may the best shoe-WIN.

feet. today's topic of blogarrhea  is feet. hooray!

Does anyone else do this? I call it a Shoe-down or Shoe-wars. Pretty much every single day (or more than once per day, depending on the weather and if I am doing a few different things/"outings" in one day) I hold a few rounds of shoe-wars. You know, since I don't have the best fashion sense out there (but enough to be able to lightly make fun of others' faux-pas!) I have to try on about 9 million different shoes to see which one looks the best, or at least the one that looks less-ugly than the others. So here is what I do. Try on two shoes at the same time, as depicted in the photos below. Then I decide which one looks better. L or R. Then I keep that first round champion and try on another shoe on the losing-foot. Which kick shall conquer? Whatever my choice, i keep it on and dig around for a round three contender. This will go on for either as long as I have time, as long as I can think of how far I will be walking that day, and until i get so fed up i just bite the bullet and go with one. It has luckily only happened once where I wore two different shoes out in public. i didn't even notice - it was my sister who called me out on it while we were walking in to target! oops. fortunately for me I really didn't care because what was I to do, aside from buy a new pair of shoes at that moment!? I already looked like a bum, so I figured what the heyyyyy, roll with it! it definitely provided endless laughs at the time - and still does!! 

The winner was the nude bootie. I think it was kind of wet out that day so I didn't want to end up with wet feet!! I am even wearing these great shoes today - right now! I love them!

do my toes look long? I've received, ummm, comments in the past regarding my finger-like toes. I am not offended, but I do find it humorous! I can pick all sorts of things up with my toes, and I am confident I would be able to legibly write my name with them too - at the very least, my right foot. not too sure about my left foot. 

One of the most humorously amazing things i've ever seen in my life was witnessing Travis Andersen pick up a baseball with his toes!! That was back when I was about 16 and we were on the baseball bus heading to a game in Red Wing. Ahh, the delights of high school boys. on a bus. MEMORIES!

now i'm off to get a pedi! this weekend MIGHT bring us some sunshine, so we must make sure my tootsies are ready to shine!

ooops, I did it again! twice.

I guess a great way to tell if you've slacked on your blogging is when you post basically the same posts in a row. sorry about that redundancy! 

If i had more to BLOG about, I would. But I don't, really! I mean, I can come up with about 99 things to b!tch about and things to make fun of people over, but I am trying to be a little more positive these days. 


OK, how about how much I am craving sushi lately? Despite the lack of summery weather that usually brings on my urge for sushi, I still am just pining for it! Maybe tonight James will treat me to a little yum yum sushi!! fingers crossed, but i don't have high hopes.

is this for real, or just a mean trick? 

because this looks like heaven to me and 

I definitely want a WHOLE lotta THAT goodness.

thank you, Taco Bell.

Yup, I must be hungry because in a pinch all i think and write about is food. I gotta go find something to eat.

Ciao!

turn up the heat!

Today is June 3rd and it's about 63 degrees and partly cloudy... I will repeat - JUNE 3rd and about 60-something degrees. That means cold. For June. Warm for January, but ridiculously COLD for June! What the heck is up with this weather? I know I shouldn't complain, given the much worse weather in Oklahoma (tornados, galore! yet another reason to never live there!), but still... we should be at the pool and on a boat and sweating! not freezing and bundling up in long jeans and sweatshirts. ugh. oh well. enough of that.

So here area couple photos of what's been brewing since I last posted, ohh you know, forever ago!

boom.

(photoshop pic courtesy of my high school friend 

Rob Hopster and his brilliant imagination!)

OH NO HE DIT-INT! well, kids, YES he did! And I agreed...to marry him! That was back in April, here we are in June, so I guess i am a tad bit delayed in the fun news. It's been a great time sharing the news with friends and family and thinking up silly ideas for the wedding plans. Maybe more on that later.... And YES, for those who know me, I most certainly am distracting myself constantly by catching a glimpse of this gorgeous new SHINY thing on my finger! SO PRETTY!

Next, I need to give a quick opinion about some mascara I recently tried. I feel like i already wrote about this, but maybe not? Well, because this subject is so near and dear to me I find it necessary to talk about it, maybe even twice.

