How do I spend my time online?

I am celebrating 15 years of online life this month. In 1991 I became a member of Prodigy & joined my first message boards (about Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Dragonlance & David Eddings). Over a 3 year period I got to know many people on those boards, my first internet family. I would spend the next 10 years trying to find the same thing in other places. I found it again the first time on a fertility board called www.ovusoft.com, in a now defunct buddy group called the Freaks. Most of us are still together on another private board. I've been friends with these women for over 3 years now and I was so thrilled to meet some of them last year in person. I stopped posting very often at Ovusoft a year ago & now only visit a few times a week at most. My next experience of internet friendship came on DSP, where I am still an active member. It is possibly the most supportive & friendly place I have been on since those long ago days of Prodigy. I spend a good portion of my online time there, keeping up with threads& browsing the gallery.

My other scrapbook home would be scrapmommies.com though they do more chat in chat these days than chat on the message board and I am more a message board person than a chat person.

I am a long long long time member of a pagan elist and it's associated message board, though the past few months I have visited infrequently and have the elist set to digest. They are a family of a sorts....a dysfunctional family... or as I have been quoted as saying "More of an online bar room brawl" some days. But i really love some of the people. I've known some of them for almost a decade now. So I can never bring myself to really leave and they are a very interesting cross section of people. I've learned far more being a part of them than I would ever have learned on my own.

The other things I do online include shopping, blogging & occasionally selling/reselling things on eBay & half.com

Pricy Chocolate Part 2

I found the MON CHERI and the MINT dark chocolate Dagoba bars at Whole Foods last week and have been slowly nibbling at them every since. I don't like the MINT, despite my best attempts at trying too. They put rosemary in it. The rosemary is rather strong. It overwhelms the mint. The MON CHERI is good. Not outstanding, but good. The cherry was strong but not overpowering, with perhaps just a touch too much vanilla for my taste. However I would buy it again. I also bought the WHOLE MILK, milk chocolate bar. I'm giving up on their milk chocolate bars. Too creamy. Hershey's is better. Whole Foods had the XOCOLATL, but I decided 3 new bars were enough for one visit. They did not have the LIME. No place that I find Dagoba bars ever has the LIME, so I'll just have to keep looking.

are we there yet?

Are you where you thought you would be in life, when you graduated from high school? Are there dreams you had then that you still have now?

If you had told me, when I was 18, that in 20 years time I would be a SAHM to 2 toddlers, I would have laughed so hard I probably would have hyperventilated. Had you told me this 10 years ago I would have had the same reaction. Children were not in my plans. Which is not to say I actually *had* plans - I didn't really. I just knew I didn't want kids. I wanted to go to college & get a nice 9-5 office job, something interesting, possibly to do with creative writing/journalism, but I had no specific job in mind. I had an idea of being able to go away by myself, maybe teach English in Japan for awhile between finishing college & getting a real job. But nothing really concrete. I wanted to be comfortable, happy, have friends & enjoy my life. From that perspective I am where I thought I would be. It just never occured to me I might find all that with small children under foot. :)

favorite teacher

The prompt is to write about your favorite teacher or the one who influenced you most. I had a lot of nuns teaching me when I was in school. Plus a number of lay teachers. None of them really influenced me in a positive way, though there were some negative ones....There was Mrs Szymanski in 5th grade who said I was at fault for letting the boys pick on me, but then punished me if I stood up for myself. There was Mr Stein in the 7th grade who seemed to really dislike me for some reason & I can only assume it was because I was the only girl in class not in love with him. He was a bully & went out of his way to point out my faults when we played sports, mocked me when I got answers wrong in class & in one memorable incident made me sit in a row all by myself, not in the front seat mind you, but in the second seat back, for almost a month. (there were 21 kids in my class & 25 desks). My parents took his side when this stuff began & yes in the beginning my behavior was not stellar, but his became worse when he realized he could get away with it. Years later a classmate & I were reminiscing about it & my mom overheard & said "Why didn't you tell me all this? That is terrible." I told her I did tell & she took his side so I never bothered telling again. She looked so shocked I didn't tell her what happened with another teacher a few years later. There was also Sr Ethelrida, one of my HS math teachers who constantly gave me grief for not trying hard enough, even though I was. As a freshman in college I would be diagnosed with a form of dyslexia & on winter break I stopped by my old HS to show the report to Sr Ethelrida - I *had* been trying very hard. She apologized & said it never occured to her because I did so well on standardized tests....um, ok.

There was one teacher I really like in HS, Mr Volpe, who taught Advanced English for seniors. He didn't think I was goofing off when I questioned things in the books we read & wanted him to explain just how he knew that those flowers in the story were symbolic of a mother's grief & not just simply flowers. He had us write a lot of essays that were based on personal opinion, and he actually graded us on the grammer & style, not whether he agreed with you or not. Once he told the entire class "There was only one A+ this time. I disagreed entirely with her thesis but it was so well argued I had not choice but to give her the top score" and he handed me my essay on "Why TV watching is good for you". :)

My favorite teacher of all was in college. Dr Arnette, who taught Egyptian history and several low level ancient history classes. I got lucky getting into his History 101 class my first semester freshman year. I love history & he loves history & he made it all so interesting & fun. So real. Some of the other 101 teachers were bland or boring or just out of their normal area of expertise, so their classes were not as enjoyable. I took every single class Dr Arnette taught over the years of getting my BS and my MA. I was even one of his proctor students for a semester as a grad student. My favorite lecture of all of his was a slideshow known to everyone as "toilets of the ancient world". It was slides of various ancient historic sites he had visited all over Europe & Egypt and at every site he included shots of the ancient 'facilities' which made the past seem more real. It's all very well to memorize a list of date of pharohs, but learning about how food was prepared, how a bed was made & what sort of bathrooms the people used really makes it all come alive in the imagination.

Childhood books

What books did I love as a child & did I pass them on to my children? The first books that come to mind are Little Women & the Little House on the Prairie series. I have not shared them with my sons because they are not old enough to read them & I suspect my boys will not be that interested. However there is still the Narnia series and the Dragonlance series (though that one will have to wait until they are 10-12) and my beloved Douglas Adams books (i was teen for those, not a child) and David Eddings Belgariad series. When they get a bit older I will start reading them chapters of these books at night.

Right now though I am enjoying rediscovering the Dr Seuss Early Reader books with them (most books are not Dr Seuss). I loved "A Fish Out of Water", "Put Me in the Zoo" adn "Oh the Thinks You Can Think" when I was learning to read and really love reading them with the boys.

Menu for the next 2 weeks

Tilapia in foil
lasagna rollups
mini meatloaf
veggie soup & sandwiches
chicken & rice stir fry
steak & spinich salad
spaghetti with spinich pesto
veggie fritters
slow cooker BBQ chicken or pork sandwiches
potato frittata
BBQ pizza
orzo with squash

The goal is not to run the oven more than absolutely necessary. The tilapia & steak cook on the grill. The pizza could too if I felt like experimenting. The lasagna may be replaced by burgers, depending on the heat.

Bethy asked about the lack of toys in my family room (See the DSU198 gallery for the photos). This is where a lot of the toys are kept. I just toss everything in there when I want to take pictures :) Most of them are in the playroom/spare bedroom, but a selection of them stay here, in what was our former entryway. When we redid the kitchen 4 years ago we had French doors put in to replace the sliding glass door & now we use them as our main entrance. On the ratehr long to do list of house improvements, the wall on the right will be knocked out, along with the top part over the door frame & that area will be incorporated into the rest of the house. The door will be replaced with a window of some sort.

The gate is there to keep cats out when we are not around. One of them (I suspect Buddah) has been using the area as a litter box off & on ever since we started keeping toys there. I think he has psychological issues.

Public Service Announcement

Before you forward the latest email warning about flashing lights, date rape drugs, online petitions and pepsi cans PLEASE check out www.snopes.com. Your would be recipients will thank you. Actually they won't because if you check these things out you will find that 95% of them are hoaxes. So you probably won't forward them, so your would be recipients will never recieve them, sothey won't know to thankyou for not forwarding the hoax to them. If that makes sense.

My personal mission in life seems to be exposing internet email hoaxes & doing my best to spread the idea these things should be checked out before forwarding. Just because you received it in an email does NOT make it true.

I mention this now because my mom & my SIL, whom I love dearly, are big forwarders. They go through spurts where they forward stuff to me & I respond with snopes links about how it is a hoax. Then after a bit things get quiet & then it starts up again. Recently it has started again, so I am assuming things are making the rounds.

Please check www.snopes.com before you forward. People won't know to thank you, but if they did, they would. :)

If you could go back to school (and time, money, other commitments are not an issue), what would you study and why?


This is an actual possibility for me in a couple of years, once both the boys are in school full time, so I have been giving it a good deal of thought lately. I would go for my Doctorate in Early Modern history, at least I think that is what they are calling the Tudor era now. It was Medieval/Renaisannce in 1989 but I heard they changed it. I have my MA in it. Initially I had planned to be a professor (I want to teach adults who, mostly, want to be in the class), but after 7 years of college I was just burnt out on learning. So I went into the business world as an admin assistant & worked my way into the telecom field & any idea of going back to school left my head. But now I am going to have a chance to start over. If I could just go to school for the heck of it, I would still get my PhD. I just would be more relaxed, knowing I don't have to use it for anything.

Or better still I'd go to cooking school in France or Italy. Vacation & education at the same time. I enjoy cooking most of the time & I think some technique style classes would be good for me.

Speaking of cooking, I am between dinner menus at the moment. I ought to have done a new one over the weekend but was out of town & then it slipped my mind. So dinner has been a bit haphazard lately. Tonight we are having pizza, with a pesto biscuit crust & topped with leftover chicken tenders, zucchini & spinich. I have to use up the fresh mozzerella I bought a few days ago.

