Vaguebooking

…and other sorts of Facebook nonsense, I find ridiculous. I mean, it’s pretty immature to take your shit to Facebook, right? And then to just whine about something without mentioning what that thing is or who you’re mad at, that’s just going to annoy everyone else and not really affect the intended in any meaningful way. Either deal with the problem or move on with your life.

But today I’m dealing with the overwhelming urge to Vaguebook. And I know if I do, I’ll just feel stupid. So here’s a gif of a kitten in a tube instead:

 

And then the kitten went POP!

I Threw A Baby Shower!

Growing up, my mom loved to throw a good party. She was a big people person- always interested in what you had to say and always making friends. So when I came along, she didn’t always know what to do with her little bookworm, introverted daughter.

But as I’ve grown older, I’ve become more social and on occasion I like to throw a good party myself, especially for a friend’s special occasion. And since I’ve hit the age where it seems like all of my friends are getting married and having babies, I’ve gotten more opportunities than ever to throw some parties. This time, one of my bridesmaids, MacKenzie, and her husband Andrew are having a little baby girl, so I offered to throw her baby shower for her.

A little about MacKenzie- she and Andrew are very off beat, march to your own drum people, and they are trying to make their nursery as brightly colored and gender neutral as possible, so I did my best to reflect that when decorating, especially since it was a coed shower and I wanted to make everyone feel as relaxed as possible. I hit up Michaels for all the supplies (I love the app, I get so many deals on my phone, which I’d never look for otherwise), and there I got hit by the crafting stick. The things the clearance aisle alone does to me… It’s a problem.

But I walked out with lots of goodies and I think it all turned out really great! I made a bunch of big pom poms to cover my chandelier:

Note: a couple of these were left over from my own wedding shower and from there all I had to do was make a few more in other colors! Martha Stewart has a great tutorial on this.
http://www.marthastewart.com/265163/pom-poms-and-luminarias-how-to

I also put up a little banner with the baby’s name on my mantelpiece and I was really pleased with how well it turned out!

As for treats, some guests brought some, (one person brought some vegan cupcakes that were phenomenal, and I am… nowhere close to vegan is probably an understatement), and I thought it would be fun to have food that was easily tailored to people’s tastes, so I got stuff for pizza bagels! And strawberry shortcake. Strawberry shortcake is to everyone’s taste.

More things I couldn’t resist spending all my money on at Michael’s: Mustache straws, striped straws, pinwheels, and a tiny elephant. Also we had grownup punch with Prosecco to celebrate the baby. The baby didn’t mind.

I think it was a success! We took pictures in front of a little backdrop I made, MacKenzie and Andrew opened presents, and there was general merriment had by all.

General merriment pictured here

Photo fun!

And finally, me and the guest of honor. I promise you, the lady in the pirate hat is actually the one pregnant, you just can’t tell looking straight on.

It was a great day and I’m so glad I got to experience it with MacKenzie and Andrew! If you want to read some of MacKenzie’s thoughts on becoming a mother, she blogs at http://mlw-write.tumblr.com/

I Don’t Know

I don’t know what I want from life.

Hospital Fun

In the hospital waiting for a family member to come out of surgery for kidney cancer. Any prayers would be much appreciated. 

A Whiny Post

Most Mother’s Days I just want to curl up in my bed all day with something mind numbing (a book, tv show, a nap, whatever) and a pizza, but that hasn’t seemed to be feasible the past couple years which is fine- at least work or plans get me out of the house. It feels awkward to talk about, and I like to acknowledge the wonderful women who have stepped up in my life in the absence of my mother (there are several of these women, and I don’t know what I would do without them) but nothing changes the fact that I will never see my mother again. And I resent that, and I resent seeing all of the Facebook posts about other people’s mothers all day, even though I know I should stay off, and I feel like a drama queen talking about it myself.

