Girls.. Just Wanna BIKE, EAT & REDBOX

I really thought it was 1pm and that we still had to stain a deck when I woke up today. 

nope. 

And don't get me wrong, I was all the way down and ready to do some staining, but the sun was so bright at 9am that I thought it was well into early afternoon. Fortunately, it was early, and with the rain yesterday, there was no way we'd be doing any type of stain work today. 

INSTEAD, we opted to go for a bike ride! 

I didn't bring my bike, but fortunately, Jenn's parents have a few spares, so Nikki and I took up the offer and we were on our way in no time. I did end up with the taller bike, but major kudos to Nikki for wanting to try it! 

^ Nik, we weren't laughing at you... I mean.... ok, yeah, we were, but it was hilarious and you are a trooper for even wanting to do that! 

The ride in was beautiful, and although it was 16 miles each way, the ride itself was mild.

covered bridges :) 

We arrived in Yellow Springs, in the middle of a street vendor Saturday - these are my favorite, and I had to admit I didn't know YS had weekends & shoppes like it does! 

yellow springs, oh

merch & shoppes... & nikki! 

We ordered food, stopped at the brewery and then got ice cream.

And we justified each of these things with having ridden the 16 miles to get there, and the fact that each of us had done some version of a workout circuit in the past 24 hours. Haha..

pizza. brew. ice cream. #saturdaynotsorry

And Yellow Springs is especially dog-filled.

... and obviously i will. pet. all. the dogs. 

We finished up in YS and made our way back to Beavercreek - a slightly different but still beautiful little ride.

Jenn and I met up with Mikey for dinner and then decided that we were absolutely not doing a daggone thing after that. 

yes.

Well, maybe something, if an impulse trip to the store to buy snacks immediately following dinner.. counts. It counts. It totally counts. 

snacks, wine, redbox.
.... i mean.... 

Because we thought it'd be a good idea to sob ourselves into Saturday night... 

the shack

^ Holy crap, Sam Worthington... so many feels. 

Whew. Happy Saturday, loves!

xo | cms

PITCH PERFECT 2!!

Yeah, so we talked about cooking breakfast at Jesse's this morning, but didn't have that conversation until we were sitting AT breakfast at Apple Tree. Which..... ok, that's fine, because the food's still good, but uhhhh.. we're definitely cooking at some juncture this weekend.

After breakfast, we made a 2ish hour stop by Geoff & Nikki's - it is sunny and beautiful outside today; we hung out there for a bit, soaking up the day and playing with little [although growing so quickly!!] Emma, before we headed back to Jesse's.

I had a few errands to run, so after a short nap [yeah, that happened, too; Jesse has these two TREES...]:

that happened. it was... awesome.
zZzZzzzzz... 

I came back to the boys giving the backyard smoker a run for its money, and the dogs playing together as though they'd known each other since day 1. That's a big deal for Stella, if you've never met her.

this thing.... #nailedit

pittie party! 

puppy smiles!
stella. sasha. zepplin.

The food came out amazing. Like, ah-mazing. Recommend, recommend.
Rob's mom and Don stopped by for a little while, which was awesome. The last bits of daylight hung around with the smell of slow-smoker chicken

The time came for me to leave the backyard shindig and head to Collinsville, where I met up with Ali and Damanji! That's right.. it was FINALLY TIME! 

pitch 2!! 

Ok guys.. I mean let's be real here. First, this movie came out LAST Friday (5/15). It is now EIGHT days later and I finally went to see it, in the company of literally the ONLY two people I would want with me to see it:

i seriously.. just... love. love. loooove them. 

Long story short, we found a movie theater in St. Louis that looked more like a Marriott than a movie theater, ordered some chicken quesadillas and a Stella Artois [because say whaaaaaaaaaat this place?!] and settled back into sectioned-off captains chair recliners to watch this.

P.S. - I'll see it again, anytime, if any of you out there need a tag-a-long :).
P.P.S. - This:

this is us, basically. 

