Living In France

Obsessive

2012-02-10T00:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, people.

Today I'm going to let you into my brain. Not just my brain, but my brain during some sort of meltdown.

My brain on overload.

See, there are times in my life that there are tons of things going on. Some big things, some small things, nothing important or maybe really important, but a lot of stuff either way.

I go along with these things and deal with them.

I'm a person who likes order. I like to know what's going on in all aspects of life...at all times. I don't like last minute changes or anything "unplanned" to crop up. If it does, it really messes with my sense of well being. I trust things are going to go the way I plan them and they better or I'm gonna throw a fit. Okay, maybe not a fit. But I certainly won't be happy.

Anyway. I have a lot of things going on. Stupid things. Important things. Things that I don't know exactly what the outcome will be, but for now I'm okay with it. It can't be avoided, so I deal.

I'm feeling a tad overwhelmed even though there's nothing life altering going on right now.

And then. Something happens. Something small, insignificant, not a big deal. But it completely takes over my brain for a bit.

In fact, I'll tell you what it is and you can point and laugh at really how small it is. And then laugh at my reaction.

For some dang reason while I was eating a Nilla wafer, my tooth chipped. Now, I've put a lot of money in my mouth and I like to take care of my investment. So a chipped tooth is annoying but not earth shattering. And it's not even where you can see it by looking at me.

Because I have certain anxiety issues and OCD there are times that these unexpected and small events can take over my brain. I think it's because I already feel overwhelmed and there are a lot of things not in my control going on right now that bug me. So this small issue becomes huge.

My brain seizes on this stupid chipped tooth and I'm almost having a panic attack.

What if:
the rough edge/point snaps off and breaks my tooth?
what if they can't just file it down to a rounder edge and i have to have extensive work?
what if it costs a lot of money?
what it if starts to hurt?
what if they can't fix it?
what if i have to have a root canal?
omgosh what if i have to have a root canal?!
i don't want to drive all the way over to my dentist.
i just had a stupid crown break and had to have it replaced.
the last thing i want to do is go again and spend more money.
can't leave it, though.
what if it snaps off like i said before?
must have it fixed.
my stomach hurts.
it's been consuming my thoughts all day.
i don't want to eat because it might break!
called the dentist.
they didn't answer.
left a message.
didn't hear back.
now they're closed.
won't be back til monday.
what if i can't get in til late next week?
what if it breaks off or gets worse before they can hopefully fix it?
then it's even more money, time, pain, etc...
my stomach still hurts.

Seriously. This is my brain in meltdown mode. It's a small thing. It's not a big deal. I know this. I've had this happen before. It's an easy fix.

I'm a logical person.

Sometimes my non-logical brain likes to assert itself and I hate it.

Tell me you freak out over stupid crap sometimes.

Or maybe I need more meds.

My stomach still hurts.

Can you say NUTS?

WWTK Wednesday

2012-02-08T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hi!

My name is MiMi and I'm a poor manager of my time.

I had an hour yesterday where I was actually bored. But I didn't feel like blogging.

The boys got home and the proverbial crap hit the fan with homework, paperwork, scheduling, reading, math, blah blah blah...

And since I didn't use my hour to blog, I didn't have anything scheduled to post this morning. If it ain't scheduled, it ain't gettin' done. Usually.

Anyway, today's WWTK is easy and the questions were asked by Mamarazzi and I'm using my spare 11 minutes before I have to rush out the door to do it.

Because, like I said, I'm a poor time manager.

{1} What is for dinner tonight (bonus for sharing the recipe)?

Because of my poor time management, I'm guessing it's something out of a box. Okay, I do that even when I'm not pressed for time. I'm such a bad housewife.

{2} Share something you are currently looking forward to.

A trip with friends in June, MiMyMa 2012, maybe a trip to Disney with the boys.

{3} What are your thoughts on re-gifting?

I never re-gift. (<--- that's a lie.)

{4} How often do you rearrange your furniture?

Um. Lazy? Hardly ever!

{5} Share a picture from your cellphone or camera.

what i took to a superbowl party. hey. i said: poor manager of time, penchant for things out of a box (or bag)...this is what ya get. booyah!

Yarn Covered Letters for V-Day

2012-02-07T08:00:00.000-08:00

Have you all seen those awesome yarn covered letters? Like this:

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As always, I see them and then tuck them away in the back of my mind as something I want to do. Eventually. Sometimes I get around to it and sometimes I don't.

Today I decided I was going to make my own yarn letters. I don't have the papier mache letters that are 3D like the ones above...but, I do have cardboard.

And I have a butt load of yarn so this can't be that hard to recreate! Sorta.

I don't have many Valentine's decorations so why not use some pinkish yarn I've had for a million years and make something?

And this is what you get: My wonky yarn covered letters. Yep. Wonky. I love wonky! It's my signature, ya know.

My materials list:

Yarn.

Cardboard.

Tape.

Scissors.

I cut out some letters free hand.

Then I started wrapping to beat the band! Okay, I wrapped, didn't like the way it was going on the corners, pulled it all out, re-wrapped, blah blah blah.

The trick is that you have to have more than one layer of yarn in most places. You wrap one way so that you can cover all the edges, the the opposite way to make sure all the corners are covered. You can see in the pictures the different directions that I wrapped.

mid wrap

You also need to secure the loose pieces of yarn in the back with tape. I'm sure you could use hot glue or something, but tape was faster and easier for me.

And this is what you get when you're all finished:

I like em. A lot.

Or...dare I say...love?

Cheesy, right?

I think I'll link this up with IA and Shawn today!

And...

Why Haven't I Heard of This Before?!

2012-02-07T02:02:00.001-08:00

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of dealnews for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
dealnewsdealnews
How much time do you spend on the internet trolling different sites for the best deals?
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I decided to look up travel deals because it's always fun to daydream about places I'd love to go. I'm thinking my husband better watch out, because look what I found!

Can you say AWESOME?? What a steal! You almost can't afford not to go. I'm addicted to dealnews now!
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I want you to go to dealnews.com today and check out all of their deals. Then come back and tell me what you found and what you like the most!

Attention Anonymous:

2012-02-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

It's always an anonymous that leaves a weird/crappy comment. Always.

I'm confused by this comment, though not insulted, because I'm too confused to be insulted.

I rarely address negative comments, but this is too funny not to.

I received this on December 31st:

Is this the MIMI GROSS BLOG with HYDRA- OSIRIS- PETWOOD? Is this the blog with CONDOLEEZA RICE and VERMONT- AK'S? Is this the MIMI GROSS BLOG with WHYTLE GENTO ZOO and MEL MARTINEZ and WHINNYHILL? They say you are not only running guns and missiles, you are running CHILDREN and CULLS? What's it like to live in France and hate JEWS with JEW DASSAULT? And do you think GERRIZZO is saving YOUR ass right now, or theirs. RISA knows.

My only answer is:

Uhh...No?

Walgreens Prescription Savings Club

2012-02-03T19:00:00.001-08:00

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
Have you heard of Walgreens Prescription Savings Club?
It's already a great deal, but right now they are offering a special discount on it's already low prices.
Go to this link: http://www.walgreens.com/pharmacy/psc/psc_overview_page.jsp, to sign up for an annual membership at a discounted price.
For just $35 everyone in your immediate family will be covered. That's spouse, dependents under 22 years old and even pets! Join now and receive discounts on your prescriptions!
The program is $20 for individuals.
Other benefits you may enjoy include:
Saving on more than 8,000 brand name and all generic medications.
Discounts on flu shots, pet prescriptions, nebulizers and diabetic supplies.
Bonuses when you purchase Walgreens brand products and photofinishing services.
Any bit of help families can receive in this economy are a huge bonus. I love that Walgreens has help available and are even offering more help by discounting their already low priced savings club.
While you're there you can browse all of their products. I especially like their beauty products and As Seen On TV section! So fun to look at and actually see up close what they are offering on TV.
Support Walgreens and keep up with specials and news about the store by following Walgreens on Twitter and liking Walgreens on Facebook.

Friday Confessional - Whoops

2012-02-03T08:01:00.000-08:00

I confess...the other day Xazmin and I were messing around with our blogs while texting and she asked me a question about the new interface. Which I don't think is actually that new, it's just something that I, personally, have been avoiding. Other than clicking, seeing it, freaking out and going back to the old, that's all I've done.
I confess...I clicked over to the new interface and this time it wouldn't let me go back. O.M.Heck! What did I do?? What kind of crap is this? I don't get it!! I hate new stuff. Hate it. Haaaaate. I even pondered not doing a post until I was confident enough on the new interface to do one. Meh. I may not get it yet, but I'm still here, so whatever.
I confess...speaking of being afraid of (whoops, did i say that? i mean i don't like them. not skurred. <-- lie.) trying new things I have to admit, for the first time ever I'm seriously considering Wordpress. Also why I'm not getting Facebook's new "Timeline" thingy yet either. I'm holding out. Until they make me.
I confess...I don't like how Google has a handle on everything. They have their fingerprint everywhere. The whole GFC thing not being available anywhere but Google sites, Google+, and everything else they're doing with combining sites and whatnot just makes me nervous. I don't think any one company should have so much information about anyone, unless you work for em, maybe. We spend too much time online these days and have to much important information online for Google to want to be a part of that. IMO.
I confess...I need suggestions for Cursing Crafter. Seriously, what would you like to see there? Any ideas are welcome. Of course it doesn't mean I will do em...**sighs**
I confess...I really want a new design for my blog. I can't afford one. Boo. Anyone a designer who wants to trade advertising for a new design? **wink wink**
I confess...TGIFFF! (finally freaking friday!)

I confess...my dashboard says that I have 666 posted posts on my blog. That. Is. Creepy.

Friday Day Dreamin' - Do you smell Garlic?

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

Because it's so cold and we're just at the beginning of the long 5 (or lets face it 6 or 7) month haul until blue skies show up around here, I thought I'd share with you some beautiful sunny pictures of a place I fell in love with last summer!

Gilroy Gardens

awesome crazy trees

beautiful flower gardens

charming strolls

I am definitely day dreaming about this place right now.

Thanks Becca for hosting such a fun link! Do you have some place that you love? Go. Link up.

ps: bonus if you get the meaning of the title!

Addicted to the Smell

2012-02-03T02:00:00.001-08:00

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Triad Retail Media for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
I know that I've told you all before that I am addicted to home fragrance! I love all things room spray, candle, diffuser, etc.
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The mist offers true to life long lasting fragrances that are guaranteed to last for 30 days. What's really awesome is that if you aren't satisfied with the product you can go fill out the form for the fragrance satisfaction guarantee.
Couple that with the fact that you can get the new Glade® Expressions™ at Walmart with a coupon for 1.50 and you have a fantastic deal going on!

What a great way to introduce your home to a variety of different fresh smelling scents and a stylish, no spill, long lasting diffuser that is sure to match any decor and does not require electricity. No plug ins involved!
If you use the mist instead of the diffuser you can refill it, so you don't constantly have to buy new. Win! It's both stylish and has easily squeeze to spray activation.

Just a sampling of the yummy smelling scents available are:
Pineapple & Mangosteen
Cotton and Italian Mandarin (available in Fragrance Mist form.)
Fuji Apple & Cardamom
Spice Lavender & Juniper Berry
I don't know about you, but I'm going to print my coupon and try the new Glade® Expressions™ out today.

Book Club Junkie

2012-02-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Today I'm over here, friends!

Connie and I are giving our thoughts on MWF.

Click here.

Um. How Do You Pronounce This One?

2012-02-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

Thoughts?

Suggestions?

Just wonderin'.

Things I've Learned

2012-01-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

The older a child gets, the stupider his parents are.

The older the child gets, the smaller mom's purses are.

The longer the line is, the smaller the bladder is.

The less Tylenol you have, the worse the headache is.

The louder they are, the longer the day is.

The more you love them, the more they pull away.

The more you wish for something, the less it seems possible.

The more they disagree with you, the more likely they are to leave a comment.

The more money you have, the less you want.

The less money you have, the more you want.

The later you are, the slower you move.

The harder you try to quit cussing, the more you slip up.

The more you have to do, the less you get done.

The more I want to blog, the less topics I have worth sharing.

The less I want to blog, the more random topics I have.

The older I get, the more ironic things seem.

Holy Crap, I'm Getting Old...

2012-01-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

...and this is how I know it.

When coughing becomes synonymous with changing your undies and showering mid day.

When you jokingly say to the girl you are sure is 25, "What. You're like 21, right? Ha ha."

And she replies, "Almost!"

Uh. Whoops.

You are outside and begin to have a conversation with a bird...it warbles, you whistle. It warbles...again you whistle. Silence. You whistle again...it warbles! Do this for at least 5 minutes.

Call your family outside to hear this amazing conversation. It stops.

Go back inside and watch as your youngest son sits and begins pushing buttons on his new Trouble game. It warbles.

**forehead slap.**

The Nail Files

2012-01-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago the super stylish Tara introduced a new meme. Not only do I love all things nail polish or nail related, but I love the clever name. The Nail Files. How cute is that? Today I thought I'd join because I tried a new polish last weekend and thought it was fun/funky/different enough to show you. And also to document the fact that I did, indeed, paint my nails. Hey. I said I love nail polish, not that I do it that often. And that's mostly because I walk around doing Jazz Hands forever and it gives my fingers cramps. I also totally look like this guy.

credit

is it me or does this dude have some man boobs going on? and also he sort of resembles this guy...

Eminem

credit

Holy tangents, people!

On to the nails!

Warning: Crappy cell phone shot.

Harlow by zoya

It's cool because usually polish is shiny. This is what's called Matte/Velvet. Notice it's dull sheen?

I love the color but I have to say that it chipped off in huge chunks the next day. I wonder if it's only supposed to be applied in one coat or if it's the texture of the nail polish itself.

It's on my toes and it's doing great, so who knows?

Anyway, there you have it. My Nail Files.

Click the button and visit the others to see what they're wearing!

Wordless Wednesday

2012-01-25T09:19:00.001-08:00

Missing the lazy summer days...

Tag Hag

2012-01-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, I've been tagged twice. I haven't done one of these things in forever, mostly because if I have to tag other people, which is the part I hate, then I put it on the back burner and forget about it.

Since it's been so long and I was tagged twice by these lovely ladies, I'll do it. Are you lucky? No? Heh.

My commentary is in red.

Rules:
Post these rules. (check.)

You must post 11 random things about yourself. (aw, do i hafta?! check.)
Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post. (tagger is a funny word. check.)
Create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer. (my brain already hurts. check.)
Go to their blog and tell them that you've tagged them. (haaa! it's like the cheese touch from diary of a wimpy kid. check.)No stuff in the tagging section about "you are tagged if you are reading this." Legitimately tag 11 people!! (<---so they're onto me, eh?)

I'm taking questions and picking the ones I wanna answer from the list of 22 total questions from the ladies. Mostly because I'm ~~lazy~~ far too important and busy to answer this many questions! Thanks Vandy and CA Girl for ~~making me~~ asking me to do this! I keed, I keed. I needed the inspiration anyway.

