Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

Strip is back!  We picked her (and her 9 million pounds of stuff she brought back) up yesterday and headed home.  It took about 96 seconds in the car for me to realize how quiet it was without her :-)  Jabber Jaws chatted about her 2 week adventure the entire drive home.  I managed to get both kiddos in and settled with a snack so I could unload the car.  Then it was time to start on dinner.

In the time it took me to make Arroz con Pollo, Strip had managed to go up stairs, change into her Snow White costume and destroy her room (there is no doubt that this kid is mine)!  Then, both kids started running laps around the kitchen, screaming, scaring and laughing at each other.  I think I missed that sound the most!  We made it through dinner and bedtime just fine, but around midnight, Strip woke up TICKED OFF that I had not read her stories (she picked Hubs to read to her).  I got her settled in bed and she wanted water, so I got her froggy cup from the bathroom.  "I WANTED MY PRINCESS ONNNNNNEEEEE!!!!"  Ugh.  Then came the terrified screams about spiders coming down from the ceiling and bugs crawling on her.  She finally dozed off, but sleeping with her is like sleeping with and octopus doing an imitation of a helicopter -- arms and legs everywhere.  

Morning came too soon, but there was JUST enough coffee for me to make a cup this morning, so I might make it through the day.  I think I'll take them to the pool to tire them out, so I can get something done this afternoon!

Oh, and a petty rant

Maybe it's because I worked in retail and rocked some customer service back in my day, but poor service just irks me to no end.

As I mentioned in the previous post, Nugget and I went to the book store yesterday.  Said store sent me a love note saying that they had book lights for a dollar.  Strip kept losing the batteries to the one that came *FREE* with the Snuggie, so we gave it to our neighbor's little girl (who would be less likely to lose/swallow batteries).  I thought this would be a great chance to pick up one for her to either give her when she gets back  or store away for Christmas.

After getting a mocha and a piece of chocolate for Nugget, we started wandering through the store.  Kind retail lady asks if we need any help:

         ME:  Yes, I got an email saying that y'all had book lights for a dollar.

Lady:  Yes!

Me:  Great can you tell me where they are?

Lady:  Ohh, we didn't get any.

Me: Oh, ok

Lady: Yeah, it varies by store, and we just didn't get any.

Me:  Oh!  Ok, well do you know if [other store] has any?

Lady:  I don't know.  It wouldn't surprise me if they did.  But like I said, it varies by store.

What's wrong with that?  She seemed perfectly nice, right?  Correct response.  The customer comes in for ONE SPECIFIC thing.  You don't have it, but another store might.  What should she have done?  Offered to call [other store] to see if they had any while directing me to the $2 bucket of kids books.  Then when she was on the phone searching for my $1 book light, I would have found $16 worth of books that I would *have to*  buy because she already planted the idea in my head that everything varies by store.

Like I said, petty rant, but it still kind of ticked me off.  There was no one in the store and the call would have taken 3 minutes, tops.  So Nugget and I are heading to the other store to see what they have.

Still Stripless

Strip is in the final days of Camp Spoil-Me-Rotten, aka Papa and Ma's. Although Ma has sent NO pictures to me, we've been able to chat on the computer, so I've seen her. She looks too grown up already.

It sounds like she's having a great time! Ma thought she needed some movies, so she hit the Target sale bin and picked up many dvds including The Cat in the Hat which, according to Ma, is extremely inappropriate. I can't wait to see it. Apparently, after watching it, P's girlfriend said, "Strip! Look at these cute shorts Ma and I found today," and she revealed some multi-colored, floralish shorts, to which Strip replied, "Ugh. I'm DOOMED!" Thanks Mike Myers.

She also played dress up in my wedding dress, but Ma failed to take any pictures of that. After the wedding at Disney, Hubs told Strip that mommy had a pretty wedding dress that she could wear one day when she got married, so I guess she needed to see if it was her style.

She's now at my most favorite place on earth -- the beach. My mom's family has a beach cottage that we go to almost every year, and it's fantastic. No cable, no internet and you can rarely get a cell phone signal. Did I mention it's fantastic?! Ma called to let me know that Strip and Snoozie (Ma's cousin who Strip fell in love with last summer) wasted no time heading down to the beach to put their toes in the water.

Nugget and I have been having a good time, too. Lots of quality time with tractors and cars. Yesterday, we were at the book store and they were doing some construction in the back, so Nugget and I went to stare at all the bulldozers. One of the workers drove a HUGE "tractor" as Nugget called them over to us and offered to let Nugget drive it. He just stood there with his little mouth gaping open, unable to speak.

We've had a fun couple of weeks, but sure are ready to get our Strip back on Monday!

