my so called life

Bailey is O N E!

2012-02-09T21:58:00.000-06:00

Kevin is gooooneeee

2011-12-15T18:32:00.000-06:00

So my favorite Twin is now my favorite Rockie.
This makes me sad.
Before the trade.....seriously like probably when the deal was being made, my friend wrote me a cute little poem about me and my kevin... made me laugh.

My friend Christy has a crush on a guy named Kevin
If she could date him she would be in heaven
He is a starting pitcher for the Minnesota Twins
Last year they put him in the bullpen because he wasn't getting wins
Christy was afraid they would trade him away
But it sounds like Terry Ryan may have saved the day
See Terry seems to think that Kevin should be a starter
As far as Christy is concerned Terry couldn't be any smarter
So it sounds like Kevin may be staying right here
Now Christy will enjoy many trips to Target Field and an ice cold beer
If in the nude she did see Kevin Slowey
I believe Christy would yell HOLY MOLY!

Gonna miss me some serious Kevin Slowey. there is always inner-league play i guess... maybe some trips to Milwaukee...

Brooke, Joe and Mateo!!

2011-12-14T08:47:00.001-06:00

Haley is THREE!

2011-12-04T19:47:00.000-06:00

Chase Christopher Newborn

2011-12-01T07:32:00.001-06:00

Chase is adorable!! He's by far the most awake newborn I've ever photoed! I just love the photo above of him sticking his tongue out!!! Such a cutie!

Mauri!

2011-10-19T19:53:00.000-05:00

I've been taking photos of Mauri for almost 10 years now... She's decided recently that she wants to become a model. Of course I was very excited to take photos for her to help her along the way. I just LOVE the way these photos turned out. we had the perfect night, with the perfect light.... Amazing photos of an amazing girl! I can't wait till she's a big star!

Wendy, Jason, Jack & William

2011-09-05T20:51:00.001-05:00

kevin?!!? BACK?!

2011-08-11T12:42:00.000-05:00

it's been a while. funny i come back and i have the same subject in mind! i read this today, and couldn't be happier!!!!!!!!!!

:`(

2011-05-26T08:45:00.000-05:00

I know it's only rumors at this point... but all signs point to my man, Kevin Slowey, being traded... Monday night I was watching the Twins game on TV (after leaving in the 5th inning because it was getting to be after my niece's bed time). They point the camera to the bullpen and they catch Kevin doing something I do 20+ times a day.. Something that everyone on the team has done, they just didn't have the camera pointing at them when they did it. No I'm not talking about picking their nose (I think I've seen Carl Pavano do this 100 times)... No, he wasn't cussing anyone out ... he YAWNED. I thought to myself "well that sucks the camera was on him when he did that.." but didn't think much more of it....until....
I'm watching the KSTP evening news, and Joe shows the clip of Kevin yawning talking about how this is the last straw and he's going to be traded away.
I was so mad at Joe for saying such a thing... Yesterday I decided to google "kevin slowey yawn" and I came up with this article.... I can't believe what I'm reading... After meeting Kevin last year, I just don't understand all this craziness going on around him. He was the nicest Twins player we met, BY FAR! He was so conversational, he talked with Ryan and I for a good five minutes... I was thinking since he just got out of a not so good game against the Braves, he'd not have been in the best mood, or even be there at all... But he was there, he wanted to talk to and meet the fans that were at casino night.. Talking to him was like talking to someone I've known for-ev-er. It was so easy. So normal. After meeting him last year, and what an amazing first impression I had on him, I started to notice more videos of him and other Twins players. Kevin was always joking around, being funny, just being a normal guy... Just from being in high school we all know the guys who played baseball, hockey, basketball, football...they had a certain arrogance about them. But there was always one guy on the team that was down to earth, friendly and very likable... and on the MN Twins, that person was Kevin Slowey. When Kevin, Ryan and I were talking, Kevin was telling us that he's just like me and Ryan, he puts his pants on one leg at a time... What pro athlete have you heard say that?? SERIOUSLY?!
Now today I read that Kevin is on the 15 day disabled list...and when he comes back he will not be in the BP.... you know what this means? It means he's starting. And as of right now, there isn't anyplace to put him in the starting roll on the Twins lineup... which means he's either goint to AAA or, being traded....or going to AAA to be traded... none of it adds up to me seeing my favorite Twins player in a Twins uniform ever again :( this makes me soooo sad.
But, wherever he lands, I will always and forever be a Kevin Slowey fan. He's won me over for life.

is it me?

2011-05-20T10:02:00.000-05:00

Is it me, or does Scott Baker look like Fire Marshall Bill in this picture??

punch...

2011-05-13T16:16:00.001-05:00

I don't know if you know, but I went to school for graphic design. An ugly menu, or other printed docs with dumb fonts, with too many fonts...they all drive me right up the wall.

I am heading out to happy hour after work today... going to a place I haven't been before. I always like to check out the menu, because I'm usually too ADD to figure it out when I'm sitting down chatting it up with friends... Anyway, the header font used in this menu makes me want to punch the computer.

http://www.chiantigrill.com/documents/RVDinnerMenu.pdf

The different widths of the letters... uuughhh.... then they even put it in italics and the widths change more there! uuughhhh. It is almost enough to make me not want to go there. BUT, I've got a gift certificate, so I will go there and drink enough that the menu font does not drive me crazy. Hopefully I won't punch the waiter for it.

stress...

2011-04-20T08:27:00.001-05:00

I laughed last night when Holly Holliday on Glee said that she used to send hate mail to Tiffany (or was it Debbie Gibson?). Tiffany (or Debbie) then wrote back to her saying the stress of the hate mail was causing her to get Alopecia.

So today, I went looking. and here is what I found. I was thinking it was just something that happened to me out of dumb/bad luck.

Alopecia areata. A variety of factors are thought to cause alopecia areata, possibly including severe stress. With alopecia areata, white blood cells attack the hair follicle, stopping hair growth and making hair fall out.

I am hoping when my coworker is back from maternity leave, my stress levels will plummet.

what ails me.

2011-04-15T13:58:00.000-05:00

I may have stated this already here, but since the time change (well over a month ago) I've been having one heck of a time trying to fall asleep at night. For that first week, I just blew it off b/c of the time change. But after a few weeks of not falling to sleep until WELL after my bed time (sometimes around 2am!!) I decided I needed to head to the Dr. I've in the past had Lunesta prescribed to me... but... I have to pay every penny of my prescriptions until I hit my $1050 deductible (until last years surgery, I have never come close to hitting a deductible in one year!!). The Lunesta pills do not have a generic yet, and they are like $7 per pill... So I needed to get something different. I called the Dr hoping to have them call in a prescription since I've had sleeping issues in the past, but they said no, you must come in. I didn't make an appointment at that time, I thought I'd wait to see if I can get adjusted myself with the over the counter sleep aids I've been using.

About a week and a half ago I was getting out of the shower, and about to comb my wet hair... I noticed that I could see my scalp where my bangs started, I thought I don't remember it ever being that way before... I just shrugged it off and kinda forgot about it until the next day when I saw it again. A few days after that I noticed that about a half an inch back from my hair line I had this strange bald area... It is about an inch long and probably a quarter of an inch wide. I thought now that is SUPER strange. Again I shrugged it off... but each day seeing it again and again it started really bothering me. I showed it to my parents on Monday night, and they thought it was strange too. I talked to a couple of my hair stylist friends and asked them their take on it.... I forwarded a photo of it to my friend Ashley who told me that I should get in to see the Dr. So I called my Dr for a second time in a week.... this time I set an appointment.

Went in on Tuesday, and she prescribed me some medicine to help me sleep that wouldn't break the bank(YEAY!)... She also told me that I needed to see my dermatologist because she suspects my hair loss is Alopecia. I am so thankful that I have a friend that works at my dermatologist because I called her right away after seeing my Dr, and she was able to get me in the next day (had I not had my 'in' it would have been a month or two before I could see anyone!).

Went in on Wednesday and the derm confirmed what my Dr said, that I've got Alopecia Areata. She says it happens to a lot of people, that it may be the only hair I lose, but I may lose more in other places on my scalp. She said it's possible I could lose all of my hair but she said that it's more likely that I will only have little spots like the one that I currently have. She looked for other spots, but couldn't find any (THANK GOD). She also told me that it could have something to do with my thyroid, so she wanted to do blood work to rule that out.

Today I went to the pharmacy and filled my two prescriptions... soon I will be sleeping like a baby and growing hair in my "bald" spot.

Lent

2011-04-06T13:27:00.000-05:00

Though I am not Catholic every lent I try to give something up... I think of the sacrifices that He made for me, and realize I can go without _________ for Lent. The last few years I've done the same thing over and over, which is to give up SHOPPING. I'm addicted. I love buying new things. New clothes. New movies. New video games. New beads. New organizational tools. New whatever-the-heck-tickles-my-fancy. Typically I do well each year... The tough thing is Lent usually falls during the time that the government has to give me back my over paid taxes. The money burns a hole in my pocket... But I can typically do it.
This year in addition to giving up shopping (and by shopping I mean buying things I don't need, I can still buy food, gas and so on) I gave up fast food. Why? Because right before lent I realized I was going to Mc Donalds for breakfast almost on a daily basis... and go somewhere for lunch too. I figured this would be another good way to save money.
Well, guess who blew the whole giving up shopping/fast food for lent right out of the water?!? THIS GIRL. I did pretty well... I decided buying Twins tickets was okay. It's not shopping, and well, it's the Twins. If we learned anything by last years season (excluding the post season) it is that God is a Twins fan. How else would we only have one and a half weather postponed games the first year of Target Field???
Last week I called upon a client of mine whose family is in the shoe repair business. I've got this pair of boots that I LOVE. They are my favorite pair of boots. They are high heel, black knee high boots with pointy toes. I've got big feet, and try to stay away from the pointy toe shoes, but these boots were designed for me. They somehow make my feet look SMALLER. Anyway, last week I noticed that little nubby thing that is at the end of the heel was gone, and in its place was a little nail... I called my client, who told me he'd pick my boots up and let me know if it's worth fixing.... Well, he took them last Friday... I think I'll have them back in the next day or two, I can hardly wait. So yesterday, I dug out these other pair of heels I have. They are super cute, but I forget each time I wear them that they HURT. By lunch yesterday I couldn't take it any longer.... I went over to payless and bought me a new pair of patent leather pumps. They are super cute... I had them on for about an hour before I got my first compliment on them!! So there you are. I purchased something... something I didn't necessarily need...
So, fast forward to this morning... I got up a little early as I needed to do some tidying up around my place... and still I somehow ended up in my car 10 min earlier than I typically leave work. I was going to be 20 min early to work... and McDonalds was calling my name. I figured, I already bought shoes yesterday, so what is one McDonalds breakfast? I had cash....and it only costs $2.14 for what I get... So I did it.
Which only started a snowball effect. Lunch, I had a $2 sub at Subway... and since I had so much fun trying on shoes yesterday I went over to Famous Footwear (though I didn't buy any shoes today).... I decided since I still had 20 min, I'd go across the mall to Marshals to see if they have any Twins jackets... I need some Twins outer wear as I have a feeling this Saturday's evening game will be a chilly one. Yup they had one. And it's super cute... great deal $29.99... so I bought it.
So there you go people. Jesus sacrifices himself for me, and I can't go through Lent sacrificing shopping and fast food for him. Sad :(
I think he will forgive me though. I've for sure changed my spending patterns. And I plan to continue that here out.

womans department

2011-04-05T13:25:00.000-05:00

So even though I gave up shopping for Lent... Today I was wanting to shop. So I did some "window shopping". I walked into JCP through the mall entrance today and saw this cute purple/white blouse... I looove purple, so I thought I'd try some clothes on (after all as long as I don't buy it, I'm still not SHOPPING). I picked up a few other cute tops, just because and headed for the fitting room.
Now I know why I don't shop in the women's department (I think I'm still young enough that I can pull of the clothing in the junior's department). The first blouse I tried on was the purple and white one... You can't really see it in that photo, but it's got a fabric belt thingy, and it also has a white tank top to wear under the top. The belt was wrapped around the blouse 2 times, and in a very strange fashion... It took me about 5 minutes (no joke) to get it untied, then unwrapped so that I was able to fit into the blouse (you know when they tie those things up that someone that is a size 0 couldn't get into it)... Once I finally got that undone I was trying to put the shirt on... I got it on but something felt weird... I had put my head through the hole in the tank top... how I managed that is beyond me... Took the shirt back off, and ended up having to detach the tank top in order to figure the thing out. It was like some sort of maze... though at the end of a maze you come out with a feeling of pride, feeling like you've accomplished something. When I got this shirt on, I didn't feel either of these two things, what I felt like was a fat queen. While I am not a big girl, I am also not skinny... I'm average. I like my body just fine, but you have to have the right clothes in order to make me look as good as I feel. Apparently I will not find that in the woman's department... Shirt after shirt made me look frumpy as hell. Good thing, because I surely didn't buy anything!!!!!!!!!

mysmstxt

2011-04-05T13:07:00.000-05:00

So I have been really really close with the folks at Verizon Wireless these days.

When I first started out with a phone, I got mine through Capitol One, my credit card company. Why? I don’t know, they offered one to me and I took them up on it. They were soon bought out, and I was suddenly a Sprint customer. I was with them for a handful of years until I was looking at doing a family plan with my now ex… He at the time was with T-Mobile. We were both at a month by month contract, so we figured we’d see if T-Mobile or Sprint would get us the better deal and a new rzr phone. In both cases, both companies would give the person who has been with them would get a free phone, but not the person joining… Neither would budge. So, we left our companies and joined the Verizon network…this worked out well as his family lived in GA, and neither of our phones worked when going to visit them. Verizon worked EVERYWHERE!! PLUS, we both got a free phone!

I remember having Sprint and having sooo many problems.. my phone randomly turning off and not turning on, weird ‘syntax’ errors… and they wouldn’t help me at all. I’d go in stand in line for a half an hour to tell them what was wrong and they’d tell me there was not a thing they could do about it unless it happened while I was in the office. It was so frustrating…

Anyway, it’s been awesome since I’ve moved to Verizon. No problems. Until recently. I’ve had spotty problems using my internet on the phone… it’s just been for a few hours at a time… It’s annoying, but something I can live with. I called them both times, and both times they said they were aware of the problem, it’s an outage. The more recent time I called them I asked why it was my bill went down by $10 recently.

In October I got a new phone. With this phone I had to get a data package, something I haven’t had to do in the past. Getting my next bill, I saw the data package listed there. I was now paying $90 per month. Suddenly in February my bill went down $10. I kept meaning to call and ask what was up, and just never did, until I called about these outages I’ve been having. They told me that I had opted in to some premium texting. I said no, no I didn’t… They told me that it is something that I could automatically be opted in for, not knowing. Having gone paperless, I wasn’t reading my online bill so close as to scroll all the way to the bottom (after all the listed calls for the month)where it said something about mytxtsms.com $9.99…. It was totally hidden waaaaay down there. After thinking about it I do remember getting weird random texts, after each time I’d text STOP, hoping they’d stop coming. FINALLY it worked, which must be when they stopped charging me $9.99.

Verizon was super nice about it, they are crediting my account for 2 months… not the entire 4 months that I was charged, but it’s nice they are doing SOMETHING for me…

I just don’t get how this can be legal… how can someone be auto opted into something that will cost them $9.99 a month?! I was a little annoyed at Verizon too for it to be SO hidden within my bill. I’ll be doing some more investigation into this to see if I can’t get all my money back… we will see what happens.

It's so close, I can almost hear the crack of the bat!!!!!!!

