This wasn't tonight, but these are my kids costumes and my Dad in the middle. This was from the Halloween camping weekend a few weeks ago. (Rick, if you see my Dad, you'll have to say something about his costume...he'll be trying to figure out how the hell you saw it!) Anyway, this could have been us tonight, except that my older daughter, Jamie, decided she is too old to go trick or treating with us and the cool thing to do is to go over her friend's house to trick or treat with her family. So she kind of had a surrogate Halloween family...which probably works out better for Jamie b/c I'm sure her friends' Mom wasn't constantly trying to steal her candy! No, it was just me and Beth and we didn't go out for long b/c she wanted to get home to give out candy! I don't know about you, but not once in all my years, did I want to give out candy....not even as an adult! Getting candy was always the priority of the evening! Once Bethany was done making the rounds, we sat on our front steps with the big bowl of candy and she did all the work. Not that we had many kids...our street was noticeably quiet this year compared to previous years. Which, of course, left lots of time in between to eat the candy that we were obviously going to have left over.

Well, I hope everyone had a nice, safe Halloween!

Driving More Affordably

I paid $2.299 per gallon for gas this week! Just wanted to share that with you!

Also to remind everyone that we get an extra hour of sleep this weekend! Yay!

Sugar Rush 101

This was the Halloween weekend at a campground we go to - 2 years ago. The costumes actually fit their characters pretty well :) Notice their expensive trick or treat bags...only the best for my kids!

Ihopeyou'reallpreparedforthesugarrushourkidswillhavetomorrownight!


That was really hard to type without putting in spaces!


So tomorrow night is Halloween...it's like kids free pass to gorge themselves on candy, then they expect us to feel bad for them when they don't feel good....we're too busy not feeling good from all the candy we stole from them when they weren't looking! Not that I would do that, but maybe you do....
It's been a very hectic last month in my house and I am not kidding when I say we just put up our Halloween decorations tonight after dinner. We just have not had time. What is the point of doing now? Bethany asked if we were going to put them up and my response was "I think that ship has sailed until next year"...she started crying...so I gave in and we put them up...actually she did most of the "putting up" part....I always get the sorting out of the tote part.

How to Ruin a Peaceful Morning....

This photo was taken from the deck off my kitchen....what a nice peaceful morning and what a great way to start the day. It doesn't happen often, that these beautiful animals grace us with their presence and I always feel I have been privileged to see something special when it happens. As I've stated before, I'm not one to get into politics, etc., however it's my blog so don't read if you don't like it. I'm not a big anti-gun activist by any means, but when hunting season begins, we know it in my house. It used to be only on the weekends...early in the morning you would start hearing the pop, pop, pop of guns going off in the woods behind our house....I have been hearing them almost every morning this week. I just feel that if I can hear them, they are way too close. I don't get the whole man thing of donning the bright orange jacket along with camo everything else, squatting in the mud and leaves for hours, hoping to peg a poor, defenseless animal so you can brag about it. Oh yes, your very tough...would be funny to see how many hunters there still were if the animals could actually defend themselves!
OK, that's my vent for the day....

Just When You Think You're Safe....

I thought my co-worker, Eileen, would get a kick out of yesterdays blog so I told her to read it (not on work time, of course, we always wait until lunch time to do stuff like that ;)....she was laughing so hard I was afraid she was going to hyper ventilate...I'm sure it wasn't so much my writing wit as it was her enjoyment of getting to relive the events of how she crippled the last of my self confidence last Halloween. If this wasn't bad enough, she thought, "how could I enjoy this even more? I know! I'll forward this blog to all my family and friends!"...of course she has re-told the story to all her family, friends, neighbors, strangers she stops in the stores....I'm sure even her cats think now and then, "remember the story about the woman who really thought everyone dressed up for Halloween?! That was great!" So now, even I'm up for a good laugh now and then...and I think I have a pretty good sense of humor...so I'll admit, she got me good....but the worst was when we were walking out of work at the end of the day. We stopped to talk with Frank, the President of the company, for a moment and somehow got on the subject of yesterday's blog.....I thought Frank was going to start gasping for air he was laughing so hard...a little too hard I thought....just at the memory of what happened last Halloween! At least we know what to bring up if he is ever in a bad mood....I guess that could go for anyone in the building where I work.
My countdown has begun....to when Halloween is over!

