birthday!

i had one! a birthday! it's kind of an annual thing i do. this was a big'in too. twenty-one. lots'o'fun. (rhyme.) bestmomintheworld helen came down to philly with her partner in crime, bestpapaintheworld kevin. they also brought along grandpa dr. jesse and baby broski came down a day early to spend extra time with his rapidly aging sister. lawyer cousin eileen of west philadelphia also came over the fiesta.

can i just say, my mother puts out a mean spread. cheddar&beer fondue, bottles (plural. oh so plural.) of wine, fancy cheeses, french onion soup, and a bangin' gourmet salad. we finished it all off with a ridiculously good strawberry & chocolate cake. out of this world.

all my roomies were there and presents were opened and a new bike helmet/printer/watch/as seen on tv items were received.

after my family left, i had plans to go out and test my new legality. but somehow that turned into watching hello dolly on the couch and going to bed before midnight. i have a pretty crazy lifestyle.

but now that i'm twenty one, feel free to take me out. i like weird beers and salty dranks. for future reference.

Sleepy Sunday

A new feature that I won't be able to maintain! Boo ya!

So I have this embarrassing habit of falling asleep in very public places and I thought I would spread the embarrassment by writing about an narcoleptic episode each Sunday.

So, week one of Sleepy Sunday:
the time i fell asleep on the art museum steps

over the summer, my friends and I went to a Rocky event on the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. The same steps that Rocky runs up in his training montage. Very famous. Blah blah. It was a whole big event with free hoagies from WaWa and a Rocky look alike contest and all kinds of junk. The culminating event was a screening of the original film. As soon as the started to play the movie, I could feel my eyelids growing heavy. But i didn't really think it would be a problem considering the fact that I was sitting on giant stone steps with a bunch of strangers- possibly the least comfortable place to sleep ever. I continued to watch the movie, combatting the power of sleepiness until finally and i could take no more. Maybe I'll just lay down and watch the movie, I thought. That never works out. As soon as my head hit the dirty stone steps, I crashed. Slept through the entire movie. Changes positions in my sleep. All on these giant rock slabs. I didn't seem to care at all. After the movie, I woke up and couldn't help but marvel at the paradox- the same steps that Rocky sprinted up in his final physical training triumph, provided a setting for my nap. Two total opposites on the physical activity spectrum. Score.

More-drobe Monday

this monday is birthday weekend recovery day! i had the day off from my internship and used the time to catch up with emails & homework & friends. my go-to outfit whenever i'm feeling lazy is usually a pair of jeans with a button down or a cardigan & t-shirt. this is the western shirt i thrifted a few weeks back. i resized it but kept it long just furrrr funnnzzziieeesssss. it's super soft too. boo ya lazy days.

shirt: philly aids thrift
jeans: old navy
duck pin: birthday gift from best friend liztilahun
watch: birthday gift from best mom helen
strawberry chocolate cake: courtesy of mom

twenty one

there's only half an hour left of my twenty first birthday. i know this is a big one and i should be out living it up, taking advantage of the fact that this might be the only time in my life i'm able to weasel my way into getting free shots but instead, i'm sitting on my couch, belly full of fondue, answering emails and watching mystery science theater. not exactly the 21 shots they expect you to do.

last night was my birthday party. my baby brother came to town as did liz and anna (anna was a surprise! i didn't know she was coming! best surprise!) and we spent the day decorating and hanging out. thomas williams showed up later, having taken the train all the way from harrisburg. he gave me a bottle of scotch for my birthday. class act. the theme of the fiesta was 1950's tupperware party. everyone was dressed to the nines and so good about drinking out of tupperware containers. which is actually really fun and easy. i even got tiny tupperware containers for shots. there was a perfect mix of clean cut 50's kids and greasers and everyone looked so dreamy. we spent the night dancing to the american graffiti soundtrack and switched to other music later in the night (i freaked out about 99 problems and come on eileen was played two times. in a row. crowd went crazy.) our house throws some pretty incredible theme parties if ya'll are ever in town.

the first half of today was spent cleaning up after last night. then my mom and dad and grandpa came to town for birthday dinner. my mom is actually the most incredible woman in the world- she made cheese fondue, french onion soup, and a banging salad. she also brought a table cloth and flowers and shrimp. my grandpa bought me six bottles of wine and SO MUCH CHEESE so we busted that stuff out too and pretty much just stuffed our faces. the roomies were there and my cousin eileen who lives in west philly came over. my grandpa also gave me an incredible cooking technique book that was his- it's signed by the author, a very famous chef whom he took a class with at the green brier. we all sat around and talked and laughed and later i opened my presents (printer! beautiful watch! jelly beans from judy! arbor mist from wendy! more wine! a million weird as-seen-on-tv products!) and we ate a beautiful strawberry chocolate cake. incredible.

and now i'm here. and i don't even want to go out. this weekend was incredible. i was surrounded by so many people i love and so many people dressed like american bandstand extras. there are streamers all over my house and so much cheese in my fridge. i have glorious roommates and beautiful friends and an incredible baby brother (who makes waffles for all of us for dinner when i'm busy getting ready and mops the floor after the party and can seriously cut a rug) and two gorgeous best friends and a wonderful wonderful family. my dad even set an alarm for the exact time i was born and i jumped around the kitchen with my parents and thanked them for having me. i am so incredibly blessed. i have everything i need (and more) in my life. after i blew out my candles, i remembered that i didn't make a wish. and though it may sound hokey, i realized that i really don't have anything to wish for. maybe more cheese. but besides that, i'm good. i'm set. this is bliss for me.

and so i begin my twenty second year on earth. i will now be able to enjoy karaoke at bars, philly beer week, and over 21 concerts. i hope twenty one proves to be just as incredible as 20, and all the other years of my life. and i have no reason to believe it won't be.

More-drobe Monday

which has only happened twice. in a month. and this is technically tuesday. SO MUCH RULE BREAKING.

this is what i wore to laura's valentine's gathering last night. i thought it was pretty festive. during the day i wore a red pencil skirt with a pink cardigan and my black heart tights. i also mistakenly wore my molly ringwald black ankle boots, which are great shoes for going to church in the sububs (read: they're tolerable for an hour when you're able to drive to places) but they totally blow when you're walking to work then doing a butt load more walking at work. my feet felt like they were deflating and becoming sensitive rock cakes. you know what i mean.

so i changed into this for the evening times. a bunch'o'friends went to laura's and swapped valentines and danced around. our friend yoseph read cosmo out loud while pretending to be julie andrews. typical valentine's day stuff.

dress: handmade out of a curtain from salvation army
tights: target
black dress underneath: salvation army
red necklace: from my secret santa marypenxa
super cool shoes that aren't pictured but should be: payless

sweet holy blog fail

is it just me or do have i begun to only blog about my lack of blogging? i'm going to skip the apology this time around. we all know how it goes. blah blah busy blah blah have a life blah blah sorry charles.

i went on a bit of a shopping spree at philly aids thrift last weekend. which is impressive since it's a thrift store. that means i got a seriously good haul. the gem of the bunch was a sweet nick & nora western shirt. it was a little pricey ($9) and a little huge (XL) but i re-sized it sunday morning and damn. perfection. in love.

i also bought a crap ton of really beautiful fabric. my birthday this year is 1950's sock hop/ american graffiti/mad men/john waters-y themed and i desperately needed a birthday dress (doesn't it suck when you plan the party and suddenly realize you have nothing to wear to your own fiesta? worst.) i found this awesome david & dash fabric- mint green with giant purple-y/cream flowers. i used my built by wendy dresses book and an online tutorial for circle skirts (which i LOVE- it's really rewarding math. like a sweet puzzle where you get a skirt as a prize if you do it right.) and made a pretty sweet little number. i'm super pumped for the fiesta- not only do i have a sweet dress to wear but liz, mattbarry, baby brother, and boyfriendmikeyaz are all coming to town for the shindig. i can't wait to pull on my party pants. which are taking the form of a floral dress. boo ya.

