Retro Gaming Celebration

At this juncture, if you have read any of my previous party related blog posts you have gathered a few things: I suck at directions, I procrastinate, and most importantly - I make creative shortcuts and "bandaids" to save my ass. I started planning a summer party that sort of celebrated my birthday, my man's birthday, and just a gathering in general. I always have to have a theme because that is just how I operate. We chose a retro gaming theme.

Decorations were a breeze thanks to digital downloads on etsy. I got a pacman set of printables, and a mario set of printables. Cut the items out and pasted them to an existing party banner we had.

I used electrical tape and star balloons from the dollar store to make these guys:

Made a pirhana plant:

I saw this on the internet at some point in my journey to create the perfect party. But the day of when I went to find the directions for this I couldn't find it anywhere, seriously anywhere. So I went from memory on this.

I didn't want to bake an official birthday cake since it wasn't an official birthday party. I had decided that my clear and only alternative was making 143 cupcakes and building Mario with them...

 Not bad right?This was the finished product.

I found this ditty on Pinterest and followed the blog links to secure the knowledge I needed to convince myself that A-this was going to be super easy,  B- It was going to take no time at all , AND C- I was going to succeed with flying colors/minimal stress. Go ahead and laugh for me now. The internet is deceiving, and it gets the best of us.
The Daily Dawdle demonstrates this phenomena: http://www.dailydawdle.com/2012/11/16-hilarious-pinterest-fails-nailed-it.html.
I actually documented several of my steps just so I could finish up with a NAILED IT meme of my own, because I realized at the grocery store that this was going to be a much more serious undertaking. But I had already committed and there was no going back and going to the bakery and buying a cake like a normal human being was simply out of the question.

Here is the blog that I used as my guideline to create this nearly impossible treat: http://www.cuteasafox.com/2010/09/mario-party-credits.html?m=1
I applaud her for giving a very detailed diagram to follow as well as a few pointers involving frosting color combos, and the foam board trick as a platter. I too, procured a foam board that I quickly filled up WITH MARIO'S HEAD. Then freaked out because, where the shit is this huge Mario going to reside until the guests show up? Luckily I had a HUGE black table cloth and a HUGE dining room table that did the trick. If you don't own an excessively large table to fit this on. Run, turn back and run. Go to the bakery and buy a cake like a normal human being.

My half ass ingredient and directions list:

INGREDIENTS:

1) 3 boxes of cake mix - the back of the box will tell you that one box makes 24 mini muffins. THIS IS A DIRTY STINKIN LIE. One box produced enough mix for 48 mini muffins for me. Maybe I am magical and like Jesus I too can feed a multitude with just a few things. Doubtful. Just buy 3 boxes of mix (maybe an extra in case you jack something up along the line). I have several leftover boxes of cake mix thanks to Duncan Hines' misguidance. Maybe the person who made that up is eating half of the batter before it hits the muffin pan? That is 50% off, that is a big deal Mr. Duncan Hines. I should write them and ask for a refund for all these cake batter boxes I now have to store and not eat. My apologies for getting severely sidetracked. 
2) The stuff the cake mix requires. Eggs, oil, milk, whatever. 
3) Cupcake papers and an ungodly amount of mini muffin pans. Go ahead and ask everyone you know if you can borrow their mini muffin pans because there is no way in hell you own enough to get the job done.
4) Time. From start to finish this project took 2 days. Two. Days. Don't have two days to waste? Go to the bakery and buy a cake like a normal human being.
5) Large ziplock bags (if you do what I did and bake the night prior).
6) Frosting. This is up for debate, but I used 4 containers total, and wound up with a ridiculous amount leftover. Oops. And for the brown frosting? JUST BUY CHOCOLATE. Don't try to mix up brown. Just don't. I did, so just trust me and buy chocolate frosting.
7) Food coloring. I got a box of the contemporary colors.
8) Dark chocolate shavings. Unless you have a better idea for making black icing. For the black cupcakes I used brown frosting topped with dark chocolate shavings.
9) Printed copy of the diagram so you can build this monster with ease. I hit a snag here and will get to that snafu later in the Directions.

DIRECTIONS (I started this endeavor around 9:00ish pm):
1) Print copy of the diagram.
I thought it would be nice to include my husband and have him do this step for me since our printer at home is on the fritz. He even went so far as to texting me a pic of the diagram in his hand so I knew it had been done. All a farce. He came home without it. His one job was to deliver the one sheet of paper. My advice? Go ahead and let go of any hopes that you will have help with this endeavor and resolve that you will be a lone wolf in a baking hell. You may be able to trick someone by telling them it is a simple craft project you need assistance with. You will be on the fast track to doing this 100% solo if you say anything along the lines of "I am baking and decorating 143 cupcakes and then I am intricately organizing them according to a diagram".
2) Bake the mini cupcakes according to the package directions - don't forget you will get much more from each box. Dirty liars.
3) Let them cool.

Once you get to this point you may actually start crying because in the grand scheme of things you really, aren't even halfway done.

4) That last step wrapped up at 1:00 am for me, so I counted out and bagged them according to what colors they would be frosted with. Thought this would save time the next day.

 If you don't have a psychological issue with organizing the shit out of everything you can just go to bed without doing the bagging by number and color ordeal. Yea, do that instead.
5) Get some sleep.
6) Few hours until party time: Start mixing frosting colors. I wish I had photographed how we mixed our colors. My husband jammed the mixer blade into his drill and mixed them for me. I think I was too busy saying, "OHMYGOD what are you doing to the frosting" to actually take a picture. His methods worked well, he earned forgiveness for forgetting the diagram.
7) Frost all of the cupcakes according to the diagram that you may have to be following via your smartphone. Or your printed diagram if you are so lucky.
8) Find the biggest surface in the history of ever, and start building your Mario. This was actually the most fun part for me.
9) Walk out of the room. Pour yourself a drink, chug. Walk back into room take a glance at your amazing work of art and start singing WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS MY FRIENDS. Replace I with We if you feel so inclined.

