Happy Birthday to ME! (Belated for YOU!)

Friday, January 21st was my berfday.  I'm on the cusp of mid-30's now.  Anyway, so here's how my day went. P.S. I find my posts are getting longer and longer.  Sorry, this is a long one.

Friday was the coldest day of the year, actually in almost 2 years. The official temperature at the airport was minus 16 degrees, however WAY up north on the border of Minnesota and Canada in International Falls it was minus 46 degrees. By the way, that's air temperature, peeps.  We're not even factoring in wind chill. If my birthday wasn't in January, I would definitely hate the month.

The plan for the day was simple.  I took the day off of work.  I hadn't done that for a birthday ever.  My  mom had asked me earlier in the week if I wanted to go out to breakfast, which I said yes.  I left my house, got in my car and nothing.  It didn't start despite it being in the garage.  My car has a history of not starting when it's really cold, even when it's not that cold due to the gas line.  I finally got it started after pumping the gas pedal like you're not supposed to do but all rules go out the window when it comes to this car.  I headed to my mom's and picked her up and we went to Perkins, her choice.

At first I thought, why Perkins?  It's so generic and we could go anywhere else for breakfast but she picked it so I went with it.  While we were waiting for our food to come, my mom gave me a card from her and my dad and a gift card, which covered the cost of a desk I've wanted for two years. Thank you parents!! Breakfast at Perkins was delicious. I had eggs benedict and they were great.

I asked my mom if she wanted to bum around with me as I wanted to go JC Penney's.  She said yes and so we went to the mall.  I had no interest in buying anything really but I did have a $10 reward thing that they sent me so I just thought I'd find something that caught my eye.  We spent a lot of time looking at jewelry and I ended up buying a pair of clearance earrings and a big huge cocktail type ring shaped like a flower.  Happy birthday to me.   After JCP, we went to Caribou Coffee.  I had a coupon for a free drink of choice on your birthday. We went through the drive thru and I ordered my "usual" decaf caramel high rise that I get probably two times a year.  At the window, they asked me my name and then the window person/barista sang Happy Birthday to me.

We went to JoAnn's after that and bummed around the store.  My mom got a bag of Christmas clearance stuff for $3 and I spent $18 on some items for the top of my new desk, which I would be getting on Saturday.
We ended our shopping excursion at Marshall's and I bought a fancy pen/pencil holder. I dropped my mom off about 3:15 pm and went home. I can't say I have the closest relationship with my mom so it was really important and special to me that she asked me to breakfast and spent the day with me.  It was a truly a great time.

M came home and gave me two cards.  One was a funny card, an iCarly card, which M didn't know who she was and if I didn't have a nephew, I probably wouldn't either but he bought it thinking it was funny that just some random teenager was on the front saying Happy Birthday to me, which makes it even funnier to me that he had no idea.  The other card was a lovey-dovey nice card that had a present in it. I'm not going to tell you what it was. It was very exciting to me and I'll blog about it soon.

We had no plans for my birthday evening, the way I kinda wanted it to be.  I just wanted to be low-key and hang out and maybe go eat somewhere casual.  We talked a little bit about where to go and I finally decided that Pizza Luce sounded good. Just before we were going to leave, our friend Sara messaged us on Facebook saying that she was sure we already had birthday plans but we didn't, First Avenue lets you in plus a guest on your birthday for free, even for sold out shows.  WHA?!?!?  This was the best news to me because it so happens there was a sold out show there that night and it was one that I wanted to go to.  Sara had said that First Avenue had just tweeted that info and so I looked to verify and yes, two hours prior, there was that glorious message on Twitter. And so we decided to go but we had to go quickly because it was already close to 6 pm at this point and we still needed to eat.

Despite how cold it was, it was snowing and it was pretty and fluffy and we went to downtown Minneapolis and found a meter across the street from Pizza Luce.  I got a small baked potato pizza.  If you haven't tried it, it's delicious. M got his signature pizza, smoked gouda and meatballs.

We parked over by First Avenue in the closest covered parking spot available to First Avenue.  Everything was going perfectly throughout the whole day.  I approached the doors of First Ave and went to a door where there was no line thinking, hey it's my birthday and I don't have to wait in line.  I asked, "Is this the birthday line?".  He didn't care it was my birthday and wondered why I was declaring this to him.  I said that I get get in free on my birthday and he had no idea what I was talking about.  He said go in the will call line and they probably have you on a list.  What list?  No one knows it's my birthday yet and so I got nervous that we wouldn't get in.  I got to the front of the line and told them it was my birthday and they wanted to see my ID so I showed them and they put us on a list and then said, "Make sure you go around the corner for your free birthday drink coupon".  Awesome!  I got my drink coupon and ordered a Summit Extra Pale Ale. If you haven't been to First Ave, most of their beers are big 24 oz. bottles so that's what I got for free!

