the purrrrrrrrrfect hump day.

Happy Halloween!

 

I really have nothing for you guys today.. so I figured I'd share a cat video.

 

What else would you expect a cat lady to do?

 

I have mentioned before and talk a lot about how TJ "squeaks" and I honestly think people don't believe me, or are picturing something else. When they hear his purr? they're all "Is that your CAT making that noise?!"

 

So the other day when he was mid-fuzzy-blanket-ritual-dance ....I finally filmed the purr up close.

 

The orientation of this video (sorry) doesn't really matter.,... the point is the purr.

 

May all of your days' be as happy as a kitty on a fuzzy blanket.

 

-Kelly

I'm no longer 21....a short story of juxtoposition

The fact that I couldn't even muster the energy to draft a blog post last night should tell you guys a little bit about my weekend. woof.

 

let's back up though, shall we?

 

I spent my Friday morning masquerading as an adult, (which was quickly undone by Saturday's festivities).

 

My uncle acted as my sponsor while I got sworn in to the Minnesota Bar. It was fancy, I wore a suit, he talked a LOT about his bathroom remodel... all in all, we trudged through the hour and a half ceremony (a speedy one, in the realm of "ceremonies") and headed off to lunch at Kincaid's, where I ate myself stupid with the best french dip I've ever had in my life.

 

It was only as I was waddling back to the car at 1:30 did I realize we had an early dinner reservation for Restaurant Week with some of my fellow recently-admitted-lawerly-friends.

 

So, we napped off our lunch as a family

 

 

and then hopped in the car to head to Haute Dish, debating whether we'd split a meal.

 

Restaurant week, for those who aren't familiar, takes place all across the country. It's once a season, and is a magical week where super fancy pants restaurants with fabulous food offer a prix fixe menu (that's french, latin?, fancy talk for "fixed price" menu.)

 

The nicer thing about Haute Dish (which is on Washington in downtown Mpls, and I suggest you RUN THERE NOW, because OMG so good.) was that the courses were smaller portioned, and spread out, so I was able to actually eat a good portion of each course.

 

I am not usually the food-photo-snapping type, but this was too fancy NOT to.

 

 

Yeah, that's just a casual gormet iceberg lettuce salad, with candied red onions and cucumber towers. drool.

 

 

They specialize in deconstructed "American Classics"... so, my entree was the "tater tot Haute dish"..which had baby green beans, the most tender stack of short ribs I've ever had, and 2 large gourmet tots, filled with gruyere.

 

 

For dessert, apple cider sorbet, on a carmel sauce. nomnomnom.

 

Saturday, I power cleaned the entire house while M was tailgating at the Gopher's game. Dana had mentioned Friday night at dinner that she was going out Saturday. Dana also just landed a judicial clerkship in the exotic town of Morris, MN and will be moving there for a year Nov. 16th, SO, while I'm usually not a huge "goer-outer" I decided a girls hurrah would be fun.

 

I actually spent a solid 45 minutes Saturday crafting the most ghetto "runaway bride" costume ever (picture, bedazzled cutoff Target t-shirt, lace cap sleeves, and sheer curtains as the "skirt")...

imagine M's horror when he woke from his nap, and stumbled downstairs to find me in it.

 

He also didn't really see the irony or humor in the costome. Something about us actually getting married, and it not being funny.

 

In the end, I defaulted to a 1920's costume I had worn for our law school's winter dance (if I haven't said it before, law school is basically high school with double the drama...)

 

I of course, took zero photos, but this is what the costume looked like:

 

I also decided to grab a .75 of Bacardi Limon instead of my usual bottle of wine.

 

Bold, bold move. I'm pretty sure I had 3 drinks, and was absolutely out of control. I didn't get a SINGLE DRINK out at the bars. In fact, I slammed water at almost every bar we went to, and was still absolutely out of control.