Halloween Schmalloween...who needs it!

So it's almost the one year anniversary of one of my most embarrassing moments. Yes, I'm actually going to go through the agony of it and fill you in....unless you are one of the people I work with. Then you are probably sitting there, laughing and saying, "Oh yeah! That was great!"

I have a good friend where I work...I'll call her Schmeileen for privacy purposes. She really is a very nice person...however, and I have to say she has toned herself down a bit since last year, there is a side to her which is very mischievous. You just can never tell if she is serious when words are coming out of her mouth. So last year was my first Halloween at this company and I had always worked in places where everyone dressed up on Halloween and I had a lot of fun with it. I discussed with Eil....I mean Schmeileen potential costumes and she assured me she would be in costume as well.......I'm sure you can guess what happened, but let me just walk you through each painful detail.

I didn't really have a good costume and my husband works for Pepsi so I decided I would be a Pepsi delivery man. I had one of his uniform shirts, work boots, Pepsi baseball hat - it wasn't the best costume, but it would do. I know what you're thinking...not so bad, what's the big deal? Well that would be the props I had....no I couldn't just wear the uniform, I had a handtruck with a few cases of Pepsi loaded on to it. Now from where I park, I have to walk in front of the building by many windows and once inside there is a long hallway that empties into a large room with about 30 cubicles in it with offices along the outside walls....and of course my desk is farthest from the hallway....as soon as I exited the hallway and saw everyone dressed in their normal business casual attire I wanted to puke. I just kept walking towards my desk and thinking how I wanted to just turn around and go home and start over. Of course I had to go by Schmeileen to get to my desk and I made sure to let her know how unhappy I was about my situation. As soon as I sat at my desk my phone rang...it was one of the managers..."Yeah, I got a quarter stuck in the Pepsi machine in the cafeteria, can you help me out?" followed by lots of laughter. It was awful and I still get sick to my stomach when I think about it. I took it all in good fun that day, but the jokes got tiring and about a week or so ago people started asking me what my costume would be this year...yuk, yuk, yuk. Knee slapper I tell ya.

And the World Kept Turning.....

This morning was another stellar morning in my household. For whatever reason I have been unsuccessful in getting my 8 yr old up in the morning. We really need to be out of the house by 7:30 am, 7:45 the latest. I have tried different tactics, all to no avail. This morning was no different and she even argued what she seemed to think were very good reasons she did not get out of bed when I pleaded with her. Eventually she made her way to the shower and started her day. I, meanwhile, am ironing my clothes, making my lunch, trying to pick up the house a little and even managed to make myself a very yummy coffee to take to work.

Now I have to pause here and explain about the coffee. Some time ago I got hooked on Honey Dew's Mocha Madness, which is just 1/2 coffee and 1/2 chocolate milk. However, I got hooked on having that wonderful chocolate flavor in my coffee and found I couldn't do without it. So, at work I started adding coffee to a package of sugar-free hot chocolate. At home I use whatever I have, either the hot chocolate or the chocolate milk. I managed to get a few people hooked on what we have dubbed "the chocolate coffee".

So this morning I had chocolate milk and managed to make my coffee taste just perfect. I set it aside after taking one sip from my travel mug due to my presence being requested for a fashion check. Since we were running late, as usual, I advised Bethany she would need to have a granola bar for breakfast and I headed for the bathroom to finish getting ready for work. As I walked away, Bethany was not shy about her unhappiness with the breakfast option I gave her and decided to take matters into her own hands. From the other room I heard yummy coffee splattering over every lower kitchen surface, followed by yet another call for Mommy.

It was not long after I finished wiping my yummy coffee from the inside surface of cabinet doors that I realized I should have taken a picture of the mess so everyone could get a good chuckle out of it....I guess at the time I couldn't really see it as something to chuckle at.

