Smelly souvenirs

HELLO fellow bloggists! I have a lot of nerve calling myself a bloggist when I barely check in here these days. But I like to feel included so there it is.

I'm far too behind to update anyone on my goings on, but Jamey is home from a three day trip to Kansas City with his job and I wanted to show you what he made while he was there.

He attended a workshop and a seminar or two given by some well known designers. One of the speakers was a favorite of his, Tim Biskup. Jamey has been a fan of his for a while and took a small book of TB's designs to have him sign. Needless to say he LOVED the talk and the autograph complete with drawing Biskup added to Jamey's book!

Another designer he met gave a workshop where they made these beautiful flowers.

Matthew Sporzynski is a paper artist who's work regularly appears in Real Simple magazine. You should scroll through some of his stuff on that last link if you have time. He can make ANYTHING out of paper!! Jamey said his huge personality alone was worth experiencing-pure entertainment.

This project came from an ad prop he produced for a perfume made from whatever flower this is (I'm sorry I don't do thorough journalism). Jamey forgot what it is called. Geranium maybe?

Anyway, Mathew S. allowed each flower made in the workshop to be squirted with this $600 essence of flower of some sort perfume. It smells very real!

And then they made little window boxes to keep them in.

He brought it home to me as a gift! Isn't that C-U-T-E?

And a MUCH nicer treat than the souvenir he took for himself from the trip which was a mixed media display of hurl-your-guts-'till-your-ribs-hurt food poisoning.

Not cool, Mongolian Barbeque!

"Welcome home Sweetheart! Hey, why so green?"

"Oh, you know, art workshops...yurp".

"Riiight." :~{

So hubby is back and feeling better and we are off to a great summer. Hope yours is full of creativity and you blog about all your adventures! I'll be checking in on you!

Lava: It's not just for video games

Here's a little experiment for the scientifically minded folks in the audience (read: grandparents and cousins). Ratchet had a much anticipated school project due to erupt this week, so of course we took some snaps and did a little trial run before hand to get a feel for the explosive power we were working with.

Here is the volcano in it's dormant state. The natives are busily going about their lives completely unaware of what's brewing at the base of this beast.

Here's Ratchet proudly standing behind his volatile creation.
And here's our practice run the evening before the natural disaster was to take place.

Speaking of natural disasters, you'll catch a glimpse of our torn up kitchen in the middle of its makeover. It's not an attractive sight right now but I am using my swanky new stove and microwave-which helps keep me chipper sans countertops. OH, and please turn the sound down if my constant noise gets bothersome during the pre-eruption. I am annoying! Here's what happened to his actual volcano at school on Thursday. Yay for extra credit!

(p.s. Any young kids (or middle aged men) who want to make your own version: We forgot to mention that we also added a couple squirts of dish soap to create a foamy effect ;)

Did I forget to share my meat cake with you?

Shame on me and my big fake fingernails!

One of the fun things that happened (and I documented) during the hoobity whatie part of the holidays was Santa's (and Trisha's) Magical X-mas party. Oh yes, it was DElightfully tacky. I'm suddenly feeling likewise myself just now posting about last year's fun here on this mid January day in 2 ot 10. BUT, still I want to share these olden times with family and friends who might have missed out, and of course future me who won't remember any of it very very soon.

I made a progressive photo log of the "Christmas cake with a smack of ham" that I contributed to the party. I thought it would be kind of fun to see it come about in pictures.

• FIRST, I lined the tree shaped cake pan with crustless flattened white bread. (I seem to have forgotten this photo so I'll leave a space and you can mentally squish and press the bread to your liking.)

• Next I smeared 4 cans of deviled ham(a little gelatinous for my taste) evenly on the bread and up the sides.

• Then I lovingly placed olive loaf slices atop the canned ham continuing on in the tree shape.

• Next I topped the compressed lunchmeat with a sizable bowl of homemade chicken salad. This part I would happily eat.

• Once I got that smeared around, I smashed another layer of white bread on top like so...

• With much anticipation, I then turned that sucker of a sammy right over onto a foil lined tray. It was nothing short of albino splendor. See if you agree.

