Still in the box!!!!!

Make sure you read this entry first

Chairs and drinks

So for the longest time we've used Tyler's old recliner that drops parts when you move it and sometimes sticks you in the butt with sharp bits when you sit on it.

That has been not so fun.

So this year we decided that our Christmas present to each other was going to be a new recliner. We've searched high and low and finally found a good coupon/selection at HOM furniture store.

But it wasn't just any deal. It was buy one chair, get the second chair... FREE.

WHO DOES THAT WITH FURNITURE?

So naturally, we snapped it up.

Ta da!



Make no mistake about it, there is absolutely no room in our apartment living room for two huge recliners. But we're ignoring that fact. And this is now our life:



Except for when I take a break to play with the giant box the chair came in... (please know I had a giant margarita with dinner and I was 'high' off the new-chair joy!)

The Economy

Remember in my last post I said I was scared of the economy? Well... What he said:



STAT!

If you need a good cry...

Seriously. Best sports story ever.

Amazing You Tube!

Weird stuff I've seen online lately.


Video #1 This is the gal from the new soul apple computer commercial- you know the one where it gets pulled out of an envelope. I think she does a good job covering Britney Spears.

Video #2 Only recently have I learned about an internet prank... the rick roll. It's where you post a link that looks all innocent but when someone clicks on it they get redirected to Rick Astley's song "Never gonna give you up." It's hilarious initially then quickly annoying.

On April Fool's Day all the you tube videos on the main page took you to Rick Astley. I thought I had seen it all till I saw this. It's obviously been edited and its really quite affronting to watch but every time I see it I start laughing hysterically. Something about a tiny, nerdy kid screaming in German and COMPLETELY overreacting... gets me every time. Make sure your sound isn't too high...

My life as expressed in cats

Below is how I reacted when my alarm went off at 6 am this morning

(watch that your sound isn’t too high)



This is what I’m now doing at my desk

Things I've learned this week

--I need to order happier movies. First it was Rendition (really good but HUGE bummer). Then I got Munich in the mail but I've had it at home for nearly a month and have only seen the first 40 minutes. Ugh. I just bit the bullet and sent Syriana back (didn't even OPEN that one). I am tired of movies about war, torture and assassinations. I moved all happy movies up on my netflix queue. I have the Nanny Diaries up next along with August Rush. Color me optimistic.

-- Little things make me happy. All week long I think I've been to 3 places. Work, my apartment and the grocery store. And I'm perfectly content with that. I enjoy reading books, watching my favorite shows, making dinner and going to bed early. No harm being lame, right? Except I have to get off my butt and add the YMCA to my list of stops or that membership is nothing more than a fat tax.

-- Winter driving gives me heartburn. I was in GF this weekend for my dad's birthday and had to leave for Fargo on Sunday. The 70 some miles took approx. 2 hours and I was honest to God going 30 at some points on the interstate. Not cool. Also if the temperature doesn't go above freezing and stay there, I may just lose my mind and drive my car through a building.

-- Wisdom comes from cookies. The other day a fortune cookie told me, "You will be successful someday." And I took it to work and laminated it! Now every time I'm assigned some menial receptionist task, I look at it and tell myself to breathe.

And to leave you with something fun... I want to try that stuff!

One big update

It's been awhile and lots of fun stuff has happened. So strap in because it's time for a super, awesome, mega-post! Okay actually my life doesn't warrant that much excitement but still, I've had some good times lately.

In late January, my mom and I blasted down to the Twin Cities to see my beloved Davey, Ainsley (and new boyfriend, Paul) and Heather and Aaron. Much fun was had, especially the part where I tried to pick David up in front of the Xcel energy center and had to keep driving around in circles. We finally found each other via cellphone and I tried to convince him to make a run for our car --- over 6 lanes of St. Paul traffic-- :) He started our way but was moving as if he was taking an evening jaunt! I had to lean out my car and yell "RUN BITCH!" --- and he did. So all was well.

A bunch of folks met up at an Irish pub establishment and drank beers and ate appetizers that will inevitably cause me cardiac arrest at some point later in my life... But so worth it. The most amazing part of the evening was that after all that excitement I still managed to drive myself back to my St. Paul hotel without getting lost. Guess I'm ready for the big city life now?

Mom and I toured the James J Hill House of St. Paul. Which as you can see is pretty amazing.



This place is nuts! 36,000 square feet over five floors! 13 bathrooms! 22 fireplaces! 16 crystal chandeliers! Two-story skylit art gallery with organ! 100-foot reception hall and everywhere you look elaborately carved oak and mahogany woodwork! Unreal but rather gloomy feeling being trapped in the middle of all that dark wood.

It's fascinating to try and imagine what living back then was like. Knowing my luck I wouldn't have been a "Mrs. Hill" but rather Mrs. Hill's butler or something. I bet it was an amazing time to be alive with the West still being settled and indstury taking off.... still I can't imagine living with the "medical care" they had back in the day. Mrs. Hill had 10 children... I can't imagine delivering ten children in the late 1800s. Must've been a tough woman.

