My New Project

Have you heard about this yet? Janna from The Adventure of Motherhood has started a blog called Mommy's Piggy Tales where she's recruiting bloggers to record their youth in 15 posts. Every Thursday, starting June 10, you'll write and link up your post on that week's subject (it goes year by year from kindergarten through high school, see her sidebar for the full schedule). She's organizing everyone into groups of 10 so you can really get to know the others in your group (but of course you can also hop around and read all the participants, she's up to about 40 bloggers right now).

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As you know, consistency (especially in blogging) is not my strength. I debated about joining but finally took the plunge. I tend to do well with commitments and deadlines, so hopefully I'll do okay. I figure for the really long ago stuff (like up till 4th grade), I'll be sharing whatever snippets I can remember from that time. After that, I hope I'll be able to tell some fun stories, the "best of the best" from each year. Though I experienced all the usual angst and crap, overall I had a good childhood (high school notwithstanding) so it should be fun.

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I'm looking forward to the challenge! I urge you to go over to Mommy's Piggy Tales and check out what Janna has going on. (She posted a funny story today from when she was four.) If it sounds like something you'd enjoy, it's easy to join in the fun--just send her an email. Like I said, it doesn't start till June 10, so there's plenty of time to think it over and even plan your first posts. Oh, and she's also forming a group (I think it's called "now and then") for inconsistent post-ers--if you aren't able to make a 15-week commitment but want to join anyway and do your best. So check it out! And of course come back here every Thursday to read about my fascinating childhood. Really, it will be thrilling, I promise. ;-)

Five Question Friday--May 28th

1. Is there something you've always wanted to try but just can't muster up the courage to actually do yet?
I can't think of anything. I have zero desire to skydive or bungee jump or get a tattoo etc.

2. If you had $100 handed to you in cash without your significant other knowing about it, what would you spend it on?
This is a tough one. Since money is so tight right now, the answer should be "groceries." But that's no fun so let's assume groceries are paid for.... I'd like a water table for the kids to play in the backyard this summer. I'd like some more clothes. I'd like to decorate T's room, but we'll probably wait till she's out of her crib.

Also, I don't know why my hubby isn't supposed to know about it. I'd tell him, it's not like he wants anything for himself (believe me, that makes shopping for holidays tough).

Okay, here's a want, though I can't really justify it because we have a little kitchen set that was a gift. Because I love all things diner (but it costs more like $150).....

3. What was your favorite piece of playground equipment as a child?
I loved the swings. Swing swing swing, all the time.

My grandparents live next to an elementary school, so it was like having a playground in their backyard. (But we only visited them a few times per year.) When I was a kid, that park had some very cool equipment. There was a metal pirate ship to climb on and this hamburger/spaceship that you climbed up a ladder and into the hamburger. Those were lots of fun. And it had two of those little merry-go-rounds I never see anymore. We had so much fun at that playground over the years!

4. Do you prefer a sweet or hearty breakfast?
I'm a sweets girl. My everyday breakfast is Eggo waffles with syrup, so yeah, pretty sweet. Although I sometimes eat eggs on the weekend, my idea of a special breakfast is pancakes or french toast, also sweet. Or I could skip the food altogether and just have donuts, coffee cake, or cinnamon rolls. Yum!

Sadly, my husband doesn't share my preferences. He's sensitive to too much sugar (hypoglycemic?) so we rarely do french toast or cinnamon rolls etc. He loves donuts, though, he can have a bunch of those after a hearty breakfast. But we don't do those often because they irritate my IBS. :-(

5. Are you a Neat Freak or a Messy Bessy?
Ugh, I am such a Messy Bessy! :-( I wish I were a neat freak, even just a little bit, but I have no motivation to clean until it looks like a tornado came through or animals are starting to move in. Yuck! I am trying to get more organized but it's a very slow process when overwhelmed by just the day-to-day of raising kids.

Go over here and join the 5-question fun!

Week in Review

This past week was insane! (Oh and I know I didn't "review" the week before that, let's just say L was sick the whole week and leave it at that.) I knew it would be insane going into it, but it was actually worse than expected because T was sick and then I got sick--so I had to do all this running around while I was congested, sneezy, nose-running and with a sore throat. As added incentive, I told myself that once I made it to Friday, I would bake myself a cake.

