Science? Math? pfft. Who needs those?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't really like/understand that whole math/science/logic stuff.

I only wish that I had answered test questions this way instead of leaving the tough ones blank...

I beg your pardon?! Marriage = WHAT....?!

Handsome Hubby and I attended a beautiful wedding this weekend. We didn't know anyone but the bride and groom, so we kind of pretended it was a date night just for us. It was really nice. We even started out the evening with our traditional (although I can't remember the last time we did it) shot of Patron.

You know how signing the matting around a photo of the couple has become more popular than a traditional guest-book signature? This couple had the framed photo. HH went to sign the mat and upon his return, he insisted I go over and take a look at one of the signatures....

Marriage = HaPenis. (the emphasis on the capital "p" is mine...)

I about fell over I was laughing so hard. I don't know if it was the poor spelling, the public permanence (and magnitude) of the error, or the Patron, but we couldn't stop laughing.

A good marriage does = happiness. And being able to laugh together is a great start.

I hope the new Mr. & Mrs. get a good laugh every time they walk past that photo. (I know we will every time we think about it.)

Free Fall Decor. (happy sigh.)

One of my favorite things about Fall?
You can decorate with yard clippings and produce.

 

Simple is good. Amen.

Can I wash someone's mouth out with laundry soap...?

So, I'm doing laundry (shocker.)

As I am transferring a load from the washer into the dryer, I see Devin's hoody sweatshirt has a dirty, blackish stain on the back, near the bottom hem.

I asked him what happened. He says, "I don't know, I must have sat in something..."

Conner, who is listening to the conversation says, "What'd you do? Shit in... Oops!!!! I meant sit! Mom, I meant sit! I didn't mean to say that! I've developed a stutter!!!"

With a grin on his face, Devin points out: "That's bull-sit."

Our dog can talk!

A guy was coming to work in our yard this morning. It was my day to help in Grant's class so I brought our dog, Corsa, into the house so she'd be out of the guy's way. Because I wouldn't be home to watch her, I put her in the kitchen and slid the little gate shut in order to corral her in there.

She has a sweet face and a loving disposition.

But she can be a stinker.

When I walked back in the house, she met me at the gate with this look on her face.
This is what she does when she knows she did something she wasn't supposed to. This is what guilt looks like.

She will hang her head in shame,

and then she will look up with you with her face that says, "I gave in to my carb cravings again, and if you come into the kitchen and look closely, you will see that I ate a loaf of sourdough bread that you accidentally left on the counter... sorry."

What scares me is when she comes to me, making this face, and I can't immediately see what it is she did wrong...

Political correctness = verbal retardation.

Target has just pulled a Halloween costume from their shelves:
(photo: My Fox LA)

People are going bonkers over this. Puh-leeze. It shouldn't offend immigrants. It should offend illegal aliens. They are not the same thing.

I have found myself going from walking on proverbial eggshells so that I don't offend someone, to becoming so verbally hamstrung that I am second guessing every word that comes out of my mouth. I am all done being worried about this. I'll take common sense over political correctness any ole' day!

Fakers.

You know those fake orange pumpkins you can buy at craft stores? The ones that look like fake pumpkins? You know, the fake ones pretending to be real.

Everyone knows they're fake. If they're already fake looking, you may as well make them look like they're supposed to be that way.

I take my fake pumpkin and paint black lines in the creases. Before it can dry, I apply metallic copper paint in between the black lines. Working with one or two "stripes" of copper paint at a time, get your paint brush wet and go over the area, letting the water blend the two colors a bit. (Do not use a foam brush for this project.)

Continue the process until the entire pumpkin is completely covered.

I spray an indoor-outdoor clear sealant on the pumpkins once they're dry.

You can leave them at that, or paint/stencil a word (blessings, thankful), your address, etc.
Now it's out in the open that they're fake pumpkins. No more pretending to be something they're not...

What would Jack & Rose think of this?

Were they still around, I wonder what the survivors of the Titanic disaster would think of the fun to be found at our local "pumpkin patch"....
Wheeeeeee!!!

Figuring out what to do with me.

I have been MIA in Blog-Land as of late. I haven't been posting very regularly, and I haven't been able to keep up with the blogs that I like to read. I have been crazy busy... getting the kids back to school, regular old life stuff, but also busy with fun stuff. (Well, fun for me.)

I have been pushing bullying forcing helping my friend Jodi to make some decorating changes in her house. The way a room looks has such a huge impact on how you feel. Your home is your environment... It should be a warm, comfortable one. It also shouldn't cost a lot of money to do.

This was the living room - Before.
Beautiful built-ins and mouldings, lots of natural lighting... a great room. It just needed a bit of updating.

