The Title of my Blog Is a Lie Today

A few years ago, a friend of mine who had read my blog approached me and asked what I was going to call my blog when I turned 40.

"D'uh. I'm never turning 40, asshole," was my response.

Well, I'll be damned. Forty is officially here. (I stand corrected, @doctorjones).

Honestly, I never thought I'd need to change my blog title. I was going to be thirty-something (and sassy) for forever. Besides, thirty-something was a HUGE milestone. It took me years to come to terms with no longer being twenty-something.

For the record, I also hated turning 20 because someone told me, on my 20th birthday, that I couldn't go to Sugar Mountain anymore. You know, because I was too old. I know, it sounds ridiculous, but for a huge Neil Young fan, that news completely devastated me. To my core. It brought tears to my eyes. I never played that song on guitar again.

So it's pretty obvious that I have issues with entering new decades.

BUT NOT THIS ONE! Because I've decided to embrace 40. I'm embracing the hell out of it. I'm embracing it with a huge, strong-armed, lifting-it-off-the-floor, squeezing-it-so-tight-it-might pee-a-bit, bear hug.
The year approaching 40 has been awesome.

Steve and I got great promotions and genuinely enjoy our careers.

Our families are awesome, healthy and are able to help out whenever we ask (and sometimes even when we don't).

We have a network of friends that is so perfect that I couldn't have dreamt them all up - whether in our neighbourhood or our old school friends who live farther away, no matter when we all get together, we're welcomed and have a blast. And now that we're all 40 we all have money and/or power of some sort.

One of my friends just entertained us on his SAILBOAT - the one he bought with his very own money! Other friends regularly have us up to their cottage - the one they bought with their very own money! We drive up to see them in our car  - the one we bought WITH OUR VERY OWN MONEY!

Another friend was able to get us VIP tickets and backstage passes to see The Tragically Hip because she knows Paul Langlois (the guitarist). NOTE: This is the only way I will see concerts from now on - with VIP status or not at all. I'm not gonna be in the cheap seats like a sucker anymore. I'm 40 for crissakes. This may hinder my wish to see Pearl Jam and meet Eddie Vedder though so truthfully, I would break this rule to meet EdVed, just in case anyone has an "in"...

Our kids have accomplished incredible educational and athletic milestones (my 5/6 yo learned to play hockey, play soccer, swim without wings, ride a two-wheeler, tie his own shoes and READ during his SK year while my 7/8 yo played ice hockey and scored, ran relay in track and field practice and earned his green stripe in taekwondo during his grade 2 year - he also got his first concussion).

We were asked by a friend of mine to be in a magazine shoot for the Walmart Live Better Magazine (I finally made it into a glossy (!!!), although my original wish was to be paid to write for one someday, but whatever...I'm taking it). We said, "Sure, what the hell", And my boys nailed it! I was really proud of them - and so were they when they saw the pictures.

http://pinterest.com/pin/13299761372683529/

I have a pretty great little wardrobe, I can wear (and rock) high-heels like a pro, and I no longer care that my skin is freckly, dimply and a little drier than I'd like. I finally realize that: a) I'm not supposed to BE a supermodel so why have I been beating myself up for not looking like one and b) none of my friends like me for all of the ridiculous superficial reasons I used to think they liked me for.

Most importantly, at 40, I want for nothing (except for a clean and organized house, but that's another post).

What a great time in my life. It's so cliche but I really think it's true what everyone says: Forty is FREE! I've never felt more comfortable with myself. As. I. Am.

Sure, I still want to get running again, and I would love to lose 20 lbs, and I still hate that deep line in between my eyes that's getting deeper with every squint, but I want to make those improvements for ME. I know who I am now and who I want to be.

And it's not longing to be a teenager forever, which is what I felt when turning 20, mainly because I was afraid of having to be responsible for myself and not yet having a clue where my life was heading.

And it's not longing to be in my twenties, which is what I felt when turning 30, mainly because the expectations to buy a house and make babies was overwhelming and I was terrified of becoming a real-life grown-up!

And it's not longing to remain in my thirties like so many people expect me to. God, I wouldn't do my thirties over if I was paid to. What an awkward, life-changing decade, those thirties were - especially 30 to 36 with the whole pregnancy and new-mom thing that truly is complete and utter insanity.

Who I am at 40 is: Steve-marryin', two-kid-parentin', guitar-playin', top-of-my-lungs singin', Girls'-Night-Outin', business developin', high-heel kickin', magazine posin', wine-drinkin', cottage-lovin', Sassy-blog writin' ME! In one incredibly grammatically incorrect sentence.

So I will need to say good-bye to thirty-something-sass and show you what forty-something-sass is all about.

Soon, I will start writing with my forty-something voice. Hopefully my forties will get me writing more. I do find I have more things to say these days - just not much time to write it. But I might just have to find the time because the web needs some fortysomethingsass!

