How to make a Heidi

How to make a Heidi

Ingredients: 1 part competetiveness 1 part humour 3 parts joy

Method: Layer ingredientes in a shot glass. Add fitness to taste! Do not overindulge!

Personality cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year's Thanksgiving was a little different than years past -- just a little more chill with a smaller group of people. Although I'm usually the one who tries to fit in as much as possible and see as many people as possible for each holiday, it was kind of a nice change to just relax at one place. So...in the morning, I ran the Turkey Day 5K with my aunt Katie and some of her friends. Then we went over to her friend's place for some wonderful brunch and mimosas. I had all these visions of me being productive in the morning getting some work done on grad school apps, and then the mimosas happened...so I just went home and took a nap instead. :) Then I went to pick up my brother and have a non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house -- we had prime rib, twice-baked potatoes, an awesome broccoli salad, bread with oil dipping sauce, asparagus and then the traditional pumpkin pie. Yum! What a nice change from turkey and stuffing! I'd suggest trying it sometime if you're open to change. :)

Anyway, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and got to enjoy a day off work. Me? I'm back at it in the office again today, but it's nice and quiet (and I'm taking some time out to write in here...) so it's not too bad.

Enjoy your weekend!

PS Thanks Rob for the Big Bird pic!

Tap dancing

For your entertainment, click here to see a video of Indy tap dancing on my kitchen floor. The wood floor is just too slippery for her little paws, so she slides all over the place. This is not quite representative of her usual clumsiness, but it'll do for now. Enjoy!

Blue blocker lady

So...I was at the dog park the other day with Indy. We had spent almost an hour there, so Indy was getting pretty tired at this point but she wasn't quite ready to leave yet (and neither was I -- it was a beautiful day). Off in the distance, I see two dalmations. Apparently, Indy saw them, too, and being the social butterfly that she is, she ran over to greet them and play. I haven't seen dalmations in years, so I was thinking, "oh cute...dalmations."

I walk over to follow Indy, who is already running along with the smaller of the two dalmations, and as most people do at dog parks, I was going to say hi to the owner (who I might mention was a 60s-ish woman wearing blue blockers and a hiking/fishing hat). So I'm about to comment on how pretty her dogs are, when she shouts (no exaggeration), "Is that your labrador retriever?!"

I respond with a normal-sounding "Yeah."

"Can you get her off my dogs?!" she shouts, growing more agitated with every syllable.

At that I was confused and shocked. I glanced over at Indy and the blue blocker lady's dogs. All tails were wagging. They were just running along and playing like normal dogs do at dog parks.

"Aren't they just playing?" I ask.

"No!" blue blocker lady screams. "I've never seen a dog play like that! I've been bitten by labrador retrievers and so have my dogs! Get her OFF!!!"

At that, my jaw was probably on the ground. It took all I had not to respond with a snotty remark, like "why did you bring your dogs to DOG PARK if you didn't want them to PLAY WITH OTHER DOGS?" Instead I just kind of gave her an odd look and called Indy, who had already developed ADD and moved on to another couple dogs to play with. I think she could sense that they came from an odd upbringing. I totally wanted to yell at her -- I can now empathize with some of those parents who get mad at each other at T-Ball games when someone bad-mouths their kid.

After that, I made friends with some other owners by telling them about crazy blue blocker lady and her dalmations. Ahhhh....isn't it great how gossip brought us together?

So now I ask you, how could you be intimidated by this cute dog? She wouldn't harm a fly (not on purpose anyway -- maybe only if she tripped cause she's clumsy or if she thought she was biting her bone but missed and bit your hand).

Just a quick final comment: I think that Christopher Guest should make his next mockumentary about dog parks. It could be a follow-up to "Best in Show."

Indy's favorite drink

Sink water. Yup....not a good habit to get her into, but I just had to capture this moment. She tries to jump up and drink out of the sink whenever I'm washing my hands or brushing my teeth. She's a smart dog -- the coldest water comes out of this sink.

It's raining leaves

Last week for my bday, my co-workers decorated my cube in fall/puppy decor. You can't tell, but there were also leaves, leaf confetti and paw prints all over the floor. What a beautiful surprise. :) I also really like the acorn hanging from the ceiling.

John Kerry Excuses

Check out this top 10 list. Sooooo funny.... :)

Happy Halloween

In honor of all things scary and frightening on Halloween weekend, I decided to dress up as a jazzercize instructor. Check out that spandex unitard, baby!

For more photos of my cousin's Halloween party (and to see pics of Mrs. Butterworth, Slash, a cowgirl, a Mexican and a warm-fuzzy), click here. For some reason, the camera got put away early in the night, so we missed out on some other photo opps...

Just thinking about Halloween as a kid...did anyone else ever sing this song:

Trick or treat, smell my feet
Give me something good to eat.
If you don't, I don't care
I'll pull down your underwear!

Hey Mae Wo!

Oh Mae Wo, you're so fine, you're so fine you blow my mind...Hey Mae Wo! (I've had that song in my head since Oct. 14, thank you very much...)

Another one of my college friends, Mae Wo (her real name's Megan...her nickname was created in the times of JLo) got married a couple weeks ago. It was a beautiful wedding and reception, and really, it was just a great time to see all of my Butler friends. Now that we all live all over the country -- Boston, San Fran, Denver, Minneapolis, Indy, Lexington -- we don't get to see each other as often as we'd like. But when we get together, watch out... Butler/Purdue kids, you know who you are -- thanks for being such wonderful friends. It was soooooooooooo good to see you all.

And don't let me forget the Clarian crew! It was good to see you all as well -- and the Rathskeller continues to be my favorite place to go out in Indy.

If you'd like to browse through pictures from the entire weekend, click here. There are pics from the Rathskeller, Living Room Lounge, downtown Indy, the wedding and reception. Enjoy!

Laugh Breaks at Work

We all do it...slack off a little while we're working when we need a break from being productive. Well, as you can see in my "links" area to the right, I've added one of my favorite Web sites to visit when I'm in need of a laugh break at work: the Late Show's Top 10 Archive. I would highly recommend it. One of my most recent favorites is the Sept. 15 list, "Top 10 New Fall Shows on Al-Jazeera." Ahh..... Spongeabdul Squareturban cracks me up. :)