A wine weekend with the girls

A few of my college friends are flying/driving up to the Finger Lakes Region of New York State for wine tasting. (Here's a link to the Finger Lakes Wine Country website  FLWC) It was always a favorite past time of ours in college and now we're back together three years later!

We love to taste the wine, get together and catch up, and of course meet a lot of interesting people along the way.

I never really liked wine until we went wine tasting (and I actually discovered wine wasn't all bitter or dry!) I've become a very small-scale wine expert (in the act that I know a little trivia about wine and some tasting facts that wow my friends whenever I take them!)

I'm a fan of sweet wines, especially a blush wine. If you are too, one way to easily tell the level of sweetness of a wine is to look on the label/box/tasting guide for the R.S. percentage. R.S. just means residual sugar and tells you how sweet the wine actually is. (For me the sweeter the better!) The sweetest wine out there is called dessert wine, which can go on top of ice cream, fresh fruit, or stand alone (in small quantities of course--it's very sweet!) Typically I like my wine to taste like juice and am totally happy in the 6-8% R.S. level, but I have has some dessert wines as sweet at 22% R.S. Keep the R.S. in mind even if you're not a sweet wine drinker, it will easily help you find a favorite wine.


Are there any wines you LOVE? Does anyone know any wine trivia or taster's tips?

The Catcher In the Rye

What I'm reading now:

J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye



I've read The Catcher in the Rye before (actually in 11th grade English) and really liked the book.

Now, that I'm rereading this book to teach to my seniors in the fall, I'm in love with this book! There are so many cool things I just overlooked as a teenager, that I'm picking up on. The symbolism is awesome and I adore the fact that Holden is such an unreliable narrator. He says he hates this and hates that, and the next minute he's doing just that. Typical teens!

So, if you haven't read it, please you have to go pick it up or borrow it from someone, somewhere. It's wonderful (and it's got sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll appeal--so to speak).

Yeah, I'm an English nerd. Snort, snort.

Weekend Recap

So this weekend, the fiance and I did a lot of work to the Master Bedroom and it's starting to look like a real room again, not just a room under construction. Thank goodness!

We painted most of the room (minus our accent wall) and will definitely paint that this week. Next steps are stripping the molding and cleaning up the hardwood floors--the end is in sight!

We also have a garden--it's huge--and all our hard work in that is finally paying off! We gathered about 10 cucumbers and a large bowl of beans. Nothing is better than fresh vegtables!

But I am really working hard this week because I'm looking forward to next weekend. A break from all this work and crazy go, go, go-ness. Some of my college friends are coming up and we are having a girls' weekend and going wine tasting! 


Now to just get the apartment cleaned and grocery shopping done before they arrive!

What were you up to this weekend? Anything exciting?

Up early

I'm up at 7 am getting ready to go to the gym.

And blog of course!

My roommate, Jill, thinks I'm crazy because I can sleep in until whenever (because I'm not working this summer--the many perks of teaching) and yet, I insist on getting up early to go to the gym.

I don't know why I prefer going early in the morning, maybe it's because I can't during the school year or maybe it's quieter there in the wee hours? Either way, I'm getting my butt out of bed earlier than neccessary!

Is there anything you get up extra early to do?

Lowe's a.k.a. what has my life become?

I used to get excited about shopping at

Old Navy, Target, Burlington, and the mall

NOW......

I get excited about shopping at Lowe's!

What is going on?!

The fiance and I have begun renovating his new house, specifically starting in the Master Bedroom. It started out as repainting the walls (which were just plain white with the exception of one wallpapered wall) and stripping the trim (which was painted baby blue). But I quickly discovered those things in themselves required stripping the paper, sanding the walls, fixing the walls, fixing the holes the fiance put into the walls (gotta love him!), and then painting!

We also made the executive decision to pull up a corner of the carpet in the closet to see if we had some nice hardwood (which we did!)

We also discovered this cool little test from Lowe's online to check the quality of your uncovered hardwood floors with water! Lowe's Hardwood Floor How-To

So we've got a room with no wallpaper, no trim, bare and gorgeous hardwood floors, a few small places to repair in the wall, and one large place to repair because we discovered ants! At least we're ant free now!

I have high hopes for this weekend and getting some serious work done!

What are your home improvement projects or are you lucky and have none?!

Summer is flying by!

It's July 20th. I've been out of school for 27 days.

Here's what I've been up to...

 Getting engaged (!!!!)

Isn't this this gift cute?! From my friend in Florida!



Meeting up with friends from high school.
Two of them are getting married this summer
and two of us just got engaged!



 Going to friends' weddings.

Which makes me think I need to get started on planning mine.

Going on vacation to visit my friend in Florida.

She lives about 15 minutes from 5 beaches...UNFAIR!

Going to Disney World!

I got to spend a day there with my Florida friend, Nicole!

There has also been BBQs, gardening, house projects, and going to see Harry Potter with my roommate. It's been a wonderful summer altogether but I still feel like it's flying by! I wonder if it's just me who feels like it's slipping by (because I have work starting up in a month and a half) or if everyone feels that way.

Welcome Back (to me!)

Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back!

I'm back from a break from the blogging world and hoping I can really stick with blogging this time.

So let me tell you a little about myself...

I'm 24 years old and recently engaged! Wahooo!

The ring. :)

I teach and I am absolutely in love with my job. It's the most rewarding thing I do on a daily basis and even on the toughest days, it's more than worth it.








The fiance has recently bought a house (before we were engaged) and is working on some home improvement projects, which means I'm working on home improvement projects! And I had no idea how one "little" project can snowball into a HUGE undertaking.







My close friends live all over the country from New York to Florida to Spain. I love spending time with my friends and I love traveling, so now I have the perfect excuse to do so!





I also ADORE Disney! I'm sure there will be a couple of nods to WDW and Disney movies in my upcoming posts. Plus, I just finished a trip to Walt Disney World--it was wonderful!


I suppose that's me in a nut-shell.

~M