I suppose I should tell you what show we were even at.  Have you heard of the radio station The Current?  It's a public radio station and I can say I'm proud to be a sustaining member of Minnesota Public Radio and I contribute funds every month to them.  Everyone knows I'm SUPER PROUD to be a member and I work in the words, "I'm a sustaining member of Minnesota Public Radio" into any conversation I can.  Ok, not really but I am really proud.  Well, it was the Current's 6th birthday/anniversary party and they had a great lineup of local artists performing throughout the night.  As a sustaining member, I could have purchased tickets to the show during a presale weeks ago but I didn't because they had only announced 3 of the 5 acts at that time and it was my birthday so I wasn't sure if that's what I wanted to do.  Of the 3 acts they announced....Cloud Cult, Free Energy and Jeremy Messersmith, Jeremy Messersmith was the only one I was interested in seeing.  It wasn't until after tickets were sold out did they announce the other two bands, Roma di Luna and Brother Ali.  Once Brother Ali was announced, that sealed the deal for me and I wish I would have purchased tickets.  I wanted to go but not for the Craig's List price of $50-$100 a ticket when they were only $12 to begin with.  Then in the week or so leading up to the show, the Current announced that they recorded a CD with all local artists in the Current Studios and each person attending the birthday party concert would get one.  That bummed me out more than anything because I really wanted that CD.  Fast forward to two days before the show and the Current announced that Cloud Cult had cancelled and they were replacing them with Trampled By Turtles. Now I was really jealous that I wasn't going to be able to go to the concert and only two days later, I'd be getting in the door for free, a large free beer in hand, collecting my Current CD and watching all the bands I wanted to see with a great view.  I just couldn't believe that everything worked out so perfectly!

In addition to the bands, a lot of the Current DJ's would come on stage and talk to the crowd and gave out their own awards with categories they made up and the winners included some of the artists that performed that night as well as Dessa and Mark Mallman.  Even Minneapolis's mayor, RT Rybak took the stage and talked to the crowd about the importance of public radio and supporting music and local stores like Electric Fetus.

Here's a summary of the bands that played:

Trampled By Turtles: AMAZING
Roma di Luna: Soulful but no stage presence- Only knew one song
Jeremy Messersmith: Knew every song and loved the performance
Brother Ali: Fantastic---Did a version of Eyedea & Abilities, "Smile" and he really got the crowd energized
Free Energy: Don't know who they are and left before they took the stage

Pizza Luce

Me and my giant Summit beer

The snowy view from the bathrooms at 1st Ave

Trampled by Turtles

Mpls mayor RT Rybak

Roma di Luna

Jeremy Messersmith

Brother Ali

On Saturday, we went to breakfast at one of our faves, Good Day Cafe and then went and bought the desk, put it together and here's a picture of it.  I love it!  

Christmas Again, Cousins and Turtles

Saturday, January 15th would be the last time I would celebrate Christmas for the 2010 holiday season.  I went to my aunt and uncle's house in Forest Lake for brunch. They even kept their Christmas tree up for the occasion.  It stood 17 feet tall but it seemed like 30 feet to me.  They even had to cut off 10 feet before being able to fit in the house.  The food was delicious.  We had egg bake, ham, cheesy potatoes, fruit, muffins, stuffed french toast and mimosas.  After brunch, some played a game for money and others talked and played with the little ones in our family, Amelia and Colton.

After an afternoon break of watching playoff football at home, M and I went to downtown Minneapolis to meet up with two of my cousins and their spouses for a concert.  Before we met them, M and I stopped at Smalley's 87 Club for a burger and to watch part of the Packers/Falcons game.  After eating, we met Laura and Chris and Mike and Tonia at First Avenue to see Trampled By Turtles.  They were formed in Duluth, Minnesota but have toured nationally.  They are described as progressive bluegrass, however M has called them bluegrass on meth as some of their songs are very high energy.  The show was sold out just as their show at the same venue the night before.  First Avenue is not my favorite place to see concerts because of the layout so it was no surprise when we were so deep into rows of people that I could barely see the stage.  Since this was the first time that M and I had seen the band, I really wanted to pay attention to them but I couldn't really do so because of the over-crowding but it was still a really good time hanging with the cousins and also with M's friends Dave and Molly who also went to the show.  While at the concert, the Packers/Falcons game finished and the Packers blew the Falcons away, 48-21, which made Mike and Tonia happy.

