Press (re)Start.

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When I don’t want to do something, I have a really hard time starting.  When I’m stressed.  When I’m tired.  When I am embarrassed, angry, and overwhelmed.  It is easier to hide or immerse myself in something mindless, have you played Trivia Crack?  My mostly rational mind is clued into the fact that this is a by-product of the ADD, but my overwhelmed reaction (ding ding ding, also the ADD) sees it as a series of hurdles. 

And you know my booty isn’t making it over any hurdles.

The thing is, it bothers me, being away from here as much as I have been, but there are some other things I needed to spend my energy on.  It’s kind of like that put your own oxygen mask on, then your kids’ when the reality is you’re going to see their face and put their mask on first.  And I did, but it’s also a bullshit cop out excuse too.  Because everyone knows in the crazy airline demonstrations, doing that just makes you pass out while your kids are fine.  I’m pretty sure mine would just poke me with a stick because they want a snack. 

Coming back for a quickie “hi, how are ya,” in the midst of all of that, seemed like kind of a jackass thing to do.  So, I just didn’t.  I would be like that friend who just shows up unannounced to your party, because you put it on Facebook.  Sure, you forgot that friend wasn’t under your ‘acquaintance’ list, they aren’t really invited, if we’re being honest but, they still show up and make it all awkward.  Yep.  That about sums it up.

Ooooh, is that Chex mix?

And, no, I’m not going to talk about it just yet, the other stuff, but I will.  Probably.  Just not right now.  << I also hate when people do things like that,  WHO does that?  Annoying people, on your acquaintance list, that’s who.  But, you already know that. 

Unless you’re new.

In which case, um, hi, I’m Michelle, you can totally come sit by me.  I’ll probably even be back here tomorrow.  Maybe.

I am pressing the re-start button.  While crossing my fingers it doesn’t crash the system. 

What’s new with you?

20 Years.

I’m in the midst of planning our twentieth reunion. 

From high school.

As in, I graduated from high school twenty years ago. 

Two thoughts permeate my brain.  One, how is that even possible?  Two, my best friend is a hoarder.

So, I should tell you that one of my very best friends moved back to Ohio this summer.  She has lived in Florida for my entire marriage and almost all of the time I have been with Dave.  She has seen my kids grow up through pictures and visits twice a year.  I still sometimes forget that she is here permanently.  It is weird and wonderful to have her a three minute drive away.  It’s bizarre to be able to call her and ask her to come over in the middle of the week.   When we do get together, it feels a little like vacation Natalie, home for just a minute.  Let’s pack everything all into one week of shopping and dinner out and fun!  Woooo! 

Dave just keeps saying, “Well, you DO have a lot of time to make up,” and sending me on my way.  I think he secretly loves it because Natalie tells him all kinds of stories about Fun Michelle.  That is what we call me, in the late nineties.  Fun Michelle are the stories my children won’t hear until they are old and planning their own 20th reunions.  Hopefully.

While we’re on the subject, most of our reunion planning meetings go like this,

HOW is it possible that we have been out of high school for twenty years?

It can’t be twenty years.  Don’t you feel like we’re supposed to still be twenty-two?

Maybe late twenties, max.

Do you think so and so will come to the reunion?  I wonder what ever happened to so and so.

Remember when so and so did that thing in high school that was hilarious?

Remember when you dated so and so?  Ahhhahahaha! 

Well at least I didn’t date so and so!

We were such idiots.

SUCH idiots.

We didn’t get anything done!

Totally, but I laughed so hard, my face hurts.

Worth it.

We also have the added bonus of Natalie memorabilia.  Now, I have a box of stuff from grade school and high school and college.  You throw in your senior pictures, some old grade cards that your mom saved, and a year book or two, right?  Pretty typical?  I feel like a lot of people have that box.

Natalie takes it to another level. 

She has receipts from a store where we used to work, with the cashiers’ names circled.  Did we really need to know that you bought a salad and cheese from Julie in 1993?  Probably not.  How about ticket stubs from movies she went to with names scribbled on the back… it’s important to remember that you, Jay, and Abby went to see Jurassic Park, twenty some years ago.  Have I mentioned every award and certificate she was ever given?  There is a folder full, people.

Oh, I can already hear her yelling at me while she’s reading this.  She’ll tell me it’s not fair if I don’t tell you that her parents just moved and so they went through everything that was packed away there.  She will protest that she was just keeping all of this for our twentieth reunion.  For this very occasion.  She will try to convince you, THAT was the reason she had two copies of everything from our prom program to our commencement announcement.

