My Mom Planned Awesome Birthday Parties And Pininterest Is An Overachiever

Have you heard of Pininterest? Supposedly it's the newest coolest whippest thing out there on the world wide Internet.  And, for all of you who 1) didn't know whippest was the new cool catch phrase and 2) don't know what Pininterest is, it's a website dedicated to really, really, really elaborate children's birthday parties. How do I know this? Well, let's just say, when your friends ask what you are planning for your daughter's birthday party and you say that your plan is to have the children decorate paper grocery bags and then play a rousing game of drop the clothespin in the jar, it doesn't come off as sounding all cool and retro like.

See, awhile ago (meaning two weeks) I realized that not only was Katie turning five, but also that I should probably throw some sort of birthday party for her. (I am nothing if not a stellar mother, obviously.) So, in the hopes of showing off how whippet my Internet skillz have become I logged onto Pininterest.  At least that's what I was calling it until Jon, head in hands, groaned, "Seriously? It's called PinTEREST. How long have you been call-WHY ARE YOU STILL SHAKING YOUR PHONE!?!" Obviously he'd reached his pebibyte* limit.  However, undaunted, with the song from that one Fred Astaire movie flipping off my lips, I left the room,  unearthed my laptop from some elaborate art project of Katie and Ellie's (meaning all the ads from yesterday's newspaper), found the search bar on PinINterest and typed "Birthday Parties For Lazy People" and got zero results.  ZZEEERROOO! I was now officially, utterly, and completely out of ideas.

Then Winifred walked into my life.  (cue hero music) And she brought Belinda with her. (Come on! Sing the hero music with me! "Believe it or not! I'm walking on air! I never thought I could feel so free-e-ee! Flyin' away on a wing and a prayer, who could it be? Believe it or not, it's just Belinda and Winifred!")

OK, fine, technically, they'd been in my life for years considering we all go to the same church, both their sons were born like hours before Katie, and one of them still can't believe that I painted my eyebrows teal in the middle of Target (in my defense they were free samples, Belinda!). But they're still my heroes, because (herorific drum roll please!) they let me join in on their birthday party plans! Yes, me! The mother with absolutely NO birthday ideas!

And, for a while, it was simply wonderful. My birthday party heroes knew how to search for more than just "party planning for lazy people" on PinINterest. They knew about birthday party gift bags.  They knew how to make cakes from scratch. Winifred even had a bounce house.  Seriously. A BOUNCE HOUSE people! There was no way this party wouldn't be EPICALLY AWESOME!!!!!!! (cue embarrassing happy dance here)

Then they told me the theme.

Yeah. You guessed it.

Star Wars.

Crap-a-zoidal.

I realized at that moment I had two choices. 1) I could go back to my "retro" theme of crayon decorated grocery bags and clothes pin entertainment, or 2) I could somehow figure out a way to explain Star Wars to Katie. Considering I'd already told Katie about Winifred's bounce house, and no mother in her right mind promises her child a bounce house and then doesn't deliver, really, my choice was made for me.

Luckily Belinda had a napkin I could borrow. You know, for a visual aide.

The Story of Star Wars

As Told by Martha

Using a Napkin

Once upon a time, way out in space, there were some aliens and other people.  Some of the aliens and people were good.  Like these guys:

The good guys lived on a very cold planet, but they had warm coats and hairy bodies, so, they usually stayed toasty warm. Their job was to ride the ranges in their region, making sure the planet was safe for everyone.  They had a good time and were always the best of friends.  Plus, The Mountie made popcorn for dinner every Wednesday, and they all loved that!

But some of the aliens and people were mean.  Like these guys:

They could have been good guys too, but, this one time, Darth lost his drum sticks and he couldn't find them anywhere so he never played air percussion again and that made him really really sad, and very grumpy. Bubba, on the other hand, just got tired of people misspelling his name. "P-H-a-t people! Not F-a-t!  Gosh!" And that made him grumpy too.  So, when these two grumpy guys heard about how much fun everyone was having at the Wednesday popcorn dinners on the other planet, they got really jealous and decided that they would go there and steal all their popcorn and keep it for themselves.  Of course they brought along their mechanical elephant, Melville, because their good friend Hannibal told them too.