Random Crap About Me:
1. I'm left handed.
2. Which means I'm right brained. I always knew I was the only one around here in my right mind.
3. I'm already stumped. This is sad.
4. I thought about doing a post of all the insults we used to fling as kids but I'm afraid it will insult someone. We weren't very nice. The R word was used. A lot.
5. Every time I see a celebrity spouting their political views I want to slap them. Hard. (only because i think that just because you're famous doesn't mean we want to hear their crap. shut up and sing, right? yep. i'm one of those.)
6. I think my husband has went off the deep end in this election cycle.
7. I'm waiting for it (the election) to be over so I can weep and move on.
8. I wanted to dye my hair green when I was 17. I did not do it.
9. I think my name is cute. <--- there. i said it. is that wrong?
10. I used to be addicted to a game on the computer called Poppit! Google it. Don't play. If you do, you will get hooked too.
11. Whenever I'm watching a political figure on TV I don't look at them. I look at their secret service people. See if I can pick em out. Guess what. You can. They're pretty obvious.

Since Vandy tagged me first, I'll do her questions first.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you go through with it?
I wanted to be a secretary. For reals. Ala Dolly Parton in Nine to Five.

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I wanted the boobs, the nails and the hair. Yep. I did. She looked glamorous to me. Did I achieve this? I was never a secretary and, sadly, the boobs never came in. Actually, I wouldn't want boobs like that now.

Would you rather have a housekeeper or unlimited spa services?
Housekeeper! Are you nuts?!
How did you name your blog?
It's a play on my name.

What is the best compliment you have ever received?
I've gotten complete strangers tell me I have beautiful eyes. But I think they're just normal. It must be my make up?

What is your quirkiest habit?
I'm a picker. Maybe more gross than quirky.

Now I'll do CA Girl's questions.

What was your most embarrassing moment? It's okay, we're all friends here!
Uh...yeah, I think I've pretty much told it all. Try here or here for two examples.

What is your weakness food...in other words... the one food you can not resist at all!
I'm fat. I think most people would say that I have no control, period. I can resist just about anything. I choose not to resist things like cake.

What's your biggest pet peeve?
Incorrect punctuation. Punctuation stays inside quotation marks.
Have you ever laughed so hard you snorted?
See answer for number one. Click the first link. And. I can do even better. I've laughed so hard I literally peed my pants. And not just a little.

What would YOU do for a Klondike bar?
Nada. I don't care about Klondike's. But. I'd do lots of things for a king size Snickers.

Now the hard part...11 questions of my own. I'm gonna go really elementary here and make it super simple.

1. What's your favorite color?
2. Favorite number?
3. If you could trade bodies with the opposite sex for one day, would you? And why? **snickers**
4. Could you kill someone if you had to to save your life or someone you love?
5. What's your favorite movie that you are embarrassed to admit?
6. What's worse...cooking dinner or thinking of what to cook?
7. Favorite book?
8. What thing makes you gag?
9. If you could go anywhere in the world, where would it be?
10. Is your Christmas decor down?
11. Would you go to the moon if given the opportunity?

WHEW! That was hard work. Thanks to Xazmin who gave me some since I couldn't think of em all.

Alright, tagging eleven people. This will take me 11 days, I swear. <---can i complain any more about this?

Myya (if i hafta, you hafta.)
Mamarazzi (she's too busy, she just moved!)
Jessica (never gonna happen.)
Kimi (does random better than anyone!)
Jenny Kate (i miss her!!)
Not So Over the Hill (sela's a relatively new blogger and super sweet. i want to know more about her!)
Steph (pregnant and hormonal, probably this will tick her off. just kidding, steph! i crack me up though.)
Val (she's always up for a tag.)
Dee (she's on vacay but i miss her too!)
Heather (she's always up for a tag, too!)
Sami (she needs to get back to blogging! i know she wants to...peer pressure!)

Seriously. That did take 11 years. No. That's an exaggeration. It took eleventy million years!

ps: why is there a huge space between "post these rules" and the rest of the rules?

pps: you just scrolled back up, didn't you?

I'm linking with the ladies for TTUT!

Spice It Up!

2012-01-23T00:00:00.000-08:00

Let me give you a tiny bit of background here.

My in laws were recently in town for my husband's birthday. While taking a break from our general mayhem ~~or really just sitting on our butts in layman's terms~~ we happened to all be watching the TV when a commercial for Breaking Dawn came on.

It showed a lot of scenes with the wolves and my FIL says, "I wanna see that."

Cue my husband's look of utter shock and horror and my MIL's eye roll.

This is where I step in and make a lame offer of "taking one for the team" and taking him to the movie. You know. I didn't want to deprive him of seeing this movie.

So as I'm sitting here laughing at ~~my FIL~~ the situation, I text my sister in law who couldn't come but was at home in northern California.

Following is the exact text messaging that took place:

Me: Your dad wants to see Breaking Dawn. Hahahaha! I should make him go with me and bring some squealing girls.

Her: LOL That's funny that he wants to see it...you should totally go! This reminds me of how much he loved the Spice Girls...

(screeeeeeeeeeeeech. wait up. stop the train. hold the phone. wha....??!!)

Me: OMG.

Her: I think he even saw Spice World hahahaha.

Me: OMG! U realize this is SO getting blogged about. Too freaking funny.

Thus ends the conversation that still cracks me up. To this day. Okay, it was only a month ago, but trust me, next year at this time, I'll still be laughing.

How I love that crazy, whacky, evil genius of a father in law!

Spice World. I wonder if he has that movie in his DVD collection? Bam! I'm thinkin' Christmas present!

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Friday Confessional - Lamest Confessions Evah

2012-01-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

That's right, I'm confessing with Mamarazzi today! It's been a while since I confessed... I confess...I've been doing a lot of projects lately and whilst working on them I've been catching up with TV shows that I never had the time or inclination (sleep was a nicer option) to watch when the kids were really small.

I confess...writing that about when the kids were really small makes my heart hurt. They're growing

up so fast.

I confess...that I was going to tell you, before that little tangent, that recently I started watching Desperate Housewives on Netflix. And I just have to say that Teri Hatcher has the weirdest nostrils ever! What's wrong with them? I wonder if she had an accident or something. I don't know but it drives me nuts because I spend most of the time trying to get a glimpse of her nostrils to see if I can figure out what's wrong with em.

I confess...living in Oregon means that you deal with rain. Lots of rain. But the last 72 hours have been ridiculous! Pouring rain, no breaks, an absolute deluge nonstop. Things are flooding, people are freaking out and a poor little 20 month old died when his family's vehicle was swept away in a flooding canal. The car and his mother are both still lost. Heartbreaking.

I confess...I feel a rant coming on. A mean rant. Nothing to do with the weather. Just something that has slowly been building and I'm about to scream.

I confess...a few weeks ago I actually had an item of clothing that I wanted. If you know me and my distaste for shopping for clothing, you would see how strange this is.

**breaking news**

Blue sky. I see a patch of blue sky! The rain has calmed way down in the last hour or so and is a really light drizzle. The wind is picking up, which sucks, but I'm taking this as a good sign. Blue sky!

Anyway, back to the clothing thing. I actually purposely went to Kohl's looking for this thing. And I found it. On clearance. And I bought it. I know, I know...big deal, right? Well, it is a big deal for me. I don't know if I'm taking this as a good sign or a bad sign or what. I just thought it was interesting.

I confess...I'm pretty sure I won't be shopping again for another year.

I confess...I'm the kind of person that will buy an after Christmas, really fugly, clearance sweatshirt just because it was $5. And. I will wear it. Ha!

I confess...right now I'm working on my very first pair of gloves, ever. Crocheted fingerless gloves. As a special order for someone. So far I have the ribbing for the wrist and the part up to the thumb done. And....I'm stuck. I'm skerred. I don't want this to be a project fail, but I'm skerred. Add to the fact that I've never made gloves, the fact that I'm having to modify the pattern for little hands instead of the adult size the pattern is written for. Like I said...skerred.

I guess that's all I confess for now.

I hope you all have a great weekend! I really hope the rain slows down around here or the next time I blog I will also be rowing...anyone got a boat?

Less

2012-01-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

I've been seeing this topic around the blogosphere for a couple of weeks, most recently at The V Spot, and have been wracking my poor little brain to come up with my own word so that I could do a post.

Basically, it's just your word for the year. I don't do resolutions. They're dumb and they set me up for failure. Also, I think every morning that you wake up is a good day to start doing things differently.

For example, a couple years ago (i can't believe it's been that long!) I woke up one morning and said, "Aha! I need to eat healthier. I need to be healthier." And bam. That was it. For 2 years I have been living a healthier life style.

To date I have lost about 65 pounds. Nowhere near the amount I need to lose, but still, really good.

So what would my word of the year be? I couldn't figure it out. Until today. Or was it last night? I can't remember.

You probably already know...what gave it away? Oh. Yeah. The title, perhaps?

My word for the year is:

L e s s

I feel the need to have...

L e s s consumption...of material things. Of junky food.

L e s s money spent...on crap I don't need.

L e s s worrying...about things I can't control. I need to quit looking in and start looking up.
M o r e.

L e s s weight...of soul and body.

L e s s negativity about myself...with body image and self image.

L e s s cussing. What. You knew that was coming, right?

L e s s yelling. Yes. I'm a yeller. Could you guess? Huh? HUH?!

L e s s junk and clutter.

L e s s noise. In my head.

Just. L e s s.

Right now l e s s seems more. More peaceful.

Doesn't it?

What's your word?

Don't forget Xazmin's giveaway...Go enter!

Being Nosy Doesn't Pay or Why I Couldn't Be A P.I. (but i'd still like to hang with Magnum.)

2012-01-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

In fact, sometimes being nosy costs you.

Case in point: The Mysterious Column of Smoke and Every Emergency Vehicle in Town

A couple months ago on a quiet Sunday afternoon every single emergency vehicle in our small town went screeching past our house.

We did what any polite person would do in this situation, we went and stood on the sidewalk with all the other ~~idiots~~ neighbors to see what we could see.

We were rewarded with a stunningly spectacular view of a huge pillar of black smoke rising rapidly into the air a block from us.

After about an hour of more and more firetrucks streaming by we decided we needed to take a walk. And, hey, if we happened to see what was causing the smoke, bonus!

Sadly, we never did see what was causing that smoke but the kids got some super cool plastic fire hats, not that we were angling towards hanging out at the scene, ya know.

The next day we were still wondering just what all that commotion was about so when the boys got home from school ~~they demanded~~ we decided to drive around the corner and see the carnage.

We ended up in a small trailer park and began rubber necking to see if we could see...whatever looked like a charred mess.

As I was turning the mini bus around to leave the neighborhood in disappointment I bumped up against something but couldn't see what it was. I backed up and reconfigured my exit route and off we went.

When we got home I got out of the car to see if there was any marks from whatever it was I bumped up against. Which, actually, I did finally see it was a small, square, metal box in the ground that I'm guessing was some sort of electrical housing. Whoops.

Looks like my little bump was perhaps more than a little bump:

And we still don't know exactly what was on fire!

I'm linking up my "d'oh" moment today with TTUT!

Wanna See My Crack?

2012-01-16T00:00:00.001-08:00

We recently had to have a windshield replacement due to a teeny, tiny crack in the glass that grew bigger and bigger every day.

This is how I knew that my boys and I are becoming a bit ghetto...

Every day on our way to school we would watch the crack grow.

We even got to the point where we would "call" our bets out before we got in the car.

"I call 3 inches!"

"I call 2 1/2!"

We even called which direction the crack would grow.

"I call up!"

"I call down!"

"I call down to the left!"

Hey. It may have been ghetto, but it was fun while it lasted.

not my crack

PS Wanna win an awesome giveaway?? Xazmin is doing a great one right now, for something that I use every day and love! Go! Now!!

Organization Skillz

2012-01-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

Since it's the new year and people tend to be working on resolutions and such, I thought it was the perfect time to share with you some organizing that I ~~actually got the hair up my butt~~ did in November.

See, my friend, Shortmama, who isn't blogging anymore (boo) but I love and have kept in touch with and call her one of my besties even though we've never physically met, was in an organization mood. She kept sending me pictures of the stuff she had done and one day I couldn't take it anymore.

I. Must. Organize!!

I'll show you my main project and then some others that I also did and tell you about some stuff I organized before I even remembered to take before pictures. Der!

Also. I was a sweaty, disgusting mess while I was doing this crap, so I didn't get my camera out, I relied on my cell camera. So. Bear with me. Or bare. I still can't figure that one out.

Here are the areas that I decided needed some of my mad organization skillz:
Craft area (which happens to be in the garage, bleh!)
Garage (because my craft area looks so nice I need to do the rest to match.)
Pantry (holy heck, that was a bad one, you'll see pictures.)
Baking cupboard
Kitchen cabinets
Kid's closet
Spare room closet
My closet
Gift closet
Bathroom drawers
Kitchen drawers
Tops of refrigerators and freezers (one in the house, freezer and fridge in the garage. they become catch alls.)
Coat closet

Wow. Looking at this list and thinking of all that work makes me tired! And sweaty. Again.

So here are some before pictures of the pantry. Don't. You. Judge. Me!

I had stuff in there from cleaning supplies to the kids Easter and Halloween candy to paper products to food.

I had seen a long time ago a pantry re-do where the person had used lazy susans to organize. This way, you could easily get to the stuff in the back corners by swiveling the lazy susan. Then you don't end up with doubles and triples of things that you thought you needed at the grocery store but couldn't see that you already had in your pantry.

I drug my dad to Home Depot and had him help me find the large flat circle composite wood that I would need. Did that make any sense? No? Yeah, doesn't to me either.

I also needed the base that turns the circles into a spinning object.

tools needed: wood circle, pencil, hammer, screw driver, tape measure and base thingy that turns it into a spinny circle

I centered the base thingy, marked it off and then hammered in some starter holes. Then took the tiny screws that came with the spinny thingy and screwed it in. By hand. I'm a beat, y'all! Lame.

Then I took the newly made lazy susans and centered them in the corners of the pantry shelves. Tacked some finishing nails in 4 spots and placed the lazy susans into the space between the tacked finishing nails. This way they wouldn't slide, see?

After I had them securely in place on the pantry shelves I filled them with items that I am constantly over buying because I can't see that I have a bunch in the back corner.

I corralled all of my paper products into a basket, and put the boxes (like cereal, granola bars, etc) on the shelves on either side of the lazy susans. Boxes line up nicely. Cans and bags do not.

Here's a crappy cell picture of the inside of my pantry now:

After organizing everything I could see two things:

We buy a lot of Great Value brand food.

And we actually don't have as much food as it looked like when it was all messy.

You can't see that on the shelves, besides the lazy susans, there are boxes of food and treats for the kids.

But it looks a lot better!

The other thing I did was to clean out my gift closet. When you're going through all of your stuff you can really see that a lot of stuff you throw in your "catch all place" is just stuff you can toss out.

Here's the before of the gift closet. We also store luggage and games in there.

I found some storage shelves that we weren't using (duh, no wonder it's so messy in there.) and put them in the closet. I got some collapsible bins from the Dollar Tree for the little things and then organized the games and keepsakes that were on the top shelf.

i will never have to buy another gift bag as long as i live. the bottom shelf is organized with all separate categories of gift bags inside the largest i had of each kind of gift bag. does that make sense?

Another upside to organizing? When I was cleaning out my nightstand drawer I found 70 bucks! And by the denominations of the bills, I can tell it was a Christmas gift from my grandmother. She died in 2007. Before Christmas. So this money was 5 years old. Who loses 70 bucks?!

And there you have it. I didn't take pictures of anything else, but I did them all. I feel so accomplished!

Do you have any tips or tricks for organizing and keeping it that way?

ps: do you think that women named Susan are insulted that those things are called Lazy Susans?

I'm gonna link this hot mess up to TT&J this Friday for the weekend wrap up and also here:

You've Got a Beaver!

