Life Along The Way

Just too cool

2012-01-25T19:31:00.001-05:00

Monk likes to put different glasses on Lilly and we take pictures of her. Here's one from after church.

She's such a good dog. :-)

Tag! You're it!

2012-01-25T10:00:00.000-05:00

Thank you Nicole! :-D

I always sleep on the side of the bed that is farthest from the door.
I always put on my right shoe first.
I cannot resist chocolate. The darker the better!
I always wanted to learn to play the violin, but learned how to play the flute, saxophone, and clarinet instead.
If I forget my phone, I will go back and get it, no matter how far away from home we are.
I sometimes get jealous that my daughter has more guppies than I do.
I'm a dreamer. I sometimes see something in a store and say "I can make that!" but in reality, I really have no idea how to do it.
My eyes are blue, but I have a light golden brown ring in both of my eyes as well.
I hate coffee.
I'm addicted to The Sims.
I really like to garden, and can't wait to have our own farm so I can grow more!

The Rules

1. You must post the rules (and link up who tagged you.)

2. Post eleven fun facts about yourself on the blog post.

3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you've tagged.

4. Tag however many people you want.

5. Let them know you've tagged them!

Nicoles Questions For me:

1. What's your best accomplishment in life up until this point?

* I would like to say just being the person that I am. I could be super bitter about the things that have happened in my past, but I try to not be.

2. If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

* I really like it around here! If Sam could find a job around here that paid enough for us to have our dream farm, I would totally stay here! It's nice for the most part year round, I like the fact that if I wanted to go to the beach, I'm only 30-45 minutes away, and I like the kids schools. Tho... I have seen some schools around Raleigh that would be AMAZING!!!!

3. Describe your perfect date night.

* Perfect date night.. hmm... I would have to say, a nice dinner on the water, watch the sunset over the ocean, and hang out and just listen to the water lap the beach while looking at the stars. Amazing!

4. What do you think is your best feature?

* Hmmmm.... *I* think my best feature is butt... LOL

5. What's your favorite picture of you an your hubby?

* Ha!! It's from right after we got married... Sam, myself and Jocelyn and her husband had all gone to our company Christmas party (That was actually in January.... LOL) and she took a picture of me where it looked like I was picking Sams nose... LOL

6. If you won a million dollars, what's the first thing you would do?

* Pay off all of our debt, put money away for the kids to go to college, and start our dream of having our farm.

7. What's your favorite snack food?

* CHOCOLATE... or popcorn

8. What's your favorite meal of the day?

* Usually dinner! I lurv to cook!

9. Favorite guilty pleasure TV show?

* The Bachelor/Bachelorette I don't know why!!! I just love to watch them. *sigh*

10. Best book you have ever read?

* Oh gosh... ummm... that's a tough one! How about.... either The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd or One True Theory of Love by Laura Fitzgerald

11. Describe your perfect Sunday.

* Church, lunch, dinner in the crock pot, and relaxation!

I'm going to Tag:

Molls @ O hushed October Morning Mild

The Bug @ Bugs Eye View

My questions:

1. If you could go back and do something in your life over, would you?

2. What is your hidden talent?

3. If you could change your name, would you? If so, what would you change it to?

4. What is your favorite childhood memory?

5. What is your favorite adult memory?

6. Do you have any pets?

7. What size shoe do you wear?

8. If you could meet one person, past, present, or future, who would it be?

9. What is your biggest fear?

10. What is your favorite meal?

11. Which is better? Chocolate, Vanilla or Neapolitan ice cream?

Project 365 - Week 3

2012-01-24T09:48:00.001-05:00

Okay... this weeks P365 is going to be a lil thin... I'll admit.. I can't exactly remember what all I did this past week. I try to write things down in my house manual, but sometimes I'm not exactly successful! I'm also not very good at remembering to take pictures every day. I don't lead a very exciting life.. as my friend Nathan reminded me today I'm "just a housewife." *eyeroll* And yes... I know I'm late again... I'm so very sorry!

15 January

Kimberly left today, but we all went to church at Discovery, which is our home church. That is our associate pastor with the awesome mohawk. There are approximately 15 boys at our church with mohawks now, and countless girls with bright pink, or green, or blue in their hair as well. Bug is disappointed that I won't let her color her hair. We went out to eat at The Kettle after church. We normally just go home and have something at home, but, we splurged a bit. It was nice. :-)

16 January

I started the seeds today for Ivy Hill. It made me think of Lindsay, and how I wished that I could show her the plans for our future farm. Our farms would have been completely different, but, a farmer is a farmer, right? I miss her. We also fixed Monks bed! A while back his friend Joey broke it, and we just hadn't managed to fix it. We either forgot about it, or we didn't have the money, but we got it done! He was SO happy! He said he felt like a king sleeping in that bed. It made me both happy and sad at the same time. I wish that I would have just fixed it a long time ago, but, it's done now. I'm sure in the next few years I'm going to have to get him a new bed anyways. He's going to want a more "grown up" bed, I'm sure of it. I know I always wanted a bigger bed when I was a teenager. Hopefully when Sam gets out of college (if he ever goes!!) we can buy/build a house that has big enough bedrooms that both the kids can have full sized beds instead of twins!

17 January

Today Bug and I went to get hair cuts. She got quite a bit cut off of hers! I was very sad. She wanted to look like Amanda Bynes, but, it didn't quite work out that way. It's okay... it still looks so cute! I also made spaghetti for dinner. Not only did I make sketti, I also made a loaf of french bread, cut it in half, made garlic bread topping, and then made it into garlic bread. My GOONDESS it was good!! So.. I thought I would share it with all of you. :-)

Garlic Bread Spread
2 cloves of garlic
1 1/2 cups flat leaf parsley leaves, lightly packed (I used about a Tablespoon of dried)
1/3 cup grated parmesan
1 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 400. In a food processor blend the garlic cloves until finely chopped, add the parsley, Parmesan, basil, and salt, and oil. Scrape sides if needed. Blend until smooth

2 Cut bread in half horizontally, spread mixture on both sides. Wrap each half loosely in aluminum foil

3 Bake bread until heated through (about 15 minutes). Unwrap top of bread and bake for another 3 minutes. Cut each half and serve warm.

18 January

{via}

Today I had my MRI for my knee. That's about it. LOL

19 January

Today I had a date with Nicole! We took her puppy to the kennel, went to Starbucks, we went out to look at her new house, and then we went back to her house to look at scrap books. LOL It was a very fun day! I love hanging out with Nicole. :-)

20 January

Happy Gotcha Day Dusty dog!! Two years ago today we brought Dusty into our home. She was SUPPOSED to be a foster, but, she was so sweet and wonderful that we couldn't get rid of her. We totally failed Fostering 101. Dusty usually sleeps with me, but Bug wanted some Mommy time and curled up in my bed. Dusty decided that she wanted to sleep in there too, so she just snuggled right up to Bug! It was so cute.

21 January

I'm not going to lie... I have NO idea what we did on Saturday. I THINK we might have gone to the PX and gotten a bunch of meds... but I could be mistaken. How sad is that? I can't remember an entire day!

As always, if you want to join in on the fun, you can go to Saras blog and join in! If you don't want to join in, you could just look at everyone elses week! Should be lots of fun! :-D

Project 365 - Week 2

2012-01-17T10:21:00.004-05:00

Yes yes I'm a little late. Sorry!! This week was not exciting at all. I only have a few pictures to show because we were completely broke, waiting on a paycheck, and I basically stayed home and cleaned and waited for our paycheck to come in.

08 January

Buggy had a sleepover with a couple of her friends last night. I made a GIANT stack of pancakes for everyone. The one girl I swear had to live under a rock. She didn't know how to cut a pancake, didn't know how to make hot tea, and even said she had never HAD tea before! GAH! How do you get to be almost a teenager and not have had tea or know how to cut a pancake?! Flabbergasting!

After breakfast and a bit of clean up, I sent the girls home so we could get ready for church. We LOVE our church. We're not a huge church, but, at the same time, we're not a super small church either. We had grown big enough to have the need for 2 services, so, I guess we're doing something right! :-)

We then went to Walmart and had to pick up a few things. The kids spotted a display of suckers and asked if they could have one. We decided that we would all get one. Four giant suckers for $2... not a bad deal in my book!

09 January

I get the kids off to school, get my workout in, throw a load of jeans in the washer, do some dishes, then I clean the kids bathroom. This is when my week decided that it was going to take a DRASTIC turn towards crappy week. I've told the kids that because it's THEIR bathroom, they need to be responsible enough to clean it, but since I have company coming over on the weekend, I decide that I would go ahead and help them out and clean it. At least that way I KNEW that it would be clean at least once that week. This is where I'm glad it was me and not one of the kids. I spent the rest of the week stressing about the hot water that was trickling down the kids bathroom tub drain.

11 January

My Spiderplant is blooming!!!!!!!!!!
I got this little plant as 4 tiny little starts from my friend Meridith. She told me that her plant was dying, and that she knew I loved plants so she wanted to brighten my day with these little guys. That was about a year and a half ago, and now I've finally got my OWN starts! :-)

13 January

FINALLY PAYDAY!! The very first thing Sam and I did was go get the stuff to fix the shower. We talk to a very nice man at Lowes who tells us where we might be able to find the shut off valve for our house. (It wasn't there.. but it was close!) We buy a new faucet, some caulk, a new handle piece for the toilet, and some gorilla glue to fix the broken toilet lid. (Yes.. I know... very redneck-ish, but it worked!) We get home, I put one some old clothes so I can low crawl about 100 feet to find the water shut off, then low crawl back about 100 feet.

That crawl takes forever... trust me on this! Now, the only way to actually get to the back side of the shower to get the parts off of the shower... we had to take the wall panel off of Monks side of the wall!!!! It was a mess!! (hence the first picture...) We actually had to make THREE trips to Lowes that day. The first time to get the stuff, the 2nd time because we bought the wrong faucet, and the 3rd time because the PVC pipe was so brittle that when I tried to tighten the bolt on the new faucet it broke! Sam helped some... but I did the majority of the work myself. After all was said and done, I low crawled about 400 feet, changed clothes 3 times, and FINALLY got to take a long hot shower! (No long hot showers since Monday mind you, only short, luke warm ones at best.) I was going to make homemade pizza, but by the time everything was said and done, we ordered pizza and soda. My friend Kimberly showed up about 6:30 to stay the weekend.

14 January

My best friend is having a little girl in April. Her favorite color is red, and she is by FAR not the the girlyest girl I've met. She doesn't like pink, so getting her cute little baby clothes is sometimes tricky. She also doesn't like flowers or anything like that on her baby clothes. SO! We all had gone to the PX to do a little shopping and I found this ADORABLE baby outfit, but I knew she wouldn't like it because it was pink. I then started looking around and I found several I really liked, but then I found the one in the picture. I knew she would LOVE it... so I bought it. I also got an ACE bandage because my knee decided that it did NOT like something that I did to it, and it wanted to swell up and be a real pain in the knee!! We ended up renting some movies and staying home the rest of the day. I had a really great time with Kimberly over the course of the weekend.

I know that there were no pictures for January 10 and 12... but literally all I did was housework. Boring picture.. ;-)

If you want to look at what other people are doing for their P365... check out Saras blog here!

The smack down!

2012-01-09T10:30:00.000-05:00

Have you ever had one of those moments when you get smacked in the face with something and then realize that it's totally a God thing?

Sam and I have been arguing quite a bit here lately. Mostly because I think that he should go out and get a job until he goes back to college (see previous post here) which is another very sore subject with me. Anybody that knows me knows that I'm a worrier. I worry about everything. Small things like: is my hair okay, does my butt look big, does my food taste good, but also bigger things like: are we going to have money for groceries, will we be able to maintain our household bills, how are we going to make these repairs to the house/cars/garden/etc. I also worry about other people: I hope Crystals' son is okay, I wonder when Nicole is going to know the final word on her house, my friends' friends' aunt is in the hospital. Sometimes its very taxing to worry so very much about things that I know I don't have any control over. I know I shouldn't worry so much, but I just can't help it! I've ALWAYS worried about everything! Well, okay, that's not entirely accurate. When I was in HS I worried about everything BUT homework! ;-)

Well, there for a while I hadn't been reading my Bible. (I know! I know!) Well, last night I got into bed, finished my conversation with my friend Kimberly, and decided that I would pick up The Good Book and read some. I had been reading thru Proverbs before I had stopped, and apparently I was meant to pick it back up at that point in time. When I opened my Bible to where I had stopped, Proverbs 17:1 stared back at me

Better a dry crust eaten in peace

than a house filled with feasting - and conflict.

Talk about floored! I stared at that verse for a while and milled it over. I then continued reading and another one smacked me right in the face. Proverbs 17:9

Love prospers when a fault is forgiven,

but dwelling on it separates close friends.

Again I milled it over for a while and continued. The final smack down of the evening was issued with Proverbs 17:14

Starting a quarrel is like opening a floodgate,

so stop before a dispute breaks out.

At this point I put down my Bible and chuckled. I said "Okay.... I got the message" just as Sam walked into the bedroom. He said "Got what message?" and I explained to him what I was reading. We talked about it for a bit, then went about our business for the evening. (Mostly because it was almost 10 and I was sleepy!!) These were things that I NEEDED to hear, and I'm sure glad I did!

Project 365 - Week 1

2012-01-08T16:49:00.000-05:00

It's that time again folks!! Project 365... or should it be 366 since this year is a leap year?? Anywho!!

I'm not going to waste any time... just jump right on in! :-)

01 January

This is my lovely Mommy and myself. We watched football on Sunday. This was Moms last full day here. Her and my Step Dad got here on Christmas Eve, but Kevin wasn't able to stay as long as my momma. Monk turned 13 on the 31st, so momma wanted to be here to celebrate with him. We had a lego cake. Oh.... and Sam retired from the Marine Corps. WAHOO!!

02 January

The kids went back to school today. Mom and I hang around for a while until it was time to leave for her to catch her flight. I was sad most of the day, and was really sad after she left. :-( I miss my mommy! Sam and I indulged in our guilty pleasure and watched The Bachelor. All I can say is JENNA IS CRAZY!!!!

03 January

Yes yes... I know Jillian isn't on The Biggest Loser any more... but I love her SO MUCH!! I usually throw a few choice words at her from my living room 6 days a week as I feel like I'm going to die. (Oh yea... I started working out again on the 1st!) I also watched Celebrity Wife Swap (another guilty pleasure...) but I spared you from pictures of Gary Buseys' teeth. You can thank me later. Another rather boring day today.

04 January

A mostly boring day... except for soup!! I LOVE me some potato soup! I made bread bowls as well. I was going to throw in some bacon for a nice "loaded" baked potato, but when I got the package out I was greeted to ONE slice of bacon. I think SOMEONE *cough*Sam*cough* made some without me knowing. It's okay tho. Bug didn't want bacon anyways.

05 January

I can't help it... I'm a GIANT fan of Grey's Anatomy. I'd never even watched the show before I met Sam, but he watched it and got me hooked so now I am utterly addicted! I mean... why wouldn't you want to be addicted to Derek Shepard, Mark Sloan, Alex Karev, Jackson Avery (drool!!!), and Owen Hunt?! Good question, eh? I know it's not like REAL doctors or anything.. but it's okay! I like the eye candy. :-D

06 January

This makes me a bit sad. I found out that they're taking EM:HE off the air. :-( :-( This is one of the "feel good" shows that we would watch as a family. There is only going to be one more, which is next Friday, and that's it other than a few specials sprinkled here and there. I have my issues with EM:HE, but, for the most part, it was a great show. I wish that I could somehow find a way to keep the good deeds of this show rolling. Maybe someday after I win the lotto.

07 January

This was Monkeys FAVORITE day this week. A few months ago, our Xbox petered out. It gave us a red ring of death and wouldn't work. Well, Sam and Monk decided that they would try and take it apart, clean it up, and see if it worked. They worked for a good 10 minutes getting the case off of it without breaking any of the parts needed to keep it held together. Finally after taking it apart, getting it to work, and then dropping it and having to take it apart again, they finally got it fixed. We basically just used it for a DVD player when it was in the living room, so we told Monk that since he helped fix it, that he could put it in his room once it was clear of the the junk. I don't think I've ever seen him clean his room that fast!! Bug had a couple of neighbor girls spend the night and I went to bed early. Sam got everyone into bed around 11 and then fell asleep in the couch. Oops!

If you want to take part in the P365, just head over to Sara's blog here and link up!

She wen and did it!

2012-01-07T14:42:00.001-05:00

So, my older sister Kris finally joined the blogging world! If you want to check it out, she's here.
She told me it wasn't "fancy like mine," so I told her were to find free backgrounds. She's still playing around with it, but it looks pretty good!
Check her out, leave her some love, welcome her to the blogosphere! :-)

**Yeah... so I posted that via my phone and didn't realize that it was a screwed up link... Sorry about that!! It's fixed now and you should be able to visit no problem! :-D

This is me today

2012-01-06T08:58:00.003-05:00

That is all...

My baby boy is a teenager now!

2011-12-31T19:45:00.001-05:00

Well, Monk tuned 13 today. I can't believe it. He's grown into such a young man.

He has gone through a lot in his short 13 years.

He's come so far! Three years ago he was diagnosed as dyslexic, and this year he pulled his reading level up to 5th grade! They weren't sure that he would ever be able to read past a 3rd grade level, but he showed them!

I'm so very proud of my little man. He has such a great love for the simpiler things. He is always trying to help. I can't wait to see what the future holds for my little man!

Happy birthday Monkey! I love you!

It's today! It's today!

2011-12-24T09:50:00.002-05:00

We pick up Momma and Kevin from the airport today! We are all SO excited!! I've still got a lot to do today tho!

I've got the NORAD Santa Tracker up for when Monk wakes up, Bug spent the night with one of her cheerleading buddies last night. They wanted to sleep in her treehouse last night, but it got too cold so they came inside. LOL

Monk and I decided that we were going to make the pumpkin pies last night. We used The Pioneer Womans' recipe for the perfect pie crust. Of course, we only had 1 cup of Crisco, so we had to use butter for the rest, so I hope it turns out okay! Monkey made the pie filling pretty much all by himself! I helped him open some cans, and got the right spices for him. He was SO proud! I then showed him how to roll out the crust and put it in the pie tin. We then rolled out the 2nd crust and he filled it and crimped the edges all by himself!

Sorry for the crappy picture, but I took it with my cell phone. Can't even hardly tell the difference can you? That's right... because my boy is the next Jamie Oliver! (I tried for Gordon Ramsay, but Monk said he cusses too much... LOL)

Anyways! I just wanted to share our baking adventures today! Still lots to do before Momma arrives!

I hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Parker House Rolls... or not!

2011-12-22T08:33:00.001-05:00

So, I've made these rolls for a couple of years. They are FANTASTIC!! I found the recipe online somewhere and it said "Parker House rolls" so I believed it!

{via}

For those of you that don't know, The Parker House is a beautiful hotel in Boston. They have a gorgeous restaurant inside and they serve these fantastic little rolls. Obviously I've never been there, but some day I WILL go!

So, like I said, I found this recipe online, and who was I to say "No way! That's not the recipe!" considering I've never even BEEN to the Parker House. These rolls are seriously phenomenal, and well worth the work that it takes to make them. I halved this recipe this time and it still made 50 rolls, tho I did roll them a little thinner than 1/2" thick. Just keep that in mind! ;-)

{via}

Parker House rolls

Ingredients

4 cups whole milk
1 cup butter (2 sticks)'
1 cup sugar
4 1/2 teaspoons active yeast
8 cups all purpose flour
1 heaping teaspoon baking powder
1 scant teaspoon baking soda
1 heaping Tablespoon salt
1 cup (additional) flour

Instructions

Combine 4 cups milk, butter, and sugar in a large pot. Bring to simmer. When mixture is hot, (but not boiling) turn off heat & cool to lukewarm (~30 minutes)
Sprinkle in yeast & 8 cups flour. Stir to combine then cover and allow to rise 1 hour.
After 1 hour, add baking powder, baking soda, salt & 1 cup flour. Stir top combine. Divide dough in half. Turn out on floured surface and knead for 8-10 minutes, form a ball & cover for 30-45 minutes
Preheat oven 400. Also melt a small amount of butter in a bowl.
Roll dough to 1/2" thickness and cut circles with 2 1/2" cutter. Dip 2 edges in butter and fold together. Place on cookie sheet, flat side down. Press lightly to encourage sealing. Cover and allow rolls 30-45 minutes to rest
Bake 15 minutes or until golden.

Now... if you want the REAL recipe for the Parker House rolls, they have offered it online here. There are some serious differences in these 2 recipes! I'm not sure how MY recipe was labeled as Parker House rolls, but, they are good none the less!!

I do have 1 more blog post between now and Christmas, so hopefully I will actually get to it!! :-P

Christmas Times a'comin!

2011-12-20T09:22:00.001-05:00

So, Christmas is 5 days away, (or as Bug says "4 days really!") and we're getting ready for my Momma and Step-dad to arrive! We can't wait for them to get here! We have Christmas dinner all planned, and since we didn't do Thanksgiving dinner, it's almost exactly the same! Turkey, dressing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, gravy, deviled eggs, Parker House rolls, and pumpkin pie!

We already got the turkey. Sam picked it up last night at Piggly Wiggly. I was trying to convince him to get the 89 cent a pound turkey while we were talking on the phone, and he said no way because it was injected with a solution, then something about only the best for his mother-in-law, but I couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Things have been going well here tho.

Sam put off checking into getting in to ECU for so long that he missed talking to them before they left for break. Now he has to wait until NEXT semester to pick up the classes at the community college, if they even offer the classes then. I tried to tell him that he needed to get on that several times, but I was accused of being too motherly and let it go. Now it's too late. Not my problem I guess, but that does put us behind schedule to get our farmette by a about a year. That means instead of 2.5 years here, we have about 3.5 years here. I guess that does give it time to build value, for us to fix more things and to pay off more debts so we can afford to get more land/nicer house! I guess everything will work out in the end, it's just hard to see things off that far!
Christmas this year was a bit better than last year. We have more presents under the tree, we're more involved with our church, and even managed to get Sam and I some presents! Hopefully next year we will be able to afford presents for the rest of our family, even tho we know that's not what it's about.

