A Night to Remember...

Tonight my father and I went to see "Million Dollar Quartet", and it was amazing!

Here's a video of one of the songs, not the same cast that I saw though...



to be honest, i prefer the cast that was here in Rochester to that in this video, but you can't mess with such perfect music as this...

A Sad Start...

I was going to do a fun happy post, but first thing in the morning O&A made the very sad announcement that one of my favorite comedians, Patrice ONeal, suffered a stroke last week. This sincerely has effected me all day.

If you are a fan, please send some love by sending a message to LoveForPatrice@gmail.com

Until next time, here is one of my favorite segments featuring Patrice.

love and buttons, CAS

Naughty Blogger

I am soooo sorry - work has been INSANE and when I come home the last thing I've felt like doing is sitting at a computer and writing...but I'm back!
I've leveled things out at work, and so I'm able to get back to doing what I love: reading, puzzle books, working out, and BLOGGING!
I've got some nifty stuff planned coming up, and will even try my hand at videos.
First good post going up tonight!
see you then, love and buttons, CAS

On the way to work...

I've always been an early riser, since I was a kid.  Don't know why, but that's just who I am.  I also like to dawdle in the morning, I like to be able to do something exciting or useful before I actually have to be somewhere - I guess it psychs me up for work...or whatever. 

Anyhoo, here's some shots of my pre-work life, taken over a couple of days...

Here's me in my car...I actually think this is a good photo of me if I don't look at it for too long...

 Oh Starbucks!  How do I love thee...spinach feta egg white wrap and tall bold blend w/2% milk (if I ever put milk in anything it has to be as whole as possible...otherwise why bother?)

My digital photo frame, a gift from my hermano last x-mas, I put loads of pictures of pretty flowers, castles, and tea parties on it - because that's what I like to look at...no shame!

 My caffeine mug from ThinkGeek.com, I love it so much, and also the Tazo Zen tea inside of it...

 I am almost always wearing my kickass noise-cancelling headphones while working...I have a very chatty coworker and if I didn't have these I'd go crazy...(if you look behind my head in this pic you can see a leftover balloon from my cube-mate's luncheon)

 Took these this morning, the pictures do not do today's sunrise justice.  I was in my car, and the guy in front of me must have thought I was insane while taking these...

Brekky!

Well that's pretty much what I do before work: drive around looking at the sunrise, caffeinating, and acquiring delicious foodstuffs...

shall post again soon!  now back to the netflix...  ~cas

A Bridal Shower...

Yesterday our company held a bridal luncheon for my cube-mate, Lindsey.  She's getting married next month to a wonderful guy, and I'm very happy for her.

Here are some of the decorations, her wedding color was purple...

 Here she is writing the answers to one of the games "How well do you know the Bride?"...a lot of people thought her favorite color was purple, even me!...it's pink

 But I won anyway!  These kitchen towels, oddly enough, go perfectly with my paint scheme in my kitchen (will post pics of the kitchen in a later post)...

 The cake was actually quite good, which is a rarity for me...

 Here's Lindsey afterwards, with her giant rock of a ring*, reading the heartfelt wishes of those she works with...

 

I wouldn't be a good cube-mate if I didn't actually know that she's a massive Phillies fan.  Here's my wedding gift to her...

Here's her engagement story:

They were watching a Phillies game when Vinny (the groom) asked her to come downstairs to pick a bottle of wine to drink during the game.  She was annoyed at first because the game was really exciting, but she went anyway.  As they started down the stairs to the wine cellar she saw that there were candles lining the way to the room, and that's where he went down on one knee and proposed.  They missed the rest of the game, the Phillies lost that night, but Lindsey and Vinny won the next step in their lives together.

*full disclosure: I made her pose her hand that way so you could see the ring.  She's really quite modest.

full night's sleep

Since I was a kid I've had terrible insomnia - it's difficult for me to stay asleep, which means sometimes I'm up at an absurd hour of the morning.

I'm starting a new rule for myself though - no matter what, I have to stay in bed until my alarm goes off.  This will allow me to go back to sleep if I can.

What do you do to get a good night's rest?

back pain and book reading

So here I am, in complete and utter pain and want to just fall asleep in a fog of wine and pleasant thoughts - but nay nay! I wish to post!

I was attempting to do this workout when I totally strained my lumbar spine...I've done a variation of the workout before - but this time I was learning how to do the high knees with the jump rope:

And the past two days my back has not let me forget it. I even had to bow out of a concert invite because I have not been able to stand or sit comfortably at all (I've braced myself with two glasses of vino before even attempting this venture - just imagine how painful work is!)
Hopefully everything will be healed by the weekend so I can see some Pride parade and life can get back to normal...or at least I can get back to my workouts (I miss them...and really LOVE Bodyrock.tv).
- PLEASE NOTE, THIS INJURY IS MY FAULT AND SHOULD HAVE DONE THIS WITH PROPER FORM - I have done plenty of these workouts without an issue.

So now to books - after re-reading the Mantra for Murder series (see my first post) I felt the pull towards another "cozy" series - and I found the Coffee House Mysteries, picking up the first three volumes with a gift card (and it doesn't hurt that they're $8 a pop in the first place).

I've read the first book since Saturday - so they do flow quickly, and to be honest - they didn't make it easy to solve. I even wrote who I thought was the killer in the front cover with the date - and I was wrong (which almost never happens)!

Hoping the second book is good, and the third is better - sometimes you need to really get into a series before you can tell if you like it or not (I read all four Twilight books in a week and felt jilted - there!).

Next time I want to talk about my weird favorite radio stations and some apps I love...any requests?

~cas