 I seriously felt like I won the lottery when I realized that I actually made it look like Mario.

10) Take lots of pictures. There must be photographic evidence, because if someone touches that shit before you document it you have every right to kill them. Slowly and painfully.
11) Psychologically prepare yourself for party guests devouring the whole operation.
12) Eat and enjoy.
13) Drink 3 pitchers of sangria with your friends and play retro video games, then go back and eat more cupcakes. Rinse. Repeat.

Half a Decade. America.

This celebratory post is in honor of two things.

1- TODAY IS OUR ANNIVERSARY. I married that big ol lug 5 years ago. That is 1,826 days, half a decade, or more awkwardly, that would be 33 years in dog years.
I wouldn't trade a single one of those 1,826 days/33 dog years.

2- MY HUSBAND BECAME AN AMERICAN TODAY. Kind of ironic that his day of oath was scheduled to the date, 5 years from our wedding day.

American, or Canadian, I have had a limited amount of complaints with the guy. He puts up with a whole lot (whole lot) of shenanigans. I am constantly scheming things, typically insane business ventures. Steadily dragging random old stuff into our house and claiming it as decor. I buy too many shoes and I gradually takeover our entire closet (and bathroom sink respectively). I am constantly whipping up something new and delicious highly experimental in our kitchen.

But? I can count the amount of knock down drag out fights petty squabbles we have had on one hand. That is a pretty sweet track record. There is no such thing as fighting a Brett Jones. He is double my size, and has accidentally hugged me into throwing up. It helps tremendously that we have the cutest freakin' kid to direct a hefty portion of our attention. Our little trio is fairly unstoppable.

Icing on our happy little cake is that he got to ditch his green card today and be an official American citizen. We have both worked very hard over the last 5 years to get to this day, and I am very proud of him!

Here's to 5 years, looking forward to 100 more! Yes, I totally plan on the two of us being 127 and 130 years old. We will blend in perfectly with all of the antiques I am filling our house with.

Monday Wins.

My household decided to start this Monday off at 4am. FOUR O'CLOCK ANTE MERIDIEM (I know, it is too early for latin).
So, unless you are bringing me gifts at any point today, I don't want to see your face. Acceptable gift items may include but are not limited to: money, baked goods, pumpkin flavored items, or alcohol.

I am sure we can all guess who kicked off at 4am first. The kid. We took her to the fair for the first time last night. Apparently hanging out with carnies for hours and hours throws her beauty rest schedule off.
She opted for a two hour play date from 4-6am.

I have some sage parenting advice for anyone with a restless toddler in the house. This will apply for parents taking their 100th trip into their child's room to coax them back to slumber land.
You ready?
Play possum. 
There aren't any requests from your little dear for that extra story/glass of water/pillow fluff that can get through mommy acting as if she is dead to the world. Throw in some snores for good measure. Eventually the child will give up and follow suit.
60% of the time it works every time...

This parenting tip might just be as effective as my How to Potty Train Your Toddler in 3 Hours post. God bless anyone who ever takes anything I write seriously. 

Don't forget: I am still upset that it is Monday all day long, and I am still accepting gifts. 

Let's wrap up this post with some fair photos (sans the carnies):

Riding "Butterscotch" who she was convinced, was a donkey. 

Holy fun clown fish batman! That kid is having the time of her life! 

She was definitely the whitest kid in the bass boat. But not a care in the world! 

Pretty good lookin' crew eh? Those two probably shouldn't team up like that, it makes me look even shorter. 

Why Ya Wanna

Brett: "Brantley Gilbert and Jana Kramer broke up!"
Me: "I bet he finally heard one of her songs."
Brett: "Cold! Or maybe, and most likely, she finally told him about her feelings for me."
Me: "She must've heard about your extensive comic book collection... Irresistible."
Brett: "That was uncalled for."

I should have prefaced that a bit. When "Why Ya Wanna" came out Brett sang it- all the time. Horribly off key might I add. However, he also wouldn't skip a beat each time in telling me that she was going to run away with him one day. That song was almost as annoying as "Call Me Maybe". I see from a general search on the interwebs that Jana has a newer song out now called "I Hope it Rains". I would have to agree, I too, hope it rains, just loud enough to drown any chance of me hearing her (or Brett) sing.

I Miss You

...Hi, it's uh, it's me. Just dusting off the blog here, a little surprised no one has called DFCS and had her taken away from me due to neglect.

I know, I can hear you now:
"Where have you been? Who have you been seeing? Come home, the kids and I miss you!"

Shortest version possible is that I have been over here, doing work stuff. Big girl stuff, worky work, responsibilities. I could say keeping the house clean, but that is a total sham of a lie. I would lose my kid in this mess if she weren't freakishly huge for a two year old.

Another time suck lately? I have been working on legalizing my man friend. Resulting in hours of helping him study for the naturalization test. Apparently he and I learned that the President's cabinet does a lot more than "hold shit". May I point out that most citizens would not be able to answer half of these questions correctly without studying (wanna test yourself? click here). They could, however, tell you about 3 recipes they found on pinterest. Or what Miley Cyrus was wearing when she twerked herself into a media frenzy.

