Just a quick political thought

Maybe instead of spending so much time and energy ranting and being angry, or just plain raging pissed and sounding crazy in general about the candidates in the other party (whoever that is for you), we you should focus that energy talking about the things you DO like about YOUR candidate and try arguing in their favor.

Point out their strengths. The good things they've done. Be reasonable and admit what could be better about them and why it isn't enough for you to stop supporting them.

Flinging insults and borderline extreme rants sounds a lot like using fear to get people on your side. That's not a good tactic, and it makes you look worse than the "other" guy you are wanting to bring down. whoever that is for you.

But hey, if you want to sound batshit crazy, go for it.

That is all.

[note: I am skeptical of both candidates and see major pros and cons in each. Honestly I don't know who I'm voting for and probably won't for quite awhile. There are a lot of people out there just like me. Make your case to them in a sane way.]

I did it! I finally went for a run!

...but not before I spent an hour and a half building up the motivation to get my ass out the door.

After much contemplation, I decided on this starter program from RunnersWorld.com. It's an 8 week program. I hope I will stick with it. I'm tired of being overweight and inactive. That is not who I am - just who I've become since I started college and maybe even as far back as my last year in the army when I gained 40 pounds. I used to play a lot of sports and go walk around the city. Now...not so much. Grad school and my job made that even worse. Now I spend all of my time tired and hunched over the computer doing school work or working my ass off to get 30 athletes in and out of the training room within the first half hour I'm there.

Anyway...I digress.

I had a lovely walk/run/walk/run through the neighborhood today (PS. Dear Washington Highlands, I both love you and loathe you all at once. F. You for being the neighborhood of my dreams that I will never be able to live in). When I got home, my cats decided my sweaty arm was a yummy salt-lick, which was funny and disgusting at the same time.




Then, it was clearly time to lay on the couch and get caught up on her stories while I got cleaned up (the non-feline way).





Anyway, I guess I still owe some more wedding recap to my 6 whole readers (3 of whom might actually care). It's coming soon. I swear.

Is it almost fall again?

Now that I've lived in Wisconsin for a little over a year and my first full summer is almost over, I realize two things.

1) I FINALLY appreciate summer weather again. It's been a long time, summer. I'm glad we've reconciled. It's so much easier to love you when you aren't all up in my face 24/7.

2) We did not take full advantage of this summer, and now it's pretty much gone - at least for me. Shit. Granted, there was grad school and that whole wedding thing that I did devote a WHOLE LOT of time (and money) to but still. We could have done a little more, couldn't we? Oh well. Next summer it is.

Some quick randomness

My last name change is official now - the Social Security Administration and the Wisconsin DMV say so...and we all know they are the rulers of things of this nature. Just a few more things to change it on and that pain in the ass is over! Thank God.

High school football season and my job kicked off into full swing yesterday. It's nice to already know everyone, but it doesn't make the chaos any less.

A friend of mine is on her (something like 6 month long) honeymoon right now traveling all over the world - they are actually calling it "Honeytrek". I cannot even comprehend being able to do something like that...it would just be AMAZING. Anyway, they have a travel blog that they are updating with their experiences so if you like to read about the travels of regular people (if regular people get to travel the world, anyway) you should check it out: http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Honeytrekker/ .

If you love little old ladies and the stories of things they've experienced in life, you should check out Shreve's (at Daily Coyote) grandma's blog ...svensto... . I wish my grandparents (especially my great grandma who just turned 100 last month) would/could write down their stories like this.

Ok, so that's all I've got, other than another long day of football (and 10 other sports) ahead of me. Rehearsal dinner and bachelor party recap coming soon...still.

Oh hey - We got married! Part 1: Family day and Bachelorette Party Day

I've put this off for FAR too long. So long I have not been posting OTHER stuff because I hadn't written this.

Our wedding and the days leading up to it were days I will never forget spent with good friends, family, and a whole lot of fun! I will break this up into a couple posts.

Our first houseguest on the Tuesday before our wedding was my bridesmaid April who lives in Los Angeles. Wednesday early evening brought my mom and stepdad and two little sisters (also bridesmaids). Thursday morning brought my Maid of Honor Melissa, while the evening (on a 4 hours late flight) brought another bridesmaid, Melissa.

Wednesday night the girls and I had a great time running around outside with a jar catching fireflies. I'd never seen them until we moved to Wisconsin and the girls had never seen them at all, so we had a blast running around outside like idiots trying to fill a jar with them.

Thursday afternoon's plan was to hang out with the family, have some drinks, and play a little cornhole and we did just that! Everyone had a blast and it got quite competitive, but in a friendly way. Shit-talking was kept to a minimum, and Melissa was a natural.







And of course some hanging out on the stoop.

Thursday afternoon we took a whopping 20 minutes to sit down, have more drinks, and turn on the wedding favor factory (super difficult tying a tulle round full of Oregon salt-water taffy with ribbon). April decided to wear her mojito in the process.



Thursday night, once we picked Jo up from the airport, it became bachelorette party night. Parents and children were sent off to bed and a friendly game of Pin the Junk on the Hunk was started (not by me - I swear I would not have chosen this myself). On my turn, I closed my eyes, was spun around by Melissa, and decided I was pinning this junk on his nose. He looked like a dick-nose.



Then we walked down the street to a local bar to warm up with the intention of taking cabs downtown for more drinking. Well...we never left. There were only 4 people in there when we went in, so we essentially doubled the population. We immediately took a round of jaeger bombs and I got in on the next game of pool...then proceded to run the table for about the next hour! I was drinking, so I was steadier...and I was smoking...because I was drinking (yes, I'm still a non-smoker, but c'mon, it was my bachelorette party!). Here I am displaying the hi-klass drinkingsmokingbilliards zone I was in:







Massive amounts of beer, jaeger bombs, and spins of the Wonder Wheel (Melissa and Jo each won $20 gas cards!) continued until the lights came up and we staggered the whole one block home...

And collapsed in a fit of giggles in our front yard, like so:





Which woke up our upstairs neighbor. Whoops. I guess he was going to come outside and hang out with us but first we ran across the street to frolic in the yard of the catholic church, and when we came back, some creepy guy was out there talking to us. He didn't want to be a 2nd creepy guy out there with us...which would be understandable if he was creepy.

Once inside, April laid down with only her upper body on the couch and went to sleep, and I went to the bathroom and threw up anything and everything I'd ingested in the last week.
Then, for the first time ever, Corey kicked me out of bed because I swore my side smelled like cat piss. He thought I was nuts. I went out to the couch and less than 2 minutes later GUESS WHO WA STRIPPING ALL THE SHEETS OFF THE BED BECAUSE THEY SMELLED LIKE CAT PISS? Yep. You guessed it. Corey! I guess he believed me then! I moaned a big fat "I told you so" and rolled over on my big comfy couch :)

Apparently our anti-social cat was a little peeved at all the people around and wanted to punish me for leaving the litter box 2 feet out the door of our bedroom.

Anywhoo...I digress. Bachelorette party was a blast (even with the slightly embarrassing light-up bachelorette sash, and matching penis necklace and bracelet) and I met some great people from my neighborhood at that bar. I paid the price that night but felt pretty damn good the next day!

That's more than April can say for the next day (in the McD's parking lot):



Coming soon: Rehearsal Dinner and Bachelor Party