Ikea Fail

I had one mission when I drove all the way out to Ikea this morning: Get me a Raskog cart.  The super cute turquoise one has been all over Pinterest for the last 9 months. Smart crafters have been using it to keep their Project Life supplies organized and cute all at the same time, just like this.  

I even found the lovely inserts that this very smart blogger said were a perfect fit for journal cards.  So I headed to Ikea and I followed the Yellow Arrowed Road all the way to the promised land where my prize was supposed to await me, and what do I have to show for it?  Jack with a side of squat.  Of all the shelves and all the pieces of furniture, my super cute new organizer was sold out.  Seriously!?

Lucky for me, Ikea in its infinite wisdom delivers.  And my new project will arrive on Thursday.  At least there's that...

Friday Five

1. This is the best definition of February 26, 2015 that I've ever seen! Perfect! (And in case you were curious, the dress is obviously black and blue.)

2. I hate it, but I've had Taylor Swift stuck in my head for weeks now.  I'm usually not a fan of hers, but between Blank Space and Shake it Off, I've been singing and singing her praises every time I'm in the car and a lot when I'm not in the car too.  It's embarrassing...
          

3. Technically, I haven't used them yet, but I have to say I'm obsessed with the idea of Jamberry Nails.  I'm terrible when it comes to painting my nearly non-existent nails. If you're going to promise non-fake nails, that are pretty, come in chevron and don't take about 100 tools to put on, I'm so going to buy them. Can't wait until they appear in my mailbox!  I see a super simple, colorful summer!

4. Love this travel album!  I pre-ordered the alphabet stamps and the Bon Apetit stamps weeks ago, so I've been anxiously awaiting them with visions of this album and about a dozen other ideas in my head.

5. How amazing are these two men?!

Llama, Llama

Please don't ask me why this made headlines this afternoon, but it did.  And it's for some reason, it made me laugh...A LOT.  In the span of an hour, it blew up Twitter, and there were "Breaking News" stories on CBS news and FoxNews.  In February of 2015, there is ISIS, and war, and a net neutrality decision in Congress, and yet, llamas running rough-shod on
Phoenix made the cut of hard-hitting news.  Really?!

But you have to hand it to the Chyron generators.  They don't often get to flex their creative muscles. My favorite was "LLow Speed Chase." Even if you think this story is as ridiculous as I do, you have to admit, that's clever!  LLove it! : )

Happy Place

I will freely admit, I've been pretty hard on Maryland this year.  That's what they get for unnecessarily having one of the coldest winters in years. But, while I'll also admit that Maryland is no England, it has its perks.  The biggest perk is Main Street Annapolis.  It's my most favorite place in Maryland.  It has boats, and restaurants, and water and shopping. Who could ask for anything more?  And as beautiful as it is in Winter, it's 10x more beautiful and bustling in the summer.  

And in case anyone in MD is interested in practicing photography, Annapolis is pretty much the perfect place!  Just check out the 15 different albums I have on my desktop just from the last 18 months : )

Hello, Austin...

I've been in a Texas state of mind for the last year or so.  I see lots of Texas license plates that I'm convinced are the universe's way of taunting me.  I read a lot about Austin.  I even follow about 6 Austin feeds on Twitter so I'm always in the loop.  While I'd still love to live in England, that's becoming more and more unlikely as the time moves on - seriously, aren't there any companies willing to hire a Yankee like me? So I'm looking for other options .

Anyway, this morning in one of my many Twitter checks, I learned something about Austin. In Austin this morning, schools delayed for cold.  This morning in Austin, I learned, that it was in the high 30s -- the HIGH 30s.  This morning in MD, it was in the LOW teens - 14 according to my dashboard to be exact.

So yeah, any city that delays most schools and businesses for almost 40 degree weather, is high up on my list of places I really need to move! The wonderfully 90 degree weather in Summer, also joins that list.  Oh and those lovely food trucks are calling my name too.

Can you tell, I'm super sick of this winter?!  Bring it on summer, I'm SO ready for you!