I maintain that the ticket stubs speak for themselves.  And I am going to wear this 1994 vintage broomball beauty, pinned to my sweater…

Just so you all know, Nat is the best sport in the universe and gave her blessing for this post.  By blessing, I mean, she sighed and told me that she was going to tell you all that we’re only friends because she let me cheat off her in pre-calculus class our junior year. 

Clearly, math is NOT my forte, but choosing best friends is.

The Mother-In-Law Clean.

I am a maniac when my mother-in-law comes over to our house.  Certifiable.

Sue, you should probably stop reading now.

Regardless if it’s planned or an unexpected visit, three minutes before, you’ll find me running through the house with a vacuum.  Usually, I’m simultaneously hurrying the kids along to pick up whatever mess they’re currently concocting and yelling for Dave to please grab a broom.  This is usually followed by an entertained look from him, possibly followed by an eye roll because he knows his mother, but he grabs the broom anyway. 

Sue didn’t raise a fool.

She really doesn’t care what our house looks like on a Wednesday at four in the afternoon.  Not even a little bit.  My brain knows this.  My brain also knows that my own mother cares WAY more than my mother-in-law does. If Janet walked in to a spotless house, she’d walk right back out and ask where her real daughter is being held captive… then, probably tell Clean Michelle to stay instead.

You hear that, Dave?  It’s YOU who should be caring about a mother-in-law clean.

It’s me, though.  I care.  It’s as if the house being clean is going to make her think, “Well, I’m certainly glad he picked a girl who can keep the house clean!  What a good great choice for a wife to my beloved son and such a pretty mother of my grandchildren!  Have you tasted this pot roast?  It’s delicious.” 

When the house is a disaster, in my head, she knowingly glances at Dave with raised eyebrows while stepping over Legos and spit-fixing Finn’s wild, too-long hair and slowly shakes her head in disbelief.  “There are toys from one end of the house to the other, isn’t she home all day?  That’s what happens when you marry a mouthy Democrat who talks to her imaginary friends on the internet for a living.” 

Stop smiling, those imaginary friends… that would be you.

The reality is, when she calls to say she’s stopping over unexpectedly and hears me start the launch sequence of DEFCON MOTHER-IN-LAW, she tells Dave, “Tell Michelle not to worry about it!  I don’t care!” 

But, I do.  Now, be a dear and run outside and cut some lilacs for the table.

Am I the only one that does the mother-in-law clean?

They Cancelled Halloween + I’m Having a Midlife Crisis.

The cashier at Target called me ma’am. 

Have a good night ma’am.

Not anymore, Young Chippie who has yet to understand what wandering around Target in silence without a two year old can do for a mother’s soul.  But, thanks for that.

Yesterday, they cancelled Halloween which is why I was at Target anyway.  If we’re being honest, cancelling Halloween was fine with me.  Not only did it mean my two and six year old weren’t fighting the rain and wind in their super cute costumes, it meant that I could sneak in a hair appointment before we leave for Mexico.  And I buy the good candy to hand out, so now there is a whole bowl of it just sitting there.

It’s a win for everyone, really. 

Unless you’re the jerks stuck with a bowl of Tootsie Rolls and pennies, in which case I think we all know, you deserve it.

They’ve never cancelled Halloween before, and really I suppose I mean postponed since the kids will trick or treat on Sunday.  You should have heard the uproar from people on Facebook.  You would think that they were asking people to walk out in the rain themselves and deliver it door to door.  There were ridiculous amounts of in MY day you went tricking and treating whether there was eight feet of snow on the ground or not!  This is a travesty!  A crime!  A little rain will never hurt anyone when you’re walking to school uphill both ways barefoot in your sister’s hand-me-down dress.  Kids these days!  Next they’ll be asking us to FEED them the chocolates on a silver spoon!  Maybe we should just move Halloween to June so they can have nice weather every year!  Stupid kids!

And on and on it went for hours.  And then the weather turned out to be nothing until after trick-or-treating would have been over.  That’s what happens when our weather people say something out loud, Mother Nature flips them the bird and says, “I do what I want, Beyotches!"

Of course. 

It waited, because Halloween was already cancelled… postponed… and we need to give these people more fuel to the nostalgia of awful Halloween weathers past.

Cancelled Halloween because of a sprinkle or two?  Hmpff.  Damn kids these days are going soft if you ask me.  Once, I held on to a tree limb while my little brother and I made a human chain to get to every door in the neighborhood, it was so windy.  Need to teach these kids to toughen up.

