Well ladies and gentleman – it’s officially been a year. I’m
officially a year older, and my blog is officially a year old. It’s CRAZY how
fast time has gone. I look back and think about how much I’ve done over the last
year, and realize how much more I get to do in the future. How awesome is that?
So far, I’d say 2013 has been pretty great. I tried new things, met new people,
got a new job, and found new passions. I may not have hit all my goals, but
there’s always the rest of my life to make those happen.
I had a busy pre-birthday week – I mean it was Thanksgiving
week, so that makes sense. I worked Monday and Tuesday nights, had Wednesday night
off, then Thursday was Thanksgiving. I ate my weight in delicious and amazing
food, then had a quick early birthday celebration where I got really exciting
gifts from my family. A gift card to the Half Price Bookstore (AWESOME), a food
processor, a mixer that can be turned into a HAND MIXER, jeans, and a trip
sometime this year to make my own WINE. Seriously – so cool. Turning 27 seemed
pretty fantastic so far. After opening those, I headed home for a quick nap so I
could get all ready for Black Friday madness. And actually, it was Black Thursday
since I went in to work at 7:30 Thanksgiving night. I thought about staying out
with the crazies to shop once I got off at 12:30 am, but then I saw the
BAZILLIONS of people out at the mall and I thought mmmm betta not. I went home
and went straight to bed, only to be awoken by the pitter patter of ass hole
children from upstairs at 7 am. Not cool. I helped with the moving around of
furniture from our storage unit for a while and then grabbed some yummy Palmer’s
chili and an Apple Orchard sandwich (seriously the BEST sandwich there – it has
turkey, apple butter, and apple slices on yummy bread – NOMS), cracked open a
beer, and relaxed. I had to be back at work at 5:30 so a nap was obviously also
in order. That night took FOREVER and I didn’t get home till almost 11. What a
long ass day. Saturday morning are woke my butt up to head to Power Life for my
trade shift, zen-ed out for an hour, grabbed some lunch and headed to the East
Village for Small Business Saturday. Basically – it’s just a great excuse to
check out all the awesome little shops down in the East Village that I forget
about. It was a really nice day, so I didn’t even bother with a coat for most
of the afternoon. To warm up a little bit, we ducked into The Up Down Bar for a
little while. Now – this place is pretty new, and totally fantastic. It looks
like a 1980s basement (or so I’ve been told) – complete with movie posters and
console TVs. But the best part – ARCADE GAMES. Now I’ve never been much of a
gamer, but there’s something about an old arcade game that makes me happy. Maybe
it was the fact that I was carrying around a Winter Lager with me while I played
pinball that made it that much more funner. Or maybe it was playing Ninja
Turtles for a straight 30 minutes. Or maybe it was the fact that I totally
kicked ASS at Mario Kart on N-64. Not really – I was actually pretty terrible,
since SOMEONE stole it and held it hostage in Cedar Falls, I haven’t gotten a
chance to practice. But now that it’s back closer to me – I’m on it. The rest
of the night was full of adorable Miller High Life bottles and UFC fights.
Sunday was a lazy morning and then a Friends-giving celebration that evening. I
stuffed myself in 30 minutes and wanted to sleep immediately after. It was nice
to see people I hadn’t seen for months and to catch up with them. I slept like
a rock that night – pretty sure I didn’t move until my alarm went off. And at that
point – it was my birthday!
I woke up to texts and Facebook messages wishing me happy
birthday – and calling me an old lady. I didn’t feel any older – but then that usually
doesn’t happen THAT DAY. I went about my day as normal, heading into work where
I received a couple happy birthdays. And after work was when I got to
officially celebrate. I didn’t work that night so I had a full night to celebrate
ME. I was definitely surprised by the two “firsts” I received that night – I got
some gorgeous red roses (which Toby immediately began chewing on) and some
sparkly jewels! Birthstone jewels at that… I LOVE them. I pretty much haven’t
taken them off since Monday – except to shower. After I took some pictures with
my pretties, we headed out to Tumea’s for dinner – and yum. Raviolis, red wine,
Chicken Diablo and cheesecake – that makes for one SUPER happy girl. After
dinner, we headed to Wellman’s for a little while – because I could and it was
my birthday so I could do whatever I wanted – stopped at Gateway Market and we
were in for the night. Watched some HIMYM and went to bed. And that my friends –
is how you spend your 27th birthday.
Tuesday morning I spent four hours ringing bells for the
Salvation Army at Dahl’s. Each year, we get 8 hours of volunteer time where we
can volunteer somewhere (usually our Community Involvement Committee organizes
these events) – and still basically get paid for our work day. Awesome deal
right? We got a free trip to Bang Bang Mongolian Grill too that day, which was
awesome since I needed some heat to warm me up from ringing the bell! Tuesday night
was the annual Scarf Exchange and I ended up with yet another super cute scarf.
I’ve gotten lots of compliments so far and I’ve only had it a week! Prior to
the party, I mixed up some sugar cookie dough to make FOUR DOZEN cookies later
that night. I volunteered to make these for the Woodward Academy boys – they were
needing 256 dozen total cookies, so I thought I could handle making 4 dozen. Or
so I thought. So the recipe was easy enough, and I thought I’d use my new
mixer. Easy peasy. So here’s all the debacles. First off – baking powder and
baking soda are NOT the same thing, so I had to hurry my happy little ass to
the store to pick up some baking powder. I put my butter in the mixing bowl and
was getting ready to scoop in some sugar when OH SNAP – my measuring cup handle
breaks off. Awesome. I keep mixing and adding stuff together, and realize that
as I’m adding in my flour that this dough seems pretty sticky. It wouldn’t be
so bad, but I forgot to add the eggs. Son of a bitch. So I added the eggs and
was getting ready to add in the last bit of flour, when I realized that I had
been using the half cup WITH the handle, instead of the whole cup WITHOUT the
handle. Blerg. After it was all mixed up I went to put it in the saran wrap to
stick in the fridge for a couple hours – and turns out, I didn’t have any. Wax paper
had to work because I needed a margarita RIGHT MEOW. Gah. They turned out well
and tasted good, they weren’t the prettiest – but when you get 2.5 dozen
cookies to yourself like these boys did, I wouldn’t be picky at all.
The next few weeks are going to FLY BY and before we know
it, BAM – 2014 will be here. I plan to enjoy these next few weeks to its
highest potential. Book club is Wednesday night, I don’t work ALL WEEKEND, and I
have some holiday decorating to do. Plus – I have a growler full of Rauchbier
sitting in my fridge that I’d love to have a glass of while decorating a Christmas
tree.
Remember that. Just because your day wasn’t AWESOME, doesn’t
mean that something awesome didn’t happen or won’t happen. I got to work today,
a Monday morning that everyone dreads – and I had an email from the woman
organizing the cookie gift for the boys. She told us that there were 8000
cookies for the boys and this was their biggest turnout yet. How great is that?
Starting off your blah Monday with such awesome news like that. It really set
the precedent for my day. Remember that. Something as simple as a happy email can completely turn your day around.
Eskimo kisses,
S
No comments:
Post a Comment