Nicole Tasker Woods

It’s finally Friday

I’m free again

I got my motor running for a wild weekend

It’s finally Friday

I’m outa’ control

Forget the workin’ blues

And let the good times roll

I am in San Francisco this weekend with the girls and I’m having a blast! I took a half day off of work on Thursday and all of Friday off to road trip up north. We are stopping in the San Luis Obispo area Thursday night and then heading up to San Francisco Friday morning. Dinner Friday night was at the Empress of China and Saturday is filled with plans to shop til we drop!

I have been looking forward to this weekend get-away for a few weeks and now that it is finally here, I can relax!

No cleaning the house.

No laundry.

No waking up early to take Cali pee.

We took this same trip five years ago. We are visiting a lot of our favorite spots that we saw then and creating some new traditions this year. Hopefully this trip can be repeated in the years to come with less time in between.

I have one sister-in-law through Ryan and am about to get another one through my brother, Kyle. His fiancée, Kristina, sounds like a great girl. I have even talked to her a few times and love everything I am hearing. She has a great attitude about life, knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to fight to get it.

I am really looking forward to meeting her in person in August when I return to New Hampshire for a few days before my mom and I head to Europe. Our family is planning on taking a day to celebrate their engagement and we will no doubt become fast friends. And of course, she is planning a wedding for 2011 and I just love weddings!

When I go home in August, Sophie may or may not remember me. Kind of like Brianna, my flower girl at my wedding. When she was born, I was 20 years old and was home from college. I babysat her every day of the summer and had such a great time being around her.

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I have had great luck this summer with finding very ripe and very cheap red cherries.

I recently had rainer cherries for the first time and was surprised how good they were despite their unorthodox color (compared to the red cherries I’m used to eating).

New Hampshire fruits of the summer that I loved to eat the most were blueberries by the handful from one of the seven bushes in the backyard of my house growing up. I was able to teach Sophie how to locate the berries on the bush and to avoid the leaves. Sunday mornings, my mom would walk outside with a measuring cup and pick what she needed to make blueberry muffins.

I can also remember my mom eating red raspberries in cream with sugar (like it was cereal). She said that if you were a very wealthy person, you ate that every morning. There were wild blackberry bushes in our backyard toward the woods and by our mailbox (before the post office moved in next door). You could eat them right off the bush they were that perfect.

Strawberries are another favorite of mine. We would cut them up, dip them in sour cream and then in brown sugar. So good! My parents had them for dessert at a restaurant one time and they have been eating strawberries like that ever since.

I don’t know what it will be like to see Grampa after all these years. Last time I saw him was at Grammy’s funeral years ago. He turned 90 last September and is living in the nursing home where she spent the last years of her life. I never had a connection with him like I did with Grammy.

Whenever I came to to visit their house, I would hug and kiss them both, but would sit in the recliner next to Grammy. She would mute the TV and we would talk about things that you wouldn’t believe. Stuff that she genuinely liked to listen to me talk about. I did not tell her things to get her opinion, just to have an outlet and she was such a great listener.

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This year I love the World Cup for one main reason: Ryan wakes up early to watch the games and takes Cali pee. I take Cali out every morning before I leave for work; I also take her out on Saturday & Sunday and then go back to bed. This must be a sight to my neighbors as I throw on slippers and a hooded sweatshirt and shuffle outside with eyes closed to the nearest patch of ivy.

Ryan’s sole responsibility in regards to taking the dog out, is to make sure she goes pee before we all go to bed, and the later the better! If she pees super late at night, the odds of her sleeping in the next morning and not stepping on your stomach and licking your face at 7:00am are very good.

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I am a huge radio station surfer in the mornings on my drive to work. I am not a big fan of talk on morning stations especially when stupid listeners call in to bitch about their personal problems in search of advice from other listeners that are in reality, STRANGERS! I mean, come on people, don’t you have a friend or mother you could ask advice from??? Anyway, it’s a huge pet peeve of mine so when the music stops and the talk starts, I surf.

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DISCLAIMER: The information in this blog post may not be suitable for my freak friends. Please, Joyce and Tanya, proceed reading at your own risk.

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Ryan will be so proud. I just watched the first match (South Africa v. Mexico) online. Actually, I read it online and watched hi-lights when ESPN.com posted them 30 seconds after they happened.

The way I see it, I have to find some kind of peace with soccer because it is such a big part of Ryan’s life. He is on two soccer teams, one indoor and one outdoor, and he has been hanging out socially with his soccer buddies more and more in the past few months. I have even tagged along when I know 100% that I won’t be the only female attending.

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