After the show we headed across the street to O'Donovan's for a beer.  Since the Packers won, Mike offered to buy us each a beer.  Hey, even though it was in celebration of the Packers, I'll still accept a free beer.  We spent about an hour there hanging out before calling it a night together.  A very fun night!

Happy Hump Day

Enjoy this video of a guy dancing at the Lakers-Wizards game last month.

Obesity in America

I saw this on a blog that I go to every so often and I thought I would pass it on to you.  I'm working my way up to getting motivated to get back on the weight loss train.  I just need to get through birthday week.  I'm almost there.   

Source: EllipticalTrainers.org

New Things for a New Year

There are four new things for me in this picture.

• Glasses- After having the same pair of glasses for almost 5 years, I've have finally bought a new pair. Here's old my old glasses:

Oops, not these glasses

Here they are

• Eyebrows- They're clean!  I got them waxed last Friday, which was one of my resolutions.  I'm off to a good start.  
• Hair- I have a new hair color.  This is something I've been meaning to do for a long time.  My roots were very dark and they were getting longer by the minute.  I suppose I had some added incentive to color my hair quickly after finding another few gray hairs last week.  Yep, that makes like 10 of them in a year.  I can't believe it but after talking to my sister, she has a couple too.  I guess it makes me feel better that we can bitch about it together.  We just didn't think we'd have to deal with this so early since my mom didn't even have any gray hair until she was in her mid to upper 40's.  With perfect angels for daughters, she probably didn't have much to stress out about. 
• Makeup- The last thing I should be doing is buying more makeup but thanks to a gift card to Sephora from Christmas from M's niece Tiana, it helped me purchase this from Tarte.  I love it so far!

Hope you're having a great weekend!

If You Were a Gemini Before, You're Still a Gemini Now

There is all this buzz going on about the zodiac sign you associated your whole life with may not be yours.  I read about this days ago and yet I didn't hear any panic about it until when everyone started freaking out on Thursday.  You can stop complaining about it on Facebook and stop tweeting about it after reading the article below from CNN. Jamie, relax. You're still a Gemini....and so is Keith.

No, your zodiac sign hasn't changed

Tattoo parlor owners must be salivating. An assertion in a Minneapolis Star Tribune article that our understanding of the zodiac is off by about a month - and that therefore people have been identifying themselves with the wrong sign - caught fire on the internet Thursday, and many folks are in an absolute panic on social media.

"If my zodiac symbol has been changed to a Libra, what am I supposed to do with my Scorpio tattoo?!?!," read one tweet Thursday.

Some vowed to get their tats removed. Others groaned about losing the sign with which they’ve identified themselves for years. The zodiac and related terms - including Ophiuchus, a supposedly 13th and neglected sign mentioned in the article's info box – were trending Twitter topics much of Thursday.

But before astrology fans scrape the ink from their arms because they think they're now a Virgo instead of a Libra, they should consider this: If they adhered to the tropical zodiac - which, if they're a Westerner, they probably did – absolutely nothing has changed for them.

That's worth rephrasing: If you considered yourself a Cancer under the tropical zodiac last week, you're still a Cancer under the same zodiac this week.

That's because the tropical zodiac – which is fixed to seasons, and which Western astrology adheres to – differs from the sidereal zodiac – which is fixed to constellations and is followed more in the East, and is the type of zodiac to which the Star Tribune article ultimately refers.

Two zodiacs. That's nothing new. People have known this for centuries.

"This story is born periodically as if someone has discovered some truth. It's not news," said Jeff Jawer, astrologer with Tarot.com.

The hubbub was started by the article in Sunday's Star Tribune, which said the following: "The ancient Babylonians based zodiac signs on the constellation the sun was 'in' on the day a person was born. During the ensuing millenniums, the moon’s gravitational pull has made the Earth 'wobble' around its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars' alignment."

"When [astrologers] say that the sun is in Pisces, it’s really not in Pisces," Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, told the Star Tribune.

