kissy boots

Shame is a great motivator. Money works nearly as well. Please note the tiny bit of the Status Bar that is now filled in for my Organizational Behavior course.
In more interesting news, some people in the world have new shoes! Ain't they pretty, though? My friend Tammy and I went shoe shopping today - she's trying to get geared up for our backpacking trip on Memorial Day weekend, and my trail runners are getting worn. And we both ended up with the same shoe! (I'm a little concerned that no one on our backpacking trip will be able to tell us apart).
This past week a few of us were researching both sides of the whole light backpacking/need for super-supportive (heavy) hiking boots debate - and now you know where Tammy and I landed on it! Javier kind of went in between with some higher-topped hiking boots that are super-comfy and actually quite light. It should work out well as we're planning on having him carry most of our gear. I feel kind of sad to leave my heavy hiking boots behind, but I used them last summer as work boots on the St. Louis trip and they worked great - so they won't just be taking up space in my closet!
Er - and if you've never heard of Kissy Boots, that's probably ok - it's definitely not for every sense of humor - but it's from Teen Girl Squad, Issue 8.

failure (please send $$)

For those of you who may labor under the impression that I have my act together, it's confession time. I just wasted $65 extending the deadline for my class because I've been doing everything BUT schoolwork for the last few months. Can't tell you how frustrated and ashamed I feel.

And along the same lines: I've been registered for a while to run in the Sole Burner, a run/walk for fighting cancer. But I just realized that all my fund raising was supposed to be done by this coming Thursday. So this is short notice, but would you be willing to sponsor me? Here's the info I'm supposed to fill out. Thank you!

In other news, I've been following a saga with my cousin and her husband - she was pregnant and went through horrible, pregnancy-induced colitis, and just this past weekend they lost the baby. It's been too much for me to write about... but please pray for Abby and Jeremy as they hopefully get her recovered soon to the point where she can go home, and that they'll have healing after this traumatic time.

all this beauty

Apparently The Weepies are coming out with a new album this Tuesday. For this week only, they are giving away the title song Hideaway for free, and offering the rest of the album's full songs by streaming sound. I was clicking through bits of the songs (I mostly like 'em!), and fell in love with All This Beauty (last one!)... it reminds me of some of my favorite times ever: various backpacking, camping, kayaking, and hiking trips with with my friends on Lake Superior. Check it out while it's still free and let me know if you like it too!

I'm younger than that now

Apparently this is my 50th post, but that doesn't seem right, so I'll talk about my birthday instead. If you must have birthdays - and really, I think you must - perhaps try having them like this:

• have different coworkers take you out for at least two meals
• invite a bunch of friends who don't know each other to dinner at Koreana (that is everybody's favorite, right?). So cool when your favorite people meet your other favorite people!
• get lots of jolly calls and voice mail messages and birthday cards and "howdy"s on facebook
  
• help a friend put on a baby shower for her sister
• have a little surprise birthday party put on for you by the above exhausted people (really, it's a little mean to insist on this one - so maybe play that part by ear?). It doesn't hurt to see if their brother might play the piano for you and work with his dad on your car.
• drive a Corvette! (I'm still all shivery from that one!)
  
• have friends take you to Koreana (again) and Red Lobster
  
• have your parents come up for the weekend following your birthday, just to keep things rolling

OK, really, besides the first Koreana bit everything else really was the result of having just about the most amazing set of friends and coworkers in the world. Seriously. They're not up for trade or adoption.
I wish I had more pictures of all the different things, but 12 points to whoever can guess where Tom and I are without checking out more of the pictures! (Points are useful to save up to earn decoder rings - just ask Patrick!).