Not so fun Monday...

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

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!

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

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!!

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

Shutterfly

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

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