Contents Under Pressure

Here's the thing about pressure: it will either make you thrive or implode. Either way you'll get a definite ending.

We've bought a house and a car within 1 week of each other. The house and all the stress that comes along with closing the deal is enough to drive someone a little bonkers anyway, but I've also thrown in a new stick shift which I have no idea how to drive and I've spent the last week screaming at my clutch and honking my horn at myself.

That same week, my employers sold our company and now we're gearing up for a remodel and will be shut down for 3 weeks. My daughter is sick with bronchitis, my dog is going blind, my husband needs a hair cut, and I could use a cocktail.

In addition, California is now only a rock's skip away! In two short weeks, Kalynn and I will be flying over our little world of beautiful hectnicity (hecticness? Are these words?) to escape for a week of sunshine and total lack of responsibility. The week of our return, we'll be closing on our new house and starting our own little version of the American dream, followed by our 3rd marriage anniversary, Jason's 35th birthday, an amazing Mother's Day weekend with my mom complete with a show by one of my very favorite bands The Dandy Warhols, and then straight to a book signing by soul mate of an author Tom Robbins at a bookstore which was a visiting place on my Colorado Bucket List from a few months back.

I mean, Jesus Christ.

I need to redirect some of this pressure.
My dear Luna has filled up and is deflating once again drawing a close to the 3rd quarter and moving along into the 4th.
I often take my cue from the Moon.
In football, as I've learned working in a sports bar the last year and a half, the 4th quarter isn't much of a time for slacking. The 4th quarter is a time to gather your shit and make sure you leave no room for things to creep up behind you. It's an important time to be alert and on your A game.

Which is why it makes no since that tonight I'm planning on grabbing a 6 pack of good beer and drowning in my couch watching the new Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.

So in conclusion, I have no cute craft or recipe or photo shoot or advice. I just wanted to throw a tiny little update out here to explain why I've been on a brief Rocky Mountain Hiatus.
(Did you see what I did there?)

Love to all,
-Krista

Kalynn's 4th Birthday

Well, aside from the minor concussion my child received falling backward off of a picnic table, smacking her head on the table behind it before smacking it again on the tile from which it bounced off, she had a pretty good birthday. 

For the last 6 months, I had been planning out Kalynn's perfect ballerina party in detail. Ballet has become a special part of her weekly routine, so when I originally asked her what she wanted for this year's party, it was tutus and toe shoes all the way. 

When she switched it up on me last month and let me know that she was now a rock star (duh), I had some fast plans to secure. 

Ok, so rock star party. Ok. I can totally do this with 3 weeks notice.

My mom always reminds me that you can only eat an elephant one bite at a time. So with this in mind, my first bite needed to be the invitations.

I had done some looking around on the internet but I didn't see any invites worth ordering so I opted to just make my own from scratch on Photoshop. I went with the ticket stub idea and used a picture I had taken of her goofing around a few weekends prior. They turned out super cute:

"Kalynn Fuller's Fab 4 World Tour"

I made some tie dye cupcakes with little guitar toppers which also doubled as party favor necklaces. 

Speaking of, instead of party favor bags, each of the kids had "swag bags" filled with rock star essentials: Sun glasses, Pop Rocks, temporary tattoos, glitter bangle bracelets, gloves with musical notes on them, and working spring operated microphones. Blue for the two boys, pink and purple for the 5 girls. 

I covered the "Pop" part of all the Pop Rocks with each kid's name. As much as I tried to give myself an A for Effort, I suck at drawing bubble letters. 

I printed up some "rock star refuel" labels for the water bottles. 

And what is a rock star party without an Artist Of The Year award for the rock star of honor?

(Super easy to make with an ancient Luscious Jackson CD, some construction paper, some Photoshop magic and an old frame)

Tons of sugar, tons of children, tons of fun. 

She came away with some great loot!

