GOOD LORD ALMIGHTY.

I drove to Ann Arbor today for my appointment with Dr. PJ and I am NOT even joking- I saw probably 10 MAJOR accidents. Not to mention countless cars on the side of the road, flipped, flopped and stuck. It was a nightmare. How ironic though... I was driving to my ANXIETY appointment and the entire way there I am having this panic attack- it got so bad that I started dry heaving. Dry heaving+ tingling fingers + pounding heart + shortness of breath + icy roads= DANGER.

It is only by the grace of our good Lord that I got there safely. And maybe Jimmy Buffett. I cranked me up some Jimbo and tried my hardest to picture myself on a beach with a margarita in hand... it helped... but still, MY GOSH it was horrible.

Props to ALL rescue workers around here- I seriously saw about 30 police cars and ambulances and countless fire trucks all out on the roads, doing their thing.

Of course when I arrived back home I sat down and had a serious talk with Ryan about how for the sake of our safety and MY sanity and health, we need to move south. It is no longer a "comfort" thing- this is ridiculous. I can handle hurricanes and monsoons... ice storms, snow and negative degree weather??? NOPE. NOT ME.

When I got home, I took a long hot shower, trying desperately to calm down- I did so by sitting down and reading my gossip mags. :) Thank goodness for that Britney Spears and her custody problems- she can always get my mind off of anxious stuff! :)

Also, this has nothing to do with anything relevant to what I just blogged about, but since my recent obsession with Adam Sandler, I've watched any and every movie he's ever been in and I am yes, ASHAMED to admit it, but I JUST watched "Wedding Singer" for the first time EVER last night. I cried during the "Grow Old" song. What a great movie... :) Why oh why can't my husband write me some stupid cute song like that? He plays me songs all the time- AND he writes songs, but he won't play HIS written songs for me... strange. Maybe someday I'll crack that egg.

Alright- drive safely and good luck with wrapping, baking and all of that other holilday stuff! :)

Candy Canes & Junior Mints!

I was contemplating as to what I was going to fill MaeMae's stocking up with... she doesn't use pacifiers and she's kind of past the whole baby rattle stage... yet not old enough to have little trinkets or play dough stuffed in there. I did get a few of those one dollar books at Target to stick in there- they're cheap and tiny enough to get in there. And I also found these adorable miniature cartons of goldfish crackers- I got one of those too. OH and a little tube of mini m&m's :) But lately my little miss has been surprising me with her pallate- believe it or not, she is a fan of mint! I am too, but her daddy is not. And I thought most babies would snuff their noses at peppermint- but not Maeve! Today at Jackson Crossings, one of those jingle bell ringers (don't know who exactly they are- I think they work for goodwill???) gave me a candy cane after I dumped some change into her little barrel. A few minutes later, we were walking through Target and my fussy pants started to fidget and squirm... HMMMM.... this may make me a horrible mom, but I unwrapped the candy cane and gave it to Maeve. Yes, my 14 month old baby was suckin' on a candy cane like it was her JOB. At first I was really paranoid that she was going to bite it, but I obviously was keeping a really good eye on her, making sure she was JUST sucking it. She did awesome with it- her little lips and fingers were sticky and sweet afterwards, but I was impressed by her sucking abilities and her impecable taste for mint!
With all this in mind, I bought a box of candy canes and a box of Junior mints- she gets the Junior mints and 9 out of the 10 candy canes will be hung on the tree, but one will be stuffed in her stocking :)

What a milestone huh? Her first candy cane! :)

And as far as the junior mints go, I'm not sure if she likes them or not- she's never had them, but in my book they're as awesome as candy can get and they melt wonderfully in your mouth. BUT as most things do, the J.mints reminded me of a fabulous Jimmy Buffett song- "Fruitcakes." You see, I was looking for a cute little mini package of Junior mints for my little junior. But all they had were these GIANT boxes- I figured I'd put the box in her stocking and ration them out over the next few months- but anyways back to the lyric,

"Take for example when you go to the movies these days, you know. They try to sell you this jumbo drink, 8 extra ounces of watered down cherry coke for an extra 25 cents. I dont want it. I dont want that much organziation in my life. I dont want other people thinking for me. I want my junior mints! Where did the junior mints go in the Movies? I dont want a 12 lb. nestles crunch for 25 dollars. I want junior mints!"

"Fruitcakes"- Jimmy Buffett


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TARGET DEAL OF THE DAY:
Here's what I found at Target and got really excited about:
Well, first I should say I had 4 printed off coupons for $3.00 any TWO Johnson & Johnson's first aid items.
I went to the travel section and they had these mini first aid kits- 97 cents each.
SO, I bought 8 little first aid kits (they have 12 bandaids and gauze and wipes in them...)

