{Popsicle Stand}

This popscile stand, I am blowing it!! That's right folks I am out of here! No longer peachy, I am going to become a selling machine, a make & taker maniac in Yorktown. I fly out @ 7AM. I think that i have lost my mind because I haven't packed a thing, why? Because I have worked all day and I just started laundry. I am thinking that I could have a repeat blog of yesterday, titled ARGGGH! I have already accepted the fact that I will most likely not get diddly squat in sleep tonight. But its all good because I am very excited! I have been told that I am teaching a kit kat make & take which I find quite funny because I am hoping that "T" & "C" bought extra kit kat's for those that might get the munchies in between make & take classes (I wonder how many points a kit kat or 2 or 3 is?). Anyway, because I am not going to the hills of Tennessee, I am hoping to keep up with my blog and throw in a few pics so stop on by and keep checking out my blog!! p.s. i posted the link to the youtube video of the zorb ride in the regular posts. I didn't know any other way to do it. In a comment that dnksmommy asked, she said what kind of Mother would put her kids in a hamster ball full of water and roll them down a hill, Mark said "with a little squirt of palmolive, its the only way we can get them to take a bath!" LOL! Good night!

{YOUTUBE can ZORB}

Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xc_Uz7vgkc to see Action and lex Zorbing. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yczbaOqYgcs to see my silly SIL Zorbing.

These are the links to check out the zorbing in Pigeon Forge. (Thanks Pops!)

{AARGgghhh!}

aaarrrgghhh......that's just what I feel like saying. I have felt like a pirate all day long. I don't know why, I think its because I have had a long frustrating day and everytime something went wrong, I found myself saying, "aaargghhh!". I started the day when my son decided that he didn't want to go to school just because and then as his ride is waiting for him, he is dilly dallying looking for the perfect outfit which is most likely in the dirty clothes hamper, but its all good. Its not truly dirty unless it is clearly visible and then its not completely "unwearable" if he has only worn it one day before. I guess that the stain or dirt or whatever is still "fresh" enough for a whole nother day. I am sure that the teacher's think that the child only has 2 shirts and 2 pairs of pants because those are his favorites. Then I had to take the van back down to Jax to get the sliding door panels fixed and they said it was going to take 5 hours and that a courtesy van would take me to the mall. Well, they forgot about me and the courtesy van came and left and I was at the dealer for more than an hour before I could get out of there. Then getting back to the dealership 6 hours later was the same deal, she was running all over Jax and I would be the last stop and by then I was exhausted, totally pooped, but my sweetie pie Markie Poo was at home being quite the domestic diva, of sorts. We had a dinner with our church's home group and I had signed up for Cal Q's famous cream cheese chicken enchiladas and desert. Mark ran by the store and I had told him to get a quickie defrost kind of pie, but being the cake maker that he has become, he decided to make a 3 layer lemon cake with his own icing AND he made the enchiladas. What a man!! So, in other words, he can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan!!! Our dinner was great, but aaaarrrhhhh, we came home to disaster on the homefront, too much myspace for one kid and too much tv spacing for the other kid and the kitchen was a disaster. (Part 2 of tonight's special 2 part feature blog: I have also included some pictures of my decorations per the request of some of my blogging buds. Here is the lowdown on a few of them, we have a small candy tree in the large hallway, a very small gingerbread tree on top of our hutch (I love gingerbread men and have always had one in the kitchen), and a large tree in the scrap/den room which I bought on clearance on Christmas Eve last year that I did all in blue and silver and snowflakes because that room is brown and blue and it looks kind of cool. Its hard to get really good pictures where you can really see everything, but that's that. Enjoy!!! )

{and the stockings were hung...finally!}

I have spent the last 2 days getting ready for and working my hiney off for the most celebrated holiday on earth, a day when your wee one's eyes are filled with wonder and amazement at the majesty of it all. Yeah right! Only in the movies. At least not when they turn 10 & 15! Since moving into our very first house, I wanted to really make everything super nice and after 2 days of carting everything out of the attic (yes, all by myself!!!!.....not easy, the attic stairs scared me to death, flip flops are NOT a good idea!!), going thru everything, strategically planning each and every room, making my lists of what I needed to "set the scene", and last but not least putting back everything that I didn't use (you know the Christmas crap....what made me think that I was going to start collecting the Kmart Christmas bear anyway?) and making a trip into Jacksonville to make a few purchases to complete "the look", I am finally done! It is complete. And it looks pretty good I might add. We have not put up our tree yet, that is something that we do as a family, we go pick it out and then we decorate it together. Oh, back to my angelic prodigies and their lack of twinkle in their eyes, to their credit they have been quite complimentary on all of my hardwork, but they don't seem very excited. I,on the other hand, am getting ready for hot chocolate and playing Christmas music and thinking about how nice and cozy and Christmasy (is that a word?) that everything is and the children, the kids, the little people who should be more excited then I, seem less than enthusiastic. I think that it just saddens me that they are growing up and life is getting too serious for them and I am coming to the realization that I no longer have "young" children and I am so going to miss that this Christmas. I knew that last Christmas was probably my last year that Action would have that special kind of excitement that comes with Christmas, but I was hoping for just one more year.................. just one more?