I'm FINALLY getting my household notebook together! There's still quite a few things that I want to put in there, but, it's slowly coming together. Starting in January, I'm hoping that we will be able to start "freezer" cooking. We're going to be getting paid once a month, so I thought that we should buy enough stuff to make dinners for the entire month. That way we can just grab something from the freezer and put it together, or finish cooking it. I've been gathering lots of recipes for this for the past week or two. If I find some that I really like, I might even share them with you guys!! ;-)

Another month and we will start some of our seeds for Ivy Hill. I think we are going to do row covers for a couple of them, and start some greens, carrots, and onions. I'm really hoping that this year we can keep the bugs away! I know that it will be a bit tough, because we haven't established the balance yet, but, eventually I want to get there!

I'll be starting the Project365 again on 01January. Lets hope that I can get farther than I did this year! i guess the life of being a housewife isn't really all that exciting, or picture worthy! ;-)

I think that's about it for now. But I'll update soon! :-)

Laying in bed

2011-12-09T21:05:00.001-05:00

So, the last time I posted someting like this, I was sitting in the parking lot waiting for an MRI. What I didn't tell all of you is that the reason I was having an MRI was because they were trying to rule out MS.
Thankfully, they have indeed ruled that out. They're still not sure what is wrong with my eye tho. I have to go back in 6 months for a check up. Let's hope that everything is better by then.
In about 2 weeks my parents will be here for Christmas. I'm actually pretty excited about this. It will be the first time I've celebrated Christmas with my momma in a few years. I miss spending time with her. We've gotten just about eveything we need to get, other than a cd player for Jillian and some stocking stuffers. We also have to get a coffee maker. We rarely drink coffee in this house, but my parents do, so we will have to get one for their sake! (Or... to save my own life! Lol)
Sam has a birthday coming up on the 18th, then we have Christmas, our anniversary, then Monks 13th birthday. He surely cannot be 13 already! It seems like just yesterday he was a small bundle of wiggly cuteness with no teeth and a great set of lungs. The no teeth bit didn't last long, but his cuteness never did wear off!
Ivy Hill is in her planning stages already. We have our seed picked, all mapped out, and planting/transplanting/sowing dates are marked on the calander. This year we're really hoping Ivy Hill will take off! I even started a blog for it, so, go check it out. I'll try to update things about Ivy Hill there from now on.

3 bean turkey chili

2011-12-06T15:17:00.001-05:00

So, I forgot to take a picture because this was SO good and it was made in the crock pot so I smelled it cooking all day and I just couldn't wait any more. Sorry. :-/
This is a low calorie dinner, but it doesn't short on taste! It's VERY tasty!

1.3 lb fat free turkey
1 small onion
1 28oz can diced tomatoes
16 oz tomato sauce
1 4.5oz copped chilies, drained
1 25oz can chickepeas, undrained
1 15.5oz can black beans, undrained
1 15.5oz can small red beans, undrained
1 Tbspn chili powder

Brown turkey and onion. Discard fat and add to crock pot. Add remaining ingredients and cook on low for 6-8 hours

EVERYONE loved this! There were very few leftovers, just enough for Sam and I to have for lunch today. I didn't think that it would be very good because of the chickpeas, but it was AWESOME! I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

Sitting in the parkin lot

2011-11-22T08:16:00.001-05:00

The title isn't just figurative. I'm siting in the parking lot waiting for my MRI. (So forgive me if there are any typos! :-P)

I going to get a little poor pitiful me here for a bit, just a warning.

I feel like my life is sitting in a parking lot right now. My husband is on terminal leave from the Marine Corps, his last day being the day after our 3rd wedding anniversary, the day before Monks 13th birthday. I have no idea where we will get enough money to pay all our bills and keep our household rolling. He keeps saying that his disability will cover most of it, but what about the rest?

He has plans for us to move to Raleigh and him to go to NC State, but he's not thinking about about the house we have to sell before we can buy another one. He's not thinking of the TWO houses on our steet that have sat for a year and not sold yet. He's only thinking of where he wants to be, not how to get there. Its like trying to get to a city on the other side of the river, but no plan on how to cross it.

I feel like I have failed here lately. That I've missed a very important step somewhere. Have you ever built anyting from IKEA? I feel like my life is an IKEA desk and I've forgotten to put a screw in somewhere. I look okay, but really I'm only a telephone book way from falling apart.

*********

So, my MRI wet okay. I was dehydrated so they had to stick me 4 times to even get a vein to put the contrast in. I'm hoping that they can pin point more accurately what is going on. I have an appointment with another doctor tomorrow, so I hope they get him the scans by then, tho it is for somthing different, I don't think they would mind getting the results back sooner than later.

Monk should be home any tim now, and then Bug, and then we can start a 4 day weekend! Wooo!

Learning Simish

2011-11-21T18:20:00.001-05:00

Sorry guys! I've been super duper busy here lately!

Okay... that's a lie. I've been addicted to Sim Medieval.

I've played The Sims since it first came out. I know its just about the silliest game you could play, but for some reason I just love my little Sims.

In other news, Thanksgiving is this week. We're not doing anything special. I know we sould, but we're not. I think we're just going to do chicken, green beans, mashed taters, and then I'll make pumpkin pudding pie for dessert. Monkey LOVES pumpkin anything. We found pumpkin pudding at the store and he's been chomping at the bit to eat it ever since!

Does that make me unAmerican to not have a huge dinner on Thanksgiving? Sam and I are both trying to trim down our middles, so having a giant dinner where I know I will continue to shove food in my mouth until I have to put on sweats because my pants don't fit any more just doesn't appeal to me right now.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on right now! So, I guess I'm back to my Sims! One just got thrown in the stocks, so I'm off to throw eggs at them! Hooray!

Pizza Casserole

2011-11-11T17:31:00.001-05:00

So, I know I ddnt post this yesterday, and I'm very sorry, but I was so very tired, and then I started getting a headache and felt sick, so I spent most of my day watching a marathon of Storage Wars and drinking Chai.

So, I made Pizza Casserole on Wednesday night, and invited our friend JD over as well. The kids love him to death! I made the same Olive Garden breadsticks as the other night. As always, JD brought wine for the occasion. A bottle of red by the name of Glory Days and another bottle of Australian red by the name of Layer Cake. Both were excellent! I also made a small side salad as well. I THOUGHT I had 2 hearts of romaine lettuce, but it turns out I only had one.

The Spread!

Sam and JD being the "rustic" men that they are.

JD and the kids.

This was a REALLY easy recipe to throw together.

Wide egg noodles
1 1/2 pound ground beef
3 cups grated mozzerella cheese (more or less depending on how much you like cheese!)
bottle of spaghetti sauce
pepperoni

In a pan, brown meat and in a pot boil water for noodles and add when water is boiling, cook until tender and drain water.
In the bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish, put a thin layer of sauce. Layer with noodles, meat, cheese twice.
Add pepperoni to top and cover with foil
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes and remove foil, bake for additional 15 minutes uncovered.
Let settle for 5 minutes, dish out, and eat!!

JD and the kids decided that they liked theirs with a generous helping of Parmesan cheese, but Sam and I decided not to.

Final thoughts? Everyone loved it!! If we could all agree on toppings, I would have loved to add onions, and possibly green olives to the top, but I know that would never fly!!

Tonight is Pasta Tacos, which were leftover from another time I made them. All I need to do is boil the shells, stuff them, and shove them in the oven! Gotta love easy meal night! :-)

Going Away

2011-11-09T16:04:00.000-05:00

So, last night was Sams' going away party.

Sam has been in the Marine Corps for 8.5 years, on a 5 year contract. Right before we met, he was injured, and he has been on a medical hold ever since then. Sam has been with the same Battalion since we met.

Since we have a very interesting last name, it's really easy to make nicknames from it. Which is what they did on his plaque. And there were stories to match every nickname. I think my favorite story was behind "The Honorable Mr. Charwood," but there is also Char-Wizzle, Char-Deezy, Char Char Binks, Char-izard, and Charmeleon. They also got him a REALLY nice pen that ~~I will steal~~ I'm sure he will get lots of use out of!

I got to meet more of the guys, some of them I knew already. JD was there as well. Bug LOVES JD. All the guys were calling him "Uncle" because of Bug and Monkey! LOL

We all left with full bellies from the Mongolian House here in Jacksonville. Sorry I didn't get many pictures of the actual event, but, I was too busy eating, then listening to all the guys stories of Sam.

Tonight, JD is coming over for dinner. So, that means I need to go and get Monkey working on his homework!

Cane's Sauce!

2011-11-08T12:51:00.001-05:00

While we were in Texas visiting Momma, dear ol' Step-dad was trying to win a new guitar from a place called Raising Cane's. I'd never even heard of it before, but, that didn't stop Kevin from having us all eat there one night in the hope that they would draw his ticket when the time came. (I don't think he won, btw)

Raising Cane's is a chicken joint. In the one that we visited, they had all kinds of movie memorabilia where there was a yellow labs' head in the place of one of the actor or actresses faces. That yellow lab is Cane. It was a pretty neat place, and their chicken was pretty awesome, and I really liked their fries!

The one thing that I really liked about Raising Cane's was this AMAZING sauce that they had. I knew it was mostly katsup, mayo, and pepper, but the other things I just couldn't put my finger on.

Until today.

Cane's Sauce

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup katsup
1/2 Tablespoon garlic powder
1/2 Tablespoon Worcestershire
1 teaspoon paprika
LOTS of black pepper (and then some more)

Put all ingredients in bowl
Mix
Refrigerate several hours before using

This recipe makes enough for 2-3 people. It's SO good! It's REALLY high in calories tho, so, just be careful if you're on a diet! ;-)

Red beans and rice

2011-11-07T21:30:00.001-05:00

So, tonight I made red beans and rice. Don't get too excited, it came from a box. ;-)
Sam and Monkey spent the day on base. I called them at lunch time and apparently they had decided to have lunch at the bowling alley. About 3 hours later, Monkey calls me and tellsme he doesn't feel well. They finally got home a little less than 2 hours later, and Monkey sat on the front porch and got sick in my flower bed. :-\ Poor fella! After he got sick,he said he felt much better. I guess we will see how he feels in the morning.
Bug came rushing in the door and said he was goin to the neighbors because it was her birthday. Way to let me know ahead of time so we could get a card. Frustrating!
Tomorrow is Sams going away party. We're going to his FAVORITE place in all of Jacksonville, Mongolian BBQ. I'm not quite sure if we've ever taken the kids here or not. If not, I guess it will be a new experience for them. Let's hope they don't throw a fit and actually eat!
I'll try and get some pictures from the Going Away/Retirement party tomorrow and post them! :-)

Welcome back!

2011-11-07T09:32:00.000-05:00

So, I kinda really suck at blogging lately. Sorry about that...
I decided that I would come back with a recipe. A couple of people asked me for this on my facebook page, so, I thought I would share it.

We had Hamburger Soup and homemade Olive Garden bread sticks. They were DELISH!! I don't follow the recipes exactly, because I just cut stuff up and go "Yup... that looks about right" and toss it in for most things (like onions carrots and celery in this recipe)

Hamburger Soup

Ingredients

1-1 1/2 lb ground beef (we used ground chicken)
2 cups diced onions
1 cup diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
3 garlic cloves, minced
3 (14.5 oz) cans of chicken broth (I used beef) OR 5 1/6 cup (same measurement)
1 (15 oz) can crushed tomatoes
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon hot sauce
1 stick (or 1/4 cup) butter
1/2 cup flour

In a large saucepan or soup kettle, cook the beef, onions, carrots, celery, and garlic over medium heat until meat is no longer pink and the veggies are tender; drain fat. Stir in broth, tomatoes, Worcestershire, and hot pepper. Bring to boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 15 minutes.
In another saucepan combine flour and butter on low hear. Cook for 6-8 minutes until golden brown. Be careful not to burn! Carefully stir into soup. Cover and simmer for an additional 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

This yields a fairly thick soup. I added salt and pepper and we still have quite a few left overs. The kids LOVED it and we ate it again for lunch on Sunday.

Olive Garden Bread Sticks

Ingredients

Dough

1 1/2 cup hot water
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon yeast
1 Tablespoon salt
2 Tablespoon butter, softened
4-5 cups flour

Topping

3 Tablespoon melted butter
sea salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Stand mixer directions (for those luck enough to have a stand mixer!)

Pour the water into the bowl with the sugar and yeast, let sit for 5 minutes. Add salt, butter, and 2 cups flour. Mix dough on low, adding the rest of the flour half a cup at a time until the dough scrapes the sides of the bowl clean. Mix the dough about 5 minutes on medium speed, until soft and easy to work with. (see below)

By hand directions (for the rest of us.)

Pour the water into the a large mixing bowl with the sugar and yeast, let sit for 5 minutes. Add salt, butter, and 2 cups flour. Mix dough, adding the rest of the flour half a cup until unable to incorporate using spoon. Mix the dough on well floured surface until soft and easy to work with.

Roll the dough out into a log, spray knife with cooking spray and cut dough into 12-14 pieces. Roll those into smaller logs. Spray 2 large cookies sheets with spray and lay the bread sticks out, leaving an1-2 inches between each. Place them in the oven with the temp on about 170. Let them rise for 15 minutes or until doubled in size and remove from oven. turn oven to 400 and let heat. Brush with 1 1/2 Tablespoon of the melted butter and sprinkle with sea salt. Bake in 400 degree oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Combine remainder of butter with 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder and brush the tops of baked bread sticks when they come out of the oven. Serve immediately.

Sam and Bug both said that they needed more butter, but Monkey and I thought that they were just perfect. These really do taste a lot like the Olive Garden breadsticks! They're very light, and it's REALLY easy to eat ~~the entire batch~~ way too many!! I'm going to try my hand at taking better pictures, and maybe even having some more pictures for a tutorial or something.

Today is just NOT my day!!

2011-10-03T08:13:00.001-04:00

This morning is NOT looking like a good morning for me... not even a little bit.

Our friends Bob and Keona are leaving today, so we had a little cook-out get together here at the house last night. Well, since there were 4 kids and 4 adults, we let the kids sit in the living room and eat. Their lil guy who is 2, was sitting on the floor eating his mac & cheese and hot dog so I decided that all the dogs should be in the dog/laundry room. Now, we were doing some hard core cleaning yesterday and Sam (in all his wisdom) put every single piece of clothing that was on the floor in the dirty clothes. Now, normally I do a fairly decent job of putting clothes up and hanging the ones that need to be, but lately it's gotten away from me. Well, HALF of the clothes that were in the basket were clothes that still needed to be put away and were sitting in front of Sams dresser for him to put away, which were still folded. *sigh* While we were having our little get together, the laundry was sitting in the laundry room, in baskets, waiting for me to run it thru the appropriate cycles of wet and dry, along with the dogs! Well, Dusty must have a love of khaki pants because she pulled a pair of Sams pants right out of the basket, pulled them into her crate, and chewed the button right off the top!!! I discovered that this morning when I went to feed them.

But the first thing that set me off was when I woke up! Doc woke me up an hour early by barking FROM THE LIVING ROOM! Apparently Sam had slept on the couch (again) and shut the door to the bedroom with only Dusty and Lilly in the bedroom (where she has no problem not chewing clothing... strange) and so during the middle of the night he must have gotten cold or something because he went into the kids bathroom and tore out every single bit of TP and everything else that was in the trash can (I have no idea why TP is in the trash can and not being flushed down the toilet) and placed it in various areas of the house ranging from the hall to the bathroom to the living room. There is a nice little trail actually!

I noticed before I even got out of bed that Sam didn't hold up on his end of the bargain for having the windows open last night! It was FREEZING! The current temperature is 38 degrees at almost 8AM. It was colder when I woke up.... almost 4 hours ago. Sam was SUPPOSED to close the windows up before he came to bed... but I guess his argument will be that he didn't come to bed so he didn't have to shut the windows. *heavy sigh* When I asked him last night where my big, thick, keeps-me-warm-at-night comforter was he responded with "I threw it away because it had holes in it." *sobbing* So, instead of having a sheet, a throw, and comforter so I can turn my fan on and drown out his TV show... I have a sheet and a throw.... and a Greyhound... LOL There was NO WAY I was turning on that fan... not even pointing away from me! It was already cold enough as it was, but when I tried to get Sam to shut the windows... noooooooo!!! I have a feeling that I'm going to come down with a cold sometime soon... :-/

OH! Remember my last post about going to the eye doctor and needing a CT? Well, the drops are working a bit, but now I'm on 2 drops because the itchiness didn't go away. I was supposed to have a CT with contrast, but apparently my body doesn't want the contrast!

A couple of days before I was supposed to have the CT done, I was having episodes where it felt like someone was punching me in the chest and walking away, complete with the feeling that I couldn't catch my breath. I complained about it to my bestie and she said "Well, you have been anxious a bit lately, maybe it's just anxiety?" I chalked it up and went on about my daily business. That evening I started having REALLY bad chest pains! It felt like I got punched in the chest, no matter how deep I breathed I didn't feel like I had enough oxygen, it hurt to breath, move, my arms were tingling, it felt like someone had their hands around my throat right under my jaw bone and the pain went up into my neck and my jaw was tingling! So, of course, I send my loverly sister the Cardio Nurse a text message asking her what I should do, and she said that if I were one of her patients she would send me to the hospital. So, we packed up and went to the ER. When we got there, there were quite a few people there, but, I was having some SERIOUS chest pains and figured that I would be called back to at least triage right away. NOPE! They gave me a beeper and told me to have a seat. I sat in the ER for more than 2 hours before I got fed up and decided that whatever the ER could do for me right there, they could do for me in the morning, and I walked up to the front to tell them we were leaving, and that I was SHOCKED they hadn't even gotten me into triage in the 2 hours I had been sitting there. So, of course the nurse gives me some crap answer about being busy with other patients while she was looking for my chart.... which she couldn't find! When she finally finds it and looks at it she tells me that if I continue to have discomfort to come back. It was terrible. I thought I was going to die. It hurt so bad! I did eventually fall asleep (after saying my prayers extra well... just in case... ;-P)

The next morning was my CT... and I told them of my chest pains and they told me they couldn't do the contrast and to go to the dr. So... we went back to the ER. It was MUCH better in the daytime! Right into a bed and hooked on about 6 different machines! My starting BP was something like 156/89 (when it's normally about 110/72) with a resting heart beat of 112 (when it's normally about 80). I got some tasty (Seriously! I wanted more!) orange Asprin, blood drawn, chest xray, EKG, all kinds of stuff... and it was all within 10 minutes of walking in the door! Of course, they all asked me why I left and I told them exactly why. If I was going to die, I would rather it be in my own home and not in the ER waiting room. They asked me all kinds of questions that I didn't exactly have the answer too (family history stuff... I'm never good with that stuff....) They said that they were okay, but not normal, and told me to follow up with Cardio. Well.... the way our insurance works is, we have to have EVERYTHING done thru our primary first, and if they can't do it, then we're sent to a specialist. When I made my appointment it was SUPPOSED to be Dr Hott-stuff, but apparently he couldn't make it because it was Dr I'm-50-and-think-I'm-20 Hippy. She told me that there was NOTHING wrong with EKG and that if I insisted on being sent to a Cardio then she would put the referral in but didn't think I needed it. She also told me that the thing that the ER dr was calling "suspicious" could be anxiety... then she changed her mind and said I probably had heartburn and was going to test me for some bacteria via a needle stick, gave me a script for what is basically Malox... then changed her mind again and said it was a heart murmur. I took my 2 EKGs and faxed them to my sister. ;-)

I have to call today to see if they got my referral back yet so I can see who my dr is and get an appointment set up. I was going to try and get back into shape, but I think that I will wait until I get the all clear from cardio before I decide to do any exercising other than some yoga and some squats and crunches!

Overall... It's been a CRAZY last week!!!!

Eye love going to the Dr!

2011-09-21T11:10:00.001-04:00

Remember when I scratched my eye? Well, it kept giving me problems. CONSTANT problems, dry itchy, painful almost every day and when the lights are low, there is a dark blurry spot in the middle of me eye!

So, after much pushing and prodding from my friends, I decided that I should probably make an appointment to see the doctor about it. When I did finally go see the doctor he was very helpful . He gave me some eye drops and told me that if my eye didn't get better that he would put in a referral for me to have a medical exam at the eye doctors. It didn't get better and I got my referral. :-/

I go to the eye doctor yesterday and he says that my eye is really red, and I tell him it's also dry and itchy as well. Basically he told me that I have Episcleritis.

He's also sending me for a CT scan to see what could be causing the dark circle in my vision. I will have more info for you guys in about 3 weeks.

It's perfect... and I hate that!

2011-09-15T21:17:00.001-04:00

So, I know that have been gone for what seems like a zillion years! Sorry about that! Quite a bit has changed since the last time that I wrote.

So... my eye is still acting all wonky (yes... it's a very technical word!) even tho I scratched it all the way in the beginning of JULY!! I go to the eye Dr on Tuesday. I'm hoping that he can look at it and tell me what's wrong. You would think that a scratch would have healed by now!

The garden wasn't a complete loss, but, it wasn't that great either. Hurricane Irene kinda wiped what was left of our garden out. Of course, there wasn't much left after my trip to Houston!!

Hubs has FINALLY got his medical board findings back! he's going to get 100% medical retirement!! WOOOHOOOO! He's basically decided that he wants to go to school for Electrical Engineering. Which is fine. Whatever he wants as long as he follows through with it!

So, like I normally do, I put the cart before the horse and decided to look at some houses. This is super dangerous!!!! 1) because I always find something that I like II) because I have no idea what areas of town are "good" or "bad" and C) because I absolutely found the most beautiful house that I could ever hope to own and it's significantly less than what we paid for our modular!!! I'll show you guys... it's here. If I could, I would drop everything and move right into this house immediately! Why do I do this to myself? I find "the one" and know that by the time we are ready to move it's not going to be there. :'-(

That's all for now... I'll try and come back and update this with a better post... but.. I thought I would revive the ol' blog here tonight. :-)

Just wanted to tell you about this

2011-07-19T10:20:00.000-04:00

So, just for a little disclosure, I did receive this product as a promotional gift, but all of the opinions are my own and I have no received any compensation other than the free use of their product.

As part of a BzzAgent campaign I received a free year of back up storage from SafeSync.

