The Amish Like BDubbs, TOO.

The small hometown in which I grew up now has a BDubbs. I am still in awe over the spectacle of another national chain planting roots in the seemingly podunk dot on the map that I still and forever will call home.

Oh, and in case you are among the masses unfamiliar with Mount Vernon [OHIO], it borders a very large, very present Amish community, which I love.

Well...

I love chicken, and I love the Amish...

so........ this speaks to a perfect blend of my childhood and the present day ;)

P.S. - Yeah, only in Knox County. I know, I know.......


all you mv folks, you know exactly what i'm sayin... haha..

*Sigh.. yep

Now I'm craving a flatbread. Go figure.

xo | cmd

Practical Advice

How many times have we all heard things like, "You make your own destiny," or "the future is what you make it," ... or something to that effect?

I know I have. A lot. It's not that I don't like those little snippets of encouragement, but I often find myself discounting them for the truth they could carry if for no other reason than that there are so many of them.

Today I came across this one. I don't know why, but it spoke to me a little differently, perhaps because of the poetic correlation I felt between it and the last few years of my life.

I don't know why, I really don't, but I absolutely love this. It's really nothing extraordinary, but I suppose I just never approached it this way. I think I liked it too because it really is.. just.. that.. practical. I am in fact not a tree. There is nothing but me rooting me down to a situation, a relationship, a life that I hate except for my own impeding of the progress I could be forcing myself to make. [It's okay, I had to think about that for a sec, too.]

It's almost February; I can't believe the first month of 2013 is almost finished; it feels like it sorta flew right on by, but that's okay. I'm bent on making February just as good as it can be, which coincidentally is synonymous to being just as good as I want it to become. Man... I should start writing these things.. haha. Jk.

Here's to you, friends, and your life. May you not find yourself a little tree, unless you truly are happy and it's worth the fight. In that case, plant your roots and grow there!

xo | cmd

Forgotten Ginger Gem (:

First, happy birthday to my friend Riley... long distance dedication back to the good old Mt. Vernon!

There really wasn't a whole lot to report from today overall... but I did happen to come across an amazing picture I forgot about from this past weekend.

This doesn't need a description; all I really need to remind everyone of is that I love these two. :)

perfect. 

Like I said, there are no words needed. 

But, if you need some, just you ask (:

xo | cmd

Dinner Served Fresh

It's not often that I turn down fresh food. Actually, it's never. 

Tonight I decided to start fresh with some veggies and chicken; it was just fajita night in this house ;) 

yummmm (:

Whew. It's been a long day. 

I'm fed, I'm happy, and I'm... callin' it a day. 

xo | cmd

[No Words Needed]

[sometimes you don't need words]
♥

xo | cmd

STL With Catie: Day 2

After our outing last night, the whole clan spent the night on various surfaces around my house. Rob had to take off early for an appointment, but the girls were lucky enough to get breakfast once we were all somewhat alive.

eggs + potatoes + strawberries = yum (:

Ali had to take off for a few hours, too, so Catie and I put ourselves together and made our way to the MetroLink to tote ourselves off into St. Louis. I had promised her a visit to the City Museum, so with that as our primary destination, we trekked through downtown St. Louis past some of the other monumental spots on the way. 

just a couple of metro riders.. no biggie ;)

As I expected, the City Museum proved to be just as fun as it usually is, especially with one of your best friends there to enjoy it with you. We voted to come back again in the summer when the rooftop is open.


cegg & drenn hit the city museum (:
w/ frisch's big boy | a hand-painted banister
... & the entire pizza that we demolished btwn the two of us.
... don't jude ;)

We had a blast. Catie even ran into a lady with whom she played back in her day with the Cincinnati Orchestra. Pretty stinkin' random, but proving again that the world is a lot smaller than we give it credit sometimes. Haha.
On our way back to the metro, we happened by CLR-MNSTR downtown, and ventured in. GOOD CALL! It's a new little boutique that just happened to be reasonably-priced, and pretty awesome at that. Catie and I both snagged up some new gear, which I'm sure you'll see featured here sometime in the near future. haha.


clr-mnstr | st. louis!

