cambria estate winery

I promise that my spring break trip wasn't all interviews and meetings! (It sure felt like it sometimes, though!) One rainy Saturday, L., his parents and I took a fun trip up north to Santa Maria to go wine tasting at Cambria Estate Winery.



They're known primarily for their Chardonnays and their Pinot Noirs, and honestly I'm not a huge fan of either! (I like citrusy, fruity white wines that are a little less oakey than Chardonnays, and I'm not a HUGE red wine drinker, though I'm working on it!)

Of course, that was the perfect reason to do a tasting, so I could try all sorts of different wines that I wouldn't normally order for fear of wasting them! L.'s parents are members, and besides for getting bottles of wine shipped to their house monthly (jealous), they also get to come tasting anytime and bring guests for free.

Guess we all know what L. and I will be spending our weekends doing once we move to LA!


My favorite by far was the Riesling I tried, and L.'s parents were nice enough to buy me a bottle, which we promptly opened the next night when L.'s mom and I cooked up a delicious Tuscan white bean pureed soup. Mmm. I definitely never fail to eat well when I stay with L.'s family, that's for sure!


Cambria was also recently featured on the Bachelor! Jealous they weren't shooting when we were there...sigh.


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interviews and more interviews

A short update: some of you have asked if I already graduated and have moved out here to Ca, but I just wanted to clarify and say I definitely haven't yet! Unfortunately there's SO much I have to get through before graduation, such as finishing my thesis, defending my thesis to the English department and my super-smart peers who will no doubt push me (in a good way!), finishing up my other classes, and preparing to move out here in June--all before the big day on June 5.

There's also a lot of really fun things happening before graduation too. After classes end on May 13 and we finish our papers and our exams, we'll be heading down with the rest of our senior class to Hilton Head for a week, a Williams tradition undoubtedly left over from the time when it was an "old boys' club" college. (We actually didn't admit women until the 70s!) After Hilton Head we go back to Williams for Senior Week, filled with fancy dinners, dancing, champagne brunches, and bonfires. Graduation is on June 5, then L. and I will stay with my parents for about a week while I pack up my room, donate/sell my stuff, and then we'll finally head out here!

So quite awhile to go.

The last week has been all about L. and me trying to nail down jobs before we actually move out, so that we're not, you know, driving across the country and renting an apartment with no income! I had four meetings/interviews: last Saturday (the 19) I attended a job fair of sorts for independent high schools to interview for teaching positions, then Monday I had my long-awaited interview at a big, wonderful publishing company about a half hour outside LA, and last Wednesday I met with two literary agents. One guy was a big-whig talent agent and was a total tool; I'll have to give him a post of his own.

My teaching interview with a great private school in North Hollywood and my interview at the publishing company both went really well, and though I haven't been offered either position yet it seems promising for both. I'll have a big decision to make, since the publishing job, while it would be perfect, would be about a half-hour commute each way depending on traffic, perhaps up to an hour. Teaching would be a short commute but it sort of terrifies me.

L. had such good luck out here! I don't know if I mentioned before, but his initial offer from the UCLA biochemistry research department had a contingency; the person who has the job now had to get into med school to free up the position for L. to take. On Friday L. and I went into Westwood so he could meet with some more people at UCLA (and so I could stuff my face with cookie sandwiches from Diddy Riese), and his boss told him that he officially had the position, no more contingency! Color me HAPPY.

Now that we know where at least one of us is going to be living, the apartment hunt is on. We're hoping to live in Westwood since it's a perfect little mini-city, with enough bars, restaurants, shops, and movie theatres to keep us busy, plus it would be great if L. could walk to work. What I don't want, however, is to get into a situation where we're living in an apartment building with a bunch of UCLA undergrads-- I am SO READY to be out of college and do not want to feel like I'm going back to school in the fall!

When we haven't been interviewing in LA, L. and I have been relaxing in Santa Barbara. We had a fun date night on Saturday that I'll write about in another post. Unfortunately it's been rainy almost the entire week we've been here, which is a huge bummer.

