Bla Bla Blog

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, what to blog, what to blog? I've had so much going on lately but my brain is a bit melted after all the focus I just put into my workout today. It was a milestone for me; the first time I have ever managed to do an entire hour workout video with the particular youtube trainer I like! I can't think of the last time I sweat that much but I had the windows open and I was a mess! It was fun though and I definitely think I'll do it again. You can click HERE if you are interested in trying it out for yourself.

This last week I suffered from really bad insomnia. Most nights I was going to sleep after 2am and one night I didn't go to sleep until 6am! Thankfully I found a cure and I'm finally drifting off closer to my regular time between midnight and 1am (I'm a night owl anyway). My cure came when Branden decided to stay up late and watch the Seahawks play the 49ers on Sunday night. The game didn't start until 11:30pm our time and by halftime, I was off in lala land, sawing some logs! Most people who know me, know that I loath American football with as much passion as a mongoose has for a cobra! As Branden watched on his laptop in bed, I laid back and pretended it was Thanksgiving, as I was full from some amazing food we ate at our Spanish friends' house earlier, and let the game lull me to sleep. Worked like a charm but I did wake up when it was over to find Branden as uptight as a small dog in a room full of stilettos due to the intense last seconds. He was happy that the Seahawks won though but this means I'll probably be drug along to watch the Superbowl for the first time in about 5 years...oh well, it will be at a pub most likely.

I finally took down our Christmas decorations in the house but now I have to find places for all the new decorations I made. We are seriously running out of space to the point that if you need to look for a pencil in a drawer it will look like a tornado ripped through the room along with you. We can't wait to eventually get out of living our whole lives in one room although these last (almost) 3 years have really taught me to not be a 'stuff' person.

We do have one more birthday video to share from a bit back. It was my bro-in-law's birthday in Dec and he is the biggest football fan I know (sorry Jared, please ignore my comments in the second paragraph) so we tried to come up with a football themed birthday video. This is what we managed:

Well, that's all my brain can muster up at the moment. I think I should go stretch again and spend the next hour on my hands and knees praying that I'll be able to move the rest of this week!

Happy 2014!

I can't believe it's the 6th of January already! Time to get back to writing! Here are some main points of the last few weeks.

• I survived the holidays, ate way too much tasty food, but my waistline seems to have come out of it quite unscathed and possibly even smaller. Wahoo!!
• Our nephews loved their needle felted Angry Birds that I made for them for Christmas and they totally believed that Santa picked them up from our house and dropped them off at their house. (A letter from Santa himself helped)

• I still have my decorations up with a hearty desire to keep them up because they are pretty and I like them. 

• I have finally realized that sugar is absolutely evil as every time I had a holiday meal and ate a significant amount of the wicked white stuff, which has been rarely part of my diet the last few month, it tried to kill me. Kill may be a bit strong but it zapped my energy and made me feel like I had a nasty cold and sore throat for 2 days after. I hate you sugar.
• Roast duck is a fabulous thing, even if it looked like a giant skinned bat.
• My new TV show addiction is My Cat From Hell and I can't get enough of it. I also can't get enough of cat shaming and you can click HERE to see my recent favorite compilation.
• We've had numerous wet and windy storms which would be called a 'hurricane' if we were Georgia and not Ireland.
• Branden and I got fabulous new glasses and we are really pleased with them. His are a dark greenish tortoise shell color and mine are purple and black. 

• I am still behind on all the recent birthday videos we have done so I'll leave you with Hunter's birthday video from November! 

Happy Monday and Happy New Year!

Da Dumb Dumb Dumb Dumb!

I love Christmas. I have been decorating since the beginning of November and listening to Christmas music since October. However, there is one "Christmas" thing (in quotes because I don't consider it to be legit) that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to my festive ears. The Little Drummer Boy.