The living room - After
New carpeting was a big ticket item, but everything else was done with an eye on the bottom line. A beautiful sage green on the walls helps to highlight the gorgeous mouldings and a dark, dark chocolate brown updates the built-ins.

The letters (FAITH), the orchids and the white plate on the right were new purchases. Everything else in the room were items she already had and we either moved them from other areas in the house or re-did them so they would work in the room.

The dining room - Before
A great space. High ceilings, a beautiful bay window. Lots of potential.

The dining room - After
New carpet in here too, a darker hue of the sage green on the walls. (No one would let me on a ladder any higher than this... I think ultimately it would be nice to paint up to the ceiling) We rearranged a few pieces of furniture and incorporated a few of her new dining chairs. We painted the dated finish on the beautiful chandelier with Rustoleum's hammered metal spray paint and got new window treatments.

We also took a page from The Lettered Cottage and made drapery panels from painter's drop cloths. I wanted them to look a bit more finished, so I grabbed a glue gun and trimmed them out with black grosgrain ribbon.

I already had the rods and hardware, so we sprayed them with the same hammered metal paint.
The entire bay window cost $50.

In fact, all things considered? We re-did 3 rooms in her house for pennies on the dollar.
We re-used, re-purposed and re-cycled lots of what she already had. I love how the space looks and I love that Jodi is happy with it. She thinks I'm crazy that I enjoy doing things like this so much. She also got me thinking.....

It is easy for me to downplay my "talents" simply because, well, they're mine. I take them for granted... after all, if it comes easy for me, it's probably easy for everyone.

I thought about some of my blog posts that got amazingly positive responses:
Disaster preparedness (read parts One Two and Three)
Household Tips
Home organization Tips
Camping tips (parts Two Three and Six)

I am good at working with a small budget.
I am good at problem solving when it comes to decor or party planning.
I do see potential in discarded/forgotten items.
I am very organized.

For years, I've been trying to figure out how to start a little business... but do what? Crafts? Invitations? Furniture pieces? Pottery? What?

Jodi pointed out that I could do a little bit of everything... decor, party planning, holiday decorating, organizing... sort of like a Girl Friday. So for the past several weeks I've been figuring that one out and working on a plan. I need to stay close to home and work when Grant is at school.

I'm so excited! I have a business and I built a little website. (No big deal for some, but computer anything is difficult for me.) CraftyGirlFriday.com - Wish me luck!!

The skinny on Santa.

When I was pregnant with Devin, I got into a big argument with my then sister-in-law about my plan to have Santa Claus be a part of Devin's Christmas seasons.

She told me that I was being a liar and setting a bad example for my child.

She told me that Devin would resent me and have trust issues once the truth came to light.

I said that while she was free to tell her daughter anything she wanted, we would believe in Santa at our house, and thank you in advance for respecting our wishes...

She told me that she would not lie to her nephew (my child) and could not guarantee that she would keep our secret.

(That night I dreamt that I gave birth to a prune danish and that I put it in the freezer for safe-keeping, and she ate it. Paging Dr. Freud... paging Dr. Freud....)

Anyway, she never spilled the beans, but I always worried that she would.

Most people choose to let their kids believe in Santa Claus, and there is always that awkward time when they realize they must either tell their kids the truth, or let the playground rumors do their job for them. When to come clean about Santa is a difficult decision. Since it is almost the Season, and for some people this question will soon be upon them, I thought I'd share our method of breaking the news. I think it works pretty well.

Let me start by saying that our family has always maintained that Santa is a part of the celebration of the birth of Baby Jesus. Santa is not the reason for the season, but we incorporate him as part of the spirit of giving.

When I was a kid, I figured out the Santa thing on my own:

Why does Santa have Mom's handwriting?

Why did he use the same wrapping paper as my Mom? (Even then, the idea that he wrapped presents at each house seemed terribly inefficient to me....)

As an adult, I made sure when Santa visited our house, he only used solid green paper with red ribbon, or solid red paper with green ribbon. Simple, classic. He also uses the computer to print out the kids' names in a nice script font. It is on a nice, plain, card stock tag. (Santa is busy, and pre-printing tags is part of the reason he can get all around the world in one night.)

When it was time to tell each child, Handsome Hubby had a brilliant idea. We parents sat them down. Since we're a blended family, all the parents are present. We let them know right off the bat that Santa is absolutely, 100% REAL. ....he just isn't in the form that the child thought he was in...

I'm Santa.

Dad is Santa.

Grandma is Santa...

We're all Santa, and now that our bigger boys know Santa's real form... now they are Santa too.

Our kids didn't feel lied to, they felt like they were now in the club. I have to say that they each embraced the spirit of Christmas more than they ever had before. They loved that they were creating a little magic for their younger siblings.

