Original Funny

We're driving down the street in Vegas and see 2 cop cars, 1 Metro PD paddy wagon, and a motorcycle cop all pulled to the side of a massive dirt lot about a mile away from the pig farm. All the cops are gathered outside shooting the shit with a single black guy handcuffed. But it looks like he's just standing around talking with them-all smiles. Bryce turns to me and says, "Man, makes you wish you had a box of Krispy Kreme's to drop right in front and yell 'Feed time! Su-ey!.' Then they would have a real dilemma: run to the cars and drive off after the insulting jackass who just littered, or eat." 

*photo found on Google

Reminds me of a joke from one of my all-time favorite comedians, Gabriel Iglesias. I saw him perform at Tempe Improv and he was awesome! 

Ware Christmas 2010 Highlights

Bryce and me in our awesomely ugly sweaters

Candid family moment 

Daniel's photo bomb and Jeremy's belly make this a classic

Daniel rocks out in his lit up suit jacket

Cuties Dawson and Erica were all smiles

My family poses in our ugly sweaters.

Bryce carries Erica around in a massive tote bag

It looks like Slimer is eating Dawson

My mom and Aunt Kim gang up on my Uncle Rick, their little brother

Rick poses with family

Of course I would include my delectable cherry honey cupcakes with vanilla butter-cream icing

I also made mini carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Lastly, homemade vanilla-cinnamon cupcakes with vanilla butter-cream icing

Merry Christmas 2010

I hope everyone enjoyed this holiday season. It isn't quite over (only 3 more days until New Year's Eve) but I thought I would share what a wonderful Christmas weekend I had. Cashed in some of my vacation time and took a 5 day trip to Phoenix with Bryce to see family. It was a busy weekend with every minute spent with family. 

The view of Vegas behind us

Had to drive through the clouds in front of us

Thursday I was able to see a friend for a little bit in the afternoon as soon as we drove in. I hadn't seen her in almost 2 months, so I enjoyed our visit. I met up with my siblings at my mom's house then we left to go light candles at my dad's memorial cross. Later, we drove to my uncle's house where we visited with my cousin, Seth, and his very pregnant wife (she's due in less than 2 weeks). 

Memorial cross at 43rd and Indian School. My sister put up ornaments and my brother lit Christmas candles.

Friday morning, Christmas Eve, my siblings and I spent time in my father's trailer for the first time since his passing. It was difficult, but we drew strength from each other and held on to his memory. We then went back home and set up my mom's surprise Christmas present while she was gone helping my grandma prepare for the family Christmas Eve dinner that night. Our surprise: a new queen-sized pillow top mattress, box spring, and comforter set with King sized pillows was a pain in the butt to set up. My mom had a full size mattress that was too small for her frame; however, when we brought in the upgraded queen size, the damn thing was too big! So we dismantled the frame and vow to think of something to do for a frame later. Then we put on the sheets from her previous mattress which she just bought a month ago and swore to us were queen size (because she anticipated buying her own new mattress after the holidays), but were, in fact, also only full size sheets. Therefore, she wound up with a mattress on the floor with only a comforter. 

After the great Mattress Surprise Debacle of 2010, we dressed in our ugly sweaters for the First Annual Ugly Christmas Sweater Family Tradition (which we planned months before it became this year's trend) and headed off to grandma's house where the whole extended family got together as we do every Christmas Eve.

Yes, that is Slimer from Ghostbuster's. And what the picture doesn't capture is my brother's red suit jacket is lined with a strand of flashing Christmas lights.

Christmas morning came all too soon and my husband and I were abruptly woken up by his sister who ran in the room shouting and smacking us with a wrapping paper roll. She is 21. Bryce and I spent a lovely day relaxing with his parents and sister before driving to his cousin's new abode (they moved in only 4 days before hosting the party) where we met up with the rest of his extended family for Christmas dinner. After dinner was the the family's traditional white elephant gift exchange of "naughty" and "nice" gifts. It was a hoot to see all the wild things everyone gifts and we just had fun with the whole thing before snagging a gum-ball machine, voice recorder, and statue of David. 

