2008 in a video

2008 year end video from laura Miscowski on Vimeo.

one of our resolutions should be to take better pictures : )

new years eve

happy new years eve everyone!  new years is my least favorite holiday and i get pretty excited about even the littlest thing.  i think it's because this is the kind of thing that is very hyped up and delivers very little in return or in the past that's how it's been.

to me, the perfect new years eve would be enjoying veuve clicquot by a pool in warm weather watching fireworks with friends and maybe some crab rangoon.  but the reality of it is that i live in new england and it's very unforgiving every new years eve.  the weather is Always bad, we're talking snow snow slushy snow: ruining shoes, outfits, and makes getting around extremely difficult.  then there's the drinking.  i'm a really bad drinker, so i don't usually drink all that much.  but i am easily annoyed with other people's drunken idiotness.  when it's all in good fun that's fine, but when someone needs to go to the ER or when someone is reaching across me to beep the horn when i'm driving, those are not very acceptable things:  they happen.

this is me very much enjoying last year's celebrations, can you see i'm thrilled?:

this year, we got a 6 foot sub from Bob's in Medford and we're driving an hour away to Norfolk, MA.  i know, it's quite the distance and the effort.  this is very un-panda-like.  i have a few goals for this evening:  1.  don't eat the entire 2 foot section of the sub that is italian (my fav), 2. don't drink too much so i have a tummy ache for the 1 hour drive home, and 3.  try to pretend this is not my least favorite holiday even after columbus day.  tomorrow megan and i are starting our biggest loser challenge and it will last through June, so i'll be eating healthy and working out a great deal...you know like every neurotic bride-to-be out there.

resolutions.  i'm very impresssed when someone makes a resolution and actually keeps it.  i've never made one that i've kept, and so i don't make them anymore.  that's either giving up or treating new years like any other day of the week, your choice.  abe's resolution this year is to be healthier.  i guess my resolution will be to cook more economically, you know if i have to make one.

safe and hilarious celebrations!

--correction, a bug has swept the household.  we're too sick to leave the house.

Informercials

we just got our Big City Slider Station in the mail today.  i can't wait to make turkey sliders on lettuce buns with extra pickles.  abe can't wait to make regular sliders full of cheese and beef.  ever since we ordered them i've been seeing the informercials non stop.  who doesn't like sliders?

Dog disagreements

i am pretty sure that nothing would make me happier than having two doggies of my own...  but abe thinks that we shouldn't have them here in this apartment:  disagreement #1.  i don't think dogs should cost $500 plus $250 to be shipped across the country, he thinks that's normal: disagreement #2.  

this can only end badly.  

Chicken or the Egg

we have friends who live on a cattle farm out in god knows where, massachusetts.  there are cows, some chickens, a rooster, and other assorted animals.  last night, i learned something new about chickens.  i'll admit that most people probably already know this, but in my defense i'm afraid of most birds.  i'd always thought that a chicken laid eggs after a rooster laid his seed so to speak.  i thought that eggs were you know, like having a baby, well i was wrong there.  i'd always just kind of assumed since it seemed like every farm had one rooster to many chickens.  well chickens don't need a man to lay eggs, in fact, they lay them constantly on their own without any fertilization.  say what!!  only the eggs that are fertilized will hatch chicks, the rest are just you know...for eating.  i feel like someone should have taught me that one a long time ago.  

Moving On

christmas is over and we're pretty glad.  this year feels like it barely even happened so we're ready to move on to the new year and our respective birthdays in january and february.  for my birthday, i want to go to chilis or dave and busters and really live it up with bad food and calorie loaded drinks... i honestly love that stuff.  i'm telling you it's going to be a really good time, or i want to go to florida and swim with the dolphins and sit by the pool for a weekend with a bloody mary.  that would also be a really good time.  i'm not sure what abe wants for his birthday, but it is probably a cartier watch and a steak. that is exactly what i'm not going to get for him, instead i'm going to take him to B&G Oysters and let him press the indiglo button on my timex. 

