February 4th - I Scream, You Scream...

we all scream for...ICE CREAM! Saturday, February 4th, was Ice Cream For Breakfast Day! We were so excited that this holiday fell on a Saturday so we could hang out and really enjoy this Buehlman family first. We like to introduce good people to each other so why not introduce two of our favorite things to each other?

Eggo, may we introduce you to Edy; Edy please meet our good friend Eggo.

Sweet mother of all things carbohydrate, those are the new Thick 'n Fluffy Eggos and they are fan-freak-a-deak-in-tabulous.

We are quite the matchmakers. This was a marriage made in all-things-delicious heaven...

So good.

As if our day wasn't sweet enough it was also "Thank a Mail Man Day." (Or to be politically correct, "Mail Carrier Day".) Either way, we wanted to thank the lovely men and women who bring bills, junk mail and, most importantly, the sacred Crate and Barrel catalog to our home through rain, sleet and the very rare snow.

I wrote a little card explaining the occasion and we threw in a little sweet treat too (hello! ice cream!). This was so much fun it made me wonder why we waited for a holiday to do it. A thank you and surprise treat for the wonderful service providers in our lives needs to happen more often.

So into the mailbox it went.

We were hoping to do a personal hand-off but we were not sure we would catch our mail carrier; they are tricky like that. We came home from running a quick errand to find this in our mailbox...

Ok, so it's backwards, but you get the drift. A sweet little "thank you" with smiley face. It was so nice. I am definitely feeling more random acts of kindness are needed. Perhaps "365 Random Acts of Kindness" for next year's blog? There aren't enough smiley faces in the world; it's time to do something about that.

February 3rd - Chew On This!

After all the confusion of Groundhog Day, it was nice to have an easy one to celebrate. February the third was Bubble Gum Day.

It seems like it should be pretty easy to celebrate, right? Well, we got off to a slow start thanks to some inferior gum. It is probably a bad sign when you cannot remember how old the gum was. I am fairly certain it is from two baseball seasons ago, though who knows how long it sat on a store shelf before that. It was brutal.

I had a grand vision of a picture of the three of us blowing bubbles the size of our respective heads; it was not meant to be. Spence tried first...

...without much luck. That is as far as he got. So Mark gave it try...

...and that is as far as he got. So we called in the professional...

Then the boys felt left out so they celebrated in their own way...

Did you ever know someone who actually stuck gum behind their ear to keep for future chewing? Did you ever try it? I tried it once when I was about 8 and it got stuck in my hair. It was very traumatic. Just a little cautionary tale on this hallowed holiday. Happy chewing!

February 2nd - Deja Vu All Over Again

I woke up on Thursday, Februay 2nd, feeling like I had seen this all before, done this all before, and I had a bizarre urge to be a golf course groundskeeper that only listens to Kenny Loggins. Then Mark reminded me it was Groundhog Day. That explained a lot.

Being a Pennsylvania girl I am always pleased to see one of my homeboys do his thing. My buddy Phil came out and saw his shadow. More winter. Dang it, Phil, that was not the answer I was looking for. So I decided to do a little research on Phil and his kind. What makes him the authority? Of course I turned to my Wiki-friends who supply only the most accurate information. If you want the whole story, click here. You will definitely want to check out the chart of groundhog predictions going back to 2008. Fascinating stuff. And it is not just Phil, there are a whole bunch of these characters around the United States. Don't think about it for too long because it is kind of creepy. All these people around the country, donning formal wear and pulling rodents out of their holes. See? It goes from cute and quirky to flat out weird.

I was going to pin the whole thing on the Pennsylvania Germans but it turns out this is a crazy Euro/Pagan/Celtic thing with badgers and bears formerly assuming the forecaster role. I am fairly certain this is how hobbies and sports were invented. There were a bunch of bored people running around doing crazy stuff like looking at animal shadows and predicting the weather. Finally someone got fed up and said, "Maybe we could just throw this cow dung back and forth," or "Let's knit a wooly mammoth sweater, I'm freezing."

Anyway, let me boil it all down for you. Wiki does not indicate any formal meteorological training for any rodents anywhere. Education aside, there are also geographical considerations (i.e., it may be sunny in Wisconsin but not in Idaho) that definitely renders this a gray-area-non-science. We, of course, decided to take matters into our own hands.

Oddly enough, Spence has a stuffed groundhog (don't ask, I really don't have an answer) so we sent the "Mayor of Our Backyard" out with Smithfield Sal to see what the story was for our little corner of the universe...

That is definite shadow. But we live in Smithfield so it was not official until we hauled out Smithfield Sam (rhymes with ham, get it?)...

He too saw his shadow so it is official. Six more weeks of winter and bacon.

