A very vino weekend!

This weekend I wine tasted and it was fantastic!

One of the major benefits of living where we do, is that we basically have our very own Napa Valley just a hop skip over in Yamhill County. Yes, it is a much chillier and really probably not like Napa Valley, but it is very beautiful none the less. And they have wine! So… yeah. It’s awesome. Know what else is awesome? The fact that I went to college out there! I would say that we all (speaking directly to my fellow wildcats) took for granted that our college was in such a beautiful place. At least I can say that we took advantage of the wineries for a couple years. Turning 21 in wine country was not so shabby!

We started the day with brunch and mimosas, packed the car with snacks and hit the road! We visited Penner Ash, Adelsheim, Bergstrom and Colene Clemens. Our least favorite was Adelsheim. They were crazy pretentious and had pathetic pours. We paid to be in here! You might as well be nice and quit being so stingy with your vino! You have a few grape vines… I don’t think you’re going to run out! All the others were marvelous though. Amazing wines at Penner Ash, snacks and cool stories at Bergstrom and Colene Clemens had a pup and a fire place. Who doesn't love a cute puppy and cozy fireplace!?

Get ready for a ridiculous amount of photos!

Sista friend! 

Marina and my lovely mother! 

Mama Jo was our chauffeur extraordinaire! 

Just a few texts went out... Sorry I'm not sorry Brian! 

Pretty friends and tasty wine. This was the place w/ snacks! We were about it. 

Marina's new friend

I hope your weekends were stellar too! 

The science of sleep

Disclaimer: I have not taken a real science class since 2002ish. I am terrible at both math and science. But I guess you already read about the math thing. Also, this post isn't actually about science at all. It is about sloth.

I was once told that if you don’t get a lot of sleep for a bunch of years your body will spend the next however many years trying to catch up on those lost hours. This is clearly not true, but the theory was that if your body needs 6 hours of sleep to function normally, but you regularly only give it 5 over the span of a year, your body will “bank” the lost 365 needed hours and try to make it up. The best solution would obviously be 365 hour long naps.

I am certain I have used this photo of Lauren and Marina napping before. It is just too perfect!

Doesn't this feel true sometimes though!? Say you stayed up late on Saturday and didn't get to sleep-in on Sunday. Even if you get normal sleep amount on Sunday night, it feels like you are still recovering on Monday. Which you may be, as this is on a much smaller scale. It does make me wonder though, what about new moms? Do they have a bank of lost sleep hours that make them say things like, “because I’m the adult and you’re the kid.” You guys, they were still tired from the agony that you put them through when you were an infant! Maybe. Probably not. It is an interesting theory though.

Don’t worry guys! I have more on this completely uninteresting topic.

My co-worker once told me about a study that was done where they put people in a house or room or something where they had access to food for 3 meals per day, as well as entertainment and a place to sleep. BUT they couldn't see the daylight progression. These people were just supposed to go about their lives. It was a study on the natural habits of people and our natural body clock. From the study (that may or may not be real) they found that after time, these people were living 25 hour days! Based on when they ate their meals, how their bodies naturally slept etc. They were living 25 hour days!!! That means the real reason we always feel like we are catching up is because our day is one hour too short.

I’m not crazy right? Don't we all feel like we are constantly trying to catch up with our own lives? One more hour to get laundry done, or take a bath, or sleep longer, or linger at Target! Wouldn't that be amazing!? I love Target.

What a stupid post. I don't even care. I'm going wine tasting this weekend! TGIF!

Old is the new young!

Today is my birthday! As a gift to myself, I will not be writing a big long blog post.

So please go about your day and celebrate me. You may also celebrate my mother! Today I thank her for her (epidural free) hard work to bring me into this world.

I was born. You are welcome.

Potential new career? SPORTS!

I don't watch a lot of sports. Are you shocked!? But when I do watch sports, all I can think about is how stupid the game time reporter commentary is. There is a friendly type boy in my life who doesn't get a lot of mention on this here internet place, but as we spend more time together, my exposure to professional athletics has doubled (from almost none to a little).  And in this observation of athletics, I now have a claim out there in the universe, and now on the internet, that I could be a halftime/ post-game reporter! Seriously. All they do is say something everyone already knows and then ask an obvious question.

All you have to say is stuff like,

"I bet coach [name] is giving the players some real encouragement right now."

OR

"The team with the most points will most definitely be victorious in this match-up. Back to you [name]."

OR

"Tough loss. How are you feeling?" and "Great win! How are you feeling?" and "That was some hard play in the second half. How are you feeling?"

THEN

"Big win for the [mascot]. Back to you [name]."

The only people who need to know stuff are the real reporters in the studio. Everyone else just sounds like blithering idiots. I could TOTALLY be just as stupid as them. Please email me with any job openings or potential hiring opportunities that you hear of. Thank you.

“She clearly has done her homework in preparation for this blog post. In the end she gave it all she had, it JUST wasn't enough today. Back to you real bloggers.”

Things I am not good at: Math

My name is Laura and I am terrible at math. Not just like normal person bad, but like REALLY bad.

To this day I add on my fingers and can only multiply by the low numbers or 10. I remember thinking long division was fun. But I think that is just because I liked my 4th grade teacher. I also know that I was bad at it. Hey, you can be bad at something and still think it is fun! Reference: Things I am not good at: Sports.

Ways my poor math skills inhibit my daily life:
- When I tip, I never add change to the tip to make the total rounded out. You think I can do that math!? You are wrong.
- On the same topic of tipping. I am also a really good tipper. Not because I am super generous, but because I only know how to make 10% from the total. I then of course double it (Yeah! multiply by 2 booya!). And if there is a weird amount of change I will round up to the next whole dollar. Most of my tips are over 20%. Especially at bars or buying other low cost items.

