Hello and a very happy Monday to you! I switched things up a bit today and I’m hoping you don’t mind. As you know, Friday was Harper’s 4th birthday and I wasn’t quite able to finish my weekly Things I’ve Googled post in time before all the grandparents arrived. The other night I told Harper, “You know, you don’t have to get older. Maybe you can just stay a kid forever?” And she replied, “Yes I do, mom. That’s how the game works.” So far, I’m loving age 4 so much. It might just be my favorite.

Now, here’s a collection of things I’ve Googled over the last week or so.

Earth-friendly party favors
Party favors are an exciting surprise for little party goers, but often just add to the mounds of crap you have laying around the house that likely get thrown away in under a week’s time. No bueno for mother dearest or mother Earth, right? I was curious if there was some super secret online shop that could solve all of my struggles with the necessary evil that is the goodie bag. (These non-toxic animal hand puppet tattoos look cool!)

Who decided red was republican and blue was democrat?
Using color assignments for states first occurred in the 1976 election with candidates Jimmy Carter (D) and incumbent Gerald Ford (R). NBC was the first to broadcast the visual breakdown between red and blue states, but it was total opposite what it is today, with blue representing republican states and red for democratic states.

“Blue was the color of the Union in the Civil War. Blue is also typically associated with the more conservative parties in Europe and elsewhere.” (NPR)

The crazy thing is – there was no real standard across networks until the election year 2000. Super nerds who are interested can click on through to the Washington Post and their chart of map colors by party by year. This was so surprising to me!

What do you do with your old team trophies?
My mom started cleaning out their attic and brought a few bags of old stuff from home when she was visiting this weekend. She asked me what I wanted to do with all my old soccer trophies. Ummmm, Google?

^^^ This was the best idea I came across. (Although really, why would anyone have that many open bottles of undrunk wine?) We could make these and give them as gifts to soccer parents, or sell them on Etsy for $34 a pop. Whaddya think mom?! Ha!

Speaking of wine, what’s the deal with the wine in cans trend?
This article was a nice reminder that my first experience with canned wine in fact wasn’t this weekend. I forgot all about drinking Sofia mini champagne in cans! So I won’t write off wine in cans entirely just because I wasn’t a fan of the Underwood pino I found at Trader Joe’s. For the record though, if you didn’t see on Snapchat (I’m recoveringcorp by the way), Jim gave it a great review. Sorry, I think I may have become an annoying wine snob, you guys.

Mobile mani/pedi truck
They do exist! I’m sadly not a regular at the nail salon. It’s just not my thing unless I’m going to a shmancy high-end spa. This weekend, we had Tumblebus come to Harper’s party and I thought, why don’t they have an upscale mobile nail spa that goes to office buildings like a food truck?! That I could totally get behind.

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Things I’ve Googled is an ongoing series and comes from one of the standard questions Jim and I ask each other when we get home. Often, it’s a good indicator of where our minds have wandered off to in the middle of the day and the topics usually make us laugh. So consider this part educational. Part oversharing. Part nonsense. Completely random.