Maryland 2.0

Two weeks ago I snuck back to Maryland for a few days.

It's funny how even after spending just shy of a week total combined in Frederick, MD I have become quite fond of the town and even fell into some sort of routine.

Per usual, LT worked all day Friday and Saturday while I proceeded to shop, drink coffee at their little cafe, meet him for lunch, and shop some more while waiting for him to get off work. In fact I did almost all my Christmas shopping while there.

Rough life, eh.

One of my favorite moments of the trip was Sunday though. LT had the day off, and since I was (HA) supposed to be flying out early Monday morning we had decided to go ahead and make the hour drive to Baltimore, spend the day on the harbor and get a hotel near the airport.

We spent nearly the entire evening just wandering around on the waterfront, ducking into shops, admiring the sites, grabbing drinks, and just talking.

Talking.

That's what I miss the most with him being gone. Is sitting across from one another, drink in hand, chatting about anything and everything for hours on end.

Phone calls just fall short.

Anyways, sob story aside. It was a really nice long weekend. We didn't do anything spectacular. Had dinner at a few spots that we had fallen in love with last time I was in town, watched a few movies, shopped a little, wandered hand in hand and just soaked up being together. It's funny how much you take the smallest things for granted.

I'm grateful he is only a short hour and half flight away, and keeping my fingers crossed that they wrap up their work there sometime soon to head home but no one really knows any info there for sure. Back to long distance'dom for now. Wahhh!

Theory of Evolution.

Last weekend I was out doing some Christmas shopping and texted my sister-in-law to see what my niece was wanting for Christmas. The response had me cracking up in the middle of TJ Maxx

I wandered through store after store looking for some sort of fun dinosaur book, toy, puzzle, anything. The tiny figurines I found were just way too boring. I had an idea pop into my head, and last night I headed out for some supplies and got to work.

After taking to my handy dandy notebook to sketch up some dinos, I was ready to get this prehistoric party on the road....

And in just a few short hours, a stack of flannel evolved into cuteness of Jurassic proportions. I present to you Bronte and Stag (poor Stag still needs eyeballs added)...

I have a feeling the little monkey is going to love her new cuddle buddies!

 

Five year journal.

How does a month fly by in the blink of an eye?

I figured if the world ended tomorrow I may as well get one last blog post up. You know... go out with a bang, right?

It's gotten to the point where friends and family are even pointing out that I haven't blogged since late November.

I was sitting next to an older fella on my flight home from Baltimore a few days ago (yes, I was able to go visit the boy again!) and he was writing in this "Five Year Journal". Each page was a date, with 5 sections, one for each year. And I thought to myself, what a cool idea... I need one of those!

And then I laughed and shook my head, realizing this blog is my five year journal. I'm quickly approaching the 4 year mark.  Four years worth of posts. Musings. Rants. Stories. Happiness. Heartbreak.

I promise to not be such a stranger, if not for my readers, for myself. Because nobody wants to look back on a blank five year journal!

So... you've never met her in person?

Sometime in the Octoberish era of 2011 a string of blog comment emails, as they tend to do, turned into g-chatting. I didn't really know who this chick was, but she was funny. And we seemed to see eye to eye on a lot of things.

Following my natural trajectory of meeting people on the web (ahhem, boyfriend), it should really come as no surprise that she quickly became one of my best friends.

Fast forward to a few weeks back when I casually mentioned going to visit LT as we were chatting one day. She immediately pointed out the close vicinity of LT to her. Queue the great big 'finally meet at long last' plans.

Saturday morning LT was getting ready to go to work and I was getting ready to meet Whitney for the first time. He didn't know that. Non-bloggers don't get it. I had always referred to her exactly as what she was, my friend, not as "some chick from the web" or any other equivalent. He knew we met through blogging, and after brushing his teeth he stood there puzzled, deep in thought. "You've never met her in person... have you?" he finally uttered. A grin spread across my face. "All the best relationships develop that way, don't they?" He gave me a goodbye kiss and with the most serious face told me to be safe. Silly boy.

Not long after my phone lit up. I headed down the hotel stairs into the bright Maryland daylight and there she was posted up against her Equinox like some sort of Clint Eastwood movie. It's so funny in retrospect. We hugged, said FINALLY! and hopped into her car to chat the entire drive to DC, like old friends.

LT text me a few hours into it, confirming I wasn't cut up dead  in a dumpster. I eased his worries and we carried on. She drug me all over Gods great East-Coast earth the next two days, leaving me with souvenir shin splints as I hobbled onto my plane at the Baltimore airport Sunday night.

So funny how paths collide in this crazy world. Let's just hope it doenst take another 12 months for ours to cross again!

Don't online shop without this!

If you plan on doing online shopping this season, which I have decided to do entirely, I urge you to look into ebates if you havent!

You simply sign up, and then get a little kickback when you shop. 1, 2, even up to 12% back sometimes. (You have to visit ebates first and then click through their link to the store of your choice - don't forget that step!)  

Check out the Cash Back specials they have right now. Seriously, pretty much any store under the sun is on here (even random places you wouldn't expect, like Lowes - but you can buy online and pick up in the store!). Target, Snapfish (20% back - hello holiday cards!), Walgreens, pretty much any hotel chain (3% back  on a whole vacation would be a nice little check!),  5% at Nordstrom.... sooo I can buy the $100 boots I've been drooling over, and get $5 back for no reason other than because I used ebates? Love. Love. Love.

It may not seem like much... but heck, it's free money - why not!? Then you can either have a check sent to you, or have it sent directly to your PayPal.

Sigh, I love a good deal!

(No, this is not a sponsored post or anything, I just get excited about good deals ha!)