Life with L & T

Fashion Challenge WInter Edition Part 2

2012-01-31T17:51:00.000-08:00

In for a penny, in for a pound. I'm participating in another day of the Winter Fashion Challenge hosted by Kayla. Today was Winter Brights. I actually wore this yesterday when I couldn't come up with Decade/Region--I skipped ahead. I was inspired to wear jeans other than my new bootcuts I've been wearing so often, so I grabbed my black jeans, BRIGHT pink tee and black soft blazer. Tada:

Sorry for the terrible picture quality, I will never be a fashion blogger. The jeans are from Kohls, tee from Kmart, blazer was a gift (okay, I'll admit this is also Motherhood Maternity, what is with me wearing my old maternity clothes?!), shoes are the same ones from DSW.

For my previous foray into fashion photography, go here.

For more Challenge photos, go here.

Fashion Challenge--Winter Edition

2012-01-26T16:13:00.000-08:00

Okay, so when I decided that my style needed a kick in the butt, I started reading fashion blogs (love them!) and one of them, Freckles in April, is doing a 2-week fashion challenge. I couldn't help but join in. This is what I wore on Tuesday when the prompt was MONOCHROME:

Brown is my favorite color so I had plenty to work with, but I'd never worn this sweater vest with my brown jeans before because I felt the 2 shades of brown clashed. But when I tried it this week, I thought the lighter brown tee served as a barrier between the two and eliminated the conflict. What do you think?

sweater vest: Steinmart; long sleeve tee: Target; jeans: Eddie Bauer; shoes: DSW

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Today's prompt was to "channel someone." It took me a long time to think of an inspiration that matched things I own, but eventually I came up with this outfit inspired by Disney's Tiana from The Princess and the Frog.

The plain tee and cardigan didn't feel evocative enough until I added the jewelry. The necklace has small lavender stones in it (Tiana's other signature color, right?) and the bracelet has green and yellow flowers that reminded me of lilypads. It was fun to go around today knowing I chose my clothes based on a cartoon character!

white tee: Kohls; green sweater: Motherhood Maternity (no, I'm not pregnant); jeans: Eddie Bauer; shoes (same as above): DSW; jewelry: unknown, from a long time ago

The inspiration:

For more fashion fun, go to Freckles in April.

I'm Baaaa-aaaaack!

2012-01-06T14:21:00.001-08:00

Haha, that was an unplanned blogging break. And honestly, I didn't miss it too much. But I think I'm going to try posting weekly. Every Friday I'd like to try to share one thing from my life/ the previous week. It may be a thing I'm loving, or something working for me, or a political rant, or like today, just a Five Question Friday. Let's dig in, shall we?

Oh and by the way, my background seems to have disappeared. That may be that kick in the butt I need to find a new design. But I digress....

1. What is the weather like where you are and do you like it?

I am in Phoenix and usually this is our "cold" season but lately we are in the '70s. Part of me wishes I could be wearing my sweaters, since I only have a short "winter" to wear them--and I am indeed a sweater girl. But mostly I'm really enjoying this weather! Jeans plus short sleeves, hot in the sun but with a nice breeze. I'll take it!

2. When you're sick what do you seek comfort from?

My bed. I LOVE SLEEP and I don't think you can heal without lots of it.

3. What do you need to do before the end of the month?

I'm taking a pretty laid-back approach to this month after the crazy holiday season, but I'd be overjoyed if I finished thank you notes by the end of this month. :-)

4. Have you ever served on a jury?

Yes. When I was home from college one summer, I was called to jury duty. I really wanted to get out of it, but I was chosen and was on a jury for basically a mugging. It was a HORRIBLE experience (one juror refused to cooperate with the other 11 of us and what should have taken a couple hours of deliberation dragged into a second day). Grrrrr. But I learned a lot (mostly about how the jury system is broken) and all these years later I can appreciate that I had that experience. However, I would not want to do it again!!!

5. If you could be any animal, what would you be and why?

Well, my favorite animals are the peacock and alligators/crocodiles. Not sure I'd want to be one of those. What's the laziest animal on Earth, that's what I'd like to be. Like pandas, they literally just eat and sleep. Yeah, I think I'd like to be a panda. {That answer probably wouldn't go over well in a job interview.}

For more Q&A fun, head over to Mama M's. Have a great weekend!

Feminism, Fashion & Other Ramblings

2011-09-06T10:40:00.000-07:00

I read a post on Modern Mrs. Darcy about women's choices to work or stay home. Then a fashion blog I read (I've recently started checking out a few fashion blogs as I think about kicking up my personal style) directed me toward "feminist fashion bloggers," which led me to this post by a computer programmer who hides her love of fashion... and now I have various thoughts in my head to share.

I should mention that I AM A FEMINIST. No disclaimers, no buts. I am a feminist. Sadly, there seem to be a bunch of misconceptions about what that means, such that people who are feminists say they aren't and I've even read a bunch of bloggers who blame feminists for this that and the other thing--and they are just wrong.

Feminism is (textbook definition here) the belief that men and women are equal. Not the same, but of equivalent worth. {What exactly is my authority? I have taken a variety of classes on feminism, including Sex Equality and Feminist Legal Theory, taught by my idol Catharine MacKinnon. So I have some credibility on the subject.}

For the record, Miriam Webster's online definition is: "the theory of the political, economic and social equality of the sexes."

Feminism is not the belief that women should be like men. Have individual women tried to advance through our patriarchy by being more "manly"? Certainly. But that doesn't change the definition of feminism. Have some women claimed that they do what they do (e.g. dress like tramps or act bossy) because they are feminists? Yes, but that doesn't mean the doctrine of feminism includes "act bossy and dress like a slut."

Also, being a feminist and being a SAHM are not mutually exclusive. Hello, I am both and proud of it! It is not un-feminist to sew or like fashion or do other "girly" things. Feminism is about CHOICES. Women can do anything (be CEO, be a SAHM, run for President, make clothes, fix cars, be a nurse) and so can men (be CEO, be a SAHD, run for President, make clothes, fix cars, be a nurse). Ideally to a point where sewing isn't considered "girly" and fixing cars isn't considered "manly."

I don't deny that there are biological differences between men and women (another thing feminists are accused of). There are physical differences. {Also, feminism doesn't mean we will no longer have separate bathrooms--all the laws governing equality for the sexes have an exception for things that are biologically different. Rest assured.} It's true that even outside of socialization, females tend to be drawn to dolls and boys to cars. I think there are 2 main points to feminism. First there's the traditional: you shouldn't have to be a man in order to get the highest paying jobs, the promotion, the raise etc; but also there's the broader point: if you aren't a girly woman or a manly man, you shouldn't be penalized for it.

Okay, I could go on and on, but I think I'll just do some future posts on some spinoff topics. Meanwhile, I had to add, I am a feminist and I've spent this morning doing laundry, calming a screaming toddler and getting dinner in the crockpot. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing with my life but I don't doubt my feminist cred. ;-) In fact, I want to get one of those T-shirts that says "This is what a radical feminist looks like" and wear it to the playground and other SAHM activities. :-) But I digress.

Ugh, I wish this post was better written, because I think this is an important topic. Alas, this is all I have time for. Hopefully, I can devote more time to the subject soon! I guess the main point of this post is: you can be both a feminist and unapologetically girly.

What do you think?

I ADORE Adele's "Someone Like You"

2011-08-30T17:18:00.001-07:00

Just this morning, I was reading Big Mama and she recommended this video of Adele singing "Someone Like You" at the VMAs, so I clicked over and was Ah-Mazed. Seriously. The talent! The poise! To belt that out just standing there. {And she's a kid, like 22 years old, wher does she find that composure?!}

So then the video froze so I went to youtube and listened over and over, seriously this is how I spent a chunk of my day (on and off, because of the whole parenting thing). Must buy her album. Or at least download that and "Rolling in the Deep" on iTunes.

I feel like I was a little late to the Adele party. I'd heard "Rolling in the Deep" many times (and loved it) before Jill at Diaper Diaries clued me in that she's a young (white) British woman. And it took Big Mama today to turn me onto this song. I am now officially an Adele fan(atic).

I have no words, just thought I'd share. Enjoy:

Get More: 2011 VMA, Music, Adele

Top Ten Tuesday--Excited for Fall

2011-08-23T17:10:00.001-07:00

We live in Phoenix, so we have at least two more months of HOT weather. {That stinks!} For the sake of my mental health, I'm thinking a lot about Fall. Here's what I'm looking forward to....

1. Nice weather. Duh, I'll be happy when it's no longer 116 degrees.

2. The park. We live almost next door to a great park and that is the cheapest way to entertain the kids. Can't wait to get back there in the cooler weather!

3. My birthday. It's at the beginning of October and although the day itself is nothing special, I won't mind getting some goodies. Heehee.

4. T's birthday. My baby turns 3 in mid-September. I'm having fun picking out clothes, toys and books for her.

5. Halloween. My love of Halloween is well-documented. I love the decor, costumes and food. Bring it on, I can't wait!

6. Warm clothes. I love jeans, I love sweaters, I can't wait to break out my warm clothes and maybe add some new pieces.

7. No more sandals. I hate my sandals. Well, I don't hate them, they are very comfortable, but they're kind of ugly. I've had them for 4 summers and I'm done. {Yes, I've been browsing for new ones, but I'm quite picky and have not found anything to replace them. So now I'm just looking forward to sneaker weather.}

8. Matching pajamas. Again, my love of pajamas is well-documented. Most of my cute sets are for cold weather so I look forward to busting those out this Fall.

9. Our anniversary. We'll celebrate 13 years of marriage this October. Hopefully my parents will babysit and we'll hit the town (or at least Carabba's).

10. Football season. Hubby is a huge football fan, especially college football, and we are counting down the days (less than 2 weeks to go!). I get excited because he's excited. And L is too. He told someone today "we like Michigan football." Yeah baby, Go Blue!

What's your favorite thing about Fall?

I'm linking up with Amanda for Top Ten Tuesday.

Blitz Blogging and Freezing Pancakes

2011-08-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

Well I'm bummed about how little I've been blogging and how I have all these ideas of what to blog but I never actually do it. So my new plan (I call it "blitz blogging") is that as soon as I have an idea "I want to blog this," I sit down, write a fast little post that gets the basic point across without lots of bells and whistles, and hit "publish." With any luck, I'll post more often and get my ideas out there. Sadly, I might lack links and will definitely lack photos, but I'm hoping it will get me into a routine and I can work up to fancier posts soon.

What do you think?

----------

I thought I'd share something that's been working for me lately. On the weekend, I'll make a batch of pancakes for breakfast (gluten free of course--I use the recipe on Pamela's baking and pancake mix). Usually Hubby and I eat our own things and the kids eat a few pancakes each so I have many leftovers. Then I freeze the extra pancakes and serve them for breakfast to the kids throughout the week (20 to 30 seconds in the microwave).

I can tell you that originally I would "flash freeze" the pancakes on a cookie sheet and then transfer them to a freezer bag, but one time I was lazy and just threw them in the bag. I had no problem separating them to reheat one at a time, so now I skip the cookie sheet step. (Must be all the butter/grease, heehee.)

Then I start all over the next weekend.

The end, freezing pancakes works for me. {This is linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.}

Technical Difficulties

2011-08-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

The good news is: we have a new computer. I absolutely LOVE it. Our laptop had gotten so incredibly slooooow, so this new one seems lightning fast. However, there are a lot of things I've yet to figure out and that brings me to the bad news: it's messing with my blogging. No, that is not the {sole} reason I've not posted in 2 weeks, but when I've tried to write a post, I've not been able to highlight words in order to create italics, bold or links--kind of important. {Oh look, that time it worked!} So I'll be playing around with that and hopefully have it all figured out soon.

Oh and of course all my pictures are gone. I plan to use a flash drive or whatever to move photos from my laptop over to this new desktop, but I've not done it yet. So for now, I've got a few extra steps to take on that front as well.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I love {yea, it worked again} this new computer, but I've got some learnin' to do! Thanks for your patience!

{Okay my new problem is it won't publish. Grrrr.}

That's Life 7/18/11

2011-07-18T16:07:00.000-07:00

So much going on, where do I begin?

L finally recovered from his tonsil surgery. He's back to normal except he's no longer drinking his prescription formula. Mostly that's good, but it's also scary because that means we have to replace 900 calories from formula with actual food. And he's still quite a picky eater. So meal time is even harder than ever.

We succeeded in moving our speech appointments to a later time for the start of kindergarten and full school days. Amazing, miraculous achievement! So far, I'm enjoying our new schedule.

We had L's birthday party. Once again it was at Peter Piper Pizza and again they did a super awesome job. Everything went smoothly and I actually had time to talk to the other moms. And it ended up being a great group, really pleased how it turned out. :-)

As usual, I have tons of things I want to post about but I'm lousy at the follow through. We'll see if I can get some new posts up this week. Fingers crossed!

What have you been up to? Let me know in the comments. How's your summer going?!

Washcloths instead of Paper Towels {Works for Me}

2011-07-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

We've been pinching pennies lately {like pretty much everyone, right?} and here's how we've been saving money on paper towels. It basically started on Mother's Day when my husband asked what I wanted and I mentioned dish towels, because I'd been running through them faster, using them to dry wet surfaces instead of paper towels.

My husband, genius that he is, bought 2 packages of 12 washcloths. This turned out to be a great idea. Here's why:

-They're cheap! We got ours at Kohl's and each set of 12 was about $4--3 cloths for a dollar, (33 cents each) doesn't get much cheaper than that!

-They're absorbent. They work as well as a paper towel, if not better.

-They're white, so I can throw them in any load of laundry. I don't care if they get discolored in a red or dark load (which they don't, because I use Color Catchers), nor do I care if they get stained by food or 409.

Since I throw them in whatever wash I'm doing that day, we always have clean washcloths. They are stuffed in a kitchen drawer (I'm not much for folding). My husband uses 3 each night when he 409s the counters and table and I use them throughout the day to soak up messes or clean/dry a counter. I'd say we save a bunch of paper towels (and therefore money) this way.

Cheap and easy. {Oh and green, saving those trees!} That's how I like it!

This post will be linked to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

How do you save on paper products?

Image credit.

4th of July recap

2011-07-07T15:31:00.000-07:00

In the past, I've not gotten too excited about the 4th of July. I had a wonderful 4th of July tradition growing up--the annual block party--so much fun! But as an adult, and especially here in Phoenix where it's Too Darn Hot to do anything, we haven't really celebrated Independence Day.

Then when I was in Walmart recently, I thought about buying 4th of July shirts for the kids. Usually, I've been against this because hey, they've already got red and blue clothes. I think this year was different for 2 reasons. 1) With L's tonsil surgery, I needed to look forward to something coming up after the whole ordeal would be over. And 2) my parents live here now and I knew we'd be going over to their place to watch fireworks on July 3rd.

As I was looking at the kids' shirts, I saw they had matching adult shirts. And CHEAP! The kids' sizes were $3 and the adults' were $3.50. And of course Hubby and I can wear our shirts in future years. I was sold! Here are our 4 matching shirts (girls in red, boys in blue) we wore to the "party" on July 3rd: On an earlier whim, I bought 2 4th of July hats from the dollar area of Target. I was only going to get one but remembered my kids don't share, and bought 2. Then the day before the celebration I went back to Target for the flags (3 for $1).

I was "in charge" of desserts for party night. There were tons of ideas around the web for fun patriotic desserts, but L wanted cupcakes, so that's what we did. These are gluten free yellow cupcakes (Betty Crocker) with cream cheese frosting (also Betty Crocker), with blue and red sprinkles (applied by L) and I bought the package of cupcake wrappers and festive pics from Walmart for $1.88 (for 24). Easy peasy.

The celebration at my parents' was lots of fun. My sister was also in town for a visit so the more the merrier. We did typical picnic foods (burgers and brats) but indoors. We had bubbles and glow sticks and planned to go on their patio when the sun went down, but there was a lightning storm! We were afraid the fireworks show would be canceled. Anyway, we played inside with the glow sticks and the kids had a great time and finally, the fireworks began. It was a great show and a super easy (and cool!) place to watch it. We ventured to the patio for just a minute when we thought the lightning had died down, but both kids thought it was too loud, so inside was athe best place to watch from. This is a picture of the kids watching the fireworks through the window (if you click to enlarge, you should see their silhouettes):

We celebrated on the 3rd because that's when the fireworks were scheduled, but I thought that worked super well. On Monday the 4th, we relaxed and got things ready for the week ahead.

As long as my parents live in this house and the church keeps putting on the fireworks show, this should make a great tradition.

Oh and I should mention I was worried about the kids being up late. Turns out T is a night owl like me, she had tons of energy late into the night (relatively speaking--the fireworks started at 8:45). We left right after the fireworks ended and I made it my goal to have the kids in bed by 10:00. I came pretty close. Staying up late is another reason I'm glad we celebrated on Sunday night and not Monday.

How was your 4th of July?

Birthday Brouhaha {Two Parties on the Same Day}

2011-06-30T15:39:00.001-07:00

I have to blog about this because I can't think about anything else. Okay so L has been out of the loop for the last almost 2 weeks from getting his tonsils out. Meanwhile, he had his birthday (more on that in another post) so we had to plan a party for once he's feeling better. This coming Saturday would be ideal, but of course it's 4th of July weekend and we were afraid lots of people would be out of town. So we chose July 9 and finally things calmed down enough around here for me to send the e-vite on Monday evening. {Why did I do an e-vite over putting invitations in the mail, you ask? I thought it would be easy and that it would be a nice way to track RSVPs. Hindsight and all that.} Right away we got 2 "yes" replies from kids in L's class. Then we got a few "no" replies, with explanations that the families would be out of town. Then, the mom of twins, good friends of L's, replies "no" and says "sorry, that's the day of the twins' party." Dun dun dun.

So I panic. Should we reschedule? Maybe the party isn't at the same time? Maybe it's just a family affair? I decide to email the mom. Sure enough, the party is basically at the same time (can't be in two places at once) and she's invited ALL of the whole class (I had originally only invited a handful, we can't afford a huge party).

Anyway, I did a bunch of fact-gathering and calculating to figure out whether or not to reschedule but in the end, my husband was not on board. Forget it, it's too late, it's too hard to change, who cares. Okay, now I can breathe--the decision is made. We'll invite more kids, the others from school I'd not originally invited and all our friends from other places (like speech or last year's school), it's fine. I figured we'd still get some kids from his class.

If your child got 2 party invites for the same day, how would you choose?

If it were me, and my son was equally good friends with each host, I think we'd go to the party we were invited to first. {In this case, turns out our e-vite went out before the twins' paper invitations arrived BUT the mom had been talking about the date for some time, and I hadn't heard about it because L hadn't been at school. Or because I'm not in the clique....} But if my child was a close friend to one host and a mere acquaintance of the other, we'd probably choose the close friend's party. All other things being equal, maybe we like one location better than the other. Or who knows.

But I'm not getting any "yes" replies from classmates. None! Of the two original "yes" replies, one switched over to "no" saying something suddenly came up. Yeah, we all know what that something was. Tacky! I thought maybe some kids who aren't in the summer program would choose our party, having received our invite first and not having heard about the other party around the school yard. But no. Now I feel like there's a mommy clique and we're not in it. {Yeah writing that I think I'm paranoid.} But people seem content to let L have a party without guests.

One mom called me yesterday morning--did I know the other party is at the same time? Yes, I said, it's an unfortunate coincidence. She explained that she's known the twins for 3 years blah bla bla--I said don't worry about it, it's fine, L has other friends. OOOPS! Is she spreading the word that it's okay to skip L's party because he has other friends?! That's not at all what I meant. I meant it was okay for her to choose the other party, because she is closer to the other family. And because she had already chosen, she shouldn't feel bad. I didn't mean nobody should choose our party. Ugh. Again, maybe I'm paranoid, but as more kids reply "no," the more I feel like there is a clique and we're not in it.

So now I'm wishing we had rescheduled. And I wish we had put the invites in the mail, or at least didn't use e-vite because checking for RSVPs is like a crazy obsession. And, grrrr, I wish the twins' mom, who had the date picked out a long time ago, had just gotten her invites in the mail sooner so none of this would've happened.

On the bright side, those "other friends" are coming through for us and joining our party. Hallelujah. The party won't be a total bust. But I'm darn sure L will look around and wonder where's everyone from school?

Any thoughts on mommy cliques? Am I crazy? I just want my kid to have a party full of his friends. I feel like a failure as a mom that I didn't orchestrate his party better! I just want him to be happy!!!!

What would you do if you planned a party, only to find out someone else's party was at the same time?

Now that's what's-done-is-done, how would you make the best of it? I'd love to hear!

Image credit

I Love Cheap Books

2011-06-21T15:19:00.000-07:00

My new favorite thing is buying books at Goodwill.

Here's the backstory: my local Borders store went out of business due to the whole bankruptcy thing. That makes me sad for so many reasons. But my favorite thing to do at Borders was buy cheap books. Usually all I would do there was browse the bargain aisles and the dollar bins. After finishing one of my $1 Borders finds recently {see my review here}, I wondered where I could get my next cheap book fix.

Obviously, the library has FREE books. I like the library, really I do. I just got the latest Maeve Binchy novel, Minding Frankie, from the library. Loved it! But there's the whole due date thing. I can renew online even, but you can't renew a book that has a hold on it. And returning books is a pain. And I just love owning books. It's an obsession really.

So with vacation coming up (this was about a month ago), I thought I'd try Goodwill. I've shopped Goodwill before but never really spent any time in their book section. I couldn't believe I found a book I'd been thinking of getting from the library: My Sister's Keeper. It was $2.99, which I thought was a lot for a used paperback, but while I was browsing, a voice over the loudspeaker informed me that all green price stickers were half off that day. I looked at the book in my hands and it had a green sticker. Thus it was a mere $1.49 and I was sold. At the time I also saw 2 Maeve Binchy paperbacks ($1.49 each) but I passed them up--I was being super frugal that day.

Having finished My Sister's Keeper, I decided to head back to Goodwill and try for the Maeve Binchy's. Alas, they were gone. {Lesson learned, strike while the iron is hot!} But while I was browsing, I found and could not pass up 3 classics: The Hobbit, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Count of Monte Cristo. {Bonus: The Count became a Father's Day gift for Hubby.} Each book was $1.49. LOVE.

So there you have it, my new obsession, buying books at Goodwill. I know that it is more expensive than garage sales* (but without driving all over town) and of course the library (but without due dates), but it Works For Me.

This post will be linked to Works For Me Wednesday and Things I Love Thursday. For obvious reasons.

Where do you go to find cheap books?

*I rarely shop garage sales for two reasons. 1) IBS. Shopping in people's yards and garages doesn't provide me with quick access to restrooms. 2) I rarely carry cash. Recently though, a house on my street had a sale. It was super close to my own bathroom and it was a rare occasion when I had cash. So I wandered over and took a look around. Paperbacks for 25 cents and hardcovers for a dollar. I bought 13 books! Which doesn't help my clutter problem. Maybe it's best I stick with Goodwill. ;-)

These are NOT affiliate links.

Recovery Day 4

2011-06-20T17:18:00.000-07:00

On Friday, L had surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids, and to put tubes in his ears. Recovery so far has been awful. If you were to ask me if your child should have the same surgery, I'd say "Don't Do It!" Of course, that's not how it works. In the words of the surgeon, L's adenoids and tonsils were HUGE and blocking his airway.

Surgery itself went okay. It was at a hospital we'd never been to before {and not a children's hospital} but they were kind and on time {although they build in so much waiting time}. There was a chance we wouldn't be able to join him in recovery, which was a horrible thought, but in the end, we were able to go back to the recovery area. Good thing, too, because L was DISTRAUGHT. He would wake up and SCREAM. Finally, the nurse took the hint and pushed morphine in his IV.

Although he puked twice, there were signs that first day that L was healing well--he ate jello and yogurt and even shredded cheese. He slept soundly Friday night. Saturday morning was tough but he seemed better in the afternoon. Then Saturday night, he called for us several times. Sunday was tough, getting him to eat or drink (and by eat, I'm talking soft foods like ice cream) was like pulling teeth. He dry-heaved twice, yet I wasn't too concerned because he wasn't losing what he'd comsumed.

All this time, L was constantly on the couch. No energy. Looking like death. HEART-BREAKING.

Again last night we went to bed early in case he woke up frequently. Sure enough, he called us a million times, for wet diapers mostly, till at 1am we heard him puking. This one was for real. Since it was the middle of the night and we all wanted to sleep, we gave him a Zofran. Suddenly he was happy as a stinkin' clam and Hubby and I are looking at each other like "has he been nauseous This Whole Time?" The good news is, L was feeling better and drinking tons of water. The bad news is, he wasn't at all interested in sleeping. Eventually, I told Hubby to get as much sleep as he could before work, I'd stay in L's room. I ended up getting less than 2 hours of sleep. I let L "get up" {I'm not sure he'd slept at all} about 6:30 and then Hubby took over and I got an extra hour of sleep in my own bed (as opposed to L's floor). Worst night since the infant days!

Now he's taking Zofran regularly and he's eaten some ice cream and fruit so far today. And he's on his second nap, so he's likely to be nocturnal again tonight. :-( But it's nice to see him movig around again, and looking a little less like death. I'm hoping the worst is over.

I'll keep you posted.

Has your child ever been through something like this? Any words of wisdom?

Top 10 Tuesday--Summer Camp!

