Birthday Week!

Ben's an 8-2-82, I'm an 8-8-83. That means the first week of August is Birthday Week in our house!

I love nearly sharing a birthday with my husband, but it was a change coming from a family where everybody's birthdays are spaced throughout the year. Ashley is in January, Mom's in March, I'm in August, Dad is in November. Since we've been married, Ben and I always have a big co-birthday celebration because we know we'll have to wait a whole year before we get to celebrate again! It was actually one of the reasons we decided to get married in March instead of waiting til summer, so we would have something else to celebrate the other 359 days of the year.

I thought it would be fun to take a look back on our birthday celebrations from the past couple years...

2006 we celebrated even more things at once with a combination birthday-birthday-housewarming party. The house was as clean like it will never be clean again, since we'd just moved in about a month before. Ben got to fire up his brand new grill. There were hotdogs and brats and it was as hot as August in Nashville can be.

2007 was the year of the FIESTA! We had a rockin' good party featuring the first appearance of the Wii. There was a donkey pinata named Paco. I made fajitas to feed 50. BYOB. Good times all around.

2008 we spent birthday week in Estes Park Colorado, and I had the most magical of all birth-dates ever in the history of birthdays... 08-08-08! It was so fun we just kept chanting it! The discovery of the brookie. White water kayaking. I met Bethany Dillon. Friends and family and all the good stuff.

WILL 2009 top them all? Well, let's just put it this way. There's going to be this:


And lots of it. So bring on the festivities, it's birthday week 2009!

Mascotology

It's that time of year again. Across the country, basketball fans are gearing up for March Madness. I am not one of them.

College basketball ranks somewhere around bowling and badmitton in "sports which disinterest me." I have no particular aversion to it - not to be compared to the way I feel about, say, the NBA. But neither do I follow or keep tabs on it with the exception of taking note here and there of a particular phenom or being generally pleased that a school I like is doing well.

However, all that aside, the one part of NCAA basketball I DO like is filling out my tourney bracket. Each year in our office we have a strictly-for-fun pool and each year I get really excited to use my own special methodology to complete my sheet. What is this method you ask? (Or maybe you didn't, but I will tell you anyway.)

I'm dubbing it... mascotology. I didn't invent this style of play or even this word, but I'm one of its biggest fans for sure. The general idea is this - all other knowledge of the sport (which in my case is very little) and the teams involved aside, which mascot would win in a battle to the death?

Sometimes it is a no-brainer. Sorry Syracuse, but the Stephen F. Austin Lumberjack would hack you to a juicy pulp with one swing of his manly ax.

This guy's not hurting anyone.

Other times, it requires serious thought (Bear against Tiger? Husky v. Bulldog?) and even thorough (read: Wikipedia) research. I kid you not, at one point I was forced to dig into Ancient Greek history to determine what went down between the Spartans (Michigan State) and the Trojans (USC). Spartans for the wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin!

I must confess, I'm not completely faithful to the method. 1, 2, and 3 seeds usually get a pass for at least a round or two before I subject them to the same scrutiny. My favorites from the Big XII get the same special treatment. Other times a school's mascot is so ridiculously strong (heloooooo the Purdue Boilermaker is a STEAM TRAIN ENGINE, which could run over and smoosh the life out of just about anything) or pathetically passive (sorry OSU, but the worst a buckeye tree is going to do is fall on something) that I have to take into account that school's ranking to give them or their opponents a fair cop.

Things also get tricky when the spiritual plane (Demon Deacons, Blue Devils, Sun Devils) collides with the phyiscal (Wildcats, Longhorns). Technically I'd say the demons and devils have the upper hand, what with their powers of possession and all, but occassionally I'll make exceptions.

Certain mascots almost never win. Eagles and other assorted birds are frequently outmatched, although I do have the Louisville Cardinals beating the Ohio State Buckeyes... since, you know, one can eat the other. Also at a disadvantage (unless they're one of my favorite teams) are those with the fictional or otherwise unidentifiable mascots. Jayhawk, for example? Made up animal. And Akron, really? What exactly, pray tell, is a Zip? (Upon further investigation, the Akron mascot is actually a kangaroo. Kind of cool. However, upon further further investigation, it is really... special looking.)

Duuuuuuuuuuh.

Then there's the whole world of human v. human. Those with guns (Mountaineers, Cowboys) have an upper hand, although the stealth and hunting expertise of the American Indians (Utes, Fighting Illini, Seminoles) and the sheer old-school brutality of others (Vikings) give the organized militia (Spartans, Trojans, Volunteers) a run for their money. Others like Aggies and Sooners and TarHeels seem harmless, but keep in mind, as I do, that they were all probably armed.

