updates on going green

Hello all!  It's been a while since my last post so I thought I'd give some updates on my family's journey to become more green.  As I've written before, we've completely stopped using paper towels for clean-ups and spills around the house.  We did this by starting small...purchasing a single package of barmops at the store each time we went until we had a nice sized stash built up while simultaniously vowing to NOT buy any more paper towels and just using up the ones we still had in the house.  This allowed us to both wean ourselves off of paper towel usage and aquire a large enough supply of barmops so that i didn't have to wash several loads of laundry per day just to keep up with our barmop usage.  The transition was a reletively smooth one...honestly, smoother than i thought it was going to be.  My mom was the hardest to convert, as i had previously anticipated, but once she realized there was less money going out for that particular disposable expense, she came around.  Now there were a few times that she arrived here from the store with paper towels in tow, but i just sent them home with her for her to use at her house...if she wants to literally throw money in the trash at her house, that's her business not mine.  We've been using the barmops for quite some time now, so it's just second nature for everyone here to reach for one of them instead of looking for the roll of paper towels...even when friends come over, they know that if a spill happens, we use cloth towels.  I've found that as long as they're clean and convieniently located, there's no problem.  Something new that we've started doing around here is to use cloth napkins at mealtimes.  We had been using the barmops as napkins as well, but I found that by doing this we ended up having fewer clean ones on hand for when spills occurred, which frustrated several members of the family.  I had previously looked into buying cloth napkins, but i found that the pre-made ones were a bit more than i really wanted to pay.  I figured it would be best to have enough of them to last through a couple of days since i generally wait until i have a full load to do laundry, and at $3-$5 a pop for pre-made, that would add up quite quickly.  So, I decided to use my sewing skills and make some of my own.  I was able to find some pre-cut fat quarters at the local big box store, and simply hemmed the edges up when i got home, ran them through the wash and had cloth napkins ready to go for the next day's meals.  The fabric ended up costing only 97 cents per fat quarter...even adding in the cost of the thread i used, which was about $3 for the spool, it ended up being just a little over $1 per napkin.  Way cheaper than buying them pre-made!  And since i used fat quarters, there was no additional labor on my part as far as cutting out all those pieces...plus, they're quite large.  The original measurments were 18x22 inches, and with the type of hem i used on them i only ended up losing about 1/4 an inch all around making the end product closer to 17.5x21.5, so still quite genorously sized.  I'm very pleased with how they turned out, as is the rest of the family, and they are already getting a lot of use.  My dad even found some fabric hanging around his house from an old project of his that he didn't need anymore, so he brought it to me to use to make more! 

The newest venture in being less dependant on disposables started this morning.  Over the past week or so, I've been making diaper covers to use on my little lady and this morning I put her in a cloth diaper for the first time!  So far so good, she seems to like them and I like not having to throw money in the trash with each diaper change.  There was one incident this morning when she pulled one of the velcro tabs open and had the diaper half hanging on her hip, but I figured out pretty quickly that by sticking her in a onesie she couldn't reach the velcro to pull it off again.  The diapers I made for her consist of a waterproof cover with flaps of waterproof fabric inside that you simply fold up a diaper flat or prefold to fit inside the cover, slip the ends under the internal fabric flaps, place on baby and velcro closed.  I figured this would be the most economical route at first, since the waterproof fabric is a little pricey and this way I can use the cover several times (as long as it's not soiled) by just changing out the wet/dirty diaper flat/prefold and wiping down the inside of the waterproof cover.  Easy peasy!  I'll still keep some disposables on hand for when I'm behind on laundry or when someone else is watching the kids (because I realize that by going cloth, I've pretty much made it so that I'll be the only one changing her diapers...well, the cloth ones anyway).  I didn't bother making any for my little man since he's 3 now and in the process of potty training, although maybe some waterproof covers for his training pants wouldn't be a bad idea.  He's out of school this coming week for Thanksgiving break, so I'm going to attempt to finish getting him potty trained durring the break.  We've been struggling with this for a while now and I for one will be SO glad when we're finally there!  Well, I guess that's about all for now, I'll try to be more on top of things with my blog...until next time!