Bethany advised she had been trying to get the cereal on top of the fridge when the accident happened and now she was going to starve. I apologized to Bethany after advising her that if Mommy keeps being so late and loses her job b/c the economy sucks and has no money to buy food....THEN she will starve. Blink, blink...."what do you mean, Mommy?"

So I'm sneaking in her room tonight with a big-ass alarm clock that will be sitting across the room from her bed.

Twilight...Again!

For those Twilight fans out there, I heard on the radio that they are announcing the SECOND movie and the first movie isn't even out yet! For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about....and men, I mean you, read up on these books/movies b/c they are already starting to break all those Harry Potter records! I'll help you out....go to this website and read up:
http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/.
For the record I just started reading Twilight for the second time - I wanted to re-read it before the movie comes out in November!

Zuma

575,600
Levels 5-9
my highest score Ev-A!
I think you can play for free here:

http://www.popcap.com/games/zuma?s_kwcid=zuma2365415418&gclid=CLzb6sGnt5YCFRoSFQodkCOJKw

What Happens When Pets Hear You Going For The Deli Cheese.....

I swear just 2 seconds earlier this was empty floor space....I just wanted to make a grilled cheese sandwich. Try as hard as I could, there was no way I could get 2 slices of deli cheese out of the crinkly deli bag and wrapping without them hearing it. By "them" I mean the trophic trio pictured above. They compete to give you their best pleading face and be the first to receive a tid bit of cheese. They probably taunt each other afterwards about getting more or bigger pieces of cheese than the others. Crazy kids!

I Love Giant Schnauzers....

And I'm not afraid to say it, Lauren! OK, so here's the story behind this one:

Friday night I rode with 2 of my dear friends to the wake of the mother of our other friend. Afterwards, we went to dinner and I was about 1/2 way through a bottle of Sam Adams Oktoberfest when the conversation some how took a turn and I was heard, apparently loudly, exclaiming "I like Giant Schnauzers....I....LOVE....Giant.....Schnauzers!"...emphasizing each word so people would know how much I really liked these dogs...but when I looked over at my friends, they were peeing their pants laughing so hard b/c apparently it sounded like I could have been talking about other things....anyway fun was had by all. I really do like these dogs...just for the record!

In Memory Of Dear Friends.....

This past week has thrown two of my dear friends for quite a loop. One of my dear friends at work lost her Mom after being ill for a short time after suffering several strokes. I sit right next to her at work and listed to the painful events her and her family went through almost every day. Most of the time I felt quite helpless - I'm a pretty good listener, but I'm not very good when it comes to comforting things to say. I know it's difficult for everyone, but sometimes I get anxious just thinking about what to say.

At the same time, my best friend, who lives in Africa but whose parents live in MA, found out her Mom had cancer and it had already spread quite thoroughly. Although she had planned a trip home for the Holidays, her family stateside advised it might be a good idea to come home ASAP. She literally made it home in the nick of time. She walked in the door, her Mom recognized her, smiled, said her name - so she definitely knew she was there...then only hours later, her Mom could do no more than mumble. I had the good fortune of growing up with this friend and her family, which consisted of 2 sisters, 3 brothers and her parents. I spent this past Friday and Saturday, not only attending the wake and funeral, but once again enjoying the company of my friend and her family.

In both cases, they were short illnesses and the families are devastated. My heart goes out to both families and I hope I can learn to better enjoy life to its fullest at every opportunity and stop sweating the small stuff.

The Heat Is On.....

Every year I try to see if I can make it to November without turning the heat on. It's kind of like a game...how late in the year can we make it before we have to turn on the heat. Almost to convince myself it's not even close to us needing to turn on the heat, I will leave some windows open a little past when I should..."it's not that cold yet..see, I still have windows open!"..."kids if you're cold there are some mittens and scarves over here"....Last year I made it to Oct. 30th. I'm sad to say we turned on the fireplace today...I feel defeated....or maybe just old....no defeated, I don't think mentally I will ever feel old!

Consistency Has Not Been My Fortay....

While I have previously been known to hit a rhythm, posting blogs every day or so, recent events have thrown my world out of whack, so to speak. My apologies to those who actually look forward to my quiet musings of the mundane.

