Say cheese!!!

I’m a cheese lover. I could just sit on the couch and eat cheese all day.

I recently discovered a really tasty new cheese. (Thanks, Russo’s!!!)

Maple Smoked Grafton Village Cheddar Cheese.

I love anything smoky-tasting (gouda is another favorite cheese) AND I love maple syrup, so what could be better than MAPLE SMOKED CHEDDAR CHEESE? Few things could be better…few things.

I think I want to visit them sometime in the near future for some serious cheese tasting. (Another place for syrup and cheese tasting - Sugarbush Farm. Includes a friendly goat who wanders the premises)

Another reason that I can’t wait for the election

I cannot stand those Sununu and Shaheen commercials anymore!!!! They are driving me up a wall. Yesterday Matt was watching football all day and I swear, each commercial break there would be multiple commercials for both of them. They’re so scathing, especially Sununu’s commercials.

They’re also on the radio a lot, so sometimes we wake up to those awful commercials on our clock radio.

AND we can’t even vote for either of them because they’re in New Hampshire!!!!!

In 48 hours, not only will we learn who won the election (and these butterflies in my stomach will finally wane) but then I won’t have to see or hear those terrible Sununu and Shaheen commercials anymore!!!

Lighthouses and Newport, RI

My in-laws are in town, so we took a little weekend trip down to Newport, RI.

We did go to one of the mansions:

That was the Marble House, summer home of the Vanderbilts. We couldn’t take pictures inside, but MAN was it gaudy.

We also visited a variety of lighthouses:

There were also a few we couldn’t actually visit, but we did see them going over a bridge:

We’ve now seen eight lighthouses this year. Our goal is to visit 10 a year, so we have a little over 2 months to see two more.

Saturday in Maine

Yesterday was my birthday, and tomorrow is our first wedding anniversary! So, to celebrate, we went to Maine for some LOBSTAH!!!!

Fuggles IPA at Federal Jacks…YUM!!! This picture was actually a bit of a rude awakening. Upon uploading I thought, “Man, I don’t look so young anymore.” And to confirm: I was later called “ma’am” by a cashier at a gift shop.

Matt got the Lobster Feast…for $31, it came with a whole lobster, a buncha mussels, a cup o’ chowder, french fries, and a pint of beer. I got an amazingly delicious lobster roll, which while super yummerific made for a far less interesting picture.

Some pretty boats and stuff in Kennebunk(port)

And then we wanted to see a lighthouse. We’re obsessed with lighthouses and sadly we left our New England lighthouse book at home. So, we stopped at this beach so we could look it up on our phones. (I get carsick so I can’t read in a moving car.) It was cold but really nice. The smell of the ocean was invigorating!

We found the information for The Cape Neddick Lighthouse! We couldn’t go inside and it was on a little island so we couldn’t even really get near it, but I thought it was quite picturesque.

Afterwards we found a funny little bowling alley (it was in sort of a giant garage, and it also had indoor mini golf, pizza, ice cream, and t-shirts for sale) where we played a game. I won’t tell you how low I scored…but it was a little embarrassing. We had a good time anyway!!

Then we headed back down towards Boston to go to good ol’ Cabots where I got mint Oreo ice cream with hot fudge and Matt got a peanut-butter and banana sundae.

It was a really nice way to celebrate both my birthday and our anniversary.

New Englander

A few weeks ago, there was a moment when I realized that I had become a true New Englander. Upon landing in San Francisco, I immediately lamented the fact that there were no Dunkin Donuts. I’m not in it for the donuts, or even for the coffee…I just wanted a large, plain iced tea. That’s it.

I don’t like Starbucks iced teas. Sure, they have plenty of choices, but they all have this perfumey taste that I do not enjoy. Peet’s is a little better. I like the simplicity of a plain, iced black tea. And Dunkies is far cheaper than Starbucks.

Other passable places for iced tea are Panera Bread (it’s about the only thing there that isn’t an ungodly amount of calories) and Wawa, when I happen to be in New Jersey or Pennsylvania. My neighborhood bakery, Keltic Krust also has a ginger peach iced tea that I wholeheartedly enjoy.

