Someday I Will...

Yesterday, when I read Taylor, over at The Daily Tay was hosting a link-up party today I immediately wrote it down in my planner so I wouldn't forget.

The Daily Tay is one of my absolute favorite blogs to read! Taylor is hilarious and I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to get my linkyparty on with her!

So without further Ado...

Someday I will...

...Finish a bottle of shampoo, or tube of mascara

I hate to make the effort to scrape out the last bits, so I always just move on to the next bottle.

Too much work.

...Stop using the word 'commercialing'

My mom tells me it's not a real word, but I just don't believe it quite yet.

...Be able to swallow a pill without gagging.

I swear I'm 26.

...Tell the server my order is wrong

I hate confrontation, so in the meantime I'll just eat this hamburger with the mustard on it anyway.

...Quit biting my nails

Unlikely, but maybe.

...Be right and my husband will be wrong.

It has to happen at some point in our lives right?

...Remember how to spell 'definitely' without spell-check fixing it for me every time

...Find a pillow that doesn't hurt my neck or give me a pillow headache every morning

...Take a selfie

I just can't get past the awkwardness yet.

...Learn HTML

...Have a clear vision and direction for my life plan

For now I'm still just trying to find the free food, and use my Student ID for as long as I can. 

.........................................

What will you do someday? 

Go link up with Taylor!  

Dallas Part II

I almost didn't recognize blogger when I sat down to start writing this post...you know, since it's been so freakin' long since I've done so.

...But oh boy did I just finish the most fantastic weekend ever! My sister got married, I had family in town, it was just the best.

BUT I still have other fun things to finish telling you about too, like my Dallas trip that happened earlier this month.

Remember when I started telling you about it here?

Let's finish shall we?!

After we spent an afternoon peeking through the windows of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum - you know, cause the government shut down and wouldn't let us in - we put on our best "Texas" outfit and headed out to a local honkey-tonk for some dancing, drinking, and best of all, my bff Kristy! 

I've known Kristy since the 7th grade. We went to school together until she and her family moved to Texas in the 8th grade but we've kept in touch ever since.

She was in my wedding, I was in hers, and fortunately she still has family out here in AZ, so whenever she comes to visit her family I get to see her too! It's a win-win, really.

So I made sure to let her know we'd be coming to Dallas and we needed to meet-up!

So that's what we did.

She took us all to Cowboys Red River where she tried to teach me to two-step, we had fireball whiskey for the first time (deeeelish), and it was Charlene's fake birthday.

Charlene's fake birthday was a spontaneous occurrence. She didn't plan it, neither did the rest of us, but it got her free drinks for the night so I think it was a good decision in the long run. 

It was a fantastic night, with terrible pictures. 

Cause the iPhone takes terrible pictures at night. You just can't get around it.

But you also just can't get around the fact that it was a fantastic night either.

Saturday was (insert trumpet noises here) game day!!! 

Charlene came up with the hashtag #friendshipdivided and I was kind of upset that I couldn't use it because I couldn't freakin' post anything on social media all night because I have Sprint and you can't get reception in Cowboys stadium

...or anywhere else for that matter.

But either way, it was indeed a friendship divided for the day.

Anywhere we went people would be like, "Whoa wait a minute. What's going on here?!"

You can tell them a few things:

"We make it work."

"We're frenemies."

"What do you mean??" 

All of which, were employed at least once throughout the day.

ASU lost, which is a total bummer, but the fact that we got to meet Luis Gonzalez made up for everything. Remember when we met Luis Gonzalez??

Gonzo made up for ASU's loss and the Bush Library being closed all in a matter of 

30 seconds.

Gonzo's pretty magical.

Then again, the entire day was pretty magical.

Sunday we went to church in the morning, and explored Downtown Dallas for the rest of the day.

 We ate lunch from food trucks at Klyde Warren Park, a beautiful public space on top of an overpass, and explored the Perot Museum of Science and History, where we saw the animal version of Body Worlds. 

If you don't know what that is, Google that shiz. 

They wouldn't let me take pictures inside.

Also, we learned the only difference between and goat and a sheep is the direction in which their tails wag. Goats go horizontal and sheep wag vertically.

You're a little bit smarter now thanks to that fun factoid.

The day was fabulous and my feet really hurt by the end of it all. And when your feet hurt you always know it means you did a good job of vacationing. 

Monday morning before we left for the airport, Erin and I went to Dealy Plaza and The 6th Floor Museum, where President Kennedy was assassinated.

They wouldn't let me take pictures inside either, so this is the only one I have for the day.

Learning about Kennedy, his Presidency, his assassination, and the aftermath was fascinating, and kind of eerie all at the same time.

When you go up to the 6th floor of the building, where the shooter shot Kennedy from, you look down onto the street and there's an X on the street marking the spot where Kennedy was killed.