I often don't back up my information. It's just not something that I do. I figure that if something is REALLY important on my computer, then I've already got it stashed away somewhere online (facebook, myspace, picasa, and photobucket for pictures and gmail for pretty much everything else.)
I started thinking, when this promo came up, about how not everything is safe online, and how SOME things I DON'T put online. In comes SafeSync. I can upload all of my content that I want to save to SafeSync and it's safe! (hence the first part of the name) Now, say that while I'm at my Mommas next week I decide that there is an important document that I need to work on. It's stuck on my computer! Now, I could call Sam and have him email it to me, and risk him not finding the right document, or not even being able to find it at all. With SafeSync, as long as I've uploaded it, I can access it from wherever I am with a web-based interface! No downloading to Mommas computer. (I'm sure she would appreciate that!)
So far this service looks like it will be fairly easy. The interface is simple and easy to navigate. I haven't been able to see about how easy the web interface is when I'm somewhere else to retrieve it, but, I may just do that when I go down to Mommas and let you all know! :-)
Now, if you, my loyal readers, want to have some protection as well, I've got a code that you can use for a discount! If you go to SafeSync and enter the code "BZZ20" you will receive a discount when you sign up! :-)

I wish I was my dog

2011-07-11T12:59:00.001-04:00

Doc and Dusty have the EASIEST lives in the world. I guess they deserve it tho.

Oh my eye!!

2011-07-06T07:17:00.001-04:00

My eye has been giving me fits. It hurts REALLY badly. I've been trying not to rub it or anything but tht's really hard. It's hard to eep my eyes open! I think i'm going to have Sam drive me to the dr this morning. Maybe they can help. Jesus PLEASE let them be able to help!!

***UPDATE: I scratched my eye!

Just seeing how this works.

2011-07-03T17:33:00.001-04:00

Pay no attention to the girl behind the curtain... just playing with a blogger app on my phone seein how this works!

Oh... and I should be able to add pictures. Lets see if that happens.

Harvest weigh in... with no weight! :-P

2011-06-28T11:44:00.000-04:00

So.. I don't have anything coming out of my garden yet, but, we're getting closer!

Here are the cukes this morning. They're really starting to get big!! They do have flowers, but they're inside the tangled mass of vines. :-P

Remember that ity bitty bit of watermelon vine from last week? Yeah... that's this week! And this is inside...

Monks pumpkins are growing well...

and it finally has a flower!! I'm pretty sure that this is a male flower tho... so females can't be far behind.

The strawberries runners have runners! I'm not quite sure if I should cut these off or let them go. :-/

The tomatoes are continuing to get bigger and bigger! We're going to buy some more cages on pay day. They keep SHOOTING up! There is considerable size difference in just a couple of days with these guys. It makes me really happy that we are getting closer to having something edible from our garden.

The corn is getting bigger as well! Should be about another month and we should have some fresh corn on the cob!! WOOOO!

In other news... I've got about 50 newly hatched snails. I gave away 6 (I think) egg clutches and still have about 8 more. Apparently they are starting to hatch as well. The eggs that have already hatched for me are purple and ivory. The ivories are so darling! I did keep another clutch... and I'm thinking about keeping one from Bugs tank as well. She might have some nice blues! That would be really awesome.

Monk has been doing a summer "refresher course" on 6th grade. We worked on some math problems today and he found 2 incorrect answers on the answer sheet! Good job Monk!

I'll be ordering more supplies for Charwood Candle in the next couple of days as well. Still not exactly sure what I'm going to order. I guess I better nail that down before I go to order, eh? We still have some of the others left, so if you want to know send me an email here and I can let you know what we have left. :-)

Other than that I think we're pretty much done with news! :-D

So... I'm just going to say it...

2011-06-26T08:01:00.001-04:00

Since Sam is due to get out of the Marine Corps soon... we've been looking into government jobs that he might be able to do. One of those jobs is the Environmental Protection Agency. We LOVE this job. Not only does it make use of his biology degree, we're both passionate about saving the plant. We've planted a few trees in the yard, we're wanting to grow more produce and meats on our own or buy locally so we can cut down on the amount of traveling that our food does, we don't use paper towels, we're looking into putting up a clothes line. Just a few things we've done, or want to do to help just a little bit. (Oh... and Sam bought a Hybrid... LOL)

The thing about this job tho is... we would have to move. The job is about a 2.5 hour drive from here. We're okay with that tho! If we DO move... we want to get a place with more land. When we started talking seriously about this EPA job, of course I got excited and started looking at houses in the area. Of course I just happened to find one that I fell in love with. Head over heels!

It's a 1901 farm house on 8.6 acres! It needs some TLC, but, I think with the right tools, Sam and I could really put it back together... as long as it was structurally sound. I mean... if it needed something done with the foundation or anything like that... we'd be screwed! But I think things like new windows, repairing walls, flooring, things of that nature... I think we could do that! The one thing that I've seen from the description and pictures is... no central air and baseboard heat... ACK! That means that we would need to put in central air... or window units... or just be warm in the summer!

Oh! I did contact a realtor about it... she said that there is train tracks behind the house, but the train only goes through once or twice a week... and that they just opened a rock quarry up the road. Oiy! The rock quarry thing is a bit concerning... but... living here... large blasts mean essentially nothing! I think it would hard to get used to no helios, no busy country road, no Marines, no commissary, and no "lets take a trip to the ocean tomorrow"!! But... I think that living in the country would be so great. (Other than the mosquitoes and ticks..... and JUNE BUGS! *shudder*) There are farmers markets, and it seems to be a quaint little town! The realtor is super nice! She said that she would stop by and take a few pictures for us on Monday. I was really impressed by that! I think that even if we don't get this house... that when we DO move... we will probably use her. She's been super awesome. :-)

Other than that... we have some other crazy news in the area. There's a wild fire blazing about 30 miles from here. They've got it about 20% contained at the moment, and have said that it's not jeopardizing any homes at this time. Which is a great thing!! This past week we went to MCAS New River to have a family fun day and the smoke was just terrible!! When we got home from that it was "snowing" ash at our house! It was hot. muggy, and just all around miserable! Also... every time I walked outside I wanted a s'mores! (Even more terrible!!)

Ivy Hill looks fantastic!! (Other than our "holy" beans... stupid bugs!) I checked on it this morning when I woke up... and before the fog rolled in (where did that come from? wasn't here 10 minutes ago!) and everything looked great! We have a few watermelons going, one of which is already the size of the end of my thumb! Cuh-razy! The first planting of corn is getting really tall! It's already to my hip, and some of it is taller than that! The tassels are starting to come out on a few of them as well. Here in about another month, I'll have me some fresh corn on the cob! Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!

How does YOUR garden grow?

2011-06-21T13:27:00.000-04:00

So, I've been chatting on this forum called The Easy Garden for some time now. They have some really great people there that are very helpful! I was having an issue with my big box bought tomatoes, everyone tried to help me solve the problem with their best guess. It was almost like a game of Clue... but nobody (card character or otherwise) died. One of the lovely ladies started a Weekly Weigh In to see how much food we are growing. While we don't have anything to harvest for a weigh in yet, I do need to start documenting the garden more!

You, loyal readers, know about Ivy Hill, our little patch of Earth to grow food. It has come quite a ways in the last few weeks! Here are a few new pictures!

Here's the over all. Corn in front, then pumpkins and watermelon, peppers and another mound of pumpkin and watermelon, cucumbers and beans, tomatoes and what should have been onions and carrots, Strawberries in the farthest bed and then behind that 2 blueberries!

Hot peppers! I'm not exactly sure WHERE we're going to put these! I'm leaning towards on the front porch maybe. If we plant them in the garden then our sweet peppers and hot peppers will cross pollinate leaving us with neither hot nor sweet peppers next year! LOL

Here are some herbs! We have basil, oregano, and cilantro. I believe these are going to get put out in the garden. I did notice a few more pepper plants trying to make there way thru the surface (we resowed about 2 weeks ago!) so I might wait a bit longer yet. If nothing else, I'll get some more bigger pots for them to be transplanted into.

The newer tomato plants that our neighbor gave us. They started out rather small! They're getting pretty big now! I was pretty surprised! I can't wait to have some vine ripe tomatoes!! Mmmmm!!

Cucumbers are starting to look REALLY good! Of course, these are the only 2 that made it, but, I think for not having a CLUE what we were doing... I think we did okay with these! LOL I think we're going to go ahead and start a few more as well by this weekend. I want to direct sow, Sam wants to start them inside. I guess we could do both and see what works for us. (I'm rooting for direct sow! LOL) I also think that the spot we had designated for the "sprawl" cucumbers we might replant the herbs in.

This loverly specimen (picture taken this morning at about7AM) now have a lovely yellow flower hidden in it's leaves! :-)

Sams watermelons! There were 6 flowers on this when I went to check on them. There are already a couple that have had their flowers fall off and have teeny tiny watermelons! So exciting! It's our first bit of "food"!

Some of our corn is starting to get tall! There are a few of them that are starting to really shoot up there and are almost hip level already!

The 2nd round of plants are all (at least I think what will come up) up but are only a few inches tall.

Our strawberries are doing REALLY well! Quite a few of them have runners! I can't WAIT for next year so we can actually EAT some of them! LOL

Here are the sweet peppers! There are a a few more that are popping up now... even tho we planted them about 2-3 weeks ago! Crazy stuff!!

And of course the blueberries!! The one in front we got as a teeeeeeeeeny tiny lil thing the beginning of April. We then couldn't get it in the ground for a little while and they almost died before we got them in the ground. One died after we got it in the ground so we bought another from Lowes, which is in the background. Both are doing well actually.

Our little grapes! There are 3 others just like this one, some as full, some not. I just love the contrast of green tho. The purple thing in the back is the dogs Kong... LOL

Our apple heavy trees! I can't believe they're actually producing already! They seem so small, but this is the 2nd time that they've produced anything. I just hope that the tree is strong enough to keep all those apples up there! Maybe I'm not giving our little trees enough credit... but still!

Our lone pear is still chuggin away!! You go pear!!

I think the birds ate most of the mulberries this year. :-( It's okay!! Next year!!

Bugs marigolds!! They're doing pretty well. I can't wait for them to bloom! When they start to die I'll cut the flowers and save the seeds for next year. :-)

There it is! Things have done quite a bit of growing in the last few weeks since I posted pictures last.

YAY!!!

2011-06-12T06:17:00.009-04:00

Happy birthday to me (cha cha cha)

Happy birthday to ME! (cha cha cha!)
Happy birthday dear meeeee!

Happy birthday to me! (Cha cha cha!)

It's been a while

2011-06-09T16:06:00.000-04:00

I'm still here I promise!

I've just been super busy!!

The Ivy Hill is doing well! We've been learning lots of new things about gardening! It's a lot of fun that's for sure. The apple trees are heavy with small green apples! There are quite a few apples for such small trees. Our 1 lonely pear is still workin it's way to maturity! We only have ONE of the original tomato plants left, and it's not even in the ground.. it's in a pot on the back porch. Maybe that's what's saving it.

Last week Sam and I took our neighbor to the doctor because she was complaining of being dizzy. She "repaid" me by giving me some tomato plants for our sad little garden. She started them from seed as well. I guess I just need to be more proficient at sewing seeds!! Sam and I put them in the ground yesterday... but today they are looking a bit sad. :-( I sure hope that todays heat didn't kill them. Of course... I also hope that us putting some shredded paper in the soil with them isn't hurting them either!! If these tomatoes die... I think I'm done with gardening for a while.... LOL

Our beans are doing really well! They're currently being attacked by some bean leaf beetles tho... so.. we're trying to remedy that situation. I think we might be okay tho. Yesterday there were LOADS of them... today I only seen a handful. Of course... this was after I got the grand idea to dilute some dish soap and spray all the plants with it. I think I may have inadvertently killed one of Monks pumpkins.... about an hour after I sprayed them it was looking pretty wilty and not very happy with it's bath. :-/ I guess we will see by tomorrow or so!

The candle biz continues to grow. I think we may add soap to the mix as well!! That way we would be selling candles AND soap! Not sure how I'm going to go about things yet tho.

My birthday is in a few days. My mom has been in a kick of posting photos of us when we were younger on her blog. I'm almost half scared to see what she's going to post of me. I was a rather geeky looking child!! Sam and the kids already got me my birthday presents, but, I'm sure that they won't be able to resist getting at least SOMETHING for my actual birthday. I'm really hoping that it's a day off!! LOL Mom and Kevin got me a BEAUTIFUL picture album from Shutterfly. It will surely be one that I keep forever!

The kids last day of school is tomorrow!! AAAHHHH! From there we're planning a trip to Texas, probably late in July. Buggy starts cheerleading for the pee-wee football team in August as well! She's very excited to start that.

Okay.. well.. I think that's all I have to say for right now!

The Ivy Hill

2011-05-23T09:46:00.000-04:00

For those of you that read my blog on a regular basis... know that I had a friend pass not but a few days ago.

I said that we named our garden after Lindsay and Sams daughter, Ivy. The Ivy Hill

I just wanted to put up some pictures I took the other day. I know it's not much, but it will be!

Front bed: strawberries
Right side beds: 1 onions and carrots 2 green and yellow bush beans
Right side ground: potatoes (will be planted) watermelon and corn will be planted in 2 weeks
Left side beds: 1 Tomatoes (planted, but not in this pic) 2 Cucumbers, 3 Red/Green peppers
Left side ground: Pumpkins (Monks) and Corn

View from the house

Apples!!

Our one lonely Pear. The rest of them were blown off with the tornado in April

We planted this mulberry bush about 3 weeks ago. When we planted it, it was a brown twig!!

To one of the nicest persons I've ever known.

2011-05-20T06:34:00.001-04:00

I want to tell you about a person that I was glad to call friend. Lindsay Hill.

The school I went to was one of those old town schools, where everybody knew everybody, and people rarely moved. I went to the same school from Kindergarten until I graduated. Sometimes that was hard. I BEGGED my mom to let me go to a different school on many occasions. When I finally had the opportunity to, I begged to be able to finish with all of my friends.

Lindsay was one of those people that everybody loved. You couldn't help but like her. She was smart, friendly, athletic, and always had a smile on her face. Her family owned a farm in the area, much like about a forth of our school. She was active in the FFA , played basketball, and was even in the flag corps!

I was not in the popular crowd like Lindsay. She, unlike myself, was loved by everyone, students and teachers alike. It just seemed like whenever you would talk to her, it didn't matter who you were or what your social status was, she was a friend. She was like that with everybody.

I share many fantastic memories with Lindsay. Yesterday is a memory that I wish I didn't have to share with anyone ever again.

I posted on her facebook wall that she would be proud of me because, while it wasn't anything big, we had started a family garden. Then, another friend from our graduating class sent me a msg telling me that Lindsay had been killed in a 2 car accident that morning. I was floored. I didn't know what to say. How could this be? WHY! She was 31 years old, she still had her whole life ahead of her, why would God take such a wonderful person away from us? She was such a light in the darkness! I spent the rest of the evening in and out of crying. Sam got me to go out and work in the garden, said that it would help me get my mind off of the whole thing. I decided right there that I was going to dedicate our little plot of "farm" to her and Sams daughter.

Our little plot of Earth will now forever be called The Ivy Hill. There is no Ivy (yet) and the only hills are for pumpkins and watermelons. I would like to get some decorative stones or something to engrave with their names and dates and maybe a little plaque or something.

I lay in bed last night wondering why God would take such a wonderful person, and of course, my human nature kicked in and I got angry. I blamed the other driver, who walked away from that accident virtually unharmed. I wanted him to be some terrible person so it would be easy to blame him for snuffing out this beautiful candle. "Please be some punk kid" I found myself thinking. I looked him up on facebook this morning and he seems to be a nice person. He has the Rosewood Methodist Church website up as his website, and all of his public info is about churches. I just can't bring myself to hate him. It's not what Lindsay would do either. I'm sure he is hurting right now as well. Not only because he was in an accident, not just physical pain.

I sent a msg to her husband, tho they are separated. I'm sure he is going thru a lot right now as well. I send my prayers to the entire family, and to the family of the other driver. I'm sure that they are dealing with things as well.

Rest in peace dear friend. You will never be forgotten.

Lindsay Nicole Hill

10/25/79 - 5/19/11

Candles??

2011-05-17T20:42:00.000-04:00

Just to let you know... the candle shop IS OPEN!!

Charwood Candle on Etsy

I only have 3 items in there right now, but, I do have more candles than that! :-) I promise! :-D

Results

2011-05-17T06:13:00.001-04:00

So... I finally got the official time from the 5k, and I have to say that I am more than a bit confused.

My official time was 47 minutes flat.

Now... there was a lady from our church that I ran the ENTIRE race with. We crossed the finish line together... and her husband (who didn't run with us because he ran a much faster time) came back a ways and ran across the finish line (for a second time) with us. She's not listed with me! (And for the life of me I can't remember her last name... haha)

I'm very confused because when I crossed the finish line it said 46! No... I didn't mistake it for a 6 but it was an 8... it was a 6 I would bet my life on it!

All in all... I guess what REALLY matters is that I did it, not the time that I did it in. But, I would be lying if I said that 47 didn't bother me. I guess that just means more training, and more races! Maybe someday, I'll go run a half marathon with RJ! ;-)

Wounded Warriors 5k

2011-05-14T17:34:00.000-04:00

So, I did it!! I ran my very first 5k today! There wasn't as much "running" as I would have liked there to be, but, it was there! My OFFICIAL time won't be up until Monday *grumble grumble* so I will do a full write up then!

I just wanted to let you all know that I DID finish... I DID jog across the finish line, and I DID promptly dump a bottle of water over my head!! LOL

My unofficial time was 46 minutes and some change, but there were a LOT of people in front of me before I got to cross the start line. But the timer at the finish line said 46:(something) when I crossed! I guess we will see on Monday! :-)

Wounded Warrior 5K!!

2011-05-09T14:26:00.000-04:00

So, I'm signed up! On Saturday I'll be running in the Wounded Warrior 5K! It will be my first 5K as an adult, and my first one that I'll actually be running!! (I did one in HS for MS that I walked with my 4H club) I'm so stinkin excited!!!!!

What I'm NOT excited about is that my bone spur has been acting up and causing me to have pain in my Achilles tendon! GRR!! I took some advice from my friend RJ and decided that I was going to try KT Tape. I bought it today. Bright pink! ^.^ Only thing is... they have one application for "heel pain" and another for the "Achilles tendon" and I don't know which one to do! I wouldn't really call it HEEL pain, it IS in my tendon.... I did send them an email asking which application that I should use, but I haven't heard back yet. I'm going to train again on Wednesday and then maybe a light workout on Friday and then off to the race on Saturday! SOOOO EXCITED!!!!

The only other thing that I have to say about the race right now is, if you would like to donate to the Wounded Warriors, you can do so under my name! You go here and type in my name in the participants box Jacque Charwood. You don't have to.. I'm not begging, BUT! If you would like to, here's your opportunity! :-)

My training today? I ran 2.5 miles in just over 30 minutes. Not terrible... but not exactly great either! ;-) I guess I need to build up more endurance and get a lil faster. It will come with time! :-D

I'm saailing aaaawaaaaay!

2011-04-29T09:47:00.001-04:00

No, not really. I just couldn't think of anything else to title it as. (Yes, I know I broke like 6978 bloglaws.... why?)
Anyways! Yesterday we had some more storms roll thru. This time Bug was home. Before the storms even got anywhere near us, I ran down the plan of action with the kiddos. Monk acted like a pro! "Yeah Mom... I know... we put on these bike helmets, get in the bath tub and huddle together in a downward motion." Bug on the other hand didn't really know what to do, so we showed her a few times and got on with our day.

We went to WalMart to get some tape and exchange our digital scale for the candle company. It was about 8:30 when we got there. It was almost a ghost town! There were very few cars in the parking lot, and there was only one person in the "speedy check out" buying smokes. I chatted with the cashier, we joked about the upcoming weather and how people around here go crazy in any type of weather. Which is pretty true, but I think that this freak out was just a bit warranted considering we had 3 confirmed tornadoes in town (Up to F3s!) less than 2 weeks ago. One of the guys that I used to work with was posting on facebook about how he thought everyone was stupid for being so freaked out about the storm because it's spring and we always get storms. I reminded him of the tornadoes and he responded with "Well, they didn't hit me, so what do I care?" I was a bit astonished really.

Then we get a knock on the door. You know that knock... the "Police knock"... that was the one! I sort of froze a bit and then decided that I should answer it. I always get nervous when I hear knocks like that. I think it comes from a few things really. 1) We're in a military town... everybody HATES hearing knocks like that... especially when their loved one is deployed. 2) Sam is still considered active duty, and the thought of something happening to him at work scares the bejesus out of me! 3) Because it scared the bejesus out of me! It turned out to be the UPS man delivering our Raspberry and Strawberry plants! I still can't believe we got SO many!! Now we just need to hurry and make the final prep for the strawberries to go in the ground! ACK! Sam says he's going to work the ground by hand.... somehow I think he's going to peter out before he gets it all done, but he could surprise me! The raspberry bushes were sent in a dormant state, so, we won't be enjoying any raspberries this year, but next year we should get at least a few! (I hope! LOL)

The storm finally approached and it wasn't all that bad. There was a little bit of lightning and a lot of wind! We went thru a "live" drill, where we packed everything into it's spot (important family documents and house insurance info in a waterproof bag with us) and got in the tub. We only stayed there for a little bit, but it was a run! Of course, the dogs were another issue. We didn't want Lilly getting under one of the beds and be struggling to get her out in a REAL emergency, so we shut all the doors to the bedrooms. She decided that under the very bottom section of the table would be a fantastic place to hide. Good thing it wasn't a REAL emergency, I don't know that we would have been able to get her out of there! We finally decided that everything was going to be just fine, and I made taco salad for dinner. We sat down to eat and then the Heavens closed and it suddenly went dark and a DOWNPOUR came. There was TONS of lightning and it was amazing! About 20 minutes after that the Heavens opened again and the sun came out and there was a gorgeous rainbow!

Greys Anatomy was new, so I went to bed a happy camper!!

Prince William and Kate got married this morning, but I managed to get ready to go jogging and fall back to sleep! I have no idea how that happened! Anyways! Now the kids and I are going to go to Sams Club and buy about 685462168 cans of veggies! :-D I hope they all fit in my truck!!

Easter!!

2011-04-25T10:17:00.000-04:00

Well, those of you that know me, or follow me on Facebook, know that I spent all of Saturday making a new Easter dress, and if you follow me on Facebook, you've also seen these pictures! (So sorry...)

Sam bought me a sewing machine for our anniversary last year. I told him I wanted it... I told him that I would use it all the time... that I would start making my own clothes, and Bugs clothes, and that I would even learn how to make him and Monk some clothes! (Do you know how hard it is to find patterns for guys?! Seriously!) Well, In the first year I had the machine, I managed to make a couple of coats for Dusty, make a couple pillows and make a Cat in the Hat costume for a friend of mines son. Other than that... it's not really been used. I feel kinda sad about this really. I have this perfectly good sewing machine just sitting in my closet!

