Signs You're Old

Old.  What the hell is old?  To a teenager or person in their early twenties,  early thirties are old.  To people in their early thirties and up,  typically old means,  like 90's.

So when I talk about my discovery of signs that you're now old,  I'm merely referring to being older than whatever age or age bracket that last made you feel young.  Yeah...you're older than that.

Here's a few reasons how ya know:

1. You're tired:

I'm talking wiped the F out.  You worked all week and can't decide on going to a sick concert or going to bed on a Friday night?  Ummm...old. Old AND lame so kudos for the double whammy there.

2. Your eyelids:

When your applying eyeshadow and the skin on your eyelid moves around instead of being firm and taut?  Yep.  On your way to Oldsville.

3. Crows Feet:

I remember one time not long ago,  I was plucking my eyebrows.  There were a few stubborn bastids at the lower end of my brows that I just couldn't grab.  I'm like wtf,  why can't I pluck you?? Ohhhh that's right,  it wasn't hairs...it was wrinkles. I ended up with bloody pock marks and a state of depression.  Old.

4. Ya can't tell how old people are:

Wtf.  Kids that are in college look like they're eleven. Seriously.  I was just watching a segment on TV about rival college football teams and they had these cute little cheerleaders and players smiling away and throwing up the #1 finger sign.  Yeah.  Then you turn into the #1 creeper when you realize you shouldn't think the 20-year-old quarterback is cute. I just thought he was a young looking 30-year-old. Awkward.  Oh.....and old.

5. You get excited about old people shit:

Yesssssssss!!!  The vacuum I wanted is on friggin sale,  bingo's goin' down tonight and zip lock baggies are two for one?!  Holllllaaaaaaa!!  Like for real,  some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.  You may have set out for a pair of heels (in case you have a date night in the next ten years) but instead you come home with a coat rack and a welcome mat.  Congrats,  you won the old as shit lottery. 

6. You consider late early:

Remember when you didn't go out until 11:30 and you stayed up till 5 then worked the next day?  Yeahhhhhhh about that.  Now your ass needs to be in bed by 9:30 so you can soak the corns on your feet and exfoliate the old off your face.  I keep thinking I can recover from staying out late the night before but let's be real.  Nope.  Old.

7. Music :

I've said it before and I'll say it again: you're never too old for the tunes you love.  Rap,  hip hop, R&B,  rock...whatever it is,  I believe you should always rock the shit out of it.  It just becomes weird when people half your age know the same tunage. This may actually be one of the only instances where you feel old but in actuality you hold the front runner torch.  Young ones?  Stand back,  watch,  and learn.  Mama knew about this shit waaaaaaaay before the gangnam style. Old?  Neverrrrrrrrr.

Look, we define what's old and what isn't at the end of the day but we can't deny the social acceptance of what "they"  say is old. It's always about" THEY".

Between social media and our kids or friend's kids,  time changes us. It's inevitable.
In my opinion, though, just go with it and embrace when we have the ability to say people are just " too young"  and when we are what we all ultimately deny in life: getting old.  Old ain't nothing but a state of mind,  anyway,  right?? 

Yup.  That's what I choose to believe. Who's with me?

My 61 Bitchin' Bucket List Ideas

If you live paycheck to paycheck like I do, well....checking off the items on your bucket list isn't exactly an easy task. It's actually more like a joke, really. 

 Your all like, " Shit yeah, I am SO going to Vegas and Hawaii!" 

Then you look at your bank account and your all like, " Yeah, well you know....scratch tickets, a six pack and looking at Google images of Maui are cool, too, though so....that's cool. " 

Yeah. Super cool. Thumbs up, dude.

Anyway, we all have things we want to do, places we want to see and even people we want to meet before we, uhhh, 'kick the bucket' and I've decided to share some of my bucket list items. Chances are, some of these Bad Larry's are on YOUR list, too. Check it out and we can be day dream believers together!!

Your totally singing "Daydream Believer" in your head now, aren't cha? Mmm, hmm.

