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You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…

Oct31

You ever have one of those moments, one of those feelings?  A sense that you needed to do something?  Those feelings are rare, to be sure.  But they are deeply profound… even if you don’t know why at the moment.

We had one of those feelings tonight.  We left work right on time to go to the polls since we live in a state that allows early voting (and if you live in one that allows early voting as well I HIGHLY recommend doing it – total time door to door… 15 minutes).  We ran our regular ‘on the way home’ errands and decided we would go to Freeb!rds for dinner since we hadn’t been in a while and well, after camping out in the parking lot for a day, it’d be free.  We went inside and got in line and waited while other people got in line behind us.

While we were all waiting to give our order, the gentleman behind us struck up a conversation.  The enormity of the Super Monster was the conversation catalyst.  We all chatted cordially while we were waiting, and we found out that our new food line friend had never been to a Freeb!irds before.  So, we explained what it was about, what we liked and what the secret to the perfect burrito is – hint: ask for the queso.  The three of us chatted all the way through the line and our friend seemed so appreciative of our vast burrito knowledge.

When we went to ‘pay’ for our burritos, Brett told the cashier to put our friend’s burrito on his tab.  Granted we each have a bajillion free burritos, so there wasn’t any actual monetary transaction, but still.  When our friend went to pay for his food the cashier told him we had already covered it and all he needed to pay for was his drink.  He seemed so genuinely thrilled and so happy.  He thanked us and we told him to have a good night, and headed out the door to head home to eat and watch the Jayhawks.

As we started to pull out of the parking lot, Brett said he felt like we should go back inside and sit and eat with our new friend.  So, we did.  We got another parking spot.  Took our to go burritos inside and walked up to our friend and asked if we could join him for dinner.  As it turns out he was also meeting a friend there, so we got to enjoy the company of two new friends – double bonus!

Brett and I are very blessed to have the highest quality humans in our lives, and we have so much fun with them – Henderson Halloween Party, anyone?  But tonight was one of the most fun evenings I’ve had in a long while.

We learned about our new friend; his name, where he is from, what he does for a living.  We learned that he is a board member for a charity group that does amazing work right here in our very own community.  It was just a really beautiful moment.  All because we had a feeling that we should go back and eat dinner with a complete stranger.

I am so glad we did.

As we were walking back to the car Brett said to me ‘imagine what the world would be like if more people did that.’

Imagine, indeed.

I say it often.  I literally wear it on my ‘sleeve’ (technically it’s my wrist).  I truly believe it….

Kindness can change the world.

Mine was changed a little bit tonight.

Thank you new friend, and thank you universe for giving us the sense to turn around.

What a month it’s been….

Jul25

So the last time I posted, the news was terrible.  And while it’s been six weeks since that crummy day, I still miss Bogey every single day.

BUT, this post isn’t about how sad I am.  Rather, it’s an update to what has happened since June.

For starters, there were some events that I simply didn’t talk about in June.  Like, my BIRTHDAY!  Everyone knows how much I love my birthday.  And how I usually celebrate my birthMONTH, but this year, we kept it a little more low key.  There was a cook out at Brett’s sister’s house and some of my friends even joined us for the cookout.  I opened my cards and my presents and there was cake.

Buuuuut, this was no ordinary birthday.  Just as I was opening presents, Brett got a call from our realtor… a call we were anxiously expecting all day.  The house we had looked at yesterday, and put an offer on that morning, WAS OURS!!!!  Talk about the best birthday ever!

We started packing pretty much the next day and come July 6th (moving day) everything was ready to go.  Once we got into the house, I got a job interview – which led to getting the job! And on top of that, I camped outside of the newest location of one of my favorite restaurants (along with Brett and some friends) and (the four of us) won free burritos for a year!

So, birthday, house, job, burritos.  Pretty good month, I’d say.

Updates

May17

Since I’ve been looking for a job since the end of February, and just heard back today that the position I was really hoping to get has been filled, I decided I should probably start using this site to also showcase my talents.  You will see a new page listed at the top, News Writing Samples.  If you hold your cursor over it, a drop down menu appears with the headlines of articles I’ve written for class.

I’ll continue to update that page as I find more of my work.  In the meantime, enjoy what’s there!

This One Time at the Keyhole….