So that's my short update! I'm leaving California tomorrow to spend some time at home with my parents in New Hampshire, and then I go back to Williams for the last time EVER on Sunday to hopefully fly through this last month and a half.

three cities in less than three days

I've been in LA (slash Newport slash Santa Barbara) for less than 48 hours, and in a way I feel as though I haven't actually slept, that the days have all rolled into one, and that I've been here for a week at the same time. Between frozen bananas on Balboa Island (there's always money in the banana stand!), sunsets on the Newport harbor, a seedy motel in North Hollywood, a day-long independent high school job interview convention that went flooringly well, despite the fact that I only got 5 hours of sleep Thursday night and 6 hours Friday night, dinner and a movie on state street, and finally waking up in L.'s parents' comfy, cozy house in Santa Barbara with the rain falling outside, it has been an absolutely crazy 48 hours.

More details soon, but for now I'm going to disappear into my happy place where I do absolutely no traveling for a whole day.

Santa Barbara, LA, and some exciting news, finally!

At the end of January, L. and I couldn't handle the blizzards, the sub-zero temperatures, and the fact that our ceilings were leaking and about to collapse over here in good old Williamstown, Massachusetts. So we escaped to Santa Barbara for a week!

How much more beautiful can it get?

We had lunches on State St., took walks, L. played golf with his dad, we had some amazing dinners including The Palace Grill which is one of my new all-time favorite restaurants (their jambalaya was to.die.for!), and basically just had a wonderful relaxing time.

One night, we had dinner at the Boathouse.

This was our view.

Can I go back? Please?

One day while L. and his dad played golf, L.'s mom and I took their Standard Poodle, Obi, on a long walk along the coast. We stopped to be nosy/creepy and took some pictures of this (amazing) famous house. Can you guess whose it is?


If you guessed that it is the approx. $22 million 14,000 sq. foot Montecito, Calif. home owned by Beanie Babies creator Ty Warner then yes, you are correct! I wish I had come up with the idea to understuff stuffed animals and make a fortune off unwitting children. Sigh.

But perhaps the best part of our trip was the Wednesday that L. and I took the car and drove down into LA so that L. could interview for a job. I won't say where, but let's just say that it's for a research position at a prestigious university at which he hopes to attend medical school in two years.

Oh, and...HE GOT THE OFFER! Which means, ladies and possible gentleman who may read this blog, we are officially moving to Los Angeles in June!! YAY! You have no idea how relieved I am about this, because for the last three months I've been having anxiety that L. would end up in San Francisco and I would end up in LA, and there's no way I could do that long distance relationship for two years. And then if we couldn't make med school/grad school plans match, we would have waited those two years for nothing. So I am so, so, so happy to be able to say that we're going no matter what. Of course, I don't actually have a job yet, but I've decided that I'm going no matter what. I'm not following a boy across the country, although having a built-in roommate who I really, really love definitely helps; it's just nice to have at least one huge factor of life after college (location) nailed down, and a lot of companies won't take candidates seriously until they live in-state, anyway.

SO, this all means I am even MORE excited to share photos of our wonderful day trip to LA with you!

I had so much fun navigating our future home. Of course, when we went we didn't really know it was going to be our future home, but I was determined to make it happen one way or another. I just get this great feeling from LA. I know it's not a lot of people's (anyone's? so many nay-sayers!) thing, but to me it's amazing--sunny, expansive, relatively easy to navigate, and it doesn't have that run-down look of these old New England towns that have been around since the Revolution in which I've been living the last twelve years of my life.

We had my trusty GPS, a british fellow named Daniel, who was more than helpful. It was especially funny to listen to the strange way he pronounced the streets (Wheel-Shire Boo-lay-vaard).



I had our day all planned out. Thanks to the lovely Mara's help, we decided on Joan's on Third for lunch.

I had absolutely the most delicious sandwich I've ever eaten in my life; fresh mozzarella, basil, tomato and olive oil on a crusty rustic roll. I'm drooling just thinking about it. I need to go back. I'm already fantasizing about doing some of our grocery shopping at Joan's' (weird, making a possessive a possessive) marketplace and making amazing paninis for lunch on the weekends at home...mmmm....


