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

Fancy Fridays

TGIF! 

Another week in the books, and another Friday to usher in the weekend!

I hit the road after work and made a beeline north for an hour to Beavercreek, which has happened more this year than it has in the last five.. but who's counting? Jennica's back in Dayton, and that's all that matters.

friday morning... vs. friday afternoon :) 

So let the twintastrophy begin.
Or something like that.

We made tentative plans to go canoeing tomorrow, so we decided I'd come up tonight and we'd kick off the weekend 12 hours early :). We started with dinner by the river, inside because it was raining outside... a fact we were fine with because it now freed us from having to get up early and stain her deck in the morning.. shhh..

dinner date! ♥

From dinner, we hit a row of nightcaps.. forgive me if I forget all their names; all I know is that this wonderful friend that I've known for almost 15 years is back in Ohio and barely an hour away. We'll have lots more nights like this and that makes my heart so, so happy.

[selfie station..]

Man.. this girl. I'm a firm believer in surrounding yourself with a tribe equally as - if not more - weird than yourself. They're the ones that push you to be your most authentic self; JS, you are definitely one of those and I couldn't be more thankful for our friendship... allllll 15ish long friggin' years of it. ;) 

Cheers to the weekend!

xo | cms 

Watch Your Words

Ok, I get it. Share it. 

I read through this this morning, and then hopped on Instagram and saw that one of my friends had read through the exact same thing and posted a picture of this same page to IG. And so I went and re-read it, because I felt like I maybe needed an extra application of it today. 

It's an excerpt from Jesus Calling for Graduates, by Sarah Young.

.. And today's entry reads [exactly] like this:

Jesus Calling for Graduates, by Sarah Young 

The first line of the second paragraph hit me like a brick:

Though the world applauds quick-witted retorts,....

Quick-witted retorts are the bread and butter in my arsenal of defense-driven responses. I'm naturally sarcastic, and though the witty part may be debatable [<P.S., that word has caused me so much irritation trying to spell it correctly...... ], I know that I am prone to wittyish responses as a reflex.

Something that I've learned and re-learned over the years is that when I am intentional not just about what I don't say, but also what I make a point to say, the results have a way of coming back and blowing my mind. It's not a complex theory, but it gets me every time. When I just... slow down.. and take the time to really download something, whether it's in conversation, situation or inside my own head, that's when things start to make sense in ways I don't consider when I'm going 110 mph.

I don't know if any of you needed that as much as I did today, but it couldn't have been a better day to remind me of where my words should originate, and what the motives behind them should reflect.

Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.
- Prov 12:18

Ooof. True, yeah?

I hope Thursday's been good to you all. I just got home from our weekly small group, which as always, comes at just the right time, every Thursday.

It's almost the weekend!

xo | cms

[Baby] A-aron!

Halfway through the week... made it!

Today was a blur at the desk, but well worth it, and end of the day showed up to move us from the work day to the dinner hour.

And I guarantee my dinner date was cooler than yours! ;)

gaahhh!

Seriously... he's the cutest new kid on the block, and ooookay, his parents are decent, too ;)

he literally is a tiny clone of his parents 

We set dinner at a central location, which also happens to be one of our favorites.... and should also happen to be where you go if you're ever over on Beechmont Ave around the dinner hour.

the stokes & the doeblers!

I have to brag on my dear friend Catie, because she's a stellar mom already and because although we haven't really had the time around life to get together as much as I'd like, we still pick up right where we left off.

a *quick* peek at the last decade... haha

And then today, when we tried to take a picture but kept remembering some likely 9-year-old memory that was way too funny and very likely just as, if not more.. ridiculous.

love you, beautiful friend! 

Happy Wednesday, blogbots! We made it halfway to the weekend! ;)

xo | cms

Hello, August!

Where did this summer go? I saw a quote earlier today or yesterday somewhere on Instagram: 

June & July lasted 4 seconds.

(They're not wrong).

I feel like this Summer has flown straight past me; I gathered that much when June hit and I was in Panama, and then proceeded to spend the rest of June out of state on the weekends. July wasn't much different. Now we're here, it's August 1st, and today was a GOOD DAY to slow down and enjoy it.

I got drafted to head northward for my office's weekly interview round-up in Warren County. Ashley's on vacation this week, and I'm the next closest geographically, so off I went this morning to Lebanon. It was a standard morning of interviews, new employee orientations... all the fun stuff that comprises my day-in-day-out. 

AND THENNNN.. 

helloooooooo, gorgeous!

I'd never been to the heart of Lebanon, so I typed in 'coffee' and waited to see what happened. As it turns out, there are at least four coffee shops/houses in cute little Lebanon, so I picked the first one and saved the rest to explore another day. 

I picked right. 

This is exactly what I picture when I think of quirky little cafe/coffee joints: It was tucked into a row of street-side businesses, decorated like a parlour, and covered with chalkboards and coffee-themed things. The board inside the doorway reads, 'FUN FACT: We have a different flavored coffee EVERY DAY!' And obviously this was where I was supposed to come, because I have an irrational desire for this stuff. 

