Koko a NO-GO in the Car-o

Yesterday was a rough day at work. I felt like I was being pulled in 18 different directions to put out fires for other people and was not able to do the job they pay me to do. When the clock stuck 5:00 I was high tailing it out of there!

THEN on the way home, my husbands ex-wife calls him and asks if he can pick a prescription for her. Now granted the prescription was for a child they have together and my husband was on his way over to pick up the boys anyway.....but honey poo, he is NO longer YOUR husband so don't be asking him to do favors for you. You decided many moons ago to replace my husband with the one you currently have. A down grade - yes - but that is not our problem. The other thing that bothers me about it is neither her OR her husband work so they had ALL day long to go pick up the prescription. So yes, while me, you, and every other American is at work getting our butts handed to us in order to make donations to every freebie pot that they have their hands in....we would be thrilled to also run their errands!

I am extremely jealous of those of you that can have your dog ride with you in the car. Last night I had to run one of my OWN errands and I decided I would take the dog with me. Our dog is a complete spaz in the car but I got to thinking that perhaps if I take her on short trips she would begin to get more and more used to it. Not so! I couldn't even make it out of my neighborhood without her trying to get up on the dashboard (and we are talking about a 55-60 pound dog!) Then she tries to get behind my back so I am using all of my might to drive with my left hand and push her back into the drivers seat with my right. I get her over to the drivers seat and she attempts again to get on the dash board and has a paw on the gear shift. Ok.....this is not going to work so time to take her back home. This morning when I woke up the right side of my neck, shoulder and arm were so sore. I am sure it was from the fiasco of the dog in the car. I have a few more ideas in order to try to get her acclimated to the car; however, when I got back home my husband (who is not a pet lover) had to share his displeasure of having the dog in the car in the first place.

Have a great weekend!

A Piece of Cake

Update on Tyler:

On Tyler's caringbridge site his parents say he is doing very well. Once they attached the new liver it turned a beautiful shade of pink and bile started flowing through it. Yeah! They said he is in pain but all in all they on the road to recovery and a new journey for Tyler without having to be sick. THANK YOU for all the prayers and please continue to pray as he recovers.

Over the past few days I have been feeling completely overwhelmed. With school back in swing it is keeping to strict routines and helping with homework. My PTA position is demanding so I have to go to the school twice a week before I even go to work. Then there are usually two nights a week that I have to work on PTA at home in the evenings. (I have decided that after this year I am retiring from PTA. I made it to my goal of being a VP and now it is time to let others be involved). I also made a list of all the things I have to do at home. Seventy seven line items on my list!!! Some will take 5-10 minutes others will take 2-3 days! The good thing is I am the least stressed out about Christmas coming up. We already have all our Christmas money saved up and I have the dates on my calendar of when I will do my shopping (well before Thanksgiving), decorating and wrapping.

I was letting it get to the best of me when I had to remind myself that attitude is everything. I was letting these mountains of tasks make me feel like I was being pounded into the ground. I can handle this. It is all about organizing my priorities and doing a little bit at a time. I have 4 members in my home who can help me - I don't have to do it all by myself. So I am shaking all of those negative, overwhelming thoughts out of my head and am starting over with a new bright sun shiny attitude and will accomplish all that needs to get done one thing at a time. =)

Prayers for Tyler

Today I am asking for prayers for the son of a guy I graduated from high school with. Tyler, is 21 months old, and is going through a liver transplant operation as I type this. Please pray for Tyler, the doctors, Tyler's family, and the family who lost a family member and gave Tyler a second chance at life.

Tyler's family got the call around 1:30AM Tuesday morning and surgery did not start until 5:15AM this morning. I imagine the surgery will take several hours to complete.

Pray! Pray! Pray!

New Names

I have come up with a new naming convention for my family so that it will be easier to understand who I am talking about rather than typing in their first initial.

Introducing:

Coach: My husband who is "obsessed" with sports. If he isn't watching them on TV he is playing them on the PC. Thank goodness his coaching days are over because that was yet another corner of the world he devoted his life to. He will tell you he is not obsessed with ALL sports because he doesn't care for tennis or hockey.

Nemo: As in finding .... is our oldest child who is currently out "finding himself". Against the way he was raised and his families wishes he took off at the age of 17 to move in with his girlfriend who is BBB (Bleach Blonde Bimbo). I pray to God everynight that BBB does not become my future daughter-in-law someday because I do not know how I can find it in my heart to like her. Nemo has thrown away college, wrecked cars and burnt bridges with his family all because of BBB. I do know he was raised right and I pray he gets his head out of his $#@ and turns his life around real soon.

Energy: Is our second oldest. Energy is somewhat like his father and is obsessed with sports but for the mere fact for something to do. He cannot sit still and must be shooting baskets whether it be outside in the driveway or inside with his Nerf goal. He has even got out of bed after being in bed for 2 hours and came to us and told us he couldn't sleep and felt like "shooting some baskets". Get back to bed!

Cupkayk: Is the only other female in the house besides moi. However, now that she is 13 she likes to be referred to as only "Kayk" which I pronounce like "cake" and she pronounces is like "Kay Kay". Whichever way you say it she is our girly girl who has alot to say and can say it in an extremely dramatic way. She likes clothes and is "in love" with Nick Jonas from the Jonas Brothers.

Master G: Is the youngest. Master G stands for Master Gamer. This little fellow has an obsession with video games. If we do not take the Nintendo DS at night time he will stay up all night long playing it. His future hopes are to become a game developer.

Koko: Is actually another female in the house. She is our beloved four legged friend. Part Beagle part Boxer she is a sweetheart, who is afraid of thunderstorms, loves Peanut Butter, and can bark your dog under the table any day!

