Things I Am Loving

- $1 socks at Target.  Valentine socks make everything better.

- How much Mr. Snoop is loving his ENT rotation, even after only one day.

- Today is the last day of January.  Alleluia!  Good riddance, you wretched wretched month.

- This, from pinterest.  Is there a better combination than lemon and blueberry?  I think not.  Now I just have to get around to making it...

Pinterest

- $9 manicures.  Got to love that about New York.  You heard me.  Best. Therapy.  Ever. 

- My cousin and his wife had their first baby this past friday.  Baby Jack!  I can't wait to gobble him up.

- Shake Shack in the city.  Mr. Snoop and I tried it out Saturday.  Delicious.  You should go.

- The two geraniums in my office are exploding with flowers.  It rocks.

- Our vet came to see the boys for their annual appointment yesterday (yes, he comes to our house.  yes, it is so worth it).  Woo was most displeased and hissed at him.  I'm loving that Shammy Boy came to his rescue. 

Happy Last Day of January, everyone!  If it were up to me it would be a national holiday.

Downton Abbey Bandwagon

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That's right... Mr. Snoop and I have jumped aboard the Downton Abbey train.  I'm obsessed.  Mr. Snoop likes it just fine.  Last week I had a truly nasty cold for a good 3-4 days.  I'm usually a one good hard sick day kind of gal, so it was miserable and drawn out.  The only benefit was that we discovered Downton Abbey.  After being told to watch it a billion times by my mom and coworker, we dove in.  I loooooooooove it!  The intrigue, the dresses, the accents, the scenery, the snobbery, the dresses again.... love love love.

So obviously, you should watch it, if you don't already. 

If you are a Downton fan, you have to take the "Which Character Are You?" quiz, here.  As if you had to even ask, I got the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Violet Crawley. 

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Do you watch Downton?  Did you take the quiz?  If so, who are you?

Brain Dump

My brain is not functioning well enough to write a coherent post (let's be honest.. I'm never all that coherent anyway), so I'll do bullet points today.

- Mr. Snoop is in his 4th week of his surgery rotation.  This means he has 4 more weeks to go.  As expected, surgery has been by far is favorite.  He's rotated through vascular surgery and is currently in pediatric surgery.  Next week he begins ENT and after that it will be trauma.

- The 6am to 6pm surgery hours are wearing both of us out.  Not that I mind being in bed by 9pm.  Totally my style.  Sometimes it feels like all we do is work, eat dinner, and sleep.

- The hospital where Mr. Snoop does his rotations recently laid off a ton of nurses.  And will be laying off many more.  Makes for an interesting environment, to say the least.

- Our friends' three year old loves to borrow my cell phone.  And I love finding pictures like this one:

- I've been daydreaming about our trip to the Dallas Arboretum last March.  Mr. Snoop and I met my family in Fort Worth for a wedding and I dragged us all the Dallas Arboretum for Dallas Blooms.  It was awesome.  Such a welcome, sunny, beautiful relief from New York winter.  That trip was so good for the soul.  I can't stop thinking about it.

But really.. Can you blame me?

Gorgeous.  Le sigh. 

If you're ever in the DFW area March 3 - April 8 you just have to go.  Here's their website.

-  It's really hard to believe Mr. Snoop will be graduating in 18 months.  What?

-  I'm excited for the SuperBowl because every year we are generously invited to a really fun party.  Who doesn't love that?  Now I need to plan what to make...

- I think that's it.  Thanks for reading :)

 

Surviving Winter: Part 4

I don't know about y'all, but winter in the Great White North really dries out my skin.  Thank God for heaters, but they really dry out the air and thus everything else.  Here's what I've discovered to remedy the dry:
1.  Lotion.  Lots of it.  The last thing I want to do when I come out of a warm shower is put on lotion, but I force myself, otherwise I pay for it later.  By clawing off my horribly itchy skin.  This is my current favorite, which I found at Nordstrom Rack for about $70 off the purchase price:

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2.  Lip Stuff.  Lots of it.  I've learned to never let my lips go without a product of some sort or they turn into a flaky, bloody, mess.  Here's my go-to fave:

I buy it at sephora

3.  Humidifier.  Last and least fun but not least important, Mr. Snoop and I keep a humidifier in our bedroom and run it all night.  Aimed at my face.  Literally.  Here's the one we have, which we got on great sale at Bed Bath and Beyond one spring:

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So those are my go-tos for avoiding dry skin in the winter.  What products do you love?

Surviving Winter: Part ?

Well... the dark days of January--my least favorite month--have descended.  Time for me to hibernate.  While daydreaming about plants that are green and spending time outside, here's what's keeping me warm:

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Plus

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=

Winter is not so bad after all.

  Thanks, hot chocolate with bailey's. 