^^ lampshade ceiling ^^ 

Approaching the counter to order food is a serious affair for me, although not as serious as trying to find a place to order the food in the first place. So I asked what the most popular dishes were on the menu, and was told that both the chicken salad sandwich and cornbread salad were award-winning (literally) items. Let's DO IT, because I am in no way a fan of making my own decisions at a food counter. 

how your food is delivered at royce cafe & coffeehouse:
ADORABLY.

I've never had so much non-salady salad on one plate. Frankly, I never even knew that was an option.

And then I saw this, which will be promptly displayed in my office when I get back to the homefront. I made it a point to thank the owner after this entire lunch experience for doing this, because not only is it a step and statement of faith to add scripture to a lunch order, but it told me that they'd thought well enough about how to encourage people, even if just for a second.

love, love, love.

On my way out, I ordered a Red Velvet Mocha, after again having asked for the most popular vote. Sure, let's do it... and omg this was the right choice kthanksi'llbebackbye. 

wifi password, also my life motto. 

SO FOLKS, if you're ever in or around Lebanon (OH), GO HERE. :)

And if you're ever in or around Eastgate (or Fairfield, don't forget!), go to Jungle Jim's and definitely buy escargot shells five-foot long dog ropes and mochi and most definitely 3 giant buckets of pop boba.

the filipino food aisle... 

Say yes to dog toys. Especially those that are taller than you and can withstand the force of two 70 pound dingos at home.

Today was a beautiful day, and August is here.
Let's do it!

xo | cms 

FCC v ROC

The alternate title for this entry was almost,

I'M SORRY, WHAT?! : An Open Letter to the USL Game Officials, and the Optometrists Who've Failed You

... and then I realized that a title like that just would't work aesthetically on the main page ;).

moderately unimpressed.

Ok, but really. Rob and I spent the majority of the morning running random errands after breakfast at PFC, agreeing that it was nice to actually be home with no pre-set agenda.

Becky touched in early afternoon and invited us last minute to the FCC game; of course we obliged, and at 7p we found ourselves 2 rows off the field watching FCC take the rhinos on home turf.

>>This is where I'd insert my rant of unchecked discontentment with all but maybe a couple of calls made out of our favor.<<


It's been easy for me to get lost in these games and forget that the majority of our home turf fanbase is comprised of newly-immersed soccer watchers, who haven't had the chance to really download the game of futbol - at least not in the way we've done so far with football, baseball and basketball. What matters, in my incredibly non-expert opinion, is that futbol's gaining some much-earned traction and attention here in the Queen City. As someone who played on the college platform on the exact same campus a decade ago, I can easily say the awareness now versus then is night and day.

love them.

And I love it.
And I love the crew that sits beside me through the adrenaline rushes and, in tonight's case, every single one of those ri.di.cu.lous yellow cards... haha.

Next time, boys.... next time. Phewwww.... g'nite!

xo | cms

Catching Up on 2017...

Well hello, old friend.

It's been exactly 4 months yesterday, since the last time I came here to scribble something - and if I remember correctly, it was something menial. Let me open this then with a bitter admission: I've accepted the fact that my days of blogging for the dual purpose of chronological time-mapping [for my future self] and flexing my penmanship.... are long gone.

Because not all change is bad, right?

I'm not sure where it came from, but I've felt a weird tug for the past couple of weeks that it was time to revisit this blog and just start writing. If there's anything I've learned about myself in the past 30+ years, it's to never ignore that tug. This morning, I didn't have one singular thing weighing on my mind, rather that weird cloud of all the things that just sort of hung around the outskirts of my thoughts. By the afternoon, smaller, focused thoughts, and by the time I left the gym tonight, I was floating in a mental pond of Cori.

.... what a wretched analogy, sorry.

So let's see. Since the end of March alone, the universe has taken full liberty of reminding me that what I have planned is a laughable rough draft of what I'll get. My agenda has very little to do with my life in realtime, other than positioning myself at a when-and-where.... and even that's iffy.

damanji. ♥ you, friend! 

For starters, immediately after my last entry, Damanji shipped off to Turkey for the next year[ish]. We dressed up as mannequins from a Gadzook's display and sent him off with a night of drinks, dancing and a blur of 90s-inspired plaid and Converse. Born from that were some new friendships [both a broccoli-hater AND a Liverpool fan made the ranks, I KNOW, it's been a weird year...], rehashing favorite old memories and accepting that Damanji won't be physically around to annoy and humor us for at least the next 11 months.

And then Angela moved to Boston.
And Nick to Croatia.
And Megan to Ecuador.
At least Becky came back from New Mexico, even if it's just for the Summer.

