Reality check

I'm in shock.

After regaling family and friends with stories about our recent travels -- specifically about Drew and Princeton -- and being asked a few too many times, "what's tuition at Drew?" I decided to look it up.

Hold on to your hat. And windbreaker. And shoes. And most definitely your wallet.

Tuition this year at Drew was a mere $37,310. ('Scuze me while I have a coughing fit.)

Oh, but it gets better! Here it is with room and board and fees (taken directly from Drew U's website):

Tuition:	$37,310
Room:	$6,702
Board:	$3,666

Fees

• General Fee: $560
• Health Insurance: $588 (required for International students)
• Orientation Fee: $250 (First year students only)
• Technology Fee: $125
• Transcript Fee: $25 (First year students only)

The Turkey won't need the health insurance fee because he's not an international student -- oh goody! that's a $588 savings! break open the champagne! *cough!* -- but that still gives us a grand total of $48,638. Per year.

With 28 months to save for this potential expedition, and assuming college will be a 4-year thing for the boy, that means I have to sock away...doing the math so you might see smoke...yeah....OMG!...I would have to save $6,948.29 each month between now and then! *hack!* *cough!* *smoke!* *swoon*

Thank goodness the words "tuition" and "remission" are together and part of my benefits package. Thank goodness I still have a job. Thank goodness for scholarships. Thank goodness for peep-tinis. With this sticker shock/reality check I'll be partaking of some 'tini tonight.

*cough!*

Drew U. and the Ivy League

Last week was the Turkey's spring break. He got to sleep late and play video games most of the week while I was at work. I think he reveled in the sheer laziness of it all. Can't blame him. After all, that was what I did on my spring break, too.

Starting Thursday though, I took over the scheduling. No more sleeping 'til noon and showers were a must. We got up, packed up, and headed out. First stop was not the grocery store, not the mall, not downtown Annapolis, but Drew University.

That's right - Drew U.! This was the Turkey's first official college tour and I wanted to make it a fun one. What better place than a university that shares his name? :-)  The walking tour of campus was nice and the Turkey was impressed with all it had to offer for such a small place. "Small" in this instance is 1600 students.  teeny tiny

 
Drew University is in Madison, NJ. It was a lovely drive on a gorgeous spring day. We did the walking tour of campus, stopped at the bookstore to get the requisite Drew t-shirt, walked around on our own taking pictures (you can tell by the shadows it was late afternoon), laughed a lot, and then meandered towards the car. Can you guess our next destination by the picture below?

That's right - Princeton! Welcome to the Ivy League!

We met my friend Laura and her 6-year-old daughter for dinner. I hadn't seen Laura in over 14 years and it was a treat to catch up in person and finally meet her daughter who is a delightful firecracker. We settled at Winberie's for a casual dinner and then headed over to The Bent Spoon for gelato. Mmmmm! The Bent Spoon is apparently an institution in town and has really unique flavors. Sour cream gelato anyone? (Don't knock it. That's what Laura had so I got to taste it and it was surprisingly good. Who knew?!) Peanut butter, mango, coconut, pear and prosecco, vanilla bean....it was all so so so SO yummy!

After a night in heavenly beds at the Westin, we headed back downtown for breakfast and our own walking tour of Princeton.

PJ's Pancakes, the site of breakfast. We had seen it while driving around the night before and had casually remarked that we might try it for breakfast. When a friend recommended it via facebook, it was a done deal. Diners over the years have written/carved their names into the table tops. We had a few laughs reading the comments on the table before the Turkey added his own "Go Terps!" to the menagerie. This was definitely the ONLY time I would let and encourage him towards graffiti. Oh, and their pancakes were seriously fluffy and scrumptious, too.

Pancakes done and parking found, we walked across the street and meandered through campus.

It was again a gorgeous morning and the walk was lovely. Drew remarked on more than one occasion that he felt he was at Hogwarts instead of a college campus in the US! With so much gothic architecture I can totally understand that sentiment. It is indeed unlike most of the campuses in this country.

