Here we go...

I love my dog.

Love, love, love her. I look at Mattie's cute little face, and I get all melty inside. I love when she climbs on my lap to chomp on her bone, and I really love when she gets in our bed and wiggles her way under the blanket to curl up next to me. I love when she prances around with two toys in her mouth (she is a very talented puppy), and when she plays "soccer" — batting a ball around with her little white paws, always with another toy in her mouth. I love how excited she gets when I come home from work, and how she leaps and spins around in delighted circles while waiting for me to feed her dinner. I love how she gives me the stare-down with those big brown eyes whenever I'm eating anything — she's smart, and I'm an easy target.

Mattie has brought so much happiness to our home — Nate and I both adore her, and neither of us can imagine our life without her. She's badly behaved (they could have easily called the book "Mattie and Me" instead of "Marley and Me") and she's spoiled rotten, but she's ours. We are madly in love with her.

Which is why I'm a little concerned about how much we are both going to freak out come May 24, the anticipated arrival of baby Breyer.

If I love my dog that much — a dog who has chewed on our woodwork, eaten my underwear, barfed chocolate cupcakes all over the interior of my car, left hair on every surface of my house, dug holes in our yard, chewed up two pairs of my shoes and cost us many dollars in unnecessary vet visits — how much am I going to love my child?

This scares me.

I didn't even like dogs a year and a half ago. And now I sob every time I see that Sarah McLachlan save the dogs infomercial.

We are in for it, big time. That little baby is going to turn us both into huge piles of mush and I am going to become sappy and overprotective and annoying.

I'll be a mom.

And I can't wait.

A new era.

No, this is not about Obama's win on Tuesday night.

It's about flying. And how I have long despised Northwest Airlines.

The people who work for Northwest are unhappy. The people flying on Northwest are unhappy.

It is a generally unhappy experience for everyone involved.

Unfortunately, it is essentially the only experience available to those of us living in Minneapolis. Despite having a truly great hometown airline, Sun Country (which is now in trouble, thanks to local businessman/sleazeball Tom Petters), Northwest has the corner on air travel to and from Minneapolis.

Of course it's not the only airline you can choose to fly, but the others — American, United, Continental — are always significantly more expensive. Northwest is our hub, and therefore the primary source of escape for Minnesotans.

Which, to put it bluntly, sucks.

Having traveled back and forth to Midway about a million times since I moved here 10 years ago, I am a seasoned NWA traveler. While the flights were never pleasant (one time I received a cup of warm water in a container just like those little ice cream sundae cups you used to get as a kid — a tiny plastic cup with a paper lid you pull off by a tab!), they were affordable. Until this year, I'd never spent more than $175 for a flight from Minneapolis to Chicago. And I would have considered $175 to be on the expensive side. Heck, when my dad first moved to Minnesota and had to fly back and forth on weekends to see us in IL, he got tickets for $99.

Minneapolis to Chicago is a 90-minute, 400 mile flight. There is no reason for it to cost more than $175. Which I know isn't that much, but Nate and I have flown to MEXICO for $160 round trip. Yes, that was a one-off...but still. It happened! And it doesn't seem fair to pay just as much to travel a significantly shorter distance.

So, imagine my delight when AirTran entered the Minnesota travel market. AirTran, a discount airline based in Atlanta, offered travelers incredibly inexpensive flights, great flight times, and friendly service (although my parents were actually removed from a flight coming to Minneapolis after an AirTran ticket agent snapped at my mom and she called him out on his behavior. Luckily the Chicago police only detained them for a short period of time and they made it on their scheduled flight. Mom, if you are reading this, I'm sorry — you will never live this down. You got kicked off a plane!).

I loved flying AirTran. And they kept Northwest's rates competitive. Which didn't really matter to me, because I would never choose Northwest over AirTran. Even if the NWA flight was a teensy bit cheaper, I would always book with AirTran. Who wouldn't choose comfort and friendliness over squished seating and cranky flight attendants?

Alas, my happily-ever-after with AirTran was not meant to be. For some reason, the airline dismissed all flights between Minneapolis and Chicago earlier this year.

So where did that leave me? Purchasing a $350 plane ticket on Northwest one weekend (which my mom and sister kindly split with me), and driving back and forth at nearly $4.00 a gallon multiple times throughout the summer and fall.

Awesome.

