Home!

I am home now!
I had a nice weekend away, my girls had a WONDERFUL time. I had a good time. Babyboy had a grand time, but a) too many things for him to get into - the main room had 4 sets of stairs off of it and b) didn't sleep so well at all.
I am feeling pretty tired and worn out - but it was worth it =) I'm glad I went and visited with my cousin.
We chatted, watched a movie, I read a book, did like 15 minutes of knitting, talked, had fun, ate, and had a pretty good time.
I would like to go back, but honestly, next time I want to leave the baby home or wait until he is several years older! But, he had the most fun climbing up one set of stairs (about 6 of them to get to the upper level) and amazingly enough, he only fell one time!
The girls, with their new favorite "aunt" K, helped make Mickey Mouse pancakes, chocolate chip cookies, personal sized pizzas, then they got their fingernails AND toenails painted! They were on cloud nine most of the weekend. A was determined to move in there and M promised to visit again real soon. It was very cute =)

And it was a good weekend =)
But I have to say, it is great to be home, and when dh got home from work today, I rushed to hug him. I know it was only 3 days/2 nights, but I missed him sooo much! And was glad to be back with him =)

See you later ....

We are about to hop on the road ... I am having a girly weekend with one of my cousins! I haven't gone to her house ever and she only lives a few hours away (2.5 hours according to mapquest). And she moved. I never did go see the last house they owned ... oops!
So we are off to go spend time with her and hopefully have fun. The kids have mixed feelings - oldest is excited, middle is whining since daddy won't be with us, and baby, well, he has no clue what's going on LOL!!!
So, it's a short weekend trip, we'll be back Sunday sometime. And hopefully I will have lots of fun stuff to relate!

See you later ....

We are about to hop on the road ... I am having a girly weekend with one of my cousins! I haven't gone to her house ever and she only lives a few hours away (2.5 hours according to mapquest). And she moved. I never did go see the last house they owned ... oops!
So we are off to go spend time with her and hopefully have fun. The kids have mixed feelings - oldest is excited, middle is whining since daddy won't be with us, and baby, well, he has no clue what's going on LOL!!!
So, it's a short weekend trip, we'll be back Sunday sometime. And hopefully I will have lots of fun stuff to relate!

I don't normal ...

put my children on this website, but I honestly feel this video is SO fun to watch, that I just had to share!!
I will say the best part is from about 24 seconds to the end!

Why I love ....

comments.
I will tell you all why I love comments - since I've been getting quite a few these days (thanks to Mel)

Here is my list

1. Someone might say they completely understand/agree with what I'm saying. This means I am not the only person in the world who is thinking that and I feel a slightly bit more normal than when I thought I was the only one. It's nice to not feel alone out there ....

2. Someone might say something interesting that makes me think more about what I was talking about than I thought before. Or someone might say something that I hadn't yet thought about and then I'll be thinking again! And I do enjoy thinking (despite the fact that some might argue I don't do it nearly enough LOL!)

3. Someone might disagree and challenge me. I might say, hmm, that's interesting, I need to look into this more. Ultimately my opinion gets strengthened OR an amazing thing might happen. I might say, why, gee, I think I was wrong before! And wa-la, my opinion, my way of thinking has then been changed.

4. I can follow the commenters back to their blogs and then discover some great blog I have not yet discovered! How fun and wonderful (I have added quite a few blogs to my blogroll over the last few days).


And that my friends is why I love comments!

100% Content ...

