And to all a good night!

It's Christmas night and we have four small very happy humans in bed...it was a good day! I hope everyone had a wonderful day with family and friends. Merry Christmas!

Who needs Martha or the Elves? Not me!

So last night, I simultaneously wrapped presents, baked five mini loaves of Blueberry Bread with Lemon glaze and 40 mini sugar cookies with various colored sugar toppings. Oh and once the bread was cool, I wrapped them in tin foil and made them look like english crackers...oh they were cute! Bring it on Martha!

I still have a gazillion presents to wrap. Well, o.k. not a gazillion but 7 presents times 4 small humans plus presents for the big human and presents for my family. Wowza, I better get cranking! The good news is that I have most of the weekend to spread the wrapping out. The small humans don't come home for Christmas until 1 PM Christmas Day so I'm good there. I am thinking that I will spread everything out on Sunday and pop in A Christmas Story and laugh and laugh while wrapping presents. I would throw in some adult beverages to make it more fun but all the small humans still believe that Santa and the Elves are doing all the work so therefore, the handwriting on the present labels must not look like any of their grownups. Sooooo I need to have a clear head while writing out the labels!

Today is my last day at work until January 2. I am very very much looking forward to having some time away. Not that my days will be super relaxed or anything but it will be nice to be able to just focus on my family and my house for a while and not have any distractions. Also, this is our first official christmas as a family...so exciting!

I hope everyone has a healthy and happy winter holiday time!

Bring on the snow!

My brain is a little fried so this will be a series of mini updates:

It started snowing this morning...just lovely little flakes to get us in the Christmas spirit. Our schools didn't close and the roads aren't bad. Just the right kind of snow.

We haven't gotten our christmas tree yet but I will get it tomorrow and put the lights on it and then when the small humans get home on Friday night, we will decorate it together. While watching Rudolph. Which I DVRed last night and then promptly protected.

I was woken up at 3:45 AM this morning by my big human. He can't seem to shake this cold thing that he picked up so lots of audible breathing and sometimes snoring. I tried to go back to sleep. I gave up at 4:15 AM and got up for the day.

As a result, I am a little frazzled.

I am love love loving channel 103 on XM. Yay for Holly!

We are a little behind on the christmas present shopping. I need to kick it in high gear.

I will probably get to go see Playhouse Disney LIVE! on Sunday...don't be jealous!

We have sent out over 40 christmas cards. And now we need to order more because we aren't finished and we keep thinking of more people to send them to. Ughhhhhh!

O.K. can't think of anymore right now.

Simple Sundays 11/25/07

My simple pleasure this week was taking photos of my family. I love to take pictures. I took one photography course in college and I should have taken more. When I upload my pictures on to the computer and I find a particularly great photo that I took by total accident, I love it even more. Thanksgiving day was a perfect day to get some good photos of my family. My sister was home and we both are a little anal when it comes to photo taking so I knew that I could trust her to get some snaps of me, my big human and all the small humans. I also took some of her and her husband and then some of the big human with the small humans.

Always wash your hands

before you mess with your contacts. Those of you that wear contacts, you've heard that advice from your eye doctor before, right? So have I. Since I was 12 in fact. When did I stop listening? Not sure. But I've learned my lesson now.

Saturday night, I put a vick's vapor patch on my biggest small human's shirt so he could get some coughing relief while he slept. I then walked into my bathroom to take out my contacts. Did not wash my hands and thought briefly as I was removing my contacts, hmmm, seems like there may have been some vick's stuff on my fingers. Fast forward to the next morning. I go to put my left contact in and my eye immediately turns bright red and I have to pry my lids open to get the contact out. UGGHHHHH! I haven't gotten a new pair of glasses in TEN YEARS! Sooooo, since my eye doctor is closed on Sunday and Monday and since I have a very wierd prescription which means no one stocks the contacts that I wear and so it would be useless to go to another eye doctor before mine opens again on Tuesday, I am stuck wearing very old glasses with a VEEERRRY old prescription in them. Which means I can't really see. So no driving and no working because I have to squint to just see the computer screen so after a few minutes of that, I have a raging headache. So I stayed home today. And cleaned out my closet. And organized my bookshelves. Oh and I found something that I had misplaced like two years ago and thought was gone forever. You know how at Christmas, Barnes and Noble sells these prepaid magazine subscription things? Well, two years ago at Christmas, I got a giftcard from my brother and I decided to use that to buy one of those so I could get a subscription to real simple. And then I promptly lost it. But I found it today so I am going to mail it out and hope it is still good.

I was able to put my contacts in for about an hour this afternoon, but the whole time my vision felt a little off and it seemed like my eyes couldn't focus completely so I think maybe the medicine dissolved them a little bit. So I took them back out. But I am going to wear them tomorrow morning because there is a program at the smaller humans' school and I WILL NOT wear these glasses there! Then my eye doctor will be open after that so I will be rescued from my blindness. Lession learned? Oh hell yeah.

25? I better start reading ASAP

This is pretty simple. From the list below:

-Bold the ones you’ve read
-Italicize the ones you want to read
-leave the ones you aren't interested in as they are.

1.The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2.Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3.To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)I really wanted to read this trilogy but I kept having nightmares every night after I would read some...so sadly it is sitting on my shelf unread.
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10.A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11.Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12.Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) -
13.Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16.Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie(Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible I'm sure that after about 18 years of SDA schools, I have read every single verse.
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100.Ulysses (James Joyce)

See, here's the thing. I have a very stong imagination. And I am a bit of a scaredy cat. So I can't read the Lord of the Rings Triology or the Hobbit even though I would love to. And I have never tried but I am pretty sure I wouldn't be able to handle Harry either. The trailers for the movies are enough to send me running out of the room. And then the Steven King novels...I just can't read a lot of books on this list! There are quite a few though that I need to start working on. We should do a bookswap with each other.

I think I know why...but...

Well, it's official. I am in. a. funk.

Ugh. I hate feeling like this. I think I know why I am feeling like this, mostly because I am PMSing. It's been hovering around the corner for a week or so now and I kind of expected it but I was hoping that I wouldn't get to this point, especially right now with the holidays and all. I know what I need to do to feel better but because I feel like crap oh and I had a cold earlier this week, I don't want to do those things. I need to get my rear back in the gym. That usually makes me feel better. It's just, you know I feel like everything is piling up, one not so good thing after another and I can't shake it off. I have the overwhelming urge to climb in bed and just stare at the ceiling. Ugh.

My small humans come home tonight so that will help. We are taking the older girl small human here tomorrow with one of her friends for makeovers. That will definately improve my spirits. And then they will be home again on Tuesday night, leave during the day on Wednesday and then come back home again until Friday evening. I am hoping that combined with goooooood food at my mom's on Thanksgiving, getting to see my sister and bringing out the christmas decorations will officially get me back on track.

