Next Stop: www.birthdaypartybabble.com

Well folks, this is our swan song for this incarnation of our bountiful blogging. We’ve enjoyed ourselves immensely. Hope you got a chuckle or two along the way as well. Please be sure to continue to check out Beth’s blog  (our very own Beah) at mynext50.blogspot.com. And hurray, you haven’t gotten rid of this gal group entirely: we have a new home in the making! Join us at www.birthdaypartybabble.com for the very bestest ideas for all kinds of birthday parties for grownups. No, not the hottie ”adult” kind. We’re talking themes, favors, recipes, invitations…I could go on and on, but oh that’s right, we have a site for that now!

Procrastination

You wouldn’t think of me as a procrastinator, now would you? After all, I am annoyingly on it, all of it, all of the time. Yes, I’ve met me. But there are certain things I HATE to do, and these things can take me forever to do. And you know what’s really weird is that they have changed over the years. Find out what I am putting off now at mynext50.blogspot.com

Private Schools

Good: Small classroom size (for the most part); really dedicated teachers (they aren’t doing it for the money, that’s for sure) who really know your kids.

Bad: The same kids over and over again–new kids are swarmed like fresh meat.

Ugly: They tend to keep people way too long, and the haves are a bit hard to take at times (maybe that’s just because I’m a have not!).

50 Things I’ve Learned

1. How to curse—not the run of the mill curses either.
2. How to make all of the side dishes to Thanksgiving dinner (not the turkey, mind you).
3. How to make real Italian gravy (red sauce with a beef stock).
4. Never wear horizontal stripes—fat kid, sometimes fat adult.
5. When your hair is fine, keep it short.
6. Never center anything.
7. Glasses hide the bags under your eyes.
8. You can never have too many diamonds.
9. When something goes sideways at work, it is always best to say “I’m sorry, it will never happen again,” whether it’s your fault or not.
10. I can stick my entire fist in my mouth—really.
11. When you are fat you don’t get cold.
12. When you are thin you are cold all of the time.
13. You can actually laugh until you pee your pants.
14. Money can buy a lot of happiness.
15. How to fold a fitted sheet so it comes out flat; it has to do with putting all 4 corners together.
16. How to tie a tie in a full Windsor knot.
17. How to start a fire in the fireplace.
18. How to take the Metro in NY.
19. How to get anywhere in the world on points.
20. How to knit.
21. Where to buy the best Indian food (Tiffin).
22. Where to buy the best Chinese food (CinCin).
23. Where to buy the best sushi (Osaka).
24. Oscillococcinum is not just for the flu and will cure almost anything.
25. Young adult books are better than adult books.
26. Pink and green do go together.
27. You can eat yourself sick.
28. Eating sugar makes you have more hot flashes.
29. It’s impossible for me to fly under the radar for any length of time.
30. Blushing gives you hot flashes.
31. Everything is negotiable.
32. Where every bathroom is.
33. What every primary and secondary color means.
34. How to build a 4-tier house of cards.
35. How to blow a bubble as big as my head (Hubba Bubba is the best).
36. How to teach a 5-year-old how to blow a bubble.
37. How to drive a stick shift car.
38. I can walk on my toes when they are bent under.
39. How to spend the entire day on the beach, and most if it in the sun, with the whitest skin imaginable.
40. How to get to sleep when you have insomnia.
41. I have never been stumped by a jigsaw puzzle—even the all white one.
42. Walking with your arms around each other is awkward.
43. How to parallel park perfectly.
44. To turn left if I think I should turn right.
45. How to make a brick patio.
46. How to blow smoke rings (don’t smoke anymore, but still remember how to do it).
47. Where to get the perfect jeans (Silver, cheap, cool – not mom jeans).
48. To ask anyone anything.
49. Pepsi makes you burp more than Coke.
50. That you can’t control everything.

Cayman Islands–Fauna Anyone?

The Turtle Farm in the Cayman Islands is a very cool place to visit, especially if you get a guide as informative and humorous as ours was. And yes, I did notice that this photo doesn’t look anything like a turtle. The thing is, there are striking birds, iguanas, and other fauna to go with the flora at this place. Quite a nice way to fill an afternoon away from the beach.