I always find it highly amusing when people my age… people getting ma’am-ed at the store age, start bitching like we’re ‘the man’ because of course, we are, but no one has to know that.  Do they?  Can we keep it hidden just a little longer that we’re the ones these young whippersnappers will be rolling their eyes at by just shutting our mouths when they call off Halloween because there was the potential for 40 – 50 mph winds and torrential downpours? 

Instead, can we just say, “I wish they’d have called off Halloween that time that I was sick for a week from walking around in the pouring rain and refused to put a coat on over my majorette costume.  Enjoy those tricks and treats on Sunday when there isn’t the threat of flying tree branches and downed power lines, Pipsqueaks.”

Yes, ma’am, we can.

Ann and Nancy.

I’ve been to a lot of concerts.  A lot.  The Beach Boys when I was five or six was my first.  I thought that all concerts had blow up beach balls flying around and I wanted to go to as many as humanly possible.  My dad took my sister Lyndsey and I to concerts all the time.

I think all along, he was hoping that one of us would get half the musical talent he had. 

I was just recounting this story to some friends and to Dave over the weekend as we talked about some of the ridiculous concerts we’ve been to.

Yoko Ono, anyone?  Rick Astley?  Bijork?  Milli Vanilli?  Color Me Badd.  With two Ds, people.  Two. 

There were amazing concerts too.  Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wynton Marsalis, Sponge, Nine Inch Nails, New Kids on the Block, Dave Matthews, Prince, Michael Buble, Beck, and that is just a fraction.  I can’t remember half of them.  I wish I were one of those people who wrote things down for a living...

Ahem.

My dad took us to see Heart when I was in high school, maybe it was late junior high.  He was beside himself for us to experience the Wilson sisters live.  I’m pretty sure he had a crush on Nancy, more for her guitar skills than anything.  Back then, we rolled our eyes a lot and sighed when he thought things were cool, but we agreed to go.  

About half way through the concert, he leaned over to me and he said, “Two sisters.  You and Lyndsey, that could be you.”

“Dad, Lyndsey gave up the guitar in fifth grade.”   Eye roll.  Eye roll.  Sigh.

Here I am, writing this blog, while Ann and Nancy are performing at the Kennedy Center Honors in front of the President and Led Zeppelin.  Making Robert Plant cry because they did such justice to Stairway to Heaven is about the same as belting out Somewhere Out There, dressed as a mouse, in the sixth grade talent show, right?

Right?

Hey Dad, there is always Finn and Tate...

Moo.

Weird things make me smile.  It is probably why I am friends with all of you.

Our house is filled with quirky little things.  There is art in the bathroom.  We have a real, live, fruit producing lime tree in our kitchen.  For ages, until I let my sister have it, we had an art deco desk serving as our entertainment center.  A sundial side table sits next to a chair in the living room.  And the most hideous plastic beaver you will ever see in your life hangs out in our garden.

Dave doesn’t understand things like sundials in the living room acting as a table.  In his world, a sundial belongs outside in the sun telling time and a table is a table, damn it. So you can understand that when, exactly one year ago today, I purchased this cow that matches nary a dish in this whole house, Dave would be confused.

It’s a cow.  A cow creamer.  Get it??  Milk.  Out of a cow.  I mean, it’s her mouth, but Dave, it is magnificent.  Don’t you love it?

Davester? Wasn’t so enamored with the cow.  As with most things that make me ecstatically happy for no reason whatsoever, he smiled, shook his head, muttered under his breath, and the cow came to live at our house.  He even puts up with the fact that every time we open our cabinet, that cow is staring him right in the face.

Moo.

I for one, love this cow.  She is a such a jaunty little fellow.  Isn’t she?

So obviously, you will be on my side when a poor cow-matching-rooster was sitting all alone on a shelf just waiting for his forever home a year later and made his way into my cart?

I’m thinking of having a whole menagerie.  Look.  They are friends already.  Don’t tell Dave.

You would totally come to my house for coffee, wouldn’t you?

Christmas. Balls.

