Martha Stewart Show Live and My Bday

Going to be bombing my blog with photos today (also might possibly be my longest entry ever). :D I'm pretty backed up with this, but I did want to get them up eventually! I'll go a little backwards and start off with last Wed, April 11th when I got tickets to see Martha Stewart live! This will be the final season, so I'm glad I got to go! Then I'll follow with a few birthday pictures from March 24th.

How the day went:

1. Got on line around 7:40 AM.
2. Went in at 8:21 AM to a waiting area. Here I am holding my ticket (which apparently still doesn't guarantee seating).

3. The crowd warmer (which was pretty good btw) came in and woke us all up! He gave $1 to the few miserable looking men accompanying their wives and gfs (my bf didn't get one, but he was looking way too chipper for something most men dread so early in the morning). lol
4. They called people in by a certain priority seating that we have no clue how it was arranged. Some people had numbers and letters written on their tickets. I had the yellow line and was the second to last group (last being no highlighting) to go in.
5. We walk upstairs to the studio and my oh my was it pretty! I would love to have the set in my house one day! lol

6. We were seated in the front row in the aisle seats. The people in front of us are special guests and sponsors from the best of my knowledge.
7. We had to put away our cameras and in my case, my cell phone, as the show was about to start. Let me tell you, a live show is absolute chaos! What a crazy environment to work in. It was our first time at any taping, so I don't know if it was that or something else but we were EXHAUSTED. We had to keep looking for cues to ohh and ahh, clap/cheer/woooo, mmmm, and laugh. We were so overstimulated and were working so hard that I felt like I missed most of the show! lol -- I can't even tell you who was on there! :X In fact, it was live so I can't even figure out how to watch it as a rerun. -- It's like I was asking for a break when they went to commercial, but you get just the opposite. They try to pump you up some more instead. There was a lot more clapping added with loud music and occasionally they would give out random prizes to audience members if you outdid other people in your cheering.
8. The hour flew by and quickly the show came to an end. There was an audience Q&A session with Martha Stewart. Let me add here that before I attended the show, I did a ton of blog research by reading other people's experiences. More often than not, I read that she was cold and didn't acknowledge the audience. It might be because I've been living in NYC all of my life and are used to the professional demeanor of white collar society, but I felt that she was not cold in any way and acted very professionally (on the other hand, I am constantly wowed by the generosity and friendliness of people when I visit other places). She has a lot on her mind while filming because they're constantly bombarding her with cue cards and talking about the next segment. I think that just because she didn't jump right out and say hi to everyone, it doesn't mean she doesn't care that you're there. This is not to say that I think she's the greatest person in the world especially after her legal troubles in the past (but I still love many of her products).

They aren't the best quality, but hey my phone was better than nothing.
9. Watched her do promos for future episodes.
10. Grabbed our sponsored gifts while walking out--a book, Sargento cheese coupons and insulated tote.

My bf, Dmitriy, was soooooo tired after. I was still as excited as ever. lol Then we walked over to Chelsea Markets to grab lunch and a lot of bad stuff. :)
----------------Now my birthday----------------
I had a small dinner at home. I set up the table with flowers from my yard and all of the fallen petals from the magnolia tree in the back. I have to say, it came out looking quite nice and oddly, romantic.

It's amazing what a dollar table cover and some flowers can do for the atmosphere!

This is the green tea cake my boyfriend made for me. :)))

This picture is of me with my brother. Our kitchen is very tight as is common for most of NYC. Yes, that is a glove dangling on the fridge. I use a strong magnet to hold it up to dry. lol

These are 2 of my favorite people right next to me. The 3 girls on the ends are Jenny's, left of me, triplet sisters! They are juniors in high school now and I can't believe they are so grown up now! We refer to them as ABC as they are named Amy, Becky, and Cathy accordingly. 

I rarely get to catch up with people and their busy lives, so I definitely couldn't have asked for more. I also want to thank Karen for the lovely potted flowers (does anyone know what they are? I can't believe they didn't leave a sticker or anything anywhere!). So here's a picture of the flowers to finish off the post! :)

Off to water my plants as it is a rare high of 86 and really hot for our standards!