Hot Dogs & Peanuts (or mini-donuts!)

Baseball season is here and while we do live across from an "A" Baseball team we are headed to the Bronx tonight for a Yankee game - and guess what they play the suckiest (not sure if it's really a word) team in baseball - the Tigers! What happened to their great season! Annoying. I will be wearing my Tigers t-shirt and it will be buried under my fuzzy and a windbreaker. Not wanting to have to hear how awful they are I have to hide it. The one thing I left in Michigan was my mittens and I really will be needing them! All the more reason to drink some hot cocoa with those mini-donuts tonight. The game last night was only in the 3rd inning when we went to bed - it was a very slow game (and the Tigers were winning at this point). Thursday could be a late day getting into work if they don't speed things up a bit. Watch for me on TV in a light blue windbreaker!

Making Friends!

So in my attempt to meet new people and get out when Mark is gone I joined a "Meet Up" group. Mark will go when he's here - hopefully next weekend. This particular group is for newbies in Wappingers Falls. They do all sorts of things - movie night, game nights, hikes, bbq's and the like. Some are couples and some are singles. All very friendly and chatty. So last weekend while Mark was gone I went on my first hike. This is a picture of us before we set off. The red balloon was to help us find each other.

We started out following the trail - smart if you are new to the area. Well in our attempt to avoid a hill we ended up climbing an even larger hill off the trail -as you can see this is a group with varied abilities and I was the only one wearing shorts - it was at least 75-80 degrees. There was quite a bit of huffing and puffing, but everyone finished.

For some reason this particular trail just stopped and we decided to just go up the hill rather than try to go back. It was like a bunch of little kids thinking they were being adventurous. We had no idea where we were going, but it turned out to be a cemetary at the top of the hill! Of all places. The guys very much enjoyed this find as many of the graves were really old. As you can see quarters are tight - these headstones are actually from another cemetary that had to be moved - that freaked us all out. Thinking those souls must be not so happy to be so crammed together. It really is a large cemetary - this was just a special little section.

To top off our hike we found the road that the nature preserve was on - a 4 lane highway. And across this busy road we saw our first wildlife. Yes deer - lots of deer. I was a bit worried we might see one get smacked in traffic, but we didn't. Finally we took one last shot at the estate/nature preserve we were hiking at - it's Samual J. Morse (think Morse code) home. Hoping to take a tour when they open later this spring.

Goin' Green

Not only is my blog now green we have gone green with our grocery shopping. While I just love those plastic bags that collect under the kitchen sink (NOT!) we have moved onto reusable grocery bags. It the big thing around here - some villages even require them to be used. We are pretty close to granola cruncher land - don't be offended if you like granola - it's just my way of saying they like things natural and simple. I love granola - especially that from Real Food Cafe - I miss their banana granola pancakes quite badly. No one here can even close to them! Anyway I digress so back to the subject at hand (can you tell I had a so-so pancake breakfast today?)... They sell the reusable bags at the grocery store - great idea, but I've come to the conclusion that we are better off just investing in some decent tote bags that I can find on sale. Not only will they be more fashionable, but they will last longer and hold more. I will confess that I love the freezer food bag we bought - it really does work as it says. So now I have one more excuse to go shopping.... to find some new bags. LOL!

House Hunting

I do believe we've hit our limit for going through open houses and also going through houses with realtors. Last weekend when Mark was away I found an area on "his" side of the river that I thought he might like - and he did! It's called Balmville - what a name. Of course there is a really nice area with views of the river and nice older homes - we are going for something a bit smaller, but you can still see water from some of the houses we picked out. We are down to the top 3 choices so as long as the market stays down we'll be able to pick and choose (and low ball an offer too!) One is newer with lots of stairs and the other is older, but has an in-ground pool. The "thought" of a pool is appealing, but the reality of keeping it up is another thing. It would be nice for hot days, but who am I fooling we work all day long so it would go idle. Other than that it's been a quiet week and weekend.