I'll leave the night that way. I rolled back in to Jesse's closer to 1am than midnight [oh, and this is backdated], just before Rob and Jesse returned from Geoff & Nikki's. It's been an amazing day here in Illinois ♥.

Tomorrow  = Lake & Friends!
One more day here before the trip back to Ohio.

Woo!

xo | cmd 

Farewell, Nikki ... Hello, Illinois

Fun fact of today?

If you were anywhere near Google today, then you know today's the 100th anniversary of the standard crossword puzzle. I searched several unrelated things throughout the day and was met with the interactive banner several times before I actually obliged the thing...

tempting... temptiiiiiing...

I eventually gave in and clicked the blue play buttong... and proceeded to spend the next several minutes attempting to decode insinuating clues to words and abbreviations I never would've known. So, with the moderate assistance of Yahoo! for this one [is it strange that I felt like using using Google itself for this was somehow unethical? haha], I managed to decipher the hints I couldn't grasp on my own. For an English major, I am apparently not that versed:

Now, I had no problem at all with clues like "little bit," "Cleveland's lake" and strangely even "Start of many exclamations," but I really don't feel guilty for not knowing that 'KTS' is an abbreviation for "Chess Jumpers." So uhh, anyway, thanks again, Arthur Wynne!

And because it was Friday, we naturally had our weekly lunch, provided for by the bosses: Nikki's "last meal" as we sadly coined it. Elisa suggested Piada in Hyde Park, and we voted collectively yes.

the carnage....... we were hungry? (:

My first experience eating Piada was today and I have now added it to my official list of YES, PLEASE places here in the Norwood-Oakley-HP area. Speaking of good food, today happened to gift some other edible Christmas cheer in the form of Chipotle gift cards!

yes, please. yesssss, please.. & thank you!

Man, I'm blessed (:
That being said, we celebrated Nikki's last day in style, complete with lunch from Piada, a box of the decadent Express toffees, and some bittersweet farewells at the very end of the day. We'll see her one more time next week on Friday when she stops back by, but I know the office really won't be the same without her. Sad... sad face ):

Once work was out, I hopped in my car that I'd packed up last night and made a beeline for the highway. Fast forward 4-5ish hours and here I am now, in Illinois at Rob's house. He and Jesse rolled in the driveway right after I did; Jesse just left but we're in for a nice run of five days before I head back to Ohio.

*Yawn.

I'm done here, folks (:
Christmas is in .... five days, ya'll. Whoa.

xo | cmd 

You'll Uh, ZULA!

Our office Christmas dinner was tonight, so we basically spent all day counting down in anticipation for the deliciousness that would undoubtedly ensue at 7:00. The day wore itself out without too much fuss, and it was home to trade out the work clothes for some dinner gear!

^^ Stretchy pants, of course. Don't judge. Haha.
Just kidding. Zula it was! The five of us rednezvoused back at the office so Dave & Nancy could tote us down to OTR to what is now one of my new favorite eatery digs.

zula ♥

Y-U-M.
Since Nikki's moving on to other professional endeavors next week, we half-heartedly joked that tonight was her "last supper," and celebrated both her time with us and our team as a whole. We're still the new kids on the block in this area, but I have to say we're not doin' half bad!

Back at home, I flopped on my couch for a few minutes before willing myself to get up and go to bed; I stared at the empty space knowing that tomorrow, I'll see this guy and these pups. I wish Sydni was going with us, but I know we'll have plenty of other times for her to head out there with us.

t-minus one day! ♥

Pretty good little Thursday, I'd say!

xo | cmd

Christmas 2013: T-Minus ONE WEEK

First and foremost, Christmas is my favorite holiday of the year. I love the assembling of family, even when multiple stops sometimes feels like a game of Tetris. For us, it's a non-negotiable absolute that we will get together at one point or another, because it's Christmas and regardless of how often we see each other over the other 11 months, Christmas is when we get together and celebrate as a unit, the reason for the season and what that means to us.

