Bad Luck, Uck

This weekend was full of bad luck ::uck:: While packing the truck for our trip to small town Indiana, my husband went to open his truck bed and snapped his key. Yup his key broke and half of it was in the lock. So we had to put all of our luggage in the front seat of the truck with us. I am sure that Minne was the one who was most comfortable, and she even got sick in the car ride after snatching my cheeseburger right out of my hand!

We get to Indiana to find out the hubby's clutch on his truck was shot. After looking over everything else, his ball bearings were also shot. ::uck:: On top of that, my sister's team didn't qualify for state. On their way home from the competition they found out a few boys from their HS football team had been in a bad accident. ::uck::

The Upside

My sister is adorable and despite losing, I heard her team rocked their routine and as you can see here they looked adorable!

Another up, a good thing about being in a small town is that everyone knows everyone and everyone knows some one who can help. We were able to order a new clutch, get it in that night and find someone to install it that night. The cost was expensive but totally fair. It was cheaper to fix that than to have a monthly car payment, for now anyway ;)

Finally, what could be more awesome then spending the weekend with your hubby and wonder dog? How about hanging out with the cutest little nephew ever! We got to watch Minne and Buddy play for hours, I seriously don't think they slept more than 2 hours the entire time we were there because they didn't want to skip a beat!

My favorite little nephew, Buddy, tuckered out after playing with Minne

it was of course nice to see my big sis and the hubs parents too. But we had a great surprise of seeing the hub's Goddaughter (our dog walker/flower girl) and the husb grandparents. Despite all the craziness, it ended up being a great trip. Infact, I even got glasses, more on this later.

The Hubs Goddaughter in 2005

Busy Weekend!

I am so glad the weekend is finally...almost here! Woke up early to hit the gym with my mom and now prepping for work. I am sad to say that I work my last shift as an acting manager at BR today. I spent much of yesterday preparing amazing cookies that my Jessica once sent to me (she talks about them here). I don't like chocolate but I do know that the last time I made these little suckers they were gone in a matter of minutes.

Minne loves car rides!

After work, the hubs and I will pack up Minne and prepare for a trip to his hometown in Indiana where we will work on his truck (so exciting I know) and make our annual trip to the eye doctor. I am hoping while he spends much of his time in the garage I can grab a few minutes with my little Frenchbo nephew, Buddy.



All the while, I will be sending lots of love and luck to my family who will be back at home cheering on my sister's high school cheerleading team. Tomorrow's competition will hopefully be sending the girls to State, which is so exciting for them. AND...I have next Saturday off so if they go to State can you guess who will be in the first row, cow bell and all? Yup me and the hubs, Minne girl will have to sit this one out.

Wouldn't you vote for her?

So cheers to a happy weekend of travel, fun, family, and friends.

Minne Turns 3

Today one of my pride and joys turns 3 (or what we would like to say is 21 in Doggie years). I haven’t had the chance to introduce you yet to my 17 lbs Boston Terrier so I thought today would be a prime opportunity.

I believe this was taken during our drive from Minneapolis to Indianapolis for the NFL opener in Indy a few years back.

I went my whole life wanting a dog, but I knew with my families fast paced life style and small home, having a dog didn’t seem to fit in. While being in college I started doing research on breeds and every dog who walked by I would have to introduce myself too. I did some nannying along with some dog sitting and overtime knew I wanted a dog. Especially a French Bulldog or a Boston Terrier. After college, I moved up to the twin city areas with my ex boyfriend and soon moved in with a few girls in a cute townhome style apartment in Minneapolis (don’t worry he's only my ex boyfriend because he's my husband).

While in Minneapolis I was browsing the local paper puppy for sale ads and guess what I found? A brand new litter of Boston Terriers that would be available in a few weeks. After getting roommate approval and talking to the ex boyfriend, I decided I would go look at the dog, but I promised I wouldn’t bring one home...I lied. Well not really. At the time, my intention really was just to see the puppy.

I thought I took this photo from the Indy Star years ago, but I could be wrong, if I am please let me know.

After playing with the litter for a few hours, we ended up driving home with an 8 week old female Boston Terrier. While thinking of the names, Minneapolis seamed perfect, yet a little long. Minneapolis was the place where I took my first job out of college and it was the place where my little girl is from. After a few days, we decided to call her Minne short for Minneapolis.

