Sunday perfection

What a great weekend I just had. Whew! I needed that. Sunday was pretty perfect in itself, but I'll recap everything, starting with Friday.

After school, Z & I really didn't do much of anything, but unwind. We took our weekly excursion to McDonald's for his nuggets, but then went home to relax. We played some games he made up, including "restaurant", but then decided to go see Daddy at work since he works late on Friday nights. It's so nice having Aaron work so close to home again, and it gives us the opportunity to visit him entirely more than we did at his last store. Luckily, we caught him before he had gone on his dinner break, and went to eat together at a restaurant close to his work. Afterward, Z and I made our way to Toys R Us to pick up a birthday gift for one of his classmates, since we had been invited to the party on Sunday. While at Toys R Us, we found this really cool "alien lab", and raced home to play with it before we went to bed:

It comes with fake tweezers, a fake knife, "martian matter" which
is essentially Play-doh, "lava liquid" which is colored gel, and the
center of it lights up so you can better examine the aliens you create.


A close-up of one of the cool parts -- molds of a heart, brain,
and spine. You fill them up with the gel, so they come out wiggly
and weird, then you cut them open and everything oozes out.
Awesome.


Some martian matter nuggets we made,
then covered in lava liquid.

Who knew $9.99 could buy such fun? We played with this thing for quite a while, then it was time to retire. Saturday, Aaron had to work until dinnertime, so Z and I met my sister for some breakfast and shopping. "Shopping?!!" you ask? No worries, I haven't morphed into someone else -- I still don't "shop", but this was for something fun. My sister was attending an 80's themed party on Saturday night, and enlisted my help in putting together an outfit. So, we met her in south Austin at Kerbey Lane for a delicious start to the day, then tackled Goodwill, Planet K, and a few shops at the mall. We ended up with a fantabulous combination of my old Doc Marten boots, fishnet hose, a jean mini, an old Depeche Mode shirt, rubber bracelets, retro earrings, and blue temporary hair color for her to streak her hair with. I'm still waiting for a photo of the entire ensemble, but she sent me this one the night-of, to tie me over:

I can't wait to see the whole thing.

After our day of pseudo girly activities, Aaron came home and we got ready for our family night out. We went to dinner in Georgetown, then headed to one of our favorite movie theaters for a night of Monsters vs. Aliens.

What a cute and funny movie. The only downside was little Johnny Tuberculosis who, of course, sat directly behind my son. He stood up for 90% of the movie, only mere inches away from my kid's head, and proceeded to cough this chunky, terrifying cough through the entire film. Mind you, neither of his parents remotely attempted to cover this child's mouth, or instructed him to cover his own damn mouth, when he coughed. Aaron & I shot every nasty version of the stink-eye that we could think of at those two adults, but our efforts were in vain. We tried not to let that dampen our time and ended up thoroughly enjoying ourselves. But, we saw a 7:00pm show, which meant bedtime once we got home.

Sunday, we woke up and went to have breakfast at a local mexican dive, and discovered a new favorite place. After getting some energy for the day (ie - coffee & huevos rancheros), Aaron & I put our game-faces on and drove Z over to his classmate's birthday party. It was in one of those inflatable places, where everything is soft & fun to play on, but most likely covered in 6,000 different strands of influenza, viral infections, and other commonly spread nastiness.

As if Johnny TB the night before wasn't enough, we had to watch Z slather every square inch of himself in this air-filled petri dish. [shivers] But, again, we put the grossness factor aside, and enthusiastically watched him have a ball with his friends. I even jumped in some of the things with him, which he thought made me the coolest Mom in the universe. (No other Moms were jumping.) I drew the line at the foam pit, though. Even I have my limits.

Z and his buddy Robin.


A very happy, not-yet sweaty kid.


A real-time photo of my son trying to paralyze
himself by wrenching his spine out of place.


Chatting with another good buddy, Thomas.