I hate that little punk with his lame story line, obnoxious lyrics ("pa rum pum pum pum" are not lyrics or drum noises!), and boring melody that sound like children of the Christmas corn chanting. Lately there has been a viral video of an A Capella group singing this festive nightmare of a song, which I refuse to post for fear of inviting a drumming poltergeist to my blog, and I am the least bit impressed...and couldn't even make it to the 1 min mark. They had the same effect as rolling a cat turd in chocolate...or marmite...either way it is still gross and still poop. I suppose if I liked overly auto-tuned 90 music then it would have been palatable but it is still the Little Drummer Boy and he is still an unbiblical nuisance that should just be considered of the devil and burned at the stake.

Due to the multiple shares of this atrocity of a video, I posted this as my facebook status recently:

Dear Little Drummer Boy,
You are still obnoxious, annoying, and do I have to even mention unBiblical!?! Once again you are not invited to any part of my Christmas celebrating no matter how "amazing" some band remade you because in all seriousness, no amount of redoing could ever make you tolerable to my eardrums.

Loathfully,
Maggie 

P.S. I'm pretty sure if you were real you would have made baby Jesus cry and spit up on himself.

This did create a bit of hubub from my friends and family but I suppose the real questions is, "Why on earth do you like this song???". I seriously need to know because I just don't get it. I would understand using a hedgehog for a toothbrush before I could understand the cultish following of this instrumentally challenged kid.

I would just much rather listen to this:

Terrible Saps

Branden is going away for 5 days starting Thursday and I don't expect I'll survive. He has to go to Dublin where he will be attending and speaking at a conference for 3 days, staying the other 2 days for some much needed studying at the library at Trinity. I'm not going with him because I would only see him at night, and with my anxiety, I would just stay in the hotel until Branden came back as going out by myself would freak me out to no end...especially in such a big city. I do have great housemates though and we even got a new girl who is my age! She just moved in over the weekend but she already fits in really well and we all hung out mostly all day on Sunday. My friends are also offering to keep me occupied so maybe I'll pull through.

On Sunday we watched Britain's Got Talent since the new season has started. A dance group from Hungary came on and performed an incredible piece that is based on a true story. They danced to my favorite song from the brilliant Emeli Sande. She is an amazing artist with incredible talent. When the dance ended, Branden and I looked at each other and we were both in tears! We are such saps! It was beautiful though and you can watch it below.

Did you make it through without tearing up? I haven't even watched it a second time because I think I may be worse off than the first time! I hate to leave you on a sad note so here is one of my new favorite videos.

I know a lot of you are pet lovers so I just had to share it with you.

A birthday wish

Warning: This post may make no sense whatsoever to any sane person.

There is something I say that just cracks Branden up and reinforces his knowledge that his wife is odd.

"I want to look like a woman."

This took me a while to explain to him what I meant by it. Ever since I was young, I would look at women on commercials and movies and look forward to the day when I would look like them. No, not their unrealistic images, edited out wrinkles, and perfect everything. I looked forward to no longer looking like a 'girl'. The women I saw on TV didn't look like their high school selves, they had just 'matured' passed that girl look into a woman that didn't look old but also didn't look like a kid. I still look a bit like my high school yearbook photos and I'm not complaining that I may look young, but I want to look like a gown up! A young grown up, but still a grown up!

Branden understands this but he also finds it utterly funny, probably because I do not have anywhere near the body of a girl and I still look young so I shouldn't complain. The other night when we were laying in bed and having one of our odd conversations, I asked him, "When I turn 29 do you think I will finally look like a woman?"

Branden giggled at me, probably because he knew I only had about a week to make the womanly transformation, "Maybe when you are 30..."

"Oh no, I'm not going to be 30 and you should be supportive of making sure I don't turn 30 as it would just be weird for you to be married to a 30 year old."

Strange how he didn't quite agree...

So I figure now that I've got less than a week to find some way to erase any traces of my past teenage looks while still looking young...I may start with the Oreos on my desk that have been staring me down all morning!

Now for something completely different, a hilarious video for you!

Poor bunny...but I still am laughing!

Oopsies!

