My Big Fat Red Felt Heart Wedding!

I'm a bit obsessed with Pinterest. Yeah. Maybe more than a bit. I sooo love it! More so, I'm in love with creating a list of DIY things that I may never get to, but just pinning them to my boards makes me feel like I'm accomplishing something. I have actually made a few things, of which I should write blogs about at some point. Most of the things I've made are full of alcohol, or fat. Hey, at least I'm being creative in a non cheesy scrapbook or Michael's addict kind of way.

I'm constantly amazing and inspired by how creative people are on the internets. So, you can imagine my complete shock when I saw not one, but two things that I've created pop up on the ole pinterest boards. Two completely unrelated things that I made, photographed and put out into the world of webs were actually pinned. PINNED! Not even by me.

Oh ego, how you love to be stroked.

Not to sound even more full of my crafty self, but I've had a small amount of people ask me to feature some things from my wedding on my blog (my old blog, not this one). Since one of the things that I came across on Pinterest was my wedding bouquet, I thought I'd take that as validation that my day really was The Shiz and that maybe I should share my wedding love with the internets again.

So, here's the link to the awesome blog that featured the DIY for my bouquet. The lovelies over at LaBelle Bride contacted me after seeing my wedding videos and asked to do a DIY for my bouquet, which I DIY'd or DIMY...Did it myself'ed? Whatever. Well, this is where the pinning started and I have to say I'm so flattered by the people who pinned it! I loved my wedding. LOVED IT! Every second. Every detail. Every, every, every little thing. Perfect day and all that. I especially loved my bouquet because it was born of being broke, being on an island where flowers were sooo expensive it was cray-zay and being a bit environmentally friendly and green and all that.

Also, this video, by SharkPig shows this bouquet in action. I would so love to embed this video, but the internet does not share my adoration and does everything in it's power to thwart my attempts at adding media to my blog. So click, please.

If you look closely, the little fish that is sewn into the center of the bouquet is an antique flying fish charm. There are flying fish in Catalina. Seriously...super cool. Look 'em up and be amazed. Anyhow, I love them. So my mother found me an antique charm, which was my something old and something blue. I know. Too darling. Sometimes I can't believe how perfect this little fish was and that he came to my wedding. Thanks Mom!

So, because it was my favorite day ever, I'm going to discuss this awesome day here on this bloggy blog. There were lots of details and DIY things that happened and I can talk the shit out of 'em. Get ready for some wedding goodness.

It is...it is fun to stay at the YMCA!

For like an hour or so. After that it would probably get a little annoying.

So, fears. I'm facing those suckers right and left. Well, no, I guess I'm just facing them, right at 'em. In the face.

I have been completely phobic of any type of gym situation since the beginning of time. I have this completely backwards idea that I should only go to the gym if I look like someone who works out...a lot. I don't pass this burden on to anyone else. Gym it up, friends! But me. No way. It's just never been something that I've been able to do. Working out is front of my TV is plenty humiliating. It's not that I'm completely uncoordinated. I have some grace I think. But as far as coordination with sporty-type things go, I'm kind of lacking. Maybe it's my perfectionist ways, since I doubt there are many people out there who actually look good whilst working out, 80's Olivia Newton John aside.

So, I put my on my big girl pants, strapped Carter in and headed off to The Y. Now, on top of conquering my work out fear, I also droppd my kidster off at the baby gym. This is the first time he's been left with strangers. Big step. I hate to admit it, but it wasn't nearly as hard as facing the gym fear. Lame. I'm lame. Drop off your perfect little creature with complete strangers? No biggie. Engage in healthy physical activity with strangers? Shiver with fear. Literally shiver, since I decided to attend water aerobics. Yes, work out...in public...in a bathing suit. Just thinking about how scary that should have been makes me kinda want a hug. But, BUT it wasn't that bad. Actually, it was completely awesome!

I am one of those people who goes to an organized aerobics class. ME!

