Bullet time...

• I'm taking the NaBloPoMo challenge, which means I need to write something.
• There's lots of ideas floating around in my mind. However, I seem to be lacking in the ability to put my thoughts into words. Hence, the trusty bullet post.
• Friday is the last day of school. A half-day. Why do they bother with those?
• I'm certainly ready for vacation as I'm tired of homework.
• Do your kids bring home a lot of homework?
• Mine do, it's mostly busy work and I kind of resent it. I'm sure the girls do too.
• After spending all day in class (hopefully) working hard, I think the kids should be able to come home and relax and play.
• I can't remember if I had a lot of homework. Doesn't seem like I had as much as K & B do. Maybe I just didn't do my homework.
• Though I ended up in advanced classes, I really wasn't a scholarly kid. My grades reflected that...my poor parents.
• However, in college I redeemed myself and graduated with highest honors, so close to a 4.0, I had 3.97.
• Not sure what we will fill our days with this summer. My dad (Papa) is a go, go, go type of guy so he's been busy planning activities for the girls. He also takes them on a real vacation each summer, not sure what this summer's destination is yet. Mr. H is also planning a little family get-away and maybe another one when the girls are gone. But there are still many open days.
• I'd love to go camping but it's just too hot, humid and buggy during the summer.
• I believe that residence in Florida should require all homes to have in ground swimming pools. We don't have one.
• After much deliberation I ordered a frame pool today, a step up from the easy set ring pool we had in the past. It's a pretty good size, and so were the shipping charges. Yikes! But there's no doubt it will be money well spent.
• I'd like to get a trampoline as well. But Mr. H and Papa are not on board, they fear broken body parts. Not from falling off, but from landing wrong. So although Miss B has reminded me that I'm an adult and I can get one if I want to, I've chosen to wait til everyone's in agreement.
• If you have any pro-trampoline arguments, feel free to leave them in the comments.
• Truth is, trampolines are a sore subject with me. As a kid I was promised to inherit my aunt's trampoline. Then my parents moved to Florida away from the trampoline in Ohio. So my uncle's nieces and nephew inherited it.
• Yeah, I'm still a bit tinged.
• And boats. Another sore subject. In Ohio we had a ski boat which we loved. It didn't make the trip to Florida. Where there is water everywhere. OK it wasn't exactly ocean appropriate but our fairly small county has 113(!) lakes. That doesn't include Lake Okeechobee which is not far away at all.
• Maybe I'll put a boat on my birthday list. I'll probably end up with a canoe!
• Or I could set up a boat fund donation page. Tacky I know. But remember Save Karyn?

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Gonna Try it Again and The Ambitions of Me.

I feel like my blogging mojo hasn't been quite up to par. Not sure why. One thing that is for sure is that I have been L-A-Z-Y with uploading pictures. Could be that pictures often give me topics for blogging. So anyway, I thought I'd put a little pressure on myself and participate in NaBloPoMo again. Amazingly, I kept up with it the first time. Not so sure how I'll do for June.

They were nice enough to give me a writing prompt for the day...

"When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?"

Um, well, hmmm. Not remembering any definite occupations that I wanted to pursue like being a teacher or a nurse-which my parents were. In fact, I definitely didn't want to be a nurse. Funny how that works, since I became a nurse.

The first thing that I can definitely remember wanting to be was a sister. Not as in a nun, but as in a sibling. Yep, I'm an only child. I wanted a brother or sister so badly. For years I was hoping for one. Finally by the time I hit my teens I figured out that wasn't going to happen. Eventually that desire turned into the more likely idea of being a mommy. But being a mommy seemed like an impossible wish as well. Guess I didn't have a lot of confidence in my ability to adequately care for another human being. Worried that I would never have everything in perfect order so that I could have a baby. Then I just decided to throw caution to the wind and had a couple of babies. Poor kids! Just kidding, our household is far from perfect but it's not all bad either.

Seems like at one point I wanted to be a singer. I can't sing-at.all. So I'm not sure where that came from. Maybe just my love of music?

When I was a little older I did want to be an author. I loved to write, still do. Now that I'm no longer working as a nurse, I tell myself that I really ought to start writing. But, I just don't think I have a novel in me. I love to read and always marvel at the characters and plots, how they all twist and turn and how it all sort of ends up intermingling and comes together. And while I may think I know it all, I really don't, so that sort of wipes out the idea of a non-fiction book.