Can you say you are 100% content?
I know I can not honestly say that I am. I'm just not. And I'm not at all about pretending I am. Although, I will admit there was a time when I surely would have lied and said why yes, thank you, I am absolutely content, all the while probably wanting to cry on the inside. But that little gig was not working in my life anymore ....
But I am sitting here and watching Oprah. She is talking to a young Amish couple and they said they were 100% content. Until that point, I wasn't really watching - the tv is on as background noise mostly. But it caught my ear and I had to listen.
I have to say, I'm jealous. I would love to be 100% content with my life, to find peace and comfort. And yet, I'm not. I am maybe 75% content? Maybe?
I am so caught up in the rat race, caught up in wanting more, doing more, being more, being better, being prettier, having more money, more fun, more time, more, more, more, more .... that's the name of the game for me right now. I can look around right now and see SO much excess in my life - mostly excess things. All these things I could easily live without. I can say here, I could live without it, but if someone tried to take them away, I'd list about 183,347,291 reasons as to why I need it. It's silly to think about really. I feel slightly embarrassed even putting it into words here.
And I think to myself "Here's your sign." My sign is apparently saying

Slow down
Stop always looking for more
Savor the now

So if I can learn to do that. And not just say I've learned it, but really truly believe it. Maybe I too can someday say I am 100% content.

How about you? Are you 100% content? How content are you?

Wow! Wow! Wow!

Today has been a Wow! kind of day for so many reasons ...

First of all, thanks to all the people coming over from Mel's blog! I read quite a few comments and thought what is going on! All these people here! I wasn't sure what to make of it and then I read her blog and discovered why! Thanks Mel - very kind of you! I love all these comments though, I can't lie! I'm basking in them hehehe

Second of all, a friend confided in me today. Now, I have to say here, I am sorry that she had to confide in me and I'm sorry that she was upset. But I can't really remember the last time someone confided in me. And I have said before that I was excited to feel like I finally had a friend, and now I feel confident in saying I finally have a good friend, no, a great friend. And that is where the second wow! comes in. I have to see that I forsee much better days ahead for her though - and hopefully some day I will be able to link you to a blog for my friend, but as of now, she is blogless (although I do keep trying to get her to start one of these!)

Third of all, I decided to be president of the moms club I am a part of. Which is odd because I don't really do a lot of things with the moms club in general. Hmmm ... seems odd - well it did to my dh. But I decided I had two options - I was either going to leave the moms club or step up and be president. The position has been open for quite some time now - maybe since the start of the year? And the club is just (imo) doing worse and worse. And so in a best case scenario, I can come in, shake things up, get it going again and rejuvinate it. In a worse case scenario, I fall flat on my face, leave the position and let it sit open for half a year again! We'll see what happens ... I'm kind of nervous, but excited as I have ideas for this club and hopefully I will not be the only person who thinks these ideas are good ones!

I think that about wraps up my day here! I'm basically enjoying all the comments - what a nice treat =) While you are leaving those comments, if you could maybe send up some good thoughts/prayers for my blogless friend S. Oh and add in a few words about me not failing on this whole president thing!

One thing ...

GO BEARS!!

=)

Added after the original post ....
OMG! HOLY COW! I CAN NOT BELIEVE IT AT ALL!!!!!!
How we pulled that win off I will never ever know, but holy cow, am I happy we won this game. Sorry to Arizona though. I will admit, at half time I had given up all hope. I hung my head in shame ... granny told me to take babyboy out of his Bear's outfit she was not happy with how they were playing. I almost changed the channel in all honesty! But I didn't, and holy cow am I glad I didn't. I only kept the game on so that I couldn't be accused of being a fair-weather friend to my Bears. Wow! I seriously can't believe it! It was amazing. WOW.
On all that note, I sure hope the Offense cleans up it's act for the next game. They did not play well at all - I really don't know how we ended up winning aside from pure LUCK.

So. Very. Tired.

