My Weekend

Friday night was pretty low key and ended up being pretty fun. We went to a local bar (Rojo), for this End-of-the-year-Party for Tom's GSA (Graduate Student Association). I say it was pretty low-key because Rojo is a pretty chill place and there weren't a lot of people there. So we had some free burritos (compliments of the GSA) and munched on some yummy tortilla chips and salsa. We were sipping our beers that we had just purchased when Tom's name got picked out of a drawing to win a free pitcher of beer! Don't say you've never won anything Tom! So we enjoyed a pitcher of New Castle and the company of a couple of our friends who were there as well.


Saturday I woke up at 7:15 to get ready for work (second job) and Tom dropped me off at 8 before he headed to UAB for a full day at lab. When I got there, I saw that the census was low and thought to myself Sweet, this is gonna be an easy day! Then another PT showed up and I thought we would have no problem managing it. Then a THIRD PT called and said she was running late and we realized that the manager probably cancelled one of us due to low census but none of us had received any messages. So I called her cell and turns out I was cancelled :( I never got the message, apparently she was having "phone troubles." So I ended up getting Saturday off unexpectantly! Yay for me :)


Sunday I was relaxing in my new favorite chair on the balcony, sipping some coffee and reading the paper, when I saw some interesting looking things that were going on in Bham that day. (Tom was in lab). So I went to this giant "Garage Sale" hosted by the Jr. League of Bham in search for a lamp. We need another one for our bedroom but keep putting off buying one. So I purchased this ugly excuse for a lamp

for $4 (okay so it's really not that bad, it's just not something I would pay more than $4 for).

Then I went to Magic City Art, an arts festival downtown. I thought I would go check it out, not really expecting to buy anything (while simultaneously secretly hoping they had exactly what I was looking for). And they did!!! I've been wanting a larger piece of art that somehow incorporates turquoise water, AND I FOUND IT! It was a complete impulse buy but I knew I would regret it if I didn't buy it. I'm not really sure Tom agrees :/ And it wasn't quite as good of a deal as my $4 lamp, but I couldn't resisit! It's not hung up yet but here it is.

Vacation all I ever wanted...........

15 days until our trip to the beautiful Gulf Coast!!! We are going to the lovely Destin, FL, rumored to be one of the prettiest beaches on the gulf coast. I CAN'T WAIT :D Sure, we've gone on lots of trips since we've moved to Alabama, but we haven't been to the beach since our honeymoon almost 2 years ago. And it's a sin that we've lived in Alabama almost 2 years and haven't been to the gulf coast yet!! Everything seemed to fall into place with the beach, the hotel, and the entertainment the weekend we are going. We're going for 3 nights and 4 days.

Mostly, we are going to be relaxing on the beach all day :) But there's going to be an arts festival about 1 mile from our hotel that weekend. That should be pretty cool to check out. Our hotel seems pretty nice too. It's across the street from the beach, has a made-to-order free breakfast every morning, and has a free happy hour every evening! Also, quite a few restaurants have been recommended by friends who frequent Destin. Oh, and our hotel is like 1.5 miles from an outlet shopping center (Yipppee!). Also, I can't wait to check out Bad Ass Coffee Co. Yummm.

Here's a pic of the beach from the hotel website. I can't believe I've been THIS CLOSE (~4 hours) to turquoise water for 2 years and haven't been there yet! One of my friends who moved here from California about 10 years ago says the Gulf Coast beats the Cali beaches hands down. I can't imagine how it's going to compare against the Jersey shore!!!!!

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day I decided to post things we try to do in our daily lives to help the environment. As I’m trying to think of things, I’m realizing that we don’t do as much as we probably should!

-We have huge bins in our pantry to recycle everything we can recycle: glass, aluminum, plastic, newspaper, and cardboard. Once every few weeks (or when the bins start overflowing) we gather everything up and make a trip downtown to recycle everything. Unfortunately, our apartment complex doesn’t recycle. I’ve asked them about it, but they said it “wasn’t an option.” Whatever.

-We re-use plastic grocery bags for lunches, trash bags, etc, and the ones we don’t use we recycle at Walmart.

-We still seem to accumulate a lot of those plastic grocery bags though! So a few months ago my mom got me a reusable, insulated grocery bag. I try to use it every time we go to the grocery store (Tom looks at me like I’m crazy), even if we’re not getting items that need to stay cold.

-We turn off the air/heat and open the windows if it’s nice outside (although, I have to admit, that is more for the budget than the environment).

-We bought a faucet filter and have a PUR water pitcher instead of buying cases and cases of plastic water bottles (I was never one for the plastic water bottles, me and my PUR pitcher go back a long way)

-Unplugging appliances/electronics during the day when not in use (again, more for budget than for being green!)

