Went to my first Bachelorette Party

I was very excited to get an invitation to my friends Bachelorette Party. Besides my own, I had NEVER been to one and was pretty excited.

We started the night by eating at the North End. I have never had dinner at the North End (little Italy of Boston) and was not disappointed. The street we were on was filled with people and food. I ordered chicken parm with linguini that was so delicious I almost licked the bowl
clean.

As much as I would have loved to stay in the North End to walk around, our next trip was to the bar. We spent four hours dancing, laughing and enjoying some yummy drinks. I loved spending time with just the girls and even made new friends with some of the bridesmaids. The night was fun and went by quickly. I was sad to have to leave as early as I did but I had to take the T (train) back and didn’t want to miss it. By the time I got to my car my feet were aching. Such a fun night!

Celebrated a friends wedding shower

Unlike most women my age, I have only gone to 3 wedding showers (one being my own) in my lifetime. Sadly, that is what happens when you devote all your energy and love into just one person. But that’s a whole other topic right there!

It’s no lie that I have missed out on a lot of these events throughout the years. The two wedding showers I went to were for a neighbor and the other was my boss and his wife. So you can imagine how excited when I got the invitation for my friend’s wedding shower! I couldn’t have said “Yes” fast enough.

Her shower was simple, cute and amazing. Her bridesmaids
were attentive and classy. They kept in mind that this was the bride’s day and
not their own. Watching a bride’s maid make the bow bouquet and the maid of
honor making sure everything was perfect made me feel slightly jealous. I was
jealous that my wedding shower wasn’t like this. I was jealous that I didn’t
have a big family cheering me on. I was jealous that my bridesmaids were family
and not one was a friend. I was jealous I wasn’t a bridesmaid. I was jealous that I didn’t get a bow bouquet made for my shower. I was jealous of their new FoodSaver they got as a gift (just kidding….kind of).

But then, seeing my friend’s big smile and all the happy faces in the room made my jealousy quickly go away. I was so happy and honored to be a part of this special day with her. Looking around at the table at my other friends made me realize how great my life really is now. I was surrounded by so much love that day that even writing this makes me a bit teary eyed. I’m so blessed!

Went to the Bruins "Rolling Rally" parade

The Bruins won the Stanley Cup and tradition in Boston was to celebrate by having a “Rolling Rally” parade on the duck boats.
I had never been to a parade to celebrate a Boston sports team win. But David, being a huge Bruins fan, insisted that we go. I agreed and we made plans to meet some of my friends in Boston.

We got to Boston at about 7am. The weather was cool and I wish I brought a sweatshirt. The parade didn’t start until 10am so we had a lot of waiting to do. But if order for us to get a good spot, we needed to get their nice and early.
The sun came out and it got HOT!! I wish I brought a nice cold drink but I didn’t dare lose my place because the crowd was forming. Hundred of people lined the sidewalk to catch a glimpse of the cup and team that were to pass by.

Finally, after what seemed like FOREVER, the duck boats were in view. They made their way to us and were inches away from us. I loved watching David’s face as the players he rooted for were right in front of him.

Even though I am not a Bruins fan and had no clue who any of the players were (except for Tim Thomas) I got into the whole parade. I clapped, waved and smiled big as they passed by. It was amazing.

The Stanley cup passed by us and I felt an electricity in the crowd. It was truly awesome to witness. I felt like I just saw a piece of history. David nearly jumped the roadblocks to when the cup was right in front of us.

Although we waited 3 hours for the parade to start, it was well worth it, despite that we both got major sunburns and almost past out from the heat. David kept that smile on his face the entire day. Nothing better then that!

Watched the Bruins win the cup!

I would love to say how exciting this day was for me. How I watched the Bruins win surrounded by countless fans. How I high-fived random fans as beer is being passed out to celebrate. Proudly showing off my Bruins pride along with the way while confetti is being tossed.

Nope.

When they won I was home. Alone. In bed. Sigh…so boring.

David is a HUGE Bruins fan whereas I am not. I prefer my Patriots and Sox to the Bruins or Celtics. So when David asked if it was okay to watch the game with a group of his friends at a bar, I was fine with that. But there was no way in Hell that I was going to miss watching the Bruins possibly win the Stanley Cup, considering since the Bruins have not won the Stanley Cup in my lifetime.

