*A lamp
*An alarm clock that only gets set on Sunday and Thursday night.
*A big stack of books and magazines...
Top to bottom:
Reader's Digest (sentimental value)
Accidental Tourist (Paper Back Swap book)
The Marriage Sabbatical (Don't ask. Unless you're interested. It's a great read!)
The World Without Us (Trudging through this one. Very interesting but slow going)
In Her Shoes (Latest Paper Back Swap book. Pretty lame)
The Daring Book for Girls (My latest favorite book)
The Doodle Book (Someday, I'll be creative)
Too Silly (The journal I use to write about the funny things my kids do.)
Outside Magazine
Vogue Magazine
Oprah Magazine
Sunset Magazine
Remember the refrigerator? I have nothing to write about so I'm writing about nothing.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
Random-ness and a mosaic
"What do you want? I said and she said, in the abstract or the concrete? and I decided to rephrase the question. I'm going to the store, I said. Need anything? and she frowned and said, Obviously, you meant concrete."
-Brian Andreases
-Brian Andreases
Monday, February 18, 2008
Staying close to the shore
I am back from Seattle and back to the daily grind. We came home on Saturday night so we (mostly I) had all day yesterday to unpack, do laundry, hang out with the kids, etc. It was really nice to have that little buffer day.
It was a really, really nice trip. The weather was fantastic! Sunny in Seattle in February! Woo! Just for me!
We stayed in a cute old hotel in Lower Queen Anne. It was super cheap and in a perfect little neighborhood! There were several restaurants on our block. A record store, a post office, a fantastic grocery store, a used book store and the Seattle Center! Not to mention that it was central to everything else in Seattle. The waterfront, downtown, the market, Fremont, Lake Union. I could go on.
I could have stayed there forever. "Mom, fly the kids over, we're staying!"
I was feeling a little sorry for myself that I could never move out of Boise to a bigger city because Jimmy would never go for it but then I had a reality check when we were walking around Lake Union. He was all excited for all the boats and mentioned some nut job idea of living on a boat. After shooting him down so quickly that he actually sizzled, I realized that we give and take. I give up living in a city because I know he would go crazy and he gives up living on a boat because I would go crazy.
Ya win some ya lose some. I guess I will settle for the occassional visit and he will settle for staying close to the shore.
It was a really, really nice trip. The weather was fantastic! Sunny in Seattle in February! Woo! Just for me!
We stayed in a cute old hotel in Lower Queen Anne. It was super cheap and in a perfect little neighborhood! There were several restaurants on our block. A record store, a post office, a fantastic grocery store, a used book store and the Seattle Center! Not to mention that it was central to everything else in Seattle. The waterfront, downtown, the market, Fremont, Lake Union. I could go on.
I could have stayed there forever. "Mom, fly the kids over, we're staying!"
I was feeling a little sorry for myself that I could never move out of Boise to a bigger city because Jimmy would never go for it but then I had a reality check when we were walking around Lake Union. He was all excited for all the boats and mentioned some nut job idea of living on a boat. After shooting him down so quickly that he actually sizzled, I realized that we give and take. I give up living in a city because I know he would go crazy and he gives up living on a boat because I would go crazy.
Ya win some ya lose some. I guess I will settle for the occassional visit and he will settle for staying close to the shore.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Time flies
I used to be an ok blogger and now I am definitely a bad, bad blogger!
Not having internet at home makes it really hard to update with any sort of frequency.
So I guess I will do a quick update. BULLET STYLE! My favorite!
*Just had parent/teacher conferences last week at TCS. (The kids were sick the week before so we had far too many "home days".)
Of course my children are total geniuses. Bwhahaha.
Jamie will move to the 3-4's class next year. It's 4 days a week and it pulls from two different classes. One is the toddler class that I teach so the kids are a little younger than Jamie. It will be nice for her to be one of the big kids at school since she is so firmly the little kid at home.
Olivia will stay in 3-4-5's. It's designed as a two year program so she'll be doing her second year.
They are both doing well and really love going to school.
*This job at the shop is proving to be a little more than I can chew. Sheesh. I am just barely getting by. Filing is piling up and I'm in a hurry so often that sometimes I screw stuff up. Nothing serious so far but...
Something's gotta give! The next school year is looming and I just received a letter from BSU reminding me that I planned on enrolling for the Fall semester. I'm pretty sure that keeping up the 3 jobs (4 if you count being a full time mom. And I do) and going to school will be grounds for a little break down. Hmmm. What happened to the vision??
