That time when I was offered a mustache ride.

So this past weekend was a super fun weekend out with friends for their birthdays. I kind of get excited when my friends have birthdays because it's an excuse to go out AND I get to buy presents.

Three couples were all going to meet on Saturday at the Shout House in Minneapolis for dinner, drinks, and shenanigans. Obviously all three were had. It was supposed to be Matt and I, with Tammy and Chad (who we shared a hotel room with) and then we were all going to meet Emily and Cory. Good stuff. So on Thursday I was at work and our work study Amber pointed out that St. Louis Park (suburb of Minneapolis and subsequently where our hotel was) was pretty much ghetto. She then texted me a crime map that had a disturbing amount of dots. Fortunately for us, it ended up being in a really nice neighborhood near some pretty cool stuff and the hotel was nice.

Oh except for the fact the hallways smelled like the inside of a dumpster. But other than that, it was totally fine.

So here's a tip- if you are going to go to the Shout House I recommend that you get a reservation and then get there before 5. Because we were there around 4:15 and yeah- line already.

 I also recommend that you not even bother with food. It's typical bar food but your waitress isn't going to be very good and it'll take you almost 30 minutes to get your Coke. Not to mention the hour to get your chips and salsa. And then bring you your burger with no ketchup. And then not come back. And then, on top of it all, get everyone's bill wrong. BUT, the plus side is you'll walk out not paying for your husband's beers.

 But the best part, besides hanging out with some of my favorite people and singing along with the pianists and being some of the youngest people there, is that you will see pregnant people drinking beer!

Now some of you might be like, "Oh Sara- she clearly had a sandwich, that's why her belly is like that." And then I will say no, because when she turned a little more, clearly a 3-4 month old belly. I told Tammy I should start carrying around pamphlets on fetal alcohol syndrome or something.

Oh and then there was that awkward moment when a super huge guy with a porn mustache came over, in front of Matt, to tell me that he thinks I'm really hot and him and his friend Ben want to meet me. Of course, the rest of the people at the table crack up because hello- this not only happens all of the time, but this time Matt was RIGHT THERE. So I say that I didn't think my husband would appreciate if I did that, and he proceeds to tell me I'm really pretty, then says he's going to shake my husband's hand. So he does, and I'm standing there like, what the fuck, and he apparently tells Matt he's a really lucky guy and he should keep an eye out. Matt of course says nothing because he's deadpan on everything all of the time, and my friends crack up and keep teasing me about maybe taking a ride on the mustache. Because his friend also had a porno face thing going on and it wasn't working for either of them. But at least I can say I'm consistent when it comes to attracting the best the crowd has to offer.

The First Annual Ugly Sweater Christmas Party.

I have always wanted to do an ugly sweater party but every year something else has come up and it just didn't happen. This year when Amy told me she wanted to do one too, I decided that dammit- we are doing this. It started out as a moderately sized group was all invited and pretty much all at the last minute, some people had to work, some were sick (which totally OK- I do not want nor need your sick germs, folks), some had last minute things that came up, etc. We ended up having a total group size of six for dinner that dwindled to five for the bar stop.

The original plan was to go to dinner, go over to an ice bar that was just built in Canal Park, head over to Bentleyville which is this huge tour of lights that used to be in this guy's yard but has now moved to Bayfront Festival Park, and then head out to a few bars.

Dinner was at Old Chicago, which I love but don't get to go to very often. Hands down the best was when we realized that Chad and Matt were wearing the same ugly ass Christmas shirt. Unintentionally. I wish I would have had enough sense to take a picture of it, because it was kind of awesome.

After dinner, we headed over to Bentleyville because it was kind of cold and we had a feeling we'd be in line for a LONG time for Santa. Oh, you heard me right- we were going to visit Santa.