driving psychology and true confessions

Hello all!  I don't think I'm the only one that's noticed this trend...the trend of normally rational, sane people's personality completely changing when they get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle.  I've dubbed this phenomenon "driving psychology", though I doubt anyone with an actual medical degree in the field of psychology would back me up on this.  Not that there isn't plenty of evidence (admittedly anecdotal) to back this up, I just doubt they'd be willing to spend hard begged for earned research dollars doing an actual study on the matter.  Now I'm willing to give these people the benefit of the doubt and assume that they're good, hardworking, productive citizens on foot...however, behind the wheel of a car, a lot of them are a**holes and some seem just plain dumb. Not all of them, but a LOT.  I personally ran across several today, and I was only driving for about 15 minutes.  Please allow me to give a few examples...

Things I'd like to say to other drivers today:
1: Hey dude, it's been like 5 blocks, when are you actually turning?  Do you NOT hear the dinging noise letting you know your turn signal is on?
2: What's the big idea with waiting till I'm less than 5 feet away from you to pull out of that driveway? And why did you slow down as I almost had to swerve to miss your bumper?
3: Way to stop for that light at the last-possible-second! Good thing I wasn't tailgating you!
And while we're on the subject of tailgaiting...
4: DUDE, where's the fire?! There is a little thing called a speed limit on this road, how bout going it when you're behind me?  If you're gonna ride my a**, at least pull my hair!
To the guy in front of me at the light...
5: There's no one coming from the other way, you can make a right on red...in fact, please do!
To random guy on highway...
6: Did you really just get up on the highway only to take the next exit? Are you too good for the access road? And did you have to slow down so I'd miss my exit because I couldn't get over?
To another guy in front of me at another light...
7: Seriously, the light is green.  Feel free to turn right any time now!
8: You know that thing on the side of your steering wheel that you currently use as a hat rack?  It's called a turn signal dumbass...people use it to let other drivers know when they want to turn or switch lanes. We're not mindreaders you know!
And finally, to the person in front of me at the stop sign...
9: Wake UP stoner!  Hate to break your heart, but that stop sign is never going to turn green...it's been well over a minute, make a move!

And that concludes that little soapbox for today.  I'll let you average out how many idiots-per-minute that was later. Well, I guess that's about all for now...until next time!

the twitter addiction

Hello all!  Long time no see!  I've been trying to log on to blogger for over a month now and until today, couldn't get it to work for some reason.  Anyways, I'm finally back, and we've got some catching up to do!  I finally broke down and got a twitter account...mostly because I was having trouble getting ahold of a friend of mine and I know she has one, but I found a nice bonus to being on twitter...tons of celebs are on it too!  And they verify accounts, so you know if it's really the person you think it is, not just some fan posing as the celebrity.  I'm "followong" almost 50 peeps now...sadly, I only actually know one of them...hubby says I'm weird for following so many celebs, but I don't really care. In other news, baby girl started crawling!  And now she's into EVERYTHING!  I think we're gonna have to dust off the play yard...what's lovingly been dubbed "babytraz" at our house...we haven't used it since my mom and I had our shop in downtown(ish), for my son before I was pregnant with my daughter.  We don't have any baby gates in our house, so if she's not in a play pen of some sort she's pretty much just free-ranging around the house.  Once she's walking, that won't be too much of a problem, but with her just crawling she's a little harder to see when she's under your feet.  At least that way, she still has space to crawl around and play and I wont have to worry about people tripping over her cause they aren't watching where they're walking or little man jumping around and accidentally falling on her (it hasn't happened yet, but he's had a couple close calls).  Speaking of little man, his vocabulary has shot through the roof!  He can tell you all the names of the characters on Blue's Clues, including Perrywinkle and Paprika, which are hard words for some adults to say, let alone a two and a half year old.  Also, he said "Lawyered" the other day, which if you watch the show How I Met Your Mother, you know why that's funny (and he even used it in the right context!).  Hubby and I use the phrase quite a bit, so it's no big surprise that he picked that one up. 