Woke up at the butt-crack of dawn Sunday morning to meet up with my sister for the day-after-Christmas shopping extravaganza. We hit up 3 Wal-Marts, 2 Kohl's and 1 Target before heading home to nap. Woke up in time to make food and be late to our last family gathering of the weekend at my uncle's house to celebrate with my paternal family. We devoured ribs and the most succulent tri-tip and instead of exchanging gifts, had ourselves a massive pool tournament. 

Ashlee made it to the semi-finals with an assist from baby Peydon Bentley

The weekend finally came to a close and Monday allowed us to sleep in. We packed up our car with all the new loot, ate lunch, and drove home to Vegas. 

Thanks to everyone for a fantastic weekend. I loved all the gifts I received but I loved spending time with everyone even more. I wish I had time to visit all the friends on my list, but that will just have to wait until next time. 

Now, without further ado, the loot:

Presents under the tree at Grandma's. What you don't see is they also cover most of the room, under the tables, and into the kitchen. 

A beautiful gift from my sister: a mosaic photo of me and Bryce 

Voice recorder and micro cassette tapes so I can hear the sound of my own voice

Hollowed-out Paris book and statue of David for my extremely kitsch living room

Gum-ball machine speaks for itself

Borders gift card got me these awesome YA titles

Very thoughtful gift from my grandma: photo of me and my father on my wedding day as the backdrop to my original poem, In A Locket

Items not featured: Keurig from Bryce's parents, a fire pit from my family, clothes, various gift cards, wooden reindeer set built by my papa, bathroom set from my mom and sister, and other presents. 

Vegas 5pm

Stuck in Vegas traffic at 5pm on a Tuesday. 

2 Months Since...

6,100,000 heart beats since...

My heart stopped

and started again.

1,405,440 breaths since...

I took my last deep breath

and let it go.

87,840 minutes since...

My last thought

that wasn't of you.

1464 hours since...

My stomach twisted

and maggots took residence.

9 weeks since...

The panic

and anxiety.

The pain

and confusion.

61 days since...

With my world, I collapsed

and was forced to stand again for Them.

2 months since...

You died

and I wonder Who's next?

R.I.P. David Brian Lucas

September 19, 1961-October 19, 2010

911 On Standby...I'm Making Cupcakes!

My mom came to town a few weeks ago and while here, we visited the cutest cupcake bakery aptly named The Cupcakery. Twice. $54.21 later, I became addicted to the delectable little treats. While out shopping, I bought a "Cupcakes Make Me Smile" t-shirt and cupcake recipe book. I was hooked and the cupcake addition to the dream candy store I want to one day operate, One Sweet MoFu, was born. Now I just had to learn to bake.

First Step: the grocery store for ingredient. I decided to make mini cupcakes because tiny things make me happy and, in a more strategic point, if I totally botched them, nobody would have to suffer through a full size cupcake. One quick bite and they had an easy out.

Shopping list in hand, I hit up Wal-Mart. If you have never experienced Wally World 16 days before Christmas, allow me to explain how much you are missing. Whatever you are looking for, rest assured, you will find un-packaged and strewn on the floor. The pickings are slim and the shelves are bare. Lines are 27 people deep with only 3 registers open. And the always happy, ever-helpful, Wal-Mart workers are moving as fast as molasses without a care in the world. I walked around that store for over an hour looking for shortening and orange marmalade before I finally broke down and texted my Facebook peeps to figure out what those even were and what aisle they could be located. The real dilemma of the night was choosing flour. There was bleached flour, all purpose flour, wheat enriched flour, organic flour...Thankfully, Wal-Mart's generic branding flour anticipated the tragic lack of culinary education it's patrons may encounter and graciously decorated it's bag of all purpose flour with cupcakes. It was the last bag and without that little savior, I may still be at Wal-Mart! A Christmas miracle!

Next Step: baking the cupcakes. For those of you that know me, to say I'm not really a baker would be an understatement. I single-handedly set my oven on fire while heating up corn dogs. If left to my own devices in the kitchen, I could accomplish nothing more than burning boiled water-my talent is limitless. Therefore, to tackle the feat of baking 50 mini cupcakes from scratch and topping them with homemade icing, I unleashed my hidden weapon: Alyson.