 After almost two hours of standing in really fucking cold weather, we saw Santa. We got some dirty looks at the restaurant, but Santa laughed at us. Flat out laughed at us. Whatevs. But we got a great picture. Some special things you should note- is that my sister in law has a festive green for her hair color but the best part of her outfit? The fact that she shrunk her sweater so it was cropped. Matt and Chad with their matching shirts, me with my fugly sweater with giant white balls dangling from the zipper, Amy with her festive vest and snappy denim shirt and her amazing knee high socks, and Tammy's gigantic jingle bell earrings kept falling off. Which was kind of hilarious.

 So after leaving Santa we basically hustled our asses through the rest of Bentleyville because Amy's legs were numb and Tammy couldn't feel her feet. My thighs were pretty much numb as well but seeing how Matt and I had done Bentleyville with our kids the weekend prior, I was OK. It wasn't as cold during party night as it was with the kids.

 After Bentleyville we headed to the standby dive bar in my town. Usually? That place is hopping with weirdos and terrible karaoke singers- but that night it was DEAD. The guy who runs the karaoke sang two completely depressing songs- something about growing up in the ghetto (mind you, this is coming from a middle aged, overweight and balding white man) and something about being sad in Texas. I have no idea. If we didn't have the guys with us and it was just a regular girls weekend- I would have completely suggested we go to the gay bar down the road because that is truly a place to see. Maybe next time!

All in all, it was fun... but it could have been more fun. I had a lot on my mind and as excited as I am for Christmas, I'm not quite loving it yet. I'm just a little stressed out so I wasn't feeling like partying so much. But next year? I'm excited. I think next year we'll do it again because honestly? Half the fun was just trying to find such ugly shit to wear.

Friends, Dirty Bowling, and Dive Bars

Oh lordy Lucy... it was a GREAT weekend. I could go for days about how much fun I had, but let's do a quickie recap for you!

So a few weeks ago my friend Amy said she wanted to come up for another weekend of fun and crazy times and hopefully recapture the awesome that was my birthday party. And as much fun as my birthday was... I had more fun this weekend. Maybe it was because everyone already knew each other this time or maybe it was because Colorado Bulldog drinks were on special, I don't know, but it was a great Saturday.

First up, Amy came and we shopped. Then I took her quickly around Canal Park because it was freezing and windy so we didn't get to go into all of the little shops. But we met up with my friend Emily for dinner at Grandma's Sports Garden and we had a super newbie waitress. We all had a good supper and then we were going to meet Tammy, my brother Travis and his friend Phil at this super dive bowling alley by my house. Emily even brought her husband Corey which was super fun to hang out with him too.

Can I just tell you, like really emphasize, that the bowling alley by my house is so much more ghetto that I ever remembered? First off the bathroom smells like cloves, cinnamon and piss. Then all of the available balls to use were really dirty. For example, I put my fingers in one and it was sticky. Gross. I had to settle on a six pound bright orange thing with tiny holes because everything else would have taken me with it down the lane. Then the floor was REALLY slippery. I told Amy if I don't face plant in the lane I'll consider it a win. The other awesome? Is that nobody really knows what they bowled because the score keeping was wrong. It said people got a spare when pins were still up. Balls got stuck, I think Emily had to reset it every time it was her turn. The place was gross.

 But for a moment, let's just marvel at how effing skinny I look here. Yes. Amazing.

After bowling we decided to head to Keyport so we can enjoy the lameness of this bar and admire the terrible karaoke singers. It far exceeded all expectations. Everybody, (except Emily and Corey who made it an early night) made it to the bar and we were eventually joined by my friend Jessica and her friend Jessie, who I didn't know but she is awesome sauce. She's my kind of peep.

 This is Amy and I early in the night I think.

 Then this is me and Amy (and Phil's hat) a little later. Probably my fav picture of the night?

What's awesome is that I have a really awesome brother. And his BFF/co-worker/room mate Phil is equally cool. And they are both effing hilarious. They also are total gentlemen because this is the second time they've paid to get my friends drunk. I mean, really.