2012-01-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

Today is my beautiful niece's 5th Birthday! It's a big one, don't ya know?

I thought I'd share a story with you that happened a couple weeks ago.

See, in the mornings my brother drops her at my house and then he goes to school and I take her to her preschool, which starts at 9.

Before we leave I always have her go to the bathroom. I decided to go before we left too. Being 4 and having no compunction when it comes to walking in on people going to the bathroom, that's exactly what she did.

She walks right up to me as I'm doin' my bidness and says:

"Hey! You have a Beaver!" She's pointing in the general direction of my mid-section.

Um. What are my brother and sister in law teaching this child??!!

I happen to glance down at my...um...just happen to glance down to see what the heck she's seeing and this is what I see:

Oooooh. Yeah. I'm wearing my Beaver hoodie. Heh.

Thank baby Jesus I didn't say anything until after I realized what I was wearing. At which point I let out a relieved laugh and said:

"Yep! You've got a Beaver too!"

She had on her own Beaver hoodie.

Pervs.

So Happy 5th Birthday, Nini!

Walgreen's Wants to Help

2012-01-11T13:01:00.001-08:00

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens. All opinions are 100% mine.
For the past year Walgreens and Express Script have been negotiating a new contract that would keep them as part of their pharmacy provider network.
The negotiations were unsuccessful and as a result their former contract expired on December 31st, 2011.
The problem with this, for the customer, is that they then have to change pharmacies to find on that's in network so that the cost of their prescriptions doesn't go up.
Let me tell you, first hand, that I absolutely hate having to go through the time and hassle to change pharmacies!
Patients with certain prescription coverage provided through Express Scripts are forced to do just that.
The crazy thing is that Walgreens did not seek to raise their prescription rates. The told Express Scripts that they would keep their rates flat with no increase! And still negotiations failed.
Customers are feeling frustrated. Medications that they need are now in limbo. Where will they get it, what if the cost goes up exponentially? They're losing not only the convenience of the drive through pick up for disabled or just plain busy people, they are losing the relationship that they built with their pharmacist who might have years of patient knowledge built up!
Walgreens wants to ease the burden on their customers. They are offering a discount on their Walgreens Prescription Savings Club right now. For a low membership price, that's now discounted even more, patients can continue to use Walgreens as their pharmacy. Prices of their prescriptions will not go up and they won't have to deal with the hassle of changing pharmacies.
Kudos to Walgreens for helping their customers to avoid the burden that failed negotiations could put on them.
Keep up with Walgreens and hear about specials by following Walgreens on Twitter or liking Walgreens on Facebook.

WWTK Wednesday

2012-01-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

This week I actually remembered WWTK Wednesday! Are you proud of me? No? Me neither, but it has nothing to do with remembering the meme. I'm a nerd.

Crazymama is asking the questions but don't forget to show some love to the other hosts! Mamarazzi and the crazy spicy Queso!

{What is your most commonly used word or phrase when you are frustrated?}
Nothing that I can mention in front of polite company. Ha! I do happen to say "er whatever" a lot. So much so that my youngest, who's 6, says it a lot now too. I have to admit. It's cute when he says it.

{What random question do you usually get from strangers or casual acquaintances? }
Um. Yeah, I'm drawing a blank here. Although once I got an old lady ask me when I was due. And guess what? Yep. That's right. I wasn't. Nice.

{Did you ever correspond by mail with anyone, who? Do you still have the letters?}
It seems like maybe I did...I have visions of exchanging snail mail with an older relative...but I don't know for sure. So, obviously, I don't have any leftover letters.

{Do you dance in public? why or why not? }
I don't generally like people very much, but I don't hate anyone. WHY would I expose anyone to that?

{What is your favorite kind of chapstick/lip balm? }
Whatever's closest. Right now I'm diggin' this Grape Fanta flavored lip balm that my oldest got me for Christmas.

Alrighty then, those are my answers. Go link up!

It's My Perogative!

2012-01-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

Or. It turns out it's not my perogative.

It's my prerogative. P-R-E-R-O-G-A-T-I-V-E.

What. The. Heck?!

Did you know it was spelled like that?!

How could I be this old, pride myself on my grammar, diction and spelling skills and not know that's how it's spelled?!

I'm kind of devastated. And shocked.

It's been a long time since I've had my world rocked like that.

And to add insult to injury...the proper pronunciation is actually: pre-rog-uh-tive.

Listen to some dweeb pronounce it on Webster's.

It's enough to make me almost, almost feel bad for publicly decrying the mispronunciation of supposedly both often, and loudly.

It's not supposebly, people!

Anyway. Here I was supposeDly all smart and apparently I'm not.

Still stunned.

Seriously. Did you know that was the right way to spell and say it?

Paging Dr. Jackwad...

2012-01-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

Remember how I told you all I didn't get to do my "second round" Christmas cards the week before Christmas?

First I'll tell you what they are and then I'll tell you the story that is the reason behind this stupid post.

My first round Christmas cards are for everyone in my phonebook that I have current addresses for. My second round cards are probably like what a lot of people do in that I get cards from people who I didn't have their address or they had moved and I didn't have the current info I needed to send the card. I save those and send out a card to those people and hopefully they get it before Christmas. I'm sure you all do that, too, right? (holy run on sentence, grammar nazis.)

Anyway. I didn't get around to it because someone shot me in the lungs. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but let me tell you, it sure as heck felt like someone had shot me in the chest!

See, one fine Saturday morning, the 17th, to be exact, I woke up and did my usual routine. Dressed in "not fit for public" clothes and got a cup of joe before heading to the couch to sit on my big 'ol butt for the morning.

Everything was fine until I had a tickle that signaled, "you need to cough." I coughed. And holy crap, the ground opened up and demons screamed and small children cried. Or. It hurt like hell. What the...? Where did that come from?

Fast forward through the weekend where I felt sort of blah but still made it to church before coming home Sunday afternoon, plastering my behind to the couch and not moving for the rest of the day.

Monday, after having a horrible fever filled night, I went to the store and stocked up on DayQuil, NyQuil, cough drops, Mucinex, and a plethora of crap sold for too much money designed to make you at least feel like you've done what you could to feel better short of knocking yourself out with a sledgehammer. Which, by the way, would have been cheaper.

I lived on Tylenol and water on Monday and again fought the same damn fever that night. Tuesday and Wednesday nights were awful and I had to take a shower as soon as I rolled out of bed because I was soaked. Ew.

But it was just a virus, I was sure, for if I went to Urgent Care and forked out $90, they would have said, "That sucks for you, thanks for your money, go home and die quietly."

Remember this was the week before Christmas. Our schedule was packed with fun things that I didn't want the kids, or being selfish, myself, to miss out on! So I continued to live on Tylenol and water and soldier on.

When I woke up Thursday morning with no fever but the most uncomfortable, painful, irritating feeling in my chest, now even worse than before, I decided I'd had enough. I needed to go to the Dr. I hate going to the Dr. when I'm sick.

I called my primary care physician and she was on vacation. The nerve! Kidding, guys! Anyway, they were shuffling her patients to the jackwad down the hall. I mean, Dr. Jackwad.

Okay, that'll do, I need to see someone. I go in and do my mandatory 1 hour wait in misery, wearing my "not fit for public" clothes. I usually change out of those even when I am super sick and have to go somewhere, like the Dr. We're talking orange and red in the same outfit. Okay? That's bad.

Anyway, finally Dr. J walks in and first thing he does is shake my hand with the limpest handshake ever. I take that as a bad sign right away.

Then he says, "Do you smoke?"

No.

"Okay, good. Then I would have to refuse treatment."

**crickets**

Is that supposed to be funny? Don't people who smoke sometimes get legitimately ill? Even in the lungs?

Anyway. He does the whole "feel you up" to listen to your lungs thing and asks all the questions: Do you have a headache? No. Sore throat? No. You been sleeping? No. Diarrhea/Vomiting? Yes/No. (you're welcome for that, btw.) Fever? Yes. Lasting more than 24 hours? Yes.

So...diagnosis..."You have one heck of a flu bug. I'll give you codeine so you can sleep. I'm almost positive you have a secondary lung infection, but your file says you're allergic to 2 different kinds of antibiotics, so I don't wanna waste any on you. Your cough will linger longer and your chest will hurt but that's all. If you wake up tomorrow not feeling any better, call me and I might think about calling you in an RX for antibiotics."

Um. Thanks?

I wake up Thursday morning with no fever (finally) but my lungs are even worse. I sit here all day in a fog, feeling like crap, wondering what to do. The Dr. seemed so hesitant to treat me that I really don't wanna call, but it's a couple days before Christmas and we're travelling the week after so I really need to get better.

I make the call and tell the nurse what he told me when I was in the office.

6 hours later I am at Myya's place* when I get the call from the nurse:

"Hi MiMi, Dr. J wanted me to call you and tell you that he did not say he would treat you if you called today. He wants you to know that he said he'd think about treating you if you called tomorrow. Because you didn't get it right, he is really hesitant to treat you and inclined not to, but since your lungs are so painful, he will, just this once, call in an antibiotic."

credit

if this guy was old, bald and wrinkled, he would resemble the dr. i saw.

Aaaaannndddd....I'm stunned. What the heck just happened? I just got my butt chewed by a 3rd party over the telephone for having the nuts to call and tell them my symptoms (note, i did not ask for an rx, but it was assumed if i wasn't better that i'd need one.) and maybe wanting a little kindness and possibly a prescription.

For antibiotics. ANTIBIOTICS. Not narcotics. Not pain pills. Not something even addictive.

Is it me or is it ironic that he was so quick to give me codeine...?

W. T. H?!

Now, I understand that these days Dr's are hesitant to prescribe antibiotics because they over prescribed them in the past. Is that my fault? Nope. How many times have I been on antibiotics in the past 6 years? Twice. And one of those was because I had my tonsils cut out of my throat and they were a preventative thing.

I think what is more pressing here isn't his lack of wanting to treat me with antibiotics. It was his clear lack of bedside manner and I can not wait until the next time I go in there. Now that I'm feeling a little better, (thank you antibiotics that knocked the lion's share of that nasty thing out!), I think I will voice my opinion to the fine professionals at that particular office.

Yes. I'm pretty sure I will.

What do you think?

ps: no, i'm not going to be all b/a to the nurses or receptionists, after all, you can't shoot the messenger. and since they are the ones who do most of the work there anyway, and are usually very sweet, i will save my tirade for the rude dr. or. by the time i get back to the office i will have gotten over it and let it pass. yeah. that's probably more like it.

pps: sorry for the long post. long posts suck.
ppps: also. when re reading this post i see that i mixed up some days...i can't remember now if i went to the dr on wednesday or thursday...it was all a blur!

*don't worry, i wasn't spreading anything, it was an infection.

New Year - Same Anxiety

2012-01-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

I know it's been a while since I did an update on my boy and his struggles with anxiety. Unfortunately the anxieties haven't gone away, they just change every once in a while. Just when you think one has completely left, you realize it's been shifted to a different area.

That's the way anxiety goes...ask me, I know.

We have hit a couple bumps in the road the last couple months. Poor boy has been rolling with the punches with the busy season and travelling. The weather and all the hiccups that come with the month of December.

We started the Turnaround program again and had him do portions of the workbook also.

He has worked so hard on this program and you can see that he has made some progress in using the tools he has learned. Of course, when you are in the throes of panicking, there are times you simply forget the tools and have a meltdown.

I just can't help but marvel at the fact that he is only 8 years old, and all things considered, handles this burden very well.

I see that he is tired and more irritable this past month. Partly because it takes a lot of energy to combat anxiety and partly because the month of December is packed with fun stuff that keeps us up past our bedtimes!

The thing is, the tools from Turnaround are absolutely helpful. It's very easy to follow and visualize the techniques (extremely important for children) and lays a strong foundation for the CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) that is an integral part of dealing with anxiety.

I mentioned before that this program has blown the doors off of his anxiety in a way. We knew he was struggling, but there were times that he was really wrestling with it that we hadn't recognized. This has opened up our dialog on the subject and he's not hesitant to say, "Mom, I'm worried."

We can then dissect that worry. Take it down to it's most base level and then often times he can see that the worry is silly.

For some reason, even though I knew better, I was semi expecting his anxieties to lessen. I was thinking that perhaps he would see that there was no reason to get worked up about certain things, so maybe he wouldn't. That's not the case. Shame on me for falling into the hole that I knew was going to be there!

Yes, he has tools to deal with the anxiety now, and that is helpful. I just wish more than anything that it would go away altogether.

We are looking forward (with some optimism) to 2012 and what it may bring. We hope to kick this anxiety in the ass. We will continue to use the Turnaround tools to combat it. We are also keeping our minds open to other avenues of help.

I look forward to keeping you updated with good news and a lot of progress!

If You Give A Blogger A Book...Club

2012-01-04T00:00:00.000-08:00

Get it? It's a clever twist on the title of the childrens book, "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie." Cute, right?

Well, I am a genius! Okay, fine, it wasn't me, it was Connie at The Young and the Relentless. This whole thing was her brain child and I have to say, it's genius.

See, bff and I had a book club once. Remember this? If you check the date of the last time we posted...well, it's embarrassing. The thing was, it was too much work coming up with time to post every week at least twice a week featuring the books and fellow readers, discussing the plot, going through each chapter, blah blah blah.

So. Connie came up with this great idea that we could have a book club that is for us, as bloggers, and pretty much anyone who has a FB account, because that's where most of the discussion will take place. Our Facebook Group!

We also have a blog where we will sometimes post, but the party is mostly going to be on FB. We are going to rule social media! Twitter? Yes, please. Here we are!

Connie and I will both do updates periodically on our blogs or the book club blog letting you all know what books we are reading or letting you choose with a poll, possibly. Probably. I think we decided that. Yep. I'm gonna say we did.

Without further ado, here is our first book!

amazon

I got my copy at Target for $12. Check your library, too. You will have 6 whole weeks to read this beauty before we announce and begin the next one.

But there's a bonus! Want a chance to win one?? Connie is giving one away! You just never know when I might decide to be generous too...be on the look out for random giveaways (of our current selections) on the blog or FB...maybe even twitter!

So. Who's in?

PS: Wanna see who won the #RE2011 giveaway? Go visit Emmy!

Resolutions? No thanks.

2012-01-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012, y'all!

I see everyone scurrying to create some ~~unattainable~~ resolution lists, to which I firmly stand in my laziness and say: I don't do resolutions.

First, like I said, I'm too lazy. Second, I'm simply setting myself up for failure. C, I like to be spontaneous. And 4, I can't keep my lists straight. Did I number or letter it? Maybe I should use bullet points. I love bullet points.

Anyweirdness.

2012 = Election year. Holy mudslinging commercials, Batman. They are already obnoxious and now it will be worse.
I'm working with another awesome blogger (notice i said "another." cuz i'm awesome too, yo.) to set up a fun new "club" that you all can be part of! And when I say, "I'm working with," I really mean, she's doing most of the work and I'm just saying, "Yep, that works. Oooooh, I like that. Good job! Yes, let's do that!" See the above paragraph where I said I'm lazy.
I was out of town last week. Did you notice? I only scheduled one post. I didn't figure people would be blog hopping much anyway.
Christmas was great.
In bed by 10:30 on NYE. I'm such a partier! Or is it partyer?
Need prayers for my brother, please. He needs relief from some pretty significant pain caused by degenerative disc disorder. The Dr's and insurance have screwed around enough with timing that he has gotten drastically worse in a very short amount of time and it's probably beyond repair.
Looking forward to meeting up with more blogger friends in 2012!
Continuing my weight loss journey. I will kick it in the ass this year and quit just maintaining. Just is a misnomer...it's damn hard to maintain, y'all.
Continue on to use y'all at least three times in this post even though I'm not from the South and don't have a drawl but love to say it.
I ate roughly 39 Hershey's kisses (in one day) and 3 pounds of Chinese food (in one day) and every other naughty thing you can think of last week. The week before I was really good though! **swear**
They say don't worry about weight gain over the holidays. On average, most people only gain 1-2 lbs. Well, I'm not "most people" and I'm not average. I bet I blow that 1-2 lb mark to crap and back! Go me.

Well. That was thoroughly invigorating, wasn't it? So much easier to read bullet points, right?

Also, if you didn't get a Christmas card from me it was because I didn't get around to my "second round" cards the week before Christmas. I'll give more details about why I didn't get around to them and what they even are later this week.

So, how have you all been? I mean, "How have y'all been?"

btw: what would you do if you caught a fat, old man who dresses funny sleeping in your children's room on Christmas Eve? Call the cops? Or snap that picture.

this site is awesome.

#RE2011 - October to December

2011-12-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

A little housekeeping before we get to the review:
Be sure that you use our handy little button in your post when you do it, and link back to Emmy or your post won't get points for that entry. You want all the points you can get so you have your best shot at winning 8 different prizes!

Also, to new participants, even if you missed our first party you still have plenty of opportunities to get lots of points! Click here to read the rules.

See, here's the button...if you don't know how, copy the code from the box below and paste it into the Edit HTML portion of your blog publishing area. Easy peasy.

&&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>lt&lt;/SPAN>;&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>br&lt;/SPAN> />&&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>lt&lt;/SPAN>;center>&&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>lt&lt;/SPAN>;a &lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>href&lt;/SPAN>="http://www.emmymom2.com/">&&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>lt&lt;/SPAN>;&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>img&lt;/SPAN> &lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>src&lt;/SPAN>="http://i855.&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>photobucket&lt;/SPAN>.com/albums/ab115/&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>Emmymom&lt;/SPAN>/2011%20Blog%20Pictures/2011buttonblue200.&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>jpg&lt;/SPAN>" />&&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>lt&lt;/SPAN>;/a>&&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>lt&lt;/SPAN>;/center>&&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>lt&lt;/SPAN>;&lt;SPAN style="BACKGROUND: yellow" class=goog-spellcheck-word>br&lt;/SPAN> />

This will be our last review of the year! The next time you see us it will be to announce the winner of the giveaway. This person will win 8 (eight!) different prizes!

At the end of September and a few different times in October, I shared a big piece of my heart with you all. I told you all about My Anxious Child. You can read all of my posts on this topic by clicking here.

In November I spent an entire week talking about Our Story. The story of my beginnings with my best friend.
December brought about our lunch date with Viv! It looks like every review has included a meeting with a fellow blogger this year! I hope to build on that next year!
Alrighty, ladies. That's it; the end of my Year in Review 2011 Extravaganza! Go link up for your chance to win some awesome stuff!

Party{Lite} Time!

2011-12-22T00:00:00.002-08:00

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of PartyLite Simple Pleasures Holiday Sweepstakes. All opinions are 100% mine.

I've always loved candles and have some PartyLite candles that I've actually had for quite some time but they still smell great!

Give me a night in with my friends, some snacks and some beautiful candle shopping and I'm set!

What I love about candles is that they are an inexpensive way to add some ambiance and elegance to your home and it's easy to change out your look with the seasons by switching up your candles.

When you host a PartyLite party you can earn tons of different FREE products. PartyLite recently held the PartyLite Simple Pleasures Holiday Sweepstakes that I would have loved to have won, but I was too late to enter.

The PartyLite winter/spring catalog was launched on December 16th. If you want to keep up with all things PartyLite, just Like the PartyLite Facebook page.

Just look at this beautiful candle-scape for the holidays!

Wouldn't that look beautiful with your holiday decor? And when seasons change, just take make a couple changes and voila! You've got yourself a new look but with the same elegant touch.

Candles are always such a beautiful, inexpensive way to add great personal touches to your home and PartyLite's candles always smell fabulous and are long lasting.

#RE2011 July - September

2011-12-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

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First up: July! July was a month filled with laughter as we recalled our MiMyMa 2011 trip. It was EPIC. And I even did my Monthly Vlog from Mamarazzi's house! Along with my girls, Mama and Myya. I also discussed some of the awesomeness involved in this trip.

At the end of July we went on a harrowing camping trip. And the very beginning of August I was back to tell you that I did not get eaten on said camping trip.

I made my confessions regarding politics.

I shared some more currents. This time it was frustrations. I'm surprised that post isn't 10 pages long...

And, finally, in September, I hit the road to Forks! I shared some pictures, too.

Both boys started school. Big Boy hit the 3rd grade and Little Boy started KG. I'm still bawling about that, thankyouverymuch.

And that's my wrap up for July through September. Next week will be the final 3 months and then ~~we will~~ Emmy will be tallying up points to select our winner! Link up and have fun!

Our Christmas Traditions: Pictures Pictures Pictures!

2011-12-20T17:58:00.000-08:00

I just love to look at other peoples' Christmas Decor ~~partly because i'm so nosy~~ so I was thinking maybe you'd wanna see mine! <--- even if you don't, pretend like you do...that's right, just nod and agree...

We started by putting up the lights on the outside of the house and the Christmas tree(s). Yeah, so? We have 3 trees at our house. The boys each decorate their own tree, also. I can't get a good picture because they're fiber-optic and the flash makes them look washed out. No flash and they are blurry. Boo.

the bottom tree is my parent's tree...i was playing with my camera settings. of course, we can't have Christmas without a little Ralphie action!

Here are a few of my favorite decor items and decorations this year:

Something I decided to do this year is have the boys each decorate their own Gingerbread house. Little Boy's preschool did this with milk cartons every year and he enjoyed it so much I thought I could get some cartons and have them both make one. They had tons of fun even if the "houses" don't exactly look like houses. I think it was the candy eating involved.

Of course they look better than mine...

look closely at the front of the house...or the face as i refer to it. it looks like mr. bill!

credit

My brother and his wife took their daughter and my boys to see Santa and visit the Reindeer at her work! They got to make ornaments, drink cocoa, sit on Santa's lap and have some cookies.

We all went to Christmas Storybook Land. This place is so cool. Volunteers take a building at the Fairgrounds and turn it into a magical adventure for the kids. Every square inch is covered in trees, lights and decorations. Throughout the "forest" are different areas set up to represent all the different storybooks, movies or cartoons that the kids love. Look closely and you'll see Cars, Villages, Trains, Spongebob, Wizard of Oz, Sesame Street and Polar Express just to name a few.

We had our annual ~~holiday~~ Christmas Concert at the school...

The kids sat on Santa's lap...

And the kids did their tradition of decorating Christmas cookies with their Aunt Jennifer...

Of course there will be an Anniversary for my parents on the 23rd, Christmas Eve get together with my family, Children's program at church, ornament exchange, looking at Christmas lights, adventures with our Elf on the Shelf, baking, crafting, shopping and more!

No wonder I'm so stinkin' tired.

Pizza Pan Christmas Craft

2011-12-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

What?! That's right. Pizza pan + Christmas craft =

Remember how I didn't know what I would come up with for the pizza pan?

Well, this is what I did.

Spray paint.

Letters in the shape of a Christmas tree.

Mod Podge.

All in that order.

And that's it!

Yeah, yeah, you can see the Mod Podge streaks but only because of the stupid flash. You actually can't see them in normal light.

PS: Don't forget the lovely Becca at Everyday Life is hosting a giveaway for my Etsy shop. The winner gets a $20 store credit! Have you SEEN my new Christmas dresses?? You have to. Go. Do it.

The Griswold's In My 'Hood

2011-12-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

So what do you do if you have the teeniest house on the block?

Well, if you are a bunch of single, redneck, manly men who subscribe to the notion "the higher the Jeep the closer to God,"* you do this:

it's blurry but you can still see the nuclear glow coming off of it.

My opinion? It's awesomesauce. But I also don't live across the street from it, so that could be part of my reasoning.

*this is along the same lines as the southern women's ideology: the higher the hair the closer to Jesus. in our neck of the woods it's cars. i've even seen a fiero on monster tires. no joke.

PS: Tomorrow the lovely Becca at Everyday Life is hosting a giveaway for my Etsy shop. The winner gets a $20 store credit! You can enter starting tomorrow at her adorable blog. Have you SEEN my new Christmas dresses?? You have to. Go. Do it. I'll be reminding you next week about entering to win in case you don't get to it tomorrow.

PPS: The winner of the My Memories Suite giveaway is the one and only Mrs. Petrie! Email me, girl, so I can send your info to them and you can get started having fun with the program!

#RE2011 - April to June

2011-12-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

It's time for the Review Extravaganza, April through June! Are you having fun looking at old posts? I am!

A little housekeeping before we get to the review:
Be sure that you use our handy little button in your post when you do it, and link back to Emmy or your post won't get points for that entry. You want all the points you can get so you have your best shot at winning 8 different prizes!

Also, to new participants, even if you missed our first party you still have plenty of opportunities to get lots of points! Click here to read the rules.
See, here's the button...if you don't know how, copy the code from the box below and paste it into the Edit HTML portion of your blog publishing area. Easy peasy.

On to the fun! (btw, is it onto, or on to...seriously.) In April it was tax day. I was irritated with the state of Oregon. Okay, to be honest, I'm probably irritated with the state of Oregon more than I'm not.

I also shared my "currents." Interesting to see what was "current" for me in April.

In May I let the cat out of the bag: I'm uncomfortable with hugging. **gasp**

That brings us to June. I can only tell you one thing about June. I can sum it up in 2 words. MiMyMa Retreat. EPIC. This post was the one (i think) post that I did while down there. Mamarazzi for the win!

MiMyMa will carry over into July because it took me a bit to get it all into a nice post. And! You get to see our hilarious freaking vlog. Again.

You. Are. Welcome.

Now, go link up your #RE2011 and have some fun!

Handmade Christmas Decor

2011-12-13T00:00:00.000-08:00

Here are a few of the things I've been working on lately...just in case you want some ideas and are feeling crafty!

A couple years ago I saw this awesome magnetic advent calendar over at Tatertots and Jello and knew I wanted to make one. I knew I'd never make one as adorable as Jen, but then again, nobody could be as fabulous as Jen!

Here's the inspiration from TT&J:

Here's mine:

These are really easy, if time consuming. The easy part is the cookie sheet and adding the paper and grid for the calendar. What's time consuming is making each individual magnet. And because I'm so ~~lazy~~ busy with other things, I decided to move on after I made just one. Yep. I'm awesome.

Now I have 2 pans left...a larger cookie sheet and a round pizza pan. I spray painted both of those red and have already created something out of the cookie sheet. The pizza pan is sitting in all it's red and round glory waiting for me to do something to it. It'll come to me...one of these days.

For now, here's what I did with the larger cookie sheet:

Scrapbook paper and Mod Podge really can do wonders! (btw: those things hanging down under the camels are tassels...not nipples. just in case anyone was wondering. or is it just me...? again.)

One thing I'm keeping busy with until I figure out what to do with the pizza pan is making this wreath. I have wanted one made out of ornament balls like this forever:

awesome tutorial here

I have some wreaths already that are just waiting to be turned into something fabulous, so I went to the Dollar Tree and found some cute jingle bell ornaments. 9/$1. Can't beat that! I bought four packages and hot glued them onto the wreath in the same form as the balls (haha! <-- sorry. you know i had to do that.) and came up with my own jingly version!

Here's all the "ingredients" I had:

I used my hot glue gun:

Then I glued on the gold ones at different spaces:

And added the other colors between the gold ones:

I wove some pretty Christmas ribbon in between the bells, added some silver bells and called it good:

One last little thing I did was take an old Coca Cola bucket and spray paint it with chalkboard paint. Then in my really crappy handwriting I wrote "Snowballs 5 cents" on it. There are some runs in the paint and my handwriting bites, but, meh. I don't care. I want to make some fake snow balls and put em in the bucket. Just haven't figured out what I can use that I have on hand yet. If only I had some foam balls...(hehe.)

I don't know about you, but I'm spent.

What have you been up to? Any Christmas crafts?

Linking with:

That Hit the Spot. The V Spot!

2011-12-12T00:00:00.000-08:00

Ya get it? You should.

The V Spot is where my online friend, Vivienne, hangs out on the interwebz!

The first reasons I ever fell in love with Viv are as follows:

She was the very first "outside" person who commented on my blog and followed who was not related to me. Seriously. I was so freaking excited when I got that comment and saw her little face in the GFC widget I almost peed my pants. And her comment was hilarious which made it even better!

She uses the word "smart-assery" on her blog. I thought that was an awesome word.

So, last Monday, the 5th, Viv happened to be in our neck of the woods! We being me and Myya.

We quickly agreed that this would be our best opportunity to ~~ditch the kids for a day~~ meet the object of our long time bloggy crush live and in color!

It's such a funny thing to finally meet someone in person who you've actually known for almost 3 years. It's them and you know them, but it's also different.

For example: Viv is gorgeous. Her pictures on her blog show a very pretty brunette with a great big smile. In real life? She's way prettier than her pictures, even. The woman has no wrinkles. I'm not kidding. No. Wrinkles. Or gray. No gray hair! Seriously.

And she is so open and friendly. You can tell just how nice she is and how generous a spirit she has just by talking to her for a minute. I have a feeling if you were in need, she'd be the one to give you the shirt off her back.

Anyway, Myya and I both had bloggy crushes before, but now I fear it's at a new level. Maybe we want our blogs to marry her blog now. And have baby blogs. I dunno. Would that be weird? Whatever.

Anyway, I was on my absolute best behavior. WEIRD!

I was so sad that we only had a few hours with her, but I was so grateful that we had a few hours with her, too! Does that make sense?

Oooh, and guess what. She actually said "smart-assery." Ha! It sounds just as awesome when she says it as when she types it.

Here's a picture of the 3 of us. Warning: We are smokin' hot. Okay, okay, they are, but me? Notsomuch. Oh well, it's still a great shot!

2011 In Review - The First 3 Months {aka Party Time}

2011-12-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

It's time! Are you excited?

Today is the first day to link up your January through March 2011 review. Link up and have fun remembering this past year!

In January my mom became the Cursing Crafter and showed us all how to make some beautiful apothecary jars on the cheap. This is the perfect time to check out that post...what a great and inexpensive Christmas project/present!

the one on the right is one that she made! gorgeous, right?

In February I shared what would not be on my Valentine's list. No thanks, Hoodie Footies.

i also don't want a vermont teddy to match. kthanks.

Flat Mims also began her adventures!

And topping off this portion of my yearly review is my visit with Xazmin!!! Best. Time. Ever!

We saw dirty old bastards and groped strangers!

**Just a note to tell you that if you link up all four times with our review...you will get an extra entry to our awesome giveaway for participants in our Extravaganza!

You only have to link with one of us and it will show up on all of our blogs, so only link once.

You also don't have to do your posts on Friday. Do them whenever and only link on Friday.

Spread the word by tweeting and using #RE2011 to keep it consistent.**

PS! I have a winner for the beautiful Snowflake Jewelry giveaway!! Cathy, come on down! I will get your info to Mindie and you can let her know which piece you'd like. Congrats!