At our house we have elves (Marta, Helga & Jingles) who start showing up as soon as stockings are hung up. If you are good, you can "check your stocking" and see if the elves left you an early yuletide treat. (Target's dollar spot is an excellent resource for the elves....)

Once the boys knew that they were Santa, they loved the act of surreptitiously dropping little presents into stockings.

They love the idea of helping to create the magic.

They love the idea of Christmas much, much more as the givers than they ever did as the receivers of those little gifts.

... and isn't that what it's all supposed to be about anyway?

My degree? It's from Bozo the Clown School of Law.

David Letterman had sex with some of his staffers?! What? I'm shocked.

Robert Halderman, a CBS producer, allegedly tried to extort 2 million dollars in exchange for his silence? Shocking that someone would do that.

pfft.

You know what is shocking to me? That Halderman's lawyer's plan for his defense is to say, "Oh yeah? Well Letterman sexually harassed his employees!"

Extortion and/or blackmail is illegal no matter why you do it...

Just so I understand... you aren't going to do anything to address your client's extortion and blackmail charges, but instead are going try the old "Hey! What's that behind you!!??"

Good plan.

Kindergarten teachers are underpaid.

Well, most teachers are underpaid. I don't know how they do it.

How do they keep a nice, soothing tone of voice?

How do they keep those kids under control without a cattle prod?

Why aren't they in a stupor, rocking back and forth and mumbling greeneggsandhamgreeneggsandhamgreeneggsandham...?

I am The Cooking Mom every other Wednesday in Grant's class. My first recipe from the class cookbook was B For Butter. We took a little whipping cream and had to shake it until it turned to butter.

In groups of about 8, the kids rotated through 3 "stations" in the class. I was supposed to give each kid a little baby food jar with some whipping cream and have them shake it until they had butter. You know what? Baby food jars are not meant to be reused in such a fashion. The lids don't screw back on securely. I had to tighten them so much that when the kids (finally) had a lump of butter, I couldn't get the lids back off. I felt like a monkey... pounding the lids on the table and grunting trying to get those suckers off.

I was then to give the kids a spoon and some saltines and let them taste the butter they made.

"I don't want a plate. Can I use my cookbook paper as a plate?"

"I don't want the butter. Can I just have crackers?"

"Is there juice?"

"I don't want the crackers. Can I just have butter?"

"Do you like butter?"

"Can I have more crackers?"

"He took my spoon!"

"Everyday when I get home from school, my mom makes me vacuum the whole house."

"Can we eat the butter with the spoon?"

"What's your favorite donkey?"

"Can I have more crackers?"

"I have a hamster."

Peppered throughout these constant comments was whining. Brandon: "Teeaaaaaaaaaaachheeerrrrr! I don't have butter yeeeettttt! Teeeeeeee-cher! Mine's not wooooooooorking."

"Brandon! My name is not teacher! My name is Mrs. W. And STOP WHINING!"

While still trying to shake leaky jars, get the kids to color their cookbook page for the letter B, serve them crackers and butter and field all of these questions... Time's Up! Switch to your next station everybody!

I had about 30 seconds to clean up the table space, pick up the kids' papers, get the next groups' papers ready, and dump the remaining butter from the jars and clean them for the next round. Have you ever tried to wash butter off of something with cold water? It doesn't work very well.

At the end of my 2 hours, I was frazzled. As the kids got ready to file out to recess, the teacher cheerfully said, "Let's all thank our volunteer moms for helping us today!"

They all shouted their thanks. One kid came out of the line and ran across the room to give me a great big hug.

It was not Grant.

It was Brandon, the kid I came down on for his incessant whining.

Go figure.

Ankle deep in peanuts and profanity.

Spoiler alert: This post is going to have a healthy dose of social commentary, and will possibly offend someone. (So deal with it.)

A good friend of mine was given four front row tickets to yesterday afternoon's Angels game. Did I want to be spontaneous (shut up! Sometimes I can be...) and take Conner and Mitch and go with her? Sure! Sounds fun!

We arrive around the 3rd inning. Yep... we are front row, just above the visitors' dugout. Nice seats. This is pretty cool. The kids get ice cream, my friend and I got beer and peanuts. We're having a nice time.... then we hear rowdy people to our right.

We shared the row with a collective 1,200 pounds of cholo. Five big guys, all in their 40s, each of them at least 250 pounds, (one of them close to 300 pounds) and four of them had been enjoying a lot of beer. One of them was extremely rowdy, calling out stupid remarks to the guy selling "Bags of nuts! Who needs a bag of nuts?" .... you get the idea.

We'll call him Rowdy Asshole. (RA for short.) RA began to whistle.

