Introducing…

Here’s a story for you. When I bought my house, just over 18 months ago. I had already started purchasing things long before it was mine. One of the things I was all about was a welcome sign. I do have one (okay three…but they’re for different seasons) for my front door, but that didn’t live up to my vision.

I wanted something else. Thus the hunt began for the perfect welcome accoutrement for outside my front door. My dad donated a log when I realized I couldn’t afford something that was tall enough to stand on its own. But, even with the log…still no luck. Then, the holiday season rolled around. This was winter of 2010. Shopping at Home Depot one day, I found this adorable snowman, holding a welcome sign. He was EXACTLY what I’d been looking for.

Bam. I snatched him right up. All winter, he lived on the log outside my door, welcoming friends and family from the frosty cold into the warmth of my home.

(Wow, evidently I do not take photos of the outside of my house during the day in the winter. LOTS of xmas light photos at night, though…)

That’s the best one I’ve got of Frosty…in the lower left. If you’ve visited me during the six months of winter, you’ve seen him, he’s always there.

That first spring in my house, I renewed my hunt for a “non-winter” welcomer. No luck. My mother was actively searching, I was actively searching…and ask anyone, I can find ANYTHING on the internet. But, not this. Eventually, warm weather faded into a late fall and in November, I hauled out Frosty to take his customary place. There he sat, until mid-April (only a few weeks ago) because I forgot to put him away. Yep, forgot. One night, Lane dropped me off and said, “why is that snowman still out?” and so, back into storage he went.

I mentioned to my mom that I really wished I could find a warm weather seasonal creature. She and I renewed the hunt, for the third consecutive spring. It boggled the mind that in WINTER you could find things to brighten up the outside of your home, but not for summer? I even asked Elena to join the search, as she is constantly hunting for things for her house…maybe she’d stumble over something for me.

Then just a week ago, my mother phoned me at work. You’ll never believe it, but I found you a GNOME. I’d found gnomes before, but they are always so small and I needed something fairly substantial to fill that space.

Never mind that, Mom said he was perfect and she bought him already. “Think of a name” was her advice to me. I love that she knew I was going to name him.

A couple days ago, the perfect name hit me out of the blue.

Introducing, my new welcome buddy:

Gnomar Garciaparra.

You can just call him Gnomar.

Thanks mom! I love that you found him for me. He makes me happy. This morning before I left for work, I stepped out of my garage and peeked around the corner and I smiled to see him there. I think he winked when he saw me.

Flowers

Sometimes, people post blogs about flowers. I always think it is nice, but kind of weird. So that is why I am now going to do the same.

Just a couple quick things.

The bush between my house and my neighbors is finally blooming!

I’ve always wanted a lilac bush and now I finally have one. It makes me happy every morning when I leave for work and every night when I come home.

And a couple weeks ago, my mom and I went shopping and I bought my first ever outdoor plant for my home. I had one last year, but it was a gift from my mom. This year, I picked it out for myself.

Guess what color it is?

If you guessed purple…well, duh.

That’s the whole plant. Isn’t it gorgeous? It makes me smile. Now we just have to hope I can keep it alive all summer. And yes, it is supposed to be a hanging basket, and no, it is not going to hang at my house. It is going to just sit right there.

Looking pretty and making me happy. What a nice life.

Twin-terrific

Well, I promised, so here’s your update of the Twins game. First, let’s get the suspense out of the way. They lost. Final score, 6-2.

As my mother put it, “you’re not going to be able to go to too many Twins games this year where they win.” Ouch.

But, here’s the fun.

Lane and I drove down, chattering the whole way. We parked and started our trek to the game. Our seats were about as high up as one can go, which is pretty darn high. Because we read the signs a little TOO carefully, we ended up walking up the ramp to get to the top. It was the world’s longest, neverending, ramp. It was absurd. We finally got to the top…winded…and found we still had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to our seats. So we grabbed food.

Elena went to get nachos. I went to get a hot dog. However, I was in the wrong line and didn’t get the “normal” hot dog, they only had the special one, for $6. Fine. When we got up to our seats and wiped our bleeding noses, I learned that Lane forgot the jalapeños for my nachos. They are kind of the point. Which sucks; but it wouldn’t kill me to eat them without. Plus it was a long way back down and a long line I’d have to wait in…didn’t seem worth it. So I ate them, except the cheese was cold. Pretty much the worst nachos I’ve ever had. For $5.