I opted out of the mass mayhem of Thanksgiving Day [ridiculous] and Black Friday shopping this year, and pursued the DIY route. My recent discovery of online providers like Julep, and of course Pinterest, made this one an easy vote for me.

julep surprise box for december!

^ I opt in for surprise boxes and they give me cool things like 40% off my next order. Since Julep's are usually around $14/ea for one of their polishes (& worth it, I would say), my enrollment discount + a promo 40%? NO-brainer! I made a big order last week & got a couple polishes for $3/ea. BAM!

And so I made with it on Christmas ordering ;) From there, I picked up some other small, related items for just a couple bucks and was able to put together a nifty little gift for a few girls:

for elisa (top left) & nikki (top right)

A cinch, really. Add some tissue paper, a pretty ribbon and a 'Merry Mistletoes' tag & voilà - done!

I had to save this until the girls got their mistletoes, so as to not spoil anything..

elisa (r) & nikki (l)

DIY success!

Also...... the Blums went in this year on some pretty lil' gift ideas for our clients:

express toffee boxes (:

They're so pretty! I had to snap a shot of them all arranged for delivery before they're gone.
It's really starting to feel like Christmas around here!

Tomorrow = Company Christmas "party" dinner at Zula in OTR. [[yummmm]]
Oh, and btw, Christmas itself is exactly 1 week from today. Chyeah. Wrap your head around that one.... I'm still trying. Hah.

xo | cmd

THE HUNGER GAMES : CATCHING FIRE

I've been watching this for weeeeeks now:

And TONIGHT.. Elisa, Nikki, Kalyn & I had our tickets in hand for the 8:30 showing. The theater of the new Cinemark plex in Oakley was so crowded that we had to separate into sets of two each just to find seats, but I will say...

If any of you out there haven't seen this yet and need a friend to accompany you to the theater, well.. call me and I'll go with you. Haha. I won't give any more spoilers, but I'll suffice to say that we spent an entire day looking forward to this and we were not disappointed.

And yes, we were among the minority of adults over the age of 22 who went to see this movie alongside a hoard of pre-teens. #NOCARESGIVEN #TEAMKATNISS! haha.

Go. See. It.

xo | cmd

Birthday Shout Out{s}

It's my friend Clark's 29th birthday today.
That cracks me up, because we've been friends since middle school and honestly were uncertain either of us would survive our hometown long enough to make something of ourselves. [That's a joke....] We did, and as I look back over the years and to where this guy is now, I'm glad to say that he's a friend of mine and I wish him all the continued success there is to offer!

Happy birthday, Sheff!!! I'll see you in the 29 club here in 10 days!

2003 v. 2012
happy birthday, clark!

Speaking of birthdays, I forgot to mention that we had a miniature belated celebration for Nikki yesterday, complete with donuts and coffee.. ya know, the way real office birthdays are supposed to be done. Haha. I laugh because I still have a healthy metabolism and exercise regiment.... if I keep this crap up for another 10 years though, it might be a different story.. ;)


busken & coffee. holy heart-attack.

And... cue workout. (:
Sydni and I are taking a quick break from dancing around the living room, so I think we'll get our exercise in tonight.

Happy belated birthday, Nikki, & Happy TODAY birthday, Clark!

xo | cmd


HBD Nikki, On This Ho-Hum Day :/

Nikki walked into work this morning with what we are all convinced to be the early stages of either strep throat or laryngitis. Neither of those are any good, but I do remember clearly when I had laryngitis a few years back at Chris' office and was rendered vocally useless for nearly two weeks. Not a good time. And... it's her birthday, TODAY.

So let's focus on that instead of the yucky part. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NIKKI!!!!

yeah, november bdays!

It kind of seemed like today was bound and determined to drone on into next month. On a few separate occasions I found myself checking the time only to find that not even an hour or two had lapsed since the last time I bothered to look. And then, as is usually the case, I found myself in the midst of a task I hadn't planned on doing and racing the last hour of the clock before 5pm rolled around. Good thing, too. The "eventful" nature of the past week definitely took a hit on me and I was down for the count by the time I got home.

