Volleyballaholics

... Recreationally, of course.

Here's a true story: 

this was me today.
[image borrowed & personalized from here!]

I went to work today...and was tired before I even got home. It was a whirlwind but I couldn't tell you what even happened. Errr. Then I went to volleyball tonight. We nearly closed the place down. It's almost midnight, I'm home & still covered in sand.. and I'm tired.

Shower. Bed. Super lame blog entry.
See ya tomorrow.

xo | cmd

Yoga Breaks

FACT: Working in an office can be quite the challenging environment for someone who values physical fitness and a healthy lifestyle. By healthy, I mean a non-sedentary lifestyle. For those of us who are desk-bound for a large portion of our day, it's difficult at times to just pause for a moment and get up.

FUN FACT: I work in an office at which I am required to sit.. a lot. HOWEVER, I 1] am allowed to and permanently use a balance ball chair when doing so, and 2] have a beautiful, like-minded co-worker who shares my affinity for staying active.

So on days when we've put in strong load for the first half of the day and there are a few minutes of downtime, this is the kind of thing that starts happening:

head stand breaks

I'm working on some variations; it's a slow and sometimes painful process, but getting there!

slowly... but surely.

And here's evidence of the struggle [which is very real], haha.

And some more. Yes, I'm super wobbly.. but hey, wobbly is better than nothing, and I'm growing stronger getting into these things, so I'll take it and keep working.
That second video is admittedly awful, I know, but I've decided to vulnerably post that as a public declaration that it will be followed in the hopefully near future with one of redemption. Hah. Everyone starts somewhere, kids.

So yeah! That's part of our office routine when we have a few spare minutes and the pressing work is done; a quick break from computer screens and phone calls for some yoga. If you have the opportunity where you work to take even a 3-minute break from the grind, I would highly recommend it!

Happy TUESDAY!

xo | cmd

#ICANTEVEN

I saw this video posted a few days ago, and have since basically shown it to everyone I know:
The hashtaggy communication between just about everyone these days is amusing to me; I've not stayed entirely exempt, but this embodiment by Sam Tabor is one of the funniest I've seen in a long time.

Today, I viewed and printed off the itinerary and school supply list for Sydni, as she prepares for kindergarten in the fall.

get. outta here!
sidenote: 18 glue sticks?! haha...

STAAAAHP. KINDERGARTEN!?
*sigh. I'm handling this well, I would hope. I haven't cried yet, and as it stands now, the emotions I have on the matter are, for the most part sheer excitement that Sydni is finally going to have the school experience that several of the other kids at her daycare frequently share with her.

Anyway, I had a lapse in stability when I printed this thing off... and had myself a very pure moment of I.. CAN'T... EVEN. 

#ICANTEVEN

"On a scale of 1 to even, I can't."
"I am literally literalling, so hard right now."

Thank you, Sam Tabor.. this is seriously a gem.
And thank you, Mulberry Elem, for the stark reminder that I'm a total newb at the school supply shopping thing; I'm pretty excited to see how a class of let's say, possibly 20 students is going to use 360 glue sticks! Haha.. Oh, the joys of BTS [Back To School]. I'm finally joining the ranks, my fellow school-kid moms!

But still... I seriously, just.. can't....


.. even. ;)

xo | cmd

Home Again

We've been back to Illinois quite a few times over the last several months, but I still had yet to meet Mike & Kelly's baby Elaina. I was super excited when we decided to do breakfast at Apple Tree with the three of them before we headed out.

I mean c'mon, she.. is.. adorable!!

you are so stinkin' cute!!

i love those toothy grins :D

We wrapped up breakfast, said farewell to Mike & Kelly, and started the process of stopping by both Rob's mom & dad's before getting on the road. We had prepared Jamaican photo albums for both, and it was a blast going through some of the photos we included to detail our vacation. We started with Rob's mom, and had a chance to spend some time with them.

From there, it was on to his dad & Kate's place, where the new above-ground pool & deck have been fully assembled and were in full use by Ella, Rob's niece.

pool time!

We can gladly fast forward the rest of the day, since most of it included driving.. and more driving..

We're home now and getting back into our routine here; it's back to work tomorrow!

xo | cmd

Boats, BBQ & Block Parties

[backdated entry, woo!]

Yiieee! Breakfast with Ali!
Living two states away from one of my best friends isn't the worst thing in the world, but it certainly is inconvenient more often than not. I was so happy that we were able to set aside some time to get together for breakfast - well, brunch if you're getting technical - in Caseyville before the day got started.

love this girl!

After breakfast, we made a couple of shopping stops before parting ways for the afternoon. I was due out to Grafton with Rob, Kenny & Dillon.

