currently.

living in maxi skirts.

playing with bubbles on the regular.
trying out new hairstyles, mostly buns.
listening to 'best song ever' on repeat (max is partially to blame for this one, but I don't hate it).

watching every episode of friends on a loop with R.

planning this weekend.

dreading rich leaving after it.

wishing I had more time to run lately.

thinking I probably need a hair cut.

partying with the girls while outdoor parties are still doable.
working on my summer book and loving it.

feeling motivated to post five-six days a week.
reading blog, inc. by joy of oh joy! and loving it.
getting excited for fall with each passing day and nightly temperature drop.
snuggling with max whenever I can.

loving august.

long island's battle of the burger.

When I included a state fair or festival on my bucket list for this summer, I didn't really have anything specific in mind, so when my dad came to me with this idea to go to Long Island's 'Battle of the Burger' competition, a light bulb kind of went off. Basically, all you had to do was show up with an appetite and taste burgers - as an avid burger lover, I found these reasonable terms.

At the end of this day I was calling myself Fatness Everdeen, and the odds were definitely not in my favor, but it was well worth the belly ache. When you walk in they give you a wrist band and a chip for voting, and from there on out it's beer, burgers, and lines. There were ten restaurants competing for best LI burger, and I'll give it to about five or six of these places - they had good burgers. We waited in line for all ten, but missed out on one because all of the ones left at our second to last stop were still very much live cow, so we passed on it. Their loss really.

After the fourth or fifth burger I was really starting to feel super full, especially with two bottles of beer down as well, but I felt like it was my civic duty (okay, maybe not) to try all ten so that my vote would be fair. But obviously, being who I am, I kept the voting chip for my summer book. I used my friend Meagan's though and we decided together to give it to Old Field's, which had awesome burgers with crunchy onions and a delicious sauce. They also topped their burger with a little buffalo instead of a plain old toothpick (I kept that too, obviously, and it definitely helped their cause when it came down to choosing my fave).

This was a really rad way to spend a Sunday, and even though we had to roll ourselves out of the park, it was really fun to pretend we were food critics for an afternoon.

good music & tired legs.

On Monday night Rich and I took a train into NYC and walked 35 blocks and 2 avenues to the Central Park summer stage setup to see Ben Howard live. I've talked about him before, here and briefly here. He has a really breezy summer sound, so seeing him as the sun was going down in the middle of summer was absolutely perfect. And with wine in hand - even better.

He had an opener, Michael something. And to be honest, I don't even care enough to look up what his last name was. He was a good singer and had a good band, but to be honest he was just so boring. Ben Howard has a pretty upbeat sound with some exceptions, so having someone come in with really slow music and dragged out vocals was a bummer. It was not the type of thing I'm into, so standing in the hot sun in kind of uncomfortable sandals after walking all the way there were feelings only highlighted by my boredom. I feel bad for saying that about him because he did have talent, it was just not for me at all, especially under the circumstances.

Then the sun started to set a bit, the breeze found us, and Ben came out. He was just so good. I (mostly) forgot about how much my legs and feet hurt and just enjoyed the show. He played most of the songs from his one album, so singing along to them was fun, but I also love that he sang two or three new songs that sound really promising. He's only 25, and even though he's not very famous in the US, I'm sure he's on his way just like every other British singer/songwriter or band that I like. He's well known in England because he won an award or two earlier this year, one of them definitely being 'Best Male', so that was a big deal. I was surprised how many people were at the show, but a lot of people were noticeably British themselves, and the Americans that were there were of a certain type kind of. Ben Howard will most likely never be a name we hear on pop radio, but then again, I said that about Ed Sheeran and he's all over it now.

On the album the music isn't too rock-band-ish, but he definitely perked up a few of the more upbeat ones to a rock standard, which was really cool. His band was really good, and one of the members was this girl who was totally B.A. She sang back up vocals, and played like forty different instruments, including the cello (maybe it was a bass), and just danced around on stage like she was having the time of her life. She was real cool, and also funnily enough she was pretty tall for a girl, meanwhile Ben is a tiny little nugget of a man.

He played for a little over an hour and ended with an elongated version of his song 'The Fear'. He came back out for a three song encore, one of them brand new, and played alone. He used his guitar lying down in his lap to make a bunch of different musical sounds, which is similar to the type of thing Ed Sheeran does a lot, and then he ended his encore set with 'Promise' and a lot of extra instrumentals from him and his band.

At the end of the night we were sitting on a train with an annoying group of people, our legs were burning, and I was exhausted for work in the morning, but it was well worth it. I'm glad I got to see him at a smaller venue and pretty up close, because I've learned the hard way with other 'unknown' bands that from here on out the tickets will only get more expensive and my seat further away with time.

he's here.