With the amount of ridiculously dumb people that can be found here in 'murica I was bewildered to see the crowd of folks at USCIS still trying to get in to join us. No wonder we get our feathers ruffled and cry "they take our jobs!". Well duh. Determined, bilingual individuals tend to make regular joes look like chumps. Especially if regular joes spend 99.9% of their time on facebook making typographical errors and posting pictures of themselves while drunk/something bacon related or both.
Read a book America, a book with words! 
Back to our process- Brett passed all of his tests, and is currently waiting on the final approval along with a notice to go in to take his oath. 

That short version of where I have been as of late got really out of hand didn't it?

I want to promise that I will write more often. However, I don't want to be like the husband who works "out of town" all the time, so I will cut it to you straight. If you don't see me here, take a look over at the business page. I am halfway appropriate over there. I tend to keep the sailor talk to a minimum, but some Mrs. Jones blogging is better than none right? So chin up! My sincerest gratitude to all of you who actually read the things that fall out of my mind.

Mexican Adventure Log Day 4 Part 2 of 2

      Alright ladies and gents, I left off at the cenote - travelling to the ruins. We spent an ungodly amount of time in the van driving across the country that day (seriously it took up about 4.5 hours of the schedule). The road trip for the day looked like: Dirt road - dirt road - two lane road that everyone knows is just a one lane road - side of the road trash - wild dog - repeat. I have never seen so much litter in all my life. Back home I feel bad just throwing a banana peel out the window (that usually goes well for me, remember this post?). Back to the two lane one lane roads...We hit a traffic jam on the way to the ruins caused by road construction (which really just looked like a bunch of random dudes playing with heavy equipment) in which we watched a large commercial coca cola truck smash, and scrape, the side of the cement roller. Just scooted right a long too. One interesting factoid I want to point out: we were shown a small concrete building (let's guess, maybe 300 s.f.) with a 100s.f. satellite parked right on top of the building. The guide told us that it was the satellite school for the local mayan children. The mexican government felt that it would be cheaper to provide a teacher via satellite and on a screen for these kiddos vs. a real teacher in the classroom. That seemed very strange to me. I wonder how well these little guys can learn via screen and not hands on?

       Litter and odd schools aside, that is neither here nor there. We arrived at Ek Balam, mid afternoon. Just the perfect time to feel like your face is melting off. Our tour guide gave us all a hefty bottle of water for the trek. We regrouped with a new tour guide provided and listened to the history of the ruins, and what some of the magnificent structures were used for. We were embraced by the shade of a few outlining trees during our history lesson, and we all dispersed accordingly to get a good shady listening spot. However, during the tour guides schpeel I kept hearing a spitting noise. I disregarded it at first because, people spit right? Sometimes. I guess.  But wait, I heard it again, and again. Much to my surprise, the Russian duo (a mother and daughter) were standing right behind us. What do you think they might have been doing? Think for a sec. This might throw you for a loop. You think you got it?

The mother, was taking her water bottle, taking a big sip of water...AND THEN SPITTING IT ONTO HER DAUGHTER. Swig, spit, swig, spit. All over this ladies shirt, shoulder area, back, the whole deal.    ..... I KNOW RIGHT?!      $%&*#@!
        She couldn't have come up with a better method of cooling her off? I can think of like, at least 5 ways to incorporate cold water FROM THE BOTTLE to cooling someone off that don't require sloshing it around your gross (and considerably warm) mouth first. For starters, just drink your own cold water, jesus. Brett and I were fairly terrified of them from that point on. And if it weren't for the small shady parameter we had secured we would have gotten the hell away from the spitty Russians. I can't be thankful enough that they were socially awkward and far from cordial or they may have offered to spit on us too. I would have died. If I had known that this was going to go down I would have attempted to see if during our lunch she actually chewed her own food, or had her mom do that for her too. Hello Alicia Silverstone.

We proceed, and wander through the amazingness of the ruins. Once I could regain my focus it was really an awesome experience. These structures are said to have been inhabited 600 BC-1600AD, and it was once a very powerful city. It had several large structures on its grounds. We were able to climb the main temple. At first I laughed at the idea of actually making it to the top, being perfectly content just touching the structure and photographing it. But our entire goofy gaggle slowly crept and crawled to the tippy top. That's almost 100 feet high, narrow stairs with no railing, no rope, no nothing! Going up wasn't the issue, climbing down sorta sideways sorta backwards was the hard part! At least I have little feet to fit nicely on the narrow stairs - Brett's monster feet in his ski sized flip flops had a hell of a time scaling the stairway down. I am pretty sure I just freaked myself out into closing my eyes most of the climb down. Intuitive feet, ftw.

Brett really liked seeing all of the lizards roaming the grounds too:

All in all, it was everything I had hoped to see, and more! One more thing to cross off the bucket list. Maybe when Adeline grows up we can take her and she can experience the greatness too. I will be sure to bring a cool rag for her, and make her drink her own damn water so I don't have to resort to spitting on her to keep her cool! Oy. 

Mexican Adventure Log Day 4- Part 1 of 2.

When I started thinking about the "things to do" in Mexico, the only thing I really wanted to experience was a trip to some Mayan ruins. The rest of the trip? Relax! I won't lie, I much preferred the relaxed environment of Ireland where we were free to roam the countryside in our ridiculously small (and pink, damn thing was pink) rental car. There weren't people every ten feet trying to sell you a tour, and I really liked that. Not that I thought Mexico would be anything like Ireland, I am just stating aloud my travel preferences.

