Phlog from Pittsburgh trip, and other news.

It's been ages since I last blogged, and for that I'm sorry.

Since I last wrote, I:
- have lost - and kept off - a total of 10 lbs. since the beginning of January
- received a dozen red roses for Valentine's Day (for the very first time in my 32.5 years!)
- took a weekend jaunt to visit friends in Pittsburgh
- was declared a girlfriend. :)

My trip to the 'burgh was my first full weekend off since Halloween, and I so desperately needed it. I'm happy to report that there was a ton of booze, food and friendship from the whirlwind Friday-night-to-Sunday-morning trip - and I maintained my weight! In fact, I ate whatever the hell I wanted, but knew when to call it quits.
{Naturally, I am quite proud of myself!}

Following are some photos from the trip. It's been a while since I've done a phlog!


Self portrait en route.


Pretty Pennsylvania landscape whizzing by.


Blue skies all the way across the Keystone State!


I was fascinated by this teeny, tiny toilet in the handicapped stall at the Altoona Sheetz!
{By "fascinated," I totally mean I wanted to use it!}


More Pa. landscape, but there's a train track up on that there mountain!


Told you!


A dilapidated Hungarian restaurant just inside city limits.


"Because you deserved better than hotel soap."


Now that's what I call a welcome basket!


First highballs of the weekend!


... and in plastic cups!


Our first brews at the amazing Church Brew Works (read all about it here:)


The absolutely fabulous ones.


Me and Tiff - who I hadn't seen since her Oct. 17 wedding!!


The most amazing fish sandwich ever! I talked about it all damn weekend!


In front of the tanks at Hofbräuhaus Pittsburgh - they did not let us put straws in, though we did try, Lord, we tried!


Taaa daaa!


Like booze, documentation is a form of preservation!


This is where the team that won SIX Super Bowl rings plays!!


Even closer to the Steelers' field!


Frolicking among Andy Warhol's "Silver Clouds." (Learn about his museum here)


Tiff in the clouds.


Johnny in the clouds, or my "avant-garde photo."


Andy!


We're always up to no good!


On the bridge outside the Grand Concourse.


Snowy tracks.


Goth of the North, Nanook's long-lost sister.


In trying to hide the fact I was eating ice cream before a photo, I tried to hide the cup inside my coat, which caused ice cream to get all over my coat and sweater.
{In case you're wondering, it was Hershey's cake batter ice cream.}


See, you can't even tell I housed ice cream directly prior to this photo!!


The PGH skyline at sunset.


Ceiling inside the Grand Concourse.


Our wares from the Warhol: Johnny's are the soup cans; I have Jackie and the Andy quote: "I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever."

Fin.

Ladies who lunch.

I had such a crazy busy, yet delightfully fun week this week.
I daresay I wasn't home but to sleep, something that usually makes me a bear, but I loved every second of it.

The week was capped off with a day off where I took a delicious little daytrip to Jim Thorpe with Adrianna, my best gal pal from college.

If you've never been to Jim Thorpe, you are missing out.
It is the quaintest, prettiest little town in Northeastern Pennsylvania I've ever seen. (Click here for info: http://www.jimthorpe.org)

There's tons of little shops, a few restaurants (I highly suggest the pork quesadilla at Mollie Maguires Pub) and lots of gorgeous historic buildings.

They call the town "America's Little Switzerland."
{Don't quite know who "they" are, but they are so right!}

We had such a great day being Ladies Who Lunch, Shop and Wine Taste ... and try on hats fit for old ladies.
{Yes, I will be uploading pictures soon!}

I got a bottle of tasty, locally made wine, four gorgeous green glass pieces to add to my collection, earrings, a surprise for Mommalah and treated myself to three pieces of chocolate that I savored the whole way home.
{Never you mind that they were gone before I even went 10 miles on the turnpike!}

It is so refreshing to know that Adrianna and I still have just as much fun as we always did way back when. After reconnecting for the first time last month, we decided to do a monthly Girls Get Together. Next month, we're thinking about a spa day, which excites the hell out of me because I've never had a complete spa experience.