So there you have it, the ambitions of what I wanted to "be". All in all though, I'm just "me".

Anyone else wanting to take on the June NaBloPoMo challenge with me?

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well...

so now what? nablopomo is over and i admit i'm feeling a little lost. hmmm...



in other news, i'm a bit crabby today. i just had a big bowl of chocolate ice cream with hershey's syrup on top. i'm hoping this will keep the crabby mood from progressing to a stabby mood. it's one of those girl things.

there was a post card in the mail today from UPS, addressed to my cat. well the first name was misspelled, but the last name was right. and for good measure they included (feline) with the name. the reason for the post card? well, my cat's medication has to be delivered and UPS stated they couldn't deliver the package because there was no such address on it.

with so many things wrong with this whole scenario i don't even know where to start. the post card informed me that i could pick the package up at their office with proper photo ID. or they would return to sender tomorrow. the office is an hour away, so really do i want to drive to pick it up? nope. and photo ID? the package is addressed to a cat! will my photo ID work? cause it's not addressed to me. and goodness gracious please don't send it back, my cat needs the medication!

so i call UPS and explain all of this. and i have to ask..."ma'am the address that is on the post card is correct, is that the same address on the package that had no such address? because i did receive the post card just fine". "well yes" she said, "but the post card was sent through the regular mail not UPS". uh huh, ok but this tells me that the address on the package was correct and really was deliverable. she had a hard time grasping what i was trying to say.

okie dokie.

she says they will try to deliver it again tomorrow. i assure her that the UPS man that delivers here really should know us, as i do shop online, like totally way too much.

i guess i'll have to wait and see if i get the package tomorrow.

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nablopomo...the last day!

here it is the last day of the nablopomo challenge and i made it!

i can't decide if the challenge was hard or not. blogging isn't hard at all and it's something i enjoy. but when there was a bit of responsibility tacked on it did become harder. making sure i remembered to blog every day. and figuring out what to blog about, now that really was the challenge i think. some days i admit the pickins were slim, but other days more than made up for them.

it's been fun y'all! reading the blogs of everyone else who was participating in nablopomo...not only did i find some cool new blogs to read, but i got to know y'all better!

on another note, i'm happy to share that i was awarded more bloggy awards! knowing that people are actually reading what i write is cool! and when i get comments i'm totally excited!! awards? i'm thrilled to get those!!!

these days... and R.A.W. Chronicles both gave me the Heartfelt Blogger Award! thanks so much to both of you!!! be sure to click on their blog names to check out their blogs!



i'm wishing all of you a happy, joyous and blessed holiday season! and to end nablopomo, i'll leave you with this sweet commercial i saw...

*believe*

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me: the high school years

i got this idea from candi at tinycandi's blog and thought i'd do it too! i'll let you know ahead of time that you won't be hearing much about academics, that totally wasn't me. but i did attend 3 high schools in 4 years, had an illness take me out of school and was booted to boarding school for bad behavior! so...not your ordinary high school days. as a bonus i have a picture from back in the day, thanks to a friend on facebook.

9th grade, 1988-89:

though there's a lot of moving in my history, we were pretty static at this point and this was the 4th year of starting school with the same group. i was lucky enough to have one of my bestest friends, krissy, living on the same street.

after completing our individual school clothes shopping for the first year of high school, we sat down together and made our "4 week coordinated clothes calendar". between our own and each other's outfits, we were able to not repeat an outfit ourselves for the first 4 weeks, it helped that krissy also had an older sister that didn't mind sharing on occasion. we had it coordinated down to our shoes, accessories and purses. i can still remember what i wore on that first day, it was an uber cool outfit and it's one of a few things that i still have packed away...just because.

i had started playing the clarinet back in elementary school, i signed up for band. but i was never in the marching band. my dad was a football coach in another town and my friday nights during football season were spent with his team. not really doing anything but being in the way, and of course enjoying the football players.

i didn't have any serious boyfriend's during most of the year. a few silly little ones. i had some crushes, namely dad's football players and a senior who played the drums in band. towards the end of the year i did get asked out by two guys on the same day, that led to a bit of a conundrum. but one was older and drove. so you can guess who i chose. that was my first real romance and it didn't make it through the following summer break.