K to the E to the Y ?????

I was going to post a somewhat serious post today; however, we had an incident that happened last night that kind of ties into it so I will hold off that serious post until this weekend or next week. I do need to ask those that read my blog that know us in real life to not mention that I told you this to K.

Last night we had our first PTSA meeting in which K and I attended. Since it was our first meeting of the school year, with a new principal, new board, new students/parents the meeting lasted two and a half hours which was two hours longer than I had planned on being there. I had to stay about 20 minutes longer because we had an abundance of new memberships come in so I had to fill out their cards and write up a deposit. Once I was finished I walked out to the car and stopped at some other board members car to say goodnight. I used the remote and unlocked my car so that K could go ahead and get in. About two minutes later I headed towards my car and threw my PTA bag in the backseat. As I made my way to the drivers seat I look in and notice K's finger has blood all over it. I immediately open the door and ask her what is wrong. Her reply was "I was trying to get it out." In which I replied "get what out?" She points to the ignition of the car and I see a barrette (just like the one pictured above except without the pretties on it) hanging out in the slot where the key goes. I asked her why she did it and she told me she got hot and wanted to see if that would make the car start in order to get some air. She then tried to pull it out and of course couldn't and ended up slicing her finger on the side of the barrette. I get in there and try pulling it out myself and the barrette wouldn't budge. I tried putting a key, a screw, and a pen through the barrette and I couldn't get it out either. I then had to call my husband who was at home watching his FAVORITE football team on TV. I explained what happened and asked him to come up to the school with a pair of pliers. Needless to say when my husband got there he was not happy and after his first 3 or 4 attempts of not being able to get it out he was not even happier. K is crying, my husband is mad and I am trying to keep everything calm between them. Finally my husband inserts a smaller key next to the barrette which caused the inner piece of the ignition to retract and he was able to slide the barrette out. He saved the day!

On the way home I explained to K (who is still crying) that everything worked out and the only bad thing of it all was that her finger got sliced open. I told her we would have to punish her for it and she agreed. She was in line to get a new phone and service come November and we decided that we would push that back to December as her punishment. She is on the Internet practically everyday searching for "the phone" that she wants so I think making her wait another month is fair and will get her attention to really think things through before she goes and does something silly like that again. She was pretty upset by it all saying that she wasn't even thinking when she did it and knows it was something stupid that she did. I told her that once it all dies down this will be something we will certainly laugh about one day. I told her how we will tease her future husband to check to make sure she doesn't have any barrettes on her person before she gets into their car. I got a smile out of her for that. I love my baby to pieces....mistakes and all!

I am a winner!!!!

I wasn't sure what I was going to blog about today and then I got to work and read an email about a contest that I won. It is not everyday you are a winner of something so that is definitely something exciting to blog about! I won a super sized storage bag at http://www.lazyorganizer.com/blog/. You really need to check Lara's site out. She is super funny and always has something interesting to say. I first found her while going through photos on flickr looking for organizing ideas. Lara offers some amazing organizing tips on her site as well as sells organizing bags. You can see them here: http://laragallagher.com/bags/index.html. The key to organization is to make sure everything has a home. With these bags you can accomplish the task!

We are in full swing of getting back-into-school-routines chaos in our home. The first 45 minutes I am home from work is the most stressful time. I am trying to make dinner, listening to K talk, listening to my husband talk, giving the dog loves, doing chores, and preparing for errands or whatever I have to do for the evening. Last night we had the boys over so they were added into it as well. I am already ready for summer vacation!

I was planning on going to bed fairly early last night and then got engaged in watching Kerri and Misty play volleyball for the gold. They are so fascinating to watch that I couldn't turn the TV off. They have not been beaten in over a year! So, of course, they won the gold!!!!

After reading Kelly's blog yesterday she motivated me to get my office clean. I got about half done yesterday and plan on doing the rest today. Thanks Kel!

Summer on Scott Street

I have been meaning to blog about this since I started my blog but I always had so much other stuff to say. (Probably boring stuff to you!) Kel beat me to the punch and blogged about it several months ago. Since summer is coming to an end I thought I better hurry up and get this post in.

My parents couldn't have picked a better place to live and raise my sister and I. We lived on a dead-end street with approximately 40 children in the neighborhood. Finding a playmate was never hard. Summer time was the best on the street.

When we were younger we would play hide-and-go-seek until midnight. We would roller skate in the street, cheer lead, and ride our bikes but not without stopping at the fire hydrant to get a fill up on "Grease Lightening" gas. We caught lightening bugs and would pull out their lights and wore them as rings. (Poor little fella's) We would have lemonade stands where we would have our customer stay and drink their lemonade so that they could return the cup and we would use it for the next customer. We would play house with our dolls and sometimes could even talk the boys into playing with us and be our husbands. We would paint rocks and then go around the neighborhood trying to sell them. (Not sure if we ever sold any) And if we ever got thirsty or hungry we would go rap on Weez's door and ask for food. Each summer we held auditions for "Annie" and was going to put on a huge play that the whole neighborhood could come watch. However, we never made it to production. In early August we would follow the mailman around seeing if he had our teacher assignments with him.

As we grew older we played kick-ball, zone dodge ball, and four square. We would write "I heart whoever the boy was at the time" on the light pole in silver pens. Then there were the crushes on Brandon, Sean, Thomas, and Gary. (I tell you he not home!) When we turned 16 we would go cruising with each other in our cars. We would have slumber parties and stay up all night long.

We spent time together as families eating dinner together or go on outings together. We would do our school shopping together and get lost in the store and have to have our mothers paged.

