A few observations/wants.....

Being a grown up......sucks a lot of the time.

I wish there was more than 24 hours in a day. I might be able to make it work with 40.

I'd like to eat an entire pan of brownies and a giant cup of cold milk and not feel bloated afterwards.

I'd like a job I could be totally creative at and not feel like it was work and get paid a LOT of money.

Debt is pretty freakin stupid, as is most of the world. (except the person or persons reading this obviously that'd be just rude) Wish I had known about how stupid debt was sooner.

Insurance of any kind is boring. A necessity but pretty freakin boring.

Eating an entire pan of brownies would be a very dumb idea, so I won't. Good thing theres only two left. Thank God it wasn't me.

Laundry is stupid. I hate dirty clothes.

I hate bras.

Sugar Cookie Herbal Tea is yummy.

4th Grade Homework is a necessity, and it sucks. Ask your average 4th grader, and then your slightly below average 4th grader, heck ask any grader.

Magazines seem to multiply at my house, they don't just have other baby magazines but the vomit paper everywhere. Does this happen anywhere else.

Schools need to be a paperless enviroment.

I'll end on a happy note.

The Notebook is a fabulous love story I highly recommend the movie....might be in my top 10 favorites of all time....maybe. I'll get back to ya on that.

That was Fun!

Seriously I have no idea what this is going to look like. But we'll see, and I've never heard that song before, not many options though. It was fun to make.

Perry's Open House

Perry has an open house next Saturday, for his creative drawing class. Should be a cool event. If you'd like to come and need details, send me an e-mail. There are 4 kids from his class, and potentially other kids from 2 other class's. Gimme a shout if you'd like to come and need details.

Got Milk?

After 2 weeks of being off the organic milk Perry emerged from the basement with this??? Gasp. We knew something would happen but we had no idea of the severity. Thankfully he's still pretty young and shouldn't have any problem learning to walk with one alien foot and one regular foot. The problems going to be find shoes. He may be able to get by with one larger croc. Thanksgiving

The turkey turned our nice. Tasted yummy, was afraid with it only being 12 lbs we wouldn't have much left over. We has just the right about that we won't waste any. We have enough for one more sandwich and it's gone. Which I'm glad cause I've had my fill! 2 things that are very important to my thanksgiving. Cool whip for the pumpkin pie, (or in this case pumpkin crunch), and the Thanksgiving Enquirer so I can check out all the sales ads, and see the Turkeys. So Ron had to go to the grocery for some chicken broth, so I made sure newspaper was on his list, written very large so he wouldn't forget.......he forgot and I forgot to put cool whip on his list. So I called my dad and asked him to pick one up on his way over. Poor old man stopped at 8 different places, no paper....it's a conspiracy. So called my mom, made sure she was aware her exhusband stopped at 8 places in search of. She stopped at 4, all no papers. CRAZY! So reluctantly I enjoyed my meal, only to continue to comment how empty I felt without the paper and no cool whip. No one else seemed to mind....except me.

THE AFTER PARTY

After all the guests left. And I was feeling a bit bloated Layni called to see how things went. She decided to experiment on her turkey to see if she could make the white meat juicier. She cooked it breast side down. Didn't make a difference still somewhat dry. I complained to her about no paper, and no cool whip. And feeling we still had a little bit of life left in us, she says....."wanna go find a paper. " Not sure she was serious....I replay what she said in my head. It was 10 pm, I had been on my feet all day slaving over a hot stove, so had she. But I didn't get to see the turkeys. Or the colorful ads that make me happy. So I said sure come and get me. And she did. So begins the adventure. She asked me where we should head first? I said Lindenwald (no offense) because not many read there. As we are heading toward Lindenwald (part of Hamilton that's somewhat a low income sort of area...best way to describe it.) Layni calls her mom to see if she got the paper. She said she had, and it was "out there in the garbage"....to which we assumed out there would mean out in the kitchen??? Nope, out there in the garbage can at the curb!!!! What the??? That didn't stop us from picking through her trash, she informed us it was in the heavier bag that contained only paper. Layni dug out a grocery bag of paper, but that wasn't it, she then informed us today's paper was loose in there. Great....my turn. As I am going elbow deep into the trash bag, I ask...."there is only newspaper in here right?" she says in a wee wee small voice, "well that and my dirty tissues...." but it was too late I had already touched one and it was not dry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! to which I quickly picked up the bag and through it back in the can...and said, "seriously, we'll find one thanks anyways!!!" Sadly I had no anti-bacteria on hand, so it had to wait until the end of the adventure. We headed to the Circle K. Where we were greeted to men in a pimped out hoopty painted with a nice shade of primer, who hollered sweet nothings to Layni as she emerged from her car. We are too damn old for this.....but it is what we do best! She exited circle K victoriously with paper in hand. We headed to her house for some wine and time to peruse the ads and come up with a game plan for the next day.

