Just one of those days

Yesterday was not a good day. It started off great. Everyone got up and got dressed in great time, L was excited about her field trip and J was psyched to be going to school. We dropped JT off at work and headed to school, found a new way to school that saved me 5 minutes, I was strangely thrilled. Got to school, checked J in and left with the field trippers. I was going to ride with my friend BA and her son Ish but the teacher didn’t have a ride so I agreed once again to take her in my car so BA and Ish drove seperately. On the way there I realized I had coffee breath (mmmm… coffee), I pulled out a big piece of Hubba Bubba, or something like that, and was happily chewing when all of a sudden… crunch! I instantly knew it was my tooth or a filling so I took the gum out and scanned my teeth with my tongue, it was some random back tooth that just completely broke off. Delightful. Luckily there isn’t any pain involved, yet.

So we get to the zoo and there is hardly any parking so I park on art hill (if you live in the Lou you know where this is) carefully watched for signs and yellow curbs and parked in between and then walked to the zoo. Had fun in the zoo, no problems whatsoever. Walk to car with both teachers to go back to school and retrieve J. Get to my car and there is a parking ticket. WTF?!?!?! I was really pissed off. It’s only $25 but I thought I had been careful. Turns out I didn’t see the no parking sign just a few feet back from where I was parked. Apparently there is NO parking after the crosswalk. Stupid city parking, something I deal with everyday believe it or not.

So my broken tooth, ticketed ass heads back to school where I pick my up J man and head home for lunch. Once home and full I decide to tackle my pc. I have a Dell laptop with Vista (ugh) and the dang thing will not update lately. It’s almost been two weeks. So, I look up the error code and try to fix it myself, no luck. Call customer service and spend 2 hours on the phone with them, no joke. Tells me to reinstall the operating system but that doesn’t work either, corrupt or missing file. At this point I am seething. I just want my pc back, I have blogs to write people. We left to pick up JT and had dinner out because I was so crabby and didn’t feel like making anything and then took the kids to get their first snowcones (highlight of my day). They loved them but neither of them could finish their kiddie sizes. I finished my kiddie size plus part of L’s, yum, sugar!!! Want a picture break…

The kids sitting in the back of the car eating their snowcones

Came home where JT lovingly picked up where I left off with my pc. He was off and on the phone with them until 10:30 pm. The whole pc affair ended in JT cussing and screaming at some Microsoft technician in India. He was royally pissed off. So my pc is working just not updating, I am looking for a dentist to call for an appointment and JT will take care of the stupid parking ticket. Really I know I lost some of you through this post but lord what a day. I know we all have them but I hardly ever have so many bad things happen in one day. Today’s a new day and so far it’s pretty good, let’s hope it keeps up.

Things I Love Thursday – Reading

I love reading, which is why I started my own book club, I am more of a summer reader than anything during the fall/winter because truth be told all of my TV programs are new. So in the summer when everything is in repeat you will finding me sitting at night with the baseball game on in the background reading. So, I was recently sent a book to review (in between our book picks for our book club which is a shame because I think the girls would like this one) and have been very excited about reading The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. I had seen this book in book stores and now I see that even Oprah herself has read and reviewed this book, but now it’s my turn.

I am a judge the book by the cover kind of reader (and the cover is very welcoming), unfortunately, but I also will read the back of a book or dust jacket and after reading the book’s information I was very intrigued.

For Kelly Corrigan, family is everything. At thirty-six, she had a marriage that worked, two funny, active kids, and a weekly newspaper column. But even as a thriving adult, Kelly still saw herself as the daughter of garrulous Irish-American charmer George Corrigan. She was living deep within what she calls the Middle Place – “that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap” – comfortably wedged between her adult duties and her parents’ care. But Kelly is abruptly shoved into coming-of-age when she finds a lump in her breast – and gets the diagnosis no one wants to hear. When George, too, learns that he has late-stage cancer, it is Kelly’s turn to take care of the man who had always taken care of her – and to show us a woman who finally takes the leap and grows up.

From the moment I picked this book up and started reading the Prologue I was hooked, alone just for the fact that I fell in love with her father (Greenie, The Green Man or old Billy Goat). I also love that he calls his daughter (Kelly) Lovey. It made me smile each time he called her by the nickname, especially bringing me to tears as she discovers her breast cancer diagnosis and he rushes to her side.

There is also the tale of her marriage, which Edward (her husband) sounds like an amazing man. I won’t say better than my own husband because mine is pretty great but I can only imagine what cancer can do to a marriage. I would think you would have to really have a strong marriage and a lovely husband such as Edward to have your relationship survive cancer.

The book is beautifully written and it keeps you coming back for more, more of her youth that she describes in every other chapter and more of her struggle with not only her own cancer diagnosis but also her father’s, which she finds out about on November 23rd 2004 the day before Thanksgiving.

