Coincidences

I recently listened to a This American Life podcast about coincidences. I happen to be one of those people who thinks that coincidences are the coolest thing ever and I love hearing them. I LIVE for these stories! I am pretty much in true awe when someone has a good coincidence story.

The wonderful reporters at This American Life were saying that people generally think that their own coincidences are far superior than those told by others. We generally don't think that other people's coincidences are really that coincidental or amazing.

Other people just flat out don't believe in coincidences. Studies say that these are supposed to be the practical people out there who have an explanation for everything. Of course this makes me think because I have always considered myself to be a practical person. I am a science major who LOVES to give explanations for why things happen but I also LOVE a good story about how 2 people just happened to be in the same place at the same time and what it could possibly mean.

Here are just a few coincidences in my own life (since about half of you out there may care):

• My name is Kelli and my sister's name is Kati. My sister's boyfriend, Brian, has 2 sisters: Kelly and Katie. Bonus- Kelly is an attorney..... and I almost am.
• My mom's birthday is March 20. My boyfriend's mom's birthday is March 20.
• A few years ago when I was shopping for a condo, I picked a random unit in a big complex to go in to see the layout and the person living there was a Clemson graduate. I am also a Clemson graduate. We are all the way in Cincinnati now which is not that close to Clemson, SC. I was obviously drawn to this condo by fate.
• My sister and I don't live in the same city and don't go shopping together. On several occasions, we have bought the same shirt/skirt/whatever separately and worn it on the same day when meeting up for a family function or to hang out.  

So, which type of coincidence person are you? Do you love hearing everyone's coincidental stories? Or do you think there are no coincidences in life? What are some of your cool coincidences? You know I would love to hear them!!


Here is a link to the podcast in case you are interested: This American Life: No Coincidence, No Story!

I highly recommend this podcast in general, they do a really good job.

Life As Bela Sees It

Bela is my dog and she is the first love of my life. She is a min pin and chihuahua mix and she is 11 pounds of solid energy. I think she is basically the coolest dog I've ever known, but of course I'm biased. What makes her so cool are the crazy things she is always doing and the fact that she truly believes she is a human. 

Bela sneaking under the covers to sleep like the humans do

Bela is six years old now so she spends half her time sleeping the day away. This dog loves to sleep; she even knows that the word "nap" means she can run into the bedroom and start getting her spot settled. She is an expert napper. (After all, she is my dog...) 

Just settling in for a nap before I got there

Bela LOVES to be under the blankets!

Even though Bela thinks she is a human, she totally would never help out with household chores. This is far beneath her. One day when I was folding laundry, she sat like this the whole time and would not make eye contact with me. 

Refusing to help out around the house

She's a goofy dog who likes to make games for herself wherever she goes. At my boyfriend's house, there are little toy mice because he has cats, and Bela likes to play the game "I'll bring all the mice in the house into whichever room we are all hanging out in at the time." Fun game, it's hilarious to watch her go back and forth with these little mice in her mouth. 

Got them all!!

So at the end of the day, Bela just loves life. She is certainly a character and she makes me laugh every day. Getting her was one of the best decisions I have ever made. She's so awesome all the time and puts all her energy into being awesome that sometimes it just wears her out. 

Sound asleep on the way back from the doggy spa one weekend

Eli's BBQ

Ah, the gloriousness that is Eli's BBQ. This wonderful restaurant is right off Columbia Parkway near The Precinct. It serves North Carolina style BBQ and it does so perfectly! I can say so since I actually have tons of experience in this area. And just like a great NC BBQ place, it has great prices, tons of good food, and the Coke comes in glass bottles. (Or Orange Crush or Ale-8-One) 

This place really is amazing and everyone should check it out again and again. If you aren't sure what to get, I recommend the pulled pork sandwich and whatever 2 sides tickle your fancy! You will not regret this folks. 

Pulled pork sandwiches and delicious sides!

So go check it out, but expect a line!! Also, there are picnic tables out back you can sit at to really complete the BBQ experience that I grew up loving so much. And if you don't live in Cincinnati, I love having visitors! 