Before you start asking, the answer is NO. Drew is not thinking of applying to Princeton. This was simply a fun expedition since we were close to the campus. Puh-leeze! Let's revisit tuition remission at Maryland, shall we?

But have I told you about his time in Harvard? Remind me about that some day.

Back to the trip...

After the Princeton experience we came back to reality with a thud, landing in Brooklyn. We spent some time with my brother and sister-in-law and new nephew, walking around the city, checking out the Brooklyn Flea Market, and generally just hanging out.

We came away without pictures of the baby who is a super cutie and likes to try to talk and did a good job of sliming my purple shirt (stay tuned for pictures because we'll see him again next weekend)...right...no pictures of the baby this trip but with pictures of this:

Do you see it? It's the second house in the row. No, it is not my brother's house. It is ... drum roll, please ...

A PINK HOUSE! The entire thing is painted PINK! Sister-in-law knew I would get a kick out of it so she took us a couple blocks out of the way to find it. Yee haw!

Gotta love home owners with a sense of humor! :-)

And yes, I got away with NO pictures of the baby but 3 - count 'em: one, two, THREE - pictures of a pink house. *sigh* I can't even chalk it up to too many peep-tinis. I can, however, blame it on a pink obsession. After all, the baby is a boy so no pink. (Did that work? Do you believe it? No? Rats. Me either.)

Hi, my name is Jess and I like pink.

Must. Start. Taking. Baby. Pictures.

Peep-tini

Ta da! One Peep-tini! :-)

The recipe was easy: make a cosmo (or a shaker full of cosmos, your choice), pour in to glasses and float a peep on top. Easy schmeasy!

Here's another view: 

Wishing you a happy Easter full of your favorite Peeps! 

Cheers!

The peeps are here!

Hooray! It's finally here! If you have yet to see the annual Peep Show contest sponsored by the Washington Post you really must check it out. Go there. Now! The creativity and artistry is amazing. Ah.Maze.Zing! And how nice of them to do the banner in pink this year. Aw! The editors and web gurus there must be pink turkeys at heart. <3 (that's a heart on its side in case you were wondering)

The annual Peeps Show always gets my creative juices flowing. What can you do with peeps? Besides eat them, of course. What would your peep-arama look like? How many peeps would it take to build it? Would it be pink or yellow or purple? (Are there other colors I'm missing?) Can you roast peeps like regular marshmellows? How many peeps does it take to......OH! Better yet, have you ever tried to make a peep martini? (Or a peep-tini, as my BFF would say.)

One peep-tini on this weekend's "to do" list!

Maybe two.

Or three.

Quality control, ya know?

Wordless Wednesday

Like

If life had a big ol' Like button a la facebook I would totally click Like on these things today:

Traffic (or the absence thereof) during K-12 spring break
M&M's (not the coconut ones which are a total "dislike" (eeuw!) but plain ol' candy coated milk chocolate M&M's. Mmmmm!)
Texting during a meeting so it looks like you're answering professional emails (Shhh!)
JibJab's Easter cards
Lunch with the work spouse
Blogging
The "like" button on facebook
The absence of a "dislike" button on facebook
Friends who offer the use of their guestroom
Sunshine
Radio stations on iTunes
The morning news (Because it's much more positive than the evening news. Go figure.)
Pretty fumes (Some people say "perfume.")
Google maps
The ringtone on my cell phone ("Summon the Heroes" anyone?)
Blonde streaks
The possibility of a certain teenager having a summer job
Netflix movies via Wii
Freshly laundered sheets
Very active board members (Job security - yee haw!)
Skype
Momisms (Flow snurries, people. Flow snurries.)
Laughter
The Turkey's laughter
The fact that The Turkey no longer needs daycare
Comfy mumfies (Mmmm!)
Tush toasters in the car
A good book

...and...

YOU! :-)

Marching to a different drummer

It's March 29th? Really? When did that happen? Where did the month go?

