Hello, Iowa!

Last week I took the bf and bff to Iowa to visit my sissie and brother-in-law and their babe. She quickly bonded with Steph, adorably sometimes referring to her as "Anna", and she remained skeptical of Tom but had a heart-melting 5 minutes cuddling with him in a tent at the library. Look!

Mae is enthralled with Steph's "Loud! Quiet." book.

Please don't judge Tom's ginger soul patch. It's for a play!

On Sunday morning my sissie made blueberry pancakes. Mae proceeded to eat them whilst smearing them all over her face and the table and anyone that touched her. Observe!

That cute ball of blueberry can keep it on her face as long as she wants.

Also, to entertain us, my brother-in-law taught us how to draw! Or rather, gave us some paints, put on Pandora, and let us do our thing. Here is us painting and some of the more memorable gems of the day.

We paint!

Anna's Flower Power.

Tom's Dancing Cactus

Tom's Farting Pac Man

Steph's Thumbs Climbing a Path to Nowhere

Anna's Bulbous Elmo

Steph's Candy Corn Tree

Steph's Anthropomorphic Thumbs 

Ok have a nice week bye!

I made dis!

Happy almost my birthday month!

In honor of my birthday being a mere 16 days away, I made you a playlist birthed from 6 months worth of Shazammed songs from my iphone. "What does that mean?" a non-iphone owning individual might ask. Well. Shazam is an app that you turn on when you want to identify a song you're listening to. So each of these songs were so amazing, curious, or sentimental to me that I risked my life, likely driving, to look them up as fast as I could so I would never forget them.

I present to you, my Shazam playlist. You will enjoy. That's a threat.

Lounge Podcast Take 1!

                             Take a listen. You won't regret it.

New Years Rezzies.

1. Wake up at the same time every workday.
    Back story: I'm notoriously awful at getting up in the morning. And you know how it is, snoozing can be a slippery slope. Before you know it, you have snoozed for an hour! No more, lassies. No more, kindly gents. I'm taking control of my morning, like a snake takes control of its prey. One snooze per day, 9 minutes before when I wake up, which will be 8:30 every day no matter what. Minus weekends.

2. Eat breakfast every day. 
    Back story: I've never done this before! My tum isn't normally too happy when I get up, so my first meal of the day is usually lunch. No more. Breakfast is good for the body. Plus it cures cancer. And gives you long, luxurious hair. And bionic limbs. So...I'm on board.

3. Stop eating after 10 pm. 
    Exemptions and back story: Did this last night for the first time. It was ROUGH. Apparently that's how Oprah lost all of her weight back in the day, but I'm amending it to 10 pm instead of 9 pm since I don't go to bed until about 2 am every night. I will allow myself two exemptions. 1. If I haven't eaten dinner before 10 pm then obviously, the rule goes out the door. 2. I get one bite of whatever Tom is eating in front of me because, c'mon.

4. Go to the Y every single day.
    Exemptions and back story: Unless I'm out of town or extremely ill, I will go to the gym every day. I'm one of those people that has to go every day, or it turns into zero days. Did you know I joined the 100 mile club at the Y? Well, I did. That means I will swim a mile every day unless I need a chlorine break because my skin is falling off or my hair is officially green. Then when I reach 100, I get a t-shirt indicating so. Jealous?

5. Throw myself and Troy the best birthday party known to man.
    There's not much I can say here except that it is our Godly duty to show everyone a good time as we ring in our 26th and 28th years of life. It's like we were born to throw this party. Don't believe me? Observe pump up video #1, more to come as we inch closer to that fateful date. http://www.facebook.com/v/486804139716

Ok! Now you know all of my secrets. And it's on paper, signed in my blood, which I just smeared across the computer screen.

Love,
Anna

7 parties. 1 fateful night.

Here's a top 10 list of things to know if you're going to 7 parties in one night.

1. Plan for parking. Especially if it's a snow emergency. And freezing outside. Because if you aren't patient and aren't willing to park at least 6 blocks away, you're probably going to miss the 8th party (sorry Bleric!).

2. Group your parties by location. Start with the farthest away, then work your way in so you can get to your eventual goal of being on foot only.

3. Someone needs to be sober sister. Consider the people traveling with you in your group. If one of them drunk-slept an entire day and night when you were camping, including when he was tubing down a river, perhaps it's his turn to be sober sister for the first half of your parties.

4. Bundle. The frick. Up. It's cold outside! We're talking scarf over your face, booze in a backpack, don your warmest and least attractive boots, and learn from me ladies. Double up the leggings next time, ok?