5 After 5

*Disclaimer: I don't work for Whole Foods. I actually prefer The Fresh Market for a specialty grocery store. However, since The Fresh Market does not have events like this, Friday evenings are Whole Foods' time to shine.

If you have not yet discovered this gem of a happy hour at Whole Foods, then you are seriously missing out! Every Friday at 5pm, Whole Foods hosts an event called "5 after 5." You go and pay a measly $5 and you get a tasting of five different wines paired with five different dishes and a dessert. This is an amazing deal! And since this is a specialty grocery store, you are looking at quality wine and delicious dishes to sample. And for those of you who are worried about this being a bit too much wine, they are only half pours and it's only five dollars.... you could skip one or two and still have a good time.  And for those of you who don't drink, join your friends that do and eat their food. : )

So Friday evening after work, some friends and I headed to Whole Foods and bought our five dollar glass of wine and started around the store to embrace the fun! (Oh, another cool part is that if you bring back your glass, it only costs $4 the next time) The wine was amazing. The food was almost all amazing. The company was beyond amazing.  

Enjoying the finer things! 

So, ultimately, I can't wait till the bar exam is over and we can make this a regular thing. Everyone should look up their local Whole Foods and check this event out. It is always good to make time for the finer things in life!

My Pet Peeves

I hesitate to write this blog entry because the last thing I want to do is have someone worry about if they are being annoying to me. So I will start by saying that I don't really care if you do these things. Keep doing them. It's what makes the world go around and what not. I just want to share some things that annoy the heck out of me and probably annoy others as well.

The other day, something happened to me that I didn't really even know was a possibility because I didn't actually think that someone would actually behave like this in actual real life. But someone was obviously channeling their movie-life or video game-life when he did this. Ok, brace yourself for this:


SOMEONE PASSED ME ON A SINGLE-LANE MERGE RAMP TO THE INTERSTATE.


Really person-who-is-way-too-busy-to-drive-like-a-normal-human??? How big of a jerk do you have to be to pass me while I'm actually driving at a normal speed to merge on the the interstate where NO ONE IS EVEN MOVING BECAUSE IT'S RUSH HOUR???? This behavior has now made it on my list of pet peeves. A lot of times the person behind you on the merge ramp will drive really close to you or they will move over slightly indicating that they wish they could pass you. I just never thought someone would actually just do it.

Here are some other things that annoy me:

1. When the passenger in a car sits in the middle front seat just so they can be closer to the person driving. I mean, can you really not stand sitting an extra 2 feet away from the person?? You tend to see this more in the South so it hasn't really annoyed me as much lately.

2. The phrase, "I was just going to say..." You don't really need to preface what you are going to say with this phrase. Just say it.

3. Gum Poppers. It's just kinda gross people and there is no real need to pop that gum so the person in the other room can hear you.

4. When someone wants to continue a conversation with me after we have walked into a bathroom. Yuck! I just don't want to talk to people in the bathroom so please don't be offended if I act like I don't even know who you are if we happen to cross paths there. Nothing against you, I just don't like to linger there...

5. When people take their shoes off in public places where it's not acceptable. GROSS! People walk around the library in their socked feet or barefoot all the time at school and I have major issues with this. It's disgusting. It's even more disgusting when they go sit with their bare feet on the couches provided in the library and hang out for awhile. You couldn't pay me to sit on those couches after seeing this. Yet some people sleep on them..... (Just in case you are wondering, acceptable places to be barefoot in public are pools, yoga studios, dance classes, and a nail salon or spa.)

Of course, if you know me then you know there are many more pet peeves that I have. I just don't want to put them alllll out there to give anyone more ammunition to use against me at a later time.  :)

What are some of your pet peeves? I love hearing them; I think that a person's pet peeves tells you a lot about that person just like the kind of car they drive!