I've been tagged

5 things in my fridge: I just cleaned it out so I know this without going to check
Miracle Whip
Hornesby Hard Cider
leftover home made chicken tenders
Welch's grape, blueberry, kiwi juice
spinich

5 items in my closet:
dirty laundry
lots of shoes
lots of purses/bags
a new dress
bathrobe

5 items in my purse: I don't carry a purse but this is what is in my current stuff bag
iPod
wallet
diaper & wipes
"My First Truck" book
notepad

5 items in my car:
iGo charger
carseats
unopened Sprite
empty take out coffee cup
solar veil baby sling

5 people to tag:hmmm....I'll have to check & see who has been tagged already but I'm probably safe naming my friends Jenny, Porn & Critter on Live Journal.

Musings on being a Woman

I was in the store the other day, facing the giant "Wall of Feminine Hygine Products", scanning the boxes, when I noticed how desperate their makers actually are to make themselves stand out in the crowd. A quarter of a century ago, when I first faced the Wall, it was not a Wall. Your choices were small. Stayfree, Kotex or Tampex. The pads that stuck to your underwear & did not require a belt were a new innovation. Then one day there were "wings" on the Stayfree and Always joined the brands. Then the pads got thin. Then they started coming in assorted absorbancies and thus a Wall was born. For the majority of those 25 years I stuck with Tampex & failed to really notice just how many different types of pads there are. Tampons themselves were straining my decision making abilities as it was (scented? cardboard applicator, plastic applicator or no applicator? light, heavy, medium or multi pack?). The whole idea of choosing a pad was just too much & so I always bought Always when I needed some. The hospital where my sons were born sends you home with a couple packages of Always and I stuck with it. But the other day I was waiting for a prescription & had time to contemplate the bounty before me. Every brand has a gimick, but one stood out above all others. On the box of Kotex Ultra Thin (with Leak Lock), in bold letters, is written "SHHHH Quietest Packaging"

Is noisy pad packaging a problem?? Did the results of some poll say "Yeah, we'd like to use your product but that wrapper is just so darn *loud*" Are there women out there concerned about the sound their pad wrapper makes when they open it? I imagine a woman, frozen in a public restroom, needing to change her pad but too embarassed to open the new one because the loud rustling will announce to everyone else in the room "SHE HAS HER PERIOD!" Then I began to wonder if I had ever noticed the sound of pad packaging being opened when I was in a public restroom. I cannot recall. I've never thought about it. You hear noises sometimes from other stalls. I, for one, choose not to speculate on what those noises might signify. Perhaps it is time I started.

I bought the Kotex because I just *had* to know if they were that much quieter. Always has a plastic wrapper that is taped down & sealed up the sides & there is a definate ripping noise when you open it. The Kotex wrapper was more cloth like & thinner, not taped but still sealed up the side. It was much quieter when it was opened. But unless Kotex has pointed it out too me I don't think I would have noticed.

I never thought I would one day be in a bathroom comparing the relative loudness of pad wrappers. It's just not something that ever crosses your mind you might be doing. Cooking dinner? Yeah. Weeding the garden? yeah i thought I'd probably do that. Comparing noisy pad wrapping? no, never.

This is Mike. He is the former owner of the loathed sofa, the inadequate desk and the fairly nice dresser that we now own. I like Mike, which is a good thing because I would otherwise be cursing his name everytime I sat down on the sofa or at the desk. As it is, I often mumble unpleasantries about the person who accepted Mike's offer of the sofa & the desk....DH. Mike is one of his oldest friends & I actually met Mike months before I met DH. He'd been our roommate off & on in our early years in Virginia, but was living in his own place (with his own furniture) when he relocated to California.

This is my computer area. We have an L shaped family room. The computer is in the far corner of the short end of the L. The TV is in the corner where the 2 sides meet and our chairs, bookcase & the loathed sofa are in the long end of the L. The long end also has a sliding glass window on one side & a wood stove in the left top corner. If you go straight out the bottom of the L, you enter the kitchen.

There is a gate around the area to keep the toddlers out. Havoc calls it "Mommy's office" though DH occasionally sets his laptop up on the dresser. Everything in the area is 'temporary' and 'will do for now'. Including the desk. The desk belonged to the same friend who gave us the sofa & my feelings for the desk are similar to my feelings for the sofa. It is inadequate to the task. The desk is from the late 1940's when people and chairs apparently were much narrower than they are today. No chair with arms, currently in existence, will fit in that tiny opening area. Meaning I can either have a chair that gives me arm support or I can have a chair that gets in close enough for me to type comfortably, but not both. The shelving next to the desk is a walmart special. I like the shelving, but something a little less 'garage storage' and a bit more 'family room' looking would be nice. I have a lot of peripherals - printer, scanner, wacom, wireless router & big surge protecting multi plug, plus the CPU itself. So the shelves are a real necessity. I like to have everything handy. There is a little stack of rigged up shelving between the walmart special shelves and the dresser (also a gift from the owner of the sofa. I like it & as soon as I can figure out how to paint or otherwise resurface it, I will love the dresser.) The rigged shelving is made of a night stand, a serving tray and a couple wire cabinet shelves. It holds all my notes, my bills, the lessons & tutorials I have printed out & all the CDs & DVDs. The dresser holds little used, but needs to stay out of small hands, stuff.

I like having the PC in the family room. I can scrap & keep an eye on the boys, or chat with DH. We like having everyone in the same area, even if they are doing different things. DH says he is going to build me an L shaped desk to fit in that corner & that it will have built in shelves on each side going over the top of the desk. He is going to use the existing desk as a base. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out.

The weekend was ok. We went up to the mountains to some property some friends of ours own along a river. It's a very shallow river where they are, up to my waist at most 90% of the time, so it's great for the kids. It was their DD's 3rd b-day and they were having a weekend long camping party. We went up Saturday morning & came back Sunday night. The males camped out, I stayed in a Holiday Inn about 20 minutes away. DH owed me a night alone from when he went camping a month ago & I'm not much on camping, so it worked out well. The little boys had a blast. Havoc's first question was "when can we get in the river?' and spend the rest of the time in the river, complaining that he had to get out, & asking when he could get back in. He also went fishing with DH & caught a fish, though he didn't seem to realize this was a big deal. It was hot, though the water was chilly. It was fun hanging out with our friends but I didn't have much to say & just lounged a lot. The 2 women are yoga instructors (different types of yoga) and talked about classes & things that I had nothing to add to. But it was nice to just be quiet & sit in the woods. They both teach prenatal yoga & one is working on getting a kids' yoga or mommy & baby yoga class together. That got me thinking about a book I got called "Baby Buddahs" which is about teaching meditation to toddlers. I got it because I think Havoc could do with learning to relax & focus. He gets so wound up sometimes, gritting his teeth intensely - not with anger, just with energy. So I decided to finish reading it this weekend when I got home & use some of Havoc's quiet time to teach him about meditating. The kids all played & shrieked together & had a great time & we talked about how we do this group camping thing every year & wondered about what the kids will remember of it as they get older.

It was a long & tiring ride home Sunday night. I had both boys in the car because I was dumb enough to ask who they wanted ride with (DH & I each drove, they slept in his truck bed & I had to drive to the hotel. Dumb, but DH *hates* pitching a tent.) They were asleep within 15 minutes of leaving the campsite. It's a 2.5 hour drive home. Mayhem woke up about 25 minutes from home & cried the rest of the ride because he couldn't find his sippy cup & it was dark, on a windy 2 lane road with no place really safe for me to pull over & try & find it. Havoc slept through it. Mayhem then would not settle to sleep at home. It was almost 10pm when Dh & i got in bed & started watching TV. Mayhem cries for water, cries for company, ends up in our bed by 10:50. He won't settle down & irritates DH so much he gets up & goes to bed in the playroom. I eventually convince Mayhem to go to his bed about midnight, doesn't last. He's back in bed with me by 12:30 & finally drops off at 1am, sideways across our bed. I wake up around 6am, with Mayhem curled next me , his head on my feet & his body at an angle hogging as much of a queen size bed as a 30 inch child can. I sent Havoc, who came in the room, to get Daddy (who got at least 90 minutes more sleep than me) and went back to sleep. Mayhem was up about 8am.

I had a good weekend, but I am a bit worn out. Physically I didn't do much but I just feel mentally drained & i don't know why. I was finally able to find Digital Scrapbooking 5 & look forward to reading through it tonight.

Is creating "beautiful art" more important than the process of creating.
For me it is the process. Most of my hobbies are about the process, though I enjoy getting a beautiful result. I would not cross stitch, crochet or quilt otherwise. I love the process of them. The planning, the cutting, the stitching, watching something whole & formed grow out of scattered pieces. I feel the same way about digi scrapping. The process of making all the parts into a whole is what fascinates me. Sure I love it when the results are admired by others. But if I didn't find the process more important, the odds are I wouldn't do it.

We're going up to WV to celebrate a the birthday of a friend's DD. They are having a weekend long camping party at some property they own in the mountains, along a river. Dh & the boys will be camping. I will be not camping. I have a room at a hotel about 20 minutes away. I don't like camping. But the hotel is mostly because DH owes me a night alone & this is a convenient way for me to get it. He went camping with his buddies a month ago & we agreed I get a night in a hotel in exchange.

morning thoughts

When I woke up, or when I got up? These are 2 different times separated by about 2.5 hours. Mayhem woke me up at shortly after 5am when he came in our room& climbed in our bed. My thought at the time was "Please God let him go back to sleep.", which is what I think every morning that he comes into our room before 6am. And as usual he did not go back to sleep. After about 30 minutes of him tossing around & playing & occasionally snuggling up to me, I told him to go watch TV and he did. So i went back to drowse while DH got up at 6 & got Mayhem breakfast. I actually got out of bed at 7:30am, when DH leaves for work. My first thought then was "I am going to the gym today & I mean it." I haven't been all week because of Havoc's recent separation anxiety. Its been growing on him slowly for a month or more but he's been downright hysterical about it this week. He tells me he is afraid he will miss me. So we have spent the last few days doing other things. But I like going to the gym & try to get there 3 days a week. He's gone through these periods before & periods where he gets upset when we *don't* go to the gym. When we talked about it last night he seemed to be getting upset just to see what my reaction would be, not because he was really upset. So I was determined to go this morning & if he pitched a real fit when we got there I'd deal then.

