I Should Be Folding Laundry

Whoa. Nelly.

I have a secret, do you promise not to tell? 

Girl Scout's honor?

I ate an entire sleeve of thin mints today. 

Well, not an entire one, I gave two of the cookies to my children because they were all at my feet while my head was in my cabinet, while I was trying to SECRETLY shove the cookies into my mouth.  I would nonchalantly return to the cabinet, oh, about every 2 minutes to shove yet another thin mint into my mouth.  By about the fourth trip, the children caught on, or they could smell it on my breath and on my fingers and they began to ask me for a treat.

I gave in and gave them one.

I haven't eaten an entire sleeve of thin mints since I was 8 months pregnant with Ariel,  and that particular sleeve I ate it in about 35 minutes, while sitting alone in my office at nine in the morning.  It was divine.  Until my boss walked in and asked me for a thin mint.  I was like "what thin mints?"  He replied "the sleeve I just saw you walk in with like ten minutes ago....wait a minute...did you eat them all?"  It was a great moment for all pregnant woman across America.    

Of course, then I was eight months pregnant  Now?  Not so much.  In my defense, it did take me over eight hours to eat that sleeve today, but still.  An entire sleeve???

But I promise, I'm going to curb my girl scout cookie eating starting tonight.  No more girl scout cookies for me.  I will resist the urge to have ANYMORE COOKIES.  I am empowered.

Plus, they are all gone.  Should be easy. 

And the candy from Halloween?  Gone, taken care of.

By yours truly.

It's been a busy week taking care of all that junk food. 

Which leads me to my point.  I gained a pound this week.  Of course, that was before the Great Thin Mint Incident of 2007, so I'm not off to a great start for next week, but seeing has how the junk is all gone, I can now move on to bigger and better things. 

Like nachos.

To see how others are doing, just go here.

Just call me Mario Batali

I have to say, I think he's my favorite Food Network Star.  I don't know why, I mean, I like Bobby Flay, too, but not as much as good ol' Mario.

I do not like Rachel Ray.  I tried, I really did. Okay, maybe I shouldn't say I don't like her, it's just that he gets on my nerves.  I know there are people who adore her, but between the outrageous hand motions (if all you do is watch her hands in the beginning of an episode before her cooking begins, you will get motion sickness, guaranteed.)  and the YUMM-O's, well, she nauseates me.  Which is unfortunate because Ariel loves her some Rachel Ray, when Ariel cooks in her play kitchen she calls herself "Rachel Ray Ariel" which is tolerable cause you know, she doesn't say YUMM-O.

Yet.

Ariel does have a keen interest in cooking and baking as I'm sure most 4 year olds do.  Back in July I had decided that we would make a pizza together while Daddy was in New York.  It was very exciting.  For me, especially because I was starving.  So, we made the pizza and placed it in the oven and I set the timer.

Fast forward twenty minutes later after getting distracted by my volunteer work, I remember thinking "time sure is going slow! I can't wait to eat that damn pizza!"   I trusted that alarm, I trusted that I set the timer.  But I should not have trusted either because another 10 minutes went by before I finally stood up and looked at the oven and saw this:

15 minutes later we were in line at Burger King.  Ah, the memories.

In my menu plan for this week, I had planned for us to once again have homemade pizza tonight.   Late this afternoon, I was running errands with the children and Ariel said "Mom, can we pick up pizza for dinner?"  She obviously didn't know our exciting dinner plans, she really loved helping with that burnt pizza and was pretty disappointed when it came out of the oven and was deemed a health hazard.  In fact, I can remember her saying "I burned the pizza???"  I told her yes.

In the car I told her, with great excitement that "WE! ARE! MAKING! PIZZA! AT! HOME! TONIGHT!!!!"

I looked back at her and saw her crinkle her nose and reply with a solemn "oh." 

And when it came time to make the pizza, she wasn't so interested in helping me.  At all.

And this time, not only did she not help me, I also never left the kitchen, standing by the oven, waiting for the pizza to bake just perfect so I could show Ariel exactly what it's supposed to look like when you make pizza at home, not the burnt crap we made a few months back.

I quit.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I must ice my elbow, I have Pizza Cutting Elbow.

Perfectly Random

Today I spent tons of time away from my computer because I was kicked out of my house.
I know, kinda rude, but I was booted by the floor guy.  Okay, I wasn't actually asked to leave or anything, but do I really want to be at home when there are strangers in my house installing my new beautiful floors?  All that hammering and swearing and sweating and whatnot?  I think not!  So, we left for a long time and although it was a beautiful day outside, the kids still drove me nuts.  I say that in a loving sorta way.

