Little Did She Know...

....that I was going to use that blender she got me to make this:

Haha.... thank you Kath, Megan and Caitlin for showing me how to get the nutrients out of spinach without the digestive disturbances I get from chewing it!

Go ahead guys (Annie, Mom and Kelsey) make alllll the faces you want... :)

Dinner was a green smoothie in a bowl with rice krispies on top and a pizza bagel. 

 Smoothie contained spinach, mango and raspberries, and it was good.

Happy Blending!

Whatcha Readin' Now??

I completely left out about some other birthday presents that I received over the weekend - just goes to show how exciting my life it... blogging about birthday presents, haha.

But anyway, my best friend (as you all have read about for plenty of posts) gave me my present on Sunday. I give her huge props for remembering a birthday gift when she had other things to worry about... like catching her flights and making sure she had no liquids over 3 oz. My gift included a headband that I've been dying for... it may or may not have been purchased when I was present and, um, it also may or may not have been picked out by me 2 minutes earlier, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right?!
And the other part of the gift was the first book of the "Hunger Games" series!

I have been in such a huge rut with books... I finished up the Something Borrowed books a few months ago and have yet to find a book I want to read, so I am very excited that I now have a book to get me back on the reading wagon.

Has anyone read the Hunger Games series? I've heard they're good... I'll let you know how it goes :)

6.28 in Review

Like I said in my previous post, yesterday was my birthday. Ever since turning 21, I haven't looked forward to birthdays... they just seem like a huge let down. However, contrary to my usual attitude, yesterday was a really good day!

Probably because I woke up to this in my kitchen:

that contained this:

(as well as butternut squash soup and Winterfresh Lifesaver Mints... aka my favorite car-ride guilty pleasure)

oh, and this note snuck up on me in the kitchen also:

It was a great start to my birthday... and all of the above alone, would have made it a great birthday... but no, my roommate - my over-acheiver twin - just couldn't stop there...

After a long, boring day at work I walked into my apartment and quickly noticed that it was not how I left it...
There were balloons....

and a picture frame with the best saying ever...

and another balloon...

which led me to ice cream in the freezer!!!!

and waiting for me in the family room was this awesome display:

and guess what was in the box???

A BLENDER!!!!

words cannot describe my amount of excitement to use this baby.

So after discovering all my birthday surprises, I headed out for a quick 5 mile run before my mom and sister go to my apartment for my birthday dinner.

After running I was in a million mile an hour rush to get ready and dressed... but was slowed down a bit by a few more surprises....
this on the bathroom mirror:

and this on my computer:

Once my mom and sister arrived from Cincinnati, we jumped in the car and headed over to Grandview, and ate at Matt the Miller Tavern, where I had a declicious Goose Island summer beer:

and an amazing Yellow-fin Tuna melt sandwich with swiss cheese with a ginger orange jam -which is not pictured because I ate it all up before I even remembered to snap a photo-

After dinner, we took 5 steps and jumped into Orange Leaf frozen yogurt. This was the first time for my sister and she was more than overwhelmed. In fact, she is already planning her next trip to spend quality time with me to get frozen yogurt.

Per usual, my sister and I went gung-ho on flavors and toppings while my mom got "coconut and chocolate chips"....yeah, we called her lame.

Here is my african american mom and my 6 foot tall, model skinny sister:

So, as you can see, my birthday was awesome!!! I've never been one for big parties or big hooplas that have me in the center of attention. It's the little things I love and that was exactly what yesterday brought me.

I realized yesterday through all my text messages and facebook messages and all the extra effort and work my roommate put into making my day awesome and of course my mom and sister driving 1.5 hours for a simple dinner, that I am truely loved and appreciated. I think yesterday was the start of a new attitude and a new outlook on my life... now I can't promise days of bad attitudes, but overall, I have a good feeling about being 25.

Cheers,

Part One

I'm sticking to my promise and posting pictures of this past weekend. However, due to me waking up late and putzing around this morning, I only had time to load pictures from Thursday and Friday... but since the best part of the weekend was my friend's wedding... I'm allowed to use the excuse I saved the best for last :)

Oh, and before I begin, since this is a blog, and I mainly use this to get my thoughts and creative energy out (ha) I'm going to be that girl and say that today is my birthday! YAY!

I woke up to wonderful birthday surprises from my roommate, texts from friends and lots of appreciated facebook  messages.... which you all will ready about tomorrow... er, or Thursday :)

So moving on... to Thursday afternoon when I picked up best friend Jamie **Minn from the airport:

haha.... she looks like a chameleon.... not the best picture in the world!

The afternoon proceeded then on into the night, where we, along with roommate Annie and college friend Lauren, walked down to the Short North. We ended up at Bodega where we enjoyed happy hour (and pre-birthday) beers:

and Smoked Salmon bruchetta. AKA... my new favorite food.

(not pictured it where I was dared to eat a jalapeno. I did. And I almost died. Never again.)Once dinner and beers were over, we took our alcohol buzz back to our apartment where we had a lightening bug catching contenst.

