Love and Marriage: Grandpa B and Grandma Carol Edition

Well, our Thanksgiving has been absolutely wonderful, and I'm trying to soak up the last couple of hours of sister time (Chloe and Matt are currently discussing zombies and predicting who will bite it on tonight's episode of The Walking Dead).

I'll fill you in on more later (food galore! shopping! adventure!), but I just couldn't wait to show you the greatest thing that has ever been: Grandpa B on his new three-wheeled bicycle.

I can't wait to retire.

And I needed to share this gem.

[After dinner, with the kitchen full of dishes, Grandpa B walks to the dishwasher and opens it.]

Grandpa B: Um, Grandma, are these dishes clean or dirty?

Grandma Carol: Clean.

Grandpa B: Oh, shit.

[Closes dishwasher and walks away.]

Happy Happy, Joy Joy!

Here's what I love right now.

1.  I love that I will be picking up my baby sister in like eleven hours.  You remember her, right?  Here's what she looks like.

2.  I love that Thanksgiving is fast approaching, and that we have a low-stress-high-gluttony holiday planned.  I also love that I have like 22 pounds of cranberries (oh, Sam's club. . .) and I get to have fun thinking of ways to use them (sorbet? pancakes? so many ideas!).

3.  I love the little lizards who have been hanging out on my screens all day.

4.  I love that my husband will lovingly nudge me in the direction of ellipting without calling me a cow--even when I try to avoid ellipting by pretending to have fainting spells.  I also love that he will bring me mini snickers bars to eat while I am on the elliptical.

5.  I love using the handicapped bathroom.  I especially love it when it means I get my very own sink.

6.  I love these happy dogs.

7.  I love pot roast.

8.  I love that I took my car into the shop this morning, and then got a coupon for $50 from our mechanic in the mail before I went to pick up the car.  I also love our mechanic.

9.  I LOVE having a whole week off of work.

10.  I love that I spent hours cleaning the house today, and that my house is cleaner than it's been in months, and that I had the windows open all day because we had a high of 80 degrees today--and the highs all week are supposed to be in the 70's and 80's.

Fun days ahead!  Don't be mad if you don't hear from us.  There should be lots to share upon our return.  Eat turkey until it hurts and drink a glass of wine (or five) for me!

Movie Star

If you're interested, check out the little video of Blast from this week's appointment.  He starts opening his mouth around 1:40, which is my favorite.  Oh, and he's still a boy.  No Rachel situation here.



And if you're so inclined, check out his rabies-afflicted big brother barking at his bone on the bed.



Are you totally judging me for being the person who just put a video of her ultrasound on the internet?  Yeah, I kind of am, too.  In my defense, though. . .oh shoot, I've got nothing.  If I can't get drunk or ride roller coasters, though, I've got to do something to entertain myself.

Does This Mean I Have to Eat a Lamppost?

He's singin' in the. . .

. . .amniotic fluid.  

Weekend Fun

This was one of those weekends where I did very little, which was exactly as planned.  As promised days ago, there was some ellipting, there were many episodes of Parenthood, and there was lots of eating. There were two lunch dates, and there was some shopping (almost finished Christmas shopping!)--until I remembered that I was avoiding teenagers for the weekend and that, perhaps, the mall wasn't the best place to go on a Saturday night.  One student sighting was enough to send me on my merry way, back home to the warm embrace of Netflix instant, fresh sheets, and a dog who acts like he may have rabies.

Right now I'm happy and motivated because I've only got five more days of school until Thanksgiving (I'll give thanks for a whole week off!), and my favorite sister is going to be here visiting.  Five days.  Piece of cake.  Or, as it should be said, bowl of pumpkin cheesecake ice cream (which will be making an appearance at our Thanksgiving feast).  And tomorrow we have a doctor's appointment and get to have an ultrasound.  It'll be nice to see little Blast.  We haven't seen him in like two months.

