Winter Road Trip

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so bold when it came to driving through weather patterns.
But then again, I don't wish that, because I live in the mid-west. If I were squeemish, I'd never see anyone in the winter months. :p

So it's Cincinnati, and that means when we call for Snowmageddon like we did today, we will either get it, or get like, light rain for a couple hours and then 60degree temps the following day. We're hot and cold here.. literally.

We were all captivated today by the fact that as we left our houses for work between 6-7am, it was nearly 60degrees. By noon it was 12. By 3pm, freezing rain was making all the windshields gross in the parking lot, and by the time we left the office, everything was just a big ice cube with population topography.

Thanks, Nick, for taking the initiative to scrape all our windshields! :)

nick, easily the most dedicated in the office

This is the drive home at 5pm, versus an hour and a half later when we were back on the road heading to Illinois:

welp.

Again, it would be nice if somehow my brain would register that maybe, just maybe.. some ideas aren't great. But then again, my brain also works under the pretense - correct in this case - that it would eventually quit being crap weather and the drive would be fine... which eventually, it was, but not before it was complete crap and a freeway free-for-all for two hours:

Whatevs. It's super late, we made it to Kenny & Taryn's, and I'm gonna have to catch back up in the morning - I'm toast.

Stay safe, midwesters. It's nasty out there. ♥
TGIF!

xo | cms

Quick Visits with Nana & Pappy!

It was a muggy morning as we headed off to church, but the blessings for the effort came tenfold as we sat and let Pastor Chad feed us the message of the day. We continued through the life stories laid out in the book of Genesis, this time focusing on Jacob and his brother Esau. As I sat in the sanctuary with Rob, I let the moments of humility take over me, through the life lessons absorbed by Jacob.

After church, Rob and I headed home, where we did what Sundays declare: Relax. It wasn't much, but at the same time it was everything. We curled up together in the corner of the couch like we usually do, and just sat.. together. I said a prayer of unfiltered gratitude for the 'here and now' that was a stark  contrast to the 'then and there' this same time last week. My best friend should be in much rougher condition right now, but he isn't and there's no one to thank for that other than the one who made us all in the first place.

In a couple hours, my parents and Sydni pulled up to the house; Sydni came bursting in with a tupperware container filled with two rocks: one big and one small. The big one was painted with a flower, which was for Rob and me, and other, with a red and yellow "rainbow," for her. We said our formalities and visited for a few brief moments before we were out the door lunch at Fire House.

My family cracks me up. First, my dad and Sydni, dueling it out over lunch with their thumb wars. Sydni's starting to learn and apply new strategies to try and beat everyone; she's a crafty little thing!!

it's all out war! 

Hahaha. THEN, there's my mom, who brought along pictures from their mini getaway, but for some reason also brought with her some gems she resurrected from the archives of her in her 30's. I hate to say it, but blonde just wasn't your color, Mama. She agrees with me, but regardless, my mama was a babe! Haha..

then & now! :) 

As encouragement for her to get back in and stay in the water, Nana & Pappy got Sydni some new eyewear:

this chick... hahaha

It's been storming on and off all day, and although it was a downpour when we got to the restaurant, it stopped by the time we were finished. Mom and Dad headed their separate way, and we journied on home for an evening of catch up after Syd's vacation up in the Vern.

I spent a small part of the evening doing some meal prep for the week, which relaxes my mind in the present and gives me the assurance that we're both eating well throughout the week, too.

nommmssss

all packed up & ready to go! 

It wasn't long until the boxes from the smoker turned themselves into a "house," and then that house somehow merged with another box and became a bigger house, complete with curtains and a window.

These are the things I miss when she's not here, and these are the things that that I needed more than I realized, especially after the events of last week and the recovery from them throughout this week.

We're home :)

xo | cmd

SEMI FINALS!!!

TODAY. WAS. THE. DAY!!!!

omgaaaah.. 

and this one. 

I spent the entire day amped up over the game, and even though Becky and I didn't make it to Montreal today, I'm fortunate to have a viewing area big enough at home to [kinda] compensate for not seeing the ladies in person on the field.