Things Not to Say to Kelli During Bar Study Time

The Ohio Bar Exam is taking place July 30-August 1. I am deep in the process of studying for this now. A few weeks ago, I posted this sign at work:

The Sign

Although the sign is meant to be funny and light, I actually am completely serious about the list. Since I've been asked for copies of the list everytime I tell the story about posting this outside of my cubical at work, I am including it here. If you know me, just don't say these things for the next few months and I won't have to be snippy with you. :) If you know anyone else taking the bar this summer, don't say these things to them. You really run the risk of being hurt as a result of us not getting enough sleep but always getting way too much caffeine and junk food. This combination can turn a person studying for the bar CRAZY in an instant with the wrong question about how our studying is going. Just warning you now!

Here is the list:

1. How's the studying going? (It's going, and that's all you need to know.)
2. You'll be fine/ok. (You have no way of knowing that unless you are personally going to be grading my exam.)
3. Are you ready? (Of course I am not ready. I won't ever be ready to go torture myself for 3 days taking an exam that determines how my life plays out.)
4. You've been studying right? (Um yes. Every free moment of my life lately. And also, just because I am studying does not mean I know what I am studying...)
5. How many more days until the exam? (I know how many days I have, I just can't bring myself to say the number out loud because it's never enough days and this thought induces panic in an instant.)
6. Are you nervous/stressed/panicked? (Yes, I am. I am just trying to appear calm and collected to psych everyone else out. Don't be fooled, I'm freaking out inside.)
7. You can take it again if you don't pass, right? (Haha, I don't even want to think about this until November if I happen to not pass. My grandmother has already asked me this, on graduation day of all days, and I wanted to throw her Mother's Day Flowers off the balcony to show her how I really felt about her question.) (Since you can't throw people off of balconies, the flowers were the next best option...)
8. I think you've had enough caffeine today. (Probably, but I NEED it. Or I think I do. I promise I will stop drinking so much caffeine once this is over. Until then, just please don't make fun of my emergency Red Bull stash in my drawer at work.)

So, if you know anyone taking the bar, just steer clear of these phrases and we should all be able to live peacefully. If not, we will all be able to sue you for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress in about 6 months!! :)

Graduation Day!!

Well, after 4 long years, I finally graduated from law school on Saturday! After months of thinking that the big day was never going to come, I got to put on that shapeless gown and floppy hat and walk across the stage and become a Juris Doctor. 
I am happy to report that I did not trip, faint, or do anything else that would be also been terribly embarassing. However, I did appear up on the jumbo-tron THREE TIMES!!! That is terribly embarassing. At least I wasn't yawning or picking my nose or anything....

I did manage to avoid an embarassing moment, but just barely. Before the ceremony, we all had to go into a meeting room at the place and line up. I took my cell phone with me so I could take some pics before we actually graduated. Since my dress or gown didn't have pockets, I just put the phone down the front of my dress and figured all would be fine. And it was.....until I got up to walk across the stage in front of everyone and their brother to graduate. Then the phone slowly started to slip down the front of my dress. I managed to keep it near my stomach by just pushing my stomach out but wow, that was stressful. I just imagined a pink phone falling out the bottom of my gown as I walked across to shake hands with the Dean and then having to bend down to pick it up. SOOOO glad that didn't happen!

 

Finally!!


We ate dinner with my family after graduation at Chez Nora in Covington. (this is my favorite place and if you have never been there, you should check it out!) Everything was delicious and we definitely celebrated just like the Dean told us we should!

I am so happy that I have completed this stage in my life. It was been an incredibly long and hard 4 years and I am so thankful for everyone who has helped me through it. Now, if everyone will just keep putting up with me for the next 3 months as I study for the bar, it will all be over soon and I will be a lawyer!!

Julia Child Wanna-Be Over Here

Every so often, I put on the ole apron and actually do the cooking for my boyfriend. Now, this may sound strange at first, but what you may not know is that my boyfriend does a phenomenal job at cooking. He is so much better than I am, it's just not even funny. And I'm actually not bad. (Just a little unorganized in the kitchen...) 

