I love...peanuts.

Happy Peanut Week!

Wait - what?! You don't know what Peanut Week is? Well okay, it may not be an official holiday, but within the walls of Hoopples in the Flats - it's been Peanut Week, all week.

Now you're asking: what exactly is Peanut Week? Well, I'll tell you. It's a week where Hoopples provides tons and tons of free peanuts. You go in. You eat the peanuts. You throw the peanut shells on the floor. And tah-dah - you're celebrating Peanut Week!

I found out about this during a bar crawl in the Flats last weekend. We started at Hoopples and written in chalk all over their walls (ahem, "chalk") was: "Peanut Week!", as well as the phrase "Shells on the floor!" and this adorable peanut picture (which, as I told some friends when promoting peanut week, is so cute it almost makes you not want to eat peanuts...almost.):

I was intrigued. Upon speaking with the bartender I found out the details and was sold. I got some other friends in on the deal and we chose yesterday as the day to stop out and throw some shells on the floor.

And let me tell you, they weren't lying about shells on the floor. We walked in and *crunch, crunch* shells were cracking everywhere under your feet. Our group grabbed a couple tables, ordered some beers, cheersed to Peanut Week and quickly plowed through several baskets of peanuts. At first it felt a bit awkward to carelessly throw the shells on the ground, but all you had to do was look around to be reminded that they wanted you to do it. Soooo...we totally made it rain peanut shells in Hoopples! We were throwing them on the ground, throwing them over our shoulders, dropping and stepping on them. Anyway you can think of to throw shells on the floor - we were doing it.

Proof of Peanut Week

On top of all this peanut action, the draft also started last night and Hoopples had draft-related games going on...that's right, it was Peanut Week, with games! They provided us with football bingo cards and Browns trivia sheets. A couple friends and I answered only three of the trivia questions and turned in our sheet - fingers crossed. As for the bingo, it was on! The bartender let us know he had nine official bingo prizes. As the draft went on people were yelling "bingo" left and right. I was getting nervous. Eventually I knew all nine prizes had been claimed and I went to use the restroom, abandoning my bingo card and feeling defeated. But a bit later some friends yelled: "Jenny, you got bingo!" I thought the prizes were done? Wrong. Turned out there were a few more prizes up the bartender's sleeve: free beer! I claimed my prize and happily drank it.

At the end of the night my stomach was full of peanuts and I was ready to head home and have peanut dreams.

So now you know about Peanut Week. Don't worry, it's not over yet, so if you haven't been then there's still time to make a visit and throw some shells on the floor.

Happy Peanut Week!


such a cute lil' peanut - right?

I love...imagination.

I am writing this from a secret island, while Ryan Gosling gathers firewood for our sunset dinner.

J/K...I'm not really on a secret island and Ryan Gosling isn't gathering firewood for me (as far as I know), but I can imagine that it's true.

I am a big fan of the imagination. I guess it started when I was little.
There were the empty boxes that became cars or houses.
When my parents mopped the kitchen floor and put all the furniture in the living room I'd be ready with blankets to create my own fort.
My friends and I would cook amazing "dinners" from dirt, grass and water, while using frisbees as our plates.
Or we'd lay in the grass watching the clouds pass by, pointing out the shapes and animal forms we saw in them.
Now I write short stories about animal towns and crazy squirrels or adorable miniature ponies.
I have a box full of greeting cards that I thought of and created.
And I'm always up for using my hairbrush as a microphone while I dance around singing whatever song is on the radio.


Maybe my love for the imagination is the reason I love Shel Silverstein, or maybe my love for Shel Silverstein is the reason I love the imagination. He created wildly ridiculous, touching, never before thought of stories that didn't follow along with any norm I'd known. He put the stories down on paper and now his imagination lives on with every turn of his books' pages.

Luckily, people of all ages are still using their imagination on a daily basis. Do you know about Caine's Arcade? A little boy named Caine used old cardboard boxes to build a whole bunch of arcade games. He imagined it, created it, and then - well, watch the short film about it. Warning: my eyes got a bit watery during this one. As a person who rarely cries at movies, I had to ask myself what about this ten minute film got to me? The answer: watching this little boy talk about his arcade. The happiness that comes out of him when he talks about it, I couldn't help but be excited and root for him and his imagination from the start.

What about you? What do you imagine? The thing about your imagination is that it's all yours. No one else can imagine what you can imagine. I don't care how old you are, the imagination is always in style. Whether you're using it to create your future or you just want to daydream away a sunny afternoon, it's ready to go. Use it to be silly, creative, outrageous, hopeful - whatever you need. Shake up your head, clean out the corners of your brain, and throw it all together to see what you can come up with.

Before I head back to my secret island, let me leave you with this quote from Albert Einstein: “Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."

So go forth to imagine the heck out of your imagination and find out where it can take you, you wonderful imaginator you!