BLACK FRIDAY

It's not every year we part-take in this strange American tradition, but this year we were up for the challenge. Even though we went to bed well after 1 am. We vowed to each other we'd get up at the crack of dawn. To go shopping and score some deals. Not to mention check out the lunatics who do this nonsense year after year. This year....we had kids in tow. With the promise of breakfast out, Maddie and Perry were both game and didn't mind we snagged them from their slumber at 5am. We made it to K-mart a little after 6am, scored some much much much needed LEGO.....for a low low price. Layni was in charge of distracting children. It was shopping madness. Our last stop was Target. We were shocked that it didn't appear to be as crowded or busy. Except after we were in there about 30 min it was as though the running of the bulls had been released. We were in the DVD area and you literally couldn't go anywhere, there was so many people. Maddie and Perry just sat down in the isle and read books. As we were checking out and leaving there were people waiting around for carts. We were home and back to bed by 10am......I'm thinking next year we're taking black Friday off....it's exhausting. Be sure to check back tomorrow or later this week. Saw lots of movies this weekend. All on DVD so I'll give a review. I'm sure you all can't wait!

Pretty Dang Funny......

So I had to wait till the last minute to do my turkey day shopping because of circumstances sort of within my control but not really. Ron and I both get paid on the same week now. We were used to having money going into our account every week. Big or small there was cash flow....then SURPRISE.....right.....Ok so did my shopping this evening stricken with fear all turkeys would be frozen, didn't want to risk it so I prayed for a Fresh one. Layni suggested the free, range organic her sister in law scored but that would mean, some sort of ordering nonsense, a trip to the big city and a signature on the birth certificate. Dude I just want a damn turkey that isn't frozen, and ain't gonna cost me a damn fortune. Considering the Turkeys of the organic nature at the Costco were $99 for 15 lbs....yeah that ain't in the budget. Heck for $99 they better have the shell the turkey was hatched from and a genealogy report! Plus you know about me and the Costco and organic stuff, don't even get me started! I researched the eggs.....yes I did.....probably not all bad, but not as good as one would like when buying organic. So funny I first went and rocked Aldi's (it's a new thing I'm doing when I go somewhere and have a good time I'm gonna say I rocked that) considered purchasing the turkey there, but don't normally like to buy meat products there....couldn't anyways because they were all rock solid. Oh Aldi's is a new experiment I'm trying. Went with my super organized and able to stick to a budget friend the other night so she could show me how to properly save money while grocery shopping, buying healthy, going to Aldi's and Biggs (or Krogers) and coming in under budget. She's the bomb! Anyways so what I'm getting at.......I ended up getting my turkey at Biggs, and it's Amish, of the free range verity, and I think his name was Thadeus.....poor thing was young and not fat, and only 12 lbs. So all you greenies can now begin rejoicing....although me and organic ain't getting along right now. Nuff said.

Mysterious and Unexpected...

