{butch up, nancy!}

Okay, we've got one week of summer vaca down and how many to go before school starts again??? No, I'm just kidding. Summer is actually my absolute favorite time of year, i love it and hopefully this summer is no exception. The kids we're out of school this past week while I worked a full time schedule which we haven't done since Action was born.....well, ever! Action was home by himself and lex taught Kids Cheer Camp all day (she worked her hiney off), so, we had some issues that we are working on with Action. Coming home @ 5:30 to Action still in his jommies with his brain wigging out to video games and mind numbing Nickelodeon shows, eating Pringles with that glazed look in his eyes wasn't going to fly after day 1. He was going to have chores to keep his happy hiney busy, including things that are normally out of his "comfort" zone and we found that made one un-happy kid, especially when the realization of "poop patrol" was an everyday chore for him came to light. He hates that and usually does a crappy job (I know that there's a joke in there somewhere!) Oh well!! I have no sympathy. As Mark would say, "butch up nancy!" So, I have felt like every night that I have come home it was "lecture" time because I've just decided, (clear throat....Mark and I have decided) that we are going to start ruling with more of an iron fist regarding the help around the house from the kids and not only the quantity, but the quality. I hate this part of parenting, its just no fun, but has to be done...have a great weekend!! we've got lots on our agenda...

{one silly political kung fu fighter}

Okay, so my post yesterday was quite silly! In my defense, I was @ work all day and had only 17 customers and thought that I was going to loose my mind. I am not a big fan of boredom. Today, not too busy either, if someone would give me some tennies and a kickboxing instructor, I am in the mood to do some Kung Fu Fighting, don't ask me why. I just have a lot of pent up energy. The sad thing is that by the time I get home, my energy seems to have escaped me and I am one pooped out Mom.

okay, back to the silly post, while OBVIOUSLY cute/strappy/stylish/comfortable shoes are not going to solve our gas crisis. I really do believe even just the "threat" of discontinuing our own self induced moritorium on drilling in the Atlantic/Pacific/Alaska would have the Saudi's peeing in their pants (if they actually wear pants under those robes) and that may even be enough to get a little relief. There I got all political. Just call me O'Reilly!!!

{my epiphany}

I have pondered the great depths of my mind the last few days while I stare out my teller window on the great and sophisticated ways that as a country that this mind numbing crisis that stares us down could be resolved in a manner that would free us of how these insanely, ungoldly, indescribably ridiculous, money gouging, oil rich countries control us and are probably having secret, laughing their butts off at us meetings, and while I am actually quite politically minded. (please never get in a political debate with me, you WILL loose!)...other than to suggest and I actually do recommend the highly controversial, to heck with the cariboo...start killing the trees...and pull out the drills in Alaska, I do not believe that there really is any other solution. BUT this...(this is purely comical because honestly, I cannot get all "political" on my blog), I think that it is time that we start to make and invest on really cute and comfy shoes and we start walking and boycotting those oil rich countries. This is the deal with shoes, if they are cute, they aren't generally comfortable. If they're comfortable, they look like you should be working in a hospital. What is up with that? I came to this "epiphany" today while wearing the cutest shoes that I think I have worn to date (got a great deal on them @ Dillards, practically gave them away!). Not only are these shoes just the cutest, but they are the comfiest things I have ever worn! They are Naturalizers...why can't all cute shoes be this comfy. I would walk a lot more, I would walk across the parking lot to get my lunch verses drive. There ya go, gas saved right there!! If we as a nation stood up and bought shoes that we're comfy and we didn't have to give up style, how much gas would be saved, how much money would the oil rich countries loose? Would they still gather in their secret rooms and laugh at us behind our backs then? Or would we become the country that "told them" with our stylish "on the go", in your face shoes? I ask you America? What say you?

