2013: happy new year!

I have a marvelous New Year's :)  K planned a surprise getaway to Albany, New York, and booked a room (the inn equivalent of a penthouse, on the top floor) at this amaaaaaaaaaaazing "Mansion Row" inn called the Morgan State House.  As soon as we reached the top of the stairs and I looked through the French doors to see the spacious room with that incredible skylight, I was in heaven.

We arrived around 3 PM, and spent the first few hours of our stay relaxing, sipping champagne, and reading up on the history of the inn.  I was even more enchanted by the room after learning that the house had been owned by Alice Morgan Wright, a renowned sculptor and activist who spent time in prison for her participation in the women's suffragist movement in the early 1900s, and was an active advocate for women's rights until the mid-1940s, when she switched her focus to animal rights.  We spent the night in what once was her art studio. Pretty. Awesome.  Around six, I got gussied up and K took pictures of my outfit.

Seriously, I love this dress SO MUCH.  I found it for two dollars at the Bargain Boutique and it fit PERFECTLY.  It is homemade brocade.  I've been saving it for months because I knew it would be perfect for NYE, and now I plan to wear it all the time! :)  We left the room only briefly to enjoy a delicious meal at the Jewel of India, conveniently located right around the corner (so my bare legs didn't take much of a beating).  It's become something of a tradition for K and I to have Indian on NYE (when he's around). OMG so good, I want it again right now.

After dinner we headed back to the room to indulge in chocolate and champagne (and whiskey and coke for K), take advantage of that awesome tub, and watch House Hunters and catch the end of Taylor Swift's unfortunate performance before the ball dropped in Times Square.  The next morning we had breakfast at the only diner that was open in town and headed back to Vermont, where we had milkshakes for dinner.  Our holiday season is always pretty party-heavy, so it's nice to be able to get away from it all and spend that last night of the year exploring a new place with K. I had such a great time, and if the 'eve was any indication, I'm in for a pretty spectacular year, with a pretty spectacular fellow by my side :)

2012 was a good year, but I just KNOW that 2013 is going to be GREAT!

over the weekend: cape ann

Since this was K's first weekend back on the east coast and we weren't able to spend the holidays together this year, we decided that a little weekend getaway was in order. We have always loved exploring little seaside towns, so K did a little research and we were off to Rockport, MA!

We arrived at our hotel (Rockport Inn and Suites) pretty late on Friday night, so we just picked up a quick dinner and drank champagne in the hotel room. The next morning we got up bright and early (for us) and explored historic Rockport village. It was a gloriously beautiful day for January--50 sunshine-y degrees!

When we had seen all that Rockport had to offer, we headed into Gloucester for more wandering and lunch at Destino's!

We spent what seemed like (and very well might have been) hours searching for the Annisquam Lighthouse, which turned out to be a major disappointment because it was in a residential area and the locals were not very keen on sharing their historic sights. I went on a bit of a rant about entitled rich people. But seriously--I just wanted to look at it!

We had a delicious dinner at Giuseppe's that night--fettucine alfredo and lasagne (which was unbelievable massive) accompanied by smooth Tuscan red table wine--and headed back to the hotel for more champagne, chocolates, and a soak in the hot tub.

The next morning, after breakfast and coffee at Brothers Brew in Rockport (his: Norwegian coffee bread, hers: egg&cheese sandwich), we drove down to wander the grounds of Hammond Castle. Unfortunately, it was closed for the winter (like most of the Cape Ann area), but we definitely intend to go back in the spring/summer to check out the museum and to look around inside.

