My Husband "Subvet" says that when our first son "Sonshine" was born the sun rose on our world, when our second son "Gator" was born the sun laughed and when our daughter "Sugars" was born all the flowers bloomed. That says it all.

"Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass...
It's about learning how to dance in the rain."
Anonymous

Your mind is the garden, your
thoughts are the seeds, the harvest can either be flowers or weeds. — William
Wordsworth

Monday, August 31, 2009

the todo list.....

a little while ago Adrienne posted about her method of getting and staying organized...

she talked about having a spot for a Brain Drain where she writes down all the things she wants to get done that go floating through her lovely head.

Well, I have that too...it's my todo list. About once or twice a week I get so many things running through my head that I want/need to do that I need to sit and write them all down or a) I get terribly overwhelmed and b) I start forgetting things (usually the important ones).

Today on the way to work was one of those times. So when I got to the parking lot I grabbed a sheet of paper and emptied my overflowing brain...

Here's the result:

add the kids religious education classes to the big calendar
add the riding lessons to same calendar
weed flower bed
put bills in mail
call orthopedic specialist for Gator's follow up apt
call PCP for referral to othopedic specialist
work on lagniappe--get in mail
get fabric for ghost costumes --use Jo Ann's gift cert
finish apron for Sugars' dress
make cross template and start cutting plastic canvas for this year's Christmas gifts
make binding for Sugars' quilt
finish Sugars' quilt
dig bed for roses and daylillies
buy manure and soil for new bed
plant roses and daylillies.


There, I feel better now!
maybe you can see why I must make a short list of goals in order to get ANYTHING done!!

Oh and stop by this post on Adrienne's blog and read her very flattering take on quilters!!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

a first for our family!




boy vs slide...slide wins...boy charms ER doc...boy gets cast on right arm....thereby ending the debate of whether he's right or left handed!!


for details see Subvet's post!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

keeping tabs

walked the halls at work...check.

finished the quilting on Sugars' quilt....check.

for tomorrow night...mend the dress and finish the apron and start making the binding for her quilt!


I've decided that if there's less than FIVE entries for a Thesaurus Thursday game I'm declaring a mistrial and continuing the same words for the next week.

Last week only has 3 entries so far....so

Get over here and give it your best (or worst) shots!

The Bedroom Hokey Pokey

Despite my many attempts to teach the boys to stay in their room till after the clock strikes 6 every morning it seems that they come crawling into our bed about 4am more often than not.

Particularly on the mornings that I'm home.


Gator-boy, the more active and least snuggly of the two INSISTS on laying right next to ME!

And so at 4:10am we start the morning's Hokey Pokey with Mom game...here's a glimpse:


ready?

you put your right elbow in Mom
you take your right elbow out
you put your right elbow in Mom and you shake it all about
you do the Hokey Pokey and you roll over in bed
Then you fall back asleep.

5 min later....

you put your left knee in Mom
you take your left knee out
you put your left knee in Mom and you shake it all about
you do the Hokey Pokey and you roll over in bed
Then you fall back asleep.

5 min later....

you put your whole self on Mom
you take your whole self off
you put your whole self on Mom and you shake it all about
you do the Hokey Pokey and you roll over in bed
That's what it's all about!

you do the Hooooookey Pokey! and roll over
you do the Hooookey Pokey! and roll over
you do the Hooookey Pokey! and roll over

Then Mom kicks you out of bed!!


after this he usually plays almost quietly in our room.

At some point he'll start knocking on Sugars' bedroom door till we go let her out and crawl back in bed hoping to at least PRETEND to sleep till 6am.

sometime around 5:30am we surrender to the start of the day.......because the cat is hissing hysterically at Gator-boy from the corner of the closet where he has her trapped..

Sugars is dragging the plunger down the hall...

and Sonshine is bouncing the bed saying "Wake up Daddy!!"

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Goal Post!

last weeks goals were:
1) finish quilting the baby quilt. Only 12 days left to get it finished for school!!
sigh, well school started without her quilt, poor baby. But it's almost finished!! Lots of work getting done on this one.

2) continue with exercising...I have walked at work a time or two and have done STTO with Richie at least twice this week.

3) get this stuff mailed...it's not in the mail yet, but I have it almost all ready to go. Just a few finishing touches on the lagniappe and then off to the post office!

same goals for this week except #1 altered to say finish the baby quilt instead of just finishing the quilting.