We spun webs so closely that as adults we were in each others weddings and at the hospital for the births of each others children. We were more than neighbors on our street. We were and still to this day are family.

It's a girl!

My new toys came in the mail last night!!! It is actually a hobby called "reborning" or "reborn doll". It is where you take vinyl doll pieces and paint them to look like a real life baby. I have only done one before as it costs around $200 to do a doll. I am doing this one for my mom. She picked out the doll sculp (Paige by Tasha Edenholm) that she wanted and unfortunately it has been out of stock since May. I received an email on Friday that the sculp was back in stock. I ordered it Friday night and it was delivered yesterday. I am impressed with Bountiful Baby's fast shipping. This time I am going to do a different technique than I used on my first doll. The first doll I did you painted mostly the inside of the doll with a purple wash to give it the look of real skin. This time I will be using heat set paints and you paint the outside of the body and then cure it in the oven. I am also going to hand root the hair where on my first doll I used a wig. I am super stoked about getting started. I know I will push off the organizing project in order to work on the doll. Here is a picture of the doll completed by someone else. I hope mine turns out somewhat like this. You may not be able to see the detail very well here. If you are interested in seeing more you can go to http://www.bountifulbaby.com/ or do a google search on reborn dolls.


Some people make these and sell them. I don't think I could ever part with one that I did - outside of family. I have seen them on ebay going between $300-1000!!


Last night I babysat my nieces while waiting for my sister and brother-in-laws flight to get in from Mexico. I read the manual that I purchased with my reborning supplies and then watched some of the Olympics. I got ticked off when Nastia did not win the gold in gymnastics. I think the gymnastics is rigged. The announcers even said Nastia did a far better and cleaner routine yet the Chinese won the gold. In the USA's mind we know Nastia was the winner.

I got home at about ten till 1:00AM. I considered not even going to bed at all as I knew I would have a hard time getting up this morning after going to bed so late. But I actually did pretty good this morning so I am proud of myself.

Off and running (or falling in some cases)

This morning we woke up early in celebration of K's first day of school. She chose a black Tinkerbell tshirt and capri pants to wear. I straightened her hair and made her scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Koko, who normally will not budge from the couch in the mornings, joined us in the kitchen hoping to have some scrambled eggs herself. Woof! Woof!

K's cell phone was going off like mad this morning as her friends were texting to find out what each other was wearing and who was already at the bus stops. Oh! To be 13 again and those types of things to be your biggest worries.

Here are a few pictures of K before the bus came:

Each year I take a traditional picture of K walking down the street. I was getting ready to take that picture when K thought she heard the bus and took off running. She apparently tripped over her feet and fell to the ground. I was lucky enough to catch the fall in action. You can't see it very well in the attachment but trust me her buns are about to meet the ground. God love her!

Last but not least K captured this picture of a strange looking furry monster that was on our couch last night. I think we are going to have to go out and buy some special repellent to get rid of it.

Have a great day!!!

A Jam packed full day

We started out early Saturday morning by taking my SUV by the dealership because I have been having a problem with the accelerator pad. They ended up having to order the part so I will have to go back again this week when it comes in. Afterwards we went and got some breakfast and then went to see The Dark Knight. I absolutely loved the Joker's make-up. I had not seen any of the Batman movies before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I had a little trouble following the story line and keeping track of who was a good guy vs. who was a bad guy. All in all it was a good show. I give it 4 out of 5 popcorn bags. I had not seen a show that Heath Ledger was in before. It is incredibly sad he is no longer with us because he was a VERY talented actor. He played the Joker part brilliantly!

After the movie we went by to let my sister's dog out and play with him for a little bit before being off for Sean to hit golf balls at the range. I brought Love the One You Are With, with me as I had not picked it up to read in the past few weeks. I read a couple pages and am ready to say I am going to give up on this book as I am half way through and am bored to death with it. The two other books I read that were written by Emily Giffin were page turners that I couldn't put down. This, her fourth book, is by far her worse book.

We listened and watched the Royal's game that went on for a half day long. I was so sick of sports by that point and knew the Chiefs game would be blaring in my living room a few hours later. My mom called me and told me they were going out to dinner with some family from my dad's side and that my nieces didn't want to go so I told her to bring them over to my house and I would watch them. We played beauty shop, colored pictures, went over to let their dog out and had popcorn. They entertained me while Sean watched the Chiefs game. We had a good time.

We have been busy today getting the kids school stuff in order since they start school tomorrow. The boys just came by to pick their clothes, shoes, and supplies up. K will be home from her dads in a few hours and we will get her all set to be ready.

That is all for now!

Saturday's Post

This is actually Saturday's post although I am posting it on Friday evening. My day is booked tomorrow so I figured I would post before I go off to bed.

Ten years ago my parents purchased their first PC. Being the big spenders that they are they purchased an E machine for $300 in which it was as slow as molasses. The evening they got it I went over and got it all hooked up for them. I am not a technical person by no means but can at least get a PC up and working. As soon as we got it powered up my mom asked me "what her website was?" This woman had never laid her fingers on a keyboard so I was pretty sure she didn't have a website and if by chance she did, I didn't want to know what it was. LOL. I ended up figuring out she was trying to find out what her email address was. Back then AOL was the big thing so we set them up an AOL email account and then we shut it down for the night. The next evening I was in my apartment chatting away on AOL when my mom called. She asked me how to power up the keyboard so that they could get on their PC. My only response was "put it back in the box and take it back." I had no idea at that point the nightmares I would be up against with my parents being PC owners.

