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For lunch we went to a restaurant at the mall, and then we killed time/burned calories by walking around afterward. I happened into the Gap, where I tried on a pair of their Real Straight 1969 jeans (I’ve wanted something other than bootcut for a while), and some of the Perfect Trousers from their new Premium Pants collection. Both fit well, but I left them in the dressing room because I refused to pay full price for them and figured I’d come back when they had a sale or something. Well guess what – they were on sale for Labor Day! Like, half off! So I went back, got them, and now have new pants.

Buying new clothes on holiday weekends kind of makes it more bearable to go back to work afterward… And now I’m really excited for it to get cool enough to realistically wear boots again!

Sunday night through Wednesday night I was on yet another business trip in New England. For a trip that went so well, a lot of little things went wrong (or were just inconveniences). For example, my train ticket was just “reserved” and hadn’t actually been purchased, and even though I’d been told I could use the electronic kiosk to finish the transaction, I apparently couldn’t. So I had to go wait in line and get tickets from a human. And then the train was packed! I didn’t realize Sunday nights were so popular! And I was stuck sitting near this mom with two little kids who wouldn’t shut up.

Every time I go up there it’s pretty interesting. Driving to work at home is so boring – it’s mostly highway, and then you get off the highway and there’s the office. Up there, the office (both offices where I was, actually) is sort of in the middle of town, and you get to drive through cute historic neighborhoods and stuff. Now, I imagine the traffic of thousands of people driving through little neighborhoods is not great, but the place is adorable. Also, they have awesome views out their office windows – even the cubicles!

I was actually at the office where the other half of my department is located on Monday, and it was nice to meet with people in person, meet co-workers I hadn’t met yet, and just be “present.” I went out to dinner on Monday with a member of my new group and another co-worker from PA who came up that night. Then on Tuesday and Wednesday my PA co-worker and I were at another office a few miles away for a two-day class. The class was interesting, but sort of left us depressed – it was about a methodology for implementing successful changes, but in the positions we’re in, we’d never have the authority to do the types of things they prescribe (e.g. assembling a team of the right people – since when do we get to put together our own teams?!).

The train ride home was nice, and it goes much faster when you’re not traveling by yourself – my co-worker came back home with me. For the first time I’ve ever experienced, our Amtrak train arrived at it’s destination on time! So I got home around 10:30 on Wednesday night.

Thursday I worked from home, cleaned, did laundry, and caught up on stuff around the house. Friday I went to my office for the first time all week. We went out to lunch to a new restaurant called Zoup!, which specializes in soup – they have 100 different types, 12 per day. They also have salads and sandwiches. My meal was okay, but I don’t think this place will make it on my list of top favorite restaurants. They’re also opening an Elevation Burger in the same shopping center, I’m excited to try that when it’s open! Friday night I called my mom to see if she wanted to get dinner, and she’d already eaten, but she told me she was meeting my brother and his friend to buy him a new computer (an early Christmas present, since his laptop just melted!), so I met up with them and then we had dinner after that. His friend was a vegetarian who wanted to go back to eating meat, so we went out for burgers!

On Saturday, GG and I had a nice day together. We went to the Farmers’ Market in the morning, where we ran into some friends and stocked up on fruits and veggies for the week (there was pretty much no food in the house since I’d been gone for most of the week). We spent the afternoon relaxing on the couch, then went out for dinner and to see Dinner for Schmucks. The movie was cute! Pretty funny throughout, and generally better than I’d expected. The cast was great! Loved Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Zach Galifianakis, Ron Livingston, Kristen Schaal, Nick Kroll, Jemaine Clement…

Today we went to GG’s friend’s mom’s house for a Labor Day party. It was catered! It was actually mostly their family and a few of their other mutual friends. It was fun! The main attraction was that they rented a PA system for GG to entertain everyone with stand-up comedy. I don’t think he’s ever done more than a 10-minute set, but today he went through every joke he had and did at least half an hour. I recorded him. 90% of his jokes are really offensive – the other 10% are stupid puns :o) But they actually wanted him to blast the offensive humor over the PA because their neighbors play loud music all the time.

Not sure what I’ll be doing on actual Labor Day, but it’s nice to have a bonus day off before another busy week! (The fun of being in two departments now – careful what you wish for when you wish for a job, I guess!)