Minne's First Snow at about 10 weeks old, about 4.5 lbs

Since that day she has brought nothing but happiness to our hearts. Don’t get me wrong, the dog training was a pain in the but and there are times she still acts out but for the most part she is a great dog who gives us nothing but love. So for her Birthday last year we wanted to do something really special for her, so we threw her a doggy party.

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All her local friends came to sing to her! It was such a fun Party!



We wanted to do the same thing this year, but we downsized our apartment this past year and our apartment doesn’t allow “visiting” pets so a dog party is out. We opted for the next best thing, we made a visit to our favorite local pet store, Two Bostons and let Minne pick out some goodies for her big day. I think she'll be getting her Birthday donut tonight.



We will also be doing a trip to Elwood this weekend so Minne will spend her Birthday weekend with her new cousin Buddy (a 4+month old French Bulldog Boston Terrier mix). We are sure there will be plenty of new videos and photos to share soon.

Full timer at the UC!

My new home away from home, photo taken at a 2009 Bulls game

That’s right, as of Monday Feb 1, I am officially part of the full-time tech staff at the United Center. I will continue doing the roles that I have been doing with the added responsibility of CRM Data Analyst. I am excited because I will be learning something new, I get to work with an amazing staff plus I will be working with departments from both teams. My schedule should start to be more of a 9-5 schedule, with some event support so KH - that means you will be able to see me and remember what I look like. For my husband, that means we will see each other and I will owe you home made dinners ;)

Photo taken at the '09 Hawks vs Redwings Play off game

Unsubscribe

Wanna know the best part about starting a new job? Clicking unsubscribe to every career website that sends you “just updated” jobs. There’s also less stress, more of a routine, new challenges and new people. However, at this moment hands down the best part is not receiving emails about all these great jobs that are never going to hire me… over and over again. So happy “unsubscribe” Tuesday!

Bye Bye Banana Republic

Photo Found Here http://blog.timesunion.com/kristi/18693/sale-food-and-makeovers-at-banana-republic-crossgates/

Over the course of the last 5 months, I quit my job and started doing some other work, however, the hours and pay were flexible. To help fill the void of not having a regular pay check, I joined the Banana Republic team as an acting manager between 2 stores. I will say that the experience was great, I learned a lot about managing others and about managing a building. I worked with some great but very different personalities. I learned that working in retail full time is physically hard on your body plus you pretty much have to forego every family and friend holiday party/event/fundraiser/ect. It’s been a hard few months but I am greatful for the experience and the clothes.

I will say I didn’t learn too much about the product especially since 2006, I’ve worked at BR part time to help wardrobe my work attire after college. The benefits and discount are amazing, sometimes almost too amazing. For example, this weekend there was a 40% off all sale promotions, I was able to find 3 pair of mens Dawson Chinos for the hubby at $12 each, plus the 40% off, plus my discount, Awesome right? I also have my eye on this amazing new blue leather jacket, seriously, every day I walk it to work it stares at me and I stare back. I can’t help it...but I’m getting off track.

The discount isn’t the only thing I love. BR is apart of Gap Inc (Gap, Athleta, Piperlime, Old Navy and BR). Over the course of my time with BR I’ve learned so many great things about Gap Inc, about Don Fisher, his wife, the company’s amazing attitude towards the community. Do you know that during the Haiti Relief fund Gap Inc. donated a generous flat dollar amount and then told all of it’s employees that they would match dollar for dollar on top of that flat donation?

Photo Found Here http://www.ceo-watch.com/doris-and-don-fisher-gaps-ceo.html

Also, most retail stores do a “friends and family” type offer to help offer the employee discount to employee friends and family. Well Gap Inc. calls their event Give & Get for a really great reason. They let their employees pick from a handful of charities on where they want 5% off all the dollars spent from their friends and family coupons to go. This last holiday season from the Give & get alone $2 million dollars were shared among charities like Feeding America, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Teach for America and more. The best part...they don’t boast about it. How could you not love a company like this?



