Hold On by Wilson Phillips has been my theme song ever since Kristen Wig and Maya Rudolph busted a move to it during the final scene of Bridesmaids. In fact, I’m fairly certain at every birthday I’ve had in the years since Bridesmaids was released, the night ends with some sloppy singing of this song while doing my signature overhead clap during the chorus. It was the final song at my friend Allie’s wedding this weekend (per my request, of course) and based on some unexplained dance floor bruises, I’m pretty sure I gave it my all. The past month has been a crazy whirlwind while working some really long, intense hours in NYC on a proposal that rarely allowed for seeing daylight, so it was serendipitous that on one of the final nights of proposal prep when sitting in the office at 11:30pm with two of my colleagues, Hold On comes onto the Pandora station and I just start air drumming and overhead clapping … and they both joined in. Because we all needed a little hope that we only had to hold on for one more day. Though I think we’ll be singing that for many months to come. To be clear, that’s a photo of Wilson Phillips below, not me and my two coworkers … though the resemblance is uncanny.

So if we could repurpose the original lyrics to represent the past blur of a month, I think it’d go a little more something like: Some day a proposal’s gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye,  Until then baby are you going to let those slides hold you down and make you cry, Don’t you know? Don’t you know things can change, You may go home one day, If you just don’t sleep for one more day. <overhead clap>

So in true In a Nutshell fashion, let me try to recap the highlights of the past month in photos and overtired commentary.

• Don’t hug-me Elmo: So, New York Citay is not all Broadway and Sex and the City. Our office is right in the middle of Times Square, which means battling a number of dirty Elmos, Power Rangers, Olaf’s and Naked Cowboys on the walk to and from work … which is usually early in the morning when Good Morning America is being filmed, and late late at night when all the crazies are out. Anytime I’d think, geeze I’ve been couped up in the office all day I really need some fresh air, I’d go outside and there are at least 4 dirty headless Elmos coming at me with arms wide open. Then I run back inside and don’t even attempt to leave until late at night. On the bright side, in a weird sick and twisted consultant way, it was kind of fun to work on the crazy proposal because at least the people we were working with were all in it together and kind of cool. (They didn’t even pay me to write that!) And we even indulged in such fancy cuisine such as taco Tuesday, while overlooking Times Square from a conference room! It’s just like House of Lies.

 

This was one of the few times I went outside during the daylight, but caught a nice pic of Times Square. Can you even imagine being here on New Year’s Eve? No thank you Carson Daly.

But you want to know the biggest upside to being down in NYC for a few weeks? I got to visit this little lovebug nephew of mine the first week I was down there for his first Chinese takeout experience. Which really meant he took a bath and napped, while my brother and sister-in-law and I ate takeout while staring at the live stream video of him napping. That face though, I can’t get over it. He’s definitely my nephew with that furrowed brow.

Other than dodging dirty Elmos, leveraging so much synergy making decks, and late night Wilson Phillips dance parties, I can’t say I actually remember anything else from the past few weeks in NYC. I have enjoyed this week at home to catch up on a few things and reset before more craziness ensues hopefully next week.

• Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner: You know I call my Grandpa every day, because he’s hilarious and it’s always a nice break in the day to talk about exciting happenings in CT like bingo for the blind and what they do in China when it rains. But it’s always a better experience when we get to hang out in person, and we like to meet up at Mohegan Sun Casino in CT since it’s an easy halfway point and my parent’s bring him to try his luck on the slots. This is him being his typical jokester self.

When I talked to him on election day this week, he said he was going to be in the newspaper since the CT Post took a photo of him while he was voting. So he’s an internet celebrity (in our minds) with this glamour shot he posed for on his way to the polls. Once I tried to write an article about him for the student newspaper since he is a World War II veteran, and he used to tell us as kids that the giant purple mark on his stomach was from a bayonet wound in active duty … until I told my mom the newspaper lead approved my article and she had to break the news to me that it was just a birth mark.

 

• Biebs gets hitched! So right at the end of the craziness to finish the proposal for work, I had to head back to Boston for a weekend of celebrating one of my favorite friends Allie in her wedding to Luke. Allie and I became friends when we worked together at SapientNitro, and when I used to tour new hires around the office I started a rumor that Allie was obsessed with Justin Bieber and would tell all the newbies that fun fact when walking them around to meet new people. Which is why our mutual nickname for eachother “Biebs” has stuck over the years, despite never pulling the trigger on that life-sized JB cut-out that I regret not buying when we shared desks next to eachother. We also bonded over several work-stress-induced crying sessions in the handicap stall at work. She played the role of my food blogging sidekick in Portland this spring at the Indulge Conference and loves to try to get  my parent’s dog Harry to love her. You could not have planned a more perfect day than last Friday in Groton, Massachusetts at The Barn on Gibbett Hill. The fall foliage was “on fleek” and the weather was perfect. And I mean, have you ever seen a more beautiful bride than this pretty lady?

This is me (on the right) with one of the bridesmaids Serra on our way to the reception. With enough professional help, I clean up pretty nice if I do say so myself.

And another shot of the reception with bridesmaid Ashley, the chef who holds the secret granola recipe that is more addicting than crack. There aren’t many photos after that (which have surfaced yet) since I really focused my efforts on bringing my A-game to the dance floor. And I’ve got the bruises and sore legs several days later to prove it.

 

• Game, Set, Brunch! So after a month of insane work and a wedding, why wouldn’t I plan to host my entire tennis team for a Sunday brunch? I joined the Boston Athletic Club ladies’ tennis team three years ago, which was such a fun experience to get back into tennis after playing my entire childhood through high school. I’m also one of the most competitive people in the world, so the weekly matches really feeds my competitive need for the week. But as a result, I’ve met a lot of wonderful new friends who are killer on the court and hilarious off-court.  This was only half of the food (not including the pumpkin dessert/pastry table). One day I’ll publish some of my go-to brunch recipes and even do a “how to brunch” post to give you all the tips, tricks (and Excel spreadsheets) to dominate hosting your own brunch.

One new recipe, which happened to be the star of the show, is this Chocolate Chip Cinnamon Swirl Banana Bread, which I was too lazy to photograph on Sunday, but remade it mid-week so that I can post it to the blog soon.

• Doug Flutie Likes Girls: That’s how we used to tell people to remember the four buildings around the BC Quad when I was a tour guide back in the day – Devlin, Gasson, Lyons, Fulton. Well I was back in Fulton Hall this week giving two back-to-back presentations on digital marketing and what I have done with my life post-college to some young’ins in a Marketing Principles 101 class. I’m pretty sure I put half of them to sleep, and even had some jokes in there that were so “womp womp” I think I might have picked them up from Skip. (hey hey hey … kidding Skip … kidding). But it was fun, and it made me feel like I actually have done a little something with my life, like building websites and mastering the use of corporate buzzwords in everyday conversation. Just grabbing that low-hanging fruit, heyyyy oooo.

So that’s it, in a nutshell! I’m heading to Chicago Friday morning for the BlogHerFood conference. There’s a good cast of foodie characters involved like The Pioneer Woman and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Who knew Buffy the Vampire Slayer was a foodie? My friend Sarah is flying up from NC to meet me in Chicago to make a girl’s weekend of it, so should be fun.

All I need to do is hold on for one more day <overhead clap>