Brush n' Blush

Way back in February, I convinced a few of my girlfriends to get a Living Social deal for this fun little place in DC called Brush N' Blush; you basically go and paint and drink wine. Um, hells yes!

Life inevitably got kind of hectic and we kind of forgot about it until I got an email a few weeks ago saying that our deal was going to expire on August 11. How the heck did August get here that fast?! Last time I checked, it was still May. Seriously - summer's almost over.. so weird.

Anyway! We frantically tried to find a day that worked for everyone and one that I could bounce out of work early to make the 7pm class. We also needed to find a day that had a good "paint topic", since the layout of the class is to basically replicate that night's chosen painting. In other words, we'd all be painting the same thing.

Lo and behold, the one night that worked for all of us was.... are you ready for it....?

Cherry blossoms!! It was fate.

I can't even tell you how much fun this was. There's a teacher that guides you through, step by step, so everyone ends up with a relatively similar painting at the end. You bring your own wine and snacks, so everything might start getting a little fuzzy, but that's ok - artistic expression exists for a reason, people!

So we went in, suited up, got our paints, and claimed a table.

The wine and snacks were busted out immediately, of course.

We snuck in a bottle SkinnyGirl too, since no liquor is technically allowed ;)

Then we got to painting!

Are you impressed with my mad sky skillz?

You can see some sneak peaks above, but here's our final results:

Class photo!

And yes, some go-getter painted their background a different color. #overachiever

And of course, we celebrated with a whipped cream pineapple shot afterwards.

Have you tried that stuff? So good!

It was the perfect girl's night out, and if you live in the DC area? Hit that place up! We might make it a sort of regular thing.. thank goodness I'm moving into a house with LOTS of wall room to hang things... muahahaha.

Birthday shenanigans

So my birthday was.. an adventure.

It started out all well and good. First, we went to Middle Ages Brewery in Syracuse for a (free!) beer tasting.

Naturally, we walked out of there with a big ol' bag of goodies. Yay birthdays!

Then we went to none other than Dinosaur BBQ. I've said it before, I'll say it again, obsessed.

So much deliciousness. I may have eaten everything on my plate.

So after having a foodgasm at Dinosaur, we went back to Scot's friend Adam's place (where we were staying), only to find some tasty looking birthday cupcakes awaiting!

I managed to not gobble them all up at once, due to the BBQ food baby I had sitting in my tummy. All that I wanted was a nap.

How cute is Louka the pup?!

And then.. well then I woke up and didn't feel so good. I thought I probably just ate too much (and too much heavy food, at that) and just needed to let my stomach settle with some rest and peppermint tea. But it never got better; about 5 hours later, my stomach went from being nauseous to crampy, and the cramps got so bad that I could hardly sit up. Adam's mom happens to be a nurse, so Scot called her over to the house to do an impromptu check. Her conclusion was that I either had a kidney stone, UTI, or kidney infection. Super cool.

So we went to the ER. At 11pm on my birthday. Fortunately, Adam's mom has connections at the hospital, so we didn't have to wait too long. I'll spare you the details, but the big conclusion was that it was stress induced pain. Which makes sense with all that has been going on lately; I'm glad nothing was actually wrong, but then again, it's annoying, you know? Not to mention the fact that I felt terrible for having Scot and his friend's mom stay at the hospital with me until 4am.

Dearest 26th year of my life: please don't suck as much as you started.

On the bright side, I felt 100% back to normal the next day, just in time for the pig roast!

Anyone else ever have an "adventure" of sorts on your bday?

Feliz cumpleaños, America!

To all of my American friends..

Happy Independence Day!

And Happy belated Canada day to you Northerner's!

It's the 4th of July, I am officially on vacation, and I couldn't be happier. As you read this, I will most likely be relaxing by the lake, enjoying a beverage of some kind, sunshine and a good book (yes I am trying to make you jealous). We watched pre-4th of July fireworks by the lake last night (see the awesome pics above!) and will likely be enjoying some more tonight.

Le sigh.

We only have a week of this, but I will surely be soaking up every last minute. I hope you all are having a super wonderful day as well, full of BBQ's/beer/sun/beach/friends/family/all of the above!!

Friday Friday Fridayyyy

Pictures speak a thousand words.

Remember I said that I knew my Friday would get infinitely better? Well.. after work, I got to meet up with these lovely, fabulous, beautiful ladies. Look familiar?? Thats Em, Claire, Anni, Meg, Maria, and Jessica!

It was beyond amazing getting to meet up with and actually MEET some of these girls! You would never guess that some of us have never met before.. no awkwardness, total fun. I think it's incredibly unfair that we all don't live closer and that we can't do this, I don't know, every weekend?!

But anyway. Picture & recap time! We initially met up at this cute little vegan place in DC called Cafe Green, where I totally forgot for a minute that vegan = no actual meat or cheese. And I ordered a cheesy chicken sandwich.

But it really wasn't that bad! I could tell that the chicken wasn't actual chicken, but other than that? Pretty tasty! Em decided to get some chocolate cheesecake that was also pretty fab..

..yep. That's all you get to see of that.

All together, we had a nice little party of lady bloggers and significant others.. minus my man and Meg's man. So we were each other's dates, of course!

And what night would be complete without some dancing?? We headed a few blocks over to this college-y type bar (that I may or may not frequent semi-regularly) with an evidently terrible Friday night DJ, but no matter. Drinks + music + friends = good times, regardless!

