I like this day

October 2nd is one of my favorite days of the year. Why? Because my best friend was born today twenty six years ago. Happy birthday Colin!

We had a lovely weekend – on Friday night Colin and I made a nice dinner for his grandfather, Mr. and Mrs. T, Meg, Molly and Declan (he didn’t eat much)…Saturday, we spent the day moseying around Boston which was a lot of fun – and luckily the weather held out! And Colin and I just got back from a fun little date – we had dinner at The Peddler’s Daughter and saw Crazy, Stupid Love (really cute/funny!)

Check it out:

Birthday!

Time for presents 😀

My first ever maple layer cake

The handsome birthday boy

I think he likes his stuff...

Nance & Mr. Whelly

Power drill baby!

Boston

Hanging on the boat

Snapping away

Lovely day

Watching the planes land at Logan

Black & White

One of my favorite parts of this city

Happy 84th birthday 7-Eleven!

Happy birthday!

It’s 7-Eleven’s birthday and guess what they are doing to celebrate? All participating stores nationwide are giving away one free 7.11 ounce Slurpee per person!

Yay!

The theme is “Our Birthday – Your Bash” which is why they are so kindly giving us free treats in order to thank customers for their support over the years. These fabulous Slurpees’ even come in specially designed cups (while supplies last).

There’s a 7-Eleven right across the street from the building I work in — you better believe I’ll be grabbing my Slurpee this afternoon. Apparently the Boston area is going to hit the 90’s today so it couldn’t be a more perfect day for this frozen freebie. Enjoy!

Visit www.7-Eleven.com for store locator and be sure to check out 7-Eleven New England on Facebook. 🙂

A great weekend!

Colin and I went home to Long Island for the weekend to celebrate Heather’s birthday. It was a great time!

We even looked at a place to potentially have our wedding, the Bellport Country Club. 🙂 We’ll see!

Heather's fabulous stylist fixing her 'do

Happy birthday!!!

Such babes!

Amanda and Joe came to hang out for the night!

Catie hung out too!

Happy Birthday Jean! (And 100 Days of Kindness, Day 23)

Since this is my blog and I make the rules I’m going to write about someone else’s kindness today.

So, with Thanksgiving fabulously making this a short week for us worker bee’s, today was a bit stressful at work.

Scratch that – let’s start with this: I love my job. I really do. I’m so happy I took it. I truly feel like I give it 150% every single day. I’m proud of the work that I do and the career that I’m building. All that being said, of course there is stress at work – any job is going to provide you with stress at some point. I just would like to make it known that I’m not complaining about my job, I’m just writing honestly about life and how things work.

Anyway, today was stressful for a million different reasons. There is a lot to get done before we all shut down for various Thanksgiving plans tomorrow. In the midst of all my stress, my co-worker gave me a smile and a Snickers bar. A FULL SIZE SNICKERS! Not even a mini. She had it for herself but gave it to me because she thought I could use it. After a little bit of protesting “No, no that’s for you, I can’t take that!” {secretly thinking, mmmm yes, GET IN MA’ BELLY} I graciously accepted the delicious Snickers bar and chowed down.

Such a simple thing seriously made me happy and turned my day around. I love when that happens.

For my kindness today, I’d like to wish the fabulous Jean a very, very, very happy birthday today!!! I hope you’re having an excellent day and I hope you enjoyed my hilariously funny Monk-e-mail. 🙂

Cheers!

A wonderful LI weekend! (And 100 Days of Kindness, Day 2)

Colin and I decided to try something different this past weekend – we left really early Saturday morning to head to NY instead of going Friday evening after work. We figured if we got a good night’s sleep Friday night (we didn’t – we went to bed late) that we’d wake up at the ass crack of dawn to get to NY bright-eyed and bushy-tailed on Saturday morning. I don’t know if we were bright-eyed or bushy-tailed, but we got there early and were happy to be with my family. 🙂

We had a great time celebrating Kelly’s birthday together!

"It's what I wanted!"... Guess that quote...

Lookin' good in your new scarf!

Mmmm pumpkin beer

Grrrrrr

Kell's fab new watch from Brian!

The lovebirds

Colin and Uncle Danny

Lola Girl

Action shot of Par

New Lauren Conrad book

My delicious Chicagoan hotdog from 'Super Duper Weenie' on our stop in CT on our way back to MA... delicious!

Super Duper Weenie!

100 Days of Kindness, Day 2:

I definitely had nice things on my mind today. I was trying to think of new, creative things I could do for people. Even throughout some of the frustrations and overall busyness of the day I was trying to stay positive and think of all the nice things flooding my mind. I decided I need to start jotting my ‘nice ideas’ down in a notebook when I think of them, so I have some in store for these 100 days…

Today, I did two nice things. First, I promoted my friend Greg’s new song on Twitter and I decided I’m going to try to continue to promote his song moving forward. I went to middle school with Greg a long time ago and haven’t seen him in years. However, thanks to the wonders of social media (Facebook) I can still see what he (along with all the other people I haven’t seen/talked to in years) are up to. You know that’s what you use Facebook for! Big time creepin’!

Anyway, back to the point… I recently saw that Greg is pursuing a career in music. I listened to his first single on iTunes, and I have to say – it is amazing! Such a great voice and he is reeally good on guitar. He’s a nice guy who is very talented. I would love to see him succeed, so I’m going to help promote him – I’ll tweet, I’ll Facebook, you know the drill. Now, not that I have a large influence on millions of people or anything, but I just figured, any little bit can help right?

With that being said – check out Greg’s song, ‘New York City Girl’. If you love it, buy it here. I’d say he’s a mix between Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Jason Mraz with a little bit of old school classic rock thrown in. Let me know (or let Greg know on his Facebook page) what you think!

