Beer and BBQ

Last night Christine and I went to Market BBQ to use her piggy bucks. Good BBQ and cheap beer are one of my favorite combinations. I love the decor of BBQ joints--simple rustic American picnic meets piggy kitsch. I love the red and white checked table clothes and tons of pig knick-knacks. It is the perfect atmosphere for people to gnaw away on BBQ ribs and chicken. And that's exactly what Christine and I did. We gorged ourselves on cheap beer, ribs, chicken, coleslaw, french fries and butter soaked Texas toast. Yum.

Goodwill

I just heard a commercial on the radio for Goodwill. Is it just me or does this seem odd? Why does Goodwill need to advertise? They don't. Goodwill has been around forever. I am willing to bet that most people know what it is. What doesn't help is how lame the commercials are:

man: Are your jeans new?

woman: Well, they're new to me.

man: Huh?

woman: I got 'em at Goodwill. You should go.


Yuck.

I heart Natalie Dee

from Nataliedee.com

Sleep with One Eye Open

I always have such a hard time falling asleep on Sunday nights. I think it's the end of the weekend blues. This past Sunday it was particularly difficult. As I was falling asleep, I kept hearing a rustling sound--it kept moving from one side of the room to another. I turned on my light and didn't see anything. I went back to bed. This went on for about twenty minutes before I finally figured out it was a bat! I freaked out. There's something about a rodent that flies about my room that creeps me out. Ewww.... If it was a mouse or a bug, I wouldn't have freaked out. I'm a tough girl. My dad had me help him catch mice and voles as a kid. Back to the bat, my roommate was very calm and got the bat trapped in the sun room. I slept with my light on and the covers pulled tightly over my head. So silly, I know. I have never been afraid of the dark or monsters or the boogie man. Just things that fly about my room at night. I'm sleeping with one eye open.

The Final Four that never happened

I was just reading the strib online when I stumbled upon an article about the 1996-1997 Gophers Men's basketball team that made it all the way to the Final Four and then had it erased from everyone's memory after a variety of infractions by Clem Haskins that ranged from paying players off in the bathroom to paying tutor to write papers.

I can't believe that happened ten years ago. Wow..... it seems like only yesterday. I was such a huge fan. My roommate and I had season tickets. I was there when they won the Big Ten title. I remember watching the Final Four game at home in WI with my parents and my grandparents. I think it was Spring Break. It was right after my mom got sick. My poor mom. Not only was she recovering from surgery, she had my to endure a weekend of basketball with the superfans. My mom was not that into basketball, but she had this amazing gift of being able to hold her own in any conversation on basketball. I don't know how she did it. She came across as being so well-versed on basketball.

Like the good fans that we were, we all wore our Gophers apparel. What is quite funny is I don't remember much about the actual game. I know that they lost and that the game was so close my Grandma had to hide in the kitchen during the last couple of minutes (she was too nervous to watch.) But beyond, that about all I recall is spending time with my family. And being so upset when they lost. Looking back, it just seems so silly and trivial. It was just a game. I guess I was only 18. The silly and trivial frequently upset me back then. Not anymore.

Who stole my creativity?

Seriously. Where did it go? I have all of these wonderful ideas for my screenplay and I can't for the life of me get them down onto paper. I have tried several times within the past month to sit down and work on it and I can't. I just stare at my computer screen blankly. ARGH. I can see how I want things to be in my head, but they just can't get onto my computer. I feel like I'm drained. I've got nothing.

Jelly Beans!

Yesterday I was at Target waiting in line at the checkout when I was sucked into an endcap display: Easter Candy, more specifically jelly beans. I love jelly beans. Even the black ones. I had to buy a bag. I know that they are so sugar filled and not good for me, but I couldn't resist. I was drawn to the bag of Brach's Classic Jelly Beans. I blame it on nostalgia. When I was little, my mom always bought jelly beans for Easter. Being the thrifty mom that she was, she would buy them in these huge Brach's 2 lb. bags. For some odd reason, she kept them in the front closet. The bag never lasted very long . Maybe a week. It was our thing, too. Just my mom and I. My Dad isn't a big fan of candy. My mom was a pretty cool mom and sort of a kid herself. She let me have as many jelly beans as I wanted. I never gorged myself on them. I would eat small hand fulls throughout the day. My mom loved the black jelly beans. She would dig through the bag to find them. If my Grandpa was around, the two would fight over the black ones. I liked to eat them in certain color combinations: orange, pink, purple and yellow and green. Every year we always had this huge bag of jelly beans. (Ok, two or three) It was a rite of Spring.

As I was looking back on Easter's past, I realized that I have really come a long way since my mom passed away almost 10 years ago. I can recall these traditions with as sense of fondness and happiness . As recent as two years ago, I probably would've broken down in the middle of Target and not known why. It's great to finally be at the point in my life where I can looked back at these memories without all the sadness and pain.

In the true tradition of Easter's past, the bag if jelly beans I bought is almost gone. My mom would've wanted it that way.

Here I am!

So here I am. I finally created a real blog. Woo-hoo. For the past year, I've been blogging on my myspace page, and I thought it was high time I had a separate blog. No special reason. I just wanted a change. And I don't think I am in the middle of my 2nd Quarter Life Crisis anymore. At the age of 28 and a half, I think I finally have some idea what I want to do with my life. I am not confused anymore. This isn't to say that I won't change my mind every other week what I want to do with my life, but for the most part, I am happy. I am ready to be done with my 20's. It's not like my 20's were so horrible, I am just tired and worn out from the long series of life-lessons that I've endured. I figure my 30's will be about finally enjoying life and not struggling quite so much.