The Anything Candle

Mom's birthday was a HIT!

It was really a top secret birthday celebration in her honor.


This was my only picture of her being surprised. She is hiding behind her new manicure.
We invited all her BFFs and had Mother's favorite Chinese place cater our meal.


We did the usual food thing, then the usual birthday word search, then the unusual row of candles. We had four pies and a cake. Each of them were covered in candles.



We like everything to be a bit of a challenge. Mom performed wonderfully.

Judy was a champ and made lemon pie. It was Mom's one birthday wish, and I'm glad Judy was able to grant that wish.


It was also the year of the anything candle. You see, Mother was gifted a candle. We all took a smell to determine what it was. Elle was the first to give it a sniff, and she said, "It smells like anything."

I was a bit skeptical so I demanded I be the next to give the candle a smell.

And I thought.

And I thought.

And I thought.

And I realized that it really could be anything. It was sweet, it was spicy, it was fresh, it was musky. It could be ANYTHING!

It turns out it was caramel apple.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Any Questions?

I was doing some Internet searches and I found a blog on the search results. The first line under the description was, "I have a hard time discussing birth control with others..."


Muahahahahahahaha!

Oh man, I don't.

I talk about birth control all day long. Does anyone have any questions? You can email me, or call me at work.

Any Good

Twenty minutes ago I got a frantic call from Grandma.

She needed someone to take the casserole out of the oven.



It was macaroni and cheese. It's a new recipe, so it might not be any good.

Check Your Peanuts

Something is happening to my peanuts.

I was checking out the garden and gave my peanuts a good look-over. I noticed something peculiar.

What are those strange red roots?

I did some more investigating, and it appears those little red shoots grow out of the blossoms and head straight for the dirt below!

What is going on? It's so crazy! It is quite unexpected! And then it hit me like a ton of bricks:

This is an alien peanut plant.

But I guess that's what you get when you buy your raw peanuts from a health food store.

The Pumpkin and the Midnight Affair

While planting our garden, Mother came across two pumpkin seeds. She decided to plant them in a random bit of dirt in one of our flower beds, and one of the seeds did very well. I was excited about the prospect of a home grown pumpkin for Halloween.

On Saturday, I came home to this:

What?


That's it? It's just done growing? Did we have an earthquake that caused the pumpkin to be torn from it's umbilical cord? Why is it on the step? AND, why is it shaped so funny?


I don't know. I don't know any of the answers to my questions. I do know, however, that my nail polish is one week old and still looking great.

AI Rant

I think replacing Paula Abdul with Ellen DeGeneres on American Idol is pure crazy talk.

I personally like shows where the judges actually have some knowledge/experience about the topic they are judging. Perhaps I don't know about Ellen's successful singing career? Her successful record label? Maybe she's lived in Detroit or Nashville? Or, maybe, sometime in her past, she has listened to the radio, and that is all it takes to be a judge on American Idol.

I hope next year they replace Simon with Steve Carell.

The Spiral Ham

This past weekend, Elizabeth and Patrick came to visit the Central Coast. Naturally we went to Montana de Oro.


This is the only picture I have of all of us. I think it's a pretty good picture.


The walk was quite fabulous. We found this skeleton which I was completely ready to believe was real,

however, what was it doing chillin' right on top of the brush right next to the trail?


I also took quite a few pictures of that place, as usual. I decided that maybe I should compile all the Montana de Oro pictures I have. I'm positive I have roughly a billion floating around my hard drive.



Peter started in on a story, so I decided to take a picture of him. This is the point of his story when he knows he is losing the suspension of disbelief.



Elizabeth found this ocean-made weapon. She swung it around and threw it into the sea. She knocked out a surfer, or a sea lion, we couldn't really tell.


And here we have Patrick, standing on the spiral ham. If you take a close look, you will see his amazing calves. I saved this picture for the last because it's so fabulous.

Midnight Affair

I don't know if you will care about this post.

I'm really uncertain. But... I should give you a chance, shouldn't I?


Okay...

I love nail polish. Did you know?

I'm betting you didn't. I usually keep that obsessive side of my personality out of the limelight. I also love makeup and makeup trends, but that is for another post.

Well, in the hunt for the next big nail polish trend--matte instead of glossy, natch--I went to my local Rite Aid. As assumed they didn't have any of this cool new polish yet. However, I did come across an excellent brand: Revlon.

I found a cool color, gave it a try, and liked the results. I decided to make the purchase. Midnight Affair was now mine.

I applied it Saturday afternoon, and to this day, to this hour, it is still in pristine condition! There is nary a chip to be found! I LOVE this stuff! The coverage was excellent, the color true, the dried result was absolute perfection! Sigh.

This stuff is magical. Those Revlon guys have an excellent formula. I'm just glad they have decided to share it with me.

I must really emphasize the no-chip factor. I have picked tape off walls, opened a multitude of hard to open eye shadows, took my stainless steel watch off multiple times, washed dishes, scraped my manicure up against my keys whilst searching for them in my bag, and still! Not one little chip!

Now, I understand it hasn't even been a week yet, and you might be concerned over the legitimacy of my testing, but I must tell you that I really have been quite careless with my manicure this time around, and I feel confident that it will last an adequate amount of time. I was just so excited that I haven't even seen one nick or chip that I had to share the good news.

If I did get some chips in my manicure, it must immediately come off, because a chipped manicure is basically telling the world you never grew out of your eighth grade awkward years.

And really, I don't want that.