instead of boys, i really had a lot more fun with my friends. krissy and i had a class together that year for the only time. the last class of the day. the first teacher, well i don't know how he got the job as he wasn't much of a teacher. on test day he would walk around giving out test answers! i thought this was cool and easy. but not krissy. nope she was worried about how she was going to get into college because she wasn't learning anything. (this is why she is a gator alum and i'm not). that teacher got the boot, as did the one after that for showing the movie "helter skelter" in class during an admin review. the third teacher stuck.*

10th grade, 1989-1990

somehow early on in the year, krissy and i started to drift apart. also my dad was no longer coaching so that was gone from my life, too. and finally i quit the band. at that point i didn't see a reason to stay, i was bored and the cute drummer had graduated. life really had changed. i spent more time with my neighbor and friend, nick, who was a few years older than i and no longer in school. he was never one of my dad's favorites. and though he wasn't the best influence, he wasn't the worst either.

like i mentioned, academics was never a priority and my grades showed that. i spent a lot of time grounded. a lot. so i had to improvise. i became a manager for my school's football team so i'd be allowed out of the house and i babysat. both of these activities were allowed. but sometimes i would say i was babysitting and i was actually out with friends.

during one of these occasions i met my first true love. he was 17 to my 15 but had graduated high school and was awaiting enlistment into the navy. he turned 18 not too long after that. my parents were not at all pleased and prohibited us to date. well, i did what any girl would do-i started "babysitting" an awful lot. when that wasn't enough time i started sneaking out, on school nights. i barely managed to make it through the school day and often fell asleep. one fateful night i went to "babysit" and i just knew that i was going to get caught. i went anyway. it was a double date to dinner and a movie (when harry met sally). going home was scary but i did. and that was when my parents decided to ship me off to boarding school. i happened to know someone who'd attended one and recommended it to my parents. what they didn't know was that it was in the same area as the naval training center. ha!

it was thanksgiving weekend that i went to boarding school. (exactly 20 years ago this weekend). my roommate meg was awesome, we were two peas in a pod! we were both sort of "hippie chicks". i quickly got used to living with 20 other girls and the routines. really it wasn't that bad. in fact, it was a lot of fun! though it wasn't the answer to my grades, they still were what they were. i saw my boyfriend a couple times on mall trips. and once on the way back from leave my friend nick brought him and couple friends to the school. i had about 5 or so minutes before i got caught and a lot of "cafeteria hours" to work off for that infraction. but it was worth it.

while i was away, my parents had moved. at the end of the year i really wanted to stay put. but they had me come home. you can say they bribed me quite a bit. truth was that they really couldn't afford such a school. so home i went to a new town. all throughout this time my boyfriend still risked getting into trouble by coming to visit me. he called and wrote often. my parents finally figured out that maybe he wasn't a bad guy and that it was ok. we were ok. though i was bummed about the move, there were benefits...a pool, a car, and a 5 minute drive to the beach!

11th grade, 1990-1991

i fit in pretty well at the new school. i found my group of hippie friends. we ate lunch together under the "hippie tree". my nemesis class, chemistry, was right before lunch. we figured out quickly that i wasn't going to pass this class and my dad felt that the teacher wasn't a very good one, so he was ok with it, as much as he could be. so often times i would leave and pick us up lunch. and occasionally we'd just all leave for an afternoon at the beach. for some reason i'd come back for my last class of the day, history. my hair was beached out, i had sunblock and sand on me and the teacher never said a word. surprisingly i aced all of her tests and actually got A's in a couple classes. don't ask me how, i don't remember.

the weekends were always spent partying. usually someone's parents were away for the weekend so we'd always have a place to stay. my parents became more lenient and i enjoyed the freedom. i still had the same boyfriend, he would join me with my friends. all in all it was a good year. and that's all i can say about that. ;)

12th grade, 1991-1992

this year started out ok. i was in the program that had morning classes and then an afternoon job. i filed at a doctor's office. we started thinking about college. i didn't have the grades to go to a state university like i wanted. but i was interested in new england so my mom and i visited colleges in connecticut and i was accepted to one!!!

i was getting burnt out fast. i started calling out of work and skipping school. when my parents found out they were really disappointed. we talked about it and i told them how i was feeling. well, it turns out i had a pretty severe case of mono and panic attacks. that fall i started homeschooling, i had a teacher who came to the house every so often and a speaker box for the phone to attend "classes".

