A whirlwind photo tour of the last two weeks

Saturday, July 14th:

Anne and I had a full out girly sleepover, complete with SIX girly movies watched, and popcorn made on the stove.

Here you can see our nest: an inflatable bed nestled within an L-shaped couch. We gave ourselves pedicures, and invented new margarita flavors. Blackberry margaritas made from frozen blackberries = awesome, until you get to the bottom and start swallowing seeds.

Sunday, July 15th:

While waiting to be picked up by Matt and Nathan, I took pictures of the landscaping around Anne's totally sweet apartment.

More awesome flowers.

No trip to Milwaukee is complete anymore without stopping at the gas station zoo. This rooster was thoroughly confused and crowing around lunch time.

This was bought at the gas station zoo. When you push his stomach, he lets out a very long maniacal laugh. That and his plastic face make this perhaps the creepiest keychain I've ever seen in my life.

The first of two weeks of Brewers games, this is Anne's brother, Nathan. Or as DS still lovingly calls him after I spent Easter with Anne's family, Jerk-athan. I inadvertently made his most favorite dessert of all time, made from scratch lemon bars. He was in heaven.

This was completely unacceptable. Aside from the fact that this is a Boston Red Sox hat, which in my house is treason on it's own, its a PINK Red Sox BEANIE that's much too small for his head. It just flopped around through the whole game. I wanted to shove it in his nachos. I have issues with team paraphernalia that's not in team colors.

Anne is in love with Prince Fielder. We call him her MLB boyfriend.

Wednesday, July 18th:

At the last weekly movie night, where DS, Matt, Dave, me, and now Gloria meet up at Anne's to watch either a movie or a tv series (past shows: Battlestar Galactica and Firefly), we noticed something crawling over the neighbor's roof. Sure enough, it was five raccoons coming out of the vent in the roof. Only Jesse could fully appreciate how funny this is.

Friday, July 20th:

I took this picture when I found my cats sleeping, Felix with her leg over Winston. I was inspired by how much they love each other. Of course, mid-shot they start to wake up, and instead I get Felix yawning, but looking like she's going to eat me. Kinda cool, but not the loving shot I was going for.

DS and I found a "hiking trail" while at Lindsey's wedding reception. It was really just a mowed path around a bunch of corn fields, but I did manage to take some pretty awesome shots as the sun was setting. This one is my favorite.

Saturday, July 21st:

We're on our way to the annual company picnic at Devil's Lake, also know as the "Epicnic". (pronounced epic-nic; they're so clever...) Matt, Gloria and I squished in the back seat of DS's car, while I attempted to have a picture of Matt giving a real smile. Obviously, it didn't work out too well.

This is Gloria. You haven't met her yet, mostly because I've only recently met her myself. The whole past year I've been at my new job, she's been working from Sweden. SWEDEN! But now she's back, and she's Anne's good friend, and now I know that I love her. Here, she's eating steak and lobster at the picnic, and has wrapped her neverending napkin around her like a scarf. She has style!

DS climbed the "impossible" climbing wall, winning himself a free $20. He was only the second person to do it that day.

Don't Anne and Gloria look so happy in this picture? The crowd behind them is for the annual tug o'war competition, for which we missed our turn while watching DS climb. We didn't really mind.

After the picnic, we explored Parfrey's Glen, Wisconsin's very first Nature Reserve. I love how Matt looks like a giant in this photo.

Sunday, July 22nd:

Anne, beautiful as she is, is merely posing as a diversion for the real subject of the photo: the man in the background and his amazing beard. Brewers' games are always exciting, more so when you go back to back Sundays.

Everyone knows the best part of a Brewers game is the sausage race. On Sundays, they do a relay with the "little weenies". DS laughed a long time over this. He's very mature.

Exhausted from a fun-filled weekend, even the conclusion of Harry Potter couldn't keep me awake.

harry harry harry harry

I have about 150 pages to go in book 7. It's mesmerizing. DS keeps asking me what I'm laughing about, or exclaiming about, or generally making a rucous about, and I keep telling him to start from book 1 and catch up. He doesn't like that.

On the plus side, a conversation about the movies led him to tell me that the first movie came out around the same time as the Fellowship of the Ring, and that he had decided the Harry Potter movie was much better. He actually said he was BORED through Lord of the Rings. I know what you're thinking, this isn't a plus side. It's cool, I'm getting to it. Somehow, me telling him how at length how much more amazing book 5 was on paper made him decide that Lord of the Rings might be worth reading. Huzzah! I'll make a proper nerd of him yet.

