Cafes and Coffee Shops

I just wanted to share something that makes my day. I love all the little cafes and coffee shops in NYC. I walked to a new one on Tuesday that is 2 blocks from where I nanny called The Outpost. I have to tell you it has the best coffees and food. There are not many places that can beat Starbucks Soy Mocha Latte, but on Tuesday at The Outpost I had a latte with dark chocolate and melted marshmallow. It was so delicious so I went back the next two days for another. I also had lunch there one day and it gave me a new idea for a twist on chili that I wanted to share. It was veggie chili with noodles and goat cheese on top. The goat cheese was so creamy and a wonderful twist to just regular cheese. So next time you cook up a big pot of chili put goat cheese on top and I promise you will love it. With all the cold weather hot coffees and chili always makes for a cozy meal. Hope everyone is staying warm.

Happy Birthday Y'all

One think I miss most about home is going out and celebrating all of our friends' Birthdays. This week three of our best friends are now one year wiser. Our friends are so amazing and so much fun to hang out with.  Whitney's and Matt's birthday are only two days apart so they usually have a "Birthday Bonanza." I would post pictures from the past two years but it seems I always forget my camera at this event. We wish we could be there to celebrate. Happy Birthday to...

BRIAN

MATT

WHITNEY

VOTE!

Thank goodness it is finely here. I got a lot of ugly looks today as I sported my McCain/Palin button. When I left my apartment this morning at 7:00am there was a line that wraped around my entire block and I could not see the end of it. I wanted to show you my cute shirt that I made at the Gap. They have shirts there that say "Vote For _______________." and you fill in the blank with whatever you want. At the Gap on 5th Ave. they had voter booths set up as shirt decorating stations and there were all kinds of materials to embellish your tee. I think it was a great idea on Gap's part. They made a hip, artistic experience for the young voters to get them excited about voting and made money at the same time. Got to love marketing. Mine says Vote for True Love.  I also made one and sent it to Megan. If you watched Oprah today her entire audience was wearing shirts that they made also.

New York City Marathon

Sunday was the New York City Marathon. I got to go with the children I was watching and it was so much fun. We got there just in time to see the first place woman and man running at the one mile to go marker. It was so awesome to be so close right there. The music was pumping and there were so many people there cheering on the runners. I wish I would have had my camera because it was such a beautiful day.

Brian really wants to run it so he is going to start applying now because if you apply three years in a row and don't get in then you automatically get in the next year. He applied one year before in college with Jon Lloyd but neither of them made it in. Jon did eventually run it two years ago but Brian still wants to. He also wants me to join him and I reminded him of how I tried to train for the mini marathon in Louisville and I only made it to the 6 or 7 mile point before I quit. I don't think I could add 20 more miles on top of that. But he insists I could, so maybe I will train with him to start and try to do a mini again. To be nice Brian did say if I run it he will run at my pace so we can cross the finish line together. All he wants to do is finish and then after we can get massages and pedicures. I always tell him how wonderful pedicures are but he will never go with me.

I do remember the first ever race I did was a 5K. I ran with Nikki Durst for Jennie Burke's mom for the brest cancer cure. It was an amazing feeling when we finished and I would encourage anyone to run a race sometime in their life no matter what the distance is because it really is a spirit lifter. Congratualations to all you runners out there who finished the marathon.

Happy Belated Halloween!

Halloween was not too much different in the city than it was at home. In our building if you put an orange door hanger on the handle then that ment you were passing out candy. I bought 3 good sized bags of candy and started passing out around 5:45 pm. By 7:00pm I was completely out of candy, well except for the 10 or so pieces I kept for myself. I did not expect to have so many trick-or-treaters. But the timing worked out well because Elaina, Sylvia, and their new roomate Megan came over and we took Elaina out. She was dressed as Princess Bell. Elaina is very shy around strangers and she would not say trick-or-treat eventhough she practice for 30 minutes beforehand. She did say thank you everytime so maybe next year we will get the first part down. We went one block over to 87th street. They had the street closed off and all the brownstones were decked out with decorations. One even had a very spooky haunted house. It `was kind of like a block party and we had a lot of fun. Brian was working in the ER untill midnight so I thought he would have some great stories for me but all he got was one plastic sword through someones eye. Brian said the crazy stuff probably would come in around 2 or 3 am. I normally dress up but I didn't have a huge closet of stuff you only use on Halloween to chose from this year so I found this shirt for $5.00 at Target and at least I felt festive. Hope everyone had fun trick-or-treating.