Vosburgh Vagabond

I have a confession to make. I am WAY behind on NaNoWriMo! We are talking like a WEEK behind. I made a really good start on my novel while we were on vacation last week, but enjoying the last couple of days of relaxation followed by the stress of going back to work after a week out of office, not to mention the ridiculous migraine I had yesterday meant that I haven't been putting in any time at my laptop, working on my story. Never fear, though. I have not given up hope. I still think about my main character and her story. In the two years since I had the idea for my novel, my main character and I have become well acquainted. I think of her like an old friend that I maybe haven't talked to in a while (which actually works really well with where her story is going). I want to enjoy writing my novel, not feel obligated to stare at a computer when I get home after I've already done that for 9-10 hours at my job. I'm not going to reprimand myself or feel bad about the...

We are winding down to the very last hours of our anniversary vacation. As all vacations, it seems like it went way too fast. I'm dreading my alarm going off tomorrow morning and heading back to the real world (and work).  Like most vacations, we spent more money being out of town than we would have if we just stayed home, so we are planning to do some major saving between now and Christmas spending. That means making grocery lists instead of just throwing things in the cart, no more Starbucks or running out of the office to get breakfast in the mornings, and no shopping (the horror!).  When we really look at our finances, we spend a lot of money on little things. We don't go to the store and make big, outrageous purchases. Most of the extra spending comes from going out to breakfast or having coffee out. But those little things add up to a lot. I'm excited to see how much we can save and put towards our holiday spending. One of my favorite holiday indulgences is see...

Nano, NOT super stoked to be leaving Whistler.  As sad as it was leaving Whistler today, it is so, so good to be home. We got up this morning and cleaned up the massive amount of stuff that we had taken to our hotel (no judging... it was a relaxing vacation, and I took a lot of stuff). After walking around in the leftover snow and checking out, we stopped by the little Trading Post to get some souvenirs and then went back to Dups Burritos for lunch. I had a taco salad this time and it was SO good. I will definitely miss that place. Then, it was time to leave Whistler behind and get on the road home. We stopped at a liquor store on the way back towards Vancouver and found a bottle of wine that we had during dinner at the tapas restaurant, Simply Noir by a winery called Stag's Hollow. We picked up a bottle for our friend/coworker, too, to thank her for watching after our cats while we were away. They're pretty low maintenance, but I really appreciate having somebody to ...

It's Marc and my third anniversary today. I can't believe how quickly the first three years of our marriage have gone by. I realized sadly the other day that I don't think we can really consider ourselves newlyweds anymore. Sad face. We continued our relaxing Whistler vacation today. I woke up way earlier than I would have liked again this morning, and then wasn't able to go back to sleep. I took advantage of the quiet time to finish another book (The Spectacular Now... which I found a little less than spectacular, but pretty good) and to work on the blanket I've been crocheting. Marc got up and we spent some extra time in bed, watching The Vow, which I got excited about, but then remembered that I had already seen when Channing Tatum farted in the car. But it was cute, so we snuggled and watched it instead of taking a nap, which is what I should have done. We walked around the village again, exploring further this time than the last time we went out, and fo...

You know how people talk about all of the "rest and relaxation" that they get on vacation? That doesn't really happen to me. Marc and my vacations tend to be go go go, whether they are trips to places that we've never been before and we are trying to soak up all the sights at once, or trips back home to see family, where we are trying to make time for everyone and everything that we've missed, we don't generally do a lost of "resting" on our time off. I wanted this trip to be different. I wanted to recharge, refresh, but still have time to see a new place. That's one of the reasons we chose Whistler. It's so beautiful here, but there's not THAT much to do that we have to be running all five days we're visiting to cram it all in. After all, there's no snow on the ground, so winter sports are out of the question, and the village is pretty tiny. Today was REALLY relaxing. I woke up after a weird/bad dream around 6:00 and couldn...

