last week was my mom’s birthday, and this past weekend, i took her to new york city for a night to see the jersey boys.

this was my 3rd NYC trip and 3rd jersey boys attendance in the last 6 months. i was smitten after brett and i went in december.

mom wanted to see jersey boys on broadway SO badly. she saw it off broadway years ago, but that just doesn’t do it the justice it deserves. so a few months ago i bought the trip/tickets. if i didn’t mention it after the last trip, a round trip ticket, direct flights, from charleston to NYC is as low as $150. not bad, eh?

this trip was basically the same plan as the last one–no luggage, fly in, go have fun, eat good food, shop, have drinks, go to the show, go bar hop. and that’s exactly what we did. except this time we got a hotel since, A) my mom definitely can’t pull an all nighter, and B) our return flight wasn’t at 6am this time, it was at 2pm.

sleep was going to happen at some point.

trip in bullets…

• saturday morning, 830, drove to airport.
  

• mom and i sat around and people watched for about 25 minutes before boarding, bought a ginger ale and advil (knew i’d need those one day or the next). boarded around 9:30.
  

• passed out for most of the flight. each flight i take makes me more nauseated than the last. i don’t know if this is due to getting older or the mentality that nausea/dizziness is always equated with a hangover, and that alone makes me sick.
  

• got to NYC, and a few minutes later we were in an uber, but not before switching 3 times. first uber was slow-ish, and another uber pulled up. said he could switch it for us. took my phone and he couldn’t figure out how, accidentally switched me to some other guy. traffic guy yelled at us because we were blocking taxis so that uber disappeared. another uber pulled up, i thought it was ours. it was not, and the one that was still tracking me on my phone was like, WTF where are you going. anyway, WE GOT IT.
  

• uber to max brenner, basically the most chocolatey amazing place i’ve ever seen in my life. chocolate tubes and vats of melted chocolate and candies everywhere and cake and chocolate syringes. chocolate pancakes, strawberries, fondue. cocoa dusted waffle fries. HEAVEN.
  

• mom got awesome mac and cheese, and i got a burger. i’d been craving one all day and we were both starving.
  

• finished eating, and no room for dessert. “settled for” free samples of praline covered pecans with cocoa powder (SO GOOD).
  
  

• i set my google maps for the theater, and we just kind of meandered in that general direction all day.

• strolled through the farmers market.
  

• we heard music and saw crowds around madison square park–turns out the big apple BBQ block party was this weekend. awesome bluegrassy music, banjos, so many beer tents. tons and tons and tons of BBQ, which my mom refuses to eat (she’s not right in the head). it smelled amazing, despite being full from lunch. there were more barbecue stands than i could count.
  
  
  

• i got a goose island IPA and mom got a bud light.
  

• stood around drinking beer and listened to the shook twins play–twin sisters from oregon, they were pretty badass.
  

• weather could not be more perfect for this–80s, no humidity, sunny, with a breeze. gorgeous.
• SO many people laying around the park hanging out, just awesome.
  

• it was hot standing in the sun so we kept walking and ended up walking through the rest of the park and left.

• walked past empire state building and up 5th avenue to all the shops.
  

• mom wanted to go to macy’s, but i think we went in a mall instead. nothing but all the fancy designer shops and overpriced crap neither of us could care less about, so we were out of there in less than 2 minutes. hellooo, H&M!
  

• waited in line at H&M to try on clothes, and the line was like one you’d find at disney. so many people, but went fast. i bought a few tops and new shorts.

• walked to hotel, since it was conveniently on the way.
  

• stopped at drug store first, since i forgot my travel toothbrush and lotion. mom forgot toothpaste. on a roll!

• checked into the new yorker and cleaned up a bit.
  

• and tried on new clothes!
  

• the first thing mom noticed when we got in was the toilet paper was like 4 feet away and across the bathroom from the toilet. it made no sense. room was tiny, but who cares. it was clean and comfy! the view was ridiculously high, since we were on the 33rd floor. my ears popped on the way up.
  