Simple Sundays 11/11/07

I've missed out on these for a couple of weeks but I am going to get back in to it. Promise.

O.K. so my simple pleasure this week or mainly this weekend has been the restorative powers of weekend TV. I have caught a rare cold and so I have spent most of the weekend laying in bed watching whatever my husband finds. So I have watched old episodes of Let's Make a Deal, plenty of Scrubs and I think he was watching Rat Race this morning which I don't recommend. He's gone right now to return some shoes so I am watching Steel Magnolias. I love that movie. It's very melodramatic and Julia Roberts' southern accent is extremely off but the rest of the characters in the movie are like watching my aunts in Georgia. It's like going home for a few hours. Oh and this probably isn't helping my cold but I just ate a Little Debbie snack cake. My big human says I can't help loving those things because I was raised SDA. I say it's because they taste like heaven. Hahaha!

It's beginning to look a lot like craziness...

I'm really enjoying this whole post every day in November thing. Not so much because I am doing it but I love reading everyone's posts every day. So thanks to you all that are doing it!

I haven't been in the blogging mood, and I have been super busy in my life so it has made it difficult to find the time to do it. We are ramping up to our holiday/birthday extravaganza time and things are getting a little hectic. Along with the standard Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations, we also have three small human birthdays, two sibling birthdays and a step-parent birthday. So we are going to be busy until the end of January. Oh and the small humans have a new baby coming to their mom's house in January too. Wow. That's a lot. So there is a lot of plan making and list making and present buying and just general craziness starting to happen. It will be fun though.

I enjoyed reading Yes is a World's post the other day about her changing views concerning engagement rings. I too was one of those girls who would design my perfect engagement ring. But when it actually came down to it, the proposal was nothing that I could have ever imagined but it was perfect for us and there wasn't really a ring (there was something but it was for the small humans' sake and it wasn't real) and I was totally o.k. with it. Maybe in a few years I will want to add to my band but right now, I am loving the simplicity of it.

Public Service Announcement #1

Attention all humans that have decided to procreate and/or are responsible for caring for small humans. See this thing?
Probably not a good idea to place your very small human in it and then SIT IT ON A TABLE AND WALK AWAY! Also probably not a good idea to place your very small human in it, then put the whole contraption on the kitchen counter while you cook or otherwise prepare food. (Saw that gem on someone's myspace. A person I was not too friendly with in college.) My big human would argue that it is natural selection. But it starts to interfer with my life when I am trying to enjoy my lunch and I can't because I am trying to watch someone else's very small human because her grownup seems to be incapable of making good decisions. Oh and her brilliant mother then spent the next ten minutes meticulously wiping off a soft book with clorox wipes since the very small human had tossed it on the floor while unsupervised sitting on top of a restaurant table. Because a few germs from the floor are definately worse than A CONCUSSION!

O.K. I'm done.

Enough already!

We need it, I know but geez, it's been raining and/or cloudy all week long! I can't take it anymore! My whole being just wants to be snuggled into my bed with my warm rice sock and a good book. We need to see the sun soon because at this rate, I will get nothing accomplished this weekend!

Spam, Junkmail and Prizes, Oh My!

So I have a new obsession. Oh first let me say, yes, I missed Simple Sundays this week. Sorry about that. I had a busy busy busy weekend. It was full of fun stuff and some not so fun stuff and I will write about it soon. O.K. back to my new obsession. I have discovered that you can do searches for contests. And now I enter them. Daily. Well at least the ones that will let you enter daily. I know that soon my spam filter will be clogged, my mailbox will be perpetually overflowing with junkmail and probably my phone will be ringing off the hook with 800 numbers but...but...there is the possibility of winning stuff. And given my perpetual good luck, I'm bound to win something! So I can put up with those minor annoyances. Now I just have to remember to register every day for the different contests. At this point, if I win the different contests I have entered so far, I will have a LOT of money, multiple trips to Disney World, a trip to Europe and I think a year's supply of M&Ms. Not too shabby, eh?

I will leave you with a visual image from this past weekend. Six women, ages ranging from 9-50, doing a Soul Train dance line to "We Are Family" and two of those women were me and the ex-wife. It was a good party.

It's officially started

Santa bought her first christmas present today. I went in to Target to buy a birthday present for a little boy who is turning 6(I think) and my smaller boy human is attending his party. I wandered over to the Playmobil isle and I found this on sale.

Santa is so bringing that for the smaller girl human so into my basket it went. Which means I have officially started my christmas shopping before Halloween. Oh geez.

She turns my unintelligable thoughts into things that make sense

This is why I am loving "Eat, Pray, Love". So far, I have come across so many bits in the book where it feels as though she has crawled inside my head listened to my inner dialogue and then wrote about it. Here's a great example:

"I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. I think you are free to search for any metaphor which will take you across the worldly divide whenever you need to be transported or comforted."

This thought or idea is why when I find the need or desire to go to church, I go to mass. I was raised Adventist and I am sure on some level, it breaks my mother's heart that I no longer consider myself an adventist and that when I attend church it is in the presence of the anti-christ.(see that part's a joke because my whole life I was taught that the pope is the anti-christ and catholics are evil and I have discovered that they are some of the nicest people I have ever met.) There is something so soothing and calming about the ritual of mass. I love the fact that with a few minor exceptions, no matter where I go to mass, it is basically the same thing every time. The priest says the same thing to us and we say the same thing back to him. Sometimes there are bells or incense or no kneelers or jam bands singing "Alleluia" but the priest always says the same thing. It gives me peace. And that is why I will convert eventually one day. They don't make it easy. It's pretty time consuming and I haven't been able to devote that much time yet. I started it a couple of years ago and I made it almost half-way through. But then I started a new job and my work schedule conflicted with one of the weekly night meetings. So I had to stop. But I will finish one day soon.

But back to the book. I can't stop gushing about it. Oh and I love it so much that I am reading it extra slow so that I can savor it.

I've been looking for days for this

There was a moment in last week's episode of The Office that I absolutely loved and I have been searching all over the internet to find someone that had it quoted. I found it this morning. And now I will share.

Ryan: Yeah. I created a website. Look, at the end of the day, apples to apples flying at 30,000 feet. This is a paper company and I don't want us to get lost in the weeds or into a beauty contest. Convergence. Viral marketing. We're going guerrilla. We're takin' it to the streets while keeping an eye on the street. Wall Street. I don't want to reinvent the wheel here. In other words, it is what it is. Buyin' paper just became fun.

Love it!