1. I decided Sunday night that my wrapping theme this year {brown paper packages tied up with string} looked terrible when it came down to it.  I ask you… WHAT five year old wants to open a box colored present?  So, I unwrapped the ten or so gifts I had already done and replaced my theme with hodgepodge of colorful paper of years’ past.  I love it.  The Davester helped me even though he realized that he is married to a crazy person.  Keeper, that one.  
2. I don’t know how much money to spend on Finnegan’s teacher.  Part of her gift is a heartfelt note of thanks, but also I want to say, here is a gift card because I know you are a saint and I want you to look past Finnegan’s constant talking in class and asking for band aids for things that aren’t really there.  Like his ‘broken’ leg.  But not, like I’m paying you for amazing grades because everyone knows you save up that money for when you’re getting letter grades and not just plusses and minuses.  Duh.  How much is appropriate for that kind of gift?
3. I also want to know what you do when you have two kids who are far apart enough to know that Santa is bringing presents for Finn, why aren’t there a ton for Tate?  Because Mommy didn’t do anything for you at this age and I have zero good ideas about what might be fun for her since she just likes to take your toys anyway.  Bonus: When Finn stops believing, it will be Tate wondering why Santa isn’t bringing proper gifts for Finn.  If Mommy’s stupid ovaries knew how to cooperate, we wouldn’t be facing these four years apart issues.
4. At what point in the day is it appropriate to start drinking egg nog? 

In addition to all of the pondering and ball juggling I’m doing, I’m also cleaning my house.  I’ll bet you didn’t realize I was swimming in glamour today.  Have yourself a happy Tuesday!

Triple Shot.

I don’t know about you, but I believe the Universe works in mysterious ways.  It can bring two people together.  It can gently remind us things aren’t the way they should be.  And then, there is the big old slap in the face.

I don’t really do subtle, so this is usually the form that the Universe takes when speaking to me.

Monday, I texted Dave and asked him {again} to help me figure out the espresso machine.  It isn’t that I am an idiot really, but you all know I am spoiled, the Davester usually makes it for me.  Plus, he doesn’t like it when I break his stuff.  He called me and walked me through grinding the beans with his fancy pants grinder and making a double shot.  I whipped up a cup of hot cocoa {extra marshmallows} for Finnegan and an afternoon vanilla mocha for myself and then, I posted this on Twitter:

Yesterday, I hit my afternoon slump and decided that it was a triple shot kind of day.  I started whipping it up, the smugness permeating the vanilla latte.  Oh yeah.  I don’t need your help any more, Sucka.

Everything was coming up Millhouse. 

Until I tried to remove the thingy with the espresso powder in it.  {That, I think, is the technical term?}  It was stuck.

Shoot.  Do I call Dave? 

No way.

I push it, at which point the thing EXPLODES with a bang, shooting the still hot espresso powder everywhere.  It was on the floor, on the counter, on the tops of drawers, all over the machine, all over me.  It blew the metal basket holding the powder straight across the room and the plastic grate with it.  Finn came running from the other room when he heard the boom. 

Someone {Jess} really should have told me that Twitter has a direct line to the Universe, I might not have signed up for this.

Apparently, Dave says, you need to wait five minutes for the pressure to subside and/or release the top thingy {also the technical term} so the pressurized steam can escape and NOT blow all over the kitchen. 

Which is WHY, Michelle, it was ‘stuck’ and not opening.

Thanks, Universe, I’ve got that now.  Loud and freaking clear.

And just to drive home the message a teeny bit more…  I cleaned off the counters of the insane amount of espresso powder {so VERY much powder everywhere} and bent down to clean it off the floor when riiiiiiip, a hole right in the butt of my beloved monkey pajamas.  Ok, ok, they are 10 years old and the flannel is so worn it is almost see through, but REALLY Universe?  Really?  The monkey pajamas?

I was going to take a picture of my butt, but Finn {rightly} said, “Mom, no one needs to see that.”

Drinking that triple shot of karma right now, Universe.  Thanks.  Thanks a freaking lot.

If you want to see what I say to piss the Universe off next, follow me on twitter  @SoWondSoMarv

Thirty-Five.

This is what thirty-five looks like.  {It is also what 29 weeks pregnant looks like.} 

I thought it would feel somehow older, more mature at the very least.  Thirty-five seemed ancient when I was eighteen. 

I now realize how incredibly stupid I was at age eighteen and it amuses me.

 

This is probably the most content I’ve ever been in my life. 

I am happy, really happy. 

And that, my friends, is saying a lot.

I know just who I am as a person.  And I like that girl woman.  All of her.

Part of the plan for me, it’s the journey… at twenty-five or even thirty, I still hadn’t figured that out.  I wanted to know where I would end up, where I would go to college, who I would end up with, what I would be doing, what my life would be like, would I have kids, and on and on.  I wish I hadn’t wished away some of those years for the next step because the next step, it’s coming {it really is and it always does} so enjoy the step you’re on while you’ve got it.  I’m ok now with learning what the next fifty years will bring as it comes.  

