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

finding some halloween spirit

i’m not a super “Halloweeney” person. i don’t necessarily like dressing up and i particularly hate scary things. plus i’m so easily startled already. perhaps my dislike stems from a young age where i wanted to be a ghostbuster and not a pumpkin. i guess we’ll never know. regardless we always dressed up; and in typical minnesota fashion had to make sure that a snowsuit or winter jacket could fit under your costume.

i had never carved a pumpkin until my freshman year in college. *gasp* we intended to go to a pumpkin patch but ended up getting them at a cub foods. not the same. but it was fun. the next year we carved pumpkins again and panda and i started a halloween tradition of going to get free chipotle and watching rocky horror picture show. it was fantastic. the next years i actually dressed up and went out to halloween parties; junior year costume with much more effort than senior year. flannel + hat + brown boots? yee haw!

the first halloween [b] and i were dating i spent halloween in las vegas for a conference; as if the people watching wasn’t good enough on a regular day there. last year we went to emma krumbee’s in belle plaine, mn and picked apples and pumpkins – we got one for starksthepup too, of course. we all carved them and though you might not believe it starks turned out the best. we meant to hand out candy on halloween night but there were maybe one or two kiddos that stopped. lame.

this year we meant to go to some sort of a pupmkin patch again. but with all of the craziness of moving and traveling and [b] going to china we settled for a farmers market which worked out just fine. last night we carved them and yes, starks has the winning pumpkin again. (after he got done picking it up my the stem and carrying it around the house) we enjoyed them inside for the night because the squirrels in st. louis park are the absolute WORST. the destroyed our beautiful pumpkins we got a few weeks ago. so these babies won’t go outside until tomorrow.

our new neighborhood has tons of little kiddos so we’re excited to have lots of trick or treaters. we’re prepared to have to tag team the candy gig; one of us hold starksthepup back and the other distributes the candy. additionally, we trying to determine some rules for a drinking game that correlates with what they are dressed up as. characters from frozen and TMNT are supposed to be the top ones so we could associate a shot/drink/etc. with a certain costume. details yet to be determined. more on that next week as well as the unveiling of the ladies of marketing halloween costumes. and yes, all three of us in our little team are dressing up much. it’s gonna be fabulous.

we are #realbloggerbeauty

hello, friends! i want to thank all of you for reading and sharing your sweet words with my yesterday following my post on #realbloggerbeauty and living with depression, anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder. i was truly overwhelmed with the amount of responses to it (overwhelmed in a happy way – not an anxious way :)) hearing people tell me that reading it made them feel comforted because they could relate it just about the best thing ever. i feel like i was given the gift of writing so that i could share my story so that other people may feel that “i’m not alone” moment, and maybe feel empowered to share their story. because we all have a wonderful story worth telling. a story that makes us who we are. and that is so beautiful.

i want to also give a ginormous shout out to Maya from Charmingly Styled for creating #realbloggerbeauty. consider this a virtual hug! she is truly a fabulous example of how simply lovely the blogging community can be. thank you, Maya, for giving us a forum to strip away the filters and get real. i have loved reading through all of the bloggers who participated in this project; both people whose blogs i frequent and those whom i am now a newbie follower to their blog. i highly encourage you to stop over and check out my fellow bloggers stories; Maya has them all linked up on her blog page here. And hey, if you feel like sharing your story she is leaving the link up open for a couple more weeks!

toodles! xo