I do have to give Jimmy credit for holding up his 50% of the DNA contribution better than I expected. But there are just some things that have been embedded in our relationship that are hard to change.
For example: This morning I had an entire day of work planned plus packing for our trip and getting my driver's license. At about 8:00 Olivia said, "Mom, I'm gonna puke." Just as my hand shot underneath her mouth to catch it before it landed on the couch. YUM!
So, who stays home? No question there! I do. The person who has two jobs to go to (out of my house and making money type of job), a trip to the DMV, 6 loads of laundry and packing everything for a weekend trip (Yes, I packed his clothes too). So, I call in "sick" to one job, I ask grandma to pick up the healthy kid from school so the other grandma can watch the puker while I run to the DMV, I run home twice between the post office and DMV to switch loads of laundry, I arange a hotel, a ride from the airport, dog babysitting, luggage borrowing and a harbor cruise. Then, after I cooked dinner... I went to work! And here I am! It's 1 am and I took a break from work to blog so that I could bitch.
So my point was...me being responsible for "all things kid and home" is a part of our relationship that even I find hard to break away from. It's just a given that I will take care of all those things and even if I'm not directly taking care of the kids or cooking dinner I have done all the "staging" for those things to happen. I've bought the groceries, planned the meal, prepped as many things as I could and instructed on what needs done. I've set out clothes, made sure hair is washed, arranged alternate pick up and drop off...bla bla bla bla bla.
So the moral of this story is: If you have this much time to bitch about how busy you are then you really aren't that busy!!!
Hahaha. Ok, I'm done. It's really not as bad as it sounds. I think I just need to try and break out of the assumption that it's all my responsibility and speak up for what I need. I think I'll try that.
*I am going to Seattle for the weekend. Yes, I know it's rainy. No, I do not care. Yes, it is off season and super cheap.
Not having internet at home makes it really hard to update with any sort of frequency.
So I guess I will do a quick update. BULLET STYLE! My favorite!
*Just had parent/teacher conferences last week at TCS. (The kids were sick the week before so we had far too many "home days".)
Of course my children are total geniuses. Bwhahaha.
Jamie will move to the 3-4's class next year. It's 4 days a week and it pulls from two different classes. One is the toddler class that I teach so the kids are a little younger than Jamie. It will be nice for her to be one of the big kids at school since she is so firmly the little kid at home.
Olivia will stay in 3-4-5's. It's designed as a two year program so she'll be doing her second year.
They are both doing well and really love going to school.
*This job at the shop is proving to be a little more than I can chew. Sheesh. I am just barely getting by. Filing is piling up and I'm in a hurry so often that sometimes I screw stuff up. Nothing serious so far but...
Something's gotta give! The next school year is looming and I just received a letter from BSU reminding me that I planned on enrolling for the Fall semester. I'm pretty sure that keeping up the 3 jobs (4 if you count being a full time mom. And I do) and going to school will be grounds for a little break down. Hmmm. What happened to the vision??
I do have to give Jimmy credit for holding up his 50% of the DNA contribution better than I expected. But there are just some things that have been embedded in our relationship that are hard to change.
For example: This morning I had an entire day of work planned plus packing for our trip and getting my driver's license. At about 8:00 Olivia said, "Mom, I'm gonna puke." Just as my hand shot underneath her mouth to catch it before it landed on the couch. YUM!
So, who stays home? No question there! I do. The person who has two jobs to go to (out of my house and making money type of job), a trip to the DMV, 6 loads of laundry and packing everything for a weekend trip (Yes, I packed his clothes too). So, I call in "sick" to one job, I ask grandma to pick up the healthy kid from school so the other grandma can watch the puker while I run to the DMV, I run home twice between the post office and DMV to switch loads of laundry, I arange a hotel, a ride from the airport, dog babysitting, luggage borrowing and a harbor cruise. Then, after I cooked dinner... I went to work! And here I am! It's 1 am and I took a break from work to blog so that I could bitch.
So my point was...me being responsible for "all things kid and home" is a part of our relationship that even I find hard to break away from. It's just a given that I will take care of all those things and even if I'm not directly taking care of the kids or cooking dinner I have done all the "staging" for those things to happen. I've bought the groceries, planned the meal, prepped as many things as I could and instructed on what needs done. I've set out clothes, made sure hair is washed, arranged alternate pick up and drop off...bla bla bla bla bla.
