I have to admit I’m solar-powered. You always wondered why I’m full of enthusiasm and great ideas. Well, that’s my secret. It’s the sun. When the sun goes down so do I. So I get plenty of sleep which is awesome. I’m like Wall-E when I wake up. I have to situate my face so that the sun can fill up my battery reserves and then BVrrroooong! I make that sound a mac makes when it starts up and you forget to turn off the volume before shut down last time (Don’t you hate it when that happens at the library?).

This also goes for my moods. Sunny = Happy. Cloudy = Sad.

It’s great that I live in Southern California where it is sunny 90 percent of the time but when it’s cloudy I suddenly become like the rest of you sad people on anti-depressants and I don’t know what to do with all this gloom! It’s so murky and, and…awful!!! How do you cope?!! How do you get anything done? Ugh. I feel like I’m wearing cement shoes and my arms are stuck to the ground with strings of chewing gum. I just want to go crawl into a hole and die.

This is all not very fantastic when you’re planning a birthday party for a little girl who is turning six and birthday parties are what you are good at. There is no failing at birthday-party-planning in this house. No sadness allowed! We eat obstacles for lunch. Bring on the challenges!!! Fifty people in a small mobile home with muddy feet?! I can do it!!!!

As you can see, my winter-wonderland of backyard fun with stumps for chairs and bedspreads for tents might not be happening. My visions of tulle strung from the trees and girls sipping lemonade is vanishing before my very eyes. All I can see are freezing cold fairies with muddy feet running in and out of my house and tracking mud all over my peach-colored carpet. Which I hate anyway so I guess it’s not that big of a deal but I’m still getting hives over it. Ugh! Mud! Kids! Hyperactivity! The bounce house people won’t deliver the bounce house if it’s going to rain!! What am I going to do?!!!!

There is a thirty-percent chance of rain predicted for Saturday. I know in Portland that would be a perfect day for an outdoor party. You might even throw a pool party on a day like that and wear a bikini but here? We are weeenies! We are freezing our butts off!!! We are seriously shivering and moaning. It’s sad and pathetic and majorly cramping my party-planning style.

Well, until the sun comes out. When the sun shines I can think of all kinds of crazy ideas. I can do this. We can have an indoor party. I am excellent at crafts! But when the sun goes back behind a cloud again I shrivel up. The obstacles! It’s too hard! I just want to cancel the whole thing.

Such crazy talk.

So here’s my plan: The bounce house people said I can decide on the day of the party whether or not to have a bounce house. If it’s raining we’ll just move on. If it’s not really raining we will move the bounce house to the front yard and put it on the driveway where there is no mud. I don’t know where people are going to park but that’s their problem.

Inside: I’m going to move all my furniture to the side and create a big open space in my living room/office. Maybe I’ll talk Toby into letting me borrow the giant heirloom Persian rug that he has rolled up in Bug’s room at his house that is not getting used. He won’t mind too terribly if it gets chocolate cake ground into it, right? Hmmm…that probably won’t fly.

Then I’ll use all that tulle that I was going to put in the trees outside, inside. It will be like prom night! I’ll just hang it from the ceiling from an old hula hoop or something.

I bet you wondered why I have a whole bolt of tulle. That’s a good question. I’m weird. I used to do flowers for weddings back in the 90′s and I had a much bigger budget back then. I guess I just bought a whole bolt of tulle and I still have it to this day. I have a whole shed full of floral supplies leftover from those days. It’s coming in very handy.

So with the tulle and these stars it could be magical, right? Bug and I made silver stars the other day with card stock and glitter. I was going to hang them from the trees outside with my fairy orbs but now I think I’ll just hang them inside. Maybe I’ll get crazy with some sheets and make fairy tents inside too. That will be super fun when the kids pull them down along with the sheetrock from my ceiling. Oh boy.

I wish I had a man around the house who liked to build things. That would be so awesome. I could probably install a giant branch in the middle of my living room and bolt it to the ceiling. The cats would go crazy. (Note to self: If ever dating again make sure to date someone handy.) But I have no man around the house and my dad is working until Saturday so I’ll probably have to scale back my visions. That’s okay. It’s gonna happen. We’ll make it work. It always does.

Ugh. How am I going to make this work? You see this kitchen? Charming you think? Shudder. The wallpaper offends me so badly that I think I’ve blocked it out. It’s like a weird vibration in my head that makes me only see white where the little flowers are. But then I got this idea that I would rip off a part of the wallpaper near the sink. It had some water-staining and was really driving me crazy. I thought I would do what I did in my bedroom and go with the whole I-live-in-a-run-down-Parisian-apartment look where the ripped wallpaper reminds me of an Anthropolgie ad.

It did not work. Now I have a big blank spot over the sink that is still water-stained and your eye is drawn to it because it is NOT wall-papered!!! I might as well install neon signs pointing at all the ugliness. This would not be a big deal if the weather was great. I would just route everybody straight to the backyard and they would avoid the kitchen but now all my guests are going to be filing through my kitchen and silently judging me. I just know it.