• Once that was all done, I "iced" the colourless conifer with cream cheese and "trimmed" it with celery and festive radish ornaments(that hubby styled whimsically with a knife).

• And BOOM goes the dynamite! All it needed now was generic Ruffles and a Twilight plate!

Here it is joining T's corndog casserole, the classic Ants on a log and Dorothy's clear jello among other tastefully tacky treats.

So there you have it!

I hope you plan on making a holiday meat cake at your next gathering! It's just as easy as putting on pantyhose if you have the right shape to smash it into! I also have a Big Bird and Bugs Bunny shaped cake pans (funny what you find when you uproot your cabinets) just begging to ham it up for your guests!

Enjoy! You know we did! Thanks for all the fun Trishie!

Just like a home schooling mom without all the kids to teach!

I'm becoming so natural from the neck down I can hardly recognize myself! I just made my first batch of homemade laundry detergent and am now clearly unstoppable. Just point me to the patch of land you want vegetated this Spring. I'm a true pioneer. I've made soap with these hands! Is there anything coming in between me and a complete organic vegetable garden now?!

Oh yeah, all that wormy dirt touching work and such.

Ok. Coming down from my high now. Maybe my first batch of detergent doesn't make me entirely hearty and self sufficient but it was a super cool feeling while it lasted. And I do love my new detergent recipe! My gal pal Tab gave me a jar of this laundry soap at Christmastime and I just fell so in love with its crisp fresh scent and washing power, I had to find the goods to make it myself.

All that's needed is:

1/2 cup Borax

1 cup Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda(no picnic to find, btw.)

1 bar of Fels Naptha soap-grated (So awesome but equally hard to pin down in your everyday store.)

essential oil (optional ingredient: I used Lavender this time to see what happens.)

It is supposed to weigh in at just a fraction of the cost of store bought brands and you can sass it up anyway you like with essential oils (though while making it I found it to smell great as is.)

It is Michelle Duggar's(mother of 19 and local celeb.) recipe that Tab shared with me. I made four batches tonight which totals around 160 loads. I should be set for a while!

And now I've got plenty of time to sing this:

I'm easily impressed with myself it's true. This will no doubt keep my negative self talk at bay until well into next week!

Look out world! I'm every woman.

Talent Show: Day 5

Talent is as talent does:

Well, now, any of you who know my hubby also know he really has no talent to speak of. ;) Poor guy, I know. Since we couldn't think of anything good enough to compare to some of the previous entries, I just decided to post one of his recent attempts at "entertainment" where he is showing us one of the ways he makes music with his computer.

Like I said, not exactly dog ventriloquy, but it is something. (Wheeze!)

Talent show: Day 4

Ever since we started the talent show entries the dogs have been hounding me to get in on the action. You know how camera hungry small dogs can be. So while we round up Jamey's entry, we thought it would be a good time to put in a little Christmas number the T & T (dynomite) recently worked up. Of course, when it was my idea to finally film it they totally gave me the disinterested faces of teenagers. Whatever lickies.

So here they are without their Christmas hats or spirits (a contractual compromise):

Tiki and Tulip

Trust me, I've been this ridiculous for years. ;)

Talent Show: Day 3

I have a wicked laugh.

As the show goes on, you may be increasingly afraid of what we here at Bergville refer to as talent. Well, if laughing is not a talent it surely must be a creative outlet of some sort, because I've been changing it up for years! And my laugh has never really been considered mainstream. It has gone everywhere from Bahahaha(like Arnold on Happy Days but long morphed into breathy and fake sounding) to a brief equestrian period in high school in which I whinnied like a reared up horse and earning the nickname "Wildfire" from a close friend.

To this day, my chortle has become a veritable cacophony of glottal fricatives that occasionally even surprise me with their uniqueness. (Odd sentences are also a talent of mine.)

This was one such occasion. You have to watch all the way to the end which means enduring one of Dandy's T-rex moments also caught on tape. :}

What made me laugh was that I had just stepped onto and flattened Jamey's collection of paper boats that he had been ever so carefully lighting and launching into the water as you see in the video.