A Winner and a Surprise Giveaway!

2011-12-07T09:48:00.000-08:00

Congratulations to Val, who won the Stocking Stuffer Giveaway!

I'll be contacting you to get your address so it can be on it's way.

I have a surprise giveaway for you. Remember My Memories Suite? I did a giveaway for them a few months ago and they have again offered up a digital scrapbooking program for one of my readers!

I told you in this post how addicting this software is...and I really am addicted to it. Still! I have so much fun creating all kinds of things on my program.

Sometimes, when I'm having a particularly stressful day, I just open up my software and go to town. For some reason it completely relaxes me and looking at pictures of my kids really helps me to remember how grateful I am for them.

They also have a FB fan page that you can go to if you have any questions or need help. The do "speed scraps" and provide simple instructions to help you achieve really unique looks and they even do video tutorials! These are particularly helpful for me.

Check this post out if you want to see some pages I did on the software this summer!

My Memories has made available for my friends and readers. If you copy and paste this code while purchasing My Memories, you will get 10 dollars off! And it's already a fantastic price, guys. You also will receive a 10 dollar coupon for the My Memories store where you can purchase scrapbook kits and templates! A 20 dollar value!!

Here's the code:
STMMMS34986

Here's what you do to win:

Mandatory:
Go to My Memories and tell me what is your favorite Digital Scrapbooking Kit.

That's it. Easy peasy. This giveaway will close a week from today, the 14th of December at noon PST.

I will be announcing the winner of the snowflake jewelry giveaway this Friday so you still have time to enter!

Good luck!

Oh Crap - A Winner!

2011-12-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

This morning Natalie texted me with her winner of the #tagteamjewelryboard Giveaway from Earth to Alice last week.

Well this means I must get off my butt and fire up Random.org. I really wish I knew how to copy the code to get the box thing in my post so you could see!

Anyway, the first number that came up was 40. I real quick like go back and look...number 40 is Myya. (myya, you can quit reading here.)

My first thought? CRAP. I know Myya in real life. She's a blogger and all, and entered fair and square, but hello?! How do I let her win when I know her? It looks wonky!

So then I real quick text Natalie with basically this...WTF do I do?

Natalie gave me the answer I wasn't looking for...see, I wanted her to tell me it wouldn't be mean to just pick someone else, but she told me to decide: either let Myya win or draw another number.

'Kay. So just for sh*ts and giggles I hit generate one more time on Random.org to see what it spit out. 42.

Okay, let's check to be sure...CRAP. Must be a sign.

So! CRAP MYYA YOU WON. Congrats!

Thank you SO much to everyone who entered and tweeted and got the word out about Alice's Jewelry Boards...I know "she" and Natalie and I all appreciate it very much!

Don't forget if you want to purchase one of her fabulous boards this month for Christmas you will get FREE SHIPPING and NO TAX!

Come back tomorrow for another giveaway winner!

Winners!

2011-12-05T00:00:00.000-08:00

Alright, ladies! It's time to reveal the 3 winners of Shauna Nosler's debut novel, The Caretakers.

Random.org gave us:

Terry

Xazmin

Brandi N.

I have contacted the winners via email and will pass the information to Shauna!

Thanks for entering and come back tomorrow to find out more winners!

End of the Year Extravaganza - Rules

2011-12-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

All right are you ready for this? I am so excited about this year's Review Extravaganza that is going to be begin NEXT Friday! So today I am telling you all the rules and nitty gritty.

What is the 2011 Review Extravaganza? It is your chance to write up some posts and recap what happened during the year. You can put your favorite pictures, tell your favorite stories, link back to your favorite posts, however you want. That way if you had a slow month, since we will be reviewing three months at a time it will be just fine. And it does not matter if you did not blog during any of the months- after all you still were living so something had to happen./

Starting next Friday- you can come here or to any of the other bloggers hosting this extravaganza (who I will list here soon) and link up your post. You only need to link up at one location as it will show up on each of the lists.

Friday the 9th, you will link up with your recap about January, February and March.
Friday the 16th-link up with recap of April, May and June.
Friday the 23rd-link up with recap of July, August and September.
Friday the 30th-link up with recap of October, November and December.

See how nicely that works out-by the time it is December's recap, December will be practically over. You DO NOT have to write your post on Friday, you can write it any day that week, that is just the day to link up. And you will have a few extra days to link up- until Wednesday. When you link up, make sure you put a link to your post and not just your blog in general. ((To do this, just click on the title of your post and then you can copy all that www gibberish that is in your browser bar))

And now the Extravaganza part! Every time you link up with a recap AND include the cute little button you will get entered into the drawing. Link up on the 9th and get an entry, the 16th and get another entry, etc., with a total of 4 possible entries. When all is said and done, I will let random.org do the dirty work and pick a winner and what will you win? Each of the hosts- all 8 of us will personally pick a present for the winner- so imagine getting 8 pacakges filled with something just for you!!

You can also receive some bonus entries- if you follow through GFC all of the hosts of the blog you can receive a bonus 5th entry. Once you are following all of the fabulous hosts come back to THIS post on my blog and leave a comment telling me that you following everyone.

So who are the hosts?

In no particular order:

Emmy Mom

California Girl

Em of Emilisq

Grumpy Grateful Mom

Impulsive Addict

Janette of Johanson Journey

MiMi Living in France

Runner Mom

All great ladies you should definitely read! So to break it down really simply

Link up each Friday with your recap-- you will have between Friday to the following Tuesday to link up for it to count for points
Receive 1 point for every week you link up -button must be in your post (4 possible)
Receive 1 bonus point for following all of the hosts blog (1 pt) -leave a comment stating you are following on THIS post
If you are the winner receive 8 gifts picked just for you!

Any questions feel free to ask as we want this to be a great experience for everyone! So get your recaps ready and join in next Friday for the fun!

Thanks Emmy for doing all the hard work for this Extravaganza and for letting me borrow this post!

Is everyone getting ready? It really is easy and so much fun to look back on the year! You will have forgotten a lot of your posts, I bet.

Come back tomorrow for the winners of my first giveaway of 3 copies of the novel The Caretakers!

My Final Giveaway!!

2011-12-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

So here we are on our last day of giveaways and I have a beautiful one for you!

When I told the sweet Mindie (who provided this giveaway for me back in September.) that one of my giveaways was probably not going to pan out, she volunteered to do one for me! How sweet is she?!

You can choose from any one of these snowflake goodies from her shop, Twilight Loving Care, if you win:

Absolutely perfect for the season!

Of course if you want to win you need to follow me on GFC and I think it would be awesome if you followed Mindie at Bacon Time.

I also think it would be fun if you watched this cute video her son did and liked it on YouTube.

But guess what? If you don't win you can still score some awesome deals at TLC right now. She's having a major holiday and clearance sale, and even not on sale her prices are really good! And I'm super cheap so you have to know that I'm serious. Ha!

Leave me a comment on what you do so I can keep the entries straight, 'kay?

And you still have time to win with my other giveaways this week!

click here to enter

I'll close this last giveaway at midnight PST, Thursday, December 8th and let you all know the winners of all the giveaways within the next week!

Good luck and have a great weekend!

Stocking Stuffer Giveaway!!

2011-12-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

It's day 3 and I'm still doing the giveaways! Can you believe it? No? Me neither.

Let me just preface this post with a big 'ol, "I haven't heard back to firm up the details on one of the giveaways so I'm not going to post it until I do." I would hate to give away something that they won't honor.

Giveaway 1 - If you want to enter to win a fabulous novel click here.

Giveaway 2 - If you would like to win a beautiful Jewelry Board click here or here.

The entry numbers are low, so go do it!

Here is Giveaway 3 -

1 - Between Heaven and Ground Zero

2 - Cute snail paperclip style bookmark

3- Berry scented hand lotion with teeny hand sanitizer attached

4- Magnet

5- Sidewalk Chalk

6- Angel post its

7- Reindeer food

8- Holiday colored pen (i think it's blue or black ink)

9- Christmas candle in a tin

10- Assortment of polka dot and striped pastel colored 5x7 craft paper

As you can see this is basically a mixed bag of goodies. Stuff you can use to stuff stockings for the kids, adults, women...not really dudes. Huh. A stocking stuffer giveaway for men would help, wouldn't it? Oh well. I never know what to stuff in the husband's stocking, so I couldn't really help with that, anyway.

If you want to find out more about the book, you can click the link to go to Amazon. This one is a hardback edition. It's the first thing I've read from a 9/11 survivor and it was stunning. To think of what she went through is just...I don't know. No words, really. It's a spiritual book, though, so if God isn't your "thing" than you aren't going to want to read it.

All you have to do to win this giveaway is to leave me a comment that you would like to be entered. That's it!

You have until Tuesday, December 6th at noon PST to enter.

Tomorrow I have another fabulous giveaway and it will probably be the last one I do for my Extravaganza. Unless that company gets back to me. We shall see!

But you don't want to miss tomorrow's giveaway so come back!

Earth to Alice: Jewelry Board Giveaway!!

2011-11-30T00:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my Giveaway Extravaganza, Day 2!

Does it seem more official if I capitalize giveaway extravaganza?

Today's giveaway is from Earth to Alice, a company that I have been trying to win something from for about a billion and one years but never did. Boo. But! They're letting me do a review and giveaway! Maybe I begged. Maybe not. Either way. I win. Boom.

So, here's a little about the company from the Earth to Alice website:
In essence, our products are designed to add simplicity to your chaotic life, to help express your individuality, and to feed your charitable spirit. Each product is custom-made, hand-crafted and infused with our love of life, order and expression.

We use only the highest quality materials, recycled whenever possible, and we donate 1% of all our proceeds to the Earth in our Alice to Earth program.

Are you excited to see what's up for grabs today? I am! Probably because I already know what it is and I know you'll love it!

This is what Earth to Alice sent me and what you will have a chance to win!

My thoughts on this board are simple: I'm in love. This jewelry board is awesome. It' sturdy, it's fashionable, it's large enough to hold quite a bit of your treasures and it is basically like functional art.

It's a beautiful addition to my bathroom and it displays loads of jewelry that I forgot I even owned! Things that were passed down to me from my grandma when she died, jewelry given to me by my children, husband, family...pieces that I forgot I owned!

And now I'm wearing jewelry a lot more often because it's right in front of me and not stored in this:

I know.

Eeeeeek! The horror! Shut up.

You want a chance to win one of these fabulous boards? Actually, the same exact one pictured above? Yes. Yes you do. I know you do.

Here's how:

Mandatory: Go to Earth to Alice and look around. Tell me what you love the most!

Follow me here!

Get the word out! Blog about it, tweet about it, share it on Facebook.

Leave a comment for each thing you do and a link so we can find it.

They have a Facebook page if you would like to check them out and Like them at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Earth-to-Alice/125648127525013

They also have a Twitter account if you are a twit. Or if you tweet. Either way.

Go visit their blog and see all of their awesome stuff.

You can tweet about this giveaway once a day and leave me a comment so I can add the extra entry. Make sure you use the hash tag #tagteamjewelryboard so we can see it. Also. Because we think it's funny.

Now, here's what's really cool.

This is a tag team giveaway!

No, not wrestling and not some pervy thing, so shut it.

The beautiful Natalie at My Crazy Busy Life is having a giveaway for the same board, different design!

Just go visit her, follow her and do all of these things to double your chances of winning.

This giveaway will close on Monday, December 5th. And anyone that would like to purchase something now gets FREE SHIPPING and NO TAX!!

Seriously.

Boom!

For the Love of Books!

2011-11-29T00:00:00.000-08:00

Okay, ladies (and, like, 1 guy...?), here is my first giveaway! It was just going to be a book recommendation at first, because the book is definitely worth buying, but when I talked to Shauna, the awesome author, she offered me 3 (three!!) books to give to you!

How exciting is that?! Super. Duper. Exciting! If you ask me. Which I did, because it's my blog, and I can.

Anyway! So, let me introduce you to the book and my review of it and then I'll tell ya what you have to do to win it.

photo courtesy of goodreads.

Here's a snippet of my overly long and semi coherent review:

"...with all families, there is a measure of tragedy and tragic circumstances. [this book also] goes into the issue of abortion. Don't worry, it's not taking a stand for or against. You see from the eyes of Caroline's dad the reason why he, himself, is against the procedure. However, that is not the lesson to be taken from this book.

What resonated the most for me throughout the book, is that sometimes when tragedy befalls someone...ie, a brother, a sister, a child...it is not always THAT person in particular that is hurt most by the void that is left from the circumstances. Sometimes it's the ones closest to them that are hurt or affected most."

One of the absolute best parts about reading this novel, for me, was to know the writer as a blogger! That's right, that's how I first knew of Shauna Nosler. As a blogger!

I, for one, love it. Loved the book, love reading Shauna's blog, love it all! Can you feel the love??

Anyway, to be one of the 3 lucky winners all you have to do is this:

Follow me here.

Follow Shauna at her blog!

And leave me a comment.

That's it! Although, it would be nice if you left her a comment at her blog, too, don't you think? Also, leave a comment for each thing you do since I can't do the maths very well.

I'm going to leave this giveaway open until Sunday, December 4th, at noon. That way I have enough time to notify the winners and get your information to Shauna so she can get the books out as soon as she can.

I only have one thing left to say...

Yay!! <--- see? lots of !!! going on.

I'm Gonna Give Stuff Away!

2011-11-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

That's right, you read that title right!! I'm gonna give stuff away this week!!!

You can tell I'm excited by the amount of !!! I'm using.

Most of the stuff is from my own personal collection of ~~crap~~ priceless goodies. Maybe some of them will be good for stocking stuffers and maybe you just want to get something small and fun in the mail.

There are a couple of sponsored giveaways too, which I'm so excited about!

I even have a book recommendation for those of you who love to read or know of a book lover. Yeah, yeah, I know...Mims, why don't you just give the book away? Well. It was autographed by the author, to me, and I'm not giving that away! Or. I'm selfish. Whichever you prefer. But both are true, for the record.

So be sure to come back as we finish the last of November and the beginning of December; it's an extravaganza, I tell ya!

Okay, maybe not that fantastic, but whatever.

Where Is Everyone?

2011-11-22T08:58:00.001-08:00

I'm sure you've noticed that blogworld is sort of dead this week. Not too many people around because Turkey Day is coming!

I thought I would make a list of 30 things I am Thankful for as all month so many of my blogger friends have been doing the same. I'm a rebel so I thought I'd do it in one big 'ol post.

Hopefully my review item will be coming soon...like today!!...and then I will do the review post and give you all the chance to win because the holidays are coming and I want to help you all out!

I'm also pondering some other giveaways...note, I said pondering, which isn't a total commitment, but a sorta commitment, this way I can help you all get ready for Christmas! You can keep the stuff for yourself...or give it away! Or. If I slack off and don't do em...well, I told you I was pondering. So there. Ha!

30 Things the Mims is Truly Grateful For this Thanksgiving:

1. God loves me even though, at this point in time, probably everyone else I know thinks I'm an @$$hole.

2. Great friends.

3. Great family.

4. My husband.

5. My children who are true blessings from above...every once in a while I still find myself asking God what I did to deserve them. I guess that's the glory of His grace...none of us do anything to be worthy of the good gifts He provides us.

6. My husband's job that allows me to be a stay at home mom.

7. A warm and loving home.

8. Netflix. (what, i never said this list wouldn't have a fluffy thing or 90 on it.)

9. 2 working vehicles that are paid off.