I'm so tired today!
I had the kids skip church because I was too tired to get dressed, get in the car and sit in church myself ... I thought if I had to sit, I'd surely fall asleep! LOL! Not exactly what I want to do at church ;-)
And yet, I know I should have gone, should have tried to do more to wake up, but yet, I did not.
And now it's almost 1, and I want to take another nap. :X
I need to start sleeping at night ... I've been pulling some late nights lately - partly due to a baby who doesn't have any clue what "decent bedtime" means and partly because I've been staying awake to accomplish some things that I can't get done during the day with the children running around.
I have to figure out how to achieve some balance around here. There are things that I really want to finish (and other things I need to finish) that I just can't manage to do with the kids running around ... for exaple, Halloween costumes ... I'm not done with either of them, and only have one started. Halloween is soon and next weekend we will be gone all weekend. But babyboy doens't really allow me to run the sewing machine when he's awake. If and when he sleeps during the day, I'm doing school with the others ...
And yet, when I look into my crystal ball, I see that there will be a time where I will have the days free to do things - no baby crawling around after me, hanging on my leg, waiting to be picked up - no girls running around, asking me to solve fights for them, read them stories, look at their latest art work, see how high their newest tower is, help put the tricky dress on the barbie, brush the doll's hair ... and that thought saddens me.
I hope before that day comes though, there is a bit more balance around here ... time for them, time for me, time for my dh, time for us all ...

Perect Major ...

You scored as Sociology. You should be a Sociology major! Psychology 83% Sociology 83% Engineering 75% Anthropology 75% Philosophy 75% English 67% Dance 58% Art 58% Mathematics 50% Journalism 50% Linguistics 50% Theater 33% Biology 25% Chemistry 8% What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3) created with QuizFarm.com

I took this quiz after seeing it on Sheri's blog and decided to take it too!
I think my results are very interesting to me! When I went to college I thought about doing a psychology or sociology major of some kind ... but was basically set on education as a major.
I look back now and realize that I had grown up with so many people telling me I would be a good teacher and I should be a teacher and teaching was for me, blah, blah, blah ... that even though other areas interested me, I was pretty much set on being a teacher.
One teaching degree later, I don't really think teaching is where I belong truthfully! I wish I could go back to those high school years and take some time to explore other options and really, truly think about what to do in college instead of just accepting I should be a teacher and do that only.

Oh well ... someday, I'll have a chance to start over I think. For now, I'm content to stay home with the children and play teacher with them. =) It's where I want to be now (after actually thinking about it and not just doing what I thought I was supposed to do!).

But I think soon, I will be following the lead of Chef Messy and maybe share some of my pipe dreams ....

Thanks and Sorry!

Thanks for the comments yesterday friends! I really did feel excited to see them (even if it does sound silly LOL!)
And I owe Karen an apology! We have met in real life, and she does read my blog - and I forgot! Sorry Karen! And despite the fact that I said no one I know in real life reads this, I should have said almost no one I know in real life reads this blog is what I should have said yesterday.

Anyway, knowing I have some readers out there will help me stay more consistent and post more and write more! Wouldn't want to break someone heart by having them come here and see no new posts now would I? LOL!!

The problem ...

So here's the problem.
I started this blog. I let very few people know the web address. No one I know IRL knows this blog even exists. I wanted it to be private in a sense ... let's be real, there isn't a lot of privacy on putting things on the internet for pretty much anyone who can use the internet to read, but yet, I have a feeling of security because I don't think anyone I can ever come face to face with reads this ...
So herein lies the problem. I still want people to read it - just not people I actually know! Someone jump through the computer and smack me! (you know, all 4 people who visit here each day - most of you finding me lately by linking from Actual Unretouched Photo). I get comments - about twice a month, but I want more comments, more readers, more, more, more!!! Which is a pretty common theme in my life - me wanting more.
I will survive, I will get by, I'll keep writing in this little blog of mine - sharing the good, the bad, the whines, the vents, my thoughts on life around me ... and hopefully all 3-5 people stopping by each day will read for at least 30 seconds before going on to their next read!

This is why ...

I have issues with the media ... this story.

It is absolutely disgusting ... his family didn't even know yet and the news just announced who it was. Didn't they care? Is that how his family should have learned their son, husband, father had just passed away in a fatal airplane crash? Seriously, WTF is wrong with the media?

This was not a circus folks. It was a tragic accident. But you wouldn't have known that were you watching news coverage of it.

