Day tripper...

Today, Avery and I went with our friends Vickie and Jacob to Oak Glen, which is where we always go every fall for pumpkins, hot chocolate, and apple pie. We decided to go today to beat the crowds, and beat the crowds we did!

We actually got locked in (and I mean padlocked in) inside of the petting zoo because there were so few people there, they had only a couple of employees manning the place, and they had the petting zoo padlocked to keep out the freeloaders.

We had to yell for help, and after a couple of minutes I was starting to look at how many quarters I had and how much petting zoo food I could buy with it. Avery held her sippy cup of water pretty tightly to her body. I think she knew I was eyeing it.

Anyway, I took a ton of crappy pictures, but a couple favorites of mine are these:

Concert Tickets...

Aren't they kind of like proof that you were once cool? Or at least proof that you once tried to be cool?

I scanned the ones I could find, and I think they represent less than half of all the concerts I've attended in my life. I'm assuming the ones I can't find were lost when I was in a drunken haze and they never even made it out of the venue with me. So, I'll share the ones that I could find.

First off, my first real concert. I'm impressed I still have this one. I was fifteen years old. I cannot believe my mother let me go. You know you're jealous. All that black eyeliner and black clothing? Oh yeah.



Next, my most embarrassing ticket. I will say though, this was a concert season that the owner of our college hangout had boxseats, and would repeatedly give the tickets to us if he couldn't or didn't want to attend. Notice in the 'Section/Aisle' it says BOX. Notice, too, that the price says "$0.00" -- I am not lying here people. I did not buy this ticket. However, ironically enough, I did know every word to every song they sang. It was some scary shit.



Here's one of my two favorites. The Red Hot Chili Peppers. For anyone that knows me well, you know why this one is a favorite.



Next we have the "Year of Living Dangerously." Take a look at the dates. You'll see that I apparently didn't do much else other than party. Which was fine by me.



Here's my other favorite ticket. Tori Amos. Enough said.



Here are some others from more recent years. I believe I attended all of these (including Tori above) with my husband. I toned it down once I got all hitched up.



Now for some tickets that I'm missing and can remember attending the concerts. I'm sure this list isn't comprehensive, but I'm going to try and document it for posterity.

Depeche Mode 1990 -- Violator Tour -- Dodger Stadium? Anaheim Stadium?
Def Leppard 1993 -- Blockbuster Pavilion -- same box seat deal
Joe Cocker 1993 -- Blockbuster Pavilion -- box seat deal
Lenny Kravitz 1994? -- Poly Pavilion
Bon Jovi 1994? -- Great Western Forum
Weezer/No Doubt 1995 or 1996 -- Anaheim Pond
Van Halen 1996 or 1997 -- Irvine Meadows
The Lilith Fair 1998 -- Rose Bowl
Matchbox 20/Paula Cole 1998 -- Santa Barbara Bowl
Stone Temple Pilots 1999 -- Pacific Ampitheater
The Cure 2003 -- Blockbuster Pavilion
GodSmack 2003 -- Santa Barbara Bowl

God -- there have to be about 20 more that I can't recall right now. My brain is fried from having coded this blog post by hand. I'll add more to this post as they come to me, if they do.

More holiday decor

My husband painstakingly put up the Christmas lights outside today, and I painstakingly shopped for a wreath for over the fireplace mantle. I've been wanting one for a couple of years, but always waited too late into the season and could never get a 30-inch one like a I wanted and would fit well. Anyway, we were both successful at our holiday decor-related tasks, and I've got pictures to prove it!



I decided, too, to throw in a pic of Christmas 2003. This was when Murphy and Winston were the kids, and kids were just on the horizon. Well, kid was anyway.

Tee hee!

From PostSecret:

New holiday decorations

Last week I made a day trip out to Ikea to look at their children's furniture, accessories, and toys. I came home with some cool stuff; I bought stuff for Avery and holiday decor since they had some cool stuff and it was cheap!

In addition to some bulbs and garland, I bought six strands of battery-powered wreath lights. Tonight I wrapped them around the wreaths that I already had and hung them. I love it! I could even do without making my husband hang Christmas lights for a couple more weeks and just enjoy my wreath lights.

It was a very chilly 58 degrees when we went out to check the lights, so I had to bundle up Avery and cover up her bald head. Anything below 60 to us Californians is called "winter." FYI.

Here's bundled up Avery and our wreath lights. Yay!

Life's little surprises...

or, bigger than average surprises...

This morning, my husband sprang out of bed, walked to the bathroom, peed, and went to the kitchen. I laid in bed listening to what he was doing. I heard him get a plate and silverware, open the refrigerator, bang a couple of things on the countertop, and that was it.

It was time for me to get up, too, so I promptly put on my robe, walked out of the room toward the kitchen, and found him sitting at the dining room table, eating a piece of pumpkin pie -- completely naked.