I’m still pretty stuffed from dinner last night. My mom and I took my grandmother out for her birthday. She’d wanted to go to Red Lobster and I was like, “Seriously Grandmom? You’re not paying, you’re not driving, we can drop you off at the door so you don’t even have to worry about how far it is from the parking lot – and you pick Red Lobster?” So we came up with a list of nice places to go, and she ended up choosing Marly’s. I was worried she and my mom wouldn’t like it, but actually everyone loved their dinners! And we ended up eating a lot – plus dessert! I had the hanger steak with corn and edamame risotto that I got when GG and I were there for Valentine’s Day – and I need to figure out how to make that risotto! It was so much more flavorful and creamy than when I do it at home! Afterward we walked down the block to a little gift shop, then we drove home through the park and saw tons of deer – including little babies!

Also, I ordered a purse online from Shop Suey yesterday. It was a little more than I usually spend on purses (still cheap, since most of mine come from Ross or Target!), but I justified it by figuring that if I sell 2-3 Waldo hats this season, I’ve covered the cost! (And speaking of purses, for her birthday, my mom got my grandmother this beautiful red Brighton tote. Not my style, but perfect for Gramom! And the cutest part was that she kept talking about how much her cousin would like it the next time she went to visit her – haha!)

There is a place in Chicago called Bin 36 where they will just feed you cheese, like a wine tasting but of cheeses, and oh my gosh, I want to go someplace like this! Anyone know if there is anywhere in the Philly area that does anything like this? I know we have Di Bruno Brothers, but I feel bad going there, or to any cheese shop, just to taste test various cheeses. Yes, that’s what they’re there for, and I’m sure they’re happy to help people find just the right cheese, but I feel like I’m taking too much of their time or something.

…And as I write this I’m snacking on a bit of Manchego I picked up on my last supermarket trip. Mmm, salty Spanish sheep’s milk cheese…

On Saturday, GG went to work some overtime for the day while I cleaned the house and got ready for our party that night. The house was looking good, and even though we’d gone food shopping at Costco and I picked up more stuff at the supermarket that day, I was still worried we wouldn’t have enough food to serve everyone. Due to some people’s flakiness, and the casualness of Facebook RSVPs, we weren’t really sure exactly how many people would show up. Only a few people actually came at the start time (which was fine, it’s not like we had special activities planned, and I’d told people to just show up whenever). But then all of a sudden, everyone showed up! It was crazy! Suddenly the house was packed (and hot). GG and a couple friends had to go on a beer run (luckily we’re walking distance from the distributor!), and I ended up cooking three or four batches of hot hors d’oeuvres. We had a really good mix of people, and it was cool to get various facets of our friends together – one of my favorite parts about having a party! We have some of the coolest friends. Some of the conversations that were going on were just awesome. I wish we could see a lot of them more often! Anyway, GG got really drunk and everyone ended up leaving by around 11, and then I cleaned up and finally collapsed in bed by midnight.

I didn’t have any big plans for today, and didn’t have many chores to do, considering everything was pretty much cleaned up for the party, and we ended up with enough leftover food that I didn’t need to go food shopping. So I did some things around the house that I’d been putting off, and did eventually go out to the supermarket because we do need our regular staples for the week. And I had a much-needed nap.

L’Oreal Go 360° Clean Deep Facial Cleanser: I’d seen these around, and was intrigued by the “scrublet,” because I’m always looking for ways to scrub and exfoliate. So the last time we were at Target, I picked the green one, which is just the basic cleanser. It smells nice. It cleans fine, doesn’t leave any film or anything. But the scrublet is disappointing. It’s not scrubby at all, it’s very soft. I’d get a better scrub by just using a regular washcloth. Oh well, it’s a good gimmick, anyway.

Alba Botanicals Coconut Cream Lip Balm: This came bundled with the first Alba sunscreen I bought, and as much as I loved the sunscreen, I am not a fan of the lip balm. It’s kind of thick, it doesn’t go on nicely. And it barely lasts a minute. I guess the only thing I like about it is that it twists up from the top of the tube instead of the bottom…

Avon Vibes Cleanser: This is a new product that isn’t out yet, so no link or picture. It’s very similar to the Neutrogena Wave – a vibrating battery-operated device that you use to wash your face with pre-soaped pads. I haven’t used the Neutrogena one, though. So, the pad attaches to a velcro-like surface on the device. Then you run it under water, and go to town on your face. I guess I thought it’d be scrubbier than it was, or shake the dirt out of my pores or something. It doesn’t really vibrate that hard, really just hard enough to be annoying. And I wish it had a timer or shut off automatically when you’re supposed to be finished, because the first time I tried it I just kept going around and around my face, wondering when I was supposed to stop. Also, it’s just a flat round surface, so it doesn’t really conform to a lot of the contours of your face. I ended up with two containers of the pads, but I don’t think I’ll be buying anymore when I run out.