But for value? Dunkin Donuts iced tea is where it’s at…and during my travels in California during a bit of a heat wave, I really missed it.

Sweet Caroline…good times never seemed so ANNOYING!!!

It’s official. I am SO SICK of “Sweet Caroline.”

I’ve never been a big fan of Neil Diamond. I always thought he was cheesy and I’d fast-forward through him in The Last Waltz. However, after I moved here and started getting on the Red Sox bandwagon, the song started to grow on me. I’d sing along and dance around to it during Red Sox games…and I’ve even karaoked to it with a group of friends.

But now I am so so so sick of it. I came to this realization today when I was loading my car after a productive Costco run and some young woman in an SUV came driving into the parking lot blaring “Sweet Caroline.”

My first thought: “Oh no.” And then for whatever reason, she sat in her car for a while as the song continued to blast. My thoughts at that point: “MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STTTTTTTTTTOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I am so over you, Caroline…and you, too, Neil.

And thus continues my love affair with Russo’s…

25 bags of Yerba Mate tea for $2.98. That’s $3 less than at Trader Joe’s, and $5 less than at Shaw’s organic department.

I had to cut down on my Yerba Mate habit because it was getting pricey, but after finding this bargain at Russo’s, I can resume my habit!! Mmmm, Yerba Mate!!!!!!

Sheep Shearing Festival

On Saturday, Matt and I attended a Sheep Shearing Festival at Gore Place in Waltham. It was so much fun!

I am torn between being a city girl and a country girl. I lived in Brooklyn when I was little, but spent most of my life in Central Jersey, which at the time was filled with farms and cows. Now it’s filled with shopping centers and housing developments. When we first moved to New Jersey, we didn’t even have a local supermarket! We had a general store. The summers smelled like cow manure. I haven’t lived in an area like that in a long time. Usually I tend to live right outside of cities.

But until recently, I didn’t know that we were only a few miles from being able to visit the farm animals at Gore Place! Below are the pictures from the festival:

Matt and I listening the the bluegrass music

OXEN!

This big guy mooed in a baby’s face.

Matt looks proud because this was after I confiscated the camera because he was spending a great deal of time photographing cow doody.

Lots of oxen pics

Sheep, many waiting to be sheared.

Sheep enjoying their new hairdos.

A llama! Isn’t he funny?

A girl sheep getting sheared. She didn’t seem to mind and she was awfully cute.

Baby goats!

The baby goats kept going into that little roof structure thing.

BWOCK!

Border collie herding demonstration.

Mini horses

Matt and horses

HELLO! I’m Mr. Ed!

Pygmy sheep and goats.

Me

Alpacas! I think they’re so funny looking!!

Matt enjoying the alpacas!

BABY!

I think this was the Alpha Male and he was kind of a jerk to the other goats.

The Alpha Male trying to pick a fight with another goat. They were butting each other’s heads.

A pirate looking guy selling baskets

Poop on the New York Subway

The day after Christmas, I went with my dad, cousins, and Matt to The Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. We took the subway in from Queens, enjoyed a lovely pizza lunch, and spent the afternoon looking at all of the fantastic exhibits. (My favorite were the dinosaur bones…I remember that from going there on field trips!)

After transferring to the N train to get back to Queens, we were excited to find a mostly empty subway car during rush hour. And then, we were overwhelmed by a very, very foul smell. We then came to a horrible realization why the subway car was mostly empty: that smell was poop. At first I thought someone had just farted, but then the smell never went away and it was apparent that the stench was poop.

At that point, we had to decide what to do. Our choices were as follows:

1) Exit the subway car and get on one of the cramped ones.
2) Stay in the spacious, but stinky subway car and watch peoples’ reactions as they boarded.

My cousins enthusiastically opted for number 2. (No pun intended) It was like something out of “Candid Camera”…people walking in and exiting immediately, people wrapping their scarves around their noses and mouths, and taking out tissues to breathe through them.

I pulled my turtleneck over my nose and mouth and watched the horrified subway-riders. I laughed so heartily that my sides ached for hours afterwards.

Shirts at South Station

In the spirit of:

Yesterday they were selling shirts at South Station that said “GIANTS SUCK, TOO!”