Kenny just bought a Baja a month or two back [these boys & their forever cycle of toys.. hah], so it was an outing on the lake. Dillon scored a coule of stand-up jetskis [di-no-saurs!!] from a friend's boss, and brought one of them out to play for the afternoon, also.

will the old girl float?

We weren't entirely sure if she'd stay afloat, let alone run, but she still had some spirit in her, and eventually got going strong as the hours wore on.

Back on the boat, we took some mental notes of what we did and didn't care for aboard the Baja, because obviously Rob will be investing in a replacement as soon as he finds the right deal.

pretty little baja

The rain started coming down, and we decided it'd been long enough on the river; we headed back and loaded up for the trip back south. I dropped Rob off at Dillon's house and continued on to get ready and meet up with Ali & DeShawn for dinner.

Mongolian BBQ at HuHot? Yes, please!

a lot of eating was done today, clearly.. hah.
huhot mongolian bbq | st. louis, mo



After dinner, I happily obliged the invite to be taken to Strange Donuts, this fun little [and I do mean little] donut shop somewhere in St. Louis. Apparently, it's a big enough deal that people line the street outside of the place at even the latest hours [in this case, 11:45pm]... for donuts.

Ya can't keep people from their donuts, mmkay?

i'll have one of ... the whole case, please&thanks.
strange donuts | st. louis, mo

Oh, it was well worth the trip. Thank you A&D for the experience!!

strange donuts | st. louis, mo

Back at DeShawn's [new!] apartment, we settled in and landed on Mean Girls [Netflix for the win!] to await the arrival of Tim, who was juuust returning from an extended visit to Germany.

trying to work off some of the food i've eaten today! :\

I'm the jerk that didn't get a picture of all of us including Tim, however we did manage a shot of our spoils from Tim's trip. German chocolate for Ali and me... and a light bulb for Damanji.

sorry, damanji.. haha ;)

We visited for a short while before it was time to part ways again,... for now. I headed back to Alton to rendezvous with Rob, Dillon & Kenny at the Alton Block Party, where we stayed until they closed the place down and we were back en route to Jesse's place in Granite.

alton block party!

Good night, Illinois! We'll see you again for a short while tomorrow before we head home.

xo | cmd

And STRAIGHT for the Fried Green Beans I Go...

In a strange, spur-of-the-moment change of events this morning, I ended up driving the tank to work. I, like the amateur I swear I am sometimes, wish I would've taken a quick snapshot of that thing parked in between the usual cars in the parking lot at work.. haha.

BUT HEY! It's FRIDAY!

no make-up, ready for the weekend!

And here's a little twist to the story of Friday lunches here:

post-lunch, you're welcome.

Hahah. Elisa and I were like ravenous wildebeasts by the time lunch came around; I sorta wish I would've saved a picture of the salmon that went with the salad, but it was almost like my survival instincts kicked in and told me to just shut up, sit down and eat. I'm not proud of the carnage, but to say I really cared is well, nah.

Anywhoo, I checked work off the day's list, headed home and switched into road trip mode for the ride out to Illinois. Rob met me at the house and we were on our way within the half hour. We even caught the sunset as we droooooove through Indiana [Jason Aldean has this whole Fly Over States thing right!].

yeah, so it was way prettier in person... :/

Like the habitual creatures that we are, we made it to Illinois, thought of food, and immediately defaulted to Bindy's. I. don't. know why it's always this place, but it is.

bindy's | granite city, il

Oh wait, yes I do know:

give me... fried green beans!

We laughed over that picture, because I could probably document every single time over the past year that we've gone back to visit, just by timestamping my pictures of these things. Every. Time.

And this is how our weekend is starting.

burst capture mode.. thanks, samsung..

i'm not touching you...
... yes, yes you actually are.
.... meh.

Haha. It's gonna be a long one ;)
Just kidding. We made it!

See ya on the flipside!

xo | cmd

Lunch Adventures in OTR

The weather during the day this week, with the exception of yesterday, has been beautiful. The sun's been out, the breeze is steady and the temperature and humidity have seemed to find a balance that makes being inside really, really difficult.

Nice weather makes me want to be healthy. Fortunately for me, I work in a setting with a like-minded person [Elisa], and the two of us take turns making solid use of our kitchen space!

healthy start to the day!

Anyway, it's gorgeous outside.
Elisa and I decided to go enjoy some of the delicious weather, and paired the thought with delicious lunch from P+V. It was OTR for us!

city landscapes

return of the typewriter!

in case you couldn't read that ;)

glt [(vegan)goetta, lettuce, tomato] + vegan mac&cheese
park+vine | cincinnati, oh

YUM!
This place rarely ever disappoints, seriously. I have yet to be sad about a stop by Park+Vine. :)

Afterwards, we took a scenic route back to the car:

fun :)

iris book cafe | cincinnati, oh

Aaaaaand.. this gem, that I didn't even expect to know existed, let alone actually does exist:

what?! i wanna go!