We rented out the party room at a bounce house called Jumpin' in Loveland and the place really impressed me. They were clean, they were organized, they were on top of everything and the place didn't smell like pee which is always a plus when you're dealing with toddler friendly entertainment spots. 

6 total bouncing stations including oversized slides and inflated obstacle courses. 

I cried when I put her to bed for the final time the night before as her tiny 3-year-old self, and I cried when I put her to bed just now with the excitement for our 4th year together. 

Every year she grows more into this amazing little person that I fall head over heals for. The words that come from her mouth make me laugh, make me think, make me appreciate things in a way that I've never known and I don't know where I would be in life without her. 

She is and always will be my sunshine.

Happy Birthday to my 4 year old baby girl and thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us!

For those who weren't able to make it to round one, not to fret! The after party in California will be just around the corner so get ready!

I hope everyone had a great and safe new year! Welcome to 2014!

Bah Humbug

The snow is starting to fall, the temperature has dropped into negative digits, the sky looks like elephant skin and there are Salvation Army bell ringers stationed at every store.

It's that time of year again.


When it's this cold outside, everything freezes.
Personal motivation included.
I can't seem to want to do anything besides hide inside an electric blanket and my own head.

Alas, there is chili to be crock-potted, goodies to be baked, blogs to be written, and so I must get out of bed, peel myself away from the fire place, and continue on this lovely little path of mine.

But since we all spent last month thinking about all the things we were thankful for, and also because this is the season of making a list and checking it twice...

Here's a little random list of things I'm not so thankful for (AKA: Things I hate).
You know, to even the score between November and December.

1.The bells above gas station doors.

2. The special effect that makes babies or animals talk on TV. 

3. Mustard.

4. Raw onions.

5. Birkenstalk sandals.

6. Being breathed on 

7. Being told to calm down or chill out.

8. Mornings without immediate access to coffee

9. The majority of gum commercials

10. The Wiggles

11. Being cold

12. Pumping gas

13. Having to follow someone in their car but they drive too fast like an asshole and I end up loosing them.

14. Every kind of music my husband likes. 

15. Stubbing my pinky toe.

16. My dog's diesel fuel farts

17. Hangovers.

18. The fact that nobody ever wants to play Monopoly.

19. Getting stood up.

20. Having to do other people's jobs for them because they're lazy or just stupid. 

21. When 2 things are on at the same time, like a TV and a radio together (my head will explode)

22. Clapping in the car. 

23. Whistling.



So now you all know my likes and dislikes just a little bit better! (It's important to know things like this about your bloggers.)
Well, on that note, I hope everybody's heaters are running up to par and do try to stay warm out there!

This cold front is a doozy!

Tricks and Treats

So my old iPhone 4 had an unfortunate and sudden death. 

Having been dropped quite a distance, the screen shattered both on the front and back with shards of glass burying their heads into the key pad causing multiple FaceTime calls to everyone in my address book at disastrous hours in the night. 

Inopportune for sure.

 I was sure a few of my friends would disown me. 

After the proper amount of mourning time, I marched down to the AT&T store, explained the untimely demise of my beloved lifeline, and asked if there was anything they could do for me.

Behold, my new iPhone 5C:

 There are a handful of tricks that I have recently discovered which are so cool, I figured it was worth the share.

1. If you turn your phone on to airplane mode, it charges twice as fast

2. When taking a picture, you can capture multiple shots for as long as you hold down the button by snapping 10 photos per second. And real-time analysis suggests the best photos of the bunch.

3. You can just ask Siri to wake you up in 3 hours (or however long) and she'll set an alarm for you instead of having to open and program your alarm clock app.

4. When you're taking a video and something happens where you want to take a picture, there is a small camera button to hit which snaps the shot without stopping the recording of your video. 