On a similar (sorta) note, while we had the house to ourselves, I finally got the kid's room (mostly) cleaned out!  There was a big hope chest in there (my grandma's) that got moved to another room and a small bookshelf was put in its place.  This will eventually hold some books (of course) and a few baskets of toys so the kids can play in their room if they want to instead of the living room.  There's just one more small stack of boxes in there that needs to get taken care of, but there's finally room for both their beds in there!  Now if only I could get my son to stop climbing in his sister's bed when he wakes up super-early.  My mom and I have been painting pictures for their room as well...she's done several with geometric shapes and I painted one of the ASL alphabet.  I also made a crochet garland for baby girl's side of the room (it's like those paper chains you used to make in school, only the links are crocheted instead of paper), and I plan on making a penant garland for little man's side.  The crochet chain was super easy to work up with yarn I (mostly) already had on hand and a cute pattern I found on the Prudent Baby website (http://www.prudentbaby.com/2011/04/crochet-party-chain.html#more).  If you're in to crafting and haven't checked out this site, you really should!  They also post details on how they planned their kid's themed birthday parties, which are always nothing short of spectacular!  Honestly, most of their parties  kinda make me feel like a slacker in that department, but they give me something to strive for.  This year, I'm starting the planning months in advance for both the kids (they're birthdays are only 2 weeks apart) so that I don't have a repeat of the thrown-together-at-the-last-possible-minute party we had for my son last year (to be fair, I was about to pop with his sister last year and had a TON of stuff on my mind with the new baby...I'll put this in perspective for you: my own birthday is five days before my son's and I didn't realize it was coming up till 2 days before.  Wow, after reading that, it kinda makes me feel worse about it.).  But this year, I'm planning a big blow-out for both kiddos, complete with some activities!  And cute cakes I'll make myself!  (Kinda have to with the wheat allergy and no specialized bakeries around here)  I'm definately stepping it up this year, no doubt about it!

While I didn't get as much cleaning done around here as I wanted to while everyone was gone, I did get quite a bit done.  I got several rooms cleaned out and organized, and while I didn't get the entire house organized, I got all the really important ones done.  And I have to say, I'm loving the Dr. Bronner's magic soap even more!  It's cleaned everything I've used it on beautifully!  I use it to clean my kitchen countertops daily, and it's just magnificent...no more harsh chemical cleansers in my kitchen!  Actually, they haven't been there for quite some time, but this ensures there won't be ever again.  Well, I guess that's about all for now...Until next time!

