Monday, March 16, 2015

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Hi Everyone!  I wanted to write a quick note to let you know that I've updated my website (www.khelichevalier.com) and will be posting some blogs on there moving forward.  I just put one up describing a recent fancy dinner night (yes, another one!).

Not everything will be up there, just when big or fun stuff happens.  I will always put a note here when one goes up.

I'm still working on the website (my portfolio page especially) so it's still a work in progress.

Monday, March 9, 2015

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Today is Josh's Birthday, Happy Birthday Joshua!

Mom has been hounding me to update this, but I don't have much to add.  I've been trying to stay in more, go to the gym, drink less.

Sara and I did have a nice night out last week, I can share that!  I downloaded a new app called, "Reserve" where it serves as a concierge for specific restaurants in Boston.  I got a flyer from a networking event I went to a couple of weeks ago, so I received $25 off my first dinner.   We planned to go to the ICA's First Friday event (once a month they have a DJ and drinks and you can tour the galleries and usually there is something else going on that is themed for the month).  Sara's friend Hannah is the event coordinator for the ICA, so we try to go when we don't have plans, we get ont he list so it's free and we get a free beer tasting.  They are pretty fun, and a good way to have a chill night.

Normally we go right after work, but last month Hannah let us know we should arrive later, as more people are usually around and it makes the dancing/DJ a bit more fun.  So for this month we decided to stop and eat dinner before heading over to the museum.

I had just downloaded the app so I figured we might as well take full advantage of it.  Nebo is an Italian restaurant nearish the Seaport (where the ICA is).  I've been wanting to go for awhile, but it's always been a bit pricey.  Since we had $25 off, we thought it was a good time to try it out.

We each got a drink, I got a moscow mule (complete with copper mug!) and Sara got a gin drink.  We ordered an appetizer- it was called Funghi Selviggi, and was DELICIOUS.  Anytime there is anything polenta on the menu we have to order it.

It's creamy mascarpone polenta with a wild mushroom ragù, sage and a fried egg.

The pic from the website

For the entrees, we go a pizza and a pasta dish.  The pizza had potato, pancetta, gorgonzola, rosemary and mozzarella.  

The pasta was squid ink pasta, with scallops in a light mascarpone sauce.

Both were to die for.  The sauce in the pasta was so good, we were dipping the crust of our pizza in it after it was finished.  Two people came to try and take the bowl away, but stopped when they noticed Sara still using it.

Because we used the app, the manager came over and introduced herself.  She gave us her card and let us know we could call her anytime we wanted to come by and she would take care of us.

We headed over to the museum, listened to old hip hop songs downstairs, a blues band on the second floor, and looked at weird art on the fourth floor.

We then headed home, watched some TV and went to bed!

This weekend was pretty chill as well, I did all my laundry and went to the gym.  I made some Vegan potato soup and cleaned my room.  Pretty basic.

Oh, last week at Dodgeball I made a catch and then I threw someone out!  It doesn't happen often so, it was pretty nice.

Tonight we are going to see a screening of "Cinderella" and Im going to look for a pair of boots to wear when its not cold enough for snow boots, but not warm enough for flats.

Here are some pics:

My Moscow Mule
Tagliatelle Cappesante

Pizza Con Patate


Funghi Selviggi - devoured
Me and the Cat, chillin



Friday, January 30, 2015

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I know I said I would post on Sunday, but obviously that didn't happen, haha.

So this week.

Saturday it snowed, and Sara and spent all day making poodle skirts and watching The Wire.

Sunday was bar league, for which we wore said poodle skirts (see pics, they came out really well!).   We also sang Karaoke.  There were four categories:  Movie Song, 80s/90s song, Rap/Hip Hop, and Team Sing Along.

We had brunch beforehand to help prepare ourselves.  Two big girl mimosas later, I was in a good place to start singing in front of people.

Song Selections:  we did Grease, You're the One That I Want as our movie song (to go with the 50s dress theme), Barbie Girl for 80s/90s, Milkshake for our Hip Hop sing, and I Believe In a Thing Called Love as our Team Sing Along.

Of course, we went all out.  Everyone dressed in 50s theme, so we got extra points there.  We brought Shake Shack cups to be props during milkshake, and Sara put on the Morticia wig, a sweat band and took off the skirt to rock out for I Believe in a Thing Called Love.  I may have also busted out an air guitar.

So we won, obviously.  It was a fun night.

