Friday Five

Oh sweet week of being home before 8:00, getting a decent amount of sleep, having dinner with J Word...at home...which wasn't prepared by Chipotle or the staff lounge microwave. These are all good thing, and they have me in a much better space heading into this weekend, which will hopefully continue to feature sleeping soundly, quality fiance time, and relaxation!

I knew that it wouldn't be an automatic shift to "normality" as I caught up on those things that I let slide a bit as I went into musical crisis mode (I'm looking at you three loads of laundry!), but it has been nice to reacclimate to a schedule that is a little less crazy and much less stressful. I even got back to a workout this week, finding two chances to fit in an hour of spinning while watching movies that have sat long neglected.

So things are headed back in the right direction, and with the promise of a new auditorium in the future, and 101 things I will do differently next time, I'm not TOTALLY dreading doing another show. (I'm also not all that torn up over the fact that the musical only comes around every other year, either!) In the meantime, I'll just keep catching up on two months worth of lost sleep, enjoying home cooked meals, and getting back to all the other important things that took a backseat to musical mayhem. Here's to a great weekend! Let's kick it off with a Friday Five.

1. J Word and I are having our engagement pictures taken this weekend, and while I did not expect there to be snow on the ground for the occasion, it looks like our November photo shoot may be in a bit of a winter wonderland. I'm going to embrace this idea seeing as our first date was in the middle of a snowstorm and the beginning of our relationship was mostly spent leapfrogging from snow day, to cold day, to "how bad do the roads really have to be before I wouldn't try to get to Rochester/La Crosse" moments. I rarely think about the fact that J Word and I are an "online couple" anymore, mostly because it doesn't really matter once the real relationship is in place. However, I came across this assessment of the stages of online dating while browsing Thought Catalog and thought, "You know what...this is REALLY true!"

2. I have barely run a step since Chicago, mostly because the musical ended up taking my free time, daylight's savings time stole all my daylight hours in the afternoon, and Mother Nature dropped a premature polar vortex onto Minnesota that brought snow, and uncomfortably cold running temperatures. But I have been cycling again, and when I came across this list of the world's best marathons, I did think that I should either tough it out in running tights, or suck it up and get on the treadmill. Ugh.....oh well.....spoiler alert, Chicago is #2. Now you can just skip the list altogether!

3. Cards Against Humanity...that is all! Buy it, play it, dig through the cards making your own crazy, inappropriate hilarious combinations. I guarantee you won't be disappointed!






4. This week Kim Kardashian's butt "broke the internet," but really it just broke out everyone's chance to be ridiculously sarcastic. If you haven't see any of the numerous responses to said images, you can Google search on your own time and at your own risk, though I highly recommend the MET's response! It's classic. (Art that is...)

5. OMG! This woman apparently died from eating raw cookie dough! It's not an urban legend after all!? Be warned before you start your weekend baking!

Happy Trails