Never made it to the gym. Never made it 500 yards from my driveway. Flat tire. Turned around & came back to the house, tried to change it, couldn't get the bolts off. I used to be able to do that. I've changed every one of my flat tires & that is about 10, in my life. This is my second flat in 5 weeks. I had to get help changing that one from a guy who was willing to actually *help* as opposed to offering me his cell phone. Dude, if I had someone to call I would have done it before I jacked the car up. ::rolls eyes:: Don't know what has happened to my upper body strength. I even work out specifically on that. So DH is going to get an air tank from the repair place at lunch & coming home to inflate the tire so it can be driven in & they can fix it. I think he thinks I am going to do that..... The boys will be napping when he gets here. By the time they wake up & we get there, it will be 3pm & there is no point at all in arriving there at 3pm because they will never actually get to me & what the heck am I supposed to do with 2 toddlers In a gas station repair waiting room the size of the inside of my car?

How do you handle good byes?

I don't enjoy them but there have been few final good byes in my life. Apart from my mother in law, the people that I have lost to death, went when I was not there to say good bye. Saying good bye to MIL was very hard for me. I cried a lot.

A few people have moved out of my life to a new job or a new place, but even then, it was a physical goodbye, we could still keep in touch & while I was sad they wouldn't be there to hang out with, knowing we can still chat on email made it easier.

I try to remain upbeat about good byes, even the final ones, because while a door is closing for me, it is opening for someone else. And when I am the one moving on to a new job or a new location, the door is opening for me & new beginnings are a good thing.

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An update on the chocolate bars. I left out the ECLIPSE dark chocolate bar, 87% cacao & entirely too bitter for my taste, though DH loves it. I think chopped fine, melted & mixed with milk & a tiny bit of sugar it would make a great cup of hot chocolate. But as an eating chocolate, it is just too bitter.

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I've started typing these entries in my Life Journal program first & then copying them to blogger. I've been doing it the other way around & I get lazy & am now 3 months behind on copying things into Life Journal. It is some really incredible journal software. I've had for 4 years now. I go through periods where I never use it & periods where I record everything in it. It has topics & keywords to highlight parts of your entries so you can search later for things. Iit lets you specialize your entries so you can keep your spiritual journal entries separate from your exercise log or your daily entries It helps you enter you life history, your personal time line, has a daily pulse (energy, happiness, stress plus customizable options, I track my weight), plus a graph so you can track how your pulse categories are doing. It gives you prompts & quotes to write from. Apparently they now have specialized versions of the software as well. If you are into journaling or just want to keep your blogging somewhere you can back up, this is a good way to do it. http://www.lifejournal.com

some pricy chocolate

I love Dagoba Organic dark chocolate bars. They are kinda pricy $3-4 a 2oz bar but they are so good & they are slow eating chocolate. They are not Hershey's that you can just eat without really thinking. The dark chocolate bars *demand* you sit & pay attention to them & 2 small pieces is really all you need at a sitting. They come in an assortment of flavors but I have to go out of my way to find them just in general, & I have not come across all the flavors yet. These are my favorites

New Moon 75% cacao
Roseberry
and Lavender,which is not available individually on their website for some reason. It's a lavender essence with blueberries in it. Sounds weird but tastes good.

I have not encountered the XOCOLATL, which has chilis, the MON CHERI or the LIME flavored ones. The plain DARK is ok, but I prefer a Hershey's Special Dark.

I amnot fond of their milk chocolate flavors. I've tried the LATTE and the CHAI & was disappointed both times. Too sweet & bland & the spicing was too strong. I have not tried the HAZELNUT, BRASILIA or PURE MILK because I have not seen them yet.

So if you are looing for some good, bittersweet chocolate bars, the kind you indulge in when you have 10 minutes to slowly nibble your way uninterrupted through a couple of pieces, try the Dagoba bars. They are worth the price.

Pets

We had a few pets when I was growing up. They all arrived in the house when I was between 6-10 and I don't really recall which arrived first or if there was overlap.. We had a couple hamsters. Mine was named Princess. I can't remember what my brother named his. Princess had some babies at one point but they didn't live. We had a fish tank. We had that for a while. Lots of different fish in it at various points. I only remember Mr Cat, the catfish, though. We also had a dog. A minature schnauzer. Her name was Puppet. I was 7 or 8 when we got her. She was supposed to be the family dog, but she was really my mom's dog. That dog worshipped my mom. I remember dressing the dog up in baby doll clothes sometimes. Puppet died when I was in college.

The first pet I ever had as an adult were hamsters again. I had them for a couple of years in college because even 'no pets' apartments would take hamsters (and they were cheaper than fish tanks).

Scent

The smell that reminds me most of childhood is a mix of the perfume Chanel No5 & this perfumed talc powder(but I don't know what the name of it was) . My mom wore it all the time. So did both my grandmothers. When I smell it now I can picture thier bedrooms in the mid-70's, the colors, the furniture, even all the bottles & brushes they had laid out on their dressing tables. They had dressing tables....They sat down at them & did their hair & make up every day. I cannot imagine doing that now. I do everythign standing the bathroom, usually in a rush.

My parents are visiting this weekend & brought me a stack of photos from the 60's & 70's of them & me. Some of the photos smell like this mixture.

Childhood play

When I was little I loved playing with dolls or playing with Weebles or the lego people. I loved creating stories about them & acting those stories out, making them talk & walk around & do things. I would get together with a couple of friends & we would either play with dolls in someone's basement or we'd go outside with the Weebles & lego people and build a fort, house, boats, etc for them out of sand, rocks, dirt, legos & lincoln logs, then have a great adventure with them. I remember I had the Weeble treehouse & the Weeble cowboy set & my friend Alexis had a Weeble pirate island and some one else had a RV type set & we'd set them all up and have Weeble village. These were different Weebles than what they sell now, these were egg shaped, weighted on the bottom and had a piece of paper wrapped around them under a piece of clear plastic. The paper had their face & costume printed on it & if you got the Weebles wet, water would seep in and the pictures would run. I had a tape recorder, one of those 70's era black rectangular things with the huge buttons on one end you see in period cop shows during interregation scenes. We'd use it to record us playing with the Weebles.

favorite words

I wasn't sure which way to go with this - meaningful, fun, by sound...I love a lot of words for different reasons. But here are the 5 I came up with & why.

1. LUNCH - my philosophy of life revolves around lunch. It is the thing I miss most as a SAHM (apart from soft smooth hands). Douglas Adams, in "Life, the Universe & Everything " wrote about a group called The Holy Lunching Friars on Vondoon - The Holy Lunching Friars of Voondon claim that just as lunch is at the centre of a man's temporal day, and man's temporal day can be seen as an analogy for his spiritual life, so Lunch should (a) be seen as the centre of a man's spiritual life, and (b) be held in jolly nice restaurants This is what I believe as well.

2. NAPTIME - because that is when LUNCH is going to occur if I get one at all (but no jolly nice restaurant)

3. DEFENESTRATION - it means to throw someone out of the window & it has always struck me as funny (In both sense of the word) that this word exists. It's existance means that people were being thrown out of windows often enough that they needed a word for it. This is the part that strikes me as bizzar. However, for some reason I don't understand, this word reminds me of Monty Python's Flying Circus, which is why it makes me laugh

4. MOMMY - I never thought anyone would say it to me and I love to hear it. Though perhaps without the annoying whine as in "I want some juice please MMOOOOMMMMMYYYYY." a dozen times in a row because they were too busy whining to hear me when I said "ok" after the first time.

5. MILK - I just like the way it sounds. It sort of just rolls off the tongue

comfort foods

Homemade cookies or muffins. Meatloaf. Fried egg & bacon sandwiches. When I eat for comfort I reach for high fat food because there is no comfort in broccoli.

I am eating one of my faves right now. Homemade chocolate chip cookies spread with a strawberry cream cheese & yogurt dip. It has yogurt in it therefore it is healthy right? It's a great dip for apple & pear slices, pineapple chunks (fresh) and strawberries. Havoc is eating it with apples at the moment. I am hoping that I can start a pattern that fruit is comfort for him

Havoc is covered in poison ivy. The spots started appearing slowly Sunday & we were not sure if they were just bites. Then more Monday, started hydrocortison cream, yesterday he was one big rash. His arms, his face, his neck, his stomach, the backs of his legs, his private parts. He just healed up from it on his butt. The doc gave us some oral steroids to clear it up plus I have to put hydrocortison on it & anti-itch stuff. Poor kid, no wonder he has been so whiny lately.

bad habits

I shout too much at the kids & I take DH for granted. I try to work on these things - keeping my voice calm, imagining I have a studio audience watching my deal with my kids, telling DH thank you often, commenting that I appreciate that he did whatever it was. But then after a few days I am back to shouting in irritation & ignoring DH's efforts.

I live with 3 people who are absolutely incapable of cleaning up after themselves or finding a darn thing by themselves. Granted two of them 3 and 2 years old but when the shoe is right in front of him I should not have to come in from the kitchen, where I am attempting to cut veggies for dinner, pick it up and hand the shoe to the 2 year old who apparently cannot look down. This happens all day and is why I end up shouting & am not really appreciative that DH made cookies (because of the mess left behind him).

