I suppose only hunters and spouses of hunters can truly appreciate giving a loved one fox urine for Christmas.

This gift made Tate disturbingly excited.  Apparently it’s very difficult to find and “thanks” to his mom and dad’s Christmas shopping diligence, he now is the proud owner of fox urine.

So I guess in this case it’s appropriate to say, “Merry Pissmas?”

If you’re getting desperate and need to buy some super fab gifts for the hunter in your life (and they’re already lucky enough to own their own bottled fox pee), do I have some ideas for you!

Hoo-ahhs and Monkey Butt Powder, or The Butt-Out Tool.

(You can thank me later. *wink*)

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Shop now!

Get yer fox urine right here! (Not SO hard to find…)

Nothing says I love you like a good wipe. Buy them Hoo-Ahhs!

Anti Monkey Butt Powder, for those loved ones with itchy, monkey-like asses!

Buy the much coveted Butt-Out tool here!

Full disclosure…these wonderful products are linked via my Amazon affiliate account.  If I sell enough of these fabulous treasures, I’ll have enough money in six or seven years to buy a can of pinto beans.  Thank you!

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

My children each received these Zhu Zhu pets as an early Christmas present from their great aunt and uncle.

Surely I’m missing something here?  The most coveted toy of the Christmas season is a fake robot hamster that moos like a cow and can sound like a car horn, amongst many other non-hamster-like sounds…um, why?

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

My parents are THE HARDEST PEOPLE to buy gifts for.  Hands down.  If there was an award for “Couple who is most difficult to buy gifts for,” my parents would win, blowing their competition out of the water.  If they were to win such an award, the people giving the award wouldn’t even know what to give them.

So, I felt a little bit like a gift-giving genius when I found this personalized sign on Etsy, for their 40th anniversary.  Isn’t it cute?  I think my parents even liked it.  And it wasn’t yet another gift card to a restaurant or framed picture of my kids!  (Sorry I had to pixelate their last name!  The sign looks REALLY great without the pixelation!)

I found this sign at Define Your Space.  I was able to get the sign personalized and I was able to choose the font and colors.   It’s super heavy duty and I love that it’s 100% unique.  Don’t tell my parents (HI MOM!), but it was NOT at all expensive, yet it doesn’t look cheap.  She has all kinds of different styles of signs (not just anniversary gifts!) and vinyl wall decals.  Possible Christmas gift?  Hmm?   Just so you know, if you were thinking about ordering something as a Christmas gift, you have to place your order by December 6!

Hey FTC, I’m not being paid and I wasn’t even asked to post about this!  All I received for this post was the satisfaction of being a pretty awesome gift-giver.  I’m just telling you all about this because I thought you might like it, too.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

{snicker} Kum & Go. Seriously. Could there be a more ridiculous name for a gas station? The answer to that question is, “I think not.”

****************

We were watching an episode of the Duggar’s show, 17 or 18 Kids and Counting on TLC. (I really love this show, but I forget how many they have, can you blame me?!)

During commercial break, the first ad was for the Nuva Ring.

{hee, hee!}

****************

While visiting my family this weekend, my brother and his wife stayed at a hotel. Snickering, my brother told me that there was a sign where you put your key card in that said, “Pull out slowly.”

{HA!}

He’s obviously not a blogger or he’d have taken a picture. I blame him for ruining this blog post.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

“He was wearing a suit, that’s what I first noticed,” she explained as I asked question after question about their courtship.

“You fell hard and fast, huh Mom?” my brother asked as my Mom smiled and nodded her head in agreement.

“This was even before I bought the Corvette,” my dad adds.

Shocked, I asked, “Even before you bought her a ring!?”

My Mom and Dad met in April and married seven months later on November 28, 1969. As my brother and I quiz them, wanting to know every detail of how their love came to be, I notice that they look at each other when answering the questions and finish each other’s sentences.

My parents recalled their first date, forgetting most of the details except that at some point they went to Dairy Queen. Most of the questions we ask, their answers are fuzzy. They do remember that there wasn’t an official get-down-on-your-knee proposal.

My mom did recall one funny detail, “Your Aunt Jeanie heard that we were going to go pick out a ring and showed up at my parent’s house wanting to see the ring.” The whole idea of marriage apparently was a surprise to my grandmother.

“When I got home Mother said, ‘well, show me the ring.’ My dad was on a business trip, I think. He called and Mother handed me the phone and said, ‘here, you tell him.”

“Well, what did your parents think, Dad?” my brother and I pressed for the details.

“I don’t think they’d met her yet,” my dad explained.

“You know, don’t you,” I asserted, “that this was completely crazy, right?”