Beautiful Alyson, an amateur chef writing her own cookbook, naively agreed to supervise my cooking debut. She read off the directions while I mixed, beat, folded, whipped and overall abused the raw ingredients. Alyson patiently guided me through the process and we successfully made 30 chocolate chip banana nut cupcakes and 24 sweet orange cupcakes. 

The Journey Continues: making icing while cupcakes cool. I love chocolate with bananas, so I chose a chocolate-Kahlua icing as the perfect mate to my banana nut cupcake. Without Alyson, I never would have made it past the first direction to melt 1 brick of semi-sweet baker's chocolate. We encountered a minor snafu after realizing (yet again, you'd think I would remember this by now) that I do not have a microwave, but Alyson intelligently set up a makeshift stove-top double boiler and we were good after that point. Alyson scooped the icing into the decorator's bag while I held it and then showed me how to pipe on the icing. The first 20 looked pretty sad, but I eventually got the hang of things.

I continued piping while Alyson prepared the cream cheese frosting for the orange cupcakes. The recipe called for nutmeg flavoring which wasn't on my original list of ingredients, so we substituted more orange flavoring instead. It wasn't until the very end of our baking session as we were putting away the milk and shortening that we realized we never used those ingredients. Turns out, I was supposed to make a butter-cream icing instead of cream cheese frosting. Left on my own, I would have panicked, but Alyson's quick thinking to change the recipe saved the day.

The End Result: nothing left to do but chow. The final touches in my attempt to decorate were made and the cupcakes chilled in the fridge for 30 minutes. They were absolutely de-lish, if I do say so myself! Sweet orange cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting and chocolate chip banana-nut cupcakes with chocolate Kahlua icing topped with mini Nilla Wafers.

Overall, it was a really fun night! I think I will try a few new recipes next week for Christmas. Any requests, my PHX guinea pigs?

My Mother-Chatty Kathy

My mother loves to talk. I'd say it's because she loves the sound of her own voice, but she's deaf. So I really don't understand why she never shuts up. And she talks to everyone, I mean, EVERYONE.

We're in line at Kohl's yesterday and I'm internally debating if I want this sweater in black and grey, or white, so I ask my mom her opinion. She rolls her eyes in the most dramatic way possible before commenting-not to me- but the lady unlucky enough to stand behind us in line.

"Do you believe this?' She asks rhetorically. "My daughter, a grown woman, needs her momma to make up her mind for her." The lady politely laughs while I stare straight ahead hoping for this to be a quick one. No such luck. I point out to my mom that she still hadn't answered my question.

 "What color should I get?" I ask again.

My mother jests, "Why not one in both colors, they are on sale."

"Well..." I start to say, but my mom has already begun to bother the nice lady behind us again with an amusing, albeit, humiliating anecdote about your truly.

"She does this everywhere we go. She stood in front of the mirror in the dressing room for 10 minutes thinking if she had the right shoes, pants, and accessories to go with the sweater."

"Mom."

"What? I'm sure she goes through the same thing with her daughter."

I look at the lady, smartly remaining silent, and the stroller she is pushing around. "Mom, she has little kids. They aren't old enough to pick out sweaters."

"Well, then, she is going to go through this same thing one day and I'm just preparing her." Great, now we're talking about the nice lady as if she weren't there within ear shot. I turn and give her an apologetic smile. My mother sees this. "Oh now she's embarrassed by me." She tells the lady.

"I'm not embarrassed, I just don't think she cares, mom."

There's no stopping this train, my mom plunges ahead into another tale addressing the poor lady behind us. "My other daughter is worse. She never wants to be seen with me, but still wants me to shop with her all the time. You think your kids will leave you when they grow up, but mine just got clingy."

We finally check out and my mom has spent more time conversing with this stranger, than with me. And yes, I was forced to decide the sweater color all on my own. I chose black and grey, it was slimming and goes with my boots.

CHATTY KATHY STRIKES AGAIN!!

Got mani/pedi's this morning. My mom got her toes polished red with a white snowflakes design. She comes over to me during my mani to show off her toes. Then proceeds to walk around the salon showing the other patrons and sticking her newly pedicured feet on their laps and in their faces for a better look. After the salon, we stopped at the grocery store and mom started up another conversation with the checkout clerk.