My most difficult match-up so far was Memphis and Mizzou, who I have playing against one another in the Sweet Sixteen round. Memphis beat the California Golden Bears to advance to this game, while Mizzou took down the Utah State Aggies. So what's the problem?

Noooooo.... TIGER v. TIGER

I eventually went with Mizzou, them being a hometown favorite and all. Otherwise I probably would've had to get down to which tiger mascot looked more ferocious. Again, I think Mizzou would've won out. The Memphis tiger looks kind of like he was trying to climb over that M and got stuck, where as the Mizzou tiger is just apparating from within the M. Extra bonus powers.

In 2007, I came close to winning it all with mascotology. In 2008, it failed miserably. We'll see what happens in 2009!

Twitter!

Okay, I don't know why I do this stuff. I am a bit of a technology-skeptic, but I still find myself doing things like trying to maintain three separate blogs, Facebook, and now... a Twitter!

If you aren't familiar, Twitter is a strangely fascinating little internet gizmo that consists of leaving 140-word (or less) updates about what you're doing. That's it. The whole point. It's kind of like Facebook status, but more constant.

The interesting thing is that it stays succinct. Just one or two sentences about what different people all over the world are up to. We humans are a curious (nosy?) bunch so Twitter makes the most of that. The other cool part is that many celebrities and organizations also Twitter, so you can get all these tiny updates in one place. For example, on my Twitter feed now, I can learn that right now:

• Charlie from Jars of Clay is listening to the new U2 album
• My friend Rachel is eating at Pei Wei
• Jimmy Fallon felt like his second show went better than his first and is soliciting questions to ask Cameron Diaz
• Needtobreathe is in the studio working on a new album
• There's a new Lost theory I need to check out
• Amazon's mp3 Deal of the Day is Joshua Radin

Isn't that kind of cool? I think I might like this. Bonus: Twitter has one of the internet's most simple and adorably designed interfaces. Cool color combinations, rounded corners, lots of white space... I mean, this is the graphic you get when the site is bogged down and taking a lot of time:

How cute is that? Plus who couldn't like something that involves the words "twitter" and "tweet"?!

If you want to come follow me on Twitter, you can find me at http://twitter.com/amybethjames. I'm going to try and figure out how to add my Twitter feed to this blog's sidebar, too.

Blogger Roll Call: Cupcakes & Cake Wrecks

Since the holidays are upon us and I might not be able to write my normal lengthy and thought-provoking (ha) blogs, I thought I'd start a little series which I am titling Blogger Roll Call. This is where I will give a little highlight of one of the blogs I follow and enjoy, and maybe in doing so some of you will discover you want to read them too! I keep a list which you can reference to the right of all these blogs but perhaps they need a little more explanation to get you interested.

So without further ado, I present the first edition of Blogger Roll Call, featuring Cake Wrecks and Cupcakes Take the Cake! I lumped these two together because they both deal with delicious baked goods, albeit in two very different ways.

Cupcakes Take the Cake celebrates the delicious beauty of cupcakes. The pictures on this blog are amazing - these cupcakes are literally tiny visual masterpieces.

These cupcake-lovin' ladies also post recipes and links to fancy cupcakeries all over the country. Before I read this blog, I would never have dreamed it was possible to create a vegan cupcake. I mean, I'll probably never actually do this, seeing as how things I love includes milk, eggs, and butter, but still. Good to know!

Cake Wrecks, as the name might imply, takes things in a whole new direction. Six days of the week, she posts submitted "wrecks" - professionally made cakes that are hideously ugly, poorly done, or have hilariously mangled inscriptions.

It is almost too good to be true that such monstrosities exist. BUT THEY DO. On Sundays, she provides a little break from the insanity and showcases "Sunday Sweets" - beautiful and cream of the crop custom cakes made by inventive and artistic bakers.

Both of these are a fun and delightful read, especially if you love baking and sweet treats as much as I do!

Thanksgiving Weekend Recap

My Thanksgiving weekend was a little non-traditional. Since Ben's ability to take vacation time is somewhat limited, we decided to take advantage of a sure-thing-four-day-weekend and get out of town. Just the two of us. It was our first trip like that since our honeymoon three and a half years ago! So while we forfeited our typical trip home to St. Louis to see family, we tried to incorporate some of the Thanksgiving standards like food and football...

