Jennifer's 365 Project

Today was a long day of running around to different stores and a whole lot of not buying anything.  In the evening we did end up with a new laser pointer for the cat, which he seems to be enjoying.

Today's lunch was an ArtPrize filled one.  Lori and I met up and walked through The B.O.B., around it, and into the Huntington Bank building.  It's about the halfway point for each of us on lunch so it was a good meeting spot.

Saw a lot of interesting things, including some very colorful sculptures of ice you see to the left.

Yeah, that title is all over the place, I know.

Anyway, Chris's friend at work Jeff picked up a box of Green Lantern themed hostess snowballs, which means a whole box of coconut chocolaty goodness in the house.  As I'm a fan of all the ingredients in a snowball, I readily volunteered to scarf down the tasty snacks lest they rot, since Chris is not a fan of coconut.

In the evening we played a little bit of Lord of the Rings Online together.  Here's a shot of Chris hanging out in the fountain in Bree.

All in all a good Thursday!

Tonight was game night! So Dan and Jeff came over after work for some pizza, a movie, and some HeroClix.

I don't play HeroClix with them, but I do enjoy all the crazy animated movies they watch and the conversations they have.  Plus, as a special treat this evening we booted up Skype and talked to Adam and Comfort (authors of The Uniques and Rainbow in the Dark comics).

Today arrived the first item I've ordered with the Amazon.com gift certificate I received for my birthday.  There's a lot of things I want, but the trick is buying something you know you're going to have time for (vs another video game that may get dusty on my shelf).

So I ordered the three seasons of The Guild.  Yes, you can watch all of these for free online.  But as a gamer who has played her fair share of MMOs, I just wanted these DVDs.

I'm really looking forward to re-watching episodes with Chris, whose not really had a chance to check out this great show.

As a side note you can see that the community center at our apartment complex is all set for Halloween. See that lanterny-goodness?

Lunch was pretty good.  I used a coupon I'd had for a free Biggby to get a tasty caramel apple cider drink and I was able to enjoy some reading.  It was pretty busy at Rosa Park circle, and as you can see, bright out.  Lots of classrooms taking trips downtown to see ArtPrize exhibits.

After dinner Chris and I had a nice stroll down Kent Trails.  It's getting cooler and the leaves are starting to turn, though as you can see there's still quite a bit of green left along the trail.

Also, as promised, I've slowly been adding some photos to the renaissance festival set I have on flickr.  There's about 30 of them, and I've got several more to upload yet, but it's something.  Mostly from the joust and birds of prey shows.  Anyway, if you prefer an embedded slideshow theres one on the Michigan Ren Fest post.

Sunday was a pretty quiet day.  I did a lot of organizing on the computer of various files, backing up pictures and documents on the external drives and what not.

In the afternoon we decided to make some doughnuts.  I'd stumbled across a decent looking recipe for some more "cake-like" doughnuts that you typically get at a cider mill vs the glazed doughnut recipe I have.

Truth be told, I didn't think they'd turn out good at all.  I was wrong.  They're delicious!  They fluffed up more than I'd thought they would in the deep fryer.

I'm looking forward to making this recipe more often in the fall months.  I think it really worked out good (and was a very tasty dinner!).

Chris bought some very colorful and fun flowers for my birthday on Tuesday.  Of course, Leki is ever curious of anything new brought into the apartment, so the flowers have spent a good portion of their time here tucked away.

For lunch this Friday Lori and I decided we'd try to get some ArtPrize viewing in.  Since there are a lot of venue options, both inside and out, we played it by ear to see what the weather was like.

Come lunch it was pretty windy and had just finished raining, though it looked like it might rain more.  So we bounced from the Grand Rapids Art Museum to the Waters Building to see a few things before heading back to work for the afternoon.

So far I've just seen a few exhibits on lunch and a short stroll with Chris.  Here's a few shots I've taken with my palm pre thus far.

Today is the first official day of ArtPrize.  There were a lot of people out walking around downtown after work, checking out all the indoor and outdoor exhibits.

A friend and old co-worker, Melissa, has an entry this year and she was celebrating the start of ArtPrize by hosting a party at McFaddens, which is where her piece is hanging.  Chris and I popped in for a moment to check out her work and say "hi."

Unfortunately my phone was pretty low on juice by the time we got to McFaddens so I didn't get a picture of her piece.  There is a good shot up on the ArtPrize website with some additional info, however.

If you're in the downtown area you should check out her piece!

My birthday was great.  Lots of notes from people on facebook, a lovely blog post from one of the Wild Ones, Carol, and a nice chat with my family on the phone.  Plus work was relatively quiet and the surprise coming home was great.  Chris had suck home on lunch to decorate the whole apartment and set up the gift.  So everything was very festive.  We even had hats and cake! Singing too...well...just Chris. The cat didn't want to help.

We ate dinner out and snagged tasty lobster.  I blame my grandma for getting me hooked on cheesecake and lobster.

Anyway, there's a slideshow below of the apartment and gifts for your viewing pleasure.  As you can see, the apartment had all kinds of festive balloons!

ArtPrize is just around the corner!  Slowly I'm seeing new exhibits outdoors on my daily walks downtown on lunch.

I'm looking forward to checking out all of the exhibits once they're open!