Fortunes From the Top.

I had my bi-weekly meeting with my team today. There are about 40 of us in the meeting each week (though only about 20 of us are located in MN). So, the VP of our team/department walked into the room with a bag full of fortune cookies. I assumed they would be a treat for us to have (at 10:30 am) but nope, they were an ice breaker. Everyone got a fortune cookie and then we all had to read our fortunes out loud. But what about the people on the phone? You may wonder. Well we all had to read one for a person on the phone and our own. Mine was "Your career is moving more and more towards service to others." Not too bad for someone still trying to figure out where the hell their career is taking them. Who knows what it means by service... Hopefully I'll figure it out soon.

Bad Habits...

...die hard.

But really. I don't know when this habit of mine started, but I know I did it back in high school when I would get Caribou before early Saturday morning rehearsals. Maybe I started it because I would get bored sitting and watching the same numbers over and over every day and tearing apart a paper cup gave me something to do. But I still do it. No matter how hard I try to stop. So here is my latest victim from a night at Punch Pizza with MoMo.

Poor cup didn't even stand a chance.

Dish Washer(s)

As you all know by now: a) I love London b) the Royal baby was born last week. So naturally SF and I had to celebrate, especially since we got up and watched their wedding. It was a wonderful night full of dresses, oversized hats, cupcakes, and fawn watching (several were running around in the yard). We also made up our Sunday TV night since S was out of town last night.

As we were cleaning up from dinner I turned around to find this happening. I couldn't help but laugh. Then take a picture.

Cat Sittin

Spent most of my day getting some work done for CAB since I never got around to doing it before I graduated (whoops). I also met with JA who is taking my position next year and helped her with the transition a bit. She will do a great job. 

Our family friends went out of town to move their daughter, my friend LW, back home (she is in MI) so I am taking care of their cat and plants. I've always been a huge fan of orchids and they have a gorgeous one in their kitchen. Since I couldn't get a good picture of the cat I voted for the object that doesn't move around quite as much.

A Pirate Life for Me.

I went to the Tall Ship festival in Duluth back in 2010. It was awesome. I fell in love with Tall Ships and wanted to spend the rest of my life on one. Well, I haven't made that goal yet (yet...) but today I did get back to them! Dad and I made the early morning trek to D-Town (with a stop for coffee and donuts at Toby's) to spend a dreary rainy day touring some 200 year old ships. Overall we decided last years event was more successful (cooler ships, better weather, less people) but it was still fun going back.

Here are 4 of the 100 pictures I took today:

Fun/sad fact: In 2010, the prize ship of the festival was the HMS Bounty. Sadly it met its fate back in October and is now sitting at the bottom of the ocean. I can't believe that I was once standing on this ship (and met Jack Sparrow of the Twin Cities on this ship) or that a friend of a friend was one of the 14 air lifted out from this ship... woof.

Here is a picture I took in 2010.

The Party Life.

Sometimes after a long week, and before you have to get up at your normal weekday time of 5:45am, on a Saturday..., you just want to go to bed. And that's what I did. I had to work hard to go to bed this late too by finding dull tasks to accomplish... 

Clearly I'm the queen of the weekend party life. (I also forgot to take a picture until my head hit the pillow. Good thing I remembered).

#tbt

Typically for Throwback Thursday (#tbt) people post old pictures of themselves. I did something more intense. I feel like I actually went back in time. I got to spent time with BB for the first time in over two years. It was so fun to finally catch up and hear all about what she has done these past two years. We went to Sunsets for dinner, which is always a good choice, then walked around Wayzata bay for a while. Hopefully now that we are both in the Twin Cities area it won't be two years before we see each other again. Hopefully.

Intern Alum

Last year as an intern at Medica, LK came back to share her wisdom as a Medica intern alum. This year KK, LK and myself made the trek to Medica to share wisdom with the 5 interns they have this summer. It felt odd being "wise" cause I sure don't feel that way being only 7 weeks into my job and that my "job" is, in fact, still an internship... but it was a lot of fun going back and reminiscing about all the times KK and I had last year (both good and bad). 

Sometimes I miss it.

Prince of Cambridge

The Royal Baby made its first appearance to the world today!! Since anyone who knows me could tell you that I've been obsessed with all things British since I went to London in 2007 this has been no exception. I even took my lunch break at the appropriate time so I could see the first glimpse live on CNN. Yes, I'm that pathetic. Then I thought it would be fun to pull out my London/Scotland scrapbook  after all the London talk on the news all day.