These two are the cutest!!

Awkward dancing to awkward music.

I apologize to all parties involved if you hate these pictures. But I love them. <3

Oh!! And I almost forgot! In our post-dinner tipsy/full/happy/giddy moods, we decided to call none other than Miss Layla herself to say hi!

Hiiiii Layla!!!

Random? No. Made total sense to us ladies. The men didn't quite get it though, hah!

Anyway.. to sum it all up.. SUCH a good time. All these women are the absolute best and I seriously can't wait for future blog meet-ups!

PS. Nothing says comfort like a catheter in a Snuggie ;)

Everything, tonight.

Have you ever gone somewhere or done something that was just SO much fun/SUCH a good time that it just kind of makes you sad to go back to every day life?

That sounds way more depressing than I mean it to be.. but anyway. Have you ever felt that way?

I'm going through this weird funk right now because of 2 things. First was Mexico - we seriously had such a great time and I haven't stopped wanting to go back immediately since! (And I pinky swear promise I'll actually get around to posting recaps and pictures sometime this century.) Second was my most recent trip to Philly this past Sunday to Monday. It wasn't anything super exceptional.. just hung out and went to a baseball game with some of my closest friends.. but a part of me wishes it could have lasted longer.

Le sigh.

With all that forlorn nonsense out of the way, I'll just get to the pictures from Philly! I drove up after work to meet up with bff's AKA and Eric for some drinks and go to the Phillies vs Braves game. Seeing as I absolutely loathe both teams (go Mets!) I was more down for some drinks and general hanging out. Sure, I'm 25 and an adult and mature and all that. I also like to have a good time every now and then!

We started out at McFadden's, which is attached to the ballpark and also where Miss AKA works (hello discounts!). After a few drinks (in an attempt to not spend $8 for a beer in the stadium), we headed into the game with our fab standing room only tickets. It was all that was available/all we could afford.. I couldn't believe how packed it was for a Sunday night game!

Silly Phillies fans.

I think I watched about 5 minutes of the game. Food and drinks seemed much more interesting. I even caved in and chowed down on half of a hotdog because, come on. Ballpark hotdogs are freaking delicious.

Have you ever had Chickie's and Pete's crabfries? OMG so good!!

I had a somewhat surprise guest come to Philly for the night as well - my long time friend from high school who I haven't seen in years. We'll call him Irish Boy.

It was super great to see him again - definitely lots of catching up to do!

After the game we headed back to McFad's for a while for some dancing..

..then off to another bar/pool hall for some darts and more good times!

Yeaaa, we're those obnoxious people.

All in all.. a really fun, awesome, fantabulous night. For so many reasons. Like I said, nothing special, just lots of happiness and smiles!

I hope everyone else had a weekend that was just as super cool!

I'll have letters after my name now!

First off: no vlog Friday for me today =( My webcam is giving me issues, but hopefully I'll figure it out before next week.

On to other things:

A while ago, I mentioned on Twitter (or what Scot so fondly calls Twatter) that I needed some good luck sent my way, but wouldn't say why.

I can now officially share the good news with you: I have been offered a full time job as a massage therapist at a wonderful little massage clinic in DC!! The place is more spa oriented than I see myself at in the future, but I think it's a great starting place for my career with amazing opportunities to grow.

:)))

I've mentioned that I was getting frustrated with life and not having my licenses (I still don't) or a massage job yet, and also that I was still applying to places regardless. I am incredibly lucky and fortunate that it paid off, and I am beyond ecstatic that I will be starting at said massage clinic within the next month or so (my DC license should be good by then); I even gave my official two week one month notice (cause I'm nice like that, yo) to my current job. So it's really real.. I'm actually going to be a full time massage therapist!! My business card will now read "Steph Stephstuff, LMT". Hellz yea.

As much as I was striving for this and wanted it, it's still weird (and awesome) to see that I'm actually doing something about it and making it happen. I failed pretty miserably at making that happen for my dance career, so this means a little more to me than I think it should normally.

But anyway.. some other exciting news is that I may also be interning with the lead massage therapist for DC United, DC's major league soccer team. This way, I'll be doing more relaxing and rejuvenating massage at my "day job", but also gearing myself up towards a career in sports massage through interning. Starting my career and prepping for my future? Yes, please.

The way I see it, even though I am signing myself up for a crap ton of work and won't be getting paid for the internship, there's no way I can not do it. A friend of mine interned last year and learned more from a few days a month about sports massage than we did about Swedish and deep tissue in 18 months at school (that's extreme but you get the idea). The work I would be doing with the team is a very hands on approach and completely different from "regular" massage. I'm currently scheduled for an interview and to do a demo exchange with the lead MT next Tuesday, and we'll go from there. So keep your fingers crossed for me for that!!

I feel like everything will be changing so quickly in the next month. I'm a little nervous as to what my new schedule will look like and how Scot and I will handle the change (our hours will be completely different), but I'm trying to stay positive and know that it will all work out. Will it be tough? Sure. But I've had it "easy" for too long. I like a challenge!

Short & sweet

I love when happy hours...

 ...turn into happy nights!

My ladies and I haven't all hung out together in months, and it was so great to take a few hours and just chat, drink, eat, and laugh this past Friday.

Short and sweet.. happy Monday all!