First. Day. Of. SPRING!

Dear Google,

You're right, this is what I would have liked to see on the first day of Spring: 

Instead, it's this:

8am in norwood.
lovely.

Swell, huh.

Fortunately, the day went by as not much more than a blur of ringing phones, interviews, shuffling papers and orders FILLED [because we're awesome like that]. It ended well after 6pm, and I decided after that it was time for a date with the Mister... because it's been one heck of a week and I feel like I haven't seen him at all.

Sushi it was! We wound up at the usual destination of Mango Tree in Mariemont, but not before I made a trip through Ace Hardware to pick up some hard hats and glasses for work. *Sigh. We do it all.. haha.

A couple of fun things happened during dinner.
First, my sister sent me these:

20s flapper party! 

My mom, sister and nephew are probably the cutest ever with this. Let's talk about how my mom for starters looks like she could by sisters with my sister.. She is gorgeous, amirite?! ♥ LOVE you guys.

Oh, and Becky invited us out to soccer after dinner. I debated over taking my gear, just in case, but with this sinus infection still rearing its head, I couldn't bring myself to do it, especially knowing I'm down to 1 week before departure to Panama. An awesome night of kicks isn't worth the irritation of having an extended sinus infection hiking through Panamanian mountainsides. Gahh. Choices.

soccer cityyyyy

I've officially become one of those spectators, who arrives in full civilian attire to an indoor soccer facility. I always said I'd never be that girlish sideliner, but there I was tonight. Talk about the opposite of what I'm usually doing there. Woops. Haha.

Anyway, it turned out to be a good night, but I'm tuckered out. I've already pre-emptively called off for a birthday outing I was set to attend tomorrow, because my body is still going through a fit of being 89 years old for some reason. Graahhhh.

Oh, and I'm due back at work at 8am tomorrow - Saturday - to take care of a couple of things, so yeah. There's that. We'll call it a night for now.

xo | cmd

Smoothies & [More] Panama Prep!

Guess where we went again.. today? 

can you guess? 

I'm not telling you. You'll have to guess.

... Ok I lied. It's Community Blend! The only reason I'm telling you that is because I want you to GO there & support them, as well. :)

ALSO.. THIS CAME TODAY & I AM SO ESSSSITEDSSS!!! [Excited, for those of you who don't speak my version of idiot...]:

1 step closer to panama!

This camera [supposedly] stands its ground when it comes to the outdoor elements and contained forces of gravity [ie, don't throw it off a building]. It's exactly what I think? I need for Panama, as the vision in my head of what I would manage to do with a regular digi cam kind of scares me. Haha.

We'll see.
NINE DAYS TO GO!

xo | cmd 

Sick Day, Hey Hey...

So this was me:

.... for about 10 hours today.
Awesome.

I don't take a sick day unless I feel like I'm physically inches from death; today was one of those days. What you don't see in that picture is how I even got the joy of crawling from room to room when I needed something, for fear that my head might literally explode if I stood upright, and I just didn't see it a mess that any of us needed to deal with.

The GOOD NEWS: I got a call from Grand Sands somewhere around... afternoon [I have no idea what time anything happened today... gahhh], that a spot in the Wednesday 6's league had opened, and while we're just a 4's team, we could have the vacancy if we wanted.

Ummm... NO brainer. The first game was tonight, which I missed out on, but I'm pretty excited to get back on the sand with Paul, Beth & Martin!

But yeah, for now.. this is all I've got. Womp womp :(

Sicky sicky sick....

xo | cmd

Job Fairs & Coffee!

Well folks, it was gorgeous out today, which we determined would be the perfect setting to head south for a St. Patrick's Day hiring event at the Radisson in Covington! Thanks to Tana and Brad, we snagged ourselves a booth at the expo and spent the day shaking hands and people watching with some of our local competitors, schools and businesses. These things are a blast.

express onsite!
elisa & cori 

Another benefit of these things, aside from time away from the office, is that when they're in cool venues like the Covington Radisson, you get lunch in the 360 restaurant at the top, for free. Pretty awesome. Sidenote, I need to bring Rob down here sometime for a date night.. haha.

lunch, courtesy of the radisson!

panoramic :) 

isolated view of the city ♥

Once we'd wrapped up with the hiring event, we began our ascent north from Kentucky back into Ohio, en route to the office.

We got hung up for a minute once we hit Montgomery; there's this little coffee shop situated on a corner near the highway entrances, and while I've driven by it several times now, up until today I'd not stopped to check it out.

Elisa and I are pretty good at scouting out new digs, so we took a small advantage of the beautiful day and stopped in. I am SO glad we did!