Oh, and I'm happy, too, because my favorite old couple team on The Amazing Race is kicking ass and taking names.  And because I just ate four tacos.  

Here's what our weekend looked like.  It's all food, which is about right.

 Make this chicken.  Make this chicken tonight.  For serious!

 Bacon jam sandwich from Back in the Day!  

Scurvy prevention.

Hope you have a lovely week.  What have you been eating?  Are you finished Christmas shopping?  Does your dog have rabies?  

This and That

Here's what's been awesome around here lately.

1.  Last Friday a friend loaned us her passes to the Savannah Film Festival where we went to see the Director's Choice film, where the movie isn't announced beforehand.  So we were super pleasantly surprised when the movie turned out to be The Muppets!  We were the first audience in the world to see the movie (see: we are important and influential).  Not surprisingly, the movie was fantastic, and I smiled the entire time.  My face hurt afterward.  Go see it when it comes out.  (It's way better than this trailer might suggest.)

2.  Also, when we were at the film festival on Friday, I saw this handsome man walk past, and I kind of recognized him.  I told Matt that I thought that had been a famous actor man, because he was handsome and because he was dressed like a famous actor man and because there were all of these people who seemed to be treating him like he was really important.  Old Roommate Cris had mentioned that James Marsden was in town, and I told Matt that maybe that had been him.  Matt then proceeded to list off everything that James Marsden had done that he knew (X-Men, Modern Family, etc.) and I couldn't place him.  I couldn't place him until, right before The Muppets, they gave some award to James Marsden and showed a montage of all of his very important and influential work.  Then I realized where I knew him from: 27 Dresses.  Oh yes, my Saturday night HBO guilty pleasure movie.  Matt shook his head in shame and likely contemplated divorce.  Hell, at least I didn't recognize him from Bride Wars, right?  Right?

3.  During a conversation with my coteacher yesterday about cord blood storage, one of my best students walked into our conversation and asked, "Whore's blood?  Like a harlot?"  Love that kid.

4.  Really, really pleased with myself because last week I found a BOB Revolution stroller on Craigslist for $100.  And it's awesome, and smooth and beautiful and I'm really obsessed with it.  Mitch, however, seems to think that this is just another form of a bicycle (and Mitch HATES bicycles), so he pretty much just barks at it and is less than thrilled when Matt and I chase him around the house with it.  I think that once he begins to associate the stroller with walks, though, he'll warm up to it.  Hell, the stroller has a weight limit of 70 pounds, so if I could get him strapped in correctly, I could put Mitch in it!  Should've gotten a double stroller. . .

5.  Three-day weekend, three-day weekend, three-day weekend!  I've got grand plans of doing very little and of eating much.  There will be naps.  There will be Parenthood marathons.  There will be some ellipting.  There will be nary a teenager.  Shoot yeah!

Happy days to you!

Birthday Gift Idea!

I need this.

Um, yeah, The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook will be available in March, and if I don't get it I will kick and scream.

If that's not enough to persuade you, check out their awesome little trailer for the book.  Then get thee to the Back in the Day Bakery and bring me back a bacon jam sandwich.  And maybe a cupcake.  And some 'nana puddin'.  Let's get on that.

Get here already, March!

Patents Pending

So, I know my blog performance of late has been, well, lamesville at best.*  Sorry about that.  Honestly, I'm conflicted because I've spent so many years now being annoyed by annoying pregnant women who only ever talk about being pregnant and the miracle of life and blah blah blah vomit, and I'm probably now overcompensating now by just saying nothing at all since so many of my thoughts are consumed by this current endeavor and what will happen when we actually have a baby to take care of.  It's a tough job making sure you don't become the thing you hate.

What I'm going to try to work on is balance.  I want to share what's going on here (lame, boring-to-everyone-but-me pregnancy stories included), but to find a way to care about other stuff, too.  Important stuff like baked goods and ice cream and television and politics and stuff that doesn't have to do with fetuses or expanding body parts.

Let's start with this.