Classic

I'm not really a movie buff.  I hate "guy"movies.  You know the ones with F-bombs dropped every few seconds and fight scenes full of blood, guts and gore.  But then again, 50 Shades of Grey and Magic Mike aren't my thing either.  I like to think that my tastes are more refined. Some of my favorites are The King's Speech and The Imitation Game. (And before you think I'm too much of a bore, I'm a sucker for a good rom-com too - Love! Love, Actually) British of course and in need of a brain to enjoy.  This isn't to say I'm a snob - though that's probably the case too.  

It's actually to say, that as soon as I start to think of my tastes as pretentious and intelligent, I turn on USA Network randomly, and find that I'm just as in love with Independence Day as I was 20 years ago.  I'm not sure it won any awards and it's certainly not high-brow by any means.  But I love it, and can quote most of the scenes ("Forget the fat lady, you're obsessed with the fat lady!")  It also happens to be one of the very few movies I've actually seen in the theatre and if I remember correctly, I was even grumpier about having to go see it then, than I am being dragged to random movies now.  But I'm so glad I did!

Oh and by the way, even though I tend to rail against sequels until I'm blue in the face (Doesn't anyone have any original ideas anymore?!), I hear there's a chance of a sequel to ID4 in the next year or two, and I'm secretly super excited.  Shh!  Don't tell anyone, lest I lose my intellectual cred... : )

Oscar Night Thoughts...

~ NPH is letting me down.  While funny, he's not nearly as funny as I thought he would be.  That's just unfortunate!

~ I've only seen one of the movies nominated and it hasn't won a single award it's been nominated for so I'm not holding out much hope that Benedict will win this evening.

~ Apparently, The Grand Budapest Hotel, is loved by everyone seeing as it nabbed 2 of the first 3 awards.  It just looks odd to me.

~ Love JK Simmons and really wanted him to win.  So glad he did! But while his message to "call your mom" is very sweet, why is he using his Oscar speech to say it?

~ The joke NPH made about the Oscars being about "the best and whitest" was a little too on the nose, but was pretty perfect!

~ Where in the world did Jack Black come from and what in the world did he add to that opening number?

~ Not sure who the Foreign Language film winner was, but Yay for him for playing off the play off music.  Way to go dude!

~ Is there honestly a song called "Everything is Awesome" being performed at the Oscars by Andy Samberg? Love Legos, but what?!

~ And most importantly, why is this man already married?  Shouldn't he have been waiting to marry me?  I'm fairly certain he never fell madly in love with me, because he just hadn't met me yet... : )

Snow Day...Again

Here's the thing.  This isn't Boston.  There isn't over 6 feet of snow on the ground.  The entirety of Maryland is not shut down and we're not in any Emergency level preparedness. However, enough is enough!  Since last Monday, it's snowed about 6 inches and the temperatures have hovered around 4 degrees.  Friday, schools were closed for COLD.  There was no snow on the ground at the time, yet, it was too cold to go to school.  Reykjavik, Iceland and Anchorage, Alaska were warmer yesterday than Maryland. 

I'm cold during a normal everyday winter.  I'm usually bundled, and gloved and scarfed and hat-ed. I wear flannels to bed with socks and at least 3 blankets.  I'm not sure how I can bundle up any more.  I'm going to need to invest in a snow suit if this continues, and I'm going to have to sell my car, just to afford the heating bill....

The only thing that's helping me get by is the promise of a summer trip to England in less than 6 months and a fall trip to Texas in 8 months.  It just has to be warm in those places, right?!

Friday Five

1. This news makes me very, very happy.  Yes, I'll already be seeing it live, but I have a sinking suspicion that it will be SO very good, that I'll just need to share it with all my friends who won't happen to be in England this year. Woohoo!

2. In TV land this week, while everyone was talking about the end of Two and a Half Men or the return of House of Cards, I was too busy not being able to get enough of Suits and Supernatural.  Holy moly, were those episodes good! What's even better is that they were so gorgeously shot and performed.  Every shot in Supernatural could have been taken from a big budget movie (also it broke me like a big budget tear jerker too!), while Patrick Adams' directorial debut in Suits, was super creative and really fantastic.  Gotta love when plot, acting, writing, direction and cinematography all come together in my favorite shows.