I digress. We actually had an appointment the first morning of the Mexico trip to discuss the thousands of tourist traps stops that were at our disposal. They bring out the big guns first. The stops that require you riding on a huge tour bus packed to the brim with 40+ hungover idiots such as ourselves (to the tune of $150-300 per person). No thanks. Then time to discuss the "booze cruise" tours. Same concept, but on a tiny catamaran with no escape from the freakishly hot Mexican sun (yes, I realize we all share the same sun, but it seriously feels hotter there). No thanks. Then the Mayan ruin tours. She busted out several lovely laminated sheets of combo tours with glamorous photos of Chichen Itza (Chicken Pizza), Coba, Tulum. Then she hesitated to pull something else out of the bag. I asked what else she had rattling around in there that was a little less, crowded? A little less, commercialized? She then pulls out this poor little flier for Ek Balam. I am not going to say it isn't commercialized, hell, the fact that the Mexican government is practically forcing the Mayan people to open up shop at any of these stops to us stupid tourists is bad enough. I would like to note I also requested somewhere we could actually climb some of the temples. Many now have restricted access.
Slowly yet surely they are shutting down climbing opportunities to a lot of these ruin sites. Apparently when big fat Americans drink Tequila all week and then attempt to climb the intricately narrow stairs of these Mayan temples...they fall. Thus, ruining any possible awesome experiences for the rest of the world.

Long story long, we signed up to go to Ek Balam which also included a pit stop to a cenote (underground cave/water system). When Wednesday rolled around we went to the lobby of the resort to join our fellow vacationers on this nice little tour. To our surprise, we were the only folks on that entire resort going to Ek Balam, so we hopped onto our small, empty bus van and geared up for an eventful day. We had a great tour guide for the day, named Danique. She is from the Netherlands, so I thought it odd she happened upon being a tour guide at an obscure spot but hey whatever! Went to another resort where we picked up: a slew of  crunchy canadian kids, some french people, and 2 bat shit crazy Russian ladies (I will explore further soon enough). I was the only American on board, I am glad they didn't feed me to wild dogs that roam countryside.
*Insert long bus ride here*
Factoid, factoid, factoid.

Stop #1 - The cenote. We were told ahead of time that this would be occurring, but it was neat to be a part of a Mayan blessing. In a nut shell, when the Mexican government politely asked practically forced the Mayan people to get on board the tourism money train they said that they would be comfortable allowing strangers into their sacred water systems aka, these cenotes, IF they went through a blessing performed by a shaman beforehand. Followed by a thorough shower before touching these special waters.

We went through the blessing, and the painfully cold shower - saw that there were two methods of entry for the cenote. 1- Rappel  or 2- Take handy dandy stairs. I decided against being hooked up to the intriguing system of levers and pulleys and took the stairs. As most tourist spots do, they had entertaining stations inside the cave. Zip lines, rope walks, floaties for relaxing, and so on. My idea of adventure did not involve any of those things, I got in about knee deep and my mind started to shut down it was so cold. While Brett prepped for a refreshing zip line dip I scoured for a floatie. I knew he wouldn't let me leave without at least getting in the water. Whilst finding a floatie to suit my size to my dismay I also found 3 spiders and abandoned project. Stuck my feet back in the freezing waters and grinned at Brett as he proceeded to do ALL THE THINGS. You go hunny.
Other buses started showing up, gaggles of really awkward tourists started to fill up the poor little cave and it's frigid waters, and we headed out and had a yummy lunch.

This post seems to really have gotten lengthy, my apologies. I will break it into a two parter and wrap up with the good stuff: THE MAYAN RUINS.

Wandering the grounds at the cenote.

some photos of the cenote provided by the photographer there. 

The group with the shaman. 

Mexican Adventure Log Day 3

Well, Day #3 can be summarized into 1 (ok maybe 5) easy bullet points, and no photographic aids.

1 - We drank the water. Welp, that concludes Day #3 folks!
2 - We attempted some earlier morning sun bathing. Not the best plan for 2 of the ginger-est people at the resort. I can fake it, as you read from the last post I had a spray tan. I still managed a good, and quick, burn. In order for Brett to prep his freckles skin he has to allot around 45 minutes to cover himself in sunscreen. Kudos to him for the time and attention he pays to preventing sun damage. All efforts being futile because he always gets a good burn going regardless of SPF/YMCA/JK. I think that if his freckles would just get on board, and join forces they could all group up and pretend to look like a tan. Poor guy.
3 - After we gave up on our summer glow we retreated to the room to cry about our skin, our digestive systems, and spent a good portion of the day watching forensic shows on tv.
4 - We conquered our fear of the mexican atm machine and finally procured some pesos.
5 - Realized that we really, really miss our kid.

Once again- my apologies for not providing photos of Day #3, it is better this way.

Mexican Adventure Log Day 2

Father, it has been one month since my last confession blog post.

At this rate, I am going to finish reliving the story of my Mexican Adventures in 7 months... Really, it took me one month to post Day #2? Why didn't you guys slap me?
So, how about this, I just churn this stuff out in a day or two. And move on? Sound good? I haven't even attempted any posts about crap that people have forgotten too. For shame, for shame.

Ahem, Day 2.
I am pretty sure I woke up around 5am, but I would also like to note that it took me about 4 days to figure out what time it actually was. The room clock, the room tv, and both of our phones all displayed different times. That's 4 different times to choose from. And if you ask a resort staff member? It is tequila time, every time. I gave up.

Decided to take a shower, harmless right? Apparently the entire time I was showering I was unaware that I was also flooding the entire room. THE ENTIRE ROOM. Oopsy. Brett hopped out of bed, and into standing water. I would like to explain how I managed to do this, but I really can't. I am just special like that. Nothing that a few clothes lines and furniture re-arrangement can't fix.

