Spring Break Week

Went to NYC for the weekend as a vacation/early birthday celebration for moi.  It was great. I really miss the city. It was gushing rain when we arrived, but cleared up pretty quick to nothing more than a dreary overcast sky. That's okay, just made the lights in Times Square seem even more cheery than usual. 

The hubby and I  stayed at the Hotel Mela, just off Broadway on 44th. 

This was what our room looked like: 

Nice, huh?  We thought so. 

It was a wonderful weekend of becoming reacquainted with the city and some old haunts.

 Neither of us had been back since we'd gotten married, so it was a kind of a special trip. We met up with some good friends, and enjoyed some really good food. 

Went on a hunt for chicken pakoras (kind of the Indian version of spicy chicken fingers?) but never did find any. Strange, since every other Indian restaurant we've been to had them and they're the hubby's favorite. Maybe if we'd gone down to Curry Row?  

We ended up downtown around City Hall and Pace University, where I spent the first two semesters of my college career. It was nice to be back after so long. Couldn't believe it's been 8 years since I lived in Maria's Tower... weird. 

It was good research though, just walking around that area got my blood pumping for Sidney. I found the Agency's office here at the corner of Front Street, right across from the Brooklyn Bridge, just as I'd imagined!

I know it doesn't look like much, but I really felt like I was in the story at that moment. There's a hotel at the end of the block I'd like to stay at for a weekend and do nothing but hack out the story.  I'll have to look into that...

It was really hard coming back home after that. Mentally, and quite literally. Our flight was delayed 5 hours. Not to mention, I was well into my annual Birthday Sinus Infection so I was blowing my nose every 2 minutes and the final descent on the plane made me feel like my brain was about to explode in the same manner as that Keri Russell character in Mission Impossible: III. 

I survived, and we made it home safely.  

The book I've been reading this week is Christopher Moore's latest:  Fool. Of course, it's bloody brilliant. What more can I say? His muse is a drunken tart. I'm jealous.

Wednesday, April 8, was my B-day!  It was nice and relaxing. Having my birthday comes with the perk of usually falling during Spring Break, so that's pretty awesome. Every now and then it falls on Easter Sunday.  By the way, in case you're wondering, Easter is determined every year to be the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the Equinox. Thanks, Google! 

I'll save the tangent about Christian holidays based on Pagan tradition for later.  

I went out to breakfast with my gal pal, then hung out at Target picking out new bed stuff with gift cards I'd been saving up, so now we have matching shams and everything! I actually feel like it's worth the time to make the bed now. Love it.

Hubby brought me flowers home from work and made me a fancy pasta dinner that we enjoyed with a bottle of wine.  Afterward we put on the latest version of The Day the Earth Stood Still and I passed out after the first ten minutes. Then, I woke up for the last ten minutes and didn't seem to miss much. 

Went out to Ted's Montana Grill for lunch and introduced the girly friends to the delight of buffalo burgers. The buffalo chili is my favorite there, but I also love the meatloaf, and beer can chicken. Not to mention, the onion rings are ridiculously huge and delicious!

Friday was pizza with another pal whom I used to work with at the library. We had a blast catching up on our literary and television gossip. 

The weekend was spent lazing around catching up on laundry and yard work. I planted a tomato (bush? plant?) and some jalapeno seedlings. Hope they survive the awful Georgia red clay! We'll see what happens...

As far as the front garden goes; my double knockouts are insane, the gardenias are sprouting up nicely but can't keep up with the knockouts, the lilies are reproducing like crazy, and the hyacinths have doubled as well. I haven't done anything to them, they've just gone nuts, it's great!

Well, that's about it for Spring Break week. Got a good amount of writing done, but not as much as planned. It's coming along steadily though. Even if it's not going fast, it's going steady, which is more than I can say for just about anything else I've worked on. I'm taking the Tortoise approach, instead of that of the Hare. Hey, whatever gets the job done, right?