I am telling you, it is not normal to be this friendly and outgoing.

Welcome to The Neighborhood

We have lived in the new house less than 2 weeks and already the American Dream is getting skewed thanks to neighbors. I.E- I was just subject to listen to my neighbor's barking German Shephard who they lovingly stuck in the backyard while it is 40 degrees outside and getting colder for the last 2 hours! And it shows no signs of stopping! I ask-if it is driving me into a murderous rage just being next door, how are they faring so nonchalant and oblivious to the noisy canine in their own backyard? Seriously?!?

The dog was barking when we looked at the house and my husband raised his eyebrows and said "that could get annoying." To which I shrugged. When we were here for several hours during the home inspection, the dog barked a while and the Realtor commented, "Wow! I don't know if I could get used to that, will it be okay?" I naively dismissed it with "it isn't that bad." And it wasn't. Until we moved in and the dog barked and barked and barked. And barked....and BARKED. And just when he it stopped and some semblance of sanity began to return, you realize the dog was just getting warmed up and he begins to bark and bark and Bark and BARKBARKWOOF WOOF WOOF WOOF BARK. ARGH!!!! 

So I decide tonight I will not be a helpless victim. There has to be some sort of noise law against this. It is cruel and unusual to be treated this way-and the dog may be suffering too. I look up Animal Control and their website addresses noisy animals. But their business hours are 8am-8pm and it is approaching 10pm. Frustrated, I search for City ordinances in a vain attempt for someone else to call who will come out and solve all my problems. Instead, I stumble upon the Police Department Registered Sex Offenders site. Curiousity took over and compelled me to enter my zip code pulling up:

16 registered sex offenders within a 2 mile radius. 

Now, I live in a nice, gated community. It's safe and (mostly) quiet. But damn if 16 registered sex offenders nearby doesn't scare the living bejeezus out of me. 

I remembered a story line on Law and Order where a registered sex offender is harrassed for a crime in the neighborhood, but his past crime was from 6 years prior when he was in his young 20's and got too drunk and peed in public-but it happened to be in front of 2 girls who were walking down the street and so it was considered a sex crime. I figure, i can deal with an intoxicated impatient pee-er, so I clicked on the closest sex offenders crime details to reassure myself of his harmless status.

Um... In 1994 he broke into his 24-year-old neighbors home and violently sexually assaulted her before burning her with lit cigarettes. Then in 2001 he drove his daughters 15-year-old friend home and offered to pay her $150 for sex. When she declined, he forced her to have intercourse by threatening her life. 

And here, in 2010, he lives less than 2 miles away from me, presumably "re-habilitated." I was so disgusted and terrified, I didn't dare look at the other 15 offenders and their laundry lists of crimes. This website gives full names, pictures, and addresses in addition to a complete rap sheet. It's incredibly invasive and terrifying to think that this is made public knowledge for a reason. So that we can have a means to educate and protect ourselves because the system has failed to keep these offenders away from society.

Puts the noisy dog dilemma into perspective.

Fabulous Las Vegas

Fountains at Bellagio during a performance

Sluts are people too!

Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada

New York, New York

 Would you give this guy money?

 Iron Man looks so gay. And Spidey is F-A-T.

Grand Par-ee

The Palazzo/Venetian re-create the Italian streets.

My Cra-zay-zy Week

This week has been absolutely wild! Had an 8am appointment Monday to sign for the house. Alerted late Sunday night that there was an error on the docs, so the meeting was postponed. By 10am, got an email stating we would sign at noon. Arrived at title company at 1145am where we met with our mortgage broker in the lobby. He had been there since 8am and the papers still weren't ready. We gave it another 30 minutes before finally heading off to lunch. As soon as we ordered our food, got a call that the docs were in and we needed to head back to sign. Scarfed our food then drove 15 minutes back to title company only to discover the docs arrived but there were still some errors. Normal signing process takes about an hour, we did it in 35 minutes then bolted out of the place to get Bruce Turbo to work by 3pm. Are we awesome, or what?