{$4.00 a gallon}

Even though gas is $4 a gallon ALMOST..... we still headed down to Orlando one last time before we are blacked out with our Disney passes and even so, its too hot to go during the summer. Those that go during the summer are nutso! Mark really wanted to go down to see his guy pal, Big Al (the kids and I call him Big Owl becuase that's what Action called him when he was little) and Mark had no to desire to go the EPCOT flower and garden expo, but I have always wanted to go and so did my Mom. Lex invited her boyfriend along and i truthfully thought that it might be a little odd and wasn't sure that i wasn't regretting it about 5 seconds after she said that his parents okay'd it. i really though that we should maybe "uninvite" him. But he is such a great kid and very polite and "real" with us. He's no Eddie Haskell or anything (oh, for those of you who are too young to know who Eddie Haskell is he was a suck up kid from a show in the 50's). He gelled great the whole trip with us and my parents. On Saturday, the "boys" went airboating and checked out gators and played with big fat pigs and long slimey snakes and ate gator and frog legs. I must admit that I'm sorry that the "girls" missed out on that little extraganza...NOT! We decided to do a little shoppping, lunch and a movie. You know, typical girlie stuff. All in all our weekend was pretty busy, but a lot of fun. Glad to be home, but we have a very busy week this week, I will be working full time all week this week. So, my blogging may be sparse and it may be pretty boring. Although, sitting there day after day doing credits and debits, I may, I just may get a great epiphany that I will be happy to share with you.....Maybe I will discover how to fix the energy crisis, aaahhh...that is what I will ponder this week.

{thoughtful thursday}

thursday is coming to a close and i titled this thoughtful, but truth be told its more melancholy. its been a really rough day for me. i don't like to talk about a lot of things that are hard or might be depressing, but i have really been struggling with a one year anniversary of a death of a very good friend of mine, she died of ovarian cancer. Our family just recently remembered a close family member on a 2 year anniversary of his death. Both of these people were very young and their deaths still seem so unreal to me sometimes. And today I started out scrapbooking a little bit and decided I was going to scrapbook a page that i keep putting back in my bucket of New Year's 2006 because it was the last time that we saw our family member and everyone was so happy and I just haven't been able to do it without getting upset. But I wanted to scrap it because I want to remember the good times and have them as keepsakes. Well, I also get a call from my friend who died husband. I haven't talked to him since a few weeks after she died. I had called several times and writtten a few notes, but I had not heard back from him. I think about them all the time and have worried about how they are doing. My friend had 3 children. But I talked to him for nearly 2 hours and it was really great to talk to him, they are doing okay. Its been a rough year and he told me some things that had happened that we're upsetting. But he would like for the kids to come stay with me for a few days over the summer, one of the things that my friend wanted to accomplish before she died was get her pictures in order and organize them in albums (they are in tubs), but that didn't happen and just recently their middle daughter has tried to scrap some of them and needs some help and he has asked me to help get those pics in order because he is at oddds as to what to do. Anyway, all of this has just gotten me in a state of melancholy and thinking about a lot of things today. Mostly just sad. But very glad to hear from him and glad to hear that they are all doing okay.

{1 wild wednesday}

it has been one freaky deaky wild wednesday!! my day started off quite boring, not unlike most of my days, but i got a call from a friend of mine that i haven't seen in quite awhile and asked me if i wanted to hit a scrapbook store in jax and maybe "do" lunch & shop. Well, heck yes!! It took me all of 5 seconds to come up with that answer! So, I was outta here like a bat out of....well you know the rest!!

We hit the scrap store, we enjoyed a scrumpdilicious lunch and some shopping and began to head back to town only to discover that traffic is stopped and people are turning around in the median to to go the other way, even a school bus did this and got totally stuck and I mean it was STUCK!(what an idiot, right?) We thought that maybe it was an accident up ahead and we just had to wait it out because this is the only way that we knew how to get home from Jax, we had to go over this big honkin' bridge. As we got closer, we realized that everything was closed, they diverted us off the highway onto some road with no detour, no further directions, nada! We had no clue as to where we we're and there we're cops everywhere! It was really kind of freaky! (If it was Friday, I would have titled this Freaky Friday, he! he!) I'm thinking that this would be a really great time for a GPS! My friend made a phone call to see if there was anything on the news to find out what the hey....AND come to find out there was a Jumper on the bridge that they we're trying to talk down. He had climbed up on some scaffoling. Now, mind you this happened during rush hour last week on the same bridge. What is the deal? Our only stress reliever: making really bad jokes.