There were several issues with the nasty lady sites "popping up" on their PC. My mom even accused my dad of looking at the sites causing the pop ups. At the time they didn't have the security on their PC they do today so they could have very well just be popping up. My dad was notorious for deleting anything on the PC that he didn't "think" needed to be there. He would delete major applications and the whole thing would have to be reloaded. In the last year they purchased a second PC which is a Dell. They seem to have more problems now than they did before. My husband and brother in law cringe when my mom calls saying she is having a PC problem. We have spent countless hours at their house trying to fix whatever problems they are having.

So today I am sitting at my desk waiting for time to pass so that I can go home when my mom calls. She wants to reply to an email to my sister but doesn't know how to. I am thinking to myself that they have had a PC for 10 years and my mom has never replied to an email before?? Oh it gets better! It takes about 10 minutes but I finally get her squared away. I had to explain the reply button and what a cursor was and what it looks like. Yes, I can teach Emailing 101. We hang up and about 2 minutes later she calls back. Now mind you my mom is talking to me on her cell phone which is another electronic device they do not understand. My mom thinks you have to scream into a cell phone in order for the person on the other end to hear her. So I have the phone receiver at arms length from my ear listening to her. She now tells me that she is at the end of the line of her email and she doesn't know how to get down to the next line. For crying out loud! I started cracking up. She can't be serious!!! She has had a PC for 10 years and has never written an email over one line long??? I walk her through hitting the 'enter' key so that she can get to the next line and I also explain the send button when she is done writing her email. We hang up and she calls a third time!!! This time she tells me that she pressed send and her email went away. For the love of God please take ALL electronics out of my parents house!!!

I just got back from my sisters house a little while ago. My parents picked up her dog from the kennel and brought him home since my sister and her husband will be home from Mexico on Monday night. I stopped by to take Norman out before he goes to bed and to visit with him for a little while. He is such a sweetheart. He is like my friend Pam's dog and he thinks visitors are there to see him and no humans in the house. I took him out to potty and then brought him in and gave him one of the organic dog biscuits I made. He loved it too! His tail was going double time while he was eating it. He ended up eating 4 while I was there. I left him a bag that I will give him when I go over to let him out over the weekend. Two dogs down that love my biscuits. The true test will be if Princess Julie Beck (Pam's dog) likes them. She is a finicky one but if she likes them then I may have a future in the organic dog biscuit biz!

WARNING!!!! I am in a cranky mood today....

I am very tired today. I didn't stay up late but I couldn't get into a deep sleep either. I woke up several times during the night thinking I was late - which anyone who knows me knows I could care less if I was late to work. (Bad attitude I know but I am not a morning person) If it weren't for the fact that 2 of our 4 team members are out of town on business I would have certainly called in using one of the precious sick days today. So here I am sitting at my PC with my eyes barely open and the first Diet Coke I drank this morning is doing nothing for me. And of course I had a truck here at 8:30 this morning to make a delivery and the truck driver was Chipper Dave who was whistling with the birds. Then about 30 minutes later I had an IBM CE show up for a meeting that was supposed to take place on July 14. He did apologize for being late. I guess a month late is better than never. All I know is I am not staying here until 5:00 today. Noon sounds good to me but it will more than likely be 4:00 before I leave.

After 1 week in production I am going to cancel the Sister2Sister Friday's posts I was going to do. For one, most of the people who's blogs I read did not post at all this week or if they did post it was only once or twice. So not much to learn from. I also started reading a blog that is written by a male and I am sure he wouldn't like to be a "sister". I will think of something but just not today.

I think we are going to finally go see The Dark Knight this weekend. Sean messaged me this morning and has our whole weekend planned out. Bless his heart, he is like Gopher the Cruise Director on the Love Boat, making sure we are entertained at all times. Of course, it is usually entertainment that swings towards his pleasure. Don't get me wrong, I want to see The Dark Knight, but the going to the golf range to watch him hit golf balls and watching the Chiefs game Saturday night just doesn't do anything for me. Besides I wanted to get some organizing done in the kitchen this weekend and I have about a half day worth of PTA work I need to get done.

Well....I am going to get off here since my phone keeps ringing. These people do not seem to get it that I don't want to be here today.

Have a great weekend!

Just because it doesn't look right doesn't mean it doesn't taste good

Yesterday at the awards ceremony breakfast I sat with a group of co-workers that I do not normally hang out with. The conversation at the table was about vitamins and organic cooking. I have always been interested in going all organic in our home so I listened intensely and made several mental notes. Once back at my desk I logged onto the Internet and started searching for organic recipes in which I printed several off. I had also came across some recipes for organic dog biscuits so I printed them off as well. Since we had all the food purchased for our meals for the week I decided to go to the store on my lunch hour in order to pick up the ingredients that I didn't have so that I could make the dog biscuits. I have seen organic dog biscuits at the pet store but there was no way I was going to pay $8 or more for a box of them. However, here I was at the store spending $15 on ingredients that I didn't have in my home in order to make them. No matter how you crunch those numbers the end result is I am a dork!