Apr17

After spending time beating myself up for not being able to come up with anything remotely interesting to talk about this week, I took to Facebook and asked my friends and family for help (letting them know upfront that whatever ideas they submitted would absolutely be ripped off, with no type of compensation).  I even went so far as to guilt people to help (I’m awful, what can I say)?

While I was given some interesting topics (someone mentioned craisins: friend or foe?) I decided I felt too bad actually ripping off someone else’s idea.  So, I let the weekend come and go, and still didn’t have anything… or so I thought – cue Saturday night.

Brett’s nieces were over at the grandparent’s house for the night, so we met up with his sister and brother in law for some dinner and drinks.  As per the usual course when we’re all together, we headed on over to our favorite dive.  Brett and I were there a week earlier and it was dead.  Completely.  There was the bartender, us, and two other people – and those two were weirdos.  Seriously.

So, after the poor showing the previous week we were looking for a livelier crowd Saturday night.  And it was a bit livelier.  There was a kickball team there and it seemed like they had been there for awhile, so we went to sit outback (plus, the guys wanted to smoke their cigars).  As the night went on, people trickled in and out of the bar and came outside, chatted with us, etc.  You know, typical bar stuff.

What was not so typical had me speechless.  Our friends left, and it was just Brett and I sitting outside, enjoying the weather before the (predicted) storm hit us (it never did, by the way).  As we’re sitting there, one of the kick ballers comes outside again, and the three of us start chatting.  Mr. Kickball sits down in the chair beside me and slowly reaches his arm out and takes my drink out of my hand!  AND THEN DRINKS IT! Once he takes a sip, he really tried to hand it back, as if we were bff’s all of a sudden and it would be totally fine to share a drink.

Of course I immediately tell him no thank you, and that he can just finish it.  He even tried to argue about it with me saying. “what?  it’s not like I have herpes.”  Uh, thank you for clearing that up, however, rando, I will not be sharing drinks with you – so you can go ahead and keep that.  In fairness to my sticky fingered foe, he did try to make it up to me by offering to by me another drink.  Which I also turned down.

I do think he realized how awkward that entire situation was, though, because he got really quiet.  Sat my/his drink down and then just sort of slowly walked away, kind of watching Brett to make sure he wasn’t about to get beat up for theiving my drink.  This thought was further acknowledged when we went inside the bar to pay our tab and my drink’s assailant rushed out.

After two awkward Saturday encounters there, I think we might need to change the day of the week we go there.  No thank you awkward male humans!

Am I the only person this has ever happened to?  I wouldn’t be surprised if I was, these are the kinds of weird things that happen in my life.

March Madness

Apr4

I promise I talk about things other than sports.  Really.  It’s just, I like sports!  Since the NCAA tournament is officially concluded, I thought I’d post some pictures of how my friends and I spent the final weekend.

Since KU made it to the Final Four, my boyfriend and I decided that we should go to Lawrence to watch the game.  A bunch of our friends had the same idea so we all met up at Granada Theatre to cheer for the Jayhawks.

Pre-partying before the game against Ohio State.

The game was as stressful as every other game throughout the tournament, but the Jayhawks managed to pull out the win.  I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

The crowd on Mass. Street after the win

Even Lawrence's finest got in on the high fives!

Thumbs up for the Jayhawks as they advance to the National Championship game!

Being the superstitious people that sports fans are, we all trekked out to Lawrence on Monday to cheer the Jayhawks on as they battled the Wildcats from Kentucky in the national title game.

GO JAYHAWKS!

Excited for the game to start!

After two very stressful and emotional hours, a winner emerged, and, unfortunately, it was not the Jayhawks.  But, the Wildcats played an outstanding game, and the Jayhawks had an incredible season.  Even though KU lost, I am still so proud of the team and all that they accomplished.  I can’t wait for next season!!!

A calm, cool and collect crowd after the Jayhawks loss to the Kentucky Wildcats in the National Championship game

Funny tidbits about pre and post game antics.  One of the bars refused to sell Kentucky Bourbon the night of the game.  And after the game, one fan took it upon himself to erase Kentucky Street from Lawrence.

One student scales a street pole to pull down the Kentucky Street sign in Lawrence, following the Jayhawks loss to the Wildcats. Photo courtesy of yahoo!.

 

Rock Chalk!