After four months of frustration, waiting, facetime calls, arguements & make-ups over the internet, and texting as a main mode of communication, he's here.

We haven't done much - a dinner out alone, a movie with a friend, brunch with my parents - but it's all been so normal. We go right back to normal so quickly once we're together and it makes me feel like all of the time apart is some kind of weird dream. We always fall back into step, and because we talk so much every day, it's like we were together the whole time. It makes the waiting seem like it was so easy, but at the same time, the short few weeks that he's here will fly by and we'll be back to the waiting and we won't know what hit us.

I am savoring the rest of this summer with him.

summer tuneage.

Summer is in full swing now, and my choices in music sure are proving that. Sometimes there are just songs that remind you of something. For example, Party in the USA (worst song ever) reminds me of my freshman year of college, and Sweetness by Jimmy Eat World remind me of my younger days at my childhood sleepaway camp. I have a million different songs for a million different moments in time, but I also have music that just makes me think of seasons, so I thought I'd share some of my favorite summer tunes for you all to enjoy whether you know them already or not.

1// Ben Howard - I feel like I talk about this kid to everybody - those will listen and those who won't. I just love him, he's amazing. I'm seeing him live next Monday in Central Park and I cannot wait. His sound is so summery and light. His voice is velvet. He's adorable. There's not much more I can really say but to listen to him. I posted about his album here, and you can listen to one of his songs there.

2// Ed Sheeran - one of my favorite artists of all time, if you didn't know already (broken record alert). I spoke about his album here, and about seeing him live here. He is so eclectic that I can listen to him all day, every day, but especially these last couple of summers I have found that his album is really good windows down, sunnies on music.

3// Of Monsters & Men - This is going to get really repetitive really fast. Light, breezy, folky, windows down. End of. I have (surprise, surprise) blogged about their album. They have sporadically been on the radio here, and the song I included in my post is their most popular, so if you like that then definitely give the rest of it a listen.

4// Avalanche City - when I saw Eric Hutchinson live last summer (who also has a pretty summery feel now that I think about it), this band from NZ opened up for him. They only have an EP on the US iTunes, which is annoying because they actually have much more music, but it is awesome. To be honest I've been meaning to get my hands on all of their released music on amazon or something, but there is always so much music in my life that I haven't gotten around to it. Their sound is really bubbly and fun, and they have cool accents, which is always a bonus.

This is their song, 'Love, Love, Love', which is on the EP that I have.

Love, Love, Love

Avalanche City

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE EP

5// Matt Nathanson - I have been listening to this guy for quite some time now. He has a ridiculous amount of music out there, so I would find it hard to believe that many people haven't heard of him. But if you haven't heard of him, his album that came out last year, Modern Love, is ah-mah-zing, so I'd say start there because there are so many other songs of his that I love but they're all on different albums. He also just released an album that I bought yesterday called Last of the Great Pretenders. He's just a beast and makes music like it's his job. Oh, wait.

Below is the namesake of last year's album, and it is a perfect summer jam.

Modern Love
Matt Nathanson
MODERN LOVE

What's on your summer playlist? I'm always, always looking for more music.

ed sheeran & taylor swift // 1 out of 55,000.

Not only have I crossed off "see a live concert" from my bucket list, but I've now double crossed it. Really, I've crossed it two and a half times, because I went to Taylor Swift's Red tour this past Saturday, and Ed Sheeran has been her opener for the whole tour. I love Taylor Swift even though she could be so annoying, (but I think she kind of knows that she's annoying, which redeems her character a little bit), and I am absolutely obsessed with Ed Sheeran. I think he's a fascinating artist, and so so so talented.

The show opened up with Joel Crouse, a handsome little country man who played three or four songs to warm up Austin Mahone, a 17 year old Bieber wannabe with an adorable little face and some suave dance moves. After the two of them is when I started to get really excited and anxious waiting for Ed to come out.

I saw his set list up online a few weeks prior to the show, and even though I knew he'd be performing my favorite song of his 'Give Me Love' (he opened with it and I cried), he wasn't playing one of my other favorites, 'U.N.I.' So my friend Jackie (my music soulmate, if you recall from my post about One Direction) and I decided to start tweeting to him incessantly to perform U.N.I. at the July 13 New Jersey show. So not only was I excited to see him in general, but Jackie and I thought that there would be about a 1% chance that he would see the tweets and play it, and about a .000000001% chance we would get a shout out. A girl can dream.

