Five on Friday

I am back for my second Five on Friday! I’ve had a little bit of writer’s block this week so I haven’t been posting too much, but have no fear, I have several excellent ideas for blog posts coming your way next week. You probably want to skip the weekend just to be able to read my next posts.  Don’t wish your life away, friends!

ONE

 

Let’s clear one thing up real quick. Does this speaker, or does it not, look like a cat? 

 

This is the giant speaker thing that hands in the middle of Rupp Arena, home of my beloved but not-so-good-this-year Wildcats. I have always thought it looks like lots of cat faces, but no one believes me. Here’s a little sketch to help you out:

 

Please tell me that you think it looks like a cat. You get ten points if you agree with me.

TWO

 

 

I don’t mean to brag, but I didn’t get home last night until after midnight. It was my half birthday, after all, so we celebrated by going to dinner, the UK game, and then to see Evanshine’s cousin’s boyfriend’s (that is a lot of ‘ss) band play downtown. They are called Buffalo Wabs and the Price Hill Hustle, but they were announced as “Buffalo Swabs,” which I kind of liked. I might start my own competing band called Buffalo Swabs. Will you be my groupie?

THREE

 

My hot yoga challenge ends tomorrow! Unfortunately, I did not reach my goal of 30 classes in 30 days. I blame Evan, who is the reason that I went to the UK game and a bar last night instead of yoga class. Technically, I only have been 25 times. I will go tonight and tomorrow for a grand total of 27 yoga classes. Whatever, I’m still having a celebration smoothie after class today.

FOUR

 

Last night while at the Swabs show, Evan’s cousin introduced me to a little game called “Classy or Trashy?” To play this game, you simply look around you and point at different things and answer the question: classy or trashy? Because writer’s block is a real disease, I have gone through my phone and found several pictures that we can use to play a quick round here on Five on Friday:

Cat as mantle decoration: classy or trashy?

A: Cats as decor are always classy. The other random stuff and mail on the mantle are not so classy, however. I am in the process of a mantle reno at the moment, plus I'm messy, so cut me a little slack, okay?

Roadsign to Boogertown: classy or trashy?

A: Classy. Everything in Tennessee is classy.

Wine and cheese in Gatlinburg: classy or trashy?

 

A: Classy. See above.  Also, goldfish pair very well with champagne served from a wine glass. If you had to ask, I'm worried about you.

Plastic deer head painted like a tiger: classy or trashy?

A: Sorry to all you fans out there, but this is trashy. First, everyone knows deer don't have tiger stripes. Second, it is a Hoosier deer head, and Hoosiers are trashy. (Ha, go big blue!)

FIVE

 

Something big is coming here on the old blog. I can’t tell you what it is, and I can’t tell you when it will happen (probably Sunday), but I can tell you that it involves royalty (but not too much royalty, because my brother tells me my blog talks too much about Kate Middleton and is “boring.” Too much Kate? There’s no such thing.), basketball, and prizes galore. Yes, I've resorted to teasers to up my readership.

Have a good weekend! I plan to spend a good bit of it at the movies catching up on some Oscar hopefuls. If you're lucky, I'll also be doing some photoshoots for ye olde blog. Stay tuned.

Creative Baby Shower Gifts

I went to my first baby shower of the season on Saturday, and I must say I’m pretty excited for what promises to be a great crop of wee little babes this year. I have already held two tiny adorable boys, both of whom are SO CUTE and neither of whom suffered any injuries after being held by me. I have a fear of weak baby necks that I’m working on overcoming. One baby is expected in March directly across the street from me (in other words, in prime snuggling position, plus maybe the parents will need a break sometime and drop him off over here? Mabel loves babies.) and one more expected around the same time a short 15 minute drive away. PLUS, two of my sorority sisters just announced that they are pregnant with their second children! This is truly going to be a banner year for babies that I am allowed to visit and hold.

(I hate to take all the credit, but I’m pretty sure my wedding inspired a lot of these births. Both of my in-town friends that are pregnant were my bridesmaids, and one of Evanshine’s groomsmen just had a baby last month. Also, both sorority sisters mentioned above were at my wedding. Coincidence? I think not. You’re welcome, friends!)