Oh, and I almost forgot! We capped the night off with Orange Leaf frozen yogurt....but not before doing cartwheels and round-offs in the senior citizen rehab home's front lawn before. Pictures were not taken, I apologize.
After a sound sleep and a Friday morning/afternoon of Victorian Village walks, a haircut (oh, btw, my growing my hair out experiement is off, haha) and lunch, me, Minn and Annie headed down to Comfest for roommate's birthday.
If you are very sheltered and not aware of the many unique people that make up the world... visit Columbus, OH in June and go to Comfest.
You will see lots of topless paintd chests.
You will take lots of pictures:

 

You will drink some beer:

And if you are celebrating a 25th birthday... you might stop by the local Giant Eagle store and get beer and hot dogs for a late birthday cookout...

and most likely take crazy, too-close pictures of you and your best friends:

**My best friend's real name is Jamie, but since she is from Minnesota we call her Minn.

Have a great 6.28!

 

Hopefully

If my memory serves me right, which it usually does, I have done several one too many posts about promising pictures in my future blog posts. With that being said...... here is my last one, haha!
I blame it all on either blogger, or my camera or possibly even my computer.....or all 3!!
Last week it was definently blogger, so I say..., and last night it had to be my friendly little mac or my aging camera. Anyway, I tried to blog about my weekend which included lots of fun stuff that need pictures to supplement my coherent thoughts..... my roommate's birthday, my best friend's arrival and my very close friend's wedding on Saturday.

So with all that said, I'm thinking that this post is more of a "sorry for not being an over-achiever blogger this past 2 weeks,"  as well as evidence that I didn't die from boredom at work.
Hopefully my electronics are working tonight, hopefully I can get the energy to go to spinning, hopefully I can create an award winning blog post, and hopefully this is the last evening we hear about Bentely on the bachelorette :).

Thanks for scimming,

A Week in Review

I apologize for no posts this week (I know you guys have been enduring nasty withdrawal symptoms) but I'm back! I had issues with Blogger and pictures uploading this week which resulted in no posts and me being late to work more than once.

So long story short, my week was fairly uneventful. 

-I did some baking:

 -Chocolate Chip Banana Oatmeal Cookies.... adapted from this recipe

 -I did some cooking: random rice dish for dinner one night.... rice, chicken, summer squash and parmesan cheese.... it was a decent tasting, cheap and easy, but not so pretty meal. 

-I cleaned like a mad woman for the arrival of best friend Minnesota.
-I did some more baking for my roommate's birthday... strawberry banana orange muffins:


                                                          picture to come....


-I discovered fraud charges from Chicago and Florida on my debit card - that was fun.


And now it's Friday morning, and I'm in a wonderful mood....why you ask? Because I'm not at work, I get to spend all day with my best friend, I get to pretend I'm a hippy this afternoon at comfest and I get to celebrate my roommate's birthday tonight.


TGIF... and I'm not at work :)








Oh yeah, I also have some random wedding tomorrow, hehe.... love love LOVE.

Sunday Already?!

If you remember from my recent post, I spent the majority of my weekend in Northeast Ohio for my friend's bachelorette party. I got back into Columbus sometime this afternoon, ran a few errands, caught up on my Friday Night Lights and surprisingly enough, went on a 5 mile run. 
I was probably able to run 5 miles because my night didn't start like this:

and proceed to this:

 then this:

 haha, and this:

and end like this:

haha totally kidding. 
The first picture was bottle 1 of 2 that had been split between 9 people and maybe had a sip left.
The middle photos are real, but if you knew my friend, you would know she has the ability to act crazy - intoxicated or not. 
And the final picture was taken this morning after we all had been up and teeth were brushed!
Now that I had fun with those... lets get to the real deal of the afternoon/evening:


The party began at the hotel with gift opening and outfit adorning:

 and pictures by the lake:

Followed by a long afternoon of being shuttled around to 4 different winery's....

      Winery #1

       Winery #2

      Winery #3

 this wine is called "Connie's Blush".... very appropriate for the bachelorette :)

      Winery #4

Please, do not ask why this is the only picture I have from our last winery.... besides admiring lighting bugs, I drank some red sangria that reminded me of Hawaiian Punch and ate lots of fork-fulls of dessert!

After our refined afternoon of wine tasting.... we decided to take our sophisticated afternoon activities into the evening on "the Strip" of Geneva, OH...with the Girls Gone Wild Tour Bus:

this might have been the most trashiest bar/party I have ever set foot in... but we made it fun and made a mental note to thank our parents for not breeding us for wet t-shirt contests and got some free drinks out of it :)

 and lots of laughs...

 and some mishaps....

Oh man, it was a GREAT night. Nights like these make me feel so special to have such great friends. I am beyond excited to see Connie get married to her best friend next weekend. I am so happy for her and I know she will have an awesome life with her future husband, Dan.

On that note, ya'll have a great Monday and an awesome week!