All I could do was laugh my "I'm soooorrrrrryyyy" the way I do when I find myself in a sudden pickle. Please enjoy-and remember to leave the hearty laughter to trained professionals such as myself to avoid harm. ;)

Talent show: Day 1

I've decided to do a video talent show since I've built up quite a repertoire in my files. My oldest, always eager to please, volunteered to go first. (Ok, he's at school, but he WOULD have no doubt volunteered had he been available.)

Ratchet is in sixth grade and writes better than many a college freshman! He worked this little piece up for a quick homework assignment. I was astonished at the content in what seemed like busy work for him. I made him read it to me again for the camera since he had included character voices and everything. :) His literary talents are emerging!

(If you are seeing this on facebook, you'll probably have to click on the link that takes you to my blog to watch any videos.)

I'll be back shortly with the next entry!

Love Out Loud-numero deux

The Love Out Loud show was such a fun experience! Friday night tons of people came and got totally rock-us and silly with us. I was so concerned I would freeze up on my keyboard solos, like the one scarring time in high school when asked to accompany our football king and queen's coronation ceremony (Barry Manilow's 'Mandy' has NEVER been so unrecognizable since- I pa-romise you!). I just couldn't entirely relax and enjoy myself until I knew my hands wouldn't betray me.

On Saturday night (since there was obviously no turning back) I decided I was just going to have fun no matter what happened. What happened was the arrival of an entirely different audience! One where in between the contained claps and the next song, you could hear yourself swallow. Gulp. But, not blaming this country/folksie crowd for not easily adapting to techno, we motored on through and had more fun than ever. If I can get a snippet of something presentable(no not the facebook vids) I'll find it for you and post it.

Meanwhile, please enjoy the muppet-esqe video made especially for the opening song played each night. Jamey made a video for all 11 songs we performed, but this one we all got in on. I,unbeknownst to me at the time, literally was in almost every shot-which was not my desire considering I hadn't a stitch of makeup on. J had to photoshop bricks over my head for most of the song.

(That would have been a strange q and a had someone asked what he spent his Sunday night doing. "Oh, just bricking out my wifes giant head all evening. You?")

Jamey is a wealth of creativity and talent, and I enjoyed practicing along to all the subtleties of his music. How his brain comes up with it all and how he executes each instrument in his songs, I have no idea! I had fun being a part of it this time though.

Here are some more snaps from the event:

Herva

Trish and her fabulous purses

Fool For Now from Saturday night(So beautiful!)

Rick's handmade journals and Dean peering over

Freedom and Nancy(the hosts)with an artist whose name escapes me-oops.

Herva donning masks just because we go all the way for our fans. ;)

If you wish to hear the hubby's latest songs and some of the ones we sang for L.O.L., you can find him here.

You know I'm Trippin'!

Sorry once again for straying from my land for far too long. It's been a fast paced whacked out summerpalooza of sorts around here. With one in summer school(and having a terrible go of it) and the other on a dead run toward friends and activities at all times, a special sister/friend in town from oversees visiting and tons of little trips in between. I've gone and gotten my hair all mussed and myself internally flustered in the process! How's this low energy gal to handle all this?! My nerves have literally been shocking themselves and my heart and head have taken to pulsing spells.

Yes, it IS quite pitiful. I'll give you that. I actually thought I was having a nervous breakdown one weekend! Then having the genius idea my thyroid meds were messing with me, I popped in to the doctor to check it. Turns out it was the first thing. I needed nerve pills for Pete's sake! What would I actually do if real problems came along? pfffft. Apparently, I don't begat from a long line of hearty stock when it comes to the old mental stamina. I'm a delicate. I've always told my oldest that I'm breakable so that he won't practice his Tae Kwon Do moves on me, and my youngest so he just won't whack me in general, but I guess I failed to realize how my psyche was right there in the squishy department as well! Oh bother.

But, neither of us need to dwell on my rattling marbles, so I'll show you a collection of pictures from our recent trip up to Illinois. The first week in July, all Jamey's family took the trip from Arkansas with tents ready for some grand camping and fishing on Granny's farm. There were 16-20 of us there in all with 8 kids age 11 down to 3. There were no cries of boredom from anyone. In fact, we thought the children had turned a little wild after the first few days. They stayed in a pack and grunted around a lot in the tall grasses.