Fast forward to Wednesday-we are supposed to close on the house, but paperwork (surprise, surprise!) gets held up and we don't record until Thursday afternoon. I get a call from our wonderful real estate agent who informs me she is really sick and can't drive the 55 minutes from Henderson to NLV to hand over the keys. I tell her not to worry as we are resourceful and already know the code to the lock-box, so we can retrieve the keys ourselves. Although i am super excited, I wait until Friday morning to claim our house so Bryce and I can do this together.

Friday morning, Bryce carries me over the threshold as my dad hoped he would and we unload our first carload of stuff. Friday also marks 1 month following my father's passing. Imagine my emotions on a simultaneously happy and sad day. I go to work late, but have trouble concentrating. Bryce manages to get the day off work so we spend the evening packing.

Bryce wakes up 8am Saturday morning when his phone rings. It's Cox calling to say they are on their way to the house to install the additional cable outlets. Shit! We overslept. Bryce rushes to get dressed and leaves in a hurry to meet the worker at the house. Meanwhile, I get up and begin packing more. Movers are coming in 4 hours and we are only half packed. The Cox installation is only supposed to take a couple of hours, but when I call for a progress report at 1030am, they have run into problems. I continue packing, but am interrupted at 1130am when the movers say they are almost there. They are early and I have packed nothing in the kitchen yet. Double shit!

I pack while they move. From a second floor apartment to a 2 story house and I do minimal work. Best $275 I ever spent. 3 guys in 3 hours moves everything from one place to the other. Just as Bryce and I break for lunch at 4pm (we haven't eaten all day), my work phone rings-a customer needs me to come in asap. I joke with him to hurry as I'm starving and moving and thankfully, he does. We finally make our way to Red Robin, Yum! for a late lunch/early dinner. Red Robin now serves signature dessert cupcakes for $1.99. One thing leads to another and we end up at Just Cupcakes! down the road. Half a dozen cupcakes later, we settle in to the house for the night.

We spent all night setting up the office that we never got around to setting up the bedroom and as a result, wake up extremely stiff and sore from sleeping on the floor. After little debate, it's decided we should see a movie. Harry Potter 7 is awesome! Due Date was very disappointing. I would review both movies, but there isn't much more to say. HP7 speak for itself and Due Date is that forgettable. Half a package of Red Vines, a giant movie soda, an AMC hot dog and Denny's soup and salad later and I'm more than a little sick to my stomach.

Cue another Monday morning. I wake up absolutely freezing because our heat isn't turned on in the new house. I rush to work in dirty clothes because I can't find clean ones. My jacket is non-uniform because my work jacket is MIA and it's too cold without one. I get a call from hubby at 3pm informing me our water has been turned off. It was on all weekend, we had planned to switch it over to our name, but didn't have the information and overlooked researching it sooner. The soonest it can get turned back on is "sometime tomorrow."

After work, I gather everything I need to shower and take it back to the apartment. As I lather up my hair with shampoo it dawns on me I did not bring a towel. I search the apartment, naked and dripping, for something to dry off with and discover paper towels we left behind to clean with. 26 3-ply Brawny's later, I am dry and freezing. When I finally get back to the house, I prepare a salad and frozen lasagna for dinner. Only half our kitchen has been moved over and nothing unpacked, so it's paper bowls and plastic forks for me. I walk around the kitchen twice looking for the microwave to nuke my lasagna. Turns out, we don't have a microwave. This is not my night. My 4 minute prep time becomes a 50 minute bake time in the oven. I chat with my brother. A nice conversation regarding some very unpleasant things. I love that kid. After all I've been through, I decide to lounge in front of the tv the rest of the night instead of unpacking. Every noise I hear freaks me out and I become convinced there is a rapist prowler peeping tom murdering robber outside circling my house even though it is a perfectly safe, gated community next to a busy street with lots of lights.

That leads me to today.Very uneventful, comparatively. Just preparing for Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and my mom's visit next week.

Soundtrack to My Life

The alarm clock goes off and I wake up:

Katy Perry- Waking Up in Vegas

Getting ready for the day:

Glee- Dream On

     *I LOVE LOVE LOVE Neil Patrick Harris!

