A First Impression

I did something yesterday for the first time in over ten years. TEN YEARS! I went on a job interview. First of all, I'd like to say that I think it went really well. We will see what they thought in the next few days....

I found that having all day to get ready for a three o'clock interview was slightly too long a time frame. My house looked like I had gone to prom, not a mere interview. But I had to do laundry, shower, go through my closet, search through my shoes, curl my hair, put on make up, drink lots of coffee, paint my nails (toes and fingers), print and fill out application materials, make sure I knew my strengths and weaknesses... it was a lot to do! My house work suffered.

When getting ready I had forgotten that I'm not quite as long as regular people pants. I buy regular people pants, I hate petite clothes. But I'm short. Whatever, I like pants that go past my ankles Grandma, I just do. Butttt, when you are slightly short and your nice interview pants are regular people length, it forces you to wear high heels. Not something I would recommend for a fist interview if you generally wear high heels approximately two to three times a year. Boots with heals, fine. Shoes with a rise or a lift to them, with a sound base to make floor contact, perfect. High, pointy, uncomfortable shoes that you may or may not have to walk flights of stairs in (I did)... not so ideal. But, long pants = high heels. Hence the toe nail painting, cause my high heels have peekaboo toes. And then the fingers had to match.

So here a few tips when going on an interview for the first time in a long long time:
1. Make sure your pants fit.
2. Practice in your high heels.
3. Realize that you NEVER drive in heels (cause someone else always did the driving when you went to heel requiring situations) and that it's not that easy.
4. Don't forget to eat lunch.
5. (This one is my best advise thus far.) Do not, by any means, start your period the day of your interview.

I would like to report that I was a BIG FAIL on 5 out of 5. (Too much information? So sorry.)

OH! And I would also like to add that I discovered a brand new step in getting ready for an interview ten years later....
Pulling out all your obvious gray hairs! Seriously. Yes, I did that. I was basically ready to go and looking at myself in the mirror and started noticing all the white/gray hairs surrounding my face... So out come the tweezers and pluck, pluck away... Much better.... Who knew this was part of getting ready to give someone a first impression.

So that is my tale... Hopefully I will have some good news to report soon.

So.... Umm.... Yep...

For those of you who don't know, (even though I assume the three or four of you who read this already do know) I have recently gotten divorced. And moved.

Just to recap (and very briefly) we are friends, getting along, just made a decision that was best for the both of us to move forward as happier people. That about sums that up, right? If not, you just ask me personally and we can clear up the rest :)

So, blog world... I have a new house. And despite all the chaos it took me to get here, I love my new house. It's bigger than the other one, which was eensey weensey to say the least. The yard is also very large, half an acre for the monkeys to run wild on. And we are a very short walking distance from a rather large and scenic park, which conviently has an elementary school located just on the other side of it. Trees, trees, quiet, quiet, and even more quiet around here. I have heard owls hooting away in the evenings, as well as a bag pipe player who I think practices in the park. Whenever there is music/concerts in the park we are in perfect listening range. Location Location Location... it's good.

For the first time in my adult life I now have a dishwasher... shocking, but true. And I think I may end up taking back all the mean things I have said about them in the past move forward more open minded towards this new fangled technology. Also, I ended up having to buy a new computer... my ten year old trusty just wasn't cutting it anymore... I have purchased two pieces of furnature that were NOT assembled... And I successfully put one together ALL BY MYSELF! That's right... you read that correctly. A computer desk, which I am computing on RIGHT NOW! And it's so not falling apart! Next will be the television console.

There are tons of projects to do around here... tons. But I have lots and lots of time to get to them all... or figure out how to get someone to do some of them for me! the lawn... Oh the lawn! It's big. Large. Expansive. Crap. I'm gonna have to mow that I guess.... Another thing I will be working of figuring out how to get out of. Making deals, trading meals, something, anything... I don't do lawns. But... I may be retracting that statement soon as well.... hmmmm, I'll have to think on that one!

Kids. They are doing great. They love the new house. And they love it when it's time to go to his house for their weekly sleepovers. They go two nights a week, every week. They seem to have transitioned well, probably mostly due to the fact that I did nothing but worry and plan and over think and occomodate the change for months ahead of time. I slipped in little ideas here and there about the upcoming change, we went through transitional phases before we moved so they could get used to how things would be, we talked about things here and there. The first day we told them there was a for sure freak out moment, but it faded fast and things almost seem normal already. And this is only week two of being in the new house. It helps that he and I are in agreement about what we are doing, there is no fighting, we are still doing things together, we get along good in front of them as well as when they aren't looking. To them, nothing has really changed except that they have two homes. They actually see him more now than they did before... so... it's all good.

So.... Umm..... Yep... That's my story. That's my life.

