On a side note -

anyone ever been to the Melting Pot? Is that the most fun you've ever had eating, or what?

It's not about being older

Another year has come and gone - but not without some excitement! - and I am officially one year older. (And one year away from being 30. Whoa.) It was a wonderful birthday celebration! I got to celebrate with some really dear friends and family and the ultimate thoughtful schemer, my fiance, who has once again surprised me.

29 is tricky. I shall blog my thoughts on this later, but for now I will thank all of those who called me, emailed me, texted me, thought of me and celebrated with me. I am beyond thankful for all of you and grateful for your wishes of well. June 15 is a day that I will always cherish because it reminds me of all of the wonderful people I have in my life and that truly warms my heart. That's what birthdays are all about and that is why I love them.

Wow. Fun. Cool.

Justin Verlander, the phenom pitcher for the De-troit Tigers, pitched a no-hitter last night against the Brewers! It was so fun to watch. I just so happened to be at my parents last night and my Dad had the game on. In the sixth inning he says, "I shouldn't say anything, but Verlander has a no-hitter going". Everyone knows that saying that usually jynxs things. But not last night! Even my good friend Turtle Parade, who is an Indians fan, was rooting for him. Fun stuff!

I love baseball.

Your what hurts?

My foot. It had glass in it. I (unknowingly) stepped on it. Then I walked around on it all night. Thank goodness for wine. It helped deaden the pain. I think the fiance got it all out. He was tres helpful. It still hurts.

Thelma and Louise.

Whew! I am no longer a fugitive of the law. My debt to society has been paid. I can roam freely (albeit slower) once again.

Thanks for coming with, Louise. I'll be sure that Brad Pitt doesn't turn you in for aiding and abedding (sp?) a criminal.

(and the audience is on its feet...)

LOST was so good last night I can't even stand it. It was so good that is has inspired me to post an entry again after 6 months. Now that's powerful.

What a terrific piece of television. Two hours was not long enough. I probably could have sat for another hour or two. This, my friends, is what they call a payoff episode. For all you naysayers out there, aren't you a little upset with yourselves for being non-believers half way through the season? I never gave up. I am admittedly often confused and believed that maybe I was the one who just didn't get it. But that idea has been demolished. No, no one has a friggen clue what is going on and that is the true beauty of this show. I accept that and will be the ultimate suspender of belief for the next 3 years if we continue to get episodes such as this.

Jack, Kate, Ben, Locke, Juliette, Sawyer, Jin, Hurley, dear sweet, bad-ass Sayid, et al, I cannot wait til we meet again in '08. Godspeed.

Best. Idea. Ever.

A big thumbs up to Best Buy for being so revolutionary with their work ideals. Check out this article, then send your resume in to Best Buy's headquarters...

http://biz.yahoo.com/special/allbiz120606_article1.html

Wow. Haven't we all been waiting for someone to blaze the trails with this idea?? Here's to hoping this concept is as viable as we all knew it would be.

Help wanted re: eyebrows

How long does it take for eyebrows to grow back in?? I've been plucking for years, but I would kinda like them to grow back in so I can start all over and possibly get a professional waxer or something to give me that great, face-changing perfect arch to my eyebrows. But I'm wondering how long I'll have to look like I'm completely ignorning my appearance with these straggly hairs that are trying to make their way back in.

Can anyone provide any help on this??

I'm going to be an Aunt!

Thanksgiving 2006 was so wonderful! The fiance’s family came into town from Indiana and Chicago and spent a few days with us. I’ve mentioned before about how fun they are and how much I enjoy being a part of a bigger family. This was no exception. It was a blast!

But perhaps my favorite part of the whole week was when His 5-year old niece called me “Aunt Michelle”, completely unsolicited. She was simply asking me a question, and it came out of her mouth so naturally, as if she had been calling me that for years. It was precious! And it brought tears to my eyes. Right there at breakfast. Being an only child I have had zero chances to be an aunt thus far in my life, and now I’m going to be one, 5 times over! I want to the best “Auntie M” ever! (That’s what they are going to call me… how cute is that!?)

