"Not Me!" Monday

I've seen a lot of people participate in this recently, and I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon this week.



Enjoy my inaugural "Not Me!" Monday!

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I did NOT let a Wiggles DVD play two times in a row so I could bum around on my computer reading blogs and surfing Flickr.

I did NOT eat my strawberry shortcake from lunch on Friday in the car hiding it from my daughter.

I did NOT tell my daughter she could have a cookie if she ate a piece of broccoli.

I did NOT eat 4 of said cookies myself.

I did NOT just sit down at this computer to look something up only to completely forget why.

I did NOT burst into Livers room and yell, "Sit down, shut up, and go to sleep!" after she had been jokingly yelling, "Mama, where are you Mamaaaaa!" for twenty-five minutes during nap.

Week in Review and a Few Musings for You

Without further adieu :)

1. Valentine's Day has come and gone for the majority of the world. We'll celebrate ours next weekend. It'll be a lot more peaceful for us and hopefully less crowded.
2. Rather than be a slave to Hallmark (for all of my Valentine's needs), I decided to try and make some of my cards this year. I used my sewing machine to stitch some simple zig zags and lines and stamped some lettering using craft paint. It turned out pretty good, and hopefully I can improve on my skills making J his card for our belated Valentine's date.
3. Am I a bad mom for not doing anything over the top for Livers for Valentine's? I did make some ready-made cookies tonight, but I didn't get any stuffed animals or cards. She probably wouldn't know any different this year anyway...
   
4. I finally got around to making some jewelry. I'd seen a few things on Etsy that I liked that looked easy enough to make myself, and I am now the proud owner of three new necklaces.
   
5. I think I'm at my happiest when I'm productive and creative. It gives me such great joy to be able to make things for myself and pride when they end up looking half decent.
6. I bought some more fabric for a quilt I hope to start by year's end. I love just looking at the pile sitting nicely stacked on my bookshelf. It kind of pains me to have to cut into it someday.
7. I am totally, and I mean TOTALLY addicted to LOST. We're only five episodes into the fifth season, and it makes me depressed knowing that there's only twelve episodes left.
8. I got to watch my favorite movie of all time last night (The English Patient) for the first time in eight years. I had really wanted to watch it, partly to re-evaluate its place as numero uno on my list, and I was happy to see it still deserves its place. J watched it for the first time and actually liked it. I first saw it when I was 15, and it was a very mature movie for someone of that age, and I found it interesting to see it again with older eyes.
9. Livers is such a Mama's girl, and I.love.it! At church today she went to nursery and was fine for a few minutes but I could hear her start to wail. I'm assuming she realized that I was gone, and she really wanted me back. I went and got her when I could tell the tears weren't subsiding, and she was good as gold cuddling in my lap with me during Mass service. Usually she's too all over the place to take out of the Cry Room, so I was eating the cuddles up.
10. I love me some Flickr. I've wasted quite a lot of time browsing around, adding pictures to my favorites this weekend.
11. I'm on pace with actually following through with one of my New Year's resolutions. My goal is to read 6 books this year, which is six times as many as I read last year. I'm almost finished with Glimpses of Heaven, a book by a former hospice nurse who recounts the experiences of some of her family and patients as they are dying. It sounds like it would be depressing, but it's not.
12. At first I was bothered by my lack of blog attention, but that means I don't have any drama going on in my life, and that's great.

First Post Friday

Deb over at Dirty Socks N Pizza is having a fun little get together at her blog today: First Post Friday. She wants to get to know her bloggy friends better, so she wants her friends to repost their first post so she can start at the beginning and get to know them better.

Quite frankly, my first post sucked. Actually, my first ten or so were kind of random and few and far between. I know that this is not my FIRST post, but I think that this is the post where I really started blogging for real. It's a bit long, but it actually gets very much to the heart of me. I would be wise to start posting more of this kind of thing, because I've been hearing the crickets chirping thanks to my dry spell.

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Want to get to know Deb and friends better? Then go here now! :) Happy Friday!

Tuesday Tribute - FOX 'n POOPS

Thank you, FOX, for taking a little sparkle out of my evening last night. J and I were all geared up after a long, stressful day between the two of us to just veg out in front of the TV and watch a new House only to find there wasn't one recorded. Please let a sister know about these things before taking away her fun for the evening so she can be prepared with a box of Oreos and a gallon of milk.

