nod 'n' smile

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas if you celebrated the holiday, and a good weekend regardless. It seems a lot of people had today off from work, so it still felt like a continuation of the weekend. My Christmas Day was very different this year because J and I hosted family at our apartment- [...]

During the holidays, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority that manages the NYC subway system puts a vintage subway train back into service for one weekend day each week from late November through December. Named the Holiday Nostalgia Train, it’s actually a series of subway cars from different periods from the 1920s onward. The vintage trains are [...]

This past weekend, thousands of Santa Clauses descended upon NYC. And I was one of them. Er?! If you’ve never heard of it, SantaCon is essentially a flash mob of sorts where thousands wander around the city together dressed as Santa Claus, hootin’ and hollerin’ and otherwise having a great time. It’s become an annual [...]

I hope everyone who celebrated Thanksgiving, and even those who didn’t, had enough to eat and found plenty to be thankful for yesterday! My Thanksgivings are generally pretty low key but this year I spent it with my parents and a record number of J’s family, family of family and family friends. I most definitely [...]

Have I mentioned I’m on a tight budget? Now that Operation Round-the-World is in effect, gone are the days when we would eat out every night. We’re now buying groceries and trying to cook (it’s not pretty), which we hope will ultimately save us some money toward our trip. But recently, I learned I can [...]