I cannot thank His family enough for being so welcoming and making me feel like a part of the family so quickly. Nine months is not a lot of time, and there is a lot of distance between us and his entire family, so we don’t get to see them that often, but in that time they have managed to make me feel like I am one of them. And that means more to me than they will ever know. They were all especially kind to my parents, whom they just met for the first time this weekend, and to my best friend. What more can I ask? (Even as I am writing this, I am sitting here with His dog on my lap/arm. She’s making it difficult to type, but it’s totally worth it. She loves me too!) I truly am blessed and thankful.

I've been thinking...

I think I'm going to dimantle this blog. I haven't felt inspired by it for a while now. The title and stuff just isn't doing it for me. While those two things are very important in my life, I don't feel they accurately portray the cleverness and insight I'd hoped to share with the world. I'll keep you posted, but rest assured I'm not leaving, I'm just going through a Madonna-like reinvention in my career and will emerge a bigger and better blog.

K.

Whew! You'll excuse me for the blog break while I've been basking in the enjoyment of becoming betrothed, won't you??

Thanks!

Here's how it happened...

Mike thought of EVERYTHING! He had a very elaborate scheme planned and I fell for it all. I was completely surprised! We were in Whitewater, Wisconsin for a conference that he went to for work, and I was there for fun and to go somewhere I had never been.

So, a couple of weeks prior he had told me that there was a mingling event with all of the conference attendees and their significant others, and that it was a dressy affair. So, on that Saturday, he had told me to be ready by 4:30 and that he would come back to the hotel to change and we would leave. So I was all ready to go, all dressed up and everything. And then the phone in the hotel room rang, it was the front desk telling me that I had something at the desk and asked me to come pick it up. When I got down there, the woman handed me an envelope that said "please do me the favor of reading this letter in the lobby for reasons that I will explain in the letter". So I sat down and started reading. And immediately started bawling. So I'm sitting in the lobby, all dressed up, crying. In the letter he told me that there was no mingling event, that he had used that as an excuse for us to get dressed up because he was taking me to one of the nicest restaurants in Milwaukee. (The 21st best restaurant in the country.) The letter said that I should finish reading and if he hadn't met me in the lobby by the time I was done, to head back up to the room and he would meet me there. I waited for about 10 minutes (and read the letter once more) and headed back up to the room. Little did I know, he was in the hotel and had watched me leave to go down to the front desk. Once I was gone, he had gone into the room and set up candles and had champagne and champagne glasses with our names engraved on them. And that's what I saw when I walked back into the room. I cried even harder when I saw him standing there! And then he proposed. It was amazing!

He put so much thought into all of it. I'm a very lucky girl! (Also, the week prior, he had given me a gift certificate to get a manicure, so that my nails would look nice when I showed people the ring, although I didn't know that at the time. See, he thought of EVERYTHING!)

It could not have been more perfect! I'm crying just writing this.

Wow.

I am forever tied to Wisconsin!

Well friends, as it turns out, I came home from Wisconsin with something even better than cheese. . . I came home with an amazingly thoughtful fiance and one stunningly perfect engagement ring!!! Yes, this trip to Whitewater, WI proved to be thee most special trip I have ever taken. (My next entry will be about the proposal and the perfect weekend I just had. I just didn't want to leave you all hanging wondering about my cheese adventures.)

Heaven, here I come!

This blogger is headed to the CHEESE capital of the World . . . that's right, the great and wonderful state of Wisconsin! And I'm pretty darned excited. Any place that claims CHEESE as its finest product has got to be a blissful place. I'm hoping to find myself amongst all kinds of CHEESE statues, monuments, rivers, lakes and streams. I'm guessing that there will be little old ladies standing on the streets outside of their CHEESE stores passing out samples. And I bet there is just a whiff of sharp cheddar in the air that lingers over the whole state. Yummmm!!!