3. File this under strangest story I read all week:

On Saturday, "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" host Guy Fieri will officiate the large-scale wedding of 101 gay couples at the South Beach Wine & Food Festival. The mass service represents the latest iteration of an annual gay rights awareness event hosted by chef Art Smith, who picked the brides and grooms for the free event in a social media contest, according to People. Following the Fieri-helmed ceremony, which we imagine will involve large grease flames and a lot of shouting about nacho cheese-covered, tequila fried steaks, participants will be treated to a cake made by Duff Goldman of "Ace of Cakes" fame.

While a fabulous idea - why in the world would anyone want to be married by Guy Fieri?  I love Diners, Drive ins and Dives as much as the next girl, but honestly?  There are like 5 other chefs off the top of my head, I'd rather marry me than Guy Fieri and all his bling...

4. Kinda went a little hog-wild on the photography pins last night.  I really, really, really want to learn how to decipher the manual settings on my camera.  I have way too many  cool places to go this year, and I want to get some awesome photos of these places.  Hopefully these will help.  The settings seem quite helpful, but my only question is this - how to I manage to set these settings on the darn thing?

5. This Supper Club, while off the wall, seems super amazing!  It's sort of like the Little Paris Kitchen but in a much better city.  Also, who doesn't love the Tube?

Project Life Update

Almost 2 months in, and I'm still loving it.  I never thought I'd be saying that, but I am.  I will admit to being slightly skeptical about some layouts I've seen on Pinterest.  They're incredibly complex and look like they took hours and hours. They're also gorgeous!  But others are beautifully simple and perfect! Those are the ones I'm jealous of.

Mine?  Mine's not so perfect.  There's no real theme and it's pretty much a mish-mash of random photos that have been taken the last 7 weeks.  But it means something to me. And that's what really matters.  The worst part is that I find myself wishing someone would look at it.  When it's all finished of course.  I haven't shared it yet.  But I like the idea of someone besides me looking back at the year.  Not someone who has a great deal of scrap-titude, because it's not entirely up to snuff.  But, someone who appreciates the idea behind it.  Of course, most of my friends, really aren't into scrapping so it's sort of lost on them.  

I also like the idea of melding the pocket scrapping onto other trips and events.  I've already started a smaller album for Where I've Stood this year, as well as the grand European adventure, a DC event and my Austin trip. Of course, the more ideas I get the more albums I want to start.  It's obviously a never ending cycle - dangerous and fantastic at the same time!

Oh and 2 months in, and I've yet to tire of finding the perfect organizational strategy for Project Life.  I'm really feeling a trip to Ikea sooner rather than later...

#Ashtag

There are definitely things that happen at Catholic Schools that don't happen anywhere else.  You remember these things on these important holy days.  Ash Wednesday was always the day that the kids were so excited to compare their ashes.  Who had the biggest cross?  Whose was darkest? (I did say this only really happened in Catholic Schools...) My favorite part of the day always happened at the end (Please remember I'm saying this as a teacher), when their parents would come to pick them up.  They would always; ALWAYS forget for a split second that it was Ash Wednesday and brush away the "dirt" on their child's forehead.  This always occurred to obvious wails and Oh Mom's!  Oh, well. Good Times : )

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

I have an unhealthy obsession with Mardi Gras. (I've spent my snow day reading all that I can on what's happening in the Big Easy today - I'm that girl...)  It's the one place that I've always wanted to go.  It's an unlikely destination for someone like me to covet.  I don't really drink.  I don't plan to ever dance in sexy outfits just to gain beads.  And large crowds really aren't my thing. But nevertheless, I've always wanted to visit and witness the madness.  It's raucous and crazy and all sorts of indulgent.  Basically how can you not want to partake in the insanity?  I can almost taste the beignets and hear the zydeco.  Not to mention envision the gorgeous ante-bellum mansions and crafty floats all through the French Quarter

Those that have gone, tell me that it's not really all that exciting.  They say it's dirty and maddening and to stay away.  But I choose not to listen to them.  I'm not letting them burst my Cajun bubble.  One of these days, I plan to let the good times roll.  Just as soon as I can get the courage up!

Laissez Les Bon Temps Rouler!

Happy President's Day!

This year to celebrate, we here in the North East have gotten everyone a present: 

Free Snow for Everyone!

