Busted brackets!!

Well, here we are - the final four. My brackets are completely busted. There is not a chance in hell that I could even crack the top 25 out of like 55 people in our work pool. It's ok though. This sure has been an interesting tournament.

The actual final 4:
-Michigan State (this is who I will be rooting for from here on out)
-UConn (boo, they beat Mizzou)
-Villanova
-North Carolina (they do have a Missouri boy, so they are cool too)

My 1st final 4:
-Michigan State
-UConn
-Pitt
- Syracus
**with Pitt winning it all....it's too bad they are out.

My 2nd final 4:
-Louisville
-Memphis
-Duke
-UNC
**1 outta 4 aint bad. RIGHT?? Oh and I have Louisville winning this one.

Have I mentioned yet that I CANNOT wait for football season? I will settle for (consistent) spring and summer weather in the meantime though.

My Sweet Sixteen

As promised, I am sharing my bracket. Now that it is down to 16 teams, it seems a bit more manageable to break it down into my two brackets.

**Italicized teams are the ones that are out of the tournament, but I have to be truthful about my bracket.

From my 1st/best bracket:
Louisville
Utah
KU
Michigan State
UConn
Washington
Mizzou (duh!)
Memphis
Pitt
Florida State
Villanova
Duke
North Carolina
Gonzaga
Syracuse
Oklahoma


And my 2nd/awful bracket:
Siena
Utah
West Virginia
Michigan State
UConn
Purdue
Mizzou (duh!)
Memphis
Pitt
Wisconsin
UCLA
Texas
North Carolina
Western Kentucky
Syracuse
Oklahoma

Eeek, that's a lot of italics on my 2nd bracket. In fact, my 2nd bracket is tied for last place in my work pool - out of about 100 brackets. Awful!

Mizzou takes on Memphis tonight at 2030 central time. I got my shift switched so I will be home (hopefully) right at tip off. I am super excited and really hope they play well enough to make it to the elite eight.

I have to be completely honest though - in my good (#1) bracket, I have them losing to Memphis. I know, horrible fan. BUT, money is on the line here so I have to be smart about it. And I have witness how hit and miss Mizzou has been this either.

Either way, GO TIGERS!!

MIA.

Talk about a terrible blogger. Jeeze. It has been almost a week since my last update. And I have to admit that my last couple of posts have been pretty ho-hum and had very little substance. To be honest, I anticipate that this one won't be changing that pattern.

So - our last weekend adventures...

We went home (to Columbia, MO). We have had this trip planned for a couple of weeks. My little brother's baseball team was doing a trivia night (plus silent auction and live auction) for a fundraiser. We definitely wanted to participate in that so we made sure to mark our calendars.

Friday evening we visited my dad, stepmom, and little brother. We watched the NCAA tournament. There were some nail biters that night which was entertaining.

Saturday we lounged around at my dad's and then went to Justin's folk's. We had to be back at my dad's at 4:30 for happy hour before trivia.

We got there right on time - drinks in hand, food on board, and ready to get the night started.

We left my dad's and headed to trivia night. I warned everyone prior to arriving that I had NO skills when it came to trivia. I just don't have a lot of useless information floating around in my head. I feel like I don't even have room for the stuff that I really need to know - let alone the random stuff.

Needless to say, I was the person that wrote the answers. I knew a few answers, but everyone else shouted them out before me. I was hoping to know at least one answer that no one else knew. No such luck for me.

Trivia was a great time all in all. We got 4th place. Of course 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and last got prizes. I think the judges miscounted. The score they gave us just didn't add up to the score we thought we should have received. I am sure the alcohol had no influence on this. :)

When we left trivia, we went to Justin's parent's friend's house (did you follow that?? :)). They were hosting a belated St. Patty's Day party. As I may or may not have mentioned before, St. Patty's Day is one of my favorite holidays - probably a close 2nd to 4th of July and just ahead of Cinco De Mayo.

We had an absolute blast there. We laughed, sang, danced, drank - just had a great time.

I would like to put out a word of caution, however, at this point. Tambourines are dangerous weapons. I used the tambourine to help with my singing and dancing and I sure did pay for that on Sunday. I woke up with the palms of my hands in EXTREME pain and slightly bruised. On top of the painful palms, I had about 10-12 small bruises on my right hip. Here I am 4 days later and my palms are just now feeling back to normal and bruisless (it's a word now, I say so). The bruises on my legs are still there, but not as tender.

Just be careful the next time you are using a tambourine - it hurts if you are a huge ham like myself.