Anyway,

#solo

#harris

#morgan

#krieger

#leroux

Ob.SESSED. 

It'd been raining for the greater part of the late afternoon/early evening, so when I turned into my neighborhood, I wasn't surprised to see it a bit tousled from the storm. Small bits of trees and branches were down and fresh leaves and twigs were strewn across all the lawns. My backyard has a particularly larger ticket item sitting on my shed [which appears at first glance to remain unharmed], that we will have to deal with on a night other than World Cup Semifinals:

well that's.. just.. very nice, storm. thanks. :/ 

The storm not only took its toll on my backyard, but it knocked out the already so-reliable Time Warner Cable, leaving me with a pesky, stubborn and overall aggravating sight of the white screen telling me it's more or less thinking about thinking about letting us watch anything. It's a hit or miss every.single. game with TWC, so I wasn't surprised when we had to rally together and determine our contingency plan. 

That plan was set for Goodfellas, but that was dashed as soon as I arrived to find Tim & his family standing in line by the front door, without an open table in sight. We quickly weighed our options, and took a chance on running across the street to Latitudes. GOOD. DECISION. We snagged a table for 10, and before long there were 10 of us craning our necks in the direction of the big screen, where kickoff happened just as we were being seated. 

There are few sporting events on planet earth that will ever elicit the type of emotional response comparable to that of soccer. It's safe to say really that there are no other events that could do so. I've never traditionally considered myself a feminist, but our USWNT is a collection of the most talented, charismatic and patriotic athletes out there - after tonight's game, heck yeah I'm proud to be a woman, an American, an athelete/a soccer player and a supporter of these ladies paving their own way to World Cup victory.

No, it wasn't Abby's 2012 goal against Brazil, but it was an absolutely beautiful sight nonetheless to see our team challenge Germany and come out on top. 

I snagged this from ussoccer_wnt's IG, which sums up the night in what words just can't... 

#lloyd #ohara

I. Love. This. Team. Love It. 

Congratulations, USWNT! Here's to ONE. MORE. GAME against the winner of tomorrow's matchup. Just a few more days.. YOU CAN DO IT! 

And to this group [minus 2], thanks for hanging out and hanging in there together! I couldn't have hand-selected a better group to roll with on a night like this! :) 

@ latitudes

U-S-A! U-S-A! 

Let's go get it, ladies!

xo | cmd

Food, Football, Addicting Games & Tornado Warnings

As I promised, I headed off to SonRise this morning for my second installment of the Relentless series. I'll tell ya what, when there's a message meant specifically for you, it's meant FOR you. This time it was all about maintaining relenting faith under pressure, under unfavorable odds and especially when we are called to step outside of our comfort zones.

 

I checked the church's website, but they've not yet uploaded the podcast of today's message. I did however, find the one that rocked Rob and I last week; it's never too late to share some good news. It's a little long [well, standard sermon length but timely for a blog entry], but it's good nonetheless.

 

Enjoy, and I'll try to get today's up here ASAP.

After work, I had two goals:
1. Retrieve my debit card from P.F. Chang's from last night, where I signed my bill and left my card in the little holder thing. [You can face palm that one, it's okay.]
2. Make it out to Brittany's house.

I accomplished the first, and the second greeted me with a welcoming surprise: they had cooked brunch and had it laid out pretty much in front of me when I walked in the door. It wouldn't be a complete experience without scrambled eggs, homemade hasbrowns, fresh fruit, bacon [not for this allergic kid, womp womp...] & of course, mimosas.

And then.. an afternoon cozied up watching the Bengals game.
It's about TIME...we whooped up on the Browns.

cozying up to some WHODEY action!

I noticed at one point during some replays that all four of my friends were curled around their cell phones playing CANDY CRUSH. I couldn't help but take a picture, for the sake of showing them the visible proof of their addictions. Joe even looks to be fist pumping a victory over a level. I'm not judging; honestly, I've never even thought to play it, but it's still fun watching and hearing other people do it.

candy crush-aholism.
brittany. joe [yesssss! #fistpump]. kalyn. keifer.