Monday was the start of the storm, but as it didn't start until later in the day I went to work as normal. It took me 2 hours to get home.  I left at 4:45, walked to the T and jumped on the red line like any other day.  I didn't have to wait long for a train to show up so I thought I would miss the mess.  I was wrong.  I spent an hour on that train.  In that hour, we only went two stops.  We spent a good chunk of the time stopped in the middle of the bridge that connects Boston to Cambridge.  We couldn't get out, and we were stuffed in there, all complaining.

Of course as soon as we hit Kendall I jumped off.  I didn't want to have to go through the 3 other stops in that train, who knows how long I would have had to wait.  A lot of other people also had the same idea, so I had to wait 20 minutes for an Uber.  $20 and 15 minutes later I was home.  Sara and I went to the store and tried to grab some supplies for the storm.  The store was PACKED.  Also, most of the food was gone.  We wanted to make chili- but there was no meat.  So we settled on Mac N Cheese, dip, and grilled cheese.  Also, Sara slipped and fell in slow motion in the snow.

Tuesday was the storm!  I had to work from home, so I got up at 9 am, and sat my butt down on the couch, wrapped in a blanket.  I put in some Buffy episodes and checked my emails.  Sara joined me a little bit later, and studied for the GRE. When Teresa came out to join us, we switched from Buffy to X Files and that was our storm show. We made grilled cheese for lunch and the cat tried to keep Sara from studying.   I think I was pretty productive for a day working from home!  I think having the freedom to snack and have something on in the background really helped me focus, which I know sounds weird.

Wednesday unfortunately we had to go into work.  It took an hour, as the T was operating on a slower schedule and there were delays due to "weather related incidents."  I left 15minutes earlier than normal, and got in 15 minutes late.  Only 4 people in my office showed up, everyone else worked from home again (I was hoping Bill would send an email letting us know we could work from home, but he didn't so I went in).  I didn't have issues getting home.

Thursday was a MESS.  I left at my regular time, thinking that yesterday would be the worst of it, and there wouldn't be any problems.  Boy was I wrong.  I took the escalator down the 60 floors and as soon as I could see the bottom I knew I was gonna be late.  There were so many people on the platform waiting for a train, they were backed up to the bottom the escalators.  Yikes.  I won't drag you through how I had to wait over an hour until I finally fit in a train, but I basically walked into work at 10 am, an hour late.  The day went by pretty quickly, it's the end of the month so I have a lot of monthly reports and research to do.  After work, Megan and I went downstairs for dinner.  There is an Irish Pub, M.J. O'Connor's in our building and Megan had a giftcard to spend.  She got Guinness Beef Stew and a Guinness, and I got Pumpkin & Pecan Ravioli with an Angry Orchard.  My dinner was delicious.  It had cranberries and baked apples in a cream sauce and was both savory and sweet in the best way.  It also came with garlic cheese bread, so I was a happy camper.  I ate it all, and used my bread to soak up the sauce.

I had scored screening tickets to go see Kingsman, so we headed over to the theater after finishing our meal.  We got there 15 minutes ahead of time, found seats in the middle in the front, and watched a ridiculous but awesome movie.  Seriously, only about 20 minutes in I knew I wanted to buy it when its out.  It was hilarious.  I originally wanted to see it because it had Colin Firth, but it was way better than I expected it to be. There are some pretty violent scenes, but it works.

This morning was business as usual, no problems with the T and everyone came into the office.  I had some free time, so I thought I would post my last January entry!

This weekend should be pretty tame.  I don't have any plans on Saturday, and Sunday is the Harvard Business School conference.  I've helped put the media sponsors and everything together for the the past three years, but this is the first time I will actually attend.  It's also Superbowl Sunday though, so while I am at the conference everyone else will be going to parties.  I'll be home probably by myself when the actual game is on.  Maybe I will try to make some cool apps or something like Dad used to.  Eh, probably just end up with dip.  And beer.











Friday, January 23, 2015

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I know I'm way behind.  I'll probably post another on Monday, to catch you up on this week.  This will just cover last weekend.

Here we go!  A short post to fill in for this week.

Last week was pretty tame, filled with work, work and more work!  I went to the gym a few times and got my fitbit- finally!  I took a boxing class, that was awesome.  It was full for the regular sessions (I was in a one-off) but I think I will want to sign up next time they are open.  (They go for 8 weeks at a time).