How much do I love that?!! A pinball parlor?! C'MON. SOMEONE TAKE ME. :D

Anyway, tomorrow it's work and then off to Illinois for the weekend. It is the birthday of one of Rob's friends, so the two of them are doing a joint celebration. On top of that, I get to see 3 out of 4 of these faces:

yes. i just... yes.

With the exception of Marianne, I'll see the other four of these wild ones over the weekend.

I can't wait!
TGI[almost]F!

xo | cmd

Return To Hahana

Volleyball started back up for us today! I was amped from the minute I woke up, even though it was raining.

I quickly remembered - and fully embraced - the fact that volleyball Wednesdays, more often than not, always start off with me doing the bare minimum amount of work getting ready for the whole day.

yeah. not much to see here...

I didn't care. :)
Summer volleyball league is here!

It was a little bit of a fuss getting the team together this session; Kalyn & Beth both stepped down due to work schedules, which left our 4-man cut in half. Chad and I did a little searching to find some extra heads, and finally I came up with two. Becky, who is basically as athletic as it gets, and Jessica, my new friend [via Cassie], who, btw runs her own personal training studio over by Lunken [free plug for Jessica - CHECK IT OUT!!]

The other hiccup we ran into is that Chad was fully prepared not to have a continuing team for the summer, so he volunteered to sub in for Chef on Suzanne & Dan's team while Chef's off doing his thing with the Bengals. Our two teams should have conflicting schedules this session, but tonight was an exception, so fortunately, we were able to get Jeremy to stand in.

When it was all said and done, my new [almost] team was assembled and took to the court!

becky. cori. jessica. jeremy [standing in for chad].

We didn't post a win on our first night, but I'm not worried. We had.. a blast.

team building ;)

I'm excited to see where this session's going to go. I can tell we're already good to go on the team chemistry part, just need to focus on our on-court play and I think we'll be just fine!

Oh, and we grubbed a little, too.

I love these two!

post vball selfies? mrrrmmmkrrray.

Happy midweek!

xo | cmd

Family Visits & Pad Thai!

My parents dropped Sydni off in Cincinnati today, after their mini getaway over the weekend. Sydni got to go see Shrek: The Musical, as produced by the Mt. Vernon Theatre organization. She had a blast.

I decided to take the gang to Piada, since they'd never been there. We followed up with froyo at Orange Leaf, which made for some very satisfied bellies.

mom & syd @ piada ♥

I love that they had a blast, and was super happy to have been able to spend my lunch with them!

After work, the food obsession continued, but in my own little quest of things homemade & fresh. I found a new recipe for pad thai, which was given a thumbs up by both Rob and me tonight; I'll share it for all you Thai food-loving blogbots.

Super Easy Pad Thai **

so. good.
[& yes, ali - that's an express edwardsville cup in the back :p ]

need:

::for the pad thai sauce::
- 3 tbs soy sauce
- 1 tbs sriracha
- 2 tbs lime juice
- 2 tbs canola oil
- 2 tbs brown sugar

::for the pad thai::
- pad thai noodles [8 or 16 oz; I would definitely say at least 16 if this is for more than 2 mouths]
- 2 eggs
- cooked chicken [The original recipe calls for 3 full breasts; I used 2 and it was fine]
- 1 cup bean sprouts [we skipped, but only bc we forgot to get them....]
- 1 cup cilantro
- 3 green onions, sliced
- 1/2 cup chopped peanuts

do:

::1. Prepare [aka, SOAK] pad thai noodles - I did it by pouring HOT water into a bowl, covering the noodles, and soaking for 30 minutes. I don't recommend boiling pad thai noodles on the stove as you traditionally would with Italian noodles.
::2. Cook your chicken. I just did this on the stovetop, pan-seared. Set aside.

::3. While chicken is cooking, prepare the sauce. Do that by mwhisking together everything for the sauce except brown sugar, in a small bowl. Add the brown sugar at the end, and whisk into the sauce.
::4. While noodles are soaking, scramble eggs for 2-3 minutes or until done, and set aside.
::5. Once noodles are done & chicken is cooked, combine the noodles, chicken, egg and sauce in a large skillet over med-low heat. Stir for a few minutes until everything is at the desired blend. Top off with bean sprouts, cilantro, green onion & peanuts!
** recipe credit : rachel schultz **
Yeah... this absolutely beats ordering pad thai at a restaurant, save for the whole bean sprouts thing, which I will NOT forget next time. I hope you're willing to try that out, if you're a pad thai person!

Haaaaappy Tuesday!

xo | cmd

Breaking Even & Bye-Bye, Boat!

