat.

We were seated pretty quickly and brought our drinks - Bloody Mary for Jim and mimosa for me.  The dining room is a tight fit with the buffet taking up much of the open space that is normally a dance floor, so the wait staff controlled the number of people in line.  The food was good, typical breakfast stuff and Thanksgiving style dinner, but nothing special.  There was, however, a lot of it.    

After we ate, we went up to the top of the boat to enjoy the cruise up the river.  We went up almost to the Kennedy Center and then had to turn around because they were racing dragon boats at the Georgetown waterfront.  On the return trip, we went down river to the Gaylord National before coming back to Alexandria.

On the top of the Nina's Dandy

Medallion on the Memorial Bridge

Lincoln Memorial

The Kennedy Center

It's a bird, it's a plane...

This shows how close the park is to the runway

Or a lot of planes.  Jim put me in charge of planning "something outdoors" for us to do this weekend.  I immediately thought that a picnic would be great, and I could cross something off of my 101 goals list.

Gravelly Point is a park on the George Washington Parkway, right along the Virginia side the Potomac, across from D.C.  However, it's main claim to fame is that it is located a few 100 feet from the north end of runway 1/19 at National Airport.  It is one of the best places in America for plane spotting and it has been on my list of cool, free things to do for a very long time.

We packed up a lunch of hummus and crackers, asparagus, mozzarella and tomato salad, turkey, cranberry, spinach and brie wraps and oatmeal-raspberry bars and headed on down.  It was a cloudy day, but no rain, and the park was full, but were able to find a place to park on the grass lot.   

Once we staked out a place, we ate lunch and then spent some time trying to catch good pictures of planes that are moving very fast with my little point-and-shoot camera.  After many, many tries and many bad shots, I figured out that using the setting for sports worked best and we got these pictures.

Cozumel

This is the last cruise related post, I promise. Our final port of call was Cozumel and we went snorkeling. I had gone before, but this was Jim's first time.

After our introduction to snorkeling on land, we all got into the water. Please pardon my no-glasses squint into the sun. That is not our boat in the background, ours was behind it, but it's pretty close. We went with a group of about 10 people and we were probably the youngest of the crowd and the strongest swimmers. It's a good thing, too, because the current was a little strong where we were. Also, I am the world's most awkward person getting into the water, but I do alright once I'm in.

Because of the currents, we swam up the shore so that we did all the hard work first and then just drifted back to where we got in. We did a good job of staying up with the guide, but several members of our group had trouble and needed a kick board and a rest. We both had waterproof cameras to take pictures of fish, but they didn't come out very well. Here are a few that are alright.

Belize

On our cruise, we had two ports of call. The first was in Belize City, Belize, however 'port' is a bit of a misnomer.

The continental shelf around Belize is very shallow. So shallow that the cruise ships cannot actually dock there. They have to drop anchor 5 miles off shore and use tender boats to get passengers to shore.

While in Belize, we took a tour up the Old Belize River. On the boat ride, we saw crocodiles, spider monkeys, iguanas, bats and many birds. Once we got up river, we stopped at a little cafe that I am sure only exists to feed lunch to tourists. We ate chicken that was must have been cooked all day long because it just fell apart, red beans and rice, and salad. I added some local hot sauce to my rice and it was fabulous. I liked the hot sauce so much I brought some home.

After lunch, we went to Altun Ha to see some Mayan ruins. Altun Ha is culturally significant for the Temple of Masonry Altar, which rises over 60ft above the plaza. Thought to be the main religious center of the civilization, the temple houses the famous head of Kinich Ahau: a 10lb (5kg) piece of jade carved into the head of the Mayan sun god.

This temple is also depicted on the national beer, Belikin, which we drank before heading back out to our ship.

LIberty of the Seas

Jim and I just got back from our first cruise and I think we are in love. Neither one of us wanted to get off the boat. We sailed on Royal Caribbean from Fort Lauderdale and went to Belize and Cozumel (details to come in posts later this week). Right now, I want to talk about the boat. The Liberty of the Seas is one of the largest ships in Royal Caribbean's line and there is something to do for everyone.

We boarded at about noon on Saturday and because the staterooms would not be ready until about 1:00, we headed up to the Windjammer Cafe, the casual buffet, for some lunch. When we were finished eating, we went down to deck 7 to see our stateroom. We had an interior room, which was fine, but next time (yes, I'm already thinking about next time) I really want an exterior with a balcony.

From there, we went straight to the pool since the luggage hadn't been delivered yet. We spent most of our pool time in the Solarium pool, since it was adults only. At 4:00, there was a mandatory muster drill to give important information in case of emergency and then we were off. Jim and I went back to our room for a nap, since we had gotten up so early to get to the airport. When we woke up, our luggage was there and we went exploring the ship.

