meet the team

i was all geared up to edit some powerpoint slides while watching another world series game last night - and then i realized that the world series was over.

blast.

and when the hawkeyes start the season by losing to central michigan, it's not clear  whether college football is going to be super fun this year or not.

so now who are we cheering for? well. . . .luckily i have a fake team to root for now that the NBA season has started. want to get on board? of course you do. here's who we're rooting for.

blake griffin, (LA Clippers) who made this awesome video during the NBA lockout.

kevin love (MN Timberwolves), who sometimes has a sweet beard

dwayne wade (Miami Heat). i know you already know who he is.

tyreke evans (Sacramento Kings), because i apparently can't shake reminders of PA

marcin gortat (Phoenix Suns) - doesn't he look really happy? i like that he's not trying too look to tough to smile.

tyson chandler (NY Knicks). which at least gives me a partial excuse for my weird attachment to the knicks.

gordon hayward (Utah Jazz). i'm sure you remember the sweetheart that he was during the "butler years." i'll bet money that you were cheering for him to make this (scroll to about 5:40).

jeff green (Boston Celtics). maybe this will be the year the celtics don't bug me.

shawn marion (Dallas Mavericks). uh. . . how could you not cheer for this face?

wesley matthews (Portland Trailblazers) who is totally from madison.

kawhi leonard (San Antonio Spurs). i'm not gonna lie. i don't know much about him. but i will if he ends up being good.

i also have danillo gallinari, chauncey billups, and derrick rose who are all either currently iffy or injured. whatevs.

so that's the team.
here's hoping that i don't end up last again. although if i'm honest with myself, just getting a couple of wins will be an improvement.

PROJECT!

project! it was a toss up between this quote from clueless and ben haper's with my own two hands, but i'm pretty sure that ben is talking about saving the world. and while this turned out pretty well, i'm not quite on that level yet. so, clueless (and karen broman) is the big winner.

matt and i had decided that we wanted to personalize as many things as possible for the wedding. thanks to some inspiration from pinterest, one of the most flexible opportunities for this seemed to be the guest book. we fashioned ours as part guest book part scrapbook. we really love how it turned out, because anyone who found it intimidating could sign as usual, and we get to read a little something extra from a number of our guests. we got everything from sweet, sentimental lines to "i'm missing notre dame for this." :)

the thing is that i have since realized that this could be fun and practical for a lot of celebrations: weddings, graduations, baby showers, birthdays, etc. any time that you think it might be fun to go back and see what kinds of things people had to say about your special day. and it really wasn't difficult. the hardest part was definitely picking out all of the supplies at the craft store. a book, stamps, ink, a few sheets of scrapbooking paper, little cards and envelopes, some card stock, and a lot of the roll-on glue/tape.

i used scrapbooking paper to decorate the inside cover and then laid down pieces of cardstock (left) in different orientations to form the background for each of the individual pages. people who are more ambitious than me could probably create pretty amazing patterns and designs for each page.

then i stamped one of the envelopes for each page, glued them all down, and viola!, lots of pages for people to write down their names and or wedding-related thoughts. assuming that we might have some guests like myself, i also cut down some of the card stock to make a few extra cards in case things got lost, mistakes got made, etc., etc.

we had people seal the envelop with the small seals that one is supposed to use on the outside of their wedding invitations. so far, these have been the primary challenge - it's hard to open those tiny envelopes without ripping the seals. but, we have extra, so i'm not overly concerned about it!

things came out pretty well, if i do say so myself. we've had lots of fun looking through the cards already. i'm sure they'll be fun to reread during anniversaries as well!

pop quiz, hot shot

Q: what do you do when you've officially been married for a week and have *almost* caught up on your sleep?

A: run a 5K in the cold, wind, and rain.
duh.

okay, maybe that's not actually the optimal way to celebrate being married for a full week, but it definitely is what i did. to nobody's surprise more than my own, too, given that when i woke up on saturday morning, i hadn't really gotten a good run in for over a week and this was the forecast:

10 AM start time, of course

yeah.
gross.

post race

but, my friend lauren really wanted to do the run and i'd already paid my registration fee, so i went with her. i actually avoided a lot of the color stations (that stuff is a little tough to breathe through, so if you're thinking about doing a color run, consider ways to cover your eyes and/or mouth) and didn't do the big color throw at the end. the good news is that i survived, my time was slightly better than my time for dam to dam, and since it was a local run with a morning start time, i even had time for a nap in the afternoon.

i'm not even mad at the girl who took this photo from the worst possible angle (top down, people!! always top down!)

i'm glad i did it though. if nothing else, it was pretty rewarding to realize that i'm at least at a place where i can get up and go run three miles if i need to. although i'm clearly going to need some heavier clothes to keep running this winter!!

this week i'm hoping for the same kind of bounce-back at work! :)

unofficial documentation of the big day