Does This Make My Blog Look Big?

Flat Tire. And not the awesome beer.

2011-01-10T14:35:00.005-05:00

This morning, I woke up in a great mood. Which is saying something, because I am definitely not a morning person and perpetually feel as though I haven't had enough sleep no matter what time I went to bed the night before. I fixed my daughter's lunch, started the car early to warm up, then bundled all of the kids up and headed toward Teagan's school.

It wasn't apparent until I hit the main road. Then I heard a constant grinding sound and felt my car's obvious struggle on the road, I briefly wondered if we were about to be suddenly engulfed in a fireball. At the first side street I could find I pulled in and parked in front of an elderly care center...another car pulled in right after me and I reconsidered my stopping location. I didn't want to be seen by anybody in my bra-less state, wearing plaid pajama pants with Walmart clog shoes and a lopsided ponytail. But then I said "eff it" and got out to assess the vehicle. I had hoped for something simple, like ice stuck over the wheels. But as I made my way around to the other side of the car, the problem was quickly evident: a flat tire.

"Oh shit." I stood and stared at it for a moment, then looked around at the houses of the neighborhood, willing a friendly neighbor out to solve the problem for me...trailer park fashion statement be damned. I have never dealt with this in my life. It was cold. I was in my pajamas. I had no gloves. Even if I KNEW how to change a tire, it would be impossible to do so in this temperature without at least gloves.

So I did what any self-respecting person in a crisis does: I cried for my mommy. I got back in the car and speed-dialed my mom, waking her up at 6AM her time in Arizona. "I have a crisis!" I explained. I broke down in tears. "I don't know what to do!" I had asked if I could drive back to my house on the flat tire. She advised me not to. But after we went through my possible options: "Do you have Triple A?" No. "Is there a gas station close?" Yes, but I don't have my cards or cash on me. "Do you know how to do it?" No, and it's freezing, and I'm wearing my pajamas and I have no gloves.

We agreed that I must drive back home. I put on my hazard lights and crept along the main road back home, and felt victorious when I pulled back into my driveway.

But now I have different problems. I've been trying to get ahold of my mother-in-law all day long. To see if her AAA plan has the "help a friend" service...if she even has AAA anymore. Or find out if she knows anybody who can come over and help me. Or...at the very least, if she can help me since I have no idea what I'm doing.

I refuse to call a tow service or some other company. The last time I had somebody come over for emergency assistance, it was when I locked myself out of this house a week after signing the closing paperwork. I called a locksmith and that ended up costing me $67. SIXTY-SEVEN DOLLARS. For the man to drive down the street from their business location, and wiggle a wire in the door for literally 10 seconds. Frankly, I'm not excited about the idea of paying somebody to change my tire for me when the cost will most likely be equally astronomical.

And then, AND THEN, even when we do get a tire on, my worries still aren't over. The tire in the trunk is just a temporary. So this means that I get to go buy a new tire very soon. After Christmas, my wallet is still recovering from being beaten worse than a pinata filled with roofies at a frat party.

I'm afraid there is not going to be a completely happy resolution for this fiasco.

God might not want me to blog

2010-12-18T20:04:00.000-05:00

I was all pumped up and ready to go when I made my last post. I told myself "I'm going to post every day like I used to! I still have so much to talk about! I have so many stories saved up!" But one fateful day soon after I made my comeback post, I fell ill.

So I've been laying around, listening to Sarah's Key on audiobook...which it turns out is very, very depressing so far. And then I told myself that of course it's going to be depressing, it's about the Holocaust. But then I found myself angry with the author: it's not a true story, so why be so brutal? Why can't anything actually go right in this story? Will there be some sort of happy ending? I like happy endings. And then I told myself to shut up because most real life Holocaust victims didn't have happy endings.

When I'm not listening to the book, I'm ordering from a pizza place just so that I can get milk delivered since I am too sick to pack everybody into the car and go get it myself. "I have a really weird question for you," I said to the thick-accented Italian man on the other end of the phone, "would it be possible for you to send me, like, just a gigantic cup of milk?" Of course I asked this after I ordered some actual food. For a reason I still don't understand, he handed off the phone to an equally accented woman who asked if I would mind if the driver picked up a gallon from CVS Pharmacy. I said of course not and that I would be eternally grateful.

The delivery man showed up here about 20 minutes later and handed me my sandwich and "mac n cheese bites". I said "where my mo'fo milk, man?" and he said "I don't know dawg, they wrote milk here on the receipt but never told me to pick any up, but I can go get some if you want, homez" and I said "Fo real man, I'd 'preciate it."

So he came back another 10 minutes later with my milk and I gave him a $10 tip for his time. Though $4 of it was to cover the milk.

I have MUCH to talk about!

2010-12-10T14:07:00.001-05:00

I've been gone a long time, I know, I'm sorry. But I promise, I'm going to be around for awhile from now on. Here's a tl;dr rundown of what I've been up to:

June - July: my husband and I were house hunting. We looked at...I don't know, maybe about 15 houses in all. We put offers in on 3 total.

The first, well it was a major fixer-upper. It was a ranch-style house that clearly hadn't been updated since the 70's. But it had a nice, spacious, fenced-in backyard and was right on a quiet cul-de-sac in a great neighborhood. We offered at asking price, but the lady just didn't seem to be ready to let go of it...it was her mother's house, who had just passed on.

The second house was also nice, although it was pretty small. We loved that it had a fireplace in the livingroom and a finished basement. The downside was that it had endured a little bit of flood damage with the Great Rhode Island Floods of '10, but honestly we were sick of looking and said the house was good enough for us. Our offer was outbid by somebody else.

We were ready to give up hope. We were really crunched for time, and wanted to have a house before my husband left (explanation below). But we pushed on and decided to go for one more round of walk-throughs. The moment I walked into the house, I fell in love with it. It smelled new, with fresh paint and new wood flooring...but the house is over a hundred years old. It's got beautiful original woodwork throughout. It's pretty big, at almost 2000 sq ft. After our first tour around, we came back into the mudroom and I told my husband "you do whatever you can to get me this house. I HAVE to have this house!"

It had only been on the market for 4 days, and we were offering less than the asking price, so it would take a miracle to get it. I prayed and prayed all day. I felt nauseous I was so nervous. The sellers accepted our offer that night.

So, my dream house also became our first house. No starter home necessary. Unfortunately, closing took a bit longer than expected so I moved in by myself...since my husband had gone by then. We were living in hotels for 3 weeks, as our lease was up at the townhome we were renting. It seems like that might be a luxurious way to live...but with three kids and a cat in one room with two beds, it wasn't. I finally signed the paperwork and got my keys on September 16th. I spent the first few nights on an AeroBed set up in the dining room.

September 5th - My husband got shipped off to Afghanistan. You see, when he first got out of the military almost two years ago, he was briefly unemployed before getting hired by the police department. During that time, he had joined the Air Force Reserves for the extra $400 a month, he was told he could get out before his contract was up. Well, recruiters lie. Big surprise. So long story short, about 12 people in his unit became active and now he's over there until the spring of '11.

That's him on the far left. It was really hard at first. The kids cried every day. I cried every day. We worried about him. I still cry sometimes. Sometimes, it still feels like more than I can bear. But I find it a blessing that I had this new house to buy things for, the holidays, and the kids to shop for...I signed the kids up for an asinine amount of activities to keep us all busy (scouts, sports, etc), and I've been going to the gym regularly to keep my spirits up. I live 10 minutes away from my mother-in-law, so she watches the kids a few times a week so I can run errands and just have some time to myself. Which really helps. I can't wait for him to come home.

This was taken the day he left at a USO family send-off

I'm glad to be back to my blog. I always found blogging therapeutic. I think I'll stick around.

LOST finale...

2010-05-24T00:00:00.000-04:00

6ybb vbhn rt5yfr b hy u7frrrlo

(head banging keyboard).

Jesus Bunny Thumb Print

2010-05-22T14:52:00.001-04:00

As you can see, I have been lacking time (and blogable material) lately. Last night, mom encouraged me to post a new entry concerning an awkward family moment...which I will be doing hopefully later tonight. But for now, I bring you this:

8th Grader Finds Jesus on Thumb While Doing Science Project?

Here is the image from the article:

But to me, it's obviously The Easter Bunny:

But I suppose it's just as well, since both Jesus and the Easter Bunny have a lot to do with Easter, right???

FYI!

2010-05-18T00:33:00.002-04:00

I just ordered my first food dehydrator. Watch out world, I'm about to start drying shit to eat.

BP Beauty Queen

2010-05-11T19:12:00.001-04:00

It seems as though the days when I make absolutely no effort to make myself presentable are the times that I get noticed more often by the opposite gender. Today I went to the gas station to run in quickly and buy milk and some snacky-snacks to surprise the the hubs with for him to enjoy during his shift tonight.

My hair was unfixed, still up in the bun I had put it up in last night before I went to bed, complete with fly-aways and messy bangs. No make-up, my house/crafting jeans that have Mod Podge stains all over them (and I have to wear a long shirt with them because the zipper never stays put...but I can't part with them because they are so comfy, my absolute faves). And a black v-neck sweater that could seriouly use a meeting with one of those little sweater fuzz vacuums.

So I'm standing at the counter paying for my shiz and this handsome black guy walks up behind me and says "Excuse me princess, you've got some lint stuck to your sweater" and then he reaches over and pulls off...a little shard of toilet paper that was stuck to my back. I guess it's better than TP stuck to your ass or shoe. I thanked him and turned to go, and as I walked out he says "you have a great day, beautiful." Then a group of guys were standing around outside and said "damn, how about her?" Which, I assumed they meant in a complimentary way, but I can't be absolutely sure. Maybe they were saying "Damn. What about her?" as they were in the middle of discussing the most homely looking women they've seen today.

I've talked about this with my mom and my best friend in the past. We can't figure out if it really is that we do, in fact, get checked out more often when we're not all done up...or if it's just that we are much more aware of it because we're feeling self-concious about our appearance at the time.

So guys: do you prefer a woman without makeup? Or is it just you don't like a lot of makeup? Or is a woman just more approachable when she looks a little frazzled and "I don't give a crap today"? Is the "girl next door" look (in my case, quasi-homeless girl next door) sexier than the "night out" look?

Thinking of these things brings so many unanswered questions...and I think I have a pretty good understanding of men. Is our preception of what we (as women) believe men find attractive scewed by what we see in magazines, through celebrities, etc etc? Personally, I'm just really confused by the fact that I get more attention when I'm definitely not feeling sexy than when I've made the effort to look smokin'. 'Splain dis to me, Willis.

Orlistat = Butt Grease = Skinny!

2010-05-07T14:36:00.004-04:00

A few years back, I stopped eating chips that were made with Olestra, because I discovered that they make your bowel movements greasy. I never experienced it personally, because I never had the notion to eat an entire bag of chips in one sitting, but I had read an excellent (and hilarious) experiment about it by a Zug contributer named John Hargrave.

Recently I've been more careful about what I eat, not dieting, just not going to Taco Bell and eating five 5 layer burritos every day. I thought I was getting away with all of the burritos for awhile. "HA!" I yelled while shaking my fist at a pile of empty burrito wrappers, "you got nothin on this!" Then I gave my booty a smack.

The burritos finally caught up with me.

So lately I've been trying to do some last-minute damage control so that I can actually wear my bikini without shame to the beach this summer.

Anyway, I find it ironic that I once tried to avoid excess fat being expelled from my body in a way that is too graphic to discuss in such a public forum. And now I take these pills called Alli that do just that. And let me tell you, it's amazing, people. The drugs prevent your body from absorbing all of the fat that you eat. While I haven't been eating anything extremely fattening anyway, you're supposed to take one anytime you eat anything that has fat in it. Grilled chicken? Little blue pill on the side. Whole grain spagetti with lean turkey burger meatballs? Little blue pill please. Yep, there are now two "little blue pills" that I am aware of. Though I only have use for one of them.

I've already shed some of that excess pudge after a week of avoiding Taco Bell, and cheese in general. I really have a problem with cheese. Most people have food vices that involve junk foods: chips, cake, ice cream, candy...I've never been somebody who has to cram plain crap down my neck, I never really had taste buds for those foods anyway unless it's that special time of the month. But if I could throw a few cups of cheese on everything without consequence, I would be one happy lady.

Technically I guess I shouldn't really be using these pills, seeing as the indications instruct their usage is only for overweight people...which I am not. But after reading reviews it appears as though plenty of non-overweight people take them, and hey, sometimes you must follow the flock of bikini-ready bodies.

Never have I touched diet pills before. To be honest, I'm afraid of most of them. I don't even like the jittery feeling drinking too much coffee can give you...I can't imagine taking something that strains your heart like that and gives you the shakes and sends your heart racing. But this Alli, I can fully stand behind. It's gross, interesting, and effective all at once.