{Cutsie Christmas Crap}

Cutsie Christmas Crap, that's what I've got and I've got it in abundance. Where it came from nobody knows, why I bought it, I have no idea, why I can't seem to get rid of it is a mystery to me. I have accumulated cutsie Christmas crap that I don't put out anymore, I don't know if I ever did (well, I think that I wen thru a phase when I lived in Hawaii), but when we started to really not stay home for Christmas I put less out at Christmas, but even when we did, I by-passed all the cutsie stuff. So, I now still have it and we just re-pack it back every Christmas and the movers pack it from state to state, but I can't get rid of it. Why is that? I should just donate it, right? I should donate it to the needy. I should donate it to some other poor sucker who in a couple of years is going to ask themselves why they bought this ugly stupid cutsie Christmas crap at the local goodwill store when they could have been buying something much more productive with their hard earned money, even a loosing lottery ticket at the local 7-11 would be a better bet then this stuff. So, what to do?? I can bet what to do because I have already started doing it. I have already started to re-wrap it and put it back in the Christmas boxes to be put back in the attic for next Christmas. So, it will only be 365 days until you get this post again. Start marking your calendars, I know that you can hardly wait!!

{Got Points?}

Got Points? I need points! 23 a day to be exact. I would love to have more points, I love to eat the points. Yes, its true. I am starting to go back to watching my points for Weight Watchers. I have gained nearly 10 lbs. since moving back to ho-bunk and I am squeezing into old clothes and finding myself needing to buy new ones. I started with the points yesterday and it is hard, as hard as I remember it? Harder!! I had such a good routine in Virginia and was doing so well and after our move, it just went downhill and now I have a muffin top. We all know what that is and its not pretty. In order to hide the muffin top, I have had to try on the "Mom" jean (high wasted) , I am not the "Mom" jean type. So, I have been faced with two choices, the "Mom" jean or the points. I have been wrestling with this decision for a long time because going back to 23 points a day is going to be tough, but I have decided it has to be done. The muffin top has to go. So, as of today, I am going to start saying good-bye to the muffin top and hello to the points. Welcome to a new day, a new week, a new me!

{Howdy, Ya'll}

Yee Haw, I have been countri-fied! But I am back! Its funny, but you would think that we would talk like that in Georgia, but maybe its because we are too close to Florida which isn't really part of the South (I can say that because I am from Florida). First of all, I hope that everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving. I missed talking to some of you very much over the last week. Anyway, the fam and I are back from a week long vaca with Mark's family in Pigeon Forge, TN. We had a really great time, we stayed out in 2 beautiful cabin's (one mack daddy cabin) and did a lot of fun stuff, ate turkey, did some hot tubbing and just spent some time with family. We took a ride out to Cade's Cove, which I love, but we got there too late to walk around and enjoy it, the kids & my SIL took a killer ride on the ZORB which is a thrill ride originating in New Zealand (I have included those pics and my FIL is going to get a youtube video of it , I will send the link) Its a huge ball that you get into and they push you down a hill essentially. My SIL did it strapped in, while the kids did it with water in the ball and they just slipped and slidded all the way down the hill. We went Nascar racing (go-carting) in 20 degrees below zero (you know I was inside sipping coffee), we enjoyed some great shows and rides at Dollywood. But I have to tell you, we were the Griswold's going to Wally World.....we all got up early to go spend the day at Dollywood (I would have bet that the brochure said 10AM that it opened), piled the kids in the van, down the mountain we go, into the parking lot and there is not a soul in sight, no one to take our money to park, no one to stop us from going in, we just went in, looked around, (theme parks are just not as exciting when everything is closed)called for the opening time (2PM), then headed out for some Krispy Kreme's and tourist stupidity in Gatlinburg until the park opened. But when it did, it was a ton of fun. The Christmas shows were incredible! They were worth the price of admission all on their own. But I think the best part was just being able to spend time with our family and my nephew was a blast all by himself. He is a hoot! He has grown so much since we saw him over the summer, he is walking now and can talk a little. He definitely has "Pops" and Momma down. The views of mountains and the changing leaves and the crisp air (I am not referring to when it got butt freezing cold!), the landscape of the smokies in the fall is absolutely, positively beautiful. BUT we are back and things will never be the same in Ho-Bunk Georgia!

