Things of Tuesday

Here's an appropriate meme to describe both today and how I felt about today walking into it:

basically.

Of course, being the intentional optimist I wish I could effortlessly be, I've already considered the fact that this is a 4-day week, and that is awesome. It's going to be a loaded week, but hey, it's cool.

First, Carri starts tomorrow! She's our new sales gal, and I'm pretty pumped to get her on board. Dave set up her desk today with a gorgeous blue orchid, to greet her when she gets in in the morning.

re-positioned by yours truly; dave is great, but he's
still a guy with guy decoration skills ;) 

And then there was the lunch I brought: leftovers from last night's feast, and if I may say so, almost better the second time around.

sweet potatoes + parmesan crusted chicken + green beans

Aaaaand, I set out on a quest to find some last-minute items/gifts for Sydni's upcoming birthday celebration this weekend. Based on a web search, I was confident I would find what I needed at Bed Bath & Beyond.

I didn't, but what I did find was good enough, and although I didn't buy it, I'm glad to know this stuff exists... because yenno, some people are into that kinda thing ;)

i said some people. not this person. ;) 

Lastly, to cap off what felt-kinda-like-Monday-but-was-actually-one-day-closer-to-the-weekend,-yay!, a sushi date night with my main squeeze.

i am spoiled. 

Turns out this Tuesday wasn't so grimacing after all ;)

xo | cmd

Succulents, Take 2 | Bluegrass Bandstand

Today was a good day!

Elisa and I started it off with a lunch hour trip to Findlay Market. We've decided this will be a standard practice now, at least once monthly, if we can swing it. We rarely get out of the office for a full hour, so we figured if we were gonna do it, we would do it.

Okay, so again our staged rebellion was actually driven moreso by my story about how Rob & I fed our venus fly trap a bug last night; she decided she wanted one for the office, and I thought it'd be fun to have one back here at my desk, too.


pretty lil babies!!

I couldn't decide between two of those little beauties, so I just bought both, thinking I'd keep one for the office and give one to Rob as a present since he was thoroughly entertained by mine yesterday.

Elisa got a couple succulents and a venus; we're obsessed. Hah.

elisa's succulents

tiny traps in their car seat ;)

We of course ate some food while we were there, before hopping back in the car right before the rain started pelting down again. We got lucky. Back at the office, Elisa managed to find an unfortunate bug clinging to a wall, and did what Rob and I did yesterday - fed them to her plant. Haha. It's going to be the office version of The Hunger Games for the little bugs that keep buzzing around our desks.

After work, it was home for a quick change, then right back out the door down to Washington Park for the Bluegrass Bandstand. Kalyn was working with the Mt. Carmel Brewery team, and it wasn't long before we had the whole group there.

bluegrass bandstand

brought this guy (:

love him!

Of course Eli's BBQ made an appearance, but StreetPops showed up and brought a little cool-down to the party, too.  

what before picture?

We brought our smiles... 

kalyn. kelsey. cori. brittany.

And this other super tall guy brought his super tall guy-ness..

thumbs up from kelsey

All in all not a bad night! Friends, bluegrass, BBQ and brew - No complaints here!  

 

G'Nite!

 

xo | cmd

MONday Funday

Mondays usually give me some amount of anxiety, just from the inherent nature of Monday itself. Today though, while it was stacked top to bottom at work, proved to be busy but manageable. That's rare, for what I do, especially on Mondays. Haha. I'm not complaining.

Post-work was a continued contradiction to what Mondays usually bring. Sydni is back this week, and our first order of business was a little yard and garden work.

Over the weekend, Rob's mom gave us a couple of plants to get started. I decided this would be the perfect project for Sydni. She seemed to agree, wholeheartedly, when we parked ourselves on the front porch tonight to work on it!

let's get started!
[& yes, that's her chalk drawing of a cross on a hill.. ♥♥]

I'm convinced this little girl can do anything.

potted plant success
look at my little gardener!!

Excited!

i'm exciiiiiiited!

