Hey Dad!

Today is my Dad's 61st Birthday. Happy Birthday Dad!

He is my biggest fan (and my 2nd biggest critic next to myself), he is my #1 supporter and I love him more than I'll ever be able to say.

Being so far away from my family is certainly the biggest downfall to living across the country.

Here are some fun facts about my Dad and some reasons why I love him so much!

• He was born in 1949 to Fredrick and Patricia Rosemeyer. 

• He will be retiring next year from the Indiana State Excise Police. He has been there since 1974!

• I'm convinced he has a bottomless pit of knowledge regarding sports. Any sport. Even curling. (Okay maybe not curling...but I wouldn't put it past him.)

• He owns more CD's and music than I will probably ever own or imagine to own. His favorite band is by far and wide The Beach Boys but he has a vast collection of many genres of music. (Hm, and his daughter studies music. Interesting.)

• He graduated from Ben Davis High School is 1967. I graduated from Ben Davis High School in 2002. (Side note, my mom also graduated from BDHS in 1967.)

• He grew up in the same house his entire life on Exeter Ave. in Indianapolis, Indiana. My grandparents were the original and sole owners. That house is still in my family to this very day.

• He is a pipe and cigar enthusiast although he doesn't smoke them anymore. (Thank you for that!)

• He has a large collection of beer steins. Homage to our German heritage.

• Upon entering my parent's house, one thing stands out....books. There are books everywhere. My dad has been a book lover for as long as I can remember. 99% of his books are nonfiction and are related to media, sports, or Indiana history.

• I would say his dream job would be to have a radio show. (And he tried to live vicariously through me when I had a radio show in high school. I tried to play Beach Boys as often as I could.)

• He is very smart. (Hence all the books!) 

• He will talk to anyone and isn't shy. (Apple doesn't fall far from that tree, does it?)

• Some say he can be a bit intimidating...it must be the cop thing :) 

Above all, he's been there for me through everything. He's never missed a concert or game (with exception of me moving to Idaho...but even still, he's made it to two concerts there!) He is the voice in my head always pushing me to better and be the best I can be. Even though I lived with my mom for most of my childhood until she passed away, he never missed an opportunity to be there for me.

I love you!

Lt. Michael L. Rosemeyer

Love always,

Courtney

Time.

Time.
To tell you the truth.
To burden your mouth for what you say.
No pieces of paper in the way.

'Cause I can't continue.
Pretending to choose.
These opposite sides on which we fall.
The loving you laters, if at all.

No right minds could wrong be, this many times.

My memory is cruel.
I'm queen of attention to details.
Defending intentions if he fails.

Until now, he told me her name.
It sounded familiar in a way.
I could of sworn I heard him say it ten thousand times...
oh, if only I had been listening.

Leave unsaid, unspoken.
Eyes wide shut, unopened.
You and me.
Always between the lines.

I thought I, thought I was ready to bleed.
That we'd move from the shadows on the wall.
Stand in the center of it all.

Too late, two choices, to stay or to leave.
Mine was so easy to uncover.
He'd already left with the other.
So I learned to listen through silence.

Leave unsaid, unspoken.

Eyes wide shut, unopened.

You and me.

Always between the lines.

I tell myself all the words he surely meant to say.

I talk until the conversation doesn't stay on.

Wait for me, I'm almost ready when he meant let go.

Leave unsaid, unspoken.

Eyes wide shut, unopened.

You and me.

Always between the lines.

Lyrics by: Sara Bareilles.

What would you like to forget?

One of my blogs so conveniently displayed on the right hand of your computer screen is called One Minute Writer. I basically like the idea that you should spend at least one minute a day to write something. She even gives you topics! So today's topic was something you would like to forget. What an interesting question. Does forgetting mean that something else would change? I'm not sure.

So here it is for today: I would like to forget how mad I was about 1 hour ago.

That's all I'll say about that. My one minute is up.

Your turn. What would you like to forget? Just take a minute.