The Big Three (and a cake)

And Logan turned the big THREE.
Here's a little early birthday present for Logan and Nola...



THANKS Evi!

And thank you Dollar Store for all the birthday supplies I needed!


A few yellow gift bags and a Sharpie and voila! Goodie bags for a construction themed party (and with only four kids to cater to this only took about 30 min)





And onto the cake... Construction is the theme... I bought tractors and chocolate cake mix, brownie mix and a few other candies to make a construction scene on a cake...

First there was the Circus Peanuts.. the most disgusting candy ever but as orange as a construction cone! I cut and molded them into cones... sticky, sticky, sticky!


And a pan of brownies to make into boulders... first I scooped out spoon fulls of baked brownie:


Rolled them into balls and dusted them in powdered sugar...


And we have brownie rocks! so so so so so yummmm! (in my opinion, the best part of the cake)


I baked a chocolate cake, iced it with green icing and made a road from black licorice. I put it on the bottom side of a sheet pan (cookie sheet) and iced that too.


Then I dug out a hole or two from the cake and let the chocolate cake pile up like dirt, surrounded then with hazard cones, stuck the construction vehicles on with icing and added boulders and additional cones.... TaDa! A construction cake!







Logan loved it!

Happy Birthday Little Baby Boo.

And then he opened his present from his sister, a Thor helmet and hammer...

Happy Birthday Thor! He is kinda big and blond like an Azgardian.

Pwe-Kool Rools!

First day of pre-school... oh the memories... seeing as it was almost a week ago and I'm finally putting up a post and pictures...

Well, here she is, the star of the day:


Sporting her new Barbie backpack, complete with pink, pink and more pink, including pink sequins and pink sparkles. Every preschooler needs a backpack larger than their torso to carry all those things back and forth (so far we've had one piece of colored construction paper and one six inch square drawing... so worth the money!)


And let's see how tall you are compared to your little brother who is so sad/jealous/angry/confused as to why he doesn't get to go to school too.


And Ladies & Gentlemen, a miracle - ME! In an actual photo, with my actual kids!


And here we are, Mama & Nola... growing up and going to school...


By the way, she loves school. Loves it loves it loves it.

Pre-Schooler To-Be

Yesterday was Nola's preschool playdate where we went up to the school to meet some other kids. Before we left she was so excited, and Logan was confused as to why he wasn't going to Kool as well... I explained to him that he had to be an older kid, to which he explained to me that he was really big already...which he is (he would have towered over most the kids there). I told him all the kids there would be four and he might not be old enough quite yet... then he says to me, "But I will Karate the bad kids...." Well, okay, good plan, still not going this year.

So we get there and Nola goes into Statue-Mode. She stands and breathes, that's it. The teaches kept trying to get her to participate and interact with the other kids, but she wasn't having it. Just stood near me and kept quiet. Eventually I got her to color a picture for Allyson, her cousin/idol. It worked. She sat at a table with three other little girls and colored. Then they called for the parents to come to another room. And she DIDN'T freak out! I was shocked and proud. I thought for sure she'd melt down into a puddle of tears and grabby hands.... but she just sat and colored. I watched her from the other room across the hall and she did good.

Twenty minutes later we came back in to get the kids and she jumped up from the rug (story time). I thought she might run to me but she quickly realized that other people were watching her and she just did a little jump into the air with a big smile and came over to hold my hand... So cute! We left the room, got our Popsicle, and drove to go pick up Logan. In the car and afterwards she told me that it was really cool. She told me that one kid got a spanking because he was a little boy and he hit another little girl. This was obviously made up. Also a little girl was crying when the grown ups left and a teacher gave her water and she spilled it and cried more and the teacher was really nice and made her feel better. And that she even said hi to a couple of kids, only girls, not boys... Then at bedtime last night she said she even said hi to a boy!

Logan got into the conversation at this point and reminded me that he wanted to go to 'pwe-kool' too! Nola proceeded to explain to him that he was still little and only she could go, he wasn't four and he wasn't even three! and that he just couldn't go! He got a little upset and whined about it until I came over to tuck him in. Then he looks up at me with his sweet angle baby face and says, "But Mama, I still know Karate...." I said, "I know you do Baby, now go to sleep..."

She wouldn't give me a real smile, even though I begged... but here she is, long legged big girl stuff!


Another "pouty-and-I-won't-smile-for-you" face.

A Day's Work

First of all I would like to dedicate this blog post to Lucy... who basically demanded I blog more.
And I would like to dedicate my day's accomplishment to Evi... who basically asked me why the holy hell I wasn't finished with those paintings yet. And also to the 100+ degree weather outside for forcing me to do something indoors with the kids, painting.


So after months of sitting in various places in my house I thought I may as well get back to these paintings that are supposed to be hanging in Cayce and Scott's house by now... or by last Christmas (oops).

