Hold On Tight, Spider Monkey!

Lots of things I'd like to mention today...

1) I apologize for not writing in such a long time. I've been caught up with re-reading the Twilight series and pretending to do end-of-the-semester work.

2) Speaking of Twilight, have any of you seen New Moon yet!? Yours truly has seen is 3 TIMES already! Of course, the acting is atrocious and Kristen Stewart needs to stop doing drugs, but Taylor Lautner's body is one of the most exquisite male forms I've ever seen. He's almost as hot as Brian ;)

3) Lady Gaga has a video out right now for her song "Bad Romance." If you haven't seen it, YouTube that shit immediately! She's absolutely insane, but a complete diva-licious miracle. (I REALLY want the red lingerie outfit she wears in one of the dance sequences)...

4) It's December, which means "you know what" is upon us!! (The holiday joy inside me is about to spill over onto everyone within a 5 mile radius... Christmas carols are going to start projecting from my head without me knowing it... EEEK!)


Happy December Everyone!!

Happy Birthday to ME!!

I turned 22 on November 11th, and what a celebration it has been! (Afterall, birthdays last for several weeks, not just one day... :)

1) The Party: After talking to all my neighbors, I convinced them into throwing a giant open house party in celebration of me turning 22. All of us invited our friends and threw a bangin' celebration with a keg, Christmas lights, and friendly neighborhood merriment. I'd say about 100 people showed up throughout the night... (not too shabby!)

2) November 11th: I got lots of monetary gifts from family and had a short class in the AM. Then Brian helped make this day extra special by taking me to Sequoia, a beautiful restaurant right on the water in Georgetown. I had an ahi-tuna salad, he had lobster ravioli. It was delicious, romantic, and very memorable :)

3) NYC: In additional to dinner and a bazillion gifts, Brian took me to New York City to get away from DC for a few days. We visited the Museum of Sex, the MET, Central Park, Times Square, the best sushi restaurant EVER and his little sister who goes to NYU. There was lots of wine, rain, and adorable little dogs that I was oh-so tempted to steal!



Happy Birthday to Me!

Washingtonian Magazine

My feature article writing professor took my class on a field trip yesterday. The woman's amazing and has the best connections in the journalism world. ERGO: we chugged across town to visit her dear friends at Washingtonian Magazine!

The man who spoke to our class was one of the leading editors for the magazine and talked to us for over an hour about Washingtonian and different lessons in journalism. It was a business lesson too because he talked a lot about "what sells" and "what's good but doesn't sell" and "what's bad but does sell." He gave us all free copies of the latest Washingtonian issue and wished us all good luck in searching for jobs next year.

The whole place was swarming with classy & contagious journalism fervor. I was kind of in awe of the whole newsroom set-up and flashed a big smile at anyone who walked by our class. It reinforced my belief that journalism was the right choice for me. I can't wait to graduate so I can wave goodbye to the classroom and say HELLO to the newsroom!

First thing's first though.... Step 1) get a diploma... Step 2) find a job... EEK!

A Quick Venting Session...

1) I went to Michael's this morning to buy some matted frames for my photo class critique next Monday. Unfortunately, none of them came pre-matted in the size and shape I needed, so I had to buy regular matte board and cut/measure/make the frames myself. This means I actually have to do the assignment, WTF!?

2) I went to get my haircut today at a new salon near my apartment. The dude cut way too much off the sides and not enough on top. He also failed to add texture to the hair on top, (meaning too much thickness, not enough thin silky softness)... ERGO: I left that Salon and ran down the street to another salon, praying they could fix the damage. They did their best, but it's still not great. I feel un-beautified :(

3) I went to go pick up my outfit for tonight's festivities at the dry-cleaners. (I'm attending a birthday party/pre-halloween bash)... The cleaner, who promised my dress would be in by 2 pm, did NOT have my dress when I showed up at 3. ERGO: I have to go BACK to the cleaners tonight when the dress will supposedly arrive. Think they'll keep their promise this time?

4) This is the 100th blog post on Life's A Musical! Triple Digits baby... & Happy Halloween to all!

Embrace the Countdown to NOVEMBER!!

It's October 22nd... Which BASICALLY means it's November, which BASICALLY means that the GREATEST MONTH of the YEAR is upon us!