(Just to be clear, that's not talking about the ass of someone who's 40...it's really supposed to read like forty-something-sass not forty-something's ass...nevermind. But that's where you'll find me, @ http://forty-something-sass.blogspot.ca/)

Ssy out.

Minecraft Birthday Party!

It's that time of year again where I go batshit crazy planning my kids' birthday parties, going completely overboard, but secretly loving every minute of it.

Minecraft birthday party - the video game brought to life.

D turned eight and he decided on a Minecraft theme since its become an obsession in this house for the last six months. After scanning the net and Pinterest (obviously) I came up with some very cool ideas.

I was really intrigued with the idea of bringing the digital to life. The kids have been staring at these pixelated characters on the iPad and/or Xbox for months so I really wanted to give them a real-life Minecraft experience - specifically the sword (diamond) and the characters.

DIAMOND SWORD
I printed a template of a diamond sword onto 11x18 paper which turned out to be perfect scale for the eight year olds. I cut two of them out (careful, they may not be symmetrical, so you need to hold up to a light, back-to-back, line them up, tape the two pieces of paper together, then cut them both out at the same time). Then I traced the outline onto foam core board and used an exacto knife to carefully cut the form out. I was able to get 5 swords out of one piece of foam board. Then I cut thin double-sided tape into a zillion squares and went to work taping all of the nooks and crannies of the sword and then carefully laid the cut-out onto the tape.

DIY diamond swords

It was a ton of work - I'm not gonna lie (the first one took me over an hour to do) but the end result was so worth it, and the kids LOVED them. I think you can order similar swords online that are made of foam, for about $20 but I just couldn't justify spending that amount per kid. These cost me pennies to make.

MINECRAFT CHARACTER HEADS
I bought different colour gift bags at the dollar store and searched the net for closeup images of the heads. I cut the bag into a square, found the middle by folding lightly in half (top to bottom and side to side), lightly marked the gridlines with a pencil where I needed to draw and/or cut, then I coloured in the squares.

These were my first two:

I left them on the breakfast table for the boys to see in the morning and they freaked out, immediately put them on and began to act out a scene where Steve was mining and the Creeper came up from behind hissing. It was AWESOME.

After the first four, I ended up making a grid template on an old piece of foam core so it was easier to measure out the faces and the placement of the features. I made sure to cut small square eye-holes when I was done.

Pig head, Creeper heads, Steve head, Hero Brine head, Enderman heads.

MINECRAFT CAKE
After scouring the net for pictures of Minecraft cakes, we finally decided on the actual cake from Minecraft itself.

My neighbour decorated it for me and did a really good job. There were some incredible pictures of beautifully done cakes, but the majority used fondant and neither of us like fondant so we used Betty Crocker french vanilla and chocolate to ice the cake that was comprised of bottom and top layers of yellow cake and a middle layer of chocolate (baked in 8x8 pans). Then I melted red chocolate wafers, spread it onto waxed paper, waited until it was almost dry, then cut squares out to lay on top. Don't wait too long for the chocolate to dry or it'll crack when you' cut out the squares.

Minecraft cake

I had also done a cake for my son's actual birthday - it was a Creeper Cake. Pretty amateurish but he loved it.

Creeper cake

ACTIVITIES AND FOOD
For the actual party, we let the kids all watch a bunch of Minecraft youtube videos. Then we let them play Minecraft with each other on one of 7 iPads we had for the occasion. We had created a basic world in Creative and so the kids all went in and built stuff together while they sat beside each other in the family room. I'm pretty sure they would have done that the whole two hours had we let them.

The food was pizza (cut in squares), watermelon and for dessert, I did mushrooms (super easy and really delicious), torches (large pretzel sticks dipped in red melted wafers and then into white melted wafers that I added a bit of yellow gel to) and cookies plus the cake.
 

Marshmallow mushrooms, pretzel torches, cookies.

After lunch, I arranged for a scavenger hunt-type game that turned into chaos, so I won't go into it here... It would have been better had we been able to go outside. Either way, they each got prizes of their choosing and they ultimately had fun for 10 minutes. 


Then we did the GHAST PINATA. I bought a Family Size box of Cheerios. I took the box, made it more square-like, covered it in white paper, then drew the face onto another piece of paper and taped it on. I then wrapped some crepe paper around to look like the leg-things, and voila.

Ghast pinata -
It was kind of hard to break, but they eventually got it

After the pinata, they all grabbed the character masks and the swords and started playing. It was so awesome to see how much fun they had with the real-life props. One guy asked if they could keep the heads and I said yes, as long as there's no fighting. And there wasn't! Everyone was happy with what they got. 

Attack of the Enderman and Creepers

That's about it. Good luck if you're attempting to host a similar party. For what it's worth, when I asked my son how much he liked the party on a scale of one to 10 he said, "ummm, about 10,000". YES.

Now on to planning ds's Super Mario Bros party in April...
Ssy