Don't go giving me too much credit though. I was the youngest in the class by at least 15 years. This is just fine by me. There are people in the class who have grandchildren older than me. Not even exaggerating. But don't go thinking that it's an easy class. Ho no. No, no, no. My arms fell off and had to be sewn back on. The old ladies completely worked it out and put me to shame. SHAME! One lady, who has a grandson who is 5 years older than me, offered to pick up some underwater dumbbells for me while grabbing some for herself. When she asked waht color I wanted (different colors, different resistance, starting with white and going on to yellow, then blue) I told her white. This woman, who is at least 75, adorable, has a cute accent, and black (I use "black" and not the formal African American. I'm "brown", my husband is "white". We're all the colors of the rainbow. Get on board) turns to me and gives me this "oh, please" look and disapprovingly shakes her head and makes that teeth to tongue clicky noise. I was put in my place by this sweet woman. And the other women are kicking my butt! I love it. So inspiring. Not to mention the instructor, who's my age and looks like one of those women who run and have been fit and skinny their whole little perfect lives. Well, she weighed 300 lbs. I'll spell that out so that is really sinks in....

THREE-HUNDRED-POUNDS!!!!

After I heard this, my 20 extra lbs and I jumped in that pool and quit complaining.

There are lots of stories in this class, which I will dole out in small doses. I especially can't wait to blogossip about the "I'm the honorary instructor" lady. I know you know who I'm talking about. There's one in every class, office, waiting room...everywhere. They want to be the expert, the popular girl, the go-to person, but they're just not. It's just not in their cards. What is in their cards is a bunch of awkward moments and trying-to-hard-ness. I soooo symapthize with these people, because they're just so desperate for something and I just want to feel for them, but they're also soooo challenging. I'm the person that laughs at their awkward jokes and smiles at them a lot, because I just want them to feel better. Then I talk about them in my blog. Two-faced? Evidently. Enjoy.

Carter did an amazing job as well. Of course he did. He's awesome.

Let's see, what else? Oh, well you might notice that my bloggy November goal has been a failure. There's all of these reasons why I didn't blog:

Excuse 1
Excuse 2
Zombie apocolypse
Crawling baby
Kegerator unveiling
Baked Potato Soup
Excuse seventy-batrillion

Oh, well.

Play-Doh Crack

Day Two of Get It Together Already And Blog is here and so am I.

Impressed?

Don't be.

I'm recycling today. I found this little blog treasure in my recycling bin and, by golly, I'm using it. Actually, I was inspired by Suburban Matron's post about the scent of Play-Doh and instead of a time warp to kindergarten like she had, I time warped to MySpace. I doubt this was her intention, but I didn't have actual Play-Doh, so the effect was lost. Anyhow, as she was pondering the miracle of olfactory memory response, my brain had moved onto one of my many issues.

Now, we haven't known each other very long, but there are two things that terrify me, "and one of them is nuclear war"!
Ok, that's Austin Powers' issue.

Mine is far more terrifying and a real threat to us everyday.

Claymation.

It's perhaps the scariest thing that man has ever had the audacity to create. So, with that little breadcrumb from my personal psycho path, I hope that you can understand why my brain went in a completely different direction when Suburban Matron mentioned the dreaded dough.

So, join me and the ghost of blogs past as we revisit another issue I have with clay.

"Another clay-type issue?", you may ask. "How many can one person have?"

Plenty.

MySpace Blog, circa 2008
Remember when you were little (or big, whatever) and you played with Play-Doh? As many of you know, I'm not so much a fan of people or animals made out of Play-Doh. Ya know, because they could come alive and torment me. Anyhow, if you're not going to make animals or people out of Play-Doh then the next best thing to make out of Play-Doh was food. You started out with making a pretzel, because that's the first thing you make when you start out with a long Play-Doh rope (unless you make a snake, which you shouldn't, because it's freakish). Then, you move onto other food choices; pizza, cookies, etc. Apartently the people at Play-Doh caught onto this, because they came out with the different playsets to accommodate Play-Doh food making, like the McDonalds playset, Pizza Playset, Ice Cream Playset, whatever.

Anyhow, I always thought this was really effed up, because you could make food, but you couldn't eat it.