Done!

In 1 month and 1 week, it will be officially spring.  Why in the world is it arctic here then?  Last night it snowed out of no where.  And when I say snow, I mean SNOW.  In a matter of minutes there was almost 4 inches on the ground and roads were treacherous.  Today, it's currently 3 degrees outside, which you know, is bad enough.  But with 30 MPH winds, it feels like 16 below zero.  In other words, I'm living a nightmare right now.  I'm cold when it's 40 degrees, let alone sub-arctic temps!

Seriously, Maryland?!  I love you but you're making me crazy!

Happy Gal-entine's Day!

Single on V-Day.  What's a girl to do?  Well, if you're me, you head out into a blizzard for some yummy food - ok, A LOT of yummy food (Voltaggio's Family Meal) with a great friend, then go see very funny people read very funny journal entries from when they were young and in love (Mortified Baltimore - Hilarious!).  Basically you have a fabulous time!  Minus the scary snow and crazy winds of course...

PS: I think I stole Gal-entine's Day from Parks & Recreation, but it seemed to work perfectly for a single girl's evening ; )

Friday Five

1. OlloClip: It's the coolest little accessory ever for your iPhone if you're interested in taking photos.  And thanks to some people that love me, I'll get to play to my hearts content with one.  It snaps on to the corner of your iPhone and has 4 different lenses built in.  Macro 10x and 15x, Wide Angle and Fish Eye.  I can't wait to get outside to try out the Wide Angle. That one should be great for the wide open hillsides of England and the wide open desert of Texas! 

2. I can't wait to add most of these children's books to my collection.  I've always loved kids books.  They hold a special place in my heart.  That's why I buy one whenever I'm out traveling.  It seems like a perfect way to remember a trip and to share that place with future rugrats.  I have all sorts of favorites, but for some reason, I'm always drawn to the cultural ones.  The stories that share a different perspective on the world.  

3. I'm often hard on my city.  But I have to admit, this drone footage has made Baltimore look gorgeous!  She sure does clean up well!
         

4. I'm kind of obsessed with finding new ways to craft.  I love learning about new ideas on the crafting horizon.  Thanks to Craftsy, there are always new things to learn and a great way to learn them.  That's how I first heard about Copic markers.  I had no idea what they even were, until the Craftsy update popped up in my Twitter feed this week.  After I watched the little tutorial and saw how adorable craft projects could be when using them, I wanted a set of my own immediately.  Until I saw them at Michael's, chained up because they're $35 for a set of 6.  Seriously!?  They might be super cool and all but I'm pretty sure I can manage with Crayola for $4 a pack : )

5. Cute Overload!

Pinning in the Kitchen

This might be the best brownie recipe ever.  Please ignore the utter crappiness of my own cell phone photo on the fly and just give the recipe a try.  They were made for tomorrow and cut to look like hearts - clever and original I thought?  I'm just glad I did the cutting.  That way I could have tons of bites from the leftover non-cut pieces.  Smart, right?  These make me very, very happy : )

And you haven't heard the best part yet.  So here's the poem that will accompany the email that will be sent to my co-workers announcing the arrival of said brownies.

Roses are Red,

Violets are Blue,

You've been working very hard,

So come have a brownie or two...

I'm ashamed to say that took me a lot longer to come up with that you'd think...

Something New

So I'm slightly behind the times.  Even though the Melting Pot has been around since probably the early 2000s I've never been.  It was a huge thing there for a while.  Everyone tried it and decreed it awesome, but somewhere between the price of uncooked meat and the weird  boiling pot  of  broth, I decided that it probably wouldn't be my favorite way to spend an evening.  

However, this evening I finally gave it a shot.  The original plan was a paint nite (why on earth did I get wrapped up in another one of those?!) but it was cancelled due to low enrollment, so we decided to do Ethiopian, then burgers and finally out of nowhere came the Melting Pot.  It has to be said, it's at least as weird as I originally thought. But the food was better than I assumed it would be, and it was more filling than I thought as well.  My main issues were with the atmosphere in general.

