Weekend Shenanigans & Studying for Finals

Hey Bloggers, it's Monday! I'm sure you're all still thawing out since this is basically what the United States looked like this weekend. Except you, Florida. What da hale?

I wish I could say that my weekend was full of fun shenanigans, but I spent the majority of it in my room, at my desk, studying. The most exciting thing that happened this weekend was leaving my room for 3 hours to go drink wine with my best friend.

Friday I cleaned the whole first floor and put up all the Christmas decorations. And studied. Ate dinner. And studied. Then drank wine. And studied.

Saturday, I studied all day, then sang at Mass and went to Amy's. We talked about boots, school, work and how much we missed each other. Oh, and how I'm leaving for Mexico in FIVE DAYS. Then I came home and studied some more.

Sunday, I studied then turned on the Eagles game to see this.

The Eagles won after the most exciting game I've ever seen and that means I get free coffee today at Dunkin. Yay!

Studying is such a process for me so I thought I'd share it with you.

8 stages of studying for finals

Stage 1 - "Ah, I have plenty of time!"
Stage 2 - Contemplate starting soon.
Stage 3 - Get distracted by Pinterest.
Stage 4 - Put game face on.
Stage 5 - "Crap, is this on the test?"
Stage 6 - Go into panic mode.
Stage 7 - Consider dropping out to be a stripper.
Stage 8 - Give in to exhaustion.

XO - Monny

Chins Up, Smile On.

Happy Monday!

Usually, this is the day of the week that I hate most, but I got more than 5 hours of sleep last night and there are only 3 days until national gluttony day Thanksgiving so I'm in a good mood.

I hope you all had a great weekend! Mine was pretty low key, except for the fact that I GOT TO SEE CATCHING FIRE. It everything I wanted it to be and more. I laughed, I cried, I got mad that Plutarch didn't show Katniss his watch, but mostly I fangirled. It is every book lover's dream that the movie adaptation is true to the story line and it was for the most part. I want to see it again and again. What are you waiting for? Walk away from the computer and go see it - I'll wait. When you get back we'll discuss Finnick's abs and Effie's eyelashes.

Since this week is going to be kind of crazy, I'm writing my mini goals list here so I can keep myself accountable.

• Deaf event essay - due Monday 5 pm 
• Audiology online quiz - due Tuesday 2 pm
• Online observation and language sampling analysis - due Tuesday night 11:59 pm
• Evaluation report - due 12/3

To help you get through your Monday...

XO - Monny

Saturday Shenanigans

Happy Monday, Blogland!

Are you ready for my weekend shenanigans? (The correct answer is yes.) I was a good blogger and took pictures this weekend so I would have something to talk about when today rolled around.

I was in a crappy mood for pretty much all of last week. Luckily, I didn't take a nap Friday morning which meant I got to watch Paramore perform on Good Morning America and get my dad's birthday post done. It was the perfect way to get back into a good mood and it totally made me feel better.

After class, I went to work which sucked as usual, but at least no one told me I look like a 16 year old this week.

On Saturday morning, we woke up an hour before Jesus started handing out blessings and headed to south Philly for the Philadelphia Heart Walk. It was warm enough that I didn't need my winter coat (Yay!) so I rocked my school hoodie since I was walking for Temple Health anyway. When we got into the stadium the first thing I saw was Temple's mascot and I yelled "Hey Hooter" before skipping happily into his arms asking for a picture. Go owls!

We sat in the good seats for the opening ceremony while the Phillie Phanatic made fun of friends with the NBC peacock and generally disregarded all ceremony etiquette. He is the best mascot with the most personality and I want him at my future wedding reception. This is not a joke.

After the walk, we headed to my Mom-Mom's. On the way, we passed a place called Burger Bar and I asked my mom what it was. Her response? "Oh it's good, they have alcoholic milkshakes." Thanks mom, but I was asking about the food. With an explanation like that, we had to go in.

Apparently I really like bourbon. Like a lot.

When we got home, we (mostly Mom) made my dad his birthday dinner. It was a filet mignon roast and it. was. awesome. After dinner, we sang happy birthday to Dad who refuses to sit still or look at the camera, which resulted in 47539287 pictures.

After dessert, Kris and I went to see Pride & Prejudice. You know what's not fun? Explaining the whole plot to your boyfriend at intermission. You know what is fun? When he gets riled about the characters and wants them to live happily ever after.

Sunday was pretty dull, but mom and I made Apple Pie Cake. It didn't turn out as pretty as this, but it tasted like a dessert prepared by the magical cake fairy from Heaven. I will definitely make it again!

I hope you all have a great week!
XO - Monny

I Never Will Play the Wild Rover No More

Finally I'm free! Except not really, but that's okay. I handed in my rough draft for my article critique this morning at 12:30 on Tuesday and got out of class 40 minutes early.  When I got to my audiology class, I found out that I got the highest score on our last exam. WHOOP! I rewarded myself with a Blue Moon after class. OKAY now that all of that important information is out of the way, it's time to get to my weekend recap post.

