Thursday Challenge - Container

A basket of Goodies from my 2008 Secret Pal

3x Thursday - It's Important

List the 3 most important things in your life, and why they are important to you.

1. Family - they are there always. I love them.. no matter what.

2. Work - believe it or not.. I love to do my job. I have a sense of purpose, a goal, and daily results. (freak, yea.... I know)

3. Crafting - no matter what I'm doing with my family or where we go... I take what ever project I'm working on with me.

Thursday Thunks

1. Have you ever felt alone, but yet there are people around you? Yes, all the time.

2. Do you have any video game consoles? Which ones? Yes, PS2, PS3 & Wii also our son has a DS and our daughter has a Leap Frog (my daughter and I rarely play with these toys)

3. Do you freak out at food warnings/outbreaks, such as the recent peanut butter salmonella scare? depends... warnings not really I just make sure we don't buy or eat that brand/type of food. Outbreaks.. we just try to stay as clean as possible.

4. What color/pattern is your beds' comforter/bedspread? the bedspread is a cream color with giant purple roses on it.

5. How many windows do you have in your house? 15

6. Name six things that are in your bathroom. a scale, magazines, jewelry box, mermaids, a clay rabbit (handmade by my son), & lilaic clock

7. How big is your garage? Should it be bigger? They said it's a two car garage. But I'd like to see someone get two cars in there... Normal cars - not the Urkel cars! Yes, it should be bigger. To me... if its a two car garage, I should be able to open all doors and walk comfortably in between each wall and car while the doors are open as well as between the cars with the doors open.

8. Got your taxes done yet? Nope, haven't gotten my w2s yet.

9. Think of a mental disorder..... why did you think of that particular one? Bipolar - cause my stepdad has it and when I read about it... the article made me think I have it...

Wordless Wednesday

Moody Monday, Curious

cu⋅ri⋅ous 
1. eager to learn or know; inquisitive. 2. prying; meddlesome. 3. arousing or exciting speculation, interest, or attention through being inexplicable or highly unusual; odd; strange: a curious sort of person; a curious scene. 4. Archaic. a. made or prepared skillfully. b. done with painstaking accuracy or attention to detail: a curious inquiry. c. careful; fastidious. d. marked by intricacy or subtlety.

I'm curious.... I'd love to know what the view is like from inside the hot air balloon. I've been in one but it was a ride that was taking people up three stories or so... for a few minutes and bringing them back down...

peaceful... I think... quiet... ya know?!

Monday Peeves, Religious Peeves

Regardless of whether or not you’re personally religious, what is a religious behavior that ticks you off?
Play Monday Peeves! Either discuss this topic in your blog or pick one of your own.

My religious peeve is that it seems to me that everyone is expected to be religious or of a specific religion. As if this or that particular religion is the only right one... Peevin!

Curious as a Cat Week 153

1. What's the most beautiful sound you've ever heard?

LuLu, our first night with her ever, in the hospital. She woke up crying, and we commented that it sounded like she kept saying over and over... "I good, I good, I good"

2. If you could stop loving someone, who would it be?

The Guy

3. What is the hardest transition you've ever had to make in your life?

Hard to say... wife to ex-wife.. then wife again (to someone else) trust is difficult...

4. Show and Tell. What comes to mind first when you see this picture? Or tell a story if it reminds you of one.

What comes to my mind is my odd love for pictures of barns and covered bridges. Nice barn here bi-the-way!

Listen Mommy....

confession time... My daughter LuLu, her name is really Olivia. I've shown her the Olivia books in the book store and we've talked about how her name is Olivia...
Sometimes she will say.. "Mommy, I'm O-livie-la today, okay, not LuLu, okay" More times than not, though, she's LuLu! (and that's perfectly fine with me!)

A few weeks ago she was watching one of her shows on Nick Jr. or wherever (I don't know because when she wants to watch something I'm just asking if she wants to watch.... {fill in the title here}...) Anyway.. I was in the kitchen and heard a squeal, like the sound of teenage girls in front of the cutest little boy band in the world.... but was it a couple of 14 year olds?? NO! it was my beautiful little 3 year old!!! "Mommy!!! Mommy!!! come here, come here....!!!!"
Of course I have to find out what the hell is going on, so..... I go into the room and sit on the couch.... "What is it, LuLu? What's going on?"