the cleanliness equation

Hello all!  It's been a while since my last post...things have been a little crazy around here.  Mother's day was pretty awesome, my brother treated my mom and I to lunch, I got to spend the day with hubby and the kiddos, got a copy of a new movie I've been wanting to see (Black Swan!) and I even got to take a nap when the kids did...all in all a great day!  We found out big boy's cat allergy was a bit worse than we thought...he went with us to a friend's house who has 2 indoor cats (I hadn't given him his allergy meds before we left, had just given baby girl hers).  Well he was fine while we were there, playing a lot with the cats and such (thankfully they're relatively kid-friendly kitties), but once we got in the car to go home, he started coughing and sneezing like crazy!  He ended up needing two breathing treatments and his liquid allergy meds before he could get to sleep and since he was feeling so bad, I just went ahead and let him sleep with us so I could kinda keep an eye on him.  I kinda have to wonder if perhaps some of their allergies may be a result of exposure to triclosan in utero...I've read research that states a possible link between triclosan exposure in utero and a higher predisposition to allergies.  Hubby and I also have a few allergies (though not as many as them it seems), so I'm sure genetics are in play here some too...I'm not silly enough to blame it ALL on chemicals, but I highly doubt they're helping matters.  For anyone out there who doesn't know, triclosan is a chemical commonly used as an anti-bacterial agent.  It is also known as Micro-ban (mostly called that in clothing and hard-surface items).  It can be found in a multitude of common household and personal care products including soaps and bodywashes, household cleansers, shaving creams, anti-bacterial wipes and even toothpastes, to name just a few.  Through research it has been found to be an endocrine disruptor (another example of an endocrine disruptor is BPA (Bisphenol A), formerly found in all kinds of hard and semi-hard plastics before it was removed because of possible leaching into food and drink), which means it interferes with the body's endocrine (hormone) system and can cause cancerous tumors, birth defects and other developmental disorders.  Specifically, they are known to cause learning disabilities, severe attention deficit disorder, cognitive and brain development problems, deformations of the body (including limbs); sexual development problems, feminizing of males or masculine effects on females, etc.  Endocrine disruptors (like triclosan and BPA) are substances that "interfere with the synthesis, secretion, transport, binding, action or elimination of natural hormones in the body that are responsible for development, behavior, fertility and maintenance of homeostasis (normal cell metabolism)".  In addition, the EPA classifies triclosan in particular as a pesticide and in light of recent studies of the chemical, has bumped up its own research and review of triclosan to 2013, a whole decade ahead of schedule for its recertification as a "safe pesticide".  Needless to say, not something you really want around your home or family.  I personally have signed an online pledge (http://www.beyondpesticides.com/) to not use triclosan...the website also has even more info on the dangers of triclosan. 

Ok, so enough with the scariness...I won't even start with the Johnson's debaucle in this post.  Though speaking of cleanliness (if you've stuck with me this long anyway), I have found a new product that I'm really loving right now...Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap.  It's a castile soap (available in both liquid and bar forms, I like the liquid for its versatility), made from all natural, organic ingredients like coconut oil, olive oil, hemp oil and jojoba oil, uses certified fair-trade ingredients, isn't tested on animals and uses 100% post-consumer recycled plastic in their bottles...basically a tree-hugger's wet dream.  (Incidently, it has been proven in several scientific studies (internationally, no less) that anti-bacterial soaps and cleaners kill only a very small percentage more germs than plain old soap and water.  Also, the germs the anti-bacterial stuff doesn't kill can become more resistant little buggers, making them harder to kill in the future...just so you know.)  So far, I've been using it as a body wash for myself and the kiddos, as a shampoo for the kids (I'd use it on my hair too, but I color my hair and apparently castile soap isn't very kind to haircolor) and I'm planning on using it extensively in the next 3 weeks for deep spring cleaning (everyone's out of the house except for me, hubby and the kids, so I'm using this time to intensly clean the entire house).  Like, I'm talking washing down walls and fan blades, stuff like that.  I figured since I'll have far less people to work around, now would be the time.  The Dr. Bronner's does a great job as a body wash, though it's very watery...you get a ton of suds though, so I'll definately need to dilute it a bit when I use it for cleaning around the house so I don't end up rinsing lots of suds off everything and doubling my workload.  Since I bought it planning on using it more for cleaning the house than anything else, I got the unscented kind cause I couldn't figure out which other scent I would want my whole house to smell like...certainly not peppermint (the most popular scent, by the way).  Don't get me wrong, I like peppermint just as much as the next girl, maybe even a bit more, but I don't want my entire house to smell like I live in  Candy-Land, ya know?  Plus, I wasn't sure which scents might make the kid's allergies flair up, and who wants miserable, stuffy kids until the smell fades away?  Not I.  I've also seen several recipes for home-made cleaning products that call for castile soap as an ingredient, so I'm kinda excited to try those out too.  Also, the Dr. Bronner's is supposed to help clear up ecxcema, and since using it on little man as a body wash in collaboration with Eucerine cream, he hasn't had a breakout again...hopefully that'll keep me from having to use the hydrocortizone cream as much.  Well, I guess that's about all for now...until next time!

