Snuggie

Once upon a Black Friday, I bought a pink Snuggie on sale at Sears for $10. It may be the best purchase I've ever made. It's pink and it's warm and it's a blanket with sleeves. Let's say I want to eat dinner without removing my arms from the warmth of a blanket. No problem! Or maybe I want to sit at the computer and brainlessly surf the internet without freezing do death. Piece of cake!

The first time I put on my Snuggie, my fiance laughed at me. He also laughed at me the second and third and fourth and every time I've ever worn it. But that doesn't change my love for my Snuggie. Or my fiance. I think we can all live together in harmony.

Yesterday I was lighting a candle and I almost caught the Snuggie on fire.

Here's a picture of Oprah wearing a pink Snuggie:


I'm not sure if it's legit, but I wouldn't be surprised if Oprah had a pink Snuggie. I'm not sure what to think about Tyler Perry and his zebra Snuggie.

Christian FAIL

Yesterday I went to see Handel's Messiah at Moody Bible Institute. It was exceptional as usual. But one of the most fun parts was a brilliant conversation that came up in the car while trying to get out of the parking garage.

Moody has their own free parking garage and, as one would expect, it's filled with a bunch of Christians. While we sat in line for 15 minutes waiting to get out of the garage, we realized a painful truth: given the Christian aspect of this parking garage, we deduced that most people were trying to be nice by letting everyone else out of their park spots, thereby causing a monstrous backup in the parking garage. This is the problem with Christian parking garages.

This made me think of a website I recently discovered called "Stuff Christians Like" (yes, a parody of "Stuff White People Like"). I think it's safe to say that Christians like to let people out of their parking spaces. It makes us feel nice.

But this lead to a discussion about what other popular blogs Christians could parody (something that Christians also like). And then we came up with the best idea ever: Christian FAIL. Everyone thinks this FAIL Blog thing is so hilarious, but I'm pretty sure a Christian one would be way funnier.

So what is a Christian FAIL? We witnessed a great example when, while still sitting in the monstrous parking garage line, a car ahead of us refused to let someone out of their parking spot, even to the point of going around them. Christian FAIL. Then, shortly after that, we turned a corner in the parking garage to see a very Christian looking couple kissing. Moderately passionately. Holding a baby. In a Christian parking garage. Christian FAIL.

What are some other Christian FAILs? Maybe you forgot to write your tithe check last Sunday. Or maybe you ate your communion cracker right away instead of waiting for everyone else. Or maybe you mixed up Romans 3:23 with Romans 6:23. If I can come up with some good ones, I'm seriously considering starting a blog of them. The possibilities are endless!

Slurpee Pizza

Once upon a time I wrote this blog post about the old people that hung out at my mom's condo pool. In the post I talked about people with potbellies who wear bikinis. As a result of this, I started receiving visitors on my site who had actually typed "Bikini Potbelly" into Google search. I then decided this phrase deserved it's very own post with that title to get even more "Bikini Potbelly" visitors, however misguided they may be. That's the general idea behind this post. I want to see who does a Google search for "Slurpee Pizza."

But there is actually a story behind "Slurpee Pizza" and it involves me acting like a 12 year old boy which isn't necessarily a strange occurrence. What happened was, I was driving home from a Young Adult church retreat in Lake Geneva on Sunday night. As one would expect from a Young Adult church retreat, I had not gotten much sleep. When I don't get much sleep, I'm slap happy.

In the car with me was my fiance, Scott, and our friends Adam and Matt in the back. Somehow the conversation turned to the fact that when Scott and I get married, we were going to change our last name to Pizza. Mr. and Mrs. Pizza. We laughed about this and imagined what we'd name our children—Pepperoni, Sausage, Hawaiian, etc.

Finally that conversation died down and we moved on to my love of Slurpees. We discussed this for awhile and then I heard someone mumble, "Slurpee Pizza." Intense, over-tired, tear inducing laughter followed for a number of minutes. It was immature. And I'm still laughing.

Devil Frog

Remember yesterday when I talked about making devil frog cookies? Well I got a little freaked out when I read this in my devos last night, only hours after writing about the devil frogs:

Then I saw three evil spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. (Revelation 16:13)

Weird!

