Cociane Cupcakes for your New Years Resolution

      No, I'm not going to give you a recipie, crazy. Instead, something much more interesting....and legal. Motivation for that weightloss goal. We all have one, weather its 5 or 50 pounds, everyone wants to lose weight, and rightfully so! We are, as you know, a nation of tubby lard-o's. So tubby, get ready to sink your teeth into some thought provoking stuff, sugar.

      Sugar is derived from natural sources (usually) mostly sugar cane or beets. The sugar is then stripped out of the glucose, processed and we are left with the sweet stuff. So we take a perfectly good plant, mess with it and make an addicting white powder. Just like cocaine. Huh. Who knew?

      Food companies, thats who. We all know you must eat to survive, but what to eat? The goal is food with low calories, high nutrition, just like Twinkies! Oh, wait. Food companies want you to buy their food, so how do we do that? Add cocaine of course! Crap, I meant sugar....so hard to tell the difference. These companies want you to buy their product, duh, so they add sugar to EVERYTHING. Pasta, sauces, bread, salad dressings, vegetable juice, chewing gum, bacon, peanut butter, ketchup, crackers, pickles, lip gloss. Addiction is key, teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime, but get the man addicted to fish and open a market, and you'll make some money.

       Not only do they stick the crap in all thier products, they deviously re-name it. High fructose corn syrup, glucose, dextrose, galactose, maltose, maltodextrin. The list goes on, close to 100 different ways to say cocaine.. um, sugar.

        This is serious stuff, when you eat sugar, you get little "happy" chemicals sent to your brain and once those deminish your brain asks for more. So we give our bodies more, sometimes without even realizing thats whats going on. And it. is. in. everything. We know that drugs are addictive, but we feel a little silly saying we are addicted to sugar. Well, I'll be the first.
 I, Sarindipity, am addicted to sugar (Hi Sarindipity!)


 So instead of your every year New Year resolution, resolve to be sugar-free. Read your labels, love your life and have an excellent 2013.

Dont you dare take down that tree!

Oh yes, you thought it was over, but you were so wrong. Christmas gets lost in all of the commercialism of our world today, so much that you'd think it was sponsored by "big industry". Well, my friends, if your are of the Christian persuasion, think again. All other religions may freely walk away at any time. Or don't. Really, the choice is up to you.
    Christmas season is actually now officially here, the celebration is for the birth of this really cool guy named Jesus, they wrote whole book about him and everything. Christmas officially starts on the 24th and traditionally would not be decorated for until noon of that day, however Walmart would have you believe that you store the Thanksgiving turkey under the damn thing until time to eat. The Christmas holiday is the celebration of the birth of Jesus that begins by starting on the day he was born and ending on the Twelfth Night, or Epiphany. This happens on the 7th, yep, the tree stays till after New Years.
 Epiphany is the ending day of Christmas marking the arrival of the Wise Men. However, originally Epiphany celebrated four different events. The first is the Baptism of the Lord,  second, Jesus' first miracle (and my personal favourite) water into wine at the wedding in Cana, the Nativity of Christ and the visitation of the Wise Men. Us westerners like to cut to the chase and  it shorten it up a bit.
 So before you throw the tree to the curb and take down all the lights, maybe give a second thought to why we celebrate, and let the spirit linger a little longer.


This New Year have some wine, share some love and enjoy the promise of the good things to come. Just DO NOT light the sparklers next to the tree!

Frosty Breath, Icicles and hot cocoa in Texas.

    I awoke to a crisp 75 degrees this morning and thought to myself " Now THIS is Christmas weather". We are up to a chilly 85 right now and I'm thinking about going sledding. No worries. I haven't lost my mind. That, my friends, is what we call sarcasm.

  I have lived a lot of places in my life, and when we're in warmer climates I always feel cheated around the winter holidays. I want the crunch of the fresh powder under my boots, the heat of the fire on my face and the sting of the cold on the tip of my nose. I considered getting creative with the kids' snow-cone machine and turning the AC on full blast, but decided not to do anything that would make the husband question my ability to be alone.
  I mentally kicked myself in the caboose this morning and decided to find the winter joy in my area. Looking around I found some things that are so unique and true to the culture here it put a little pep in my step. So now I'd like to bring you a smile and share with you my little towns' take on Christmas.
  Let start with lights. Twinkling strands of colorful lights glistening in the snow you will not find, but LED palm trees, giant inflate-able Santa's drinking Coors and penguins in sombrero's are plentiful. In our "small drinking community with a large fishing problem"  you will find the funniest, most creative outside displays you've ever laid eyes on. Want to dispute that? Go tell the guy down the street with the mechanical mooning Santa. Or the family that has the shot-gun shell garland wrapped around the roadside palm-trees.