Tip of the Day:

In your attempt to wake up in the morning, putting your coffee in the cupboard instead of the microwave will not help your cause.


Today I don't have a music video but I have a hilarious type of video that a friend of mine got me hooked on! This was my favorite!

New Year's Eve Update

I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and are planning on a great New Year! I'm sorry I have been away for a while. After my last post, I was given the information that Granny's cancer doubled in size since October, despite 2 nasty chemo treatments. I basically shut down. Also having the 3rd Christmas in a row away from family, I just found it too emotional to write. We did have a wonderful Christmas though and I'm extremely grateful for all the friends who have taken us in over this holiday period. Last week included 4 days of Christmas eating, one just the two of us and the other 3 with friends...I may not be able to eat until Valentine's Day...

Tonight we are taking it easy and will be ringing in the New Year just the two of us. Our house has been empty for over a week, which has been fabulous, and I cleaned our kitchen the day the last housemate left. Now that all of the Christmas dinner cooking is over, I'm planning on tackling the fridge and cleaning the beast today. Our housemate from Botswana was wonderful enough to leave us his key to his room so we could use his big jacuzzi tub, as he's the only room with a tub, and it was fabulous to take a bath for the first time in over a year and a half...you can imagine how smelly we were  ;)

2012 was a good year, and I really don't have anything to complain about. Yes, there are/were some not so fun things going on but there will always be bad and good times, that's just how life goes. I'm just happy that I'm doing just what I know I am supposed to be doing and in the place I'm supposed to be. I do miss my family but after over 2 years of being away from them, it looks like we will be going back to visit in late spring or early summer. And speaking of family, Branden and I made a video for our nephews for Christmas. Since you all like seeing us make fools of ourselves for our precious nephews, here's the video:

And for those of you who would like to hear some real singing and see some real talent, here's a long awaited music video from our friend Noelle back in the States. I shared this song and another music video of hers a long time ago and I'm excited that this music video turned out brilliantly as the song is incredible! Way to go Noelle!

Happy New Year's Eve and I hope to come around and visit all of your blogs soon...after I finish cleaning the house with a toothbrush!

Gangnam style Christmas

Yesterday our church held their carol services, which went really well. I attended the first carol service, which was at noon, and Branden played electric guitar in the band leading the carols. There were the usual adorable little kids singing on stage and there were also some of the younger girls who did a great dance as well. The youth put together a video to be played and it just so happened to be a dance to Gangnam Style! Even with this song being a massive global success, I wondered if we happened to be the only church who managed to have it in their carol service this year! This is the video!



Today I am hoping to make sugar cookies. I spent a good deal of time on Saturday trying to hunt down Christmas cookie cutters, which is no easy feat for someone with social anxiety to do by themselves, and finally found them after popping in to multiple other stores.

The volunteer group that I'm involved with on Saturday nights was featured in an Irish Christian magazine which you can see by clicking HERE. I was able to zoom in and read the article, which gives more of an idea of what we do, and also has some photos. It was a great article, despite the fact that my face looks massive in the top photo for some reason. I was out two Saturdays ago and it was a great, but crazy night. I absolutely love what we do and even though my knees are completely shot the next day from being out in the cold until 4am, I can't wait to go out and do it again the next month (we are on a rotation so I go out every 3-4 weeks). If you have any questions about it, or are curious as to other things that we do, feel free to email me at paddedcellconfessions@live.com and I would be more than happy to speak more openly about things. We have 'official spokespeople' for public statements, but I am free to speak privately (while upholding the confidentiality of those people I have helped) to anyone about my experience.

Branden has a Latin exam today and we realized that this should be his last exam EVER! ...even though this class technically is not linked to how he is 'graded' on his PhD and it's basically a free course he can take as an aide to his studies... (and it is just pass or fail) But still, it will be great for him to be totally done with exams, although having to write a PhD isn't easier in the slightest!