Friday night Sara and I met up with some friends and played Trampoline Dodgeball in Everett.  It was fun, but Friday nights are probably a bad time to go, as it was filled with teenage boys.  We had to take turns playing, which was kind of a bummer.  Near the end of the hour some of us went to the free jump area and just jumped up and down, passing a ball to each other and doing tricks.

We went to a really dive-y bar afterward, where we played darts, drank beers and picked songs for the jukebox.  They had a TouchTunes machine, which is a jukebox that you can control with your phone. You buy credits and use those to play a song.  Normally there is a queue of songs, and as you select them, they go to the end of the list.  You can also pay an extra credit to have your song play next.  We were having a good time until some regulars came in and messed it all up.  They started playing all their chosen songs next (so our songs kept getting pushed back) and then when one of Sara's songs came on, they had the bartender skip it!  The bartender is the only person who can skip a song, with a remote that comes with the jukebox.  I don't know why they couldn't just wait 4 minutes to keep playing their crap country, but they made a fuss and made the bartender change it.  Sara was annoyed, so she queued up the same song again, to play next.  And when it came on again, they had it skipped again.  So Sara had put money in to play the song twice, and it was skipped twice.

So then we were pissed.  We left shortly after, just as one of the songs I had picked an hour before was coming on (since it kept getting bumped).

Saturday was the kickball end of season/bar league mid season party at Hong Kong.  That was a good time, there were appetizers and free PBR for most of the night.  I knew a ton of people (for once) and we went up to the third floor to dance for a bit.

Sunday was bar league, this week's game was Family Feud.  We also got extra points for dressing up as a Family or Team.  We picked The Addam's Family, I was Morticia.  Pick of us below.  I really can't hold a straight face, especially when being yelled at to.  The wig was super annoying.   We won two rounds of Family Feud and the Fast Money Round.  We also got extra points for being the most awesomely dressed team, so now we are tied for first overall!  This week is Competitive Karaoke, so that should be interesting.


Sara as Wednesday, me as Morticia, Phil as Gomez, and Sarah as Pugsley

Sunday, January 11, 2015

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This week was pretty good, for the first full week back at work since the holidays.  I feel like I always have os much to do, I'm really excited for the intern to start tomorrow.  Once he's acclimated I can hand off a lot of the time-consuming research that I am given since I am lowest man on the totem pole.  I hope that will free up some time for me to be given more creative and strategic assignments. Not that I don't like what I currently do; I just want to do more.

I went to the gym three times this week, yay!  I ran some errands and created my meal plan for the week (though creating it is never my problem, it's always following it that's the trouble).

My big to-do for this week is laundry.  If I showed anyone a picture of the laundry pile I have in my room they would exclaim, "Oh God!"  It really is a monster, I don't think I have EVER had this much laundry before.  I have to remember to get some quarters.

Bar league this week was trivia.  We got 2 out of 3 wins (still trailing behind Gin & Juice who got all 3 wins), but it's a lot better than I thought we would do for only having three people! We didn't stay for Twister as I wanted to go home to watch the Golden Globes and Sara was hungry.

Also this week Sarah taught us how to play Pit.  It was fun, I can see my friends and family really liking it.  I also learned that my friend Julia is moving to Portland, Maine next month.

Missy, Jessica, Manny and I bought our tickets for Coachella!  We weren't sure we were going until we had our weekly Google Hangout last week and we decided to try for tickets.  I'm excited, it's gonna be awesome.  I want to take some extra time off around that weekend so I can visit home for a few days.  I also REALLY want to go to Disneyland.  I haven't been in years, and that is not ok.

I saw Imitation Game this week, I enjoyed the film.  I wasn't super familiar with Alan Turing beforehand, and after watching the movie I think it sad that a lot of people don't know who he was.  I want to read the book that the movie is based on now.  I'm also a huge Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley fan, so that was a big plus.  I am sad that it didn't win any Golden Globes.

Right now I'm listening to the audiobook of "Big Little Lies" on my T ride, and I have "The Fiery Cross" (Outlander #5) on my kindle.  Once I finish those two, I'll prob bust out "The Revolutions" that Aunt Debbie got me for Christmas.  After that I will go back and grab some new books.  All three are pretty long, so it might be a while.

I went to Sephora to spend my giftcard and get a new blush (they were out of the one I wanted so I went with something new, jury is still out on it) and while I was there they did some weird matching thing to help me find my perfect foundation shade.  There was a machine that they used to take pictures of my skin, and then assigned me a color shade.  The foundations that they recommended are all light/fair colors!  What happened, I used to be tan!  I was mediums and goldens, now I am alabaster and light.  So I thought that was weird.