Romeo & Juliet: First Grade Edition

2010-05-04T22:49:00.000-04:00

My 7 year old daughter burst into the door yesterday announcing: "Mom! I've found the boy that I am going to marry!"

When I was little, I remember always being "boy crazy". I never thought boys had cooties, I always had crushes, I have had boyfriends since the third grade. But I don't ever recall planning my wedding out in intricate detail and picking husbands as my daughter does.

My daughter's new beau is a little black boy named Day-twan (sorry, I don't know how to spell it, and I WOULD say African American boy, but I have been informed that is not PC, because darker skinned people come from several countries.) In fact, I wouldn't even point out his race if it weren't relevant to the story. Read on.

So some little girls my daughter play with outside (who also happen to be black) brought their cousin over yesterday, and that was it for Teagan. She was in love at first sight, and the two of them promised eachother to marry when they were grown up. The only problems were their cousins, and my 4 year old son. For whatever reason, Johnny (my son) didn't approve of the situation, and shrieked repeatedly "NO! YOU CANNOT MARRY HIM UNTIL YOU GROW UP! Stop talking about it!" As for Dayton's cousins, they disagreed with the arrangement considerably as well.

"She's a white girl. You can't marry her!" and "What would your mama say if you married her?"

These outbursts literally brought my daughter to tears when her object of affection finally gave in to the peer pressure and it was decided that it would be best if they didn't marry. But apparently, he whispered in her ear that he would be back to visit her next Sunday, secretly. Forbidden love. Sometimes, there is nothing so toxic yet so sweet simultaneously.

---

Social commentary: It's sad that racism starts so young. Racism does not exist solely as white people discriminating against other races. I experienced this personally when I attended high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico as, believe it or not, a minority (being a white person amongst mostly Hispanics). I experienced racism against myself many times. And the fact that the tendancies are being ingrained by parents into their children so early on...with 7 year olds...well, it really pisses me off.

Dumb things I've Learnt About Life Through Myself or Vicariously Through Other People, Part 1

2010-05-01T15:55:00.001-04:00

On Alcohol

- It is hardly ever a good idea to have your cell phone on you when you are intoxicated. Either you'll lose it, break it, or even worse, you'll call or text people ridiculous things that you will curse yourself for later.

- Do not mix hard liquor and wine in the same night.

- If you can hardly stand straight, then do not stand. You might fall through a glass coffee table and lacerate your butt.

- Don't drive after drinking. Period.

- Don't play pool for money against intoxicated people who also happen to be insane. They might try to slit your throat with a hunting knife in the parking lot after they lose.

- If you are at a small bar in a small predominately Caucasian town in Wisconsin that decides to host a regional rap-off, there will probably be a huge mob bar fight against the races that involves stools and mugs being hurled through the air.

- Do not ride in taxi cabs with insane drivers. Last weekend, a friend and I had two psycho drivers in one night after bar close. The first became irate after we told him he brought us to the completely wrong address, in an entirely different neighborhood and began swerving around residential streets and corners at 50MPH. We yelled at him to pull over and let us out in some random, unknown part of town. We found another cab. The second instigated a screaming match between himself and myself when I pointed out that he was completely ignoring me when I was trying to chat him up. My friend and I were also propositioned to go on a private yacht and snort coke that night by some random guys on the sidewalk. It was an interesting night.

On Relationships

- Men: let women be women. Understand we're going to be dumb and emotional sometimes. Women: let men be men. Allow them to watch their sports, drink their beer, hang out with their (sometimes idiot) guy friends freely and without nagging or pouting on your part. So long as you're still the first priority most of the time, it shouldn't be a problem.

- Do not ever make your entire life about one person. All relationships will eventually run into major problems and a few bad things could happen because of your mistake: you've alienated your friends when you've chosen to put one person far above all others, which leads to resentment among everybody else who cares about you. Plus, it's really f'n annoying to everybody else when all you can talk about is your special person. True fact. And also, if the time comes to split up, your life is left in shambles when that person leaves you.

- Do not, under any circumstances, have a long term affair with somebody who is married and living with their spouse. It never turns out well. (For the record, it's not me who did this. I know of others who have and the ending is never happy for anybody involved.)

On Children

- They will destroy everything. It's best to not consider new furniture until they are all at least school-aged. If you have an expensive LCD TV, do not connect the Wii to it, and do not allow any play around it (especially involving baseball bats). Expect extensive damage to walls if you have young children. Designate a single area for toys, and do not allow them elsewhere in the house, or you will find it nearly impossible to keep clean.

- Only invest in toys that have extensive re-play value. Most of the toys sold in stores will only be played with once, and then forgotten forever. The best and only toys that my kids have never grown bored of are: blocks, bikes, and video game consoles...because when a game gets boring, you can just buy a new one.

- If you leave a spray bottle of cleaner unattended for 30 seconds, a child will find it and squirt themselves in the face. I keep all of my chemicals far up and away from the kids' reach. But this has happened several times with my back turned while cleaning, resulting in an unpleasant experience by both parent and child...with the child's head shoved under cold running sink water to flush the eyes out. I have since made it a rule to never have cleaner out unless it is physically in my hand at all times.

- Learn to deal with your children's comments and actions with grace. They will ask strangers why their teeth are yellow. They might hug and kiss strangers in the supermarket. They will ask strangers and family alike why they are so fat.

Other

- Don't put your nose up to a bottle of hair dye and inhale deeply. It may smell like flowers from a distance but a huge whiff will give you a nasty and painful surprise.

- Wear latex gloves when you're cutting up peppers. There is nothing worse than doing it with naked hands and then rubbing an eye or any other body part that is sensitive (yep, even those parts), and remembering after it's too late that you have capsaicin under your fingernails.

- If your spouse is a police officer, always ensure that you have disinfectant at home. They might need to soak their HIV infected handcuffs in it.

Back from the Dead

2010-04-30T20:38:00.001-04:00

Over a week ago, my computer charger decided to crap out on me. And rather than spend another $80 on a new charger as we have twice before over the past year...I decided to spend $15 on eBay for a new one. But then I had to wait for it. Until a couple days ago, my only access to the Internet was through my iPod Touch. It was a sad, tedious existence that I lived during that entire week and I'm glad to be back.

I see that I have lost one follower during my absence. To those of you who remain, I thank you. I thank you for never giving up on me and keeping vigil for my return. Since I know you all must have missed me terribly. You now have my permission to resume happiness in your lives.

Surprisingly, nothing dreadfully exciting happened while I was away living my partially unconnected life. But I have an idea for a blog post that I'll be working on (and hopefully publishing) tonight, so check back later!

Love,
Rachel

Editorial Retraction

2010-04-14T20:21:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I referred to my new e-friend as "Awkward". Said friend has corrected my mistake, and will now go by "Mr. Awkward", or rather, "Mr. Wow".

I Love Hotels, Lost, and Beer.

2010-04-13T19:43:00.002-04:00

I drove two hours to Chicopee, Massachusetts yesterday evening to spend a little kid-free time with my husband, who is away for the week for Air Force Reserve drills. The military puts him up in a Hampton Inn when he's called away, so we spent the night out at dinner, then snuggled and watched Family Guy on the HD TV while playing Jenga and drinking beers for about 3 hours before he passed out. I layed in bed and started a book my new e-friend "Awkward" recommended to me called City of Thieves (which I am thoroughly enjoying so far). When it was 1:30AM and very much so time to pass out, I ended up heading over to the second queen bed...because my husband is a selfish, evil bed stealer and always makes his way into the very center of the mattress. I'm somebody who needs a lot of room to myself when I'm trying to sleep. I love to cuddle when I'm awake, but when I'm trying to sleep I need my own space so GTFO.

The ride home today was pretty uneventful...other than the time when I was coming off one highway to switch to another and to my dismay there was only about 300 feet before the entrance to the next highway, and whoever designed those roads decided that that amount of notice was sufficient to clear 4 lanes of highway to get to the other side and onto the ramp in time. I cleared 3/4, and was trying to make my move onto the ramp when this deep red SUV took its time and didn't speed up or slow down to let me in, and they went happily on their way onto the next highway while I helplessly continued on the same one until I could get off and turn around. Before we departed completely though, the strong urge to flip off the other driver consumed me. But then I realized that it wasn't entirely their fault. They were, afterall, driving a reasonable speed and it wouldn't be fair of me to expect them to slam on their brakes to let me in ahead of them. They probably weren't the idiot engineers who designed the road. So instead, I stared the driver down and shook my fist at him. He stared back for a moment with his lips slightly parted and his face frozen in shock.

When I was about an hour away from home, I noticed a car parked on the side of the highway with its emergency blinkers on. Beside it, was a man (or a short haired woman) kneeling before two crosses with huge displays of flowers...the one on the left was a smaller cross, and had a teddy bear placed lovingly beside it. "Oh, God. Oh, my God." I said to myself aloud, "That's so sad." And then I started crying. Which is not a great thing to do when you're flying down the highway at 75 miles per hour. And then I changed the song on my iPod, because I quickly decided that "I Like to F*ck" by Tila Tequila and Hot Rod was grotesquely inappropriate for the situation.

I arrived back in town and swung by the drive-through liquor store (a blessing from God, I say) for a 6 pack of Miller Light to enjoy during Lost tonight (and also to drown away my lonliness). The young gentleman at the register was a Tom Green look-a-like that I recognized because on my birthday I had gone in to buy some spirits and he remarked that it was his birthday too, and did I know that October 5th is the most common birthday in the world? Indeed, I did not. And when I got home, I Googled it, because my husband said the guy only said that because he was hitting on me. Well, it turns out that it's a true fact. It's speculated that Oct. 5th is the most common day for babies to be born, because it's approximately 40 weeks after New Years. So I suppose we all can guess when and why I came into existence.

The employee looked at my identification and said "Oh my God!...that's my birthday..." "I know," I interrupted, "you were the one who told me our birthday is the most common in the world. I went home and Googled it, and you're right!" Then he said how he knows 6 people that share our special day, and I said I knew none. "Well...now you do." he said as he smiled and handed me my receipt.

Lost and Found

2010-04-10T06:35:00.003-04:00

My husband is constantly losing or forgetting things. And I don't mean that this happens occasionally, it's as if he perpetually suffers from a chronic case of early onset Alzheimer's. So when I got a phone call from him at 5AM this morning, I wasn't the least bit surprised. He had forgotten his military ID after he was already 45 minutes into his 2 hour drive to Air Force Reserve drill. Not only had he forgotten it, but he had no idea where he had put it. The other day he had taken it out of his wallet to go on the nearby Navy base to use the gym. Thankfully, I found it almost instantly, on top of the TV in our bedroom.

Since this type of thing typically happens several times per week, I've become so accustomed to searching for things that I normally just crack a joke about how I honestly have no idea how he ever made it through life before he had me to help him find his shit. But at 5 o'clock in the morning, I'm a little less amused by his antics. Also when, a couple weeks ago, he was frantically searching for his shoe polish and recruited my help while LOST was on (which is really the only time every week when I demand silence and complete avoidance of distractions). Oh, the cruel irony.

The worst part about that was that I was constantly moving his shoe polishing kit up into his closet. He had been leaving it behind a bookshelf in our room, and everytime I moved it I nagged that he really needed to keep it up...in case one of the kids finds it and gets into it. Well, guess who was right? Men, this is exactly why you must listen to your women.

He forgets things so often, that I told him that I'm going to have a custom notepad made for him. You know those pre-printed shopping checklists that you can buy, the ones that have food items that nearly everybody regularly purchases on routine stops at the supermarket...eggs, milk, bread? Well, I plan on having something similar printed for him, except that every page will have a list of everything he needs to bring with him daily to work. Radio, gun, cuffs, badge, etc. I wasn't fully joking. I am seeing a serious need for this.

I just don't understand it! It's not that our home is a mess, or that he's disorganized or irresponsible. After being in the military for six years, he's developed some nearly OCD habits when it comes to his possessions. He's always had a little box that he keeps in his closet on the shelf where he puts his small but important things. But sometimes, he sets things down somewhere without thinking about it...and then, it's either gone forever or at least until I can find it for him. He's lucky that I'm always pretty good at finding stuff.

It's even a little fun sometimes. There's nothing like searching for something, and the thrill you get when you finally find it. It's a little adrenaline rush: some people need to go skydiving to get their kicks...but for now, I'll just stick to random routine find-the-lost-thing hunts around the house.

Bourse.

2010-04-08T09:35:00.003-04:00

My husband has two things that he is constantly nagging me about: my purse, and my iPod. He hates my iPod because some days I spend more time with it than I do with him. I love to blast my music while I'm cleaning, or cooking...before I put in my earphones I always tell him that I'm unavailable and if he needs me then he will have to tap me on the shoulder because I can't hear a thing outside of my own musical world. It's my way of taking a break from the kids, and sometimes him, while not physically leaving the house. I also like to use the Kindle app to read in bed (since my Kindle is not backlit), and I play word games on it. Not gonna lie, I do some farming too (Tap Farm and Zombie Farm).

