Saying Goodbye

George and I love to have visitors... No matter how cramped our little apartment gets with more than 2 people in it, having people stay with us is completely worth it. We always have more fun and do cooler things when our friends and family are here. Although the excursions are always filled with fun, their presence is what gives us the greatest happiness.

The only negative thing I can possibly think of regarding visitors, is having to say goodbye. I am not good with goodbyes, and it is always harder for me to deal with living so far away when visitors leave or when I come back from visiting home. It wasn’t any different when my mom and Hallie left on Tuesday. I already miss the anticipation of walking into our apartment after work, and them being there. Since I was little, my favorite moments have been when everyone that I love was in the same place at the same time. My wish is that it could be like that all the time, starting right this instant. I know this is unrealistic, so for now I will continue to have faith that my wish will be reality one day. Oh what a day that will be!

"The Last Play at Shea"

This past Friday night, George and I attended the Billy Joel concert at the Met's, Shea Stadium. We had been pumped for months about the concert, "The Last Play at Shea: The Beatles to Billy". Gossip around town had prepared us to expect some surprise guests, but nothing could have prepared us for how unforgettable the show was.

First of all… what a venue! The thought of bidding farewell to Shea Stadium before it is torn down, added to the excitement in the crowd of thousands. And we had great seats! Then, as if Billy Joel wasn’t impressive enough, the surprise guests just kept coming throughout the night. The first half of the 3 hour concert was almost all Billy Joel singing his songs and a couple of The Beatles’ hits. The second half included Tony Bennett helping Billy sing “New York State of Mind”, Garth Brooks singing “Shameless” which was written by Billy, Roger Daltrey of The Who singing “My Generation”, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith singing “Walk This Way”, and finally Sir Paul McCartney singing “I Saw Her Standing There” with Billy and ending the night solo with “Let It Be”.

It was amazing! Although they don’t do it justice, I have added a few pictures that we took on George’s camera. My favorites of the night were Garth Brooks and the obvious, Paul McCartney. The only person that I can think of that would have made it better, would be Randy Travis ;).

Visit From The Doobas

This past week, George's parents (a.k.a. "Mamma & Daddy Dooba") came to visit George and me in New York. It was their first time to see how and where we live. We had a big time and are so glad that they were able to stay with us. Most of the time, we did more "New Yorker" things than touristy things.


One of the highlights was traveling about 30 minutes upstate New York to a place called Stone Barns. It is a big farm and restaurant built by the Rockefellers a long time ago. George's cousins, Mark and Emalee, live in Boston and randomly heard of the place. It is beautiful! If you've ever heard of the book "1000 Places to See Before You Die", it is on the list. {On a side note... George and I told our bible study group about our visit to Stone Barns and they found it quite comical that, out of all the things to do here, we Alabamians would choose a BARN as a place to visit!}


We also spent Sunday at the bottom of Manhattan at South Street Seaport. It was a gorgeous day, and the breeze coming off the river made it the perfect temperature.

iChat

As mentioned previously, I am obsessed with our new MacBook and it's coolest application, iChat.  It is an instant messenger/chat type application, but it also allows you to see the person you are chatting with... kind of like a video conference (MacBook's have built in cameras).  It is almost like you are in the same room with the person you are talking to... a virtual date!  This is great, because it has been so long since I've seen many of my family and friends.  Two nights ago, George and I "iChatted" with Katherine, Alley, Anne Marie, and Robert, four of my greatest friends whom I haven't seen in a long time... so I was able to SEE them!  It was amazing.  I was especially excited to get to see my little Kapherine that has been in China for the past year with Campus Crusade for Christ.  Selfishly, I'm glad that her feet are at least a little bit closer to mine :).