5. LTE is great for crazy fast downloads and Internet connection, but it kills your battery. If you turn off the LTE, your phone will go to 3G instead, which works just great around town for regular phone calls and whatever else.  Save your battery and slow it down a bit  Settings -> General -> Cellular -> Enable LTE to Off

6. Asking Siri to launch an app for you saves time and lives when you're driving around. 

7. You can take selfies using the button on your ear-bud / head phone cord. Just set your camera on the table or wherever, face the camera to you, and click the button. This way you won't have half your arm covering half your face. 

So those are the new things I've learned this week. I'm determined to master this phone and I send my sincere apologies to those I disrupted during my old phone's toddler-esque meltdown. 

Speaking of meltdowns...

Last week I left you with the introduction of our family's new Elf, Heart. On her first day, Kalynn found her in the cupboard making snow men out of our leftover camping marshmallows. 

Day 2 didn't go over so well. Heart was found cuddled up in the Cabbage Patch hammock, wearing another baby's pajamas and snuggling with Kalynn's favorite tiny Pound Puppies. 

This horrific display of disregard for other people's things flipped Kalynn's tiny temper switch and got Heart in some serious trouble. Kalynn was so upset that Heart would do such a thing, it sparked a silent feud between the two and they couldn't even look at each other for the rest of the day. 

Yes. Seriously. 

(Who knew this would turn out to be the parenting fail of the season...)

Day 3 Heart offered an apology and was found hanging upside down from the chandelier with an "I'm sorry" note and a box of Kalynn's favorite Pop Tarts. All was forgiven and their friendship was rekindled (but not without a "don't ever do that again!" speech).

Day 4 It snowed here in Colorado and Heart must have wanted to join in the excitement because we found her making snow angels on our kitchen table. 

Day 5 she was found in the corner tuning up Daddy's guitar. 

Day 6 Heart had made herself a tiny little fishing pole and had seemed to have caught herself a Goldfish cracker!

On Day 7, Heart must have quietly crept into Kalynn's closet and taken out the Candy Land game because we found her in the morning playing with her new friends. Although the elf was winning, it looked like R2D2 was close behind and Princess Belle was about to skip passed Lord Licorice and go into the Peppermint Forest.

This morning, we found Heart had toilet papered our Christmas tree and was still napping in the evidence. 

So in conclusion, it's been an exciting couple of weeks here at the Fuller Farm. 

My blog is being considered for the new Blog Her contribution page coming up in a couple of months and one of the requirements is to write more often so you'll be hearing from me on a steadier basis!

Thanks again for all the support and I hope everyone is staying warm out there in Internet Land!

xoxo

To Elf Or Not To Elf

Ok, so I was a little weary about this Elf on the Shelf thing.

I see the creepy factor.

A toy elf sitting in the corner who flies to the North Pole and reports to Santa every night while you sleep.

I thought about it for months before I decided to dive in head first and just go with it.

After months of pinning ideas on Pinterest I realized that the elf's arrival was kind of a big deal. The way I present her for the very first time kind of sets the bar for the type of excitement I'll get out of Kalynn.

So.

I thought about all the fun stuff my mom used to do with me as a kid and one of my favorites was always the scavenger hunt.
Kalynn is just about to turn only 4, so riddle clues are a little too overboard for her taste.

But!

A picture scavenger hunt, now that's totally do-able.

We have an Autumn tree that we put up right about the week before Thanksgiving every year. We decorate it with white lights and fall colored leaf garland, pumpkins, gourds, scarecrows, little turkeys, etc and then the day after Thanksgiving we take down all the Thanksgiving crap, change the lights, and hang up all the Christmas ornaments.

So Thanksgiving morning, Kalynn walked out into the living room to this:

( Sprinkling a light mixture of red glitter and baking soda around your husband's giant size 12 flip flop makes for a fantastic magical snowy Santa footprint. )

These footprints went straight from the chimney to the tree.  

The first thing she saw were of course the footprints. The second thing she saw was that the autumn decorations were gone and the white lights had been changed to multicolored. 