It was a girls night out.  Two friends having dinner, so where did they put us in the restaurant?  In some super weird corner booth that required one of us to shove back around the banquette into the corner and required us to sit next to each other rather than across from each other.  I would have requested another table but from the looks of it, all the 2 person booths looked like that. Then, because we were at a weird angle, the hot plate with the fondue was too far away from both of us which made stretching for tastes, very awkward.

Then there was the eating.  Who knew there were so many rules to fondue?  Use only this fork to pick up this meat and only this fork to pick up this other meat. Pick up these other things with your fingers while letting these vegetables soak for exactly 2.37 minutes. And don't get me started on eating with the actual fondue forks.  Apparently that's a no no. You're supposed to transfer the food from the fondue fork to a regular fork then finally consume it.  Way too much work!

In the end, it was a super expensive but enjoyable evening.  I just don't really feel the need to repeat it anytime soon.

Geek Girls United

As a bit of a geek girl myself, I completely understand the concept of fandoms.  They're sort of new in the grand scheme of things, but thanks to Pinterest and kinda loving things a bit too much, I totally get it.  The funny part of the matter is that every one is different and they seem to all have their own set of rules and guidelines.  And like every other family there are some crazies in the bunch that take things way too seriously and say overly inappropriate things, or the quiet ones that keep to themselves and like to watch from the sidelines.  

I'm not sure if it's the psych major in me or that I'm just a little weird, but I think I might be a fan of fandoms.  Thanks to twitter, it's so easy to track the feelings and emotions.  (Caveat here: I don't do the whole Tumblr. thing: that's a little too intense even for me).  That's the other thing about fandoms, they're super vocal.  They shout from the roof tops when they're happy about something, but their grumblings can also be heard from the roof tops if god forbid the writers/actors/producers do something they're not happy with.  It's pretty fascinating.

Why might you ask, am I even bringing any of this up? Well, it's mostly to talk about how awesome they are.  At this point, I should probably admit to what fandoms I "belong" to. While I'm more of the sit on the sidelines fandom member, I admit to using Pinterest and Twitter to see what's happening and appreciate all the hard work the others do to raise awareness.  I'd like to say I'm a part of the Harry Potter fandom or even the Doctor Who fandom.  Those are things that I love.  But honestly, I never saw the Harry Potter movies so that makes me an outcast and since I just started watching Doctor Who, I'm so not up on the times. But based on who I follow on Twitter and what makes me laugh on Pinterest, I'd say my main fandom is Supernatural. Honestly, I know how strange it is for a wimp like me to love a horror show, and I'm not even sure how it happened, but it did and I'm all aboard.

That's the thing, you can't really tell what's going to make you happy.  It just does and how cool is that?  Because, out of all the science or psychology of fandom or fan communities, the absolute best part is the family atmosphere.  You all love the same thing.  You can disagree or agree on some parts.  You can laugh at the same jokes and cry at the same parts. You have your own little in jokes or easter eggs that you can only share with other parts of the fandom. It makes you feel like a part of something and maybe you're not that weird.  I mean we're all a little weird, and I'm actually ok with my weirdness, but there's nothing worse than feeling like you're alone.  I think so many people identify with this geeky phenomena because it makes them feel not alone. 

And if you don't believe me, please read this post on the Saturday Night Special.  Because these writers put it so much more eloquently than me (and they have gorgeous photos of some very cute gentlemen - not that I'm biased or anything...)  This article is the shear definition of beautiful.  And it makes me happy to see the little family that I feel apart of, getting so much respect for sharing the message of love and kindness; family and closeness How cool is that!?

Walk it Off

I have a crazy boss, it has to be said.  She's one of those people that think you're living inside her head, and therefore should be able to anticipate every single thing she could possibly want even when what she wants is fairly ridiculous.  She's also pretty big on the whole underlings should do her dirty work presumably because she can't figure out how to use her own computer for things like clicking on links or viewing a calendar in Outlook. Yep, crazy as a hootie owl.

And as many times as I say I know she's crazy, I can't seem to not get totally annoyed and frazzled by her when she goes on a tear.  I may know it's not me causing the issue, but my nerves are pretty shot anyway.  Up until today.  Now, I'm not saying it'll work everytime, but today a walk helped.  I literally walked it off.  Who knew every coach in every bad high school movie that yelled at his players to "Walk it Off!" would be right?

