40 by 40

So, on my birthday last year (January 13), I started coming up with a list of 40 things I wanted to accomplish by the time I was 40. I shared my desire for goals with my dear friend Terri and she decided she'd jump into the 40 by 40 pool with me. Then we decided up up and scrapbook the whole experience. ROFL . . . I made my list and I bought an album, and I've basically done nothing else since then. Well, I pulled my list out yesterday, scrapped my 40 goals page (Jamie. ..those 40 eyelets I mentioned!) . .. and now I've gotta mark some of those goals off and really get flying on the rest of them!

So, for today's entry, I'm sharing my list of 40 (goals) by 40 (years) with you:
(1) Lose weight (a bunch of it. . .but you actually have to DO something to lose it, right?)
(2) Debt reduction (we go through stages . .. some times we have nothing but the house and car payments, other times we have a bunch of stuff to pay off)
(3) Read at least a book a week (I probably do this, but need to JOURNAL this)
(4) Submit layouts to a contest/magazine (ROFL . . . .I'm a CHICKEN!)
(5) Read the entire Bible
(6) Go somewhere in Texas I've never been (I'm gonna have to get a map out. . . )
(7)Go somewhere in the US I've never been (did that . . . St. Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Louisville)
(8) Scrapbook weekly (getting into the habit again)
(9) Change cleaning habits (does getting a maid count? I think that's what I wanna do! ROFL)
(10) Take dance lessons (tap, swing, salsa . .. who knows . . .gotta lose some weight first!)
(11) Redecorate house (doing it slowly)
(12) Apply for a reality show (think trading spaces not Survivor . . I nearly gave Terri a heart attack with that one I think!)
(13) Decide on a 4th child or come to peace with the fact there's only gonna be 3 (yep . . .I'd love to have a 4th . . . but Andy's had that surgery . . .so it's an $8000 decision. {sigh}. We made a stupid snap judgement during a time when we were getting no sleep, and hadn't been getting sleep for a year's time . . . .)
(14) Go to HIA (done it . . . lucky enough to have a good friend take me . . . .wouldn't mind going again at some point)
(15) Buy or build a new house
(16)Rock babies in the NICU
(17) Keep a prayer journal/pray daily
(18)Make a new good, local girlfriend
(19) Exercise regularly (4 times a week . . .back to that lose weight thing again)
(20)Improve dental health (latest update .. .gums are getting better! YIPPEE)
(21) Volunteer at the kid's school 1 time a week
(22) Research a subject I'm not familiar with
(23) Complete the kids' baby books/albums
(24) Complete a Book of Me
(25) Write a separate letter to each child at least 4 times a year (started that with the blog entries for Ian and Allie on their b-days . . .will be doing Alaina's first one soon)
(26)Complete "Mom Journals"
(27)Complete a yearly family album for 2004-2010
(28) Do a photo shoot of just me
(29) Try out to sing the National Anthem before a local game
(30) Complete Alaina's Christmas stocking (the other 2 have cross stitched stockings. . .poor Alaina has a 1/2 done one)
(31) Read 1 book a month that is out of my reading "comfort zone"
(32) Have everything in the house organized (Terri . . .don't laugh too hard!)
(33) Learn photography
(34) Learn Photoshop
(35) Try one new recipe a month (anyone still reading . . .got any good EASY ones?)
(36) Run through the sprinklers with the kids
(37) Spend a summer doing 1 thing a week that's out of the ordinary with the kids
(38) Teach the children to love God and have a deep relationship with Him
(39) See Oprah
(40) Take a Sisterchick trip with Terri for my 40th birthday

Our Gift from Rita

So these clouds, some steady wind, and a little "spit" from Rita was all we got. No massive rain, no tornadoes. . . no steady rain even. Not that I'm upset by that. . . although some rain and some cooler weather would've been nice.

BTW, all the people driving up and down the street now think I'm nuts as I took about 30 pictures of the sky Saturday afternoon.

In other news . . .we got slaughtered for the 2nd time in 3 days time by the same soccer team. First game the score was 7-1, second game was 8-2. EEK! Thank goodness we don't have to play them again this season. Bad news is our game this week is against the team that beat THAT team. EEEEEKKKKKK! I'm scared to go! At least I'm getting some good shots of Ian.

