Monday Already? (And Manbug's Birthday*)

While the weekend was wonderful, today has me feeling a bit under the weather and the signs are telling me that I'm about to get sick. Really sick. But I'm hoping to ward it off with a some high dosages of vitamins - I have a hectic week at work and weekend trip to the in-law's farm planned, and I JUST CAN'T GET SICK RIGHT NOW. That being said, we had a wonderful weekend celebrating Manbug's birthday (oh, the asterisk in my title was a reminder to drop a foot-note that Manbug has requested that I stop calling him Manbug. You probably don't recall, but his "nickname" was based upon my FAVORITE commercial of all time from over a year ago - a commercial which seemingly doe not exist anywhere on the Internet). It was one of Jack-in-the-Box's more entertaining ads - where a cheesy lounge singer croons:

Fly to me my ladybug
That's you
In the misty morning.

I sang that jingle non-stop for days upon days and I drove my husband batshit crazy. When he finally asked, no, begged me to stop - I deemed him my Manbug...and he's over it. So, new item on "Things to Do" list - find Manbug a non-Manbuggy-like nickname. Suggestions are welcome!

Anyway, my beloved turned 37 on Sunday, and we started the celebration on Saturday morning with a decadent breakfast of cinnamon buns - the verdict "We should eat these for breakfast more often." Saturday night we went to Fogo de Chao for the official birthday dinner and to be honest - it was eh. I mean, good meat and it's what he wanted, but as far as fancy and fluff? Little to none. We intended on having an after-dinner drink but parking was a nightmare so we headed home to open a bottle of wine and I gave him his big gift:

He has a beautiful dressy watch that I gave him years ago for his 30th birthday, but he needed a more casual watch for working around the house, biking, wearing with jeans, etc. I looked at a lot of pics but as soon as I saw this one, I knew it would look tres sexy on his wrist.

After too little sleep, we awoke and I made some homemade egg mcmuffins and he opened the rest of his gifts in bed - he got two wonderful gardening books from his mom and dad and tons of money in gift cards to spend at Sears and Lowe's on stuff that I could care less about (unless it's a new washing machine which I doubt), a pair of slippers (don't hate - that man has the coldest feet EVER and he refuses to wear socks in the house). This is his first pair of "house shoes" in his lifetime, so he has officially crossed the bridge to "middle-aged." (By the way does anyone else call them that? I hate it!). But, his favorite gift was from Jack:

It included an "I'm sorry for chewing up your heirloom shotgun case given by your now-deceased grandfather card" (which was surprisingly hard to find in my local Hallmark store).

We planned our whole night around the biggest rivalry in our house - the NY Giants vs. the Dallas Cowboys except...well, they are playing tonight. So we made his favorite meal (Breakfast Tacos - a recipe from his mom that's not breakfasty at all. I think the name comes from the fact you use bacon and dip the tortillas in egg. I'll share it soon!), a birthday cake, and watched a movie. I considered the birthday cake a small victory because although I adhered to his request by purchasing Duncan Hines mix for the cake itself (he LOVES the yellow cake), I drew the line at using canned frosting and instead used my Kitchen Aid Artisan Mixer for the first time since we received it for our wedding (yes, we'll be married for four years in two month) to whip up a batch of this frosting instead. I bought the canned crap just in case, and while he picked my frosting, he did say they were "comparable." WHA?

The movie was called "Holy Rollers" instead - it was about a drug smuggler that uses Hasidic Jews (usually young ones) to smuggle Ecstasy pills from Amsterdam. Michael Cera may not know it, but he has a twin brother by another mother - the actor that played the lead looked exactly like him.

Oh, and the second-in-command smuggler was Justin Bartha - the groom from The Hangover. He was amazing! (Until a few moments ago I thought this film was made years ago - I had never heard of it. Imagine my shock that it was

I consider it a very successful weekend - he isn't planning on returning a single gift (SCORE!) and he loved his dinner and cake - so a lovely weekend over all.

Hope you all had fun too!