My problem is hereditary

When I was younger I had a big problem. I would come in from school or ballet or soccer and kick off a shoe, then run upstairs and kick off the other shoe. Then I would clean my room which consisted of raking everything under my bed. The next morning, when the carpool car honked, it was a mad scramble for me trying to find one shoe. I always managed to find one, but the second seemed to get sucked into that magical portal in the dryer that eats one of your socks. I can still hear my dad saying, "How in the world do you lose ONE shoe?!" and can see my mom finding the shoe with me crying, "But I JUST looked, and I SWEAR it wasn't there!" Ahh, memories.

So the day before we are leaving for Disney, I'm pulling together the last minute things for the kids' bags. I realize (at 10pm) that Nugget's brown sandals are no where to be found. The car has been cleaned out, all rooms and closets are clean and organized, Hubs just mowed the backyard, and they weren't there. So we just packed his crocs and hoped for the best. We got back and STILL can't find them. Seriously, how do you lose a PAIR of shoes?!?

I finally broke down yesterday and took him to get a new pair of man-sandles. I was going to try to find a different pair thinking it wouldn't hurt as much to spend money on a different style, but I just love these little Stride Rites. So when the shoe lady offered to measure him, I said sure. I vaguely remember getting his brown sandals right before his birthday and they were a size 6, I'm pretty sure). He put his little piggies on the board and she said, "We'll he's measuring a 7, so I'd put him in a 7.5." YIKES! I had been pouring my kid's feet into too small kicks! So when hubs got home, I told him it was totally justifiable that we had to buy him new shoes since we were abusing his feet.

And now I'm thinking that Nugget doesn't have a loseing-shoe problem like his momma. I think he's just super smart and hid them so he could get a pair that fits!

Too early for tractors?

Apparently not. Nugget got up at about 6:30 this morning. We came downstairs, did breakfast and coffee for me. I took him up for a diaper change and figured we'd go ahead and get dressed for a run. He heard the pup barking in the back yard and said, "Momma. Tractor?" I told him he couldn't ride until he got dressed.

Silly me gets him dressed, then I go to dig out my new running shoes.

I come downstairs to find this:


I DID say that he had to be dressed first. I guess he figured, he had on his shorts, so he was ready to ride!

My apologies to the neighbors if the annoying, "SCREEEEEEEEE," of the little motor woke you or you kids.

Hold me, I'm cutting fabric

I received a nice little sewing machine from my mom for Christmas, which I upgraded to a little bit nicer sewing machine in January.  Since then, I've just been flirting with Bernie (the sewing machine).  Sure, I'd thread it, or sew a stitch or two, but nothing more than harmless flirtation.

Until tonight.

I found a couple of really cute spring outfits for the kids by Rosie Posie, and when I was visiting the inlaws last weekend, I found the girl's outfit on sale.  SCORE!  Since my parents have Strip for a spoil-me-rotten visit this week, I decided to take advantage of some quiet time and take it to the next level with Bernie.  Nugget and I went to our favorite little fabric shop and selected some material (he slept through the whole experience), and tonight is the big night.  

Nugget's in bed, I have a tasty glass of 2 buck chuck and I'm about to make my first cut.  Fingers crossed.  The good news is, the outfit is for Nugget, who is 2.  And while he may have an opinion on things, he doesn't have enough words to express said opinions, so I can have crooked seams, and loose buttons and he can't complain :-)  I'll post a pic if when I finish!

Greatest.Picture.EVER

His lips are saying, "Cheese," but his eyes are saying, "boobies!"

This thing's got ups

I have a really long, drawn out, rambling post about our least magical Disney experience EVER that I am working on and debating on actually posting, but while I drink my dinner, please take a look at this marvel.

When I was getting Nugget's balloons inflated for his party, the balloon lady asked if I wanted some magic spray that was supposed to make them last longer. I politely declined. Who really wants a balloon floating around for longer than a day anyway, right (well, besides a 2 year old)? Fast forward to Strip's party day. I had a mylar butterfly balloon inflated on Strip's birthday party day, May 9th. Hubs and I were both amazed a couple of days when it was still full of life and floating around the house.

Today's date is June 16th. 5 weeks and 3 days post helium. I give you the butterfly balloon:

Yup.  Still on the ceiling.  When we came in from Disney and saw it was still up there, I was sort of convince that some arachnophobia-type spiders had suspended it up there in a web, but no.  It's still there.  Getting our money's worth out of the helium.   Over a month.  That's longer than some goldfish live!  

And just for dramatic emphasis, here's another shot (but please note, we did NOT choose the paint color in this room.  The nice man named Ed who lived here before us selected it):

Amazing.  Part of me wants to take it down and toss it before Strip comes home from Ma's, but a really big part of me wants to see just how long this thing can stay up.  I wonder if there's a world record for longest balloon life.