We toured all thru Jacksonville with a million other commuter's, who at least probably KNEW where they were going, trying to figure out how to get home. AND 2.5 hours later, I arrived home to my humble abode where I was greeted by not only my hounds AKA "the welcome wagon", but 2 kids who we're too interested in their movie to notice that i walked in the door. its just been a wild day.

{trombone tuesday}

i thought it might be fun to title my blogs this week with titles that include the day of the week, you know kinda like day of the week underwear, except my blog....

Action is joining the band next year in Middle School, so we went up to the school so that he could pick an instrament and give them a whirl and see what suited him. he wanted to be "percussion" which is drums and i thought "oh lordy lordy", but the band director said that she only picks 5 people to do this, so she gives him a test run. Here's my sweet little boy, he was so serious about this and was trying so hard to impress her, but he didn't quite have the coordination. She commented on his long fingers (he gets that from me!) and his lips and said that she thought that he would be good on the sax. So, he went out and gave it a whirl and truth be told, I was prepared to plug my ears because he has never touched an instrament before and I just knew that it couldn't be good, but i was pleasantly surprised. It was really nice, it sounded great. Maybe it was a fluke (I said fluke, not flute....that was a joke), but he rocked!! The band instructor said that he hit notes that she's been teaching kids for 3 years that haven't been able to get. Mark and I were pretty proud. I know that I titled my post "trombone tuesday" and well, the moral of the story is don't always believe what you read. I only did that because sax didn't start with a "T", but its close enough in the instrament category, don't ya think? I am hoping that he is a mozart in his field, praying that he has the gift because I'm not sure that the bassett will not be howling, the neighbors complaining, and enough xanax for me in the world if he's not!!

{monday madness}

Its Monday and its hot (a toasty 92 degrees) and beautiful and I am at work and thinking that this is my last crazy, maddening Monday before my kids are out of school! Next week, they will probably still be snoozing and I will be able to roll out of bed, brew my cup-o-joe, take a leisurely shower without anyone banging on my door tattling on each other, i can actually maybe even eat breakfast andI won't get heartburn yelling :" eat some breakfast, brush your teeth, change your clothes..you wore those yesterday (this is actually quite common, believe it or NOT!), brush your teeth again (actually this is said a few times and whether by the time we leave it is accomplished or not is debateable), let's go, let's go, let's go, no its his/her turn to sit in the front seat". Those are the general angst of every single morning that i have to work causing the maddening days where I feel like I need to pull my eyes out of their sockets to relieve the stress.

Then the days that I don't work will become the days that I will hear the daily quote from my children of, "i'm bored." Well, I saw a post on 2peas and i loved it, laughed my hiney off, its a little quote that I have memorized and plan on using when I get that irritating little quip of "I'm bored", here it goes..."i am not a cruise director, but I can be a slave driver and find you something to do if you mention it again, your choice." I love it, I'm the Mom!!!

If your stopping in my blog from stampinwhenican.blogspot.com, stop by and say Hello!!

{crime & punishment}

Post Disclaimer: the information within is based on true facts, but the names and the situation have been witheld to protect the innocent as well as the guilty.

With that being said, here's my rant of the day or maybe should I say thought. Yesterday it would have been a rant, therefore I chose not to post at all. One of my children did something that was wrong and it was wrong towards me as well. So, Mark and I decided that the punishment would be grounding for the weekend. We decided this knowing that this weekend is huge. A huge event that this "child" has been looking forward to, planning for, and non-stop talking about for awhile now with a best friend. But the "wrong" was quite thoughtless and selfish and just plain, well you get it....wrong. So, that is the punishment we decided on, but the "punishment guilt" is getting to me. I know if you are a Mom, you know exactly what I am talking about..."the punishment guilt" is what you get when you issue a punishment for a "crime" and then start re-thinking it, but now its out there!! Its out there! Its said, its done and if you un-do it! They won't respect you and truth be told, this child desperves the "punishment". But you truly do feel sorry when you know how much they would have really enjoyed this event and how much they were looking forward to it. It makes you crazy, we love our kids and don't want to have to do these things, but know that these are necessary growing pains. Mark was so hard core about it and then last night, he comes to me and says that he's re-thinking it. Well, too bad! Its out there, no going back, right!!?? No going back, walking the green mile..........

