A (secret) Love Letter

Dear Caribou Coffee,


Where do I begin? I don’t know how it all started, and quite frankly I don’t know if it will ever end, but I am in LOVE with you and your smooth organic blend. Everything about you. Your smell. Your taste. The way you make me actually want to get up just a little earlier in the morning so I will have a chance to drink you. When I am up late (mostly because I have drank too much of you) I will often think about the next time we can meet.

My first coffee love, let’s call him “Moonmoney” would be devastated beyond repair if he knew of our affair.

It would break his little bean like heart.

But no matter. I am addicted to your warm, savory love.

It’s a little scary how quickly my love lust for you began and the downward spiral you have created between me and my first coffee love. He sits in my pantry and looks longingly at me as I open the door, feeling my cold rejection as I secretly reach for another. What would he think if he KNEW? I mean, I have is ornament on my Christmas tree to goodness sakes!

If word of our magical encounters were to get out, I fear my reputation would be destroyed. I can hear them now, casting their stones as they yell:


“Caffeine whore”

“Coffee cheater”

“Caribou Slut”

It would be too much to bare! So, let’s just keep this between you and me for now. Our love will be much better served without proclaiming it to the masses.

You. Complete. Me.

xoxoxo

me

ps. Please don’t tell my husband! Oddly enough, he has been trying to get me to stray for years with your sweet, warm loveliness- and if he knew that he was right, well, it would be my demise.

Shameless Plug Wednesday

So, if any of you have ever tried to start a business you know it can be trying. And by trying I mean flinging yourself into the unknown, investing money, sweat and blood into something while praying your venture doesn’t leave you homeless outside of Denny’s. Yes, Denny’s.


My husband and I have a part-time/seasonal photography business (shameless plug #1)- http://www.mokenphotography.com/

We LOVE traveling and being a part of peoples moments. It’s thrilling and humbling that they would choose us to be a part of capturing their biggest events and most precious memories. So, our venture isn’t our ONLY income and it makes it a whole heck of a lot easier when things are slow, well because we have our regular jobs in Marketing and Media Sales that keep us from taking up permanent residence outside of a greasy, very-questionable breakfast food chain.

So, here comes shameless plug numero dos! My mother-in-law recently started a small business in Sturgis, South Dakota (yes people actually live there. ..I know, shocking) and even though she is located in a place that makes most parts of Canada look exotic, her business is an online perfume oil store that features unique, elegant perfume bottles and many popular fragrances. I will say, it has a specific target market- mostly women in their early thirties and above, enjoy designer fragrances and having decorative bottles to hold their perfumes. Now, she does sell men’s perfume oils also, but I would see men purchasing for their wives, mothers and other females in their life. They make super cute gifts.

With all that said, check out her website:
http://www.s-centability.com/

If you have a start up business that you would like featured on my blog, email me the details and website and you might get the honor of being featured on my Shameless Plug Wednesday. I know, you just peed a little with excitement.

Post-it Notes: A multi-taskers best friend

I am the Post-It note Queen. They make my life seem like some form of organized chaos. I mean, the unruliness that is my desk at work when I have ALL of my folders, binders and deadlines out is enough to make Monica from FRIENDS find a small corner in her spotless apartment where she can curl into the fetal position and never move again. Ever.


But Post-it notes (while over whelming for some) are my little rainbow colored saviors. Yes, yes, I have Outlook with all its nifty task reminders, but I prefer the old fashioned reminders displayed in little rows on my desk- right for me to see. Sometimes I color coordinate. *insert warm fuzzies here*

I mean, next to diamonds and shoes, they really ARE a girl’s best friend.

Honestly, it’s like a small, sad addiction. Like my addiction to exercise infomercials. Seriously. If you have a piece of lousy exercise equipment to sell me, I’m there with my credit card. I watch in awe-struck wonderment (from the couch mind you) at each “Success Story” and think, my god if I don’t buy this right now my thighs will never be the same. Mind you, I am not one of those weird cat ladies who watches the Home Shopping network and orders worthless crap to stuff in her house only to one day end up on that show Hoarders. Which if you haven’t seen THAT show, trust me, it’s disturbing on multiple levels.

And lord help if it’s a Winsor Pilates Infomercial. It’s always the same moves, but “new” and “improved” and with some sort of handy-dandy equipment… and it calls to me. Yes, it calls to me like a street walker on the corner of 5th and Popular. I have a whole collection of exercise videos and “trinkets” that well, hardly EVER get used. I will order it thinking, wow, those gals make it look SO easy, then when it arrives I rip it open like a kid at Christmas, pop that baby in the DVD player and well, it will last about a week and then I will retire it to the shelve with the rest of its infomercial purchased friends.

It kills my husband. He has never said anything verbally, well, because he values his life. BUT- I can see it running through his mind and asking why I waste money on these videos only to lace up my shoes and run as my main source of exercise? The answer: I have no idea. I plan to claim insanity in the divorce..because if I buy any more videos and DON’T use them, I am quite certain he will leave me.

Paging Nurse Gonzales (first name Speedy)

Why is it when you go to the doctor to do lab work the nurse taking your blood is always in some god-awful hurry?  Like all of the nurses have some unspoken competition to see who can do it the quickest while inflicting the most amount of pain.  It's like, easy there Florence Nightingale.  Where's the fire?