One last thing in my ramble of a post, I thought I had shared this photo but I find it anywhere...although I've always been bad at looking for things! This was a banner that I bought in a Pound Store (British version of the Dollar Store) and after struggling to hang it high above the counter in the fireworks store that we worked at in Scotland, the men came in and pointed out a terrible detail that I hadn't paid attention to in my struggle to just hang the darn thing!

It wouldn't have been an easy fix either, so it stayed that way!

Dumb Ways to Die

Thanksgiving is done and dusted but I already decorated our room for Christmas two weeks ago so bring on the festivities! Branden and I have been enjoying our first minced pies of the season as well as some yummy mulled wine. We also had some leftover sweet potato casserole, which didn't turn out as well as last year's, but I mashed it all up and mixed it with some light cream cheese to make it taste like sweet potato cheesecake. Then I took some little glass ramekins, filled them about 3/4 up with the warmed up mixture then topped it with little marshmallows (I actually cut big ones in half) and popped them under the grill until the marshmallows were nice and golden. It was so tasty and incredibly easy!

My friend Jo cooked most of the Thanksgiving feast and her pecan pie was out of this world amazing! Jo also was the one to share this video with me that I am sharing with all of you for my Music Monday. It was made by the Melbourne Metro and is hysterically brilliant. This may just be my new favorite comedy song as I've always have a bit of a dark side to my humor.



Their website for this song is really funny and you can check it out by clicking HERE

I have been terrible at getting around to everyone lately which is a combo of being busy and also my blog feed randomly omitting some blogs and bloggers even though I follow them and haven't changed any settings...irg! Branden seems to be getting sick as well so I'll be busy trying to get him better as soon as possible since he has another chapter of his PhD due in a couple of weeks (and a chapter is around 20,000 words). Hopefully I don't get it as then I will be even more behind than I already am! Oh well, at least both of us had chicken pox as kids or else we would have to worry about that since one of our housemates recently broke out in it.

Happy Monday everyone!

Circus Cats

Last week is done and dusted and I survived! It was a good week but there were a lot of things going on, I was an emotional wreck, and I had to wake up before 10am almost every day!!! Don't worry, I'm making up for it, starting with this morning when I woke up at 11:40am.

My head is still a bit thrashed so it may take me a bit to get my writing groove back so I'm just going to throw a video at you and hope it keeps you entertained for a while (see, I have mothering instincts!). When I saw this video, I dubbed it "The most patient animal trainers in the world!" and I think you will agree!

International Feast and a Bizarre Birthday Video

My cold is technically gone but it has left me with some nasty left overs that just seem to cling around and refuse to go away. Yesterday our church has its annual International Feast, which is a massive highlight and this year it was huge! There were over 70 dishes from over 20 countries. I made the same thing that I made last year, chocolate peanut butter balls.

It may sound normal, but peanut butter isn't a huge thing over here and all of the Spanish housemates we've ever had have thought the smell and idea of peanut butter was just nasty beyond belief. One of our pastors (who's Irish) even mentioned that the idea of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich was just weird to him. I used to eat them every day after kindergarden and Branden still likes them. We estimated that I made over 80 peanut butter balls and they were all gone before the feast was over, so maybe I converted some people. There were some other amazing dishes as well. As I stayed at the American table with my dish, Branden loaded a plate with little bits of stuff and then brought it back for both of us to try. He did this 3 times and we still probably only tasted 1/3 of the dishes!

Our wonderful and tasty event even landed us in the paper which you can see HERE

Branden and I have a busy week ahead of us but I will be posting more weird and wonderful search engine hits, sharing our bizarre birthday videos we send to family, and a favorite recipe we like to make for lazy breakfasts.

To kick off the bizarre birthday videos, here is the recent video we made for my sis's birthday earlier this month. The inspiration for this craziness is from my sis's recognition from the Facebook group Muscle Mom. She's not a body builder or anything like that, but she has ran more half marathons than I can count, and keeps herself toned and fit...which should be helpful when chasing around my two nephews! So here's the video; we didn't practice or write out a script (which should be pretty obvious) and this is our only take.

