are you ready for some football?

I have a list of things I should be doing right now, including working, packing, cleaning, Christmas gifting, etc. But instead I'm going to be irresponsible and blog about insignificant things.

Three cheers for irresponsibility!

Here's the deal: I've been (sort of) into the NFL this season. My team at work has a pick 'em league which entails choosing one team we think will win each week, while not choosing any team twice throughout the season. I consult with TN every week via gchat and we make our pick. I was tied with two others for first place until last week when the Giants failed me.

Regardless, it's made me pay attention to the NFL. So that made it all the more exciting when I got the chance to go to my first ever (and second) NFL game in Seattle. The Seahawks had two weeknight games this year and I was lucky enough to go to both.

And the most brilliant part (aside from not having to pay for any of it)? They actually won both of them! I like to think it's because I'm such a great spectator.

Game One: Hawks vs. Eagles
We were only a few rows up at the 30 yard line (and in the middle of all the Eagles fans). It was also very cold, but I got a hot dog so I'm counting it as a win.

Game Two: Hawks vs. Rams
If the first game was cold, this game might as well have been played at the North Pole. SO COLD. This was also an important game because I had picked the Seahawks that week for Pick 'Em. They didn't let me down.

Two NFL games in 10 days is enough to tide me over for a while, but it sure was fun.

self.

I have a friend that likes to include photos of himself with text messages to help deliver the spirit of the message. I have to say, I kind of love it. So today I decided to respond in kind and returned this photo with my response.

My first thoughts after looking at this photo:
1. My hair is LONG.
2. The chubby cheek look stopped being adorable around age three.
3. I honestly forget I have dimples. Or is there just one? I don't even know.

Another story about this photo.
I went to a work event tonight and in the car on the way there I passed my phone to a co-worker to show her some pictures of the Christmas decor in my house. Then she passed it on to the girl on the other side of her and, long story short, buttons were pushed, confusion set in and suddenly she was staring at this photo of me. Obviously taken of myself at my desk at work.

Of course I then felt the need to explain why I had taken a photo of myself. They tried to stop me, but of course I felt the need to provide all the details surrounding the incident. I ended up pulling up the text message, showing his photo, reading aloud his message, re-showing my photo and reading aloud my response.

Awkward.
For everyone, I'm sure.

In a related story, after an incident last week at a football game where he had to save me from myself in a conversation with a food vendor, AB said to me, "You know, sometimes I think your love of the details makes things harder for you."

I don't think that might be the case. I'm sure of it.

telephone.

My roommate came in the room while I was on the phone last night and through the course of my conversation I was laughing pretty hard. When I hung up the phone she said, "I've never seen you so happy. I have to know who you were talking to."
"My sister", I replied.

We were talking about heart palpitations and mashed potato sandwiches.
You would have laughed too.

decisions. decisions.

Cyber Monday got the best of me.
Long story short, I ended up making two large purchases.
(The deals were going to expire!)
(Also? I'm an advertiser's dream.)
And ended up immediately having buyer's remorse.


But you can't beat a 6 quart Kitchen Aid for nearly 50% off. Right?!?

And I've been on the verge of buying a Dyson for six months.

So, the question is - do I keep them?

feeling festive.

Thanksgiving happened.
And before you think this post will be full of photos of turkeys and rolls and pies, let me tell you right now that is not the case. In fact, I did not take a single picture of the day.
I struggled with Thanksgiving this year. Not the part about being thankful, I'm totally into gratitude, but just the holiday part. A large part of me wanted to spend the day alone. Weird? Probably.
In the end I knew mid-day would roll around and I'd be wishing I was eating carbs somewhere, so I made fruit salad, rolls and pie and joined a gathering of people. The right decision? Probably.

But here's the thing, while I wasn't feeling Thanksgiving this year, I'm totally digging Christmas.
The Christmas spirit has already rooted itself in my heart, which is due in large part to Jenny and I spending the weekend getting the house all festive for our upcoming holiday party.

A few weekends ago we hit up Hobby Lobby for Christmas decorations. Did you know every other weekend it's 50% off? I didn't either, but it's pretty amazing. And it's a good thing we went early because it's all picked over now. We decided on Peacock Blue and Copper as our colors.

You can't tell from the photo, but it's totally adorable.

On Saturday Jenny ventured out and chopped us down a tree.

 Setting up a tree is a PROCESS but thanks to the internets, Jenny had it all planned out.

 A Noble Fir. Sounds fancy.
And it's 10 years old, which makes me just want to give it a hug.