After we took the boys home I began mixing up the biscuit concoction and ran into a serious problem. The recipe said that the dough would get VERY stiff and mine was sticky and wet. Now I don't know much about the science of baking but something tells me that some cornstarch, evaporated milk, oats and 3 cups of whole wheat flour is never going to absorb into 5 and a half cups of hot water. ??? Mine didn't! In the end I ended up adding the whole small package of whole wheat flour to the mixture and it never got stiff. Instead of wasting the dough I drop the sticky gooey mess by the spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. The recipe said to cut the dough with dog bone cookie cutters but that was never going to happen with mine. I let them cook their required 50 minutes and when I pulled them out they actually looked really good. I put them on a plate to cool and put another batch in the oven. Once the biscuits were cool I gave one to my dog and she loved it! I went into the living room to join my family in watching the Olympics while the tray of biscuits cooked in the oven. As soon as I sat down on the couch Koko (our dog) brings her Kongie toy and puts it in my lap. Her Kongie toy is a rubber toy with a whole in the center in which you insert treats and then the dog has to figure out how to get it out. I tossed the Kongie onto the floor in which she retrieved it and put it in my lap again. I then realized she LOVED the biscuits and she wanted me to put one in her Kongie. Yes....even though the dough was no way near what the recipe said it should be my dog was telling me I was the bomb at making organic dog biscuits!!!

For the rest of the evening when she was craving one of those delicious, made by mommy organic dog biscuits she would walk into the kitchen and bark. She has a whole jar full to enjoy over the next few weeks.

It's a bird....it's a fish.....no it's Michael Phelps!

Is Michael Phelps a freak in the swimming pool or what?? Wow!!.....totally amazing to watch him swim! And the way he does events back to back like it is nothing. You go boy!!! USA is soooo proud of you!!

I watched women's gymnastics last night too and felt so bad for Alicia when she messed up on the beam and floor exercise. You could tell she was trying so hard to hold back the tears. Bless her heart. We are equally proud of her and the other gymnasts. There is alot of speculation that the China gymnasts are not the required age of 16. As I watched the China gymnasts preform I wondered the same thing. They are much smaller (which the Chinese usually are) but you can tell it is more of an age thing than body structure. I also noticed their teeth .... there is one gal that it looks like her incisor teeth have not come all the way in yet which they should be in well before 16 years old. Bella Caroli even is questioning their age but said even if they are not the correct age their country would supply them with a passport making them at least 16 ..... so what can you do?? And don't even get me started on them booting the little girl out of the opening ceremony because she was not cute enough. Pathetic!

I made dinner last night and then had to run a quick errand to find a Hawaiian shirt. I am not the type to wear a Hawaiian shirt but we receive our award at work today and the other two who are receiving the award with me thought it would be neat if we wore the shirts. So I was game....got my Hawaiian shirt sitting in my guest chair in my office because I am not wearing that thing all day long. I also ran by the grocery store and picked up another cake mix since we have so much icing left over I decided I should make another batch of cupcakes for the kids. (Ok....and I love to hear my husband tell me how good the cupcakes are each time he eats one!) Let a girl gloat for a little bit! So I cleaned up the kitchen, made cupcakes, and then cleaned up the kitchen again so no time for organizing last night. And there will be no time for it tonight either because I have to finish cleaning out K's closet and get her clothes organized for school since she starts next Monday!! There will be plenty of time to organize this weekend as it is supposed to rain all weekend long.

Well, let me get ready to go put on my Hawaiian shirt.

How the new generation thinks

I forgot to add this to my posts for the past few days so decided to jump on here and add it. This was a conversation between my sister and my niece. My sister and her husband were getting ready to leave on a trip to Mexico for their 10 year anniversary and my nieces were going to stay with family in another state. My nieces both had loose teeth and the concern was them coming out while my sister and her husband were out of town.

Sister: Girls...you need to loose your teeth before mommy and daddy go on their trip otherwise the tooth fairy won't know where to deliver the money to.
Niece #1 : Can't you just text her and tell her where we will be?

Yup....just get on the old cell phone and text the address to the tooth fairy and all will be good!

Truck back!!! (Kitchen Organization Update #1)

My hubby got his truck back last night. It looked so shiny and new. The damage ended up being $3000 with labor. I know the body shop submitted a claim for the $4000 so insurance must have seen what I seen and had the body shop rethink what they were charging for. My hubby and I both agreed we didn't like riding with each other in the mornings but that we certainly were going to miss being with each other like we had been for the past week and a half.

I made spaghetti for dinner last night which is not one of my favorite meals to make. The reason being K doesn't like meatballs so I have to make her meat sauce. My husband doesn't like meat sauce so I have to make him meatballs. I am diabetic and have to eat the wheat noodles which they both don't like so I have to make them different noodles. And if we have spaghetti when the boys are over B doesn't like sauce or meatballs - he wants just plain noodles. I often think I need a sign from either Wendy's or Burger King to put up in my kitchen that says "Have it your way!" Spaghetti is not the only meal I make several different versions of. Yes, my family is spoiled rotten so don't let them tell you any differently!!

We watched some of the Olympics last night. The men's gymnastic and swim teams were great as well as women's volleyball. They all make me so proud! Go USA!!!!

While watching the Olympics we would flip to the Green Bay game. As you know I am not a huge sports fan but I am going to pick Green Bay as my team for this year. For one, I have always liked their outfits (I know it is called something else and my husband always gets on to me for saying outfit....whatever it is they wear....I like the colors). I always liked Brett Favre and I think his replacement Aaron Rogers is going to do a fantastic job!

Organizing Update:

Last night I decided to start on the west side of my kitchen and will work myself towards the east side. I started with the computer area since that would be the easiest. I went through the basket of PC games and threw away any that were really old and put the others that are no longer played in the donation sack. I wrapped up all of the headsets (you know everyone has to have "their own") nice and neat and put them in the basket. I then moved over to the baker's rack where I did some rearranging and cleaned out any old paperwork that was in the drawers. I put the hanging files in the file box and put the labeled files inside them. I still need to make the tabs to go on the hanging files.

As I was cleaning the kitchen last night I wanted to jump in and do other organizing things but I had to tell myself to pace myself so that I don't get burnt out. I could have easily stayed up until 3:00AM and did the whole kitchen in one night but that is not what my plan is. Nor is that the proper way to organize. Baby steps.....I will get there!

