Oh, it's Friday, and I stayed at work way too long today. Should have been at LTF working out to keep the anxiety bugs away, but somehow my school work pulls too hard. Last week on this day, Stephen, Jeremy, and I went to Comedy Sportz in Calhoun Square. If you haven't been there before, you really need to go, and we need to go again. Two teams compete kind of Whose Line is it Anyway style. Very funny. Then we tried to find a bar in uptown, but it all seemed so meatmarkety, so we ended up at the Chatterbox. Playing Balderdash. Gotta love that game! It was my first time playing, believe it or not. It's the kind of game that English teachers really should love, so I'm good to go. What else? Sunday we took Abbey and her friend, Yana, to an apple orchard in Belle Plain. A little commercial, but we were able to bring home a pie and some honey crisps, so not a whole lotta complaining here. The beginning of this week was super stressful. I was busy trying to grade 170 essays, 7th grade "response to literature" papers. And Stephen worked non-stop with Abbey to finish a huge game board project for her reading class. Way too much time spent being busy, and cluttered, and stressed. Yesterday I had a half day because of my 6 month checkup on the eye with the retina surgery. I guess I'm healing fine. The wave in my left eye vision will get better in the next 5 - 10 years =) Yee haw. Actually, I don't care how long it takes. I can see, and that is the good thing. My retina was damaged when the fluid got in there, so I guess everything is put back together but it won't work perfectly. My vision would be really shitty if my right eye went, too, so I just hope that never happens. After the appt, I was sapped for a good long while. Dilated eyes, a hard drive home in traffic when I really couldn't see, especially through the sexy black eye screen. And my glasses aren't strong enough, but it is expensive to get new lenses... so it was a treat to be in pre-rush hour traffic.
My parents are in town this weekend. It's kind of a running joke when they come because they are here every month or so. Eight hours in the car?? I don't know how they do it, but I am always happy to see them. Means we have to clean the house again. Hmmm.
So there's nothing spectacular going on in my life right now. Didn't win the lottery. Didn't lose the 15 lbs I have been aiming to. Haven't finished the first three chapters of my thesis for grad school. Haven't even had a good girl's night out.
I think the only thing that qualifies as cool is that Stephen's sister, Tricia, had a baby boy this week. I don't mean to down play it... I just remembered after I wrote the last little bit. Jack Chester Babinski =) Up in Anchorage, AK. Poor guy! He has three older sisters to contend with. All blondies. SO actually, that is quite exciting. And our good friends Carrie and Jeff had a little boy about a month ago =)
I'll leave you with a few pictures. Figure I better post something worthwhile since I don't update daily... Have a good weekend!
Garrison Keillor street dance
Chris and Cindy
Our coonhound, Mia
last seen walking out of walgreens thursday night with... ONE pair of speedo swimming goggles ONE bottle of nasal saline solution ONE black fine-tooth comb ONE bottle of motor oil, 5W30 ohhh, how can you not love (to hate) a store that enables you to walk out with a gaggle of THAT? what's that you say? maybe it is the people buying the loot? what would we need with... ONE pair of speedo swimming goggles
went swimming last night at lifetime and only had one pair for the two of us
ONE bottle of nasal saline solution
have you felt that dry minnesota air lately???
ONE black fine-tooth comb
got a nine year old who needs a straight part on sunday nights
ONE bottle of motor oil, 5W30
does this need any explanation?
no work the past two days. yesterday was spent wasting time and correcting essays. and surprise of all surprises, i didn't make it through another movie! we watched superstar, and i fell asleep during the talent show, only the most important part. that is one of the reasons i don't like movies; they put me right to sleep. today was spent wasting less time, working on my thesis, getting a facial, and now going out with stephen and jeremy.
if you ever were to think that a woman had a beauty secret, i can tell you what it would be-- a european facial. why i waited this long to redeem my gift certificate from my last birthday, i do know. (yeah, eye surgery in march, but still.) marina at sash salon in calhoun beach club is a wanted woman. she does (insert any gagging adjective such as fantastic or marvelous or obscene) things to your face, hands, head, neck, and shoulders. very much worth it.
i'm done with the cd set and will hit the post office tomorrow. looks like we will be entertaining nine people... not too shabby! that gives us all new music until may!
well, that's all for now. it's friday, and we're out of here/// mlgs
Amanda Francis... please check your blog or friendster and write to me =) Godda get your address to send the cd set. Yes, set! Late, extraordinarily, but doubled. And James T. Boyd... In California??? Sure, you can join. Does May sound good? Holy DORK BOOK, kevin.