This past Friday I took the day off to give myself a three-day weekend. Tyler and I spent Valentine's day together and had a really nice romantic dinner at Monte's. I had this amazing pork dish with fruits and veggies and blue cheese crumbles and Tyler had fillet mignon. For once I was too happy for dessert. That is UNHEARD of for me :)

I am planning on hoarding vacation time like a mad woman for awhile. I have 3 big trips I want to get in this year.

#1 Kearney, Nebraska over July 4th to visit my awesome family.

#2 Las Vegas this summer with my friend Spence. We're gonna have girl's night on the town and see Bette Midler perform!

#3 Palm Springs in November. Take Tyler to visit my aunt and uncle in Cali. It'll be great to see them and escape ND in November.

So yeah, no more fun 3 day weekends for awhile.

But you know what, that's okay. Because I'm young, I have a great guy in my life who loves me. I have my health, my family is doing well-- there's just a whole lot to be thankful for. I've been trying to say my prayers every night recently and I've been totally humbled by how TRULY lucky I am. When you think about what's going on in the world right now... it makes me shudder to think that I go to bed every night, well fed, peaceful and comfortable and elsewhere in the world--- well, it's just too painful to think of.

Last night I treated myself to a pricey, high fat drink at Starbucks and saw that for an extra $10 they'll ship a pound of their coffee to the troops. So I did my part to try and help people in tough situations. My Uncle Steve is over there somewhere, hopefully he can enjoy a cup on me.

Anyway, this is all getting way to heavy. Switching gears to----

RANDOM POP CULTURE NEWS THAT'S RELEVANT TO ME....

Even though I have strong feminist objections (and objections based on taste) I can't help but love America's Next Top Model. The new cycle starts this Wednesday and I'm thrilled. I also heard that season 4 contestant, Michelle (the one with the skin disease) had a baby girl with Survivor reality TV alum, Johnny Fairplay... yikes... reality couples are breeding, that can't be good.
*(Pic of Michelle chick if you don't remember her-- there have been about 100 seasons of top model now)*



Also --I was shopping over the weekend and got very pissy walking past clothing store, Express. I've never been a huge fan of the place. I think their styles are nice but their version of size XL would fit my over my right boob. And that really bothers me. Their latest marketing campaign also perpuates the "thin is in" mentality.

In the men's window display, the ad copy read "cool comfortable casual" and the woman's side was something like "longer, leaner, leggier." What the F? How come only the guys get to be comfy and cool? Apparently girls don't get to relax, it's all about being long and thin. And notice how happy the chicks in this picture look. I rest my case.



And lastly in pop culture news of me... movies I'm thrilled to see:


The Other Boleyn Girl (currently reading the book-- very goood)



Leatherheads (John Krasinski and George Clooney?? I've died and gone to heaven!)

Video game nostalgia

This was my FAVE back in the day... I miss it :)

Humor for the day

I did not expect to like the movie "Knocked Up" and there are still parts that bug me but overall I really enjoyed this movie-- especially this scene


Please take the chairs away. I don't like them. The big one is staring at me and that short one is being very droll.

I love that they're off taking "man time" in Vegas and getting high but instead they got all introspective about what crappy partners they are to the women in their life.

Jingle Bells

The snow has hit the ground. It's Christmas. In my mind at least. Snow = Christmas. That's the only way I can convince myself that this 10 below is worth it... funny thing is, it's going to get so much colder. **SIGH** Ah well.

I have been listening to pretty holiday music, some traditional, some not. These two songs are some of my favorite on a mix CD I bought:





BIG NEWS: We bought our first tree together-- it smells delightful!!


(the happy family)

lights displayed


and again..


Holiday love to all....

Happy for the Day

I don't mean to steal from Christy--- she had the brilliance to start posting funny clips from The Office, but I saw this episode today and I lost it when this happened....



*Incidentally, Dwight has a blog. You can read the hilarity here

My life without employment...

In many ways its cool. I can sleep in, take walks in the middle of the day, print off recipes from the internet and act like I'm gonna learn how to cook (someday... someday). I also get to do lots of odd jobs. This weekend I went to Crookston to help my friend/hair stylist. She and her husband are moving into a farmhouse that needs a lot of work. I felt like I was part of an HGTV special. I actually learned how to make a floor! HA! This weekend I made a floor, what did you do?

Sorry, I'm weirdly proud of my accomplishment. We painted every room in the house, including ceilings, ripped out carpet for new hardwood floors--- it was a big job. I'm actually still sore.

Perhaps I went about college the wrong way, I should have gone to a tech school to be a carpenter. It's fun, hard work and since a lot of people don't want to deal with it you can make serious money! For example, this is the first three advertised jobs in the Forum today...



lame. I totally went to school for the wrong thing. I could be putting floors in right now and making bank.

Tyler and I are getting ready for Halloween. We carved the pumpkins we obtained from the patch.


So strong!


Oh no, I cut off his head


And now I mercilessly gut him


And during the carving we watched Land Before Time -- ah the childhood memories


The family of pumpkins -- ahhh the love
*the one with the glasses is supposed to be me, the shorter one is Tyler*
:0)


Spooky


Ahh the romance of dismembering gourds

I saved a bunch of pumpkin seeds and now I need an online recipe on how to roast them. How about that, a recipe I may actually use.

