Birthday

All posts tagged Birthday

How do two people use this many dishes?

Published November 14, 2016 by Malia

I officially became a homemaker at the end of January.  Since January, I’ve discovered that I officially suck at being a homemaker.

Our house is a disaster.  When I moved in, the boy already had the house filled with his things, and I liked his things.  Big problem, though, I had boxes and boxes of my own things, and I happen to like my things too.  Right now, 75% of my things are still in boxes in the room that we don’t talk about.

Oh, the room.  Picture Monica’s secret closet, and just imagine it as a whole room.  Okay, it’s not that bad.  It’s not packed full to the ceiling.  There are just stacks of boxes everywhere.  We don’t talk about the room, because every time I go in there to try find something, I end up wanting to cry and then spend hours beating myself up because I have ZERO clue how to organize this house.

Both my mom and my mom-in-law have offered, many times, to come and help me make sense of the nightmare.  And I know that I should accept their help.  I need their help, but I’ve yet to take them up on it because I’m embarrassed.  It’s humiliating to be almost 32 years old, and be incapable of making your house look like grown-ups live there.

I’ve tried.  I honestly have.  It always starts out well.  I do the dishes.  And by that, I mean, I empty the dishwasher of the dishes that have been sitting in it for two or more weeks, and then fill it up from the pile of dishes that has been growing in the sink for weeks.  Then, once the dishwasher is filled and running, if I’m feeling really gung-ho, I’ll wash a bunch of dishes by hand.  Once the sink is empty I’ll turn my attention to the ever-inflating mountain of laundry, and I might even get the bathroom cleaned.

So, it probably sounds like I’ve pretty much got everything under control, and there should be no problem.  My house should be spotless at this point, right?

Wrong.

See, I’ll have a super productive day, and then the boy comes home from work, and I’ll make food.  Making food leads to the sink being filled with a bunch of dirty dishes.  When I look at that pile of dirty dishes, I just absolutely shut down.  I’ll have been so proud of myself for getting things done throughout the day, and the new pile of dishes seems to cancel out everything else I got done and I feel like I’m back to square one.  And, instead of just being an adult, I go into avoid mode…for days or sometimes weeks.

I don’t know why I go into avoid mode.  I know that there are no faeries that are going to come in the middle of the night and clean my house.  And yet, I apparently believe that is exactly what is going to happen.  There’s just something so defeating about doing a chore and  within a few hours you’re back to square one.

I have no idea how moms do it everyday.  Take my sister-in-law, for example.  She’s mom to the two most precious, adorable, energetic little boys on the planet (nope, I’m not biased at all).  She works full time, is always helping out with things at church, and her house is gorgeous.  I am just in awe of her, and I wish I could be half the amazing woman she is.

The challenge here really is just sucking it up and being a grown up.  And now I’m going to go put another load of laundry in the washer because we are officially out of clean underwear.

Also, there’s only ten shopping days left ’til my birthday.

My cat is extremely jealous of Grumpy Cat, which has absolutely nothing to do with the content of this post.

Published November 21, 2014 by Malia

According to the countdown app on my phone, I’m only 3 days away from turning 30…and I’m only 113 days away from my wedding. 

No, that’s not a typo. 

The boy and I are gettin’ hitched!

Feel free to take a moment and join me in the “EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!” Squeal-A-Thon that I’ve been having for the last two weeks. 

That’s a large part of why I’ve not  written much lately.  It wasn’t really public knowledge until last Sunday.  Now, though, pretty much everyone I know knows, so I figured I was fine saying something here.

The other reason I haven’t written much is because I’ve not wanted to sound like a broken record.  My life is pretty routine.  I work hard at my awesome/crazy stressful job.  Sleep.  Go to the boy’s house to hang out every few days, and usually use that time to catch up on all the shows that air while I’m at work (Flash and Scorpion are excellent, by the way).  The super cool thing about being engaged (y’know, apart from getting to marry the love of my life and start a whole new life adventure) is that I actually have new things to write about. 
So stay tuned as I start a new decade of life.  Wow, that sounds cheesy.  And now I want pizza.   Which isn’t a good thing if I really want to be able to wear the gorgeous dress in 113 days.

113 days.  I’m getting married in 113 days.  I cannot hardly wait, I’m so excited!!!!!!

Happy Birthday To Me!