Death of a tree

this might be the weirdest thing you've ever seen: two people dismantling a christmas tree on christmas eve in only the way a serial killer might do it.

  

Merry Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve!  we cheated and opened all our gifts tonight instead of waiting.  look what my fitness friend (thanks meg!) sent me for christmas.  it's the Soup Bible, a huge book with about a million soups.  man i really love soup, i could eat it every day all day long, and i think she feels the same way.

more on christmas later!

Panda's Favorite Things of 2008

personally, i don't know what makes oprah such an expert on consumerism.  she hardly ever buys everyday items because she just gets them thrown at her for free.  well i don't get anything for free, and i know a little something about shopping!

Panda's favorite things of the year, maybe they aren't just from 2008 but that's when we found them anyways.  they've all been tried, tested, and loved:

--Nintendo DS, with game: Zoo Keeper

(it's like bejeweled but cuter)

--The new Blackberry Bold

--Christmas crackers

--the shows: Ace of Cakes and Dexter

--the Twilight series, by stephanie meyer

--The Host, by stephanie meyer

--a membership to Healthworks if you are a woman

--www.dooce.com, heather armstrong is so funny and chuck is so cute.

--the cheeseburger at Highland Kitchen

--shabu shabu

--red velvet cupcakes

--Etsy

--chicken carbonara

--Rosanna bowls

--Pastis in NYC

--Shiba Inus

--Cafe This Way in Bar Harbor, ME.  the blueberry pancakes are worth millions of dollars!

--Pinkberry

--Paige premium denim

--Underground parking in the city

--Stella McCartney for Adidas

--Jon & Kate Plus 8

--Christian LaCroix for Evian

nutcracker

abe and i went to see the nutcracker today at the opera house.  i can't remember the last time that i saw it, but i'm sure it's been atleast 5 years probably more like 7.  it's better now than it ever was before from my childhood.  the story line is the same, it's just much more entertaining and fun although it's hard to pinpoint exactly what has changed except for the addition of humor.  my favorite part was the dancing bear in the part I, of course.  the kiddies went wild over him, almost every kid there had a stuffed bear by the end of the show...and i kind of wanted one, but really do i need any more stuffed animals?  no.  we even drove there in the middle of a snow storm, but that's how much we love christmas!

new products

i have new tools to combat my problem skin.  it's oily/combination and i'm always hindered with acne.  i am pretty sure that since turning 21 i haven't gone one day without atleast one big blemish that's utterly embarrassing.  in the past few years, it's only gotten worse.  i wouldn't ever be able to go to work without concealer, thank the lord for bringing that to earth.  i've tried a lot of products lines in my day: proactive, murad, peter roth thomas, boscia, cetaphil.  i've been using the DDF foaming facial cleanser (so gentle) for awhile and the sulfer therapeutic mask has been a life saver, it works wonders.  i decided to branch out and step it up and find some more products to soothe my skin.  i had used the philosophy hope in a jar a couple years ago and when i ran out i just never bought more.  i went back to it, and my skin LOVES it.  in just a week my skin tone is more even, which was my main complaint.  i have marks on my skin from blemishes that are long gone.  i can't believe the difference in just 7 days, it's amazing, however it doesn't smell great.  that is a small sacrafice.  and then i decided that since i've been hitting the gym so much that i really needed a good toner because i'm sweating a lot and all that, so i tried the DDF glycolic toning complex.  i read a lot of reviews and it seemed that this was the best one out there for problem skin.  yes, it is certainly the best one out there!  it doesn't burn, it's not too harsh, it does smell kind of like a skunk...but when it dries, the smell disappears so whatev.  DDF has a small acne kit with wash, moisturizer and mask but it's very tiny so i just use it for traveling not daily use but it was a good way to test out the products.  i'd been using a scrub by Alba, which was all natural, but i felt like the beads were too large and too far and few between.  so of course i found a great scrub with DDF, the glycolic exfoliating wash.  i use i once a week and i swear my skin has never looked so fresh.  so i can't say that it was one or the other to improve my skin but i would use an arsenal if i had to.  and i'd like to tell you that these were cheap but they weren't, i was able to buy them all on sale for 20% off when sephora had a coupon code awhile ago.  it's worth a shot!