I have no idea what I did on Friday, but I remember drinking an Angry Orchard.

SATURDAY: I woke up at the ass crack of dawn to shower and pack my bags for the Celtic Classic in Bethlehem, PA aka the largest celtic festival in North America. Any other time, I would've been screaming, but I was so excited for this weekend it didn't even matter. After a road rage filled trip to Dunkin Donuts (bitches be trippin') we hit the highway and got to our hotel an hour later where we were greeted by eleventy billion bikes from the Shamrocks bike gang.

When we got into the room we looked around until we realized that the shower was in the living room, which was also our bedroom...and kitchen. I repeat: THE SHOWER WAS IN THE LIVING ROOM. Don't believe me? Here's proof.

Next, we left the hotel to head into town for the opening parade. I've never seen more men in kilts (see also manly skirts) or bagpipes before. It. was. awesome.

After the parade we went to get some food hallelujah! We sat and listened to some Irish band play while stuffing out faces with pulled pork sliders and Irish nachos.

The rest of the day was spent drinking Magner's Cider (my fave) and eating some more.We saw two Irish comedians, Irish dancers and watched Barleyjuice aka the best Irish rock band I've ever heard perform.

Right before we left, we grabbed some strudel to take back to the hotel, where I proceeded to eat it like this.

On Sunday, we woke up and grabbed breakfast at the hotel before heading out to church and then back to the festival for shopping before heading home. Mom bought me a little booklet full of Irish wedding traditions because I already picked my wedding date want to get married on Saint Patrick's Day.

It was the best weekend I've had in a while and I was sad to leave Bethlehem to go home and write a paper.

Now for a photo dump of the rest of the weekend pics.
XO - Monny

Monica Lately

Not to be confused with Chelsea Lately (who is awesome btw).

It's Monday, y'all!Today's #Blogtember post is to talk about life lately.This is good because I really don't have too much time to dedicate to blogging this week.

My weekend was pretty uneventful, except the part where I went to see a one-man play...twice. My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish, and I'm Still in Therapy was the funniest show I've ever seen. We laughed almost non-stop for 105 minutes. If you ever get the chance to see one of Steve Solomon's shows, go see it, I pinky promise, you won't be sorry.After the show on Friday night, I went home and helped my cousin start her blog. She's only one post in, but she is very excited to be writing and sharing her life with all of you in Blogland!

Saturday night I saw the show again (just as funny the second time) with Sarah and we laughed our butts off before running back to her car in the pouring rain. We went back to her house and she microwaved made me some pancakes(YES!). Then I forced her to watch an episode of My Strange of Addiction about a dude whose in love with his car and a chick who's been snorting baby powder for 16 years. Then we watched the next episode where a girl kept digging in her ears and and a different girl drinks (yes, I said drinks) nail polish.

COULD NOT HANDLE IT. I just made this face the whole time.

ANYWAY, my week is gonna be a hot mess so I'll be reading, analyzing, and reviewing articles for my research paper, working, and packing for the Bethlehem Irish Festival!!!

Lately, I've been trying to get my assignments and to-do lists organized. 

Lately, I've been drinking pumpkin flavored coffee.

Lately, I've been switching my summer and fall wardrobes.

Lately, I've been sneezy.

Lately, I've been achey(sp?) from lifting heavy boxes at work. Hello exercise.

Lately I've been anticipating the return of my favorite shows!

Linking up with Sami and Jenni.

See ya on the flip side!

XO - Monny

Weekend Shenans: Birthday Edition

Hello Loveys! It's Sunday night and I'm pretty sure I have food poisoning from my delicious dinner earlier tonight. It tasted so good though! Since I'm wide awake from writhing in pain anyway, I'll finally get to post a weekend shenanigans post on time.

Let's head back to Thursday night. I started my weekend a day early with Mom, Aunt Terry, and Mom-Mom at the Walnut Street Supper Club. It's this adorable little restaurant on Walnut Street (obviously) in Center City where your waiters and waitresses take mini breaks from their actual serving to serenade customers with soft rock, jazz, and Broadway hits. IT. WAS. AWESOME. Since Wicked is in town, they did a set of songs from the show. Of course I was on cloud 9, which you could probably figure out since I told you all how I feel about Wicked already. The food was a little on the expensive side, but it is a pretty nice place so that was expected. Mom and Aunt T treated me and Mom-Mom anyway.

