Time to order Christmas cards already? Yep. (*Giveaway included*)

Okay, I know I have that whole "One holiday at a time" thing where it annoys me when people act like Halloween and Thanksgiving don't exist because they are in such a hurry for Christmas? Well, I stand firmly by that. With one exception...

Christmas cards

While I see absolutely no reason a card should be put in the mail before December 1st, it's perfectly acceptable to order them in advance. Granted, I don't order them in July like, ahem, some people I know... but this time of year? Prime ordering time.

The last few years, I've gotten my Christmas cards from Shutterfly. I've also used them for photo books and other types of cards. I'm not one to brag on specific companies or post reviews or anything like that very much. I find it takes away from the unbridled snarkiness I aim for on this blog. But, I love them enough to do it anyway.

After all, do you remember the super cool card I made last year?

It was a pretty big hit. Mostly because nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a cat that clearly wants to end you. This year? We've added yet another furry monster to the family, so I guess we'll need something with 6 photos. Or, in the holiday spirit, perhaps we'll give Mama Cat a reprieve from the photo shoot.

Anyway, for the really awesome part...

I've got three... THREE... promos codes to give away for 25 free cards from Shutterfly.

And, because I'm lazy, you don't have to do anything super complicated to enter.

Just visit Shutterfly, look at their holiday cards, and leave me a comment telling me which is your favorite. **Bonus entry: Share this post on Facebook and/or Twitter using the link: http://goo.gl/sCo0t and leave separate comments letting me know you did.**


Of course I'd love for you to follow my blog and like my Facebook page and send me cookies and stuff, but that won't make any difference for this giveaway.

Enter by 10:00PM CST Sunday, Nov. 6th. I'll announce the winners the following day.

Fine print: Shutterfly provided me with the promo codes to share with you. All the nice stuff I said about them was of my own accord.

How to Nap Like a Champ

Step 1: Find someone to support your back

Step 2: Stretch as far as you can

Step 3: Kick your legs straight into the air

Step 4: Snore

Halloween... a little early

We did Halloween a little early this year. Probably because Christmas keeps encroaching on all the other holidays and we've got to squeeze it in while we can. Okay, not really. But that was my way of passively-aggressively reminding people to chill out with the Christmas already and enjoy the fall holidays. Like Halloween.

Anyway, some people from church had a costume party and cook out. It's the first costume party I've been to in, um, maybe ever. (Not counting when I was a kid. Or maybe then. I don't really remember.)

Finding a costume for an adult that is NOT adult is ridiculously hard. You can basically choose from witch, giant banana, or any manner of stripper costumes parading as Dorothy, a cop, or anything else that can be skanked up. Seriously, why do so many people want to be naked at Halloween? Moving along... 

The best choice was to put something together myself. And, the clear choice for idea-gathering was - of course - Pinterest.  (PS: I'm thinking of posting a Pinterest tutorial I made for a friend. Do it? Yes? No?)

After much debate...I came up with this:

 

Because, seriously, who doesn't love Flo from Progressive? Ok, ok, I just wanted a reason to yell "UNICORNS AND GLITTER!" and call people "Big Money" all night. 

While I had some initial concerns over whether or not I'd be able to tease my hair high enough (BumpIt-free, by the way), I ended up pretty happy with how it came together. And, while he declined to let me post photographic evidence, the police officer hubby went as an inmate. You know, because it's the opposite of a cop. 

My Pinterest inspiration didn't stop at Flo. I also got the ideas for both of the foods I took. First, some Rice Krispie cupcakes.

And, then, because I couldn't just take plain, ol' guacamole...

I know, I know. I'm classy. With a k. (But it was gone before I even got through the line, so I'm guessing pumpkin barf is a delicacy in some parts. Fortunately, the parts where I was.)

All in all, very happy with early Halloween. I'll probably put it back on next Monday to hand out candy to the neighborhoodlums. After all, once you've been Flo, everything else is just flat hair and regular-sized name tags.

"But it looked so easy on Pinterest!"