Second nice thing: After our hip hop class tonight, Meg had to pick up Lady in NH. She also had to vote, but hadn’t eaten dinner. I told her I’d make her some dinner while she went to vote so that she could be a good citizen. Then, even though I really didn’t want to  (I can say this because she’s my sister) I took a ride with her to NH to keep her company.

I’m happy to report that I think she appreciated it!

Happy Birthday Kell!

Happy birthday to my amazing, talented, beautiful sister Kelly!

I cannot believe you are 22. 21 was hard enough to believe, but 22?! You are a real adult now. Congratulations. 🙂

 

Don't hate me for posting this faaaabulous photo!

I love you gurrrrl!

 

Colin, Meg, Matt and I are all heading to New York tomorrow to celebrate Kelly’s birthday with the family. I can’t wait! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend as well. Happy Halloween!

A lovely evening

Tonight the O’Neills came over to Meg and Matt’s apartment to celebrate the birthday boy’s special day. Meg prepared a feast for everyone – the food was delicious!

 

Well done Meg!

 

 

Lady and her pretty scarf

 


 

The dutiful wifey

 

 

Happy birthday!

 

 

Lady even got dessert - dog ice cream - she loooved it!

 

Goodnight all!

Happy Birthday Colin!

Happy birthday to my best friend, Colin!

The big 2-5! I hope it’s perfect. 🙂

We celebrated together Thursday night at The Fireplace in Brookline (we even used a Save from Eversave, worked out pretty nicely!) The food was amazing – we started off with a bottle of merlot along with a delicious meat and cheese platter (which I highly recommend as a starter). Then, Colin had the Signature Spit-Roasted Maple Glazed Half-Chicken and I had the Feta and Carrot Ravioli – both perfection. We topped it all off with some coffee and the Peach Crisp and brownies. An excellent meal in a fun, lively setting (pretty much every table was filled – I was impressed!) to kick off Colin’s birthday weekend. Thanks Fireplace!

I forgot to take a picture when it first came out.... I caught it towards the end with a little bit left!

My dinner, YUM!

Colin's dinner... so good!

Peach Crisp for the birthday boy

Brownies for me please!

Happy birthday handsome!

Great night 🙂

After work yesterday we drove up to VT. We’re spending the weekend here which is always a good time. Off to enjoy the day! Hope you have a great one!

Happy birthday Mom! (and fun times on the Cape!)

My buddy & biggest fan

Outrageously kind & loving

Thoughtful & sincere

Hilarious & fun-loving

Extremely compassionate & considerate

Really, really, really amazing

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU MOM!!!!! I love you SO much and cannot wait to see you & celebrate this weekend! 🙂

My beautiful Mother!

She is so much fun!

The amazing & hilarious rosary bead cupcakes my sisters made for my mom! In the words of my mother, "God Bless!"

So this past weekend I went to the Cape with Colin and his family. It was SO MUCH FUN. It was such a relaxing trip. I pretty much sat on the beach all day Saturday, Sunday and Monday (took the day off!) it was just perfect. While we were there we also went to a baseball game in Orleans, celebrated Mr. Whelly’s birthday, and ate a ton of good food!

Beautiful

Caught up on my book 🙂

Went to see one of the Cape Cod league on a beautiful night:

We had a glorious breakfast at My Tinman’s Diner. It was SO cute and the wait staff/owner was so accommodating and nice. The Wizard of Oz decor was very cute! Such a great little find.

Delicious breakfast

Found a cute little farmers market to stop at after church & breakfast:

Found a cute little farmers market

Colin’s Aunt Mary and Uncle Louie came early to surprise us!! It was great!

We all enjoyed an amazing meal together at The Nobska House in Falmouth for Mr. Whelly’s birthday. They were SO nice and accommodating, it made for such a wonderful evening. They made us feel so welcome and comfortable – I can’t thank them enough for how well they took care of us on Sunday night. A BIG thank you to everyone at The Nobska House! This is a must try people! 🙂

While we were waiting for our table the lovely people at Nobska House brought us some delicious shrimp cocktail. It was so nice!

Nobska House - great place, good people, wonderful meal!

Map on the table

YUM

Weird lighting. Good calamari.

Tried these guys for the first time... I liked them!

My seafood trio

Aunt Mary getting ready to dig in!

Uncle Louie & Aunt Mary - so much fun!

Colin trying lobster for the first time. He liked it!

Happy birthday to you!

Nerd #1 on the beach

Nerd #2 on the beach!

Night everyone!

Mom & Dad, does it scare you that almost all of your children are in their 20’s?

Yesterday, (I know, I’m a day late – sorry Moldy!) was my youngest sister Molly’s 19th birthday! I can’t believe how old she is now! Mom and Dad, does it scare you that almost all your five children are in their TWENTIES?! Yikes!

Anyway, a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my beautiful, amazing, intelligent, hilarious little sister Molly!!! I love you so much and I hope you behaved yourself at your party last night. 😉

Molly at I the weekend of her high school graduation! (I don't know why I'm standing like a weirdo??)

My gorgeous sister Molly with her new 'do from her gorgeous stylist!

And, today is my parents 28th wedding anniversary, so HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to the two most wonderful people ever! I hope you have a lovely day holding hands and telling each other how much you love one another.  Thanks for getting married and reproducing! I love you guys. xo

The happy couple!

The whole fam dam!

And, while I’m at it… Colin’s grandfather’s birthday is tomorrow, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mr. Whelly!! Get ready to paaartaaay. 🙂

Happy birthday!

Well, I’m on the cape with Colin and his family, so I’m off to the beach! I hope everyone has an amazing weekend! Enjoy the beautiful weather!