 Here's a list of things that happened during the night: Travis burned himself on a cigar and Amy threw ice at him, Travis and Phil stayed out much too late and drank too much seeing how Travis had to work at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, Phil got some kissing action by someone (names never to be mentioned...), a bachelorette party came to the bar and we all merged into one giant group which ended with a major sing a long of Adele's "Rolling In The Deep" with all of us dancing, a new drink was discovered (Colorado Bulldog) courtesy of Jessie, and a biker wannabe from across the bar winked at me. Overall, the night was win. Not to mention the hilarious conversation and us singing along with whoever was singing karaoke. This time we came very close to convincing the boys to sing for us. Next time for sure.

 Jessica, Travis and me at the end of the night, right before bar close.

 I don't care what anyone says- I freaking love this picture. This looks like everyone was having an awesome time and we were. Amy, Tammy and Phil. I see a party bus in our future?

Oh man- I loved this one too. :) Jessie, Travis and Jessica. Jessie is trying to soothe Travis's cigar burn on his hand and Jessica is making her shocked face.

So at bar close I gave Amy a ride back to her hotel and Tammy a ride to her house, but on the way... we went past a gay bar called The Flame. (You'll remember I've actually been to The Flame before.) But there was a party bus outside and I drove around the block to get a picture of the back:

Now, in case you can't read it, it says "Quit Beeping My Beav Yo!" Yeah- that needs to be a PSA somewhere. It just does. Apparently, someone named Sam was celebrating his/her 23rd bday (as appropriately written on a side window). Have I ever mentioned how trashy Superior really is? And if you are looking for dive bars we really are the mecca? Whatever this city is doing to increase tourism I really feel they need to start going towards promoting our dive bars. Truly. It's an untapped market.

It was a late night but it was so totally worth it. I always have friends who are different from each other but so far they have all gotten along really well when we come together. And then to see people friending each other on Facebook is so awesome. I don't want to take credit for it because they are all awesome and anyone would be lucky to call them a friend, but I'm glad I brought this group together. And we are going to plan a get together but this time in Amy's area.

Not to mention that the more I hang out with Amy the more I adore her. She is so fun, I always have great conversation with her, and I feel like we've known each other forever. What I also love is that her and my friend Tammy have totally hit it off. And I think that's cool because Tammy is one of my besties for life. She and I are like exact copies of the other. I also love that my friends are pretty much down for anything and I don't have to worry about any kind of drama getting into the mix. They are just down to earth and fun. And I think I mentioned it, but Jess and I? Like wow. We were friends from third grade and then I moved away in 7th grade, and to get together now? You would never have known we've ever been apart. It's awesome.

I also should mention I love my brother bunches and his friend Phil is like my second brother. Who totally reminds me of Dexter (the show) and I don't care what anyone says. :)

Being high on bleach makes you a rock star.

If you read my Facebook statuses over the course of the weekend you would have been wowed with my amazingness. Seriously. I was out.of.control with the cleaning and it has made such a freaking difference in my house. But it wasn't just because I like to clean. Which I do. I just wasn't feeling it.

Until Saturday. When my sister in law dyed my hair for me. I'm back to the darker 'do I was sporting a few months ago. Unlike last time, my hair required two boxes of at home mix, which I think started the whole thing. I didn't realize that I was essentially huffing hair dye because the door was half shut and the heater was blowing warm air and so when I went to rinse my hair I was feeling pretty damn fine.

So fine that I was oblivious to the fact I had gotten hair dye.. everywhere. The floor, the door, the closet door, the toilet paper roll, the toilet, the tub, the sink, and the window. How.. I'm not sure. I have no recollection of really rinsing my hair so who knows. But what I do know is that scrubbing dye out of these surfaces is really hard. Regular cleaners didn't do. I had to bust out my Clorox cleaner with bleach. It's like my favorite thing ever because I kind of like the smell of bleach.

So on Sunday I was so effing excited to scrub that bathroom that I was just spraying everything. Every surface was sprayed with bleach. Of course I had the door shut, didn't open a window because it was fucking freezing outside and had the heat blowing away. I think I may have started singing some Ke$ha tunes. Only towards the end did I wonder if hair dye had ammonia in it and I know you shouldn't mix that with bleach and wow- I'm feel super.