Not only is it great to rekindle a great friendship, but it's also a great way to give myself a non-food reward for being such a stickler on The (New) New Regime.

Pretty sneaky, huh sis?

Just dance.

"I can't dance, I can't talk.
Only thing about me is the way I walk.
I can't dance, I can't sing
I'm just standing here selling everything."
~~ Genesis, "I Can't Dance"

Today was the longest day ever.
My best friend Johnny gave word that two of his friends were coming over for drinks, so as soon as I was finished at work, I sent the smoke signal to have a glass at the ready for me as I hightailed it to his fabulous haus.

Johnny is pretty much the most fabulous person I know.
Not only is he my BFF, he's a kindred spirit - one that I can discuss books and a million other things with and share my love of good libations.
He's also my fantastic date to many a thing since I'm always the one going stag, but more than that, he's just great to be around. Aside from my family, he's the only person who ever really helps me feel good about myself, and plus, he keeps a fabulously pristine haus that makes me regret my own somewhat uncleanliness.

By the time I got there, two bottles of wine had magically disappeared, and upon my arrival, three more - including a tasty homemade vino that was to die for - somehow found their way into the same black hole.

Instead of cracking open another bottle, we turned to our old standby, Stegmaier.

What followed next was inevitable.

A dance party.
Which is pretty miraculous considering I'm the worst dancer ever, something Johnny can attest, considering he's tried to teach me about a million times, including a two-step across his dining room tonight.

But enough about my shortcmings on the rug cutting.
Back to the dance party.
It included Murray Head's "One Night in Bangkok" and Cindy Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun."
It included more than a few show tunes before morphing into Madonna - during which Johnny and I made up a routine to "Like a Virgin," "Like a Prayer" and an off-the-charts (if I do say so myself) "Vogue" - before ending with the ever-queenly Cher.

It was totally what this Tuesday ordered.

And I totally envisioned myself dancing amid "Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,"

but it just might have been the booze talking ... never mind the routine we did during "Half Breed" and "Like a Virgin."

Some things are sacred, you know.

Free to be me.

It was the kind of weekend you wish you could have every weekend.

There was a lot of great conversation, a lot of drinks and food, a friendship that picked up like it never left off and the meeting of some really great, fun people.

It started with an Irish car bomb at the Banshee in Scranton after a work-free Friday and ended today with four glasses of champers at my BFF Tiffany's wedding shower - where I am proud to say I won a crimson pashmina during one of the shower games! - followed by a great Sunday dinner at Mommalah's.

It was so what my soul needed.
No thoughts. Not arguments. No going-on-the-defensive.
Just me being me, with someone I can totally be me with - who thinks that me is "absolutely fabulous," as it were.

I've been feeling a little ... not myself the last week or two, just making sense of some internal demons, if you will, of what I want in a few areas of my life.

Some of those decisions are harder than others, and some, once the writing was so blatantly on the wall that even my sometimes rose-colored glasses couldn't hide them anymore, were easy as pie.

Or as easy as eating all that kielbasa this weekend and washing it down with ice cold brews.

A good weekend indeed.

Entertaining ... fabulously.

I'm not much of a goddess in the kitchen.
I do, however, make a killer bourbon chocolate pecan pie for Thanksgiving and the super-secret Mascali Family cookie cake for Christmas. I've dabbled with chicken a few times, can make a mean tofu stir fry and can microwave a Lean Cuisine pepperoni pizza like it's nobody's business ... but that's pretty much where it ends.

Pretty ironic for someone who is as obsessed with food as I am, non?

I do, however, throw good party, though I have been known to offer onion dip and a fabulously fatty rippled chip at times.
When I do break out the '50s housewife for the few people who appreciate her, pearls are optional, as is the matching apron.