J's brother and sis-n-law

J's dad and nephew

Brother in law and youngest boy

Jamey's sis and Mom(and camp cook extraordinaire)

Miley the only giant dog I love

Our lil' gipper

Proud fishermen J and the Ratchet

Rainy day kids gathered around a six inch t.v.

He's a loner, a rebel.

My tent looked much like this and was in a neighboring town. Did I mention I have anxiety issues? ;) Well, I slept the sleep of the heavily drugged when I made it here each night. Sweet sweet camping times for me. I DID get some unexpected company from my boys in the middle of one rainy night. Their tent leaked and they headed for the inn at 2:45 in the morning. They are probably lucky I wasn't packin' heat startling me at that hour!

And here's a little video that shows a rounder of where we were. It's not really entertaining but it gives the lay of the land to help make up for my short supply of pictures. Yay for peaceful and relaxing(finally- thanks Dr.)times with family.

P.S. Though there are 0 pictures of yours truly, I could almost swear I was there for some of it...oh wait, that is me making the boring video comments. Yep.

Hopefully, I'll get some more reports on my summer visitations going soon now that I've broken the freeze on the manage blog post page again. I hope you haven't all stopped visiting me all together! Until next time friends and fam! :D

Showin' the luuuv.

Here's what I woke up to on Valentines day morning:  
 
There were cards...

And homemade paper flowers in a paper wrapped vase....

Oh yes, and homemade wrapping paper around my present....which was a hands free phone cord for my latest celly.  You can picture that part yourself.

That evening, we went to dinner in a neighboring town and had some delicious Mexi food together. (I don't take pics of EVERY meal we eat so imagine 4 hogs(one with a red wig)at a trough for this part, because that's a pretty accurate mental image. 

All together it was quite a delightful day. 

On Sunday it was my turn to show my Valentine a less greedy side of myself (which would be my right, no doubt, because I'm a lefty).  So, with the help of my darling friend Jenna, who offered to keep the chaps-sweet thang that she is- I took my fellow to see his other true love....

SUSHI!!!!  EEEEEEEK!!!  I don't even eat COOKED fish(gagging sounds)!!!!!!!!!!!

But since he made me those pretty flowers, I turned off the flop sweat and tried a vegetable sushi roll with soy paper wrapping and something called "crunch" on the outside.  Let me tell you right now non suchi eaters, this stuff was absolutely delicious!!  I might even be able to crave it from time to time and join the sushi revolution currently in progress. If I could just master those chopsticks a bit more...

After making the waitress take our picture, we finished the evening at the nearby bookstore with coffee and zero children in tow.  Pure relaxation.

So, there's a story that only family and hopeless romantics can appreciate.  Girl feels loved.  Girl attempts sacrifice for love.  Girl avoids seafood disaster.  Girl goes to Barnes and Noble with her love.  Girl realizes she has made no sacrifice at all-typical.  Girl loves boy....still.

I hope your weekend was just as satisfying. 

When you take the eighties very seriously.....

you end up with extremely tall hair and lots of attitude!  Man I loved those faux leather snakeskin shoes! Can you believe some people at my conservative Christian college were actually afraid of me? It must have been my mauve awesomeness that intimidated them. 

What were you donning or doing in 1988?  

Icy times

Greetings blogland! I am happy to be able to check in with you today as half of our little town is totally without power! Our house went without for only one night and then it miraculously came back on and seems to be doing fine even though the whole electrical unit has been ripped off the side of the house!!! What an ice storm we've had!

I went by myself for an overnight trip to Oklahoma City (three hours Southwest) on Sunday because I wanted to attend a special cousin's funeral service scheduled for Monday morning. The ice started there on Monday but several of us were able to get to the church in a town outside of OKC and then over to the graveside service and back in the freezing rain. By the time we made it back to my mom's house on the North side of the city, the streets had become way too dangerous to go any further. Though two of my relatives from the panhandle decided they HAD to get back home, my cousin Kris (who had travelled 4 hours from Dallas, Texas) and I couldn't face the increasing ice. So, there we stayed. And stayed some more until Wednesday when the sun peeked out to melt some of the highways enough to brave our solo trips in opposite directions.  