I already made one friend feel guilty today by mentioning that I teared up in the cards aisle, which was not my intention. Just because my mom died doesn’t mean I don’t remember being frustrated with her. In some ways the frustration is worse because she’s beyond my reach of resolving it; the ultimate argument cut off, if you will. There are so many things I never got to experience with her- not just the sweet things like my 20th birthday or my wedding day, but other things that only she could have answered, like her medical history or about sex stuff and other things like that.

I know we had a complicated relationship- I assume most mothers and daughters do. I resented her and I loved her and she could be my worst enemy and my best friend, and I relied on her so much that I was entirely lost for a ridiculous amount of time after she died and it changed me the way nothing else in this world has. I miss her so much and I barely remember what she was like sometimes.

I’m angry and I’m sad tonight and I’ll probably feel stupid for posting this and opening up so much in the morning but whatever.

Sticker Shock

I went to lunch today with the girls in my family today at the mall, which was nice, especially since I got to see my new niecelet! She’s so perfect. I can’t even explain. So tiny, so sweet. Lunch was delicious (Breadwinners at Northpark! I had the artichoke chicken melt on tomato basil bread… Oh my God.), I got some quality girl time in, it was just nice overall.

And since I am rarely at the mall anymore, I thought it would be a good time to take my watch in and see about getting a new battery for it. It’s only been about 8 years, so probably about time, right? So I took it to the little Fast Fix where I got my engagement ring fixed after it got run over by a car (….yeah), and they did a beautiful job then, thinking maybe I’ll get it fixed and have it back in a few minutes. So I get there, and I walk up to the counter and kind of have to grab the lady’s attention and I ask, “How much would it cost to get a new battery?” She takes it in her hands, looking it over, and asks, “Well, do you want the now price, the 5 year price or the forever price?” My first thought is, there are three different kinds? Geez. So I ask about the now price.

And then, I kid you not, she looks me dead in the eye, completely expressionless, and goes, “Fifty.”

My heart stopped. I’m pretty sure my mouth dropped open. “Fifty dollars?” I asked. And after she gave me an affirmative answer, I asked her what the prices for the five year and forever watch batteries were. “Fifty, seventy and ninety.”

I was completely horrified. No way. No freaking way. Fifty dollars for the most basic watch battery? Aren’t watch batteries about five dollars if you do it yourself? PASS. At this point I tenderly took my watch back, trying desperately not to snatch it from her hands, and said, “I think I’ll take it someplace else, thank you.” I could not get out of there fast enough. I’m still pretty infuriated, to tell you the truth. I know that there are things in Dallas that are expensive unnecessarily, but this seemed like highway robbery on a whole new level. Highway robbery if someone pointed a nuke at you, if you will, and said, give me all your money or else. What the hell.

Instead I ended up giving my watch to a family member who will take it to her jeweler who will do it for under $20. I’m happy, she’s happy, the jeweler will be happy, good all around. I don’t mind paying for good quality work, but there are excesses I just can’t afford. I will admit it is a very nice watch (a gift for my 18th Christmas), but it is long past the warranty and it is definite overcharging for a five minute job that I would do myself if I could figure out how to get the back off of. (I tried levering it off with a swiss army knife, but like a complete dumbass, I grasped the sharp side with the pad of my finger and sliced it open so I’m not trying that again. Whoops.)

Please forgive me if this post is missing any letters. The P, 0 and enter buttons on my Mac have all decided to only work spontaneously so I’ve been putting them in manually and I type by feel so I may have missed them in a place or two. I leave you with an up close and personal picture of Jabba the Hutt sleeping on my broken keyboard:

Bring me Solo and a cookie. Bring them to me. (quote via Kasey d.)

 

This and That

It’s been another couple of busy weeks, and now I just feel ashamed to write that just about every time I get the chance to sit down and write. Either I have to just accept that I’m a mess (possible) or that life doesn’t slow down, ever (also possible). To make myself feel better I’ll just hope it’s a slight combination of the two.

