AUGUST
♥ Finally going on vacation to Japan.
♥ Celebrating my father's birthday.
♥ Having an awesome night out in NYC & Brooklyn with Day, Chas & Steph.
♥ Visiting Sagamore Hill with my father.
♥ Attending the LatinTRENDS Dominican Influencer Event in NYC.
♥ Paint Nite with Toni, Erin & Maria.
SEPTEMBER
♥ Celebrating mine and Justin's two year wedding anniversary in Osaka.
♥ Traveling to Hong Kong.
♥ Both my sister and Phil both getting proposed to within a week of one another.
♥ Dinner dates with my friends.
Those of you that have been with me for a while know that Justin and I really enjoy visiting historical site, national and state parks, etc. during our days off in the summer. But unfortunately this summer has been quiet slow in terms of our little day excursions because Justin was in an air cast for about six weeks and there's just been a lot going on that has kept us from going on our little adventures.
Determined to go on a new excursion I booked us a tour of Theodore Roosevelt's home at Sagamore Hill (Which I've actually been trying to do for a few years now but it was closed from renovation for a couple of years) back in June for Friday, August 5th.
So as you can guess, I went this past Friday I went to Sagamore Hill. Unfortunately Justin couldn't join me but I got to go with my father who loves history, etc. and is a great date because he won't let me pay for stuff. Hey, it's the truth...
But yeah, I had the nicest afternoon with my father exploring the area around (Specifically Young's Memorial Cemetery where President Roosevelt and his wife are buried) and the grounds of Sagamore Hill (Sadly they don't let you take pictures inside of the house because 95%
of the things inside are original to the house and the lighting is
terrible) and learning about the 26th President of the United States.
If you enjoy history and beautiful parks I highly recommend visiting. It's such a nice outing and I really would like to go back with Justin at some point in the near future.
Last weekend I had the opportunity to take another tour with On Location Tours (They invited me to go on their newest offering the When Harry Met Seinfeld Tour this time) and for this one I brought my father along with me. Since we were traveling into the city, we decided that we'd go in before the tour started (This tour started later than the NYC TV & Movie Tour I went on with my sister) and we'd have lunch at Victor's Cafe because it was near the starting point of the tour and I'd never been there before.
Can I just tell you, I feel like such a fool for not going to Victor's Cafe sooner because the food was amazing. My father and I order way more food than two people could ever need, we had drinks, my father told me about the time he brought my Abuela to Victor's back in the day and how he played a song he wrote for her there. It was just a great time and I loved ever bit of it.
After stuffing ourselves with all of the delicious Cuban food we ordered, we walked up a few blocks to McGee's Pub where the tour began and found our guide who proceeded to checked us in and told us to take a seat on the bus. And about ten or so minutes later we were off. We spent the next two driving around New York City learning about various movies and television shows.
I must admit that I was a little worried going on this tour because on the NYC TV & Movie Tour we covered a lot of ground and I felt like there was going to be a lot of repetition but to my surprise there wasn't more than one or two over lapping facts and locations.
So just like the NYC TV & Movie Tour, the When Harry Met Seinfeld Tour was super interesting. We stopped at Café Lalo from You've Got Mail (1998), “Monks” from Seinfeld (1989-1998) and the steps of the Met. We saw filming locations and learned facts about Cruel Intentions (1999), Men In Black (1997), Gossip Girl (2007-2012), The Nanny (1993-1999), Keeping The Faith (2000) and one of my father's favorite movies The Devil's Advocate (1997), plus more.
I really enjoyed the tour and surprisingly my father who typically hates bus tours (You're probably asking yourselves why he went with me if he hates bus
tours, well he is retired and has nothing better to do and asked me if I
had anything interesting to do coming up from or for the blog and this came up) had a great time too. He enjoyed all the random facts and seeing New York City in a way he had never seen it before.
After the tour we hopped on the subway to Penn Station and then on to the LIRR to head back to Long Island. Once I dropped my father off at home I headed out to Toni's house where I met up with her and Day, so that we could go out to one or two of the local bars for a few drinks and then a late night trip to Applebee's for half of appetizers. Which was a great way to cap off an awesome day.