2011-03-22T08:43:00.000-05:00

So this morning I woke up to THUNDER!!! This made me smile, I loooovvvee thunderstorms... this was the first of the year, which is another sign that the baseball season is ALMOST HERE!
Also this morning I decided to stop by the gas station that's on my way to work to get a Mello Yello and chocolate frosted donut... mmm... breakfast of champions, ya know?! Right when I walked in, I looked up and there was my Kevin Slowey look-a-like. Last time I saw him I had to do a double take. Then I thought for hours after that, why didn't I say something to him... Well today I looked at him and thought that he does kinda look like him in the face, but he's a lot bigger than Kevin. Anyway, again, I said nothing to the guy. I wonder though, does anyone else think he looks like Kevin? Has anyone said that to him??
Onto more baseball notes; single game tickets went on sale on last Saturday. I bought tickets to four games. I got the day after home opener vs. the A's. I am super annoyed that for the past two years the Twins have put their home opener on a week day during regular business hours. I've gone to home opener every year for years until they moved to Target Field. Boo. Anyway, I've also got tickets to the April 23rd game against the Indians (super excited to sit in the PowerBall Pavilion for this game). Next game isn't until the end of May vs the Angels (sitting in row 1 for this game!!), and finally 2 weeks later the Twins and Rangers game (another front row game!). I'm sure I'll be going to more than just these games, but this is all I've got so far. Only 18 more days till my first 2011 game at Target Field! Yippee!! I'm sure that this year is going to be just as memorable as the inaugural season!!

Dear Kevin, KEEP IT UP! Love, Christy

2011-03-15T10:50:00.001-05:00

Keep up the good work Kevin!!
I was super excited to see this! I guess I hadn't been paying close enough attention to see that Kevin is going against Scotty B... I was thinking it was Kevin and Nicky B... I apparently haven't been paying that close of attention.
I saw too that yesterday's game was on FSN! First game of the year on TV and Kevin pitched a great game! WOOHOO!

Nevin is 9 Months!

2011-03-14T18:32:00.000-05:00

Nevin was over a couple weeks back and here are some of my favorite shots!

Bizarro

2011-02-26T23:28:00.000-06:00

I love this comic. I'm so excited I found this blog...
It's such a weird view of the world... and it makes me laugh!
I left a comment on the blog, telling him my favorite comic of his. In high school I read this comic and I cried I laughed so hard. It made no sense, but it was the funnies thing I'd read. And to this day, when I see it I laugh out loud. Though I've shown it to many o folks, no one gets the same kick out of it as I do... anyway... here it is. And if you want to chuckle, thats a great blog to hit up!

another new BLOG?!

2011-02-26T23:17:00.000-06:00

I've started another blog to archive the things I create! This is where you can find it!!

Creamy Baked Ziti

2011-02-26T21:41:00.001-06:00

Made February's new dish on Tuesday. Brenda came over to share it with me. It was DELISH!! I highly recommend! See the recipe below!

What You Need

4 cups ziti pasta, uncooked

1 jar (26 oz.) marinara sauce

1 can (14-1/2 oz.) diced tomatoes, undrained

6 oz. (3/4 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed

3/4 cup BREAKSTONE'S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream

1 pkg. (8 oz.) KRAFT Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

1/3 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese
(I added italian sausage too!)

Make It

HEAT oven to 375ºF.

COOK pasta in large saucepan as directed on package, omitting salt. Remove from pan; drain. Meanwhile, add marinara sauce, tomatoes and cream cheese to same pan; cook on medium heat 5 min. or until cream cheese is melted and mixture is well blended, stirring frequently. Return pasta to pan; mix well.

LAYER half the pasta mixture in 13x9-inch baking dish; cover with layers of sour cream, 1 cup mozzarella and remaining pasta mixture. Top with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan.

BAKE 20 min. or until heated through.

I miss baseball

2011-02-22T11:30:00.000-06:00

I think it's worse this year than any other year. Last year at this time we were all excited because we got to go to a new stadium. That made it hard to wait for Opening Day... But this year. This year I know how awesome our stadium is. I know what it's like to go to an afternoon game in the sun. I even know what it's like to go to a game in the drizzle! It makes it so much harder to wait for the first crack of the bat. I'm jealous of everyone in Ft Myers getting to enjoy it now... I've never really been too interested in hitting up spring training till this year. I miss baseball, I miss my Twins and I miss that awesome food they have at Target Field!
And the weather does not help any of this... It took me an hour and a half to get to work today. Average speed 14mp. No joke. It's normally a 40 min drive!!
Anyway... This is my favorite game day photo from last year. I love it. Kevin is pitching against the White Sux and the lighting on field and on the skyline is PERFECT. Most of my photos you get either the field or the skyline...

I thought seeing it again would make me feel better. But really, it just makes me more sad that it's still a month and a half away. :(

OMG my niece is TWO!!

2011-02-19T00:49:00.000-06:00

It was a fun and crazy photo session with my niece... But these photos turned out amazing. She's so sweet, soooo stinking cute, and she's growing up SO fast!!

Cutest photo ever.

This is one of my favorite photos, she's so beautiful!!

You can't see it yet, but...

I wonder who gave her that shirt?!!?! "GO TINS" Haley says!

This is the quilt I made for Haley on her 1st birthday. I never got a photo of her with it till now!

Bailey

2011-02-16T19:55:00.000-06:00

I've been home sick the last day and a half... I've got some cold or something. I hate staying home sick its so boring and dumb and it's lonely. So today after taking a lot of cold medicine... taking naps.... drinking oj... eating soup... I decided I needed to do something... So I worked on the photos of baby Bailey. So here they are!

A shout out!

2011-02-11T21:17:00.000-06:00

This one goes out to Red Pen Inc.

I made an invite for my beautiful niece Haley's 2nd birthday (golden birthday, btw). This went out to all her friends and family members... I've got it hanging up at work on my desk b/c I think it's super cute... I leaned back one day while on the phone and looked at it... Something does not look right here! Oh Lord, what have I done?? Talked with Stef, Mom... and they talked to a few people... No one noticed!! I can only imagine it's because the photo is so cute, and everyone knew what it should have read... how EMBARRASSING!!

Getting ready for a Super Bowl party!

2011-02-05T21:38:00.000-06:00

I'm not the biggest fan of football. It's a distant 3rd favorite to baseball (which is followed by basketball)... But what I do love about football is the Super Bowl parties.... I love just hanging out with my friends and eating until we can not move...
About 4 or 5 years ago I decided to try out a new recipe...always a gamble to make something for the first time that you were going to bring to a party...but I went for it... I made this S'mores Peanut Butter Bar recipe. It was a hit. I've been making them every year since. I never go home with any leftovers. Tonight I made a batch for the party tomorrow, and I decided to make some Garlic and Cheese Biscuits also.. I'm not entirely sure I'll be bringing them to the party though..they are sooo good they may be gone before I leave my house tomorrow.
I thought I'd share the recipes for both of the things I'm making tonight!

S'mores Peanut Butter Bars

1 pouch betty crocker peanut butter cookie mix (along with all ingredients needed to make mix)
1 container chocolate frosting
2 cups miniature marshmallows
2 cups golden grams cereal

Heat oven to 350
make cookie dough as directed on pouch. Press dough into ungreased 13x9 inch pan
Bake 16 to 18 minutes or until gold brown around edges
Microwave frosting uncovered on high for 20 seconds. Stir until smooth. Reserve 1/4 cup. Pour remanning frosting over warm bars. Sprinkle marshmallows and cereal over frosting.
Bake 3-5 minutes longer or until marshmallows are puffed.
Cool 15 minutes. Drizzle remaining frosting over bars. Cool completely-about 30 minutes.

Cheddar Biscuits

2 cups biscuit baking mix

1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese

2/3 cup milk

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

2 tablespoons margarine, melted

2 teaspoons dried parsley

1 teaspoon garlic salt

Preheat oven to 400

Grease a cookie sheet or line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, combine baking mix, Cheddar cheese, and garlic powder. Stir in milk. Drop batter by heaping tablespoons onto prepared cookie sheets.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Brush biscuits with melted margarine, and sprinkle with parsley and garlic salt. Bake for 5 more minutes or until lightly browned on the bottom.

I myself used half Cheddar and half Marble Jack... I also used butter, and instead of parsley and garlic salt I used Tastefully Simple's Italian Garlic Bread seasoning. DELISH!

I've been thinking...

2011-02-02T18:01:00.000-06:00

Last week my coworker and I were talking about our time spent as young girls and how irrational we were back then. In conversation we started talking about our diaries that we kept while growing up… how ridiculous we were going one day from being in a huge fight, never wanting to talk to them, the next day they were our BFFs. One day I <3 this boy, the next he’s dirt to me.

This conversation convinced me it was time to go home and dig out those diaries… I’ve been reading them on and off since then. I’ve got my very first diary that started somewhere around 1990, so I was 12…. My biggest concern was that my friends were going to see the New Kids on the Block and I wasn’t (but I would get to go next time according to what I wrote). Everything was “boring” today was “boring” we went to the mall and it was “boring” we went to the science museum and it was “boring” Jenny slept over and it was “boring” apparently at 12, nothing could keep me entertained. This first diary is riddled with misspellings and horrible grammar… Not to mention me quoting Wayne’s world; “I saw Mark today. Sha-wing. If he were a robot, he’d be Robobabe. If he were president he’d be Baberham Lincoln”

I pride myself on having quite the memory. Jenny always laughs at me saying I remember everything… but reading these diaries tells me differently… Some of the guys I had a crush on, I don’t remember…for the life of me! Some of the things I wrote about (waking up in the car on our way home from Duluth and the truck was sliding backwards) I totally don’t remember… However, there are many stories I wrote of that bring things rushing back, I can almost smell the flavor of Bonnie Bell lip smackers I wore (dr pepper, pina colada, pink lemonade, and my favorite STRAWBERRY!) in each entry I made. By the by, thank you Bonnie Bell for starting a lifelong OCD tendency… I’m off the lipsmackers, but can’t stop using aquaphor on my lips!...

Anyway, it brings me to the conclusion that I’m not documenting my life the way I’d like to… It’s so neat to go back and see me progress thru the years (you know from liking a different boy day to day to liking them week by week…. And month by month… up to now :)

So between the journal (I’m all grown up now, it’s not a diary anymore) I’ve been keeping in the recent years (last entry was the day after I met my boys)… and this blog… I’ve got to start writing more about what is going on with my life, so 10 years down the road I can have memories of today flood back to me as I’m doing now with my diaries I kept thru my school years.

26 more days...

2011-01-31T08:58:00.000-06:00

I have to keep repeating this over and over... I wake up to 4 inches of snow, and more to come... Just 26 more days till SPRING TRAINING games start! YEAAAY! TwinsFest was this weekend... and I didn't have tickets.. I did a few things to keep my mind off the fact that I wasn't going to be hanging out with my favorite boys of summer.

If it weren't for Aaron, I'd have been cooped up in my apartment working on quilts all weekend... BUT, Aaron invited me to a Gopher hockey game Friday night... So after work I headed to downtown Minneapolis to meet up with him and head into the U of M. We met up with a couple of his buddies, one of which I met 10 years ago when I dated Aaron's bro. Went to Sally's (which I haven't been to in like 4 years)... I can tell I'm getting old because I kept thinking "dang they are playing their music loud!" We ate, drank and chatted it up before the game. Then headed over to the arena where we watched the Gophers body slam the Alaska Seawolves 5-1.

Since we didn't want to sit in after game traffic, we decided it was time to go back to Sally's (this time the loud music didn't bother me, maybe b/c we were there as "its time to drink" rather than "its time to eat dinner"). Anyway one of the guys went home, the other stayed with Aaron and me. About 20 min into our drinks, I noticed the guy we were with had a zipper that wasn't zipped. Now, had it been the guy I knew going back 10 years, I'd have said something.... But being the guy who I just met...I couldn't do it. I couldn't tell him his zipper was down. But I also couldn't help but keep looking at it....maybe hoping he'd figure it out??? I don't know... I was stuck in a drunken conundrum... Never did say anything to him, and thankfully we sat down not much long after I figured it out...I could no longer see the zipper in question, and soon forgot about it.

Saturday I spent the day quilting up a storm... I had to keep my mind off of the fact that I wasn't at TwinsFest...and what a way to do it... I started quilting at 2, and didn't quit until 10:30... I didn't even eat in that time. I had the quilt almost finished by that time... Just had to sew the strips of fabric together and I'd have my quilt top. But I had to quit as I was meeting up with Aaron again on Sunday morning for brunch.

It was a delicious brunch at Bar Abaline. And bottomless mimosas to boot! I always have fun hanging out with Aaron, he's totally different than most of my other friends (other than his bro, they are two very similar people). It's always interesting to hear his view of me, and our friends. He's very observant, and not in the "she's got purple socks on" kind of way, but the psychological kind of way.

After a few mimosas, headed back home in hopes of finishing up that baby quilt I was so close to finishing... I did it! woohoo!! It's always so gratifying to see the finished product! It's for my co-worker Sarah who just had a baby on Friday... Nothing like waiting till the last minute... But it sure says one thing about me...Works well under pressure!!

Anyhow, hope you all had a nice weekend. I've got another exciting one planned for next weekend... Going to be working on the other baby quilt for another friend... Plus, going to do some ceramics on Saturday with Shelly... oh, and going to a party on Sunday. Something about a football game??!!??? IDK, but I'm counting down the days to spring training...

(GO STEELERS!)

my hair...slow riiiiideee

2011-01-26T19:43:00.000-06:00

I’ve got long hair. Longest I’ve ever had in my life. I’ve many times tried to grow out my hair though out the years… But I’d get to this point, just a little past my shoulders, and I swore it wouldn’t grow any longer than that.

On my way to my garage this morning my neighbor and I met in the hallway. She said to me “Your hair is sooo long” I am getting this a lot lately. My neighbor and I don’t hang out. We don’t go way back. It’s not like she knows my hair has been growing growing growing. So her saying “your hair is soooo long” was nothing more than an observation. I never know what to say when people say that to me. I’ve said “thanks” in the past, but it really does not fit. Like I said, it was an observation they made, not a compliment. This time I said “I know!” I mean what is the right thing to say? I added “I just can’t part with it and get it cut!”

Recently, about 2 months ago, I wanted it gone. It drove me crazy for a few weeks… I got up one Saturday morning and cut my hair so I had bangs. I liked it. It made me feel better about my long hair. It was something different, without cutting my hair off. I knew if I went ahead and cut my hair that day to the length that I once thought my hair wouldn’t grow past, I’d regret it.

I’ve had my bangs trimmed once since then, and they are at a point where I need them trimmed again… I can’t do that, I can’t get my bangs trimmed once a month. Too much work. So my bangs that once hang straight down are now parting to my right. I’ve got swoop bangs again. For now. I’ve been watching Friends and I am loving Rachel’s hair. Not the Rachel cut that was so popular at the beginning of their series, but Rachel in season 6… long hair, no bangs… I want that!

On a completely different note, I’m on some sort of Kevin Slowey wavelength. Two nights ago I had a very long and involved dream starring Mr Slowey himself. Whenever I take melatonin to help me sleep I always have weird and vivid dreams. Kevin and I were all over the place. I met up with him at a mall where he and Joe Mauer were practicing in a bullpen which was in a store at this mall. From there he and I went to church (where I lost him for a minute, but found him having changed from his uni to a blue button down shirt with a red tie)… then we were in a car on the way to his friends house, but when we got there we found out it had been foreclosed on…so we went to my house where he sat on my bed playing guitar while I sat on the floor and thought I heard my niece using the toilet, but in reality it was one of my friends aunt’s. Anyway. The dream was much more involved than that, but that kinda gives you an idea. Anyway, after having that dream I thought yesterday that I needed to look at Kevin’s blog. When I googled “Kevin slowey” like other things, google tries to guess what you are looking for… under blog, girlfriend, and about 8 other things one of them said “Kevin Slowey arbitration” and I thought, dang, I should look that up to see if anything has happened yet… First thing that comes up was an article from SI that was updated just 15 minutes prior to me looking for it… “slowey avoids arbitration” YIPPIE! He’s ours another year!! And I’m so happy to see he’s making a grip of money…. Getting paid what he’s worth, that is for sure. So yeay! I get to keep my favorite player in a Twins uni for another year!! I’m crossing my fingers he gets his spot in the starting rotation back!

With this dream I had and him signing on for another year, I am really sad that I didn’t buy tickets to Twinsfest that is happening this weekend… He will be there, and I won’t. I was thinking having met a ton of the guys last year, that I didn’t need to go to Twinsfest… I’d let others meet them :) but now that I’m staring at my calendar with it coming up so fast, I’m envious. I’ve got my cute twins bag that has two signatures already… it needs more. It needs more badly. Uughhh. And there are all sorts of fools who are out there on craigs list trying to make profit from their sold out Twinsfest tickets… I won’t take part in that! I guess there is always next year.