Exactly how I like the Holy Spirit to show up. Which he did on Saturday night right here in my computer room. WARNING: This could potentially freak some folks the heck out. There you've been officially warned, oh and you may cry. Don't say I didn't pre-warn you.
It's no secret that I am a christian, and I love Jesus. I kind of keep it real like that so many folks will get this, and I'm ok that some folks won't "get" this. Ok Ok Ok on with it already.........:::breathe::::

So I was on my computer Saturday night after making some Christmas cards. I was scanning and editing stuff, while listening to a CD I had just ripped into itunes. The CD is Pocket Full of Rocks- Manifesto it's a worship CD I had heard really good things about, I had sampled a few songs on itunes but hadn't ever heard a full song......until Saturday. I'm minding my own business, scanning, editing and listening. This song caught my attention...like....hummm...what is that, it's got a good worshipful sound to it, then all the sudden it was so much more. I got all tingly, and warm.....and my head was full (like seriously I could thinking of nothing else) of a friend of mine. Whose mother in law was just diagnosed with advanced stages of Ovarian cancer. So first it was thoughts of her, and then my head was full of every detail I knew about her mother in law....again could think of nothing else. Like at the time I didn't even know her name really, I new small details about her like what her grandchildren called her, that she's German, the kind of wine she likes, the traditions she keeps, that she likes gardening. These are things I had learned just during small talk with my friend, but I could think of nothing else. It was so overwhelming I began to get very weepie. I was like "what the heck...." I mean I knew it was God but WHOA....why me, why now? I had prayed for her like I do anytime someone asks me to pray, usually in my car on the way to work, or in the shower....(sorry but it's true, it's quiet there) or when I'm going to sleep. So I was like WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON GOD??? So I was like maybe it's the song.....so I opened the itunes window....to see what the name of the song was.......The name of the song was HEAL.....and yes I did cry my face clean off. And then I had to go lay down because I was then exhausted. The song is based on

Psalms 107:20

"He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction."

A Piece of My Childhood

Joe Nuxhall died last night. I had heard he was in the hospital but he's had some health issues the past couple years and he's always bounced back. This time not so lucky. They put a wreath and a tent around his statue at the stadium. They turned off all the lights at the stadium except the broadcasters booth. And the sign says "Heading for Home........" I spent the younger years of my childhood laying in bed with my grandma listening to the reds games. Marty and Joe were the voice of the Reds to me. When he stopped announcing, I knew his voice anywhere when he'd do commercials or be on the radio for some reason or another. He's a local icon for all his charity work....and he will be missed!

Annoyed and Frustrated?

Why you might ask? I am not green by any means. But I feel good because I provide organic milk to my family, and figure because the government regulates such things well it's safe to assume when they say USDA organic , they ain't lying to you. Bastards! I enjoy going to the Costco and getting the 3 1/2 gallons for 7.50, yes it does cost a bit more but if it cuts down on the growth hormones entering my body and delays my son going into puberty at age 10 well then it's better for you. Except now I find out those bastards are big fat liars. I've investigated in all possible angles and if anyone can see otherwise let me know. Check this out....prepare yourself if you are green cause you ain't gonna be happy. Oh and go here and you'll find what milk truely is organic. You might have to travel to Vermont to get it. This world is a twisted screwed up place. It could be a million times worse I know this, but when they have procedures in place to check up on these things you just trust that folks ain't lying and they're doing your job. Geez....guess I need to buy me a cow and some chickens.....damn....haven't even checked on the eggs yet.....

Cute Kid Alert.....

So I got together with my old small group. We used to meet every week, and talk about life and God and how that all fit together. We haven't met formally in 4 years, but we still get together maybe once a year. We did this past weekend to shower one of our peeps with gifts cause she had a baby. This one here is baby #8. She added baby #9 to the growing population of children brought forth by my old small group. When we were first started meeting Perry was the only one. By the end of the small group there was 3 more. I jokingly referred to it as the lactating small group because during the 2 hours or so we'd meet one, if not all of those babies would need to eat. So now theres 9, with 2 more on the way. I love these people and their crazy offspring. I hope we continue to catch up once a year forever!