Unless you did, and that's ok too.

Why would a toy company want to entice children into eating clay? If this was their plan, why didn't they make it taste better? This just doesn't make any sense to me. They must have know we were going to be tempted to eat their product? I mean, come on, some of us (not me, but no judgement) ate paste! Paste! It didn't even look appealing and still it was consumed!?! Evidently the paste people even flavored the paste to taste like mint.

This confuses me? They did this for one of two reasons.

One, they realized that kids were eating the paste and, as such, saw that the product now had a different use and flavored it to make it irresistable to the kids who were already eating it, and also to making it more appealing so that they could market it to the kids who hadn't yet made the leap from being tempted to actually eating it.

Or two, they knew that kids were eating it and they realized, "Hey, kids are eating paste, that can't be good for them. But how can we take it away from them, they're boosting our sales! If their parents find out they'll take away the paste. I know, we'll add mint flavoring and then the parents will just think that the kids are great at brushing their teeth. Brilliant."

That being said, why didn't Play-Doh realize that had they flavored their product they would have made a fortune?! Instead, after making our McDonalds shaped Play-Doh "food" and then realizing that the Play-Doh didn't  have the desired flavor, all that we were left with was an unsatified craving for the fake food that just sat there and tormented us...inedible, but still hunger inducing. It's a crap-shoot that we all had to endure at a young age.

I was thinking about this while making veggie bacon this morning. It looks like bacon...sort of, but is there anything about it that actually reminds you of bacon? Not so much. Had the package not said "Bacon", but instead just "Soy that comes in strip form" I probably wouldn't have even bought Veggie Bacon. But, instead, I continue to buy Veggie Bacon. I eat it. It's alright, I guess. But seriously, it doens't really satify any bacon cravings I might have. Come to think of it, I don't really crave bacon, but the prospect of being able to eat bacon that doesn't have the fat and calories that it should have is too tempting to pass up. So I eat it. Why? It's stupid. It's just like eating McDonalds shaped Play-Doh. You didn't even know you wanted McDonalds until you made something that looked like it, and then you wanted it. So now, I've eaten breakfast, and although I'm full, all I want is bacon?!!?  Had the Veggie Bacon never crossed my path and I'd had oatmeal instead, I wouldn't even have thought about bacon. But here it is, and I'm thinking about bacon. It's still a crap-shoot.

Then, merely by coincidence, I saw this Natalie Dee comic today

...and then I really wanted a cigarette. I don't even smoke. It's a good thing I'd never thought of making Play-Doh cigarettes. I may have started smoking at a very young age. And for that matter, it's a good thing I never thought of making Play-Doh crack.

Between my complete fear of claymation and my obvious disappointment with Play-Doh cuisine, there are definitely some issues here.

Maybe I'm just really easily influenced by Play-Doh.

 

So....there's that.

I don't really know why the last little bit is yellow. And hyperlinked. Some kind of Internet-talky-talk that's completely lost on me. Oh well.

Hmmmm. That's all I've got. I wish I had more in me, but it's been a long day and I've just unsuccessfully made a very week pot of coffee that I need to consume immediately or I won't make it 'till 9pm. The first sign that you may need coffee is the inability to gather the mental capacity to actually make a pot of coffee. I may or may not have added half the amount if grounds required, but I need to coffee to figure it out.

Night folks!

P.S. Watching a recorded episode of Glee and Fin is wearing the hoodie that I had to beg and convince my Hubs to buy at Old Navy. I think that makes me the winner of that battle. I'm all, "See Honey. We're still cool. Right? RIGHT?"

Right.

Thwarted, yet again.

The plan was to blog. Daily. But, no. Technology, you are a fickle friend.

I am blogging from my iPad since getting upstairs to a computer requires far more time than I have and stairs are somewhat of a issue for the tiny man than follows me around the world these days. So, when my blogging app decided to stop working I did a bunch of nothing about it. Was I mad? Yup. Did I immediately get a new app and follow through with my plans? Nope. Did I eat a bunch of gummy bears and buy a nerdy RPG instead? Maybe. So, I guess I wasn't so mad, but I was planning on blogging everyday for a month. Well...that's sort of a lie. Everyday until Thanksgiving, because lets be honest, I'm going to be too full of fried poultry to discuss the minutia of life to my imaginary audience.