Four Cheese Pasta Florentine

2011-01-18T19:33:00.001-06:00

Okay so I did it, started on my resolutions!! Last night I made a new recipe. Brenda came over and brought a dessert she made. It was a great night!! Both turned out awesome. I highly recomend it!! I did add some chicken to it (browned it first)... here is the photos and the recipe! It's from the Kraft Food Magazine that I get four times a year.

(Before heating above, after cooking below!)

what you need

3 cups mostaccioli, uncooked

1 pkg. (10 oz.) frozen chopped spinach

4 oz. (1/2 of 8-oz. pkg.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, cubed

1 cup BREAKSTONE'S or KNUDSEN 2% Milkfat Low Fat Cottage Cheese

2 eggs

1 pkg. (8 oz.) KRAFT Shredded Low-Moisture Part-Skim Mozzarella Cheese

1/4 cup KRAFT Grated Parmesan Cheese

make it

HEAT oven to 375ºF.

COOK pasta as directed on package, omitting salt. Meanwhile, cook spinach as directed on package; drain well. Place in large bowl. Add cream cheese; stir until melted. Stir in cottage cheese and eggs until well blended.

DRAIN pasta. Add to spinach mixture with mozzarella; mix lightly. Spoon into 8- or 9-inch square baking dish; top with Parmesan.

BAKE 25 min. or until center is set.

some stuff.

2011-01-18T19:26:00.002-06:00

Uuuughhh

I’d like to say I’m busy. But I’m not. I’ve got a ton to do, but never find time to do it.

Over the weekend I was going to quilt quilt quilt. Know what? Didn’t touch my sewing machine.

Friday night I went out to celebrate my other best friend’s birthday. Kelly is 33, and we had to do it up big. We met at his house, played some card games (I will have you know that I was owned by Hi-low). I drank a small bottle of tequila. Okay it was a pint of tequila. And I drank that in about 3 hours.

We went out to the local hole in the wall karaoke bar, Bleechers in our Sunday best. Kelly wanted to class the place up a little, the guys in their ties and suit jackets, ladies in dresses. We looked GOOD, and we brought the house down with some killer singing. I drank a ton of water while at the bar… that’s all I drank. Well except the weird coconut shot that was given to me by the waitress… she said she bought it for me, but it’s hard to say. I never believe it when the waitress’ say they bought it. I always think there is some creeper in the corner watching me drink the shot he bought me.

I spent much of Saturday in bed… watching DVR’d shows… not quilting…

Visited an old friend, Derek on Saturday night, watched the stupid packers beat up on the Falcons. Stupid packers.

Sunday I spent my time backing up my photos onto discs… Since the stupid hard drive that was given to me for Christmas didn’t work with my computer :( Again not touching my sewing machine.

I did watch the first disc of the first season of Glee. Everyone flips out about Glee. Glee Glee Glee. I had to see what all the hype was about. It’s pretty good. I’ll keep watching it on dvd, probably won’t get into it on tv though.

I’ve got a lot to do around my place. I really want to paint all the base boards white… and my bathroom and bedroom door. We will see how long it takes me to do that. Maybe I’ll work on my quilt all week this week and then do my painting next weekend…

These are all exciting updates that I’m sure you are all on the edge of your seat wondering “what will she type next?!”

So I’m outty.

2011 Resolutions... along with what i resolved to do last year!

2011-01-06T09:03:00.000-06:00

Let's start out with revisiting last years resolutions. Which I can safely say I totally failed at. Well, mostly.

Birthdays. I remembered for the first two months. I got birthday cards out, and on time. After March (which has no birthdays), I totally dropped the ball on this one. Der. Do I try to tackle this one again this year?? I don't know...

Movies. Okay I got pretty far on this one... Farther than I got in reviewing them on that other blog I started up... I got to the J's which is almost half way through the movies I own... I ended up watching a lot of them at the cabin when it was raining or before going to bed... I of course can't update a blog at the cabin, so I got behind there...that and the Twins season... I watched a lot more Twins games than anything else for 7 months of the year! Maybe this year I will finish the second half. Who knows... But I won't be blogging about it...

Photography. This one I actually kept!! I did a project 365 in which i took a photo each day of the year... and posted it here. I'm pretty proud of this one... I did something every day for one year. When it comes to hygiene doing something daily is pretty normal... But remembering to take a photo everyday, not as easy to remember!! I did a few times take a little longer to get them uploaded than I wanted to, but life happens... I took a photo every day and that's what matters!

Travel... I got to travel in 2010, but not as much as I would have liked. I made it out east two times... in May Dan and I went to Baltimore.. I loved that town, very cute. I'd totally live in down town Baltimore! I didn't get to travel again until November, when I went out east again, this time Dan and I went into the mountains.... unfortunately, I have yet to post a blog about that (the whole gallbladder removal really screwed up my month of December blogging). With the bills for my gallbladder removal, I'm not too sure I'll be traveling much at all this year. Booooo.

Exercise.... Epic Fail. I joined the gym in late Jan, by early April I had quit. Why? because. I'm just not into exercising... It was easy in the beginning b/c me and my coworker would go together... then she dropped off the grid and I was going it alone. Much easier with a partner...

Money. Another huge failure. spent the money i made.

Now onto 2011.
I'm not going to make a huge list of them, as you see I failed most of mine last year. My sister is begging me to do another project365, she liked visiting it last year... So, I've started up my 2011-365 I'm putting this one on facebook too, but you can also find it here.

Last night I was making chicken tacos... and I started thinking about the hundreds of recipes that I've marked off in the Kraft Foods magazine I get.... This year I'm going to try at least one new recipe a month... I'll review it here on my blog, and if I like what I've made, I'll share the recipe.

I'm going to try my best to do the birthday cards... I'll try my best to finish off my movies, but they aren't a part of my resolution this year. These two are the only two I will commit to: 365 and new recipes.

Good luck with your resolutions!

When Gallbladders ATTACK!

2010-12-09T23:07:00.000-06:00

Well well well... As you know I've been having some issues sleeping and then waking up with horrid back pain. Last Friday I had an ultra sound test to see if I indeed had a gallstone.... Went in early Friday, and sure enough I had two stones... I had a second test scheduled, but decided not to go to it knowing if I got rid of this gallstone I'd be good to go.
I got a call from my surgeon's office to set an apt for my consultation... Monday at 11am. I was hoping to get an apt for my surgery on Tuesday.. I really wasn't looking forward to having another gallbladder attack... but... It happened Monday morning anyway... 4am and I was up in major pain... vomiting and all... by the time I was supposed to be getting up, I was doing much much better. still felt it, but It was tolerable. Went into work, and carried on with a dull pain in my back still. Mom and I met at the Dr's office where I met with my surgeon. He told me the ultra sound showed two stones, one 1.5 and one 1.8cm... The lady who did the ultra sound had me roll over, and one of the stones didn't move, it was stuck at the duct where the bile is supposed to secrete. This is probably my cause of pain... The Dr was great, he explained what he would do and what I should expect, he for sure helped ease my nerves. He told me his person would call me to set up a time to get my gallbladder removed.
Monday night I went home and started up my laundry, knowing I wouldn't want to do that when I was recovering... While I was putting away the clean clothes, I felt another attack coming.. This was by far my worst attack I've had. Typically they happen in the middle of the night... but this one started at about 7:30pm. I thought since I woke up at 4am that day, I'd take some Tylenol pm and fall asleep... yeah that didn't happen. I vomited about 15 min after taking the pill... then continued to do so thru the night. I think it was about 11:15 when I thought I'd try to get up and take a shower, as whenever I did that in the morning while having an attack, I'd felt better.... yeah didn't work. I turned my shower into a bath, that didn't work either... I called the hospital after my bath to find out what I should do as I vomited 4 times already... they told me to get into the ER right away. Called mom and let her know I was on my way to her house... then we'd head to the ER. It was around 1am when I got there, I think around 2 am they brought me back to do an ekg as I told them I had pain in my chest... that's when I started vomiting again, which I think helped me move up in the list in front of others that were there...
My ekg was fine, again.. around 3am they got me into an ER room, but didn't see a Dr till about 4:30....they finally got me some morphine at 6am.. they gave me 3 tubes of it before they admitted me to the hospital. I had 2 more tubes pf morphine before the pain started going away at about 10am.
Mom stayed with me until my surgeon came in to talk to me. Dad came around 9am to sit with us too. He said they could do the surgery at 10pm, or just keep my original apt at 8 the next day... I was soooo thirsty as they wouldn't let me eat or drink anything since they thought I may go into surgery... so I told him lets just keep tomorrow's apt so I can drink and eat... So that's what we did. I did pretty well on Tuesday as they wouldn't let me eat anything but clear liquids. But I was sooo thankful to be drinking water.
Mom headed to work and I to sleep... I slept on and off, with the nurses coming in to check my vitals and everything... It was easy to fall back to sleep though after being awake from 4am Monday till noon Tuesday...
My friends Grandpa was two or three rooms down from me, so their family would come down and visit me from time to time... I had lots of visitors, so it was nice. After work mom dad and stef came to visit, Stef had flowers from me that Dan bought for me. He's very sweet. I just wish he was here to hold my hand through this!
Wed morning came along, and it was time for my surgery. I was very nervous...but all the nurses and drs were very sweet, and kept me pretty calm. I got into my surgery room and they were talking to me, before I knew it someone was waking me up... I couldn't breathe, they asked me "do you want the tube out?" I nodded... they took it out.
They brought me back to my room, I kept asking for my dad, no one was getting him... Finally someone got him in the room, and my surgeon was in soon after that. He said "well, one of you stones was actually the size of a golf ball!" gooooood lord! no wonder I was in so much pain. I thanked him, happy I'd never have to feel that pain again.
Dad stayed with me for the day. I asked the nurse around 4, "they said I'd be home two hours after surgery" She said "well considering your stone was the size of a golf ball, I think you are doing just fine"
I was able to go home at 8pm.... it was nice, I was thrilled to get out of the hospital.. I've been out for just over 24 hours now... I'm in some pain at the site where they took my 'golf ball' out of.. It's tough getting up from laying down.... and laying down from sitting up...Right now I'm doing my best to avoid laying down again....
I know that the pain I'm in now will go away. It really sucks, but I know I'll never be in as much pain as I was with those gallbladder attacks, so I'm very thankful for that.
Hope everyone is doing well.... When I feel up to it, I'll do a blog on my trip out east :)

a photo to hold you over...

2010-12-02T08:44:00.000-06:00

I plan on writing up a whole blog about the time I had in Richmond, but haven't had time at this point (just finished up the photos from my session with Nevin and fam, my faves from that session to follow). When I was gone I figured out that I actually did break my SLR camera when I dropped it at Target Field. It will focus on things close up, but any further than 8 feet away, it can't/won't focus.... I was bummed when I figured that out in the Luray Caverns. Even so, I was able to get some good photos... I wanted to share one with you... It was my favorite part of the caverns... this area is called Dream Lake... the bottom is a reflection of the ceiling.... so beautiful!

Cruising altitude!!

2010-12-01T12:59:00.001-06:00

So I'm currently flying high over the Midwest... It's cloudy so it's hard to say where I am but I'm thinking somewhere over Wisconsin! I love free in flight wifi!
What I don't so much love was my "layover" in Detroit. We landed in Detroit about 10 min before my flight to msp started boarding... I was thinking they would have my flight somewhere close, gotta be in concourse c where we had just pulled up to. We were at gate C38. First, we sat waiting to pull up to our gate. Then it took forever for the woman to navigate the thingy that connects the plane to the airport... I'm thinking I'll never make it to my connection flight. I get off and ask the lady where I had to go... She says "a68"! I said I'm sorry? "A68... Bout a 20 min walk.." I said I'm never gonna make it! She then told me where to go to rebook. I figured I'd try to run to my flight though. What else would I do in Detroit? Check out where I had to run to and from here... I was at the end of the C concourse, had to go to the middle of the C/B concourse to go under ground to the A concourse, take a left and go almost all the way to the end of A! And it wasn't until i got half way down concourse A that I saw a train that went from one end of A to the other... I obviously didn't have the time to figure something like that out... and maybe had i waited for the train, I may have missed my flight waiting for that!
Maybe by running I'd be dodging stray bullets :).
Thank goodness for those moving sidewalks everywhere. I finally get to concourse a and see that gates a40 thru 78 were to the left, so I headed that way... I ran as fast as I could in high heeled boots dragging my carry on behind me. After a few minutes I could see a66. I knew it wasn't much further... As I approached I noticed a ton of people gathered around... They had just started boarding! Thank the Lord above, I made my flight! I was out of breath and sweating, but I made it!

Back Pain!

2010-11-22T14:57:00.000-06:00

So I was just looking back at my blog posts for this one. I remembered this happening to me long long ago. It happened again in the summer while at the cabin... and it's happened a handful of other times. More recently the nights that it is affecting me are getting closer and closer together. They were happening once a week for a while, then it happened Saturday, Sunday and now again today. I was trying to hold out till January. I know I'm going to hit my deductible, so why do it at the end of the year, lets do it in Jan, so I've got a full year after fulfilling my deductible. I know I'm going to hit it, so why hit it in December, and then again in January.
Well the back pain was just too intense for me this morning, so I went to urgent care. The Dr had no idea what was wrong with me. He asked if I had any operations ever, I said not since I was young, he asked what happened, I told him I bit my tongue off.... He was suddenly very interested in my tongue. I'm like dude, I'm not here because of biting my tongue off 25 years ago! He was asking if I had feeling in my tongue, if I could taste blah blah blah. I said yeah I can taste. "well what about on the tip of your tongue?" I said I guess since it happened when I was six I really don't know the difference... then he wanted to look at it. WTH?! Stick your tongue out. .. so I was all like :P ... then he looked at it from one side with his little light thingy... and I was all :| he's all "stick your tongue out again" so I was all :P and he looked at it from the other side.. then I was all :| stop looking at my tongue.
finally he moved onto my back problems. He had no idea. I told him about my family and their history of heart attacks... so what does he do? orders an EKG. which turned out to be fine. Can't wait to see that bill.
Got to work and decided it's time to call my PCP. She right away asked me if he checked my gallbladder. I don't know, can he check it from looking at my tongue? hehe. No I said well he listened to my stomach with the stethoscope... She's pretty positive that I've got something going on with my gallbladder. She said not to take ibuprofen any longer... She thinks that's what is making my stomach upset and making me get sick (makes sense, because each time I got sick, I had done the ibuprofen thing...) She wants me to call her back if it all continues... I have a feeling I'm going to have some work done shortly. Lovely. Too bad I didn't keep my hospital income policy going. That would have helped in this situation. uuughhhh.

Snow. Ice. Cold.

2010-11-16T11:03:00.001-06:00

AAAHHH I can't believe one week ago today the high was 68.... and now we're sitting under six inches of snow.... melting slowly... but still there. That's Minnesota weather for you. 68 to a blizzard in four days.... I was happy that our first big snow storm happened to fall over the weekend as I didn't have to deal with fools trying to remember how to navigate the roads in rush hour traffic. I didn't leave my house all weekend because I didn't have to, and I didn't want to deal with the morons on the road. But come Monday morning I had no choice. Time to head in for work. Get on the freeway, and it wasn't a half mile before I came to a stop... I've got 23 miles to go on this freeway, and I'm thinking, it's only gonna get worse from here... Thankfully right after I got past the next overpass, I saw the problem, there was an accident on the right shoulder... well, ditch really. There was one Dodge Durango looking vhl that was facing us with the whole front end smashed in, and beyond him further in the ditch an Intrepid was again facing the opposite direction he was originally heading .... And they were the cause of my slow down. The rest of the ride in was smooth sailing, an ice patch here and there, but other than that, it didn't take me any longer than normal to get in. It's about that time where I start taking the back way to work, passing all the stopped traffic on the highway... I am sure I'm going to get stuck in horrible traffic once before I remember it's time to take that way in.... It always happens!
I've decided to keep my Torii for now, as I don't want to have a brand new car over the winter months... Working in insurance I know if I buy a brand new car, It'll be in a wreck within the first six months of owning it... So I really don't want to take that chance on the wintry roads of MN. This will give me time to save up a big ol' down payment so I can get more car! Here's hoping Torii makes it thru the winter with me!