We were out until 4am so needless to say we slept very late on Sunday. We lounged around and attempted to get rid of headaches (and palm pain) for the first couple of hours. Mizzou played that evening so we went to my dad's to watch that game. It was an intense 2nd half and a major nail biter. I did not appreciate the anxiety they caused me. I was in enough pain from my hangover and tambourine extravaganza - I did not need anxiety added to it. They did, however, win so that was good. They play Memphis tomorrow. EEEK!! :)

So yeah, there was our weekend in a nutshell. Nothing too exciting. I promise I will write something worth reading one of these days. Keep with me for a bit - I will get used to blogging soon, I hope.

I have everyone had a great hump day. It's almost the weekend!!

Restaurant.com

On one of the message boards that I frequent, a poster recommended restaurant.com. It is a website that offers gift certificates to local restaurants at a discounted price. For example, there is a $25 gift certificate available to a favorite steakhouse of ours called Jess and Jim's....but we would only have to pay like $4.

Of course some of these places have restrictions if you use the gift certificates from restaurant.com. At Jess and Jim's they require a $50 minimum purchase and it has to be used for dinner. Justin and I would easily meet the $50 minimum there for dinner, but we would only pay $30 plus tip. Seems like a great deal to me.

The person who posted this website also said you can find coupon codes for even more discounts (i.e. %50 off the price or even %80 off the price). Definitely worth checking into more coupon codes - which I hope everyone is doing for ANY online purchase because you can save a ton by doing just a little bit of research.

I am definitely going to do a bit more investigating. Living in the Kansas City Metro opens up a lot of great "local" restaurants that we are going to get to try with the help of this website.

All you do is enter your zip code and it will pull up the restaurants that are offered. Just beware of the restrictions, but for the most part they are nothing too terrible. From what I can tell, they are all local restaurants and not the major chains - which will be nice to support the local owners during this horrible time in our economy.

Enjoy the site! Feel free to comment back on the deals you are able to find on there.

Hilarious.

Big 12 Champs!!!

Yeah Mizzou basketball!!! Big 12 champions!!

This definitely makes up for the embarrassing lose they had at KU.

KU ended up being the regular season conference champs and then MU won the Big 12 Tournament. Basketball is weird. I, obviously, prefer football.

I will admit, I have jumped on the basketball bandwagon. My dad used to take me to games when I was younger and I enjoyed following the team when Norm Stewart was the coach. Once Quin Snyder took over, the team when down hill...and in a hurry. At that point, I stopped watching or caring. Players were constantly getting in trouble with the law and they were not winning games. There were very few people who did no lose interest during that time. The crowd turn out got to be so dismal that it was almost sad to see the empty stands on television.

I am glad to see that they are having sell out games again. With that being said, I will be back on the Mizzou bandwagon. Of course, I will never be as much of a basketball fan as I am a football fan...but this is a start. :)

The day after being crowned conference champs the team found out their fate in the NCAA tournament. Their were awarded with the #3 seed. They will face the #14 team in their bracket, Cornell on Friday.

We always do NCAA bball tourney brackets at work. I have begun my research to help me fill out my bracket (or 2...or 3) in the next couple of days. I will put my (favorite) bracket on my blog and let everyone know how it turns out for me.

America's Next Top Model...and hair.

I always DVR America's Next Top Model. I usually don't get into the show until later in the season. However, I always love watching the make over show...which was this week.

When I watch the make over show, I always wonder what they would do with my hair if I were on the show (ha, like that would ever happen!!).

Watching this week, there were 2 girls that stood out to me. I loved what they did to their hair. Unfortunately, these are the only pics that I could find on the internet so deal with it.

I love the super short hair on her.

I would love to have super short hair, but I really don't think it would work for me. Considering the comment in this pic says that she went from limp hair. I definitely don't have limp hair. In fact, it can be annoyingly thick.

I heart her red hair.

I would also love to have all over red hair like this girl. For the last couple of times I have had my hair done, I have added more and more red to it. The problem with red in my hair is that it fades super quick and I don't have the funds to keep up with it (much like trying to keep up with being a blonde without roots). I have, however, tossed around the idea of going all over red the next time I am due for a color.


What do you think? Could I pull off super short? Or would all over red be better? Or a little of both? Or neither??





Anyone that knows me, knows that I am up for just about anything as far as my hair color goes. I have had just about every color you could think of in my hair (except blue, orange, or green). I loved having pink in my hair, but it was not the most professional color....but if I could have any color, it would be dark brown with pink (i.e. the pic of me on the right).

The only thing I have never been up to is chopping all my hair off. I have had hair about to the tip of my shoulder blade and as short as to my chin and anywhere in between. Super short has crossed my mind, but never made its way to reality.