Now, you have until midnight tonight to play Thesaurus Thursday! There's only 3 entries so far....get over there and join in!!

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

dog days of summer...

are gone!!


sniff sniff





no more ice cream breaks with Daddy after a hard morning of swimming!!



:-)
this was taken through the window as Mom was supposed to be sleeping.


On to homework and early mornings....

Monday, August 24, 2009

and they're off...........

yup, did the deed.

took Mr Big Stuff to Kindergarten. sigh, where the time go??

Here's the highlights.

1) I thought some celebrity was walking in the doors and kept looking for the red carpet!! Turned out it was the Parent Papparazzi!! good grief.

2) thank God that the boy will be riding the (sp ed) bus from now on!! What a traffic NIGHTMARE!! (and that's with the cop directing traffic!)

3) How is it sooooo many parents didn't register their kids for Kinder BEFORE it's time to start the first day of school??? (those poor office workers!)

4) little bathrooms connected to the kinder classroom is a GOOD IDEA!! (I'm impressed)

5) what's with the tears? All these kids were bawling...and the parents kept hanging around!... Maybe it's the autism, maybe it's just him....but my kid has NEVER cried at being left at school. His first day of preschool I was lucky to get him to tell me bye....today was no different. ("okay momma, bye bye, I wanna color!")

6) the house is SILENT! and I'm ALONE (Daddy took the other two out) YIPPEEEEEEEE!!

7) I'll add a pic of the boy getting off the schoolbus to this post this afternoon :-) (at least I wasn't trying to get the teacher to pose with him in the middle of her trying to check in each kid!)




you can see his bus driver and the aide helping him down.....he's soo excited and had a great day!

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Toaster Trouble

Let me start by saying that we make our own bread with the help of our trusty breadmachine.

We've worn out several machines and haven't bought a loaf of bread in 9 years. Except the one we bought 6 years ago that first day after we moved into this house and our kitchen was still in boxes.

With homemade bread comes many good things...especially saving a TON of money.

but you also get the occasional difficulty....

As you can see...it is almost impossible to find a toaster that will accomodate homemade bread.






bread boxes won't work either and some lunchboxes are riduculously small. These things must be taken into consideration when buying school supplies....Which is why Sugars now has this lunchbox....


well that and it's just damn cute!



oh and speaking of things that are too big to be believed.....

had to take the kids for shoes AGAIN this week. Was fun to have each kid alone for shopping but, Sonshine went up 1/2 size, Gator a size and Sugars...



1 1/2 sizes bigger since I bought all of them shoes April 25th. Yup, you read that right...it's been FOUR MONTHS!!!

For the record:

Sonshine, age 5 3/4, shoe size 2 1/2 Wide, pants size 8 regular
Gator-boy, age 4 1/2, shoe size 13 Wide, pants size 5 slim
Sugars, age 2 1/2, shoe size 9 1/2 Extra Wide, clothes 4T (almost to a 5T).

For some reason I'm reminded of They Might Be Giants......

Saturday, August 22, 2009

color change courtesy of Sonshine....he picked em all out so talk to him if it's hard to read!!

Friday, August 21, 2009

we interrupt this program.....

YIKES! School starts on Monday!


anyone else as busy as I am getting last minute things done??

I will be back to regular blogging next week...till then scroll down a post and try your hand at Thesaurus Thursday.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

goals and Thesaurus Thursday!

Forgot to do my goal post yesterday.
So last week's goals were:
1) finish quilting the baby quilt. Only 12 days left to get it finished for school!!
2) continue with exercising
3) get this stuff mailed.

The only thing I did on this list was to walk at work a couple times.

So, same goals for this week, wish me luck!


ON TO THE GAME!



REAL DEFINITIONS ARE:
abjure - 1) to repudiate or retract, esp. with formal solemnity; recant. 2) to renounce or give up under oath; forswear 3) to refrain from; avoid (sorry Diane and Mary...you must be thinking of another word...possible adjure which means "to entreat or request earnestly or solemnly)

ablaut - regular alternation of vowels in a word element, reflecing a change in grammatical function, as in English sing, sang, sung, song; apophony.


Silly Goose Winner is:
Mary:
ablaut: A piece of absorbant paper, such as a blotter.

:-)


NEXT WEEK'S WORDS:
adscititious

adumbrate

have fun, remember you have all week to come up with your guesses!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Me and Richard Simmons

I think I've told you guys before that I'm a big fan of Richard Simmons.

