stuff I want my kids to know: don't be afraid to wear your Big Birds

 

 

Kids,

Son, if you really want to know how to attract the ladies then take a cue from your little pal above, and then listen to your mama.

What we're both tryin' to say is: do not be afraid to wear your Big Birds. *

I know this sounds funny, but your underoos really do have secret powers (sort of). Batman and Robin knew this, and most super heroes would also agree. You see, on their own, the Big Birds do not have the secret powers until you have the confidence to put them on. The magic happens when you decide to wear them regardless of what you believe the girl might think. It's all in how you carry yourself. And how you carry yourself is directly linked to how you value yourself. (Which I hope you know, of course, how valuable you are.)

Before you get too embarrassed, please know that I am not at all trying to sound suggestive. I am simply stating a fact, that there is nothing more attractive to a woman (well, at least this woman) than a man who carries a humble, quiet confidence in his approach to life (and his wardrobe). There is an indistinguishable, attractively good power that a man can possess when he is able to carry himself with a spirit of humility and a calm belief in himself. In other words, a man who does not need to prove himself by telling you he is wearing his expensive, flashy Big Birds.

And Bean, if you ever meet a man that needs to prove himself to you via outlandish displays of money, accomplishments, expensive clothes...who likes to fluff his feathers..who is unable to wear humility with honor...who scoffs at the man who wears Big Birds...then turn around and run for your life. He is not yet worthy of you.

Understood?

Okay, to sum it all up:

Son, if you have Big Birds and you love them, wear them with quiet confidence. You will possess an attractive confidence that will drip with magic.

Bean, if you meet a man that needs to show off his Big Birds, or laughs at the man who would dare to wear them--walk away. He needs more time to grow into a man.

Mom
xoxo

p.s. A real man also knows when to keep his pants on.

*Note I did not say, wear your Big Birds, I am just sayin' that you should not be afraid to wear your Big Birds. And when I say "attract the ladies" I am jesting. I know that embarrasses you, it's just that I cannot help but saying it when I look at these photos. :) 

lil' rascals

I have decided to title this picture: "Everybody wants to be the funny guy."

Kid on the right: the funniest. Didn't even notice him until I went to edit the picture and my eye traveled from left to right through the picture and landed on him. Ha!

So, not kidding about tomorrow's Random Friday Umbrella Post Day with random musings included.

I have already had two friends excited about joining me. 

Just leave me a comment tomorrow and let me know you joined me and I will post your link.

(I will make it a point to post by 8am west coast time.)

Of course now it's 80 degree weather here in California so no one wants to pull out an umbrella, but whatever. Take a trip to Chevy's and get one of those fruity drinks with a little umbrella and take a picture. An umbrella is an umbrella.

And please, this is all for random fun. Don't take it too seriously.

You do what it takes

If you do not have an eleven-year-old son who does not like to have his picture taken, then just try and imagine with me what steps you might need to take to get your eleven-year-old son to stop what he is doing and smile for the camera.

Like, asking him to think about his favorite "funny" potty humor that he brings to our family dinner table time. The kind of humor that has his sister rolling her eyes, his mother slapping him on the arm, and his dad covering his face trying not to show his approval. Because this is what I had to do to get him to show off his genuine smile...tell him to think about his dinner-table potty humor.

You do what it takes.

(Hey Bud, try not to look too enthusiastic about getting your picture taken.)

Now there's my Mister.
Love this kid.

Happy Monday.
t

Weekend smile

I have never been a person who is ritualistic. The very thought of a ritual makes me squirm. But today I am admitting that I have formed a ritual that has become obsessive. Like please don't ever ask me to stop. **

Every morning after my eyes flutter open I reach for my iPod to check the time and then check in on two blogs. Both are of the type that document the hilarious moments of motherhood. One is written by a high school friend who has two beautiful, yet goofy, daughters and the other is written by a "blogging friend" who has a young Star Wars obsessed son.

It is with great restraint that I keep from writing totally LOL'd! on every post and I dare you to restrain yourself as well.

Go visit And Another Thing... and Smacksy to receive your daily laugh. And don't just read today's posts, scroll through the last month, or year.




