Happy Trails

    

        We just took our new rv out on it's maiden voyage for Memorial Day weekend. I won't digress with the specifics of our new home on wheels, I don't need to tell you all what I own and where to find it. She is parked at an undisclosed location, and she is heavily insured. At any rate, we camped with family at a local lakeside national park/recreation campground. My dad was in charge of the reservations so that is why we were less than 35 miles of our homes. I can't decide if I like this arrangement or not. I guess it will do while Adeline is still so little in case there is some sort of emergency. 

        However, the gate keepers at this particular campground are straight up nazis. They are old, they are retirees, and their motto is "this is real life - we take shit seriously". One of the "rules" there is that there is a 2 dog max per campsite. We have 3 dogs. BUT my parents always camp next to us so we always say that Agadore belongs to them. We walk them separately to avoid any issue. We tied up Bacon and Banana at our site, and Agadore at mom's site, and they met in the middle to drink water and nap in the sun. This act of napping in the same vicinity was such a harsh crime that they (the park ranger) actually sent the gate keeper to come and yell at us, and threaten to kick us out without refund for allowing such a heinous act to occur. Once again, "this is real life-we take shit seriously". What is even better is that he actually thought we were to take him seriously, as he had arrived to deliver the bad news to us via his scooter, and sporting a helmet with a flame paint job. The helmet was almost as cool as his knee length black socks. I just don't understand, why not go bust chops at a neighboring campsite full of rowdy drunk tent campers? Or the people with one big ass dog that has been barking for 3 days straight. Who cares if I have 10 dogs, they aren't barking, biting, or bothering anyone. I guess that is why people just tent camp wherever they want to, and avoid situations like this altogether. 

        Aside from the non existent dog issue, our child was acting like a crack baby from Thursday until Monday. To say that she bounced off every surface of our rv is a severe understatement. For some reason we thought she would enjoy sleeping in a pack n play for the weekend. This would provide me with hours of evening reading time, I even brought 2 books just for safe measure. Looking back now I am laughing at myself for ever thinking I could enjoy an entire book for the next 18 years. Back to the sleep situation- I am convinced that in her little mind she sees that pack n play and thinks "death trap". 

      Night #1 consisted of 5.5 hours of straight screaming and crying to the point of almost throwing up. I rocked her, I tried to get her to sleep on the couch, on a pallet on the floor, in the bed, and repeat, and repeat. Around 1am she finally just quit, passing out face down on top of a dog and in between us on the big bed. This was the method of going to sleep for the next 4 days, naps included. The process of her winding down to get to sleep consisted of lots of rolling, crawling, bouncing, "accidentally" smacking me, "accidentally" smacking the dogs, making fart noises, and saying Thank You. What was supposed to be a relaxing weekend was absolutely exhausting. If I wasn't afraid that the old wrinkle bag gate keeper wouldn't come and give me a citation on his gay little scooter I would have probably just tied her to a chair at the campsite just to give us a break (totally kidding, I wouldn't tie her to anything, duct tape is much sturdier and harder to escape). 

Maybe our next excursion the camping gods will smile upon us, this time they obviously just looked on and laughed at us. 

Marital Issues

Very often I will find myself in a conversation with Brett and think to myself, "this is the most laid back relationship I have ever been in."

I can count on one hand what I would call "real" arguments we have had, I could also tell you what they were about but I'm not up for airing dirty laundry today. I will say though that those few instances had nothing to do with either of us personally. That may have revealed a good bit.

To reiterate the point that we don't fight, here is just a sampling of an average Jones' marriage argument:

 me:  im back on the mission to find a dragon con houtel

hotel**

 Brett:  No

Stick with finding a Houtel.

Also, Chad said he lives about 10 minutes away from dcon on the weekends and has an extra room

However, that would then require us not getting totally sloshed.

 me:  haha

well we can take turns perhaps

 Brett:  ?

 me:  you drink one night

 Brett:  What is this "take turns" you speak of?

me:  I drink the next

 Brett:  I DRINK ALL NIGHTS

 me:  ya ya whatever

that's cool too

 Brett:  I WILL MAKE YOU INTO A HAT!

 me:  Ill get drunk in the mornings so ill be sober by night time. Problem solved.