Driving in Las Vegas rush hour:

Depeche Mode- Wrong

     *BTW Las Vegas rush hour last longer than an hour. Little known fact: It's "rush hour" anytime you happen to be on the I-15.

At Work:

Fall Out Boy- I Don't Care

Staying late at work to catch up on filing my paperwork:

Harry Belafonte- Jump in The Line

Staying at work late trying to figure out inventory discrepancies after a total wall-to-wall:

Barry Louis Polisar- All I want Is you

     *Then I start to dance through the warehouse as I walk the aisles recounting equipment:

Pink- Funhouse

     *After re-counting items 4 times, I lose my mind on how a 300lb A/C unit can disappear:

Queen- Bohemian Rhapsody

     *Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.

Thinking about my Dad:

Straight no Chaser- Fix You

Drive to the gym:

Auburn- la la la

Doing cardio:

Aphex Twins- Tetris Remix

     * I couldn't find a good link to this song

Weight training:

Jimmy Eat World- Best Theory

More cardio:

Fatboy Slim- Rockafeller Skank

     * This makes me think of Christopher Walken dancing on the ceilings even though that was the other video Fatboy Slim did.

When I turn off the radio while driving and pretend I am on American Idol, I sing these songs:

Alicia Keys- Fallin'

Evanescence- Bring Me To Life

Duffy- Mercy

Doing chores and cleaning house:

Santana- Put Your Lights On

The song I secretly love:

The Lonely Island- Jizz in My Pants

When I have an important choice to make:

Ludovico Einaudi- Fly

Dancing around the house when I get bored doing chores:

Fall Out Boy- Dance, Dance

Getting carried away while dancing around the house and try to dance sexy in front of the mirror:

Kesha- Take It Off

While writing, what I listen to depends on the story I am creating. Here are a few:

     Unrequited

           Joshua Radin-Sundrenched World

     Shut Up and Drive

          Weezer- Beverly Hills

     Rhiannon Chronicles

          Lady Gaga- Teeth

When my husband tucks me in bed at night:

Norah Jones- Love Me Tender

Walking around the Las Vegas Strip:

Silversun Pickups- Catch and Release

PF Chang's at Planet Hollywood $35 All-You-Can-Drink:

Trey Songz- Bottoms Up

     * Tell Securiwy!!

Thinking of Bryce:

Bloodhound Gang- Bad Touch

     *Oops! I meant this:

Cat Powers- I Found a Reason

     *This was our First Dance when we got married more than 2 years ago. 

When I'm the only one in the office, I let loose and start singing to:

Rick-James- Super Freak

The Best Song to Play on AudioSurf:

Flobots- Handlebars

What I play right after I listen to Flobots-Handlebars:

Blobots- At The Scottsdale Bars

When I get Sick of Stupid People (this happens more often than you may think):

Lily Allen- F@*& You Very Much

When I feel like a chollo in a low-rider, I listen to:

Lil Uno- So Addicted

I imagine myself being able to throw down mad rhymes and simultaneously solving a Rubik's cube to this:

Busta Rhymes- Don't Touch Me (Throw Da Water on Them)

Take a break to Blog, Facebook, and be awesome:

Britney Spears- Radar

Michael Buble- Cry Me a River

     * Did anyone see him on SNL? "Bubbly and Ham" skit was hysterical. I'm just sayin'.

Eiffel 65- Blue (Da Ba Dee)

Muse- Undisclosed Desires

Linkin Park- The Catalyst

     * I am actually obsessed with this whole album

The Fray- Never Say Never

Honorable Mention:

My Favorite Song

WHAT SONGS ARE FEATURED IN THE SOUNDTRACK OF YOUR LIFE? WHAT'S THE MOST RANDOM SONG ON YOUR IPOD? WHAT SONG DO YOU BELT OUT IN THE CAR WHEN NO ONE ELSE IS AROUND?

Photos I Love

Going through photos as I clear my SD card and move pics from my tower to the raptop and these were just a few gems I came across. Yes, I really know these people.

The Farlows Have a Little "Captain" in Them

The face makes it classic

Cat Bond loves the sink.

Photo Bomb!

Trying on kitsch glasses in Vegas.

What makes this funnier is he's actually the sweetest guy.