I'll start at the top and work my way down. Deck 13 is the sports deck, with the FlowRider, rockwall and mini-golf. We played mini golf one night at 11:00 in 45 mph winds. It was hilarious watching me try to putt and hold my dress down at the same time.

Deck 12 has the arcade, teen night clubs and kids activities, a jogging track and a Johnny Rocket's restaurant. Deck 11 is the Windjammer, the specialty restaurants, all the pools and the gym, which we never set foot in.

Decks 10 - 6 are staterooms. We were on Deck 7, which is also where the library is located. Deck 5 is the Royal Promenade, which is shopping, bars and places to eat. It's also where they have the Dreamworks parades and some of the evening parties, and The Sphinx nightclub. The casino and several bars are on Deck 4. The Platinum theater, ice rink and On Air (karaoke) bar are on Deck 3. Also, the main dining room is a three level room on Decks 3, 4 and 5. Finally, Deck 2 is the Screening Room movie theater.

A New Venture

When I wrote item five on my 101 Goals in 1001 Days list - get a freelance job - this wasn't what I had in mind at all, but I think this is going to be much more fun.

In January, I signed up as an independent consultant for Thirty-One. Thirty-One is a company offering wonderful purses, accessories and products that help organize your life. The company takes it's name from Proverbs 31 that describes the virtuous woman. Our company mission is to "Celebrate, Encourage and Reward" women. What is not great about that!

I attended my first home party in October and just fell in love with the products. I hosted a party at my house in November and started thinking to myself that I could do this. I figured that if nothing else ever happened with it, I would get $300 worth of merchandise for the $99 enrollment fee, but I hope that it takes off. I like that I can make it as much or as little as I like.

I had my official kick off party on Sunday and it was a great success. Now I am looking forward to having my first few parties and seeing what I can do with it. My sister (wave hi, Sara) is hosting a party in Athens in a few weeks, if you'd like to see what Thirty-One is all about. If you'd like to host a party or know more about the products or the company, just ask me or you can visit my website by clicking the Thirty-One logo on the right.

My New Tattoo

I've been thinking about getting a second tattoo for a long time (see number 53 on the 101 Goals list), it just took me awhile to figure out what I wanted to get. Just so you know, it hurts much more to get a tattoo on the ankle than it does to get one on your back.

Since today was a holiday, I finally pulled the trigger and went to Marlowe Ink in Fairfax on the recommendation of a friend. I had a little pencil sketch when I went in and the artist took it and fancied it up a bit for me.

The symbolism of the tattoo is what makes it special. The two sides of the heart are different sizes. The taller side represents a mother and the shorter side is a child. The one star on the top is for my Mom. The two stars on the bottom are for the two miscarriages I had last year. 2011 was a hard year for me, but my hope is that this tattoo will be a reminder of all that I went through and a symbol of going forward.

Wait, the Bellagio, the Mirage...These are Terry Benedict's places.

Ok, I promised you Las Vegas day two.

On Tuesday morning, we decided to walk around and see some of the casinos and Sara had a bunch of gaming vouchers that she needed to cash. We headed off to the Bellagio, but the thing you have to know about Vegas is that although the casinos looks like they are all right next to each other, they are all a block or two big and you can't walk there without walking though other casinos or shopping malls or both. The point being that it took a long time to walk there, but we really wanted to go for two reasons. One, the ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio there is a glass flower garden by the artist Dale Chihuly. The second reason is that we saw on HGTV that the largest Christmas tree on the Strip was in the conservatory.

Once we made it back to the hotel, we had lunch and then got ready for massages. This was almost the best part of the whole trip. I found a groupon deal for the spa in our hotel, Oleksandra, so I snatched it up. The spa was absolutely beautiful and very relaxing. Jim and I had a couples massage and it was his first massage. I was kind of surprised that he wanted to go, but he really enjoyed it.

Then it was on to see Cirque du Soleil at the MGM Grand. We saw the show KA, and it was by far the coolest thing I've ever seen. I can't even begin to describe it, but it was great and if you ever get the chance to see a Cirque show, please do.

After the show, we took the monorail back to Harrahs and got off there to walk the rest of the way back. We stopped at the Mirage to see the volcano show. Then we were back to TI for some more video poker. We were hoping to see the pirate show, but they don't do the last show in the winter and we didn't know it, so we missed out. Next time.

Since no trip to Vegas is complete without some Elvises, I'll end with this.

Viva, Las Vegas

This year was our first Christmas without my Mom. My sister and I were kind of at a loss as to what to do, since we usually spent the holiday at home. We were tossing around ideas and decided to do something completely different, so we went to Las Vegas.