mr. snuffleupagus

abe and i are watching Jon & Kate plus 8 (since it's snowing outside) and they go to sesame street land or something like that and we're talking about the characters... mr. snuffleupagus came up.  he was like: you mean mr. snuffaluffacus?  and we went back and forth a few hundred times, and he kept correcting me.  then he wikipedia-ed it to prove me wrong...well folks, i was right.  he was so convinced, that he said: you must have been developmentally slow.  um, no way dude!  i watched sesame street till i was like 8 years old.

up in flames

so we got our christmas tree on december 6th at a boy scout fundraiser down the street (visual:  abe running across 4 lanes of traffic carrying a tree in one hand).  well we learned our lesson....that was either too early to buy a tree or we tried to do a good deed and it backfired.  the tree is dying really quickly!!  last night i walked by the tree, and i caught one tiny little branch on my pants and when it let go the entire branch exploded needles everywhere leaving the pathetic branch almost bald.  we've been watering the thing, but it seems that we're beyond that now and god may intervene soon.  you can just look at it and see that it's basically terminally ill.  oh i totally forgot that was going to mention my parents tree.  it was so big that they had to saw the bottom and the top down when they got it into the house.  it was so fat that it takes up double the space that past trees have taken up, and it is the kind of tree that doesn't shed it's needles.  only my dad would find something like that....a tree that doesn't drop needles all over the floor??  their big fat fancy tree makes our tree look like the charlie brown tree. all we need it to do is last until christmas:  8 more days.  8 more days of walking a foot around the tree, because if even wind comes in contact that whole thing will collapse in one big pile of target ornaments and half disintegrated needles.

where is it!

God is christmas freaking here yet or what???  i had two holiday parties today, a luncheon and a dinner and i just could not get to the dinner for many reasons but the main one being i'm all holiday foreplayed out.  i've been celebrating christmas for weeks now and i haven't gotten one gift.  i've been eating christmas cookies and decorating with christmas ornaments, and the only thing different today is that my ass is slightly bigger (for real).  i've sent all my holiday cards and yet i haven't gotten any in return yet, am i really that early?  i couldn't stand to look at them anymore so i just got rid of them via the mail slut.  some girl at work was like: i'm not sending cards this year...does that make me a bad person?  and i said: Yes.  what did she expect me to say, yes i think it's kind of a inconsiderate thing to do to not send a holiday card to loved ones.  in my opinion it's really the least you can do for someone, a simple card.  i have an entire box of christmas crackers sitting here, and not one has been cracked open yet and it's been sitting here for a week now.  i'm about to explode on my own.  i'm waiting, it better hurry up.

Healthworks begins!

i went and worked out at Healthworks today, the gym for women, and it was AMAZING.  it's the kind of place that you really enjoy being at and working out isn't quite so miserable.  i got right on a treadmill, and then i took a 30 minute body sculpt class that kicked my ass in a good way not a painful beyond belief way.  i actually really liked it, and everyone was really into it, and the instructor wore one of those headsets that you imagine instructors should be wearing.  and then guys, at the end, everyone clapped!!  it was hilarious.  i smiled, and i've Never smiled at the gym.  i showered after, which i normally don't do at the gym, but it was really relaxing.  the showers were Nice!!  the body wash in there was really awesome, and it was just the best shower not in my own house that i've taken in ages.  i've fallen in love with a health club, and my life might never be the same.