Want to know the difference between me and my booba?

2010-11-04T13:36:00.000-05:00

Nuff Said.

new car

2010-10-29T13:18:00.000-05:00

Well, it's been eight wonderful years that I've been with my favorite car, Torii the Galant. Yes, yes, I named my car after Torii Hunter. :) I love that car, it's my baby. Eight long years, that's longer than the other two cars I had combined!! But, alas, it's time for Torii and myself to part. Bittersweet indeed.
I hate car shopping. I'm in sales, and I hope people don't think that buying insurance is anywhere near as intimidating as buying a car. If they've had an experience with an insurance agency like that, they should see me... :)
I went on my first test drive last night... checked out a 2009 VW Jetta. It was jet black, and an automatic 6 speed... that's apparently something that will help the gas mileage... the safety features on this car are endless... It was really hard walking out of there without putting in an offer.. but the two cars I've purchased I've jumped on the first damn car I drove. With the Neon, that was a bad thing, with the Galant though.. that purchase has paid dividends!
The guy really wanted to sell me the car, he wanted me to sign papers right then and there. I'm not good at playing the game. I need to find someone around town who can go with me to play hardball. Last night I was like an open book, I laid all my cards out there on the table. it was bad. Tomorrow mom and I will be running around test driving... hopefully she can help me not open my big mouth.
Once I find myself a new vehicle, I'll have to figure out what which baseball player to name it after!!!!!!

Robert Downey Jr.... sigh...

2010-10-19T10:04:00.000-05:00

Pretty sure this is going to be my new favorite movie...

This and That

2010-10-12T13:42:00.000-05:00

Since it straight up sucks to be a fan of MN sports right now....Twins season comes to an early end...and even though we got the Super Freak back on the Vikings, we still can't pull off a prime time win. Since firing the coach of the MN Wild 2 years ago, that's nothing to look forward to, and the Wolves? Well, the Wolves have been nothing since getting rid of Kevin Garnett... So, I'm turning my focus on my upcoming vacation to visit Dan. I'm super excited only 43 days to go (but who is counting?:). Dan's always telling me "I wish you were here so we could do this together" and "I wish you were here so we could go do that together" With my flight purchased and time off approved, we've got our chance to do this and that together. So I must ask Dan, what should we do when I get to town? This always goes over well.. I think he should come up with something to do b/c he's always talking about this and that... and he wants me to come up with something since I'm in town, and he wants to bring me to places I want to go....
The nice thing about having friends spread across our country is that when I want to take a trip somewhere, I've got places to go, and personal tour guides to their cities. I usually leave it up to them to make a plan, because I'm pretty much down for anything... and if I do the planning, we'd probably end up in some tourist trap...They know where the cool stuff is, they know where the good food is. After all, they live there and I don't. I can tell you the best place for a juicy lucy in MN... I suspect if someone went looking online, they'd find a bunch of places that have them, but I know the place that has the best juicy lucys... You see where I'm going here?!
Anyway... Last spring we talked about going to the Natural Bridge when I was in town. We didn't end up going there, just sticking around the Richmond area since it was raining in the mountains... So I revisited that idea... It's something I found when googling what to do in VA.
Dan went camping in the mountains over the weekend, and had lots of time to think...think about what we could do in VA. Something he's done, something he hasn't... Anyway, he talked with his buddies he was camping with to see what they thought...where we should go. Just as I figured, the Natural Bridge is a tourist trap (see...that's why I don't want to do the planning). He got a few ideas.... and now he wants me to decide where to go from there.... and they couldn't be two ideas that were more different, or two ideas that where anywhere near each other in the state of VA.
The first is a place called Luray Caverns. I checked out the website, it looks pretty cool. I'm not too thrilled with the website, I can't tell if these caverns are all in one area, or if we have to drive from one cavern to the next... And I couldn't find any map that shows you where these are compared to one another.
Luray is in the mountains. That's one thing Dan and I have yet to do while I visit. If we were to do this we'd find little cottages or a bed and breakfast to stay in. I loved the Garden and Sea Inn b&b we stayed at last year...
Last year when I visited Dan over Thanksgiving went to Virginia's Eastern Shore, at Chincoteague Island. This was fun, but since it was November, it's totally the off season, so there wasn't many people around, nor much to do. But, what it was though, was on the ocean. I love the ocean.
The ocean is the other option Dan mentioned... Virginia Beach. Again, it's off season, but it's the ocean. Did I mention I love the ocean? Sidebar: the more I write ocean, the more it looks wrong... I know it's right, but it looks wrong. Anyway, from what I'm looking at there, it does not look like anything special, just a city on the ocean.... However, that means awesome seafood, and you know we don't get much of that here in MN... If we were to go to VA Beach, we'd try to find a cheap hotel to stay at since it's the off season...
So the debate is on... the mountains or the ocean........

2010, what a year! Thank you Twins!!

2010-10-10T20:02:00.000-05:00

Though our season came to a screeching halt last night (or the minute it was the yankees we had to play in the playoffs)... I wanted to take a minute to go thru my year at Target field. What an amazing inaugural season the boys had, and I had. After 21 years of metrodome baseball, I was introduced to outdoor baseball at Turner Field in Atlanta... I still remember the chills I got walking through the gates (not revolving doors...) into the stadium. Love at first sight. I'm so glad we FINALLY have outdoor baseball in MN again. Though in my life it's the second time we've been there, but the Twins went from the Met to the Dome in 1982, so I was much to young to remember...
Today I'm going back through all my photos to bring in memories of my/the twins first year at our brand new and beautiful stadium... Let's take a journey! Going to do two or three photos for each game... first up will be a photo of me and the person I attended the game with... the second will be my favorite shot of the game... and one that's just showing off the view from our seats!
It's no secret that Baseball and the Twins are some of my favorite things... so here we go!

April 20, 2010
Minnesota Twins vs Cleveland Indians
MN Pitcher: (my) Kevin Slowey
Twins win 5-1
Attendance: 38,985
Seats: section 318 row 8 seat 4 $22

Here is the view from my first seats at Target Field!

Jeremy, Jesse, me and Jason spent the game in the Twins Pub... Jason and I sat in our seats for about two minutes before we decided we'd go looking around at all we could see...then met up with Jeremy and Jesse at the Twins Pub, stayed there the whole game! Great view!

And for my favorite photo, well, it's gotta be the one with fireworks...couldn't do that in the dome!! Way to go Kevin :)

May 23, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Milwaukee Brewers

MN Pitcher: Carl Pavano

Brewers win 4-3

Attendance: 38,952

Seats: section 120 row 24 seat 7 $62

Mary's first game at Target Field... the most expensive seats that I've got this year.

I can't believe I got this shot... Denard Span takes one off his back, and I somehow managed to be taking a photo just then!

And the view from our seats... Too bad Jim Thome didn't take advantage of the men on base to make it a first walk off win in the new stadium... We got close, just couldn't get one more run...

June 9, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Kansas City Royals

MN Pitcher: Carl Pavano

Twins win 6-2

Attendance: 40,323

Seats: section G row 7 seat 5 $55 (won these tix:)

I got extremely lucky in wining tickets to this game... I'd wanted to go into the Legend's club since Jason and I found it, and were told we couldn't go in without tickets to that area... I was so excited that I'd get to be a part of this area today!! That's me and Jen just a few rows down from where we were sitting... In awesome wooden back chairs with cushions on the seat!

Here's a view of beautiful Downtown Minneapolis from our seats. soooo pretty.

There were soooo many photos I loved from this visit to target field... but this one has to be my favorite...some of the best quotes in Twins history...

June 12, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Atlanta Braves

MN Pitcher: Nick Blackburn

Braves win 3-2

Attendance: 40,001

Seats: section 131 row 6 seat 12 $24 (Mathias' season tickets)

This is the view from our seats!! We were right next to the bullpen, it was great!! We got to see Nicky and Joe throw some practice pitches before the game!

and Joe makes it in as my favorite shot of the day! Little did I know I'd be rubbing elbows with him not 24 hours later!! :)

This is the first game for me and Kel at the new stadium... Kelly and I've been going to Twins games for years at the dome...this place is much better for our baseball watching pleasure!

I had to have two photos to show the view from our seats.... Thought I'd show one of the actual field rather than the guys in the bullpen!

June 13, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Christy & Ryan

Justin Morneau's Casino Night

MN Pitcher: Christy

Christy wins 10-0

Attendance: 2010 Minnesota Twins

Seats: Legend's Club.

Okay you couldn't expect me to go thru my year at Target Field without putting photos from the best night of my life(to this point)!!! Me and my Justin Morneau. He must have thought I was craaazy... Who meets someone new and says "Hi Justin Morneau, nice to meet you" and then after the photo "thanks Justin Morneau"

The love of my life on the Twins pitching staff.... Kevin Slowey. He's so darn cute...so stinking sweet... and he couldn't keep his hands off me ;) You know he's a good guy, grounded guy because he'd just had a horrible outing against the Braves just 3 hours before.... and he was in a great mood, you'd have never known that he had such a bad game. Had Dan not been in my life, Kevin would have been in big BIG trouble :)

And the Prince of the Diamond, mr Joe Mauer. He's just as gorgeous in person as he is in this photo. soft spoken... and I could have sniffed him in all night!!

July 15th, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Chicago White Sux

MN Pitcher: Kevin Slowey

Sux win 8-7

Attendance: 40,697

So I was invited by Jason to this game... His boss was kicked out of Target Field for the season, until he purchased a sh!t ton of tickets....buying his way back in... and Jason was nice enough to invite me along...and since I was with him and his work folk, I can only tell you that the blonde girls name is Dinah (or something..) then it's me and Jason.. Don't have a clue who that girl on the left is... You can also see more co-workers waving in the background.

My boyfriend Kevin was pitching again tonight :) Love this shot of him and the skyline!

and this is the beautiful view we had this evening...what a stunning stadium we've got. This is the only game I ended up leaving early.... It was the longest game ever. okay not ever, but it was long.... I think I left at 10:00 and they were in the 7th or something redonk like that.

July 16th, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Chicago White Sux

MN Pitcher: Fransico Liriano

Twins win 7-4

Attendance: 40,427

Seats: section 302 row 14 seat 15 $13

Cassie was my guest tonight at Target Field, it was great hanging out with her... Since she's a mom of two toddlers... we don't get to hang out much... Here we are at the gold glove

Our tickets were in the most top row in the stadium..... but we still had such a beautiful view... I thought the view would not be very good from this far away... then we sat down... I'm pretty much sold to the fact that there are no bad seats in this place!

and for my favorite shot... not sure why I like it so much, but I do... it's the Budweiser Roof Deck... A place I haven't watched a game from yet!

August 16th, 2010

Tour of Target Field

MN Pitcher: Danny boy

Christy wins 8-7

Attendance: 40

Seats: wherever we want

here are two beautiful shots of my favorite stadium!

and a photo of my favorite boy and myself on my favorite field :)

August 17th, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Chicago White Sux

MN Pitcher: Scott Baker

Twins win 7-6

Attendance: 40,714

Seats: section 216 row 6 seat 1 $34

Here is where we sat for today's game.. Right behind us was the Twins Pub.

TWINS WIN in WALK OFF fashion thanks to Jim Thome :) way to welcome your former team to MN, and way to welcome Dan too! :) perfect game for Dan's first! I was much too excited to be taking photos when I saw that ball sail out of the park...this was the first one I took after jumping up and down for like 5 minutes..

Here is me and my Danny boy up close to the field. auuhhh :)

August 18th, 2010

Minnesota Twins vs Chicago White Sux

MN Pitcher: Fansisco Liriano

Twins win 7-6

Attendance: 40,702
Seats: section 326 row 14 seat 18 $15

So I didn't take any photos of Dan and myself today...but I'll still put up three photos.. Here is another shot of Budweiser Roof Deck from where we sat!

As if last nights first walk off home run wasn't enough... Dan and I saw Joe Mauer's first home run at Target Field the next night! you can see Minne and Paul sparkling here!

and here is a view from our seats. second to last row in Target Field.

September 17, 2010
Minnesota Twins vs Oakland Athletics
MN Pitcher: Nick Blackburn
A's win: 3-1
Attendance: 40,681
Seats: section 136 row 2, seat 8 $24

IMHO these are the best seats in the house... LOVED it out here in the overhang!! there is Jason out here in right field.

Saw this game with Brian, a friend I haven't seen in like 5 years, good times. lots of vodka.

the vodka probably explains this photo... surprised i didn't end up in right field...

October 2, 2010
Minnesota Twins vs Toronto Blue Jays
MN Pitcher: Brian Duensing
Twins win: 5-4

Attendance: 40,235

Seats: section 235 row 1, seat 8 $24

First game in years that Stef and I hit up. good times with me sista

a view from our seats in the front row

my man Kevin came in for an inning... sooo happy he did, it could be the last time I see him pitch with my Twins :(

and I've got to have a 4th just because I had another walk off win :) go twins!

I had a wonderful year, and so many memories thanks to you boys! thanks for a great year, and hopefully next year someone else can take out the yankees for us!

Haley Ann @ 21 mo

2010-10-10T16:37:00.000-05:00

She's the cutest young lady, and gets cuter with a twins cheerleading uniform :) what a great gift from her auntie! :) She's not as easy to photo now that she can run around... but it makes the cute photos that much better!!
She wouldn't sit down for two seconds, she had to be on her bike or in her car... so i went with it...

Love her racer face here:

And my favorite!

Twins Update....

2010-10-04T11:27:00.000-05:00

I just bought tickets to the ALCS game 2!!!!!!!!!!! Now we just have to make it there :) go TWINS!

my Twins

2010-10-04T09:24:00.000-05:00

So Friday night I stayed at my sisters house while my Bro-in-law worked on my car.... Whilst watching the Twins take on the Blue Jays, I was teaching my adorable niece how to say the different Twins players names.. My favorite was when I taught her "kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuub"

So, in the time I was teaching my lovely niece how to say the names, I had a conversation with my sister about walk off wins. I was explaining to her what a walk off win.... I told her I was at the first walk off home run win at Target Field when Jim Thome hit a two run home run in the bottom of the 10th to beat the White Sox.....

what a foreshadow to saturday's game! holy cow it was a great game! well, the ending was anyway!! It was the bottom of the ninth when i turned to my sister and said "this is where we get a walk off win!" dang i'm good. I called Jim Thome's walk off homer in August... I called Danny V's grand slam last weekend... and I called the walk off win... and stuck by it even when we had 2 out in the bottom of the 9th. what a fun game.

This photo, btw, was from Jimmy's walk off dinger on August 17th... it's one of the photos from the calendar that we got on Saturday. It's going to be my next painting... love the looks on the guys' faces!!

here are a few shots from Saturday's game....

Great view of our pennant flags, blowing in so you can see what a great team we've had thru the years!

This is the first game that Stef and I went to at Target Field...

And here comes my boyfriend, Kevin Slowey. This made me a happy girl to see him coming in to relieve :)

View from the front row, above the green wall and pine trees

well fancy that, miss Sarah was at the game! I haven't seen her in years! Thank goodness for mobile facebook, or we wouldn't have known!

alright folks, it's RALLY TIME!

