Tales From The City!!!

Okay, I'm finally ready to blog about my trip to New York. Stefanie and I had an amazing time together and we pretty much covered all of Manhattan....in one day. I'll get to that later on during this post.

I was picked up at the airport on Wednesday by my contact at First Empire (remember this was partly a business trip) and Walter took me to a steakhouse called Boulder Creek. I think Boulder Creek might be chain restaurant similar to The Outback. Anyhow, Walter and I got along very well, which made it nice to have someone you can easily converse with. After dinner he took me back to the hotel where we sat at the bar and had a few drinks. While at the bar I quickly remembered that I can drink twice as much alcohol at sea level then I can here in the mountains. Wednesday night I didn't drink much, but later on I did....

I spent all day Thursday at First Empire learning some ALM techniques and learning about bonds. Walter took me to lunch at a Sushi restaurant that was very good. During our lunch break he was kind enough to drive me out to the barrier islands of Long Island. Oddly, we saw about 20 deer while we were on the islands. I see deer just about everyday but apparently Walter isn't use to seeing them so he was a little shocked. After the day was over I waited at the hotel for Walter to tie up some loose ends....actually I waited at the bar and began drinking. By the time Walter made it to the hotel I had already downed two rum and cokes (at record time I must add).

Dinner was spent at an Italian restaurant just a few blocks from the hotel called Mario's. This was a five star Italian restaurant and my first "real" Italian restaurant experience. Here we ate some yummy bread, seafood bisque, caeser salad, stuffed portobello mushrooms, lump crab with angel hair pasta, and tiramisu. Oh, did I mention we also drank wine??? I had four glasses of wine during this meal. Needless to say, I was feeling very good by the time we left, at which point we ran into the owner's wife of First Empire and Walter couldn't remember her name. After dinner we went back to the hotel and I downed yet two more rum and cokes.

The real fun began on Friday when Stefanie and I were able to meet at Penn Station. I spent most of the day relaxing in the hotel room to pass the time before catching a cab to the Brentwood Train Station. I was instructed to catch a train at Brentwood that would take me into Penn Station where I would meet up with Stef (who was coming in on Amtrak). This was the first time I have ever made that type of adventure on my own and I must say I was pretty proud of myself. It was a pretty uneventful trip, the cab driver was nice and I didn't have to deal with weird people on the train. Once I located Stef through the maze of people we decided to make our way to Times Square. Stef was really wanting to see Times Square at night so we could experience the lights. We wondered around Times Square for a few hours going in and out of some of the shops, when we eventually landed at Planet Hollywood for dinner.

Below are some pictures I took while at Times Square.

Okay, I had to take a picture of this weird guy on Times Square trying to make money...I couldn't resist.
After we had seen enough in Times Square we boarded the train again to go back to Long Island. Once we got into Brentwood Station we had another cab ride to our hotel. The was our first experience with "Mr. Child Molester" and his little hooker friend....notice I said first experience. For some reason the cab driver reminded me of someone you would see on a flyer with a missing child...so I nicknamed him "Mr. Child Molester".

Stefanie and I went to bed at 12:30am only to wake up at 2:30am on Saturday morning to begin our day in the city. Yes we only had two hours of sleep...we were actually calling it a mere nap rather than sleep. So, I think I'll leave all of you at this point and I'll explain tomorrow night why we got up so darn early and a few more tales of Mr. Child Molester.

It's A Boy!!!

Also while I was in New York I received word that our little Tundra entered this world on January 12th. Jim, Jimmy, and myself are all so excited that he has finally arrived. Tundra will come home to us on March 10th...which is the day after Jim and I return from Calgary. So, as I get pictures I'll be sure to pass them on. With that said, I have two photos to share with everyone...

I can't get over how tiny he is. In this picture Tundra has yet to even open his eyes..which by the way the mask around the eyes should fade and I don't think he's really as brown as he looks in the photo.

Tomorrow night I hope to make a post about my trip to New York. I'm guessing it will be a late post and I can guarantee it will be long, so stay tuned!

Final Painting Project

Okay, I have several things that I need to talk about but I don't want to bore everyone with one big post, so I'll break this down in three posts. So, I'll start by following up on our painting project that Jim and I have been working hard on (well mostly Jim).

Before I left for New York I decided to leave work early one day so that I could contribute to the room before leaving. I felt bad that Jim would be stuck doing the majority of the room on his own. Anyway, I was able to get the ceiling done, the entire closet, and Jim and I managed to get the room masked so that the walls could be painted.

It's hard to believe that on this wall there use to be some sizable holes and a light fixture. Jim did an awesome job at covering up the holes and sanding the wall.

