Banana phone

This is a super old picture of some partying back in old days.  The girl in the background is Miss Kimi Isaacs, one of the most BA chicks I have had the pleasure of knowing.  Kimi and I have kicked cancer square in the ass, and I participated vicariously in a drag race on a long stretch of road in Sheridan WY while holding Adrienne's hand and squealing/praying. We got pulled over, but even the cop admitted she kicked the other guys ass.  Aw, memories

Weekend in reflection

So we spent the weekend doing pretty much as little as possible, but I'm sure you may be curious on how this is any different than every other weekend at Casa Swan.  Well, one very good pot roast and some painful genitals, those were the two main differences.

Friday night I let Thad go hang out with one of his friends.  When I say "let", I mean I forced him to go hang out with his friend, since Thad doesn't voluntarily contact people to see if they want to get together for a beer or some video game co-op playing.  His friends contact him, or they just never hear from him.  So I told him to get in touch with his buddy and see if he wanted to get together for a beer.  He did, and the kids and I fell asleep watching tv by 9:30, at which point I left Elora on the couch and put a grumpy Colter into his own bed.  Colter had spent the day pooping up a veritable shit-storm for Linda (aka Daycare Lady) and came home with a little rash on his tuckus.  A painful little rash.

When Thad got home he put Elora in her bed and then stood beside me as I slept and sent me a Google Talk message stating "I can see your titties snoring".  What a prince, right?  So I didn't apparently do more than stir when I heard the message come in on my phone, so he went to bed.  Fast forward to 1:00 am.  Both kids wake me with a symphony of cries.  Colter's diaper rash is raw and needs a new application of cream to keep it from being touched by his pee-diaper, and Elora's panty elastic had dug into her skin and hurt her enough to wake her up.  This is a pretty common issue for Elora, which has resulted in the banishment of any panties that have elastic around the leg-holes.  So I'm up, with both kids crying for various genital-related issues, and I wake up Thad to help me by yelling at him that "it's like a whorehouse up in here, everyone's genitals are hurting".  He wasn't happy about it, but that fact seemed quite inconsequential.

Saturday my mom came up with Tona and spent the night with us.  She took Elora out to run some errands, then came back and took Thad over to my brother's house to watch the UFC fights.  My mom has been under a lot of stress lately, and has gone back to school to pursue a Bachelor's degree in nursing, so I'm glad she came and spent a little time relaxing with us, even if I can't be considered a very relaxing person to be around.

Sunday I got to see my good buddy Danielle again (I completely forgot to offer you coffee, D, I'm sorry!) before she went to church and then headed back to Sheridan, WY, and I must express that I love even the short periods of time we get to see each other.  I need to make her a destination for a mommy-weekend getaway (ha, if I ever go on one). 

My mom and I made a big run to Sam's Club on Sunday, where I stocked up on a lot of stuff and picked up a couple chuck roasts to try The Pioneer Woman's Perfect Pot Roast, and boy oh boy was that pot roast JUICY.  I've never been accused of making a succulent pot roast, but this one was truly dynamite.  I will definitely try to make this again with a touch of red wine to deglaze my pan, so I'm glad I have an extra roast in the freezer to cook in the near future (and some ground chuck to try her Frito Chili Pie recipe for an upcoming football-filled Sunday).

And speaking of football, how about those Lions?!  3-0 at the moment after beating the Vikings yesterday.  I add this for my mom's benefit, after her snide comments about my team this year. 

Thad is on call this weekend, which either means I'll stay home and repeat the sensational inactivity of this past weekend, or maybe the kids and I will load up and help my mom in Colstrip.  Since gas money is the determining factor for everything we do it may mean we just stay home, but I like to go to Colstrip without Thad because then I don't have a constant commentary on the things or people I want to make a priority on the trip. 

Can you believe this is the last week of September?  I can't, it's pretty much blowing my mind.  Hopefully I'll be finding out about my surgery in the next couple of weeks, since I'm scheduled for the week before Thanksgiving.  Keep those fingers, toes, and eyes crossed for me, my poor neck and back would greatly appreciate it!!

I know you are, but what am I?

Elora is watching "PeeWee's Big Adventure" tonight, it seems that this is Colter's first viewing of this cinematic masterpiece. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this movie, but I am really looking forward to seeing Colter's face when he sees Large Marge for the first time. I am going to try to take a picture, for posterity's sake of course.

*Approximately 4 minutes later*

He was too busy being a jerk to even notice the bulging eyes and heeby-jeeby voice. I'm sure I probably played my part in ruining the moment by pausing the movie to get my camera ready. Mommy is the real jerk in this scenario.

In other news, I'm starting the reduction process again. Now I don't just have pictures of big titties, I've got medical records, massage therapy notes, a strained neck muscle in August, and some chiropractic history. So without jinxing this all over again, I'm going in much more confident with what I've done to hopefully show that I'm in considerable pain and discomfort on a daily basis. Fingers crossed for better news this time, although I don't feel like I'll need luck so much this time.

Also, I've finally decided this year to pay a tiny amount of attention to football, the money-grubbing cash cow that it is, and I've chosen the Detroit Lions as my team to follow for the year. I don't know their history and I haven't actually watched a full game, since we're only two into the season and we don't have NFL Season Pass, but their quarterback is pretty cute, and if that isn't a good enough reason to pay attention to football I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS. Cute quarterbacks, Thad's chili, some beer.... mmmmmm, a little slice of heaven.