We went to bed Sunday night planning that L would go to preschool the next morning (after being sick the whole week before), but at 12:45am my husband and I were still awake from listening to T cough on the monitor. So plan B: turned off the monitor so we could sleep (if she started to cry, we'd hear her on L's monitor), turn off the alarm clock so no 6:45 wake up call, L would miss school and I would take T to the doctor.

Monday morning, I call in L's absence to school and hubby calls the doctor's office. Then hubby goes to work and I drag L and T to the doctor's office. I should pause here to mention that I rarely think it's worth a visit to the doctor's office for "just a cold" or really anytime I know what the problem is. Hubby, however, always wants me to take the kids to be seen. On this particular day, I really didn't want to try to do both the doctor in the morning and speech in the afternoon, and the doctor's office is far away. But now L was missing school and I reminded myself that at least the doctor can look in her ears and throat. Despite T's awful night of coughing, she was dancing around the doctor's office and everything checked out fine.

We headed home, ate lunch, then went to speech. Oh and I called potential preschool #1 to set up a visit for the next day. We were in the process of choosing a pre-K program for L next year. We are "holding him back" or "redshirting" him: he turns 5 this summer, but we don't feel he's ready for kindergarten. Crazy day #1 = finished.

Also, at some point on Monday I went to Target and bought a humidifier for T's room. How did I manage to fit that errand in, I don't even remember!

Tuesday, T and I visited preschool #1 while L was at school. By this time, I have caught L and T's cold and am feeling miserable. I rested as much as possible knowing the next two days would be crazy.

Wednesday, I took L to potential preschool #2 for an assessment. The director wanted to meet him to see if he fits in their pre-K or their K1 classroom. She asked him a few questions and proclaimed him pre-K, which suits our needs perfectly. Then lunch, then speech. Crazy day #2 is over.

Wednesday night, hubby informs me that he has to be in Tempe by 8am the next morning. I have to leave for Scottsdale by 7:45am--so this leaves no one to take L to preschool. Thursday morning is T's speech evaluation (she is 20 months old and doesn't talk at all) and I scheduled it for 8:30am specifically so L wouldn't be there. Eek!

Thursday morning I rushed to get both kids ready to go while hubby headed to Tempe. I took L and T to the speech evaluation and apologized that I had to bring L with me. They put him in the office (so he could be supervised by the receptionists) and that solved the problem. Yea! The evaluation took less than 90 minutes (she scored 12-15 months on receptive language and 6-9 months on expressive--so she'll be getting therapy twice a week forever, just like L).

We collected L from the office and set up our future appointments and went on our merry way. Then lunch etc. and then went back to the same place for L's feeding therapy at 3pm. Before L got sick, he'd started eating hot dogs, but now he associates it with being sick and he won't eat them any more. Poop!

Once we were home from speech, crazy day #3 and insane week were over, praise the Lord!!!

Friday was a normal day, L went to preschool and I did as little as possible. I didn't even manage to make my cake.

So those were the big events of the week. This doesn't include all the feeding, bathing, housework, cooking etc. that took place as usual (and despite my cold). We also reserved L's birthday party at Peter Piper Pizza and I sent invitations to school on Tuesday. Oh and yesterday (Sunday), the 4 of us went to a travel expo that was a lot of fun--T sat patiently in her stroller and L was great about not running off and he enjoyed all the free candy and exploring the RVs on display, while hubby and I gathered information about various Arizona vacation spots.

No successes and failures this week. The success was just getting through the week.

Movies (this includes those I would have reviewed the previous week)
-We rewatched Pandorum and I am upgrading my rating to a B. It was pretty good--it held our attention through two viewings, which is saying something. Still, it didn't make a lot of sense.
-Paris 36: lame, several plots, none of which went anywhere. C
-9: Cute characters and a cool look, but the plot and action were of Saturday morning cartoon quality. C
-Devil's Tomb: Wow, was this movie bad! And what was Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr. doing among these B- and C-list actors? Bad! D (I was going to give it an F, but after all, we watched the whole thing rather than turning it off.)
-Cache: Hubby liked this more than I did (as is typical of foreign films). It was very intriguing for about 60% of the film and then the rest was like what the %^&*@!. And there was no resolution--which bugs me because I like everything tied up in a bow but my husband likes the mystery. I'll give it a C+ (because there were some cool elements at the beginning).