in the spring i was deemed well enough to return to school. but both problems still lingered, we just didn't know it at the time. so i escaped to the beach for a lot of the time. fortunately i was a senior and didn't need many credits. mostly just the rest of english and science, maybe an elective. i'll admit it, the prospect of me graduating on time was pretty touch and go. i didn't attend my prom and i'm glad about that, you can read about that here. in the end i did graduate and whoa! was my mom relieved! my illnesses still lingered so that meant that going away to college was no longer an option though.

ok so that's the highlights of what i remember of my high school years. looking back i had a lot of fun, even if it seemed stressful at the time. sadly, the first true love and i broke up within the year of my graduation. that was my fault totally, i guess i was just too immature. definitely one of my bigger mistakes in life...but it all works out in the end. oh, and my parents finally seemed to figure out that i really wasn't that bad-i was just a kid and being the only one i guess there was nothing to compare me too.

* the picture. this is 9th grade, the one class krissy and i had together. krissy is on the left, our friend marcy in the middle and me on the right. see that vest krissy is wearing? that one was mine and also so well loved that it's packed away for just because too!

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it's GREAT to be a FLORIDA GATOR!

though i can't claim alumni status, i can claim being a BIG fan way before i was old enough to even think about college!

it's a big game today, playing our rival's the florida state seminoles. YUCK.

and it's also a special game as it's tim tebow's last regular season game. all of the gator nation are honoring him with this...


i'm a little sad. but we are ranked #1! and will be playing for the SEC championship and hopefully rolling right over the tide. maybe even playing for the national championship again. so tim still has time to shine.


and once he graduates...i'll still love the gators just like i always have-cause it's great to be a florida gator!!!

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reflections after thanksgiving

i'm hoping that everyone had a great thanksgiving! we sure did, the food was so yummy! and it was nice to have a day with nothing to focus on except for my family. i'm a bit spoiled and don't actually cook on thanksgiving, i have, but it's not usual. it's one of the ways that i can try to hold on to thanksgivings as a child with none of those grown up worries. thank you mammie for making us a wonderful dinner!

when i wrote about the holidays i had as a child, i mentioned that it was usually just my parents and me. sometime during my early adulthood, my grandma and grandpa roger moved to our town as did my grandpa ted (poppy, as the girls called him) who i met for the first time when he moved to be near us. of course mr. h, kelley and bethany joined the family. as did bill and vi, my parent's neighbors who quickly became family to us. the years that followed, our holidays were celebrated with a full house and i loved that so much!

this thanksgiving though, i reflected with sadness. we have lost three of our family members over the past years. poppy and bill passed away five years ago within just a couple months of each other. the holidays were sad that year. my grandpa roger died this past spring, he was the grandpa i knew my whole life. we have had a few get-togethers since then like birthdays and the 4th of july. but thanksgiving was the first of the holidays with "tradition". grandpa roger was missed a lot this thanksgiving. and it was sad to notice how our family get-togethers that were once big to me are getting smaller.

so please remember this holiday season and really every season that life is short. our time can pass so quickly. enjoy the time you get to spend with all of your loved family and friends. sadly, it can be gone in an instant. i can only hope that one day we will be reunited, all together again. until then i have lots of memories...

we love and miss you so much grandpa roger!

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happy thanksgiving!

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letting out my inner scrooge

am i the only one who has no desire to go out shopping on black friday? i have never gone, ever. sharing this makes me feel like i must be a stuffy old scrooge. i know how popular the day is and i usually get pretty excited about the same things that most people do.

seriously though, i can not imagine what could possibly make me even try to venture out there. it's not the middle of the night thing, i'm a night owl. i do love to shop and never turn down a great deal. i love going to the mall during the holidays when it's decorated and christmas carols are playing, i'm all about the christmas spirit.

the reason i'm such a scrooge? i think it's the people! every year i hear about the crowds, the fights, people being trampled and was it last year that a worker was actually killed? those type of things make images in my mind of obnoxious, awful people acting like fools. i know that sounds mean, but seriously, people have lost their lives during these sales. for what? so someone can save a few bucks or get that hard to find toy they should have bought a month or two ago? and to add insult to injury the shoppers get mad when their shopping gets interrupted because someone had the nerve to be trampled to death?

so i'll be the one person who is staying home on friday morning. just like i always do. what i will be doing though is staying up late after thanksgiving and checking out the black friday deals on the interwebz, in the comforts of home. i'm not that much of a scrooge!

for all of you peeps who are brave enough to venture out on friday...be careful! and i hope y'all score some fabulous deals!

