January 11

I'm cheating. I didn't take any pictures today, so I'm borrowing one. We all ate dinner at The Peddler tonight. It's probably one of my favorite places to eat ever. Cannot beat the salad bar. Camryn and I split an 8-ounce filet and sweet potato and we all had the salad bar. My mouth waters just thinking about it!

January 10

New sneaks for the New Year. I love these. They're for low - impact workouts, mostly mesh (for ventilation), super comfy and they're pink and green!

Finally bought a handle to fit my 24 oz. Tervis cups. Super convenient!

Bama 21, LSU Zereaux. Although my blood will forever be orange and blue (War Eagle!) I'm proud of the level of athletics in my home state. Happy to see Bama bring home the BCS trophy again. Third straight year for the National Champions to be a team from Alabama! (The screen shot is from AL.com)

My new best friend. I bought myself an inexpensive pink iPod Nano (see it hanging from the screen of the elliptical?) It makes rocking the exercise so much easier.

Lillian licking the bowl after dinner tonight. She and I finished off the last of the Chocolate Delight (made with sugar free pudding, cream cheese, sugar free Cool Whip and sugar free Murray's chocolate cookie crumbs.)

I tried to get a picture of Lillian's face when she pulled the bowl away, but she tried to hide. Stan scooped her up and held her upside-down so I could get a good shot.

Camryn indulges in some good old macaroni & cheese for dinner. She's lost 6 pounds in the last 10 days. She gave up Coca-Cola, exchanged fries and pizza for salads and Lean Cuisines, and started exercising. I'm super proud of my girl! This mac & cheese was a reward she allowed herself tonight.

January 9

My new Tervis mug. I had my name put on the back. Love Tervis.











I love these things. They're about $2, which seems a little pricey for a few spices, but when you consider that you'd probably spend $15 to $20 buying all the things you need for one recipe, this seems cheap. Plus, if you like it, you can keep the recipe card on the back. They're made by McCormick. This made the best fajitas, which I served on whole wheat tortillas. I also conjured up some black bean and corn salsa to go with it. Everyone ate... and enjoyed! That's rare in our house.

January 8

Every quarter I have to put together samples of the kids' homeschool work and send it to their K12 supporting teacher. It's not too hard, but it does take me the better part of a day. I am always happy to put those envelopes in the mail.






I'm almost finished reading Stephen King's 11/22/63. It's been a long journey (853 pages) but I have loved it. I'm sad that it's coming to an end.

I signed up for a free 7-day trial so I could watch the entire season (thus far) of New Girl. I love Zooey Deschanel. Love this show.

January 7

Shades?

Check.

Cool glove?

Check.

Old cell phone for pretending to talk & text?

Check.

Seven going on fifteen?

Lord help me.

Kitties love their soft food treats. We have to split it into 3 plates so all five (yes, five) kitties will share and not growl.

Mmmm.... strawberry Chobani. This, plus a bowl of Rice Krispies with banana and Splenda, were my breakfast.

January 6

Science lesson with Lillian. We started studying the digestive system, so we had to simulate how saliva, chewing and the stomach break down food. Some saltines, orange slices and a little water plus mashing the bag = a concoction that made me want to gag. She loved it.

BiLo trip with Camryn. We stocked the fridge (left) with Chobani, hummus, healthy breads, sugar free frozen pops and fresh veggies. The freezer is now full of Lean Cuisines and Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen meals for our lunches. We're committed. That's a lot of frozen meals!

January 5

This is my first priority in the morning. A year ago I could not have cared less about coffee. Those Keurig people are GEE-NEE-US-EZ.

Thanks to Grammy & Poppy, the boys now have a GameFly subscription. We had one before my husband lost his job last year, but we gave it up to save money. Portal 2 for Xbox is now in the house. Notice the laptop open next to Aiden. He's using cheats, of course.

Ellie peeking out from behind my desk in the school room. She sits in the window sill and looks out over the neighborhood.

January 4

First up for me on the 4th was a trip to the dentist for a cleaning. I got a nice goody bag (new toothbrush! Woot! And it's PINK!) After the dentist I stopped at Chick Fil A for a large (FREE, thanks to my calendar coupon) unsweetened tea (4 Splendas, please!) and biscuits for the kiddos.

Back to school for Aiden, Quinn & Lillo.

Accidental up the nose, under the boob self portrait. Niiiiiice.