Here is my before shot, taken in the afternoon...


And a few hours later, here is what I accomplished.... more windows, doorways, some shading and detail and a little more water color...


Now if I could find a few hours a day, these suckers might be done by THIS Christmas!

Ok Lucy, now comment on that! Ha!

=sum(M3:Y0)

Um, I know that doesn't make any sense... I was going for an Excel equation that had a 'me' and a 'you' in it... or at least maybe sortof looked like it might.

Why? Because I have a long lost, and recently rekindled, love affair with spreadsheets. I love them. I love making them. I love updating them, color coding them, complicating them.... I would marry them! And since my days working in an accounting department have long been over and my funds to purchase my own copy of Microsoft Excel have diminished (and my attempts to beg borrow and steal copies, real and fake, have failed) I have missed my spreadsheets so so much. And then I was told of a program I could download that would replace Microsoft Office. Oh My! And it was free! And it works. I can even save the files in MS formats and open old docs and spreadsheets from the good ole days... It's like I'm whole again! (it's OpenOffice.com by the way)

Why am I gushing on and on about spreadsheets? Because I love them. And because now I have a spreadsheet for everything I've been meaning to keep up on lately... Bills, budgets, projects, plans, etc. And I think I'm actually being more productive. To me a spreadsheet is like a list having an orgasm! And I love love love me some lists... so spreadsheets are kinda like my wildest dreams come true. (I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one out there with these feelings.)

So I have a Project spreadsheet. And one of the pages, or sheets, is for photo projects. And my largest project is my kids photo albums. I haven't kept up n them in a very long time. I have an album for each, four pictures for each month of their lives. Logan's are all in black and white and Nola's are all sepia tones. I've been working for about three days on getting caught up. And today I finished! Seventeen months worth of photos, four per month (roughly) per kid... I ended up with 136 pictures selected, edited and uploaded... and yes, there was a check mark to be made for the completion of each of these steps on my spreadsheet. Of course I won't be ordering them now because I have no online deals for Shutterfly at the moment. I tend to get 50 free print emails from time to time, so I will wait for one of those if I can stand it. But here are some of them for you to see....
























Oh! And on a side note (seeing the pull-ups in the picture above reminded me), Logan is now being potty trained and is wearing big boy underwear! Or little boy superhero underwear. It's only been about a week but we've already had a few accident free days!

I'm Not Dead...

I guess I missed May. So now I'm down to less than one blog a month... oh so sad.

I guess I just don't think that much exciting stuff has happened lately. But I'm not dead.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try and think really hard and come up with something interesting or entertaining to blog about... Or at the very least I'll post some pics of the kids...

April Showers

Wow, I'm really rolling here at one blog post a month! Go me!

So it rained here in the Lou... for a month! It's raining now and probably won't stop until June. Somehow, despite the rain, we managed to put up a new swing set, mow the grass for the first time this year, plant the front flower bed, survive an allergy/asthma attack (nola), gain new employment (me), and slosh through Easter.

Swing set plus all day basking in the pollen equals steroids and nebulizer treatments for the four year old, not to mention a new routine of checking pollen counts, administering Benedryl, lots of changing clothes and after-play showers. Spring has sprung! The only good thing about all this rain is that it washes away the pollen. Maybe it will rain until the flora has stopped blooming and we will be free to roam the yard again without fear of the evil yellow stuff.


Logan helping Uncle Scoot build the Swing Set.



Waiting for a Swing Set to be built is tough....



Unless you end up in a chair with your partner in crime and just giggle till you pee your pants!



So, I have a job. Yep. Me. I'm helping a friend do landscaping. Only two days a week, and only if those two days work for everyone involved... but it's been really fun so far. I get to start and finish a project in the yard, not MY yard, but A yard. Around here outside projects get delayed for potty breaks, settlements of disputes, getting balls from over the fence, getting snacks, drinks, toys, etc... you get it - kids get in the way of yard work. So not only do I get a break from the monkeys but I'm getting to work outside, which I love. And if that wasn't enough for me to do it... I'm actually getting paid!

And today is Easter. We woke up to bunny baskets and then quickly got dressed in our wonderfully handmade by Cayce Easter clothes... (not me, she totally didn't make me an Easter dress this year, but I'm crossing my fingers for next year).



The kids and I went to my mom's for more baskets and an indoor egg hunt (rain!) and some honey baked ham. Yum.



Now we're home and waiting for yet another round of storms. **Oh! By the way... we were SO SO SO close to all the Airport Damaging Tornadoes! And luckily we live in a small pocket that didn't get any severe weather, although the adjoining towns to our west, north, and north east got hit really hard - ie. the airport.**

That is all for April so far. Not much left of this month so no one hold their breath that I will be posting again until May Flowers....