It started waay back in High School. Back in my actively anorexic days. (anorexia is like what I've been told about alcoholism...the demons never leave, you just keep beating them with a stick whenever they decide to pop up again).
Anyway, back in the day..as it were...I would exercise to Sweatin to the Oldies...the ORIGINAL. (yup, I did say waaay back when). I love that the exercises are basically dance routines and that Richie (as I can't help but call him) is simply hilarious. He's a ham from start to finish and every time I find myself laughing. No matter how many times I've seen the tape.

So, at the beginning of '08 I decided to get back to exercising.

I started off walking the halls at work for 15min each night...but eventually got too busy to do that.

I tried walking the neighborhood, but it petered out too. Then I found a boxed set of Sweatin to the Oldies Vols 1-4....well, now, that I just couldn't pass up!!

I figured if I got bored with one DVD I'd just switch to another one and still keep my schedule going. Trying to exercise each night that I'm home alone in the dead of night. This worked pretty well until my recent schedule change. Now that I have 4 days off every week I'm switching to days for that stretch. This is planned and is a very good thing for the family. I get the chance to do things with the kids and give hubby a break that I just don't get when I work scattered nights and have to stay on a night routine. However, the down side to flipping my schedule every 3 days is that I no longer have 4 nights a week with hours of time to myself. This means I've lost that time when I did all my sewing....and all my exercising.

As with all schedule changes adjustments are being made and I will over the course of the next month figure out good times to add these back in. In the meantime I have started back to walking the halls at work for 15min in the dead of night. At least on nights when I get a "dead of night" time. We'll see how that goes.

A couple of months ago I got rather bored and found myself googling Richard Simmons for no good reason other than staying awake at work. After surfing his website for awhile and reading all these stories I realized that MY story is just like the others on his site. So I clicked on the "contact Richard" linkyloo and fired off an email letting Richard know how I've been dating him on the sly for YEARS AND YEARS now. In order to send the email you have to fill out this form wanting name and address and phone number stuff. Well, I hate those forms on principle and never fill in the correct information. So, putting my middle name as "last name" and leaving off a number or two of my address I filled out the form and sent in the email without giving it another thought. I mean really, he probably has an entire staff of mail screeners donchaknow!

Imagine my surprise when I see an envelope last week addressed to my first and middle name with this bizarro version of my address laying on my dining room table along with the day's mail.

and inside??




Now, it being more than two days since I fell off the turnip truck I'm entirely aware this quite possibly wasn't written by Richard. And it's probably a stock phrase/signature.....and I am not a person who gives a flip about getting autographs. I mean not.at.all.

But for some reason this little cardstock pic gives me encouragement....and when I look at it I find that tiny spark of motivation to get up and exercise again....

Monday, August 17, 2009

runing around in my head

Hi there.

I have a couple different posts chasing themselves around my head.

first there's the post telling all about MY FAVORITE FRIAR coming to dinner. (no I didn't take a single photograph!!)

then there's the post telling all about the day I woke up to find my darling boys BALD! (see header pic)

then there's the post about school starting NEXT WEEK and how that's going to be a brand new adventure.

thre's a couple others in there too...which are making loops in the back 40 of my mind.

but for some reason I can't bring any one of them together enough for an actual post. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's just because work has been super stressful this week. Or maybe it's because my body is revolting to flipping days to nights for 72 hours..and then back flipping back for 96 hours...to flip again.......etc.

I was even too fragmented to put up a friday fragments post!!

well, hang tight there folks. Here in a couple weeks things should settle down into an all new routine and regular blogging should return.... at least I hope so!

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Oh Boy!!

Took Sonshine for his eval to start equestrian therapy yesterday.

Highlights include the jack-in-the-box-circus-clown toy he played with in the office that he has talked about ever since.

The horse that he watched poop.

Chasing the barn cats all around the farm.

Talking about horse poop and that it's dirty and a no touch..."yeeees momma! horse poop isn't cake, momma, we don't eat it!"

The owner's amazement as the 2 donkeys walked right up to me and Sonshine...cuz they never come up to the kids at the first meeting.

And stopping on the way home to buy his "silly hat" (helmet) for riding the horses, which is black...and how Bella, the horse he's gonna learn to ride, needs to get a white hat too.

Lessons start Sept 12th. Should have lots of pictures and quotes to share!!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

umm okay?




You Are Basil



You are quite popular and loved by post people.

You have a mild temperament, but your style is definitely distinctive.

You are sweet, attractive, and you often smell good.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Thesaurus Thursday.

READ THE RULES HERE!

WINNERS!!

Stephanie D
abatis--the type of death achieved when someone waits too long "with bated breath".

Diane:
Abacedarian - One of the lesser know Biblical people groups.
Usage: Arkadon was chief of the Abacedarian tribe.



REAL DEFNITIONS WERE:
abatis - a defensive obstacle formed from rows of tree branches, with an end of each branch facing outward toward the enemy.

abecedarian - 1) a person learning the letters of the alphabet 2) a beginner in any field 3) of or pertaining to the alphabet 4) arranged in alphabetical order 5) rudimentary; elementary. (sorry about mispelling this one last week...)

Sara and Jungle Mom both get Smarty Pants awards for guessing almost right on this one!!

All winners can pick up their awards from my sidebar!

Great definitions all around this week guys! Now don't forget to play again for next week.

NEXT WEEK'S WORDS:
abjure

ablaut

Have fun now!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Goal Post

Here's the goals from a couple weeks ago:
1) make a massive mailing Not yet done...but I'm making progress!

2) quilt 2 more diamonds and finish the half quilted one. Well, the total then was 11 done, I now have 15 1/2 done and 2 1/2 to go. Almost finished!!

3) exercise at least once I have exercised..but not in the way I intended. I've found that with this new schedule I don't have the alone time in the night like I used to because I'm switching to days for my blocks off work. (this is a very good thing) So instead of doing Richard Simmons I'm going back to what I did when I first returned to work. During the dead of the night I'm taking 15min to walk laps around the floor. Looks strange to my coworkers but I'm getting good exercise 3 nights a week. So far I've done it twice this week.

4) call and make all the appointments that are accumulating on my todo list. done! yippee!! only thing left on that todo list is mailing the giveaways.

5) replenish my snuggleometer. Have to say the snuggleometer is doing rather well right now. Again having a couple days a week to be on DAYS with the family helps tremendously!


Now, for next week.

1) finish quilting the baby quilt. Only 12 days left to get it finished for school!!
2) continue with exercising
3) get this stuff mailed.


:-)

we'll see how it goes!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Tuesday Thankfulness

Evansmom over at Just Sayin does a bit she calls Thankful Thursdays. Each Thursday she makes a list of things that she is thankful for that week. I happen to think this is THE BEST idea!!

Seeing as how I already have a regularly scheduled Thursday post (have you played yet??) I'm going to join her on Thankful Tuesday!! And I encourage you to join here on Tuesday and then go there on Thursday to double your weekly thankfulness!

Things I am thankful for:

I am thankful that I have a loving husband who will drop everything just to listen when I call from work to vent off my frustrations.

I am thankful that my kids are all starting to talk. Every week they are more intelligible.

I am thankful that I work with wonderful people.

I am thankful that our country has the potential to be an even greater place to live in the future.

I am thankful that I was born in America and never had to face choosing between a career, a family, or moving across the world in the hopes of a better life....as have many of my coworkers.

I am thankful that I got off my butt and walked the hospital floor for 15 min during the dead of the night tonight....for details see tomorrow's goal post!

I am thankful for all of the kind folks who leave comments on this blog and brighten my night.


There's my list...one for each day between today and next Tuesday. So, now it's your turn...what are you thankful for??

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Hello Old Friends

I've been off of the computer for a couple days. So I have about 100 posts in my reader to make my way through. Hang tight..I'll be by sooner or later!

Funny thing is that since I'm on the computer all the time at work, either charting or playing when I get home I'm not as interested in turning the thing on. I must say the exception to this statement is Farmville. Now that my kids are all interested in planting and picking those crops I've started planning crops for times when the kids will be around.....sigh. Not only did they INSIST that we put a fence around the animals that never move....now Sonshine wants a WINDMILL!! He's always loved windmills and once he saw that we could buy one for the farm he was hooked! Of course, windmills cost 100,000 coins and I only have about 25,000 coins so he's gonna just have to wait...we'll call it a lesson in delayed gratification and saving money HAHA!! Oh and I don't even want to talk about how he has me playing pac-man now! I've hated pac-man all my life!! aarrggh. (just me polishing my mommy-halo)

Now, about goals. You'll notice that I didn't set any new ones for this week...I'll get back to that on Wed. My work schedule has finally settled into a nice rhythm of work Sun, Mon, Tues...off Wed-Sat. rinse and repeat.