{good n clean in snoozerville}

well, its just been one of those days. one of those days where i find that its just gone and nothing has been accomplished that i wanted or intended to accomplish and that just makes me tired. i had a carpet cleaner guy come out to clean these yucky carpets today, and they still aren't completely dry. he went ahead and "scotchguarded" them. What the heck that means we'll see with time AND dog barf, soccer cleats, dirty feet, and smelly kids. But he said that is what is going to take so long to dry. But this LLLLOOOONNNGGGG? Its nearly 7PM and they are still damp, I still hate to put stuff back into my house from the back porch and off the beds and the hallways. Question: when is it dry enough?? Poor Coopy has been in his kennel for a good chunk of the day because every time I let him out, he wants to wallow on the damp floor, what a ding-a-ling!!

With my realization that it was going to take forever to dry, I scooted out the door to hunt down a scrapbook store that I had heard thru the grapevine that was 25 minutes or so down the highway, then as i am leaving my neighborhood, I noticed that gas had gone up again 10 cents....10 cents, did you notice i had to write that twice. When does it stop?? Where does the gas insanity start to make people wake up and smell the coffee?? So, I turned my happy little hiney back home and sat on the couch and ate M&M's and watched my tivo'd "stories". Not because I wanted to, oh no!! I wanted to be out checking out the latest and the greatest scrap crap, but I am also tired of making the oil companies rich. So, there! They are less rich today and I am probably fatter! But eventually my carpets will be dry and my snoozerville life will at least be clean! But tomorrow.....I SCRAP!!

{hobunk's got a hot spot!}

Hobunk's got a hot spot, baby!! yeah you heard me right!!! As most of you know Ihave a few little issues with our small town that I have lovingly referred to as "hobunk" and one of the reasons is that there is no place to go out eat where the service is good, the food is priced well, there isn't a drive thru or a big buffet in the middle of the restaraunt.....Well, we had heard thru the grapevine that there was a new mexican restaraunt (which is my favorite food!!) that had opened which was a small chain and it was ACTUALLY really good!!! Well, I had heard all of this before and disappointments always ensued.... Do not get me wrong, we don't go out to eat a lot, but when we would like to have a nice night out, hittin' the road down to Jax when gas has climbed past $3.50 a gallon is distressing!! But today, Mark and I decided to meet for lunch and it was really good and boy, they we're jumpin! Busy,busy, busy!! And not a buffet in site!! It was clean, the service was great, the food was "ooh la la"....And me, being the chatty natty that I am, met the manager, Miguel, loved him!! Told him we'll back!! So, if you come visit, we will be going to the newest hot spot in town baby!! I'll even buy the first pitcher of margaritas (yep, they sell 'em by the pitcher!!) Mama's happy now!!

{whirlwinds}

goodness gracious, me oh my!! what a whirlwind of a weekend. And I am not talking about the insane weather that was whippin' across the country either, speaking of that, what is up with this weather?? its insane?? i drove thru a "smokey firey mess" yesterday off of I-95 which was just one of 3 wildfire's that were along Florida's coast, it looks like its going to be a long summer if we don't start getting some rain. Then, after getting home, the weather took a wicked turn for the worst and we had tornado warning, and reports of a tornado touching down here....whew!! too close for comfort for me....i am no dorothy and I have no desire to go to oz! Then waking up to news of devestating tornado's and China's quake on top of last week's cyclone.....i can't even stand to watch the news. Its just heartbreaking. Seriously, i used to be a major news junkie....just ask anyone...it was BAD! But between all of this and this election, it makes me want to scream, I find myself talking to the news anchors!

Anyway, back to my original whirlwind story that is totally un-weather related....due to Mark's work schedule this Mother's Day, I decided to surprise my Mom and go to my sister's Saturday night and have lunch on Sunday and spend some QT with my Mom, while the kids went bowling and grabbed a "grand sl"am" from Denny's (that's heaven to Action!) with their Papa & cousin. While that whole "event" portion of the day was quite pleasurable, I refer to my post from a few weeks back titled "let the beatings begin" regarding my car experience with my beloved offspring............that was the longest car ride with my children. I drove Mark's car because it is much more economical on gas. It is also much smaller and so it gets hot in the backseat while the front seat gets cold and there was so much complaining and fighting amongst the sibs and how bored they were and how uncomfortable, I thought that by the time I hit the county line, I just might let them walk the rest of the way. 8 hours in the car in 2 days with these 2 little monsters equals a whirlwind of a weekend and now I'm just glad to be home in my happy little abode...