"Indeed," the article’s author continued, "most horoscope readers who consider themselves Pisces are actually Aquarians." The article also asserts Scorpio's window lasts only seven days, and that a 13th constellation, Ophiuchus, used to be counted between Scorpio and Sagittarius but was discarded by the Babylonians "because they wanted 12 signs per year."

True enough, Jawer says, the Earth's axis wobbles, and the sun doesn't align with constellations at the same time of year that it did millennia ago. But that’s irrelevant for the tropical zodiac, codified for Western astrology by Ptolemy in the second century, he says.

In the tropical zodiac, the start of Aries is fixed to one equinox, and Capricorn the other.

"When we look at the astrology used in the Western world, the seasonally based astrology has not changed, was never oriented to the constellations, and stands as … has been stated for two millenniums," Jawer said.

People who put stock in astrology can ask whether they should adhere to the tropical zodiac or the sidereal zodiac. Jawer argues for the tropical.

"Astrology is geocentric. It relates life on Earth to the Earth’s environment, and seasons are the most dramatic effect, which is why we use the tropical zodiac," he said.

Random Acts of Kindness

As part of my New Year's Resolutions, I said I wanted to be the best person I can be.  That is a very generic statement but also allows for a lot to be included within that statement.  One of the ways one can be the best person they can be is through random acts of kindness.  This again is a generic idea but with many options that can fall within the concept.

My dad told me of this story back in December. He was in the skyway in downtown St. Paul and saw a family of four walking through and stopped them to ask if they by chance were going to a certain museum that was nearby.  The mom with some hesitation said, "Yeeessss....." and my dad handed the family four tickets for free admission to the museum.  The family was very appreciative and one of the little girls exclaimed, "It's my birthday!"  The family went on their way as my dad did the same and the little girl waved to my dad and said, "Thank you!".  I know my dad doesn't want credit for this on my blog but I thought it was a great example of a random act of kindness.  What may seem as not a big deal to you may turn out to mean the world to someone else.  And it might happen to be their birthday, which may make it even more special.

From Thanksgiving to January 3rd, my company participated in an activity called Healthy Habits.  Employees could sign up to play bingo.  I signed up and received my electronic bingo card and each day, I would get an email with a healthy habit attached.  If I participated in the healthy habit within 48 hours, I could mark that activity off of my bingo card.  If I got bingo, I could turn my card in for $20.  I didn't care about the $20, I just wanted to do healthy habits each day.  The healthy habits were not just for diet or exercise related but healthy for your mind, body, spirit, etc. Here are a couple examples:

• Eat whole grains today
• Watch a classic movie with family or a friend
• Spend one hour helping someone else
• Read a fiction book for 20 minutes
• Have a "no TV" night at home
• Tune out the world and breathe deeply for 10 minutes
• Recycle unneeded papers 

You get the idea.  One of the activities was "Do a random act of kindness".  I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with this one and I thought about going through some type of drive-thru either food or coffee and order something and then tell the employee that I wanted to pay for the car behind me also.  That way the person behind me would come up to the window and expect to pay but be told that the car in front of them already paid for them.  I would be gone by that point and they would hopefully be thankful and appreciative by the gesture of a stranger.  I didn't do that though but it's a great idea and I do plan to do that at least once this year.  I instead decided to write an email to a coworker.  I happened to be going through some old work related writings that were three years old.  (We have to write a monthly narrative each month and submit to our manager.)  I found that I gave some nice compliments to one of my coworkers, who still works there, however we are on opposite sides of the suite and do not work within the same department nor do we even see each other that often.  I thought it would be nice to email her and let her know of the compliments and kind words I said about her in one of my narratives from 2007.  She responded that I had made her day and that she missed me being in the department.  It wasn't until after I sent the email and received her response that I thought that was a perfect random act of kindness and used that to complete my bingo card square.  

I was the recipient of a random act of kindness this past week.  I wrote that one of my resolutions was to write hand-written letters and notes.  I received a package in the mail and received a lovely homemade stationery kit from my blogging friend, Ang.  Ang and I have only met once but since I read her blog, I feel like I really know her and she probably feels the same about me.  She said she wanted to help me with my resolution as well as helping one of her friends by purchasing her stationery for me to use.  Thank you, Ang!  Your kindness to me has and will go a long way.  Here are some pictures of the stationery I received.  Ang, if you haven't already received my hand-written thank you note in the mail on of course the stationery you gave me, you will be receiving it very shortly.  

