Thursday Thirteen

1. My birthday was yesterday.  Happy birthday to me!  I think my body was rejecting turning another year older since I was sick Monday and Tuesday.  I bounced back yesterday though and am feeling a lot better today.

2. We didn't really do anything to celebrate my birthday or JC's (his was Monday) since I was sick.  So we are going to celebrate this weekend.  Luckily, we have some pretty cool friends who scheduled their wedding at a perfect time to coincide with our birthdays.  That was surely their plan the whole time, right?

 
3. The Kitchen Witch giving away what looks to be an amazing book today, Looking Up: A Memoir of Sisters, Survival and Skokie.  Head on over to her blog to check out an excerpt of the book and to enter for a chance to win!

4. I want to eat this.  Now.  I don't care if it's only 10:00 am.  It looks divine. 

5. I'm going to suggest to my volleyball team that we eat at Flat Top before our game tonight, just because of the above recipe.  It's as close as I can get for the time being.

6. We got our garden planted over the weekend.  We put in 8 different varieties of tomatoes, green, yellow and red peppers, jalapenos, banana peppers, cucumbers, zucchini, turnips, radishes, cilantro, basil, and strawberries.  I would've liked to have put even more in, but we had to stop somewhere.  Are you growing anything this year? 

7.  I really loved this post on the Corn Corps yesterday talking about consumer choice when it comes to Meatless Mondays.  Tell me what your thoughts are on this.  I think you know where I stand.

8. This weekend is going to be a busy one.  Not only do we have a wedding, but I also have the Fat Ass 5K!  I've been looking forward to this since the day after last year's!  I don't think anything really beats running while eating junk food and drinking beer. 

9. Maybe the Warrior Dash will.  We'll see how that compares in 13 weeks!

10. We've finally had some hot sunny days that are perfect for planting.  I've talked to a few farmers that have finished with corn and are now working on beans.  What a relief after the endless rain and crummy weather we had for a while! 

11. Monkey had her checkup yesterday with the dentist and she did so amazingly well!  Normally, they just take a look in her mouth to make sure everything is going okay and then put flouride on her teeth.  She screams and cries the entire time.  This time was different.  I had her come back and watch the last 10 minutes of my cleaning and I think it made a world of difference!  She sat so calmly and let them do what they had to do, she did SO well, they were even able to do more than normal and cleaned and polished them!  Here's to hoping all appointments go that smoothly. 

12. Interested in getting an insider's look at pro-gun rights strategies for the coming year?  You should think about attending this year's Gun Rights Policy Conference in Chicago.  I went two years ago when they had it in Springfield and found it to be very informative.  I'm hoping to go again this year.

13. I'm going to leave you with this picture, because it makes me smile.