Mother's Day 2012

My second Mother's Day was a huge success.
Originally we were going to go to the Renaissance festival, but there was a 100% chance that it could be raining (100%? Really? After 99% just show, "damn guys, it's raining" on the screen).

Anyways, 100% rain for an outdoor festival is really not that fun I imagine. 

So Brett and Adeline made me breakfast - then Adeline was sweet enough to open my presents for me. To say that I am not a traditional kinda gal is a severe understatement. With that being said Brett has tuned into this so very nicely. I can assure you that none of the moms I know received some of the gifts I received. I got; a custom made super hero pencil skirt from Get Waisted, a Zombie game from Dr.No's comic book store, a framed picture of us, flowers, a card with a button to wear, and a can of gum. So, many of you reading this may have gotten the flowers or a picture, but the other stuff? Unlikely. I am now prepared to fight crime and eat brains, all at the same time. With minty fresh breath. 

Adeline took the longest nap in the history of naps (must have been the rain). So I busied myself with reading The Tenth Insight. After Adeline was up I decided we should go to one of my favorite places, an Antique Mall - god my dad would be proud. I can't figure out why, but I am obsessed with old treasures. Clearly I can't afford most old treasures, but I can window shop like a pro. After 36,000 square feet of oohing and aahing, and after cleaning up a pack of goldfish Adeline successfully spilled and I successfully ran over with the stroller I was done. I bought $7 worth of clip on earrings for Brett's grandma Lily. 

Apparently looking at crap you can't afford works up quite the appetite, so we started our search for food. We figured since it was 3:00 we had skipped the lunch crowd, but also beat the dinner crowd. WRONG. Our first few stops we were faced with a 1-2 hour wait. We decided to think outside the box, where do most people not take their moms on mothers day? A tavern! We waltzed right in with 0 wait time, high fives all around. I would like to point out a few scrumptious highlights from this tavern - the asparagus fries, and the white cheddar grit cakes. Mmmmm.

The day was concluded with the newest episode of Game of Thrones. That show is so messed up. In conclusion, I will take a day that involves super heroes, zombies, treasure hunting, and hanging out at a tavern any day. 

Metric System

Brett was at Publix the other day and snapped this shot:

Which got me thinking, which can never be a good thing. 

I reallllllyyyyy want to know why America felt the need to stray from the pack (and by pack I mean the rest of the universe) and change things as simple as this date of the year situation, and oh you know, the metric system?

I understand people came to this "great nation" to start anew. Some were quite adamant about doing things differently. But things like the metric system - isn't that just a little far fetched? I am sure everyone got the point that everyone had strayed from the pack when they came over here and started killing off all of the natives. Yea yea, you lost your minds, and you aren't coming back. Got it. Below I have illustrated a sample checklist for the early pioneers.  

Check list: (or would it be Cheque list?):

-Arrive to the Americas safely.

-Start killing everything that isn't nailed down.

-Wonder how to feed everyone because the only one's that had any knowledge of the land are all now dead.

-Realize you should have asked questions first, killed later.

-Listen to stomachs growl.

-Try not to die of starvation.

-Try not to die of disease.

-Hope there is an engineer or really smart guy left, and develop entire new system of measurement. F*ck the man and his metric system. 

-Start writing the month, date, and year entirely backwards.

For some reason those last two bullet points on the checklist are jiving with the other, perhaps more pressing matters on the list. 

At any rate, I understand my timeline and sequence of events is a little skewed, so if you are an engineer, historian, or a smarty pants leave your comments to yourself. I am trying to be humorous. 

In other news, I made my very first ever meme. I am unsure why I thought I needed to do the PG version and type va jay jay. If a child has access to viewing this meme and even understands the context of it, as in, has watched and followed the Game of Thrones I think that not typing the word "vagina" is the least of my worries. That show is uh, intense to say the least. 