So anyway, I was tagged by Shahirah at Colours of my Life to reveal the contents of my purse. Truth be told, I'm not even sure what's in my bag right now. My purse is kind of like a sinkhole, things go in and sometimes they never return. It often takes me 10 minutes of digging before I can find what I'm looking for in it, unless I dump out the entire thing. My husband hates my purse because he has an even more difficult time finding things. If he asks where something is and I reply "Oh, it's in my purse", I'm entertained with that look of dread on his face...fear in his eyes, and a groan coming from his mouth.

So, if you really want to see this, read on. The pictures suck and I took them with the items on top of a clean, but wrinkled pillow case. Deal with it!

These are coins in a ziplock bag that the Coinstar machine rejected the other day. I took Teagan to go cash in her money jar because she wanted to buy a Nintendo DS Lite with all of the coins she's saved over the years. These coins include some foreign currency as well as some old silver quarters.

My beloved Kindle. It has this snazzy case to keep it safe in my bag. If I didn't have the case, the Kindle would be stained with makeup like almost everything else in there...thanks to a rogue eyeshadow palette that escaped from my makeup bag and got all over everything.

Makeup bag. Not much to see here. I've got the usual mascara, eyeshadow, lip gloss, etc in there.

Random craft supplies. Scissors and some baby blue lace. I tend to throw things in my bag that I don't want the kids messing with, so there can be some really weird things in there sometimes.

Vera Bradley wallet.

More makeup...the eyeshadow and liner have made their way out of the zippered pouch. The square is a mini kit that includes basically all of the essentials, and it's too big to fit in the pouch.

Another random craft supply. Purple fabric dye!

Hygienic items. For the men: why yes, that is a tampon. As you can see, I've also got a deodorant and two different kinds of hand sanitizer. You can never be too ~~OCD~~ careful.

Assorted credentials. To the left, you will see my official Skywarn Weather Spotter card. Yep, I am allowed to report weather conditions to the National Weather Service. I had to go to a class to get it (though I basically already knew everything that was taught anyway). I'm kind of a science nerd, and I love studying meteorology. On the right is my official DIVA card. I had to sit in a booth at Chuck-e-Cheese to get this. It's not the best picture of me, but how about you go get one and we'll see how great yours comes out, Nucka.

Pens.

Scraps of paper and candy wrappers.

Two dimes, a miniature stapler, sea shells, Kindle plug, sand shovel, Lightening McQueen toy car, and my keys.

Well, I have to say that it's actually not so bad right now. But then I just dumped it out and cleaned it out last week. I try to do that every once in awhile.

I tag Katie, Cheryl and Helena!

Chelsea Handler, Rosetta Stone, Homeschooling

2010-04-07T10:10:00.003-04:00

I've been so behind on my reading lately. I just haven't had enough time to sit still and read a book...normally I read several novels per week. So I felt quite accomplished this week when I managed to read two. The first I'm not even going to bother mentioning because, while the book was good, I'm embarrassed by it. Let's just say it's the latest installment of a trashy chick-lit series. No, it's not a Twilight book, I would never stoop that low. I read the first one and it was the first time I ever felt that I really wasted a small part of my life on something.

The second was My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands by Chelsea Handler. Awhile ago I read another book of hers, Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea and found it LOL funny. My Horizontal Life didn't disappoint...my favorite story involved Chelsea being suckered into dressing like an M&M to a party while everybody else arrived in sexy costumes. She was unable to make it home after the party, so she crashed at some guy's house, and was forced to run in her costume the next morning to another friend's apartment a few blocks away. I was laughing so hard while reading this one that my husband was rolling his eyes and telling me to be quiet.

Her next book: Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang is being released tomorrow, and I plan on immediately picking up a copy. I wanted to go to her event at the Wang Theater in Boston, but tickets are $100+ for crappy seats, and $400+ for good ones...which is more than I can spend without my husband killing me and making it look like an accident.

I've officially started my French language education. I acquired a copy of Rosetta Stone French after my mother spoke highly of the program (though she owns the Spanish version). I've gone through the first few lessons of unit 1 and I have to say, I'm rather impressed with it. I'm having no trouble at all remembering the words and matching the pictures to them correctly...pronunciation, on the other hand...well, that's a different story. Sometimes it gets frustrating because when I'm prompted to speak the words or sentences into my microphone, I have to do it for several minutes before Rosetta will finally give me the green light and let me pass.

I'm curious if I would have the same difficulty in the Spanish program. I'm not fluent in Spanish, but I took 3 or 4 years of it in school and can understand enough to get a good idea about what somebody is saying if I pause on El Gordo y la Flaca or one of the nutty Spanish soap operas or game shows on Univision. Is it because I'm really that horrible at pronouncing the words, or is Rosetta Stone a bit flawed when it comes to voice recognition?

And finally, this week is my daughter's last week in public school. For this year at least. As I wrote about previously, we've been having problems at the current school she's attending and switching to another school in the district is not an option because of policies in place by the local school board. I've thought about homeschooling her for her first few years of school anyway, because she has life-threatening food allergies and several other not so dangerous ones. She's young, and still not quite aware of the severeness of her condition. And it's always a fear of mine that she'll take a cookie from a well-meaning kid who is trying to share and have a reaction.

Anyway, we'll be finishing up the rest of this school year at home. I've signed her up to an online curriculum, and will be supplementing with books and other materials where it falls short. I'm really excited actually, there's a great local homeschool group that has get-togethers at least once a week...and I can take her and the boys on "field trips" anytime I want. As if I need another excuse to go to the beach. I'll also be enrolling her in dance classes, which is something I've wanted to do forever anyway but just haven't gotten around to it. And, I'm going to have her go through the Rosetta program too. It's ideal for a person to begin learning a foreign language while they're still young, so I'm hoping she catches on easily and enjoys it as much as I do.

Au revoir!

Talking about Jesus in my Guinness Shirt

2010-04-05T10:48:00.001-04:00

There is a woman with a thick accent that has been stopping by my door lately. It's 9:30AM and the bell rings. Nobody ever comes at this hour in the morning. I thought it was going to be one of the handymen for another annoying routine maitenance check-up. My peephole is obscured by a spring decoration hanging on the door, so I peered out the window and saw a woman's rear dressed in a long, flowery skirt.

I open the door and I see my middle-aged friend with another woman (skirted lady). She shoves a booklet in my hand, I look over my shoulder nervously at my two boys...running around naked in their diapers sagging with urine. They had just woken up, and I hadn't changed them yet. I kept glancing over my shoulder, I didn't want to be rude and slam the door in their face or say I didn't have time, but shit, those diapers really needed to be changed.

The woman with the accent then asks me if I think Jesus is the world's greatest hero. And I nod my head in agreement "Yes, yes, of course." I say. She then proceeds to open her Bible and read a verse to me. She asks me if I own a Bible. I tell her yes, I have one on my Kindle. Which wasn't a lie, I do...but mostly I use it for reference (lately, I've been using it to try to figure out the TV show LOST) and not for spiritual purposes. I also wouldn't disagree with Jesus being a hero. I believe that he was a real man in history, that did good things for people and encouraged them to live with morality. Kind of like Mother Theresa. I don't believe in the crazier parts of the Jesus story.

I believe in God. But I don't consider myself a Christian...or a Jew, or anything else. If I had to align myself with any church or religious group, it would be the Unitarian Universalists.

Anyway, she thanks me for my time and I thank her for stopping by. I say "oh, I have a question. Where are you from? ....your accent...?" She laughs and says "Oh, I'm from Finland!" I smile and say "Oh neat, I'm Norwegian." She tells me Norway is the most beautiful country she's ever been to. Then we smile and nod at eachother through an awkward moment. She takes a long look at my green Guinness Draught shirt, and I suddenly feel self-conscious. "Well...goodbye." I say. "Have a good afternoon!" the women reply in unison. And they were on their way.

One day, I'm going to wake up to a hand that must be amputated.

2010-04-03T17:58:00.003-04:00

Lately, I've been sleeping on my stomach a lot. Which is peculiar, because until my last son was born two years ago, I was never a tummy sleeper. I always slept on a side. Never my back, I don't think I'll ever be one of those people. I think I began laying on my stomach after the birth of Hayden because it was something that I didn't realize could be so glorious until I couldn't do it...when you've got a belly out to here, it's simply impossible.

I've found that recently, the only way I can fall asleep is if I begin the process of falling asleep on my belly. But not only that, I must cross my arms underneath me like an imperial mummy. This obviously creates a big problem: my hands fall asleep. This hasn't always happened, it's just been over the past couple months.

When I first woke up with a hand that was a few minutes away from being dead, I literally panicked. My first thought was to go to the hospital. Seriously. I couldn't feel my hand. I didn't even have the tingling sensation. I couldn't move it. I was hitting my hand on my leg, the couch, trying to wiggle my fingers...anything I could do to wake it up. Of course, I was finally able to, but it was quite a scare. It happened again a few nights later. And honestly, it didn't even occur to me right away that the reason this was happening was because I was sleeping on my hands. I thought I had some sort of circulation problem. Yea, I have my moments.

I still fall asleep the same way every night, even with the knowledge that I'm smothering my hands. I'm slightly concerned that one morning, I might wake up and be unable to rouse a hand. It will have passed on, ultimately poisoning the rest of my body if I don't have it removed. I guess I'll just need to practice typing with one hand until then. I'll be ready.

Google Reader is Possessed.

2010-04-01T22:19:00.003-04:00

To make room in my blog reading queue for my favorite blogs, I've been trying to cut down on the noise by getting rid of those that I hardly read, mainly "big time" blogs that post way too many times a day: Mashable, Engadget, etc. While they make for good reading when I've got nothing else to do, I'd much rather concentrate on my e-friends and their blogs.

I get overwhelmed when I see "793 Unread Items" on my Google Reader page and then I get even more behind on reading the blogs I actually care about since I must fight through a sea of Mashable and others to get to them.

So, earlier today I spent some time...for the third time this week...going through the Manage Subscriptions area and deleting the blogs I don't want. But, once again, a few hours later all of the blogs I just deleted popped back up in my Reader. "APRIL FOOLS!" Google said.

It's Wedddddddddnesssssssdayyyyyyyyyyyyyy

2010-03-31T08:44:00.004-04:00

Does anybody else think to themselves "Wed-nes-day" as they're typing Wednesday? Why isn't it spelled "Wendsday"? Wouldn't it make more sense?

First things first, I'd like to welcome two of my close friends to blogging! Both of them have started (or resumed) blogging over the last couple of days, and I'm super excited because now I'm not the only weirdo I know in real life who has one of these "blog things".

I've been friends with Katie for almost 7 years (I think?)...and since I'm 24, that's a pretty large chunk of my life. Her blog is called Shadows Kept Alive. Check it out!

I met Cheryl when I was living in Montana while my husband was serving active duty in the Air Force. Yep, I lived in Montana. For some reason, people are always surprised when I say this...and then I tell them that I've also lived on a tropical island (called Kwajalein), in California, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin before I moved here to Rhode Island. Anyway...Cheryl's blog is The Adventures of an Average Family of Four. I love the layout, go see it!

On Wed-nes-days I try to head over to my e-friend Helena's blog Life in the Pitts and submit a link to her weekly Craft Therapy blog party. This week, I'm sharing my mini dresser makeover because I am so goshdarn proud of it. I also made over the nightstand and the bookshelf, which I'll be sharing with you all shortly. Possibly today. So anyway, if you're crafty you should head over and share your stuff as well. I highly recommend it.

Speaking of, I've been thinking about starting my own weekly blog party. I'm just not sure which theme I'd like to go with. And I need to pick a day. A day besides Wed-nes-day because when you copy somebody, you should always try to make at least one thing different about your version. I think we all learned this in grade school when we copied homework...at least, if you were smart you did.

And finally, I'd like to share that I'm teaching myself to speak French. Because I've decided that I'm going on vacation to France next year. I informed my husband of this, and he laughed at me...but I'm not sure why because I'm dead serious. We'll see who's laughing while I'm sitting at a French cafe enjoying Croissant-Brioche with a glass of wine. Yes, I will drink wine at breakfast. Because that's what I would do in France.

Paypal Paypal Paypal!

2010-03-29T12:25:00.004-04:00

My husband, while reviewing our bank account transactions: "What's this? Paypal...$19.85, Paypal $10.50, Paypal...Paypal...Paypal. What are all of these for?!"

Me: "I don't know...stuff."

Husband: "What do you mean, you don't know?"

Me: "Well, honey, I can't tell you what every transaction is for. But I can assure you that each of those purchases made me a little happier!"

