Awww, so precious!

Congratulations, Ben and Katy! And welcome to the world, Amelia Ann and Paul Joseph! Go see the pictures!

The babies are coming!

Oh my gosh! The babies are coming! Ben and Katy’s baaaaaaybeeeees! Katy is pregnant with twins, and they are on their way! Follow this baby story on http://baby-rific.blogspot.com. Go on, click! What are you waiting for?

A Breakfast Post

This morning Andrew ate the last of the dark chocolate almond granola. That’s right, healthy granola with delicious bits of dark chocolatey goodness (and almonds, but they’re kind of the redheaded stepchild in this equation) (does anyone else hate that phrase, redheaded stepchild, as much as I do?). This granola is perhaps the tastiest cereal I’ve ever had, with the possible exception of Reese’s Puffs, but the granola wins because it does not contain high fructose corn syrup. I actually can’t say for sure that Reese’s Puffs contains HFCS, but I would bet money on it. Real money, the kind I spend on real things, like dark chocolate almond granola.

So anyway. Andrew ate the last of it. And I was so sad. Sad and a little angry. I was really looking forward to that cereal, and then I open up the pantry, and what do I see? Not my cereal, that’s for damn sure. Yeah, I called it mine, whatcha gonna do about it? Plus, this is not the first incident like this one. Usually Andrew takes the last of my milk. He prefers soy milk, and I prefer Shatto milk, so there are often two milks in the fridge. Until his milk is gone, and there is just the one. And then he drinks my milk, even if there’s only enough for one bowl of cereal. Cereal milk that I was going to have for breakfast, since we didn’t have toast or bagels or yogurt or waffles or eggs or ANYTHING else for breakfast.

To sum up: Cascadian Farms, I love your cereal. Andrew ate mine. May I have some please? Kthxbai.

Ahhh! It's a photo of my boyfriend David Cook!

But not just ANY old photo. Remember when I said that I karaoked with him once a long long time ago? Well. I found photographic evidence of it! How did I find it, you ask? No, it was not in a dusty old attic somewhere (the picture wasn't taken in the 40s, jeebus). I happened to be using my old laptop, and I happened to look at the pictures on it to see if there was anything suitable for my food photo essay on facebook, and I happened to come across this gem. It would be better if I were in the photo, rather than behind the camera, but what can you do? And, as a bonus, due to my fantastic labeling of said photo, I now know when, exactly, it was that the karaoke took place. If only I had been videotaping it. I have no recollection what the song was. Bummer.

I called it "David and Jessie rock out in NKC 11.19.05."
So there you go.

And this is Andrew singing that same night.
At least this sort of resembles proof that
we were actually with David Cook that evening.

Punch me, please.

Nothing is better than going out for coffee on a weekend afternoon. Nothing, that is, except going out for free coffee on a weekend afternoon. Fortunately, most coffee places hand out punch cards, in the “buy nine, get the tenth free” sort of way. (tangent: I hate the places that put limitations on their punch cards, like you have to buy espresso drinks to get a punch. That’s right, I’m looking at you, Black Dog. Isn’t it enough that you forced me to listen to an entire Hootie cd while at your establishment? Have a heart, man!)

Anyway. I have a lot of these punch cards. Some places put card boxes out on the counter, so you could potentially leave your card there and never have to remember to bring it. But I do not trust The Public. What if my card is full, and I’m pumped, ready for my free drink, and someone steals it from me? Because I have totally thought about searching through those boxes for the cards that are ready for the free drink. Because I’m a bad person like that. (I could never go through with it, though. Tangent #2: this morning it was raining as I arrived at work, so I wanted to park in the garage that is attached to the building, but of course, all the spots were full. I actually pulled into one of the “reserved” spots, put the car in park, and had my finger on the power button, when I wimped out. I couldn’t do it. The sign said I would be towed! What’s a girl to do? So I left the garage and parked outside. In the rain. But! It’s sunny now! Hooray!) But back to the punch cards. I firmly believe that more establishments should offer punch cards. Why is this primarily limited to coffee shops? I do have a few non-coffee cards, as you’ll see. And I love those places and go to them partly due to their punch cards. So businesses out there, get in on this action!

Here is a list of punch/rewards cards I carry around with me:

• Dunn Bros. Coffee
• Black Dog
• Aixois
• Smoothie King (I shouldn’t carry this card—they are waaaaaay too far away to justify the extra eighth of an ounce in my bag)
• Planet Sub
• Spin
• Westport Coffee House
• Maui Express (is this place even open anymore?)
• The Crave Café
• Maurices (what? there is a Maurices in town? where? why do I have this card? am I in college again?)
• The Café (this place is actually in my workplace, so technically I don’t carry this card around with me—it just sits in my desk all the time, between the extra sugar packets and a package of Saltines)

Here is a list of places I wish offered punch/rewards cards (because I would have earned, like, hundreds of free things by now):

• Sheridan’s
• Stonewall Inn Pizza
• Mafia Mike’s
• Panera
• First Watch
• Café Song
• Blue Koi
• Gomer’s
• Chipotle

It rained there.