But I am working on it. I resolve every morning that I won't raise my voice to my children in any form that I would not wish to hear addressed to myself and that I will thank my husband when he does things (He thanks me all the time) Many days I manage to do this. Some days I've failed by 9am. Most days I have about a 70-80% success rate.

eta - Heather, bunco is a dice game, played with 3 dice at 3 tables of 4 people. You roll for certain numbers every round & you get points for various combinations. And at the end of every round points are added up & people move around to different tables. Everyone pays in $5 and at teh end of 15 rounds points are totalled and the money dividedup among winners in different categories. It's a lot of fun. I play it monthly with some women from my MOPS (mothers of toddlers/preschoolers) group

Menu for the next 2 weeks

in no particular order:

broiled salmon
salmon patties (with leftovers)
deep dish pizza or calzone (toppings dependant on leftovers)
hamburgers on the grill (Saturday)
chicken with rice
spaghetti
london broil
pork loin crock pot
grilled chicken
veggie soup & sandwiches
baked ziti
steak & spinich salad (leftover london broil)

I think we will have the pasta tonight, since it is too late to start the pork. Tomorrow night is bunco at my house, so DH & the boys will go out to eat. I'll make a sandwich. I'm going to have veggies & dip, guacamole & chips and the Cafe's spinich & artichoke dip with bread, plus cookies, for bunco. My folks will be here Friday & we'll probably get Chinese take out. Saturday we'll do the burgers and one day the weekend after that I am owed a Mother's Day dinner. So technically I should have more plans than actual meals. we'll see.

my weekend

Saturday I spread out the gravel for the pool area while DH was off on the tractor buying a backhoe attachment from a guy a mile or so away. Havoc was in ecstacy when DH came back with the backhoe on the tractor. We hadn't told him about it so he was really surprised. "My backhoe tractor!!! My backhoe tractor!! You got me my backhoe tractor that i've always wanted!! Fank you Daddy Fank you!!!!" Then it rained before DH was able to do more than make a couple test digs with Havoc on his lap. But it was enough. Later we went to a cookout that was hosted by the preschool Havoc will be attending in the fall. Havoc is in a shy & fearful phase right now, make worse by the fact that he has always been a bit shy & reluctant to try new things. So he stuck by us most of the time & wouldn't not go on any of the rides, but he did pet the animals & watched the (very LOUD) puppet show. The food was ok.

Sunday I slept in until 9am. That was it for my Mother's Day celebration. We did some work around the yard in the morning, not much though since it rained all day. I had my bi-monthly meeting in the afternoon & then DH had to go interview someone who apparently could only meet him at 6pm on Mother's Day. ::Rollseyes:: He got home just in time for storytime. I loaded "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdaine on my iPod & went to bed.

Super power?

I'd have a super memory. I'd be able to recall with clarity & detail what I wanted to recall (Havoc's first smile, the first time Mayhem said Mommy) and not recall very well the things I don't want to (the flame war I started over Mother's Day on an elist, the car accident on our way to FL).

I have a very good memory, but a rather vague & fuzzy one as well. I don't trust myself to recall details well of some things (like some incidents on message boards, dates of the kings of France, people's birthdays, grocery lists) but I remember lots of other things (other incidents on message boards, dates of the kings of England, how much my first job paid me [$1.20 an hour], what I ordered at restaurants I visited in another state 5 years ago) There is no real rhyme or reason to what I remember. I have periods of having a great memory & periods of having a really bad memory & I never know which I am in until it's too late.

So a super memory, with an edit feature would be awesome.

If I had the day off tomorrow....

I'd sleep in. Then I would go to IHOP for breakfast - alone. Then I would go to the bookstore & browse as long as my heart desired. After that I would go try on pants, skirts & bras in a variety of stores (I really need bras). Followed by lunch, at Quiznos. Then I would come home to a preferably empty house (I'd have to travel at least 45 minutes to do any of the shopping & eating I mentioned) and digi scrap for a bit or maybe work on my cross stitch. I'd make myself some dinner without having to consider the likes & dislikes of the other 3 people in my life - cream of mushroom soup with toast covered in mushroom boloagnese sauce and a spring salad with goat cheese. (DH hates mushrooms & goat cheese. The toddlers only like breaded chicken strips or spinich salad.) Last I'd have a nice long soak (in a tub somebody else cleaned while I was out) and climb into bed to read a good book before falling asleep.

Now, if DH had the day off tomorrow I'd like for us to take the kids up to the National Zoo & spend the day there. His idea of a day off though would probably involve sleeping in & then doing things with power tools or the tractor.

A tasty recipie

One of my favorite meals is a chicken & potato salad combo I've been making for a few years now. It is loosely based on a recipie in "Cooking for Two" by Suzi Smith (1996) called "Grilled Chicken Salad with sour cream dressing". I'll give the book version at the end, but first some commentary.

1. The original recipie has you mix the chicken, avocados, bacon & tomatoes together with the dressing & serve on a bed of spinich with potatoes on the side. I mix all of it together with the dressing at once.

2. I prefer to use sweet potatoes rather than white ones. They taste better. They add a nice flavor that you don't get with white potatoes. They are also more nutritious. It's still good with white potatoes but its better with sweet ones. Try the sweet potatoes. They are not just for pie & marshmellowy Thanksgiving side dishes. Really, they are wonderful in savory dishes.

3. Steam the potatoes, whichever you use, if at all possible. The flavor is much better than boiled.

4. If you are serving this chilled, mix the chicken & potatoes with half the dressing & let chill, then add the other ingredients & the rest of the dressing before serving. It is also very good warm

5. The easiest way to make this is to use planned leftovers. Grill some extra chicken for it when you make grilled chicken for dinner. Or if you are roasting a chicken, roast a slightly larger one than you normally would. Leftover turkey is also delicious in this. White & dark meat both work well.

6. The base recipie serves 2-3 people & it scales up easily. This is a great dish for pot lucks & picnics.

Some other things I change from the original when I make it:
I leave out the tomatoes because I don't like raw tomatoes.
I've used Miracle Whip when I haven't had any sour cream. It adds a nice zip. Regular mayo is not as good IMO
I experiment with the vinegar, my favorite is garlic wine, tarragon is second.
I often leave out the garlic clove in the dressing & marinate the chicken in garlic & olive oil before grilling.
I prefer prosciutto to bacon when I remember to get it.
I've left the spinich out many times & don't miss it a bit

Recipie: - serves 3
12oz chicken - cooked & cut into bite sized pieces
equal weight in potatoes (white or sweet) cooked & cut into bite sized pieces
3 slice cookd bacon crumbled
2 small tomatoes - diced
1 ripe avocado - diced
5ozs spinich or arugula

Dressing: (coats 3 servings)
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 teaspoon Dijon
1 clove garlic
salt & fresh ground peppper to taste

color

My favorite color is purple - big surprise I am sure :). My blog is mostly purple, I am wearing something purple in my avis, 95% of the pages I do about me involve purple. I just really like purple. For some never adequately explained reason, this bothered the heck out of my family when I was a child. "Oh of course you chose the purple shirt." "Purple again?" "How about some other color than purple?". It's not like my wardrobe was all purple. I don't really recall have much of anything that was purple clothing-wise, because they always stopped me from getting it. My room was pink or peach (I never really had a say in what color it was) & I don't remember having many purple toys. So I am not certain where this idea of theirs came from. And I often wonder if they would have said it if my favorite color was pink or green?

This "Oh why not choose something other than purple, you have so much purple already." mentality stuck with me until I was 37. I would shy away from buying things that were purple because I had 'so much' purple stuff anyway. Then when I was pregnant with DS2, so soon after DS1, I went through my clothes & packed a bunch up & gave loads away. And I noticed something.... 90% of my wardrobe was green, black or blue - the colors I prefered when I wanted something other than purple. 3 out of 5 rooms in my house are green. One is blue & the other a pinkish grey (and they were painted those colors by the previous owners). There are some small purplish flowers in a wallpaper border in my kitchen, which is green & white. My folks commented "I see you got your purple in there." huh? So where had this myth that everything I own is purple come from and what do my parents have against purple? I never have gotten a straight answer from them. The fact that I liked wearing a particular purple dress when I was 3 seems an insuffient explanation for 35 more years of anti-purpleness on their part.

So I started buying things that were purple & telling that part of my mind that warned me against it to shut up already. I am not going to wait until I am an old woman to wear purple. I am going to do it NOW. (though I probably will not wear a red hat with it)

feeling optomistic

I'm feeling good about a number of things.

DH has the frame for the playset canopy built & it just needs to be bolted permanently together & installed on the playset. As it is taking up our entire 'yard' area I am feeling optimistic that he will finish this task by this weekend. He can hardly move it out of the way to begin something else.

The part that got broken on the tractor 2 weeks ago has been replaced & I am feeling optimistic that I might actually be able to keep the place mowed this summer & we now have a weed trimmer too.

I have come up with a way to keep track of kits/designers/fonts used on my layouts. I've been reading about people putting a hidden text layer in the layout itself so you can read it when you open it up in PSP/PS. Tried that. Doesn't work for me. For a while I was really good about putting everything in PSP's 'image information' area but again, I don't keep up with it. It came to me today how to keep track of all this data, because I actually thought the word 'data' and not 'kit' or 'information'. The best place to keep track of data is in a database! Or failing that - a SPREADSHEET. Well, duh! And I am a spreadsheet person. I put everything in to Excel spreadsheets, don't know why it took me 6 months to think of it. I even havea column of little 100x100 thumbnails of the layouts so I can print it out & know at a glance - date, title, filename, kit, designer, font, challenge/reason, gallery posted to adn 'other info'. So I am feeling optomistic about finally keep accurate track of what kit I used in what layout.

Music

What music do I like? I admit to a partiality for 80's music - pop, metal, hair bands, alternative, but I was 13 in 1980 and 80's music is *my* music so I dont' apologize (though several friends thing I should :)) I also love Celtic music (clannad, gaelic storm) and medieval inspired music (Blackmore's Night & Loreena McKennit). I am not a fan of country music but everyone around here is. I have not kept up with mainstream music. I hear random songs that i like (on a radio station called SAM I pick up in the car) but I have no idea what Brittany Spears sings or Emminem's latest is called or who Puff Daddy is. I goto iTunes every so often & only ever recognize maybe one of the names on that are on the main page. I don't really care, eventually the boys will start listening to it & then I will too.

