30 x 30 List

We're a little late for a New Year's resolutions post, but who here is surprised? Both of our birthdays fall right around the New Year, and it seems that we are both rapidly approaching the mature age of 30 in the coming year. With that, I give you our joint list of 30 by 30 goals/our resolutions for 2012.

1. Go on a vacation
2. Try 50 new recipes (count as of 5/6: 19)
3. Go to the gym 100 times each
4. Move to a new apartment
5. Finally get all our name change documents in order
6. Get a trophy in each cup on Mario Kart
7. Read 30 books each (count as of 5/6: 7 for Carrie and 12 for Becky)
8. Write a new blog post at least once/week (Ummm....)
9. Go to Delaware
10. Scrapbook our wedding
11. Make a honeymoon photo book
12. Go camping
13. Learn/Improve Spanish
14. Learn to can something
15. Go to the Coney Island Mermaid Parade in costume
16. See the rest of the American Museum of Natural History (overachievers--we're MEMBERS now!)
17. Go to a concert
18. Donate more to charity
19. Volunteer
20. Get our pixy advent calendar all set up before December 1
21. Read at least two journal articles or book chapters/month for professional development
22. Incorporate a new gym activity into exercise routine
23. Have one computer-free evening/week
24. Host a party
25. Buy more local produce
26. Clean out and donate some of our old stuff (still more to go though)
27. Use our Netflix subscription
28. Redacted
29. Redacted
30. Redacted

For the record, the redacted items are probably not nearly as interesting as you're imagining; they're just things we didn't want to share with the entire internet.

2011

2011, And the Next Day style, for posterity.  
And also to catch you up on the last 6 months of non-blogging.  


January

Yay Becky Day to kick the year off right.

There was a snow day, and we finally finally finally went to Coney Island in the snow!

We continued a NYC restaurant week tradition.  Yum, undercooked steak.

February
We celebrated Valentine's Day at home, planning our honeymoon.  It may have been the only computer-free evening of the year.

Becky got her festive on with a green-and-yellow themed Superbowl party.  There was a ratio of approximately 15 food dishes per guest, but in fairness there was only one guest.

We celebrated the anniversary that is not our anniversary anymore with delicious BBQ.

We went to Massachusetts to visit the family.

March
We bought honeymoon plane tickets!

We played NYC tourists.  Yay spring!

We visited the nephews for 2nd birthday festivities, and also one other time for some reason I can't even identify.

April
We celebrated Easter in Massachusetts with my family (including my parents who flew in).

On a silly weekend jaunt we visited the borough where I now work, for the first time ever.

We enjoyed spring, and rented a tandem bike in Central Park.

I started my first group at work - a successful 12-week parenting group, which had the side effect of preventing a week of vacation.

May
I had surgery to have my gallbladder removed.

We traveled to Wisconsin to celebrate the end of Becky's dad's time in a position at his church.

Becky's job got reclassified, in a small but positive acknowledgement that her job entailed a whole lot more than her job description let on.

We did a lot of contemplating our life goals and priorities.

My sister and our nephews came to visit us for a fun train adventure weekend.  We enjoyed the weekend, but the train trauma may last a while for the three of them.

We spent a weekend at a bed and breakfast we adore on the Jersey Shore.

June

Jen and the nephews came again, this time sans train trauma!  We were the crazies at the beach.

At the end of June we departed for our Greek honeymoon!

July
We continued to enjoy Greece (including complete non-acknowledgement of the 4th of July), said a few days of hello to our old favorite London, and flew back to reality.

We went to the beach several times, and generally tried to enjoy the short summer that we were offered this year.

We contemplated moving to the city, seriously enough that we actually viewed apartments.

Becky had a job interview for a job she was not seeking, but in the process discovered she really wanted it. 

We went to Massachusetts.

We went to a balloon festival!

August
We finally got our acts together to go to a free Friday bike rental on Governor's Island.

We went camping upstate with my college roommates and had an awesome mini-reunion weekend.

We huddled at home for a weekend and watched the weather channel, because a hurricane was supposedly heading directly for us for the first time in decades.  OMG, tape the windows!  In the end it rained a lot and everyone else got hit worse than we did.

Very unexpectedly my supervisor asked me to interview for a promotion.  

September

Becky started the new job that she had not been seeking!

We traveled to Wisconsin again, this time for a long weekend to celebrate the wedding of one of Becky's cousins.  

We again visited the nephews and their keepers for Labor Day.

Jen and the boys came back to visit us again.  We went to the beach again, even though it was freezing again.