With the potted plants out of the way, she was ready to move on to the big leagues:

i'm digging... and i'm diiiiigging...

And to cap it off:
Watching that clip again now, I hear the bossy little girl from Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory in my head making obsurd demands. So to clarify, no, Syd's not as spoiled as this clip makes her sound. I couldn't help but trade my garden gloves for the camera though as she fought with one pesky mosquito and several gnats that kept intruding on her workspace.

Either way, if she wants to claim a garden of all things, I'm not gonna stop her ;)
She's just like her mama.. haha.
G'Nite!

xo | cmd

Illinois & In Betweens

We're home. In Ohio.

Earlier today, we were still in Illinois. It was a much warmer day than yesterday, which made for a perfect time relaxing outside for a bit before we climbed back in the car for the 5-hour homeward trek.

sweet. bitter. bittersweet.
illinois to ohio, ohio to illinois...

After breakfast, we dropped by Rob's dad's house. They've made some major headway in some home renovation projects they're doing, including the outline for a pool. We spent a couple hours there visiting and chatting with them.

Most of that time was spent with a happy Travis parked on my lap. Sure, he's all of 75 pounds, but hey, who's counting? 


travis!

sunshine & a happy pup!

 Then of course there was Toby:

he didn't want in the chair ;)

And when Travis finally decided he wanted some shade, too..  

happy boys

The "see you soon"'s came before we wanted them to, but we managed through it, and headed onward to say the same to Rob's mom. We spent a little time there of course, too, admiring the blossoms and checking out her screen room projects. She's got some monster blooms in her yard, and gave us a few little ones to take back to Sydni.

beautiful blossoms!

She recently did a furniture upgrade on her patio and now has some chairs that I decided today were exactly what we need for our dining room table. We looked at several chairs of the same structural style, but of course either upholstered, leather or just plain frame with seat cushions. Nothing so far has seemed to really sway me, until I saw these. Our table's a finicky thing to try and match, but I know that these will work just fine.

dark wicker highbacks.
#want.

I'll keep you posted on when we acquire some of these for our dining room ;)

Speaking of our dining room, fast forward through the road trip itself to the fact that we're back in it now, laughing at the note Mike & Becky left for us on the back of a small shipping envelope they'd found somewhere in the house:

hahaha

If you can't read it, it says:

BECKY KILLED YOUR SCREEN DOOR HANDLE (SHE'S BLAMING THE DOGS.. BUT THAT'S JUST TOO COMPLICATED. & I JUST FOUND OUT, TOO LATE TO FIX... HMMM). HOPE IT WAS A GOOD TRIP. - MIKE

Hahaha. I thought about rubbing this in Becky's face out of good fun, but since the latch on the back screen door has been jamming for the past few weeks, I decided I'd just wait and give her grief about something else ;)

 

Plus, I decided at the last minute to do lunches for us for tomorrow. Here's to healthy living, both at home and at work!

hers & his ♥

Phew. What a day. I'm outta here.

See ya, tomorrow!

 

xo | cmd

Tunes & Blooms: The Finale

Today was one of those days at work; for the most part, everything on our plates usually runs smoothly. However, when there is a problem, it's usually a pretty big one, and today was no exception to that. I was challenged today.. really challenged to comprehend the breaking point that pushes some people to act so violently in an unprovoked situation. I now have an employee with a broken wrist because of the erratic outrage of a random person. It makes me furious to think about it, still.. but our employee is handling it better than I probably, and he's going to be okay. Right now, that's all that matters.

In other news, Rob and I both needed a bit of a breather, so we joined Mike & Becky at the last round of Tumes & Blooms at the zoo. We've only gone to one other one so far, but wanted to make it out for one last hoo-rah.

There of course were the tunes:


bluegrass @ tunes & blooms!

There were friends... 

hi, friends! 

love love love 'em.

... there were flowers...

beautiful!

.. and of course, there were friends and flowers!

goofball.