One last thing... Usually I do Disney clips but this week my clip is animated but not the disney variety. In honor of the video we watched last night, and how much I love Spike... here you go.

Scary nostalgia of the day

Ugh. Games for little girls frighten me.

Hooray!!!

This is just crazy. Puts my little "bunny ear" puppet to shame!

Weird news of the day

I saw this headline on CNN today-- it's a video clip. Just from the title it's like--- SERIOUSLY?

Man puts rattlesnake in mouth, gets bitten

WHAT!?!?!?!?

I loaded the clip and started watching but had to turn it off--couldn't even get to the snake-in-mouth part. Some people should just be stopped from reproducing. If you think putting a rattlesnake in your mouth is a good idea-- you SHOULD be bitten.

Then this story was truly appalling.

Student Tasered at campus forum

This was harder to watch than the snake clip. I felt literally SICK to my stomach. I am pretty sure if I met this guy (Andrew Meyer) in real life, he'd annoy the shit out of me. However-- in this country you have a right to ask your questions. This was an open forum! I saw the video this morning and it has stayed with me all day at work! It's just really disturbing.

I've been searching on facebook and found some groups about this. Some are in support of Meyer and some not. I wasn't at this event so I don't know if there was more to this situation than I'm seeing, but it seems like the police were way out of line. And it's so scary to see this video of this kid being tasered and screaming for help and everyone just standing there.

One commenter on CNN.com said it great:

It has been a long time since my heart started pumping while watching a video, but this one made it happen. This student had every right to ask the questions that he asked, whether we agree with him or not. He was, as far as I and others can see, not told why he was being arrested. He was manhandled even after he offered to leave the room. He was tasered for resisting arrest, sure- but why exactly was he being arrested? Shouldn't we all resist arrest when our rights are being violated? Should we lie down and allow ourselves to be taken away when we KNOW that in doing so, we are allowing our constitutional rights to wither away?

The most horrible part of this, I think, is the reaction of the student body and of Kerry. Pithy little jokes as a student is being hauled away from the mic and pushed to the floor? Giggles from students as they stare and grin? At least we can hear a few people in the background protesting the police treatment of Andrew. Whether you are Democrat or Republican, you have to agree: This is our country now people. Don't you love it?

See scary clip here:




After that you need something good to watch. WORD TO WANDA SYKES!!!

Ummmmm, what?

Poor girl.

Happy song for the moment

YAY!

Hooray!

The post with too much stuff

Warning: This post contains several you tube videos, photos and links... and also was written when I was not feeling so good... take it or leave it...

First Rant: I need to NOT watch the news. It's making me a crazy person. Not only that, I need to stop reading the local paper. There's been nonsense in this area for weeks regarding a statue of the Ten Commandments on public property. Grrrrrrr! If I have to read one more letter to the editor about how "you either follow God or follow Satan" I am going to personally track these people down and beat their door down with a Bible so they can read it. Like, really read it. I am not personally offended by the Commandments or anything-- but they obviously have no place on public property.

Second Rant: MEDIA and Paris Hilton. I really like this woman anchor, Mika Brzenzinski... when she loses it over the Paris Hilton story.


Okay enough ranting. You have to forgive me cause I'm in a bad place --- womanly speaking. I want to go to Target and buy a kiddie pool and fill it with Ben&Jerry's ice cream. Would that be so wrong? I ask you-- Grrrr.

Not much is new with me. Working away -- enjoying hanging with the delinquents. I also like to amuse myself with some new endeavors that include:

Gardening: Obviously I have no garden—merely a second floor apartment. I have a window box with petunias and butterfly daises (which are a little tired looking at the moment) and a pot with Gerber daisies and white geraniums. So far I haven’t killed any of them. They bring me joy. I also have two pet rocks.



Shopping: I have a problem. Really! But I am enjoying adding new and crazy stuff to my wardrobe. My latest funny purchase – a 3 foot tall lighted palm tree (it serves as an excellent nightlight) and a necklace that reads “F-BOMB.” Every time I put it on, I feel better. *click to enlarge to see FBOMB in all her glory*





Being excited: There are lots of things I’m excited about. It’s summer and therefore nice out, so that in itself is exciting. Fourth of July is coming up and that should be good. Also in July, there’s a wedding in the cities. I enjoy weddings. There is good food, fun clothes, dancing- does it get better? Then in September Laura & Jim get married--- HOORAY! Also happening in September, my internship is done (sad) but I will likely start a new job then (exciting).

You know what excites me the most? ***********Harry Potter********. Yeah. I’m a nerd. The movie and the book have me totally psyched. If anyone ruins either with spoilers, I will smoosh them. Well you can’t really spoil the movie, seeing as how I’ve read the book -- but the last book... NO ONE give away ANYTHING. You hear me?!

Lastly I love Elizabeth Edwards for standing up to Ann Coulter. I’m so sick of Coulter’s nasty, school-yard bully behavior.



I also love Kathy Griffin for skewering Coulter— scratch that-- I just love Kathy Griffin in general.