So the moral of this story is: If you have this much time to bitch about how busy you are then you really aren't that busy!!!
Hahaha. Ok, I'm done. It's really not as bad as it sounds. I think I just need to try and break out of the assumption that it's all my responsibility and speak up for what I need. I think I'll try that.
*I am going to Seattle for the weekend. Yes, I know it's rainy. No, I do not care. Yes, it is off season and super cheap.
Friday, January 25, 2008
I don't know why I share these
Because they're pretty. I love this mosaic maker! What I should do is print them and hang them up for inspiration!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Friday, January 11, 2008
Let the games begin!
Ok girls!
Blog Diet Challenge begins again!
I hope everyone had a fantastic Holiday season and didn't totally negate all the work you did last time. I did.
When we met for the end of the last challenge we discussed things we'd like to do differently this time around. One of those things was weighing together at the end and the beginning. I really would like to do that but I know that it would be a pain in the butt to get everyone together at the same time twice. So, we are going to end up doing it the same as before...weigh yourself on your scale at home and use the same scale to weigh at the end. This is very important because scales vary quite a bit. I weigh almost 10 pounds more on my mom's scale!
Another thing we discussed is doing a percentage loss rather than a flat poundage loss. For example: I weighed 140 pounds at the beginning and weighed 126 at the end. (I wish) So I lost 14 pounds and 10% of my body weight. Sue weighed 110 at the beginning and then weighed 99 pounds at the end. She only lost 12 pounds but 11% of her body weight so she would actually win, not me. Make sense?
And one more thing...I noticed that everyone started to lag when we got a little further in so we are shortening this one up to 6 weeks instead of 9.
I also want to discuss one more thing...I want to put in more money per person. What do you think? I think it's too easy to walk away from $20. I wanted to do $50 and I've had some people jump right on the bandwagon and some say that it's too much. What do you think?
I heard another idea from someone else that I thought I might throw out there. It's like a poker game. It'd work like this: Everyone who is interested puts in $20 to begin. At the 6 week mark we "up the ante" and we'd go another 2 or 3 weeks. You can put in another $30 if you feel good about your "cards" and you think you have a good chance of winning or you can "fold" then and just be out your $20 instead of $50.
Just an idea, feel free to discuss.
Ok...Blog Diet Challenge will begin on Wednesday, January 16th (Sorry Kathleen)
and will end on Wednesday, February 27th.
Please discuss (in comments) what you think of the changes and on Tuesday night I will post "official rules and regulations" based on your discussion.
INVITE A FRIEND TO JOIN YOU!!
The more, the merrier!
One more thing. Thanks for the suggestion Kathleen!
www.blogdietchallenge.blogspot.com
Blog Diet Challenge begins again!
I hope everyone had a fantastic Holiday season and didn't totally negate all the work you did last time. I did.
When we met for the end of the last challenge we discussed things we'd like to do differently this time around. One of those things was weighing together at the end and the beginning. I really would like to do that but I know that it would be a pain in the butt to get everyone together at the same time twice. So, we are going to end up doing it the same as before...weigh yourself on your scale at home and use the same scale to weigh at the end. This is very important because scales vary quite a bit. I weigh almost 10 pounds more on my mom's scale!
Another thing we discussed is doing a percentage loss rather than a flat poundage loss. For example: I weighed 140 pounds at the beginning and weighed 126 at the end. (I wish) So I lost 14 pounds and 10% of my body weight. Sue weighed 110 at the beginning and then weighed 99 pounds at the end. She only lost 12 pounds but 11% of her body weight so she would actually win, not me. Make sense?
And one more thing...I noticed that everyone started to lag when we got a little further in so we are shortening this one up to 6 weeks instead of 9.
I also want to discuss one more thing...I want to put in more money per person. What do you think? I think it's too easy to walk away from $20. I wanted to do $50 and I've had some people jump right on the bandwagon and some say that it's too much. What do you think?
I heard another idea from someone else that I thought I might throw out there. It's like a poker game. It'd work like this: Everyone who is interested puts in $20 to begin. At the 6 week mark we "up the ante" and we'd go another 2 or 3 weeks. You can put in another $30 if you feel good about your "cards" and you think you have a good chance of winning or you can "fold" then and just be out your $20 instead of $50.