1. This is a co-op. That in itself is pretty flippin' cool. They're about as local as it gets.
2. They have a mango smoothie there that is to die for. I know this because I got it, it was gone in a matter of minutes, and I already want another one.

community blend! 

coffeee... coffeeeeeee & more coffeeeeee!
& mango smoothies!!! #perfect

Not a bad way to spend a Tuesday! There was a lot of talent today at the hiring event, and although the first truly nice day of the year doubled with it being St. Pat's was likely the deterrence from what otherwise would've been a packed house, I'm still grateful for the opportunity and glad that we went!

And maaaaaaaaybe, if we're lucky, this means the weather's going to start staying beautiful.. Oh, I dunno... consistently???

Or maybe not. We do live in Ohio. Doesn't hurt to dream though, right? ;)

xo | cmd

Yogis & Schtuff. (Repeat).

It's Monday.
It was beautiful out there today.

Elisa agreed:

office breaks & sunshiiiiiiiiine! 

I got back to the office & found that I'd been delivered my first of perhaps many Yogi Surprise boxes!

This is absolutely their marketing taking effect, but I'd always wanted to check it out.. so, even if I only do this for a short time, it's better than never trying it out. I've already used the Rad Roller & would definitely recommend.

Pretty boring stuff for a Monday, but hey... there's the rest of the week to catch up ;).

Enjoy with gusto, blogbots!

xo | cmd

Ides of March.. & A Tired Brain

What do you do the day after Supercross?

NOTHING. You do NOTHING.
And you ENJOY it.

Rob stayed the night with Dylan and Dillon in Indy last night, so they were on the road still by the time church came around. I went solo, enjoyed an incredible message and shared it with Rob when he did make it back.

I was reminded of a couple things today:

1. Don't do laundry when you're tired. You will probably [if you're me] not use the important parts of your brain, and end up putting a red sherpa blanket in the same load as wool socks. You will spend about 40 minutes at the end of that mistake hand-plucking red strings off your socks.

good job tired brain. 

2. It being the Ides of March, I went rogue for dinner and started a massacre not of people [because I just... don't do all that], but of random items of food in my kitchen. It turned out to be a very successful venture - a little mixed up, but hey.. who's perfect?

redemption, tired brain. 

Whew. I love doing things on weekends, but it's the day after that always feels like a 9-ton truck ran over my brain and body.. here's to some early SLEEP & a good start to the week tomorrow!

xo | cmd

St. Patrick's Supercross!

Weeeeeellp.... we planned on an earlier start than what we got this morning, but it turned out pretty daggone good, all things considered. That's just like us, isn't it? ;)

So we got moving finally, Rob and I, on the road to Indianapolis, to rendezvous with Dillon & Dylan and continue on to the 2015 Supercross. This would not be a repeat of our time here in 2013, we were certain, but there were plenty of jokes to go around that it would be just as interesting..

The drive to Indianapolis is a range of trees, city and overpass driving; we made it with no issue to the outskirts of the city, where we met up with D&D at the hotel we'd planned to stay the night. I'm sure at one point it had seen days of glory, but the honest truth about it now is that it's a shady, rundown dive that scared me a little just being there to check in.. haha.

The four of us made our way into the city, where the traffic was already dense; it's St. Patrick's Day weekend in Indy. There was a marathon taking place early in the day, on top of streets closed for St. Pat's festivities. On the edge of all that was Supercross, where we were going.

heeeeeeeere we go! 

We parked eventually and met up with some of the other guys who came in from Illinois for the event, and hung around with them for a while before we eventually got separated inside the Lucas Oil Stadium a few hours later. The tickets we bought came with pit passes, so we took advantage of those and explored the pit areas with a few thousand of our closest fan friends.

millsaps

mitch payton

Before long, it was time for the races to start; Rob's boss & his wife met with us, and the last two last-minute entries were soon behind them: Becky & Mike! Poor Becky - bikes doing laps in the dirt for 4 hours really wasn't her thing, but she was a solid sport and seemed to at least enjoy the company if nothing else.. haha. [[Thanks again, Becks, for coming!!]

chip. beth. dylan. dillon. rob. cori. becky. mike. 

and this.. waiting on the 450s to start .. 

Dungey took 1st place in the main 450 event, which seemed to be a generally-predicted outcome, but as always, proved to be an edge-of-the-seat sight to watch.

dungey! 

We wrapped up at the stadium with no issue, and somehow made it to and into seats in the restaurant of Chip & Beth's hotel without much of a wait at all. Some late night grub to wind down, and then the decision of how the rest of the evening would be spent. Mike & Becky came to the conclusion that they weren't really feeling the vibe of staying overnight, especially since we were all slated to share a hotel room. After some consideration, I voted to ride back with them, which I later realized was a perfect decision..

a shot we shared for mare! 

Oh, and this is just a little backdated. We got here around 1am last night, and there was no room for blogging at that point. Either way, it was an excellent time with awesome people, and a sure improvement on the first go-round.. haha.

Happy Supercross!

xo | cmd