I read an article a few weeks ago that said to take a deep breath when you were frazzled and focus all your energy on something else.  That's a little yoga-y for me, but I tried it during the walk, and it really helped.  Maybe it was the cold weather to shock my brain or maybe it really was the walk and deep breath, but I felt a lot better when I got back.  At crazy lady's rate of going postal, I'll be all set for a bikini this summer : )

New Crafty Project

For someone who has always avoided scrapbooks (too big...too intimidating), I'm working on quite a few of them this year.  This week's new project is one of the new mini's from We R Memory Keepers.  They fit 4"x 4" photos or 2" x 2" and are meant for instagrams.  And they are positively adorable!  After a quick browse of scrapbook.com, and thanks to a great coupon, I picked one up for a steal for no particular reason other than it being cute. Then I hit Pinterest, and found a great idea.  (Of course, I can't find the great idea right now)  Some crafty genius made an album of "Where I Stood"; basically pictures of her feet in various cool places through the year.  Perfect!  Now thanks to some fun shots I've already taken this year, and a great paper set from Echo Park, I'm in love with my mini album! (And I can't wait to buy another dozen or so for various other activities in the next few months - is that wrong?)

Saturday Six

1. Love!  I've watched this at least a dozen times and it gets cuter and funnier each time!
        

2. Nerdy Scrapbook Alert! - At the moment my new most favorite accessory to buy is wooden veneer embellishments.  They are super adorable and I'm loving using them in Project Life.  At last count, I had 6 different sets (with another on the way from Scrapbook.com...)

3. Excuse the language in this informative piece of journalism, but I can't not adore anything this man does.  Too funny!  The ensuing Twitter "feud" with William Shatner afterwards, just seals the deal on the hilarity.

4. I may have written about this idea of "sceneframing" last year (I can't really remember), but since the time that I discovered it, they've created a brand new geek-girly website (FangirlQuest.com) that's pretty awesome.  I'm really digging the idea!  

5. Is anyone else watching Suits this season?  Holy cow! How good is Evil Louis?  He's always been one of those love to hate characters.  A lot more love than hate due to Rick Hoffman's shear awesomeness.  But this season, it's all hate, yet it's still all amazing!

6. Hot tea always tastes better when drank (I don't have a clue if it should be drank or drunk - totally guessing here...) from a nifty mug.  Though I haven't done any strict research on this topic, I'm willing to posit that it would taste even better if drank (??) from a bookish, nifty mug.  Any of these will do, I'm sure.

He's Home!

Back to our originally scheduled programming tomorrow. : )

Scrap Happy

In the last month, I've successfully completed 31 days of Project Life.  So far, so good.  As against the whole concept as I've been, I'm quickly finding it a little too enjoyable.  And I'm even happy with what's been created. (I'm not ready to share just yet - but after another month or so I might get there.) I know it's not perfect.  It's not gorgeous, or cohesive or even that creative in any way, but it's done and for my very first time mounting this task, I'll take it.  

In doing so, I've learned a few things.

~ I spend inordinate amounts of time looking at ideas on Pinterest, and haven't yet used one of the ideas in my own album yet.  I plan to.  I have loads of plans for future albums, when I've mastered techniques (maybe for the England album), but for now I'm content doing what I do.

~ Dropbox, PicMonkey and Costco are my best friends.  Being able to stitch the photos together in PicMonkey then dropping them into my Costco album, and picking them up at the warehouse makes my life so much easier.  I stack up about 2 weeks of photos, then make the trip to the store. Dropbox allows me quick access to all the photos on my phone - which are taking over the album currently (hoping that will change when the weather breaks and I can get outside and really focus on taking better photos with the big girl camera!)

~ Time seems a bit slower when you're documenting everything.  I thought time would move more quickly, but January seemed like it lasted forever.  Not that anything crazy fabulous happened, but it's nice to look back at the everyday moments that were funny or ridiculous. It makes you appreciate the smaller moments, and not focus on time moving as quickly as it does. Either that or I dropped into some black hole that made time stand still - but seeing as Joss isn't directing my life, I'll go with my original reasoning...