And so, I splurged on a $5 app yesterday to remedy my blog situation and of course I'm already feeling outsmarted by this piece of new technology and thus allowed myself to be distracted by pinterest (and maybe more gummy bears)for a good hour this morning. So, I'm behind already. Defeat. Maybe I'll blog multiple times a day to catch up? My life is really just to full of bloggable situations.

Right.

So get ready for some less than compelling stories about nothing. That is my solemn vow to you, non-existent reader of my narcissistic, self-indulgent, oh-so-thrilling bloggy- blog. I will continue to tell stories, ponder on life's complexities and judge my neighbors and you continue to turn all of my questions into rhetorical ones.

Are you ready?

A few introductions

Las Vegas is a weird town. This is obvious for many reasons. Being born and raised here, most of the stuff that people find strange about Vegas are completely normal to me. I'm a little lost when I don't see slot machines in a convenience store or the airport. When Scott and I moved to Eugene, OR I was completely baffled by this strange term that kept getting thrown around. I heard it about the same time every night we'd go out. It seemed everyone knew what it meant but me. You may have heard it before, "Last Call"? Such a strange concept. Anyhow, one very strange thing about Vegas is our neighborhoods, or lack thereof. I mean, we have 'em, of course, but you don't know your neighbors. You honestly never speak to them. I'm not exactly sure why. I don't really remember it being this way when I was a kid, but I was a kid, so...you know...warped sense of what actually was going on. Although, when I was young we played outside and had yards so you were around your neighbors kids at least.

Let me explain a little about that. Vegas is in a desert. Evidently this wasn't obvious when I was a kid, so everyone had a front yard with grass and trees and such. Since then Vegas folks have chosen/been forced to choose xeric landscaping (drought tolerant), which is great and all, but it's eliminated front yards to play in. Also, as I'm sure you've noticed, Vegas is ground zero for the whole housing fuck-bomb. So there's nobody left in our neighborhoods. There are 3 houses for sale on my street...and that's an improvement. There are also empty houses, forclosed on, that aren't up for sale yet. Seriously, it's no good. Leading up to the whole bubble-burst thing, housing prices were all sorts of nuts and developers were crowding every bit of available land with houses. Some smarty-pants guy was like, "Dude, who needs sidewalks? Not these fools"!

So...

R.I.P.
Sidewalks
500 BC-2007

Yeah. So, there goes the neighborhood. I'm pretty sure that's how that's how it all went down. Also, it's like a thousand degrees here, so it's not like anyone is out chilling on the porch, chit-chatting with their neighbors. Honestly, if I saw someone hanging out outside I wouldn't want to talk to them, as they would have to be mentally ill. "Get in the house, yo. There's AC! It's the future. Go, go"!

This brings us to introduction number one. Meet "Hoarder Neighbors".

Not only do they hoard stuff, which I only know because you can see that their garage is filled. Not normal filled, but like FILLED to the top. It's an engineering marvel, that garage. But also, ALSO, I think they hoard people. There are always 3 cars there, in the driveway, not in the garage, because, like I said, the garage is full of crap. The reason I know what their garage looks like is because there is an old man who sits in the garage in a folding chair in front of a folding table with a tiny TV on it. Everyday. Winter, Summer, Spring, Fall, Rain, Shine, Nuclear Holocaust, whatever. Did I mention that he's smoking...in his underwear? Yup. Are you ready to move over here yet? So, yes. Lot's of cars. Lot's of stuff. Lot's of people overflowing into the garage.

There may be more to their story, but like I said, we don't talk to neighbors 'round here. Also, they fall under the "mentally ill" category due to their being outside instead of exhibiting the simple act of self-preservation, which entails...going inside! Climate control folks! It's a freaking desert out there, even in the garage.