5. Spend a good chunk of time at the party with the best food. (You know who you are, party #3. Your spicy chicken bbq dip, your pickles and cream cheese appetizers, your caramel puff corn, your white chocolate dipped oreos, for God sakes!! I'm bringing you a medal, you hear?) 


6. If you're going to be a-holes and not stay at parties for very long, at least bring a gift. Our choice beverage was a variety of delicious sparkling juices, because every party has its token kids and/or alcoholics, right? Respect.

7. If you are the non-sober person of the group, I highly suggest no more than 1 drink per party, unless one party was a dud and you needed to double up (obviously). I found that 7ish drinks over 8ish hours was a pretty perfect combination of non-sloppy yet energetic, hilarious, and adorable. According to me.

8. Don't leave your sweater at party #2. That means leaving parties 3 through 7 you'll have to endure the cold inside part of your sleeves rubbing up against your bare arms. Bare arms! C'mon Anna.

9. Make mental notes of hilarious things people say and do so you can recount them the next day via text. Especially when someone whispers cryptic pieces of advice into your ear as he/she gracefully stumbles out of the party (*cough HANNAH, *cough BEST PART OF THE NIGHT).

10. Take pictures with all of the hosts of your parties, so blog readers can believe everything you actually accomplished that night.

My partner in crime.

Party #1, hosted by Dave and Kristin

Party #2, 1920's themed, hosted by the lovely Keira Gatta

Party #3 and winner of best food ever, hosted by Alyson Wise

Party #4, circus themed, by the homemade tutu-ed Ani Loizzo

Party #5, where the ball dropped, hosted by Bokensha x2 and Jessi!

Party #6, hosted by Allison, Marlowe, and my cuddle buddy Professor!

Party #7, hosted (until 4:30 am!) by Lauren and Bobby

And please, let's all have a moment of silence for our fallen party. I'm sorry Bleric.

...................silence...........................

The end. Happy New Year!

T'will be epic.

Denny Hecker and the Snowdays

How do you like my new band name? It's a working title, people. We've had one rehearsal which was primarily in order to come up with a band name and to eat spaghetti. More to come on this.

As you know, the sky gods crapped an enormous amount of white stuff on us this weekend. I've been sequestered in my tiny apartment for four days, with three short breaks to go to a movie, go to the Y, and go to the bar (priorities). Normally I would love to hole up in my apartment for this many days in a row, but for a couple of things. First, the last time I was in my apartment this many days in a row was when I had swine flu. Second, being in your apartment for this long really makes you realize how badly you need to clean. Third, my windows are 100% frosted over. As in, there is not even a tiny peephole to the outside world. I tried with all of my might to make myself a peephole yesterday, using my hands, a spatula as a scraper, and a warm washcloth. I had about 15 minutes of blissful clarity in the small hole that I made, then it immediately frosted over. Check it:

To beat the Sunday snowy sads, Troy, Pop and I went to Black Swan which if you haven't seen you have to stop whatever you're doing and go this instant. On the way, Troy just couldn't resist a good snow fall. If you know what I mean...



In other fun news, taking Christmas photos with TB Reed is an adventure. After I think the 4,000th photo we got a good one but it was extremely blurry.


In other news, check out how icy and death-y the back of my house is.

I haven't moved my car in 7 days because I'm nervous of taking it out of its parking spot and I don't even want to deal with the amount of snow on top. Neither of these photos are my car, but they are neighbors' cars and it gets the point across.

In other other news, this is a fellow I trained in San Francisco last week. He and his girlfriend made this jacket, and I want one STAT.

In one more bit of news, I want to tell you that last night I walked home from water aerobics class (yep!) and my hair immediately turned into frozen sticks of ice. Check it:

Until this daggonned snow goes away, I have resigned not to leave the house unless I look like this. Note: TWO scarves. Headphones. Hat. Hair tucked all the way into said hat.

K bye.

I just cannot even stand it.

Look who I got to hang out with all weekend! Five days of bliss, people. Pure bliss. She's 16 months old, and in her smiley/I love you phase...unless you wake her up from a nap in which case she, like me, becomes a vicious dragon lady.

Password = cutie pants
(in order to protect the little miss from complete randos of course).

Cutest baby on the planet, people. from satellitewalls on Vimeo.

Ireland: Land of wind and cows.

I spent the last week with two high school friends in Ireland. We started in Dublin, then headed south to Kinsale, then west to Limerick. It was beautiful. Here are pics.