Oh! And there's a new baby at the zoo! We caught a tiny peek of little [by little, I mean 5'11" tall and 150 some lbs..] Nasha's head while we were there; she was in the giraffe den nestled up against a far wall, so no full shots today. I did however find a video of her from TWO days ago when she was born!

Yay, baby animals! (:
We wrapped up at T&B when our stomachs started growling, and made a getaway to Comet in Northside for dinner. Tofu quesadilla it was, and of course a selfie... because... well, because lumberjack hats and PBR. That's why.

duh. (:

I'm totally shameless about that hat. Yes, it's quite the furry head accessory, but we took the bike out tonight and I'll give ya one guess as to whose head wasn't cold on the trips to and from.. E|:)

Happy Thursday, blogbots!!

xo | cmd

[Satur]Day of Play!

Today's Highlight Reel:

1. Good morning, happy pup!!
>>> Stella is the stoic of the two, and since she rarely smiles to express herself, this was a rare glimpse of the cheesy face I love so much!

stella pittie!

2. Breakfast! Nom Nom Nom...
>>> I woke up with a craving for French Toast. So, I made French Toast.

delish!

3. Princess Cycling Gear.
>>> We broke out the bicycle for her first spin of the season at the house. We discovered some new parts of the neighboring areas and Syd proved she's just about ready for the training wheels to be weened away!

go go go!

4. Fields of Golden Flowers.
>>> Or, just our yard. While it certainly looks pretty, these little buddies will unfortunately disappear in the next couple of weeks when the lawn mower comes out. 

still kinda pretty ;)

 That meant some serenading [of the Frozen soundtrack, duh] from my theatrical little monster.. ♥

let it GOOO

candid running faces.. haha

more uh... jazz hands?

field of little flowers (:

5. The Scariest Donut I've Ever Seen.
>>> In a moment of extraordinary weakness, I caved and bought this disgusting star-shaped, overly-frosted, sprinkle & gummy crap-covered thing for Sydni. I had zero intentions of letting her eat this entire donut, but she was being good and caught me in a moment of generosity, so yeah. If you're wondering, I took one tiny bite of this thing and decided it was just as disgusting as it looks. I really don't know how people could eat these things all the time and not have heart attacks. Oh, well...

goooood grief.

6. My Family.
>>> These two are my everything.  Today it was team turquoise, apparently.. haha.

my little world ♥

7. Grilling Out With Becky!
>>> An impromptu visit from Becky, who joined us for dinner, suffered a gigantic foot splinter from our deck and still agreed to come back and dogsit for us. There rarely are better friends. (: Hopefully my bribing of homemade mac n' cheese along with Rob's perfectly-grilled chicken & potatoes were enough to alleviate the unfortunate 2.5" splinter that she had to remove from her foot.. haha.

best way to recover from giant splinters?
.... cloudgazing, apparently (:

So aside from gigantic fragments of our deck splintering off into our guest's foot, I suppose we have no complaints from today. Thankfully it was Becky, who is probably my most durable friend. Haha.

Splinter is gone, sun is fading and everyone's happy again. (:
That's a good Saturday!

xo | cmd

TGIF.

TGIF.

Yeah, I know... cliche title for a Friday post.... but ya know what? I can't remember the last time I was this thankful for a Friday to roll around. It's been something of an.... eventful week, more or less.

I got dressed in real grown-up clothes this morning and chuckled at the fact that I've been so used to business casual Monday through Thursday, and having casual Fridays. This week, because we've been in the final threads of set-up here, we were casual all week, and now dressing up on Friday. (*whew) It's not really that funny, but it's a nice change.

Oh, and I thought I'd stop by Kroger on the way in and snag some cute little orchids to brighten up our desk spaces. I found a purple one for Elisa, even. :) On top of that, all of my pictures are now hanging or sitting in their respective places, so I feel like I'm home. Here we go, Express.....

brighten up the day :)

love seeing these beautiful faces ..  family & friends - every day!

