Happy Friday! All Things Baby Edition.

The following things are making me happy this fine Friday afternoon. Coincidentally, most things making me happy today have to do with wee little bebays.


1. This is my teeny little niece or nephew, due to arrive at the end of May. S/he is currently residing in my sister's belly. Molly is going for the element of surprise this round, but Ella swears it's her baby brother. I hope she's right because...




2.  This is my 2nd little bebay niece!! She is camped out in my sister-in-law Sandy's belly, cooking away until her late June debut.  I am so excited to meet her. It will be fun to have another niece to spoil. And to see Andy as a parent.
God help this child.




3. Can you look at this picture and not crack a smile? Seriously, I dare you to try. This is Ben, our friends Jess and Ryan's adorable little boy.  I always look forward to blog posts from Jess, because they usually include pictures of this little nugget and my day is made that much happier because of it.



4. And here she is, the original love of my life.  My sweet little Ella-bella, who had to remind my sister that "she had a very sick child here!" when Molly asked her to do something the other night (Ella is battling a bout of bronchitis right now). She also let Molly know that when she and her boyfriend Ross get married, they are going to live together forever. And have lots of babies.  Here's hoping they do that in the right order. :)

 Happy Friday, everyone!

Space songs

Anyone who knows me knows I love a good mixed CD. I love creating the perfect mix of songs for whatever it is that I am up to- whether I am out for a run, spending a hot summer day on the boat, driving with Will on an epic road trip, or even just as background music at the home or the office. I just love music. You can always find a great song to set the mood.

It was on an epic road trip last month where I got it in my head that I wanted to create a CD that had a "space" theme. Will and I were driving to Michigan for a quick weekend when I first thought about it. Not sure why I got this idea stuck in my head- maybe because we were driving at night and talking about the stars or life on another planet or something. But the thought is there and I have mentally started creating my "playlist". Isn't it funny how once you start thinking about something in particular, it's everywhere you look? The past few weeks, "space" songs have been randomly jumping into my head.

1. Shiny Toy Guns: Major Tom
2. David Bowie: Space Oddity
3. Elton John: Rocket Man
4. REM: Man on the Moon
5. Dave Matthews Band: Sattelite
6. Guster: Sattelite
7. Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bad Moon Rising
8. Steve Miller Band: Space Cowboy
9. The Beatles: Across the Universe
10. The Beatles: Here Comes the Sun
11. The Beastie Boys: Intergalactic
12. Train: Drops of Jupiter

...naturally, now that I am sitting down to compile the list I am drawing a blank. I'm sure I've thought of more than 12 songs over the last few weeks!

Can anyone think of any "space" songs that I've looked over??? What have I forgotten?

Yodelay Hee Hoo!

Well, after reading Erin's post from today I feel like I should take a few minutes to update my 3.5 readers on the exciting details of what's happening in my life.

So....Let's see...hmmmm. The thing is, I feel like I do the same thing day in and day out (and trust me, nothing that happens in my day-to-day life is all that thrilling to talk about, much less write about). So instead of being dull and telling y'all that we ate fish for dinner (we did, FYI), here are some random thoughts for a cold Wednesday evening.

-Our Bears/Packers party was a great success, even if the outcome of the game was less than stellar. Portillo's was quite tasty- we were even able to freeze some to enjoy later this winter! Score!

-My friend Shelley booked her flight to Nashville for the 1/2 marathon in April, which we will be running together. And by together, I mean we will start and finish at the same location, but probably an hour apart. I still suck at running.

-I babysat for a coworker the other night. She has 2 boys, ages 6 and 3. Is it just me, or are kids these days WAY smarter than they used to be? I spent the evening discussing iPod Touches, email, Skype, apps, and Netflix. I also made the mistake of giving the 6 year old my phone number. He has called me from his Skype account several times since.

-I had an hour and a half long phone conversation today at work. With a complete and total stranger. She was someone I had never heard of before 9:30 this morning and will probably never meet in person. My phone conversations at work generally last less than 3 minutes, so a 90 minute chat was certainly out of the ordinary.

