Caring, Sharing, Every Little Thing That We Are Wearing...

Hello there. Remember when I had a blog? I vaguely do. I’d like to think that I was not posting because I didn't have anything important to say and that today, I finally do, but to be honest, this blog had never been about important things, so you're still going to get the my random inner monologue.

Okay, so maybe deep, down inside, I stopped blogging for a few legit reasons. I've been contemplating how incredibly vain we are as a society right now, with me at the top of this list. Facebook is the perfect storm for this. We want to be friends with who we want to be friends with. We want to post everything flattering about us. We really, really want to be liked and affirmed, and for some reason, we get that from people liking funny status updates and commenting on pictures. But we also want to do all of this from the comfort of home in our pajamas with holes in them that no one on facebook will ever really see.

Blogs are even worse. I have often written on here how much I enjoy "bad blogs". It's kinda of like that needy friend you have on facebook who posts WAAAAY too much information, but like a good sale on Jcrew.com, you just can't stop looking at it. But the heart of blogs are good, I believe, because they are based on something we all love: sharing.

The very best blogs that are hard to not love (for example, Pioneer Woman) have a few things in common, that most bloggers try to copy but usually are not successful. The blogger has a gift that they are aware of and comfortable with (ie: photography, writing, parenting, cooking, eye makeup application). They don't take themselves too seriously, and they are the first to point out funny mistakes or flaws they make, without making you feel bad for them. And they share this gift through a beautiful story. Who doesn’t love a great story? And oh yeah, it helps if they post great pictures of things too. You can't be a blogger today and take crappy pictures. That's it. Their readers will hang on every word and check their google reader every chance they get, because we love seeing someone good at something that is also good at sharing it.

It's why we love pinterest. And because of pinterest, every middle class home in America will slowly begin to look identical: pops of yellow with chevron stripes somewhere (I'm guilty). We love being inspired, but most of us are too lazy so we simply copy. But that's okay. Every great make up tip, recipe, or decorating idea I have ever gotten was stolen from someone who was willing to share it with me. And I have benefited greatly from that.

This week when my family was all together for Christmas, we had a "World Famous" themed dinner, where everyone had to make their dish that is "world famous" in their world. My sister-in-law made an amazing pudding dessert, one brother will made a savory mac-n-cheese that put us all into a food coma, another made roasted broccoli stems (my personal fav) and I made some world famous chicken that I learned how to make at a pot luck in college, from a girl willing to share it with me. And I bet as we go back home from Christmas, we'll all end up emailing each other our recipes.

Sharing is a beautiful thing.

Merry Listmas!

Tis the season... to start sentences with 'Tis the season'... and for lists too. I love me a good list. One that I can cross things off with a fat sharpie marker to make myself feel productive. Have you ever written a list and included things you've already done for the day, like shower? Guilty!

I've made lists of gifts that need to be purchased (check!), work duties that need to be done (check!) and now house needs that need to be completed before I head out for a week (in progress check!). But more importantly, I have a top ten list of things I want to do on my Christmas break... ahhhhhhhh. Breathe.

And yes, I'm sorry it's been like 4 months since my last post. I have written some posts and then thought, who the heck would wanna read this? But I promise at least one more to come this week.

merry listmas!

Pin-isms

About a year ago, my friend Heather (this is where I would highlight her blog, but she stopped updating that years ago, when blogger started being weird, so I just have to nag her for pics from her family and cute stuff that she makes, enough said) told me about a new website she was digging: pinterest.com. When I joined, Heather was one of the few "followers" I had on there. I'm not trying to brag, but we were WAAAAAY ahead of the game on this one. We were like MONTHS before all the major bloggers coughyounghouselovecough. Thanks Heather, I appreciate it.

I'm not going to go on and on about pinterest, because you either are on it and you're pinning til your daddy takes your pinterest away or you're living in the 20th century and simply blogging about it won't convince you. Pinterest quickly replaced my tags on google reader, and it's an a great inspiration for home decor, recipes, style, anything really.

Recently, my bff Mary was asking a friend of hers if she was on pinterest.com, and she responded:

"I'm neither a gay man nor a stay-at-home-mom, so no."

Ohhhh... that stings. Mary and I are also neither of those, but we are still, #duh pinning. All I do is pin pin pin, no matter what.... okay you picking up on what I'm doing? There are lots of "pinisms" like things that you constantly see on pinterest.com. Kind of annoying.