And my predictions come to be! way to load the bags boys!

a happy Twins crowd!

okay...i guess

2010-09-30T15:32:00.000-05:00

so i complained on my FB page today that i've read all there is to read on the blogs i follow, and requested people tell me their blog addys so i can start following some new blogs.
this prompted my sister to complain that i've not done a post in a while too...so i shouldn't complain. so here i am without a topic, and writing on my blog.
oh, and i've found a new blog that i love. Red Pen Inc. you should check it out. she finds funny grammar, spelling and other typos of such all over and shares them. it's quite comical. she's a baseball fan, and the twins are one of her fave teams, so that makes it even more fun to read! now i'm afraid she'll come and find something on my blog to post :) i'm not one for capitalizing things. i do sometimes. sometimes i don't. and i've never been one with the best spelling...so i'll just cross my fingers that i don't see any of my posts on her blog!!
i'm looking forward to another game at Target Field (see i do capitalize the important things) this saturday. it's the final game of the regular season that i've got tickets for. there is a possibility that i still may see additional games this year, but i don't want to jinx anything, so i'll move on.
speaking of my favorite baseball team, i'm happy they've finally won after five horrid losses. and seriously? to the indians and royals??? seriously???
anyway, monday i went over to the Twins Pro Shop to pick up some homer hankies... i've got every intention to have a Twins quilt by the time the snow starts to fly. i was totally expecting them to tell me i could only buy two at a time.... but, the limit was 25! didn't need that many, but went with ten. eight for my quilt, one for dan, and one for his buddy brandon. to my surprise when i got home and counted them, they gave me 11. so i'll have an extra for myself that's not sewn into my quilt. i've got the material and made my own design for the quilt... wish me luck, it's the first time i've made a quilt with no pattern.
as i said, i've really got nothing to write about at the moment...but stef made me. :)

photography

2010-09-26T18:12:00.001-05:00

something near and dear to my heart. i love taking photos. i love being in photos. i love looking at photos. well. most photos. i've been into photography since before i remember. back in 7th grade i had a camera, and i brought it to school. i have lots of random photos of my friends and life starting way back then. everyone asked me "christy why do you take so many pictures" and i told them i just loved it. now they look at my photo albums and say 'man i wish i would have taken photos back then too, you are lucky to have these memories'
i took every photography class available through high school and even did a self study for a semester with our photography teacher. i loved it and everything about photography. i remember our teacher using my photos as examples of great photography. i've got this one shot of my sister and our dog snowball and another one of the nativity scene in our basement, both of which i used back lighting... i remember my teacher telling the class "you can't teach this kind of photography"

The dark room was my favorite place to be.. i enjoyed so much working in there, manipulating the image into exactly what i wanted it to be.
i even had a part time job at moto photo, a small one hour photo store where i got to do what i loved doing...developing peoples pictures, and helping them capture their own memories into beautiful photographs (even if i did have to manipulate them to get them to look good:)
fast forward to my sophomore year of college(1998). i'm in school for graphic design. our assignment is to take a photo of these cute little harley davidson shoes for babies with this brand new digital camera. i took a couple pictures with this digital camera... i HATED it. this thing was huge, you had to hold it with both hands. it had a small 1x1 inch screen to see what it was you were taking a photo of, and i think it was maybe 1.1 mega pixels. this had to have been one of the first digital cameras to roll out to the public. it was ugly, and it produced ugly things. i swore to my classmates, i will never, ever buy a digital camera. i said film is the way to go, you can blow your photo up to any size you want with out losing quality (with a 100 speed film or less obviously).
fast forward another few years to 2003. i was still sporting my Olympus film camera. i loved that camera. i also had dads SLR... which i was totally in love with. for christmas my boyfriend at the time decided it was time i join the digital age, and bought me a gateway camera. we played around with it for maybe 15 minutes when the batteries died on us. we put in new batteries, and again they died right away. i said to him, this is why i don't want to go digital. we went to the gateway store the next day to replace this camera...we ended up getting a canon powershot... a camera which wormed its way into my heart after a few weeks of use. it took forever to make the battery run out... i took a bunch of photos around the house, and went to get them developed. i was so nervous that they'd look as horrid as the photos of those harley davidson shoes for kids...but they weren't half bad!
in early 2003 we learned the fate of the state farm regional office, and it wasn't good. they were closing down to move operations to lincoln ne. i decided it was time to get back into doing something i loved, something i'm passionate about. photography. brown college was offering a digital photography bachelors degree... i thought, this is it. this is what i will do after the office closes. i signed up and was well on my way to $75,000 of debt to get this degree. first quarter was straight up generals. they didn't offer photography classes at night until my second quarter. i lasted just the first two quarters in class. since i've been taking photos my whole life, and with an SLR for at least 10 years, i was very in touch with how a camera works...
first day of class we each got a film SLR, and i shit you not, we learned how to load film. we learned how to change the aperture and speed of the shutter. i thought to myself 'what am i doing here?' these people just like taking pictures, so they signed up to take this route in photography.
It drove me crazy sitting there listening to people not know how to do these things. how do you think you are going to just pick up a career like this through a 4 year degree when you've never picked up a SLR camera before?!? I knew one thing, I wouldn't walk out with a degree in photography with a $75,000 bill and be able to make the monthly school loan payments... no photographer could! if you want to be a photographer, it's about knowing people and building up a clientele.... you aren't going to make that kind of money right away to start paying of those student loans!
After one quarter, i was done. the two instructors i had (i use that term very loosely) were horse shit. the woman gave all the boys A's and all the girls B's. she flirted with the boys, she made sure to have any group projects boys vs girls so she could grade more easily! it was the most irritating thing in the world. after getting B's on all of my projects, i somehow ended up with a final grade of A after not getting any A's thru the class... how does that work?! she drove me up a wall. neither instructor knew how to be a teacher, it was both instructors first time teaching. and i'm supposed to go $75,000 in debt for that?!
okay, so i've gone way off topic here. we ended up with Canon Rebels as our digital camera for class. i fell in love with it, this is how photography should be. i used that camera everywhere i went. and quite honestly i used every last shot of it before i blew the shutter on it.
now i've got another canon rebel that replaced my first one. again, totally in love with this camera. it takes amazing photos.
i've noticed while looking around at peoples photos on facebook that everyone thinks they can be a photographer. i've seen random people who tag my friends in photos on their online 'photography class' album....as i said i love looking at photos, but not all photos... some are just a picture. and i see a lot of these on people's online photo albums. it's sad to me that photography isn't an art anymore... and i'm not claiming all the photos i take are any more than a picture either... but if you are going to have an online 'photography class album' you should choose your photos wisely! put up photos with dimension. put photos up with a clear subject. photos with interest. don't stand over a garden and take a photo...get in and take a photo of that one, perfect flower. don't take a photo of your kids from your height, get down to their eye level, this makes for a waaaay more interesting photo of your kids (you can take photos from different vantage points that are good, but again, it's an art, not just a photo).
anyone can pick up a camera, but it takes a special eye to be a photographer... and i'm sad that everyone who can point and click their little $100 camera thinks they are a photographer. it fills me with joy to find great photographers... the ones who take the kind of photography that 'you can't teach'.

more on favorite things

2010-09-22T16:25:00.002-05:00

I haven't forgotten about this new segment that I want to start on my favorite things... I have been thinking and thinking of some of my favorite things and writing them down in a notebook.... I just haven't had time to go thru my photos and post them here :) In a way I'm hoping life calms down a bit for me this fall, but that sounds boring. so it's not going to be easy to do this, but I'm going to do my best to make it happen.
I've decided that this week on my project365 (version 2010) I'm taking a photo of one of my favorite things every day this week. I'm hoping to get that 365 caught up tonight. Last night I worked on putting my photos onto discs... I haven't since June, so thought it's about time I do before I lose them!! I free'd up 7.5GB of space doing so!!!!!! and ran out of discs! (i've updated my project 365)
Now that I've done that, it's time to focus on my 365, I'm just what, 15 days behind.. I've been more than that in the past...
And since I'm talking about favorite things... i must bring up the fact that my Twins clinched the Central Division Championship last night!! thanks to a come behind win (with a bunch of our normal starters sitting out) and a white sux loss to the Oakland A's! way to go Twins, and way to lose Sux!! :) I'm super excited, and hoping to win the chance to buy tickets to a play off game. Twins aren't done playing this year, we've got to keep winning, we want to have a better record than the Spankees in order to have home field advantage thru the playoffs. The National League has home field advantage during the world series, which sucks.. specially b/c they haven't beat the American league in FOREVER, why THIS YEAR?!
Anyway, I've got ticket to one final game in the regular season, October 2nd, this time going to sit in the first row right in front of Minne and Paul. I'm looking forward to hitting up the stadium with my SIIIIIIISTER!
With the Twins clinching, they've unveiled their new homer hanky.... and guess who's going to make a quilt out of said homer hanky??? that's right, me. I've got a pattern all laid out, now I've just gotta wait till I can buy 8 of them to get er going! :)

favorite things...

2010-09-14T09:49:00.000-05:00

rain drops on roses and whiskers on kittens....
okay these aren't my favorite things... but... i'm gonna start something new here... i'm going to start sharing my favorite things with you... I haven't decided how i want to do this..once a week or something?? not sure... but you are going to find out more about me than you probably want to know :) ha!
I've been really good at sharing those things that drive me crazy so i figured it's time to start sharing those things that really make me happy!!! I'll probably start this up this coming weekend so keep your eyes peeled!!

week in review

2010-09-10T12:44:00.000-05:00

Okay... so this week really flew by. this is surprising in that it was a short week, and they usually take the longest to get thru. I had a wonderful time at the cabin over Labor day weekend... I guess i didn't take many photos up there, but it was a good time none the less.
Tuesday my check engine light popped on. weird too as my car was driving perfectly fine. not feeling anything weird in my ride at all. Dad purchased one of those diagnostic computers...you know the ones they charge you like $40 to hook up to your car to see why the light is on if you go to a service station??? yeah those. Anyway he hooked it up, came up with the code EGR Malfunction. So he does his dad-ly duties and checks out whatever the heck it was that was making this light come on. He said the dohickey (okay that's not what he said) is working just fine... he turned off the light and i headed home.
Tuesday at lunch the light comes on again. So i go back to mom and dads after work to get it checked out again. Same thing pops up. It's really strange to me, I'm not sure why it's coming up, and neither is my dad...soooo it looks like I'm going to have to have someone check it out. ugh. i hate spending money on fixing cars, it's such a bummer. It wasn't a complete waste of going to mom and dads because I had ordered something from Sephora that arrived at their house that day... I never have stuff delivered to my house b/c it will sit at the door till I get home, and i dont trust my neighbors!! anyway, if you wear eyeshadow, this is an awesome product that you HAVE to get... I used to have this problem that my eyeshadow would crease by lunchtime.. i hated it. untill i found THIS... it's from Urban Decay and i kid you not, your eyeshadow will stay put until you wash it off at night. It's seriously a must have... I bought a "genie" bottle of it a while back, and ran out recently. I was bummed...I just saw the other week they came out with this bigger bottle for $12 more, and it's totally worth it!
Anyway, I also went to Kelly's softball game on Wednesday. It was a beautiful night out for softball watching. Then last night Kel, Jason and I got together at Jason's place to watch the Vikes/Saints game. I was happy we weren't pummeled by the Saints, i was totally expecting a beat down!!
Anyway...now it's another weekend up at the cabin. Working on photos of a 3 month old baby boy. I'm excited to get them done for the Caroll family!

FINISHED

2010-09-06T19:00:00.000-05:00

I've finished my photos for Nicole and Doug's wedding. Here are a few of my faves!

Target Field

2010-09-06T18:21:00.001-05:00

Dan and I decided we'd do a tour of Target Field before he went to a Twins game there... We figured it'd be good to do this so when we were at the games, he could be watching baseball instead of wondering around. Here's how it went!!

We started out here, in the stands, a familiar place to me :) We learned that the flag pole is the original flag pole from the Met, just a bit shorter, it used to be 95 feet tall, and used to be right in center field in the middle of the playing field!

We also learned that the jumbo-tron is the 4th biggest in MLB... if you add 3 feet to either end of the board, it's the size of a basketball court! craaaazy. it's also 4 times as big as the one in the metrodome.

These are the suites... you have to buy them in 2 4 or 6 year terms... they are all purchased thru the next few years.... they are all named after MN lakes. We got to take a peak in Jim Thome's suite.

Up to the Budwiser Roof Deck...a place I haven't been in the stadium! The games are sold out for the roof deck this year. There are only tickets to Tuesday and Saturday games to the deck...the rest have been sold to different corporations and junk

All the pennants we've won since 61

WHAT A VIEW!

Here are some of the "firsts" as far as balls go....first pitch, first homerun, etc.

The Metropolitan club... another place i hadn't been yet

What awesome china... I wonder where I could register for this one day...

More suites.. these ones are sold each game rather than the others that are per season.

We are the greenest ballpark in america...this is where the rainwater goes... it's recycled by using it when they wash the seats, and sprinkle the field!

Here I am in outfield!

Here I am sitting on the Twins' bullpen bench!

ANNND Here we go into the visiting team's locker room!

this thing is STOCKED!!! lookit all the food and drink in here. The batboys help the visiting team, and if there isn't something here that a player wants, say jimmy johns, the bat boys get it ordered and get it to the players...and they are tipped out at the end of the series... i want to be a bat boy!

and here is the locker room of the visiting teams...

Soooo we have some a-holes in this game... we have this brand new beautiful park, and the milwaukee brewers come to town and vandalize it!!! there are similar cleat marks on the other door too. what a bunch of a holes.

We've always got to get our goofy photo.... i'm loving this one. crack me up.

We are in the visitors dug out here. my butt is where Chipper Jones, and Andruw Jones' asses have been!

oh my goodnesssssss soooo close to the action i can hardly handle it!

This is the Champion Club... pretty nice digsss....

LOOOVE the carpet here!! Want it for my own house!

So here is the view from a Champion's club seat. This seat would cost you $23,000 a year!

and this is the one place we didn't get to see :( but that's b/c Joe Nathan and Justin Morneau were in!! I guess this winter they may do tours thru the clubhouse...may have to do this all over again!

Can't leave without a photo by the golden glove!

aaauhhh danny and hall of famer Harmen Killebrew

And here's the Plaza. See the vine thingies to the left? there are 9 of these bats... each inning one lights up. i have yet to see this cuz its so stinking bright during the games!

and that's it. if you haven't done the tour, you gotta! $15 and you get to see it all!

Turkey-day!

2010-09-01T09:58:00.000-05:00

Well, i did it! last night i purchased my tickets to Richmond for the Thanksgiving holiday, dan's birthday AND the Vikings game at Redskins!!
I'm super excited to know when I get to see my bestie again :)
and to check out yet another stadium. granted it's not a baseball stadium...but a stadium none the less!
I'm working on a few things right now... Last night I got to the end of the wedding photos. There are a few I want to go back and do a couple other things with.... but for the most part i am done! YEAY! I'll share photos once I have 2 seconds to do that :)
Also looking into a refi on my condo...I'm crossing my fingers here... if I got the right type of loan back when I bought the place I may be able to refi with a lower rate, and do it without an appraisal. I'm waiting to talk to Ryan again today. Unfortunately I totally forgot my loan papers at home, but I think I got him the information he needed anyway.
This weekend is Labor day weekend! YEAY! should be a fun time. Heading to the cabin, driving by my lonesome... may pick up the dogs so I have someone to talk to on the way. Dad said he didn't want to go home till late monday, and I'd rather get home early.
Anyway, we invited the kepskedels up for Sunday to grill. Not sure how that turnout will be...
Also, my friend Missy will be going to the squirrel cage on saturday.. .i guess her friend grew up in the area... So I'm going to meet them there Saturday!
okay there was another thing i wanted to say, and i've totally forgotten it. aaahhh getting old. blah.

dan...

2010-08-23T13:09:00.000-05:00

Well, my time with Dan has come and gone :( I had a blast having him here in town, running around doing things normal 'couples' do.
I'm not sure if I've talked about this before, but I'll go ahead and do so now... Since Dan is in another state, and we spend most of our time apart, it's a difficult thing to maintain. Dan has managed (not sure if he's done this on purpose, or if it is just happening) to make me think of him when I see random things. This started out right when we started talking ... We were talking about all the hospitals in St Paul. I mentioned St Josephs... He went on to tell me that there isn't a St Joseph's hospital, it's just a parking ramp named "St. Joseph's" he sort of had me going for a minute.... but soon realized he was pulling my chain... I drive by this parking ramp every day on my way to/from work, and every time I spot it, I think of him.
He's also managed to do it with his crazy hair styles he's been doing over the last few months... first with the mullet, and then this week he showed up to MN with a mohawk. Every time I saw a mullet over the last few months I laughed and thought of him. Today a guy from a security company came walking into my work with a mohawk... made me giggle and think of dan...
One thing he was all goofy about this last week was spotting black squirrels. I tried to tell him that they are not all that uncommon...he'd still flip when he saw one... On my way to work today, I saw a little black squirrel crossing the street, and it made me smile.
Though we are far apart, he's found a way to constantly remind me of him :)
I've got a lot of catching up to do with my 365. I've taken a photo every day, but haven't had the chance to work on them... Im still finishing up the photos from Nicole & Doug's wedding... I'm hoping to finish them up this week... I'll do the 365 once those wedding photos are done!