Last year I used a mascara called Blinc. Every heard about it? Well, it's pretty awesome. Instead of painting your eyelashes, it "tubes" them. What does this mean? Have you ever seen when girls body paint a swimsuit into their nude bodies? Think Sports Illustrated or Playboy... right, they paint their body and to wash it off they have to, you know, suds up and all that paint runs down into the drain. Is everyone picturing this? So somehow my post went a little PG-13, but hold on because it will make sense soon. I hope. OK, so back to painting - the paint on their bodies is like paint on our eyelashes. When we cry (which, we do), or sweat (definitely what I do), get stuck in rainstorms (if your life is a romantic comedy, I guess, and you still look pretty with rained on hair), and wash off mascara, we get that mess of black crap streaking down our faces. gross. Enter our friends at Blinc. They decided to reinvent the process of applying and removing mascara completely! So instead of washing off the body paint think of Marisa Miller simply putting on and taking off clothes! Voila! No messy paint running down her in the shower and into the drain...no messy mascara clumps running down our faces and making us look like sad clowns, zombies, or extra creepy mimes. Instead, the mascara tubes just come off like little pieces of rubber, almost! it's seriously the most amazing way to remove mascara, ever. no harsh rubbing, oily remover or stained faces. it comes off so simply I almost can't explain it! (Hence my XXX comparison to body paint versus actual clothing.) Now back to the Blinc review. I love how easily Blinc comes off and it does go on pretty easily as well, although you have to be somewhat quick about it because it seems to dry up a littler faster than normal mascara. The type I used last year was their original formula and brush. My gal pal wears Blinc and it is AWESOME on her. She has the kind of eyelashes that are very long and thinner, so it definitely highlights what gorgeousness she's got going on, naturally. But with me, I have a lot of eyelashes - very thick and have more natural volume, so all Blinc did for me was make me look like I had about 7 really long eyelashes. A cool look, but not best for me on a daily basis. Well, a couple months ago I saw that Sephora had a new Blinc formula and wand made to increase volume (music to my ears!). So I bought it and was sadly disappointed. Although the brush was improved and looked like ti would help fan out the "tubes" a little better than the original formula, it sadly had to go back to Sephora because it still just looked too...spacey? Like I had too much space between my eyelashes? Luckily I have also fallen in luuuurve with the greatest non-waterproof mascara of all time, Benefit, Yes, They're Real! mascara. No joke, if you buy this you will first cringe at the $23 price tag, but after a couple days of rocking these luscious lashes and receiving endless compliments, you'll be so happy you tried it and splurged on it. And yes, you will most likely continue to buy it. I have been using it since maybe October of 2012 and just love it! It makes my nice eyelashes (not trying to brag...but I do seem to get a lot of compliments on them, even sans my Benefit magic!) very nice and is pretty easy to wash off. Now, if I go on a beachy vacation or to the pool (or, hopefully soon, to the BOAT!) I will switch back to my go-to, L'oreal Voluminous waterproof. This is THE BEST waterproof mascara ever invented and I can never get enough of it. It is $6 but I'd pay much more. Much more. 

so here is a pic from March... 

I think i posted it already, but she really cracks me up 

and I had to just get a little more show time with it. 

She is hilarious and only getting quirkier and sillier!

and i love it.

What else is going on...hmmm, well we've been looking around a little bit for a new house, but I think we've decided to just redo the kitchen and upstairs bathroom in our own house and stay put a while longer. Let me tell you, it's been a lot of fun thinking about paying for a kitchen and bath reno AND a wedding!! no stress, what so ever! can you sense a little sarcasm? :) just kidding, it could be worse. trust me.

hopefully mother nature wakes up and revs up the temperatures soon. I'd love to have a couple days out on the boat this summer instead of just going to the tanning bed (wait, no I don't do that. uhhh...) and bundling up all the time! trying to stay positive. must stay positive!

Happy Monday...I hope it's a warm and sunny one!

Gpa's 80th Birthday!

So here are a few snaps shots of the last four or five days. the second one is pretty significant to me (James, me and a stuffed green bear) because I have long teased James about winning me a prize at a fair. One of the things I told him when we started dating (eons ago), was that i was so excited he was a QB because then (clearly) that means he is great at fair games and should be able to win me lots of prizes that i can later give away. haha. finally, on April 6, 2013, he won me a stuffed animal prize!! no, we weren't at the fair, but we were at a dive bar in Small Town, Minnesota and he won it in one of those arcade games called Clean Sweep... also known as "The Claw" for those of you who love the movie Toy Story. Anyway, it was a really fun trip to the dive bar, big family photo, and grandpa's birthday celebration. definitely a great trip!! I love my family!

BLINC brand voluminous mascara...not worth it, save your $. sorry Blinc.

at the Side Bar in Cold Spring before Grandpa's 80th Birthday Party...

my quarterback has finally won me a prize! 

of course, it is a CHEERLEADER! hooray!

Cool Cat Olivia on our way up to Grandpa's...this kid has it ALL!

Grandpa's Birthday cake! MMM! Marble...it was so yummy!

