Turkey Day Weekend

I had a great Thanksgiving weekend. I really didn’t do a whole heck of a lot, but I enjoyed it none the less.

Thursday I went to the Smithsonian Art Museum and I was there for about 3 hours. When I came out I realized that I had only gone through the West Building, there was a whole nother EAST building. HHmmm, I figure all the modern art must be on that side because there was only up to the 19th century in the building I was in. I wasn’t feeling another 3 hours of art at the moment so I decided to walk up to the recently reopened American History Museum. After a brief visit there I walked around a bit, and went by the Capital, White House, and walked the mall up to the Lincoln Memorial. Finally I headed home. I will do separate posts about my exploring this week, I didn’t want to overload ya’ll in one post, so look for those later this week. =)

Friday Karen was going to come see me for the rest of the weekend, but she had to cancel. She has had a rough year, so I’ll let her off the hook. So I debated going out into the madness that is Black Friday, and decided on tactical moves instead. I went to Crate and Barrel because I had been eyeing this floor sample chair they had marked 50% off and I was hoping they would mark it down more. No such luck, but I still wanted it, so I bought it and a really nice hutch, which turned out to be the last one so I go the floor sample of that too and they marked it down another 20%, woohoo!!! I did some freelancing before I left Seattle, so that should cover the cost for it. And yes that is an ORANGE chair. I needed a punch of color. They will be delivered in 2 weeks.

50% off Chair

20% off Hutch

New Sofa (at the store)

Then it was over to Costco, I was surprised that it wasn’t that busy, I guess alot of people had to work Friday – or they were all at Best Buy – LOL. I needed to pick up a few more books, I have been reading a lot since I still don’t have a TV – and I must say I still haven’t missed having one. So far I have read The Alchemist, The Soloist, There Eyes Were Watching God, The Last Lecture, At First Sight, and Wicked since I have been in the apartment. I picked up about 5 more books. (A note to some of you, you might find some of the books I just mentioned in your stocking at Christmas.)

Saturday – Finally my new sofa was supposed to be delivered. I muddled around in the apartment, I still have a lot to get put away and organized. The movers called because they couldn’t find me. 14th Road South really isn’t on any map since my apartment building is the only thing on 14th Road South and it and the road are brand new. After telling them I was next to Costco, they figured it out. In came the sofa, then my free ottoman/coffee table. They asked if I wanted them to leave the ottoman in the box, apparently a lot of people are selling theirs on Ebay because they don’t have room for it. But I wanted mine. Then they were back in the hall with the last box that was supposed to be the floating chaise piece. Guess what? It wasn’t it. It was some other round striped ottoman. UGH! So I have to wait til next weekend to get the rest of the sofa. Bummer. I have 2 sofas in the apartment now, the other is on Craigslist, but no takers yet.

Today, Sunday, I have just been doing the usual running around to the grocery store, cleaning the apartment, etc. Its really yucky out today. Gray and rainy, so I’m trying to get through some boxes and take down the metro shelving in the living to get ready for the new hutch.

Hope everybody also had a great Thanksgiving weekend! I’ll post about the museums later this week. =)

Wine tasting

So yes, I went to the wine tasting here at the apartment building on 11/20. It was fun but 99% of the people there were all couples. I talked to a few people, but I spent most of the evening Chatting with Michael, who was also single. Now don’t ya’ll get excited, I’m also 99% sure he’s gay too. LOL  But we had a great time, and discussed everything and chatted for a while and exchanged apartment numbers so one day I might invite him over for some wine and cheese. Its always good to have new friends. =)

In case you are interested, there were 3 wines that were interesting:
2006 Luigi Bosca Pinot Noir – Argentina
I like Pinot Noirs and this one was really good, but its like $20/bottle, so special occasions. They paired it with a Chevre with cranberries & cinnamon that was really good – they had it at Costco so I picked some up along with a more cost efficient $8 Pinot – LOL  Hope its as good as the other. I’ll let you know when I open it.

2005 Tangley Oaks Chardonnay – Santa Barbara, CA
I’m not a huge chardonnay fan, I find them to be too “oakey” for the most part. But this one was mellow and I liked it. Again it was in the $20 range too.