1. Eat some Swiss chocolate while traveling the Swiss Alps.

2. Travel to all 50 states.

3. Hear "California Love" by Tupac come on while dancing in a club while in California- Nuff said.

4. Swim with dolphins..

5. Be in a movie.

6. Go parasailing.

7. Hug a manatee.

8. Volunteer to help out with the Special Olympics.

9. Show Tom Hanks my Forrest Gump impression.

10. Learn to break dance.

11. Jump out of a birthday cake. 

12. Be a cartoon character. Or the voice of one, anyway. Ha.

13. See a show on Broadway.

14. Hang out and shoot the poop with Ellen Degeneres.

15. Save a life.

16. Float around a zero gravity chamber.

17. Not be too afraid to skydive.

18. Moonwalk on the moon ( clearly, entering space is easier than skydiving).

19. Go to Vegas and roll some dice. And win big.

20. Wear a lei in Hawaii.

21. Go to England and pretend I'm a bloody local and have a pint of lager.

22. Lie in a field of wicked cute puppies.

24. Swim in an edgeless pool.

25. Go to a Sandals or a Beaches resort.

26. Take the family to every single Disney and Universal theme park.

27. Learn to snowboard. 

28. See the Northern Lights.

29. Dive the Titanic wreckage site. 

30. Put my feet in every ocean on Earth

31. Poke around the alleged Area 51 for some aliens.

32. Take a ride on a bobsled.

33. Go on a safari.

34. Eat a Philly cheesesteak in Philly.

35. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and yell, "I'm the king of the worlddddddd!" 

36. Eat a piece of Big Red next to Big Ben. Yeah, I don't know why either.

37. Actually do something for a Klondike bar.

38. Drive a motorcycle. 

39. Sing and record some tunes in a recording studio.

40. Crowd surf.

41. Real life wave surf.

42. Ice fish inside an igloo.

43. Snorkel the Great Barrier Reef.

43. See a great white shark...from really far away.

44. Pet a tiger cub.

45. Put a diaper on a monkey and feed it a bottle.

46. Carve my initials in a red wood tree.

47. Eat an apple in an Apple Store.

48. See a tornado.....also from really far away.

49. Roll down the rolling hills of Scotland.

50. Hang glide.

51. Go on a cruise.

52. Ride on a Zamboni.

53. Lose 35 lbs. 

54. Spend Christmas in a snowed in cabin in the mountains.

55. Sip a rum runner on an exotic beach in Fiji.

56. Go on a helicopter ride.

57. See Mt. Everest. 

58. Walk the Great Wall of China.

59. Go white water rafting.

60. Go ghost hunting. Maybe. 

61. Host Saturday Night Live. 

Believe it or not, that's probably just half of the things I'd like to do, see, and enjoy in my lifetime. I don't want to have to have a terminal illness or near death experience to say to myself that I need to do these things. Being alive and having one life should be reason enough.

So I don't know about you, but I plan to work really hard to attain even the unattainable on my list and hope that I'm lucky enough to cross off a few things. 

Course, for most of them I need millions of dollars and a whole lot of time but hey, ya never know!

Cheers to dreaming big and emptying out our buckets!!!

Remember the Christmas Magic?

Ah.  My son is asleep.  Kinda.  I keep hearing faint cries from his crib in the distance every so often,  but he should be dreaming shortly.

Just kidding,  he's crying loudly now. Ugh. ** Palm to forehead**.

My husband is playing some video games in the other room and I decided I shall sit here and watch a Christmas movie full of good cheer,  damnit!

While scrolling to find a jolly ole holiday movie,  I come across The Shawshank Redemption.  Seriously?  Ah yes,  I suppose nothing says Christmas like some sweet prison brutality and some shanks made out of old toothbrushes. 

Great movie,  but I keep scrolling.

Something is missing; I contemplate a beer.  Nah,  I don't feel like a beer.  That's weird I always feel like a beer.

Cookies out of the oven,  though?  Yeah I just ate six of those little delicious bastids.

Then,  as if reading my Christmas thirsty mind,  I see The Santa Clause is coming on.  I friggin' love this movie (it's legit on right now) just like I love Christmas Vacation and Home Alone and It's a Wonderful Life and all the other notorious Christmas movies.  It makes me think how long I've been watching these flicks.  I would say close to my whole life most of them have been around and they're still able to induce the same holiday warm and fuzziness as they did when I was a kid.  They trigger memories and bring me right back to those moments in time.