I've been decorating cakes now for the better part of a decade. (Wow! Has it been that long? Almost 8 years, I guess... which is, in fact, the better part of a decade.) I've taken classes, worked with other decorators, and learned the best way to do something after about a bajillion attempts at the worst way. Am I the greatest cake decorator ever? Not at all. But I've got a pretty good handle on how to do things. (Or when to say "Yeah, that's above my skill level. You better call Kelli Marks.)

What sometimes wears on my nerves is when someone finds a picture of a cake online and I suggest a few things that might need to be done differently and they aren't cool with it. What people don't realize about pictures of cakes online is that sometimes it's not cake at all... it's Styrofoam covered in a special non-edible "icing" that gets rock hard and can be sanded smooth. Or that the cake they want probably cost $5,000 and took days to make. But then there's "Well, the website said they did it this way..." Um, okay. That might work, or it might fall over. Let me tell you how I suggest we do it. In every one of those (fortunately not that frequent) conversations, I've heard myself say "It's not as easy as they make it look online."

Believe it or not, this post actually has nothing to do with cake. I just needed to tell you a really long story so I could get to the "It's not as easy as they make it look online" part...

It's about pumpkins. And Pinterest.

I consider myself to be fairly crafty. Cakes are what I feel I do best, but I can also sew a little, paint a little, decorate a little, etc. Nothing to give Martha a run for her money, but enough to throw a decent baby shower or have a festive Christmas tree. So, when I saw some pumpkin ideas on Pinterest, I thought "Yeah, I can totally do that..."

Inspiration via Pinterest

I mean, it's craft paint. I've been using craft paint since I was, like, 4. And glittery spray paint? Yes, please.

With that, I was off to Hobby Lobby to stock up on paint. Not brushes, because -duh!- I have brushes. I'm crafty. Then, to the grocery store to find pumpkins. Then home, to turn the garage into a haze of glitter and aerosol.

The spraying went okay. I mean, I probably should have done it in the daylight. The garage light is pretty bright, but it turns out I did miss half a pumpkin a couple of spots. Of course, I didn't realize it until the next day, when I was ready to start painting designs.

Except I couldn't find my brushes. Things pretty much went downhill from there. Something like this: 

Oh, there are my brushes. Crap. I thought I had more sizes of brushes. But, no problem, I'm painting squares. How hard can that be? Draw the squares with a pencil first? Nah. I'm crafty. I can paint a square.

Oooh, and on this one, I'm going to paint a P for our last name. Because I saw a lot of monogram pumpkins on Pinterest, too. Draw that with a pencil? Don't be silly. I don't draw the letters on my cakes first and I pretty much rock at writing in icing. Surely I can paint a P. I'm crafty. Um, except the P looks really small. Maybe I better spray some glitter on top to jazz it up. Yeah, that'll work. Or look dumb. But mostly work.

Wait, what? Why isn't this metallic craft paint sticking to the pumpkin? And why is the cat drinking out of the cup of water I had planned on using to clean my improperly-sized brushes. And why isn't this square very square? I wonder if I can wipe off the craft paint without wiping off the spray paint...  and... no. Okay, I guess I'll put another non-square square there.

Shoot. I wanted to do two argyle pumpkins, but since the metallic paint isn't sticking, I don't want them both to be black, so I guess I'll do something else. Like a spider web! I can paint a spider web without referencing another picture. Because it's a web. And I'm crafty.

Wait, this is looking more like a brick than a web. Whatever. I don't care anymore. Stupid pumpkins.

This looked so much easier online!

In the end, the glitter pumpkins actually came out really cool. Or I'm just biased because of my all-consuming love affair with glitter. The painted pumpkins? Well, they'll do. I can't entirely blame the internet. I mostly just looked at pictures and did a quick Google search to make sure acrylic craft paint would stick to pumpkins. I 'spose I could've done a little more research. And drawn the shapes on with a pencil. All I know is that it's not as easy as they make it look online. And maybe I'm not as crafty as I think.

Nevertheless, I live in a neighborhood where one guy has a real hearse he parks in front of his makeshift graveyard... and the guy across the street from him, well, I can't even describe the tackiness of his decor. My "not how they looked on Pinterest" pumpkins won't cause too much of a stir. Plus, my husband said he liked the "Charlie Brown" one. So...