We shouldn't need a bingo card or a $20 incentive to do these sorts of activities and I'd like to challenge you to do a random act of kindness at least once this year. We all probably do random acts of kindness frequently because it's part of our nature, however try and think about something you want to do for someone else. To give you some help, I found a website that gives you kindness ideas.  

Random Acts of Kindness Ideas 

Some are better than others and many of them do not require any money.  It's worth it to go through the whole list (there are 210 suggestions) to see what is right for you.  I do not want to push any of these ideas or concepts on you and I only tell them to you as I think you will find happiness within yourself as well as onto others.  We can always use more happiness in our lives.  

Happy Birthday Honeybear

Not only did Bert Blyleven get elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame last Wednesday, it was also my honeybear's birthday.  We worked during the day as usual but we went to see an early showing of the movie True Grit.  We were both looking forward to this movie based on the actors, previews we saw and the critics ratings.  The actors were great but the story just came up short and it was anti-climatic but you have to remember that the movie is an adaptation of the novel (1968) as well as a remake of the original movie and that came out in 1969, in a totally different era than today. We still enjoyed it and would recommend watching it, however keeping that info in mind.  I barely watch TV but I've seen the movie trailer many times and I'm sure you have too but here it is in case you want to watch it.

After the movie we went to Mancini's for a steak dinner. We hadn't been to Mancini's for quite some time, a couple years I think. The food was good and as we remembered it to be, however we've had a little bit more expensive taste and better quality for steak over the past couple of years but we also did so at a price that was double what Mancini's charges.

We went home after dinner and M opened his presents.  I got him a bunch of little things and then the present I've been waiting to give him since November.  I bought him a home beer brewing kit with all the materials needed including bottles and the beer recipe kit itself.  I picked an amber ale for him to make first.  M's talked about wanting to do this and he loves the idea of it so now let's see if he actually likes the process of doing it.  Once you have the equipment, all you have to do each time is buy the beer recipe kit, which yields about 53-12 oz bottles and ends up costing about 50 cents a bottle.  If you're interested in making your own beer or wine, I went to Midwest Supplies in St. Louis Park.  If M enjoys doing this, I'd love to make wine with him sometime also.  They even have kits to make cheese. 

Bert, you are hereby in the Baseball Hall of Fame!

My baseball boyfriend, Bert Blyleven, who could be my dad and told me that when I met him, has finally been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame after being on the ballot each year for the last 14 years. Eleven of his 22 seasons were with the Minnesota Twins so it's good to hear that he will be entering the Baseball Hall of Fame as a Twin as it is not the player's decision.  He's the fourth Minnesota Twin to be elected to the Hall of Fame.  The others are Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew and Kirby Puckett.  The induction ceremony will take place at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on Sunday, July 24th, 2011 in Cooperstown, NY.

I love you, Bert Blyleven!  I'll be wearing your jersey again this year to Target Field in honor of you.
 
Here are some Bert stats from the Twins website:
The right-hander notched 287 career wins, 27th on the all-time list, and is fifth in career strikeouts with 3,701.  He is 11th in games started with 685 and his 60 shutouts are ninth all-time.  Blyleven also ranks 13th all-time in innings pitched with 4,970.  In his second stint with the Twins from 1985-1988, Blyleven led the Twins to the World Series in 1987, going 3-1 with a 3.42 ERA in four starts that postseason.

I don't know if I have any Blyleven baseball cards but I dug up this old card for you.  It's from 1988 and is a round baseball card that was included in a loaf of Master bread, which I don't think exists anymore. There were 12 cards in the set featuring different Minnesota Twins.  I loved getting new loaves of bread and seeing what card was in there. I did end up collecting all 12 cards in the set and still have all of them, including some duplicates.

New Look

As you can see by the time of this post, it's late but I've been up working on my new blog layout.  My blog has needed a makeover for quite some time.  The daisy theme just wasn't working anymore.  I haven't decided if I'm going to create a banner or just keep it the way it is.  Either way, I feel like the new look is a huge improvement. What you do think?  Do you like it?  Any suggestions for a banner?

Time for me to go to bed.

Have a happy Saturday!

My Fuzzies

M took these pictures of my cats this past weekend and I had to share them because they are so good.  The cats sit and lay on a couch pillow that we set up just under the lamp shade because they love the warmth of the lamp.  And because the lighting is so good there, it was easy to capture these pictures.  Without further ado, here are my fuzzy babies, Fuzzer and Powder.