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.