Swagger Wagon

You have seen this, right? I think I am the last one to see it. I've seen it posted everywhere and didn't give it a look. Today was the day. The stars aligned, I had a few minutes and I watched...AND I LAUGHED LIKE CRAZY! This is just too stinky funny and cute. LOVE IT! If you haven't seen it, you must indulge and take a peek especially if you are the proud owner of a mini-van. Someday I will be....I want to be, especially now.

(Remember to pause my playlist at the bottom of the page to hear the video.)

By the way...I do realize that the full video is not being displayed on the right side. I don't want to change my template to make it fit, so if you feel like seeing the whole thing you can go to youtube and see it HERE.

Not So Cute Moment

I am a fan of Kayla Aimee's blog. Do you know who she is? Have you ever read her blog? I try to wait until the end of the day before I sit down to read what she has shared on that day. 99.9% of the time find myself laughing out loud over what is found there. She is a hoot to read and has such a great style of writing. I just love her.

A few posts ago she shared her most awkward moment. You can find it HERE. Oh my word. I think I would have DIED if this had happened to me!

I thought it would be fun to share an awkward moment from my life with you. Now this moment is really not comparable at all to Kayla's but it was pretty awkward for me.

This "fun" moment happened one earlyu spring night back in 2006. Hubby had gone white water rafting with our church's youth group for the weekend. My mother-in-law had just dropped me off from an evening out shopping. It was already pretty late so I quickly put on my VERY OLD pjs which consisted of some shorts and a t-shirt. Let me also mention here that I was about 5-6 months pregnant, so my loose fitting pjs were not so loose. Let me also say again that they were OLD. They were not a cute matching set, by NO means. And it was pj time so I had also let the girls free.

So glad I can't see the mental picture you have right now but you probably have it just about right.

I got busy doing some things around the house before bed. I had some boxes that needed to be thrown into the garage so took them out and CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND MYSELF. Immediately I knew what I had just done. OH NO! I was in pjs, no shoes and no socks and I had just locked myself out of my house. It was at least 10:00 p.m. and it was cold out. GREAT!

I ran to the front of the house to check the front door which automatically locks but I was hoping against hope that for one time it had malfunctioned and was not locked. IT WAS LOCKED! GREAT!

I had no idea what to do. These are the totally rational options that went through my head and I spent at least 10 minutes trying to decide which was the best route to go.

1.) Break the kitchen window!

2.) Walk uptown to a pay phone and call my mother-in-law to come rescue me. Oh, wait...I don't know her phone number because they only used a cell phone and I had it on speed dial in my phone. Oh, wait....I had no money to make a phone call. (I had found a yucky pair of flip-flops in the garage by this point.)

3.) Curl up in my car and wait for hubby to come rescue me. Hubby would be home the next afternoon.

4.) Go to the neighbors to ask for help.

*The eastern neighbors were in their 80's, asleep and hard of hearing. They wouldn't hear me knock and if they did, I would wake them up and the whole neighborhood would know of my predicament after their breakfast at the uptown dinerz. (The hubby was seriously hard of hearing. We had a dog named Petie that would bark alot. He was convinced the dog's name was Beanie and would constantly shout, "Beanie! Quiet!")

*The western neighbors still had lights on in the house. I hardly knew them.

I sucked up ALL of my pride and knocked on the door. Their teen-age daughter answered the door and got her DAD! Yeah! Get the DAD! Just what I wanted. I explained what had happend while shivering and crossing my arms over my chest, while trying to stand behind the bush by their door. I did explain that I was pregnant and doing stupid things all of the time. (That was my worst pregnancy symptom with my first daughter.)

He was SOOOO nice and quickly came to my rescue. His daughter tagged along. It was a fun family adventure for them. I'm so glad I could provide late night entertainment.

He assessed the situation and figured we would have to break the window and I did not care. He had one more idea, trying to break in! He tried his method and it worked! I could have cried. I was so happy to finally be in my warm home.

I did make a plate of cookies to take to them for helping me.

Do you have an embarassing moment? Be sure to blog about it and then let me know in my comments.

Cake Balls

I was able to get to my dad's home for almost a week long visit. It was wonderful, just wonderful. I was missing home so much and aching to see friends from up north. It was truly a sweet visit. Part of the sweetness was getting together with a group of girlfriends from our old church and making Bakerella's cake balls. Yum! You do know who Bakerella is, right? If you don't, you must stop by HERE and visit with her. She is amazingness!

She created these little balls of sweet, yummy cake delight. They are adorable and can even be turned into cake pops. (I'm very sure they are low calorie too.)

