I Love Tailgating

I love sports. I love baseball. I love tailgating.

They go well together.

I'm not one of those fans that is more interested in talking with friends, taking pictures and completely ignoring the game. I think I can juggle all three well.

There's nothing better than enjoying a brat and beer on a Sunday afternoon before taking in a baseball game. I would watch every game from uncomfortable wooden benches with a splinter in my butt if I could tailgate before them.

On Friday, about 20 friends and I are getting together a couple hours before the Brewers game at miller Park. I'm so excited for the brats, beers, games and shenanigans!

And while I am a Cubs fan, I will admit that there is no place better to tailgate for baseball than Miller Park. But I should probably test this theory more. Road trip?

{image via flickr}

happy monday

it's strange, but i'm actually excited that it's monday. maybe because i'm finally feeling better after a weekend in bed with a box of kleenex and cup of tea. or maybe because i have an exciting weekend coming up.

at least before i got sick, i was able to spend the night with great friends. my friend hannah drove up from memphis, complete with a fancy new southern accent, for the weekend. we all met at the water street brewery in delafield for dinner and a hand-crafted home brew. {my favorite is the honey lager light.} it was great to catch up with friends and make future plans that i am really excited about!

i also got to spend time with this cutie.

project update

i'm sad to say that i haven't done a great job keeping up with my 365 day photo project. i took a few weeks off, but i plan to revive it starting now. i have a lot of exciting plans coming up where i'm sure my camera will accompany me.

here are a few recent ones:

happy mother's day

to the best mom ever who is always supportive and gives her love unconditionally. i love you. i'm taking her out to brunch at our favorite place, just the two of us. {the perfect way to start a day.} and my little sister, dad and i are taking her out for a nice dinner. {it seems a little unfair that we all get to eat out on her day, huh?}

this is one of my favorite pictures of my mom {long before she ever thought of us}. she is on the far right.

also, happy mother's day to one of my best friends and newest moms, sam.

I Heart Canada

Maybe it's my annual obsession with hockey, but I really want to take a trip to Canada. I'm thinking a cross-country road trip would be best: see the sites and the beautiful scenery on the way. But that may be a bit much, so I choose Vancouver, British Columbia.

It looks like a beautiful city full of charm and history. A few things I'd love to do: grab coffee and do a little shopping on Robson Street, walk through Chinatown, visit the Vancouver Art Gallery, taste a few Canadian microbrews in a local pub, maybe catch a show at the Arts Club Theatre Company and just explore. It would also be interesting to see the Olympic Village.

I'd even like to pitch a tent in one of Vancouver's beautiful parks. {Surprising for me.} Without one of these guys to wake me up though.

{images via 1. vancouver 2-5. vancouvertrolley}

Guggenheim

Lately, I've developed a huge crush on the Guggenheim in New York. {but much love to the others, too.}

On view now:

Paris and the Avant-Garde: Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection

"feature[s] some thirty paintings from the Guggenheim Collection by such artists as Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Robert Delaunay, Albert Gleizes, Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró, and Yves Tanguy, among others, as well as showcase a significant group of sculpture by Constantin Brancusi and Alexander Calder. The exhibition is curated by Tracey Bashkoff, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, and Megan Fontanella, Assistant Curator."

I would LOVE to see this. Or any of their other exhibits. I grew up going to the Art Institute in Chicago on field trips and still try to make at least an annual trip there, but I have never been to any art museums in New York. {My one trip to the city consisted of all things "touristy": a visit to the Empire State Building, Central Park Zoo, Rockefeller Center, Times Square and lots of shopping.}

A few friends and I are trying to plan a road trip to the East Coast this summer. We're talking about starting in Chicago and driving to Memphis, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. If we do make it to New York, a trip to the Guggenheim is a must. {I'm also hoping my sister in Poughkeepsie can take the train down and meet us.}

Also, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York was designed by one of my favorite architects: Frank Lloyd Wright. {And yes, I also have an intense love and appreciation for architecture.}

{image is Pablo Picasso Mandolin and Guitar, found here}

book search

I've been searching for a new book to read since I finished Sin in the Second City by Karen Abbott last week. I tried reading Weight of Water by Anita Shreve, but I just couldn't get into it. {I'll probably try again sometime this year, but it doesn't interest me now.} I know I just finished Sin recently, but I like to always be in the middle of a book. My bag just seems empty if it doesn't have a good book in it.

Rather than sitting at Barnes & Noble for an entire afternoon, which I have done before, I asked friends for suggestions.

My Horizontal life by Chelsea Handler

Possible Side Effects

by Augusten Burroughs

Going Rogue by Sarah Palin {definitely not reading this one}

You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto

by Jaron Lanier

Drenched by Marisa Matarazzo

Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

Infinite Jest: A Novel

by David Foster Wallace

A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

by David Foster Wallace

The Shadow of the Wind

by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Lucia Graves

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt

The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

Siddhartha

by Hermann Hesse

I already picked up a few of these and am really excited to dive in! {Although I

also picked up Price of Honor: Muslim Women Lift the Veil of silence on the

Islamic World on my trip to the store.}

funny story.

well, now it is. at the time, it was completely terrifying.

about two months ago, i met my good friend sam and her newborn daughter {11 days old to be exact} at her house. we were going to meet friends for brunch and decided to carpool since i didn't know that area of town very well. after sam buckled in her daughter, she remembered that she left the diaper bag inside so i offered to sit with karina in the car rather than bringing her back inside.

i climbed in the front seat and got a strange feeling that we were moving. it wasn't much at first so i thought i was imagining it, but after a second it was clear that we were in fact rolling backward. surprised and scared, i jumped into the driver seat {how i did that so easily in such a small car is unbelievable} and repeatedly stepped on the brakes. nothing. it didn't even slow down a bit and by now we had moved at least ten feet. i thought about putting the car in drive and going forward but after glancing at the stick shift gears, i realized that wasn't an option. i never learned to drive stick shift. i thought about pulling karina's car seat out but i had no idea how to unlock it from the carrier. i also thought about unbuckling her and taking her out of the seat.

but then the car stopped moving and jerked forward a bit. it had hit my car, which was in the fully parked position, and came to a stop. thank god i parked directly behind sam's car because a few more feet and we would have ended up in the ditch.

after i realized we finally stopped, i called sam to describe the terrifying drama that just occurred. i'm sure it went something like, "i just got in a car accident with your newborn!" that's a story to tell karina when she grows up.

Hilarious thoughts

I recently came across a list of '65 Random Thoughts Everyone Has Had.' {Don't ask how.} Some were true, some weren't; some didn't apply to me, some did; some were funny, some were hilarious. You have to check it out.

Some favorites:

Sometimes, I'll watch a movie that I watched when I was younger and suddenly realize I had no idea what the fuck was going on when I first saw it

I would rather try to carry 10 plastic grocery bags in each hand than take 2 trips to bring my groceries in.

Answering the same letter three times or more in a row on a Scantron test is absolutely petrifying.

How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear what they said?

MapQuest really needs to start their directions on #5. Pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

I really like all of the music in my iTunes, except when it's on shuffle, then I like about one in every fifteen songs in my iTunes.

Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lites than Kay.

Infographics can be cool too

I admit it, I'm a nerd. I kind of love infographics. As a journalism student, I hated trying to design and build a graphic in addition to writing a story before the hitting deadline. But as a media consumer, I love them. Generally, I think graphics, if created well, can be used to better explain news articles on any topic, feature stories, directions and, also if used correctly, just to be humorous.

Here are a few of my recent favorites:

{Some things are just confusing no matter how you diagram them.}

{via 1-3.datavis 4. nytimes}