I stopped and looked at him as he sat there eating away and just smiled and said "Good morning."

Something about him sitting there nude eating leftover pie from Thanksgiving made me appreciate the holidays that much more. It's not often he skips getting dressed to go and start his day. It's less often that he eats something right when he wakes up. But to combine eating something right after waking up and doing it in the nude... well, it gave me a little chuckle is all.

More of my useless talent...

I just heard Ellen Degeneres's voice on an American Express commerical and Christian Slater on a Panasonic commercial. Yep, I told you it was useless.

Just said by my husband:

"Dr. Phil would only have sex with Oprah if she had a strap-on on and gave it to him in the pooper."

Yes, people, these are things we talk about when Avery goes to bed.

Whew, our food is chillin...

"The butter's gettin hard, the jello's jigglin." That was for all you diehard Laker fans.

Our refrigerator is in. Our friend came over and cut the wood trim piece and all is well. It makes the hugest difference in the overall look of our kitchen. It fits so snugly that it almost has a built-in effect. Love it.

Here are updated pictures:

I am so impressed by this...

That I have to link it here too. My little Avery is such a smartie!

Blogging to brag...

I am now the proud owner of a KitchenAid Counter-Depth, French-door, Freezer-on-the-Bottom, Architect® Series Refrigerator.

However, I'm also the owner of a husband that can't use a tapemeasure correctly, and the opening in our cabinetry is 1/2 inch too small for our new KitchenAid Counter-Depth, French-door, Freezer-on-the-Bottom, Architect® Series Refrigerator.

A friend's husband is a carpenter, and we're hoping he's got a saw that he can use to cut part of the trim piece of our cabinet away to allow room for the fridge. We actually knew this might happen; my husband thought it might happen because of a variation in the width of the refrigerator. I thought this might happen because my husband was the one to measure the opening. Don't tell him I said that.

Sooo, my kitchen went from looking like this last night:
(emphasis on clean, organized)



To this today:
(emphasis on the disaster we now have and no room in the actual kitchen)



It's a little cleaner now as I cleaned all the parts to the old fridge and put them away, but having a refrigerator sitting in the middle of your kitchen doesn't exactly make for a safe and comfortable cooking environment. Good thing it's still fairly warm in November because we're barbequing tonight. Here's hoping our carpenter friend can help us out before this goes on too long.

Speaking of automotive embellishments...

Today I saw a license plate frame that said "Shop, Return, Exchange" -- "The fun never ends!"

I completely agree.

Honk if you Scrapbook

I'm turning into that which I despise!

This weekend my friend Christy and I headed down to San Diego to visit a friend who is due at the end of December with a girl (woot woot). Neither of us could make it to her shower the weekend prior, so we went down on a separate visit to make up for our previous lack of attendance.

Apparently one of the activities they did at the shower (in lieu of shower games, the bane of my existance) was to make scrapbook pages for little baby No-Name's scrapbook (Lee won't tell us the name they've chosen). She saved pages and decor for us to use to make little baby No-Name some scrapbook pages of our own. At first I thought how NOT into scrapbooking I am -- except maybe digital scrapbooking of some sort -- but I actually loved doing it and now I can't stop thinking about what a terrible mom I am that I haven't started something like this for Avery.

My biggest thing is the cost. It's just about as pricey as Jed's golf habit, and we can't afford two ridiculously over-priced addictions. However, it's not like I won't have something to show for it once the money is spent. I mean, Avery gets life-long memories from the over-priced supplies I'd need to buy.

Sigh.

I soooo never wanted to be a scrap-booker. My friend at work Susie is a scrap-booker, and even has a sticker that says "Honk if you Scrapbook" on the back window of her car. Of course one day when I wasn't at work, apparently Kendra did something to cover up the "S" and the "book" in "Scrapbook" on Susie's sticker, so she drove all around Redlands with "Honk if you Crap" plastered onto her car, right alongside her "Soccer Mom" sticker. I would have given money to see that one play out.

My point is, not only did I never want to be a scrap-booker, I never want to be the type of mom that drives a mini-van and has stickers like "Honk if you Scrapbook" on my back window.

Is that what I'm destined to become now that I find myself thinking about scrapbooking and actually wanting to scrapbook? Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Memoirs of a Geisha

One of my favorites books is becoming a movie. I think it'll be interesting to see it come to life on the 'big screen.' And Ken Watanabe in any movie is a good thing. Not typically a guy that I'm attracted to, but DAMN he's hot.

LOST

I think I am going to rent the first season and watch it while season two is on. Anna talked me into it. My husband isn't interested in watching, however. So the question then is, will season two be out so I can watch it in time to watch season three on television like everyone else does???

Letterman or Leno?

The answer to this question tells me a lot about a person. So... Letterman or Leno? Make me proud people, make me proud.

