Man Skillz

I just found the niftiest book for you to give to your man for Christmas this year. Or a man, anyway. It would be a good gift for a brother too. Although maybe not my brother. Someone would have to give him a sense of humor first. He's so stiff. I only wish I had kept this book from Peanut Head so I could give it to him for Christmas this year.

I love this Man Skills book because it has the best topics. I could entertain myself for hours just reading the Table of Contents alone. In fact, I couldn't wait another minute to share some of my favorites with you. Here they are:

How to Drive Down a Flight of Stairs

How to Drive Up a Flight of Stairs

How to Pee in the Car While Stuck in Traffic (I can personally attest to this being a useful skill, although not that impressive for a man. Seriously.)

How to Bail Out of a Street Luge

How to Disarm an Irate Golfer

How to Control Your Golf Rage

How to Treat a Dart Injury

How to Make Household Chores Fun

Facial Hair Options (complete with illustrations)

Emergency Phrases for When You're in the Doghouse

How to Sleep on the Couch

How to Rid a Bedroom of Monsters

How to Bond with Your Teenager

How to Build a Cat Fort

How to Brush Your Dog's Teeth

How to Discreetly Pass Gas Mid-Meeting

How to Stifle Uncontrollable Laughter

How to Take the Last Doughnut

How to Remove a Tie Caught in the Document Feeder

How to Unclog the Office Toilet without a Plunger

How to Drive a Tank

How to Deal with a Quadruple Blowout

How to Continue Driving on Four Blown Tires

And my personal favorite:

How to Apologize When You Don't Know What You've Done Wrong

I think the funniest part of this book is that many men would consider these to be useful skills. Peanut Head read this book from cover to cover and he thoroughly enjoyed it. I think I even saw him taking notes too.

He's such a nerd.

Decrapification Winner

Congratulations Joni! Random Integer Generator picked you to win the Mini Everyday Display. Shoot me an e-mail me with your address, Joni, and I'll send it right out to you.

I wish I could have given one to everyone, but sadly, I only have one to give away. Some of you asked for the details to buy one yourself, but the Mini Everyday Display is no longer available for sale. It was a Creative Memories limited edition gift awhile back. If you want to purchase a similar one though, a non-mini version, you can go here to find one. They're a little pricey, but I promise you, the quality is excellent.

Thank you to everyone who left a comment. I enjoyed reading about areas that you need to decrapify. It made me feel better to see that I'm not alone in taming the clutter monster. It's an ongoing battle, isn't it?

Grudgingly Decrapifying

Not to be a buzz kill, but do you realize that summer is more than half gone? It is, and I'm a little bit starting to FREAK OUT, I have so much to do. My to do list is ginormously long, and there is no way I will get done what I want to get done before school starts.

I know. Boo hoo.

Anyway, one of the things that I have to get done this week is to clear out our guest room. With a backhoe.

Perhaps you have a similar room in your house? In our house, it's the guest room. We haven't had any visitors in over a year, so it's particularly bad right now. We've been tossing miscellaneous junk in, then super fast, closing the door and forgetting about it. You know the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Stuff we should get rid of, but we don't want to actually make the mentally exhausting decision to just get rid of it already.

So that's what I've been doing today. Decrapifying the guest room. I hate it.

It's not all crap though. There's lots of good stuff in there too. Like one of these Mini Everyday Displays. It's the cutest thing. It's a little frame with a cloth covered magnetic background.

This is one that I have on display in my house. These things are super easy to use. I could have made this waaaaaaaay cuter, but I was in a hurry and I just wanted to bang it out. All I did for mine, was to cut some scrapbook paper to size and use the cute little magnets that come with it to stick it all on. 

Is that a cute little magnet, or what? I didn't use any adhesive at all, everything in my display is being held on with the magnets.

And these dang cute little clothespins.

I absolutely love this thing. You can hang it up with the attached strap and a dang cute little knob screw thing that comes with it, or stand it up on a table with the easel back.

I found one of these things buried in my guest room today, unopened, and it's just screaming for me to give it a loving and appreciative home. So what do you say? Do you want it?

Leave me a comment by midnight Friday, and I'll pick a lucky winner this weekend. I would love to hear about the trouble spot in your house that you need to decrapify. Spill.

Good luck Peeps!

Pimp My Crib

Gunny recently moved into his newly pimped out crib. Peanut Head started making this souped up chalet towards the end of winter when Mr. Naughty Pants ate that door jamb. I took one look at the door jamb, and right away it was no longer too cold for His Hairiness to be outside during the day. Suddenly he found himself out of doors in Idaho temps. Brrrrr.

Peanut Head, being the nice guy that he is, set to work on the new doggie digs right away. Gunny was very helpful, lending lots of moral support out in the cold garage.

Check this out, Peanut Head gave His Doggitiness insulation. Geesh. I think that stuff is better than the stuff in my house. My house with the missing door jamb.

Just in case you thought I was anal, Peanut Head didn't cut any corners for Gunny Man.

Yep, that's siding you see there. What happened to the plywood Snoopy house? I thought dog houses were just slapped together with wood scraps in an afternoon, not planned out and cost adjusted in excruciating detail.

Peanut Head even had a little brainstorming session with Gunny, wherein they discussed in great detail how much growing was going to ensue in later months. Inseams were measured, then multiplied by percentage speculations based on age in months vs. average growing season for canine persons.

I don't really know what I'm saying. I witnessed some things and made some guesses about the actual math of it all. But there was measuring and too many nauseating growth projections. I was consulted and, always happy to help, I did some vigorous eye rolling. I mean enthusiastic.

Gunny even had to hang for a bit, just to make sure it was right-sized. And I think Peanut Head was crossing his fingers that Gunny didn't end up turning into that freakishly big red dog, Clifford.