Oh, the power of Craigslist.

dun dun dunnnn...

Over the years, I personally can attest to the convenient wonder that is Craigslist. Buying and selling online was never really my thing; throughout high school, many people I knew used Ebay. One guy I dated in HS bought a car off Ebay, and traveled something like 6 states away to go look at it before he bought it. I remained skeptical to the whole idea of committing myself purchase whatever it was, from some random person. I mean c'mon, I'm a 90's kid, and if you want to gauge our range of adaptation, think about this:

Kids born in the 80's are probably the last generation of kids whose baby pictures weren't taken on cell phones.

Mind blown with that one, a bit.. mine at least.

Anyway, I hit college in the "big city" of Cincinnati, and was introduced to all kinds of things, including Craigslist: An online community of buyers, seller, renters, wanters, givers and takers who were all... local? So I could drive 15 minutes to a mall to meet someone selling an ipod, rather than blindly buying it online and risk being severely disappointed? Sign me up.

Everyone's a newb at some point.

I started relying on Craigslist for my first point of search whenever I'd decided I needed a bigger-ticket item. There are of course horror stories from both buyers and sellers on Craigslist, so I am still to this day grateful to have been fortunate and fruitful after my repeated usage...

I found a roommate on Craigslist. She turned out to be awesome, and we're still friends today.
She and I found our apartment on Craigslist [it only seemed fitting...]. 

with trisha! 2008 & 2014

stella bella!

I bought a car off Craigslist. Sure, the fuel pump had a seizure and died just a couple weeks in, but reading up on Saabs after that, I realized that was probably imminent, and went on with life.
The next several places in which I lived were also from Craigslist, along with countless other random things: appliances, a snowboard or two, skiis, cell phones, laptops, cameras, camping equipment, etc.
I even had a few pets over the years who came off CL. My little rescue love Stella is herself a CL ad, answered by moi.
I counted myself a Craigslist aficionado.
And then I met Rob. No, I didn't meet him on CL, haha..

Where I thought I was a guru at positioning myself on Craigslist, Rob blew me out of the water: Cars, trucks, boats, motorcycles, rental houses and a lot more than I would've probably ever felt comfortable dealing with over Craigs. Sure, people buy/sell/trade things all the time; what Rob does that I don't get is to somehow manage to squeeze every. single. penny either into or out of whatever it is. I love it!

Today was one of those bittersweet days. We said goodbye to the big red lug of a boat that Rob bought around this time last year. Rob decided to list it a couple of months back, but was biding his time waiting on the perfect bid. 

hitching it up to its new owner :(

Of course, it always helps to remember that bidding farewell to one just means that we're now in full-fledged quest for the next one..

whoa.. haha

Rob's madly scouring Craigslist again now, with his eyes set on a couple of potentials. One of them is in MO, where we'll be this weekend.

Oh! I also almost forgot to mention - CONGRATS to my team at work! We've broken even, just after a year! That's a HUGE accomplishment for a new office, and I couldn't be more proud to have been a part of that effort. It's the up-&-up from here! :D

We of course celebrated with lunch, which was decidedly at Trio Bistro in Kenwood. I felt like I'd been there once before, but I still can't put my finger on when, or with whom. Either way, the food was delicious and it was great to have all of us together to celebrate such a cool achievement! 

thai flatbread

proscuitto flatbread

Yum! Congrats again to my awesome team. We're pretty awesome, in my books :)

I think this is gonna be a good week!

xo | cmd

Productive Day? Not So Much..

Okayokayokay.

I've had a few more days in my time that were more productive than this. I'm neither ashamed nor proud to say that I spent a lot of my day parked in bed, burning daylight and ignoring housework.

There, I said it. Haha. Today was definitely a lazy day. In my defense, these days happen about once every... 18 months for me, and I compensate on the others by doing ridiculous things like climbing trees - or walls, playing in and on the water, etc. I'm not a sloth, I promise ;)

Ironically, as I sat doing all of nothing today, I stumbled across the footage of Kacy Catanzaro dominating at the ANW finals in Dallas. As a spectator, I'm always torn between ANW and the Crossfit Games, but I think it goes without saying that this chick deserves a huge round of applause.
 

Amiright?! She's a beast, and certainly a reference point of inspiration the next time I check in for a solid workout.

 

The upside here is that we didn't burn the entire day; Rob eventually went into boat-selling mode for some prospective buyers, and spent a few hours detailing the thing before they showed up. I took that time to do some meal prep for this upcoming week, for which I'm preeettty excited.

meal prep, let's go!



& lunch is ready for the week!

We just took taking it easy to a whole new level today, but hey - we'll make up for it this week!

 

Have a great week, friends!

 

xo | cmd