If you are totally jealous of my 'sock hard' six pack abs, I'm not telling you my secret   ;)

Happy Days

There is a lot going on and thankfully most if it is good! Two older kittens have been showing up on random evenings on our back garden wall. Since I am basically a Crazy Cat-less Lady and keep cat food in my room, I have put some out on the wall for them. They aren't as skittish as their parents so with time, I may get to pet them!!!

You have no idea the amount of restraint it takes for me to not search on Ebay for a blow gun that shoots sedatives so I can speed up the process...

Our youngest nephew turned 2 on the weekend and we got to see him on Skype and watch him open some gifts. We also made him a birthday video of us singing The Wheels on the Bus using toy animals we have which he apparently loved but cried when my sis said he couldn't keep watching it over and over again.

Yesterday there were window washers at the big University building across the street. We were eating brunch in the living room and had this odd view:

The long yellow poles were wiggling back and forth as they cleaned and I said to Branden that it looked a bit like anorexic giraffes attacking the building! The sad thing was that all of the hours that the window cleaners spent cleaning all those windows, were done in the rain.

Thursday is Arthur's Day (the day that celebrates Arthur Guinness) and normally I wouldn't be fussed about it...BUT, any of THESE bands could potentially be playing free gigs at 2 pubs in town!!! These bands are making surprise visits to specific pubs in Belfast, Dublin, and Cork and the locations will be filmed and televised throughout the night. My top 3 from that list would be Mumford and Sons, Mika, and Ellie Goulding. I've been to a Mika concert in Edinburgh and it was the most fun and entertaining concert I have ever been to! Branden and I are going out to meet up with some friends early in the evening on Thursday, for a totally different reason than Arthur's Day, but hopefully we can maybe catch one of these bands after. Although, I bet it will be packed and we possibly won't be able to get even near the pub with all the people who will be flocking.

Autumn is in full swing now, which I think means we have passed giant, nasty spiders season (and without any more incidents!), and I am actually looking forward to how Cork looks in the Autumn. I saw this photo that we took in the park by our house last Autumn.

Spring is my favorite season but Autumn in Ireland is stunning. I think I need to go buy some hot chocolate mix!

One hilarious reason why I could never watch Magic Mike

Laughter really can be the best medicine and the video I have for my Music Monday had me in tears from laughing so hard. Lets say you are looking to video chat a random good looking woman creeper, creeper, creeper, please don't tell me if you are that desperate and you discover that the scantily clad dressed body you are ogling has a happy trail and beard...thus why I was laughing myself to tears!

Thank goodness it's not "Survival of the Sanest"

Happy Monday! Maybe not happy for all of you who must work, but happy for me when I was brought a late breakfast in bed made up of eggs, bacon, toast, and coffee. The humidity is finally lower (in the 70% range) and paired with lower temperatures, in the high 50's F, I am one happy camper. I am still surviving Giant Spider Season with no new encounters to report (Wahoo!). And to answer Bodacious Boomer's question of how large these spider are, they are about the span of your palm with bodies about the size of wine corks. I know spiders definitely come bigger, but considering that I had never seen them that size in WA State where I grew up, I never thought I'd find them bigger here in Ireland...where I will be living for the rest of my life...with these giant nasties. I have actually been thinking about the future and possibly planning trips to Iceland around this time of the year, or maybe Greenland where it's colder and the spiders are sure to be smaller. Even though it's been better this year, I don't know if my nerves can handle this yearly terror as I begin panicking months in advance to this season.