I love vacation. Marc and I picked Whistler for a few reasons. It's within driving distance, we hadn't been here before, and we knew that we would be able to have a nice, relaxing vacation. Most of our trips are go go go. We hardly ever have trips where the main purpose is to rest and recharge, which is exactly what I wanted from this trip. After a great night's sleep in my cozy hotel bed, I woke up to this view: Not bad, eh? I spent the morning lounging in bed, finishing The Fault in Our Stars. From the moment I started reading, I had an idea of how it was going to end and I wasn't wrong. If you would like to spend some quality time with tears running down your face, I highly suggest this book. It was depressing and beautiful all at the same time. It was so good. We spent the afternoon walking around the village after having a delicious lunch at Dups Burritos, just a minute walk from the lobby of our hotel. It had a cheese quesadilla with peppers and it was...

Marc and my first anniversary didn't go so well. We had lived in Washington for less than a year at the time, and hadn't done too much exploring outside of our area. After a little research, we decided to go down to Long Beach, Washington. We found an adorable little hotel and left early from work on Friday to go down and enjoy a weekend on the coast to celebrate our first year as a married couple. The hotel was incredible. It's called Adrift Hotel and you should DEFINITELY check it out if you want to spend a weekend in Long Beach. It's chic and wonderfully decorated and so cozy. We had Chinese food in our suite that night and got up the next morning to explore. I immediately found a place to ride horses on the beach. We signed up for a session and spent the time waiting for it to start wandering along the cold, blustery beach. My horse was named Earnhardt. He was sweet. It really wasn't his fault. Long story short, Earnhardt wasn't happy about going on o...

I woke up this morning, thinking that I had to get up and take a shower and go to work. Then, I remembered that it was Saturday, and not only did I not have to go to work today, I'm off work for nine days straight! YAY anniversary week! After the crazy week I've had, all I wanted to do was relax. So, we laid out in the living room for most of the day, listening to the torrential rain and ridiculous wind. The power kept flickering, but it was so gorgeous out. We didn't leave the house until I had to go meet a friend to pick up some lotion that I had ordered from her through Pink Papaya. It is called Pumpkin Latte and it smells SO GOOD! While we were out at Target, the power went out! It was kinda fun, with everybody giggling excitedly, walking around the dark store. I was in the middle of buying a new pair of jeans when it happened. They feel like they fit, and I used my phone flashlight to check them out in the mirror, so I think they look okay. I hope. After that, ...

I feel awful. There is a little bug going around the office and I was lucky enough to catch it. Yay me! I did manage to make it though the workday, however, and now I'm my best to enjoy my evening and read some of my latest book, "Days of Blood and Starlight." It's the second book in a trilogy by Laini Taylor. I got the first book while we were in Portland last weekend, and found out after the fact that Laini herself lives in Portland. The first book, "Daughter of Smoke and Bone,"  was SO GOOD. I flew through it in about a day and a half. My sweet husband (who is being his sweet self right now and is out buying me pizza) knew I would want to read the second one and bought it for me on Amazon (yay 2 day shipping!). Now if I could only keep my eyes from drooping long enough to read more than a chapter without stopping for a break. SPEAKING of books... my 100 Books in 2013 is off to a rocky start. Here we are, nearly a quarter of the way into the year ...

We made our mini road trip last night down to Portland so that we could get up at our leisure this morning to go exploring instead of having to make the four hour drive early. Now I'm up and refreshed and ready to go get brunch at The Roadrunner Cafe, head to Powell's (the best bookstore EVER) and then go to a Chinese or Japanese (we haven't decided which yet) garden for Marc to take photos. It will be nice to have a relaxing little weekend mini-vacation! On the trip down, I became OBSESSED with this song. It makes me want to dance!

I'm having a terrible day, which I guess is an appropriate ending to a terrible week.  In an attempt to shake it off, I present to you: pictures from our visit to the Harry Potter Studio Tour in Leavesden, England. We went while we were visiting Europe last fall, and ended up at the studio tour the day after our second wedding anniversary, which is appropriate because we spent the day after our wedding at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Orlando.  The studio tour was AMAZING and I went a little crazy with photos. Hope you like them!  (I spent a lot of time adding captions to a lot of these and they didn't show up. Whatever. Boo on you, Blogger!)  The Great Hall Neville's sexy sweater  House points.  From the Yule Ball  I look like my great aunt Tessie!  Luna's wardrobe.  Bellatrix's wig. Gryffindor dorm beds Harry's bed.  Ron's bed.  The Mir...