Of course, it wasn't their fault that I decided to go to a BRAND.NEW.KOHLS that just opened today.  But I had these $10 coupons BURNING a whole in my purse, so I really want to spend them.  Plus, I have been wanting to buy Racecar one of these bowling sets, even though they're intended for children a little younger than him, he still LOVES to bowl  (THANKS, WII!) and he is constantly setting up blocks real high and then throwing a very light ball to knock it down and it doesn't work very well.  So, I, being such a great Mom, I decided to buy him "the real deal" because I love the noise.  THE NOISE is just LOVELY.  But hey, I got the set for SEVEN DOLLARS. (just look at all of these capitals and run on sentences, if you are still reading, you are a TROOPER!) 

Then I wanted to take the kids out to lunch, you know, like Applebee's or Red Robin.  But they wanted Taco Bell. (They take after their Mom with their love of nachos.) I was in luck because not only did Taco Bell only cost me $8.95 it also has the greatest lighting and I just happened to have my trusty camera with me.  What?  You don't take your camera with you to Taco Bell? 
See?  Great lighting...

Well now I've lost my train of thought.  Where was I?  Oh yes.  Taco Bell and loud bowling toys. 

We finally came home tonight after 8 p.m. and I got to see the floors for the first time and well, I'm very, very happy.  They are gorgeous.  I will post pictures for you tomorrow because they are not quite finished with the installation, before and after, I promise.  I know you're excited.  It's a good thing they'll be finished sometime tomorrow because I am hosting a Pampered Chef fundraiser show at my house on Friday, as in two days from now.  Nothing like cutting it a little close. 

Here's a picture of what our living room looked like last night, plywood and all.  What's that you say?  Why yes, Brian and I did pull up the old (disgusting) carpet, padding, staples and tack strips, all within a three hour time frame.  We did that after removing all of the furniture out of the living room and yes, I am a little sore today.  And it's nice being sore for something other than playing with the Wii. 

Hey, don't judge.  It's hard work, that Wii.

And finally, to all of you lovely readers who visit my blog on a daily basis, I really appreciate you visiting, truly from the bottom of my heart, but I need to tell you that this week has been declared an official de-lurking week, which means if you have been reading my blog and have never left a comment, now is the time to put your shyness aside and say hello.  Comments really mean a lot to a blogger, you just have to believe me!  I know you're out there, I'd love to officially meet you, because I love you.  So....DELURK, okay?  It doesn't have to be anything long or hilarious, maybe something like "delurking, I love you. bye." 

That would be nice.

boo boo

What we do when a little girl bumps her head on the corner of the entertainment center and is too tired to hold a bag of ice on her head.

Trouble Makers

On Monday, my doorbell rang at approximately 5:00 p.m.  Which can only mean one thing.

Trouble.

Because my kids are still too young (thankfully) for random visits from neighborhood friends, it's pretty safe to say that it was going to be either A.  A politician.  B.  Someone telling me about how great their religion is.  C.  A Salesperson.

All equally annoying, in their own special way.

This visit was a salesperson.  This particular salesperson's presentation was good and her personality was calm and her cute child-like features made me resist the urge to slam the door on her face.  There was something about her that made me actually want to buy something from her.

Must have been because she was selling Girl Scout Cookies.  I was SO happy.  I ordered three boxes and it put me in such a great mood knowing that in 2-5 weeks I would be scarfing down nibbling on some Thin Mints.  And what put me in an even better mood was that this Girl Scout's mother, who is also my neighbor a few doors down from me, paid me a very kind compliment.

She said "you look good."  I was all like "huh?  who me?"  while I looked around behind me to see who she was looking at.  I mean, I was wearing yoga capris and a graphic t with bleach on it, she could not have been talking to me.  She confirmed that she was talking about me and was referring to my 30 pound weight loss that I have managed to keep off since 2006.  We talked about diet and exercise and it was fun. 

And I walked away from our little chat thinking "geeze, I love my neighbors.  I sure hope my cookies come in soon!" 

Because I love cookies. 

and so do you.

But then I started to get all confused.  I was so excited about these cookies AND how good it felt to have someone say something so nice about my weight loss and then I ordered three boxes of cookies.  Delicious, fattening Girl Scout Cookies.   I was confused about the whole thing!

It reminded me of the feeling I would get as a teenager after making out with a cute boy.  I would feel such young lust and excitement and then I'd think of my Mom and I'd feel guilty and feel fear that she would kick the crap out of me if she knew I had just necked inside the movie theater. 