Obviously I got the Judy Garland - le'duh

shameless Snapchat selfie | one of the waiters singing Dancing Through Life | me, Aunt T, and Mom-Mom

pretty table setting | shameless selfie #2 | limoncello cheesecake with strawberry marscapone topping

Friday was our family picnic! About 1/3 of us went to a park right around the corner from my house and had a awesome time that was followed by an afterparty at my aunt's house. And I finally met my brother's gf, who was really sweet (Hi, Allison!). After dinner, I went to a MaryKay party with Sarah before going back to my aunts for shots some refreshments. Everyone was already drunk when we got there. My family parties hard (Irish, remember?). Apparently we missed the shots of Tullamore Dew, which was pretty upsetting, but we did get there in time for me to finish half a bottle of Barefoot white moscato. Whoop! Sarah may or may not have cried from laughing so hard during one of the games we were playing. Oh,we also followed sirens  at 12am until we found a huge apartment fire that we watched burn for about 50 minutes. So sad, over a hundred people are homeless now. Only 4 were injured and none were killed so I guess that's a silver lining.

On Saturday, we ran some errands in the morning and I sat around and watched HGTV for 5 hours before we went to the bar to celebrate my birthday. I'm such a lightweight cheap date, all I had to drink were 3ish beers and 2 shots. Helloooo, Fireball! I had such a great time as told by my phone's camera. The best part was that I finally learned a lesson - that I can go out drinking without getting sick. (ProTip: eat first.)

Sunday was pretty chill. After church, I relaxed in bed for a few hours before going out to dinner with my family and Kristo. When we got home, we watched 3 episodes of our new addiction Naked and Afraid. It's pretty awesome(from my couch) and I know I'd never be able to survive a day in the wild. I'm still feeling like crap and I have to wake up to leave for Gettysburg in 4 hours so I'll just leave you with this adorable grainy picture from dinner.

XO - Monny

"Their Subway is as Dirty as Ours!"

Happy Monday, bloggy peeps!

Did yous have a good weekend? Try not to judge my use of that 2nd person plural - it's Philly's equivalent of y'all so I think I'll keep it.  Anywho, after last week's record-breaking heatwave, it's finally a cool 75°. I was a busy bee this weekend so here's a a kind of picture-heavy recap

Friday was a busier than normal night at work. I got a real workout lifting heavy-ass milk and egg crates to stock them in the fridge. Picture a 100-lb girl lifting shit that's 40% of her weight and you have me. Basically, I'm a beast. I stopped at Wendy's on the way home and got a chicken sandwich and an sweet tea. This was not one of my finest ideas due to the fact that I woke up in the middle of the night and NEVER WENT BACK TO SLEEP.

10:40 pm - eat sammich and drink tea

12:30 am - lay down in bed, look at the clock

2:15 am - roll over, look at clock ---> hate life

3:47 am - wide awake ----> still hate life

count sheep-->meditate-->take Benadryl-->drink warm milk-->pray

4:08 am - tweet about hating life

5:50 am -  look at clock ---> contemplate banging my head into a wall

6:30 am - alarm goes off ---> cry

Saturday after pulling myself together, I got out of bed to figure out what da hail I was gonna wear to the Phils - Mets game in NYC. I was told not to wear Phils gear because my dear old dad was worried for my safety and  "there's lots of nutjobs out there." Okay, I would've been fine if I wore a red hat or my Utley jersey. Yeesh.

So we get to Penn Station walk to Times Square and hop on the subway to go to Citi Field. I'm sitting on the train and I realize it's about as dirty as the Broad Street Line at home, which is comforting. However, we don't have mariachi bands playing for money on our public transpo.

We get to the stadium and people are super friendly and offer to take our picture in front of the Mets Big Apple.

Everyone is so nice. Apparently the shitty Mets fans everyone talks about aren't so shitty. The new stadium is beautiful and the food was fan-friggin'-tastic.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

'Shroom Burger (vegetarian) Crisp-fried portobello mushroom filled with melted muenster and cheddar cheeses, topped with lettuce, tomato and ShackSauce

When we got to our seats, it was cool because we weren't in the sun, but then the devil sat his ass crack next to us.

So we went down in the shade to walk around where I got these pics of Delmon Young batting and my boyfriend Cole Hamels pitching.

 Getting on with things, we left early due to heat exhaustion and the Phils getting their asses handed to them where we refreshed with cold drinks at Starbucks between Times Square and Penn Station. Then we got on the train home, ordered BBQ from a delish place around the corner and I watched HGTV with my mom for about 8,434,234 hours.

On Sunday morning, I sang at church at 10:00 and then headed to Kristo's house for breakfast and stayed til dinner. I made him watch Pitch Perfect (which he ended up liking) and he made me watch Dark Shadows (which I did NOT end up liking).  THE NEW CATCHING FIRE TRAILER CAME OUT. And I had 2 beers, which meant I was not writing this post last night because I am a lightweight. Yes, I'm useless after a couple drinks, but it does mean I'm a cheap date haha!

Ignore the goober next to me. He likes to awkwardly ruin my selfies. ;)

XO - Monny