Random stuff

#1
After watching several episodes of L&O this weekend I hope that once I live alone again that I am never suspected of a crime. I would never have a good alibi.

#2
I am thoroughly entertained by the fact that one of the new UPS commercials has a song from "The Postal Service" playing in the background.

#3
I think the TV show Brothers & Sisters might be my new favorite TV show. It's about a family of 5 kids and their relationships with each other and their mom. Super characters.

#4
HBO OnDemand has some great movies right now. Today I watched, Two for the Money, The Cowboy Way and I watched my Netflixed The Collateral. All good movies. It's funny how much more you understand when you watch a movie as an adult that you used to watch as a kid. The adult references in The Cowboy Way apparently were way over my head when I watched it as a kid. I wonder how many other movies are like that.

#5
I have started taking Masala Bhangra dance classes and it's a great time. "The bouncier you are the more authentic it looks". If you're interested in coming with me to a class let me know!

Christmas Means Carnage

I've been planning on blogging about this forever, but was going to upload a picture to support my findings. If you don't live in NYC, you'll just have to take my word for it.

I got back from my Christmas holiday and found PILES of Christmas trees laying on the side of the street. There were seriously 8-10 trees per pile, about 3 on my street alone. It smelled great but I was a little worried someone would throw their cigarette in the wrong place. Apparently people just leave them by the street and then someone comes with a wood chipper and grinds them up for fertilizer in Central Park. Yay!

The best thing about it is that several people were unwilling to store holiday lights and tree holders. I saw more than one tree with it's decorations still on it. Wonder how those fair in the wood chipper.

Weather Update

Yay! It's snowing in New York! We're getting a light dusting this afternoon but I'm not entirely sure you can call it that when as soon as it hits the ground, it melts.

After the amazing weather we had in December it is suddenly FREEZING in NYC. Literally freezing, like I have step over the ice path from water spilled on the sidewalk. I personally feel like I'm being a trooper, by only complaining about being cold 10% of the time. I told my mom yesterday that it was freezing here and she reminded me that 24 degrees is not even crunchy coat weather (if you know what that means you have two thumbs up in my book).

We agreed that new standards of "cold" have to be created for me since I walk approximately a mile each way to work, whereas I probably never walked a consecutive mile when I lived in South Dakota. Well, except for the Presidential Fitness test.

Ok, this is cute

Since I haven't posted anything about my niece and nephew lately I had to put up this picture.

How cute are they!?!?! Abby blogged about how Gabrielle is getting good at feeding Colin but this is too cute to handle. This will be a favorite picture of mine for a long time.

Law & Order Junkie

I've watched Law & Order for YEARS. And ever since they have been showing reruns of the original and SVU on TNT and USA, these have been my go-to channels when they're nothing to watch on TV. I love when they have marathons of L&O back to back. I was talking to someone about it or reading it, that the best thing about this show is that every show is different, they rarely bring up things that happened in past shows so if you miss one you're fine. They're also so formulaic that if you miss the first half, you can still have a pretty good idea of what's happening.

Lately, I have found that Without a Trace also fits this profile and is ALSO shown on TNT. Sadly I realized that I was watching a Without a Trace that I had seen before. This is the problem I've run into watching L&O for so many years, I think I've seen them all. I think I just need to keep finding shows I love in syndication.

Random rant

Everyone has a special skill. My mother's is that she can spot an expired SD license plate from 2 car lengths away. In SD you are assigned a month to renew your license plates based on the first letter of your last name and it is represented by a sticker in the upper left hand corner, 01 - January, 02 - February, etc. I want to say ours were sometime in the summer, July maybe? They are also color coded by year so if in June she sees a red 05 and the sticker for 2007 is blue then, yep, they have expired license plates.

Anyway, I think my skill is spotting, then telling people, when the string that holds together the slit at the back of their coat hasn't been cut. I know, it's weird, but it drives me crazy when the slit is still sewn together. When they're walking it tends to gape open and look like you have an opening for a tail or something. With all the new coats out there after the holidays I feel like maybe I should walk around with a pair of scissors. Sadly, I have stopped telling most people because they look at me like I'm crazy. Hopefully, the string has not been cut because they don't look at the back of their coat and they don't see it and not that they think it's meant to be that way.

Happy Anniversary Abby and Matt!

Five years ago my sister and brother-in-law were joined in wedded bliss.

Two kids and two moves later they are still going strong.

Happy Anniversary!

I love you guys!

Note: I am no longer allowed to use subtraction before January 15.

Family Heirlooms

This past Thanksgiving my sisters and I started laying claims to family heirlooms from our childhood. Were we fighting over priceless china? Jewelry perhaps? No, we were fighting over a green plastic alligator medicine spoon.

Whenever we were sick as kids (ok, well into our teenage years) we took our liquid medicine from this alligator spoon. He has legs, he's fancy.

I am happy to say that I got the alligator, my argument being, "I was the sick one". I've never been so happy to have been susceptible to ear aches, bladder issues and a variety of other ailments in my life!

To make it up to my sisters for stealing a priceless heirloom I bought them alligator spoons from a medical supply company. If you come visit, I have some spares. Don't you want an alligator medicine spoon, or, "cuchara para medicamentos" of your very own?

Ab and Whit - cereal sugar shaker. It's on.

Resolution #1

Blog more. I've pretty much been on hiatus for the last 2 weeks. If you're still checking my blog you're the best!

I had some issues with Blogger but most of the issues have now been resolved. I think.

I was at home in South Dakota for a week or so for Christmas. I got to see lots of family and friends, attended the 4th (?) annual Casey Christmas party but there was no snow. I was all excited for snow and wintery mix on my flight home and I got nothin'. It wasn't even cold. I know I should knock on wood but there is something wrong with the weather. This week in NYC, mostly low 50's every day. It's so weird.

Movies I've seen lately, The Holiday - two enthusiastic thumbs up. The Pursuit of Happyness - great story but could have held out for the DVD.

For all those who sent holiday cards/pictures and letters - I LOVED them. At some point I will become more of an adult and actually send them out.

Hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and I will attempt to prevent further disappearances on my part.