Day 303

Blurb: Say hello to my big little girl.

Backstory: Today I went to my first Mary Kay party in almost two decades. Chris(the young lady in the picture) is now a Mary Kay consultant, and by chance, she's also my sorority grandlittle. I was probably the most difficult attendee she's ever had to deal with, and I did not do that on purpose. Because I work overnights there's no reason for me to wear make up. I can literally count on one hand the number of times I've put on make up in the last two months. It's just not something I do, so when I come into contact with cosmetics it's a disaster.
It took a while for me to actually try the make up on my face; I started by making my nails jacked up using all the different nail polishes at once. I felt like a monkey trying to figure out a toy when Chris handed me the make up samples but I did venture in and slather some on my mug. Everyone said it looked "nice" but I thought I looked like a mini Tammy Faye Baker. This is in no way a reflection on Chris' skills, but a reflection on my lack of skills.

Day 302

Blurb: Meet my nephew!

Backstory: Today was a big day for me, I got to meet my little nephew Sherman. Take a look at this adorable guy. He's only 4 months old and he loves to jump around like a little jack rabbit. While both ears are up in this picture, normally his right one is floppy but when he gets excited they both stand up. It was surprisingly difficult to get a picture of him, in fact he's only sitting down right now because I'm bribing him with a treat.

Day 301

Blurb: Unless you're a major fan of the internet you probably don't get these.

Backstory: Happy Highball Halloween! Or should I say Hallomeme(look it up). Tonight is the big halloween party in Columbus called High Ball. It's amazing; they shut down three blocks in the Short North and people come in elaborate costumes and have a drunken good time. Jenny and I obviously didn't go with the elaborate thing, we went with Internet trends. Jenny was Pop Tart cat, also known as Nyan cat, and I was hipster Ariel. Almost no one got my costume without my explaining it, but more intoxicated people became the more they got Jenny's costume. This made me pretty happy because I made it. So happy halloween!

Day 300

Blurb: I really need to do dishes more frequently.

Backstory: Happy 300th day of the year. I live a very exciting life as you can see from the picture above. It's been about six days since I did dishes, which is a surprisingly long time. But I hate doing dishes because I have to do them by hand so I just leave them there. I actually do have a dish washer, but it's this weird movable thing that requires me to attach hoses to my faucet. That's why I choose to wash them by hand. Yuck, come wash my dishes.

Day 299

Blurb: Hello stuff.

Backstory: I love going back to my parent's house because I get to take lots of stuff. Tonight I came home with ice cream, a beret, a pan and a DCFD baseball cap. All things I didn't know I needed but things I enjoy. This is the best thing about living near my parents, I can just go to their house instead of going to the store. I could have saved so much money in DC if my parents had just lived 10 minutes away. They keep things forever and are very happy to let me use their house as a store.

Day 298

Blurb: Look what came in the mail.

Backstory: I don't considered it a federal offense if the mail comes to your house and you keep it. Sarah Martin has not changed her address so I'm still getting the majority of her mail. 90% of the time I do the right thing and write return to sender, but when it comes to the magazines she receives I like to keep those. Sarah passed the Indiana state bar but forgot to change her address. Like a good citizen I wrote return to sender on the package that was most likely her lively hood. For doing that I get to keep her copies of W magazine. It's a magazine that I would never pay for but I enjoy leafing through when it shows up at my door.

Day 297

Blurb: Welcome to the latest addition of meeting my neighbors.

Backstory: This is the first installation of "meet the neighbors" that doesn't involve food. Snap fitness is about six blocks from my house, and I'm pretty much looking for any way to make myself work out. Right now I'm a member of the Y but the closest branch to my house is downtown and I have to pay for parking. This has become somewhat of a deterrent to me working out; that and the fact that I'm super lazy.
What I'm trying to say is that I need fewer excuses not to go to the gym. That's why you see that little card in the picture; I went to Snap fitness today and got a free week pass. I figure if the closer the gym the more likely I am to go. With Snap being so close and me having a parking pass to the area I should have no reason not to go. Let's see if this actually happens.

Day 296

Blurb: I want to eat that little face up like warm chocolate chip cookies.