Mexican Rocks

Dutchess County is truly foodie heaven. Mark wonders why I don't mind when he's gone - I'm out checking out places to eat. There is no way I'm up for a big meal tonight after my wonderful lunch. This latest find is near work - it's a bit pricy for a normal lunch, but once in a while or for dinner would be fine. It's called Cafe Maya and it's very good - best I've had in a long time. Knocks the socks off anything I had in GR. It's right in downtown Beacon - nothing like downtown GR - think of Saugatuck with more rifraf. The area is up and coming I'm sure. The cook/staff appear to be from Mexico and the food is very tasty, but not weird or unidentifable. I had the chicken fajita's and they more than lived up to my expectations and I even have enough left for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow - it was a huge heaping mound of chicken, onions, and peppers. Truly enough for a family of four. The tortilla's were freshly made and hot and the salsa was to die for - homemade for sure. The rice and beans were even good - in fact that's why I have so much of the other stuff left over as I ate it all. My co-worker had a veggie quesadilla and we couldn't quite figure out what they did to the veggies, but wow it was amazing and tasty. We traded with each other so we could have more tastes. She had no left overs and we both left stuffed.
I think I forgot to mention the Chinese place I found - also very near work called Asian Ginger. While the atmosphere is poor it's great for take out. We normally split a lunch here and then get spring rolls. Each spring roll has a whole little shrimpy in it - freshly made. I don't see alot of fried food leaving here so that's a good sign. The chicken is nicely sliced breast meat and not chunks of chicken thigh or something weird. Unlike most Chinese places it's loaded with veggies and if you don't like broccoli you can ask for something else. This wins for cheap lunch if we split - it's only $3 each and there are left overs. My co-worker raves over the shrimp dishes and she's choosey about her food so I know it must be good.
Now I'm sure you are wondering if my clothes still fit and I'm proud to say they do - my eat out's are somewhat limited to two lunches a week really unless I'm out for training and then that doesn't count. That and we are walking every night up the hills.

Foodie Update & NYC

Well the verdict is in - the food is way better here than down in NYC. Tuesday I went to a new lunch spot called CIDO (I won't even attempt to tell you how they say that) with a co-worker and it was awesome - neither of us had been there, but you can bet we will be back. I had a Buffalo Chicken Salad Sandwich and she had something equally as wonderful. They had these fun little chips that were homemade - sort of like frito's, but not corn and then we got these tiny cute cupcakes for dessert. Sort of like the mint you might get at other places. The cold food case is amazing and the desserts left me drooling. Probably picking up dinner there tomorrow night. YUM!

Now why do I think it's better than the food in NYC - well I had a yucky dinner tonight there and that was a bummer. So I'm biased at the moment and it's tainted my view of all food in NYC - probably not fair I know.

I stayed after my training so I could shop or get my hair cut. The hair cut won out. I have plenty of clothes for the time being and it's just overwhelming with so many stores. And it's a bit pricey on 5th Ave. This is my new "do". The fun part will be doing it tomorrow. He spent forever blowing it out. Said it would be simple for me to do and he had fun cutting it. First time I've heard that. Must have wanted a nice tip.

The fun part about going for training is I now know where Carnegie Hall is and also NBC Radio Studio. Both are close to where the training is. It's easy to get around as the streets are numbered and either you are going up or down the numbers. I also went by St. Patrick's Cathedral - the pope is going to be there this week. I did see it last week, but didn't know what it was. Next week I will go in - less cops around then. There were at least 15 cop cars there today and military.

So back to the food (it's not all bad there) my lunch at the Thai place was very good. I had some sort of yellow curry dish with chicken. Best I've had in a long time. I went with some people who were in my training and we had fun laughing at the sales guys next to using their "elevator" voices to discuss their great deals. Do you think we can't hear you? On the way out we joked they should have bought us lunch since they tortured us with their dumb sales pitch. I guess we could have asked, but then they would have known for sure we were listening. So tomorrow it's back to work and let me tell you I have lots to do now that I know how to use system! Now if I can't only remember it....

FDR Estate & Library

As promised.... Here are a few pictures from our weekend - as you can see it's getting warmer here and the tree's are almost ready to POP! Can't wait for it to be green!

Mark is at the Ice Pond - my guess is it's cold.

Don't I wish this was for sale and in our budget?

They didn't alter her teeth! Since we've been there

I've noticed that in many pictures they fix her teeth. Crazy!

Outside the FDR homestead on the porch. The river is behind me.

What happened on this day ... April 12, 1945

Do you know what happened on this day in history? No you say? You weren't born yet and didn't pay attention in history class? Well we didn't know either and just happened to stop and visit this former President's birthplace and family homestead Saturday, April 12, 2008. Ok enough guessing.... we went to Franklin D. Roosevelts Library, Mansion, and for lack of a better decriptive word "woods on the river". It was time for a history lesson and I would recommend it for those who come visit - Mark might even take you and I will go at least one more time so I can go hiking in the woods again. Mark loves visiting these types of landmarks so now we have 3 down and I don't know how many more to go... Gerald R. Ford (GR) and Lyndon B. Johnson (near San Antonio). We are off to see some open houses so I will post the pictures later.

Central Market has met it's match!