• walked around some more to see where we should stop before the show. i knew i wanted to get drinks and some munchies, but neither of us was hungry for a meal since we’d only eaten 3 hours ago.

• went to mchale’s pub again–maybe this will become tradition? nachos and whiskeys. mom and i sat and talked for an hour or so before meandering to the theater. i really like that place.
  

• got to theater and got another drink. double whiskey for me, coke for mom. and i finally bought a jersey boys tshirt and shot glass. overpriced, but i can’t not get swag when i go to crap like this. no willpower.

• found our seats, 5th row this time! moving on up!
  

• took selfies with mom, and i began furiously tweeting the cast about my ridiculous excitement. they might be sick of me.
  

• the show started and i don’t think i stopped smiling the whole time. the whiskey helped, yes, but i was more excited the 3rd time around than i was the first. so much happy!!!

• guy next to me told me this was his 5th time, so i no longer felt any shame.

• after the show, we waited outside the theater door again.
  

• it was much warmer this time! like 50 degrees warmer! and they only took maybe half an hour to come out. autographs and pictures again. i’m losing my mind again.
  

• texted my friend matt, who lives/works in times square. he was at a bar called the mean fiddler, so that’s where we headed.
  

• i was trying to tweet and walk and walked right off the curb, man down. messed up my just-healed knee. bleeding. awesome.

• this was probably 11:30-midnight ish. got to the bar, matt was with his mom and her friend, so the 5 of us hung out there for a while.

• ridiculous dancing and karaoke carried on for almost an hour. neil diamond cover was epic.
  

• started walking to the next bar–the iron bar.

• mom walked the rest of the way back to the hotel (was less than a half mile, not too shabby).
  

• i went with matt, and he introduced me to all of his bartender galpals. this was sometime after 1:30.

• more drinks, more shots, too many drinks, too many shots. i completely forgot to keep drinking water this time. dangerously close to way too drunk, but not as bad as he was.

• my phone was deader than dead at this point, and portable charger was now dead AND broken. i have no idea what time it was when i walked back to the hotel.

• slept until 9, and woke up waiting for the hangover to hit.

• mom was out adventuring so i washed my face, put on makeup, and went to find her. 2nd day clothes, for the win.

• hangover hit.

• stopped in a little shop so mom could buy caylin a little toy NYC taxi and NYPD police car. she still loves her cars.

• feeling miserable, but the weather is absolutely beautiful and i am in new york city, dammit, so i am in a surprisingly good mood. despite puking in random fast food restaurants along the way. i was even having a decent hair day, which is hard to pull off after passing out on a hotel floor and not washing it. counting all the wins!

• stopped and bought a new charger, and got some wendy’s. the wendy’s didn’t last long, and the charger was $20 overpriced, but i’m still happy!

• sat in the hotel lobby for half an hour so my phone could charge, and mom ate her muffin.

• got an uber to the airport–i slept the whole way.

• we had 2 hours before departure. jumped the gun a bit, but, more time to sleep.

• mom got a waffle cone that looked amazing. vacation meals are the best meals.

• got on the plane, and in less than 2 hours, we were back in charleston.

it was 24 hours i will never forget, for sure. mom and i had a great time. we hadn’t been on a trip where it was just us in… a long time. much needed, i think. time to hang out and talk, goof off, eat junk food, and just be girls.

love you, mom! thank you for an amazing trip and even more amazing memories!

if you have a low tolerance for romance, then you might want to skip this post.

i used to have a low tolerance, until i met brett. then i quickly realized how nice it is to be spoiled by a man sometimes. truly spoiled.

i found this picture, FINALLY. finally. i have been searching for it for 2 years, because somehow between reformats it got lost. it wasn’t on twitter or twitpic or facebook. and i KNEW i had published it online at some point. it’s been driving me freaking crazy. i was going through my old tumblr crap today and it popped up. i am so happy to have found it.

ok, so, back story.