Camryn's lunch box. She and her best friends have made a pact to eat healthier and exercise more, so she is making her own lunch instead of eating in the cafeteria. She's taking it very seriously. I'm very proud of her!

This is now part of our exercise routine. I love the Kinect!

January 3

You thought I forgot, right?

I've been taking pictures every day. I just haven't been posting them.

So, ha! You were wrong.

We did the laundry on Wednesday. The kids get baskets and sort their own, then tote the baskets back to the laundry room. I love having minions.

This is Caramel, Quinn's new puppy. He wants a real dog so very badly, but I hate dogs so very much. My parents gave Quinn a puppy for Christmas. For now, it's just going to have to do. I don't do dogs.

Our back porch fountain froze over during the night. The pigeons loved the small amount of water gurgling out of the top. The kitties (Ellie, left and Sadie, middle) loved the pigeons.

The kiddos thought they had to go back to school on Tuesday. Our program, K12.com, didn't actually start back until Wednesday. I surprised them with that information on Tuesday morning. They were so excited!

I made cinnamon rolls to celebrate. Trying to get rid of all the unhealthy stuff in the freezer (these were from Schwan's home delivery. They were nummy, dadgummit.)

This is my morning perch. It's where I'm sitting right now. I get up, I might do a load of dishes if the sink is full, make sure that the children have breakfast, and then I make myself a glass of water and a cup of coffee. I might have a piece of fruit or a yogurt and take my multivitamin before I forget. I check email, Facebook and K12 to see what's up for the day. Today's Saturday so I'm blogging my pictures. I try not to spend more than an hour at the computer every morning.

Last one for the 3rd. Since we had no school, I took Quinn & Lillian to Target to spend their Christmas bucks. Quinn chose (shock!) Legos and a Nerf gun. Lillian went with a Rosetta (Tinkerbell Fairy) doll, a plush Princess Tiana and a pair of roller skates. Her friend K had gotten skates for Christmas and Lillo just had to have a pair. I supplied a new set of knee and elbow pads.

January 2

This is my youngest child with her overnight guest.

Yes, her face really looks like that. It's scarier in real life.

(Well, not really, but you suspected that. I just don't have permission from her father to post her picture on the Internets.)

The youngest child loves the sleepover. This morning she and her budette came to me to show me that they both own Hello Kitty slippers.

It's like they were meant to be friends.

Happy New Year!

Trying something new in 2012 - I'm going to strive to take a picture a day. At least one - and I *might* get around to posting one a day. Most likely you'll go days or weeks without a picture, and then you'll get about 20 or so posts. But, baby steps. We'll see how it goes.

Today you get two pictures.

This is my stash of Spicy Eggnog K-Cups. I bought the holiday pack with Golden French Toast, Gingerbread and the Eggnog flavors in it. I loved all of them... except Eggnog. It was just too.... Eggnoggy. I do not like Eggnog, Sam I Am. I do not like them with Eggs and Ham. I'd probably starve if I landed on a deserted island full of eggnog trees and nothing else. There would probably be Fruit Cake bushes on that island as well. That would mean complete starvation for me. Eggnog is like drinking cake batter. I can't even think of anything gross enough to compare to eating fruit cake. Well, maybe if you dug all the dried stuff out of your couch cushions and threw them into cake batter and then baked it, that might equal the nastiness that is fruit cake. Maybe.

But back to the K-Cups. I took this picture, appropriately tree-shaped for the holidays, because I'm selling those suckers on eBay. My husband tried one and said he can't taste the eggnog. Go figure. I felt like the eggnog taste was slapping me in the face with each sip, but whatever.

This is your 2nd picture for January 1. Yeah, it's January 2, but I'm already behind. Get used to it.

This is our den. On New Year's Day my husband and older daughter rearranged our sectional sofa. I won't tell you what the carpet looked like underneath, but I will be calling a steam cleaner in the coming days.

Santa brought an Xbox 360 with Kinect for Christmas. We had no dance/play room, so the couch rearrangement was necessary. I like it, but I will have to get used to it. It seems so open. I will be moving a chair from my bedroom into the space to divide the foyer from the den. The much neglected elliptical machine will find its way back into our bedroom so it can mock and taunt us into being used. I remember its last words as it was moved downstairs: "All bee bahk". It was right. Goodbye, comfy reading nook. Hello, pain and torture.

Guilt

So, Camryn told me this week that my blog hasn't been updated since March.

Yeah, I've been a bit busy.