If you happen upon Playa del Carmen, 5th avenue district is apparently the bees knees. We wandered it's street(s) as we were located a block away. It was nice, and it was touristy. Got my fill of local handmade chotchkies in all the souvenir spots. Declined dozens of offers for special tours. Learned that Brett will be widely recognized for the next week as Red beard/whiskers/or some other combo nickname for a large man with a large beard. One fellow selling tours specifically stopped him to ask what his plans were:

Random tour seller (R.T.S): "Whiskers! What are you guys up to this week?"
Brett:    "We have a tour tomorrow to see Ek Balam."
R.T.S.: "Well, what are you doing the rest of the week?"
Brett:    "Her."  *points to an extremely red faced me*
R.T.S.:  *blinks*
He definitely knows the right things to say huh? I couldn't possibly be more proud.

The last stop we made was to another souvenir shop to browse and an old white lady stops me to ask an important question: "Ma'am, do you work here?".
Me:  "Not unless my husband has just made some sort of terrible arrangement, no, I don't".
-This did however, make me want to give my spray tan lady an extra tip, as she apparently made me look like a local for the week.

*Insert some detail about more delicious food and drinks for dinner, and going to bed here*
Oh! And a photo or two, because visuals are generally entertaining:

This pretty much sums up our relationship. Brett being lewd, me being embarrassed. It is a delicate balance, in which he usually tips the scales of.  

A forced normalcy photo, you can tell he really just wants to go back to his original pose. 

Mexican Adventure Log - Day 1

Who has two thumbs and brought a journal on vacation?

This nerd:

               Pretty sure I am day dreaming in this photograph. About my journals.    "...Dear diary..."

But hey, at least you get to hear about the trip in excruciating detail. I would like to start by saying that fate was working against us for this trip. We I decided to go Playa del Carmen, and stay at The Royal for an entire week sans baby. He reluctantly agreed at first. I thought that planning a romantical getaway with the Mister was going to be as magical as the trip itself. Then I realized I was married to a green card totin' disaster and all of those high hopes faded away.

           Problem #1-Canada took its sweet ass time renewing Brett's passport, so much so that we were considering ways to utilize our trip insurance to cancel the trip. Our best method for implementing the insurance plan was to run over Brett with a car, which as some of you know, I already have good practice with (that link here). Luckily for Brett it arrived 3 weeks prior to our departure. Phew.

           Problem #2- Departure day. We had to take 2 detours en route to the airport for a highway shutdown due to a shooting standoff with the police. Once we were dropped off at our terminal we realized something else- THIS WASN'T OUR TERMINAL, NAY, AIRPORT. Shuttled to the appropriate airport just in time.

All crappy travels aside, we arrived in Mexico unscathed. When we got to the resort I was almost certain the shuttle had taken us to the wrong place. It was much too nice. We pretended to know what we were doing and were checked in with champagne in one hand, and hot towel in the other, in no time. A random man walked up to us and said "checking in?" to which we replied yes, and he said "good, have this" and hands us a styrofoam cooler. I envisioned a black market organ to be the contents of our new found gift, but luckily it was empty.  We totally took it, and totally used it.

We learned immediately that we would be fat by ends week with the amazing food that was at every corner of this resort. We also discovered our room had it's own liquor dispenser. Oh snap.

And here we are prepping to head out for our first night in Playa del Carmen:

That concludes Day 1. Hold your applause for the end of the week's final log. 

State of the Union

This is a little change of pace for this blog, and in 150+ posts I haven't really skimmed any political topics. 
However, last night I watched the State of the Union address. 

I could tell by the facebook posts I saw that a lot of you people feel like our President is stealing our guns, giving us silly women way too much freedom, and hugging gay people a little too much. That is rather unfortunate that people feel that way.

Below you will find my synopsis, via bullet points, of some of the "hot topics" that people feel the need to rant about via ridiculous memes and ecards. Sidenote - I will take you and your political views more seriously if I see that you can articulate your own thoughts instead of copying and pasting, and extra points if you use proper grammar. Anyone in this boat will quite possibly just get angry enough to post an army of political memes after they read what I have to say.

I honestly can't complain too loudly because Brett and I both have jobs, a house, a happy child. We eat 3 meals a day. We send our kid to preschool to socialize not out of necessity.
7/8-ish years ago? I was taking clothes to consignment shops in order to get grocery money, hell I'd take back appliances and things to Wal Mart just to get store credit to buy food. I didn't even have a child to feed so I can't even imagine. I had too much pride to ask for handouts from family, and likewise from the state. I am not living in a bubble now, and I understand there are always people that are in seriously sad shape financially speaking. Regardless of political views, or current President. But I just have to share my experiences  and thought processes so that any of you who think I am as big of a "Hitler" as Obama is can at least see where I am coming from.

Whoa I digress, let me get back to the bullet points:

- LGBT community: I have friends and relatives respectively who have "the gay". Like the diabeetus (see Wilford Brimley), many people treat it like its some sort of condition. Relatives? It runs in my family! Do you think I'll catch it?! Like it's a damn disease. I have a newsflash for anyone who knocks on the lifestyle preferences of others, all of my friends and relatives who are gay love me just as much as my friends and relatives who aren't. I reciprocate that respect and love. I have no qualms with allowing them to have the same rights my husband and I have. To waste time and energy on this subject is just ridiculous to me. 

- Guns: can't say much here let's face it, my husband isn't a citizen so he isn't allowed to own any, and that hasn't a thing to do with a decision made by the current President.