Most of you know that I had been gearing up and training for a new volunteer project but as of yet, I have not spoke of it or how it's been going. (click the link if you don't know or remember what it was) There is a reason behind all this as I am held to confidentiality with the people I help, and also since we are with a large organization there are publicity restrictions as to me even publishing anything about my experience. I understand the reasons why and am fine with it, but for those of you wondering why I'm not talking about my volunteering, then that is why. The Monday night homeless run that I was involved with is currently on hold due to all of the members involved in the new thing, and we aren't sure it will come back. We do run into a number of our homeless people during the new thing so that is good as we keep up a relationship with them but we don't carry food on us. The new thing is going well and I've had some great moments and been able to help a lot of people. Our hours on the street are from 10pm-4am on Saturday night so my sleeping patterns have changed a bit and I'm also not around the Blogland as much because I think my mind is still new to processing all of the experiences and things we encounter. The great thing about this volunteer project is that it really has been keeping me sane through my latest depression as it's something I look forward to and feel comfortable and 'at home' doing. Plus, I love the other team members I work with and they are great fun and good banter.

I'm not sure how much of my latest depression has been "seasonal", as I did have a lot of other things piling up around me and stressing me out. They all sort of came to a head a couple of weeks ago, which put me into a bit of a mental meltdown, but I've been taking myself away from things and calming my nerves which has been helping. That, and I recently got off my allergy pill which gave me a 3 day long headache and caused me to look up if others had problems with it. I was shocked to find numerous reports of people having mood swings, heightened depression and anxiety, and bad reactions from trying to come off of it after long periods of consistent use. My personality has completely changed for the better since I've been off, which is really nice for Branden as I had a tendency to become homicidal if he did the slightest slip up (like 2 weeks ago when I was ready to strangle him for not allowing the bananas to defrost an extra 10 minutes, meaning he just had to blitz them a couple of minutes longer to get the consistency we needed, and then I felt so bad for feeling such rage over such a stupid thing that I went and cried in the bathroom for an hour). I did feel like I was losing my mind and had no control over my emotions, so this week has been such a change and I feel more like myself...and Branden's happy that I'm back to my normal self of constantly trying to snuggle up to him anytime he gets within a 10ft radius of me...except when he's trying to study. Thankfully he's a cuddle bug as well so it's been a good week  ;)

Ok, done with the serious and now for some funny and adorableness! I laughed so hard over this video and just had to share it for Music Monday! I can't stand this song but put a dog scratching his butt along to it, and I'll gladly listen!

Just a happy little road trip

Branden would be the first to tell you that I have no concept of time. This means I was a bit shocked when it dawned on me that we are leaving tomorrow for a research trip. Over the next 3 days and 2 nights, we will be hitting up over 15 sites, including cathedrals and abbeys, where Branden will be looking at various stone carvings and decorated tombs.

On our first day we will be making 6 stops on our way up to Kilkenny. Kilkenny is a lovely little town that we visited once, back on our 1 year anniversary trip that we took while we were living in Scotland. The next day we will continue to head up to Dublin, stopping more along the way as we view various sites that are part of Branden's studies. When we get to Dublin, we will actually take a break from research and we are going to The Phantom of the Opera! It's London's West End show that is over for 4 weeks, and we are just catching it before it leaves. I'm so excited, as I have always wanted to see Phantom on the stage since I was a kid!

Our third day, we will be spending a little bit of time in Dublin before heading back to Cork and stopping at the amazing location of The Rock of Cashel, a large cathedral that the Queen of England visited when she came last year. We have never been to it before so we are quite excited to see this incredible and huge site.

Branden will be driving, as my license expired back when we were still in Scotland, but that's a good thing as the roads here terrify me to no end and Branden has no sense of direction, so my natural navigation skills will be greatly needed! Despite sitting in a passenger seat for 3 days, I will be getting quite the work out, as I discovered when the first time Branden ever drove in this country my thighs and glutes became very sore from tensing so much around the endless blind corners and tight village roads. It doesn't help that Branden thinks driving here is fun.

To take my mind off the stresses of plowing head-first into cow or tractor preparing for the trip, here's a song Branden saw on facebook from one of his friends. What better to calm the nerves than a good dose of Bob Ross and that sweet afro!



P.S. You most likely won't see me much at all this week but I'll be back next week.

I'm so trendy, I make Lady GaGa jealous!