As you can see, we've been watching lousy movies lately. Please share your recommendations in the comments so we can rent some good movies, thanks!

TV
Glee: As usual, I loved the music. Doogie rocked! As for the plot, I'm confused. I thought Jesse hooked up with Rachel to sabatoge New Directions, now Vocal Adrenaline's coach is Rachel's birth mother? So are they still sabatoging Glee or is the point to have Rachel meet her mom, and if the coach is Rachel's mom, then why is she trying to sabatoge her daughter's glee club?!

24: Jack is out of control and not very likeable at this point. And all of this because Renee was killed? Like she was the love of his life or something? He didn't even go this crazy after his wife was killed! Anyway, there are still lots of ends to tie up in tonight's finale. I'm curious to see if Jack survives....

This week should be much more pleasant--no therapies! Have a great week!

Five Question Friday

Once again, joining Mama M. for some question-answering fun! 1. Do you have an iPhone and, if so, how do you get apps and what are your favorites?
Nope, no iPhone. I considered it when I was looking for a new cell phone and plan, but the Sprint plan was cheaper, so I have an HTC Snap. Love it, but no apps. And that's okay.

2. What is your fondest memory of K-3rd grade?
I have only a few random memories from those years--the time I got hit in the nose with a ball in first grade and got a nose bleed, mispronouncing "thousand" while reading aloud in second grade, getting glasses in 3rd grade. None of those would be my fondest memory. I can tell you that I loved my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Oswald. And we would go across the hall to Mrs. Hayden's classroom and she would play guitar and we would sing. I liked that!

3. What makes you cringe at the thought of touching?
Hmmm. Probably bugs, I hate to see bugs so I'd really hate to touch one. Especially those of the roach variety. Ewww!

4. If you could have any celebrity show up on your doorstep who would it be and why?
You can see from this post that I have a crush on Johnny Depp, but I don't need him coming to my house. He's a chain smoker (the only person I've ever seen smoke on Inside the Actor's Studio--what, you can't wait for a commercial to get your nicotine fix?!) and what could he do for me? So I'm thinking a celebrity chef should come over and cook for me! I'd probably choose Paula Deen--girl can cook and I'd love to talk to her about her agoraphobic days and how she recovered. My husband would probably want me to choose chef Rick Bayless to cook for us, but this is my blog and my answer. Heehee.

5. What would you say is your best physical feature?

I would say my eyes. I love my eye color--a dark midnight blue color with a yellow circle around my pupil. Not that anyone notices my eye color, especially because I wear glasses, but I like them.

Join in, you know you want to! Go here to join the fun!

TILT--my little camcorder

Sorry for the lack of posting, it's been an insane week of illness and appointments, but now we're almost done with the tough parts of the week and I'm here to join The Diaper Diaries for Things I Love Thursday. I love my Mother's Day gift from my husband: this gadget he found at Big Lots:Now, we already have a nice camcorder that we bought when L was born and we've used it on vacation and on Christmas mornings and it's supposed to make lovely DVDs. But we don't make DVDs, we do nothing with the little "miniDVs" or whatever--ah, someday! So Hubby bought me this little camcorder (for cheap--less than $50, plus he got a discount by getting a rewards card) because (drumroll please) it makes it super easy to upload to facebook, youtube, blog, email etc. Tada!

I am not at all tech-savvy, but Hubby said it would be easy and he was right. After taking a quick video of the kids, I plugged the camera into my computer with the USB cable, it prompted me to install the software (no disc required) and within minutes my video was on facebook. A few days later I loaded a video onto my family blog. Amazing! (I should mention that hubby went to Best Buy and got some kind of SD card to give it more memory--the camcorder came with about 2 minutes of recording time, with the card we now have several hours.)

So we'll keep the bigger camcorder for vacations etc. (and one day turn them into beautiful DVD keepsakes), but this little guy is for everyday grab-the-camera moments to share with friends and family around the country, nearly instantly. Very cool.

That's my newest love, for more check out The Diaper Diaries. What are you loving today?

Five Question Friday

1. Take your pick...date night, girls night out, or night out alone?
Well, I'm not much for going out alone at night. GNO would be awesome except all my good grilfriends are spread around the country so I can't realistically do a night out with them. Therefore, I'll choose Date Night with the Hubby. We were planning to go out last weekend when my sisters were visiting and could babysit, but instead L was sick, so we're overdue for a date night.