Asana

abe and i decided to check out Asana in the new Mandarin Oriental in boston for dinner they do an Asian-American fusion, but to me it's more asian and american with not much fusion. the place is brand spankin new, it even smelled brand new. the interior design is really very nice and i really enjoyed just looking around, the overall atmosphere was fantastic and there was plenty of space between tables which is hard to find in the city. the cocktails are expensive here, ours were $15 and they went up to around $25 for basic martinis and mixed cocktails. i had a garden martini and a mandarin martini, both were strong but the mandarin was a better flavor. we started with steamed dim sum, and they were really tasty dumplings. they came in a bamboo steamer with three different sauces, and i think they were just about the best dumplings i've ever had. so soft, so steamed, so perfectly shaped. and then i had a soba noodle soup and abe had clam chowder, both pretty good. not outstanding, nothing to write home about, but good. for an entree, i had the slow cooked and seared short rib...with a caramelized endive and apples on top. this was a very strange combination to me. the rib was just ok, the outside was pretty good and the rest was tender and moist but bland. the endive was really weird to me, it was like eating a soggy piece of celery. i wasn't a big fan of that, i mean why not potatoes or any other veggie in the world besides an endive. abe had the oven baked red snapper, it was really salty like it had been marinated in soy sauce for hours. but it did have more flavor than my rib. they have a nice little dessert selection. the waiter suggested that we try the pistachio creme brulee, so i ordered that one, and abe ordered the apple pie. the pistachio creme brulee was pretty good and it came with home made raspberry sorbet and that part was amazing, the creme brulee was missing any pistachio flavoring that it should have had...it was just normal creme brulee to me. abe's apple pie was so so. it was teeny tiny and nothing really all that great, but it had some fresh cut up apples on top which added a nice flavor. so the best part about this place was the service. it is seamless and over the top. we had no less than three people waiting on us at all times. they brought our cocktails over and said: here you are ms. panda, and here you are mr. panda. it was a really nice touch, and everyone was very professional, it really kind of did make up for the mediocre food.

Service A+

Food B-

Experience B+

Sat night crafts

no i did not steal abe's balls.  there were some really complicated directions to a little christmas craft involving a glue gun and about a million ridiculous materials.  we were really proud of our result, it's some kind of crazy christmas mouse.  this took a lot of cocktails to get together, and if you want your own crazy christmas mouse just stop by Michael's and it's $1.99 and will take way more time than you imagined.

the most perfect shoes

are by christian louboutin, the God of All Shoes.  i am in love with these sandals.  they are impractical, but the most stunning things i've ever seen.

Petal Sandal

flowy, feminine, flirty, maybe a little bit too tall, but just beautiful.  i could wear these down the aisle, out on the town, or to Chacarero.

Cable channels

my friend jeffy likes to call the premium cable channels the "pay channels".  i never really understood this to the fullest until now.  we have comcast at our place and we signed on and got a decent deal...and then later when our good deal expired we wanted to re-evaluate the situation because it got really expensive really quickly.  abe made the call to comcast.  they talked for a bit.  when they were done i asked if we were paying less now...and he said "if you mean by less, you actually mean more?"  i'm like what the Fing F man!  so now we get all the movie channels instead of just HBO.  we get all of them and pay only a little bit more than we used to.  this wasn't really what i had in mind.  

and then what happens?  i'm left alone for a night and i watch the entire season of Dexter, we're talking like a really huge commitment!  and i loved every minute of it.  i know a lot of people really got into it and loved this series but i'm not sure that they all watched it in a day.  and so we're paying more money to sit on the couch for longer periods of time and now my ass is growing.  damn you comcast.

16 days till christmas

in all honesty i have nothing fun to say lately.  there's many things working against me right now:  the cold, the 9-5, my metabolism, the economy, bitches and total idiots, and the no pet rule.  all of these really put me in a bad mood.  but nobody likes to listen to a mountain of complaints.

funny parts of my day:

abe just launched two pink and green marshmallows shaped like trees at my face and they happened to land in my mouth and i didn't choke and die.  it was a win/win.  the rest of the ones he threw just hit me in the face and i didn't get to eat them.

someone called our new land line and asked if it was The Fours, seems our number is very similar to a bar.  i do love their buffalo nachos.

i envisioned throwing red paint onto two women wearing long fur coats on the train today.  i would never really do that, but just seeing it in my mind made me laugh a little.  you know, conservative boston.