A trip to Target and some overspending later, it was finished. It's delightful. I just want to turn out all the lights and stare at it while listening to Bing Crosby and Johnny Mathis.

We also decorated the mantle with real garland (a first for me), made wreaths and watched White Christmas. It all looks much better in non-iPhone photo life.

And topping it all off, Jenny cut out lyrics to Christmas songs and we strung them around the dining room.

Trust me, it's awesome.

It's cool, December. You can come anytime. We're ready for you.

give it all back.

I saw Noah & the Whale last week and haven't been able to stop listening since.
This isn't my favorite song of theirs, but every time the chorus comes on I can't help but bop around.

conversation of the (yester)day.

Me: I actually used those words.
Me: By the way, I appreciate that you know I'm crazy but you never call me out directly.
Other Person: The thing is, it's not that I don't think to say the things you say...
Me: ...you just don't actually say them. Yeah, that's not possible for me.

Related: this post.

a sail.

Another video, folks. (Sort of.)
This song is my latest obsession.

call your girlfriend.

Is it any surprise that I love this?

Didn't think so.

Thanks, S. Reale!

the pit of despair.

My neighbor looks like this. I mean, more or less.

We had a little run-in over the summer where he and his wife fairly aggressively confronted me (I may have cried) about how we had been parking in the driveway even though it's technically shared. In our defense, our landlord had told us they had an agreement with the neighbor and we were free to park there. According to the neighbor no such agreement existed and they had essentially been bent out of shape about it FOR A YEAR AND A HALF.

Well, now I'm bent out of shape (still) about their aggressive confrontation and what's making me even more bent out of shape is the fact that they are now parking in the driveway. Every day.

Please tell me how that makes any sense.
And please tell me I shouldn't key their car. Because the thought has crossed my mind once or twice.

it's the most wonderful time of the year

Raise your hand if you thought of Johnny Mathis singing a Christmas song when you read that title.

Probably only my family. Awesome.

Well, Johnny was wrong. The most wonderful time of the year is Fall, when it's done right.
And Seattle is doing Fall right this year.

Crisp, sunny days (my favorite!) have been delivered to my doorstep more than once. The leaves have changed, cider and donuts have been consumed, pumpkin patches visited and daylight savings depression was delayed until November. I mean, what's not to love?

Saturday was one of those perfect days. My roommate and I took a little stroll around the neighborhood and I couldn't help exclaiming, several times, "I love this day!".

I carried that leaf for several blocks before realizing it was pointless.

Moral of the story, things have been good around here. Real good.



And my gift to you is this awesomely bad video of Johnny Mathis.

clever title: halloween.

Facebook is ablaze tonight with photos of everyone's kids looking totes adorbs (translation: totally adorable) in their little costumes. But for us single folk, Halloween felt like it was over by the time today rolled around.

I impressed myself this year. I had not one, not two, but three - THREE - costumes. 
Why is this impressive?
1. I have a love hate relationship with Halloween and even coming up with a single costume is very near rocket science in my book. Real hard.
For your reference, I've recapped my recent Halloween struggles adventures.
2008
2009
2010

2. I'm somewhat socially awkward, so the fact that I participated in three activities needing costumes is worthy of giving myself a high five.

Friday
A dance. In a gym. At a church.
It sort of hurts to even write those words, but whatever. It actually turned out to be one of the more enjoyable parts of the weekend.

I had zero intention of going to that dance so that costume was not planned, but my roommate Jenny is like Mary Poppins and just always has what you need. Oh, you need a beret? Got one. You need some red fabric for a scarf? I just happen have some lying around. I'm excited to find out what else she's hiding in that carpet bag.

Saturday
A party. At a house on the East side.

Snowflake & Leslie Knope.
Also? Am I really that much shorter than Stacey?

I accidentally took this picture of myself (front camera as a mirror on the iPhone, anyone?) but I sort of like it because you can see the makeup a little better, which for the record I did not do myself.

Again Jenny and her bag of tricks provided the inspiration for this costume. She pulled out that headband and it just snowballed from there. (Get it? Snowball...)

 Marty McFly, Ron Burgundy and Sexy Sax Man.

Ron Burgundy and Veronica Corningstone

And let's just throw in one more photo from Friday night of Adam looking disgustingly awesome.

Monday
A dinner party. A mad scientist theme.

I was told it was hard to talk to me because I looked like a cartoon, which might be my favorite thing anyone has ever said to me.

 PS - Second white wig of the weekend. Apparently a girl can never have too many.

And I stole the idea of unzipping AB's face from LL's sister on the internets today. I think it worked out well.

