Baby Free Friday - Last One

This is my last Baby Free Friday - next year, I'm starting a new tradition. No, I'm not pregnant - we're not going back to "Fetus Friday". I'll write more about my new topic next Friday.

For this Baby Free Friday, I'm just going to give a couple updates - in my favorite form (bullet point).

• This blog initial started as a running blog - and I HAVE been running fairly consistently for the last few weeks (Christmas week excluded). I have one month until my first post-baby race - the Houston Half-Marathon.
• I'm working on a few goals for 2011; some include - running more and blogging more about running.
• Last night, some dipsey-doodle decided to set off fireworks at 11:45. Stupid-heads. I guess they were celebrating the Eve of NYE. I stayed awake till 2:40 thinking about Molly.
• In Molly news, we get to bring her home today. The vet said she seemed a lot better. We'll continue the steroids and then have her checked again next week.
• In SBO news, we have two new misfits starting on Monday. To say I'm not quite prepared for them would be generous way of saying it, but Buttin and the other misfits are pretty on-top of it.
  

Happy New Year's Eve! I'm looking forward to a wonderful 2011!

Baby Free Friday - Seven More Days Till Christmas

Holy Christmas town, Santa I can't believe how much there is still to do!

How many presents have I wrapped? ZERO
How many presents do I have left to determine/find/buy? A TON
How many cookies have I made? ZERO
How many cookies have I eaten (made by other people)? A TON

Gotta run and get working (or sleeping so that I can do work tomorrow).

Baby Free Friday - Two Things

OK - two things for this baby free Friday.

First thing. I love Aaron Sorkin.

Here is his rant regarding Sarah Palin's moose hunt. I don't often get political on my blog, but she is one big dumb horse potato and also mean. I've said it before (and I'll say it again) - I'm moving to Canada (or maybe somewhere warm and friendly) if she is ever elected President.

Second thing. I have a new iPhone application that I'm addicted to.

It's called "Color Splash" and it let's you make pictures black and white and then color in specific areas. It's also very easy to do and I'm going a little nutty.

Here are a couple before/after.

Before (a very interesting picture of my computer at work):


After:


I know it's baby free Friday, but here's a Cub before:



After:

Baby Free Friday - Six Word Novels

This idea was totally stolen from another running/mom blog, but I thought it was hilarious.

According to legend, Ernest Hemingway once bet $10 that he could write a novel in six words.
His novel:
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn,” he wrote.

In response to her post, I wrote the following six word novel.

Cookie dough shortage: Wide Spread Panic!

I wrote the following six word novels for my baby mama friends.

Bethany: I will eat your peanut butter.
Heather: Per your recommendation, bought Robeez socks.
Valeria: Please do not move away, ever.
Candy: I want to see your furniture.
Julia: Cannot believe Jackson is crawling already.
Karen: Good house selling vibes to you!
Allison: Please visit us soon, miss you!

Baby Free Friday - Harry Potter Alliance

I was driving into work a couple days ago, and I heard a story on NPR about the Harry Potter Alliance.

How I managed to go this long never having heard of this organization, I'll never know - but now I'm a member.

The goal of this non-profit is to take themes from the Harry Potter books (i.e. house elf slavery = fair wage campaigns) and make community/political activism accessible to younger people. J.K. Rowling has said she's extremely flattered by and proud of the organization.

This is just yet another reason why Harry Potter is so much awesomer than Twilight.

P.S. I'm going to see the movie tomorrow night, be prepared for a four cookie review!

Baby Free Friday - Mexican Food

Today, we (me, Barbie & Patty) ate Mexican food for lunch. I was going to write about another topic for Baby Free (hint: it involved the making of cake balls, but I'll write about it over the weekend) Friday, but decided to write about my love of Mexican food instead.

Reasons I love Mexican food:

• It's yummy. Bread + cheese = good.
• It's cheap. I almost needed help getting in the bags of food. We got tons of food (honestly, we're all in our offices moaning right now) from an actual restaurant (not Taco Smell) and it was $29! That included tax and about 50 bags of chips and 22 containers of jalapeno ranch dip.

The only real downside to Mexican food is BEANS - yuck. Thankfully, you can pretty much request anything without beans. Sometimes they still give you beans (and I gag) and the worst is when a bean is touching something else on my plate (double gag).

Here is my drawing of my love for Mexican food, combined with my hate of beans.

Baby Free Friday - Cake Balls

Cake Balls are this new, totally cool (but kind of expensive) dessert.

