kids in america

I tried revisiting the old "new me" the other night. I could only get half way through the beer.


Why am I subconsciously giving the "live long and prosper" sign with my beer hand?

Cat and Pony Show

I've never been a big fan of horses. When I was little, my family went to Santa's Village. There was one of those real pony ride carousel things there and I really wanted to go on it. So we stood in line. I got to the front and I changed my mind. Then as we were walking away, I changed my mind again. I stood in line again...and I bet you can guess what happened when I got to the front. Eventually, minutes before the park closed, I finally made it on the pony. I don't even remember that happening, the only reason I know it happened is because my Mom reminds me of it. That and we have pictures. That is the one time I've ever been on any sort of horse. I think I was 5. 21 years later, I finally came nose to nose with a real horse(s), not a pony, for the first time ever. No, I didn't get on. But my brother did! He's been taking riding lessons for a while and I went to watch last weekend. He wants to play polo...that or be in the Olympics. Simple dreams.

I took some photos.

LITERALLY, sitting on his high horse.


I walked around the barn and took some pictures of the horses. They all look depressed.

Smarty, the horse my brother rides, in enjoying some hay.


Dirk, my mom's boss' horse. Enormous and very playful. He kept trying to get closer to my camera.


NO PICTURES!!!!


Diesel, the biggest horse in the barn.



A horse that looked ashamed of his/her bad weave.


It was nice out, so he went outside to ride. The horse seemed a lot happier once he got outside.



Barn Meowser. Covered in hay and likes to take poops in front of everyone while they are having their lessons. He was really friendly for a barn cat and I think he liked having his photo taken.


Maybe some day I'll get back in the saddle. No, probably not. Well, maybe...eh nevermind.

When the livin's easy....

*Editor's note: I have no shame in saying that I actually had to refer back to Gnarbarge to remember what I did this summer. Also, I did way more than I actually thought, so I'm probably going to do a Reader's Digest version of this report on my Summer Vacation. Sigh.

Started off the summer by terrorizing my cat.


Annual Dub Date! Froze my ass off at the Cub's game, in July.


Then I decided to "reinvent" myself. The new me lasted for exactly as long as it took me to walk from this apartment to Sean's car. Sorry to all those who got super excited about me drinking beer. You can buy me a vodka drink and we'll call it even.


I went to the zoo for the first time in over 10 years.

Talk about not reaching your potential.


Cheer up, Emo Impala.


Yeah, we bought our cat a leash. What of it?


Joe Hall arrives back in the upper 48.


Streamwood spends all it's money on pyro.



Got to go to the beach at least once. Good enough.


Wedding #1. Totally Goth.

Sean grabbed my boob, of course, when we were trying to take a nice photo.


So instead, I took a nice photo with my boo.


After the wedding we went for some....


at the....


The next weekend, I take "that photo" at Grant Park waiting to be squeezed into a crowd to listen to LCD Sound System at Lollapalooza.


Mere hours before Sean ridiculed me for wearing my sunglasses at night. I do what I want.


I traveled to Vegas for my birthday and in total honesty can say these are the only good pictures I have. I need a personal photographer.

Getting fresh at the Foundation Room.


Drunk.


A brisk weekend on the lake.


Wedding #2.


Birthday #2.


I let someone else have a birthday for once.


Wedding #3. I sort of like St. Louis 0.98% more than I did previously.


Boy is my face red! As usual.


Very DIY centerpiece. I love carnations.


Pretty much my summer, in a nutshell. An action packed 3 months that I'm glad to put to rest...so now I can get some rest.

Next summer I'm going to:

Go somewhere I've never been before.
Plan myself a killer birthday party. In this state.
Take better care of my flowers that I spent a minor fortune on.
Not book every weekend up before the summer even starts.

I hope I get invited to a halloween party. I have a killer costume idea.

The end.

I have exorcised the demons....

...this house is clear.

For exactly 2 years, 3 weeks, and 4 days....the item of furniture pictured below has been the bane of my residential existence.

My hand me, hand me, hand me and then hand me down again "oh I'll just slipcover it for a few weeks until we buy a real one" couch that has made appearances in my Grama's apartment, my parent's basement and my brother's apartment all before gracing me with it's presence. It has haunted me and taunted me for waaaaay too long.

