I Need To Leave Town

I need to leave town for a few weeks. Anyone have room for a guest for maybe, mmm, 7 or 8 weeks? I don't need much space and I'm good at cleaning up after myself. I'm very low maintenance, I just need a little space for my laptop.

The next 7 weeks are going to be bank breaking time around here! Actually the bank is broke before I even start. This time of year is always fun but a little challenging, around here anyway. Between today and June 20th, I have been invited to or need to provide for:

(Sung to the tune of Twelve Days of Christmas)

5 Bir-irthdays
4 House Warming Parties
3 Graduations
2 Mother's Day

And a First Holy Communion

Busy much? No kidding. It's like Christmas in May. The parties will be fun but I'm thinking it would be easier to just dump all my friends and family (except for you guys!). I could probably tour Europe for less than I'll be laying out over the next few weeks. 

Anyone have any brilliant ideas? $5 Arch cards all around? What? That's thoughtful.

Random Tuesday Thoughts

Yes, I am very late with this post. I had issues today, ok? This was supposed to post hours ago. Anyway I have other far more important thoughts for the day. How about:

Christmas is coming in like 72 days!!!!?? Jeez, how did this happen so quickly? I think I was just picking pine needles out of the carpet last week! I had better get busy. Last year I did 90% of my shopping online, yay! I can guarantee I am intending to do the same this year, so easy. Amazon here I come! Only if you give me free shipping though.

I used to love the winter, the bundling up, the snow. Now, not! I'm so over it and my knees complain heartily about the chill that is already here! I think I could enjoy moving to a warm weather climate; Florida...no, Arizona...ummm yes. It would be a little weird come Christmas but I think I could get used to it, it's like 80 degrees there right now. I could enjoy sitting out in my garden all year round, how about you?

Solicitation calls on my cell phone! Does this make you nuts? Do not dare use my minutes to try to sell me on some crap I don't want!

My Mother's birthday is next week, my Sister's too (same day) I think I'll make that great apple cake for them. Everyone loves that cake.

It's a Mario Party!

This weekend was my grand-daughter's (aka buggy) 5th birthday! Did she want ponies or princesses or even Dora the Explorer??? No. She wanted Super Mario and all the man eating plants and killer mushrooms that come along with him.

Of course I myself am a closet Mario fan. I remember buying my kids the original Nintendo system when it came only to find myself alone ... in the dark .... at 1am ... obsessed with making past Bowser and onto that flag pole!

So I couldn't resist ... Jen and I stole an idea from a google image search and decided to make Mario cupcakes!

I was afraid they might be really difficult but they ended up being much easier (and more fun) than I ever expected. We used regular icing for the light blue (since it tastes so good mmmm) and fondant for the actual characters. It was all done free-hand except for the stars; we did use a cookie cutter for those. We also discovered a super-cool icing marker for the classic mario-character eyes!

Buggy loved 'em! I think everyone else did too .... what do you think?

Plus Poppy dressed up like Mario himself!