I nearly threw up as I snapped this photo.
Face-down in foamy grime. [gag]


They act like brother & sister.




Aaron was all the rage, throwing them
into & dragging them out of the pit.


Resting.


His "Superman" dive into the pit.


Another one.


Replenishing with a tasty organic fruit punch.


Right before they got chided by a staff member for going
two-at-a-time. Rebels.


Someone yelled out "cake time!" &
they were at full-attention.

After the party, we stopped by Target so Aaron could fulfill a bet he had with our son. You see, at breakfast, Z put tons of salt, pepper, and sugar on some of his leftover eggs. Then, Aaron dared him to eat a bite of the nasty result and said if he did, he'd take him to Target after the party and buy him an action figure that was $10.00 or less. I don't think either Aaron or I thought Z would actually take him up on it. So, we went and got Z his prize for enduring cold, super salty, super peppery, super sugary eggs and then stopped by HEB to get some food to grill for dinner. The weather was absolutely PERFECT Sunday, so we knew we'd be outside most of the day. Once home, Aaron tackled trying to fix our leaking lawnmower, and Z & I played some baseball in the front yard.

My Mom got him a hard hat when he was like 3.
It now seconds as a batting helmet.

All three of us played a round of frisbee shortly after, and enjoyed a few cold ones in the sun. I tried Michelob Ultra's Lime & Cactus beer (it's good!), Aaron had his Sol, and Z had a Sunkist. Even our fur children were out there with us, because the weather was too beautiful to ignore.

I guess the "gross" theme carried through the rest of the day, because Z asked if he could use one of my near-empty beer bottles to make an "experiment". When a six-year old boy says this, it generally means he wants to mix together a myraid of condiments, drinks, and dirt to see what it becomes. (Get ready for this Becca - Luke will do this! It's a-coming!)

First stage: a small amount of beer, Sunkist, ketchup,
mustard, and ranch dressing.


Stage two: all the above mentioned, plus lemon juice,
pink milk, Pepsi, dirt, and shards of sidewalk chalk.

Jimmy Buffet played through the speakers we brought into the backyard & Aaron grilled us up some dinner, which we ate out back on the patio furniture.

Think steaks, baked potatoes, corn on the cob, grilled onions, and salad - sublime! Our feast ended just in time for Z to jump in the shower and scrub himself as he had never scrubbed before. Then after his shower, we hung out in the living room for a bit, listening to the Forrest Gump soundtrack and Led Zeppelin, and laughing while Z entertained us with his rock moves. All in all, I honestly couldn't have asked for a more perfect day.

I normally cherish my weekends, but this weekend was one that was good for the soul. I'm so lucky, and I know this to my core. Hats off to sunny, mild days, laughs, and family time.

Three things I'm grateful for today:

1. Friday.
2. Saturday.
3. Sunday.

I hope everyone else enjoyed the outdoors as much as we did this weekend, and I hope you all spent time doing things you love, with people you love. Now I'm off to conquer the rest of Monday, and pray that my son didn't catch something this weekend. Peace & pastries to all.

Yay for Saturday!

No, no, I haven't finished sifting & sizing all the spring break pictures yet.  Soon, I swear.  Just had to update on the success of my maple bacon cupcakes!

Here's what the little guys turned out looking like:

The original recipe said to crumble the bacon, but I rebelled.

I thought the strip looked better.

They are totally GOOD!  They come out tasting like a pancake with light syrup, and a piece of bacon on the side - all in one bite.  Delish!  If you can get past the mental block of eating bacon in/on your cupcake, I would highly suggest giving them a try.  I had to tweak the recipe a little here & there as I went along, but I think I tweaked things correctly.  They were a big hit at the office, and most importantly, the birthday boy loved them.  He was hesitant at first, until he saw our maintenance guy down two of them in about 20 seconds, then he took the plunge.  He texted me around dinner time yesterday to let me know he couldn't wait to eat one for breakfast today, and that I might have created the most perfect breakfast food, ever.  Awww.