On Thursday I had to do a Glucose test (no, I am not  preggo) and what a joy that was!  I mean, why didn't someone sign me up for this before?  If you have never had the joy of experiencing this, let me inform you of ALL you have missed out on.  First, nurse-i'm-in-a-hurry takes your blood while blaming your non-existent veins on her horrible bed side manner.  Then, they make you drink this vile, orange beverage that would put Paula Deans Koolaid to shame.  Please excuse me while I go die of a diabetic coma now.  Now, I wait.  One hour in the waiting room and Nurse Speedy calls me back in for more blood work, wait another hour and then do it all over again.

My arms are like, No Mr. Police Man, I am really NOT a drug addict.  Seriously, it looks horrible.  And please, just PLEASE for once why can't the world of medicine be like, umm, I don't know, Scrubs? -where the nurses look like this.

I could get on board with that...just sayin.

In other news, I am refusing to take down my Christmas tree.  Yes, that would mean it is STILL up.

Don't judge me.

Ode to Starbucks

Or as my husband likes to call it- Fourbucks.  I have dragged him over to the dark side though, as he now comes home with bags of my favorite legal addictive stimulant.

So, yes.  Lets take a moment shall we?  Who cares if it's overpriced and they aren't personal.  Who cares that you don't know the person behind the counter.  It's Starbucks. The coffee is good and the font in the logo just makes my heart happy.  Seriously.

Yep.  Here's to you Starbucks, and the large sum of my paycheck that I gladly give you to keep me from committing heinous-caffeine-deprived-crimes.

What an ugly world it would be without you.

A Wicked Good Time

Did I just happen to mention that my husband is the best? As in purchased-us-tickets-to-go-see-the-ubber-fabulous-broadway-musical Wicked-best!  If I haven't, please allow me to rant.  Now, it HAS taken him some time, but he has finally learned that (unlike most women) I don't want to sit and talk for hours like he was a member of the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.  No.  I want gifts.  Call me shallow (and some have), but if you want to win my heart- buy me something pretty.  Or tickets to a broadway musical! Just sayin!  This was a Christmas/Anniversary gift and I am sooo thrilled that we are going I am not even annoyed that he combo-gifted me.  So, on February 7th we will be in grand Greenville, SC salivating over Wicked.


I will barley be able to contain myself.  And oh lord I just feel so sorry for Chris the week AFTER the musical.  I will be running around the house singing "Popular" like a robed choir girl on Sunday morning.  It's HORRIBLE.  You should have seen me after Lion King on broadway and Chicago.  For weeks, I mean WEEKS I would walk around the house randomly singing out "And all that jazz" then followed by "Oh, I just can't wait to be KIIIINNNNGGG." What can I say?  I have a careless disregard for my own dignity when it comes to musicals.

We are going to make a weekend of it and stay here and after 4 years (yes, 4 years) I will finally get to see Wicked.  I (like every good book worm nerd) have read the book and desperately wanted to see it when it came out.  We missed it twice in Dallas and then twice in Charlotte, but ummm not anymore suckers!!! I mean, the only thing that could have made it better was if we were seeing it in New York.  We will do that one day too.  I WILL have my Starbucks in Time Square.   And the monstrosity that will be my happiness might not even be able to be contained in a blog.  Truly.

Yuletide Fun

Christmas is gone.  I despise the fact that I will soon have to take down my beautiful Christmas tree.  We purchased it the day after Thanksgiving and it's already a fire hazard waiting to happen.  We had a fab holiday.  It was filled with family, gifts and just spending some quality time with the husband.  Here are a few snapshots.

Me making cookies at mom's house.  Lovely, glorious, wonderful A Christmas Story Cookies.  That's right, leg lamps and bunny suits baby!!

If you know me, you know I LOVE A Christmas Story. It's my all time favorite Holiday movie and I have everything from ornaments on the Christmas tree to the wrapping paper, and well, obviously the cookie cutters.  I pretty much suck at decorating cookies.  We can safely say a career in baking is out the door, but I had FUN!  They also tasted pretty horrible too!

Chris and his fancy new watch.

Me and my Burt's Bees.  I love this stuff.  Ladies, if you are looking for a great natural skin care product, Burt's Bee's is it!  I can't say enough great stuff about this product line and it's headquarters are right here in good'ol North Carolina.  They still have a great deal going on where you can get this grab bag for $24.99 (it retails for $50) and has a TON of great items in it.  Click here.  Use the code BURTS20 and get 20% off the purchase plus free shipping. You have to buy another small item to equal $25 though because that is how much you have to spend in order to get the discount.  So worth it though!!

Here is Pickles, watching with feverish lust for all of our presents.  She has been a very bad dog the past couple of months- and by bad I mean waking up in the middle of the night and deciding to use my NEW carpet as her own personal toilet.  Yep, she has gone totally insane...outside of her mind! This dog has never done this before.  It took me 2 weeks to house train her when she was a puppy.  She is now three.  Maybe it's rebellion, who knows.  But I will tell you this, I am not against whooping her with a car antenna if she keeps this "the world is my toilet" mentality.  So, no presents for her.  She didn't even get a lump of coal.  She did get a new bedroom though: the Garage.  So, my future children beware.  Naughty little ones really DON'T get anything in the Moken House.