Pictures from the year

Going back through the year I found some super cute pictures of the boys.
Little Finny Foo Foo is just so darn photogenic, I cant stand it.
I REALLY had to force myself to give them equal pages and pictures in the blurb photobook I made for my parents.

Peter CAN be photogenic if would truly just have a good time and smile and laugh like he means it.But I have managed to get a few good ones of him too.

This was taken at the Easter cook out with my parents and brothers and their families. Finn was so grumpy all day. He just didnt know what he wanted. This picture ssums up perfectly his attitude that day. Yes, he is just like his mother.





This picture of Peter was by pure accident. I had the camera ready and he happened to look up at me and snapped immediately. He didnt have time to grin or squint or close his eyes. Just Peter, having fun, making a cupcake.

This day at the zoo, completely downtrodden by Finn's "dontwannadoitearacheitis". He cried and whined for 4 hours straight. Kept saying his ear hurt (sometimes it was his right ear, sometimes it was his left). Then as soon as we got him he was jumping on the trampoline. It's funny how his condition always flares up when we are doing something that doesnt mesh with what he wants to do.

This is Jake, laughing at Charles attempt to kill the bee's nest in our backyard.


Peter trying out a saddle at the Horse Show. That night raised money for the UNC Childrens Hospital.

Merry Christmas-Studio 54 Style

I Like the Night Life, I love to Boogie.

Merry Christmas. Enjoy watching me shake my groove thang...

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Great Christmas Gift

I NEVER know what to get my parents for Christmas.
What do you get for the people who have everything? Honestly.

Every year I get my mom a sweater or shirt that never gets worn, or some pajamas that she says she wants that never get taken out of the box, or jewelry that she wears for promptly one day and then only breaks out every 6th year on months ending in "R".
Cookbooks? Dusty. Homemade Jams and Jellies? Uneaten. Handmade Bottle art (vinegar with the herbs and peppers in it)? undisplayed and unused.

And My dad...wow. He has a whole closet full of expensive ties that have never once been coordinated with his beautiful tailored suits. I have given him book gift certificates, which I KNOW have been re-gifted elsewhere, I tried getting him Golf coffee table Books, History Buff videos, make your own marinade kits etc. I always feel like a "Gift Failure".

I wish my dad could be like Lindseys dad, who giggles at the thought of a "Come to the Dark Side...We have Cookies" T-shirt, and who would willingly wear it in public.
Had I given my dad a T-shirt like that it would have been cut into strips and used to varnish their hardwood floors.

SO I really struggled this year to find the perfect gift for them. Something they would love and enjoy and use. One thing they LOVE are Peter and Finn. They have BOXES of pictures and are always asking for copies of pictures that we have taken and always want to see pictures from events etc. So the wheels started turning.
So THANK YOU to Heather, who told me about Blurb and showed me her Blog Book.
You can actually go onto Blurb and MAKE a book. You can make a Blog Book, (unfortunately Blurb no longer slurps from blogger, so you would have to cut and paste and add the pictures)
You can make your own cookbooks, photobooks, journals, wedding books and more.

So I made my parents a year in the life of the McBride family (mostly the boys).
It goes in Chronological Order up to the present, and I chose various picture formats for the different pages, added some captions and text, added titles for certain Pages, and voila.
A 50 page hardcover photobook that they can have for always. No gluing, no cutesy scrapbook tags and papers. Just upload the pictures, arrange, add text and submit.
It was super easy and fun. AND the perfect gift for them.

You can preview it HERE.

I think this is one gift that will get good use.

anonymous comments

WAAAAAYYYY back in March I wrote a blog about Josiah Lemming.(here)
I said i dont understand his music. i dont understand why people were all in a tizzy about him.
I am not ashamed that I dont like him. I am not ashamed to admit that I dont think he is all that as a musician. You all know who I am, what I like, what I dont like, how old I am and what I am about. I am not embarassed to say that I, Sarah McBride, do not like Josiah Lemming. I never did, never will. The more I hear from him the more I get irritated. So I wrote about it. big whoop, over and done with.

Now fast forward nine months... I get THIS comment on that posting:

" I disagree...I think he is talented and has passion for music. You all must have such amazing talent to judge so harsh. You all must be bitter old ladies!"

Yep. I am a BITTER...OLD...LADY!
He still sucks. (in my amazingly talented bitter old lady humble opinion)

Oh and I am disabling my anonymous comment option. So if you want to say something snarky, then say it to me with your real name and not hide behind some "anonymous" front.
And I am moderating comments now. So thanks for the extra work...as if I dont have enough to do on my bitter old lady plate.

Honestly, I am too old for this High School BS.


so there.