We are forecasted to get 6+ inches of snow over the next 36 hours...so far it's dry outside, about 38 degrees. I cannot believe we are getting SNOW so late in the year! What the heck! it's a major bummer, but as long as spring gets here in the next couple weeks I think I will be ok. :) maybe. Sure am getting impatient though! I am so tired of putting on a jacket and gloves every time i walk Nash!! (I tell ya what, in a world where our worst worry is about the weather, i would say I am pretty darn blessed. you can't control the weather, so you may as well deal with it the best you can. things could be much worse...so I'm counting my blessings here!)

It's tuesday! workout it done for the day, so it's an evening i get to spend doing whatever i want!! wahoo! probably finishing taxes! holla. jealy? 

haha, didn't think so!

happy shoveling! 

PS - current song? Nasty Girl by Vanity 6. such a great song... from Beverly Hills Cop. Love me some Eddie Murphy!

U-G-L-Y you ain't got no alibi, you UGLY! yeah yeah, you UGLY!

am I a total B (biaaaatch!) because I do NOT believe every baby is cute? am I producing rotten karma? if I have any kids, will I continually be lied to about how cute they are (but really are not?!). gasp!

well, let's be real. I am part Polish. Yup, Pollock alert! and proud! Anyway, everyone who's worth a damn knows that Polish kids are always the cutest. Maybe it's their pumpkin heads? big eyes? all-around awesomeness? whatever the answer is, I have much confidence that if I have kids (emphasis on "if" there), it/they will be very cute to unbelievably cute on the cuteness scale. anyway, whenever i have to talk to a parent of one of the uncute babies i frequently spy (so what, I a have high standards maybe!), i feel like they are waiting for a compliment on how cute their awkward looking baby is...so I just say, "oh he has such a silly laugh!" or "awwwe, she has so much personality already!" and i try to give a mediocre compliment while sidestepping the whole "awww, your baby is so so cute!" lie. i just cannot help myself! My parents raised me to be honest. and i know every parent out there wants to hear how amazing their offspring is, so i consider my compliments a compromise. 

i bring this unusual topic up because i have been seeing these really not-so-cute baby pictures all over Facebook as of late, and when i read comments like, "OMG, Meg, your daughter is a DOLL!" and then i look at the pic of said "doll," i am like, whaaaa? are my eyes broken? or are people just taking crazy pills? these kids might be cute one day, or even quite handsome/beautiful, but that day is not today. nor was it last week and guess what? probably won't be this Easter, either. oh well. one of my favorite quotes is "fake it till you make it!" and it's encouraged me quite a bit through my life (no, i am not ashamed to admit that), so i can't rag on others who are striving to fake it till they make it, either.

am I a bad person? or just have a different approach to some subjects...i think it's the latter. besides...why would parents care what I have to say? i'm not the authority. (but i DO have the cutest niece ever.)

so i think yesterday i semi-promised new pics. well, i haven't done much in my life lately (like, in the last 24 hours) that's been very photo worthy, so the best i can do is throw in a few randoms form the last month. don't worry, i will save the creepiest for last.

yessss, Chipotle for dinner last night! what a treat!

this was one of a series of photos I took 

while in Fort Myers that proved

  I was waiting on James 

to get his bum out the door. 

PROOF! I was ready before him!!

At our hotel TIki Bar one night with my parents...

really fun bar and night!

as promised....

creepiest picture saved for the end!

this is at HOT PLATE, a fun and funky eatery just east of our house. We popped in here for breakfast after church a couple weekends ago and had a fun time taking in all the crazy vintage artwork on display...on display in every nook and cranny of the small joint! it was cool, food was great (bacon pancake? YES please!) and it was a fun time! would def recommend and return.

hooray for wednesday! it is almost the almost-weekend phase of the week!

don't call it a comeback!

February never happened. don't worry about it.

actually it did, but it happened in fast forward so here we are! March. Almost April. So, I guess March has been in fast forward as well. fine by me! expect for our vacation to Fort Myers Beach - I would like to instant replay that in slow motion a few times. Let's get that week under some serious official review!

so here's the tragedy that happened to me last week. little miss "i can remember numbers like crazy" thought she lost her mind. For an entire day I secretly and internally panicked that I had forgotten how many feet are in a mile. It's 5,280 you guys. don't worry. it donned on me like the next day, so all internal mayhem has since subsided. thank the lord. and yes, I still know 2.54 cm in an inch. that one isn't fading anytime soon. 

yeah, i know how ridiculous that is. more like ridiculous to the power of ridiculous! but what can we expect from a girl who has a song to remember her bank account number! whatever. it works. don't judge. 

