Happy Diwali!

In the last few years, I have learned that there is great benefit in knowing a little bit about every culture, especially the holidays. It is hard to be an expert on all of them, but a basic understanding is helpful. It gives people more respect for other traditions and beliefs, as well as creating a better camaraderie between people.

Growing up, I hardly knew anything about other cultures. Sadly, the few things I did know were usually stereotypical or half-truths. Other cultures always fascinated me, but my teachers discouraged my classmates and me from learning about them. When we did learn about them, it was always from the perspective of “our way is the right way to live, and these other ways are the wrong way”. (fyi, for any newer readers, I went to a very strange, ultra-conservative private school.)

When I left that environment, I started researching other cultures and learning all the unique traditions that exist. Do I celebrate all of them every year? Goodness no! I wouldn’t have time for anything else if I did. Haha! But knowing about them gives me the chance to make an extra connection with people that I would not have gotten before.

This thought is especially strong in my mind today because I got to celebrate Diwali with some of my co-workers. For anyone who has never heard of Diwali, it is the festival of lights (particularly, the inner light), and it is also used to celebrate the end of harvest.

There are many ways to celebrate this holiday. Some of the most common include: lighting decorated clay (diyas) or paper lamps, cleaning one’s home, creating brightly-colored rangolis (geometrical sand drawings), gambling, and shooting of fireworks. In the office today, we ate some delicious Indian cuisine, watch a beautiful, traditional dance, and painted clay oil lamps. Here are a couple pictures of the lamp I painted:

If I had continued to hold to some of the things I was taught as a child, I would not have had this chance to meet and talk with some of my co-workers. It was fun to see their excitement and enthusiasm, and they were eager to include me, even though I have different beliefs.

So to celebrate the importance of making yourself a better person and learning to respect and include others, I wish you all a Happy Diwali!

Memorial Day Weekend 2013

Long weekends are wonderful. They always pass a little too quickly, but they are a great way to get a break from work without using up lots of vacation days. The best long weekends are the ones that also have a federal holiday at the beginning or end. :)

For Memorial Day weekend, Dan and I started off with a date night at the new Alamo Drafthouse theater in One Loudoun. If you’ve never been to an Alamo theater, I highly recommend you check it out. They are a combination of a movie theater and a restaurant. You purchase tickets for specific seats (so you don’t have to show up really early for the good ones), and you can order all your food and drinks (including alcohol) directly from your seats, even during the movie!

Dan and I have been to the theater three times since it opened at the beginning of May. We love the food, the funny previews before the movie, and the friendly staff. This past Friday, we saw the newest Star Trek movie, and we had yet another great visit at the Alamo. Here’s a picture we got at the theater before the show:


On Saturday, we stopped at two different parties. The first was a very yummy crab feast at a friends’ house. The crabs were delicious, and Dan had fun scaring people with the crabs before throwing them into the cooking pot.

After the crab feast, we headed west to have dinner with my family in Martinsburg. It’s always fun getting together with my cousins. Only your cousins truly understand the kind of crazy family that you come from. LOL We seem to be getting crazier as we get older too. Heehee…

Sunday brought a beautiful sunny day, and Dan and I got to clean house and watch some episodes of Castle before heading out to a VA Wine Mafia meet up. The “godfather” of our group, Kurt, had most generously opened up his pantry and basement to share some wines before they got too old to drink. The other mafia members also brought wines and snacks to share with everyone. Dan and I brought a bottle of Fox Meadow Freezeland White to share. Mmm…




There were many favorites being passed around. Some of my favorites were a Breaux rose, Crushed Cellars Merlot and Meritage, and Berry Hill’s 2010 Petit Verdot. Kurt even broke out a few special bottles – Keswick’s 2009 Cab Sav, Clarksburg’s 2010 dessert red (from Cali), and Corcoran’s special white port.



VA Mafia meet ups are always a blast, and we enjoyed every minute spent with this fantastic group!


No weekend would be complete without spending time gardening, so Monday was spent working on our veggie garden at my dad’s house and the potted garden at our house. We started with a trip to Home Depot for mulch, insect repellant, and a couple flowers.

Our veggie garden was growing, but slowly, and the zuccinni, squash, and cucumbers were getting seriously attached by some nasty yellow striped bugs. At Bluemont nursery, a worker said he had seen the same kind of bugs that we had and gave us some repellant called Eight. It is a product that has been used for years, and part of the mix comes from the extract of crushed mums.