I've got Allie signed up for a "mini-Sweethearts" clinic. The Sweethearts are the drill team for the high school we feed into. So we'll be going to our first High School football game on the 14th. That'll be interesting.

And for those who know about the migraine thing. . . the dr. is pulling me off the old preventative meds and putting me on a new one. . . whole process will take about 5 weeks (have to slowly taper on new meds and slowly taper off old ones). He seems like a good dr. . . but he uses a lot of $50 words.

Guess that's about all I have here . . . .

Superstars and other things. . .

At Alaina's preschool, the Bible teacher picks out a boy and girl "superstar" each day. If you get 2 same colored stars, you get to eat lunch with the Bible teacher. First day of school, Alaina came home with a red colored star and proclaimed "I'm a superstar!" Tuesday, she came home again telling me she was once again a superstar and we needed to add her second star to the first one hanging on the fridge. Searched that backpack all over . .. no star. She was insisted that she'd gotten one from Mrs. Elisha that day. Checked with Mrs. Tracie yesterday . .. and sure enough, she got a star, took it out on the playground, then gave it to Mrs. Tracie. . .star ended up in Mrs. Tracie's pocket and got washed. We're working on getting her another red star. . . tehehehe the little superstar! Doesn't she look like one?

In other superstar news . . . .Ian's game last night. . .got better photos, in the 20 minutes that I was actually there for the game. Game overlapped Allie's jazz class, so Andy took Ian and I brought the girls when class was over. Here's a shot of Ian in which no other kid's face is in it. . .tehehe (Kelly, this was as close as I could zoom . . .I was on the sidelines, and he was mid field. . . I think you were way further away. Should one 70-300 zoom closer in than another?)

Ahhhhh . . .the pumps. The gas stations in the Dallas area are running out of gas. We're not close enough to get anything more than rain and some winds from Rita. . . .but everyone's stocking up. When I got gas yesterday during Allie's dance class, one station had nothing left but premium gas, and this 7-11 had run out of regular unleaded. They however, were selling the mid-grade for regular unleaded price. . .thought that was cool of them. And they've probably won my business over the long haul. By the time Andy got out last night to get groceries over the weekend (we always have tons of water, so that's not an issue, but wanted to make sure we were well stocked on the basics and some meals), he had to go to 2-3 gas stations to even FIND gas! EEK

So, we should be okay. . .living where we live. They originally said there was the possibility of tornadoes or power outages where we're at.. . not sure what today's prediction is. But predictions don't really mean much, huh? For those of you reading, I'll do my best to keep you guys updated if anything does in fact hit here. If there is a longer than several hour power outage, we won't stay here. . .100 degree weather is just too hot for the kids. We do have several options though. . .some as near as my parents, depending on how bad the outage is. We frequently have weather here that they don't have a mere 20 minutes away (or vice versa), so that's will be our first option. If we actually have to leave the area, there's Andy's parents in San Antonio (although I still don't get how going further south is a good idea. . .someone clue me in!), my mom's family is all in Arkansas . . . or Terri, maybe we'll head up your way and make a visit! {vbg} But seriously, we think it will just be a lot of rain and some wind. . .most of the rain will be soaked into our dry, dry ground.

Okay, rant over. . . .

Some of you may remember my rant from several weeks ago . .. . when I asked what Oprah was gonna do about Katrina. ROFL . . .think she read my blog and decided to spend $10 million of "her own money" to help rebuild NOLA?

So, rant over. . . .she did a good thing. She made it obviously clear that it wasn't Angel Network money she was working with there, that $10mil donation. She did a good thing. . . coming through with a good chunk of her own money to help rebuild. And that registry thing. . . pretty cool. Although, I'm hoping that they'll do some of their shopping somewhere else. You guys seen these towels at Target? Oprah's got towel sets for 2 people for $50 on her registry . . . this set is $30. tehehe . . .think I should be her bargain shopper? Seriously though. . .my sister has these towels at her house, and I was impressed at how good looking/feeling they were.