And only 41 nearly 40 days left until Halloween! I might finally bust out my Rocky Horror Picture Show dvd that has sat unopened for at least a year and have a little Time Warp party!

Well, I would continue to write all manner of witty and hilarious things (because truly, who comes here for profound realizations and things that make you ponder existence) but my delicious bed is awaiting my tired bones. Tonight was a massage night, and god love my massage therapist because I really made her earn her money today. The poor girl deals with a back that has the muscular equivalent of guitar strings, and she is amazing. If you need the name of a good massage therapist, I will definitely give you her number.

90's Flashback #7 (Updated)

Alright, so this will be easier to see the video in my blog rather than having to go to youtube for it (hopefully).
In a nutshell, WOW. Bush was absolutely awesome. Totally awesome. Kick ass. Great music, they sounded amazing, even the songs I didn't already know where really good. And Gavin. Oh, Gavin. He rushed off the stage, up the stairs, up to the balcony (which we weren't on) and performed part of a song to the balcony. Here were a few (blurry) pictures, and he was NOT shirtless as I had hoped, but equally delicious even with his shirt on. The hottest parts were a little shimmy he did walking back towards the drums while playing guitar, and his hair. He started off with that curly hair in a little ponytail, but by the end it was sweaty and wet and hanging down in just the hottest way imaginable. Thad can't even be mad, because I think secretly even men know that deep down they find Gavin beautiful.

From September 2011

From September 2011

From September 2011

From September 2011

From September 2011

From September 2011

From September 2011

FIN

90's Flashback #7

Watch "Bush - Comedown - Woodstock 99" on YouTube

We are going to see Bush in concert tonight. If Gavin is shirtless I may pass out.

Experiments

These are cake mix cookies. The cake mix is strawberry, with chocolate chips and some cocoa powder. And yes, they do taste like chocolate covered strawberries!

Pork Lovin'

Welcome to a Monday installation of my ramblings, brought to you by.... me, I guess.

Weekends seem to rush by too quickly, and this last weekend was no exception.  Friday night- wedding and reception for Thad's co-worker Jon, followed by bedtime for all.  Saturday morning- 5 am wake up call for the best wife around to wake up darling husband so he could go to work on a Saturday for a few hours.  During this daddy/husband free time I cleaned the kids room, removed all toys from our family living space upstairs, and had a bestie connection with some early morning phone chatting (the old fashioned kind).  Then we had to make a Sam's Club run, followed by an evening of doing pretty much nothing, except PORK.

Let me just say, Thad makes some pretty flipping awesome pulled pork.  Freaking awesome.  I'd go so far as to drop the actual F-bomb in the blog so you really understand how good this pork is, but I think that would be both redundant and gratuitous.

Thad starts his pork shoulder the night before, letting it slow cook on low for 12 hours with onions, garlic, a teeny bit of water, and some seasoning.  This created an absolutely heavenly aroma throughout the house whilst we all slumbered.  I would float in and out of a dream state and the pork was like a part of the dream.  After the 12 hours of initial cooking he put the shoulder in the smoker to give it a little color and flavor, then put the chunks (it was pretty much falling apart with tenderness at this point) in the slow cooker with our choice of bbq sauce.  We're Sweet Baby Ray's fans in Casa Swan, and it is dynomite.

The pulled pork, when completed, is best on a bun with coleslaw ON it.  Not beside it, put it IN the sandwich.  It will rock your world.  I know it rocked our friend's world when we took it over for dinner last night.  There was a lot of moaning  and I don't find shame in admitting I was the one moaning.

In other new: I've been reading a lot lately, via the awesome library selection on my smartphone.  Here are a few that I wanted to mention to my fellow readers:

The Gemma Doyle Series is a young adult/fantasy type series that I've been really enjoying.  Just finished book 2, can't wait to complete the series with book 3.

The Luxe Series is another young adult series about "Old New York", debutantes and heiresses at the turn of the 20th century.  It was pretty good, especially to this chick-lit lover.

The Bones of Faerie is apparently the first in a new series (just found the other book on the library website and haven't read it yet).

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares is from the "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist" writers.  Short, cute, and pretty much exactly like Nick & Norah.  Only the Lily character had me wondering if she might be developmentally disabled. 

I'll admit, I've been on a young adult kick, mainly because young adult novels are always being added to the library catalog, and are usually more available than regular adult fiction.  Will I start reading other books?  Maybe.  But for right now I'll enjoy my guilty fluff and not worry about whether or not it indicates a lack of intelligence on my part.

Alright, well my blog time is nearly up.  I've been thinking of "I Heart Huckabees" all morning, and if you haven't seen it, I would 100% recommend it, but not when you've just had surgery and can't focus on the hilarity of the search for meaning in our meaningless lives. But it is also 100% harder to quote than most funny movies out there, so I'm not going to try.  Oh, wait, yes I am ;)

"The man-poet who banged France's dark lady of philosophy. The parking lot crusader of truth... who turned his back on his other like a cold-blooded gangsta"- Tommy Corn (Mark Wahlberg)

HAPPY MONDAY!