This all came down to this game. The Vancouver Canucks were a strong team and so were the Bruins. Each team had won 3 games and whoever won this game brought home the cup. Bruins fans wanted that cup and chants of “We want the cup” became our motto.

So I laid under the covers in bed and watched the last hockey game of the season. It was an easy win for the Bruins and they dominated this game winning with a score of 4-0.

I cheered and wrote a Facebook message congratulating the Bruins on their win. Then I fell asleep. David came home and had this huge grin on his face late that night. I woke up briefly and then passed out again.

Hmmm… this sounds like my activities when the Red Sox won the series in 2004. I wish these games were on earlier. Oh well. Congrats Bruins and their die hard fans!

Decided to start saving for a house.

David and I have been living together in our small arrangement for a little over a month now. Our space is small and cramped yet we are managing. It has been a huge adjustment for me from having my own large space.

There are several reasons on why we moved in with David’s parents. One reason for moving in was so that we want to be able to save for a house of our own. A lower rent payment is going to help us achieve our goal of being homeowners.

On this day we finally decided to get serious and open our first joint savings account! Yikes! Such a huge step in our relationship!!

Our plan is simple and aggressive. We need to save $15,000 (5% of $300,000) by May 2012. Seems like a hard to reach goal since we opened the account with just $10. But we are determined to make this dream a reality for us.

I have shared my goals out loud with family, friends and coworkers. All seem to have same reaction. Happy, yet ask when the wedding is. Apparently you need to be married in order to have a house or start a family. I didn’t think this was 1950 anymore.

Owning a house will mean so much for us. It will mean privacy, owning equity, a big step in our relationship and lastly starting a family.

Let’s hope that by next year we will be house hunting!

Watched the Royal Wedding!

Live.

On TV at 5:30am.

On the day that I was moving out of my apartment.

Having spent an entire month of packing, cleaning and throwing away, I was going to officially moving in with my boyfriend. I was nervous and excited all at the same time. Plus I was just extremely wiped out both mentally and physically. I really am not a big fan of moving.

The night before, I went around packing everything in boxes. I was exhausted and couldn’t to finally be done with everything. At around 10:30pm I felt drained and went to lie down on the couch. I was just going to rest my eyes for a few minutes.

ZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZzZz

I woke up at 3:30am with the lights in my apartment all on and the TV blasting away. Sitting up I looked at all the unfinished apartment. Still so much work to do before David comes with his cousin and Aunt to load the truck.

Instead of stressing about it, I switched the channel to live coverage of the royal wedding. I laid there watching 2 hours of news coverage of everything between what Kate will be wearing, the guest attires and replays of Charles and Diana’s wedding.

When Kate finally loaded the car to be taken to the church I have to admit I was breathless by her. She looked stunning and truly like a princess. She was the icon of what every little girl wanted to be when they grow up.

I sat there and watched the entire wedding. I saw her make her way up the aisle of the church, her amazingly beautiful sister and the entire ceremony (which was very boring!). I stayed glued to my TV up until William and Kate kissed on the balcony and walked into the palace to have their reception.

The wedding was a great mix of traditional and modern. Kate’s dress was gorgeous. The entire wedding made me want to be a princess! I was really glad to watch a piece of history live on TV.

My first REAL Patriots game!

My amazing boyfriend bought us Patriots tickets for this year! I was so excited because this was my first Patriots game (besides the preseason game which doesn't really count). I love football and couldn't wait to watch the Pats play right in Gillette Stadium.
Here is our ticket. Going to a Patriots game is not a cheap event. Its $117.00 PER ticket!! The Pats were playing against the Baltimore Ravens. I guess I love to watch my teams play Baltimore.
Gillette Stadium is a nightmare to drive to so we decided to take the train in to see the game. The problem is there is only 1 train that goes there and back. So if we missed this train we would have been screwed and would have had to drive down. Blah!
This is us at about 15 minutes on the train. Love how blue David's eyes look in this picture!

This is what we looked like an hour into the train ride. I swear the train was only going about 10mph and we still had another 15-20 minutes on that train. We finally got there! It was such a beautiful day to see a game. Couldn't ask for better weather.The view from our seats. Another view from our seats. Look at how many people are here. Totally packed. Here comes the Pats! If you notice the cheerleaders are wearing pink. Some of the football players were wearing pink today too. This was to support Breast Cancer awareness month!

Here they are!The beer cost $7.50 per bottle at the game. Some people were buying three or four of these during the game. That is just crazy! I only could afford the one.