Keifer eventually headed out for work, and the daylight started to wear down. We started watching North Country, but were thwarted by all the tornado warnings and watches going on in the area. It was literally raining sideways across Brittany's backyard, and all over the news were pictures of damage here locally, but more seriously devastation in parts of Illinois and some other areas. My heart broke for the people caught in the path of this, and I am so thankful that, even though we ate dinner [delicious, thank you, Joe!] in the basement and had weather alerts as background music through it, that we and those all around us are safe, untouched by the storm.

little red riding pup!

^ Daisy, especially, seemed grateful for another night cozying up to everyone on the couch.. and now that her cone is gone, she's as happy as ever. So is little Maddie, creepin' there in the background.

I'm home now, glad to have the rain and wind gone.
It's another week to conquer, starting tomorrow.
I'm ready. (:

xo | cmd

It's Uhh, Raining... Let's Cook.

Andi told us yesterday that our area would be under a flood warning until sometime on Friday. We had a hard time initially believing that since there wasn't a cloud in the sky when she said it.

..... We live in the midwest. Why would I have thought the weather would be temperamental??! It rained today. It rained a lot today. I came across a few pictures from friends who live down on the air force base; apparently there are several places in the area that look this way today. My thoughts go out to everyone who's been affected by flooding. It's been one heck of a week.

whoa. flood.

It was a craaazy busy day at work, which is no surprise. We managed to capture Linda in a moment of song, though, and that definitely brightened the day. It's a shame we never caught footage of her and I doing a duet on this song, but I really don't enjoy videos of myself all that much as it is, so this was just fine ;)

Work aside, I made a stop at the store to grab a few things and headed back to the house. Rob got off work early today, so he was already there. I made a start into dinner, as promised yesterday: stuffed peppers. It's been a long time since I've made these, and it's a different recipe than I'd used before, so I admit I was a little nervous. They came out just fine though; I have to admit, I was pretty proud of them ;) 

potatoes & peppers... yummm

Not too bad! And to follow it up, cookies! One of the guys at Rob's work was selling cookie dough for his kid, so we opted for a random baking session to round out the evening. I've gotta hand it to him, this boy's quite the baker. Oh, and SHOUTS to Kanice for the awesome ninjabread men cookie cutters! We put them to good use!

ninjabread men!

We had some photobooth fun, too. [//edit! I promised to add a few of the photobooth goodies. It's more like, a couple - two exactly, to be precise. Oh well. You'll be okay]

what...? 

.... you thought these were gonna be normal? ;) 

xo | cmd

Thunderstorm Hump Day

Spring is here, folks.

It's been beautiful outside for the past few days; I wasn't all that surprised to see a storm roll across the radar for today, and weirdly enough, I was sort of looking forward to it. I have a weird fascination with storms; I've always had that, ever since I could remember. There are too many people from my childhood who would quickly tell you that I'd be the first one out in the pouring rain [sans any lightning, of course].. funny enough those people were probably right there with me. I'm a bumpkin at heart, I know... I can't help it. I love watching a good storm if I can't be a part of it.

I got my wish tonight. It definitely stormed.
... And stormed.
... And just lulled me off to sleep [I'm back now].

It's gonna be an early one, kids. I've got Rob & Stella [missing 1... Sydni..... :( ], raindrops are fallin' and I'm lovin' it.

xo | cmd

SNOW DAY!

.... Ok, so it's a Sunday, sure, but you know what... it can still be a snow day. We didn't hate it.