Let the organizing begin!

K's skating party went well on Saturday. She had a great time and talked about it non-stop for the rest of the weekend. Mission accomplished! Here are a few pictures of the polka dot cupcakes:




On Sunday we took the boys out to get their school clothes. Let's just say it is way easier to shop for men than it is women. They were in and out of the store in less than an hour and that was with trying everything on! We also walked out nearly $75 under what we had budgeted to spend - and they got alot of stuff! Good job, boys!


Today is the day I start reorganizing my house and getting it back into shape. I am super excited about getting this done. I know it will take me several months to get through the whole house but it is worth it. When I had my house organized a few years ago it made for an easier life and I also gained alot of time that I could do things I enjoyed doing rather than always working around the house.


Since I decided to start with the kitchen I am going to give you a tour of what I am up against. I took these pictures on Friday during the day so some of the clutter that is on the counter tops is no longer there. If you remember I had to work the PTA booth at the school for 3 nights last week so my hubby and child had reign of the kitchen so it wasn't kept up to par as I would have done it. However, most of the clutter is from my own doings so now I must fix what I was being lazy about doing in the first place.


We will start off in the "eat in kitchen" part of the kitchen. We live in a very small house so as you can see I have to cram alot of furniture (etc.) into small spaces. We house the computer in the back right hand corner. This is not the ideal location for the computer but we want to monitor where our kids are when out on the Internet so it is a small sacrifice that we are willing to make. The computer area stays cleans and clutter free which is good. The chair in the middle of the wall is no longer there. It is one of the chairs that we have to use when the boys are over for the weekends so that we can all sit around the table. When I cleaned out the sunroom I was able to make room for that chair to sit in there along with the 6th chair that we use when my oldest stepson is over. The table has a leaf but as long as the computer is in the kitchen we cannot use it or there is no room to walk around at all. The next thing on the wall is the baker's rack which I will get to in a little bit. We recently put up the wainscoting and trim on the wall which still needs to be painted. This will be one of the "projects" I finish before I call the kitchen done.



Now for the baker's rack. I could not live without the baker's rack as it provides me with some added storage place. The baker's rack is not in too bad of shape. I am aware of some items on the top shelf that do not belong there but everything else is good - just needs to be tidied.




Here is the sink area and on either side is the only counter space I have. The side on the left is usually clear as that is where I prepare our meals. I do tend to let the right side get cluttered with papers as you see. I purchased a small filing bin last night and will get that mountain of papers filled once and for all!


Here you can pretty much see all of the cabinetry I have to work with. Not much so I have to be efficient when I store items in the cabinets. There will also be a major project on this side of the room. If you will notice there is wallpaper trim around the top of the wall above the cabinets. About 2 years ago I took down what I could reach and left the rest for my husband who is over a foot taller than me. Well.....it is still sitting idle and it drives me crazy so I WILL find a way to reach it, get the wallpaper taken down and the wall painted so that the project can finally be done!

The last thing I am going to share with you today is a floor plan of my cabinets that I made a couple years ago when I was getting organized. I made this on Word - it is not to scale - but works for what I need it for. I drew out each cabinet and then labeled it as to what was being stored in each space. On another sheet I brainstormed out ideas of how I could better manage the cabinet space and then rearranged my cabinets. The way I have my cabinets set up now works really well but I am going to do the brainstorm activity once again just to make sure I can't make it even better.



I will let you know what I get done this evening!

I am a Cheetoh!!!

I kind of cheated today. I got started on the house project BUT I did the sunroom instead of starting with the kitchen. Our sunroom has never really been a defined space in our house. We used it as a playroom when we first moved in the house. However, it is not heated or cooled so climate wise it is not always the best environment to be in. After the kids got older it became a "catch all" room. I usually clean it up and organize it twice a year but we never "use" the room for anything. I had got to thinking that I really needed my own defined space in the house. The kids all have their bedrooms to hang out in and my husband usually has something sports related on the TV so I spend alot of time being bored and with no place to "do anything". I then thought the sunroom would be perfect for me. Most of the time I am cold so even if the sunroom is steaming hot I will be comfortable in there. And when it is cold out I could open the french doors and the heat from the house will warm it up as long as it is not extremely cold out. I had been wanting to do one of my yearly cleanings on the sunroom and I couldn't get my mind focused around the kitchen project knowing what a mess the SR was. I decided to get in there and knock the sunroom out so that I could put all of my focus on the kitchen come Monday.

Here is what the sunroom started out as. Yes, I am embarrassed to show these pictures but I have to show you what I had to start out with:



I did say it was a catch all!

After about 6 hours of cleaning, organizing, throwing things away, some blood, sweat and tears here is what it looks like now. And yes, that is my dog's behind in the first picture. She was so much help today!

I decorated with what I had. I do plan on painting the room and "actually" decorating it someday. For now it is my very own retreat and I am happy with the way it turned out.

I have to end with K's duckie feet....I got a glance of them as we were making the cupcakes and I thought it was so cute:

Sister2Sister Friday

I decided to add a new feature to my blog called "Sister2Sister Friday". I read ALOT of blogs. I don't always comment on them but I read them word for word. There are so many of you out there that are an inspiration to me - if not thousands of people - that come to visit your sites. I, for one, truly appreciate the time you take to post and therefore - inspire! For the most part I read blogs written by women who are mom's and wife's because that is what I relate to. I thank you for sharing your stories in which can help others if they go through a similar situation. There are many blogs that are written to give us a daily laugh which is very much appreciated too. So THANK YOU, THANK YOU....for taking the time to type out your thoughts. On Sister2Sister Friday's I am going to share things I learned from the blogs I read for the week. Even though I may never talk to some of you - you still are part of the female sisterhood - helping a fellow wife and mother out.