Jim finished the room while I was gone and he said it was much harder than he anticipated but it turned out great...I really like it. Since Jim and I have slowly been painting the entire house we've also been replacing the outlets. I just couldn't see putting old dingy outlet covers on freshly painted walls. The new outlets covers give the room a nice fresh pristine look.

Here's another look at the same wall with all of the holes after it was painted. You can also see the new light switch that Jim installed.

And finally here's a look at the ceiling fan that Jim and Zech worked hard on to install. They had to crawl through the attic to get it installed and I think they would both agree that whomever designed our attic needs to be shot. It's the worst attic I've ever seen.

Jimmy's new bed should be arriving this weekend so when it comes in and we get it setup I'll take a few more photos.

Painting Day 1

Well Jim and I started working on Jimmy's bedroom today. We didn't get as much done as I would have liked but we did get quite a bit done. We at least got all of the holes filled in, sanded, and re-textured, plus a coat of primer was completed. The primer was Jim's idea since we are painting over original paint from 1972.

So I must tell all of you that one wall in this room was peach (yes ugly, nothing matches with peach) and the remaining walls were this greyish white. I didn't realize how bad it was until I got a good look at it. At which point I had to ask myself; why the hell didn't we paint this sooner. Anyhow, the room already looks better with just the coat of primer. I'm thinking about leaving work a little early tomorrow afternoon so I can at least paint the ceiling. It looks like Jim will be doing most of the work by himself while I'm in New York (I leave Wednesday) and I feel really bad that he's having to do this by himself. So me leaving work early is a small price to pay in order to help him out.

Here are a few pictures that I look today of our work.

In the following picture you can see three pink squares on the wall. These were actually holes created by the previous owners when they decided to put track lighting in the room (we have no idea what they were thinking). We hid those holes when we hung my metal coca-cola signs over them. Anyhow the pink was the spackling that we used...it was really cool because it would go on pink and it would turn white as it dried.

And here's Jim sanding those pink patches after they dried.

New Link!

I just got done adding a new link to the site. If you scroll down the page on the right hand side you'll find a link titled 'Margot's Travels'. My sister Stefanie introduced me to this cool link for http://www.travbuddy.com/ and all of the areas that are shaded in green are countries/states that I've traveled to. I thought it was really cute, so I decided to add it to the site. I'll try to figure out a way later to update it as I travel to new destinations. According to the map, I've traveled only 5% of the world. If you would like to view the map in a larger form all you need to do is just click on the little plus symbol and it will get larger. You can also hold down your mouse and drag across it...pretty cool!

Anyway, Jim and I are about to start a rather busy weekend. We'll be going to Albuquerque tomorrow afternoon and spending the night down there celebrating a friends birthday. It will be a fun couples weekend for the four of us complete with dinner at Black Angus (yummy!) and of course a little drinking...and maybe some hot tubbing. We hope to come back early on Sunday so we can get a move on painting Jimmy's new bedroom. However, I highly doubt we'll get it complete on Sunday since I'm not sure how many coats of paint it may take, not to mention, we have some holes to cover up from the previous owners. While I'm looking forward to the end result of this project...I'm not looking forward to actually doing it. I'll start taking pictures on Sunday of progress, so keep your eyes out.

Let The Maddness Begin

Well work has begun on Jimmy's new bedroom. In case you didn't know Jimmy will be swapping rooms with the office. The office is much bigger then his current bedroom and this is a move that Jim has been wanting to do for awhile now. So, him and Zech have been busy in the attic trying to install a ceiling fan. I was really wanting Jimmy to have a ceiling fan in his room since we have no air conditioner and I don't want the poor kid to roast. Once we get the fan installed then the room is free for Jim and I to paint.

A few months back Jim and I decided to invest in a new bed for Jimmy. He's been using my Mother's old bed since he's been with us and I felt the need to get him his own bed. A furniture store in Albuquerque was running a good sale so I decided to jump on it. We got him a queen size bed with drawers underneath (similar to a water bed). The drawers underneath serve two purposes; 1) we don't need to also get him a dresser to put his cloths in, saving us room; and 2) we don't have to worry about him putting junk under his bed.

Jimmy's bed is scheduled to be delivered January 26th so we really don't have a lot of time. Next weekend is going to be a busy weekend and it looks like we will only have Sunday to work on his room. The following weekend I'll be in New York and the bed will be delivered the weekend after that. At this point I think we may end up working in his room during the week. The room is only about half packed and I think the painting may take us two days. Jim may also end up working by himself while I'm in New York, in which case I'll feel very bad if he ends up painting by himself.

