Wednesday Thoughts

One of my favorite things to do when I'm in Ludington (where I was on vacation last week) is to walk out to the Big Sable lighthouse along the beach. My nephew loves to do it too, and usually when we're in Ludington as a family, my nephew, my sister, and I walk out there together. This year my sister couldn't, so my nephew and I made the walk alone. We had a blast!

For just a few bucks, they let you climb to the top. You can see out really far and there are signs around the railing telling you how far away some key places are. Standing on the lookout, my nephew said to me, "I'll never get used to this." He was referring to the heights. I could relate - it was a windy day which made my knees even a little more weak than they normally would have been. Thank goodness for a high railing!

Here are some pictures from our trek!

My nephew chasing the seagulls away

The Big Sable lighthouse

My nephew. I love him tons.

If you go to Ludington, I would highly recommend this walk out to the lighthouse. It's a 45 minute walk (each way) along the beach and it's gorgeous and magical!

Happy Wednesday. :)

Googly Eyes Bandit

Googly eyes are one of my very favorite craft items ever. I don't know if it's just because of the way they can't focus on one thing, or the fact that they bring to life any item they're stuck on, but I love 'em. Which is why when I was on vacation with my family last week, I decided to bring my stash of googly eyes and become the googly eyes bandit. 

My nieces and nephew (the little one, not the older one who became my partner in crime) loved finding googly eyes in random places all week. They never found out it was me, either! But they were dying to find out who it was. I wasn't always very discrete either, but kids tend to be pretty clueless and easily distractable. I think my nephew knew it was me but he wanted to believe it was a real bandit so he talked himself out of it.

Here are some pictures from some of the times the googly eyes bandit struck!

On our hike!

 

On the informational signs in the state park: 

At the ice cream place!

 

At the lighthouse!

(on either side of my niece in the middle)

By the end of the week, my older niece (she's 8) was getting frustrated not knowing who it was, so she made a suspect list and had everyone in the family vote on who they thought it was:

We had showed them the SNL sketch where Christopher Walkin put googly eyes on all his plants -that's why he's on the list. Notice he got 9 votes. One of our prime suspects.....

After a week of playing the googly eyes bandit, I would have to highly recommend it. Googly eyes make everyone laugh. We left the ones at the ice cream place and a few other places up for other people to enjoy. My 14 year old nephew told me it was technically vandalism, but I told him it was the good kind of vandalism (am I an amazing role model or what?).

If you don't own any googly eyes, just say the words "googly eyes" out loud a few times and try not to smile. Could googly eyes be the key to world peace? It's possible, you guys. I'm going to have to think more about this and get back to you. In the meantime, watch out for the googly eyes bandit!

Right On

I will never be the kind of person who can pull off saying, "Right on." I envy people who can. If I tried to say it a huge alarm system would go off over my head and lights would light up:

To be honest, I've never tried it in real conversation. I know my limits. I've tried it in my head and this is what it sounded like:

Like it was cross-stitched on a kitchen towel in a dusty old kitchen from the 20's and read out loud by Marilla Cuthbert.

I know about four people who say "right on" on a regular basis. They're all pretty different, but they have one thing in common: a kind of laid back, Matthew McConaughnaughey (did I add too many aughey's?) attitude. One's a hipster who writes beat poetry, one's a hippy who only eats "local," one hates hippies and likes rebuilding old cars, one likes Renaissance Faires and living by his own rules.

Here's what I like: playing by the rules, berating myself for every little mistake I make, harboring crippling self doubt, using coupons at JoAnn's, finding new Murder, She Wrote mysteries at used book stores, meeting dogs, baking cookies, being allergic to eggplant, biting my nails, flat-ironing my curls into nonexistence, and watching Big Brother.

None of those things equal a person who can say Right On without sounding like a huge phogna bologna (those two words rhyme, trust me).

Will I ever be able to say Right On? I just don't know. I really doubt it. Maybe someday I'll let my hair curl free, I'll eat quinoa with every meal, I'll snap my fingers at poetry readings, spend an afternoon at a flea market and at the end of the day, when someone tells me about their day, I'll say "right on" and it will sound right (on).*

*I just ruined it, didn't I?