 

To give you a flavor for what level I was on, I'm not an egotistical person generally speaking. In fact, sober-me is 90% insecure. Well, Saturday night I VIVIDLY recall when Blackeyed Peas "Good Night" came on at Bar Abeline, thinking that I was without a doubt the SWEETEST person in the building, and that everybody wanted to BE me.

 

yep.

 

So, after dancing myself sore, We went to another bar, which was lame, and had a cover, and apparently the bouncer wasn't impressed when Dana and I sprinted past him. Loser.

 

Next stop was McDonald's,.... Dana (and I, too, I suppose) have an embarrassing love of McDonald's. It's ridiculous. So, Uptown McDonald's at about midnight on Halloween weekend was quite the treat.

 

You guys may have seen me tweet this photo

 

 

With the accompanying text of "all the bitches be jealous."

 

there's that false confidence, rearing its ugly head again.. because I KNOW ya'll were jealous of my midnight munchies.

 

We swung by one last bar after that, and I decided I needed to sleep in my own bed. SO I called M, which he did say I should do, to see if he was awake. He was, so my friends hopped in a cab while I crossed the street to wait for him.

 

As I stumbled, strutted across Hennepin, I bit it. in the street. A stranger came to my aid to ask if I was ok. I hopped up, brushed it off, and assured him I was golden.

 

He insisted on waiting with me until my ride came (which he knew from the get go was my fiance, so, maybe there really are nice guys out there! M thinks otherwise, but whatevs).

 

He asked what I do, I told him I'm a lawyer, and this time we both laughed.

 

Clearly all lawyers spend their saturdays dressed as flappers drunk as a skunk, falling down in the street. SUPER mature, guys. I don't go out like this often, at all (as in, maybe once every 2-3 months) but when I do, I go for broke.

 

Sunday was spent in sweatpants. I woke up to a Bruegger's breakfast sandwich from M, a hangover, and chili in the crockpot. I clearly win the significant other game.

 

Hope all of your weekends were slightly more dignified. :P

 

-Kelly

Wedding DIY: Guestbook

TGIF! 

Actually, for me, it was TGIT. While you are reading this, I will be getting ready and heading to the Roy Wilkins Auditorium to get sworn in to the Minnesota Bar by the Minnesota Supreme Court. 

Hoity toity lawerly stuff.

I'm not terribly excited about sitting in an auditorium for god knows how many hours with god knows how many people to do this. I imagine it's a lot like graduation, only stuffier, because it's the Supreme Court. Alas, I have a free lunch at the M Street Cafe awaiting for me afterwards! Oh, and there's also that whole 'finally being able to practice law' thing. details. 

Today, I bring you our guestbook! 

I wanted something that could double as some memories for us. After looking at Pinterest, and seeing thumbprint trees, and signed assorted wooden objects, etc., I decided to go with something simple: a photobook guestbook, using our engagement photos. If people write ridiculous things, or smudge it, at least we wouldn't have committed to using it as artwork in the house. AND we'll be able to pull it out and flip through it to read the messages people left us. 

I logged into Gmail yesterday and found a Groupon for a $15 8x11 photobook from Shutterfly. Sweet! Save $20? yes please. So I nabbed it. 

Got home yesterday, and found the CD of photos in the mailbox. FATE. 

Of course, I can't do anything the usual way, so I upgraded a little bit from the book I bought on Groupon, and used a "storytelling theme" which cost me $4.99 more. 

So with shipping, plus the Groupon cost me $30. Not too bad!

I took screenshots of the book,  here are some of my favorite pages

I left lots of white space for people to sign, since we're having a little over 200 people. Plus, I think 20 pictures or so of us is plenty. Nobody needs 80 photos in a book. haha. I like that I was able to add some cute fun pages, like the fill in the blank, and the prompts, and the filmstrip page. 

Shutterfly was super easy to use, within my theme, too! 

As I pulled the photos from the photo bank, they disappeared, so I was sure to not reuse them. 

Anyway, that's it! 

I hope to mock up some Save The Dates this weekend that maybe I'll bring to you fine folks for a vote! :) Also, going to try to knock out a home decor DIY. So, look for those in the future.

