Sunshine, Coffee & Happy People!

Cincinnati, you're BEAUTIFULLLLL!!!

Today was just begging for exploration; the sun was out, the temperatures were tolerable, and the sky was as blue as I've seen it be :).

Lunch = Coffee Emporium, and I'm definitely not sorry.

coffee emporium! 

coffee emporium

We work in the city limits, yes, but I'll tell you one thing that I do love about Cincinnati is the plethora of ways to escape that, even if just for an hour or so.

iced coffee + sunny patio + green all around = love, love, love! 

"trying to figure out the selfie... hehe"

 And TOES! 

bare feet! ♥♥♥♥

To continue the beautiful day, I rendezvoused with CHRISTINE! This definitely took me back about four years to our days with the ACS, when I had the opportunity to work with her on one of the Relay for Life campaigns in Illinois:

relay for life - 2011?
belleville west hs | belleville, il 

the eagle otr, may 2015!
otr - cincinnati, oh 

I love catching up with old friends!! :) So great to see you Christine, and I hope the rest of your visit here in Cincinnati is awesome!

I made it home with dinner for Rob, and got to work on finishing up these, that are going in the mail first thing tomorrow: 

send 'em out! 

*WHEW. It's been a day! Tomorrow is finally Friday; here we go!

xo | cmd

Owing Some Odes. Chyeah.

Good Tuesday evening, blogbots :)

Wellll... today was the first work day of a now four-day week, thanks to the holiday. I took a deep breath before walking in the door this morning, and good thing, since it was over in a blinding flash of call-offs, fires to be extinguished, and of course the ever-looming task of weekly payroll. Sidenote: Shortened work weeks are good for many things; payroll is not one of those.

Anywho - towards the end of the day, Joe texted me to see if I'd be up for dinner with our pastor and his wife. Duh. Since we're officially "staff" now, I suppose it would've been rude to decline..... Hah....

JOKE! I was super excited - One, it's our pastor and his wife. The two of them are among the coolest of the cool people we know, and in the realm of admirable humanoids, they are at the top of a very sparse list. Two, whether or not we're dining at their house or out somewhere, they always know how to pick cuisine. As we're still quite the novice pair at navigating around the local dining scene, it's always helpful when the places recommended by other people turn out to be awesome.


pretty lil' macro compliment of google...
[because i know some of you would
call me out on the bacon.. haha]

 Word to the residents of, in, and around Fairview Heights: Olga's Kitchen is a gem. I found it quite endearing based solely on face value because my maternal grandmother's name was Olga. [Remember, I'm adopted, erego only Italian by purchase order ;) ........... some of you will get that later] So we rendezvoused with the Woods at St. Clair Square and quickly found ourselves taking quite the liking to this place. It was one of those clear face-palm moments because I've passed by the place surely a handful of times while at the mall, but never had a reason to stop.

Yeahhhh.. so once we had our fill of snackers and Olga's [menu item.. I'm tellin' you, just get there], we went on mall-walker mode and did some light traversing back and forth across the grounds before we did two trips up/down the glass elevator for Syd, egged on especially by Pastor Ron & Debbie [so clearly grandparents ;)]. All in all a great night, impromptu as it was!

Oh, and speaking of Pastor Ron - we are prolific followers of each others' blogs, and tonight he shared with me the journey of one of his former youth group-ers, a gal just a couple years younger than me, who is in the midst of a repeated bout with cancer. [[While I don't have cancer, I've seen the havoc it can rain on any one person and their families. After heading up the Towerview team for the 2012 Relay for Life, I've gained a deep, earnest appreciation for the ongoing effort of the American Cancer Society, and moreso for the courage behind every individual person who has had to stare cancer in the face. MAJOR kudos doesn't even begin to describe the level of admiration I have for the conquerers :) ]] Soooo.. this girl, from what Pastor Ron told me, recently started a blog, and since that seems to be a thread that we both understand, he recommended I check it out. He seemed to think her candor and style of scribing were similiar to mine, too, which naturally peaked my interest.



remember this? :) | relay for life belleville 2012
the towerview fundraising tire

 So I checked it out.
And I loved it.
Blunt. Honest. Funny.
Don't believe me? -- Check it out for yourself :)
I'll be following these chronicles, for sure.

So...