Earlier this week, I heard that Northwest was offering discounted fares on holiday travel, so I got all excited and searched for flights around Christmas...only to be sorely disappointed. Last I checked, $340 is not a discounted fare.

Luckily, help is on the way in the form of another discount carrier. Southwest Airlines recently announced that they will begin service between Minneapolis and Midway in March. This makes me happy for many reasons, but one of them is that my dad has miles. Which means regular visits from my parents...or possibly regular visits to my parents, paid for by my Dad (this may be wishful thinking, but we'll see).

Additionally, Southwest provided their fares to and from Chicago — $69 each way! Which, according to my expert calculations (using a calculator, of course), adds up to $138. A whopping TWO HUNDRED dollars cheaper than stupid Northwest is charging right now.

Northwest will, of course, match Southwest's fares on this route. Which I'm sure doesn't mean they've been screwing us over for the past few months. No, I'm guessing there will be a magical drop in expenses related to this route come March, and they will lower their prices because it's the right thing to do for their beloved customers, and not because Southwest forced them to do it.

I politely request that Northwest take its little ice cream cup of water and shove it.

Yay for Southwest!

Uh...

Forgot to post the pictures from the decorating class.

See, kind of bleary-eyed (bleary-brained?) today.

These are really only to show the magnitude of this woman's creativity. She went through each and every thing on this table and told us how she did it.

What the heck.

Busy having fun.

I have been slacking, big time.

Not just on the blog, on everything. My house is a mess, my fall decorations are still in boxes, and I am out of clean clothes. I owe about 20 people cards or gifts celebrating babies, weddings, showers, new jobs, new houses, etc. (Sorry, everyone.)

I blame much of this on my current state, which is general exhaustion. But some of the blame must be assigned to my (once again) hectic schedule.

Nate and I make waaaaay too many plans. And I have severe problems with over-committing. I'm working on both of these things. The good news is, all of our plans have been a lot of fun.

I have yet to post about my sister Jill's wedding, which took place in Illinois the weekend before last. It was beautiful, and my sister looked amazing. Of course I was busy with matron of honor duties, so I took very few pictures. I'm patiently waiting for other people to send me theirs. Until then, I will just say it was a ton of fun. More details to come once I have photos to share with you.

In the meantime, I will share some photos from this past weekend. Nate and I went back to McCormick House in Hayward, Wisconsin for the weekend — this time with our friends Eric and Lisa Hall.

Nate and Eric practically grew up together — their families spent every summer vacationing at the lake together. Eric has two sisters, Laura and Julie, and our two families are still incredibly close. We celebrate every Thanksgiving together, make the annual trek to Dave Matthews at Alpine Valley, and spend a week in Mexico together every January. We even have a nickname for our group — The Brall (Breyer + Hall = Brall. Aren't we clever?). Eric and Lisa are dear friends of ours, and since they live five hours away in Appleton, Wisconsin, we decided to meet in the middle (not really, it was a 4.5 hour drive for them, and only a 2.5 hour drive for us) for a weekend of fun.

Per usual, we didn't really do much while we were there. Friday night we went to a local brew pub for dinner, and hit the hay pretty early. Saturday we each had an hour-long massage, and spent most of the day lounging around. We did get in a rousing game of croquet, as well as a brief walk into town (stopping only to stock up on Laffy Taffy and gummy strawberries at the candy store). We went out for pizza (at Coop's, home of strange stuffed beasts and viking paintings), came back and played what was quite possibly the funniest game of scattergories ever, and ended the evening in the hot tub.

Sunday morning we had a delicious breakfast headed back home. Nate and I had to get home early because I took a holiday decorating class with my mother-in-law, Mary, and my sister-in-law, Mary (yes, there are two ladies named Mary Breyer in our family). The class was awesome. It focused on table settings for the holidays, from Thanksgiving through Christmas, and offered a TON of inspiration. I actually started to get kind of cranky toward the end of the class, only because I can't believe any one person could be so creative. I felt simultaneously inspired and overwhelmed. But it was still incredible and really good. I took some photos, which I will post below.

Following the class, we celebrated my father-in-law's birthday (a few weeks late, of course, because we're hard to schedule). A pile of spaghetti and two delicious desserts later (don't judge me, everyone ate some of both), we made our way home.

It was a fantastic weekend, but I am a little bleary-eyed today.