But the attack didn't work out well for Darth and Bubba.  Clothed as they were, in their small capes, it made little difference against the arctic weather conditions they faced. They began to shiver so badly they couldn't even hold their swords properly.  Melville didn't do well on the snow and ice either.  He kept falling down.  But when the good guys saw the distress the poor elephant was in, they held a quick quilting party and made a warm Snuggie for him.  When Darth and Bubba saw how nice The Mountie, Chewbacha and The Eskimo were to Melville, they put down their swords and, using their polite voices, asked if they could come to their popcorn party. They even said, "Please."  Of course the good guys said they had tons of popcorn and would love to share with their new friends. And they all lived happily ever after.

The End

(cue Star Wars theme music here)

*I found this word on PinINterest.

Brought To You By Definition #2*

As the resident killjoy around our house (read: person who says things like, "Don't put green beans in your ears!" and "It's been four hours, GO TOILET!" or, "Quit throwing rocks at your sister! I don't care if she's biting you! Puncture wounds I can fix, but brains are beyond me!") I use this blog as a place to be kinda stupid.  (OK, a lot stupid.) And I like it.  But, it's March, Katie is coming up on her fifth birthday in a few weeks, and it feels weird.  No, not weird as in clutching my pearls and crying "Oh dearies me...my baby is growing (sniffle) uuuUUUuuuppp!" into my pink fluffy kitten tea cup with matching lacy saucer. That's totally not me. I'm more of a polka dots and butterflies coffee cup swilling type of woman, you know, more piratey like. Arrggg, salty dog and all that.** The weirdness is more of a, "Wow.  Last year when Katie turned four, that was totally crappy.  I mean, really crappy.  But this year? Completely different.  Weird." feeling. And it's making me all maudlin and stuff.  I mean, just there, the only thing my brain did was tell my fingers to type m-a-u-d-l-i-n.  Did you picture a mandolin playing troubadour walking amongst the plum trees outside the castle walls?  Yeah. Me either. See? Maudlin.  

I wrote a little bit about it last year, you know, about the biopsy reports, cystic fibrosis reports, surgery, and a lack of pie to soothe my soul after months of riding that emotional roller coaster stupidly entitled "Your Child Is Sick! MAYBE SHE'LL DIE!". I stuck it all into one tiny post because I don't really do that whole sharing my feelings thing very well. (Although it probably does explain my new found appreciation of butt related humor. And, um, literature.)  But, this year? There's nothing. No colon specialists, no children's hospital waiting rooms, no diagrams of large intestines to explain, no scared almost four year old to buckle into her car seat for yet another hour long drive to the doctor's office. Nothing.  Just swim lessons. School and "take home" days at the coffee shop by the park.  Visits to the library for more Jigsaw Jones books. Songs about the continents.  Tents turned into rocket ships.  The Farmer and the Dell shows staged while she wears "two tutus too". And piles and piles of books to read with Ellie on rainy days.  My Katie.  She's almost five.

* maud-lin: (adj) 2 : weakly and effusively sentimental
**OK, maybe really just the immature coffee cup and caffeine swilling bit.

Dude! I Can't Buy Edward's Car Because Then Everyone Will Know I Like Twilight. Wait A Minute....

My sister sent me this:

Which I think is hilarious because I don't think she realized when she sent it that she was trying to get me to buy Edward Cullen's car.  But it totally is! I mean, they even have a picture of him!

Seriously, dead ringer*!


Don't believe me? Here's a close up:

Now, if I could just convince Jon....



*Sorry. Couldn't help it.

This Is All Twitter's Fault

In the past I've called Twitter "an insidious plot for world domination by super Buck Rogers computers" and I'm not wrong.  However, Twitter is also a magical space where you can say just about anything and it gets published right there (points to computer screen) on the Internet! And, extra bonus!, people that are on Twitter, on average (or mean, or frequency distribution, or some other random math term I just googled) follow something like 2,345 other people, which means no one notices anyone else's twits! It's like everyone on Twitter is a bunch of crazy people wandering around the local library/park/mall talking to themselves! Genius! I mean, obviously, I fit right in!