Needless to say, we were spent by the time we got back to Belleville on the Metro. Both Ali and Rob had made their ways back to the house by the time we rolled in; the four of us piled onto the couch and ended up asleep to a background of The Hunger Games.

... Insert Nap...

And then.................. it was full force party mode. We got ready and headed over to McGurk's in STL [duh, of course I would take my two Gingers there!] for dinner. It was amazing.

mcgurk's. perfect for my little ginger loves! lol..

From there, we stopped off at Broadway Oyster Bar for a little bit, then made our way down to The Landing to meet up with Kyle and a few others. That part got a little outta control. I promise.

me & my lovely gingers! ♥ ♥

cegg & dren... some things don't chage ;)

hey hey hey

All was going well until Ali decided to bust out an ink pen.... Womp womp womp... We are still trying to figure out how Ali escaped unscathed while the rest of us walked out covered in Pitch Perfect quotes, fortune cookie tidbits, and statements about all things Asian. Hahaha. I love 'em.


ink pens + creative people + arm canvasses + liquid encouragement..
= not a great idea.

All in all, a successful night. This is of course backdated, but we made it home safe and sound and that... is... that. (: Good friends... better night. Love.

xo | cmd

Catie Hits STL

TGIF, dudes & dudettes!

No, seriously!

Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatie is here!!!!!

I took an extended lunch break to trek over into STL to pick her up from the airport. It was a grueling 2 hours before I left early for the day and we made our way back to Belleville.

We did a quick stop at the mall and back to my house to get ready for some dinner and other miscellaneous adventure; Ali and Rob both made their way to the house and the lot of us piled into Rob's truck. Houlihan's it was, and a great decision at that. Deeeelicious, as always.

With bellies full, we were ready for some music and jigginess.

hi, you (:

A few of the folks from Rob's company were over at Silvercreek Saloon, so we headed that way and made a night of it. Not a bad time (: !

my two favorite gingers

double ♥

Oh gosh. I love 'em.

It's gonna be a great weekend, kids.

xo | cmd

Throwback Thursday Pt 2: Nalom Art!

I have a couple of friends who I'm certain will one day be famous. Haha. Seriously. 

Okay.. so maybe some of them are currently just becoming professionals at embracing that whole starving artist thing, but eh. I do believe this one's got some talent for sure! 

I found an entire album of his art that I'd saved... I'm sharing this with the class (:

by nalom

catie | by nalom 

dren & cegg.. aka corin & catie | by nalom 

matt.. aka "ladd" | by nalom

nalom | by nalom

james | by nalom

corin | by nalom

I still admire how much those portraits really do resemble their models... if not exactly, then pretty daggone close. Haha. Well, except for mine, but then again I don't seem to think anything looks like me even if it's a photograph. Go fig. Haha. 

Sure brought back some great memories for me... Hope you enjoyed! ;) 

xo | cmd

Beanies: An Addiction

red!

I have a problem.
A beanie problem.
I'm obsessed......

Just wait til I get the yellow one I ordered.
This is my new thing..
Oh, brother.

xo | cmd 

Amen, Winston.

There are a few days recently during which I've let myself become distracted by that forceful and persistent rumor mill thing. A friend of mine sent this to me today; it was a quick and easy reminder that there really are two sides, but that not everyone cares to see it that.

I have no interest, really, in engaging in the battle of the believe-my-story-or-else, but what I do have to say about the most recent slew of slander that's been trying to unfold into my life is this:

Sorry. I should care, and I should probably fight back to set records where they realistically ought to be, but the fact of the matter is, this is indeed the first REAL time I've stood up for what it is in which I believe, and I'm not sorry for not backing down this time.

Meh...
Let's just enjoy the week, yeah? :)

xo | cmd

Fun With Jay & Ali

These two...... 

green party with these two crazies....

Work was work, as it usually is. Ali's dad was out of town today. To avoid a case of unavoidable boredom, she invited both Jay and I over for dinner. We both obliged and wound up hanging out there for a few hours: eating, discussing the latest Spengler calendar [it's quite entertaining...... in a weird, fairly awkward way], and just hanging out being awesome like we are. We even took a little trip into the basement of Ali's new house [which used to be a grocery store!]. All in all, I love these two!

