i use the word awesome a lot in this post. be prepared.

holy crap, you guys. things have been BUSY. work has been absurd, and my social life has been absurder.* i've been getting home around 11pm every night from Various And Sundry Fun Times, and my weekends are chock full, with 2 or 3 parties / meetups with friends / partying with out of town guests per day. even when i do have some down time at home, i'm not really a blog-at-home kind of girl... i'm more of a "thank god i'm home for once; i shall beach myself upon my couch and catch up on my dvr" kind of girl. don't get me wrong: i'm not complaining. i love it. it's just making my blogging awfully sparse these days.

*totally a word. shush.

but! the things, they have been happening! like last weekend, my fabulous friend shannon came to visit for her first Hard Core, Balls-Out, Dance Until We Shut Down The Bar, Girls' Night Out since having a very adorable son last year. (his name is elliott, by the way, and we're totally dating. we were trying to figure out what that would make me - eg, not a cougar, since i'm not in my 40s. so, a cheetah? a puma? then we hit on it: a pedophile. whoopsie!) we met up with another college friend - also newly a mom! - and basically rocked out with our cocks out.

how cute are they? new moms, dancing all night and closing down the bar! and making me drink car bombs! i guess now that she's a mom, shannon automatically developed the ability to guilt people into things... :-)

and then! also recently, just because i was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and shelly is TOTALLY AWESOME at all times, she sent me a sweet care package! see?

i've been wanting to read that book for AGES now, so this is so perfect. and how CUTE are those notecards and sticky notes? (also super cute, though i covered it up for anonymity, was the notecard shelly wrote that had teensy adorable drawings of each family member with their name under it. love!)

and so, in the spirit of Care Package Love, i'll be sending one out to another blogger sometime soon... more on that later.

in other this-past-weekend news: i've mentioned the legwarmers on this here blog a few times, particularly their overall awesome-sauciness. and how we dress up in even AWESOMER 80's clothes to go see them. if you follow me on twitter, you've likely already seen the new Most Awesome Photo Of Me Ever, No Seriously, but i'll grace your eyeballs with it again here, because i am a giver:

here are my equally awesome friends alyssa and jen, who, i would like to note, BOUGHT THE ENTIRETY OF THESE OUTFITS AT TARGET. like, last week. eg, in the present day. there is something very, inherently, grossly wrong about that.

we partied it up at my house for a bit, then headed to the concert, where.. well, we partied it up there, just with better, louder 80's music.
if any of you local folks haven't been to one of these shows yet, i'm not kidding: you need to go.

so! lastly! the other thing that's been taking up a lot of my time is planning my INCREDIBLY AWESOME trip to eastern europe that i'm going on next week. next week!! that's... well, it's NEXT WEEK! that's soon! would you like to know where i'm going? of course you would.

• leave oct 8, arriving on oct 9 in Prague. fyi? october 9 is my birthday. i shall be celebrating my 29th birthday IN PRAGUE, bitches :-)
• oct 11: arrive in Český Krumlov, Czech Republic (thanks for the recommendation, artemisia!)
• oct 12: arrive in Budapest, Hungary
• oct 15: arrive in Dubrovnik, Croatia
• oct 16: return to the ol' USA

and then october 17, obviously, attend the wedding of the century. #pbandtuna! (and #sweetpickleballs, while we're at it, although i'm still waiting for marie and makarlin to tell me what that IS. hookers.)

SO. there's a lot going on; there's a lot more that will be going on; The Boy Who Found My Website is still lovely; things are good. and with any luck, i'll be able to tell you these things a liiiitle more frequently from here on out.

hey look, a whole post without talking about merkins! WIN!