Heather's Favorite Things Show

Okay, was cruisin' blogs today. . and noticed this on Wendi's blog. She suggested coming up with your own 10 favorite things. . . much like Oprahs "favorite things" show. So here's the second post for today.

So . . .here they are, in no particular order:

1: Ethel's Chocolate Lounge. Wonder what I have to do to get one of these put in at the mall by the house. Oh my goodness. . .we had the chocolate fondue when we were in Chicago (plus Andy and I bought a few extra pieces of chocolate) and it was YUMMY! Can't you tell Allie was totally absorbed in it? The kids had never fondued before, and oh, did they love it!

2. While we're talking Chocolate, let's talk my favorite chocolate covered Strawberries from Godiva. Oh, those things are good! Not like I eat them much at $2 a berry. ROFL Not to mention their dark chocolates and caramels. {sigh}

3. I've fallen in love with these tin boxes from IKEA. Both of them for $6.99. What a great price. They have little handles and they hold tons of stuff! You'd not believe how many Chatterbox embellishments I got into one of the large ones! You can see them in my Expedit storage in the pictures from my first post from today.

4. Okay, those of you who know me and my shopping habits, knew this was going to show up somewhere on the list! Gymboree . .. love it! It wears well. . . Allie can wear it for one or two years (summer stuff.. . she can wear for 10-12 months) and you can't tell it's been worn! This skort is what Alaina wore for the first day of school. . .it's SOOOOO her personality! She loves animal print. They've got circle of friends this weekend (everything in the store OR on the website is 30% off). If you need the email so you can take advantage of this deal, email me (see link in sidebar) and I'll forward you the email.

5. This 50mm lens and a darned powerful zoom lens.

6. Super Suppers. If you're like me and you're NOT found of cooking, check them out and see if there's a franchise near you. I've liked almost everything we've gotten from them. I wish the selection was bigger. . . but it's good stuff!

7. Beth Moore Bible studies . .. all of 'em, with the DVD sets. Wow . . .they're amazing. If you've never done one, you should look into them! I learn so much each time I've done one.

8. Have you checked out Exposures? Those boxes! Know what willpower it took for me not to get them for my new room? But I was afraid they wouldn't be the right shade of green, so I refrained . . .but did you see the price?!?!?!

9. Sisterchicks. Both book form. . .and the IRL kind! {vbg} Counting down to November 1st when they'll be saying "Ooh La La!" Can't wait to read the 5th book from Robin Jones Gunn . . .and no, as far as I know, she's not related. As for the IRL Sisterchick . . . not only is it great to have someone who's there for you no matter what .. . will send papers, album kits, and such, it's a thrill to have someone who's so on your wave length. Not sure I could ever give those away in a show though!

10. tehehe . . . Scotch double sided tape . . .tons for everyone! I can't tell you how many things I used it for today! Used it to stick one of my new WSD stamps to an acryllic block so I could stamp on the front of a comp book . . . used it to hold down some ribbon. . . used it for a gift (to wrap one, not give it away. ROFL, although there are days I'd love it as a gift!).

So, there you go, my 10 Favorite things. I know, not much scrapbooking there. . . but figured I should share some of my other favorites with you guys. You know my scrapbooking favorites. If you add your 10 favorite things to your blog, let me know. . .I'd love to check them out.

Finished.

Pulled an all nighter last night cleaning and getting everything organized so that it would look all nice and pretty for the gals who came over today to learn how to put comp books together for a ladies' day at the church in 9 days. Here's a shot of the finished product, along with a close up of what's on my worktable. . .yes, that's a green finger! Allie sits on my second stool in the afternoons and reads books to me, and she uses that thing as her reading pointer!We decided to do all the furniture from IKEA, except for the computer desk chair. . .haven't found one I like yet. But here's the Expedit shelving unit, and scary . .. it's pretty much full of stuff. I know I could fit more in, but I don't want it to look crammed in there. All the red accents, except the red photo boxes, came from target, as did the clear boxes. I got 'em on a slight clearance. YIPEE! The baskets came from IKEA . .. . I have my 12x12 patterned paper in them, all my document boxes with foam stamps in them, chipboard alphabets, mini albums. All those CH embellie boxes are full of ribbon, with the flat sides having MM rub-ons in them. The IKEA tin boxes have all sorts of embellishments in them, and one of them has my desktop essential kit in it. You'll see I gave up on getting all my ribbon in the CH totes and finally decided to put the rest of it in jars. . . along with other embellishments. . . . think I have enough Heidi Grace embellies? @@ This last picture is for G . . . go ahead and laugh! This is my stamp collection shelf. My WSD box with my stamps I've ordered from them, my huge Heidi Swapp Stamps, and my Technique Tuesday carrier full of stamps, inks, cleaners, etc. And yes, that is in addition to all my foam stamps. Yes G, I did what I said I wasn't going to do! Go ahead and laugh away. . . . I can't wait to start creating in this room!