-Another thing I've been up to at work: writing and signing lots of letters. The letters are all exactly the same. Do you ever notice how weird words start to look when you say or write them over and over and over again? Even my own name is starting to look and sound funny to me.

-I have enjoyed seeing pictures and reading all the updates my friends are posting on facebook about the Blizzard. What really cracks me up is the amount of booze that seems to be being consumed in the Midwest over the past 48 hours.

-We are officially going to Oktoberfest in this fall! After a month or so of hunting, we finally found tickets and dates that we could use airline miles to pay for and worked for our
schedule. Like our Norway trip, the flights are not ideal, but when given free frequent flier miles, we will not complain. We'll be flying into Frankfurt, hopping around Germany and Switzerland for 9 days, and then leave from Zurich. This will be my 3rd visit to Germany and 1st to Switzerland. I'm looking forward to researching and planning this trip! I have a couple college friends who are living in Zurich right now, and they've already been really helpful with advice. I'm sure I will be picking their brains more over the next 9 months or so...Beer and pretzels and spaetzel and Alps and cow bells and Toblerone...I'm already super pumped for this trip.

-This post is titled "Yodelay Hee Hoo" because of the news I just shared. Before I started
writing this I did a quick google search of the word "Yodel" (so I wouldn't incorrectly spell "Yodelay Hee Hoo". You know, because I would hate to incorrectly spell a yodeling phrase on my blog. This blog, if nothing else, will correctly spell yodeling phrases.) But I digress...on to the interesting bit of this story...

There, on the results page, under the "Videos for Yodeling" section, staring up at me from my iPad, was my cousin TJ. Wearing safety goggles and holding a tape measure up to a cat. Well, how do you like that? It's not everyday you see your cousin on the results page of a random google search. Apparently when searching for Yodel-esque things on google, people are interested in watching videos about Advanced Cat Yodeling.

I'm not sure this revelation can be topped, so I'll just stop right there.

Bear Down!!

Da Bears.
vs.
The Pack.

NFC Championship game.

(Why did we ever leave Chicago??)

I'm so excited for this game I can hardly stand it. The only thing that could be better is if we had tickets and were actually going to be AT Soldier Field.

Is it Sunday yet???

Twelve Things.

Twelve Random Thoughts:




1. We really, REALLY need to do laundry. I’ve been putting it off for nearly a week now, and it’s time to bite the bullet and do it. Blech.

2. I can’t believe how cold it is in Nashville. Finally, I have a need to wear my puffy Northface jacket around town. In the past when I’ve worn it, I’ve gotten weird looks from people because it’s generally not cold enough to need a jacket with that much poof. Now, though, I get looks of jealousy because everyone wishes they had a jacket as warm as mine.

3. I sometimes forget that my sister is pregnant. That sounds awful. And it’s not that I’m not excited for her. But when she was pregnant with Ella I lived closer and saw her more often, so it seemed more real to me. Molly posted her sonogram on facebook today, though, and I got very excited to meet my new nephew! (That’s what I predict she’s having. She is not finding out this round.)

4. We are potentially driving to Detroit this weekend, depending on the roads and weather. Our good friend Megan recently lost her dad and the memorial service is in Detroit this weekend. It’s a long 9 hour drive each way, but we really want to be there for our friend, especially during this sad, sad time.

5. Our evenings lately have been consumed by marathon sessions of watching “The Office”. We have seasons 1-6 in our Netflix queue and have been watching multiple episodes every night. That show= hilarious. I’ve never seen all the episodes in order before. There are actually plot lines! I didn’t really realize that.

6. I got an iPad for Christmas. It is now attached to me at all times. I love it so much that it’s hard for me to imagine the time before I had my iPad. It’s just such a clever little instrument! I can check email, listen to my music, write a blog post, balance my checkbook, get my training schedule, find a recipe for dinner, read a library book, get a snow report for Vail, download pictures from my camera, view constellations in the night sky, or play multiple rounds of Scrabble, Monopoly, or Yahtzee. Amazing! Is it necessary to have this little device? No. Is it awesome, none-the-less? Absolutely.

