my plants have roots!

guess what?? my plants that i told you about are actually growing roots! don't believe me? i don't blame you - i wasn't even the one to notice them. my coworker came in to check on them, and she pointed them out to me.

they're a little hard to see in the picture above - let me help you out.

yeah that's right. do i have a green thumb or what??

AT: cornhole arcade game

yesterday, alex and i were out running errands and we decided to stop for lunch at this bagel place my parents rave about. well, the bagel place was closed (or at least the door was locked - we got their 15 min before they were supposed to close), and we didn't feel like eating at subway next door. thankfully, just across the shopping center was this great little burger/hot dog place i remember ordering food from in high school.

what a place! the food was good and inexpensive, they had a giant gumball machine (although alex had two gumballs - and spit both out shortly after), and they had a couple of arcade games - including CORNHOLE! of course, we had to play. there was a big track ball that you used to pull your arm back and throw the bag, you could change the angle of your toss, and there was even a wind factor! it took us a few throws to get the hang of it, but once we did, we were pretty good (although i'll admit, alex was way better - he even got several in the hole!). it was awesome!

office sprucing

this has been a pretty gloomy week in chicagoland - lots of rain, lots of thunder, lots of clouds - like i said, gloomy. so i decided to spruce up my office to combat the yucky weather!

first, i changed the water in my little plants. let me explain these plants. someone else in our office brought in this very hardy plant, and supposedly you can simply clip a portion off of the plant, put it in water, and it will grow roots. well, i told her that was really cool and i should try, so the next day she brought me these two vases to do it! so now i am the proud caretaker of two green stems stuck in water...that hopefully will turn into plants someday. anyways, they sit on my window sill and i like them a lot :)


then, i decided to bring in my Easter candy and leave it in a bowl in my office for people to come in and take. then, separately another person from the office brought me this black "wet-erase" board that really serves no purpose but he saw it for a dollar and so he bought it for me. since i have this silly board, i decided to use it to announce my new candy bowl!


any other tips for sprucing up a gloomy office???

game-filled weekend

this weekend for Easter, my brother and Alex both came out from their respective schools to celebrate. my family decided to make sunday a game day, and we had some good times. first we played bananagrams, a new game that my parents gave scott in his Easter basket (yes, we still get Easter baskets). bananagrams is kind of like scrabble, but easier. you get a bunch of letter tiles and you have to use all of them to spell connecting words.


my brother, who had played before, was awesome at it, alex and i did alright, and my parents were (surprisingly) terrible! my mom kept muttering all of these non-words as she tried to use all of her difficult letters (J's are more difficult than you'd think!)...we were amused.

then we moved on to monopoly deal, which i've actually blogged about before here. alex and i had played a bunch on our own, but we decided to share the joy with the rest of the family. although it took a little while to get the hang of it (about 2.5 games into it, my mom goes "wait, so everyone gets 3 plays per turn??"...which is the most basic rule of the game and my brother kept trying to put properties in his bank), we had a lot of fun.


we ended on one particularly dramatic round, where my mom tried to get revenge on my brother and win the game only to be foiled by his "just say no" card, and my dad successfully stole a full set of properties from me by laying his "just say no" card on my "just say no card" (there's only 3 in the deck), only to lose his two full sets and all of his money in just one round. all three of these instances ended in table-round high-fives (excluding the thwarted party of course). good times.

Guam at risk for "tipping over"?

check out this video of a Congressman in a hearing about placing more US troops in Guam...it almost has to be an April Fools joke, but he looks awfully serious...or maybe hammered...

a promise is a promise...unless you're in politics

i found this article too interesting not to pass along - it cites the promises obama made during his campaign that have since been broken in the first year+ of his presidency. even though i know we don't all agree politically (as is healthy), i thought this was particularly poignant for people who either voted for him or didn't vote for him but felt hopeful after he was elected that he may stand for some worthy principles.

some of these examples are ridiculous (a tax on tanning salons does not count as a tax on families with incomes over $250K), but others are really fascinating (his campaign stance on health care reform compared to the actual bill he signed into law). i always expect political candidates (particularly those with little to no experience like our president) to be surprised by the realities of their office, and how difficult the job they've just assumed will be, but all of these lined up together was...stunning.

tasting and track meet

last thursday night alex and i went to the big tasting for our reception at the Royal Fox! we were really excited to sample all of the food and see the place again all decked out in wedding style. when we arrived, we wandered around the whole place looking for our table, taking pictures of the styles of other tables, and smelling the delicious food. every table had been decorated according to that couple's color scheme, but the arrangements and centerpieces were all different, so we took notes on what we liked. there was even an entire table dedicated to all of the different napkin folds you can choose - i didn't even know we had to pick a napkin fold!

then came the food - there was wine, appetizers, soup, salad, sorbet, entrees (chicken, beef, & fish), sides (starches & vegetables), and dessert (white & chocolate wedding cake plus various other sweets). needless to say, by the end we were totally stuffed! we haven't finalized our menu yet, but trust me, it will be good :)

moving on to the weekend, alex and the vikings had their first outdoor track meet saturday! it was a home meet, so alex was super busy all day running the throwing events. one or more of his athletes competed in all four mens' events, and they all did pretty well! one guy actually placed in all four events - javelin, discus, shot put, and hammer. it was really fun to see alex being all official, even though i know it was a lot of work. when all was said and done, he'd been standing outside for over 9 hours!

of course, i went to watch the meet, and i came all equipped with a comfy chair, a blanket (it was cold for those of us just sitting around!), and a good book. although i had more down time then alex, i did try to find ways to make myself useful - i videotaped all of his athletes' performances and i even got to pull the tape to measure the javelin throws! all in all, it was a very long but very fun day. go vikings!