I Love Me Some Winter

I really, really do. Two snow storms in two weeks made my happy radar skyrocket. Cold, snowy days make me want to stay in, snuggle up in warm pajamas and watch movies. They are my rainy day equivalent. I love looking outside and seeing the ground blanketed in the white, fluffy stuff. I have no clue why, but I get extremely excited and happy when it snows. I swear two-thirds of my Facebook friends bitch and complain about snow in their status updates, so I know I'm outnumbered when it comes to enjoying winter. But I don't let their negativity bother me. No, sir, I don't.

I'll admit though, the hour and 15 minutes it took me to drive home tonight (when it should have only been 20 minutes) in this storm did frustrate me, but the second I pulled into the drive all my anger towards Mother Nature disappeared. I feel like a little kid, watching it collect and pile up on the roads, hoping it turns into a school day being closed. Seriously, I want the snow to get so deep so I can work from home tomorrow.

I don't like New Year's resolutions, but...

I'm going to make one. My New Year's resolution this year is to update this damn blog once a week. All five of my followers better hope more exciting events and other bloggable happenings occur in our lives this year, or you will be seeing random posts about our cat or what we ate for dinner. I'm serious people, I have to keep this thing updated on a weekly basis because I refuse to receive any more texts from an unidentified friend that read, "If someone didn't know any better, they'd think those burglars stole your internet connection 'cause you haven't blogged since!"

I should say our lives aren't without memorable and exciting events - a significant reason for my lack of blogging is due to procrastination and laziness. Maybe my post next week - or maybe a surprise double blog this week - will be a recap of what I didn't blog about post burglary. Let the 2011 Blog New Year's Resolution begin!

Oh, and the friend was Brenna. :) This is Brenna.

Come on in, Assholes.

Somebody broke into our house Friday, in the middle of the freakin' afternoon. I was at work, and Mike just packed the car to come get me so we could go to Wichita for the weekend. About 10 minutes from the house, he had this gut feeling he left the under cabinet lights on, so out of fear of burning the house down, he turned around to make sure they were off. When he got back to the house 20 minutes after he left, he found our door kicked in and the window panes broken.

There wasn't much damage in the house, only the door and a broken lamp. They stole our ipods and our earbuds (which are really expensive noise canceling ones), $60 and my work laptop. They rummaged through our bedroom, our nightstand and closets.

Considering all the things that could have happened, it's a minimal loss and everything is OK. Still, it feels gross to know some stranger was in my bedroom, touching my personal belongings. And I'm pissed off to think someone was able to take advantage of us - it kind of feels like someone undermined our intelligence for not taking better measures to secure the house.

Here is the only good thing - he/she cut themselves on the glass and left blood in a couple places, and they brought a lab van out to take a DNA swab.



So Asshole, if you're reading this, I hope your cut gets infected with Tetanus, and I hope you live in fear that we have your DNA and we will catch you.

P.S. I would appreciate it if you brought our stuff back. And Mike is really pissed off at you.

Chapter Two: Why Did I do this to myself?

For reasons not worth mentioning, I ended up trekking home from San Francisco via train. Kelly did the smart thing, got on a plane and made it back to KC in four hours. But Kristen, the nut job you've all come to love, turned her return trip into a 48-hour Amtrak ride. (I did get an extra day in San Francisco. Trade-off?)

My schedule went a little like this:
Sunday, leave San Francisco on a bus at 7 a.m.
25 minutes later arrive in Emeryville, Calif.
4-hour train to Bakersfield, Calif.
2-hour bus ride to L.A.
2-hour layover at L.A. Union Station (get hit on by security guard)
36 hours later, arrive at Union Station in KC Tuesday morning



For two days I had a lot of alone time. As cheesy and cliché (ugh, saying cliché is so cliché) as it sounds, I spent the entire time en route to L.A., soul searching and in emotional thought. The remaining 40 hours I spent reading a lot of magazines and completing a word search puzzle booklet a guy gave me on the train. Though it was with hesitation before I decided to accept the book; he weirded me out a little. I think it was because of what he randomly started pulling out of his backpack – a very used cordless phone and a pair of spurs that got tangled in his earbuds that were connected to his SpongeBob Squarepants mp3 player.