"Shhhh, Mommy, Shhhh!!! Listen...." She turns back to the tv. A commercial for the new Olivia cartoon is playing! "Mommy, Listen... O-livie-la RULES!" she says it along with the commercial... "haha O-livie-la RULES!"

Too cute!!

Facebook?? Twitter??

Courtesy of "Gunkle Mike" I decided to sign up to see what all the hub-bub is about... we'll see how long it lasts... =)

Thursday Challenge "Experimental"

This is my daughter "LuLu" and one of my first attempts and changing adding color on a sepia pic

enjoy

3x Thursday

1. Do you have any hobbies? If so, what are they? If not, what do you do with your down time?
I craft all the time. needlepoint, cross stitch, scrapbooking, jewelry, you name it.
2. What do you like to do for fun?
movies, camping, bicycling, something outside!!!
3. Do you go out much? Where do you like to go? What kinds of things do you like to do?
We don't really go out much anymore.. but strange as it sounds when we don't have the kids we like to go to a bar, drink and throw darts. We eat out now and then.. mostly to celebrate.

WW #39

1.) Do you drive with your hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel? Not always... one on the wheel, the other on the stick.
2.) How long do you keep cards given to you on birthdays and holidays before throwing them away? If you don't throw them out, what do you do with them? I have cards for the last 6 years. I have a memory box for each of us, for birthday cards, etc. Christmas cards, I decorate with and use them in making some of my Christmas ornaments.
3.) If, when you die, you could will any one of your characteristics to your children (child/future children), what would it be and why? I have no idea.
4.) What is the best personality trait you got from your mother and the best personality trait that you got from your father? Is it sad that I just text my sister to ask her?
5.) What is something that you wish you had a better understanding of? Communicating as a parent
6.) What makes you nervous? job interviews... and balancing my checkbook
7.) What is the strangest household object that you have ever or would ever use for help in masturbation? My ex thought it would be fun to try a corn cob... notice I said EX
8.) What do you have sitting on the countertop in your bathroom? Too much

"I Want...." Wednesday #20

This week's question is:

What do you want to teach your (current, future, or fictional) children?
I want to teach them that tv isn't as important as family. That reading can actually be entertainment.

I know you're seriously in denial that I have posted this much... but I'm trying.... =)

I've set a few goals for myself - hopfully attainable goals...

1. Set a bedtime for myself, and start sticking to it... ( I know that sounds awlful, but it's rare for me to get more than four hours of sleep a night.)
2. Restart the habit of weekly menu planning and doing the grocery list.
3. Lower the amount of sugars that I consume
4. Most importantly, more time with kids - less time with t.v.
5. More excercise as soon as the weather breaks
6. Take the dogs to the dog park once a month

There's Eleven of US....

I was in a store today that I love to go to... a little country store. It's called Meggie's Merchantile. She has country things for your home. Tableclothes, Napkins, Hand Towels... candles. They also sell tables, cabinets and curios...etc.
There was a woman asking about a table.. I couldn't help but over hearing... "We're looking for sort of a big table. There are eleven of us..."
I nearly stroked out... I keep hearing and seeing more and more of these super women and their gianormas families. Who are they? Where do they come from? What does their spouse do?

Jealous? Sure, I'll admit it... I used to think I was that "put together" that I could do anything... but good lord... "there's eleven of us" I mean really... who are these eleven people? the grandparents? Adopted kids? foreign exchange students? foster kids?

2008, My Health...