On my way back inside I noticed that our whole front yard and cul-de-sac were completely in the shade. What does this mean? I now am wondering if we will have an early spring in the front yard and six more weeks of winter in the back. I am so confused. Heck, I can tell you when spring is coming. It's when it doesn't get cold any more. Sheesh.

I had enough of this crazy business and turned my attention to more important matters - Crepe Day. Mai oui, c'est vrai! I whipped up an easy crepe batter (recipe here) and we finished our day with cinnamon and sugar, and Nutella crepes.

I don't know what the weather is going to do but it looks like six more weeks of dieting for me.

February 1st - Go With The Flo

There were so many holidays today it was actually a little overwhelming. Here is what we had to choose from:

• Robinson Crusoe Day
• Hula in The Coola Day
• G.I. Joe Day
• Car Insurance Day
• Serpent Day

We had snakes in January, so Serpent Day was out. No islands nearby to get stranded on, Crusoe Day was out (too bad it didn't fall on a Friday, that would have been a whole other story). Mark is our official G.I. so Joe didn't have a chance. That left us with Hula in The Coola which is a day to channel our inner-summer selves, don grass skirts and coconut bras, drink pina coladas, and pretend it is not winter. Except that it is 60 degrees outside. We actually passed on the luau and went straight to Car Insurance Day. Who wouldn't? No one parties like car insurance agents!

Of course, there is more to the story. There was never any question we would celebrate Car Insurance Day as long as we had one thing. Flo. For years now, a few of us on the street have urged my dear friend and neighbor, Katie, to dress up like Flo from the Progressive car insurance commercials. If you know Katie, she looks like Flo and she talks like Flo. All she needs is the pricing gun. So when this day showed up on the calendar, I asked her if she would be our Flo. "You already nailed my mailbox with flying fruitcake. Why not?" she said.

Unfortunately my camera was on the wrong ISO and it is a poor photo. But we have Flo and a fully insured motor vehicle. All we need is Big Money.

January Recap and Outtakes

Just for fun I thought I'd take a look back at our January celebrations and see how we did.

In January we:

• celebrated 46 holidays
• shot five holidays "on location"
• celebrated 10 holidays that included food and/or drink
• tried three new recipes
• spent $14.50 on props (not including food)
• took over 150 pictures
• did not realize our cats would get so much air time
• did not realize our cats swear like sailors
• kept it too real - it wouldn't hurt me to put on make-up every once and awhile and not show our dishes piled up in the sink
• had a ridiculous amount of fun

I also thought I would share a few outtakes from our celebration photo shoots:

Popcorn Day

Hat Day

National Bubble Bath Day

Harlem Globetrotters Day

Feast of Fabulous Wild Men!

Beer Can Day

Friday the Thirteenth

Looking forward to more celebrating. Jump in anytime - Make Every Day a Holiday!

January 31st - Traveling Light

Mark and I love it when the Holiday gods smile upon us. Tuesday the thirty-first was Child Labor Day and what by chance were we doing that day? Why, we were flying back from Long Island! Would it have been nice to celebrate this at home when we had 6 loads of laundry to do or a load of mulch to spread or tires that needed rotating? Sure, but we had some pretty heavy bags with us.

Don't worry. He is stronger than he looks.

But requires a lot of direction...

It was one of the most relaxing trips I remember taking in a long time...

He seemed to be pretty happy about his tasks so we made sure he got in a little extra work when we got home...

This is the best holiday EVER! I think I am going to start saving up for next year.

January 30th - The Weeny and Her Hero

January 30th did not hold much excitement for us. It was Escape Day and Inane Answering Machine Day. We were still in Long Island so we couldn't orchestrate any jailbreak-esque scenes and we didn't particularly feel like staring nonsensically at a phone receiver, and we were too busy shoving as much Italian food in our faces as possible. So we took the day off thanks to Mark. He stepped up to the plate and literally took one for the team.

January was National Blood Donor Month and Mark is our designated blood donor. Every year one of my New Year's resolutions is to give blood and every year I chicken out. I know how important it is and I just cannot do it. I am a doctor weeny. I am a needle weeny. I admit it. Mark, on the other hand, could be a walking pin cushion and not care. He has veins doctors and vampires dream about. He's a good guy. He's my hero.

I love the guy posing with the bag of blood. Good man.

Interestingly enough nobody from the American Red Cross knew it was blood donor month. What?! What the heck is their PR/Marketing department doing? Was the oversight just here in Smithfield? Did our folks not get the memo? I was kinda dumbstruck. Please tell me whether you heard any PSAs to the contrary in your area. If not, I think I may have found a new job heading up the ARC's PR department. How are you, quite literally, the largest blood-sucking organization on the face of the earth DEPENDENT ON DONORS and you miss NATIONAL Blood DONOR Month? Somebody please answer this for me.

But back to the bloodletting babe above. On a totally serious note, some lucky person is going to have that man's blood running through their veins. I hope it helps.