Thirty & Awesome!

 

Some time ago Glamour did an article titled  30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She's 30. Check it out, it is quite the list. Since the big day is just four days away I’m happy to say that I’m actually able to check off quite a few of those, but the ones I can’t I think are stupid, so I thought I would make a list of my own of the 30 things 30 years has taught me, in no particular order. Here goes…

1.Take Care of the Girls: you can push them, stuff them, tug them, shove them into all kinds of crazy apparel but at the end of the day find a bra that fits you like a second skin that you wear most days. Don’t stray. It is okay to cry when the style is discontinued.

2. Know Yourself: There is always room for improvement of course, but it is silly to set unrealistic expectations. If you are shy it is unlikely you will ever be the life of the party (unless you are pretty tipsy). You can’t change your personality, just enhance it. We are taught we can be anything we want to be, blah,blah,blah, but I don’t want to be a rich socialite, an engineer or the president. The key is want. Find what you love and do that. All the learning and practice  in the world will not make me a great sales person. Not even a good one. It just isn’t me and I’m okay with that.  That’s where knowing yourself comes into play. If you want to be a teacher but hate children it might be time to re-evaluate your personality.

3. Be Okay with Just Being Okay: It is great to excel, but we simply can’t be perfect at everything. You are welcome to try, just be okay with it if you aren’t.

4. Laugh. A Lot: A good belly laugh will cure just about anything! Just be prepared to have extra meds on hand if you recently had a c-section. Otherwise you’re golden!

5. Changing A Flat Tire Is Not That Difficult: I should know, almost every vehicle I’ve owned I’ve had to change a flat on. Even after I was married. And he was with me.

6. Have Great Sex: If you are having sex and it isn’t great, you are doing it wrong. Fix it. Then thank me!

7. You Are Not As Smart As You Think: You don’t know everything when you are 16. You don’t know everything when you are 18. You don’t know everything when you are 21 or 30 either. Over the years I’ve learned that truly intelligent people acknowledge that they don’t know everything, but are willing to learn. Be open to learning something new! And by all means if you are going to be an arrogant asshole who claims to know everything, you better be able to back it up, otherwise I will assume you are stupid.

8. Fight Fair: Sure we aren’t happy all the time. We fight. We fight with our spouse, our friends, and our children. Be careful what you say when you are angry, some things just can’t be taken back. Better yet, crack a joke!

9. Rock It In a Pair of Jeans: Some people feel most confident in their power suit or in their favorite pair of heels. I am most confident in a kickass pair of jeans. Find your style and rock it!

10. You Are Worth It:  Both you (the reader)  and I are worth the time, energy and love. Always.

11. Say You’re Sorry: and mean it.

12. Surround Yourself with Awesome: Surround yourself with friends and family who love you and support your direction in life, whatever that might be. Support them too! Oh, and make sure at least some of them can supply you with the before mentioned belly laughs.

13. Chopsticks Are Painful

14. Never Settle For Less Than You Deserve: I didn’t. Now I’m married to the man of my dreams, have a family I love and a life better than I could ever ask for!

15. Garden: Plants don’t have feelings. If you kill one off they grow quickly, just try again! Try, try again. They aren’t children, if you get busy and don’t feed/water them and they die, eh…

16. You Are Never Too Old to Play Spoons: Or any game for that matter. Have fun!

17. Always Be Prepared: Although I’m no boy scout I’ve learned time and time again how important it is to expect the unexpected. For weddings, holidays, vacations or just day to day life. The sooner you realize this the better. The baby will always poop everywhere when you have no spare diapers. True story.

18. Exercise Feels Good: Sure you may be sore after a strenuous workout, but it feels good to know that you are doing something for your body, and the discomfort goes away so lace those shoes, find some tunes and  the exercise that works for you! There is something for everyone.

19. Heels Are Overrated: Preferring flats to  high heels does not make me any less a lady (though plenty of other things do) for this I make no apologies.

20. Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously: Find humor in your everyday life and laugh at yourself.  It is seriously no fun to be embarrassed, so embrace your goofier self!

21. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail: This is something I’m continuing to work on. My perfectionism often prevents me from starting projects (or anything new) out of fear of failure. I'm learning though that it doesn’t hurt to try. Trying and failing still gets you more than not doing it at all, at least you may have learned from your experience. Okay, I’ll be super honest and say this is definitely something I still work on, as I have a lot of anxiety over failing/ not doing it right. Hmm…that must be where Little Moo gets it from.

