Month: December 2011

Lisa and the magic tree

On By thestampsinmypassportIn UncategorizedLeave a comment
Do you remember the story of Jack and Beanstalk? How Jack threw the magic beans out of his window and the next day the beanstalk appeared at his window? The tree at 30 Rock was like my magic beanstalk.
We were in a cab on our way to the tree and we were coming across 49th street and almost at Rockefeller. The traffic was very heavy and there were people everywhere. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the glow of an angel. I am not making this up, the sky was glowing from the brightness of the tree and the angels that are all over Rockefeller Center.

I said to the driver – STOP HERE! So we paid and hopped out of the cab. As I walk towards the glowing light, I was almost nervous about seeing it. And there it was…..

I was without words. Yes, the person who always has a story, a thought or an opinion, was without words. I was actually choked up. It was so beautiful, that there isn’t a picture that could do it justice. You just have to see it once in your life. I just stood there and took it all in. The briskness of the winter air, the glow of the angels, the lights, the size of the tree. It is 75 feet tall. So, if you live in a house with 10 foot ceilings, look up, look way way up and you can imagine how tall the tree is.

Of course, me, Pam and what felt like the whole universe was trying to have the same experience that I was having, so taking photos was very difficult to do. I did what I could, but I will also tell you that the memory will last for a very long time.

We lingered with the crowds, being bumped and pushed around so that everyone can try to capture the same shots. It is like a bob and weave between people trying to take pictures. We looked at the line of people waiting to skate, and then we got up close to the tree. Standing and looking up at it was again another perspective of its beauty. From far away it was like an oasis, and from close it was a giant. A giant beauty. Long beautiful branches with twinkling lights all over, and a star as bright as can be at the top.

On Monday morning we went back to 30 Rock to see the tree in the daytime. It was equally as awe inspiring in the day light as it was at night. And once again, I was choked up by the experience. Thankfully, the crowds were not as crazy in the daylight so picture taking was much easier!
As I have said before, my professional life has allowed me to create amazing life experiences for myself. This past weekend was one of those life experiences.

Dreams do come true

On By thestampsinmypassportIn 30 Rock, Bucket List, Chick Lit, Rom ComLeave a comment

Hi everyone,

If you are a friend of mine on facebook, by now you know that I made a lifetime dream come true this past weekend. I have been very fortunate in my adult working life to be a travel consultant. It has taken me around the world and back again, and to think that a short one hour flight away there was an amazing dream that had not yet come true for me. Until now.

If you are a friend of mine off facebook, you may know this hidden (or not so) fact about me. I love New York. I love all shows filmed in New York. I love movies that are filmed in New York, all of it. If there is a RomCom movie on, even if I have seen it 100 times, I am in – Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve got mail, Serendipity, Annie, Maid in Manhattan, Uptown Girls, too many to even put here – you name it…you will find me watching. 

In fact, I also love chick lit books, and if I pick up the back of a book and it talks about the lead character living and/or working in Manhattan, I buy it. I haven’t always enjoyed the book, but the references to the city I love are worth the buy in.

Bucket list – made famous by the movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman – saw two men fighting life threatening illness. One man took another on a journey of life experiences that everyone should see or do before they die. Sounds good, doesn’t it? I was a work conference last week and was told that the estimated cost of the experiences they had was $250,000. That is not something the average person can do.

But what can the average person do? Well, funny enough, in today’s world, put your question in the form of your status update – “Would really like to make bucket list dream come true – to see the Rockafeller Christmas tree – who’s in?” and thankfully, someone said they were in. I have thrown out a lot of travel suggestions before and people always “want” to be in, but for whatever the situation, they can’t be all in. But as luck would finally be on my side, my friend worked it out and we were on our way to the Big Apple in December!

And so it began. On September 26th we booked the tickets and hotel to make it happen.

If you followed me for the weeks to come you would have seen that I changed my facebook profile picture every day until the week I left. Challenging huh? For almost 70 days I changed my picture to reflect on the city that I love. One friend mentioned that it was like an Advent Calendar counting down the days to Christmas. One friend mentioned the photos were making her jealous because she loves New York as well.

I know that making dreams come true quite often comes with a price tag attached to it. I am lucky enough that this one dream had a price tag that I could manage and therefore make happen for myself and my friend.

When is a chocolate chip not a chocolate chip?

On By thestampsinmypassportIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Well, that I have found out is easy – a chocolate chip is not a chocolate chip when it is the no name brand from Sobeys…that’s when.

And I found this out – how you may ask? I will gladly share with you this very important piece of chocolate chip purchasing detail.

Last weekend I was coming home from a friends house late at night and realized that I had wanted to make cookies for a friend of mine…so, where do you go – Sobeys open 24 hours. All I have to say is they compensate for their staff’s 24 hour a day wages by the prices that they charge in that store. WOW!

I normally ONLY by either PC decadent brand semi sweet or Chipits semi sweet chocolate chips. I had already seen the Chipits at No Frills earlier that day for $7.19 for the largest bag they had. Forgot to add it to my cart and realized I didn’t buy them half way to my friends house.

PC The Decadent Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips

The SAME bag of Chipits was $9.99 at Sobeys. Really? I couldn’t pay it….but in retrospect should have paid it, because I bought this bag of no name chips for $2.49 and then of course, had to buy the good stuff for $7.19 so I paid almost the $9.99 to get what I wanted. I digress….

I opened the bag last week….and tasted the chips….really, were these even real chocolate? I had already thrown out the bag and put them in my choco chip jar (yes I have a jar for my chips) so I can’t tell you what these were made of, but I can tell you that I dumped the whole jar in the garbage. They were NASTY!

So, now I have my chipits (the PC ones were sold out) and the holiday baking can begin. I know that I have a few houses I am invited to over the holidays and I was hoping to get a jump start to holiday baking. It hasn’t happened yet, and I am out of the town this weekend…so next week it is.

Here is a fool proof Chocolate Chip cookie reciepe:

2/3 cup of soft butter or margarine (do NOT use becel)
1/2 cup of white sugar
1/2 cup of brown sugar (packed)
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla

1 and 1/2 cup of flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
6 oz pkg of chocolate chips
1/2 c chopped nuts if desired.

Method:
Blend butter, sugar, egg and vanilla.
Sift dry ingredients together and stir into batter.
Stir in chocolate chips and optional nuts.
Drop from teaspoon onto an ungreased baking sheet about 2″ apart.  (I use a spray for the tray).
Bake at 375 for 8-10 minutes
cool slightly before removing from tray

Additional Notes:
– for softer chewier cookies, bake shorter amount of time – my oven works out to about 7 1/2 minutes.
– you can make the dough and add all kinds of different things into the cookies to change them up – I have done white chocolate chunks and dried cranberries, skor bits, raisins and pecans.
– you can also melt chocolate and at it to the blended wet ingredients before adding the dry.

Enjoy….oh yeah, btw…the freeze well and are VERY GOOD to eat frozen! Seriously, don’t knock it ’til you try it….

Sweet dreams y’all…………….