Well, I finally bit the bullet and decided that I was going to make my own Easter dress this year! I got out my handy Chic & Simple Sewing and picked Sam and I picked one out. It was pretty easy! I can admit that I did get a little confused reading the directions on how to put the neck together. It does have illustrations, but, not really knowing anything about sewing, I didn't really get what it was saying. It still looks very nice tho! :-)

In all it took me about 8 hours to make the dress. 1 hour of it was just making that white neck sash!! ACK! It was about 12:30AM when I got to that, and I spent an hour just turning it right side out, and that was with Sams help! LOL I had to laugh in the morning tho. I magically woke up at 6:30 (yes... after 4.5 hours of sleep, I woke up without an alarm.) and decided that I was going to finish up the last bit while everyone was sleeping. There wasn't much left, just hemming the bottom and cutting all the loose threads. I couldn't get the stinking thing to lay flat while I was hemming, so I just used some bias tape and sewed it right up! Everyone really liked it! I'm still in the losing weight section of time right now, so, it didn't fit PERFECT, but, it did fit well. The only thing I would have liked to have changed was the arm loop for the side that doesn't have a tie was a bit too tight for my liking. Of course, I'm used to wearing t-shirts about 95% of the time, the other 4% I'm wearing tank tops, and 1% closer fitting clothes.

Monkey finally got his wish of having his mohawk up and wearing his new sunglasses. He was happier than a pig in poo!! He looks so handsome in his khaki pants and mint green shirt. His hair is getting really long as well! Our Associate Pastor and him have a pretty good understanding of he wants to be like him when he grows up, which is fine by me. Our Associate Pastor is so very nice, and very down to Earth. You wouldn't think by looking at him (and his 2ft tall mohawk) that he would be such an awesomely nice guy!

I asked Buggy if she wanted me to make her a new dress for Easter as well, and she said no, she just wanted her reversible dress sewed up. I'm not quite sure if it's meant to be reversible, but, it has a cute pattern on either side, and no tag, so, she can chose to wear the paisley side, or the polka dot side. She chose the polka dot side. (I think she might have it on backwards, but with no tag, there's no way to tell!! LOL)

Unfortunately, we didn't get a family shot, or even a me & the kids shot! We went to the early service (9:30) because Monk and I were helping in the nursery for the 2nd service. I was in with the babies (under 1) and Monk was helping in the 2-3 year olds. There were 11 babies in the nursery! Apparently in the 4-5 year olds there were 22!! ACK! I couldn't imagine that many in a room no bigger than a bedroom!! LOL

Anyways... I know you're dying to see a picture of ME in the dress... so... here it is!

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter! I'm off to pour some candles, and make another dress!! I also got a very nice silky purple fabric that I will use with the white to make another dress. I'll post again when I get it done! :-)

Earth Day!

2011-04-22T21:25:00.000-04:00

So... I was going to write this great lil ditty about how we do our part to protect Mother Earth... but.. then I got lost in Laundryland. It's a terrible place I tell you! If you can avoid going there, I suggest that you do... at all costs! Tho, visiting Laundryland does make it considerably easier to not smell... and not be sunburnt! ;-)

I do want to take a bit to comment on ways that we do try to do our part to help the Earth.

We turn off lights when we aren't in the room.
We turn off the AC/heater when it's not needed.
We try to buy produce that is locally grown when we can.
We're starting a garden, and already have fruit trees and will be planting grapes and blueberries this weekend.
We recycle everything that we can.
We compost our kitchen scraps.
Sam has a hybrid car.
I don't drive unless I need to.
We donate clothes to local thrift stores, or resell them so they can be reused.
We don't use paper towels.
I shred and use our "junk mail" as packing for our candle company.

Those are the ones that I can think of right now. I'm sure that we do more, but, I just can't think of them right now. I'm sure had I done this post when I had it on my mind, it would have been a more informative post!

What do you do to help Mother Earth?

Oooklaho... wait... Nooorth Carolina where the wind.... wait... what?

2011-04-16T23:09:00.000-04:00

So... as some of you know, there was a LOT of bad weather that swept thru North Carolina tonight. So far, at 10PM 16/April/2011 there have been 62 tornadoes in North Carolina, and at least 2 in Jacksonville.

Don't worry, we're okay!! We live on the west side of town, more over towards Richlands, and the most severe weather was on the north side towards Hubert.

There was some serious weather here tho... and there is more and more information coming out all the time as well... if you would like to read about what's going on here... click here for information!

It's already Saturday?! :-(

2011-04-16T10:53:00.000-04:00

So, we all had a fantastic time with my sister visiting!! They got here about 9pm on Tuesday. I let the kids stay up until they got here because I KNEW that if I didn't, they weren't going to go to sleep anyways! So, they got here, and we did a lot of hugging, and kissing, and professing how big the kids have gotten etc etc. Then I made the kids go to bed so they could get up and go to school the next day. (Yeah, I know) I did kinda pull a fast one on Monkey tho. He had a doctors appointment at 3, so I went and picked him up at about 2. As soon as he comes out of the classroom he's running up the hall towards me saying "Are they here?! Are they here?!" I laughed and told him no that he had an appointment. He said "Man! I was hoping they were here already!!!" He's so cute!!

Wednesday we did some running around in town. We went to Toys R Us to get Monkey a K'nex Ferris Wheel that he had been wanting (I guess... because he never said anything to me about it!! LOL). This thing is REALLY cool!!

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When Monk got home he put it together in about 30 minutes. It's about the only bad thing in buying him stuff like that. He puts it together really quickly and then doesn't know what to do after that! I think I'm going to try and broaden his horizons and see if he can make something that's NOT in the instructions!

They also got Bug some Squinkies. For those of you that don't know what those are...

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except hers have hair. They're like tiny Troll dolls! They don't really serve a purpose, and they're REALLY small (think plastic gumball containers that have those little rings in them). Of course... Troll dolls didn't really have a purpose either... and we even had clothes for those things!! Wednesday night we had hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill. It was tasty!!!

Thursday I let the kids stay home from school. Yes... I let them skip school. It's one day, and they haven't seen their aunt in 2 years, so sue me! We all went to Topsail Island and hung out there for a while.

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I put sunscreen on Monks head, because he rarely takes his shirt off in the house, much less public! Turns out this was not going to work. He took his shirt off and his blinding white skin was exposed. I told him to go have his aunt put some sunscreen on him when he put his shirt up near our stuff while the rest of us (his other aunt, sister, and myself) were looking for cool seashells. Apparently it didn't translate well and he didn't get sunscreen. Then I thought she said he didn't have any on his belly... she really said BODY! He now has a pretty good sunburn on his back. I, on the other hand, bring the sunscreen, apply it to others, and magically forget myself...... every time! I have a sunburnt face and arms. My arms are almost brown now... interesting... no peeling.... yet! We have dinner at Mikes Farm, which is one of our FAVORITE places in all of the area to eat. We all came home and fell into bed with full bellies!

Friday, the kids went to school again, and we did a little more shopping! My sister got a new pair of Dr Martin boots! MAN! I really want a new pair!! The only bad thing is, they don't have ladies, or sandals! :-( Then when the kids got home from school, we played a little Ultimate Band and went to Emerald Isle for some dinner at Jordan's Seafood

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It was pretty good!! Our waitress was AWESOME! We ended up leaving her a pretty good tip as well. We went across the street to get some tourist goodies. My sisters got a couple sweatshirts and t-shirts. Sam bought Monkey a solar powered flower bug, and Buggy a couple of shirts, and he got me a couple of turtle things because he knows my thing is sea turtles (and sloths... but you don't find many cute sloth items...).

This morning I woke up with the sun to get Bug off to go to the Great Wolf Lodge for her Girl Scout trip. They left at 6:45. Around 8 my sisters woke up and started to get everything ready to get on the road, and at 10:30 they left. :-( I already miss them, but I know that they have to go home and take care of their lives at home. I love you guys!

Maybe next year we will have to go up to Ohio and visit everyone, but I think it would be in August.... when it's warm. have you seen the weather for this time of year up there??? (High today is 55!! No thanks!! LOL)

Today, we've got to go to the Farmers Market again and then Sam wants to look at a gun and then we're going to clean the house. It's going to be an icky icky ICKY day today... so... we're staying in today! :-)

I ordered the wrong sized wicks for the candles... so I'm ordering more of those and then Charwood Candle will be fully operational! We will be selling our candles for $9. But, if you would like to pre-order, let me know and I will put you on the list!!

heavy sigh

2011-04-12T13:23:00.000-04:00

I'm feeling a lil down today. Despite the fact that my sister will be here in like 6 hours, I feel like pooh. I have no motivation today. :-/

I keep checking the orders for the candle supplies. I wanted them here already. Yes, I know I don't have a teleporter, but dangit! I dunno... maybe it's the fact that I'm trying to get my family members to help a little more around the house and the one person that I want the most is just not picking up their end of the stick. It's hard to teach children responsibility when only half of their parents are showing them how to do it. I can admit... sometimes I'm not the best model either!

I hate having to be bossy and angry! But it seems like when I am... things get done. Nobody seems to want to do anything before I have to yell about it. The kids are getting better... Sam... not so much! He just doesn't care. I think that makes me even angrier than him not doing what I've asked. MANY friends say "It's just a guy thing." but I don't want it to be a "guy thing." Because that means that I've either got to learn to deal with my husband not caring if I'm upset... or I'm going to have to learn to not care myself. *sigh*

Case in point... I HATE being late. I was perpetually late when I was younger. I didn't care. I didn't even wear a watch (I still don't but I have a cell phone... )Now? It really bothers me when I'm late for something, especially if it's something that I want to do. This past Sunday, I was up at 7, Bug up by 7:30, Monkey up by 8. I told Sam to get up at 7:30 so he could go take a shower and we could get to church a bit early and whatnot. NOPE! He dinked around until 9:15, we didn't get in the car until 9:20 and church starts at 9:30! (And no... we don't live 10 minutes or less from church) He can't understand that I want to get to church early... so I have time to get to my seat, to chat to others, and really be ready when worship starts. Instead, we show up late, I have to find my seat in the dark, no time to talk to anyone, and worship has already started. FRUSTRATING!! His excuse is "It's the weekend, why are you always in such a hurry?"

*heavy sigh*

Is it seriously too much to ask? Am I just destined to always be late if I want our family together for things? I don't WANT to take 2 cars to church! It's wasteful and bad for the environment. He says he wants to be more green, he bought a hybrid car so he could reduce his carbon footprint, and to save on gas. but, I'm really failing to see where it goes any farther.

ANYWAYS!! I'm going to go finish cleaning up. I just heard the dryer stop. I threw the sheets and pillowcases in the wash so my sister would have fresh linens.

Rolling right along!

2011-04-10T20:41:00.000-04:00

So, I failed again this week for Project 365! I stink!! I swear! :-(

Anyways! On to good news!

I got my new shoes. Sam gave me a $100 budget for running shoes. This is how much I paid for my Nikes, so, that's what he was expecting, especially since I told him that I wanted a pair of Brooks that were $80. Well, I went with my friend Keona to breakfast, and then we went shoe shopping. I found a GREAT pair of Adidas that I fell in LOVE with! They were grey, white, and light baby blue! They were comfortable, and PURDY! Then I found a pair of Asics that I fell in love with the gel padding in it. They are one of the most comfortable pairs of shoes that I have ever worn. So, I bought them both. I got them BOGO 1/2 off, so, with tax and everything for both pairs of shoes I paid $95! I immediately called Sam and said that I had good and bad news for him. I then told him that the bad news was that I had bought 2 pair of shoes. Of course, his reaction to that "Why did you do that?! I told you that you had a $100 limit!" Then I said, "Well, the good news is that for both pair I paid $95 total." HA!!

We've bought a few things that we've needed for a while. We got some lawn stuff. We got some new hedge trimmers because our old pair broke. A pitch fork because Sam is starting a compost heap. We got some new mulch for the trees, and a few other things in the way of lawn care products. We also bought a couple grape and blueberry plants. We probably won't have any of those this year, but we should have some apples and pears! We bought those a couple of years ago and last year the apple trees produced a couple of apples, but nothing that really would have made anything.

Our biggest purchase was a new desktop computer! It's something that we've needed for a while actually. All we had was the laptop that Sam bought after his last deployment.... in 2007. Now, don't get me wrong, I loved that laptop, but, it was coming to the end of it's life! If you didn't keep it plugged in ALL the time, it would die within 5 minutes, it was barely running some of the programs that we needed to run. This one will be able to run the programs and then some! I did have a little hitch when we first got it home tho. I set everything up, I had to put a hole in the bottom of the desk because I didn't have anywhere else to put the stinkin tower! Then, I had to undo everything and redo it because I put it on the wrong side!! ACK! THEN! I couldn't get the wireless to work. I finally called Staples, which is where we bought it from, and they tell me that it didn't come with wireless ready!! GRR!! I had to break out my old trusty USB wireless adapter. Oh well! It works, and that's all that matters. :-)

OH YES!! I finally got to order the supplies for Charwood Candle! A week from Monday, I should be receiving all of my supplies and I will be able to rock and roll!! I've even already had my very first custom order! A massive 4.5 pound candle!! It's a good thing the customer is local, I don't know that I would have the ability to actually ship that! If you want to check out our candle blog you can do so here.

Things are winding down here for the evening, and I'm getting the kids off to bed, and then I will put myself into bed so that way I can get up bright and early and go jogging!

I hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, and that your week is just as great!! :-)

Really awesome giveaway!

2011-04-07T07:28:00.000-04:00

Amy, over at Positively Splendid, is hosting an AWESOME giveaway!!!

It's a Elmers Party and she's giving away these:

X-ACTO Decorative Edge ScissorsX-ACTO GripsterX-ACTO Circle CutterX-Acto Precision ScissorsCraft Bond Tape RunnerCraft Bond Extra Strength Glue StickCraft Bond Glue SpotsCraft Bond Photo CornersCraft Bond Fabric and Paper GluePainters MarkersGel PensElmer's Bi-Fold Foam Board
Uh... yes please!! Go enter... and if you win... share with me? ;-)

Click here to enter!

Make-up Drawer

2011-04-05T18:12:00.000-04:00

So, today, in my adventures of spring cleaning, decided that I was going to clean out my make-up drawer in the bathroom. Considering it was one of the "big tasks" in the bathroom, I wanted to tackle it first.

Now... that makes it sound like I have a TON of make up. I really don't, it's just everywhere! So, what I did was this
1) took the entire drawer out of the cabinet
2) tried to figure out HOW I was going to organize my drawer and still keep it free
3) aimlessly searched around the house for a while
4) spied a USPS flat rate shipping box
5) folded shipping box to see if it would fit
6) jumped up and down with joy that it did
7) cut apart shipping box
8) super glued sections into box
9) painted box a pretty shade of green
10) waited ~~not so~~ patiently for the paint to dry
11) loaded junk back into drawer
12) marveled at my creation while husband asked "That took you an hour to make?" *insert evil glare*

And... that was about all I got accomplished today. It was a pretty big thing! Not really...

I did manage to get a before (after all the junk I was going to throw away was weeded out) and after picture! :-D

(click it to make it bigger)

Now, instead of digging around screaming "WE'RE GONNA BE LATE TO CHURCH!!!!!" I can quickly find exactly what I'm looking for. I'm quite proud of my little drawer divider, even if it is only made out of cardboard, super glue, and paint.

Now all I have to do is put things back in the right spots when I'm done with them and I will be doing great! :-)

I'M ALIVE!! (sorta...)

2011-04-04T11:18:00.000-04:00

So, I've been UA (for you non-military folk that's Unauthorized Absence) for a while. I apologize. I really do. But... life has been getting in the way of my blogging time! Quite a few things have happened since my last blog post!

1) I did, in fact, start C25K! Tho, I did skip this morning and now I feel like a total poop for not going. I did 3 weeks of the program and didn't skip any days, and then I miss this morning! *pout* To be honest, I THOUGHT I was going to be sick this morning. Not like, throwing up sick, but stuffy nose, sore throat sick. It turns out that it was only because of sleeping all night that my nose was stuffy and my throat hurt. As I lay there saying to myself "I'm sick... I hate being sick!" trying to battle dogs and hubby for bed space and blankets, I realized that I really wasn't sick and I was starting to feel much better, but, by that time it was getting to late to go running. :-( If it's not raining in the morning I will go, if it is, it looks like Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday I will have back to back running days! ACK!

2) Monkey got a cell phone and we cut the house phone. Who really needs a house phone anyways? Other than Bug... who now doesn't have a phone number for her friends to call her at.. other than my cell phone. Oh well, I guess I don't mind too much. Does it make me question whether she should have her own phone? Sure! Does the thought of my 7 (almost 8) year old having a cell phone make my eye twitch and question my sanity? Absolutely!

3) We got a free paint sample from Valspar, and I chose a color close to the one that we will be using to paint Bugs room. It's really pretty up on the wall, but we've got a LOT to do before we can paint her room. I do have plans to put up a cork board so she can hang all of her papers and whatnot and not have tiny holes all over her walls. There are a few other things that I would like to do for her room as well, like put up a chandelier and other things, but, that's not in the budget right now.

4) My sister and her girlfriend are coming down to visit us in about 2 weeks! I'm SO excited!! I haven't seen them since Christmas 08, which was right before Sam and I got married, and the kids haven't seen them since summer of 09! Wow... crazy to think that I've gone that long without seeing parts of my family. I seen my mom and my other sister just this past summer, but I haven't seen my brother since December of 08 either. I guess at some point in time we're going to have to go to Ohio for a visit.

5) I have no idea which days are which on my P365. I'm a terrible photo taker, and I feel like a failure. :-( I'm going to restart it today

6) I'm a thief, but it's okay, I was told to steal by the original owner. (Yes... that sounds strange... LOL) We live at the end of a cul de sac. There are 19 houses on our street. We have the neighbors with the giant house, and then Mr Toms old place. Mr Tom lived across the cul de sac from us, and right beside our neighbor, which would make him our neighbor as well. Well, Mr Tom is an older gentleman, and he sold his house (which was GORGEOUS and I wish we would have bought it instead of ours) and moved into a nursing home. Mr Toms wife passed away right before we moved in (I think). Mr Toms wife always planted beautiful flowers all over the place. The new owners aren't taking very good care of the place, and currently aren't living there because there is no electric or water. Well, Mr Tom told our neighbor to go ahead and take any of the plants that she wants because they're going to waste because nobody is taking care of them. So, my neighbor and I went over there and pulled up quite a few flowers and a couple of Forsythia (I think... LOL) and planted them in MY yard! So... that makes me a thief. :-/

7) I still haven't finished trimming the Crepe Myrtle. I dunno how the heck I'm gonna reach the branches way at the top without tromping all the flowers underneath! I guess I will have to see if someone has a ladder I can borrow. Oh the joys of not having a shed! We're going to have to remedy that very soon! I'm tired of my lawn mower being outside under a tarp, and my gardening tools being in my laundry room! *grumble*

8) I am a parent of a Pee-Wee Football cheerleader. Bug BEGGED us to let her be on the squad this year. So, after a talk with Grammy and Panpaw Punkin-head, she had a check in the mail for the cheerleading fee. (Yes, we're poor... but we're working on that!) We signed her up on Saturday, and she even seen one of the girls in one of the other 2nd grade classes from her school signing up as well! She's very excited to get started. Maybe when we get all our debt paid off we can afford to send her to some tumbling and cheerleading classes! I'm sure she would love that.

9) We've started a "Family SOP" system here in our house. We just implemented it on Saturday, but, so far it's working well. My living room and dining room are spotlessly clean, and the kids rooms are pretty clean as well, and the kids/guest bathroom is rather clean to boot! That just never seems to happen, but it is! The only thing left to perfect is that kitchen. It will get there. I gave Sam the task of putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and I get to hand wash all the pots and pans.

10) I don't know what else to write about right now... but I will think of something, hopefully tomorrow, and be back! :-D

Yes... I suck... I'm sorry!!

2011-03-10T10:13:00.000-05:00

So.. I know I missed P365... and I've been terrible about taking pictures this past week as well. It's so close to P365 for THIS week that I'm just going to wait and post them all together. I'm sorry guys!

There has been quite a bit going on, but it seems like nothing at the same time!! I always feel like I'm busy, but it never seems like much of anything gets done! *sigh!*

Well, I'll just drop a little update down for everyone. After the news of Sam going to Wounded Warrior barracks was handed out, he gave me a little more info. He's not sure that they're even going to approve it, and even if they do, it's only for 90 days at first. If it takes longer than 90 days to get him out of the Marine Corps they can either ship him back to his unit, or keep him at the WW until he is out. Either way, he will be able to focus more on getting out of the Marine Corps and finding employment and whatnot.

A new development for me is, on Monday 14March2011, I'm going to start the Couch 2 5K program. It's basically a running "program" that helps get you in shape to run a 5K (or approximately 3 miles). You can find out more about it here. I downloaded a program on my phone that helps time you. It gives audible beeps for when you're supposed to switch from walking to running. It's quite the nifty little gadget! It essentially gets you from couch potato to 5K runner in a matter of 9 weeks by only working 3 days a week! Of course, I would really like to run MORE than 3 days a week, ideally I would like to run every day!!

The reason why I decided that I wanted to start the C25K program (Couch 2 5K for those that weren't paying attention) is because there is a 1 mile, 5k, 10k, and half marathon here in Jacksonville for the Wounded Warriors. It's called Hope For The Warriors and I would REALLY like to run it! It's only $20 for a single person, but, there is an option for the entire family, which is $65. There is a discount for Sam since he is a Wounded Warrior, tho I'm not sure what that would be. Monkey is on board for doing it. I figure Monkey and I could probably run the 5k, and Bug and Sam could walk the mile.

On another note. The weather here is icky!!