Jack-o-Cookie

This weekend Scott and I made some fabulous Halloween cookies. I always thought Christmas cookies were where it's at, but Halloween cookies are as good, if not better. I like them because you can be morbid without feeling guilty. I mean, when I made the devil frog for Christmas I felt a little weird about it. But devil frog for Halloween? Of course!

Scott is a creative perfectionist. This makes for some pretty sweet giant Halloween cookies:


I also got in on the decorating action:

Some cookies of note in this picture are the devil mummy ghost with red eyes (in honor of our viewing of The Mummy or old movie night), the polka dot moon, and Scott's witch's broom.

And we got morbid with a bleeding ghost:

Can ghosts bleed? I don't know. But this cookie fell apart so we figured we'd make the best of it. I would like to note that this was Scott's idea. I think I'm prouder than I should be.

Best Week Ever

Last week was pretty much the best week ever. Of this year at least. It was the best week ever for two reasons: California and MuteMath.

First, California. A friend of Scott's decided it would be brilliant to get married in Yosemite National Park (which it was) and seeing as in order to get to Yosemite, one has to fly into San Francisco, we decided to spend some time there as well. This was especially exciting because 1. It was Scott's first plane ride and 2. It was the first time I've ever been west of ... IL. It's not like I haven't been outside of Illinois. I've been east a few times and to Wisconsin about a thousand. Just not west.

So anyway, San Francisco was fabulous. On the first day we walked across the Golden Gate Bridge.


On the second day we saw a few hundred sea lions.


And took a one hour cruise around the bay where we saw Alcatraz.



Then we went on a cable car up a really steep hill.



The third day it rained and we got wet, but we went to the California Academy of Sciences which had some cool animals including a bunch of butterflies.


The fourth day was our last day in San Francisco and we saw a bunch of random things we weren't able to see earlier in the week like ...


The Transamerica Pyramid


The Full House houses


And the city at night from the top of a painfully tall hill.

Then we moved on to Yosemite for a couple days. We hiked and went to the wedding and hiked some more and saw some waterfalls. It was basically amazing and the weather was perfect.






Finally, to top it all off, we went to an amazing MuteMath concert on Sunday night. Now, MuteMath never fails to entertain but this concert was especially crazy on account of the drummer and his antics:

Paranoid

I'm kind of paranoid. Not about everything, just some random things. I'm not paranoid about flying, for example. However, last weekend I told a friend of mine that he'd choke and die if he rode a roller coaster with gum in his mouth. It could happen, I'm telling you.

I blame my mother for my paranoia and I recently found out that she blames her mother for telling her that she'd get trampled to death if she went to a Beatles concert. Also, my grandma's sister forbade her daughter from doing "The Jerk" for fear of her neck snapping. The 60's were a scary time.

One person who isn't paranoid is my future husband, Scott. I think this is a good thing. Like last week, my car battery died and I had to jump it. I was very concerned about this because I was convinced that I'd make one wrong move and the battery would either explode or electrocute me. In my defense, there are about a million warnings on the battery itself and then I read this website that told me the juice in the battery would make my eyes dissolve. How could I not be concerned about this?

But Scott reassured me by telling me that the only way I was going to get electrocuted by jumping my car was if I happened to get struck by lightening while doing it. Luckily, getting struck by lightening is not something I'm paranoid about. I think this is going to be a great marriage.

Finally, Some Happy People

Ok, I haven't blogged for awhile. Stuff has been happening like getting engaged and planning a wedding. On a sidenote: The wedding industry is EVIL. They know you need them and therefore know they can be overpriced and mean and never return your phone calls. But I will prevail and stick it to the man, as I'm prone to do. Maybe I'll blog about "stick it to the man" wedding planning someday, but not today because I don't have time on account of planning a wedding.

Anyway, this morning I was pleased to literally stumble upon (using StumbleUpon) a site called LMyLife. I found it a refreshing answer to two similar sites, FMyLife, and MyLifeIsAverage, both of which are kind of funny but generally cynical and negative. Granted, LMyLife still has some obscene stories, but most of them are just random things that made the writer happy. Sometimes it's nice to hear from people who are actually happy.