Simple Sundays 10/14/07

My simple pleasure this week is the weather cooling off, finally. It now feels like fall outside. I love to go out in the morning and feel the nip in the air. This morning, I woke up early and noticed that it was a little chilly in the house. We haven't turned the heat on yet. But I like it to be chilly when I am sleeping so I snuggled back under my comforter and fell back to sleep. Lovely! The weather turning cool also makes me want to drink apple cider and eat pumpkin muffins. Now I just need to wait for the leaves to start turning colors and then it will be perfect!

I think I made it

I'm still alive...all the small humans that went are accounted for...I've had a hot shower so that helps my body hurt less...we didn't completely freeze last night sleeping in a cabin with no heat...breakfast, which I was in charge of, went well and everyone was full...my older small girl human had a blast...they didn't turn on us in the middle of the night...I think it was a success!

It's about time

My wonderful big human gave me a beautiful watch for my birthday. It was lovely. However, I have freakishly small child-size wrists so the watch didn't really fit. I needed to have links taken out. It needed to go back to the store where it was purchased to have the links taken out. Unfortunately, there is only one person at that store that takes out the links for watches. So we played hide-n-seek for a couple of weeks until yesterday when I was able to pin her down and she had to take out 6 links from the watch. She suggested 3 links at first and I thought maybe 4 but 6? Good grief. But now my beautiful watch fits me perfectly and looks amazing when paired with my bracelet. As my husband said so eloquently last night "You're all blinged out now!" I will post a picture soon of both my watch and my bracelet.

In other news, I took today and tomorrow off from work because I volunteered to accompany 80 4th graders on an overnight camp trip. It's not really camping because there will be cabins but there are no showers and that is going to be a huge hardship for me. My first task doesn't start until this afternoon but it is my normal volunteer day to go to the K-1 classroom of my small boy human and help with language arts. So I decided to go to my favorite cafe and enjoy a latte and a pumpkin muffin since there is a nice cool nip in the air which means it has finally decided to be Fall here. Also, I need to build up my courage because this afternoon, tonight and tomorrow are going to be quite a whirlwind. I am sure we will have fun but I am dreading tonight when it will be me, 2 other moms and approximately 40 girls. They may turn on us. And they are just about the same size as me now. I'm a little nervous! Pray for me!

We played hairdresser. And a little bit of fashion show and european model.

Simple Sundays 10/7/07

My simple pleasure this week has been having my small humans home this weekend. Sometimes it feels like the pause button is hit in our lives when we take them to their mom's house and we don't get unpaused until they walk back in the door on Friday evenings. It is wonderful to be woken up in the early morning hours by a small body climbing in the bed and snuggling down between me and my big human. It is delicious to be able to introduce them to the wonders of dancing in our living room to the Jackson Five singing "ABC". It is fabulous to spend hours at the pet store playing with kittens and ferrets and guinea pigs. It is delightful to be with them.

Evil Plot

I needed to go to the grocery store last night but I also wanted to spend time with my big human. So I asked him to go along with me. Normally I do the grocery shopping by myself and the main reason for that is because my OCD/ADD tendencies require me to grocery shop at only certain grocery stores and I have to travel the same path every time I go there. My big human likes to wander in the grocery store and if I did that, it would take me 2+ hours to shop because I would get so distracted and I would end up buying nothing that we need and everything we don't need. So it's best if I go alone. But I made him go with me last night. And it was worse than taking the small humans with me. We left the grocery store with a few things in our bags that would not have been there if he had not come along and when I complained about the cherry poptarts, lime green playing cards and a bottle of Lipton Iced Green Tea with Citrus flavor, he responded with "Good. So next time I can stay home like I wanted to." He's such a brat.

Do you spell "parrot" with one "t" or two?

Today is one of those days that pushes me closer to the realization that I need to be a SAHSM. For those of you not in the know, that would be a Stay-At-Home-StepMom. I came to my office for about two hours this morning and then I left for three hours to go to the elementary school and spend an hour helping my smallest boy human's K-1 class with their language arts work. I also stayed to have lunch with him and it's a 30 minute drive each way so that's why I was out for three hours. Then I came back to the office for about two hours and then left again to go back to the elementary school for teacher conference with my smallest girl human's 3rd grade teacher. Then it was back to the office where I still am now. My big human better start bringing in the cash cause the girls are already asking me why I am not volunteering in their classrooms too. I need more hours in my day/week.

So while I was helping with language arts work, I had one of those moments where I second guess my intelligence because I have the distinct understanding that what is about to come out of my mouth will affect a small human in front of me. I was asked to proofread two sentences that this small girl had written in her composition book. She intended to write the word "parrot". And for a brief moment when she looked up at me with her sweet small face and said "how do you spell parrot?", my only thought was "oh crap, how do you spell parrot?". I pulled it together though and said with confidence, p-a-r-r-o-t, although inside I was having an arguement with myself as to whether that was correct. And when she stood up and marched over to her teacher after she was done to have her sign off on the paper, I watched intently hoping that I wouldn't hear "Take it back to Mrs. T********* so that she can help you spell parrot."

Oh and yes, they call me Mrs. T*********. It's very cute. And yes there are that many letters in my last name. It's a bit of a spelling beast.

My favoritest bit so far

Here's a snippet that I love the best so far in Eat, Pray, Love.

"Still, despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless newborn baby-I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to-I just don't care."

Amen, sister.

A little belated

The candle-lighting process...there were a lot of them so it took awhile.

It appears that he's finally done. Wooooooo...am I really turning 29? How did my mom find that many candles in her house?

My mother's idea of cutting the sweetness. Serve the chocolate cake that is covered in homemade chocolate buttercream frosting with TRIPLE CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM.

Probably my favorite birthday card but shsssshhhh...don't tell the other ones. My smallest boy human worked very very hard coloring this card in and he was very proud of it.

So that's it. Belated images from one of my three birthday celebrations. Yeah I had three. I have managed over the years to create a birthday week rather than just one day. We celebrated two Sundays ago at my mom's house with all the small humans. Then my big human and I went out on my actual birthday with some friends. That didn't end well as I seemed to have stumbled into some bad chicken wings and ended up with food poisoning. Then we celebrated at my mom's house again this time with a brunch with my sister and her husband and also my pretend little sisters. I don't have any pictures from those two celebrations.

My next goal is to implement a birthday month.

Simple Sundays 09/30/07

Hmmmm, what to pick as my simple pleasure for this week. That's a tough one.

I'm going to say that my simple pleasure this week was my latest issue of Mothering Magazine arriving in the mail. I love love love when I check the mail and I have my new issue. It is only published every other month so I have to make it last. When I get a new one, I quickly skim through and maybe read one article. Then I go back through and read the letters to the editor followed by one or two articles that really caught my eye. Then I go back through a third time and read Peggy's article along with any other articles that I missed. If I do it right, I can make it last for at least a week. I really wish they would go to once a month. But for now, I have to make them last.