I listen to my iPod at the gym, though mostly audiobooks because listening to a good murder mystery motivates me to stay on the elliptical machine more than Duran Duran or the Scorpions do. I like to have music playing sometimes when I am making dinner, cleaning or scrapping. I put the 'modern rock alternative' Sirrus station on the TV (comes with DISH), but now I have DirecTV & need to figure out what XM stations to listen too. I've been listening to less music since the boys were born because I now appreciate silence in a way I never used to before. :)

Sofa Photos

the horrid sofa with the old sofa cover I just replaced. There are a gagillion pillows on the sofa because the back & arms are basically just 2x4's covered with a thin padding & very uncomfortable.


the horrid sofa with the new sofa cover & additional padding. I liek the cover & I like the sofa with all the padding. But, the padding consists of 2 old body pillows, a crib bumper, a half a dzoen old sheets, some quilt batting and some old table cloths. They are not going to stay in place & even 2 days into it have had to be reshifted back where they belong more times than I can count. But when they are in place they are comfy. This is the more or less what i want in a sofa, only with the padding stitched & attached into place. If it had a fold out bed that would be good too.

humor

The prompt for the weekend is post your favorite joke & tell why it is your favorite.

I LOVE puns! I love wordplay. I love something that makes you have to pause for a second & think. I love that they make you groan and giggle at the same time. These are a few of my current favorite puns

=======================
A botanist was trying to research some details about a particular kind of fern, so he sent a request to all his collegues, asking them to send him any information they had about it.

Unfortunately, he didn't word his request very well, and all the botanists he'd contacted thought he was looking for details about any ferns, rather than just the one species. So within just a few hours of sending it out, his fax machine was buzzing with piles of useless documents about all kinds of ferns - there were tree ferns and wood ferns, ostrich ferns and cinnamon ferns... but very few about the particular type he wanted.

So he sent another message to everyone:

If it ain't bracken, don't fax it.


==================================
An enterprising journalist decided to get the scoop of the day by photographing the fearsome phantom that lived in the spooky old mansion house at the edge of town.

When he entered the house, armed with only his camera, the ghost decended upon him, moaning and wailing and clanking chains.

"I mean no harm; I just want your photograph," the journalist said bravely.

Pleased at this chance to make headlines, the ghost posed for a number of shots, and the happy journalist rushed back to his darkroom and began developing the photos.

Unfortunately, they turned out to be so underexposed that nothing could be seen in them.

He was distraught, and went to a local pub to drown his sorrows. Meeting his friends there, they asked what was wrong. Not wanting to tell the whole story, he simply explained with a single sentence: ......

"The spirit was willing, but the flash was weak."


===============================================
A debt collector knocked on the door of a country family, that made their living weaving cloth.
"Is Jack home?" he asked the woman who answered the door.
"Im sorry," the woman replied. "Jack's gone for cotton."

A few weeks later the collector tried again. "Is Jack here today?"
Once again the answer was "No, sir, I'm afraid he has gone for cotton."

When he returned for the third time and Jack was still nowhere to be seen, he complained, "I suppose Jack is gone for cotton again?"
"No," the woman answered solemnly, "Jack died yesterday."

Suspicious that he was being avoided, the collector decided to wait a week and investigate the cemetery himself. But sure enough, there was poor Jack's tombstone, with this inscription: ...

"Gone, But Not for Cotton."


=====================================
Several years ago, Andy was sentenced to prison. During his stay, he got along well with the guards and all his fellow inmates. The warden knew that, deep down, Andy was a good person. So, the warden made arrangements for the inmate to learn a trade while doing his time.

Some three years later, Andy was recognized as one of the best carpenters in the local area. Often, he would be given a weekend pass to do odd jobs for citizens of the community. And he always reported back to prison by early Sunday evening. Andy was a model inmate.

One day, the warden considered remodeling his kitchen, though he lacked the skills to build a set of kitchen cupboards and a large counter top. So he called Andy into his office and asked him to do the job for him.

To the warden's surprise, Andy simply refused to help.

"But you're an expert, Andy, and I really need your help," said the warden.

"Gosh, warden, I'd really like to help you, but counter fitting is what got me into prison in the first place."

Accomplishments

There haven't been many lately for me. But I am not really trying to accomplish anything much at the moment either.

I finally mopped the kitchen floor last night. Even used Pine Sol instead of baking soad & soap so it smells clean too.

I got some decent work in on my cross stitch project.

I remembered to cancel DISH before they billed us for another year of service. Direct TV is coming today to install.

I didn't lose my temper with the boys while they were running like little demons all around the stores when I was shopping yesterday.

I did manage to get to the gym today.

I have root canal part 2 in about 2 hours and I have managed to not freak out so far this week about it. Which has me worried. I spent the better part of 10 days stressed out & terrified about part 1 and it didn't hurt a bit, except for the shot. what if the pain you feel is inversly proportional to the fear you experience & because I am calm about it now I will be in agony during it? Logically I know that is rediculous but that idea has always had a small part in my thought process when dealing with things I am afraid of - if I am afraid *enough* then it won't be so scary

I DESPISE MY SOFA!

Really. I loathe the thing. Always have. We got it 3rd hand, for free. from a friend who was moving out of town 6 years ago. We'd been talking about needing a new sofa beacuse the one we had was falling apart & DH comes home & says "Sofa problem is solved! Mike is giving us his!" I so wanted to kill Mike right then. I didn't like the sofa when it was his. I really detest it now that it is mine & with every passing year I detest it more (if that is possible). It isn't comfortable. It is ugly. The staples from the recovering that was doen to it before Mike got it are coming loose.

It is on my mind at the moment because I just bought my 3rd sofa cover for it today. It has a flat top & skinny flat arms. No sofa cover in the universe is made for this shape sofa. They all are made for sofas with high backs & puffy arms, so I end up tucking in yards of fabric (that never stays tucked) or suffing old pillows and blankets in the spaces to make it puff some & they never stay in place either. We have pieces of plywood under the seat cushions because it has lost it's firmness.

Given my rather strong opinions on this sofa you may be asking yourself "Why has she been suffering with this sofa for 6 years if she despises it so much?" And well you might ask!! The horrid thing is still in our living room because DH cannot see spending $800-1000 to replace what he calls "A perfectly good sofa." He managed to justify spending $500 on another chainsaw when we already have what I would call "A perfectly good chainsaw." So now we have 2 chainsaws, but he just doesn't see my point about the sofa.

So I think one of these days there may be an accident involving one of these chainsaws and the sofa, which will then no longer be "perfectly good."

Where do I want to go?

There are 2 places I want to go that I am likely to actually go to:

1. Walt Disney World - and stay on Disney property, in a suite, with a jacuzzi.

2. LasVegas - and stay at the Venetian, Luxor or Excaliber, in a suite, with a jacuzzi.

I also want to travel around Europe for a couple of months, touring and staying in nice hotels, with suites & jacuzzis wherever possible. :)

The hotel is a good part of the experience for me. I don't enjoy trips as much if I am spending my nights at the local Bates motel.

Where I am actually going this month - camping in WV - no suites, no jacuzzis, no plumbing whatsoever. I don't like camping. It doesn't fit my 'suites with jacuzzis' vacation ideals.

I must admit however, that I have only very rarely actually stayed in suites or had a jacuzzi in a hotel room. Aside from getting lucky on a few business trips, I have only twice actually paid for such a room. But i would dearly love to do it more often. "Standard room, non smoking 2 queens" a the Comfort Inn is my usual room.

At last, I scrapped!

My first layout in over 2 weeks! It is a scraplift of 'Muches' by Lisa Swift from the CK top 10 new faces. It uses Amy Blesser's Daddy's Ties papers and I did it for the DET Boot Camp challenge. I've had it in mind to do this layout for awhile I just hadn't found the right photo.

Tuesday's prompt is...

Right now you should be doing ______ instead of being on the computer.

My answer: NOTHING! For once I am on the computer during my regularly scheduled computer time. There are things that need doing, but now is not the time for doing them. The boys are napping & that means this is *my* time. No cleaning gets done during my time unless the Spirit moves me - it rarely does.:)

common ground

I don't think I really had any hobbies or interests I shared with my mom while I was growing up. We both read a lot, but that is about it. The main 'thing' I remember my mom being really into doing when I was a kid was puzzles. She still is. She puts together those 2 sided 1000 piece puzzles with no photo to go by. I've never been that into jigsaw puzzles. I don't remember her doing any 'crafty' hobbies. She didn't sew unless it was to hem something, never crocheted or knitted or cross stitched. She cooked because she had to, not because she particularly enjoyed it. She played bridge with the neighborhood women & she now plays tennis. Mom was always busy with things. She belonged to various organizations & was usually the treasurer or committee chairman. I think that was like a hobby to her. Ihave no interest in that.

I learned to sew & crochet & cross stitch from my grandmothers. I learned to cook on my own. I hope to share my interest in cooking with the boys. I'm going to teach them to sew too.

Ahhhh...sleep!

Meg, Beth, I would love to get together with you all for a margarita!

DH came home a bit earlier than I expected yesterday and was up for a trip to Chili's. I had the Chambord 1800 margarita. I think I like the strawberry-mango better. The boys were actually very well behaved. Though Havoc did scare us half to death a little later when he just vanished in the Lowe's. He came back to the cart while we were off looking for him. Apparently he had seen something he just *had* to examine. We told him he has to ask us from now on. Priced stoves & washers & dryers. I didn't realize you can get stackables with front load washers! Our current side by side set is 11 years old. The dryer has been having issues but the washes is good for now. We just wanted prices. But now that I know they are available I told DH to just plan on buying the stackabled. The price is the same as a standard front loader (about $800) and I am adamant about getting a front loader when the time comes.