The game was amazing! It was a close game and there were so many penalties called against the Pats.Half time! We were only behind by 3 points!!

The Pats cheerleaders. They were doing some kind of dance here. But there were not as good as...this guy right here. He had the best dance moves I have ever seen. :)The game went into overtime. This is the best shot I could get of Tom Brady. Notice how tiny he is compared to the rest of the team.


With the score tied and into overtime, the Pats where in field goal range. The win depended on this kick to be good. Did the Pats pull it off???

Duh!!!!

Everybody gets hugs at the end of a game! aww <3>

One of the best games I have ever been too! So glad I got a chance to go!

Ran a mile non-stop!

I finally jogged a mile non-stop for the first time in my life. I am so proud of myself. I love this training program (the Couch-2-5K program)! Not that jogging 20 minutes straight wasn't hard!

First I forgot my ipod and Nike+ at my apartment. So instead of going straight to the gym after work I had to go home to get them. It wasn't so bad though because I changed for the gym at home and used my nice clean bathroom before I went. Driving to the gym I had a knot in my belly. It felt like the knot that I had when I was driving to get a tattoo. Would I be able to run this mile? Would I quit like I always did? I will be so p-off at myself if I can't push myself.

When I finally got to the gym I was happy to find that it wasn't as crowded. I was able to find a decent parking spot and get a treadmill in the back. When I did my warm-up walk, I tried to pump myself up. I wanted to clear my head and think only of this 20 min jog. I stretched and then it began. I kept my pace at 3.8mph to avoid burnout.

About 3 minutes into the run, I felt like quiting. 3 MINUTES!! But my legs were tired and felt heavy. I just ignored it and hoped it would go away. I jogged 8 mins on Tuesday and I wanted to quit at just 3. Not going to happen. But the idea of doing this for another 17 mins made me want to slow down to a walk. This is what happened when I jogged a mile in sports. I would always see the entire mile I had to do instead of the step that I was doing. Then I would stop and walk until my coach yelled at me to keep jogging.

But something happened. At about 5 mins in I got my power. My legs felt lighter and I just jogged. I was even able to bring the speed up to 4.0mph. When I looked at the time again I saw the time tick away. I can do this! I focused on the song on my ipod and that fact that I could not quit.

When I was almost a mile in (about 13 minutes) my friend Mike came over to talk to me. Not now I thought! I was able to hold a brief conversation with him and lucky for me he didn't linger. I wanted to catch my mile on my camera video. I wanted to enjoy my first mile. To savor it and relish in pride.

When I hit the mile I tried to film it, but ended up not saving it. I did the mile in about 17 minutes. It was a slow mile, but I jogged the whole time. Once I hit that mile my mind went completely blank. Nothing went through my head at all. I finally finished my 20 minutes and did a cool down walk.

I felt really strange leaving the gym. I wasn't thinking of any thing. No work. No ex husband. No family stress. No money problems. Nothing. It was the strangest thing. It was like I was in shock. I felt like I couldn't possible be the one who ran 20 mins straight. I am not a runner...

I really thought when I hit that mile at the gym that I would cry and be super emotional. But the one thing that I thought was 'That wasn't so bad'. Why couldn't I do this in high school during field hockey?

All those times in field hockey when I had to be benched because my coach felt I was to out-of-shape to play. I remember when the coach pulled me aside and told me that I made the team but would not play in every game because I stopped and walked the mile we had to do everyday. I then tried to argue with the coach, saying that I even though I walked some of the mile I still did it faster then this other girl on my team. She was always the last to finish the mile. My coach said that because she jogged the entire time was the reason she would be playing more then me. Didn't seem fair to me at the time. I felt that I was a much better player but because I couldn't jog one friggen mile I was being punished.

But now I can finally say to myself that I ran a mile. I did it and will do it again. I love this running program!

This post is dedicated to Coach McGivney, for making me feel like crap all these years for not jogging a mile non-stop.

Got inked!

I finally did it!

After years of wanted one, I finally got the guts to walk into a tattoo place and get my body inked. I have spent many years looking online on trying to find exactly the right thing to put on my body. I wanted something meaningful and beautiful.

I met with Steve, the guy who would be stabbing me with needles, and showed him what I wanted. I decided that I wanted a baby blue bird on my lower back and one star on the back of my neck. I brought in my pictures and made an appointment for the day after thanksgiving.