Published January 8, 2014 by Malia

Work birthday, that is.  Today (1/7) marked my one year anniversary at my job.  This has been a year of firsts.  It’s the first time I’ve been a recognized full-time employee for more than three months.  It’s the first time I’ve had actual benefits.  It’s the first time I’ve had PTO.  Yes, boys and girls, as of today I have finally achieved PTO.  (For those of you who don’t know, PTO stands for Personal Time Off).  Now, I’m not 100% certain how PTO is different from Vacation Days, but apparently it’s different.

It’s a really good feeling to be gainfully employed.  There was a time in my life, not too long ago, where the idea of being employed full time, in a place that I truly love being seemed an impossibility.  It still kind of astonishes me.  I’m so grateful to have this job, though.

It’s the big 2-9

Published November 24, 2013 by Malia

This is it.  As of 2:35 this morning, I entered my last year of my twenties.

Praise God.

Seriously.

It seems like the majority of people dread the end of their twenties.  Thirty seems to be a death sentence.  I, however, don’t see it that way.  My twenties sucked.  There were definite positive moments, and I’ve made some incredible friends; but overall the whole twenties thing was less than impressive.

So, since it is the end of a decade, it seems like I should put some actual work into becoming the woman I want to be, and not just keep thinking, “Yeah, I’ll do it later.”  Here are a few things I intend to work on this coming year:

1.  Exercise consistently.  I’m really bad at this.  I’ll do a few weeks faithfully, and then a month will go by before I exercise again.  Not a solid life plan.

2.  Eat healthier.  This one should be simpler than it is.  Mostly, I’m very rebellious, and I don’t really want to eat right, even though it’s what’s best for me.

3.  Update my blog more frequently.  I have this, I really should use it more than once every month and a half.

4.  Read more new material.  Raise your hand if you’ve read Lord of the Rings more than ten times…twenty times..thirty times…Wait, am I the only one with my hand still up?  How many times have I read it, you may ask?  Well, the truth is, I know it’s more than thirty, but I really don’t know.  I was super obsessed for many years.  I need to force myself to get some fresh material in the mix.  Suggestions welcome.

5.  At least make an attempt to show people I care about what’s going on in their life.  I really struggle to let people know I care.  My heart will be breaking on the inside, but on the outside, I’m usually a jerk.  It’s not intentional, I just have some lousy social skills.

6.  Clean my room and unpack.  This is more than a little embarrassing.  I’ve never really unpacked from moving home.  I have lots of boxes that I’ve been refusing to deal with.

7.  Work on looking more feminine.  Something else I really struggle with.  Looking attractive terrifies me.  I’m sure that seems silly, but it really does freak me out.

It Was A Beautiful Cake

Published April 7, 2013 by Malia

Occasionally, on here, I mention my slight liking (scratch, and replace with super huge addiction) of Pinterest.  I usually get sucked in on the “Geek” section, but occasionally I do wander over and check out the “Food” section.  This is a dangerous section for me, because while I’m pretty craft challenged, when it comes to food I’ve got a little bit of talent.  Not only can I cook, but I can even make it look somewhat presentable.  Now, last year, I discovered something on Pinterest called a tie-dye cake.  It looked super difficult to make, but after reading the instructions I decided it was worth a try.  Here was the result of the first experiment (I ended up with enough batter to make 2 cakes).  I called this the Jackson Pollock Cake:

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This was the second one:

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Believe me, those cakes were as good as they look.

So, anyway, last fall I was on Pinterest, and I stumbled across this:

Pinterest.com

This beauty is a Whopper cake!  The entire outside is covered in malted milk balls.  Now, I’m not a big Whopper fan, but my dad is.  I knew immediately that this was the perfect cake for his birthday.  After a few months of pondering this cake, I knew that I had to at least try to make it.  So, since dad’s birthday was today, I set about making it this weekend.  It started out well.

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I had to layers like the one above.  I also had the largest bag of malted milk balls I’ve ever beheld.  I know the quality’s not good, but trust me, that’s about 6 lbs of x-large Whoppers:

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I got up super early this morning (6 a.m., which for me is crazy early.  I told my dad that he knows that I love him if I’m willing to get up then just to decorate a cake).  Here’s what the cake looked like when I finished:

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Sure, the Whoppers weren’t lined up completely perfect, but for an amateur cake that I was decorating from memory of a picture I’d seen a while ago, I was pretty happy (also, there’s a raspberry and chocolate filling that while it sounds like a weird combination, wasn’t half bad).

Okay, so you’ve now seen the pretty, perfect cake.

What happened next probably would’ve been avoided if I had ever purchased a cake safe type carrier.  However, I make a “fancy” cake about once every year, so it’s not something I’ve ever thought about getting.