We honestly have not had a chance to stop and breathe since we returned from Disney World...and that was about 3 weeks ago! This past week finally allowed the genius twins to finally catch up on all their school projects that our FL trip made more difficult for them and ease the guilt a bit that we felt for causing the whole situation.

Today they we returned to the routine of CCD and church (last week was the long, Columbus Day weekend...no CCD, and we were away so no church). I have to say I couldn't wait to see if the serial breastfeeder (see previous blogs) was going to be there and I was a bit disappointed when we walked into church and the first pew was empty. I still insisted we sit farther towards the back of the church so we would get used to it. Good call on my part b/c not 2 minutes later Mr. and Mrs. Serial Breastfeeder came in with their 4 sons and baby. For the first part of mass I was excited b/c the baby was now drinking from a bottle! Yes, I thought! We are in the clear! The baby was then munching on some baby crackers quite happily and life in church was finally going to return to a breast-free environment......hold the phone! It was not to be....sure enough, about 15 minutes before communion, she whipped them out and commenced feeding. Ughh. At least now I get to see the reaction of all the people around her from my new vantage point without having to endure the view myself!

Also today was supposed to have been Bethany's last game for cheerleading. I almost had to force her to go...she's really ready to be done with it. I got there, settled into the bleachers with two other mother's I normally sit with and we began our normal catching up. Now we had missed 2 weeks - one due to Bethany's need to work on catching up with all her school projects, and last week b/c we were away and for some reason it seems to me that there shouldn't be games on Holiday weekends. I was now informed by my friends that not only was this not the last game b/c we have a make-up game next weekend, but our team made the playoffs so we will be playing into November! Yikes...it was really cold today!

I Couldn't Possibly Eat After What I Just Saw....

Never thought I wouldn't have the stomach to go up and get Communion, but it happened. This past weekend my girls and I returned to the weekend routine of spending our entire Sunday morning attending CCD and mass....I say this because unlike good Catholics, we do not attend mass from May (when CCD ends) until Sept (when CCD begins...see a trend here?). I have no problem with this but I'm not going to get into why now....

So we're sitting in mass, not in the front row this time b/c my Mom got there before us and saved the 2nd row - Bethany had a word with Grammy about this and let her know that in the future if she insisted getting there ahead of us and the front row was open, she had better take it - and shortly after mass began I realized the serial breast feeder was sitting across the aisle from us in the front row. I refer back to my original blog on this: http://thoughtsfrommylittlecorner.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html
My Mom said they thought her family had gone to a different church b/c she hadn't seen them in a while...probably like us, they hadn't been to mass all summer. Anyway, shortly before Communion, she whips out the boob and begins to let her young toddler "feed". I guess I feel if the woman wasn't 300 lbs and there was way too much boob being exposed, it might not be so bad...but also, she really needs to be in the back of the church. Even if the woman was skinny, I don't think they should be in the front row! Bethany did not see the events happening across the aisle, but Jamie caught an eyeful and looked at me as if to say, "Holy Crap! Do you see that?!". So now I feel like on Sunday if I go into church and she is there in the front row, I should go up to her and say, "Excuse me, will you be sharing booby visuals today? If so, I will park it as far away as possible". I asked a few friends who breast fed when their children were babies and my friend Kris said it beautifully, "Jesus knows you inside and out- the rest of the congregation doesn't need to as well".

Backwards....

Just realized my posts are backwards....so go down to the Disney pics post and read up...

Biden/Palin Ticket

I was really disappointed that I missed the first Presidential debate so I made sure that I watched almost the entire VP debate. I am still undecided. Not that I want to talk about my affiliations or what I believe or don't believe, but I'm really having a hard time with this one. I did enjoy the VP debate - I liked that it didn't get nasty. This was my first time hearing Biden and I have to say I really like him. I thought, more so than Palin, he really answered the questions that were asked. He didn't dance around his answers, he answered the questions. That's almost unheard of in politics...as a matter of fact I think there is a secret group of politicians somewhere planning to fine him for being too direct and to the point. I originally was pumped up about Palin being on the McCain ticket and I like the whole down-to-earth approach of her answers...but honestly...and I can be honest, right? We're all friends here?...I can't see her having a serious conversation with Presidents and Kings from other countries. I can't see other countries taking her seriously. So I will be watching the other 2 upcoming debates to help me make a decision.
Love to hear your point of view....