So for whatever reason, I decided that I would cook dinner for us last night. I had big plans for this dinner. I was going to tackle a Julia Child recipe involving poached fish in a white wine sauce with mushrooms. Now, I have certainly never poached fish before (or anything actually), I just figured I could put on my pearls and do it like Julia. I spent a long time actually researching all this and making sure I wouldn't look like a fool in the process. And then the doubt set in. And then this doubt mixed with the fact that didn't want to completely screw this up for our nice Friday night dinner at home. 

Well, of course, I totally chickened out and the menu changed somewhat. I still had mushrooms and fish, but I ended up with broiled salmon and mushroom pasta instead. Much simpler and still extremely delicious. I made a summer caprese salad too with tomatoes, mozzarella, avocado and cucumber as well. Whenever one cooks, I think it is vital to make something French or Italian so that you can drink wine while you are actually cooking as well. It just makes all those near disasters not seem as bad! So whole cooking my semi-Italian dinner, I absolutely had some Italian white wine. I just want to be authentic after all. 

Mushroom Pasta made by yours truly :)

Just in case you were wondering, the dinner turned out to be delicious. Even if I did forget to cut the stems off of the shitake mushrooms that went into the pasta and they were kinda hard and inedible when you bit down on one.... No biggie!

I realized that I have only once made something out of my Julia Child cookbooks for someone else. Normally I just cook for myself in case it fails and then I end up with a ton of leftovers. Maybe soon I will take the plunge and channel my Julia and cook an amazing French dinner for some friends. I will, of course, be wearing my pearls just like the great Julia always did. Bon Appétit!

My Love/Hate Relationship with Rain

Maya Angelou once said, 

"I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas lights." 

I absolutely agree with this. Personally, I think I have the whole tangled Christmas lights thing handled since I love Christmas so much that the warm fuzzy feelings trump the frustration just about every time. And since most of my vacation time lately has been used for exam weeks, I don't fly enough to really even have to deal with lost luggage. (An airline did lose my luggage once when I was a teenager, but I don't remember it being a big deal. Things happen.)

Rainy days are a totally different story though for me. I have found over the years that I either strongly love them or I strongly hate them. I think it has a lot to do with what I actually have to do that day. If I have to run errands, then I ABSOLUTELY hate rainy days. If I have to be lazy around the house all day, then I welcome the rain! 

Tonight while I was out at dinner with my mom, I looked out the window and saw that it was pouring! It was the kind of rain where you can't even really see through it. My first thought was, "Oh great, I'm wearing heels." Every lady knows that this is just not a good situation. And then I remembered the quote about handling a rainy day and decided I was being a tad bit dramatic. I mean really, what is the worst that could happen? I have to walk slower because I am wearing heels and I get a little more wet than I would already get anyway walking out to the car? 

By the time we left dinner, the rained had slowed down so it wasn't really that big of a deal. However, as I drove home, I found myself thinking about all the good things that I like about rainy days. I absolutely LOVE sleeping with the windows open on a spring night when it is raining. There is nothing better to help me fall asleep than the monotonous sound of the rain falling down. I love sitting on a covered deck with a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and a good book while it's raining. I eventually got to where I was actually hoping the rain would continue as I pulled into my favorite liquor store on a whim to get a bottle of wine. After all, daylight was fading fast and I wanted to get home and curl up with that glass of wine and good book on my back deck. In the end, I traded the book for my laptop and I am sitting here writing this post with a glass of pinot grigio on the table and the soothing sound of rain in the background. 

So, I have decided to make an effort to embrace the rainy days in my life and start making the most of them. The next rainy day we have (which will probably be tomorrow....), I vow to be in a fantastic mood. I want to start handling my rainy days in a positive way and not let them get the best of me! 

Confession: I am a Procrastinator.

Last final of my law school career: a take home final where I have 24 hours to complete it for the easiest class I have had in the whole four years. 

This final should have taken me all of 3 hours to complete. However, since I am a super-procrastinator, I am on my 13th hour and counting. Granted, I have have only done about 2 hours of actual work in all that time. In the meantime, I have accomplished so many other fun things! 