2011-06-07T14:33:00.000-07:00

To my regular readers, I hope you didn't miss me too much. We were on vacation and I barely touched the internet (not including checking email on my phone). Now we are back and it's the first week of our regular summer schedule which includes, drum roll please........ summer camp twice a week--the first time ever I will regularly be child-free!!!! That's right, T and L will both be at camp from 8:30 to 1 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Whatever shall I do with myself?! Today was the first day and I think I'm gonna like camp days, heehee. :-)

And since it's Tuesday, I present to you (in no particular order) the Top Ten Best Things about the kids going to Camp:

1. Alone time. Obviously. Alone time for mommy is such a rare and precious thing. Prior to this momentous day, my alone time has been limited to one or two solo errands per weekend.

2. Shopping alone. Okay, I've shopped sans kids before (weekend errands, remember?), and I didn't plan to do it today. I had planned to do nothing but watch a chick flick, but the number of things I needed from Target kept adding up, and if I didn't do it this morning, I'd have to do it with kids, and nobody wants that. So I went to Target after drop-off and it was glorious. The store was practically empty and it was particularly lovely to be on my own.

3. Watching whatever I want. Again, it's not that I never get to watch what I want, but when I do, it's usually a tv show at the computer. I haven't watched a movie by myself in the living room in I don't know how long. So for my first camp day, I decided to watch an entire chick flick. I was bummed to have to go to Target first, but I did manage a whole movie. Sadly I chose a dud: Dear John. Did not like it at all. :-(

4. Camp gets the kids outside. We live in Phoenix where summers are HOT. It's like other people's winter--you just don't want to go out in it if you don't have to. By enrolling the kids in camp, it ensures they play outside at least twice a week, taking the burden off of me. They play in sprinklers and stuff first thing in the morning.

5. Zen mommy. My hope is that relaxing and/or being productive while the kids are away will restore my spirit so I can be more patient. It's too soon to tell. T threw a major tantrum before her nap that kind of destroyed today's zen, but I did keep my cool during said tantrum so that's a good sign.

6. Productivity. I let myself off the hook today, in honor of celebrating the first day of camp, but on future camp days, I'm hoping the child-free time will help me get stuff done, be it regular (neglected) housework or extra de-cluttering. Fingers crossed!

7. Friends. I love that L gets to keep hanging out with his friends and I'm hoping T will make some new ones (she really has no friends of her own yet).

8. Getting T ready for school. This is the school T will attend in the fall (with the same kids if not teachers) and I think this is a great way for her to get acclimated--with fewer kids and extra playtime.

9. It frees up naptime. On camp days when I've spent the morning either relaxing or getting things done, I'm hoping I'll have the energy and patience to be there during T's naptime (instead of my current habit of relaxing/hiding) and maybe even do crafts with L while T sleeps.

10. Other perks for mommy. Today, because I was crunched for time to finish the movie, I ate lunch in the living room. Without setting a bad example for the kids. And I can eat wheat--like frozen pizza or (Thursday's treat perhaps?) doughnuts--because L isn't around to be tempted. And just generally doing whatever the heck I want. Boo-yah!

The tricky part will be not eating everything in the pantry while the kids are gone!!!

Will you have any child-free time this summer?

For more Top Ten fun, head to Oh Amanda.

Image credit.

Five Question Friday 5/27/11

2011-05-27T16:00:00.001-07:00

Totally insane week. Monday was pretty typical, which is to say Busy. Tuesday we had our big ENT appointment (L will be getting his adenoids and tonsils out, plus getting ear tubes) and I was getting ready for the last day of school (teacher gifts!). Wednesday was the preschool graduation ceremony and party, plus speech, and I made a cake. Phew! Oh and I nearly backed into my husband's car with our van--that would have been a true nightmare. Thank the Lord I stopped in time! I am still trying to recover from it all.

Because I have just a few minutes and not a lot of energy, I give you Five Question Friday, hosted by Mama M. Enjoy!1. Do you apologize to your kids?

All. the. time. Yes, I frequently find myself apologizing to my kids because I do NOT have this parenting thing figured out. I make a lot of mistakes and if necessary, I will try to walk it back and apologize for whatever I did that I regret. Sadly this frequently includes losing my temper. :-(

Incidentally, my father is incapable of saying he's sorry. He can't do it. Cannot. At best, it will be sarcastic. So growing up with a dad who doesn't/can't apologize, I know I don't want to be that way. If I screw up (even to my kids), I will own it.

2. What color are your nails right now?
Plain, uncolored, as always. I haven't painted my nails in YEARS. I am lazy, unfancy, and my husband hates the smell of nail polish and remover (even hours after they've been used).

3. When you were growing up, how difficult was it for you to stay home from school sick? (As in, did you have to vomit or just say "I don't feel good".)
Honestly, I can't remember. I was a nerd so I really didn't want to miss school and get behind. I do remember one time in high school, I was sick and missed 2 days of school and on the third day I was actually feeling better but I was afraid to go back to school (for fear of all I'd missed and how hard it would be to catch up) so I stayed home an extra day. So I guess my parents didn't take much convincing. Anyway, that was a disaster--after only 3 days out, I was VERY behind and my grades dropped, I got my one and only "low scholarship" when my grade in French dropped below a C. I don't think I missed another day after that, certainly never 3 in a row!!!

4. When is the last time you bought a new comforter for your bed?
Well, I bought a whole bed-in-a-bag for our master bedroom 2 Christmases ago, to give our room a simple makeover, but the sheets weren't as soft, and the comforter kept falling off, so we really haven't used it. (Don't worry, the set only cost me $30.) So our room is still in need of help. ;-)

5. Favorite website(s)?
Oh my, how do I choose?! I obsessively check email (yahoo) and facebook throughout the day. I check kids.woot every morning. And then there are mommy blogs, too many to list and impossible to choose favorites. Amazon, Wikipedia, Imdb, and Hulu = love.

Okay, for more Q&A fun, head to My Little Life.

Book Reviews 5/22/11

2011-05-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

I've been putting off writing book reviews for so long and I think I know why: I stink at writing reviews. Which makes me kind of sad, because once upon a time I wanted to be a movie critic. I mean, what better job is there?! Get paid to watch and write about movies! Alas, that is not my gift. So rather than some elaborate literature reviews, here are my quick and dirty notes on the two books I've read most recently.

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I loved this book. It was beautifully written and easy to get sucked into. I was worried about what would happen when I got to the prostitution, but it was quite modest, or whatever is the opposite of graphic. The heroine is very likable but while she romanticizes geisha culture, the author shares enough of the negative stuff to see it for what it is. And it was really fascinating to learn about geisha culture (and Japanese culture in the early 20th century). I think that's where the book is best (this is no romance novel!), sharing in beautiful detail about the culture and ceremony of geisha.

I was disappointed in the ending (as I often am, I like everything tied up in bows). The narrator geisha quickly wraps up her own story, but doesn't say what happened to the various other characters in the book. Other than that, I loved the book and recommend it. Two thumbs up.

Casting Off by Nicole R. Dickson

I also really liked this book. Unlike Geisha, it is not great literature. It was hard to go from such beautiful prose in Geisha to "just" chick lit, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The heroine is flawed but likable; the island where the book takes place is full of wonderful characters; the love story is genuine (but again, I thought the end came too abruptly). I'm passing this book on to my sister and I recommend it if you're looking for a nice, quick, romantic read. (It's also a nice PG-13, nothing too racy.)

Next on my bookshelf

I've been doing some book-gathering lately and suddenly I have quite a pile of To-Reads. Currently, my upstairs book is Thomas Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to stick with it (I'm about 100 pages in). The other day at the library, I found the latest Maeve Binchy novel: Minding Frankie. I'm only 2 chapters in and totally hooked!

In nonfiction, I have two books I'm eager to read. Totally Desperate Mom, which I just won from the author on her blog. And an organizing book I got at a garage sale yesterday. It's from 1991, but The 15-Minute Organizer looks right up my alley.

More fiction waiting in the wings:
Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper--I've been eager to read this for a while, found it for $1.50 at Goodwill.
Jan Karon, In the Company of Others--the latest Father Tim novel (a Christmas gift)
Wicked --this is from the garage sale as well

At the garage sale, paperbacks were 25 cents. I got a set of Chronicles of Narnia that I hope to read as a family when the kids are older. And I spotted Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and couldn't resist. Is this a sequel to Tom Sawyer? If so I'll have to get that from the library first. For my husband, I got Gore Vidal's Lincoln and the classic Ivanhoe.

I'll be sure to "review" all these as I finish them.

What are you reading these days? Any recommendations?

These are NOT affiliate links.
photo credit

Know Thyself

2011-05-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

Apologies in advance if this turns out to be incomprehensible.

I was reading Better Homes & Gardens and an article began like this: "When DD Allen's teal-blue 1978 Scout is parked outside, you can bet a party is going on at her New England beach cottage. 'My House is on the beaten path,' she says. 'If people see cars in the drive, they feel comfortable popping in. It's never really planned. It just evolves.'"*

And I was kind of horrified. I mean, that's nice for her, but oh my would that not work for me! The idea that someone could unexpectedly knock on my door fills me with anxiety. When my parents moved here in November I was clear that they could not just show up at my door. Call first! Even if you're already on your way. Just a few of the reasons this wouldn't work for me: my house is always a MESS, I don't have food to throw together to make a party [though the article goes on to say the hostess gets takeout tacos but makes her own margaritas, so she's not completely an impromptu Martha Stewart], and I would constantly be anxious that someone would knock while I'm in the bathroom.

Which leads me to the inspiration and title of this post: know thyself. It's okay that I can't do impromptu entertaining. No one expects me to (and I don't have any local friends, so no worries). Over the years, I think I've learned, well, to have low expectations of myself. One of my newer phrases/mottos is: there are things I can handle and things I can't. Not that I always know which is which, but for example, I sometimes cancel speech in the afternoon if I have a doctor's appointment in the morning. Maybe the actual timing would work, but I don't want to overschedule myself. I've learned as a mom of two that maybe I can get 100 things done (or more like 6), but the consequence will be that I am cranky and snappy at everyone by the end of the day. The challenge of course is to find the balance between productivity and down time, and I do not have that figured out, not by a long shot.

And I realize (sadly) that what I can handle is less than the average mom. Blame the IBS or depression or just my personality (and laziness), but it's true. Like I said, I do too much and I take it out on others. And there are some supermoms out there who can handle 20 times more than I can. And I'm okay with that (though I probably won't read their blogs!). The point is to find what works for you. And hopefully be at peace with letting the rest go.

* Better Homes & Gardens, June 2011, p.37

That's Life 5/18/11

2011-05-18T12:40:00.000-07:00

May has been a crazy month! Crazy! Averaging 2 doc appts per week on top of our regular stuff. Today was the allergist (again) and we have speech in a few minutes.

Continuing on our medical adventures, we did environmental-allergies-testing today. And it all came back negative. So what does that mean? Obviously, I'm glad L doesn't have some new issue to deal with. On the other hand, what about his "allergy shiners" and constant congestion? Theory #1: sensitivity to pollution. {There's a name for it--vaso-motor-rhinitis or something?} L can take eyedrops and nose spray as needed. Theory #2: we did x-rays to look for chronic sinusitis or enlarged adenoids. I don't know, this medical stuff is over my head. Anyway, I agreed to the x-rays, might as well rule more stuff out. The radiologist got us in and out fast, we'll have results soon.

Here's a question: when we saw the ENT last week and he found fluid in L's ears, he said something like "if he weren't already on Nasonex and Zyrtec, I'd have him take those." Now the allergist has taken him off those two. So do I keep giving them to help the ear fluid?! Oy vay!

This week is National Eosinophilic Awareness Week, which means I should be blogging all about EE. We just keep plugging along as usual. As I told his GI last week, we're doing well with the reduced volume of Neocate (28 ounces per day), we're confident he can get through a full school day. But we're frustrated that he eats so little real food, particularly proteins. Even what he calls his favorite foods, he'll only eat three bites. So she is getting us in (again) for a feeding evaluation. We won't do feeding therapy again (too much time and money), but maybe they'll have ideas to work on at home.

We went to kindergarten orientation last night. I can't believe my little boy will be in kindergarten this fall! Choosing an elementary school turned out to be really tough/complicated/aggravating, but we finally chose the Catholic school. I'm still not thrilled we chose a school that costs money, but he didn't get into our first choice charter school and we didn't want to chance it--we know for sure the Catholic school is top-notch. So anyway, orientation last night was kind of repetitive and not as informative as the info night we went to last month, but the kids got to take a tour AND I met the mom of a fellow incoming kindergartner, with whom we can have playdates and get to know each other before the fall. Yippee!

Oops, it's time to go to speech.

Five Question Friday 5/13/11

2011-05-13T17:24:00.001-07:00

1. Tube socks, calf socks, crew, ankle, none? (From@ThisDaddys_Blog)

When wearing long pants, I go with crew socks. In the summer I'm either in sandals (no socks) or in ankle socks with sneakers.

2. Was your childs (children's) name a mutual decision or was it a debate? If you don't have children, do you plan on giving your spouse a say, or do you have a name you MUST have, regardless if your other half likes it or not?! (From @momtodh)

Hubby had L's name in mind long before he met me, and told me about it long before we considered having children. It's the first name of his favorite author, but it's also just a great name and fit my criteria for normal but not popular. So I was onboard from the get-go. T's name was a mutual decision based on lots of back and forth and baby name books and all that. Although really, that was Hubby's suggestion too. It's a saint's name and when he suggested it I was reluctant because I don't like its main nickname, but then he suggested another nickname which I quite like and that is what we exclusively call her (though we did give her the full name, you know, legally).

3. What is your favorite type of weather? (From@TheSpunkyDiva)

I like the 50s and 60s, breezy, light sweater weather. (That's basically "winter" here in Phoenix.)

4. If left to your own devices, what time would you wake up every day? (From Sandy at "Pardon My Dust")

I LOVE SLEEP!!! I cannot get enough of it. If there were no kids or responsibilities, I might amble out of bed around 10. At the earliest. I love sleep. I miss sleep.

5. Have you bought your cemetery plots yet? (From Pam at "Troop Petrie")

No. And I'm embarassed to admit that my lawyer husband and I don't even have a will. Actually we have what's called a holographic will that we wrote ourselves, in case of emergency (i.e. if something were to happen to us today, that does spell out who gets our kids), but we'd really like to do it with a lawyer soon. But that costs money. Which we don't have. :-(

Oops, back to the question. Sadly, I don't even know where we'll get plots. Near Hubby's family? Near mine? Start a new plot here in Phoenix? Ack, not something I want to think about!

For more Q&A fun, head to Mama M's.

Medical Adventures

2011-05-11T17:54:00.000-07:00

Once again, I've had a million plans in my head for what to blog but I never have time to sit down and do it. So I'm now going to write for 5 minutes (before Hubby gets home for dinner) and see what comes out.

At the risk of sounding like Negative Nelly, I can update you on our latest health woes. Yesterday.... Well, I should go back a few weeks. I took L to the pediatrician for a bad cough and because his SLP noticed he had swollen tonsils. The doctor pronounced him with a cold virus (hence the fever) and environmental allergies (she noticed "allergy shiners"--puffy eyes with dark circles) and referred him to an ENT for the tonsils. And she put him on Zyrtec and Nasonex for the allergies.

The cold (and allergies?) cleared up (thanks to meds?). Last week, we saw the allergist to talk about environmental allergies (even though we were there about 2 weeks ago talking about food allergies). He scheduled us for stick tests next week.

Yesterday we had the ENT appointment. Good news: his tonsils are fine! (Probably cleared up with the end of the cold and/or allergy meds, I guess?) Bad news: he found a bunch of fluid in L's ears. So he tested his hearing and found a mild "hearing loss." Frankly, I don't think "hearing loss" is a good term, it sounds like he's going deaf. Scary! He meant that the fluid is making him have trouble hearing. So we get to wait and see on that. We go back in a month, praying the fluid has gone away.

Today, we saw L's GI for a typical follow-up and that was thankfully uneventful. We did get to check out the brand new Phoenix Children's Hospital. It was very nice. I was thrilled with the abundance of parking--the garage was a ghost town above the second floor! But there was a complete lack of magazines. None in the waiting area or in the exam room. And we were waiting in the exam room a LONG time. L and I had to practice our patience.

I guess I'll be creating a couple new tabs: one for seasonal allergies and one for ENT. Stay tuned for updates.

photo credit

Food Allergy Rant Du Jour

2011-05-03T17:44:00.000-07:00

I'm in a bad mood, so I thought I'd blog about it.

L's class had a field trip today. They went to a Mexican restaurant to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. A few days ago, his teacher asked me which of 3 entrees I wanted to order for him: a cheese crisp, a bean burrito, or a beef taco. First I said cheese crisp (because he loves cheese quesadillas) and then the bell went off, Wait he's allergic {to wheat and corn--so no tortillas or taco shells}! So we decided I would pack him a lunch.

I pack him a lunch for school everyday, but his classroom has a microwave. I felt that my task was to pack a lunch that didn't require heating, so he could eat it in the restaurant. I chose a sunbutter and jelly sandwich, raisins, string cheese, and I also packed some Pringles (technically they contain traces of wheat, but mostly it's a potato chip) so he could dip in salsa or guacamole with his classmates.

This morning, my husband mentioned to the teacher that Leo could have chicken, beans, cheese and guacamole at the restaurant. Maybe that's where it all unraveled, I don't know. But I picked L up at 2:30 and the teacher said the trip didn't go well (I thought she was going to say L had a tantrum because he couldn't eat anything, thankfully that's not what she meant). I guess she ordered him a plate of chicken and beans and he didn't eat it. (In the car, L told me he did eat some. His teacher probably doesn't know that he routinely eats Very Little.) And she told me the restaurant told her there was dairy in the guacamole so she didn't let him have it. This irked me the most because L isn't allergic to dairy and Hubby specifically said he could eat it. (Oddly enough, L loves guacamole.) But since then I realized I may have put "dairy" as one of his allergies at the start of the year--so they wouldn't try to hand him a glass of milk. But since then we've learned he can tolerate yogurt and cheese. So I'm partially to blame as well.

And of course his teachers should err on the side of caution.

But they didn't take L's packed lunch to the restaurant! I don't understand this at all. Even with what my husband said (such that she ordered him a plate of food), I had clearly sent a lunch box. They even took the bowl of Pringles out of the lunchbox and took that with them, but not the rest of the lunch. If he didn't like the chicken and the beans, he could've been eating his sunbutter sandwich! And they might have noticed the string cheese and thought, "Oh he can have guacamole!"

But none of this would have mattered if I'd been there. Of course I would've volunteered to go too (many parents did); I could've ordered him whatever looked good on the menu, including guacamole, and urged him to eat this and that, including his sandwich. But I didn't have childcare for T. My mom works on Tuesdays. So I couldn't go. And it pains me that having 2 kids means one or the other kid is always getting the shaft. I have a lot of trouble with this.

So it was a big botch of a day. Although when the teacher was telling me how awful it had gone, I asked if I shouldn't have let him go at all and she was like "No! We would've missed him. And he had fun." And it sounds like he did have fun. And he wasn't aware of the guacamole issue at all.

His teacher asked if there are any gluten-free tortillas and I said "oh yeah, he has them all the time at home, I just didn't think I could send it to the restaurant" (I was thinking about the re-heating factor) but she was nodding and was like "maybe next year" {except he'll be at a different school next year} so I feel like that is where I failed. Although, really, a cold quesadilla or using the restaurant's microwave? I don't know!

I said to her "live and learn" because that's all I can do--take this experience and learn from it. Heck, it's what I'm constantly doing as Allergy Mom, trying to figure out how to accommodate the world to L's issues. I think she thought I was crazy, like I should have it all figured out because I'm the mom. Uh oh, I hope she didn't think I was telling her to "live and learn"--oops! But I don't, I don't have it all figured out, not by a long shot. When I first heard about the field trip, my instinct was for him to skip it. That's how we used to deal with these things, especially because there was nothing he could eat back then. Now he's older and he has more safe foods, and he needs to, we need to, figure out how to let him fit in. Ugh.

Part of me wishes we'd just ordered him the cheese crisp and let him eat some wheat, like we do at pizza parties. But we see the allergist tomorrow. And I wanted to spare him any health repercussions. I don't know! That's pretty much the moral of the story--I don't know!!! There is no manual!!!

You would think it would get easier, now that he can eat more foods, but corn and wheat are major ingredients.

Also, we never eat out. Sometimes we bring food in, the obvious difference being we can serve L his own foods. Maybe if we had more experiences with restaurants I could've said, "here's a GF tortilla, have the waiter put some cheese on it and nuke it for 30 seconds." Plus, I'm such a people-pleaser. When I eat out, I hate to even ask for the slightest change, like no mayo on my burger, I'll just order it regular and then scrape off the mayo myself. Okay, I'm veering off here....

Live and learn. That's all I can do. And hope that next time we do it better.

Tales from the Motherhood's Mother's Day Giveaway

2011-04-26T11:46:00.000-07:00

I just discovered this neat blog, Tales from the Motherhood, where the author blogs about all the craziness of mothering 3 little kids BUT she's also a former child actress so she throws in random stories about hanging out with the former heart-throbs we all had crushes on in our youth. Win! So I'm catching up on all her fun stories but meanwhile she is doing a Mother's Day giveaway with Tons Of Cool Stuff so here's my entry.

As a disclaimer: my mom was {mostly} a great mom when I was growing up. My dad was a tyrant so my mom was definitely the good cop. We had a rough time in my teen years and she's got some quirks we're working through in our adult relationship, but for the purposes of this entry, I'm just talking about the good stuff. Here we go:

1. What is your best childhood memory with your mom?

Hmmmm, can't think of an individual memory. She was good with holidays--Christmases were awesome. We did all the things you're supposed to do: bake cookies, assemble gingerbread houses (from scratch! How did she do that?!), see Santa at the mall, etc.

2. Was she consistent with her discipline?

As I said, my dad was a tyrant. He was constantly angry and our punishment usually correlated with his anger level rather than our actual transgression, so his discipline was totally inconsistent. My mom was the one we went crying to afterwards. So I guess her discipline was consistent, i.e. "Wait till your father gets home."

3. Did you ever make your mom cry because you were so unruly or disobedient? (When I pushed my mom too far she would say, “I quit. You can go find a new mom.” That was her form of crying.)

I don't remember my mom ever crying. Now that I'm a mom, she has told me there were days when all 4 of us would say "I hate you" to her--so I know she had her moments, but to me she always seemed to have it together. {Unlike in my parenting, where I am constantly losing it in a variety of ways.}

Also, when we were older (too old to be spanked), discipline was probably more consistent, in that we were always told to "Go to your room!" I actually liked going to my room. ;-)

4. Do you remember any of the special things your mom did for you?

Sadly, I mostly remember the bad stuff. {I own that, it's my glass-is-half-empty problem.} Okay, here's one: For two birthdays in a row (ages 16 and 17), my parents were out of town. On one of them, they sent me flowers. Like real flower delivery, ring the doorbell, flowers. I thought that was very cool!

I remember the trips we took to visit colleges, just me and mom. We had a lot of fun and I look back and am amazed that she could go to these places we'd never been and drive around and navigate us to these schools. Wow! {That's not a skill I possess, I tell ya!}

Alright, there's my entry. Hope I win, it's tons of cool stuff! Now go over to Tales from the Motherhood and enter for yourself!

Why I... Use a Toddler Leash

2011-04-14T21:49:00.000-07:00

Vanderbilt Wife has started a new carnival called Why I. I love to explain why I do the things I do, so here goes. In my latest issue of Parents magazine, their etiquette guru, "Judy on Duty" states (apropos of nothing, just a little bonus blurb):
"Leashes are for dogs, not kids. You wouldn't put your child in a crate, or let him poop on the sidewalk, right? If you have a bolter, invest in a cheap umbrella stroller with a buckle."

So this is for "Judy"--why I use a toddler leash. Once upon a time, T was a super awesome shopper. I'd strap her into the umbrella stroller or plop her in the cart and she was a happy camper. {Okay, so I had to give her something new to play with every 5 seconds, but we managed.} Then one day (3 or 4 weeks ago?), we arrived in Target and she didn't want to go in the cart. Always one to pick my battles, I thought Okay, let's give this a try. So I let her walk around with me. Mostly it was okay, but checkout was kind of a nightmare. I was trying to both watch her and pay at the same time, and failing at both.

The next time I went shopping, I was determined to do it my way. She protested going in the cart, but I put her in anyway. And she threw a big fit. And kept throwing the fit. Standing in the cart, wailing, crying, loudly. This particular day, I was shopping for a lamp. We were in the lamp aisle for a long time (still with the tantrum-throwing) so I thought I'll just take her out while we're in this aisle. Again, nightmare, she wouldn't stay in the aisle, she kept wandering off, not conducive to, you know, choosing a lamp.

The next time I went shopping, I tried putting her in the stroller. Big protest. This time my son was with me and I thought, He can hold her hand. Long story short, I'm in the toddler clothes section and T bolts away, L running after her, and I had to leave my cart, including my purse {causing heart palpitations as a native Chicagoan} in the clothes section while I run my pathetic mommy-run halfway through the store to catch up with them.

NEVER AGAIN.

Now when I shop, T looks like this (except, you know, she's a girl):

photo credit

And she loves her "monkey" (technically it's a bear, not sure why we call it "monkey") and we survive shopping. She is safe (and not throwing a tantrum) and I am sane (because she is safe and not throwing a tantrum). I think that is a win all around.

But that darn "Judy" is in my head making me feel like a bad mother and I'm paranoid that other moms around me are "tsk-tsking" in their heads. {For the record, I've yet to receive a negative comment. There have been some stares, but a couple "cute" comments (and T is darling) and one older woman said it was a great invention for keeping kids from running off. Thank you, ma'am, you made my day!}

I am angry that "Judy's" judgmental blurb made it past Parents' editors. She must have a really great life that everything always goes as planned. I bought the toddler leash for L to use in airports and zoos, not for T to use on an everyday trip to Safeway, but my life doesn't ever go as planned. And I improvise. So sue me.