The Bacon List

That new movie, The Ides of March, with George Clooney and Ryan Gosling opens today. After I got over the initial OCD annoyance that makes me think a movie called the Ides of March should open on the actual Ides of March, not mid-October, I realized something else.

Ryan Gosling

That guy is really popular... and I don't get it.

This, of course, got me thinking of other really popular things that I don't get. This is not a list of things I think only idiots like (though I can easily produce such a list if need be) but just things that lots of people like and I don't really see the attraction. At the top of the list? Bacon. Thus,

The Bacon List

• BACON: This stuff is everywhere! My Twitter friends have deep, philosophical discussion about bacon. Denny's created a holiday to celebrate bacon. It even had a bacon sundae. Just Googling about the bacon holiday returned an unbelievable amount of bacon-related holiday sites. And, when I first publicly stated I didn't like bacon, I may as well have said that boiled babies for fun.  I just don't like bacon. For one thing, I'm not super carnivorous. The meat I do eat is pretty lean. Not because I'm some health guru... but just because meat fat between my teeth makes me gaggy. Plus, I just can't figure out what it tastes like. Is it meat-flavored salt? Is it greasy-flavored shoe leather? Why does it have to be in every.single.thing!? For the record, I also don't like eggs. Or lettuce and tomato. Or green beans. As bacon hangs out with all these things, maybe that's the problem. Or maybe the problem is that I'm entirely too picky of an eater. Although, oddly enough, I do like prosciutto... with some melon... mmmm!! But bacon? No thanks!
• The aforementioned RYAN GOSLING: Several of my friends deem him their favorite Ryan. He isn't mine. (*cough* Ryan Reynolds *cough*) That said, I don't dislike him. Nor do I like him. He's just there. I've heard he's ridiculously good looking. I don't really see it. I mean, he's not ugly... but he's not Ryan Reynolds. Supposedly he's smart. Ok. I'll take your word for that. I've never had a conversation, intellectual or otherwise, with him. I was also pretty sure I'd never seen a single movie he was in. (No, not The Notebook. Do you people know me but at all?!) However, it turns out I've seen Remember the Titans and Murder by Numbers. Considering I had no idea he was in them, I guess he didn't make of an impression on me.
• DECORATIVE PENDANTS / BUNTINGS: Triangles on a string? Um, okay. Actually, in the right setting (kid's birthday party, nursery, etc.) I don't mind at all. It's kind of cute. But, like bacon, why is it everywhere? Half the decor pictures on Pinterest have some form of bunting. (Okay, not half, probably like 4%... but when I don't care for something, it obviously feels like more.) Holiday mantel decor? Stick some triangles on it. Random photo shoot under some trees? String some triangles across it. A cake? Oh, no. Please don't... yep... you did. Stick some skewers atop the cake and hang a mini bunting between them. I guess it just reminds me of a car dealership. You know, they always have the super long strings of plastic triangle flags flapping noisily in the wind. That's probably what ruined it for me. Yeah, let's go with that.
• MOUSTACHES: I've mentioned before that I don't like facial hair... but that's not actually what I mean. I'm talking about the fake, cut-out, curly handlebar moustaches that now appear in every wedding photograph, stuck on the side of a glass so it looks like the drinker has a moustache, baby pacifiers, and pretty much any other product you can think of. (And yes, on the off chance that random bride reads my blog, I blurred out the faces. You're welcome, Moustache Bride. Feel free to leave me a comment on why this is actually a cool look.) I don't know... I guess I figure if I have to endure waxing  my upper lip, I'm not going to turn around and decorate it with a fake moustache.

Who knows. Maybe the real problem is that I'm dreadfully uncool or backwards or otherwise not in keeping with the times. And I actually do want to see The Ides of March, but now that I've re-outted myself as a bacon hater, I probably should invest in a fake moustache so I can be incognito at the theater, right?

~What's on your bacon list?~

Amazingly, I lost weight without the help of Pinterest...