Refer To The Geniuses For Answers

Now that our trip is over and we are dealing with the after effects of taking our children out of school only 3 weeks into the year, I can tell you for sure WE WILL NEVER DO THAT AGAIN! The main reason we did it was the times available for Mike to take vacation - and we figured they are both really smart so it wouldn't impact them as much. Wrong!
First, Jamie didn't get any of her work that she would have to do to catch up until the night before we left and I did not let her take any with her. I know some people do that - I heard other parents once or twice telling their kids they were going back to the hotel and doing homework. Sorry but that sucks - not happening. Now I didn't know that this was going to completely stress Jamie out when we returned home. She was miserable trying to do hours and hours of work and feeling completely overwhelmed that she would never see the light at the end of the tunnel. She actually is still trying to catch up but should be there by the end of this week.
Second, Bethany is at a new school this year in her little genius class. her teacher didn't seem too concerned, but thinking back now when I told her, what was she going to do, have a fit and stress Bethany out? Our plans were made so there was nothing she could do. I guess I took her non-chalance to mean Bethany would be fine...which she will. But it's been a really tough week. Of course I didn't help matters at all. She came home from school with reminders of 2 projects due. One I was aware of, but the other I was clueless. Turns out she came home with the assignment the 2nd week of school, but I haphazardly filed the paper away, never to be seen again....until last week when I was in a panic. So I am forcing her to cram and feel terrible.

So yes, it was a good trip, but I bet if we had checked with our children about when they wanted to go, both would have said they didn't want to miss school. Really, I'm sure of it.

I'm Unprepared For The World Of Cheer

So one of the reasons we haven't had 5 seconds to slow down is because Bethany is in the middle of the Pop Warner cheerleading season. Her coach wasn't too happy that we pulled her out for vacation and she missed 4 practices right before their competition! I guess I don't blame her, but I'm just now starting to realize how serious some people are about this whole cheerleading thing. I, myself, have always been anti-cheerleader ever since high school. We (my group of friends) didn't really like the cheerleaders. It wasn't really that we were jealous, it was more b/c the cheerleaders were snobby and acted as though everyone else needed to revolve around them...at least most of them. I'm not sure how it came to pass that my daughter is now a cheerleader - I think I had a weak moment and was thinking purely of the exercise she would get. Beth's had practices every other day since we got home and today was the "exhibition" as it's called. I have to say, all the teams look so cute in their uniforms and most people could care less if they make mistakes or not....but there are some cheer wackos out there for sure. And I'm not one of them....I know what you were thinking.

Have A Magical Day....

Bendy Vine Lady

Okay people! Lots of catching up to do, but don't worry, I'll take it slow!

We got back a week ago from 8 days at Disney World...now don't be upset that I didn't tell you I was going...some of you might have wanted to check out my house while I was gone and then we couldn't be friends anymore. Disney was great...very hot and humid the first 1/2 of the trip, then beautiful the rest. I swear if I hear "Have a Magical Day" one more time I'm going to throw a "magical" tantrum!

Favorite things for me: Kali River Rapids at Animal Kingdom - I love water rides. I'm not a huge fan of Animal Kingdom, but there is another thing over there that is really wild. I call her "bendy vine lady"...Bethany insists she heard someone say her name is "Devine"...it's a woman who walks, or slithers, on 4 stilts - even her hands, but every part of her and the stilts is covered in leaves and vines. She tucks herself away into the trees just off the walking path, then all of a sudden she will start moving really slow and slithers her "vines" and comes out onto the walking path and will go over to guys and wrap her "vines" around them. In the photo you can see Mike looking at her like "Me next!" you can just make out her face - it's looking sideways to the right. Anyway, also loved Test Track at Epcot, Toy Story at Hollywood Studios and just walking around Magic Kingdom.

Overall great trip, unfortunately we haven't had time to stop since we got home....hence I'm just now submitting my first posting in almost 3 weeks! Yikes!