Well I write this post because this is my last week “acting” as a manger for BR, because next week I start my new job working full time for the.....sorry my employer hasn’t announced my position yet, so to be fair I need to keep it a suspense, but I am getting really excited to start my new job. I will be sad to be leaving my current manager position, as anything good in life it’s a bitter sweet. I am not quite 100% ready to leave BR yet so I am really hoping they will keep me on as a part timer, I think my husband may be hoping even more than I am (he loved the product so much, he's why I even applied in the first place).

Go Bulldawgs!

3NW Girls + Jenn

It's no secret, I loved my entire college experience. There are so many reasons why and I hope that over time I get to touch on some of them, but today brings me back to my freshman year of college. My roommate from freshman year had a cousin who played on our basketball team and from day one of our Butler experience we got to know some of the players pretty well. Naturally, we had an interest in the team and we surrounded ourself with others who had similiar interests.

Our freshman year, my friends and I got to experience a true March Madness watching our dogs make it to the Sweet 16 while watching Archey set an NCAA Division I record for consecutive free throws made. That year we rushed the streets a couple times with excitement, screaming for joy, all high fiving and perhaps there may have even been some fist pumping. It's true, it was such a rush and an experience that I hope I never forget.

Today, I can say that majority of my good friends all support the Bulldawgs. Some now have Bulldawg rooms in their houses, others make it to every game, in fact one even married one of the assistant coaches.

So tonight, I will be joining my old roommate to watch our Dawgs play ball like the good ole days wishing that all of the girls could be by my side.

Some of the team

PS I apologize for such fuzzy photos, apparently back in the day we didn't have digitals so we used to have to get the photos developed and then scan them into the computer. WOW that was a lot of work!

Don't Get Excited, Don't Get Excited

In August I quit my job with an ad agency to try to get back into the sports/entertainment business. Since then, I've been doing some consulting, working full time as a retail manager and been doing some part time/consulting/tech work for a local arena - all while looking for a full time position. Well today my friends, I was offered a full-time job. Still ironing out the details but the plus? I would be able to work one job! This would mean more time with friends and family, something I have missed since September. So pardon me while I spend the next few hours trying not to get too excited.

Happy Birthday Husband!

“Since your past Birthday, you’ve given so much. You’ve encouraged me to take risks, you’ve challenged me to be a better person and you’ve showed me how important and special our relationship is. You’ve helped to make my wedding dream a reality and now you help to make my life better, one day at a time as my husband. Thank you for being you, cheers to my very smart, talented and witty husband. Love, your wife”

My husband and his family


This weekend my husband and I will be celebrating his first Birthday as husband and wife. He isn’t one for celebrations, or presents, or surprises but we do have some fun “Birthday activities” on the agenda for this weekend. Starting today, breakfast will be made and served to the hubby. He’ll finish his day at work and then we’ll meet friends at “a local entertainment destination” for live music, adult beverages and fun with friends.

A photo from last years celebration

Saturday we’ll head on over to Evanston to have lunch with more friends followed by watching hubs alma mater, Purdue, lay the smack down on Northwestern (please win Purdue) in college hoops.


We haven't been to a PU basketball game together yet, so here's a football pic from years ago

Sunday we can lay on the sofa and watch TV all day - no distractions. For a man who doesn’t like Birthdays, this sounds like the perfect little weekend, don't ya think? Cheers.

The husband celebrating a close friends BP

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I was going to break into “crazy Candice” but then...E Day 2010 happened. It made for a great day and a great experience so I wanted to share that with you first.

A few months back one of my little cousins had her 4th Birthday. As a gift the hubby and I suggested having an “E” day, where the entire day would be about her (her name starting with an E). This seemed like a good gift idea since she has 2 other siblings and we figured she may like an entire day of attention. Well we figured right!

After months of trying to get a day off from work it happened. We picked little E up around 12:30. We asked her if she’d rather go to Chucky Cheese or the Children’s Museaum...sure enough Chucky Cheese won, which was great for the hubby.



We got to this magical place and asked little E what she would like for lunch and she responded "pizza and cottage cheese." What kid says cottage cheese? We looked at the menu and didn't see cottage cheese as an option so we just ordered pizza. A few minutes later, E asked if the cottage cheese was coming. So we asked one of the girls behind the counter if they had sides of cottage cheese. We were told that there was cottage cheese on the salad bar but if we really wanted it they would give us a bowl for just that. So we got E a bowl of cottage cheese and pizza, just as she ordered it.