So super that I decided I'm going to ruin Matt's entire Sunday by making him do multiple runs to Target. First I sent him there to get those hooks with the sticky back so I can hang up the kids' jackets and shit by the door. We can't use the porch (I'll elaborate on that) during the winter months, so it ends up being a pile by the front door and frankly, when I'm high on bleach, that kind of stuff won't be tolerated. So Matt is at Target getting hooks for me. He's also making a run to Menards because I decided hey- let's paint the closet doors that haven't been painted in the 3 years since we've put them up! YAY!

He comes home when I had an epiphany.

I want my coffee table back god dammit! The only way to do that is to negotiate with the TV and buy him his own TV stand. Yes. So I send Matt to get me a TV stand that doesn't look ghetto, has squares, doors, same color as our faux wood tables and bookshelf, that's not too big but not pissy small either and something I can't kill. Those were my exact instructions.

He's gone for like 40 minutes (Target is like 5 minutes from our house) and comes back with a satisfactory item. At that time I think, hey! Let's get some real fucking lamps in this bitch! YES! Ones that aren't hot glued and duct taped together because the cats thing they are lions trying to eat them.

So I send Matt back to Target for lamps. When he came back I was in the middle of cooking dinner but I decided that we HAD TO HAVE the new TV stand put together before dinner. So as I'm burning dinner and watching Food Network "Worst Cooks In America" (oddly appropriate) he's trying to put this piece of shit furniture together. And then I decided we had to start moving furniture.

He could have protested. It would have been a wasted effort and after almost seven years of marriage he gets that now.

If you remember what the living room looked like before, you can see it's a huge difference.

 I could probably be a decorator on HGTV if I was high on bleach all the time.

I also cleaned out Olivia and Jackson's room, each garnering a full bag of garbage coming out of the rooms. I did more laundry than one person should ever have to do. And I cleaned the upstairs closet. AGAIN. Because for some reason it's the dumping zone for stuff Matt doesn't know where it belongs. Annoying. I was on such a roll it was ridiculous.

And then I noticed the crack in the wall in the living room is like a legit crack now.

And for those of you who are demanding pictures of my front porch that looks like an earthquake victim but isn't because we live in Wisconsin? You'll notice the seems of the wall are all cracked.. and then random cracks are everywhere..

 If you look at the bottom of the window you can see how much it has bent because of all the freeze/thaw shit that happens here.

 Whoa- Mr. Wall is busting out of his pants.

When we moved in we seriously could not understand why the walls in the front porch were a drywall wit a faux wood panel glued to it. Like, you bought the drywall that way. Well, CLEARLY it's because that shit was so thick it didn't crack. Stupid us.

So after we spent $250 on two new windows (now bent) and god knows how much on all new drywall.. it's all got to be redone. ONLY AFTER we get gutters and put some kind of insulation shit around the house since hey- we have a crawlspace. Um... we're talking hundreds, if not thousands of dollars by the time we fix it all.

If we're being honest, I'm probably going to get high so I forget about this all together. :)

(on the plus side?? My birthday is on March 10th.. let the countdown begin BABY!!)

I? Was a busy beaver.

*And that title is true for not only what I'm going to post but stuff I won't post about. ;)

If you haven't entered my GIVEAWAY, then you are kind of sucking right now. And I'm not talking about sucking candy, I'm talking sucking sweaty man balls. Just sayin.

Anyhoodles. So this weekend I was busy. Like busier than I thought I was going to be. So let's run it down so you can marvel at my awesome.

Friday. Well, I had like one million and three errands to run, so in the end I'm glad I didn't work. Extra hours would be good, but these were all things I hadn't gotten to during the week. Anyways. So, because Olivia has school during the middle of all my running around, I had her go to my mom's for lunch and she was thrilled. She told me later she was glad to have alone time with Grandma. So while I felt bad ditching her and taking Jackson... I'm glad she had fun. So I ran all of my errands and then had lunch with my bestie, Lisa. Who's going on Roadtrip 2012 with me and other friends of mine. Anyways. So we usually don't exchange Xmas gifts, but she got me this Retro Mama desk calendar. HILARIOUS. She's one of those people that just get me. Anyways- one of the calendars said:

"If you so much as flinch for a nano-second when doling out discipline, you can kiss your Imperial Rule goodbye."