Right now, I am here, right in the moment.  There is my Davester and a marriage {and a friendship} that I only could have imagined.  Finn, my funny little partner in crime and the sweet baby girl on the way.  Monty Poodle and Dexter, this family wouldn’t be complete without them.  There is my incredibly supportive family who has seen me through all thirty-five years, hugs me tightly and still loves me despite my teen years.  There are friends old and new, who make me laugh and lift me up.   And there are all of you who keep me endlessly entertained and who I love talking to daily.

Right here, is thirty-five. 

It feels good.

I’ve Always Wanted to be One of the Boxcar Children.

When I was a kid, I used to make my sister Lyndsey and my cousin John play like we were poor and had to fend for ourselves.  My Meme had an old heater in the basement that looks like a stove, it was usually the basis for our house… either that, or we’d make the area behind the bar our ‘house’ and I’d cram them both onto the shelves underneath it like they were bunk beds.  Good times.  Sometimes we let John be our younger brother and sometimes we’d strong-arm him into to being our dog.  We would wear old towels… you know, for warmth.  And to eat?  We’d catch fish in the form of old wooden clothes pins that we would throw on the floor and use the shuffle board sticks as fishing poles.  It was endless entertainment. 

Oh sure, they went along with me because I was the oldest, but I have to think, they probably thought I was fucking nuts when we had tons of real toys to play with and yet, there we were huddled around a fake campfire pretending to be freezing.

How did it start?  The Boxcar Children, of course.  It was a story about four kids who were orphaned and to stay together, they run away and just happened to find an abandoned train car in the forest to live in.  They furnish their ‘house’ by using stuff that is thrown out at the dump and forage for food, able to barely scrape by because Henry the oldest, did odd jobs to make a few cents.  They even take in an old dog as their pet and name him Watch because duh, he’s a good watch dog and protects the kids.  It was all quite dreamy to a second grader.

Why am I bringing this up now?  The snowpacalypse is descending upon us and dude, we’re prepped just in case the power goes out and we have to live like the Boxcar Children for a day or two.  It’s not the foot of snow I’m worried about, it’s the possibility of an ice storm.  And so far, it’s like our weather people have a snow boner and don’t know what the fuck to do with it.  We just don’t know what we’re going to end up with and so, I prepare.  It’s what I do.

“Ahhh the good old days when people died of Polio & got eaten by wild buffalo on the prairie.”  -my husband on being without power in a winter storm

Dave, of course, does not find the scenario of living like the Boxcar Children nearly as dreamy as I do.  It’s like he enjoys ruining my childhood fantasies, but totally wants me to still fulfill his adult fantasies.  FAIR?  I think not.

If you’ve ever been trapped with a three year old anywhere without food, a drink, or entertainment, you’ll know there is just no hell like it.  Add in a healthy dose of negative degree weather and a husband who’s going to have to snow blow up to a foot of snow off of 120 feet of driveway and you have yourself a recipe for disaster.  So, I’ll be the alarmist crazy person, I’m not one of those assholes taking my chances in the name of bravado.  No way. The reality is, if we do lose power it really will suck, but we won’t be completely screwed. We have a full fridge, a gas fireplace in the living room for heat, a power converter in the car if we need to charge cell phones {or computers for movie viewing}, we have a battery powered lantern and flashlights, and a full propane tank on the grill for cooking.  We’re also probably in the minority here, but dude we’ve still got a landline. 

My sister?  She’s coming to stay at my house with the promise of a full pot of Meme’s Beef Stew, biscuits, and many many years of playing like we were poor under her belt.  We’ve got Girls Just Wanna Have Fun on dvd and a full Netflix queue… along with hot chocolate and laughing and pointing at Dave snow blowing out the window for our entertainment.

And if the power does go out?  She knows there will be old towels to wear and a watch dog named Monty to keep her feet warm. 

How is the weather where you are?

Positive.

Joy.  Lots and lots of joy.  We are expecting July 4. 

I took this photo on October 22.  That is a long time to keep quiet for a loudmouth like me.  Especially since we have been waiting and trying, and trying and waiting for what seems like forever.  The day the magical plus sign would appear.  And to my secret keepers?  You will never realize how amazingly wonderful your support has been these last 16 weeks.  Thank you.

So now, we patiently await our cute little bean.  