Ah, thank you Vanderbilt Wife, for helping me get that off my chest. You can check out and join the carnival here.

Have you ever used a toddler leash?

Top 10 Tuesday-- My Favorite Movies of All Time

2011-04-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

In the past, I have avoided naming my all-time favorite movies. You can read here about my favorites of 2010 and about some movies I don't think you should miss, but it's hard to narrow down my favorites forever and for always. But it's Top Ten Tuesday, so let's give this a try. In no particular order....

1. Dead Poets Society. My all-time favorite for a very long time; it's probably not my #1 anymore but certainly top 10.

2. Deep Impact. Hubby and I can watch this over and over. A great action adventure but also inspires deep thought.

3. Contact is another sci-fi favorite. Jodie Foster is {sadly} one of the few actresses that can sell super-smart. Love her! And probably my favorite Matthew McConaughey role.

4. Signs. This is probably my current #1, I never get tired of watching it. Like Deep Impact, it's both a good adventure but also thought-provoking.

5. Little Miss Sunshine. A special little film, there is one part that consistently makes me laugh and cry at the same time. Priceless.

6. Lord of the Rings trilogy {I know, that's technically 3 movies}. Epic.

7. Braveheart. This is a sentimental favorite--Hubby and I watched it on our first real date and then annually on the anniversary of that date for many years. Eventually we couldn't watch it yearly anymore, but it still deserves a spot in the Top 10.

8. While You Were Sleeping. No profound thoughts, I just love this movie!!!

9. Jane Eyre. I know I've mentioned on here many times my love of the book and this movie. I think Charlotte Gainsbourg is the perfect Miss Eyre.

10. Mansfield Park/Pride & Prejudice/Persuasion. How did I get to the end of my list without any Jane Austen?! Forgive me for cheating, I'll just throw these 3 in together. {And technically P&P is a tv miniseries. Oh well.}

Honorable mention: Ever After is another of my favorite chick flicks that I can watch again and again.

May I just take a moment to say that I love what imdb.com has done to make searches so easy with the drop-down feature. Love it!

Ack that was hard, I'm already second-guessing myself! And I feel like I'm forgetting something. Oh well, for more Top Ten fun, head to Oh Amanda.

What's your favorite movie of all time? Or just for today? ;-)

That's Life 4/8/11

2011-04-08T15:56:00.000-07:00

I have decided to rename my "Week in Review" posts because I never remotely kept up with a weekly review. I thought I would now call it "Life Update" because that's what it will be, but that's boring so I'm going with "That's Life." Clever, huh? ;-) So here's what's been going on lately.

First, I'm having so much fun at the Ultimate Blog Party, hopping from blog to blog {putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time that the next leap will be the leap home--forgive my random Quantum Leap reference} finding new blogs to read and getting new readers (I hope!) in return. {Welcome new readers!} I haven't been able to hop around nearly as much as I'd like 1) because I have, you know, stuff to do and 2) because as part of Lent, I ban myself from the computer from noon till T is napping (about 3 to 4 hours). I would use that as an excuse for not posting more often, but we all know I've always only ever been inconsistent with posting. (Yes, I meant to be redundant.)

T has been a super pain in my rear this week. She had a fever one night, otherwise she doesn't seem sick, except for extra fussing and clinging. She wouldn't let me leave her side all day yesterday. Makes it hard to get anything done. This week's project is TAXES, yes I've put those off way too long, but now I've added up our medical expenses (are you ready for it? over $18,000--that's premiums, prescriptions, speech therapy, Neocate, doctor co-pays and L's endoscopy), and this morning I started Turbo Tax. Finally!

Books
I finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha. I'll write a full review soon but as a preview: two thumbs up. My new upstairs book (that I read during the kids' baths) is Casting Off. So far so good, though the writing is flat compared to Geisha, but the plot moves satisfyingly.

Movies
I'm way behind on reviewing the movies we've watched, so look for a long post soon. I can tell you that we watched Hot Tub Time Machine this week. It's not near as good as the Hangover (plot=bad) but it was very funny. BTW, John Cusack looked awful. Has he just aged or has he had a {bad} facelift/botox? I fear the latter. John, you should know better. Anyway, it was quite fun to have an '80s film icon in an '80s flashback movie. And the casting of Crispin Glover was inspired. Nice touch!

EE update
Not much new with L. I think I've mentioned before my frustration that even with his "favorite" foods, he eats like 3 bites. Or he'll say he wants "egg on toast" or a "peanut butter sandwich" (technically it's Sunbutter), but by the time I fix it, he barely takes one bite. Grrrr. On a positive note, we have found a way to make grilled cheese that he likes and doesn't make his tummy hurt. No butter. We use a non-stick skillet and layer GF bread, cheese, GF bread; cook, flip, cook. It's more toasted than grilled, but he doesn't seem to care. Yea, a new food!

T's speech
T still says very little and it can be quite frustrating. {She's very hard to put to bed and I'll ask what's wrong, what she needs, and she speaks a language I can't understand. :-(} However, she's been starting to put phrases together which is so exciting! Ugh, I can't think of any examples. "All done" + "hot dog." That's a simple one, but I know she's put together a few things that really surprised me. I'll try to keep you posted.

That's it. Have a great weekend! What have you been up to?!

P.S. As usual, these are NOT affiliate links.

Ultimate Blog Party 2011--Welcome!!!

2011-03-31T19:20:00.001-07:00

I am so super excited to be joining in the Ultimate Blog Party {hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom} for the second year in a row! WELCOME to Life with L & T, my little corner of the blogosphere, thanks so much for stopping by! I am "Eos Mom," so named because my son has Eosinophilic Esophagitis (basically food allergies) and Life with L&T is named for my kids. L is my 5-year-old son. He is super fantastic, but never listens to anything I say. T is my 2-year-old daughter. She is a ton of fun but definitely experiencing the Terrible Twos. She can throw a killer tantrum!

{My kids pouring weeds on their heads. Your kids do that too, right?}

I'm an average mom and I blog about everyday things:

-books I'm reading and movies I've seen

-my attempts at organizing and time-management

-sharing memories

-how we celebrate holidays

-Top Ten Tuesday, Works for me Wednesday, Things I Love Thursday, Five Question Friday

-the good, the bad and the ugly of life as an overwhelmed {What the heck am I doing?!} mom of 2

I blog for the fun of it and to join the conversation. I don't need 1000 followers (though that would ROCK), but I'd love to be part of a community of smaller bloggers who follow and support each other. So here are some facts about me--tell me in the comments what we have in common (or how we are different) so we can get to know each other.

-I've been married for 12 years to my law school sweetheart.

-I'm a SAHM.

-I love Target, Kohls, Kmart, Dollar Tree and bargains.

-I am not crafty, but wish I were.

-I am unable to either wink or whistle. :-(

-I am addicted to tv, though these days I'm behind on even my favorite shows.

-I love chick flicks and Sandra Bullock.

-L is allergic to corn, wheat, pineapple and peaches, and we avoid peanuts, just in case. So we do some gluten-free cooking.

-Speaking of, I hate to cook! But I do it anyway, cuz it's part of my job.

-I like to bake. Nothing fancy, though, I love to jazz up boxed mixes.

-I am addicted to chapstick, regular Coca-Cola, and reading mommy blogs. ;-)

-I'm a night owl. It pains me to go to bed before 11 most nights (I aspire to 10:30) but if I don't, oh those mornings are painful!

-{And also I am so not tech-savvy, I have tried 10 times to take out all these extra darn spaces to no avail. Please pardon my ugly. ;-) }

Okay, enough about me, go get back to the party. But before you go, leave me a comment and I promise I'll return your visit. Thanks so much for stopping by! Happy UBP!!!

TILT--my new bag (a review)

2011-03-31T11:31:00.001-07:00

Today I'm reviewing my new diaper bag. I bought it with my own money, this is just to share What I Love and hopefully it's helpful to others looking for a new bag. All opinions are my own.

About a year ago, I started looking for a new everyday bag. At the time, T was about a year old and I'd been carrying a backpack since she was born (easier when lugging the infant carrier) and I was ready to graduate. I went looking for a messenger style bag, it needed a long strap and bottle pockets on the sides. We're in Phoenix and I constantly carry water for me and the kids. My initial search (online and in stores) found nothing but I found a free diaper bag in my closet I'd gotten from a formula company while pregnant. It was ugly but fit the bill. This is what I've been carrying for the last year:

A bad picture but you can see it is big and plain (and you can see the bottle of water peaking out of the side pocket). I follow a few daily deal sites on facebook and would check them out whenever they had bags. The other day, I scored on babysteals.com. I got this JP Lizzy strawberry Clara bag ($68 on Amazon, not an affiliate link) for $20 plus $7 shipping. What sold me (besides the awesome price)? Interior bottle pockets! Here's a picture of my bag--notice the water bottle on one side and (harder to see) a thermos on the other?: So I get to carry my water and not look quite so frumpy. Here's me in my lounge clothes modeling the bag. It still isn't small, but it's definitely an improvement!

I love my new bag!!! It feels much smaller and certainly it's much prettier. I feel a lot more put-together carrying it (and I love that my water bottles are hidden, such a nice touch!).

I was worried that it might be too small for all my stuff. Typically, I'm like that Midol commercial where the woman dumps the contents of her purse out on the restaurant table and says "I'm a pharmacy." Yes, I pride myself on having saved many a period-stricken friend with my supply of feminine hygiene products and pain relievers. Meanwhile, being a mom added first aid stuff, an umbrella etc. Anyway, turns out this bag can only {barely} fit my necessities (those bottles take up a lot of space!). In the center are my wallet, phone, and bottle of Imodium. In one interior pocket I have my planner and a pencil. In the other pocket, I have one diaper, some diaper wipes, Wet Ones, toilet paper (I use a lot of public restrooms--gotta be prepared!), and fruit snacks. Anything else, I leave in my car so first aid, umbrella and extra supplies are never far away.

My only complaints.... I don't love the strap. The two lengths of the straps separate as well as twist. Annoying. I'm planning to solve this with some sort of cute strap cover, probably from etsy and in a cute pattern to jazz it up. We'll see. The strap also adjusts too easily, like it doesn't stay put at the length I choose. Also annoying and probably not solved by a cover.

In addition, the "magnetic closure" on the flap, isn't very magnetic. I can feel that there are magnets under the fabric, but otherwise I wouldn't know they were there--the flap just falls, it doesn't "stick" to the bag. A minor problem, gravity works okay, but I would've liked the extra security of magnetism to keep the flap in line. Again, not a big deal.

There you have it, my wonderful new everyday bag, helping me look a little less frumpy. For more Things that are Loved, head to the Diaper Diaries.

Organizing Challenge, Week 12

2011-03-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

Week 12 was about grocery shopping. As I mentioned, we typically meal-plan on Sunday. Well the last 2 weekends, I made my plan and list and shopped on Saturday. That way, we were able to plan for that night (Saturday) and the next night (Sunday when my parents come for dinner)

and get the necessary ingredients. This seems to work a lot better than scrambling for what to cook Saturday and Sunday at the last minute, so we'll keep trying to do it this way.

As for making my grocery list, I keep a magnetic list pad on my fridge. Whenever we run out of something, I write it down. Then I write out the rest of the list when planning meals. I run through what ingredients I need for the week's dinners, plus staples for breakfast, lunch and snacks. I also try to look at the current Safeway flyer to see if there's anything on sale I need to grab.

All this makes for a pretty out-of-order list. If it's particularly messy, I'll re-write it, but that takes time and wastes paper. When Hubby does the shopping, he doesn't care. When I do the shopping, I like to make notes on the list to group things together. I'll write a letter next to each item {P=produce, C=cold, L=left, R=right, M=middle} so that when I'm in produce, I'm sure to grab all the P's (and so on) to cut down on back and forth while shopping.

Okay, I think that's all my thoughts on grocery shopping for the moment. The organized part, at least. There's always something I forget or run out of during the week, then I'll shop at Target or Walmart or wherever else I'm running errands. For more OYOL, go to Unsolicited Advice.

How do you handle your weekly food shopping?

Organizing Challenge, Week 11

2011-03-28T15:54:00.001-07:00

Ack, I haven't posted in over a week! Lots to catch up on. I'll start by catching up on One Year to a {more} Organized Life. I'm behind as usual--this is for Week 11.

Week 11's assignment was to make a list of meals your family enjoys. The goal was 30 meals, but I was convinced we didn't have nearly that many (we are in a serious food rut), but lo and behold, I counted 33! I'll go ahead and share my list in the hope that it might inspire you (though everything is pretty basic, I think) and you can let me know in the comments if you'd like me to share any of my recipes. :-)

burritos

hamburgers

meatloaf

spaghetti with meatballs or meatsauce

beef stroganoff

penne baked pasta

manicotti

lasagna

chicken pot pie {I'm the only one who likes it so I rarely make it anymore}

curry chicken--crockpot

curry chicken--creamy

mayonnaise chicken

chicken stir fry

roast chicken in the oven

whole chicken in the crockpot

pot roast--wine

pot roast--creamy

pork tenderloin

pork chops grilled

steak

grilled chicken

BBQ chicken thighs

bratwurst

pizza (frozen or grilled)

prepared pasta (like Buitoni or Costco ravioli)

enchiladas

quesadillas

taquitos {we don't really make these anymore}

fried chicken or nuggets

flautas from Costco

arichera (we buy marinated skirt steak from a Mexican market and grill it)

carne asada on the grill

pulled pork in the crockpot

And I realized that I'm lacking a good recipe for beef stew in the crockpot and for pork roast. Any suggestions?

I'm glad to have done that exercise, it should make meal-planning easier going forward and help us get out of this rut.

For more OYOL, go to Unsolicited Advice.

Does anything I listed sound good to you? Let me know in the comments if you'd like me to share some recipes. I promise they're all simple (or I wouldn't make them). ;-)

On Waiting {with IBS}

2011-03-18T15:35:00.001-07:00

Okay, I'm gonna join Gypsy Mama with her writing prompt: "on waiting." GO

Waiting. I hate waiting. Now I won't say I was a totally patient person before the IBS, I but think I took some smaller annoyances in stride. {In contrast to my dad who is super crazy Most Impatient Person Ever, whom I do not want to be like.} But now waiting, particularly in line, is so hard for me. You can kind of get an idea of what I'm talking about from those bladder control commercials. A lady in a long line at the airport--she has to run to the bathroom and comes back to an even longer line. Exactly!

I went to Supercuts today. Haircuts are extrememly IBS-stressful for me {what if I have to go to the bathroom during the haircut--the horrors! Yeah, ain't anxiety grand?} and I had to wait through several other people getting haircuts, never really knowing when I'd be next (because some people had reservations for 11:00). So while I'd love to be cool and enjoy my alone time (and I did get to peruse the Oscar dresses issue of People magazine), there's just a lot of stress and impatience.

But the worst is the airport. Because you have a place to be, you don't want to lose your place in line. The San

TIME'S UP
I was going to tell you about the San Diego airport, Southwest Airlines terminal, where there's only a tiny bathroom inside the secure area--so I've sometimes had to leave the secure area to use the larger ladies room and then get back into the security line. Not really possible post-9/11. And arriving passengers don't often know that there's a larger bathroom if they just keep walking, so they make this huge line and departing passengers like myself are stuck.

So there are my genius thoughts on waiting. For more {and better} thoughts head to Gypsy Mama.

How I Celebrate St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, I love St. Patrick's Day. I guess it comes from having kids. It's kind of like Halloween--an excuse to dress up and eat junk food. And you know how much I love Halloween. So here are my Top 10 Ideas for celebrating St. Patrick's Day!

1. The hat. A few years ago, I bought a hat from the dollar area of Target and it has become a favorite. It's basically a green Dr. Seuss hat. Love it! Sadly the hat is currently missing--I only have 2 days left to search my cluttered house to find it. Better hurry!

2. peppermint bark. This is a new idea I had this year. I'm going to make my usual Christmas treat of peppermint bark but color the white chocolate layer green. Basically, I melt semisweet chocolate chips in the microwave and spread it on a cookie sheet, and let it cool in the fridge at least half an hour. Then I melt white chocolate chips in the microwave, stir in a smidgen of peppermint extract (half teaspoon?) and in this case green food coloring, then spread that on top of the semisweet layer. Refrigerate to cool, then break it into pieces.

3. giant shamrock cookie. I made this last year and I'm going to do it again this week. So easy and yummy, see my full instructions here.
4. banner. You'll have to bear with me on this. It's a super easy craft but we didn't do it till yesterday so you'll have to check out my Valentine's version instead. I bought a baby blanket from Dollar Tree (light green for St. Pat's) and trimmed it so it would fit over a dry-cleaning-hanger (the type that's like a thin tube), gluing it with fabric glue. I cut a bunch of clover shapes out of dark green felt as well as the word "LUCK." Then L glued the clovers and word onto the blanket with fabric glue and we hang it on our front door.
5. wear green. This is pretty self-explanatory. The kids and I always dress in green for the occasion. A couple years back I bought this tee at Target and I break it out for St. Paddy's Day. High-quality photography brought to you by my son.
6. lime jello. Yeah, you could cook authentic Irish food, but where's the fun in that? ;-) We like green food, and lime jello is a perennial favorite.

7. pistachio cake. I've been told this cake doesn't look appetizing but I don't care--it's delicious. I love pistachio flavor. This recipe is from the Cake Mix Doctor, basically you add pistachio pudding mix to yellow cake mix--and don't forget the chocolate chips and chocolate frosting. {Here's a similar recipe.} So good! Sadly, we avoid feeding any nuts to L, so this will not be on our menu this year.

8. pistachio cookies. Again, love pistachio (and not on our menu this year). These are really yummy cookies but a huge batch. Use this pudding cookie recipe, substituting pistachio pudding for the vanilla. With chocolate chips, of course. And add some food coloring to make them extra green.

9. window clings. I love seasonal window clings, I have them for nearly every holiday. I buy them at Dollar Tree for $1. For St. Pat's we have a bunch of leprechauns and clovers.

10. mantle. This is the first year, I think, that I've decorated my mantle for St. Patrick's Day. It took me till February to put Christmas away but it was too soon for Easter stuff. I found a green and yellow cross at Ross for $4, then gathered some other green stuff from around my house. In the end, I went back to Ross and bought a leprechaun figure for $6. Cute stuff I'll use year after year.

Of course, this list is linked to Oh Amanda's Top Ten Tuesday!

How do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day?

Giant Shamrock Cookie

2011-03-14T17:26:00.000-07:00

I love St. Patrick's Day. I am 1/8 Irish, Hubby is 1/8 Irish, so our kids are 1/8 Irish. Which doesn't sound like a lot but it's my biggest portion since I'm otherwise a European mutt. Last year I kind of dropped the ball on St. Pat's Day and nearly didn't have a dessert--so here's what I came up with {super easy} at the last minute: a giant shamrock cookie.

I've made giant frosted sugar cookies before--love them--but this was my first time trying a shape (other than, you know, round). I've used both refrigerated Pillsbury dough and sugar cookie mix; this year I'll be using this recipe so it's wheat-free.

I covered a round pizza pan in foil and sprayed it with Pam. I divided the dough into 4 blobs, the first three I shaped into hearts for the leaves and the 4th blob made the stem. This is what it looked like going into the oven. {Bake according to dough directions, though it might take extra long to cook 'cuz it's huge--keep an eye on it.} Depending what dough you use, it will probably expand like mine did. Not quite what I was going for:

No worries, I just trimmed it up with a knife. I frosted it with a can of frosting tinted green with food coloring. Voila:

Super easy, super yummy St. Patrick's Day dessert.

This post will be linked to Tip Me Tuesday, This Week's Cravings {thanks so much for the invite, Tina}, Works for me Wednesday, and Things I Love Thursday. Yummmm!

Organizing Challenge, Week 10

2011-03-11T15:38:00.000-08:00

This week's assignment is Meal Planning. Yea, something I'm already doing! Woohoo!

The Past
Once upon a time, I did not plan our meals ahead of time. And 5 o'clock would come and nothing was defrosted and I would call my husband and ask him to bring home take-out. That is not a good system!

The Present
Currently, my system is to plan meals and make a grocery list every Sunday. Probably my most helpful tip is: I keep track of what we've eaten on a calendar. {I use whatever free calendar I've received from charities, church, or businesses.} I use a dry-erase weekly calendar where I write the meal plan for the week (you can see it in this post) so on Sunday I'll write whatever we've eaten for the week on the meal calendar. That way, when I'm stuck for ideas for what to cook, I look back through the calendar. Sadly we are in a terrible rut and rotate the same darn foods over and over, so at least the calendar helps us not eat the same thing more than once a week. ;-)

I'm not sure that paragraph made sense. I have a dry-erase one-week calendar on my fridge. It iwrite the meal we're going to eat on each day. At the end of the week, I transpose whatever we've eaten that week into the paper 12-month calendar where I keep track of all the meals we've eaten. Does that help?

Okay, so I take out the 12-month calendar. I take a scratch piece of paper and list S M T W Th F. I rarely plan ahead Saturday or the next Sunday. That's definitely a weakness in my plan, but right now it's hard even to come up with 5 meals. By Sunday, we usually know what we're having that day (since my parents join us for dinner after they babysit the kids while we go to 5pm mass), then I plan M thru F. And I write the necessary ingredients on the grocery list. Also, once I've come up with 5 meals, I'll move them around to different days based on things like not having the same meat 2 days in a row and putting the toughest recipe on one of my easier days. And I sketch out side dishes too. That was something I often failed to do in the early days of meal planning. That way I don't make mashed potatoes with burgers on Tuesday only to realize on meatloaf day, darn I wish we hadn't eaten mashed on Tuesday. Etc.

This week has been a bit weird due to the beginning of Lent {no meat plus fasting on Ash Wednesday and no meat today, a Friday in Lent} so I'll share last week's menu instead.

Sun: burgers {we use frozen patties}
M: spaghetti and meatballs {we use frozen meatballs}
T: enchiladas {this is a time-consuming recipe so I did it on an easy day}
W: pork chops
Th: mayonnaise chicken
F: arcihera {we buy a marinated skirt steak from a Mexican market and grill it}
Sat: burgers {it's very unusual to have the same thing twice in one week, but burgers are currently my son's favorite food so we didn't mind having it a second time}

Sorry, but since I'm going off my calendar, this doesn't include side dishes. I apologize.

Oh and another issue in our meal planning is: what will L eat? He has tons of food issues stemming from allergies, many of which he's outgrown, but his diet hasn't expanded to include everything we eat. So we have to plan, okay we're eating burritos, L will have a quesadilla. If we have pork chops, what will L eat instead? A leftover burger. Kind of a pain--but better to plan ahead.;-)

Future
Okay, so since this is supposed to be a challenge, I thought I'd add some meal planning goals.

1) I would like to try new recipes. As I said, we're in a serious rut. But if I try new recipes too often, we get discouraged because so many flop. So perhaps once a week or even every other week, I'll put a new recipe on the menu.

2) I would like to do some freezer cooking. Tons of the blogs I read talk about loading up your freezer with meals for the crazy nights when you'd otherwise get take-out. Sadly, my freezer is already frequently full to the brim, so I'll have to do this thoughtfully, but I have had success making up an extra batch of pancakes to freeze and nuke on weekday mornings.

3) Breakfasts are currently a challenge for me, neither of the kids eats much--and I'm in such a daze I serve the same thing over and over. So it would probably do me good to plan some breakfasts ideas when I'm meal-planning on Sundays.

4) And I should really plan for Saturday and even the following Sunday.

Okay, I will keep you posted as I head for these new goals. For more One Year to a {More} Organized Life, head over to Unsolicited Advice.

Do you plan your meals ahead?

Organizing Challenge, Week 9

2011-03-11T15:10:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, I'm behind. But I really want to talk about my progress.

Schedule
For the last two weeks, I've been trying out my daily schedule (you can see that here). I started off like gangbusters. Making my goal just two activities in the morning (dishes and laundry) was genius (if I do say so myself). So easy and so freeing. That first morning, L woke us up at 5:45am and none of us got back to sleep (well T slept through it, thankfully). To say I was sluggish that morning would be an understatement. But as I was zoning out in the recliner, I felt at ease, no guilt, because I only had two things to do. And sure enough, I got moving in the late morning and the day was ultimately successful. Win!

Oh and I also found that on days where I got my two things done, productivity begets productivity. Win!

However: Thursday came around and I had planned that as my stay home/ignore T/get stuff done day. Fail. The weight of my assignment had me paralyzed. While I managed to eek out the Bare Minimum and a couple other things, "clean a bathroom" was not achieved. I realized this isn't going to work--I am too lazy, I need a new system and assigning myself a ton of tasks for one day just won't cut it. Back to the drawing board. (I will keep you posted.)

Okay so this week I gave up the idea of one crazy busy day and just went back to focusing on my big two--loading dishes and laundry in the morning. It was a busier week than average so that was a great way to keep me focused. That was a success. {I'm so glad this long week is over!}

Speaking of the Bare Minimum, I should probably mention another fail: the mail pile. I have not been conquering the pile daily and therefore my pile has been growing, growing, growing the past 2 weeks. Bad me! It's not just mail but papers from preschool and ads/coupons from the newspaper. At night I move the pile from my bed to the kitchen table {so I can sleep} and in the morning I move it from the kitchen table to my bed {so we can eat}. Fail.