7. I’m very excited that Da Bears are in the playoffs, and that they are playing the Seahawks this Sunday instead of the Eagles. If/When they go to the Superbowl this year, we will definitely be hosting a viewing party at our place, complete with Giordanos pizza, Portillo’s Italian Beef, and Garrett’s popcorn. If we can’t be in Chicago, we will bring Chicago to us.

8. Retirement parties at our office are a big deal. The associate Vice-Chancellor for our department, Doug, is retiring tomorrow. We had a celebration for him today, complete with a musical presentation that involved no fewer than 20 people, costumes, set changes, kazoos, and a ukulele. They changed the words to several classic songs like “What I did for Love (Doug)”, “When I’m 64”, “So Long, Farewell”, and the “Doug” song from The Hangover. It was impressive, to say the least.

9. I got a random card in the mail from my best friend Kelly today. It made my day. She’s a good friend even when I don’t see her often.

10. This is the first full work week we’ve had since before Christmas. It has felt very long. I’m glad it's almost Friday. I wish you were still entitled to snow days, even when you’re a grown up. I would have taken one on Monday.

11. I ended up going 18-12 on my college bowl picks. Not too shabby for someone who picks her winning teams by using totally irrelevant logic and reasoning. (Examples- I picked all the military teams who played because I like men in uniforms. Go Mare-ka. I picked Nevada because I like Las Vegas. I picked Northwestern because it’s near Chicago. I picked North Carolina because I despise Tennessee’s awful hunting orange team color.)

12. I’m quite jealous of my cousin Brian right now. He’s living out the dream that Will and I had before deciding to move to Nashville- traveling and working his way through Australia. I have enjoyed reading his blog, and glad he updates it often. Sometimes I wish we had postponed responsible adulthood by a year so we could have experienced living abroad like Brian is right now. But alas, the timing didn’t work out for us. Good for Brian for taking the leap! Maybe someday we’ll retire abroad…

2010 Recap and Looking Forward to 2011

How is it already 2011?! It's hard to believe that another year has come and gone.

2010 was, overall, a great year for me.

Granted, I was unemployed for almost 9 months of the year.  And that sort of sucked.  But in a way, it was really nice.  It gave me almost 9 months to relax (relatively speaking...when, you know, I wasn't stressing over finding a job) and focus on finding a new job that I would actually like.  Since graduating from college I have held a series of "grownup" jobs, ranging from being a date coordinator, to sales, to counseling, to recruiting.  Obviously there is no rhyme or reason to these jobs- I flittered from one position to the next, always hoping that the newest job would "click" with me and I would fall in love with my current chosen profession.  Though I was pretty successful at a few of them, they remained jobs to me, not careers.  I wasn't excited by any of them; in fact, some days I dreaded going into the office.   I had grown so accustomed to just accepting that I didn't like my job, but that it was a way to pay the bills, etc... that I forgot what it felt like to actually be excited and happy to go to work every day.   My goal when searching for a new job in 2010 was to find a place where I can see myself working 5, 10, 15, even 20 years down the road.  And I wasn't willing to settle for a position where I knew I would get antsy, bored, de-motivated, etc...

Having said that, I really feel like I hit the jackpot when it comes to employment.  For the first time, well... ever, really,  I can actually imagine myself still working here 10+ years down the road.  I find fundraising to be challenging work, but highly rewarding at the same time.  I really enjoy my co-workers- both my immediate team that I collaborate with day in and day out, as well as the colleagues that I don't necessarily see on a daily basis.  I love that I'm given freedom and not micromanaged.   I know what is expected of me, and my boss trusts that I'll get the job done, with minimal supervision, but as much advice as I would like to have offered from him.  I am appreciative of the fact that I'm appreciated.  My superiors recognize that my position (trying to secure visits with potential donors for our development officers) can be extremely challenging, and oftentimes thankless.  When I'm having a rough day on the phones, my boss encourages me to leave my desk, take a walk around campus, and come back with a clear head.  What  a novel concept.  I've also been encouraged to take a walk through the hospitals that we're trying to raise money for, and see, first hand, what a difference our job makes- not only to the doctors who research and develop cutting edge medical technology, but also to the patients who benefit from their medical breakthroughs.  It's really rewarding to hear that a visit I secured can lead to a substantial donation to the medical center.  I love that I have a mentor in the office who helps encourage professional growth.  Overall, I am extremely happy with my job.  Dare I say, my career.  It was worth the (sometimes stressful and scary) 9 month long wait to be matched with a position that I would do well in, within a company that I can be proud to call my place of employment.