Congrats to the Royals!

Monday Funday.

Who says you can't go to late night happy hour on a Monday... cause thats basically what I did tonight. It wasn't technically happy hour (mainly cause we were sitting on The Wharf at Maynard's) but KB, SC and I were there till around 10. We chatted about how are jobs are and other things we needed to catch up on since not seeing each other since Senior Week. (Well, SC and I. I've seen KB). It was a good start to the week.

Here's a less cool picture.

Back on the Hill

Made it back to GAC town for the first time since graduating today. It felt weird driving down, felt weird being there. All in all it was a weird experience, but it was also fun to go back. I had to do a few things for CAB that I just didn't get around to before I graduated so I went for that but then spent some time with a few different friends who are living down at Gustavus for the summer. Plus I made a Patrick's run. Cause what else would you do when you go to St. Peter?

Gustie for life.

Liv & Maddie

Ok, so I know I said pictures of screens are lame (cause they are) but this is so cool I can't not post about it. One of my old friends from high school IS ON A DISNEY CHANNEL SHOW. It's true. He has always been quite the actor, went out to LA to try to make it, had a couple guest spots on shows, and is now the teen heartthrob of the new show (or thats what I'm predicting he will be).

Here he is as Diggy on Liv and Maddie.

And here he is with me (as proof) back in 2010. Though we haven't really kept in touch since then I'm still just so proud.

Cube life.

Now that I have been at my job for 6 weeks I decided it was finally time to decorate my cube. Especially since I now know I will be there until December (and I know because I was bored one day and calculated my hours). Fridays in the summer are pretty slow. Only half of the people are in the office so not a lot of emails come through. Decorating took a nice 10 minutes out of my day.

It still looks kinda empty though. I'm sure I'll keep adding things as my time there goes on.

Queen B

In less than 24 hours I was asked to go to Beyoncé, bought the ticket, and headed to the X to see Queen B herself. KB got tickets from a family friend and brought LBB, KA, and myself along. Funny story, when we got to the X to get our tickets scanned, all four of them were red flagged. So we were escorted to the box office to find out what was wrong. It was a moment of sheer panic. Turns out there was some mix-up with the account of the woman we got our tickets from. So one desperate phone call later it all got sorted out and we still got to go! (And in pretty awesome seats I might add). 

I have always been a Beyoncé fan, but holy hell, she is my new idol. It was one of the most amazing performances probably ever. Totally worth the money and the 3 hours of sleep I got.

Fan Mail

My boss and I are in charge of entering sweepstakes entries into the database we have. He likes to tell me that I'm "sorting his fan mail." It's become a pretty solid running joke between the two of us. I've entered around 250 names and still have a huge stack of letters on my desk. I don't think my boss has entered any of his. It's a tedious task, but an easy one to do each morning to gear myself up for the day.

And there is a nice pile waiting for me tomorrow.

Zucchini Fusilli

KB, AAlbanz and I have started this tradition of getting together and cooking whenever we are all in town together. Unfortunately Albanz is at camp so he was missing from our evening. We decided to make Zucchini Fusilli (it was between that, apricot shrimp, crab tacos, and Mediterranean chicken... we had to pull an option from a hat) and it was delicious. KB just got back from a trip to South Africa so it was fun to catch up after being apart for a while.

p.s. yesterday's post is coming! I just have to upload the picture from my real camera. 

TV Time

The Mondays I spend at home have recently become my TV night. The Bachelorette is on and right after that is Under the Dome. So, yes, typically I spend 3 hours in front of the TV. I'm not proud of it, but I'm also not about to change my ways. Muahahaha. I took this picture at a commercial break at one point in the night. The vase I got at President's Ball a few years back and the flowers from the old work spot, The General Store. Classic.

Home Box Office

Added another show to the Sunday night TV repertoire... The Newsroom is back! And I'm finally back to full health! The Newsroom is gonna have a pretty intense season it seems. I just want it to be next Sunday so I can see what happens next.

Here is Mia, one of my favorite parts of Sunday.  

Buttercream

More birthday fun! Today's celebration involved cake! Or cupcakes. There is this bakery by our house that my family got. They were delicious. There was some raspberry one, a German Chocolate one, a Chocolate Mousse one, and a Red Velvet one. 