Show and tell time aside, many thoughts ran through my head and the time spent alone was not as painful and drawn out as I anticipated. Though I was really stretching for ideas to keep myself entertained, I decided to take inventory of my internal commentary over the next 24 hours to share with you.

~A Twitter account would have come in handy on this trip.

~Why am I so terrified of getting trapped in the bathroom on this train?

~Apple juice over ice is absolutely delicious.

~I’m so lonely.

~Oh no! I’ve had my contacts in for three days.

~I have never heard anyone snore as loud as the man across the aisle.

~I’m moving to San Francisco.

~I think I may have lost weight on this trip. Who loses weight on vacation?

~I think I’m being followed…

~I seriously thought I saw Zachary Levi in L.A. It wasn’t him.

~What is a polliwog?

~Was it considered racist that I said “Sitting Indian Style” out loud while I was in New Mexico?

~I am becoming a hat person. I received a million compliments on my hat.

~I wonder how annoyed my friends are that I keep constantly texting them? I’m lonely people, talk to me!

~What in the hell?! I didn’t know there was a secret leg compartment under the seats. That would have made my first night of slumber on the train a bit more comfortable.

~Can I pull of red lipstick?

Yes, people, I took notes on my thoughts, how lame am I? Especially when I had my brother’s dvd player and I never once turned it on. What is wrong with me?! (That was part of my soul searching, to figure out what in the world is wrong with me.)

Chapter One: Kristen Hearts San Francisco

Along with Kelly, my college roommate, I trekked out to San Francisco recently. I'm going to try my best to stick to the fun details, but do not be surprised to read numerous mentions of my love for this great city.

We stayed with my friend Bill at his Russian Hill apartment. From outside you could look down to the water and had a perfect view of Alcatraz. Sadly, we didn’t buy our tickets quick enough and all of the Alcatraz tours were sold out. This was a huge disappointment for me! But to cope, the three of us walked down to a neighborhood video store that seemed to resemble the record store from High Fidelity, and rented The Rock from their San Francisco video section.

We took in as much of the city as we could. Our goal was to wake up early each morning to have maximum sightseeing time. We never left the house before 10:45 a.m. Needless to say we left without exploring the entire city – a perfect reason to go back soon. Very soon.

Neither Kelly nor I prepared for all the walking we did. The second day on our trip ended with treating ourselves to foot massages near Fisherman’s Wharf. The only problem was that we had to walk back to Bill’s apartment. His apartment was on the corner of a streetcar stop, and to our relief, we walked a few blocks and hopped on a streetcar to get back.

We picked the wrong day on our trip to visit the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an amazing site nonetheless, but there was lots of fog in this area and it was freezing! We walked almost half way across and decided to turn back because it was so cold. It was on our walk back that two guys on a tandem bicycle ran into Kelly.

And I think this is a perfect time to talk about the weather. I was shocked at how cold San Francisco is in August. I had no idea! Apparently, it all depends on where you are in the city; obviously the closer to the water you are, the colder it is. Maybe it was just shocking to go from 110 degrees in Kansas City to 50 degrees a couple days later. Doesn’t matter, I love snow so this weather had no negative effect on me.

We mastered the MUNI bus system and made our way over to the neighborhood I yearned to live in when I was a child – the Painted Ladies, or to every 90s kid, the Full House street. Not surprisingly, it’s nothing like I imagined for the past 20 years; it’s a block with five or six houses and that’s it. I pictured this park in the middle of a neighborhood and each side of the park had houses that looked like this famous row of homes. This was not the case.

And there were lots more excursions and fun happenings that occurred. We got a little lost trying to find a donut shop one morning, we went to Ghirardelli Square and even had a cab driver who reigned from KC. We ate lots of delicious food, and ate at a restaurant called the Stinking Rose where Bill’s side dish was simply three roasted garlic bulbs. Oh, and I never saw Bush Man. We rode the streetcars a million times, visited Chinatown, climbed Lombard Street and more that I’m forgetting to mention.