I will not return to Ohio without some sort of CHEESE-like item, whether that be CHEESE itself or a CHEESE-shaped magnet or a t-shirt with CHEESE on it or one of those CHEESE hats that Green Bay Packers fans always wear - I've always been a giant fan of those!!

This is going to be one heck of a trip! I can't wait. I'll be sure to share all of my CHEESE adventures when I return.

I have tendencies...

Ones that drive me nuts. And make me breathe hard. And sweat. And consume my everyday thoughts...

"Did I or did I not close the garage door?? Did I or did I not turn off the straightening iron?? Dammit!"

I definitely have some obsessive/compulsive tendencies. I will often turn the car around to double check the garage door - or sometimes call friends to do a drive by and let me know if it's closed - then I'll have to run inside to make sure the straightening iron was unplugged. It's a very unsettling feeling. And I know that if I didn't do these things, I couldn't focus on anything else until I knew for sure. But I am thankful that it's not to the degree to which some people suffer. (Anyone catch the MTV special about this disorder? Wow.) What a difficult way to live.

So, I would consider my tendencies mild, but annoying just the same. Anyone else have tendencies?

Looks like dirt to me

"It was a big clump of dirt," Rogers said as the Tigers knotted the Series at a game apiece. "Dirt and resin and all that stuff put together, when it's moist and you're rubbing up the baseball and it stays on your hand.
"And I wiped it off. I didn't know it was there and they told me and I took it off, and it wasn't a big deal."

- Kenny Rogers, Tigers' kick ass pitcher

Tony LaRussa believes him. Jim Leyland believes him. I believe him. Let's move on.

Tag, you're NOT it... anymore.

I just heard that tag is being banned on school playgrounds during recess. Yes, tag. And here are the reasons why:

1. Risk of injury. (such as falling down)
2. Potential for inappropriate touching.
3. Kids are of varying sizes and may tag someone too hard.

Your thoughts?

I think I'm old.

I tell ya, with technology the way that it is now, and how quickly everything is upgraded and downloaded, I find it hard to keep up. I do not consider myself technologically savvy, I can set up my dvd player, cable AND my old-school Nintendo to my tv (at the same time, thank you very much!) but I cannot download something from itunes, or jam out on my ipod or mp3 player or satellite radio, hell, I probably couldn't even burn a cd. I feel like I have missed the technology boat and have swum myself right into fuddy-duddy town.

But I also think that a lot of that stuff has its time in the sun, then it quickly fades away. And unfortunately I just don't have the expendable income to spend hundreds of dollars on fancy items like these only to have them be obsolete years later. And I just don't feel like i NEED these things.

But I'm glad these things exist, it's nice to know that we keep making advances in our society, but where will it all end?? I can't wait for the day when my phone is the primary hub for all technology, how fun to watch tv on that screen, huh?! Then I'm sure someone will come out with a phone that does just ONE more thing than the phone I have and my phone will suck.

I just hope we don't blow ourselves up. With this heavy reliance on technology, it seems bound to happen. One day, everything will go kaput. I just have that feeling. But maybe it's cause I'm old??

On another note...

I find it ridiculous that famous people are in commercials talking about how great boxed hair dye is. Am I really supposed to believe that Eva Longoria stopped at her local Target and bought a box of L'oreal Feria Chestnut brown hair color and plopped down in her bathroom to do her OWN hair? Yeah right. I'm sure she couldn't have possibly paid $8,000 to have that done.

It's just too unbelievable. And it bothers me.

Anyone I know can be famous.

Wow. A job well done to Dove for creating this campaign about real beauty. We know that famous people are make-upped, done up, plucked, primmed, starved, styled to the nines, and airbrushed to the hilt, but it's still refreshing to see things such as this as a reminder that given the proper committee, anyone could look famous.

Take a look at this "normal" girl go through the star treatment and become almost unrecognizable.

http://popsugar.com/48830