The Inspiration Blog - Read It!

There were a number of reasons why I finally decided to start my own blog. I had been reading a few others and found them mildly entertaining. But there is one in particular that is so great and makes me laugh every time I read it. She was a bride of mine over the summer and we quickly became great friends. She is hilarious in person and is able to convey that same hilarity in her writing. It was her writing that inspired me to think, hey, I can write stuff thats funny too right? And it was her that originally came up with the title “you can’t make this stuff up” while I was telling her one of my long drawn out stories.
Even if you don't know her, you should read her blog. You will quickly get to know her and her wonderful husband. He is just as funny as she is, but just don’t ask him to catch a mouse for you. I suppose the fact that her name is also Melissa makes me like her that much more. Hehe

Go to: South of Reason/

Melissa: If this isn't a shout out, I don't know what is! :)

The Much Anticipated Debut of my Beads!

As most of you know I have a wonderful hobby of making lampwork beads. It is such a great creative outlet for me. I can just sit in front of my torch for hours not thinking about anything but the glass and making it pretty. I've been meaning to post some pictures of my beads up here but I've been too busy making them! So, here are the latest in the "I'm Crazy About Dots" series.

The one on the far left has to be one of the biggest beads I've ever made. But really its only an inch and a half long. hehe

I'm planning on making these sets bigger by adding more spaces to match and selling them as a complete necklace/bracelet set. I just don't feel like putting them together. But I should be able to get some decent cash for them, right?

The glass that I used for the red, orange, and yellow are called strikers. Sometimes they turn the colors that you want, and sometimes they don't. When I was making the smaller beads to match the focal for this one the red looked exactly like the orange. So I'll have to make another one that looks red.

I've been working on my bi-cone shaped beads. I took the colors of one of my current bride's wedding and applied them to these beads. They are pretty girly but I like them!

Oh Brother's Were art thou leaving?

Let me start by saying I love my brothers. If it wasn't for my husband, I wouldn't have any. And they are good and putting up with my shit. Although, maybe a little too good. It dawned on me the other day that we have been seeing a lot of them lately. They both live an hour away so generally we see them once or twice a month. Not lately though. We have been seeing one, if not both of them, every weekend for the past 5 weeks. And it's not like the stay for an hour or two and then go home. No. They are here for days and they just camp out! Literally! They don't bother getting dressed or take showers. They roll off of the air mattress/couch and start playing video games. (The total Man-tastic video games of dudes shooting other dudes!) They have gotten so used to being here and being around a sister that they don't bother saying excuse me when they fart or burp. I know I'm lucky and have a great husband that even after we have been together for almost 10 years, he STILL excuses himself. Even when he thinks no one is listening. The other day one of the brothers totally burped all huge, you know the "I'm-So-Cool-and-Manly" sort of burp. I looked at him with a bewildered look and he was totally confused. Really?
Luckily I brought this to the attention of my husband and he also had noticed that we have not had a quiet weekend with just our little family in way too long. So hopefully, the next time they call, (I'm thinking tomorrow) and want to come up here he will tell them maybe next weekend.
Apparently I use this blog to bitch about my in-laws. Sorry. I'm just assuming some of you want to know about my family so that yours won't seem so dysfunctional! HA