8 x .97= 8 dollars and some change...
4x3.00 coupons= $12.00

SO I got 3 dollars and some change back for buying 8 first aid kits! Nice huh? I am really getting the hang of this!!!!

Sometimes...

Sometimes music can so greatly say what you are feeling- so much better than your own words- and with the beautiful melodies behind it, the meaningful words seem to take on a whole new level of emotion. Therefore, this post is going to be about some music I've been listening to lately... and how its spoken to my heart...

A goal of Ryan and I's has been to move south- I am from the south (Florida) and I miss it terribly. There is a need in my SOUL to be near the ocean, for sunshine and warmth. I try my hardest to stay positive and upbeat in this horrible season called winter, but I end up depressing myself more by thinking about where we could be... where we SHOULD be. But I know God has us here for a reason... and I am trying to find the joy in living in this icy tundra. Like today, from the inside of a warm home, the snow looks really pretty... but I'd rather have a view of a palm tree. :( And once a year when we go sledding down Cascades Hill, its fun- although I'd rather be surfing in the Atlantic. One of the things that gets me through the winter is listening to my buds Jimmy & Jack. I've decided to list a few of my faves. and if you too, find yourself depressed by winter, crank up the heat, buy a palm tree for the living room and turn on one of their C.D.s. Its the closest to paradise that I've found living in Michigan.

So here we go with the whole music thing: My mom and (mostly dad) introduced me to the wonderful lyrics and sounds of Jimmy Buffett when I was a kid. I think by the time I was 6 I had all the lyrics down to "Volcano," "Cheeseburger In Paradise," "Margaritaville," and "Come Monday." And to this day, those are some of my fave. songs :)
I was just listening to this song today called "The Captain and the Kid" and I burst out in tears. I have heard it a thousand times before, but everytime, it reminds me of my grandpa. And with Maeve sitting in the backseat, I was reminded that she'd never meet either of her great-grandpas, and one of her great-grandmas (on my side of the family). Its emotional, and Meghan, my sister, I know will just love this post because we share a love for Jimmy and our poppa. My grandpa was a sailor in the navy. He loved the ocean and had many boats and took every chance he could to get out on them and fish- deep sea fishing! I remember one particular picture of him with both of his legs gone, from diabetes, sitting in his wheelchair and wheeling in a giant Marlin. He was really an amazing guy. And some of my favorite memories are his stories- I think half of them were made up :) Anyhow, it was fun to sit on his lap and hear about his adventures on the sea. SO back to "Captain & The Kid" here are some lyrics from it:
"I never used to miss the chance
To climb upon his knee
Listen to the many tales
Of life upon the sea

We'd go sailin' back on barkentines
An' talk of things he did
Tomorrow was just a day away
For the captain and the kid

...He's somewhere on the ocean now
A place he outta be
With one hand on the starboard rail
He's wavin' back at me."
Isn't that a beautiful song? Download it!

Jimmy Buffett holds so much history for me- like I said, I've listened to it since I was a kid and so many of the songs remind me of my childhood, my dad, my grandpa and vacations... Another song I really like a lot, and relate to my dad, is "A Pirate Looks At 40." I think that song describes my dad pretty well :)

"Yes I am a pirate, two hundred years too late
The cannons don't thunder, there's nothin' to plunder
I'm an over-forty victim of fate
Arriving too late, arriving too late"

-Thats another one you should listen to :)

Now for Jack Johnson :) He is in my generation, rather than Jimmy, who is in my dads/grandpas generation. For those of you who don't know, Jack Johnson's "Better Together" was Ryan & I's first dance song at our wedding...

"...Our dreams, and they are made out of real things,
Like a shoebox of photographs,
With sepiatone loving,
Love is the answer
At least for most of the questions in my heart ,
Like why are we here? And where do we go?
And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy,
And sometimes life can be deceiving,
I'll tell you one thing, its always better when we're together"

Isn't that so beautiful? It's an awesome song :)

A few songs that have been pulling at my heart strings lately are "Go On" and "Losing Keys"- both of those songs are on his new album "Sleep Through the Static."
"Go On" is about his kids, which obviously makes me emotional about Maeve :)

Here is a snippet from "Go On"
"In my rear view, I watch you, watching the twilight
behind the telephone lines with nothing to prove,
or to assume. Just thinking that your thoughts
are different than mine. Through my rear view, I watch
you, I gave you your life, but you give me mine."

I LOVE that last line- so true- I worked so hard to bring Maeve into this world, I and with much help from God, gave her life, but she gives me mine. :) So true huh?

Losing Keys has one lyric that I think can speak volumes about my life:
"The world has its ways to quiet us down,
the world has its ways to quiet us down comes the rain,
down comes our spirits again, but down comes the strength
that lifts us up and then..."