So there, you have it.
Three costumes. Three events. And I'm glad it's over.
Until next year, friends!

totes creepin'.

There was an infographic on Mashable today about how cellphones are influencing students' lives and one of the stats made me laugh.

The end.

the sunset's just my lightbulb burning out.

I had a date with Ryan Adams last night.
Well, it was Ryan, me and 2,499 other people.
It was a bit of a crowd, but I think we really hit it off.

Things started off right when he opened with my favorite song.
(Unfortunately, it was sans Emmylou Harris.)


And obviously I fell in love with him.
He was singing me beautiful songs (with harmonica!) and he was funny. Like really funny.
Clearly I had no choice but to fall in love with him.

As I was realizing this, CC and I had the following conversation:
Me: I'm falling in love right now.
CC: Duh.
Me: That Mandy Moore sure is lucky.
CC: She got one of the last good ones.
Me:...one of the last sad, sad, drug addict* good ones.
CC: It's fine.


I can't say enough good things about this show and I'm trying not to make a massive list of all the funny things he said that won't be funny to you because you weren't there, but I have to write down a couple:

He began the second song of the set and some people had come in late and were still finding their seats in the second row when he stopped the song and said in a mock whisper, "Where have you been? We've been worried SICK."

After taking a moment between songs to re-situate himself, he said, somewhat under his breath, "Alright, here are more songs about my feelings".

It should be noted that I'm showing restraint right now in not posting more. You're welcome.

Long story short, I was into it. Not a bad way to spend a Friday night.

*For the record, we think he's clean.

conversation of the day.

CC: He only wrote me the letter to make himself feel better.
Me: That's totally something I'd do.
CC: Fine, write your thoughts down if you have to, but you don't actually give it to the person.
Me: No. I'd totally write it AND actually send it.
CC: Well. You need to stop doing that.


These conversations of the day rarely translate and I feel like this one really doesn't.
But trust me, it was funny.
And I'm a disaster when it comes to relationships. So, there's that.

what happened to september?

My favorite month of the year just flew by.
Although, October is a pretty close second to September.
Here are some things I've been doing/thinking during my blogging absence.

• I'm in love with the word adorable. In fact, I find the word adorable to be rather adorable. And although there are some people out there who would hate it, I've decided that I would be quite pleased if someone were to use that word to describe me.
• Speaking of adorable, have you been watching New Girl? Because you should be. Zooey Deschanel is delightful.
• I bought a rain suit at Costco this weekend. Yes, suit. Jacket and pants. Who wants to go camping in the rain? Because I'm ready.
• Buying the rain suit prompted me to search for new rain boots. I found these, but cannot find them anywhere online in my size. That's a mean trick, Internet.
• And while we're talking about online shopping, I'm tempted to buy this shirt. It has the word "bling" in the name soooo, there's that.
• What I really want is this. But made for a woman. And it should be blue. And the D should be orange. Life is hard sometimes.
• I've been watching a lot of sports lately and I'm not mad about it. Give me a team to cheer for and things will get intense.
• I want my nails to always be perfectly painted. Is that too much to ask?
• My dear friend, Butter, brought me some cider yesterday. She knows I like the cider. Now I just need to obtain some powdered donuts and I will be in heaven.
• The new season of Dexter started last night. I have a little crush on him.
• Last week the IT guy took my computer for, what I thought was, a quick fix. A couple hours later I still had no computer and there was a client emergency. I ended up having a co-worker print out documents and a phone list, grabbed a highlighter and started making phone calls. I felt like I was on an episode of Mad Men. How did people get anything done before computers?
• I saw Bon Iver last week. And thoroughly enjoyed it. 
• I'm starting to panic about a Halloween costume already. It's a yearly struggle.

As you can see, there's been a lot of deep thinking going on over here.

birthday song.

They put a sombrero on me.
They all got instruments.
The singing started.
And I was embarrassed.

PS - You'll have to turn your head to the side to watch. Technical difficulties.

two. nine.

I have a love/hate relationship with my birthday.

I don't particularly enjoy being the center of attention or that strange expectation (whatever it is) that inevitably comes along with the day, but I do love feeling loved.

There wasn't a lot of hoopla associated with my birthday this year, but I have to say, I still felt the love.

I have new roommates. And one of these new roommates is a firm believer in celebrating a "Birthday Week". A period of seven days, sometime before/after your actual birthday, in which to celebrate. So, my Birthday Week commenced with a Sunday afternoon backyard picnic.

It was adorable. And (!) they made homemade mozzarella for the caprese salad. HOME MADE. I've never once had the thought that I wanted to make my own cheese, but these ladies thought it and did it.