For most of the time we had this couch, this is what it looked like. You might not have ever seen it look like this if you ever came over to my house because I had spent about 15 minutes "tucking" in that blasted slip cover and inevitably received some sort of rug burn on my hands all the while cringing at the cat scratches and snags that adorned the top and back of the beauty! Then it looked a little neater. Until someone sat down on it, that is and then magically like a balloon deflating, it went back to looking like this.

I paid nothing for the couch...so I shouldn't complain. But I will, because that is what I do.

Fast forward to the best day of my home owning life so far....the day my new furniture would be delivered.

Oh...why hello brand new, not outdated, not snagged, not stained couch and what is that....you brought along your sibling, new chair???

Welcome home, new furniture. Welcome home.

Next on the list...trashing my light wood tables from target. I think I've gotten more than the $80 they cost out of them, then ripping off the white tile from the fireplace, then repainting...then...well, I think you get the picture.

Top 5's

When I was in college, my friend and I used to make these weekly "top 5" lists and post them in our away messages of our AIM. Mine mostly consisted of flavor blasted goldfish, snack packs, and word association, with a few other things mixed in. I don't know why I ever thought anyone cared about what my top 5 favorite things were every week...but still, I updated it quite frequently.

With all that being said, I still kind of think about things that way. When I see something online that I like or in a magazine-be it fashion or shelter related-I think, "that would be in my top 5 favorites list." Even when I eat something delicious or hear something funny...I say to myself, "you need to tell the world (read: the 5 people who read this thing) that this is your new favorite meal,snack, treat, phrase, quote, etc ."

So with all that being said, I think I am going to try to do a "favorites" list every now and then...I say "every now and then" because I know I'll never have the discipline to do it on a daily or even weekly basis. But I may surprise myself, who knows. I did one quite a while ago, but I never kept up on it.

So that's my plan. I hope you enjoy my random obsessions.

I'll do a quick little fav's list here. My of my favorite things at this moment in no particular order.

1. Spoon: Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga

2. Dark red and gray handbags:

I really like these colors for Fall and Winter.


Top two: Marc by Marc Jacobs

Coach

3. Marc by Marc Jacobs, as a whole.


I need this jacket. I almost humped it in the store the other day. Someone, please?

4. Blueprint magazine and it's online blog, Bluelines.

i love this magazine and look:



even the blog logo is adorbs.

5. iGoogle.

This is my life saver at work. I have all my rss feeds on here and can check to see if I have any new stories to read, new mail messages and I can even play my favorite game: Bejeweled! all in one place. I love it. And you can customize the theme for the top banner, my favorite is the "tea house."

6. Martha Stewart

I love Martha Stewart. I know that she might not be the nicest person in real life, but damn does that woman know how to make bank and she has some pretty good products out there too. Plus every time she goes on Conan, she's hilarious and usually drinking and I think they are like BFF's in real life. I'm currently in love with her new dishes at Macy's:

Martha Stewart for Macy's.

So there ya go. I still love snackpacks and flavorblasted goldfish are still a snack staple in my house. Word association doesn't happen as often as it used to and I think my tastes have changed quite a bit since college, but my love of lists is still just as strong as it was back then.

I'm only good at being young...

A lot has happened in my absenteeism. A month has passed and in that month I have:

+Spent three days in the city sweating my ass off, hanging with good friends and watching good music at the expense of someone else.
+Sweated my ass off again watching the Lawrence Arms play an intimate show at Ronnie's.
+Jetted to Las Vegas for vacation and my birthday.
+Turned another year older.
+Turned around and came back home.
+Came home with sinusitis and heart palpatations.
+Wondered if turning one year older had really taken it's toll on my health.
+Took a trip to the lake to spend some quality time with my family.
+Saw one more of my cousin's take the plunge and wondered when we all grew up.
+Felt old, again.

Time goes too fast lately.

I can't believe the summer is almost over. We have one more wedding next weekend in St. Louis. I plan on posting a summer wrap-up via photos, soon. I've done quite a bit of fun things this summer. I'm actually looking forward to fall and hopefully having some down time.

I'm finally getting new furniture next Friday. I've only waited 2 years for this...well two years and 8 weeks for it to. It's about time.

That's all for now.

I'm depressed....

That's my new excuse for anything.

Also, I have to retract my excitement for the Posh Spice show...I've just found out (sort of late, I guess) that it was a one hour special. Le sigh. We'll always have "major."

Today is my Friday. I'll be at Lollapalooza all weekend, thanks again to my BFFers for life.

Hurray.