Cold Ass Camping

Just a word of advice it's too damn cold to camp in November. I mean it wasn't too horrible, since we were in the castle at cub world we weren't in a tent so that cut down on some of the fridged cold. The camping trip was fairly disorganized which WAS NOT my fault....just annoyed the crap out of me. Things could be better organized if people would communicate. I often desire to fix things but have enough on my plate and feel if someone says they are going to plan something and commit to it, if they need help they'd ask. Not always the case....but what can you do except complain about it and whatever you are in charge of commit to being organized. Nuff said.

4th Grade is hard work. Projects start in the 4th grade the teachers are awesome about telling you ahead of time so you can pace yourself which is what we've done so far thank goodness, because when you got a kid who is ADD procrastinating is not a good idea, although normally it is in my nature. I am benefitting from stretching the project out over several nights. Last night we completed the Cereal Box book report, even though daddy did not finish the Honeycombs. Now we are working on a poster about Colonial Soldiers Uniforms. Does anyone know how difficult it is to find info about the stupid uniforms, it's not as easy as a google search. I gave up and instructed the husband to help. Odd he had a military history book he was holding out on us with. He hunted down the definitions of each piece. Geez....gone are the days of Worldbook Encyclopedias. I am thinking baking a loaf of colonial bread would have been easier.

Under Pressure....

Not really but it's what came to mind when I began to write. And now the David Bowie song is in my head....just like that. It's how it happens all the time. Couple things that are causing me to not be able to focus at my job. Stacie over there on her Faith and Art Blog stirring up a whole lot of something......haven't been given the complete vision, which is why I can't stop thinking about it, and what it might be. Then went to Julies today and she's having a whole lot of fun with paper while I waste away in my cube prison.

Quite honestly it wouldn't take much for me to lose focus, but those two things are doing a bang up job, along with all things Cub Scouty, anything church related, what someone might be wearing as they walk past my desk, Ira Glass talking on the This American Life podcast, seriously doesn't take much at all.

Gimme Some Candy!!!!

How long would this loot last at your house? Me thinks 2 days......
At our house, not a typical candy eating house we'll have this crap well into the new year. Not to mention Ron and I both are on a quest to live healthier, some call that a diet....no sir not us. I'm not measuring nothing. Mentally counting points (today I actually wrote stuff down) cause that point counting nonsense actually works and makes sense. No artificial sugars, cause frankly folks that stuff will kill ya, and I'm convinced causes cancer. Mix in a little organic where it's doable, excersize when we aren't being lazy and limit ourselves to 2....maybe 3 pieces of candy a day, and we are well on our way to being healthy. That does not entitle you to ask how much I've lost, unless it appears I am significantly thinner. You can ask Ron though cause dude's dropped some poundage and he's looking sexy. So I'm involved in 2 weightloss challenges which one pays money and one pays a gift card, and if it has a giant cup of "C" on it.....which translated in normal folks talk, STARBUCKS....I'm bout to lose some weight people. I got till Christmas Day to get-r-done. So send up some words and pass the Kashi!

Queen of all things Pumpkin

Yeah do not underestimate the power of a women who wants a pumpkin carved no matter what time it is. Perry will love it since he's OBSESSED right now with Nightmare before Christmas. I present to you Jack the Pumpkin King. One of my best. And that mouth is no joke people it was tough to carve. No template used here.....slackers!