October

My promotion became official, and I gradually started the obnoxious new driving commute.  Despite the commute, I was and am thankful for the opportunity.

We rented bikes and biked along the Hudson, and visited the Atlantic Antic street fair.

We celebrated Halloween by meeting up with friends at at a friend's apartment.  Becky went sans costume (plans were developed last minute) and I revived last year's bee costume.  I'll probably be wearing that thing forever, so everyone should get used to it.

We resumed an annual tradition and spent a weekend in Vermont (put on hold last year due to wedding planning) with my sister and brother-in-law and our nephews, this time for the first time at their cabin.

November
Although Becky needed to go out of town for work on our anniversary we managed to make it a fun romantic get away anyways.  We spent a night at the gorgeous hotel where her event was being held, relaxed in the outdoor hot tub, and enjoyed fall colors, room service breakfast, and each other's company.

I spent a week at Thanksgiving in Minnesota with my sister and brother-in-law and nephews, and Becky flew out mid-week to join us.  Just after I left her, she managed to earn herself an ambulance ride and 12 stitches.  It only figures that this would coincide with probably the longest we've been apart from each other since the Belize/Israel adventures of 2008.

December

We continued traditions of viewing the NYC holiday sites, and a quirky Hannukah celebration with our good friend Kara.

We did the crazy Wisconsin for Christmas, then Massachusetts for my (supremely important golden ) birthday and New Year's thing.

Vacation Mania

Welcome to 2012 everyone!

We're freshly home from holiday vacation in Wisconsin and Massachusetts and settling back down into the "real life" that 2012 brings us.

This was the third (well, technically fourth, but Salzburg was different) Christmas that Becky and I spent together, and the third year that we managed to spend time with both of our families despite the 1,000+ miles between their various homes.  I fear the pattern and good luck may not hold forever, but for the past three years we've spent Christmas with one family and "fake" (aka "2nd") Christmas at New Year's with the other, and alternated which family got real Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we flew to Wisconsin to join Becky's family for the start of our vacation.  (Apologies to any friends or family reading from Wisconsin who we didn't see - there was too little time and too much holiday celebrating to make it work this trip.)  We got dressed up fancy and went to the Christmas Eve service at Becky's childhood church, then home to relax and wait for Santa.  Her youngest sister, Jen, was home the whole time we were, and her middle sister, Angie, and her fiance, Ian, were home from Christmas Eve through Christmas evening.  Which means that everyone was able to be there for present opening and the all-important-in-Wisconsin viewing of the Packers game.  The rest of the week we spent relaxing, reading several Christmas books, and watching the 8th season of NCIS.  And eating too many Christmas cookies (Carrie Krispies, Rice Krispie Rides Again, and Krispie Next Generation!).  Not to mention of course some more quality time with Becky's family!

Mid-week we flew from Wisconsin to Massachusetts to join my family for my birthday, New Year's, and a "second Christmas" celebration.  I'll save the birthday shenanigans for a future post, but suffice it to say that my loved ones made a good time out of making fun of me for being obsessed with my golden birthday.  We continued with too much delicious food and lots of reading, used many many plants to protect our homes from zombies, and spent a ton of time doting on our nephews.  Plus occasionally acknowledging the adult members of the family.  When necessary.  (Love you guys!)  We rang in the New Year with Asti and chocolate cheesecake and televised viewing of Times Square.

And then we boarded a train that zoomed us back to reality.  Goodbye Santa, goodbye Christmas, we will miss you and look forward to seeing you again next year!  Please keep the snow at the North Pole and do not send it to New Jersey.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

There has been conversation around here about re-starting the blog.  I know better than to make promises, but let's see where this goes.

This is us in December at the Rockefeller tree.  We hadn't had much of a chance to do Christmas stuff earlier in December this year, so the day before we left for vacation we met up after work to get some quick holiday cheer.  We saw the tree and the Macy's windows, and coincidentally caught the Mitzvah tank parade.  I think it was about 50 degrees so it didn't really feel like Christmas, but at least we can still say we've never missed a year since we've lived here!  

2010:

2009:

2008:

2007 (with my sister guest starring - pre-nephews she could visit alone!):

AND 2006:

More Adventure than I Anticipated

Today started off nicely enough. We met up in the Village with some friends for a surprise early birthday brunch for one of them. We went to Jane and had their famous Vanilla Bean French Toast--delicious and ridiculously filling. After brunch, we split off, with Carrie heading to the airport to fly home this afternoon and me heading home, stopping at a post office on the way.  The walk from the post office to the bus station is where things get interesting...