In that vein, I will now share a story of positivity and happiness. Last weekend I was at Great America with my fh (future husband) and two friends. It was a fabulous day at Great America with very short lines and lovely weather. We came to the Superman ride which is a newer one and kind of a novelty because you lay on your stomach to simulate the feeling of flying. As expected, the line was a little longer for this ride—45 minutes according to the sign. So the four of us were standing there discussing whether or not to get in line and this energetic Great America employee came up to us with passes to bypass the entire line for Superman. He gave them to FH and I immediately because we have season passes. He made our two friends answer random trivia questions to earn their passes. So, we went up the exit ramp and when the next car came in, they stopped the people in line from getting on, so that we could jump on. It was basically amazing. I'm going to Great America again this weekend and I fully intend to try the standing-outside-the-ride-looking-pathetic method once again.

Bible Awesomeness

I'm part of a fabulous small group where each week, anyone who wants to can share what they've been reading in their personal devotions and what spiritual insights they've gleaned from it. As a result of this format, we end up discussing a good variety of topics each week.

In our group, I've become known for a talent I have for picking out some of the more ... strange verses in the Bible. They're now known as "Kim Verses." I'm so proud.

I decided that it was selfish of me to only share these amazing portions of the Bible with my small group, so I thought I should share what may be the most awesome story in the entire Bible (besides Jesus dying for our sins and stuff) with the two people that read this blog.

It all begins in Judges 3:15. Israel is asking for a deliverer from the evil Eglon, King of Moab, and the Lord sends them a man named Ehod who, it's important to note, is left-handed. Ehud is quite the clever one and in preparation for meeting the evil Eglon, he makes a special double edged sword. He's also quite violent, as it turns out.

The awesomeness begins when Ehud meets up with the evil Eglon who, as the text describes him in verse 17, is "a very fat man." Haha! Ouch.

But wait, there's more! Ehud makes his way into the evil Eglon's private quarters to deliver a "secret message" from God and there stabs him so thoroughly with his sword that Eglon's "fat closed in over it." You can't make this stuff up. Ehud makes a quick getaway out the window, leaving the evil Eglon dead in his room.

BUT, this story doesn't get truly awesome until Eglon's servants come by, and finding that the doors to his room are locked, assume he's "relieving himself." Naturally. Then, in verse 25, comes the kicker. "They waited to the point of embarrassment, but when he did not open the doors of the room, they took a key and unlocked them. There they saw their lord fallen to the floor, dead."

Wow. I start to feel a little bad for the evil Eglon. First, he's so fat that the sword he gets killed with disappears inside his flubber. Then, while he's laying dead in his room, his servants are outside thinking he's having bathroom troubles. AWKWARD!

And awesome.

Pedi in the Nude

Over the weekend my mother and I traveled to Lake Geneva, WI, one of my favorite places. It's full of memories for me—for the majority of my childhood, my grandparents owned a villa up there where we'd spend many weekends with my cousins and shop at the Sentry and watch Judy Garland movies and convince my little cousin that Methuselah was still alive and eat fudge and buy rings from the Treasure Cove that turned our fingers green.

The villa is gone now, but we still like to visit and on this particular visit my mother and I decided it would be fun to go classy for a change and get a pedicure. We made an appointment at this fabulous spa in The Abbey Resort, where we not only got our pedicures, but also got to use their indoor pool and hot tub. Good deal!

Since this place is so swanky, when you get there they give you a locker for your things and inside the locker is a most fabulously soft robe and some flip flops to wear as you wander about the pool and salon area. Not being the type to go to these kinds of fancy places, I did some preliminary research in the "Spa Etiquette" section of their website. (Yes they did actually have a section titled just that.) This is what the suggest re: what to wear to the spa:

We will never compromise your modesty. You will be given a robe and sandals to change into before your treatment. What you wear under your robe is up to you, our therapists will only expose the portion of your body that is being worked on.

Yes, I think they are insinuating that you may go nude under your robe. However, being the modest young lady that I am, I chose not to take that path and I wore my bathing suit AND shorts under my robe.