You can easily relate with her because she tells you the real stuff and not just the real stuff about motherhood, marriage, being a daughter but also being a cancer patient. This book is comforting, funny, touching and a tad bit voyeuristic, but I really liked reading it, I won’t spoil anything for you by revealing anything more but I think it’s a light and easy read and PERFECT for a summer vacation or a lazy day on your front porch.

Lots of Layouts

I have been consumed with my new hobby. So much so that scrapbooking fell to the side for a while. I was disappointed that I missed the posting deadline for my 2 Peas class in March. It’s sad really since I’ve had the layout done since March 29th, I’ve just been busy and didn’t get a picture up in time. So this time I quickly finished my April class and posted the picture right away. Once I do one layout though I tend to get on a roll and lately I have all of these great pictures so I’ve start scrapbooking again, that’s was supposed to be my point!!! Here are the ones I’ve completely lately that I really like.

The two of L were completely on March 29th when I went scrapbooking with some girlfriends.

Imagination can make you fly! March 2 Peas Sketch

The hidden journaling

My little beauty

 These two layout I did about J were done last night and today.

My lil soccer player, 2 Peas April Sketch

J at age 3 1/2

I think I love them all but my very favorite one is the soccer player one. It’s such a sweet of J.

Top Ten Tuesday – My Pet Peeves

Today for my top ten I have decided to do 10 of my biggest pet peeves or really I should just title it things that get under my skin. Better yet things that piss me off. Can you tell I was slightly grumpy when I made this list?! It’s very therapuetic to make this list and talk about each one to a great extent, feels like a little of the burden is lifted. All that said, here they are:

1. This is most definitely the biggest one I have… People who don’t wave thank you when I let them over. It never fails some idiot is holding up traffic in his lane with his dumb blinker on trying to get over in freakin rush hour. So I decide to be nice because we are never going to move until this joker gets his act together, do you think he waves to say thank you, NO!!! Do me a favor and appreciate that I am busy too and have taken a little of my time to be nice to you. Fool!!!

2. Slow internet. I am impatient and don’t want to sit and wait for my supposed fastest speed DSL to get the job done and don’t even get me started on Internet Explorer or Windows Vista.

3. Having to reboot… anything. Always rebooting the internet, my pc or my iPhone. Ugh, I don’t even want to know the amount of time wasted per day doing this task.

4. Being ignored. My lovely husband is the number one culprit of this pet peeve. It often happens when we are on the phone while he’s at work (just tell me you’re busy) or while watching sports. My children have been known to also ignore me and I am sure as they age into lovely teenagers it will only get worse.

5. Whiny children. I am constantly telling my kids to use their regular voices. Lord there are better ways of getting a point across. But since they are children I am sure they will outgrow this.

6. This one has always been annoying, even before I had my own children. Kids without manners. I was raised to say no ma’am and yes ma’am, along with the respectful sir sayings. I even answered my parents phone in a respectful way growing up, so now I am making sure I pass all of that on to my children. My kids have to say please and thank you as well as “may I be excused please” when wanting to leave the table. The table manners are coming, slowly. Eventually I hope they will be well mannered citizens.

7. Loud noises. My ears are so sensitive and I cannot stand loud noises (like my kids banging musical instruments like tambourines) while I am trying to concentrate but the worst is someone chewing loudly or chewing with their mouth open. I am cringing at the thought.

8. The oil change idiot light in my van. It notifies you the minute you cross over the mileage. I understand that it’s there to help you and remind you to get your oil changed but the dang thing starts to flash at you and I can never remember how to turn it off. ANNOYING!!

9. My dogs barking/whining. He barks morning, noon and night. When we get home he does this excited bark/whine that drives me almost to insanity and he won’t quit, it gets so bad that even my kids yell at him to stop. He also barks at everyone that comes over, some people will approach him and let him sniff them, he just licks their hand and starts barking again. Maybe this one should be #1. Tick tock Roscoe.

10. Just because this happened to me recently… A person who will sit next to you and laugh in your face or put you down without realizing they are being ignorant and doing so. I was recently at a meeting and was made to feel small as I did long ago before I grew up. I know it’s there problem but I have overcome obstacles in my life and with my self esteem and hate it when people want to bring you back down so you feel beneath them again. Making fun of someone never makes that other person feel good.

There you have it… I feel better and even laughed a little along the way. Wanna see more fun lists, I know I do. Check out Oh Amanda, her blog rocks.

Ragu New Flavors = Delicious

I don’t know about you but after a day of running errands, chasing kids and keeping up with the house the last thing I feel like doing is making an elaborate meal. We have Ragu in our house at least once a week, not only because it’s delicious and easy but because spaghetti is the only meal I know my son will eat every time. Last night we tried one of Ragu’s new pasta sauce flavors, Ragu Old World Style Margherita. It was really good. Not as rich as some of their other flavors and my kids devoured it, I keep wanting to say that it had a smooth taste (can you tell I would never qualify as a food critic) and low and behold that’s what it says on the jar. The reason I think I liked it so much… it’s made with tomatoes (obviously), pizza seasonings and mozzarella cheese, none of the harsh Italian seasonings. I swear you will not regret trying this it was really that good. We had the pastsa sauce with just plain old spaghetti noodles but if you check out their website at www.ragu.comyou can find so many other recipes to try with the new Margherita flavor. For instance the Chicken Margherita sounds yummy or the Grilled Steak with Red Tomato Rice.

