Meijer is the new black. And Phish Food wins.

What do you think of the new look?

Personally, I’m loving it. It was so fun to do but I must admit – my productivity for the past week was essentially at level zero after discovering a new realm of the blogosphere that I never knew about. Did you know that digital scrapbooking exists?

In the midst of these new discoveries, I decided I have issues. Once I find new, fun things to explore, I can’t stop. Minutes turn into hours, hours turn into – er – days, of searching and creating. Suddenly, trying to figure out how to create a personalized blog without spending a trillion dollars on PhotoShop took precedence over homework, and basically anything useful. So it’s a good thing I’m happy with the new look because I think it has to be a keeper for obvious reasons.

Ah, boy. The past few weeks have been good times. Here’s a bit of a rundown:

Sept. 16 = My first visitor.

My former Chicago roommate decided to make the trip to visit me in my new home. It was exciting to have a visitor and of course, to see Tiff. I had big plans for an exciting weekend and while I was telling Tiff about what we were going to do, she says she has one and only one request for what she would like to do.

“Can we please go to Meijer?”

Why would I be surprised? Anyone who has moved out of Michigan knows what it’s like to miss the glorious entity that is Meijer. A one-stop shop for everything you need. Now, there is a Meijer in Illinois, but it is about 40 minutes outside of the city (about 3 hours with traffic). So a trip there is a treat. In fact, I must admit that once, on a Friday night in one of the greatest cities in the world, Tiff and I decided that instead of a night out on the town, we would make a trip to Meijer … at midnight. I know what you’re thinking. We are super cool. But hey – someone’s got to take advantage of one of Meijer’s greatest perks … 24/7 service.

So, we went to Meijer and had fun. Highlight = grinding coffee and a toothpaste sale.




We did actually do other things :)

Another pageant and a surprise friend.

Since I basically don’t have much of a life on the weekends here, I decided a couple of weeks ago that it wouldn’t hurt to check out the Miss Greater Grand Rapids pageant for something to do. Turns out – that ended up being a great idea.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have been out of pageant world for quite some time, so I didn’t think I would know anyone there. But I did and surprise surprise, fabulous friend Kelli, who I hadn’t seen in a long time, was a judge! What was expected to be a dull weekend suddenly turned into a night full of fun.

Anytime you are with a Talicska/Van Wormer, you can count on the fact that ice cream will be a part of the night’s activities. But before ice cream, we decided that we were way too “put together” to just call it a night. (Side note: Kelli was Miss Michigan 2004, and I was, um, nothing. So this should actually read ‘Kelli was put together.’) We decided to head downtown to the dueling piano bar that I had heard was a ‘hot spot’ in G-Rap. After enjoying the piano entertainment and counting at least five bachelorette parties, we decided that it was time to meet up with our two favorite men: Ben, & Jerry, respectively. Btw, we officially decided that ‘Phish Food’ is the winner over ‘Everything But the …” Marshmallow makes everything delicious.

I love spontaneous nights-o’-fun and this one did not disappoint.

I’m super pumped for the weekend … the whole family is coming to visit including my sister, bro-in-law and nephew. So that means, new camera + super cute nephew = new blog post coming soon infused with adorable-ness.

To end, I would just like to say that I cannot WAIT for this election to be over. I’m all for people having an opinion and being able to express it, but I’m just done with it and am also willing to bet that no matter who wins, no one will be happy. Everyone surrounding this election just seems so angry at the world and it’s getting pretty old. I also stand by my beliefs that this nation’s only source of hope to pull us through this time is God. There is only one man that’s ever had our best interest at heart, and it’s Him.

And with that, I’ll end :)