-Wash clothes in cold water.

-I dry most of my clothes on the drying rack or hanging up in the spare shower. Although, this is more to preserve my clothes than to save energy from the dryer. I also am working on convincing Tom to use the iron to get rid of wrinkles instead of throwing a shirt in the dryer for 5 minutes every morning ;)

-In public bathrooms I always try to use the hand dryers instead of paper towels.


Here’s some things I would like for us to start doing to stay green:
-Buy produce from local farmer’s markets instead of grocery stores (even though this means getting up early on sleep-in Saturdays!

-Switch to all paperless statements (I have such a trust issue with cc companies and banks, I like having things in writing…..most of our stuff has online statements but some doesn’t….like our crappy bank).

-Do a better job of convincing our apartment complex to start recycling…..a lot of college kids live here. I was one of those once, do you know how many aluminum cans and glass bottles they go through?!?! ;)

I'm sure there's LOTS more but at the risk of being late for work that's all I have time for right now!

Stay green :)

My second job....

About 16 months ago when I started considering taking on a second job, I have to admit I was doing it solely for the money. But in the past 16 months I've come to really enjoy it and consider it as a blessing (and not just the money part!). I try to work 1-2 Saturdays a month, which has been working out extremely well for Tom too. After he drops me off at 7:45, he goes into lab and is able to get a lot of work done (there's not a lot of people there Saturdays, so less distractions!). If he doesn't have to go into lab (which is rare), he's usually pretty productive around the apartment or he is able to run some errands for us.

I also really enjoy the people I work with. It's really a good set-up, since it's rehab I stay mostly in one place and am not running all over the hospital like I do M-F. Sometimes we'll have some low-level, difficult patients, but the change in pace, patient diagnoses, and age really sets it apart from my regular job at Children's.

Lastly, if there are 2 (or even 3...gasp...) weekends in a row when I don't work, I find myself becoming "bored" on Saturdays and just kind of lounging/moping around accomplishing nothing. On the weekends I work, I looooooooove my Sundays because it is literally my only day of rest, but on the weekends I don't work I seem to take Sundays for granted.

Having 2 jobs isn't something I will probably do for long, and most definitely not when we move back to the Phila-ish area, but for now, it seems to be working out pretty well :)

Breaking the news........

Last year we were fortunate enough to be able to make a trip home for 9 days in August, during a week that both of our family reunions happened to fall on. Unfortunately, we won't be making the same trip again this year. Two of our full time PT's at work are pregnant and are due within 10 days of each other in June. They will be out on maternity leave until the middle of September and our director has already said absolutely no week long leave/vacations will be approved :(

That being said, we might try to swing something in September. One of our friends is getting married on the 20th and my dad's 60th Birthday Bash at the Penn State vs. Illinois game is the 27th so we're trying to play around with some dates and see if that works for us. We probably won't get to see as many people (from my family at least) as we would in August but right now this is looking like our only option. (Unless everyone from my fam reunion comes to Penn State for Dad's bday!)

Happy Birthday Beer!!!

"In case you didn’t know, today April 7, 2008 is a solemn and joyous anniversary in the annals of beer history. It’s the 75th Anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition for beer in the United States.

During the summer of 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned on the platform that he would repeal Prohibition (he called it the “stupendous blunder”), put American workers back on the job and help end the Depression. So, of course it’s no surprise that he won the election by a landslide.

True to his word, with one stroke of the pen 20 days after taking office, he signed the Cullen-Harrison Act, making 3.2% beer once again legal in the U.S. This meant that Lager Beer which was predominantly 3.2% alcohol by weight would precede heavier beer styles and hard liquor by almost 8 full months.

So, at 12:01 a.m. on April 7, 1933, beer was back. 25,000 people celebrated here at our St. Louis Brewery that night and the rest of the country listened to a special live broadcast from August “Gussie” Busch, Jr. that was carried on radio stations coast to coast. Happy days were here again!

So today on the 75th Anniversary of the Repeal of Prohibition, raise a glass to the wisdom and fortitude of great men like Gussie Busch and Franklin Delano Roosevelt with a Budweiser, the Great American Lager.

Cheers!"

*Taken from an email my dad sent me from Budweiser. Why he gets emails from Budweiser, I have no idea ;)

Moss Rock Preserve

Yesterday was GORGEOUS here! In a few years when we're sludging around the mushy sleet/snow in the cold in Philadelphia (or some other northeast city) this time of year we are going to COMPLETELY miss these beautiful Alabama springs! So to take advantage, we went on a hike yesterday at a local state park called "Moss Rock Preserve." We hiked to a place called Boulder Field. Here are a couple of pics from our hike :)