Here is the guy that was going to cause me pain for the next few hours. He was great! He explained everything to me and my tattoos came out great.

The big day arrived and I was so nervous. Steve was running late and I really wanted to get up and leave. I wanted this so bad but the idea of pain was scary! Steve was actually shocked to see me because he thought I was going to bail out! Geez! Give me some credit!

He started with the back of my neck. I was shaking, sweating and just couldn't believe I was doing this to myself. I thought he would yell at me for acting like such a big baby. But he was patient with me and kept me aware of what he was doing. The anticipation was the worst for me. He shaved my neck (ewww), then cleaned it with alcohol and then placed the stencil on. I watched him put together the tattoo needle. It was HUGE!

Then he asked if I was ready and he turned on the needle. The sound was horrible! He brought the tattoo needle closer to my neck and I thought I was going to scream. Was I going to jump when that needle hit my skin? All those youtube.com videos I watch of girls in tears and screaming in agony to me. Would that be me? Am I going to leave this place with just a line on the back of my neck?

Finally the needle hit my skin. This is how I reacted:

Me: Is that it?

Steve: That's all.

Me: Wow, I was a baby over nothing.

My very first tattoo. Its so simple and cute. It didn't hurt at all! I am thinking of eventually getting it filled.

It honestly didn't hurt at all. It felt like someone scratching the back of my neck. It was a great feeling but it didn't cause tears or screaming from me. The tattoo took a total of 5 minutes. I looked at the mirror at my new tattoo and was so proud of myself! I finally did it. Now it was time for my second tattoo. The more painful and detailed one.

This time the prep was so bad. I knew what to expect and he still went very slow at the very beginning. Not going to lie, this tattoo hurt! There were some parts that I couldn't even hold a conversation because it hurt. It wasn't enough to make me tear up or scream out loud, but enough for me to close my eyes tight, wrinkle my nose and grit my teeth. It felt like someone was scratching me where I have a really bad sunburn. But having had a really bad sunburn this year, this was really nothing.

I chose doing a baby bird on my lower back. Baby birds are thrown out of their nest into the real world after a while. They either have to fly or they fall and die. Baby birds need to fly all on their own. This is how I felt with life lately. I either got to fly and survive this crazy world or I will end up crashing to the ground.

After about an hour, the tattoo was done! I left that place feeling like I could do anything! I felt incredible. I felt like a bad ass. I felt like I could accomplish anything. I felt awesome. All the way home I had a huge grin on my face. I couldn't believe I did it!

The worst part for me has been the aftercare. The next day I woke up and the tattoo on my lower back really hurt. It felt like a bad burn. I was told to clean it and apply Aveeno lotion 3 to 4 times a day. Nervous people (like myself) should not get tattoos because while it is healing, funky things started to happen. Mine did some weird things and I couldn't find too many websites that helped settle my fears.

Here is my pictures of the healing process:

The day after I got my tattoo. It was very hot when I touched it and felt dry. I kept putting lotion and washing it 3 to 4 times a day. I was pretty upset that the colors looked faded

Also that day, I woke up and noticed this on my bed sheets. I inked the bed.

My tattoo looked like it was cracking. It felt alittle tight and I made sure to keep applying lotion that day. It was puffy and felt like leather. It looked so gross and was discolored. The light blue parts turned to a greenish yellow.
This was the worst day for me. I took this picture and my tattoo was started to peel. I know this was normal, but look at his wing!! It looked like the tattoo broke! Nothing online helped me feel better about this. I really thought I ruin my tattoo.

The scar came off and everything looks good! The best thing was the wing wasn't shifted, it must have been how the scar was peeling off. The only problem I see if a small white spot on the birdies body. But everything looks fine! Whew!! In a few more weeks it will be 100% it won't look so shiny. I love my little birdie! Isn't he so cute! All I wanted to do throughout the process was scrub my scab off in the shower. This is a big no-no.I think

Would I do this again? Absolutely!! I love having a piece of art on my body. It gave me such an adrenaline rush that I can't even explain. If you can survive a sunburn you can survive a tattoo.

Details

Where: The Painted Bird- Very clean and everyone was super nice to me! I would def recommend Steve and hope he can do my next tattoo.

Aftercare: Aveeno and Dial antibacterial soap- Worked great and the lotion made my skin so soft! I will now have to use it for the rest of my body!