Thursday we left Nashville and headed east towards Asheville... you wouldn't believe the confusion that caused people when we told them about our trip, since those two words obviously sound a lot alike! We occupied ourselves during the drive by listening to all the songs on my iPod in alphabetical order. When we got bored with that (around letter D) we switched to listening to episodes of Arrested Development, which was quite entertaining.

We arrived after a twisting and turning drive through the mountains to our destination: the Inn on Mill Creek, a bed & breakfast in Black Mountain, NC. We would highly recommend it if you are interested in staying in that area! It was really secluded... so much so that instead of a street address we had to put the longitude/latitude coordinates into our GPS to get there! Dave & Brigette, the innkeepers, were really great and so helpful. Plus Dave's breakfasts were delicious!

That night we had a proper Thanksgiving dinner at another local B&B that has a restaurant. There was turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, carrots, pumpkin pie - the works. We definitely didn't miss out in the food department!

Over the next couple days we had fun exploring Black Mountain and Asheville. While in the area we visited the famous Biltmore Estate, the largest private home ever constructed in the United States. It was built in the late 1890s by heir to the Vanderbilt fortunes. It was interesting and beautiful, although crowded and a little touristy.
We had more fun taking silly pictures outside on the beautiful terrace as the sun was setting...
We had a fun day in Asheville after we finished at the Biltmore. We googled "best burger in Asheville" and were directed by our GPS way across town to a hole-in-the-wall joint called Burgermeister. No, really. We were a little skeptical as we wove through some sketchy looking parts of town, but we ended up in a neighborhood called West Asheville, full of funky shops and cool finds. And Burgermeister delivered. If you know me, you know I am not a big red meat girl. No real reason - I'm not offended by the eating of cows, but I just prefer chicken. But when you go to a place called Burgermeister and it is advertised as the best burger in town... well, you know what they say. When in Rome...

I swear to you after eating this delicious burger I could feel my body respond, thanking me profusely for the intake of iron. I felt stronger... I now had the strength of a grown human and a bit of cow. (Ahem, Dwight Schrute reference.)

After we rolled out of there and stopped at some of the shops, it was cold and icky and rainy and we decided to go see a movie. Ben oh-so-graciously accompanied me to see Twilight. I loved it even more the third (yes, third, don't judge me!) time around and to my surprise and delight Ben said he liked it too! Most of that can probably be contributed to the fact that he likes ME and is a good husband, but still. I'll take what I can get, and if he says he liked it then I'll believe him!

Saturday night we holed up in our room and watched the OU-OSU game. It was a nail-biter at times but my Sooners were victorious, winning 61-41. With their win, the three-way tie for the Big XII South was in place, and I had to wait until Sunday afternoon when the BCS standings were released to find out that OU was officially headed to the conference championship game to face Mizzou! I know a lot of people were disappointed in the way things turned out and believed that Texas earned the shot at the title by beating OU on neutral ground in the Red River game. Of course I disagree and would argue that OU's margin of victory in defeating ranked opponents is enough merit. But either way it is decided now and I am ecstatic that we will get our chance to win the Big XII and go to the National Championship game! Boomer Sooner!

As if all that wasn't enough excitement, we ended our Thanksgiving weekend by rushing back to Nashville through awful rain and traffic to get to the Ryman Auditorium in time to catch the Jason Mraz concert.

It was a fun show - very high energy and lots of crowd interaction. I was especially impressed with Lisa Hannigan, who was his opening act. She is an Irish musician probably best known for her vocals on many Damien Rice songs. She has a beautiful voice and played lots of interesting instruments in cool arrangements. But once again my concert experience was slightly marred by an annoying drunken person. This time it was a hippie dippy lush seated next to Ben... well, seated isn't the right term, considering she spent the entire concert dancing awkwardly and flailing around spilling beer on people. She also was trying to hang all over and sort-of flirt with Ben, for which I served her up a few dirty looks laced with the clear message of "Keep your damn drunken hands off my man." Ugh. Ben handled it nicely; he has lots of experience with that sort of person from his many stints at Bonarroo!

Anyway, aside from that it was a fun show and a great end to a rather nice holiday weekend!

A Little Friday Randomness

Song that makes me drive like an insane person

I love driving on the highway to tobyMac's "The Slam." Especially in Ben's little Honda Fit. I can't help going crazy fast and weaving in and out of traffic like I'm in a movie car chase scene when that song comes on. Man! So I try not to listen to it very often, because I have a perfect driving record to maintain.