Crazy Over-Halloweened

I do believe this is the first year I've had extra Halloween activities before the actual Trick or Treat event. There may have been the occasional Halloween party back in the day, but this has been a first since I've had a kid. Which has been 10 years now......can you believe it's been 10 years? We had the Halloween camping at Hueston Woods, which was a total blast, I'd recommend to anyone who doesn't mind camping when it's slightly cold out....not freezing like the next time we camp....don't remind me......do remind me to smack whoever planned that event. Halloween camping was fairly comfortable with our tent heater we used the first night, it worked quite well. Then we had Spookeree last weekend at Cub World. We took Maddie who'd like to be a "Cub" but she's girl so she only gets to pretend occasionally. There was games, a hayride, and a Haunted Castle. Maddie is down with scary stuff, Perry is not, but since Maddie's a girl I think Perry felt the need to be the protector and he braved the Haunted Castle and not advertised scary hayride.....he was a trooper, and wasn't scared at all. Then they were suppose to dress up for the den meeting tonight but P decided to go as a cub scout, besides I could imagine putting on the costume he wore at the other 2 functions, will wear tomorrow night and not to mention he wore last year. Peter from Narnia is now TIRED......he'll fit in the dang thing till he's 16, but I promise you he won't wear it again. Is it wrong that I have uncarved Pumpkins on my porch, it's 11:30 pm, I could totally carve them now. Perry would only draw the face anyways......do I want to mess with the goo right now? It'll give Ron something to be amused about.....pumpkin carving happening.....right now....bet!

Tagged...10/20/30...

This will be a good one. I suppose. So lets start with the 10. 10 years ago I was a new mom, with a 5 month old baby. Here he is at 4 weeks old. His binky was almost as big as his head. I am pretty sure that shirt still fits him. My entire world changed....and I somehow knew then it would be an exciting ride. I prayed God would give me and extraordinary child and my prayers were answered. He was wonderful then and he's wonderful now I wouldn't change a thing. I worked as a 411 operator, which meant wierd hours and weekends. Often 6 days a week. How I survived that nonsense I'll never know. But I survived and I am stronger person for it and will never in this lifetime work weekends again.

20 years ago. Well that's easy since I just had my 20 year high school reunion. I was a big dork in High School. But I didn't care I had fun. Desperate and dateless if you will it all didn't seem to matter or effect me in any sort of negative way. I have no regrets from my high school years. 20 years ago I was at the beginning of my senior year. We were voting for class titles, class song, ect.....I almost won biggest airhead....lost by a few votes. Darn. I was into making my own clothes. I made these super cool yellow cargo pants before cargo pants were a thing. I led a prayer group every morning in the library without fail. Here is me right before my senior prom, which I went stag to. I was fixed up for my junior prom with some scary dude who drove a muscle car and drank beer while driving me to my my junior prom. For the junior prom I wore heels that I thought was going to kill me if the drunk driver didn't. So I swore my senior prom was going to be everything the junior prom wasn't. I had a blast. Even if my dress was an ugly shade of PEACH. Although it was a rockin dress that quite a few of my friends borrowed for formals after that. Ok so now 30 years ago. Geez I'm suppose to remember that? Lemme see I was 8 years old. I was in 2nd grade and Mrs. Schneider was my teacher. I always got 100% on my spelling tests I missed one word the whole year and that word was where. I was a girl scout and I walked to my girl scout meetings that were at Mt. Healthy Christian Church. My troop leader was Dottie Engelkey who is good friends with my mom to this day. We moved from a small ranch house to a big 2 story house that year. I got to have a slumber party for my birthday and I invited the entire girl scout troop. 15 girls. And they all came. That's me in the picture sitting in the lazyboy with the 3D glass's....even then I had a great sense of style. I was also sporting my carters PJ's. Carters was the place to get your clothes back then. There was a Carters outlet in Monroe, Ohio.

That was a fun trip down memory lane. And for the record the dress Leah's wearing in her 30 year picture.....was mine....she got all my hand-me-downs. My hand-me-downs came from New York from my cousin Michelle. That's when my coolness factor started.....LOL....more like dork factor started. Although the mushroom bellbottom jeans were off the chain back in the day!

I'm going to tag......Heather, Stacie, Jud, Cyndi and any other lurker who has a blog....leave me a comment and tell me you did it. Have fun!

Overblogging....

I think not, but theres a potential there might be 3 in one day. Could be an alltime record. I can't claim to have found this gem on my own. I got it from Stacie's friend's blog.