And now it's August 5th and I only have 10 days left until homeschooling starts again. I honestly don't know where the summer went. I had so many plans. And then we started remodeling the office.

All my office stuff was crammed into what we call the "Wii area" and the clutter just made me shut down. I hate clutter, and it's super hard for me to function when I'm surrounded by so much stuff. It's like my brain cannot make sense of anything unless it's organized. I don't own a lot of knick knacks because of this, and I'm constantly trying to find ways to better control the little stuff in my life. I just don't like to see stuff that's not in some sort of order.

So I worked on cleaning out and reorganizing. And that took up what seems like most of my summer. We painted the officea light key lime green. Manuel and the flooring people came and ripped up the carpet. Then they put down pretty blonde laminate "hardwood". Anthony and his assistant set up the custom cabinets that we'd designed. Everything looked awesome.

Then I tried to put things back into the cabinets and discovered that they were not 16" deep, but rather 12" deep. I literally sat down and cried. I was so ready to have my nice, organized living space back.

Anthony came back and put in the right size cabinets and I'm about an hour away from having all the stuff put back into the office. Then I can sit down and create something, which I have seriously missed. Oh, I've flirted with Mod Podge this summer, and I did manage to get away with some friends and scrapbook in early July, but I haven't been able to get crafty every day, and that's made me a little sad.

So, as soon as I wrap up this long overdue post, I'm going to take my glass of ice water and trudge back up the steps (which seriously need to be vacuumed!) and finish putting away those last few things that we never know what to do with (door stops, stray screws, light bulbs, etc.) Then I will begin to create pretty things that make me smile.

L-O-R, (why? because I love ya) T-A-B, M-O-U-S-E

I took a total of 9 pills this morning.

3 acetaminophen

3 ibuprofen

1 multi-vitamin

1 Prevacid (to counteract the Ibuprofen)

1 Amoxicillin

I have a bad tooth. I went to the dentist yesterday and he took x-rays. He could not see an abscess, but he scheduled an appointment with an endodontist and sent me on my merry way with scripts for Amoxicillin and Lortab. Ah, Lortab.

I slept well last night.

I see the endodontist next Tuesday. I'm praying that the tooth miraculously heals itself by then so I can avoid (doom doom doom)

THE ROOT CANAL

I had one on the tooth right beside this bad tooth back when Quinn was a babe. That was 8 years ago. When the doctor put the needle into the nerve to numb it, I thought I was going to kick him in the head. Worse than childbirth.

I wonder if I can get a whole body epidural for this. Hm. I asked for laughing gas last time, but he doesn't do that for root canals.

Sadist.

I'm not looking forward to April 5th.

But, on a lighter note, if that's all that's currently wrong with me, I'm doing alright. There are a lot worse things I could be suffering from.

And a laugh from Quinn:

"Why do you hear 'doom doom, doom doom, doom doom" when you're about to get eaten by a shark?"

"'Cause you're doomed."

I'll be here all week. Tip your waitresses!

Random Friday

I got these questions here. Mental Floss is a cool little site.

1. Did you or your child ever skip a grade? Get held back? What impact did that have on you? Would you do it again?

I did not skip a grade or get held back. My husband went to summer school to finish high school early. He graduated high school at age 16, then went to the University of South Carolina. There he took all the required classes he needed to enter optometry school; he was accepted at Southern College of Optometry in 1991. While studying to be an optometrist he also finished his BS degree in biology and physics via correspondence courses through the University of Tennessee. So, when he graduated optometry school in 1995 at the ripe old age of 23 (he turned 24 17 days later) he received his OD and BS degrees. I am so proud of him. He is one of the smartest and funniest people I know.

2. What’s the longest relationship you’ve had with a pet? Probably Beeson, our cat that my husband adopted in 1995. We were engaged and he wanted a couple of cats to keep him company, so he adopted Molly and Beeson from one of his mom's friends who found a litter near her house. Beeson had to be put to sleep on December 28, 2009.

3. What’s a store or restaurant currently only in your area that you think should be a nationwide chain?

Either Mythos (Greek and Italian) or DellaVentura's (though the food is good, it's expensive for what you get. We have stopped eating there because our bill is always $70 or more!)

4. With Borders closing stores, a lot of people might need good bookstore suggestions. What’s your favorite independent bookseller?

Honestly, I love half.com. I can buy a book, read it, then resell it and make back almost all of my money. I love the library, too! If I just must have a book, I usually buy from Amazon or BN.com, depending on who has the best price. I'm kind of bummed that a Barnes & Noble membership no longer gets you a discount online. All I get from them now is free shipping.