(After reading that paragraph, I realize it's a very "glass half full" point of view.  My job isn't all sunshine and roses everyday.  There are parts that are boring and monotonous.  And some days, I wish I were somewhere else instead of sitting in an office. Overall, though, I am really happy where I am!)

One major perk of being unemployed is that you have ample free time.  And for me,
ample free time = travel.  I travelled a fair bit in 2010, both near and far.  Last year I was fortunate to spend some time in the following places:

• Midland, Michigan (twice) to say our goodbyes to Will's grandma, and again to celebrate her life
• Washington, DC to enjoy the sights of our nation's capital
• Houston, TX to celebrate my Great Grandma's 90th birthday
• Knoxville, TN to watch Gracie, Luke, and Drew while Leslie settled them into their new home
• Memphis, TN to be a hair model for my friend Erica
• Fort Walton Beach, FL to spend a couple days relaxing on the beach with Will
• Orlando, FL to accompany Will at the McDonald's Worldwide Convention
• St. Augustine, FL to drink from the Fountain of Youth and search for ghosts in the famously haunted lighthouse as well as the Castillos
• Savannah, GA to look for more ghosts at Moon River Brewery and partake in our own personal pub crawl
• Hilton Head, SC to enjoy some fun at the beach with Will's family 
• Savannah, GA, again, because we just love it there that much!
• Gulf Shores, AL to enjoy a little beach vacation with my parents and Ella, the Hedenbergs, the Clarks, the Kennedys, and the Koskis.
• Bowling Green, KY to puppy sit for Will's sister
• Decatur, IL to help my parents sell their baked goods at the Farmer's Market
• Norway (all over)- the most beautiful country I've yet to see
• Moline, IL to be a bridesmaid and see my cousin Katie dress up as a beautiful bride
• Denver, CO to see a couple pals tie the knot
• Decatur, IL again to help my parents get their bakery ready for its big opening
• Chicago, IL to visit with old friends and enjoy my favorite city

Whew! That's quite a bit of traveling!  Here's hoping I get to travel as much in 2011!  Somehow I doubt I will be that lucky, though.  While having a job is a great thing, having only 2 weeks vacation is not.  We already have a weekend in Vegas booked in March, and a trip to Germany and Switzerland is on tap for our next out-of-the-country excursion in September.  Oktoberfest, here we come!!  

I'm not huge on New Year's resolutions, but I have resolved to spend 2011 focusing on me.  I am going to take strides to become healthier in all areas of my life.  

Health-wise, I've signed up to run the half marathon here in Nashville in April.  This is a rather big deal for me, namely because I hate to run.  Loathe it.  The most I've ever run is an 8K.  But I need to do something to shock my system, and I like having a goal to achieve.  I am officially entered, so now I have no choice but to train so I don't die. Literally.  I have 17 weeks to get into shape.  Here's hoping that's enough time.

Money-wise, I've resolved to get better about my finances in general.  (Paying off my credit cards, making an extra student loan and car payment this year to put toward interest, etc...) I've actually enlisted Will's help for this.  Will is FAR better at managing money than I am.  I have a tendency to "need" lots of little things that seem trivial at the time, but really add up.  (A coffee here, a new album there, a hop downstairs to Walgreens or Dollar General to pick up a few "necessities", a concert ticket or two, a quick trip through Target resulting in a fast $50+ out of my bank account)  Before I know it, I am broke and counting the days until my next pay check.  As an experiment, I have handed my credit cards over to Will, and I am leaving my finances in his more-than-capable hands for the next 2 months. We had the conversation awhile ago that discussed who would be in charge of what once we marry.  Fortunately for us, we mesh well when it comes to household responsibilities.  I am happy to hand over my checkbook and have him be responsible for bills.  In turn, Will is just fine leaving the grocery shopping, cleaning, and cooking to me.  We sound very old fashioned in that way, don't we? :)  If it seems to work out well, I think I'll just hand over my personal bills to him for good.  Good riddance, as far as I'm concerned. :)