A New Years Story - The Franco Way

So Heidi and Kym decided that we should definitely do something fun for New Years, but conveniently their houses are too small. Their obvious solution was to just have a gathering at our house. Sure. No big deal. I like people. And hell, I didn't have to drive anywhere. Nothing too big, 9 people plus myself. I tried to get my friend Kasey to come, but her husband didn't want to drive. I understand, but he's still a putz. hehe We all sat around the table playing a dice game that Kym taught us, Farkle. Its actually a lot more fun than the name implies, go with it. We celebrated midnight at 9:00pm for Jack. We all went outside, shot off poppers, yelled Happy New Year, and even watched the ball drop on TV. Jack was pretty excited he got to stay up too but he went to bed shortly after that. I know it must have been difficult for him to sleep though considering how loud we all were downstairs. I tend to get a little loud when the sh*t-talking starts, plus the jello shots... yeah... Anyway, so we were all sitting there when we realized that Jason was missing! I go upstairs thinking that he was checking on Jack. But nope, Jack was sound asleep. I find Jason passed out on our bed. It was 10:30pm. I go downstairs to inform everyone that we can officially skip his turn and Kym forces a camera on me! Tells me I HAVE to go back upstairs and take a picture of him pass out. (See this way it's Kym's fault) I did put up a ton of resistance but I was told since it was only 10:30 it was my responsibility to take his picture for documentation. *sigh* So I go up and take a quick picture, and I'm out. I know not to touch him when he's “sleeping” and decides to go to bed early.

Isn't he cute when he sleeps?!?!

I did go and check on him again an hour later to see if he was going to be joining us for the real midnight's activities. I find him on the bed along with quite the mess in the bathroom. :( I asked him if he was going to be joining us, but all I got back was an eye's closed mean sounding mumbled mrmm-mmrr. I took that as a no.
So here comes midnight, we pour the champagne, get the TV turned to any channel and start the count down. Meanwhile Heidi was so excited about getting to the living room before midnight with the champagne she slips and spills the champagne. Not sure how, but she ended up getting more on her and her hair than on the wall and floor. And yet, she was still a great sport. Love her. So there I am, with 2 glasses of champagne counting down until midnight, surrounded by couples. 3, 2, 1, YAY! kissy kissy. And me... drinky drinky.

I finally kick everyone out around 1:45 or so. I lock everything up, turn everything off, gather as many cleaning supplies that will fit in my hands, and head upstairs for my maid service. I clean up the explosion that apparently happened just outside the bathroom. So close, yet so far away. Unfortunately, while I was busy scrubbing the toilet I hear some footsteps that quickly turned into loud running to the other bathroom. I go to check on him and I bring him cold wet wash cloths for his neck and face. I'm such a good wife by the way! I finish cleaning up and finally go to bed. Jason joins me but only for short intervals. Neither one of us did a lot of sleeping that night. I am a very light sleeper and every time he got up, I got up, and we were up most of the night. It was awesome. Yay, Happy New Year.

Jack Franco Photography

Jack got a new camera for Christmas. One of those tough ones for kids that if he dropped it, kicked it, or gave it to the dog, it would still take some what crappy pictures. Within 24 hours of opening his camera he had taken 187 pictures. Of these, 35 were of our Christmas tree.

Christmas Day night he wanted to take it to bed. I allowed this as long as he took pictures while lying down. I wish I could see the house from across the street. The dark room with intermittent flashes of light every few seconds. Although I probably would have thought that I was apart of a new movie similar to Rear Window. He told me he took a picture of the neighbors house because they had pretty Christmas lights on it.

The best picture so far is his attempt to take a picture of himself. Classic!

I will probably be adding more posts as we go that include some of these master pieces. I love that all of the pictures are from a 4 foot level and most of them are of his feet.

This would be me getting coffee in the morning at my mom's house. It was cold.

These would be his toes...

A Christmas Story - The Franco Way

We have three families that we get to spend time with over the holidays. My mom, my dad, and Jason's family. Since there are only technically 2 days for christmas someone always gets screwed. Generally its my dad just because that is usually the last place I want to be. I could go into why... but that’s a whole other blog.

Last year we did what we normally do and spend Christmas Eve at my mom’s house and Christmas day at my in-laws house. I really like having our own Christmas morning at own house with Santa and all. Now that we have a family it just seems right that we be able to start our own Christmas morning just us. Anyway, I put my foot down this year and said we are having Christmas eve and Christmas morning at our house then we head out to my mom’s on Christmas day. We had a great time as we usually do. Our trip started off a little rocky though.