I spent the weekend in Chicago with my girls. And it rained. A lot. The entire time, actually. Except for the moment we left to walk to breakfast. They talked me out of taking my umbrella. And then, of course, it rained on the walk back. And we got quite drippy. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Why did I go to Chicago? There are lots of reasons, but the short answer is to see my two best friends, Emily and Molly. (Together we’re the three M’s. We’re tight like that. I think it was sometime in high school when we started calling ourselves that—you know, for Megan, Molly, and Emily. We’ve been friends for twenty years, people—we were destined to get a group nickname at some point). Emily moved to Chicago this year, and Molly and I wanted to plan a trip to see the apartment, hang out, shop, and do all the standard M’s stuff, like make pizza (except it’s really like watch Emo make pizza and then eat it). If we’d just made chocolate chip cookies (but ate half the dough) or those orange sweet rolls in a can, it would have been like many of my weekends of yesteryear.

The trip was excellent. We did some standard Chicago-type things, like eat at Gino’s East and shop on Michigan Avenue. We saw lots of old friends who were also in Chicago. I bought a supercute purple bag. Ooh, and we ate cheesecake-stuffed French toast. Sooo good.

There is just nothing like hanging out with best friends. Friends who have been around so long that my dad calls them his “oldest and dearest friends.” We just know each other. Like, even though Molly and I have no idea how she does it, Emily’s showers take less than a minute. Or the way I know I can trust Molly’s advice when it comes to bag buying (guess who was carrying a Coach bag this weekend? Not me). And we can talk about boys forever and say the same things over and over, essentially, but there’s always more to say. And that’s okay. We can talk about how we’re unsure of our haircuts or how we wonder if we need different shades of eye shadow or whether these shirts look good on us, and regardless of the answers, we know we’re all beautiful in the end. And really, that’s why I went to Chicago.

My 100th post!

Yes, this is officially my 100th post. Originally, I planned to write something prosey and feely about writing, which would likely have only entertained myself. But I am leaving for the airport in about 20 minutes (it's a 3Ms weekend to see Emily's new digs), so instead I'm posting a video of my cat. Incidentally, this also will only entertain myself. And maybe Andrew.

A Love Story and a Lucky T-Shirt

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The day I met Andrew, I think I knew he was a good fit for me. I don’t want to say it was love at first sight or anything, because it wasn’t. Not by a long shot. But there was just something about him. And because I think you might be tiring of my “what I did this weekend” entries, I’m going to tell you about the day I met Andrew.

But first, the lucky T-shirt part of this story. Sometime in late high school, my dear friend Christy and I were thrift store shopping. We both saw this awesome T-shirt at the same time. This particular T-shirt was red and in big bold letters it said IMPROVE YOUR IMAGE. BE SEEN WITH ME. Somehow, I convinced Christy that the shirt should be mine. It was probably less me convincing her and more her just being nice. But man, I loved that T-shirt. It definitely became a staple of my early college wardrobe.

But now, on to the point. It was waaaaaay back in the year 2000. I had just started my freshman year at MU. I was living the good life, on the Honors floor of my dorm. I know, nerdy, right? But it was a co-ed dorm, so that should give me a couple of cool points. I had signed up for a class called The Warm Little Pond. I cannot even begin to describe it to you, but it was in that class that I learned the term “limnology.” Oh, and I met JiaoJiao (who, by the way, is awesome).

Jiao happened to live just down the hall from me, and she remembered seeing me in the dorm because I was wearing my supercool red T-shirt and people take notice of supercool T-shirts. So anyway, on the first (or maybe the second or third, who can remember after all these years?) day of The Warm Little Pond, she came over to me and asked if I lived in Hatch (the dorm) because she remembered my shirt and liked it. So we became friends. She was my first college friend (awwwwww) and we became tight. Like, we used to do the electric slide in the hall of the dorm, and we’d army crawl down the hall just because it made us laugh. Also, she liked Britney Spears and wasn’t ashamed to admit it, so I finally had someone to listen to “Born to Make You Happy” with.

Fast forward several months. Second semester. Jiao was taking anthropology. One of her classmates happened to be Andrew (unrelated fact: Andrew describes that anthropology professor as being just like the gopher “or whatever burrowing animal” from Winnie the Pooh). So Jiao and Andrew are taking this class together, and because they both lived on 6^th floor Hatch, they chatted and whatnot. And Jiao learned that Andrew played guitar. And Jiao wanted to learn to play the guitar. More specifically, she wanted to learn to play one song (perhaps a Michelle Branch song? again, I can’t remember, what with the passing of time and me being so old). So Jiao asked Andrew to give her lessons in exchange for a 3 Musketeers bar.

And the lessons commenced. When Jiao learned the song, she was so excited. She came to my room and asked me to come to Andrew’s room to hear her play. I was all, who’s Andrew? She’s like, a guy in my class who lives down the hall, haven’t you met him? Nope, I haven’t met him, but I’ll come hear you play.