Um. No. Not so great for a blog opening. Hmmm. Try this one: 

March. Marching on. Marching to a different drummer.

Um. Still no. I mean, everyone knows I march to a different drummer. No secret there. 

March madness.

Duh! And still no. Sigh.

I'm gettin' my blog on again... (Ah. Much better!) I am not quite sure where March went, other than it's almost out the door. Madness, indeed! What the heck did I do this month? Basketball? No. Trips? No. Black tie events? Definitely no. Work? Yes. Fun? YES. But I can't tell you exactly what it was. Drat. Let's do a little BSI (blog scene investigation, in case you were wondering) and see what happens. Maybe we can recreate a little of the fun. Grab the popcorn and let's go! (Make mine with extra butter and lots of salt.) (Please.) (Can't forget the please.)

Um.

Yeah.

Well...

It looks like March was boring. Boooooorrrrrrrrrrriiiiinnngggggg. The work time was busy, the evenings were full, the weekends were weekends, spring break happened (and was also boring, just in case you were wondering), and the weather has gotten progressively better. Yep. March. Yawn.

I did get some fluff-a-doodle-doo time during spring break and came out blonder. Yee haw! The hairs are highlighted so it's not all-over color but the effect is definitely, well, blonder. Whether or not blondes have more fun is still in research stages, but the funness (a word?) of the streaks is definitely me. Wanna see? Of course you do!
 

Oops. That's not it. That was taken via Skype one night. Cute, but not the One.

Aha! This is still not the One but is a picture of the two of us with Mr. and Mrs. T at their farewell party. Mr. T is the teacher that organized the trip to Turkey 2 years ago and hosted the boys every Saturday night for calculus club. Did you catch the past tense there? No more calculus club. Nope. The T's moved back to Turkey last week. See Mrs. T's tears in the photo? Heck, see how tall the Turkey is? See my blondness?  (Oooo! This is like an old fashioned game of I Spy!)

Ding! We have a winner! So it's not the best picture, nor in the best light, but you get the general idea. Blonde streaks mixed in with ... huh? ... are those curls? Yep. I even brushed them before the picture was taken so they are smoother than usual if you can believe it. (The hairs, that is. I brushed the hairs. Please, no fuzzy teeth!) I'm not quite sure what's happening but my hair is getting curly with age. Yes, this is the same girl that spent the first 40 years of life trying to manufacture curls and now it's a simple matter of scrunch-and-go. Finally!

So what else did March bring? Let's see... The Turkey and I both had/have spring breaks. Three cheers for time off! The only problem is that our breaks did not coincide. Grrrrr. So during my spring break I was still getting up at o-dark-early-thirty to get the kid to school and supervising homework in the evenings. Early mornings and homework do not an exciting spring break make. At least it was a few days I didn't have to battle rush hour traffic or get dressed up. I'll take whatever I can get.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is The Turkey's spring break. Now. Yep, he's currently on spring break and I don't think he's showered yet. (Thank goodness it's only Monday!) His day was spent ... Wait. Let's try that again ... After waking up slightly before noon (more like it!), his day was spent on the computer, eating, playing online games, eating, watching tv, eating, playing online games, eating, eating, and more tv. Oh, and now he's eating again. Figures.

We are planning a spring break trip for later this week which will include ... hold on to your hat ... his first college tour. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at that. College? My kid? Already? Sigh. I'll post details as soon as they are settled, but let's just say this will be quite a wonderful and eponymous trip. (Using my SAT words!)

The Turkey just discovered I was blogging and thought it would be cool to do something crazy like run out and buy a Lamborghini so I could blog about it. Ha! Good try, dude. See? Our lives really aren't boring, they are just sometimes difficult to translate into bloggese. (One "g" or two? Blogese? Does it really make a difference?)

And on that note, I must say adieu for now. It's late and unlike some people in this house, I have to work tomorrow. Toodles!


PMG - happy now?