Backstory: This afternoon I stuffed my face with food from Tastefully Simple at my friend Mikaela's house. I was not about to put a picture of that up so I went with a more tastefully choice, Mikaela's son Logan. This is probably the third or fourth time I've featured him in my blog and the reason why is obvious: he's adorable. Plus, like any ladies man he plays hard to get. All I want to do is love all over him and give him forbidden food but he wants none of it. All he does is try to get Mikaela to pick him up, and this just makes me want to hold him more.
It should be known that I only like children that are related to me or those that belong to my friends. Also, Logan's the little kid that I'm around the most so I have a bigger emotional investment. One day this child will say, "Hi Bailey" or "Booger." Whichever one I can teach him first.

Day 295

Blurb: I mean I know Schmidt's is popular but really?

Backstory: Since moving to German Village I've seen more tourists than when I lived in Washington. People love to stroll through the neighborhood, especially on the weekends. You can see them wandering around the streets, and many come with cameras to take pictures of doors and flowers. Another thing they love to do: go to Schmidt's. For those of you unfamiliar with the restaurant, it's one of the most famous restaurants in Columbus. The Schmidt family has owned a slaughter house in the city since the late 1800s and they opened their restaurant in 1960.
It's the biggest attraction by far in German Village, but I never realized how many people went there until this weekend. Tonight Megan and Brian came over to check out the new place and have dinner. I thought it would be fun to have dinner there because it's such a German Village thing to do; the only problem was hundreds of other people had the same idea. The wait was an hour and a half and something tells me that was a conservative estimate. We're not the type to wait so we walked down the block to the Mohawk and had dinner. Yes, I've eaten there two nights in a row and no, I'm not ashamed.

Day 294

Blurb: Now for another edition of meeting my neighbors.

Backstory: Everyday I walk the Old Mohawk with Sadie. When we reach the restaurant I know it's time to turn left or right and start heading home. I'd be lying if I didn't say I looked longingly at the restaurant, wishing I went there everyday. It's a really cool place that's been almost continuously running since the 1910s. Back during prohibition it was a brothel and it's rumored Al Capone went there. This only adds to the fact that I want to eat there.
I've only been to the Mohawk once and that was almost 7 years ago when I was a sophomore in college and my internship coordinators took me there for my goodbye lunch. What's funny is I had almost the exact same thing then as I did tonight; a grilled cheese sandwich. The only difference was I got soup instead of chips and a beer. I don't think I did the best order but I was a little full. Both mom and dad's meals looked better, so I look forward to going there again and improving my order.

Day 293

Blurb: The heat is on.

Backstory: My little house has been pretty cold for about the last two weeks, but I'm cold all the time so when I get even colder it wasn't a big deal. This week I've turned my heating blanket up a notch and even brought out the tiny space heater. But last night things got super cold even for me, and that's when things clicked: I might need to turn on the heater. I really wanted to see how long I could go without turning on the heat, just because I thought it would be fun to be a hard ass. It also helped that I didn't really know how to turn on the heat.
So after deciding I was really cold, I decided to ask everyone at work and do a facebook poll to see how many people had already turned on their heat. I was really surprised by the results; out of the 20 people surveyed I found only about 5 of them hadn't turned on the heat. It became even more apparent that I needed to turn on the furnace when I went to my parent's house and my dad asked why the hell I didn't have it on.
After that discussion I went home and turned on the heat. I hadn't realized just how cold the place was until I looked at the thermometer and it was about 52 degrees inside. Within 3 hours of clicking on the furnace the temperature had jumped to 68 degrees and I'd realized how cold my place really was. Moral of the story: it was really cold.

Day 292

Blurb: Houston, we have a problem.

Backstory: The rain has been coming down strait for about 12 hours and I'm starting to get worried. This is the first heavy rain we've had since I moved into my new place, but I knew I'd have some problems with the rain. I have a brick walkway in the front and back and these things are filled with divots that are starting to collect water. When you open my front door this is what you see (refer to picture). Right now it's about an inch to two inches deep, enough to cover Sadie's little paws. Mom says I shouldn't worry about because there's nothing I can do until the water reaches the door. That's not really making me feel better, I'm pretty much going to worry about this all night and into tomorrow.

Day 291

Blurb: The battle zone: my kitchen.

Backstory: With as much as I write about food this could be a food blog, but it's the most interesting thing in my life right now. More today on the battle against my stainless steel pans. Last week I did a lot of research on the proper way to avoid food-stickage and I've tried to follow all those things; I did a salt scrub on the pans and made sure they were properly heated.
I did notice a pretty descent change compared with the few times I've used them. The food did move a lot better around the pan but there was still a lot of sticking. I'm going to have a lot of clean up with the burned on stuff, luckily stainless steel is "very easy to clean."