Engagement Photos (weeeee!!!)

They're hereee!!!! 

I was ecstatic to arrive home today and find that sweet little manilla envelope in the mailbox! 

I'm just going to shut up now, and show you what you came here for. :) 

Just a few of my favorites :)

I have to say, Agape Moments is an UNBELIEVABLE photographer. I've always been a huge proponent of more natural looking, not as prom-esque poses. In addition, I believe the editing process makes or breaks a photo. Anybody with a nice camera can take nice shots, but after looking through the extras (all 300 of them) and seeing some of the above photos in their raw form, I (with an untrained eye) would have just passed them over. What they were able to do with an average photo blows me away. I HIGHLY recommend them!

OKCupid Catastrophes

Remember the time I said I'd try to take pictures at Oral Arguments to share?

 

 

..........you don't!? Great! Because I didn't. woops.

I was with the attorneys most the morning and didn't want to look like a TOTAL tool, and then at the end when I could've snapped one, I ended up chatting with my friend Jeremy, who clerks at the COA, and popped in to watch our arguments.  By the time we were done, all the clients had left and my attorney's were just staring at me. SO, again, no go.

 

I hope to be back to recap it a bit.. if any of you care? I'm not really sure how much or little to talk about that stuff here. Or how much or how little you guys know. I don't want to talk about crap that nobody understands, but I also don't want to come off as condescending. haha.

 

In the meantime, if you keep your peepers open, there may be a little guest post by me over on Sar's blog, Life of Love, for her OKCupid Catastrophe's series. EXCEPT, this is a match.com success story. I think ya'll may be familiar with it too. ;-) 

Patience is a virtue (that I do not have)

Happy Monday, party people. 

Guys, I am NOT a patient person when it comes to waiting for big events, and the mail. I order something, and I honestly quite sincerely believe it's possible when I check the mail the VERY NEXT DAY, that it'll be there. Womp.

That being said, my mentality was, "Oh, I don't need to think up a blog post anytime soon! I'll have my engagement photos in NO TIME and then BAM, there's my post!" false. so false. SO, I should probs start blogging about other things, eh? I probably should have asked when the ETA for that dang CD was (I mean, we talkin' a few days, weeks?) but now I feel like a looney tune if I were to email them and ask. 

M was off shooting ducks this weekend in Perham, MN, and I had the laziest best weekend of all time. Not because M was gone, but because it was uber relaxing. I can tell I'm a bit of a type-A because as I sit here drafting this I'm feeling a bit panicky about not having DONE more with a whole weekend alone. Alas. 

Friday night, I watched trashy TV with the cat, and tinkered with this:

Yes folks, that's our wedding website you're lookin' at! 

At first, I wasn't really diggin the idea of a wedding website. For multiple reasons. Then, I slowly started to realize, it'd be nice to be able to put a URL on our save the date's for people to scope out and get a head start on things like Hotel arrangements, and to just have an overall idea of how the weekend will go. It's also a good place to put notes like "p.s. it's the TC Marathon that weekend, so, LOOKOUT!" that I wouldn't put on the invites. 

I log into The Knot to try to tinker with their website builder. Well, once upon a time like a crazy person, I created a knot account before I was engaged. I maintain it was to look at an article that Pinterest linked to that I really wanted to read, and couldn't, without an account. SO, I was prompted to put a wedding date, and randomly selected 9/20/13 (not too far off from the truth!) 

Well, I logged in last week to try to tinker and no matter how many times I changed it to October 5th, it wouldn't show up on the website if I tried to edit it. Not to mention since I'm so used to blogger and its editing, I was instantly impatient with it.. so, I decided to create a blogger wedding website! I downloaded a sweet font I found "Jenna Sue" from dafont.com, and then took a screen shot of it in word for the header. I was also able to figure out how to remove post titles/date of the post so that the main page would look more like a legit website, and not like a blog post entry. Super pumped with how it's looking so far! M said he wanted to do his own guys' pics/bios.. so, we'll see how long that takes...hahaha.