Assignment
The assignment for week 9 was to put our weekly, monthly and occasional tasks into our schedules. Needless to say, if I can't manage my regular tasks, I'm not going to be managing occasional tasks until I generally get my act together. Again, I'll have to keep you posted. Fail.

Conclusion
Despite these failures, I still overall feel I'm making progress. Reminding myself to do my Big Two in the morning has been a revelation. Really, it's huge. Gets the day off to a good, productive start. And I always have clean dishes and bottles. Yea! So I'll be focusing on that and hopefully I'll build some momentum so that adding in "clean a bathroom" isn't life-shattering.

Thank you again to Brenda for coordinating this project. Head over to Unsolicited Advice to see more One Year to a {More} Organized Life.

In the News {Suri's pacifier}

2011-03-08T15:36:00.000-08:00

I'm climbing on my soapbox today to talk about a hot topic.

Suri and the pacifier

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are once again being criticized as parents, this time because 5-year-old Suri was caught sucking on a pacifier in public.

photo credit

Obviously since my 5-year-old still drinks from a bottle, I will be the last one to throw stones on this one. But that's not why I'm going to defend them. Or maybe it is. The fact is, things have not gone as perfectly in my life as I had planned. {That is an understatement.} So my instinct is to guess that if Suri takes a pacifier at this age, it might be because things didn't go as planned. Maybe she's sick. Maybe she hates to travel (these pictures were taken in Vancouver, where, I believe, the family does not live). Maybe maybe maybe. I don't know. So I think it's mean to guess (as some acquaintances of mine did on facebook) that it's because Tom and Katie are horrible parents who don't want the hassle of taking the pacifier away and the tantrums that would ensue. All I know is: there are a bunch of 5- and 6-year-old kids in this world who still suck their thumbs. Why is that any better? {I suppose the answer is because you can't take your kids' thumbs away but you can throw out their pacifiers. Still, thumb or pacifier are equally bad for kids' teeth.} And again, I don't think we should judge others unless you've walked a mile in their shoes.
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Maybe Tom and Katie are the worst parents in the world. Maybe Suri is completely and totally spoiled and eats only ice cream and stays up till 2am watching R-rated movies. But I'm guessing that the 3 of them are just {relatively} normal people who are trying their best and making some mistakes. Part of me wonders if Katie "let" Suri get caught with her paci so the girl will finally give it up already. Because you know the longer you let these things go, the harder it is to break the habit.
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Anyway, I feel bad for the family. For being so closely scrutinized. For Katie, watching the media and public call her a bad mom. {Aren't our egos fragile enough as moms? Aren't we always comparing ourselves to other moms who seem to be doing it better or have it all figured out?} For Suri, she's going to grow up and be so embarrassed that she was caught with a pacifier at age 5.
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And don't even get me started on the paparazzi!
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Okay, I'm climbing off my soapbox now.

Week in Review & Five Question Friday--2/24

2011-02-25T15:23:00.000-08:00

Week in Review photo credit

What I'm Reading

I finished Agatha Christie's Pocket Full of Rye. This is the second AC novel I've read. The first was a Poirot mystery and I thought I followed along pretty well, had it mostly figured out, but at the big reveal, I had definitely missed some things. That was okay. This time, I feel like I was led on a wild goose chase and the perpetrator was a total surprise. I won't go into more detail so as not to spoil it for anyone, but it was a disappointment, and also pretty boring. Thumbs down.

I continue to read Memoirs of a Geisha and I'm entranced. Great writing, tons of details about the geisha culture. I'm really enjoying it!

What I'm watching

Ugh, lots of movie duds lately. So I'll just mention the good stuff.

Crazy Heart--we really enjoyed this, great performances (Jeff Bridges deserved his Oscar), though we never quite bought the "romance."

Inception we thought was okay, interesting to watch, but we felt like the movie was trying too hard to be clever at the expense of plot.

Brothers we thought was surprisingly good. I didn't think Natalie Portman had the maturity to be believable as the mother of two kids, though she was technically old enough. {I suppose that's the challenge for her, when she's been acting since she was a kid and she weighs about 100 pounds.} But Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal were excellent. And it had me on the edge of my seat.

Ondine was another good one. Charming, romantic, a little mystery. I really wish it had subtitles {I've mentioned before that we have to keep the volume low because our kids are asleep} because all the accents and mumbling were hard to understand, but even missing half the dialogue, we liked the movie. :-)

In other news

I posted my EE update the other day, so no news there.

I've been playing with my blog. I figured out how to change the color and font of my header. I added a welcome message and picture of my kids in the left sidebar. And I'm working on adding "pages" like "About Me" to go along the top.

Five Question Friday

1. Can you drive a stick shift?

Sadly no, I never learned that skill. My husband loves manual transmissions, so his current car is actually a stick shift. Therefore, I cannot drive my husband's car. Is that weird?

2. What are two foods you just can't eat?
I am a picky eater, so there are plenty of foods I don't like. But I gag, literally gag, on ham and spinach. Once I was eating a tomato and bacon pizza and I gagged on one bite. I spat it into a napkin and looked down--there was a piece of ham (that had been hidden under the cheese). So I don't even need to know it is there. Now I just tell people I am allergic to ham and spinach, so they won't serve them to me.

I also really don't like fish of any kind, but I can usually choke it down if I have to.

3. Do you buy Girl Scout Cookies? What is your favorite kind?

Now don't call me unpatriotic, but as I was thinking about buying Girl Scout Cookies this year, I wondered "why bother?" My favorite is Thin Mints, which are basically the same as Keebler Grasshopper cookies, which are cheaper. So I'll just stick to Keebler. I know, so sad. :-(

4. How do you pamper yourself?
I don't do massages, pedicures etc. So I pamper myself with laziness. I like to curl up in pajamas on my recliner, with a blanket and a tub of ice cream and watch a movie. Yep, that's my joy. That said, I did get my eyebrows waxed for the first time last fall and those few minutes felt like pampering. I'm looking forward to doing it again soon.

5. What is your nickname and how did you get it?
I don't really have a nickname other than "mom" and that one I got by having my beautiful children. And Hubby calls me various stupid pet names, we're really quite childish, but we both have kind of long formal names that don't lend themselves to shortening, so "pookie" and "kwady" win out.

Alright, it's time to get T up from her nap. For more Q&A fun, visit My Little Life. Happy weekend!

By the way, those are not affiliate links.

Organizing Challenge, Week 8

2011-02-25T12:03:00.001-08:00

Progress Report

Well, things have been crazy in our household again this week with even more illness. And of course Monday was a holiday. And I've been under the weather. But I did okay with my Bare Minimum. I tried, despite the wacky schedule, to implement my new schedule and did okay with that too, good enough that I can now present the current rough version of my schedule.

Daily Schedule

Each day of the week is different because of our activities, so bear with me as I go through the days of the week. M=morning, A=afternoon, E=evening.

Monday is my crazy day, L goes to school till noon, then we hurry through lunch and go to speech, so I don't plan to do more than the Bare Minimum.
M: laundry, dishwasher
E: clean out food from fridge {because trash is picked up Tuesday}

Tuesday will be errand day.
M: run errands
A: laundry, dishwasher, fold clothes
E: shower

Wednesday L has no school in the morning, but we go to speech in the afternoon.
M: laundry, dishwasher
E: L bath

Thursday will be my "stay home and get lots done" day.
M: laundry, dishwasher, clean one bathroom
A: change kids' sheets, T bath, fold clothes
E: shower

Friday, my mom is usually available to babysit part of the day, so I'll run errands--that could be morning or afternoon, so I'll have to be flexible.
M: errands
A: laundry, dishwasher, cook, fold clothes

Saturday, I try to do as little as possible so...
M: laundry, dishwasher
A: {while T naps and Hubby takes L on an errand} clean living room

Sunday
M: laundry, dishwasher
A: shower, kids' baths, meal & grocery planning

Summary
I'm not sure how well my schedule "reads," but basically I have easy days and hard days, and I try to limit how much stuff I want to get done on the busy days. As I said, I want Thursdays to be my "stay home and get stuff done" day, so I put in my weekly "clean one bathroom" chore on that day. Changing sheets isn't a tough chore, but I figured I need the reminder so I put that on Thursday as well. I try to fold laundry whenever there's a pile that needs folding, but sometimes I procrastinate, so that is why I added "fold clothes" to the easier days of the week--so I'll remember to take care of anything that has piled up. The kids' baths are also flexible and depend on when they've rolled around in the mud, but just as an added reminder, they each get 2 baths per week on the above schedule. Same with my showers--at a minimum, I need to shower the nights before speech.

I've learned over these weeks that running the dishwasher and doing laundry are the keys to keeping my home running smoothly, so I've been trying to do them in the mornings this week to get them out of the way. That seems to have worked, so that's why I placed them in the mornings on days that I'm home.

My next task is to write up this schedule in an eye-catching way--the page I scribbled on didn't even fit Saturday and Sunday.

If this schedule works, I hope to be able to add more tasks to my week. :-)

Okay, that's it for this week. I'm going to keep on keepin' on. Please head over to Unsolicited Advice for more One Year To A {More} Organized Life.

EE Update

2011-02-23T15:47:00.000-08:00

So I just wrote this post about our morning routine and had to add a blurb to explain why my 5-year-old is drinking bottles before preschool. Tons of fun. But I pat myself on the back for publishing the post anyway, rather than being embarrassed by our little bottle-drinking situation. Anywho... it made me realize I am long overdue with an EE update--I can't believe I haven't blogged the whole off-the-bottle/back-on-the-bottle saga.

The Saga of the Bottles

Just before Halloween (October 2010), L finished a bottle, put it on the counter and said thoughtfully, "bottles are for babies; I am not a baby" and I jumped at the chance to offer him all sorts of cups to drink from. He sat right there and started drinking formula from a cup. Woohoo. This was right before bed, so we wondered how it would go the next day. He woke up and I asked if he still wanted to drink from the cup and he was up for it and he drank the whole thing. The first day was a huge success, so I thought we had turned the corner.

Over the next couple months, he drank less and less out of a cup. {I'm skipping ahead, there was a whole go-to-the-store-to-pick-out-cups adventure and he chose McQueen take-and-toss cups with straws.} We then tried mixing the Neocate with Nesquik to make chocolate "milk" and his volume went up briefly. Then his nutritionist cautioned us against using Nesquik because it is cross contaminated by things like wheat. Then his volume dropped anyway and we went back to the tried and true Neocate mixed with orange Pedialyte.

Then just before Christmas, he was sick with a cold and drinking barely any formula and getting quite lethargic. We panicked and asked L if he'd like to drink from a bottle. To our surprise, he said yes, he would like a bottle. First, we weren't sure he even remembered how to drink from a bottle, but soon enough he downed the whole thing. We were so relieved.

We went to the pediatrician's office the next morning. She diagnosed a sinus infection and when I told her how we'd freaked and given him a bottle, she assured us the reason he hadn't been drinking was the illness, the post-nasal drip explains everything, go back to the cup. But L didn't want to go back to the cup. Hubby didn't want to go back to him not getting enough volume. So as of late December, L is back on bottles. After 2 months without. :-(

The good news is that while his volume of Neocate was going down, he started eating more real food. So he is back on bottles, but fewer of them. Before the switch to cups, he was drinking nearly 42 oz of Neocate per day (7 bottles times 6 oz/bottle). We offered 7 cups a day and he drank very few ounces of each. So when we went back to bottles, we are down to 4 bottles per day (28 oz total), with the difference made up with real nutrition from solid food. Yea!

Finally, last month we had an appointment with his gastroenterologist and told her the whole long story. Her first reaction was to try to get him back to a cup. Her main point is that getting off the bottles will only get harder as he gets older. I replied that he still has the skill to drink the cup and we are keeping that up, like on road trips, but now that he is drinking less volume, he can get through a day of school by eating real food, and my husband's theory is that the way off the bottle is to get off of Neocate--by eating more and more food. She pretty much agreed. So to avoid headaches and heartaches, we are back on the bottles. L is getting his nutrition, but they don't really interfere with our life because he can get through a school day without it and if we are out and about I can bring a thermos of Neocate and it's fine. The end.

Eating

L is eating meals better than ever. Some of his new foods include:
-Sunbutter sandwiches (on gluten free bread)
-quesadillas (on rice tortillas)
-hamburgers (on gluten free buns)

The addition of hamburgers has been the biggest success--since he has long refused any kind of beef. It's been a long time coming. Two things helped: (1) he wanted to try Daddy's burger and (2) we finally found gluten free buns (at Trader Joe's). Woohoo! Now burgers are his "favorite food." Of course we doll up an entire half a burger (cheese, mayo, ketchup, mustard) and he eats 3 bites, but it's a huge success!

Okay, I think that's the EE report for now. Everything else is just business as usual. Oh and I completely forgot to schedule an allergist appointment (we should have gone before Christmas) so I'll have to do that soon. I'm hoping to get back to doing my "week in review" thang and updating EE in those posts.

Division of Labor--Morning Routine

2011-02-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

photo credit

There's nothing like being out-of-routine to make you appreciate what a good routine you have going. That was the case yesterday when Hubby had to go to work early so I had to drop L off at preschool. Meanwhile, I've been wanting to do a little series on how Hubby and I divide up housework, childcare etc. We've been married for 12 years and parents for 5, so our routines and responsibilities have changed and evolved. If you've been here before, you know there's a lot that I don't have figured out. But a few things are working, so I thought I'd share. Today I bring you Division of Labor: the Morning Routine edition. Here's how our school mornings usually look:

If you're new here and wondering why my 5-year-old is drinking bottles, it's a long story. Suffice it to say, he has a medical condition called Eosinophilic Esophagitis and he gets about half his nutrition these days from elemental formula, which tastes so nasty that he still drinks it from baby bottles. We're working on it. Feel free to follow our journey with the EE tab in my sidebar. To get enough nutrition to power through the school day, he drinks two bottles before he leaves.

6:45am

The alarm goes off and Hubby gets up and wakes L. I stumble out of bed toward the bathroom. Hubby fixes 2 bottles for L and a sippy of milk for T (who is hopefully still asleep). Then he's "off duty."

7:00

I emerge and grab clothes for L and help him get dressed while he drinks his bottle, then I doze off in the chair till breakfast. Hubby makes himself breakfast (usually cereal) and eats by the computer.

7:30

I make breakfast for L (dry cereal, yogurt, bananas; occasionally oatmeal or pancakes from the freezer). At some point T wakes up and joins us; I eat too. It's usually during breakfast that I pack L's snack. And Hubby is in the shower getting ready for work.

8:00

Breakfast ends, L gets his 2nd bottle and I make his lunch. Once lunch is packed, I join the kids in the living room and get L's shoes on.

8:20-8:25

Hubby comes out ready to go. As he backs the car out, I help L get his sweatshirt and backpack on, hand him the other stuff he needs to carry and the boys are off to school and work.

Hmmm, to look at this written down, it seems like Hubby gets off easy. But actually he has the toughest parts of the job: (1) getting out of bed first and (2) doing the driving and drop-off. If I do drop-off, then in the midst of the above, I have to dress T and myself. Plus, drop-off is kind of a madhouse, so I'm glad to pass that chore to him.;-)

I am linking to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family, because this routine works for me (and the rest of my family, for the moment).

How do your kids get ready for school in the morning?

I Once Was a Movie Buff

2011-02-22T15:44:00.000-08:00

photo credit

This weekend is the Oscars. I used to live for the Oscars, set my watch by it, celebrate it like a holiday.

You see, I was a movie buff. "What do you wanna do this weekend?" you ask. "Go to a movie," I'd say. I loved going to movies, really that is what I'd do for fun. Yes, the price of admission kept going up, but it's not like I had a lot of expenses back then (before children), and matinees were affordable. It's not like I had other expensive hobbies.

There was a year, the Gosford Park year {2002}, when Hubby and I saw 4 of the 5 best picture nominees (ironically, not Gosford Park, which won the award) as well as other movies up for awards, like Black Hawk Down (one of my faves). That was fun, rarely have we seen so many nominated films prior to the awards being handed out (we tend to catch up on DVD).

But stuff happens. First, the IBS makes it difficult for me to enjoy movies in the theater. {First, you can't get into the theater without a ticket, tough if you have to use the bathroom before you've made it to the front of the ticket line. Second, there's no rewinding--so if I'm in the bathroom a lot, and I usually am, I can get pretty lost in the plot. So going to the theater these days is often more stressful than fun.} And now we have kids, so there's the cost of the movie, plus the babysitter, so we just don't do it.

And I used to follow all the Hollywood stuff, who's dating who, who's wearing what. And now I find it all toxic. Divorce. Adultery. Botox. Boob jobs.

But I digress.

So now the Oscars come around this weekend and I haven't seen any of the movies. {Well actually now that they nominate TEN movies for best picture (don't even get me started), I have seen Toy Story 3 and Inception, but none of the top contenders.} Plus all the actors are younger than me. {And I have an unhealthy resentment of people who are more successful than I am--I know, that depends on how you measure true success}. Plus with kids, it is nearly impossible to watch something other than cartoons in their presence. Plus, when I haven't seen the movies, I don't like to be "spoiled" by all the clips they show of the nominees. Which all adds up to: I'm not sure I'm even going to bother to tune in. And that makes me kind of sad. :-(

Last year I think I tried watching the early part of the show, but all I remember was tuning in once the kids were in bed, just in time to see Sandra Bullock win for The Blind Side. I love Sandra Bullock and The Blind Side was probably my favorite movie last year, so that was fun. And then the Hurt Locker won for Best Picture and that was the only movie I'd seen of the nominees at the time (I've since seen several, including Avatar) and we loved it. So I could do that again, just tune in after bedtime and watch the biggest awards.

Really, I'm still a movie buff. We watch movies nearly every night, and that pastime has pretty much replaced my other biggest hobby: tv. {I only have a handful of shows I watch, and I'm dreadfully behind on all of them.} It's not the same, but nothing ever is after you have kids, am I right?

So tell me, will you be watching the Oscars this year? What or who are you rooting for?*

*Technically, that should say "For what or whom are you rooting?" but I couldn't bring myself to be so formal. Forgive me, grammar snobs.

Five Question Friday 2/18

2011-02-18T15:50:00.000-08:00

I had high hopes of writing a "week in review" post today, but with only 10 minutes till T's nap ends, I'll have to settle for a quick 5QF.

1. Have you worn the same outfit more than one day in a row?
Haha, I routinely do. For example, I got all dressed up (t-shirt and jeans) to go to speech on Wednesday, but Thursday I only needed to run out to pick up L from school, so I threw on the same t-shirt as the previous day (and I always wear the same jeans, 99% of the time), because no one at school had seen me the day before. Yup, happens all the time.

2. If you had to choose any LARGE city to live in, which would it be?

Phoenix, which happens to be where I live. My husband might prefer San Diego or San Francisco, but Phoenix works great for me. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, then I went to school in a suburb of Boston, I've lived in a suburb of LA etc. All of this to say I have a very suburban personality or inclination. Oddly though, we are in the city of Phoenix, but kind of a remote area, definitely has a suburban feeling, though I don't have to drive far to feel urban.

3. Fly or drive with the kids on vacation?
This is an easy one: DRIVE. First, I hate flying. The fasten-seat-belt sign is my nemesis (with the IBS, do not stand in the way between me and the lavatory!). And post-9/11, the hassles of air travel have amplified (long lines, also not compatible with IBS)--don't even get me started. And of course, the cost of 4 plane tickets is pretty much always prohibitive. Yup, driving is much better, cheaper, and I can shove anything we could ever possibly need into our minivan.

4. What is your idea of "spring cleaning"?
Another easy one: I don't do spring cleaning. I can't get on board with regular everyday cleaning, so I certainly don't aspire to launder my drapes every spring or similar extra tasks. Nope.

5. What is the best book you have ever read?

My regular readers will bored to once again see me say Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. {Awesome! Must read! So romantic!} Thus, I will share another of my all-time favorites: Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson. I read that in junior high and it Spoke To Me. And the Lord of the Rings trilogy is pretty awesome too. Those are not affiliate links.

That's it for this round of Q&A fun. Check out lots more answers over at My Little Life.

What's the best book you've ever read?

Organizing Challenge, Weeks 6 & 7

2011-02-17T11:26:00.000-08:00

Here's my latest progress report for One Year to a {More} Organized Life hosted by Unsolicited Advice.

Bare Minimum

I'm coming along. I rarely do every single thing, but I'm finding that even if I miss something, it's not that bad because I'm generally keeping up. I've found that loading the dishwasher each day is critical. The times I haven't, I have gone on to regret it, so that generally keeps me in line {but still, life happens, like yesterday I didn't load the bottles, so I ran two loads today}. I have been pretty darn good about making the bed and about sorting the mail right away so there's no pile {but again, life happens, I've got a little pile going right now, sigh}. To sum up, I really like my Do Or Die list, it keeps me on track but allows me to goof up along the way. :-)

Kids Chores

Last week's assignment was to set up a chore system for our kids. Well, this one is a failure for me. I will just be up front and tell you I'm not doing it. I should. L is certainly old enough (5 and a half) to have some chores. But I can't handle it. I cannot add to my plate supervising a chore system for him. Hopefully, once I get my life more organized I will be able to move forward with kids chore management.

As a substitute, I am implementing a reward/punishment system that I've been meaning to do for a while. L has a listening/disobedience problem. He completely tunes me out! Grrrr! After chatting with my BFF, I had a plan and today I finally set it up. I bought a $1 dry erase board (Batman) from Target. On there each day he will start with 5 stars. When he disobeys or gives me attitude or generally does something I need to correct (but it's not so big it deserves a time-out), I erase one star. It's possible he can earn a star by doing something good (I imagine this will be hard for me to "catch" him being good, but I'm going to try). At the end of the day, if he has 5 or more stars, he gets a sticker on his chart (just a basic chart with 25 spaces). Days with fewer than 5 stars, no sticker. Filling the chart with stickers earns him a prize. Ugh, wish us luck!

Daily Schedule

I continue to do trial and error to figure out how to manage my week. Stayed tuned, next week I hope I'll have a rough schedule to share with you.

Today (Thursday) has been super productive. I made a list of what I wanted to get done (nothing fancy, just dishes, laundry, etc.), put some down for morning and some for afternoon, and I've just been banging out the list. Yea! Anyway, it makes me think that Thursdays will be my don't go anywhere, ignore T, get stuff done day.

Two additional sources of inspiration for me in this task:

Daily Cleaning List from Money Saving Mom

The Power of Something Simple (a guest post on Life As Mom) about a daily To Do List.

So stay tuned, I will keep you posted as my daily/weekly schedule comes together. For more organizing stories or to join the challenge, go here.

How do YOU organize your daily and weekly tasks?

Internet Hodgepodge--February

2011-02-12T15:06:00.000-08:00

I am just a wee bit excited to have half an hour to myself. I'm going to try to gather up the links to all the cool stuff I've been reading lately and that I want to remember. {Please pardon my old graphic, Saturday Stumbles is now hosted by Simply Staci.} Bring the Awesome by Oh Amanda. Truly awesome. Sadly, I tend to bring the mediocre, if I show up at all, so this spoke to me. I tried to bring the awesome yesterday when doing valentimes with my kids but, well let's call it a work-in-progress.

Best Plug-Ins for Mommy Blogs also by Oh Amanda. I'm so clueless about the techy stuff of blogging, but this makes me think I may be able to spiff up this here space, stay tuned....

Find Your Compass at Motherhood Your way. {I know, this is also by Oh Amanda, the trifecta!} This is such a fabulous post about finding your way, your focus, your parenting goal--I'm totally working on this!

How to Balance Structure and Flexibility by Steady Mom via Life as Mom. Another great parenting post, especially as I'm working on time management.

I'll Pray for you... no, just kidding by Mrs. Dexter introduced me to this awesome site called Echo Prayer--a genius way to fit in prayer throughout the day. I've been using Echo Prayer for about a week and I love it!

In which I share some not-at-all-original ideas by Boomama (whom I love and adore) compiles a wonderful list of recipes suitable for entertaining.

The Jane Austen music video shared by Miskellany--scenes from Jane Austen movies set to Taio Cruz. Genius editing, if you are a JA fan, you must check it out!!! (The second video she posted is kinda cute too.)

Alright, I think that's everything, until next time. For more greatness around the blogosphere, check out Saturday Stumbles, now hosted by Simply Staci. Have a great weekend!

What's the best thing you've read lately?

New Adventure--Homemade Breadcrumbs

2011-02-10T13:09:00.000-08:00

Today I am joining Try New Adventures Thursday over at Alicia's Homemaking with the story of my first ever attempt at making my own breadcrumbs. Why would you ever want to make breadcrumbs from scratch when they sell them at the grocery store? I suppose you could do it to be frugal or to be fresh/organic/pioneer-y. I, however, did it to be wheat-free. As you know, my son is allergic to wheat. For months we've been buying him his own gluten-free bread, but he hates crust, which leaves at least two pieces of bread at the end of each loaf, and these are expensive loaves of bread so I hated to throw any of it out. So I've been keeping the heels in my freezer and in the back of my head thought I might one day make breadcrumbs.

Then came the moment of truth. I had mayonnaise chicken (just a breaded chicken recipe we like) coming up on my menu and it was time to do my little experiment.

I had to go to the web to find out what to do. I got my basic instructions here. Is it sad that I needed instructions? I had frozen bread and I didn't know if I needed to bake it, toast it, defrost it, or leave it to out to get stale??? So I googled it and got the help I needed. Love the internet! So it turned out I did need to bake the bread to dry it out. Here are the heels all lined up on my cookie sheet, I just used as much as fit on one sheet, it left me just a few slices to put back in my freezer for next time.Once the bread was done, I whipped out my fabulous Magic Bullet blender. I put in only a few chunks of bread at a time, then poured the crumbs into a bowl and fished out any un-blended chunks for the next go-round and so on till everything was nicely ground up. And voila, homemade wheat-free breadcrumbs!