Are you tired of having flat, boring hair? Would you like to do something fun, cute, and Lady GaGa-ish that doesn't include raw meat or looking like a melting hood ornament? Just follow my quick easy steps for an adorable hair bow!

Brush your hair out and take two sections from each side. (wouldn't I make a cute Papillon?)

Bring the sections together into a hair band but make a small loop, not pulling your hair all the way through the band.

Divide the loop into two loops.

You can see the bow starting already! See, this seems is so easy! Put the two loops against your head.

Pin each side down with a bobbie pin to hold the cute loops of the bow in place.

Now in order to cover the hair band in the center, take a strand from your little pony tail and loop it up around between the two bow sides, and pull it tight to create a perfect little center of the bow.

Pin the center of the bow to make sure it doesn't slip.

You did it! You just know you look fabulous!

And *Poof*! Isn't that the cutest little hair bow ever!?! And SO easy!

Even from the side, it just looks amazing!

I can't even say that this was my first attempt at this 'easy' hair bow...I tried for an hour the day before! In all actuality, this was the one that looked the best! If you are curious as to where I got this hair-brained idea, you can click HERE to see her deceivingly simple photo steps. I saw her tutorial on Pinterest and I've been cursing it ever since giving it a try.

Special thanks to my super tall husband who took the photos and laughed at me along the way.

Library Pile

I am the type of reader that gets sucked into a book and doesn't come out until hours later, usually to eat or pee, and then gets back into where I left off. Last year, when we first moved here, we hardly knew anyone and my anxiety was flipping out over me dragging it into yet another new country so I didn't leave the house often which made it perfect for me to get into reading again. One of my wonderful cousins gave us a Kindle before we moved to Ireland so that also was a spur.

The past few months have not been in my favor for reading. This isn't necessarily a bad thing as Branden has been using the Kindle a lot for articles he needs for his research, and I have been busy with friends and new volunteer projects. I have quite the line up of books to read though, and now that life has been kicking off over here for me I want to share some that are in my stack. And since it's also Music Monday, I have a link for a free CD that you can download.

Melynda, the fabulous and amazing over at Crazy World, has been popping out a series of books over the last few months. Currently there is Just Nonsense and More Nonsense but there will be two more books for your reading enjoyment over the next few months! If you love a good laugh, then these will be a perfect book series for you!

Elisa, the marvellous and wonderful over at The Crazy Life of a Writing Mom, seems to be publishing a book every time I blink! I read her first book The Golden Sky and it was fantasic! Since then, she has also published The Sword of Senack, Bible Girl & The Bad Boy, How to Lose a Tooth, and The Best of ECWrites. You can obviously see why my library is so backed up!

And now, for your musical pleasure, I give you Abby Mae & the Homeschool Boys. Most of the members are good friends of Branden and he even used to be in a small band with some of them called The Jammin Salmon. Sadly, Abby Mae & the Homeschool Boys are having their final concert soon, and we won't get to go back to the States and hear them play again...so sad! Their concerts were always fun and their music is incredible. You can download a live CD for free by going HERE and you can buy their newest CD by going HERE. You can even preview the songs, which I highly suggest that you do for their new CD. Track 7, Drunken Drowsy King Joey (a twist on the original song Drowsy Maggie) is amazing and I'm pretty sure they were actually trying to kill Joey by seeing how fast he could play on that fiddle!

So happy Monday everyone! Enjoy your reading and enjoy your music!

Reason #537 why we won't be moving back to America

Tip of the Day: When moving permanently away from your home country*, be sure to look up videos of your country's "village idiots" to help combat homesickness.

*if your home country happens to be America then this will be easier than exciting a labrador.



Bonus Tip: Miley Cyrus will repel anything!

An "Average" Wife...

The amazing, wonderful Michele AKA BodaciousBoomer posted a marital test for husbands and wives that was published back in 1939. I took it and only scored a 7 which was bad because apparently you needed over 70some points to be "Very Superior". I could only see that there were 25 points possible so when I shared this on Facebook, my friends pointed out that it was actually a longer test and it gave the husband's side!

