Westchester Life has a new home… and a new NAME!

What? You haven’t heard? You haven’t visited yet? What are you waiting for?

WestchesterLife is now Escaping New York!

You can find the goods HERE. Click through for all the great stories you’ve been missing!

What I’m Thankful For

I’ve been totally slacking these last couple of weeks. Well, the honest answer is, I’ve been getting a new blog up and running. A blog to migrate this blog over to. One that makes a bit more sense for the here and now, considering I’m no longer “life-ing” in Westchester. I promise it will still be all the snark and sass you’ve come to love, and I’ll be sharing it with you soon.

In the meantime, it occurred to me that this might be a poignant last post on Westchester Life — a glimpse into things in this new life phase. So here goes. I’m thankful for:

• Skype. And FaceTime. It’s allowed me to stay relatively connected to some friends and family whom I’ve just been missing terribly.
• The concept of “time out.” Which really is more for me than it is for my toddler, right? By insisting he go sit and think about his behavior in a chair in the other room means I can go chug a shot of whiskey to dull the pain from all the whining, and he doesn’t have to witness mommy’s lush-ishness.
• GPS. Seriously, thank the LAWD for this invention. Do you guys remember having to go on MapQuest and print out directions to get somewhere (which almost always ended up being six pages long, which required collating and of course, then fumbling in the car with multiple pages of commands.) Or, even before MapQuest, I remember having my glovebox stuffed with actual, fold-out maps (yes, the paper kind) and having to pull over to pull out a map and squint through trying to find your current location, then try to find your destination, then try to refold that stupid map back up properly?? WTF? Now that I’m in a new town, in a new county, in a new state, I don’t pull out of my driveway without first programming my navigation. I don’t care if I’m just going to Target down the street. You never know when someone can get lost… I don’t take my chances.
• The chance to redecorate a bit. Here we are in a new house, unpacking our life… this is the perfect time to shake things up a bit. Like putting the booze cabinet in my bedroom. Why not?
• Renting. We are renting our house here in North Carolina, because really, we don’t know a thing about this area so how would we know where we’d want to buy a house? And truthfully, we still own our house in Mount Kisco, and one damn house is plenty to worry about. So we’re renting, which is such a refreshing change to home ownership. I love that when the water pressure is a little too soft, I can just make a phone call to Miss Landlady and kindly let her know. Seriously, home ownership is overrated. (You heard it here, all my NYC rent stabilized friends.)
• Bacon. I’m having an extramarital affair with bacon. Probably because people here put it in EVERYTHING. Seriously, I’ve had Benton’s bacon cornbread, bacon scones, bacon mashed potatoes, bacon wrapped bacon… it’s a bit scandalous. Shhh….
• My friends. Who check in on me often enough to feel they haven’t forgotten all about me just yet. I am going through a lonely phase down here, with no one to meet for coffee or pals to have GF date nights with. I know it will happen but right now I’m grateful for all the check-ins to make sure I’m staying sane, aren’t eating my weight in bacon, and haven’t converted over to mom jeans.(Sort of, maybe a little, not a chance in hell… in that order.)
• For not having been in Westchester during Hurricane Sandy. On a serious note, seeing the destruction caused by this bitchy storm has me dumbfounded and feeling so helpless this far away. But I’m also incredibly thankful my family wasn’t put out, and no one was injured, and our house survived. And for everyone who suffered damage and loss and inconveniences, I’m so sad, and I hope that your recovery is speedy and that you and your family are safe and warm this holiday season.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! What are you thankful for this year? Please share your words of wisdom, here! 

Where’s the normal?

North Carolina State Fair. Oh, how I wanted to love you. Over the last two weeks, every person we’d come in contact with here in North Carolina (cashiers, pediatric nurse, waitresses, salesgirl at Restoration Hardware) asked us the same question – “Ya’ll goin’ to the Fair? It’s a good time, you should definitely check it out.”

So we did! Because people told us to. Lesson learned? Don’t do something just because a waitress tells you to.

Some takeaways from the Fair:

• Deep frying is the new slow cooking. What, you didn’t get the memo? It’s no longer enough to just enjoy a slice of pizza. It’s time to deep fry that pie, ya’ll! And burgers? They’ve lost their place on the protein pyramid… now they fall in dessert territory, when sandwiched between two Krispy Kreme glazed donuts! Gluttons rejoice! As if that weren’t enough, we witnessed fried Girl Scout Cookies, fried Kool Aid, fried butter, fried cheesecake, and fried coke. And that was in the first five minutes.

The Girl Scouts of America must be so proud.

• Full sets of teeth are not necessary or even expected. In fact, it seems to be a badge of dirty south honor to have a front tooth missing.
• Nascar  t-shirts come in all shapes. And sizes. ALL sizes.
• Obesity is relative. One large woman, squeezed into a Rascal scooter, chowing down on a monster sized turkey leg could look terribly obese. Until she passes the gentleman drinking his fried food through a straw.
• Toddlers will ALWAYS choose the ride you want to throw up from just looking at. You know the one that jolts you around in a monster truck you can barely fit your legs into, with zero suspension, leaving you crippled for 2 weeks?

He can’t feel his legs.

• I don’t think they’re showing that 47 percent video on the news down in these parts. Because the 47 percent were all rockin’ Romney stickers.
• Candy apples are a reasonable indulgence… once every decade. Any more than that and you’ll become a member of bullet point #2.

Maybe this is the snobbish New Yorker in me. I’m guessing if New York had a state fair somewhere near Albany or Buffalo, attendees would stand out too. In fact, hubby and I found ourselves wandering through the Fair, pointing out the people who looked “normal” to us. Isn’t that something? Coming from a metropolis, to feeling like the outsider for being “normal,” whatever that means. THAT is a strange feeling.

I want to state for the record, for all my friends and followers who are fearful that I’m going to turn into a southern hick, or who are using me as a test subject as they also consider moving outside of New York… I hope this didn’t scare you off. The State Fair isn’t the best representation of the Triangle area. In fact, it’s not a representation of it at all. Where I live is not exactly pig race territory, and the sophistication/education levels in these parts is pretty high, it seems. Let’s just say this will be my first — and last — State Fair visit…