In other news, I have been up to my ears in social outings. At any other time, this would be way more totally awesome, but right now, it's somewhat stressful. I'm starting to have little panic attacks when I see the large stack of empty, unpacked boxes. So much stuff is still not packed up, and I'm not entirely sure when I'll find time to get to it all. Plus, we have a deadline at work, and it's looking like I'm going to be working 60+ hours this week. *shudder*

So yeah, I'm scarce at the moment. But I do have like 80 pictures on my camera from all this time. Slumber parties, multiple baseball games, company picnic, wedding receptions... lots of stuff. Hopefully, I'll find time to mess with uploading them soon.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an obsession to attend to so I can move on to the other things I need to get done.

Life Returns

I don't know if it's the summer heat, vacations, or what, but blogging life has been boring this summer. Every day without fail, I check everyone's blogs to see who's updated, and am usually sad to see mostly no one.

So it is with great pleasure that I announce the return of two of my favorite bloggers. (To be fully honest, Julienned Carrots has been back for a while, but I'm slow. Check Engine Soon, whom I'm sure you're recognize, is fairly recent.) Hooray! More ways to pass away the time and avoid packing!

So now find their links over there on the right and go! (Janelle, I'm talking to you in particular, just in case you've missed it.)

Happy Birthday !!

Today my blog is exactly 2 years and 1 month old, and this is my 400th post. (Don't pay attention to the post on 6/1.. that was a more recent one that I backdated so it wouldn't show up, as it's linked from the main page.)

Blogging has had it's ups and downs for me. For one, it's harder to escape the negative influences, as they can easily stalk me here. But, I've made so many wonderful friends, several of whom I've actually had the pleasure of meeting or corresponding with offline. These people have been a blessing, and they make the downs well worth it.

And now, because I don't yet feel like unloading the various pictures on my camera from the last 2 weeks, here's a meme from Gimchi.

The Rules are:

* We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
* Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
* People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
* At the end of your blog post, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
* Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.


1) I am an obsessive pack rat, and still have every single letter, card, and note I've ever received/taken.
2) It scares me to read stories about people with OCD, because I see pieces of myself in them and worry one day I'll fall off the edge of sanity.
3) Ever since elementary school, I've had the odd habit of rubbing my nails across the skin near my mouth and then smelling them and taking comfort.
4) I will also occasionally do this with the erasers on top of pencils, but seeing as how I mostly use pens now unless doing a crossword puzzle, this is more rare. I prefer the white erasers
5) I will only use checks, stamps, and pencils that decorated and not plain. For example, right now I have Care Bears checks, Star Wars stamps, and Powerpuff Girl pencils. I believe this makes the little things in life more enjoyable.
6) When I was a child, I fully believed I had power over the rain, which was fueled by the several times I managed to get the rain to stop and start again simply by thinking about it. Sometimes, I still think I can do this, but age brings the awful wings of doubt.
7) I often see things out of the corners of my eyes, and I'm sure they're ghosts or some other being generally thought to be imagined.
8) Despite the dismal failure of my last round of ornaments, I still dream of selling the things I make and being successful enough to do it full time.

I don't feel like tagging people either. But feel free to do it yourself.

Thanks to my loyal readers for two great years!

Whoa

Okay okay!! You've asked for a review, and you shall have one. IT WAS SO GREAT!!!

There were a couple of places where it was so corny DS and I groaned. But overall, it was so great, that I'm willing to overlook those spots. I mean, they really couldn't have made the robot fighting any more awesome looking. It looked so real! *sigh* Just great.

I fully recommend that you watch it. And don't forget to stay for the credits. There are two funny parts, and one very important part that hints at a sequel....

Robots in Disguise

I hope you all know how important this day is. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow can suck it. (Though Matt and I are going to have a nerd party [read: watching star trek], and then DS and I are throwing a small video game/cookout party.)

No no. Today is much more significant, because it is the opening day of the new Transformers movie. And you can bet that DS and I are going. And it will be so totally wicked awesome. I've been trying to mimic the noise they make when they transform for days, and DS assures me that by no stretch of the imagination do they sound like that...

Oh man, I'm so excited!