Greek Yogurt.

I tried Greek yogurt for the first time, so I could be like the cool kids. I am pretty sure that my taste buds are going to murder me in my sleep tonight.

It's so bad I can't even come up with the appropriate amount of adjectives to describe my dismay. Oh who am I kidding of course I can- it has a; dull, chalky, dense, granular, vulgar taste to it. It's so thick you could choke on it (ya ya ya... That's what she said). Anyways, it is utterly disgusting.

I know what some of you may be thinking, "Greek yogurt is delightful you must have gotten the wrong flavor". These same people are probably not reading this right now because they are at the gym for their second time today, or trying to savor the last few bites of a celery stick. But I can assure any naysayers that I actually tried 2 flavors- "wild strawberry" and "greek honey" (See above image). I would just like to point out that there aren't enough wild strawberries in the universe to make that stuff a tasty treat.

It was so depressing because I had such high hopes that it would be delectable. Even the lid said "Better than Good!". Really guys? Better than good? What gauge are you using for good-ness? Did you taste test with a goat? Because I have seen a goat chew on a beer can before, so you should probably upgrade to humans for such purposes.

In 25 years I haven't heard a peep about this crap, "greek yogurt" why now? Was regular yogurt not disgusting enough that they had to kick it up a notch? I know the culprit to the crap taste...protein...Which is what gives this snack its chalky texture.

How did they market this idea, "hey guys, I thought I would make this yogurt "better" by adding 10,000,000,000 grams of protein, it's so solid you almost have to chew it, oh and all these flavorings I have added don't do a damn thing to the bitterness, but we can still market it to any granola person alive". I then realized exactly how they decided to market it, they used John Stamos. For shame uncle Jessie. For shame.

I also tried kale this week, there just isn't enough time today to even try to go there...

Use Your Words

This post is going to help me when I finally get around to scrapbooking. I haven't been writing down a lot of the little stuff about how much Adeline is learning and doing. I got an email from one of those parenting websites that said kiddos her age (15 months old) should know at least 3 words besides mama and dada. But for the sake of recollection my cutie patootie can say the following:

mama

daddy

papa

nanny

up

hi/hey

byebye

puppy

bubbles

ball

more ---- see video... holy cuteness batman (sidenote- why does she sound british?)

bite

purple

thank you

please

baby

pretty

bird

That is all I've got folks. Sorry there isn't a painfully funny story to go along with this post, but there is a video that is like, spectacular so you are welcome.

Nerd Alert

Things that may indicate that I am a nerd:

• I know that dragon con is 162 days away.
• My favorite shirt in my closest isn't designer. It's batman.
• I appreciate, understand, and would actually like to Steampunk a good portion of my wardrobe.
• I actually look forward to going to the comic book store with Brett and Adeline.
• History is my friend.
• I enjoy talking to dead people ( ok that might be more creepy than nerdy).
• I revel in the fact that my friends are way smarter than I am. And I brag about their smartness.
• My glasses are a necessity, not an accessory. Damn hipsters.
• I've never seen an episode of: the bachelor, a desperate anything, one tree who gives a shit, dancing with the sellouts, etc...
• I do watch, and repeatedly watch: firefly, finding bigfoot, the walking dead, the big bang theory, and add here anything related to cryptozoology.
• I can almost understand half of the crap my husband says about dragons, and video games. It has been a steady progression, but I've come a long way.
• Mentioned it elsewhere, but I never, ever, ever, played sports in school. I did play the alto saxophone in the school band though.

Throughout high school I was more of a closet nerd, I now embrace every little bit of nerdy-ness. Because I am a firm believer that nerds make the world go round. Believe it. If you doubt it, put down your iPhone right now, or walk away from your computer screen. Don't hop in your fuel efficient car, dont update your facebook status, don't tweet, maybe snag a smart water, youre gonna need it.