10. I am way smarter than any of the neuro and/or cardio thoracic surgeons on Private Practice.

11. My laptop that keeps me connected to all of my friends, both near and far.

12. Unlimited texting plans.

13. I'm done with two's! And if you don't know me in real life you don't know what I'm talking about, but that's okay.

14. Brand spankin' new cookie sheets!

15. Holiday crafts.

the entire top of my hutch is lined with these things. adorable.

16. Four days off with my boys this weekend.

17. The fact that even though I've changed the way I eat and dropped 50 lbs in 2010, I've been struggling since last November with weight. I've managed to drop 10 lbs. So 60 total, or close to 65. But. Really I probably lost 40 or more but kept yo-yo-ing. I'm counting this as a learning experience that has taught me to stick to it and maintain. Something I've never done for this long.

18. Pretty new shirts that are comfortable and gorgeous for holiday functions!

19. Being able to organize and declutter every last closet and cabinet in my house.

20. The glorious Fall colors!

21. My boys' conferences where Big Boy was asked to participate in both the state reading program (for advanced readers) and the state math program (for advanced math). And Little Boy has aced everything he is supposed to know by the end of KG and has moved onto First grade level work.

22. Pie! (i just thought i'd throw that in there...pie on the brain this week, ya know.)

23. Getting to watch Breaking Dawn, finally!

24. Bridesmaids. Because it's inappropriate, hilarious and mindless.

25. Living in a free country where so many brave men and women have fought fearlessly to keep us safe and retain our freedoms. (freedoms that allow those idiots doing the whole "occupy wall street" thing to do what they do. what. i think they're idiots. camping in tents and pooping in the park for this long? ugh.)

26. Books! Cheap way to escape our realities sometimes.

27. New TV shows that I love! Current fave: Once Upon A Time.

28. That I'm almost done with this list because it's harder to do than I thought.

29. Having the hardest people to buy for done for Christmas.

30. My 3rd cup of coffee that I'm just about to go get. With Holiday Flavored Creamers!!

linking up with the chicas, again!

We're Doin' It Again!

2011-11-21T11:25:00.000-08:00

Do you remember this from last year? Read on for the Sneak Peek from Emmy!

Have you seen this button around the blog-sphere or here on my blog? If you read my blog last year you may remember the Review Extravaganza that several bloggers and I did the month of December- well it's back and bigger than ever!
What is the 2011 Review Extravaganza? It is your chance to write up some posts and recap what happened throughout the year. You can put your favorite pictures, tell your favorite stories, link back to your favorite posts, really however you want to do it. And just in case you had some slow months, we will be reviewing three months at a time.

This will begin Friday, December 9th.
So-Friday the 9th, you will link up with your recap about January, February and March.
Friday the 16th-link up with recap of April, May and June.
Friday the 23rd-link up with recap of July, August and September.
Friday the 30th-link up with recap of October, November and December.

You can see my first review by clicking here if you want an idea of how to do it. But don't worry there will be a lot more details next week.

I have to tell you the best part-- there are prizes involved-- 8 prizes in fact! A personal prize will be picked by each of our hosts for the winner. And how do you win? Every week that you link up with your review you get a point- and the more points you have the more time your name is thrown into the hat.

Next week I and the other hosts will break down the nitty gritty of all the rules and introduce you to all of the lovely ladies hosting this extravaganza. Set your Fridays in December aside as you are not going to want to miss this.

Thanks, Emmy, for setting it up and letting me steal your post!

PS: I have some giveaways coming up...fingers crossed...so keep your eyes peeled! <--- why do they say that? imagine actually peeling your eyes. ew. and. ouch.

The Measure of a Man

2011-11-18T00:00:00.000-08:00

If you've been reading our story this week, you already know that we were in looooooove.

No stress about wasting years dating someone to find out they don't love you. Nope. We loved each other before our first date.

I think it's because we were best friends for almost a year before we started dating.

But let me tell you that once you move from friends to relationship it isn't always rainbows and unicorns. The first year was good...we got to know each other even more. We spent tons of time together whether it be hanging out at my place with nothing to do or going to the coast. One time we went to the movies. Twice. In one day.

The second year? Notsogood. I put him through the ringer. I mean, really, the ringer. I played stupid teenage girl games with him. Put him in impossible situations to see if he would stand up to the test. Sometimes he did. And sometimes he didn't.

But he stayed. He stayed and he put up with my crap. We never went a day without seeing eachother. And the 3rd year we spent planning our wedding. I didn't care about the wedding, so much. Believe it or not.

I just wanted to be married. I knew that once we were married was when the real work would begin.

We've had so many ups and downs over the years. So many. And in many ways we are completely different now, at 34, then we were then. On the other hand, we are exactly the same. Although I quit the games. (btw: we married when we were 21 for those of you, *ahem*, val, who thought maybe we got married at 17. ha!)

We've now been married for just over 13 years. Some of our highlights and lowlights are:

* The toughest first year of marriage. I don't know if that's how it's supposed to be or not, but we had so many issues that I won't discuss because, quite frankly, they deserve an entire post, or series, of their own.
* Financial highs.
* Financial lows.
* Long, long estrangement from some very important people in our lives.
* 2 healthy babies.
* Many different hair colors. (that would be me.)
* Diagnosis of chronic, debilitating illness.
* Finding birth family and cultivating relationships with them.
* Times we were ready to call it quits.
* Many different weights. (sighs...again...me.)
* Fights aplenty!
* Amazingly supportive and loving times.

See? All normal ups and downs, I think. And those are just a few of the things I can think of right now.

But recently I fell in love with my flashback friend all over again. We were able to go to his office one day and for the very first time I saw his desk.

It was covered, every inch, in pictures of our boys from birth to now. Pictures, notes, wonky creations made by them (or me, in some cases) and proudly displayed in his cubicle.

In reorganizing my gift closet the other day I also found letters that I wrote him in high school. I guess he thinks they're keepers.

Well, I think he's a keeper.

I hope he has a wonderful birthday tomorrow, filled with love and everything he would want.

I love you, my flashback friend.

So I think the measure of a man isn't how tall he is...how much he weighs...how much money he makes...it's how much he loves and how much he is loved.

********************************************************************************

For all of you who wanted pictures...here they are.

The Trans Am:

Our very first picture together on the night of my graduation:

First professional pictures:

Badly blurred wedding photo that I'm too lazy to scan and, instead, took a picture of a picture of a picture of a picture of a...you get the point.

What. Y'all didn't realize I was talking about the Hoff?

ps: can we get another trans am when we're ~~old~~ rich?

Welcome Home

2011-11-17T00:00:00.000-08:00

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm sharing our story. The story of how my husband and I became us.

To read the first, second or third part of our story, click on the links.

At the end of yesterday's post I was on my way to Disneyland with my bff and I was wondering how my work friend would be able to survive without the sunshine of my face and the awesomeness that is me.

Turns out I was the one who had a hard time surviving. As soon as we got to Cali and the place we were staying, I called my mom and begged her to get ahold of my work friend and ask him to come to the airport with my mom and brother to pick me up when I got back from Disney.

I thought about him the whole time I was gone. I bought him a stupid Goofy tshirt from Disneyland knowing that he wouldn't probably wear it, but I couldn't come home empty handed.

My mom, who totally did not want to call a stranger and ask him to come with her to get me, reluctantly called him.

And he did something he never did. He lied to our boss and told her he had a birthday party for his really old grandma to go to and that he had to be there so he could come with my mom to pick me up.

That week flew by and drug by at the same time.

When we came back and I walked into the airport the first person I saw was him.* The thing that came to mind when I saw him was: HOME.

A few days later I received a card in the mail to say thank you for the Goofy shirt I brought him.

Apparently, he wrote this whole long letter to me about how he loves me and wants me to be his but in the middle of the night he got up and frantically erased everything he wrote. He went ahead and sent the card.

And to this day, you can still see the faded, erased words he wrote. They're etched in the paper.

I called him to see what he had to say that I "couldn't make out." I totally lied that I couldn't read it...I wanted to see if he'd admit it to me.

He did. He said three words that had me smiling from ear to ear for days:

I love you.

And I loved him too.

So, now what?

I'll wrap it up tomorrow.

* funny story about him and my brother being the only ones at the gate to greet me at the airport. this was obvs pre 9/11 so family and friends could come to the gate, but my mom was still held up by security for about a half hour. she had went through with mace in her purse. haha!

Fast Forward

2011-11-16T00:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's post posed the question of whether or not I'd ever get to ride in that Trans Am.

Sadly, the answer is no. He only worked with me for a couple months before he got rear ended and it totalled the car. (rear ended is not a euphemism, pervs. why are you all so pervy?)

So instead of getting to ride in that, I had to settle for his next ride.

such a sacrifice. (not the actual car, but again, close!)

credit

Anycar, after his first car was totalled and his best friend walked out on us at work, we continued to grow closer in friendship.

At school we searched each other out in the morning and at work, well...we pretty much worked with each other every stinkin' night and all weekend, every weekend.

I went to his 17th birthday party, which was a surprise party, and bought him the very first gift I would ever give him. Ready for it?

credit

Come on. What did you expect? We were eternally bound by our love of 80's muscle cars and hair bands! And it was '94 by this time...Bon Jovi had just come out with Always.

Don't. You. Judge.

Over the next 10 months or so we became close friends. I was sad to graduate high school because we had so much fun together and I knew that once I graduated things were going to be different. Even though he is only 6 months younger than me, it was enough to put him a year behind me in school.

I was planning on working at the same crap hole and going to college in the fall.

But first, my friend and I were leaving to go to Disneyland. We were going on a "woohoo, we're done with high school and movin' on!" vacation. We weren't goin' with no stinkin' Senior Class Trip, either.

So right when I was feeling the closest to my 80's flashback friend, I was leaving.

How sad!

How would he live without me?

Never Underestimate the Power of a Cool Car

2011-11-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

As I was ~~leaning against the counter at work, doing nothing,~~ completely busy and running around like the stellar young worker that I was, I noticed a cherry 1981 Trans Am with a T-top roof growl into the parking lot.

not the car, but very close!

credit

**cue white snake and mullets** (no, don't. it was 1994.)

Interesting. Wonder who drives that? I had a thing for American muscle cars. My bff's mom had 2 Camaros and I loved them. Although one was the color of diarrhea, it was okay when you were in it and didn't have to look at it.

I'm sure you can all guess who drove that car. The one. The one that I made fun of in driver's ed and the one I told my boss not to hire.

He was here for his first night of work. With me.

It was only slightly awkward for about 20 minutes. Then all of the other employees went home for the evening and it was me and him. That's when it became way awkward.

I think it was the quietest it had ever been in the building. The only conversation was when I needed to explain something to him. Which was quite often, really, but there was never any response from him.

What finally broke the ice was when I was showing him how to take a drive thru order and he didn't press the intercom so he was just talking to himself when he welcomed them and offered to take their order.

I lost it. I thought it was hilarious. I laughed at him for about a minute before I finally took the order myself, laughing the entire time. I'm sure the customer wanted to know what the hyena was amused with, but whatever.

Over time, as we worked more and more together, we began to discuss our taste in music and cars. Yep. I wanted to pretend like I was cool and knew all about cars like a dude, but hey, I was trying to keep the conversations going.

Most nights if you walked into the burger joint you would probably hear a very young sounding voice going on and on and on...and on. And on. With an occasional grunt of acknowledgement from the supremely quiet guy she was yapping at. Imagine a chihuahua running in circles around a basset hound.

We became tentative friends over the next couple months. I realized that he couldn't be that much of a nerd if he drove such an awesome car. And he would actually admit to loving 80s hair bands like Aerosmith and Bon Jovi. My ~~not so~~ secret favorites of all time, ever!

16 year old girl logic. You'll have to excuse the immaturity.

Then one day, our mutual friend, his bff, up and quit and left us in an incredible lurch. There were only 3 of us who worked nights that were capable of closing the place and now we were down to two.

What to do?

And more importantly, would I ever get to ride in that car?!

Stay tuned!

PS: I'm gonna link this up with TTUT, hosted by IA and Shawn. I want as much exposure to that awesome Tranny as I can get. Ohhh yeaahhh. (and when I say tranny, i mean the car, you pervs.)

I Was a Brat

2011-11-14T00:00:00.000-08:00

This Saturday is my husband's birthday. So this week I'm taking a cue from Impulsive Addict and I'm going to tell you about our story.

I don't talk about him much on here because, well, he hates it. But I don't care; it's my blog and I'll do what I want to.

And I can't tell you his name. Or probably even use pictures. But I hope to paint a picture with my words. And it ain't gonna be pretty!

Don't expect our story to be normal. Hey. It's me. MiMi. Your resident weird-o who will, in true MiMi fashion, ~~irritate~~ amuse you.

We actually first met in 1993. Or 1994. Lemme think...I'm gonna go with '93. Whoa. We've known each other for almost 20 years. We're so old! Maybe I should stop this right here and not think about when we were young~~er and cuter~~.

Get this...we met in driver's ed. Hahahahahaha!

And. I was super nice to him. Okay. Maybe not. See, he sat there all, "I'm too cool to talk to you, even though you're super hot and I should fall over my tongue to say 'hey,' but instead I'm going to ignore you."

So I did what any normal ~~annoying~~ person would do. I made fun of him.

"Haha, you probably think you're awesome because you're the youngest kid in driver's ed, don't you? You look kind of like (fill in the blank with some geek at school); are you really shy or are you always this rude?"

I believe that was the last interaction we had until about 6 months later. I was working at a crappy little hamburger place in town and his best friend came in to interview for a job. He didn't get it. This other kid who was the boss's neighbor got it. But, because he was a loser, he never showed up for his first day.

Hub's best friend got hired by default. Then said friend told hubs to come in and interview because we needed another person.

I distinctly remember telling my boss, "That guy is a nerd. He doesn't talk. He'll never be able to do it." Or. You know...something along those lines.

And because my boss always took my concerns very seriously and loved me so much...the jerkface went and hired him.

So, now, here I am working with this dude who I made fun of pretty mercilessly ~~for that one day, at least~~.

Can you say, AWKWARD?

Stay tuned...

Hilarious Family Comedy

2011-11-12T03:01:00.001-08:00

This post brought to you by American Family Insurance. All opinions are 100% mine.

I love comedy. Love, love, love comedy! I love stand up, funny movies, live comedy, all of it.

I had so much fun watching the Stand Up For Family comedy bits.

I love how all of the comedians focused on their observations of their own families. Talking about the differences between when we were kids and how kids are now. Hearing about this one comedian's grandmother was hilarious! She does 2 things...watches tv or hangs out in the window watching everyone in her neighborhood. She knows all and sees all and doesn't hesitate to tell her neighbors that she knows it!

What I really love is that I can sit and watch these bits in front of my children. I don't have to worry that they're gonna hear some inappropriate language or some joke that's to risque for them.

Thanks to AmFam I can sit and laugh at these guys all day! It's so important to be able to laugh and to not have to censor what I'm watching.

Thanksgiving is coming and there will be plenty of family members to laugh at, I'm sure! That's my favorite part.

I'm thankful that a company, American Family Insurance, has decided to Stand Up For Family!

BlogHer Spotlight

2011-11-11T09:43:00.000-08:00

I had totally planned on a doing an awesome post today but then I got an email that made me so excited I didn't know whether to scratch my watch or wind my butt.

Jenna at BlogHer is Spotlighting my post about Child Anxiety and medication. She adds her own personal story to the mix and I love the way it's set up.