So as I was standing by the table of nail polishes waiting for my name to be called, there was another woman there as well, choosing her polish, maybe in her 30s. We casually chit-chatted about the polish, etc. when she came out with the truth. Our conversation went something like this:

Her: It's so hard to decide on a polish.
Me: I know, there are a lot of options.
Her: It feels really weird to have nothing on under my robe. I've never had a pedicure with nothing on!
Me: ... Ha ... Yeah
**Awkward silence while I pretended to be intensely focused on picking a polish color even though I already knew which one I wanted.

Yeah, nobody wanted to know that, lady. I didn't know what to say back. If I told her that I was normal and put clothes on under my robe, she would have felt weird so I just went along with it. Luckily for me, my pedicurist called my name soon after that.

A few minutes later, naked lady sat down just a few chairs from me for her pedicure and as I occassionally glanced in her direction, I noticed that she was a little concerned about flashing the entire room. Every so often she would look my way, probably to see how in the world I was covering myself up, but I wasn't given the fact that I was wearing shorts. She was probably horrified. She finally asked her pedicurist (is that even a word? I'm going to keep using it) for an extra towel to cover up.

Once I was finished with my pedicure I headed to the pool, making sure to completely avoid naked lady because she either A) thought I completely flashed everyone during my pedicure in a very obscene way or B) realized I did indeed have clothes on under my robe even though I led her to believe I did not. Either way, I didn't want to have another encounter with her.

Luckily I got out of there free and clear with one more fabulous Lake Geneva memory to add to my list.

Mini Kicks on Route 66

Last weekend, my fun bf and I took a nice little road trip on Route 66 from Chicago to Bloomington/Normal. I'd always been kind of curious about Route 66 since there are signs for it along Joliet Rd. which is not too far from where I grew up. But I never bothered to do any research on it because ... that's just how I roll. Lucky for me, I now have a boyfriend who does do research, and my curiosity about Route 66 has been quenched!

So the bf and I had discussed a possible mini road trip, and then one day we were downtown eating at the Bennigan's on Michigan Ave. which was just about a dream come true for me considering all the Bennigan's in the suburbs are gone, and the Michigan Ave. was gone but now it's back, and I was so excited to go that we took a picture:


Anyway, back to Route 66. While at that particular Bennigan's, we were fortunate enough to get a lovely window table and we noticed the sign on the sidewalk, right smack next to the Bennigan's, that marked the beginning of Route 66. I was disappointed in myself that I had no idea that was even there. But this revived our Route 66 discussion and inspired us to act.

So Scott went to the library and got some books on the Route and we set off. We ventured back to the Bennigan's (unfortunately did not eat there) last Saturday morning and started our journey.


Our first stop beyond the usual Chicago suburbs was Joliet. Joliet is very proud of their affiliation with Route 66 (or the "Mother Road" if you're obsessed with it and write books about how to travel it).


Joliet also has a Route 66/Joliet museum. Someone inexplicably decided to charge for the Joliet part of the museum, so we skipped that which just left of some random Route 66 stuff to look at in the lobby area and the gift shop. We also sent this awesome email postcard to my mother:



Our next stop was at the Launching Pad Drive-in for lunch. It also happens to be the home of the "Gemini Giant," an enormous astronaut man holding a rocket.


After that we went through a series of extremely small towns including Braidwood, Gardner, and Dwight where we found a bank designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and and big windmill they seem to be very proud of. My favorite town was Odell, where we were informed by way of Burma Shave signs as we entered the town that they believe "everybody is somebody." We then came to what appeared to be their main attraction, an old gas station with a gift shop inside. As we left, more Burma Shave signs bid us farewell and encouraged us to visit the museum in our next stop, Pontiac, IL.

Pontiac was actually a cute bigger small town with a great Route 66 "museum" in their old Fire Station/City Hall.


Their "museum" (run by old guys who probably call Route 66 the "Mother Road" on a regular basis) consisted of a bunch of random artifacts from each town along Route 66 from Chicago to St. Louis, all displayed in glass cases, along with a bunch of manikins dressed up in old-timey looking garb, a little tribute to Steak & Shake which was starting in Bloomington, IL, and a bunch of random little junk from the movie Cars. It was borderline garage sale, but still great.

