Friday Fav’s

HAPPPPPPY FRIDAYYYYYY!!!

Well friends, we survived another week.

It was pretty touch and go there for a minute. Flashback to Monday’s madness along with my toilet going rogue on Tuesday–I forgot to tell you guys about that one. Let’s just say it was very loud, very shaky, and very Moaning Myrtle-esque. Oofta. Thankfully my apartment’s maintenance was able to fix it the  next day but not before me having to endure a night-long chainsaw serenade.

It’s safe to say that I am more than thrilled that this week has come to an end.

Thankfully it should be a calm weekend at home before the storm of summer activities begins. If you’re anything like me, than your calendar for the next three months is filling up fast with road trips, weddings and get togethers. I can’t wait to fill in the cracks with long hikes, many  a baseball game and plenty of pool/patio time. My apartment just officially opened our pool (just one week after we got hit with a May snow storm I might add—I’ve never seen anything like Colorado weather!) and I am itching to get my chlorine/suntanburn/swim on!

Well I hope you’ve got some fun plans in the works for this weekend, and in the meantime please enjoy my favorite finds from around the web and beyond in this week’s Friday Fav’s! 🙂

Favorite craft: Personalized Photo Map. Yes, yes, yes! I have been wanting to do something like this for ages. Print out pictures of yourselves in all the 50 states then cut out and pin over a map. Too cool.

Favorite furball: Wet Dog. I could not. stop. cracking. up. at these pictures of wet dogs mid-bath. Poor poochies!

Favorite indulge: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Scotcharoos. I didn’t think scotcharoos could get any better but clearly I was wrong – to the tune of two additional layers of deliciousness. 🙂

Favorite read: The Rosie Project. This hilarious, feel-good novel is narrated by an oddly charming and socially challenged genetics professor on an unusual quest: to find out if he is capable of true love. I literally found myself LOLing in certain parts of the book. You can’t help but fall in love yourself with the main character Dr. Tillman, a man after my somewhat socially-challenged and awkward heart 🙂

Favorite place: Emerald Lake. Just 20 miles or so west of Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada, this lake is absolutely breathtaking. I would rent a house here for a week in the summertime in a heartbeat!

Favorite flashback: Seinfeld. It’s hard to believe that this past Wednesday marked the show finale’s 15th anniversary. Greatest show in the history of ever. Yada, yada, yada…

Favorite funny: Hutzler 571 anana Slicer Reviews.  The user reviews on this simple banana slicer are HILARIOUS. Click to view all the reviews, then sort by “most helpful” and get a tissue handy. You’ll be crying from laughter!

I would rate this product as just okay. It’s kind of cheaply made. But it works better than the hammer I’ve been using to slice my bananas.

Favorite treat: Chocolate Chip Cookie Popcorn. I’m kind of on the fence about crazy popcorn creations. Give me some butter and salt, and I’m good. That said, I flipped when I saw this sweet Chocolate Chip Cookie Popcorn. I would definitely inhale this!

Favorite find: Circulation Chest. I am 1000% obsessed with this chest!!! Remember way, way back when libraries used actual card catalogues?!  I could have my own circulation area for my library of books!!! WHAT?! Cough, #NERD

Favorite pastime: Work this week has been on the slowwww side, so in order for me to keep my sanity and not fall asleep, drooling all over my keyboard, I’ve become quite the doodlist. Top of the muffin to you! 😉

Favorite view: Seeing the World Out an Airplane Window. You guys have to see these views from the window seat of an airplane on flights from around the world. They’re good photos, too, not like my crappy iPhone shots…

Favorite kicks: Suede Fringe Moccasins. I cannot get over how comfy these moccasins look. I am praying that they get more size 10’s in stock soon because I’m dying for a pair.

Kick up your heels and have a great weekend everybody 🙂

 

My Brain on Dating

Dating is awesome.

It can be fun, exciting, and surprising. There’s nothing quite like getting those first “getting to know someone, what should I wear, holy crap is my hair alright?!” butterflies in your stomach.

Dating is awesome.

But it can also suck.

In case you were looking for another reason — Reason #623, let’s call it, why not? —  why dating can be the absolute WORST:

Let’s think about the brain. We’ll use my brain as an example. Okay. On any average day — here’s today’s — my brain is thinking about that book that I just read (The Rosie Project was super duper good, folks!!), what book books I’m going to read next, sandwiches, how AHHHHMAZING the Brewers are doing (can I get an UP TOP?!), mindlessly staring at things, work, sandwiches, existential mucking around, and bodily functions.

There’s a lot going on in there.

Compare that to my brain on dating:

It’s incredibly irritating. I don’t want to believe that it’s true. I hate hate hate that it is true. But honestly? It’s kind of true. I sit around, aimlessly waiting for a phone call, a text, a sign, ANY sign that the date went well and he likes me, he really likes me! And I KNOW it’s not just me who does this. Right?

RIGHT?!

My rational brain knows that it’s statistically unlikely that it’s ever going to work out. My rational brain is trying to evaluate this person based upon their personality, attractiveness, sense of humor, charisma, intelligence, appeal. My rational brain is trying to process a lot of information — so tell me about your job! where did you grow up? how many siblings do you have? – and see if there’s a connection, a compatibility. My rational brain is telling me to take things slowly. My rational brain is telling me to chill the vanilla cupcake out already!

My emotional brain however, well, it’s taken on a life of it’s own. My emotional brain just picked out the floral arrangements at our wedding. My emotional brain is naming our kids and deciding between the suburbs or the city. My emotional brain is the all of the WORST.

By the time I remember that I’m still on a date and focus back on the conversation and the actual person sitting in front of me, inevitably I’ve said something weird and the moment’s over and I’ve totally blown it and there’s truly no way of explaining what just happened and then I wonder why the good ones never call me back.

Whoofta.

So yeah. THIS IS WHY I’M KINDA SORTA BAD AT THIS.

And more to the point — this is why I don’t do this all that often. It gets exhausting, losing your brain like that. Even if only for a few days.

But despite what it does to my brain,  and my usually pristine amount of “sandwich thinking time”, dating is pretty awesome.

The butterflies, the dinners, the long romantic walks on the beach (do they still do that anymore?! I need to find a beach.)

It’s all awesome.

I just need to mash up my rational brain and emotional brain, a super-dating hybrid if you will (I may even wear bring out the tights and cape). I need to calm the vanilla cupcake down, have fun, and see where this whole dating thang takes me.

I may have an incredibly awkward time.

I may meet the man of my dreams.

But no matter what, it’ll be a chance to learn, a chance to grow, a chance to wear that LBD that’s been taking up dust in my closet.

Right?

RIGHT?!