Celebrating Jesus, my birthday and a good night's sleep

(I’ve been a slacker blog poster due to work overload. And I hate to use work as an excuse, but I am.)

First and most importantly, yesterday was my birthday!

It was a birthday I will never forget, too. Not because I had spectacular plans, but because I spent it with coworkers. We had been working on a big new business pitch, which conveniently fell on my birthday. Everyone was very sweet and kept wishing me a happy birthday, and even the President got everyone drinks at the stroke of midnight to toast me. (we drank those drinks in a conference room rehearsing our presentation, but still, it was a very nice gesture).

My real celebration is this weekend, when Mr. KK is taking me to NYC. The weather is going to be beautiful and even though I’ve been to the city a million times, I’m going to be a total tourist. I’ve even requested that we do one of those double-decker bus tours. I want to be THAT cheesy.

Okay, back to Jesus.

We hosted Easter again this year, and after working crazy hours, and even on Good Friday, I never thought I’d pull it off. Miraculously, though, everything fell into place.

The menu:

Individual antipasto
(some day I’ll tell you about my trip to the Italian Market, that was supposed to open at 8am, but decided to open at 8:30am instead, so I spent 40 minutes IN LINE – yes, there was a line around the building…it was Good Friday after all – and ended up only spending 11 minutes – and $89! – inside)

Crown Roast Of Pork with a garlic rosemary crust
(which was cooked to perfection)

Cornbread, sausage, apple and rosemary stuffing

Mashed potatoes
(my mom’s secret recipe)

String beans and shallots

Brussel sprouts with prosciutto

Dessert was my mother-in-laws pies – wheat pie and rice pie.

After cleaning up from dinner, I literally sat on the couch to rest for five minutes and ended up falling into a dead sleep for an hour and a half! I was THAT tired from working so much. I woke up and pretty much the whole family was sitting around staring at me. Oops!

And finally, last night was the first night in 2 weeks that I got more than 5 hours of sleep. It was wonderful…but I definitely need some more.

Also, I HATE Laguardia Airport. I will NEVER fly out of there again. It was a little windy on Tuesday and they went into panic mode and closed many of the runways. The pilot had this to say: “Looks like 25th in line to take off.”
Twenty-fifth??? Have you ever heard of something so ridiculous?

Also, Happy Birthday Mom! I’ll never be able to top the gift I gave you 35 years ago…me! :)