I strategically planned lunch so that right afterward, we could walk across the street and enjoy a scrumptious dessert at Magnolia Bakery. I have to say, I had really high hopes and had heard amazing things about their cupcakes.



The verdict? They were okay. The frosting was really fluffy and just tasted a little strange to me. They were certainly pretty, but in terms of sheer deliciousness, I have to say the cupcakes we had at WhoDidily on State St. were the absolute best. We split the Lolligager, a chocolate cupcake with lime-colored buttercream frosting and a hunk of cookie dough baked into the center. YUM.

One of my favorite parts of the day was when I dropped L. off at his interview and drove over to The Grove for some shopping. I resisted the urge to buy anything, but it was difficult, especially since it was a gorgeous 80-degree day and I was wearing a long black cardigan! Blech!


Before we went home the following Monday, we took a trip down over the weekend to Newport Beach to visit with L.'s grandparents. It is so beautiful down there (plus, there's like three Ikeas on the way!). Being sandwiched between Newport on the one hand and Santa Barbara on the other isn't such a bad place to be...

I am so looking forward to doing some more cupcake-tasting when we get back to LA, as well as trying out all the restaurants I had wanted to hit on our last trip: Ketchup, Don Antonio's, La Brea Bakery, Toast, Diddy Riese, The Foundry and soo many more! I'm also really enjoying beginning our (tentative) apartment search. If you guys know of any great affordable complexes or anyone who is subletting in West LA, let me know!! And now I'm crossing my fingers that one of the job interviews I have lined up in March when I fly back out works out...

I'm Back!

L. and I (begrudgingly) left sunny Santa Barbara on Monday and had a nightmare of a travel experience home, including a panic attack (mine) on the flight out (I was so nervous and trying so hard to hold in my tears that I started hyperventilating, and I whispered to L. "I can't breathe," and then then yelled "you can't BREATHE?!" which scared me right out of my panic attack), and flying straight into a blizzard when we reached Albany, NY (the closest airport to Williamstown). Actually, when we got in to Albany around midnight Monday, the snow hadn't started yet, but the drive to Williamstown is over a really scary, high, and treacherous mountain where the guardrails won't help you if you slide, so in case there was black ice we opted to stay in a hotel in Albany Monday night. Of course, when I woke up just after 7 the next morning (4am in my body...yuck), I peeked out the window only to discover that around three inches of snow had already fallen. Fail. So we packed up as quickly as we could and embarked on a terrifying drive home (the normally hour-long drive took almost three), but I was just glad L. got us home safely. (And, props to the Subaru. That thing is better in the snow than my SUV).

We started classes yesterday (though most of them got canceled) and things have just been generally busy, busy, busy over here. I'm running around getting textbooks, trying to squeeze in some hours at my internship, and tackling the 500+ pages of reading I already have due early next week. Too bad Sunday is the most IMPORTANT DAY OF THE YEAR, nay, my life, so if it means starting the semester off massively behind on my work, well then, so be it. I mean, it is senior spring, after all.

I'll post a birthday recap before the end of the week and a Santa Barbara/LA recap (probs two posts) next week, but if the Packers lose on Sunday and you don't hear from me for awhile, assume that I am a. curled up in the fetal position somewhere, crying, and/or b. clutching a bottle of wine and refusing to leave the couch.

Speaking of Superbowl, what are you guys having for snacks?! I have to admit that I am less inclined to cook all day this time, as I normally do for Green Bay games, because I don't want to miss a second of pre-game footage, but we're thinking of ordering out buffalo wings to save me the trouble of dipping a million pieces of chicken in panko crumbs and basting them in Frank's Red Hot. I'm also thinking of making my famous spinach and artichoke dip, and beefy, cheesy nachos. Maybe baked macaroni and cheese balls. And to think, I started doing South Beach again yesterday. Sigh. The things I do for the Packers...