Madeleine Albright

The concept of displaying your emotion through the broach you are wearing is sheer brilliance. A broach of all things…something so identified with the 50s housewife in my mind. I love the juxtaposition.

Kids Birthday Parties

Good: Birthday parties at a location with an activity–rock climbing, karate, swimming.

Bad: Birthday party sleepovers; if you’ve had one at your house, enough said.

Ugly: Happy Times, or as most of us refer to it, Unhappy Times—walking in is enough to give you a headache.

50 Things You Shouldn’t Do at the Beach

1. Feed the seagulls.
2. Wear a Speedo—please dear God no.
3. Leave big smudges of sunscreen on yourself.
4. Scream at your kids to have a good time damn it.
5. Smoke cigarettes—EVER.
6. Smoke cigars—NEVER, EVER, EVER.
7. Play music—nobody likes hearing someone else’s music.
8. Shake your towel out—someone is downwind.
9. Forget to tell your kids to go to the lifeguard if they are lost.
10. Wear water shoes—you might as wear a sign that says shoebie.
11. Grill—it’s a rule.
12. Play in someone else’s hole without permission—basic beach etiquette.
13. Sit smack up against someone when you have the whole beach.
14. Ignore your screaming kid—we’re not all deaf.
15. Leave your trash on the beach.
16. Leave your trash next to the full trash can—remember those seagulls.
17. Walk past trash blowing on the beach—pick it up.
18. Complain about paying for beach tags—do you really think that 15-year-old kid made the rule?
19. Set up right behind the lifeguards—where do you think they’re going to go when the tide comes in?
20. Don’t ask the lifeguards to babysit your kids—they’ve got enough to do.
21. Complain about the weather to the lifeguards.
22. Wreck someone’s sand castle.
23. Run past someone laying on the beach—sand in the face always happens.
24. Drag your boogie board to the water—ditto above.
25. Borrow someone else’s shovel—we know you aren’t giving it back.
26. Go in the water outside of the green flags.
27. Wear a cowboy hat.
28. Turn your board shorts into high risers.
29. Forget to apply sunscreen.
30. Curse—curb your potty mouth in front of the kids (I have to so you should).
31. Drop food and not bury it—those seagulls can spot it a mile away.
31. Bring anything you can’t get sand on or in.
32. Wear a thong.
33. Ask the lifeguards if the tide is coming in—they hear it all day long; it gets old.
34. Ignore your open umbrella on a windy day—impaling your neighbor is not a good way to make friends.
35. Ram yourself and your boogie board into the nice lady standing there minding her own business.
36. Splash someone coming into the water—let them get wet on their own.
37. Open your eyes under water—it’s SALT water.
38. Bring more kids than you can keep track of.
39. Throw wet sand.
40. Throw dry sand.
41 DON’T THROW SAND!
42. Drink alcoholic beverages—it’s another rule.
43. Let your babies eat the sand.
44. Throw a football anywhere but the hot sand away from the people.
45. Go in the water when it’s full of jellyfish.
46. Sit on the beach in street clothes.
47. Have your big old gut hanging out for all to see—we don’t want to see it; that’s why they make t-shirts.
48. Use someone else’s towel.
49. Sit on someone else’s chair with your wet butt.
50. Act like a jackass on the beach.

Building a Business 10

I feel like I am under 30 on the inside. Let’s not ruin a perfectly good day and talk about the outside, OK? I have found that because I feel 30 on the inside, I have a lot in common with the under-30-year-olds I am working with lately, and not just a passion for reality TV. Find out what else we have in common at mynext50.blogspot.com

Who Has Those Damn Buttons?

I have been dying to go to this place in NY to shop. It’s called Century 21 and is filled with expensive clothing that has been heavily discounted. Well I went. So now on top of the wonderful shopping feeling of fat and old, I feel fat and old and disappointed. There was the most adorable Betsey Johnson coat—I absolutely love Betsey Johnson—on clearance from $800 to $150, missing not 1 but 2 buttons. And no, you can’t just sew on any buttons; her buttons have her name etched in them and are really, really cool.