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coincidence? bad luck? karma?

i don't believe in coincidences. i do believe in bad luck though. i'm totally superstitious. and i believe in karma, too.



i have to share what has happened to mr. h, i might even feel a wee bit bad for him, cause these so called coincidences have really ruined his fun.

it's probably best to start off by telling you a bit about his job. he's on call. that's really all...he waits, the phone rings, a patient needs help and he goes to work. it's after hours work so really most things that should be taken care of are done during the day time. at night there's really no rhyme or reason. some nights he might be busy with a bunch of calls and other times he can go days without any calls. sometimes he can handle the patient's need over the phone or others he has to make a visit. all completely random.

so i don't know if any of you are science fiction-y types. i'm not, but mr. h is. he has been so excited that they've remade the show "V". i do remember this show from when my dad watched it when i was little. sure, it's kind of neat that they are bringing it back.



they've shown 4 or 5 episodes. every single week mr. h settles in to watch "V" and each time...yep-you guessed it! the phone rings and he has to go to work and misses the whole thing. the first or second time he could have said "eh coincidence" but now it's so bad, he's come to expect it!

oh and i have to mention this too, we are probably the only people in the civilized world without a DVR. i know, i know...how can we live? well mr. h lives grumpily since he's missed his show every single week. he's tried watching it on hulu but they are a few episodes behind and on the channel's website but his browser apparently doesn't support their video.

so could this actually be a coincidence? bad luck? maybe it's karma? or perhaps the universe is playing a trick on him?

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this is entirely wrong on so many levels...

and why am i sharing it? well, it did kind of make me choke on my diet coke...

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holiday faves

i asked for requests for things to blog about during my nablopomo challenge and a bloggy friend jennifer (you can check out her blog by clicking on her name!) suggested favorite childhood memories. i have a lot of them, and i think i'll share my holiday faves from being a child to now being a mom.



growing up, most of the holidays were spent with just me and my parents. sometimes we'd have relatives over or go to visit, but usually it was just us. i have great memories of our holidays.

thanksgiving always started off with watching the macy's parade. then we'd have our thanksgiving dinner, complete with homemade noodles. yep noodles. outside of family, i've met just a few people who have noodles as well. but for us, it's a must! the day usually ended with our bellies full and watching the original miracle on 34th street. that was it, and it was perfect!

thanksgiving these days is spent with family, and of course the girls. i have never been able to get them interested in watching the parade, but i still give it a little peek every year. our menu has changed a little, but not much. mammie does the cooking, and other than mashed and sweet potatoes, there are no veggies, none. one year i did make the ever famous green bean casserole. but have since gone back to a veggie free thanksgiving.

my very favorite day of the year is christmas eve. i love the anticipation of santa claus and remembering the birth of Jesus. both are just absolutely magical. our routine hasn't changed much over the years. lots of christmas carols. dinner is an awesome mixture of appetizers and treats made by mammie and papa. papa's specialty is loaded nachos. we exchange gifts with extended family. and mammie always makes sure we have a new pair of christmas jammies. the girls hang their stockings and papa reads "twas the night before christmas" to the girls. we do all of this at mammie and papa's house because they have a chimney! they leave santa milk and cookies of course, and usually carrots or oats for the reindeer.



christmas morning is all about the presents. as a child i remember always waking up to a lit christmas tree stuffed with presents underneath. and santa always, always took great care of me! one year he almost broke my heart. what i really wanted that year was a speak n spell. i was so excited to get it, i just knew it had to be there. all the packages were opened and there wasn't a speak n spell. i was thrilled with all of my gifts but still sad. turns out santa had dropped a present behind some furniture...and it was my beloved speak n spell! i am an absolute spelling bee and i'm sure it's because santa didn't let me down!

our christmas mornings are pretty similar now, waking up to that magical site of a lit tree and presents everywhere! sometimes we sleep at mammie and papa's on christmas eve, sometimes we sleep at home. fortunately we are barely a mile away. papa has an "in" with santa and he never gets confused as to where he's supposed to show up. we unwrap presents from santa and from each other. listening to carols. we usually have a light breakfast of cinnamon rolls. saving our appetite for the big christmas dinner. my grandma has been making that for the past couple years.



as for new year's eve and day, we really don't have any traditions. it's never late to start them though! last year the girls had their first sleepover and rang in the new year with sparkling grape juice. the adults had champagne. new year's day we do watch college football. but again, no real traditions.

i'd love to hear about your new year's day traditions...we definitely need to start some!

