Archive for the ‘Daily Watering’ Category

My husband and I both grew up with poor eyesight, and our history of nerdy, giant glasses is something we’ve joked about almost from the time we met. When we first started dating in college, I visited his parents’ house and saw a picture of him in fifth grade. He was tall, lanky and tan, but it was hard to see his face because it was half-covered by huge glasses. It was eerily familiar, and I realized I had the female version of that exact same photo. Read more…

Pandora bracelets—you’ve heard of ‘em, right? They’re pricey charm bracelets sold in jewelry stores all over the world. Pandora offers interchangeable pieces and a multitude of charms and beads to go on the bracelets. It’s big business.

While it’s not really my thing—my taste doesn’t extend beyond plastic costume jewelry—it’s nice to have an easy gift to buy for my family members who do enjoy collecting the charms. Pandora has a bead for everything. You can buy them to commemorate events and symbolize vacations, people, or activities. For a limited time, you can even buy a Black Friday charm that looks like a little gift box.

Andy and I saw a Pandora commercial last night, and it made us laugh. It’s so cheesy—please enjoy: Jared Galleria of Jewelry commercial for Pandora on iSpot.tv. The fact that they blush over the Red Hot Love bead made us crack up. It was late, and I was under the influence of cold medicine, but still.

The beads and charm choices are designed with the blushing suburban lady in mind. If you are that woman, Pandora wants you to “express your personal style.” But how can Pandora executives judge what women want? And Pandora likes to push the limits to find new best sellers, so they put riskier charm choices in select test markets to see how they perform.

But sometimes women reject these test market charms, and family members are too scared to buy them as gifts because they might not be well received. Believe it or not, there have been charms on the market that were potentially more embarrassing than the Red Hot Love bead, and some were simply depressing.

Here’s a list of Pandora charms that were such poor sellers they were immediately removed from shelves, never to be spoken of again. And now, Tall Curly Biscuit presents…

Pandora Bombs

1. Stomach Flu Weekend 2012 Charm with flecks of viral matter suspended in amber
2. The Nagging Charm in sterling silver
3. Serpent Cult Charm in silver-plated lead
4. Wealthy Industrialist “I once laid off 500 workers” Bead in 14k gold
5. Television Viewing Charm with abstract gold design
6. Teenage Pregnancy Charm with enamel umbilical cord, baby, and school bag
7. North Korea Charm in matte gray with uranium
8. 5000^th Load of Laundry Charm with cubic zirconium chips
9. Anal Sex Charm in murano glass
10. The Hider Bead for storing small amounts of cocaine in a non-reactive murano glass screwtop
11. Second Cousin Once Removed Family Love Charm with red enamel heart
12. Low Cholesterol Achievement Bead in wood

Rumor has it that a few Pandora marketing folks will be fired over some of these bead decisions for what the company says was “a total lack of judgment with regard to our target market.”

Did you discover any other Pandora Bombs before they were yanked from the shelves?

*Thanks to Andy who came up with all of these while I rolled on the floor laughing. ♥

Hi, dear readers. Did you have a good weekend? My birthday was Saturday, and it was lovely. We didn’t have any huge plans, mostly because I was simply drunk on power. Just the knowledge that I could make my husband, kids, and parents do whatever I wanted was enough for me.

I asked for nothing. My husband wanted me to ask for a rain jacket so I will stop stealing his extra jacket the one time every two years that we happen to be out in the rain (he holds grudges, apparently), but I didn’t ask for anything.* I could have slept late, but instead we got up early to help with a service project. I could have requested that we drive into the city to go to my favorite Thai restaurant, but instead we saw the new James Bond movie and ate pizza. I could have asked for an ice cream cake, but instead I selflessly baked my own birthday cakes (yes, plural). Ah, the supreme control spent on goodness for the family.

The power trip wore off by 4:00 p.m. when I started craving fine leather goods and lemongrass, but whatever. Then it was time for wine.

Family and friends gave me some fun and thoughtful gifts—they’re sweet! I have to share one of the gifts with you: my mom helped my 10-year-old daughter craft a beautiful box out of paint and molded clay.

Isn’t this pretty?

I was almost choked up with tears of joy from the thoughtfulness, but there was more. My daughter insisted that I open the box.

Cue the sarcastic horror music and laugh track. If anyone searches “decapitated head” and finds this humor blog, I think they’ll be disappointed.

This surprise decapitated Barbie head was good for multiple laughs throughout the day, and I have a feeling she’ll show up in someone’s Christmas present.

I love humor gifts, and this one reminded me of another funny gift. I used to—and still do—keep a healthy supply of restaurant napkins in my glove compartment. One of my favorite gifts ever was when my college roomies went around to every fast food restaurant near the campus and collected napkins for my truck. Who knew Wendy’s napkins could be so thoughtful and hilarious?

Hmm. I guess you had to be there.

Well, I’m over this low maintenance birthday thing. The power trip alone no longer works because right now I have to wash the cake stands from my birthday cakes that I made. Yep, I become high maintenance starting NOW. I hereby demand ice cream cake, Thai food, and genuine leather goods for no good reason.

What’s your ideal birthday—or for those among you who are also high maintenance—your ideal regular day?