Why we're leaving New England

By now L. and I are boarding our plane on our way to Santa Barbara, but I wanted to leave you guys with a couple images of what we've had to deal with the last week in Williamstown and why our vacation couldn't come at a more perfect time. We've gotten a LOT of snow in the last month in Williamstown. Like...almost 40 inches a lot. And our roof? Well, it was built in 1901, isn't the sturdiest structure in the world, and isn't as sloped as it should be. So last Saturday night, I walked into my room and noticed the floor was soaking wet. I looked up, and realized that there was a GIANT crack in my ceiling, and water drops had formed along the entire crack and had soaked the floor and the bottom end of my bed. It did NOT look good. It was about 10:00pm on a Saturday night, so facilities wasn't open and I had to call security. They came by, decided it looked very unsafe, and said the on-call architectural tradesman would come by to take a look at it. Luckily, L.'s room with our nice cushy queen sized bed lives down the hall, so I didn't have to worry about sleeping there.

I'm not sure exactly what they did, but when I checked back the next morning and the ceiling, though still cracked, was at least dry. I figured they had chipped the ice off the roof, since the pressure from the build-up was what had caused the leakage in the first place. But THEN, Tuesday afternoon as I was headed into work the leak was back, and it looked worse. I called facilities and they promised to send someone over to fix it. When I got back at 5, I realized they interpreted "fix it" as "use duct tape to tape a giant tarp over the entire crack and try to make it drain over a bucket." My first thoughts were "wow, THAT is going to fill up with water and fall down," and wouldn't you know, two hours later it did just that--spilling water EVERYWHERE, including all over my bed. By now I was more than a little frustrated, so I called AGAIN and asked them to please fix the ceiling, rather than taping a temporary tarp over the problem. Another architectural tradesman came back and, I kid you not, put up ANOTHER tarp that was "better made" than the first, meaning he used a lot more duct tape. They said they wouldn't be able to permanently fix it until spring, when all the ice was off the roof.

By that time it was getting really late and I was sick of dealing with the problem, so I went down the hall to go sleep in L.'s room. I put on my jammies and crawled into his bed...only to discover that it was absolutely.completely.soaking.wet. The ceiling above HIS bed had opened up as well and was leaking steadily all over the bed. At that point, I couldn't take it anymore. It was late and I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was go to sleep in a warm bed. I made L. call security again, at which point they said, "didn't you already call about this?" He had to explain that no, I had called earlier, and now it was happening in his room too. FOUR officers showed up this time, followed by the poor architectural tradesman again, who had had to leave his warm house (on campus, to be fair) for the third time that night. Oh, and the reinforced tarp in my room had fallen yet AGAIN, so he had to fix that too.

By 3am that morning, this was what my ceiling looked like (photo not taken at 3am, as you can tell by the light through the window, and also because at that point I was way too pissed to be taking photos):


And this is what L.'s looked like:


We slept on a futon, got 4 hours of sleep before we had to get up for work, and were very grumpy. And that is one of many reasons why we need to escape to sunny Santa Barbara and sleep in a warm, dry bed.

Four Days...

...until I turn the big 2-2! Normally I would just wait and do a re-cap post after my birthday, but I couldn't resist sharing my plans for the weekend because I am just so.excited! If you should know anything about me, is that I am absolutely crazy about birthdays, both mine and everyone else's. I wake up and bound out of bed in the morning, no matter the time, and because I'm a total type-A when it comes to planning, I usually have a whole day planned because no one wants to spend time alone on their birthday! This time around, L. is taking me out for a nice lunch on Friday afternoon and then I'm having a huge (18 people!) birthday dinner at the Purple Pub, a super classy-yet-chill Williamstown restaurant/bar. After that, a bunch of friends are meeting us there for drinks.

L. already gave me one of my presents--a Clay Matthews jersey for watching the Packers destroy the Bears this Sunday in the NFC Championships!!!--but my other present comes on Monday, when L. and I hop on a plane and head to Santa Barbara for a week! Wooo hooo! L.'s parents were so generous to pitch in for a plane ticket for my birthday present, and I can't WAIT for a relaxing week of sun, warmth, nice dinners, golfing, knitting, hiking, yoga, concerts, and above all de-stressing before my last-ever semester at Williams. So expect lots of fun updates on that trip! We went around this time last year, too, and it was absolutely divine. I really cannot wait.