After weeding, applying the insect repellant, and putting down some garden mulch, our garden looked much better.



The last hours of sunlight were spent cleaning up our own backyard. We moved my little maple tree into a big half-barrel pot, put down a bunch of mulch, and did a general clean up. We even gave the puppies a bath, much to their disappointment.





Dan and I thoroughly enjoyed our Memorial Day weekend. It was a great mix of relaxing, fun, and outdoor activity. Cheers to wonderful long weekends!

Happy Pi Day!

Hi all,

I only have a few moments because I have been in product training all week, but I wanted to wish everyone a wonderful Pi Day!

If you have no idea what Pi Day is, you can find some fun information here.

I will post up some new vineyard reviews soon!

Erin

The Best of 2012

What a full year 2012 has been! I cannot believe how many amazing things I have done and been a part of!! Here’s a quick review of some of them:

• Started my first blog - At the Lamppost
• Visited the Newseum and Spy Museum
• Dan and Eva moved in with Vander and I
• Got a promotion
• Watched Discovery land at Dulles
• Grew a veggie garden
• Started the VA Wine geocaching trail
• Wrote book reviews for some favorite authors
• Visited family in Oswego and hiked the barrier wall to the lighthouse
• Read lots of fantastic books! (see sidebar for some of them)
• Got over 100 geocaches in one day!
• Visited ThinkGeek HQ and participated in lightsaber training
• Saw my first Broadway play (Newsies)
• Got engaged to my wonderful fiancé Dan
• Awesome vacation to St. Maarten
• Got to speak with an astronaut
• Bottled whiskey
• Joined the VA Wine Mafia!
• Began planning a wedding
• Became a volunteer at Friends of Homeless Animals
• Finished writing a new course manual at work
• Sold my first handmade craft
• Met my new “niece” Arianna
• Made lots of new friends at the vineyards
• Had a wonderful holiday season with friends and family

If this year was not so wonderful for you, keep your chin up. I can attest to the fact that things turn around, and even this year was not without difficult struggles for me.

You can try to blame hard times on one thing or another, but really, life always cycles up and down, regardless of a person’s status or religion. All any of us can do is become stronger with each struggle and make the most of each moment of joy in our lives.

Have a fun, safe New Year’s Eve, and may 2013 bring us all more knowledge, personal growth, and memorable adventures.

Oh Christmas Tree!

December brings with it my favorite holiday of the year, Christmas! I enjoy other holidays, such as Halloween and Thanksgiving, but Christmas is the holiday I remember most from my childhood. The lights outside houses and the holly draping inside them – it is always so festive and welcoming. I also loved decorating gingerbread houses with my cousins, singing Christmas carols with my friends, and watching Christmas movies with my mom.

In all the crazy, joyous events surrounding Christmas, my all-time favorite event is decorating the Christmas tree. While my mom and I would decorate the rest of the house ourselves, the Christmas tree was the one decoration that my whole family would do together. My dad would set up the tree and put on the lights, and my mom would open up the Christmas boxes and pass ornaments to my brother and I to hang on the tree.

We all had our favorite Christmas ornaments. My dad liked the crystal ornaments (except for this one crystal ballerina with fat legs. LOL); my mom liked the handmade ornaments from nuts and yarn; my brother liked the train ornaments and usually took them off the tree to play; and I liked a dog ornament that was made out of tiny little pine cones.

Many of our ornaments had stories behind them, such as who made it and what event it was created for. My brother and I had our first baby ornaments, and there were the ornaments that grandma had made, including the decorated nuts and pine cone dog. There were also countless ornaments that my brother and I had made in school or church over the years. Even the ornaments with next to no story were always greeted as friends when they were unwrapped from their protective tissues.

First Christmas ornament I ever made
Though I live on my own now, I still treat my Christmas tree the same way I did when I was little. The first thing I do is pick out a nice live tree. Fake trees work just fine if you have enough room for a second tree in a house, but the family tree, that protects the presents until Christmas morning, MUST be a live tree in my house.

