My Five Fall Must-Haves

I love Fall. Who doesn't? I've seen all these online lists and magazine articles lately like "Fall Must-Haves for 2016!" and "Fall Fashion Trends!" I laugh when I read these articles because my own personal Fall fashion trends and must-haves are a little different. So I've decided to create my own Fall Must-Haves list for fun. You're welcome.

#1 - The Grey Sweatshirt

 By far the most exciting part of Fall for me is the day I get to pull the ole grey sweatshirt back out of the closet. When I was 13 I bought a grey sweatshirt from Walmart for $5 in the boys section. I wore that grey sweatshirt every Fall and Winter until I was 26, when I finally upgraded to a new grey zip up hoodie from Nike.

Nothing to wear and leaving in 2 minutes? Throw on the grey sweatshirt! Wanna lay on the couch and be lazy? Throw on the grey sweatshirt! Cold? Throw on the grey sweatshirt! It's perfect for every situation.

#2 - Pumpkin Pancake and Waffle Mix

Ok- I'm not all into the Pumpkin Spiced Latte and pumpkin beer and pumpkin EVERYTHING, but I AM into the Trader Joe's Pumpkin Pancake and Waffle Mix. Mix this stuff up for pancakes (my personal preference) and throw some chocolate chips in.... HEAVENLY.

#3 - Gilmore Girls

Gilmore Girls is one of my all-time favorite TV shows. A lot of the show's episodes were filmed in Fall (it's set in Connecticut) so it just feels right to curl up on the couch and watch episode after episode of it once it's actual Fall. Right now is also the perfect time to watch it as the 4 new episodes come out on Netflix on Thanksgiving weekend!

#4 - Starbucks Salted Caramel Mocha

When Starbucks releases their Pumpkin Spiced Latte, most people go nuts. I am not one of those people. I personally think it's kinda nasty. What I DO go nuts over though, is the Salted Caramel Mocha, usually released at the same time as the PSL. Chocolate, caramel, and salt all in one delicious warm cup. Yes, please. This year they have the Salted Caramel Mocha Frappucino. It was just OK, so I'd stick with the hot version if you're going to try it.

#5 - Capri Blue Volcano Candle

Forget the pumpkin spiced or apple or cinnamon candles. It's all about the Capri Blue Volcano Candle. This is the best candle to ever exist, it smells up your whole house, and it is the perfect background smell for watching football, watching Gilmore Girls, laying on the couch in your grey sweatshirt, or any other Fall activity. When I searched Google for this picture, I found the candle for sale on Amazon and found a review of this candle that is too funny not to share:

"I remember where I was when the smell hit me for the first time: a mere 18-year-old who was lost in the world without a friend, without a purpose, and without a girlfriend. In a world full of uncertainty that one smell became truth to me, and that truth was: this is no ordinary candle.
That candle was Capri Blue’s Volcano, which is one of the greatest creations ever--comparable to mankind, penicillin, and the iPhone.
Since the discovery of smell as a scent, Capri Blue has been mastering the art of good smells that captivate and enslave your nostrils without apology.
Since my first purchase of the candle, my life has started to improve significantly: I have made friends, my grades have improved, my dad finally told me that he is proud of me, and my restraining order from Stacy has been lifted."

 So those are my top 5 Fall Must-Haves. What are yours?

It's Fall Again

When Chuck found out he was going to do his internship "off-cycle" I was excited for a number of reasons. At the top of my list though was the weather. Moving to Seattle in February meant we would only have to endure one winter in Boston (coming up in a few months...) and would get to enjoy two Fall semesters. Last year I raved on the blog about all the fun things we did during the Fall semester and how amazing it was to be in the Northeast for the fall. Now a couple weeks into Fall 2013... well, it's time to start raving again. Here's what we've been up to this past week.

Apple Picking:

Before moving to New England I thought there were three types of apples: red, green and Honeycrisp. Nowadays, I find myself at the apple display at the grocery reading all the names of the apples and trying to remember if I like Fuji or Gala apples better. This is what apple picking has done to me. We went apple picking again this year but to a different farm than last year and with less people. But the experience was pretty much the same: cider donuts (my main reason for going...), apple picking, eating apples while picking, throwing apples, apple cider, and then going crazy in the farm store buying up all the pumpkin butter and other goodies they make right there on the farm.

The guys checking out how they make the donuts.

Apples: this way.

Chuckie was a huge help while picking apples, as you can see.

 The girls.

The view driving to the apple orchard.

Our goodies.