 

Plus, this came out today and I made a beeline to pick it up after work:  

third & final installment of the divergent series

^ Yep. Here I go again, embracing my inner teenage bookworm for the next couple of days, sucked back into the world of Tris Prior & Tobias Eaton... we at work have all agreed not to judge each other for our shared affinity for stuff like this [we'll include Hunger Games in there, too]. I'm not quite halfway through it, but that was quite a war in and of itself anyway: to devour the entire thing in one sitting? ... or.... pace myself because I've already decided it's going to be a relaxing week and what else do I really have to do? Yeah.. issues. :p

Oh, and I laughed when I saw this from Rob earlier today as he toted the meatballs back home to Illinois. [I already miss them all..... ]

car full of my favorites.. aww..

Anywho, I'm beat. It's not even 9pm and I'm at the finish line for the day.
Sleep is a poor man's remedy..... G'nite!

xo | cmd

T-T-T-Tuuuuesday.

I took Emergen-C for the first time in my entire life today. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I didn't hate it. It all started when Elisa couldn't decide if she was hot or cold, resulting in a perhaps-diagnosis of being sick. Nikki had EC's at her desk, and was quick to hand them out to each of us.

... & of course in an express cup.... yeeeup.

The good news: I don't feel any different than I did before I drank the stuff, which I'm going to conclude means that I wasn't sick before I did, and it didn't make me sick. So.. THERE. In-ya-face, sicky bugs.

 

In other news, in the world of alliteration-crazed social media hounds, it's Transformation Tuesday, and that means.....

lovelovelovelooooove her.

I couldn't tell you how hard it was selecting only two pictures for each of those years. The kid has so many sweet, sassy and perfectly-timed action shots that I sat there stewing over this for about 20 minute before I remembered it's just Instagram and it's okay. Haha. Still. LOOK AT HER! Ugh. It's not that I wish she'd stop growing up, because really, I'm excited to see how that challenges both of us, but really I wish there was at least a way to slow it down sometimes, or at least re-visit them. My 6lb, 9oz baby girl is now a 4-year-old and I feel like that happened overnight. *Sigh. I love it though ♥.

 

With the day out of the way, I got some exercise in before stopping off at the grocery store and heading home. From there on out, it apparently became my mission to cancel my workout entirely by indulging in a whole bunch of magic stuff as I kicked back by myself on the couch. Don't.. judge.. me. (:

yeah. it was that kinda night.

.... I'm okay with it though, because I'm still at a point where my metabolism will do its job in a timely fashion; I'll run it off if not, and for the record, this is a delicious combination, movie & all.

 

TOMORROWWWWWW = US WOMENS NATIONAL TEAM VS NEW ZEALAND....

... How.. excited... am... I. I haven't been to Crew Stadium in a few years, but I think I'm just most excited about seeing the lineup [because I'm hopelessly woman crushed over Hope Solo]. Abby Wambach and Alex Morgan won't hurt my feelings, either. Haha.

 

G'Nite, blogbots.

 

xo | cmd

Mr. & Mrs. Steinway [& Co.]!

I did not want today to end....

First things first: breakfast. We had every intention of heading out to Missouri afterwards to take a look at a bike Rob's been eyeing, but decided to do it tomorrow in lieu of some other things we needed to accomplish before the evening rolled around.

Instead, we took to our first real shopping excursion together. For two people who don't like shopping, I think we did some decent damage in a relatively short amount of time. I blame the infrequency of [retail] shopping we both do, meaning that if and when we go, well... we go.

First stop was for some new dress attire for Rob.. which was simple enough [later realizing also that he and Ryan were wearing the exact same thing.. haha]. Oh, and Rob just bought me a ring. No, don't get all fussy over it; it's not THE ring, but we still shared a good laugh over it. Really it was my intention to buy it once we got to the register but he snatched it up and refused my offer, so.... yeah. Let's hope if that time ever comes for us to start [the.grueling.process.of.real] ring scoping, it doesn't happen quite like that.. haha. ;)

a ring!
haha, and no, it's not what you think, but i think it's pretty.. well, pretty!
[thanks, boyfriend!]