If I had a man around the house I would ask him to paint all the wallpaper red for me or maybe pistachio green to match the cupboards. (Boy, don’t I seem like a catch?) I would do it myself except all those shelves would have to be removed (and the screw holes are puddied) and there is this light fixture contraption near the sink that my Grandpa installed that is bent on electrocuting me. I already tried to de-install it once and it zapped and ker-powed at me like a comic book villain. I’ve decided to leave it alone. So I don’t think this kitchen eyesore is going to be magically beautiful before the party. Back to blocking it out.

Did I mention that we went to one of Bug’s friend’s party this last weekend and they had a huge perfect house where they regularly host weddings in their living room? Yeah. No pressure. None at all. How does one go about canceling a party at the last minute again? Can I just board up my house and pretend I don’t live here?

Let’s talk about what is working. The craft ideas for the party are going along swimmingly. I know it’s hard to tell when I’m being sarcastic and when I’m not but here I’m actually happy about something. I decided to use Momfluential’s idea for fairy house kits. All those floral supplies I have on hand totally saved me. I didn’t even have to buy one thing to make all these bags up. It’s kinda scary that I have that much crap on hand but hey, it works out. I get to get rid of a lot of stuff and the kids get make fun fairy house with odd bits and bobs. I hope they are into it. I know I will be. I am all over this kind of craft like a fly on…nevermind. You get the picture. It’s going to be fun.

I think I’ll give each kid a stump disc and maybe some putty to stick things into. I was going to be on glue-gun duty but I decided with thirty-some kids they’d probably all want me to glue something and one of them was bound to get burnt. Since I don’t know every kid as well as I usually do I think I’ll pass on all the possible lawsuits. I think they can manage with sticks and putty and chennile stems and string. It’ll be fun.

The next thing that is working are the fairy drinks. I bought a whole bunch of canning jars and covered the printing on the lid with some silk flowers.

Then I punched a hole through the metal lid with my trusty metal hole-puncher and my super human man-hand strength. Actually, I only did one. It was pretty tough but it can be done. I’m leaving the rest of the lids for Saturday and I’ll let my Dad do it. Or any other random strong person who comes around.

Then I filled the jar with ice, a lemon slice and some delicious homemade lemonade from my backyard. I screwed the lid back on, stuck a pretty striped straw through the hole and presto! A perfect fairy drink!

So I’m making it work. When the sun comes out I’m pretty positive.

I write a lot of reviews these days. It’s a really great way to make some extra money and the products I sign up to review are usually products I don’t mind saying a few good words about. It’s a win-win situation for me and the company I am being paid by. However, lately I’m starting to get peeved at the people who comment on my reviews. Not you guys of course. You are my real readers. You’ve come to know me over the years and you care about me. Some of you comment on my review site and I love that. Your comments are always interesting and unique and most importantly they answer the question I usually pose at the end of my post. But you know what a majority of the comments are? Copied and pasted canned answers from people who don’t read my normal blog or even the post which they are commenting on. This gets my goat.

I know reviews can be boring. I don’t read them very often myself unless the product being reviewed is something that I am already interested in or the blogger who is reviewing them is super funny or interesting. I don’t pretend to be super funny or interesting but I do try to write reviews from my own unique perspective. I do put the work into each review. I don’t copy and paste content or slap one photo up and call it a day.

I also realize that review posts are always contests. There is always incentive to comment and a prize for some lucky commenter. I realize that whenever you attach dollars and prizes to posts then you are going to attract readers that are only there for the prizes and dollars. But here is where I come in and can make a difference. I don’t think it’s fair that people who don’t even bother to read my review posts should be allowed to win the prize. If your comment does not answer my question at the end of my post then I think you should be disqualified.

So here’s my secret to my loyal blog readers: You have an advantage over all those copy-and-paste commenters who are not loyal SAJ fans and don’t know me from Adam. They don’t read my posts. You do. So if you are so inclined, you could win an easy $100 just for paying attention! Go ahead and skim the review if it’s boring. I understand, I do it too, BUT pay attention to the prompting question. Eighty percent of the other commenters are not paying attention and I am going to throw their comments out when I use random number generator to pick a winner.

Speaking of… here’s a review I wrote about V8 V-Fusion + Tea. It’s a surprising little drink that gives you some get-up-and go and tastes good. And guess what? The answer to my prompt question is NOT what your favorite flavor is!

Okay. I’m done ranting.

I sold my big huge Steelcase desk on Etsy the other day and had it shipped to Stockton. Stockton is about 400 miles away. Shipping a hundred pounds of steel is no small feat. Thankfully, the buyer was super nice and happy to pay the exorbitant amount that shipping costs. Still, I was totally overwhelmed. How was I going to get this big honking thing from my house to the Greyhound station?!!

