Doodling For Dollars

Dream job...
Some people have a ‘dream job’ and some have no clue what they want to do when they grow up. I really don’t know what my dream job would be, but if I had to pick one at this very moment (besides being an E! or Access Hollywood correspondent) it would be to work in the Doodle department at Google. I have always noticed the Google homepage doodles, but not until recent months have I really paid attention to them.

I did some research today and found they have a team dedicated strictly to the Google Doodles. I have been doodling my entire life—on sidebars of notebook pages, fronts and backs of folders, my Cub bag book covers all throughout my school days and now I have a giant doodle pad on my desk at work that is on it’s third sheet. If I could see the future and knew I was going to do this post someday, I would have saved my past two giant doodle sheets and scanned them in and posted them (they would have also made pretty good resume-material if I did ever decide to apply at Google). But since I went against my Grandpa’s policy of “never throw anything away”, those sheets, along with hundreds of past notebooks and folders are long gone. What I do have though, are these two awesome, high quality pictures (taken with my mid 2000’s flip phone) of some of the doodles that currently reside on my doodle pad. Sure, my doodles aren’t as “professional” looking as the Googlers, and consist of a lot of random lines, shading and weak attempts at the Twins logo, but I feel they come in pretty close! :)

Strangers In the Night

Everyone loves good people watching—It's is one of the main reasons thousands go to the State Fair multiple times a year (ok, maybe that’s a stretch—we all know the deep fried pickles, cheese curds and the pronto pups are the biggest reasons). Anyway, I am here to tell you that the Minnesota State Fair may no longer be the best place to People Watch on a summer evening. Coming in a close 2nd is the Vali-Hi drive in movie theatre… wow. I haven’t been to a drive in movie theatre in YEARS and after Saturday night, I probably know why. This was on the verge of not even ‘fun’ people watching, it was more disturbing than anything...I could probably fill up a month’s worth of blogging with all that I witnessed, but I will give some high (or low) lights of the event. Some things I witnessed can’t even be described over type.

Here goes:

The excessive amount of 5-10 year old kids there to watch The Hangover 2 and Bridesmaids with their parents, the pregnant teens there with their mom’s; all whom were sporting excessive amounts of tattoos and showing more skin than anyone should ever see in public, the 16 year old kid who waited with his girlfriend in the 45-minute bathroom line (I won’t even get into how disgusting the bathroom was) and decided they would make out for the majority of the time, the parent that not only brought her small daughter to see inappropriate adult movies, but brought a booster seat to put on the toilet so she wouldn’t fall in, the not-at-all-skinny guy dressed head to toe in red with a massive silver chain on his neck and his flat-brimmed hat cocked sideways who went back and fourth to the snack bar about three times and on the way back from is third trip, yelled to his friends “flip the steaks!”.
This may sound harsh, but the truth hurts, people!
I guess the strange come out when the sun goes down!

Mr. and Mrs. D.

What do you get 28 days after the Wright Royal Wedding, exact same dress; different color, a white Mercedes SUV limo and a random encounter with the lead singer of Cheap Trick?
Another wedding never to forget!
My friend Kari got married last weekend and I was lucky enough to be a part of the entire thing.
Another three days packed with grand adventures-- everything from the rehearsal Thursday to the nail salon Friday, to the hair salon, wedding and dancing on Saturday to the last beer poured Sunday morning!
And of course a wedding wouldn't be complete without a mariachi band, right?
After the reception was over, the bridal party and a few others made our way over to the bar at the St. Paul Hotel for more fun.  It was here that the one and only (insert name here because I only know him as "the lead singer of Cheap Trick") was sitting at the bar.  It was only because of the other stranger at the bar did I know who this man was.
What a great three days... if only we could rewind and do it all again this weekend.
Congratulations Kari and Miguel!

