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.

Weekend Adventure!

This weekend I ventured to the White Hot house to meet up with Cassie, and then the two of us traveled to Hotlanta to do some serious shopping.  And eating.

Lots of eating.

And lots of laughing, too.

We were surprisingly mild in our imbibing, if only because of early mornings and old age.  Seriously, last night we went to bed at 9:30 and then woke up this morning and chatted about the weather.  Did I just turn 30, or 80?  Maybe it's the grey streaks.

Shoot.

Today's been about reuniting with my little family, and phone talking whilst driving (safety first!), and somehow managing to get lost even with a GPS.  How does that even happen?  (Well, not lost so much as taking alternate routes, forcing the GPS lady to say "recalculating" in a very annoyed voice over and over again.)

Hopefully I'll be able to stay up past 9:30 tonight, and hopefully I'll be able to come up with something to talk to you about other than this fabulous spring we've had.

Pork meatball banh mi.  Make this.  Make it now.

Henry is not my biggest fan, though he and I did share some special days when Hugh and Cassie were on their two-week honeymoon.  Cassie thought I'd doctored the video of him on my shoulders, purring away.  The next time he saw me he hissed at me and ran away.  Just a fling, I suppose.

 Listening intently to Hugh's doctor talk.  Or knife-fighting talk.  I can't remember which.

 Two longitudinal strips.

We're basically like Snoop Dogg.

Could this toad be this toad? 

 Oh, that face!

Hope you had a lovely couple of days!  What'd you do?  What'd you eat?


******Psssssssssssssst!  Don't forget to check out my reviews page to hear about the awesomepants awesomeness that is HomeGoods and to hear about how you can enter to win gift cards basically by clicking a few buttons.  Do it!******

Um, Thanks?

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A colleague told me today, in all sincerity, that she loved my hair.  Awww, shucks, lady.  You're too nice.

But then she followed with, ". . .and those grey streaks are so beautiful!  They must be hereditary."

Blast from the Past

If you don't hear from me, or if you call and I don't answer, well, it's probably because I got this for my birthday from one super husband.

Um, yeah, that's Marios 1, 2, and 3.  And some lost level game that I never played.  And there's also a soundtrack.  How am I dealing with having turned 30?  By regressing, of course, and channeling my 11-year old self, the master of all things Mario World.

So, don't be mad if I'm MIA for a while.  If you need me, I'll be in the guest room turning myself into raccoons and statues and defeating Koopas, yelling and screaming at the TV and scaring the dog (who may or may not really be a king who's been transformed!).

Lordy, Lordy, Look Who's. . .

Thirty.

Shoot.

Me.  It's me.

But I think that I"m going to tell people that I'm forty, so that they all remark on how great I look.  Yeah, that's a good idea.

Truth be told, I'm not crazy about the idea of being thirty, if only because that's official adult territory, and I don't really know that I belong in official adult territory.  I still decorate my house like it's a dorm room, for Christ's sake!

It was much easier for me when it was just other people who turned thirty.  Yes, that was better.  Me, all full of life and in my twenties.  Them, closer to death.

Speaking of that.  My friend Cris (you know Cris), came over on Saturday night for a night of arts and crafts, and she insisted that I listen to Tim McGraw's "My Next Thirty Years" at some point during my birthday.  And that seemed easy enough.  Except that when I made myself a little "My Next Thirty Years" station on Pandora, the first song that played was "Live Like You Were Dying."  WTF, Pandora!?!  You don't have to rub it in!

But, you know, I've been spending my days with 15-year olds for the last five years, so I've been feeling old forever.  This is nothing new.  Plus, I really like my life, so who cares if I'm old.  Right?  Right?

Thirty is stupid.

But--BUT!--thirtieth birthdays are super fun.  At least mine was.  Aside from the fact that the pollen has been trying its hardest to kill me (is it weird that I'm always sick on my birthday?), the last few days have been  just fantastic.  Here's what our weekend looked like.

Deciding that we didn't want to cook dinner and turning to the bolognese we had in the freezer.

Celebrating our seventh Mitchaversary!

Monitoring wine pours.

Cute fuzzy caterpillars that are way more cute when they're on leaves 

than they are when they're on handles that I have to grab in the dark.  Blarg!

Oh, that dog.

Favorite new gift from a wonderful husband.

Lunch at Umami.

Crazy hail/thunderstorm.  What the hail?

Flooded carport bistro.

Cheers!

Cold and rainy outside.  Warm and cozy inside. 

What a lovely way to ring in this, my fourth decade of life.