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i'm going to give swag bucks a try, but...

i don't hold out a lot of hope for myself. i'm kind of an online point redeeming reject.

a few years back i signed up for mypoints. it went ok in the beginning. i spent time opening their emails, taking surveys and even took advantage of some of their offers. i went back and forth between netflix and blockbuster a couple of times, earning lots of points. and i actually did earn a couple gift cards! but when it came to going through mypoints when i did online shopping, i would forget, all.the.time. i would make my purchase and inevitably remember after the fact, that i could of logged in through mypoints and earned 2 to 5 points for every dollar i spent. ugh! i wasted the potential to earn so many points. i even tried leaving a posty note on the desk so i'd remember. didn't work. finally i got so frustrated with the lost potential that i just gave up.

then i tried my coke rewards. if you know me you know that i can't live without diet coke and between family who would give me their codes and my own habit, i earned a lot of points! eventually they changed their rules and started limiting the amount of points you could earn each week. that way it really would take forever to actually accumulate enough points for anything big. so i stopped adding codes. however i still had over 9,000 points to redeem! (told you i'm a diet coke addict, plus this was well over a year's worth of points). i never redeemed anything and let them sit. for a long time. last night i reminded myself to go ahead and redeem my points for some awesome prize. mr. h and i sat here while i logged in. i checked my points balance and it was 0. yes zero. what!? how!? i hadn't redeemed anything. after reading around the site it turns out that your points expire after 90 days of inactivity on the site. well crap. they supposedly send emails to let you know if you are getting close to losing them, but i don't remember any emails. so...all those points? gone. ugh again.

everyone's been talking about swag bucks, so i figured what the heck, i'll give it a try. i downloaded the tool bar, and felt a bit guilty as i gave up my givoogle search (it's a google search that gives money to cancer charities). so far i've earned 6 swag bucks. every time i get one i kind of squeal like a little girl, yes i'm a dork, i already know that. i haven't figured out all the in's and out's yet. so like all of my failures before, i'm sure there are swag bucks passing me by.

you may notice i have a swag bucks button on my blog now. my blog isn't monetized. i think i may earn credits if you sign up for "you can make this" through me, but i don't know if that's a fact or not-i haven't earned any credits that i know of. so, to be a good blogger, i need to tell you that if you sign up for swag bucks through my button, that i earn something. i think. not sure of what or how much, but wanted to let you know. feel free to sign up through my button, or another's button, or just through the swag bucks site. but make sure to sign up! the way i see it, there's nothing to lose right?

and so the point earning reject tries again. wish me luck!

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yes i did friday!

friday again and time for me to tell you what i did this week. the good, the bad and the ugly. did i make progress from last week? read and see... thanks to jeanette for hosting this blog carnival!

yes i did take a few day break from the interwebz this week. i did log on to blog, but as you can tell, i've been a bit lazy with the content.

yes i did manage to accomplish nothing much with my newly found free time. i did read a book and a half, and two magazines though.

yes i did continue to ignore mt. laundry, washing only an emergency load of unmentionables. unfortunately i sense mr. h is going to be insisting that i deal with mt. laundry soon. i'd like to ask him to move the washer and dryer into the house so that i don't have to walk outside to get inside to the laundry room, it's florida and it's hot! but i don't think that's going to go over so well.

yes i did drag myself to the monthly meeting for kelley's class. i did have to try really hard to do the right thing because these meetings don't seem to have much to offer. in truth, the only reason i did go is because kelley earns points for my attendance.

yes i did continue to be a good mommy that night after being a bad mommy last weekend. see what had happened was...the girls asked for doughnuts for dinner last week. i said no but promised to get them doughnuts that coming saturday. i *gasp* broke the promise which led to much girly tween drama. so after the meeting we went to get doughnuts for dinner.

yes i did feel a sense of panic when i read about the eggo shortage. i'm still a bit on edge and wondering if i should rush to the grocery stores and clear out their stock.

yes i did place order #4,852 to gap after receiving a discount code from a friend.

yes i did find out about further gap codes* and am tempted to place order #4,853. yes this enables my laundry ignoring habit. (*if anyone is interested in gap codes, here they are: gapsale25 and gap20, i think you can stack them, this may be for sale merchandise only-not sure. thank you fancy! check out her blog for other great deals-living the fancy life).

i think that pretty much wraps up my week, and yep not a lot of improvement. i thought confession would be a good motivator. apparently i'm shameless... be sure to head over to jeanette's to read what peeps did do this week and join in too!

