Wow, it's been a while.

I had a very strong urge to log in and blog today. I hadn't felt that need in a long time and I don't even know if half of my bloggy friends still blog. It's amazing how Jumble Mash use to be apart of my daily life and then life got really busy. I'm not saying I'm making a comeback, but I am saying, I miss it.

I opened up the blog and realized the very last thing I wrote about was introducing my new niece to the world. She's now an amazingly beautiful and smart 1+ year old who I still cannot get enough of. I follow her around all the time with my camera and these are the looks I usually get. I imagine she is saying, "Would you puh-lease stop taking pictures and just play with me?"

Also since then, I of course got married to the love of my life. The wedding was fabulous and as nervous as I was and at most times overwhelmed, it was all so worth it. It did go by in a blur, but the blur is full of happy memories and very little hiccups.

But even before that, in March of last year, our landlord approached us and told us they wanted to sell the house we were living in. So Hubby and I took the plunge and we bought our first house. A one story, three bedroom, two bathroom little house in a cul-de-sac with a huge fenced in back yard for our dog to play. You remember Bowen, don't you? We thought about getting another dog when we moved in for him to play with but then we were given a whole new task. Two little baby kittens showed up at a co-workers house and needed a home. I was just going to take one, until I convinced Hubby that separating them was just cruel. And so, we took them both. 



Now





Then



I am so very thankful that we did not separate them, because after a year, they still cannot get enough of each other. Charlie is the orange one and the cuddle bug. Ash is the little girl who only likes to be petted on her own terms. And don't worry, Bowen took them right under his wing...er...paw.

 But all of that excitement, all of those changes don't even compare to what is in store for us next.

Stay tuned :)

Introducing...

The newest addition to the family. My little baby niece, Miss Nevaeh Marlene, born 2/10/12, 6lbs 15 ounces and 20 inches long.

I know I'm a few days late on letting you all know, but I'm having a real hard time sharing her. I don't even want Dad to hold her because he hogs her!

Unless of course she has a dirty diaper! Then I give her back! Haha.

She is the most amazing baby ever and I never in a million years imagined I'd love someone I just met so much. I keep trying to talk Little Sis into letting me keep her, but she hasn't given in yet.

Mom and baby are both doing great. We got the birth on video for Nevaeh to see when she gets older. It took a lot of convincing to get Little Sis to let me do that, but after she got the epidural she didn't care what was going on!

We were in the hospital for two days, Little Sis had to be induced because her blood pressure was running high. At 6:00 AM on Day 2, her water broke. At noon, she pushed for 2 minutes and 40 seconds and Nevaeh joined us. Life hasn't been the same since.

Peace.

Super Duper Excited!

I know every blogger says that they have the best readers, but I'm pretty sure mine are the best. When I got home today, there was a package waiting for me. I opened it up and saw this beauty.

It's a journal! And inside was a wonderful note that says,

Best Wishes for a Wonderful Life Together
                                                       Teresa

Thank you so much to Teresa from The Middle Side of Life. You have no idea how happy this gift made me, especially after the Monday I had!!

I LOVE Today

This has been such an AWESOME day, I just HAD to share it with you guys.

First, instead of actually working today, I got to mess around and put up Christmas decorations at the office. THEN I was told that I could leave early! I got to leave two hours early and don't have to go back until Monday.

So I get home from work and immediately notice that the table is very clean. We usually have mail or at least a couple magazines on the table, but it was bare. Except for a tiny piece of wrapping paper. I swear to you my face lit up like a Christmas tree when I realized that Boyfriend had wrapped presents while I was at work.

I ran into the den (with dog following closely behind, he had no idea what was going on but he was loving running around) and saw that there were a bunch of presents in there. I started going through them and saw that each tag had cute little names written on them.

To: Peach From: Mario

To: Bloggette from Blogger

(Picture quality sucks. Taken with my cell phone)

He knows me too well. All of them say stuff like this and he knew I'd get a kick out of it.

Then I called him and he said that on Christmas Eve he is going to wait until I go to sleep then get up and put all the presents under the tree. So when I wake up, it will be like Santa had been there!

He did say I had to make "Santa" cookies though. But I'm okay with that! I am so freakin' excited!

So then I sit down and turn on the TV. And there it was! The episode of Friends where Brad Pitt guest stars.

Could this day BE any better? (Say in Chandler tone. It's better)

Dad says I should play the lottery. If I win, ya'll are invited to my place.

Birthday Surprises! Part 1

I have this close circle of friends that consists of 7 people.