You can take the test over at BobaciousBoomer's site by clicking HERE and you also should make sure that you are following her blog, if you don't already, because she is hysterical and fabulous! She is an amazing artist, which I find it a bit ironic that my mom-in-law is an amazing artist as well and spells her name the same way "Michele" does with one "l". (TOP TIP: if you want an incredibly artistic child, name her Michele with one "l"). You can see some of Boomer's stuff and get updates on her items for purchase by simply liking her Facebook page: Ecofab Gifts

So back to the test. Branden and I took it and we had a laugh filling out the questions for each other! Branden had a whopping 109 merits and only 14 demerits so he got a grand total of 95! Well above the "Very Superior" range! And myself??? Ummm, well, I did get 84 merits....but I also got 30 demerits so I only ended up with a lousy 54 points! That puts me in the "Average" range. Some of the questions were hilarious though and Branden did say that I lost out on a lot of points since we dont't have kids...plus I would think that I am far from "Average"!

So how well did you do and do you have any favorite questions? You can leave your responses either here or just over at BodaciousBoomer's because I'm there all the time and love reading her comments!

I've found my new career path!

Greetings from the Emerald Isle! I have been quite busy the last two days, including taking full advantage of the Irish summer that came yesterday. Now that summer is done and over with, I can get back to typing! A note from my last blog: I haven't responded to everyone who comment but I did get the common question of "what do you do with cow's blood and cow's bile?". Blood, I know, bile, I have no clue. You can make black pudding with the blood, otherwise known as blood pudding or blood sausage. I have only tried this once (because it is fairly common over here) and it's not my favorite. Bile, I have absolutely no clue and I don't know if I want to know.

Now, I have to share a little funny conversation that Branden and I had before bed the other night. A lot of times we look at Pinterest to wind down. (brief fuzzy brain note: I just now realized that wind: to wind something up, and wind: or breeze, are spelled the same. Of course I always 'knew' this but I only woke up two hours ago so my brain almost exploded at the obvious realization of this). Anyway, we were looking through Pinterest the other night and we came across a photo of the largest swimming pool in the world. For those of you who don't know about it, it covers 20 acres and gets as deep as 115ft. Here's our conversation:

Branden: "Isn't that pool in Brazil?"
Me: "No, it's in Argentina." (I was wrong! It's in Chile.)
Branden: "Oh ok."  *pause as I'm now looking at other pins* "You know that's where they are going to film Titanic 2 don't you?"
Me: *slight mumble of acknowledgement that he spoke* "Ok" *more pausing as I keep looking at other stuff* "...Wait, wait, wait, there is no Titanic 2, they sunk the first one!"
Branden: *Laughing because he managed to totally get me!*
Me: "And why in the world would you even have another Titanic in South America???"
*We both laughed for quite a while

And now for the rest of your Friday enjoyment, I have some more ridiculous search engine hits!

All the llamas is ours - I didn't laugh when I first saw this, I cringed! I'm really hoping that the next website this person found was a grammar site!

Bad day waxing story - Is this not a given? I don't believe you could possibly have a "good day waxing story"!

Crazy cat lady job - PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A REAL JOB!!!! I'LL TAKE IT!!!

Leggings problem - If you are having a problem with your leggings then you most definitely came to the right place. GET RID OF YOUR HEINOUS LEGGINGS! There, problem solved!

Planet splitter ape - Um what? All I can imagine is a world where apes work as lumberjacks and wield giant axes. I don't know if they would like wearing flannel shirts though....

Pocahontas dog costume - For your dog's sake, go call an animal cruelty hotline now and turn yourself in!

Hamster horse centaur - Now there is a mystical creature that I would like to see! Nothing strikes fear into the hearts of people quite like a huge, muscular horse body with a teeny, tiny, fluffy hamster head! But on a more practical note, how would it eat?

Dog fart myself awake - Just blame it on your human and go back to sleep.