As I mentioned in my birthday post, I bought a new used car and here is how that all went down...
Back in December my 1998 Saturn SL2 started giving me a lot of trouble. It wasn't starting, it needed to be jump constantly, etc. So I finally decided that after almost twelve years of owning her that it was time to get rid of her because she wasn't worth all of the time and money I was pouring into her -- Yes, the Saturn was a she and she could be a fickle bitch. So that's when I started looking into different cars, loan options, etc.
After milling over my options I decided that the best course for me was to buy used and borrow some money against my retirement because it was already my money and I didn't have to insure the car a certain way because it was a bank's money. So after applying to borrow my own money and eventually receiving it, I started really looking for cars.
Initially I was looking for a 2012 or newer car, mainly a Honda Civic, with decent mileage (Mainly because I was terrified of getting a car that may or may not have been flooded during Hurricane Sandy) but the ones from the Honda dealerships were ridiculous priced and the dealer I dealt with at the one Honda I went to came off as an evil shady bitch -- Yes, I realize that most people who work in car dealerships are slime balls but still.
Eventually I decided to listen to my father who had been urging me to look at cars a few model years earlier than 2012 and we both searched online and car magazines until we found some acceptable options at Atlantic Volkswagen. So on my birthday my father and I went to the dealership to test drive some of the cars we had seen throughout our searches.
We greeted in a much nicer fashion than at the evil Honda dealership that I shall not name. And started dealing with a sales woman named Nadia who was extremely nice and helpful.
I went over exactly what I was looking for with her (Which to be honest with you wasn't much considering I was used to
driving a 1998 Saturn with crank windows, a cassette deck and no AC), my budget and that I intended on paying for a car in cash.
She looked at what she had in stock in my price range (Which we knew about because we had done our research) and started looking at the cars in the lot.
I looked at a handful of cars that were just okay and then I started looking at a 2008 Volkswagen Jetta, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind but it was pretty nice looking so I took it for a test drive.
Unfortunately I didn't really care for the way it drove, so it was on to the next...
After deciding that the Jetta wasn't for me Nadia showed my father and I at 2008 Hyundai Elantra and since I liked the way it looked I took it for a spin.
I was much happier with the way that the Elantra drove and decided that it was the car for me. So we went back inside and begun the paperwork.
After dealing with all of the insurance, license plates and payment stuff I was the proud owner of a new used car that I couldn't take home just yet because it needed to be detailed -- Which I was cool with.
So two days later my car was detailed and I was able to pick it up.
And now I am the happy owner of a 2008 Hyundai Elantra, whose windshield I cracked driving on the LIE the day after I got the car and have since had fixed by Safelite. If anyone is interested about dealing with Safelite I can totally write a blog post about it.
As you all should know seeing as I bombarded you with posts about it, yesterday was my birthday and I turned thirty. Despite having yesterday off, I didn't really do anything crazy like sky dive (Which Erin actually did on her twenty-sixth birthday) or anything like that but I did go car shopping with my father and ended up buying myself a new used car. Since I don't have the car just yet because it needed to be detailed by the dealership, I'll write another post all about it once I get the car tomorrow. So if you're interested in what I got and how my car buying experience was, look out for that post.
Aside from buying myself a birthday car, I celebrated turning thirty by going out to dinner with Justin, my family and my sister's boyfriend to my favorite Italian restaurant and having cake at my apartment after that.
Hopefully I'll do something super awesome this weekend to celebrate with my friends but we'll see. My sister, her boyfriend, Phil and I are planning on going to the indoor Brooklyn Flea Market in the afternoon on Saturday and Day is apartment sitting in New York City and has mentioned that Erin and I should join her and do something crazy. So like I said, we shall see...
So yesterday I had the day off because I'm working today and I figured I'd be kinda sort of productive and go shopping for an outfit for Alana's bachelorette party which is next Friday, as well as pick up some groceries because I had people coming over.