I hope that you all that are Mother's had a wonderful Mother's Day, nice, enjoyable, and relaxing!

{new scrap buddies?}

last night was a typical friday night, Lex asked if her boyfriend could come over and hang out and , of course, I said Yes. The thing is, his parents are pretty strict and I am not saying that in a bad way, but they are very school orirented. He has a project due in 2 weeks and they wanted him to get started on it last night, a Friday night. So, instead of a movie, hanging out night, he brought his project over to start working on. Lex had already forwarned me that this was going to be the protocal. Not a biggie! He pulls out all of this scrapbooking stuff!!! He had to make a ABC book for History. OMG!! (that's oh-my-gosh for all of you who are not techno geeks) that is my thing! You came to the right house! I pulled out my sizzix and Lex started making him the letters for the ABCs. I got him my paper cutter, the child didn't have one. How do you scrapbook without a paper cutter??? We ended up having a good time "crapbooking" at the counter. Maybe I found my new scrap buddies? Maybe? Maybe not? Anyway, he had a really good attitude about the whole thing and we banged a lot of this project out. Maybe next Friday will be a movie Friday....

{in the land of funk}

i am currently back in the land of funk.....i am back at work where everyone is a sicko. i have decided to invent something way better than what the teacher invented years ago and got on Oprah with, "Airborne". I am creating a Lysol suit, an entire outfit that is American made and laced with lysol and puts out a lysol radar that will indeed keep you from getting sick which will put an end to ever even needing the Airborne in the first place. Yeah, I know that was a pretty hokey joke. I just desperately don't want to get sick. I am finally getting some things done around my house, enjoying a little scrapbooking, enjoying my family and I would like to keep it that way. Because when I get sick, life is not pretty in my house. That and after I get sick, Mark gets sick and then its like having another kid in the house, a big whiney kid.

Enough about that. I am looking forward to an interesting Mother's Day weekend, I am hoping that you are all are going to be enjoying yours. I may be going out of town to surprise my Mother after all of my kid's "activities" on Saturday. It seems Mark has to work on Mother's Day, so, I thought that it might be a nice surprise. My sister has planned a lunch at a restaraunt on the beach. I'll keep you posted. Have a wonderful mother's day everyone.

{normal?}

Back to normal....aaahhh!!! what a wonderful feeling it has been. I have been back to my regularly scheduled program (I type this while holding my breath that I don't get called into work today because one of my co-worker's was out sick yesterday and I did go in for just a few hours). But for the most part this week, I worked my day on Monday and then have been back to being off and doing what I do best the last few days...........NOTHING! No, I'm kidding. I have cleaned, laundered, SCRAPBOOKED, pea'd, and stimulated the economy with a little bit of shopping yesterday afternoon with my Markie. We needed a few more things for the house and so we did a little shopping therapy, which is always fun!! Today, I've got a lot planned, but really hoping not to get called in to the "bank of funk" where the germies are amist and the lysol doesn't seem to be working so much and they are passing it around like the Christmas fruitcake. I do not want it to be my turn to get the nasty stuff that they've got, so, I'm hoping to stay home in my world today and just be normal, if there is any such thing.

{banner}

whatcha think of my new banner? yeah, its okay. i did it quick yesterday and tried to beat the sun so that I could get a picture of it. I am going to fix it or do another one tomrrow on my day off. Anyway, that's it for Cinco de Mayo. I thought that i was going to whip up a mexican fiesta, but decided to make a dish off of my friend Suzanne's cooking blog. And I was not disappointed. It was delish!! If you have never visited her blog or made anything from it, you definitely should. Her food is delicious and recipes are great!! Have a great cinco de mayo!!