The rest of the City Hall building was filled with some antique stores and Route 66 Photo galleries in the upstairs areas. We quickly realized that these rooms upstairs used to be jail cells. I was particularly excited that they kept the toilets in tact.


After Pontiac, we headed down to Bloomington which we figured would be a good ending to our mini road trip, but it turns out there's absolutely nothing in Bloomington. So we hopped on I-55 and made our way back.

We did manage to run into a few of the same people who were clearly making the Route 66 trip, which made things interesting. Our trip down there took a total of 7.5 hours. The trip back: 2.5.

That Night I Swallowed My Mustache

This is what happened:

Some friends and I ventured into the great city of Chicago last night to see the classic Marx Brothers' film Duck Soup. Part of the evening involved the Outdoor Film Festival people attempting to break the world record for number of people wearing Groucho Marx glasses at the same time, by giving each attendee a free pair of Groucho Marx glasses. As one would expect when they're giving out thousands of free glasses, they weren't of the highest of quality. But they were fun nonetheless!


As a result of their cheapness, they soon started falling apart, and after awhile my mustache fell completely off. I attempted many times to reattach it, but to no avail. Finally, we had to stand with our glasses on for 10 minutes in order to break the record, so I stuck the mustache into the nostril of my fake nose so I didn't have to bother with it.

I decided that having a mustache hanging out my nose would make for a hilarious picture, so I asked Scott to take one of me:


That's when it happened. I was laughing at the hilarity of said picture when I took a deep breath and SWALLOWED THE MUSTACHE. I sucked it straight through my mouth into my throat. I didn't even feel it go into my mouth, it was that quick.

Next thing I know, it's in the back of my throat and I'm realizing I could choke and die from this. I stopped to assess the probability of my death, and found I could breathe just fine, so I finished the job and swallowed it completely. From there, I remember Scott asking me if I swallowed it (yes!!) and then I turned and announced to the rest of the my friends that I swallowed my mustache. Laugher ensued and I hurried to find some water.

Looking back, it probably would have been better if I had tried to cough it up instead of completely swallowing it, but that would have made quite an awkward scene. And this makes for a much better story.

DQ Picture Fun, for Real This Time!

One summer night at the DQ ...

Crosstown Classic

I got to go to Chicago's own Crosstown Classic this year (my first time ever!) as part of my birthday gift from my awesome boyfriend! It was a great day even though the Cubbies lost :(






Frank Thomas signed Scott's ticket stub!


And Milton Bradley signed my awesome pink hat!


This was definitely one of the more fun Cub's games I've been to, and not just because we got some cool autographs. Having both teams just about equally represented really added to the energy of the crowd and overall fun-ness. And there weren't even any brawls or bad behavior. It's definitely worth spending the extra bucks to experience it!

How Much Is That Doggie on the Side of the Road?

Every day on my way home, there's this person dressed up like a dog standing on the corner of Butterfield and Naperville Rds. advertising for Petland. He usually holds a sign for a "puppy sale" and jumps about frantically in extremely repetitive motions ... kind of like the puppies he's trying to sell.

For some reason this cracks me up every time I drive by. Usually I get stuck at the light, so I get ample time to stare and laugh.

Today when I pulled up to the light, I noticed some additions to the usual costume. The dog had acquired a bath towel, brush, and shower cap (covering only the top of one of his ears. A lot of good that's going to do!) all to advertise for "Grooming Appointments." So I took a picture:

So That's How Shoes End Up in the Middle of the Street ...

The Date: Sunday, May 24, 2009
The Time: 11:30pm
The Place: Driving on Maple Ave. in Naperville, on the way to see Star Trek at the IMAX.

The bf (Scott) and I were driving along minding our business. Given the late hour, I may or may not have been a little slap happy and that may or may not have factored in to the rest of this story. As we were driving, I noticed a spider on the windshield. After observing it for a moment, I realized it was on the inside. And it was crawling closer and closer to me.

I was a little bit nervous, so I started looking for something to kill it with. Not having much luck, I went with the old standby (my shoe, a flip flop) and smushed the spider against the windshield. Scott suggested that I smear it a bit to make sure it's dead, which I did, leaving a nice trail of spider guts on the window.