It's pretty eerie. 

After the museum we had to head to the airport, return the rental, and wait for our flights home...womp womp.

A few rounds of MASH later and we were back in Phoenix before we knew it.

Good news, I get to live at Hogwarts with Luis Gonzalez as my husband.

Bad news, I have 12 kids.

So even though we didn't get to see what we went to Dallas for, the Bush Library and Museum, the trip was far from ruined and we had a ton-o-fun. 

And that's a lot of fun in case you don't know how much a ton of fun weighs. 

And plus, it just gives us another excuse to go to Dallas so we can 

actually go inside and see the Library next time. 

Dallas 2014!

Oh Hey...

Ok so this blogging just once a week thing is getting old, right? Especially when I'm trying to recap my Dallas trip. BUT this has been a BUSY month over here in the Townsend household, and it's about to get even busier. I even made a little list thingy to prove it:

See? Busy. Yes, Halloween is spelled wrong, but I couldn't figure out how to go back and edit on the freakin' app thing I was using for this. If you didn't notice the spelling error, pretend I didn't just say all that. Anyway, I was hoping to finish Dallas this week, but I can't make any promises. My sister gets married on FRIDAY (woop woop!) and there's a crap-ton to still do before then. So I may see you blog peeps later this week, I may not.
Either way, have a fantastic Monday, mmk?!

Dallas Part I and a Shutdown Solution

Alright guys, judging by my prolonged absences from blog-land, I have a lot to tell you.

Let's start with with my trip to Dallas (which might be broken up into parts, cause I'm starting this post late and I'm already starting to yawn...)

Soooooo if you follow me on Instagram, which by the way, I feel like I started my last post out the same way. Is anyone else feeling like Insta is kind of a spoiler for your blog posts? You already know what I did, why am I blogging about it?

Anyway, if you follow me on Instagram you know I took a trip to Dallas with a couple 

of my girlfriends.

Woop woop! Girls trip!

We rented a minivan (four women + four women's luggage really left us no choice but to go with the minivan) and road-tripped it out to Dallas.

Why Dallas you ask? Why are you vacationing to Dallas?

Well, the answer I'd been giving was, 

"Well, umm you know, ASU is playing Notre Dame at Cowboys stadium that weekend, and I have a girlfriend out there, and you know, just for a girls trip and stuff."

I have a confession, though.

That's not the real reason we went out to Dallas.

We went to Dallas to go see the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum that was just opened this Spring.

Woof. There, I said it.

I'd stopped giving that answer because whenever I did people would be like,

"Oh cool! But really, why are you going to Dallas?"  

I know, normal women in their mid-twenties don't go traveling around the country to visit Presidential Libraries. And then pile on the fact that it's Bush, and it's just not an easy task trying to convince someone that yes, this is in fact, how I want to spend my vacation.

Only problem is we didn't get to see the Library.

Wanna know why?

Cause the night before we left for our trip the Government shut down.

And since the Library is run by the National Archives, you guessed it, the Library was shut down too.

We made our way down there anyway, since the restaurant and the gift shop would be open, and since we love both shopping and eating, we figured we'd make what we could out of it.

At least we knew the Library was closed ahead of time, there were other folks walking up thinking it was open. We chose not to say anything to them, but rather, see the looks on their faces
when they read the signs.
So sad. Turn on the news people.

So needless to say, this was as close as we were gonna get.

Thanks a lot Congress.

So you know, we got a good view of the outside.

...And that's about it.

We were hoping the Government would open before we left Dallas so we could see the Library before we had to head home.
And when that didn't happen, we hoped the Government would stay closed, cause I was gonna be reaaaalllly mad if we got home on Monday and the Government was open for business on Tuesday.
But now, since that didn't happen, I'm ready for the Government to be open again.
You know, just like they're legally and constitutionally bound to do so.

Since Congress can't seem to figure out a way to make it work,  I've figured I'd help them out. I've basically come up with a list of solutions on how to make our politicians get along better and so that they can re-open the Government.
I'm like, 87% sure they'll work.

I call it:

Operation: PBFFs

(political best friends forever)

(cause Washington loves acronyms)

Democrats and Republicans (and Libertarians too, for good measure) should do the following in order to get along, and take care of business so the government can open up again and tourists can go see the Bush Library (too bad that won't be me):

-Attend floor sessions dressed in Halloween costumes...cause I bet you'd feel really silly fighting with your fellow congressman dressed as a Teletubby.

-Change the party mascots (or whatever they're called)...cause quite frankly nobody wants to be called an elephant or a donkey (or the other word people use for donkey), so right off the bat I'm sure it puts people on the defensive.

-Text message each other pictures like this:

Cause you can't really be mad at someone after this pops up on your phone.

-Play with puppies together.
People bond over puppies.