*Further explanation: My husband owns a water-repellent jacket and an official rain jacket. Once every two years, he lets me borrow his official rain jacket because it’s the smaller of the two. He’s nice about it, but it secretly drives him crazy. Both jackets are ugly, so I don’t know why he cares. I can only figure that he’s a rules guy, and it’s important to him that he is wearing Official Waterproof Fabric in the drizzle. And he’s willing to spend big money so I can have an official rain jacket of my very own. WE PRACTICALLY LIVE IN THE DESERT. But, guess what? After my birthday—after he had given me a non-waterproof present because I refused his rain jacket overtures—I found the perfect pink rain jacket at an outlet store and purchased it. My husband practically thanked me for spending money on what I consider to be a frivolous item. There’s a lesson in here somewhere, ladies. Please don’t use it for too much evil.

Everyone has their own opinions on what makes good food. I was reminded of that during the Romanian Food Festival last weekend. I suspect the little skinless sausages were made of some very powerful lamb, which we are not used to at all. To us it tasted like gamey Slavic sweat, and my husband said he knew why Dracula (from Romania) switched over to feeding on humans.

Between that and the helpful reader comments on Brussels sprouts and squash from my last post, I thought about all the helpful foodie hints that I’ve collected over the years, and I want to share.

1. As of this weekend, I know that lamb + caraway seed = smells and tastes like a band of Gypsies.
2. People who eat the grapes in fruit salad march to the beat of their own drummer. Weirdoes!
3. Even when you are in an alcohol and snack emergency, DO NOT MIX Flavor Blasted Goldfish and red wine. This causes a flavor blasted chemical reaction that will make your whole party very ill.
   

   Consuming two glasses of wine and Flavor Blasted Goldfish will chemically react to create another kind of blast that you do not want to experience. Hey, I didn’t have any other snack food at my house, okay? This is a reenactment, but in real life, I passed out in the restroom for an unknown amount of hours. My friends who partook in the Goldfish had this too. WEIRD.

4. We get spoiled to Halloween bounty very quickly. Look at me complaining about the Butterfingers and Snickers polluting our candy bucket.
5. There is no wrong time to add a pepper of some kind to your food, but too much Cinnamon Trident will permanently burn your tongue.
6. Do not enter a roach eating contest, no matter how tasty they look. A man in Florida recently died from eating 50 live roaches to win a competition. The prize was a python, but he never even got to enjoy his new snake because he was dead.
7. Nobody knows what the blue Gatorade is called, but it probably includes the word blast. And what’s the clear flavor called? How are we supposed to speak intelligently about drinks that don’t have fruit names to match the color?
8. You can eat this candy and consider it a health food because of the ginger. Just like I do with those delicious Ricola cough drops! They’re medicine.

No matter what, eat your veggies and have a lovely day!

Dear readers,

This month is our one-year blog anniversary! Even if you and I got in touch well after last fall, we can backdate it in our minds because I’m not sure that anyone cares. Eat some cake anyway! I choose a big piece of butter cake with chocolate frosting and lots of vanilla ice cream. What about you?

Unfortunately I’m gonna have to eat imaginary cake because I’m kind of on a diet, and I’ve already had my daily allotment of peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough. I’m on a food plan that was customized for me, by me. It’s not really working all that well.

Our first blogiversary. Can you believe it?

A lot of things have happened over the past year:

• My husband and I have had lots of good laughs over your funny comments and blogs.
• Dried organic goji berries. Try ‘em.
• I’ve taken a really awesome editing job at Movable Media (in spite of this blog, not because of it).
• I finally painted my kitchen table. Sewing bedroom curtains?  Eh, that’s another story.
• Bangs.
• The Twitter. (Over 1,100 followers, and most speak English!)
• I went from hating Brussels sprouts to roasting large quantities with sea salt every week. My children are least happy about this change.

Don’t be jealous of my thrilling activities and barely mediocre success over the past year. My kids still think I’m embarrassing.

Thank you for all your support and love through comments, Facebook likes, Twitter follows, and shoutouts in person. I’ve also met lots of cool bloggers online who I fully intend on latching onto like a toddler on the leg if we ever end up at a blogging conference together. I stalk a few additional bloggers because they make me laugh, and, although they do not know I exist or chose to ignore me, I’ll add ‘em to my shout out list anyway.

These friends and stalking victims include but are not limited to:

Robin at Hollow Tree Ventures (I wish we were related and she were forced to spend holidays with me.)
My aunt Jeanie, President of the TCB fan club (She IS forced to spend holidays with me.)
Nicole at Ninja Mom Blog
Jamie at Six Oak Street
The Possum Posse music and blog
Alistair at Scaryduck (He does not acknowledge my existence, but I stalk him.)
Roo at Nice Girl Notes
DJ at Thoughts from Paris
Kim at One Classy Motha
Paige at There’s More Where That Came From
Perry at Nouveau Old
Amanda at Parenting by Dummies
Jen at Jeneral Insanity
Leslie at The Bearded Iris (The ellipsis article changed my professional life.)
Susan at Divine Secrets of a Domestic Diva
Ramsay at Trinity Pest Management (Don’t ask.)
Jenny at TheBloggess (Thanks for the tear-producing laughs and for taking my money each month.)

What would you like to see this blog do over the next year? Step it up to moderate success instead of mediocre? Would you at least like the Brussels sprouts recipe?