Our Life In Pictures - Project 365 Week 8

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

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!!

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

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!!

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

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.

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

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?

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... )