{The Real World: Georgia}

No, I am not about to blog about my new favorite raunchy reality show. MTV's Real World is actually one that I think that I am too goody goody to watch. But I have had a day of UPS and downs. First of all, the UPS......a big shout out to Colin who is flying me out to Yorktown Virginia to work the first weekend of December at the store's Christmas sale. So, all of my "peeps" (you know who you are, better stop by and see me!!!) I totally thought that she was just talking and not really serious about flying me up just to work this sale this weekend, but then she started talking serious and then i got flight info in my e-mail. THANK YOU!!THANK YOU!! My second UP, I got a call back for the bank job today and I ran in for an interview (they wanted to interview next week, but i will be out of town) and it went fantastic and I think that I will be getting the job. I will keep you posted on that front. My third UP began with a very complicated down, our cabin that our families (in-laws, sis-in-law, etc.) had reserved in Pigeon Forge for next week got screwed up and I spent most of the day scrambling to find something else. We got something, but we will have to switch cabins during the vaca! BUT we got something, I am trying to be a glass half full kinda gal! My fourth UP, my Dad came thru his surgery okay. I talked to my Mom, but I haven't talked to my Dad. He is in a lot of pain because I guess that one of his hernia's was pretty big. My big down is that the entire day, I have had to fight another stinken migraine, which I don't get often, but when I do I can hardly fight them off and today it has been hanging out behind my left eye and I have a sneaking suspicion that its going to pounce hard and fast very soon as I am trying to get packed so that we can blow this popsicle stand for Pigeon Forge. I am very excited about this trip. I can't wait to see everyone, I love my sis-in-law to death, she is the sweetest and I cannot wait to see the baby. Anyway, that's all for tonight, I may not post until I get back and then I will have lots of pictures, I promise!! P.S. Happy Thanksgiving!!

{2 Pooped 2 Care}

This will be a short blog....I am just too pooped to really give a monkey's behind. Its been a long day working at the store, you know, my "job". It wasn't very busy today, actually quite slow. But I had a lot of product to get organized, we welcomed Heidi Grace and some of her super cute glitter, embossed, and flocked Christmas goodies. They were gingerbread and peppermint sticks, I love gingerbread men. I also got to work on a page which I wanted to take a picture of and put it in the post, but its at the store on display so I will do that later. It is actually made with Pop Culture by KI Memories. Anyway, I am out of here, big day tomorrow. We are packing for our trip to Pigeon Forge with the in-laws, sis-in-law and the cutest little wild man. I can't wait to see everyone and enjoy a week together, but before all of that pack, clean, post office, bank, grocery store, and probably pack and clean some more. Good night.....P.S. keep my Dad in your prayers, he is having a hernia surgery tomorrow in the AM.

{Its beginning to sound a lot like Christmas: Cha-ching!}

Today was a super fun day, I spent the day shopping with my peachy pal at a primo mall in Jax. I know its not even Thanksgiving yet and I have always made it a rule not to even think Christmas until after Thanksgiving, but this year the bug is hitting and hard!! I think its the smell of the peppermint latte's at Starbucks or maybe its the sparkle in the home decor departments that make me want to whip out my trees and start decorating. Anyway, we did some Christmas shopping, some smelly getting ready for Christmas shopping (tarts were on sale at Yankee!!) and I did a little Victoria's Secret shopping, I won't go into details on that and that is why its called Victoria's SECRET! But, I will say, its not anything scandelous (much to Mark's dismay), But they do have a fun selection of Christmas panties called "Pout" that I really liked!! Lex was easy to buy for, she always is! But Action is so hard. He is not crazy about clothes and is very picky anyway. He loves games and stuff, but a few games and my budget is bust!! Mark on the other hand, is getting one thing and I will not disclose that in this blog.... But it seems that I spent a ton of money and after reviewing the stash, the loot, the treasure chest of goodies that I scurried the day retrieving for my dearly beloveds, I have didely squat and no dinero left. I miss those days when the kids were younger and a few Little People and a bus and they were in heaven, a Little Tikes kitchen and I was set! I know that I have only lived here for 9 months, is it too soon for a 2nd mortgage???