- Immigration reform. Don't talk to me about that shit like its bad. I'm married to a green card holder.
Dually noted I thought he may have been gay when I first met him, so now I'm combining bullet points.
"But they'll let all the Mexicans in!".
 Oh, the ones that are already in here? Well, sounds shady. Why don't we let them pay taxes and function like the rest of us. While they clean up shop at US Immigration Services maybe Brett and I can get a step further in our own process before we goof up a form and they come and deport his ass.

You guys who think life is soooo terrible these days, try looming over your head the fact that your spouse could be removed from the country at any time and not have the option of coming back lickity split. Might throw a wrench in things, no?

Maybe all of the people I see complaining about piddly shit should get a letter or two from the Department of Homeland Security like we have that states in every opening line "failure to comply may result in removal from the United States". Please sit in your house on facebook all day and tell me how upset you are.
People would literally die to get in here, and a lot of folks joke about trying to get out. The door is open, trust me, getting in here isn't as easy as you think it is. I can promise you that not every person who is from another country is trying to get across our borders to do us all harm. I know one big, red bearded Canadian who is trying to get here to live his life with his family. Reform away I say. 

- Healthcare: The biggest, so far only, affect the new healthcare has had for us is that I now get free birth control and well visits. Couple hundred dollars a year, and no babies so the savings are rather astronomical.

- Women's rights: I have a vagina, so I'm game for whatever that bullet point entails. Women who aren't on board with giving women more rights or freedom? Typically the "honor thy husband" types. Obey, obey,  respect, and obey. *Insert corresponding bible verse here*. Bitch please! My husband better be honoring me. I'm a goddess. Now if you'll excuse me I have some free birth control to pick up.

Peace Out Mickey, Caillou's in Town

My kid finally found a cartoon she likes better than Mickey- and it's Canadian. Go figure.

The toon? Caillou. 

Here he is with his friends.

 Caillou: "Hate to toot my own horn here guys, but."

I have a short letter in regards to this new barrage of episodes I am forced to watch. 

Caillou, 

You bald little turkey, your complimentary colored world is making me batty. I went to Canada once, and there are more than 3 colors there. I'll swear on a moose if I have to. 

With love (I promise),

Me

Show questions and observations in general:

1) Why is Caillou so bald? He's 4, he should have a few hairs. His baby sister has a head full of hair. What gives.  sidenote: Brett gave him the benefit of the doubt and seems to think the kid has a "condition". This may explain the whining (see observation #4).

2) If anyone was wondering, Julia Child is not dead, Canada stole her and made her the narrator of Caillou. 

3) One episode there is a campground attendant that looks just like Brett. His name is Pierre (naturally). He gives Brett a run for his money with that turtle neck and tiny shorts combo. 

-Brett and Caillou, Summer of 2007. 

Bahahaha. Back off ladies he's all mine! 

And yes, that is a screen shot, from a YouTube video I had to rigorously search for on my computer in order to provide this illustration to this post. Don't judge me.

4) Any time that Caillou speaks, it sounds like he is whining. ANY TIME. EVERY TIME. Stop talking Caillou. 

In all seriousness, it's a pretty jolly little cartoon. And the grandma narrator has a rather soothing voice. Brett assured me that the complimentary color scheme is light hearted and used to convey some sort of happiness. Typical Brett. Why don't you go fold your turtle necks and tiny shorts mister! I'll be over here counting how many times I see the colors red, yellow, and blue. 

Gratefully Grateful

It is November, I am still getting over the fact that it is no longer Halloween, and I have neighbors hanging Christmas lights already. I feel as though I am being whipped to and fro in some sort of time warp.

If you are on the ol' Facebook you have received information about how 321 of your friends are grateful for a variation of:
Their baby(s), their baby(s) daddy(s), their daddy(s).
        I added (s) to all of those because they surprisingly might apply. And I won't lie, I love the hell out of my baby, my man friend, and my family too. Technically, if you met someone who hated their children, spouse, and relatives then you may want to wear a helmet or a bullet proof vest next time you are around them. Anywho - my other peeve about a flood of Day 1-30 posts is that many people have committed to doing it, and then they flake like a crescent roll. They start smashing days together all haphazardly and then your news feed is disturbingly full, disturbingly fast.

I am here to inform the masses of the other things in life. And I don't want to follow any days, I am just going to commit to making this one post and then donezo.

I am rather grateful for:

• Steam in the bag vegetables- Seriously, it's a glorious mix of convenience and borderline freshness. Birds Eye brand peas and mushrooms? Yes please! 
• Robert Kirkman- the brain behind The Walking Dead, he took my mind to a whole new level of "what the f*ck". He also prepared my mind for the most likely scenario for the end of the world. 
• Gel nail polish- this type of polish is what pulled me out of the grossly thick and long white tipped acrylic monstrosity nails that I sported for over 10 years. I will never go back. Never.
• Skinny Girl Margaritas- All the drunk and half the calories, who can't be thankful for that. This beverage was the culprit for me thinking that I could make ice with my mind on my birthday. 
• Shoes- I own too many, I have some really weird ones (zombies, zebras, buttons, mice, striped, polka dotted, leopard, etc), but I am thankful that I have an abundance of wacky choices every day. 
• Pandora- Radio that I actually like, no annoying radio personalities, no commercials, a station for every mood and whim I may have, that's good stuff people. Otis Redding radio...ftw.
• Frozen yogurt establishments- A psychologically unbalanced way to treat yourself. You pile a buffet's worth of shit on top of your frozen yogurt, and then relax after you waddle out of the joint because it was "just frozen yogurt". Genius. 
• Dead people- If it weren't for such there would be no estate sales. Additionally, I wouldn't have had half of the adrenaline rushes in the last 5 years if it weren't for trying to find them during paranormal investigations. 
• Humidifiers- I grew up with my dad having a humidifier in almost every room of the house. I now have to have them in every bedroom of our house, but we are sick way less than normal. 
• Hair color- I started going gray at 18, so, hair color is like, astronomically huge for me. 
• Vanilla flavored tootsie rolls- I am not really sure why I felt this was important enough for this list, but they are hella tasty. 
• Weather app on my phone- I check it all day long, and am so reliant on it that I actually get mad at the sky when it doesn't correlate with what my app says it should be outside. I also have Vancouver saved so I can see what the weather is like for Brett's family, and I have Kenmare Ireland saved so I can see what it will be like when I move there. (I suspect around the time that the zombies show up). 

