www.mypaddedcell.com

As you may have discerned from the title, I have a .com! One of our friends (the one who gave me the video from the last blog and who is also coming to visit next month!) surprised me with this a couple of days ago! I was in such amazement then it took a good hour for my jaw to come up off the floor! So you can now find me by simply looking up:

www.mypaddedcell.com

Sterling, you are the man!

On another note, I was lamenting to Branden before bed last week that I'm not looking forward to turning 29 next month. Granted it's the last age I will ever turn, just like Branden's mom and her dad (it runs in the family), but I'm still not settled with the idea of it. In Branden's effort to comfort me, he came out with, "You'll still be young, you're still only a quarter of the way through your life!"

"I don't want to live to be 116!" I wailed. We both started laughing and I told Branden he should never do math before bed!

Now the last week or so I have told some stories about my parents. Today I will give you a bit about Branden's parents. Back in the day both of his parents were models...which is why my husband is ridiculously good looking. The first time they met was on a photo shoot and it just so happened to be a photo shoot for a bridal shop! Branden's mom was the bride and his dad was the groom. They introduced his mom to his dad with, "This is the man you are going to marry". How right they were! To this day they celebrate two wedding anniversaries, the photo shoot wedding when they met and their actual wedding anniversary. They've been married over 25 years and they still get mistaken for newly-weds all the time!

My dad-in-law owns his own business and my mom-in-law posted on her facebook wall a while back (and I'm having to do this by memory since I can't find it now) "The best thing about working for my husband is all the sexual harassment from the boss!" Thankfully Branden grew up with them being like this so he thought it was just as funny as I did...which is great because our poor kids are going to have to have to get used to having frisky parents as well!

My wonderful in-laws on Valentines Day! And yes, my mom-in-law still gets carded when she buys wine!

Fun in the mid 90's

I have no idea where last week went! I checked under the couch, my bed, and even in some cute animal videos on youtube, but all I found were a few stale popcorn  bits, some lone socks, and the utter bliss a cat loaded up on catnip and then taunted by a laser pointer can bring. If any of you happen to find last week, please let me know as I'd like to know what I did last Tuesday...if I can't remember then it must have been good!

After last week's reminiscing about reading with my mom (or as I call her "Ma" in a grating New York accent for reasons I have no idea why) my dad reminded me about one of our special memories. My dad was a Pepsi nut. He used to keep a can next to his bed so he could crack one open when he woke up in the morning. So when Pepsi came out with Pepsi Points back in the mid 90's, dad was excited. We collected Pepsi points like a single woman in her 70s collected cats and those creepy snow baby figurines. There were lots of different things you could buy with your points, and we got at least 2 of everything...including the Fila bike (which was 1700 points).

So how on earth did we manage to get so many points you ask? Dad's Pepsi 'addiction' helped a bit, but dad and I would also go 'hunting' for points. On the weekends we would drive around in his truck, scouring the ditches for Pepsi bottles. Since I was on the passenger side, the side of the ditch, I would usually spot them, yell, "Pepsi Point!", and then wait for dad to slow down enough for me not to break my legs when I jumped out. I'd throw the bottle in the bed of the pickup and we'd carry on down the road! Sometimes the bottles were filled with 'mysterious' yellow liquid so I had to grab carefully, but we had loads of fun driving all over, listening to Classic Rock on the radio, and searching for those coveted points.

Ok, so that may not have been the only way we collected points. I did grow up in a very small town after all, so road scouring couldn't have produced all the points we needed to get all the stuff we did. Dad made friends with the guys at the dump! With the dump's permission, they let us sift through the plastic bottle bin and cardboard bin. Dad put a long hook-like thing on the end of a long pole so we could fish out the Pepsi bottles and then we used a pocket knife to cut the label off and get the points. For the cardboard bin, Dad hoisted me inside and I sorted through the flattened boxes, cutting off any points I found. As a kid, it was a blast! Ok, I'd probably still have fun...but I'd just wear latex gloves.

Dad and I had a lot of fun. I was his hunting and fishing partner anyway, so this was just a way for us to go hunting on the off season! When I was back in the States and driving with my dad, whenever we'd see someone pulled onto the side of the road, we both say, "Pepsi Point!" and laugh.  Dad may not have a Pepsi 'addiction' anymore, but we have great memories from our Pepsi days.