First we had to find a Greyhound station. This scared me because in my personal experience Greyhound stations are always in the bad part of town. I used to ride one from Hayward to Santa Cruz back when I was in college and it was creepy. Drug dealers, prostitutes, homeless people yelling at you, drug addicts…they all seemed to hang out at the Greyhound stations. But that was 1992 and Hayward was the prostitution capital of California back then. I hear it’s really fixed up now.

After I figured out where the Greyhound station was I had to get my desk out of my garage. And guess what? My garage door is broken. We don’t use the garage much because Toby’s old Volkswagen Super Beetle is housed there and it’s dying a horrible sad death because Toby works all the time now and has no time for oil changes or fixing all four flat tires. I don’t know what he plans on doing with his old car but it has sentimental value so we keep it around. Also, I’ve forgotten the combination to the lock on the broken garage door.

Then I had to find a truck to transport the desk to the Greyhound station. Toby’s van was out since he needs it every day for work. I was hoping a neighbor could help me but we couldn’t match up our schedules no matter how hard I tried. It doesn’t help that I’m constantly out of town.

I hemmed and hawed over the whole issue for days. Frankly, it put me in a bad mood. I hate having things like this hanging over my head and I’ve already had one bad experience with Etsy when I didn’t ship something fast enough so this was stressing me out. I decided it was time to call my brother.

You know what’s so great about my brother? He’ll drop everything and come rescue me. It doesn’t matter if what I’m asking him is completely inconvenient and impossible. He always finds a way.

I thought he’d drive his big old red truck but that truck isn’t insured right now and it doesn’t have registration. Also, his fuel pump went out. This is par for the course for my brother though. He’s a mechanic who likes to collect automobiles with challenges. Next he was going to drive my sister-in-law CC‘s new jeep but it was missing a part. So what does he do? He finds the part and puts the jeep back together. He borrowed a trailer from a friend and was off to my house four hours later.

I was prepared for the whole thing to fall through. There were so many obstacles. Not to mention, my life seems to be a comedy of errors these days. I tried to keep calm and carry on. Amazingly my brother and CC showed up and helped me get the desk out of my garage. (Toby remembered the combination!) Then we were off to the Greyhound station in a mad rush to make it before the bus left at 5pm. But there was traffic of course. Traffic traffic traffic.

I was so worried that we’d miss the bus and then have to do the whole thing all over again. It turns out my worries were needless though because Greyhound is pretty accommodating. If I missed that bus they’d just put it on the next. In fact, they’ll keep your furniture around for days for you. However, the desk had to be packed in cardboard because it’s in parts and the sharp edges would be a danger to other luggage during the trip. And of course the guy who packs things was not there.

So we left my desk at the Greyhound station and I came back the next morning by myself to take care of the matter. The next morning the very nice packing man was there but he charged $80 to pack it which was about $70 more than I had. I don’t know why I thought he could do it for ten bucks. I guess I’m just really dumb when it comes to shipping giant metal desks.

I made a phone call to the buyer and negotiated a bit with the packing guy. We figured out it would be cheaper if the desk was put together. My only problem was I had no way to put the desk together. I wish I kept a toolbox in my trunk but I don’t. I should also mention that I had Bug in tow. She has been extremely whiny and high-maintenance lately AND I was supposed to be at my mom’s by noon to have lunch with my Grandpa who thinks I’m mad at him if I don’t visit him regularly. Whatever, though, right? This kind of stress is just normal.

I didn’t know what to do. If I couldn’t get the desk put together would I have to call my brother and pick it back up again? The packing guy said I could borrow his screwdriver but the thought of wielding a 100 pound desk around an unfamiliar space while keeping a whiny four-year-old occupied seemed incredibly daunting. I was starting to think I should just cut my losses and leave the desk to rot at Greyhound. I’d refund the money to the buyer and just walk away…but that wasn’t a very good solution either because I love my old desk. I want it to go to a happy home!

I think the packing guy felt sorry for me because after a few minutes of me fretting he offered to put the desk together for me and pack it for only $55. Of course I only had $10 but that was quickly solved by a quick trip to an automatic teller machine in the lobby. I took out $60 and gave him the extra $5 for a tip. I wish I could have given him a twenty but I’m already losing money on this transaction and I couldn’t justify taking more money out of my already anorexic bank account.

And then I walked away. Part of me is still worrying about that silly desk. What if a screw was missing? I thought I had them all in a baggie taped inside the drawer but I didn’t take the time to double check. I just hope it gets to the buyer in one piece and I can finally take a great big sigh of relief.

BUT what I really wanted to blog about was the ride in the jeep to the Greyhound station! I was going to scrap this whole long complaining post but Bethany (my personal editor and friend) read it and told me it was worth keeping. So what I really wanted to say is: Riding in a Jeep with no windows is quite exhilarating and windy!

And hats are good!