Sadly, I have not tried them and I'll need to take out a loan if I ever want to. They look really pretty, but they're about $27/dozen. They recommend 2 - 3 cake balls per person, which means I would need about 5 -6.

I did some extensive interweb research (googled) and here's how they're described (by wikipedia):

Cake balls are a food item that are small (typically 1/2 to 2 inches in width) and ball-shaped. Cake balls do not have the consistency of the traditional sweetened, baked and leavened cakes, but have a consistency similar to dough which can be attributed to the cake and icing being blended together.

Cake balls can be fully-baked cake crumbles that are blended with icing and shaped to form a ball and then dipped in a coating, such as melted chocolate.

Although the exact origins of Cake Balls are difficult to determine, recent media articles (see external links) credit their surging popularity to the Southern United States, specifically Texas and Louisiana.

They had me at "consistency similar to dough".

Here is my recipe for cake balls, except I call mine Cake Bowling Balls (in a free form shape):

1. Bake (or buy) cake (the kind in a box is fine).
2. Crumble the cake into bits and mash it up with frosting (homemade or stuff in a can).
3. Scoop serving (at least two cups) into a bowl.
4. Sprinkle with chocolate chips (dark chocolate ones - if you're fancy, which I am).
   

I think I'll try it out this weekend. Yum.

Baby Free Friday - Mid Term Elections

I wish this stupid mid-term election would hurry up and be finished.

During election season, people stop making major purchases. At least, this has been our experience. I seriously doubt which party controls the Senate contributes to anyone's ability to afford new flooring, but people just kind of hold their breath (and wallet). Weird.

Here is my sticker for people who vote:

Baby Free Friday - Paranormal Activity 2

To see it or not to see it?

I saw Paranormal Activity (1) last year at Fantastic Fest and nearly peed myself in fright.

Last night, I read reviews for Paranormal Activity 2 and woke up at 1:00 AM and had to watch QVC because I kept thinking about the first movie.

Paranormal Activity 2 (for those of you who live in a cave or don't watch TV or don't use the interwebs) features a large dog and a baby - I have a large dog and a baby!

Buttin is going to see it tonight after I go to bed (usually at 8:30) and tell me if it's safe (enough) for me to see. If it is, Barbie and I might take a field trip from work and go see it. Yikes!

Baby Free Friday - Dry Skin

I'm experiencing some severely dry skin (I know you find my condition fascinating).

I'd like to say it's because of all the dishes I'm washing or laundry I'm doing, but that's just not the case. I think my skin is addicted to humidity.

This weather has been great for running (I did almost 4 miles this morning after over seven hours of uninterrupted sleep), but just awful for my skin. I don't remember feeling this scaly this time last year, but I was putting tons of oil all over myself (to try to prevent stretch marks from he who will not be named, because it's Friday).

Oh well. I'll happily take having to re-apply lotion fifteen hundred times a day if we can keep these nice temperatures and lower humidity.

Baby Free Friday - Bad Dreams

Bad dreams are bad.

I had a very vivid, bad dream this week -- so bad (and vivid) -- I couldn't go back to sleep. I was THAT shaken. I won't go into all the details, but it involved my only recurring nightmare -- falling in an elevator.

I don't know where this recurring dream came from (thankfully there aren't a lot of falling elevator stories in the news) and it seems rather irrational, but I still have it once every couple of months.

To get my mind off bad dreams, I drew this picture of a cupcake monster. Because cupcakes are scary good.

Baby Free Friday - Little Pieces of Love

Little Pieces Of Love
by Molly Naylor

Mom & Dad - I feel a little ignored,
while you play with baby cub, I get bored.

I don't want to go outside because you shut the door,
so now I will poop on the kitchen floor.

I'm an older puppy and I need more hugs,
or I will continue to leave you little pieces of love (aka poo nuggets).

It's well known how disgusting Cartman is, but I really think Molly and Scratch are fighting for the title of most disgusting Naylor pet. Molly has started pooping on the kitchen floor (she actually leaves a little trail, it's not just all in one area), but I decided against posting a picture of it. Scratch, if he deems the litter box as "too full" has taken to peeing on the towel we place outside the shower. Nothing like stepping out of the shower onto a towel of cat piss.

Cartman is not without his own new disgusting things. Occasionally, little cub will spit up a little (who am I kidding, sometimes it's about a gallon) and Cartman loves to lick it up. (I know, you're jealous.) Sometimes I think he follows me and Cash around just so he can find little morsels - he's going to love it when Cashman starts eating (and dropping and/or spitting up) real food.