Just an idea, feel free to discuss.
Ok...Blog Diet Challenge will begin on Wednesday, January 16th (Sorry Kathleen)
and will end on Wednesday, February 27th.
Please discuss (in comments) what you think of the changes and on Tuesday night I will post "official rules and regulations" based on your discussion.
INVITE A FRIEND TO JOIN YOU!!
The more, the merrier!
One more thing. Thanks for the suggestion Kathleen!
www.blogdietchallenge.blogspot.com
Friday, January 4, 2008
Happy Happy 2008
Whew! I feel like I just breathed a big 'ol sigh of relief for the first time in about a month! We had a really great holiday season and I have to say that I think I did pretty good in the balance department. Not too crazy, fun stuff for the kids without doing too much and I did not do my usual frenzy of gift making/buying. I made one gift. Yep! One! And let me tell you what, it felt really really good. Don't get me wrong...I love making things for people and I love receiving handmade gifts but I don't have the "get up and go" to start early in the year so it usually ends up as an "Oh shit" finish the gifts on Chritmas Eve fiasco! Maybe some day I will have it together but for now I have released the pressure and it feels good!
2007 Holiday recap:
*It started early with our O'Dell and Friends Annual Christmas Party on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year we only did gifts for the kids. The adults just ate and talked. Our friend Gabe brought over his Wii and that was seriously fun. Jimmy and I had a couple boxing matches and I think it was better than couples therapy. We decided that instead of fighting over dumb stuff and being cranky, we'd just get a Wii and beat the living crap out of each other. (You don't actually hit each other)
*I discovered The Daring Book for Girls at Costco and I think I'm in love! I decided that every girl needs to read it (even grown up girls) and commit to learning a new thing from it as often as you can. Then buy a boy that you know The Dangerous Book for Boys and trade with him when you're done. I love it! I bought it for my friend Buffy and my sister-in-law Robyn. I hope you girls like them!
*I know that I may be sending a mixed message about the holidays. Sometimes I hate it and sometimes I love it so let me clarify. The part that I love is the parties. I love love love Holiday parties! I love getting together with my friends, I love getting together with strangers, I love bringing something for a potluck and I love it when you feed me. I just love holiday parties!
The part that I hate is the pressure. The pressure to find the perfect gift, to decorate your house super fabulous-ly, to take your kids to every holiday fun opportunity, etc. So this year I just picked the things that I liked to do and to heck with the rest.
I bought everyone easy things that I knew they would like but I did not agonize over whether it was perfect. Jammies and Barnes and Noble gift cards for my dad and brother, a magazine subscription for my mom, Vera Wang stationary for Casey...etc. Easy and they'll like it. I put up my Christmas tree and a few other decorations and we did a few laid back fun things with the kids. It was really pleasant and not insane.
*We had a Winter Solstice Party. It was a blast! I made chili and cornbread. We had hot chocolate and spiced cider (and rum and peppermint schnapps) and a big bonfire in the back yard. And the most beautiful perfect thing happened. It snowed!! A lot! It was gorgeous and a perfect compliment to our party.
*Joe and Kelsey stayed in Rexburg for Christmas so it was just Warren and Casey and us and my parents. We went to a movie then came back to the house and had yummy yummy steaks for dinner. We opened our presents and played scrabble while the kids watched some Christmas movies and played with my dad. It was nice and low key.
*On Christmas day we went to Jimmy's parents. Again, pretty low key. We ate dinner and opened presents. They gave Jimmy and I cash. We were going to be practical and buy a new mattress but I think I have prevailed and we are going to take a short trip (no kids). I don't know where to...maybe skiing at Tamarack and staying at the Ashley Inn...with an in-room hot tub. Mmmm.
*We left for Rexburg at about 1:30 on Friday for a visit to Joe and Kelsey. It was a nice drive over despite the ugly weather in Boise. When we got there we did a whole bunch of nothing! We played in the snow, sledded on the sand dunes and played in the snow some more! There was so much snow!! One day we drove over to the big city of Idaho Falls (hehe) and we also drove over to Jackson, Wyoming to see the place where Joe works. It's a pretty town in that phony way.
*We got home pretty late from Jackson on New Year's Eve and then we didn't really do much. The girls played Legos and we played the Newlywed game. At about 11:55 Olivia threw up all over Joe. Happy New Year! At midnight I was sitting next to her on the bathroom floor. Good times. We were like a teen abstinence commercial!