Husband: :)

Me: :D

My Cat Suffers from Species Confusion Disorder (SCD)

2010-03-26T08:50:00.011-04:00

When I went to pick out a kitten for my birthday last year, I think I accidentally took home a dog in a cat's body. I'm going to point out right now the fact that I really dislike dogs. Oh sure, sometimes they're cute, I have nothing against the way that they look. I just don't like them because:

a) they're smelly b) they're needy c) they drool and slobber d) they jump up on you e) they tear destroy things f) they shed their stinky dog hair everywhere g) their food is expensive h) they eat their own poop and/or everybody else's poop i) stepping on dog shit really sucks.

However, I'm not going to deny that dogs do have some good qualities that make them appealing, that cats don't normally possess. Like how dogs are loyal, affectionate, and keep you company whereas most cats kind of mind their own business unless you're about to feed them. Dogs will play games with you. A dog will always sleep in bed with you if you allow it (but the idea of a dog in bed with me really squicks me out...the smell!). And dogs make good body guards and work well as an alarm system.

My cat, Yoshi, is quite the character. He follows me around everywhere: when I'm moving from room to room doing chores, he's tagging along at my feet. If I take a shower or go outside, he's waiting patiently at the door for me when I'm finished. He curls up next to me wherever I sit or lie down, and if I'm in the kitchen he stands on my kitchen island watching me.

Yoshi plays fetch. If you toss one of his favorite toys (a little green frog or a fuzzy squirrel catnip toy), he will race across the room, grab it with his mouth, and bring it back. Though he won't play the game forever like a dog will. Which is fine with me because it gets boring after a few throws anyway.

He begs for human food while you're eating...which is one of his less amiable qualities. If you're not careful, he will snatch a piece of meat right from your plate and run away with it. Also, he has a major thing for cups of water. It doesn't matter if he has a brand new, fresh bowl of water next to his food. Or if I fill a cup of water just for him. If I've got a cup of water and I set it down somewhere where Yoshi can get it, he's going to drink out of it.

Basically, he's a dog. Except he always poops in the same place, he doesn't drool, or destroy my house. He does sleep with me in bed, but he doesn't take up much room and doesn't make my sheets dirty or smelly. If an intruder tried to enter my house, there is no doubt in my mind that Yoshi would leap from a high place and scratch the mofo's eyes out. And he's much cuter than any mutt.

And he does an adorable "Halloween Cat" impression when I startle him.

Today's Big Project: Tiny Dresser Makeover in Leopard Print.

2010-03-25T18:31:00.010-04:00

I'm in the process of reinventing my daughter's room with a theme: leopard print. Today, my mother-in-law came over to help me with some deep cleaning of the room and to hang curtains. I then decided that I was going to paint all of her furniture black with a leopard print. We lugged everything downstairs, and the first piece I looked at was this small drawer tower (isn't it sooo dull looking in the photo above?). And then I had a brilliant idea: I would still paint it black, but instead of painting on the print, I would attach some pink leopard print fabric I had (and it matches some pillows I made her the other day).

One of the drawers has been broken. So rather than attempt to fix it, I decided to leave it out and attach the bottom of the drawer back to the unit after it had been covered in fabric...creating a shelf.

I also painted and added on some brand new knob handles for the drawers, and added some decorative silver studs in the corners. Isn't it AWESOME?

Oddly enough, I had to finish off the last coat of black paint with a tiny bottle I had...since somehow my large pint of it had been tainted towards the end of the project and turned into a navy blue. Wtf? I now don't have enough black to continue with the rest of the furniture today like I had planned, but I'm really excited about how this turned out! High five!

Yep...I did the lamp today too :)

I Have Nothing Interesting to Say

2010-03-24T20:00:00.005-04:00

I haven't updated for a couple days, because well...I really don't have anything too exciting to share with you all at the moment.

Here's a quick rundown of my past week:

- Last week, I pulled my daughter out of school for the day and took a little ride to the school district office, where I grabbed a packet of information for yanking her out of the public school system since I want to home school her for the rest of the year.

My daughter is being severely bullied at school by several children (yes, she's only in first grade. Frightening that this crap begins so early, isn't it?). It's been going on for the majority of the school year, I've had several conferences with her teacher about it, and she is genuinely concerned about Teagan as well...but there's only so much that the staff can do. She is so miserable that she starts crying nearly every day when I pick her up after school, and every morning it's a battle to get her ready since she's busy throwing a temper tantrum and begging me not to make her go.

Why is she being singled out and picked on? I don't really know. Actually, I do. It's because they're jealous. She's a beautiful, smart, funny, and kind little girl...and they're all just a bunch of h8rz.
That's my girl on the left. Isn't she gorgeous? Why yes, I did cut my mother-in-law in half when I cropped this to share with you.

So anyway...all of this has taken up a lot of my time lately: preparing to finish up her school year with myself as her teacher (I plan to start her homeschooling next week), gathering advice and information from friends and the local homeschooling association, etc.

- Sunday my mother-in-law took all of the children for the day, so my husband and I had approximately 10 hours to ourselves. We had a long day full of activities planned, but we ended up just eating out for lunch and then opting to come home to take a nap.

And yep...that basically sums it up. I haven't even had time to craft. I've received some awesome fabric in the mail over the last few days, but whenever I have the time to choose to sit down and sew, I'm just too tired and would rather lay down and relax with Netflix.

So that's what's going on, just in case any netizens have missed me!

When You Eff Up Your Own Tutorial...

2010-03-19T09:43:00.004-04:00

...it's totally not worth posting.

Yesterday, I decided to create a tutorial for better freezer paper stencil printing. I whipped up a quick design, and cut it out using my X-acto knife. The problem is, I am in dire need of new blades, so the paper ripped and slightly frayed in some parts of the design...resulting in a messy final result after I applied the fabric ink.

When I do prints, I normally take the long road and create my own screens for them. However, I'll occasionally use freezer paper if I'm just making a quick design. The thing that I hate about the tutorials for freezer paper stencils is that every one I've seen instructs you to use a brush and paint directly onto the fabric over your stencil once you've got it ironed on. This results in visible brush strokes...which is good if you're looking for a textured appearance, but unsightly if you want a crisp, professional looking print.

So until I get my new blades (which won't be until I make the journey to my craft mecca - Joann Fabrics, 40 mins away. No, my Walmart does not sell X-acto blades...wtf), I'm just going to tell you the secret of cleaner prints (when you have a crisply cut out design, anyway).

The trick is to use a hybrid of home screen making along with the freezer paper. Take your "screen" (I use a fine, sheer tulle), and simply place a big enough piece over your design after you've ironed the freezer paper onto the fabric. Next, take a glob of your ink and toss it on top. Finally, hold the screen firmly in place with a hand and use a straight edge to smooth the ink over the design evenly (I use a putty knife). Remove the tulle, peel off the paper, and walla! A freezer paper print without brush strokes.

You Guys, I Have a Serious Problem.

2010-03-16T11:22:00.003-04:00

Want to know how many things I've bought that I am waiting for in the mail right now? 23. Mostly fabric. The bra fabric? Oh, that's one I just got in the mail yesterday.

I get something exciting in the mail almost every day. I just can't stop myself...when you can buy a fat quarter of super, super cute fabric for a little over $2 on eBay or Etsy, it's really hard to resist. Today, I just bought 5 more FQs on Etsy. 1 2 3 4 5

My husband isn't as thrilled about my obsession as I am, but I'm lucky in that he doesn't complain about it either. Still, I'm not sure if he's aware of the magnitude of the situation since I try to put things away as soon as I get packages, until I'm ready to use them at least. As I like to say: "Shop now and hide the evidence".

I accidentally...

2010-03-15T12:44:00.003-04:00

...stabbed my husband with his badge when I was pinning it on him.

Home From Snowboarding, and Officer Starfish

2010-03-14T18:13:00.006-04:00

Laying on the snow with the sun in our eyes...

I'm home! We had a great time at Mt. Sunapee ski resort in New Hampshire. We left for our three hour drive immediately after we celebrated my husband's graduation with family at a restaurant...arriving at the 1806 Inn around 9:30PM. Our stay was wonderful. We were the only guests on Friday night, so the innkeepers upgraded our room to the Robert Frost room - which included satellite TV and a big, huge jacuzzi bath tub!

The next morning, we got up early and were served a fantastic breakfast before heading out to the mountain. Bill and Karen Carruth (the owners) were such warm, chatty people. We felt like family in their home!

---

Friday was my husband Billy's Rhode Island police academy graduation. It was great! I was beaming with pride. That's MY MAN!

He earned an award for leadership. I'm thinking I've got a future Chief of Police on my hands! Tomorrow morning, he will be sworn in as an official...Official for the city police department he will be working in. I will be present, and I have the honor of being the person to pin his badge on him.

Here are some pictures!

He was his class's leader. Here he is walking them out for the inspection ceremony.

Giving his classmates commands.

More commanding.

Holstering his gun.

I cannot even begin to describe how proud I am of my husband. He excels in everything he does. While he was in the military, he qualified several times for "below the zone", meaning he was promoted much faster than normal. He went up 2 ranks in four years (started out as an E3 and left the Air Force as an E5). He was chosen to compete in (and won) two major Air Force fitness events (The Guardian Challenge). He was selected to be a member of an elite team called the Tactical Response Force, which is the Air Force's version of a SWAT team.

I just know that like anything else my husband does, he's going to go far with this career. And one day, if he wants it, he will make it to the top!

Fabric Design For Sale - Domo! ...etc

2010-03-11T21:02:00.006-05:00

I designed an awesome Domo fabric and it's now for sale at Spoonflower.com! You can find it by clicking here.

Also, I will be away for the weekend. Tomorrow is finally the big day - my husband Billy's police academy graduation! We're going to the ceremony, supper at a restaurant, and then the hubs and I are taking off for the weekend on a snowboarding trip together. I'll be back to updating the blog by Sunday...and if not, I probably crashed into a tree and killed myself.

Have a wonderful weekend everybody! I know I will.

If I Had These Things, My Life Would Be Perfect.

2010-03-11T12:05:00.017-05:00

I'm bored. And I've planned a long, hard day of laying around in bed. I've got a cold that I'm trying to kick before tomorrow for my husband's big day. Then we're supposed to go away for the weekend snowboarding...which won't be much fun if I'm sick.

You people aren't updating your blogs quickly enough, giving me new material to read. So, I'm making myself another list.

----

This Brother sewing machine. My current machine is a Singer (1120), and while it works fine (most of the time, though it's been acting up lately) and is only about 5 years old, I could really go for an updated, fancier machine.

Also, my serger is a Brother...so I think it would only be appropriate to have a little family of sewing products.

Nintendo DSI XL. Because I'm a Nintendo fanatic. And I want to play the Mario games that are made exclusively for the DS. And I could connect it to our Wii.

My kids want it, I want it...anybody want to trade? My PSP for your DS.

Asus Eee PC. Just because they're awesome, and I really want a laptop that I can carry around in my purse. My husband doesn't get it. "You already have a Macbook!" he says. "But it's even more portable! And I can take it to the coffee shop and write in peace and quiet!" I whine. "You can do that with the Macbook." he replies. "..." I have no rebuttal. I still want one.

Cuisineart Food Processor. I've pined after this machine for years. I have a food processor, but it's by Hamilton Beach and basically, a piece of crap. I've had to replace the lid several times because it keeps breaking, and there are hardly any additional attachments to buy for it.

I do a lot of cooking. This would make my life so much happier (and simpler)!

Pasta attachments for my KitchenAid stand mixer. I love to make pasta from fresh homemade dough. There's nothing quite like pasta that's been made by hand, and cooked immediately after. However, I have a cheap, basic hand-cranked roller and cutter at the moment...I would make pasta a lot more often if my mixer could help me make it.

Natal for Xbox 360. Okay, so this one doesn't come out until November. But oh em eff gee...have you seen the demo videos for this? I don't care how much this thing costs, it's going on my Christmas shopping list. I'm going to buy it "for my husband".

Because this is just freaking awesome:

Something Really Awesome Happened Yesterday

2010-03-11T10:17:00.004-05:00

I got my first blog award! Jon Paul from Where Sky Meets Ground apparently thinks my blog is good enough for some sort of recognition, so he passed on the Sunshine Award to me. It totally made my day, thank you JP!

I'm still kind of a blogging newb. Well actually, in the past I have started several blogs that are now abandoned and frightened, lost in cyber space. This is the first blog that I've kept around for more than a day. The point being that I'm not sure if I have 12 blog friends to pass the award on to. So I'm just going to choose a small handful off the top of my head (in ABC order)!

- Maddie from Craftie as a Cookie - she makes really cute stuff, mostly plushies.
- Elizabeth Gwen at Elizabeth Gwen Originals - beautiful, beautiful creations. I hope to one day be as talented in making children's clothing as her (currently clothing is not my strong suit)!
- Valerie at I Should Be Writing - a young woman blogs about her adventures in writing YA!
- Helena from Life in the Pitts - love her! She has a great sense of humor and I love her crafty goodness.
- Ayumills from Pink Penguin - a major source of inspiration for me. I used her tutorial for fabric baskets as the base of my basket making...though I do some things a little differently.

