Overwhelmed

We have had a crazy couples of months with re-renting the Noblesville house, moving and settling into our new home and me starting classes again (fear not- it is just for CPA exam review- I'm not seeking yet another degree. Yet.) Anyway, it has been a lot. I have been working out with a trainer about 4 days a week and while I'm getting stronger I do not see the pounds disappearing as I hoped they would. I have class for 4 hours on Monday and Wednesday nights from now until December 14th. I have a CPA exam on August 22, October 10 and November 23. I will have one more to take in early 2012. Yes, there are four parts to the exam. Yes, they all suck. No, my work life has not slowed down at all to balance out with studying for and taking the exam. To top it all off I will be in India (yes- across the globe) for 8 weeks starting in early January for work. It is a lot of administrative work here in the States to be allowed to go work somewhere for 8 weeks so that has been fun, too. Whew. I'm exhausted thinking about it all, honestly. I have taken some life simplification steps. I quit Facebook. I mean it this time. I think it has become a real time suck for me and I need every minute of my day these days. (I also think it breeds unhappiness and annoyance with others. I mean people are either complaining or showing off with their posts.) I am moving my workouts to be in the morning so that I can spend some evenings (when I'm not working late) with Jackson. I'm taking large chunks of time each weekend and dedicating them to studying. I'm not going to do any additional fiddling with the house (after the window treatments are done, of course) until I return from India. I think if I just make a few shifts that balancing everything will come a lot easier. I'm still going to blog as I get free time and something to blog about, but let's be honest my life is going to be a lot of suckage until Thanksgiving. Yay. ;)

U-verse

Let there be INTERNET!!!!!! :) :) We finally have television and internet. Woo hoo! We're in business. I'm so happy!

BB&B

We are slowly but surely moving into our new house. We do not have internet there yet so I will continue to be absent for a few more weeks.

Anyway, we NEED Bed, Bath & Beyond coupons. (It is amazing how much stuff we "need" to get settled!) The coupons never expire so do not believe them when they say that they do. Please, please (if you are not using them) send them our way. I will send you our new mailing address if you just email me at: jennapetefish@gmail.com

Thank you!

Happy birthday, Deb!

We want to wish my Mom a very happy 50-something birthday today! She's over the hill, but not too far. ;) We hope you have a fabulous day, Mom! We LOVE you!

"I'm in a couch buying mood!"

This evening Jackson decided that we ought to go ahead and order the love seat that matches our new couch. I was surprised and happy! We decided to just swing into a local store to order it, but did not know when the store closed. Jackson called at about 7:25 and the lady who answered, Eva, said they closed at 8:00. This was the conversation:

Eva: "Thank you for calling Godby, this is Eva."

Jackson: "Eva, I wondered what time you all closed tonight. I'm in a couch buyin' kind of mood."

Eva: "We close at 8:00, sir."

Jackson: "Oh! That soon, huh? I guess I better get out of my mood then."

Eva: *Laughs*

We hurried and made it before the store closed. We walked in the door and were greeting by who else? Eva. We did not tell her that Jackson was couch buying mood guy so we got to hear all of the store's employees laughing about his call. He finally came clean to Eva that he was the jokester and she loved it. Oh that kid drives me nuts and keeps me laughing all at the same time. :)

Fireworks of our own

Grace brought some fireworks with her from home (I swear. I would never have purchased them for her, but obviously Kathi said it was OK so now she won't kill us!) and saved them until the 5th so Uncle Jack could light them off with her. You can barely see the little girl in the shadows above. Amazingly enough, no one was hurt in this firework display.
They really enjoyed their sparklers.
Jackson is such a little kid- look at his face! It cracks me up.
We're so glad to be Americans and be free to make noise in our neighborhoods at 10:45 on a random Tuesday night.
Our happy little lady. It was so nice that Grace's time with Grammy overlapped our coming home from NYC. We always love to see her pretty little face. :)

Independence Day!

It was a warm day here in NYC and this pup had the right idea- he went for a quick dip in the fountain! :)

We went out on a boat tour this morning to see the city from the water. We had a gorgeous day today. It was a lovely time to be out on the boat.

Jackson was pretty excited to be on the boat. :)

Some people get to come into the city in style- in helicopters! Awesome!

I love the city from the water! Gorgeous!

It was such a cool thing to see Lady Liberty on Independence Day!

After we got off of the boat we went for another bus tour. (This day was all about Jackson! He looooves this stuff.)

I thought this was such a cool photo! My iPhone impresses me.

I love clocks.

We loved this apartment building. Our tour guide claimed that a 2 bedroom apartment there goes for $15,000 a month.

This is the start of the new Freedom Tower (I think they are calling it something else now, but I like Freedom Tower so that is what I'm going to call it).

WALL STREET.

The Chrysler Building is Jackson's favorite. I like it, too. :)

A shot of Rockefeller Center from the tour bus.

We went back to my favorite Italian restaurant for lunch. YUM! :)

One of my former co-workers from Boston went to Columbia University Law so she was very familiar with Manhattan. She suggested stopping at Magnolia Bakery so we did. I had a cupcake. The icing was gross so I had to take it off, but the cake part was good. Jackson had a whoopie cookie that he loved.