Birthday

I turned 38 on February 5th.

I don't feel 38. Somewhere inside me is the 20 year-old who did silly things like

- let 9th grade girls tease my hair on a mission trip

- rubbed sour cream and BBQ sauce on my face (along with a friend) and then drove around letting people *see* us like that

- challenged a friend to drink an entire half gallon of water (not knowing at the time about water toxicity) I won. She threw up. Good times.

- challenged another friend to put an entire roll of Bubble Tape in his mouth at one time. It's a wonder we didn't choke

I could go on and on. I am that fun, childish person inside this 38 year-old body. I'm the one who usually gets the kids in trouble at the dinner table. It's just fun to be funny. Gross and crude and funny. I'm the one who laughs when the kids fart and it reverberates against the wooden bench. Giggles cannot be contained.

And yet I am the one who owns four cats. I bought fleece house shoes today because my feet have started to get cold. I'm usually in my PJs by 6 pm if I have nowhere to go at night. And I usually don't. And I'm okay with that.

I don't wear heels anymore. They're not comfortable. Or sensible. Or necessary.

I prefer oatmeal over sugary cereal. Me - who used to love Fruity Pebbles. Now I need protein. And fiber. Oh, I need the fiber.

I eat yogurt topped with granola instead of ice cream topped with chocolate syrup.

I have started drinking coffee. Because it's warm, dang it. And I'm cold - remember?

I wear pants to bed. I used to hate pants, but remember - it's COLD.

I take antacids.

I ask the children to TURN DOWN THE RADIO.

Really? Turn it DOWN? Inconceivable.

I have started paying closer attention to the toilet paper I buy. And to how much calcium I consume in a day. Those things matter to us 38 year-olds.

Worse yet? I've started to realize, even admit, that my mother was right.

Yes, she was.

Man, I'm old. And sensible. But mostly old.

Friday Fill Ins 1/14/2010

1. Right now I need for this snow and ice to melt. I'm so over it.

2. Ice water is what's in my glass. I used to be an iced tea junkie, but I gave it up about 6 months ago. I still order it at restaurants sometimes, but my daily drink is ice water. I used to wake up craving tea, and now I wake up thirsty for a tall glass of H2O.

3. "A copy of this letter" is a phrase and not a complete sentence..

4. Coffee is best stirred with a spoon, but it leaves me short on spoons, so I switched to stirring sticks.

5. The best movie I've seen lately is True Grit. My hubby and I got free passes from gofobo and saw it for free in early December. Really, really great movie. I just saw Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on Netflix, and I have to admit I liked it, too. Michael Cera can be really funny.

6. Chocolate I like; dark chocolate I love. White chocolate is not chocolate, and I do not like it at all.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to sitting at home? What else can I do with all this snow and ice everywhere? Tomorrow my plans include working on the kids' work samples to send to their K12 teachers. I'd love to go to church, but we'll see how the roads are tomorrow. Tomorrow night is the Miss America pageant (on ABC, if you want to watch)! Sunday, I want to do anything but sit around this house. Target sounds good!

Friday Fill-Ins, 1-7-11

1. It's 2011; I am not having any luck stopping time, or we'd still be partying like it's 1999.

2. I was quite shocked to find out that the sweet gherkins in my fridge were made with Splenda. I love sweet pickles, but I don't like the sugar part so much. Now I can eat more sweet gherkins without guilt!

3. Thankfully I have my fuzzy sock supply in the washing machine. I usually don the fuzzy socks once or twice a during colder weather, but I have been living in them this winter. I am wearing my *last* pair right now, and I cannot go without them. I hate cold feet!

4. Watching TV (either Wipeout or America's Funniest Videos) with all my kids and the husband cuddled under blankets on the couch is one of the best things in life.

5. I am so grateful. For everything. Thank you, God.

6. I am craving a huge bowl of kettle cooked potato chips. My husband is out with 3 of the kids, so I texted him to ask if he'll stop and get me some. I usually hate plain potato chips, but I can't think about anything but salty chips right now.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to hanging out with my family. Tomorrow my plans include working in my office, pulling together the kids' work samples for K12 and finishing our 2009 Disney scrapbook that I started at the scrapbook retreat I went on in October. Tomorrow night we have nursery duty at church, so I'll get to love on the babies! Sunday, I want to make a big Sunday breakfast, then veg in PJs all day. The kids don't have school on Monday!!