Went to bed at 11pm and no little boys joined us all night long!! First time in 2 weeks! Havoc got up sometime between 6-6:30a. He came in the room about 6:30a talking about Little Bear & we are not sure if he was talking about a dream he had or a show he watched. DH got up, got him some breakfast & dozed on the couch for a bit while Havoc ate. Mayhem got up at almost 7:30! Then DH got them dressed & took them for McD's and to the Tractor Supply store to look for a part the Kubota needs. I slept until 9am! It was beautiful!

The secret of getting there is knowing where to start

I've known since April 1 that I had to have that mini album done by the 30th. I started working on it when? The 26th? Starting is very often my problem. I nearly always plan to start something 'later'. I'll even give a specific date sometimes. "I'll start that diet Monday." "I'll start that new budget on payday." and I usually do start when I say I will. I just rarely start something right away.

I suppose I do need to figure out when to start the carpet cleaning or it will never get clean.

I had about 3 hours of sleep last night. Mayhem came in the room about 2:45a and was restless until almost 5:30a,when he finally fell asleep hogging almost half the bed (which is amazing considering he is 2 and not even 3 feet tall). Havoc came in about 4:45a and never really settled down to sleep again. He just played until I told him to go in the living room around 6am. Then he popped in and out of the bedroom every 20 minutes or so to tell me what was on TV. He finally woke Mayhem up about 7am & they both demanded breakfast. Mommy was NOT happy for a long time this morning. Coffee & cinanmon rolls helped eventually.

I want to go out to dinner tonight but DH will be getting home around 5 and I doubt he will be in the mood to go anyplace. Maybe I will go out to dinner all by myself. I haven't done that in ages. But then I can't have a margarita...

I believe...

...if these boys don't nap soon I am going to start pulling my hair out
...this is possibly the longest I have gone without creating a layout since I discovered digi scrapping in Aug 05
...there is a Higher power & many ways to connect with it
...that we are going to have a great Beltaine ritual & party on Sunday
...that little boys can be just as cuddly as little girls
...they are probably stickier than girls though
...Kerry wouldn't be doing much better of a job if he'd won (I voted Libertarian)
...our county administrators are a bunch of self-serving idiots, by & large, who are afraid to make any actual decisions because it might make a few people upset with them. Everything has been refered for 'study' AGAIN. I don't care if they decide the opposite of what I want, just DECIDE ALREADY!!
...my kitchen floor really needs scrubbed & my carpets shampooed
...that I will do cross stitch this evening instead of cleaning floors
...I am not going to get much sleep tonight with DH being gone camping
...that I deserve a couple nights alone away from home too
...I will make reservations at the Marriott an hour away for next month
...I am procrastinating finishing those last 4 pages of my mini album

My life

I think I would call it routine. It's also fairly quiet & occasionally a bit dull but I like it that way. When things get exciting it usually seems to involve a trip to the ER. So I prefer boredom. :)

The women in my MOPS group always tell me "You always have everything so organized in your life. You are right on top of it all." I guess I appear to have it more together than I actually do.

and typing this post just reminded me that I was supposed to call a woman for MOPS on Monday & find out what she would like in her gift basket, so I can get it bought for next week's meeting. But I had my day to make dinner for another MOPS mom who just gave birth, switched around on me to Monday, throwing my plans off. I am organized but only as long as nothing alters my plans.

What physical item can make or break your day?

That would be coffee. I must must must have a cup of (non-instant) coffee with real milk & real sugar. No subsititutes allowed. It can be decaf, I don't need the caffine. I need the familiarity, the ritual, the taste & the smell of a cup of coffee. Or I am going to be cranky at least until noon.

I *need* to get my brag book quick pages done this week. Yet I am doing everything I can to put it off.

When I grow up

When I was little I knew exactly what my dream job would be. I wanted a desk job. That is right. I wanted to be an office worker. I wanted a 9-5 job that when 5pm came around I could walk away from it, not bring work home. I wanted weekends off, 5 sick days and 2 paid weeks of vacation every year. Occasional overtime was acceptable but I did not want a job that would be my life. There was just nothing I felt that passionate about. I wanted a job to pay the bills & finance whatever interest I currently had. I wanted regularity of hours so I could plan my 'real' life easily around it.

I went to work in an office at 23 and held several intersting and not so interesting positions beofre I found my dream job. I worked as a telecom analyst for 800flowers in one of their call centers for 3 years. I was responsible for the call routing & system monitoring the agents performace. I analyzied the systems reports, helped plan staffing needs and the budget. I was paid well for my time 8:30a-5p and paid very well for any time after that. I could surf the web to my hearts content & as long as my work was done no one could ever really say I was goofing off because most of the people near me had no idea what I was really doing. I really really enjoyed my job, even the frustrations were amuzing, because it was exactly the job I had always wanted. I left it when my son was born & I don't regret it. I had planned to go back to work but my child care arrangements fell through & I realized I was actually kinda happy about it.

Now I am a SAHM. My oldest starts school 3 mornings a week this fall. My youngest will do that next year and the year after that both boys will be in school all week. I have started thinking about what I will do then. My old job is gone, reorganized away a year or so ago. So I can't go back to it. Having already done what I wanted to do, I am sort of at a loss on where to turn now. The 9-5 thing no longer answers my needs.

Pets

I have 3 cats. 2 of them are 13 years old and one is 10. One of them, not sure who, has decided that my bathmat & the towel hamper are their litter box. Needless to say, I have been *very* unhappy with the cats. The 2 olders ones are the prime suspects as they have done it before with other objects in the house. If the little has done it, I have never caught her at it. They have just been to the vet so I know nothing physical is wrong with them. There is no way to totally wash out cat urine, so cats can't smell it, so I have thrown out the hamper & the bathmat. This makes 5 bathmats in less than 2 years, in just my bathroom. I've tossed at least one in the main bathroom as well. A couple of times they did get shut in there by a toddler so I view it as an accident but this time I *know* the door was open because I've started propping it open. The vet says it may be psychological & if it becaomes a constant problem there is feline prozac available. One of them already takes thyroid meds. I don't think it is financially possible for us to put 2 cats on prozac. They are indoor/outdoor cats & now that it is warm again Ithink maybe they will just spend more time outdoors.

I haven't scrapped in 10 days. I want to scrap, but I am not feeling inspired at the moment. I've got a bunch of sketches & layout for lifiting & several interest me but none of my photos are saying "pick me! pick me!" So I have been playing with my camera. Its an Olympus Camedia5000 Zoom. I've had it for a year now. I just discovered how I can control the f stop & ISO. I didn't think I had that much adjustment ability.

It was my idea to square off & widen the area where our ring pool sits. So it is me who has to dig out the trench for the new edging (more railroad ties). Then I get to rake around the sand already ther & level it for the new pebbles we are going to use. The cats use the sand as a litterbox outside so something else needs to be used. Apparently they find the pebbles uncomfortable. Then I have to dig the trench for new edge of the yard/parking area. So it will be me, a pick axe and a shovel this week at naptime.

forgiveness

That is the topic for this weekend's prompt. That got me thinking about the last paragraph of my previous entry, which I wrote not knowing there was a prompt this weekend. Can you forgive people for frequently irritating you? Do you need to? Is it a big enough issue to warrent a 'forgiveness' as a opposed to just shaking your head, accepting that this person irritates you, and moving on. Is accepting & moving on in itself forgiveness? That is more or less what you do when you forgive someone. You accept what happened & move on. I can't say that I have often said "I forgive you" to anyone. I've said "It happened, its over, lets move on". Which is sorta the same thing, but not quite. There is no absolution in it, the way there seems to be in saying 'I forgive you.' I have said it when people have apologized, but I have never really though "i forgive that person for thier actions." without them saying they were sorry. I've let a lot of stuff go. I've trusted again where I have been betrayed before. I have accepted certain things are the way they are & that certain people are the way they are & gone on.

I think with the board situation forgiveness is not going to work for me. Mostly because it is a constant thing. Things happen, people overreact or screw up or use poor judgement, that is to be expected. You make mistakes but you learn from those mistakes. yeah, soemtimes you have to make the mistake a few time sto really learn the lesson. But to do it all the time, to always overreact, to always belittle people, always be as nasty as you can in certain situations, is another thing. Forgiveness for me requires some regret in the other person, some sign somewhere that they know their behavior hurt someone & they don't like that they did that. If you never show any regret, or always making the same excuses for your behavior with no attempt to change, I can't forgive that. I can let it go personally & accept that you are just not a very nice person IMO, but I can't really forgive you for it.

random stuff

I've got the non-disc reading DVD drive swapped out with my old CD recordable drive. It's reading the discs & copying them at 8x on average. Which means the problem is my DVD-RW drive & not iTunes. I was hoping it was iTunes because it's free. I just got that DVD-RW in December, putting it a month out of warranty. I also have the cover off the PC at the moment so possibly the problem is that things were getting overheated. I suppose I should try copying things with the DVD-RW & see. But 4:50 from Paddington I think is the last one that will fit on the DVD, with everything copied & converted so far. I'll have to test it again & see.

DH's truck won't start. We have no clue why. Not good. I set the oven on fire this morning while preheating if for cinnamon rolls. Probably grease from the mini meatloaves on Thursday. However the oven has been having heating issues. Not good either. I have it running the self-clean cycle now.