I put the breadcrumbs in a ziploc bag and when it came time to make my chicken, I poured some out as usual, mixed them with spices (I normally just buy the Italian breadcrumbs already seasoned, so this time I had to add that step) and proceeded as usual--and the chicken turned out great. My husband thought it was better than usual, I thought it was pretty much identical in flavor, so either way that was a win. (I used almost all of this batch, and kept what was left in the pantry till next time.)

The verdict: super easy! I will definitely keep doing this so we always have wheat-free breadcrumbs in the pantry.

For more Adventures, be sure to check out Alicia's Homemaking.

What new things have you tried lately?

Organizing Challenge, Week 5

2011-02-04T15:06:00.000-08:00

Time Management

Let's see, I'm still a mess. ;-) Every day is different and I'm trying to learn from my successes and failures. Yesterday, for example, I succeeded in showering and taking T with me to Walmart. But by mid-afternoon, I felt like crap (IBS cramps) so I napped. {Then I was able to buck up and make lasagna for dinner so it wasn't a total loss.} Therefore, today I planned to nap first thing this morning because that seems to be less disrupting. (Yes, I'm learning I need a daily nap. How pathetic is that? I'm getting 8 hours of sleep per night, pretty religiously going to bed by 10:30. Sort of.) But T was clingy and it was 9:15 by the time I laid down. And when the timer went off at 10:00 (I have also scientifically figured out I need 45 minutes of rest or I won't get up), I couldn't get out of bed. 15 minutes later I did rise, thanks to T screaming for me to start a new show. I had been debating which errand to run (the choices were post office-grocery combo or Target) but I got up feeling like the morning was wasted and said "screw it--no errand." And then I decided to run through my whole To Do List. Which I did and was mostly done in 45 minutes.

I started laundry before my nap, so I switched it to the dryer. Unloaded then reloaded the dishwasher. Changed the sheets on both kids' beds. And wrote and mailed a bday card to my sis. I took a quick break (yes, I kept it quick) then started writing thank you notes. Finished 4 out of 8--yeehaw!

Great, so in order to be productive, I must ignore my kids and not go anywhere. Yeah, that's not a super duper plan. Thus, time management continues to be a huge work in progress.

Decluttering

Last week, I did do some organizing of my desk. I'll post before and after pics soon. Basically, we'd been using a basket to corral our various pieces of paper (junk) and it was overflowing, so I had an idea to get a desktop file box. I bought one for the desk and for the foyer table (a future project) and I went through the basket of crap paper, threw out (recycled) a ton and filed the rest. Yea! I can't wait to tackle the foyer table. (I also have more junk on the desk to corral, but it's much better.) {Can I just say, I'm loving my files, so easy to find things!!!}

And my BFF and I have decided to tackle organizing projects together, one per month, since we both happened to work on our home office in the month of January (in fact, I was inspired to do my desk after seeing pictures of her revamped desk). So this month is entryways--she's working on her backdoor dumping ground and I'll be working on my front entry (including messy disaster foyer table). Great to have another source of support and accountability!!!

Worksheets

I attempted to do the pie chart activity, but I couldn't wrap my head around percentages or fractions (don't get me wrong, I can do math, I just couldn't visualize my time and priorities in that way) so here's what I came up with instead:

What I spend enough time on:
-spiritual (it would be great to increase this down the road, but I'm okay right now saying my prayers in bed at night)
-relaxing with Hubby (once the kids are in bed and I make the formula and sometimes shower, we watch Netflix together till 10:15--this is good for my marriage and my sanity, it stays)
-cooking (I handle 3 meals a day, whether Hubby or I do the actual cooking, this is a good system)

What I don't spend enough time on:
-cleaning
-projects
-playing with the kids

What I spend too much time on:
-the internet
-procrastinating
-relaxing/napping

From this exercise, I've learned that I need to take time from the relaxing/internet time and put it toward neglected things like my kids and cleaning and if I'm ever going to accomplish projects like decluttering or making photo books. As I said above, this time-management thing is a work in progress, but this gives me a good guideline.

For this week, we were to cut, combine and delegate tasks. I can't cut anything, I already do less than the minimum. And I can't really delegate anything--my Hubby does a ton of work and right now we have a good division of labor going on that works for both of us. {Although, I would LOVE to have a cleaning service come once per month, that would be awesome, but currently that is not in our finances.} I'm thinking that combining could be a good thing for me (music while I organize, letting the kids sort laundry with me) to help me combine playing with cleaning, and relaxing with projects, from those categories above.

Okay, that's where I'm at this week. Tons of work left to do. Oh another thing I did was buy an extra toilet brush so it can stay in our upstairs bathroom, so I can clean the toilet whenever I notice a ring, without having to make a big plan of when to clean and drag my bucket of supplies upstairs. Haha, baby steps!

This post is linked to the wonderful One Year to a {More} Organized Life on Unsolicited Advice. Go over and join in!

Five Question Friday (1/28) and various ramblings

2011-01-28T09:45:00.001-08:00

Just a quick post before I get back to organizing. (I have to clean up the mess in the foyer that I made while organizing my desk yesterday.)

- I am working on organizing my desk area. Yea! Thanks to my BFF, I had an idea about getting a desktop file box to replace the overflowing box of papers, so that is what I worked on yesterday. Not a huge (visual) improvement, but a step in the right direction. (I will hopefully be posting pictures later this week of that before and after, yea!)

-My BFF and I are trying to encourage each other to declutter/organize one area per month, since we happened to be working on our office areas at the same time (again, I was inspired by her efforts)--so that will be extra encouragement and accountability in my organizing journey.

-Some movie non-recommendations: 3 Days of the Condor and State of Grace both sucked. You're welcome.

Now onto 5QF.....

1. If you had $1,000 to donate to a charity, which would you choose?
My old favorite charity is Native American Rights Fund, but since L has had health problems I really have two choices: American Partnership For Eosinophilic Disorders (APFED) and Phoenix Children's Hospital (PCH). While APFED raises funds for awareness and research, PCH saved L's life. So if I had $1000 to donate, I think I'd give it to PCH.

2. Snow days: Do you welcome them happily or are they a pain in your butt?
Haha all you snowdwellers, I live in Phoenix. Snow days are not a part of my life! {Don't hate, you don't have to deal with our summers.} But we have our share of cabin fever--we just got over another batch of illness--so I can tell you that I think an occasional break from the everyday routine is nice (and if you have snow, it's fun to throw snowballs or make a snowman), more than one starts to be a pain.

3. What talent did you wish you had and why?
I like to dance, love it actually, and I have a pretty good sense of rhythm. However, I am totally inflexible and slightly uncoordinated--so I wish I were a better dancer.

4. Are you a news, politics or celebrity gossip junkie?
I used to be a politics junkie. Love me some Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow. But with kids and no time and the state of the world, I can't handle the negativity. So now I bury my head in the sand. Oh and I HATE celebrity gossip. I used to follow it back in my younger days, I subscribed to Us and Entertainment Weekly. But now I think all that stuff is so toxic. AND I don't give a rat's behind about Britney, Lindsay, and Paris. Sheesh!

5. What is your favorite "cocktail"? (Are you a beer person, a kiddie cocktail junkie, or perhaps your more the "Cosmo" kind?! Anything flies...doesn't hafta be alcoholic!)
I don't drink alcohol. Not because I'm high and mighty, I just don't like the taste. (Which is too bad cuz some days I'd really like to end with a cocktail! LOL) I do enjoy an occasional Shirley Temple, but honestly if I'm at a happy hour or cocktail party (and I never am), I'm just gonna ask for a Coke. I've been taking care of kids all day, I need the caffeine!

Join the Q&A fun over at Mama M's.

Organizing Challenge, Weeks 3 & 4

2011-01-25T09:35:00.001-08:00

For Week 3, Brenda gave us a printout to brainstorm all our tasks: daily, weekly, yearly etc. Ugh, I am nowhere on this list. Seriously, my page is blank except under weekly I've written "one bathroom" and "sort toys" (that means a real clean-up of the living room, where the toys go back into the armoire). I dream big, my friends! Yes, I have a long way to go, I will probably have to steal someone else's list. I'm creative like that. ;-)

For this week (Week 4), Brenda has challenged us to look at our work like pieces of a pie and prioritize. I think this is an excellent idea and certainly it goes along with my desire to improve my time-management. What's important and how should I divide up my time?

As an aside, I read this post at Amy's Finer Things, which is a nice post in and of itself (here's a totally-together mom admitting she struggles with time-management too, hallelujah), but what I noticed were some of the comments. Like from "Frenchy" who basically says "I hang out with my family, make dinner, and the rest I don't care about." Wow! Or "Gwen" says she keeps her eyes on the important stuff--time with God, with the kids, with her husband--and the rest falls into place. Bravo! Now clearly I've learned that I can't fly by the seat of my pants and expect everything to fall into place, if that works for you, that's awesome. But I'm hoping that examining my time and labeling my priorities will put me in the right direction.

Progress Report

Not making much progress. I'm even having trouble conquering my Bare Minimum. But I do like having that guide for what I'm supposed to be doing, and if I could just have a normal week, there might be some hope, but it's just been one thing after the other. (I know: excuses, excuses.) My one organizing bright point last week was that after I folded the kids' clean laundry, I went through each kid's basket {this is a post for another day, each kid has a laundry basket of clean clothes--it's my system and it works} and cleared out the stuff that shouldn't be there (such as out-of-season) so those are back to good working order. Also, I am way (like years) behind on cleaning the kids' humidifiers (one in each kid's room), because I have a pathological fear of bleach {another post for another day}... anyway, we were at a baby store the other day and they had a display of humidifiers and there were these bottles of humidifier cleaner. Brilliant! I thought the $7 (yes, way more than the cost of a jug of bleach) was worth it if it means I actually Get The Job Done. So I bought the overpriced cleaner and washed L's humidifier. Yea me! Then it turns out his humidifier isn't working and he'll need a new one anyway. Oh well. Next up: T's humidifier. And I wrote "humidifiers" on the calendar a month from now, so it should be a monthly date to stay on top of it.

How and How Often do you clean your humidifiers?

Also, on Sunday T woke up sick (she vomited twice) so I spent all morning in the living room with the kids (to keep an eye on her), mostly zoning out in the recliner. By lunchtime, I knew I had to get some stuff done and I did an interesting thing: I asked myself, what's the highest priority? First, it was give T a bath (duh, she'd been puking). Later it was make the grocery list, then run the dishwasher, etc. When I had a pocket of time to do a chore, I asked what's the priority. And it worked! Despite a "wasted" morning, I ended up having a pretty darn productive day (gave 2 baths, did laundry and dishes, even played a game with L, and of course spot cleaned the carpet). Not sure that's how I want to handle every day (I'd prefer some sort of plan, I think?), but it's a tool in my arsenal, right?

Week Ahead

I want to keep up with my Bare Minimum daily list. I want to work on last week's brainstorming chore list and this week's prioritizing assigment. And I want to continue reading the Tell Your Time e-book. My project for this week (if I can make the time) is to finally write Christmas thank you notes. (Hello, it's almost February!)

How are you doing on your organizing or other New Years Resolutions?

To read more about the One Year to a More Organized Life challenge and to participate yourself, go here.

Just stopping by

2011-01-19T20:19:00.000-08:00

This has been an insane week. On paper, we had speech on Monday, I had a pap smear on Tuesday, today I took L to the gastroenterologist and then we all went to the mall in the afternoon--not awful, right? But I am exhausted/dog-tired/pooped! Oh and it doesn't help that L woke up at 5am yesterday and today and didn't go back to sleep. Meanwhile, from you know not being home, I'm behind on basics such as laundry and dishes.

So tomorrow I hope to accomplish relaxing and housework and hanging out with T (who has spent tuesday and wednesday mornings with a babysitter, my mom) and getting to the store and blogging a progress report for Week 3 of the organizing challenge (sneak preview: not much progress).

Okay, hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with more....

Organizing Challenge, Week 2

2011-01-12T14:54:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned yesterday, Week 2's assignment is to write out the bare minimum that I should be accomplishing every day. Well, there's a ton of stuff I have to do every day, like feed and clothe the kids, clean up from one meal to the next, brush my teeth, but I'm not going to list the things I already do by necessity or habit. Instead, my list is stuff that should get done every day, but I'm currently challenged to either remember or follow through. I'd like to add more things (like 10 minutes of de-cluttering or 30 minutes to work on a project) but I'm not there yet. Hopefully I can add those later as I get better organized. For now, here's my Do Or Die list:

-1 load of laundry. This has been my "system" for a year or so. I've tried other systems, like Mondays=dark load, Fridays=whites, but that didn't work; so everyday I try to throw in a load--it's not a perfect system, my husband still has to remind me when he gets low on socks or boxers. And sometimes (like this week), I go a few days without a load and things pile up and it's hard to get caught up {thank you, mom, for throwing in a load while you were babysitting today}. So this makes the list.

-go thru the mail. Ugh, mail drives me crazy! I can pretty easily take the bills out and put them in their folder; I put the magazines to the bathroom; and the junky junk goes in recycling; but then there's the other CRAP. We get tons of EOBs from insurance (Explanation of Benefits), and I do like to open that, throw out the extra page and envelope, then add it to its pile--but they aren't urgent. Then there are credit card offers and stuff with personal info that need to be shredded. It's that crap that, if I don't take the time, gets piled. Right now I have two piles worth of this junk to sort through. So my daily Do Or Die will include going through the mail till there is no pile--everything sorted. And hopefully little by little going through the backlog.

-run the dishwasher. I used to have a good system going. Do a load of regular dishes one day and a load of kid dishes the next (bottles, sippy cups, pitchers, plates and bowls). That was when L drank bottles and we'd run out in 48 hours. Then we switched to cups and we had enough for more than 48 hours and my parents moved in and we had to do regular dishes more often and so it was all a little more haphazard. We survived, but now I'd like to get back to the old alternating system--so we never run out of silverware or sippy cups (actually what we run out of in the kid load are plates and pitchers). {{Why do I wash regular and kid dishes separately? It started off because L was allergic to everything and I didn't (still don't) want food getting on his bottles/cups. But we also have an express cycle on our dishwasher for pre-rinsed glass and plastic--so that works great for the kid load. Two different cycles=two different loads.}} So for my daily Do or Die, I will run a load every day, alternating between regular and kids.

-get dressed. Thank you, Catie, for reminding me to put this on the list. I get dressed nearly every day, because I leave the house at least 6 days per week (barring illness or other change in routine), but I tend to wait till it's time to go somehwere before I get out of my pajamas. Even though I don't plan to dress up all pretty first thing in the morning (I like to be comfy around my house), I can at least upgrade from pjs to sweats.

-make my bed. This has been a goal for the last year and I've made a lot of progress, but I'm still only doing it about 75% of the time. So it goes on the list to remind me. I never used to care or bother; every few nights Hubby and I would straighten the sheets before going to bed. But what I like about making it in the morning is my bedroom looks instantly nicer and it makes a good surface for folding laundry or whatever.

Brenda also provided us a list for specific days of the week. For Sunday, I've written down "meal plan and grocery list"--that usually gets done by necessity, but it's good to have the reminder. And for Monday, I've written "clean out food from fridge" because Tuesday is trash day and that's a good time to throw out rotting leftovers. I couldn't think of any other day-specific tasks.

That's my start. Like I said, I'd love to add more to the list, to build on my success (if I have any!) so I'll keep you posted. To join the organizing fun, head to Unsolicited Advice.

Oh, the Productivity!

2011-01-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

I had a great weekend. Friday, Saturday and Sunday were each good days (shocking--a three-peat!). Well today (Sunday) was a bit on the busy side for my taste, but the upside is I get to blog about how productive I was. ;-) Today I....

-made a double batch of gluten-free pancakes (to eat and freeze)

-(with Hubby's help) got a whole chicken and vegetables cooking in the crockpot

-loaded the dishwasher

{lunch}

-the whole family went to Sam's Club to look at furniture

-gave T a bath

{put T down for her nap}

-planned the week's meals and wrote a grocery list

-shower

{church}

{dinner}

-gave L a bath

-changed L's sheets

-changed T's sheets

My mom was kind enough to load bottles and sippy cups into the dishwasher while she was babysitting (and unloaded the clean as well). Yea, that saved me a chore. (It looks like she may have scrubbed my sink too. I should probably be insulted, but I'll just be grateful instead.) I know it's not an earth-shattering list, but that was a very productive day for me.

This post will be linked to Tackle It Tuesday at 5 Minutes For Mom.

Speaking of being productive, Brenda from Unsolicited Advice has posted the assignment for Week 2 of One Year to a {more} Organized Life. We are to come up with the Bare Minimum tasks we want to do on a daily basis. Eek, I'm gonna have to think hard about that one (and possibly "cheat" by reading other bloggers first). I'll have that post up as soon as I have (the beginnings of) an answer. ;-)

S0 tell me, what are your daily must-do tasks?!

What I'm Reading--January Booking It

2011-01-10T09:12:00.000-08:00

If you've been here before, you know I like to post about what I'm reading. This year, I'll be joining Life As Mom for Booking It. As in all things, my reading is inconsistent, sometimes I read 4 books in a month, sometimes I don't read for 6 months at a time. Thus, I don't have a specific goal in mind for the year--12 books would be great, but maybe it will be five or 20. In this post, I'll tell you what I'm currently reading and some titles I have "on deck" and I'll keep you posted on my progress and review what I've read. Here's to a year full of good books and reading enjoyment!

Reading now:

I pulled a novel off my upstairs bookshelf recently: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. My sister gave me the book a few years ago as a gift, she'd read it and liked it, but I'm just now getting around to it. I read it when I'm upstairs, often when the kids are bathing (don't called Child Protective Services, I'm right next to them). So far I'm enjoying the writing style, we'll see how long I can handle the plot.

My husband bought us the Nook (e-reader) for Christmas. Woohoo! Hopefully this will provide another avenue for fitting reading into my schedule. It came preloaded with Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, which I've never read, if you can believe it. In my defense, I read a biography of Alcott in middle school and since much of Little Women is autobiographical, I feel like I know the story... anyway, I've only started the second chapter, but so far I'm enjoying it.

I am also reading A Pocket Full of Rye by Agatha Christie. This is the book I'm primarily focused on right now, as I'm reading it along with my BFF (like our own little long-distance book club)--so far the dead guy was much-hated and there are a variety of suspects. It's a Miss Marple mystery (my mom recommended Miss Marple) but she's yet to show up on the scene. Last year I read a Poirot mystery by Christie and was surprised how many clues I hadn't put together.

Coming up, I hope:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies {The first e-book I downloaded to the Nook (free!)--as a die-hard Austen fan, I couldn't resist.}

Roofwalker by Susan Power {This has been on my shelf for years, time to give it a try.}

Great Expectations {Hubby bought me several classics last year including this one.}

The Known World by Edward P. Jones {Another novel that's been on my shelves for years and looks intriguing.}

And I'm still in the middle of volume two of this biography of Eleanor Roosevelt.

For more book lists, head to Life As Mom.

What are you reading this year? And what's your favorite book ever?

PS These are not affiliate links.

Week in Review--1/7/11

2011-01-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

Before I get on to Five Question Friday, I thought I'd share a few tidbits.

In my quest to get organized and cleaned up, today I:

-Printed out this January cleaning calendar from Clean Mama.

-Bought the e-book: Tell Your Time ($7 with code CLEANSLATE), recommended by Simple Organized Living--because time manangement is a huge problem of mine.

And I actually cleaned... because the exterminator was coming over to do our annual indoor treatment. Eek. I finally sorted all the little itty bitty toys that have been on the floor since before Christmas and were added to on Christmas {the place looked worse than ever!} and got them in all their various baskets and into the cabinet. Awesome! I left plenty of odds and ends, but it looks So Much Better. Then I wiped down my master bathroom, which was in half-decent shape because I cleaned it at the beginning of Nevember {I told you I'm a mess!}. Sadly, my bedroom was beyond the reach of a short cleanup time. Embarassing. I like to tell myself the exterminator has seen worse.

Meanwhile, we've been watching a French movie this week, Tell No One. It was weird and complex, one of those films that reveal just a little bit at a time so you spend much of it confused (and even annoyed--I almost gave up on it after the first night), but ultimately it all made sense and it was pretty good. Not great, but interesting and kind of romatic. Kind of.

Okay, on to this week's Q & A, some unusual questions so I thought I'd join in with Mama M. Here goes:

1. What is your current favorite book, and why?
I'm not sure I understand the "current" part of this question, do they mean of the books I'm currently reading or the book I would tell people (currently) is my favorite book ever? If it's the latter, my favorite book {that everyone must read} is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Awesome! If it's the best of what I'm reading right now, I'll say Memoirs of a Geisha, because I'm further along in it than the other novels I'm reading {more on those in a future post} and though I'm not sure yet about the plot (aren't geishas prostitutes?!), the writing is very good.

2. Do you go to the dentist regularly?

I am embarassed to say it's been YEARS since I've seen a dentist. I won't tell you how many years, let's just say more than five. {Hangs head in shame.} I blame the IBS as well as our lack of dental insurance.

3. What is your worst memory from High School?
I've said before that I hated high school, so let's see if I can choose one moment. Oh here's a good one. I was skinny in high school and had no boobs (not that I've got much more up top these days, I was not blessed by the boob fairy). One day in Geometry (I was a freshman, these annoying boys were sophomores), we got a test back. One boy saw my good score and said "let's give her {meaning me} a medal" and the other boy replied, "yes, and a chest to put it on." Yeah, good memories! (That's just off the top of my head, I can't say for sure it's the worst memory.)

4. What do you hope to be remembered for in your life?
I wish that I would make the history books or be a published author one day, but it's not looking like that's in the plan, so it will just be friends and family who remember me and I hope they say I was a good person, that I was kind, and I hope my kids have good memories of our times together, that they'll say I was a good mom.

5. Are you superstitious or do you have any superstitions?

Funny, this reminds me of when I was a kid and I was watching something, like beauty pageants or award shows, and I was rooting for someone, I'd cross my fingers--and then I went through a phase where I thought it was better to un-cross everything so I'd sit there with my fingers all fanned out rooting for Miss Tennessee to make the finals or for Janet Jackson to win best album. Funny to think back to that, now I hate beauty pageants with a (feminist) vengeance and I'm lucky if I catch the Oscars.

So am I superstitious these days? I guess a little, because I don't like to "jinx" myself (not that I actually believe in jinxing or tempting fate but I can't help it) by saying, for example, "my kids haven't been sick in 2 months" for fear they will promptly get sick. I like to keep an umbrella in my purse because, Murphy's Law, it will rain the one day I forget it. And so forth. Not really susperstitious in the black cat/broken mirror kind of way.

Or just now, I thought of putting as my facebook status that "I'm having a good day," but I can't because then surely the day would take a turn for the worse. So I won't post that--I can, however, wait till the end of the day and declare "it was a good day." So there you go.

For more Question fun, go here. Have a great weekend!!!

New Organizing Project

2011-01-06T15:38:00.001-08:00

Catie from Newby at Home directed me to this exciting challenge for the new year: the One Year to a {more} Organized Life project, created by Brenda of Unsolicited Advice. If you've been here before, you know that I'm always talking about what a mess I am and how I'm trying to get organized and in fact just yesterday I put out a plea for help with time management strategies. If you're new here {welcome!}, I'll tell you that since my second child was born (my daughter, T, born in Sept '08), I've been a disorganized mess. Well, actually I've been a mess all my life, but after T was born I suddenly realized how much the mess (the clutter, the bathrooms that need cleaning, the lack of schedule) was in my way! But then I also didn't have the time to do anything about it. So I declared 2009 the Year to Get Organized--but working in such small time increments, I realized it will take more like a decade. Anyway, I'm slowly making progress, very s l o w l y, but still have a long way to go. I finally have the motivation to get the *crap* out of my house, but I need the time and direction and I hope this OYOL challenge will help with the direction and motivation.

Okay, so this week's assignment is to find our purpose. Like I said, I've made some progress, I'm not losing things as much, I've put some good systems in place, but on a daily basis I am surrounded by clutter and clueless how best to use my time--should I be playing with my kids or going through the piles in my closet? Should I clean the powder room or the master bathroom? And there's so much to do that I get overwhelmed and play on the internet.

Brenda recommends we dig deep for a substantial purpose/reason to keep us going in the challenge. I assume that's so when we hit that inevitable "why bother?" moment, we have a statement of purpose to remind us that life isn't going to get better till we get organized. So while I have a lot of practical reasons to get organized (so I can find my stuff when I need it), the *purpose* behind the effort is this: the clutter is keeping me from living the life I want. I want a life that includes less stuff, a house that I can invite people into, a clean shower that wouldn't frighten the health department. I want to be a happy mom who plays with her kids and a balanced mom who reads (and maybe puts together photo albums). I want my husband to be less frustrated and I want my kids to have happy memories of childhood. And so on....

Obviously the bonus is that I can blog about my progress! To see some of my past successes, click on the organizing tab in my sidebar. Also, Organizing Junkie is planning 52 Weeks of Organizing so every Friday we can share our organizing successes in the comments or by linking up. {Nothing like seeing other people's Before and After pictures to keep me motivated and excited to declutter!} So stayed tuned, hopefully I'll have lots of successes (and no doubt some failures/hiccups along the way) to share in '11.

Do you want to get more organized in this new year? Visit Brenda to check it out!