As I said, we went pretty hard at the stores today, given we were only there for a couple of hours, if even that:

retail therapy for men... acceptable when women are around.. haha ;)

Once we got our run at the mall out of the way, it was back to Rob's, a quick haircut for him [by yours truly], and then some quick getting ready before Tawny & Ryan were at the door. The four of us piled into Rob's truck and were off to Yacovelli's in Florissant for Mike & Kelly's wedding reception.

congratulations, mike & kelly!! ♥♥

group shot! | yacovelli's - florissant, mo

♥ i had the best date in the place.. yenno, not biased ;)

[back at] bindy's with my [absolute] favorite ♥

We took a few pictures from the evening, but honestly were having too much fun to stop and take that many. I always regret that the next day, but it was a blast (:

"look up there... " [@bindy's, duh...]

an accurate description of [some] of what ensued tonight, haha...

with kelly | cori. rob. kelly. jesse | reading books?.. with jesse

Congratulations, again to Mr. & Mrs. Steinway! Thank you for letting us be a part of this celebration with you (:
& gooooooooooodnight!

xo | cmd

Detroit : Sales Summit 2013

Well it's been a long day.
Great, but long.

It started at 5am when I was up and getting ready for the rest of the day. By 6:45am, I was in the foyer of my boss' b-e-a-uuuutiful home, joined shortly thereafter by Elisa and Nikki. The five of us piled into "Mom & Dad's" car [that was their title all weekend], and embarked on our 4-hour trek north to Detroit, MI.

And because I'm an Ohio native.. and because I've been to Findlay, Toledo, Perrysburg and further... I can say this:

The downtown bowels of Detroit are a DUMP. Literally. It is so much so, that in an eerily-fascinating way, it's enticing.. but at from behind a camera lens. Otherwise, it's not much to celebrate at this point if you consider what those vacant, destroyed-but-standing buildings once were or held. *sigh.

yep. room with a view... it's definitely.... somethin' ..

We landed at the Westin, in the heart of downtown; there were business-professional clad people milling around all over the sidewalk, assuring us we were in fact at the right place.

Fast forward to Elisa and I checking into our room, changing out of yoga clothes [aka, road trip attire] and making our way down to the opening presentation for the weekend. We reunited with owners and members of the other four local Express offices, along with a slew of other offices from around Ohio, Michigan and Canada.

Super profesh, I say. Super.

yyyyep (:

From there, we started in on our first round of training tracks, designed to cater to our job functions, but of course with a twist of fun [as is the Express way, for which I am ever grateful]:

kortney's a magician ;)

The formal part of the day came to a close and it was time for some fun, the way our local offices are known to do it: We [our 5 local offices] reserved a huge table at a local Greek restaurant, ate calamari and baklava, and drank uzo until we couldn't stuff one more thing into our stomachs, and had a really good chance to get to know some of the newer gals. We all agreed this should be a much more frequent thing, this whole social outing part of it all.

parthenon, greektown | detroit mi

flaming cheese. yes. queso con fueeego!

After dinner, the lot of us found ourselves directly across the street at the Greektown Casino, where we finished off the night out with some Blackjack, slots and more than enough people-watching [let's be honest]. From there, we made our way back to the hotel where Anna, Nikki, Kate, Elisa, Kortney and I spent the next two hours laughing ourselves into tears along with some random co-guests in what we learned was an out-of-town wedding party.

kate. elisa. kortney. cori. nikki. anna
greektown casino | detroit, mi

Oh, and we ate more food.
Not only will we be off the wagon this weekend.. I'm not really even sure we brought the wagon.

*and chyeah, this is backdated. Actual bedtime happened around 1...ish... AM.
Summit, Day 2 is tomorrow.

Signin' Off from the Motor City herself...

xo | cmd