(Insert crunchy leaf noises here)

I'm headed back to my hometown for a quick visit to see my mom and attend some celebratory function at my childhood church. I'm so excited to wear boots and tights and sweaters and not look like an escapee from the "Seasonally Inappropriate Looney Bin."

For example, today I am wearing a lovely skirt that would look great with some tights and boots. But, our morning cool temperatures will end up in the high 80s this afternoon. Thus causing my toes to become very, very hot.

I love fall - I can't wait to see New Jersey at the prettiest time of year, even if I have a million things to do before I head out of town.

I'm hoping they'll be lots of this:

And this:

With a dash of this:

And some of this:

And hopefully NONE of this:

See ya' soon!

Weekend Recap

I got a lot of items on my "things to do list" crossed-off this weekend - but not nearly as much as I had hoped. But all in all, it was a very good weekend.

I sacrificed the most beautiful day in about a year in order to get mucho paperwork done on Saturday. Yes, it would have been a better "life list" call to say f-it and just gallivant outside in the crisp fall weather, but the catching-up on filing, balancing of books and organization of tax materials (all for my husband's business) had been weighing heavily on me. So I sucked it up and hit the ground running. I got about 8/10s of the way through everything I wanted to accomplish - not bad? I kept the Red River Shootout on the TV in the background so that I "felt" like I was participating...but with a sad ending for UT, it didn't help much.

We had agreed to dog-sit our friends' older Chiuaua while they were out of town with their two younger dogs (the older dog has a hard time keeping up with the younguns') and WOW - Jack's reaction had me in stitches most of the weekend.

If you ever need something to do, I suggest you sit with a beer and watch two dogs duke it out over who gets to hump whom. And if there is a disproportionate difference in size of the two participants in Humpfestival 2010? All the better. I honestly laughed until I was crying - our once gentle Jack was just swiping his poor horny friend with one paw, sending him skidding across the room. Or, he would gently place Horny's small back leg in his mouth, drag him across the room and then Jack would return to a safe-haven, such as under my husband's desk, to get some peace.  It was truly hysterical.

Saturday night we watched "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" - a movie we've both been meaning to see but it wasn't number one so it kept falling to the bottom of the Netflix list. Anyway, I was uncontrollably giggling through the whole move because early on - probably in the first or second scene - I determined that this was a complete cop-off of Forrest Gump. Also, I felt the need to explaing these similarities to my husband during each scene. So the conversation on our couch went something like this:

When they introduce the character of Daisy

Me: (whispering because my husband hates it when I talk during movies) That's Jenny (said in my best Forrest Gump-like accent)
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When a hummingbird flits around symbolically in many of the scenes

Me:  (still trying to whisper) That's the feather.

(NB: I actually thought that it was a dragonfly until about five minutes ago when I was corrected. Whatevs - you say hummingbird, I say dragonfly).
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When Captain Mike is introduced into the story

Me: (yelling - but for effect since Forrest always yelled this name) THAT'S LIEUTENANT DAN!!
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When Benjamin is introduced to his family's business of buttons

Me: (whispering a bit louder)  Those are shrimp.
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When the characters are discussing the bombing of Pearl Harbor

Me: That's the Vietnam War.

Him:  You're not ever trying anymore.
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And then finally, when Daisy breaks her leg -

Me: (not whispering as effectively anymore since I've now had 4 Fireman's 4)  That's AIDS.

Him:  OKAY - I get it - it's Forrest Gump except for the whole aging backwards thing.

We both enjoyed the movie - especially the scenes where Brad Pitt is young and gorgeous (and by "we" I mean "me").

My husband always makes me laugh when he's exasperated with me. 

Sunday marked what most have been a cold day in hell because....my husband went furniture shopping with me. WILLINGLY.  Granted he hated the chair that I promised was the perfect combination of my desire for overstuffedness and his desire for uncomfortable wingback. He hated it.

But we bought him a desk. And a table for the hall. And a workbench for the garage. So, all in all a good day. Hope you had a good weekend.