It was much colder yesterday than it had been on Saturday, and overcast, and we had pretty much exhausted everything there was to do in the Rockport/Gloucester area, so we headed home. We took the back way and ended up in Newburyport, which we thought was so fabulous that we stopped to wander around a bit more:

Finally, we made our way back home, where we made nachos and freaked ourselves out with a few episodes of The Walking Dead (and now I'm hooked--who'd have thought?).

in which i get sheepish

I think I'm going to have to bring back Sweater Monday... it's that time of year! Surprisingly, it was incredibly easy to get out of bed this morning. I'm guessing that's because of Daylight Savings and the fact that it wasn't completely black as night when my alarm went off this AM. I had almost forgotten about this spectacular sheep sweater, but I'm so glad I remembered I had it! Sheep are awesome. And it's pretty appropriate to knit a sheep scene on a wool sweater--like an homage to the fluffy little donors :)

(sweater/skirt/belt: thrifted; tights: hue; shoes: lulu*s)

I had a really fun weekend with friends on the New York side of the lake! We took the ferry over on Saturday afternoon (and who doesn't love ferries?) and drove down to Keeseville to see my friend Nancy's new apartment. We sat around and snacked for a while (several hours...) before heading into Plattsburgh for a wild night on the town. By wild, I mean not really. But it was fun! We had Thai food at Sawatdee (food was great, service was slow and sporadic), and then started bar hopping. Our first stop was Monopole, where I really wanted to play darts but a large group of rowdy middle-aged women were dominating both boards. After sipping a single cider to my friends' rounds of tequila sunrises, we decided to scout out Rumours, where we started a dance party by ourselves in the back room (the best kind). The music didn't really impress us, so after an hour or so we decided to move on to Peabody's, where we danced like wildwomen for several hours. We finally emerged around 12:30 AM and happened upon Olive Ridley's, where we saw that a live band (Party Wolf) was playing. It was by far the best part of the night--they played all of the same popular music/hits that we had been hearing all night, but it was such much more fun live and the energy in the crowd was electric (plus they played Lady Gaga and Ke$ha, which I admit I love to dance to!). Anyway, really good times. I think we pretty much experienced all that Plattsburgh has to offer!

The next morning we had breakfast at a diner in Keeseville and briefly went to check out Ausable Chasm (I have been wanting to go and will definitely go back and make a day of it during the summer months--hiking and tubing and camping, oh my!) before hopping back on the ferry and driving home. It was really great to have a girl's weekend away and to catch up with everyone (and although I think I'm getting too old for sleeping bags on the floor, I'm definitely still able to dance all night!).

new years eve 2010: for night

I had been lusting over this Modcloth dress for ages and I knew that it was destined to be mine for this very occasion. It was on sale, so as soon as Christmas had come and gone (I had put it on my "list" but ended up receiving something MUCH more amazing and entirely unexpected--a new laptop!) it was mine.

(dress: modcloth; hair bow/shoes: kohl's; necklace: uo; tights: gift)

When I first tried the dress on I wasn't 100% ecstatic about the fit, but as the night wore on (esp after an enormous Indian meal) I was glad that it wasn't skin-tight. K and I drove into downtown Portland and took a little stroll around the city before stopping at Tandoor for dinner.

The food was delicious (although the samosas were not the best I've ever had, you can't really go wrong), and the $3 rosé wine was the perfect complement (K had a Kingfisher). We ended up dropping quite a bit of dough, but it's only NYE once a year, right? After dinner we took another stroll to walk off some of the rice (the weather was AMAZING this weekend--almost 60 degrees during the day!) and headed back to the hotel (where we were greeted by chocolate chip cookies, bottled water, and classical music--the staff was incredibly attentive) to drink champagne in excess and watch the ball drop above (you guessed it) the roaring (gas) fireplace.

It was such a lovely, relaxing night in wonderful company, and the next day was a great start to the new year. We slept in, I hung out in the amaaaaaazing shower for far longer than necessary and emerged to find fresh brewed coffee (courtesy of my fellow) and a sweet little note, sipped said coffee in the sun and finally went out to breakfast at the first little diner we saw on the side of the road for some incredible omelets:

(HIS/HERS)

We drove down to Braintree for some spontaneous shopping, picked up some great new clothes, and finally headed home (from there things got a little dicey, but it didn't matter because we were having such a great time)!

All in all, a great start to what I hope will be the best year ever!

How did you spend your NYE?