My lighthouse, my albatross

I did something tonight that I haven't done in quite a while. And I didn't even realize that I hadn't done it until I actually made the decision to do it. I decided to buy a book just for me. Gasp!

You see, I view books as both necessities and luxuries. I love my books. I have a hard time getting rid of books. When I was in college, I would throw away clothes so as not to have to pack and unpack them in my semi-yearly moves from the dorm but I would continue to collect more and more books. I still have most of them. Some are packed away in boxes because I have yet to realize my dream of having a library room in my house. One day I will have my semi-dark room with tall espresso colored wood bookshelves complete with sliding ladder so as to access those faraway books.

But back to this evening. I met my big human at my favorite shopping center for what has become our Friday Evening Date When We Don't Have The Small Humans. We went to my favorite restaurant and had my favorite stromboli and then we walked a bit and ended up in Barnes and Noble. I did a bit of poking and ended up with Eat Pray Love in my hands. I started this book last year when it first came out, before it was a fashionable read simply because Oprah said to read it. For some inexplicable reason, I didn't finish it. But tonight it caught my eye and I decided to buy it. This was quite out of the ordinary for me. I have no problem buying books for the small humans, in fact I probably buy too many. And we, as in the big human and I, buy lots of get smarter books. But I have not bought a book just for me and actually paid for it with my money rather than a giftcard in quite some time. It felt delightfully wicked. And something that I realized I must do more of. So I have decided that perhaps once a month, I will buy a book just for me.

Anyways, I must get back to Liz and her discovery of God. She's quite delightful and charming, isn't she?

Simple Sundays 9/23/07

I missed writing this yesterday because frankly I forgot about it but I figure that a day late is better than nothing.

My simple pleasure this past week was playing freeze tag with 4th graders. One of the best kept secrets of people with small humans is that they are the best excuse for playing. The large amount of Playmobil exists in our house right now not because the small humans wanted it but because this big human did. Anyways, back to freeze tag. I have started going to lunch with my small girl humans on Thursdays. If I time it right, I get to do recess with the 3rd graders, eat a bit of lunch with them, then move over to the 4th graders and then do recess again. After that I head back to work. So this past Thursday, after lunch was cleaned up and all the chairs were stacked, we lined up and headed out to the playground. One small human was designated as "It" and then we all started running in circles. There was a lot of stopping and starting and loads of shrieking. I went back to work sweaty and with a slightly pulled thigh muscle but it was worth it. I can't wait for this Thursday!

The winning continues

So last Friday I won my bracelet and the Lindt chocolate. On Tuesday, my company had training by one of our vendors and there were going to be prizes given away. The top prize was a 32" TV. I really wanted to win that. And my friends at work joked that if I won something else, then they were going to have to jump me. I went to the training and filled out the form that needed to go in for the drawing, checked out the prizes they were giving away and then I left the room and forgot about it completely.

I came back to my desk on Wednesday afternoon from lunch and there was a box sitting in my chair. I won something! Not the TV but something pretty cool. It was kind of like a DVD burner but you could hook up your camcorder or camera and make DVDs of the movies or pictures. Well, we already have a miniDVD camcorder so I was having a tough time figuring out what we would really do with this cool new toy. I then got an email from another prize winner in my company that won something different. She wanted to trade because she thought her prize was too complicated to hook up. So we traded. And my big human loves me even more now because I brought home this cool new toy that hooks up to our DVR and now we can watch our TV on any computer anywhere in the world and also the stuff that is recorded to the DVR. It is very very cool.

I guess "The Secret" stuff does work...hmmm...

10 things I've done that you probably haven't

I enjoyed this list so much the other day that I have been thinking about what mine could be so that I could post it. So here goes.

1. Swam in the Baltic Sea. In October. Yes it was frickin' freezing.

2. Slept in a former East German apartment building.

3. Escaped being kidnapped with my friend while trying to hitchhike in Norway. We were released because we sang the Cake version of "I will survive" at the top of our lungs for about 30 minutes straight.

4. Flown in a private jet.

5. Been kicked off of a train because I snuck on.

6. Been responsible for a female marine recruit getting her butt chewed by her DI because she didn't say "Good afternoon, ma'am." to me when I passed by her.

7. Stood in line for 3 hours in below freezing temps to get a free chair when the IKEA in Chicago first opened.

8. Convinced two police officers to drive me to my friend's house because it was late, cold and snowing.

9. Played in the fountains at the FDR Memorial in the middle of the night.

10. Held a tarantula.

My informal language class

So sometimes at my job, I have to do repetitive stuff that doesn't require a lot of brainwork. So while I do that, I put my headphones on and I listen to the current day's show of God Morgen Norge. I love it. I do get weird looks though from my coworkers when they walk up and ask me what I am listening to and I tell them that I am listening to basically the norwegian version of the Today Show. If you go here, you can listen to.

Tales from a Former Michigander asked me in a comment on my last post what my bracelet looks like. I don't know how to reference back to a previous post like she does so I am just going to say that you need to scroll down to the post entitled "I Always Do" and you can read the story about my bracelet and there should be a link to David Yurman's site that has a picture.

I have been at work for over 10 hours now and I didn't really take a lunch. It's been a long day.

Does it match the bracelet?

This is my deciding question now when planning my outfit for the day. I want to wear my new bauble every day so it must match what I am putting on. This is made infinitely easier by my decision to not wear flipflops to work anymore which means I have to wear "fancy" shoes which means I need to dress up so as to not look ridiculous. Although that brings a whole new problem to the table. I need more work/dress clothes. My recent weightloss, while wonderful, means that none of my old clothes fit. So last night I went shopping. I have decided now that anytime I need an instant pick-me-up, all I need to do is find the closest Banana Republic. Their clothes consistently run big on me. For instance, yesterday I wore a pair of Banana pants that fit me great and they are a size smaller than what I wear from Old Navy or Gap. And then last night, I bought a skirt that was a size smaller than the Banana pants I had on! Amazing. I know the truth is that they size the clothes differently so rich fat people feel better about spending a gazillion dollars on clothes but I don't care. I heart Banana Republic.

Simple Sunday Sept. 16, 2007

I am going to start participating in this.

So here is the simple pleasure that I participated in this weekend...sorry no photos. I spent late Saturday afternoon and evening sitting outside behind my friend Mark's house with my big human and one of Mark's friends and we enjoyed a simple dinner of finger foods and wine. It was a lovely chianti from Whole Foods and we had some nice cheeses, crackers, a seven-layer dip from Whole Foods and some fresh fruit. The weather was beautiful and the company entertaining. We then ended the evening by watching Geraldo attempt to conduct an interview on Fox News.

