¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

Happy Birthday to my sister!

Yeah... OK... it's my birthday too.

We are 26 today and officially in our late-twenties. Everyone keeps saying that I could consider it my mid-twenties but I prefer to feel older rather than younger to make up for my lack of maturity. :)

We celebrated on Saturday with some friends and family at Fiesta Azteca. It was great. My mom had decorated the room with banners and tied Mylar balloons to the arms of our chairs.

When we were younger, my mom would spent all day in the kitchen making us these elaborately decorated cakes for our birthday. Every year on our birthday, my sister and I would look forward to seeing what kind of cakes my mom had made for us. My favorite was a cake in the shape of "Strawberry Shortcake" that she made on our 4th birthday.

Years ago, by the time everyone gathered around to sing "Happy Birthday," I had already put myself into a such a sugar induced coma after eating handfuls of frosting that I don't actually remember hearing the people sing to us.

My mother hadn't made us our cakes in at least 10 years so I was surprised when she texted me Saturday morning and asked me what kind of cake I wanted and when I arrived at the restaurant, I was pleased to see a homemade carrot cake sitting on the table. Another thing I remember about my childhood birthdays is having to share a party with my sister. We would each invite 2 or 3 friends and have a slumber party. We did this every year until we were probably 14-years-old. The older we got the more drama ensued at these parties because we had completely different groups of friends. Besides the adolescent quarrels, I don't think I ever really minded sharing a party that much. I was so used to it that I don't think I would've been able to handle having that much attention all to myself.

Now that I am much older, and make an effort not to overdose on frosting, I also realize the anxiety and embarrassment I would have to endure if I had to sit through the birthday song all by myself.
















<span style=";">Happy Birthday to my sister! Yeah... OK... it's my birthday too. We are 26 today and officially in our late-twenties. Everyone keeps saying that I could consider it my mid-twenties but I prefer to feel older rather than younger to make up for my lack of maturity. :) We celebrated on Saturday with some friends and family at Fiesta Azteca. It was great. My mom had decorated the room with banners and tied Mylar balloons to the arms of our chairs. When we were younger, my mom would spent all day in the kitchen</span><span style=";"> making us these elaborately decorated cakes for our birthday. </span><span style=";">Every year on our birthday, my sister and I would look forward to seeing what kind of cakes my mom had made for us. </span><span style=";">My favorite was a cake in the shape of "Strawberry Shortcake" that she made on our 4th birthday.</span> <span style=";"> </span><span style=";">Years ago, by the time everyone gathered around to sing "Happy Birthday," I had already put myself into a such a sugar induced coma after eating handfuls of frosting</span><span style=";"> that I don't actually remember hearing the people sing to us.</span><span style=";"> </span><span><span><span>My mother hadn't made us our cakes in at least 10 years so I was surprised when she texted me Saturday morning and asked me what kind of cake I wanted and when I arrived at the restaurant, I was pleased to see a homemade carrot cake sitting on the table. </span> <span>Another thing I remember about my childhood birthdays is having to share a party with my sister. We would each invite 2 or 3 friends and have a slumber party. We did this every year until we were probably 14-years-old. The older we got the more drama ensued at these parties because we had completely different groups of friends. </span> <span>Besides the adolescent quarrels, I don't think I ever really minded sharing a party that much. I was so used to it that I don't think I would've been able to handle having that much attention all to myself. Now that I am much older, and make an effort not to overdose on frosting, I also realize the anxiety and embarrassment I would have to endure if I had to sit through the birthday song all by myself. </span> <img src="http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l76/junebugfl82/kimkrisbday1.jpg" /> <img src="http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l76/junebugfl82/kimkrisbday2001.jpg" /> <img src="http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l76/junebugfl82/kimkrisbday2.jpg" /> <img src="http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l76/junebugfl82/kimkrisbday2002.jpg" /> <img src="http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l76/junebugfl82/kimkrisbday2003.jpg" /> <img src="http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l76/junebugfl82/kimkrisbday2010.jpg" /> <span style=";">ahhh... you gotta love the eighties.</span></span></span>Ahhh... You gotta love the eighties.




Our 26th birthday. 9/9/08

Confucius Say...

Confucius say,

"When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them."

Werd.

You may or may not already know this, but I have a reputation for being one clumsy bitch. Although, I prefer "ponderous" to be a more accurate description of my mental being, my husband, along with many other family members, often refer to me as "absent minded" and "in need of a titanium helmet."

I admittedly break a lot of valuables, including precious body parts, on a regular basis. On any given day, I am apt to fall down or knock something over, but my specialty is bumping my hip into door jams or the corner of a table or counter top and/or stubbing my toes on random household furniture. Ouch.

One time, I stood up in front of my couch and started to walk across the living room when I stubbed my pinky toe on the corner of our oversized coffee table. I yelped in pain but continued along on my journey to the kitchen. Murphy's Law gripped my equilibrium as I then tripped over the cord to my laptop and landed, hard, on all fours, directly in front of the television that was being watched by my husband and our roommate. It hurt so bad and it was so funny that I cried and laughed at the same time. It was a moment worthy of Youtube and one that was reenacted for the amusement of many people for about as long as the bruises on my knees were visible.