They Said a Bad Word!

Alaina was watching 3-2-1 Penguins this morning, and all of the sudden she came up and said "Mom, they just said a bad word!" "What was it Alaina?" .. . of course, she refused to tell me. That would be saying one herself. I couldn't imagine what she would've thought it was. . . it's made by the same people who make VeggieTales! I asked again, and she said "It's spelled S-U-P." "Sup?" Thinking maybe she's offended by rapper talk. "No Mom!" "I don't think you spelled it quite right Alaina, why don't you try again." I'm doing this for my own amusement. . . she's not even four. The kid can't spell. tehehe "Okay, maybe it was T-U-V." "Tuv? Are you sure?" She responded with a growl and leaned in and whispered "Dumb . . .Mom, they said dumb!" By that point, she was fed up with me and my obvious lack of spelling skills and stomped back off to the couch to watch the rest of the show with the bad talkers.

I Challenge You!

So, Jamie, Jess, and I have decided to Challenge each other to spend less money of scrapping goodies and make more pages with what we've got. Don't really know how we came up with the challenge. . . I do know that I want to go to CKU with my friend Terri next year, and I knew the only way I was going to swing that was to stop spending so much $$ at the scrapbook stores. . . even Terri's store (my favorite lss, even if it's not local to me!)!

So, for each 12x12 layout you do, you earn a point. Any layout smaller than 9x9, you have to do 2 to earn a point. If you buy anything for a layout. . .that layout doesn't count towards your total. Plus, you have to keep track of how much $$ you spend. The only things exempt is the $$ spent on adhesives, replacement cutter blades, and photos. At the end of the deal, whoever's spent the least amount of money gets an extra 10 points added to their score.

Plus, we're going to issue extra little challenges along the way . . . this week is the eyelet challenge. For every layout you put 5 eyelets on, you get double points. . . Triple points on "excessive eyelet" use.

ROFL . . .not doing good so far. No pages done, and certainly not one with an eyelet.

So far, I've bought 6 rolls of hermie (got them at last weeks 1/3 off HL sale price b/c they forgot to take the signs down) and 2 replacement blades for my Carl cutter. So, at least we're doing good there.

Hey just thought of something girls. . . I'm assuming the replacement pads for the cutterpede and Carl cutters are "freebies" in the money count, right?

Next week's challenge involves all those unused stamps we have ordered from Wendi Speciale Designs. Have you seen those things? They're gorgeous! Unfortunately, I didn't order September's kit before the no-shopping thing went into effect. {sigh} I do have {} to play with though . . .among other things.

What is it with pictures of my kid?

First of all, yes I had to turn on the Word Verification . . .I too started getting the spammers on here. {sigh}

Went to Ian's first soccer game tonight. The Jaguars (orange team in photos) won 3-1. I took 74 pictures. With the digital camera, it's not a big deal to take pictures of everyone. So I took, and took, and took. . . and that was just the second half of the game. First half, I was late (girls had dance and then had to get them some dinner). I got some great action pictures. . . just not of Ian! Here are a couple of samples of the action shots I got of Ian:



In the first one, that big house is as clear as a bell . . .Ian's kinda fuzzy. tehehe . . .in the second one, fuzzy's an understatement! ROFL. And I got some great shots of Ian standing around (his expression after the Red Tornadoes scored their one goal of the evening) :


But no great action shots of him. But got great ones of the other boys. {sigh} Next time, I'll have to concentrate less on the other kids, and more on Ian!

If You Give A Pig A Party . . . .