Mark Relief Effort Total Comfort Body Creme: This lotion smells delicious, I’ll give it that. And I like that it’s made with fair trade ingredients. But shortly after you apply it, it starts kind of peeling off your skin, rolling up like eraser dust. It’s a little gross. It’s nice while it stays on, though!

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Alsoooo, we got some really good money news today. Not, like, crazy good, but reassurance that we’re on the right life-path and that we’re realistic. True blog fans might be able to guess what I’m talking about. It has to do with the V.E.T.

And finally, I got fed up with all the spam comments again and installed a new CAPTCHA plugin. I tested it out and it seems good – hopefully it’s a little more user friendly than the last one, even; I know some people had problems with that one anyway. Let me know if you have any issues.

We had a fun day yesterday. GG’s birthday isn’t for a few more days, but we decided to celebrate on Saturday. We already had plans to go out to dinner, but then I heard about an event that was happening in the city that I thought he’d enjoy, so I just told him not to make any other daytime plans because we were taking the train into Philadelphia for a surprise activity. All week, his friends kept mentioning things to him that were happening downtown this weekend, and he kept asking me if these were the things we were doing. No, and not only that, those things sounded way cooler and I didn’t want him to be disappointed! Luckily, he did enjoy where we went, and said he would have liked going there even if there hadn’t been any special event going on.

Oh, but before we left, I have him the “present” part of his birthday present: a bottle of cologne (which I got a while ago but it’s sort of pointless now since he’s been making his own cologne, but he still liked it), and a new wedding band (which he thought he’d be getting next year on our 5th anniversary but I wanted to surprise him and give it to him early, and good thing too, because his old one fell apart days after I’d ordered this one).

So where did we go? The Reading Terminal Market, aka GG’s heaven on earth. There was an Amish Festival going on all week, culminating on Saturday with some outdoor events. I’d heard it advertised on the radio a million times. Well, the outdoor things turned out to be kind of lame – they had part of a street closed off, and they had a few pens with very frightened farm animals in them (cows, mini horses, goats, sheep, and a pig), and were giving wagon rides around the block (they had two regular horses pulling a big wagon, and two mini horses pulling a little wagon!). So it was mostly stuff for kids. We went inside and just started walking up and down all the aisles of the market, thinking about what we’d like to have for lunch. But first we had to stop and eat these fantastic cookies. Then we continued through the market and discovered the real Amish festival, which was that the whole center section of the market had been taken over by Amish crafts and foods! So for lunch GG got this huge crazy sausage sandwich and I got a Mediterranean wrap because I don’t eat sausages. We finished walking the rest of the market, then came back for homemade ice cream for dessert. We didn’t want to eat too much because we knew we had a nice dinner planned, but it’s hard to say no in a place like that!

We realized we’d just missed the next train home, so we killed an hour walking around the Gallery, which in the olden days was apparently the place to go shopping (my grandmother’s always telling me about how they’d go downtown there when they were really looking for something special), but is now mostly sneaker stores and a big KMart. Then we made our way to our train platform and… it was delayed. And delayed some more. Actually it ended up only being about 15-20 minutes late, but we’d still gotten there early, so we were sitting for a while and got very sleepy. When we got home, we got cleaned up and then took a nap! Then got dressed and went out to dinner.

We went to Seasons 52, which has been open here for a while now, but this was the first time we were able to go. I’d made a reservation – good thing, because the place was packed! Everything sounded delicious, so it was hard to choose what we wanted. GG ended up going with a chipotle shrimp appetizer, and I had a goat cheese ravioli (it was just one big ravioli – very good though!). His shrimp came with some guacamole on the side and he hates guac, but I tried a bite and told him he’d probably like it because it was really heavy on the lime and cilantro. He ate the whole little pile, just by itself! Then he had their swordfish special, and I had a delicious fillet with the most amazing roasted garlic mashed potatoes… Mmm, I’m going to try to recreate those sometime. The desserts at Seasons 52 come in these little glasses (a little taller than shot glasses?), so you can try more than one. So we each picked two: he chose pecan pie and mocha macchiato, and I had raspberry canoli and blueberry cheesecake (my favorite!)

You can see all the pictures from GG’s birthday activities on Flickr.

This morning we got up early and went to meet GG’s bagel friend, because he’s helping out with a catering delivery tomorrow, so we were invited for breakfast while GG learned what he’ll have to do. After breakfast, we came home and I just wanted to lie down for like an hour because I was still so sleepy, but somehow I fell asleep until noon! Then I went out to do food shopping, and now somehow I’ve wasted three hours at the computer when I still need to clean the house..!