Things I learned this week:

1. Our pets are truly one of the family. Just like our children we care for them as one in the same.
2. If you wear an apron while cooking or cleaning it makes you feel more feminine.
3. Now that I am nearing (cough! cough!) 40, I can go to your site and look at the pictures of your precious sweet babies and exit your site without saying...."Oh I would love to have another!"
4. Be yourself. If it works for you even though no one else is doing it....do it for you!
5. Some of the authors from the blogs I read need prayer. Please join me now in saying a prayer for those.

Have a great weekend!

Our own Dennis the Menace

We have a little boy on our cul-de-sac that we call Dennis the Menace. He looks and acts just like the true character. White blond hair that is sticking up on top in the back and always into mischief. He is as cute as can be but equally gets on your last nerve. We have to keep our front door locked because he will just walk right into our house. And if he does ring the doorbell it is never just once - he pushes the button about 15 times. Little fart! About a year ago he rang the doorbell (multiple times so we knew it was him) and then ran off. When my husband opened the door he had put a dead rabbit on our front porch!! We have a basketball goal that the kids like to play with outside but they know as soon as they go out Dennis will be over and be bugging the daylights out of them. You just can't catch any relief. "Dennis" has recently learned how to ride his bicycle without training wheels so he is out night and day on his bike. He doesn't stop well so he has crashed into the back of my car and put a little scratch in it. Uuugh! Each time I pull into the driveway Dennis will ride over and ask if K can play. K is 13 and in 7th grade and Dennis is 7 and in 1st grade - so I have to make up little white lies because I know K has no interest in playing with him. So I tell him what K is doing (eating dinner, getting ready to go shopping, etc.) and each time after I tell him he will then come back with in the sweetest high pitched voice "after she is done (doing X) can she come play with me?" I tell him we will see and he is happy with that until he is bored and comes to ring the doorbell or has to go in. If we do leave to go somewhere and don't get back until late I always tease K and tell her to not forget that Dennis wants to play with her.

Our little street would be boring without Dennis. There is never a dull moment and I am sure he still has plenty tricks up his sleeve to share with us as he grows older.

Watch your language!!

Ohhh! How I can't wait for my husband to get his truck back! The drive home in the afternoons are nice but I cannot stand the morning drive in. It is so cold in my car because he has the air cranked. And we have to listen to sports talk radio on the way to work because that is what he is used to. And the thing that gets on my nerves the most is his cussing. I don't cuss so it is very irritating to me. He mostly cusses at other cars/drivers and trust me there are a handful that he has to rant at each time he drives. I have thought about putting up a note in my car that says "no cussing allowed".

The first night of schedule pick up went very well. I sold 136 individual memberships and 1 business membership. I think the next two nights will be a little slower than last night but I am still hoping for good numbers. I was completely worn out by the time I got home. It was so loud in the school that I had to talk loud and had to say the same things over and over. I wished I had a tape recording that I could play!

I have decided that I am going to start in the kitchen when I start the mission of getting my house back in order. The kitchen is the hub of our home and needs to be the most organized. I am predicting I will spend 3-4 weeks working on it. I am going to touch every tiny crevice of my kitchen to make sure it is organized and works efficiently. There are also a few projects in there that need to be completed. Some nights I may only have 15-30 minutes to work on a project so that is why I am thinking it will take so long. I am very pumped about doing it and can't wait to get started.

It's Time!!!

It's time!!! When I say those words I hear my childhood friend's mother (may she rest in peace) saying it in her Arkansas accent when it was time for them to go inside for the evening. It's time! I will use her words and actions as a way of motivation for myself because "it's time" I get my house back in order. A couple years ago I happened upon some home organizing sites and I got obsessed with them. I organized everything in my house. I threw away so many things that my house thanked me for not having to hold up such a big load. I got a label maker and labeled everything - even inside the fridge. I wrote up manuals on how to clean and keep every room in the house. (I said I got obsessed with it!) Life worked like a charm as I had a routine for everything and everything had a "home". But like all things if you fall out of routine it all falls downhill.

I work full-time, am raising 3 teens (one is actually a tween - and we graduated one....that is headed no where right now but that is a different post), am a devoted wife, a pet owner, a VP of the PTSA, a sister, a daughter, a friend.......I could go on and on. My plate is full. But that is no excuse as to how I let things go in my home. After all that is my true love - keeping the home and my family. Now, my home is not a pig sty by no means but it certainly is far from the Better Homes and Garden cover as it was a few years ago.

So I am challenging myself to get it back into tip top shape. There is alot of re-organizing I need to do, alot of clutter that needs to be tossed, projects that need to be finished, and manuals that need updated. I am up for the challenge and will post my journey in my blogs along the way.

I am not going to stress myself out as this week is already busy so I am going to make the start date August 11. I am not going to assign a "complete date" yet because that will detour me as I will feel like I need to get too much done in too little of a time frame. Baby steps!

So watch for my upcoming posts of my accomplishments and if you want to - join in with me!!!!

Estimate Mestimate

We got the estimate on my husband's truck today. The dealership body shop says it is going to cost $4000 to fix it. My husband's truck as a whole is worth around $13,000 (at best) and it just gives me the warm fuzzies to know that $4000 of it lies within the hood and front passenger headlight. Go back to my Saturday post to see the picture of the truck and tell me if you don't think the dude doing the estimate is on something!