While I was out I noticed that my Department Head had texted me, so I called her to give her the information she had asked me about and went on with my shopping. About fifteen minutes later I feel my phone vibrating under the twelve layers of clothes I was wearing because it was super cold out and it's my sister bugging out. She was like "Call dad!" and I'm like "Why? What's wrong?" She proceeds to tell me that my father called her in a panic saying I had called him and all he heard was heavy breathing and weird noises and he basically thought I was dying.
So I hang up on her, call my dad and assure him that I was not dying and that I was out shopping and must have accidentally hit a button on my iPhone that dialed their house number when I had gotten off the phone with my Department Head. Thankfully I called when I did because he was convinced I was dying somewhere and was about to call the cops and have them go to my apartment.
After speaking to my father I noticed that I had a text message, missed call and a voicemail from Justin* So I call him quickly and find out that my dad had called him too and that he was on his way back to our apartment to make sure I wasn't dying on the floor.
I cannot believe that all of this happened over an accidental pocket dial. I mean, I thought it was amusing as it was happening but I guess I could understand why my dad bugged out.
Have any of you ever dealt with anything like this? Lemme know.
* Justin NEVER calls me. He always texts me. I think people are dead when he calls me.
Halloween is in a few short days and I don't know about you but I've been binging on horror movies. And to be honest, they've got me thinking (With the help of the people over at Man Crates, who FYI have some pretty awesome manly gifts for your guy or yourself if you're like me and want a Zombie Survival Crate) about how I would fare if I was stuck in a straight out of a horror movie situation and what my own survival strategy would be -- This is kind of a lie, I'm always thinking about what I'd do during a zombie apocalypse.
So, if we were going by Scream (1996) rules I'd be screwed. Don't remember the Scream (1996) rules of surviving a horror movie? Well here is a refresher...
You may not survive the movie if you have sex.
You may not survive the movie if you drink or do drugs.
You may not survive the movie if you say "I'll be right back", "Hello?" or "Who's there?"
Yeah, one and two (Not the drug part. Crack is wack) would probably do me in. Three not so much so because I'm not the kind of person to call out "Hello?" or "Who's there?!" when I should be alone. If I hear a weird sound or foot steps and I'm supposed to be home alone I'm getting the hell out of there and if I can't, I'm grabbing a big ass knife and hiding in a closet. And I'm not handling myself like Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978) when she stabs Michael Myers once and just sits in the closet for a hot second before taking her sweet ass time to get the hell out of that room. I'm stabbed whoever is after me to DEATH.
If we're talking about Zombieland (2009) rules or at least rule number one, which is cardio. I'd die (Unless I had someone to trip) because I literately cannot run to save my life.
But yeah, if there were no actual rules and it was a horror free-for-all I'd hope to have the following to aid in my survival:
Machete (I actually would like to own one in real life in case of zombies and such but Justin won't let me have one or a gun because he is afraid I would threaten to kill people on the regular, so I hope during this horror business I was at my parents' house because my dad has one) because you can kill people, zombies, certain vampires and so on with one, plus there is no running out of ammunition.
A reliable vehicle (Not my own car) that is full of fuel plus some & a spare tire, preferably a hard top Jeep Wrangler Unlimited with the snorkel on it so I can drive in water.
A person ("Julia") to trip and leave behind to slow down whatever is coming after us.
Food and first aid supplies, if it's a zombie thing.
Fully charged cell phone plus a backup battery, to call for help.
Access to one of my uncles' gun cabinets (My uncles all hunt), if it's a zombie thing.
A group of friends, so we can help protect one another.
Maps, GPS or knowledge of whatever area I am in because I don't want any Wrong Turn (2003) or House Of 1000 Corpses (2003) stuff happening.
A crowbar because you never know when you'll need to pry something open or beat someone with one -- Hey Man Crates, send me over one of your crates for my husband (The MLB Mets Barware Crate or Retro Gamer Crate) so I can have at least a crowbar handy while I'm stuck in this horror scenario.
So yeah, those are the things I'd want if I could have a horror movie survival kit. What do you think of my list? What are your horror movie survival essentials? Lemme know!