2. Can you touch your nose with your tongue?
Sadly, no.

3. What is your favorite flower and why?
I think flowers are beautiful, but I don't know much about what they're called. Roses are lovely of course, but I think I'll choose lavender (that's a flower, right?) because fields of lavender are soooo beautiful, plus I love their smell.

4. If you could go back in time, what advice would you give yourself?
Okay, I've got a few regrets in my past so maybe to alleviate some of those:

My senior year in high school, my parents--to my great dismay--brought the video camera to record my final choir concert. I was soooo angry, fuming, and I made horrible faces the whole first act hoping to get them to turn it off. At intermission, I confronted them: how could they bring the camera, without telling me, when they know how much I hate it? How can they keep recording when they see me making these horrible faces? It was a disaster. They didn't stop recording so I sneered the whole second act as well.

I've never forgiven them for ruining what was an important night in my life. (What reason could they have had to Keep Recording after I had told them it was ruining this important night?!)

I can't fix my parents but if I could go back to that night, I would tell myself to just smile--forget about the stupid camera. I could still enjoy the concert and not stand up there looking like a fool making angry faces!

Second, I'd go back to spring 1995 and not send that email to my ex-boyfriend. 'Nuff said.

5. If you won the lottery, what is the very first thing you would do?
I would assemble all the glorious and wonderful take-out food that we always deprive ourselves of for financial reasons and Go To Town--appetizers, entrees, desserts, Bring It On!

More more answers to these riveting questions, go here.

Week in Review

So this is basically a roundup from last Saturday through Sunday (yesterday). The week started off normally with school, speech, feeding therapy. Thursday night, two of my sisters arrived for a visit. They stayed at a resort down the road and the plan was for us to all enjoy time at the resort's many pools. Friday, L went to preschool, then I picked him up, then picked up my sisters and took us all to our house for an early lunch and then we'd head over to the pool. But almost as soon as we got in the house, L threw up. Of course I assumed this was just overexcitement with the aunts being in town, till I felt his forehead and he was burning up. Thermometer confirmed a slight fever (100).

So... change in plans! Friday, Saturday and Sunday were spent taking care of L. My sisters went back and forth between our place and the hotel so they could still enjoy their vacation. (They even went out to a movie on Sunday.) Hubby and I were hoping to go out to dinner Saturday or Sunday night with my sisters babysitting, but even Sunday night we weren't willing to leave L (too unpredictable). I was feeling a little bit down about Mother's Day until I just said okay, what do I want to eat tonight?! I chose pizza even though we'd just had some on Friday night. I chose cheesecake even though neither of my sisters eats it. And we all hung out for dinner and after and opened gifts etc. and in the end (thanks in no small part to L finally feeling better) it was a very nice Mother's Day.

Feeding therapy:
This week we tried hot dog and L loved it. He had a hot dog with dinner Thursday night and got his sticker, but then as of Friday, he had a stomach virus, so no more feeding successes.

Successes:
-I cut up a watermelon for the first time ever.
-Last Sunday (not yesterday, obviously), all of us went to church and made it through the whole mass!
-Made a delicious cake for my sister's belated birthday celebration on Friday. (I'll try to post the recipe soon.)
-Successfully salvaged Mother's Day (see above).

Failures:
-I was out of clean straw-sippy-cups on Monday but I wanted to bring water with us to speech, so I brought another type of sports bottle instead. As I was getting the bag and kids out of the car at speech, I felt a gush of water down my back--the bottle had opened and spilled. Oops!
-I really lost my temper on Wednesday and yelled at my kids. :-(
-I didn't get my mother's gift to her in time for Mother's Day. Midweek I realized it was too late to get to the post office, so I put the card in the mail (I hope it got there on time) and I'll send her gift this week.