All of the above are wonderful blogs and very deserving of an award. Make sure you check them out!

Some Things That I Hate More Than Anything

2010-03-10T00:47:00.008-05:00

I'm up late due to a precious child of mine who refuses to go back to sleep. It's 1:15AM. I need to be up at 7:15AM to get my daughter ready and off to school. I'm grumpy, I'm tired, and I've got a cold. And I feel like complaining. A few posts ago, I talked about some things that I love. So in the spirit of being in a foul mood, here's a post about things that I really, really dislike.

1) Canned email support responses. On top of shitty customer support, this makes my inner beast explode from the inside out...like the Hulk. Except my alter-ego monster is red. I know, red is such a typical color for anger. I can't help what color my beast skin is, so stop being racist.

For example, recently I've been dealing with a little problem with eBay. I spent several minutes of my day typing out a well thought out, detailed email describing the problem. Since you know, nobody can help you out unless they know exactly what the issue is. Four days pass, and finally: a response. Oh, what do you know? It's a canned "support" message that doesn't even address my specific problem. So I did what any rational person would do...I sent back a snarky response and threatened to blog about it and take down their entire empire with my massive Internet army. All 59 of you, and Red, my angry monster alter-ego.

2) People who drive with their blinkers on with no intention of turning. I think I literally start to go insane when I'm stuck driving behind one of these idiots.

3) Simple grammatical and punctuation errors. And by simple, I mean when adults make errors that my 7 year old knows better than making. Like confusing your/you're, they're/their/there. Or adding an unnecessary apostrophe like I'm about to here: "Reading Book's Make's You Smart". Thing's like this basically make me want to stab my eye's out. I don't know why it bothers me so much...I don't think people who make these mistakes are stupid (most of them aren't, anyway), but I have to say that I feel a little disappointed in them when they butcher their own language in such a way.

4) People who pull a stop and chat in grocery store aisles. Bllleeeeeerrrrrggggggg! I don't understand why people think this is okay. I see it happen nearly every time I go to the grocery store, especially when it's very busy and there already is barely any room to maneuver shopping carts around safely.

Bonus: I hate the words uber, touché, and the phrase "I digress". I also think that people with too many tattoos are obnoxious, especially if they have tattoos of dragons and skulls. Oh, and I hate t-shirts that have wings or any sort of spanning tribal design over the chest. On the back is okay...but the chest...ugh.

So I guess if you really wanted to ruin my day, you could drive ahead of me with your blinker on, be covered in tattoos and wear one of those hideous shirts, then angle your shopping cart in front of me and stop to have a long conversation with somebody while I'm walking down the aisle at the store. And then, when I email you to complain about all of this, don't address my concerns at all but be sure to include grammatical and punctuation errors...and throw in some words and phrases that I can't stand.

Animal Cracker Messenger Bag

2010-03-08T23:38:00.004-05:00

Made this cool little messenger bag tonight. I found a new valance of this Animal Cracker fabric at the store yesterday and I thought to myself "I need to make a bag out of that curtain". I have enough left over for another (smaller) handbag too!

The strap is serged and the bag is filled with organic cotton batting and the lining is a soft blue (though it looks gray here) that matches one of the hues on the cracker print. Fancy.

After I took these pics I added some snaps for decor to the front flap.

This is MY Phone Number, Nucka!

2010-03-08T12:59:00.005-05:00

Because of some strange twist of fate, when we moved back to Rhode Island and switched our Vonage service to a local number, we ended up with the old phone number of a very popular tech-related website.

So now, I get phone calls for the website several times a day. Phone calls where people ask to be transferred to sales. Phone calls where people ask for the company president. Most of the calls are sales calls, cold calls. Oddly enough, these callers don't take the hint when they get our answering machine and it greets them with "You've reached the Briggs', leave a message...".

When I answer the phone, the caller is always taken back and confused when I inform them that no, this is not ***.com...though I sure wish it were. I would almost cut off my right arm (which is my default and most important arm) if I could go back in time and register that domain name before anybody else did. Almost. I'd be a wealthy lady if I could.

I could change our phone number easily enough. I'd bet that this number has probably been passed on to several different households, and then dumped by them when their sanity couldn't take it anymore. I won't give up on the number just yet. I need to think of a way to use this to my advantage.

Giant Bread Basket and Matching Place Mat Set

2010-03-07T05:45:00.010-05:00

I got my new serger (love it) on Friday and here is my first completed project using it! My sister-in-law's birthday is today, so I decided to make her a basket and some reversible place mats to go with it. I actually started sewing these before the serger came and had the place mats nearly finished...but then I decided that some serging was due around the edges. But really, I just wanted an excuse to use my new toy.

Mats rolled up in the basket.

Basket detail.

Mat detail.

All tied up in a bow and ready to go!

The mats look a little wrinkled...I actually had them all ironed and nice looking, but then I rolled them up and put them in the basket, preparing them to go to Samantha today. Then I remembered that I had wanted to take pictures of them, so I unrolled them. I was feeling too lazy to iron again just for the sake of a picture.

I have been a very bad girl...

2010-03-05T09:59:00.012-05:00

...or at least, a very bad blogger. I'm starting to feel some blogger's guilt, so I'm going to do a quick random update post!

* Amie from Living Water Boutique handspun this beautiful bright green yarn especially for me. I absolutely love it! We participated in a craft swap as partners. She should have had her package from me yesterday but according to the tracking page, it appears as though there's been a routing error made by USPS.

* I posted a random status update on my Facebook the other day whining about how I wanted a serger but my husband would kill me if I spend any more money, and my mommy came to the rescue and bought me this one! I have no problem with taking handouts. It should be arriving via FedEx today. I am so excited...a little frightened...but mostly excited.

* I hate the fact that my closest decently sized craft store (Joann's) is 30+ minutes away. We've got a Michael's here in town, but it's tiny and they don't even sell fabric! There's also a tiny sewing boutique a few towns over, but the little old ladies in there were mean to me the first time I visited (the store sucked anyway). Anyway, I've got to go buy some supplies today: serger thread (yay!), and some things to make my sister-in-law a birthday gift...and while a craft store is my favorite store to shop at in the whole world, I'm really dreading the trek over there with three kids in tow. I curse the craft store gods every time I have to take the pilgrimage to Joann's. Why??? Why can't there be one closer? I don't live out in the boonies. It doesn't make any sense. And it makes me angry. Bitching about it to my husband doesn't do any good, men don't typically care much about crafting or the necessity of having a well-stocked store within a 5 mile radius.

* Speaking of my husband: he is graduating from municipal police academy in exactly one week! We are all so excited about it. It's been a long journey from his Air Force discharge (honorable, of course), to months of police job searching, the interviews, the unbelievably long application processes...the waiting...and waiting...the joy of finding out he had been hired, then waiting for the academy to start back in November. And now, he's about to graduate! I am so proud of my Starfish...soon to be Officer Starfish. I get to have the honor of pinning his police department badge on him at the swearing-in ceremony!

That's him over there on the right. I get to kiss that guy every day. Rawr!

* I guess that's about all for now. I've got places to go, burritos to eat, fabric to buy, things to serge, Facebooking to do, and blogs to read. Oh, and maybe some cleaning and laundry too. Maybe.

Yeehaw! It's my Second Blog Giveaway!!!

2010-03-02T16:07:00.008-05:00

I've got a bunch of Amazon money from SwagBucks, and I think it's time that I do another blog giveaway! In my most recent post, I talked about some of my favorite things. I've decided that I'm going to give away one copy of my favorite real life humor book: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris, because I think everybody should have it on their bookshelf. I wasn't planning on doing another giveaway while I wrote my post, so this is a spur of the moment (and amazing) decision.

This time though, I'm going to be a pain in the ass and make it a tiny bit more difficult to win the book. To enter the giveaway, I would like you to pick any post from my site and blog about it, or at least mention it in a link roundup. The post must include a link to my blog (any page). Make sure to post a comment here (also please leave an email address if you're not logged into a Google account, or I might have a hard time contacting you and will have to call you out like I did for the last winner)!

For people who are not already following my blog, you can earn an additional entry by following using Google Connect (look! over there! on the right side of the page!). For those who are already following, you can earn another entry by Twittering, Facebooking, or Google Buzzing a post.

Let's make this short and close the entry period on Friday night at 10PM EST. I will announce the winner and order the book for them on Saturday! 1-2-3 GO!

Copy Cat AKA These Are a Few of my Favorite Things

2010-03-02T09:46:00.014-05:00

I've been doing a lot of sewing the past few days...but well, I can't show you anything yet. I made a couple things for a craft gift exchange at a forum I participate in, so for the sake of not ruining the surprise I cannot post about what I made until my partner receives her package. I know, I know, settle down people. You'll just have to wait a few more days to see pictures.

Last night I took advantage of the time since I was up until 2AM with my youngest who likes to wake up in the middle of the night and started working on another little project. But I'm not going to show you that either. Because it's not done yet. So you're going to have to wait, nucka.

So anyway, in the spirit of needing to feel that I've posted something important here, I'm going to follow Helena's lead from Life in the Pitts and post a list of some of my favorite things at the moment. Because lists are fun and everybody loves them.

Movies

Avatar in 3D - AMAZING. My daughter wanted to see this. I wasn't too excited about it, but as soon as I put on those "Real D" glasses for the previews I knew it was going to be a cool experience. It was so good that I saw it a second time when I took my husband to see it a few days later. Gooooo see it if you haven't already, and make sure you see it in Real D.

I found out recently that my closest IMAX theater is playing it as well...in 3D. I can't even imagine what it would be like to see it in 3D and IMAX. I can only hope that it will still be playing there over the next couple of weekends, because I would really love to try to get over there to see it. Even though 7.5 hours of lifetime Avatar watching seems a little nutty.

Sunshine Cleaning - (Netflix watch instantly) Very cute movie about a single mother who starts a cleaning company specializing in picking up after suicides/murders/other deaths.

Hancock - (Netflix watch instantly) I just watched this the other night after avoiding it for awhile since a Will Smith movie is kind of a gamble in my book. It was surprisingly good. Funny with a nice twist towards the middle.

TV Shows

LOST - the final season! Isn't it amazing? I thought the season was off to a slow start when it began, but I'm really starting to enjoy it now. I'm looking forward to my glass of wine (or 2 glasses, maybe 3...) and a cuddle on the couch with my husband while we watch the next episode tonight.

Nip/Tuck - another final seasoner. The series finale is tomorrow night. It'd better be good...because the past couple of episodes have sucked pretty badly IMO. For a show that is normally so shocking and full of twists and dark humor, it seems like most of the last season has been overflowing with filler episodes. The most exciting thing to happen was when a major character (who happened to be a favorite of mine) supposedly committed suicide. Which was pretty shocking. I just wish that there were more WTF moments this season, that's all.

True Blood - oh man. This is so 2009, since it's currently the off-season. But I cannot wait for the season premiere sometime this summer. I'm pretty picky about the vampire genre. I hated the Twilight books (or I should say, book, since I only read the first one to see what the hoopla was about. I wasn't impressed, and I put myself through torture finishing the book since I have a tic...I cannot start a book without seeing it through to the end). I never got into the vampire thing before then. The only vamp movies I ever saw and liked were Interview with the Vampire (though I never read the book) and From Dusk Till Dawn.

Anyway, I was browsing on Sidereel.com last spring and noticed True Blood in some of the top rated shows...and I was bored, so I gave it a shot. For the next couple of days, I could not pull myself away from the computer. I watched hour long episodes back to back until I was finished with the first season and was ready for the second by the time it was about to premiere. I told friends and family about the show and ~~blackmailed~~ made them promise to watch the first episode. Every person that did also became an obsessed fan. Try it out. Even if the vampire genre isn't normally your thing, you'll love it. Unless you're offended by softcore porn and a bunch of other definitely adult-themed content...then you may not love it so much.

Jericho - (Netflix watch instantly) Suchhhhhhh an amazing show. It's canceled, so I wasn't sure if I should even bother to watch it when I saw it in Netflix W.I., but I'm so incredibly glad that I did. It's about the plight of a small town surviving a post-nuclear USA.

A fun fact about this show: it was canceled after the first season due to low ratings (which is shocking, because it's an incredible show. It also had a really shitty spot in the TV line-up, I'm suspecting that had a lot to do with it). Anyway, when it was canceled after the first season, rabid fans organized a movement and ordered over 20 tons of nuts over the Internet and had them sent to CBS headquarters in NYC. The network responded to the fan enthusiasm by promising another 7 episodes of Jericho. Unfortunately, the show didn't make the cut after the second "trial season" and was canceled again. You can see crazy pics of the nuts at CBS here and here.