My kids love these "If You Give A. . . " books. We laugh and giggle and tease all the way through the reading of any of these books. The latest one came out Tuesday and I picked it up today because I knew the kids had been wanting to read it. The logic behind the books is just so funny and the kids follow it along.

After giggling along, and finding all of Pig's friends, the kids decided to make up their own version. . . "If You Give A Pig a Potty . . . " started out about potty training and quickly veered into toilet papering her friend's house (that mischevious pig!), getting run over by a car, mouse and moose saving her and taking her to the hospital, and finding TP in the hospital . . which, of course, leads her back to the potty. Silly kids.

But they always know how to put me in a good mood. They've been full of their silliness over the last couple of days. . .more than usual. I don't know if they could tell that I needed it or what.

So, book recommendation of the week . . . .get any of the "If You Give A . .. " books, grab a small (or not so small . . .Ian laughs harder than the girls sometimes) child, enjoy a good laugh, and perhaps make up a story of your own.

Warning: Rant Ahead . . . .

Okay, I don't know. . .I think it's the lack of sleep or something. I just gotta do it. So please excuse the following rant. Will be back to my more normal self by my next post. . .

I don't think I've ever talked to the TV as much as I did to Oprah last night when I watched her show from yesterday. For those of you who missed it, she taped from the Astrodome and had some of her cadre of stars visit and chatter about what they'd seen. The dr. . . . I don't know, maybe he did more than he appeared to, he did help a dehydrated baby, he fooled with someone's trach. . . he said "God Bless you" to several nearly dead people. But good grief he's an acting doctor. I'm hoping he did a lot more doctoring off screen than he did onscreen. Nate . . . he did take care of making sure some people didn't have to leave pets behind. . . I'm not a pet person, but Nate got me crying. Lisa Ling. . .I wanted to have a talk with her. She made the statement (paraphrased because I deleted the show and can't get an exact quote) "I just wonder if all of this would've happened if Katrina had hit an affluent white community." Face it. . . if it had hit an affluent community, there wouldn't have been so many people stranded there because they hadn't been BUSSED OUT BEFORE THE HURRICANE HIT! You can't compare what would've happened someplace where we could've all gotten in our cars and left to people who had no cars to leave in! Why Oprah didn't ask the Mayor when she had him why he didn't use those darned buses either before or as quickly as he could after the hurricane, I'm not sure.

Then, can't have an Oprah show without a reconciliation. Glad that family was reconciled . . .don't know why we had to do it on TV! And then that guy in the cowboy hat offered the house he had (an empty rental, I'm assuming) to that family for as long as they needed/wanted it. And there's Oprah, standing by, and in earlier spots telling people "You'll be okay, I KNOW you will." Why can she not do the same? Find a few houses in decent areas, buy 'em, and let families live there? We have regular people in the Dallas area donating homes. We have a family of 19 staying in one home in Frisco . . .well, unless they got to split into 2 homes. That was something that people at the school were going to work on. Once people in that neighborhood found out there were some Katrina victims living there, they brought over refridergerators, a washer/drier, a TV and DVD player with DVDs for the kids, food, clothes, basic necessities. . .. the kids are enrolled in school, the adults are working towards trying to find jobs. You can't tell me that's a better deal than staying in Reunion Arena. It's very difficult for the average joe to get in and do what they do best at the shelters. I applied to help at the Katrina shelter in our county and am still waiting to hear back. Get them out of the massive Shelter areas and into neighborhoods and it will be amazing what the American people, as their neighbors, can do.

Think if I wrote Oprah and asked her to buy some houses, she'd do it???? ROFL

Think Trading Spaces will come acalling?

Sorry for not posting lately.

It's been a weekend. We started it off painting the soon to be scrapbook studio a shade of sage green called Restful. ROFL . . the weekend certainly hasn't been restful, not even from the getgo when I had to wait behind a woman buying paint for her entire 2500 sq. ft. house while I patiently waited for my 1 gallon of Restful paint. Even the Home Depot guy laughed at the irony.

Seems as if painting brings on migraines. So after a day of painting the walls Restful, I ended up with a migraine on Saturday. No Trading Spaces for me! I spent all of Friday in bed sleeping off the migraine. Andy did a little trim painting, but that was all.