So excited!

2010-08-15T11:15:00.000-05:00

This weekend didn't start out the way I was hoping... First on Friday, I went down stairs to my storage unit to get my tent for dan. When i turned the corner, i found my lock was missing. not only my lock, but the latch that the lock was on. someone broke into my storage unit, along with a handful of other units. the only thing i've found that is missing right now is my boombox that I won at my senior year graduation party... obviously not too big of a deal since it's been in storage. all the christmas stuff, my tent and my golf clubs were sill there. Anyway, filed a police report and whatever whatever. I now have to get a new locking mechanism.
So that's how it started. and it kept going down hill from there. dan was supposed to land on friday night at 1145. Well, his flight in richmand was delayed, i think like 3 hours. By the time he landed in ATL, his flight home took off. so I didn't get to see my danny boy on Friday night before we went our separate ways on saturday. Dan stayed at a hotel in ATL. He landed here at about 1230 on saturday... I picked him up at the airport, and dropped him off at his buddy Dan's house and he left for the bachelor party... I only got to see him about 20 min....thanks to airtran and atl.
So yesterday he went on his way to the bachelor party, and I to the bachelorette party. We had a shower at Megan's at 4, then onto Bonfire in Woodbury at 7... after that we headed to River Falls to get ready for our 80s night. We looked GOOOOOOOD! I took a bunch o photos. i'll get them up here, i promise.
we stayed at a hotel in RF... I couldn't sleep at all, looking at the clock every hour, on the hour. I drove out to RF with Dawn, a friend of (groom) Dan's. She was a riot. anyway, she had to be back in MN by 9am.... at 730 we were both up, so we headed out. I'm at mom and dads house now, just a waiting on Dan.
I talked with him a bit ago, they are waiting on one of the guys girlfriends to pick him up. i guess his car died yesterday... once he's gone they are gonna head back to (groom) dan's place, and I will FINALLY get to spend time with dan. We both said we need a nap, so the first few hours together will surely be spent sleeping... I'm just sooo excited... my heart is soooo full of love for dan.. i feel as if it will explode. I am soooo happy i've finally found an amazing man, and one who will treat me so very well. I'm so lucky. and I am so anxious to get to spend time with him!

T G I F

2010-08-13T12:51:00.000-05:00

Yahooo, it's finally friday... and I've got a week of vacation next week!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited. not only to have time off, but the obvious, have time with my danny boy! yeahoo!
he's coming to town tonight at 11... so i've gotta go home and do some cleaning... then wait till he lands. Hoping all flights will be on time... we're supposed to have a bunch o thunderstorms roll thru...it's just a matter of when, and if it screws other flights up making his delay. who knows.
all I know is i'm looking forward to some away time!
just bought dan and myself tickets to the target field tour, so we're doing that on monday! yeahoo!
really i dont have much to say.
I suppose I haven't written since my last neighbor post... They gave me an apology card stating they want to be neighbors and so on...that i should let them know if they are being too loud. nice gesture.
I'll have a bunch of time to work on Nicole and Doug's wedding photos. I'm almost done with the color editing... and soon I'll be doing the fun stuff. then i'll get some photos up!

neighbor

2010-08-10T08:37:00.000-05:00

Okay, if you don't want to hear me bitching, here's where you should stop reading..
I've been sleeping in my living room lately because it's been so hot. That's the coolest place since that's where my air conditioner is. It's been nice. no problems sleeping or anything while I'm out there. Honestly, I haven't slept in my bed since before the 4th of July weekend... so it's been a while, and no problems thus far.
I am not sure if I've talked about this on my blog before, but I know I've mentioned it to many o friends... My neighbor I share the living room wall with plays video games. He's a good 35 to 40 years old, is married with at least one child... I've seen his wife with more than one, but I'm not sure if its theirs or not. ANYWAY... It must be one of those war games because all you hear is something that sounds like thunder...like stuff is being blown up. Every once in a while you will hear a really loud heartbeat (if you are familiar with games, you know this happens right before you kick the bucket.... or, in a deer hunting game when you've got the deer in target). So I haven't heard this in some time... Until last night... he started playing around 9pm... I was on the phone with Dan and told him about it... I said I wish I had something to throw at the wall... something that won't break, or leave a mark.. i ended up wrapping this tin i have that holds coasters in a tshirt... then threw it at the wall. This did nothing. I thought to myself, I wish I had my soccer ball up here, I'd start kicking it against the wall. but my soccer ball is in my garage..
I tried just ignoring it, but it's not an easy thing to do. I wrote a note, went and stuck it in his doorjam... I knew this wouldn't help me tonight, but maybe for the future?
I tried and tried falling asleep but whenever I got close, the video game suddenly got really loud ripping me right out of slumber. 11:20, I was pissed. I can't understand why his wife does not say something. You have a 2 year old. why are you playing video games so late at night and so loud when you've got a kid!!!!!! I looked up the non emergency number for Burnsville (which happens to be the same number as the number you call in an emergency...) I explained that he'd been playing since 9pm and we share walls, and it's really loud. She assured me she'd send a police officer out to ask him to turn it down. within about 45 min it was quiet. I'm not sure if it's because he had enough or if the PO got to him and asked him to turn it down.
This morning the note I left was not there anymore. So either someone got up and left this AM before I did, or the PO handed him the note when he knocked on his door asking him to quiet down. either way, I'm hoping he gets the message and keeps his damn video game noises down.
i sound like an old crotchety woman now, but dude, I should be able to have my peace and quiet in my own home.

it is HOT out

2010-08-09T15:19:00.001-05:00

GOLLY! it's a scorcher out there today!! Since I work at an insurance agency, you wont hear me saying this much...I'm ready for some storms to roll thru to make this heat go AWAY! Hopefully the storms won't cause any damage!!!!!!!!!! It sounds like we wont get any reprieve from this till tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, that's when they say the storms are to move in.
well, it's monday. after today, i'll just have 4 more work days till a week of VACATION! I'm looking forward to the time off. It'll help my stress levels go down a bit, which is something I am desperately needing. Saturday night I fell asleep for about an hour between 1030 and 1130, and was woke up 3 times by the stinking weather alarm... Had to get up and stop the thing from ringing. well that last time at 1130, it really woke me up. Not only that, but I had some serious back pains along my shoulders.. I took some ibuprofen, in hopes that it would stop with the pain. No such luck.. about 2 hours later i took some benadryl hoping that would knock me out... nope not at all. around 3:30am I thought to myself, "im going to be sick" sure enough, i got sick... after that i went over to the trailer and told mom and dad, then went to the bathroom.. when I got back in bed I was able to fall asleep soon after. I woke up and was fine in the morning. so, I'm not too sure what happened there, but it's strange. This happened to me a couple months ago too.. If it happens again, I'm gonna go to the dr, but at this point... I don't want to waste money on going to the dr for them not to know what is wrong with me.
This time next week I'll have just finished my tour of Target Field... I'm looking forward to this... get into places I haven't seen yet, and maybe we will run into a player or two :)doubtful, but whatever, I can dream, right??

aaaachoooo!

2010-08-06T15:02:00.001-05:00

If you know me personally, (and lets face it, if you are reading this blog, you do)... you know I'm allergic to everything, and I'm constantly sneezing... and sneezing for noooo reason. So yesterday I'm sneezing away at work, I'm talking a string of 15 sneezes, at least... and I started thinking I wonder how many times a day I sneeze... I'm going to have to count one day... Just as I was thinking that, my coworker Sarah says to me "I wonder how many times a day you sneeze" I started laughing explaining to her that I was just thinking about that... She then proceeded to tell me she likes sneezing. I said 'honey, if you sneezed half as many times as I do, you'd feel differently"
Soooo, today I decided, I'm going to do this, I'm going to count my sneezes... I sneezed 25 times before 8am this morning... now here we are going on 3, and it's only increased to 34. I haven't sneezed much at all today... I was thinking when I started at 25 it'd be a crazy day!
I'm thinking once I get to mom and dad's house and hang out with the dogs, this number will increase... If not, I've found a new way to stop sneezing... COUNT THEM!!

It's only THURSDAY!

2010-08-05T13:01:00.000-05:00

I woke up this morning around 6:05am convinced it was Saturday. Fell back to sleep till 6:14 when my alarm clock woke me up! It's for sure not Saturday... It's not even FRIDAY! This thought is going to make for a long couple of days at work!
I finally have PhotoShop on my computer again... I've been doing minor editing on Doug and Nicole's wedding photos up till now... Now I can do the bigger better edits! So excited! I was working on it at lunchtime.. I haven't had PS since January.. You know the saying "if you dont use it, you lose it!"??? totally true. I used to have all these tricks up my sleeve, and it was taking me a lot longer to pull them out of my brain... I thought I was gonna have to go home and look em up again... but slowly it came back to me...the edit i was looking for in that case anyway! I'm going to edit the crap out of those photos this weekend at the cabin. Hopefully bust em all out so I can get them to the newlyweds!
Tonight I've got my fave show Big Brother... Hoping that Brenden won't win HOH b/c I am sooo sick of him and his "i love you"s to Rachel... and Rachel, I've been sick of her since the first episode when she opened her mouth and talked, and even worse, laughed... ugh. We need the brigade to take over, big time.
I've also got to pack for the upcoming weekend at the cabin. I've got my list... now I just got to go home and pack it all up! I'm excited, I haven't been there since the 4th of July weekend!

bff

2010-08-04T16:40:00.000-05:00

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM soooo stinking excited, I feel as if I'm going to burst!!!!!!!!! My bestie, Dan, is coming to town on the 13th!!!! It's coming up soooo quickly, FINALLY. It's been far far too long since I've seen him. May 4th to be exact! So this is a much needed visit. He's got all sorts of things that he's got going on... and I'm so excited to be a part of them!
His main reason for coming home is to be in his buddy, Dan and his fiance (Megan)'s wedding. He's flying in a week before the wedding.. He'll be heading out, camping Saturday night for the bachelor party... I'm joining Megan and her friends in River Falls for an 80's style bachelorette party. I get to break out my 80s gear again! woo!
Monday night we are going to head out to see his college friends, at an undisclosed (rather undecided) location... sounds like we've got the date and time nailed down, but no one will decide on a place... frustrating! Tuesday and Wednesday we've got the Twins vs White Sux games, for Dan's first visit to Target Field! I'm super excited to show him around!
Thursday is the grooms dinner, and the wedding is on Saturday... so much fun, so little time. I just can't express how excited I am to be able to do these things with Dan. It's soooo hard being this far away from him... It's nice to do these little things like going to a twins game etc, like we are totally normal.
I'm super excited!

Miss Haley Ann

2010-08-03T14:09:00.000-05:00

Stef and Haley came over this weekend to keep me company, and me to keep them company :) we ended up having an impromputu slumber party! Here are a couple videos of my cute little niece!

So cute!

ooooowwwww

2010-07-29T16:42:00.000-05:00

soooooooooo at lunch i laid my car seat back in order to take a nappy nap.. i decided it was time to take off the ol' sunglasses... i must have pulled them off crooked or something b/c the one thing that goes around my ear snapped back and got me in the eye. i'm talking no time to react so my eyelid was closed or anything. straight shot to the cornea. it throbbed for a while. i think i got to sleep for a little while... 20 min maybe. anyway, here i am 4 hours later and my eye still HURTS. not as bad as right when it happened, but still hurts none the less. i'm hoping i didn't do any damage. i can see okay... well wait... i just covered my good eye and tried to read this with my other eye covered, things are a bit blurry.. may have scratched my eye.. well, if it goes away in a few days, i wont worry.. in a week i should try this test again.... i may have to deal with eye problems for the FIRST time in my LIFE!

all about meeeee!

2010-07-29T08:46:00.000-05:00

Heya! for hardly writing in the beginning of July... I am sure making up for it now :)
I just wanted to kinda write a little about what I've been doing for myself lately..... I feel over the last year and a half, other than working out, I've really done nothing as far as making myself feel better, look better... Well over the last couple weeks I've done 4 things... and it's really helping me feel better about me...
I got my hair trimmed... why? because I haven't in a while, and I figure if I want it to stay long and healthy, I better get a trim. I loved it because I had to stand while she trimmed it... I've never in my life had to stand up so they could trim my hair!
The day after my trim I went and got my hair foiled.. I have now some dimension to my hair...I haven't done anything with the color since before I went to Colorado in Feb 2009... So I think it looks great!
Another thing I did (not to gross you out) but I bought little sysilic acid discs to kill of the freakin wart I have on my right hand ring finger.. It's been there a couple years.. I've tried a few things, but these discs I think are actually working! I've been using it for about a week now.. I decided to stop for a few days to see what happens, because right now it looks like its gone... but the skin may just come right back over it. we will see.
And the final thing I've been doing... using crest 3d white strips... I've resisted in the past b/c my teeth are sooooo sensitive. I bought the crest 3d tooth paste, and it came with one set of the strips... I figured I'd try it and see if it hurts as bad as I'm thinking it will.... it didn't hurt at all! My friend gave me 6 of her left over set of strips... and I used them all up.. I wasn't yet happy with it, so I went to target and spent $42 to get the 14 pack... I'm two days into that one, and my teeth are starting to look more like I want them to :) no more whitening my teeth on photoshop!! YES!
the reason my teeth ended up stained is because for years I was hooked on diet coke... and now I don't drink it but maybe once a month if that... so I shouldn't have to do this very often :) yeaaay!
so anyway, these things are helping me feel a little better about myself these days :) yeay!

guys..

2010-07-28T09:46:00.002-05:00

My co-worker Sarah and I were talking today about guys... Really the talk started out with our dads.. Her dad is in and out of town with work and she says she misses him and gets nervous that something will happen when he's gone that he could fix.... She said that she isn't sure how she's going to handle it when she loses her dad. I told her I feel the same way about my dad!! My dad is sooo funny, he can fix anything, and beneath his rough exterior, he's just a softy. Which led us to talk about the difference in guys now a days and guys like our dads... In my last oh 18 years I've dated all sorts of guys... guys who could fix cars.. guys who could build things... computer guys... musical guys... artsy guys... cowboy guys....
all these guys, and they are all good at what they do, but that's it... if they can fix my car, they can't put in wood floors... If they can re-do my bathroom, they can't fix my computer...
Though men my dads age didn't have the computer to figure out... they sure can do everything else... If my car has something wrong, my dad can probably fix it...with his age, it's more of, do i want him to fix it... My dad put in my new lights, and he is going to be coming down to put in my new ceiling fans.... he put in my garbage disposal, and kitchen sink... he put in the bamboo floors in my bathroom and a new vanity mirror, my new bathroom sink and faucet.... Where are the guys that can do all that for me???
My dad is an awesome man, and I'm soooo lucky to have him as a father! I wish there were jack of all trades like him out there now a days!!

hello moto

2010-07-27T15:05:00.000-05:00

Hi ya'll. it's been a while. again. weird right?
I'm not into the blogging this month for sure. It's because my life isn't as exciting as it was back in june. I haven't met any additional Twins players... Though since I picked up Carl Pavano on my fantasy team, he's been giving me some kick butt numbers! I don't have any more twins games till mid August when Dan comes to town... We have tickets for two nights in a row... that makes me happy. so does Dan coming to town! oh and not to mention I get that entire week off. Very much needed.
I've been renovating my place for the last few weeks, decluttering and such. It looks like a new place. I've got a new air conditioner, which is a relief... man I didn't know what I was missing out till I got that thing. It seems like its always on.... and It's an excessive heat day here in MN, so I'm thankful for it...specially because i dont have to run it all day... I can turn a timer on so that it turns on in 8 hours, so by the time I get home..it's nice and cool!
I've taken some before and after photos to share with you!

You can see My Purple walls are gone.... now I've got a boring beige...took down some of my photos... all of the photos i had on the fridge :(

Here is probably where you can see the biggest difference... You can see my hutch is gone... you can't see that i don't have that shelf that's in the upper left of that top photo.. but it's gone... I've taken down all my hats and all my sports memorabilia... moved my desk so that it's up against the wall making my living room look much bigger!