One of these days I’m going to know what I’m doing.

I read this fab post from Amy at Bitchin Wives Club and decided I had to try Live Writer.  So, I say to Dave, ummm can you help me with installing this thingy on the laptop.  After I properly named said “thingy” he informed me that not only did I already have it, but that he knew what it was and that they use it for their blogs at work.  Um. 

That Dave, he’s a freaking computer genius. 

Now if I could only get him to share that genius with me rather than not telling me about cool Microsoft shit that I should be using.

And this picture has absolutely nada to do with Live Writer or my complete and utter lack of computer intelligence.  It does illustrate beautifully though the fact that I make cute babies… oh and I can now add watermarks to my photos without it being a total pain in the ass.

Oh, and I can write my posts offline? Next, you’re going to be telling me that you’ll write the posts for me so I can drink wine and eat bonbons all day.  Um, do you have that feature yet?

Dude.  Amy and Microsoft People, you seriously rocked my socks off with this. 

You. And The Imaginary People In My Head.

Today I want you to step outside the box, leave a comment and tell me something about YOU. 

Really.

Tell me who you are.  Tell me why you read.  Tell me a deep dark secret you want to share with the whole internet... wait, don't do that ok?  I'm pretty sure some of you are freaks and I don't really want to know your freak filled stuff.  I want to be the only lunatic sharing weird stuff here.  Tell me where you're from or how you found me.  Something.  Tell me something.  I want to stop by your blog and say hello.  Or if you don't have a blog, I want to send you an email saying, "Get a blog you big weirdo.  All the cool kids are doing it!"  Do you know me in real life?  Do you have 6 kids?  Do you drive a school bus for a living?

I'll start.  Hi, my name is Michelle...

When I was little I had an imaginary friend named Kevin.  I used to have Kevin go to restaurants with us and proceed to {rather loudly} have a coronary if my parents didn't have a seat for him to have dinner.  Nothing less than a full on place setting with filled water glass and the whole shebang.  Once my dad accidentally {on purpose} slammed Kevin's head in the car door and I freaked out. 

I'm not sure what ever happened to Kevin, but I'd like to think he's still hanging around waiting just long enough for me to lose my mind so I can see him again.  It may be soon, so hang in there sweet Kevin.

I also may have yelled "Fuck you Kevin!" down the street when I was five, but I think that was toward the real live Kevin who was my friend's brother.  And yes, my mom washed my mouth out with soap.  That obviously helped didn't it?

So um, back to you...

There is Nothing Random About Kindness. A Giveaway.

Saturday, April 17th, it's my birthday.  Yep, just a week from now, I will be a year older.

There will be lots of giving, but not to me. 

To others.

Will you give me a gift & do a random {or not so random} act of kindness?

It's so easy.  You can tell someone how they have changed your life or how much you love them. You can rake your neighbor's lawn or help them clean out their garden. You can have coffee with a friend or buy lunch for a stranger. You can leave change in a vending machine for someone else to find or pay the toll of the car behind you. You can tell someone how pretty they look or make a donation to your favorite organization. Help a family that has been in the news lately or send a letter of thanks to your favorite teacher. You can drop off flowers to a nursing home or take balloons to a hospital.

You can just start with a smile.

And I would love it if you would share it with me via email, or text, or blog, or a comment, or homing pigeon, or phone call, or facebook message, or fax, or smoke signal, or a telegram.  I would even settle for morse code as long as someone can translate the dots and dashes for me.

I am doing thirty-four of them, one for each year I have been here.  I couldn't be more excited.

And then we are going to celebrate with a party because let's face it, I have the most drunk cake loving best peeps in the world.

Robyn, the brains behind Mix Mingle Glow, brought the inspiration.  For that, I am extremely thankful.

Where do you come in? 

Aside from the hope that you will do a random act of kindness for someone else, one of you will be the recipient of the first act of kindness I get to deliver Saturday morning when this all begins. 

Let me tell you, thanks to some fabulous women, this first gift I get to give is going to be so much fun.  Becki at Whippy Cake has whipped up a little something.  Meg at Green Leaf Boutique has come up with a bauble or two to share with you.  And a jar of Vanilla Bean Sea Salt of your very own so you can make some Sea Salt Chocolate Covered Oreos and see what all of the fuss is about.  Many, many more fun things are just awaiting the recipient of this box.  I am so excited to send this out I can hardly stand it.  I can't tell you any more because birthday gifts should be a surprise, right?  More than $100 worth of the most fun things are wrapped up and ready for your house.
  