We definitely gave ourselves some good old fashioned cabin fever today. Sydni woke up earlier than all of us.. she was ready to go as soon as she saw the snow coming down in sheets. We all stood around for a few minutes just staring out at the snow covered neighborhood before making the executive decision not to attempt heading out in it for church. It worked for Syd, since her plan for the first half of the day was to stay in PJ's and roll around on the floor with Stella. Haha.

lazy cuddle buddies

I made the signature weekend breakfast for these two yesterday, so today we opted for cereal and toast... and coffee... it worked out just fine. We settled in for a few hours of mindlessness: Rob got on COD mode, Marianne continued in her quest to scour the perfect dyed pixie cut photo off the internet, and Stella found out that she has been granted permission to gnaw on all of NONE of the plush animals in this house. I decided at one point that I couldn't stand it any longer. I wanted to make a snow angel.

So I did.

.. on the deck. Don't judge.

snow angel time

You thought I was kidding, huh. NNNope. Nobody else had any snow gear with them, so while Sydni took a nap, I dug the Spyder suit out of the closet, and once donned from head to toe in snowboard attire, took to the yard and all 7-ish inches of pristine snow with Stella. I found out that when it's Cori vs. Stella in a yard full of snow, Cori is a bowling pin and Stella is a renegade wrecking ball. Stella 1. Cori 0. Oh well. We still managed to have the perfect time romping around for a little while before retreating back into the house.

And then there's [more] photobooth! This time, we captured Marianne in a moment of intensity, the result of some chirpy, pitchy soundtrack on one of the Netflix kiddo movies. I had to agree with her that the arrangement was offensive to pretty much every available sense, but the look of borderline terror mixed with disgust was still funny ;) 

hilarious. love that girl. 

Stella eventually started to go stir crazy, especially after hours on end of being scolded for carrying off some random stuffed animal. She started to fall apart, barking at thin air, when Marianne threw a blanket on her head and stopped her dead in her tracks. My dog may as well have gone temporarily blind. Hahaha..

invisibility cloak?? ..nope... you're doing it wrong.. haha

Hello.... cabin fever.

Hello...... Wal-Mart Run. 

... Yeah, it got bad. We finally decided on a mini-road trip, which was an adventure in and of itself [Rob's truck to tackle the snow + carseat  + beanie nation + standard other walmart clientele? = winnnnning if you're bored on a snow day.. haha]. We made it safely to, and back with some fruit, a few bones for Stella and some other random things. We even managed to get Marianne's car freed from its snowbank and into the garage, while Rob took to the cul-de-sac for some diesel donuts before we all headed back inside. Success. 

Sydni's down for the count finally, and I'm about to call it a night. That stupid thing called Monday is gonna hit me before I'm ready... I already know it. 

Boo. 

xo | cmd

Towerview Yardsale | Hail Storm?!

Rise and shine!

That's right. I was at church this morning, on a Saturday, earlier than I even leave my house every other day during the work week. Pretty insane, but absolutely for a good cause!

TOWERVIEW BAPTIST YARDSALE[is upon us!]



yard sale!

Back whenever we were immersed in our 40 Days in the Word study, each group was assigned to develop and execute a project based around Micah 6:8. It was aptly called the Micah 6:8 Project; our group was feeling especially zealous at the time and decided we would throw a churchwide yardsale. The proceeds from that would serve as funds for us to provide a day of free laundry at a local laundromat, and the remainder to go towards fulfilling a need of a local family. After that, if there was any left over, it would all go towards funding our youth group's local mission trip. For weeks, we've been staging the first step of this endeavor. 

[just a fraction] of the towerview family manning the event

It was 6:15 AM when I rolled into the Towerview parking lot. I was already behind schedule; half the crew was already assembled and hard at work toting all of the items out of the building for setup. I jumped right in and busied myself with aiding in the prep efforts. It was advertised that the yardsale wouldn't officially commence until 8AM, but by 7:50, we'd already made over $200 in sales for the early bird passersby.

mary. cori. lara
cash lane extraordinaires... ;)



It was a full day of register duty, assigned to Lara, myself, and Mary. The Pages were so gracious to serve as the childcare facility for the day; Sydni, Landon, Jacob, Alex, Raymond, Evan, and of course the Page girls spent the entire day I'm sure ransacking the Page house and playing to the point of exhaustion. A midday report from Adam confirmed at least that Sydni at one point wandered away from the noise and found a quick nap in Carlee's bed on her own accord. I sometimes wonder if she's not just a completely different child when she's at other folks' places... but I digress. Hah.

