Lately: Earnest & Home & More Pictures

The Importance of Being Earnest

Last Friday evening, Mike and I saw "The Importance of Being Earnest" at The Lansburgh Theatre (this is the 3rd show of season subscription to The Shakespeare Theater Company). I had never seen the show on stage, but am a HUGE fan of the movie (with Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, Reese Witherspoon) and knew it was going to be a lot of fun. And I was right. The audience was laughing non-stop and one of my favorite parts was probably watching the audience respond to the jokes that I knew were coming up. It's like hearing them for the first time. I said 'watch' because Mike and I were lucky enough to have box seats (due to previous snowstorm cancellations) and it was such a luxurious way to watch a show! Although Oscar Wilde's genius comes out in any production, the real standout of this production for me was the set. There were only two sets the entire show (the interior of a city house and the English garden of a country house). When the curtain opened for Act Two displaying the English garden set, people literally clapped because it was so breathtakingly beautiful and realistic. It seriously looked like a movie set.

As The Washingtonian sums up the show: "The servants steal, the women fight, the men lie, all amid the most beautiful surroundings of an English country garden with more florals than a vintage Laura Ashley catalog."

Here's the rest of the Washingtonian review of the show for a more detailed critique.

Home

I went home this past weekend to say goodbye to my youngest sister Kim before she leaves for a temporary trip to the West Coast. She'll come back briefly in April and then leave again for a new job that starts on the West Coast that month. I was grateful to be able to hang out with her and Ashton some more. For dinner, we went to Applebees which is always the place to be in small towns, but it was also trivia night so you know it was crazy! Kim and I also got to play tennis on Sunday before I left. Here are some more pics from my trip.

Kim found this picture of us that we got done at a photo booth at the mall or something? I thought it was too hilarious not to post. This is back when Kim was still shorter than I am.

Ashton in the morning! Kim's hands make him look smaller than he actually is.

Ashton and I catching up on some emails:)

It's so hard to catch him smiling, but he does it all the time!

Right when I got home.

More Pictures

On a sunset run in DC back during our 3-day warm stretch.

Chicken quinoa stir fry I made. Proud that I cooked meat!

LOVE this quote so much. It's so easy to get caught up in a race for things that don't really matter.

I have some students on my caseload at the university I used to work at and got to visit my former coworkers last week!

Bright blue skies as a backdrop for the Capitol building.

It is always spring in the Botanical Gardens!

Beautiful. Botanical Gardens.

I played Ultimate Frisbee on Saturday and got absolutely soaked with mud, but it was a beautiful day and I scored the winning point sooooo worth it!

From my first Marc train trip to Baltimore this week. Not as hard as it seems, but still had to get myself a calming latte for the trip.

Dragonboats in the snow at Inner Harbor!

I'm hoping to get another post in before the end of this week or this weekend, but hope everyone enjoys their weeks!

Snow Days and a Weekend in NC

SNOW DAYS

Mike and I both had Thursday and Friday off this past week due to snow. I am so ready for warm weather that it isn't even funny. I almost miss the unpredictability of DC's weather which would have normally broken up the snowstorms with a few 60 degree days. Not this time. I wish I had some pretty pictures of the snow to share, but truth is that we were hunkered down indoors most of the time. The first night Mike and I got takeout from Far East Taco Grille which is too close to the house for us to have never been to it before. We have been maybe 3 times since discovering it 2 weeks ago and are Korean fusion converts. (I HIGHLY recommend this place to anyone living in NE DC.) Then we had a snow party with Ben, Sara, Jeff, Mike and I watching the BlueRay version of "The Room" (one of everyone's favorite bad movies) and Pulp Fiction. We had white wine and scotch because all of our respective schools had already been closed for the next day. The next couple of days I worked from home, but Friday was also Valentine's Day, otherwise known as House of Cards day. House of Cards is a political drama/thriller set in DC and the 2nd season (all of the 2nd season) was set to be released on February 14th. Mike and I waited up until midnight to try to watch the first episode at which point we realized it was going to be released at 12:01am Pacific Time:/ so we just exchanged cards/gifts instead. And then we spent our Friday evening watching most of the 2nd season and eating funfetti cake cookies for lunch and ordering in Sticky Rice* for dinner. I can't think of any other way I would have wanted to spend the day. Sometimes staying in is the most romantic. *A word to the wise: "Bucket of Tots" is an actual bucket and not meant to be shared for any less than 6 people.