I get that at first it was frightening ... bringing back memories of 9/11 and all that happened that day. I understand why the media jumped on the story initially. But once it was realized it was not yet another terrorist attack, why couldn't they have backed off on it? Why did they have to release the names? Ugh. Makes me sick. I'm sorry that our media thinks more of ratings than of being tasteful, compassionate, and caring. But isn't that what our media has come too? News of celebs make front page headlines, pictures of their babies go for millions of dollars. If you only listened to mainstream new sources, you might think that Americans care more about Hollywood than anything else. It makes me sick. It makes me ill to think that Tom Cruise's baby is more important than war, faminine, starvation, poverty, death ... but welcome to America in the year 2006. We say we want to know. We say we care. But as a country, I don't think we walk the walk ... it's very sad. And the media takes it and runs ......

You know the second they heard it could be a "celebrity" in that crash, news producers must have had orgasms ... thinking yes! a celeb! Keep talking, here's his name, here's his picture, who cares that he was a real live person, ratings baby! Ratings! Run with this story and go! We'll worry about the repurcations later because chances are, no one will probably care that much anyway! This is what the public lives for! Yes! Yes! Rating will be up today ....

Sick. Just sick.

My thoughts and prayers are with his family right now.

Can someone explain to me ...

why it is North Korea can not afford to feed it's people - and people are starving to death in that country due to a very extended drought ... and yet, their government can afford to create and test missiles and most likely they just tested nuclear weapons.
Hmmmm .... I have really thought about this the last few days ... I just don't understand. Do the leaders of the country feel that threatened by the rest of the world that they felt they had to pursue these weapons? Or do they think that they would like to gain more power and that is a way to do it?
I guess I don't get why they allow such a great amount of bad things to happen to the people and use that money to develop weapons that can harm so many.

And really, I have been thinking about this, even though they have it (supposedly anyway - we still don't have complete confirmation that it was a nuclear weapon tested Monday) will they ever use it? I'm thinking it would be about one of the dumbest moves tehy could make, because if you really think about it (and let's hope they are really thinking about it, but I'm also tending to think they are not thinking per my question above) if they did use it, pretty much most of the industrialized countries in the world will rally against them and Pyongyang will be out pretty quickly IMO.

And what will we do about all that has transpired over the last few days? One, sanctions ... which will hurt the country sure, but mostly it will hurt the people in the country who are already hurting, which sucks. And 2, we will be increasingly paranoid about what happens - for example Japan had an earthquake yesterday and the initial thought was North Korea tested another weapon.

It's sad what is happening. And I think at this point, whatever is going to happen probably won't have a happy ending, especially for the people living in North Korea. :-(

Back ....

We survived the fun weekend! I tell you, Sunday was a bit hard ... we were enjoying ourselves until about 12:30 am and then I was up with the baby a few times and dh woke us up at 6:30. We were on the road home at 7:10! That was definitely not fun at all.
But the wedding was wonderful, the reception was great fun, and the after party was (mostly) a blast.
Only one thing/situation marred the weekend, but I'm trying very hard to forget it even happened and dh is going to take care of those parties that need some talking to about what happened and it is now officially out of my hands. Maybe in the next few days I'll share ... but for now, I'll keep that part of the weekend to myself.
I am so glad we were there and able to help them out. I'm glad we brought the kids, but also brought a babysitter with. The whole weekend was mostly fabulous and fun and a good break from all the things at home. Which was grand for me in all honesty.
Anyway, I'm glad the weekend went so well, and I'm glad to be back home! The basement is put back together now - hooray! And hopefully we will get back into the swing of things around here now.
And finally, yesterday, we went and signed up at the local Y. Yeah! I'm thinking we are going to even go swimming today - it's a blustery 50's outside, but at the Y, the pool temp is 86-88 and the air temp is 88-92. Sounds like a grand idea to me! LOL!

Greetings from ...