So I went to Andrew’s room. And apparently JiaoJiao had a guitar there, and played a song or something. All I remember is the hot guy with the great smile and green eyes who had taught her how to play. I was enamored with him. What girl could resist a really, really cute guy that plays the freaking guitar? Not this girl. I decided right then and there, while Jiao picked out those chords, that I was going to get to know this guy.

I stuck around after Jiao’s one-song set to chat. We talked about music and such, and I flipped through his cds. And he had not one, not two, but three Muppets cds. And that was when I knew. I knew he would be a good fit for me. (He didn’t come to the same realization until a couple of years later, but my tenacity won out. I knew a good thing when I saw it.)

Incidentally, though I didn’t remember seeing him, Andrew remembered seeing me at our floor meetings earlier in the year. Why did I stand out to him? Because I was wearing that T-shirt (and because I’m just so darn good looking).

Now, eight years later, I no longer have that shirt. Also, it turns out that Andrew’s eyes are actually more hazel than green. Go figure.

Labor Day Weekend, Part 2: The Fun

Remember how I said Part 2 would be more fun? I was not kidding. Anything would be more fun than pictures of paint drying. I mean, GAWD. But where to start with all the fun? It was so damn fun, I barely remember it happening. Just kidding. It wasn’t THAT fun. But enough with the increasingly lame intro. Let’s not waste anymore time.

Friday night. Hmmm . . . Okay, so perhaps this is not the best place to begin if we’re talking about what an awesometrocity this weekend was. We spent the evening weeding the garden and swatting the mosquitoes. I wish I was kidding about that (the weeding part, not the swatting part. I would swat again in a heartbeat. I got a mosquito bite ON MY EYELID). I’m not exactly sure when I turned into my father, but it seems to have happened sometime after I began wearing a lot of sunscreen but before I spent every weekend at the office.

Moving on. Saturday night. Eff yeah! We went to see my boyfriend David Cook rock it out at the Sprint Center. Yes, you heard me correctly—we went to the American Idols concert. It was pretty fun, despite sitting 2,471 miles away from the stage. The hometown crowd loved my boyfriend. And David, honey, don’t get jealous, but I also loved Michael Johns. He can rock me anytime. RRRWWWARRR!! Andrew’s fav, though, was David Archuleta (Andrew has always wanted a puppy). In fact, he clapped so hard, his hands bled. (I’m sure it had nothing at all to do with the fact that he spent six hours sanding the trim earlier that day. It was definitely about teh awwsum.)

And then came Sunday night. We went to the ever-popular (yet always trashy) SantaCaliGon Days festival in IndepMO. That’s right. I can call it that, because that’s my ’hood, yo. Among the attractions were mullets, bare midriffs, and smokers with teeny tiny babies in their arms. And that was just on the shuttle to get there. We ate some grease—I mean french fries—and delicious ice cream sandwiches. We saw crafts and a “paddy wagon.” We people-watched and laughed at the punkness of the young punks. We decided that going to SantaCaliGon can probably become a bi-annual event for us.

And to wrap the weekend up: Monday night. We fell asleep. That’s all. Told you it was fun.

Labor Day Weekend, Part 1: The House

Don’t you just luuuuuvvvvvvvv three-day weekends? Sleeping late, relaxing, enjoying the weather, barbecuing . . . those kinds of things? Well. Then my weekend? Was not for you. Apparently they don't call it Labor Day for nothing.

From 8:00 until about 4:30 or 5:00 we did more housey stuff (every. single. day. OMG.)The Paint was painted. The Trim was trimmed. The Doors were a late-60s rock band. I’ve never had a less relaxing weekend in my life. But the house is looking fantastic. The white trim looks awesome next to the green walls. And it’s looking together enough that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. We’re not actually installing a tunnel, though I wouldn’t put it past Mark and Stan.

This is Stan. Did you know he had an emergency appendectomy, like, a week ago?

This is Mark. He is painting.
(see what I just wrote there? that is a perfect example of my prose,
my word skillz, if you will. THIS is what draws my readers in, like a moth to a flame.)

This is Sarah and Andrew. Andrew got sunburned that day.
The wearing of the hats? That was my idea.

I know it looks like a lot of trim, but we ran out. Sigh.

The trim, zoomed-in style. Still need to patch the nail holes.

The nail gun, making holes that need to be patched. Also hanging the trim.

Windows being painted. Is anyone else reading this as bored as I am?
Sheesh, it's like watching paint dry or something.
(HA! get it? like watching paint dry?!)

Andrew forgot to take his crazy pills, so he spent his entire three-day
weekend working on the house. Also he ate some paint.

Zadie was thirsty after all that work.
Hiding under the bed is quite difficult, you know.

You can kind of sort of tell what the room looks like. Nice, isn't it?

So that is that. Lots and lots of painting, a little sanding (all that trim had to be sanded before it could be painted), some nail-gunning, and some more painting. Labor Day Weekend, Part 2 will come shortly. It will be more fun, I promise.