2007 Miguel Torres Vina Esmerelda – Spain
This is a blend of Muscat & Gewurztraminer, it was very fruity and refreshing. I felt like it should be sparkling for some reason. Not sure how much it was – but they all seemed to be on the pricier side.

Getting into the swing

I have been neglecting my blog duties, I know. Please forgive me.

Today we had snow flurries in DC. Wow. LOL  Nothing major, just a quick mass of tiny snowflakes that melted in the air, but it is a might chilly, in the 30s & 40s this week. Winter is coming is what it said.

Work is churning along. I’m a little antsy because I have a couple of initiatives that I am trying to get rolling, but because of the holidays everything is being prolonged. I just want it all up and running NOW. What can I say, I like instant gratification. I’m hoping 2009 will be a year of big change here at the agency and although I know it will be a really bumpy ride getting everything off the ground and running, I’m hoping for a little more smooth sailing by the end of the second quarter. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I’m also having regrets about having not been here longer and knowing the team better when I had to lay someone off my second week. I had to rely on others to really make the decision and I’m really starting to think that we let the wrong person go. Of course I can’t say that with certainty without him here to cause me pain or not. But I’m having such issues with one of the others now that I just wonder.  I’ll get over it eventually, but it stills irks me.

Last week, I didn’t do too much exploring except to the outlet mall, because I was shopping in celebration of losing all the weight I gained in Seattle. Now I just have to lose all the weight I gained in NYC, and then I’ll be happier. I’m in the South, so I need to be at my “southern” weight.

I’m still waiting on my couch, and continually looking for a dresser that I am happy with. Metro shelves are still holding a lot of junk in the apartment. I’m hoping to have it feel more like a home by Thanksgiving. I really want the couch to get here, so much depends on it. If I can fit another chair, what colors to paint the living room, how to arrange everything. Again, I just want it done. But patience is a virtue I am trying to remember here in DC as that seems to be the underlying theme here.

Nope, still haven’t been to the gym, but losing the Seattle weight is giving me incentive to actually get there. Lets see if I make it soon! There is a wine tasting at my building on Thursday and I will be going. Especially since I paid $25 to attend. Wine, cheese & chocolate – some of my favorite things—who could pass that up. And I’ll be meeting some of my neighbors, which I am looking forward to. I did meet one neigh named Kathy, but I haven’t seen her since then, and I still haven’t run into Ryan who I met the day the movers were there. Maybe its just a drive-by building.

First weekend alone

I didn’t quite get to do everything I wanted to this weekend – but that’s okay, there will be plenty more weekends ahead. I had a little mishap with my hair appointment that put a dent in my plans. You KNOW taking care of my gray outweighs everything else on my agenda! LOL

Saturday, after finding out they had my appointment on the wrong week, I found another place to get my hair done on Sunday. Then I headed into the city at 3:00pm and did ALOT of walking and didn’t walk back in my door until about 7:00pm. My tootsies were very tired when I got home. Luckily I had remembered Tammy’s mistake when she was out and about her first day and wore the wrong shoes – so I was prepared with my tennies on – but still I wore them out.

The Washington Metro is great but it can be a pain in the butt. There are 5 lines – Blue, Orange, Yellow, Green & Red. And more than likely you’ll have to switch lines to get where you want to go and still not necessarily be close to where you want to be. It kind of reminds me of going cross-town in NYC. In NYC you can go uptown & downtown with ease, but if you want to go crosstown you have to go to midtown and catch the S or 14th and catch the L, or just go up to the street and catch a bus, maybe the N/R and follow Broadway that goes diagonally through the city. Not that many choices. Same here. So I took the train to my regular stop at Foggy Bottom at George Washington University and started walking. I was on I street and I need to go to U street. (Yes, alphabetical, that’s 12 blocks) I wanted to go to a furniture store and look at a dresser. 

I walked up New Hampshire and it was a fabulous day. I love walking around there. So many different types of architecture. And sorry, I didn’t think to take pictures. I even passed a BUNCH of embassies— Mozambique, Namibia,  Sweden, Nicaragua, and Belarus to name a few. (Thanks to the Olympics I know where Belarus is.) There were all kinds of people out and it was a great day for walking, not too hot. Somethings remind me of NYC, like the embassies, metro, walking, and hearing 50 million different languages on the street. 