Last Thursday, I entertained my fabulous dear friend Johnny, or as we like to call it, the Patsy to my Edy, an homage to the lovely lush ladies of "Absolutely Fabulous."

We've recently gotten back in touch, and he came bearing oodles of vodka and limes to make his signature Phoebe Snow cocktail - named after the fabulous and fictional Lackawanna Railroad ad goddess of the early 1900s.

{Above is from a little plaque he gave moi.}

The fabulous martinis went into glasses I chilled all day long in the freezer ...

... and included Grey Goose La Poire, Svedka, Grand Marnier, fresh lime juice and a slice of pear floating ever so gracefully amid the booze.


My menu:

- a tasty little concoction I "invented" for my last drinks-n-things soiree I threw: toasted pumpernickel points and gorgonzola ...

- pretzels, green olives, black olive tapenade, wheat crackers ...

- cheddar cheese and Genoa salami ...

- and a lovely little black-&-white cookie for a sweet treat.
{Kindly notice the fabulous plate! Vintage circa 1950s!}

- Here is the table set up. I learned the importance of setting good table from Mommalah- and Johnny, neither of whom would dream of entertaining with gherkins on a stick, heaven forbid!

{Note: The blogger is aware that she used the term "fabulous" seven times. Well, eight counting that last one. Sometimes no other word'll do and those times are just, well, fabulous. (Make that nine)}

Lunch date with HS BFF.

Today, I'm going to meet my high school best friend for lunch.

I don't think we've seen each other for about 11 years, and I'm looking so forward to it because we always had so much fun - and got in so much trouble.
Her nickname was "Dee" and Mommalah was convinced it stood for "Demon."
Naturally, we're both bringing along a slew of photos to reminisce.

I just hope we don't get kicked out of the restaurant for laughing like we got kicked indefinitely out of chem class junior year ...

Thinspiration, or thanks Tiff. Again.

My dear friend Tiffany has become quite the force to be reckoned with.
A former Weekender staff, she is practically my evil twin. The alabaster princess, if you will, to my fake-bake tan.

{Photo taken May 2008 before she moved across the Keystone.}

She was also once my greatest ally in The Land of Fries - we've shared regular cut, crinkly and waffle from one end of Northeastern Pa. to the other, and enjoyed every last crispy one.

She has since moved to Pittsburgh and we are doing a little weight loss challenge with each other. Mostly, the challenge just consists of us supporting each other via e-mail and the occasional frantic "I'm pigging out" phone call (mostly on my end).

She's become quite the inspiration to me - or "thinspiration" as we like to say.
She's running like a freak on the treadmill and looking all sorts of fantastic for her October wedding, and I am so proud of her - and terribly jealous.

I'll do well for a while, and then work will get hectic and I'll get exhausted and stop. It's a well-documented fact that I don't like to exercise as much as I like to eat garbage food. It's also well documented right here in Ramblings on ... (unfortunately that's not enough of a reason to seriously stick with it.)

But today, Tiff really gave it to me and demanded that I give myself new goals to not lose sight of how far I've come these past few months - and I have.

I am posting them here.
I am taping them to my medicine cabinet, to my fridge and just about every where so there will be no hiding from them.

Now through my birthday (June 10):
-- 30 minutes on Air Climber with 15 minutes of the arm bands three times a week - with one of those times using the AC's accompanying DVD I haven't even opened yet.
-- Walk/speed walk/intervals on off days PLUS Windsor Pilates and/or SELF yoga.

So to Tiffany, who is now my greatest ally in the Land of our Future Skinny Bodies, I vow to not have any more "Help me" e-mails or phone calls. I ban fries and chips from my vicinity. Once. And. For. All.

40 days from now I will be thinner. I will be stronger. I will be proud of myself. And I will wear my black sexy dress to my birthday dinner - and all damn summer long until it's too damn big on me!