Allow me to be a Girly Girl for a moment.

On Thursday, I’m attending an award banquet at my alma matter, the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

I purchased this adorable knee-lenth, strapless polka dot gown (with a hot pink crendelin, I might add)…

..which I will wear with this fitted white blazer. (If I celebrate at the bars following the banquet, you can bet the white blazer will stay in the car.)

As such, I need shoes to complete my look. I found the following two pairs today.

Which shoes, loyal readers, should adorn my feet Thursday night? (Ignore the jeans, of course.)

Option #1

Option #2

# # #

Anyone know how to create an OS X icon from an image such as this?

I’m participating in this year’s Relay for Life, the annual fundraiser for the American Cancer Society.

I’m working to raise $100 for the walk, which will be held June 10-11 at Millard West High School in Omaha.

If you have a few extra quarters jingling in your pocket, please consider donating at my official Relay for Life Web page. Donations can be made online.

Thank you for your support!

If you or someone you know in the Omaha area plans on signing up for TV, phone or high-speed Internet with Cox Communications, let me know. I can get them their first six months of service at half-price, based on a friends/family special. This is for new customers only.

Email me at work for the details: wendy.townley@cox.com

Tonight was proof that the best nights happen when they’re not planned. Let me explain.

I’m sitting here in bed, with a sore throat from yelling and drinking too much, reeking of tobacco all the while. I spent several hours at The Homy Inn this evening for Molly’s birthday. While at The Homy, I ran into a few friends of mine I hadn’t seen in months.

We did shots and talked. We told dirty jokes and flung empty, salty peanut shells at drunk bar patrons.

I haven’t closed down a bar in quite some time. It was awesome.

And what made this evening so enjoyable was that it was, for the most part, unplanned. It was spontaneous and funny and loud and smokey and wonderful.

Thanks Rick and Damien for an awesome evening. And congrats on signing to Saddle Creek.

I wanna shine on in the hearts of men
I want a meaning from the back of my broken hand
Another head aches, another heart breaks
I am so much older than I can take
And my affection, well it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no no no no

“All These Things That I’ve Done” – The Killers

Join me in wishing my dear friend, Molly Gordon, a very happy 25th birthday today!

In the past few weeks, I’ve been given the opportunity to closely interact and converse with a handful of people about serious, heartfelt issues.

I have determined that in the worst of times, people can — and often do — put their best faces forward. They are most helpful, most concerned, most sympathetic and most willing to listen.

In the worst of times, a person’s gesture can transform the moment into the best of times, teaching me so very much.

This is the gown Ms. Hepburn wore in “Sabrina.” In the movie, Sabrina had just returned from culinary school in Paris and wanted to wow her true love, proving the “ugly duckling” had indeed matured into a flawless swan.

I’d say this gorgeous gown did the trick.

Question: For those of you who read this blog — be it on a regular basis, sporadically or otherwise — at what moment did you discover you became an adult?

By “adult,” I mean knowing the consequences of your choices and actions paired with the ability to choose your own path. Knowing how fiercely you can love another and knowing how fiercely you can hurt another.

{These specific hallmarks of adulthood are just some of many more, I’m sure. I haven’t discovered the other ones just yet.}