Sleep Tight

This is my new masterpiece of a headboard. It isn't finished yet but I'll post pictures if it does get done. The wood is being purchased today.



Jordan is taking care of the entire thing. Notice he's going to use some oak. I think dad would be slightly impressed?

Guess What's For Lunch

Yesterday I was swimming after my Irish coffee when I realized, I was feeling a bit weak. I decided to cook up some lunch. The cast of characters (can you guess what it's going to be?) My guess is dad will know:


Here's the beginning:


It's never too late to sautee:


The end result:


Some delicious sloppy joes. My next try at cooking might be with a homemade bbq sauce.

Irish Coffee

Ahhh, Happy Saturday. I started mine off with coffee and Irish cream. The real Irish cream. It is definitely my favorite way to have my coffee now. Don't worry, I only had one cup. Another star in today's morning role was the blueberry pancake. Does breakfast get any better? I think not...

Two high points right now (besides breakfast): 1. I get 35.5 hours this coming week. 2. I'm scheduled to move into my apartment in a few weeks. Are you as excited as I am?

I hope you're weekend is great.

Burgers

Tuesday night: a good night to fire up a grill. I decided it was a good time to try grilling. A few people know how grilling burgers last summer went, I'll sum it up for those who don't. It was a pound of burger but I didn't realize it was 3/4 grease. It turned out I only needed about 2 slices of cheese to cover 8 tiny burgers.





So tonight the special was burgers stuffed with pepperjack cheese. These were much bigger... and better.

Spaghetti Dinner

This was my next meal. Attn: Dad, he said "This is better than the one your dad made." For the record there was no comparison, dad's was better. He's not so great anymore, huh?

I Had a Nice Weekend

Weekend: n. a time to relax

That's how I defined the word weekend these past few days. I'll break it down, day by day.

Friday:
Nothing too exciting to say about Friday. I had breakfast in Coleman and left for Grand Rapids shortly after. Upon my arrival I picked up my check from work, got my schedule for the week, and went to the bank. After picking up Jordan from work the weekend began. We picked up paint from the Home Depot and came home. We then sat down to a nice dinner (we were hungry). Forgetting about the paint I picked up just hours later I suggested we watch a movie. I chose The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (classic). After 4 hours went by we realized it was midnight and I forgot I wanted to paint.

Saturday:
Today was the real beginning to the weekend. As soon as Jordan got out of work we went to painting. He sanded while I labored in the hot sun. Here are the pictures.






And the finished product:




Sunday:
Sunday Jordan had plans to golf with his dad and I had plans to swim all day with my friend, Ryan Perry... or better known as Gootz. I'll name a few of the high points of the day 1) sunshine 2)swimming 3) beer 4) Tigers (they won, too!) 5) grilling hot dogs. It was the most relaxing day I've had in a long time. We were swimming/grilling for about four and a half hours. After he left I put on some pajamas and fell asleep until Jordan came home and made me this:


Isn't he great?
[End Weekend]

The End to My Travels

Here is the great, 5 fork conclusion you all have been waiting for(I'll let the pictures do the talking):









And then I came across this beauty. The Michelob seasonal beer, brewed with chocolate and caramel:



I'm biased to say it was good but it was just okay. It definitely needs to be cold.

To Logan's and Beyond

Yesterday I traveled around many places but one of my greatest finds, perhaps, was this character:



Shortly after he got to my mom's we all went out to eat at Logan's (mom, peej, mickey, and I).



To cap off the night we went to Shae and Scott's place but I don't have many pictures of there. Michael took a video of the car ride over but you'll have to get it from him. This is all I have:



Today I'm just sitting around until it's time to go to Grandma P's later. Yesterday was very successful, I picked up a dining room table and chairs thanks to an Aunt C and an entertainment center thanks to K-Mart. Still hunting for a coffee table (but not a necessity) and bar stools. I'll try to get some more pictures from tonight. To be continued...