That is until you go to Mabel's house for a girl's movie night of Twilight: Breaking Dawn. (NEW! Just out on DVD February 11th!) Before I can get myself settled in on the couch in anticipation of over an hour of daydreaming about long uninterrupted historical talks with Edward over a steaming cup of hot carrot juice, she says, "Journey, Martha! Really!?!" Which means she's totally calling me out on some of my recent twits.  Specifically these ones:

1.  Listen, radio stations of the world, let's make a deal, you don't play anymore songs by The Eagles and I'll quit changing channels. Deal?

2.  You know, while we're at it, let's just add Fleetwood Mac to the list.  Because it just makes me cringe.

3.  And, let's just face it, 90% of Journey too.

4.  Ooo! Also, anything that has the words, "I like big butts" in the lyrics should be banned too.

5.  The heck with it, radio stations of the world, I'm going back to my Twilight Pandora station.

(Reading above five twits in my head) Um, no, Mabel, that all sounds about right.....

But, obviously Mabel disagrees so, I embedded some examples for you all. (Of course there's going to be examples! How else does bad music get spread around the globe? Besides, I need these to stick in your brains, people, so they too can drive you crazy and you'll be forced to join Twitter and twit all your crazy thoughts with me! We'll be Crazy Twitter Besties! Or CTB for short!*)



Aaaaarrrrgggg!!! The Eagles! Hall of Fame, Shmall of Fame, they just bore me!



Your face is all scrunched up like mine with your Fleetwood Mac cringeyness. You can't deny it.  I can see you.



At one point in the video the lead singer is actually running away from his own song. Seriously, Journey! This should be a clue!



I couldn't post the butt song.  I just couldn't do it.  So you get this cute video of a baby elephant instead.  You're welcome.  No. Really.  If you've ever seen the original Sir Mix-A-Lot video, you understand.  This is way better!

Now, before you all go all ninja on my musical butt down there in the comment section, I just want to remind everyone, all facts  opinions  facts I've stated above are from a woman who owned something like two Amy Grant tapes, three Michael W. Smith tapes, a Petra CD and Michael Bolton's "Time, Love and Tenderness" tape WHEN I HEADED OFF TO COLLEGE**. So, you know, I wouldn't listen to me either. Except when I'm right.


*And since CTB is an acronym for an educational publisher, if you join me right off the bat we'll look incredibly smart! (And by we, I mean me, obviously.)

**Yeah.  I was cool.  Cool like a, well, like a person who also made up lyrics to the tune of Gilligan's Island to put on her dorm room answering machine.  Obviously.

Someone Gave Me A Jumbo Sized 3 And I Drank A Lot Of Coffee, Except For That 3 Thing Nothin' New Here

So, the other day, in a fit of I'm-going-to-go-and-comment-on-new-blogs-until-my-children-wake-up-and-read-other-peoples-stuff-floating-around-out-there-in-computer-land-which-totally-should-have-been-a-ride-in-Disney's-Tomorrow-Land-then-again-maybe-it-was-and-I-just-don't-remember-because-I-was-too-busy-driving-my-miniature-car-around-the-autobahn-convinced-that-this-time-my-car-would-go-faster-and-I'd-finally-be-able-to-pass-my-put-put-sister-so-I-didn't-have-to-keep-shouting-"Put-the-pedal-to-the-metal-!-!-!-!", I commented on this blog: tomoveforwardlive.blogspot.com written by WilyBCool, who I call Wiley Coyote in my own head, not because he's a cartoon character or is really good at not dieing when anvils are dropped on his head and stuff, but because I call everyone who's name starts with a "W" Wiley Coyote in my head*.  Anyway.... he then came over to my blog and followed me (because he's nice like that) and then posted a link in my comments.  I saw it and I was all, "DUDE! A new blog to check out! Awesome!" The fact that his link looked like this:  http://tomoveforwardlive.blogspot.com/2012/02/challenge-of-3.html 
should have tipped me off that there was something else going on, but since I don't read html, I clicked on it and saw this:

Which I immediately thought had some fantasy/Lord of the Rings theme thing going on, but, even though I have actually read the whole Fellowship of the Ring books and I should be like an expert now, especially since I've even seen all the movies IN A MOVIE THEATER (yes, I was married at the time), I was wrong. (Did you just say "Duh"?)  Apparently it's like those emails that people used to send around where you were supposed to answer questions about yourself or something.  True story: I got one of those in college (Oh yeah.... I had an email account, thanks to one of my overly technologically optimistic friends. Although, at the time, I didn't understand how I was supposed to access it using my typewriter.) but I couldn't figure out how to type in my answers so, instead, I copied all the questions down, and answered them one by one on small pieces of paper, and handed them to the friend who sent me the email in the first place. Because if I didn't answer the email, that would be rude, obviously.  Anyway, the whole point of this huge flowery number three is to tell you all three things about myself and then pass the gigantic three on to three other bloggers.  So, here goes! (And you thought I was just going to ramble with run-on sentences for the whole time!)