Last year on my birthday, said friends decided to make it a huge deal, which they usually do because they love me so much, but last year was a little bit more outrageous than most.

My really hot friend....seriously he's hot, look...

That's him. Except he has a face in real life.

 ...whom I call Hubby (and Boyfriend doesn’t mind because Hubby is gay) made all the plans and his boyfriend, whom I call Fill In Boyfriend (to accompany me to parties and such when real Boyfriend has to work) came and picked me up after work. I was told to pack enough clothes to last me two days and at least one outfit had to be suitable for a night out on the town. That was it.

We stopped by and picked up Hubby on the way and by that time it has started snowing really bad. I wasn’t sure where we were going but I didn’t think we were going to make it.

We drove and drove and drove. I fell asleep. I woke up and the world was covered in snow. Hubby said, “Look out the window, Wifey.” I sat up and wiped the fog off the window. I gasped as I took into view the freaking Capital Building. In Washington D.C. Like 5 hours away from home. And there was soooo much snow!

There's a monument there. Can you see it?

 We checked into an awesome hotel (I don’t remember the name of it) and then I was told to get ready. I assumed we were going out for a night of clubbing and I was thrilled!

And let me tell you, sharing a hotel room with two hot guys that don’t care if you see them in their little undies is awesome. (At this time I didn’t even know Boyfriend, so don’t judge me).

We hopped in the elevator, my excitement and curiosity getting the best of me, and when the doors opened, there stood the remainder of my circle. All dolled up and ready to go. I had no clue they were coming. I was so happy, I nearly cried.

We all piled into ONE vehicle and made our way through the city. Which looked like a ghost town because they had declared a state of emergency. The only other vehicles out were snow plow trucks. The snow was so deep; we were actually pushing it with our Chevy Avalanche. (For the record, the Avalanche was like a freakin’ tank in all that snow. If I ever break down and buy a four wheel drive, that’s what I’m getting.)

Anyways, we arrived at our first destination. The first thing I noticed while walking up to the door was a sign that read, “One male per female.” Um, what? I asked Hubby what the hell was going on and he just said, “Trust me.”

The bouncer counted all of us and made sure each female was accompanied by a male. Then we had to wear a bracelet that said we were actually females. I was seriously surprised they didn’t check our nether regions to make sure. They checked our clutches for cameras and read us the rules about no touching and no cell phones. Weird.

By this time, I was scared. I had no idea what they had brought me to. Then I found out.

I walked in to see a half-a-dozen naked men dancing around.

And by naked, I mean nothing but tube socks. And the three in my group were the only females.

It was almost like a movie, where the music stops and everyone turns to look at the outsiders.

Don't miss part 2 tomorrow!

Thursday Means Almost Friday

Have I ever told you guys how much I love you? It makes me very happy when I log into my account and see new comments and new followers. It also makes me very happy when you participate in my silly little games. They keep me entertained and that’s all that matters, right? So I'm implementing and new tradition here on Thursdays to show my appreciation. Every Thursday I am going to recommend a new blog and hope that my readers will go and check it out. So you will actually get two new recommendations if you click on the Giggle Button, too. How lucky are you?!

Anyways, today I recommend Unexpected Surprises because well, she is awesome and so darn cute. Please stop by and have a look!

Now, for the poll results, 74% of you chose Facebook as your favorite social network. This was out of 31 votes. Facebook has more than 500 million active users so that comes to no surprise to me. Although, I kinda thought Twitter would take the cake. I really don’t know how to use Twitter. I fake it. I also really liked that 5 of you said that all social networking sites suck. That makes me giggle.

(Check out my rant about things that piss me off about Facebook.)

Have you seen the Facebook movie? I haven’t yet, but I heard the story is pretty much a bunch of bullshit and not at all like what really happened. Oh well. Hollywood has always been messing up books made into movies, so they may as well mess up true stories made into movies as well.

The new poll for this week is...

How many blogs do you follow?

My other game, Giggle Button Trivia, was won by Canadian Blogger Girl who answered Who played Batman in the film ‘Batman Forever’ correctly. It was indeed Val Kilmer. Sexy Val Kilmer. Go click on the button. You know you wanna.

It’s almost Friday, guys!

I have all my teeth, thank you.

Having been a military brat for 16 years, I’ve been to many places. I have been settled in West Virginia for years now, though and often hear many misconceptions about this great state. Often people think we are a part of Virginia which hasn’t been true since 1863. I have actually talked to people who didn’t even know West Virginia existed. People that live in America mind you.

