selfies + champagne // new years eve 2014

happy 2015, kiddos. are we all recovered from new years festivities? yesterday was a little rough, damn wine flu. i had a great new years eve with some good people, lots of bubbly, olivia pope sized wine pours, pizza and some local celebrities. have i kicked your interest? here’s how we rang in the new year.

[b] and i and our good friends matt + sandra headed to a little place called, the pig ate my pizza in robbinsdale, mn. i’d never heard of this place, but sandra saw something on facebook about a couple new years eve parties they were having (all you can eat + drink) and sounded like a good time. i had no idea what this place was going to be like. i had pictured a restaurant; we’d all be seated and there would be a buffet full of pigs and pizza and open bar. i was way off, but in an awesome way.

the place is small. there are a few tables and most were being utilized for shotskis and tippy cup. the music was cranked, the vibe was hoppin’ and the bubbly was being passed. we staked our claim at a ledge and started sampling the snacks that were being passed around. not long after we were there, we were pulled away by an employee to take part in a shotski with champagne. alright, that’s how this is going to go. i knew i needed to shift away from the bubbly so i opted for some red wine. i’m a fan of a generous pour; why have a large glass if you’re not going to utilize it. but damn. this was even bigger than an olivia pope size glass of vino. it was glorious (and dangerous).

after being there for a little while we spotted some local celebrities in the corner – paul (meatsauce) from KFAN and falen from KDWB. i listen to the dave ryan in the morning show daily on my commute to work and hands down falen is my favorite and sometimes i feel like my spirit animal. we both are obsessed with food. have ridiculous humor. and are kind of awesome. i adore her and love listening in the morning. the thing about radio people, is that you rarely know what they look like. so i didn’t recognize her, but the guys recognized her hubs, meatsauce. falen asked me to take a photo of her and her friends, which i did. but when you give me your phone you won’t get it back without a little treat of an emma selfie. it’s like a gift that keeps on giving. fast forward to the next morning and that photo was on falen’s twitter account and i’m feeling like a fancy famous person. 

i did end up getting photos with both of them, i believe i called him “paul meatsauce.” but they were very nice and it was fun to meet someone you listen to every day!

well, throw in some more food, das boot, and a couple more glasses of wine and it was 9:00PM and we were getting kicked out so they could get ready for the next party. sandra drew the short straw as dd and hauled us drunkys back to our house to hang out. we got back to the house, and that was the end of my new years. i was just so sleepy i needed to go to bed… or something like that.

a super fun way to celebrate the end of a fantastic year and (almost) ring in the new one. the year that i will become a bica. (eeek!). so much exciting and lovely things to happen this year. i hope you all had an equally fabulous new years eve and maybe even lasted to see the ball drop. xo

things don’t change unless you do. {goals & intentions}

a new year marks a new beginning. a time to reflect on the past year and think about what we would like to do in the coming one. i’ve never been big on making new years resolutions. they feel like a set up to failure; such an all or nothing feeling. if you don’t accomplish it, of fall off the bandwagon after a couples weeks of months, you give up and move on because what’s the point anymore? Jess Lively, who write for The Everygirl put’s it perfectly, here. And thanks to her, i am making new years intentions, not resolutions. intentions leaved room for the inevitable surprises that life has in store. intentions can be flexible and adjusted to the way things come together throughout the year. when situations change; you change. and you can adjust your intentions accordingly. no harm, no foul, no guilt. this gives them a more positive feel than the negative “have to” feel of resolutions. i am super jazzed for this coming year. and look forward to seeing how these intentions all come together. stay tuned. xoxo

((goals)) and intentions for the new year:

• healthy living

  • run a 5K (TC Valentines Run) and 10K (Get in Gear 10K)
  • drop my time in the April Sorenson Half Marathon by 10 minutes
  • be active for at least 20 minutes at least 3 times/week
  • continue to implement the slow carb diet into my meals
  • monitor my diet coke consumption; no more than 3/ week

• growing my smarts

  • read 9 books

1. socialnomics
2. bitches on a budget
3. rework
4. predictably irrational
5. cocktails for three
6. breakfast at tiffanys
7. one day
8. blue like jazz
9. the 4 hour body

• go to a wine tasting/ become educated on how to pair it with meals

• take a cooking class

• potentially and hopefully start classes to get my MBA

• blog love:

  • post no fewer than 3, but shoot for 5 times/month; at least 36, at most 60 posts/year
  • by my 2 year blogiversary, complete a rebranding of this blog
  • finish the year with double the views I finished with. (About 10,000)
  • gain 15 new followers
  • start a new social media dedicated blog

• dahla, dahla bills y’all:

  • continue to record & track my expenses & begin to incorporate more of a budget into it
  • pay off clifford (my car)

• • don’t worry, be happy

    

• the always cliché and ongoing goal of my life: less anxiety, more enjoyment.
• soak in the happiness of the little moments that make life wonderful
  • using a new app, day one, to keep track on all these little things
• be present. and enjoy the moment. worry less about what has or will happen.

why iBlog

i started my first blog in january 2010. tales of a girl, emma. i had no idea what i was doing; if i would keep it up; why i was doing it. all i knew is i loved writing. it was my favorite and most effective way to express myself. i was 20 years old. a junior in college. and in the midst of figuring out what life after college would hold. i tried to journal. i tried and have continue to try several times. but the problem is my hand couldn’t write as fast as my mind could think. i thought about blogging because i can type faster than i can write. but what would i have to blog about? what do i have to say? who would care? who would read it? it wasn’t until i got rid of those questions that i truly understood blogging.

i blog because i have a story to tell. my story. i have a voice. and i want to share it. my blog is mine. for me. to share my story with the world. i don’t care if 1 person reads my post or 100 people read it. it doesn’t matter. i blog for me and i blog for others. i blog because i am part of something that is bigger than me. i blog because i love to write. i blog for the same reasons as singers write songs, musicians play, artists create. why do i blog? because i enjoy it.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” ― Maya Angelou

“Write, write yourself alive.” —Jacques Roubaud

“I write because there is a voice inside me that refuses to be still.” – Sylvia Plath

i love sharing my story. because it’s a story worth sharing. not that i am special; but because we all have a story to tell. and i want mine to be heard, to be documented, to be alive. i write to get out feelings that are buried deep and unable to unearth them without putting them down in writing. i write to express myself in ways in which i otherwise could not.

when you enter in the the blogging world, you enter into a community of people who are essentially like you. we come from different backgrounds and we have different struggles, but our medium for expressing them is the same. a screen and a keyboard. it’s crazy that you can become enthralled in the stories of people who you don’t know and will never meet. when you read a post you can relate to, it’s an incredible, instantaneous bond that “i’m not the only one!” and if even one person can find that through one of my posts, than that is amazing.

why do iBlog? because there is a voice in me that won’t keep quiet. there is a story that can’t go untold. and this is my way of telling it. <3