Seven.Caged.Tigers

Well. It is Friday. Another week come and gone in a literal blink of an eye. I hate how as you get older the days get shorter. A day feels to be about what a few hours were like ten years ago. I guess that’s part of getting older and having a daily routine.

Tomorrow, JT and I are headed to a wedding. Jennie is my friend from college. She graduated a year before me, was the same major, and even was my newspaper editor for one year. Anyway, she’s (finally) getting hitched tomorrow…and we’ll be there to congratulate her! I even went out and bought a new skirt, shirt, and shoes in honor of the event. Or maybe it just gave me an exuse.

How cute. The weather for my neck of the woods:

Tuesday. Yeah. How very exciting. As I sit here quietly typing at my cluttered desk I find myself bored. Probably in part because work is so quiet (no students at the University, so little for student services departments to do), but also a bit to do with a whole bunch of other things. I don’t know. No big deal…I’m just rambling (and if you know me in real life you’d know that it is a character flaw).

Anyway, my parents got a new car in part on my suggestion…and JT’s for that matter. Mom’s Blazer got turned in on early lease buyback, and she was looking for a car thins time around. She hated her Blazer, it was unstable with tons of blind spots and bad gas mileage. Being the good daughter I suggested an Impala. What does she buy? You guessed it…a 2002 Impala LS in a slightly lighter color than ours and without the leather but with all the other goodies. They will love it!

JT’s sister Lindsay and her fiance Russ are getting married some time in the latter part of this year. A place isn’t quite settled on, but right now it seems that it will be in the Florida Keys during the week of Thanksgiving. That makes me EXTREMELY happy! An excuse to take a week-long vacation in the Keys during a week when I only have to take three days off! What more could I possibly want? I can’t think of any better way to spend a week in November except for in the warmth (out of Michigan) and at a wedding. So I’m crossing my fingers that the Keys are the final decision. The reception appears to be over Christmas break, maybe at a locale about a mile away from my house. I’ve never been to this place (it is a private club of sorts), but it should be interesting…

Another day in the life of Shelly…or a few days in the life at least. Anyway, JT had a meeting for class on Saturday so I spent a few hours at the mall. I expected to have more time but he got out MUCH earlier than he thought. So I was unable to get a pair of fancy black shoes as I’d hoped. Instead, I came home with just a few things. A skirt and shirt from Casual Corner, perfume called Budoir by Vivienne Westwood from Sephora (DAMN that place, too expensive, but with too many things to turn down), and a shirt from New York Company (or Lerners, or whatever it’s called now). Anyway, it was a pretty productive afternoon as far as that goes.

Also, I saw a few movies. Igby Goes Down was *great,* in a hilrious, nasty way (the only way I like my humor). I also saw 24 Hour Party People, but JT wasn’t too keen on the documentary style where as I especially enjoyed the fact that it was all about the Manchester, England music scene in the 1970’s and 1980’s. As usual, it was a tame weekend. Sometimes I wish something out of the ordinary would happen for once…

That darned American Idol is still taking up much of my time…or at least a lot of it on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Last evening, the performances weren’t quite as stellar as last week. Don’t really have any clue as to who will be voted on to the next round, nor do I particularly care much about it this time. Oh well

I had hoped to post a picture of Dewey. See, Jeremy made him a wife-beater style tank top out of the old sleeve of a t-shirt. I took a few pictures, and apparently my photography skills aren’t quite up to par (or weren’t that night). Anyway, they are too blurry to even show anybody else. So in lieu of my promise, a picture of Sara did turn out. Of course she doesn’t look as dignified as she normally does, but this is probably what makes the photo special…

Another weekend come and gone with little excitement. JT and I went out to Lou & Carl’s in Brighton after some trouble getting into Stillwater Grill and Outback Steakhouse. Let’s just say that at 5pm in the afternoon a 95 minute wait is not acceptable. So, JT had a prime rib and I had a rice dish for Valentine’s Day. Wow. We’re romantic. Our gift(s) consisted of a trip to Borders Friday night where we spent WAY too much money and got a bunch of books. Of course he got computer books while I got fiction, but that’s the reason we went together rather than individually for one another…to get the perfect pages.