Pepperoni Roll

 Has anyone ever had a pepperoni roll? A pepperoni roll is a delicious pepperoni and cheese filled piece of baked dough and is very popular around here. When I lived in Georgia, you couldn’t buy pepperoni rolls anywhere and my mom would make them and send them to my dad’s work where they were a huge hit. Apparently it is illegal in most states to sell pepperoni rolls because the meat actually sits on the counter until someone buys it.

Anyways, the actual point of this post is to talk about common misconceptions and myths of WV. I’ve pretty much heard it all, so allow me to clarify.

Myth- We all inbreed

Truth- You’ve all seen this shirt right? This is probably the biggest misconception about WV. Yeah well we don’t inbreed anymore than the rest of the world. We don’t meet our future spouses at family reunions and our kids don’t come out with feet growing out of their head. Now even in the county I live in people make fun of the people in the county right next to ours for inbreeding. Maybe it was common back in the day? I don’t know. But I've never heard of someone who reproduced with their kin.

Myth- We don't have paved roads

Truth- I assure you, our roads are paved. Sure, you will find the occasional dirt road here and there, but for the most part, they are paved.

 Myth-We don't have running water and use outhouses.

Truth- I’ve never seen an outhouse before in my life. We have running water. We shower. We have toilets. I do however know quite a few people that don’t have city water and must use well water. But still, it’s running water.

 Myth- Most men in WV have sexual relations with their farm animals.

Truth- I’ve actually heard of people doing this. I’ve never seen it with my own eyes and don’t care to, but apparently is has happened. Does it happen often? I don’t think so. Someone once told me that in WV it is legal to have sex with animals as long as it doesn’t exceed 40 pounds. Safety issue maybe? Who knows. While researching, I couldn’t find any actual truth in that.

Myth- We eat road kill.

Truth- While it is legal to take home road kill, I don’t think many people do so because there is a lot of it on the roads. Animals are suicidal around here.

 Myth- We always walk around barefoot.

Truth- I walk barefoot ANYTIME I get the chance. Flip flops are my best friends, too. So do we walk barefoot? Sure why the hell not? Do we because we can’t afford shoes? No. We do it because the grass feels nice between the toes and because a majority of West Virginians work on their feet 40+ hours a week. When we can take the work boots off, we are glad to do it.

Myth- We are missing most, if not all of our teeth.

Truth- {Checks mirror} Yep, still got ‘em all. So does everyone I know. We also have one of the best dental education programs in the country. And maybe because of that very misconception, a lot of us are a bit anal about keeping our teeth cleaned.

 Myth-We are all poor white trash

Truth- Eh, most of us are poor. White trash? Some, but I can’t imagine anymore than any other part of the world. We don’t have hookers on the streets... I guess that’s a plus. But there are mansions, castle like houses , huge houses with elevators and tons of bedrooms. You get the idea right? Like most of the world, West Virginia has a lower, middle and upper class.

Now here are some truths that I found pretty interesting.

• Mother’s Day was founded in WV in 1908.
• The first state sales tax in the United States went into effect in West Virginia on July 1, 1921.
• The first federal prison exclusively for women in the United States was opened in 1926 in West Virginia.
• Nearly 75% of West Virginia is covered by forests.
• The first brick street in the world was laid in Charleston, West Virginia, on October 23, 1870, on Summers Street, between Kanawha and Virginia Streets.
• West Virginia University has been named #1 Party School by the Princeton Review 7 times in 15 years.

 Know any of these West Virginians?

• Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson
• Jennifer Garner
• Brad Paisley
• Don Knotts (his niece was my English teacher in school)
• Mary Lou Retton
• Jerry West
• Randy Moss
• Steve Harvey

The list of athletes that hailed from WV is pretty extensive.

I know this post was long, but I love my state and hate people talking shit on it. I’m sure all of you have heard misconceptions about where you live, too. So let’s hear ‘em! Comment about it. Blog about it. Whatever. I’d like to hear some!

6 days til Halloween!

Boyfriend and I carved our pumpkins Wednesday night. Is it too early? Ah, oh well, too late now. It's cold enough here that I think we'll be alright. It was 32 degrees when I got in my car Friday morning. That's cold enough to snow! And that's too cold for me.

Anyways, it was Boyfriend's first time using a template to carve a pumpkin, and I'm not sure if he liked it. He pretty much complained the whole time. "This takes forever." "My hand hurts." "Switch me tools."  But in the end, he was pretty excited how they turned out.

My pumpkin before going under the knife

Boyfriend's pumpkin



I stabbed it in the head.



Boyfriend all focused and shit.