So here you can see some more changes...bottom two are new... top is how it was before. no more Kasey Kahne hanging in the corner, watching over every move I make in the living room. Moved my tv from the corner to middle of the wall... moved the chair that was behind my desk to the corner... took out the papasan chair... no more red back pillow, no more afganastand (hehe). big deal man, big deal!

I thought I'd share :)

And this coming weekend my pops is going to come down and install the two ceiling fans I purchased at menards a few weeks back... $39.99 a piece!! of course with rebate, and the rebate being in menards bucks.. but still!! not a bad deal.

Kelly should be coming over too, we've got big plans to get snookered and watch the twins. does not get much better than that! :) WOOOOOOOO!

hair!

2010-07-26T14:42:00.000-05:00

Got my hair done on saturday, then made a visit to wyoming.... here are some photos of me and miss Haley.. she knows the camera is going to flash so she squeezes her eye lids closed!

It's been a long time (i shouldn't have left you without a dope beat to step to)

2010-07-16T13:30:00.000-05:00

oh my. I can't believe it's been so long since I last wrote. i think last month i wrote so much more than i ever have, then in july, i dont write at all in the first half!
Well, I've been busy, so get over it! hehe.
First weekend in July headed to the cabin for the 4th of July. a nice long weekend. A weekend of a sick baby haley, poor thing. we kinda hung out in the cabin most the weekend b/c haley had such a high temp, we didn't want her going out in the heat. then lets see.. what the heck did i do last weekend. Oh yeah. i guess i did a whole lotta nuthin. Friday i met up with Jordan, a friend from HS, and a bunch of his buddies at old chicago. had a good time watching the twins game and chatting. ran into an old buddy while we were there too, Carlos! I think the last time I saw him was at Old Chicago too! random.
Saturday I watched a lot of last comic standing.... it's on demand. i heard i went to high school with a dude who's competing... i watched for like 6 hours and didn't see him...so yeah.
Later, Jason came over with his friend bear and eric and we went on a motorcycle ride after hitting up Buffalo Tap. No juicy lucy for me this time. just a wrap. and it was not very yummy.
Sunday back to doing nothing. okay i painted a while... but other than that not much.
I for some reason am having difficulty with days these days. i've been busy but i'm not sure what i've been busy doing. i can't remember Monday night. Tuesday I went to Kelly's to watch the all star game.. Wednesday I went to an association meeting. more on that later.
Yesterday I was working away and I got a note from Jason, he said he's got extra tickets to the Twins game and wanted to know if I wanted to go. HELLS YES i want to go! he hooked me up too, we were on the 3rd baseline 14th row! and my Kevin was pitching :) yeaaay! closest seats i've had all year! he told me a funny story too about how he got tickets... his whole company had tickets to go... I guess his boss one night took a bet at like midnight to jump the fence at target field, and run down onto the field. well security obviously caught him, and then banned him thru the 2010 season. until recently when he bought a shit ton of tickets and they let him back in!! so that's how i was able to get free sweet ass tickets to last nights game.
and i am going back tonight! tonight Cassie and I will be out there sweating it out. It's a hot day out there, but I'm looking forward to it! YEAY! GO TWINS!

Minnesota Drivers SUCK

2010-06-29T13:04:00.000-05:00

Okay I am sure that drivers all over this country suck. But i really and truly believe that we have some of the worst drivers here in MN. I'm going to start a new thing on this blog where i complain about the weird crap i see on the road. This upcoming story happened to me last week... it is something that drives me CRAZY about Minnesotan drivers.
I am merging from Pilot Knob road to 35e southbound on my way home to Burnsville. As we are on the entrance ramp I notice that the woman driving in front of me is barely accelerating. If you are familiar with the area, you know that this entrance ramp is almost a dang mile long, so you have a LONG time to get up to speed as you are supposed to on these ramps. and if ou are not familiar, the highway is 3 lanes wide at this part of 35e's stretch. So, here I am behind Slowpoke McGee going about 50 to merge. I look to my left, and there is no one in the right lane, so me and Slowpoke McGee will be able to get on without worrying about being run over by someone doing the speed limit (70 mph). We merge... we continue on 35e continuing a pace of 55mph. There are cars in the left and middle lanes rushing by us, I had to wait for my moment to be able to get to the middle lane so I could get up to the speed limit of 70 miles per hour. Keep in mind there was NO ONE in front of Slowpoke that was keeping us going 55. As we all know, no one in MN drives in the right lane. We will get to that later. I was behind Slowpoke McGee for a good mile before I had my opportunity. And when that last car passed me to my left I pulled into the middle lane, and pass Ms McGee at the appropriate speed of 70 mph. Once I pass her, I look in my rear view mirror and see Slowpoke signal and pull into the middle lane... and then signal again (and by this time we are a good distance in front of her b/c she's still going 55) she signals again and goes directly into the LEFT LANE.
I don't know if you know this or not, but the left lane is for PASSING vehicles... not for taking a 55mph stroll on a 70mph speedway. I see this over and over and over again in this state... people using the left lane to drive in. The middle (when available) and the right lanes are for driving in. You use the left lane to pass Slowpoke McGee... but not in this state. it's ass backwards and people drive along like it's no body's business but their own to be there. I will be driving on a Saturday afternoon in the middle or right lane and look to the left lane. there are strings of 10 to 15 cars driving along in the left lane with no one in the right lane. WHAT IS WRONG WITH MINNESOTA DRIVERS?!?! If you aren't passing someone you should not be in the left lane. And when you pass that person, move over to the right or middle lane. it's not that tough people.
Now I know there are times this does not work out so well, like rush hour. of course all lanes will be backed up at this point. but i don't know if you've noticed, but its usually the left lane that comes to a complete stop before any of the other lanes do, and it's because everyone thinks they should be in the left lane.
Screw you Slowpoke McGee... if you don't want to drive the speed limit, stay out of the left lane. Better yet, stay off the highway.

no broken nails yet...

2010-06-26T14:17:00.000-05:00

So far this weekend, i've packed up my hutch, along with my 9x9 square shelf, a book shelf and a small secretary's desk.... I am lucky enough to have friends like Jason and Kelly who came over to help me move these items down to the garage. after they left, i thought i better start priming my walls.. got the hallway done.. there's still too much going on in the kitchen at this point, so i can't get that started just yet. I've decided i need to sit down and have lunch...so i did, and the twins are playing, so i've got them on, and relaxing before i start boxing stuff up again. i've got just three boxes left, i hope i've got enough!!
I'm already in pain, my legs, my arms...my back...and i'm not anywhere near done with my list of things to do. i guess the main goal at this point is to box up the rest of the stuff that didn't make it into the first 8 boxes... then i can work on the rest of my list... cleaning carpet, and crap like that. i wanted to move the living room around a little but i dont know. Kelly wants me to go visit him tonight, he and Lisa are having a party. with everything i still have to do...i'm still up in the air on going or not. it would be good to get my butt out of here. I've got all day to work on this tomorrow too. i'm sure i've got plenty of time to get everything done...
okay. i'm gonna stop rambling, and start getting back to work.

Haley is 18 months!! check it out!!

2010-06-24T11:20:00.000-05:00

My beautiful niece is 18 months. Just when you think she can't get much cuter, she goes and does it :) Its funny to me to go back and look at the other photos i've done of her, and she just gets cuter and cuter! We took these photos at a park near the cabin. She just couldn't help but get "Bubby" in some of the photos!

I love this photo, she looks like she's up to something mischievous here :)

Haley and her bestie Big Bird. aka Bubby!

This one makes me laugh too...it's when she got a couple pebbles stuck in her shoes...she's saying "Shoes! Shoes!" and has a scrunchy face b/c of the pebbles!

Tuesday's gonneeee with the wiiiind...

2010-06-22T10:05:00.001-05:00

Okay, not so much, as it's still the morning, but whatev. Last night I went out to dinner with Aaron. We went to Old Chicago, and had lots of laughs. He got a kick out of my photos with the Twins! After, we went over to Starbucks...where he had a coffee, I was just along for the ride. I've been having so many sleeping problems lately, I couldn't even think of having a coffee, let alone at 8pm!!!
Tonight I'm meeting up with miss Brenda at the Buffalo Tap! MMMM!! Can't wait to get my hands on a juicy lucy :) and the Twins will be playing the Brewers, and my scotty b is pitching, so we have that to look forward to also!
Yesterday I headed over to Home Depot to check out some paint swatches... picked up a few...got home and taped them up on my closet door, trying to get a feel for what color I want. Not in love with any of it, as its so boring and beige. what can you do though??? I'm heading over to menards at lunch to pick up some more...i think menards has a better selection of paint swatches anyway!!!! I think there is a uhal right there too, I might get me some boxes. Gotta get my place DE-CLUTTERED!!!! wish me luck. Hopefully Jason will come help me move a few pieces of furniture too... slowly but surely...

up to nooooo goood!

2010-06-17T16:55:00.000-05:00

just kidding.
I'm getting a little better about writing. maybe it was just my brush with fame... i'm slowly falling from the cloud i've been in all week... I'm actually feeling like I'm having withdrawals from my Twinkies. They played during the day today, so I recorded it. I already know the outcome, but I'll watch it anyway as there is nothing else on!? I also have to get going on some laundry. I think I have enough quarters to get me thru.... I haven't done laundry since before memorial day, so I have a bit to do. Plus I want to straighten up a bit... I have to take some photos of my place for someone. Yes, I'm up to something, but I haven't gone public with it. No, not selling. Why would I sell in this HORRIBLE market? Anyway, I figure not many people read this so I can put it out there right now. Soon enough it will be out there anyway.
It's a hot one out here today, and SUPER windy... It's lookin like we are gonna have some big ol storms coming thru too. Hoping they hold off until I am at home.
Mom's picking up a new wall unit air conditioner for me tonight :) yahooo! I could have used it today, thats for sure. At least I'll have it for July and August when it gets REALLY hot!!
okay enough rambeling for now.

watchin the twinnns

2010-06-15T20:49:00.000-05:00

So today is the first game since Justin's Casino Night.. I'm watching these guys for the first time since I met them two nights ago.... It is still so surreal to me to be seeing these guys in uniform after hanging with them. I can't believe how generous Jenny and Ryan were to allow me to go!! I'm sure they could have found a babysitter, I'm sure Ryan could have found another buddy to bring...but they chose me... I will have memories of meeting the 2010 Twins for my whole life, thanks to these two!!
It's also neat to see them in their uniforms again after seeing them dressed up so nice. When we were on our way to Target Field I said to Ryan, I don't know if I will recognize these guys without their hats on!! He said he thought he'd do a pretty good job at that... I told him about meeting Brian Duensing the other week, I said had there not been a sign, I wouldn't have known who was signing baseballs at Byerley's! But once I was there, and these boys were showing up I was naming them off left and right... I didn't get to talk to or get photos with all of these guys, but I did see them.
Obviously Justin Morneau, Scott Baker, Jesse Crain, Brian Duensing, Carl Pavano, John Rauch, Kevin Slowey, Joe Mauer, Brenden Harris, Nick Punto, Matt Tolbert, Michael Cuddyer, Denard Span, Delmen Young, Jason Kubel, Jim Thome, Olando Hudson, JJ Hardy and Joe Nathan... I KNOW more of the Twins were there... but I didn't have a chance to study the full roster before I went to be able to point them out... I think I actually did pretty well... Ryan said he wouldn't have picked up on a bunch of the guys I did.
I've seen a couple spots on TV about the fundraiser, none of which I spotted myself. I know there is video of Ryan and myself while getting our photo taken with a couple of the guys....
If you can't tell, I'm still on cloud nine from meeting these guys.. 95% of them were awesome... Since meeting them I've done some research on other's blogs where they have also met the twins... I've read that John Rauch does not like getting his photo taken... I saw him turn a bunch of people down on sunday, and it sounds like when he has other appearances, he's not so excited about the photo thing. I'm sure there is a reason behind it.... just not sure what it is. I've also come to find out that Kevin Slowey is the nicest guy on the block... I read it over and over, that he's always excited to be where he is, and is always willing to take photos with his fans... Kevin didn't have his best outing vs the braves earlier in the day... i tell you what, i couldn't even tell he had a bad day on the job at all. He was smiling and so very nice, and funny to boot!! He's now my number one Twins player... He was just signed for a year earlier in 2010... I'm crossing my fingers to keep you here Kevin :)
The one player I didn't look into too much was Delmon Young...Every time we saw him he seemed to be on a mission, and not really into taking photos. We did get one with Ryan and Delmon... he's also the one guy I didn't get my photo with.
Tonight Nathan is on calling the game with Dick and Burt tonight... they showed him earlier, it looks like he's wearing the same shirt he had on Sunday night :) maybe he has 10 of the same shirts though :)
They are talking about Carl Pavano and his mustache... Then they had fun with photo shop and added a Pavano stache to all the starting rotation... Nathan laughed and said the best one is Slowey, I don't think he could grow one if he tried!! hehe
I have my photos printed, and I've got a concept in my head for my scrap book for sunday night. I just have to implement it :)

Chandler's Smile...

2010-06-15T09:01:00.001-05:00

So, as you've read/heard, I was able to meet Justin Morneau, and like 20 other twins players the other night.. When I was getting ready, I was only thinking I'd see Justin. I was trying to come up with what the heck i'd say to him. Since the fundraiser was for Juvenal Arthritis, I was going to thank him, and tell him about my cousin who grew up with JA... Millions of things were racing thru my head... But when I got up and shook his hand, my mind went blank. Couldn't barely talk... I remember standing there with Justin and the photographer standing in front of us, saying SMILE! I did, and all I could think of was Chandler...and his engagement photos... OMG I forgot how to smile!!!!!!!!!!! I was sure my photo with Justin was going to be horrible, and I'd look like Chandler!!!!!!!!!! Thank goodness that wasn't the case!

LML!!!!!!!!! it does not get any better than this!! Justin Morneau's Casino Night

2010-06-14T08:39:00.005-05:00

So my plan for Sunday was to sit in my PJ's all day, watch the Twins/Braves game... It's been too long since I've done NOTHING. So that was what I was going to do. I left my phone in my bedroom and started watching the game. Around 1, I went into the bedroom to get my phone. I had several missed calls from Jenny. I call and say whats up?? she says "do you want to go meet Justin Morneau with my husband?" i was like 'Hell YES I do!!" Ryan and I made our plans to meet up around 5 as it started at 6pm.
I was sooo nervous getting ready, I'm going to meet JUSTIN MORNEAU my FAVORITE Twins player!! Did my hair, my toes, my makeup.. picked out a dress, I was lookin GOOD!
Justin Morneau's Casino Night is a fundraiser for Arthritis. I believe one of Justin's nieces has juvinal arthritis. Anyway, it was in the Legend's Club at Target Field. Little did I know that I'd be back so quick after Wednesday Night's game! Right away when we got there, we got in line to get our photos taken with Justin. We heard rumors that we'd probably see other players tonight along with Justin. Holy crap, had I known this when I was getting ready, I'd have been REALLY nervous! Anyway, The line went pretty quickly, it was $10 for this photo, money going to the Juvenile Arthritis foundation.
I got my photo taken with Justin. I was so nervous, it looks like I'm scared of him. he was not so nervous about meeting me though, as you see, he's got his arm around me :)
And then the flood gates opened, Twins players everywhere!! check these photos out!!

Here I am with Justin. Totally nervous, hardly getting near him....

Standing waiting my arrival...

My Scotty Baker :) he was checking out the stuff up for auction.. I asked if I could get my photo with him. He was so sweet :) Since he was just the second Twins player I met, I was still really nervous here... I could tell Scott was expecting some sort of conversation after this photo, but all I could say was "thank you" How embarrassing!!!

Me and Denard. He wanted to see the photo to make sure it looked good :)

Kevin Slowey and me... He was my favorite. He talked to me and Ryan for a while.. Ryan asked him a question, and he answered "you know, we are people, just like you... " He talked with us for a while, more than any other player, very down to earth. He was beautiful! and he smelled sooooooo goood!

chillin at the wive's table with the man Joe Nathan.

We were watching for Joe like a hawk... We knew he'd be there, it was just a matter of time before he showed up.. We were the first to get our photo taken with Joe! He was very sweet, just as I figured he'd be. He laughed at Ryan when Ryan told him that everyone says they look alike... set them side by side, and they look nothing alike!!

