Excitedly, I found these 2 vintage badminton rackets in basement storage and flashed back to swatting birdies around at my Mom's annual office picnic at Offutt Air Force Base Lake when I was a college student. Fortunately, these 2 rackets will get another chance at play time since they so decently stood the test of time with only a little bit of weather damage. However unfortunately, these guys came from a set of 4 with the other 2 rackets completely destroyed by small backyard-playing children and woodland creatures over the past several years.  Counting my blessings, though.  Let's hope one of these will become my good luck charm while battling with the CSM IT Tennis / Badminton team on our makeshift court.
​*fingers crossed*

What's an IT Tennis Team to do when courts turn frigid in winter-like temps and nets are taken down and packed away for the season?  The next best thing, of course: Badminton.  Which is exactly what happened, as evidenced by this excited looking bunch of IT'ers whiffing birdies around an impromptu badminton court.  And so it goes - BADMINTON until the return of TENNIS, another successful use of that wellness benefit and reason to leave the office to burn off those extra calories just waiting to be burned.

After running smack into this exquisite leather and fur jacket while in Dillards yesterday, I knew this dream item would be the perfect addition to my Christmas 2017 wish list.  And why is this particular jacket so "dreamy" to me? Because I ran across a similar jacket in St. Pancras railway station while touring Europe with my folks a few years ago. We were loading on and off trains through the Chunnel and took advantage of the layover time to do a little bit of souvenir shopping when this expensive gem caught my eye.  But unfortunately, I squashed my urge to buy the jacket back then and bought a toy double-decker bus for my son instead. So after giving up my dream of owning that leather and fur piece of fabulousness so long ago, it only seems right that I should dream that dream all over again.

​If only Santa will agree with me on this.

Besides that delicious hot breakfast I typically enjoy each Saturday, visiting my ever-talented stylist is yet another enticing reason to drag myself out of bed early on a weekend morning. And Talented Diva Stylist did not disappoint, as usual. So not only did I leave a hefty tip, but I also referred a potential client to her - the Hickory Farms sales clerk whom I encountered while shopping for cheese & summer sausage after my salon appointment. (Because after the Hickory Farms clerk complimented my 'do and asked who styled my hair, she confessed to a potential breakup with her current stylist. Coincidence??? Thinking I just paid it forward there.)

Let's just say I got all cocky yesterday by thinking I could pull off a macOS High Sierra upgrade within minutes of leaving my office for the night, a decision that left me with the title of this blog post.  Yes, upon restarting my MacBook Pro after the failed upgrade, there it was:

So I got schooled today on how to recover from a botched last-minute-upgrade attempt and must share these words of wisdom to save you from the pain I experienced:

1. Back up your data, especially those treasured photos of your son's high school graduation and subsequent family vacation to Hawaii or risk losing those precious memories for the rest of your life.
2. Check your power settings and make sure your computer is NOT set to hibernate within the upgrade time frame, lest you end up with an inaccessible hard drive and a potential visit to the Apple store for resuscitation. (I came this close, but recovered on my own, thanks very much.)
3. Set aside a good chunk of time dedicated to the upgrade, because anything can happen and you really don't want to be staring at a freaking flashing question mark when all is said and done.  Like 4 hours - should be plenty.

​You are welcome.

Celebrating Friday Happy Hour with this bubbly Moscato sweetness, a gift received from a fellow tennis team comrade who must have known I would appreciate it after a stressful week of team reorganizing, long distance parenting, doctor appointmenting (well-checks), and empty nest maintenance/housecleaning. Feeling grateful for moments such as these.

FINALLY made it to see my alma mater's basketball team hit the court after several years of forfeiting such chances to the guys in my homestead. Yeah, it was only an exhibition match, but it was a CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY BLUEJAY game, one I haven't witnessed in real life since, well, forever ago. Plus there was wine, which was the-icing-on-the-cake that I just could not pass up.  Cabernet Sauvignon in the form of an $8 mini-Sutter Home bottle never tasted so luxurious than right there in the Centurylink Center while watching the Jays dominate, an experience I must repeat for verification purposes.

For lack of anything substantial to post on Halloween, I decided to post a rarely-been-seen image of me visiting the Italian Air Base in which my Dad was the Commander, Ghedi A.B. This photo was taken while I visited Mom & Dad and had the ABSOLUTE TIME OF MY LIFE touring around Italy, the Vatican, and throughout Europe - an experience as effervescent in my brain as trick-or-treating back in the day.

I was all excited to score myself a tasty-looking lemon poppyseed muffin at the staff coffee hour today, only to find out I actually had my hands on a blueberry muffin instead. But alas, that muffin was just as delicious, free, and Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Bitmoji-worthy, nonetheless.