Who knows, maybe my next hair post (I should be due in about 4-6 weeks) will be a dramatic change.

New favorite song.

It's the little things...

It's the little things in life that I love and that keep me going each day....

-it's watching my cousin get married on Saturday and just totally feeling the love they have for one another. It was wonderful.
-it's getting approval from my grandma on my new hair color...that never happens unless my hair is bleach blonde.
-it's getting that "I'm so proud of you" look from my grandpa when we discuss my homebuying experience.
-it's playing Wii Fit with my husband for a couple of hours just cracking up at eachother while hoolahooping (HILARIOUS, by the way).
-it's getting to wear flip flops the first week of March.
-it's getting a wife card from my husband (I love those!)

It's nice to be able to just sit back, reflect, and appreciate the little things in life that make you happy.

Weird dream.

Any dream analysts reading my blog today??

I woke up a couple of times from this very bizarre dream, but each time I was able to fall back asleep and pick up where I left off.

The first part that I can remember, is being in a house with my best friend, husband, and another girl. Justin was on the couch with this other girl; who I soon realized was a girl in our college classes that used to work with Justin. She was married about 2 weeks after us last June.

I am guessing Justin proposed the idea of being a polygamist (Big Love, anyone??) and this girl was a new fling in that proposal. However, jealousy completely consumed me as I walked outside with my best friend.

Once outside, I threw a huge fit hoping that he would come outside to see what was going on. Then, VERY RANDOMLY, a guy comes up to the porch saying I won a trip but that I had to go on my own. For some reason, I thought it was a huge scam and I chose not to go. I am not sure where that little blurb fits into the whole dream, but it was there.

After being outside, my BFF and I went inside to go to bed. I walked past the couch where my husband and "other girl" were still snuggled up watching tv. I stomped past, again hoping that he would follow me to figure out what was going on. No such luck.

At this point, I think I woke up. When I fell back asleep, I slipped back into a point in my dream where me must have apologized to me. I was reading a note on the fridge from him telling me how he loved me more than anything, etc. However, behind that note to me was a note from her to him. It made me mad, but I was still happy to have that note from him.

After this, it gets a little choppy because I was having to hit snooze to continue the dream.

I can remember telling Justin's mom about the polygamy that her son wanted in our relationship. Her response to me was, "well, he is your husband so you have to go with it." That is definitely not the answer that I would get from her for ANYTHING. Ha.

One of the last parts that I remember is going to a Missouri football game. We had to go back and forth between different people to get enough tickets for everyone (including this other woman). My best friend and I ended up sort of wandering without everyone else and doing our own things.

From what I can remember, this is where the dream ended. I know there are a couple more pieces that I have forgotten at this point, but you get the idea of the weirdness.

So what does this dream mean? One might think that I am craving more attention from my husband, but I don't feel like this is the case. He showers me with attention. I did have a little breakdown internally yesterday about us being on different shifts and not spending much time together. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Do you have any insight?? :)

My birthday wing-ding.

This Saturday we had my birthday celebration...wing-ding as it was named on Facebook.

Some of our family made the trip from our hometown. Justin's parents, his brother, and my dad all made the trip. It meant a ton to have them there; especially since the weather didn't really cooperate and forced them to take an alternate (much longer) route.

The fam L-R... my husband, dad, FIL, MIL, BIL. I love these people!! :)

We had a table reserved at Paddy O'Quigleys (my absolute favorite bar in KC) at 6pm on Saturday evening. We had dinner with just the family and a couple of close friends. Everyone else arrived a little bit later, but we definitely had the party started very early on in the evening.

Justin and me.


There were lots of drinks drank.

I got the best birthday surprise ever...one of my very good friends, H, made the trip from Springfield. She led me to believe earlier in the week that she would not be able to make it. I was completely surprised and of course cried. Ha. :)

Yay for awesome friends L-R: Megan, me, H (!!!), and Beth.

We sang 2 or 3 karaoke songs, dance for hours, and just had an awesome time. I wish I could have a birthday celebration more than once a year. I always have an awesome time.

I was very relieved to wake up on Sunday without a hangover. Instead, I woke up with an extremely sore body that is even worse today. I feel like I ran a marathon on Saturday. I did not run a marathon, but I definitely danced a marathon. So fun! :)

Thank you to everyone that came to celebrate with me!!

Recovering.

I will post a recap of last night's festivities...just not right now.

I am in the midst of recovering. I didn't feel bad at all when I woke up this morning, but I think the hangover is making its sweet little appearance. Blah.

I will describe last night in 2 words....FREAKING AWESOME!!!