Ahhh Mr JJ Hardy! Much better lookin as a twin than a brewer...

and my man Cuddy!! He was also very sweet. Ryan told Michael that his buddy looks just like Michael.. Michael laughs and says "he must be a good lookin guy!!" too funny!

Carl and his creepy 'stach!

and the fun begins! Justin waiting to play some Texas Hold 'em

Ryan, Jim Thome and Me, photo taken by Mrs. Thome, who was so very sweet, and beautiful!

and finally, Matt Tolbert, and Nick Punto... I guess one photo had to not turn out... the guys look good anyway!! I laughed when I saw the photo too, looks like Nick has his hand on my ass..... Their next game, Punto was on fire. I attribute that to my ass.

I had the time of my life meeting these guys, they were all amazing :) I can die a happy woman now!!

Legend's CLUB yall!

2010-06-10T20:23:00.007-05:00

OMG, LOVE LOVE LOVE the Legend's Club, Delta Sky 360 yall! What a great night! These photos are BACKWARDS. because this blogger is so lame, that's what it does...

Here Jen and I are just a few rows down from our seats.

Twins Win! 6 to 2 over Kansas City
In the Legend's Club, here I am posing with Bert
Loving it!
Kirby's 1987 world series championship ring
view from our seats!
Carl with his ugly mustache. ok hes looking the other way, so you can't see it but it's not pretty.
Dick talking to some fans
Here is Bert, right after I took this photo he stuck his tongue out at me.. then I stuck mine out at him... we both laughed and waved :) what a special moment with Bert :)
Kirby Puckett's bar
On the balcony outside of Harman Killebrew's bar
wall of memorable quotes!

Rod Carew's bar
leaving the Legend's Club

After Danny signed my purse!
Me and Jen, behind us over the M you can see Bert's head and Dick is further down you can see Dick's head
Dan grabbing my bag to sign... he looked in my purse and his jaw dropped... he says "does your mother know what you keep in here?" i laughed and said "no no that's between me and you!" what a nice guy!
At Hrbek's bar

SOOO awesome.... What a wonderful night! If you have a chance to have seats in the Legend's club, get all over it. it's beautiful. you dont even have to leave your seats, they have waiters and waitresses!! so fun!

eurika!

2010-06-09T10:52:00.002-05:00

So... for as long as I remember, I was getting these horrible head aches, they are at the base of my neck, and it feels as if someone is STABBING me with something, and usually around the same time every day... It is SO painful. I'd get these things daily and it was really annoying. I asked my OBGYN if maybe it had to do with my pills. She said why don't you start taking your pills at another time of the day and see if it changes when you get these head aches.
Anyway, over the last year they sort of have quit... It's been a long time since I had them, until recently... Sunday I noticed it... Monday.... Tuesday... and today. I sat down to think what the heck have I done differently?
If you remember, last year I stopped drinking soda for breakfast... Well Sat, Sun, Monday Tuesday and Today I actually have been having Diet Mountain Dew... Monday I was so tired, and I had a two liter left over from when Mary was in town, and thought, I'll have some.. Tues and Today I decided I better drink this up before it goes flat... It's totally the caffeine!!!!!!! I'm happy to finally have figured it out. You won't be catching me with soda in my hands again!

LEGEND'S CLUB!

2010-06-08T15:19:00.004-05:00

Opened up my email at work when I got to work today to find out I had won tickets to tomorrow night's Twins game against the Royal's! I was super excited to hear this! Since I missed out on that other game this year..... Now I have one to make up for it.
My tickets were delivered while I was on the phone with a customer... I felt bad that I was not able to thank her for the tickets!! She did mouth to me that they are great seats.... When I was off the phone I opened the envelope.... They are tickets in the Legend's CLUB!!! I tried getting in this area when Mary and I went to the Brewers game a few weeks back, but you need to have tickets in the Legend's Club to get into their "clubhouse"
In the club house they have all sorts of awesome things.. like a huge wall made of wood with a portrait of Kirby Puckett burnt into it!
I haven't yet brought my SLR to any games, but I'll surely bring it to tomorrows game. I invited Jenny to go along with me. Haven't seen her in quite some time, so I'm excited to catch up with her.
I've got continuing education tomorrow afternoon in Bloomington, I will be meeting with jen and hopping on the light rail from there! YEAY! There will be pictures to follow!

again, i'm bad at these updates

2010-06-08T15:01:00.003-05:00

I don't know how I am so gung ho sometimes about blogging, and sometimes i am just like "eh"
Today, I'm ready.
First things first. Yesterday I thought since I quit the gym, it would be a good idea to get some cardio in. I have had these Rollerblades for years, and never use them. they SERIOUSLY have been on the pavement like 5 times. and not at all in the last 5 o r 6 years.
I used to go on walks, until i heard of people being beaten and raped in my area. then I stopped! Anyway, what i remembered of my walking route, there was not many hills, what i remembered was big up hills, no really big down hill so I thought what the heck.
It was and interesting ride to the park... no falling, but using grass to slow down, and trying out the break thats on the heel. I am awesome at ice skating, so i dont quite understand how I can't get the concept of rollerblading. i just can't bet my brain to figure out I don't have a toe pick!
when I'm going slow i can think about what I'm doing and to use my heel.. but when I'm speeding along I'm just trying not to die.
anyway, right when i got into the park area where they have Frisbee golf, there are lots of trees. I get on that path and the first thing that i run into is a woman and her freaking dog that she can't control. this is not good when I'm having problems controlling myself! the dog came running at me on his leash that his owner let open all the way, rather than keeping it locked on a short leash.. i end up in the grass trying not to trip over this freakshow of a dog, and end up falling on my @$$. she apologized and asked if i was okay, i said I'm fine. got up and continued on. there were a couple rough spots along the way as stuff was all over the path, which isn't good for a newbie Rollerblader. i got thru the Frisbee golf area with no broken bones. YEAY
the path in the park where there is a couple baseball diamonds and a couple soccer fields was relatively flat... i noticed as after i passed the baseball diamonds and i was on my way between the soccer fields that the path was indeed on a downward slope. it was barely a slope, but a long slope indeed. i made it fine thru the soccer area (with millions of people around, so thank god i didn't fall then!!). The path then goes back into the woods where the beginning of the Frisbee golf course is. this is where the path starts winding again and has a steeper slope... i had to have been going about 10 mph when i saw branches all over the path, no way i'd make it over these without falling on my face and breaking every bone in my body.. i grabbed a branch trying to slow.. didn't help. ended up back on the grass, since i was going so fast when i got on the grass i was running, running faster than I've ever ran and with roller blades on. thank the lord above i came to a stop with out injury (other than to my pride!!) a guy was walking the path in the opposite direction and he said "that would have hurt!" i said "i probably would have died"
needless to say, i wont be getting back into those effin things ever again. ever.

weekend

2010-05-27T15:23:00.004-05:00

i'm super excited for the upcoming weekend at the cabin. i think every weekend should be 3 days. we should never have to work mondays. no one should! no one should even expect anyone to work on mondays! i loved having 4 10s and not having to think about a monday! my worst days were always TUESDAYS!
anyway, we are heading to the cabin, it's gonna be the whole fam damily. should be good times. the sun is supposed to be out, the temps are supposed to be warm, who could ask for more?? we are for sure gonna get the yard games out, test out my cornhole boards and bean bags... play some badminton... sounds like we will have a boat in a lake all weekend, yeahooooo!
fun times to be had by all! and, AND, i get to spend time with my favorite niece, miss haley! woohoo!
which brings me to what happened last memorial weekend... i didn't spend it at the cabin... i spent it with my bff, dan! he came home to bring some stuff here, and to go to a few twinkies games. we had a wonderful weekend... and though i am sad i wont be spending this memorial weekend with him, i know i will be spending many future memorial weekends with him :)

Brian Duensing

2010-05-25T08:27:00.005-05:00

Okay, we all know how hot it was yesterday... I decided for lunch I wanted Byerly's Chicken Cesar Pasta Salad (if you've never had this, you MUST try!!). Whenever it's this hot I hardly have an appetite, but this sounded so good today. When I was parking, I saw a kid carrying a baseball.. i thought, that's weird.. maybe he caught it at the game yesterday and was excited about it... then didn't think of it again until I walked into Byerley's... I see a table set up with a dude sitting at it, and people crowded around him... i couldn't see who it was, so when i walked by, i read the sign, "Meet Minnesota Twins' Brian Duensing!" HOLY CRAP!! Thankfully I've got my camera with for just such occasions...And since it's baseball season, I've got my Minnesota Twins jersey purse on me!! Brian signed my bag with a silver pen, it didn't work so well, so he signed it again on the "T" He was super nice. I was super nervous, shaking away!! you can tell from the photos :)

I'm hoping to run into more Twins players this summer. doubtful.... but hoping!!

Bears!

2010-05-24T10:46:00.002-05:00

One of my insureds is looking out her window to this! She lives in Grantsburg WI... how cool to see this out your window :) she said she's staying inside today!! I guess they've been chowing down on the birdfeed for a while today!

One of my insureds is looking out her window to this!

Flowers!

2010-05-17T18:44:00.004-05:00

It's beautiful out... you know what that means... i got the itch, the itch to plant some flowers. i've learned thru the last handful of years that while linders has beautiful flowers... well they are expensive. I've found that Cub Foods has much lower prices, and while the flowers don't look as beautiful when you purchase them... once you've planted and watered them for a few weeks, they look just as great as the linders flowers! anyway, here are some photos of my planters!

In a few weeks when these look a little better i will add some more photos :)

How bout this beautiful weekend?!?

2010-05-16T19:54:00.005-05:00

What a beautiful weekend at the cabin!! Spent most of it outside! as it should be!! Mom and Dad got Haley a sandbox. here she is sitting in it, she loooves her sandbox!

did a lot of work on the cornhole game.. here they are drawn up, ready to be painted

Stefanie and Haley drove up for the day. I played my jaw harp for miss haley, she wanted to help me play!
Stef and I went into Moose Lake to pick up some paintbrushes to work on the boards. I also picked up a CAT bulldozer. dad was having fun playing in the sand with it!
Thanks to my sister for helping me with the cornhole game. i dont think i'd be done with them if she wasn't there to help me!
and the finished product! they look GREAT!! dang we've got a crafty family! Thanks to my pops and sister for helping me on these :)

I love it when Maddie lays in bellas bed! she's so stinking funny thinking she's a good fit!

tgiffffffffffffffffffff

2010-05-14T13:51:00.002-05:00

Wellllll wellllll welllll, hellooooo world. I'm in a mood. maybe because it's finally friday. maybe because in 4 hours i will be heading up to the cabin to spend time with my wonderful family. and who could forget, time with my cornhole game. i've got my paints ready, i'm ready to get these things done. hopefully i wont spend the whole weekend painting the dang things. maybe my sister will want to help! we will see what happens. gonna get them drawn out hopefully tonight (if i dont fall asleep at 8, which tends to happen when i go to the cabin!).
Next weekend is going to be a fun one too. Mary is coming to town, as are her Milwaukee Brewers. We're going to catch sundays twins/brewers game. i'm super excited to show off our new stadium to a brewers fan. why? because target field is far superior to miller park. we don't have a God awful green roof staring at us in our park. I was sort of ticked about not getting a retractable roof, until i was in the stadium. it's beautiful, great views, amazing. i wouldn't change it. unless they made a retractable roof that wasn't so hideous looking, or one they could hide, sort of like a sunroof that goes into the roof of your car. ya know???
big fan o target field here :)

CORNHOLE!

2010-05-13T09:33:00.001-05:00

Soooo, since playing Cornhole at the Richmond NASCAR race, i've been obsessed in making my own. I know between me and my pops we'd make an awesome cornhole game... Here are the photos, in no particular order because this blogger thing is driving me crazy putting them where ever it wants. Anyway, as you can see i've got a red board and a white board... the red one will soon bare Minne and Paul, shaking hands over the Mississippi river, aka, the Minnesota Twins board. The other will feature the head of our own Minnesota Vikings logo! That's right, you heard it here, I will have the COOLEST cornhole game in these united states. don't worry, don't be jealous... with the help of my pops we can make you your very own custom made cornhole game for just $300. that's right, $300. plus shipping and handling :) muhaha. My dad rocks by the way. not only did he basically build this game for me, but he had all the wood and supplies i needed!!! This weekend i'll be painting the logos on the boards! sooooo exciting! you know i'll have photos to share when they are done! oh and btw, i even made my very own custom bean bags :)

Balt-i-more

2010-05-13T09:01:00.005-05:00

Okay i'm gonna get this D O N E! Baltimore was a beautiful city. okay we were only in the downtown area, but what we saw of Baltimore was amazing. I would love to live downtown Baltimore. they have some really cool condos overlooking the harbor. they are million dollar condos, but that does not make me want them any less!! okay...here we go
I arrived in Richmond on time, thank you AirTran... Dan was there waiting for me... Jumped in his car and we headed up to Baltimore, MD. It was a pretty quick ride if you ask me. I guess it must have been 2 hours or something, but it went by fast being in the same car with Dan :)
We stopped in the outter Baltimore area to leave his car at a light rail station... we took the train in to downtown Baltimore, we were just two blocks from our hotel, the Sharedon. It was a beautiful hotel. We got there at 10... so we didn't do much that night, ordered some room service, and headed to bed.
Thursday we got up and headed to the Inner Harbor. We had lunch at Phillips Seafood. It was pretty good. The view was better than the food if you ask me. After, we got our tickets to the water taxi which would take us down to Fort Mc Henry. It was a fun way to get down there, going thru the harbor, rather than taking a taxi cab! Dan entertained folks on the water taxi by asking ridiculous questions about pirates and if we could take over Fort Mc Henry... Anyway, the fort was beautiful.. we walked around the park for an hour or two, taking photos and just enjoying the view. Fort Mc Henry is the site where the National Anthem was inspired and written. Here are some photos I took at the fort:

We even bought Jaw Harps at the fort gift shop. I haven't seen one of these since 4th grade, when our whole class had them for playing 'chicken in the hay' i think that's what its called... anyway.. after visiting the fort, we walked around downtown Baltimore a bit more before heading over to Camden Yards for the Oriole/Yankee game. We had a group of people ask us how to get to the Inner Harbor, we explained it to them, then asked if they'd take our photo in front of the ballpark:

After walking around the ballpark, it was time to go in and check out our seats.. great view! wish it wasn't the friggin yankees that were in town. It was rather strange that at least half the fans in the stands were Yankee fans. I over heard people saying if the tickets to the yankees stadium weren't so expensive, they'd be going to games there... but it's cheap to fly to Baltimore and catch a game there!

I'm glad I started this tradition... I buy a hat for the home team of every ball park I have visited. this is stadium number nine for me (Dome, Miller Park, Turner Field, Cominski, Wrigley field, National's Stadium, the Jake, Target Field, and Camden Yards!) It's nice to have something from each park I've seen. what better than a hat collection :)

This is stadium number FOUR for Dan and me!

The Yankees won (surprise surprise) 4-1. After the game we went back to the Inner Harbor to take some photos. There was a full moon, and it was beautiful over the harbor!

This is my favorite of the photos I took that night:

We found this cool water fountain/sculpture that you could walk thru and around... it was pretty darn cool :) More photos a little later on that i took during the day!

Friday we got up and checked out of the hotel. They were able to check our bags so that we could walk around a few hours. We decided we headed up to Federal Hill. see the photo below. It wasn't a fun walk up! it was totally worth it though, beautiful views of the city!

We walked down the hill and had lunch at the RS. I dont remember the name of this place, as i always called it the Rusty Scrotum. it obviously wasn't the name...but since i continued calling it that, i can't remember the real name! it was delicious! i had a crabcake sammy. mmmm..

We continued to just walk around the inner harbor for a while longer before heading out of town.

Here is a photo of the water fountain/sculpture thingy we found thrusday night. The metal sculpture on the left hand side is called Ecstasy of Love. beautiful!

That was our time in Baltimore.. This whole going to every MLB park is really awesome...I never sat down and thought "oh Baltimore, that's a city i'd like to go to" same thing with Cleveland... But i LOVED both cities! I'm super excited to see more ballparks and new cities :)