Life in the Fast Lane

Well, we did it!

We are no longer NYC virgins! Yay :-)

We took the bus to the big city. We walked the 1.72 miles from our apartment to the Manchester bus station and took the 17:30 bus to Boston, hoping to catch the 19:00 bus to NYC. Well, if you know anything about cars and rush hour (something we were apparently ignorant to after years of living in Fargo)  you would know that we did NOT catch the 7pm bus.

Sorta Stresssssssful! We were sitting on the bus, in traffic, just glaring at each other. We had already purchased our greyhound tickets...

Greyhound helped us when we arrived at 19:12 and we caught the 8pm bus with a 30 dollar ticket transfer fee. Not bad. For a grand total of 176 bucks we both had round trip tickets from Manchester to NYC. And neither of us had to drive, we both could read, sleep, or use the free on board wifi. Convenient. :-)

We pulled in to NYC around 1am and took a taxi from the bus station to Brian's cousins apartment. We were lucky enough to crash on matching couches for the two nights we were there.

Enough talk, let's look at pictures!

Down in the subway. Hot hot heat.

We are so glad we had the Laphams with us, they knew their way around the subway.

The boys struttin in front of the flat iron

Point. Nod.

Babes

I love throwing up the Peace Signs when I've got my travel on.

I can not put in to words how WONDERFUL it was to see this woman, and her husband.

Guggenheim.

Guggenheim

We went to Wicked, and wandered around Time Square a bit.

How hott hott are these two?

I love Jason in that shirt.

Seriously, the guy is SEXY.

Bahaha!

I love Brian's fish eye.

The set for Wicked. It was SO GOOD.

And at midnight (after Wicked) we were introduced to Empanada Mama's. Jason said, "Mmmm, can we have these every day?" 

And we went to M+M World. :-)

Brian's cousin has a dog named Benjamin Franklin. What a wonderful name! Benny was pretty great, snuggled right up to us as soon as we arrived at the apartment.

My favorite part about Wicked is Jason's constant (and random) exclamations about "How Awesome Wicked Was!" --Seriously, we will be brushing our teeth and Jason will just stop and say, "Wicked was soooo good!" ha! love that kid.

Brian and Naomi are such good friends, it was great to see them, and hard to part ways from them.

Our bus ride home was perfect. I had purchased 10am tickets from NYC to Boston, but we ended up getting to the bus terminal around 8am, so we caught that bus, and we were home in Manchester by 3pm.

love, love.

Saving and Spending

I'm trying to learn how to save money. I don't spend like crazy, but I do dream like crazy. If I had it my way, the entire house would be big giant pieces of furniture side by side by side. Leaving little to know room to actually enjoy the furniture! Ha! I just love craigslist and furniture and the ideas of redoing things.

But, as it is we can't possibly do that. Jason "needs" room to see the tv, oh and sleep.

I also recently realized that I learn visually. So I grabbed my magazines and made a collage. Hello 4th grade! It was fun, and I love the end result.

Note: I pulled out my trusty goes-on-purple-dries-clear stick glue, and it was dark tan with a giant spot of MOLD! crazy. 

I posted this baby on the opposite wall of my side of the bed, so I can see it before I go to sleep and when I wake up. Oh, and here's what everything is.

Now, Jason and I are going to NYC to visit some friends who happen to be in the area. Excited! I had been thinking I want to bring a purse that I can wear like a messenger bag. But I wanted it to be big enough to hold things, but not as big as your traditional messenger bag. One night when I was pinning away, I ran across this tutorial. It's Fan.Tas.Tic! DETAILED!

Here's my finished product! It really only took a couple hours to complete. I made paper templates for the pattern pieces so I can do it again soon. I couldn't find the hardware I needed (metal sliders, etc) at any of my local fabric stores, and I didn't have time to order online (like she suggests), so I went to goodwill and bought a messenger bag that had the hardware on it, snip snip and I'm good to go! I actually spent less on the whole goodwill bag then it would have cost to order the material online. :-)

It took me 2.5 hours of wandering around Joann fabrics to find the fabric I wanted.

And it had to have a complimentary fabric. Look pockets!

I even did my first zipper pocket. Easy peasy!

And the front (just under the flap when the flap is closed) has a pocket.

It's perfect!

love, megs

Little Projects

I finally finished my quilt!

Look at how pretty she is!

There is a look at my binding, next to a map of NH of course.

Okay, I just picked this dress up at savers for 2.99! Ugly right? Yep.

Just wait until you see what I do with it!

Yay! Cropped and a .99 belt really spices it up.

C-a-ute right!?

And how great is the fabric? 

Oh, and I found this pear dish at goodwill for 2.99! Yeebo! And, that's the color I painted the side table.

Random Wedding Videos

The Hay Ride from after our wedding. SO windy. Miss every single one of these people.

The Girls doing the Throwdown.

That Moment

Jason passed both of his exams and is now a licensed pharmacist!

We went out to eat to celebrate last night. A tasty little joint located in downtown Manchester. For the first time in our dating or married relationship we bought a whole bottle of wine for the meal. Yumm.

There was a moment, a millisecond of time, but something about it brought tears to my eyes. I looked across the table at my husband who works so hard, and my heart swelled with pride, and eyes teared up. I couldn't help but think, "ten, twenty, thirty years from now we are going to look back on this happy occasion, what will our lives be like?"

I don't know the answer to that question, but I do know one thing. It will be Jason by my side.

Cheap and Easy

Jay and I moved to New Hampshire a little over a month ago. yay! And for the last month we have "lived on a budget" again. But Not REALLY. We basically threw budgeting out the window and lived like we were on vacation. Maybe that's a common side effect of moving thousands of miles out of your comfort zone. You go out to eat more and you don't mind seeing a couple extra movies on the big screen.

All fun and games, but we quickly realized we can't keep living like this, or we will soon be running back home to our parents, begging for money!

So, we found a couple of things we could do for cheap. Just the price of gas!

Merrimack is a town 20 minutes from our apartment, and there is a Budweiser brew house, with free tours, and real Clydesdale! Oh, and the best part...FREE BEER!

Enjoying the sunny day by the horse stables.

A free sample before the tour!

More free beer! After the tour we each got TWO beers. Yumm.

Jason with his booze of choice.

Look at that free deliciousness.

Budweiser flag. 

On Sunday we went to church. We are kinda sorta going to church in Hampton Falls, NH. It is 45 minutes away from where we live. :-( But the teaching is so sound, and so good, we are drawn back every week. Anyways, the ocean is 15 minutes away from church, so we decided to hit the beach!

Rye, NH

Jason reading

It's Cold

Unlike myself, Jason actually did go all the way in!

But it is COLD!

He's such a stud.

How lucky are we?

 

 

 

After the beach we returned home to watch the second Harry Potter. I just finished reading the book. I know, I'm getting on that boat like a million years late, right? The entire series is free for Amazon Prime members. I love my kindle.

Happy weekend all!