the water slide effect

Hello all!  Easter was awesome...little man had a ball at his granny's house!  They have a giant inflated water slide with a little pool at the bottom and water sprayers everywhere and it was all I could do to get the little guy in his swim trunks before he hopped on in!  Really funny considering not two hours before he had given me trouble washing his hair during his bath, but that's my son for ya...he likes water on his terms.  I think it helped that all the big boys there were playing and splashing around in there too, so of course he felt he had to keep up with them.  Baby girl had a good time too, watching the boys playing in the pool and the wind blowing through the trees and generally getting passed around like the collection plate on Sunday morning...she loves to be held, but she wants to be facing out so she can see everything going on around her (her brother was just the opposite...when he decided he wanted to be held, he wanted to be facing the person doing the holding).  I had made her an Easter dress to wear, and it turned out wonderfully...especially considering I only started making it on Wednesday after the kiddos were in bed.  For some reason, I got a wild hair last Sunday and decided that I wanted to make her something last minute...luckily, I had some fabric at my mom's house that I knew would be perfect, so I only had to buy buttons and some ribbon to finish the project.  One of the times my cratfaholism procrastination worked out in my favor...to put this in perspective, I had purchased the fabric originaly to make some spring dresses for my neice when she was about 4 or 5...she's 13 now.  Well, that's about all for now...until next time!

the colored-egg endevor

Hello all!  We've been having a bit of spring-time fun around our house...my son and I dyed eggs yesterday after he got up from his nap (he actually slept!!), and they actually turned out pretty good.  It was his first time coloring eggs and he thorougly enjoyed it...I think his favorite part was going in after the eggs with just his hand lol.  Luckily, it was just food coloring in water with some vinegar, so nothing toxic to worry about...but it was heck getting that off his hands later.  We did it yesterday cause I knew they were going to be coloring eggs at school this week (why else would they send a note home saying to bring 6 hard boiled eggs?) and since he hadn't ever done it, I wanted to be the first one to dye eggs with him.  Found out today when I dropped him off that they're actually not coloring them till tomorrow, but it was still a super fun (and super cheap since I already had all the supplies) project, and since he's done it before it might not seem strange to him when they do it at school.  I think my favorite part about it was after we had taken several eggs out of their dye-bath to dry, he picked up the eggs and dunked them in another color...it was just too adorable!  So needless to say, they didn't turn out "perfect", but we both had a blast...and like I said, he got a little creative with the colors, so they were perfect in their own way.  I know when I was a kid, dying eggs was my favorite thing about spring...I think I liked it even more than the yearly visit from the bunny.  I can only hope that it'll be one of his favorite things too...and one of baby girl's, when she's old enough to participate too.  And this afternoon, I made a really tasty egg salad out of them, so they had another purpose besides just being fun. 

It's my favorite time of the month...magazine time!!  I really love how around this time all the magazines I have subscriptions to start flowing into the mailbox like clockwork...got two in today's mail alone!  That always makes for a good day!  Well, I guess that's about all for now...Until next time!

the big-bang juxtaposition

Hello all!  So I don't know if any of yall out there watch the TV show The Big Bang Theory, but if you haven't, you should really check it out!  Hubby and I absolutely love the show...we record it every week so we can watch it after the kids are asleep.  Not that the show isn't kid friendly or anything, (it comes on network prime-time) it's just easier to actually pay attention to it when there aren't kids crying or standing right in the middle of the screen (have you noticed this?  it seems like it doesn't matter what is actually on the screen, young kids just have to stand right in the middle of it).  The show is about 3 physicists and an engineer who work at a university and a hot chick who lives across the hall from 2 of them.  They become friends with the hottie and needless to say, hilarity ensues.  It's a very smart comedy, hence needing to pay attention to it.  The reason I bring it up, other than it being particularly awesome, is that I've noticed some of my blog titles sound a little like some of their episode titles.  Examples: The Bath Item Gift Hypothesis; The Hamburger Postulate; The Bad Fish Paradigm; The Friendship Algorithm.  I didn't really notice this until recently when I was looking through my blog archives, but I kinda dig it.  They're about to wrap up their 4th season, and I can't wait for season 5!