It was -2 this morning in Williamstown, so I think a trip to Santa Barbara (where it's 74 today!!) is very much in order.

2010 in Review

I can't believe New Year's Eve is tomorrow!

Goodbye, 2010! In the past year, I...

Turned 21!

Went to Santa Barbara with L. as my 21st birthday present.


Celebrated L.'s 21st.

Went to Hawaii for the first time ever! (And have been dying to go back ever since!)


Celebrated my one-year blogging anniversary.

Had an amazing summer in which L. and I officially tested the waters living together and I worked full-time at my wonderful job in publishing (which I'm going to miss so much!) Oh, and hung out with Justin Long too.

Started my senior year at Williams. (In the same year Williams was named the #1 college in America by Forbes! Yay Williams!)


Attended my brother's wedding.


Celebrated L.'s and my two year anniversary.

Went to my first ever NFL game (and first ever Packers game!)

. . .

Looking ahead to 2011, it is going to be a BIG one for me. In it, I will...

Turn 22 (the age to me that seems truly "adult-y")

Finish my thesis! Oh joyful day! (Here's hoping I can keep it under 100 pages...)

Have a fantastic Senior Week, which will include traveling with all my friends to Hilton Head, dinners, parties, champagne brunches, all culminating in the day I...

Graduate from college!!!

Pack everything I own in L.'s Subaru and move across the country/move in together.

Begin working full-time hopefully at the job of my dreams for which I'm interviewing in March (fingers crossed it all works out!)

Adopt a puppy (?!?!)

I can't wait. And I can't wait to share it all with you guys! Things can only get more interesting from here on out...

The Joys and Unforseen Consequences of Being 21, and a Mini Vacation: Introduction

Note that this post is titled "introduction" for a couple reasons: The first being that my computer or internet or Firefox or whatever it is is doing that thing where though I type an average of over 90 words per minute, only one letter is showing up at a time and there's a horrendous lag, and, well, I just can't deal with that.

The second reason is that in about an hour L. and I are leaving to go to the airport on our mini vacation! We're going to Santa Barbara to visit his parents until Monday. Sure, it's only going to be 55, maybe 60 degrees--certainly not beach, or, much to my chagrin, sandal weather--but it's better than the single digit temps and snow here in Western Mass! (Though to be fair, the last few days we've had 50 degree rain, and sun snow showers? Um?)

So, fear not, the 21st birthday shenanigans are indeed on their way, and I promise that you'll appreciate how ridiculous the past few days have been. I've realized, as well, that being 21 involves being in a constant state of hangover, which isn't very nice.

Also, thanks so much everyone for all the super sweet Birthday wishes! xo

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A Few of My Favorite Things: Christmas Tea

One of my favorite things in the world is Christmas Tea. You can have it all-year round, and in that way carry the joy of Christmas around in your ceramic mug no matter the month! This tea actually smells the way Christmas smells at my house. It's a mix of orange peel and rose hips, red and black currants, cinnamon, clove. Mix that with the smell of warm, freshly-baked blueberry muffins at 6 a.m. and that's Christmas, in my house.

When I went to visit L. in Santa Barbara last New Year's, what I had thought was going to be the worst Christmas had just passed. We lost power at our house for 11 days preceding Christmas...it came back on the day we had decided to cancel our annual Christmas Day party, after we had to throw out most of the food we had been saving.
It was a long, dark, and cold week-and-a-half leading up to Christmas, and so on Christmas day L. and I decided it was time I got out of New Hampshire and went to Santa Barbara for New Year's. I was so glad to be somewhere warm and to be able to be on the beach and in the sunlight, and, of course, with my Goose. I thought I would forget about the Christmas-That-Almost-Wasn't and just fly away. But one morning L.'s dad brought me a cup of Christmas Tea (isn't that lovely?) and as soon as I smelled it I remembered how much Christmas at home means to me, electricity or no electricity. Now whenever I drink it I have two-fold memories: Christmas morning at home with my parents and dog and the blueberry muffins, and New Year's with L. and his wonderful, caring parents. Lovely.

[Images from: Most Beautiful Darling,Imperial Tea Garden]