For those of you who've never lived in a pedestrian- and tourist-heavy city like NYC, you probably won't understand my frustration. I was walking in Midtown and got stuck behind a huge group of extremely slow-moving tourists. As I have done hundreds of times before, I swung out to go around them. As I was passing the group, the person next to me suddenly moved left, pushing me into a standpipe (explanation here) next to the building. My leg caught on a screw protruding off of it, and I heard my jeans rip as I went flying through the air and landed face-down on the sidewalk. At this point, I was embarrassed that I'd fallen, pissed off that I'd ripped my favorite jeans, and my hands hurt from catching myself. Then I stood up, looked at my pants, and realized that it wasn't just my jeans that had ripped. I'll spare you all the disgusting details, but I had about a 3-inch gash in my leg and it was pretty deep.

Had I seen this injury on anyone else, I would have thrown up. The fact that I didn't, and the fact that it didn't hurt AT ALL makes me think I must have been in shock. Someone passing by got out a pack of wet naps from her purse and handed me one. I sort of looked at her, looked at my leg, then looked back at her...and then she handed me a handful. Someone else ran to the deli next door and grabbed a stack of napkins, and I did my best to apply pressure with my random assortment of paper products while trying to figure out what on earth to do. A man walking past asked if he should call 911. I debated for a minute because it wasn't really an emergency, but at the same time I had no idea what to do. Carrie was on her way to the airport, I could tell that I needed stitches, and I couldn't think of where the nearest hospital was or how I would go about getting there.

So the stranger called 911 while I sat down on the sidewalk, finally realizing that standing on my injured leg probably wasn't doing anything to help the bleeding stop. Two police officers showed up a few minutes later, and the ambulance arrived a few minutes after that. They loaded me onto a stretcher (which felt RIDICULOUS given the relatively minor injury I'd had, but whatever) and I got to take my first ambulance ride.

While in the ambulance, they cut the rest of that pants leg so that they could wrap a bandage around my leg, at which point I was like "oh crap, what am I going to wear home?" The paramedic said something along the lines of "Well, someone's gonna have to come pick you up so they can just bring you something else." Um, yeah, easier said than done. At the same time, Carrie was texting me about her transportation woes in getting to the airport. (I still haven't heard that whole story--the conversation kind of shifted gears when I responded with "Fyi, I am fine, do not panic, but I am in an ambulance right now." and then proceeded to tell my story.)

Fortunately, two of our lovely friends came to the rescue. They'd been shopping in Soho post-brunch, but as soon as they heard what was up, they stopped to pick up some pants for me and go to the hospital as quickly as they could. By the time they got there, I was all stitched up and almost ready to go. I ended up with a total of 12 stitches. Having made it to age 28 without stitches or an ambulance ride, I got to do both! In the same day! The only downside was they didn't turn on the siren--apparently I wasn't a real emergency or something.  But they did have the lights on, so I guess that counts for something?

The doctor also pointed out as he was stitching me up that I'll probably have a scar since it wasn't a clean cut. Oddly enough, that hadn't even occurred to me until that point. It's mildly annoying, but I guess I'll have to give up my dreams of bikini modeling.

I shudder to think what the co-pays for the ambulance ride and ER are going to cost me even with good insurance, but for now I'm going to focus on just being glad I have insurance. And as a bonus, I now have lovely new pair of purple lounge pants. Other people might have thought that my outfit of red long-sleeve t-shirt and purple lounge pants didn't match, but I happen to think it's a lovely color combination!

Vikings v. Packers liveblog 2011

4:16:

Becky: Did I miss kick-off because I was making a yogurt parfait?
Carrie: We should liveblog this. I’m starting with you missing kick off.
Becky: I didn’t miss kick-off, we just saw it.
Carrie: WHAT?? This always happens to me.

4:35:
Becky: How’s the liveblogging coming?
Carrie: Ooh. Oops.

4:45:
Skype conversation with the nephews while the game played in the background. They were showing off their Halloween costumes. Highlights from the conversation included “I got a long tail” and “I got a big tummy.” Also, a few trips to the imaginary playground, and Auntie Becky and Auntie Carrie calling each other from the imaginary playground on the TV remote controls. Who needs TV when you have silly aunties on Skype? Oh, and apparently the Vikings scored while we were playing pretend.

5:34:
Becky: I know what’s wrong with this game. I’m not wearing my sweatshirt! ::runs to put on Packers sweatshirt::

5:38
Carrie puts on her lamey non-Packers sweatshirt. Apparently her internal Minnesotan feels conflicted. No sign of purple though, thank goodness.

Score at half time 13-17. Boo. C’mon guys, the quarterback is a rookie!