Finally he came out in all his glory and immediately jumped into Give Me Love. Like I mentioned before, I cried. I think it's such an emotional song and just hearing him sing it live in front of me and changing the style up to show off his live vocals was amazing. He played his two US radio singles, 'The A Team' and 'Lego House', and 'Grade 8', also off of his + album (which I blogged about here).

In the middle of those, he started off between songs by saying something along the lines of, "I like to change up the set list every once in a while to accomodate the fans." Well, you better believe that Jackie and I jumped to the ends of our chairs to stare at each other with our mouths wide open. This is it! And then, because we were in NJ and half of the audience was from New York, he played a rendition of Jay-Z's 'Empire State of Mind'. It was awesome, but we so got our hopes up. It was such a coincidence that he mentioned changing up his set list for his fans, but it was too good to be true though. All good in the end, because he redeemed himself with an incredible performance of his soon to be US hit 'You Need Me, I Don't Need You', which is more of a rap song. He inserted a few freestyle verses in between the existing ones, and even broke into a few bars of Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop'. He was so good that it hurt to see him get off the stage.

But then, all of the lights dimmed and the sun was really starting to go down and all of a sudden a huge spotlight shined onto a big red curtain in the middle of the stage, and there was Taylor behind it and the beat to 'State of Grace' bumping through the speakers. She put on a fantastic show. Each song had it's own set, the dancers were really good, her voice sounded incredible, she looked great in all of her outfits, even though she was so sweaty her bangs were stuck to her forehead, and most of all she was just really sweet.

It's widely known among her fans that her favorite number is 13, and tons of girls had shirts with Swift written on the back and 13 underneath. She mentioned the number, and then said that she's not sure that anyone would know, but her favorite month is July. She decided when she planned the tour that selling out this 55,000 person stadium on her favorite date would be the best way to celebrate it. So she had high expectations for the night and I would say that they were met. Her audience was crazy, so many people dressed up and a million signs decorated in fairy lights. When I went to see N'Sync as a nine year old version of myself, I went in a pair of shorts and a way too big for me shirt with all five of their faces in different colors - no signs, no lights (and no iPhone to record the whole thing). But that's a different story.

Another cool thing about this show was that even though we were pretty far back (though we were almost centered with the stage), there was a little mini stage on the floor a lot closer to where we were sitting, and for four songs, she stood on that one. She got carried to it during one song, can't remember which exactly, maybe 'I Knew You Were Trouble', and then stayed for a few more, including her duet with Ed, 'Everything Can Change'. It was really nice having her a lot more visible for that little bit, especially since Ed was a lot closer too. Also, the middle of that mini stage rose up and down, which got them even closer to us on the second level!

The show ended with 'We Are Never Getting Back Together' and a lot of fireworks exploding off the side of the stage. It was a great ending to a great show, and even though I was only one of 55,000 guests, I felt like all of the artists were really humble and grateful for every single person that was there. I would see the entire show again in a heartbeat, it was such an awesome way to spend a Saturday night.

who created this wonderful place?

Tucked into a little corner of Hampton Bays, Long Island, is a magical place where legal citizens can go to relive their college years on a Sunday afternoon; sidenote: many of the people that frequent it are actually in college, but still. I have wanted to go since I turned 21 two years ago, and I feel like as a respectable human, there was a window of time before I am "too adult" to go, so that's why I threw it on my bucket list for this summer.

So basically, from where I live on Long Island the Hamptons are an hour and a bit away from me, and not every train line on Long Island goes out there. Obviously that list includes my two local ones, and about seven other ones kind of nearby. We knew going into the day that it was going to be a trek getting there, but we're also a little bit dumb in terms of planning, so we missed our first opportunity to get out there before 12, which was a 10:46 train. We decided to hang out at my friend Kiersten's boyfriend's house nearby and get our breakfast sandwich and early morning tequila on. By the time we caught the next train at 12:51 we were warm and ready for the rest of the day.

Once we got there via long train journey and short cab ride, we joined the back of a looooooong line in the hot sun. Two hours and five gallons of sweat later, we were in. As soon as I walked through the door I felt like I was back in Scranton. The music was right, the crowd was ridiculous, and the beer was  a-flowin'.

One of the famously known details known about the Boardy Barn is the logo, a smiley face with sunglasses and the name of the establishment as the shape of the mouth. As soon as you walk in people start covering you with stickers of the logo that get handed out in long sheets behind the food counter. We covered each other with stickers and got our drink on. With $2 beers you can't go wrong, right? Right.