{via wunderground}

That red circle is where we are. Tho it's not as bad as it could have been! Holy moly! It starts pouring, then it stops, pours, stops... etc etc!! It really doesn't impact me all that much, other than I just want to sit on the couch and watch TV all day... more so than usual that is... *shifty eyes*

Speaking of watchign TV! I did find more than one channel on our bunny ears finally!! Tho we don't watch much TV, we have been stuck with only ABC for live TV for quite some time because we turned the cable off to save a little bit of money. It didn't really bother me that much, other than not being able to watch a couple things that I wanted because we didn't have that channel any more (Hello!! Classic Nickelodeon cartoons!! {Random fact: A nickelodeon is also known as a jukebox or as an early movie theatre [yes, I know it's spelled theater in America]}) I was TRYING to watch The Bachelor : The Women Tell All and it wouldn't come in very good so I started messing with the bunny ears. Wednesday I decided that I was going to go thru the channels again and see if we got any of the other ones since I moved the ears. Wouldn't you know it... we now get all the major ones... including FOX! Wooo!! (Hello!! House! {Random Fact: I don't have one for FOX})

Wounded Warriors Battalion

2011-03-04T13:33:00.000-05:00

So, as some of you know, my husband is a Wounded Warrior in the Marine Corps. His isn't exactly a "normal" Wounded Warrior story... because his "wounds" came from stateside. I know that sounds kind of strange to say that a man that has a Bachelors degree in Biology and can remember just about every single major muscle in the human body but can hardly remember if he changed his underwear that morning "isn't a normal injury." ANY injury like that isn't normal, and shouldn't be considered normal in any way shape or form. But, we're military. There are lots of guys that have it much worse than my husband. I know of a blogger who's husband has TBI (like Sam) and he can't even remember his favorite foods. I'm blessed, but I'm also saddened.

Today Sam sent me a text message telling me that his CWO is checking to see if they can get his 90 Day TAD orders. Meaning he might be going to the Wounded Warriors Battalion. When I seen this, I had tears streaming down my face. Partly happy, partly terrified! I'm happy because this is what we've been fighting for for the last almost 3 years! This is what we wanted! To get out, to start leading "regular" lives, to not have to worry about LCpl Soandso calling in the middle of the night because he's drunk and can't drive home, to not have to worry about duty nights, and standing in formation, and being "too fat." This is what we wanted! Right?

The other side of me is so terrified about what is going to happen in the future. What is going to happen with everything? Will he be able to work and still collect his "pension" from the VA? Is he going to be medically retired? Are we still going to have base privileges? What's going to happen with our insurance? So many questions about so many things. I'm scared to death!! I know that the public majority think that military members "have it made," but we're far from it!! I could go into so many things right now, but I won't. I'm not going there. Not today. I'm too stressed right now.

I won! I won! I won!!!!

2011-03-02T15:43:00.000-05:00

I did it!!! I won the lotto!!

Okay... I fibbed. I didn't really win the lotto. Tho... $182 million would put a damper on the debt calculator... that's for sure!! I think we might be able to pay off our debt and redo our house. With that much money I think we could plate everything, including the blades of grass, in gold! LOL Could you imagine? Gold plated grass. What a waste of money! LOL

Anyways!! I'm sure you all are wondering what, in fact, I did win! Well, let me tell you!

I won purse patterns!!! :-D I LOVE purses... which is a pretty stark contrast from what I was just a couple of years ago. I remember when I first moved to NC, I carried a wallet... in my back pocket none the less!! I was SUCH a tomboy!! It's a wonder how I even got a date... I swear! I guess it's a good thing I'm cute!! ;-)

Let me tell you a little bit about the shop that I won the patterns from. She has a fantastic Etsy shop called Arm Candy For You. She has some ADORABLE purses in there! Way better than I'll be able to make, that's for sure! You guys should pop over there and check out her stuff!! So so SO cute!!

I'm such an optimistic seamstress. I think things like "Oh, that should be really easy to make... I could just *do this* and I could make it!" In reality, it more than likely doesn't work that way. But, I don't know because I've never actually been brave enough to draft my own pattern for anything other than a dog coat. (That's right... my dog wears clothes. Only the hounds tho.)

I also found so ADORABLE patterns for some clothes for Bug as well from Mythology Patterns, who is on vacation until 05March. She also has some patterns for adults as well! I might just have to get a couple and make similar outfits for Bug and I.

In other news! Our neighbor gave us a fish tank! We're going to put this one in Bugs room. Right now they have 2 giant Plecos, and what I think is an Angel fish in the tank. I'll more than likely take those to our local pet store and trade them in on some colorful guppies. Now, we have ~~a ton of~~ some guppies, and they're breeding some quite beautiful colors, but, they're getting to the point that MOST of them are orange. I think I need to get a few different colors in there. Maybe some blues and yellows?

Our Life In Pictures - Project 365 Week 8

2011-02-27T19:53:00.002-05:00

This week was a bit crazy!! I thought I had forgotten to take a picture, but, I guess I was mistaken!! Woot!! I made it thru an entire week without forgetting to take a picture!! HOORAY!!!!

Sunday 20 February - Church was great!! Honestly, I don't remember much about Sunday other than church and dinner. Oh, and that I didn't watch Extreme Home Makeover because we were too busy watching something else! (I watched it with the kids on Monday!) I made dinner on Sunday. We had Lasagna Soup! I also made home made Garlic Parmesan bread sticks. Man oh MAN were they good!! I love it when hubs cooks for me, but, sometimes I just have to take the bull by the horns and cook anyways!! ;-)

Monday 21 February - HAPPY PRESIDENTS DAY!!!! To be quite honest, I'm not really sure why we celebrate Presidents Day, but, the kids got a day off school, and everyone was happy. We all went to the park. I tried to take some pictures of the kids. I got pictures of Bug, but Monkey decided that he wanted to ride his scooter more than he wanted to get his picture taken. The boy on the left is our neighbor. He sometimes tags along with us to various events.

Tuesday 22 February - We delivered MORE cookies today. Eventually we are going to get them all delivered... that is if we can stop ordering more! :-D

Wednesday 23 February - The kids and I were playing around. Sometimes we just like to make silly faces. Our first picture together as a family, my mom took. We took several right in front of the Christmas tree, and my mom, the wonderful photographer that she is, always takes fantastic pictures, so I had no doubt that we would have great pictures. Well, the only one that actually turned out, was the one where we were all making funny faces. So, it's now our family tradition to take a silly faced picture together every year at Christmas. :-)

Thursday 24 February - Sam had an episode today at work. He thought it was a seizure!! I was really scared when he told me about it. He didn't think it was that big of a deal until later when he talked with his Cognitive Therapist. It was then he decided that maybe he should go be seen in the ER. We had a quick dinner, I dropped Bug off at our neighbors house, who also happens to be her Girl Scout leaders house, and her co-leader had said that she would watch her for the night. Monkey came with us because we didn't really have any other option. He is 12, but I just don't feel comfortable leaving him at home alone for more than about an hour. We got to the ER and checked in at 6:30

Friday 25 February - This was just after midnight. This was about 30 minutes after we got a room. Yes. We sat in the waiting room at the ER for just about 6 hours before we got a room. On the right side of the bed, Monkey is sleeping on the floor with about 3 blankets on the floor to make it not so hard. I eventually joined him, and in total I think I got about 2 hours of sleep. We left at 4:30. Monkey got to stay home, and we slept a little bit after I took Bug to school. On the way to school, we heard a Group 1 Crew song, and Bug says "Mom!! This isn't KLove!!!!" I say to her "Nope! It sure isn't! This is Big Fish tho." she then says "Mom! You KNOW we should be listening to Christian music!!" I got a really big laugh out of this because Group 1 Crew is in fact a Christian group, they just SOUND like a secular hip-hop/R&B group.
**EDIT** Sam is fine... he had what is called a Vasovagel episode. It basically is where you heart rate and your blood pressure drop at the same time and you feel like you're going to pass out. Sorry to leave you all hanging!! LOL

Saturday 26 February - This was gas on the way to Family Fun Ice Cream Social. I almost cried when I seen the total! I guess that's what I get for trading my small stick shift 4 banger family car in for a V6 SUV! It's okay. I don't really go that many places, and a tank of gas lasts me 2 weeks. We did have a blast at Family Fun tho! It was hosted by our church, and Sam was dubbed "Connect 4 Champion" because he kept beating all the little kids... what an honor! ;-) We stuck around after wards to help with clean up, and I played with a few of the kids. We all had a lot of fun.

This is Sams rootbeer float. That's right. That's a rootbeer float!! It was made with Cookies and Cream ice cream, had more cookies in it, gummy bugs, M&Ms, whipped cream, and a cherry!! Monkey had about 4 bowls of ice cream, and several handfuls of candies, and Bug had at least 2 bowls, and several candies. I, on the other hand, contained myself to 1 chocolate rootbeer float, and a couple handfuls of gummy bugs!

I can't wait for next weeks P365!! :-) I've got a great surprise for you all!! :-D

Early mood boards for the house

2011-02-24T16:23:00.000-05:00

So, as you've seen on here a time or two, I can't WAIT to pay off our debt so we can start redoing and redecorating our house. I have some BIG plans in store for this place. I want to build a front porch, put a new fence up (that goes all the way to the edges of our property and not just directly behind the house!), build a new dining room off of the kitchen, remove the sliding glass doors from the current dining room and turn it into a den/office/craft area, and build a deck on the back. Those are just the things I want to do to the house! Not including the landscaping, outbuilding(s) or anything else!!

So, I've been playing around with Olioboard, and I must say, it's pretty stinkin cool!! Of course, it doesn't have EVERYTHING that I want, but, it's pretty good for being free!

So anyways! I played around with things today and I pulled out our "house dream book" and I put a few things together. I tried to get the colors as close as possible, but, they're not exactly accurate.

First is the kids/guest bathroom. I think I might want to put tile or something on the floor. I'm not a huge fan of vinyl. Never have, never will be. We're also going to put wainscoting panels up about 3 foot all the way around (other than the inside the shower of course.) I'm Thinking that I'm going to put in some of those nifty "air plants" in the kids bathroom so they will have something live in there that will be super easy to take care of.

Kids/guest bathroom

Next is Bugs bedroom. She picked her own colors, which I think they are good. They're not too little girl neither are they're too adult. I think it gives her some good colors to work with for quite a few years. I'm not quite sure which chandy I'm going to put in. The "pink" one (which is actually white) only has 3 lights, and the green one has 5. I also forgot to put in a chair for the desk. (oops!) I had put a nice lap on her night stand, but apparently I forgot to redownload after I did it! We will also probably reuse her current bed and dresser. They're in great shape, other than a couple dings here and there.

Bugs bedroom

Monekys room was the hardest. The only thing we have picked out for his room really is the paint scheme and the bed. Even the bed we're not completely sure about. We may end up doing a hybrid bed of what's in the picture and incorporating a bookshelf/entertainment center/dresser bed. The colors that Monk picked out are Laura Ashley (Lowes) Sky Blue 3 (or 4) and Light Copper. They didn't have either of those colors on Olioboard, so I came as close as I could. I DON'T think that either of the bedding sets I have up there are going to work. I need to find something that would match well with it. It's sort of got a beachy vibe to it.

Monks bedroom

I am open to suggestions for bedding for Monks bedroom. I'll probably end up having to make a quilt if I can't find something that I (and he) fall in love with. I think tomorrow I will do the dining room, kitchen and our bedroom/bathroom. I had a lot of fun doing it! :-)

FREEEEEEE 8x10 collage print!!

2011-02-24T07:02:00.000-05:00

Just thought I would let you know that today at Walgreens.com they are giving away a free 8x10 collage print! You have to have an account, but, if you don't have one, you can make one and still get the print.

Just thought you all would like to know! :-)

D-zign by Nicole

2011-02-23T12:40:00.001-05:00

What do you guys think?? Didn't she do a fantastic job??
I <3 (to the power of infinity) it!! :-D

Josh Grobans' new album!!

2011-02-22T12:12:00.001-05:00

So.. one of my FAVORITE singers is Josh Groban. He has an absolutely AMAZING voice and he plays beautifully. One of the first songs I ever heard him sing (Other than You Raise Me Up) was Remember When It Rained. Man... that song still moves me! It's beautiful and powerful and it's just moving!! I'm not sure that he's a Christian artist, but, that song is so very spiritual, at least to me!

Every once in a while tho... I like to have a good laugh. This video clip, tho it does have one bleeped curse word, made me laugh very hard, and it incorporates my lurv for Mr Groban! Enjoy!

*Edit - of COURSE it has to pop up on the ONE section that has the curse word! LOL

Our Life In Pictures - Project365 Week 7

2011-02-19T21:02:00.001-05:00

Yes... I suck... I'm sorry! I completely missed all of last week. I'm a terrible P365r!! I will take my lashings at noon with a dignity!! I'm not exactly sure why I missed all of last week... other than I'm a terrible P365r. I could make up an elaborate lie... but that just wouldn't be right!! ANYWAYS!! On with this weeks pictures!! :-D

Sunday 13 February - First things first!! Monkey got the sides of his hair shaved down almost to the skin!! This made his mohawk look REALLY big!! I never would have thought that taking off a 1/2 inch (maybe!) would make the rest of his hair seem that much longer. Of course, our Associate Pastor and Pastor LOVED it! We made a joke that if he keeps going, we're going to have to change the bulletin! Our Associate Pastors name is Sterling, and he has a very very VERY tall (Like a foot tall!!) mohawk, but, because our church is on the larger size, some people don't KNOW that his name is Sterling, so, we call him "Mohawk Man." Sam brought one of the guys that he works with to church with us, and then we all went out to lunch at Andys' after.

Monday 14 February - I make pancakes for breakfast for all my little lovebirds! We had exchanged Valentines Day gifts a couple days before that, but, since I didn't take pictures last week, I guess I could just tell you now!! I got Sam a really nice leather bound journal that has John 3:16 around the edge. Sam got me a really nice black leather NLT Bible and a nice leather bookmark. We also got The Love Dare for Couples book as a "group gift." Monkey got a small fish tank for Blueberry, his Betta. He had been trying to save his allowance for some time to get one because his old one broke and he had been in a breeders net in our large tank for a while. Bug got some "dangly earrings" because she's now obsessed with making sure that her earrings match her outfit. She got monkeys, ice cream cones, and some very nice silver circles with color inserts. They both got chapter tabs for their Bibles as well. They thought that was super awesome.

Tuesday 15 February - IT'S GIRL SCOUT COOKIE TIME!! That's right. Bug has 4 bags of boxes of Girl Scout cookies. I had to drive her to school because I wasn't about to let her take those on the school bus!! I also took my car in to be looked at. My TPMS light was coming on, and I knew that couldn't be right considering my tires are filled with Nitrogen!! I arrived at 1:30, and apparently me telling them that I HAD to be home by 3 was optional. Even tho my appointment was for 1:45, my car didn't get pulled back until almost an hour later. At which point I was just happy it was even back there! I found out that it had a recall on it (nothing for the TPMS light tho) and that there was something wrong with my power steering pump. They ordered the parts and I should have everything fixed late next week. Sam also told me around 3 that he was going to take a nap and come home from work.

Wednesday 16 February - I wake up to an empty bed. This isn't something totally unusual tho. I'm a military wife. Even tho my husband doesn't deploy or go in the field, he still has duty and other things that keep him at work all night. It's just unusual for him to say he's going to take a nap and then never show up. I don't worry tho. I know he's been having issues sleeping and figure he's just slept thru the night. I get the kids off to school and clean the entire house (other than the laundry)! By 3 that afternoon I was getting pretty antsy because he hasn't called or anything. The kids and I go to the store to get something for dinner, and I find Cheerwine Sherbert!! If you don't know what Cheerwine is, it tastes like cherries and it's produced right here in North Carolina. It's one of those things you either love it, or you hate it. Sam finally comes home as I'm looking up the number to the duty hut. Needless to say, I was a little bit upset.

Thursday 17 February - Buggy has school pictures today. She picks out a white shirt with a short black crop top attached to it, a blue and black plaid skirt, black capri leggins, and her hair in a side pony tail. I swear she was born about 40 years or so too early! Of course, I forgot to take pictures before she went to school, her hair looked pretty good when I first did it! And of course, here's an outtake picture. I seen this and I couldn't help but laugh really hard!

Haha!! She looks a bit confused/angry/constipated/worried. I couldn't help but laugh. I'm sure she's going to be embarrassed that I posted this picture, but it's too funny not to!

Friday 18 February - And of course, she is coughing her lil lungs out, and she's not even awake yet. About the same time that I'm getting Monkey into the shower, Bug starts coughing in her pseudo-sleep. She wakes up about 6:40 and comes out and croaks out a "Mommy... my throat hurts!" I give her some cough medicine, and figure she will fall asleep on the couch. I call her in for school and after I get off the phone she asks if she can watch Annie. I tell her that's fine, and her and I end up snuggling on the couch and watching girlie movies most of the day between my laundry and cleaning. Around 1, she asks if she can go to school, around 2:30, she starts coughing again. :-/

Saturday 19 February - Bug feels good again this morning and I make eggs, bacon, and hash browns for breakfast. I was going to make some Cinnamon rolls, but, I didn't have enough brown sugar, and I didn't feel like changing to go to the store for one product. Oh well I guess! After some morning cleaning, Monkey helps Bug deliver some more cookies. Bug and I do a little work out, and she kicks my butt in the flexibility department. She also kicked my butt in the can-do-cardio-and-not-sweat department! I take a shower, and we get more cookies ready to deliver. We go to our friend Keonas house and we all walk around her neighborhood delivering cookies together. Len comes and spends the night tonight, and they are all currently in the bathroom with the little tabs that change the plaque on your teeth red. I love when they show each other up in the toothbrushing department!

Craziness in my hometown.

2011-02-18T09:07:00.000-05:00

So, some of you know that I grew up in a TINY little town in a small county in Ohio. There wasn't a lot to do there. You went to school, cruised "the lot", probably worked on a farm, more than likely did some underage drinking on the weekends. Just about everybody knew everybody, and if you didn't know someone, chances are, you knew someone who knew them! Nothing ever happened there. It was a boring town that most of us couldn't wait to get away from. Some of us did just that, got away. The majority of us tho, stayed there.

I still have a lot of friends back home. A lot of my friends from back home are married to other friends from back home that I would have NEVER thought would have gotten together! Sometimes life works out like that.

This past weekend, some information came out that a girl that I didn't directly know, but had met a few times in passing, Tiffany Brown, had came up missing. The entire town banded together and started searching for her. She had 2 little boys. They found her yesterday.... hidden in her mothers basement. It seems that her mothers boyfriend killed her, and hid her in a wood pile in the basement. He is now on the run. This morning, I read my hometown newspaper that there is an elderly couple that is now missing. They're connected to the the case because they sold the house that Tiffany was found in to her mother and boyfriend a couple years ago.

I'm not sure what it is that's exactly going on in my home town, but, my prayers are going out to Tiffanys family and friends. I hope they find Sammy, and if he did in fact kill her, I hope that they lock him up, and he never sees the light of day again.

Our Life In Pictures - Project365 Week 5

2011-02-05T16:49:00.003-05:00

Well.. this week I was an utter failure at pictures. I managed to get THREE days of pictures! Sorry guys... I'm supposed to be getting BETTER not worse! :-(

Sunday 30 January - I can't remember much of Sunday. I know I started a new dose of one of my medications and I started to get a bad headache and went to bed even before Extreme Home Makeover came on. It was a sad day for me. :-( So, I'm putting up a picture of my handsome Monkey from before Church.

{Not my picture}

Monday 31 January - I still had a headache and my neck was really stiff, and I was nauseas, I didn't want to be alive. I called my doctor to see if they wanted me to come in, or go to the ER to be seen. Of course they wanted me to go to the ER. I begged Sam to come home and take me, but, he couldn't leave and come home. We didn't end up getting to the ER until 4:30 that night. It was a madhouse. They gave me a shot of Demerol and some muscle relaxer and sent me home. It was the longest 6 hours I've ever experienced in my life.

Tuesday 01 February - Today, all I remember is eating ice cream and sleeping.

Wednesday 02 February - Again, ice cream and sleeping. It also rained a lot.

Thursday 03 February - Monkey won an award!!! He was so proud! Not only did he bring home an award, he brought his grade in Language Arts (or English/Reading) from a D to a B!!! We are so proud of him. Now we're just working on his math grade. Lets hope he can keep all of them up and maybe next 9 weeks he can make the honor roll! :-D

Friday 04 February - I cleaned out the "medicine cabinet" in our kitchen. This was some of what I pulled out. I ended up throwing a LOT of stuff away. Some of it I had no idea what we got it for. Some of the tubes of creams we had in there had been in there since the kids moved down here!! I figured that it was okay to throw them away. I also worked the cookie booth for Bugs Brownie troop. It was cold, it was rainy, and we were outside. We did end up selling quite a bit tho! There were a lot of people that gave to the Operation Cookie Drop, which is a fund to send cookies to deployed troops. Bug got to go to Night of Narnia at our church with her friend. She got to watch movies, eat pizza, and lounge around in her jammies, while I was freezing my tookus off! Something seems off....

{obviously not my picture either}

Saturday 05 February - Today, I'm not feeling very good. Bug and her little friend play "fashion model" most of the day, and Monkey has a friend come over too. Together the 4 of them manage to stay mostly out of trouble. I, on the other hand, decide that I want to watch my Netflix movie. I've been waiting for some time to get this movie. Something you guys might not know about me is that I grew up with horses. I LOVE horses. I MISS my horses. I also used to work at a race track as a hot walker and a groom. I "worked my way up" as they say. There is an undeniable energy behind the scenes of a race track. Of course you have your every day run of the mill stuff that goes on, but, when you here that bugle... man... it just does something to you! Overall I give this movie 2 thumbs up! Not just because it's a horse movie, but because it's a great movie about determination, about heart, and about never giving up on what you believe in.

If you want to see other Project 365ers go to Saras' blog here

Windows Live Writer?