Making money through blogging

I read a lot of blogs. From what I hear, some blogs can make a lot of mullah. Not this blog though. Oooooh no, this blog is a pure labor of love (for whom or what, I have no idea). I mean, I would love to make money blogging. I'm in no way, shape or form, "above it." But I just haven't been able to make it happen. I did a little brainstorming and figured out some of my problems:

I think the real reason I'm not making any money on this blog however is that I haven't tried at all. Maybe it's time to get on that. Check back tomorrow for my "outfit post!" (I'd rather die.{But I'm not opposed to other ideas.})

Editors note: sponsors is misspelled in the graphic. My bad. 

Wednesday Thoughts

Be back soon! (This picture was taken today - Ludington is the most magical place on earth! No offense, Disney World.)

Ear Candling

Years and years ago in Houston, I saw a man make a cone out of newspaper, stick the smallest part in his ear, and set the widest part on fire. Like so:

I asked him what he was doing and he said he was sucking the ear wax out of his ear. As crazy as it sounds I've wanted to try it ever since. A few weeks ago, my ear felt kind of cloudy. Kind of like swimmers ear, only I hadn't been swimming. I became really worried that I had a family of some kind of insect living in there ("The good news is we got the earwig out, the bad news is it was a female" - name that quote). I tried some holistic ways of cleaning out my ear and none worked. Eventually my ear felt fine and I concluded that I'd probably just had a cold.

But still. You just never know what's going on in that mysterious cavern we call an ear canal. And since the general rule is that you shouldn't stick anything larger than your elbow in your ear, there's no way of finding out what's going on. I mean, of course I clean my ears regularly - I'm not a monster. But you can only stick that Qtip in so far!

I never trusted myself to light a piece of newspaper on fire and stick it in my ear. Call me crazy, but when a flame gets too close to my body I get squeamish. Plus, I grew up in the era of Smokey the Bear giving nonstop lectures about fires and I've always been fairly obedient when it comes to talking bears.

Then some friends told me about ear candling. The "candle" is a hollow wax tube that works the same way as the newspaper does, only safer! (I assume... I mean, it must be, right? I have no idea.) I've been wanting to try it ever since they told me about it, and last night I finally did! I don't have a picture of myself, but I have a picture of my friends. Only one of these friends was really on board with ear candling, and had done it many times. The guy with her in this picture was trying to prove us wrong (failed). And the woman in the other picture was much more concerned about her hair burning than any wax in her ear. (A valid concern.)

The amount of ear wax that came out of our ears was suuuuuper gross. SLASH AWESOME! I couldn't resist doing some research on ear candling when I got home. I could have researched it before but I was afraid I'd talk myself out of it. Plus I've always preferred the "it's better to ask forgiveness later than permission now" philosophy. Turns out a lot of know-it-alls (researchers) are naysayers about ear candling. So I will give you that disclaimer before you try it yourself.

Will I do it again? Maybe! Probably? There's no way of knowing. It was pretty cool though. Have you ever tried it? Would you ever do it?

Oh, and because we couldn't get enough of fire after doing the candling, we blew fire in the back yard afterward. Don't worry Smokey, it rains so much in Michigan there's very little risk of anything starting on fire. And we were being careful.

Fire! Fire! Fire! Safe, adult supervised fire.

Wednesday Thoughts

Today I'm giving you a gift: the gift of a feeling of superiority. Why? Because I'm about to talk about why I like the show "Big Brother."

The hamsters (contestants)

 In case you don't know what the show is about, here's a brief summary: 16 people are locked in a house for three months. Each week there is a competition and the winner is named the Head of Household. That person nominates two people for eviction. The rest of the week those two people campaign like crazy to not be voted out. Deals are made right and left, graves are sworn on, blood oaths are made (not really, but maybe), first born children are negotiated, etc. Halfway through the week there is a "power of veto" competition. The winner can protect one of the players nominated if they choose, in which case a new nominee is named. At the end of the week, everyone in the house votes anonymously and one person is sent home.  At the end, only two are left and a jury of the last 6ish players evicted votes for the winner. The winner gets $500,000 (TOTALLY not worth it, if you ask me!).