Today turned out to have some unexpected turns:
Thank you to Pastor Ron & Debbie for the dinner invite, excellent company, and new reading material! ;)

Thanks to Olga's Kitchen for being so fabulously delicious... I'm on to you now..
Thanks to Ashley Brown, the girl with cancer who has decided to laugh in its face rather than succumb to it. I think that's the absolute spirit with which we should approach anything threatening to overcome. That, and pray, of course. :) Fresh perspective? Check.

Over and out, folks.

xo | cmd

Colors of Today :)

Today was quite the colorful day. After all of the ruckus from yesterday, it was a nice change of pace [and a welcomed surprise] to see some bright pops of orange and yellow, complete with the simple but elegant grass decorations which I'm totally hacking.... :) Plus, Nancy brought in some itty bitty onesie kimonos that she still has as part of her online shop inventory. It kiiiind of made me want to have a small human again to wiggle into this thing for the sake of pure cute overload. We shall see....

flowers from diana (:

baby kimonos. cuteness.over.load.

Work ended in its usual fashion; I headed straight for Fairview Heights to grab Sydni and stop at Target before our evening dwell at the Relay for Life Wrap-Up Celebration potluck. It was wonderful to see some of those familiar faces again, but more importantly a great night of recognition for the ACS and Team Towerview!! We officially get to trade in our Silver Level fundraising sign for Gold Level, because we have, at this point, surpassed the $5000 mark. NOT a bad way to kick off our first year of participation in Relay! (:

relay for life wrap-up!

Oh, and we [Team Towerview] earned the award for the Heaviest RFL Fundraiser [aka, the TIRE!] for this year. Christine decorated it with the shot of Mo, Becky and me "sleeping" in and on it during relay. Pretty funny stuff - very thoughtful!! 

Joe's back in town. That means Eric will be here tomorrow through the weekend. Never a dull moment in the Dills' house! 

xo | cmd

RELAY FOR LIFE 2012! [& Office Mini Golf?]

It is finally upon us!
This is definitely post-dated! :)

Hello, Relay for Life!

It was an extended day to start with; I showed up to work a full hour early in hopes of leaving 9 hours later. Today marked our office's 6th birthday, so the bosses decided to celebrate by buying us all lunch. No argument there. We feasted on Applebee's for an hour, until we were challenged by one of our owner's to choose our own pecking order and proceed to follow him out into our office. We were greeted by a homemade, indoor mini golf course, complete with star-shaped post-it tee-offs and Express logo cups serving as the destination holes. Seven holes in all. We weren't sure what to think of it all, but I will say it's been a long time since I've laughed like that.

Here's a taste of what it looked like in the office for about an hour's time:

christine. cori. nancy. courtney.
that's right... office golf, ya'll...

When 4:00 hit, I was out the door in a flurry, headed straight down to Belleville West. The Warrens were already there, with their tent and table set up; I caught them just as they were headed off to the survivor dinner. I was left to my own devices to decorate our space from top to bottom in Italy, for lack of a better term. It wasn't long before the rest of our team came trickling in to lend a hand. Even sooner it seemed from there, we were all rallied together on the track for the opening ceremonies, survivor lap, and then full swing into Relay 2012! 

team towerview!
[thanks, jackie for the awesome painting!]

We had this posted up outside our campsite. Many thanks to Jackie for painting this for the team, and for all the helping hands who came and contributed tents, tables, chairs, and decorations for our site!!

cheerleaders - reminding us how to fight back against cancer

^ Opening ceremonies. It probably doesn't make the most sense just looking at it, having not been there to hear the accompanying narration, so I'll try to paraphrase...

The center shot - encouragement to continue in the FIGHT BACK against cancer. They proceeded to highlight words found within the phrase as elements of available methods to fight back against cancer. 

Cig: Don't smoke. Fat: Eat healthy! Fit: Exercise. Gab: Spread the word! Hat: Protect yourself from sun. Act: DO something today to make a difference for tomorrow! :) 

[just part of ] team towerview!
shirley. jimmy. john. greg. betty. ron. diana. cori. mo. ron.

Our team this year was absolutely incredible. There were many people who were unable to make the actual event, but I wouldn't dare for a split second discount their efforts, contributions, and support. This picture was taken early in the evening and is still just a small taste of everyone that did make an appearance at some point for the night. I am so impressed by the support and action that everyone put into this :) I'm so proud!!

sleepin' in the infamous tire!
becky. cori. mo

Haha. There are so many memorable pictures from this event, but none quite like that of us pretending to sleep in the famous traveling tire. If you were there, you would've heard that strangely enough, none of us hated sitting inside this thing. It's actually pretty comfortable. Is that weird? Haha.. Probably, but either way, if I ever find myself deserted in the midst of abandoned farming equipment, my first choice of refuge is gonna be one of these things. Chyeahh.