Anyways I could probably go on forever listing lyrics that I love and that are near and dear to my heart, but instead I will leave you with one last Jimbo song:
This particular song I think can describe ME- I feel like a "Cowboy in the Jungle" so many times- just out of place. Meant to be in my hometown of St. Augustine, FL, but instead here, in Jackson, MI.
"Cowboy In The Jungle"
"We've gotta roll with the punches
Learn to play all of our hunches
Makin' the best of whatever comes your way
Forget that blind ambition
And learn to trust your intuition
Plowin' straight ahead come what may
And there's a cowboy in the jungle"

A Pirate Looks at 50

Maeve in her Hula Girl outfit :)

Haha... Dad was trying to look drunk here.... truth is, that was his one and only margarita, and I'm pretty sure he didn't even finish it :/

Some of my dads brothers, friends and my hubby.

I made a landshark cake :) My dad making his big 50th wish!

Yesterday was my dads fiftieth birthday! My mom and I had been planning for a week or so, to have this awesome Jimmy Buffet birthday. My dad is probably a bigger JB fan than me.... so we wanted to go all out!
My dad is a contractor and works his BUTT off SEVEN days a week!!! He soooo deserved a night off!!! He called in his best friend from when he was a kid (hi Uncle Dave:), my mom and I invited a few "work" friends and of course we invited the whole fam damily. It was awesome! Besides the mishaps with the cake and the dog-- see post above this one-- it was truly a fun, FUN day. A great break from the monotony of things...
It was really just a huge cook out with all the works, but somehow pork products always taste better when you're outside and surrounded by lovely people. We did have quite the drink menu though, which at my parents house was this huge ordeal. My mom and dad don't drink- AT ALL. Never, ever I have seen them drink- except this one time when my mom was having a panic attack and I made her order a glass of wine- she made a stinky face the entire time she drank it. But my mom had made the comment to me that my dad had been craving a margarita for sometime now (uh... I think it had been 20+ years since his last drink??) so she thought for his big 5-0 that we should make margaritas. The only problem was she had no idea how- so she sought out my professional margarita making help. :) It was soooo funny- she wouldn't even BUY the stuff... I mean she gave me the money, but I actually had to put it in the cart and show my I.D. Then after we had the tequila she made me store it at my house (not to hide it from my dad, but just because she felt so wrong having it in her house!) Anyways, with the help of my mix master cousin Mallory, we made some awesome margaritas and sangria (which some of the guests enjoyed a little TOO much.. ha).
The party and the drinks were a hit and it was an awesome evening. The weather was perfect- we had Jimmy on the stereo, friends and family, and margaritas in hand. The only topper to our party would've been having Jim sitting there right with us- on a beach in Hawaii... in our dreams I guess.
My dad is the hardest working guy I know- he is selfless and honest. He is cool as a cucumber and rarely has a "bad day." He has a positive outlook on everything and can always make me smile even when my tears are streaming. He's the voice of reason when I'm completely losing it. He was my first "love" and the healer of all things :) To this day, if I have a car problem I call him first over Ryan! When I was in labor, I was going strong until he walked in- he held my hand and I cried (he had to look away because he said he couldn't see me like that). There's something about dads & daughters.... He is always willing to help us out and he'd do anything to see us happy. He's the best poppa to Maeve and I pray that she gets to know him well over the next couple of decades :) Like my grandma likes to say, "he's a blue mooner"... one in a million. Love you dad! Sail on sailor! :)

OOOOOH Redo! Redo!

Haha last night was a trip! I had to make all of these Jimmy Buffett signs to hang at my dads 50th (which is tonight... YES!) and I had told my mom that I was going to make a cake. If y'all didn't know I used to be this pretty sweet cake decorator at Walmart a few years ago. I learned how to ice a mean cake and how to make roses, write pretty- all that fun stuff. So at most functions I get designated to make the cake. Now, at good ol' Walmart we didn't learn how to BAKE the cakes- just decorate them. But the box directions are easy enough and usually I can manage to make a good looking and tasting cake. However, last night, it was a complete disaster.