I know, you all were probably expecting something traditional and predictable and now you are all "that was just a list of material items, odd snacks, and booze, what a bitch.". Maybe I have missed the mark, but those things in that list are pretty rad. I am thankful for things that are good. The end.

Gifting Fruit to a Nut.

Today is my anniversary. 4 years, or 1,460 days, but who's counting?! I love you hunny.
Each year I get stumped on what to give Mr. Jones as an anniversary gift. I never really followed the traditional anniversary gift list. Which you can view here. I decided to give the traditional route a spin this year. My choices were fruit or flowers, or both I guess.

       After much head scratching I decided I needed to do something that would catch him off guard. Aside from unexpectedly throwing fruit at him, I figured this had to be one of those "go big or go home" situations. I decided what better way to surprise Brett than to park a bunch of FRUIT TREES inside our house for him to stumble upon. Originally I thought about strategically placing them in our bedroom, but I must say that my original plans were poorly executed.

         Scene change - I am at Home Depot yesterday afternoon, and I have to ask where the trees are (strike one). After finding the section of fruit trees they send someone in to help me, pffft...like I needed it. I tell the fellow that i'd like an apple tree and a peach tree because I am indecisive. He informs me that I must buy these in pairs so that they can cross pollinate, and different types will work best. I sigh and shake my fist at the sky saying "why are there so many rules?!". I'm pretty sure he laughed at my dismay. I then take way too long to try to pick out 4 trees, meanwhile he asks me "what do you plan to do with these?". To which I answer, "Oh, i'm just putting them in my bedroom!". The very confused man then helps me pick out 4 trees and loads a cart for me and hauls it to checkout.

          As I am paying a thought occurs to me, "sonofabitch! I am in my CAR, and I just bought TREES." I tell the workers I don't need help because it would then be more blatantly obvious that I am ill prepared for tree purchasing this day. I trudge to my car and open every single door on it. Readjust seats a time or two, and then spend about 5 minutes looking at the trees, and then looking at the car. Trees, car, trees, car. I then just start leaning and shoving them into various corners of the vehicle and quickly shutting all of the doors. By the way- TREES ARE HEAVY. Windows also get cracked so that the sporadic branch or leaf bundle can hang out of the windows for added comfort.

           I get home and I hide the tall, heavy trees in the basement. Since I wound up with 4 trees instead of 2 I also realize that placing them gently in our bedroom while he is sleeping that night isn't going to happen. Few reasons why:
1) He goes to bed later than I do.
2) Our 3 dogs may think the tall trees are intruders and bark, or pee on them, whatever.
3) Did I mention that TREES ARE HEAVY?
4) From the looks of my vehicle I can infer that they put off a lot of water, dirt, and bark so I don't want to clean my carpet.
I then learn that he is going to get us breakfast in the morning so the opportunity to set it all up presents itself. As soon as I heard his car roll away this morning I ran downstairs and furiously carried the tiny orchard into our entry way. Hello cardio.

He also got a card (Oooohhhh) which incorporates the last 3 years that I slacked on:

In case anyone was wondering, I glued some of my pictures from a Departures magazine to the card.
And yes, I do realize that in the card I spelled pollinate incorrectly. Real life doesn't have an autocorrect. Gah.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Canada's Thanksgiving Day (if the interwebs have served me correctly it is supposed to be the 2nd Monday of October each year).

Considering I am not Canadian, and my husband is on the brink of no longer being Canadian, we were confused and celebrated last night. But we celebrated with the Olive Garden so I am pretty sure that can't count for much.

I thought it over this morning and I wondered, wait a tick, what do Canadians celebrate for their Thanksgiving?
I have my theory:
     They have their feast and conversation centers around how thankful they are that they aren't as stupid as the Americans are. Since we celebrate a holiday that centers around the idea that the pilgrims and indians actually got along well enough to have dinner together. Yes, I understand ultimately it is to celebrate the harvest and a time for being thankful - as per the cartoons I recall from my childhood showing the lovely peaceful feast I would see between the pilgrims and indians. But it is a little odd to me that essentially we traded the Native Americans seeds for death. Go America.   

In actuality- Canadian Thanksgiving is apparently in celebration of some guy named Martin Frobisher who had a really crappy voyage to Canada. During said voyage half of his fleet got completely rocked, and then he threw his hat in and went back to England with what he thought were thousands of tons of gold ore, but in reality it was just a bunch of rocks, or dog poop. Your call. I am not sure who is sillier, them or us. Looks like both of us were just fishing for an excuse to eat too much turkey.

I know what they eat at a Canadian Thanksgiving feast because I have been to some family holiday gatherings for Brett's family for past Canadian Thanksgivings. It is much like ours, save that the sides are actually vegetables and not a bunch of vegetables suspiciously hidden inside of a high calorie casserole. Don't get me wrong people, I will eat the hell out of a casserole. But I think there is a reason why our region is overly obese and fairly diabetic in nature.