There are now rumors that the idea of a movie is being tossed around to finish up the story line...but for now, the writers have come up with a comic book (Jericho: Season 3) so that the show may live on (kind of, anyway). I had never read a comic book in my life, but I HAD to know what happened next. I now have a subscription to receive the comic books as they are published...while they're not nearly as satisfying as the show was, they still give me the fix I need. Bottom line: if you have Netflix, go check it out. Even though it's a dead show, it's worth watching. Fo realz.

Foods

Taco Bell's 89 cent five layer burrito - I can't get enough of these. I just wrote about them in my last post. I ate three yesterday. Lord help me, I can't stop myself. Take mercy on my ass and thighs.

De Boles Pastas - De Boles is my favorite pasta company. Why? Because they are one of the handful of pasta brands that my daughter (who is allergic to everything, remember?) can actually eat (though some varieties she cannot have). Prior to my discovery of these back in October, the only time my daughter ate pasta was when I made it by hand at home specially for her. The only ingredient in the corn pasta? Corn flour. I had first found them at my local natural foods store, though they were a bit spendy there at nearly $4 a box.

The other day I was browsing the natural foods section of my Shaw's Market and noticed that they now stock the brand! And it was on sale for $2.50 a box! And they had varieties the natural food store didn't have! I still haven't tested out the other boxes on my daughter (a spinach pasta and some other one that I don't remember and I'm feeling too lazy to get up and look)...they should be okay for her but with new foods/ingredients (it has a type of flour I haven't heard of before in it) I try to give her small amounts first and watch for any type of reaction before deeming it safe to eat. Here's a link to the De Boles Pasta website.

Games

Supe r Paper Mario - oh man. This game made it into my top 3 console games the first time I played it. (along with Super Mario Bros 3 and New Super Mario Bros for Wii). As most of you already know, I am a huge fan of the Mario series. I've been playing them since the days of the original Nintendo console. I've grown up with them and they've been one of the few childhood things that I never grew out of...like taking baths, Disney movies, and mac n cheese. It's an incredible game. If you like the Mario games, just get it. Trust me. My kids love it, I love it, it's wonderful.

OMGPop Games - I discovered this recently when my brother and I were looking for a way to play Tetris online together (he lives in another state, so playing online games is a way that we spend time together). All of the games are fun, colorful, and multiplayer. Most of them are new twists on old favorites, challenging, and competitive. My favorite games are: Blockles (a tetris-like game), Dinglepop (like Snood), Letterbox (anagraming game), and Draw My Thing (like Pictionary). Feel free to add me as a friend.

Books

This is always a difficult topic since I read a good 2-3 books per week. So I'm just going to list the first ones that come to mind that I've read recently:

Queen Betsy/Undead Series - I had first seen a set of these books at a used book store sometime in 2008 and almost bought them, just because I liked the illustrations on the covers and the plot sounded entertaining. It wasn't until I was going through True Blood withdrawl that I looked them up online and gave the first, (called Undead and Unwed) book a whirl. They're very quick reads, I could and did fly through two books in a day sometimes...the kind of book you just cannot put down. The series is kind of like a mixture of Clueless (the movie) and True Blood (the show). I swear I'm not a crazy vampire fanatic. But these are good books and came to mind because I just recommended them to somebody a couple days ago.

The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs decides to take the Bible literally and live by all of its rules for a year. He also explores views and interviews people from all places in the religious spectrum. Entertaining, and I learned a lot. I'm not religious (spiritual), but I love reading about religions and learning as much as I can about them.

Me Talk Pretty One Day - I love David Sedaris, writer of hilarious non-fiction essays about his life. I own all of his books, and this is my favorite.

The Lovely Bones - such an incredible, astonishing, shockingly...huge waste of time. Don't read this book, it really sucks. Seriously.

YouTube Videos

Badder Romance - a group of college students get together and remake Lady Gaga's Bad Romance video (and it's LOL funny). As an added bonus: these people live like 30 minutes away from me, which I find awesome. I wish they would be my BFFs.

I Rock Onesies - music video of a bunch of guys dancing around, rapping, and wearing adult sized footie jammies.

Policeman VS Kitty - a cop is writing out a ticket for a man in a car, and an overly friendly cat climbs up the policeman like a tree for some lovin. I have no idea how that man kept a straight face.

False Blood - a True Blood spoof. You'd have to watch the show to understand.

Links

I'm too blogged out to even begin going through my massive amount of favorites for this one, so I'm just going to link you to my Del.icio.us., where I keep most of my bookmarks. I try to tag every site/article/picture that I like as I browse. Sometimes I forget though, and it drives me absolutely crazy when I try to find a site I liked but can't find it in my Delicious because I never tagged it! Gah!

Beefy

2010-03-01T13:53:00.003-05:00

I don't have anything useful to say at the moment (I probably will later...maybe.) but I felt like I should update since it's been a few days.

I've been lying around in my pj's all day...resting, and spending too much time on the Internet. I'm getting ready to be productive: I need to do the dishes, sweep the floors, and vacuum. But first, I am going to Taco Bell and ordering 10 of their beefy five layer burritos. Those babies are so good that they've lead me to hoarding. I've decided to start buying them and freezing what we don't eat right away. Or I might just stuff 10 of them down my neck today.

I should be doing something more productive...

2010-02-25T11:21:00.002-05:00

...like running errands, cleaning my kitchen that's a mess from last night's supper, or sorting through the children's toys. But instead, I'm sitting around in Photoshop turning my brother into a zombie.

Sewing My Guts Out

2010-02-22T22:10:00.010-05:00

I got up bright and early this morning to bring my daughter to school, and after dropping her off I got right to work. I spent basically all day sewing! Here's what I made:

Skirt for Teagan, no pattern, just freestyled it!

Beta testing my personalized tags. Rachel "B"

Another freestyle skirt for Teags. The light purple actually IS even, it was just a quick and sloppy photo job.

I had leftover Lady Gaga test prints from making my silk screens, so I decided to use them and and make a "distressed" Bad Romance themed bag (yep, the patchwork is done inside out on purpose). This is the bag sewn up, it's now going through several cycles in the wash to fray the exposed hems. The interior is silky red satin!

Back of the handbag.

I swear, one day, I will use non-blurry images from my digital camera. Lately, my husband has been using it to take pictures for his police academy so it's been hard to get ahold of! (And also I'm lazy and camera phone is so much quicker!)

Tonight's Supper Theme Was "Things That Make You Fat"

2010-02-20T20:01:00.009-05:00

I love to cook. These days though, with my children running amok and destroying my house, I'm often too tired to make anything that takes longer than 15 minutes.

This afternoon I got a sudden craving for the clam cakes my mother-in-law makes occasionally, but didn't feel like driving half an hour to force/blackmail/bribe her into making them for me. I've never needed a deep fryer...when I fry things I normally do it in a deep set pan. But clam cakes definitely require a real deep frying appliance, so I headed over to Walmart and picked one up for $19. Score!

Then I decided that I couldn't just make clam cakes, I needed something to go with it. So I picked up the ingredients to make New England style (aka the best) clam chowder. And then I decided that I needed to serve it in a bread bowl, so I found some small French boules in the bakery.

When my husband came home I was in the kitchen frying up a storm with my new appliance while being abused by stray hot oil splatters. Which made me wonder what you're supposed to do about that. You can't cover the fryer while it's in use, so what do you do? Stand there and take it? You can't step away from it because those suckers brown in seconds and will literally burn black if left in for 5 seconds longer than they need. Next time I deep fry I'll wear some safety gear: goggles, a ski mask, and rubber dishwashing gloves.

The cakes were done way before the chowda, so by the time I had the soup in the bread bowl and ready to go, my husband and I only had enough room in our stomachs to share a bowl. And damn was it good. (Toot toot - that's the sound of my own horn).

I found this fat dancing starfish clam cake. I think it's an omen of what's to come when they're all gone.

Ra ra ro ma ma

2010-02-19T23:37:00.006-05:00

If there is one thing that I feel you all must know about me it is this: I am a huge Lady Gaga fan. Say what you will, you either love her too or you hate her (h8rz!). And since I've recently entered the magical world of screen printing, I decided to try out my new skillz and print some custom Lady Gaga themed shirts.

These two prints are based on screenshots taken from her Bad Romance music video. I manipulated the images in Photoshop, printed them out, and made some screens with them, then I printed a few new tank tops and kids clothes with them. Is Lady Gaga completely inappropriate for young children? Yes. Does this mean they cannot wear apparel featuring her likeness? Absolutely not. My 7 year old loves Gaga. Does this make me a bad parent? I don't think so, but then again, I'm not very strict when it comes to censoring the world from my children. She asked if she could have one of the shirts, and she shrieked with glee and put it on right away when I handed it over.

These will be available in my Etsy shop along with a crapload of other things in a week or so.

LOVE YOU!

2010-02-17T21:49:00.005-05:00

I had originally planned to have this done by Valentine's Day. I even ordered the tiles on eBay more than a week ahead of time...but I didn't get them in the mail until today.

This little number is made from Scrabble tiles, a Dollar Tree picture frame (it's actually pretty nice!), and a strip of fabric.

I slapped this together using Mod Podge within a few minutes today and set it on my husband's little shelf in our bedroom for him to find when he came home this evening. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I actually saw it on U Create...though I've made some small changes: I spaced the tiles a little bit, and my tiles are inside of the frame glued to the fabric rather than on top of the glass. I went to the dollar store looking for this specific type of frame - one that has the glass an inch or two from the backing. I can't even tell you how excited I was that they did, in fact, carry the frame I had my heart set on. God bless the Dollar Tree.

It was a very appropriate project for me since I'm a Scrabble fanatic. The game is one of the only things that I am freakishly talented at, I have a gift for anagramming. My husband boycotted playing against me years ago because he can't stand being on an infinite losing streak (and recently my brother has joined my husband's union).

When my husband came home from training, he saw it right away and said "Oh this is nice, I like it!" Then after a few minutes he added "This is your way of trying to be sweet when you're really saying 'I love you honey, but remember that you will never beat me at Scrabble'."

Contest Winner!

2010-02-17T16:34:00.006-05:00

I know I'm a day late in announcing the winner of my contest, but you have to understand that we just got our tax return and I have been very busy shopping.

Without further ado, the winner is:

My contest post had 153 comments, so I left the job to Randomizer.org to pick the comment number of the winner:

kdkdkd, you failed to leave an email address and it appears as though you don't have a blog! Please contact me to claim your prize within the next two days. If I do not hear from you, I will hold a second chance drawing and give the prize to somebody else!

One of the last things I want to hear my 7 year old say...

2010-02-14T22:19:00.002-05:00

..."Johnny, do you want to play 'Spin the Bottle'?"

WHAT IS DISNEY TEACHING OUR CHILDREN!?!?!

Rachel's Succulent Allergy-Free Chocolate Brownie Cookies

2010-02-14T17:26:00.017-05:00

As I've mentioned before, my daughter Teagan is allergic to many, many things. So not only do I make everything for her from scratch at home, but I get to come up with some custom recipes that are safe for her to eat. By far, my favorite recipes to create are for desserts. The girl has got a crazy sweet tooth...it's a good thing that junk food is an occasional treat for her or I am certain that she would be suffering from childhood obesity.

There are no boogers on these cookies. There aren't even any green sprinkles, so I'm not so sure why there's a green splotch in this photo. Just ignore it and realize that when you eat these cookies, it's just like eating a unicorn's droppings...because everything that has to do with unicorns is magical and delicious. In fact, now that I think about it, I'm sure the green splotch is a fairy nibbling on the side of that cookie.

Rachel's (Egg-Free, Dairy-Free, Nut-Free, Soy-Free) Chocolate Brownie Cookies

3/4 cup + 3 tbsp corn oil (really, you can use any oil of your choice...except olive oil...don't do that.)
2 cups white granulated sugar
3 tsp Ener-G egg replacer (+ 4 tbsp warm water to mix it with)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups multi purpose flour*
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 cup dairy-free cocoa powder (I use Hershey's Unsweetened)
1/2 tsp salt

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream oil and sugar in a large bowl or mixer. Mix together the egg replacer and water for it WELL, then add into the sugar/oil mix. Add in vanilla extract.

2) Mix together flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, and salt. Slowly incorporate into sugar mixture.

3) Roll into balls (about 2 tbsp worth for each ball) and space out on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Let sit for at least 5 minutes, then remove from baking sheet to cool.

This recipe yields about 2 dozen cookies. Which means they last about an hour in my house between the five of us. You can't even tell that they're "allergy cookies" as Teagan calls them, so they're great for any occasion, special dietary needs or not. And the name? The first time my husband bit into one he said "Mmm, it tastes like a brownie!"

Let me know what you think if you use my recipe!