My 2 Cents on Blue Ivy

... Because I know y'all care, right?

I'm sure you've all heard about the number of compaints surrounding parents of babies in the NICU who were denied access to their children due to the second coming the birth of Blue Ivy, Beyonce and Jay-Z's daughter.  Yes, that's really what they named her.  More on that in a moment.

Lenox Hill has apparently investigated the complaints and found that everything was a-ok (I bet).  Here is the article I read in the NY Times about those complaints.

My thoughts:

1.  Blue Ivy is a horrible name.  Ivy Blue?  Better.  At least Ivy is a somewhat acceptable first name.  As for Blue, all I can think of is Old School:

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You're my boy, Blue!

2.  Dear B and Jay-Z,

A nice hefty donation to The March of Dimes would be more than appropriate right about now.   Y'all are gajilionares.  You can afford it. 

Take it under advisement,

Snoop

Austin Vacay

Mr. Snoop and I headed down to Austin to visit my family and get a big dose of vitamin d.  It was marvelous.  What made it even better was that Keely and her husband J came down to hang out with us and see Austin.  It was such a great trip.  I also got to hang out with my longtime friend C and his new boyfriend in their new home.  There is just nothing better than seeing your friends happy. 

Mr. Snoop and my brother took a guy's hunting trip with my dad and grandfather.  They didn't come home with anything.  I wonder why....

Mr. Snoop foreground, Chris behind him.  I'm so glad that they are wearing the monogrammed krokies I got them for their birthdays.

While the boys were doing man things, there was plenty of girl time to be had.  I hung out a lot here...

And I spent plenty of time annoying/yodeling my girl Wink....

Her name is Wink because she only has one eye.  It's a long and sad story involving rogue chickens on the streets of Austin.  She blends really well with the leaves, right?

Once Keely and J were in town, we went with SK to the Hayden Bowers Classic, which was wonderful and hugely well-attended.  While there, we may or may not have told our pastor that we were going to the bar.  CAR,  I mean, CAR!  Here's the poster everyone signed...

Taken from here

We also made a group trip to see the Zilker Tree, which Mr. Snoop has never seen and I haven't been to since middle or high school.

All in all it was a great and much-needed trip.  It was wonderful to see family and friends and get a booster of Vitamin D! 

Nerd Alert at the Cloisters

Looking out over the Hudson toward New Jersey.

The day after Christmas, Mr. Snoop, his family, and I all went into the city and visited The Cloisters. Definitely a place to see if you get a chance.  The Cloisters are at the very northern tip of Manhattan.  It is hard to believe you are in the city up there, as you can see in the above pic. 

The Cloisters house all sorts of Medieval art and scultpure, nearly all of which is religious.  Which of course I loved.  They also have a great audio tour if that's your thing.  Which is totally my thing, since I am a judgemental b*tch and most tour guides annoy the crap out of me.  And people in tour groups also annoy me.  Hateful, I know.  So the audio guide is my best friend.

Here are some of the (many) things I took pictures of..

Beautiful crucifix with Mary and child in the background.  I loved this.  The crucifix is really old.  Don't ask how old because I don't do numbers.  Just take my word for it.

Mary and child on a baptismal

I loved this guy.  I think he was a clown or acrobat of some sort.. with his head between his feet!

The Magi.  These are near life-size.

One of my faves.  St. Ann resting with baby Mary.

A tip if you go: There is lots more to see than I was anticipating, so give yourself plenty of time.  And maybe bring snacks.  N was rationing individual skittles to me so that my blood sugar didn't plummet.



Christmas in New York

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!  It was a great holiday for us.  We got to visit with our neighbors and friends down the street quite a bit, which we always love.  Mr Snoop and I stayed in New York and had our first family Christmas in our home.  We celebrated with Mr. Snoop's parents, one of his sisters, and her boyfriend.  Several photographic highlights:

Mr. Snoop trying out this special hat/mask my parents brought back for him from Ecuador.  It was a huge hit with our neighbor's little girl.

M and N torment Shammy Boy.  It's what aunts and uncles are for.  Doesn't he look dashing (and thrilled to be) in houndstooth? 

This year, I was in charge of dinner, which was lots of fun but certainly tiring.  Mr. Snoop made beef wellington with the help of M and N.  For my part, these guys really came through for me on Christmas day:



Thank you, Junior League of Austin, for your marvelous cookbooks!

Last but not least, I got to break out my Christmas china for the first time!  A dear friend of the family has gifted my sister and I with a piece of Christmas china every Christmas.  We now have nearly full sets.  So here is our Christmas table.. simple but still pretty, I think.  The geraniums are from the plant at my work.

....and in case you were wondering, we did find tamales for Christmas Eve.  Delicious ones, I might add.

More on our Christmas vacation later this week!