We had decided that since neither mom, nor I should have all that sugar readily available to us (she’s type 1 and I’m type 2 + I’m on a serious weight loss plan), it would be better to take in for the kids on our puppet team to share in.  Now, we tried to figure out a good way to transport the cake, but we had nothing it would fit in.  Eventually, mom agreed to hold it while I drove.

We were about a third of the way to church when the first Whopper popped off the cake.  Then all craziness broke loose.  Whoppers started popping off left and right.  They made a strange sound as the suction of the icing let loose.  Then, the cake started to shift.  The top layer was going one direction while the bottom layer stayed put.  Most people would probably have gotten angry and started yelling at each other, but that’s never really been my family’s thing.  No, this morning marks the first time that I had to pull over to the side of the interstate because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t drive.  It wasn’t just me, either.  Mom was cracking up as well.  (Dad, being mostly deaf wasn’t quite aware of what the situation was.)  Finally, we got control of our laughter, found a piece of cardboard to try to keep the cake separated from mom’s shirt (the pants were a goner at that point), and I finished the drive.  When we got to the church, here’s what we found (quick, remember the beautiful cake picture from above.  Scroll up if needs be, cause this ain’t pretty…):

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And here’s a picture of my mom’s arm:

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You can kind of see just how far the cake was sliding off at that point.

Thankfully, more of the cake survived than we thought had.  People got to share in the remnants, and dad’s got a couple boxes of cake casserole in the fridge.

The important thing to me, about this situation is the fact that no one ever raised their voice, no one ever cast blame (although, let’s face it, I really need to invest in a cake carrying container), and even tonight we are still giggling over the disaster.  I don’t know if anyone else’s family would have been so cool about what happened.  A lot of people would’ve turned on each other and used terms starting with “stupid,” and upped the ante from there.

So, Happy Birthday, Dad.  Next year I’ll try to keep the cake in one piece until after you’ve had your first piece!

Another year older. Another year more immature?

Published November 25, 2012 by Malia

Today (11/24) was my 28th birthday.  My mother threatened to come in my room at 2:35 a.m. (the time I was born) and recreate the phone conversation from City Slickers.  If you’ve never seen the film (and you really should), here’s the conversation I’m referring to:

Anyway, thankfully she waited until 8 a.m. to deliver the “angel birthday girl” speech.  (My mom is fantastic, ya’ll wish you had a mama as awesome!)  Overall I had a wonderful day.  I did some epic yarn shopping (and I do mean epic), and am ready to make a pile of hats.  My parents and I went to see Wreck-It Ralph.  It was cute, but definitely not the best animated film I’ve ever seen.  It felt a bit slow, but I did enjoy all the nostalgic parts of it.  I got to have lunch at Red Lobster, a big treat in my family, and the shrimp & scallop alfredo was amazing as always.  My birthday cake was cheesecake (yes, it was a really naughty day for a diabetic, but hey you’re only 28 once), and I the piece I had was pumpkin and soooooo delicious!

Tonight I saw two films I’ve never seen before, but did own (I’m kind of bad about buying movies I want to see when I find them for cheap at Walmart or Half Price Books).  First, we watched Gremlins, which is a wonderful Christmas movie.  Then, I watched Poltergeist.  Yeah, definitely a film I don’t want to watch all the time, but it was a pretty great film.  Gets in your head, though.

Wow, 28.  It seems like such a big number.  I still feel like a teenager, and have no intention of trying to feel old.  I learned last week that my future plans are being thrown out the window.  I’m okay with this, though.  I need to get better at adjustment, and this is just another way to learn that.  Sure, it terrifies me, but at least I don’t have to face it alone.

I announced on Facebook tonight the fact that my birthday wish this year is that God would bring someone into my life.  I know I don’t need a man in my life, but I’ve spent 28 years as a single woman, and I’m perfectly fine if I reach 29 and still have no boyfriend experience.  I just don’t want to be alone anymore.  There are so many different kinds of being alone, and I’m certainly surrounded by family and friends and I appreciate it; but I don’t have anyone that (for back of a better descriptor) is my “special someone.”  I’m sure it sounds silly and selfish.  I should probably be wishing for world peace or something epic like that.  Anyway, this isn’t me demanding God give me a boyfriend, I’m just wishing and hoping that there’d be some indication that I’m not going to be single forever (how’s that for being a dram queen?).

I’m headed back to school tomorrow, and right now I’m trying to figure out where my iPod might be.  I had it with me when I came home, so I know it’s here somewhere I’m just not sure where.  Then I have 19 days until I’m home for good.

