I Like You.

I feel like pretty much every post I do these days has something to do with L, so I apologize if you guys are getting way bored with me... Ha. I just can't help myself. :) This is just a quick one to share another little sweet thing he did. While I was in Colby for my cousin's wedding this weekend, he was actually in Milwaukee. He had to fly out of MKE for work, and since he has my other set of keys, I told him he could just drop some of his stuff at my apartment if he needed to. When I got home last night, I found the little note pictured below. Here's a little context. I have a notepad that has a message at the top that says, "I like you. You're an even bigger mess than I am." The content of the message L left wasn't even overly sweet or anything, but it made me smile when I saw that he crossed out the second part of the sentence on top so it just said, "I like you." Oh, it's the little things. :) Looking forward to Wednesday when I get to pick him up from the airport and hang out with him for a couple nights! (Oh, and speaking of the wedding this weekend, I'll probably do a post real soon with a few pictures from the day!)

HBD Jack!

A quick shout out to wish my bro a happy 29th birthday today! Now, more than ever, I am SO ready to get home and see him and the rest of my fam. This 3 months in between visits is NOT ideal. I miss everyone way too much! Anyway, Jack (his real name's Jacob for those of you who may not know, but I often call him Jack), I hope you had a great day. I love you and can't wait to see you this weekend!! :)

Tried to find a mix of hilarious photos and nice ones. Let me tell ya, in our collection, there are far more hilarious ones than nice ones. I'd say we need to work on it, but why change such a good thing?! ;)

 

La Crosse + Wedding

As promised, here are a few tidbits from my weekend in La Crosse last weekend (assuming you care;). The purpose for my trip was my old roommate Lauren's wedding, which was in Rochester. Rather than driving all the way up to Rochester, it made much more sense to go to La Crosse first and make that my weekend "home" so I could break up the drive and also see L before we headed to MN on Saturday. I went up after work and we just laid low that night. Got up, had some brunch, and then got ready for the wedding. L was definitely NOT too excited about the wedding. He's not a fan in general, especially not when he doesn't know anyone, so I was happy he agreed to be my date (despite the occasional whining on the trip;). We went to the wedding at 1:00 and then had a bunch of awkward time in between that and the reception, so we ended up going to Taco Bell to grab a little food. Nothing like strollin' in for some TB in fancy wedding clothes, ha! After that, we found a bar in downtown Rochester - which was surprisingly no easy feat - and had a few drinks. Then we made our way back for the reception. Eventually we ate and did a little dancing, and then we headed out relatively early because we decided to drive back that same night. There was appeal to staying in a hotel, but we decided it didn't seem ideal to spend that much on a hotel when we were only an hour away from home. Just relaxed when we got home that night, and then Sunday was a long, fun day! We got up somewhat early, headed out to Pettibone Boat Club for breakfast and ended up staying for several hours, went to Ye Olde Style Inn (another local pub) and had an afternoon lunch, and ended by going to see the new Spiderman movie. SUCH a fun day! I met my friend Andrew later for a little bit because it'd been a LONG time since I'd seen him, so that was nice too! Backing up a sec, this was the first time I'd been to the boat club. It is right on the water, and it was beautiful! I had such a blast being there, minus the fact that I got sunburnt on my right arm and thigh. I'd go back in a heartbeat. Anyway, on Monday, which I'd taken off, L went back to work and I just chilled. I got my hair done and had lunch with L, then just relaxed all day. He came home and we spent the night just hanging out. I had to work Tuesday, so I had my always-occurring dilemma: Do I go tonight? Or do I stay over and get up super early to drive back? Of course, because I love being there, I tortured myself a bit and decided to stay over. I tell ya, getting up at 4:30 is no easy feat. Driving 3+ hours after that is also no easy feat. And working 9 hours once I arrive is pretty much torture. However, I've done it a few times, and I actually survive a little easier than one would think. So, a few extra hours are worth it! :) Anyway, I'll stop talking now. Enjoy a few pics from our weekend. We clean up well, huh?!

OH! I should mentioned that the pearl earrings and necklace were a gift from L. He got them for me in Hawaii! :)

In the mirror before heading out!

 Killing time in downtown Rochester.

 Me and Lauren, the beautiful bride!

 Candid shot. :)

He hates these types of photos. ;)

Check us out on the left. This must have been the moment when he was pulling away to switch dancing positions because he felt we were dancing like high schoolers with my arms around his neck. ;) Apparently we should dance more like the guy to our right in the pink shirt. Who knew?! Seems a little old school to me, ha!

 Full length photo!

 Now THERE is that smile I love. :)

 Brunch at Pettibone Boat Club!

Lunch at Ye Olde Style Inn!

Hair!

When I was up in La Crosse last weekend, I took Monday off and was able to get in for my much needed scheduled hair appointment. I'm not sure if you all have one, but I'm under the firm belief that when you find the right person to do your hair, it's really hard to let them go! I found that person in Jenna, my stylist from the Orange Pearl Salon. The last time I got my hair done there (I think it was back in April, eesh!), I scheduled my next [tentative] appointment for mid-June. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go to that one since I wasn't in town, so by the time Monday's appointment rolled around, I was well over a month beyond my normal time between appointments. Yikes! Anyway........ Way more information than you needed to know about my hair routine, but just wanted to give you a quick pic to show you my new 'do! Nothing drastically different than my past few cuts, and I know this pic doesn't give the best sense for the color, but hopefully you get the idea! I love that I have such good hair days right after I get it cut. Never used to be the case! I've got a keeper in Jenna! And stay tuned for a post with more details from my weekend in La Crosse! :)

Fireworks!