As always...

Health and Happiness,

Courtney

I think I found one I like!

I think I found a design I like finally. Shout out to Matt for helping me fix some things that I didn't like. I have expanded my knowledge of html through this experience. Hooray for being technological saavy!

Xoxo,

Courtney

Cilantro Lime Shrimp w/ portabella mushrooms

I made this for the AP and I last night. It was good. It's another Courtney original. This dish was inspired by leftover cilantro and lime from a bean salad. I should probably share that recipe too someday.

Enjoy!


Ingredients:

Shrimp (cooked, peeled, and all that jazz)
3 medium portabellas (cut into strips)
A generous handful of chopped fresh cilantro (that's a handful AFTER chopping)
Lime juice (about half a lime's worth)
Salt
Pepper (be generous with the pepper..it adds a little heat to the meal)
A dash of lemon pepper seasoning
1/2 small white onion
EVOO

In a skillet on medium - med high heat, sweat out the chopped onion in some extra virgin olive oil until it's translucent but not brown. Add cut portabellas and add a little more EVOO. Let the mushrooms and onions cook down a bit. Season with salt, pepper, and lemon pepper. Add cilantro. Add shrimp. Squeeze lime juice into pan. If you get an watery-ness from adding the shrimp crank up the heat and let the excess water cook off. Cook all ingredients together for a bout 5 minutes or so and let the flavors all hang out together. Serve over brown rice!

If you try it, let me know how it went and what you think.


♥ xoxo ♥ Health and Happiness

Court

Just in time to leave.

Of course. I knew this would happen. Just when I am getting ready to go back to Idaho, I start getting comfortable in Indiana. Don't get me wrong. I am thrilled to see friends and get back to school because frankly, being a bum isn't my style for too long. All in all though, I am loving the fact I can see my babies (nieces and nephews) whenever I want. See my family in general whenever I want. Honestly, I feel like I wasted some time when I first got home. Did I? Maybe the time just went by too quickly.

Today was great. And by great, I really mean great! I got up before 10am which made me happy. I found a really great pair of running shoes at a great bargain!



They are basic shoes, but hey, gotta start somewhere! And these shoes are dedicated to running.

The bf (best friend) and I went on some rad adventures today. Okay, well nothing too spectacular but I did get to see a drag car go down the strip! The day was ended by watching the sunset at one of my favorite places in all of Indianapolis...Eagle Creek. There were so many sailboats out tonight!! It was incredible! I get lost in the water sometimes. I don't mean that literally, I mean that figuratively. I can stare at the water for what seems like hours and completely lose myself. I love having that so close by to take advantage of. I do love my Indiana home. There is no doubt about that. I still have two more years in Idaho and who knows what those two years will bring. I wish I could say I have my life planned out but if there is something I've learned from trying to plan my life, is that life simply cannot be planned. You can dream, you can aspire, and you can have goals, but at the end of the day, life is still moving along. Sometimes you have to roll with the punches.

To a totally different topic, I have made the decision to no longer eat red meat or pork. I think eventually I will make my way towards vegetarianism, but chicken and fish have lower cholesterol levels overall and are not as bad as red meat and pork. It will not be easy, but I feel that it will be very worth it.

♥ ♥ xoxo ♥ ♥ Court

If guys were like girls and vice versa.

Kind of finding these hilarious.




Here's the girl's version.

Flied Rice.

Let me start by saying that my least favorite thing about Idaho and Utah is their lack of good chinese food. Some house special lo mein is sometimes just what the doctor ordered but it is hard to find anywhere in Idaho or Utah that has any lo mein that is up to par.

Ah, but I am in Indiana. An abundance of cheap and great chinese food is nearly every mile. Fantastic! Last night, I ventured to the all encompassing Chinese buffet. A few questions arise from my experience there. Before I dive into that however, I thought I'd share that when I was little, I used to go to the China Buffet with my mom and we always went to the same one. I was obsessed with wonton soup and the little crunchy chinese noodles. So my mom would get the buffet, and I would get soup. The owners of the restaurant caught on and got to the point where they wouldn't even charge us for my soup. How nice :) (BTW, I think soup was my go to food as a child...soup with lots of crunchy things in it.)