It shall henceforth be refered to as the Big Ass Box of Fun Stuff.

So, how do you make sure it's your name I announce Saturday morning?

Leave a comment.  That's all.  You can introduce yourself, or tell me a joke, or tell me what random act of kindness you're going to do this week.  You can recite a poem, or tell me your favorite item from Whippy Cake or Green Leaf Boutique, or tell me how you heard about my blog.  Anything will do and anyone may enter, even if this is your first visit here.  You have until 11:59 pm on Friday, April 16.

I will even throw in two bonus entries.   If you blog this, or put it on your Facebook page, or tweet it, or simply email it to your friends you can get one additional entry.  For another, subscribe to {So Wonderful, So Marvelous} via RSS or email.... look over there in my sidebar and just click.  Be sure to leave a second {or third} separate comment telling me what you did & a link.

So there you have it.  Stop back on Saturday morning to see who the Big Ass Box of Fun Stuff will be going home with and stories of what acts of kindness people are spreading.

I hope you'll join me in doing something wonderful for someone else this week. 

It's amazing what a little kindness can do.

{Full disclosure, I did not receive any product or payment in exchange for these goodies, they were given for me to pass along to someone special when they heard about this project.  Because they are awesome.}

99

The 99 cent store.

Awesome.  You can get crap for 99 cents.  Sometimes good crap.  Sometimes bad crap.  It's the gamble you take.

99 Luftballons.

Awesome.  The German version and the English version equally.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

Awesome.  And just try to get that sucker out of your head.  Great for driving bus drivers out of their effing minds.

1999 by Prince Symbol Prince.

Awesome until everyone and their mother played the hell out of it and ruined it in 1999, but then it's cool again because after 10 years peeps have recovered, so.... Awesome again.

'99.  The year that the Blair Witch Project scared the hell out of my sister Lyndsey and she threw up from the shakey camera work. 

Funny as hell, so that makes it awesome.

And this... this is the most awesome of awesomeness. 

Go there.  Go there NOW.  MomDot's Top 100 Mom Bloggers of 2009.    Trisha, you made my day.

Moet, Etsy, Trader Joes, & Taking the Good with the Bad.

I'm going to type a bunch of stuff and none of it is related or will probably make any sense.

Enjoy!

Bunny's baby arrived and I couldn't be happier for her.  Seriously, the swelling of your heart when you become a Mama is like nothing else.  It is so life changing & flips your world upside down in the best way.  She is gorgeous, with tons of dark hair & her Mama seems quite smitten.  Love ya Bun!

All of these babies make my uterus twitch.  Are you going to have another or is your family complete?

Elise is doing Dance Blue this weekend.  Won't you stop by tomorrow and leave a message on her Elise in the Attic post wishing her luck?

I've been having a glass of wine every night for the last two weeks.  If you know me IRL, you would know how odd this really is... I probably had about the same amount of wine all half of last year.  I don't know what sparked this kick, but I am enjoying it.  It does give me heartburn which is an unfortunate side effect.   My go to type of wine is pinot noir these days.  What is your fave?

I helped Stephanie start the set up for JHB's Super Mario party and you all are going to love it.  I can't wait to show you pics next week.  It is over the top fabulous.  We also attended Ollie's small birthday dinner and it was just as fabulous.  Goes to show that it's the people that make the party.   Do you do small parties or big ones?  Does it matter to you what other moms do?

I JUST now realized that I've been pronouncing Moet {as in the champagne} wrong. It's 'mo-wett' not 'mo-way'.  Crap.  I hate when stuff like that happens, I wish someone would have told me.  Do you feel like a jerk when you correct someone?

I have been perusing Etsy way too much lately. {by the way... did you know to pronounce Etsy it rhymes with Betsy?}  There is just so much gorgeousness.  What are your fave shops, you know... so I can feed my addiction?

I have been watching Letterman this week, just because I'm still bitter about Conan.  Are you team Conan or team Jay?

Tuesday was a crazy wonderful day, so much so I felt that my cup runneth over.  Wednesday, well not so good.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Thursday.  How has your week been?

I am in the market fort a fab new face lotion.  I have tried lots, but nothing is cutting it.  I want something light, with SPF, and that makes me look like a super model.  Is that so much to ask?  Recommend your fave puh leeease?

There really should be a Trader Joes in town.  That and Homegoods.  It drives me nuts.  What store do you want to see in your city?