For many reasons, November will forever be ranked #1 out of 12 on my personal monthly ranking chart. (Last on my list would be May or September... they just don't do it for me)... And NOW: Here is a detailed list of all the glorious things that I'm looking forward to this November...

1) My 22nd Birthday (If you DON'T love birthdays, no matter WHAT your age, you must have been traumatized in some way. I pity you...)
2) My 22nd Birthday PARTAY! (It's gonna be OFF-the-CHAIN! The theme: ABC, Anything But Clothes... should be fun!)
3) Being the Birthday Princess ALL MONTH LONG! (To the slight distaste of others, I take this whole Birthday thing very seriously... ME, ME, ME!)
4) The release of Twilight's New Moon (If they use the phrase "Hold on tight, Spider Monkey!" in the sequel out November 20th, I will die a happy woman)
5) Brian returning from his business trip (He's sadly going to be away for my birthday. I'll miss him dearly, and can't wait till he gets home!)
6) Thanksgiving (Gobble, Gobble) (My mom tries to please everyone and make EVERYbody's favorite dishes... ERGO: the 4 of us will have enough food to feed a small army... leftovers :)
7) Classes ALMOST being over... THANK, GOD!
8) Seeing JERSEY BOYS (The renowned Broadway play is coming to DC... guess who has tickets!?)

Happy Almost November Everybody!

B is for Bethany... Bethany Beach, that is!

Have you ever gone to the beach during the off-season when it's raining, windy, and 40 degrees outside with a foggy gray overcast? WELL... be jealous, because I have! (AND I had quite a lovely time :)

Friday night after a sushi-licious dinner with his family, Brian and I hopped into his roommate's car... (We'll call him Patrick)... and drove up to spend the weekend in a luxury apartment at Bethany Beach! Patrick's girlfriend also came, so it was kind of a "couples" getaway. BUT: We didn't spend 100% of the time snuggling with our significant other, (maybe 73.7%), so it was definitely a "friends" weekend too!

We ate lunch at this one diner in Bethany called "The Penguin Diner." The entire place had a penguin theme and sold everything penguin you could possibly imagine... stuffed animals, books, shirts, posters, pens, socks, etc. I was psyched to experience my first taste of penguin! BUT: Alas, there was no penguin on the menu. So I settled for a tasty smoked-salmon wrap instead.


One of the apartment's walls, (the wall facing the ocean), was made entirely of glass and opened up onto a balcony with a great view of the shore! It kind of felt like I was living in a backwards fishbowl. Everything outside was floating in water, but I was the one in a glass tank... TRIPPY!

What fun things did you do this weekend? Any cool stories about PENGUINS!?... Share em here :)

The Great Surprise...

Brian told me earlier this week that he wanted to take me on a surprise date Saturday. Because I'm a very curious being, (ok... I'm kind of a snoop), Brian refused to give ANY hints as to where we were going. It was torture friends, pure torture...

WELL... He did tell me this: "bring running shoes, we should go for a run at my place beforehand"... All I thought was: "Sure, Brian, a run... whatever you say!" I figured he was trying to throw me off with this suggestion and was quite surprised Saturday morning when he asked if I was ready to hit the pavement... (The run was really fun though! I'm convinced he slowed down so I could keep up with him :)

After running, eating, showering and borrowing clean clothes from Brian, we drove away from the city to... ???! We drove in some direction, (I suck at maps), for a long time until there were no more buildings and stores, only trees and mountains. At this point, I still had no clue where he was taking me.

After about an hour of driving, I saw them on the side of the road... two signs for different vineyards at the next exit. OMG... were we going wine tasting!? How cute!!... and wrong...

The vineyard signs pointed left, but we drove right... Just then, we pulled into the gate of a cute little farm. There were a handful of cars around and I saw a few wooden houses and a mountain of pumpkins in the distance. Behind the houses, there was a never-ending orchard filled with apple trees. AAAAHHHH...Brian had taken me apple-picking!!


I hadn't gone apple-picking since 2nd grade, and I was long overdue for some seasonal merriment. We walked through the orchard picking only the prettiest apples, (and chucking the rejects at random trees to watch them explode!)... We bought a peck of apples and a beautiful pumpkin for carving later this month. On the way out, we ended up stopping at the winery to use their restroom and buy a bottle of white which is in the fridge, chilling-out until our next date...

It was a SOLID Saturday :)