As most of you know Mark is in the grocery industry and so our trips usually involve a stop at some store he's heard of and we've been to many. Well this weekend we found one that I knew about and he didn't - Stew Leonards. This is pretty much a first for me. For those of you who haven't been to Stew's - and I think that is just about everyone reading this - it's like a crazy race through the grocery maze. Total fun for grownups with no long lines to ride some cheesy ride and plenty of yummies to sample. When you walk in you grab a cart and take off along this "path" and it winds all the through the store with no overlapping. Think pigs in a maze trying to find the freshly made donuts (they did have them on sample - oink!). Well they had the most fantastic things - all homemade as homemade can get. Wonderful dessert cups, awesome produce, cheese from all over, corn pop cakey things they make in front of you, homemade sausage, good meats, and seafood worth drooling over and I'm not a fishy person. So we decided to do some shopping, but didn't grab the cold items thinking we could back track and when we got to the end it was all cash registers. oops! Everyone there is happy and helpful so we were guided around the registers and re-entered the store for one more trip through. This takes about 15 minutes. And the best part was it was no more expensive than the regular grocery store. Top quality - oh and they have their own milk farm. Most of the stuff was organic so that was interesting to see that is doesn't have to be overpriced. We will drive the half hour to shop often - it's well worth it and fun. I can imagine quite nutty on a Saturday. ugh. One more reason to come visit - if you're a foodie that is.

Catchin' up for Friday & Saturday

Sunday deserves it's own post so you will have to be patient and hear about the rest first. We left Friday after work for White Plains to enjoy dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. While I am sorry to say our meal didn't live up to previous CF meals I can say we will be back, but will try something else. Since they think you can eat like 4 pounds of food in a sitting we normally split it and then still have left overs. I did manage to get a piece of cheesecake - which I enjoyed for dessert and also breakfast the next day. The mall there was great and I'll be back and maybe taking Julie - I'm sure she's heard of the stores there. I have not. We spent the night in Stamford, CT and right across the street was a PF Changs and another great mall. They are within 10 minutes of each other so it merits another day trip soon. Saturday we headed down to Long Island and were pleasantly surprised with light traffic. We also enjoyed a walk on the beach with hardly anyone around. While it wasn't freezing cold it was enough to keep away most people. Our main event of the weekend was going to watch the Rampage get whomped. That's putting it lightly. They set a new AFL record for least points scored in a half. That's right it was a blow out.

I won't even post the final score, but I will say we had a lot of fun.

Kansas Wins!

Yes! Thanks to my cute nieces and nephew that live in Kansas I decided that they might win the NCAA Championship this year - I mean how else do you pick the winner? Gotta have some logic to it and being from Michigan you can't choose Michigan State because everyone else does - right? So before I left my old job I made sure to get in the pool at work to try and prove that last year and the year before were just bad luck. ha. I won! I must mention here that Mark did have a hand in all this as he went in after I made my picks and adjusted a few - but not the final two or even the final winner - that was my choosing. Good choice worth $172! Vegas baby, Vegas! We are going in June so now Mark has some money to gamble with as I will share. We had a great weekend and once I figure out how the photo software works tonight I will post the details.

Daily Update

Hi Ryan - glad to see you found my blog - Mark reads them too - you'll have to teach him how to comment. Many times he reads Julie's before I do so I get the recap at bedtime. I could comment back to you all, but this is more fun. The kitchen cupboards are screaming red - shiny red. I think the walls were too or black. I can tell they've been painted many times. It's not a huge kitchen and it had good appliances so we are talking new counter tops, cupboards, and wall stuff like paint. I think the floor was fine. Mark is on the road for the week in New Hampshire so I've been entertaining myself. Tonight I met the cat sitter. She's interesting (possibly special needs, but she can drive and carry on a conversation so that works for me) and she's a cat lover so we'll be fine. Lives in the complex and comes highly recommended by the office girl. Brought them lots of toys and kitty nip. Of course they love her - I do too because she even plays with them when she cat sits. Might make them less mad at us when we return on Sunday. ha.
My exciting find of the day.... manicures. I was a bit bored after getting my piece of pizza for dinner - did I mention the pizza here is the bomb. Very good - haven't strayed far from Leo's so my mission is off center. Anyway as I was walking by the nail shop I saw "manicure - $12" - that's nuts so I decided to see if it was true - it was. They even sanitize the tools and honestly this has been the best manicure I've ever had. Even used OPI polish and clipped my cuticles and that's where she earned her tip. Next time I'm going whole hog and getting a pedicure too - together they are only $32. And let me tell you my toe nails are not so nice - still have the polish on from Vegas. LOL! Bad I know. They will take it off however. Bonus.