Anywho, D&N [I'm not quite used to it yet; I just typed and deleted M&D... : / ...] were kind enough to grant me an early leave today at 3pm to start my trip back to St. Louis for the weekend. I need to get the e-check done on my car, and Rob's mom got us tickets to an REO Speedwagon/Ted Nugent/Styx concert this weekend. Two reasons I'd say are justifiable enough to get me back there for a couple of days :).

That's not to discount the rest of the day though. Friday was anything but slow; yesterday we'd scheduled our first round of interviews for today, and we didn't stumble too much through the flow of things. Luckily for both Elisa and I, we were trained by some of the same people, so we came together already having a very similar process. Oh, the small victories!

So yeah. We've all survived the first week of managed chaos here at the brand spankin' new Express office of Central Cincinnati, not to be confused with Cincinnati North or East ;). I'm excited to really start digging into everything next week and find our paths of flow and function.

For now, I'm outta here. I aced the five-hour drive back to Illinois, have successfully been fed AND got to see Alicia (: (: ... and now I've got a boyfriend to see (:

hey, alicia!! (: 

Happy weekend!

xo | cmd

Going Away Party : Part 2

Today, step 1: Stop at the gas station and get coffee.

I ran into Ali as soon as I got there, which wasn't that surprising. What brought me to my senses was the group gift from the crew working at the gas station. See, I've gotten my coffee from the same place nearly every day for the past two years, and in the course of doing so gotten to know each of them a little here and there.

Long story short, they paid for my coffee, gave me an extra muffin and a styrofoam cup filled with beautiful orchids. How many people get that from their gas station staff? How much am I going to miss all of these sweet people???

I walked into work covered with things that I've received as gifts over the past couple of days and weeks here. It was not a horrible way to start my last day here at this place....

scarf: deshawn | flowers: gas station crew
camera lens coffee mug: ali

I had no idea my coworkers had all decided on their own version of a going-away token for me, either.

this, from kyle, of course.. haha.. thanks...

More amazingly, the owl-themed battery of things by which I will remember these people, and enough hugs to last me for a few weeks at least, without them. :/ Haha. Seriously though, I was floored, and walked around for the rest of today covered with owls. I tried to take pictures of everything, but realized I missed the picture of the 1.5-foot tall garden owl that Marc & Diana gave me... to perch in the garden I'll one day have and fend off any intruders....

owl earrings: andi | owl necklace: linda
random turtle earring? - well, it's ali's, from andi, but looked cute with an owl.
owl ornament: marybeth | paper owl: andi | owl scarf: deshawn

Oh, and I cried some. A lot, actually. Like the sissy that I am when it comes to saying goodbyes to people I love. The good news is, we managed to take some great pictures in between the tear fits.

besties | linda.cori.kyle

DRUM ROLL....................

................. CAKE!!
- It's okay, you can get excited. I did. I really did. Andi, our resident baker extraordinaire, came to work today bearing a SMORES CAKE in honor of our potluck. Add that to the fried chicken, pasta salad, Linda's signature [lettuce+] salad, fruit & veggie trays, asiago cheese breads from Bread Co., and drinks, I'd say lunch went well.

Cake. Amazing. I might still be drooling, hours later as I write this. Oh well.


you can totally be jealous. it's okay.
... hello, andi's smores cake. y-u-m.

Oh, and as promised, here's what that frame that Ali got me... looks like with pictures of people we actually know.

frame!! ♥ ♥

*sigh. Lots of crying was done at work today. It's all right though. I'm not actually losing any of these people, just moving on to different places. It could always be worse. ;)

Dinner tonight was at Chubby's in Alton with Rob's mom and stepdad. It was great to see them both and forget to take pictures.... -__- ........... way to go, Cori.... I know, I've been doing a lot of that lately. No worries, though; I'll see them next weekend when I'm back to visit.

chubby's | alton, il

I'm... tired. We leave tomorrow morning for my final move to Ohio. We get to rent a car in the morning, too, so that Rob can get back to Illinois. I just decided I need to turn my brain OFF for now and just go to sleep.

Love & more love to you.. happy weekend, friends!

xo | cmd