And that's how you do Monday..... (:

xo | cmd

Galatians 5:22-23

Among a few other things, one of the verses that kept crossing my mind today was the Fruit of the Spirit passage from Galatians. I'm not sure exactly why that seems to be sticking with me today, but hey, that's a God thing and I'm in no position at all to dispute.

Instead, I opted to see how other folks have translated this awesome principle passage into something physically beautiful. I thought since there are nine fruits, I would find nine different interpretations. You can all thank Tumblr for this one. (:

for the analyst... 

for the teacher...

for the sweet tooth ;) ...

for the t-shirt collector

for the muralist...

for the jeweler

for the health nuts...

for the kiddos...

for the nature lover.... 

As an added bonus, I found one that I liked just for because it's crafty.. and I am that way sometimes, too :) 

Love you, friends. 

xo | cmd

Random Outing....

Rob tried bubble tea today. Haha. I don't know whether or not he actually liked it, but I had a great time and I definitely can't complain. We thought to take a trip over to St. Louis and wound up at St. Louis Bubble Tea, right in the midst of what was apparently a campus-wide ice sculpture festival.

I did find some cool sculptures...

abbey road! beatles ice sculpture | st. louis

Rob and I were definitely on Zumiez mode today; I realized that when we walked out of two different aisles in one of the campus shops and looked like brand reps from the Z. Haha.


zumiez addicts......

We'd burned most of the daylight out of the day and still hadn't made it back down towards Belleville. We decided to stop by Alton and found ourselves at Fast Eddie's for a few hours. We ran into some new people and made ourselves quite comfortable chatting it up with some random folks until we found some sunglasses on the floor [love that...]. Yeah, Rob still has them in his car.

rvca, a rum runner & some floor shades. call it a good night (:

One of the things I so appreciate about Rob is that he's about as spontaneous as I am, and when the agenda consists of a blank slate, it comes in handy. We had no plans one second, and the next we were off on our way to Collinsville to catch an appearance of Aaron Kamm & the One Drops. I totally dig barefoot guitarists, so this was a perfect way to round out the evening.


aaron kamm & the one drops | johnny's sidebar - collinsville

Ahhhh, hello weekend (:

xo | cmd

Chocolate Party with Ali

Three things that will bring more women together than a Magic Mike showing:

Chocolate
Chocolate...
& Chocolate.

Those are not the same thing, if you're thinking in terms of different types of chocolate. Haha. Tonight was just that, as Ali and I made an appearance at a chocolate party at her church. It was part of the women's ministry, and nobody was complaining at all.

one of four.... chocolate-laden tables...

It was basically heaven in a church gymnasium.... well, until the end of the night when we'd all been stuffed to the gills with chocolate cookies, brownies, dipped fruit, oreos, nachos, puddings and candy. I never thought I'd ever hear myself claim chocolate overload, but hey... there's a first for everything.

.... And I'm home now...
.... and I just might be awake for the next 3729081 hours off the caffeine high.

.... Or I might crash in like 2 hours. We'll see.

Always a good time, either way.
Love my dear friends!!

xo | cmd

Throwback Thursday : Wyclef Jean

Once upon a time, I had the worst job in the history of every job I've ever had. 

Well, I guess I should give it a little credit where it's due; it was because of that job that I met Kim, Catie, Berg and a slew of other people I otherwise wouldn't know and wouldn't have the chance to adore in the same twisted fashion that they adore me. Haha. 

Anyway, I found a shot from waaaaay back when I still worked at the horrible job, and was reminded that although I found myself on nearly a daily basis wondering why I bothered listening to that small voice that kept saying, "Corin, don't punch anyone and don't walk out for good....": there occasionally was a cool person or two we got to meet. 

I said all that to say this: Here's one of those fleeting moments: 

circa 2007

^ RIGHT??! 

I told you this was a throwback. 

.... And yes, that's Wyclef. 

I have a few other random studio moments, events and remotes that I've found recently, too, that still make me laugh just thinking about how we were "requested" [aka kindly mandated] to attend most of those for one reason or another. 