In other news, we recently found out that baby girl has allergies.  We don't know what all to yet, but so far it's looking pretty definite for pollen and cats.  The cat allergy doesn't really surprise me that much...hubby and my dad are both allergic to them also, but as far as I know no one else in the family is allergic to pollen.  Then again, genetics are a funny thing.  We think our son is allergic to pollen as well, though not to quite the same extent as his sister...the only thing he's shown a severe reaction to is wheat (which is in practically everything).  While there is a lot of pollen in our area come spring and summer, the upside is that we don't have any pets, so I think as long as I keep the house dusted and vacuumed on a regular basis to try and keep the dust and pollen as low as I can, we should be ok for now.  I'm sure eventually we'll need to get some air purifiers, at least for the kid's rooms, but for the moment I think this'll work.  I am, however, looking for a new vacuum with a HEPA filter so less dust gets thrown back into the air.  I've only checked the local big-box stores (to get an idea of price range), but I'm gonna check out a local vacuum dealer when I finally get some time.

For my followers: J, it was so good finally getting to hang out!  We should get together again soon!  R, glad to hear yall are going green too!  The Meatless Monday website has some awesome recipes that you should check out if you're interested in doing it (no pressure lol), and I think yall are a bit more open-minded culinary wise than my family, so you should be able to find plenty to experiment with there.  Also, do you know if Target only recycles their own plastic bags, or will they take bags from anywhere?  We've got quite the collection going here and I do try to re-use them for things like trash-can liners and when I need to bring things with me when we go visiting, but I've got far too many for just those purposes.  Anyway, I guess that's all for now.  Until next time!

the grape experiment

Hello all!  So, I tried dying my hair with kool-aid last night.  I followed the instructions I found online to the t, mixing the powdered drink mix with a little water and some hair conditioner to make a paste.  Though I think I added a little too much water...mine was a rather soupy paste.  I had an old craft brush hanging around the house, so I used that to apply the mixture to my bangs, which had previously been bleached slightly and colored purple with a commercial product.  I thought the purple from the commercial dye was a bit too subtle for what I was going for, hence the kool-aid.  Anyway, back to what happened.  I applied the mix to my bangs and wrapped them up very well in plastic wrap, then I decided to let the rest of my hair know that I love it too, so I applied a creamy deep conditioner to it and wrapped everything up in a couple more layers of plastic wrap then put a terry wrap on, just in case, and went to bed (from everything I read on the internet, they said to do that for the best results).  The mix itself looked a little bit (ok, a lot) black, but I was hoping for the best (you know, like it was just so purple it looked black).  So I woke up this morning to wash the stuff out of my hair, still hoping for the best...well, the water from the colored parts looked blue!  Not exactly what I was going for, but I really like blue so I thought that'd be pretty cool too.  Dried my hair with a towel and couldn't wait for it to dry naturaly like I normally do, so I busted out the blowdryer and got after it.  Well, I can't say as it turned out either purple or blue...it's mostly kinda blue, but there's a couple places that look kinda purple, all with a sort of gray-ish cast to it.  I think it's actually more subtle than the color that was there before...next time I'm totally gonna mix blue raspberry and tropical punch to get a good purple color instead of using grape.  On the upside, it doesn't look horrible plus my hair smells like grape!  It'll wash out soon enough anyway, so I'll try mixing the purple next time instead of trying the easy way.