My sweet friend at The Back Door opened her new home in the countryside for us. I was dying to see the homestead and her. She is a delight! (I just want to say something here for the public to read. I was thinking the other day that I used to live less than a block from her and I didn't take the time to get to know her. HOW SAD!!!! I wish I would have taken the time to step out of my comfort zone and gotten to know her then. I mean, she was a stone's throw away from my little green house. There would have been some extra sweet Back Door memories with her. Love you, Friend and thank you for hostessing!)

Now let me just say for a moment here...go ahead and giggle. Just go ahead and get it over with. You know you want to. I mean...cake balls???? What grown person can NOT giggle over that name. Oh, okay...so you're more mature than we are? Your mind isn't in the gutter like ours were? Maybe we had a bit too much fun with the name. But come on...all of us who were there are married, we're all grown-up, and we were starving for adult conversation, so yes....we giggled and cracked many jokes about the sweet little name of cake balls. A very sweet friend thought maybe we should call them cake bites when telling people about them. Oh Bakerella...did you have any idea when you named your sweet treats?

Ok...breathe...no more giggling. Grow UP!

We had fun. We crumbled. We mixed. We froze. We melted. We dipped. We tasted. YUM!

A piece of advice if you do find yourself craving some cake balls (no giggling). Melt your chocolate in small batches and do it in the microwave. We did some in a double boiler and it did not work well. The almond bark we melted in the microwave worked so much better. If you do it in small batches, you will have less crumbs in your melted chocolate to deal with too.

We made all sorts of cake balls. (I see that giggly sparkle in your eye. Focus...focus...focus!) The different types were cherry, strawberry, dark chocolate, confetti, lemon, and brownie. I did have a favorite. Is it ok to voice it here? No hurt feelings co-cake ball makers. The dark chocolate cake with chocolate frosting mixed in and dipped in white almond bark were wonderful.

And before BFF posts it in my comments...Hubby's nickname is NOT sweet cake balls.

Come on people.....GROW UP!

(For the record...this will be by far my most rebellious post. Heehee!)

And the Beep Goes On!

For a few years now, I have been beeping.

You know those security gates that you walk through to get into a store and out of it? I set those things off. The really crazy part is that it is only certain stores and not others. I have always set off Walgreen's and CVS and most Targets. It is very annoying and embarrassing. If I set the alarms off when I walk in, I always say to the cashier before I leave, "Just so you know, I'm going to beep when I leave because I did when I came in."

It gets even weirder because sometimes I will beep when I go in but not when I go out or vice versa. This happened today at Target. I have never set off the alarm at our Target here in our new town. It felt so freeing to walk into a Target, wait for the beeps with my heart beating a bit quicker, then NO BEEP! Ahh...relief. No judging eyes turning my way. Just walk in and walk out and not worry about it.

Ok, so today, I walk in to Target for diapers. (Target brand diapers are my favorite right now. They work, they're cute and THEY ARE CHEAP! And it gives me an honest reason to go to Target. How could it be any better?) I get the goods and score a super cute shirt on clearance for me. I pay. I leave. I BEEP!!!!!!!! What in the world??? I'm totally cluelesss.

I have tried everything to figure out what causes me to beep. Cashiers are always sure it is my winter coat BUT I can beep without it. (I even had one ask if I wanted her to run my coat over there de-beeping device thingamajig in the scanner because she thought for sure it was a security device left in my coat.) My 12 year old niece was sure it was my earrings BUT when I took them out and let her carry them out, I beeped.

I think it might be that super cute red wallet that I "misplaced" last week. I don't know for sure. I thought my beeping days were over but alas I have brought my beepage south with us. It got packed and put in a box and moved with us only to be discovered today at Target.

(Ok, so I have beeped at some other stores down here, but that was just too cute a paragraph to pass on.)

So a word to you if you are ever shopping with me...I am NOT a kleptomaniac. I mean if I beep when I go in, that should at least say something about my honor.

And can I just tell you something? I have NEVER, NOT ONCE been asked to show what was in my bags or anything by anyone if I beep on my way out. Typically I stop, turn around and wait for Mr. Security Guard to come bounding over the check-out lane to pull me aside and check my bags. He never does. A lone, bored out of her mind cashier will usually say, "You're fine." I mean, what if I had a Flat Screen TV jammed under my coat? What IF???? What really is the purpose of those security gates if they don't check? One purpose is to make EVERY other person near the security gate look at you like you are a criminal and should be sentenced to jail time. Fun, fun, fun!

I guess...maybe...I don't look like a criminal type to store employees. I guess...maybe...I look more like the "Please, leave me alone and let me get these two worn out crying children to the car, so I can get them home and fed" Mom type.