BUT with great babies come great responsibilities – in baby shower gifts. So let me give you a few helpful hints when you are buying baby gifts. File this post under “Pinterest wins,” because I’m pretty sure this excellent advice will go viral instantly.

Without further ado, the best baby shower gift ideas I’ve managed to think up:

1. Mason jars full of coins.

Because paper savings bonds are no longer available (bah humbug!), kids these days just aren’t getting instant savings accounts anymore. Plus, everyone knows that mason jars are the trendiest vehicle for a gift – just check on Pinterest!

No, for real. Let me digress for just one moment. These are real-life screen shots of creative mason jars ideas that I found on Pinterest. Please, someone explain to me how these are good ideas:

Slap a few pieces of lace, burlap and/or twine on that baby and you’ve got yourself the gift to end all gifts. And you know that those new parents will be thrilled to have to keep track of several heavy jars full of coins for ten years or so before the child needs any spending money. Much more practical than a baby carrier or that stroller they’ve been eyeing.

Ta-da! Best gift award, guaranteed.

2. Kittens!

Everyone know that the only thing cuter than a new baby is a new baby wrapped in kitten! Stories of kittens smothering babies in their sleep are totally overblown, and you’ll provide your friend’s baby with a special bond that will last approximately 20 years if they keep the cat indoors, and a little less if it’s an outside pet. Bonus: the new parents can use their runner-up baby names for the kitten. Truly a win-win.

Bonus #2: for the right price, Mabel may be available for this use. Leave your best offer in the comments section of this post.

3. Puppies!

The problem with kittens is they don’t require enough care. Puppies, on the other hand, will need to be housebroken, taught not to chew, taught to sit, shake and roll over, etc. etc. According to this article I read on Facebook, where I get most of my news, the idea that new moms get nothing done is an untruth.  Okay, technically I didn’t read the article, but the title seems to suggest that is the case. If it’s true that new moms don’t get anything done, that means they are probably bored and would like a puppy to play with and train. And please, tell me a cuter baby shower gift than a puppy with a bow around its neck? There isn’t one, unless you could fit that puppy in a mason jar. And monogram the mason jar. Bonus points if you get a dog that may turn out to be vicious, like a pit bull. This will give the new mom the chance to prove to all her friends what a great dog trainer she is when the puppy turns out to be a sweetheart.

Somehow I decided against each of these excellent gift ideas. Instead, I made this little monogrammed wall hanging thing (I need to think of a better name for this, perhaps). Look how cute! Almost makes me want to have a baby so I have an excuse to make one for myself … but then I remember how much fun it is to drink wine on the patio in the summertime and leave trash all over the house, and I reconsider.

Warning: Don’t try making these at home. Here are the things that happened to me whilst staining the wood for this project:

• Forgot to wear rubber gloves; got a little bit of stain on my hands. Bummer.
• Tried to wash out my brush under the sink by using my hands, still with no rubber gloves. Got a LOT more stain on my hands and eventually threw away the brush, which was expensive.
• Knocked over my ironing board, which had some clean shirts to iron, causing said shirts to fall onto the still-wet stained wood. Miraculously, only one shirt was injured. Too bad it was my favorite shirt.
• Had to yell for help from Evanshine, who brought me nail polish remover, hydrogen peroxide, and dish soap. Surprisingly, the dish soap worked best when used with a clean rag. The other chemicals smelled bad and did not work and the scrub brushes I used were painful.

But my hands are no longer brown and it was tooootally worth it. Just don’t try to make it at home. You may be able to purchase it for American cash money soon in my etsy shop, which I’m still working on. Stay tuned. All proceeds from my shop will go to buying myself more Kate Middleton memorabilia, and perhaps a new kitten. All this kitty talk has made me want one.

Five on Friday

Today, I branch out into a “link up.” This is where I write on the same topic as a bunch of other bloggers and somehow new readers find their way to my page. Facebook friends, if I can get some new readers, this may take a little of the pressure off of you!