I'd been having headaches since August of 2007. Migraines, mind numbing, tortuous, can't keep my eyes open... headaches. Keep in mind this was also during my stint of having the IUD in. (conclusion IUDs...... are from the devil.... No, No, No from the DEVIL) After I'd had the IUD removed and that area began to feel decidedly better, I came to the conclusion that the migraines I was experiencing wasn't referred pain.
So, I took myself to the almighty legal drugdealer. Who then, in turn, sent me to someone "better" than he. After a CT scan, she told me that I had a deviated septum and a bone spur that would have to be corrected. Let me say that again.... a bone spur... in my sinus cavity... Could this have happened during my birth... during a failed attempt at trying to walk... WTF? She showed me the scan, my cavity was so blocked that she'd never seen anything like it.
At any rate.... the morning of April 4th, I went under the... well... knife and for that matter the file! I came out a few hours later and went home. Hubby went on Daddy duty. I tried to sleep in bed and succeeded for the first day... I think... I really don't remember the next full week. What I do remember is the lovely little nose pad that we had to make for me and change everytime it was full.. and that for the first week I slept in the recliner in the livingroom and woke only long enough to take a Lortab and a sip of water and shut my eyes again.
Cut to June... I'm still having THE headaches... I've gotten a speeding ticket (which I fully blame on the migraines). Nothing is helping. I go to a neurologist, who sends me for an MRI. Finds nothing... by this time I'm believing the "no brian" joke there too. He puts me on an Anti-inflammatory and Amitriptyline. The Amitriptyline he described as an anti-depressant... "but we're using it to treat headaches." At the same time... my sinuses are going nuts... my allergist says... in JUNE that the polyps that were taken out of my sinus cavities have grown back. That I need to start taking the shots they'd prescribed as well as Zyrtec, Singulair, and Nasonex or it's just going to continue to get worse. And she predicted within another two to three months, I'd need to have another surgery.
Needless to say, I started the shots/meds and haven't had another surgery. I'm nearly convinced that the trees and grasses, in an effort to preserve themselves and the planet, have found a way to keep us sick... or at least me. Wait, that sounds like a movie but it also remarkably sounds like what is happening.
I began talking with my doctors, trying to get off the meds... at least the Amitriptyline... it wasn't doing anything for me. I was still having the headaches. So, why take the meds.
Between May and August I'd gained 40 lbs. I wasn't sleeping well, I wasn't eating well, moody, you-name-it. I had a sinus infection and you guessed it... went back to the first doctor. I broke down. I've felt so bad, so unhealthy for over a year... and I just can't take it anymore... I'm a mother of two... I need to be there mentally for them not just visibly. And what do you think he did.... Yep... here are some anti-depressants.. take those you'll feel better. oh, and by the way... I'll have an appointment set up for you to see this shrink.
Sure, I'm not saying that having someone to tell that I'm sick of doing everything that I've been doing for the last 20 years wouldn't help. But Good Grief..... do you honestly think that's what is wrong? Have I showed these symptoms before, in the five years that you've known me? Or is this you're cure all... is the drug rep having a special on this one this month?

Something I Made

I know I've probably said before that I wanted to post pictures of the crafts that I'd made... so here goes... the first installment, I hope you enjoy.
Most of my ornaments are given to family and friends, a tradition that I'm trying to continue that was began by Hubby's wonderful G-mom, Eleanor.

Pic #1 is sort of a cluster of ornaments that I made for 2007. Clockwise left to right is a bell ornament, a Virginia Tech ornament and three ribbon candy ornaments. I gave some of these to family and friends for Christmas that year.

Pic #2 is a ribbon wrapped ornament. I made it and several others like it in 2007. But didn't give any of them away. They don't "feel" finished quite yet.

Pic #3 is a cute little penguin.. I made it for Christmas 2008. If you look closely you can see that he's holding a snowflake in his hands

I get some of my ideas from patterns in magazines, pieces other crafters have done, etc... or just stumble across some...

Who AM I?

So, It's like six months to a year between posts for me... Slacker! So, much happens, in six months, and yet... nothing at all.

Do you ever feel like you've changed... for everyone around you and not you?
Do you ever feel like you.... just don't feel right? something's wrong?
Do you ever feel like there's not enough time? never enough time? To much to do and you want to do nothing?
Do you ever worry that what you do or don't do will effect everyone around you? your children? your partner/spouse? coworkers?

Do you ever feel like you just.... want to cry? but can't.

Little pieces of me come out now and then. I'm trying to change for me now... but I'm not sure who .... I am. I've been so many people, mostly, I think because I wanted whoever I was with or near to like me... so I mirrored them. SICK, huh?! So... when you've been a mirror for the better part of god-knows-how-many-years.... how do you.... BE YOU?

It's almost 2:30AM, my daughter had pneumonia last week.. I'm tired for her, and for myself. I want to cry, but instead I think I'll just go to bed.