New Adventure--Homemade Lasagna

2011-01-06T11:15:00.001-08:00

I'm excited to be participating for the first time in Alicia's Homemaking Try New Adventures Thursday link-up. I tried something new last weekend (New Years Day to be specific)--homemade lasagna! In case you didn't know, I hate to cook, I mean really hate, like washing-the-dishes hate. {Don't even get me started on the irony of me ending up as a housewife.} But I do it anyway, so I'm mostly drawn to quick and easy non-recipes. Therefore, it was a big step to make lasagna by myself.

Back in the day, we would eat Stouffer's frozen lasagna. Easy and yummy. But then they changed it or something and it became less yummy, plus we'd eaten it too often and we were just DONE. And we never really replaced it with anything. I have a baked penne recipe I like to make and I've made manicotti a few times, but it's been a long time since we had lasagna.

Meanwhile, my BFF has made homemade lasagna for a long time, but she also makes her spaghetti sauce from scratch, so clearly she's way ahead of me. But I was talking to her recently and she was saying how easy it is. So I asked for her recipe and she says she does it the way it says on the box of noodles (plus she doesn't even make her own sauce for it!).

I was thinking of taking the plunge, but of course L can't eat wheat. So do I make lasagna with gluten-free noodles?! First, we had to check the store (we shop at Sunflower, it's like Whole Foods but better). Hubby did the shopping and came home with what he found: no boil rice pasta lasagna noodles. But the recipe on its box was for Southwestern something lasagna--not helpful. So I found this recipe off the Barilla website, and got to work!

Basically it was super easy--I don't know what I was afraid of. I browned ground beef {I used ground beef instead of sausage in hopes the kids would like it} and added it to a jar of marinara sauce and then used extra sauce to coat the bottom of my pan, then layered noodles, cheese mixture, meat mixture and so on. It didn't take long because I didn't have to boil the noodles (I timed it, it took me 35 minutes to get it ready for the oven). That is not a picture of my creation. I took a picture, but couldn't wait to upload it, cuz that might take a while. This photo is from Barilla.

The bad news is the rice pasta was gross. Nasty! I couldn't eat it (I just ate the beef and cheese, but not the pasta) and the kids didn't like it. Hubby was a trooper and said it was good and ate it up. We decided next time to just use regular wheat noodles (and par-boil them) since L didn't like it anyway. (Also next time: sausage, yum.) I also thought it was heavy on the cheese so I might tone that down next time. But there will be a next time--really it was easier than the baked penne and manicotti I usually make.

So that was my lasagna-making adventure. Sorry there's no picture--I took one but if I waited till I uploaded it, well it might be June. For more adventures, go here.

WFMW--What's not working--time management

2011-01-05T11:44:00.001-08:00

As I mentioned yesterday, I stink at time management. I need some sort of manual or how-to guide to my life! I would like to play with my kids, have some time to myself, exercise, blog, clean, organize--how do I fit it all in, with my sanity intact? Please share with me your best time management tips, be it general or specific--I need all the help I can get! {Also, if you have a blog post that's relevant, or if you write an organizing-time-managing-type blog, by all means, let me know in the comments!}

((A few months back, I actually shared a time management tip. Can you believe it? It's something that sometimes works for me, when I actually think to do it: setting a time to get the big stuff done.))

So, help me out--what's your best time management tip(s)?!

For more tips (or requests for tips), check out We Are THAT Family.

Resolutions 2011

2011-01-04T12:07:00.000-08:00

Okay, so new year, new you. Yeah, not so much. I have no resolutions this year other than to keep working on everything I was trying to work on last year. Because I still have a long way to go. First, I'll review last year's goals:

-Thank you notes. I started off okay, but got behind at Easter. That's right, this month I will be writing lumped-together notes thanking people for all the gifts they gave us for Easter, L's birthday, T's bday, my bday, Hubby's bday and Christmas. And Halloween and our anniversary if you sent anything for those. Eek! But that will give me a clean slate for 2011. My plan for improving in 2011 includes me writing on my new calendar "deal w/ thanx" two weeks after gift-receiving holidays/birthdays in the year ahead. Fingers crossed.

-Be more friendly. Oy this could be a post in itself--I seem to have lost all my local friends in 2010. Sigh. But I was friendlier with strangers and acquaintances. And in recent weeks, I've given my mommy "business" card {like a business card but my job title is "L's mom" and it has my contact info} to 4, count 'em 4, moms. I'm hoping at least one of these will be new friends for me and the kids. This is way out of my comfort zone to put myself out there like this, so yea me, we'll see if anything comes of it.

-Go to church. This was really tough and we just weren't great about it. We'd have a good stretch but then not go for several weeks and then kind of gave up altoghether. But then my parents moved to town in November and we're Back In Action. ;-) My parents watch T while Hubby, L and I go to church (well, sometimes L stays home too, I don't care at this point). This new system should work to keep us attending church weekly. Yea!

-Make the bed. I lapsed on this one, but recently got back in the habit when my parents moved in (peer pressure). It's worth it for me to try to keep up with this one in the new year.

So obviously, I've got plenty of progress left to make on the above goals. I talked a little about my blogging goals yesterday, mostly to just follow through when I have post ideas, but I'd also like to comment more on other blogs, not just because it's often reciprocated but just for the golden rule of it--I know how much I like comments, I want to know if people have visited here, so as long as I'm there, I should leave a note.

On weight/appearance/healthy lifestyle (again this could be its own post)--always a challenge. I've gone back and forth the past few months about whether or not I care about these extra 10 pounds I'm carrying around and whether or not to try to do something about them. Where I usually come down is I need to try to be healthier--make better food choices (quality and quantity) and move more--and the weight will follow. Of course the last month, between Thanksgiving and New Year's, was a fiesta of bad food choices and I still haven't figured out way to fit in exercise--so it's a vague, ongoing goal.

And of course there's all the other stuff I need to work on--play with my kids more, read more, be more patient, do more housework, get organized! There was a point last year when I had a list of 4 things on a note in my kitchen--what were they? I know one was to drink less Coke--I succeeded in that, I went from 3 cans to 2 per day {baby steps}. Another was "no groaning"--I have gotten a lot better on that score, though as with yelling, I have my weak moments. Work in progress. What were the other two?! I can't believe I can't remember--oh one was to make L drink his sips--that was a project from a long time ago, no longer relevant. I'll try to remember the last one and report back. Anyway, I'll finish with the general goal of better time management--a huge weakness of mine. If I could be more intentional with my time, then all of the above would fit in, right? Playing with the kids, cleaning, organizing, reading. So that's the big goal of 2011.

Example: this morning I had time. It was about 10:30 am. L was at school. I'd already done breakfast, checked all my usual blogs, and played with T. So now what? I had a ton of choices--sort mail, play online, clean--but there was no guide book, no one to tell me what to do. No wonder I get depressed, I'm floundering here. In the end, I started a load of laundry, spent a few minutes online, then called my BFF. Pretty good choices (though cleaning or organizing would have been better choices). It was only after all that plus lunch that I realized I really need to put the Christmas gifts away (they are in various piles in my foyer), but by then it was time to pick up L and do afternoon stuff. So yeah, time management is a big ol' Work In Progress. ;-)

There you have it, my resolution-related ramblings for the new year.

What are your resolutions for 2011? And do you have any suggestions to help with my goals?!

Happy New Year!

2011-01-03T15:41:00.001-08:00

I just wanted to say a quick hello and Happy 2011. We had a wonderful Christmas, well mostly it was good, my husband had a little too much of my family. But we made it to mass on Christmas Eve for the first time in YEARS so that was super. L went with us (my sister babysat T). He does really well in church, I can't believe it, this kid who has boundless energy, perpetual motion, whom we often wonder if he has ADHD, is calm in church. Amazing. (So probably no on the ADHD, yea.) But he was a little extra fidgety at Christmas mass because we had to get there half an hour before it began in order to get a seat, so by the end he was surely bored. {A special thank you to the people behind us who engaged him in conversation while communion was lasting forever.}

I have in mind to do some sort of resolutions post--I'm still working on last year's goals so I'll do an update on those but I'll have to go through some old posts to even remember all the various things I was working on. {That speaks well of my progress, doesn't it?}

So is 2011 going to be the year my blog takes off? Haha, not even close. I've realized that as much as I LOVE comments and followers (keep 'em coming), I will never be a big blog. Because I would rather read blogs than write my own. {Is that horrible?} I started this blog to join the conversation and to have a place to say what I have to say, but when I don't have something to say or time to say it or the energy to write in my limited free time, then I'm not going to worry about it. That said, I do wish that more of those times when I do think of something to say, that I will follow through and write it. Whether or not people will see it or comment on it. Just as an outlet. Because that's the whole point really. Another goal is that when I do have free time and I've checked all my favorite blogs, that I will make content rather than just read others' content.

What will that content be, you ask? The same hodgepodge as ever--books, movies, life as a harried mom of 2, attempts to cook and organize. I enjoyed writing my memories in the two sessions of Mommy' Piggy Tales and I've thought of various other memories I'd like to chronicle on here for posterity (and perhaps a few laughs). I'd also like to comment on pop culture/current events--because I have all sorts of opinions on a wide variety of crazy topics and I've often thought "I should blog about that"--so again I need to work on that follow-through.

Wow, this actually turned into a decent sized post--once I decided to go make content. Thanks for reading, best wishes for a happy, healthy 2011!

Linky Love--Blog Edition--1/1/11

2011-01-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

This week, Mandi suggested we link up some of our favorite blogs we discovered in 2010. Great idea! I found a bunch of new-to-me blogs this year. Here are the ones I like to check in on daily:

Oh Amanda {inspirational}

A Wife Loved Like the Church {friendly}

Alicia's Homemaking {motivational}

Stark.raving.mad.mommy {hilarious}

It's Come 2 This {real}

Merry With Children {down-to-earth}

And I subscribe via email to:

Simple Organized Living {organized}

Giving Up on Perfect {honest}

If you're not on this list, have no fear, either you're an old favorite (I discovered you before 2010) or I catch up with you on weekends.;-) For more Saturday Stumbles or to make your own list, go here.

Top 10 Movies of 2010

2010-12-28T16:51:00.000-08:00

These are the best movies I've seen in 2010 (not necessarily movies that came out in 2010)--in no particular order.

1. Shutter Island Surprisingly good, kept me thinking about it long after.

2. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I've not read the books, but I thought this movie was great, good mysteries.

3. Last Station Great acting!

4. Secret Life of Words I can't describe this, just check it out.

5. Young Victoria One of my top 3, so romantic!

6. Bright Star Also in my top 3, very romantic, very sad.

7. The Blind Side Probably #1 for me. Great story!

8. Once Great story and great music.

9. The Hurt Locker Last year's best picture. Well-deserved.

10. The Messenger Hard core, great acting. I think actor Ben Foster (also of Pandorum and 3:10 to Yuma), is going to be the next big thing.

Honorable mention: Precious. Very hard to watch, but you've got to see it if you haven't already.

Check out more Top 10s at Oh Amanda's Top Ten Tuesday! You can also read more of my movie "reviews" by clicking on the movies tab in my sidebar.

What's Working for me right now (Top Ten)

2010-12-14T15:50:00.000-08:00

So my parents lived with us for most of November. They've now moved into their own house (thank goodness!) but I lost what should've been a big month of holiday planning and progress. So I'm a bit behind. Meanwhile, my daughter is the definition of the Terrible Twos. And L has been out of whack since the grandparents arrived--super sensitive and prone to tantrums (come on, you're 5, get over it!). I'm working on a new mantra of "just love them." Obviously not in the only love them sense, because I still have to feed, clothe and discipline them, but basically love them. So when I can, instead of leaving the room when they throw a fit (and who can blame me?), I try to stay and comfort/distract the wailing child or whatever. Sometimes it works, sometimes the fit continues and I leave. It's a work in progress, I'll let you know how it goes. Meanwhile, here's what has been working for me lately in top-ten-catch-you-up-and-link-to-Amanda-Kristen-and-Jill fashion:

1. Scotch paper cutter. I've coveted these for years but always found them too expensive/overpriced to indulge in this luxury. This year, when I saw it on sale for $3, I bit the bullet. Oh my goodness, spend the money, it is worth it for the savings in time and frustration! {Then the next day Target dropped the price to $2.50 and there's was a $1 off coupon in the paper. Anyway.}

2. Kmart. I've been meaning to write a pro-Kmart post for a while now. They are saving me big bucks on T's clothes (regular everyday price of $3.50 per piece (including jeans!) and sales on 2-piece sets as low as $6, wahoo), but I generally want to give them a shout out for sending their ads in the mail, which helps me catch a bargain. This week, you must go there and buy super soft fluffy pajama sets for $10.99. I bought a set yesterday for my sister (who asked for soft pjs on her wish list) and went back today to get a set for myself and for my BFF whose birthday is at the end of the month. So soft and super cheap!!!

3. Gifts that give more. A bunch of blogs have been highlighting charitable giving this time of year, like Amanda's post about giving a goat etc. Sadly, those are mostly out of my price range (my budget is $15 per gift outside my hubby and kids). But here's what I've managed to do this year: I bought my aunt a pair of earrings ($11, I think) from the Mercy House shop, that funds a new maternity house in Kenya. I bought my mom stationery ($12.95) and my grandma a necklace ($6) through the Hunger Site store (my purchase funded 75 cups of food). And I found a website called Orphans Hope that let me buy a winter jacket ($10) for an orphan in Ukraine on behalf of my sister.

4. Roku. This is a box that somehow hooks up to our internet and lets us stream Netflix instantly to our TV. Every night, Hubby and I watch (part of) a movie or an episode of Intervention after the kids go to bed. Love it! I should also mention that Care Bears To The Rescue has come to my rescue more than once during the daytime (I will not mention, however, that my 2-year-old will grunt for the Roku and point to the show she wants to watch, ahem).

5. Walmart for photo cards. I got an email about a great deal from a website I'd never heard of to get 60 photo cards for $4.90 shipped. Awesome, I thought. Till I went to the website and I tried to make a card and I just couldn't get it figured out (theoretically, you could add as many pictures to a blank card as you wanted, but I could not size the various pictures (I wanted to use 3) so they would fit). So I gave up on the great offer and headed to walmart.com which I've used the last 2 years for cards. I picked a card that was made for 3 pictures, plopped in my photos and within minutes, I'd ordered our cards. 36 cents per card, not bad. {No shipping, I'll pick them up in-store.}

6. Elfing Around. My apologies, I should have done a big post about this last month, so you all could buy an elf in time. Alas. Anyway, it's a website that sells you not just an elf but an experience. I won an elf for L last year in a giveaway and he loved it so much that this year I bought T an elf of her own plus the Year 2 package. So they send you the elf, plus 12 nights of mischief that the elves get into--you stage the elves and in the morning your kids are blown away by all the fun stuff the elf did overnight. Kind of like Elf on the Shelf, but it's so wonderful because the activities, and sometimes even the props, are provided. Awesome! We love our elves. L even brought his elf to speech yesterday and explained to his teacher that "he's not really mine, he belongs to Santa at the North Pole." Precious!!! {Of course, it's kind of a pain to stage elves every night, but most nights it takes 5 minutes or less.}

7. Nesquik. Okay, this is kind of a long story so here are the main bullets--L drinks this nasty formula called Neocate. For 5 years he drank it from baby bottles, then around Halloween he finally switched to cups, but then his volume dropped--he can't/won't drink as much of this foul beverage from a cup--and he needs all the calories. So we started adding Nesquik powder to turn it into chocolate "milk" and his volume has gone back up. It's not a permanent solution (his GI and nutritionist are worried about cross-contamination from the processing plant), but for now, I'm thankful for Nesquik.

8. Sharing bargains. My BFF and I have various websites and blogs we read/subscribe to for bargains, coupons, deals and when we come upon a deal we think the other could benefit from, we call or email to spread the word. This has helped me find some great deals and I hope she would say the same.

9. Bribing for diaper changes. I'm reluctant to even mention this because you know in a couple days it won't work anymore, but for now the way I've started dealing with T's refusal to let me change her diapers, is to give her a pretzel stick. That (so far) is usually enough distraction to let me lay her down and change her pants. Hallelujah, fewer tantrums.

10. Priority mail flat rate boxes. This is how I do out-of-town Christmas gifts. If it fits, it ships. No guessing/wondering about prices plus easy checkout at the post office during this hectic time of year. Last December, I stood in a long postal line, then at my turn I start unloading my bag and tell the guy I have all flat rate--one large, 2 mediums and 2 envelopes (or whatever it was)--he was able to calculate what I owed as I was putting the stuff on the counter. He said it was the easiest transaction (for that many packages) he'd had all day. Heehee. Oh and this year the post office sent me a postcard asking if I wanted them to drop off some flat rate boxes. Yes please! I sent the postcard back in and the other day a pile of boxes showed up at my door. Even easier! (And free of course.)

Wow, this turned out to be a long post! I wasn't compensated for any of these opinions, they're just stuff I like. No affiliate links either. I'm linking to Oh Amanda's Top Ten Tuesday, We are THAT Family's Works for Me Wednesday, and Diaper Diaries' Thing I Love Thursday, for obvious reasons. ;-)

What's working for you these days?! And how do you get your kid to cooperate during diaper changes?!

WFMW--Share Your Wish Lists

2010-12-01T10:22:00.000-08:00

Today's themed Works For Me Wednesday is Holiday Tips and Tricks. You know I don't link up to WFMW very often, because I rarely have my act together, I'm not one to be offering How To's. But today I actually have a holiday tip that's been working for years and years and years. Here's the thing, my sisters and parents and I still exchange gifts at Christmas. {In fact, this year, almost everyone is coming to Phoenix so we can open gifts together. Hooyah.} Anyway, we aren't super close and don't live near each other and so even if we know what the other is into, we don't know what they already have. So what should I get them for Christmas?! Starting around Thanksgiving, we email each other our wish lists. Some are long and specific (with links to show what and where to buy), some are short and general; sometimes I get them exactly what they ask for, other times I already have something in mind for someone so I veer off their list. In any case, it's super helpful this time of year. If you are always banging your head against a wall trying to figure out what so-and-so wants for Christmas, just ask for a list. That Works For Me!

Now, as an added bonus, I thought I'd share what's on MY list this year:

-anything Vera Bradley

-8x10 frames for hanging

-Willow Tree figures

-picnic blanket

-seasonal decor

-melamine mixing bowls

-Jane Austen action figure

-the latest Father Tim novel

-Glee soundtrack volume 4

For more tips and tricks (holiday or not), head to We Are THAT Family. And if you link up a tip today, you're entered into a great giveaway. Ho ho ho!

So, what's on your wish list this year?

Internet Hodgepodge--November 20

2010-11-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

Oops, it's been several weeks since I shared some favorite posts. Here's what I've been enjoying recently: Alicia's Homemaking shared her recipe for Super-Moist Pumpkin Cake. It looks soooo good!

Simple Organized Living has a great tip and a delicious-looking recipe for cinnamon bread. Yum!

Email Answer: Clean Freak? by Young House Love is a super helpful "how I keep my house clean" post (thank you, Simple Organized Living).

Top Ten {Tuesday}: 10 Things That Help in My Struggle with Depression by Tree Root and Twig is a great honest post, and it inspired me to write this post about my own struggles.

Stark.Raving.Mad.Mommy shared this video about ultracompetitive moms, that happens to interview an animated version of herself. Way cool.

Giving Up on Perfect is doing a wonderful series on Special Needs Kids. Go here for the latest post.

This post is linked to Saturday Stumbles at It's Come 2 This.

Young Adult Tales 6--Challenges

2010-11-16T09:55:00.000-08:00

This is the last in my series of posts recounting my Young Adult Years, hosted by Ginny Marie (thanks Ginny!) over at Mommy's Piggy Tales. Inspired by this post by Tree Root and Twig, I've decided to write about my "challenges" that began in law school with the onset of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, followed by Depression and Agoraphobia--and how I deal with them today. Irritable Bowel Syndrome

I talked a little bit the history of my IBS in this post. Symptoms began my second semester of law school (although I can look back at a few weird incidents prior to that, but they were few and far between). We had a class called Torts that was immediately after lunch twice a week. A few minutes into class (like clockwork), I had to poop. Urgently. I couldn't hold it in. I had to leave class, use the bathroom, and return. {So embarrassing!} Weird, but it was only those 2 days a week and life went on. I don't remember the exact progression but over time these urgent episodes got more frequent and less predictable. By the end of law school, I was taking a lot of Pepto Bismol for diarrhea and Rolaids/Tums for gas.

During Bar review was when I started having episodes in cars--we would often have to stop at a gas station on the way from our apartment to class (about 20 minutes).

We flew from LA to Chicago and back around Easter of '99 (this was a couple months after Bar review). Sitting on the plane waiting to take off in Chicago, seatbelt sign on, I really really really needed to poop. I'm sure I took a ton of Pepto but still, this was really bad and I had this thought of I'm going to poop right here in this seat and make a big mess and it will smell and the stewardesses will know. It was awful. By the grace of God, I held it till the seatbelt sign turned off--but it was a long time before I was willing to fly again.

A couple months after that, we drove to my sister's college graduation. The drive was miserable, we had to stop a lot. Then the actual graduation ceremony was a disaster. The first time I had to use the bathroom, I discovered there was a long line for the ladies room. I managed to hold it, but there was no way I could stay in this situation where I couldn't get to a bathroom when I needed to. Anyway, the whole weekend was horrible and humiliating and everyone kept asking what was wrong with me, assumed I had a UTI or was pregnant (I was, after all, a newlywed)--just awful!

Back in LA, I finally saw a doctor. She diagnosed IBS and I think she prescribed Levsin. She also tried to figure out if it was tied to stress (no, the symptoms were always around whether high-stress (Bar review) or low-stress (being a couch potato)) or depression or what food I was eating (I did a diary, eliminated caffeine, nothing mattered). In the days following this conversation, I had a lightbulb moment--maybe I'm depressed. I talked with my doctor and she confirmed it, put me on Zoloft, and I started therapy. {More on the depression in a minute.}

Okay, so once I was diagnosed with IBS and Depression, things were better for a while. But symptoms went up and down, I tried different medications, this and that. I finally had a colonoscopy in 2001, it only confirmed that there was nothing wrong other than IBS.

Sorry, this isn't making any sense. I've had IBS for 13 years now, so I have to pick and choose what is worth telling. Here's the gist, by 1999 my symptoms were so bad I hated to leave my home. Once I was diagnosed and medicated, things got better, but I was still disabled by it, unable to work, to drive etc. But I learned to cope and gradually added more things I could do, like go to church. I could go places if Hubby drove. Etc.

Where I Am Now

If you've read my blog, you know I get around all the time, I'm constantly taking my kids to school, speech, doctor's appointments. I am not currently on prescription meds. I take Metamucil and Acidophilis daily and Imodium as needed. I take Imodium a lot, several times a week in the course of driving around, two pills per dose, and hopefully I can make it to a gas station in time.

Strategies: I give myself extra time to get anywhere I'm going. If a drive takes 30 minutes, I leave 45 minutes before I need to be there--because I might need to make a stop. If a drive takes more than 5 minutes, I may have to stop. L's preschool is 10 minutes from here, and sometimes I can't make it without stopping for a bathroom. I routinely (2 times out of 3) stop on the way to speech, about a 20 minute drive if the stoplights cooperate. It sucks. Especially with both kids in the car--I have to unbuckle and rebuckle two car seats--but this is how I get around. I know where all the bathrooms are--in all the stores I shop at, in all the gas stations and fast food places I might need to stop at on my routes.

Depression

I was diagnosed with Depression in the middle of 1999, but I can see, in hindsight, the onset of symptoms following my summer in South Dakota, fall of 1997. My first symptom was I didn't want to drive anymore. I put thousands of miles on my car in SD and I didn't want to drive from my apartment to school. WTF?! Ah, but there was a "reasonable" explanation--on my way out of Eagle Butte, I almost ran over a kid on a bicycle. (I saw him on one side of the road and slowed down and I thought he was letting me by, but then he darted across the street anyway. I was going slow enough that I stopped in plenty of time, but it still shook me up.)

I also lost interest in attending classes and doing homework. But again, this seemed reasonable. I'd worked superhard my first year and everyone around me was burnt out too.

Anyway, none of this was too bad or interfered much with life (other than Hubby (my fiance at the time) did all the driving and my grades dropped) until I was a full-time couch potato in '99. My doctor put me on Zoloft and within a few weeks I was feeling much better. She recommended I stay on the drug for at least 9 months to prevent a recurrence, so I went off Zoloft when 9 months were up. Oh and the therapy was nice too. I did that once a week or 2 until we left LA at the end of '99.

In 2005, after having my son, my Hubby and I were "on the lookout" for post-partum depression symptoms because of my history, yet we still missed them. My symptoms that time around were irritability and wishing to turn the clock back to pre-baby days. Anyway, I figured it out right before L turned 6 months (right before he got sick and our lives turned upside down). I went on the Zoloft again, because I'd had good history with it and it was safe for breastfeeding. Unfortunately, it increased my anxiety (previously, my anxiety had been all about the IBS and being away from bathrooms, now I was anxious even doing routine things that previously had not been a problem). In the fall of '06 I chose a new primary care physician--I showed up and said, "I have IBS, I'm Depressed, help me" and she's been great. First off, she switched me from Zoloft to Lexapro and that helped the anxiety. I was on that for a year or two and she helped me get off of it so I could conceive T.