This is backdated, durrrrr.. and I'm still exhausted. What an incredible event!! [There will be plenty of pictures to come. Stay posted, darlins...]

xo | cmd 

Towerview at the Ballpark!!

Due to the continuous construction that comes inevitably as part of our office build-out, we were granted two consecutive casual days; we all took full advantage of it and geared up in our jeans and t-shirts for the day. Mine was almost thwarted by an early morning client visit; luckily for me, this particular client happens to be within earshot of my house, so if you think I went home after my client meeting to ditch the business garb, you would be totally correct. Haha. Perfect timing on the casual day, too; I was headed straight from work to the Cards game.

baseball time!

Before I get into this one, let me first clarify that in my heart, I'm still Cincinnati, through and through. That being said, I also believe that if you're gonna live somewhere, be there. I'm leading up to the fact that I was pretty excited to get down to Busch Stadium tonight for what was my first Cardinals game this season.

* I never thought I'd hear myself say that. What can I say, I love baseball games. Period. :)

with dawne! :)

Anyway, what made tonight's game that much cooler was the fact that each seat purchased by a Towerview member was from a fundraiser we'd done a few months back as one of our Relay for Life fundraisers. Originally, it was planned that Joe would be accompanying me to this one, but with him in Atlanta this week, that clearly wasn't going to happen. I contemplated just passing our tickets off to someone, but then I remembered that I do in fact know people outside of our church [because everyone there was already going, hah]. I asked Dawne is she wanted to come along, and long story short, we partnered up and made a night of it. I saw some other familiar faces tonight; I'll tell ya what, this St. Louis place sure is starting to grow on me. Yeah, baseball :)

Dawne and I linked up and took the metrolink with Syd [who ended up overnight back at Dawne's because she is just that awesome] into St. Louis and rendezvoused there with the rest of the Towerviewers to enjoy the night. I definitely had no complaints for my first season run at the park. Speaking of which, Courtney from work was down there somewhere too, we just never found each other. Oh well. Next time.

cori. mo. lara

*Note to self, also. The MetroLink is not a force with which you should reckon if you're not entirely prepared. Haha. That is all I have to say about that. Be careful where you stop, and pay attention to where you load, otherwise you could very well find yourself traversing back and forth on that sucker for hours. I'm just sayin'. :p

Anywho, it has been some sort of night.. baseball and all. I loved every second of it, but I think it's about time I grab some sleep before I try to tackle Friday. TGI[backdatedthursdayentrymadesuperearly]F!

xo | cmd

Team Italy: Relay For Life [Update]!

Hey friends!

Ohhh yeah, Towerview! We are well on our way to kickin' butt and takin' names on the road to raising money to fight cancer. Tonight was the monthly team meeting for our upcoming relay here in Belleville; I along with Jimmy and Mo were there for the next step in the process, which was choosing our "campsite" for the event.

Well let me back up. Before we got down to picking our site, we went over all the current standings, teams, etc. Between the last meeting and now, there are 6 or 7 brand new teams [wooo!]. Towerview is still holding down the #1 spot on the fundraising chart; while I understand this is not that type of competition, I am so very proud at the collective effort our team so often and clearly exerts for noteworthy causes like this!!

keep it up towerview!! 

We still have quite a ways to go, and our next stop on the agenda is to nail down some decorating ideas [our team is Italy], and develop some on-site fundraising ideas. We are on our way!! :)

that's us! site #11.. watch out now ;)

Remember: July 20 & 21 is the event!! If you need details, please don't hesitate to find either myself or Lara. We've got plenty of info and ways you can get involved if you haven't yet and would like to. :) [||end PSA. Ha.]

*Dawne was absolutely amazing tonight in that she asked to keep Sydni overnight. I'm not quite sure what exactly it is about this week, but I've not yet managed to get past 4 hours of sleeping yet. It's only Tuesday though, so maybe I'll catch up tomorrow. The extra 30 minutes in the morning will definitely be a nice buffer, though.

Time to try my hand at this sleeping thing.

xo | cmd

Towerview Relay Update!