Not just done, but Damn Done

100%!!

yay and phew.

the written test was really hard. Lots of tricky questions, funny wording and a few questions I completely guessed on. But I am done done done. I am "Damn Done"

When my roommate from college (Jackie)c finished her Radiation for cancer the first time, she had a "Damn Done" party.

Not just done, but "Damn done". That is kind of how I felt about fingerwaves and pin curls.

Buh-Bye.



I was looking through my computer this morning and realized I have so many great pictures from this year that I am going to do nothing but post a few pictures a day for the rest of the year,

For Christmas I am going to have a book published for my parents with all the different pictures from the year in it with little stories and descriptions

I think thats a fairly nice and reasonable gift.



Now just trying to figure out which ones I love, and which ones I hate and which ones to include so this little book doesnt turn into a $100 coffee table paperweight.

last day of ethnic hair!!

I am so excited. Today is my last day of this darn curriculum!
For the past 3 weeks I have done nothing but Relaxers, Jheri Curls, Pressing, fingerwaves(shoot me now please), pin curls, marcel curls and corn rows.
I am SO out of my element with certain aspects of ethnic hair.
I can do a relaxer and Jheri curl with my eyes shut. I can hot press hair without causing the hair to melt, scorch or set off a fire alarm. I can use my marcel iron with the best of them and my popeye fore arm. I can even pin curl and corn row. And by golly your flat wrap will be the smoothest, flattest wrap ever.

But, i CANNOT fingerwave. I hate it. It sucks.It sucks. It sucks.
For 7 hours yesterday I fingerwaved. I recombed. I fingerwaved. I re-combed. I tried again and again and again. Finally in frustration I threw down my comb, cursed and bowled my mannequin head into my locker, like Janeen Garafolo in Mystery Men. I have had it.
Thankfully today is the last day of this darn curriculum. And I have it on very high authority that we almost NEVER do fingerwaves on the clinic floor.
Today is the final exit exam for the curriculum. I will be ace-ing my 33 question test (all about relaxers, ATG, Lye vs no-lye relaxers, curling etc) and Monday morning start Hair cutting.

I dont have school tomorrow, which will be a nice break to recoup.


When I own my own salon i am putting out a sign that says "If you even ASK for fingerwaves, you will owe me $50...then you will be kicked out".

Lindsey, thou art hilarious

So my BF Lindsey is a genius.

Remember the Potato Chip shaped like Illinois on e-bay a few months back that caused all the commotion in the media?

She has it topped, by a longshot.

And I fully expect to see her on the news, ET, Inside Edition, Extra, and The Soup.

Here is the full story. courtesy of Lindsey Aramburu:

"I'm a chocoholic, I admit it. I'm also over 30, and I've heard that's when the female body starts to produce its own fat (Which, by the by, I consider to be extremely unfair. We women have to deal with the other fairly provoking female internal workings, PLUS grow and push out the babies! Harumph.)
One fine day not too long ago, I was seized by the immediate need for chocolate. I'm sure you other chocoholics empathize. In an attempt to stay somewhat reasonably proportioned, (and having also heard that if you must ingest chocolate, peanut M&M's are a wise choice due to a lower fat and higher protein content) I purchased a large "tear 'n share" bag of peanut M&M's. (Did I plan to share? Not remotely! My kids stand the chance of losing phalanges if they stick their chubby fingers within reach of my gnashing teeth while I'm consuming chocolate.) These particular M&M's also happened to be pink Susan G. Komen M&M's, which made me feel even more sanctimonious about my choice. I'm supporting those who do not support breast cancer! I am great!
I happily sat down on the couch to enjoy my treat while watching the latest episode of "America's Next Top Model" (don't judge me). Suddenly, I noticed something strange about the M&M I had just extracted from the bag. It had a...protuberance. Upon further inspection, I discovered that the M&M looked incredibly like...like a boob. A breast. A mammary. It had an areola. And what looked just like a nipple. Was this a joke? Were all of the pink Susan G. Komen M&M's like this and I just had not noticed in my satiated chocoholic haze? I checked the other M&M's. None of the others had this anomoly.
I quickly read the package. Had I won something? Was this like Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket? Were they going to pay for me to get a boob job by one of the Dr. 90210's? No. It said nothing on the package about finding the boob M&M. I pondered my choices. I could do the obvious, which was eat it. On the other hand, what if that lady had eaten the grilled cheese Virgin Mary sandwich? She'd never have been able to buy herself an 8-person hot tub. (I'm not sure she did, but that's what I'd buy.)
After much introspection, I felt it incumbent upon me to share my discovery with the world, or at least with the English-speaking population who logs onto Ebay and looks up the weird and unusual.
So here you have it. What does it mean, you ask? That, my friends, is for each man or woman to decide for themselves.
And by the way, I expect highest congratulations regarding my own self-control for not consuming the M&M."

You can bid on this gloriousness here.