A great evening.

I Always Do

Friday evening, I picked up my big human from his office and we went to my favorite shopping center. It's my favorite because it has just about every store that I would want to go to (except Target) and it's nice to walk around there in the evenings. I needed to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and I was also craving a veggie stromboli from my favorite restaurant there, Casella's. So we went to the shopping center and we parked halfway between both places so we could just walk to everything and not have to keep moving our car. We ended up parking in front of Talbot's. I don't usually go in to Talbot's but they were having some sort of party in the store because the doors were open and there was live music being played. So we went in and they were having an open house. There were tables set up with finger foods and giveaways to register for and there were some people from other stores in the shopping center doing demonstrations. One was from a store that sells luggage and he was showing us how to pack effectively and the other was from a new jewelry store that had just opened next to Talbot's. They were having a giveaway for a bracelet but you had to go next door to register for it. So we headed over there after we were done with Talbot's and registered for this, a David Yurman bracelet. My big human also tried on a fabulous Rolex and I tried on a couple of different David Yurman bracelets. We then left and headed down for our yummy dinner. While we were eating, my cell rang and I didn't answer to be polite. They left a message however so I couldn't resist and I checked the message. It was from one of the lovely ladies at Fink's asking me to call her back asap. So I did. And guess what? I won this lovely bauble. Oh and I also won a big bag of truffles from Lindt from the drawing at Talbot's. I've alway been rather lucky. I wonder what I will win next?

Fall Cleaning

I took today and tomorrow off from work so that I can have four straight days to clean clean clean. Today, I tackled our storage closet outside. I found some stuff that I haven't seen in ages. One was a notebook that I had bought in college and I had written down some Magnetic Poetry poems that I had written on my fridge in the dorm. I liked them a lot so I am going to share. Enjoy!

my longtime friend
like sky dancing
he is sun balm
to my dark storms
-Feb. 2001

hurry the present
dreaming to feel him surrender
light through the blue cold
his breath like sudden spring
-March 2001

a gentle lie shall
leave you loveless
and me without a star
-March 2001

anticipation built
nothing found
a hole in my heart
for my unmet dreams
-March 2001

Radio Silence

I don't normally talk about what I remember from that day or the weeks following. When the anniversary comes around, I think about it but I don't normally participate in the active remembering that usually comes with that day. This time, it feels different. Maybe it is because it is the same weekday as when it actually happened but it has brought back a lot of memories from that time.

I had some time to kill in my car last night because I had to drive for an hour or so by myself and since I was tired and wanted to make sure I stayed awake, I listened to a radio program on my XM that I haven't been listening to in a while. It is Opie and Anthony and they are irreverant and rude and make fun of everyone and everything and they can usually only be handled in small doses or you really start to corrupt your brain. Anyways, so they live in New York and they have been on the radio for a long time and they were playing some clips of their shows from the weeks following 9/11. They were playing tribute songs that other radio stations were playing and then making fun of the self-importance of the people that wrote the songs and how they weren't really trying to honor the people and the country but really just hoping that their song would become popular and they would be famous. So they were playing these songs and they were all really quite awful and I was trying to remember why the songs didn't sound familiar to me. I couldn't recall hearing them play on the radio. And then I remembered why. Starting that morning when I heard the news of the attacks, I couldn't bring myself to listen to the radio when I was in the car driving. I would listen to NPR occasionally but the mostly I would drive in silence. There was something that felt so wrong about be-bopping down the road when this horrible event had occurred. It was about a month before I started listening to music again while I drove.

So there's my obligatory post about 9/11.

The Case of the Melting Wedding Cake

"The cake is ruined! Mark* ruined the cake!" Kendall screached as she burst into the changing room. Lanie turned with her mouth agape, "What do you mean the cake is ruined?" Kendall could only repeat over and over again, "Mark ruined the cake, Mark ruined the cake." Lanie ran down the church hallway to the kitchen to find the ruined cake but did not see it amongst the empty boxes of mozzarella sticks and chinese dumplings. She rushed into the fellowship hall and discovered Kendall's sister, brother and friend standing silently looking at the cake. It did in fact look ruined. Lanie started to see what could be done to salvage the cake when she realized why it was ruined. All of the rich buttercream frosting on the three layer round cake was melting from the heat. Without pausing to figure out why the frosting was melting, she stuck her hands in between the first and second layer and jerked the second and third layer up to remove it from the platter. She then barked at Kendall's younger brother to pick up the platter with the first layer and follow her to the kitchen. "The cake needs to get cold again before I can try to do anything to it.", she explained to Kendall's sister Kate. Luckily, this church kitchen had an industrial size refridgerator with slatted shelves so that Lanie could slip the wooden stakes that were still attached to the bottom of the second layer through the holes and safely rest the top two layers while they cooled.

"It's not Mark's fault.", Lanie tried to explain to Kendall, "The cake was poorly made." Lanie could not really lay her finger at that point on why it was poorly made but she wanted Kendall to know that Mark did not ruin the cake. Kendall was not convinced and continued to question Mark, "Why didn't you take Joe with you to pick up the cake? It took both of us to carry it on Friday." Poor Mark could only utter, "I'm sorry Kendall. I was really careful."

Lanie returned to the kitchen and started her repair job. The original cake was three round layers covered with smooth buttercream frosting and decorated with delicate polka dots. At the base of each layer was a wide dark pink satin ribbon. When Lanie first returned to the kitchen, she thought that the ribbons were ruined and would need to be replaced completely. Once she realized that her options were extremely limited in the replacement ribbon department, she set out to remove the ribbons, wash them and lay them out to dry. She then started "erasing" the surviving polka dots and repairing the damaged first layer. It took about an hour of working with the cake staying in the refridgerator but once she smoothed out the damaged frosting and worked to make the rest of the cake blend in, it started looking like a cake again. She replaced the ribbons and then enlisted the help of her husband, Rich, to assist in replacing the second and third layers on top of the first layer. She still had some major holes and gaps that needed to be covered up so she picked up some roses and tore off the petals and sprinkled them around the base of each layer and added a few to the top. The cake was still extremely unstable and very crooked from almost every angle but in the end, Lanie was able to carry it out, snap a few pics of it and let Kendall and Mark do the ceremonial cake cutting before swiftly removing it to the kitchen.