Having Santa in the house way before Christmas was such a shock to her easily confused system, she immediately ran into our room and pulled us out of bed for a full assessment of the situation. Jason and I got up to check out the scene and sure enough, we both came to the conclusion that they were, in fact, evidence of a fat man in a red suit. Upon closer inspection, we found a little rolled up note left behind on the tree skirt. 

Kalynn unrolled the ribbon and found the paper to be a photo of her bedroom vanity table. 

So we all walked over to her vanity table and low and behold, there was another rolled up paper which was a picture of our washing machine. 

And on the washing machine there was a picture of my jewelry box. 

And on my jewelry box there was a picture of under her bathroom sink... 

This squealing, giggling, Santa trail went on for 20 different places around our house until the last photo brought her to our bedroom closet where she found a letter from Santa, a tiny chair and a wrapped up present. 

(Bed head at its finest)

So the majority of us as parents know the concept of the Elf on the Shelf. I've read the story, I've asked my friends, I've pinned the ideas...

HOWEVER!

There is one GIANT part of the elf concept that I just can't get around which is that the Elf must not ever be touched or else she will lose her Christmas magic and she won't be able to fly to the North Pole to report to Santa. 

Every morning this elf is supposed to hide in some new and exciting place doing some new and exciting activity and then she's supposed to just be left alone for the remainder of the day and we all have to just continue life around her. 

But what if our elf is found some place that we need to utilize during that day? This part of the plan is so inconvenient. 

So. 

I thought and I thought and I thought and I finally came up with a very simple solution. 

Santa wrote Kalynn a letter and explained in detail about the elf not being touched. BUT, he also explained that she does get 10 SECONDS of non-magic per day. Only 10 quick seconds every morning and that 10 seconds is for mommies or daddies only to carefully pick her up, run her as fast as we can to the chair that Santa had made for her. It is sort of like a viewing chair. We had special instructions, from Santa himself, to place the chair somewhere that she is able to see the most of our household activities.

So the next day when Kalynn went looking for her morning fruit bar and she found her elf in the pantry making a snowman out of our marshmallows, she shrieked with delight and then came to get me. We both did our "ready, set, go!" and I ran the Elf from the kitchen to her fancy magic chair while Kalynn counted to 10 as loud and calm (not calm) as she could. 

It was all very exciting. 

The chair is one that I picked up at the Good Will for .99 cents a few weeks back and I decorated it with ribbon, glitter, and sticky gems. It is seriously going to be so much more convenient than having to step over this creepy little stalker every time she's found in the middle of the bathroom or bedroom floor. 

So now with Elf season officially upon us, may I just say good luck, parents! 

May all your children be well behaved and may your elves be creative and effortless! 

Yuletide For Yoda

A great friend of mine is the chef for the National Science Foundation and working in Antarctica at Palmer station. Not only is he a culinary commander 12 hours a day in the kitchen, but he also flip flops bi-seasonally between the fire team and the Ocean Search And Rescue team. (You know, because he's a total bad ass.) I'm constantly seeing these pictures online that he posts of breads and tarts and pies and piles and piles of food that are sadly miles and miles away from my watering mouth. He works hard and he works a lot so his time off is obviously greatly welcomed. I feel very thankful that we are able to keep in pretty constant contact given our schedules and time zone differences. We've made the effort for the last couple of decades to stay in each others lives. Our sturdy foundation has always been based off our mutual admiration for each other, hard liquor and Star Wars. It's the time withstanding equation of a true champion friendship.

We get to chit chat a couple times per week and he sends me things he knows I'll appreciate like amazing closeups of my beloved moon as seen from the South Pole, or live website updates of his station, or videos of him and the crew screwballing around or whatever. Well yesterday when I was at work,  I was sent the most amazing thing I may have ever seen floating around the world wide web: Star Wars snowflakes.