Color I am digging right now

I have purchased about 5 purple shirts and sweaters in the past few months. Just yesterday at Target I got this super deep indigo sweater. Love it. Next I would like to get some crazy adorable purple accessories... like headbands and gloves and some shoes.

Funnest Ads of the Season

I got the recent issue of Vanity Fair and it had a huge spread of Gap's adorable winter ads featuring a super random assortment of celebrities all bundled up in Gap's traditionally colorful sweaters and scarves. They have done a similar campaign for the past couple years and I love it. The ads are cute and funny and happy and warm and very Gap. The one with the SNL guys? Perfection. And, PS, Jason Sudekis is pretty good lookin'. Oh, and the one with Jason Bateman and his precious daughter? Too cute. And, PS, Jason Bateman is very good lookin'.

And, let's face it, these ads are doing their job. Because I haven't been in a Gap in years but this totally makes me want to go buy a scarf. Maybe they have a purple one.

You're Killin' Me, Smalls

We went to our friends' Lila & Grant's house last night for s'mores around their firepit. It was the perfect way to spend our first officially chilly night, even if we did smell like (to quote Lila) jerky when we came inside. The logs were cracklin', the marshmallows were toasting, and the chocolate was melting. I really dislike marshmallows but for some reason on a s'more it works for me! I like the marshmallow to actually catch on fire and get a little burnt so the inside is really gloopy... mmm...

The other great thing is that s'mores always make me think of the scene in The Sandlot where Scotty gets invited to the sleepover in the treehouse. It includes one of my favorite lines. Observe:

I hope this fall brings you many opportunities for good friends and delicious treats.

Pretty Good Day

Today, was a good day.

I baked brownies. With extra chocolate chips just because. And I displayed them on my new pink plaid platter from the Target clearance aisle.

I wore my favorite summer dress, which is long and beachy and made of the softest grey t-shirt material.

I listened to my Smalltown Poets cd, sang along with "Prophet, Priest & King" and remembered how much I love their music.

I went to our work pool party and laid in the sun and went swimming with my friends. And get this - Ben took the afternoon off and came to the party too!

We went and saw WALL-E. I am now in love with that movie. I cried at their adorable robot love.

I came home all tired and with sunkissed shoulders and as I was taking a shower I realized it was only Friday and the whole weekend was still before me.

Then I typed this blog.

And now I am going to go downstairs, get a glass of milk, and curl up next to Ben on the couch. I am going to thank God that he is not at Bonnaroo or working at his boss's house til 4 am, or any other place than here with me. And I am going to read my book of Ray Bradbury short stories until we get tired and go to bed.

And that, my friends, is a pretty great day.

Ciao from Roma!

Ashley & I are in Rome right now, having some fun! So far we have seen the Colloseum, Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain, the basilica and Vatican museums, the Sistene Chapel, and the pope. For reals! I will blog a lot more when I get home but just wanted to throw up a couple quick pics of our travels!

Ash & Me at the Roman Forum

Piazza Navonna at Sunset

Me at the Colloseum at night.

My illegal pic of the Sistene Chapel.

Tomorrow we leave for the coast where we will visit Sorrento, Capri, and Pompeii. Ciao!

GMA Music Week

Well, we made it here... just about halfway done! Not much time to write but wanted to post a few pics of what's going on...

Here is a picture of the main reason I'm making it through this week at all:

This is my bed in my room at the Renaissance. You'll notice that it is dark in the room... and yet this is when we have to get up. 5:30 am. Shudder. Thankfully, sleeping in this bed is like sleeping on a cloud, wrapped in magic. I have to cherish it, because on my own dime I could never afford to stay in a hotel this nice. So thanks, GMA!

These are some of the other main reasons I'm hanging in there... my friends at work:

This is my intern, Jessica... she's doing such a great job this week! Every time I see her she's running around carrying something or checking something. I'm so proud of her!

This is Kristin. She's our registrar and she's basically an amazing human being. She's worked longer hours than any of us this week and done it all with a smile on her face. She's totally a trooper.

And then, of course, there's the music. You can't go anywhere during the week without hearing music blaring from every corner and seeing artists at every turn. I try not to geek out at seeing the artists too much, although it is cool to see them running around and hanging out with each other.

So far I've managed to drag my sleepy butt to two showcases. On Sunday night I went to the BMI Songwriter Showcase, featuring a whole slew of artists performing stripped down versions of the year's best songs. During this show there was one of those seriously awesome moments that you'll always remember. Leeland sang "Tears of the Saints" accompanied by his brother Jack, and you could've heard a pin drop as his wonderful, distinct voice just rang out this flawless song. Everyone was just spellbound... it was absolutely an annointed performance.