Today, April played me as a fool. I walked into work and was instructed to go pick up Ryan from school using my boss's truck. As I stepped up into the bull dozer sized truck I noticed that the owner of the rented house was walking around with an inspector sizing up some major water damage on the house. I carefully backed up the truck as the owner disappeared into the backyard. It took me about three minutes of maneuvering the vehicle out of the narrow spot while trying to avoid about four other cars parked in the area and two architectural columns. I thought I was in the clear when a sudden thud jarred my concentration. I had hit the base of a column with the side of the truck. I got out to find a huge dent with a noticeable series of close knit scratches on it. I quickly covered up the blemish on the column with a giant four ton planter as to avoid any scolding by the bitchy homeowner. I decided it was best to inform my boss after the homeowner had left.

Later in the day, I walked through a giant spider web, stepped in a fire ant pile, and spilled spoiled milk all over my feet. Gag.

Obviously, I hold strong discontent for my flaw and contrary to popular belief, I do not pique myself on my ability to amuse others with my lack of grace. It wrecks my calm nature and I am sick of it.

I decided that I am disowning my title as "absent minded" and donating my helmet to The United Way. Confucius said I could, so I am.

Screw you, 2 left feet!

A Tale of a Tail

In the summer of 2008, I took a week long trip down to Marathon in The Florida Keys. Normally this would be a great vacation for me but I didn't have my family or friends with me so I was more than glad to return home to them. I guess you could call it a "business trip" because I was technically working, but most of the business I had to tend to took place around a resort pool and my time was spent mostly changing diapers, cutting hot dogs into tiny pieces, and cleaning the sand out of the eyes of a cranky 2-year-old.

Even though I tried to make the best out of the situation, I had never been away from my husband for more than a few days and it sucked way more than I had anticipated. I have a ton of other complaints about the trip but I won't mention specifics on such a public forum. I will say that my patience and tolerance of egotistical assholes was tested constantly and I did have an incident that involved me calling someone, who is responsible for my income, a smart ass.

Aside from that, I was coerced into going snorkeling on a very choppy day and spewed my breakfast in the center of about 40 other snorkelers. Naturally, the fish were very attracted to my barf which would have been great if it weren't for them trying to eat my face off. Sadly, this was not the first time that I had chummed up the water on that very reef. Only this time, I hadn't eaten key lime pie for breakfast.

The trip wasn't all bad. I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with Ryan, the toddler I was responsible for. We discovered new and interesting things about each other and he even started to pick up a few of my habits. He started using words that I would frequently use like, delicioso and werd! He also started using phrases such as, Gimme a break and I don't roll with that.

Ryan and I normally spend about 30 hours a week together and it surprised me that being exposed to me 24 hours a day for a week could affect him so much.

After about 3 1/2 days, I had taught him how to swim, introduce himself to strangers, and how to tell his right hand from his left. I was quite impressed with myself, even if his parents chocked it all up to "good genes." pfft.

One of my favorite parts about the trip was getting the opportunity to spend time with Ryan's grandmother, affectionately known as "Nanna". Nanna and her husband, "Pop Pop", were visiting from a small town in South Carolina. I am always drawn to small town old folks because they remind me of my own grandparents. I fell in love with Nanna almost immediately and after the first day, she had adopted me as her own grandchild. We would have wonderful conversations about life and although her political views were what you would expect from a woman of her age, her ideals about family and relationships were quite similar to my own.

Nanna would often use words that you would usually only hear on television like "darling" or "gander." My favorite instance was when she looked at me, smiled, and said to me with a heavy southern accent, "I reckon if you took a gander o'er yonder you might could see a slice of chocolate cake with your name on it."

Nanna recognized and appreciated all the little things that I would do with Ryan that his own parents neglected to prioritize, which made me feel better about the time and effort that I was spending away from my own family and made the vacation a lot more bearable.


The trip also opened my eyes to the fact that there are some lobsters that don't have claws. I had always pictured lobsters to be bright red and have massive pinchers but, much to my surprise, a Florida Lobster is a small, brown, clawless, creature. I was also made aware of the thousands of people who venture out into the Florida waters for 2 days each year, dive gear and tickle sticks in hand, to capture these adorable crustaceans before the commercial fisherman plant their many lobster pots throughout the area.

The first day, my employers returned from their 10 hour expedition with 29 lobster which was 1 less than their legal limit. Even though I love to eat lobster, it broke my heart to see their little tails ripped from the rest of their bodies while they were struggling to escape the grasp of a greedy human.

I am not a vegetarian by any means but I could never bring myself to kill another living thing. I like to leave the dirty work for the stronger stomached. I even have sympathy for insects. I don't mind bugs at all. I am especially fond of spiders and beetles and when I come across a bug scurrying around inside my house I usually scoop it up and relocate it outdoors where it is surely to be more comfortable. If I come across a gentle creature who has lost it's way, I will gladly return it to it's home outdoors. Unless I see a mosquito, cockroach, or sugar ant. If I spot those assholes anywhere near my house, I will spray the shit out of them with Windex.

My sympathy for the lobster, however, escaped me as I sampled every lobster based recipe known to man. Between the Lobster Nuggets and Lobster Reuben Sandwiches, you would think I was all lobstered out but I assure you that if I was offered a bite of that delicious tail right now, I would devour it instantly. Unless, of course, I had to kill it myself. I don't roll with that.

Suck That Lolli!

What girl wouldn't love a guy who let them do this to their hair?



I call this "Suck That Lolli!"



and this is the "Sanjaya"





and my personal favorite, "Emo Head."







What a sport.