I've been feeling crummy these past few days. Sinuses going crazy, not really getting a lot of sleep. So, I've been doped up on nyquil and dayquil and it hasn't really helped. I realized that since there is so many other things in those meds, that I probably should get something JUST for congestion.
So, I thought of the new Vicks44 line of meds that give you ONLY what you need. (ie. one for congestion). I looked through ALL of my coupons (yes, I'm an avid coupon-clipper) and couldn't find any for it. Cold and Flu medicine isn't cheap... about $5-8 per bottle! I even tried searching on the net for something.
To no avail, I didn't find any discounts. My discomfort, unfortunately, outweighs the cost... so I decided to hop in the car and grab some at the drugstore.
I walk in to CVS and find the whole line of Vicks44 specialized care products. They're all about $7.50 each (YIKES!)... except the one I wanted for congestion. It's marked at over 75% off... only $1.89.
Crazy, right?! It was such a little blessing from God... a nice little discount on what I needed to feel better. :)
*sigh* God is great... and he shows it to me every single day!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Chasing Harry Winston
If you haven't picked it up yet, this book was absolutely amazing! I bought it while I was in Florence because I loved this international cover better than the one released in the US. I couldn't put this book down! If you're a fan of chick-lit, you most certainly need to read it! :) The next book I'm on to is called A Year of Fog and I just got it today at the bookstore. It's a different kind of book than I normally read - one about a girl that goes missing while at the beach in San Fran. She is there with her Father's fiance and it goes through the trials and tribulations of a missing child and their relationship. So far, it's a great book as well. I'm glad I'm expanding my reading horizons!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Pics from Italy and France :)
There she is... my source of obsession for the past 10 years!
This is what I always envisioned Paris looking like.
We totally went to Lamborghini... :)
And Ducati...
Florence was ah-may-zing! This was sunset... on the river...
This was one of the wineries we visited. The guy who owned the place was actually a "count"... heh. Fabulous wine!
Starting to get into the swing of things...
The summer is flying by. This could be a good and/or bad thing for me... good, because I'll have graduated from college with a bachelor's degree, but bad, because I LOVE summer. I love summer weather... summer activities... etc. etc. you get the point.
I'll be done with school July 29th and that day could not come any sooner! This class, however, is crazy fast with a HUGE business simulated game that we do every single week. It's an online game that we play - for a grade. MMmmhmmm. I'm writing all of the reports for my team. This should be interesting.
Other than that, I've been working as a nanny still... working at the restaurant, still... and enjoying my Tuesdays and Sundays. Michael's son is in town - and he's about to go to Dallas to pick the other one up, so it's going to be a full house this summer as well.
I'll leave you with some fabulous pics from my trip :)
I'll be done with school July 29th and that day could not come any sooner! This class, however, is crazy fast with a HUGE business simulated game that we do every single week. It's an online game that we play - for a grade. MMmmhmmm. I'm writing all of the reports for my team. This should be interesting.
Other than that, I've been working as a nanny still... working at the restaurant, still... and enjoying my Tuesdays and Sundays. Michael's son is in town - and he's about to go to Dallas to pick the other one up, so it's going to be a full house this summer as well.
I'll leave you with some fabulous pics from my trip :)
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
10 [different] Things about Europe and the US
1. There are no fat people in Europe. Everyone is skinny skinny. I felt like the fat one!! :)
2. People ride bikes and mo-peds EVERYWHERE in Europe. It's awesome!
3. The smallest car in the US is the biggest car in Europe. (take that statement with a grain of salt... I was mostly in heavily populated cities where they have mini-cars everywhere!)
4. There are SO many stairs in France. It was a great butt workout!
5. The people are so much friendlier in Europe - ie airline personnel, shop owners, etc. I literally witnessed a lady being cursed out by the airline lady behind the counter because she didn't understand what she was saying. I don't get why some people have to be so rude!
6. The olive oil in Italy is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!)
7. EVERYONE in Europe smokes EVERYWHERE. It's insane!
8. Students in the US don't learn multiple languages. I felt like everyone I encountered in Italy and France spoke English. :)
9. International book covers are much more exciting than ones in the US. I read Chasing Harry Winston and got the cover with the green stiletto on it. Fabulous!
10. There -is- something about the Tuscan Sun. It's absolutely amazing!
:)
2. People ride bikes and mo-peds EVERYWHERE in Europe. It's awesome!
3. The smallest car in the US is the biggest car in Europe. (take that statement with a grain of salt... I was mostly in heavily populated cities where they have mini-cars everywhere!)
4. There are SO many stairs in France. It was a great butt workout!
5. The people are so much friendlier in Europe - ie airline personnel, shop owners, etc. I literally witnessed a lady being cursed out by the airline lady behind the counter because she didn't understand what she was saying. I don't get why some people have to be so rude!