Day 290

Blurb: Yummy, yummy, yummy.

Backstory: I really do love Dirty Franks. Tonight Monica and I had a little girl time, I haven't seen her in forever and what better way to bond than at wiener world. Today I changed my order a little bit, getting onion rings on my "Classy Lady." It was a delicious change, even though I really wanted to eat jalapenos. I just want to put those hot little peppers on everything but I'm old and get heart burn.

Day 289

Blurb: Look at that beautiful yard!

Backstory: This weekend has been dedicated to cleaning the inside and outside of my house. With the inside finished up yesterday today was totally dedicated to doing yard work. I must say I've never done this much yard work in my entire life. I spent about three and half hours racking leaves and pulled weeds in the front and back yards. Like I mentioned yesterday my place is covered in these small little leaves that stick to everything so getting this work done was really important. As for the backyard, the people who lived here before me didn't do a very good job keeping things up so there was a lot of weed pulling. I really want to be able to have a nice patio when the spring comes so the hard work has to start now.

Day 288

Blurb: My new lover.

Backstory: I must say I've never felt this way about a vacuum, but I've also never had so much dirt in my house. Today I've been totally dedicated to cleaning. Even thought I've been living in the house for a month, I've really only been there for two weeks which hasn't given me much time to clean. That meant I had to get down to business today.
The most important tool of the day was the vacuum (mom put it together for me earlier in the week). My yard has these crazy little leaves that somehow always end up in my house and they stick to the carpet. Plus, even though Sadie is a short haired dog she sheds like a long haired cat. Put those two things together and you get a house that needs a serious cleaning. I've done a serious amount of cleaning today and I'm pretty proud.

Day 287

Blurb: It's been about two months, that means it's time for another goodbye party at work.

Backstory: In all the time I've lived in Columbus I've never been to Brazenhead Tavern in Grandview. What makes this even more surprising is that a lot of goodbye parties are held there; both of stations I've worked at have had more than their share of parties there. The environment was pretty traditional pub, let's just say I haven't been missing out on anything. As for the honorees, Joe and Scott I'm sad to see you guys leave.

Day 286

Blurb: These freaking pans are really annoying.

Backstory: One of the biggest challenges I've faced since moving in to my new place is trying to figure out my stainless steel pans. Since I was a kid we've used non-stick pans and I had my own set of amazing Teflon pans before moving. My set took a lot of abuse during my time and DC and they weren't safe to use because some of the coating came off, that was another reason I needed to get a new set of pans.
As for the cooking, it's been extremely difficult to adjust to using stainless steel. So far everything I've cooked in the pans has burned or not cooked properly. I started doing research online and all the sites said I needed to rub them down with salt, so that's what I did tonight. I just poured a decent amount of salt in the pans then added a little water and scrubbed. Hopefully the next time I use the pans I won't end up with crazy burned food.

Day 285

Blurb: Dinner with my sorority alumni group.

Backstory: This is a rare and amazing thing: I actually went out on a work night. Tonight my alumni group went to the Columbus Brewing Company, which is in the neighborhood next to mine. I haven't been to an event in a while and it seemed like the perfect time to go. The restaurant is pretty good, it wasn't my favorite place but the appetizer my friend Vanessa got was really good. Another positive point (besides for seeing everyone) was having left over pizza I can eat tomorrow.

Day 284

My phone is dead right now and I can't get the picture for this day uploaded, so I'll update this soon.

Day 283

Blurb: Major shopping score!!

Backstory: You probably don't know what these shoes are but they're kind of a big deal. These are Missoni for Target shoes and they've been impossible to find since Missoni hit the stores about three weeks ago. Almost everything in that line sold out in a matter of minutes; when I went to Target the evening the line went on sale almost everything (or at least the good stuff) was gone.
This all leads to today and my trip to the store. While shopping around a Target that wasn't my normal stomping grounds I found these shoes, which were one of the few things I wanted. There were only two pairs at the store and luckily one of them was mine. The only bad thing about the shoes is that they're a little uncomfortable.

Day 282

Blurb: Mom and Dad are winners.

Backstory: How cute are they? Today mom and dad competed in a ballroom dancing competition. It was kind of hilarious to turn the tables today; they've been coming to our sporting events/performances for over a decade and now it was my sister and my turn to support them. It was pretty impressive to go and watch everyone, because some people at the competition were pretty serious about ballroom dancing. Mom and dad were just doing it because their instructor asked them, luckily they came in first in all their dances. I'm a very proud daughter.