So I'm asking you all to go to BlogHer today and show us some love. It's such a personal story and it was a huge deal to me to open up about it on my own blog. In some ways it's more personal to me then if it was just about me. Sharing things about my children beyond the fluff is next to impossible for me.

Once I got the feedback from moms in other places dealing with the same issue, I knew I had done the right thing.

So...please go comment?

I'm just so excited that BlogHer has picked this post up...it now has the opportunity to reach so many more people dealing with this.

I'm excited that somewhere a mom is surfing the web and thinking she's the only one with a child who is dealing with this issue right now and BAM, there it is. Help. Or at least the knowledge that she's not alone.

Click here to get to my Spotlight on BlogHer.

Since today is Veteran's Day (or Vertun's Day, as Little Boy likes to call it) I want to give a huge thank you to all the men and women who have served our country, whether it be in war time or peace, so bravely. If it wasn't for you and the sacrifices you made/make, I couldn't sit here and wax poetic on my blog. Everthing we do is afforded to us by your service. Thank you.

Weathering the Storm with My Anxious Child

2011-11-09T00:00:00.000-08:00

I've been telling you about how good things are working out with the Turnaround program.

And, truth be told, it is better. Remember how I mentioned once that it's not always going to be smooth sailing and it's more like 1 step forward 2 steps back?

This last week we hit a snag and it seems to have brought out more anxieties. When I tell you what the problem is, you might chuckle. Remember though that no matter how trivial the problem presenting might be, it's not trivial to my son. Or to me.

Last week it began to cool off very quickly. Frosty/icy windshields in the mornings, fog hovering over the neighborhood and just cold all around.

When I took the boys to the Barber Shop, the barber made a comment about how the weather would be getting "nasty and scary soon." Ice, snow (possibly; we don't get snow that much around here.), rain, power outages, etc.

Big Boy heard these things and was all of a sudden very interested in and preoccupied with stepping outside the building. I quickly learned he was checking the temperature. He wanted to see how cold it was. There was not a thermometer, he just wanted to feel it.

All day he checked the thermometer to see how cold it was. I was right on top of him all day trying to get the "fear" out of him, what exactly was it that he was worried about?

All he would say was that it would get "too cold." I've learned that a lot of times there is nothing logical and immediate leading to these worries. He may have seen some news story about flooding, avalanches, or something that affects another part of the country and his imagination runs wild with what that would mean if it were to happen here.

I quickly decided to come up with a short term solution. We wanted to define "too cold." And make it something that would likely never happen in our neck of the woods, so that he could see pretty quickly that his worry was unfounded.

We set "too cold" at 0 degrees. It rarely, if ever, gets to be 0 degrees here. So as long as the temp is hovering above that 0 mark, we should be okay.

Of course, this is just a band aid. Now we delve into the program again and incorporate what we have learned with the Turnaround Cds and Journal and revisit some techniques we learned.

I'm curious to see how long this "episode" of worry lasts. It all depends on how we respond to it in the beginning, I think. I'm extremely hopeful that it will be a small bump in the road. He's already responded differently to this worry than others in the past.

I swear, since he started getting nervous about it, we have had friends, family, and even his teacher during our school conference bring up the cold.

On one hand, because I'm being irrational, I want to say, "Shut up about the weather, already!" but on the other hand, I know that they should be able to talk about anything they want...even something as innocuous and boring as the weather.

For anyone that might be worried that this is a new fear or something that just came out of the clear blue, you have to realize that this is not a new fear. Not at all. He's always been concerned about the weather. He hates rain, which sucks since we live in Oregon. Hello, rain! 9 months out of the freakin' year. He also is frightened by thunder storms. Totally understandable, tons of people are bothered by storms. Me included.

Something I have been wanting to discuss is the issue of medications. This can be a touchy subject because so many people are on one side or the other with this issue. Either YES drugs, or NO drugs.

My husband and I have decided that right now, at this moment, drugs are not a solution.

The Turnaround Cds come with a couple Cds for the parents. One of these Cds goes extensively into medications, their indications, how they've been tested and approved for children with anxiety issues. It was a neutral message; facts only. Nothing to suggest what you, as a parent, should do.

We went to see his pediatrician who did not tell us to go with meds. He did explain the results they have seen in anxious children with the use of meds and CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) together. He also said that once they start the meds they usually don't come back off.

My husband and I agonized over this decision. Anyone that knows me in real life, knows that there were many hours upon hours of tears, prayers and the heavy weight of a huge decision that could change our boy's life forever on our shoulders.

We took every little thing, every single dynamic we could think of and all of the information we had gathered and we thought. And thought. And discussed. And discussed some more. We talked to the teachers, the administrators, the pediatrician, 2 childrens psychologists, friends with careers in children's learning and behavioral issues, and listened to the Turnaround "Parents" Cds. We also read everything we could. Online, in books, everywhere.

And we prayed. A lot.

And in the end all of that information gave us no clear answer. The only clear answer was that we were on our own in making our decision.

We took the facts about our child, his personality, his social skills at school, his grades, his interests and activities and decided...NO meds. For now.

This does not mean that we won't revisit the issue in the future. Hell, we could be revisiting it in 2 weeks, at that! But for right now. This instant. No. That is our final answer, Regis. FOR NOW.

I could give you all the reasons, of which there are many, why we decided this. But I really don't need to explain myself and you don't need to explain yourself for decisions you make involving treatments you get for your children with any issues they have.

But our reasons are as solid as any reason there can be. We're not being unreasonable about it. We know that our decision could result in an outcome we don't want, but that's our decision. We own it. We will work our butts off to make sure that this decision is the best we can make it be for our boy.

And if circumstances change over any given amount of time? We are open to changing our tune.

I am not a medicine nazi. I'm not against prescriptions and let me tell you, there are definitely days that I have a headache this big and it has Excedrin written all over it. I'm open to anything that works as long as you apply it responsibly.

Common sense dictates the reasons why a parent might look further into medications for their children:

Are your child's grades suffering?

Are they having trouble connecting with other students or friends at school?

Are they having horrible meltdowns?

Are they not sleeping?

Are there more tears than smiles?

Has their personality seemed to change? (i'm not suggesting a bad day or a bad week; i mean, overall has their personality changed. i'm talking about weeks and months at a time.)

If you answer yes to a lot of these question, then, in my very humble opinion, asking your dr. about medications would be a step you might want to take. These are all questions that I came up with when thinking of things we looked at in making our decision. None of this is professional opinion and/or advice.

In many instances medications can help restore your child to their actual personality and open them back up to the child they once were. Don't view medication as something that is going to alter their personality, because, as our pediatrician explained, more often than not, the meds restore their personalities. They help them to minimize the fear and be more like themselves before the fear crept in.

One more important question would be: Do the benefits of medication outweigh the risks of taking it?

Remember, I'm not a dr. and in no way should my opinion be substituted for fact or sound advice. I'm only explaining our situation with our individual child.

As parents, you make decisions and do things concerning your children with the knowledge you have at the time. If your knowledge changes and you don't readjust your thinking? That is crazy. But until then?

We can't second guess ourselves every minute of every day. How effective would that be in helping our child?

And helping our child is our ultimate goal.

I Wonder Where He Get's It From?

2011-11-08T00:00:00.001-08:00

This was really disturbing me.

This gingerbread house is from the middle of December. 2010. Little Boy made it at preschool.

It's in our freezer. Lord help anyone who dares to ~~pick a frozen m&m off and eat it~~ toss it. Lord help them.

One day after he caught me ~~eating a frozen gummy bear~~ eyeing it and the trash can at the same time we had a serious discussion about the wisdom of keeping a gingerbread house in the freezer this long.

Right after this discussion I went to our freezer in the garage to see if I could find something to make for dinner.

This is what I see:

Forgive me for the bad photos.

Basically what that is is a cupcake decorated to look like a beehive ala Winnie the Pooh. Notice the Pooh plate that the beehive is on.

Now, Little Boy has never seen these cupcakes because they are in the top back portion of the freezer and I forget they are there. So he really has no idea about my penchant for keeping things that I think are adorable no matter how weird that may be or what lengths I have to go to to do it.

Yeah. I saved these things.

They're cupcakes.

They're cute.

They're from a very memorable day in my life.

My baby shower.

The first one.

In May.

Of.

2003.

So. Yeah. The gingerbread house and beehives both still live in my freezers.

What's the weirdest thing you've kept forever?

Everything I Do...I Do It For You...

2011-11-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hey you guuuuuys!

You must read that like Sloth from The Goonies. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you are dead to me. Dead!

Anyhoo.

I just wanted to give you all a heads up that I will be hosting an Earth to Alice giveaway soon! I'm so excited!

I've been trying to win one of their fabulous totes but so far, nada. No tote for me!

BUT! I get the chance to review and offer up something else from Earth to Alice in the coming week or two!

Yay!

Go check them out so you can drool and be prepared for the giveaway, 'kay?

Also, I grovelled and made an all around @$$ out of myself to do the giveaway. Just so you know.

I don't want you to feel guilty or anything about the pains I go through for you. Okay? No guilt. I'm not ashamed. You shouldn't be either. Nope.

No. Guilt.

Bonus for those who get the name of the title of the post. If you don't get it, again, you are dead to me. Dead!

Um. You Guys??

2011-11-02T15:22:00.000-07:00

Guess what.

The kids only had 2 days of school this week. And I forgot that this was Wednesday. Since yesterday was their last day, I was thinking it was Friday.

I mean, I'm not stupid enough to think that today was Saturday. Which is surprising since I thought yesterday was Friday, but whatever.

Anyway. It's like my brain was saying, "Monday and Tuesday are the only days of school and then it's the weekend. Get through Monday and Tuesday and then partay time."

So. I got through Monday and Tuesday. And then my brain stopped working. Weird, right? Or not so weird.

I mentioned that the kids both got awards yesterday at school. It was super sweet to watch them accept their awards without knowing I was there.

Now that I'm looking at their little faces...they don't look that happy, do they? Probably surprised. Yeah. We'll go with that.

little boy

big boy

There's something funny about watching your kids when they don't realize you're watching. I should be a spy. I would love that. I could be a spy. Totally.

Stop picking your nose! See? I caught you. I'm a spy.

I keep thinking of this thing that happened Saturday at Jessica's mom's annual Halloween Bash. We were playing charades and this bigger guy who was dressed as Batman was trying to act out whatever his task was. His brother was there and he threw out a few guesses and then goes:

"I know! FAT BATMAN!"

That cracks me up. I giggle every time I think about it. Hahahahaha. Maybe you had to be there? I dunno. It still sounds funny to me.

Yesterday I went into my garage where I keep all of my craft supplies and I looked at it all piled up on my craft table and thought, "Man. That pile of crap looks like sh*t."

And I started going through it and tossing stuff, organizing stuff and moving stuff around.

2 hours later it looked much better. Better than ever. Of course, still crappy in a way, because it's in my garage, but better than before. Or ever. Like I said.

Anyway. My legs are sore today. Why? Because I'm so stinkin' short I had to stretch, and climb and bend and balance on precarious ledges and whatnot to hang some stuff. And because I never do any of that stuff so my legs went, "Whoa. What are you working out? No bueno." My legs speak Spanish when they think I'm working.

Weird, right?

This is the weirdest post ever. I know because I just re-read it and thought, "Wow. This is the weirdest post ever." <--- that's a lie. i didn't re-read it, i just have a feeling it's weird.

Next up I'm reorganizing my pantry. Thank you Shortmama for the inspiration. Or. Curse you for the idea.

BTW: I'll be emailing 3 lucky winners of the Shutterfly promotion with their codes to receive 25 free photo cards for Christmas. I forgot to do that. Probably because I just now realized that they had given me 3 free promotional codes for my readers.

I think I fried my brain cells with Tootsie Rolls. At least it wasn't Candy Corn...?

My Happy List

2011-11-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Earrings from the fabulous Mindie! I've been wearing them every day since I got them.

buy some here! she's having a blow out clearance sale right now!

This creepy glow-y eyed cat ring from the ~~used to be~~ lovely Xazmin! What. She's teasing me. Brat!

Halloween festivities! Free candy for the fat chick! <--- me.

actually, my fave fave is chocolate stuff, but i feel like i can eat 10x more if i stick with this stuff.

Mustaches from the one and only Mamarazzi.

this picture cracks. me. up.

Harvest Carnivals at school where the boys are Wanted Men!

i think they're worth more than a grand apiece, though.

Winning!!

i won these from Viv; fabulous designer print duck tape! oh. my. craft! family and friends beware...i will inflict my half hatched creations on you for Christmas! yeah, that's a ~~threat~~ promise.

i won this book from Shauna Nosler...she blogs here and she just published a book that I won on Goodreads. yay! i'll be doing a review for it soon. she used to live in my state and a lot of the story takes place around the area I live!

I've rekindled my love affair with nail polish. I used to never paint my toe nails but now I paint them all the time, for some reason. I've recently fallen in love with:

crackle overcoat. because i'm to skeered to show you my actual tootsies...i've got this over red polish right now. love! it makes me happy to see my toes! even with the...wonky one.

Being able to serve truly disgusting (on purpose for once!) dinners to my family:

mummy babies and severed witches fingers anyone?? this is before i cooked them. i thought they looked gross, so i took the shot before i baked em.

These three sillies:

Eggnog in the stores! Yes, I love it. I unapologetically love, love, looooove it. Now. If only the stupid holiday creamers would come out! Pumpkin, gingerbread, peppermint, oh my!

My two boys who excel in school (don't judge, i can brag if i want to!) getting awards this afternoon in their school assembly!! They don't know it yet and I'm gonna surprise them later today because both of their teachers invited me and swore me to secrecy! How exciting!

What's on your Happy List??

Go link up and share!

Wedded Bliss

2011-10-31T00:00:00.000-07:00

I mentioned a couple Mondays ago that I was under the weather. I might have used the expression "dog turd" when describing how I felt.

The following e-mail exchange is just exactly what it's all about to be married to a supportive, caring, and thoughtful husband.

Husband to me in a message dated: 5 minutes before I contemplated separation/divorce. Ha!

How are you feeling this morning?

Me: As long as I keep up on the Tylenol my throat doesn't feel like it's going to bleed every time I swallow. How are you feeling? It was a long night.

I'm okay. I thought a sea lion got in bed with me in the middle of the night, though.

Me: Nice! Very flattering comparison! (thinking he meant i looked like a sea lion here.)

It wasn't your appearance. It was the barking.

Me: Oooooh. Yeah. Sorry about that.

See ladies? If you put in the work with your man, you too may be lucky enough to have such a sweet and well spoken husband.

Looking on the bright side...I'd rather sound like a sea lion than look like one. So there's that.

Puppies or Babies: Who's Cuter? YOU Decide!

2011-10-27T18:01:00.001-07:00

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Puppies vs. Babies for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Puppies vs. Babies

Babies vs puppies.

Who's cuter?

I don't know about you, but that is almost impossible to decide! Especially if you are a "dog" person.

Right now there is a Puppies vs. Babies online contest, where you get to decide.

Having had babies, I know they are beautiful little creatures. Of course, those were my own babies. I have seen a lot of babies that were...not so cute. I think it's because they have just traveled a harrowing journey, so I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt, here.

But puppies...they're almost always cute! Cute little fuzzy faces, warm and cuddly, just like babies in a way.

Although, I do recall seeing a baby in a store one time, that I actually went around the cart to look in the infant carrier? And. Well, the baby's face was as hairy as a monkey. I'm not kidding. Of course, it was shocking, and definitely not as cute as a puppy...or monkey, for that matter, but his/her parents were watching me so I gave an Oscar winning performance on how cute the baby was. I may have even conjured a tear or two...cyring over it's beauty, you know. I wish.