And this? This is the ultimate insult in my world. Gunny Man has a foyer. And yes, I'll admit, I was a little tempted to hang wallpaper and shop for an entry table and lamp, but dang it, I don't even have a foyer in my door-jamb-missing-house. I have a rug for people to step on. 

You step into my house and immediately you are in my living room. It's that cozy.

There is no foyer.

Peanut Head tried to pacify me by explaining that this is really some sort of submarine-like compartment to seal off the frigid cold and wind. Gunny steps into his foyer, shakes off his delicate little doggie legs, then proceeds into the next compartment, the formal living room.

After explaining why Gunny gets a foyer and I'm still waiting for the door jamb replacement, Peanut Head had the nerve to hand me a paint brush.

Can you believe that?

Of course, only the best for my little Doggie-Dita. I snatched Peanut Head's faded camo beret-hat-thing, the one he wore when he was a Grunt, and headed off to Home Depot for a little color-matching session.

I love camo. I'm thinking I'm going to try to turn this into a piece of digi paper since I haven't been able to find any digi camo supplies anywhere.

Peanut Head made me do the Gunnery Sargeant insignia. He printed a picture for me and everything.

And then he held a chipotle chile pepper to my head again.

And Gunny laughed at me. The nerve.

Just so you know, and because maybe I'm a little bitter, Gunny is a chicken butt. He's such a chicken butt that he was barking so ferociously at a plastic grocery bag in our backyard this afternoon, that I thought he was going to give himself an aneurysm.

And because you know I'm naughty, I ran out and coaxed him to investigate a little closer with me, then when we got right up on it, I shook it at him and chased him with it.

And I think he wet himself.

Oopsie.

Red, White, and Blue

I hope everyone had a nice Fourth of July weekend. I don't know about you, but I always find it to be an exhausting holiday, there always seems to be so much going on.

And, of course, I like to complicate things by adding even more to an already crazy schedule. There are just too many cool ideas out there to try.

For example, I've been wanting to make the girls and I patriotic flip flops for years, and I finally got them done this year. Of course it was July 3rd before I even started on them, but they're done. And never mind that Stinkerbell's flip flops are several sizes too big for her. She'll grow into them. Eventually.

To kick off our exhausting holiday every year, we bike into town to watch the parade. Peanut Head wanted to take Gunny with us this year, and since none of us was clamoring to wear Mr. Poochie Pants in the baby carrier, Peanut Head found this nifty little Walkie Dog contraption that attaches to the bike.

Since you know I never pass up an opportunity to make fun of Peanut Head, I'm going to stop and share the reason behind this seemingly unnecessary piece of equipment. 

Since summer has sort of hit in Idaho, we've been taking bike rides together as a family. Gunny has accompanied us on many bike rides and, because I possess an uncanny ability to exercise my imagination in regards to all things that could possibly go wrong in any given situation, a gift to all mothers upon expelling their first born, I was not about to man the leash with our sweet little dogidita at the other end.

Think about it.

Yep. The Gunesita loves to run in front of Peanut Head's bike. After which Peanut Head does a marvelous flip, head over heels over his handlebars, with his back tire following him in his graceful dive to the ground, and landing atop his incredulous, but apparently unimaginative peanut head.

And my friends, it is all I can do to restrain my laughter, giving myself an implosive inward snort that must be embraced with a violent cranial hug, thereby dang near giving myself a nose bleed. It's a painful process that has been repeated over and over and over again. I only wish I had some footage to share with you.

Not of myself, of course, but of Peanut Head's aerial feat.

Now you know. This seemingly unnecessary piece of equipment, the Walky Dog Bicycle Leash, is a very necessary piece of equipment. You could say it's the glue that is holding my marriage together at the moment.

Since I possess a minimal amount of self-control.

And Gunny loves it. He will run for hours and hours and hours along side his Peanut Head. He will run until he is no longer propelling Peanut Head's bike, his tongue dragging on the ground, his eyes rolling back in his head.

All the while with a smile on his face.

And then Peanut Head, because he loves his little dogidita mucho, will stop and put him in this little baby buggy.

And together they will ride off into the sunset. A man and his dog.

Two grunts in love.

It's a vicious cycle.

Completely unrelated, except as it applies to the holiday weekend, I made some patriotic Rice Krispies treats. I haven't made these in years, and I was amazed at how easy they are. 

Since I plan to make them more often, I couldn't resist making a recipe card for them.

Not that you need a recipe card, because the recipe is on the cereal box. Doi. But you know me, I'm all about the cute.

Have a great week, Peeps!

Roller Skating Old School

Zoe Bug turned nine when we were in Colorado last week. I can't believe my baby is 9! Yeah, yeah, I know, stop whining. I'm working on that. Well, not really, but I should be.

Zoe had her party at our local skating rink this year. Man, what a dive. It looks like it hasn't been maintained since its heyday sometime in the 80s. That was just fine with Zoe Bug though. She's discovered roller skating and now she thinks she is all that on wheels.

It kind of reminds me of when I was in junior high and roller skating was the thing to do on Friday and Saturday nights. I even had some of those shiny, black, skin tight, disco pants. I loved me some disco. Actually, I still do, and it drives Peanut Head crazy. I love the disco and he loves the show tunes. It's a party all the time around here.

Check it out. I used my newly acquired cake decorating skillz to make an appropriate cake for the event.

Chocolate, of course.

These are the treat bags. Somewhere in each of those is an envelope of Pop Rocks. Remember when those came out? Kids still love them. Crazy kids.

When I was stamping these bags, I was so tempted to put SK8R BOI, like Avril Lavigne does, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I was afraid the other moms would thing I'm LitR8.

Get it? Ha, ha, ha! I kill myself.