The show is addictive. Here's the thing: it's on 3 nights a week. THREE. AND, that's not all. If you pay, you can subscribe to the live feeds, meaning you can watch the contestants in the Big Brother house 24/7. Seriously. There are 4 cameras in the live feed and you can just watch to your hearts content. A couple years ago, my friend paid for the live feeds. At the end of the eviction episode (which is live), there was a big fight and we just immediately turned on the live feeds when the show was over to watch it all play out.

This season there's been a lot of controversy because of some racism in the house. In fact, two contestants have been fired from their real-life jobs outside the house. They have no idea of this fact though since they don't have contact with the outside world. 

In addition to the three episodes a week and the live feeds, there are also websites that update every minute or so with updates about things being said or done in the house. I follow some of those on Twitter.com, and I just had to share with you some of the hilarious tweets I read last night:

Exposal! I was cracking up as I read those. Some of the players are just awful. An adult wiped another adult's hat on his butt!?!?! Who does that!? Some of them are just truly just the worst. There's always a few players you hate and a few you like. It's good stuff.

K, I'm done. For now... (mwahahahahaha!)

In other Wednesday Thoughts, I went to a youth activity (for my church) last night. It was a post-camp party where we watched a slide show of camp pictures and made a craft project. Unfortunately, the person in charge of the craft had to go out of town for a family emergency and none of us knew how to do it! Luckily a few girls figured it out and after an hour or so, we (they) had it down:

Huh!?

Victory!

This craft was seriously AP crafting. Luckily when it comes to making bracelets, teenage girls never give up.

Happy Wednesday!

Summer Adventures

Us and summer are* intertwined now. We're really in the mix of it. It's hot out, there's lots of thunderstorms, everywhere you looks it's SO green, it's humid, the fireflies are everywhere, the mosquitoes are HUGE, and the sun isn't setting until 9:30pm. We're in the dog days of summer, and I'm loving it. (Except the mosquitoes and humidity.) Here are some pictures from some summer adventures I've had in the last week:

I went to a Tigers game with a good friend who was in town for work (and his coworker, peeking in on the other side of me). I LOVE going to baseball games! 

This past weekend was the Celtic Festival. One of my sisters is in charge of the kids section so I always "get" to volunteer there (hehe). My nieces and nephew loved having Princess Merida there (can't you tell from my nephew's face!?)

Merida, telling her story

 

My sis, the boss!

I also went to see Mary Poppins with my good friend, Sara, over the weekend. We went to the Redford Theater in Detroit, which I've blogged about before. It's an old renovated theater and it's awesome! If you live in the area, and haven't gone before, you should check it out. Here's a link to their schedule.

That guy to the right of Sara is really freaking me out right now

Theater people making announcements (boooooring)

I was going to say something about "those summer nights" to end this post, but remember in Greece when John Travolta sings that part all high and it's soooo awkward!? Definitely the worst part of the movie. I wish it had never happened. Who told him to go falsetto on it!? Big mistake. I mean, I still like the movie, but that part makes me cringe every time.

In conclusion, summer is fun, and John Travolta should never sing in falsetto.

*there was a typo here before. I hope you will stick with me through these hard times.

Wednesday Thoughts

The other day, while at a friend's house, she pulled out some of our old high school year books. Mine are packed away in some boxes who even knows where so I haven't looked at these in years. I am about to do the unthinkable and share some high school pictures of me with you! Gulp!!!

I simply took pictures of the yearbooks, I haven't scanned them yet. So I apologize for the quality. Also, it was the 90's so don't judge me too harshly please.

First we have this candid shot of me - what is that in front of me? There's no way of knowing. The only thing I know for sure is that my bangs were amazing. I think I was in tenth grade the year all these pictures were taken.