22. Sleep!!! But not like a baby…because they don’t do that.  You might think I mean you should sleep a lot. But not really, just get it when you can and enjoy your sleep. If you have kids…well you are kind of screwed. Maybe someday when they are older and you have to drag them out of bed, for now just take a nap. If you don’t have children, enjoy your rest, just don’t be offended when your friends with kids roll their eyes when you complain about not getting to sleep in until 10am. Oh and if you are young enjoy all nighters! Some of the best times I had as a youth was when I was sleep deprived. . It isn’t working out so well as a 29 year old…

23. If You Don’t Drink, Fake It: I don’t drink alcohol. I’m not opposed to it, and it doesn’t bother me when other people do it, I just haven’t found anything I like. For some reason this makes people really uncomfortable. I’m not judging you! I don’t count every drink you have and tell people how horrible you are. Actually, when everyone else has a good buzz it’s the perfect time for me to act a complete fool. I can become loud and boisterous and no one will notice or care. So fake it and have fun!

24. We Aren’t All the Same: This seems painfully obvious, but it actually took me many years to truly take this in. Even those we have the most in common with do things differently.  Allow grace for others, because NO ONE does everything the way you do. Money, parenting, cleaning, picking partners, work ethic, the list goes on.  Sure we know this intellectually but the trick is accepting it and not holding our differences against one another.

25. Huggies Are Just Better: For our first son we had to buy cheaper brands and convinced ourselves that they were just as good. We were fooling ourselves. Huggies are more expensive, but worth every penny. I spend far less in laundry detergent when the kiddos aren’t leaking out all the time. On a related note, swim diapers are no replacement for diapers/pull-ups. Trust me on this one.

26. Tell Someone You Love Them Everyday

27. Makeup You Hair: I always wonder how people get away with the messy hair look. Makeup (it doesn’t have to be a lot). It makes all the difference. Also, makeup can dress up your sweats!

28. Live In a Crappy Apartment: When you are young and striking out on your own find a little apartment with brown carpets and noisy neighbors. It  may be terrible at the time but it provides for some interesting stories later and will be the yardstick you compare your future homes to.

29. Peanut Butter & Jelly Can Be Eaten For Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

30. 30 Isn’t Scary: Strange but true, I can honestly say that instead of dreading my birthday I’ve been looking forward to it. I love the knowledge I’ve gained the past 30 years and I look forward to the wisdom the passing years will provide me with.

Happy Father’s Day!

Okay so it is a little belated, but the sentiment is still there. I’m so lucky to have an amazing husband and even luckier that he is a fabulous Dad to both my boys. I saw this video this morning and could not stop laughing, it totally made my Monday morning.

Being this kind of Dad my one day embarrass our kids, but hey I have come to learn that is some of the fun of being a parent. These Dads are cool, they share in parenting, these  dads change diapers. So. Sexy. Okay not the diaper part, but the sharing in everything part. People without kids don’t understand, but they don’t need to. The right kind of women love and appreciate these men, and since they are the ones that put out, they really are who matter most.

I love it because I can see a little Zippercow in all those Dads. In fact St. Johns Bay is Zippercow’s (self imposed) work uniform. King of the grill, lawn, splash pad and electronics. He’s all those things and so much more. I’m sure there is NOTHING I could do to show him how much I truly appreciate him.

But I do.

The same is true of my own Dad. He was (and continues to be) a wonderful Dad who gave me an appreciation of music and ridiculous comedy. There is an endless list of things he taught me, and in all of that I managed to learn how to find the perfect person to spend my life with.

To both the Dads in my life, my Dad and my wonderful husband Happy Belated Father’s Day!

I Love Spray Paint!

Who doesn’t right? It’s messy and fumy fun! I’ve done a number of projects with spray paint, but I particularly enjoyed this one. I decided I wanted to have a bunch of potted flowers. Given my track record with plants it seems ridiculous, but I kept alive some petunias last year so how hard could it be right? If you’ve ever noticed pots are expensive and in order to have a lot of them, well… you have to spend a lot of money. So I thought I would take a bunch of the black pots we already had for our various trees and shrubs (which are all dead, seriously I can’t take a hint!) clean them up and make them purdy.

Start with miscellaneous pots (cleaned) and an old appliance box to protect the driveway.

 

Rough them up a bit so the paint will stick. Wipe off any dust before painting.

Pick out your favorite spray paint color. I wanted something fun and this Rust-oleum stuff is great, the nozzle allows you to spray in any direction! Read the directions on the can for drying times.  Don’t forget to accidentally stand in front of the breeze so that you paint your legs and feet too.

The dark color required multiple coats for good coverage. You don’t need to get the inside as thoroughly as the outside, just the top part that might be seen after you get the soil in. The same is true of the bottom too. And then you get this!