In the meantime my boys were fending for themselves and suffering a 24 hour power outage in a state just above and to the right of me. Needless to say, I felt more than a little selfish having a constant gourmet snack fests and rollicking game times with my parents and cousin, who we rarely get to see but thoroughly enjoy.

After Krissy decided she'd better try to get back to the helm of her business, and my parents to theirs, I wandered around the house in full dorkdom trying to get up the nerve to leave myself.  If you dare to watch this riveting video you will realize I'm suffering a touch of the cabin fever.  That's the excuse I'm sticking with anyway...

When I realized I was just stalling for time, I too decided to head out and try the roads.  They were totally fine for more than half the trip so I only had to kick the bravery in toward the end of the last turnpike.  Ahh, but there's no place like home.  Even if home looks like a crystalized war zone.  Stay warm everyone!!

I smell drama

What chemical reaction suddenly caused my candle to turn Roman and start hosing the place with wax and sparks?  It was close to the bottom so I suppose it found the end of the wick, but where does the plastic effect come in?  Candles are way up there on the list for fire starting so I'm sure this is completely normal for some demon spawn variety candles, but I've never seen the likes of one of these before. Have you? 

Experimentation

Ahhhh....the art of being relationally understated.  Or is it a science? I'm not sure yet.   I'm coining a descriptive term for my husband here because he can lack for personal exuberance in his delivery at times.  I don't mean that negatively as I appreciate an even keel. I just mean he is lacking a certain element of drama in his stories when you might expect to get, well at least a tidbit of rise and fall.  

Like the time when I decided to wax on about... oh, I don't remember but it was something happening to me equivalent to, say, a tight head band.  I was no doubt reeling around and dramatically pulling the thing from my temples having Jamey rub the indention on my head until I could muster up the strength to go on.  All I really remember was that I was voicing my woes about something silly and then a few minutes of ample sympathy later, he raised his shirt six inches looked at his stomach and said "Hmmph."  in a slightly annoyed tone.  I of course said "What?".  Then he mumbled in the laziest way "Oh I guess I've got a hernia."  "WHAT?" This time I was louder, and I looked to see what he was talking about.  Sure enough, there by his navel was an obvious blowout between his skin and muscle layers! ( I apologize if that makes anyone queazy.)  At this point I'm feeling like my "tight headband" condition might pale ever so slightly to this new revelation.  Yet, Jamey was giving me close to nothing reaction wise while discovering that his guts were practically spilling out on the floor!!  (See, I know how to give attention where attention is due. ;)

That was one of probably many examples where a casual presentation on the husby's side leads to a larger  than normal reaction on my side.  I'm sure there's some law describing this imbalance like Newton's third law "For every action there is an equal or opposite reaction". Only it would be a fourth or fifth law that states "For every under reaction, there is a wildly overdone counter reaction to equal out the overall level of general action ."  or something like that.  I didn't finish college so my scientific analysis may contain nuts and or milk products.  

My whole point here is not whether or not I remember science(or math?) rules but that this phenomenon has happened again.  And it never fails to catch me off guard!  There we were at a restaurant sitting around eating chicken and taking pictures of each other eating chicken.  

(Ratchet and friend )

( Me, the under reactor, and Dandy)

Then, as an afterthought, Jamey looks at his hand and says to himself  "Yep, that seems to have done the trick."  Well, this is of course where I look up from my battered french fries and mutter through greasy lips "What?" with little or no enthusiasm.  So he lays out his giant manly paw and says "I fixed my nail."  Ok,  I'm confused.  And I say as much, so he continues.  " Well remember the other day when I said my fingernail got torn a little and it went to the quick?"  "Sure, sure," I say wondering why we are talking about fingernails.  "Well, I fixed it and it doesn't hurt anymore."  "OK.  But I don't see what you are talking about.  You're nails look fine."  Then to myself "gee you'd think he had a hernia or something bringing up his nail again."  And then the surprise.  "That's because I put a fake nail on it." he says with the same lack of affect as before.  "WHAT?"  I ask for clarity.  "WHERE?"  "Right here."  He says showing me his hand again.  "I CAN'T SEE IT!!!"  I say now with disbelief and increasing inquiry.
  