{true story}

Saturday was spent plundering the wealth of family fun that could be gotten at the Fernandina Beach shrimp festival.... my Mom & Dad drove all the way up from Orlando to spend the day with us and Lex's boyfriend joined in on the shrimp-filled festivities, as well. The art booths @ the festival were incredible. If my house was on a beach or had a more "beachy" theme, then I would have been so all over it. It was incredible. There were also a lot of antique dealers there and, of course, lots of food. Down by the marina, they had booth after booth of shrimp that was all caught by local shrimper's. And the next part of this story is truly a "welcome to my world" kind of moment: all of the lines were really long except for this one booth and Mark said that it was because it was peel and eat and not fried. So, I am all good with that, I didn't want fried anyway. Fresh, boiled with potatoes and corn shrimp is the best anyway. So, we get our dinners and open up our boxes and it was VERY fresh, those shrimpies still had their heads, eyeballs and anteannaes. eewwwhh! We literally had to snap off their heads and then peel & eat.{ "true story"-quote from Shark Tales } We found a few pirates along the way, but no one would get their picture taken with any of them until Lex's boyfriend finally agreed to pose with the "wench of his dreams" who, as I snapped the picture turned and planted one on his cheek.

All in all, besides hoards of pirate going peeps, we had a great day spending it with Mimi & Papa.

{issue/obsession/tomatoe/tomato}

My new co-worker hung with us @ the parade.

(my friend and her daughter, isn't she a cutie?)

I have issues and any of you who know me, know that my issues are MANY, but this issue is a hard one to explain. I don't know if I have a strange attraction to men in spandex who don't bathe or shave, have tats and wear jewelry in odd parts of their bodies, which in my real life "eeww, yeah, I don't think so, I'm a clean shaven, polo shirt, no tats kinda girl!" OR if its just a Johnny Depp fantasy, who knows!! And the the fact that I can't actually smell them. But I love pirates. I find them truly hubba hubba! So, when I heard that there was going to be a parade to kick off the annual shrimp festival in downtown Fernandina that featured invading Pirates, I was SSOOOO there!! I had to see these make-up'd sword whirling men and I had to gawk at the "wenches" (...no Kiera Knightley's in that bunch!) It was on a Thursday night, and I was going to drag my entire family down there even if they were kicking and screaming, I was putting on a girlie tattoo and we were checking it out. I got a lot of gripping from "no rah rah" girl (she is still in a very negative mood) and the rest of the crew that thought that I was a little too excited. But truth be told, we haven't done anything "fun" for quite awhile it seems and I was looking forward to a little fun and commical relief. So, we went, and we got beads (hot pink beads too) and we saw men in spandex shooting off cannons in the middle of downtown Fernandina....what more could a girl ask for?.......well, I got even better....all kidding aside....I got what turned out to be a really great evening with my family, they actually ended up having a really great time!! Maybe the rest of my family has inherited my pirate obsession gene.....

{no "rah rah"}

aaahhh.....i know that some of you have just been hanging on the edge of your seats, or Not!! But either way, i thought i would update you on the cheer results for poor little lex... She was crushed last night with the cheer results, now before you all think that she walked away with nothing...not true. She did get picked up for 2 teams, but they were 2 teams with underclassmen and she and only one other girl are in her class. So, she is very, very upset. She was crying and saying that she felt 2nd best and there is some "humiliation" with this because all of the other girls are going on to Varsity and she should technically be on Varsity. I asked her if she filled out her info correctly and she said Yes. So, I don't know, I don't get it. Last night she was crying that she just wanted to quit and not do it, that all of this stress and anxiety wasn't worth it for THIS. She didn't want to go to school today and tell anyone what she got picked up for. So, i don't know what to do. Mark was getting so mad at her because he thought that she should be grateful that she got picked up at all because there were some girls that didn't get anything, but I had a hard time not getting mad at him. Mind you the cheer results didn't get posted until 11PM, so all of this drama is going on until midnight. Why they just don't say they'll be up first thing tomorrow @ school. She was a wreck after try-outs yesterday, which she said she nailed. so, i don't know. anyway, that's the news here. I will post later. i have the day off, i was actually planning a "contratuations" party for her tomorrow, but now I'm not so sure as to what to do...???? any suggestions........