Love the Climb

I woke up today not forgetting that it's Kalyn's birthday. In honor of that, here's what remains still to be my favorite birthday party yet, from several years ago:

hbd, kp!

With Kalyn down in the Gorge, I didn't have the chance to see her this weekend. However, unintentionally in her honor, we decided to go climbing here. Becky's in town from NM for the weekend, so she joined us for a few hours in the gym.

Sydni was super into all of this, as you can clearly see:

this kid can sleep anywhere.

Once we pried some life back into Syd, it was into the gym and onto the auto's for some fun climbing. I have no idea when I blinked and missed the transitional phase between her not wanting to climb at all and today's skittering straight up a 5.8 without thinking twice about it, but I will take it. I had 5 specific proud mom moments when I heard her voice ring out from the tops of each course she ran - 5 different courses, one of which was a cross between 5.8 and 5.9. For a 7yo who doesn't climb every day, I'd say she's got some shining potential to be great at this if we let her. 

so. proud!

It was a fantastic outing with one of our dearest friends, and made the perfect afternoon pick-us-up out of the dreary weather that ushered the weekend through. 

climbing with becky! 

After climbing, it was lunch at Panera, then home to relax for a little while. It was 70 degrees yesterday; today we were lucky to see 40 degrees, in between the wind and gray sky. And I wonder why my sinuses are having a panic attack? 

*Sigh. Today was a good, full day of fun and quality time spent with mini and one of our best friends. Cheers to the rest of this weekend! 

xo | cms

Sunday Shelfies ;)

In preparation for our pre-meditated Ikea trip, we voted a big yes to church first. Haha. That of course is not the reason we went; church is always first on the list for Sunday mornings, including an excellent message from Pastor Jeff, as always.

And then, post-church meant the trip north to West Chester. We primed ourselves for the adventure with a pitstop at Panera before that last deep breath you take when you consciously decide to enter the Ikea parking lot on a weekend.

[insert episodic music here...**]

Yes, the parking lot itself is a jungle. To compound the frustration of parking Rob's truck [which we brought just in case] amongst the crammed rows of other cars, we were really there for one thing:

shelf. little... black... shelf.

I dragged Rob to Ikea today because I wanted shelves. Just add this to the list of awesome-boyfriend moments: he agreed to navigate through the crowds in one of the biggest superstores in Cincinnati because I had my eye on an 11x10" slab of particle&fiber board. He's awesome.

To the surprise of both of us, it was a relatively painless experience. Aside from the usual bottleneck at the check-out, this may have been the easiest trip to Ikea I've had yet. It of course helps when you know exactly why you're there, put on your blinders and ignore the other 343,500 sq.ft of stuff you want to take home. We were in and out in an hour, which included a quick peruse over the dining room chair section. Again, at least we need those.

So with six shelves and two wall-mounted lights, we escaped Ikea and headed home. In the 40ish minute drive back, we encountered rain, sleet, snow and warm sunshine. A quick reminder that the midwest is just as confused as we are with this weather thing.

I lent whatever assistance I could to be useful in hanging the shelves and lights in the bedroom. After he figured out a good system to do it, I dismissed myself to get dinner ready while he finished up in the bedroom.

His final product?


before & after

yay, bedstand shelves!
no curtain yet, but that's coming as well!

And... my finished product:

garlic lime chicken, pierogies, zucchini

I'll say that his was way better than mine. We may have over-marinated the chicken, which came out much too sour for my liking, at least. He didn't seem to mind, or he is just great at pretending I'm not trying to poison us both. Less lime, more cilantro next time. Noted (:

Anyway, I think that's a wrap on the weekend. Monday's gonna be here before we know it, whether we want it or not... and we're spent.

G'Nite (:

xo | cmd

Pitch Perfect!

Every so often, I have one of those days that really just doesn't start on the right foot. It's not so much like the old coinage "waking up on the wrong side of the bed" as it is the entire bed collapsed, flipped over, and dumped me into the toilet. Sounds weird, but if I had to guess, I'd say we've all been there at least once.