When I was pregnant with T, I didn't want to hit bottom again with PPD. So I asked my primary doctor if she'd prescribe Lexapro as soon as I delivered. She said no, no meds unless/until I need it. So I asked my OBGYN what she thought. She said I could go on Lexapro immediately after T was born so I said great, let's do it. {Lexapro is not considered safe for breastfeeding but for EE-related reasons, I knew I wouldn't be breastfeeding anyway.} I definitely did develop PPD again--I started off on 10 mg of Lex at birth and a few weeks later had to up it to 20mg, I still have days I wonder if I should be more medicated. But I also know that self-care goes a long way to keeping up my mental health, as my doctor likes to remind me--I need alone time and exercise. I struggle with the exercise, but I've seen first hand that if I don't get out by myself once per weekend, I'm have a shorter fuse all week.

Agoraphobia

Okay, I know this post is super long already, but I have to tell this part of the story. So I was a full-time couch potato starting in '99, I rarely drove after fall of '97 (and pretty much never from 2000-06). When my fall '06 doctor put me on Lexapro, she made me get counseling. I love therapy but it was really tough without childcare, not to mention expensive. Anyway, so I started seeing this therapist and he basically called me agoraphobic and I was like "I go out all the time, just with someone else driving" (in addition to Hubby taking me places, I also had met a friend who would come pick up L and me to hang out and shop and do playdates, bless you, Catherine). Anyway, I learned that agoraphobia includes any avoidance behavior, so that would include me and my driving avoidance.

The avoiding driving of course overlapped with the IBS getting worse and I hit a point where I thought "I can't drive, I have to concentrate on holding in the poop." And I have had one incident in particular where I was driving and needing a bathroom and I ran a red light (it turned yellow and I couldn't stand the thought of waiting at a long light when I needed a bathroom so I floored it, but didn't quite make it through when it turned red). That was a huge wake up call because the kids were in the car and I can't put our safety at risk like that. Worst case scenario, I poop my pants, but I will stop on yellow!

Then my husband was in a car accident. Well, first, my therapist had me practice leaving my house. I did a little driving-- once to Target, and once around the block several times, going home and leaving again each time--what was this called? Exposure therapy maybe. Anyway, so Hubby is in a car accident. The car was totalled and Hubby hurt his back. And it was almost Christmas. So one day I had to finish shopping in time to get a gift in the mail and I took L with me to Target and shopped and whatever. And I told my therapist about this and I was like "Why can I do this for someone else {meaning helping Hubby by not leaving the errand up to him} but not myself? Am I just lazy?" And he said "possibly." To this day, I don't know if he was serious, or this was reverse psychology, or sarcasm. Either way, it was eye-opening. So using his techniques and exposure or whatever, I gradually drove more and more. I still avoid freeways (which I've never liked, even when I was "normal") but otherwise I get around to quite a big radius these days. :-)

If you made it through this book-length post, I thank you! I thank Tree Root and Twig for spurring me to write this post, I hope it might help someone who is struggling with any of these issues. Feel free to leave me a question in the comments if something didn't make sense or I left something out. For more (hopefully happier) Young Adult Tales, go here. Thanks again!

Five Question Friday--November 12

2010-11-12T15:41:00.001-08:00

Super simple post today because I find myself fascinating.... Five Question Friday hosted by Mama M. 1. What is the most physically painful thing that has ever happened to you?
Duh, labor of course. Both times, the anesthesiologist took his sweet time getting to me, so I experienced hours of contractions. I don't remember L's labor very well, but T's is still a vivid memory. I remember that in addition to the enormous cramping pain, I also felt a stabbing pain. Like knife in the gut, someone is stabbing me pain. Is this normal, ladies? Because I think it might have been gas related to my lovely and ever present Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Anyway, in case you're wondering why I go for the epidural, that's why. I don't need a medal, just give me the drugs, thankyouverymuch.

2. How much sleep do you get at night?
There is not enough sleep in the world! On a good night, we'll go to bed by 10:30 and the kids will sleep till 7:00 (on a good day)--so that's potentially 8.5 hours. But we aren't always so good about going to bed and the kids rarely make it till 7 (today it was 6:00). Anyway, if left to my own devices (as I was when I was a full-time couch potato), I'll sleep 10-11 hours per night. So 8.5 doesn't seem nearly enough!

3. How long did you believe in Santa Claus? How did you find out that he does not exist?
I believed for a very long time. Into junior high, I think. {I know, crazy!} I had 3 sisters (one older, 2 younger) and we all slept in one room on Christmas Eve and talked about waiting for Santa. One year, I heard "Santa" hit a key on the piano about 3am and I knew convincingly he was real.

I don't know how/when I finally figured it out. It wasn't one startling moment, I think I just outgrew believing in magic. Or maybe kids at school talked about how Santa is really your parents and it was like "oh, of course!" I don't remember.

Anyway, I had to continue to act like I still believed in order to keep getting presents. To this day, my parents won't let us talk like he doesn't exist. {Weird!}

4. What was the last movie you saw in a theater?
I believe I've only seen one movie in a theater since I became a mom {that's 5 years--so sad!} and that was Becoming Jane.

5. What do you wear to bed?
For a very long time, the answer was a t-shirt and shorts or flannel pants, but in the last couple of years, I have discovered the joy of matching pajamas. I have one set of summer pajamas and 3 sets of winter pjs, including my super favorite Betty Boop Coca-Cola pajamas. :-) Of course there are still those nights when I stumble into bed without matching. But waking up coordinated is kind of magical. I highly recommend it!

I told you, I'm fascinating! For more Q&A fun, go here.

When I Became a Grown-Up

2010-11-09T14:53:00.001-08:00

I am participating in Young Adult Tales over at Mommy's Piggy Tales. The story I'm about to recount took place when I was 31 years old, so maybe I wasn't technically a "young adult" anymore, but I count it as when I became a grown-up, although most days I still feel like a big kid. This is also a story that needs telling as background here on my blog of how we began our journey with Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Enjoy! December 24, 2005. L had just turned 6 months old and he started vomiting. We called to get an appointment with his pediatrician but she was booked and told us to go to Urgent Care. We went to an urgent care that was located down the hall from the ped's office, so while we were waiting at UC, Hubby walked down the hall to try to get us in to see the ped. He succeeded--we saw our doctor who diagnosed a stomach bug, said to keep going with the pedialyte etc. He seemed to perk up that afternoon--he sat contentedly in the bouncy while we decorated a Christmas tree.

Christmas morning he vomited some more and then improved again. A few days later we went back to the ped for his 6 month well visit. He had thrown up that morning, but she said he seemed fine, probably his stomach was still sensitive from the recent virus.

He vomited off and on the next few days and we'd call the nurse line and were always told "unless it's green or projectile, don't worry." Meanwhile, my mother- and sister-in-law came to visit for New Years.

December 30. We were hanging out with the family that evening, and L got hysterical. By then we recognized the pattern --he screams, screams, screams, then vomits. This time, I spread out some towels on the floor, and sure enough he puked--and it was green and projected a good 3 feet so we headed to the Emergency Room. {I took the towel with the green puke with us to the hospital, determined to be taken seriously.} We chose to go to Scottsdale Healthcare Shea because we trusted that hospital (we had recently moved further west in the Valley so there were closer hospitals, but we headed to Shea).

We went to triage and the nurse asked if he's always this pale. We said "yes, this is his normal skin color." People were always complimenting L's porcelain skin.

The rest is kind of a blur--I guess pretty much from that first moment, they suspected L was anemic. We went back to a room and they tried to draw blood. They couldn't. They tried and tried and L was crying and crying, but no one could find a vein. I remember nervously laughing and saying, "he must have blood cuz he's alive." Eventually, they called down someone from pediatrics to find a vein, even she struggled. At some point, someone found a vein in his head. That was a shocking sight!

At one point, a doctor came in, before the bloodwork was even back, and said he suspected he was anemic and would have to go to Phoenix Children's Hospital (PCH). We were shocked! Was it really that bad? We're just here for vomiting. He was very kind and said that for pretty much anything pediatric, they send you to Children's.

At some point the bloodwork came back, I'm not sure if we were told numbers at that point; if we were, we didn't understand the gravity at that point. We were told he'd need transfusions, and then they'd have to figure out how he lost blood.

So they sent L to PCH in an ambulance. Another shocker. I was 31 years old and had never been in an ambulance, here my little 6-month baby was in one. They strapped him into his infant carseat and then onto a gurney. I traveled with L in the ambulance and Hubby followed behind in our van. He wasn't sure of the route so he wanted to follow the ambulance, but the paramedics warned him, they weren't going to slow down and wait if they got separated.

Now, I have a bad case of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. I do not like riding in a car (like a cab, bus, shuttle) where I can't stop if I need to poop, but I just had to suck it up and get on in that ambulance with my baby.

The paramedics we rode with were very nice. The guy in the back with us was encouraging that anemia is easy to fix, he'll have blood transfusions and be fine. The harder part would be figuring out the cause. {Yeah, he pretty much hit the nail on the head on that one!}

We arrived at PCH and were admitted to the Pediatric Intesive Care Unit (PICU). By this time it was about 3am, I think. Oh and L was starving--they hadn't let me feed him {I was breastfeeding} because they were planning to do an abdominal xray or ultrasound or something. I remember a nurse coming in and giving us a little orientation and mentioning there was a lactation room if I needed to pump--and yes, I was quite engorged by then--so she set me up with that. I think they fixed his IV (found a vein in his ankle so he didn't need the one in his head) and we waited for doctors.

Dr. Watanabe, a hematologist, came in (was this still nighttime or the next day? I think we met a different doctor earlier?). He sat and talked with us, quizzed us on anything and everything from L's first 6 months of life. Eventually, we learned the numbers--L had a hemoglobin of 3 and iron of zero. Normal hemoglobin is 13. 9 gets you a transfusion. By 6, you're (usually) too sick to get off the couch. L was at 3! He was critically ill.

They began the blood transfusions. Creepy! When morning broke, I called my parents and told them a short version of what happened. That was the last time I talked to them during the ordeal. The reason I call this post "When I became a grown-up" is because I was unbelievably strong. I'm usually quick to cry but I kept it together the whole time. After I talked to my parents that one time, I made hubby talk to them and anyone else going forward--because I recognized that I was unusually together and knew that if I talked to anyone, I would break down. And I couldn't afford to do that. I was keeping it together for my son.

We stayed up all night and eventually went home for a few hours that day. When we returned I noticed how red L's lips were and thought, "poor kid, now his lips are chapped." Nope. We learned that being pale has nothing to do with skin color (L will always be fair-skinned) but has to do with lips and cheeks (cheeks should be rosy, lips should be red). It was early in December that I'd thought what a pretty pink color of lips L has. (From looking at photos, we can see that L started getting more and more pale beginning in October. And he'd seen his ped in October and both those times in December. Yeah, she wasn't our pediatrician after that.)

After 2 nights in the PICU, L graduated to the "Hem/Onc" floor {Hematology (blood) and Oncology (cancer) shared a floor--so we saw little baby cancer patients, so sad}. There, he had a roommate. Anyway, I don't have to tell all of our hospital stories.... The point is, my baby was in the hospital and I had to grow up fast. Listen to the doctors, take care of a sick kid (he was still sick when we took him home, he continued to vomit until we figured out he had EE 2 months later), give him iron and a laxative, take him to lots of doctor appointments (first with Watanabe and then to his gastroenterologist). The night he was on the Hem/Onc floor, we left him overnight (I think we left him the 2nd night in the PICU too)--so hard to leave him and he wasn't sleeping through the night yet.

And of course we had guests at home and it was New Years Eve and it just was all around chaos. We just let my in-laws fend for themselves (my sister in law was enjoying bubble baths in our huge tub while we shuttled bak and forth to PCH) and went to bed early on New Year's Eve. I remember they pestered us to open the Christmas gifts they'd brought from all the family members--that was the last thing we wanted to spend time on, but they were relentless. Just a really bad time.

So there you have it, the night I became a grown-up. A short synopsis of what happened next: Watanabe pretty much guessed it was a gastro problem, after ruling out a bunch of stuff, and eventually the GI did upper and lower endoscopies that found the Eosinophilic Esophagitis. I was ordered to wean him cold turkey and he stopped all food and we put him on the Neocate (elemental formula) and Prevacid. And he started to thrive.

Our best guess as to what happened (how did he get a hemglobin of 3?) is this: his body was reacting to the food he was eating (i.e. my breastmilk) by attacking his esophagus, causing erosion and bleeding. The bleeding was microscopic in quantity (I never saw blood in his diaper) but over time, he became more and more anemic. Another piece of the puzzle may be that at 3 months old, babies' bodies switch from fetal hemoglobin to making their own--so you have a natural dip in hemoglobin, so losing blood after that could make for a really low score. Meanwhile, he lost blood so slowly, his body compensated fairly well so, while we don't doubt he must've been in much pain that we didn't know about, it wasn't as bad as you'd expect for such a low score, plus we don't believe there was any brain damage from lack of oxygen in his blood. {That's the most sense I can make of it all, as a non-doctor.}

For more on our adventures with EE, you can click on the "ee" or "about" tabs in my sidebar. For more Young Adult Tales, go here. Thanks for reading!

Young Adult Tales 4--Life on the Rez

2010-11-02T16:20:00.001-07:00

Continuing to recount my young adult years, I bring you my summer in South Dakota. For the rest of my walks down memory lane, click on "MPT" in my sidebar. For others' tales, go to Mommy's Piggy Tales. Thanks to the tv show LA Law, I decided in high school that I wanted to be a lawyer. Who doesn't love to argue, right? Then in college, as I was pursuing my interest in Native American history and culture, my advisor mentioned she knew a former student who was practicing Indian law. What? I could combine my interests in Indians and law, who knew?! From that point on, that became my goal.
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What is Indian law? Basically, it's advocating on behalf of tribes, either working for a tribe or working for an organization such as Native American Rights Fund (NARF). Issues include treaty rights, water rights, gaming etc.

Just so this story doesn't take super long, I'll cut the chase--in the spring semester of my first year of law school, I looked for and applied to summer jobs in Indian law. The job I got was working for the Attorney General of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. I received a Student-Funded Fellowship that paid me a little bit of money to support myself while on the (unpaid) job. And I bought a car, because I had no way to get myself out there. A friend (and her dad) and I caravaned to SD (she drove onto Montana for her summer job).

On our way, we drove down to Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation. The poverty was immediately noticeable and I started to worry about what I'd gotten myself into. {Shannon County, where Pine Ridge is located, is one of the poorest counties in the US.}

Okay, so I drove on to Eagle Butte, the town where I'd be spending my summer. I followed the directions the AG (Steve) had given me and arrived at the administrative building. I remember meeting the secretary and then I met the only intern who'd arrived before me, Paul. They should have known I was coming but nobody cared, apparently. The dorm we'd be staying in wasn't available for another week. Paul was staying with the AG's brother (Tom), the tribal attorney. They were kind enough to offer me the couch (in the middle of the living room) while Paul slept on the floor of an empty bedroom. Great first impression.

Eventually the dorm opened and more interns arrived--Katherine and Chris soon after and later Christine and Truc. Becky, a young law grad, also arrived. She'd interned previously and now began working as a lawyer for the tribe.

Steve was a jerk who buddied with the guys but didn't have much use for us women. The work was poorly divided and I never got to do much "legal" stuff during my time there--Katherine and I spent most of our time doing secretarial work on a case that had already been to the appellate level. So I won't talk about the work and my boss.

Life on the rez. Eagle Butte had a population of about 2000 people--my high school had 2700. There were two grocery stores, one restaurant (and a bar that served frozen pizza), a couple gas stations. Only half the residents of Eagle Butte were tribal members, the rest were white, so I sort of blended in, although I think I stuck out as "city folk." {One time, I was talking on the pay phone in the gas station and these two boys looked at me funny and asked if I was speaking "Mexican." No, but I guess I was talking faster and different than they were used to.}

It wasn't as destitute as Pine Ridge (or at least my brief impression of it), thank goodness. Tom had a nice house. Most of the houses were owned by the tribe. When Becky arrived, she had to be issued a house by the tribe. She moved in and her parents came out to help her clean up and paint the walls etc. The dorm we stayed in was for the high school, where kids from outside of Eagle Butte would live during the school year. Other than finding an enormous cockroach one night, the place was in good shape.

There were about 2 main north and south streets in the town. The main center road had everything on it: gas station, our office building, then the post office, laundromat, drugstore, a grocery store at either end. To the east and west were residential areas. Then on the main east-west road was the restaurant, another residential neighborhood, and two motels.

Eagle Butte had running water but smaller nearby towns did not. One of our secretaries did not have a home phone. Everyone had a propane tank sticking out of their lawn. I'd never seen that before.

The interns and I left town pretty much every weekend. We went to Rapid City a few times, including once we camped and went to a pow wow. We went to Deadwood, which is an old "ghost town" with casinos. We went to Hot Springs and enjoyed a warm-mineral-water-filled pool, that was fun. We traveled around the Black Hills and saw buffalo and prairie dogs. We had to drive across the state to Sioux Falls to pick up Truc and I think that's when we went to the Corn Palace in Mitchell. We camped in the Badlands. We arrived when it was dark and set up our tents and woke up to the most amazing landscape! Really spectacular terrain (they film movies there to look like other planets). We hiked that--man, it was hot.

One time in all this driving around, we were in Chris' car and got a flat tire and Chris couldn't figure out how to get the spare out from under the car. I was the only one with a cell phone (this was 1997, I had borrowed my parents' phone for the summer) but I couldn't get reception to call AAA. Thankfully, a family driving by stopped to help us--the dad got out, I think he even had tools in the back of his truck, and he freed the spare and we were on our way.

The traveling was by far the best part of the summer. I think I put 8000 miles on my new car that summer! We saw Mount Rushmore; went to two pow wows (Rapid City and Pine Ridge); the scenery and wildlife in the Black Hills were amazing.

Those are my memories from my summer in South Dakota. It was a priceless experience, most affluent white kids from suburbia don't get to see reservation life up close. I wish the job aspect hadn't been so negative, that was unfortunate. But it was a very valuable experience.

Okay, folks, I'm asking for your help once again. I have 2 weeks of these young adult tales yet to come and I'm open to suggestions on what to write about. Here are some choices:

-My wedding and/or honeymoon (to Whidbey Island, WA)

-Our vacation to Charleston, SC

-My 6 weeks in France in college

-Challenges

-Something about growing into either my appearance or personality over the years

What strikes your fancy? Tell me in the comments what you'd like to read about. Thanks!!!

Thanks for reading--come back next week for another installment of my Young Adult Tales!

Update

2010-11-01T21:07:00.000-07:00

Lots of wild stuff going on around here! I know I have a totally random blog and don't talk about at-home stuff a whole lot. As in all things, I blame my lack of time management skills. Anyway, I hope you will rejoice in these triumphs with me even if you didn't know about our trials.

First off, L is finally pooping on the potty!!! That's right, he is 5 years old and not totally potty trained. Clearly I am the world's worst mother, go ahead and judge. We've tried various things, gotten advice from both his pediatrician and his gastroenterologist, but ultimately he wasn't ready.

So how did this miracle happen? Well, it seems to have been a combination of the end of naps (I would put him in a diaper at naptime and that's when he'd poop, but now he no longer naps), some particularly urgent poops, and peer pressure. I hope it helped that I'd been sitting him on the potty each day, maybe that got him comfortable with the unknown. And it certainly helped that once he'd done it the first time (one of those urgent poops) he got lots of cheers and prizes.

Within ten days of that breakthrough, he gave up bottles!!! I've talked several times on here about his Eosinophilic Esophagitis and that he drinks this really awful formula (Neocate Jr.)and we're really fortunate he has never needed a feeding tube, but the flip side is he continued to drink from baby bottles, even at 5 years old. Again, we've tried a variety of methods (and cups, straws, etc.) and two feeding therapists, but ultimately it was just about L being ready. Two weeks ago, he put his 8pm bottle on the counter and said "Hmmm, bottles are for babies. I am not a baby." And I jumped up and said, "would you like to use a cup instead?" and proceeded to go through the cabinets offering all the different and cool cups and straws we own. He sat down with an extra cup of formula and drank it and said "mmm, this is so good!" and daddy and I sat there with him talking about how he's such a big boy and no more bottles and we'll go shopping tomorrow and pick out some new cups.... Oh and of course we gave him a prize. :-)

We worried about what would happen the next day. When he got up, he was willing to have a cup instead of a bottle and he got a prize when he finished. (Thankfully I'd just stocked up on prizes when he started pooping the week before.) He has kept it up ever since. No bottles for over 2 weeks!!! And unlike the time we took the bottles from him on our initiative rather than his, his volume hasn't significantly dropped. Instead of 7 bottles a day, he gets 7 cups. However, the downside of the transition is that he could drink a bottle in 5 to 10 minutes, it takes him much longer with the cup--so sometimes he doesn't finish in time to head to school or to speech and that is where his volume has dipped a little. We're hoping his speed will pick up with time.

After a few days without bottles, he said to me "I'm a big boy now: one, I poop on the potty, two, I can open the white gate {this is an odd thing for him to list since he's been opening our baby gates for a long time} and three, no more bottles." And I replied, "yes, I think we should have a big boy party." So I guess we'll be having a party soon (when the grandparents visit next week).

The transitions have been a little tough, as I think transitions always are, because I am a creature of habit and rely on my routines. Drinking cups can take a long time and I often have to remind him to "drink, drink, drink." And of course pooping is still new and different and causes us all to stop what we're doing when L says, "I've gotta go poop." But it's all for the good and we rejoice in these huge successes for our big boy. Yea!

Young Adult Tales 3--Jobs

2010-10-26T13:26:00.001-07:00

My young adult years were filled with a variety of summer jobs. Here's what I remember about them.

1. Insurance brokerage. Summer between high school and freshman year of college. My first job ever, it was working at the business owned by the parents of my old friend Ericka. My big project was to clean up the storage room. I re-alphabetized the files and cleared up some clutter (oh the irony that I was in charge of de-cluttering and organizing!). Meanwhile, I learned how to put together the packages for clients and run the computer programs (gotta love DOS). I remember the boss (Ericka's mom) telling me that when we answer the phone, don't say "Can I help you?" because of course you can; instead, ask them "How can I help you?" Words of wisdom, my friends.

2. Usher. Summer of '93. This was probably the best job I've had. There's an outdoor pavilion in the Chicago area called Ravinia, and each summer there are tons of shows. The Chicago Symphony plays each weekend, kids acts come on Saturdays, and all sorts of everything in between perform as well. I wore a uniform (the vests were totally unflattering with my small chest). I passed out programs and helped people find their seats. We also enforced rules like no standing on the railings. And we cleaned up the pavilion when the shows were over. If a show was sold out, we'd put a program on each seat rather than hand them out.

It was pretty hectic before the concert started, especially when everybody poured in at the same time and everyone needed a program etc. But then once the concert was going and everyone was seated, it was great, I just enjoyed the concerts. Some of the best acts I saw that summer were Dolly Parton and Peter, Paul and Mary.

I became friends with some fellow ushers and had a crush on this one boy. He got a group of us together to play frisbee after work once or twice. That never went anywhere of course, but on our last night, we did dance together (I think he danced with all the girls that night) to Strangers in the Night (though I don't remember who was performing). Anyway....

3. Realtor. Summers of '93 and '94. Another friend of the family, Mrs. M., was a realtor. My older sister had worked for her one summer and then I don't remember exactly but I think we split the job my sophomore summer (and that's why I got the ushering gig too?) and then I worked for her again the next summer after I got back from 6 weeks in France.

Anyway, working for Mrs. M. wasn't too bad. She was a very easygoing boss. I helped her with some advertising/brochures for the properties she had on the market. And I "hosted" some brokers' open houses, in other words I sat in an empty house and barely anyone ever came.

4. Accounting at a law firm. Summer of '95. I wanted to be a lawyer, so my parents, once again, helped me get a job. Their friends, Mr. R and Mr. B, were partners at a Chicago law firm and they said there were always a few positions for lawyers' kids around the office--and I got one of those. It was in the accounting department, not quite the "legal" job I had in my idealistic mind. The project I was hired for was to track down outstanding checks. I had an office and everything! Lots of files to go through. As I wrapped up that project, I started doing this and that for the various people in accounting: mostly filing, a little data entry, sometimes adding up phone bills. At some point the Accounts Receivable person was on vacation or something and I filled in for her on a couple tasks. I liked that kind of busy work--take the checks, enter them on a spreadsheet, photocopy them, take the checks here and the copies there, I don't remember what all, but it was do-able.

That's it. Summer of '96, I started law school. Summer of '97, I interned in the law office of a tribe in South Dakota (a story for another day perhaps). Summer of '98, I was a summer associate at a fancy shmancy Orange County (California) law firm. Then I graduated from law school and became a couch potato.

Okay, folks, question for ya! I have 3 weeks of these young adult tales yet to come and I'm open to suggestions on what to write about. Here are some choices:
-My wedding and/or honeymoon (to Whidbey Island, WA)
-Our vacation to Charleston, SC
-My summer on an Indian reservation
-My 6 weeks in France in college
-Challenges
-Something about growing into either my appearance or personality over the years

What strikes your fancy? Tell me in the comments what you'd like to read about. Thanks!!!

To read more Young Adult Tales, go here.

Five Question Friday--October 22

2010-10-22T09:32:00.001-07:00

Another crazy week here. I'm hoping to come back and tell you all about it soon (very exciting stuff going on in our household--L is growing up fast!). For now, just a quick 5 Questions post. Enjoy!

1. Who is the better cook, you or your spouse?
My husband is by far the better cook. And he enjoys cooking while I do not. How ironic that I'm the at-home spouse. These days, he cooks dinner about half the time.