**Lately I have been rolling over only to discover that Bean has been quietly creeping in to my room in the early morning hours to snag my iPod and play Lil' Pirates. Apparently someone else has a little ritual of her own.

Oh yes, there have been words.

you are here

At the end of one very looooooong week and weekend we found ourselves 

quite literally (and somewhat figuratively).........

Meanwhile, back at car...totally bored out of my mind.

And that concludes one of my more interesting moments from this past weekend.
Hahaha, funny now. But not then.
But all is well, the tank is full.

And Dad, we've employed a gong buzzer to go off when ever we go below 1/4th of tank.
Love, your daughter.
(How much do we owe you for the gas and containers?)

scenes from a block party: it's really all about the...

F.O.O.D.

And now I am off to the county fair to stuff my face with a corn dog. 

Which is really the only reason why I go...the corn dog. 

None of the wimpy grocery store brand variety. Pass.

Bring on the totally bad-for-you hot dog, dipped in real batter, and fried to perfection, 

with a cup of mustard on the side.

That's what I'm talkin' about.

 

near...

...far.

Isn't there a Sesame Street snipit with Grover running back and forth saying "near...far....near...far"?

Why yes, yes there is.

I have always been very fond of Grover.

Many weeks ago Bean and I were outside and we discovered a little stick figure family on the blacktop across the street. I told her to "make friends" with them, and these snapshots where those moments.

I was wishing I had owned a better wide angle lens to pan out and catch the entire scene, like I was a bird in the sky, but alas I was stuck with my 5'8'' of height and a semi-wide angle lens. The near/far thing was not even a part of thinking this day, I was simply trying to capture varying perspectives. Which is always a fun practice, composing at every distance. Try it sometime.

It's been about thirty-five years since I last saw this clip of Grover. Time has traveled so far since then, but he is still so very near to my heart. (That was such a bad line.) He was always one of my favorites.

Gonna go get Bean and have her watch him with me one more time...

vogue!

So I was going to title this post "pose" and then had a hilariously scary flashback to the 1980's, the prime of my teenage years. Oh joy.

• Big bangs and lots of hairspray, with girls and glam rockers alike (like who could tell the difference?)

• "Seventeen" magazine and advice from Brook Shields 

• fake plastic costume jewelry (in every shade of color to match your outfit)

•  anything paint splattered or neon green, or both (note books to t-shirts)

•  wide "V" hip belts worn over excessively baggy clothes (Vent: Why were the 80's about baggy drapey clothes when our bodies were at their sleekest?! This vexes me when I think about it and is the only reason I wish that trend would come back around--to cover up our teens today and so I don't have to try and fit into tight jeans, and form fitting shirts.)

•  satin pumps dyed to match your prom dress (yep, mine were scarlet red)

• Ferris Bueller's Day Off (and SJP was just a Square Peg, nowhere near Matthew's fame!)

•  stretch pants and pegged pants (no wait...acid washed jeans...pegged and worn with Sperry Top Siders. Guys? Seriously, like who told you that was okay?)

•  Depeche Mode, The Cure, Run DMC, The Beastie Boys, Flock of Seaguls, MC Hammer (two words: parachute pants)

•  Glam rock (may you live on in our aging husbands and Bret Michaels. Will he ever get a hair cut or stop pouting his lips?)

•  Molly Ringwald: Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and...wait for it...The Breakfast Club. (Although we couldn't watch it a million times because we could not afford one of those new VCR things. Netflix who?)

•  We cannot forget: Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, Anthony Michael Hall, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe (he always gave me the heebie-jeebies, as do all guys who are manly pretty)

•  Can I just interrupt here and say that I never saw The Blue Lagoon, but I just watched St. Elmo's Fire for the first time a month ago? That scene with Demi Moore locked in her barren apartment? Quality acting people.

• Records. True vinyl. (I have my U2 collection that I will one day sell on Ebay.) And then...the advent of cassettes and the Walkman. (I never had enough batteries.)

• And lastly...the original "Lady Gaga" leading us into the 90's by telling us all to "vogue".

vogue: to strike poses in campy imitation of fashion models especially as a kind of dance. 