My Sunday

I had so much fun scrapbooking at Pam's on Sunday. The time goes by way too fast though! It seems like I no more and get there and 6 hours have already passed! I enjoy scrapbooking with Pam because she is super duper crafty. She teaches me or encourages me to try techniques that I wouldn't try otherwise. Pam's scrapbooks are amazing! She has even been hired to make them for other people. I only hope to do pages half as great as hers. I will try to take a picture of my most impressive page (to me, at least) that I have ever done. It took me almost the whole day long to do it. Pam has the Cricut cutting system which is incredibly cool. I have been a little intimidated by it before because it seems so technical. I used it a few times yesterday and have really taken a liking it to it. I told Sean last night that I may be wanting a Cricut for Christmas.

After Pam's we went to my parents house for dinner. My mom made tostado's which were delicious! I ate too much! After dinner I played "school" with my nieces. I acted like the bad student in the class. I kept throwing crayons and sticking my tongue out at my niece who was the other student in the classroom. After a little while she came up to me and told me that today was her last day at the school because she was moving to China so that she could learn how to speak Spanish. Good luck with that one! LOL.

Yesterday I told my husband I would see him again in January. Football pre-season games officially began last night and since he follows 2 college and 2 professional teams (and every team in between) he will be in his element of football sports until January of 2009. The only good thing I have going for myself right now is that Kansascitians are very upset with the Chiefs football program. Several people gave up their season tickets for this season and the games are not sold out in which they have been for the past several years. If they do not end up selling out the home games will not be televised.

Our PTA president emailed me last night and approved all the forms I made for this week's membership drive. Yeah! I will call her later on today so that we can work out all the details over the next few days. I am also in charge of putting on an all school mixer so she asked that I start looking at a date for that. I enjoy being involved with the PTA but have been doing alot of thinking over the last few days of questioning myself if I want to be involved the following school year or not. It takes up alot of my time but next year will be the last year I would be involved anyway. I am not going to do PTA once the kids hit high school. I want them to be involved in their own things at school and we need to be available to take them or attend anything they are involved in. Well...I have several months to think about it so I am not going to dwell on it now.

Hot! Hot! Hot!

As I am sure you can guess the first picture is of Sean's crunched up car. It is really not that bad so we are very thankful about that. We still have not heard how long it will take to fix it.

The second picture is of the guitars I got finished last night. I still need to design 2 that I already have painted and then paint and design 3 more. I will head off to do that as soon as I get done here.

This afternoon we went to the Royal's game for Military Appreciation Day. They were supposed to do a fly over but it never happened. I am not sure why they didn't do it but that is one of the reasons I went and suffered through the 348 degree weather. It was terribly hot out there! The Royals ended up winning and had 3 homeruns during the game so we got to see several fireworks today. Our friends Stephanie and Bobby went with us. Bobby is from Chicago so he was rooting for the White Sox. Sorry 'bout the loss!

Well I better get started on the guitars. Tomorrow I am scrapbooking with Pam all day long. I am super excited about it! =)

Adding more to the full plate

If life wasn't hectic enough we got a "new can of worms" last night when my husband rear ended someone on the way home from work. I am not blaming him. It was an accident that was completely unavoidable. But it does turn our lives upside down since we have 3 kids we have to shuttle around and are in general very busy. The part that really makes it stink is my husband did not have a rental car on his car insurance so we are down to one car now. Thank God both cars have minor damage and no one was hurt.

We dropped his truck off at the dealership this morning. Luckily the bodyshop is not busy right now so hopefully we can get his truck back rather quickly. We are still trying to figure out how we are going to rearrange our schedules in order to deal with only having one car. We work different hours (him 7-4, me 8-5) and work in totally opposite sides of the city. I have PTA obligations next week for 3 days where I need to be at the school at 3:00PM so that is going to make it kind of tough but we will figure it out. Then on Friday I took the day off to get K's hair done and make/ice 75 cupcakes. My husband has to work a disaster recovery exercise that day and will need to work 9-2 so that will be a jammed pack full day.

The biggest problem I am going to see is the mornings. My husband is the type of person who wakes up happy and snaps to it. Me on the other hand - I am a complete bear until I am totally awake. Now that I am going to have to get up even earlier I am sure I am going to be even more the sour peach! In the mornings I am cold so I usually drive with the heater on low or nothing on at all. My husband "sweats to death" as he would say so this morning we had to have the air conditioner cranked in the car. I thought I was going to "freeze to death"! It is going to be alot of getting used to since we are used to our own routines. And more than likely it will be ME that has to do some adjusting - you know - after all my husband was the one who wrecked HIS car! In it all I know God won't give us more than we can handle so all will be ok. As I went to bed last night I gave it all to Him and will listen as to how we are to deal with it. I know my husband has not done that yet because he is still worrying about every little detail.

After the aftermath of the collision and dinner we ran K up to the salon to get an estimate on her hair. The stylist wouldn't even tell me the amount. She wrote it down on a piece of paper and handed it to me. $155!!! Granted K has a TON of hair but she is only 13 years old and I was not going to pay that much. We then went to my sisters house so that she could give my husband a hair cut and after I told her how much K's hair was going to cost she told me she could probably do her hair. So we went up to Sally's and bought all the stuff ($34....thank you very much....which included nail polish top coat and a sponge that I am going to use for scrapbooking). K stayed the night with my sister and they did her hair last night. I haven't even got to hear yet how it turned out. I don't want to wake them up so I will wait a little longer before I call. I still will need to take K to get her hair cut and eye brows waxed next Friday.

So that is our new news. I cannot wait for Sunday ..... I get to go to Pam's to scrapbook. I need it sooooo bad!