This evening we walked about a mile from our hotel to watch the Macy's fireworks. We were there with about 1 billion other people, but who is counting?! ;) I used to get really nervous in crowds- not anymore. I was just right there gunning for a good viewing spot. We got one! It was amazing.

It was so crazy to see 5 or 6 sets of fireworks!

A rare photo of both of us. Obviously taken by me. Jackson liked this photo of himself so much that he wanted to cut me out and make it his Facebook profile picture. Rude! ;)

It was very worth the crowds to see the fireworks. NYC knows how to deal with crowds so it really was not bad at all. The fireworks were just amazing and seeing them in person should be on everyone's bucket list.

Tourism

Today we took a bus tour all around the city. This building is where "O magazine" is headquartered.

The Time Warner center, near Central Park. They're huge.

Hotel Empire! (Any Gossip Girl fans?! XoXo!)

I just really liked the looks of this building.

Jackson liked this building.

We hopped off the bus at St. John's Cathedral. It was the most gorgeous building that I have ever been in. Period.

I just love Gothic architecture.

It is shame that we do not build churches like this much anymore. What an act of worship these gorgeous buildings are.

These windows were just breath-takingly gorgeous.

We thought this restaurant looked like the one on Seinfield!

We also got to go to Columbia University. It was really pretty- like a little oasis in middle of the city.

Tonight we went to dinner at a little place we saw in the movies ("Something Borrowed") called the Shake Shack. It was really good. It was right near this famous Flat Iron building.

We liked the apartment building on the right. It was brand new and just really pretty.

The lines at the Shake Shack was pretty long, but it moved quickly and was well worth the wait. The food was really good and they had a mean Arnold Palmer (iced tea mixed with lemonade-my favorite).

Our walk home provided us with a great view of the Empire State Building. The clouds started rolling in and covering the top of the building. It was so pretty.

We certainly were tourists today, but it was fun! :)

A great day in the City

Today was a great day. We woke up sore and tired after a lack of sleep and too much work at the rental house (see my previous post), but we had a flight to catch- or so we thought. Susie was gracious enough to drop us at the airport (thanks again!) on her way to get Ms. Grace in Southern Indiana. We checked into our flight only to hear that it was sold out and they needed volunteers to go to a different flight. Jackson was able to get $400 Delta vouchers for each of us ($800! I almost passed out!) and meal vouchers and we took a flight that left 2 hours later. It was just not a big deal at all and we got such a great deal. Now we will be heading to Alaska much sooner than we expected. I love Delta for that! :) We got to NYC at about 1:00 and got some free lunch (with our vouchers) and then got in line, for the first time of the day.
Ah, I love a good line for a taxi. Jackson, of course, wanted to know where my Dad and Diana were with their VIP card (inside joke from Vegas). The line moved quickly and soon enough we were in the race car, I mean taxicab, and headed for Manhattan. I just HATE how taxi drivers chose to navigate the highways. We made it to the hotel safely. I consider that a real miracle. We got to our hotel and were shocked at how nice it was. Jackson sometimes leads us astray in an effort to save money. This time he got a great price and a great hotel. Our room is huge (especially for NYC) and clean. The bed is awesome. It is just great. I am so, so pleased. We were able to grab a quick nap (we were just beat!) before we headed out to explore the city for the evening.

I had always wanted to go to the Guggenheim because it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a famous architect who also designed a house in Marion, whom I learned about in middle school. I read online that Saturday evenings had "pay what you wish" entry fees so we headed on over to check it out. We were a little disappointed.

This was the kind of "art" that was on display. I am more of a Monet and Van Gogh fan and not so much this abstract stuff. Thankfully, there were some normal displays. There was even one exhibit that was just a room wallpapered in real $1 bills. There was $100,000 on display. We felt like the stars of Ducktails. It was so cool. We were in there for quite a bit just marveling.

We left the museum after being cultured enough for one evening and decided to walk back to our hotel. That sounds simple, but the museum was 3 miles from our hotel. We walked by the Met and made wishes in their fountains.

It was really cool to see the Met. We enjoyed a lot of people watching there.

We cut in and out of Central Park on our walk. I just loved this tree. I love everything about Central Park really. It is such a gorgeous place.

We watched the remote control boats in the Park, too. It was just relaxing to watch them sail around. I loved it.

We eventually made it to 54th & Avenue of the Americas to have dinner at my favorite Italian restaurant ever. That is right, ever. I love their food. Heavenly. We had a fantastic dinner together. It was so nice.

On our walk home we noticed that the Empire State Building was lit up for the good ol' U.S.A. It made my heart happy.

As you can tell, we had a wonderful day. It was honestly one of my best days ever. I just enjoyed my life today so very much. I feel quite blessed and look forward to the fun that tomorrow will bring.

5 reasons why...

I will never be a landlord again.

Oh the dirt. It almost killed me. A big thanks to my Mom for coming down to help me clean. Also, Jackson and his two friends from the golf course painted the whole house in just 6 hours. Everyone was so awesome! We had to shell out an additional $200 to fix the air conditioning unit. It was a yucky day at the rental. :(

I'm just not sure why people do not clean up after themselves.

Oh well. We will just keep her security deposit. ;):)