2011-02-04T08:21:00.002-05:00

So, I’m writing this from Windows Live Writer. I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to like it yet. It’s supposed to help you publish more “professional” posts. We shall see.
First off, I’ve been super sick… and I feel terrible because I haven’t been taking any pictures. I feel like a terrible P365er! I have been sort of out of it these last few days. I’m terribly sorry.
Monday was crazy. I started a new dose of my medicine. They doubled my dose. When I first started taking my meds, I got CRAZY headaches. I was literally in bed for 2 days because I didn’t even want to THINK, my headaches were that bad. I started getting a headache Sunday night, then Monday it was still there. I ended up going to the ER because I was so freaked out by the symptoms I was having. I did call my primary doctor and the nurse told me that I should probably go to the ER to be checked out. Of COURSE I have to wait for my husband, and he didn’t even show up until 4 and we didn’t get to the ER until 4:30. It was a zoo!!!! It seemed like the entire waiting room was filled with people. We waited what seemed like forever and we finally were called back into a room. I immediately curled up in the little chair thingy they had in the room, covered my head with my blanket (that’s right, I brought my own blanket to the ER) and tried to sleep. Of course, with Sam and the kiddos in the room with me it was almost impossible to sleep. Monk and Bug were bored, and even tho they brought their DSis’ with them, they wanted to play the same game. Out of 20 some odd games they have, why do they have to fight over the same one? Really?!?! Finally a doctor comes in, asks me about my pain, and the proceeds to tell me that basically all they are going to do is give me a shot of Demerol, some muscle relaxers, and something for the nausea and send me home. REALLY?! SIX hours in the ER and that’s all I get? No tests? Nothing?! Needless to say I was angry at first, and then after a couple of shots and some pills, the only thing that mattered was my pillow. They had me sign some papers, but at that point I really didn’t know what I was signing. I could have been signing the deed to my house away and I would have just scrawled my name on the paper.
Ever since then, I have been SO tired. All I want to do is sleep. I don’t want to do anything else. I lay on the couch, eat, sleep, and sometimes I do some things here and there, but it’s a real struggle to get things done. Today isn’t really helping matters much either. It’s rainy and cold outside. So I REALLY only want to curl up with my favorite teal blankie and watch some Greys Anatomy on Hulu that I missed last night because I was so tired and went to bed. Yes.. that’s how tired I’ve been! I’ve been in bed by 8:30 every day this week (including Sunday, which is Extreme Home Makeover day!!), and most the time ASLEEP by 8:30!!!! A friend of mine asked if I had mono. I don’t THINK I have mono… but… who knows! I’ve got a headache, my neck is still a little stiff, still sensitive to light, my throat is sore, I’m tired ALL the time. Who knows!! I guess maybe I should make a doctors appointment to see if maybe that’s what I have. My friend Katie was just diagnosed with mono. She said that there really isn’t anything that you can do for it, just manage the symptoms and ride out the storm. *sigh* I’ve got a TON of stuff to do around the house as well. I need to get dishes done, laundry done, vacuum the floors, sweep and mop, and apparently turn up the heat or put on a sweatshirt! But I’m just so tired!
Anyways! I think that’s enough whining about how tired and sick I am. I’ll get a nice cup of hot tea, start some laundry, and watch Greys on Hulu, then do the dishes. Once I get all that done, I’ll take a nap.

(PS I don't know that I like Live Writer for my personal blog... )

Our Life In Pictures - Project365 Week 4

2011-01-29T21:30:00.000-05:00

So, things are going to look a little strange this week. I'm having to use old fashioned HTML to do this! For some reason Picasa wouldn't load for me, and I can't get "compose" to pull up the picture loader either!! *sigh* Just been that kinda week for me!!

Sunday 23 January - Sam didn't cook this week. :-( It's okay tho. I made lemon pepper chicken, and green beans with a fresh loaf of sourdough bread! It was a GIANT hit! :-) I make lemon pepper chicken quite often tho. Maybe I should have made maple chicken instead. Oh well. It was good! :-D

Monday and Tuesday 24 & 25 January - I'm not going to lie. I didn't even attempt to take pictures these 2 days. I spent them curled in a ball in my bedroom trying not to move think or breath because I had a HORRIBLE migraine! At one point I called my friend Keona and told her to come kill me because I couldn't handle the pain any more. :-/ It was a rough couple of days. I would basically get up in the morning to get Monkey ready for school and go back to my bedroom. Bug stayed home both days because she didn't feel well at all. She basically stayed in my room with me and watched Netflix on the laptop and would wake me up when she wanted or needed something.

Wednesday 26 January - I feel better this day. I decide that I'm going to make it worth while and get up and make dinner for everyone. I just realized that I made lemon pepper something twice this week! Crazy!!

Thursday 27 January - I felt a little crafty today, and decided that I was going to make a "container" to hold all of our storage container lids. Basically I took a USPS large flat rate box and cut the top off and taped the bottom closed. Looking back I PROBABLY should have mod podged it closed, but, I wasn't thinking about the paint not sticking to the tape! As you can see, it holds all of the lids quite nicely. I'm thinking about making a liner for it in blue and green fabric. We've already planned how we want to decorate the house, and it's basically all blues and greens other than the bedrooms. I think I want to do the dining and kitchen in a light seafoamy blue. I'm not sure yet tho.

Friday 28 January - This is Monkeys castle that he made for his math project. He had to make the castle, take measurements, and make a journal and spreadsheet. This turned out to be one of the crappiest days of the week. I had to drive Monkey to school because he couldn't take his castle on the bus. So, I had to wake Bug up and take her with me. We didn't get back until it was almost time for her to get on the bus. So, she had to get dressed and eat breakfast and then I had to drive HER to school. Then I started dinner, started laundry. and then did some work on the computer. I was tooling around on facebook, and I find out that one of the guys that I used to play cards with while Sam played poker lost his battle with cancer. His funeral is on Monday. :-( RIP Marc. We lost a great man, but Heaven gained a beautiful angel.

Saturday 29 January - Bug and I got up early this morning and went to World Thinking Day for Girl Scouts. Of COURSE I forgot my camera so I only had my cell phone to take pictures with. I got a couple of good pictures, but I don't know that they are good enough to share on here. I'll try to upload them and post one later if they turn out any good. Of course, they look good on my cell phone, but, who knows what they will look like on the screen! I made gumbo today. Shrimp, chicken, and sausage gumbo, with some French bread! It was really good!! Bug has one of her friends staying the night with her as well. Tomorrow we will all go to church together. :-)

GREAT NEWS!!!!!!

2011-01-27T16:52:00.000-05:00

So, Sam and I are going to pay off some debts with our tax return instead of doing other things. We're HOPING that we can continue on with the track that we have set for ourselves for the next year and things will stay relatively the same. (Tho a better paying job would be nice!)

We have decided that we are going to use the "snowball effect" to pay off our debt. Together, we have quite a bit, but, it looks like in about 19 months from this tax return, that we will be free of debt, other than our house and cars!!

Well, okay, maybe not COMPLETELY debt free. I'm sure there are a few things on my credit that can be paid off so that way from there on out only good credit will be on my report!

Sam and I dug ourselves into quite a pit with credit card debt and the like. We come from the "instant gratification" generation, tho I think our kids will be "worse" than we are. In 18 months, I don't know what I'm going to do with an extra almost $1000 a month!! Well, yes I do. We're going to start fixing up our house, saving for retirement, and for college expenses for the kids. I think I can deal with the crappy red and brown walls for another year and a half.. hopefully! Once we are able to REALLY fix this place up, I'm positive that it will look FANTASTIC! I'll be able to get Sam the wood working tools that he really wants, we will be able to get the outbuilding that we really need, replace the fencing with wooden fencing, get a doggie door, build a porch, a new dinning room! Oh man! I can't WAIT till next spring/summer!!

Customer Service

2011-01-27T05:20:00.055-05:00

Back when Sam and I first got married, we set out to make a life with each other. It wasn't easy. We didn't really have much of anything. We had our clothes, a TV, a laptop, and an Xbox. We lived with my friend Steph, and her husband Steve (RIP). When we got our first "married paycheck" from the military, we put our deposit down on our place, which was almost right next to Stephs house. It was a small 2 bedroom single wide trailer. I'll admit, it was kinda crappy, and the 2nd bedroom was barely big enough to hold a twin bed, but, it was our home for our first 6 months as a married couple. The landlady was a sweet old lady who lived with her husband and son until her husband passed away. It was very sad. :-(

Anyways!! When we got down to the nitty gritty, we didn't really have much of anything other than things that were borrowed, loaned, we bought off friends, or were given to us. We didn't have a church wedding, and it was so close to Christmas that we didn't really expect anyone to really buy us anything anyways. So, we needed pots and pans. We went to WalMart and found a really nice set of inexpensive pots and pans that we liked. It was the Eco-Friendly Tramontina set. It had everything that we needed for just us. It was a nice set! We really liked it, until all of the non-stick coating started coming off. Well, we bought our house, and we packed everything up, and then when the coating started to REALLY come off, we couldn't find the product warranty. We just decided that we would eventually get a different set of pots and pans.

Well, right around Christmas time, we'd had the set for about 2 years, and every single one of them had some varying degree of the non-stick coating coming off, I decided that I was going to write an email to Tramontina, and let them know how dissatisfied I was with their product. A few days later, I received an email back, letting me know that they would be happy to exchange my pots and pans for a different set, and gave me 2 different sets to choose from. I stewed on this for a while. Both sets were very nice. One set had a big saute pan, like we have now, and 2 skillets, as well as one stock pot and 2 smaller pots. That's the one we chose. The other one, was stainless steel, and had no saute pan but came with a spoon and a slotted spatula. While I like the look of these, I wanted my saute pan! I hope I don't regret that choice!

Well, here is the part that I really liked. When I contacted them, she said that she would send me a label to send our current set back to them and they would be destroyed. I contacted her back, and I let her know that I couldn't really send the entire set back to them, because we wouldn't really have anything to cook with. We do have a couple odds and ends, but, not really enough to consider it functional without my "main 3" my saute pan, my stock pot, and my 2qt pot. So, she told me that what she would do, would be send me a label, I could send 2 or 3 of the ones that I didn't use as much back to them, they would ship out the new set with a label inside the box and then I would just simply send the rest back to them when we get the new set! How cool is that?!

Overall, I wasn't overly impressed with the Eco-Friendly cookware set, but I am SUPER impressed with the customer service! The cookware did come with a lifetime guarantee, so, they are living up to that. Overall, I think that Tramontina is a pretty good company. They do have some nice products, as well as less expensive products for those that are just starting out. (Or starting over) I give the Charwood Seal of Approval to the Tramontina company!!

Tramontina is not paying me to make these statements. Tramontina, other than knowing I have faulty cookware doesn't know anything about me. I just simply thought that my readers would enjoy hearing about a company that gives great customer service! :-)

Day 3....

2011-01-26T06:48:00.000-05:00

So, yesterday was really REALLY bad. At one point, my head hurt so bad I actually text my friend Keona and told her to come kill me because I couldn't take the pain any more. I'm glad that I have slightly older children, and that I can trust them not to get into anything or burn the house down because I think I actually passed out from the pain. I admit that I did take a Vicodin in the middle of the day, but, it wouldn't have come into play at 7pm.

I'm not sure what's causing these headaches. I'm not sure if it's the MASSIVE storm front we had move in the other day, or if it's the new medications that I'm on. Both of which list "headache" as the #1 side effect. I took it again this morning, and I can already feel my headache coming back. This is not a good sign.

In other news, happier news! Sam went to our community service growth group last night (alone because I couldn't drag myself outta bed). Apparently they were looking for volunteers for a place called Miracle Meadows here in town. An old friend of mine had told me about it a long time ago, but I never had time to volunteer. It's a place where handicapped children learn to ride horses. It's a great program, basically run by all volunteers. Sam didn't think I would mind and signed me up. What a great man I have! Of course, now that I'm not working, I DO have time to volunteer for this great program. Sam also said that he was a bit intimidated because he was the only guy there! He then said that they all made him feel welcome tho, and he even cracked a joke about how all the other guys were missing out.

Okay! I'm off to crawl back under my covers and nurse this headache again. *sigh* PLEASE Lord, take this headache away! Oh, and thank you all for the get well wishes! Tho I didn't get to reply to each of you individually, it did make me feel good that you all were thinking about me. :-)

Day 2....

2011-01-25T06:56:00.000-05:00

So... I'm taking some new medication... and yesterday started a migraine. Coincidence or just a weather change in the near future? It IS supposed to rain ALL DAY LONG today... so here's to hoping that's what it is and not these new medications. :-/

Yesterday my head hurt so badly that all I had to eat all day was a couple of slices of bread. As soon as I heard Sam pull into the driveway I took 2 Vicodin and went to lay in my dark room. I woke up one time from a crazy dream where my dog had gotten out of the fence and gotten hit on the road. Out of bed I came, still groggy and wobbly from the drugs and flung open the door to find her laying right in front of my door. I pulled her in my room and shut the door again. Sam also made the dinner that I laid out. Bowtie Lasagna. I took a couple bites and I couldn't eat any more. It tasted delicious but I had absolutely no appetite at all. I took another Vicodin and went back to bed.

Bug also didn't feel well yesterday. She was all snotty and stuffy so I let her stay home to rest. She complained about not feeling well and not being able to move almost all day. Monkey had a friend come over, and she felt well enough to play with them! She climbed in bed with me and felt a little warm so I took her temp. 98.9 just slightly elevated, but, nothing really to worry about. I hope she feels better today tho. I woke up in the middle of the night and Monkey was sleeping on my side of the bed. He's such a tender hearted boy. Always making sure that I'm okay. I had a warm gel pad (the kind that can be used for heat or cold) and when Monk came home he heated it up again, wrapped it back up, and brought it back to me so it would stay warm longer. Such a good kid.

In other news! Charwood Candle Co is almost ready to launch!! Got just a few small details to work out, and the funding to finalize, and we will be rockin' and rollin'!! I can't wait!

Anyways, I already got one kid off to school, I need to wake the other up and see how she feels.

Our Life In Pictures - Project365 Week 3

2011-01-23T22:23:00.000-05:00

BIG WEEK!!! *shew* Okay... I know you're not here to listen to me yammer....

Sunday 16 January - Sam cooked again. He made Talapia with some peppers and onions, and garlic and lemon and white wine! His choice of sides is a bit weird... but... whatever! It tasted really good despite how strange it looked!

Monday 17 January - Bug spend most of the weekend away, and since Monday was a holiday, they didn't have school (no, our school district didn't make them go on MLK Day, how disrespectful to make them go!) and so she got to spend two days with one of her friends. By Monday I was kind of missing my little chatterbox!

Tuesday 18 January - I had a woman purchase some snails from me before Christmas. Then everything went WAY down hill!! It was terrible! I just could not seem to make it to the post office before then. So, I included some extras and shipped them off to Washington state. All the way from Jacksonville, NC to Washington and only 1 died. I musta done something right!

Wednesday 19 January - Tuesday my friend Keona and I picked up some free ~~crap~~ items from a nice lady out in the middle of nowhere. In it was a bag of boys clothes. These pajamas were in there, but, I think they smoked or something because, while the clothes smelled clean, the had an odor to them, so we washed them again. (We would have anyways tho) Monkey LOVES pajamas. He's always saying he wants new/more pajamas. This was his favorite thing in the entire bag.

Thursday 20 January - I know this looks strange... but! It's really just sourdough starter! Remember how I said I was going to the fondue party on Friday?? Yeah... I made sourdough... *buffs fingernails*

Friday 21 January - SOURDOUGH!!!!!!!! Oh man... I teased Nicole the entire day about this loaf of bread. Was it worth the wait Nicole?? ;-) I think it was. Everyone seemed to like it a whole lot. I also made a loaf of Amish bread as well, but I didn't take a picture of it because it was ugly. It stuck to the pan and ripped the bottom crust off. :-( Nicole said it tasted fantastic tho. :-D

Saturday 22 January - What's that? I forgot the picture? No... no I didn't take a picture. I completely forgot I had a doctors appointment for some medications, so we were an hour late for that. The doctor still seen me tho, so that was a good thing, even if it was a very quick session. From there we went on base, and it was lightly snowing, to fill Monkey and I's prescriptions at the pharmacy. We were there for a couple of hours. We had lunch, walked around looking at furniture and different housewares, and then had to go back and stand in line and wait again to pick them up. From there we left to come home. There was about an inch of snow on the ground!No big deal as long as the roads aren't slick. Sam assured me that they weren't bad and we took off. No sooner did we get out on the main road to leave base that the roads turned to complete ice! I FREAKED out! I don't handle ice well. When I was 17, my sister and I were involved in an accident, and we rolled the truck we were in about 3 times because of some black ice. Scary stuff. Ever since then, I don't do icy roads. They shut the front gate down shortly after we were off base. It was a mess! Needless to say, I spent the majority of the rest of the evening freaking out, and avoiding housework. :-D

Nothing like shopping to make you feel fat and pretty at the same time!

2011-01-20T10:39:00.000-05:00

So, for the past couple of days, things have been a little tense at the Charwood household. I've not been feeling "pretty" and it sort of rubs off in the way of me causing petty arguments with Sam.
Yesterday I thought, while I was out, I would just pick up a clearance dress from Old Navy, which is my most favorite store. Now, any of you that know me, know that I don't wear dresses. I'm a t-shirt and jeans kinda girl! I'm not girly. I don't even brush my hair unless I have to! So, for me to say that I wanted to feel pretty so I went to buy a dress is something that shocked my closest friends. That's just not something that I do! Also, I'm not trendy. Not even a little bit. I look at some of the things that other ladies are wearing around the blogosphere and I think "Wow! That looks amazing! I wish I could wear that kind of stuff and be that cute!!"

Well, I ended up wandering around Old Navy for a while, going "Oh man... I don't really see anything I like that's on clearance!" Well, I finally found something that I REALLY REALLY liked! It was a grey dress, and it had goldenrod yellow and navy blue butterflies all over it for $7! I then found a goldenrod cardigan (only $10!) to put over the top. I picked up my size L and headed to the dressing room. The dressing room attendant says how nice it looks and that she would have never thought to put those two together. I was pretty impressed with myself! I picked something incredibly cute, all by myself (even tho it was sitting right next to each other, but that's besides the point!) and put it together to make an incredibly cute outfit! Go Jacque!! Wooo! I get in the dressing room, happy with myself, proceed to put it on, and... I hate it. It looks like I've put a giant tent on! I was so sad! And of course, because it was clearance, they didn't have a smaller size. I don't know that it would have looked right on me even if they would have had a smaller size. I ended up getting a cute pink shirt that's all ruffly and will go great with slacks or with jeans that was on clearance. But I still wanted a dress!

So, I went back out and perused a bit more. I did find a dress that I really like. It wasn't on clearance, which is why I didn't just grab it in the first place. It was on sale, but, it was more expensive than what I had originally picked up. I tried on my new wares, and I walk out of the dressing room to stand in front of the big mirrors so I can talk myself out of it. The attendant tells me that I look very nice and even another shopper tells me the same. I decide that I'm going to go ahead and purchase said dress.

I'll give you a little sneak peak of my wares. I did have my lil Bug take a picture of me in my new outfit, which I posted on facebook, but, I would really like to have a NICE picture to put on here, so, I'll just show you the clothes!

The necklace isn't the exact same one that I got, but it's close! :-)

Slacker!!

2011-01-19T08:38:00.000-05:00

So, as you guys know, I've been doing Project365. I have to say... it is quite interesting finding pictures to show my life considering I'm like an Internet Addicted Hermit... I find that it's pretty hard to take pictures of things when you don't leave the house. And it's hard to remember that you're supposed to take your camera and take pictures when you do leave the house when you only leave the house like once a week! *giggle*

I do have some things planned! Like... uh... well.. ummmm... OH YES!! Girls night! Fondue at Nicoles!! I'm in charge of bringing strawberries... (homemade please) sourdough bread... and the stripper... haha! Not really... just the strawberries and bread. So, I will try and take a couple pictures of thaaaaat. I'm going to try and recreate Monday and Tuesday. It's not like anything really happened.. I live a boring life! *sigh* Yes.. a boring life filled to the gills with "Holy moley! We're opening a business and I've still got SO much to do!!!" *scream*

Okay. I think I'm over it now. I'll be okay! Now, it's time to get ready, go to the post office (again) and then head to Keonas house. I guess I need to not be a hermit today and help her wash her comforter at the laundry mat.

Our Life in Pictures - Project 365 Week 2

2011-01-15T20:55:00.003-05:00

This past week has been a real roller coaster!!! I'll just let the pictures explain it!

Sunday 09 January - The tradition continues!! Sam made his "Poppa Sams' Famous Soup" for dinner on Sunday! It's basically veggie beef soup, but the kids love it, and he likes to make it, so I don't say any different. Today I had a sore throat, but went to church anyways. I felt better after church.

Monday 10 January - SNOW!!!! I guess Mother Nature decided that North Carolina needed more than one snow this winter. Our first snow was the day AFTER Christmas! (Way to be Mother Nature! Sheesh!) The kids had a blast playing in the snow, and having THREE days off of school! Sam got time off work as well. Fun was had by all. Except for me. My body decided that it wanted to ache everywhere that day.

Tuesday 11 January - Yet another day off of work and school. For Monkeys' birthday he got a big whopping 86 bones, so, he went and bought a bunch of legos, and Buggy wanted to buy a board game for the family with her savings. It turned out that the coupons we had weren't valid any longer (even tho they expired that day) and Monkey gave the rest of his money to his sister so she could buy UBuild Mouse Trap. It's a pretty fun game! Not much like the original tho. This day my ears started feeling clogged up.

Wednesday 12 January - What a better day to celebrate than our xBox/DVD player to go out! :-| I'm NOT a happy camper about this! Now, we can only play the Wii and watch Netflix. I'm hoping that taxes will come in soon and we will be able to get a new xBox. Either that or we can call Microsoft and they will send us a new one. We've had it for a while, but, it's not like we ever go online with it or anything. We use it for playing games and watching movies... that's it! Today, my sinuses felt like they were ready to explode. I just wanted to lay on the couch and do nothing. Sam slept almost all day. He finally got up when dinner was done and as soon as I was done with dinner I went to bed.

Thursday 13 January - The laundry my husband did while I was sleeping Wednesday night. He ~~sort of~~ instructed me that I needed to have it all folded and put away. I ~~sort of~~ told him to stick it where the sun doesn't shine, and even that I had to squeak out. Thursday I woke up with a squeaky door mouse voice. Sam got Monkey up and mostly ready for school while I was still sleeping. Sam got ready for work and left. I got Bug up for school and she came and laid down with me before she had to leave for school. Today I felt like I had been hit by a Mack truck and I stayed in bed all day. I called and got a doctors appointment for 5pm. I was going to drive myself, but, when it came time to walk out the door, I felt very weak and light headed and asked Sam if he would take me. They were out of flu tests because of the storm we had earlier in the week. One of my two favorite doctors was there and he guessed that I more than likely had the flu, as well as both a sinus infection and ear infection!! I was given 4 prescriptions and shot of antibiotics in the booty and instructed to stay in bed until at least Monday. Turns out I'm not a very good listener.