And there it was on his ring finger.  I still couldn't tell it was fake, just that it was a hair longer than the others.  It looked absolutely congenital, like he was born with Sally Hanson's on!!!  I absolutely guffawed as I imagined how that thing got on his nail without me having ANY part of it!!  I sat there laughing at him as I imagined the shopping involved in the process.  Then I moved on to the skillful sizing and trimming he obviously had done and then to the gluing and the clear coat of paint that was on all of his nails and I laughed some more!  How does he manage to be so understated even as he dabbles in cross dressing????  

OH MY I needed that little surprise.  When I asked how he possibly got a set of fingernails big enough to fit his manly proportions, he just said "It's a thumb, so I have two that fit."   You know.  Just when you think you're aware of what's going on in your house......surprise, surprise. 

And so I've decided to coin the term "Relationally understated" as a descriptive for my husbands type of personality. He has got the quiet physical comedy down and half the time it seems purely accidental. Don't even get me started on the "neighbors slide incident" that story is for another time and place!   

Do you know someone like this? If so please feel free to use this terminology next time you speak of their drama inducing delivery. It is the equal and exact opposite of the way I'm wired and so I find it quite entertaining.  It's clearly an art form. Or maybe it's science.  I still don't know.

A Tale of Two Parties

Eeks!  How is it I remember blogging about something that happened BEFORE I ever had a blog!  Are blogs like cell phones and Diet coke now?  We can't seem to remember how we did things before they came along?  I can almost swear I blogged about Dandy's birthday party last year because it was a crazy day where I gave his party and attended two others plus an entire parade!!!  That was a day etched in my mind and my camera!  I must have emailed my tales to people before blogging because I put those events together somewhere.  I just know it.  

Well, anyway, I'm going to try to push past this and do a little compare/contrast with my birthday boy's 5th and 6th  parties now that I'm actually blogging outside my mind.  I am right?

OK!  So.  Dandy, our little party planner extraordinaire, likes to plan his birthday celebrations well in advance.  We've known all year, for instance, that his number six party would be a "blue" party with an underlying "Thomas the Tank Engine" theme.  Easy enough, we made it so.  

Here we have things like: blue rice krispy treats, blue chips, gummy bears and m&m's in blue, blue dip for the non blue veggies, blue chocolate dipped pretzels(not pictured because I forgot to get them out), blue filling in the non blue tortillas, white cheese and white cheese dip ( I just didn't have the heart to soil the cheese dip after everything else was doused in food coloring.) 

And then we had the Thomas cupcakes, stickers and gifts to round out that portion of the theme.

Yes, he was one happy party host, walking around handing out spoons and stickers with a most hospitable air.  There was no room for blue moods by the time this party started.

We had trains coming and going for engineers young and old to busy themselves with.

And my sweet sister-from-another-mister, Arlynda and her family even came up from Tulsa!  :D  (We have always been twin-like in our looks and sillies.  HI ARLY!)

What I have failed to mention or picture in this happy go lucky post is that while everyone was blueing it up heartily, slowly the children were dropping like flies.  Two kids left early with stomach aches (NOT caused by my colored food-I promise!), and then one of my nephews fessed up to his tummy woes but couldn't bring himself to leave while the leaving was good.  About an hour later.....we saw the party again....all..over.. the..floor.  Yep, after so carefully keeping the fluorescent punch in restricted areas away from the carpet-- hurl happened.  And it wasn't train colored.  

Did I say up there I was going to compare and contrast two parties?  Do YOU have all day to read this blog entry?  Did you check out after the first picture realizing this is just another had-to-be-there post?  That's what I figured.  And I'm supposed to be washing my dogs for Thanksgiving travels!! That is, no doubt, the reason I'm still here. 

Ok, instead of changing the title of this post (which would be the logical choice),I'll just show you what last years party looked like so I can say I included it.  It was quite the Festivus of Verdis if I do say so myself.  Which would you rather eat (or hurl)?  Green or Blue?   

    

As you can see, our adorable Dandy is a colorful chap at any age!  Happy birthday big D!  I'm hearing talk of Red and Orange for next year so we shall see. We shall see. 

Have a great week and Holiday weekend everyone! I may not see you for a while!