Now for something completely different. A friend posted this video on his facebook page and it was too amazing not to share! These kids are incredible and beyond talented! I love this song anyway but this just made it even better. I hope you all enjoy it as much as Branden and I did.

Holy Nerd Math Batman!

Elle over at The Erratic Project Junkie actually used math and physics to come up with an answer to my guinea pig pulling cart conundrum! Please go check it out and then take 2 aspirin because your head will hurt with math pain. Oh and don't tell Branden...he might think his guess was justified (I still have my doubts!).

The Quilt

When I was a kid, my mom and I liked to read Nancy Drew together. I'd crawl into dad's side of the bed, he was usually playing around in his garage or watching a movie, and we'd take turns reading chapters. On my mom's turn, I would listen along while I 'quilted'. Mom gave me leftover scraps of fabric which I kept in a bag, and when we read, I would sift through my bag and look for my next quilt square. I was just a kid and really had no idea what I was doing, so my squares were just cut out with regular scissors and hand stitched together. The squares weren't even very square or even the same size so my 'quilt' looked a bit wonky. Over a bit of time, I had a small, long rectangle that looked like a table runner made by a cat.

Eventually our reading time dwindled away and my bag of fabric and 'quilt' went into my closet where it lay hidden away with other childhood bits and bobs. One May, in my teen years, I came up with something very special. I pulled out my old fabric bag and stitched and stuffed my homely little quilt into a pillow. I'll never forget how much it meant to mom when she unwrapped it for Mother's Day. She used to sleep with it and I think she had to stop as it began to fall apart. Hopefully I can stitch it back together for her sometime and maybe we can read Nancy Drew again.

I can't wait to see my mom when we go back to Washington in June for three weeks this year.

I get a lot of my humor from my mom and this photo was one of our random outbursts of oddness. We had a kitchen duel! It's not my mom's birthday or anything, I just am blessed that our parents have pulled their money to buy us tickets to go back to America and am thinking about all the family that I won't have seen in over two years.

35 Things

I nicked this from Epic Fail's blog so if anyone else wants to take it, feel free to!


1. WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?

My Granny, although she is a Margaret and I'm not. I'm just a Maggie :)

2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
A few weeks ago when I found out my wonderful childhood friend's dad had passed away. He was a great man and will be hugely missed.

3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
No, I'm a lefty and in typical lefty fashion, have terrible handwriting.

4. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Italian salami, grilled in the oven on toast with sliced tomato, capers, and a strong cheese then topped with rocket (US translation: arugula) when it comes out.

5. DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
I wish people would stop asking me this as it's really starting to bug me that other people seem to have a problem with my husband and I liking our time together and say we are 'selfish' to not want them yet. I married him, not my future children!

6. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Sure but I don't think we would be allowed to hang out since it would be too much sarcasm and banter for one room.

7. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT?
It's the only language I'm fluent in.

8. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
Yes, and they are gross and I sometimes wish they were gone but they have been 'nice' to me so I have no reason to evict them.

9. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
Not a chance in the world.

10. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
I have an odd relationship with cereal. We have a very "on again, off again" relationship. At the moment we are on a break and this is just due to me being weird and only able to eat a cereal for about a week before I'm sick of it. When I was a kid my favorite was Rice Crispy Treats cereal, which was just a bowl full of crispy sugar basically.

11. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
I only wear one pair of shoes and I have to untie them because they are hardcore walking shoes that I have to lace up to my ankles so just slipping them off isn't possible. If you would have asked me this questions 4 years ago, I would have asked you what untying your shoes meant as I only wore high heels...oh the joys of not having a car and having to walk over a mile to get everywhere...(although now I don't complain as it's great health wise!)

12. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG?
Parts of me are strong but isn't that how we all are? I don't think anyone is strong in every way. It took me about a year and a half to go to the grocery store by myself here so I would not consider myself strong in that aspect, but on the flip side, I am able to live halfway across the world from my family to be with the man I love, so I know I am strong that way. He does kind of make it easy to be strong that way though ;)

13. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
Coconut or cookie dough, as long as the cookie dough is in vanilla and not chocolate ice cream, as chocolate ice cream is the only flavor I don't really like...and the only form of chocolate I don't really like actually.

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
If they have noticed me or not. I like to lay low in groups of people I don't know or in public, so I observe people to make sure they haven't observed me. Standing out in a crowd would be mortifying to me, even if it was for a good reason.