Kentucky!
The hotel has free internet access, and well, I had to take advantage of it!
Pretty soon, wireless internet access will be standard for every hotel and my kids will laugh when I tell them when I was growing up I didn't have an e-mail address until high school and no wireless or high speed connections! LOL!
So we had a pretty uneventful drive - kids did super. I took draminine literally moments away from leaving our driveway which knocked me out for over half the drive! Babyboy fussed a bit in the middle, but then was great the rest of the way. So we made it in one piece. The rehersal went pretty well. It was hard for me as I wanted to step in and make suggestions on how to do the ceremony - yeah, so I can be a bit of a control freak at times ;-) But I kept my mouth shut aside from a few points that I thought were pretty important. I told dh maybe when I grow up I might be a wedding planner and wouldn't that be fun. He smiled and said "sure dear" (as pretty much several times a year I proclaim what I will be when I have to enter the workforce after the children are gone! Of course it's always something different! LOL!)
Anyway, the dinner tonight was fun. The girls stayed with sitter and we brought the baby with us (we discovered this am we only have about 7 ounces of milk for him with us so we brought him tonight so we could leave him with bottles tomorrow). He again did super, and we had fun at the dinner as well.
I still can't believe that this wedding is tomorrow! This is my dh's best friend of 25 years - I can't imagine - I've barely been alive for 25 years. But they are great friends, and so by default I have become pretty good friends with groom and friends with bride and so this wedding will be so wonderful tomorrow to witness and be a part of (even if it's just delivering flowers and my husband to the church on time! LOL!)

Well, I still have to hem my dress - nothing like waiting until the last minute, huh?
I can't wait for tomorrow - it will be so fun!

Thankfully ...

I and the children will be leaving for the wedding tomorrow morning as planned originally. And also thankfully, I will not be attending this wedding naked.

First of all - although the children are not 100%, they are better and doc says they are not contagious - so they will be coming with. I did call around to see if someone here could keep them, but it could not be done. I really want to be at that wedding though, so with the doc's okay, we are taking them - which should be okay - they will stay in the hotel room with a sitter while we are out and will come in contact with no one aside from dh, myself, each other and babysitter!

Secondly - might I recommend everyone get a personal shopper? Let me just tell you, she was fabulous! Got my dress on the third try, fit me for a bra, found shoes, and jewelry (and contrary to dh's opinion, she told me I did NOT need to buy a new purse and no necklace was required with my dress, so she did not try to sell me more than I needed nor the most expensive thing in the store). I loved every moment of it. We had some time left so I even asked for her help to get a pair of jeans that fit - and she did! First try! I am so impressed. I hugged her at least twice and told her just how happy I was about everything. And really, if I may be not modest for a moment - I will look absolutely fabulous at the wedding! Yeah! I can't wait to go. Dh asked if all that I did was really necessary. Then I tried it all on for him, and he agreed, that yes, it was necessary and thought I looked fabulous as well! I am so excited ... things always go better when you feel good about how you look, so imo, this wedding should be great fun =)

Anyway, I am glad the kids are healthy. I have the car half-way packed already and 90% of everything else by the door ready to go. (But things like the cooler have to wait til the am) and the kids will want a few last minute items to bring with as well I'm sure.
But I can't wait to get away and go to this wedding ... but right now it is by far too late for me to be awake with what time I have to wake in the am ... so good night and good bye for a few days!

Thanks for sticking with me through all the venting, whining and complaining lately ... it really has been what I'd call some pretty cruddy days around here, but hopefully this is the start of some good days ahead!

From bad to worse ...

Now my oldest is puking @@
I. Can't. Take. Much. More.
What's worse is that at this piont I may not be attending this weekend's wedding. I will just cry if it comes down to that. Ugh. It makes me want to be sick just thinking about it.