• References to "pinning" from culture, popular songs (aka what I've been doing this whole post).
• The phrase "Keep Calm and Carry On" and every possible parody of it. Woof. No one should own this phrase in art form, on a coffee mug, note pad or a dog sweater.
  
• Pictures of naked people that are "artsy." Yeah right. (That one is for Mattie).
• Phrases like "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels", "Fast 100 Workouts" and "You're lapping everyone on the couch". News flash, we're all on the couch right now. And I don't know about you, but mostly naked pictures of women don't inspire me.
  
• Lots of pictures of kids, saying something about sorry for the mess, we're making memories.
  
• Audrey Hepburn quotes about being happy.
• Instructions on how to make every form of pom poms (which I highly enjoy).
• And everything in yellow and gray. Which I am guilty of contributing to. My high school girls (who I convinced to get on pinterest) noticed the gray and yellow theme and now make fun of me for it.
  

Okay none of that really matters. And you'll only mildly enjoy this if you're on pinterest. I just laugh when I see someone on facebook say something about discovering pinterest. I'm like pssh....helllllo 2010. That was mean.

A non-update, update

Shooting a gun in the Wild West.

I have been here, there and everywhere this summer, and by that, I mean Colorado and Georgia all under the umbrella of Young Life...and at camp we intentionally unplug, so although I checked my email and pinterest from time to time, I didn't make it a priority to blog. To my dear fans, I apologize for the agony that put you through these few weeks.

After being "off the grid" for a bit, it always feels like you need to update people on what life has been like. I'm not really going to do that, because the mundane stuff is still mundane on a blog and the good stories need to be laughed at face to face, or over the phone at least. But the whole subject of "updating" made me want to blog tonight about things that I am a little sick of. Don't worry, I am in a good mood. I think venting while in a good mood is the best time to vent.

A former good friend of mine (don't worry, I am 99% sure they don't read this blog) e mailed me recently totally out of the blue to update me on their life. I think they were genuine in wondering how I was doing, and they felt the need to kick if off by sharing their own life. All of which is wonderful (no bad blood, we just hadn't spoken in years)... but they told me about every possible wonderful life change you could ever have, ie: falling in love, marriage, impressive schooling, moving, high paying job, baby on the way and moving to a cool city for an even higher paying job, and still ended the sentence with "other than that, not much going on, what about you?"

I thought about lying, but figured they could scout out my lies on facebook. Then I considered de-friending them and then lying. But all of a sudden that sounded crazy and desperate. It reminded me that I still really care about what people think of me and how they perceive my life. I hope I'm not the only one out there... so I humbly wrote back, and was thankful that I at least had a job, friends and a somewhat recent relocation to share about, and then that person never wrote back. How annoying. But I am over it, and with that long intro story, I give you:

Things I am SO over right now...

• Obama on twitter. I "follow" the White House on twitter, because I felt like it was pretty patriotic and hip to do so, but enough with the comments that Obama is the first ever president in the history of the United States to tweet. No kidding. Yeah, I've always been disappointed that Adams and Truman never made time in their schedule to update their peeps in 140 characters or less. Congratulations Obama for using a medium that the Kardashians mastered in 2008.
• The phrase "Keep Calm and Carry On." Oh my gosh, it's everywhere. And pinterest only makes it worse. It's like the mom version of the silly band. I see it on every journal, cross stitch and note pad in the TJ Maxx stationery isle, and it needs to be sent back the British government that made it up back in the 30s.
• Moron juries. I mean really, Orlando? That was the best group of folks you could gather to render a verdict? If you think I'm being harsh, you obviously didn't watch Dateline last night when they interviewed some of the Casey Anthony jurors. Yikes. Every stereotype about Florida is true. I'm sorry. I like some of your beaches and we will always be grateful for Disney, but we could pretty much let everything else go down there.
• People saying that the movie "Bridesmaids" is raunchy... okay, hear me out. A friend and I just saw it the other day, walked in probably 5 minutes late, and thankfully missed a sketchy scene that you could obviously figure out what was going on... but it was one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. Laugh out loud, genuine belly laughs. I mean there is bad language and suggestive humor, so don't go see it with your mother in law, but go see it. It's worth it. And if you've seen Hangover, it's no where near as bad... there I said it.
• Two words: summer tv. Gross.
  

What are you over? I hope it's not my blog... good to be back :)

Bready or Not

I hope you're not getting sick of side comments about couponers and the tales from the ranch that this blog is full of. Maybe just one more post. Have it in you?

