Merry Christmas!

It's been a lovely lovely past few days. My sister Annapurna came to visit on Tuesday night and just left this morning. It was a short but very sweet visit. We had just the right mix of time at home, time with family, time shopping, and time alone. Wednesday was spent grocery shopping for Christmas, getting our nails done, visiting Hasan's grandmother Winnie, and making a yummy mushroom risotto and rosemary garlic shrimp dish. While on our walk in Center City, browsing the streets, a man happened to overhear us talking about the beautiful architecture and invited us to come in and see his building. He owns a law office that fully restored the building - it was gorgeous! 100+ year old oak paneling and fixtures. Just amazing to think of coming into such history every day for work.

Thursday (Christmas) morning found us watching the movie Sneakers, cooking my signature honey mustard and pecan encrusted salmon for Christmas dinner and of course going over to Hasan's mother's home for dinner. While dinner was quick, I probably will never forget the karaoke + dance competition that his sisters and cousins got into...singing Beyonce songs. They tried to pull me into it since Beyonce is totally my favorite, but I don't know these people THAT well yet ;)

Friday was nonstop shopping...seriously didn't realize how much my sister can shop without going bonkers. I always thought her tolerance was much lower than mine. Interspersed in there was a perfectly built fire that Hasan made for us while we relaxed with some sparkling wine, and lots of snacking on the enormous holiday gift basket I got from the CEO at my work. I am not sure how long it will take Hasan and I to get through that basket, but I'm sure I can bet on adding another few pounds to the 6 I've already gained since moving to Philly.

Here are some pictures over the past few days.

Nesting

Hasan has finished his first fall semester back at school and now has time to make our home a bit more homey. Today we put together our dining table, decorated with table linens...and FINALLY, six years after receiving a beautiful scarlet plate from Dorys, I have a place to put it!It's just gorgeous on our new table.

We're prepping the house for the arrival of our first houseguest, my sister. Lots of cleaning and organizing. But now we're done and so it seemed like a good time to take some pics of our apt. (It's also a good way for me to procrastinate getting dressed and going outside...at least the icicles have melted and I have less of a chance of cracking my head open as I do my errands. Then again, with my power Gucci rain boots, I really can't go wrong :)

Here are the pics of our apartment. It's quite bare still, but it'll get filled in over time...and I know we're looking forward to it.

Brrrr...it's cold out here!

Just waking up from a late Saturday afternoon nap. I'm finding I'm prone to those when it's 32 degrees outside. Winter is treating me ok so far. People here and friends afar often how I am dealing with this Northeastern weather. I'm able to make layers of my San Francisco clothes as well as some old holdovers from my days of living in NYC keep me warm - thank goodness for a trusty, about-to-be-well-worn full length down jacket I got at Sports Basement in San Francisco a few days before I moved from there! I'd love to be able to go shop and take advantage of these unbelievable sales, but work is keeping me very very busy. I've been working 15 - 16 hour days as me and the rest of the company is gearing up for our big season which starts 12/26.

I'm loving my work. Not only is building out web experiences for dieters personally relatable and interesting to me, but the real fun right now is in building out and advocating for my team. There wasn't much of a web product management team before I joined the company - hence the reason for my being brought on board. Since I've joined, I've had to restructure some people, and have already doubled the team size. And they are great team - I feel blessed.

The Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend I got sick (which I'm blaming on my favorite but booger-full niece Tallulah - more on that later)...I got sick for 11 days. Was at home almost all of those 11 days while it took me a bit to decide it was worth going to a doctor, and then to find one - I hadn't yet seen a doctor since moving to Philly. All it took was some antibiotics and about 12 hours and I was like a new woman. But how this relates to my team is that it is a true testament to them that the entire time I was sick, I never had to worry about the quality or progress of their work. They just got the sh*t done...and done well. Of course the people I had to worry about and keep on top of were the people in other teams. It really made me proud.

Ahhh...so yes, the booger monster. What a lovely lovely Thanksgiving. We had the absolute privilege and joy to join Tallulah and her parents Wendy & Ben in St. Michael's, Maryland for Thanksgiving at his mother's house. St. Michael's is a sweet town in eastern Maryland, right on the Chesapeake Bay. It probably was a sleepy town once upon a time, but is now a getaway destination of choice for Washington elite. Ben's mother Sue has a charming, perfectly appointed home and she welcomed Hasan and I with open arms...as did the rest of her family. It was really, really good for me to see Wendy & Tallulah. I hadn't realized how much I missed seeing my friends. One of my favorite times was taking a Thanksgiving morning walk with Wendy and ducking in from the cold to have some coffee at probably the only place open in town. Another was spending a few moments with Tallulah and Hasan before she had to go down for sleep...she always seems to get so happy around him. I think she thinks he's funny...but I don't get it. It was lovely to decorate the tables for the big dinner and to feel welcomed, like we belonged. Here are some pictures from the weekend.

I am sorry we missed spending our first Thanksgiving here in Philly with his family, but we will be here for Christmas...and so will my sister! So excited about that! She gets here in a week and I can hardly wait. In preparation Hasan and I got our first piece of furniture together - a dining table. We still need to put it together but the very act of purchasing it and watching him carry it into our building was fun enough. :)

All in all, I'm ok. Still adjusting to Philly, still feeling like I don't really live here yet. I think it's being so busy with work that I don't have time for much else, but I think that will change after January. In the meantime, winter means Hasan is baking and making lots of fires in our fireplaces...and who can complain about fresh brownies and muffins??

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and enjoy the season!