We were hanging out for a bit and then she looked at me and said, “aren’t you going to take some pictures?” Well, of course!

The view from our seats and proof that it was a gorgeous night in early May.

The fight that wasn’t. Fighting is few and far between in baseball, but usually a doozy when it happens. This was close, but no cigar.

Sun sinking over the field. Beautiful. Note the kid in the white cap that says “Browns” on it. He comes up later.

Lane’s new Twins cap. And the shot we text in during the game.

Our attempt at a cute photo. But she doesn’t like it. I think it’s cute. We tried again.

And we were cracking each other up so hard, we’re laughing hysterically in this photo. Thus, it becomes one of my all time favorites of us.

And, for her, one where we are not attempting to smile. In fact, quite the opposite.

I know…but what else are you going to do up there?

At this point, the game is not going well. We’ve analyzed the plate music of each Twin (too much rap) and debated the relative cuteness of each player. The “kids” in front of us were being annoying and we decided to go get some ice cream. After a battle in the line over who would pay (I won, because I wrapped her in a stranglehold and jerked her out of the way–true story) we headed back to our seats.

Of course, being adorable, we bought mini-helmets to eat our ice cream from–which is obviously a photo op.

I know, it’s too cute for words. Notice, though, how there is no longer anyone behind us. People were either leaving or setting out for better seats below.

Then, Elena started in on the bugs. Apparently, she’s  kind of a wimpy girl who doesn’t like bugs. I said I’d protect her. The thing was, there were A LOT of bugs. We were so high up, we were directly below the field lights. The bugs were congregating right above our heads.

One of them found his way down her shirt…

Yep, couldn’t resist.

I’ll admit, it was a swarm of bugs. I tried to get a picture of them, they were so thick it looked like it was snowing. The picture didn’t turn out, but while I was aiming my camera at seemingly nothing (the night sky), the boys from the row in front of us had moved up to sit next to us. I felt a presence and looked over and saw white cap…who will henceforth be known as “23″… scrunched down in his chair, peering up at my phone, trying to see what I was taking a picture of. It probably looked odd.

I looked at him and said, “what? are you trying to get in my picture?” and he laughed and said, “yep, I’d love to take a picture with you!”

There you go. Me and 23.

Now, his buddies, all of whom were sitting up by us said, “hey will you take our picture?” Which, I am always happy to do. Until they are staring at MY phone.

I said:

“You want me to take a picture of YOU on MY phone?

Yes.

That was their response.

Yes.

It was so bizarre I didn’t even know what to say. What a completely absurd request. Yet, for some reason, I did it.

There they are. 23, Hardaway, and “I’m not allowed to speak to strangers”. I showed them the photo and Hardaway (middle–because of his jersey) said, “that’s the best picture of us there is! Me and my best friends! Thank you so much”.

Okay, that’s actually kind of sweet. Then he says, “would you mind texting that photo to me?” Seriously?

Luckily, by this point, it was clear that he was a harmless doof and not the obnoxious punk I had earlier deduced him to be. So, I asked for his number and text him the photo. He thanked me probably 8-10 times.

Then, to continue being nice, 23 said, “do you want me to take your photo?” and gestures at us. Like a true comedy of errors, I said yes and Lane said no, practically in sync. I, however, won, and turned over MY phone to this kid. I did NOT ask him to use his own phone.

As I turned to her to tell her to smile, I looked back and he’s staring at my phone, holding it up in front of his face, and he has the most puzzled expression. I say, “what’s wrong?” and he said, “I don’t know how to use this thing.”

I actually laughed.

“How old are you?”

“23″ (thus the nickname)

I said, “23, doesn’t that automatically mean you’re born with the technology gene?” and he laughed. He said he’d never used an iPhone before. I thought that was kind of quaint. I showed him how it worked and he took one, frowned at Lane and said, “we’re taking another.” I swear, this kid was adorable. So he takes the second, makes a face and hands me my phone. I said, “they turn out” and he said, “she’s looking at you, um, weird.”

Take 1:

Um yeah, that’s just bad all around.

Take 2:

Kind of weird? I think she looks like a serial killer in this photo…and I’m her next victim. No wonder 23 was concerned.

Then Lane wanted to take a picture of me, to prove that she, who has never used an iPhone, can best the skills of a 23 year old.

IDK how this happened, but I was trying to make a face, and then she was trying to make me laugh, so she grabbed my head. And now I am immortalized thusly. Lucky me.