So we ventured to the buffet. It was 9pm so it's always "risky", as Charles put it, to go to a buffet so late at night. The food has been sitting out for who knows how long. Everything looked fresh so we decided to jump in head first.

Question number one: Why do we need new plates EVERY time we go back to the buffet? I know it is for sanitary reasons, but what are those reasons? So I googled it. Of course. Google knows everything right? Okay, well actually, us smart humans know things that the Google search engine finds and Voila. Here's what I got: if you take a dirty plate back up to the buffet line, there is risk for you contaminating the food. Okay. Makes sense I guess.

Question number two: Did you know that french fries, fried zucchini, texas toast, and chicken nuggets are chinese food! They seem to be on every chinese buffet I go to and this one is no different. I enjoy the fact that I can get some beef and broccoli with a side of french fries. That's America folks.

So, that was my lovely night at the China Buffet. YUM.

PS. Ham should never be an ingredient in chinese food. Ever.

Pink.

I love the color pink. Obviously my blog is pink. I'm a girl and I took ballet classes for years so pink is just instilled in my very little girly soul. My phone is pink. My bookbag is pink. I have a LOVE PINK bag from Vicki's. My toes are normally pink. I wouldn't be opposed to driving a pink car. As I was skyping with a good friend last night, he looked behind me and said, "Is that a pink wall and hello kitty in the background?!" I showed him my niece's room (which is very pink) and he exclaimed, "What a perfect place for you to be staying in! It's pink! You love pink!" I do, in fact, love pink. So, I found this picture and it just about sums it up.



For the record, I also love purple. And blue.

♥ xoxo ♥ Court

Zen like state of mind.

Okay so maybe I'm not completely in a zen like state of mind, but I feel like I'm starting to discover something quite close to that. I've meditated before but lately I've been starting each day with a meditation and prayer (as well as some reading) and I can tell you that it is making a difference in my day.

Last night I took a walk along the canal downtown with a friend. We stopped at the opposite end to sit and talk. I'll admit our conversation wasn't exactly inspiring. I won't divulge his personal life on my blog but I will say that he said something to me and a wall went up. As soon as it did, I fell into an almost trance like state where I just sat, completely oblivious to him and any other noise around me and fell completely in awe of the water sparkling next to me. I watched as it danced like one of those pretty fireworks at 4th of July on the water. I wasn't upset. I was simply content. I thought how much I missed the city and how beautiful my surroundings were at that moment. I thanked God for allowing me the opportunity to be where I was at that very moment. I had no desire to speak. My thoughts continued to wonder and I allowed myself to feel completely peaceful. This has been happening more and more for me throughout my days and it is amazing. I'm not saying I'm some zen master but I am saying that my level of contentment with my life has definitely shifted. It continues to do so everyday.

One thing I am struggling with, however, is the fact that I am able to do whatever I want with my time. This kind of freedom makes me a bit nervous at times. I don't use an alarm clock to wake up and I am able to do whatever I want, whenever I want. I don't think it is in our nature to wonder aimlessly in this life. We were given a purpose and we need to fulfill those purposes. By praying and meditating each morning, I have at least been able to gain some direction on what to do with my days. That is a good thing. I can choose to follow it or ignore it, of course. Free agency is scary. When you put our agency under the magnifying glass, it is interesting to think about how many choices we make in a day. When we have jobs or families to attend to, those give us reasons to make choices. I have neither of those that I am obliged to currently. I do have a jury at school that I need to prepare for, but other than that, I honestly have no obligations to anyone or anything than God. What an interesting feeling.

With that said, there is an orchard that has been calling my name. It is a beautiful day outside and I cannot wait to go partake in it's beauty!

xoxo
Court