I could eat these these cupcakes for the rest of my life. Yum.

22 continues

My birthday celebrations continue as today I got to open my presents. I stayed home again, fever gone but still horrible sore throat plus just feeling weak since I ate hardly anything all week. I asked for one thing for my birthday, The Newsroom on DVD. It was a pretty pathetic list. And I wound up with The Newsroom, 4 seasons of Friends (I now have 8 of 10), and some money to go shopping! 

Nothing to complain about! 

Punch out!

Another day at home sick with a fever around 100. At least it started to drop. After a few doses of meds I felt well enough to eat real food (the only thing I have been eating for the past 2 days is watermelon and sherbet). I was craving Punch Pizza of all things so thats what I got. It took me almost an hour to finish when usually I can eat a whole pizza and salad in about 15 minutes. But it was delicious.

103.3

That's what my fever got up to today. So fun... So back to the doctor I went. They put me on some meds which should help with the fact that I can hardly talk or breathe my throat is so swollen. The majority of the day was spent laying on the couch watching season 1 of The Newsroom to refresh my memory of the season before season 2 starts on Sunday.

Being sick is dumb.

Dr. Me

So, I haven't been feeling up to par recently. Therefore, I went to the clinic at Target today to get tested for strep and sinus infections and all those fun things. Unfortunately, it's just a virus so they can't give me any drugs for it, which means I get to just wait it out... HOWEVER, as I was waiting the PA who was working (after hearing the person at the check-in desk say my name) came up and told me she has THE SAME NAME. Another LLG. Who woulda thought. We also found out we have the same lineage and were given the same obnoxious nicknames in elementary and middle school. It was a nice bonding moment. And here I figured my name was more of the uncommon type...

This is kind of what our interaction was like:

I don't know about you...

...but I'm feelin' 22!

Happy birthday to me! After a long day of work I got to spend some time with SF for happy hour at Cooper. We had a good time discussing politics and current events (for real). It's like we are real adults or something...

I then moved tables to join all the cousins to discuss the future of the cabin (dun dun dun).

All in all it was a good birthday.

Slalom

The weather finally turned sunny again - after a very foggy morning - so we got out on the boat for some water sports. The bro and one of his friends went skiing. I spotted and took pictures. While the bro was out some of his other friends were fishing in the canoe. We all thought it would be amusing to spray them.

And thats exactly what happened.

Ernies

After a very rainy and lazy day, we all went out for a birthday dinner at Ernies (which is one of my favorite places to eat). As we were wrapping up our dinner some guys sitting next to us started a game of Jumbo Jenga. So, naturally, we stayed to watch how high they could stack them. 

It got surprisingly high. And then it fell over...

Hangin' out.

Cause they are hangin' in the hammock... I'm pretty clever. Made it up to the lake bright and early today so we could spend the whole day in the sun. The bro had some friends up half way through the day so here they are chillin before dinner time.

Also, if you look really closely at the beach you can see that its become more of a sandbar than a beach (since there is lake on one side and water runoff on the other... no more beach for us).

'Murica

Happy 4th of July!! 

Ran some errands this morning, picked up some corn and watermelon from EV at his stand (cause what else would you eat on the 4th of July) and then headed my way over to SF's house to spend time in the pool, get some sun, and celebrate our independence. 

It's my favorite holiday. And this year was a good one.

VIP

SF and I went to see The Heat tonight and we decided to try the VIP section of the Icon. We got to sit in nice leather chairs. Had side tables to use to our advantage. And we got to drink while we watched the movie. It was pretty awesome. And the movie was funny too. 

Also, before the movie did some nail painting. All ready for the 4th!

London, baby!

My manager got back from London last night which means he was back at work today! Yay! Everything felt normal again (minus the fact over half our floor is out all week so its been really quiet and not a lot of work is coming in). But he brought me back a chocolate bar which made my whole day. Then we had a nice long conversation about Thortons, which is probably my favorite chocolate shop ever (which he visited on his trip). 

Also, to keep up with the Friends theme... (and the title for today)

The Weekender

Today after work I met c3peeps0 for an hour of happy celebrations. We both are on a mission to find the best bloody mary and we decided to try Ike's. It was delicious. It's called "The Weekender" and is loaded with lots of fun things. We also had some artichoke dip and a free birthday dessert (since her's was yesterday and mine is in a week!)