A trip to Southwick:

My Aunt and Uncle who live in Western Mass. recently moved out of their house into a new condo. We haven't seen them since before our move to Seattle so we decided to take a trip out to see them and their new place and spend the night. They now live in Southwick, a little town west of Springfield. We arrived late in the afternoon, right in time for cocktail hour. (Side story: Cocktail hour is really big in my family and I love it. I remember when I was little, we would go to my grandparent's house for dinner and there was always cocktail hour: adult drinks for the adults, soda for the kids, and snacks for all. I LOVED cocktail hour. I still do. And I'm so happy that my mom and all of her sisters seem to have carried on the cocktail hour tradition. Seriously. Cheese, apples, crackers, hummus, chips and wine? Before an amazing, home-cooked meal? Nothing better, I tell ya.) After a delicious meal my aunt cooked for us, we sat and watched the Notre Dame football game and then went to sleep.

The view of their deck and backyard. So relaxing. :)

In the morning, my aunt and I made an 8:30 am donut run to a popular donut place right down the street, Mrs. Murphy's.  Well Mrs. Murphy also happens to be my aunt's name so naturally I made her stand in the rain and take this picture.

 We love visiting my aunt and uncle because it's fun to see family and also fun to spend time in a real house with cozy couches and candles and other house things. We can't wait to go back!

My new job:

I got a job, finally. (Yes I know, I'm a professional job-getter. I told my cousin the key is to apply for like 50 jobs and then you'll get maybe 2 interviews and secure 1 of the jobs. Seems to work for me pretty well.) I am working at MIT again but in a totally different role this time. I'm working in the Communications and Development office in the School of Engineering. My office is in the big dome building now, so I walk to work instead of taking the train since the dome building is only a 12 minute walk from our apartment. The job is fun so far and the people I work with seem to be really great and fun people, which always makes working more enjoyable. Oh and I can take walks on my lunch break and look at things like this.

This upcoming weekend is a holiday weekend, so we have 3 days to do as many Fall-type activities as we can. We have some pretty fun things planned so I can't wait to share pictures after this weekend! I hope you are all enjoying Fall wherever you are! And if you're not, well, then go put on a scarf and get a pumpkin spiced latte from Starbucks! What are you waiting for?


(P.S. I just reread this post and realized almost the entire thing revolves around food. Whoops. I have a problem.)

Glass Pumpkins and Street Pianos

This past Saturday, my friend Ana and I decided to take advantage of the perfect Fall weather and spend our day outside. Our first stop was at the Glass Pumpkin Patch on MIT's campus. The Glass Pumpkin Patch was exactly what it sounds like- a small field of pumpkins made of glass, by MIT students, for sale to the public. Some of the pumpkins were really cool, but since most of them cost upwards of $100, we just looked and didn't buy. :)

After the pumpkins, we had ice cream and discussed our next move.  Boston has this really fun thing happening right now called "Play Me, I'm Yours." It's part of a worldwide art movement where these "Street Pianos," painted by local artists, are placed throughout a city- in parks, subway stations, popular street corners, etc. - and open for the general public to sit down and play.  There are 75 currently in Boston and Cambridge, and they're awesome. http://www.streetpianos.com/

We decided, after listening to someone play a street piano next to where we had our ice cream, to venture into downtown Boston to find more pianos. We found a map online of where they were all located and decided the one near the Berklee College of Music was probably getting a lot of action, so we headed there first.

From there, we wandered up Boylston Street, into Copley Square, then through the Public Gardens to the Common. I can't remember how many pianos we saw along the way- maybe 6 or 7? And at each one we saw at least 1-2 different people sit down to play. The one in the Common had a line of people waiting to play!

 Our favorite piano of the day. It wins for design and location.

Of course Ana and I had to play a little too, even though we are both ex-piano students who unfortunately don't have a lot to show for our years of lessons. :(

The pianos are only here until October 14th, so Boston peeps- you better get out and find some before they're gone!

The rest of the weekend was pretty much spent in the apartment. Chuck did homework all day Saturday and Sunday. I spent my Sunday doing laundry and going to the grocery 3 times to get ingredients for a Turkey Pumpkin Chili. We have a busy weekend coming up though to make up for the not-so-busy one we just had.

Happy Fall!

Halloween and Hurricane Sandy

Happy Halloween, everyone!

We have had a very interesting week so far here in Boston, to say the least.

On Saturday, we celebrated Halloween with the LGOs.

Vampires!

We went the historic route this year- Amelia Earhart and Abe Lincoln.

Lobsters in pots!

A hunter and a deer

The Hamburglar and Sexy Grimace.  They handed out real McDonalds hamburgers!

Captain America got into a battle.