Perfect card choice, MJ! <3 #morehugs

NORTH CAROLINA

On Saturday, we drove down to North Carolina early and got brunch with Mike's dad at a Turkish place on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill. I forget the name, but it was mostly empty when we went (everyone else packing the bars to with TVs to watch the UNC game) and we got to choose a window seat which was basically a turkish tent draped with beautiful fabrics. I had never been to a Turkish restaurant before, but it seems to be lots of lamb, sauces, hummus, vegetarian options and the sauce they brought out at the beginning for us to dip our bread in was divine. It was filling and felt healthier than other alternatives so I was a fan.

L to R: Me, Marilyn, Mike. Jake's instagram of our Duke adventure. I didn't know how else to get the pictures besides screenshotting it.

After brunch, we met Jake and Marilyn (and Rigby their dog!) at their apartment in Durham to hang out before they went to the Duke/Maryland game. They took us for a campus tour of Duke and the Duke gardens and it was apparent that campus mostly shuts down on basketball game days. The Duke Gardens were lovely, but I'm sure I would have been able to appreciate them more if there were more terrain options besides mud and ice. Apparently they got more snow than DC did, though! I've never been a fan of Duke's basketball team, but I have to admit the campus was beautiful. Then Jake took us all to downtown Durham for a tour of old tobacco factories that have been renovated into restaurants and storefronts (tBurt's Bees is centralized here) and, although a little deserted, you can really tell how packed it would be on a warmer night. All restaurants have outdoor seating and lighting and bridges zig zag back and forth between buildings. I really hope to visit at some point this summer.

Later that night, Mike's mom made dinner for us (shrimp/spinach/parmesan pasta and oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies) and Mike and I finished our last two episodes of House of Cards! The next morning, we headed to DPAC for the Book of Mormon with Mike's mom and two of her friends. I was so glad that I had the soundtrack beforehand to learn all of the songs (Mike and I sang to it the entire way down)! I got to hear the audience respond to some of the jokes I already knew about and then finally get ones I hadn't understood before. It was "something incredible" and we still sang some of the songs on the drive home!

L to R: Mike, Leslie, Michael James, Me at a restaurant before the show.

Playbill! #thisbookwillchangeyourlife

I was really excited and forced a selfie before entering the theater. I need better excitement faces.

This picture was most important so I can remember what kind of bottle our blackberry wine came in and be able to find it again!

Headed back to VA after the matinee, I downloaded the Yelp! app and found a Korean restaurant (Koreana) near the interstate with good reviews. We've been really into Korean fusion lately, but decided to go for full Korean and were not disappointed. The restaurant  seemed overlooked because it was a little empty (what other reviews had stated), but our server was the nicest lady ever who made recommendations for blackberry wine, Bulgoggi, and Gop Dol Bim Bi Bap. It was all delicious, inexpensive, and fast. Plus, I was grateful for a mini-date before we headed back to DC. 

I've had today off due to President's Day. Mike and I went on a run to the Capitol and back (something we haven't done together in a while) and realized it's still quite an obstacle course of mud and ice out there. Thus, we started talking about how we're in training mode for our Disney trip (about 20 days away!) and how taking advantage of all the theme parks have to offer is all about agility, endurance, and being able to sprint to any character you come across! Tonight, we're going out to a restaurant in Old Town Alexandria with Absi, Zan, Kacey, and Steve and then I'm sure we'll be swearing off eating out for a while. :)

Adulthood Wins & Ironic Wins

This week got away from me, but that seems to happen during show week (whether I'm in the show or not). The first few GGSS productions I went to, I ushered a couple of nights, then I was House Manager for a show (there all the nights), and then I was actually in a show. For this week's most recent Winter production of "The Tempest", I was enlisted to help out with hair which mostly involved lots of curling and braiding. I don't consider myself to be that skilled with hair but, inspired by Daenerys Targaryen, I worked diligently every night this week to do hair better than the night before. I forgot how rewarding doing creative things other than work can be:) The cast was wonderful (I loved getting to know them all better backstage) and the week was filled with celebrations and reunions.