But I get all those same feelings she speaks of. To me Bono is amazingly spiritual. And to be that girl.....HOLY SHIT....not just because he's Bono, but because of the feeling you get when that song is sung. Sometimes I like to take lyrics out of context, such as "And you give your self away.....and you give and you give, and you give yourself away...." there are times I am so passionate about stuff, or doing what's right, or researching stuff so you know every angle, I often feel like I give myself away. Or I've sacraficed other things in my life to make sure this one aspect is right. Make sense at all. There are other times I feel like I want to feel passionate about too much and then I'm just passionate about nothing and want to go to sleep for a week, in hopes that when I wake up life won't be so damn complicated. Ok that was nice and deep....stay tuned for that crazy Tag I gotta hook up.

16 Years of Marital Bliss

For the record when I was a teenager, I didn't want to get married till I was 35. Which means had I stuck to my plan I'd be married 3 years now. Heck when I was a teenager I was lucky to score a date much less a husband. So when I found one at the ripe old age of 21 I decided I better marry this one cause if I don't no tellin when I'll find me a husband. I mean there was a lot more that went into the "should I marry this one" criteria. The fact that we perfectly compliment each other helps tremendously, and that we were friends first, another bonus. And he's got kissable lips.....hee hee....didn't think I'd go there did ya. Shhhhh who cares that I have nothing to compare them to whatever people!

He's definately gotten better with age, so has our relationship. We basically became grown ups together. We both only spent about 1 year on our own as grown ups and we've been doing it together ever since. Kinda nice to have someone you like to do life with, it'd be lonely not to have someone. I mean I'm sure my friends could fill in those kind of gaps but they are reluctant to spoon me whenever we sleep together. Guess they think it's kind of wierd. LOL............
Happy Anniversary.....to my Home Squeeze!

I am aware I've been tagged hold on to your britches I'll get to it sometime in the next week or so!

Weekend Update

Yes I am aware it is 1am. What the heck, where'd the weekend go? I'll tell you where it went it went to the Cub Scouts. Oh and Nickel Creek. Went and saw Nickel Creek's farewell {for now} concert in covington on Friday night. I don't know what it is but I've been to 4 concerts in the past year and only one of them I was able to sit down if I wanted to the other 3 were in smaller venues and you had to stand the whole time. Aren't you suppose to sit at these things when you get older? Guess I dig the wrong groups. Nickel Creek was amazing. They did a cover of the Jackson 5's I want you Back, it was awesome. The YouTube video of Nickel creek doing the cover is crap, but here is a good one of KT doing it. It's a great song!







This song could very well be my theme song. Although no recent contact with any teenagers so I'm good lately. They're still freakin' Scary though for real!



Almost forgot to mention Ron and I did BALOO training this weekend. BALOO= Basic Adult Leader Outdoor Orientation. It was combine with some other advanced outdoor training that was done by some other folks who stayed the whole weekend. Part of the advanced training was some Orienteering, (good Lord, too many numbers, and maps, they lost me quickly). It's no wonder why I get lost whenever I attempt to find a Geocache on my own. Ron was in heaven loves compass's, maps and all thing that a meant to help you find your way. The couple who did this part of the training were great at it, and they were cute, and very knowledgable of all things compass and mappy. The husband kept losing his compass when he was training, and every few minutes he's say "now where'd a put my compass?" LOL.....imagine a guy training on finding your way in the woods losing his compass, not safe. LOL.....They were fun and I enjoyed all of the training. Who knows Ron and I may someday grow up and be just like them......although it'd need to be something that didn't use numbers.

More Music Love

Ok so over on Stacie's blog she's doing a litte Michael and Amy dissing. Not to mention she had to go down the road of Petra. Heres a little Russ love. I loved him, I even had a green winter coat much like what he's wearing and I even had a medal on my coat. I had a life size poster of Russ Taff in my room. Both these songs were awesome back in the day.



Ok this might be a little bit scary but I tell you what their concert was INTENSE!



It was hard to top Amy Grant from 1985 but I think this might beat that!

You are Loved

Following Stacie's example of music she loved from back in the day I present to you the Altar Boys. Man I love this music my senior year in High School.