Now, this shouldn't be a problem. We're at a major league baseball game.
People whistle.
They yell at the players.
They cheer.
They boo.
What they never should not do, is whistle like this:

You know why? Because it is obnoxious and serves no other purpose but to annoy those around you and hurt their ears.

As he repeatedly let out this, long, sustained, annoying whistle, people around him began to murmur unhappily. We began to hear "Dude! Come on!" or "Come on guy, that's enough."

The more RA heard complaints, the more defiant and jerky he became, loudly commenting to his seatmates that it's a free country and he is whistling at a baseball game. He clearly was enjoying the fact he was annoying the people around him.

Then my friend, who is one of the most laid back "live and let live" people that I know, tossed a peanut in the RA's direction. It was good natured, trying to get his attention, sort of playfully saying, "Hey, stop with the stupid whistle."

While on any other day she may not have been able to hit the broad side of a barn, yesterday she managed to peg a 300 pound, drunk cholo in the face with a peanut.

RA was on his feet and freaking out within seconds.

And by freaking out, I mean dropping rapid fire F-Bombs and ranting about the assault against his person, while standing over Conner and Mitch. At that point, I am yelling back at him to stop with the language, because there are children present. Nothing doing. He continued to rant and rave.

Being in the first row has another advantage in that security was right there to witness everything. Mr. Security tried to get RA to calm down. RA was asked to show his ticket stub.

We, on the other end of the row, were sitting quietly... not making a scene. We were not asked to show our tickets.

Can you guess where I'm going with this?

Racism.

"Oh fine! Pick on the Mexican people!! The Mexican people couldn't possibly have a front row ticket, right?! Why didn't you ask the white people to show their tickets?! F-Bomb, F-Bomb, F-Bomb."

Of the five guys, the one sitting closest to us was clearly giving off signals that he disapproved of the scene his friends were making, but that he was also odd man out and could do nothing to influence the larger group. The other four continued to loudly discuss it, complain about it and make serious efforts to intimidate us.

They were on the right-side of our row, on the aisle. We were in the middle-left of the row. When returning from a beer run, rather than going back to their seats on the right, they made sure to come in from the left and cross in front of us growling "Watch it!" as they passed.

They made sure to loudly discuss our complaints about such profanity in front of children, "When I was that age, I had already heard F*** lots of times..."

Yes, I'm sure you had, and look! You turned out OK, right? What a socially retarded ass. Of course the kids have heard that word before... but you can be damn sure they had never had a fat, drunk guy scream it at their mother and her friend.

There is real racism and injustice in the world.

Assholes like this steal away attention from real issues by creating scenes that perpetuate and enforce societal stereotypes.

Security checked your ticket stub but not ours?

• A) It's racism!
• B) You're behaving like a drunken ass and using language that would make Andrew Dice Clay proud of you - of course they're going to check your ticket.

People around you asked you to stop that ear piercing whistle?

• A) It's racism!
• B) You're purposely annoying everyone and hurting their ears - of course they're going to ask you to stop.

People seem to treat you with disdain and a touch of fear?

• A) It's racism!
• B) You're a drunk bully.
• C) You are the type of person who wants to be angry and claim victim status, so you can fly off the handle at the slightest thing and throw a profanity laced, 300 pound temper tantrum.
• D) You may or may not be packing heat, a shank, or a pit-bull.
• E) Your aggressive and unpredictable behavior makes me worry you'll follow me to my car and kill me in the parking lot.
• F) It is not A.

The up-side to this is that we were able to talk to Conner and Mitch about it.
We were able to discuss the fact that bullies are people who have low-self esteem, who are ego-centric and narcissistic. That bullies make themselves feel better by making others feel worse, and they blame any of their shortcomings on other people or other factors. They do not take personal responsibility.

We were able to discuss that while there is real racism and injustice in the world, this was not one of those times, but rather it was a case of a 40 year old, fat guy who threw a temper tantrum.

(BTW, the Texas Rangers creamed the Angels, 9 to 3.)

Seen one fish? Then you've seen them all.

We live about 15 minutes from one of the best aquariums in the country. Handsome Hubby bought family passes to the Aquarium of the Pacific. It's a great deal... about $100 for the year, for the whole family.

For me, there's just one problem: I don't like to go to the aquarium. Oh look. A fish... A seal... A shark. OK? I'm done. For good. Don't need to see them again. For at least a year. Maybe 5 years.

However, HH and the kids love to go. The Aquarium hosted a members only after hours event last week and we all went as a family.

There's plenty to see.
What they enjoy the most is the area where you can touch the little sharks and the rays.

Conner doesn't understand the "roll up your sleeves" concept....
... while Grant will explain "how to do it" to anyone who will listen.

I much prefer to people watch.

I guess if I were a fish, this is the kind I would be.