In case you were wondering, Towerview Baptist is kickin' tail and takin' names in the fundraising battle against cancer. I took a gander at our progress today, and according to what's been entered on the ACS website, this is us:

oh hey towerview! look at us go! :) :)

TAKE THAT, CANCER.
*We're not done yet, either - not even close! I am so proud of my church family and that I'm a part of that family. We are flying right along, and the best part of it all [well, one of the best parts] is that our original fundraising goal as a team was set at $1500. Clearly, we're past that and not looking back - time to up the anty!

I'm floored.
- Had to share :)

Happy midweek!

xo | cmd

Playdates Are For Kids AND Moms

Now that Joe's in Spain for the next week [and yes, he made it safely!], this was the first of two Sundays Sydni and I had flying solo. Amazingly enough, we made it out the door and into the church parking lot by 8:45, which I honestly don't think has happened yet. It was a typical Sunday morning: amazing service surrounded by my church family inside a building basked in beautiful sunshine.

Lara and I made our announcement about our 2012 Towerview Relay for Life team, and are praying for faithful involvement in any capacity from our church family. If you've not yet registered, please do!

You can do that by clicking the Logo Below :).


towerview baptist | relay for life 2012!
captain: cori dills | co-captain: lara babot

 [[If you have any questions about how to get registered, how you can participate, or how the whole thing works, please feel free to contact either Lara Babot or me, and we'll be more than happy to get you started!!]]

It was no surprise that we found ourselves all crunched together at a big table for lunch following church; it's so often a tradition. It was a busy day at the restaurant with the Gobles, Babots, Pages, Wernes, Woods, and one of Alex's soccer players and her boyfriend. I love that we are getting close with each other and developing relationships outside of just the pews, and I look forward to some variety of impromptu outing at least once a week. Our church family is the best, not that anyone's keeping track :).

We had just enough time to squeeze in a quick nap once we were home - and by we, I mean, Sydni, while I took care of some around-the-house things that needed attention. It wasn't long before we were back in the car, dessert in hand, on our way to the Gobles for dinner. Lara and Landon met us there; Alex was working. Tom had limited time to spend with us before heading to the church business meeting, so when it all boiled down, it was just Jackie, Lara and I, plus the kids. It's not very often I have a chance for adult bonding time in closer proximity than small group or Sunday school, so it was a refreshing change of pace to have that, while the kids entertained themselves in the backyard. Plus, Tom & Jackie went above and beyond to grill some chicken just for me, in lieu of the fact that their deliciously-scented potroast would've likely killed me on contact [booooo]. They are so thoughtful!



sydni @ the gobles



*Sidenote: only after we got home did I learn that Landon had informed Lara that Sydni was drinking bubble juice. Haha. Okay, so maybe the kids had a little too much fun. The good news is, it must've been a very minimal amount, because we've yet to see a side effect! *Phewwww.

This was the absolute perfect way to end the week. It's going to be an interest week without Joe here, but we'll get through it and will make the best from our own devices, I'm sure. :)

I am truly, deeply, undeservedly blessed.
Here we go, Monday!

xo | cmd

Relay for Life Kickoff!

HERE WE GO!



american cancer society | relay for life 2012 kickoff!

Relay for Life is officially in full swing for us. Tonight, Lara and I rode together over to Grace Church in FVH, where Mo met us for the 2012 American Cancer Society's Relay for Life kickoff meeting. We scuttled inside just in time to miss the rain, and wasted no time settling in.

I can't express how truly excited I am to be spearheading this project for Towerview! The meeting session tonight was purposed as the official kickoff for all the teams and their fundraising efforts. We heard the testimonies of multiple cancer survivors, and were focused on our own relations and interactions with those who've stared down some form of this disease.

Tonight was an excellent reminder of the potential brevity of life or the potential difficulties that could impede at any time, such as ... cancer. I admire wholly those who have fought, are fighting, or are involved directly in the life of someone who is.


raffle winners! | lara. cori. mo.

My prayer for the next few months is for our church to rally together to make the most out of the experience. More importantly, I hope that Miss Shirley, Mr. Bob, and the other wonderful members of our congregation who have battled any form of cancer will find some encouragement through this.

Relay for Life 2012:

Belleville West High School Track
July 20-21 (Fri & Sat), 2012
7:00 PM - 7:00 AM

Our church team page can be found here! Please help spread the word! 

xo | cmd