In other news, we're still doing Meatless Mondays at our house, and it's going fairly well...last night we had cheese enchilads with rice and beans.  I cheated a little and didn't make these from scratch (it was a frozen meal), but they were pretty good none the less.  My friend J made rice and beans last night and I have to say, the pic I saw looked yummier than what we had.  Don't get me wrong, the enchiladas were good, but her dish was homemade and it just looked like it tasted better.  I really should have made our supper from scratch too, but it had been a long day and I just didn't feel up to it...but the frozen meal was still cheaper to feed everyone than take-out (I'm feeding 6-8 people every night here).  Last night it was only for 5 of us though, my cousin is still visiting her mom and hubby was out of town, so there was actually leftovers (usually I make enough so hubby can get 2 meals out of it...one to eat when he gets home and the other to take for his lunch at work the next day, so that doesn't really count as leftovers).  I'm trying to decide if I wanna eat that for lunch or make myself some fish sticks.  I may give my son the enchiladas, since he can eat those but not the fish sticks.  I got some baby food for baby girl the other day, so I'm excited to have her try it...she's only had cereal, so I think I might mix some of the baby food with her cereal so it's not a huge change for her.  I'm gonna do the same thing with her that I did with my son...start her out with the meats and veggies before giving her fruit.  Their doctor told me when my oldest was this age that it's better to start out with the savory foods first instead of the sweeter fruits so that they don't think all food needs to be sweet.  It works though...my son doesn't eat sweets very often, and he doesn't really ask for them either.  That's why on the rare occasions he does ask for candy or something sweet I usually give it to him, and even that's maybe once a week or two.  Sometimes I'll buy him a small piece of candy at the store if he's been super good, but even that's kinda rare (me buying him candy, not him being good at the store...that happens a lot).

The barmops are working out famously as an alternative to paper towels at our house!  My mom is still coming around to the whole thing...she keeps trying to buy paper towels when we're at the store and I keep telling her we don't really need them.  We have a good stash of barmops and larger dish towels now and they're conveniently located, so we can just grap one for a clean-up job and then toss it in the wash pile.  I do let her keep something like one or two rolls of paper towels on hand cause there are some things she just won't use cloth for...but I'm working on it. For instance, she thinks that you have to cover a plate of food in the microwave with a paper towel, but just yesterday I showed her that you totally can use a barmop for that.  I don't know if it sunk in, but I'm really trying.  Next up is converting her to cloth napkins instead of paper towels at meal times...we'll see how that goes.  I'm actually quite proud of myself as far as the whole conversion from paper to cloth is concerned...it's just second nature now for me to reach for a barmop or dish cloth instead of a paper towel.  In all honesty, I'd love to convert to cloth diapers too instead of disposables, but every time I mention it everyone just looks at me like I'm totally nuts.  Plus, they're pretty expensive.  I'd make them myself, but even the materials are kinda pricey...I know it's a little cheaper in the long run (especially if you have the multi-size ones), but I just can't put out that much of an initial investment right now.  Maybe material prices will come down soon and I can get the supplies to make my own...a girl can dream, can't she?  Wow, I really need to get out more lol.  Well, that's all for now...Until next time!

the MANi-pedi

Hello all!  So I actually got a professional mani-pedi today...it's been a long time since my last one.  To put it in perspective, the last time I got one was for my BFF D's wedding...in 2006.  Needless to say, I don't get them done very frequently.  I actually wouldn't have even gotten my nails done today but a very good friend of mine asked me to go with her and some girlfriends, and I don't get to spend as much time with the girls as I'd like to, so I came along.  It was actually quite nice to be able to go out with the girls kid-free, plus the pedicure was very relaxing.  The only thing I didn't enjoy was that the girl doing my pedicure had to bust out this thing that, I swear to god, looked like a cheese grater to get after the rough skin on my feet.  I would have been a bit embarrased about that, but then I realized that A-I'm probably never going to see any of the customers there again and B-I was sitting in between two dudes.  Yes, you read that right.  Seriously, there was an almost alarmingly large number of men there...and I don't mean like young frou-frou guys, I'm talking older good 'ol boys.  And of the men that were there, at least a good 50% of them weren't there with their significant other, they were by themselves!  I got the impression that the guy to the right of me was a regular, mostly because of how he was speaking to his nail tech...like, standing weekly appointment regular.  Don't get me wrong, I think it's kinda cool that guys around here are open-minded enough to be ok with that type of thing, I was just taken a little aback by it.  I mean, it's not like I live in a large metropolitain area where the men care just as much if not more about how they look as the women do...it's a fairly small town and I guess I just never thought about it that much.  I know I couldn't see my dad, or any of the guys I know really, ever setting foot inside a nail salon unless it was to ask the woman they were waiting for how much longer she was gonna be...and I doubt hubby would even do that.  He'd probably just call me from the food court to find out. 

