Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Random Thursday Thoughts- To Catch Up on My Week 1. I am so ready for the weekend. 2. I'm really starting to feel the rush of the holiday season. 3. Here it is, Thursday night and I am so far behind on my to do list for this week. 4. I did at least complete several of my wedding to-dos in the last couple of days. 5. The ribbon for our favor boxes arrived yesterday. 6. We are now up to three boxes of wedding related materials in my living room. 7. A group of students from my alma mater are visiting DC this week. 9. They stopped at my office for a presentation. 10. Yesterday, the students and all the alum in the area met for dinner in Dupont Circle. 11. We had a great time, food was excellent and it was nice to catch up with everyone. 12. I really appreciated the opportunity to catch up with my college adviser who was supervising the trip. 13. Those types of meetings always remind me of how much DC has really become my home.

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My Thanksgiving Table

I know I'm a bit late, but I really wanted to share my Thanksgiving meal. This was the first year that I was responsible the entire meal. (My mom helped tremendously.) Each dish turned out exactly as planned. There was the Thanksgiving Duck, rice, orange sauce, cranberry jelly, green beans with almonds and baked sweet potatoes with brown sugar butter. I was struggling with matching traditional sides with duck and rice. Of course the beautiful new table setting that Van bought me for my birthday made for an all-around stellar presentation!

Beat Michigan!!!

Here's a little bit of The Best Damn Band in the Land to get you fired up for tomorrow's big game! Let's go Bucks!

You Can't Win All the Time

Just like my Buckeyes, I lost my first game of the season last weekend. My fantasy football team lost after a 9 week winning streak.

I am pretty sure that this is just beginner's luck. I have absolutely no fantasy football or any other fantasy sports competetion experience and didn't know much about the NFL. I probably would have struggled to name 10 players. It just wasn't something that I was very interested in.

Van thought it would be a 'fun' couple activity. Fantasy football wasn't exactly my idea of quality time, but I decided to give it a try. I started the season with the goal of not ending up in last place and was extremely surprised when I kept winning week after week.

Until the last couple of weeks it was pretty smooth sailing. I had managed to recruit a quality group of players and many of them were dependable for more than 20 points per game. Then the injuries started. I lost Sammy Morris and Ronnie Brown for the entire season. Now Larry Johnson is injured.

Thankfully, I have already secured a spot in the play-offs - I'm just hoping the rest of my players can make it that long.

Happy Birthday!

My "little" brother turns 22 today! Happy Birthday Adam!

8 Things

I have been tagged by Wendy to write about certain topics in blocks of 8. So here goes...

8 passions in my life
Van
My Family
My Friends
Baked Goods
Holidays
Chocolate
Shopping
Big 10 Football

8 things to do before I die
Get Married
Go to Italy
Travel to Vietnam
Have Kids (yes, mom, that will be after I'm married)
Learn to Speak Another Language
Own a House With a Yard
Retire
Celebrate My 100th Birthday

8 things I often say
What are you doing?
SSSTTOOOPPP!!!!
That's a Hot Mess
Love you!
Hi!
You know?
I was thinking...
How are you?

8 Books I read recently
Plenty
Digging for America
Southern Cocktails
Alton Brown's Gear for Your Kitchen
Eat, Pray, Love
Simple Stunning Weddings
Julie and Julia
Emily Post's Guide to Wedding Etiquette

8 songs that mean something to me
My Life
Hang on Sloopy
Strong Enough
Kate
Can't Hurry Love
Baby Girl
You Can't Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl
Moving On

8 qualities I look for in a friend
Patience
Honesty
Sense of Humor
Compassion
Responsibility
Easy-Going
Forgiving
Joyful

Creepy

I was given orange hot cocoa as a gift and I decided to give it a try tonight with a little marshmallow fluff. I still can't get over the color.

Another Sunny Day on the Metro

About 5:10 I arrived at the Metro station in DC to hear that there were delays on the Blue line. Pretty typical so I was prepared for a slow trip home. What I wasn't prepared for was to be kicked off the train at Arlington Cemetery. Apparently, the Pentagon metro station had been shut down.

Great.

According to the NBC4 article here is what happened:

At about 4:45 p.m., the station was closed because of smoke, according to Metro officials, and trains on both the Blue and Yellow lines were stopped in both directions, causing significant delays.

Metro personnel and the Arlington County Fire Department went to the scene and extinguished the fire, officials said. By 5:10 p.m., trains were sharing a single track between the Pentagon City and Arlington Cemetery stations on the Blue Line and between the Pentagon City and L'Enfant stations on the Yellow Line.The Pentagon station reopened at about 5:30.

The smoke and fire was caused by debris on the track. It was initially reported to be an arcing insulator.

Shuttle buses will ran between the Pentagon City, Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery and L'Enfant Plaza stations during the closure.

Here is what really happened:

I got on a blue line train about 5:15. We headed to Foggy Bottom picked up passengers nothing was said about the stopping at Arlington. The train kept moving and we picked up even more passengers at Rosslyn, again nothing was said.

The train arrives at Arlington and everyone was instructed to exit the train. Around 5:25 pm, I and hundreds of other passengers exited the train. Everyone was shocked. Of all the places to be stranded, Arlington Cemetery isn't high on my list. Arlington isn't exactly a cab mecca.

Finally, the crowd managed to move toward the station exit. The station manager was announcing that shuttles were available. Not super excited about that, but what could anyone do?

I finally made it outside the station and there had to have been almost 1,000 people standing around.

Those wonderful shuttles? Apparently stuck in traffic. Unfortunately, there was no hope of Van getting there quickly with the traffic. Time for Plan C - I called a cab. My estimated wait time - 20 minutes.

About 5 minutes later they announced that the blue-line was single tracking. So I canceled the cab and followed the masses back into the station to wait. The train arrived and everyone crammed in the car. The train left the station and stopped.

Again, we waited. About 10 minutes later the train started moving and we made it to Pentagon Station. Thankfully, it was smooth sailing from there.

My total travel time - 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Things About Fall

I love Fall. I can't wait to start wearing sweaters and watching the leaves change. I love the crisp air, football games and the start of the holiday season.

I picked up apple cider at the gorcery store and spent the night curled up on the couch under a blanket sipping hot apple cider while watching a football game. I don't think that it can get any better than that.