Now the question remained why was the cake melting to start with? Lanie mulled over that thought for a few days and after discussing it with her amatuer cake-making mother, she realized what happened. The first problem was the bakery put the cake together on the Friday before the reception. Any bakery worth their salt knows that cakes should only be assembled once they are delivered to the reception site. When Kendall and Mark's cake was assembled on Friday, it not only made it too big to then be put in a conventional refridgerator, but it also put a lot of strain on the first layer. Lanie guessed that the cake had not been refridgerated and while it was probably cool in Mark's aunt's house, it was not cool enough to keep buttercream frosting from melting. So after much thought, Lanie was positive that the cake being mostly destroyed had nothing to do with Mark and everything to do with the bakery.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent

Sound Bites

Here are a few funny snippets from this past weekend with photos to illustrate:

"That cake looks a little tilted..." nervously said to me by the MC for the event after I brought the semi-salvaged cake out so that the husband and wife could do the ceremonial cake cutting. I had to laugh because it was a little more than tilted! That episode deserves it's own post.



"There are three things I know about this shirt. One: This is not my shirt. Two: I'm pretty sure it's a woman's shirt. Three: It's not my wife's shirt. Other than that, I don't know why it was in our car but I kept it on." This was said to me and my big human by the guy in the photo below, the bride/wife's older brother. We couldn't stop laughing.

"You should see the trunk space in the Charger. It's massive!" This was said repeatedly by the members of our table which would then prompt a visit to said Charger to view the massive trunk space in the rental car. As you can see, the trunk was indeed massive.

It was a fun weekend. In fact it was so much fun that not only did we delay our trip home but so did our friends that flew in from California. It was great to visit with everyone.

Yummy New Colors

I like the mint green one but my apple green one is still the prettiest to me! It doesn't play video though...oh well.

Only at night

This past weekend, my big human and I were up in Maryland for Tales from a former Michigander's wedding reception. We had a blast and I will do a different post about that. This post is about our drive home. We left Silver Spring a little before 8 PM on Monday night to drive home. When we were leaving the area where we had been with our friends, we needed to turn left or right. I said, "Honey, I think we should turn right here." He said, "Let's turn left." Since he was driving, we turned left. Now at this point, I was not concerned about getting lost because I spent so much time in Maryland and DC during the summer months of my college career that I can find my way out and get home although it may take me a while. So while it was getting late and we both needed to be to work early in the morning, we went on a little adventure. We headed toward DC and things were fine. I started getting a little nervous because we were on a path to end up in a not nice part of DC. So I gently suggested that we needed to start heading to the right a bit to get to a better part of DC. So we end up on 16th St which takes us up behind the White House. We wave hello to Dubya and make some jokes about stopping by for a drink and keep driving. At this point, we are headed for Union Station which does not get us on a path to get home. I ask "Honey, do you have a path in mind or do you want me to help you get out of here?" and he responded "You can tell me how to get home." We have a brief discussion about which interstate we are going to take to get home and once we decide, we head down 14th St and turn right on Constitution. This puts us on the path to go past the White House again and also the Washington Monument. These places are awesome to view at night and my big human starts making comments that leads me to understand that he has not spent as much time perusing our Nation's Capital as I have. I then turn to him and say "Hey, you wanna do something fun?" and he says, "Yeah babe!". So I direct him to the FDR Memorial. He had never been and it is my absolute favorite memorial to visit at night. In fact, I think I have only visited this memorial at night. If you go late enough, you can play in the fountains. So we got here about 8:30 PM and spent 45 minutes or so hanging out and taking pics. We then packed up and jumped on 66 West and headed home. It was a great night. And I got some great pics.

It was a fun night. I decided that we need to plan a day trip back up to DC so that he can properly view the sights. Can we have our bedroom again, Tales from a former Michigander?

Snip Snip

I cut my hair yesterday. It was getting entirely too long and I felt like it was just blah. No style really because it was at a wierd in-between stage. Plus, I was printing photos from last summer when my hair was shorter and I just like it better short. I think I am getting to old to have longer hair. It just doesn't look nice on me anymore. So short hair for me again. I am happy with the cut overall although I would have much preferred to have it done by Timea. But I can't justify a plane ticket for a haircut so this will have to do!

Funny Words

"I only have long-sleeve pants in my drawer. I need some of my short-sleeve pants."

"Stop sign, stop sign, stop sign!"

Quote #1: This was said by the youngest small human in my house yesterday morning after he was instructed to go to his room and get dressed for the day.

Quote #2: This was said by me, in an increasingly frantic voice, yesterday evening after we had taken the small humans to their mom's house. My big human was driving and also trying to type something on his phone and I had observed a stoplight in front of us that had turned red and stopped cars. I wanted to say "red light" but for some reason, those two words had escaped my brain at that moment. The above quote was all I could get out.

Facebook

O.K., I caved and signed up. I am still trying to figure it out. I like a lot of the features but it is freakin' hard to find people on it! And apparently it is more popular in Norway than myspace since all my friends from there have a facebook page. So if you have a facebook account and you can figure out how to find me, send me a friend invite.

Checklist

Enclosed porch to enjoy quiet evenings outside? CHECK

Big yard for the small humans to run around in? CHECK

Garage? CHECK, sort of. There's a garage but it isn't connected to the house.

More than 3 bedrooms? CHECK

Bigger dining room? CHECK

In the small humans' school districts? CHECK

Reasonable rent? CHECK

Wow, it sounds almost perfect. Except it's not in a neighborhood. Big decisions...

Me and Addi

I finally snagged this picture off of Timi's myspace. My favorite picture so far of me and Addison. She was in such a good mood that night even though she was only 1 month old exactly.

I heart Timi

Lauri (arms with brown sleeves) and older girl small human are trying to decorate the gazebo for Lauri's wedding later that afternoon. Timi decides that it is time to limbo and encourages older boy small human and younger girl small human to limbo with her. Kevin captures it all on film. Timi and I joked that weekend that it was like there were five small humans instead of four.

Maya Bay

I have been thinking recently about trips that I want to take and I want to go back to Thailand again. This time I want to take my big human with me. And I want to go back to this place. It was so amazing. This picture does not do justice to how peaceful and quiet this area was, even with all the other tourists there. I loved every second of my trip.

My big human

He's hairy, but I love him.


Especially when I catch sight of a gem like this:

I'm selfish

And I want more people living here that I know.

Job for Tales from a Former Michgander:

Recruitment Specialist
Charlottesville, VACrutchfield needs a highly talented, experienced HR professional to join our Human Resources team. As Crutchfield's Recruitment Specialist, you will manage our recruitment, application, interviewing, and hiring processes. This position requires the proven ability to attract, hire, and retain the best people for our unique company culture. Experience in recruiting for professional and technical positions a plus.