One thing they don't hoard: curtains.
One thing they do hoard: sheets on windows.

You probably think that they should be called the White Trash neighbors with that decorating style, but oh no. No no no no no. That title is already taken.

That is an introduction for another day. Ooooh, it's a good one too!

Warning: This may be a little late in the game but I'm judging these people. Judge, judge, judging away. You will find that I'm going to get all petty and snotty 'round here. It's all in good fun though. Fun times in my little Bloggy World where I can judge from my ivory tower and my neighbors are none the wiser.

I wonder if my neighbors have blogs? Who am I in their Bloggy World?

Awesome Neighbor. Duh. I'm more likely to be Has Lots of Wine Bottles In Her Recycling Neighbor. Oh yeah! Wine and Climate Control. It's the good life.

Which neighbor are you?

Oh! The reason I'm introducing my neighbors is because I found soooo much enjoyment reading about Suburban Matron's neighbors. If you haven't read her shiz you need to get on it. She's pretty awesome. She says "betcha" from time to time. It makes be giggle.

Chicken continues to elude me

Perhaps it's because he's crossing the road.

*rimshot*

Well, let me update on that crockpot chicken experimentin' I was up to last week. About 6 hours in, I checked the internal temp with my newish super basic meat thermometer that Santa stuffed in my stocking (because my fancy-schmancy-digital-timer-meat-therometer-alarm-glow-in-the-dark-ipod-ready-flying-car contraption NEVER WORKS) and all was good on the chicken doneness scale. It was crazy juicy and looked pretty tasty at this point. Enter Danielle. I managed to dry that sucker out before it got to the table. So, like a good little scientist, I compiled my data and set out to come up with why my results (figure A) didn't match my expected outcome per my hypothesis, which was "if I follow a recipe, i will have moist chicken."

Figure A



Possible explanations for results:
- I poked the chicken with a meat thermometer, thus releasing all the juices.
- I crocked that bird too long
- I left it under the broiler (to crisp the skin, as per the recipe) for too long because i was too busy making gravy out of ALL the dripping is the crockpot.

Okay, here's why this is all messing with my head. Chicken Poking. How am I to know if it needs to stay in the crockpot and continue to cook if I don't check the internal temp? I can't let it rest for 20 minutes or so, then poke, then find it's undercooked, then re-crock, can I? So, there's that. Crocked the bird too long. Well, the recipe said 4-8 hours depending on the size of the bird. That's big range guys. I wasn't really sure, so I stuck with mid-way though at 6 hours. It may have been done at 4 hours, but I didn't check as the chicken poking would have been an issue there too. Broiler. Hmmm. I maybe added insult to dry chicken injury here, but like I said, I was making gravy out of all the drippings in the crock pot. Seriously. It was like over a 1.5 cups of drip. Doesn't that mean that the bird was already dry at this point? Ponder.

Nonetheless, it was still really tasty. It wasn't, like, crazy dry but I was shooting for crazy moist, so it wasn't dead on. The gravy was awesome, so I didn't mind drenching everything in that business. Didn't mind one bit.

I'm still going to give this a go again. The recipe is dead-on. I need to get on with the deadness next time.

The Crock Testin' continues!

In other news, I found some finger limes at the farmers market on Saturday and they are pretty sweet. They have a really weird texture. You don't slice them, you scoop the insides out with a little spoon and then sprinkle the little lime pearls on stuff. Of course we added them to beer because we're classy like that. The lime flavor itself is lime-y. Duh. But it also tastes kind of floral, like lime blossoms. Sort of herbal maybe. Like the lime rind is part of the flavor. Really good. I'm actually pretty obsessed. I like to cut them open and play the little pearly lime parts. Look for 'em. Play with 'em. Report back. You might want to take a lime loan though, since these babies are like 14 bucks a pint! Actually, that's the cheap price. I saw them on GILT taste and they were something like 30 for pint!!?! Limes! I feel like Amy in Little Women when the cool kids trade limes for stuff. Some sexist man teacher needs to smack the back of my hand quick before I spend Carter's college fund on limes.