See how these two scenarios compare?

No?  hmmm...sounds like you need a nice Samoa to help you think more clearly.  or perhaps a peanut butter pattie.

I hear they solve everything.

Except being overweight. 

Luckily, Ariel quickly helped to take this confusion away by asking what that little girl was doing.  "she was selling cookies for the Girl Scouts." 

"BUT I WANT TO SELL COOKIES FOR THE GIRL SCOUTS!!!!"

"Honey, you are not old enough to be in the Girl Scouts, but when you are - in like four years, I will be your biggest cookie supporter and buy millions of boxes from you."

"Okay, maybe tomorrow?"

I wish.

Armpits

In case you ever get the urge to swing on one of these things.  Don't.  Because the following day you won't be able to raise your arms, or wipe down a counter top or put on deodorant.  (the idiots in the picture are myself in the blue shirt, yes I am 30.  And my sister in the yellow shirt, who is 29 and then my 19 year old niece in the tank top.) The pain is intense, but through the pain I still managed to fold a ton of laundry this morning and clean my van, which looked like someone put a box into my van that was filled books and cookies and straws and receipts and sweatshirts and umbrellas and who am I kidding,  french fries and then it blew up all over my van.

I also managed to take a one hour nap, but it wasn't my fault, my intention was to sleep for TEN minutes, but I accidentally woke up one hour later and then I drank coffee, did some work, (remember I work from home??) made dinner and walked/ran for 2.55 miles.  To be exact.

Speaking of running.  I have quit trying to become a runner.  I am really disappointed about this decision, but the burning sensation I feel in my shins and the pain in BOTH of my knees when I am running and when I am not running is going to kill me. or at least make me crawl everywhere I go, which I think would embarrass my children when I drop them off at preschool.   so, I guess I'll just plain ol' walk.  If I do run, it will have to be on a treadmill because the shock my shins take when my feet slam into the pavement is intense and makes me want to roll on the ground while crying, but since there are like sixty million other serious 'non-shin splint having' runners running around me, I just keep running like a complete idiot, through the pain.  I even smile (and wave!) at other runners like "hey!  I'm running just like you!  I'm not in any pain!"   The tears rolling down my face make it hard for them to believe me, but I just play it off like it's really intense Runner's Sweat.

Never had Runner's Sweat come out of your eyes before?  Must not be a Real Runner.

Alright, enough of my running woes, I've got first day of school pictures!  I know you've been waiting for them!

Here's Racecar on his first day.  He was deliberately trying to look like he was 18, I think.  I told him I did not appreciate that because he's still my baby and sent him directly to a time out.

And here's Ariel on her first day.  She too was trying to look very old. little stinkers.

And here I'm pretty sure they were teaming up to try to make me cry.

It totally worked.

I hope you have had some coffee before reading this.

This has been quite the weekend, it started off with me giving all of my pet fishies to my Mom on Friday.  Which wouldn't be a big deal, except that we have had a fish tank in our home for six years and also it's a big deal because fish scare the living crap out of me.  You just can't trust them, those fishies.  They jump, they flop, they're crazy without water. 

I've had little experience with handling fish and I like it that way.  Once, we were sold an algae eater that was Super Powered.  We did not know this until he was about five inches long and I was beginning to wonder how much bigger this mug was going to get.  Then he grew more and more.  I went to the friendly fish loving folks at Petsmart and they told me that I was a proud owner of a pleco.  And that he could grow to be over 12 inches long.  Not in my tank, thank you very much.  I think they sensed by fear and let me know that I could bring this massive thing into their store and they would give it away to someone looking for a large algae eater.

Which meant I had to catch it.  And if I didn't, it would die in my measly 20 gallon tank.  Which would leave me with a corpse.

I lost sleep over this decision.  This thing was awful to look at, you can go here to view a picture of it, I would have posted it directly to my blog, but I'm telling you, I could not because it creeps me out THAT much.

So one Sunday afternoon.  I got a bucket and a pitcher and I caught it and I thought I was going to die from a heart attack.  My pulse was a good 300 and my breathing was fast and then I had to travel in the car with it.   It was an ordeal, let me tell you.

Back to my point...I was tired of having a fish tank.  So, I asked my Mom if my fishies could move in with her fishies and she said yes, which meant I had to transport them, I did this on Friday afternoon.  And once again my pulse and my breathing and the sweat were record breaking, I am sure of it.  Fish are fast, y'all.  I even used rubber gloves.  just in case.