2. How often do you talk to your mom?
This has been a point of contention for a long time. My parents still like to "check in" on me in a weekly phone call, which I think is absurd {looking forward to reading others' answers to this one}, especially in this age of email. I am not a child anymore, I'm 36 for goodness sake! Anyway, for now I've stopped arguing because the kids enjoy the calls. Pretty soon they'll be moving to town so we'll probably talk more often.

3. Are you adventurous in the kitchen or stick to the recipe?
I am not adventurous in the kitchen (see #1), but I like "recipes" that are so easy I can do them by memory, eyeball the spices etc.

4. Is your second toe longer than your big toe?
No, the second toe is shorter.

5. Do you dress up for Halloween? (Bonus question: What will you be this year?)

Sadly, no. I like to aspire to that, think about it, I've mentioned in another post how I'd like to dress up in a '50s poodle skirt but I know that ultimately I'm too shy/easily embarassed to go through with it. So instead, I'll wear a pumpkin t-shirt to all the various parties and trick-or-treating.

For more Q&A fun, go here.

Tell me, how often do you talk to your parents?

Young Adult Tales 2--College Friends

2010-10-18T17:17:00.001-07:00

Continuing with my Young Adult Tales (check out my other tales by clicking on the "MPT" tab in my sidebar), this week I'm writing about College Friendships. In my "old age," I'm realizing I've never been great at making friends. I had a few close friends in high school, but I didn't have much of a social circle back then. In fact, my two closest friends, Amy and Karen, didn't get along with each other. One day, I'd hang out with Karen and possibly some others of her friends; the next day, I'd go to a movie with Amy. And so forth. Those two have remained my closest friends to this day, they both were maids of honor at my wedding.

Okay, so off I went to college. I had been assigned a roommate, Sarah, and we'd exchanged letters and talked on the phone once before school started. When I arrived at our room, there were two girls sitting in there. I introduced myself and I didn't know which was Sarah. Finally, one girl spoke up that she was Alison from across the hall. I don't know how it all unfolded but Alison became a friend and while Sarah and I got along at first, it deteriorated over time (that's a story for another day) and we were never close. Alison was actually a junior, a transfer student, rather than a freshman. She had a single room across the hall from my double.

Meanwhile, classes started. I was in an awful class, Ecology of the Americas, it was in the American Studies department and a substitute for English 2 (I had AP'd out of English 1). There I met Joanna. I think we made plans to meet at the dining hall for lunch or dinner. I am so grateful that she was outgoing, because apart from Alison, she was the only friend I made. Joanna had made several other friends already and so she introduced me and that's how I met my other friends.

We all know how you go off to college and go to frat parties and get drunk. Yeah, well I was very ambitious and also a bit concerned about my family history of alcoholism (not my immediate family but past generations), plus I hated the taste of alcohol, plus it was illegal and I was a goody-too-shoes... so I didn't drink. While some in our group drank (like Alison who was over 21), Joanna was a non-drinker as well, and she was great at coming up with fun alternatives to the frat party scene. {My college was not big into the Greek scene. It only had 2 frats and 2 sororities at the time, I believe, but that was still the main entertainment scene on the weekends.}

Other friends in my group: Shirley (still a close friend), Mika, Brian, Anna, Christian, Cindy (joined our group, through Shirley, our senior year).

Some of our off-the-beaten-path activities: apple picking, the A to Z birthday party (an activity for every letter of the alphabet), "How to Host a Murder" parties, going to Improv Boston and "Tony and Tina's Wedding" and the ballet. Otherwise, there were lots of pizza and movie nights.

I was also in choir. I had fun with the people in Chorale and Chamber Singers, but rarely did those friendships extend beyond class time. Angie and Kathy are the exceptions there. They were both younger than me, but we had lots of fun.

While I'm talking about fun and friends, I think I'll take a minute to reminisce about Chamber Singers' trip to Martha's Vineyard my sophomore year. Chamber Singers was a small group, maybe 14 of us. We took two vans from Boston to Martha's Vineyard. On the way there, I was in the van with Angie and she was a very gregarious (loud) person. I guess we started singing to the radio, or maybe just singing for the heck of it, anyway I distinctly remember singing "I Saw the Sign" (Ace of Base, this was 1994). Even though I never ever sing by myself and let people hear my voice, I did on this occasion.

Anyway, the first day we had a rehearsal, then we stayed with host families--I stayed with a nice family with a high school daughter--and had a concert the next day. Walking on the beach, dinner with the choir, I remember having a great time that weekend!

Another friendship highlight was Spring Break of my senior year. Joanna, Shirley, Cindy and I stayed on campus and did a ton of fun things. That's when we went to the ballet. We also drove down to Rhode Island for a day trip, very fun! We each cooked one night, so I made a pizza of course (using Pillsbury crust, I'm not a chef by any means). That was an awesome week!

Great, I think I'll leave it there. I remain close with Shirley, who has twins almost the same age as my son, though we live 2000 miles apart. And thanks to facebook, I am back in touch with Alison, Joanna, Anna, Cindy, and Kathy (I'm still searching for Angie, I'm sure she'll turn up there sooner or later!).

For more walks down memory lane, head to Mommy's Piggy Tales. Join me next week for another installment. Thanks!

Internet Hodgepodge--October 16

2010-10-16T17:17:00.000-07:00

Just a few links that I've been saving up. I'm linking up to Saturday Stumbles at It's Come 2 This. Hope you're having a great weekend!

Free Christmas Planning eBook from Organizing Your Way. Awesome! Lots of free printables as well.

This is a great post to get ready for Halloween--it's written for kids with sensory issues, but I think there are helpful tips for all families.

I am eager to try this gluten free naan recipe (hat tip to Aubree Cherie). I love naan bread!

Young Adult Tales 1--Courtship

2010-10-11T16:20:00.000-07:00

I have a new project, a continuation of Mommy's Piggy Tales, this time about our Young Adult Years. It's a more write-whatever-you-want kind of deal, so today I've chosen to record my courtship (at least the beginning of it) with Hubby. In the summer of '96, I started law school. For whatever reason, this school starts one section of its students in the summer, so there were about 80 of us on the law school campus. Y'all, it was like summer camp. Until it hit me about 6 weeks in that, um, we're going to be tested on this stuff! But I digress. The point is, with only 80 people, we all got to know each other. No, this isn't where I want to start, let's try this again.

In the spring of 1996, I was a senior in college. I had been admitted to several law schools but was waitlisted at another. One day, the dean of admissions from the waitlist school called me and offered me a spot in the section starting in the summer. For a number of reasons, including starting in the summer, I chose to go to that law school. So one week after graduating from college, I started law school.

My mom drove me to law school and I met a few students when I reached the quad. I met a few more students when I went to get my ID. I met several girls when I moved into the dorm. Then I met a bunch of people on Orientation Day. The day after Orientation, day 2 of law school, was Service Day. We all went over to a nursing home. Oh and we were told to wear old clothes you could get dirty. Now of course I packed light for law school so I didn't exactly bring a bunch of rags with me. So I wore a sweatshirt I'd bought 4 years before when I was looking at colleges. In other words, I was wearing a college sweatshirt from a school I DID NOT GO TO. Bad idea! All day long, every one of my new classmates asked me, "Did you go to {school A}?" People who asked me that early in the day got the long answer "no, I almost did, I got this when I visited but yada yada yada I went to {school B}." That got old real fast so if you asked me late in the day you got the succinct "no, I went to {school B.}"

The first time I met Hubby, I don't actually remember. As he tells it (cuz he's a sweetie), he saw this cute girl (me) in a {school A} sweatshirt and so he initiated a conversation, knowing several of his high school friends who'd gone to {school A}. We were standing near the elevators and he says hi and asks me if I went to {school A.} It was late in the day so I said, "no, I went to {school B.}" As he didn't know anyone who went there (I'm not even sure he'd heard of the school), that was the end of the conversation and I got on the elevator and he was bummed.

The second time I met Hubby was a few days later. This time I remember our meeting but he doesn't. ;-) It was at a party on the quad. I met him and two other guys at the same time, we only talked for a few minutes.

So then we start classes and formed our cliques and so forth. Then a bunch of us girls started going to church together on Sundays. One Sunday as mass was starting, we noticed Hubby sitting by himself a few rows over from us. So we asked him to join us. From then on, he was in our little Catholic going-to-church group.

Okay, so when I started law school, I flirted with everybody. But I really didn't think about Hubby because the word about him was "he wanted an undergrad."

Second semester started in the fall. Hubby sat behind me in one of my classes and one day at the end of class as we were all leaving, he tapped me with his pen and said goodbye or see ya later or whatever. I noticed because you know we all saw each other all the time (we were still having all of our classes together as a section), so it was strange to have such a pointed, personal goodbye.

One day, I went shopping with friends, an engaged couple I'll call Jack and Jill. I mentioned that I thought this guy (I'll call him Joe) was funny. They cautioned me away from him (thank you, he was totally a player) and Jill said, I kid you not, "like Hubby." As a command. I was all, no, he likes undergrads. Then Jack explained he thought that was just a put-on so he doesn't get pulled into the whole "who do you like?" pairing up thing. Hmmmm, I thought. Well, he did tap me with a pen the other day. And we all thought hmmmm.

So then I saw him with fresh eyes. I started listening to him talk at dinner in the dining hall and I found him more interesting than I'd previously thought. I remember we had some conversations around campus and then came Rock 'n' Bowl. It was a Thursday night and our section went bowling. Several times that night, Hubby came over and visited me at my lane and I went over to his lane and I guess we started flirting that night.

The next night, Friday, was movies on the quad. I was in a friend's room and telling her I was starting to like Hubby and she agreed he was a good guy. Then the movie started so I went down to the quad and found some friends, including Jack and Jill. The movie was "Babe" (about the pig) and we were having a fun time and I thought how much I'd like for Hubby to be sitting next to me. I even wished it on a star. I kid you not. I did the whole "star light, star bright" rigmarole and wished that Hubby would sit next to me.

As Hubby tells it, he had a couple beers in his fridge so he grabbed them and headed down the quad toward a friend's room, then he noticed the movie was playing. He saw someone he could sit with but a voice told him to keep walking. Then he spotted me and my group--and he joined us! {So my wish came true!}

So we watched the rest of Babe together, then the second movie was something James Bond and I made snarky comments all through it, which Hubby tolerated so that was a good sign.

Saturday we ran into each other on the quad and were talking and I could hear my phone ringing so we went up to my room and Jill had left a message about going to a movie that night (a plan already in the works, she was just letting me know time and movie) so I turned to Hubby and invited him along and he agreed--so this was our first double date with Jack and Jill.

Following the movie, we all made plans to go to Cracker Barrel the next night, so we did that Sunday night and at some point Hubby said the movie Braveheart was like an epic poem and I had to see it, so we made plans to watch that together the next Wednesday.

Between Sunday and Wednesday we walked and talked a lot. Wednesday rolled around and I had second thoughts about our date. But then I thought "{Hubby} makes me smile."

So he came over to my room to watch the movie and long story short we stayed up all night talking (yes, talking, no funny business). It was a magical night and the start of it all. We got engaged a year later, married a year after that. 12 years next week. For many years, we celebrated the anniversary of "Braveheart night" by rewatching the movie.

There you have it, how I met my husband. It's a really long story but I tried to keep it short, hopefully not too short to lose it's magic. Go to Mommy's Piggy Tales to read more stories from our Young Adult Years and come back here next week when I'll be talking about... I have no idea! Stayed tuned! ;-)

Tell me, how did you and your husband meet?

Celebrating Birthdays as a Mom

2010-10-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

In case you hadn't heard, yesterday was my birthday. It was a typical crazy Monday (my hardest day of the week), then we celebrated with a great dinner, pumpkin cheesecake, presents and a movie. I don't know about you, but I find it hard to "celebrate" my birthday now that I'm a mom because I'm so busy being a mom, which involves changing diapers, wiping noses, being at others' beck and call (not to mention driving to preschool, driving to speech, stopping at Whole Foods). Now if you can get away on your birthday, to a spa or a date night with your husband, that's great. Have a wonderful time! But if, like me, you celebrate amongst the chaos, here's my advice for how to enjoy your day.

-Low expectations. If you expect to be treated like Queen for a Day, you will be disappointed. If you expect that it will be a usual day of chaos with some birthday cake thrown in, you'll be able to appreciate the extra perks like your favorite dinner and a movie when the kids are in bed.

-Answer the phone or don't. I don't know about your traditions, but in my family, people call on your birthday. This can be fun, enjoy it! Or it can be annoying. Maybe you'd rather be watching hulu. Or maybe you just had a baby two weeks ago and all they want to do is hear about the wonderful baby (who is keeping you from getting any sleep). If it's the latter, feel free to let the machine get it.

-Feed your kids what they like. Lunch and dinner drive me crazy these days. Even if your kids don't have food issues, why not give them their favorite foods so meal times are ever so slightly more manageable. For my birthday dinner, I chose to get food from Carrabba's--my favorite restaurant and we had a gift card. My kids could have had their usual this and that, but instead I made a frozen pizza. This didn't work as well as I'd hoped, L still hopped up every 5 minutes to scrounge for food, driving Hubby and me kookoo, but I still think it was a good idea.

-Dad home early. With the kids' earlier bedtimes, I knew it would be hard to get takeout, eat, have cake, and open presents without keeping the kids up late. Hubby would have to leave work on time or early. Yesterday, he didn't get out as early as I would've liked, but we rushed through dinner and managed to get everything done and the kids down on time. Maybe I should have titled this Enforce Bedtime. ;-)

-Time management/Plan ahead. If you're a regular reader, you know I suck at time management in general. But I planned ahead for my birthday so I wouldn't need to shower before bed. I picked up the living room on Sunday night so the mess wouldn't drive me crazy. I left myself very few chores and got them done pretty early in the day. Then I was able to watch Project Runway on DVR while L was at preschool and watch Glee on hulu during nap time. Then, once the kids were in bed, I could crash in front of a movie--no shower, no chores.

-Think ahead to after the kids go to bed. The real "gift" of my birthday was once the kids were in bed, I got to pick the movie. The kids are in bed by 8:30 so that leaves enough time for a short movie before Hubby and I get ready for bed around 10:30. It took me a while to choose what to watch, I wanted something I was guaranteed to like, but I had trouble choosing among our old favorites (I've seen them too many times). Finally, I searched instant Netflix and found a Jane Eyre with Orson Welles and Joan Fontaine from 1944. We hadn't seen it before, but I love the story (Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite books). Sure enough, it was quite good, though I wore out before the end and we turned it off around 10:00 (we'll finish it tonight or tomorrow).

That's it, that's what I've learned through trial and error over the last few birthdays and it worked for me yesterday. Focus on what you can control (what's for dinner, what kind of cake, what to do after the kids go down) because there's so much you can't.

For more tips and tricks, visit We Are THAT Family.

Tell me, how do you celebrate birthdays now that you're a mom?

Last week's "Glee"

2010-10-05T16:11:00.000-07:00

Warning: a not-particularly-family-friendly rant follows.

So as part of my birthday "celebration" yesterday, I chose to watch last week's episode of "Glee" on hulu during T's naptime (L has "quiet time" in the living room, but in honor of my bday, I kept the tv on to keep him quiet, heehee). Now, I was skeptical to begin with because it was The Britney Episode, but I also feared the Madonna episode (that turned out to be great) and the Lady Gaga episode (that was okay), so I thought maybe it would be okay.

Don't even get me started on Lady Gaga! My thoughts on Britney are a little more benign. I don't think she's particularly talented and I can't figure out her continued airplay. And of course like many (most?) female recording artists, she uses sex to sell.

So I was pleased when the episode started and Mr. Shoo (Shoe? Shu?) refused to let them do Britney because, say it with me now, She's a bad role model. Woohoo! Then everyone goes to the dentist and has anesthesia-induced Britney dream sequences. Half-naked. Sorry, just the Brittany character is half naked. The midriff-baring snake scene and the mesh sequin body suit thing. Classy! I fast-forwarded. Then Brittany and Santana have a shared dream sequence of that Britney-Madonna duet--yuck, I fast-forwarded again.

I watched Rachel's version of Hit Me, Baby, One More Time because that song I kind of like. Did anyone else think how sad it was that this very talented girl (Lea Michelle) just couldn't do much with a song traditionally sung by one with far less talent. Sad!

I also enjoyed Artie's version of Stronger, so I didn't fast forward.

Then there was the big Homecoming number. Toxic, I think? Fun rendition but the crowd, especially the nerds getting, um, excited. Yuck!

Oh and meanwhile, the whole "plot" is that these Britney dreams have been so good for the Glee-Clubbers: Brittany has confidence, Rachel dresses better, Artie is inspired to try again for the football team. Yuck, yuck, yuck. The message: Mr. Shoo was wrong, she's a great role model. Gag!

Meanwhile, the real Britney Spears appears in the episode. Thank you, Fox, for employing this um, has-been.

So here's the thing--I haven't finished watching the episode. (When I left off, Sue had just set off the fire alarm at the pep rally.) I probably should so I can get some closure and of course be up to date on any "plot" before next week.

But a few more episodes like this and I don't know if I'll keep watching. The show is only as good as the music, I've never particularly liked the plots. In which case, why do I care if it's about Britney as role model? I suppose the answer is because I don't think this kind of plot/episode is good for the young women who watch Glee. Just like I don't think Supermarket tabloids are good for women or photoshopped covers on "legitimate" women's magazines. Don't I become part of the problem if I continue to watch and endorse this show?

Anyone else watch Glee? What do you think of this season so far?

Top Ten Tuesday--Halloween Costumes

2010-10-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned before how much I love Halloween, so today I bring you my Top Ten Halloween costume ideas (in no particular order, and these are not affiliate links)...

1. I love peacocks so I think this infant costume is Adorable! 2. This is the cutest baby bunting costume I've seen:

3. I love this! It's a Coke machine costume!

4. T loves playing with her Mr. and Mrs. Potato Heads, so how's this for a great costume? 5. How about one of these Christmas costumes from Oriental Trading? Only $10 and your child can wear it for Halloween AND Christmas!

6. Pottery Barn has amazing costumes, but I especially like the food ones. Here's popcorn:

7. I just think this R2D2 costume is too cute! 8. L had the idea that he and T should be pirates. How cute would matching pirates be?! Girl and boy.

9. I think it would be so cool to dress up our family like the Scooby gang. I'd be Velma, of course, because I wear glasses. Hubby would be Shaggy cuz that's easy--green tee and brown pants. L could be Fred, T could be Daphne, and we could carry a stuffed Scooby.
10. I would love for T and me to dress up in matching poodle skirts.

For more Top Ten fun, visit Oh Amanda.

What are your favorite costumes? Share in the comments!

On My Mind

2010-10-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

-Dinner drives me crazy. In fact, tonight I had to leave the room, L was not eating and was giving us the hardest time. He won't eat. He wants cookies and gum drops (fruit snacks) but won't eat his chicken nugget or vegetables. While I was gone, he started eating yogurt. Later, he ate watermelon. For that, we gave him dessert. WTF are we doing?! Meanwhile, T had started eating more than 10 minutes before the rest of us (because that's the only way to keep her from moaning/yelling at the gate) so she was bored and dropping silverware on the floor.

-I tried to make a Scholastic book order online and it just wasn't working. Over and over I tried and just kept hitting the same error. Poop! I really wanted to order online for the larger selection. Now it looks like if I want to place an order, I'll have to use the forms. Argh.

-I have been shopping for days. Thursday T and I went to Kohls. I tried on a thousand things and everything looked hideous (except one sweater vest that I decided against because it was black, I own too much black). I bought brown jeans and a white cami. Friday I went to Old Navy, Steinmart and Nordstrom Rack. Again, I tried on tons but only bought one sweater. (I tried on that sweater I liked at Old Navy. It was cute but itchy, so I passed.) Today, I went to Kmart to get a toy for T and browsed their clothes. Actually, I found a bunch to try on. A couple sweaters came close, but I didn't buy anything. Tomorrow, I plan to hit the mall. I have gift cards to Gap and Express, neither is my favorite store but I'm all for free stuff, and I saw a sweater I liked on Aeropostale's website, so I might try that too.

-Monday is my birthday (which is why I'm treating myself to clothes in the first place). Mondays are my worst day of the week. Hopefully, Hubby can get out of work a bit early. He's going to pick up Carrabba's for dinner. My favorite! (And IBS-friendly because the next morning I'm taking T to Scottsdale for a doctor's appointment--fun.) I've asked hubby to find me a pumpkin cheesecake for dessert. Then presents and putting the kids to bed, then I'm thinking chick flick. I may watch Young Victoria again. The thought of good food and chick flick will hopefully carry me thru the tough day.

-Tuesday I was eaten alive by a mosquito. I have 12 or more bites. At any given time, I have about 7 bandaids on. (I put Benedryl on the bandaid and it keeps me from scratching.) So I've been wearing jeans all week even though it's still over 100 degrees. 110 today. I'm hoping I'll be healed by my birthday. :-)

-The end.

Wish List

2010-09-28T09:00:00.000-07:00

My birthday is next week. How old am I, you ask? I will be 36. Eek--how did that happen?! Anyway, today I bring you my {mostly fantasy} wish list.

1. Pretty much anything Halloween or Fall related. I love love love this season!

2. I need a watch, but I can't decide what kind I want. I love digital because it helps me know exactly what minute it is as I'm rushing out the door. But those make for pretty ugly watches.

3. I need a dustbuster. How do I not already own one? I need something cordless and portable so I can just clean a little spill at a time without dragging out the big guns, and also to clean up our cars.

4. I would like a new apron. I have an apron that's in pretty good shape, but it's 11 years old, I think I deserve something new and super cute. I'd love a Coca Cola apron but I haven't found a good one. This one has my kitchen colors and is adorable:

5. I need clothes! Okay, not really need. I want some new pieces to brighten my fall/winter wardrobe.;-) I've been browsing the internet with very little luck--I'll just have to go shopping and try things on. But I'm admiring this "jet sweater" from Old Navy. (I can't manage to paste a picture--can you please click over and tell me if this is cute or hideous?)

6. Speaking of clothes, I saw this cute skirt on etsy. Don't know if I'm cute enough to pull it off, though. And skirts are pretty impractical for my lifestyle. But I love the waistband!

7. A makes-me-happy diaper bag. I've been on a quest for a new bag for months now (kind of on hiatus at the moment). Something like this but that costs less than $50.8. Glee volume 3 soundtrack. I can't believe I don't own this already. Have I been living under a rock? A must-have.

9. So technically this is Halloween costume, but I think it would be fun for both Halloween and for playing dress-up with the kids. Even though it's only $19 at Walmart, I can't justify the expense because I can't say for sure I'd wear it outside of my house. But I love it and I already own a pair of saddle shoes. :-)

10. I would absolutely love this Coke chalkboard for my kitchen! And since I plan our meals ahead, it could always have tonight's dinner posted on it.

What do you think? What's on your wish list? Where do you shop for clothes? Let me know in the comments!

For more Top Ten fun, visit Oh Amanda.

Five Question Friday--Sept. 24

2010-09-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

I couldn't resist this week's questions, so I'm joining one of my favorite weekly carnivals, 5 Questions Friday, even though it is now Saturday night. 1. If you could speak with a different accent, what would it be (i.e Australian, Scottish)?
I would say a nice proper English accent a la Jane Austen movies.

2. Can you fall asleep anywhere? (i.e floor, couch, deck)
Traditionally no, but since becoming a mom, I have been known to drift off in a chair. I wish I could sleep on an airplane, that would be a helpful skill.

3. Do you use public restrooms? If so, do you sit on the toilet?
Thanks to the IBS, I use public restrooms almost every day. :-( I used to be a bathroom snob with an iron bladder, now I'm excited when I come upon a port-a-potty. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Yes, I sit on the toilet. I cover the seat with paper (seat cover or TP) and then sit. I have better things to do than hover over a toilet seat.

4. If you were stuck in an elevator for 24 hours, what celebrity would you most want to be stuck with?
Okay, being stuck in an elevator would pretty much be my worst IBS nightmare. Thus, rather than a celebrity, I'd like to be stuck with a plumber who could rig up a toilet. Now, if I had to be stuck in say a nice hotel room (you know, with a bathroom) with a celebrity, in that case I'd like it to be somebody who has had a fascinating life and could tell me lots of cool stories. Hmmmm... Sandra Day O'Connor? Madeleine Albright? I know: Stevie Nicks! She's got stories, I'm sure, and she could sing me the phone book. Love her voice!

5. Where did you & your significant other go on your 1st date?
After double dates to the movies and Cracker Barrel, our first real date was to watch Braveheart in my dorm room.

Okay, so those questions weren't as interesting as I thought. Oh well. Maybe others have better answers--go here to find out.

Internet Hodgepodge 3

2010-09-18T16:00:00.000-07:00

Cheesy Chicken recipe--Giving Up on Perfect says this is a family favorite so I'm going to give it a try {fingers crossed}.

Belle Squeaks posted about this Toddler Tote--sounds like a wonderful toy {it may go on T's Christmas list}.

I stumbled on this blog and her post on gluten-free favorites at just the right time! {We've recently taken L off of wheat, you can read more about that here.}

I love this piece of wisdom, God's Provision, from The Organizing Mommy!

Did you know there are fewer than 100 days till Christmas?! Two sites I know of are having helpful countdown posts to keep you on track and organized. I've subscribed through email so the inspiration comes to me daily.

-I followed 100 Days to Christmas last year and even though I didn't do everything on time, it was great to keep me on top of things.

-Simple Organized Living is doing a Clutter Free Holiday Countdown, need I say more?

Do you know of any other Countdown to Christmas blogs?

That's all I 've got this week. Go on over to It's Come 2 This for more Saturday Stumbles! Have a great weekend!