Redeemer Small Group

In previous posts, I've mentioned the church that George and I attend in New York, called Redeemer Presbyterian (www.redeemer.com). It has been one of the few places that has made us feel at home (even though it has one of the largest congregations in Manhattan). The preacher, Tim Keller, is absolutely incredible. Every time I hear him preach I feel like I'm witnessing greatness. He and his church have been a blessing in many ways, the greatest being how much they have taught us about God and our faith. His way of combining practicality and facts with traditional preaching is very intriguing and clear. I highly recommend reading his book or downloading his sermons from Redeemer's website.

Redeemer has also led George and me to join a "Small Group" which is a small co-ed bible study. We have been a part of the group about a month now and meet once a week. It has introduced us to great new friends and helped re-focus our lives. The group members come from such different backgrounds, and it has been neat to see how people “find” Christianity. Some are like us and have been raised in the church, but the coolest stories are from people who find and choose Christianity on their own. The points of view they bring to the discussions help me understand many things. As for our contribution, I think they are intrigued by us country folks and our stories as well. They have never experienced a place like the South where it is "normal" to love God, so they love our stories like the gospel singers at the Fiddler's Jamboree!

I'll try to get everyone to take a picture at our next small group meeting so you can see our new friends!

The Fourth of July

Marriage is great... however with marriage comes sacrifices. For instance, holidays. Although it is wonderful that George and I are both really close to our families, neither one of us is very good at sacrificing time spent with them. So when the biggest holidays came up for negotiation, it was a battle to say the least. In the end, I got Christmas morning and George got the Fourth of July (his "favorite" holiday, I might add). So this 4th of July we traveled to Center Hill Lake, Tennessee, to spend time with the Stegalls at their lake cabin. We had a grand time and enjoyed the slower pace of this little town. As you can see in the pictures, we spent time on the lake, played with Eva Pierce, played games, and attended the annual Fiddler's Jamboree to cheer on George's dad as he played his harmonica for the huge crowd. It was one of a kind entertainment!

How Is Work Going?

I have struggled to answer this completely understandable and fair question for some time now. My dilemma in answering this constant question lies in its answer… it is not constant and depends on the day and/or time of day the question is proposed. Sometimes I love my job, sometimes I hate my job, sometimes I literally have to restrain myself from walking out the door and never returning, a lot of times I feel over-qualified, yet rarely under-qualified, sometimes I feel unappreciated, sometimes I feel appreciated (however this requires begging, which I don’t do), sometimes I feel indifferent (like the way our patients treat me), and sometimes I feel lucky to have this job at all. I assume most jobs are like this to some degree; however I hope not this extreme.

There are many interlaced elements, especially people that directly effect “how work is going.” The big boss lady, Dr. Airan, has the greatest effect on job satisfaction. If she is not happy… nobody is happy. Dr. Airan is like no one I could even imagine, much less expect you to understand. We are very different to say the least, but I think she secretly likes me... and that is all I'll say about that :).

On a lighter note, Janine is my best friend at work, and she is from Long Island. We always get along and are on the same level. We work together practically all day, so she is pretty much the reason I come in to work daily :). She is currently considering finding a new job closer to home. I think if she leaves, I would be right behind her! I really like Deana, the nurse from Alabama, too, but she is always busy answering Dr. Airan's orders. Desiree is the other worker at the doctor's office, but she only works part time. She wasn't real used to my Southern charm (ha ha) at first, but I think I've broken her in a little though! She once made a point to tell me that it was rude to tell people “yes mam”, “no mam”, “yes sir”, and “no sir”. I knew at that point that New York was a different world than where I'm from.

On to what I actually do… I have developed quite a resume (ha!) with my 1 million job titles that I currently hold, including dog walker, electrician, babysitter, seamstress, travel agent, communicator to her mother and sister, wedding registry organizer, etc... My most important job lately has been to reconstruct Dr. Airan's website and boy have I spent a lot of time working on it. I can even tell she is impressed... and she is a pretty tough critic.  The new website is not up yet because it has to be written in html code by a website developer, I've just written and drawn up every page so the website company will know what it should look like.  I'll let you know when the new site is up, so you can see my work!  On a side note, I do feel like this website research/project has taught me a lot of valuable things about the importance of marketing online, the intricacies of developing an accurate, comprehensive, user-friendly website that correctly reflects a specific brand, and how to prove it's credibility to search engines. Maybe I can use this to my benefit one day.

