25 years of celebrations

I was born three weeks early, so my granddad had no inclination to expect he would have a granddaughter for a birthday present since my mom was due mid-December. In fact, the night I was born, it took my dad a few hours to get in touch with my grandparents to tell them I had been born! But ever since, we've been having big celebrations every year. Since this was the "25th Anniversary" of our celebrations together, I decided to pull out all the pictures of our birthdays over the past 25 years. I was partially successful... there were only 13 years missing out of the 25. My mom is still apologizing profusely (since she found pictures from every year of my oldest brother's birthdays), but being the youngest child of 4, I think having 12 years worth of birthday pictures is still pretty good. And you'll still get the idea:

1985
1986
1987
1990
1992
1999
2000
2002
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010, still going strong...

happy turkey day!

Last year I was at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade for Thanksgiving, and this year I'm in Alabama! So much to be thankful for.

25 & rainbows

Today is my quarter-century birthday and I've been celebrating big! I haven't gotten the pictures from last weekend and today all together yet, but they're coming! Until then, check out the rainbow birthday cake my super-talented-baker-friend Maggie made me for my party on Sunday!

wake up call

Ever heard one of those horror stories before about oversleeping and missing your flight? Well, I think I can say I'm more happy to have made it home today than I ever have been before. I had a 7 AM flight this morning out of LGA, in which I promptly woke up to my mom's phone call at 6:03 AM. In case you didn't know, you're supposed to arrive (at least!!) an hour before your flight departs, NOT WAKE UP an hour before! Amidst the fog and confusion of wondering why my mom was asking if I was at the airport, I quickly figured out what was going on and that I was in big trouble if I wanted to make it home today. When I finally came to, I kicked it into high gear and was out the door by 6:07 (yes, a personal best for me, by a long shot). I hopped in a cab and emphasized to the driver the extreme importance of taking the most efficient route, and in nothing short of a miracle, he did. I arrived at the airport at 6:30, only to find the security lines as long as I've seen them. I panicked again, until I saw a Delta attendant standing near the security lines. I decided I would ask her if she could relay to the plane that I was there and have them wait for me. Before I could get my entire question out, she had motioned for me to go through the First Class Security line- which was empty! I scooted through the first checkpoint of security, and then the second...until they stopped me and said they needed to do a more extensive check of my bag. Luckily that didn't take long and I ran up to my gate just as they were making the final boarding call for my flight. I made it...but just in the nick of time!

Thanks, Mom, for the wake up call!

nov 19! nov 19!

And you know what that means! Tonight at exactly 12:01 AM, I will finnnally be watching the first part of the 7th Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (perhaps even dressed in my Hermione costume?). Call me a nerd if you want, but I know five other 20-something girls who are counting down the minutes as much as I am!

the best chocolate cake in the world

Been there, done that and eaten a slice. Brendan and I went to a much anticipated restaurant on Saturday night (more anticipation by him than me) to see if we had finally found what the rest of the world has long been searching for: the best chocolate cake in the world. The name of the restaurant actually is The Best Chocolate Cake in the World. I was skeptical, but the cake was good. Sadly, though, it was far overshadowed by the incredible design of this tiny little hole in the wall. It was tee-niny space in SoHo where only about 10 people, max, would fit. Brendan spent the whole time eating the cake while I spent the whole time swooning over this beautiful, fabulous sofa. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, but I'm pretty sure it is now on my list to own something like this someday...

The sofa was covered in a cork fabric! I had seen fabrics like this before for commercial use when I worked at Perkins Eastman, but I had never seen any application of it. You can find different variations of the fabric, here, at Stratford Hall Textiles.

Then, as you can see in the photo below, it had a deep chocolate brown rope piping that offset the color of the "cork" so perfectly... the two neutrals especially set the stage for the main effect: the buttons in the tufting.

Every button in every tuft was different! They had one American flag button, solid color, multicolor, buttons with rhinestones...every button imaginable! It added such a nice pop of color but not so much that you were confused about the main design idea. I've been thinking about this couch all week and can't get over how amazing it was!

Then, for proof that we really did try out the cake, I took a pic of our clean plate!

This place gets two thumbs up from me: one for the pretty good dessert and another for the superb atmosphere and design.

a post about nothing

...to remember a show about nothing. Brendan and I went to brunch on Saturday morning in Harlem on 112th Street and Broadway. Right across the street from where we ate was the Seinfeld restaurant! I loved that show too much not to take advantage of a photo op.

the birthday boy

Saturday was Brendan's birthday and we celebrated big! (If you don't believe me, just check out the cake...) He turned 27 and for his birthday dinner he decided that he wanted to invite friends over to my apt & his old stomping grounds (in case you didn't know, Brendan lived in my current apartment for two years before I moved in. Then he graciously handed it over to me and two other girls!) for a pasta dinner and celebration. Friday night we made a run to Target and bought enough food to feed a couple armies, then cooked for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and successfully made enough food to feed 35 people! It was a blast and a great turnout!

And as I mentioned in my previous post, we had sparkler candles (Thanks for those too, Maggie!)!! They were exactly like sparkler fireworks, except in the shape of a "2" and a "7". They were beautiful and perfect, but if you ever have them for your own cake, you should be ready to blow them out immediately because they aren't like regular candles that keep burning until you blow. They, just like a sparkler, go out on their own sweet timing. But they make for some pretty great pictures, don't they?!

[Sorry the pic quality isn't that great. They are from my phone because my camera took a nose dive into the toilet early in the night, and spent the rest of the party in a bowl of rice trying to absorb all the water. Good news though; it worked!]

want to see the biggest cake you've EVER seen??

Check out Maggie's blog post about Brendan's birthday cake! Maggie is an excellent baker and she kindly agreed to make Brendan's birthday cake for me...to feed 35-40 people! It was as delicious as it was big, and we celebrated with "2" and "7" sparkler candles (which you'll see in the next post)!! Luckily, for me, we had some left over...

[And, if you live in NYC and need a cake, you should contact Maggie!]

14 days...and counting

until THIS:

Me, Maggie, Kyo, Michelle, Kova and Deb have midnight (yes, 12:01 AM) tickets on opening night in the IMAX theater to see Harry Potter 7. I'm thinking about holding my breath until then to see if it will make the time pass by faster...because I cannnnnnnot wait!!!

and, more color invasion

Remember in this post when I said I'd have more pictures from this event! I did, and I wanted to make sure I posted them because they are much more fun than the one picture I took. Such a fun event...

Old PE coworkers.

more halloween

As I said, I really love Halloween and getting dressed up. And after much work and effort, I finally convinced Brendan to dress up with me! We went to a charity event costume party as Superman and Lois Lane (and we couldn't very well go as "Perryn and Brendan"). Sadly we didn't win the contest, but we still had fun!

if you love auburn & football

you will love this ESPN clip. I generally don't watch Gameday on Saturday mornings (unless, of course, they're in Tuscaloosa or on the Plains) but I tuned in to see Erin Andrews' Halloween costume and turned it on seconds before they started this video. Not expecting such an emotional and moving piece, I was caught completely off guard and found myself sobbing in front of the television when hearing these two players recount their story. Check it out, you'll be inspired.