Hmm, what else. Had lunch with dad at Cossetta's Saturday..

came home and napped for 2 hours with the cat. (did a LOT of snuggling with the cat, actually):

Made some more burlap flowers, and finished off the personalized hangers. Spent Saturday night watching Hocus Pocus, and working on the website. 

Sunday was cleaning and grocery shopping.

One last thing I just have to share. M is a super tech geek, and apparently knows how to change the html of a website, but only locally (meaning, only you can see it on the computer you're on.) so he had some fun Thursday night scaring me:

Yeah, so, there's that. He changed his friend Brian's (who he's hunting with) name on LinkedIn to "Brain" and then texted him a screen shot. Brian freaked out and said he was scrambling for a computer. M was nearly crying he was laughing so hard. I have to admit, it's pretty funny..and if I could do this on my computer, would probably spend a whole day freaking out my friends. hahaha.

anyway, hope you all had a good weekend!
I get to go to oral arguments at the court of appeals for a case we're involved in on Tuesday, and I'm SO EXCITED! (#nerdalert), so, if I can snap some pictures of the day (not during arguments, obviously) without the partners I'm going with thinking I'm an idiot, I will.

Politiks

Yep. I said the "P" word.

This is not going to be a post about my political beliefs. Or at least that's not my intent. But, since I have nothing to post about and have been compulsively checking the mail waiting for that dang DVD of photos to get here (and I have had this drafted for, oh, 5 months...) this is what you get.

Overall? If I think about the way people talk about politics, and politics in general, for more than a few minutes: it makes me physically angry.

It's so combative, that last summer the state government in Minnesota legitimately SHUT DOWN because they couldn't agree. For 20 days!! People were out of jobs for TWENTY DAYS because politians couldn't get their shit together in balancing the budget. Because "compromise" was such a dirty word.

Prior to law school, I shied away from political conversations because I honestly felt uneducated about the matters. About how the Constitution played into the law, about challenges to the laws, etc. Post law school, I feel significantly more educated..at least on the Constitutional portion of things, the way the legal system works, etc. but I still shy away from political discussions because thinking about it too much? Thinking about the way GROWN UPS discuss politics, religion, elections? It makes me want to SCREAM.

I scroll down to the comments section of articles I read...lord knows why, since it's an epic mistake.. and am enraged and disheartened. I genuinely believe what's best for the people has been 100% forgotten. I genuinely believe it's come down to "hating the other guy" more than you love your constituents. To voting certain ways on laws and bills JUST to frustrate the opposition, even if they have a valid point.

An article came out this week in Minnesota from Michael Brodkorb (a republican)- the man who had an affair with senator Amy Koch. He alleges/admitted that one of the primary motivations behind the voter ID and gay marriage amendments on the ballot this year was purely to rile conservatives enough to get them to the polls to vote in general, and for other things like state rep, senator, and president.

Yeah, let that sink in for a minute.

He just admitted that a percentage of our lawmakers (if this is true) really honestly don't give a shit that they're putting peoples' fundamental, constitutional RIGHTS on the line....and that it was a political strategy. That makes me sick. Regardless of how you feel about either one. He then went on to say he's Voting No on the gay marriage amendment (despite pushing for the amendment on the ballot). 

I mean think about it. We live in a country where people will fight harder to protect James Holmes' right to own a semi-automatic weapon (so this I suppose is a clue as to when I drafted this), and will fight tooth and nail against reforming our health care system.

Regardless of which way you feel about either of them.. I mean honestly, REALLY think about that. That's not an opinion. That's the truth of what's happening right now.

What???!

So maybe that gives away some of my political beliefs, maybe not.

I honestly don't mind political discussions that are thoughtful, intelligent, respectful. It's just disheartening to see so many that trend towards --"You're wrong. You're stupid for having that belief. And because you don't believe what I do, I have to scream at you to get you to change your mind."