Friday 14 January - Today was pretty boring. Sam got off early because of MLK Day on Monday. He spent the majority of the time that he could have been at home enjoying being off early running around getting medication for me. I felt pretty good, so I decided that I was going to make dinner and participate in our Family Meeting. This turned out to be a very bad idea. I did make dinner, and it was pretty darn good! I sat down while I was waiting for dinner to cook and tried to participate in the meeting. My mind was severely clouded by snot and I couldn't concentrate AT ALL! By the time I had dinner out of the oven, my body said "Hey! You're supposed to be in bed lady!" and started to wear out. I overdid it. I ate my dinner, took a dose of my cough medicine and was back in bed and asleep by 7:30!

Saturday 15 January - I must have been sleeping really well, because I woke up with Bug and Sam in bed with me, and Monkey laying on my side of the bed in his sleeping bag! Sam had also folded the laundry and put it away while I was sleeping! I didn't hear a sound! I tried to get out of bed and make breakfast, but, I only got as far as making my own breakfast and I had some angry tiny humans ushering me back to my bedroom. Every time I tried to come out of the bedroom someone would give me the stink eye and tell me to get back in bed. Sam and the kids cleaned the majority of the house today! We had told Bug that she could go spend the night with her friend, but, she wasn't there at the time she told her to come over, so, while Sam and Monkey went to watch Tron: The Legacy in 3D. Bug was pretty upset that she didn't get to go, but we didn't buy her a ticket because she was supposed to be spending the night with her friend!!

So, that brings me to the end of this week! I notice in my Saturday picture that Monkey is starting to really look like a young adult. *tear* Before too long, I'm not even going to get hugs in public any more!! *gasp* I'm sure that someone is going to try and keep me from going to church tomorrow, but, I don't think a wild heard of bandicoots could keep me away! Bed rest or no bed rest, I'm not missing church! (Okay, really, it depends on how I feel in the morning.)

I just want to get out of bed!!

2011-01-15T10:00:00.000-05:00

So, you may not know this, but, I've been stuck in bed since Thursday. I started feeling a little under the weather last Saturday, but, didn't really think that it was that big of a deal. It was REALLY cold on Saturday while we were selling cookies so I just thought that I was achy because of that and walking around for what seemed like 11 thousand hours while Bug sold Girl Scout cookies. Monday my throat just hurt, Tuesday my head started hurting, Wednesday I felt pretty icky, and then by Thursday I felt like I had been run over by a Mack Truck! I spent almost all day Thursday in bed, only getting up to go potty, get food, or let the dogs out. I was finally convinced that I should go to the doctor, so, I called the doctors office to make an appointment. By this time I had almost completely lost my voice and I could barely speak above a scratchy whisper. My favorite receptionist answers and I squeek out who I am, and she tells me I sound terrible, and that she was assuming I was calling for an appointment. I told her that I was and she gave me a 5 o'clock appointment time. (There was one at 3, but that would leave Monkey here by himself until who knows when!) Sam got home JUST in time to change over and drive me there because I was feeling very faint and dizzy. We ended up showing up about 20 minutes late to the appointment, which stunk because then we had to wait quite a bit. One of my two favorite doctors was there and he said I didn't have strep, but my throat was completely raw, that he thought I had the flu, but they were out of tests because of the snow storm we had earlier in the week. I also have an ear infection AND a sinus infection. So, he put me on 4 different prescriptions, a shot of antibiotics in the booty, and mandatory bed rest until Monday, and possibly longer! I felt okay yesterday, but I stayed in bed anyways. Sam came home about 1 and had to pick up the rest of my meds for me. He finally got back about 3 and Monkey came home as well. Monkey and I then laid in bed for a while and watched a movie called Dragon Hunters. What we got to watch of it was a pretty good movie! We will have to see the rest of it so I can write up a lil ditty on it! My best friend J and her husband had borrowed my car because he needed to get on base, but couldn't find his registration for his car to get a temp base pass to turn all of his stuff in. No big deal, I was on bed rest, not going anywhere! Last night, I felt pretty good, so, I got up and made meat loaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans. I felt okay still, but then we started our family meeting and it quickly went down hill from there. I couldn't concentrate because my head was so full of gunk. I ended up eating dinner, taking my meds, and going back to bed around 7:30. I woke up this morning to the entire family in our bedroom. I must been sleeping REALLY well! Today, I'm taking it easy again, tho I really don't want to! I want to be out there helping everyone clean... wait... what?!

Late nights with dogs...

2011-01-11T23:17:00.000-05:00

So, tonight I'm sitting here, unable to sleep, listening to my husband snore in our bedroom because he's not wearing his CPAP mask, watching our dogs sleep, and reading up on some blogs.

There are three blogs in particular that I really like to see them posting.

One of which I've met before. She's on my facebook. We (all of us Jacksonville girls) went and had dinner together, and on the 21st, I hope to see her again at our next "girls night" with her adorable little girl. Her name is Mrs P... or Rachel. She's SO sweet! Some days, when I read her blog I'm so angry! But not at her... never at her! But because of the situation that she's writing about... because of lost friends, and lost things, and the biggest reason lost husband. Rachel... I hope this doesn't come out the wrong way, but, I hope to never be in your shoes, because I don't know that I could be as strong as you are. I <3 you!!

Another woman who is amazingly strong, even tho she has her days is Karie. Her husband was stationed at Camp LeJeune, and misfortune struck while he was deployed. From there they spent time at Walter Reed, and eventually moved up north (if I remember right... stupid sleep deprivation! LOL). She also lost her love... You can see her struggle sometimes... but... you can SEE her grow! You can see how strong she is... how she is willing herself to survive the unsurvivable!

The last blog I smile when I see a post from is Katie! They were handed the short end of the stick... and that's no joke! I can't wait for a day when Ben posts! THAT will be a glorious day!! I'm praying for that to happen someday in the VERY near future!!

These 3 women, they are so different, but yet very much the same. They are strong, beautiful women. They are doing something I couldn't ever IMAGINE doing. They are taking what has been given to them, and making the best of it. You guys are so much an inspiration to me... to just live life with what you got! You never know how many tomorrows you have. Thanks guys! <3

Free Association ~ my beginning

2011-01-10T19:35:00.000-05:00

So, my momma has been doing these for some time, and I figured that it's high time I joined her. She hadn't done it in some time, but revisited it today, and I thought I would finally join her. If you guys would like to do this as well, you can here.

Speech :: talk
Meredith :: boss
Consensus :: majority
Attack :: of the killer tomatoes
Sue :: Lantz
Voted :: polled
Epic :: awesome
Checking in :: on base
Dishwasher :: must have
Underneath :: it all

Our Life in Pictures- Project 365

2011-01-09T18:34:00.002-05:00

So, inspired by Rebecca Jo, I decided that I would start doing a picture a day. I wasn't that successful this past week, completely forgetting 2 of those days to take a photo, but, I'm going to work harder this upcoming week!

Sunday 02January2011
I think I really like the idea of Sam making dinner for us all on Sunday! It gives me a much needed day off from cooking! Not that I have a whole day off tho, because I usually still make breakfast and lunch. But it's the thought that counts, right? :-) He made chicken salad, and man oh man, was it good!!

Monday 03January2011-
Yes, this was one of the days that I forgot to take a picture! It's not exactly my fault tho. My best friend J was having surgery in the "big city" which is about an hour and a half or so away. So, her surgery was at 6, which means that I needed to be up NO LATER than 3:30AM to be at her house by 4:20, which is when she wanted me to pick her up. Wouldn't you know it, I didn't get out of bed until about 3:55, and I was at her house by 4:15. Yeah, I was slacking, but I did brush my teeth and hair! The rest of the day was filled with going to Krispy Kreme (we don't have one here in Jacksonville), dropping off prescriptions, driving home, picking up prescriptions, making sure that J is comfortable at home, coming back to MY home, and taking a nap before the kids got home. It was a day, lemme tell ya! :-)

Tuesday 04January2011
Tuesday, my friend Keona and I went thrifting. It was a good day had by all! We found some really cool stuff, but, only ended up buying a little bit. I bought a book for Sam that we had been wanting for $1, and Keona bought a pyrex pie dish (For $1 might I add!!!) and some TV trays for her living room. While we were at one of the little flea market/thrift stores I found a PeeWee Herman talking doll. Sadly, he didn't talk any more, but I got the biggest laugh from seeing it.

Wednesday 05January2011
This was another day that I forgot to take a picture. Jillian had pink eye! (YIKES!!) She ended up snuggling with "Mr Stuffy" for the majority of the day, and lounged in her pajamas as well. Mr Stuffy is a pink and purple dragon that I made for her a couple of years ago for Christmas. She loves that thing, and I can honestly say that I don't mind at all that she named it "Mister" even tho it's pink and purple.

Thursday 06January2011
This was a very sad day for me. I finished off the last of the home made beef stew that I had made. My goodness was it delish! So tender and tasty! I was very sad that I had eaten it all. :-(

Friday 07January2011
We have taken to reading the Bible as a family in the evenings around here. Both of the kids got new NLT Bibles for Christmas. Monkey has never ASKED to be able to read a book, not that we ever prevent him from reading any time that he wants, but, when he asks to read his Bible after he has already completed his reading assignment for school, I know that I'm on the right track. Even tho he got a mohawk for his birthday, I think that he's an alright kid anyways.

Saturday 08January2011
Saturday Family Funday!! We normally do something on Saturday as a family. Sam was feeling a bit under the weather, so the kids and I went to Lowes for their Build And Grow! Both of the kids LOVE doing Build And Grow, but Bug was a little less than willing to go because she wanted to start selling Girl Scout Cookies immediately at 9AM! unfortunately, I was unable to clone myself to be in both places, so, we made a compromise. Go to Lowes for Build and Grow and we would spend the rest of the day selling cookies. She sold 62 boxes on Saturday.

Eye crusties and Mr Stuffy

2011-01-05T15:42:00.000-05:00

So, last night I noticed that Bugs eye looked rather red after she got home from school. I thought maybe she had been rubbing it or got something in it. As the evening went on, it seemed to get worse! So, this morning we get up and go to the doctor as a walk in. Apparently it was a bad day to have a situation such as this. We waited for about 2 hours before we even get we even get back to see the doctor. After that, we have waited for a little while longer.
While we were waiting, I discovered that Bug had pushed the backs of her earrings all the way into her earlobes and they had cut into her ears! Ugh!! Of course, they hurt a lot, and when I asked her why she didn't tell me that her ears hurt, she said that she didn't really feel it. *sigh*
We went to Wal*Mart to get her 3 prescriptions because I needed to pick up a couple of things. I picked up the noodles for our Chicken Noodle Soup later in our menu, along with coconut for Coconut Chicken tonight. It took another 45 minutes to get the medicines. Basically today has just been an absolute day of waiting at every single stop. It's just been murder on my schedule.
We came home and got the chicken out of the freezer so it would be thawed for tonight. I did something very unlike me while we were at Wal*Mart. I got a bag of pizza rolls for Bug and I to share. When we got home I took the earrings out if Bugs ears. It was really bad. I felt terrible for her. It was a very bad thing. Now we have to keep her hair pulled up for a while, and keep it super clean until it heals. This is going to be a long process... I can tell!
Okay, Monk is now home from school, Bug wants to play some games, so, I'm going to cut this short! Hope everyone is having a great day!

New Years Resolutions

2011-01-01T13:58:00.000-05:00

So, it comes down to the time when we all make these grand plans on how we are going to change in the next 365 days towards the better for ourselves (hopefully) and for our families (if we have them). Most of the time I really don't make any resolutions. I figure, if I don't make any, I won't have any to feel bad about not keeping. Lets face it, we, as humans, are creatures of habit. We fall into a habit and it's a lot of hard work to get yourself out of the habit of doing it. They say that it takes 21 days to break a habit. Most people quit their resolutions within the first 2 weeks. Just 1 week shy of becoming a habit. Terrible. They also say, that if you write it down, and profess it to someone that you trust, that you are more likely to follow through with your plans. I like the sounds of that.

So, without further ado, here are my Resolutions for 2011

Be better at cleaning the house
Build my Faith again.
Be better organized.
Start paying off debt.
Build Charwood Candle Company
Exercise every day

On that note, I'm going to end this now, so I don't break my very first resolution! It's Saturday, so, I need to do laundry! :-)

CRAZY Christmas!! :-D

2010-12-28T09:35:00.000-05:00

Well, the holiday season was a bit crazy for me this year! I was crocheting blankets for the kiddos this year, and Bugs turned out really, REALLY well!! I just had Monkeys to finish. I had an infection in my finger and had to go to the doctor for a follow up to see how it was progressing in the way of healing. Well, it wasn't healing as well as the doctor would have liked, so, he lanced it open! He pumped my finger full of local and... well I will spare you the grody details. I still felt it... it wasn't fun. He then covered it with gauze and more tube gauze, gave me a 'script for more antibiotics and some Vicodin. Oh LORD did I need the Vicodin about 2 hours after I got out of the doctors!! Ooooh man!! The local started wearing off and man oh MAN did my finger hurt!! I decided to take one. While I was on the Vicodin, I decided that the giant gauze thumb looked like Santa, and painted a red hat and smiley face on him. Of course, this put an end to my crocheting. :-( I didn't get to finish Monkeys blanket, but, I told him that I would finish it for him when I gave Bug her blanket. He was very understanding and told me that he wanted my finger to get better before I started working on his blanket.

So.. I was doped up for most of Christmas, and it still hurts a bit to type, but I can't just keep taking Vicodin, so, I just suck it up! :-)

Anyways! I will try to get some pictures up today!

Wordless Wednesday - Almost done!

2010-12-22T20:18:00.000-05:00

No Giveaway Monday... :-(

2010-12-20T10:29:00.000-05:00

Sorry guys, no Giveaway links today. I've got an infected nail bed and it HUUUURTS! I seriously just want to cut it off... :-( (Okay, not REALLY, bit it does hurt really bad.)

I went to the doctor on Friday, and they gave me some antibiotics. Apparently they're not working because it's getting worse. :-(

And a star is born!!

2010-12-18T07:22:00.000-05:00

So, I'm going to do it! I'm going to start my own candle company! I don't know when opening day will be, but, I want to do it!
I've decided on Charwood Candle Company.
Now, all I need is the supplies, a label, and customers!! I already have quite a few people saying that they want to buy some. :-) Now all I really need to do is get everything in motion!!

If anyone knows of a way to get a reasonably priced header for my shop, and label for my candles, please let me know. :-)

Candles anyone?

2010-12-16T20:44:00.000-05:00

So, I want your guys opinion. I'm thinking about starting to make candles and sell them in an Etsy shop. What do you guys think? I've dabbled in candle making for some time now, and it's something that I really like doing. It's fun, it's calming, and I love being able to just see my finished product and know that it's something that I did with my own hands and that someone will enjoy it! A couple of you have gotten my candles, what do you guys think? Think they're good enough to hold their own on Etsy?

If I do this, what do you think I should name my company? If you help me with the company name, I will send you a candle!

Next thing I would have to think about would be labels for my candles. I either need to find someone to create me a label for inexpensive, or figure out how to make my own. Any ideas??

It's like a democratic company start up!! LOL

Wordless Wednesday - Passing It On

2010-12-15T07:20:00.000-05:00

On a side note.. it's supposed to SNOW tomorrow! :-O

Not so fun Monday...

2010-12-13T07:19:00.000-05:00

So, I'm not doing a giveaway today guys... I'm not in the giving mood this morning. :-/

Today, I'm going to ask you guys for advice. (Yeah, all 19 of you followers....) It's going to be a doozie as well.. sorry for the long post. :-/

So, since I "work" from home, Sam thinks that I do nothing, especially since I'm not making a ton of money right now. He thinks that because I'm not making money, that it's implied that I'm not working, so, therefore, I'm sitting around the house doing nothing all day, and that I should have to cook, clean the house, and basically do everything that doesn't involve taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, or general outside duties. Which, normally is okay.... sorta. Anybody that has known me longer than a few days knows that I HATE (read: abhor, loathe, would rather stab myself in the eye with a spork) doing dishes. I will do all the laundry, scrub the floors, clean the toilets, just about ANYTHING other than do the dishes! Since I cook, I don't think it would be too much to ask if the husband does the dishes.

Apparently, Sam thinks that I don't even do all the house work either, and that MAGICALLY the house is clean. This past week (I think it was either Wednesday or Thursday) I cleaned the entire kitchen. I wiped down all the counters, used the disinfecting solution, wiped down all the cabinets, did all the dishes, cleaned the dogs bowls, cleaned out the recycling bin, moved everything out of the kitchen and scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees with a double sided sponge. I REALLY cleaned the kitchen. By Sunday, we had no clean silverware, only a couple of dishes left (which is a pretty good feat considering we have THREE sets of dishes), and a few pots and pans. So, when we got home from church, I asked what everyone wanted for lunch and Sams idea was Egg Salad. I had no problem making egg salad, one big thing tho, we had no bread. When I asked Sam to go get bread he said "With what? We are broke until Wednesday!" I told him to dig out some change and just go get a loaf of bread. He started throwing a fit and I was very quickly losing what little bit of patients I have left. I can't tell you how many times I have asked him for help with the dishes. COUNTLESS times! It's the ONE chore that I hate! I would rather eat a giant pork chop with a side of ham than do dishes! (FYI I hate pork almost as much as dishes) So, when I said to him "Sam, I don't know how many times I've asked you to help me with the dishes! I just cleaned the entire kitchen, and look! We have NO silverware!" to which he responds "ONCE! You've cleaned it once!" O.O! Really?! That was the icing on the cake. I couldn't take it any more. I completely lost it.

I guess half assed doing the laundry (read: putting a load thru the washer and dryer and only folding HIS clothes), feeding the dogs half the time, half assed mowing the lawn (half of our back yard never got mowed before frosting over), half assed trimming the hedges (he trimmed them {again half assed} this spring), and asking Monkey to take out the trash, and sometimes loading the dishwasher half assed (read: I usually have to run at least part of the dishes again, or there are giant gaps or he's loaded it completely wrong and I have to reload it) means that he's entitled to sleep in on Saturdays until 1 or 2 in the afternoon, and then possibly a nap by 7. It also entitles him to not having to help any more than that. Apparently it also means that he does all of the housework, and that all I ever do is sit around and play on the internet, watch TV, and crochet!

Apparently he, in all of his infinite glory, can do all of that and then some! Not only can he magically wave a wand and the house is clean, but he can run my business better than I can, regardless of the fact that he is completely oblivious as to what it is that I do and of any of the products that I sell. Not only that, but he can do his Marine Corps job, be a better parent, AND cook better than I can! Basically, I'm just a turd ball that sits around and can't do anything and all I do is take up space. He may not have said all of these things, but he sure has implied them, and has made me feel like general crap. Someone once told me "nobody can make you feel any thing" which is true, but, with all of the emotional issues I've been having lately, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that I'm a bit fragile right now.

So, I'm asking you, my readers... do you think I over-reacted? Do you think it's too much to ask for some assistance on the ONE chore that I loathe more than anything? Tell me what you think!

Feature Friday - Sew Smashing

2010-12-10T07:02:00.000-05:00

So, It's Friday again, and I found another FANTASTIC Etsy shop for you guys. I don't remember how I found her, but, I did, and when I found her, her products just drew me in! I KNEW I needed one! (Btw, I haven't ordered yet, but I will be hopefully soon!! :-P)

So here is my Feature Friday for 10December2010

Sew Smashing

This is why I'm IN LOVE (like head over heels) with Alexis' shop:

Yup!! That's the first piece that I saw and my jaw dropped!! I LOVE it!! I shall covet this piece until it is mine!

(I'm not sure who the model is... but I am a little bit jealous of her beautiful red hair!)

(I LOOOOOVE that orange!!!)
The butterflies aren't the only thing she has tho! Oh no! She has more!
Gorgeous purses:

BEAUTIFUL evening wraps:

Sweet wall hangings

Lovely scarves

And SO many more things!

Here is what Alexis has to say:

I'm Alexis Harper, a San Francisco Bay Area native, I own and operate "Sew Smashing." My Finnish husband and I live in a small house on two acres in the East Bay. While I should be outside battling weeds, I'd prefer to sit and sew in front of a window admiring the colors of nature...and ignoring the weeds!

I started my business 2 years ago, and mostly sell my items online in my Etsy shop. While I started out selling handbags, I had found a niche for my business by making silk origami butterflies. What began as a brooch design, available in a handful of colors, has now turned into every silk origami butterfly accessory imaginable in over 70 colors of silk!

I love custom requests because it allows me to meaningfully interact with my clients. I thoroughly enjoy making items that hold a special meaning to the customer. My most recent cherished moment was with a woman who asked me to make some silk origami butterfly hair clips. These hair clips were going to be worn by dancers who were going to perform a dance piece that the client had choreographed. The choreographed dance piece was an expression of the emotions she felt while dealing with thyroid cancer. Having my items be positively involved in someone's life, no matter how small, brings me a deep sense of fulfillment.

People can find me at www.sewsmashing.com or can contact me at alexis(at)sewsmashing.com

Please go visit her beautiful shop! Consider it your Christmas present to me! (Of course, buying one for me wouldn't be turned down either!) She has such beautiful products, and they are so unique, and not to mention beautiful! (Did I say that already?)

Super Monday!! WOOO!

2010-12-06T16:43:00.000-05:00

So, okay Friday I told you about my Etsy find (Looking for more now as well!!) So, today I'm going to post more giveaways around the bloggy world!!

The first giveaway is for a free baby sling!! All you need to do is go here, pick your sling, enter the promo code "Thanksgiving" and pay shipping! (which is $10!)

These next giveaways are from one of my favorite sites Dandy Giveaway. Someday I want to be able to have giveaways like they do!!

Organic kids clothing giveaway here
The Boy Store here (I could seriously use this!!)
Picaboo photobook here

These next ones are not from Dandy Giveaway, but, they are great blogs as well!

Chic womens clothing $25 giveaway here

This one isn't really a giveaway per-say, but, you could earn a $25 Amazon gift card when you refer 15 people. So, click here to sign up for that gift card! Help me, help you!

Feature Friday - Abby Cove

2010-12-03T08:29:00.000-05:00

So, I told you all that I was working on something! Well, here it is! I was working on my very first FEATURE FRIDAY! YAY!!!

How this is going to work is, I'm going to find sellers on Etsy and Artfire that I REALLY like! Eventually maybe even get a few giveaways going. I'm not near big enough yet to have giveaways, but maybe once I reach 100 or so followers, I can think about looking for some giveaway stuffs.

So anyways!! Here is my Feature Friday for today 03December2010!