I'm really getting tired of a message board I have been on for lo, these many years now. Most of the time it is a great site & I am quite fond of a chunk of the people on it. But it has these cycles of arguments where certain people seem determined to prove they are the biggest jerk on the board (or, in their terms, they are right and they can be as offensive about it as they want because they are being *real* & the board is all abut being *real*). Actually the board is about open exchange of ideas. You can make your point without being nasty, but that does require you use you brain. So much easier just to get snarky & jump people. These cycles irritate me for a variety of reasons, mostly because it is the same people trying to prove themselves the toughest, baddest member of the board. It's somewhat intimidating the first time you read it but so incredibly predictable & pathetic the 386th time you ready it. I keep thinking it is time to move on. These cycles come more & more frequently lately. But i continue to hang, partly because of the people & partly because I have been there for so long. Habit I suppose.

now that that is over with

and I can think beyond the dental horror I want to get back to scrapping. I copied all the Top 10 CK layouts to my desktop & I think I will do some scraplifting tomorrow. I'd like to finish copying Under the Tuscan Sun to my cd to convert it, but my DVD drive seems to be having issues. It will copy 1-2 discs ok, at its usual speed, but about 2/3 the way through the second disc or when I put in a 3rd, it slows down to a crawl. It goes from a rate of 5.8x to 0.8x and suddenly needs 100% of the CPU to do it. I have to turn off the PC and walk away for awhile, then I can reboot, and copy 2 more CDs, then repeat. Tuscan Sun is 10 cds long. I have 5 done so far. Needless to say I cannot open PSP at the same time. I'm not sure what is going on. Also my other older DVD drive seems to have stopped working all together. I put a disc in, any disc & it doens't see it. I guess I need to replace it with my old CD drive. I hope I didn't toss it in my last cleaning frenzy.

This is a photo of my DH, taken at 4:15pm today. He is taking a well deserved nap. He worked late yesterday, came home, put the boys to bed, and then continued working until 2am. While he was working Mayhem was up for about 90 minutes of that time due to his cold. Then DH got up with Havoc at 6:30am, while Mayhem slept with me until *a. DH did not go into the office today but worked from home so he could watch the boys while I was at the dentist. He planned on staying home after I go back because I am usually a bit 'fragile' after dental experiences. The boys went down for their naps at 1p and DH worked until 4 when I asked to used the computer. He sat on the sofa & promptly fell asleep. I've got the boys watching Backyardigans in our room to keep them from waking him up.

The root canal went well for the most part. Thanks everyone for your good thoughts. :) I did start crying as soon as I sat in the chair but the endodontist (I think that is what she is called, she specializes in root canals) was really nice & we talked for a bit about my past experiences. She numbed me up good. 2 shots that hurt like hell, but i was numb until 3pm, a good 2.5 hours after she was done. I had an abscess & an infection so she was not able to fill the root this visit. I have to take meds for 2 week & then go back, get numbed up, get the root filled & a temp filling put on. Then I have to go back *again* (and pay $108 more) and get numbed up *again* to get a permanent filling. But the root is gone now so the only pain I have to really fear is the needle, which I do fear a great deal but is something I can cope with. The actual procedure didn't hurt this time, which is a first in 4 root canals. However, the tugging & scraping sound of her grinding away at the inside of my tooth with her different little files, is going to linger with me for a loooooooonnnnnggggg time.

Books

Good topic since I am currently immersed in converting my audiobooks to mp3s.

My favorite author of all time is the late Douglas Adams. The 42 in my various user names is in his honor and my second son is indirectly named for a character in 2 of his books. Mayhem was going to be named Dirk, for Dirk Gently, but he just didn't look like a 'Dirk' so we named him Mayhem.

I have been reading a lot of travel anthologies lately. I just finished A Woman's Europe and am now reading A Woman's Path which is a collection of essays about spiritual travels/pilgrimages made by women around the world. I have "the Best of Travel Writing 2005" waiting to be read next.

I am currently listening to Dave Barry Does Japan on my iPod at the gym & in my car. Next up is 'A Year in the World" by Frances Mayes who also wrote Under the Tuscan Sun. I have both the paperback & the audio of Under the Tuscan Sun. I only listen to unabridged books. Mostly because I tend to listen to books I have already read & I hate it when parts are missing. But Under the Tuscan Sun's audio version could benefit from having the recipes abridged out of it. I have never seen the movie, but from what I have heard it is a different story than the book.

Inspiration

Most of scrapping inspiration comes from scraplifting or sketches. I don't usually follow them completely; you might see something of the original in what I end up with but I never follow anything totally (which is why I cannot crochet a sweater pattern to save my life...always fiddling with things, even wheni am really *trying* to stickto the pattern). But they give me a starting point. A color, a alpha, a way of organizing photos or placing journaling, that I then work around.

I haven't been very inspired lately though by anything. I have this big sword hanging over my head, blighting my life & taking over my mind (I exaggerate for humor, god knows I need it) of the ROOT CANAL on Friday at 10:50a. I cannot really do anything in the least creative right now & I have tried. I'd love to get it off my mind for awhile but it seems to have sucked up all my inventive memory with replaying moment by painful moment all the worst parts of my 3 previous root canals in an endless loop. Quick flashes of horrendous pain when the lidocaine wears off, the horrible horrible time the dentist had to actually stick the needle in the root in my tooth to numb it, the agony of having the hot post jammed into the tooth after the nerve was out. If I have to relive even one of them that is absolutely it for me. I am just having the damn tooth pulled & porceline one put in. Seriously. I have to have crowns on the teeth with root canals and by the time you add it all up, a fake whole tooth will cost me about $400 more and I'd be asleep for it.

The guy doing it is a specialist. That is all he does is root canals. He comes in special to the office on Fridays just to do root canals. Please God let that mean he is quick & efficient & that I can convince him I am not BSing him about the lidocaine wearing off quickly. I had to have 3 shots of it while my doc stitched up the tear from Mayhem's birth. I don't think it took him 20 minutes to stitch it. I don't know how much he was using but even he commented "You can feel that now?" I just want as little pain as possible. I hold out no hope for no pain, but if the root could just stay numb while they were drilling it out that'd be good. And if they could find a drill that didn't make that ear shattering whining noise that'd be good too.

Projects

Where to begin......There are so many projects in the works around here. On a house wide level, we are working on the yard. We have a 5 year plan for the yard. This is year 4. When we moved in we had no front yard. We had a huge gravel parking area. Over the past 3 years we have converted a chunk of that parking area to grass, built a covered patio, built a playyard & gotten one of those 15 foot blow up ring pools. This year we are framing in & backfilling an area off the side of the driveway to be the new pakring area. We also have to dig out part of the hillside onvthe other side of the drive & put up a low retaining wall. We will then reclaim the final part of the old parking area in front of the house and move the playyard over to it. We are using railroad ties for the framing & retaining walls. Next year we will run the ties all the way down to the road (have to dig out a trench to set them in) and then put up one of those metal carports over the new parking area. Then at long last we will have covered parking. Only 10 years after we moved in.

Also in the works, after the spring yard work is done is the drawer/cupboard unit DH is making for the bedroom. And the new desk for me.

Personally I am in the midst of a project converting my audiobook CDs to .mp3 format & burning them to DVDs. Then I am going to sell the original CDs. I am also working on some elements for a kit I am working on. I have various pieces that I gave out as prizes at chats I hosted when I was a mod at Scrapmommies. I want to make a complete kit out of them to give away.

That is just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others. DH & I sit down once a season & make a list of what needs done, otherwise known as the "Things to Spend Money On" list.

Monday's prompt

How do you cope with a change in plans? Not very well actually. I like for there to be plans. I like for those plans to be followed. I like to have backup plans in case the first plan falls through. It does depend on just what the thing is. I'll roll with a restaurant being closed unexpectedly or toddler tales being cancelled for snow. I'm disappointed but I can work with it easily enough. But something big like a flight getting cancelled or other travel/vacation plans getting changed throw me pretty hard at first. I get upset (angry or sad) for a bit, but then I move on to solving the problem. I'll probably complain about it for awhile afterwards too. I have my spontaneous moments, but they are few.

Meals so far

Tuesday we had the leftovers
Wednesday we had pasta w/metballs (leftover mini meatloaf from last month, frozen)
Thursday we were going to have the chicken strips but it turned out they were fish strips. note to self - Label the stuff before putting it in freezer.
Friday we had Osaka carry out - steak & chicken hibachi plus sushi & miso soup
Today we had steak & spinich salad. Steak onthe grill. YUUMMM! and just enough left over for a steak sandwich for lunch on Monday.

Tomorrow I don't know what we are doing for dinner. Maybe we will go to the Chinese buffet place in C-ville. I'd assume most restaurants are open even though it is Easter, but I am positive the buffet place is. I have a Jewish friend who, when asked about what they have for Xmas dinner, says "We've gone out for Chinese since I was a kid" Maybe we'll make that our Easter thing.

Weekend stuff

Lots of random stuff this weekend. We don't celebrate Easter & Havoc is just now getting old enough to realize there are Easter baskets. He doesn't realize yet that most people get them & he doesn't. I suspect that will be next year. We do go to the egg hunts & things, and really there is nothing religious about an Easter basket. So I guess it needs to be an all or nothing thing, because I can't really explain why he can hunt eggs with his friends but not get a basket of candy. Tricky thing about being a minority religion. But, like Xmas, the fact that they re on different dates does help me keep a distance between religious & secular holidays. I guess it is just the former Catholic in me, but despite the bunnies & the eggs I have never really viewed easter as a secular holiday. Xmas, oh yeah, BIG secular holiday. Easter, not so much.

I have to go get new curtain rods, the big heavy (and expensive) kind that the boys won't be able to bend easily. They've been ones in the living room almost in half. They are not supposed to play around in teh curtains, but I have no business relying on that edict to keep a 2 & 3 year old from bending my curtian rods.

I have 2 layouts to finish this weekend for ScarpMommies, giving me 4 out of 12. But oh well. New Boot Camp challenge is up too. And I need to get my mini album together for 1hour scrap this month. But I need to check & see if I can do a trading card sized one & if they want 8 or 12 pages for it, since it is so small.

Friday prompt

It is to write about flowers. Flowers...not something I think about much or write about ever. So I think I am going to have go with randomness on this topic.