I feel like literately every other time I go to my parents' house The Mummy (1999) is on, so I have this soft spot for all of those Mummy and Scorpion King movies because they make me think about just chillin' at my parents' house with my mom. So when I found out about the newest edition to the Scorpion King franchise, The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power (2015), I got a little excited because it's something that I could totally watch with both of my parents when it comes out on DVD (Blu-ray ™ and Digital copy Ultraviolet ™ HD too) January 20th, 2015.
Here's the trailer if any of you are interested...
Do you have any movies that you watch over and over again with or without your family? Lemme know. This post is kinda sorta sponsored, I didn't actually get anything to mention the movie but I'll probably get a copy of the movie come January.
I know after reading the title of this post you guys are probably like, "Why is she even writing a blog post about this?! We have no idea what this chick's actual name is..." But I'm having a life problem right now.
Okay, so here it is... I kinda love my last name, not only because I think it's awesome but because I am very proud of my family and would like to keep our family name going as long as possible seeing as there are no males aside from my father that are left in my family with the last name. So I kinda wanna keep it by hyphenating it.
I mean, both the hyphenated and unhyphenated versions of my future name sound good. It's not like my name would be weird like Julia Gulia or something like that. But I don't know what to do.
Justin told me to do whatever makes me happiest, so he is no help on the matter. I know my father would tell me to hyphenate it because he loves our last name. So I don't know....
I know I probably didn't provide enough information for you guys to tell me what I should do, but you guys can still tell me your thoughts on name hyphenation. Lemme know what you think.
1. I love arts & crafts but have nowhere to do them in my current apartment.
2. I enjoy well done graffiti.
3. I own tons of cameras but I wish I owned a Polaroid camera that worked.
4. I believe in ghosts.
5. I have a "Traveling Hat" that I bring with me on all of my trips.
6. My celebrity crush is Jason Segel.
7. I'm a pizza snob.
8. I've had males & females propose marriage to me because of my cooking skills.
9. I love dressing up for Halloween.
10. The smell of low tide doesn't bother me because I've lived by the beach my whole life.
11. I collect brass bells.
12. I hate bendy straws. I only buy the non-bendy kind.
13. I frequently have dance parties alone in my car. In fact I had one earlier while listening to N'SYNC.
14. At the library I'm in charge of all of the juvenile & young adult nonfiction & comics/graphic novels.
15. I am obsessed with brussels sprouts and I only recently tried them for the first time.
16. I have a collection of Lego men on my desk that have come from various Lego books I have purchased for the library over the years.
17. I think its okay to eat French fries for breakfast once in a blue moon.
18. My everyday jewelry consists of a Tiffany & Co. Heart Tag Charm Bracelet that has mine & Justin's first initials on the front and the date we started dating on the back (He gave it to me as a one year anniversary present. So I've been basically wearing this thing everyday for the past nine and a half years), the 2012 Kate Spade "This Is The Year..." Bracelet, a cubic zirconia nose bone l-shape from Hot Topic (My nose is pierced), a little cubic zirconia stud in my cartilage and a Brighton Enchanted Hearts Anklet. Necklaces and such vary from outfit to outfit.
19. I'd almost always rather have a salty snack over a sweet one.
20. I hate being cold and I'm cold right now.
21. Justin and I don't share a blanket. We each have our own.
22. I always have Swagbucks running in the background of my computer.
23. I'd love to meet and have a conversation with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters.
24. I love spicy food.
25. Whenever I have guests at the apartment I have candles burning.
26. I rock a side ponytail on the regular, which you know if you follow me on Instagram.
27. I always carry a backup battery so I can charge my iPhone on the go.
28. I have a scar on my left index finger just above the knuckle.
29. I have a perfect turnout.
30. I have a Dalek in one of the windows of my car.
31. I love cats and wished Justin liked them so I could have one.
32. My parents argue over the pronunciation of my name. My mother claims that she named me and her way is the right way, but I go by what my father calls me.