The process of decorating the tree is sacred, and being the strange person that I am, I do it the same way every year. After the tree is in its stand, I put on the lights. First twining them against the trunk of the tree; then, circling them out on the edge of the branches. Next, I wrap a pretty ribbon, usually red or gold, around the tree. The ornaments follow shortly after. All the fun, unique ornaments go on first, making sure our favorite ornaments get the best locations. The colorful bulbs go on next to fill in any empty wholes. A few small red bows usually get scatter around, and finally, I hang a box or two of classic candy canes all over.

The result is always wonderful, and I love staring at the tree for the rest of the holiday season. Here’s a picture of this year’s Christmas tree!

In addition to a few of my favorite old ornaments, Dan and I’s tree is decorated with some of his favorites and a new one that we picked up the night he proposed. :)

Dan's favorite ornament

Ornament from where Dan proposed to me
As Christmas and the other holidays celebrated in December draw closer, I wish you all at least a few moments peace in all the craziness. Remember that the holidays are supposed to be about giving and spreading joy to others, which does not have to come in the form of a present.

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! And a wonderful New Year to all!

Robots on a Christmas treee? I wonder where that came from!

Hoist the colors! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Ahoy mates! Today be one of my favorite days of the year. International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Huzzah!!! To celebrate the 10th anniversary of this auspicious day, I am wearing a red pirate cap and eye patch, and because some of my co-workers were unawares of the day, I brought in some extra eye patches. Arrr…

For ye landlubbers who be unfamiliar with this illustrious day, please improve yer knowledge by browsing through yon website: http://talklikeapirate.com/piratehome.html. The site describes all the details of Talk Like a Pirate Day’s creation and history. Also, if yer unable to find the right words to speak, the site includes a dictionary of basic pirate language, as well as a translator for yer trickier phrases. Be kind to the Cap’n who directs the site. He be real busy today, and the site is workin’ a bit slower ‘n usual.

Now that the holiday has been enacted for numerous years, people all over the globe are getting into the spirit. For example, if you wear an eye patch into Krispy Kreme, you get to have a free doughnut. Arrrggg… that do sound delightful. There be much more booty to find today, and you can look for hidden treasures using the world map on the afore mentioned website.

Even Facebook has embraced the pirate culture! Seriously, ye can change the default language that yer Facebook account uses to English (Pirate). Here’s how:

• Click the down arrow on the upper right corner of the screen.
• Select Account Settings.
• In General, next to Language, click Edit.
• In the drop-down list, select English (Pirate).

That be all the time I have for ye today. May yer sails be filled with a strong wind, and may the rum never run dry! Happy International Speak Like A Pirate Day!!

The Whiskey Cow and the VA Wine Mafia

Even though Labor Day weekend was a while ago, I had to write about a few of the things Dan and I got to do over that weekend.

Bottling Gin
About 15 minutes outside of Leesburg lays Catoctin Creek Distillery. Catoctin Creek Distillery is a three-year old distillery in western Loudoun that makes organic whiskeys, gin, brandy, and a few other liquors. One thing that sets them apart is that they offer locals a chance to help with the bottling process! How cool is that?! I had heard about the bottling events from a co-worker, and he invited Dan and I and another co-worker to join him over the weekend.

The bottling event turned out to be even more interesting than I had expected. Not only did we get to participate in each step of the bottling process, we got to have the owner walk us through the entire procedure of creating liquor. It was quite fascinating, and I loved learning how they were a 0% waist facility!

The distiller
For those who are interested, the bottling process contained about 11 different positions. Here is a short breakdown of them: (Please note that some of these names are not the exact position names. I couldn’t remember them all. Lol)

• Liquor can manager – hooks the whiskey cow up to a full can of liquor
• Empty bottle runner – would give the person working the whiskey cow new boxes of empty bottles
• Whiskey cow worker – Place bottles onto an automatic pourer (the whiskey cow) that fills the bottles perfectly. When the bottle is filled, they take them off and place them next to the corker.







Dan and I working the Whiskey Cow

• Corker – places corks in the filled bottles
• Capper – places a metallic cap on the bottle
• Sealer – uses a HOT blowdryer-looking device to shrink the cap onto the bottle (sealing the bottle shut)




The table where the Corker, Capper, and Sealer work

• Bottle runner – runs the filled and sealed bottles to the labelers
• Labeler – places labels on the front and back of the bottle.




Me with my Bazinga! label

• Bottle runner – runs the labeled bottles to the packer
• Packer – checks for “floaters” in the bottles and packs the bottles into shipping boxes
• Bottle runner – runs any bottles with “floaters” in it back to the Liquor can manager.