Speaking of Summer, I can't remember the last time one felt like such a blur.... of everything. 
Here's [more for my future recollection of and proof that I didn't zone wholly out for the duration of] Spring & Summer 2017, as they've transpired so far:

April: Damanji's 90's themed going away party was the perfect kickoff, complete with friends, libations and really loud bass speakers :).

ali. shawn. cori

♥♥

A few weeks later, Ali celebrated her birthday by spending it here in Cincinnati, and a small host of some other favorite friends moved away, varying from temporary to full scale relocation. At the barking protest of my pride, I resumed physical therapy after intentionally avoiding it for.... a while, and found that although I now have one of the best DNS wizards in this hemisphere, I still. hate. PT. Oh, and the Fountain in our driveway has been officially traded in for an Eliminator, because ya know, it's practical to own a Catamaran when you live in Ohio. 

matching tattoos.. because that is what we do...
happy birthday, ali!! ♥♥

May: I returned to Panama with Chris and a roster of 13 other people from Ohio, Vermont and Arkansas who rendezvoused in the Atlanta airport 24 hours before we embarked on a pack-hike into the remote mountains of Balsa, Panama for a week. Run on sentence, you're welcome. We spent that week constructing a physical church building, under the direction of a foreman whose approval of any given task could be determined only by whether or not he was shaking his head at you. A good exercise of trust building in a team setting - I've found - is to incorporate 3 languages, 3 countries and 3 separate U.S. states' worth of team members onto one construction site, provide them with gas generators, power tools and a living blueprint [aforementioned foreman], with the understanding that this structure will be mapped out and finished within four days. An OSHA rep would've been escorted off this site, likely by an ambulatory pack-mule, from the heart attack they would've suffered trying to document this project. BUT, for and by the Glory of God, it came together at the midnight hour, and I had the honor  of singing praise music next to one of my best friends [for the first time], in the first service ever held in the new Balsa church. Not a bad trip. In other May news leading up to Panama, Sydni finished 2nd grade, lost a tooth that same day, and we spent much of the month catching up with family and friends. 

our favorite 2nd 3rd grader!! 

climbing with kalyn & brian | red river gorge, ky

hang times with jennica | columbus & dayton, oh

family biking | loveland, oh

panama 2017

June: The Employee Month of the Year as the count should stand, derived from my entirely made-up metric system: Surprise Factor, Relief Induction, Joy Increasing and Overall Mental Health Appreciation. I returned from Panama with my usual post-missions acute awareness of just how much stuff we have, and talking myself off the ledge of donating everything but the clothes we need for the week. Fortunately, that tirade was lessened by a trip to Chicago for a book festival & Britta's birthday, followed by a long weekend at Norris Lake with some of our favorite friends from Illinois. Oh, and lest we forget that in between those two, I got myself kicked off a sinking ship by the tempest itself, and found myself onboard a 5-star ocean liner the next week. Yeah, I know it was a crap analogy, but it was a crap situation that did a cartwheel and ended up better than ever, so whevs. Life on the professional front did a full reset, which forced me to realize how poorly I'd been just existing before everything changed. Another one of my best friends wound up here in Cincinnati for her birthday, which we celebrated in true Mare & Cori fashion: a soccer game, a piercing session, food, laughing, coffee... and more coffee.

britta boooo's birthday!! ♥ | chicago, il 

norris lake 2017 | norris lake, tn
cori. jess. taryn. liz. rob. matt. kenny. jesse.

♥ happy birthday, mare!! | cincinnati, oh

work fam :)
jess. stef. cori. chris. [missing deb]. tonya. rami. kelley. nick. ashley. brandi

nick & rami! ♥
[taken 7.13.17 ;) ]

July: I fully immersed myself back into my old-but-new job, realizing to no small amount of surprise least once every couple years. I've just accepted this as who I am at this point - perpetually scattered :).
just how neglectful I had been of my inner well-being where my professional life was concerned. Rob's birthday came around, which put us in Illinois for a weekend bash with some of our favorites. It happened to be the same week that Nick & Rami (two of my coworkers) had their wedding! Sydni and her friend Mattie had their first weekend sleepover here at the house, and I managed somehow to lose my entire wallet somewhere between the grocery checkout and my house. Don't worry guys, this is like an annual thing for me at point. Fortunately, everything was handled quickly, and with the exception of an MIA Kate Spade, all is well. OH, and July was the month we really kicked it into gear with the FC games. Now that Cincinnati has its own USL (we're aiming for MLS) team, we now have something to do every random night of the week and weekend ;).

2017 objective: pet all the dogs. these are matt's.

birthday bash for rob's 31st!

liz! 

alejandraaaaa .. or ali, if you're a regular mundane ;) 

jay & cindy came out too! 

ladies ♥

ridiculousness, in motion.

Oh, and some certain folks went and got baptized this month, too.. but that deserves a separate entry, so give me a few more days to rally all those pictures :). 

So that brings us to now, in a nutshell. I've said before that I'll be more consistent in daily updates, and after having written just this one day's slew of stuff-scattered as it is, I know- reminds me why I need to flex the blog muscles at least weekly, and eventually daily, like before.

I promise I'll start stringing together more cohesive trains of words and thoughts, too, once I get back into the rhythm of this without a 4-month hiatus.

Thanks for tuning in, blogbots :)

xo | cms