I decided that 30 mins into the exam would be the perfect time to finally start the blog I have been talking about started for about 6 months now. (Also, I am writing my second post at the 13 hour mark which is probably some kind of procrastination low....)

I decided that I needed to go get Chipotle for lunch even though I was not even hungry and it was pouring rain outside. Also, if I have just finished the exam at that point, it still would have technically been lunch time when I was finished so the Chipotle run was not really necessary.

I decided that I should go back home after lugging all my school stuff to the law library because I probably needed to do some laundry today. I did not even do the laundry once I got home. 

I decided that I should probably try to get past Level 27 on Candy Crush since I feel like a giant loser for still being on that low level. I did accomplish this, but now I am stuck on Level 28. Meanwhile, my friend was recently telling me about how she is stuck on Level 64 which made me feel like the giant loser which led to my NEEDING to play some Candy Crush this afternoon. Seriously though, 64? That's insane. I'm obviously going to need to spend more time playing this game so I can get better. 

Then it was time to go to a cookout at my awesome friend's house since this has been planned for weeks and there was no way I was missing it. All my cool work people were there and we had delicious cheesy potatoes. Life just doesn't get much better when there are cheesy potatoes around. So I spent a few hours over there hanging out, talking about the random topics of board games and astrology, and playing with my friend's babies. (Side note, I just remembered that I left Disney Monopoly over there.... crap.)

So now I am back to my exam. Or I guess I should say, back to procrastinating and not writing my exam. :)

The All-Important Introduction Post

Hi, I'm Kelli! I have always wanted to start a blog because I like following them so much. So you, as my reader, get to embark on this journey with with me. It could be really awesome! At the very least, it will be entertaining and funny. (at least I hope!)

You should probably know a few things before you start reading about my life. Here is a list of things that I think you should know about me: 

1. I am FINALLY finishing law school in a week! I have been in a part-time law school program for the past 4 years and it is finally coming to a close. Graduation is in less than a week and I have never been so excited about putting on a shapeless gown and floppy hat to parade about in front of a lot of people that I don't really know. As fun and exciting as graduating will be, studying for the Bar Exam will be the exact opposite. I actually take the Bar Exam in less than 3 months, so I am about to take on a world of stress and craziness. 

2. I get overly excited about good food. I am talking about quality cuisine here. Of course I love a good Chipotle burrito bowl, but I am slightly obsessed with discovering new restaurants and trying all types of food. Luckily, my boyfriend and friends feel the same way. In fact, last year for Christmas, my boyfriend and I didn't even get each other an actual present. Instead we went to the best restaurant in Chicago (Alinea) as our Christmas present to each other. And it was FANTASTIC. 

3. I have a slight coffee addiction. It's not even that I'm addicted to caffeine; it's just that I LOVE good coffee. I drink it all day, every day. Tea is not quite good enough. The addiction recently hit a new level when I actually got a Keurig for my cubical at work so that I would not have to drink the office coffee anymore and I could enjoy quality coffee at the push of a button after I just rolled the 15 inches over to push that button. Best cube decorating decision EVER. 

4. I love to read. I started reading books in first grade and have never stopped. I try to only let a day or two go by without reading. I read a little bit of everything, but my favorite books are of the Stephen King genre. I know this isn't classic, quality fiction. I am well aware. However, it's what I like the most. I do read other books though and I have read a lot of classics. I just get really excited when Stephen King's new novel is coming out. You can judge me and I'm totally ok with it. 

5. I am in love with Disneyworld. Again, judge all you want. My family is the crazy family that has been way too much for our own good, but we seriously love it. Every time we go, it's a totally different vacation and we still get so excited about planning a new trip and flying into Orlando. So basically, you need to know this so that when I seem overly excited about something Disney related, it won't come as a surprise to you. 

I hope you enjoy reading my blog as much as I enjoy writing it! I have always wanted to start this and as I was sitting down to type up my last law school final exam, I figured that would be the perfect time to procrastinate and type this inaugural blog instead!