After the lunch was over (the pizza was terrible by the way) the games began. The hubs might have had more fun than little miss E, especially after a few glasses of Mellow Yellow (my hubs favorite drink that they served everywhere in Minnesota and no where in Chicago). It was here that E asked to go to the bathroom. When we asked her if she needed help and she responded only when she goes number 3. Do you know what number 3 is? We didn’t, so we asked her and she told us. We couldn’t believe how forward and honest she was so we giggled to ourselves and went on with the day.

After winning some candy and a lip gloss watch from Chucky Cheese we asked E if she wanted to head to our house or go sledding. E said let’s go home so we can play with Minne (that’s our wonder dog). We got home and Minne greeted us with lots of kisses.

Through out the rest of the evening we just let E pick everything she wanted to do and everything she wanted to eat as the day was entirely about her. Towards the end of the night she said, “lets pretend tomorrow is E day too.”

She said some really other cute things too. At one point, we told her that hubby's birthday was next week. She asked how old he would be and we told her 29. Her response? "Oh like a grandpa." Obviously my husband is no where close to being a grandpa so it made us laugh for quite a bit.

E was abel to stay the night and experience her first sleep over. We watched E create multiple Miis for Wii and eats lots of everything. At one point she asked for a cutie (or what we would call a clementine) and said "I am a cutie so I should eat a cutie." The hubs even made chocolate cookies during Monsters vs Aliens, which E took one bite of then stopped eating. A few minutes later I noticed the cookies were burnt at the bottom. I asked E if she liked them and she said no very quietly as if she didn't want to hurt hubs feelings. That's ok, he felt so bad he gave her burnt cookies that he gave her 3 donuts instead. She was in a very happy place!



We captured some of the fun on our Mac photo booth,



you can see that Minne and her really hit it off too!



What a fun night, but I think we're ok with not having kiddos of our own for a little while. For now, we just want to be the fun grownups.

500 days of High School - You Must Have a Past Before A Future

500 Days of Summer Movie Poster

There are a lot of negative things I can say about high school. Mean girls, MEAN BOYS, bad rumors, first relationships, consequences and the list goes on. I am reminded more and more how much I despised high school as my teenage sister tells me stories. Which is why I wish I could fast forward her life and place her right in college, which to date still remain some of the best days of my life.

Unfortunately, I can’t. So before I talk about some of my favorite college memories I figured I should go back just a few years earlier and quickly thank high school - lil sis you can thank me later. Here goes:

Thank you for teaching me time management and discipline (the rest of that thank you goes to my parents), some days it seemed like college was way easy. I think being an active club member and athlete also played a huge role in this.

Thank you for teaching me boundaries and allowing me to be disciplined accurately even though I probably cursed you out for months, ie, underage drinking at high school dances will get you suspended during finals, it will cause multiple groundings and lack of a HS “social life.” Looking back I can see the error in my ways, but I think I managed to stay out of big trouble in college just because I did learn boundaries and restrictions in high school. Don’t get me wrong “Crazy Candice” still came to town at BU but she knew when enough was enough (you can read more about her later).

Thank you for teaching me how mean girls and BOYS can be. Honestly, I probably hated you the most for this very reason. It started in junior high but escalated after the first few months of my first semester in high school. Looking back it was stupid I spent so much time being upset about something so little, but the pressure of peers in high school can be just nasty. Thankfully, after having some really bad relationships, I was able to find some really great ones. Some of which I am blessed to remain in contact with today. While other relationships may have fallen through the cracks, I am still thankful for all they have taught me. Without them I wouldn’t value the friends I have today which most (not all) of whom I met during my time away at college.

Here’s what I am going to say about first relationships, they are awesome till they are over. When they are over you hope for them to be ok but sometimes they get worse. But every relationship after that gets better. You may not realize it till you look back but you start to demand more in a relationship of your partner and yourself. I don’t know exactly how “500 Days of Summer” ended but I suspect that if there ever is a sequel the main character will marry Autumn and will live a life time of happiness because he’d learned so much from his parents lack of a relationship and Summer. Or maybe it won’t work out with Autumn because he really just needed to meet Winter. You get the gist. I think without past relationships neither my husband nor I would be in the relationship that we are in with the friends and family that we surround ourselves with today. For that, high school I thank you for giving me the best most worse years of my life.