5:43
Carrie: Oooo, I like their uniforms, those blue guys!

5:57
Becky: go go go go go!
Carrie: Go go….wait, no, stop. Whatever.
(In my defense, I did declare before the game that I was rooting for both teams – that’s allowed, right?)

6:10:
Becky: My bread isn’t going to make itself you know.
Carrie: I know, my wife has to make the bread.
Carrie: Your guys apparently got 17 points in 4 minutes or something. I don’t even know how they did that, we must have missed a touchdown.

Brief break for shaping of cheese bread (hopefully in the style of Stella’s Hot & Spicy Cheese Bread). In the process, Carrie manages to spray Pam on Becky’s Green Bay Packers sweatshirt.

Becky: Well now I have to take it off and wash it. But if the Packers lose, it’s all your fault.
Carrie: Um, your guys just scored again I think. Wow, we are really sucky football fans.

That may be true, but we are excellent cheese eaters, and that’s what really matters, right?

7:07:
Carrie: The Packers did that thing where they kick the ball to the end.
Becky: Put that in the blog.
Carrie: Not the field goal one, the other one.
Becky: Put that in the blog too.

7:22:
Carrie: They can just quit?? Well that was anticlimactic. I didn’t even know the game was ending.
Becky: It’s a little bit ironic that you missed both the beginning and the end of the game because you didn’t know what was going on.

Blogging Fail

I keep staring at my blog reader and seeing our last post here fade further and further into the past.  It finally switched to "two months."  First the excuse was honeymoon preparation, and then the honeymoon itself, and then... who even knows.  One thing led to another thing, and blogging fell by the wayside.  And now it feels like there should be something monumental to say to get back on the blogging wagon.  But after several weeks of resolving to blog again soon, I guess it really comes down to just doing it. 

Since we last blogged:
*We spent two weeks in Greece and London
*We visited my family in Massachusetts
*We went camping upstate with my college friends
*We rented bikes on Governor's Island
*We rearranged the living room, including purchasing a new bookshelf
*We went to the shore a few times, and tried a new ice cream place
*We (especially Becky) worked way too much
*We pondered life changes, like jobs and apartments and schools, obsessively
*Probably a lot of other not blog worthy events

So, we're all caught up, right? 

Ha.

My mom asked for some honeymoon stories, so hopefully we'll get back to a few of those.

The blogging drought has been accompanied by a picture taking drought.  I'm sure there are a few, but Becky has her camera with her while she's lamey-cake working right now, so I'll give you a few Greece pictures in case you forgot what we look like:

 And this is the two of us plus my college roommates swimming upstate two weeks ago:

Hopefully some of you are still out there, and hopefully it won't be two months until you see us again!

They came!

Guess what, to our wondering eyes, appeared in our mailbox today?  Our new passports!  We bought our honeymoon plane tickets months ago.  It seemed logical that we should purchase our honeymoon plane tickets in our married name, and we figured that we had several months to request the new ones.  Enter procrastination, and applications sent much later than we planned.  We were beginning to fear that they would not arrive before our trip, which would pretty much be an epic disaster.  In the back of my mind I was afraid that what we had read about dealing with the same-sex marriage and the name change (i.e. that it was completely uncomplicated) would turn out to be completely false.  But it was true!  They're here! 

The to-do list for the trip is getting longer and longer as the trip is looming closer and closer and it is starting to get scarier and scarier.  I keep adding things to the list rather than just doing some of them.  Events that I mentally associated with the trip, such as the ending of the parenting group I've been running at work and the start of the summer weather, are suddenly happening.  Thankfully the State Department is keeping pace with the calendar even if my brain is not! 

Summer, whether the weather likes it or not

My sister, Jen, and our nephews came to visit us again this weekend.  Jen reports that the travel was much smoother, thanks to her choice of riding in the car rather than the train.  While we were driving around on Saturday the boys demonstrated what Jen told us they did for most of their awake time on the drive to/from home: "bus! bus!  my side!  big truck! my side!"  They are both absolutely enamored with cars and trucks and things that go.  At one point Thomas was looking at a photo of the boys and their aunties and he pointed at the car-shaped play structure in the background and said "truck!" as if it was obviously the most interesting portion of the photo.  Matthew still frequently refers to a car or truck as a "vroom," which is quite cute.

We had all kinds of outdoorsy water based plans, but the weather forecast was calling for upper 60's and raining.  This was particularly disappointing after we endured a long work week of boiling 100 degree weather.  The forecasted temperatures came true, but the rain held off enough for us to summon our inner hardy Midwesterners and complete our plans anyways. 