Basically, being bad at math is making me poor. It isn't all bad though. Luckily my complete ineptitude for mathematics set me up for some really great friendships! How is this possible? Let me explain...

How bad math skills gave me great friends:
- Because I scored so low on the math portion of the SAT, I had to take a proficiency exam at Linfield.
- Because I failed the proficiency exam (are you kidding!? There were fractions! Of course I failed) I had to take a remedial math class.
- Guess who else scored low on the SAT and failed their proficiency exams? MARINA AND LIBBY!

Here we are 2 days before graduation. Posing as freshman in line for Dillin. (the dining facility for underclassman)

Because we all suck at math, we ended up in the same class at Linfield during the first semester of our freshman year. It was called Great Ideas in Math. It was Math 116 and it was hard! I mean, we all got an A in the class, but still. Libby and I would sit in my dorm room and do our homework together struggling to get through the worksheets on topics like infinity.

For a better idea of what this class was like… for our final project Libby and I made paper mache Mobius bands and changed the words to Love Shack to be about Mobius bands. We got an A.

A couple tastes of the song: 
-"I've got me a Mobius band, it has one side and one edge, and we’re headed on down to math class."
- "A Mobius band is a really cool thing that / we can learn about together! Mobius bands baby!"

This is where I say thank you to my liberal arts education. I will never forget what a Mobius band is.

Obviously this experience bonded us together because we are all still friends today. Libby and I lived together for 7 years [see this post] and Marina moves in next month. Great Ideas in Math? More like great friends for life!!

Spring Break is maddening.

Why did school give us spring break? I understand summers off for the teachers to regain sanity (so they don’t turn to the darkness and become evil). I also see why there is a winter break. It is so people can stay inside all day and not freeze to death for a couple weeks in the winter. You may think it is because of the holidays but you are wrong! It is a fact that *75% of the time, Hanukkah doesn't even fall during winter break! I call that holiday discrimination.
*Not a real statistic

But seriously what is the point of spring break!? It is just rude and discriminatory for us non-students/ non-parents of school age children. It is like it is expected that everyone just DOES spring break and escapes the remaining cold to go soak up some sunshine. As a non-student with a normal job, I say “down with spring break!” Even other normal people without kids, who have normal jobs, act like spring break is a real thing for everyone! Tell me, why does my news feed contain multiple people my age going on vacation to Palm Springs, Hawaii, Texas, Mexico, Bend and Whistler? They all have normal full-time jobs! Wouldn't they rather go at a less expensive time? AKA not spring break? You aren't in college anymore. It is time to let go.

One thing I do miss about the good old days of spring break is the awesomeness of the MTV spring break special! Remember the crazy guy VJ with long hair who was always chewing on a toothpick or cherry stem? He wore flares and platforms… must look him up. He was totally on something. I wonder if he is still alive. Songs that I recall from MTV spring break performances: the Thong Song by Sisqo and Tipsy by J-Kwon. Really mom? You let me watch that stuff!? Actually, you probably had no idea. I was sneaky like that. I don't really want to link either of those dirty videos. So instead, this video of J-Simps is hilarious! From the gauchos to her movements while singing... yikes. Enjoy!

I used to love spring break for obvious school escaping reasons. I assume I will love it again at some point. But for now, since I am bitter and at home, I say no to spring break… and yes to equal rights.

Like how I added that at the end!? I am SO political.

AIM and my work as a part time model.

Psych! I'm obviously not a model. I am considering busting out AIM again though. Dear AOL, thank you for teaching me how to type both quickly and incorrectly. Love, Laura

I just wrote that sentence after writing the post. Don't worry; it will make more sense later. But now I want to elaborate on my life as a part time model! Remember Flight of the Concords? Nope? You are missing out. Anyway, they have a funny song about "the most beautiful girl in the room (depending on the room)" and how she could be a part time model, but she should probably keep her real job too.

I just started laughing listening to it again! And yes, the girl in the video is Cher from Clueless the TV show.

You may now proceed to the original post:

I don’t know what the heck I am doing with this blog. I like to write and ramble but the longer I have a corner of the internet, the more I realize I have no idea what I am doing. Internet stuff is so beyond me! Tell me, do I now need to go on bloglovin, google analytics and that reader subscriber majig to fix my URL? Why are people all of a sudden using bloglovin!? Is it because reader is going away? I think bloglovin is so annoying to use. How dare Google get rid of something without providing us with a replacement? I just want to check my email and blogs at the same time! Is that so much to ask? At this point I may as well go back to Hotmail or AOL. If I switch back to AOL I will hear “ you've got mail” every time I log on! My life would get SO Kathleen Kelly. Maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all. I wonder if my handle from 7th grade is still available!? I’m pretty sure my password was the name of the boy I liked. Don’t worry guys, we totally “went out” and held hands at lunch time.

On a completely different note, Jenn Pfaus is da bomb! And took pictures of us rando bloggers at a PDX blogger event. She is awesome and fun, and made me feel super comfortable. But I think we can all agree that getting your picture taken alone is a terrifying and awkward experience. I’m sure fashion bloggers will say “you get used to it!” In response I say, “That is a really bizarre thing to get used to. You are weird.” Okay, back to the photo sesh. As soon as Jenn started snapping photos I forgot how to smile and couldn't remember what to do with my hands and arms. I was quickly corrected by Jade, who told me that standing with my arms plastered to my sides was a bad idea. My solution was to just laugh the whole time. Therefore my eyes were likely shut in 90% of the pictures. Sorry Jenn! I’m crazy squinty.

Jenn was great though, and by her amazing photography skills (and likely witchcraft), we ended up with some really great shots! … Although, upon getting them back I mega regret not washing my hair that day. Can’t win em all!

Peace friends! Hit me up on AIM (MissQTpie99).