so on to more serious matters, we celebrated my dad's dad's (Popoe!) 80th birthday in RSW! (RSW = Fort Myers, for all you non-airport code speaking folk.) it was a wonderful time with great people, weather, drinks, sun and sand and pools. lots of fun!

three days after arriving home, we headed to Saint Paul for the MAIN EVENT of March (my opinion)... KID ROCK and BOB SEGER! In concert. Live. 42 rows in front of me. go-go Gadget arms and I would be touching them. not that I want to touch them, but knowing i almost could is pretty legit. I would like to hug them both, now that I think of it. wouldn't you? the show was flat out amazingness and i was loving every second of it! does anyone else get emotional when you're so excited?? i guess that is a stupid question...but like, this event had nothing to do with me personally, except that I happened to have tickets to witness it. i was basically a bystander of musical glory. and i teared up. yeah, it was that fabulous. i will never forget it! ever.

so now it's the end of March and I am not sure what to look forward to...i think Easter and SPRING, at last. Hopefully our snow moves on out, for good this weekend. Sure would be nice! it's not longer white fluffy, we now just have gray, crusty coatings on everything from sidewalks to gutters to cars. yuk. i cannot wait for Minnesota to get freshened up with some new greenery soon!

Speaking of greenery, the one and only photo I will include today is from 2007...Saint Patrick's Day 2007, in fact. (I have a new computer and have to get some photos stocked on here to post.) So here is a six year old photo of me and James. I am not that tall compared to him, so either he is getting a great quad workout or i am wearing heels. If you know me, then you know I'm most definitely rocking some heels. :) 

what a funny pic. six years old! 

we look so young!

hopefully i will have more updates and pics tomorrow. time to jump back on the blogwagon. because i know you missed me. harharrr.

happy tuesday. I am hoping i have some chipotle in my near future (yeah I just said that...i hate eating out, but my belly is craving some serious chipotle all up in here!) chow! i mean ciao. 

happy Day of LUUURVE!! Chateau Blanche, etc...

it's Valentine's Day!! who's excited!!!

ME!

this is an extra special valentine's day for me because of two reasons. oh i mean three. here they are, in no particular order...

wait, i just added a fourth.

1. James and I get to "celebrate" Valentine's Day today, in the same state, together!! that has not happened for a very long time. 

2. today I had an unexpected exciting surprise - I talked to my dearest friend Ladunni! We haven't chatted much lately due to busy lives and the fact that she is living in NIGERIA and me in the States (obviously) and the time difference is quite inconvenient. Anyway, I am so happy that we connected...she is my sole mate. and when i say "sole," it's meant like the shoe. she is the left and i am the right. politically, that's pretty accurate and really, what good is one shoe without the other? that's the real clincher. Happy Valentine's Day to my best gal, college roomie, sistahh from another mistahhh, Ladunni. 

3. I am super thrilled to give james his little Valentine's gift!! it's more of just an "i love you, thanks for being awesome, and i believe in what you're doing every day" gift, but i've been holding on to it for a few weeks for THIS NIGHT. tonight! yes, i am truly that excited to finally give it to him!

4. tonight we are having a very special Valentine's dinner... James so thoughtfully made reservations a couple weeks ago, thank goodness, because this place is very difficult to get into on tonight. for one night and one night only, White Castle goes 5-star dining and accepts reservations for their romantic dining experience! they put tablecloths on the tables, dim the lights, and serve you at the table!! oh gosh, i wonder if we leave a tip!? i've never tipped on a Crave Case before, but i guess it is appropriate tonight! seriously, i am so, SO excited for White Castle tonight, i cannot even fully explain it!! I am so thankful that James puts up with my quirkiness!! heck, i don't even know if he likes Sliders! i guess he will, tonight!

moving right along....HAPPY VALENTINES DAY to everyone!! and PS how CUTE are these Target brownies, made with HOT PINK frosting and hearts!! ......

this morning i had the pleasure of taking sweet baby Nash for his morning walk. well, it had snowed a bit overnight and after our 5:15 AM gym class (yikes), we got home and while james went a'shoveling, Nash and I went a'walking....in this winter wonderland!

it was so gorgeous, i swear! and it was about 30 degrees (almost), 

so it was very warm.

this one was while Nash was looking behind me at a person shoveling.

i think he wanted to help the guy - or play with him.

Aren't those gorgeous pictures? or are they just that to me, since I was there? it was so serene and really a very relaxing walk... a great workout, my dog emptied his tank, and the sidewalk and driveway were all shoveled before 7 AM today! an amazing start to a great day!

have a LOVELY night - celebrate something, someone you LOVE!