Oh, hi! Welcome to the 100th different version of this post. Since you're apparently reading it, I guess I finally got my head straight and strung together some coherent thoughts. Every now and then, there's a topic I want to write about but it's too broad or I get too soapbox-y and -for the sake of my sanity and yours- I end up deleting it and starting over. And over. And over. Today, we've arrived at one such topic.

Thinspiration

Huh? Is that even a word? No, not really. But if you've been spending as much time on Pinterest as I have, you likely know what I'm talking about. If you're not familiar with Pinterest, that's a whole different post. Basically it's photos and links to websites on every imaginable topic (decor, recipes, fashion, etc.) that you can "pin" and reference later. It sounds weird at first, but it's cool. I promise. Check it out. I love it. Except for the thinspiration.

There's that word again, huh? Clearly it's a combination of thin + inspiration. Photo after photo of quotes designed to motivate people to work out and / or lose weight. Some are okay... the woman in the sports bra with the toned tummy who reminds you that yesterday you said you'd go to the gym tomorrow. Fine, whatever. But, of course, it goes too far. There are way too many women pinning pictures of dangerously thin models and declaring that they wish they could look like that. There are signs that are just downright insulting.

Then there's my new hobby: remaking obnoxious signs to include equally obnoxious additions. Like this:

See what I mean? How does implying you're a dog help foster a healthy attitude?

In an effort to avoid the high horse that has caused me to rewrite this post several times, I'm just going to leave it at that. Draw your own conclusions. You're all smart, stable people, right? Clearly we should aim to eat right and be healthy but also feel good about ourselves no matter where we are in that process. Okay?

Now, why is this such a touchy topic for me? Because I've been there. And it doesn't even matter where "there" is. I've been too thin. I've been too heavy. I've had no self-confidence because I thought the only thing that mattered was how skinny I was. I've had too much (or the wrong kind of) self-confidence because I was educated and successful and funny (at least in my own mind), so what difference did it make if I was overweight?

32 years later, I feel like I'm finally on the right path.

And I didn't get there by looking at a bunch of quotes on the internet. I didn't get there by conforming to someone else's idea of what I should be. In fact, I didn't really get there on purpose.

At the beginning of the year, I was the heaviest I'd ever been. I was way too heavy for my height and my frame. I knew it. I just didn't really care. Well, I cared, but kind of like the way I care about my ridiculously messy closet. I know it's a mess but it's such a mess that I don't even know where to start, so I just keep ignoring it. Then, I had a very stressful experience. The details don't matter, but I was too frazzled to even think about eating. I immediately dropped several pounds. The dust settled and some clarity returned to my world. I knew that not eating was not acceptable, but I also felt like I should take those lost pounds and build on them in a healthy way.

I didn't follow a program. I'd done Weight Watchers and other things in the past. I'd had some success, but it just didn't feel right this time. Instead, I just told myself that I was mature enough to use common sense and make healthy choices. (Side note: my doctor and I had discussed weight loss many times in the past, so I knew what to do, I just hadn't been doing it.) I drank more water. I cut my portion sizes dramatically (because I'd been allowing myself dramatically oversized portions). I skipped dessert more often than I had it. I started eating at home a lot more. I spent less time on the couch and more time doing things around the house. I didn't make unobtainable goals or restrictions for myself. I didn't swear off all sweets or carbs or anything. I just tried to focus on a big picture of overall balance and good choices.

Am I now an expert on weight loss and health? Not at all. I've been more active but I haven't been doing what would actually qualify as exercise. I need to. I no longer eat "really bad" stuff on a regular basis, but I also don't eat enough "really good" stuff (e.g. fruits, vegetables). I've still got more weight I need to lose and habits I need to change, but I'm proud of the progress I've made. 42 pounds of progress, to be exact.

You know, if the quotes and the pictures and whatnot actually help you without making you feel like crap... by all means, enjoy. But, as for me? Thankyouverymuch Pinterest, but I don't need your thinspiration. I've got my own right here...

PS: That's my nephew. Don't be alarmed that my weight gain / loss had to do with secretly having a baby or anything. It did not.