Daniel Day-Lewis

I don't know what it is about Daniel Day-Lewis starring in the movie version of books I had to read in my various English Lit courses in college (The Last of the Mohicans, My Left Foot, The Crucible) but there is something that is undeniably sexy about his character in "The Last of the Mohicans." I caught just a moment of it tonight and it reminded me how much I loved that movie (and book) and that I need to watch it sometime soon.

It also reminded me of this professor I had who (in addition to looking like a Puritan herself) went on and on and on about captivity narratives in early American Literature and how women who were held captive by Native Americans often fell in love with them and had a hard time acclimating back into mainstream society once their captivity ended.

They would write these accounts called 'captivity narratives,' in which they'd describe the details of their capture and subsequent captivity, often leaving important details out or flat out lying about their experience so as not to be viewed differently once they retured home. Their 'captivity narratives' were written to try to answer questions about what had happened while they were away, and were passed off as factual accounts of their experiences; however, today we cannot read them without knowing what really happened because we now know how fictional they really are.

I have no idea why I chose to blog about this tonight, but I hope someone has learned something. I'm a teacher, people. It's what I do.

Crazy-ass commercial...

I just saw a commercial for XBOX 360, in which an entire city's worth of people were pelting each other with water balloon after water balloon. I'm assuming there is a water balloon-themed game for XBOX or something. All I know is, the commercial really caught my attention. I especially loved the 'finale,' where a group of people on the roof of a building dumped 20-30 water balloons on passers-by on the street below them. MAN that looked like fun.

Happy Birthday little Murphy-foo-foo.

Yes, it's really his birthday (he's four) and no, his nicknames do NOT compromise his masculinity. I think we took care of that when we got him neutered three years ago.

Happy Birthday little Murphy-dog.

I am SUCH the photographer...

So, here is what happens when you provide lots of alcohol and a camera to a group of people who love to photograph themselves. You have been warned. I think it's safe to say I've now perfected the art of the "close up."

Wedding Pictures

My busy weekend...

Well, the last couple of days have been crazy. Avery has been at my mom's because Jed was going to be gone all day yesterday (and it was his Friday at home with her) and today we're attending a wedding, so Avery will be there until Sunday. I miss her terribly.

Last night we attended the rehearsal dinner for our friends that are getting married today. I arrived to find that someone (and I hold all those punks responsible!) let Jed get totally shit-faced drunk, and then of course I was immediately put on damage control. I made him drink many, many glasses of water, and in the three hours I was in Palm Springs, he had sobered up enough to continue making intelligible conversation (for the most part).

We took a few pictures, none of which came out very well -- except this one where Anna and I were trying to mimick the prom pose. Her husband told me to grab her butt, I did, and you can see what ensued from there. She has spoken at length about how great her ass is on her blog, and it had been too long since I'd goosed her. I'm a serial gooser, what can I say? I even was known to goose my grandfather from time to time.

Anyway, as I sit here trying to figure out what the hell to wear that 1. fits me and 2. doesn't accentuate the fact that I still have 'baby weight' to lose, I can't help but wonder what over-the-top wedding surprises are in store for me tonight. I'm not sure if Jed was exaggerating or not, but last night, as he shared with me about being 4 minutes late to the rehearsal (Anna and Kristin claim it was much longer, who knows) he said that he quickly realized that this wasn't just a wedding, it was the one-hundred-thousand-dollar-matrimonial-production thrown by a pretty affluent family in our town. I don't know if the 100K part was right, though I suspect it probably was. As a groomsman's gift from the groom, Jed took home a Kenneth Cole watch, and I didn't sneak a peek at what Anna got as her bridemaid's gift. I am confident it was something fabulous.

So, off to celebrate wedded bliss in the desert again. Wish me luck that I don't look like a cow and no one knows that my shoes are from the little Chinese shoe store and cost me $17.99.

What's your useless talent?

One of mine (I'd classify most of my talents as useless) is picking out people and their voices in movies and commercials. My husband has learned to give up and accept what I say as fact because, if he doesn't, knows I'll go and do a little Googling to prove I'm right.

Mua hua hua.

So, how often do you notice celebrity voices in commercials? There's a growing trend going on -- apparently getting their voice is almost as good as getting them. Almost.

Anyway, voices that I've noticed and can remember now are:
Gene Hackman for Lowe's (an easy one)
Julia Roberts for AOL (easy too)
Gary Sinise for Cadillac
Stockard Channing for Milk
Allison Janney for Kaiser Permanente
Donald Sutherland for Volvo
Christian Slater for something... can't remember what.
Eric McCormack for something... can't remember what.
Jeff Bridges for Duracell (an easy one)

I'm sure there are more. I probably pick up on these things because I have the TV on so often, but rarely actually sit and watch it.

Now if only Heath Ledger would get on the commerical voice-over train. I could use a little more Heath Ledger in my day.