Anyhoot, the yardsale was an all day event, manned by the hands of Towerview Baptist, and attended by a few hundred people around the community. We watched as large ticket items like dressers, armoires, desks and tables were carted off, and we organized a bagging assembly line of sorts as the line of small-item buyers processed through the registers. It was an absolute blast!

havin' a little fun
jarod | becky & kallie | becky's new jessica rabbit getup ;)

Once it was all said and done, we broke down the remaining setup and loaded it into the truck that the Salvation Army sent over. It was amazing how quickly we tore that place down and restored it to its original operating order. Barely a trace of the mass event was visible by the time boxes were packed, tables dismissed, and floors swept. We made just under $1800 today, all of which will benefit local missions around our community, on behalf of our church. I. Am. THRILLED! Mary and I even found some less than conventional use for two of the Gobles' wheeled thingamajigs [I won't even pretend like I know what they're called....].

Exhausted but thrilled, Joe, Sydni and I regrouped at our house, expecting a calm remainder of the day.

Not so. 

hail?!



Mid-afternoon, the sky turned a dark grey, and Joe called me out onto the backporch where we both watched with wide eyes as the beginning of a funnel cloud swirled directly over our neighborhood. Jimmy & Mo called, asking if they could seek temporary, just-in-case refuge at our place since they are without basement; by the time they made it into our driveway, the hail was already coming down. We watched from the porch as it grew to the size of golfballs, pelting our neighborhood. We later saw pictures plastered all over Facebook of hail the size of softballs and cell phones that caused measurable damage to cars, buildings, and homes in some of our surrounding areas. Joe's already established that tomorrow is going to be a psychotically busy day for his business. Sad, but true.

We survived the rest of the afternoon and evening without much event... and with that being said, I think it's about time to call it. Here we come, work week. Here. We. Come.

xo | cmd

Nuclear Meltdown

Today was [kiiiiiiind] of a [dramtically] rough day. I'll spare you the details.

Long story short, I was reminded harshly today that the power of prayer is sometimes one of the few strands of solace we have. Today was a bit dark. Today felt like a nuclear meltdown.

FACT:

Once upon a time, I was born human.
I was born with human flesh, and human physiology.
I was born with human tendencies and emotions.
I was born with a super-human ability to make mistakes.
I am currently, in human fashion, tripping all over the place.

I am still loved because of that human status, by the Father.

He was once human, too, for a few minutes.

The book of James is one of my favorite books in the entire Bible, and today I had a flash of this intensely comforting passage:  

² Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

I will praise you in this storm.

xo | cmd

Temperamental Little Monday | MM7

Oh my good gracious, it was BEAUTIFUL outside all day today! It was a welcome breath of fresh air and sunshine to replace the dreary curtain of rain that's been hanging out here lately.

After work, I stopped to find a song to sing this Sunday at church. I found one [secret :) ] and also ended up snagging this little number. It's a little pop-ish for my taste, but she's got a great voice that's within my range, and many of her songs would be a good fit for singing during a service. I haven't made it all the way through the album yet, but it's decent so far.

I found myself afterwwards at Kalyn's doing the dinner thing with her and her family, and we finally sat down to tackle the task of hemming the dress for her mom's wedding [this Saturday]. I am very honored that she's entrusting her garb to our artistic interpretation of a seamstress. We are the wedding Macgyver's and we are on a friggin' roll!

1. Hem dress. 2. Learn songs [x2]. 3. Don't bomb songs on Saturday.

Oh yeahhhh.. You've gotta admit, we're ok when it comes to improvising. All you need is a little fabric tape, scissors, a sewing machine, and a box cutter. Don't ask about the box cutter. Ha. :)

Anywho, also had to stop for a minute to admire the abrupt change in the weather. There was enough buzz all night about possible tornado activity in the area, but all we saw was some rain and ominous clouds.

Not a bad kick-off to the week!

xo | cmd