The Baggy Winecoat, a.k.a., "Someone has stolen one of my great idas."  I knew I should have gotten a patent when, like six years ago on St. Patrick's Day, Old Roommate Cris and I developed an idea to make a purse that would hold the bag from a box of wine.  My idea was less fancy than this one, granted, since it basically involved getting some ice packs and cutting the corner out of a messenger bag, but still.**

Now, before someone goes and steals another one of my amazing idea inventions, I want to tell you about a couple more.  You know, for proof.  I've already shared ash packets (still don't know why so many of you found that disturbing), so don't go trying to snag that one.  It's been documented.  ON THE INTERNET.

Here's my next awesomepants idea.  This one was developed with Tanya after we go lost in some pretty scary neighborhoods in Baltimore during high school.  We decided that we should develop maps that are color-colded according to crime rates so that people would know which spots to avoid.  Way back when, these would have been paper maps, but now this idea will take the form of an app.  And with GPS and stuff, you could even sort your data by type of crime!  Wouldn't that be awesome?  The GPS lady could be all, "Danger, danger!  Get on outta here!" and then you'd know to avoid that neighborhood.

Okay, and here's the idea that is really just incredible.  Caitie and I came up with this senior year of college when we were discussing our favorite flavors of popular candies.  Let's take Skittles, for example.  What's your favorite color?  Mine is red.  But Matt's is green.  Caitie and I decided initially that the candy companies should make bags of all one flavor, like all red or all green (but not all purple, because, seriously, who loves purple the most?  That's like loving the purple freeze-e-pop the most, which is basically like being a dirty communist.).  But then we thought that too much of a good thing could be bad, so we decided that they should make bags that are like 75% the favorite flavor and 25% everything else.  We'd call them Mostlies.  Mostly red, or mostly green.  But not mostly purple, because we are a righteous people.

So, those are my ideas, the best that I've been able to come up with in my thirty and a half years on this planet.  Don't even think about stealing them.  I already lost this game once to the developers of the ol' Baggy Winecoat (which I totally want come April, by the way).


*Would totes love to be all, "Oh man, I've been so busy at work and ellipting that I haven't had time to blog!"  But you're all smart internet readers and you know that the translation of that would be "Oh man, I've been so busy eating Halloween candy that I got for 50% off that I've been in a sugar coma and then having to ellipt to keep from getting gestational diabetes."  Shoot.


**And, no, it's not possible at all that two people could come up with the same amazing idea.

My favorite type of person is a cranky old curmudgeon.  (My other favorite type of person is a dog.  My other favorite type of person is George Clooney.)

You can imagine, then, how bummed I am that Andy Rooney has died.  

So watch this, and don't trim your eyebrows, and grow to be old and cranky if you're not already.

This and That

1.  Made a birthday cake for my teacher friend's mom's 95th birthday this week.  She wanted caramel icing, which I'd never made and was, quite frankly, a little afraid of.  I used this recipe, and it took a while.  But that was okay, because I had Brothers & Sisters streaming the whole time.  And apparently the icing was exactly what they wanted.  Shoot yeah!

2.  Also, I am completely out of Brothers & Sisters episodes.  I don't know what makes me more sad--that I don't have any more episodes to watch, or that I spent days of my life watching like 110 episodes of that show.  But, since it's over, I need something new.  I'm trying out Parenthood, and I've ordered season 1 of Six Feet Under.  It needs to be something I haven't seen already because I need it to to keep me interested during ellipting, but it can't be too brainy (looking at you, The Wire) because I also want to watch it as a precursor to nap. Any suggestions?

3.  Oh, also, while I was making caramel icing, I was on the step where I had to melt sugar in a cast iron skillet.  I know caramel can be temperamental, and I didn't want it to burn, so while the sugar was bubbling, I decided to stick my finger right in it to check if it tasted burnt.  Yeah, that felt good.  Blast sure is learning some interesting language now, isn't he?  So I've been spending some time nursing my poor finger lately.