Also got to see Chris Tomlin perform his version of "Amazing Grace," which I also really love.

Then last night we hiked it on over to the Wildhorse to see Jars of Clay, Switchfoot, and Third Day. Talk about a line up! Unfortunately we missed most of Jars performance, but Switchfoot handily made up for that with an amazing rocking good time. I have only seen them once before live and it was at the Fair St. Louis so I was like, half a mile away. This was way better, obvs... we were right up near the front and it was just so fun! Jon was looking a little worse for the wear with some seriously overgrown and underwashed hair, but I'll overlook that. So I let my hair down and got my hands up and had a great time. During one song Jon came down into the audience, got up on a table, sang the rest of the song, then rode back to the stage on some dude's shoulders. Fun! Bummer, my camera died after about the first three minutes but I did manage to snap one or two blurry photos...

Third Day ended out the very late night, but it's never too late to stay up and see Mac Powell and his handsome mug. Snapshot of our conversation:

Ben: Do you guys want to stay for Third Day?
Heather: Uh, have you SEEN Mac Powell? And his beautiful blue eyes?

No, but seriously, their music is pretty good too.

Well, that's the last of my updates for now... tomorrow is Dove Day! Don't forget to watch it live on Gospel Music Channel at 7 central, woo-hoo!

Where's my face? Oh, that's right, it got rocked off.

Yep, Family Force 5 officially rocked my face off tonight! Ben and I caught their show at Rocketown, and it was just plain fun.

They are a great band I first discovered at GMA Music Week last year, playing one of the label lunches. I had heard of them but didn't think I would like their music, and I guess I was wrong! They are quite unlike anything else I listen to, but it is so stinkin' fun! Good clean music with silly lyrics about drama queens and dancing your booty off and being from the dirty (sorry, "durrrty") south. Excellent for driving fast and inner-car dancing.

If you haven't heard them, check it out at www.myspace.com/familyforce5. They're a little punk, a little rock, a little dance, a little rap, and a lot crazy. The show was so high energy... I was wearing earplugs so I couldn't really tell how loudly I was singing/screaming. I guess I must've been loud because I am a bit hoarse now. But well worth it... plus I think all the dancing and jumping I did counts as an aerobic workout.

Wii-tastic

Ben and I are the proud new owners of a Nintendo Wii. It came to us on Sunday, from (where else, but our favorite store) Target. It is a beautiful thing. If you have never played the Wii, please come over to our house immediately and try ours.

Here's what you need to know to understand how awesome it is. I have never in my life owned a video game system. As kids my sister and I were never allowed to have one, and we didn't particularly want one either. I remember one Christmas our neighbor got a new Nintendo 64, and so from time to time we would play with him, but it never tickled our fancy. Ben was also never a big gamer... B.W. (before Wii) all he owned was an original Playstation on which he played CoolBoarders 2.

Video games always seemed, to me, to be so solitary and exclusive. Going to someone's house who had a system usually meant I ended up sitting on the arm of the couch watching in boredom as a bunch of boys played Madden.

Then, one fateful day, I was at my friend Rachael's house and people were playing the Wii. It struck me as a very social game - people were taking turns playing one another in Bowling or Tennis, and others who weren't playing were enjoying just watching. Rather than taking away from the human interaction at the party, it was encouraging it! Not only that, but unlike other video games where for hours on end one sits slack-jawed staring at the TV moving only one's thumbs, the Wii had you on your feet, swinging your arms in tennis or baseball or, in what was seriously an aerobic workout, boxing! Plus, no previous skill required. Unlike even basic old games like Mario Brothers, in which I was seriously out-played by even young children, the Wii was highly non-threatening to a non-gamer like myself.

I knew instantly that the Wii could very well be the first video game system that I could see myself having. And thus began our hunt to find one - even though they came out before Christmas, they are still in hot demand. Ben got ours on Sunday at about noon - and it was the last one in a shipment of 12 that had come in that very morning!

We hooked it up and each created our Mii - the little person who represents you in all your games. And then we started playing. And it was as delightful as I had hoped. I sustained my first Wii-injury when, in a lunging backhand during Tennis, I stepped backward and banged my ankle into the couch. I discovered I am rather good at Bowling, and not so good at Baseball.

So the Wii is on at the James household, and you are all invited to come play with us! Wheeee! (Or should I say, "Wiiiiiii!")