33. My mother calls me by my middle name and only says my first name when I'm in trouble.
34. I don't share my crayons.
35. I have a collection of magnets from various locations that I keep at work.
36. I constantly make random pop culture references in my everyday conversations.
37. My favorite Disney movie is The Little Mermaid (1989).
38. I will only eat Thai food from one restaurant.
39. I start packing my suitcase over a week before I go on a trip to make sure I pack everything I need.
40. My sister and I currently have the same hair color due to her having a crap-ton of red dye.
41. I love traveling but I don't like flying.
42. My favorite red lipstick is Kanga Rouge by M•A•C from the Dame Edna collection (2008).
43. I can crack my knees.
44. I have a little pink Christmas tree on my desk at work & I leave it up all year long undecorated until after Thanksgiving rolls around.
45. I collect matchbooks.
46. I hate listening to my voice mail (Unless it is from Phil because he is probably singing).
47. I have a scar on my left leg from my cat scratching me as a child and I love it because it reminds me of her (She passed away in 2009 at the age of eighteen).
48. When I write myself a note a typically draw a picture to go along with it.
49. I'm thinking about having LASIK surgery so I don't have to wear glasses anymore.
50. My dream engagement ring is Kirk Kara SS6852SA-R from the Charlotte Collection (Formally the Amelia Collection).
At some point in the past month or so my father had mentioned to Justin that he wanted to go to Citi Field and see a game when the Mets were playing against the Washington National and to kinda just make it happen. Well last night was the first game they had scheduled against each other and there was a pitching match up (Matt Harvey vs. Stephen Strasburg) that they wanted to see, so Justin picked up some sweet field level tickets and we went.
It was like every other baseball game we go to (Batting practice, food, Justin with his little score book, etc.) with the exception of the fact that I really had to pay attention to what was going on and have a baseball glove with me because we were seated eleven rows away from the field and I didn't want to get hit in the face with a line drive -- Which thankfully didn't happen or I'd be crying about it to all of you right now.
It was good time. I always enjoy going to baseball games with Justin and my father. I look forward to the next game we go to and maybe next time I'll remember to bring my actual camera to take some sweet baseball photos to share with all of you.
You'd think that since Justin and I have been dating for over ten years that we would have had tons of family dinner with both of our families, but no we had our first combined family dinner today for Easter.
This whole thing came about because Justin's mother is one to "take on strays" and while we were over her house last weekend she found out that we still have stuff in our dinning room from downstairs (Our den still isn't fixed after Hurricane Sandy) and she insisted that I invite my parents over for dinner. And surprisingly they said yes.
So fast forward to today... Justin, my sister and I got over to Justin's mother's house early (My dad works on Sundays, so he and my mother came later on in the afternoon) so that I could start preparing all of the food for dinner and force my sister and Justin to help me. And boy did we prep a lot of food -- I made tons of guava puffs for dessert, fried eggplant with goat cheese, antipasto salad, spinach fish and lemon rice.
My parents got to Justin's mother's house a little after 3:00pm and almost immediately Justin's stepfather got my father into his music room and they disappeared for what seemed like forever -- They missed out on my awesome fried eggplant, pull apart bread and drinks, while they were jamming away.
At some point we had Justin's sister call them into the dinning room because we were going to start on the antipasto. Once we got them into the room we all sat down and just ate, chit chatted, etc. It was nice.
Overall dinner went extremely well. Everyone was on their best behavior (I was worried about my family because we don't typically behave well) and it seemed like everyone enjoyed themselves -- Not that I honestly care very much because it's not like I want Justin's mom and stepfather to be my parents best friends. But yeah, I hope I don't have to do that again anytime soon just because it was tiring.
I hope that all of you had a happy Easter if you celebrated it! And if not, I just you had a nice Sunday!
What Is Your Ideal Way To Relax?
A glass of wine/champagne, a bed and some TV is always a nice.
Where Is Your Favorite Place To Be?
Justin's couch.
Who Do You Consider Your Biggest Roll Model?
Hmm...I guess my dad.
What Does Your Life Look Like In 3 Years?
I'm hoping that Justin and I will have finally bought a house together, gotten married & I'd be back at school working on my PHD in Library Science.
If You Could Go Back & Change One Decision What Would It Be?