{golf ball in the dryer}

I am an ordinary housewife, a stay at home Mom....my life sounds boring, right? Well, those that have board room drama and "real jobs" may think so and some days I totally agree and think that grass looks greener on the other side of that fence. And today started out just like that, I had my neighbors coming over some dinner, nothing special, just some chili and to hang out. But I needed to do some light cleaning, major laundry (which it always seems to be major), and get the chili in the crock pot. Sounds like a fairly light day ahead of me, right? I may actually get some time to catch up on my "stories" AKA soaps on TIVO. Well, not so much, Action decided that he wasn't feeling "quite right" and normally, I give them a kiss on the cheek and a kick on the butt and send them to school, but my van is in the shop today and I was afraid that if indeed he was getting the bubonic plague, I would have no way to come get him from school. So, having him here was like a small whiny irritation and ,of course, he was fine! Then, the laundry kept making noises in the dryer and I opened it about 5 times trying to figure out why it sounded like I was drying nails, but I couldn't find anything and then I chalked it up to some new cargo shorts that Action just got.......until it got really bad and I opened it up and a golf ball came flying out at me. Then my sweet husband came home for lunch and we got in the biggest tiff because he didn't want to throw out his sardine can in the outside garbage, it was the craziest argument EVER! I am still not sure what that was all about, I said it stunk up the whole house and he said it didn't.(It really was super stinky!) I am considering running a poll on this blog to find out who thinks who was right on this one, because I know I would so WIN! Then I get the call that the van is ready, Mark rushes home from work, we drive down to Jacksonville (45min away), to find out that they hadn't fixed the van and there are apologies every where and I end up with a rental car. Back home to the domestic diva, Lex who cannot figure out the vaccuum cleaner, which she has used a million times before, but today has amnesia and more drama insues. Finally, a nice dinner and a few margaritas with our neighbors brings me to the end of my dull and ordinary, crazy day.

{Big Bang!}

I just finished watching one of my new favorite shows, "The Big Bang Theory". I crack up every episode. I just love it!! I am hoping that the writer's strike doesn't make me wait forever for new material. And I am a quite bummed that one of my favorite reality shows aired its last show tonight and I didn't know it until the very end, but its a show that is one that I wouldn't admit to most people that I actually watch. I don't know why, its just one of those shows like "The Real Housewives of Orange County" where you might get that look if you tell someone that you ACTUALLY watch it (yeah, I watch that one too)Anyway, I just had a "moment" saying good-bye to "Tori and Dean Inn Love". Its the end of an era to know that I can no longer tune in every once in awhile and check out what is going on at the B&B, although not quite as devestating as when they took 90210 off the air (that's back when I was a big Tori Spelling fan!) Oh, well, life goes on...

{Zooommming!}

This whole weekend has been so very crazy, but so much fun. The weather has been the best yet. This is what I would call FALL....very cool at night, sweatshirt weather in the day. I am loving it! I never thought that there would be fall in Georgia, I even saw fall foliage on the trees!! Imagine that! I don't even remember fall foliage when I lived in Charleston. Lex has been run all over carnation this weekend with a friend that she has known since first grade and they are still great friends even though they are both Navy brats and have only lived in the same town a few years and Action had his last soccer game in Jacksonville on Saturday and has spend most of the weekend at a soccer buddy's house who is virtually a new pal. So, they both have had a great weekend, while Mark and I have had a lot of time without kids. Oh, speaking of what Lex did was a right of passage for most teens, her very first concert....."Brad Paisley and Taylor Swift"...totally supervised, but she and her friend had a blast, got t-shirts an autographed Taylor Swift CD and a killer picture which I decided to include. On to Monday....

{Peachy Pals!}

Yes, more than one post in a night! I want to say that I started to look thru my pictures to post on my blog and I found this one of my new super sweet friend here in Georgia and her little boy that is a one in a million little stink pot and I know that I have talked about her and have told lots of my friends about him, especially his "mulch" story and I have attached their picture the end of my page. But I also really started to think how grateful I am that I have made such a good friend in Lisa since moving here to "ho-bunk", and without her and her friendship I might be downing the prozac right about now in large quantities. Moving to Japan may not be an option for her.........................

{Getting Started 101}

This is actually the first post that I have every done, blogging has been inspired by Lorrie in Virginia and listening to a few scrapper's at a Savannah scrapbooking store talk about how they have connected with people thru it. I have wanted to do this for a long time, but since I am so completely computer "afraid" I have put it off, but I bit the bullet tonight. I am hoping that downloading the pictures will not be too intimadating for me because I take pictures...lots and I would love to be able to share them. I feel like I need a "outlet" that is another reason why I decided to do this and an "inlet". I have made a few good friends here in Georgia, but my mind is with my routines and lifestyle and friends elsewhere and I am really trying and struggle to let go of the past a little bit and move on with the future. I see this as a way of connecting with a lot of people and hopefully getting to know some of them thru different avenues since I have moved to a small town and there are only so many opportunities for me to meet new people. Also, what an awesome opportunity for everyone that I am close to to keep up with the insanity of our lives. Anyway, this is my first post. I am so excited!!!!