Shortly thereafter, we decided to head out early. It was 9:30 on a work night, after all! As we were leaving, the boys said, “what? you’re leaving? the game’s not even over!” I said we knew, but we had to get going. They all stood up and thanked us AGAIN for the photo of them as we were headed out.

I guess that’ll teach me to make rash assessments, as they were very nice boys with good manners. One more stop before leaving as I wanted a photo of us in front of the field. Lane would not stand up and turn around for me to do this from our seats, so we waited until we hit ground level.

I took that with the rear facing camera. Then, this nice lady offered to do it for us. It took her three tries to get this:

Which is a little dark, but still a cute photo.

As we were driving down the street, headed for home, I snapped this from the moving car.

A lovely capper to a fun and festive evening. There’s really nothing like outdoor baseball, laughter and friendship, is there?

400

After posting that last one, WordPress was kind enough to tell me it was my 399th post. Which means…this is 400!

Congrats to us all.

I hit just over 500 at my last site, Mindsay, which means I’ve written nearly 1,000 blog posts in my life. That’s incredible to me.

I’m also surprised that I am that high on this site. It seems like just yesterday that I started this blog. As a matter of fact, let me check.

I did my first post on Mindsay on December 9, 2007 and hit my 400th post on March 24, 2010. That is 837 days to get to 400 posts. That seems like a long time, right? 2 years, 3 months and 16 days.

By comparison, I did my first post on WordPress on August, 15,2010 and am doing my 400th…well, now. This is it, people. Pay attention! That means it only took me 635 days to reach that milestone for a second time. Or, 1 year, 8 months, 26 days. That’s considerably less. I blog so much faster now! Or else I’ve got more to talk about, who knows!

The cool thing I think is that I am officially 917 total posts into this blogging thing and it has been 1,615 days I’ve been a blogger. Or 4 years, 5 months, 2 days. My five year anniversary is this year. I will also hit 1,000 total posts and 500 WP posts this year. That’s pretty cool and a pretty impressive record for blogging, if you ask me. And I’m just the girl who started this because a librarian friend told her to. I never intended to be a blogger. But, today, right now, I’m sure glad I am.

Thanks for reading!

All About Elena

Let’s talk about Elena. Shall we? Of course we shall, it’s my blog.

Elena is my best friend. We’ve known each other since high school. We were 15 when we met. And we’ve stayed friends for all these years, even through both of us moving away and now, well now we both own our own homes, about 15 minutes from each other.

We talk every day. Not necessarily physically. Sometimes just email. Or text. But something…every day. Lately, we’ve been hanging out a ton, which is awesome, because she is awesome and so much fun.

Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve been up to lately:

We started a new job. Together. All these years and it is the first time we’ve worked together. We both got hired by my friend Amy to work for her wedding planning business. The past couple Saturdays we’ve worked at organizing the storage room and creating an inventory.

She bought a new bench for her house. What is amazing about this is that a couple DAYS earlier, I got a Bed, Bath, and Beyond catalog in the mail. I randomly flipped through it and saw this bench. I fell for it completely. I love that bench. LOVE IT. So much so, that for the first time in my (adult) life, I tore a picture out of a catalog and hung it up on my fridge. Then, two days later I visit her and she had bought the exact same bench! Isn’t that nuts. So we had a comedic experience assembling it. It was almost a disaster, but we pulled it back from the very brink.

We went on a movie date in the middle of the day. We saw Mirror, Mirror. L-O-V-E-D it. Can’t say enough good things about this movie. I had hardly ever heard of it but she wanted to see it and I was game. It was awesome. Funny and charming and complex. So much better than expected. Also, the girl who plays Snow White? Lily Collins. I found this out after the fact and have told a couple people and they were all surprised. She is the daughter of none other than Phil Collins. If you’re my age you definitely know who that is. We also hit lunch at Noodles and Co. and did an impromptu visit to the dollar store. If you know me, you know how much I love the dollar store. It is an endless source of amusement for my dad how much I love this store. Turns out, Lane had never been there and didn’t really know what it was about. I gave her the grand tour. Literally. I walked her down every aisle and told her what stuff I buy in that aisle.

We went on an impromptu date to Ikea. I bought like 6 things and somehow only spent $9. I love Ikea. She bought a ton of stuff, but we were so happy that we got to go shopping for “house stuff” together. Even though we’ve done it many times, that little thing just pleases us both so much. After shopping, we headed to the MOA for dinner at this Mexican restaurant we’ve eaten at before. We remembered it being good. It was NOT good this time. Service and food were terrible. However, the pomegranate mojito was out of this world.