I do look great for forty, don't you think?

Dear Mary. . .

Sorry I've been MIA.  Nothing's really wrong, well, except for my absolute inability to complete a task these last couple of weeks.  As soon as I manage to finish some stuff, I'll have lots to share with you.

But I can't wait until then to share these little gems with you.  They're from Sapling Press.

And my personal favorite. . .

So if you just thought to yourself, "OMG!  Mandy's birthday is only two weeks away and I have yet to buy her a card and gift," then just get me one of these.  And maybe one of these.  And these.  And this.*

Well, shoot.  Now I'm being greedy. 

*Not really with the last one.  I'm terrified of needles.

One Step Forward, Two Steps ON MY FACE!

**Note.  There is no rhyme or reason to this post.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the guest room ellipting and Matt was keeping me company. We don't have DVR on the guest room TV (Or good cable even--every time Matt's in there he praises our newer, nicer, high definition TV. What's wrong with the fuzzy lines running through Roseanne Conner's face? Matt's a TV snob, but I digress.), so we're left to watch garbage during that time. Usually, I'll try to time it so that I can watch Rachel Maddow or The City (last night I was really lucky and caught some of the better parts of Sister Act) while I ellipt, but on this particular night all that was on that remotely interested us was MTV's True Life: I Hate My Face. I think I only wanted to watch it because I had so much fun saying the title over and over again, and then, of course, yelling at the TV, "I hate your face, too!" There's something so entertaining to me about emphatically using the word face in my daily language. Try it out.


Other digression: jokes. One of my favorite memories of Chloe, one of the times that I realized that she was truly funny, was when she was three years old. She was with my mom and brother, and they'd all driven down to JMU to pick me up because it was Christmas break. (How did I live without a car for an entire year?) So, as we drove the 2 1/2 hours home (It always took me longer when I was by myself--like 4-5 hours--because I have a terrible sense of direction and can't pay attention to anything. One time I missed the state of Maryland completely. How does that even happen?), we were telling knock-knock jokes to Chloe. You know, the "Banana, banana. . .orange you glad I didn't say banana?" and the "Interrupting cow. . MOO!" She laughed, and at some point it occurred to us that she was actually getting the jokes, not just laughing because of all of the stupid animal noises we were making. So, in the spirit of Christmas, Jordan and I wrote our own knock-knock joke:

Knock knock!


Who's there?


Santa Claus.


Santa Claus who?


SANTA CLAWS YOUR FACE OFF!

She laughed and laughed, and we knew that we had something special in that little tyrant. (There was another joke about Pikachu which was just as funny, but not as seasonally appropriate.)

But back to faces. I'm getting old, and I can see it in my skin. Maybe all of those sunburns and days of lying in the sunshine weren't so smart after all? I've really been noticing it in my hands. I'm starting to have wrinkled up old lady hands. (I also have a shitload of gray hair, but I'm determined not to color it--at least for a long time.  What I really want is one of those sassy women skunk stripes, but I don't know how to make that happen.) I was talking to Cassie about my old lady wrinkly hands this weekend, and the subject turned to face wrinkles. See, I'm not terribly concerned about the face wrinkle thing just yet, because I've found a more natural form of Botox: baked goods. I figure that as long as I keep plumping my face up, then I won't have to deal with wrinkles. Obviously, though, this is a terrible idea. So Cassie was talking about the soap she uses, Dove Sensitive Skin face bar, and she was raving about it. Now, I am kind of reluctant to put soap on my face because every time I do I get zits. Really. Usually I just wash my face with a washcloth and hot water, and that works well for me. (True story. I had tons of pimples as a teenager until the week I ran out of soap and my mom wouldn't take me to the store to get more. Used only water, and my face cleared right up. Weird, but kind of convenient.) But last night I tried out the new soap, and my face felt silky smooth! I was so excited. I just kept touching it and looking at it. Horray for soft, moisturized skin!

So I went to bed, pleased with myself and with my face. Then Mitch decided that he didn't like the spot where he was lying, and he started to do that thing that dogs do, where he kept stomping on the blankets and pillows with his feet, nudging pillows with his face, until he made the spot just perfect. He turned around in circles for about thirty seconds as he sought out that most comfortable of spots, and during his spinning maneuver, before he plopped down and let out a big dog sigh, he stomped on my face with his rough ol' Dorito-smelling back paw. It hurt like hell, and I screamed, and he looked at me like I was crazy, and now the side of my face is all red and scratched up.

And now I'm the one who hates my face.