Go figure. Anyway, like I said, this day here just happened to be one of those times a few of us stumbled on the studio when it happened to be Wyclef in there. If I ever find the old video of him playing some random guitar for us, I'll post that, too. Haha. 

Happy TBT!

xo | cmd

Girly Things Like EYELASHES

Every once in a while, I do girly things, like put on a dress... and makeup... and possibly even lash extensions. 

Hahaha. I saw these today and out of a stretch of boredom decided to attach them to my face. Don't worry, they didn't last long, but I can kinda see why some girls are into this. If you're okay with the maintenance aspect of wearing these suckers on a regular basis, I actually give you credit, because I lack the time, patience and feminine inclination to keep them on for even 12 hours. Yeeeeks. 

lashtastic. or something. 

Whatevs. I'm decently confident in my ability to clean up when need be; I don't know that I really care that  much if my eyelashes don't make it into the room before I do. Haha. It was however, an interesting 40 minutes of my life I'll never have back.. haha. I just tried to give this entry labels to accentuate the rarity of it all and realized that of the four tags I used, "girl" is the only one that's ever been used in this blog before today. *Sigh. I'm way behind on the girl game. 

Oh well. The lashes are already gone. That was short-lived. 

This is what happens when you live primarily alone and you're left to your own devices for a full evening ;) haha. 

Happy Hump Day, blogbots! 

xo | cmd 

Soft Kitty : Tribute to The BBT

I love The Big Bang Theory. If you've not yet seen a couple episodes of this show, I would recommend it iin your downtime (:

One of my [&probably every BBT fan out there] favorite clips from the show is the Soft Kitty song.... if for some reason you've never seen it, or have a million times and wanna see it just once more, well...... here :


Also, I came across this today and that's one of the other things I thought was pretty funny... 

peeeeeeeerfect. [minus the weird face down there?]

Hahaha...
Ohhh... I love some Sheldon Cooper... don't you?

Penny...Penny.... Penny.....

xo | cmd

Happy Birthday, MOM!

My mom's birthday is today.
My mom is one of the most amazing women I have EVER met.


I love you.

I wouldn't know where to start this year in wishing you what you truly deserve on your birthday. I have been through so much over the past few months and when I thought the world was shutting down on me, you were there. I didn't believe you were at times, but you prove me wrong again and again.

There aren't words to tell a truly amazing mother just how much she really means to you.

Happy birthday, mom. I love you!

xo | cmd

Hello, Flu.

It's here.
Flu season. + Me. + Sydni. = A few of my most unfavorite things.


that's me.

 ................. *sigh.

xo | cmd

[Backdated] Birthday Wishes!

I love birthdays! (:

Despite my hesitation from not feeling well yesterday, I woke up in amiable condition this morning and decided to tackle cleaning the bulk of my house. Go figure. Sydni even helped, in spite of her feeling just as crummy as I was just hours earlier. Hmm. That out of the way, I opted for a nap, warding off any oncoming creep of whatever bug I thought I was fighting yesterday.

Ali came over this afternoon bearing gifts, haha. She ordered this little guy for me, and I love love love it.

thank you, friend!!

I decided I did feel well enough for birthday festivities. Ali volunteered to watch Sydni for the evening, so I entrusted her wellbeing to Sydni [yes, I phrased that right], and we headed out to St. Louis to the Broadway Oyster Bar to rendezvous with Rob's friends and celebrate Kyle's birthday. We stopped at Kyle's and picked up both him and his sister, and made our way through the rain to St. Louis.


broadway oyster bar

B.O.B. = Delicious.

From there it was off to Kramden's for some more celebrating, before our final stop out at Jacobsmeyers. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, KYLE! (:


♥ celebrating kyle's birthday

Ali is pretty much awesome for hanging with the monster tonight, and I was pleasantly relieved when we got back and found that Ali had in fact avoided Sydni's wrangling and was not tied and stuffed into any closets ;)


ali & monster ;)

I'll tell ya what..... I have some truly incredible people in my life...♥  Real talk.

xo | cmd