Champagne Friday: Random, Random, Random

This is so sad, but I talk to Shana everyday and I have no idea if she's still doing Random Musings Friday. That's because I've been using naptime to feed my Etsy/Pinterest/Houzz addictions. That doesn't make it right. But it is what it is. So, if she's still doing them, hop on over to read all of the weird that happened to her throughout the week. Make her tell you about the guy who wanted to stroke her hair. In the mean time, I have a few of my own.

1) You may (or may not, as is normally the case with me) have noticed that I changed the name of my blog. Not the URL because a) I would like for my 4 readers to not have to go looking for me in the event that they find out I've actually written something and b) (and more importantly) I don't really know how to do that. So, magnoliasandmimosas now brings you to The Allyway. And this is all very fitting because now that I'm probably going to morph into quasi-mommy blogger, I do a lot of things my way, which has nothing to do with how anyone else does them...or how you're really supposed to do them (change a diaper on the dash of your car, anyone?).

2) Big Mama bought us a housewarming gift when we moved to Ft. Knox. It was a Fitbit for me. Sometimes she is confused by social mores. We've learned to let it go. So I've been tracking and trying for my 10,000 steps everyday. I usually hit it and, on occasion, go all step-ninja and exceed it. By a lot. Although never by another 10,000 steps like another person I know. *ahem* Anyway, I believe this is going to be the key to my weight loss. The Fitbit allows you to follow the step total of your friends who also have Fitbits. I am friends with Big Mama, my aunt (who would golf in her sleep if she could avoid the sandtraps), Neal, and Shana. Basically, it's a big bowl of competition soup. I forgot to charge my Fitbit on Tuesday night so it died yesterday. And the stroller got a flat. It's like someone (or ones) is conspiring against me....

3) Every morning Blue and I take a walk. There is an absurd amount of construction going on at the second entrance to our neighborhood. Something like 6 or 7 houses all going up at the same time. And that means a lot of excavators, high lifts, bulldozers, cement and dump trucks. It's basically Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site come alive. Blue gets a show and I get a little closer to feeding Fitbit dust to all of my friends. I am watching houses being built, from start to finish. So if this whole Mom-thing doesn't work out, I'll be ordering my pink hard hat from Amazon.

4) On Tuesday morning, this email came into my inbox on my phone:

Please let me draw your attention to the date. So the following text conversation happened:

Me: LOOK! I just got an email from 1969!
B: Or is it 2069?!
Me: Well wouldn't that be the freakiest damn thing:
S: What does the email from the past/future say?
(yes my friends are B & S...I'm sure that says something about me)
Me: Nothing. I couldn't even open it. And now it's gone.
S: Shit...it was probably Marty McFly trying to warn you about the Libyans. You should wear your bullet proof vest today...just to be on the safe side.

And that was it. Because when you have been outwitted, it's best to recognize and just bow to the victorious.

5) Ahhh...summer...the season for picnics, bicycle rides, blowing bubbles in the backyard, and Creepy St. Creeperson in his ice cream truck, trolling the neighborhoods and offering something creamy on a stick. I know I was allowed to buy from the ice cream truck as a child. I remember it. But I swear Blue will have a fully stocked freezer in the garage before I let him anywhere near one of those vans. A friend of mine posted on Facebook a few weeks ago that they had managed to keep their daughter from really being that interested in it (presumably for the health factor, not the creeper factor, but maybe both) and she pondered how long it would last. Helpfully, her friends began chiming in with all of the ways they keep their children from flocking to it. A couple of my favorites were: 1) he only plays the music when he's out of ice cream and 2) it sells broccoli. When I asked Neal what his approach would be, he said, "oh that's the music truck. It drives around in the summer and plays music for people." Yeah...really-annoying-I-want-to-pluck-the-drums-directly-from-my-ears kind of music. But we'll see if it works.

My calendar reminded me today that it's time to post my 3 month update on my measurements. If they haven't changed, I'm going to shove this Fitbit into a coconut and blast it to the moon.

Happy Champagne Friday! The liquor store at the front of our neighborhood sells moonshine. That may be just enough reason for Moonshine Mondays...