Day 281

Blurb: THE MEATBALL!!!

Backstory: Last year my visit to the Columbus Italian Festival was epic. We held my friend Amy's bachelorette party there and things got a little outrageous. Everyone had a little too much to drink and eat but it was a great time. This year my outing to the festival was still fun, but much more under control. I enjoyed my deep fried calzone and Italian deserts, plus there was the meatball.
Last year one of my co-workers chaired the festival and came up with a publicity stunt to make the world's largest meatball. Unfortunately it didn't happen, meatball came up about a hundred pounds short of the Guinness record; this year it crushed the record by over a hundred pounds. The only bad part of the festival was watching the Buckeyes blow fourth quarter lead against Nebraska.

Day 280

Blurb: Ouch!

Backstory: "So... how was your vacation? Good? That's nice. WHAM!! Here's this since, you're in a great mood, a massive bill for your car." That's the conversation the universe had with my conscious today. My brakes have been making some weird sounds for a couple weeks and dad looked at my car while in was in San Francisco. The prognosis was bad, my brakes needed major work and I had to take it to the shop. When the dust had settled I was left with an almost thousand dollar bill for all new brakes and rotors. I'm happy that I'm now safe to drive on the road, but ouch, this bill really hurt.

Day 279

Blurb: Trying to get back into a routine.

Backstory: I have done very little today because it's the day after my vacation. This is universally known as the least productive day in any adults life's. The highlight of my day was taking Sadie to Schiller Park for the first time. It's a little bit of a longer walk from the house but it's a beautiful path that let her get a little pent up energy out. I let her off the leash and she did her normal chase bigger dogs thing, which meant she had to get back on the leash.

Day 278

Blurb: Goodbye West Coast.

Backstory: This is the last picture I took before leaving California. It's the view of the Golden Gate Bridge from my friend Taylor's bedroom window. Almost all the windows in her apartment have a great view of the Golden Gate and I can't express how sad I'm going to be not waking up and having a cup of coffee with one of the world's most famous bridges. While the views from my yard aren't that bad, they're never going to be this good.
Today was extremely uneventful, I spent the entire day traveling. The best thing I can tell you is that I actually ran somewhere today, breaking one of my personal rules. I normally don't run unless there's a fire or I'm being chased, but today I made the decision to run to catch a flight. There was no way my ass was going to be stuck in Cleveland at 9 o'clock at night. Something about being stuck in the Cleveland airport is worse than anything else because it's just two hours from home and I could drive that. But the running worked and I made my flight, now I'm sitting at home remember my awesome trip to California.

Day 277

Blurb: It's alright, I'm ok.

Backstory: This picture might look like I'm in trouble, but I'm actually just goofing off. Yes, I did ride a cable car and yes it was fun. Our journey on the cable car took a long time. We started out waiting at the departure point for about an hour, then it was our turn to get on but we weren't far enough up to get a good seat. That meant we were stuck on the inside for the first part of the ride. Luckily the cable stopped working and most of the people got off. Thank goodness Kerri and I made the decision to stay on because we got to ride at the very front of the car and hold onto the rail as the car went up and down the streets.
It's a lot like riding a very slow, very old roller coaster. You can hear the cable and the car crank from below as you go up the steep hills, then as it crests over the hill you think you're going to speed down but instead you just chug down like a little steam engine. This is still extremely fun when you're holding onto the side because you have this little voice inside of you that keeps saying "I don't think this is safe. How can this be legal?"
As we got into the downtown portion of San Francisco things did start to get a bit more dangerous because there were more cable cars and more cars. You would get so close to the other people dangling off the cable cars that you could hi five as they passed. By the way, that's a bad idea and you shouldn't do that. There are signs posted everywhere that say don't do that and it's true, you'll probably get your arm ripped off.
Riding on the outside of the car was one of my favorite things in the city. If you go, wait in line and stand on the outside. It's one of the most tourist things you can do in the city but it's so much fun. You get to go through some of the most historic parts of town, plus there's always that nice sense of fear in the back of your mind.

Day 276

Blurb: After the weekend we had I probably deserved to be here.

