I missed a lot of movies while I was traveling, so I’m trying to catch up.
Luckily “Bridesmaids” is still playing at the dollar theater.
As I’ve said before, I’m not crazy about weddings, so I don’t even enjoy watching movies about them. But this flick is different.
It’s hilarious. It’s messy. It’s downright awkward. Just like a real wedding.
Where’s the very best place to spend Labor Day Weekend? Plopped down on a beach chair at Manhattan Beach, surrounded by your best friends, with a can of champagne in hand.
The perfect summer day was capped off with a visit to Cupcakes Couture, a fancy, pretty-in-pink bakery that recently won “Cupcake Wars.”
Here’s the gorgeous Lime in the Coconut, one of the winning flavors from the show.
And it’s hard to tell from this photo, but this Sunday Mimosa cupcake was such a piece of art. It’s champagne cake filled with blood orange curd topped with a mascarpone citrus frosting, garnished with blood orange pearls. It was approximately the size of someone’s hand, with towers of sparkly icing.
BONUS FUN! My friend Maria recently moved from the desert to the beach, because she has more surf in her blood than sand. This was our first chance to really catch up since I returned from my trip, so we hugged, dished, ate pizza, took a nighttime walk on the pier. It was fantastic.
EXTRA BONUS FUN! Seeing Maria’s gorgeous children!
Tonight, when it’s so late it barely even qualifies as today, I’m going to a birthday party!
You guys, I am such a birthday person, probably because my earliest ones were so unremarkable. I only remember three of them: The year I received an umbrella instead of Pink & Pretty Barbie; the time my mom splurged on a Snow White cake with a plastic figurine, candy dwarves and jellybean rocks; and a celebration at Showbiz Pizza that ended with a grubby bucket of vomit, five sobbing children and a Care Bear stained with pepperoni grease.
Nowadays, I go out of my way to make every birthday memorable, whether that means attending trapeze school, riding roller coasters or skydiving in my underwear. And I compile these activities, parties and experiences into a full week of festivities that I call Maggie Gras.
It’s a lot like Mardi Gras but with fewer beads.
I figure the aging part doesn’t matter as much as celebrating the passage of time in an explosively fun way.
My birthday mantra goes something like this:
I believe in the power of wearing a tiara all day long. Even to work. (But why didn’t you call in sick to work?)
I believe in special brunch foods, prepared extra fancy — preferably served in a watermelon bowl.
I believe in enough cheap flowers to blanket the dining room table.
I believe in surprises, thoughtfulness and burning candles in a bowl of soy ice cream.
I believe in gin martinis and frou-frou cocktails.
I believe in all the tiny magic that walks hand in hand with birthdays.
Unfortunately, my birthday obsession spills over to the other important people in my life. My husband — who is decidedly not a birthday person — has reluctantly warmed up to getting a car filled with balloons, heart-shaped pancakes, public serenades, birthday card scavenger hunts, pinatas and the birthday sombrero.
Lucky for him, I balance all this birthday love by hating Christmas and weddings.
In between laundry, dishes, grocery shopping, cooking, washing the dog, scooping the litterbox and packing for a move, I took a quick but restorative break.
Bare feet.
Steamy coffee.
Hula-hooping in the dewy morning grass, blasting the new song from Mates of State.
Shake your maracas to this synthy bubblegum goodness. Ka-POW!
Happy weekending!
When I was on the road, each day was an adventure. I was meeting new people, sampling new foods, seeing new sights and opening my arms to every new experience that came my way. In short, I was having a blast.
It’s no surprise then that coming home has been a little bit of a bummer. It feels like the same boring, old thing because it IS the same boring, old thing. I haven’t done anything new or different or exciting in a month.
This morning, however, I woke up to an apartment full of love notes from The Husband. It started with a Post-It on the coffeemaker, which led to a note on my computer, on a book, on the front door and so on.
And no, it’s not our anniversary. He just did it for no reason at all.
It was so sweet it practically made my teeth ache, but it was also downright fun to make beautiful discoveries in what would have been a normal routine. That’s when I got to thinking: I bet there are fun things all over my daily life. I just haven’t been open enough to explore them.
There’s only one thing that controls how vibrant my life is. ME. It’s not about where I am. It’s more about who I am.
And that brings me to my new project for September: Do something fun every day.
I’m borrowing the idea from a couple other bloggers who did it first, documenting their months of fun in July and August. (So I’m a little late to the party … what’s new?) Every day, or as often as I can, I’ll report back and tell you how the project is going. Hopefully you’ll tell me about the fun you’re finding too.
I’m head over heels for this idea already. It’s about making the deliberate choice to embrace adventure. It’s taking a hammer to the old routine and smashing it into bits. It’s about being inspired.
Today’s fun thing: I visited The Husband at work and brought him lunch.
This won’t be a regular thing, unfortunately. It won’t be long before his days will be filled with students, parent-teacher conferences and paperwork, and he’ll be squeezing peanut butter and jelly in between his other obligations.
But today none of that was a concern, as it’s still early in the year. He’s still sticking posters to the wall, organizing books, setting up computers. So I surprised him in the middle of the day, we pulled a couple of school desks together in his classroom and enjoyed a meal together.