  Next lets talk attire. You have cheese-ball sweaters, we have cheese-ball Hawaiian shirts. Give me a soccer mom with a light up sweater and elf hat and I'll show you a drunk with a pair of red and blue swim trunks and rain boots with bells. Not only do the folks around here strive to be the most festively creative, I believe there is a rule that you must display your holiday cheer with some sort humor. Yesterday I saw a man wearing a snow cap with plastic parrots glued to it.
  And finally, to brighten your day and bring you some cheer, I'd like to tell you about the vehicles. Now, I know that you have all seen the reindeer antlers that you roll up in your windows, and wreaths on the front grill, but we do things a little differently around here. First off, we prefer golf carts, and with that, the possibilities of decoration skyrocket. We string lights, we hand streamers, and we add bells, tinsel and mistle toe. We dress as Mr. and Mrs. Clause, and we even dress the dogs as Rudolf as we parade around town, PA systems at full blast, showing our Christmas spirit with cheers of "Yeah, man! Happy holidays bro!" and "There's more beer in the cooler back there, hop on, we'll head down to Sunset."
 So from "my" town to yours I wish you a very merry Christmas, I raise my Bud Light towards the sky and rub in more sunscreen as I thank my lucky stars I'm not in Missouri, freezing my ass off.

Do this, feel jolly.

   Holidays are upon us, I know this because there are an alarmingly high number of elf hats and tacky sweaters in rotation, my electricity bill is much higher, I was ran over by a Wal-Mart cart and I have gift wrap paper-cuts.
   When did Christmas become so hectic? I think it was when I became the parent and was no longer the recipient of the magic. Now I'm the magician. Oh joy... I've been so busy trying to buy Christmas that I've skipped the real magic parts, the part about the family and the love and this dude named Jesus. I stepped back the other day and took a deep breath, analyzed myself and came to the conclusion of " I have no friggen idea what I'm doing here". After I came to my senses I put down the credit cards and came up with a list. This is a list of things that I should have done, to prepare myself mentally for Christmas, but didn't realize until it was crunch time. I urge you to try to do some of the things on the list, and feel the joy that it brings. Without further ado, I bring you

Sarindipity's "Holy crap I hope its not to late to fit this shit in" Christmas List:

1. Popcorn strings! Remember when you were a kid and you got to string popcorn all around the house? Do it again! I promise, it is much more fun after you have developed better fine motor skills, you'll only poke yourself half of the time. If you have kids its a fun way to share and catch up. Parent Bonus: Feel superior as the children prick themselves on a 2 to 1 ratio.

2.Christmas songs. Seriously, YouTube the instrumentals and have a blast belting out your favorite songs! Along with many good classics, Drummer Boy, Jingle Bells and the like, there are always the fun melodies for the light of heart. Who could forget Grandma got ran over by a reindeer and Randolf the bowlegged cowboy? Don't know any Christmas songs? Make up your own!

3. Tacky sweaters. Find and old sweater and cut out felt shapes to glue on. Add glitter, led lights, bells, etc. Make them as ridiculous as possible! This is an especially fun gift if you have In-Laws that are on your naughty list. Parent Bonus: Who can say no to a request to put on a hand-made sweater made with love? Oh, wait! Don't forget the pictures!

4. Salt dough ornaments. Make salt dough with 2 cups salt, 1 cup flour and warm tap water. Mix it up, shape it, bake it and paint it. Don't forget to make holes for the ornament hooks! Parent Bonus: Tell your kids its cookie dough before you start and let them have a taste. Its hilarious, promise.

5. Wrap your own gifts. Nothing makes you feel more giving and in the spirit of the season than tying ribbons around a gift. Get creative. Make your own bows, use fabric and felt. Add candy canes and bells. Make the presentation so great that nobody cares you are re-gifting.

6. Feel loved, give love, and fill your heart with love. Remember that Jesus doesn't care about Xbox 360's, DC's and Ipods. He cares about you caring for your neighbors. Do something humanitarian, soup kitchens are an excellent place to feel the power of giving. Parent Bonus: Volunteering your time for a good cause installs morals in your little monsters.

7. Last but definitely not least, go to church. Find a place where you can fill your heart with the spirit of Christ, He is, after all THE reason for the season.

These are the things that made my Christamas feel a little more wholesome, what do you do?
 Wishing you all very warm fuzzy feelings during this magical time of year!

I don't feel dead.

The end of the world has come and gone. Yet again. I am getting really sick of dying. I feel fine, the kids look great, my boo is happy and the neighbors are up. Re- do. Do- over. I guess we'll try again soon. Sunday is the new end. See ya' ll then!

So this is what it feels like...

Check it out.  This is my very first post on my very first blog. I realized today that I felt like I was missing out on a very bizarre and fascinating part of our culture. Not anymore! I type, therefore I blog. My mother-in-law has a blog, my neighbor has a blog, my sister has a blog, and now so do I. Sheep I am, but a confident one am I.  I have always loved to write, and thanks to this amazing thing called "the Internet" I can actually share my writing. Feel a sense of validity and maybe even pretend that some of its worth reading.
      I was doing the mother-ly thing, aka folding laundry and listening to Alice In Wonderland, when I though to myself, How can I get out of this? Duh! A blog, silly girl! So here I am, I hope I'm here to stay.  Guess I should share some things about myself. I am a mid 20's mom, I boyscout, I tball, I drink, I love exercising, and now... I blog. So now I feel weird, like I should have some encouraging words, or maybe something inspirational. All I got is "Ciao!"