i was really really sick one week/weekend in march 2009. it was my last semester of college. i had a senior project i was working on, and i specifically remember that i coded the entire thing (it ended up being a full CMS when i got finished) while i was sick this particular weekend.

i met brett in january 2009. we became very close very quickly. it was just one of those things. i think my family knew i was in love with him before i did. anyway, this particular weekend, i refused to hang out with him. mostly because i hadn’t showered in like 3 days, hadn’t left my bed, couldn’t breathe, or even really sleep i was so miserable. i told him not to visit me because i didn’t want him to see me in all my glory.

he called me. i was in bed, totally groggy. my gut reaction was OH MY GOD WHY ARE YOU CALLING you can’t see me like this! he was all chill out, just look out on your porch. it took a bit of coaxing before i realized he really had left something on my porch and wasn’t actually standing out there.

low and behold, there was a bag outside my front door. he had gone to the store and bought me a chocolate rabbit, a pinkish-purplish rose (i have it pressed in a frame, i save every rose or at least one rose from every other bouquet he’s given me), and brought me a season of seinfeld from his roommate’s DVD collection. he wrote a little note in the bag (can’t find the note either, 99.9% sure it was in the wallet i had that i threw away when i bought a new wallet, still kicking myself) that assured me that this was only a “friendly” gift and not to feel weird about it. hilarious.

i teared up the second i read it, because i knew the note was bullshit. we were both smitten. it was awesome.

i am so glad i found this picture. :)

before brett came home from arizona last weekend, some friends and i decided that the best way to spend a saturday morning was to treat ourselves to bottomless mimosas and a trek through downtown charleston, stopping only at candy stores and weird shops.

so we did.

there is a restaurant in charleston called toast, and they happen to serve bottomless mimosas. all you can drink for $10, no limit. they keep refilling your glass even when you’ve only taken like 3 sips. it’s spectacular. they also have really good food, which is EVEN better after you’ve downed a couple mimosas.

we finished brunch and walked wobbled toward market street. there are a few shops centered around market street, not to mention the market. part of it is down for reconstruction/renovations (not really sure), but a lot of it was still open. i walked through the whole thing last summer with my mom and spent entirely too much money–there are so many neat crafts and booths and SO much unique jewelry. it’s hard not to spend money. i was good this time and only made two purchases: a really weird necklace, and…

MY LADYBUG HAT.

that’s not to say it was my only purchase of the day. because, sadly, this was only our second stop or something out of like 7. i spent entirely too much money last weekend.

i also bought a half pound of fudge.

there was a lot of it. we went in 3 different candy stores, and a half pound of fudge is all i bought. that shows… a little self control. i also have over half of that half pound left a week later. note to readers, chocolate-peanut-butter fudge tastes freaking amazing after a shot of whiskey. so does cranberry juice. one of those is not good for you, however.

so if you’re ever in charleston, go downtown and eat lots of candy. except not at night on a weekend, or really any time at night during the summer (because then it’s hot as hell AND crowded), unless you’ve had at least a week’s worth of rest and are able to make your way through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds with ease. it is not for the faint at heart.

i made cake balls last night. cake balls that turned into more of… cake lumps. brett and i went the lazy route for dinner and made a freschetta pizza, and in doing so, i decided to direct all my extra energy into creating these… things. these lumps of gooey, unhealthy, awesomeness.

mine look nothing like the ones over at bakerella, and mine appear to be… bleeding, but they still taste good, according to coworkers.

ingredients:

• 1 box of red velvet cake mix (which requires 3 eggs and 1/3 cup vegetable oil)
• 2 packs of almond chocolate bark
• 2 8oz blocks of cream cheese

this was like… the easiest baking experience of my life.