So that's our project for the next few weeks. I'll take pictures as the project progress's...at this point the room is just a disaster so no need to take pictures of clutter.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year All!!!

Well, to ring in the new year I decided to change the look of my site. I pretty much decided new year, new start, new look...so you'll have to let me know what you think. In reality though, I was getting bored with the old site and was really wanting to make a change. For the last several months I had been researching blog templates and I came across a site called http://www.templatesflow.com/ that had some awesome templates...I was really excited! However, my excitement was shot down when I was told templatesflow wasn't compatible with blogger...bummer. Anyhow, in the meantime I changed to this template already provided by blogger. Please let me know what you think...it's kind of manly for me though.

Anyhow, happy new year to each of you! Jim and I are really looking forward to 2008 and we're very excited to put 2007 in the rear view mirror. In a nutshell 2007 was a pretty tough year for the two of us on a personal basis and we're happy to move on.

I made no New Year's resolutions this year, although I'm going to work hard on a new diet that is suppose to be beneficial with women suffering from endometriosis. Speaking of endometriosis, I'm not sure if I ever updated everyone on the mysterious pain on my right side that has been plaguing me for the last year...

I had exploratory surgery on November 27th to remove scar tissue buildup as a result of my appendix being removed in 2005. Well, they didn't find any scar tissue buildup but they did find endometriosis. I was shocked! Well I was sort of shocked, deep down I had always thought I had endometriosis as I knew I displayed all of the classic symptoms. However, on two other occasions I had surgery to look for endometriosis but nothing was ever found...leaving all of us baffled. The last look was when I had my appendix removed and the local OBGYN sat in on the surgery to look for endometriosis. Oh, did I mention each time I had this surgery it was done by the same doctor? This kind of made me wonder about her competence as a surgeon to miss endometriosis not once, but twice. I should mention that the surgery done on November 27th was preformed by a new OBGYN (Dr. Van Eeckhout) that Dr. Thompson (my infertility doc fro those of you that have forgotten) had referred me to. Needless to say, I have a lot respect for Dr. Van Eeckhout since she decided to take a chance on me and look hard for the source of my pain.

So, when the endometriosis was found a little birdy had told me that there is a rather strong link between endometriosis and blood sugar levels. I was also told that you can control and become symptom free by making drastic changes to your diet. Unfortunately, this means I must exclude the following from my diet:

1) Wheat - this includes breads, cakes and pasta products, all based on wheat refined and concentrated carbohydrates
2) Sugar, in whatever form, including honey
3) Alcohol
4) Caffeine which is found in tea, coffee, soft drinks and chocolate
5) Dairy produce including all milk and cheese
6) Fried food, margarine and hydrogenated fats
7) Soy products and soy protein - tamari can be used in small amounts
8) Tinned and frozen packaged foods as little as possible
9) Additives and preservatives

Sounds scary doesn't it? Especially considering how much of a sweet tooth I have and how much chocolate is my best friend. I just can't imagine a life without chocolate. Anyhow, I came across a cookbook on the web containing recipes that I can have, so I'm patiently waiting for that cookbook to come in. I'm kind of curious to see what the effects will be. However, I'm really going to miss cooking the foods I dearly love. I'll keep y'all updated on the progress of the diet once I begin...give me a week or so.

So back to the new year. Jim and I have some exciting travel plans coming up in 2008. I'll be going to Long Island January 16th to visit the credit unions brokerage firm that we use for federal security investments. Stefanie will be taking the train up to Long Island on the 18th, so we'll have a few days in the city just the two of us. I think I was ten the last time I spent any time in New York and I hardly remember it, so I'm pretty excited.

For Valentine's Day Jim and I will be going to Ruidoso for the weekend. Last summer I was playing golf and I managed to win a free nights stay at The Inn Of The Mountain Gods which I decided to redeem for a romantic Valentine's Day getaway. Two year ago (or at least I think it was two years ago) The Inn Of The Mountain Gods was remodeled and it's absolutely beautiful now! The entrance is nothing but breathtaking and the entire place is ahh-inspiring.

In March Jim and I will be spending time in Banff (see previous post) and finally in July Jim, Jimmy, and I will be heading back to Canada to place his father in his final resting place. While I'm sure this trip will be a somber one for Jim, I'm pretty excited since we decided to make this trip during my birthday (which also happens to be Canada Day), and our wedding anniversary.

Wow, what a busy year we have ahead of us. I'll try my best to keep everyone updated with our lives and I'll keep trying to post some photos of our travels. I would really like to get a recent picture of the three of us, so once I get that I'll be sure to share.

May God bless all of you in the new year!

With lots of love,
The LibertyHerd