*Bonus factiod: You can use gluten-free flour for those with gluten allergies/celiac's disease.

Food on the Ground Food on the Ground

2010-02-13T14:35:00.005-05:00

I live in Tornado Alley. Not the one my brother Kyle from Oklahoma lives in, but a whole separate tornado alley that exists in my house. If there is one thing my boys love the most in this world, it's making a mess any chance they can get. They love to empty out their 3 large toyboxes and fling the toys around their bedrooms (and down the stairway, and into the livingroom where I have a strict no toy policy). They love to fill up cups and pots in the sink and then dump them out on the floor. They love to smash cartons of eggs when they get an unsupervised minute...and they LOVE tossing their food onto the floor.

Here is a picture of today's "food on the ground" (food on the ground, food on the ground, lookin' like a fool with your food on the ground...) The can of Spaghettios was found on the floor unopened thankfully, but I've placed it there to add perspective to the size of my pile. The day is only half over, so I can expect more later on. But just what we have here is enough to feed a couple children in Africa for a day. It's difficult to explain the concept of waste to 2 and 3 year olds.

Some stuff I've made recently

2010-02-11T23:00:00.011-05:00

Just a quick post to share with everybody some crappy pictures I've taken of projects that I've been working on! I know, I really need to get my act together and start taking some real pictures with a digital camera vs my cell phone cam...but it's just so much more convenient.

Here is a bag I made in a couple hours today.

I love the fabric inside.

I made this piranha plant awhile ago, but yesterday I made a fireball for it and slapped it on a blue background then put it in a frame. This guy will go on Etsy soon as a set with a bunch of other cool stuff when I get around to taking proper pictures.

This is a mini quilt I started today. Props if you can already guess what it is! I wanted to keep working on it but I ran out of thread and dark purple, so it's going to have to wait until tomorrow. The bottom 3 rows are unattached, and also it needs some serious thread trimming but you can shut your yap because I was only taking a quick picture of it. :)

Gotta start 'em young

2010-02-10T14:52:00.009-05:00

My 7 year old daughter, Teagan, saw me blogging one day and asked if she could have her own "website" too! She already has an email address on Gmail (and a Facebook, that I moderate of course. She's quite the tech savvy kid), so I helped her set up her very own Blogger blog. She's named it "I love Super Mario Bros". Yea, remember how I told you about the Mario mania that's spread like the swine flu in our home?

The spelling and grammatical errors make the "grammar nazi" part of me twitch, but I guess you can't hold kids to some ridiculous standard. Or maybe you can...hmmm. I'm just thrilled that she's taken such an interest in writing! If you'd like to check out Teagan's blog, go here!

The Reason Why I Love SwagBucks...

2010-02-09T19:19:00.009-05:00

...is because I can buy things that I don't really need, but have desperately wanted, without that whole guilt thing as a side effect (and without fear of my husband confiscating my bank card).

Every week, I earn enough credits with SwagBucks to cash out for Amazon.com gift certificates. Sometimes I save them, sometimes I use them towards an order as I get them. I always tell myself that I'm going to keep saving them to go towards more expensive things that I want, but that never happens. I can't resist the temptation of ordering smaller things and having at them my door in a couple days thanks to free 2 day shipping with my Amazon Prime Membership (which you can now have a free 3 month trial of, I highly recommend it).

Last night I used some of my gift vouchers towards the purchase of a Gorilla Pod, a small, portable and VERY handy universal tripod. I've been wanting one forever, and to be honest, they're really not that expensive. And when I went to the website to purchase mine, they just so happened to be on sale for a little over $17. It will be in my hands tomorrow!

It seems like everybody and their dead great-grandfathers are already members of SwagBucks, but if you're not and want to join, I would love you a lot if you use my referral link to sign up. So I can get more awesome stuff, and earn more gift certificates that I will in turn have contests for here, so you can get more awesome stuff! Yea! (PS, have you signed up for my contest yet? There's a little link for it on the top of the page if you haven't!) Sign up for SwagBucks!

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Three little things I am thankful for today
1) The Nor'easter storm that's coming in and canceling my daughter's school tomorrow. Hello, Sleeping In. I've missed you since Sunday. And also I just plain love snow. They're saying that my town will be the hardest hit with up to 18 inches of snow. Heck yes!
2) LOST is on tonight. You wouldn't understand my excitement unless you are also fan.
3) Cheesy. Gordita. Crunch. I love you, Taco Bell.

The Dollar Store is the Lost Mecca of Craft Supplies

2010-02-08T16:48:00.007-05:00

I don't go to the dollar store often. Not because I'm too sophisticated for it, I have absolutely no shame in soliciting shopping venues with cheap goods: the thrift store, yard sales, swap meets. In fact, I'm not sure why I don't go to the Dollar Tree more often...when I do, it's mostly to buy small toys for the kids to use as incentives or stocking stuffers. Little did I know that somewhere between the aisle with the $1 feminine douche kits and the row with party favors there were mountains of crafty goodness waiting to be discovered by me.

Today I spent an hour and a half at my local shop, with all three kids in tow of course. That in itself is an experience, I find myself saying things like "no, we don't need 7 flashlights" and "get that glass moose off of your head and put it back on the shelf!". Originally, I was stopping by to pick up some picture frames to frame some of the felt art projects I've been working on, but I was in for a surprise when I visited the craft sections. I turned into the first craft supply aisle and found shelves full of pens, packs of Sharpies (Sharpies! For $1!), markers, paints, stamp pads and stamps, and oh...so much more. My kids already have a decent amount of art supplies, but something came over me, and I felt as if I were possessed as I started tossing a pack of everything into the cart.

Next, I found the section filled with decorative paper, stickers, rub-ons, and other assorted scrapbooking supplies. I don't actually do a whole lot of scrapbooking (though I always feel like I should be doing it, and want to), but I figured I could use the pretty paper for other projects. The next aisle over was filled with silk flowers and leaves, picture frames, wire, beads, and buttons. The only thing that could have made the selection even more orgasmic was if they had fabric.

As I waited in the checkout line, my two year old son, Hayden, opened a bottle of kids body wash and poured it all over his hands and my jacket. I grabbed my other son's Spiderman winter hat off of his head and wiped up the mess the best I could. Then I nonchalantly began weeding out things from my cart and into a basket under the counter that I could live without...the panic of realizing I was about to drastically overspend had suddenly hit me full force. The checkout employee finished scanning my items, and she didn't say the total out loud (nor could I see it on the old register), probably because she knew if she did I would run away screaming.

When I opened my pocketbook to find my debit card, I quickly discovered that it was missing. And I immediately remembered that I had left it in my wool coat that I was wearing yesterday. I asked the woman if she would hold my cart as I ran home to grab the card, and she agreed. By the time I got everybody into the car and enjoyed the harmonious sounds of screaming all of the way home, I knew I wasn't going to go back. Not today, at least. It's probably for the best, I had to have had at least 70 items in my cart.

Burning Questions: Wall-E

2010-02-07T09:28:00.000-05:00

Last night, I enjoyed the movie Wall-E three times in a row with my two year old son. I've already seen it a good 50 times before then. It's a cute movie, and attempts to send a good moral lesson to our youngest generation (take care of the Earth and yourself). But every time that I watch it, I simply can't ignore these serious plot malfunctions.

Concerning the Appeal of Axiom Life (when Earth is supposed to be preferable)
I realize the creators of the movie were trying to emphasize how lazy people became over hundreds of years on the spaceship, but why didn't they make it seem a lot less awesome if they were trying to be cautionary? They've got hoverchairs that travel along hoverhighways wherever they want to go. They have sweet, transparent video chat screens that pop up right in front of their faces! They can change their wardrobe color with the press of a button, and milkshakes pop up on demand. What's not to love about this lazy world? Sure, they're obese, but since people in their world have been for hundreds of years they don't know any better.

Concerning Reproduction
Which brings me to my next quesiton: if these people are too big to be able to get on/off their hoverchairs by themselves...how are they mating and producing children? HOW? I guess the most logical answer is that they've got little "pollinating" robots with turkey baster-like tools to transport sperm to womb? But then there's the problem of giving birth...so at this point I'm just going to satisfy my own curiousity and tell myself that all babies in this obese space colony are grown in artifical wombs and raised by robots until they are grown enough for their own hoverchair.

Concerning Necessities
Where is their food coming from on this mothership? They've been living in it for 700+ years. Where are the slaughterhouses? Does PETA have a branch on the Axiom? How do they get water? How do they pay for things? Do they pay for things? If so, what's their economy like? If not, how are supplies rationed out?

Concerning the Return to Earth
I feel that these are the most irritating questions of them all. Why does the captain want to go to Earth so badly? Because he learned about hoedowns and holidays via the computerized voice dictionary? He's never been there, nor has he ever known anybody who has. Can't he just organize a hoverhoedown and call it a day? Why isn't he the least bit hesitant after seeing the warning video, and then when the robots try to stop him from landing the ship on Earth? That's a pretty big choice, buddy. You might want to mull that over a bit more. But no, instead, he makes the rash decision to head back to Earth (while scaring the living sheebies out of his entire population in the process and possibly nearly killing them all).

So then they land. And the captain plants the little plant, and everybody's happy. Then the screen pans out and you see the silhouette of the cubes of trash the robots were stacking up high, high into the sky....... What in the hell are they going to do with all of the mountains of crap left behind on the planet (see image at right)? Just because the robots scooped things up and packed them into neat little rubbish squares and stacked them thousands of feet in the air doesn't mean the problem is solved. If the designers of those robots were smart, they would have had different robots collect different recyclable materials that would deliver their recyclable squares to other specialty robots who would then melt the materials down. Gosh! Isn't this movie supposed to be about sustainability? How could the writers miss such an obvious answer to the film's biggest problem? Come on!

Pixar: if you want in a do-over, I'm available for hire. I liked the romance between Wall-E and EVE...we can keep that.

Share Stuff Saturday & I need to learn how to launder money

2010-02-06T22:33:00.017-05:00

I've been super busy today. I woke up bright and early, around 10AM. I laid around and did some reading (Eats, Shoots and Leaves)...then I went and bought milk at the gas station around the corner (it's cheapest there!). I made my daughter some of her favorite special pizza, and then I spent several hours on the Internet while drinking wine. I also stole a couple of my husband's Samuel Adams...I can get away with it since he's away for the weekend for his Air Force Reserve drills. And I didn't clean a thing. Because I don't have to today.

I have some websites to share with you all, but first I'm going to talk a little bit about this pizza.
It doesn't look like much, hell, it doesn't even look appetizing whatsoever. It reminds me of those videos I saw when I was 6 of brains splattered on highways. My mom used to own a driving school, and before graduation there was the traditional viewing of Red Asphalt for the teenaged drivers ed students. This pizza reminds me of those videos...except these brains are rectangular. And baked. And delicious. Anyway.

My seven year old daughter Teagan is allergic to EVERYTHING. She's got a life-threatening peanut allergy. She's allergic to all other nuts too. Oh, and also: eggs, soy, dairy, oranges, rice...and so on. Which, if you're not accustomed to routinely reading the list of ingredients on food labels, you probably don't realize that those substances are in 99% of things that "normal" people eat. And so I make everything that she shoves down her throat from scratch at home. Which I don't mind, since I LOVE to cook.

This pizza is one her favorites. I made the dough with flour, yeast, olive oil, salt, & sugar, and topped it off with freshly made sauce, tomatoes, and turkey burger. Then I popped the sucker in the oven for 20 minutes. My daughter and I managed to eat all but one piece! It was that good.

I've been on a fabric buying kick lately. I just ordered a bunch of stuff on eBay, and since my thirst is insatiable I went on a search for more. I remembered that awhile back I had read about fabric co-ops, and decided this evening that I needed to find and join some. As a result, I ended up finding many craft related co-ops (I even shared a monster list at CraftForum.com) and I ordered several ridiculously cute prints for great prices.

Some Things I Recommend That You Check Out
I found this adorable Etsy store tonight that makes delicious looking jewelry. Literally. This brownie ring made my stomach growl.

Fab Fanatic is a co-op with a hip looking website and ridiculously cute fabrics. I ordered a couple yards from here tonight, including "Hedgehogs" by Michael Miller (pictured to the right). Would you be able to say no to that print? I didn't think so. I also picked up a yard of the mushrooms...and briefly considered grabbing a yard of each of the owl prints, but considering I just "bought" (okay, reserved via co-op) a jelly roll and a charm pack of owls elsewhere tonight, I'm thinking I'm all owled out for now. Plus I suspect if I buy any more fabric in the immediate future my husband really might kill me. Can any of you tell me how to launder fabric supply money??? I just need to know how to hide where it goes...

The co-op is open until February 22nd, so if you want to grab some of these guys head on over!