The grainy-ness of some of these photos are actually spot on. I had sunglasses + beer goggles on all day, and all I can remember was how great it felt to be in a giant crowd of drunk people dancing to oldies and current chart toppers. It seems so juvenile, but every once and a while I like to grant myself a few hours of "college Alessia" time. I feel like I got my dance on and was hungover by 10pm, two of  my personal criteria for a successful day of day drinking.

I had an awesome time at this place, but would I make it an every weekend, even twice a month thing? No, probably not. It took so long to get out there, it was a mess missing that first train and equally as messy trying to get home with a million other drunk people. If it were closer to where I lived, on my train line, or even just if it were on a Saturday, I would reconsider, but it's not. Sigh.

Despite all of that though, I would go back and do it all over again, sweatiness and all, because it was a lot of fun. The staff were really nice considering they deal with drunk people all day long, the other people their were friendly, we didn't see any fights or other type of trouble that made us uncomfortable. It was just a good time.

So another summer bucket list item bites the dust. I feel like I'm busting through these at a pretty decent pace, and a lot of the other ones are in the making, or already planned but yet to happen. This one felt good to cross off, because it reminded me of Scranton and my housemates, making me want to plan that reunion on my list even more intently. So all in all, a good day, good reminiscing, and good new memories made.

This is the crew, post two sheets of stickers and four or five beers later. Success.

eating lunch on the floor is fun.

This past Friday I went on a picnic at a beach/town park near where I live with my friends Jenna and Lauren. I brought the picnic basket that R got me for our anniversary last year, and we packed it with some snacks and got sandwiches from a cute little deli called the Sweet Tomato.

We didn't even really do much besides eat our lunch. We chatted about girly things, planned a birthday night out, and looked at orange bands on trees that supposedly keep caterpillars at bay. You know, normal stuff.

The thing I love about picnics is that they force you to be outside for the day. When you go to lunch at a restaurant, you're in the cool AC, and following up with something that is also air conditioned is normally how it goes. Like a beach day, once you start a picnic outside and you get used to the intense heat, it's fine. You're outside and you can appreciate the day and the fact that you are sweating through all of your clothes hits the back burner.

So that's really it. This was a simple cross off the list, but sometimes simple is what you need. We had a gorgeous day, even though it was a bajillion degrees, and it was fun and relaxing. And man, was my panini delish.

fourth of july strawberry cream pie.

I realize that this item on my bucket list is bake for my friends, but to be honest I didn't really bake this pie, except for the crust. Butttttttt whatever, same concept, and my friends liked the pie!

I knew I wanted to make something for the fourth of July to bring to my friend JJs house for our annual partay. I looked on my Pinterest "delish" board because I knew that I must have had something related to America on there, and I found a pin for Martha Stewart's icebox cake. Because I was so on the go the couple of days before Independence Day, I didn't have enough time to make an icebox cake because it really needs to sit in the fridge for a long time, or even the freezer. So instead, I used the same ingredients and made my own little concoction that I knew would be ready in time for the party.

Ingredients:

// 60-70 Nilla wafers

// 8 Tbsp. of butter or 1 stick

// 1lb. of strawberries

// 40-50 blueberries

// 30-40 raspberries

// 3 Tbsp. of sugar

// 3 cups of heavy cream

To make the crust:

1// crush between 60 and 70 Nilla wafers in a ziploc bag.

2// mix crumbles with the sugar, melt the butter, and stir everything together.

3// empty the contents into a pie dish and squash into the bottom and the sides.

4// bake on 350*F for 10 minutes and set aside to cool.

To make the filling:

1// hull a pound of strawberries and puree all of it.

2// whip all of the heavy cream until soft peaks form, and mix 2/3 of the cream with the pureed strawberries.

3// put the rest of the cream around the edges of the pie dish onto the cooled crust to form a barrier for the more liquid strawberry cream.

4// put everything in the fridge for a while, and once the strawberry cream has thickened a bit, pour into the middle of the pie dish and spread to the edges of the plain cream.

5// decorate the top of the pie with blueberries and raspberries.

I made a flag on top of my pie because it was for the fourth, but you can do it any way you want!

that's what makes you beautiful.

I HAVE DONE EVERYTHING I WANT TO DO IN LIFE NOW.

Really though.

Okay, not really, but I've come close. I know when I posted my original bucket list about a month ago, I said I cheated on the live concert front because I already had Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, & Ben Howard planned, but I have revived myself from the cheating! My friend Jackie and I are music soulmates, we love and hate pretty much all of the same things when it comes to tuneage. SO, naturally, we're both obsessed with One Direction (Harry Styles in particular) and decided that since their tour was sold out for the past year that we would sit down in some beach chairs outside the Jones Beach theater and listen to their angelic voices from afar.