We flew out on Christmas Day and had three hour layover in Milwaukee. We were really lucky that the weather was mild (we were worried that we would get stuck there with snow) and even more lucky that a friend of mine was able to come out the airport to meet us and let me monopolize her baby.

We got in very late on Sunday night and had Christmas with my sister and room service. We stayed at Treasure Island. She had been in Vegas for about 8 hours already and had done all kinds of reconnaissance for us. Then we crashed.

Monday morning, Jim and I went on a tour of Hoover Dam. This was really an amazing sight. The construction process and how they had to divert the Colorado River is just a marvel. We took the tour of the power plant and got to go 540 feet down into the dam. On the way back, we stopped at Ethel M Chocolates (the M is the Mars candy people). Unfortunately they weren't making candy because of the holiday, but we still got a sample and bought some chocolates.

Monday night, we had a fantastic dinner at StripSteak in the Mandalay Bay casino. Big thanks to whichever friend it was that mentioned the Black Friday deal on Restaurant.com, because we never would have eaten there otherwise. They brought us an amuse of duck fat fried potatoes with matching dipping sauces and Sara ordered the bacon lobster fritters appetizer. Jim had the biggest slab of steak I've seen in a long time. I had the loup du mer (sea bass) and my sister had an absolutely divine waygu rib cap steak that melted in your mouth. We all shared a side of bacon creamed spinach and scalloped potatoes.

Tomorrow, I'll tell you about Tuesday.

Operation Christmas Child

This project has been my official kick-off to the holiday season for the last ten years or so and I really love it. Operation Christmas Child is a project of Samaritan's Purse International Relief, an organization run by Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son.

Here is how you pack a shoe box. First, decide if your box is for a boy or a girl and what age - 2-4, 5-9, or 10-14. Next, get an empty shoe box. You can use a regular cardboard box, but I like to use a plastic one, because it can be used for something else later.

Then you fill the box with school supplies (I like to get these during back-to-school sales),

hygiene items, and

then the fun stuff (toys, small flashlights, batteries, hard candies)

I need pencil sharpeners, combs, maybe playing cards and some more candy, and then these boxes are ready to go. There are a few rules for what goes in a box. They don't want you to seen war toys because these kids see enough of that, so no army men, cowboy pistols or any of that stuff. They don't want you to send chocolate, liquids or breakable items (for obvious reasons).

Once your box is packed, label it and take it to a drop off location, along with a check for $7 to offset the cost of shipping them. This year OCC is doing something new. If you donate your fee on line, they send you a special label with a bar code that will let you track where you box goes. I'm very excited to try this out.

If you want to pack a box, you still have time. Drop off continues until Monday, November 21.

"Hello, Cleveland!"*

Way back in September, my best friend (wave hi Christine) called me up and said, "If I buy tickets to see Duran Duran four days after your birthday, will you come visit me?" Um, hellz yeah, sign me up! [n.b. We saw them play twice in 1988/89 in Atlanta and I haven't seen them since.]

I flew out to Cleveland on Wednesday afternoon before the show that evening. It was my first time flying Southwest, which is a little interesting. It was my first time at BWI airport, too. I'm not a fan - it's very difficult to find a bathroom there. The flight itself was short and easy, even though we were delayed nearly an hour taking off. Not really a fan of Cleveland's airport either; I swear there is not an arrivals/departures board anywhere in the airport.

For dinner before the show, we went to Bricco, which is directly across the street from the theatre. We had an appetizer of goat cheese in spicy marinara with fried pita and the bartender recommend a great wheat beer (Weihenstephaner) to me. I had the risotto for my entree and my friend had the parmesan crusted tilapia. All of it was great. Then we headed across the street.

The band was playing at Playhouse Square, in the State Theatre. Playhouse Square is the largest performing arts complex outside of New York City, with eight stages, 1000+ performances a year and over 1,000,000 visitors. The State Theater was built in the 1920s as a movie house and is the largest of the theatres at Playhouse Square. We got to our seats just in time to catch the end of the opening act, a band I have never heard of and that wasn't really my style. Duran Duran, on the other hand, is just my style and they sounded exactly the same as they did in the 80s. They played a great mix of their older hits and newer songs.

The next day, we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. after lunch at Great Lakes Brewing Company. There are a lot of microbreweries in Cleveland and I think I had more beer while I was there than have all year (I tried the Dortmunder Gold, to go with my bratwurst and pierogis. We were in the museum for about four hours and seriously could have spent another two hours. They have thousands and thousand of pieces of memorabilia from the roots of rock and roll in bluegrass, gospel, jazz and blues all the way through a stage costume worn by Lady Gaga last year. You could spend a hour or more just watching the multimedia production that tells about all of the inductees.