But, right now I am assuming I will be attending. And I still have nothing to wear! I went and tried on dresses last night, I went tonight. I am going crazy looking for something to wear - and yes. I should have gotten something sooner - however, I wasn't planning on my van being in the shop twice and the kids being sick. I had planned on being all set to go by the end of last week. Oh well. I will take the hand I am delt with. And I made an appointment with a personal shopper at Macy's for tomorrow. Now, I have never had a personal shopper before. I am not quite sure what to expect. Well, okay, I expect her to find me an outfit, shoes and maybe some accessories to go with said outfit. I am NOT having luck looking for something myself, so I decided to get help. Now, I also decided to do it because Macy's offers it at the store near me as a complimentary service. So basically I'm doing it because it's free. And because I asked for help yesterday in several stores. Explained what I was and was not looking for. And had the employees basically bring me exactly what I said I didn't want. And then when I would say "No, I don't really like that dress very much" and you know what, I was brought basically the same dress in another print. "Um, no, I don't like that style" and I was brought basically the same dress in yet another style. "No, really, remember I tried one on like that already and it didn't look very pretty on me at all? I don't want that sort of style." And what did they bring me, pretty much the same dress in another print. Okay. I get it. Stop asking for help and start looking on my own. And then I struck out when looking on my own. Well, we will see what happens tomorrow. And, the truth of the matter is that it might not even matter because I still don't know if I will be attending or not. Which I just might have to break into tears right now when I think about missing the wedding :-(

In other news, basement area is still not back in order, so we are still not schooling. I figure we won't be doing anything until Wednesdayish of next week. I won't even touch the basement tomorrow and :::crossing fingers::: we leave by 9 am Friday and get home Sunday afternoon. Monday we are out pretty much all day, Tuesday we will start to put everything back together which means Wednesday we should be able to resume using the basement as normal. I surely hope so. I miss my basement (and to be honest, I don't love the basement to begin with!). But the basement is our space. And I miss being able to go into our space.
Soon enough ... and hopefully all the kids will get healthy (by tomorrow morning preferably) and we will have a grand weekend at our friends wedding. And then, then I will stop complaining all the time!

When it rains, it pours ...

literally ...
last night it rained and the water poured in our basement. So not fun.
Luckily, we were down there when it started to come in and so we quickly moved things, stacked things, rearranged things, pulled up important things.
Thankfully we didn't take in too much water (unlike earlier this year when we had a few inches of water that we didn't find out about until it had come in all night @@). But it sucks. I have a lot of things that are now lost, hidden and burried in that basement. It will probably take me several weeks to find everything.
And they are calling for more rain late tonight/early tomorrow ... oh yeah.

Anyway, I'm in a pretty not great mood. Kids are still sick. Babyboy still has diarrhea and now he doens't want to sleep. Most of my stuff is inaccesiable, my car is in the shop again, we have a wedding to go to Saturday. I tried on countless numbers of dresses tonight and found not one thing that fit me and looked like it was a) from this decade b)made for someone under the age of 60 and c)had my boobs hanging out.
I know, in the grand scheme of things, it's not that bad. But in my little house, in my little world things are just not going very well at all right now. If I survive until October 31, even I will be impressed with myself.

Calgon ..

take me away!
Ugh. I've had a rough day, a rough last few days actually.
Babyboy is not only having his breathing issues, but this am he started to have lovely diarrhea. I've lost count of how many times he and I have changed clothes today.
I just want a break from it all.
However, my dh is working today, yesterday, tomorrow, the next day, etc ....
And since my car was not fixed the first time we took it in, that means I have to take it back in tomorrow which leaves me carless again.
And I have a wedding to attend Saturday - 6 days for those keeping count. I have nothing to wear. And when am I supposed to go shopping? Beats me ... I have no clue at all. I'm feeling very stressed about, well, everything. Usually when I get too stressed dh is great at letting me get away, but he is not doing that for me right now. It's frustrating. I admit, I am bit peeved at him right now - right or wrong, I am.
I am just tired and drained - physically and emotionally drained. I just need to get away for a few minutes, a few precious kidless moments.