It's kinda sad how the holiday experience differs from childhood to adulthood.  Things were so damn magical,  ya know?

I remember thinking how cool it would be if I could catch Santa leaving gifts under the tree and eating my cookies (thanks Mom and Dad for eating the cookies) . I remember looking at all the lights on our house as if they were the entry to some magical Kingdom. When my Dad would string all those gigantic old school colored bulbs up on the tree I used to lie underneath it and stare up into the colors.  I pictured Chip and Dale chasing each other around the branches and ornaments like they did in the Mickey Mouse movies.  Never did see them though; guess I was kind of a weird kid.

I totally miss when my Dad would pull me behind him on my orange sled and we would go out into the back fields and into the woods on adventures at night. It was cold and it was probably pretty damn hard on my Dad's back,  but with a little laughter and hot chocolate....maybe spiked with rum for Pops...we had a super awesome time.  It was even cooler when the snow would actually fall while we were out there; honestly,  I still hear the crunch of my Dad's feet against the snow. 

I remember family trips to the pond for ice skating,  Mom's spritz cookies, going to look at lights in the neighborhoods,  and even Dad cutting down our own Christmas tree just like the Griswolds in Christmas Vacation.  Yeah....we were and still are a lot like the Griswolds.  Hahahahaha...such a true story.

Anyway,  Christmas was just the most kick ass thing ever.  Everything was exciting and wonderous and I'm so pumped to watch my son experience those same feelings as he grows up.

Watching these movies that have brought me joy for so many years is incredibly nostalgic and it makes me want to bring it all back in anyway that I can.

Why not believe in Santa as a grown up? Who says ya can't lie under the Christmas tree at 5"8 ft tall?  I mean let's not forget the magic we felt as kids because there's no rule that says we have to!! 

I can't wait to make new memories and traditions with my son for the holidays and I hope I can incorporate some of the memories from my childhood as well. 

I don't know if my Dad could still pull me on a sled these days but I'll never forget the days he could....

So cheers to holiday movies that make you feel warm and rejuvenate some magical memories. 

I'm going to lie under the Christmas tree now and wait for Chip and Dale....

Xoxo

The Logan Chronicles: The Cardboard Box

On this introductory episode of The Logan Chronicles, picture an adorable one-year-old boy that runs the entire household and takes all your shit.  A boy that wears a smirk and can fake a cry at the drop of a hat and knows when he does something wrong but does it anyway. A boy who I love more than anything in this world and  keeps me on my toes...literally. This little boy is my son.

He is pretty damn funny.

We moved to a new place back in September and, sadly, I had two boxes left full of absolute crap and random ish that I decided to go through today. I got one cleaned out and left the other one to collect more dust for another day; that first one really wiped me out.

Anyway, I gave the empty box to my son thinking he would crawl in it a couple times and get bored like he usually does, but instead...he played in it for over 3 hours. Hip, hip hooray!!!!! Mom can eat some snacks and watch a movie! Right?  Nottttt really. It didn't matter though, he hadn't been feeling well so watching him figure out what to turn this box into was way more fun!

Soon the box became several fun items at once for Logan; a cardboard mountain to sit on with glee,  a pair of bongos to make music on,  a cave,  a sweet hat to wear that made his giggles echo,  and of course: just a simple object to stack another object on so he could tip the top object over.  Naturally. 

Logan made me remember how often I used my insanely fantastic imagination when I was younger and how I was so easily amused.   Then in turn,  I realized how I don't use that imagination nearly enough as an adult and it made me kinda sad,  man.  As kids,  we didn't take life so seriously. We lived each day as it came while turning anything and everything into something fun; in adult terms,  this means we were always positive.  I get down on my hands and knees and play with my son daily and come up with silly voices and games turning myself into a child once more,  but once I stand back up..... I'm an adult again.  When did that happen?  I fear I'll say the same about my son quicker than I'd like. 

So today,  I thank my son, Logan Michael,  for reminding your Mom that sometimes we need to pull out the cardboard box and get creative; we need to forget the negative and embrace the positive and make the best of this messy,  insane life.  XOXO.