I haven’t been doing a bunch around the house lately other than basic upkeep, but the Bearded One and I went to bed early last night, which got us up early this morning and we got everything done. We went to the bank, Target, got stuff done around the house, I made a doctor’s appointment and paid all of our bills by 12:30 pm, which is a great feeling. And when I say all of our bills, I’m talking property taxes (a wee bit late), phone bill, HOA, credit cards, the whole shebang. It’s really nice to get all of those out of the way, even if my bank account is feeling a little bit skinny. And a couple of those were one time deals so the next pay period/bill period should be a little bit kinder. I’m a bit of a stress-a-holic when it comes to bills (considering I’m the one who does all of our personal accounting/check writing), so right now it’s really nice to know we have food in the house and money in the bank.

Right now I’m excited about trying out Stitch Fix! If you don’t know what Stitch Fix is, it’s basically a personal stylist program that you sign up for through an invitation, then about two weeks later they assign you a stylist and for $20 a fix they send you a box of 5 clothing items through the mail and you decide which ones you want to keep and the $20 you originally paid is applied to your balance. I haven’t ordered my first box yet (I’ll be doing that in a few days, aka after I get over all the bill paying), but my wardrobe is a little haphazard right now and I’m hoping to get some good basics and tops! You fill out a style profile and tell them about how much money you’d like to spend on specific items and they’ll go from there.* If you want an invitation you are welcome to use mine: http://stitchfix.com/sign_up?referrer_id=3079984

And last but not least, I’ve been making a lot of new friends through work and the Bearded One’s band, so we’re getting out a lot more and being more sociable than the complete recluses we were before, which is pretty awesome. It can only get better from here, right?

 

*I have not been paid by Stitch Fix for this blog post, but if you decide to use my invitation I get $25 credited to my next purchase.

Sugar and Spice, But Not Everything Nice

This has been one of those weeks with some crazy ups and downs. It’s certainly a memorable one. As a general rule, I’m a person who likes to hear the bad news first and get it over with, but this isn’t how this post goes.

So we’ll start with the good news- I became an aunt this week! One of my younger sisters had a beautiful baby girl, the first grandchild/niece in my exceptionally large family, and while I am not biased in the slightest, I think it’s quite possible she’s the prettiest baby in the history of babies so far. This is an objective opinion.

Unfortunately, mi hermana lives about a 5 hour drive from me, and I was scheduled to work all week, so I had to put off driving to see her and the baby and my wonderful brother-in-law until the weekend, when I was lucky enough to have two days off in a row scheduled. Finally this morning I was all set to go get my oil changed and drive out to the middle of Nowheresville, when at the lube station I heard those fateful words, “Something is wrong with your car.”

To condense a long and boring explanation that I don’t 100% understand, it’s looking like the best thing right now for us to do is fix up my car the best we can and sell it or trade it in for something cheaper to maintain. I love my little sports car, but I’ve also dropped a lot of money into that black hole over the years and it just isn’t worth it anymore and isn’t large enough for the day that we will want a family.

Anyways, it was not an easy realization to come to. I pretty much sobbed uncontrollably for an hour. Add in my disappointment over not getting to meet my niece yet and the stress of the inevitable financial storm about to rain down on us just when I thought maybe we could get our feet on the ground, and I was a hot mess. Thankfully, the Bearded One was a complete rock star. He calmed me down, gave me a back rub to make me feel better, took me to the park for lunch and let me climb a tree, and cheered me up better than anyone else ever could.

So the ups have been high this week and the lows have been pretty low. I know it will all work out in the end, but I hate dealing with all the stress in the meantime. I’m still unbelievably excited about the wonderful new life my sister brought into the world, and all I can do about the rest is:

I have to admit, I feel a lot more like Nemo’s dad in this.