Job for Blaaahhhg:

Copywriters
Charlottesville, VAAre you a movie buff or music fan? Want to have fun learning about the latest audio/video gear and then writing about it for Crutchfield's award-winning catalog and websites? We are looking for seasoned writers with an interest in, and aptitude for, writing about electronics for a general audience. Responsibilities include researching and writing product presentations, articles, blog postings and more. The work is fast-paced, and the environment friendly. A positive attitude and the ability to work successfully within a team are required. This full-time position at our Charlottesville headquarters involves regular weekday hours, plus occasional overtime during deadlines. When applying, please include a cover letter, resume, and writing samples.

Oh and the bonus I would get for them hiring you guys would be cool too.

This picture made me cry.

Are you linked? I am!

You gotta get a linkedin account. It's like myspace for grownups. Not many people were on it before, especially from Andrews but now there are a lot more people with profiles. For those of you job-hunting (hint hint for blaaahhhg and tales from a former michanger), this is a great way to get your name out there. The large human in my house got a couple of calls from head hunters just in the past few weeks from his profile. If you want more info, just ask!

oh and this

I can't wait until next year so I can eat the top of this cake. I hope it tastes as good as it did that night.

It's been over two months...

and I am still entranced by the pictures of our wedding day.

The one in the middle, with the look of disgust on her face.

She's only three months old and she already has this much attitude. God, I love that kid!

Look with your eyes not with your hands

Yesterday, the small humans and I had to take some things to the big human that were left at home and he needed for his day at work. He works in a building on the downtown mall which is a mainly pedestrian mall except for two streets that allow traffic to cross over. Luckily for the big human, his office is on the corner of one of those cross streets otherwise he would have been outta luck for getting that stuff because yesterday the thought of corraling four small humans through downtown traffic to take the big human peanut butter and a laptop was somehow not appealing to me.

Anyways, after he graciously came downstairs to retrieve said items, I was slowly crossing over the downtown mall and I looked to my left to make sure I wasn't about to hit a pedestrian(they have the right of way). I saw a georgeous specimen running shirtless towards my vehicle. I increased my speed to get out of his way and he proceeded to turn down the side street behind the Minner(my minivan for those not in the know) and wave at me. Huh. Ahhhh, it was my friend who I had not seen in quite some time. I stopped and rolled down the window and proceeded to have a brief conversation. We said our goodbyes and parted ways. As I drove away and started fielding questions from the small humans, I involuntarily giggled at the brief but inappropriate thoughts that had started to enter my brain before I recognized my friend and remembered two things that ensured that those thoughts would never be fulfilled:

1. I'm married therefore I must look with my eyes and not with my hands.

2. My hot shirtless friend thinks my husband is hot too.

Will Power

High point of the day: Waking up at 4:30 AM and arriving at the gym at 5:00 AM. And actually getting a good workout.

Low point of the day: Hiding in the bathroom eating a homemade chocolate chip cookie because I had already told the small humans that they were not allowed to have any until after dinner.

Can I get this on a T-shirt please?

Rock Lobster

I've never been a big fan of music concerts. When I was in college, if I had any extra money, I was figuring out how I could get back to Norway for a visit. So I have never really gone to concerts. The company where my hubs works has season tickets for a concert venue that brings in some pretty big stars. So we have gone to a couple of concerts. And so far, I had not been impressed. But last night we saw the B-52's. And I actually enjoyed being there. The music wasn't super loud, it didn't last forever and the hubs was out of his mind excited because he loves the B-52's. So that made it all fun. Oh and the funkadelic cover band playing 70's disco hits that opened for them was awesome. Especially since every member of the band had on an afro wig. Oh and one guy had on a purple crushed velvet suit. He rocked. But my favorite was the girl, Foxy Delicious. She sang "I will Survive". It was fantastic.

Oh and Blaaahhhg, if you read this ever, you should seriously be looking on the East Coast. Tales from a former Michigander is on her way out here as we speak and my company needs people that do just what you do! California is overrated.

Things to look forward to

In honor of Kendra's move and based on her last blog, I am going to make a list of things that she has to look forward to in her new location...cause I know where it is!

-Free museums
Wanna see dinosaurs? Free. Wanna see airplanes? Free. Wanna see paintings? Free.

-Inner Harbor
The absolute best place to people watch. Just grab a seat!

-Being a lot closer to NYC
It's only a couple of hours north. Road trip!

-Old town Alexandria
Cute shops, amazing restaurants, cobblestone streets. Lovely!

-Being able to visit Lauri a lot more
That's reason enough to move!

It Fit!

The Moaning Meme

I've been tagged or something so I am supposed to fill out this list of things that I don't like. So here goes...

List 5 people who will be annoyed that I tagged them: Well, I don't have that many more people on my list than the person who tagged me, Tales from a Former Michigander, so I don't think I can answer this one. People shouldn't be tagged twice right?

List 4 things that should go into room 101 and be removed from the face of the earth: 1. Mosquitos. I am currently scratching about 5 different bites on my hands and ankles and I have no idea how I got them. Seriously, where did they come from? 2. Alarm clocks. The noise makes me want to rip my hair out. I have one sitting next to my bed but it stays unplugged. I set the alarm on my phone so that I can wake up to a nice polite beeping noise rather than the squawking of an alarm clock. 3. Cartoon Network. It's from the devil. The cartoons are not designed for kids, they are designed for adults. But grownups who are not willing to monitor their children's TV viewing think that animated= good for kids. Not so. 4. Seafood. I can't stand the smell or the look. And most of it is not particularly healthy. So it should go away.

List 3 things people do that make me want to shake them violently: 1. Verbally harassing and abusing children. No excuse. Ever. 2. Spanking/hitting/pinching/flicking/jerking your children and saying that it is ok because the bible says you should. No excuse for violence. Ever. 3. Having small children out and about late at night. Bedtimes people, bedtimes. There is a reason why our society is moving so quickly towards obesity. Sleep deprevation causes people to overeat. It isn't rocket science.

List 2 things I find myself moaning about: 1. Inept parenting skills. If you don't want to do the work, shut your legs and zip up your pants. 2. The perpetual clutter in my house. I want to rent one of those construction dumpsters and throw it all away.

What 1 thing do the above answers tell me about myself: I can't change other people and their stupidity so I should just let it go and focus my energy on organizing my house.

Here are the official rules: 1. Link to the original meme at freelancecynic.com so people know what it's all about! 2. Be as honest as possible, This is about letting people get to know the real you! 3. Try not to insult anyone - unless they really deserve it or are very, very ugly! 4. Post these rules at the end of every meme!

Breathless

What's the fastest way to make your body image plummet even though you just lost 10 lbs in a week and a half? Go shopping for and purchase a slimming agent a.k.a. a girdle. The combination of the bad (read realistic) lighting and having your husband help you tug yards of lycra up to your boobs will make even the most confident gal want to curl up in her bed with a good book and a warm cup of creamy coffee.