*We drove home (with Kelsey and Chance in tow) on New Year's Day. The kids were great for the drive. Kels and Chance are staying at my mom and dad's then Joe will be here to get them tomorrow.
I thinks that sums it up! I've been working like a nut at the shop this week to get caught up and ready for the end of the year. Last night I got Olivia's bug and threw up at about 3 am but I feel fine today. Well, kinda.
I hope all of you had a terrific holiday season!!
Future posts...new years resolutions and new blog diet challenge!
2007 Holiday recap:
*It started early with our O'Dell and Friends Annual Christmas Party on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year we only did gifts for the kids. The adults just ate and talked. Our friend Gabe brought over his Wii and that was seriously fun. Jimmy and I had a couple boxing matches and I think it was better than couples therapy. We decided that instead of fighting over dumb stuff and being cranky, we'd just get a Wii and beat the living crap out of each other. (You don't actually hit each other)
*I discovered The Daring Book for Girls at Costco and I think I'm in love! I decided that every girl needs to read it (even grown up girls) and commit to learning a new thing from it as often as you can. Then buy a boy that you know The Dangerous Book for Boys and trade with him when you're done. I love it! I bought it for my friend Buffy and my sister-in-law Robyn. I hope you girls like them!
*I know that I may be sending a mixed message about the holidays. Sometimes I hate it and sometimes I love it so let me clarify. The part that I love is the parties. I love love love Holiday parties! I love getting together with my friends, I love getting together with strangers, I love bringing something for a potluck and I love it when you feed me. I just love holiday parties!
The part that I hate is the pressure. The pressure to find the perfect gift, to decorate your house super fabulous-ly, to take your kids to every holiday fun opportunity, etc. So this year I just picked the things that I liked to do and to heck with the rest.
I bought everyone easy things that I knew they would like but I did not agonize over whether it was perfect. Jammies and Barnes and Noble gift cards for my dad and brother, a magazine subscription for my mom, Vera Wang stationary for Casey...etc. Easy and they'll like it. I put up my Christmas tree and a few other decorations and we did a few laid back fun things with the kids. It was really pleasant and not insane.
*We had a Winter Solstice Party. It was a blast! I made chili and cornbread. We had hot chocolate and spiced cider (and rum and peppermint schnapps) and a big bonfire in the back yard. And the most beautiful perfect thing happened. It snowed!! A lot! It was gorgeous and a perfect compliment to our party.
*Joe and Kelsey stayed in Rexburg for Christmas so it was just Warren and Casey and us and my parents. We went to a movie then came back to the house and had yummy yummy steaks for dinner. We opened our presents and played scrabble while the kids watched some Christmas movies and played with my dad. It was nice and low key.
*On Christmas day we went to Jimmy's parents. Again, pretty low key. We ate dinner and opened presents. They gave Jimmy and I cash. We were going to be practical and buy a new mattress but I think I have prevailed and we are going to take a short trip (no kids). I don't know where to...maybe skiing at Tamarack and staying at the Ashley Inn...with an in-room hot tub. Mmmm.
*We left for Rexburg at about 1:30 on Friday for a visit to Joe and Kelsey. It was a nice drive over despite the ugly weather in Boise. When we got there we did a whole bunch of nothing! We played in the snow, sledded on the sand dunes and played in the snow some more! There was so much snow!! One day we drove over to the big city of Idaho Falls (hehe) and we also drove over to Jackson, Wyoming to see the place where Joe works. It's a pretty town in that phony way.
*We got home pretty late from Jackson on New Year's Eve and then we didn't really do much. The girls played Legos and we played the Newlywed game. At about 11:55 Olivia threw up all over Joe. Happy New Year! At midnight I was sitting next to her on the bathroom floor. Good times. We were like a teen abstinence commercial!
*We drove home (with Kelsey and Chance in tow) on New Year's Day. The kids were great for the drive. Kels and Chance are staying at my mom and dad's then Joe will be here to get them tomorrow.
I thinks that sums it up! I've been working like a nut at the shop this week to get caught up and ready for the end of the year. Last night I got Olivia's bug and threw up at about 3 am but I feel fine today. Well, kinda.
I hope all of you had a terrific holiday season!!
Future posts...new years resolutions and new blog diet challenge!
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