My deep-seeded longing to return to Germany has reached fever pitch. I can’t watch spring happen here without remembering how crazy amazing spring over there was, and I MISS IT, DAMMIT. Donations are now being accepted to the Brittney Takes Germany Part II fund. If you need me today, I’ll be researching ticket prices and brushing up on mein Deutsch which is sehr schlecht.

There is a medium amount of blood on the sidewalk outside our apartment. There’s not a trail of it off into the bushes, so I can’t muster up much concern, but there are also broken bottles strewn everywhere. If there’s one thing Mamie from “The Wild & Wonderful Whites of West Virginia” (it’s on Netflix Instant and an absolute must watch) taught me, it’s that you should always drink beer from a bottle because it can instantly become a weapon in case of crisis or drunken brawl. Due to my passive nature and general happy state when under the influence, I’ve yet to put that little nugget of wisdom into practice.

I need to stop eating Jimmy John’s due to my current broke as a joke status, but that bitch Natalie (she’s currently on a cruise to Honduras, so the offensive adjective is completely justified) introduced me to the #5 and my life hasn’t really been the same since.

Even though it seems winter is just going to last until September, we pretended it was spring yesterday afternoon and had a good ol’ fashioned grill out. Some may also call it a garden party, but half of the attendees used cinderblocks as seats, so I’m not really sure it qualifies. We had mignon burgers because they’re on sale at Hy-Vee {insert here something about how I feel like a very boring housewife for even typing that} and now I’m not sure I’ll ever want regular ol’ ground beef ones again. Holy yum. T-Bone, put those on the menu for my graduation barbecue.

I’m going to spend the rest of the day finding ways to get back to Germany in the coming months. My wanderlust has been kicked into hyper-drive hearing all the super cool places my co-workers are going to this summer (Costa Rica! Greece!) And, after spending 50,000 hours road-tripping over spring break, a seven hour flight now seems like cake.

I’m certainly no food blogger, though I follow quite a few of them. (Stop on over and stalk Iowa Girl Eats if you want to check out the best food blog around.) Food is probably my favorite thing in the world, and one of my resolutions was to stop spending so much money on eating out and get more culinary at home. After my first day of class (uneventful), I went to Aldi for giant shopping trip since all my bare cupboard held was oatmeal and an odd amount of marshmallows my mother sent home with me after Christmas.
ALDI IS THE BEST STORE IN THE WORLD!! Price-wise, that is. You all know NPH and I are loyal Hy-Vee fans til we die, we go at least five times a week for random things he thinks he needs. However, I bought a load of food (I won’t bore you to tears by documenting it all, but it included produce, breakfast stuff, sandwich stuff, coffee, etc.) all for $33! Thirty. Three. Dollars. I was over the moon. I came home and fired up the oven to roast some vegetables (see, Rob, I’m counteracting that coleslaw in my arteries with loads of Vitamin A and potassium.) I’ve never actually roasted vegetables before, but my favorite salad at Micky’s is loaded with roasted broccoli and cauliflower, so I tried to recreate it at home. Now, when I make my next statement, some of you may be outraged, some may be filled with disbelief, but I’m going to go ahead and announce it anyway: roasted broccoli is my favorite food. In the world. I could eat it every single day for the rest of my life. I don’t think you understand this love affair. It. Is. Perfection. Sit back, ruminate on that, maybe take a minute to try and understand where I could possibly coming from.

…oh, one of my co-workers made cake balls for the office today. No, you read that right: cake balls. Little balls of cake. Dunked in almond bark. There were two kinds, carrot & red velvet, I obviously went with carrot (and perhaps had a red velvet later.) There are a few different recipes out there, but here is the best, the one I had the privilege of trying today. I’m pretty sure there’s also crack cocaine missing from that recipe, that’s how good they are. I may have referred to them as Devil Balls a few times. So really, roasted broccoli is my new favorite savory food. Cake balls can be my new favorite dessert. Because they’re BALLS of CAKE. Feel free to snicker.

Somewhere in my house is my wallet with credit cards, multiple forms of real and fake identification, some loyalty punch cards, perhaps a stray HyVee Chinese fortune.  Unfortunately, I have no idea where in the house it is, and it’s KIND OF something I’ll be needing very soon.  Like to board an airplane.  No big deal or anything.

Mom, Savannah, and I went to see It’s Complicated today because who doesn’t love Meryl Streep (or even Alec Baldwin.  I want to hate him because he seems like such an ass in real life but WHO CARES because he’s in The Departed and him saying “Paaaaatriot Act!!!” is one of me and NPH’s favorite movie lines of all time.)  Well let me tell you– if you are one of the few 40 year old and over readers, close out of this screen right now and run small children and animals down in your frenzy to get to the movie theater.  If you are anywhere near college age or just generally don’t want to even think about what it must be like for your parents or professors to be together between the sheets DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE.  So much old people sex.  So much fleshy Alec Baldwin.  So much divorcee humor.  So much kettle corn inhaling (oh wait, that was just me.  And Savannah– I’ll throw her under this bus, too.)

After the movie we returned THE raincoat from Christmas and got a super classy charcoal gray/black coat that I LOVE and fits like a glove and was on super sale and it just awesome.  I look so damn sophisticated in it, no small feat mind you.  Props to Mom and Savannah for putting up with my in-store antics, too much kettle corn will do that to a person (my inner five-year-old also followed us to the parking lot where I drew a swastika and male genitalia on the undefrosted windows of my mother’s vehicle.  She was not super pleased with my behavior.  OOPS.)

THEN Savannah and I were all “Wow.  Way too much fun for one night.  Let’s head into the GREAT METROPOLIS of Adel, Iowa to see what shenanigans await us.”  And do you know what we did?  Not a goddamn thing.  I hate this town.  So lame.  Nay, it’s a quaint town, methinks it’s the people in it who really just make me contemplate how much slitting my wrists would actually hurt (again, if you are a mandatory reporter– step down, apparently making slight suicide references is just a phase I’m in.)  To give you a hint, the most entertaining interactions we had were in the Kum ‘n Go parking lot which is actually a step up from our normal meeting place, the Subway parking lot.

Tomorrow we’re going to church, only this time there probably won’t be a REAL BABY playing my savior so it’ll be kinda way more lame than last time.  Today I got ALL PACKED for the cruise so tomorrow will be more packing for Germany/ tearing the house apart in search of my wallet/ trying to figure out how to get a working laptop to Germany without actually spending any money (my father says I can’t afford to pay attention, let alone buy a new one.  Excellent.  Apparently personal finances really aren’t my thing.)

I painted my fingernails today (bright pink) AND toenails (silver sparkles.)  No need to tell me how excited you are this new nugget of information.