Happy Birthday Mom!

Every day I am thankful for the family and friends I have been given.

We are a close family, and I love it.

When I hear people talk about how they don't speak to their sibling/dad/mom or have a very strained relationship with one of them (or more), I feel really sad.  And then REALLY grateful for what I have.

My mom is the best!  I honestly lucked out.  She's supportive and motivating and fun to be around.  I love that we can just hang out or go shopping or see a movie.   I'm glad that I feel comfortable talking to her about things and that I know I can rely on her when I need support.

This picture is not one of her favorites, but it's one of mine.

Fourth of July on the DC Mall - July 2006

Happy birthday to the best mom I could ever ask for!  I love you.

596 Days

596 Days.

1 year, 7 months and 18 days.

This is the amount of time since my ex and I split up.  596 days of dealing with the split and the house we own jointly.  It has been trying and exhausting process and a huge emotional weight on my shoulders.

I posted on June 8th that the bank finally accepted the offer we had on the house.  After being on the market since October.  I knew that the short sale process would be lengthy... and this certainly was.  Dealing with the bank was frustrating and having to coordinate signing document after document after document with my ex took forever.  Having to continue to communicate with my ex when I really didn't want to made it difficult to move on for a long time.

Yesterday I received the settlement papers from the title attorney to sign and FedEx back to them.  My attorney said that because the offer is a cash offer, we will close on the house within 48 hours after they receive the signed documents from my ex and I.

48 hours.

Later this morning I will be dropping off this lovely package in the FedEx box with the signed deed to my house.

By this time next week, I could be officially closed on my house.  The amount of weight lifted off my shoulders is tremendous.  I can't even describe it.

Olympic Inspired

*Thanks to Lauren for the suggestion for this post... topics for this blog have been difficult for me the last couple of days.

Every four years, I get really excited for the summer Olympics.  It's the time when we can guarantee that women's indoor volleyball will be shown on TV... guaranteed!

I'm sure like most college athletes, watching the sport I played will sometimes evoke the desire to get to play again.  Then I remember how old my body is and I rethink that. :)

In all honesty, I do miss playing women's 6s.  Hopefully I'll get to play in a tournament or two this fall/winter. That would also remind me to get my butt in gear.

In the spirit of the Olympics, I am posting some archived photos from my playing days.

 Let's ignore the fact that I missed the ball on that one. (photo credit NIU)

Man, I wish I could still jump this high. (photo credit NIU)

WI State Fair - Two Days of eating

This past weekend, my mom and I headed up to Wisconsin to go to the State Fair.  It's been several years since the last time I had been up to the fair, and I was really looking forward to it.

While there are many animals there and they do shows/contests for the animals, it is really all about the food.

Lauren, mom and I headed to the fair pretty early on Saturday because it was supposed to be HOT that day.  Without much of a schedule/agenda, we pretty much just wandered around.  We looked at the animals and ate food.

AND ATE FOOD.  Here's what we had on Saturday:

- Roasted Corn - Okay, so not really very new or fancy, but it is a State Fair staple.  I snapped this photo of Lauren enjoying her corn.  Her face is because I caught her mid-bite, NOT because she wasn't enjoying the corn.

- Deep Fried Stuffing - This was a new item on the menu for this year and one Lauren and I were excited to try.  It came with gravy dipping sauce.  SERIOUSLY.  It was amazing.

- Sweet Potato Fries with marshmallow dipping sauce - Another one Lauren was excited to try.  The fries were good, but the marshmallow dipping sauce made them a little too sweet.

- Fried Beer - The Budweiser Pavilion was advertising fried beer, so we had to try it.  It was am amber beer encased in a pretzel ravioli with cheese dipping sauce.  Honestly, they were just okay.  They could've used some salt because they just tasted pretty bland.

- Fried Cheese Curds - another staple.

- Fried Pickles - A lot of places had friend pickles.  The ones we choose were the pickle chips and they were delicious.

- Cream Puff - The Wisconsin cream puffs are iconic to the state fair.  In fact, that is the only time they make and sell them.  So of COURSE we had to have one.  They are amazing.

After that, we had enough of the heat and the food, so we headed back to Lauren and Kevin's place to take a nap before Melissa, Justin and Kayla came.

*On a side note, I managed to snap this dark picture of Kayla - sitting like a little lady, flipping through the photos on her mom's phone.  So grown up.

On Sunday, we got up and headed out to the State Fair for day two.  This time, Melissa, Justin, Kayla and Kevin joined us.

We had plenty food and saw some animals with Kayla.  It was a really nice day out, so the place was packed.

We stopped right away and had corn (again).  :)  Then we stopped and watched the pig races.  See how excited Kayla was!

After that, we wandered around and tried some food and took a look at the animals.  We had some fried veggies, more sweet potato fries, a deep fried s'more and deep fried milky way.

After looking at all the animals, we stopped for some cream puffs before we left.  It was Justin, Kevin and Kayla's first cream puffs.  I think the cream was a bit sweet for Kayla, but she had a few bites of the pastry with some cream on it.  She then took it upon herself to be my personal face-wiper.  Thanks for looking out Kayla. :)

We had a blast (even though I'm tired).

City Drivers

Driving in the city makes me a very vindictive driver.

Oh, sir, you want to honk at me because I take a full stop instead of a rolling slow down??  No problem.  I will drive the speed limit (25mph) exactly for the rest of the way down this street...  Ride my ass all you want buddy!

Honestly.  Watching him swerve around behind me trying to find a way he might squeeze past on the bike lane was enough satisfaction.

I'm heading up to Milwaukee this weekend to visit with Lauren and head to the state fair.  Be prepared for lots of instagram photos of cream puffs and fried food!

OMDS - Obsessive Mental Decorating Syndrome

I have a problem.

I am overwhelmed by my desire to decorate my new place and do everything IMMEDIATELY.  So much so that I spend an awful amount of time mentally decorating my space.  Of course, pinterest is not helping!

I think I need to make myself a project plan.  Bringing my work life into my personal life.

If I develop a plan for all my projects and go room by room, I think I will feel a little less overwhelmed by everything.  Of course, getting all my still packed stuff out of the dining room and living room would be the first step.  As well as getting rid of that box and bag of things I want to donate.

Baby steps, I keep reminding myself.  Baby steps.

Good News/Bad News

So I have good news and some bad news.

The good news....  The dresser I have talked about before has finally made it to my apartment, in all it's pink glory!

Then, I posted about the Tiffany's inspired room to go with the pink dresser (which is one of the most searched posts on my blog btw).

So, this is great news.  It's here!  I have a place to put my clothes that have been on the floor.  YEAH!

The bad news.... I don't love the pink.  At all.  The dresser shape and design are great!  But that pink color is kind of terrible and childish in person.  And the handles - CHEAP!

I can't really decide if I don't like the pink because it's just bad or if I don't like the pink because my mind has already decided that the dresser would look amazing in cobalt blue.  Either way, I want to paint it right. this. second.

I've been pinning cobalt blue dressers and this one is my favorite.... it's practically identical!

pin source

I'm thinking I might want to paint it one of my upcoming free weekends so it's finished.  I need something to feel like I'm being productive in decorating my place - because nothing else is.