Back to My Roots

With the entire week off (other than Monday) I found myself having to fill the extra time on my hands. Instead of nipping at Jordan's heels what could I do? He had plans to fish and golf all week leaving me by myself to either watch movies or play Zelda. I decided to come home for a few days. Yup, I'm in Coleman. I have my camera and I'll be taking pictures of my travels but so far it's only been to Midland for some cheap shopping for the apartment. I'm realizing that in my past living experiences my roommates have furnished everything. Now I'm trying to pick up a dining room table and chairs (if you know any, let me know), two bar stools, and a coffee table. I picked up a cheap entertainment center today. Still on the agenda is visiting Grandma P and going out to dinner tonight with mom and peej. More to come as the week progresses...

Ruby Tuesday

I don't have much to post about lately, which is the same reason I often go so long without posting. I'm trying to keep people updated anyway though. I have a few areas in life I can update on. I'll start with my apartment search and finish with work.

Next school year I'm planning on living with my cousin, Kevin. We are both OSH majors and coordinated our schedules so we can study together, too. We'll be sharing classes and a two bedroom apartment. Last Wednesday we decided it would be a good day to start looking for a place to live next month. We started out looking between Allendale and Grand Rapids but nothing was working out. One of the landlords had given us a brochure of places in the Grand Rapids area to look at. Every time Kevin said a place I recognized it. Most were on a road called Alpine, north of Grand Rapids near Comstock Park. I drive down Alpine every time I go to work and it's about 5-10 minutes from Jordan's parents' house, depending on where you are. I offered to take him there since I knew it so well and there's a bus line that takes you down Alpine directly to the downtown campus.

We got to our first place called Green Ridge and he was already loving the Alpine area. There are a lot of stores so he said he could apply to work anywhere and it'd be close to the apartment. When we went in the office the lady we talked to had a two bedroom that will be open just in time for us. The price was right so we asked to see one of the units. They're perfect. It has a balcony with outdoor storage, a vaulted ceiling in the living room, patio doors with a half circle window above them, two large bedrooms with walk in closets, two bathrooms, a washer and dryer, and a pool open from Memorial Day until Labor Day. Did I mention it's right next to The Burlington Coat Factory?

Other than finding my dream place I've been looking for some gender neutral decorations and since we're both over 21 beer is very gender neutral. I've picked up some tin Irish beer signs that I think will look cool in the living room. Pictures will be up when we move in.

The only update I have for The Burlington Coat Factory is that they've given me more responsibility. Not only do I work customer service a majority of the time instead of just a normal register, but they've been starting me with a $500 drawer instead of only $100. The next step: upgrade from a level 0 key to a level 1 key so I can do some returns without supervision.

My Fourth

My 4th of July was a good one. I had to work from 10:00am-6:30pm but I think I got holiday pay and I had plenty of time afterwards to go see fireworks. You'll notice in this post there are no pictures, I apologize. I left straight from work to go to the beach and realized I forgot my camera the second we got in the car.

As far as fireworks go, they've never really been my thing. I've only gone to the fireworks once and they were in Midland, if that says anything about the quality. Although Midland has a nice show, there are better ones. We went to Grand Haven for the works this year. I can easily say they were the best I've ever seen. We were sitting on the water waiting for the show when they started off with a water and lights production. It was like the fountain you see in Vegas that shoots up water except it had music to it and red, white, and blue lights. It was amazing. After the water show it was dark enough to shoot off the fireworks, finally. We had been sitting on the cement area that boats tie up to for three hours.

Long story short, the fireworks were amazing, especially the reflection in the water. I hope you all had a good 4th, too.

Beachin' It

I know it's about time to update my blog so here it is. I'll start by posting some pictures from my birthday weekend.



What's that? I'm engaged?? Awww...


Corona. La cerveza mas fina. The finer beer. Definitely a celebratory beer.


We had hot dogs and s'mores.


Annie and I. She is one of my favorite people ever.


These are probably my two best friends from college. Annie and Gootz. (He actually has a name but it's Ryan Perry, bleh).




That pretty much sums up my birthday weekend, minus a few minuscule details. Last weekend I had a nice visit from Miss Sarah Novak and Mr. Luke Huss. They came in Friday night and left Sunday morning. I was really excited because in my couple of years in west Michigan I've wanted her to come out here but she never has. So what did we do? Jordan and I made sure these Coleman natives realized what they're missing out on. Unfortunately I had to work for about half of their visit so I didn't get pictures from anywhere but the beach. By the way, they're also engaged.






If we're going to a lake I'm getting in it.





It was a good day. A good weekend, actually.