random thoughts on Monday

1. Fall Out Boy and Paramore are touring together this summer. One of their stops is Summerfest, right here in Milwaukee. Jake and I are deciding whether or not we want to get tickets for one of the headliner acts this year, and this has been one of the contenders. I've been a big fan of Fall Out Boy for the past 10 years, but I've never listened to Paramore. (Don't laugh. My musical knowledge and preferences are quite random.) So I've been checking them out the past week. By the time this post goes live, I'm sure that I will have listened to the entire Riot album straight through a dozen times. Why wasn't I listening to that album 10 years ago when I put Fall Out Boy or New Found Glory on every time I got in the car? Anyway, it's clinched my decision that if we do get tickets, it should be to see these two bands.
2. Lately I'm in a routine where I eat the same thing for lunch every day for a week straight. And yes, it's still a lot of breakfast food. I make a lot of breakfast scrambles and egg sandwiches. I've also been eating a lot of grilled cheese, which isn't anything new either.
3. Do you write down your dreams? I've never made it a regular habit to do that, but lately I've been recording some of the more memorable ones. It's fascinating to look back on them later.
4. John Williams is conducting a special one night only MSO concert in October. Yes, THE John Williams. The fact that you could order tickets for it now if you subscribed to the 2014-15 MSO pop series may or may not have influenced our decision to spring for the series this year. It's going to be amazing. Among other things, they're doing a Beatles night, a Disney night, and a Gershwin night. Oh yeah, and we get to see John Williams.
5. Does anyone else spend time looking at items that are way out of their price range? Like this. Or this. Is it really healthy to do that?
6. As evidenced by the picture above, I've been working with delicas a lot the past few weeks. Like almost exclusively. It's been satisfying to work up some of the designs that have been floating around in my head for months.
7. You would think that the more I worked on my ebook and learned about the process of writing and publishing ebooks, I would get less overwhelmed. Actually it's the opposite. There is so much that is brand new territory for me. I know that many of you are dying to know how it's all going, and I will be posting more about it this week.
8. I feel so much more in control of my entire life after I've vacuumed the house and cleaned the bathrooms. So why is it still so hard to get motivated to clean?
9. Was anyone else super disappointed with the series finale of How I Met Your Mother? Like so disappointed that it felt like watching the entire last season was a waste? Seriously how can such a great show with nine amazing seasons screw it up so badly at the end? I think that The Walking Dead did a good job with the season finale this year, though.
10. Is anyone else ready for summer? Like it needs to get here right now because this cold dreary weather is making me lose my mind.

I don't write these posts very often here, but you can see the last one that I wrote from July 2013.

random thoughts on Tuesday

Before I started this blog (which was more than 4 years ago, what?), I did personal blogging of some sort at least once a week. For many years. In many different places over the years. While this blog has been all sorts of amazing for me, it's largely killed that aspect of my writing. I can try to put the blame elsewhere, but the bottom line is that for me, maintaining two regular blogs has proved impossible. And as much as I try to deny it, I really miss that sort of journaling. So I'm going to try to mix it up here once in a while and share some different things. I hope that you'll stick along for the ride.

1. I've had the above picture as the lock screen for my phone for more than two months, which is some sort of record. Usually I switch that picture out once a week or so because my current favorite photo changes frequently. This photo is from one of my favorite days this spring, and it still makes me really happy seeing it there every day.
2. I've been listening to the same Pandora station almost exclusively for over two years: Brad Mehldau. The variety on that station is so amazing. I can listen to it for hours while I work every day and never get tired of it.
3. I've also been listening to the I'm Not a Pilot album Need Money for Rocket Fuel at least once a week (if not once a day) since March or so. I think that Jake has, too (it's usually at work). I'm sure that people are getting sick of us talking about how much we love this band.
4. Improving my photography skills the past couple years has been so empowering. Now that I own an SLR, I feel like nothing can stop me.
5. On a similar note, I never thought that I'd be driving past places like cemeteries thinking about how I'd have to come back sometime and take photographs. It is amazing the places that life takes you.
6. Also, on a similar note, I was confident that getting an SLR and adopting kittens right around Christmas would make for an amazing year ahead, but I still didn't really have any idea what that would mean. I needed both of those things so much at this point in my life.
7. I think that I love reading about food and many different aspects of food almost more than I actually like cooking and baking. Who knew that photographing chicken fingers and debating the various methods for measuring flour could be so interesting?
8. One of my unofficial goals this summer has been to eat more salads and to keep more fresh ingredients on hand that make it easy to prepare quick, healthy lunches. When I get busy with work, I tend to grab food and go...and we all know how goes. I feel a million times better when I eat well. And there is no excuse not to have fresh foods around at all times during the summer. So far it's been going pretty well.
9. Why does summer go so darn quickly? I thought that wouldn't be true once I wasn't teaching and Jake wasn't on a school schedule anymore (the combination of which has been more freeing than I ever could have imagined). But it's still true.
10. My brother's fiance sent this to me a couple months ago, and I laughed so hard the first time I read it that I was literally crying. I know that many of you will appreciate it.