So life got a little bit busy . . . .

I really wanted to maintain the daily writing but unfortunately that ended fairly quickly! Life in the southeast corner of the state has been wonderfully amazing! It makes me wonder how I could have hated it here so much the first time around. I have made so many new friends and have had a lot of fun in the process.

We had our first soccer game last week . . . what a trip. We played against the best team in the league and they whomped on us! It was still a lot of fun to get out and play though. I actually got a decent amount of playing time. I even have two awesome bruises on my leg from getting plowed over by a boy on the opposing team. Luckily, I'm a brick wall!

This last week of work was a bit rough. On Monday, I got a computer virus and was unable to do any work until 3pm. Tuesday, I got hit with a virus so I worked from home and attempted to recover. Wednesday, I did go into the office and then headed to the parent's place to help them with their garage sale. Thursday, I had off to run the garage sale and then Friday we had a golf outing for work. What a rough week eh?

I think today I'm going to leave it at that. I should write something more witty but I am still recovering and am going golfing in 1/2 hour!

Happy 4th of July to Everyone!

Well let's see here . . . I wasn't planning on writing at all today but this time has become available and so I figured, why the heck not???

Today was the 4th of July party at Kenny's parents house. It definitely was a very fun time. Everytime I see Kenny's cousin's children, I feel older. I still remember the very first time that I met extended family and all of the kids were so young. Now they are potty-trained and talking and just oh-so-much fun to play with.

One thing I do not like about the 4th of July . . . Fireworks. Please let me explain, because I do now want to sound like a stick in the log. I do love fireworks. I love the beautiful colors that light up the night sky. I also love watching a flare shoot up because you never know exactly which shape is going to appear. It could be a white wheeping willow, spreading across the night sky. It could be a heart to make you think of those you love. It could be a red, white and blue explosion to remind you of the America and our wonderful flag. Regardless of what shape actually explodes across the night sky, I love the anticipation of what is going to occur. Now here is what I don't love . . . crazy neighbors lighting up fireworks in a cul de sac at midnight! #1: you are scaring the dogs and keeping us up into the later hours of the night. #2: You are getting ash all over my car. So please, if you want to light up your illegal fireworks, round up your children and family and drive to a field or park or something and light them off! That way you are not disrupting the peace!

I think I am going to keep this blog short and sweet as I am sleepy and want to get some rest but on a high note . . . I am going to my first Twins game tomorrow (unless it gets cancelled due to rain)! I am really hoping that the game will go off without a hitch but I'll have to keep my fingers crossed!

Just Another Busy Day at the Office!

First of all, I want to thank Miss Kris for commenting on my blog! At least a few people are actually taking the time to read it!

Today was one of those mornings where you wake up and think to yourself "I am way too old for this!" Last night was one of the interns 21st birthday, so naturally this involves a night of barhopping and shots. Now, our group didn't necessarily do the barhopping. We actually stayed at only one bar all night but we did carry out the shots part of the evening. This bar had cheap shots so it definitely turned into a fun evening! The only problem is that, as I am slowly approaching a quarter of a century, I'm beginning to feel as though my drinking/partying days are numbered. I consider myself very blessed that I do not have to deal with nasty hangovers in the AM after a long night of drinking but I find myself very unsure how much longer I will be able to enjoy this luxury.

An update on my hair: I did take the plunge and get it chopped off a bit. I also got partial highlights. It doesn't look quite how I pictured it would look but I do like it. The highlights definitely look nice. It's just too bad that in like three weeks I am going to have killer roots coming out!

Today is another slow day at the office which is very nice considering that we have a three day weekend. My plans for the weekend should be relaxing. Driving to the cities tonight to help Kenny's mother setup for the 4th of July party and then will be spending Saturday, Sunday and Monday lounging by the pool. My proud point of the summer so far is that I'm working on a killer tan! I'm getting super dark from being outside so much! I can't believe some people pay for this much color when you can get it for free!

I consider myself to be okay at most sports. I can shoot baskets but am not so great at defense. I have a pretty decent arm for throwing a baseball. I'm fairly coordinated when it comes to volleyball. I can skate on the ice without falling down. I can throw and catch using a lacrosse stick. I can hit the ball in golf decently approximately every third shot. Based on these facts, I consider that I can participate in most sports but I have recently found the one sport that I am not so good at. . . .Soccer. I am just plain terrible at soccer. I recently joined a soccer team through my intern friends at the office. I joined under the assumption that we were a very laid back team and that no skills were required. So I showed up at the first practice and I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off. We have some really excellent players on our team . . . but I am definitely not one of them. I can barely kick the ball hard enough to get it to another person and I have no sense of who to pass to. Most often, the ball will come near and I just kick it away as fast as I can. But I did go for a headbutt last week which would have been awesome had I actually accomplished my goal. My friend Drew kicked the ball and I was standing right in front of the goal. I closed my eyes and lowered my head . . . and missed completely! But hey, at least I tried right???

1W . . . Supposed to be a busy day!

For those of you who do not the lingo of a financial analyst, today is 1W. 1W is supposed to be one of the busiest days of the year as it is the first day that we can look at the actuals that were posted to our ledger in the month of June. Obviously, you can tell them that I am extremely busy at the moment.