See, the thing is, the dress fits. Which is good. But I didn't feel good enough in it to stand up in front of 200 people and have a gazillion photos taken of me. So off we went to the mall to find said garment. I was actually out of breath in the changing room. Guess I need to hit the gym three times a day instead of two.

Cue the Jeopardy Music

Answer: The amount of pounds needed to lose in order to go down a dress size.

Question: What is 10 lbs?

Hmmm....well we will find out this afternoon if my 10 lb weight loss will make a difference on THE DRESS.

I Hate the Male Metobolism

So the hubs and I started a different eating regimen on Saturday. He's doing it to support me and also because he needs to lose a little. I'm doing it because I need to wear a bridesmaid dress next Sunday and it is not a pretty picture right now. So yesterday, 4 days into this thing, we weigh ourselves. I have lost 5 lbs. He has lost 13 lbs. Boys suck.

Further is better

I have decided that in order for me to enjoy watching fireworks, I need to be kinda far away from them. Normally, we go to the city park where everyone else that lives here goes to watch fireworks and it's too close and it gets really loud and makes my stomach hurt. Plus the crowds getting out are atrocious.

So this year we went to this little spot where a friend of the family always goes to watch fireworks and it was perfect. We could see the fireworks display but it was off in the distance so the noise was not an issue and we were pretty much the only ones there so no traffic. Although my dear husband couldn't help himself and decided to try to drive over near the other fireworks because they were still going on so I had to deal with a bit of the noise and some of the traffic. Not horrible but it definitely sealed my decision that I didn't want to ever go there again for fireworks.

18 days until my sis's wedding. Bridesmaid dress doesn't quite fit right. Crap. I think I am going to have to do a cleanse and I am NOT looking forward to that. What the hell was I thinking a gazillion months ago when the store from hell, David's Bridal, insisted that the dress needed to be ordered? At least that means I am an optimist. Right?

Has it been a month?

So it's my one month anniversary. And guess what happened? This afternoon, I needed to lather up small humans with sunscreen to go to their swim meet and I took off my wedding band so it wouldn't get all gooky and...I forgot to put it back on. I didn't remember until after we were almost to the meet. And I missed it. Guess it really does only take a few weeks to develop a new habit. I don't even have to take it off anymore when I sleep. Amazing.

Oh and just an fyi...swim meets are from the devil. If you ever have small humans in your house and they want to do swimteam, do everything in your power to get a lacrosse stick in their hands, soccer cleats on their feet or a set of golf clubs on their backs. I still haven't found one redeeming quality to swimteam. I'm looking but I just don't think it's there.

We're headed to Baltimore tomorrow night for our familymoon. Science museum, children's museum, aquarium and the Rainforest Cafe. Good times.

What really mattters

Name change at DMV: $20

Name change at bank w/new checks ordered: $14

Name change at Social Security Administration: Free

Having the same last name now as the 5 loves of my life: Priceless

Sure, why not? Everyone else is.

My needs...

Lauri needs to be able to experience these activities and participate...

Lauri needs a date...

Lauri needs to pull her head out of her ass and stop worrying...

Lauri needs to show less of her body...

Lauri needs the $1500 a month he's been paying her...

Lauri needs to do more research about the issue to see if there's some truth in it...

Lauri needs to cut down on the eyeliner...

Lauri needs to reapply...

Hmmmmmm...well, I would agree with about four of those. I need to find that $1500 a month I've been getting paid...I wonder if it has been collecting interest.

Same Same but Different

This was one of my favorite phrases when I went to visit Shelley in Thailand. If I didn't hate buying tourist shirts so much, I would have gotten one that said that on it.

When thinking about my life after getting married, this is the phrase that comes to mind. It's the same but different. We still do the same things in our house. But it's different and makes me giggle a bit involuntarily when I call him my husband.

The ring is driving me crazy. I am getting used to it but I really really really hate having anything on me for an extended period of time. And the thing is the ring is very pretty and very simple. But it still bothers me. I sometimes take it off and put it on another finger just to give my one finger a break.

our day. our dreams. our registry.

So I am getting married. In under two weeks. We announced it last week. Things are happening fast but it seems like plans are falling into place and other than the fact that Kendra can't be there, everything is suprisingly working out.

I started our registries at Bed Bath and Beyond and also Target. We have been having a blast picking out dishes, appliances and board games. Yes board games. Every "new" house needs their own copy of Balderdash, right?

Yesterday I was adding some stuff and the thought popped into my head that I should look at my sister's registry to make sure that we aren't choosing the same stuff because she would blow a gasket. I clicked over to her registry at Target and we have chosen the same luggage just in a different color, the same dust buster and we would have chosen the same vacuum but when I went to add it to my list, it wouldn't let me and I had to choose the step-up. Ugh. All I know is I am not changing mine so she will just have to deal with it! She shouldn't be too upset. It's not like we chose the same dishes or anything.

I am glad that we only have three weeks to plan this because I start hyperventilating a little bit when I think about all the different plans and mine is not even that complicated. I can't imagine planning one with a bridal party and rehersal dinner and bridal showers.

We need to decide if we are going to wear rings. Rings bother me. They make my fingers hurt. So that may be a problem. Hmmm.

I'll give it a shot

So there is a contest to win a pink nano...so I am giving it a shot. And that means I have to link back to it. So here's the link. Give it a try.

Midnight photo shoot

I left work on Friday afternoon and headed north. I was going to help my friends. They have a new baby and it is a big adjustment. They haven't slept much. And we all know what happens when you don't get any sleep.

My original intent was to go and do some cleaning and cook some stuff to put in the freezer. I didn't think that I would be much help with the baby because she needs momma milk. But it turned out that as long as I brought her to her momma every two hours so she could feed, I could help out immensely by keeping her quiet so that her parents could sleep.

It was a good thing that I had a cup of coffee on my drive up because I ended up pulling the late late shift on Friday night. The baby is a little confused about when she is supposed to sleep. So the momma went upstairs about 9 PM to get some sleep and the dad followed about 10 PM to take a shower and get some sleep. The baby ate at 11 PM and then we settled in downstairs to be quiet so her parents could sleep. We did a photo shoot about midnight because she was wide awake and then she settled down until about 1:30 AM at which point she ate again and then we went back downstairs for the next two hours. She slept through most of that which meant that I did as well and then I took her up at 4 AM and gave her back to her momma so that I could sleep a little bit.

Anyone that thinks having a baby looks like a lot of fun needs to experience what I have over the past week. It's like one of those Scared Straight programs.

Babies are a lot of work.