The coolest part of the bottling process is the whiskey cow, and the hardest part was corking the bottles (you have to have a lot of arm strength). Everyone has a lot of fun with the labeling part, because you get to write short phrases on the labels before they go onto the bottle. This makes each bottle a little unique. For example, I wrote “Bazinga” on one of the bottles, so hopefully, a Big Bang Theory fan will find it in the store and enjoy it. :) Dan and I wrote a label for just us, and we had the bottle set aside for to purchase later. :)

The work is done. Time to celebrate!
The whole event was really fun, and they saved the best part for last – the taste test. LOL Dan really liked the gin, and we both were fans of the rye whiskey. Naturally, we got a bottle of each to take home with us.

Catoctin Creek Distillery liquors
Wine and Lobster
In addition to bottling gin, Dan and I got to visit a few vineyards over the weekend. We stopped at North Gate Vineyard, because Dan had never tried their wine before. We enjoyed a glass of Cab Franc and split a cheese platter and picked up bottles of the Cab Franc and Apple wine to bring home with us.

Our next vineyard stop of the weekend was Loudoun Valley Vineyard. I have been able to enjoy some of Loudoun Valley’s wines at local restaurants like Fireworks, but this was my first visit to their property. Apart for wanting to see their grounds, we were also drawn to the lobster fest that was being held. :) Two sides and a big lobster for $20 – you can’t beat that! (I was very glad to learn about the lobster fest through Twitter and Facebook. It is a great way to keep up on local events now!) With our bellies full of delicious food, we picked up a bottle of Route 9 and the house white to share later.

Meeting the Wine Mafia
As I mentioned above, I have been involved more on Twitter and Facebook lately. I started using Twitter to help bring traffic to my blog and ended up following a lot of local people involved in events and wine. It was through these wine folks that I got introduced to the Virginia Wine Mafia bloggers group on Facebook, and I was very excited when they invited me to become a part of their group.

Over Labor Day weekend, Dan and I were invited to a small gathering of local wine bloggers from the Wine Mafia group. It was a fantastic evening! Everyone was very friendly and inviting, and Dan and I got to learn about and try a bunch of new VA wines. We even met someone who had been our pourer at Barrel Oak Winery. :)

Some of the wines we were sharing
One favorite point of the evening was the discussion that arose around Bob’s wines. The name of the actual winery is Crushed Cellars, but everyone from the party will remember it as Bob’s (the owner of the vineyard) from now on. We all split a bottle of Bob’s Vidal Blanc, which was quite delicious, and Dan and I added another winery to our “To Visit” list. LOL

You can read more about the wine gathering from Wine About Virginia – our hosts for the evening.

Gel Clings!

I absolutely love decorating! Some people could truly care less about the interior design of their environments, but I am the exact opposite. A house does not feel like home until I have hung pictures, and I love adding extra garlands and center pieces to match whatever holiday is next on the calendar.

My favorite holidays to decorate for are:
- Christmas
- Fall
- Halloween
- St. Patty’s
- 4th of July
- International Speak like a Pirate Day (yes, this is a real holiday!)

My decorating addiction does not stop at my house. Cubical furnishings are also a passion of mine. My work desk is tastefully scattered with pictures, calendars, magnets, and a few pins and trinkets. When I started at my current company, I actually spent hours online searching and ordering a special Totoro pencil holder. :)


While I have built up a collection of holiday décor for my home, it can be tricky to maintain your cubical decorations. First of all, you have no storage space to keep everything when you are not using it. Secondly, some of your cubical mates may not appreciate your festive spirit. Too meet these restraints, as well as keep a low budget, I have adopted the use of gel clings.

Gel clings are inexpensive pieces of plastic that will stick to almost any surface without additional adhesive. They are easy to find, delightfully inexpensive, and quick to put up and take down. Since they are usually only a couple dollars a package, you will not feel guilty throwing them away after the holiday has passed. I have also noticed that my cubical mates to not seem to have any problems with me putting them up. In fact, they love to come over and poke at the strange jello-like shapes. LOL

You can find gel clings at a variety of stores. My go-to places are usually Walmart or Michaels. More varieties can be found online, but those tend to be a few dollars more expensive.

Today, I just put up my St. Patty’s Day gel clings, and I think they are really fun!


Have fun decorating!!