~ Lastly, it's expensive.  Don't get me wrong, it doesn't have to be.  But I spend entirely too much money on new paper, new embellishments, even new organization - I spent a week trying to figure out the best way to organize the things I'd need daily.  In a 20 minute lunch break, I dropped $100 on Scrapbook.com yesterday.  It's a dangerous little hobby to have!

What?

Just a thought, why is it that all day the Magic Mike XXL trailer has been trending when Brian Williams, supposedly the next Walter Cronkite, admitted to lying about a story? Literally, I've heard nothing but Magic Mike all day - Twitter, Facebook, Television. Everything!  But I just read the Brian Williams story a few minutes ago for the first time.

Aside from the Brian Williams thing being WAY more important and possibly career ending (most definitely reputation ending) than Magic Mike, can we also focus on the fact that the whole shirtless exotic dancing thing, is much less sexy than, say George Clooney in a nice tux?

Just saying...

Travel Tip Tuesday: Pinspiration

I like to trip plan.  It's a thing I have. Planning and organizing makes it the trip that much more real.  It's not just an idea anymore, it's actually happening.  Up until a few years ago, the first place I went to do this was Google.  I would Google everything from restaurants, to hotels, to sites to see. Comparing and contrasting everything but in the end throwing it up to chance. 

That was then.  Now that Pinterest exists, travel planning is so much easier!  There are sites to see and articles to read.  You can see all sorts of gorgeous travel photography as well as lists of the best restaurants, best hotels and even the best walks about town.  You can pretty much find everything.  I know what you're thinking, you can do that on Google too.  

Yes, yes you can. However, on Google, you can't organize all these gorgeous sites and ideas into one succinct little package and name it anything you want - like, for instance, England 2015.  It's perfect. Being able to pull it up on my phone, is an even bigger up side. Perfect access when my brain forgets some awesome monument in the middle of London.  

I love technology!

Holy Wind Batman!

Because of the crazy, insane and cold winds blowing through MD, I may or may not get kicked off the internet for like the 10th time this evening.  So if this is short and sweet, you'll understand...Have I mentioned that winter is awesome!?

As most people know, yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday.  When I posted last evening, I was feeling just a bit too cocky.  The Seahawks were up by 10 and the win looked like a lock.  Yeah, as you may know, it wasn't...

The Good: 

~ The Always Ad Campaign - #LikeAGirl.  Loved it!  
~ Idina Menzel nailing the National Anthem.  Don't you think she would have been a better half time show than Katy Perry?
~ Chris Pratt and Chris Evans betting on the winner of the game.  Instead of wagering cash, they wagered trips to Children's Hospitals dressed as their Marvel character.  The kicker? Even the loser is planning on making the trip to the hospital in character as well.

The Bad:

~ I'll say it again.  Really Nationwide? Did a dead kid really say Super Bowl to you?
~ Seeing Tom Brady's stupid face after winning for a 4th time.
~ Russel Wilson throwing the game winning interception instead of just handing the ball off to the open Marshawn Lynch.  WTH?!
~ The fight at the end, and the clearly distasteful "celebration" after the Seahawks scored their first TD.  

The Ugly:

~ Dancing sharks.  Need I say more?
~ Tom Brady's celebration jumps after the win.  He looked even more ridiculous than he usually does.
~ The call that Pete Carroll (or some other coach on the Seahawks staff) made to throw the ball in last few seconds.  Someone deserves to be fired to say the least.

Go Hawks!

I have absolutely no allegiance to the Seahawks (other than loving their color scheme), but if I have to see Tom Brady win another super bowl, I'm gonna scream!  So, Go Hawks!!

Commercials: Some great (Always, Budweiser), some not so great, and some down right depressing (Nationwide, seriously?!)

Food: Delicious even if I do say so myself.

Half Time: Bizarre and a half.  Not sure the Super Bowl is ready for Katy Perry's particular brand of weird.

Company: Wonderful, but missing an important part.

Social Media: There are some fabulously smart and creative people killing it on Twitter tonight - so far, Jim Beaver is my favorite!

Game: So far, so fantastic (Let the record show, this is being written in the 3rd quarter, and the Hawks are up by 10 thanks to a TD a second ago : )