Apparently, Francis stumbled on the find of the season for us Star Wars suckers. It is an entire webpage devoted to these, um, what do I call them, Force Flurries?
This graphic designer turned awesome blogger, Anthony Herrera, has pages and pages of templates you can download for free. Some of them are very simple and some of them will take an extra sharp X-Acto along with many minutes of spare time. But whatever you're up for, the website is worth the looksie.

I went with Darth. 

So thanks, Fran. You totally made my day. I'll return the favor by showing you off and bragging that I knew you way back when...

Life Lessons

I've had a very unconventional life. I've done some crazy things, met some crazy people, learned some crazy lessons. With Thanksgiving coming up it is forcing me to think about what I'm thankful for. This year, I'm recognizing that I'm thankful I've learned some vital things from my experiences. I don't know everything, but I do know some things very well. I guess I'm just sort of taking a mental inventory.

1. Don't ever buy sandwiches from a vending machine or a gas station.

2. If someone does something awful to you, it doesn't define who you are. The past isn't a magician who casts a spell on your present. Take the blows, feel the burn, get up, dust yourself off, and carry on. You never have to forget, but you do have to let it go.

3. Having a life altering crisis is the perfect time to reinvent yourself.

4. If you don't like who you are or where you are or what you're doing, change it. That's the thing about life, you only get one. Make it one you're happy with. Plan an Under-New-Management party and reopen the place. By the place, I mean your head.

5. Tip, and tip well! Bartenders and waitresses are the people who delegate good and bad karma in the afterlife.

6. Don't ignore the connections you have with people, you'll piss off the universe that put those people in your life for a reason.

7. Disappointment is a million times worse than anger. Regardless, refer to rule #2.

8. Drink lots of water.

9. YOU'RE vs YOUR. There is difference and it is not that difficult. You're jealous of my awesome car. My other ride is your mom.

10. Travel often. A change of scenery can change your mindset. (I learned that one from my mom)

11. ALWAYS stand up for yourself. What is right for you may be wrong for everyone else, but who cares? The world isn't going to end if you go against the grain.

12. Opportunities always look larger going than coming.

13. The line between having a hobby and having a psychotic mental illness is very fine.

14. Real friendship isn't about being there when it is convenient, it is about being there when it is not. And on the subject of friends, these are the people who talk shit to your face and speak kindly behind your back. Not the other way around.

15. Chew with your goddamn mouth closed.

16. Don't ever half-ass anything. Everything you do should be with full intensity. Make mistakes with everything you've got, sneeze from the very bottom of your belly, laugh with all the breath in your lungs, work like you're getting paid a million dollars, be lazy like you'll never get another chance. Whatever you're doing, commit and kick some ass at it.

17. Don't be a victim.

18. Trust that what people do means a hell of a lot more than what people say.

19. The unknowns and the whys of the world are the hardest to take.

20. Let the other car change lanes. Don't be a dick.

21. Mediocrity has no place in love. There are far too many unexceptional things in this world, love should not be one of them.

22. Every night the Moon teaches a class on romance, you just have to sign up for it.

23. A Brazilian bikini wax hurts like a bitch.

24. There is always more to learn. Thank your lucky stars for the healthy brain that makes it possible and never take that for granted.

25. Finding your passion is important. Finding the right people to fuel it is also important. Never back down to the people who are standing next to you with a bucket of water ready to put out your fire. (A lesson I learned from BJ, who lost his battle with cancer but taught me more about passion than anyone I know who is still living)

26. Pain can be useful. Suffering on the other hand, well, there isn't anything useful about suffering. Squash that shit as quickly as you possibly can.

27. There is never an instance, never ever ever ever, where messing up your credit score is worth it. Pay your bills, and pay them on time.

28. Jimmy Fallon is always a good decision.

29. Failure and mistakes aren't verdicts.

30. Try to look cute wherever you go.  Make the effort.

31. Sometimes there are people you shouldn't let slip away. It may be inopportune, but sometimes you should just grip like hell and hold on tight. Because you just never know.

32. But with number 31 being said,  you should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans. It's important to know the difference.