1.  I've danced with Elvis on the streets of Portland.

2.  My hat fell off in a triathlon once, and this is what happened:

Yeah.  I'm cool like that.

3.   I once went by the nick-name Hot Rod Martha.  The story involves an incredibly cute five year old (smiles, waves, points to self), a full sized three wheeler ATC, a vacant lot, and the inability to listen to instructions past, "This lever is the gas. You push it and it makes the three-HEY COME BACK HERE!"

Related: I crashed three different three wheelers by the age of ten.  Without wearing a helmet.


And, because each of these people think these are the coolest slippers of ALL TIME**!

I'm linking to them. And passing along that jumbo sized 3, because I don't share my slippers with anyone, no matter how adorab-ELLLLIIIIIEEEEE!!!!!

1.  Musings from the Hamster Wheel : I ran a lot in college.  Breezey never ran in college. Breezey majored in French in college. I never spoke a word of French in college.  We were roommates in college, and now Breezey runs.  She runs half marathons. And she's awesome!  You see where I'm going here? Yep.  I should be posting in fluent French by next Tuesday.

2.  Post Punk Kitchen : Each time I've seriously decided to make the switch from milk swilling, ice cream licking vegetarian to unsweetened soy milk swilling, Tofutti Cutie noshing vegan, I've gotten pregnant.  More than likely these are mutually exclusive actions.  Probably. Well, hopefully. Because, Isa's Eggplant Bacon sounds AMAZING!

3. About 100% : Andrea is a mom, she blogs and she says things like, "Get your own water," and, "Blogging is my excuse to be busy at something other than cleaning urine off of floors and walls around toilets in my house," and, "My ultimate goal is for you to say (after reading my blog) 'at least I'm not as pathetic as she is,'" and, "I've been known to exaggerate." It's like she's my more grammatically correct, non run on sentence writing, non incomplete sentence using, didn't even have to look up how to spell the word 'exaggerate' on Google, smarter twin! (Or, not, if, you know, my exuberant weirdness has freaked you out, Andrea. Again. You know, like that time I asked you if you too wanted to be re-incarnated as Laura Ingalls Wilder, even though it's completely impossible? Yeah.  Like that.)

*Or Dude, but you all knew that.

** OK, I didn't actually ask them, but, come on! Look at those slippers!  They look like something Rainbow Brite would wear, of course they love them!

I'm Also Pretty Sure Cher Was In The Lord Of The Rings, She Played That Evil Wizard With The Crystal Ball

After reading my last post, I'm sure at least .0213% of you wondered, "Is Martha less idiotic* when she's exposed to sunlight? You know, because direct sun makes vampires prettier and stuff, maybe it does the same for her, but instead of making her prettier it just makes her less daft** and that's why she only posted twice in January. Man, I'm sure glad she lives in the Northwest, where all that rain and a dense marine layer keeps her entertainingly potty***!"

Firstly, .0231% of my readership, I think your grasp of weather terms is a wee bit shaky (yes, I said that in my best English accent). Seconderdly, .0231% of my readership, thank you for your generosity and faith that sunlight does something for me other than make me stop on my morning runs and stare, slack jawed, at grapefruit GROWING RIGHT IN SOME ONE'S FRONT YARD!! Thirdest, .0231% of my readership, you'd be wrong, so very, very wrong, because, I had this conversation around the dinner table with my family in-law:

Everyone At The Table: Yadda, Talk, Breen, Blibbity, Talk, Technobabble, Pickles....

Me: (daydreaming, silently, in my own head, because I'm not really listening) If I ever ran a bowling alley, I'd wear a name tag that said "Big Turkey". Dude. I'd be soooo cool!