It went well.  They are gone.  And now I have a space to move my desk that has been in my bedroom for way too long.

This weekend has been a weekend of many projects at home.  It helped that our weather was rainy and cold.  COLD, like sixty degrees.

This morning I woke up and made the kids pancakes.  Before I even had a lick of coffee I had put on some running shoes, put on a bra and pulled back my hair, because it was declared by me that TODAY WOULD BE THE DAY TO CLEAN OUR ENTIRE HOUSE, EVERY INCH.  And I did.

I told Brian at 9:45 this morning that if I completed this plan of mine, that he was going to take us out to dinner.

Let's just say, we went out to dinner.  Oh yes we did.

And now, I'm tired, so very tired, but at least I can go to bed in my clean bedroom, which is located next to my clean living room.

I'm very excited to start out this week with my house looking and feeling this good.  (Doesn't it feel good to have a clean home?)  The kids start school this week AND my 5K fundraiser is on Saturday, can you believe it's almost here?  I can't.  Which by the way, I sent in a press release that was picked up by the newspaper, feel free to read about it here.

Tonight at dinner we saw many interesting things while we were away from home.  I'm not going to tell you about it, I'll just show you the pictures.  I was sneaky with how I was able to capture these shots.  Thank goodness for my magnificent zoom.  I did it for you, you know.  Just for you.

First let me begin by telling you that on Friday I was mowing the lawn when I rammed my thigh into the lawn mower, I hit it in such a way that it caused great pain. It's a good thing lawn mowers are so loud because the expletives, people, the expletives were severe.  Within minutes there was a very large lump coming from my leg and by Saturday morning the bruise on my leg resembled Lake Michigan, but not in the pretty Lake Michigan sort of way, just the blue and green and brown sort of way.  A picture.  (which does not do it justice.)

And now some dinner pictures for your viewing pleasure.  Notice the toilet paper on this guy's shoe.  He walked around for quite awhile with his new found tail.  And that is Ariel staring at him the whole time.  (see the jeans?  I'm telling you, it was cold!)

We couldn't help but love this tattoo.  I asked Brian to get one.  He said he would think about it.  I mean, of all the words to choose, wouldn't you have picked something like Studly or Really Smart or Macho Man? 
Cocky?  Really?

This is the bottom of a Corvette, which was directly on top of my family of four when we were eating dinner.  Like six feet above our heads.  I was a little nervous.

We totally caught this dog trying to escape.

We went to Wal-Mart Supercenter after dinner and apparently Racecar did not eat enough while at dinner.  That crazy Racecar.

And finally, who says boys don't need a little pampering?  This picture could also be called "the picture Brian said nobody but us should see."  whatever.

 

That's all for now folks, I do apologize for the Longest Blog Post in the History of the Blogging.
I'll never do it again.

Not sure what the point is. oh yeah. I'm lazy.

hmmm...blogging on Saturday, I haven't blogged on a Saturday in ages.  Not for any reason in particular, other than I'm rarely home on Saturdays. 

So, I'm still at home alone with the kids and although they are being pretty good, I'm finding myself to be pretty short fused and totally unmotivated.  The last time Brian went out of town for business, or what I like to call his "vacation,"  which is totally me being a jerk, because the guy is working his tail off RIGHT NOW with only three hours of sleep, anyway, the last time he was gone I cleaned my house all of the time and did other projects.  and now, well.  Let's just say I am not. 

One of the times he was away was in April and I was pretty sure I was going on the energy I had pent up from winter.  My house was very clean and then Brian came home from LA and it wasn't clean anymore.  But then he left again and I cleaned again and he came home New York and it was messy again.  Not a fun cycle, but I'd rather he be home and my house messy than him being gone and my house be clean.

But now, my house is a mess and he's gone and it's the pits.  I don't like it.

By the way, I just dropped a S'mores pop tart on my laptop.  The gooey marshmallow and melted chocolate splattered on my laptop, but I'm not mad at the pop tart.  You did hear me say marshmallow and chocolate, right?  Being mad at the pop tart would be like becoming angry at a newborn or a little kitten.  Nothing that a little licking won't fix.

My tornado-like children are not making my life any easier, everywhere I go there is a Thomas the Tank Engine on the floor, hiding in the corner or underneath the couch laughing at me saying "you can't keep up, beyotch!  WE ARE EVERYWHERE!!"  And then I start to feel defeated and a little crazy, to be honest with you.