New readers, Welcome! This blog is going to be right up your alley if you like the following: Kate Middleton, cats, cat videos, Pinterest, hilarity, and complaining. Also:sarcasm. If not, you may want to move on in the link-up. Right now, additional hot topics are the Olympics/Kristi Yamaguchi (because I am participating in a fantasy Olympics league which I was dominating but am now in an embarrassing 10 th place) and hot yoga (because I stupidly agreed to a 30-classes-in-30-days challenge at the suggestion of my friend Anna).

Anyway, today’s topic is “Five on Friday,” which seems to mean I can just write five random thoughts! This I can do. Here we go:

ONE

 

photo from USMagazine.com

 

Kate Middleton recently took her first trip with Baby Prince George out of Mother England. Like George, Mabel (my precious cat, for all you new readers out there) had a new experience recently, too! She got to take a walk into the polar vortex on a leash. She was not really a fan, and when she heard the neighbor shoveling snow, she started wailing and I had to take her inside. I bet George’s trip was equally unsuccessful.

 

TWO

 

I’ve got a new favorite saying. I heard it when I called a surveyor for something at work and asked him how he was doing. His response: “It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and I’m wearing Milkbone underwear.” Love it. That’s what I’m going to start telling people when they ask me how my life is.

 

THREE

 

Hot yoga is literally killing me. (Sidenote: I just went to a lunch seminar on why saying “literally” diminishes women’s speaking because it is rare that the word is used correctly. However, in this case, it really is literally killing me.) This 30-day challenge was a terrible idea! I have been every day since January 31, but I’ve missed two days that I have yet to make up. The instructors are starting to know my name, which means that they now correct me in class by name, which is much harder to ignore than “Hey, pink shirt! Lean forward more!” I’ve got a sore left knee and two sore mystery muscles in my posterior. I am not sure that I will make it to the end of the month … but they’re having free smoothies and snacks on the 28^th, so I’ve got to stick it out … right?

FOUR

 

As I have mentioned before, I'm in a Winter Olympics Fantasy League. You would probably say I was a phenom early on in the season, shooting out to an insane lead and having several members of the international press call me for interviews. You may read one glowing article about me here.

 

However, someone seems to have screwed with the results, because I have seen my position plummet from front-runner to tied for tenth place. This is obviously complete BS and I will not stand for it, League President Anna Girard! I blame you for your silly limit on the number of figure skaters a person is allowed on their team. I had both Ashley Wagner and Yulia the Russian skater on my team and both really disappointed me. Kristi Yamaguchi would not have treated me that way.

 

FIVE

 

Speaking of Kristi Yamaguchi, I am sad to report that I have not yet found the letter that Kristi and/or her assistants wrote me back in ’92. I will go ahead and re-post the autographed photo that she sent along with the letter here for all you new readers visiting for the first time:

However, I was able to unearth this letter that Mr. Rogers wrote to me and my brother – apparently in response to some fan mail we wrote him. I was big on fan mail in the 90s, apparently. If you can get past what dorks my brother and I were, I think you will agree that Mr. Rogers was the nicest man in the history of the world and we should all be more like him in our correspondence.

Well, this has been fun! Hope to see you again around these parts. There are some really great posts scheduled for next week, so stay tuned...

What I Learned on My MLK Day Vacation

As you know, Evanshine and I made the journey up to NYC to celebrate MLK Day a little bit ago. Actually, it was a long bit ago - one month ago from Monday, to be precise. We had a great time, even though I've put off blogging about it because the idea of e-mailing me iPhone pics to my computer has been a bit overwhelming, and because Evanshine has been commandeering my laptop at home to work on a trailer video for his March Madness pool. (More on that later, never fear). 

ANYway, I thought I'd write a little photo-essay on my assigned topic of The Top Five Things I Learned on My MLK Day Break:

1. Beware of booking hotels you've never heard of on Priceline; they may actually be brothels.

I found our hotel on Priceline and selected it because it met all of my criteria: 1. 4 stars!, 2. within walking distance of Times Square, and 3. not a chain so that my coupon code applied. I ended up really liking the hotel and the people that worked there ... however, I'm not 100% sure that we weren't staying in a brothel. The proof is in the pictures:

Hotel by day:

Pretty normal, right?