6. The olive oil in Italy is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!)
7. EVERYONE in Europe smokes EVERYWHERE. It's insane!
8. Students in the US don't learn multiple languages. I felt like everyone I encountered in Italy and France spoke English. :)
9. International book covers are much more exciting than ones in the US. I read Chasing Harry Winston and got the cover with the green stiletto on it. Fabulous!
10. There -is- something about the Tuscan Sun. It's absolutely amazing!
:)
Italy and France :)
It's way too complicated to go back and write every single detail about my trip - so here goes... the jist!
- The first day I was in Rome, Italy... we rented vespas! (well, little honda mo-ped's) It was SO much fun. Since we rented them overnight, we went to the beach the next day. There were 6 of us who got them, so it was totally fun! One of the guys wrecked his 20 seconds after he got on it... hilarious!
- While in Rome, I saw pretty much everything I wanted to see. The spanish steps, Colloseum, The Vatican, St. Peter's Basillica (Actually went to the excavations at st. peter's basillica and that was SUPER cool), etc. It was much more fun just riding around on the mo-ped's instead! We went to the Piazza Navonna, hung out by the river, ate chinese food (haha!), ate a TON of italian food, ate gelato, etc etc. We also saw the Opera, Pagliacci, and that was really cool, too!
- On the way from Rome to Florence, we stopped at a winery and had a wine tasting. This was really awesome - to actually see the wine fields and everything. This was one of our company visits for the program, so we were there for _hours_.
- When in Florence, we went to the original Buca di Beppo (or where it was originated from) to eat the first night. A boyfriend of one of the girls on our trip surprised her with a ring in her room when we got there. It was really sweet and he stayed with us for the rest of the trip.
- The BEST gelato in the entire city (or perhaps even what I had in Italy) was at La Carialla (not sure about the spelling). It was AMAZING! I had mint chocolate chip :)
- We toured Santa Maria Novella, another perfumerie, and a few other companies. On Sunday, we had a free day and I was pretty much over being around everyone for 7 days straight, so I went shopping! I got this pair of jeans that is oh-so-awesome. A shirt, some italian leather sandals (at the market), and a whole bunch of souvenirs for everyone at the street markets. It's really awesome there! They wouldn't let you rent a mo-ped without a motorcycle license... so that was out of the question! Oh, and we ate Mexican food in Florence!!
- Between Florence and Milan, we went to Pisa (to see the leaning tower!) and also to a winery or two in Montolcino (spelling?). There was a castle there... pretty cool. We also went to the oldest castle in Tuscany... over 900 years old! the Pacci family lived there waaaay back then, and they killed a very famous family - it was quite interesting.
- Before we got to Milan, we went to tour the Ducati factory. THAT was cool! We also went to Turin and toured the Fiat factory (the Chrysler/Fiat merger is going to be a fucking disaster, by the way. We had a session with their marketing manager - and I'm seriously worried about the billions of dollars we're paying in to this. Oy.)
- In Milan, we saw the sfortzesco castle (damn, I wish I had all of my papers with me, cause then I would spell this all correctly!), the Il Duomo in the center of town, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. We went to an italian bag maker called "i santi" and that was super cool. How could I forget that we also toured Lamborghini :)
- Rome, by far, was my favorite city. My fave stores over in Italy were OVS (Oviesse), Promod, and Sisiley. Fab!
Then - I left the group a day early and met my mom in Paris. We had a TON of fun and saw a lot of incredible things.
- I went STRAIGHT to the eiffel tower after getting there. :) Oh, my love!
- We went on a boat cruise down the seine, ate lots of yummy food, saw a piano being lifted through an apartment window, saw the Louvre, the Arch de Triumph (and climbed all 275 stairs), rode the metro everywhere, took a bike tour, went to a wax museum, saw the Mona Lisa, Gardens at the Tuilleries, The Notre Dame, and MUCH MUCH more. All in 4 days...
- I woke up with a small ear infection on Saturday and was MISERABLE. I'm sure I was the biggest biatch to my mom while I was there - I was irritated about everything and I feel INCREDIBLY bad about it. Going to the French pharmacy was crazy. I didn't know what anything was and they don't know what Benadryl is... so we were kinda stuck. They wanted to give me something for "circulation" hahahaha... it ended up being congestion in my ears and by the end of Sunday, I was feeling better.
- We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower on Monday after our bike ride. We took a few pictures and also saw it do its little light show the night before. We ate crepes, had croque monsieur's (I'm sure I'm totally botching the spelling, but whatever!), and all kinda of fun stuff :)
- Coming home was crazy. I was over there 2 days shy of 3 weeks and was semi-ready for it. We left at 2:30 am, Paris time and I got home 10:30 pm EST... that means I traveled for 26 hours. F'in crazy!!