I would have saved more money while I was still in grad school before my student loans popped up.
What Is Your Biggest Accomplishment In Life Thus Far?
I guess just getting my Masters, having a job within my field of study and loving it.
I spent this past weekend celebrating birthdays. Saturday we had a belated birthday dinner for my mother at the house (Mainly because she refused to let us take her out to dinner on her actual birthday which was last Thursday). I cooked dinner for the family and the boyfriends, it was nice aside from the fact that we all didn't sit together at the dinning room table (Our dinning room is full of stuff we managed to salvage from our den after Hurricane Sandy hit and we have nowhere else to put all the stuff, so we couldn't move everything to clear the table). Everyone enjoyed the dinner I cooked (Or pretended to at least), but not as much as the amazing cake I picked up from Dortoni Bakery in Levittown (If you live on Long Island and you need a cake, go to Dortoni's. This was the second cake we've purchased from them and both cakes were amazing). Overall it was a nice little family dinner, even though everyone but my mother wishes we just went out to a restaurant to save on the dishes & such.
Sunday afternoon was Jack's first birthday party and I must say, Nicole and Eileen did it up with a sweet pirate theme. A bunch of us dressed up like pirates (Or at least had a skull and crossbones somewhere on our person), there was pirate music, a beautiful pirate ship cake that Eileen made, an awesome activities table for the children attending the party, etc. It was really a good time for a child's birthday party.
All of these birthday celebrations just made me start thinking about what I want to do for my birthday in March (I love planning birthday parties, especially my own). I'm thinking about staying on Long Island this year and maybe gathering my friends to play paintball at this indoor place in West Babylon. I'll have to ask around and feel people out to see if it'll be possible. I hope my friends are down because I think it could be awesome.
So I thought I had it bad the other day spending the afternoon at the urgent care clinic with Erin, well today I spent my evening in the emergency room because my mother passed out at work (Thankfully she works in a hospital, so she didn't have to go far).
Around 4:10pm my mother calls and asks to speak to my father, so I put him on and she apparently told him she passed out while she was at work, was in the emergency room and need him to pick her up because she couldn't drive herself home. We both hop in my car and drive over to the hospital to find my mom hooked up to a bunch of machines in the ER.
We start talking to her and find out that they want to do a cardiac catheterization on her because we have a family history of heart problems, but she refused to do it until we got there. So once we got there I found her nurse and they sent her up for the procedure. While she was being wheeled up we found out she passed out at 11:00am and was in the ER like all day (We were not happy when we found out).
As she was having all of this done my father and I were stuck waiting in a visitors lounge forever. After what seemed like forever and a year the doctor that did the catheterization came to tell us that it was all good, but she had to lay down for three hours for whatever reason (I remember him mumbling something about where they put the catheter in) and she needed an MRI.
To make a long story short, she was still in recovery all drugged up and hadn't her MRI so the nurses told us they were going to keep her over night because they weren't sure when she'd have it and she still needed to be in bed because of the other procedure. So my mom is still in the hospital.
Hopefully they get the MRI done tonight, it's fine and we can just pick her up in the morning. I'll obviously write about what happens when I know what is going on.
It's been about ten days since Sandy hit and I'd like to say things are slowly getting back to normal but I don't feel like they are just yet. Everything is still the same but covered in snow, at least it seems that way to me.
Since the last time I wrote a post I've left Justin's place and I've been staying at my uncle's house -- I didn't leave Justin's because I wanted to, my parents insisted that I stay at my uncle's with them because his house is closer to ours than Justin's and they needed my help cleaning the house up. So, I've been going back and forth with my mother to our house to get things done.
In those trips back and forth I took a bunch of pictures of the neighborhood and here are some of them...
It's all just so depressing seeing pieces of people's lives just sitting on the curb, and these are just from my block and a few of the surrounding ones. It's just ridiculous that this is what the whole city looks like. I also can't believe that on top of all of this we just had a nor'easter yesterday and there is now snow covering all of this garbage.
I don't understand what we did to piss Mother Nature off.
camera that worked.