Here I go again

I have a problem. I get borderline unhealthy obsessions on morbid/odd stories and historical events. My running tally includes the Holocaust, the Romanov dynasty and the Tudors. If there is something on tv, a movie or a book about any of those, you bet I'm all over it. In fact, I accidentally read Angela's Ashes because the not-so-bright book girl told me it was about a family surviving the Holocaust, which couldn't be farther from the truth. Hub's indulges my obsession, too. He very sweetly surprises me with a cable upgrade to include Showtime so I can watch Tudors every new season. But honestly, he really gets into the cute girls whose clothes tend to fall off story line.

So we recently watched Into The Wild ,  and I decided to pick the book up for our trip to Disney.  I devoured it, and finished it as we were hitting the Georgia state line.  Because we still had a good 6 hours to go, I spent the rest of the time googling pictures of Chris McCandless and reading excerpts to Hubs.  His story just haunts me.  I think it's because he reminds me visually of a friend of mine's husband, physically of a friend of mine's brother and mentally of my brother.  I could totally see UP running off into the woods just to see what would happen.  

I think one of the main things that intruiges me about Chris, is how absolutely happy he was.  He documented his journey in a journal and through pictures.  I hate to post this, because I don't know the true person to give credit to, but here's a picture I found on flickr posted by a chriso2000.  It's the last photo taken of Chris.  He knew he was about to die, was getting too weak and the possiblity of someone finding him before he died was slim to say the least.  Yet here he is in his farewell message, looking extremely emaciated but holding a sign that reads, "I HAVE HAD A HAPPY LIFE AND THANK THE LORD.  GOODBYE AND MAY GOD BLESS ALL!"

What a peaceful and message to leave the world!  I don't think I would have gone off into the woods like he did, but had I been in his galoshes, I'm quite sure my last note/pic would not have been that touching or happy looking.  I mean, look at his face.  I just spent a week in Disney World, and I'm not sure I look as happy as he does in any of my pictures, and he's about to die.

I'm now off to find some chick lit to read and rot my brain so I don't start getting too obsessed with his story.

On the road, still!

We are on the road back home, and I can't blog from my phone, but will overly update soon!

To Tweet, or not to Tweet. That is the question.

Twitter intrigues me.  I'm still not sure I "get" it, though.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's pretty much a run of status updates?  I think this would be perfect for me.  I update my FB status waaaay too much.

My brother is a twit is on Twitter, but he's too cool and made it so you have to follow him to see what he's doing.  Which leads me to my next thought about the subject.  If I did sign up for Twitter, it would be mainly just to follow people.  However, I would feel the need to Tweet, myself.  And if I'm tweeting, I would *need* followers.  Otherwise, I'm just that creepy bird in the corner talking to herself.  

While I do the blog for me, I'm honored to have seven followers, but let's face it.  Two of the followers are dogs, and I don't know if dogs tweet.  Not to mention, if I were on Twitter, most of my tweets would probably be things like, "Hey you!  Reader from Chattanooga, TN that just hopped on the blog from Facebook.   Who are you?!?!  I see you reading and assume since you got her via Facebook, we are actually friends, but I can't figure out who you are and it's bugging me."  Not exactly "following" material.  

Hmmm.  What to do, what to do.  And I am totally serious about the reader in Chattanooga.  You're killing me here.  Who are you?!

Paying it forward

Hubs ruined a movie for me last night, so I'm going to share the love and ruin it for all of you.  Don't read this if you haven't seen Into the Wild or read the book.  STOP READING NOW.  You've been warned.

We suspended Netflix three months ago because we just weren't watching movies like we should.  I figured by the time it started up again (end of May/June) things would have slowed down and we'd see how much we used it this summer.  It started up this week, and because I had not looked at our queue in three months, it sent us 2 "good" ones -- Strangers, which we just watched on demand a couple of weeks ago and Into the Wild, which I put on with every intention of getting the book at the library and reading before the movie got here. 

Hubs decides after laying bricks all day (with a little help from me) that we should watch Into the Wild.  We cozy up on the couch and get all into it.  I am PRYING my eyes open, trying to stay awake for the end.  I think I made it until the last 15 minutes.  The next thing I know, the credits are rolling.  Oh well.  I stumble upstairs and into bed.  A few minutes later, Hubs came up.

  Hubs:  Did you read the book?

Me:  No, but it looks like I'm going to have to since I fell asleep and missed the ending.

Hubs:  It ticks me off that he died.

Me:  WHAT?!  

Hubs:  Yeah, those berries he ate killed him.  I really wanted him to make it out of there.

Me:  Guess I don't need to get the book now.

I know he was all worked up from the not-so-happy ending, but geeze!!  Give me 20 minutes in the morning to watch it, then we can talk about it.  Ugh.