Movies:
-I've Loved You So Long. I'd give this movie a B. It went at a nice pace, revealing just a little bit at a time, but ultimately wasn't that interesting except that Kristin Scott Thomas was speaking fluent French. :-0
-Frozen River. We only made it through about half an hour, then gave up. Hubby wasn't interested; I could've gone either way, but it was depressing so I chose to skip it. Maybe some other time.
-Rudo y Cursi. I'd give this a C+. It was enjoyable to watch but the characters weren't good people and the ending was disappointing.
-Pandorum. Another C. Good enough to keep us watching but not good enough to recommend. However, we might watch it again because we missed the beginning (this was on Starz, we caught it about 20 minutes in) and we missed a lot because I couldn't figure out how to turn the closed captions on on our upstairs tv (long story). So maybe a B-.

TV:
I loved Glee this week (the music, never the plot). The "Physical" video complete with Olivia Newton-John: priceless! And I adore "Total Eclipse of the Heart." I would really like to hear Jesse sing more. I didn't understand why all the guys were ticked at Rachel after her stupid video--because she lied to them? because more than one guy was in the video? because she used them? I didn't get it. Also, I assumed that Jesse, since he's a spy, had written the Glist, but then it turned out to be Quinn. What?

Five Question Friday

Welcome to another edition of Five Question Friday, where I ramble about myself because I think I'm so cool. ;-) Props to Mama M for hosting. 1. What is your worst memory of your siblings?
Apparently my memory doesn't stretch very far, so I don't know if this is the worst, but this is one of the more recent (even though it was nearly 12 years ago). On my wedding day, I was getting into my big fancy white dress and putting on my jewelry etc. in my parents' bedroom at my chidhood home. For whatever reason, my pearl necklace wouldn't fasten. My mom and I tried and tried but it Was Not Working. This is so silly and petty, I can't believe I chose this story. Anyway, my sisters and I (there are 4 of us) each received an identical pearl necklace for our high school graduations. So when the bride's necklace is malfunctioning, let's just ask big sister to borrow hers. Don't ask me why we asked my older sister, who is the b*tchiest of them all, but she happened to come into the room at the "right" moment, so my mom asked her.

I should preface this by saying: the morning of my wedding, I was totally happy and together, not weepy, not anxious. Amazing! So back to the story. We asked my older sister for her necklace and she refused. Refused! No, the bride could not wear her necklace, she was going to wear the necklace (she was a bridesmaid of course). Well, this incident (again stupid, petty, silly) started the floodgates. I broke into tears and could not pull myself together for the rest of the day up to and including when we started taking photos at the church. Thanks, sis, you're the best!

As for the necklace issue, eventually someone was able to get my own pearls to fasten and bla bla bla happily ever after and no one else had to be inconvenienced.

2. What was YOUR naughtiest childhood memory? (Must be something YOU did, no pawning it off on someone else!)
Man, the questions are hard this week! Probably (and this was more dumb than intentionally naughty) the time my sister and I (different sister than above) decided to play catch with a rock in our family room. Yep, we broke a window!

The time I got in the most trouble was when my sister (same one as the rock incident) and I joined our neighbor in jumping over/through a spray of water from her hose. Hard to describe. Do you remember in the 80s stretching a chinese jumprope higher and higher and jumping over it, we were trying to do that but with the spray from the hose. Genius idea. My dad found us doing this and we were of course completely drenched and he flipped out. Yeah, got in big trouble.

3. Where do you like to go to relax?
Hawaii. Haha, I wish! I would say Borders (the book store) is where I would choose to go if I had a chunk of time to myself. Sadly, my chunks of time are rarely long enough to stay more than a few minutes, but I'd love to browse, browse, browse, then grab a chair (preferably one of the big comfy ones, but the cafe would do) and read. Yeah, that'd be nice.

4. What was the last thing you won?

Last November I won something very cool in a blog giveaway: an elf! (I'm actually planning to do a post this fall all about this neat elf because it is so cool and I totally recommend it.) Basically it's a kit--you get a plush elf and instructions for the mischief he makes around your house while your kid is asleep, and the note the elf leaves explaining what he's been up to. It was a big hit with my son last Christmas and he still talks about "Dodger" coming back next Christmas.

5. If you could be on a game show, which would you choose?
Of the game shows currently on tv, either Jeopardy or Family Feud (I think they still make that), or maybe Price is Right. I also like a bunch of the old time shows: Pyramid (what was it, $64,000 Pyramid?), Password, and Match Game. There was a stretch a few years ago where I watched a lot of Match Game on Game Show Network. Very fun!

That's it for my answers. Go check out others' answers and participate yourself right here. Have a great Friday, my friends!