Yes, my growing skills are awesome aren’t they? My gardening prowess aside the pots turned out pretty cute.  There are SO many possibilities! Great for outdoor weddings or to brighten up an otherwise dull yard.

Cookie Monsters, Delivered!

We live in a pretty friendly neighborhood. We have good friends down the street and between here and there all our neighbors will kindly wave as we pass in our cars and exchange general pleasantries if we should see each other face to face, which doesn’t happen all that often.

One of our neighbors is particularly friendly (which I suppose is useful in his line of work) and sometimes will chat with Zippercow about their various yard projects and what not. He is a supplier/distributor/salesman….okay, I can honestly say I don’t know exactly what it is he does, but he does something with snack goods. So over the years we have gotten bags of free chips, coupons for $ off or in some cases free (!), crackers and other various sorts of snacks. This makes him very popular with the kids.

And today he delivered.

While getting the kids out of the van after picking up Little Moo we have this brief conversation

Friendly Neighbor: “Hey! I have a van full of stuff that you guys need!” (okay, now I can’t recall his exact words, but it was something in that vain)

Me: I look at him skeptically and laugh “Oh?” His tone tells me it’s something I don’t actually need.

Friendly Neighbor: “I have a van full of cookies, we just bought such and such (okay I don’t remember the specifics) so I have a ton of product. I’ve given it out to the other neighbors too.”

Well how can I say no to free cookies in front of the kids? He got me.  He’s good. He must be VERY good at sales (or whatever it is he does).  The kids wander over and collect some packages of cookies and they are on cloud nine.

I’m sure I sound ungrateful, but I’m not. Just scared for my willpower. There is a reason I only get small one serving sizes of cookies while out with the kids and I intentionally don’t buy packages of cookies that sit in the pantry. The only reason there are still the WhoNu cookies in the pantry is because they are GROSS.  The kids are super excited though, so we’ll just say, “Thank you neighbor!”.

**what should have actually said was “Hey neighbor, you have any bell peppers in the back of that van? Because man those suckers be expensive!”

Home Grown

Now that the fence is done (ish) we thought we would try our hand at growing some of our own produce.

Um…

So last year I managed to keep a couple drought tolerant plants alive (for the most part) so clearly I am an expert on the subject don’t cha know.

Not really, so I am trying this year. Zippercow, who grew up in his mother’s garden, keeps telling me that it isn’t that hard and you just have to try and see what works in the area. That sounds easy until you are the one fingered for killing all the plants (or hell, failing to get them to grow) and pouring a bunch of money down the drain or in this case covering it in dirt (can I try my hand at a money tree???).  So despite the entirely childish meltdown I had about this ( in Home Depot nonetheless) and am, to this day, embarrassed about, I am going to give it a try.

We had some left over materials from our fence so Zippercow got to pull out his fancy fence building tools and fashion me this.

It’s beautiful isn’t it? My husband is so handy. Except…now I will feel even worse if all that comes of it is wet dirt.

Thanks to my friend who had extra tomato plants I have a few things that might stand a chance. I hope.

We also were given some seeds from my friend. My friend rocks! I needed something to mark our rows with. I wanted to paint them all pretty (you know, like you’d see on pinterest?) but wanted to get them out before I forgot where everything was. And if you may remember, our yard is FULL of rocks, so easy peasy!

Little Moo is beyond excited about this process and since he is our veggie eater (I know right?!) he wanted to help plant and water. My skills are about matched to his so maybe together we can get a couple of plants to grow?

Wish us luck!

Fencing in the Herd: Final Chapter

This is it, what you’ve all been waiting for! I know, I know. You have all been losing sleep anticipating this reveal, but fret no more, because it is time!

Sadly he’s not down on one knee with romantic proclamations of love, well…he is but not for me.

His grasslets. I think he loves them more than me. Sigh… I digress.

Our fence is done! I suppose there is still the staining and a little trimming to do but the most important part is done!

The herd is contained! See that little spot of white with a circle around it. Yes, that is Littlest Moo, far from arms reach but safely in the yard! Just in time too because unlike his older brother he is a mover, he should actually be called “Littlest Moover"! The fence definitely rates pretty high best investments for our family (and sanity).

We are very happy with the results and I can still see the alfalfa fields over the top of the fence. So I can keep the kiddos in AND still get my view!

This wouldn’t be possible without my wonderful husband, this guy (my awesome brother) who helped the hubs out a ton,

and Shawn at Skyblue Handyman Services.

Now I just need to teach Little Moo to stop opening the fence and letting his brother out…