Resolutions

The very day I find enough willpower to begin my life-long diet once more, the hub comes home with TWO boxes from Carlo's. (Boy are they milking this Cake Boss thing.)

I didn't mind, of course. I was good and only had one, or two. Maybe three. But then I sent them all away with the teenager's girlfriend headed to Knoxville.

Stay calm, and carry on.

Family and Fun Up North

It was a beautiful weekend in Jersey City and it was hard to leave everyone. But I had to come back home to my Bella, now didn't I? I found this awning in Hoboken.

This is City Hall. There are so many wonderful buildings in Hoboken. Times sure have changed. When the hub first brought me here in the mid 80s, it wasn't as happy as it is now. Sure wish we still had the condo! Whew!

And what do I do whenever I'm in the NYC area? Go to my favorite bakery, Carlo's. Now you know, all of a sudden, since Cake Boss, the place has become a tourist trap. And so, we had to WAIT IN LINE to get into the shop. Oy! They even have a door man that gives you a number at the door. Well, I suppose that's the smart thing to do.

And since I've been there a million times before, I went right to the cookie counter and grabbed three tins of Italian cookies, some lobster claws (sfogliatella) and, of course, rainbow cookies for the kid.

After drooling over everything, including all the canolis, we were boom, done, outta there!

Afterward, we walked up Washington several blocks to our favorite pizza spot. Now, this is real NY pizza baby. YUM.

And yes, we opened the rainbow cookie box.

After leaving Hoboken and heading to the hub's brother's house, we got stuck in traffic from the Holland Tunnel and then the George Washington Bridge--I'm sure all due to the Time's Square bomb. How thankful we are that it didn't go off and no one was hurt. Oy.

Here's my little nephew Daniel. What a cutie. I fell in love immediately, of course!

More food! The hub's sister had a family gathering at another brother's house celebrating my nephew's second birthday. Big D was born in Korea and we celebrated with Korean food. YUM, again!

This is about the time that I heard that Nashville was flooding. And I mean REALLY flooding. I called home and found out that our house and neighborhood was good, but so many others have not been so lucky. Beth has some photos of the flooding around town. It is so sad.

Sunday was a beautiful day and my nephew was Christened in the church. Look at his little sear sucker suit! Awwwwww. My niece and son are the Godparents. How cool is that?

Here is my son lighting the Baptismal candle. If you click on the photo, you can see the priest glaring at someone. This is about the time, almost finished with the ceremony, when another family enters the church and parades to the front. OMG. Were these people raised on the streets? Do they not have any manners? They had a son who was being baptised at the same time. The priest waited for over 45 minutes for them until finally Bob's sister said Ok, enough! Let's do this thing! Then they barge in like they own the place in the middle of the sacrament? Wow. Doesn't get much better than that!

But a lobster claw makes it all better, guaranteed. We finally finished them last night at home.

We were lucky enough to get out of NY just before storms hit there and the storms here in Nashville had cleared. There was a small delay, but considering there was a bomb scare and weather was wreaking havoc, we did pretty darn well. Dodged another bullet there.

And on Monday? You never would have known there had been any storms here or that downtown Nashville was flooding.

Now, all we have to worry about is the oil gush in the Gulf killing so much wildlife, not to mention hitting our little Riverside. Please keep the Gulf in your thoughts and prayers and let's not let BP off the hook on this one. How horrible.

All Gone

In case you're wondering what this is, it's the box of Italian cookies the hub brought back from NY last week. Finally, they're gone!

Each time I would walk by the box, I had to sneak one, sometimes two. Thank goodness they were little!

Sweets from the Sweet

The hub was in NYC last week and then went up to the Catskills to visit his parents. On his way home, he stopped off in Hoboken--like a good hub--and bought my fav Italian cookies. I was so surprised when he came in and gave us the box of goodies.

Carlo's is a wonderful Italian bakery that has been in Hoboken forever. The hub used to have a condo there when we first met (when Hoboken was still in a very "transitional" stage--to say the least). Of course, that's when I found the bakery. Hey, there are just some things a girl looks for--good stores and good food.

Each time we're in the area, I always get a box of delicacies to take on our journey either upstate or back home. Of course, they never last long enough to make it to our destination. These cookies are soooo good. In the winter months, I've also been known to get some of their pastries and bring back. They are even better than the cookies. Their canoli's are to die for.

So, enjoy the little collage of goodies I did for you. I think the real ones are just about all gone; but now we have these to enjoy any time we have a sweet tooth.