I have to say that I can't decide which I would pick! I almost can't compare the two...puppies are almost always cute, and babies are always beautiful. Almost.

So what do you think is cuter? Puppies? Babies? Don't you dare say cats!

Go vote today! And then tell me, what did you vote for?

Just Keep Swimming - My Anxious Child {PYHO}

2011-10-26T00:00:00.000-07:00

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Remember that song in Finding Nemo that Dory sang?

Often times I have to remind myself that we just need to keep swimming. It's not a race it's a marathon.

We completed the Turnaround program at the first of October but it has given us so many helpful tools that we can use moving forward. I suspect that we haven't heard the last of those CDs, as I can see where it would be helpful to listen to them more than once.

As the stories on the CDs continue some of the children begin to share stories about being nervous about how people perceive them. Fortunately my son doesn't have this social problem. Yet.

I say "yet" because as most kids start to move into their teenage years they all naturally begin to feel socially awkward.
For a minute there I was worried that listening to those CDs would give my boy a new set of fears but so far we've dodged that bullet!

There was a part in these last sessions that I wanted to specifically address. It was called "Getting Real."

In this section they talked about 3 groups of kids.

Taken from p. 47 of the journal:
Group 1: Kids who have really strong anxieties and they're not playing any games at all.

Group 2: Kids who have real fears and anxieties, but maybe not as bad as they say at times. They exaggerate their worries and fears to avoid something or get attention.

Group 3: Kids who play the game of acting like they have fears. They may have had a fear at one time, but now it's just a way to get what they want.

This is where your child needs to get real. You first have to let them know that they are safe here. You are not going to yell at them (even if you want to) or punish them. They aren't going to open up if they think you're going to freak out on them.

That being said, thankfully (or unthankfully, depending on how you look at it.) my boy falls into Group 1. He honestly could not think of something he was getting as a pay off (attention or getting out of something.) for his anxieties.

Most parents can tell when their kids are faking it. If you have an anxious kid there are often lines that are blurred, though. Are they really freaking out? Are they going to be getting something out of this?

Many parents, especially ones that might not realize that the problem they are seeing with their child is anxiety, might think everything is a "fake" or over-dramatization.

I wanted to talk about guilt this week because so many people have expressed feelings of guilt.

Why would a parent of a nervous kid feel guilty?

Because they feel responsible for their children's welfare and anytime the child is suffering from something like that they automatically feel responsible for causing it or for not being able to fix it.

Let me tell you the reasons that I feel guilty when I let those wacky thoughts in:

I have anxiety.

I suffer from bouts of depression.

I have OCD. And not just the, "Oh, I'm so OCD about that." Yeah. This is where I admit that it sorta bugs me when people say that because if you actually suffer from OCD, you aren't joking about it. Much.

I have fostered some of my son's problems by not letting him have some independence in areas that he should have.

I have coddled.

Even though I know that his fears are real I have, at times, gotten frustrated and yelled at him to just "Get a grip!"

I have not noticed all of the red flags in certain situations that I had absolute control over and could have prevented but didn't because I had no clue that it would be a source of anxiety later.

Yes, that's right. I'm the mom that is constantly watching her children, looking for signs that something is wrong mentally or emotionally. Because I am the one who has fought my own internal demons for so long. Demons that were inside my head that nobody could see and I was pretty good at disguising them so that nobody would notice.

So even when my child was suffering from some of his worst episodes (i'm using "episodes" for lack of a better word, here.) I didn't truly see them.

Guilt? Oh, yes.

Logically I know that I shouldn't feel guilty about my own chemical and physical problems being passed on. I can't control them and wouldn't have chosen them for myself, much less my children.

I can't even really feel guilty about missing certain red flags. I mean, I can, and I do, obviously, but is that something we should feel guilty about, as parents? There are many instances in life where a parent can look back and think, "Wow, if only I would have..."

I can definitely own and claim my guilt for getting short with my son when he's anxious about something and I have no patience left.

I also own my part in holding my kids back from independence. I'm working on correcting that.

I can only feel certain degrees of guilt for different things. I feel guilty about coddling. Then again, I don't feel as guilty about that as I do for getting grumpy about it.

I feel guilty about passing on my own problems to my kids but not as guilty as missing the signs.

See? There are all shades of guilt.

What do you think about this topic? All parents have a degree of guilt or regret. Most often parents of anxious children have guilt because they feel guilty about their child having it, guilty about missing it, or guilty about not being able to help it.

I can tell you one thing for sure, though. Something I've learned over the last 6 weeks or so. You can talk about it. Encourage your child to open up to you about their feelings. It will foster an open relationship where you are included in pieces of their life you may not have been aware of. It will give you a purpose and a feeling of moving forward in tackling this problem.

Most importantly it will help your child to see that you see what is going on and that you are willing to help. That, in itself, can made a huge difference in overcoming your child's anxiety. There was an immediate sense of relief when we addressed it head on with our boy. It didn't make his problems disappear but to know that his parents were joining the fight was a huge boost to his outlook on the problem.

I wear a lovely chain around my neck. It attaches me to my children. It's not gold; it's worth much more. It's guilt. And it's many different shades of it.
For any of you who are reading that don't have a blog, please feel free to private message me with any thoughts or ideas of what you would like to have thrown out there for discussion. Also feel free to message me if you are too uncomfortable to leave it in a comment. maceyleigh at hotmail dot com.

A Rush of Wings {Book Review}

2011-10-25T00:00:00.000-07:00

When fragmented images and unfocused panic force Noelle St. Claire to flee her wealthy, sheltered life in New York, she gains sanctuary on a ranch in the Rocky Mountains.

There Noelle finds solace in the breathtaking scenery she paints. But as the attentions of two brothers, Rick and Morgan Spencer, breach the wall she hides behind, the past she yearns to escape becomes a menacing threat from which she can no longer hide.

Award-winning and bestselling author Kristen Heitzmann has skillfully created a story resonating with emotion and depicting a poignant spiritual journey.

Synopsis from Amazon.

*******************************************************************************

I have to start off by telling you all that I'm not an "in your face" Christian. I love Jesus, I am a Christian (somedays a better one than others) and I love to read.

That being said, not all Christian novels are the same.

This book is probably 85 percent mystery and 15 percent "hello, we love Bibles!"

Obviously, if you have any knowledge of the story of the Bible you are going to see the theme of redemption in the story.

It's a really good story involving all kinds of intrigue surrounding the main character, Noelle. She battles images that seem to overwhelm her.

With the help of two unsuspecting brothers she meets at her hide out in the Rocky Mountains, she is able to slowly and very painfully go through the process of remembering, facing and ultimately redeeming her life.

I just saw on Amazon that there is a second story involving one of the brothers. One that you just can't help but fall in love with, so I definitely will be getting my copy!

**** I received a complimentary copy of this book from Bethany House in exchange for an honest review.****

About those MEAN CATS...

2011-10-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

As I was reading and responding to my comments about Friday's post, I noticed a running theme.

A lot of commenters wanted me to find the owner and return the cat. It was then that I realized that while editing the photos for the post, and accidentally deleting one of them, then re-posting the photo, some of my text had been deleted also, but I hadn't realized that.

If it wouldn't have been deleted you would have seen that I know exactly where they cat lives. Smokey is owned by the children across the street. Smokey currently resides anywhere from under their 5th wheel to our front porch.

Smokey is well fed. Well cared for. Loved by her owners. She has a collar.

So, dear readers, that is a more in depth look at that MEAN CATS post. I never would have imagined people would think that I would neglect the cat, even though it is not mine and I have no obligation to it, and let it suffer if it was a stray.

In short, no cats were harmed in the writing of these posts.

And if you are a cat, and can read this, and might be offended...well. You need to come find me. A cat that can read?! Hello! We'd be famous.

The True Story of a Super Adorable Little Girl and MEAN CATS.

2011-10-21T00:00:00.000-07:00

I know that I have mentioned before that I don't like cats. And cats do not like me. When they see me they generally hiss and scratch at me before running off.

It could be because every time I see one of them I hiss until they leave. I'm very mature like this.

So. Let me share a quaint little story with you.

wavy lines and sparkles while i transport you back in time approximately 31 years...(don't bother doing the math. i will cutchoo.)

Once upon a time there was a beautiful, gorgeous, precious, cute, charming...ahem. Where was I? Oh, yes.

Super adorable little 3 year old girl. She loved kitties.

One day she somehow got a kitty. I don't know why or where or how, but she had a kitty. Kitty was dark colored and her name was Louie. Yes. Her. Name was Louie.

Her sister also got a kitty. This kitty was light colored and seemed more like a ginormous tiger cat. Her name was Jack. Yes. Her. Name was Jack.

One fine day super adorable little girl was petting Jack. Out of the clear blue skies came a bolt of lightning and thunder, the ground opened up and Jack sprouted horns and roared, "I am the devil!"

Super adorable little girl was in shock. And then she realized that none of that happened.

What happened was that out of the clear blue, Jack scratched her eye. And when I say "scratched her eye," let me elaborate.

Jack scratched her eye and Jack's claw hooked itself into her lower eye lid. Then.

Jack pulled. Jack pulled her claw back really fast pulling the claw through the eye lid like a fishing hook. Jack pulled some more.

Eventually Jack's claw was free of the pesky eye lid and the eye lid now sported a gaping "V" shaped slice.

After that, super adorable little girl's memory becomes fuzzy. Could be cuz she had to wear a stupid eye patch forever and that nothing could be done to fix it except to let it heal back together since it was so close to the eyeball.

Jack went to live on a farm. Yep. With all the other ~~satanic~~ cats.

wavy lines and sparkles as i transport you back to present time.

That super adorable little girl never did get over her mistrust and dislike of cats. I'm sure you all figured out that that little girl is me. Cuz I'm super adorable. Duh! Imagine her dismay when she opens the front door to this:

um. exsqueeze me? what the h - e - double hockey sticks do you want? didn't you get the neighborhood memo? the chick in the blue house hates cats. this is what i am assuming is an uber friendly cat. why, then, does the face look like it's saying, "murder death kill you lady!" they all look like that, i swear.

Awhile later I hear some meowing and scratching at my door. I open it and here is:

stupid cat. again. go away!

The next day I'm just pulling into the driveway from a quick trip to the store and I look out my window to see this cat. Sitting there. Staring at me.

By the time I get my phone out to snap a picture of his creepiness, this is what I capture:

hello? what. do. you. want.

I have my arms full of bags when I get to the front door. It's hard to practice my ninja skills to get into the house without letting the dang cat in with my arms full and this at my feet:

i really want to ~~kick~~ gently shove you out of the way, kitty.

A few days later:

sitting on my bench just thinkin' he's king of the world. he has a collar. notice that black thing hanging there. the boys tell me he is actually a she and her name is Smokey. Whatever.

cat hair. all over my pillows that are on my bench. and. and! and? a ginormous snag in one now where the little stinkpot's claw got tangled. grrr.

Anyway.
Way. Too. Much. Cat! Sometimes. Sometimes? Sometimes I walk out onto the porch and am immediately assaulted with the smell. You know the smell. The smelly smell...of CAT POOP.

It irritates me because I don't own a cat. I don't want to have to smell CAT POOP in my flower beds near my front porch. I mean, really. Does anyone want to smell CAT POOP? I don't think so. In fact. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that CAT POOP is possibly the worst smell in the world. Or. At least the worst smelling POOP in the world.

***Edited to add something I forgot to tell everyone before. The cat belongs to our neighbor who lives directly across the street from us. She is NOT starving. She is named Smokey. My boys informed me of this because she belongs to their friends.***
I've been having nightmares about cats lately. I think it's Smokey's fault. Smokey might have to go live on a farm. Maybe Smokey will get to play with Jack.

Do you think Jack resented being called Jack when she was a girl? Don't tell me it was her expressing her anger towards gender confusion...?

Whatever.

WWTK Wednesday

2011-10-19T08:58:00.000-07:00

Looky! I actually remembered a meme! A while a go that's all I was doing...meme, meme, meme...

And then, one day, I forgot. And then the next day...I forgot. And I just remembered yesterday! So. Here it is. Yay!

Hosted by the lovely Mamarazzi, Queso and Crazymama.

This week's questions are from the one and only Mamarazzi.

{1} When was the last time you lost your temper?
Probably within the last week. Do you think less of me now? Fine. Make up some date farther away than last week. How 'bout when I was 3? That works.

{2} What 3 words best describe you?
Funny. Smart. Quirky.
And after having said that it sounds more like: Narcissistic. Full of myself. Big ego.

{3} What movie could you watch over and over again and never get tired of?
Apollo 13.
Forrest Gump.
Dumb and Dumber.
Steel Magnolias.
Demolition Man.
Christmas Vacation.

Shut. Up.

{4} If you could do something dangerous, just once, with no risk, what would you do?
Skydive.

{5} Which is more important intelligence or common sense?
You need a healthy balance of both. What a boring answer, right?

It's Getting To Be That Time Again! {Shutterfly To The Rescue!}

2011-10-18T00:00:00.000-07:00

What time, you ask?

Well...Christmas time, duh!

And once again, Shutterfly is coming to our rescue!

Last year I was able to take advantage of Shutterfly's Blogger promotion and I fell in love with this amazing company. They make high quality holiday photo cards, gifts and calenders year round and take the pressure off your holiday greeting card shopping. The only thing you worry about is picking what design you want out of all their fabulous designs!

Again, I can't decide which design I want!

Are you a blogger? Want a chance at 25 free cards this holiday season? Register here: http://goo.gl/DDw7Q.

Bueller? Bueller...?

2011-10-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

That's right. The dummy that's sitting in the back that's supposed to be me is actually a potato sack filled with newspaper and pretending to be me. I'm shocked at how similar the likeness really is.

I'm not here because I caught whatever it is that my husband and boys have had the last couple weeks. I thought I had missed the train on that one and was going to beat it. Alas, I have not.

Currently, I'm pondering the following things:

Colds suck. They make you feel just crappy enough that you can't do anything, or don't want to do anything, but they don't have a magical cure and you can't whine about them too much because then you're just a wuss.

After the Lego party last week I had felt like I was hit by a Mac truck. Now I'm pretty sure that Mac truck has parked it's big butt squarely on my chest.

I have weird, weird, weird dreams when I don't feel good. The latest included Tara from Fabulous but Evil. I don't know what's weirder, the fact that I had the dream in the first place, or that I just word vomited it all over her so now she knows how weird I am.

I'm making a lot of scarves for my Etsy shop. This one seems to be the best seller, by far.

hand knitted burnt orange scarf.

I have a book review, MAC update and lots of random ideas floating around with the ~~snot~~ germs in my head. I will be back at some point this week. If I had any energy or "give a crap" at all right now, I'd schedule some posts. But. I don't.

I must not be at the total rock bottom of this cold yet because I had the energy to make homemade stew in the crock pot for dinner. Of course, stew...comfort food.

What I don't like is hearing my boys whine over stew.

Here's what I say: Look, kids, I don't like stew all that much either, but it's cold, I feel like a dog turd and you gave me whatever this crap illness is, so it's what I had in the cupboards and you're gonna eat it. Minimal whining, please.

And I will also keep my whining to a minimum, deal?

So. What's for dinner at your house?

And. This is a pretty decent sized post for me not being here, right?

ps: at least it's not the swine flu! again...