Here's a little picture of Ms. Poop-on-the-Floor (along with cub . . .not completely baby free):

Baby Free Friday - Inventions

My fabulous friend Liz and I are always making up inventions. Most of them involve ways we can watch Harry Potter, Law & Order and other good shows on a continuous loop (our own TV station - not really an invention, but you get the idea) or ways to make things easier to eat (or drink).

For example, she came up with the idea of selling pie crust on a roll (like fabric). We wouldn't actually do it - but it would be fabulous if there was a store you could walk into and they could roll out sheets of pie crust for you (I know they sell something similar at a place called a grocery store, but it's not quite the same thing).

Well I've become a very light sleeper (can't mention why - but here's a hint - it's in the name of the post) and although I love it when Buttin comes to bed with me - even he's not quite ready to go to sleep at 9 PM (or sometimes 8:36) - I can't go to sleep with the lights and TV on. So, I came up with an invention so that he can read without turning on lots of lights. I know what you're thinking - don't they make something called an Itty Bitty Book Light? - well this is much different and SO MUCH BETTER.

I call it - The Arm PIT:

Arm Paperback Illumination Thingy.

Here's a picture (done with MS Paint):
The features include:

• Flexible arm that attaches to headboard (or any other place) via a clip and can rotate just like a real arm;
• Little fingers to hold onto the book (could also be hardback) or magazine you are reading; and
  
• A light to "illuminate" your reading material.

Pretty cool, huh?

Baby Free Friday - Screw It

I want to post pictures of my son and since it's MY blog, I'm saying screw it to Baby Free Friday.

Baby Free Friday - Sarah Palin

NOT MEANT TO OFFEND (well maybe just a little)
JUST TO BE SILLY!

Today's Baby Free Friday topic is SARAH PALIN.

To me, she is scarier than bears.

This is my MS Paint drawing of Sarah Palin wrestling a bear.

Here's a pie chart with the thoughts in Sarah Palin's head (I say "head" because I'm not sure if she has a brain).

Here is my poem about Sarah Palin:

Sarah Palin used to be Governor of a state,

but then she quit because she's so full of hate.
It's against her religion to be a smarty,
and the only thing she says is "Yeah, Tea Party!"
Her favorite animal is a dead panda,
and if she becomes President - I'm moving to Canada.

Baby Free Friday - BEARS

**Caution, very random and somewhat stupid post below**

OK - I'm starting a new blog tradition - BABY FREE FRIDAY.

This idea is actually stolen (because I can rarely come up with a good idea on my own) from another blog. The lady happens to be pregnant and I guess she didn't want to steal my "Fetus Friday" idea.

So every Friday (until I get pregnant again - don't be alarmed there's no hurry on that one - or until Graby is a toddler, and it becomes Toddler Free Tuesday or Thursday) I'm going to write about something other than Graby. Just as a warning these will probably be very silly or random or just plain dumb posts.

Today's topic - BEARS.

This is in honor of my friend Liz who is very afraid of bears (I think it's #1 on her phobia list). Thankfully we don't have a lot of bears in Texas.

This is my drawing of a bear that I did with the Doodle Buddy app on my iPhone. This bear is at the beach (which is not exactly like real life, but just go with it). You will notice the sharp teeth and claws.


Most bears are dangerous unless they're cartoon bears. Bears sometimes look cute and cuddly, but I'm guessing (I don't actually know from experience) that they don't cuddle as well as say, a dog.

There is a documentary called Grizzly Man that Buttin and I saw a couple of years ago. That guy was nuts. He wanted to be friends with wild bears; he died (via bear). Sadly, his girlfriend died too. Maybe she didn't know that bears were dangerous?

I don't understand why there are so many good, warm and cuddly childhood things associated with bears (like Yogi and Teddy Ruxpin). You don't see a lot of shark, piranha or child molester stuffed animals, do you? What are we teaching our children?

Now baby bears are very cute, but I'm sure they could probably hurt you too. Baby bears are called cubs. The Cubs are my friend Liz's favorite baseball team (actually I'm not sure if she really cares about baseball - she just likes Chicago). This is somewhat surprising because she really is very afraid of bears, but I went to a Cubs game with her and she didn't get scared of anyone's t-shirt or bear cub pictures.

Cub is also the nickname MorMor has given to Cash. Look, I couldn't even go one post without mentioning the kiddo. So this Baby Free Friday was a failure. I'll try again next Friday with what promises to be an equally fascinating post.