Abby Cove on Etsy

This is the reason that I chose Chantal for todays feature:

SO many cute hats!!! SO many sizes!! AHH!! Here's it what Chantal has to say about her shop:

Hi! I'm Chantal with Abby Cove. I have been crafting ever since I can remember and it is one of my favorite things to do. I learned how to crochet when I was 12 from an elderly neighbor. She taught me the basics and I took off from there. I love projects for kids and projects that are somewhat quick to complete as I usually get an idea for another project before the current one is completed! I hope you enjoy what I love to make. My shop carries mostly handmade hats for infants to adults but check back in regularly as I have tons of new projects coming soon!

For your readers I have a special coupon code that will get them 10% off their order. Simply use the coupon code LIFEATW2010 at check out for this discount. Offer good through December 31, 2010.

That's right folks!! She's giving you guys a 10% discount just for being my readers! How awesome is that! :-D Seriously! Check out her shop. She has some adorable hats for kids AND for adults! She also has headbands and wraps as well as scarfs, hair clips and even facial scrubbers! So cute!

Planning!!

2010-11-30T13:55:00.000-05:00

I'm planning something for you guys!! Be on the lookout!! :-D

Shutterfly

2010-11-29T11:21:00.001-05:00

So, on Monday I usually try to find the most awesome giveaways for you guys, but, today is a little different.

I'm going to talk about Shutterfly! We LOVE Shutterfly!!

Last year we ordered our Christmas cards from Shutterfly. We thought we were going to be sending out A LOT of them, but it turns out that we weren't, so we still have ~~a ton~~ some left. (oops) Sams' great idea was to just resend the old cards from last year so we could just use them up. Two problems with that. 1) Pretty much the same exact people are going to get the card. We can't just keep sending the same card year after year until they're used up!(Well, we COULD, but I think a Christmas card with an 11 year old Monkey and a 6 year old Bug might look a lil funny in 5 years!) 2) We added a member to our family AFTER the picture was taken, so, we can't have Doc and Lilly in the picture, and neglect poor Dusty! We need a new card, with all of us in it. Last year we had a FANTASTIC experience with Shutterfly. We ordered our cards late (Who would have ever thought we would do that?!?!) and we still got them in time to send out! Hooray for fast shipping!

So, I took the liberty of picking a few of my favorites out!

I think this one because it has a nice layout

And this one because not EVERYONE celebrates Christmas (and it's super cute!)

I like this one because it's bright!!

The models on this card are just adorable!

This one looks interesting as well!

But, I think that this might be our Christmas Card this year. It's BEAUTIFUL!

But these cards aren't the only thing that Shutterfly does!! They do Christmas Photo Cards, Holiday Cards, Photo Calenders, Holiday Invitations, and cards for Mom and Dad! Oh! And don't forget Birthdays!!

Shutterfly is also giving bloggers 50 free prints!! If you click here you can find out about this offer as well!!

Thanksgiving and Black Friday

2010-11-26T14:56:00.000-05:00

So, for Thanksgiving we made a GIANT decision. It was, again, going to be just us 4 for Thanksgiving, so while doing our grocery shopping, I ask Sam if we should invite our friends Bob, Keona, and kiddos over for Thanksgiving if they're not having one of their own. So, I make a quick call and they were just going to go to the USO for dinner, so, I tell them they're coming over to our house. Next comings selecting the bird. I'd never cooked Thanksgiving dinner for anyone! Last year I wouldn't really call it a "feast" but more of a larger than average meal with a turkey breast, not a turkey. So, since I had never selected a turkey to cook, I asked the other women that were gathered at the floor freezer that had all the frozen turkeys. One of the women asks how many people I'm cooking for, I tell her 4 adults and 4 children. She then says to me "OH! I would go with AT LEAST 20 pounds!" So, I, being the naive Thanksgiving dinner maker, select a 22.8 pound turkey for 8 people. We then get 2 boxes of stuffing, green beans, and potatoes to round out the dinner. I tell Keona she's in charge of dessert.

This past Saturday, I check the turkey to see how long it needs to be in the fridge to thaw. It was a good thing that I did! It needed to go in THAT DAY! Shew!! Glad I checked!! I then made sure I had all of my supplies and put them all in my roasting pan on top of the fridge, save the produce that I was going to put in the stuffing.

Wednesday I spent the day cleaning my kitchen, making it a mess, and cleaning it again. (Multiple times might I add!) I made the deviled eggs, and Bug and I made the Parker House Rolls from scratch. She used some of the left over dough and made "Bug Truffles" I only used half of the dough for rolls, I had an entire sheet of rolls and still lots of dough! So what do I do? Make Cinnamon rolls for breakfast!! Hooray!!

Thanksgiving morning I wake up and get everything ready to put in the oven. Man oh man was it a process!! I brought the turkey out to soak for just a few minutes and rest from being in the fridge. Of course, but this time I'm freaking out because.... well... I have no idea what I'm doing! I'm just sort of winging it!! I mix the onions, mushrooms, carrots, and garlic into the stuffing and toss it into the bird. I would have added celery as well, but Sam ate it all... LOL I stuff the bird and I say "What am I supposed to put on the OUTSIDE of the bird?" A few frantic, unanswered, phone call to my Momma, I decided that I would just put some Olive oil on the skin and then cover it in Garlic and Herb mix and throw it in the oven at 325. After some more frantic cleaning and Monkey brushing the dog and both the kids making a few last minute touches to the bathroom and us running the sweeper (Len is allergic to dogs, so we try to make sure there is as little dog hair as possible for her).

Unfortunately, I COMPLETELY forgot to take a picture of the food, or any of us enjoying the food, but, everyone chowed down. The turkey came out beautifully! When Sam went to carve it, he couldn't, simply because every time I put the knife to the bird it started to flake off! Here are a few pictures

Sam and Bob enjoying a pre-dinner movie

Bug and Len cheesing for the camera!

Monkey and D rolling on the ground

Bug and D waiting for food

A little after dinner game of Monopoly Deal

The baby is tired!!

She wasn't exactly happy to have her picture taken

Keona twisted my arm really hard to go with her for some Black Friday shopping. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to purchase much of anything, if at all because we don't have much money in the bank, and we're trying to pay off our credit cards. It was okay tho. I wasn't exactly doing anything and Sam does tell me that I need to get out more often! So, I took a 2 hour power nap and Keona came and picked me up at 10:30 and off we went to WalMart to catch a few sales. It was CRAZY!

But not near as crazy as waiting 4 hours outside of Target!! When we got there at about 12:30 there were about 50 people outside waiting in front of us. That number kept getting bigger, and bigger! Around 1:30, a fight broke out towards the front of the line and the cops were called. A short woman was apparently using some foul language and a very large man asked her to contain herself and I guess she wasn't willing to accept his request. It was a bit crazy. I think my favorite quote of the night came from the Target security worker. Right before 4, a BUNCH of people started to congregate directly across from the doors, and of course, the people that had been there since the beginning of time (at least it felt like it at times... LOL) were getting a bit testy! While we were walking in he's screaming to the people that are inching ever closer to the ONE entrance they have open and roped off "If you line cut, you will be banned from Target!" This made me laugh. It's not that serious!! It's only shopping! I only went because I didn't have anything else to do and my friend asked me to go with her. I wasn't buying anything.

Apparently it was much worse at Toys R Us, which opened at 10PM. When we drove by at 11, the line to get in the door was wrapped almost completely around the parking lot!! It was CRAZY! I guess they were actually doing it in a pseudo-rational manner. They were letting 50 people in the door at a time. I can COMPLETELY understand their thinking behind this. After seeing a woman at WalMart almost attack another woman because she thought that she was trying to cut in the check out line (she was really just trying to get thru!) and women at Target threaten physical harm to another woman for bumping into her with a cart, I can totally understand! I was rather upset when we found the $3 sandwich makers! A woman loaded her cart with about 10 of them! I understand wanting to get a great deal, but, let others take advantage of the deal as well!! I was tempted to take one from her cart while she was picking up the last one from the floor.

I made it back home around 5:30, told Sam about all of the funny things that had happened over the night (including cat calling the 2 very handsome police officers that were there), and fell asleep about 6. Sam let me sleep in, took care of the kiddos, made them breakfast, and cleaned the kitchen! SHEW!! What a good day it's been so far!! :-D

Happy Tuesday!!

2010-11-23T08:37:00.000-05:00

So, since I missed Giveaway Monday yesterday, AND last week as well, I thought I would post some today. Look out for random posts!! I have over 1000 blog posts in my Reader... *sigh* I have been SO busy! I don't know that all of them will be read, which is very sad because I'm sure all of them are great posts. :-(

FIRST GIVEAWAY!

CSN Store giveaway and Fall Project link party @ Hand Me Down House (Which is a blog I <3!!)

Silhouette Machine Giveaway @ The Idea Room (Oh please oh please oh PLEASE let me win!)

Boozhoo!

2010-11-22T22:54:00.000-05:00

Yes, so, I missed the 2 year anniversary for my blog! It was yesterday. *sigh*

We have been SO busy here lately!! I know, I know! It's not excuse! I should MAKE time to at least write a little blurb on here every once in a while to let you that I'm alive! Well, I am alive and doing quite well.

Saturday started the big prep for Thanksgiving! I put the bird in the fridge to thaw, did a run down and made sure that I had all the necessities. It also started the "cleaning season" as well!! Monkey and Bug cleaned and organized their rooms.

Bug's room is SO clean and organized now! We took the 208972934823 posters of Miley Cyrus off of her walls. She now has 1 up, which is fine. Her walls look a little bare, so, we're going to have to figure out what to do about that. We relocated her backpack and winter coat inside of her closet on some Command strips, and even put her Lowe's Build and Grow workshop apron and goggles on, and another one for her hats. We also moved her bed and netting as well. We switched out her lighter bed clothes for her heavier winter ones. We went from girly flower quilt type bed clothes to yellow gingham and a solid yellow comforter. Her shoes and toys got a re-organization as well!!

Monkeys room got a re-working as well! We didn't move anything around other than in his closet. I'm sure that his will get some more TLC while they're off of school for Turkey Day. In his closet we cleaned out a bunch of the old toys that he no longer plays with and changed moved around the things that were sitting on his closet shelves. We also hung his Indian wall covering in his closet as well. He's got SO much stuff on his walls that there's no room for it in his actual bedroom.

We came up with a way for the kids to be able to make a little extra money! We have a local craigslist sort of website called LeJeune Yard Sales. They picked out things that they no longer need, want, or don't fit any longer. For being willing to get rid of these things, they will get half of the monies earned. They both are in love with this idea, and I am as well. It puts a little more money into the Christmas pot, which *I* like a lot, and they're trying to decide what to spend their few dollars on. Monkey has decided that he wants to buy some Christmas presents with his money. What a great kid.

Maple Chicken

2010-11-07T11:05:00.000-05:00

So, Friday night I made a new recipe. I like to make new recipes. I'm just always worried that they're going to turn out WRONG and my family will hate it and then we will have to order pizza or something. It's a terrible feeling. I know that more often than not, everyone LOVES what I cook and I'm just self conscious.

So, I make this new recipe on Friday night called Maple Chicken. The menu actually had oven baked chicken, but I thought I would switch it up with this recipe. Oh my GOODNESS it was SO good! I wish I would have made more just so I could have HAD more! Alas... I only made enough for the 4 of us. *tear*

Anyways! Here is the recipe. They only thing I modified was the amount of chicken I used, didn't have any tarragon (I don't even know what it is! :-O) and I didn't have a lil brush thing so I just used the Jacque patented pour method. ;-)

Maple Chicken

Ingredients

6 chicken breasts (About 6oz each)
1 Tbsn vegetable oil
1tspn paprika
1 tspn salt
1/2 tspn cinnamon
1/2 tspn ground cumin
1/2 tspn tarragon
1/2 tspn ground black pepper
2 Tbsn maple syrup
1Tbsn melted butter

Preheat the oven to 400. Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray (I used a dab of vegetable oil spread with a paper towel.. hehe) place the chicken on the baking sheet and brush with the vegetable oil.
Combine paprika, salt, cinnamon, cumin, tarragon, and pepper in a small bowl and mix well. Coat the top of the chicken evenly with the mixture and bake for approximately 15 minutes
Combine the maple syrup and the butter in a small bowl. Brush with the mixture and return to the oven for another 10 minutes or until the chicken is done and juices run clear when pierced.

Simple and tasty!! Trust me, you will want to make enough for leftovers! While it was baking Monkey came in the kitchen and said "I thought you were making chicken?" I said that I was and then he said "Well why does it smell like pancakes then?!"

I served this with mashed potatoes and green beans, but, I would have rather have had rice. Blame Sam, he was the one that said make the mashed potatoes! ;-)

This would have been very good with the remainder of the spice mix sprinkled over some potatoes and baked with the chicken! Obviously not on the same baking sheet tho. I'm not so sure how roasted potatoes would taste with maple syrup!

I'm also making a roast today in the crock pot for dinner. It's also a new recipe. It called for 2 cups of coffee to be blended with some cream of mushroom soup. (Later you make it into gravy...) Well, we don't drink coffee that much in this house, and I knew there was some coffee in the freezer (probably left over from the last time Momma was here) and I decided that I wasn't going to buy any more because we just simply don't drink it. Well, this morning I get the roast out, slice holes for the garlic, get it all ready to put in the crock pot, slice my onion up, then I go to get the coffee to brew it. Wouldn't you know it, it's FRENCH VANILLA FLAVORED! *sigh* Oh well. I guess it will give it a bit of a twist! :-D I'll let you all know how THAT went on Monday with my giveaways!! LOL

I hate the cold!! and other news

2010-11-05T10:16:00.000-04:00

So, just so we're clear here, I grew up in Ohio. It's cold in Ohio. We like to joke that there are 4 seasons in Ohio; cold, winter, construction, and almost warm. That being said. I DO NOT LIKE BEING COLD!

When I moved to North Carolina I got on the plane in Cincinnati, Ohio and it was 32 degrees. I had my "Eskimo" coat, my cat, and my Ultimate Hitchhikers Guide as carry ons. I made a stop in Atlanta I think it was, and then boarded a small plane to fly to Wilmington, NC. When I stepped off the plane in Wilmington, North Carolina, it was 72! I was in HEAVEN! That was almost exactly 4 years ago today! Sheesh! I wish it were like that today! No sir! It's was a beautiful 48 degrees this morning! FORTY-EIGHT! NO! This can't be right! when I first got here I was walking on the beach with no shoes and a tank top on! How can this be?! *sigh*

Yes, I realize that 4 years ago my body was used to ~~always~~ being cold most of the time. I realize that if I went to Ohio right now that I would turn into a Popsicle and die because right now in Ohio it is 36 and it is 45 here... wait... it got colder?!?! *sobbing* I'm not liking the fact that I'm wearing my fleece Eeyore pajama bottoms and fuzzy Halloween socks to try and stay warm. I DO like the fact that I just made myself a pipping hot mug of spiced apple cider! YUM!

I always feel bad for Doc and Dusty this time of year as well. Greyhounds don't like the cold either. They don't have a lot of hair to protect them from the cold. They don't like a lot of heat either because they can get heat exhaustion so easily. Basically, they need to retire to Northern Florida with the rest of the old people. I'm kidding! My friend Keonas husband Bob makes fun of us all the time because we put clothing on our dogs. Just Doc and Dusty tho. Lilly does have a shirt, but that was because when she first got here she had no hair, and we didn't have any trees in the back yard so we were worried about her getting a sunburn.

In other news!! I've decided that I'm going to link up with Giveawayscout! It's a place where you can find different giveaways! They had contacted me some time ago about linking up with them, but I just hadn't yet! I guess I should just start trying to find more places for giveaways, eh? :-)

What kinds of things would you guys like to see for giveaways??

32

2010-11-04T10:32:00.000-04:00

I know that my blog has been a little dark and twisty as of late. I apologize. I'm not usually this down and depressed. I think it's a combo of things that has been really working on me here in the last couple weeks. It doesn't really help that I'm dealing with Greggs passing either. I also know it's not fair to blame me being in a dark and twisty place on a man that isn't here any more. I'm not actually blaming him, but he sure didn't help matters any.

Today would have been Greggs 32nd birthday. Today should have been a happy occasion for his mom. Her baby boy turning 32, but instead, she has to visit a grave and lay flowers on a tombstone. It's just overwhelmingly sad to me. I know that I have a good husband who loves me so very much, but, I just can't help but feel a great sense of loss because of it. Gregg was my first love, the one that you never ever forget. I haven't. I can't.

I guess that the one thing that his passing did for me was restore a vigor in me to help those that are overweight. Gregg was always battling his weight. Even while he was in the Navy, he was overweight. He liked to drink and those extra "el-bees" really showed in the form of a pot-belly. He had such severe PTSD that he would drink to shut his mind up. It's actually quite common among vets who have such bad PTSD. It's unfortunate that the only solace he found for all of the terrible things that happened while he was fighting for this country could be found at the bottom of an empty liquor bottle. I'm more passionate about people getting in shape. I'm not even talking about fitting in size 00 jeans that need to be altered and looking like a tooth pick! I'm talking lets get our hearts pumping today! Lets be at a healthy weight for our hearts and joints. It's not healthy to carry around excess weight.

I just want to thank all of you (any of you? LOL) that take the time to read my random crazy rantings about seemingly nothing.

Halloween!! and other randomness

2010-11-03T09:56:00.001-04:00

So, we did our traditional Trick-or-Treating in the "ritzy" neighborhood this year with our friend Keona and Bob and their two kids. We had a BLAST! Monkey was Dracula with blue hair (my mom had made his cloak for him a few years ago. It USED to almost be to the ground, it was to about his knees... LOL). I tried to get him to get black colored hair gel, but nooooo! "It will be cool with blue Momma! Just watch!" Ultimately, he got to be a "cool Dracula with blue hair." Bug was a clown with BRIGHT pink hair (Mom had also made the clown costume as well!)! Len was a Zombie Vampire (I think....) We started right about 5:45. We tricked and treated all the way around this neighborhood. Here is a pretty good picture of all 3 of the lil ragamuffins at around 8:10

We were trying to make it back to the car at this point. They were all pretty tired! There were still a few houses handing out candy at that point. There was one "haunted house" that had me laughing pretty hard. The kiddos went up to go into the garage (the haunted house) and all disappeared. I then hear one of the girls screaming. Monkey comes walking out like it's not a big deal, Bug comes out a little more quickly, and then poor Len gets chased out by a nun with a chainsaw! LOL When we finally make it back to the car at right after 8:30, we all decide that we're hungry! Wendys it is... no it's not! There were about 15 cars in the drive thru and we didn't really feel like walking any more than we already had and really needed to, so we went to BoJangles. (Think Cajun style KFC) We came home, ate, then we had to wash hair because I didn't want to have to wash sheets! Finally both kids were in bed just a shade after 10. That's really late for the kiddos!!

Being that it was Sunday, they had school the next day, and Sam had to go to work as well. He had to cut his hair, which meant I had to stay up longer! I finally got into bed around 12:30. Monday was killer! (Which was why I didn't post any giveaways! Sowwy!)

I drug booty all Monday long, and Sam had to go for a sleep study so they could figure out what kind of CPAP machine that he's going to be getting. The tech told him that he is a "mouth breather" which is REALLY funny because I would have never thought that. What *I* thought is that he snores so loud that it's impossible to tell the difference! Both of the kids had their check up at the Dentist as well. Monkey had one cavity in the very back, so we had to make an appointment to have that filled. Monday night was very chilly, so I had turned on the heater. Which in turn made all kinds of crazy noises, which kept me up! Logically, I KNEW nothing was in the house, it was just weird hearing them, and every time I would start to drift off I would hear a knocking sound coming from some part of the house. Needless to say, I didn't sleep that well.

Yesterday was a bit of the same. Very tired when I woke up!! Monkey had an appointment to get his cavity filled, so we went and did that. I picked lil man up from school and we headed over to the Dentist. I LOVE our Dentist. He's in his late 30's, so he's a younger guy. He reminds me just a tiny bit of the Dentist I had growing up, Dr Robson. We talked about "old school dentistry." You guys know what I'm talking about! Where the Dentist was in the room with you, for the most part, alone. He did all the suction, and spitting, and instrument changes and everything all by himself, with the occasional help from someone else. There wasn't one person that did cleanings and then he would come in and check. Newp! he did the cleanings, and the fillings, and pretty much everything else. The assistant helped with the x-rays. He didn't wear gloves, and he didn't wear one of those paper masks either! I remember looking up my Dentists nose, always looking for boogers and watching him work on my teeth in his glasses! (Yes, I was a strange child, why do you ask?)

ANYWAYS!

This time of year always gets to me. It's the time of year that it starts to turn colder. It's the time of year that those of us that live in the country don't particularly like. We didn't have this problem last year... either that or we didn't notice it last year... either that or I've blocked it from my memory... but there are MICE in the house! (EEEEEEEEEEEK!) So, I set some traps. Not those wooden traps with the springs that if you ACCIDENTLY set it off it tries to sever your finger. NO! These are plastic traps. I'm not sure of I like them or not. Yesterday afternoon, I heard the trap snap. HOORAY! I caught one! Now I can just throw it in the trash and be done with it. Oh no! It had to get it's leg stuck in the freakin thing!! So, here is this mouse, trying to run away on 3 legs, with a big plastic trap stuck to it's 4th one. I simply let it be. Sam can deal with it. So what does he do? Decides to bonk it with a crow bar! *sigh*

Today is another story. TODAY Monkey has an appointment for his ADHD meds and then he's done with appointments for a while. Then Sam and I have an appointment on base for Thursday! ACK! Busy busy busy!!

*linking this up at Fun On A Dime*

Feeling better

2010-10-28T07:36:00.000-04:00

Greggs passing hit me very hard, but I'm trying to take it in stride. I didn't cry at all yesterday, but I did still feel a bit down. One day at a time!

Today, Monkey has a therapy appointment at 8. Normally his school bus picks him up at around 6:40, but today we woke up at 6:30. He FREAKED out and jumped out of bed and said "MOM! WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP!" *giggle* Wouldn't you know it, I had the opportunity to sleep in this morning and I woke up at 5:30 anyways, even tho I set the alarm clock for 6 so I could take an early shower. Oh well.

Bug has "dress up" day today at school. They were either supposed to wear something to show what they want to be when they grow up, or dress up nicely. Bug did both, because she wants to be a Princess/model when she grows up! She even took the little tiara from when we had her hair done for the father daughter dance and stuck it in her hair. She is SO funny!