18 days till christmas

we got our christmas tree today!  we picked it up at a little boyscout tree sale, and then abe ran down the street with it so we wouldn't have to strap it to the car.  it actually is pretty small though, just a little bit taller than me.  i love it!  having a tree makes our place so much warmer.  i even put red ribbons on jenny the houseplant.  

Saturday night art

abe found a really cute painting online and i was like: i could do that, Please. i guess my elephant is shaped slightly differently than the one below (which is the original inspiration), but i think that my overall craft is much better : )

Luxury apartment

Our apartment has no hot water right now. I had to wash my hair in the sink this morning before a big meeting. I went to the gym last night and sweat my ass off and still haven't fully showered. I looked at myself in the mirror just now with my perfect lipstick and my nice crisp suit and thought: wow you look like you smell pretty good! And that is why every woman should have expensive perfume. I could be a walking advertisement today.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Brilliant idea

I have a sleeping problem that rears its ugly head every few months. I hadn't slept well in days so abe and I decided to test out Melatonin. Its a hormone produced in the body and people use it as a sleep aid and you just get it at any drug store. There aren't supposed to be any harsh side effects besides the norm which is waking up groggy and crazy dreams. Well people a work night was not the best time to test this out. I fell asleep ok but I woke up with a nasty headache and muscle pain that only gets worse as the day goes on. I feel like total crap and I look it too. Abe is still in bed because he feels even worse than I do. This was an experiment best saved for a weekend! Looks like my sleeping problems will never see relief.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I was Porked

i wouldn't call this a kitchen disaster persay. but i tried cooking pork chops for the first time ever and they came out exactly as i thought they would: slightly tough and definitely not restaurant grade. i went here for directions on how-to and cooked them in a skillet, but i think next time i will need to cook them in the oven. i'm pretty disappointed because pork chops are one of my favorite foods, but i just stink at cooking them. this picture is obviously not my rendition sadly...

Britney is back

And she is going on tour with her Circus album. Guess who is going to be there? Me! She will be here in boston in March and some of my girlfriends will be there to witness her redemption or to watch the train crash and burn. It should be really fun either way! I'm rooting for her.
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Monday Idiotness

today was another idiot day for me.  

laying in bed with abe chit chatting about nothing, joking around, and then he made a stupid face at me and my immediate reaction was to say: i hate your face!!  i actually meant to say: i hate that face, but it just didn't come out that way.  i don't know why i said that, it was really mean and i in fact do not hate his face.  but i do find it utterly hilarious and i laugh inside each time i think of that moment.

cyber monday.  i did buy one gift online today for my dad.  it was 30% off and there was free shipping, so i was convinced that i was getting the best deal.  i'm not actually sure if it was the best deal or not but i do think it saved me a trip to the mall.  this year, i'm feeling a less than enthused about holiday shopping in the city.  i think it's called being extremely lazy.

i shouldn't have done this but i did.  i looked at my wedding dress online, you know from different angles and then with the model walking the runway in it, and... the more i looked at it, the less i liked it!!  after that happened i sat there at my desk like a zombie.  the kind of zombie who knows that no matter what, she's going to have to wear that dress so she best get over it quick.  my main problem was that it was so plain...and i'm not a plain person, BUT of course i do have a headpiece with some feathers and pretty shoes (tbd) and all that which wasn't on the model wearing my dress.  and i actually do remember sitting there wearing my dress with my MOH saying those exact words: is it too plain...it might be too plain... and my second bone to pick with my dress is the stomach area.  i'm either going to have to find a girdle from an alien planet or i'm going to have to suck it in for 8 hours because it is slim in that area.  the other option is to diet and work out to lose 8 pounds but you know, lets be realistic here... so far it's not going well in that department.  sigh.  i'm probably going to write about this topic once a month until June 20th.  sorry about that in advance.