I also made one more thing for our boss-man, and this one was more of a running joke.  A little background - a friend of his who knows of his love for bacon, sent him a recipe over email for a bacon cheese roll.  Despite my deep love for cheese, as well as fried pork products, this concoction still frightened me.  It made my arteries quiver in fear, just looking at the photos of how to make it.  Even still, Jaime lost his mind and he made me come in his office to look at the glorious thing his friend had sent to him.  Watching him drool and talk about it, you would've thought he had a picture of boobs on his screen.  So, my co-workers and I dared him to make it and actually live to tell us about it, but he still had not done it yet.  We figured we needed to bring his wet bacon dream to life.  So I did, yesterday morning.

 Before rolling it.

Post rolling it.  There's really no way to dress up 

the presentation of massive grease.

Happy Jaime, facing his own mortality.

Of course, he wanted to share his heart-stopping gift with the rest of us, so we were troopers and tried a small piece.  My gut reaction?  It would be really good alongside a cold beer.  (I'm such a guy deep down on the inside.)  The amount of grease was alarming, and it needed draining several times along the cooking process, but Jaime was ecstatic to see it in real life, on a plate, all for him.  Mission accomplished.  I should probably text him today and make sure he's still alive ...

I would say you could call my bacon-related culinary adventures of yesterday a success.  Our maintenance guy offered me $20 a week if I would bring those cupcakes in every Friday morning.  I must admit, I don't care to see, touch, or smell bacon for a long, long time, but my love for all other things pork-related continues.  Hence my decision to have carnitas tacos last night.  Gosh golly, they were incredibly good.

Today, we have a hot movie date night with Monsters vs. Aliens at 7pm.  I'm loving that Z is old enough to go to the movies now.  That's one thing I missed for the first few years of his life.  The three of us will take on the town and gorge ourselves on movie theater goodies, then come home and pass out.  Hell yeah!  Bring it!

Three things I'm grateful for today:

1.  Crisp, sunny weather.

2.  Vanilla yogurt raisins.

3.  Going to the movies!

Peace & pastries to all.  And hugs too!

Sorry ...

I know it's been almost a week since I posted last, with promises of pictures from our spring break escapade.  This week has been busier than I anticipated, and last weekend was lazier than I had anticipated.  Busy + lazy = a ton of pictures to still sift through.

Until I finally get them ready, I thought I'd jump on real quick and let everyone know we're alive & well.  The week back has eased up a little on us by now, but was quite rough to endure in the beginning.  Luckily, nearly everyone at my office had the same type of spring break hangover, so we were all wildly unproductive.  Misery loves company, as they say, and boy, did we play the part.

But, now it's Thursday, and the routine seems a little less intolerable.  Right now, I've got cupcakes in the oven for my boss' birthday tomorrow - maple bacon cupcakes, mind you ... more on those later - and it's almost bedtime.  Hang on ... I'm listening to that annoying Progressive commercial with that girl - you know the one - and I can't concentrate.  I think I'll wait it out till the commercial is over to continue ...

Ahhhh, ok.  As I was saying, we're hanging in there.  Of course, me & Aaron's (horrible grammar, I know) minds are elsewhere, already dreaming up our next adventure.  I think we're going to focus on making another cruise happen, but with my parents this time.  Everyone knows how much we loved our first cruise, so you can only assume how badly we want to go on another one.  Hell, I'd *live* on a cruise ship, if I could figure out how to keep my kid in private school while doing it.  I'll keep you posted on the plans, as they come together.

My buzzer just went off, and the cupcakes are out to cool, so off I go.  Now I need to make their homemade maple frosting, and garnish them with a small piece of glorious bacon, and then it's sack time.  Aaron and I have been watching "Rome" at night when we go to bed, and I'm actually looking forward to see what happens in our next episode.  Too bad they only made two seasons of that show.

Three things I'm grateful for today:

1.  Certain blogs.

2.  Good tv shows. 

3.  Compassion.

Peace and maple bacon cupcakes to everyone!  Ha!