Britney Spears – My idol, well sort of

For those of you who know me, I am a huge fan of Britney Spears. Go ahead and judge me. Seriously, do it, I probably deserve it but that doesn’t change my mind My obsession started sometime when I was in high school, right after the short lived Spice Girls go-a-round. I can’t say what it was exactly that first pulled me in. It may have been the red pants she wore in the Hit Me Baby One More Time video. I had a yellow pair just like it from Abercrombie & Fitch and I used to put them on and sing & dance around. Or maybe it was the braided pig tails she wore (I loved rocking those braids during tennis matches). You can see old Britney photos here. I even went on a family cruise to the Caribbean and all the foreigners called me Britney.

It wasn’t long until I heard she was supposed to perform at an outdoor multi concert summer fest for a local radio station. I immediately called a friend and the 2 of us purchased tickets. Guess who didn’t make it to that concert because of “severe hydration?” Britney Spears. This happened again while I was in high school but the next time she had a “broken leg.” This is when rumors started flying that she got implants.

Either way, I was determined to see her live. I knew every word to every song and despite what my friends said Britney was better than Jessica Simpson (That was no knock on Jessica. See my friends in high school made it very clear you were either a Jessica Simpson fan or a Britney fan and I was one of the few Britney fans in my “social group”)

Then something amazing happened. I graduated high school and enrolled at Butler University (which will be another post entirely). During my orientation I met 2 short blondes (like me) that both loved Britney. I felt like it was Christmas in June. A few weeks later, after one of them called me and asked for my social security number for rooming together purposes, I now had a roommate who loved Britney almost as much as me.

Our room freshman year was decked out Britney. (I am still searching for the perfect photo to post here) We even had 2 copies of the movie Cross Roads. The girls in our hall either loved us for not keeping our passions a secret or they despised us (lucky for me, many of them became sorority sisters and some of the ones who didn’t are still great friends today). Together we tried to get tickets to Britney’s next show which she cancelled and rescheduled back in our home city during finals, we sadly forfeited tickets.

I can almost pinpoint every major function and what Britney song was playing during and post college. For example, there was college lip-syncs, freshman skits, dancing at frat parties (each one has their own song), my 21st Birthday in Broadripple, all 4of my college spring breaks, friends’ birthdays, dances, driving to my first day at my internship, my bachelorette party, How at the Moon the night before graduation and the list goes on… AND I remember every one.

A quick snap shot of my 21st

About 2 years ago, after being out of college for 3 years, Britney announces her Circus tour, do you know who I first called? Yup, my freshman year roommate who proudly responded “I already got us tickets, Merry Christmas!”

At the Circus with AO

It took me almost 10 years to see Britney in concert and I finally did it. Thanks Britney for one of the best comeback tours I ever experienced and thanks “AO” and all the girls in my life for accepting, supporting and even encouraging my love for Britney.

Why I Blog

I’ve been mulling over the idea of starting a blog for some time now. The truth is, the timing just never seemed right, I was either busy or I would attempt to start one and could never think of a name. I have had a Google Reader account for almost 2 years and still no blog. After my husband and I got engaged I subscribed to every wedding blog I could find. My husband even started his own “comical” wedding blog from his perspective, but even then the time didn’t seem right. Recently, I’ve been following more personal blogs and house decorating blogs which I enjoy reading, but couldn’t find the urge to start writing.

Then it happened. A few days back I got an invitation to showcase my last year in photos on Facebook and as silly as it may seem, I figured why not. When I saw all the photos come together from 2009, I realized that besides the rough year my husband, family and friends had gone through, we still managed to do some really awesome things. Later that day, I was driving to work and heard a radio dj talking about his favorite memories of the decade and that really had me thinking. What if all the bad times cloud the good times? How will I remember all the good times? Then it hit me, it was time.

I plan on blogging from here on out about all the good things past and present. It may be a rocky start, but I hope you stay with me.

XOXO