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happy thursday!

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fear the silence

and i thought "fear the silence" moments only happened with kids...

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17.

17. seventeen. my favorite number! i think it deserves a post all on it's own. throw a 7 in front and you have the birthday of many awesome peeps, including me and kelley! 717 has become a number that seems to show up everywhere for me. one day i ought to play the lottery...

this daily posting stuff is kind of hard. figuring out what i'm going to write about and then making sure i actually do it on time. well that's the hard part. it's kind of like my bloggy friend jeanette says..."Plus, this way I can tell myself that I'm not really just sitting on my ass, I'm blogging. And since I committed to post every day, it's like a job now. So I'm working dammit, no sign of lazy here!", thanks for that little gem! today she has posted a lot of great info about tweaking your blog, be sure to click on her name and check it out!

ok, so what's on the agenda? well, i have a post idea suggested by another bloggy friend that is all ready to go and is just waiting for me to add some pictures. i will be having another awards ceremony and i'm really thrilled about that! a few carnivals here and there, the a,b,c's of me, and hopefully a few more thoughtful posts on topics that have been getting lots of attention on various boards. really, this challenge has been fun!

for all that are taking part in nablopomo, and heck-everyone-i hope you have a great day #17!

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N is for notes about me

naps. i like them, a lot.

nachos. i like those too.

nurse. i am a nurse, or was a nurse. i guess i still am, just not currently working.

nice. i try hard to be nice, and when i fail at it i feel badly.

naartjie. used to be one of my favorite brands for girl's clothes, until my girls refused to wear them after too many kids told them the clothes looked like jammies. darn kids.

new york city. i visited with my mom a few years ago. i really love nyc. and if i wasn't a married mom i think i could live there.

nienie. a blogger that inspires me. a particular post i love was when her daughter got into trouble at school. nienie felt she had been punished enough at school and by feeling badly. so instead of more punishment she actually spent some extra fun time with her daughter. that's the type of mom i'd love to be.

nails. i used to bite my nails-yuck! i kicked the habit by wearing acrylic nails for a year or so and now my nails grow very nicely. and i try to keep my toenails painted.

nike. everyone should have a pair.

nerves. i have them and they are kind of frayed.

nervous nellie. probably why my nerves are frayed.

nag. is this a term of endearment? mr. h says i am one.

needles. they don't scare me much. except if they are going into my back, i would get woozy watching when they placed epidurals at work. a big reason of why i had the girls naturally.

novels. i like to read them and would love to write them.

nablopomo. a daily blogging challenge i'm taking, also why i you are seeing so much blogging babble from me this month.

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Super Snapshot Saturday errr Sunday!

yesterday i missed Angel's Super Snapshot Saturday. this week her theme was funny. a lot of our funnier pictures have been shared already, so i had to look back at some oldies. to check out other funny pictures or to join in click the button below!

here's a cute, innocent bathtime photo of bethany that i took. but look closely...notice her ears? it appears that a baby alligator is crawling through her head. thanks a lot daddy. (i think it is funny, but at the time bethany did NOT. not sure what she'll say now-it's been a few years).



and this is what happens when you keep a puggy princess up too late past her bedtime. daisy is looking pretty rough, but it sure makes me giggle! also daisy is not a morning pug. she sleeps in late. i guess she needs her beauty rest!

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14.

today is day 14 of nablopomo and i need to post something.

i don't have anything funny or thoughtful to write about today.

to be honest the past few days have been pretty rough. my family and i found out some really bad news about someone who is very dear to us. i can't share details, truth is i don't want to.

i've been thinking and thinking about it ever since i found out. today the thoughts finally escaped me, the emotions flowed out and continue to empty in the form of big tears.

this has brought back some sadness and anger from situations in the past as well.

there are people and a family out there that must be hurting because of these situations. i want so badly to do something, anything, to help...but i can't.

that is where i am today, day 14.

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