Happiness Is…

Published November 4, 2012 by Malia

-My NaNo word count is 6854.  I’m finally ahead of where I need to be in order to finish by the end of the month.

-My birthday is in twenty days!  I love my birthday!  I like celebrating that I’ve been given another year of life.

-There was snow this weekend, but it wasn’t too terrible.  Plus, the snow covered trees were super pretty.

 

Random Saturday Musings

Published October 28, 2012 by Malia

-I love when I watch a movie that I haven’t watched in years and see that it’s still just as awesome as I remember it being.

-Sometimes it really kills me how divided I feel.  I love & miss my family and friends at home, but if I weren’t here I’d feel the same about the people here.

-I feel confused about the iPad mini.  How is this any different than an iPod touch?  Much as I love my computer and iPod, it disturbs me that now marketing strategies seem to be, “Look, it’s a size we’ve kinda sorta, but not really offered before!  Aren’t we amazing?  Isn’t it great you’ll be willing to pay a couple of car &/or mortgage payments to own this?”

-I’m starting to think it’s a good thing for me not to watch Husker games.  They win when I don’t watch.  Because, of course, the world revolves around me.

-I miss my furry babies.  I know I’m going to get home for Thanksgiving and Howie will completely and totally ignore me until it’s time for me to leave, and I don’t care.  I miss his fuzzy orange face!  I miss my Gracie, too.  I miss watching her try to flirt with Sam & Dean whenever Supernatural is on.

-Aunty Ellen, if you’re reading this, Happy Birthday!  I’ll call you later today (cause I’m pretty sure 4 a.m. wouldn’t be a good time to call).  I’m so blessed to have you for an aunt, and I admire you so much.  I hope you know how much you mean to me, and how truly amazing I think you are!  I love you so much!

-I’m so thankful that my family doesn’t badger me about “When are you going to get married,” or “When are you going to have kids.”  It’s hard enough when no one shows any romantic interest, and knowing there’s a 98% chance of no babies in my future.  I’m just so unbelievably thankful this isn’t a standard I’m held up to.  Instead, I’m allowed to chase my dreams, no matter how silly and foolish other people might find them.Dear Family, you are so amazing and I’d be such a bigger mess without you.

-I’m going to be 28 in 27 days.  How insane is that?  I don’t feel like I’m going to be 28.  I feel like 15 or 16.  The only times I feel old is when I’m around kids who are amazed by the fact that I remember seeing certain films (Land Before Time, Beauty & The Beast, & The Lion King to name a few) the first time they were in the theater.

-Is it weird to say that just seeing my severely beat up copy of Fellowship of the Ring is comforting to me?  I can’t explain it.  I have no idea how many times I’ve read LOTR , I lost count years ago.  Actually, I never kept count.  I just would read the series, and as soon as I finished Return of the King I’d cycle right back into Fellowship.  

-It really bothers me when I see commercials for kid computers and the kids are learning to read and write on the tablet.  I think what truly worries/frustrates/irritates me, is that usually you don’t see the parent until the end of the commercial and inevitably they’re either peeking around a corner or passing through the room where the child is.  Computers shouldn’t be teaching the children!  Parents need to be whipping out the good, old McGuffey Reader and teaching the child.  Reading is not a computer game.  There’s a huge difference between teaching the kid how to recognize and pronounce a word, and teaching a child to do those things and love the words.  Computers don’t love.  They’re a machine.  Words are so important.  Books are important.  I feel like whole generations of children are being denied the pleasure of being friends with words, and that saddens me so much.  Computers are great, and fun, but there are some things that they shouldn’t solely be relied on to do.

Happiness is…

Published October 22, 2012 by Malia

This afternoon I got a call, and during the conversation I was asked, “How would you like to be able to go home for Thanksgiving?”  All I could do in response was cry and mumble through my tears, “I’d…really *sniff*…likethat.”

In less than a month I’ll be home.

Things have been so overwhelming these last few weeks, just knowing that I’ll get to be home for Thanksgiving and my birthday suddenly made things seem a little less overwhelming.  I just gotta get through the next 29 days.

I can do this.

Who?

Published August 9, 2012 by Malia

Today was my mom’s 60th birthday, and we went and did birthday type activities.  Said activities wore me out.  In lieu of an actual post tonight, I share this wonderful image with you all.  Enjoy.

 

(I really wish I had been clever enough to come up with this.  And now I feel the need for a Who marathon.)