july!

three posts in three days! i'm on fire! 

haha - happy july everyone! seriously - how fast is this year going? like seriously it feels like just yesterday i was ringing in the new year and then flying off on my european adventure and that summer would never come - but it is JULY! aka my favorite month of the year! and now i'm halfway done with my job, i survived the first session, it is 90 degrees out and summer!

so it has been a fun week. i forgot how great summer is - last week was all sorts of crazy with conferences and really the month of june was pretty much conference life. i moved into the hotel june 4th and until the 22nd i was living in some sort of alternate universe. so this week i had the chance to feel like a normal adult with a somewhat normal job. and it was glorious. being done with work at 5 and then being able to do whatever i wanted!

 i was still definitely tired from the weekends fun, but knowing i was back in the office with not a lot to do this week helped. annnd like two weeks ago i made plans with ellie & mj to go to graffiato for dinner and it was happening monday! i'm not a big top chef fan - but ellie is and mike isabella's new restaurant graffiato opened up on thursday in dc and we got a table for monday night and all day we were gchatting about it! but before we did that mj and i since our reservation wasn't until 8:30pm decided it would be fun to go to the movies right after work and see "bad teacher" because we needed a laugh and something relaxing. so we saw that - it was funny, but not a great movie. the teacher in me was kinda disappointed that she didn't really learn a lesson from it and with the state of our public education the way it is right now, we don't really need a movie glorifying the crappy job of teachers and those who do nothing but the minimum and just skate by. so i didn't like that part of it. but oh well. but graffiato. o.m.g. heavenly. it is italian inspired, tapas style, all fresh and local and just delish. eating with mj & ellie has really helped me try new foods and be more adventurous. and i am so glad! we tried a bunch of plates and my favorite was the sweet corn agnolotti! a mini ravioli with corn and i just can't describe the wonderfulness. we also had sweet roasted peppers, roasted potato gnocchi, chicken thighs in his famous pepperoni sauce, a honey white pizza with prosciutto and then the fresh mozzarella. i should have taken more pictures but each dish came out separately when they were ready so that was awesome. our waiter was kinda funny. he was constantly asking us about the food and how we liked it - we pretty much wanted to lick each plate when we were done, and kept saying thank you (as if he has cooked it himself), and saying that's how mike likes it... we joked that him and mike were bff and he was allowed to go pick out the produce with him each day. but it was fun! and we even saw mike. he was walking around a bit! so ellie was super excited. and the desert was divine! we got the chocolate sea salt cake and the nutella cookies. yum yum yum! so i totally recommend going there if you are in dc!

and then tuesday night well i was back at work. we sub in at the conference so that the other pc's get a night off. so it was nice to be in the field for a few hours and see my staff! but because i was subbing in twice this week, i was allowed to work from home on wednesday which was super nice, since i don't have a lot going on at work this week. so i just responded to emails as they came in but for the most part i was relaxing and went and sat outside and read in the sunshine, continued watching the office on netflix (and verizon finally got the netflix app for droids!) i'm onto season 4 right now. and unpacked from conference life. so a highly productive day. and then the best part was at night. annie is also working the same job as i am but our conferences overlap, so we don't get to see each other that much, but wednesday night we headed into the district for dinner adn decided to go to nooshi for some yummy asian. and since our lives are crazy decided that splitting a bottle of red wine would be a good idea - so it was a fabulous night sitting outside, eating delish thai food and chatting about everything with a great friend. and then on the walk back to the metro we got frozen yo - my new favorite frozen yogurt place and met up with another coworker and chatted away. i just love being able to meet with friends for dinner and feel sometimes that i'm working a normal job, instead of like every summer for the last 10 summers (except 2008) that i can do what i want and i'm not running around after kids all day. 

and thursday i worked in the office during the day and then at night i subbed into the field again. had a fun night and enjoyed being in the field but i was there until midnight instead of 11 and i was driving home to jersey after work. so i left nova at midnight and got home at 4:20am, but it was crazy how many cars were on the road. it felt like i was driving during the day but it was just dark. so weird - i guess a lot of people had the same idea as i did. so i'm home until sunday morning when i head back to help out at the other site's arrival day. so not home long, but it is nice to be home and sleep in my glorious bed (but being woken up by a cat licking your face at 7am when you went to bed at 4:30....grrr) snuggle with the kittens and see my family. so i'm enjoying that for the 48 hours i'm home!

anyway off to enjoy my friday night watching tv with my mom (i know we're cool like that) but we did go to the mall and she is such a bad influence!

any fun fourth of july plans?