Backstory: It's Monday and Taylor's off to work so Kerri and I have been left to do more tourist things, mainly Alcatraz. After two beautiful, picture perfect California days it's started raining. Our day started out in Chinatown with a tea tasting. Kerri did not have fun because the guy said we hadn't spent much time abroad and she said no I just don't like certain flavors of tea(that's the short version of the story). We saw a lot of weird stuff and fun Asian candy. After spending the morning in Chinatown it was off to Alcatraz.
The hardest part about San Francisco, for me, is the excessive amount of hills and the motion sickness that follows those hills. Well, this time the motion-sickness was taken out of the water and the ferry that got us to the amazing island prison. The waters were really choppy because of the bad weather and we stood outside for the 15 minute ride so I could get some fresh air. The first thing you seen when you dock at the island is a pretty common thing in this area: a big hill. The prison really does sit on top of a big rock in the middle of the bay. According to the National Park's brochure, walking to the top of the hill is the equivalent of walking 13 stories.
Luckily you don't do a lot of steps at Alcatraz, most of it is just inclined roads but you can see the steps people used to use and they're very creepy. Let's just say I'm glad I didn't have to climb them. The most surprising things about the island is it's not that creepy, and I'm saying this after visiting the place in the rain. Everything just seems very sterile and, with the exception of the main prison building, most of the building are very run down or undergoing restoration.
It wasn't my favorite historical tour of all time, but it was very close. The visit got high marks for the audio tour of the prison and the breath taking views of the city. It got negative marks for the lack of professionally guided tours by actual people and the lack of finished restoration. After another day of walking I'm ready for a margarita and some tacos (which I just had).

Day 275

Blurb: Funniest game at the vintage game museum.

Backstory: It's our second full day in San Francisco and we dedicated this day to being tourists. We started out with a delightful breakfast followed by trying on every hat at Goorin Brothers, then we made our way up to Fisherman's Wharf and Ghiradelli Square. These are major tourist traps, and let's just say I love me some tourist traps. I love junky stores and little restaurants that are set up to lure in tourists.
One place that was a little touristy but not too much was the Game Museum. It's filled will old fashioned games that you can play for a dime or a quarter. My favorite game was the arm wrestling machine where you played against a Mexican wrestler. I was actually able to beat it when I set it on the lowest level and used both my hands. The game you see above is one of the corny "sexy" games that filled the arcade. After visiting the museum I have to say our ancestors were kind of dirty. There were games like "What every woman must know before getting married," "Watch naughty Margareta" and the classic Love-O-Meter. I mean seriously old time Americans, you're really going to like being liberated.
It was an extremely long day and the three of us could barely think after we'd gotten back to Taylor's. While we were waiting for our take out I could barely talk. All in all we'd walked a few miles, many of them up hill. But it was a great time and I give San Francisco's tourist areas high marks.

Day 274

Blurb: Happy Oktoberfest San Francisco!

Backstory: It's our first full day in San Francisco, and it's beautiful. California really is a stunning place; it also helps that Taylor lives in a really nice neighborhood right by the Bay. Today our big event was Oktoberfest by the bay, you can see all our pretty faces up there in the picture. We spent four solid hour drinking huge steins of beer and looking at people in crazy German costumes.
Just like yesterday I got the urge to take a few souvenirs. All those big mugs you see(with the exception of Taylor's) were taken. I took them.
People were just leaving them all around the venue unattended and I knew the four of us could give them great new homes. I don't know what the other ladies plan on using theirs for, but I'm going to use mine as a flower vase. After our hours of drinking we went outside and ran around the outside of Giants' Stadium. I would love to put more than one picture up for today, but this was clearly the best one. After this they all go down hill and involve cartwheels or laying in grass.

Day 273

Blurb: This is the infamous pitcher from Tacolicious.

Backstory: It's my first day in California and let's just say I'm ready to bring the heat. The best thing about flying to the west coast is that you get three hours back to do whatever you want. We all decided to go to my friend Taylor's favorite place, Tacolicious. Because it was a Friday night in Marina we waited for an hour to get a table which lead to the drinking of margaritas.
We were all very excited to see each other, which also lead to the drinking of alcohol. When all the dust settled and we had eaten our food and downed a couple pitches, but we had half a pitcher left, that's what you see above. I was drunk enough to think it was an amazing idea to take the half a pitcher from the restaurant to Taylor's house. So once we paid our tab and were leaving I took the pitcher and walked back. Now Taylor has some frozen margaritas in her freezer and we all have a funny story to bring back from vacation.