Well, good news is, I didn't have one of those mornings today.
Bad news is, poor Ali did... sorta.
Ali got in a fender bender on her way in [thankfully she's okay]; her poor car is another story, but she's okay. I totally understand the frustration behind starting your day off that way, so it made me feel less guilty about having a decent morning when we decided we'd meet up after work to go see Pitch Perfect.

See, Ali's boyfriend is a manager at The Lincoln in downtown Belleville. He met up with us for a moment at Panera St. Louis Bread Co. [excuuuuse me] before we made a stop for gelato [hi, Bulent!] and settled in for our final stop at the theater.

I didn't really know what to expect from this movie, but it was..... hilarious. It could've had a lot do with the fact that Ali is absolutely excellent company [toooooo.funny], because by the time we left, we were both nursing side-pangs from laughing through the entire film.

**SPOILER ALERT**


You all know I'm a sucker for vocal competition, harmonies & arrangements. That, and stupid movies like this have always been a ridiculous vice of mine. To top it off, I think Anna Kendrick is the cutest little thing with a stellar voice, and Rebel Wilson is... well, she's Rebel Wilson and you can't help but laugh at her unabashed candor on film.

I said all that to say that I'm glad to have been a part of the upswinging part of Ali's day - hopefully the car situation is resolved soon and everything gets back into working hours.

If I see this movie again within the next couple weeks, well.... yeah. (:

xo | cmd

Sucker Sinuses [but a] Better Backyard!

Ugggggghhhhkkkkk....

Remember that sinus thing that I'd been hoping wouldn't materialize into anything? Yeah... welllllll... Yeah.

I spent the entire morning asleep.
For what it's worth, so did Sydni. She'd been developing a runny nose and glossy eyes over the latter part of last week I thought I could slip under the radar of whatever bug she had, but that's never the case and certainly isn't this time, either.

I'm definitely sick. Booo, hiss hiss. I was thankful in a slightly disdainful way that Sydni hasn't fully recovered yet; her mild case of the lazies today proved a reprieve to me in my state of complete and utter lethargy.

Sydni was sprawled out on her bed watching Little Mermaid, and I was equally resigned to the couch nursing a sinus migraine when Mo materialized at the front door. She came bearing broccoli cheddar soup from Panera St. Louis Bread Company [I keep forgetting] for me, mac n' cheese for Sydni, and some other soup for herself. Thank you, a million times over for being so thoughtful, Mo!! We ate, and I decided we would finally get out for some gelato. We made a quick trip there, enjoyed some, and headed straight back to the house.

So um, yeah. That was pretty much the bulk of today, in a nutshell. OH! I figured I'd share this with the class, since I haven't yet:

before.
view from the yard | view from the staircase

after.
not quite finished.... yet :)

Here's the before and after of what I did a couple days earlier. This menagerie that was the back patio, out of control as it was, was the direct result of us working full days, not being out there nearly as often as we would've liked, and investing what little free time we both have into hanging out and getting out with Sydni. It didn't take long for this to get unruly, but I finally decided enough was enough, so yeah. That's what happened. 


Anyway, I'm still feeling a lot like what I envision..... death feels like... lol.
It... is... bed...time... for us. 


xo | cmd

St. Louis Bread Company

Yeah yeah yeah, Monday. I’m thankful we survived each other, again. See ya next week.



panera? or st. louis bread company?



So, back home in Cincinnati – well, Ohio in general, really – there is a place called Panera Bread. I’ve seen them all over the place, even when we lived in Alabama. What I didn’t realize though, is that Panera’s parent company is the St. Louis Bread Company, and that, aptly named, it’s centered out of St. Louis. That means that in the are of Illinois in which I live, there are all kinds of St. Louis Bread Company locations. We ate there tonight, because the novelty of the name made us feel like it was actually something new. 



I’m such a tourist.

After Panera, it was off to church softball, where the boys secured a well-deserved win and the crowd cheered them right along. I love these outings.

I feel like this will be a good week. I guess that’s mostly up to me, huh. J

xo | cmd