4.  Totes did some home repair work last weekend in the guest room/nursery.  I read in a book that you're not supposed to feed your baby a diet of paint chips, so something needed to be done.  Well, shoot.  So there was scraping and sanding and hole-filling and sanding again and painting and curtain rod and new curtain hanging. Now the room looks clean and inviting instead of like some evil alien lair.

5.  Remember how I went all bananas for my Tempurpedic travel pillow?  Well, I lost it for a while, but found it under our bed last weekend while cleaning.  Then, a couple of mornings ago, I woke up to find that Mitch had snagged my pillow and was using it.  I guess we need to get a new one?  Also, what kind of spoiled dog needs a Tempurpedic pillow?

6.  Started a youtube playlist at school because they blocked Pandora.  I added the 500 Days of Summer theme song to my list, but when it started playing, it played Patrick Swayze's "She's Like the Wind."  Well if that isn't a wonderful Friday surprise, what is? She leads me to moonlight, only to burn me with the sun!

7.  I think I might be starting to look actually pregnant instead of just pregnant with garlic bread and sandwiches.  My jeans still fit and stuff, but I think there might be a little bit of a uterus lump now.  Anyway, yesterday I went to try on some of the maternity jeans that Ann gifted me (thanks, Ann!), and I realized that they were insanely comfortable.  I mean, they were basically all of the comfort of pajama jeans, but with the look of actual jeans!  So I wore them, and I slept in them, and I haven't really taken them off since yesterday.  Is it appropriate to wear maternity jeans for the rest of my life?

8.  Oh, also, my face has broken out like a sombitch.  My skin hasn't looked this bad since I was in ninth grade, before I realized that I can't use soap on it.  And this really pisses me off because in my special deal with the universe I got a few things: a decent level of intelligence (ignore the incident from #3), good hand-eye coordination, manageable hair, and nice skin.  And now, since I've been hosting Blast, my face looks like the before picture in a Proactiv ad.  This is some bull jive, universe!  We're in a fight.

9.  Don't forget to vote for the Savannah Humane Society!  Mitch thanks you!

May your week be free from injuries and full of candy!

Vote for Charity: A Post from Mitch

Hey, y'all, it's me, Mitch.  I haven't really been here lately because I've been on snugglin' duty with mom.  She's pregnant for the second time.  The first was when she was about to have me.

Okay, well, that's a little story we tell in our family.  But it's time for me to come clean with you.  You see, I am not born of woman.  I'm actually born of dog, and when I was a tiny puppy the humans who owned that dog who had me took me and all of my biological brothers and sisters to the Humane Society, where my mom and dad found me and I charmed them with my lopsided ears and by chewing on my mom's jacket.  The Humane Society was actually pretty nice (and sometimes when I'm being super annoying my mom and dad say that they're going to take me back there, but I know that's just a joke), and the cool people there took care of me and all of the other dogs.

There's only two things I could say bad about the Savannah Humane Society.

1.  They named me Chico.
2.  They also love cats.

But in everything else, they're the bee's knees!  They even have a thrift store upstairs where I like to donate all of my used toys and collars and where sometimes I'll go buy some stuff.

And I just found out from my Aunt Cassie last night that the Savannah Humane Society is in a contest to win $100,000, and we're currently in first place.  Now, here's what I need you to do.  Vote.   It's super easy, and all you have to do is enter your email address and then verify that your email is real.  I mean, just think of all of the bones and treats and collars and beds that the Humane Society could provide to other dogs. . .and, fine, cats too. . .if they had that kind of cash.

So go vote.  Do it for all of the Mitchell Pancakes and Henry Parkers (I can swallow my hatred of cats for a hot minute if it means helping lots of dogs--plus, Henry's my cousin and I kind of respect him because he has to live with Fletcher.)

You can vote once a day from now until Halloween.  So what are you waiting for?

Click here to vote for the Greater Savannah Humane Society.

Don't make me get up in your face and bark.

Shoot Yeah!