For dinner that night, we went to Lolita, which is a Michael Symon (of Iron Chef fame) restaurant. For me, the highlight of the meal was the Big Board, a selection of house cured meats. Holy cow, was it good. There was prosciutto, sopressata, a lamb pate, a chicken liver mousse, a shredded duck packed under duck fat and a cured sirloin. I also had a good beer here, called White Rascal, from Avery Brewing.

Even though it was gray and raining horizontally, I could tell that Cleveland is really a pretty cool place to live. Friday night, there was a great happy hour party at my friends' house, with homemade pumpkin beer. We will have to go back in the summer for baseball and to see the art museum, natural history museum, zoo and the Great Lakes Science Center as well as all the parks that we missed on this trip.

* Bonus if you know where I got the title for this post.

Crossing One Off the List

Today I did something awesome. I paid off the last of my credit cards and scratched that off of my 101 Goals list. Now, I have two that I can use for emergencies and one that I use and pay off every month. It feels great!

Home Improvement

What is it about a holiday weekend that makes me want to tackle home improvement projects? And why does every home improvement project require a minimum of three trips to the Home Depot?

This weekend I decided that we (isn't it nice how I committed Jim to help me) would finally do the chair rail in the dining room. This is a project that would have been sooooo much easier with power tools, but you work with what you've got. In our case, a miter box. It's a good thing I had Jim's help because I never would have gotten these cut by myself.

First piece is up!

The walls in this condo are all bowed to some degree. Most of the time, it was fine and some nails in addition to the construction adhesive would do the trick. This is the worst of all and we ended up shimming the crap out of it. It's probably not the best fix, but I think it looks ok.










These little pieces to finish the exposed ends were a total pain in the butt.












All finished!










Lessons learned:

1. Get power tools.

2. The walls in this condo are ridiculously curved. Stupid old building.

3. Coping a chair rail is not as easy as it looks on You-Tube.

70. Make a loan through Kiva

Kiva is a non-profit organization with a mission to connect people through lending to alleviate poverty. Leveraging the internet and a worldwide network of microfinance institutions, Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create opportunity around the world.

Kiva works like this:
1. You browse for a loan that speaks to you - all of the loans on Kiva are worthy of funding.
2. You make your loan of as little as $25 and pay through PayPal (don't worry, you can check out as a guest if you don't have a PayPal account).
3. When the borrower repays the loan, it is credited to your Kiva account.
4. You can use your Kiva credits to make more loans or donate the credit for a tax deduction.

I made my first loan though Kiva today. I helped fund a loan for Vida Y Esperanza in Nicaragua, who wanted to borrow $350 to stock their dairy business. Kiva doesn't take any cut of the amount donated, so all your loan goes to help the borrowers, and they don't charge interest to the field partners that administer the loans.

For the first time ever, Kiva is offering 4,000 free trials to let new lenders make a real Kiva loan, at no cost to them. If you want to join Kiva, you can click though my link here.

Six Flags America

We redeemed a bunch of My Coke Rewards points and got two free tickets to Six Flags America that we used today. I love roller coasters and we rode all four of the steel coasters at the park. We could not have asked for a more beautiful day; it was sunny and not nearly as hot as it could have been here in July. Here's a look at the coasters that can be checked off of my master list.

Joker's Jinx
(from themeparkreview.com)

Superman: Ride of Steel: This is a point of view video of what it looks like to ride this in the front car.

Batwing

(from Coasterimage.com)
It's important that you see that you are laying flat when you ride this.

The Mind Eraser
(from themeparkreview.com)
This is a classic suspended coaster

We rode several of the classic rides - the carousel, flying swings & tea cups. We also rode one water ride that is closing this weekend, Skull Island that is a combination of a roller coaster and log ride. It was really a great day, with the exception of one wicked sun burn.

Three Day Weekend

I love me a three day weekend - it gives me a chance to do "projects." Today I was bound and determined to tackle the dining room chairs. I bought the material to recover the chairs on the last three day weekend, so it was time.

Altogether, it took me about 2 hours to do all six chairs, so this is definitely an easy project for an afternoon.

Here are the tools you'll need: Scissors, a screwdriver, a hammer, a heavy-duty stapler and staples. For the material, I got two yards of decorator fabric off the remnant table at the fabric store for $4.97/yd. I had more than enough to do six chairs. The amount you will need depends on the number and size of your chairs.
Turn the chair over and unscrew the seat from the frame. Say hi to Rex; he was helping.

Center the seat on your fabric and put one staple in one side. Pull the fabric tight to the opposite side and staple. Then you can add more staples to each side. I used about four or five staple to each side. Once you have done two opposite sides, then repeat with the other two sides. The only tricky bit is the corners and you just have to fiddle with it a little bit. This is what it looks like when it's done.Then you just have to screw the seat back on the frame and you are all done! Here is a before and after picture of the chairs.