This was the very first time I tried the hair design. I can barely look at it now because it got MUCH better every night and almost looked nothing like this, but this is the only picture that I have. I was actually so proud of myself when I first did this that I had to take a picture:)

To the title of the post....Since turning 27, I've been please with all of the strides I've been making toward the elusive "adulthood". However, it seems all of my accomplishments have been tainted by youthful errors. I tried to frame one of these learning opportunities as an 'ironic win', but Mike wasn't having it. "An ironic win is just a loss." A learning opportunity is never a true loss. So here are some of the wins and ironic wins that have happened recently.

WINS

• TAXES: 2013 taxes done! (Okay maybe I just managed to gather all of the papers and Mike did most of the work on that front, but I'm still calling this a win because they got done anyway!) :) Since I am helping a lot of kids with their FAFSA submissions at work it also helps me to become familiar with all of the forms before they do their own taxes.
• DRIVING: I've had a very different (and variable) commute from my new job that I've still been acclimating to. This past week, I drove from MD to downtown DC on one street and went through about 5 traffic circles along the way. This is something that would have terrified me when I first moved to the city and I would not even have attempted it, but I'm feeling more comfortable with driving every day!
• BABYSITTING: On the babysitting gig (mentioned below as well), the baby was already asleep so I was actually just paid to do the sitting part of babysitting. I was told there was a small chance he would wake up which I was hoping would not happen given that it had been about 8 months since I last sat for the kid and he would not recognize me. Sure enough, he woke up around midnight crying up a storm and I had only been left a small amount of formula (and they had moved recently so I didn't know where more formula was). I gave him the small amount of formula that I had and then rubbed his belly for like half an hour to get him to fall asleep. I call this a win because I realized I've learned a lot from being around my nephew about baby problem solving.
• WORKING OUT: It's finally starting to sink in that, if I want to work out on any given day, it has to be in the morning AND that working out in the morning makes such a difference in my day. I've started making coffee the night before and leaving it in the fridge overnight to save time and so I can have a boost in the mornings.

One morning workout this week felt like a particular struggle, but as soon as I instagrammed this selfie, Pete replied with a "You got this!" and, since he's a personal trainer, I felt instantly encouaged.

IRONIC WINS

• KEYS: Last week I was getting out of the car and dropped my keys on the ground. I'd had a particularly good day at work so I distinctly remember pausing momentarily smiling to myself about how silly it was that I had dropped my keys. During that momentary pause, my entire keychain slid into the street drain which happened to be right beside where they fell. On the plus side, I located out local neighborhood hardware store that has EVERYTHING you could ever possibly need including key cutting services that took less than 5 seconds.
• BABYSITTING: I got a last-minute offer to babysit last week and drove to Adams Morgan where I had to exchange alley parking spots with Dad. I was feeling really proud of my parking job while walking with him into the house until he asked me "Did you lock your car?" and I realized I was just walking away and making conversation while leaving my car unlocked. Oops.
• PARKING TICKET: My job pays for my parking. All I have to do is log in to an app on my phone and confirm my location. However, this week I forgot to confirm on my phone one day and got a $45.00 ticket?!?! I was really upset because that is a lot of money and I felt so stupid. I instantly called my sister, Kim, who I can count upon to listen to my shame stories and rattled off a list of everything that sucked in my life and how dumb I was (a downward spiral I let myself fall into all because of one little ticket). Kim is so patient...and also wise. She listened to me, said that sucked, and then recommended I breathe and get myself a hot chocolate. I could have let the ticket ruin my day (sometimes I let stuff like that happen), but instead I paid my ticket immediately over the phone, threw the ticket away (and out of my mind), and got a hot chocolate. 

Flowers Mike brought me after his interview in Baltimore on Friday. It went well and he should hear back in about a month!

One of the many pictures of Ashton I get throughout the week that always make my day:) He's getting so big! (3 months old now)

And he wants to talk so badly! (my current favorite video of him with my mom in the background)