My talented new blog friend and fellow CraftForum member Elizabeth Gwen Originals sews very beautiful clothing as well as bright, colorful handbags and more! She also has an Etsy store HERE, check it out!

Another new friend and CF member, Lanie, runs a blog called Life in the Pitts that is really a hoot (curse you, owl fabric!). I've added her to my regular blog roll in Google Reader. She's talented and funny! Make sure you stop by!

There, I fixed it...kind of. (Sewing machine repair the ghetto way)

2010-02-04T18:17:00.007-05:00

My sewing machine was recently assaulted by one of my boys, I'm not sure who the exact culprit was. I had made the mistake of leaving it out in the livingroom the next day after working on a quilting project the previous night. While I had the foresight to put the fabric and scissors away in the moderately safe hall closet, I made a fatal miscalculation in assuming the machine would be left alone. I awoke the next morning to discover my spool holder snapped off and wailing on the floor next to the machine.

So I did what any reasonable crafter in the middle of a big project would do: I set off to make a quick fix until I can repair it properly. I used Krazy Glue in a weak attempt to reattach the spool holder to the machine, which ended up failing miserably, since just a slight amount of pressure would snap the stick right off again. So I took it to the next level and applied a fresh squirt of Krazy Glue, and then wrapped the sucker with electrical tape I found in my husband's toolbox. It's a tad wobbly, but it works.

Oh, the horror!

Now, my major problem is that the children also were kind enough to adjust my settings for me, and in my approx 10 years of sewing experience, I have no idea what many of these nifty knobs mean. I've never really used the machine for anything fancy. I know how to change the stitch size and spacing, and the different types of stitches. I know how to change presser feet. But I have no idea what the wheel on the top is, nor the wheel on the side-top-left.

So now when I attempt to sew, I've got tiny holes being stabbed into fabric and not much else. The bobbin thread is not attaching all of the time...it will sew correctly for a good 2 inches and then quit. I'm assuming this is a bobbin problem only. But I can't be sure. I've rethreaded over and over again with the same results. I've tested the bobbin tension and it seems to be okay. I've checked for jams and don't see anything (though I haven't opened the machine's case up at all).

Any ideas?

Just in case you didn't believe me about trips to the Doctor's office...

2010-02-03T09:31:00.005-05:00

As you know, my husband gave me strep throat. So I packed up the children for a visit to their favorite place: the doctor's office. I had nothing better to do during our 45 minute wait than to document of the fun that we had using my phone.

Our leisurely visit begins immediately after I check in with the receptionist, when the littlest flops himself onto the waiting room floor, making himself at home.

We make our way into the exam room aka "waiting room b" aka "longer wait room". Johnny finds cool spinning chair.

Hayden wants cool spinning chair too. They fight over cool spinning chair.

Hayden loses the fight.

Oblivious to his brother's torment, Johnny spins in the cool spinning chair.

Still crying.

Still spinning.

More crying.

More spinning.

Johnny confronts Teagan about something that's probably very important.

Yep, still crying.

Teagan takes over the cool spinning chair.

Johnny begins shoving Teagan off of the cool spinning chair.

"OKAY THAT'S IT!!!!!!! NOBODY GETS THE CHAIR! GET OFF!"

Teagan goes back to doing what she does best, ignoring the agonized cries of her brothers.

Does this make my lymph nodes look big?

2010-02-02T00:23:00.008-05:00

My husband gave me an early Valentine's Day gift this year. Isn't it adorable?

I've decided to keep it close to me, in my throat. I feel the love radiating from the inside of my neck every time I swallow.

There should really be more public awareness about KTIs: Kiss Transmitted Infections. Mono and oral herpes can also be "sent with a kiss", but how often do we actually think about these things? Are you aware that possible danger lurks behind every kiss?

Tomorrow I will be bringing the children with me to their favorite place in the world: the doctor's office. Although we seem to be there for me more often than for them, my boys really act up whenever we go, especially my 2 year old.

This is a place where both Stop, Drop, and Pout and Captain Noodlelegs tactics are used right up until we exit out the front door (after of course, he thows himself dramatically onto the filthy carpet the minute we step into the waiting room, where we need to walk through to leave...in front of about 20 people, who take no shame in staring at me pushing one kid, pulling another, and juggling the smallest in my arms).

Can't wait!

Today's Project

2010-01-31T22:11:00.003-05:00

Look! I made a tote bag with a Koopa Troopa. The tote has a nifty pocket inside. Sorry for the picture quality, it's from my cell phone since I'm too lazy to use my digi at the moment.

I also made this red tote, and last night I made these patches...I haven't decided which one to put on it yet. What do you think?

Sonic Boom (aka Satan's scream) Pt. 2

2010-01-30T20:15:00.004-05:00

I promised a reader yesterday that I would write about my results with my new Sonic BOOM Alarm Clock but unfortunately I didn't get around to it last night. So here we go! Yesterday morning was my first true experience with the alarm, which I now like to call The Bastard on my Nightstand (and his Obnoxious Siamese Twin Under my Memory Foam Bed Topper).

The Bastard jolted me awake promptly at 7:15AM and into a state of fear and confusion. I was disoriented for several seconds, trying to figure out what the hell just happened. And then I felt the bed vibrating strongly under me, glanced at the clock, and remembered. I pressed the snooze button and got another 10 minutes of sleep before I was assaulted again, but the second time wasn't nearly as terrifying as the first. This is actually mildly concerning...if the shock of the experience is what wakes me up, will it still work once I've had weeks or months to get used to it?

The product description on ThinkGeek.com describes it to be louder than a jackhammer. While it certainly was not like being woken gently to the sound of angels singing in chorus, I' having a hard time believing that it actually is noisier than a jackhammer. Maybe I just haven't heard many jackhammers in my life.

TLDR: yes, it works well. Aside from another person physically beating me in the nose and eyes until I wake up, it's nearly impossible to get me up until I'm ready, and the Sonic Boom worked beautifully. I highly recommend it.

My future grandchildren: Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi.

2010-01-29T16:49:00.005-05:00

When my two older kids like a video game, they become obsessed beyond help and their entire lives revolve around the character(s). Months ago, my husband was playing his way through Resident Evil 4 and by the time he had been playing for a couple days in a row, he was asking our 6 (now 7) year old daughter for tips. She wouldn't actually play the game herself because "it's too scary", but she would go on YouTube and watch the walkthrough videos.

Eventually she memorized where every trap was and where all of he hidden inventory items were located. She was able to tell whomever was playing exactly how to get through a difficult part. Teagan wanted a Resident Evil themed birthday party, and she wanted to watch the movies. She and her 3 year old brother ran around the house pretending to be Leon and Ashley, slaying their horde of reanimated plush animals (which were totally unconvincing as zombies if you ask me).

Currently the games of choice are anything in Nintendo's Mario series, which I am more than okay with since 1) I tend to believe that Mario is more appropriate for young children than blowing the faces off of chainsaw wielding zombies and 2) because Mario is already close to my heart since I grew up playing the games myself.

These days, I get woken up early by my 3 year old son Johnny with him jumping on my skull screaming "MOMMY COME PLAY Wiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!" This usually means one of two things: he wants me to play New Super Mario Bros or the classic Super Mario Bros 3 with him as a team, or he wants to watch me play Super Mario Galaxy since it's a little too difficult for him. He's becoming a very skilled player. I imagine within a few more months he'll be like those Asian child video game prodigies and be able to beat the entire game in five minutes like this person.

I'm planning a Mario Bros themed birthday for him in March, I plan to make a Goomba pinata. About an hour ago I was standing in the kitchen filling a glass of water when I noticed the kids running around pretending to be the characters. My daughter came sliding into the kitchen and says "Mom, guess what? When I have kids I'm going to name them Mario and Luigi. Is that a good idea?" "Oh of course!" I say. Then I turn to Johnny and ask him what he plans to name his children. "Yoshi." he replies.

The "let's not pretend this isn't what it is" blog contest

2010-01-29T00:36:00.007-05:00

Starting a new blog is like performing at a comedy club without an audience. It's like sharing a YouTube video that nobody ever comments on. It's like bringing a casserole to Thanksgiving that nobody even tries (this happened to me once. I brought my famous baked mac n cheese that everybody raves about to an extended family gathering one year and other than myself nobody even bothered to taste it!).

I need readers and I am not patient. So if you're not going to come on your own free will then I'm going to bribe you. Winner will be chosen at random (though I'm not going to lie, if you hang around my blog more than others you may have a better chance at winning). The prize is a $20 Amazon.com gift certificate.

- Mandatory first entry: Comment on this post with the name of your favorite book.
- + 1 entry: Trackback to this post.
- + 1 entry: Become a member of my blog on Google Friendconnect.

Contest ends Feb. 15th, 2010 so you have plenty of time to fall in love with me until then. The winner will be announced here on the blog and also contacted by email. Ready set go!

EDIT: Contest is now closed for new entries, so I have disabled comments on this post. I will announce and notify the winner within 24 hours!

You don't own alarm clock, alarm clock owns you.

2010-01-28T12:27:00.007-05:00

I just tested out my brand new Sonic BOOM Alarm Clock (while already awake) and I have to say, I'm feeling confident about this one. I'm assuming this product was originally designed to wake the ~~dead~~ deaf, considering that not only is it SUPER loud (the maximum volume has higher decibels than a jackhammer), but it also comes with a nifty vibrating attachment that you're supposed to place under your mattress or pillow...and it shakes the hell out of you until you wake up. (Personally I would avoid putting it under my pillow since even through a 4 inch memory foam pad the vibrations are surprisingly strong. I might worry about possible brain damage if placed too close to the head.)

You see, I am the kind of person who can literally sleep through an earthquake (true story). I've slept through smoke detectors going off (bad news for me should I ever find myself alone in the house while sleeping during a fire). My attempts to wake up earlier than normal are futile, I set several alarms to go off at different times and I sleep through them all. And not only am I nearly impossible to wake up, but I am also the definition of "not a morning person".

I bought the alarm after searching for "loudest alarm clock" and read the rave reviews from people who were also difficult to rouse. I take the alarm for my first official test run tomorrow morning. I'll keep my empty audience updated on the result.

The Stop, Drop, and Pout & Captain Noodlelegs

2010-01-27T20:47:00.009-05:00

My favorite unnecessary behavior from my two year old boy is what I like to call The Stop, Drop, and Pout...or the variation, Captain Noodlelegs. These separate actions are very similar and perhaps identical to the untrained eye. Although they both fall into the category "Silent Tantrum", they are different.

The Stop, Drop, and Pout
This is most often performed by the child immediately following the parent's commands of "no", "don't do that", or "don't hit/throw". The toddler drops to his knees, smashes his forehead into the floor, and wraps his arms over his head...akin to the "duck and cover" position that was popular during the Cold War.

Captain Noodlelegs
This behavior is commonly observed when the child is being confronted with a person, place, or thing that they are uncomfortable with. Though this type of situation is not pleasant for the child, it does not call for a full-on tantrum or even crying, and so the child's natural defense mechanism is to instantly (though temporarily) become paralyzed from the waist down. Often, once the child has fallen to the floor he or she will then assume the final position explained in Stop, Drop, and Pout.

Conditions must be just right for Stop, Drop and Pout or Captain Noodlelegs to happen. One or more (sometimes all) of the following is necessary:

- Parent is with child in a very public place (mainly grocery store, doctor's office).
- Parent has both arms full with other, especially heavy things and is unable to carry the child.
- Parent is already running late to an appointment and is trying to get child ready to go.

Salt + Pepper = Paprika

2010-01-27T01:05:00.004-05:00

It's 1AM. I'm up with my two year old who refuses to go back to sleep, and to keep him from waking my husband I have been playing Blues Clues streamed from Netflix to our Xbox 360 for the past two hours.

I was first introduced to Blues Clues back when my daughter was a toddler. She was never a huge fan of the show though, and so I never payed much attention to the startling facts of the program. For instance, in the end of one episode, "Blues Clues" lead Steve to the kitchen counter, where Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper are waiting to introduce their newborn condiment: Paprika.

And then I began to ponder the breeding logistics of mineral and crushed seed shakers. Or why the offspring wasn't born as some sort of salt-pepper hybrid, like the mixed shaker at Subway. When a Caucasian person has a child with an African American, they end up with a mulatto...not an East Indian.

Was Paprika adopted? If so, did they get to pick the name? Are Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper the Brangelinas of children's programming?

When kids wake up before their parents...

2010-01-26T18:55:00.001-05:00

This morning I woke up to approximately 2 gallons of tap water dumped all over my downstairs hallway floor, as well as in the kitchen. The mess was cleaned up using 1 queen sized blanket, and six adult sized towels.

Not only were my 2 and 3 year old boys considerate enough to wash the floors, they also took it upon themselves to transfer half of the toys from their upstairs bedrooms to the stairs and livingroom. This was clearly done so that later on in the day I would not need to carry playthings down the stairs for them.