- As we were eating breakfast at the airport, there were news cameras everywhere outside. We just thought that was typical. I got on my flight to Rome (had to come back through the US via Rome because that's where I originally booked my ticket) and landed there - had to RUN across the airport and barely made the flight. As I was sitting there, waiting for take-off, I decided to check cnn.com and look at the news. I hadn't in 3 weeks. The top headline... "Air France flight missing over the Atlantic". HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Ummm... it was WAY too late for me to get off the flight, the door had already been closed. I was stuck. And petrified.
- I arrived at JFK and had to wait for 5 hours for my next flight. This is where my realizations about the differences between Europe and the US set in. If I write one day that I'm moving to Europe, please don't be surprised by this!
Anyway, all in all, it was an awesome trip. Going with 14 college kids when you're post-college age and maturity level isn't something I would recommend, but it was fun nonetheless! Perhaps I'll write a post about all of the "unprofessional" things that happened... haha!
Well, there's your update! :)
- The first day I was in Rome, Italy... we rented vespas! (well, little honda mo-ped's) It was SO much fun. Since we rented them overnight, we went to the beach the next day. There were 6 of us who got them, so it was totally fun! One of the guys wrecked his 20 seconds after he got on it... hilarious!
- While in Rome, I saw pretty much everything I wanted to see. The spanish steps, Colloseum, The Vatican, St. Peter's Basillica (Actually went to the excavations at st. peter's basillica and that was SUPER cool), etc. It was much more fun just riding around on the mo-ped's instead! We went to the Piazza Navonna, hung out by the river, ate chinese food (haha!), ate a TON of italian food, ate gelato, etc etc. We also saw the Opera, Pagliacci, and that was really cool, too!
- On the way from Rome to Florence, we stopped at a winery and had a wine tasting. This was really awesome - to actually see the wine fields and everything. This was one of our company visits for the program, so we were there for _hours_.
- When in Florence, we went to the original Buca di Beppo (or where it was originated from) to eat the first night. A boyfriend of one of the girls on our trip surprised her with a ring in her room when we got there. It was really sweet and he stayed with us for the rest of the trip.
- The BEST gelato in the entire city (or perhaps even what I had in Italy) was at La Carialla (not sure about the spelling). It was AMAZING! I had mint chocolate chip :)
- We toured Santa Maria Novella, another perfumerie, and a few other companies. On Sunday, we had a free day and I was pretty much over being around everyone for 7 days straight, so I went shopping! I got this pair of jeans that is oh-so-awesome. A shirt, some italian leather sandals (at the market), and a whole bunch of souvenirs for everyone at the street markets. It's really awesome there! They wouldn't let you rent a mo-ped without a motorcycle license... so that was out of the question! Oh, and we ate Mexican food in Florence!!
- Between Florence and Milan, we went to Pisa (to see the leaning tower!) and also to a winery or two in Montolcino (spelling?). There was a castle there... pretty cool. We also went to the oldest castle in Tuscany... over 900 years old! the Pacci family lived there waaaay back then, and they killed a very famous family - it was quite interesting.
- Before we got to Milan, we went to tour the Ducati factory. THAT was cool! We also went to Turin and toured the Fiat factory (the Chrysler/Fiat merger is going to be a fucking disaster, by the way. We had a session with their marketing manager - and I'm seriously worried about the billions of dollars we're paying in to this. Oy.)
- In Milan, we saw the sfortzesco castle (damn, I wish I had all of my papers with me, cause then I would spell this all correctly!), the Il Duomo in the center of town, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. We went to an italian bag maker called "i santi" and that was super cool. How could I forget that we also toured Lamborghini :)
- Rome, by far, was my favorite city. My fave stores over in Italy were OVS (Oviesse), Promod, and Sisiley. Fab!
Then - I left the group a day early and met my mom in Paris. We had a TON of fun and saw a lot of incredible things.
- I went STRAIGHT to the eiffel tower after getting there. :) Oh, my love!
- We went on a boat cruise down the seine, ate lots of yummy food, saw a piano being lifted through an apartment window, saw the Louvre, the Arch de Triumph (and climbed all 275 stairs), rode the metro everywhere, took a bike tour, went to a wax museum, saw the Mona Lisa, Gardens at the Tuilleries, The Notre Dame, and MUCH MUCH more. All in 4 days...
- I woke up with a small ear infection on Saturday and was MISERABLE. I'm sure I was the biggest biatch to my mom while I was there - I was irritated about everything and I feel INCREDIBLY bad about it. Going to the French pharmacy was crazy. I didn't know what anything was and they don't know what Benadryl is... so we were kinda stuck. They wanted to give me something for "circulation" hahahaha... it ended up being congestion in my ears and by the end of Sunday, I was feeling better.
