Fall Box

Fall is John and my favorite time of the year. This year, of course, John won't get a chance to see the leaves change or go cheer on Penn State football in Beaver Stadium, so I wanted to mail him a little bit of autumn. 

This box was so much fun to shop for. I am addicted to the store Five Below (which, apparently, is a Mid-Atlantic states chain). For those of you who have never heard of Five Below, I am so sorry. It's a fantastic 5 and 10... but with items that don't necessarily look like they're from a 5 and 10. Nothing is over five dollars, and they have a diverse selection of items, including some bangin' seasonal stuff. 

I found the fall paper in the Target dollar bins. There's just something about getting cute, reasonably priced stuff for John's packages. It must be the thrill of the hunt!

My favorite items in the box are the Little Debbie's football brownies (which I had no clue existed before I saw them at Wal-Mart), pumpkin seeds, and old-timey Cracker Jacks. There's some instant apple cider and ginger snaps (which my mom always has on hand during the fall), football-shaped chocolates, an expanding washcloth in the shape of a football, football napkins and plates and a Steelers cup. Rachel found a toothbrush that looks like a Penn State football player diving for a football (which just happens to be the head of the toothbrush), which is extremely cute. And then, of course, there's candy corn-- one of our weird food vices.

I topped it off with Runner's World and some orange tissue paper. Usually I wrap each item so it takes John a little longer to go through the package and enjoy each surprise, but I didn't have any wrapping paper that wouldn't clash with the rest of the package. ...And then I realized that's a little ridiculous.

Send a Message in a Bottle!

When I was in college, my awesome youngest sister, Becky, would send me 2 liter bottles filled with all kinds of fun stuff-- letters, pictures, pom-poms, confetti, stickers... It was the best thing to get a "You have a package!" message in my mailbox and pick up up a plastic bottle filled with an explosion of happiness.

Fast-forward eight years. Because school has been crazy and the weekends are just as nuts, I've been subsisting on Diet Pepsi to get me through the days.  I realized I had a lot of plastic bottles (and normally I don't because I try to avoid soda as much as possible) and decided to surprise two of my favorite people!

If you're shipping one out of the country, you'll have to write out one of the one-pound-or-under customs form (it's small and green). You'll also have to endure the post lady looking at the bottles, up at you, and saying, "Honey, where in the hell do you get time to do this and put all this crap on them?" Just shrug and smile. She's kind of crazy.

Cost:

• $1.95 per bottle (for shipping)

Materials:

• clean plastic bottle with a twist-on top
• scrapbook paper
• stickers
• plastic packaging tape
• Elmer's glue
• letters
• hole punch
• small items that can fit down the neck of the bottle (pictures, clippings, pom-poms, small Tootsie Rolls, etc.)

Directions:

1. Cut a strip of scrapbook paper that fits the bottle where the label should be. Glue in place and let dry.
2. Fill your bottle with letters, hole punch confetti if you'd like to, add whatever else you think is cool, and decorate the bottle with stickers.
3. I wrapped the whole label in packaging tape after I wrote the addresses. This is an optional step, but I would recommend it. I also taped down the bottle cap with packing tape after twisting the top as hard as I possibly could.

This project is the perfect reason to splurge on some soda! Enjoy!

Crying Over Spilled Beer

I knew deployment would be tough. But no one told me I'd find myself in my living room crying over a 30-second Sam Adams commercial. That's just ridiculous, even by my standards. I get why-- John's a beer enthusiast, and he really loves Sam Adams.

On one of our first dates, we were hanging out with a bunch of friends at a Blue Band reunion. He had to step outside and asked me to grab him a beer if there was a lull at the bar. "No problem," I said as coolly and smoothly as I could, not having a clue what kind of beer he'd want to drink. I hate beer. I avoid drinking it at all costs. In fact, in my whole life, I've only been able to down one very small glass of green beer. I have regretted it for the last 5 years.

I stood at the bar, awkwardly, waiting for a bartender. You can probably guess that I'm not the pushy, showy type, so bartenders rarely notice me. That's usually because I look like a soda drinker... which, coincidentally, is mostly what I drink at bars anyway.

So there I am, standing, trying to get the bartender's attention and simultaneously cursing the free enterprise system, hating the entire beer industry, and wishing I were in Communist Russia. Why so many kinds of beers? Why not just one kind of beer? And one of our mutual friends and soon-to-be beer savior, Mark, walked up and before he could say anything, I pounced.

"I have no idea what to order John!"

"What was he drinking?" Mark said. I am not a careful observer of things like that. I knew he had a glass of beer. After seeing the vacant, clueless expression glass over my face, Mark came to the rescue. "Okay, get him a Sam Adams. He likes those."

So simple.

And I did. Once a random girl called a bartender over because she felt bad for my ineptitude. Seriously, I'm a pretty ignorable, forgettable person, especially in a dark bar. You'd think it'd be the opposite, since I virtually glow in the dark, my skin is so pale.

Probably about an hour or so later, John and I decided that we were way too awesome together to be single anymore. I'm not going to credit the Sam Adams entirely, but it couldn't have hurt. (Mark--thanks, buddy!)

Back to the commercial: there's no reason why a Sam Adams spot should make me tear up like I'm watching the Lifetime Network. And yet, I could feel tears burning the corners of my eyes as some guy-- I'm assuming Mr. Adams?-- plunged into and then exploded from a dunk tank full of beer.

John has got to start liking craft beers with no budgets for media campaigns.