So I decided to do this whole blog thing based on the ideas of others. Am I easily persuaded? I tend to think yes. I tend to be a jumper on bandwagons. Here are some classic examples:

1. The Vikings - I have never been a hardcore Vikings fan. I tend to choose to watch reruns of America's Next Top Model or America's Funniest Home Videos rather than watching the Vikings. I will have to say though when Brett Favre became a MN Viking this year, I jumped on the bandwagon just as fast as the rest of MN. I sported a brand new yellow #4 shirt. I also decided that I wanted to invest in a MN Vikings jersey but fortunately I never did. I would sit back in Customer Service at Hyvee and broadcast the updates of the game to the produce guys and the assistant managers. If Favre comes back next year, I probably will invest in that Vikings jersey.
2. Coach Purses - In high school, you would see the girls that had designer purses and I always though they were nuts because why would you waste so much money on a stupid purse. In the last two years, I have developed more of a taste for designer purses. I have had several coach purses/accessories in the past few years and am planning on having more in the future. Also, I am absolutely in love with my current Coach purse! I clean it nightly and try to keep it in pristine condition.

3. Morning/Afternoon Radio Talk Shows - As a young child, I would complain whenever my father would listen to a radio talk show because it was so boring and I would have rather listened to music. As I sit here and type this blog, I am currently listening to "Don't Know the Words Karaoke" which is a feature from the KDWB morning show. I am in love with the Dave Ryan Show. I listen to it on my way to the office and throughout the entire day at work. Also, when I am driving to the cities, I sometimes listen to the afternoon show on KS95 but I do not enjoy them nearly as much.


Those are just three examples but I'm sure there are tons more but these are the ones that popped into my head.

Here is a thought for the day - I feel as though I am starting to get OLD! I mean seriously, I can't even look at the stars of movies anymore without feeling like a pedophile. For example, we watched SNL last Saturday night and Taylor Lautner was the host. Now I am a hardcore Harry Potter fan and I have never even considered watching the Twilight movies (at least not until I have read the books) but when I saw how attractive Mr. Lautner is, I was forced to consider renting the movies. So naturally I did what any other girl with a crush on a hot star does, I looked up videos on YouTube. I watched the SNL skits again and watched an interview from the Jimmy Kimmel Show. Now somewhere along the line, Taylor Lautner's age was mentioned and I would like to mention the fact that he is only 17! So now I have spent the last day watching videos of a gorgeous child . . . but seriously, all the young stars from my generation have grown up and the new ones are children! When does this transition actually occur? Is there a time when I should look in the mirror and say "Hey Kara, today you are looking rather old." Hopefully that day will wait a few more years and hopefully no gray hairs!

Another important topic that I should talk about today . . . I'm thinking of getting my hair chopped off. Well I guess not just chopped off, but also highlighted. I keep thinking of the days when my hair was shorter and more blonde. Part of me thinks that I am struggling to retain some sort of grasp on my youth which is ever slipping away but another part thinks that maybe I am destined for a change. I have had moments like this in the past where I have gone for big changes . . . Here is a recap:

1999 - Back in this timeframe, my mother would often get perms every few months in order to retain her striking good looks. Now I have always had thick, wavy hair which looks pretty disgusting when left to its own devices. So based on my mother's situation, I decided to get a perm. Now my perm turned out okay. . . . for about the first 3 days. After this, it turned back into the frizzy nasty mess that it had been prior to the perm.

2000 - This was about the age where everyone was getting highlights over the summer for the first time. It was the end of 8th grade and it was a time of growth and change so I decided that I wanted to jump on the bandwagon (see above for other examples) and get highlights. Now I don't know if you know my mother, but she is, as some people would say, cheap. I prefer to refer to as a "bargain hunter" but this is besides the point. Anyway, my mother bought a box of DIY (do-it-yourself for those acronym rookies) highlights and said that she was going to take the task of highlighting my hair. Now she did achieve her goal. The only problem was that she didn't really give me highlights. Instead I had one chunk of blond on each side of my head and one chunk in the back. So instead of highlights, I had "chunks". Quite the embarrassing situation
2001 - For some unknown reason, I went temporarily insane for 20 minutes at Great Clips and asked my stylist to cut my hair short . . . boy short. Now I'm not sure the thought process behind this decision, but I sure did regret it for the next 8 months. It looked so awful and I spent the remainder of the year wearing headbands to take away from the ugliness.

2002 - This is the year that I made the biggest hair blunder of my so far young life. I was a cheerleader at the time and I wanted to make myself more uniform to the other girls on the team since I was already one of the heavier girls on the team. I wanted to fit in so here's what I did . . . I bleached my hair. Yep, BLEACHED. Totally blonde with brown eyebrows . . . disgusting. I only had it for one day but my cheerleading coach actually had the audacity to tell me that if I did not fix my hair, I would not be allowed to participate in the next game. So naturally, the next day I went back to being a brunette.

2004 - Now this is the time when I did make a good hair decision. I had the short, above the eyebrow bangs all the way through my grade school days. Upon entering college, I decided to grow those suckers out. Now this was a great decision but the few years while in the process of the growth were a bit difficult. I used a lot of clips and bobby pins to keep the hair out of face.

2007 - This was my most recent dramatic hair change (I know 3 years ago!). I was feeling really bored with the way things were going so I decided it was time for a change. Now I have a friend named Kris who gets a new piercing in her ear when she is feeling bored so I decided this would be too dramatic for me but I wanted to do something with my hair. I also vowed that I was going to do something majorly dramatic. I went to the stylist with two styles in mind. I either wanted chunky highlights or I wanted to do the half brunette/half blonde hairstyle. I gave the stylists their choice and they chose to do the half/half hairstyle. We did blonde on the underneath layer and dark brown on the top layer. I really liked this hairstyle because it was very unique and was definitely outside of my comfort zone! It grew out quickly so I only had the style for a few months and it was very hard to dye my hair back to one shade so I have neglected to dye my hair since.

I think it is time to break my hair virginity again and go out of the box a bit! Stay tuned for an update!