Unfortunately, the spider's dead carcass was now stuck to the bottom of my shoe, and since Scott likes to keep things clean, I didn't want to put the shoe back on and let the spider get all smushed into his carpet. So I decided my best option was to open up the window, stick my shoe out, and let the wind blow the dead spider off.

So I opened the window and stuck my shoe out. However, the wind was stronger than expected and probably not even a second later, the shoe was gone. I gasped loudly and Scott asked if my shoe fell out the window (how did he know??). I then giggled for at least 10 minutes as we turned around, searched for it on the street, and pulled over to pick it up. I was a little bit concerned that someone had driven over it, but luckily, not only did it appear to be unharmed, but the spider carcass was gone. Done and done.

Garbage Picking Extravaganza!

Last weekend, I went with some friends to garbage pick. This was no ordinary garbage picking though. It was garbage picking on amnesty garbage day in a very fancy-pants Chicago suburb. And it was more amazing than I ever imagined.

The evening consisted of about 5 of us, in 2 cars, slowly driving down side streets, stopping, picking, and moving on. Things got a little tricky when it got dark, but we still managed to find some good stuff. Next year we're bringing flashlights.

My car was so filled to the brim that the 2 people I had to drive home couldn't fit, and my roommate had to ride home in the back of the trunk. A nice way to top of an already exciting evening:


Yes, in the back of that car, you'll see (behind the roommate) a large wooden chair, an old wooden sled, 2 floor chairs, golf clubs with bag, some work bench thing, and a variety of smaller items. All in all, a very successful evening.

Chinatown: Chicago

After my wildly successful (and slightly life-threatening) trip to Chinatown in NYC where I discovered the joy of knock-off purses, I've been wanting to try my luck at Chicago's very own Chinatown. Given my need for a new summer purse, the finally pleasant weather, and my new obsession with riding the "L", I made my sweet boyfriend take me down there for a shopping trip over the weekend.

I was pleasantly surprised with our Chinatown. It's fairly small, just one main street with lots of gift shops and restaurants and a little outdoor "mall" with some more of the same. But look at this fabulous gate!


But I know what you're all really wondering about: How was the knock-off purse selection?? Well, it wasn't nearly as exciting as New York's. There was only one store that really had a large selection, and there was a back room, but it was rather accessible and not really shady at all. Too bad.


Nevertheless, I found pretty much the perfect purse, and I would say our first Chicago Chinatown experience was a huge success!

Animals Living in My Car

That's right, I have animals living in my car. I've never actually seen them, but they've made their presence known on two separate occasions, both ending with me having to pay extra money to tidy up their mess. Little devils.

Over the winter, the fan in my car started making terrible noises whenever I turned it on. I brought it in to find out that some stupid animal was hiding food in there.

But today's incident at Jiffy Lube really takes the cake. I was sitting in the waiting area minding my own business, when I notice a few of the Jiffy Lube guys staring under the hood of my car in disbelief. They waved me over and commented that they didn't know mice were so organized. This disturbed me. Then I saw it. An animal of some kind had made a serious home for itself in my air filter box.

On the left side of the box, was a lovely rectangular "bed" made of yarn and other soft things. It was perfect. Perfect enough to be creepy. On the opposite end, was a good sized stash of mostly whole animal crackers; some chewed on, some not. It was truly incredible.

I almost felt bad cleaning it all out after this animal had clearly worked hard to organize it all. But not really.

Easter Fun

I have to say this was a great Easter! I played in the orchestra at all 5 of our services at church (2 Saturday night and 3 Sunday) which was tons of fun, and very moving. And my sweet boyfriend attended 4 of them. Such support! The only slightly sad part was that the orchestra was basically hidden on the stage behind some huge white screens. I guess it taught us a good lesson in humility :)

These large screens took up most of the stage and between them were these big gold doors that opened up at the end of the service when our pastor invited people who accepted Christ come up and walk through. The best part was the smokescreen coming down from the top of the doors with an image of Jesus projected on it. So yes, people walked through Jesus. At first I thought it was going to be kind of hokey, but it turned out to be really good, and pretty emotional. I cried more than once, even though all I could see from my position in the orchestra was shadows and feet.