Thankful

On this Thanksgiving (besides the obvious family, shelter, basic needs being met) I am grateful for:

• RID shampoo
• Sisters-in-law who cut hair
• My washing machine's sanitary cycle
• Crock Pots
• Lillian's burning desire to make a corn muffin recipe she found on HelloKitty.com, because it meant I already had cornbread to make dressing today
• Frozen pumpkin pies
• Pajamas
• Swagbucks! I just redeemed for a $15 iTunes gift card. LOVE Swagbucks! Go sign up!
• Rain
• Ice water
• The internet
• Stan not having to work Saturdays anymore for the rest of his life!
• Product testing - I just got a new box of cereal to test yesterday, so my kids have a sugary cereal to eat for breakfast today (I haven't been shopping in awhile)
• Homeschooling
• Did I mention RID shampoo?
• Flip flops (or just basically any shoe I don't have to tie)
• Fuzzy flip flop slippers
• The Southern Plate
• Bisquick
• Grace Church
• Kittens
• A husband who volunteers to make sausage balls because he can see that I'm tired
• Deodorant
• Mike's Hard Lemonade (I'm partial to the Margarita flavors)
• Amazon.com
• Mirrors with 10X magnification
• McRib sandwiches
• General Hospital
• DVR
• The Good Wife (did you watch it Tuesday?!? OH EM GEE!)
• Tweezerman tweezers
• Scrapbooking
• I don't think I mentioned it yet - but I'm super thankful for RID shampoo.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you out there who still read this blog. I'm thankful for you, too.

XOXO

Destinations

First of all, how good is chocolate cake? Well, really, more to the point - how good is chocolate frosting? From the can? I could eat rubber tires as long as they were slathered in chocolate frosting. Help me, Rhonda.

Tonight we were coming home from having dinner out. Sometime during our conversation I told Quinn that his history lesson tomorrow is going to be about the Hagia Sophia.

(Side note: I'm so excited I can't stand it! I finished reading Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian a few weeks ago; the Hagia Sophia was mentioned several times in that book, and it has piqued my interest.)

Anyway, I was talking about how much I'd love to visit Istanbul, to visit the Hagia Sophia, to see where history happened, etc. Then the kiddos chimed in about historical places they've learned about that they'd like to travel to one day.

They mentioned -

New York City......

Washington, DC....

Rome....

Egypt....

Paris....

I was thrilled that the kids were interested enough in the history of those places that they'd want to physically visit them. I was mentally (and smugly, I admit) patting myself on the back for raising such awesome, smart kids, kids that love studying history, kids that enjoy learning.... you get the picture.

Then a voice came from the back seat of the van and popped my bubble. Lillian shouted loudly...

INDIANA!

Unfortunately she was silenced by the chorus of chuckles that came from her brothers and sister and we never got to find out why she'd choose to visit the Hoosier State.

We'll have to add that one to our list.

Manic Monday 11/15/2010

Have I really not blogged since September 12th? I'm so sorry.

What is your favorite, can't-do-without beauty product?

Um, I don't know. I'm not really a beauty product kind of person. I rarely wear makeup when I'm just lounging at home, and when I do it's just a quick application of some Bare Minerals powder and lip gloss. I do love a good hand lotion, though. My favorite is something I found at Bath & Body Works several years ago - Drenched in Pink. It's actually from Victoria's Secret, but it was sold at B&BW. I loved it so much I bought 3 pumps - one for the den, one for beside my bed and one for the bathroom. The lotion works well and it has a great, long-lasting, light scent. I don't use it so much in the summertime, but in the winter my hands are always dry.

Have you ever colored your hair? What do you think about men coloring their hair and/or facial hair?

I started coloring my hair with some sort of temporary color that came in a grey bottle with a pink top when I was in high school. I think it was called Fanci Full? Anyway, I loved it. I get my hair colored every 4-6 weeks by my hairdresser nowadays. Gotta keep that skunk strip (my grey roots) covered up.

As for men coloring their hair, I really could not care less. Whatever they want to do.

What is your favorite outfit that you own? What makes it so special to you?

I love a great pair of jeans. I live in them in the winter. My favorite "outfit" is probably my pink flannel PJs that have hamburgers and hot dogs printed on them. They're so comfy. I look forward to fall's arrival so it's cold enough to lounge in my "hot dog pajamas", as the kids call them.