I'll admit in fits of passion I've succumb to calling "the other guy" a name or two, but on the whole? I don't value your opinion when you call the president OR Mitt Romney an "asshole" or an "idiot".. um, they both went to Harvard. So, pretty sure neither are "stupid".. how about instead we identify what it is we disagree with about their policy, and why.

Just my two cents.



Wedding DIY: Grab bag...and a bonus ;)

Hey there kids!

I'm here today to bring you an assortment of little DIY's I've been working on lately. 

I saw THIS post on Pinterest, with a free printable for a kids coloring book. I hadn't considered "the kids" too much, but I couldn't pass up free and easy! So, I printed 20 of these at work(free!), and bought a 64 pack of crayons ($3.50) and a wicker basket from Michael's ($3.99), and ta-da! Distractions for the crazy adorable wee ones!

I'm a little confused why this one came out inverted... alas.

I am probably going to print some more, and buy one more box of crayons (or maybe think up a "different" craft/distraction) since there are only about 20 of these books/crayon bundles. 

Next up, flowers!

I, personally, am a frugal person. If I had an unlimited budget... I'd have flowers dripping off everything. BUT, since we're largely funding this ourselves, I can't justify spending hundreds, let alone thousands, of dollars on a perishable item (that I ain't even eating!). 

Enter: Minneapolis farmer's market. There are hearty bouquets of flowers for $4-$6 at the downtown market on Thursdays. So, M's mom bought me a bouquet last week, so I could see what varieties they had in season in early October...make sure they'd last from Thursday to Friday night (when I'd make them) AND to do a 'dry run' of an attempt at a boutonniere. I'm not too concerned about a bouquet, I've seen enough tutorials and trust that I can bunch up some flowers and wrap a ribbon around them pretty easily. It also doesn't hurt that I'm not picky in the slightest about flowers. 

SO, here's the "sample" boutonniere I whipped up, to see if I could do it!

Not too shabby! And, if all the flowers die and/or fall apart the morning of the wedding.. meh. I really am not that concerned about it. Does that make me weird? maybe.

 

Last up.. since I'm not sure my girls read this.. I'll share a part of their gifts! Even if they do read it, this isn't the only thing they're getting, anyway.

I loved the idea of personalized hangers, but didn't like the price tag ($20-$50 depending on where you go). I saw a tutorial on making your own. Really, all it involves is buying floral wire (which I learned accidentally) and drilling a teeeeeeny tiny hole on either side of a wooden hanger to anchor the wire, and then a dab of hot glue to secure it. I finished mine off with a burlap bow, to keep with my burlap theme. 

Here are two of them!

a

Laaassttlyyy... I have a top secret bonus for you guys. 

I've seen a preview of our engagement photos. and, I cried. (#dramatic) 

They are more than I could have imagined. I got the log in information for the online proofs, and the DVD is coming in the mail as soon as they receive it. I asked if I could pull photos from the website to share with people, or if I had to wait for the DVD. she said I could do it with the DVD. I'm not sure if that meant I wasn't functionally able to "save" them from the website, or LEGALLY, I couldn't share them. On Mac's, you can do a Command+Shift+4 screen grab though. SO, functionally I could grab them, I'm just not sure if I'm supposed to. And out of a fear of being sued before I'm even a lawyer, I am going to wait to share them until I get the DVD. Plus, the "screen grabs" have a little tag in the corner from their editing. 

That being said, since this blog has never been posted on FB, and I'm not sure they'd ever see it.. I'll share the cover compilation photo from our proofing album. 

Squeeeeeeeeeeee!! I just love them. 

Hopefully this tides you over until I get the DVD and can post the rest! Besides, the left, and 2 middle ones are 3 of my favorites anywhoo.

OH, and M and joined LA Fitness tonight. Joint family membership for, wait for it.. $50 a month. I'm THRILLED with that price tag. Lifetime was $70 for ONE of us. woof. So, I'm going to get my fitness on! Now that I don't have to worry about having a charged ipod and dying of boredom. :) 

-Kelly