Home again, home again, jiggity jig

We're back.  And it sucks.

I wish we were still out driving across vast, vacant chunks of nature.  But alas, all good things must end, this trip included.

I managed to snap 625 photos over the last six days, so I will sort through them & document our trip soon.  I'm hoping I'll have time over this weekend, since we don't have much planned.

Hope everyone had a great week!  I know we did ... *sigh*.

72 hours

Very rarely, especially these days, does a film come along that blows me away. It's been ages since I've sat through a movie that made me experience emotions I wasn't anticipating, and I felt better for having watched it. (I think the last time I can remember that happening was "American History X", so that explains how rarely this takes place.) I am happy to say, it has finally happened again, and you need to watch this documentary, whomever you are.

I stumbled across it on my Netflix page, because I hit the genre "Documentaries" on the Netflix instant-viewing page to have something playing on my computer while I worked. The first one on the list was called "Dear Zachary", and naturally, it caught my eye because of the title. The synopsis of the film didn't really jump out & grab me, but I thought I'd give it a shot, and clicked on the link. Little did I know how much it would affect me 93 minutes later.

I don't know if I could describe the film, and do it any justice, but I will simply summarize by saying it's a film you should see. In light of all the garbage out there with "reality" television taking over the airwaves, this movie is an inspiring, amazing true-story journey through one family's sacrifice and grief. If you are interested in learning more about it before you watch, here is the trailer:

Little did I know, this movie has been out for over a year now, and cleaned house of all possible awards at film festivals around the world. (Click here for the film's official website.) That bugs me, because it could appear that I watched this movie because of all it's accolades, but honestly, the movie found me. Thanks, Netflix.

Other than being riveted unexpectedly by a documentary, we've been preparing for our big trip this week. Only a mere 72 hours before we hit the road, and we could not be more excited. The weather has taken a drastic turn from the last week of 80's and sunshine, to a chilly high of 45 with gusty winds and rain. It'll be interesting to see what kind of weather we encounter in the great outdoors next week, which only adds to the excitement of our adventure.

This past weekend was fairly low-key, with Aaron working some and going to see my Dad "in action" at his church. The parish he belongs to is *finally* breaking ground and building a new worship space (this has been 15 years coming), so he was part of the ceremony, along with the Bishop and two other priests, to bless the ground, and dig the first hole.

Before the ceremony, in his Deacon outfit.


Sitting with Bishop Greg.


Doing his Deacon duties.


The Knights of Columbus.


Signing the dedication.


Chillin' with Father Jim, while the Bishop sprinkled the grounds
with holy water.


After the first dig.


Everyone was encouraged to bring soil from their own homes
to sprinkle into the soil that the church will be built on.
This is Z sprinkling my dirt from my parents' home.

The weekend also consisted of going with my sister to buy her first Apple purchase. I was beaming with pride, and of course, I had to capture the moment.

Toni, and her salesman, Chad.

After the purchase, we wandered down to The California Pizza Kitchen to grab a late dinner. Since Z was so patient with us browsing the Apple store for so long, we had to make it worth his while.

His M&M sundae, minus the hot fudge. He doesn't like hot fudge.
(wtf?)


Listening intently to his Aunt, and savoring the moment.

Saturday night, we went and browsed the Round Rock Outlet Mall to get some birthday gifts, and some new running shoes for me. I've heard you're only supposed to use the same pair for about 6 months, then move on to a new pair. If that's true, then I was about 18 months overdue.

I put them on the next day to work out, and stepped in
dog crap just minutes after taking this picture.

Saturday was fun family time, but was *especially* nice, because my husband brought me home a dozen roses after he got off work. No special occasion, he was just being his sweet self. (He knows I'm a sucker for flowers, so I'm surprised he doesn't use this angle more often.) He also gave me a sweet card, but sorry folks, that's private. Some things you just have to keep yours & yours alone.