I heart you, FOX! Now please go cancel American Idol so the world will be a better place for us all!!!!

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Also, thank you, bowels of Livers, for starting ANOTHER day off with poop for me. I just LOVE having my nostrils greeted by your putrid glory and not realizing it was all over your back until I accidentally touched it. You KNOW Mama doesn't drink coffee. Or liquor.

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P.S. Mom, I know you'll read this. I'm not in a bad mood, I swear. I just like to watch House and not deal with poop. :)

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Today's opportunity for a guilt-free rant is brought to you by:


Yet Another Jay and Deb Production.

Thanks Deb and Jeff!

Fun Way to Wake Up on a Saturday Morning

Your daughter calling from her room, "Mama, where are you Mamaaaaaaa?"

As you blindly walk, half-asleep, into her room, you are greeted by her smiling, COMPLETELY NAKED self and a poop diaper sitting next to her half folded.


You know this doesn't bode well for the state of her crib or herself. Peering in closer you see that she has at some point put her poopy butt on her white pillow and baby blue sheets, and she is clutching her favorite bear and blanket.

After Daddy cleans her hiney you put a shirt on her and let her loose. About five minutes later you realize the house is a little cold and she needs something on her legs. When lifting her leg to put it in her jammie shorts you notice that, yes, she has been running around the house for the last five minutes with dried poop on her feet, so she gets tossed in the tub for a quick soap down.

It can only get better from here, people.


P.S.: That is chocolate chip muffin on her chin, not poop :)

How Toddlers Exercise

Sometimes I think my daughter is the funniest thing since a water-skiing squirrel...

I just came back from the grocery store, and I had bought milk. We easily go through two gallons a week between the two of us. I left a gallon on the floor in the hallway so I could bring the rest of the groceries into the kitchen. Livers was running around the hallway. J had been (unsuccessfully) trying to get her to poop in the potty, so she was buck naked.

Apparently a gallon of milk is the best play toy EVER, because she saw it and spent the next five minutes trying to pick it up and carry it around. When she first picked it up it touched her bare bum, and she exclaimed, "Ooh, it's cold, in't it!", and "It's heavy, in't it!" She then proceeded to pick it up underneath with both arms and then fall on her hiney, but that didn't stop her! She got it by the handle and bare-butted it into the den, where she tried to hoist it onto her kiddie table, only to fall over again. Still not deterred she picked it up AGAIN and fell on her piano, but in no pain. We finally had to tell her enough is enough, it's time for bath, which she did NOT like. She was carried, kicking and screaming, into the bathroom, crying for her milk.


Oh, the simple pleasures in life....that you inevitably forget to record on camcorder!

All Is Quiet

J has been on a business trip all week. I hate it when he goes on business trips. I get scared in my own house. Every little creak in the house makes me jump. I won't go downstairs at night because I'm afraid people are lurking outside waiting to break in. The dogs used to bring greater comfort, but now if they are barking at something it's probably just an argument over the food bowl.

I always have grand plans of all of the stuff I am going to accomplish when he's on trips. For instance, I said I was going to repaint the two ugly walls of his man cave to match the rest of the basement as a Valentine's gift to him. Does it count that I at least got it taped up??? I went to Michael's with Livers Monday to get beads to make some jewelry, and they are still sitting on a table in my office waiting to become something beautiful. I planned to scrapbook, to organize, to write, and to read, but all I did was watch TV. I forgot to anticipate how tired I'd be from acting as Livers' sole caregiver all day on top of babysitting another baby for two days in a row.

I did get to stretch out in the bed without a fight for covers or kicks to J's ribs in the middle of the night because he snores. However, there is comfort in the annoyance of his snores. It means that I'm safe and protected, and those middle of the night squeaks and creaks fade away like white noise. I did get a little alone time, but that just made the silence of the house once Livers is asleep that much more deafening. There was no clicking of J's keyboard in the kitchen, no calls of "I love you" to break the silence, no back and forth laughter over things we just read on our laptops that we found funny.

J will be home tomorrow afternoon, and even though having a few evenings of peace and quiet can be nice, I much prefer the low din of the evening hustle and bustle and the promise of comfort and protection lying next to me, quietly snoring just a rib poke away.