I decided I needed a nice starting point and I scanned the room and saw princesses and Pottery Barn Kids catalogs (Ariel's favorite) and Thomas the Tank engines and dress up clothes and matchbox cars and eighty million markers and thirty thousands sheets of paper.  So, I decided to start with the crayons and paper, but when I looked at my cabinet where I store them, it was a total disaster.  It was almost as if the children sat in the cabinet, removed every crayon and marker and coloring book and notebook and threw them up in the air to see where they landed and then walked away.  Leaving it for me to clean, which I did, just today.

It was fun, I utilized the now empty containers that were in the cabinet and actually filled them up (again) with crayons and markers and pens and pencils.  I then tested every marker and sadly, I through away about eleven dollars in markers, but I don't care.

Look, I took a picture of the finished product for you.  (I wish I had taken a before picture, I swear to you that you would not have know there was a shelf in there.)  First, you can see how sneaky I am about hiding this God forsaken mess, I purchased this shelf, which I love, this spring and I knew when I saw it that the cabinets underneath the shelves would be a great place for Arts and Crafts (fyi, arts and crafts at my home equals crayons and paper and some stickers).  Brian then securely fastened the shelving until to the wall and viola, this is what we have!

Doors closed:

See the white box to the right of the shelf with the forty cords sticking out of it?  That's decorating a la Brian.  magnificent, no?

Doors opened:

ahhh...the beauty, for about one more hour.

So, we will eat lunch, I will find another project, which may or may not include closing my eyes and then we'll be heading off to my niece's birthday party, she's two.

It's our FIFTH birthday party this week.  We have another one more tomorrow.

Why yes, I am poor now.  Poor and happy.  Poor and happy and fat from cake and ice cream.

Oh and I know I mentioned eating a S'Mores pop tart, please don't mention that to the creator of Tales from the Scales, I heard she's a meanie, a real ninja.  It's our little secret.

This week in pictures

First of all.  We have a fence.  It's finished.  Those are beautiful words.  The fence is done.

This is a picture Ariel drew of the guy who serves me coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.  I don't know what is more disturbing, the fact that he's so much a part of her life that she's thinking of him and drawing pictures of him or the fact that it looks just like him.

A delicious snack.  Seriously, it hit the spot.  Cinnamon-y graham crackers dipped in coffee.  perfect.  But then again, I have a strange love for graham crackers.. 

What?  It says whole grain and calcium, it's a little healthy.  Right?

Right?

My favorite picture of the weekend.  Ariel felt very old Saturday night helping me prepare dinner.  She set the table, very thoroughly washed a tomato and washed dishes.  And was pleasant about it, too.

Just look at this glorious bag from Kimberlee Faith's.  I won this a while back from Rocks in my Dryer.  I picked the two patterns, upgraded the size of the bag and added the initial.  I LOVE this bag.  It came on Friday and it has already gone to the beach.  It only took the post office THREE WEEKS to get it to my house. 

 

Oh well, they were forgiven when I opened the box and found this masterpiece.  If you are ever in the market for a beautiful, custom purse or handbag, consider going to Kimberlee Faith's.  I definitely will.

 

Another favorite of the weekend.

Will the pictures ever stop?  I know that's what you're thinking. 

And finally, we started off the day by going to the beach.  It was a perfect day.  Very hot with a nice breeze.  We are lucky to live so close to such a nice one.

Well, at least Brian, Ariel and I feel that way.  Racecar happens to hate sand, water and heat.  He had a blast, as you can tell.

Happy Fourth!

We took the kids to a parade yesterday.  They definitely loved it.  Brian and I enjoyed it too because we parked really close to where we sat which makes us happy because lugging all that junk food around gets tiring, you know what I mean?

Yes you do.

It was an interesting parade.  Good, yes?  Loud, crikey's yes.  Hot?  yeah.  It was just kinda generic.

Look at Shrek and Dora.

I mean, I know we are working on a tight budget in here smalltown, Indiana, but Dora looks like she hasn't slept in days after letting Shrek cut her hair.  Even the kids wouldn't go anywhere near the speechless creatures.  Not only would they not go near them...they actually took steps back.  Creepy, I say.

Then there was this.  And I have no idea what it was or why or who, just pure confusion.

And maybe a little fear.

And finally, after reading this sign, you really wish there was such a thing as Markers with Spellcheck.

And here's proof of the tremondous amount of noise.  If you look closely, you can see most of the people in the background covering their ears.  good times.

But then there was this:

And this:

And this later on:

And then it turned out to be the greatest Fourth of July ever.  I can remember holidays as a child as being the greatest experiences.  I had no idea they would be better as a parent.