the legend of raisins

this has been such a saga in my life that it's high time i told the general public the full story. so here we go:

when we moved into the house, there was a snake on the loose. not like a wild snake- a domestic snake. it belonged to one of the previous inhabitants, a boy by the name of justin. now justin is a super sweet boy- very nice, very handsome, but also very much like a first grade. kid is spacier than an astronaut. one night, justin was a bit intoxicated and decided to take his pet california king snake to 7/11 (because everyone knows that snakes love 7/11). upon returning home, he didn't put raisins the snake away, but instead took him inside a fort he built downstairs to cuddle and watch shawshank redemption. again, totally normal things to do with your pet snake. but homeboy fell asleep in that fort and raisins decided he had seen this movie too many times and just slithered away in pursuit of more exciting activities.

so the snake was lost in our house. justin couldn't find him/never saw him and told us the same way one might say "oh by the way, i left some baloney on the top shelf of the fridge. help yourself." i'm terrified of snakes so i was not entirely pleased but i figured i would just deal with the problem when it presented itself. the snake has no teeth and is used to humans touching it/playing with it so it wasn't going to attack us. it was just the surprise element- that sucker could be anywhere.

cut to the first night i'm staying in the house. it's just me and christine and she's in the shower. i go to the downstairs bathroom and flip on the light to put my hairdryer under the sink. on my way out the door, i turn back around to turn off the light and find my eyes drawn upwards. hanging from the light on our ceiling is the snake. he is bigger and snakier than the pictures had lead me to believe. i slowly back out of the room and upstairs where i pace in the hallway until christine comes out of the bathroom. i then scream something like "SNAKE BATHROOM AH!" and we both proceed to freak out. christine, being the braver roommate decides to try to take care of it. i decide to stand on a box in the middle of the living room freaking out. she pushes a tupperware container under the pet and attempts to pry it down with a swiffer. every time she musters up the courage to poke it again we both scream continuously. meanwhile, i'm on the phone calling every person i've ever known and telling them to come over and get this snake. the swiffer is not working- he's a lot stronger than we thought. we watch him do weird snake things with his weird snake body until our back-up arrives. jon and scott stand on the bathroom sink and tub ledge respectively, with tongs in their hands to grab the snake. laura and sarah appear as moral support. eventually, raisins tires of terrorizing us and crawls back up into the ceiling.

so now we know he's here, but he's totally lost again. we have strict orders not to kill him but i know if my options are killing him or letting him go again, i'm probably going with the first one. no one uses the first floor bathroom except keiran for fear of another sighting. some of our friends refuse to come over because of our extra house guest. we kick everything before opening it. we check out covers at night just to be sure. a strand of christmas lights fell on christine while she was sleeping and she freaked out, thinking it was the snake. then she started sleeping with a knife under her pillow. we made traps (lamps in tupperware containers on the floor) in the hopes that the snake would emerge. no such luck. and so we continued to live in fear of the surprise snake who would eventually pop out at us again.

this past saturday we were out in the backyard cleaning up. our roommate beth turned the corner into the small alley next to our house and let out a scream. she found raisins. we all rushed over to see and sure enough, there he was. belly up. half buried in the snow. homeboy was dead. i still couldn't touch him and could barely even look at him. our more snake friendly friends thawed him out with spoons and a hairdryer- his snake body was flatten under the weight of the snow and ice. he was buried under at least three inches of it. we said a few words, experienced a lot of mixed feelings, and disposed of his body in a trash bag. he's now sitting on our curb near the recycling.

it's a terrible way to go- we aren't even sure how he got out of the house. but we're glad he's not there. in conclusion, your snake hates 7/11. don't let him out.