Go check out why I've been so incredibly excited these last few weeks.

And enjoy this lovely number on your Saturday morning.



And, everyone else, now I'll stop nagging you to get pregnant with me.  

Merry, Merry.

[source]

I want it to be Christmas.

I want the cookies, and the time off, and the coats and hats, and the music.  Oh, the music!

And, judge away my friends, but this little ditty* will be playing as I deck our, uh, house with, uh, lots of sparkly ADD-type Christmas decor.

I've started my shopping, and I've been pinning away fun decorations, and I've already picked out our Christmas card.

Anyway, Shorty**, guess it's time for bed.  How else will I have visions of sugar-plums and homemade peppermint marshmallows?


*I still haven't felt the baby kick, and it's making me mad.  So, now, since I know he can hear, I'm trying all sorts of things to get him moving.  (Lazy fetus!)  So far, here are some things that have not worked: me yelling at students, the season four finale of Brothers & Sisters, Christopher Walken reading "The Raven," Mitch barking at a bone, threats to name it Shorty.  And now let's add Justin Bieber's Christmas music to that list.  Does nothing rile this child?

*Or do you prefer to go by Dirty?

Weekend Fun

What started off as a rocky weekend (What?  Dairy Queen is closed and I can't have a Blizzard?  Should we move to a house that is closer to a Dairy Queen or what?) turned out to be absolutely lovely and breezy.  We opened all of the windows and grilled and ellipted and watched too much TV.  I expanded The Blast's wardrobe by approximately 84 pieces.  (Girl across the street who has a little boy was having a yard sale and selling clothes for $.25/each.  And I got a pack n play for $5.  For the duration of the weekend, I sang the Subway "Five Dollar Footlong" song to Matt, substituting, of course, pack n play for footlong.  Matt has never been more excited to leave the house, methinks.)

I ate Taco Bell twice.  Why so good, Taco Bell?  Also, Matt says that if I were to go in for an ultrasound, the technician would be able to see a baby, and a chicken crunchwrap.*

I also pledged not to leave to house for most of the weekend, which meant that a bunch of those annoying little house projects that I've needed to do are getting done, and it means that I'm really feeling a deep connection with my Brothers & Sisters.  

Here's what it looked like.

Now I need to find a matching one for Mitch. 

 Reilly came to visit and to protect us from yard sale customers.

Mitch got some help with his chores.

 Clothesplosion!

 Wondering why we have all of these clothes when his father has strictly forbidden him from wearing clothes.

 As close as I could come to a Blizzard without putting in much effort.

With the guidance of a Shecky over the phone, finally cleaned out the linen closet. 

 Reilly votes that we keep the green blankets.

Now we've got to go see what's going on with that sexpot Nucky Thompson.  Happy week to you!

*Sidenote: Wouldn't it be cool if one of those baby websites would tell you how big your baby is by comparing its size to that of a fast food item?  "This week your baby is as big as a taco!"

First Impressions

So, The Blast, who I just picture now to look like this--

--well, he can hear us now.  That is freaky.  It's troublesome, too, because this has been one of those weeks--those grumpy, cranky, squinty mean faces all day weeks--at school where I might not have been talking in my nicest sweetest voice.

In short, the baby already thinks I'm a bitch.  Either that, or it thinks that its mom is Sissy Spacek because my ninth graders have been listening to To Kill a Mockingbird.  Shoot.

So this weekend I'm going to work on being nicer and less cranky.  Or at least recording myself saying nice and encouraging things so that I can get some stomach headphones and feed him happy thoughts.  This weekend there will be open windows and two dogs and maybe a little bit of shopping and cake.  There had better be cake, or I'm bringing back my bitch voice.

Hope your weekend is full of happiness and cake!


****Baby, if you are reading this far, far in the future.  First impressions are really important.  I am kind of a bitch, which you probably know already.  Never date a girl who's not at least a little bit of a bitch.  Also, don't use the word bitch unless you're over 13.****