Another thought I had: Canadian Black Friday. Wait wait, they would have a Black Tuesday. I imagine it is heavenly. I envision it being much calmer and less aggressive than the American Black Friday. Or the intense shoppers might actually wield hockey sticks so I could be way off on my original assumption. All I know is that bitches around here take that day rather seriously.

The great part? When Adeline is older she can appreciate having two Thanksgiving feasts. Too bad there aren't going to be two Christmases.


I would like to cite my sources. Thank you Wikipedia. Yes, you should believe everything you read on the internet.

R.I.P. T-SPLOST

Watching the news this morning to catch all of the election results from yesterday:

Me: T-SPLOST is dead!!!
Brett: Who is that?
Me: *blink blink*
Brett: No really, who is that?
Me: It. It was the transportation referendum.
Brett: Oh, I thought it was a rapper.

That my friends, is why we don't let foreigners vote. Or Brett Jones in general. I love you hunny!

3 Different Types of Chickens

Sometimes Brett will go on these gaming kicks for a week or so where after I go to sleep at a very normal hour, he likes to stay up and play until the wee hours of the morning. I would list out the different types of games that he plays, but my mind can't stretch that far into Nerdom.

Last night before he made his way to the living room to fire up the xbox we had a little chat:

Me: Try not to stay up all night. With this lack of good sleep you are going to be a bitch in the morning.

Brett: Do you know what you are being?

Me: ... logical?

Brett: ... A wonderful wife.

Me: Nice save. But really, don't stay up late or I am going to kick your ass.

Brett: You know what i'm going to do? I'm gonna buy 3 different types of chickens and leave them in here!

Me: oh?

Brett: It'll be all like BOCK BOCK BOCK up in here.

Me: Goodnight Brett. 

It is an exciting life I lead. Different types of chickens and all.



Additionally - If you or a loved one is suffering from TooMuchGamingitis, or other similar syndromes be sure to let them know that they need 7 hours of sleep per night. 7 HOURS BRETT! Unless your loved one is an infant, or old as hell. Then they need more (per the chart on the link).

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.

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. 

Holy crap?

There are so many things I need to update about our little Jonesy family unit,
things like :
holy crap we finally got into a house
holy crap Adeline turned one
holy crap Adeline's summer modeling gig landed her in an ad
holy crap Brett scared the hell out of us by taking a trip to the hospital (again)

Well, that pretty much sums it up, the end!

Totally kidding - I guess I will break each "holy crap" moment into a part. Here is post/

Part 1 of 4 - Holy Crap we finally got into a house.

I was starting to give up on the housing market, it had screwed us over so many times already (seriously, like 15 offers in I was ready to hurt some stubborn banks). A house I previously mentioned in another post, yea that post that I explained how I ran my husband over with my car - that house? The counter offer there was $40,000 over the bank's own listing price! How in the hell is that even possible,or legal?! I mean I know how it is legal because as the spouse of an immigrant I have learned the government kind of does whatever the hell they want to at whatever price tag they want, and I guess banks follow suit.

We quickly moved along to looking at other houses, we found an awesome house with tons of space and in perfect condition considering it was a foreclosure. It even had 2 driveways, so Brett was stoked. Naturally when we tried to make an offer it was delayed (this was on 12/5). Bank of America aka the Devil decided that at precisely the time we were trying to put in an offer they were going to let an auction company handle the listing, so who knows when they will be done dilly dallying and get back to you *insert money signs and frowny faces here*.

A week and some change later we were told they were allowing us to make a "pre-bid" offer on the house, how very sweet of them (this was on 12/13). If per chance they did not like our pre bid we would get tossed out and have to show up at the house for the auction. They also wanted a hefty-er than normal size earnest money deposit, so everyone involved could get some money just in case. Fun? Yea don't think so. But we did the grin and bear it, forked out the $ and waited. Money talks, they accepted our offer 2 days later. The happy dance commenced throughout my office halls (this was on 12/15).

Since we "won" an auction I was wondering how that would affect the closing date, I was told it could actually speed things up and we could close as quickly as our loan officer could process the loan. LIES. I was excited for a minute because our loan officer was a freakin champ at her job, so she would have it done in no time. What they failed to add in was that it would go as quickly as the loan processor, THE SELLER...ahem DEVIL, and closing attorney could work. Fml take 20. I wanna say we hovered over 4+ possible closing dates, none of the hold up being on our end with our loan whatsoever.

We actually moved one of the closing dates because we were waiting on a single little paper from the neighborhood HOA. Really guys? I can probably go knock on their door and snag that for you, since you ass hats are in Atlanta and taking your sweet time even contacting the appropriate HOA person.

The plethora of closing dates finally landed us on Friday the 13th, and had we not been bat shit crazy by then we may have actually cared that we were closing on such an inappropriate day. Or maybe it was appropriate. Anyways we made it safe and sound to the closing and did a wam bam thank you maam closing in roughly 30 minutes. Followed it up with a celebratory sammich at Jimmy John's (sidenote - Ctown needs one of those, they are delish).

We painted that Friday night. We moved, I mean MOVED that Saturday. We spent our first night there Sunday night. I will say that there are still some items floating around at my parent's house from the move - but for the most part we totally owned that moving process. I know some people who moved over a year ago and are still unpacking. I don't want to mingle in tooo much from Part 2 - Holy Crap Adeline turned 1- but I will leave you with this, her first birthday party happened very successfully 6 days after we moved in. Yea, we rock.

I still can't believe how awesome the new house is. I feel like the real owners are going to show up any minute and kick us out. Eventually it will feel like ours, but for now I am in disbelief.