It was a nice, relaxing weekend. Especially considering that my week ended with bullshit like this ... a note a resident of ours turned in with her rent. A little background -- she never pays. Like, ever. Her balance with us is never less than $1,000.00 at any given time, and even this payment was only a few hundred dollars. Not to mention, we have sent her letters to come talk to us, but they always go unanswered. The phone number she gave us is out of service. But, according to her, we still owe her something.

You're right, we should go out of our way to have you stay with us again next year, so we can continue to chase after you for rent. To make it even more infuriating, we don't hand out renewal contracts to anyone. If you want to live here for another year, you have to come down to the leasing office & sign a lease, just like everybody else. The amount of ignorance, arrogance, and self-entitlement in the upcoming 20-somethings is enough to make you scream sometimes.

Three things I'm grateful for today:

1. Whataburger ketchup. (No worries, I didn't eat there.)
2. That there are only 72 hours standing between me & a vacation.
3. Netflix instant-viewing.

I'll try & blog again before we leave, but if it doesn't happen, I hope everyone has a fantabulous week next week, filled with nothing but peace & pastries. xoxo

Eight more days

Time is creepy craaaaawling, naturally, because I'm waiting for a certain day to get here.  I feel like a kid, when you would count down for your birthday or Christmas break to start.  Patience is a virtue, but not one I have acquired yet.

This week was kind to us, no illnesses or catastrophes to speak of - thankfully.  Early in the week, Z decided to tackle tying his shoes, a skill he hadn't honed yet.  I was very proud of how stubborn he became, trying dozens of times and frustrating the hell out of himself.  

He even drove himself crazy, to the point of tears in his eyes, but all the frustration made victory that much sweeter.  He finally got it!  It was a milestone for him, and we dropped everything to go get ice cream to celebrate once he conquered his feat (no pun intended).  I wanted him to learn how to work hard for something, and feel that sense of accomplishment.  I'm also proud to add that I didn't have any ice cream that night.  My arteries sent me a thank-you note later.

Also this week, I was fortunate to go along with Z's class on a field trip to Crowe's Nest Farm in Manor, TX.  The kids had an absolute blast at this place, and it wasn't half bad for us parents either.  I love doing stuff like that, whereas I know many parents do not.  But, I was able to get some fun pictures, as well as spend time with my kid & his buddies, which is always entertaining.

Does she look pissed?  She was.  They separated her from her calf

for our class demonstration on how to milk a cow.

Cute little bastards.

Giant pile of ostrich eggs.

Ostrich eggs are enormous, as you can see.

Happy as a pig in ... 

He literally looks like he's sleeping with a smile.

Turtle porn?

This poor donkey looks worn out.

The tunnel into the "Fairie Woods".

Smile!

Z, dead center of all his friends.

Z talked about this all day, after he got home from school.  I'm glad he got to do something this fun, and I'm glad I was able to miss work & be there to drive/chaperone.  It's stuff like this that I will miss in a few years.

Other than that, the week was calm and borderline mundane.  I think I'm just ansy to get the hell outta Dodge.  It's been ridiculously warm the past few days, so it definitely feels like spring is right around the corner.

A sunrise this week.

The same butterfly that comes by my office window every day.

He's black & blue on top, and black & orange underneath.

Our Bradford Pears are getting tiny blooms.

We have a new bird family in our birdhouse out front.

I'm meeting my sister at the Apple store in about 90 minutes to be there for her first iPod purchase (my heart swells with pride), then we're going to catch a late dinner.  Z is excited, as he loves playing with the computers they have set up for kids at the Apple store (that's my boy), and he also loves walking around The Domain (shopping center where the store is located).  So, I guess I will close for now, and hopefully have time to update again later this weekend.

Three things I'm grateful for today:

1.  The ability to burn CD's.

2.  Cereal.

3.  Getting season 7 of Seinfeld for $16.99.

Peace & pastries to all, and to all a good night.