Saturday we visited our favorite beach.  We were almost the only people at the beach, and definitely the only ones who were daring to venture in the water.  The tide was just right for toddlers, with a very shallow and calm area along the edge, where the water was actually fairly warm.  Thomas didn't seem to care at all that it was overcast or cold, and plowed into the ocean with a glee that only a toddler can muster.  Matthew was more cautious, several times wanting to spend his time on the "sandbox."  But he loved to fill up his bucket with water, carry it a few feet onto the sand and dump it out, and then repeat, over and over and over.  

Thomas and his toy truck

Matthew and his bucket

We changed clothes, warmed up, and blew bubbles on the boardwalk.

 While we were waiting for a lunch table we happened upon a vintage car show.  Thomas learned the word "engine."  Thomas was still a bit cold from the swimming, so we ended up draping my sweatshirt over him to help him warm up.  The boys also showed off how much they love holding hands right now, with adults or with each other.

In the afternoon we went to a place Becky found on the internet called Kidz Village, which was one part indoor playground and one part children's museum.  There was a series of themed rooms, such as the diner, the grocery store, the hair salon, and the construction room, filled with tons of kid sized pretend play props.  Plus of course the giant playscape with tunnels and slides and climbing platforms.  I think Becky and I might have had more fun climbing around in there than Matthew and Thomas did (two year olds are too young to go themselves you know!), although they loved it too.  At one point I was following Thomas around and he went down a slide before me (which incidentally resulted in a few scary moments where we couldn't find him), but while I was still at the top a little girl gave me that snotty wannabe pre-teen girl look and asked "aren't you a little old to be in here?" 

Sunday we returned to a sprinkler park/kiddie pool that is close to our home.  Long-time readers may remember our visit there last summer.  Once again it was chilly, and once again we were the only people playing in the water.  And if I thought that Thomas was happy to be at the ocean, I don't even have words to describe his excitement for the sprinklers.  He was sprinting through the sprinklers giggling and squeeling with his arms spread out.

We also spent plenty of time hanging out at home, playing with Mr. Potato Head, and enjoying some adult beverage after the boys went to bed.  I almost can't believe how much easier is has become to manage the boys in our not childproofed apartment.  Last summer having them play inside for even a few minutes was stressful, between protecting them from our stuff and protecting our stuff from them.  Both of these recent weekends they've been so well behaved and had a good time with the toys we offered them (plus of course the ones their mom brought from home).  Hanging out with Jen was fun as always too, but my apologies Jen, but your sons make for cuter blogging!

Health Insurance

Can I just vent about health insurance for a few minutes?  Of course I can, it's my blog.

I received a bill today for my co-pay for the surgery I had a month ago.  I was expecting this bill, so that's annoying, but the way life goes.  I was also expecting the hospital to be attempting to bill my insurance some ludicrous amount and then accepting it when my insurance offered three cents in return.  But nonetheless it is shocking to see the actual numbers.  For the whole surgery shabang they charged my insurance $11,329.  On the day of my surgery the hospital billed $600 for two iterations of a blood type test (do they really do the same test twice?).  My insurance paid $2,730 total.  Furthermore, in the past 60 days (i.e. including pre-op blood work and screening and such) doctors have billed my insurance over $30,000.  And you know what they've paid?  Just over $5k. 

Now, of course, I am glad that I did not have to pay anyone $5k, let alone $30k.  Compared to these numbers my copay is insignificant.  I am thankful that I have health insurance, and I know that many people are not so fortunate.  But is this bizarre system really the same system that health care reform opponents are so determined to fight to the death to defend?  Are these numbers based on anything?  If I didn't have insurance would they actually be billing me these ludicrous amounts, and I would therefore be paying several times more than insured patients?  Or are these numbers just pure fiction and some uninsured discount would appear? 

I know that health care costs money.  I know that it is a major issue that some people don't understand that it is an expensive commodity.  I'm sure that the medication I received and the cost of the operating room and the services of the surgeon and the anesthesiologist and all of those things genuinely cost a lot of money.  But why is the price for them something that is determined by a complicated closed doors political negotiation between my insurance company and some Medicare government employees and the hospitals and probably the CEO of  Exxon Mobil? 

These questions are rhetorical, although I'm sure some of you reading know more of the answers than I do.  I'm not well enough informed to have a strong opinion on the health reform that passed or most of the alternative proposals that were made or may be made in the future.  But I think the current system is ridiculous and I have no idea why health care reform opponents suddenly became so enamored with their current health insurance companies, because personally I'm convinced that mine is out to get me.  (They already got my gallbladder!)