Why? Because when you vogue you take yourself a little less seriously. You lighten up. Step out of your modest confines and ham it up, create some laughter, amuse yourself and others. Kinda like the 80's did for us insecure teenagers. (Well maybe not, we thought that the five-story bangs were cool.) And still does for us late thirty/early forty somethings when we look back at ourselves in all our 80's glory.


So add to your list of to-do's today to take a brief time-out from your serious life and do a little voguing (that would be a gerund: a verb used as a noun). It's good to laugh at yourself once and a while.

Oh, and if you vogue you are a voguer. For real. I looked it up.

Wow. I think we owe a lot to Madonna.

p.s. OMG! I forgot Duran Duran! Could not leave them out. Fellow 80's friends...am I missing anything else??

p.p.s After reading over this post I realize that for some of you very pre and very post 80's people may have to do a little Googling for the next hour. I cannot expect you to know what a Square Peg is or who Anthony Michael Hall is, or even what a record looks like. I didn't really want to riddle this post with links to every Wiki page so go get to Googling. And then come back and tell me that you are so thankful that you lived your teen years in another era.

post edit: Duh...Wake me up before you go go...I forgot George Michael. Two people have now reminded me of my omission. Wham! Choose Life!

midweek funny

Some friends just need a little coaxing to come out of their shell. (Ha!)


******

I am off on one last summer adventure: camping in the beautiful Redwood tree groves on a nearby mountain. A twenty five minute drive from our home. For some reason my son refuses to consider it as a real camping trip??? Camping for him is a several hour drive to a remote pine tree studded wilderness on some body of water, where there are bears. He wants to smell the trees and crawl into his sleeping bag each night, terrified that a bear will invade our camp. He wants to leave early in the morning, watch dvd's in the car, and be gone for a week.  He wants two boxes of his own special vacation sugar cereal instead of one.
I can't figure out why he cannot agree with me that a twenty five minute drive to a BEAUTIFUL mountain top fragrant with pine trees, with nary a bear around is equally billable as a proper camping trip? A twenty five minute drive. It's every parent's dream drive.
If we forget something we can drive home. Right???

I'll be back on Saturday. Until then, have a fabulous end to your week.
Think of me as I am sitting around a campfire, doing my crossword,
eating a smore, with nary a bear around.

matchy matchy

They showed up to the party in the same outfit.
Somewhere in their day they individually landed on the same mental wardrobe frequency.
That happens when you've been best buddies for the last fifteen years.

 

Their wives mocked them just a little bit, but not that much, because

in the past they too have walked into a party all matchy matchy.

 

But it is just so much more hilarious when it happens to the men.

So much so that you insist on capturing the moment in pixels
and posting it on your blog so that you can
look back on it in an hour, or day, or week later and the laughs will never get old.

Aren't they cute?

A little funny for your Friday

While quickly passing through a set of photos from a recent concert in the park, I took a long pause to absorb the scene in this particular one and found it quite comical. I have added some "context" to it for your sake, so you can receive the fullness of the moment caught...

More info: those "chairs" the girls in are cheapies from Target and require some ab skills to sit in them. Bean's "smile" is a new one she has been trying on in a lot of photos. Drives me nuts. As for my hubby's quick wine reflexes? He had been sitting in his blue chair huddled in his jacket, texting on his Blackberry, with one ear on the semi-good country singer crooning on the stage. He had placed his chair away from the group of us chatty gals because the two guy friends he was looking forward to hanging with were not able to come and thus the reason for hanging with his Blackberry. And thus the reason for his quick reflexes when offered a glass of wine. (I don't know why he didn't want to hang out with some chatty females?)

And here's some more goofiness from the evening...

Behold an upside down pretzel smile complete with a days old manicure in need of a touch up.

And one girl who thought it funny to hide in her hood...

But ah ha! Mrs. Camera Lady was quick on the draw!  (I've got skills.)

And to end on a beautiful note, here are two beautiful girls caught in the soft fading light of the evening. (One of my favorite times of day.)

Here's to your own Funny Friday!
xoxo