Christmas Day: I run back into the house for the 3rd time to get the one last thing that we forgot. Since we are planning on leaving Jack at the in-laws house for a few days after Christmas, he needs a lot of crap. We had spent at least 30 minutes backing up the car. And of course we were already 20 min late. As I unlock the door to the kitchen and step inside I hear Jason starting the car, or at least attempting to. The car doesn’t turn over until he tries it for the third time. The only think I could think of was damn, now I have to unpack that stupid car. He ended up getting it to start, I get in and sit down with the left behind rubber boots and he shuts the car off! “What are you doing?!” Maybe its just a girl thing, but I was happy to just get the damn thing started, no reason to test our luck at this point. He even looked at me like, so? He started it right back up again with no problem, so that was good.

We finally get on our way and I give my mom a call to let her know we will be a little late. I tell her about our car problems and she tells me she has a problem of her own. Their power had gone out a couple hours prior. Ideas of cooking the ham on the BBQ and burning Christmas presents to stay warm came to mind. Luckily the power came back on only a couple hours after arriving. We had a great time, opening presents in a civilized matter, ate a lovely dinner that we all helped with, played farkle, watched a stupid movie and went to bed.

Day After Christmas: We arrive in Stockton at the in-laws house and I have to pee like a race horse. I go to open the gate to their house and the damn thing won’t open. They have some weird wire contraption keeping the gate locked. We ring the doorbell 5 times while I’m standing there doing the pee-pee dance. They fiddle around with the dog trying to catch it while I practically pee my pants. This was the start of an awesome visit… As soon as Jason walked in the house they set him to work fixing their computers for the next 3 hours. The rest of the afternoon and into the evening contained the same characteristics of any Franco Family Christmas. Some of these are:

1. Dad listening to the television so incredibly loud the neighbors could hear it. We all had to yell to hear one another and we yelled to have him turn it down. He pretends to turn it down only to turn it up even louder ten minutes later.

2. There are at least twice as many presents under the tree for our niece then there are for Jack. Including one 5 foot stocking that was full of gifts. I took a picture... to be posted later. Its rediculous.

3. Present opening time is complete anarchy. Everyone is shoving presents upon you and everyone is opening them all at the same time.

4. Each present under the tree is labeled from Santa. I’m still unclear why, but it is a bit confusing. And each one of these has the price tag still attached. Apparently santa sucks at the details. He also uses the same wrapping paper that he has been using for the past 15 years. He must have stock piles of it in the attic.

5. Jason gets a gift, from santa, that was actually already owned by him. His parents like to save all of the boys’ things from when they were young and slowly give them back to them as they age. This year it was a book that he wrote when he was a boy.

6. Mom is screaming at the kids so that she can take a picture of them opening each present.

7. Garth Brooks and Kenny G blaring Christmas tunes on the oldest working stereo you ever saw. Although you can only hear it if you are in the same room, otherwise the music is drowned out by the tv.

8. Mom feeding my niece entirely more than she ever should. Regardless of the fact the she is already over weight and she’s only 5.

9. Dad starts pouting over something, its different every time. And he starts handing out guilt trips like they were candy.

10. Generally one if not all of the Franco men end up taking a nap. This Christmas was the first year that they didn’t. Perhaps the tv was too loud.

I so love the holidays and I hope this helps express why it is that I am SO glad they are over! Sorry if this turned into a rant.

Big words for a little person

So I'm wrapping a present yesterday and Jack notices that there are still 2 holes that clearly need to be filled so that Nana won't see whats inside. Once I folded up the ends where these 2 gaping holes were and taped everything up he said, "Oh! Now its better concealed." Really? Concealed? Dude, he's 4.

And last week when he was talking to Kym about his awesome trip to the science museum with Kasey and Devin he was discribing the penguins and busted out with "Enclosure".

These are pretty big words from someone who still can't write his own name and always forgets 17 while counting to 20. oh well, he'll get there.