What else happened this week?   I don't know.  I woke up, survived, went to sleep.  Next week will be more of the same.

Friday, January 2, 2015

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It's been almost 6 months since I last posted.  Wow, I didn't think it had been that long.

So 2014 is over, and I say Good Riddance.  As a whole, the year kind of was blah for me.  I had some fun times (Hawaii, Coachella, Camping), was in a happy relationship and was busier than ever at work.  But then October happened.  I found out that Buddy died (RIP buddyboo), and was dumped out of the blue in a bar right before the Giants World Series Game 7 started.

Those two horrible things right at the end of year really sealed it up as a crappy year.  Maybe if they had occurred in the beginning I would be over them by now and have 2014 as a pretty good year.  But, as of right now, I can't say it was anything better than 'meh' and that's me being optimistic about it.

2015 will be better.  It has to be.

This year I am going to focus on trying to be more healthy, more active, and more conscious of the things I eat and do. I want to get a fitness tracking device (maybe a fitbit or a basis peak) and I want to write more.  I want to go back to the book I wrote for NaNoWriMo and finish it.  I was so overwhelmed when the month was over, I haven't touched it since.  But now I can go back through, edit and change stuff (some paragraphs were just fluff to hit my word counts) and write the ending.  It might not be total shit (but it most likely is).

I'm also kind of detaching from Facebook.  I deleted the app from my phone, and now only go on when I am at my computer.  Even then, I don't actively post anything anymore.  I found myself on it wayyyy too much, and I have better things to do than constantly check for updates.

I'd like to say that I will post more blogs here, but I know myself.  I will try!  I don't have much going on for 2015 yet, so not much I can post about.  We'll see.  My tumblr is my go to for being emo and posting random pictures/quotes/updates (kind of depressing as of late because of recent heartbreak).

I want to try and become a better me.

I moved my room around, and am trying to get more organized.  A clean house is a happy house, or something like that, right?  I read an article earlier today on fitness trackers and at the end the author talks about how for millennials, it seems to be that we equate happiness with simplicity.  Having all these gadgets that can track data and help streamline your life is supposedly going to make people happier.  Obviously I am into this idea, as I am trying to simplify my life, but I don't know if it will work.  Maybe I can use the blog to help figure it out.

I normally post on my blog the books I read in the past year, but I started tracking them differently last year.  Instead of keeping a list on my phone I used GoodReads, so you can see my book list here:

Books Kheli Read in 2014!

My goal of 75 books was a bit ambitious, though I hit 70 which is pretty close!  I read a bunch of crappy short paranormal books, and a few crazy long books when I started reading the Outlander series.  I'm on book number 5 of Outlander right now, and an fully engrossed in the series.  I wish I had Starz so I could watch the TV show.




Tuesday, July 29, 2014

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There's nothing worse than an outdated blog, is there?

When I was home recently my mom reminded me a few times that I need to update my blog.  I didn't realize it hasn't been updated since Coachella until I logged in a few days ago.

To my 5 readers, I apologize!  Things have been super busy, both at work and in life.  Summer has been pretty awesome, though New England weather continues to baffle me.  Yesterday there was a tornado.  It was so dark at 10 am, it looked like it was the middle of the night.  It poured down rain, and thunder and lightning filled the sky.  Luckily I was safe and dry in my office by then, but it was pretty crazy.  An hour later, the sun filled the sky and it was like any other summer day!

Roomates and I joined a kickball league, we play on Sundays and actually don't suck that bad!  We are called "Not in the Face" and wear purple shirts.  Our team dominates in the after game social activities at the bar (of course).

My birthday came and went, I am now 28 years old.  Roommates and boy went out to dinner, it was nice.  I got a free dress from Rent The Runway for my birthday, it was pretty.

I'm trying to motivate myself to go through the stuff in my room and purge a lot of stuff before I move.  It's hard, because I'm pretty much a packrat.  I have T shirts I haven't worn in years, but that I don't wan to get rid of.  Unfortunately, I think the time has come to let go of all my Buffy/Dr.Who/BSG T shirts.  I no longer dress like Sheldon, and need more room for my adult clothes.  Same with my heels, I need to donate those as well seeing as they are impractical in Boston (and I hate wearing them most of the time anyway).

Music today is Jenny Lewis, from her new album The Voyager which came out today.