After! That's Donnie Darko's bunny pal, Frank. (Boyfriend's pumpkin)

 

Here's mine. It's supposed to be Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas. He's a little lopsided. But let's just all pretend it looks like him, k? Thanks.

I asked you all, my lovely readers, to send me in some photos of your own and I am embarrassed to have my pumpkins on the same page as these. Now mine look like a child's work.

AMCHornetGirl sent me these two. And I'm pretty sure they are freehand.

Incredible, right?

TeamJazz1 carved these two...

Ooooh...pretty :)

I also found this awesome recipe for roasting pumpkin seeds. I love me some pumpkin seeds and they are actually really good for you. (Before you add all this extra crap)

Preheat oven to 350.

You need 2 cups of pumpkin seeds. (Boyfriend and I doubled everything, because, well we love pumpkin seeds)

2 Tablespoons of cooking oil

1 Teaspoon of Salt

1 Teaspoon of Sugar

1 Teaspoon of Cinnamon

Wash the pumpkin seeds first to get all the pulp off. Then dry them between two towels. (Don't use paper towels. We found out that hard way that pumpkin seeds will stick to paper towels)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, making sure the pumpkin seeds get covered.

Spread pumpkin seeds onto a baking sheet.

Cook for 30 minutes, tossing occasionally.

These are very very yummy and make the whole house smell amazing!

You can also substitute the cinnamon with any of your favorite spice (garlic powder, cayenne, curry, etc) just leave the sugar out if you opt to do so.

It really was a nice necklace

My niece is such a hoot. This girl is six years old and is smarter than I am sometimes. She kicks my butt at Super Mario and yells at me when I say a curse word. She once told me, “You know you will go to Hell for saying words like that.” I was baffled.

Yesterday she came by to visit me at work and bring me lunch. (Her mother brought her of course. 6 year olds can’t drive.) We were sitting there eating and I commented on how much I liked her necklace. Here is how the conversation went.

Me: I love that necklace. It’s so pretty.

Niece: Thanks. Everyone at school likes it, too. My friend asked me if she could have it.

Me: I take it that you said no.

Niece: Well, I felt bad for saying no, so I told her that it was my step sister’s necklace.

Me: You don’t have a step sister.

Niece: I know. But I told her that I couldn’t give it away because my step sister was in the hospital and she was dying.

Me: {chokes back laughter} Why didn’t you just tell her no?

Niece: That would be mean.

Me: Lying isn’t very nice, either.

Niece: Yeah, well at least I still have my necklace.

I looked at her mom and we both broke out into a fit of laughter. My niece just sat there and looked at us like we were stupid for not grasping the whole concept.

Then when I got home from work I found that Boyfriend had bought me these...

It was a good day.

Celebrate Good Times

Today is a day for celebration. Today marks my 100th post. Wow. 100 completely random topics and you all are still here. I love each and every one of you. {sniffles}


To celebrate my 100th post, I am going to throw myself a little party and you all are invited. Remember, no party is complete without balloons and cake.

If it were real, I'd submit it to Cake Wrecks

And some booze. I mean, what party is complete without at least a few dozen margaritas?

Now, for the guest of honor...

Me of course! And I have prepared a speech. {Clears throat}

Thank you, to all of my readers. You truly make blogging the best part of my day. Your comments make me smile, always.

I’ve met so many awesome blogging friends on here and that was something I never expected when I joined the blogosphere.

I started Jumble Mash back in July for a number of reasons. One, because I read blogs like Hyperbole and a Half, The Bloggess, and EPBOT everyday and decided that I wanted a place of my own. Two, because I wanted someone to listen to me while I ranted about different topics. And three, because I wanted something to escape to when I was bored or down.


Its original name was My Two Cents, but someone took it and has never posted a thing on the blog. Don’t you hate that? Like, don’t take a name and then do nothing with it. Grr. Anyways, then the name changed to Tress Says, but I hated that. So I went to an online thesaurus and typed in the word random. Right there in the list were two words side by side. Jumble and mash. It was love.


The first mascot of Jumble Mash was a cute little cartoon monkey, but I wasn’t really feeling it. I opened up Microsoft Paint one day and drew the pink turtle you see every time you come here. It was my own creation, and it just fits me.


I never really thought I would get so into blogging, but it sucked me right in. Every day, my brain is constantly thinking of the next thing I want to blog about. Every time something happens, I think to myself, “I’m totally blogging about that.”

And you all completely fascinate me. I never thought anyone would be interested in my thoughts and nonsense, but here you are, reading my 100th post.