Since Jeremy managed to shatter our cutting board (I told him it wasn’t a good idea to put it in the oven!), we went to Bed Bath & Beyond and got an identical new one in addition to a chair for the desk. He intends on using it for school, so who am I to complain? Saturday night we went to Gameworks at Great Lakes Crossing. It was a fun, though REALLY expensive evening. They had an amazing assortment of games ranging from classics like Ms. Pacman and Centipede to Skee Ball and other normal hands on arcade games to completely interactive video games. You wanna play a racing game? Step right up and jump into the nearly life-size model of a Nascar car.

Even more fun was this balloon game. It’s tall, like thirty feet high. You get strapped in with three friends and each of you *shoot* at and land on one anothers balloons. Based on where your hot air balloon is on the projected screen, you will be either shot up or dropped down from the top. It was an incredible amount of fun, though I can only imagine that some of the more interactive games can get a bit messy on around 1am or so. Yuck.

So last night was American Idol evening once again. Last week, I thought that there were some pretty darned good performances. But last night was simply AMAZING. Those kids have golden voices (save for a few clunkers). It will be rather interesting to see who gets to move on to the next round. I guess I’m rooting for Ruben Studdard (whose voice literally gave me chills) and for the second spot I see it as a toss up between Kimberly Locke, Hadas, and Clay Aiken. I guess all of America will find out tonight exactly who joins Charles Grigsby and Julia DeMato in the finals…

Yes. I am a freak. I like reality television. A lot. So sue me.

I totally forgot my digital camera this past weekend. I meant to bring it on the trip, but managed to completely let it slip my mind. So, unfortunately, I have zero to recount my experience in Cross Village and at Boyne Highlands aside from my words. The house was gorgeous and huge. There were (literally) three dining areas, seven bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, and two bars in the mansion (literally) that overlooked Lake Michigan. From what we can figure with the size of the place and the price of property it is worth something well over a million bucks. Puts my 1500 sq foot bungalow to shame.

I went skiing on Saturday and came out with no bruises and no bad pain. That is of course very different than my experience with snowboarding, but then again I’ve been skiing since I was 7 or 8 years old so I rarely fall on my butt.

But now I’m back at work, at my desk, doing graphic design stuff for a flyer. Woo-hoo.

Yeah! I have just a half day of work today before JT and I head up to the farest reaches of the lower part of Michigan. There are a bunch of us who rented a 5,000 sq ft house with 7 bedrooms for a ski getaway for the weekend. It should be a nice, relaxing time full of friends, beer (or in my case liquor), skiing and games. The skiing part (believe it or not) should be just fine. I started on skis as a 3-year-old with cross country and then as a 8 year old downhill. I don’t plan on falling nearly as much (if an all) as compared to snowboarding.

My butt is *still* bruised from that fiasco.

A very cool site…make your own personalized web license plate.

Acme License Maker

Here’s mine, as an example of course:

For example for Michigan you can use the 1976 plate, the regular blue plate, the bridge plate, or the car plate It’s all fun!

This past weekend was a pain in the butt. Literally. See, Jeremy brought me snowboarding to Mt. Brighton (not a real mountain, mind you, but a typical Michigan garbage hill). Anyway, I’m more used to skiing. It comes rather naturally as compared to snowboarding which comes as a great challenge. I did it, was a good sport, and fell down numerous times. At least this time around I didn’t end up with whiplash (last time, 4 years ago or so, I had a major case of whiplash).

Anyway, no part of my body functions properly. My arms, wrists, back, stomach, knees, thighs, and neck hurt. Worst of all, though, is the fact that I have some pretty nasty bruises on my butt.