And, hotel by night:

CLUBBIN'

And our palatial hotel room:

Yes, that is the bed, shower, desk and bathroom sink all in one small area. Hey, it encouraged us to get out and explore!

Now here is where things start to get weird. Our "do not disturb" sign:

And finally, just a little hotel humor for you. The hotel bar was called "Haven." So here is the stairway up to the bar:

Hilarious.

2. I don't understand art.

Like classy adults do, we took a little tour of the Museum of Modern Art (or MoMA, as all you art snobs call it) on Friday afternoon. It just so happens that admission is free on Fridays at 4, so we technically earned $50 that afternoon in free admission. I then spent that $50 that we "earned" numerous times on other things the rest of the weekend, so this may have been a net loss.

Anyway, I just don't understand art. Again, see the photos below.

Ferris Bueller contemplates this lovely painting.

Astronaut over luggage display in the lobby... What does it all mean??

And my favorite. Art that the recipient is responsible for creating. Or something. I will be selling this type of art in my etsy shop soon.

I simply cannot wrap my head around this.

3. I am a trendsetter, and my influence reaches even to NYC.

If you happened to drive past my house this past Christmas season, you may have been blinded by our display of Christmas lights, and I apologize. Evan is INTO Christmas lights. It seems to run in the family. Before decorating the first year, he called his dad for advice. His dad's response? "However many lights you think you need, double it." And like a good son, Evan took this advice to heart.

Exhibit A:

 

 

And imagine my surprise when we got to NYC and found this eerily similar display:

I think our influence has reached the Big Apple.

Speaking of how our influence has reached the Big Apple, remember my sexy outfit from the Bengals game in December? If you recall, I was rocking some skinny jeans tucked into ug boots. (And by "ug," I mean ugly and not the popular Ugg brand).

Well, look who else is rocking this look. A total stranger!

 

 

And finally, I'm sure you aren't surprised that Mabel's likeness has made its way to Chinatown statues.



 

4. Don't wear your cute coat and leave your nice warm puffy coat at home when said cute coat is the thinnest and not-warm-est thing you own, and when you are traveling to a freezing cold city in the middle of a polar vortex.

 

 

If I can comfortably wear my coat buttoned up inside, imagine how uncomfortable I was outside!

 

Even the homeless dogs had to bundle up:

 

 

5. If you've seen it on SVU, steer clear.

Pictured above is Evan the crime victim in the Central Park tunnel where the SVU detectives find most of their victims. As you can see, he's been murdered. Kind of put a damper on our vacation.

And because my photo-dump is not yet complete, here are a few bonus pictures for you to peruse on your coffee break.

Ooh, graffiti! We don't have that in Kentucky!

NYC traffic jam. Ha ha ha.

Now here is where things get artsy. Close up of the SVU tunnel bricks.

And another for good measure.

Meatball sliders. I highly recommend.

What tourist post is complete without this kind of photo?

BOO!

Blasts From the Past (aka #TBT)

As you may or may not know, I am sitting atop the leader board in the Olympics Fantasy League created by the creative genius Anna Girard. [You may know her from her Thirty by Thirty project blog, which she hasn't updated in quite a while (AHEM) and which I can't find the link to, or from the fact that she's the one who convinced me to try to go to hot yoga 30 times in 30 days (Thanks a lot. Evanshine, my loyal blog readers,  and my laundry machine hate you.)]. This is due in part to the fact that she hasn't updated the standings yet for yesterday's results, and that I got all my points in some early qualifying rounds. Whatever. If anyone passes me in the standings, I'll make my comeback soon enough with the numerous figure skaters I've got on my team.

I tend to get temporarily obsessed with figure skating once every Olympics cycle, starting with 1992, or the year my girl Kristi Yamaguchi dominated and brought home the gold to the U.S., where it rightfully belongs. If I know you IRL (and I assume I do, since I don't think this blog has gone viral...YET), I may have told you that I once corresponded with Kristi. After receiving my letter, which i distinctly remember including an invitation to sleep over at my house if she ever was in Kentucky, she wrote back and included this autographed treasure:

I loved the way she combined her K and Y. I may or may not have tried that myself a few times. Never could figure out how best to connect my A and G.