Um.. how very true. So the rest of the calendar looks hilarious. AND I ordered a stamp set for DIRT CHEAP online that I thought would make a cute set of cards for her.. my favorite little cat hoarder to be friend. :) Anyways.

So after lunch Jackson and I went to toddler school. And he was SO effing excited. I'm kind of "meh" on it because I'm not like the moms in there, and since the parents separate for parenting class type stuff I kind of just go with the flow. And I left there thinking that if Jackson didn't love it so much I wouldn't go back. But more on that a different day.

Oh- and I'll post about the potty training sitch with Jackson tomorrow, so part of my story from Friday is going on there. Trust me- hilarity ensues.

Anyways. So after toddler class we picked up Olivia and I started cleaning my house. You know when you work all week and all of a sudden the filth hits you? That's where I was at. So Friday before dinner I'm cleaning the bathroom and decided the mop didn't do a good enough job and I scrubbed the bathroom floor with my hands and sponge/towel combo. Needless to say my back hurt the rest of the night.

But then I got my crafty on. Like MAY-JAH. I got 8 scrapbook pages done and two cards sets. Here's one variety set: (and it's in my shop already)

 And the other from that night I'm using as my own stash.

On Saturday, Matt & the kids went out to his parents and they took Batman & Stumpy. A vet was holding a outreach clinic so we brought them there for their booster shots to save us an office visit charge. Which GREAT because the shots were still $52 total. Um, yeah. There goes some of the window money I set aside. FML. But it had to get done and we saved ourselves another $50 at least in what would have been an office visit PLUS the gas to drive to Ashland, over an hour away. Yes, our new vet is in Ashland because the one in Superior are being motherfucking whores and I hate them. Anyways.

But while they were gone I had to go to the craft store to get stuff to finish a custom frame order for someone and I found this bird stamp in the $1 bin. So I made a set of 6 cards. It'll be in my shop... either later tonight or tomorrow.

 AND while they were gone I cleaned the house. I also want it noted that I changed the dirt holding bag thingie on the vacuum cleaner by myself and without mess. I know. It's the first time EVER and I was so proud. I didn't even have Stumpy and Batman to brag too. But it was very exhilarating to suck up more stuff knowing that the bag isn't on the verge of exploding. UNTIL I sucked up something weird and broke the belt. Whoops. But I can't do that and so Matt assures me he'll get to it. Right. I totally believe him, too.

BUT I also swept/mopped my other floors with a vengeance. It's ridiculous how accomplished I feel cleaning floors. I also did SEVEN loads of laundry. My basket still isn't empty. BUT on the other hand, I have clean socks and underwear. Win.

Then today we ran around and I returned some things I decided I didn't need (mostly because I just shelled out $52 for the cats to get injections in their ass and hi- we need bread & milk), and I had to use part of our Menards gift card to get batteries so I can take pictures of stuff for Etsy and put it up. Kind of sad, eh?

But then while I was cooking the bestest sloppy joes EVER, I made this set:

 which will be in the shop soon. Oh, and Olivia helped me make these:

Jackson... well he's sick. He was Mr. Grumpy Pants at lunch and just about lost it when I asked him to put his jacket on. I put him down for a nap and he woke up with a fever. Swell. Then all afternoon he laid on Matt on the couch watching stupid shows and I cooked. Well, after dinner I got him in his jammies and gave him some Tylenol and started reading one of his favorite stories and he fell asleep. Poor guy. He rarely gets sick so this is going to suck. I'm hoping it doesn't turn into puke because at 2 1/2 he has never puked. And if you don't know about the dramatics of toddler puke... it's not pretty. Everybody is crying, gagging, and alternately screaming. It's just gross.

Anyways. So I was productive. I'm glad I got stuff to put in my shop, got my house cleaned, and laundry done. It'll be nice to wear clean pants again.