I didn’t like the dresser at the furniture store although they had a beautiful little curio cabinet I might come back for later. I walked around a bit more, and then came across a neighborhood that was familiar from my weekend of apartment searching and I knew there was another furniture place there, so I walked over there and there are some possibilities for accessories later. LOL

After that it was getting dark so I started back and I was on M and 14th and I needed to be on I and 23rd.  I didn’t realize New Hampshire went diagonally and I was way further over than I thought. A couple of times I pulled out the iPhone to see how much further I had to go and make sure I was going the right way. I still love that thing!

Back home finally with my tootsies airing out, I made a few catch up calls and then hit the hay.

Sunday was pretty well blown because my hair appointment was in the middle of the day, and she was being extra careful I guess because it took 3 hours – whew.  I went shopping at the World Market and got some stocking stuffers for Xmas already. Then back home and talked to David while he made homemade Tomato Sauce, I think he still had 12 more tomatoes to go when I got off the phone with him. LOL

On to clean a bit and do some laundry, then to bed.  Hope ya’ll had a great weekend too!

Sur la Table

Mukka Express Cappucino

As we all know I am a kitchen gadget junkie. Its true. I LOVE Sur la Table, and living in Seattle I was able to go Mecca, at their original store at Pike’s Market – not as often as I would have liked though. =)

I was so excited to find that there is a Sur la Table right near the mall, in walking distance for me. I have been there four times already. I only bought something twice though (i just like to walk through and dream of the wonders I would have if I had a HUGE kitchen). I had to buy a new beaker for my french press because I broke it on my granite counter top – I probably should have bought 2, I have a feeling I will do that again – LOL.  I also got a 20% of coupon so I went and splurged on something I have been eyeing for a couple of years. Mukka Express – it makes cappuccino in one pot, no steaming milk or frothing, it does it all by itself. It even makes espresso and lattés, but the cappuccinos I think turn out the best. 

They also do cooking classes at this one, that they didn’t in Seattle. I want to sign up for ALL of them. LOL  I have learned you need to sign up early, I’m on wait lists for 3 classes at the moment (prime rib dinner, sensational sauces, and holiday hors d’ouevres). But I did sign-up for two in December. Candy making and chocolate truffles! I know ya’ll are thinking – but Meredith you have been making truffles for years, and you have all that candy stuff, I know you make it.  Well yeah, but I thought it might be nice to see how you are actually SUPPOSED to do it, other than what I have been doing. Who knows, I may have been doing it right all along, either way it was always good.

So all of you who plan on visiting in the future will get to enjoy all of my practicing!

Pentagon City

The area of Arlington, VA I live in is called Pentagon City. I’m sure you can guess what is nearby. It’s really a great area, there are tons of things nearby and I rarely get in the car, except of course for my many trips to the ever popular Container Store.

Its really kind of funny for me, not really being around alot of military installations in my life. There was an Air Force base in Myrtle Beach when I was growing up, but I don’t really ever remember seeing alot of people walking around in uniform, unless I was visiting friends who lived on the base. But here you see people getting on the subway, ahem Metro, dressed in fatigues all the time. Even their computer bags are military fatigue. In NYC after 9/11, you saw bunches of military people wandering around, but they were there for the safety of the city and were carrying their rifles etc. Whether they made you feel safe or rather disturb by their presence, was up for discussion, but they were around. But not just hanging out riding the metro, walking through the mall, or out for lunch. Its just kinda weird for me.

What I really find interesting though, are the advertisements in the metro and to some small degree in the neighborhood. “Our new JLTVs are on the ground” Lockheed Martin (JLTV is Joint Light Tactical Vehicles – I read the ad); “What has MOAA done at the Pentagon lately?”  (MOAA – Military Officers Association of America); Ads about Lasers and Tracking systems, new super cool jets by Boeing, you get the picture. I never thought about defense contractors doing billboards – but if you were going to do them somewhere, I guess near the Pentagon WOULD be the place to do it.

Below is a few pictures off of my balcony so you can see my view—I labeled a few things, anything else is a miscellaneous building as far as I know. Or the super secret new headquarters for some new super secret branch of the gov’t – who knows – LOL  

And no, I didn’t tile the photos together into one – too much work.

 

The view from my balcony