15. RED OR PINK?
Red as I'm not a massive pink person. Plus Branden likes me in red.

16. WHAT IS THE LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
Funny you should ask as this has changed recently. Since high school, I have had major issues with my body, nose, hair, whatever. Throw in some not so great past relationships that vocally emphasized their dislikes as well, and it had created a mind that wouldn't even really believe my own husband when he said he liked everything the way it was. The voices that would contradict his praises have recently stopped and I actually like all of me now! It is a breakthrough and even though I'm not a small sized girl, or 'skinny', I actually really like every part of my body! I have been dropping inches (and thus probably losing weight but I don't own a scale) which is fine but I also don't want to lose what I have and love now. So as to the question, even with my personality quirks, anxiety, depression included, I don't think I have a least favorite thing. I like me.

17. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
It's been almost 2 years since I've seen family so I am missing all of them. If I had to choose though, I would have to say our nephews. Of course our parents miss us and we miss them, but they expect us to go away and build our own life for ourselves. Our nephews are at the start of life, learning all sorts of new fun things, and it's hard to miss a lot of it. Without skype it would be extremely difficult. We make our videos for them to give them something they can have all of their lives so they can remember how much we love them and miss them. We can't play with them and be with them in person so we try to achieve that in the videos and when we are on skype with them.

18. WHAT IS THE TECHNIQUE THAT YOU NEED TO WORK ON THE MOST?
My knife and fork cutting technique is actually really sad. I'm a lefty and I grew up in a righty house. It's hard to learn from people who use a different hand for everything so my cutting skills are weird and I often switch my cutlery between both hands all the time. It's particularly bad with steak, and if we are at home Branden often cuts it for me.

19. WHAT COLOR SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
Flesh colored...I'm barefoot.

20. WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU ATE?
A Cadbury chocolate chip brunch bar as that is my breakfast now in replacement of cereal. Only 155 calories and I get to have chocolate for breakfast every morning while still losing inches.

21. WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Branden's playing on his Ukelele. We bought it while on our honeymoon and it was the first instrument we brought with us when we first moved to Scotland after our wedding. I love that thing.

22. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Cornflower blue. It has always been my favorite crayon color even though my favorite general color is green.

23. FAVORITE SMELLS?
Lilacs, Branden's hair, Christmas, and bakeries

24. HOW IMPORTANT ARE YOUR POLITICAL VIEWS TO YOU?
I suppose important, but I don't consider myself to be very political in the first place. I've lived in 3 very different countries so my thoughts on US politics have changed a lot since looking at it from different eyes and a couple of different perspectives. I think this has taught me ultimately that it's ok to not be so set politically as I grow and change because my views need to grow and change with me.

25. MOUNTAIN HIDEAWAY OR BEACH HOUSE?
This is a tough one as I have issues with both. A mountain hideaway makes me think "spiders!" where as a beach house makes me think of how crazy I go having the ocean waves making non-stop noise and I just want to finally shout at the tide "Shut UP!" so I can have a moment of quiet in my head. I'm going to make up my own choice then and say a house on a nice hill up from the beach, enough to have a great sea view but without the constant noise. Don't get me wrong, I like the sound of the tide, but only for so long.

26. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Formula 1, rally car racing, and motocross.

27. HAIR COLOR?
I've heard it called anything from "mousey brown" to "dirty blonde". You can take your pick. I don't dye it either (obviously)

28. EYE COLOR?
light blue

29. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Sometimes

See: Hair color, eye color, and contacts.

30. FAVORITE FOOD?
Cheese and chocolate. Especially when you wash both down with wine.

31. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy Endings! I hate scary movies and don't even do well with basic suspense movies.


32.. SUMMER OR WINTER?
In what country?? They are practically the same in Ireland! I'd go with summer as it was my favorite back in the States.

33. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
"God Calling" by 2 anonymous women written ages ago. A dear friend of mine in my church and volunteer group gave it to me as I've been going through all the struggles with my Granny's cancer and being far away. It's a great little book of daily 'devotions' which are basically like little notes from God to help you through difficult times. I like it because it doesn't try to say you can't be depressed or struggling emotionally, it just meets you where you are, just like God does with me all the time.

34. FAVORITE GENRE OF MUSIC?
Emo Rock...not to be confused with "Elmo Rock" as that would be ridiculous.

35. WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
Technically Amsterdam, but that was only layovers in the airport, so Inverness, Scotland would be the furthest of places traveled to if we consider where I grew up in the States as "home".