Thank you. I wish you could all come to a real party. In my new huge back yard. We could drink margaritas until the wee hours of the morning and then I would go back to my computer and blog about what an awesome time I had.

P.S. I had every intention of having a giveaway, but through the moving process, Boyfriend and I are the ones that need free shit. So I'm going to have to save the giveaway for a later date.

LAA

We live in a world where we can buy gasoline, pop tarts, liquor, Snickers, and condoms in the same place, yet none one has came up with the concept of having a meeting called, “Lots of Addictions Anonymous.”

Sure you can go to alcoholics anonymous meetings. You can go to sex addiction, drug addiction, shopping addiction and gambling addiction meetings. The list really does go on and on. But what about people who are addicted to less life altering things? Why can’t we just combine a bunch of addictions, go to ONE meeting and call it a day?

This would be my opener,

Hi, I am 24 years old and I am addicted to

Cookies
King of the Hill
Little Debbie’s Cosmic Brownies
Halo Reach
Blogging
Pickles
WoW
Grey’s Anatomy
Picking nail polish off as soon as it dries
Sprite
The pizza from the restaurant next to my work
Shoes
and Facebook

I could go through one twelve step program and be on my way. Except I may scratch cookies off the list. I really don’t want to give those up.

What are you addicted to?

Ghosts and Goblins

I was going to wait and do this post until actual Halloween, but I changed my mind because I can. :) And MAYBE...just maybe someone is looking for costume ideas and will find some inspiration here.

Anyways...in the spirit of Halloween...here are some of the coolest costumes I've seen.

Freakin' Baby Carlos. Love it. (From the Hangover)

This is epic. (Spiderman)

Too adorable for words. Mario and Luigi.

A Big Daddy from BioShock. My favorite game. 

Freakin' Army Men. (Photo source)

I don't know if I'd wanna be in this getup all evening, so this dude gets 1,234,723 points from me.

Just plain funny.

Recognize this guy?

Wall-E. Eeeeva. Love it.

Of course, Master Chief from Halo.

I don't really know about the shoes, but the Pink Ranger costume is sweet.

Here's To You

My little sister and I NEVER...I mean NEVER got along until we both got out of our teenage years. Now she is one of my best friends and I don’t know what I would do without her. She is hysterical and she laughs until she cries. She is my biggest fan no matter what I do.  When I was learning to play the bass...she would listen to me do a horrible rendition of Last Kiss over and over again until I got it right. Now she asks me to play it all the time.

My little sister is beautiful and has the best personality of anyone I’ve ever known. I honestly believe that the reason we never got along before was because I was jealous of her. And I was the middle child. Middle children live such hard lives. J

In May, my little sister went under the knife and had lap-band surgery. For those of you that don’t know what that is, it’s basically a band they surgically install around your stomach so that you don’t eat as much. I went to all the seminars with her about weight loss surgeries and we both decided the lap-band was the safest way to go.

You see, she’s been overweight her whole life. It’s in our genes. It has been passed down from our ancestor’s ancestors.  She was made fun of. She was left out. She was ridiculed in every possible way. Kids are fucking cruel. But my little sister kept up her high spirits and lovable personality and kept on going. She pushed through high school and made it out with her self-esteem still intact. She is a fighter. I would have never made it through. I was always popular in school. I was fortunate enough to get a little bit of the skinny-gene someone had left behind in our family. I could wear the pricey clothes and fit in with the cool crowd.  None of that matters after you graduate though, does it?  No...real life hits you and you really begin to discover who you are.

So, my little sister decided for herself and only herself that she wanted to do something about her weight because she didn’t want to die young.  It really kills me because I look in the mirror and pick out all of the things I hate about myself, and she looks in the mirror and says, “Damn, my boobs are growing. This fucking rocks.”

I remember about a year ago we were walking into the mall and a guy turned his head to look at us. I said, “That dude was totally checking us out.” and my little sister said, “Why would you he want a piece of meat when he could have the whole cow? He was totally checking me out.”  That’s just the type of personality she has always had, no matter what.

Anyways...after many, many, many doctor’s visits, blood test, stress tests, and even a spinal tap, my sister was approved for the surgery.

Today, my dear little sister hit a goal. Today she stepped on the scale and today she learned that she was 80 pounds lighter. Today my sister went shopping for an outfit and discovered that she has also gone down another jean size.  Today, my sister’s self esteem went up impossibly more. And today...if you are reading this, Sister, know that I cried happy tears for you.

Here’s to you little sister.

P.S. For anyone who makes fun of overweight people...cut that shit out and grow up. It ain't funny.