Next up: a weekend-long holiday shopping trip to Galena, IL with my mom, Nate's mom, my sister-in-law, and her mom. We leave on Thursday, so I'm sure I'll have plenty to share next week!

Getting Noticed: A primer.

According to the subject line of this email, this coat will get me noticed.

Let's go in for a closeup, shall we?



















Yes, well, I suppose someone would notice if I wearing this shiny, poofy, ugly-as-sin coat Nordstrom is hocking. They would notice me, and they would say to themselves, "Gee, I'm pretty sure I had that coat in 1989. Yes, in fact, I know I did. I wore it on the playground in sixth grade while playing tag with my best friend Tiffany. Over my NKOTB sweatshirt and leggings. Remember how cool my hair looked crimped?"

Just the type of reaction every girl hopes for when wearing something new.

Please spend your $149 elsewhere. Perhaps on one of these other truly attention-grabbing (in a good way) coats from Nordstrom. Coats Nordstrom should have highlighted in this email instead of that monstrously out-of-date-looking pufftastic piece of outerwear. Coats people may actually be inclined to purchase.

I don't blame the nice folks at Nordstrom for this error in judgment. I blame the coat's "Fine Shine." It's hard to be discerning with that much late 80s/early 90s glitz coming at you.

This is too cool.

I have always been obsessed with mysteries. And if there's a murder involved — well, that's even better.

I know, I'm weird. But I accept that about myself. And you should, too.

What started out as a deep love for Nancy Drew turned into an obsession with Agatha Christie, a playful interest in Lillian Jackson Braun (she writes cat mysteries — they are great, don't judge me), and a mindless affair with Mary Higgins Clark. And while I haven't read anything by any of these authors in quite some time (like maybe 10 years), I still get my mystery fix in the following two ways:

1) Clue. THE BEST BOARD GAME ON EARTH. (Do not argue with me. I am a good arguer, and I will win.) There are two versions - Clue, and Clue Master Detective. The latter is the expanded version, and it's my favorite. Unfortunately for you, they don't make it anymore. But fortunately for ME, my mom bought it for me on eBay last year. My parents also still have my original game from 1988. Secretly, I always wanted to live in the Clue mansion. Despite the likeliness of losing my life in the library, with the wrench, at the hands of Professor Plum.

2) Crime shows. I am a die-hard fan of Law & Order: SVU, but also enjoy the occasional episode of CSI. I really liked CSI a few years ago (as did the rest of the planet), but then we got a DVR and I got hooked on a million shows and had to cut something out. And I'm sorry, there is no contest between Gil Grissom and Elliot Stabler. Have you seen Stabler without a shirt? Um, yeah. So now I just watch SVU, though I catch reruns of CSI here and there.

So, there you go. I love mysteries. Ideally, I would spend my days solving them. Which is why I find the prospect of visiting CSI: The Experience incredibly exciting.

I mean, really. Could there be anything cooler than scanning crime scenes, collecting evidence and trying to crack three cases — for the bargain admission price of $16 per person?

I think not.

Well, unless it was Clue: The Experience. But that would be waaay too good to be true.

Poetry for people like me.

I love Brian Andreas.

His work used to be kind of hard to find (I purchased my first print in the mid-90s), but now he's pretty mainstream. Still, I find he has an uncanny way of capturing things I think or feel but can never say — things that would sound overly romantic and/or insane in conversation. Which is why I would like to fill my entire house with his work. That way, I wouldn't have to say anything. I could just point.

While I have many favorites, I have always coveted this one:

As long as the sun shall rise goes the old lovers vow.
But we are children of a scientific age & have no time for poetry.
Still, I offer a quiet prayer of thanks for the sunlight each time I see your face.

If such a simple — albeit beautiful — statement can be poetic, why is it that we have no time for poetry?

Don't be fooled. We have time. Plenty of it. We just spend it all watching that horrible remake of 90210. (By "we" I clearly mean "you people." I would never watch something so poorly acted.)

I came across a public art display online today — Everyday Poems for City Sidewalks. It's an incredible idea, stamping poetry into sidewalks. Who doesn't have time to enjoy a few lines of poetry while walking the dog or waiting for the bus?

Kudos to artist Marcus Young for making poetry part of our everyday lives. Especially those of us who live in Saint Paul and spend way too much time watching bad TV.