After church, Scott and I finished up our fabulous bunny cake:


He's fabulous, I know. We brought him over to my family gathering in the afternoon which was lots of fun, especially with all the cute children we now have.


The highlight of our family time was when my cousin Christine sang a very special song for me. Christine is quite talented in her singing and guitar playing skills and has recorded some songs. So one night I had this dream that she recorded this Paul McCartney song, Mull of Kintyre, that I don't necessarily know that well but somehow it made it into my dream. Anyway, in the dream I was in the car listening to it and it was quite excellent. The next day, I sent Christine a quick message telling her she may want to consider this song for future recordings. So to my great pleasure, Christine found this song, learned it, and sang it for me on Easter. It was quite lovely.

The only thing missing from my Easter was a viewing of Easter Parade, but I am remedying that right now!

Tribute to Dean

So I have this bowling ball that I love very much. It's name is Dean and I bought it at a garage sale a number of years ago for $5. I named it Dean because it says "Dean" on it.

It's been basically the best ball ever. It's nice and light, but it has a big thumb hole which was the main selling feature for me. It's also purple.

So I've used this ball with great success for many years. Yes, everyone thinks I'm a huge dork for having my own ball, but I don't care because every time we go bowling, by the end of the night, everyone loves Dean.

But this weekend during a bowling outing with some friends, disaster struck when Dean started chipping in the thumb hole making it very painful to bowl. I tried to cover up the chip using some bowling tape (see below), but it didn't help much.


I had to start using the other bowling alley balls which were sub-par and my last 2 games were a disgrace. I averaged like 30 pins less than usual.

I'm not sure I want to get a new ball. Dean has served me well. But if it costs more to repair him than it did to buy him, then that just seems weird. Plus, if owning my own bowling ball makes me a dork, I can't imagine what it would mean if I actually paid money to repair said bowling ball.

Benji the Hunted Traumatized

This afternoon I was poking around in my Google Analytics (where I can spy on what people are searching for to get to my blogs) and came across a very interesting search term: "benji the hunted traumatized." This immediately excited me because I have seriously been holding on to this Benji the Hunted thing for like 20 years. I'm so glad to know that there's someone else out there who was traumatized by this devil of a movie!

What happened was one day, when I was approximately 4 years old, my mother thought it would be a great idea to take me to a movie about animals dying. I'm not sure that she knew there would be so much bloodshed, but there was. All at the beginning. So we had to leave like 5 minutes after it started. I truly was traumatized.

This horrific event has never left me. To this day my mother makes fun of me for it and on occasion will threaten to force me to watch this terrible, painful, disgusting movie. I've never hated a movie so much. Obviously.

Anyway, now that I've realized that there are others out there who were also traumatized, and have also not gotten over it seeing as they're just now doing a Google search for it, I figured I'd make a post about it. Hopefully other traumatized people will find this post and we can discuss our experiences. Kind of like a Benji the Hunted support group.

St. Patrick's Day

I had a lovely St. Patrick's Day, as usual.

It started out with a very fun day in Chicago on Saturday to see the green river and the parade. I'd never actually gone to check out the river which is unfortunate, because it really is quite cool! Even with the huge mass of people, we managed to get a good spot and spent some time taking pictures.



The parade was good, but not quite as easy to see. We finally sneaked around to a decent spot except it wasn't exactly legal and the cops on horses kept yelling at us. But we persisted and ended up getting to see quite a bit. Then we almost got killed by some unruley horses and a giant Leprechaun balloon/float that almost fell on us.




On Sunday we enjoyed a traditional Irish dinner with some of the family. I don't have any pictures of the actual food, but I do have pictures of some cute kids:





On Tuesday, I celebrated the day by wearing some green (and my awesome big green ring) and getting a free Shamrock Shake at McDonald's with my coworkers. Except I got chocolate because, let's be honest, the Shamrock ones are kind of disgusting. Later in the evening I celebrated with the bf (Scott) by watching the St. Patrick's Day episode of The Simpsons and drinking Green River. Pretty much perfect.