Sunday .. . that was supposed to be the day all the Ikea furniture got built. I went up to the church and spent about 6 hours sorting stuff for the Katrina victims. We have at least one shelter in our county, with possibilities of more. And the churches of Christ have come together to find homes for those who they can and are placing them. WE know there's a home about 5-6 minutes from us with 19 family members in it that our church is helping out. Anyway, we got a ton of donations and I took Ian with me yesterday afternoon and left Andy to paint some table legs and build furniture. The painting happened . . .the building didn't. 3 pieces from the huge shelving unit were damaged. {sigh} and needed to go back. . . and guess who had the receipt? Yep . . .me. So another wasted day in home makeover land.

And we backslide last night. . .. pulled a bunch of stuff out of storage and went through it so that we could donate whatever we could to the 19 member family, another family, and then whoever else could use it. So now my living room is a disaster!

So, this morning, Andy's back at Ikea, exchanging the damaged pieces.

Wonder if this will just be a 4 day deal . . .he has a desk, a table, and that wall unit to build today.

We hit the under a $1000 part. . . .but the 2 days part. Well, we doubled that. Think Trading Spaces will want us? ROFL

Truly Blessed

Kelly suggested that we focus on those blessings we have . .. share what we're thankful for, while in this time of national loss. I'd like to share in your blessings too. Let me know if I haven't seen your list (if I've not left you a comment, I haven't seen it!)

1. I'm blessed that I know God, that I Believe Him and what He'll do in my life (the peaceful blue sky and fluffy clouds .. . just seems like a message from God to me. This pic was taken somewhere between Claremore and Joplin).
2. I'm blessed that I have a husband that works hard to love and provide for our family, and therefore allows me to stay at home with the kids.
3. I'm blessed with three beautiful, healthy children. So easy to take this one for granted sometimes. . . all I have to do is take myself back to the time when we were testing Alaina for CF, etc and those times when I was terrified we wouldn't get her to the hospital before she stopped breathing and I realize again how blessed I truly am.
4. I'm blessed to have all of my family nearby, and so willing to help out with the kids during my frequent migraine episodes. How I'd make it through without them, I don't know. . . hope I never have to find out.
5. I'm blessed to have great friends like Terri (as close to a blog link as we're getting for her!), Gloria,Becky, Erin . .. and so many more. . . . who have been there for me when I've needed them. Either IRL or over the DSL lines.
6. I'm blessed by my church community. . .to have people around me who recognize and want to utilize my talents.
7. I'm blessed by those around me who desire to help me grow in the Lord. What would I do without those spectacular women from whom I've learned so much?
8. I'm blessed to be clothed, and fed, and warm, and safe.
9. I'm blessed to live in America. . . to have so many freedoms -- where to live, where and how to school my children, where to worship, what career I wanted to have, etc.
10. I'm blessed to have that group that's become known as my circle of friends who've travelled in my pocket to so many places and have helped me through many rough patches: Dianne, Shari, Bets, Connie, Nance, Spiln, Pat, and Shorty. Oh man .. . there's never been a stronger group of women. I am truly blessed to have you guys in my life. . .both as a support system, and as an awesome set of role models. God knew what he was doing when he gave me you guys.

An end of an era

So . .. flashback to February 2004. I was the butt of many a joke at that evening's bunko. Between taking a dead hamster to the vet (oh don't ask!) and apparently buying a new hamster that was pregnant (sigh, only happens to Heather! But either we'd bought the world's meanest hamster or that little one was with little ones!). They were all laughing that I might not end up taking home a prize that night, but i might have multiple ones waiting for me when I got home. ROFL . . .sure enough, I did. . .4 little hairless hamster babies. We took 'em to the vet and found out we had 2 boy hamsters and 2 girl hamsters . .. quickly seperated them so we wouldn't go into the hamster breeding business. We gave away the girls ... the mom died (another tragic story . . .) and the boy hamsters became George and Harold of Captain Underpants fame. Harold passed away about 3 months ago. .. poor thing. And George, the rebel hamster of the litter, quickly went downhill, greying overnight. I checked on the hamsters (Allie's got one too. . . Tigger) this morning and George passed away. Poor thing. The end of the litter. . . .And I know Ian's gonna want another one. ARGH . .. so don't want another hamster. {sigh} How am I gonna talk him out of it? Don't suggest another pet! I'm not a dog person . . .and I don't want a cat either. I want to be a petless household!