And it was crazy. Meeting in April, marrying just a few months later, both of them so young, not even really knowing one another’s families. But crazy became 40 years, 2 children, and a mostly great life together.

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad. Here’s to 40 years, and to many, many more.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

“They just show up!  Unannounced!  They overstep their boundaries and discipline my kids, they never even give me a chance to correct them,” she lamented.  Her list of grievances also included being dragged into family drama, feeling obligated to always participate in family functions, and never having weekends to themselves.

I smiled and nodded sympathetically in all the right places as I listened to her story.  Probably, if we lived close to family, I might even feel the same way.   I’d likely even need an anonymous blog to complain about those kooky people with whom Tate and I share history and DNA.   Yet it’s hard to relate to these family “horror” stories since I don’t have family that is closer than an eight hour drive away.

I do not want to play the “who has it worse” game, because that’s unfair.   Family that’s too close and family that’s too far away each have their fair share of pitfalls and annoyances.  But last Friday night, my dad had a heart attack and I was 650 miles away.   My mom waited in the hospital completely alone and I couldn’t be there to hold her hand and tell her that her husband of almost 40 years was going to be fine.  I couldn’t just be there.

On Saturday morning, my mom called and told me the news about my dad.  She assured me that he was fine, that he’d even driven himself to the emergency room.  Early Saturday morning he received a stent in his heart and was recovering in ICU.

“You don’t need to come,” she assured me, “he’s really fine.  He’ll be going home within a day or two.”

At 5:00 Sunday morning, Tate, the kids, and I set out for my hometown.  Simply hearing, “he’s really fine,” was not enough.  It’s not that I didn’t believe my mom, but I needed to see my dad and KNOW that he really was okay.  I also knew that I needed to be there for my mom.

Maybe the fact that we live so far from our extended family makes me appreciate the time we do spend together all the more.  But I’d give just about anything to be that person who could complain about having family too close.  In these times of family crisis, too close would be a blessing.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

“Carson and Ella both love Honey Nut Cheerios, but they wish they could eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch everyday.  They know I won’t let them, though,” I explained.

Being a doting grandmother she asked, “Why don’t you let those babies have Cinnamon Toast Crunch!?”

Of course I explained that I couldn’t possibly let them start their days with that much sugar and that I really try to make sure that they eat mostly healthy.   

“My sanity depends on not having to scrape them off the ceiling, Mom.”

“You let them have a least some of their Halloween candy, I hope!”  my mom asserted, apparently having forgotten the calamity of children high on sugar.

“Well, yeah, some of it.  I took away all the Snickers, though, and put them in the freezer.  Unfortunately Carson discovered them and couldn’t figure out how his Halloween candy ended up there,” I explained.

“So you let them have frozen Snickers?” she asked.

“Oh no, I froze them for me.   I told Carson that it was rule that Snickers had to be frozen until they’re ready to eat, but that it would be a few more weeks until they’re ready.  When the kids aren’t looking, I eat them.”

Judge away.  I lie to my children and steal their candy.  What of it?

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

For 3 LONG days, Tate and his dad worked and built a fire pit in our backyard.  I’ll admit that I totally didn’t see the point of Tate’s project and that I was certain it was going to be more of a fire TOWER than a fire PIT.  He proved me wrong.  It turned out amazing.

Did I mention it took 3 days (and 2 bottles of Advil) to complete?  Maybe when Tate recovers, we’ll work on the landscaping around the fire pit.

While the men were outside getting stinky, my mother-in-law and I made over my guest room.  I think it looks like something out of a magazine.

The pictures don’t do the room justice, they don’t show off the high ceilings and the wood floors.  Also, somehow I didn’t get a picture of the lamp my MIL hand painted.

As if a fire pit and a room makeover weren’t enough, I enlisted my mother-in-law to help me with the window treatments on the two glass patio doors off of my kitchen.

These stupid patio doors have caused me a ridiculous amount of stress, trying to figure out what to do for window treatments. Privacy isn’t really much of an issue, but in the afternoons, the sun streams in and temporarily blinds us, so I needed something that could easily be raised and lowered, but NOT be blinds.   I also needed to make these myself because I refused to pay the equivalent of college tuition for custom window treatments.

My MIL and I brainstormed and came up with a great, custom-looking solution for the problem.  (FINE, IT WAS ALL MY MIL’S IDEA.  YOU CAUGHT ME, ARE YOU HAPPY?!)

Heavy duty fabric
Fabric for lining the curtains
Heavy duty ribbon/webbing
Stitch Witchery
Velcro fasteners
Rod for hanging the curtains.  I used Magnetic curtain rod because I have steel doors and didn’t want to drill holes into them.
Thread to match the curtain fabric
scissors, straight pins

Isn’t my vintage sewing machine adorable!  (FINE IT’S NOT MINE, IT’S MY MOM’S.  SHEESH, YOU ALL ARE SUCH STICKLERS FOR THE TRUTH.)

