Especially my dearly beloved mother.

Let me set the scene up for you. My boyfriend and I live together. I’m Irish Catholic. Put two and two together…

So now that you get the situation, let me tell you about the funniest joke EVER.

Over July Fourth weekend, both Matt and my families were at our house celebrating together. Matt was cooking up a storm, my mom had brought some of my favorite snacks and Matt’s seven-month-old niece was entertaining us all with her newly learned laugh.

My mom and I were sitting together at the bar munching on some queso when she said, “I love spending time with our in-laws.”

My chip came to a screeching halt halfway to its intended destination and I replied, “Mom. I don’t have a ring. They aren’t in-laws yet!”

“You know what I mean!!” she replied.

We sat quietly for a few seconds and  then… the best joke EVER hit me.

With an evil grin plastered to my face, I enjoyed my chip and said (with perfect comedic timing, I might add), “Well… I guess you could call them our Living-In-Sin-Laws if you really wanted to be accurate.”

My dear lovely mother looked at me a moment and then deadpan said “Yes. I actually prayed about that in church this morning. Thank you for reminding me,” before smiling sweetly and walking off to play with the baby some more.

Mom 1, Margaret 0

Speaking of hilarious MommyMac related things… We are totally scaling a sheer cliff together in this photo. Can you tell?

My little sister and I threw a surprise birthday party for MommyMac and it was AMAZING. So many close friends of my mom came over for the surprise and when she walked in the door, her expression was priceless. Being able to give a night like that to the woman who has given me so much was probably one of the absolute best moments of my life.

That being said, we did learn a few very important lessons in the planning of said party… the biggest lesson being that you don’t send a pair of hungry McDonald girls to H.E.B. to buy party groceries.

We walked into the store with a list and $222.37 cents later, we walked out of the store with the contents of our list + enough random food to feed an army. But we had a blast shopping, so I wanted to share our oh-so-random list.

Recipe for a surprise party:
1 case of Coke
1 case of Diet Coke (aka elixir of the gods)
2 giant things of ketchup
1 case of Diet 7-Up
20 sweet potatoes (27.72 pounds, to be exact)
4 sticks of butter
1 roll of parchment paper
1 bottle of carrot juice (because it looked good)
1 16 ounce jug of egg beaters
1 bag of pre-cut green beans
1 box of classic yellow cake
1 bok of chocolate fudge cake
2 16 ounce jugs of frosting
1 thingy of lemon juice
2 cans of Rotel (1 hot, 1 regular)
26 ounces of salt
1 roll of parchment paper
Roughly 100 asparagus spears
4 packages of football-shaped plates
1 bag of Baked pita chips
2 bags of “Hint of Lime” Tostitos
2 things of 2% milk Velveeta cheese
SPRINKLES!!!! FOUR DIFFERENT KINDS!!!!
1 bag of pre-cut broccoli
1 bag of baby carrots
1 bag of Spicy Nancho Doritos
1 bag of BAKED Sea Salt Kettle Cooked potato chips (because Alice was hungry)
2 bags of “alle olive” Larzaroni Bruschettes (because I was hungry)
1 jug of garlic marinated olives from the HEB olive bar (because why not?)
2 bags of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate morsels
2 bags of Nestle semi-sweet white chocolate morsels
7 boxes of Uncle Ben’s Long Grain and Wild Rice (sans any chicken product)
1 bag of pecan pieces
50 Solo Cups (because I was concerned we might run out… for a 20 person party)
150 Napkins
1 Dry Roasted Peanuts
1 22 ounce thing of garlic powder
1 22 ounce thing of black pepper

and… 1 bottle of Vintage Ink cabernet (to drink while unloading aforementioned groceries)

The good news is that we saved $5.67 by shopping at H.E.B. The bad news is that we were having SO MUCH FUN last night we took ZERO pictures.

Happy birthday Mom!

1. I hate mushrooms. They are a fungus. Don’t you realize you are eating fungus people?!?
2. When I sleep alone, I sleep with a night light on. My house burned down when I was 16 so I have an intense fear of waking up in the middle of the night to that burning smell and not being able to see anything. I’m extremely clumsy and it is multiplied ten fold in the dark.
3. My favorite author when I was a little girl was Mary Higgins Clark but I would read whatever my father put in front of me. This included an array of literature spanning from Reader’s Digest to The Stephen King Dark Tower series. I think this has contributed to my fantastic imagination and belief that everything is a mystery. Give me a book and it will be consumed in two days flat.
4. I have been 25 for three days and it totally weirds me out. But I don’t really know why?
5. I took the Myers Briggs test last week and just finished with my consultation. I am an ENFP which means my “preferences” are extroversion, intuition, feeling and perceiving. My life goal is discovering my identity.
6. I am one of those freaky people that LOVE LOVE LOVE and adore their jobs.
7. My little sister and my mother are my best friends in the entire universe. MommyMac is an audiologist for a non-profit and AliMac is in vet school. They are some of the most brilliant and funny women I know. I thank God daily that they are in my life. Especially when Ali leaves me 45 minute voicemails in an entirely British accent or when my Mom emails me her daily “You are loved” forwards. You know the ones. They feature a slide show of puppies or babies with a Celine Dion song for background music.
8. I had to add some random cheese because I HATE odd numbers. Do you know if you turn the volume in your car up to an odd number you are at risk of getting into a fiery crash? True story. Even if David doesn’t believe me.

Yes. I totally cheated. I changed the name to the Meme and added a extra “weird” fact. So for the Eight people I tag, just know you only have to come up with seven wacky little known facts about yourself and you only have to tag seven people.

I am passing the Weird and Wacky torch to:

1. David Stagg, because he rides with the top down.*
2. Monica Danna, because she is interesting as hell.
3. Gwen Bell, because she is amazing.
4. Katie Laird, because she is happy.
5. Fayza Elmostehi, because she is a monkey.
6. Kathleen Forbes, because she is inspirational.
7. Jenni Rebecca Stephenson, because she is an artist with words.
8. Princess Mia, because she is cuddly.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it?

• Link your original tagger(s), and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post – some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter.

*Hm. David is the only dude I tagged and the least likely to do the meme. Coincidence?

Ready… set… donate! Help MommyMac raise awareness for Hearing Loss!! (while she walks it out).

As many of you know, my dear sweet Mom is an audiologist for a non-profit.  Over the past 20 years (or so?) she has changed the lives of many deaf adults and children by guiding them on their path to hearing again and she absolutely LOVES her job. I would say that it is probably this love and devotion to her life’s work that makes MommyMac so amazing at what she does.

Not everyone understands or is aware of how many people are actually affected by hearing loss. On November 1, MommyMac is going to be participating in the Hearing Loss Association’s Walk4Hearing and she asked me if I could help her raise money for this great cause. Check out her ChipIn page!! The goal of the walk is twofold: to increase awareness about the causes and consequences of hearing loss and to raise funds to provide info and support for people with hearing loss.

Nearly 55 million Americans suffer from hearing loss and many of them have no idea where to turn. My mom has dedicated her life to helping people who are affected, and I figured I would, in turn, reach out to all of you for help. MommyMac’s goal is to raise $1000 and she won’t be able to do it without rawkin peeps like you!

When I was a little girl, I LOVED going to work with my mother. I loved “helping” out in the office and watching this amazing bunch of ladies bustle around. There was ALWAYS laughter at the Houston Ear Research Foundation. So here I go again… Maybe now that I’m a little older I can do more that just pretend to help

Wanna help out MommyMac? Check out her ChipIn Page!! No amount is too small (or too large, for that matter!)