Relationship-wise, I'm striving to become a better friend, daughter, girlfriend, sister, aunt, cousin, etc...  That is a bit of a blanket statement  and is meant to cover all aspects of my relationships with others.  I sometimes take advantage of the fact that I am lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life who genuinely care about me.  I am striving to make more of an effort to connect with those in my life that I care about.  I am sometimes lazy about staying in contact with others.  I rely too much on facebook status updates instead of picking up the phone for a phone date or arranging for a weekend visit.  I wish everyone I know kept a blog- it really is a great way to stay in touch with others and it helps me feel connected to my friends and family that I don't necessarily speak to often.  Some things have happened lately that remind me that life is too short to hold grudges or harp on things that happened in the past.  Many of my friends are getting married and having children.   A close friend recently lost her father to cancer.  All these things are life changing experiences and have forced me to realize that as much as I sometimes think it, time doesn't stand still.  People grow older, and life can hand you some curve balls.  This year I'm resolving to take time to smell the proverbial roses.  I am going to personally try to reconnect with friends I used to be close to, but for one reason or another, am no longer.  In some cases, distance is the culprit.  It's just easier to stay in touch when you live near to your friends.  Other times we just emotionally grew apart.  Regardless of the reason, I want to take time this year to reacquaint myself with old friends as well as make strides to meet new people here in Nashville.  

Personally, I am going to try to be happier, just in general.  I want to smile more and worry less.  I want the people I care about to know how I feel.  I want to find the joy in the simpler things in life.  I want to write more hand-written notes instead of clicking a "post" button on facebook.  I want to recall funny stories with old friends and laugh until we cry.  I want to see everything in my life in a "glass half full" kind of way, not just my job.  Will has always told me that one of the main reasons he started dating me way back when was because I was always happy.  Always smiling and optimistic.  Always laughing and seeing the good in every situation.  I feel like I've lost a lot of that in the past couple years.  But I'm going to make every effort to become that smily, happy-go-lucky person again.  I dwell on the negative too much.  I worry and mope about the things that aren't perfect in my life instead of focusing on all the great things I've got going for me.   At the end of the day, I'm extremely lucky to have a fantastic boyfriend who works hard to provide us the kind of life we dream about one day having, a gorgeous home to rest my head every night, a great job, and 2 families that love me for me.  Life is actually pretty darn good. 

OK...moving on.

This post wasn't meant to be the long, rambling one that it has become.  I have some pretty lofty goals that I'm looking to accomplish in the next year.  Here's hoping I'm up to the challenge.  Wishing all of you a wonderful and happy 2011!

Garth

Some pictures and highlights from the first of Garth Brooks' 9 shows to benefit the Nashville floods:

They're making a movie! And we'll possibly (but HIGHLY unlikely to) be in it!

 Garth still runs around the stage and is highly entertaining, but admittedly is "fat and old now" (his words, not mine) so he doesn't move as well as he used to

 ...But he still has a fantastic voice and is highly entertaining onstage!

 He brought his wife out (presumably to catch his breath in between songs)...Trisha was also entertaining- you could definitely tell they're in love.

I should have brought:

•  a lighter- a pivotal item to have during his slower songs
• my 10 gallon hat- never a better opportunity to wear it than when singing along with Garth

Garth was VERY entertaining and a great time.  I can't believe he has 8 more shows to put on in the next week.  He was DEFINITELY tired after his first show.  I'll be interested to see how his last (or nearly last) show goes, energy-wise.  Another fun night in Nashville!  I'm excited to join my aunt, uncle, cousins, and other assorted family at the next concert!