Way behind here, but I took some fun pictures of fireworks on my phone over the 4th of July and wanted to share them with you! I was lucky enough to spend the evening on a boat with my former roommate and a few other people. It was a gorgeous night, and I even got to spend a little time IN the water. A lot of fun to get outside for a bit and to see some fun people. While I'm not a master photographer by any means, I thought my phone did a pretty good job of capturing a few neat photos of fireworks from the boat. Hope you enjoy! :)

P.S. After I published this, I realized how small these photos are and how NOT awesome they look in this post compared to normal size. Hopefully you can still get the idea!

 

 

 

 

How cool is this last one?!

I Miss You

Those of you that know me well know that I love my sleep and that I'm typically not overly happy when that sleep is interrupted. Last night, in our usual "routine," L and I were texting back and forth and we eventually said goodnight. About an hour later, around 12:30am, and after I'd already been asleep, I woke up to a text and felt a little perturbed. That is, until I read it. It was from none other than L himself (who obviously knew I was sleeping), and all it said was:

imissyouimissyouimissyouimissyouimissyouimissyou

I'll happily wake up to that anytime. :)

Productive Day!

Today has to go down in history as one of my most productive days. I slept until about 9:30, then got up, got dressed, and went for a 1.5 mile walk. (So many people in the neighborhood waved to me as I walked. I felt kinda like I was "home" or something!) After my walk, I decided to clean out my freezer, which I've been wanting to do for awhile. It wasn't cleaning out in the sense that I was getting rid of a bunch of stuff, but it was more just taking an inventory and organizing what was in there. I should have done the refrigerator right away too, but that was more than I wanted to tackle. ;) After that project, I had some lunch and went outside to clean out and organize the trunk of my car. Every time I open my trunk, I'm horrified by how messy and full it is. And then I have flashbacks to last year when I had to get to my spare tire and had SO much stuff in my trunk that it took me foreverrrrr to get to the tire. Yeah. I still have a fair amount of things to keep in my trunk (a cooler, a blanket, reusable grocery bags, a folding chair, etc.), but after sorting through all the unnecessary stuff, I was at least able to get it somewhat organized! Whew, one step closer. The inside of my car was also disastrous. The main culprit was a few bags of clothes I had in the backseat to go to Goodwill. They've been in there a long time because there isn't a Goodwill right in my backyard, so they haunted me every time I looked in my car. Today, I decided to remedy that. I plugged a Goodwill address into my GPS and took my butt there to get rid of the stuff. After that, I thought, "Hmmm. I wonder if there's a Wal-mart around here," because I had to return a few things. Sure shit, there was one literally a block in the other direction! So, I returned my items and then got a few groceries to complete my dinner list. Once I got home, I relaxed a bit and then cooked myself a nice dinner. And now I'm just chillin'. Maybe I'll clean out my fridge tomorrow. Or... maybe not... ;) Are you understanding why I feel like it was such a productive day today?! Seriously, I could get used to this. LOVE IT.

I should back up for just a second and say that this week, I started a bit of an exercise regimen that L helped me develop. I know I'm not needing to lose weight or anything, but I just feel so inactive all the time, and I can kinda feel the effects of that on my body. Thought it made sense to get his advice because he works out so often. I won't lie, the workouts have been far from easy, but I can proudly say that I've done them all, and that's the important part! (On a related note, have you ever tried plank exercises? A small part of one of my workouts calls for 4 planks, 45-60 seconds each. Sounds easy, but holy s*@t! Nope. That's all I'm gonna say;). Point being.... I did a few workouts this week, with an especially long one after work last night, and then went for my walk this morning. I must say, I think I can credit all this energy and productivity to that! I feel like people always say that you'll just overall feel better if you lead a more active lifestyle, and while I'm only a week in, I'm feeling pretty good and refreshed. This is good!! :) Anyway, see some photos from my productive day below!

BEFORE

(Freezer - Yikes.)

 AFTER

(Freezer)

Up: Inventory of meat. ;)

Down: BEFORE (Trunk - Yikes)

 AFTER

(Trunk)

My meal!

Hot Outside?

Well, it appears we're all suffering from a MASSIVE heat wave these days. Although, it's rather chilly here today compared to what we experienced earlier this week. Kidding. It's not chilly by any stretch of the imagination. But, at "only" 97 degrees today with a heat index of 102, we are cooler than yesterday if you can believe it! I spend most of my time indoors at work, so I haven't suffered too much. I must say, I do find it a little bit funny when people complain in the winter about how much they want it to be summer, yet when it gets hot, they're the first to complain about how miserable they are... I kinda like the heat. In small doses...ha! Thought this picture was fitting (and hilarious) given what we've all been experiencing! :) Do your best to be safe and stay cool, folks! Happy Summer!