This means that I will be able to achieve more goals as I always do better with a set routine.

I will tell you that I am 2.5 diamonds from having the quilting done on this quilt! yippee! I'm soooo looking forward to moving on to the next project and marking that one off my todo list!!

Oh yes, and you have UNTIL THURSDAY to enter your definitions for this week's Thesaurus Thursday game so scroll down and join in!!! Leave more than one!!

Friday, August 7, 2009

READ THE RULES PEOPLE!

I have deleted a comment from Thesaurus Thursday because it was obvious that the person looked up the definitions.

Please note. Only leave real definitions if you know them WITHOUT looking them up. Knowing the words is what makes you a Smarty Pants, looking them up and posting the definitions doesn't qualify.

Thanks, now have fun!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Thesaurus Thursday

The "rules" of Thesaurus Thursday are as follows:

First and foremost, leave as many funny definitions for either word (or both) as you can think up in the comments!! The ones that make me laugh the hardest will be given the Silly Goose Award.




Next, if you know (or think you know) the true definitions without looking them up then be sure and leave those in the comments too!! All definitions that are correct (or close enough for government work and Mighty Mom) will win the Smarty Pants Award!


Ready?
Okay, the words for this week are:

abatis

abacedarian


Now, have fun making up those definitions!!


Winners and new words posted next Thursday.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Who's Fat?

Well, I've been feeling rather plump lately. The scale and I are arguing again...

Then I read this post from Pam.

Then I read this post from Fr Philip.

Then I read this post from Subvet.


And now I can't get THIS SONG out of my head!
(with lyrics so you can really enjoy it!)



Anyone else out there feeling fat?

Monday, August 3, 2009

Ghosts.

While the Shrieking Shack may be the most haunted house in Britain, my house is definitely the most haunted one in Texas!

Without a doubt.

I dare you to come for a visit. But should you decide to brave this portal of things unseen; beware.

I'm warning you now.

There you'll be, hanging out in the living room. Broad daylight thinking you're safe from any paranormal activity and whammo.

you hear a noise.

you THINK you know what that noise is.....

then comes the ethereal stench.

Like something wafting up out of an opened grave.

Now you start to investigate! Prepared for battle you're a cross between Robocop and Ghostbuster as you wade into "the hot spot" armed with a clean diaper and box of baby wipes.

You've determined the location of the disturbance and move in for capture.
Unfortunately the human host of this most evil spirit spits and fights and kicks as she does her best to make your ears bleed from her screams.

Finally, your backup arrives and you get the possessed child down on the sofa, don your mask and gloves ready to remove the source of stench.

And that's when you see it.

At first you don't believe your eyes......you look again......you sniff the air, certain of the rottenness that's surrounding this exit chute. Then you gag cuz it's really really rotten.

And yet,


THERE'S NOTHING THERE.


Oh yes, You have fallen victim to GHOST POOP!

(all smell, no substance)








and that's when she giggles and says: "I squashed a duck!!"

Saturday, August 1, 2009

facebook

with facebook I have the opportunity to chat with folks I normally wouldn't chat with. which is nice. And I've run into a couple old pals from high school, which is very nice. I wouldn't mind if more HS folk wandered my way actually.


then we have these games.

I am now stuck in virtual land in two different games. They're both fun time wasters....but there's something about the idea of needing to jump online just so you can go and harvest virtual crops, before they die on the vine that is a bit disturbing. You do this to make virtual money to plant more virtual crops. And it's nice cuz they always grow...never need weeding...and the weather is always perfect. I mean where else can you grow lemons, wheat, eggplants and strawberries all at the same time right next to the cow and the goat who are happily staying put and NOT eating the crops!!

Subvet got Mr Rogers' Neighborhood on DVD for the kids. As we were watching he mentioned how odd it was that the trolley went from the house...to this other city...then those folks went through a hidden door into a magic garden. I told him. It's the Land Of Make Believe!! Anything is possible there!!

So, what do you think? Is facebook the new and improved Land of Make Believe?????

mmmmmmmm

thoughts? jokes?? snide commentary???


oops, gotta go...my soybeans are 99% grown and will be up for harvesting in a couple minutes........