It's tricky getting the candles to stay upright in the meatballs though

Today is my Daddy's birthday.

He loves spaghetti, peanut butter milkshakes, ice cream, spaghetti, cheese, haystacks, and spaghetti. He really, really loves spaghetti. He also loves taking pictures. Emily and I have hundreds of pictures for each year of our childhood, and that's no small feat considering he had to go out and buy the film and take it to a drugstore to have all those photos developed. He captured so much of our childhoods on film, which is awesome because my memory is pretty much blank before about age 8. He also loves music. He always played music in the house when we were growing up and he turns up the radio in his truck a couple notches every time a good song comes on. His favorites are 60s and 70s rock, bluegrass, accoustic guitar, folk, blues, southern rock and country (not the junk from the 90s and 2000s, but real music like The Allman Brothers Band and ALABAMA.) He used to play this song a lot, and if you don't have the GLAD acapella Christmas album, your holiday season is seriously lacking.

When he wasn't playing music, he was watching surgery shows, cop shows, crime shows, NASCAR races, baseball and football. My daddy flips channels like no one else I've ever known. Just when you finally start to get interested in that gruesome murder case, he'll switch to a guy with a gunshot wound, and when you beg him to go to ANYTHING else, he'll change to a NASCAR race. Then he falls asleep holding the remote and snores so loud that you can't hear anything anyway.

His favorite place to be is the beach. Well, the Carrabbas at the beach. We go to Myrtle Beach every year and Daddy always sleeps with the sliding doors open to hear the ocean, even when it's 40 degrees out. He is so, so smart and extremely hilarious, which are probably the two best things to be in the world. Everybody comments on his deep, distinctive voice and he always sings or whistles along to every song he recognizes, plus some he doesn't. He has some hilarious live-action dreams and occasionally talks, laughs, and (most often) fights in his sleep. He's been a fire equipment salesman, a 911 dispatcher, a fireman, a paramedic, a saftey coordinator for a chemical company, a fire academy instructor and now he's back to 911 dispatch. He takes great care of all of us and would do anything in the whole world to make us happy. He still takes out my splinters and bandages up my cuts and he teaches me things every day and I love him slap to pieces. Even if I told him so every minute of every day, it wouldn't be enough.

Dads are the best, right?

I'll do some real blogging soon so don't be mad okay

Five YouTube videos I will never ever tire of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtUI5MC9tVM Electric Feel, a MGMT song. Look at the colors! The clothes. The Country Bears. I freaking love this jungle dance world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4_4abCWw-w Jose Gonzales covering a song called Heartbeats. So, so beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HksFcm9wi0 So You Think You Can Dance routine with Kayla and Kupono from Season 5. I'm not sure about much but I can be sure of this: if it doesn't give you goosebumps you're dead inside.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTF8x-2XbWc&feature=channel Louis Armstrong cover. This girl is amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wC_kZNYMWg Bon Iver and Sarah Siskind singing a song called Lovin's for Fools. This song is so incredible. Here's a cover of the song done by a different girl with an amazing voice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJKhR9WiuZg

So what gives you that feeling in your chest like your heart has filled up so full there's not even any more room for love in it?

I'm just gonna write "healed; made mess"

Hello. My husband gets sick every time anyone coughs, and then he brings home his illness to me, so that is where I have been. I left work on Thursday afternoon and haven't been back until this morning. Very bad news for the calendar in which I write what I did every day. I've got 6 blank days staring me in the face and I'll be darned if I can remember anything I did.

Well I do remember how Mike and I drowned our germs in diet CranGrape and Sprite and the most delicious granola bars I have ever tasted. For Jo-Lynne they are healthier and less process-y than storebought, but I haven't been able to find Sucanat or soft wheat pastry flour anywhere in my 4-grocery-store search, so for us they're more like sugary dessert bars. From heaven. But hey! there are oats in them, and that surely makes for a balanced nutritional breakfast bar. Plus I feel it's safe to say they help you to get better faster. Especially if you bake in a few Mucinex D tablets. That Mary Poppins may have had an ugly bag and witchy shoes, but she had a keen understanding of incentives when it came to taking medicine. A cupful of sugar really helped the off-brand cold pills go down. So now I'm feeling much better. Poor Mike can't seem to shake the cold he picked up, which I believe is a sweet little testament to his commitment and loyalty. Aww. I'm like the cold that he'll never develop the antibodies to neutralize.

And I guess I can fill in yesterday. My sister Emily and I ate some cupcakes and bought some meat. Then last night I drove my mama and my granny to pick up some dinner, and my precious granny told me I can never have kids because I don't have any room for them, what with the mess in my car. ::sigh:: It really isn't that bad. An old pair of sneakers, a couple of tank tops, a flashlight, a tool box, some receipts, a few catalogs and scraps of mail, and a floorboard full of fertilized dirt and dead leaf bits from when a plant (a plant SHE gave me) fell over in my backseat. I don't do plants, but Granny doesn't get that, and she wanted my front stoop to look nicer, so she bought us a plant, which I promptly forgot was in my backseat until I took a tight turn in the garage at work. And now I can't have kids.

So what have we learned today? Eat sugar and don't make a mess. Sage advice from pretty much all magic nannies and all regular grandmas.

Mine's Rebecca

Look what Erin gave me!
She thinks this place is fabulous! Thanks lady.

Now I'm supposed to list 5 current obsessions, so:

1) Cooking. When the weather gets like this, I just want to eat and eat. Last week I made pita chips (Mike helped a lot. Hot oil = scary!), chili, and some apple things that only required one stick of butter per apple. This week my mom and I made eggrolls. They were pretty easy and downright delicious, if a bit too salty. And we had strawberry shortcake, which wasn't so much made as assembled, but still. I am liking being in the kitchen and trying new recipes these days. Is Pioneer Woman an appropriate answer to the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?"

2) Arrested Development. I think it's hysterical. Have you seen it? Why did it end so soon? It can be a little raunchy, but it's so funny. My favorite part is when George Michael has a girlfriend named Ann(e?) who's so boring and plain that nobody can remember her or get her name right. The first 2 seasons are available on Hulu, and all 3 are available through Netflix, if you're interested. And evidently there's going to be a movie! I am excited.

3) This time of year. How can you love any three months more than October, November, and December? It's like walking around in a hug. That smells like cinnamon.

4) My hair. Sad but true. I'm no counting expert, but I'd estimate I lose anywhere from 900 to 4 million hairs every day. Is this normal? It can't be. New ones can't be growing in at the rate all my old ones are falling out. If this continues, I'm going to have five curls left on my head by the time I'm 25. (My friend Johnny is probably laughing at that image.) Do I change my hair routine? Use fewer products? Better ones? Stop pulling it up so much? Eat more Jell-O? What's the answer?! I do not wish to go bald.

5) Baby names. I've been keeping a list since I started working here last February, and it's up to about 100 names now. That means there are 90ish names on the list that I'll never get to use. Unless you want me to name your kids for you. How many middle names is too many? I went to daycare with a girl named Marley Anne Coutsous Rose, spell check on the Coutsous, and I thought her names were awesome. What's your middle name?