Take mine for example:

Bond over puppies, bond over the debt ceiling, and bada-boom-bada-bing you've got a productive United States Congress.

-Share good jokes
People bond over good jokes too.
And plus, I always look at someone with a little more respect after they tell me a good joke.
Example:
Q: What's Forest Gump's password?
A: 1forest1
...Funny right?! I could totally hash out a budget and avoid Federal default after that kind of a doozy.

-Do a ropes course together
The kind where you do all kinds of team building activities and the classic "trust fall."
Nothing says let's make a deal quite like,
"I'll bring your bill to the Senate floor for negotiation if you catch my body falling 
from 20 feet up."

-And last but not least...
Uncle Si 2016!!!

Part of me feels like it's my fault the Government isn't open by now.
I should've given them these tips a long time ago. Like, before we left for Dallas so that they didn't
ruin our vacation.
I hate it when the government ruins your vacation.

Good thing we had other fun things planned...which I'll tell you about later.
Ugh, so lame I know. But this would be one mother of a blog post if I didn't stop now.

This post originally posted on Hayley's blog

An Open Letter to Luis Gonzalez

Guys, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but I just can't help it.

If you follow me on Instagram (which if you aren't, why the heck not? @MissRiss0409) you know I was just in Dallas doing a little vacationing with some girlfriends. Since this is my first post back in blogland, I should be telling you all about my trip from the beginning...

But I'm going to go a little out of order here, because I'm having some regrets and want to get a few things off my chest.

My girlfriends and I were fortunate enough to find tickets last minute to the ASU vs. Notre Dame game in Dallas (I'll tell you all about it later), but before the game even started the most amazing thing happened.

We met Luis Gonzalez.

If you're not from AZ, or don't follow baseball (which if you aren't, why the heck not?) you may not be familiar with Luis Gonzalez.

He's ONLY the guy who won the World Series for the Diamondbacks in 2001 with a hit off of Mariano Rivera, the best closer of all time, in the bottom of the 9th inning, in Game 7.

In other words, he's kind of a big deal.

His number is retired in Chase Field

And we met him.

And we freaked out.

Or at least I did.

After we asked to take a picture with him, all I could get out was 

"Thank you! Thanks so much! Thank you!"

And that was it.

So, all that to say, I'm regretting I didn't say more to him. 

So, here, I've penned an open letter to Luis Gonzalez with what I really meant to say to him.

You know, beyond "omg thanks so much!" 

Dearest Gonzo (he doesn't know it yet, but we're totally on a nick-name basis),

I was a freshman in high school when I watched you from my living room, win the World Series for the state of Arizona and the Diamondbacks.

I laid there, on my living room floor (cause duh, too tense to sit in your chair right?) with my fingers and toes crossed...but only my right fingers and right toes cause everyone knows if you cross your left limbs it's bad luck...praying that somehow, some way, you guys would make it happen. And you sir, were that person.

I also just wanted you to be aware that I faithfully combed the sports section of the Arizona Republic on the reg, so that I could cut out pictures of you and the rest of the Dbacks and make collages to hang in my locker at school. 

They were pretty BA collages. 

Just sayin. 

If I knew you were gonna be at the football game I would've brought one to show you my artistic capabilities. I mean, I didn't win the World Series for anyone, but I made a pretty mean collage of newspaper clippings.

So really, I just want to tell you that you're the shiz. And also tall. You're really tall in person. But mostly you're the shiz. 

I was totally prepared to tweet you all of this, but I can't find you on Twitter. And I wasn't really sure if "fan mail" was still a thing. On second thought, that's probably why you don't have a twitter...to avoid creepy fan-girls like me. But have no fear, I'll just tweet the crap out of all the Dbacks personnel I follow and hopefully someone will give you the message. The message that you're the shiz and I was totally star-struck to have met you and I wish I would've told you all of this in person. It's probably better that it worked out this way; you would've been embarrassed if I word-vomited all of this non-sense right there at Cowboys Stadium with your posse in tow...I would've been emarrassed...so really, it's a win-win that we go this route. 

With any luck, maybe someone with the Dbacks will tweet me back or read this blog. I used to judge the desperate teenagers who used social media to get a reaction out of celebs, but after meeting you I had an epiphany...I'm not above using social media to beg for attention. So that's what I'm gonna do. Cause I want you to read this. Or Derrick Hall. Is he still your boss?

Lastly....were you rooting for Notre Dame or ASU?? I mean, I know you said your brother played for Notre Dame (I think?) but c'mon, you have to root for the hometown team right?? Either way, we can still be friends. 

I lied. 

One more thing.

My friend Sarah told you to make something happen with our pitching for next year and you suggested she be our GM...you may wanna take her up on that offer. She's pretty good. Talk to Towers would ya?

On that note, Gonzo...you're the man.

Sincerely,  

Don't forget us, K?