So we went crazy on the galleries today so we could get the necessary stamps on the ART AROUND TOWN booklet and be registered for some prizes. Last week we went to gallery 360 and xylos in the linden hills neighborhood. This week we stuck with the south mpls area as well. Hit number one: shelly holzemer gallery on 48th and nicollet Hit number two: sun gallery on 44th and grand Hit number three: kelly rae theiss gallery on e 44th street Hit number four: intermedia arts on lake and lyndale approx. Hit number five: mcad gallery Turn in the hopefully lucky card at: mia Yes, we did look at the art. No, we didn't just stamp and run! Good news for stephen. Friday he met with one of the owners of gallery 360, showed her his portfolio and resume, and she decided to show his work. He'll have three pieces there in late january, and then he'll have a five-foot show (not the main area, but good space) at the end of next summer. This will be with his long photos, which is awesome, because it's long overdue that he gets these into galleries. He's also been shooting with his new medium format camera, and the quality of the photos is outstanding. Happy travels to CINDY who left to live in costa rica ... flew out on thursday. Mom and dad say to keep an eye on chris, since he isn't going until january and is my softie little brother, even though you may not guess that about him. Ask him about the frog caught for frog's legs at the lake... Well, maybe you'd better not! We had a very strange encounter at walgreens this week. Not that anything happened, but we left the store with the oddest barrage of items: pack of lint traps two packs of trident velcro strips riesens eraser tops red vine light bulbs yeahhhhhh. Kim and seamus are having a house warming party tonight that we should have left for already. They have a new place in prospect part neighborhood of mpls, really nice. We were over there for supper a couple of weeks ago. To carry on the shaffner family tradition of playing the guitar, i got an acoustic left handed fender last weekend, along with a really cool COOL fender dvd on HOW TO PLAY. The sad thing is that i am so visual that i have to stop and rewind an enormous amount of times because i have problems getting it right. But finally, maybe i'll be able to hold my own at the campfire someday. Figure if i start with LOW songs i should be alright. AIGHT. What else? MEA is coming up, which means i will be forcing myself to work on my thesis for 8 - 10 hours at the end of this week, which is a good thing (i'm trying to convince myself) because i have been avoiding it. It's the chapter two curse. I swear. It's really hard. And i don't always get things right away, so it took my a long time to understand the process. Problem with that was that i figured it out at the END of the summer, and that didn't leave me with much time. My other problem is that i can waste time really well. Ok, CD CLUB members. Sorry to be so late. I'm working on the CD sleeve right now. It's a double CD SET, too, so maybe that will make up for being so late. Stephen just looks at me like you-should-be-done-you-started-this-thing all the time when i talk about it. Maybe he's right, but ... good things come to those who wait, no? So that's it for now. I'll put some pictures from the garrison keillor street dance on sometime soon. Don't hold your breath for too long waiting, though. I don't seem to update as often as i think about it. Michelle =)
ohhhhh yeah.so i'm ms september in regards to the cd club, just not quite done yet. almost. here's the line up...september (past due): michelleoctober: david enovember: tanuel ldecember: amanda fjanuary: stephen gfebruary: todd hmarch: jeremy napril: paul g
turned out with eight... mine will be out (hopefully) by the end of the week, even though as i type that i don't know whether to believe myself. but i did spend some time on connect getting songs i didn't have yesterday. oh yeah. get high on bluegrass =)
chris got stephen and me tickets to the trey anastasio show at the orpheum next month. front row and center! thanks to chris for being the first at the box office, and thanks again for the good drinks on friday. i really fancy the imperial room, and it's even better now that it's smoke free. i'm sure that not everyone likes that, but when i don't go home smelling like shit and with a sore throat from second hand smoke, i'm all the better.
what else. took abbey to the water slides at the savage lifetime today. it's quite nice out there. i had forgotten that they have slides indoors, too. two days in a row at lifetime for the month of october. that's already a better start than september was. too much stress and too much foods in september, which is why my feet felt like lead at my exercise class on saturday morning. maybe it was the alcohol from the night before though... oh, and we had "family karoake" on saturday night! abbey even cued up my fav song to belt out... vanessa carlton's a thousand miles... what a girl =) you may not have heard it, but i think the neighbors did!