It had been a long time since I’d sewn anything other than a button on, so I had to read the directions that came with the sewing machine.

Threading the bobbin was like riding a bike. Except with less soreness in the crotch region.

The curtains turned out pretty well, with mostly straight seams.  We used the velcro to hold the rolled curtain in place.  When the sun gets to blinding, the green webbing can be released and the curtains hang down about halfway down the window.

Here’s the finished look!  Looks pretty nice, huh?

I think my in-laws earned their keep. We might invite them back sometime.

***********

I want to thank each of you for the thoughtful and supportive comments on my last post.  I really wanted to reply to so many of them, but I got overwhelmed, then I got busy (see above).   Thank you for telling me I was overthinking things, for reminding me why I blog, for sticking with me.  Thank you.

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

Despite the lowlights, though, there were also many highlights.  One of these highlights was the acquisition of some homemade apple butter.

I LOVE apple butter!  LOVE!

Imagine my disappointment when we got home and discovered that the lid of the jar of my beloved apple butter had “popped.”  (You know those home canning jars with the ring and the lid…well, it wasn’t sucked down, it was popped.)

Trying to head off certain botulism poisoning, I sadly decided the apple butter would have to be tossed in the trash.

Tate WHOLEHEARTEDLY disagreed.  “NO, no, no, no, no.  We are NOT throwing it away.  Let’s smell it,”  he said, trying to convince me that this not-properly-sealed apple butter was fine for human consumption.

I have NO IDEA if botulism or any other death-inducing food disease even has an odor, so smelling it wasn’t going to change my mind.  I stood firmly behind my decision to throw out the apple butter.

Tate STILL disagreed.  “See?  It tastes fine!”  he said after dipping his finger in the diseased apple butter.  “I bet it was made just a few days ago, we’re keeping it!”

“Fine, Tate.  Keep it.  I don’t care if it was made this morning, I won’t eat it!  And!  I don’t want the kids to eat it either, because it will make them SICK.”

Very often, Tate and I disagree about food safety issues.  He has no problem (barely) reheating food that has been in the fridge for DAYS.  I won’t touch leftovers after about two or three days.  If food has been sitting out for too long, I won’t eat it, but Tate would probably eat potato salad that had been sunbathing for three hours.  He regularly gets annoyed by my “overzealous” and “ridiculous” attempts to keep my family free of food-borne diseases.

What do you think?   Should we keep the apple butter or throw it away?

(PS, I’m merely curious as to what you think.  Unless you have a Ph.D in Food Safety, you probably aren’t going to change my mind.)

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.

So far this year, I’ve found out that I’m getting a calendar which was delivered by the UPS man in a box with the words CALENDARS.COM in big! bold! letters.   Usually when Tate orders something online for me, he gives me a heads up and tells me not to pick up any of the packages left by the UPS man.  This year he forgot.

The other night when I was wrapping presents (I went ahead and wrapped my calendar *rolls eyes*), I needed to look under the bed for more boxes.  Guess what I found?  That’s right, Scooby, I found another one of my gifts, a digital frame keychain.     Tate won this keychain at his company’s annual Christmas party, but he’s trying to pass it off as a gift he went out and purchased himself.  Apparently he’s forgotten about my super sleuth skills (the gift had a sticker that made it obviously a company gift.)  This gift luckily is accompanied by a funny story, so that in the future I can say things like, “remember the year you regifted that keychain to me, your wife?”  By the way, I went ahead and wrapped this gift, too.

A few weeks ago, Tate was on the phone with his mother when he came into the living room and attempted to non-chalantly pick up the Land’s End catalog.  In a very exaggerated tone, I heard him say to his mom, “I wanted to talk to you about Carson’s gift….,” then in hushed tones in the other room, I heard him say,”Okay, I really wanted to tell you about the things Jennifer wants out of Land’s End.”  My detective skills are really being put to the test.  Gee, I wonder what I’ll be getting from my in-laws?  Hmmm. 

Last year, I found the post-it note with all his purchases stuck on the inside of our desk drawer….a drawer I used most everyday.  Other years, I’ve been reconciling the checkbook and come across purchases at stores like The Limited and Ann Taylor.  It doesn’t take Velma to figure out that he’s purchased something at these women’s stores for me.  Even my engagement ring wasn’t a surprise, since the jeweler left a message on our answering machine saying the ring was ready for pickup.

I’m hoping that I’ll at least get one complete surprise, even if it’s a cheesy coffee cup.

What are you getting for Christmas?

©2012 Playgroups are No Place For Children. All Rights Reserved.