(That's Bill, serenading us over a garlic-infused dinner)

I’m writing too in depth about our trip and this is becoming a very long post! But it’s because I had a fantastic time, this is by far one of the best cities I have ever visited. We had multiple people stop us and talk to us, give us suggestions on how to visit their city, offer us their unused subway passes and point us in the right direction. The people were friendly, I loved that the city wasn’t populated with chain stores, the weather wasn’t humid and I LOVED that we didn’t have to rent a car. I will be moving to this city soon; I absolutely loved it. You can click here to see the rest of my photos from the trip.

Stay tuned for the second chapter of this story (seriously, this isn’t the end of my trip).

Mikey = Daddy???

(Let's just start this post off by saying that I'm more than a month behind on posting this. Obviously.)

Right around Father's Day we received a Father's Day card in the mail. Mike didn't want to open it because he thought it was meant for someone else, but somehow the envelope magically opened and out came the card, letter and photo. Luckily, I didn't break any laws and the card was meant for Mike.



Here is what the letter said:

Dear Michael,
I don't know where to start, but the upcoming Father's Day prompted me to reach out to you. It's been a long time since that crazy freshman year at K-State (insert rapid heart beat on my end). Although it has been a struggle, I have been blessed with your son. Jerome Michael Williams Junior was born on Nov. 11, 2003. I am attaching a picture to show you what a handsome boy he has become. He has your eyes!!!! Little Jerome was really excited when he found out that he does have a daddy. I hope you don't mind that I let him sign this card for you. Maybe kids will let up on the teasing at school once they know that Jerome's father is in Independence, Mo. Hopefully you will meet him some day.

Your Baby Mama, LaShawnda

P.S. He really wants an iPad for his 7th birthday this November.




WTF?! So I started freaking out a little thinking Michael had some floozy on the side before we got together, and then the 'LaShawnda' brought up the red flags. It took us a while but we looked at the envelope and noticed it was stamped in OKC. LaShawnda and baby Jerome were Chase and Elena - Mike's BF and his wife. Impressive my friends, very impressive. It is understandable why I got a little nervous, right? The kid did have Mike's curly hair, so you do the math.

Let the prank war begin...

Attachment Issues

Michael has been adding grown up clothes to his wardrobe recently which forced us to go through his closet and purge. We ended up finding this old jacket that was his dad's from 1988. I remember Mike wearing it all the time in college when we would go for walks around campus at night. As you can see, it's very discolored, and what you can't see are the rips and tears on the back. It looks like he pulled it out of a trash bin or took it from a homeless guy. He just informed me that we will be delicately hand-washing it to see if we can get the yellow spots to go away so he can keep it.

I have this hot pink cardigan that I bought in college one year. I'm sure all of you have seen me wear it at one time or another. Mike gives me crap about it and tells me I need to throw it away from the numerous holes in sleeves and around the collar. I would even wear it to work and someone would always come up to me and say, "You know you have a hole in your shirt?" DUH! But it's still in my closet and I still wear it. I cannot get rid of it. It's one of my favorite articles of clothing and I've been shopping for a replacement for two years now. Nothing comes close.

PETA would be so pissed at us if they knew

We had an unwelcome guest joining Snickers in the garage for about a month. It would come in late at night and eat all of her food. So we killed it. There, I said it. We killed a raccoon. We tried the PETA way of trying to catch it without harming it and it didn't work out so we took matters into our own hands. Don't judge us.

We were going to put pictures on here and Michael had this funny idea to make the post look like a CSI: Miami crime scene thing, but then we realized the pictures were too graphic and we didn't want to be arrested for animal cruelty.

So if you ever need to get rid of a raccoon in your garage, you know who to call. We'll get the job done.


(We'll give you one guess as to what's in the target bag/kitty litter container.)

The worst 'blogger' ever award goes to...

Me. I'm lazy. I'm going to try and update more often.

We have a roommate

Scott is in KC teaching a class at the Med Center for a few weeks and he will be staying with us while he is in town. He's been hard at work helping Mike with house projects.



The three of us actually spent the day working on the front yard, drinking cold beverages and cooking with our new FireWire flexible skewers. Quite fun! I think having a roommate has been good for us - we get up and are ready for work on time (which rarely happens). We'll see how long it lasts.