Happy Birthday to Me!

Happy Birthday to me! I am the biggest birthday brat ever! I used to take my birthday off from work. In fact, before today, I only ever worked once on my birthday, and I hung a giant banner above my desk so that everyone would know it was my birthday. I have commemorated quite a few birthdays in fun ways. My 18th birthday was marked by my first tattoo.
My 19th birthday was ushered in by my second tattoo.

My 20th birthday was a CRAZY party that took place at 2 houses: my parent's house and my house. The party got started at my parents, and a select group of designated drivers brought us back to my house so that the fun could continue in to the wee hours of the morning.

My 21st birthday was spent on vacation in Cape Cod with my family. We went to a winery, the beach, and enjoyed a lovely dinner and night of fun in P-Town.

My 22nd birthday was pretty mellow. We had just moved to Boston 5 days earlier, so we didn't know the area or any friends in the area. Andrew and I went to the New England Aquarium- where I tent to get more excited than the kids there- and we saw a 3-D IMAX movie.

This year, I had to work. I was scheduled for 12 hours, but because it's my birthday- and I'm so cute- I was able to leave at 3. Now we're waiting for my aunt and uncle to come over so that we can go out to eat. Yum... Mexican and Sangria! :-)

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me...

Early Birthday Presents!

My birthday is on Sunday! Earlier today, I was starting to feel the "Birthday Blues" but things are looking better now. I got some early birthday presents today! Well actually today wasn't the first early birthday presents I got. Last week, a lady from work was selling hand made ear rings, and I bought a pair.

My Mom bought me a new set of scrubs for work- Muppet Scrubs! I am a Muppet fan from way back. I know that most of the kids that I work with won't have a clue who or what Muppets are, but I know who Muppets are, so that's all that matters to me.

Then, Andrew gets home from work today, and he says "Let's go pick out your birthday present!" I was so excited! First we went to the plant nursery and garden store. We looked around, but first we wanted to get a plant stand (see post from earlier today) and the only one I saw there that I liked was uber-expensive, so we went to Home Depot. Nothing good at Home Depot. Andrew wanted to go to Target, but the "Birthday Blues" had me feeling pretty sad again, and I just wanted to go home. Andrew made me go to Target where we found a shelf in our price range that would do exactly what we needed it for. So then we went back to the plant nursery and bought some new plants. We bought:
a Hen and Chick plant ,
a Purple Spike Cactus ,
and a Pitcher Plant . The Pitcher Plant is a cousin of the Venus Fly Trap, and the pitchers on it look really cool . We rushed home to assemble the shelf to see how everything will look . And the best part is that now I have more space to add more plants to my garden! What's next...

What kind of plant is this?

So I'm itching to do some major renovations with my windowsill garden. The more I look at how beautiful they make my living room, the more plants I add, the more I like this hobby. My mom has one of the most beautiful collection of indoor pants, so she is a lot of my inspiration. She has this plant that I really like, but I don't know what kind of plant it is. I saw one like it when I was in the Dominican Republic. Does anyone know what kind of plant this is?
Also, my mom has this plant sand. It's about 5 feet tall, metal, tiered, circular staircase plant stand. I have spent my morning searching the internet looking for something like that. I can find some tiered circular staircase plant stands, but they are only about 3 feet tall. I've found some taller metal stands, but they do not have the circular staircase design. Does anyone know where I would be able to find what I'm looking for? Or if you happen to stumble across what I'm describing at a thrift shop or yard sale, if you pick it up for me, I will pay you back for it (only applicable to people that I see on a regular basis- sorry!).

Plant trouble.

My plants have not had good luck lately. On Thursday, I was watering my begonia in the sink. I figured that if I water it in the sink, I can let the water run really slow for a few minutes and trick my begonia into thinking that it was getting rained on. Well, that part of my plan worked perfectly. However when I was taking it out of the sink, I accidentally hit the top of the begonia on the bottom of out cabinets and I snapped the top right off! Oh my, I cried and cried. My poor mom! I called her right away in hysterics. As I was sobbing to my mom, Andrew walked in. I was making quite a scene. Anyway, now my plan for the begonia is that I have the top of the plant sitting in a glass of water in my plant ICU (my kitchen) hoping that in a few weeks I will be able to plant it. As for the rest of the plant, it looks a bit silly, but it is doing well.
Also on Thursday, we had a new edition to our windowsill garden: a Peace Lily. When I bought it last week it looked beautiful. Then with all the commotion of guests over the weekend, I didn't really pay attention to it until yesterday morning. Oh no! The dirt was so dry and the lily was wilted. Well, she had to spend a whole day in my plant ICU getting watered very frequently. After about 10 hours in there, she was doing much better, 95% of the way back to before. This morning, she is as beautiful as the day I bought her.

Here's hoping that the begonia comes back just as well as the peace lily.

Fun Weekend...

This weekend, Emily, another one of Andrew's sisters, came to visit with her daughter, Jillian. It was a lot of fun. Yesterday, we went to the Children's Museum. I hadn't been there since I was a kid, and it was a lot of fun to go there with a kid. Jillian had such a good time climbing, playing and exploring. Even the grown-ups had sun playing and exploring.

Then we explored the under water world at the New England Aquarium. The aquarium has a huge penguin exhibit, and we played with the penguins by shining a light into the water. The penguins went CRAZY chasing it. We got face to fact with lots of interesting and exotic looking fish, like the lion fish. We even got to hold some starfish! Whenever the sharks swam by, we always thought that they looked so menacing and hungry. My favorite things at the aquarium are the turtles. This one was taking a nap on a rock near the side of the tank and it looked like a perfect picture.

This morning, we went to the USS Constitution . We had a fun-filled morning of history and family

It was a really fun weekend. Thanks Emily and Jillian for coming to visit!

Bad Idea

Roxy was looking a little greasy, so I thought that it would be a good idea to give her a bath. I'd given her a few baths before, and she fought a little, but it wasn't do bad. She was in a fine mood before we started. By the time that we started to lather, things had already took a turn for the worse. Notice my arms and my sad face? At that point, I just wanted to wash the soap out of her fur and lat her go. She obviously didn't like the way I washed her, she spend about an hour washing herself after I was finished. And this is how my arm turned out. Ok, ok, I admit it, that was a bad idea.

House Decisions...

So for people who don't know yet, my mother-in-law is subdividing her beautiful property (her property includes a creek that runs through the back yard with an island in the middle of the creek) so that Andrew and I will be able to build a house there when Andrew is done at MIT. We are very excited for many reasons:
1. We will be close to family- having grown up in the same town as each other and having our families (Andrew's sisters, my grand parents) in the same town, we kind of always took the close proximity of family for granted. Now that we're living 3 1/2 or 4 hours away, we're realizing how nice it is to have family close by.
2. We will be able to get pretty much exactly what we want in a house since we will be building it ourselves (or picking it out- as the case may be).
3. We will have our house on the same property as where Andrew grew up, and as much as he tries not to act like it, he's a sentimentalist.
4. As I said above, the property is BEAUTIFUL!

We have been thinking a lot about what our house will be like. We have a pretty good idea of what we want. We have it basically down to 2 very similar choices. Choice 1 is 2106 sq ft and Choice 2 is 2316 sq ft . Choice 2 is only $3,200 more than Choice 1. That's not too bad for a slightly bigger house. But should we go with Choice 1 and be able to add some of the upgrades that we want sooner rather than later? We would like to add windows on the side walls in the living room and the bedrooms, and we would like to add skylights onto the living room. What do you think? Also, please tell me what you think is a "Must Have" in a house, and what could you live without. The more information I have, the better off we will be to make a decision.