- We went to the top of the Eiffel Tower on Monday after our bike ride. We took a few pictures and also saw it do its little light show the night before. We ate crepes, had croque monsieur's (I'm sure I'm totally botching the spelling, but whatever!), and all kinda of fun stuff :)
- Coming home was crazy. I was over there 2 days shy of 3 weeks and was semi-ready for it. We left at 2:30 am, Paris time and I got home 10:30 pm EST... that means I traveled for 26 hours. F'in crazy!!
- As we were eating breakfast at the airport, there were news cameras everywhere outside. We just thought that was typical. I got on my flight to Rome (had to come back through the US via Rome because that's where I originally booked my ticket) and landed there - had to RUN across the airport and barely made the flight. As I was sitting there, waiting for take-off, I decided to check cnn.com and look at the news. I hadn't in 3 weeks. The top headline... "Air France flight missing over the Atlantic". HOLY FUCKING SHIT. Ummm... it was WAY too late for me to get off the flight, the door had already been closed. I was stuck. And petrified.
- I arrived at JFK and had to wait for 5 hours for my next flight. This is where my realizations about the differences between Europe and the US set in. If I write one day that I'm moving to Europe, please don't be surprised by this!
Anyway, all in all, it was an awesome trip. Going with 14 college kids when you're post-college age and maturity level isn't something I would recommend, but it was fun nonetheless! Perhaps I'll write a post about all of the "unprofessional" things that happened... haha!
Well, there's your update! :)
Friday, June 5, 2009
Writing my paper... then updating!
Oh how I've missed writing in this blog for the past few weeks. Traveling in Europe was absolutely amazing... and it might just force me to move somewhere over there one day. The culture is fabulous - and I loved being there. I have SO so so so much to write about... and kept a written journal of bullet points.
There are many differences between Italy and France... as well as between those cities and the US. The food, by far, is better in France, but the people are better in Italy. I dunno, tons of differences!
I got to see the Eiffel Tower every single day that I was there - and got to go on it the last day. I'm so happy my mom went with me - cause we had a blast!
I did have an ear infection while I was there, and it made me a bit bitchy. I just hope I didn't ruin my mom's trip to Paris because of it. I was fine after I took some meds. Speaking of... we went to this pharmacist and asked her what I could do for my ear and her first response... it's "circulation". HAH! So, we thought about it, talked about it, and meanwhile someone else came up and asked about something else. She said it was circulation for them, too. So we nixed that idea and got a decongestant and that worked just fine. Perhaps that's their cure-all? Circulation? Hmmm.
I'm working on getting all of my pictures re-sized so I can post them somewhere for everyone to see. I've also got a 10 page (single spaced, nonetheless) paper due tomorrow sometime. I have a clear idea of what I want to write, I just need to sit down and write it.
Michael is still here for the summer - he's not moving to DC until the day I graduate (fabulous, right!?) and I'll probably go shortly thereafter depending on living arrangements, etc.
His son is in town for the summer and then some. And his other son will be here in a few weeks for the rest of the summer. It's so very exciting - cause they're both really cute kids!
After I write this paper, I'll have plenty of time to write all kinds of good stuff in here about my trip :) Huzzah!
There are many differences between Italy and France... as well as between those cities and the US. The food, by far, is better in France, but the people are better in Italy. I dunno, tons of differences!
I got to see the Eiffel Tower every single day that I was there - and got to go on it the last day. I'm so happy my mom went with me - cause we had a blast!
I did have an ear infection while I was there, and it made me a bit bitchy. I just hope I didn't ruin my mom's trip to Paris because of it. I was fine after I took some meds. Speaking of... we went to this pharmacist and asked her what I could do for my ear and her first response... it's "circulation". HAH! So, we thought about it, talked about it, and meanwhile someone else came up and asked about something else. She said it was circulation for them, too. So we nixed that idea and got a decongestant and that worked just fine. Perhaps that's their cure-all? Circulation? Hmmm.
I'm working on getting all of my pictures re-sized so I can post them somewhere for everyone to see. I've also got a 10 page (single spaced, nonetheless) paper due tomorrow sometime. I have a clear idea of what I want to write, I just need to sit down and write it.
Michael is still here for the summer - he's not moving to DC until the day I graduate (fabulous, right!?) and I'll probably go shortly thereafter depending on living arrangements, etc.
His son is in town for the summer and then some. And his other son will be here in a few weeks for the rest of the summer. It's so very exciting - cause they're both really cute kids!
After I write this paper, I'll have plenty of time to write all kinds of good stuff in here about my trip :) Huzzah!
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