Nothing like getting perspective . . .

Just ignore my previous complaining . . . .

I don't watch much TV that isn't Dora or Bugs Bunny. Not even at night. . . and I hadn't seen pics of the horrible damage done in the Biloxi area. {sigh} My heart is with all the people who have lost everything they had. . . with the families who don't know if all their loved ones are okay . . . and with those who have lost loved ones.

I'm always very leery of donating after huge tragedies. . . seems like the money ends up getting used for fax machines or something instead of what it was intended to be used for. And there's only so much I can give, you know? I'd like to know it's really helping. . . not going for new office equipment!

I've been hiding. . .

It's been a week since my last post (feel like I should start that with "Hi, my name is Heather and I'm an internetaholic!"). And I'm afraid this is going to be a "things that bug me" post.

Ian's in the 4th grade, and we're again having the "I can't remember to bring home my homework" issue. ARGH! I can't deal with this until he graduates from HS! Last year we took away everything that was plug-in-able every time he did (for the day). . . didn't seem to bother him. This year, we're making him go to be 15 minutes earlier for each day of the week he forgets something, starting today. He remembered his work today. We'll see if this works.

Well, we're going to start the painting this weekend. . .. hopefully, by Monday or Tuesday, I'll have a mostly completed scraproom .. . . Here's hoping. Means the room will get worse before it gets better and the house will be torn up. UGH.

Nic, this one's for you . . .

I had to post this pic to show Nic that she could have it worse off in the kiddie hairdo department! tehehe

See what happens when you're a nice mom and you give your kiddo a little catsup for "dipping sauce"?

No, this is not one of those internet myths like the picture of the 2 kids with marker drawings all over them titled "Why you shouldn't leave dad home alone with the kids".

This is Alaina when she was about 15 or 16 months old. See that grimy little hand? See that smile of glee? She did that 'do all by herself and she was darned proud of it!

Took 3 hairwashings to get all that catsup out of her hair. And it really wasn't that much catsup to begin with . .. she just rubbed it in real well.

That was the last time I let the kids eat while I was fixing dinner for Andy and I!

Totally forgot about these pictures until today. I'll have to do something with them. Thanks Nic!

What about those Walls?

Tehehe . . .Andy's figured this out. I get a project going, and I want to get it done. He's the opposite. . .took him a year to stain an entertainment center that was in our garage. He started tile floors in our kitchen and 2 upstairs bathrooms in early March . .. they're still not done (he's got the doorway transitions and a few spots where the grout needs to be patched). ::sigh:: DRIVES ME NUTS!

Now, I want to lay flooring and get paint on the walls.

I should probably mention that we painted every wall in this house except the master bed and bath (I couldn't decide on a color) in February/March. His parents came up for a couple weekends and did it all with him. I should also mention that everytime I pick up a paintbrush, I end up with a migraine . . no really, I'm not pretending! I'm not trying to get out of work. So all I'm helpful for is picking up colors and cleaning up the mess they leave in their wake.

We discovered this when I decided to do a little "While You Were Out" project when he went to DisneyWorld last January (yes, he went without us). His mom flew up and helped me and we (mostly she) painted this room (this photo doesn't even do it justice as to how dark the green was! . . and please ignore the toys. I realized I hadn't taken any "before" pics -- no I did not pic this color, we just never painted over it when we bought the house!, and snapped a couple . .. turned out fuzzy . . .pics before I got all the toys boxed up):



Didn't do such a great job on the color picking. I was looking for a lighter color. This room had been so dark for so long. Take a look at this picture. The top of the wall was the original color I picked out. . . we had to paint over it with the one I finally chose. Final color was 2 "steps" down on the paint chip. I was in a hurry to get this room painted because I had a roomful of furniture scheduled for delivery about 3 days after Andy got back from Disney . . . .and I didn't want to have to move it out of the room to paint it later.


