Bizarre Protest

I broke no less than three nails on my trip back from San Diego today. A sign I need to up my calcium intake, or perhaps my body's way of telling me where it wants to stay?

The Vacation of Ugly Shoes

My Christmas break started with a trek up to Seattle. Luckily, I got into Seattle the day before the big snowstorm hit which closed down SeaTac. I actually spent two days in Seattle on my own before making my way over to PA. It was quite fun actually. I got a great deal on this cool, bourgie hotel on priceline. I spent my time wandering around the shopping district and caught two flicks (Nothing like Holidays-ok; Slumdog Millionaire-Awesome). Seattle was super pretty with all the snow. One of the nights while I was out walking around it started to come down pretty hard and they actually started shutting places down early, so it was a very peaceful walk back to the hotel in the white, near deserted Seattle streets.

The next day everything was still shut down and I had to get to the Greyhound station in order to catch a shuttle over to PA. Taxis were scarce, but luckily I was able to hail one down and we made the slip-slidey trek over to the Grehound station where I promptly got out of the cab and slipped on my butt. Gotta love that ice! Then came the scary part of my trek.

The Greyhound station wasn't running any buses in or out that day and so the place was full of people camped out on the floors. So, maybe I over-packed a little for my trip and was lugging a rolley suitcase, backpack, purse, and laptop. A nice older guy offered me a seat next to him and proceeded to talk my ear off for the next two years. It was probably a good thing b/c it kept me distracted. It's hard to describe, but the mood of the place was really unsettling. It seemed like the perfect set-up for being either shanked, mugged, or both. Everyone was disgruntled and didn't have the means to find another mode of transportation or a place to stay. Luckily, I ran into a few other people who were taking my same shuttle and we spent the last half hour waiting outside to make sure we didn't miss it. In reading the newspaper later, I found out that those poor people were stuck there for like three days.

Made it to PA without much fanfare. The vacation was pretty low key. We had a tremendous amount of snow out at the lake and spent most of the time indoors, which meant a whole lot of Ugg boot wearing for me. I even ventured out of the house in these horrible fuzzy-lined clogs b/c they were so cozy and I could get away without wearing any socks. They were my version of winter flip-flops.

I didn't get nearly as much reading done as I had hoped (the fun kind, of course I wasn't dissertating). I did manage to get some job application stuff put together though. I also read just about every fashion mag I could get my hands on and am now up-to-date on all of spring's hot trends (so, hit me up if you are needing any tips...no, Uggs and fuzzylined clogs were nowhere to be seen in the Spring line-up). Watched the entire season of Entourage and got hooked on "It's always sunny in Philadelphia" which in a review I read was compared to Seinfeld on crack.

All in all it was very relaxing. Now, I'm back in the LBK with all my job apps sent off, dissertating like crazy (at least for the rest of the week until I jet off to San Diego for Dan's wedding, a belated 30th bday celebration for Michelle, and a fun day with my little bro). :]

My favorite local rugrat..

..is in a competition for cutest baby photo. If Kate's picture wins, her cool parents Mike and Amanda get a a big ol' canvas photo of her.

Baby Kate is #14 (black and white close up of an adorable baby in a hoodie). You can vote @ Danae Hutson

Kate says, "Pretty please with a cherry on top?!"