They have also introduced another new flavor called Ragu Old World Style Sweet Tomato Basil. I haven’t tried this flavor yet but have purchased it and will most likely be eating this within the week. I am not kidding that we eat spaghetti or one type of pasta once a week. There are also recipes for this new flavor as well, you can find them here.

Ragu has a great website with lots of recipes and I feel it’s worth a visit for us busy stay-at-home moms or the busy working woman/mom. If you are interested in receiving the opportunities to review great products like Ragu please visit www.momcentral.com.

Photo Monday – A Rainbow of Colors

I was going to put this up after L’s 5 year old checkup today but I’m just sitting here enjoying the rainy blah day, how appropriate is today’s topic BTW maybe these pictures will bring a little sunshine to our day. Anyway yesterday was my Bead for Life party and I really enjoyed having all the women in my life in one place. I thought it went okay, I expected more people but it’s fine. Everyone that came bought something because it’s so affordable and such cool colored jewelry. You should check it out, host your own party and invite me so I can buy more stuff 🙂 Here is my pic today…

If you are interested in playing along just leave me a comment and I will link your blog to this post.

Participants this week:

 Where Life Becomes Art

Next week’s topic will be Architecture… just a picture of your favorite building or buildings or whatever.

Playing with my new camera

Three posts in one night, can you tell I’ve been through withdrawals. My friend that sold my mom and JT her camera also gave me a card reader so I have been downloading as much as I have been taking, which is a lot. Here are some of my favorite pictures that I took with my camera today, a little photo shoot which was originally intended to show off the dress I made and then we just started playing around.

These aren’t edited because… well I don’t know how to and that’s my next lesson 🙂

 

 

 

God I love my camera. I really need to have something to take pictures of besides my kids 😉 they are good subjects but I took over 100 today of just them and JT gets a tad impatient with me so I’ve decided to start with some downtown photos. Here’s my first one, not sure if I like it in color or black and white. What’s your opinion???

 

Making the outside nice again

Today I picked L up from school and then we went flower shopping. L was very excited to be picking out the flowers this year because she has informed me that she will be in charge of watering them this year (we’ll see). Here are our outdoor spring changes….

• We bought some red gerbera daisies for the front yard next to some bushes and I think they look really awesome with our red front door.
• Some flowers for a long planter I have that sits on our porch
• A huge fern for a rather large pot that sits on a corner of the porch
• We put out our adironack chairs and table
• Our water fountain/feature
• An asian lantern that sits in between our front doors

All that and our house is ready, not only for spring but it is also now presentable to my guests this weekend. My mom of course worked side by side with me to make the house beautiful. L ran upstairs and grabbed my point and shoot camera to document ME planting flowers.

Like I said these were all taken by L. I think she did a pretty good job.

Our house (picture taken by me)…

I think it looks perfect.

Fashion Challenge Friday

I have been missing in action most of this week, I have been very busy getting stuff ready for my open house this weekend and working on other hobbies. I have been making some dresses for L and I think they turned out pretty cute. Today L wanted to fashion those two new dresses for you, I still have to make the bloomers for underneath because these are play dresses and when she plays she tends to be less ladylike. So instead of bloomers we’ll call them underpant covers, that way she’ll wear them.

Here she is in dress #1:

and dress #2 (which is my favorite):

Wanna see some more creative little girls, check out Do They Have Salsa in China.

Excited doesn’t even explain how I feel….

I am surprised that I lasted this long (I’ve been a little tired today) but I received the second best birthday present ever on Sunday. The first for those who are curious was my daughter. My husband and mother got together and bought me a Nikon D70 from my friend at Where Life Becomes Art. So what does all that mean – I NOW HAVE A D-SLR. Something I have dreamed of owning and I am beside myself excited. I can’t wait to learn to use everything on this camera. It went everywhere with me today and I have taken a ton of pictures. My friend and I are meeting tomorrow and that’s when I will get the card reader to transfer the pictures from the camera to the pc. I cannot wait to see them up close and see how I’m doing. Plus she is going to teach me everything she knows and I can take real life photography classes. There I feel so much better I had wanted to blog about it all day and kept forgetting. Here’s a picture of me with my new camera… oh and she gave me a lense to go with it.

Sigh, I’m so lucky to have a mom, a husband and a friend that love me that much to pull off such a huge surprise. Someday you’ll have to ask me how it all went down. It’s funny, but I’m tired. I’ll save the story for another night.