I posted a pic on my Twitter (@yelladoesstuff) so jump over and look. I should link to something here, but I've got to go play with limes.

Crock testin'...

Testing out a Crock Pot recipe where you stick the whole damn thing in the crock. If this is successful it could be a game changer! What an exciting life I lead, right? Whatever. Im okay with finding joy and meaning in juicy chicken.

Anyhow, here's what it looks like going in.








I'll let you know how this all goes down later. I might also rant for a bit about how the iPad has such a crappy camera. Enticing isn't it? I just can't help myself.

What are you doing that's slow and low today?
He he, that sounded dirty.
I'm a child.

P is for Particle Man

I'm often pretty impressed by technology. Even the old stuff, where old means anything that happened, like, ten years ago. I know, times are a changin' and old technology is the Nokia phones we all rocked in '99. I had a red one, because evidently I was trying my hand at being all mysterious and sexy with my red phone. It didn't stick. I'm much more of a white or black phone gal. I did, however, go through a very ghetto phone stage, during which I got all crazy and had a guy at the swap-meet (yeah, that just happened) outfit my poor little Nokia is clear, blue-tinted cover with a matching battery that lit up in three colors when the phone rang. I'm going to say that again, slowly. The. Phone. Lit. The. Eff. Up.

I still can't believe it happened, but I assure you, it did.

I'm not sure how I got onto the topic of confessing my dirty phone laundry, but I'm sure it has a lot to do with my tendency toward the idea of "omission is lying". I end up confessing things that no one needs to know, but they eat at me. Yeah. So prepare yourself for some random confessions from time to time. Just nod, assign some Hail Marys and send me on my way.

So, the technology I'm impressed with today is satellite radio on my TV. It's been rocking my world for years now, but I'm continually impressed my it's versatility, especially now that I have a baby who needs to expand his musical interests past Reggae. As much as I want little Carter to get up and then follow that with some standing up for his rights and all, I'd like to keep him from growing dreads and shooting sheriffs (even if it's alleged), so balance must be created in his musical education. We've been listening to the little kids station on the TV. It's called The Playground, for those of you who have DirectTV. I'm sure it's the same on other satellite radio stuffs. Anyhow, can I tell you how awesome baby music is?!? Old stuff, new stuff, very little crappy Disney music (the new Disney music that sounds like it belongs in the club), lots of old Disney music (MARY POPPINS, FOLKS!!!) and a bunch of stuff that is quickly becoming my new jams. Mr. Carter has been asleep for 20 minutes and I'm still sitting down here listening to it. Right now they're playing some They Might Be Giants. Awesome. I didn't know that those crazy, possible giants' musical scope went beyond Particle Man, but let me tell ya, they are all over the kidlet music scene. Someone named Casper Babypants is also rocking my world right now. Sweet, sweet grooves guys.

It's a new life I'm living. These are the happenings 'round here.

Before I go, have you listened to Kimya Dawson's kids album? She's the one you heard a lot of on the Juno soundtrack. C and I are loving it. The song about bears, aptly called I Like Bears, has me liking bears more that I realized. Compelling lyrics guys. Look into it. She has another kid-like song that's sort of an ABC song, but I'm not sure it's actually for kids. Oh well, it's good, Carter jams to it, and I'm ok with him growing up under the impression that M is for "monkey-butt". There will be bigger problems in his life, I'm sure, so I'll file this one under "problems that will make us laugh when he's 30".

Yeah, so Kimya Dawson. Quality lady. Quality mom, although I'm guessing she's one of those "no vaccinating" people, but she's probably home-schooling her little one, so I'm not so concerned about that situation spreading. Ugghh. That was negative of me. I shouldn't be all judge-y, but it slips out. Especially since I'm close to being one of those people, which is probably why so many people asked me if we were vaccinating when I was pregs with Carter. Oh well. I could delete, right? Errr....wrong. Omission is lying. See what I mean about this.

Are you rocking out to baby music lately? What's on your baby playlist?

Test from iPad

Oh technology. You blow my mind.
Yelladoesstuff

Fin.