1. beat eggs, vegetable oil, water, and cake mix in bowl
2. pour mixture into pan
3. cook at 350 degrees for 35 minutes
4. transfer cake to bowl and mash cake into tiny bits (this was especially fun, and i mashed the cake while we watched awakenings, awesome!!!)
5. mix with 16oz of cream cheese (if you want a ridiculous arm workout, try doing this while cream cheese is still cold)
6. roll into tiny balls (i happened to get 63 out of 1 box of cake mix)
7. place balls on baking sheet and freeze for 30 minutes
8. melt chocolate bark in microwave for 2 minutes, stir, melt again if necessary (do not use ziploc/glad plastic tupperware containers, they burn/melt/smoke, TRUST ME)
9. dunk frozen balls in chocolate and place on sheet to harden

seriously. i didn’t even break anything until this morning (don’t keep glass casserole dishes on top of refrigerators! refrigerators will throw them at you and they will shatter into millions of tiny bits!)!

also, i didn’t realize that if you do decide to use red velvet cake (i just thought it looked prettier), you will end up with red dye… everywhere. especially when you roll the cake mix into balls. my hands, and subsequently my arms and mouth, looked like i had just finished slaughtering a pig. and your cake balls will… bleed. there was a little bit last night after i let them harden in the pan, but when i woke up this morning there was even MORE red dye. but, that might just be my sloppy technique–yours might not even look like lumps, either.

i have eliminated soft drinks from my diet almost entirely. i might have one when i’m desperate, but otherwise i quit drinking them sometime this winter, for no particular reason. i guess my dental woes, which were not exactly soda-induced, made me try and avoid acidic fluids all together. i’ve only puked 3-4 times since then, half of which were when i had the flu. personally, i think those are excusable.

anyway, no soda == not nearly as much caffeine. i’m not big on drinking tea, unless it’s sweet tea, and even then i choose it at the last resort, or i put whiskey in it. and OH MY GOD, i’m from the south, something must be wrong with me because i don’t drink sweet tea by the gallon. brett drinks enough for the both of us, and then some, so i think it’s okay if i only indulge every once in a while.

i’ve since found other substitutes, mostly to stay awake between the hours of 9 and 11 AM, and also to subdue those god awful caffeine headaches that creep up every so often. 5-hour energy shots don’t quite cut it every morning. a boatload of vitamins and a little caffeine aren’t the same as coffee that will make you physically unable to close your eyelids. brett makes our coffee exceptionally strong–i don’t really care how strong it is, so long as there is enough left for me before i go to work.

he drinks his black, so i generally wait until he’s not looking to prepare my coffee. because i definitely don’t drink it black. i haven’t gotten to that point in my life yet. no. i add about a quarter cup of creamer, 4 spoonfuls of sugar, and half a packet of nestle hot chocolate mix. i try to wait until he’s not within sight so i can avoid the look he gives me. the look that says, “you are gonna have diabeetus in about 6 months if you keep drinking that crap!” so says the man who has single-handedly finished off 2 gallon-sized bags of gummy bears and sour patch kids. i drink it in the car on the way to work and usually finish it within the first half hour i’m there. and then, if you’re exceptionally unlucky, you’ll be one of the coworkers sitting next to me while i’m high on caffeine, talking your head off about everything and nothing. most likely the latter.

i don’t know what’s wrong with me this week but every morning, said coffee has been accompanied by a breakfast consisting solely of the following:

• tagalong girl scout cookies
• half moon cookies
• caramel filled ghirardelli squares
• all of the above

the awesome part? it might be more on the unhealthy side than it is awesome, but i’ve actually lost weight. i accomplished this once before–2 years ago when i worked in downtown fayetteville, NC, as a web developer. i would eat a quarter pound of peanut butter and chocolate fudge (get this: i worked on the same block as a fudge shop, an arcade, 3-4 bars, beef o’ brady’s, and a place called hamburger heaven. my GOD, that was awesome!) and drink a 12 oz coke every morning for breakfast, and i’d be so jacked on sugar that i wouldn’t even be hungry until i went home and cooked dinner (which usually consisted of rice or pasta, some form of meat: ground beef, baked chicken or pork tenderloin, broccoli or green beans, and ALWAYS salad). i dropped 10 pounds in a heartbeat.

if only i can figure out a way to make this process work for the next 50 years, i might be onto something.