A Ranty Review

I had a whole post written up and ready to go, and then I got this morning all to myself, and, well, I went to Redbox the other night and now I’m sucked in to playing Tomb Raider. I’m not a huge gamer, although the Bearded One and I will go off and on with Borderlands 2 marathons and I’m a Fable addict and I’ve actually test gamed for a company before, which was a pretty cool experience! (I signed about a million NDAs to boot). I’m probably about a middle of the line gamer.

But I’ve always loved Tomb Raider. I think I was about ten when I first went to a friend’s house, and she’d gotten a Playstation for her birthday and we sat around all night and played Tomb Raider III all night and I was hooked. I thought it was so cool- Indiana Jones, but a girl! But I (unfortunately) had to go home the next day, and my mom wasn’t sure about the whole video game phenomenon until after I left the house. One of the sucky things about being the oldest child.

Then, when I finally had access to a 360, the first thing I did was go out and buy Tomb Raider Legend. I played that one the whole way through, with lots of swearing and lots of questions like “How do I move this box?” “Where am I supposed to jump?” “Whoops, can’t jump that far,” throughout. It was hard, maddeningly hard, but I made it. And then my disc disappeared and I haven’t played it since.

So with the advent of games on Redbox and the release of the new Tomb Raider, I knew I was going to be playing the latest one. I got a free code the other night, the game was finally available, and the Bearded One wasn’t going to be home for two whole hours. I took it home, all excited… and just found it was kind of meh. The graphics are great, and I like Lara being a little more vulnerable, but I’m just not won over by the gameplay so far. Too much directive playing (um, in the major scenes I’d like to play my own way, not just hit the joystick as fast as you tell me), not enough tomb raiding, and too much one person shooter style fighting. I’m stuck in the Shantytown right now, I’ve probably died about 50 times, 5 of them after changing my settings to Easy, I can’t find my way out and all I can think is, if I wanted to play Call of Duty, I’d be playing Call of Duty. And at least with CoD, they give you grenades so you can shoot more than one person at a time and you don’t have to press the left trigger and right trigger simultaneously to get off a shot! What ridiculousness. If it is not that difficult to shoot a gun in real life, and believe me, I know, it should not be that difficult to shoot a gun in a game. And mostly I’m using arrows because apparently they are more likely to kill someone than a gun is. Ugh.

So I haven’t finished the game yet, and if I can’t get past this point in a timely manner, I’m going to have to return it unfinished. I’m disappointed in the game but oh well. In the meantime, I have a cat on my feet and another on my lap (partly on this laptop, making it very difficult to write), my paycheck is coming in tomorrow, and I have a good book I can finish now that I’ve got that out of my system.

You don’t need the keys for the laptop, right?

A Quickie

This is a little, entirely unplanned post, and, boys and girls, this is what happens when you blog without a condom. Or something like that.

Why is it I always get the urge to clean at 9 pm on Friday and Saturday nights? Not on the mornings I have off, or the lazy days where I say I’m going to clean, but the rare Friday and Saturday night I actually have free. The Bearded One is working and Marisa’s in Florida, so we’ll blame my lack of creativity.

Anyways, tonight I’m experimenting with Dr Bronner’s and vinegar and baking soda trying to finally get the old table from the garage unsticky (that’s the official terminology), and trying to clean out my dishwasher that’s about 100 years old that I’m sure we’ll have to replace if we ever want to sell this place. Along with just about everything else except the plumbing because we had to replace that already.

I really shouldn’t be complaining, though, because I’m actually looking forward to doing some remodeling. The Bearded One helped his grandfather remodel his parents’ house growing up and it’s one of his fondest memories, so I plan on ruthlessly capitalizing on that to get this condo in shape. And this blog is to keep me inspired and focused because I have a sad tendency to be… uninspired and not focused.

And now, dear reader, I have a vacuum and a carpet awaiting me, so I leave you with this music video that I’ve been watching obsessively over the past two days (mostly because Carey Hart is pretty and I’m trying to figure out how to talk the Bearded One into sleeves):