DH & the boys bought me flowers last week. White daisies that had been died blue by putting them in blue water and some purple flowersas part of the bouquet. I have no idea what sort of flowers the purple ones are.

I have every rose DH has ever given me, dried & stored in 2 large plastic containers. At some point I am going to make rose beads out of them.

I just had to spend as much in shipping as the cost of the bouquet to send my mom flowers for her birthday because I ordered them yetesterday instead of on Monday. Her birthday is tomorrow & they had tobe delivered today.

I used to work for 1-800flowers in a local call center as the telcom analyst & call flow director.

Thursday Journaling

"This too shall pass"

I've been hearing this my whole life from the people around me. Often it is said of the good things as well as the bad, which I think is a bit unique among my friends. Most people just say it when something bad or a struggle of some sort is going on. But we also say it when something good is happening, as a reminder to savor the moment.

Something funny?

Havoc must have had an interesting dream last night

He told me this morning that a cat monster was going to visit us. Just a little baby one, but it was going to drive over to play with us. It lived a long way away. When we were coming home from the gym he mentioned it again & I suggested maybe it would nap with him but he said cat monsters only sleep on pasta, not in beds.

Some of this I can explain. When Havoc went through a phase of being afraid of monsters a few months ago I first told him that monsters only live in California (Dh adding that the whacky liberals out there have all these monster protection laws in place so the monsters like living there best of all places - DH is a little nuts sometimes) Later I told Havoc that even if monsters were around here, they wouldn't stay because they are afraid of cats & our 3 cats would chase them away. He decided that Nefer was the cat who really didn't like monsters (Nefer doesn;t really like anyone) & that seemed to mostly end his monster problems. So I can sorta understand the idea of dreaming about friendly baby cat monsters.

not sure where the idea of sleeping on pasta came from though. And now I have this image in my head of a monsterous cat with a pacifier curled up on a plate of spaghetti.

Menu for the next 2 weeks

Chicken strips - homemade w/ginger soy glaze
Steak & spinich salad
Mini meatloaf (w/extras for ST's family on monday)
Pasta w/meatballs (leftover meatloaf)
Pizza
Shrimp Toast (maybe)
Grilled Polenta w/salad
Sweet potato & chicken salad
Braciole
Baked salmon
Roast Chicken
meatball soup

We'll probably cookout one Sunday & go out to eat on Saturdays. DH won't be home for dinner tonight, so I think we will have the leftover santa fe chicken couscous chopped up into chicken patties, breaded & pan fried. I'll add some spinich to it.

i have to plan the 2 week menu. Otherwise I spend way too much at the grocery store & end up wasting leftovers. It's really helped my budget & we eat better meals now. Before we had kids I was always planning dinner. It was a big deal for me. I'd ask DH at 10am what he wanted for dinner. After DS1 was born I had less tiem to cook. After DS2, and I was sick for so long, I just cooked at random. We ate a lot of crap & our grocery bill was out of control. I started doing this about a year ago, just for 4 meals a week. This year I am up to 6, though I don't always stick to it. The braciole, roast chicken & meatball soup are from the last 2 week menu. I bought the ingredients but never made the meals. Fortunately it all went in the freezer.

F?

Big F, little f, what begins with F? I had that as a journal title on Ovusoft for awhile, both because my week was sucking & my BG, the Freaks, were being extra Freaky that week, playing a guessing game using our childhood photos as avatars. Wow! that was like 2 years ago! F always does remind me of freak. Both because of the Freaks and because I say 'freaking' in place of a less appropriate word. I had a lot of fun with Freaks. We did let ourselves get tangled up in some stupid stuff because of a certain AW, and after SEW split we seemed to gain all the negative focus and then there was the whole Heffa debacle, but much of the supposed 'trouble' we caused was really in the minds of others. Especially the avis. So many of the avis that various people were about them we just us playing around. Inside jokes, nothing to do with anyone. Like the Peeps. We had no idea there even was a BG called Peeps. It was just Wonker & Jill playing around with Yahoo draw one night when they were working midnights & since it was Easter they were drawing peeps. We put them in our avis because theywere funny. But somewhere along the line some 'helpful' person told the Peep group we were bashing them. Fortunately that time the whole thought process behind the avis was there in the thread for all to read so it blew over quickly. But many others didn't. I don't miss the drama, though it was fun at times. Seeing how incredibly self-centered people can be, it *must* be about them. I miss the Freaks. We split up a year ago this month.

Scrapping

I've journaled ever since I was 10. I've taken photos since about that age as well. I've combined them in various photo albums oer theyears, the 'sticky backed' kind but I was never really a scrapbooker. I've always found paper scrapbooking interesting but I lacked the time & patience for it. The predone plopper pages were never quite right but I wasn't going to gobuy a bunch of stuff to make things the way I wanted. I've never been a paper crafty sort of person. Yarn, yes, paper, no. Digi scrapping was the answer to my needs. Once I discovered DSP and classes for PSP I jumped right into it. I like being able to tell the story that goes with the photo - what I was thinking, what the person was thinking, being able to convey atmosphere in my pages & express my creativity. I also like that I am saving memories. We have so many photos from my grandparents & IL's that have just a date or a name. Some of them have names but no one knows who that person was, a relative, a friend? I like scrapping because my grandchildren will be able to look at my pages & know details. "As long as someone remembers you, you will live forever". i want my family to be remembered.

Today's DSP blog challenge is to write about something you don't like doing but do anyway. I am actually working on a layout about this for the current Scrap Therapy challenge on Scrapmommies.com. It is to scrap something you are afraid of.

I don't like going to the dentist because I am afraid of it. Actually that sentance does not begin to convey just how I feel about the dentist. Terror & hysteria come closer. I had some really bad dental experiences about a decade ago that pushed a mild, slightly higher than average dislike of the dentist into outright fear. I have a hard time walking into the dentists' office. It's all I can do not to start crying with fear just sitting in the waiting room, let alone keeping it together while someone is poking around my mouth. I *know* they are going to hurt me. They may not do it intentionally, they even try to avoid it, but they always end up hurting me. Even cleaning my teeth, soemthing pokes too hard or scrapes a little funny & suddenly there is an abrupt, stabbing pain. It's worse with fillings & root canals because the lidocaine wears off on me so quickly & the only way to really tell is when they hit a nerve. This especially sucks with root canals. I've actually been avoiding the dentist for about 3 years now, except when too much pain forces me into it. But DH finally convinced me to get my teeth cleaned. I sort of expected needing about 4 fillings. What I need is one root canal. This will be my 4th. 2 were done when I was seeing the dentist regularly, so I don't really blame my lack of visits. I wish they could knock me out for it. Some dentists do, but none around here. My appointment is the 21st. I have been have flashbacks to previous root canal pain moments since I found out on the 30th. Like I am suffering from dental PTSD. I don't want to go. The tooth doesn't hurt. If they hadn't taken an routine xray they would never even know about it. You'd think at 38 I'd be able to cope with something like this better than digging my heels in and crying "I don't want to go." as if someone somewhere will give me a reprieve. That's one of the things that sucks about being an adult, there is no one to make it all better or to help make the scary thing easier. You aren't suppose to be scared. You are supposed to be able to cope & you re being 'needlessly dramatic' and drawing attention to yourself if you can't.

So i am going to the dentist, even though I hate it & they are going to hurt me. And the icing on this cake is that I get to pay $750 for the experience.

I did this layout for the current Scrappy Chat challenge at DSP. The challenge was to use at least 3 patterned papers in a layout. I used one of the pages of a QuickPage set I created for 1hourscraps. I used Christina Bartholomews Simple Gifts kit tocreate teh quick pages. This is the right side page. I am going to make the left side page about my grandfather, as soon as i get the photos from my dad.

Blog Challenge at DSP

Meg is running a new challenge at DSP to keep everyone journaling. Her topic this time was to write about your birthday.

I don't write about my birthdays often. As an adult they are generally nothing too special. We go out to dinner & I pick the place. We do this for the boys' birthdays as well. DH's is on Dec 31st & we have a party for him or we would go out to eat as well. I get nice gifts, almost always whatever I have asked for. Your birthday is *your* day in our house. You decide what we are going to do, what you want for breakfast, lunch, dinner (within reason), what we watch on TV. It is all about *you* on your birthday.

The only thing that I am insistant about is that we do the birthday celebration *on the day* of the birthday. Even if it is inconvenient. Ok, *especially* if it is inconvenient. See, my birthday is in July and when I was a kid my younger brother played Little League all summer. His games came before everything. Didn't matter what it was, the baseball game *MUST* be attended. My brother had made a commitment to it & it had to be met. This meant my birthday celebration was moved around to suit the baseball schedule. I really really resented that, especially considering just how many games they played in a season. One game a season could have been missed I think. I admit I still resent it today & I know that is petty, which is why I don't talk about my birthday much. It reminds me of a hurtful time & a less than nice side of myself. I've had lots of wonderful birthdays. I've had many more birthdays where Little League did not interfere than onces where it did. Those unhappy memories don't dominate my birthday in general. But they are among the first things I think of when people ask me about birthday traditions and I have a hard time not saying things when parents tell me they will be celebrating Child A's birthday a couple of day's afterward because Child B has some activity that night. I guess it is just a carry over from my childhood, but I think one specific day of the year you should get to come first in front of almost anything.

Finally!

It's only taken me 4 days of websearching, editing & trial and error, but I finally have this blog appearing properly in Firefox as well as IE. I don't know what it looks like in Mac & can't find out easily. Maybe if someone using a Mac stops by they will leave a comment & let me know. Not that there is any reason really for people to stop by. I don't have anything really interesting or exciting going on here yet. But eventually I'd like to do freebies & maybe contests from time to time.

But step 2 is to get the site looking ok in nearly all browsers (step 1 being the 3 column thing). Step 3 is just using the blog regularly. Step 4 would be the sharing of freebies (that I have yet to design, that being a step in a completely different list)