I asked Ryan to stay up with me and help me. Hmmm.... Ryan is like a bear in hibernation or something- except his hibernating doesn't come in seasons... its here all the time. It is so hard to get that guy to stay awake at night! He falls asleep in the middle of conversations, in the shower, and of course watching movies. Its probably my biggest pet peeve about him- (well no, maybe not... I do have another pretty giant pet peeve... but I'm going to leave that alone for now... I got in trouble last time it was brought up :) haha) Anyways, to make a really long story semi-short, he agreed to stay up and help me.
We put the baby down around 9:45ish and all was quiet in the house... really bizarre! Because usually when Maeve goes to sleep we're asleep seconds after! Ryan said he needed to drink something to stay awake (even though we were going to be in the kitchen cooking and it was a whole, whopping 10 o'clock.). We were out of pop, so the next best thing we could think of was opening this bottle of white wine that we got as a gift a few weeks ago. I am not a fan of white wine, I tend to go more for the reds... but I was pleasantly surprised by how good it was, so I drank it... go figure! Well we were sippin' and cookin' and I thought this was just the grandest time. I was pouring cake batter with one hand and drinking my wine with the other, I had my love right beside me licking the batter off the beaters- it was picture perfect!
I put the pans in the oven to bake and we sat down to wait... not 5 minutes after they were in the oven did it start to smell like smoke. Genius me had over filled the cake pans- not by just a little- but by a LOT. DARN that wine does something to your depth perception, I swear!!!! Anyways, our whole kitchen and oven were smoking and it eventually filled the whole house... we were running around like crazy cats opening windows and fanning the flames. For some unknown reason (the wine might know) we kept cooking the cakes... so the smoke just kept coming and coming. It was horrible!!!! When the timer went off, I think I was still expecting that somehow my cakes were alive and edible but they were SO NOT. It looked like a movie- they were charcoaled and cracking and smoking. BLAH!!!!
Well after the whole cake fiasco and after some of the buzz died down from the wine I started to think "Dang- I still have to make my dad a cake!" So Ryan and I thought up this idea to go to Walmart and ask just for a plain sheet cake- then I would just decorate it... :) Awesome idea! Well we got in SUCH a laughing jack about it because we were playing these scenarios out in our heads of me going and asking for plain cake and the clerk saying they don't sell it that way. Then I would say well I want to place a special order then: "Can I get a cake with no icing?" HAAAAAAHAHAHAHA !!!!!! We were cracking ourselves the heck up!!!!!! I know it really isn't that funny... it had to have been that wine. I fell asleep smiling :)

This morning I woke up remembering immediately that I still had this obligation to make a cake. So I packed Maeve up and off to Walmart we went. I went up to the bakery counter and asked "Can I just purchase a plain sheet cake?" And the woman actually said NO. So then I came back with my line "Well then can I put a special order in? I want a 1/4 sheet cake with no icing." Except the entire time I was trying to say it, I was practically dying from holding in my laughs :) And then the woman said "okay and charged me for a 1/4 sheet cake- like she had decorated it." I was a complete laughing disaster. It was so awkward. And I felt really bad for this woman- I wanted to tell her it was this joke that my buzzed husband and I came up with last night. But instead I just thanked her and laughed my butt out of the store.

Wooooh!! What a story!
The End :)

The Weather is Here, Wish You Were Beautiful!

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SO... Ryan and I went to our very first Jimmy Buffett concert last night! I have been a self proclaimed parrothead princess for years so I was PSYCHED to go!!! Regardless to say it was an awesome concert... but it was also the most insane, crazy thing I've ever seen!!! I had originally planned on wearing this t-shirt that I had spent hours making which said, "I'm The Woman To Blame" but it was so hot outside, that those darn letters started to peel off the shirt! So I had to just wear a tank top- although I made sure it was nautical looking. Anyways we were geared up to go and driving down the highway when all of a sudden my stupid jeep overheated! It was soooo horribly hot... In order to keep the temp. down on the engine, we had to pump the heat in the car!! UGH... well we finally got there, and while we were waiting to park, it broke down AGAIN! But this time we were in the middle of Landshark territory... it was so embarrassing to say the least. Drunk parrotheads were walking all over the place laughing at our smoking car! :(SAD. We finally parked and started walking through the debris- this is when I was completely taken aback- it was this HUGE parking lot filled with probably 100s of cars all decked out in Jimmy sayings and decorations- it was awesome! Then the smells hit me- everyone (except for Ryan and I) had been drinking since 4 am and so they and the parking lot were COMPLETELY TRASHED. I stepped through so much junk it was unreal! And the lengths these people go to become "Jimmified!" I saw a 6o year old woman (thats my guesstimate) passed out in front of a tree in a Hawaiian mumu and a parrot on her head. Crazy right?? Then some big brawly guy spilled beer all down the backs of my legs.. uggggggg... better than puke though, which I originally thought the splash was. Finally we made it into the actual venue and our seats were really good! Jimmy was awesome, he sang some of my faves. (School Boy Heart, Son of a Sailor, Pirate Looks at 40) it was great!!!!! Anyways, the whole experience was one I will never forget and it has really made me look at alcohol much differently. I think it was a rare occasion for me to be on the OTHER side of the drinking- usually I'm the one peeing behind a tree or tripping my way through the crowds... those people just looked ridiculous- perhaps because they were in their 50s and wearing complete head to toe Hawaiian print and giant parrots on their heads, but personally I think it was because they had been drinking for close to 20 hours!! Still though I really admire Jimmy for his devout following- its pretty cool that so many people are so in love with his life style and his music! I really want to go again but jeez I'm afraid of what I will see in the crowds!!! Oh well, to quote the great one, "If we couldn't laugh, we would all go insane!"