March On...

So March was lame. Nothing much happened. We did go to Indiana to visit Grandpa and entertain the idea of moving to Effingham, IL. Kirk was offered a job there and we went to check it out on the way back from IN. Ummm, that would be a resounding Hells to the No! No offense Effingham, but I'm just not a country girl. And it's called f-ing Effingham. For those of you who've driven through the middle of America a time or two, it's the Illinois town with the big, giant cross on the side of the highway. That's the main attraction I think. And possibly the only attraction.

Anyway... that's about the extent of my news from March. (I've lost 15 pounds, but that's not very exciting.)

While visiting Grandpa, the kids received Easter stuff, including a gingerbread bunny house. Here are some pictures of that and Alyssa, the over-sized dog that my in-laws own...

Somewhat on Track

This is another post about my fat. I know - fascinating, right?

I lost 12 pounds... then accidentally gained back around five. Now I'm back to my 12 lost. I started on January 1st and aimed to loose a pound a week. After consulting my calendar I realize it's been nine weeks. Around four weeks in I decided that I was doing so well that I would up my goal to two pounds a week so I could be closer to my goal by summer...

According to my original plan I'm rocken and rollin... 3 pounds ahead.
According to my revised plan I'm kinda sucken it... 6 pounds behind.

So I think I will consider myself somewhat on track and just keep on keepin on.

I have one more pound to loose before I drop down to the next 'decade' in pounds. By that I mean counting by tens... so if I weighed in the 330's and was about to drop into the 320's... you know, the decades of weight.... anyway... one pound to go till I move down another decade.... and I'm not gonna tell you what that decade is...

So yep - that is all.

I Love My Cayce...

And my Cayce loves me!


In a tree, beside a lake...


Kissing each other, for goodness sake!


In the desert, hitching a ride...


Little Cayce is by my side!


Ok - so I got a new scanner... and obviously it works...
I just had all these cute pictures of me and Cayce... pardon the cheesy rhyming... I don't know what came over me.... Too much Dr. Seuss I guess....

Hot Fries on My Thighs

Now is that a blog post title or what?!

So yesterday we went to Target as a family... while walking in to the store there was a big mess of something on the parking lot. As we walked through it Kirk and I both said... "Yum." Not your typical response to parking lot messes... but this mess was a spilled bag of Hot Fries. Some walked on, some driven over, most pulverized into dust... but a few were recognizable enough to make both of us think, Oooo! Hot Fries! (We both had skipped lunch but I doubt the reaction would have been any different had we both just eaten.)

Target done, on to the gas station. And what does Kirk come out of the mini art with? Yes. Ladies and Gentleman, he bought a big bag of Hot Fries!

I tried not to eat too many of them since my weight loss quest has taken a turn for the worse... I lost twelve pounds and recently gained several of those back. So now I'm trying to re-double my efforts and get back on the skinny train. Hot Fries don't equal skinny. Not unless I'm planning on being a finger down the throat kinda girl, which I'm not. So I let him eat more than half the bag while I just nibbled.

But then.... I went to Cayce's last night to play games and drink some wine. I was home around midnight and no one was awake but me and that damn bag of Hot Fries. There was about a third of the bag left... I sat down to finish a recorded episode of Oprah... and damned if those Hot Fries didn't just jump into my mouth and go straight to my thighs! Yep... shamefully I ate the rest of the bag. But on a lighter note, somehow this morning I weigh one pound less than yesterday morning.... so maybe... just maybe... Hot Fries are the key to weight loss success? No? Yeah, probably not. Damn!

So this is Monday and a new day, a new week... and I am going to stick to my workouts and try to stay far far away from Hot Fries and all their lovely relatives (aka junk food). Here's hoping I can report some more success next week on pounds lost... and not Hot Fries devoured. Ooops.

Birds and Bees and Puppies

Nola: Mama...ummmm... how does the baby get INTO your belly?
Me: (Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit!) Well, it grows in there. You don't start with a big baby in there, it starts out teeny tiny and grows...
Nola: How does it grow in there?
Me: It just does.... (please let that work, please let that work...)
*long pause*
Nola: (very concerned look on her face) Uh... Mama! Do I have a baby growing inside my MY BELLY?!
Me: No. Not at all! You have to be a grown up to grow a baby.
Nola: How come?
Me: Because your body isn't big enough to have a baby inside it... You need a grown up body.
Nola: Oh. Okay.

And last night she informed me that one of her stuffed dogs (which was made to be a purse and has a zippered pouch in it's back) was gonna have a baby. She had put a smaller puppy into it's belly pouch and told me that tomorrow the baby was gonna be born. So far today, no birth has occurred.

Just a Few

I still haven't really caught the photo bug yet... but I did take just a few pictures of the kids yesterday playing outside... So here you go: