"Gardenia" by: Mandy Moore

I'm L O V I N G this song! So much that I actually figured out how to use iTunes (I know, what kind of dark age am I living in that I didn't know how to use iTunes or even make a simple purchase?) to download the song. As it turns out, iTunes is pretty easy to use. Who knew?

I was going to upload the song to a playlist, but I find playlists on blogs (with the autostart) slightly obnoxious. So I'll give you the You Tube version of Mandy Moore performing the song.



...Sigh...

On a different note, as I was typing this post Leah came up to me and said she wanted to go outside to play.


Also, does it annoy anyone else that you shouldn't double space after typing the punctuation to end a sentence anymore? It took me a long time to get used to this. And now I have to change back to this. UGH!

Melanie's Microwave Clean

So you know when you come home from vacation and how much it stinks to be back home (except the look on your child's face when you come through the door after not having seen her for three days; that's awesome!)? You know how all you want to do is get everything put away like that -snap, and everything is put away- ? You know how your house is never clean enough after you get home from vacation?

ME TOO!

So this morning I woke up and cleaned. Okay, Monday is my regular Big Clean Day anyway, but it felt especially good today. I was going about my regular Big Clean Day routine when I happened upon -dun dun dun- the microwave. You know the place, the one that gathers cooked on food and splatters and spills but never gets cleaned up because you can just close the door and wipe the surface clean and it looks great. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Let me just tell you that after a couple weeks of leftover lasagna my microwave was looking pretty neglected. So it was time to tackle it.

I really, really do not like to clean the microwave. It's awkward, it's gross, it's so time consuming,
and as soon as you clean the thing it gets used again and we're back to square one.

CLEANING EPIPHANY!

Let's make this task easier, huh? I remembered a few years back watching a Good Morning America spot where they had this lady on just giving easy tips for cleaning things. One of them was to put a cup of water in the microwave for a few minutes and let the cup steam in there and do most of the job for you. So, I decided to take it one step further. Without much further ado, I'll introduce:

MELANIE'S MICROWAVE CLEAN
1. Heat one mug (yes the kind used for delicious hot chocolate drinking) in the microwave for 3-4 minutes.
2. Let stand for 2 minutes more in a closed microwave (steaming process).
3. Wipe down the microwave (don't scrub it or try to remove any baked on ground beef, just a quick swipe will do).
4. Heat one more mug of 1/2 water and 1/2 lemon juice in the microwave for 3-4 minutes.
5. Let stand for 2 minutes more in a closed microwave (steaming process).
6. Do a final wipe down of the microwave.

Everything should come off pretty easily and now your microwave smells lemony fresh. It was so easy I almost felt bad for the little grimy baked on meats that didn't even have a chance to put up a fight.

The Elmo Cake

Yeah, I'm pretty proud of this. First, because I didn't give up (last year Leah's birthday cake was a single serve Betty Crocker microwave dessert). Second, I didn't get impatient and rush through it (Leah's first birthday cake should have had stars piped all over it. I opted to spatula frost instead and it looked terrible). And third, even though it was easier than a paint by number IT LOOKS LIKE ELMO!

Happy Birthday Leah

We went from this *Day One* ...

To This *First Birthday* ...

Then Onto This *Second Birthday* ...

And Now Here We Are *Third Birthday* ...
Happy Birthday, Leah!

Imagine if you will

Stopping at a traffic signal, as your about to enter the freeway, behind a pickup truck.

Now imagine that in this pickup truck's bed is a circular saw on top of two pieces of plywood, surrounded by miscellaneous tool boxes, more heavy saws, a few hammers, and many open boxes of nails.

Now imagine that none of it is strapped down, not a bungee cord in site.

Now imagine that the truck bed is open and the circular saw that is atop the plywood is laying on the truck bed's door (unstrapped) precariously near the edge.

"Mr., please don't hit a bump."

Just Love It

The sunshine was nice last week, but April showers do bring May flowers... and I love a nice, rainy day. Yesterday, Matt and I were outside on the patio for a minute and the smell of the rain on cement was so wonderful. Everything about this weather is just so cozy to me. When it rains like this I just want to sit in the corner of my couch and read, or go outside and look for worms (which is Leah's favorite activity these days). As it is, I am sitting in a comfortable office chair looking out the windowed doors to a blissfully gray day. Knowing that I only have only a few weeks out of the year that are actually gray and rainy, and knowing that just around the corner is a long length of sunny and scorching days makes me appreciate this season all the more. This is perfect flip-flop weather for me, the way they sound on wet cement just makes me happy.

Cheers!