However, on Saturday, the day of the concert, I was feeling a bit discontented with this plan. I jumped onto stubhub.com, and there they were: two beautiful tickets to sit inside the arena for $110 each - only $20 more than the original ticket asking price. We jumped at the opportunity. Jackie's exact words were "let's just do it yolo". So we did it, and though we were not sitting where we though we would be, or even sitting at all, it was still the best night ever.

We weren't very close to the stage at all, but we could see (when we craned our necks and stood on our tippy toes because the worlds tallest man and woman who didn't even look happy to be there scootched their way in front of us, but I digress) and make out who was who and what was going on. It was great. They came out after a cute video on the big screen introducing all five of them and jumped right into "Up All Night". For the first couple of minutes of singing along, I actually think I was a robot. I just couldn't believe I was there and found myself bobbing up and down and singing the lyrics subconsciously while in my head I was having a deep moment of happiness and bliss.

Yes, I am 23. I am still obsessed with them. I have a really deep appreciation for a band that can really sing and mesh together, and One Direction is that and so much more. Not only are they amazing together, everything about how they came together is crazy. They weren't childhood friends who started a band in a garage, they were five individuals who were kicked off of a singing competition and given a second chance at success by being put together as a group. They could have found that they didn't like each other, or that their dreams were shattered because they wanted to be solo artists. A million things could have gone wrong, but instead, they became instant best friends and went on to come third in the competition, which doesn't even matter because now they are the number one band in the world for almost three years running. You can hate them for being a pop group, or for being the type of boys that girls age 2 to 100 scream at, or for any other reason you want, but you can't hate them for being five boys who came from nothing only to reach the top together with great talent. I won't let you!This tour, the Take Me Home Tour, is primarily promoting the boys' second album, which I blogged about here. It's been sold out since the first few minutes after the tickets went on sale about a year ago, so it was even more amazing that Jackie and I were in that arena. And like I said, we weren't all that close, but it was close enough that we could see their faces and see who was singing and just be able to take in everything that is 1D. I was so shocked that they were actually 300 feet away through the first half of the concert, that I didn't cry the tears that I thought were inevitable. But like I mentioned in my blog post about them, my favorite song between both of their albums is 'Over Again', and I knew that if they performed it I would absolutely lose my shit. And I did. I lost it. I teared up while I recorded them singing on stage and let a few roll down my face behind my phone. It sounds SO pathetic, but that song just makes me feel really emotional for whatever reason, and I never in a million years thought that I would ever see One Direction live. It was a fast paced day, not something highly anticipated, so I think just being there after buying tickets hours before and hearing a song that I've played on repeat hundreds of times was all I needed to let a few tears drip out.And just look at that face. How can you not cry tears of overwhelming joy when you're staring at that smolder, that jaw line, those lips?

The concert ended with an encore of 'Live While We're Young' and of course, 'What Makes You Beautiful', which was the best way to end it for sure. Jackie and I jumped up and down and danced around (like we do at the bar when we request 1D to the DJ) and it was great. The concert was so much fun, the boys looked and sounded great, they were so humble despite their huge fame, and they performed my favorite song. I'm a happy girl, and there is no better way I could think of than to cross off this item of my bucket list with this impromptu concert.

And to top it all off, we got free stickets on the way out (which I cut down because they were totally for some radio station, whatevs.)

water babies.

I woke up Monday morning and just knew it was going to be a good day. I got to work and was immediately greeted by a smiling Max, and straight after breakfast we couldn't wait to put on swim suits and head outside. We texted Brooks, Max's best friend, and his nanny Dionne to come over and play with us, and set up his water table and squirt pool.

The only thing I love more than watching a toddler play and explore, is watching them play and explore with another child. Brooks and Max are a couple months apart and are attached at the hip most of the time. Watching the two of them develop individually and as a pair over the last six months has been so amazing to see. They interact so much more now, calling to each other by name and using phrases like "come here!" and "let's go over there!" It's awesome.

Today was a great day to watch. The boys were dumping water on each other and running around on the grass and through the squirt pool splashing everything. They played in the water table and focused on what each type of toy did - some had small holes in the bottom, some had lines cut out - and smiled and laughed when they figured out how and why the water was spilling out of their buckets.

It seems like such a simple thing, running around outside in some water and playing with plastic solo cups, but to a two year old it is all so much more. Every single moment is a learning experience, and kids pick up so much more than you think, especially at this age. It's so great to watch them grow and learn how to do such little things that we take for granted as developed adults.

It's also great that kids' towels are made with little hoods. It's the little things.

And that was our day. We splashed and laughed until lunch, took a nap, and finished off the day with some car watching out the big front window. Again, little things.