Getting Pretty at Head to Toe Salon

Getting Pretty at the Church

The Happy Couple

Party Time! *Cheap Trick Guy upper right*

Heartbeat 5000

There is a walk on June 25th to support Children's Heart Health and raises money for the cardiovascular care program at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.  As you know, my nephew Deaken was taken too early from us due to heart complications.  It would be great if we could find a cure for a condition that affects so many other children.  Follow this link to join our team "Darting for Deaken" and donate to a great cause!  If you would also like to register for the walk, you can do that under the "register" tab at the top of the screen.  Thank you in advance!  :)

ill with a fever

Sorry about the lack of blogging over the last week; nothing really has been really news worthy to write about.  I try to blog when I have something interesting to say, I don't like to post just to post.  I like to keep you interested.  :)  I like to compare my blogging to something my 4th grade Social Studies teacher said once that I will never forget.  He was having us make a map of a country in the world and we had about a week to do it. He also said that if we had time we could make more maps for extra credit.  He told us though to focus on our main map and make it good before working on the extra credit.  He said "I would rather have one really good pizza than ten bad pizzas."  This is so true, isn't it?  He put it in such simple terms but it makes perfect sense!
Anyway... back to the post.

I STILL have Idol Fever.  I think I am more obsessed with Scotty and Lauren now than I was during the final show.  Every time I see there is a video clip of them being interviewed I am all over it like white on rice.  I cannot get enough!  I am SO glad those two made it to the end--their personalities are so genuine, they are contagious!

americanidol.com

During my obsession yesterday, I checked out my usual site for celebrity gossip- accesshollywood.com and was reading every article on these two.  I clicked on this article and could not believe I read this tweet from Jennifer Hudson (a singer, celebrity and a former Idol contestant herself): “Hey yal didn’t tell me tonight was American idol finale ! I had no idea !!” 

Common J-Hud, unless you have lived under a rock for the last week, you should have had some inkling that Idol was coming down to the finale.  Didn't one of your fellow tweeters have something to say about the final show being on that night??

Would you like to save twelve cents today?

No, actually, I wouldn’t. Because it’s not really SAVING twelve cents when you have to PAY more to save the twelve cents.

Here I was, on my way to my softball game Wednesday night when I decided to stop at the local Holiday to fill up the MINI and pick up some of my and my teams favorite Giant Sunflower Seeds (Salt & Pepper flavor). Now if any of you are familiar with Holiday and their wonderful selection of Giant seeds, you will know that they have been 2 for $3 for the past I swear, three years. Normally I am a sucker for the deal, but Wednesday, I refrained. I told myself that I only needed one bag…there is no reason to buy two. Don’t get me wrong; I was tempted. I had to hold myself back from buying that second bag…the yellow 2/$3 tag on the little metal post was just screaming at me to pull the second bag off of the bar, but like I said, I held back….or did I??

I mosey on up to the counter to pay for my gas and my seeds. As I tell the cashier my pump number and put the bag of seeds on the counter she smiles (as if she is sickly reading my mind and knows my weakness) and says “These are 2 for $2.88, did you want to get another one?” My mind instantly races to the yellow tag and I say to the cashier -- “they are two for $2.88, not two for $3.00?!?” Cashier: “nope, they are $2.88.” Me: “Ok, hang on.” I literally LEAVE MY WALLET, CREDIT CARD AND CAR KEYS on the counter and go to the back of the store and pick out a second bag. What is my problem??? Leaving my personal belongings on the counter of a gas station because I was flabbergasted by the fact that the sale price had dropped from $3 to $2.88! Wow. It was only after I got to softball and was discussing the situation with my teammates did I realize that it was a measly 12 cents I saved. And really, I didn’t even SAVE the twelve cents, because I had to pay a dollar and some odd cents MORE in order to get the second bag of seeds!
This should be a lesson learned; but we all know that it probably wasn’t.

New Additions

My yard got a little facelift this weekend.
With the help of both parents, I was able to put in a pretty cool fire pit and a garden where hopefully some vegetables will grow!

This is what you get when you combine an old tractor ring, some landscaping bricks, lawn fabric, a yard and a third of pea gravel and some SERIOUS shoveling/edging/raking/leveling:

This is what you get when you do some SERIOUS weeding, raking, digging and a trip to Menards for the plants:

 

This what you get after the lawn gets a haircut and it's all said and done on Sunday night:

 Look closely and you can see my fire pit on the left. Look REALLY close and you can see the sprinkler hitting the garden on the right.