House Break and Normal Life

Finishing the kitchen was a little like a wedding coming and going. We spent every minute of every weekend working on the house, there was never enough time. After all the prep for our kitchen party, we realized we suddenly had so much free time every weekend. Although it felt weird not working on the house, it felt great to wrap up the project and stop spending money. In order to recover a bit, we started tracking every thing we buy in an app called Expensify. We create monthly reports, which group our expenses by category. If you want to understand what you are doing with your money, I highly recommend using the app.

Another big realization for me was, "what would I blog about every week?" I want to keep blogging about our life in Philly because it's something I love to do on Sunday nights and who knows how long we will live here :) So I will do a light version of blogging, starting with our weekend with a very special visitor, my friend Kathy from London. She arrived late Thursday night after a year of not being in the states, so I welcomed her with a room full of "Welcome Home" balloons.

We spent the day working from home on Friday and then headed up to NYC to celebrate Halloween. I was able to use the last of my SPG points on the Four Points in Chelsea, which turned out to be a great find. Along with being a fun location, the hotel provides a voucher for parking at a nearby lot, so we only paid $25 for the night.

We haven't celebrated Halloween since college, so it was fun to dress up! We didn't go too crazy with costumes and just decided to be cats and a mouse (we love cats!).

A night out in NYC with Kathy is always a good time and this time was no exception. We stayed out way too late and had way too much fun. Maybe we will start celebrating Halloween every year!?

We kicked off Sunday with brunch with my favorite little baby, Aris James, and his parents at the cutest apartment in Philly. Aris just turned one and got a teepee for his birthday and he was very proud to pose in front of it for pictures.

I am getting way too old to have even one night of late partying, so Friday was the perfect way to kick off my "No Booze November," in preparation for the Philly marathon. After brunch, I paid for the late Friday night with a blustery, beautiful 14 mile Sunday run.

We are hoping to spend the next few weeks exploring Philly and enjoying the time at home. After four months of training for the Philly marathon, I am hoping to take good care of myself and be ready to run on the 23rd!