This next one is of me in the orchestra picture. I wasn't in the orchestra so I have no idea what happened here. I'm assuming the picture was mislabeled because I was in band. Either that or my friends and I just went down and joined the orchestra picture for fun. That sounds like something we would do. 

This next one is from Amnesty International.  These pictures were obviously all taken the same day since I look exactly the same in all of them and am wearing the same thing. My friend is sitting next to me on the right and I remember her doing that goofy smile for a joke in all the pictures. 20 years later it still makes me laugh. A good friend who I still hang out with is on my left! She looks like a baby and I love it!!

Here's the whole picture. You can see my bro in the pic where I put the arrow. He looks like a mirror image of the guy standing next to him. I'm 100% positive that was unintentional. Also, I'm really jealous of his straight hair.

This last one is of the environmental club, proving I've been a hippie for a long time now. My friend has that hilarious goofy smile on her face again, and what's up with the guy in front of me? Also, the guy standing next to me was actually a good friend of mine, so why was he standing so far away from me? One of my bffs to this day is standing next to me on the other side. She hasn't changed a  bit!

And that's the 90's for you. Can you just hear Toad the Wet Sprocket in your head? I know I can. Happy Wednesday. :)

Girls Camp

Some things I learned at camp:

1. These girls are awesome. They're funny, fun, sensitive, sweet, smart, and they care about each other.

B. Teenagers get my sense of humor. What does that say about me? I'm not sure. On the last day of camp I made an announcement to my girls that if any of them had found their long lost twin that week at camp and were planning on switching places when they left camp, that was strictly against the rules. They got the reference.

3. Teenage girls are tougher than they look. I have heard so many guys say, "oh girls camp!" all smirky like - like it's a week at the spa. Well, if a week at the spa means sleeping in a damp tent, having wet feet all the time, cleaning bathrooms every day, catching a mouse, being surrounded by daddy long legs, and so on and so forth, well, let me just say that the spa isn't really as relaxing as you would think. The difference between boys and girls is that the girls still smell good at the end of the week because they care about grooming.

BURN. (That burn was meant for my adult male friends who poo-poo girls camp, for the record.)

D. Girls camp is super fun. One of the girls brought her guitar and sang around the campfire every night to us. She's amazing. Here's a link to her youtube channel! Other fun parts include playing UNO, making campfires, roasting marshmallows and Starbursts, going to the John Johnson farm, singing a LOT, dancing a little, braiding each others hair, laughing hysterically over nothing, going on a long canoe trip down a gorgeous river, sneaking off to Dairy Queen with one of the other leaders (shhhhh), fireflies landing on our tent at night and acting as little nightlights, and so on and so forth.

Downsides: raccoons (and lots of them), wet feet/clothes/towels, camp bathrooms, mosquitoes, spiders, no sleep.

Still totally worth it.

Camp!

Sometimes when something super fun happens in my life, I end up not blogging about it at all because I don't even know where to begin. That's how I feel about girls camp, which is what I attended for all of last week. Just to get you up to speed if you're new here, girls camp is for the young women in my church, ages 12-17. I was asked to be one of the leaders this year and said yes!

I had no idea what to expect, and was actually pretty nervous. However, I had a full on blast. I loved it! The girls were hilarious and fun, and despite the fact that I got no sleep and was tired and wet (it rained/drizzled a lot), it was one of the best experiences of my life.

I thought I'd share with you something that made me laugh from camp. This 13 year old girl from my ward (church) asked me if she could use my phone one night to text her mom. She was worried because she hadn't been able to find her backpack for a couple days and it had her camera and her makeup bag in it. She wanted to text her mom just to warn her ahead of time. I gave her permission to use my phone not realizing how late it was (we were all still up sitting around the campfire, talking and laughing). She ended up calling her mom after the third text and chatting with her for a few minutes (her mom was disappointed but not mad).

Just by way of explanation, in our church, we are encouraged to call adults "brother" and "sister" out of respect. Without further ado, here is the text. It cracked me up when I saw it later:

More camp stories coming in the next post.....