Everyone: Talk, Dilithium, Tricorder, Tribble, KHHHAAAN!-

Me: (jolted into the conversation) I've never seen Star Wars.

Everyone:  (silence, blank stares, and Jon actually scooted his chair two inches to the left, further away from me.)

Me: Well.... I mean, I saw the one with the clouds. 

Ginger: Clouds?

Me: Yeah.  They go to that city with the guy from Rocky and you know, walked around and stuff....

Everyone: (blank stares. silence. awkward.)

Jon: (in his almost completely mortified voice) She means "The Empire Strikes Back".

Everyone: (in their nice voices, because they're nice people) Ooohhh! Star Wars! You mean Cloud City!
Fred: Did you see it pre-1997? Because they changed the original film and the changes detract from the character arc of the films and tend to be more distracting than expedient.
Me: (with my mind spinning from the use of big words) Ummmm.... It had the Michelin Men in it? And they were chasing that cute robot around the city and he really needed to be quiet, but he wasn't? His friend was shiny too.
Everyone: (blank stares. silence. basically the same look I've been getting.)
Me: (attempting to deflect the next question, which obviously will be about Mystery Science Theater, and since I haven't seen that either, blurting out the first thing that comes to my head) Have you heard of Man Massages? They're supposedly bacon scented!

In retrospect, this might be why we only visit family once a year.

Oh, and P.S. or fourthesterdly, .0231% of my readership, the sun light makes me prettier too. It's not just vampires.

*Your words. Not mine.
**Again, your words not mine. And apparently with an English accent.
***English? Again? Really?

January Should Be Spelled Junkuary

Blogistically speaking, January and I don't get along.  I mean, here it is, the last few days of the month, and all I've managed to post was some art I did with Katie.  Which, you have to admit, while it was a totally rockin'ly awesome piece of artwork, it doesn't really make up for the lack of blog posting.  So, you may ask, what have I been doing? (Besides expanding my vocabulary with the words "blogistically" and "rockin'ly", obviously.)

Oooohhhh, all sorts of crazy!

Like, once this month, we all trooped down to Arizona to stare, slack jawed, at grapefruit GROWING RIGHT IN SOME ONE'S FRONT YARD!!!

Now, I know what you're thinking. "Um, you live in the Northwest, shouldn't you be staring slack jawed at something bigger, like the sun?"  And my answer is, theoretically... yes, but practically... no. Because as everyone knows, staring at the sun can make you sneeze, a lot.  Plus there's that whole blindness thing....

Then, there was this other time, when we came back from the place where magical grapefruit GROWS RIGHT IN SOME ONE'S FRONT YARD!!!

and it snowed.  A lot.  Like right away. With a layer of ice. Which trapped me in the house with two very small children and a dwindling supply of cream for my coffee.  Which made me wonder, "Is this how that whole business with the Donner Party started? Because I'm feeling really grouchy, and if I can't drink my normal huge amounts of coffee, I'm going to get even more grouchy and, thinking about it, you'd have to be really grouchy to resort to cannibalism. Strategically speaking, maybe the Donner's shouldn't have killed the cows first." Which, I know, is just stupid. Because obviously the cows would had gone dry months before they were even trapped in all that snow.  What's amazing is that every wagon train didn't resort to cannibalism. Then, eventually, Jon came home and he reminded me, once again, that "Cannibalism is never funny, Martha. At all." But, then I realized, this was coming from a man who doesn't appreciate a good butt joke*, so, why would I listen to him? Exactly.

Then there was this time where there was a huge amount of vomit, and unfortunately no gloriously magical sunshiney grapefruit that GROWS RIGHT IN SOME ONE'S FRONT YARD!!!

So, I'm skipping that week.

Which drops me here.  On the 27th.  With three four days left in this sad, sad, sad excuse of a blogging month.  And all I've contributed to the Internet this month is a few tweets about grilled cheese sandwiches, pumpkins and a knock knock joke that wasn't even mine. And too many incomplete sentences to go back and count. Because I'm lazy. But, really, it's not my fault.  I mean, how could it be when everyone is walking around calling the month Junkuary, right?

Right??

Ummmm.... 

Crap. 

Never mind.  I'll just see you all next month, in FUNRUARY! 

  

*To the buttcano! To the  buttcano!