So, ummm if you have never left a comment before I'm pretty sure I've given you enough to go on.  And yes, yes this post is nonsensical, but that's the way I roll.  I also don't say things like, "that's the way I roll."  What other assinine things do youngins say these days?  And if you always comment, thank you & keep it coming... it's much better than talking to myself.

Birthday Wishes

THIS is what I want for my birthday in April.  Well, this and a Cricut Expression machine, but mostly this.  I am going to make it happen.  The ideas are already swirling.  AND my birthday is a Saturday this year.  Fate, no?

I might ask for your help.

Who is in?

I Miss My Plastic Charm Necklace.

Once, when Lyndsey and I were little, she shoved American cheese into my Strawberry Shortcake Blow Kiss doll.  You have no idea what I am talking about?  Strawberry Shortcake had baby dolls that, when you squeezed them, would blow fruit scented air into your face.  It was our favorite activity while dancing around in our Wonder Woman underoos watching Saturday morning cartoons.  I believe these days, they call it huffing, but whatevs. We had Lemon Meringue and Strawberry.  And Lyndsey had shoved the american cheese into her mouth which put the end to the strawberry scented goodness until one day, the cheese dried out enough to be dislodged just so.  When we pushed on her belly, she shot cheese out of her mouth at such a great speed that I'm pretty sure Rainbow Brite and Christina Marie were scared.  Christina Marie was my Cabbage Patch... she had a normal name because she was one of the first edition, procured by some miracle the Christmas I was seven  by my Meme from a friend of hers in New York.  Don't tell anyone, but she still lives in my house.

Lynds and I were children of the eighties.  We walked to the drugstore to buy giant flourescent pink triangle earrings.  We wore jelly shoes until our feet blistered.  We had every color of embroidery floss imaginable and would spend hours making friendship bracelets.  That was after the beaded friendship pin craze had died off a bit.  The Christmas that I was in sixth grade, my aunt took me to the Limited to buy an Outback Red shirt, I was in seventh heaven.  It was just about as awesome as my friends renting a white limo for my thirteenth birthday.  We rode around and drank two liters of soda.  How cool can you get?

My aunt also worked for Apple and got a IIe for us.  My mom probably had a $400 phone bill every month in 1987 when we were introduced to Prodigy by my Uncle Jim.  "Mom, we can meet someone in Oklahoma or Maine or New Hampshire!  You just use the phone line!  It is sooooo cool."  It lived in our bedroom, that we somehow convinced my mother to let us paint with bright white walls and black trim.  I can't even fathom the kind of "cool mom" factor it takes to let your pre-teens paint that hideousness with your blessing. 

Of course, it wasn't all Funshine & Cheer Bears, there were bad things too.  It is still the bane of my existance that I lost the tape of Lyndsey falling on her butt captured on my PXL-2000.  I was sure that was my ticket to Bob Sagett and his Funny Videos.  We ran out of cake mix & light bulbs burnt out of our Easy Bake Ovens.  My cousin John had all of his action figures stolen right out of the back of my Meme's Pacer in the parking lot of the grocery store.  And we do have photographic evidence of me only wearing pink and white, mostly flashdance-esque sweatshirts, for about two years of my life.  And the shoulder pads, the shoulder pads.  Who would let a fourth grader wear a turquoise blazer with shoulder pads to school?  That's right.  My mother. 

And the charm necklace.  Ohhhhh the sweet sweet plastic charm necklace.  Filled with clip on charms like a baby bottle, a tennis racket, and an abacus, because in 1985, you never knew when you might need a miniature plastic abacus.  To do your counting of Hello Kitty items or Garbage Pail Kid cards or ummm whatever?  If I had that pink plastic goodness today, I would be forced to wear it AND pretend I was putting on the plastic lipstick charm, the awesomeness was just that powerful.  There is no point in denying it.

This post is really for my awesome friend Merrily, who introduced me to this book, modeled by the gorgeous Christina Marie herself...

It's a book, it's a Trapper, there are images of smelly stickers, it's totally RAD.  I read this and laughed hysterically.  And now, I'm passing it on to one of you.  {Full disclosure, I totally paid for this sucker & already read it.} Leave a comment with YOUR favorite and thing about the eighties.  I will choose a winner on Friday, February 5.

Gotta go.  Digrassi Junior High is on and my crimper is done heating up. 

{UPDATE:  Thank you to all the entries!  The winner, chosen very democratically by writing everyone's name on paper and having Finnegan choose one, is GEORGIE!  Congrats!  I need your address to get your book to you!}