Other than that, normal office drama consists of Dr. Airan requiring Deana to go to a "psychic/hypnosis/spiritual healer" so that the healer can help Deana find the inner reason she is late every morning to work. Dr. Airan goes to this "healer" too... probably because she is even later than Deana everyday! The moment she mentions the "healer" for me, I'm out. 

Earl Had To Die

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the mouse that has been living in our apartment for the past two months... let me enlighten you. About two months ago, I noticed some "droppings" of some sort and a stinky smell in the cabinet underneath our sink. We keep all of Clancy's food, belongings, etc. and our cleaning supplies in this cabinet, so it is frequently accessed. Not being a rodent specialist, I thought that maybe the little black pieces were from a roach or something (we had previously spotted a couple of roaches). As a few days went by, a hole developed in Clancy's bag of dog food and the little black pieces and the smell started to increase at an exceptionally fast rate. We soon realized that we had something bigger than a roach on our hands! One day, as I arrived home from work to meet Lacey at our apartment, I started to get Clancy's food out to feed him... and that little mouse ran out of Clancy's bag, onto our kitchen floor, and into a little hole beside a different cabinet. Although Clancy tried to save my life by chasing the little critter, I almost had a heart attack, literally. I blocked off the entrance that the mouse had run in to and left the cabinet doors shut until George got home with a mousetrap. He set it (actually 3 of them) up so that if the mouse tried to enter the cabinet again, he would surely be captured.

We checked everyday to see if the mouse had been trapped; but not only had he not been trapped, there was no sign of him anywhere… no droppings, smell, anything. We thought we had lost him but still kept the mousetraps in place for precaution. Several weeks passed that our mouse, which we had since nicknamed Earl, never even crossed our minds.

Earl was dead to us… until today. I opened up the cabinet to find a couple of the once familiar droppings and smell. Except the smell was a little different. I shut the doors as fast as I could and yelled for George to come check out the situation. He found Earl, dead in one of our traps. What I had once thought would be the happiest of endings, turned out to be kind of sad too. I looked inside the slightly transparent trap and all I could think about was the Disney/Pixar movie, Ratatouille, and that poor little Earl had only wanted some food. I’m not saying that I want a mouse back in our apartment, but the ending was a lot better when I just thought Earl had moved to a different home.

The scary cabinet... home to Earl.

My Fearless Mouse-Killer, George.

The deadly mousetrap, with Earl inside.

Extra, Extra Read All About It

Just in case you missed it... here is our wedding announcement that appeared in The Alexander City Outlook and The Birmingham News the weekend of Memorial Day.

Our NYC To Do List

We live in a place where there are an endless number of places to see and things to do... all unique to New York.  In an effort to keep track and complete all of the things we want to do, my dad suggested that we make a "NY To Do List".  So we did.  Although we have checked some of the items off the list, it seems to grow a lot faster than it shrinks.  I'm sure the list will be updated soon, but as of now, this is our list.  I guess we better get busy!

·       Walk/Bike across the Brooklyn Bridge

·       Visit the Hampton's

·       Ride the gondola to Roosevelt Island

·       Eat at Campagnola (a fancy Italian restaurant below our apartment)

·       Eat at Magnolia Bakery (we’ve been told they have the best cupcakes in the world!)

·       Attend a Yankee’s game

·       Take a bus top tour of the city

·       Visit the Bronx Zoo

·       Visit the Central Park Zoo

·       Go rowing in Central Park

·       Ride Sea-Doos in the Hudson

·       See Niagara Falls

·       Take Clancy to the “secret” water dog park at 60th Street