grace = my 70 degree weather friend.

so grace and i have an unspoken deal that we have friendship dates when the weather is really nice. this day we decided it would be appropriate to go for a little drive up the coast. we checked out nahant, swampscott, marblehead, and salem. don't actually remember what pictures are from which place but just trust me that they were taken at one of them. 

future house A

there was a lot of laughs and the wind was a little out of control

future house B

the east coast keeps surprising me with looking so nice

and having beaches and not just harbors. why did i think they wouldn't have beaches? probably because i'm that person that moved to boston and didn't really think about it being in massachusetts or actually on the coast. yes. that is real. 

pretty city skyline in the distance 

ships!

and an almost lighthouse 

and great rocks

and this tree

and the best location for a bench. the two three of us loved it 

(who sees that little baby bump?! mama grace is due in just three weeks!)

after what already felt like an afternoon of successful stops we headed to salem and once again yelp did not disappoint!

we ate at custom house rotisserie and i would highly recommend it to anyone visiting salem. nicest guys, good food,  fair price, aaaaand their corn bread tastes like cake. who doesn't like that?

we came to realize salem also has a red trail kind of like the freedom trail in boston but i doubt they call it that with their history and all

we walked through the cemetery which made it into my top five creepiest list

and checked out the salem witch trial memorial which just had rocks jetting out with people's names and the day they were killed and how they were killed. my expression in the picture above explains how we felt about this whole thing (about it happening, not about the memorial). also it is a bit weird that salem loves this whole witch thing and gets revenue from such a sad tragedy but i'll save my thoughts on that story for another day  

grace was such a good sport to stand by the prego witch. it took quite a bit of prodding and a bit of force but aren't we all happy she did it? 

our last stop on our nice weather adventure was the house of seven gables. if you ever want to feel really creeped out, you should go there. seriously it is the creepiest house and then add all of the clanking and wind and i felt like we should have sat on the grass and told each other scary stories or something. 

but we didn't. we just went home. the end. 

sara drove from DC to be my friend!

and we decided to check out walden pond, concord, and lexington. 

the weekend she came had pretty sad weather but lucky for us the snow covered ground with all of the trees looked so so good and we loved the drive to walden pond so much.

 they have the best private roads with SO MANY FOREST TREES! i felt like i was in utah and couldn't stop freaking out. 

 it was raining really hard when we got to walden pond but i brought an umbrella so we decided to brave the storm and still check it out. 

sara wanted some jumping pictures. sara took a good one of myself but i like this one better. 

the rain decided to stop pouring so we didn't feel bad to stop the only other person there to take this picture for us. three cheers for it not being blurry or awful like most pictures taken by random strangers are. 

 this girl wore her rain boots so i took full advantage of them and walked around in the pond for a bit. yes i know i just switched from third person to first and it was awkward. 

WALDEN POND IS SO PRETTY! 

the snow was perfect and the pond totally lived up to all the hype for sure. 

we weren't able to get over to where thoreau's cabin was because sara didn't quite have the best shoes on for making a trek through the snow so instead we just headed over to concord and checked out his grave. 

 sleepy hollow cemetery in concord everybody 

..and by this point the rain completely stopped and it became too warm for a coat! mother nature cannot make up her mind if her life depended on it

hunger kicked in so after consulting with yelp we felt confident in going to neillio's and it did not disappoint. thanksgiving dinner in sandwich form with homemade mashed potatoes and squash? yes please. 

 oh! and we went by louisa may alcott's house which was eery and nice

lexington loved having taverns and the sun finally came out for a minute!

supposedly the revolutionary war came from conversations in the buckman tavern that is pictured above but who really knows if that is true or not. 

while heading back we found the community of Christ church! why i am so obsessed with people who leave our church and start other churches i will never know. but what i do know is that i went up and looked in the windows and took pictures of the interior and was super creepy. 

i have felt that my roommate maren (on the right) is sara's twin since the first day i met her so i was really happy they finally got to be friends! and happy they both loved this cone man so much

i thought it would be a good idea to take her to the friendly toast and it wasn't. she hated it. 

 

but she did like the number man and all the other things so i say her boston weekend was a success! 

(and maybe i should post edit or color correct my photos so they look less gray/blue and sad but who really has time for that)

how do people keep headphone buds in their ears when they run?

that always amazes me. 

anyway. somehow i have completely failed at blogging and now i just feel overwhelmed so these next few posts are going to probably be boring and we will all wonder together why i even bothered posting them. 

so about three weeks ago i moved and new roommate maren helped me put my desk together (she is the greatest) and it has been real nice not living far away from everyone and everything. 

it should be noted that on leap day i played temple run for the first time in a long time and got really good and kept beating my best score for twenty minutes and then sucked again. that was a really good twenty minutes though. 

realized that maren and i are going to be great friends upon learning that we both love grilled tuna melts. this is also the only second cool thing that happened on this leap year day, i kind of failed at making that once-every-four-years day cool. maybe next time. 

the temple grounds looked so nice and snowy on march 1st

the mfa had (and still has) the best exhibit on really cool instruments. everyone come to boston and i'll show it to you

and this guy was just sitting in there playing the harpsichord like it was nbd. it was delightful. 

I've been doing some temp work to fill my time until a real job comes along and it is actually a pretty nice set up. for the first week and a half i would just sit at this desk, do whatever i wanted, drink free starbucks hot chocolate, and listen to the same songs over and over again that played over head. 

 since that snowy few days at the beginning of the month the weather has been surprisingly warm, except for the part where sometimes it decides to crazy windy. this makes it less delightful.

one of these things is not like the other

i now pass this beautiful scene every day when i come home from "work". i love it so much and my dream is to somehow sneak onto one of harvard's rowing crews. 

bnotd = i realized i could get out onto our roof from the kitchen window! so i went out and ate my pastaroni doused in parmesan cheese (still undecided whether that was a good move or not) and enjoyed a beautiful sunset (you have all seen beautiful sunsets before so i'll spare you). i was a little nervous to be on such a baby roof but it was great, after we all go to the mfa you can all come back to my house and take turns sitting with me out there. seriously!

everyone in boston is kind of ticked about this underground freeway that apparently took all the city's money but i really enjoy it every time i'm on it. look at all those fun lights! it is like a mini time square.

and to end this ridiculously meaningless post i just wanted to share this photo because the lights and full moon were the best and coupled with that great clock building and quincy market, all of which i love so much.