While we were there, we wandered around a bit and saw the Mirror Maze. I’ve been mildly obsessed with this maze for a couple years now. I’ve asked multiple people to go with me and gotten shut down. I finally mentioned it to Lane and she said, “Great! Let’s do it.” And so we did. It was about 15 minutes before closing. It was us and these two high school boys inside.

I was immediately enamored. First of all, it was dark inside, which was not something I expected. It’s shocking how difficult it is to tell what is a mirror and what is open space. I wonder if it was daytime and it was lit up if that would make it easier? Couldn’t have been harder.

I know it’s a bad pic, but it was really dark in there! Plus this is the front facing camera, so no flash.

But, I loved it. Lane was a bit lost. Until I shared my secret with her. I know how to get out of any maze. I’m not going to tell you here, but there is a secret to it. I actually read this in a romance novel YEARS ago and thought it was bizarre, until I really thought about it and realized it is totally logical. I’ve been waiting to practice it that whole time. It’s not like mazes are an every day thing in my life. I did do a corn maze, but I let my nephew navigate that. Plus it was different–not as true maze-like.

We went in and wandered for a bit, laughing with the boys. One of them was talking to me and I couldn’t see him. Then, suddenly I could, so I was looking right at him and talking to him. I could see several of his reflections around us, but I was looking right at him. Then, he appeared. Directly behind me. So, I guess I was NOT looking at him. So weird! They were hopelessly lost, but having fun with it, so we let them go. After a bit of wandering and laughing at how strange it is, I told Lane my secret and we tried it out. In no time, we’d found the exit. It was so easy we couldn’t believe it. And we didn’t want to be done that fast, so we used the trick to get back to the entrance. Then we went back through again, trying to remember the path without using the secret. What we did learn is that the secret works from any point in the maze, you do not need to start from the beginning for it to work.

Awesome.

Somewhere in the middle there is this black curtain with a fireworks display on it, lit up at night. It’s in the middle somewhere. It was a good place to pose for photos.

Liv

Lane

It was one of my new highlights of 2012. I definitely want to do it again, during the day, to see the differences.

Last Sunday, she called me at noon and said, “want to go on an adventure?” Boy, do I! She picked me up, and when I needed to lock my house, I realized I couldn’t find my keys. After a search, I realized that they might be with my mom. I went shopping with her on Saturday. I called and my dad searched her car and couldn’t find them. Two seconds later, my mom looked and found them. Dad was boy-looking, I don’t know why I bother. Anyway, luckily Lane proposed this plan, otherwise I wouldn’t have known my keys were missing until I was leaving for work the next day. And I don’t have a spare set. Well, I do, but my parents keep them, so I would have had no way to get to work. Awkward.

We stopped to pick up the keys before our adventure. We were hunting for a home decor store Elena went to in 2009, somewhere in WI. She didn’t know the name or even where it was. We drove and kept getting off on different exits and couldn’t find it. It was a disappointing result. But we did stop in Baldwin for a lunch at The Phoenix Grill. Not great. But it was pretty affordable. Then we got off the interstate and drove the back roads through WI. We ended up in Hammond and drove right past Justin’s house. *** EDIT*** I cannot believe I forgot this. And Elena reminded me in the comments. While we were driving, we got off on an exit. It was a slightly unusual exit, not quite as straightforward as most. We were turning left. There was traffic coming from both directions–with no stop signs, so these people are traveling 50-60 mph. Suddenly, while waiting, Elena started to go. She just pulled out in the middle of traffic. She said, she was thinking they had to stop and it was our turn or something and she just went. Literally pulling out in front of oncoming cars, trucks and one SEMI!

I’m a super relaxed passenger. I never pay much attention, I’m usually chatting and so happy I’m not driving. I was telling her a story and then she started to go and suddenly I was white-knuckling it on the door and we were both screaming. It was so scary. I thought we were about to get crunched between two cars. FREAKED OUT. She was so freaked she was yelling “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” over and over, but not to me, she was talking to the drivers we just cut off as we made it through. The lead truck we cut off…a huge 4×4 diesel thing, like all over WI, pulled up alongside of us and he looked over. He could have been pissed. We deserved (well, more Elena) to be yelled at and cussed out and at the least, flipped off. It was that bad. But he saw Elena yelling I’m sorry and panicking and apparently he can read lips, because he glanced over and saw her and started to smile. He was pleasant and charming about it. And we lived to tell the tale. But, I think she scared a couple years off my life. It was really that bad. And to think I’m planning a road trip with her. I’m so brave.