It was the last day of sunny, warm weather we've had and everything was delightful. The food, the company, the laughter. I even told the story of how I was banned from having birthday parties for a few years.

(Look if you had been there when I was 11, you would have thrown that 2 liter of cream soda too.)

A few of my favorite moments:
1. My dear friend, LH, struggles with depth perception. She somehow got asked to light the candles and wound up either burning the center of the candle or not even coming close. Bless her.

2. I was told that there were three candles so I would get three wishes. As a result, when blowing out the candles, I wished on/blew out the candles individually. When my roommate said, "Maybe no one told her you're supposed to blow them out all at once" I got defensive. This is what I look like when I get defensive.

3. We tried to take a simple photo with a few of my favorite people in life. And it got out of hand.

 It all started when Stacey turned to Susan and said, "What were you doing with your face?" after the first photo.

And then we got the giggles.

That started out slowly.

And progressed until I threw my head back so far in laughter that I was practically lying down.

And then Susan got elbowed in the face and also laughed until she cried.

And Stacey looked like this.

And in the end, the first picture we took ended up being the best one.

On my actual birthday some of my favorites got super classy with me and ate at my favorite Mexican restaurant. Who wouldn't be on board with Diet Coke and chips & salsa?

Don't let these smiles fool you. This crowd is also responsible for a point during dinner where I was wearing a sombrero and they were each holding an instrument. If you're lucky, there will be video to come.

After, there was more cake (banana split cake!) to be eaten and more wishes to be made.

 Unfortunately, I underestimated those candles and left one standing. It's a good thing I made those three wishes earlier in the week...

I received the gift of Bieber in the form of Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and the night ended with a viewing. As it turns out, only the gift giver (AB) and gift receiver (me) were hardcore enough to see it through to the end.

So, here I am in the final year of my twenties.  I have plans to make the most of it.

why i love my family #6,345.

My Dad just posted this as his FB status.


To all the girls who are in a hurry to have a boyfriend or get married, a piece of Biblical advice:
"Ruth patiently waited for her mate Boaz."
While you are waiting on YOUR Boaz, don't settle for any of his relatives:
Broke-az, Po-az, Lyin-az, Cheating-az, Dumb-az, Drunk-az, Cheap-az, Lockedup-az, , Goodfornothing-az, Lazy-az, and especially his third cousin Beatinyo-az
Wait on your Boaz and make sure he respects Yoaz....

awesome.

The latest addition to my bedroom.
Sometimes you just need a reminder.

find it here.

hard times.

I was listening to the latest Gillian Welch album on the way to work this morning and this song sort of punched me in the face.

I haven't been able to stop listening to it since.



Hard times ain't gonna rule my mind.

needs more mud.

In early July I ran the Dirty Dash and I don't know what came over me when I decided to sign up for it  because:

1. I don't like to run
2. I also dislike being dirty

So, it makes perfect sense that I would sign up for a 10k run (which could not have been more than a 5k based on the lack of time it took us) where I had to crawl through mud and other obstacles, right? Right. That's the power of Groupon, folks. Groupon and Natalie telling me that if it ever came to Seattle I needed to do it.

Of course I was totally nervous leading up to it and I informed my teammates on the car ride down that should I end up stuck in a mud pit somewhere, they should just leave me behind. Save yourselves! They reassured me that I would not die during this race.

Here we are pre-race (minus LH). Yes, I know I'm standing awkwardly far away from CK. I blame the nerves.

The race started with us running up a dirt mound and sliding down the other side. Insta-dirty. Other obstacles included rolling through muddy water under some tubes, climbing over wooden walls, jumping over massive tires, more mud pits, more wooden walls, crawling through tubes on our hands and knees, sliding down a massive blow up slide and finally wading through a knee deep "pond" to cross the finish line.

Blow up slide.

I won't deny the fact that I had to talk myself into getting dirty at first. My natural instinct was to run around the pit of muddy water instead of rolling through it. It's just something I usually avoid. But that was half the fun of it, so we did what we had to to makes sure we were covered in mud.

Our group post blow up slide, pre-wading through the final pond.

Notice how I'm just slightly less dirty than CK? No matter how hard I tried I couldn't convince myself that I wanted mud on my face. Maybe next time.

Official Dirty Dash photo. Post-race.

I only ended up bleeding in two places, but the next day when I went to get in the shower I found some of the worst bruises on my ribs and hip bones that I've ever had. Remember that tiny, baby moment when I thought there was internal bleeding? Yeah.

I guess it's not as fun if you don't have battle wounds to show for it.