We went to 4 different houses as part of a "Liqu or Treat" and ended at our friend's Greg and Tiffany's house. They had their house decked out in Halloween decorations, a special dance room with a strobe light and fog machine, and tons of amazing food and drinks. They even drove out of Boston that day and picked up a huge thing of ChickFila nuggets for the party! (If you followed the ChickFila drama from this summer, you know the Boston Mayor banned ChickFila from opening any stores here....)  The party was a big success until the neighbors called the cops with a noise complaint and we all got kicked out. I'm 25 years old and have never been to a party that was busted by the cops until now. I found it pretty humorous. Especially considering the party was full of people in their twenties and thirties, and most of them are MIT students. Not exactly the type of crowd you would think has parties broken up by the cops.

On Sunday we relaxed and prepared for Hurricane Sandy, who was scheduled to arrive Monday morning.

I carved a pumpkin!

Chuck and my pumpkin before he took it to the hallway. It was attracting gnats. :(

I also made the baked ziti I talked about in my last post. (It was so good.) Sunday night, we learned that MIT was closing on Monday, just like the rest of Boston and most parts of New England. We were very excited to have a surprise 3 day weekend but also kind of nervous about the oncoming storm.

Luckily, Monday came and went with just some high winds here and there and nonstop rain. We never lost power or anything. We watched the news a lot though.

Around 2 o'clock, boredom set in and I decided to make popcorn balls- a tradition for the Annual Hagan Halloween Party my parents host every year.

Want to make them? They're super easy! (Unless you burn the caramel because you're not paying attention and then have to spend 15 minutes cleaning up the mess you made and unwrap 28 more caramels to try again... What? That didn't happen to me! Or maybe it did. I guess I can add this to my list.)

Recipe:
28 caramels
2 tblsp. water
popcorn (I used about 1.5 bags of popped popcorn)

Melt the caramels in a pot with water on low heat. Pop popcorn. Pour melted caramel over popcorn and mix. With wet hands (so the caramel doesn't stick to your hands), form the popcorn balls and place on a baking sheet or wax paper. The end.

 Since we recently got Showtime so we can keep up on Dexter, we also now have Showtime On Demand. I found that the entire 1st season of Homeland is on there, and a lot of people have told me Homeland is an amazing show, most recently my best friend Lauren. We decided to watch the first episode and, well... that was the end of our day. Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, we were able to watch more than half of the first season of Homeland in one day.

We were very lucky to not get hit hard by the hurricane. Thank you to all of you who were texting and facebooking me and Chuck to make sure we were ok. We are more than ok and now just feel very sad for all of the people affected by it, especially those whose homes were flooded or burnt down, whose cars were flooded, or who were injured or lost someone they love. I can't even watch the news coverage of all the destruction without crying. Mother Nature sure can be a beast.

Fall- the Best Season of All

I love Fall more than any other season. I always have. I associate Fall with sweatshirts and boots, colorful leaves, chili and cider, football and marching band, fire pits and hayrides, season premieres of all my favorite shows, and best of all- the anticipation of the holiday season that is quickly approaching. 

This year, we get to experience our first New England Fall. From what we hear, it's a great time to live in Boston. We got a taste of it when we came to visit for Ambassador Day last year and the year before. But now we are getting to experience it.

Because I love Fall so much and because we are in the perfect place to enjoy it, we are trying to live it up best we can. I think we've done a good job so far! Check it out.

We went to a Harvard football game. The stadium was less than half full and it felt more like a high school football atmosphere to us than college, but it was a pretty day and it was entertaining to say the least.

No idea who won. We left before it was over to go order our iPhone 5s.

If on a Sunday afternoon, Chuck suddenly stands up and says "I need a break from homework. Let's walk to Starbucks and get a Pumpkin Spice Latte," who am I to tell him no? (Please note: football on the TV in the background.)

We've had perfect boot weather lately.

Chuck has joined the LGO flag football team. They had their first game last week and it ended in a tie. I thought only soccer could end in a tie (one of the many reasons I hate soccer) but apparently not. Oh well. The LGO team had better cheerleaders at least.

We went apple picking. We went with some other LGOs and SOs on a Sunday morning up to a place called Russell Orchards. We ate cider donuts, picked apples, and broke almost all of the orchard rules (including "no throwing apples" and "no shaking trees.")

 The rules didn't say anything about not sampling the apples...

 

Our goodies from the Orchard:

 Pumpkin butter, Red Raspberry Jam, Apple butter, and 10 lbs of apples. Because, you know, two people really need 10 lbs of apples.

I don't know if you can get more Fall than football games and apple picking but we plan to try. On the horizon we have a camping trip, a pig roast, and someone brought up a possible pumpkin carving block party sometime in the near future. You know I'm all over that.

I don't mean to brag but one time I carved a Goldendoodle howling at the moon into a pumpkin. Not sure how I will top that this year but, I'll try my best.