Unfortunately, after a diligent search, I cannot find the letter she wrote to me!! I am pretty sure that my mom threw it away, like she threw away the poster board collages of Olympics headlines that I made that year.

You can see how my mom basically admitted to throwing these posters away via text. But don't worry - I will continue my search and report back if my suspicions are proven wrong.

I did, however, find a number of treasures in the box of mementos my mom dropped off at my house. Allow me to share....

Your eyes don't deceive you! This is the original, authentic Sports Illustrated with Kristi on the cover! I'm not sure if you'll be able to tell from my iPad photo, but the cover is quite worn, from the many times I read the glorious story of her triumph!!! This magazine was tucked in the box near this medal, which I'm pretty sure is Kristi's authentic gold won in Lillehammer.

Or maybe my first place medal from the bike parade at Gram's house one year. Who can really say.

Next up:

 

This appears to be an early form of the e-mail forward -- sent by fax. This is a list of signs you might be a Beanie Babies addict.  You laugh, but based on the documents that I found in the memento box, and the large number of Beanie Babies preserved in my childhood bedroom closet (any collectors out there looking to acquire some vintage Beanie Babies? Sorry, some don't have tags because I "loved" them and didn't just buy Beanie Babies as an investment. It was more a testament of my stuffed animal love).  Evidence of my addiction:

1. Beanie Baby apartment lease information. The attorney who prepared these documents appears to be my BFF Tarryn based on the handwriting analysis that I performed.

2. And, family photos. Professionally made. (By me, so I guess not too professionally made. I gave myself a pretty good deal.) Keep in mind that this was in the days of real film, so I had to send these babies off for processing. And don't worry, this photo shoot was taken early in my collecting days. I have many more available for sale.

Moving on, I found this official Babysitters Fan Club membership card. I used my membership to secure some pretty sweet posters and banners, which I then used to decorate for my birthday party the year the Babysitters Club movie came out. I'm sure you're jealous you weren't invited.

And here we have some correspondence that I received while at Space Camp. (Does that make me a nerd?) The first letter(s) are joint letters from my cousins Paige and Claire and my aunts Kelli and Pat. RIP Rufus the neighborhood bully dog. "Heartattacks" are the silent killer, even of dogs.

And this nice letter from my little bro, written on his personal stationery. You can see from his letter that I was a germaphobe even at a young age. And you can see that Ross was quite the serious athlete - even though he only played at night under the cover of darkness so he wouldn't get too hot.

Next up -- more proof of my patriotic nature. A photo with the real Abraham Lincoln. I'm so glad one of my parents paid for this photo. I hope you can tell that I'm wearing my Washington, D.C. t-shirt, giving me more patriotic points.

My first business card: for my work at the Moolah Makers' Club. No task was too small for me and my neighbor Laura. I am pretty sure we didn't get any business from these cards or the flyers we made and dropped off in our neighbors' mailboxes. :( Entrepreneurship is hard!

And here's a shameless plug for my photography skillz. As you can see from this letter from the International Library of Photography, they wanted to include my photo "A Day in Norway" (pictured in the artist release below) in their anthology America at the Millenium: The Best Photos of the 20th Century. This was a huge honor, as I'm sure you can tell. As the letter states, "America at the Millenium is the most eagerly anticipated book we have ever published - and the most important!" And I appreciate how this book about America at the millenium was going to make room for my photo of Norway: "We believe your photo 'A Day in Norway' would add immeasurably to a better understanding of what our lives are like today." Because there is no better way to understand American life than to look at a photo taken thousands of miles away.

Don't all these relics make you want to be my friend? Understandable. But rest assured, loyal readers! I will take a trip out to my parents' house this very weekend to see if I can't uncover the letter from Kristi Yamaguchi ... or perhaps even more treasures like the above.

Stay tuned, and cheer for America! Particularly, Meyers/Evans, Matthew Antoine, and Ashley Wagner, my fantasy Olympians left to compete. Oh, and Yulia the Russian skater girl too, since she's my only non-American athlete.