Here's the final product. . . well, mostly final, without wall art, but with new walls and furniture:


You can see the corner of the dining room in the second picture. It's the other front room, and so I'd like the colors to blend, but don't know that I should necessarily go with the same color on the walls. All I know is I'm sick of builder's white. Which is what they painted the whole house when they painted in Feb/Mar because we thought we'd be moving this year. That's been postponed at least a year, probably more like 18-24 months. . . and by then, we'll probably have to repaint anyway. On top of that, surprise, surprise, the paint didn't go on real well. . gee, guess that's why it was CHEAP!

So now I'm trying to decide what to do with the downstairs. . .the 2 story entryway/hallway, the dining room that will now be the scrap studio, and the kitchen/nook/second living that's all 1 continuous space. I'm no darned good at interior design stuff. How many different colors on the walls are too many?

I was thinking about a sage-ish color for the dining room (Behr's Rejuvenate, Spring Hill or Mountain Haze. . . possibly . . .this is computer screen looking, not actual paint looking), then another color for the big, continuous space. . . I don't know. . . HELP!

TAG!!!

Tag! I've been tagged . .. well actually, I was tagged way back on Aug. 16th, but haven't gotten around to playing along until now. But I was tagged and I said I'd be compliant. Idiosyncrasy: structural or behavioral characteristic peculiar to an individual or group. Write down 5 of your idiosyncrasies. Then, tag 5 people if you want.... 1. I get up, get the kids ready for school, then go back to sleep. . . .wastes me a lot of morning time, but I do it almost every day. 2. Mr. Pibb is NOT the same thing as Dr. Pepper. . . .it didn't earn it's doctorate for a reason, right!?!?!?! 3. I'll wash and dry laundry all day long, but please, please, please don't ask me to hang it up! 4. I eat black eyed peas with lasagna . . .not on top of it or anything. . . but as a side dish. which leads me to 5. My food cannot touch. If all the dishes in our house were those little divided melamine plates we used for the kids when they were little, I'd be a happy woman! tehehe Please excuse my wierd listing abilities, or lack thereof, today . . . I can't seem to hit the return key! Anyone know what's up with that??? Okay, as for people to tag, well my other dear friend Becky, Jamie. If there's anyone else out there who catches this, LMK and I'll come and read your tagged list.

Things Learned at IKEA

Alaina and I went shopping at IKEA after a little (very little) LSS shopping and a good mexican lunch with Jamie and her younger two kids. I'm enjoying getting to know Jamie better. She's a lot of fun.
So, after stopping by a couple stores we had to return stuff to, there was still enough time to run and take a look at stuff at IKEA. Definitely came up with a list after leaving there.

Things I learned at IKEA:

-- Don't take a large shopping cart upstairs. They'll accost you if you come in the front door with one, take it away and give you a smaller one.
-- Don't got IKEA shopping with kids. Unless you will leave them at a play area manned by people you don't know. . . it's just too darned big a store for any child to enjoy. They'll whine and beg and cajole and pretend to need to go to the restroom just to get out of there.
-- Bring a honkin' big vehicle with you with lots of open space and no car seats. Good thing I wasn't planning on buying today. I guess I would've had to strap the boxes to the top of the van. The storage unit alone has 3 big boxes.
-- Don't worry about what time of day you plan on coming. . .they have a cafe there! (HUH? I was surprised!)
-- Expect very little sales help . . . as their signs say "all the information's on the tags" and "we have less sales people to keep the prices down".
-- Expect to feel like a fish swimming against the flow if you want to go look at something that's out of "order". There's actually arrows on the floor telling you where to go . . . I didn't really wanna look at all that stuff. . . and some stuff I wanted to look at twice. I was actually afraid they might send the IKEA police after me for not following them like everyone else. tehehe

At any rate. . .this is the possibles, so far. . . .sent Andy links so he could check stuff out. The only for sure is this piece, in either white or birch:One of these two desks for the kids' computer, depending on how much space we have: And these two tables for work spaces, the first one will be in white and birch, and a longer table top, (I think . . .certainly is more expensive than this one was on the website), and the second one is for the girls to work on, with a couple of benches. . .if there's room in the room .. . they're always wanting to sb too.