I confess, I fell into the spell of crazy couponers that I JUST made fun of. Just barely though. Harris Teeter was doing triple coupons. You heard me TRIPLE. Up to 99 cents. Boom! I found a few random coupons I had under a dollar and swung by the store on the way home. I was surprised to not see as many coupon binders and moms with sharp glances and even sharper elbows. But ahhh the completely empty shelves explained it all. They beat me to it. Almost every deal. So I checked out with like 3 items, one of which being a random package of frozen bread rolls that were crazy cheap. I came home with 2 friends surprisingly stopping by. Our house was a mess, but I thought, hey at least I can serve cheap bread. I pulled out the 3 loaves and started to read the instructions. Enter the most complicated baking instructions in the history of the world. It involved multiple pans, ovens being turned off and on, everything in 20 minute intervals, and yes, a cooking time of 16 hours. 16 hours. I could order bread from Italy and have it arrive before this bread was done baking. I promised the guests if they came back by 10AM tomorrow they might have some bread.

And that my friends is why couponing is dumb. Who wants free bread that takes an eternity to bake? Ugh.

Back at the ranch... our nasty/cold May weather has been disappointed and our grass is growing at an exponential rate. One day we'll cut it... but while inspecting the jungle that is our back yard, I saw the best sign of spring:

Our neighbors told us that we had cherry trees in the backyard, enough to bake pies while we wait for the free bread to bake. Can't wait to pick produce out of the back yard. Next to the free range chickens, and I would say the free range bunnies, but they are now "sleeping" in John Boy's freezer. Gross.

Speaking of local rodent-like animals, I found this little, scared guy on our window sill yesterday. I think he was in a state of shock because he was just staring for like 15 minutes into oblivion. My roommate/animal rescuer Janelle was preparing a remedy of soggy crackers for him while we lost track of him. I think me snapping pictures of him helped him snap back to reality. My pictures of him are so cute, I am thinking about starting a photography blog about him and selling canvases of him on etsy for $200.

I am waiting for National Geographic to call at any moment. For now, back to the bread.

Extreme...everything

Have you noticed TLC's programming recently? Let's go back in time and hit on some classic, TLC faves:

• Trading Spaces (before Ty left the show to pursue a DUI and emotional, giant bus reveals)
• A Dating Story (friends setting up friends on blind dates never works out, it's awesome)
• What Not To Wear (never can go wrong with this one. They have been single-handedly keeping wide leg, dark denim in business)
• Jon & Kate Plus 8 (before Kate got plastic surgery, starting wear heels EVERYWHERE, and when episodes did not revolve around a trip to somewhere exotic, Kate having to hold an insect, screaming bloody murder and insulting a worker)

Well that was then, this is now:
Hoarders living with layers of dead animals.
Crazy extreme couponers who sometimes store extra helpings of Smart Water, dish detergent, cereal and ziplocks underneath their children's beds.
Or they even dumpster dive for extra inserts. Last week, at the grocery store, I ran into a few LEGIT extreme couponers (I happened to go on a double-super day) and they were a sight to see. They had giant binders to keep them organized, partners to push extra carts and a fierce stare that you would not want to interrupt.

But here's the thing: most extreme couponers that they show on TV are pretty unhealthy, and stock up on ridiculous items, like candy and 4,000 tubes of toothpaste. They boast that they save their family thousands of dollars a year, by merely organizing, scouring the earth for coupon clippings for 60 HOURS A WEEK. I would say maybe getting a full time job could save your family even more money...no child can nap for 60 hours/week. Coupon mom's, refer to my last post, don't forget you have children.

All that to say, I have become an Extreme Couponer. Okay, not really. Phew. I feel like there is the normal, I'm-Going-To-Keep-My-Eye-Out-For-The-Normal-Things-You-Would-Already-Buy. Exhibit A for me is hairgel. I go through like a tube & a half a week. I recently found a deal of a lifetime online and ordered 30. Yep, 30. My roommates were about to call TLC. I should be set until July. But, last week, I went to the store and saw hair gel marked down EVEN more, so I couldn't resist. Then, I found canned pumpkin, which I use almost ever week in baking muffins, and sometimes is expensive/in a drought, on extreme clearance for 79 cents- BAM!! Holla! So I took a picture to expose my insanity.


Really, I just think TLC started Extreme Couponers, just to ensure they would have seasons of Hoarders to come.

More Mania

Part of the royal banner.
Mmmmm mamosas
Okay, so maybe we were just a lil edgy...


Can't have a royal wedding without scones.