September Love*

Football season, football season, football season . . oh wait, sorry, there are a few other things, too. Blue Moon, mushrooms on everything, mini corndogs, Ghirardelli dark chocolate brownies, eggs benedict on fried green tomatoes . . Mr. Greengenes, lululemon, season premieres, getting organized, seeing family, and making new friends**.

I could write an entire post on each of these things!

But we all know I won’t.

*I'm stealing Slice of Pink's idea.

**Specifically two guys that actually love Jesus with their whole hearts! My good friend KC and I are having fun watching football and golfing with them.

my weekend

I've been dog-sitting for friends this weekend . . and I hope they never come back. Their home is the perfect distance from the city (4 miles, although if I'm honest, I love being one block away). It's cozy and inviting, and the fridge is perfectly stocked with the best snacks I could imagine. I invited friends over Friday night. We ordered our favorite pizzas and played Wii Golf on the flat screen. Every night I climb into their King size bed with the little shih tzu and sink into the mattress. It's difficult to get up in the morning. Living with three girls, I am loving the time ALONE, no distractions, no getting frustrated with messes that aren't mine. It's been a lovely little retreat.

daydreaming

Whenever I get overwhelmed at work, I start biting my nails down to nothing and daydreaming about another life. Why can't I just be an unemployed homeowner who spends her days baking and decorating? That sounds totally realistic to me!

I'm getting there

Weekend Full of Fun

So the first thing I think when I sit down to write about my weekend is: YUM. It was a delicious, high-calorie weekend. Oh, and I also think *yawn*. So exhausting!

My weekend began a day earlier than usual as I headed out for Thursday night dinner with some girlfriends. We sat on the patio at Sette Bello drinking our favorite wines and eating caprese salad and penne with salmon in vodka and cream sauce. (I also gave in and had a dense chocolate mousse cake with vanilla bean ice cream.) I had every intention of heading home early and hopping in the sack at 10pm, but one fun moment led to another and before I knew it, I was dancing to a live cover band, and it was 1:30am. Oops.

Friday evening was a repeat of dinner and dancing, but with a different group of friends. This time my salmon was covered in bbq sauce and served atop a pile of mashed potatoes with asparagus and corn salsa on the side.

Saturday, despite a high of 70 degrees, was spent on the lake. No football game for my team, so I opted out of game-watching altogether. My comfort on the slalom ski has reached a new high, as I continue to set bigger goals for myself each time I go out. My shoulder is not touching the water yet (let’s be honest, not even close) but I’m pretty impressed with how far I’ve come. After boating, the boys and I stopped by their friend’s block party BBQ. He’d been up since 4am smoking the meat, and it was fantastic! He even got the local newspaper to come by and snap a few pictures – too funny.

Yesterday’s highlight was golfing on a new course! I’m not sure I can go back to my regular course after that! It was a gorgeous afternoon surrounded by ponds, geese honking, and tons of deer roaming onto the course. We had dinner at our favorite sandwich/pizza place (my meal: pita stuffed with chicken, tomato sauce, parmesan and mozzarella cheeses, and garlic), and I stayed up way too late playing the new Scrabble Beta on facebook. Seriously addicting!

dinner

I went over to Cousin J and K's tonight for yummy asparagus ravioli, spring mix salads with dried cranberries, walnuts, and feta . . and a glass of wine. She sure knows how to throw together a great dinner! I've been a little homesick lately, and it's times like these that I'm even more thankful to have family in town.

flag on the play

In the past couple of weeks, I have had a very surprising revelation about the male species. All this time I have thought that we, women, were the emotional ones who said things we didn't mean, things we thought about later and wanted to take back. But oh no, compared to the last couple of guys I've hung out with, I am practically ALL LOGIC. I think about things before they come out of my mouth, and I don't change my mind THE VERY NEXT DAY.

In the past couple of weeks, I've had someone, from a different Big 12 school, promise to come to every Nebraska game watch this season, and he even said he was looking forward to it - ha!

Then I had a guy offer me his frequent flyer miles AND a football ticket. AND he tried to convince me that he had the most important quality I look for in a guy. And no, that quality is not "likes nice restaurants" or "will buy me a boat", although I would take both of those, too.

Both of these guys said these things and had the audacity to change their minds! How dare they? I mean, I was practically packing my bags already! And I saved a seat for Dude #1 at the Pub. Ugh!

My friend and I decided yesterday that nearly every relationship situation could be summed up in a football penalty. And in these cases, I'm calling a false start!

GBR!

For the past two football seasons, I've thought the Pub was fantastic. How lucky was I to be halfway across the country yet have a Nebraska bar where I could cheer on the *best* team in college football every Saturday? Very fortunate.

But now that I've been back to Lincoln, tailgated pre- and post-game, sat amongst the Sea of Red . . I'm completely discontent. My heart is in Memorial Stadium, but tonight my body will be cheering at the Pub.

GO BIG RED!

Home Sweet Home

This past weekend, I was able to fly home to Nebraska for 48 hours before driving down to Kansas for a three day conference, starting today. It was a very fun two days . . delicious food, game night with family, and a Nebraska football game, of course!It was twenty degrees colder in Nebraska than D.C. on Friday, which meant no water-skiing for this kid. But we did enjoy a nice boat ride around the island.As requested, we grilled out steaks, had sweet corn on the cob, twice baked potatoes, green beans, asparagus, tomatoes, fruit, cinnamon rolls, and my favorite dessert - triple chocolate bundt cake.Farmtown Grandma came and brought a ton of kolaches (Czech pastry). Unfortunately I'm not a fan of fruit-stuffed anything, but everyone else was excited. :)
I invited a few extended family members to join us in a game of Loaded Questions. We had a lot of laughs!I was blessed to have two sets of tickets given to me, the second set much better than the first. My brother-in-law was kind enough to give me some yummy-smelling hand soap in exchange for the other set! :) . . . My cousin Ashley and I had enjoyed Nebraska food favorites, Valentino's pizza and Runza, before the first quarter was even over.

It was a fantastic weekend! And once again, I am feeling a bit homesick.

Holiday!

Here I sit, pants-less in my bed on the morning of Labor Day, because I can. My bedroommate is in Brazil for the next ten days, and you know I like to take full advantage of having the room all to myself, which really only means that I don't have to be modest.

The possibilities for this holiday today seem endless. I have no definite plans as of yet. I only know that KC (a girl friend) and I want to be active and outside this afternoon. Around here, that could mean a lot of things.

I spent yesterday on the boat, trying a new trick on the slalom ski. I'm taking baby steps to being a rockstar on that thing, as I am still overcoming my fear of slicing through the wake at a very fast speed. I tend to hang out on either side of the wake, practicing my rooster tail. These new ski gloves, a birthday present from the boating boys, were fun (and cute) to try out. So much for fingerless gloves since my hands are so small!Skiing on water with just enough ripple on a beautiful 85 degree day after eating a fresh crab cake sandwich while country music blasts from the speakers and fun friends cheer you on . . could anything really be better?

Have a great holiday!