Tonight, we are off to a Twins game. She got free tix at work, so we’re off for another night of fun. I’m so excited. It will be my first game in two years. I didn’t make it at all last year. Sad. My last chance to see my Cuddy buddy and I missed it. But, it’ll be a good chance to learn some of the new players.

Then, next week we begin tv dates. We decided that we are going to get together once a week and watch a tv series together, so we can chat about it. Like book club. But with tv. And just us. We’re starting with one of my all-time favorite series, Supernatural. This show is ending its 7th season in a week, and it has been ages since I have seen the beginning, so I’m very excited. She’s never seen it.

Update and photos from the Twins game coming tomorrow. I promise!

Remember Me?

Hi there.

Remember me? I’m the girl who used to blog here.

I know, it’s been a while. Over a month. I didn’t mean for it to go this long, it just became something that was time consuming and then the more things I thought of blogging about, the more daunting it became. So, as per my usual, I avoided it.

However, I’m starting to miss it, and to be disappointed in myself for not doing it, so I’m diving back in. I’ve got so much to talk about…we’ll see how much of it ends up on the blog!

This was just a quick note to say, I’m back. And I hope you’ll all come back and keep reading.

Five Minute Party

Simon’s 5th birthday party did not last five minutes, but the whole thing was planned in five minutes. It was actually kind of impressive.

Kelly and company brought an Easter themed craft…which the bday boy wouldn’t do.

Victoria made a craft for Hayden, the youngest party attendee. And, at not quite four months, this was not his first birthday party. Though he was a hit, getting passed all around the party.

(Boy is there anything cuter than little kids holding babies?)

(Maybe a grown man rocking a baby to sleep…)

Simon was so happy that his friends came to celebrate. Happy enough to let me take a picture.

And that is the best picture of the three of them in existence. So darn cute.

Except that, this might be my favorite picture of the three of them.

The mail came while we were hanging out and we told the three kids they could go get it. Simon knows the rules…not to go in the street. So these three RAN down the whole driveway, speedy as could be. Simon was carrying the mail and they all starting running back up the hill. But Simon kept dropping pieces of mail and having to stop, so he ended up being last.  But I like how they are staggered so you can see them all, and in motion. So cute. Plus, the scenery is nice.

Next up was the Easter Egg Hunt. I hid 40 eggs all over the yard. Each child had two special eggs that had their name on them and there was a miniature golden egg that won the finder a prize. It was interesting to see the differences in personality and age. Victoria took off like a rocket. Filled her bag and asked my mom for another one within moments. Christian found one egg and wanted to sit down and eat the candy inside.

And isn’t that picture just beautiful? The light, the shadows, the expression of concentration on his face as he cracked his egg open?

That’s the only one I got of Simon finding an egg. None of Victoria as I think she was done collecting by the time I started taking pictures. Simon was more methodical. I think he would have searched every square inch of land, rather than wildly running and looking for eggs. Not surprisingly, Victoria found the most, including the golden egg. I think she also made $5.32 if I remember correctly.

There they are with their hauls…looking thrilled. They wanted to go see what they found, not pause for a photo.

Later, the boys were playing baseball. I told them they had to take turns hitting. Simon said, “no, I want to hit.” And before I could correct this behavior, Christian said, “I want to catch the ball!” so I guess they were made for each other. Then, Simon solidly connected. If you’ve been in my parents yard, Simon was on the far side of the driveway, aiming toward the bushes of the front yard. The ball sailed past the bushes, down the hill, and probably 30 feet into the woods. SUPER far. Christian went after it with gusto, only pausing when he hit the treeline. After I told him it was okay to go into the woods:

Look how little he looks…he’s very deep in the woods.

Present time:

That’s what I got him. A giant semi-truck that hauls other trucks. Think he liked it? He was shouting, “Oh my GOODNESS! This is the best present ever!” It was so adorable.

The cupcakes…all 24 of them…for four children.

Me and my sleepy little buddy.

Who went to Kelly with no hesitation.

After Kelly and the kids left, we recreated the egg hunt for Arionna, who missed the first time.

Simon helped her find eggs and fill her bag.

Think she found enough?

All in all, I think it was a highly successful party. We’re so grateful that Kelly and the kids could come on such short notice. Wouldn’t have been much of a party without them.

Happy Birthday Simon!