So I went to the eye doctor the other day...it's been a while since I've been there too.  I've thought about the fact that I need to go several times over the last few years, but it seems like every time I thought about it, I was either pregnant or had just had a baby, which does change your eyes temporarily.  It was cool going though because I've know my doctor since I was very young (about 5 or 6, I think) and even went to high school with his step-son (who actually works for him, which was cool), so it was nice to see them both again.  Actually, I saw them a couple of weeks ago when hubby and our son went to get their eyes checked, but it was cool none the less.  I should be getting my new glasses this week...I'm hoping that will help with the headaches I've been having lately.  If not, I guess I'll have to go the doctor to see what else could be causing them.  I'm sure it's just because my eyes are working harder than they need to to see with the glasses I currently wear.  Anyway, I guess that's about all for now...Until next time!

the cosmetic quandry

Hello all!  So I got some new makeup the other day to celebrate spring...two lipsticks (bright pink and a pale pink), 3 eyeshadows (pearly white, pale pink and a deep gray), purple nail polish and a coverup stick.  Nothing too big, just enough to get me through this recent jonesing for cosmetics.  I'm not really sure why I've been wanting some new makeup lately...I rarely wear it anymore, seeing as I have two small children and a severe lack of time plus I don't really go anywhere that would require makeup.  I'll probably just wear it around the house just because...at least I'll look really pretty when I go to the grocery store lol.  It also gives me some incentive to go through my giant makeup case and get rid of some stuff I've had for far too long anyway...although it probably would have worked better if I'd cleaned out my old makeup first. Oh well, too late now.  I'm hoping to be able to perfect the cosmetic quandry known as "the 5 minute face", seeing as that's really about all the time I would have for it in the mornings before getting the kids up.  I say before getting them up because over the 2 years since I've had children I've discovered that trying to apply it while they're hanging around is pretty much an exercise in futility.  Especially with a very curious 2 year old boy.  Just the other day I came into my room to discover he had opened up my makeup case and was attempting to take the lids off of several of my eyeliner pencils...I stopped him before he got them off (thankfully), but I really couldn't be that upset with him considering that to him, they just look like regular pencils and he knows he's allowed to draw with pencils as long as there's an adult to keep an eye on him.  I just had to explain to him that those were mommy's pencils and that he wasn't allowed to play with them.  I think he got the point because the next time I caugt him in my makeup he hadn't touched the pencils at all, but he was trying to open up my cream eyeshadows (to be fair, they look like his watercolors)...I really need to move my makeup case where he can't get to it, I just don't know where there's room. 

I'm definately sure now that baby girl is teething.  She's been very fussy, drooling everywhere, putting everything in her mouth to chew on and when I felt her gums today I felt two little bumps on her bottom gums.  She's also still getting over her cold, which can't be very fun to be sick and teething at the same time.  Her poor little nose has been running like crazy.  It totally sucks that I can't really do anything to make her feel better except unclog her nose periodicly.  She does seem to be feeling a little better today though, she's been playing more and fussing less (about the cold anyway, still fussy about the teething).  Hopefully those bad boys will pop through the gums soon, I know it's irritating to her...luckily it's not non-stop crying like it is when some babies are teething, but it still hurts me to see her hurting, even if it's only a little bit. Well, I guess that's about all for now...Until next time!

the forgetfullness paradigm

Hello all!  Sorry it's been a while since my last post...I've been sick with a cold, which I tried ever so hard to not pass on to my kiddos, but of course it happened anyway.  As I write this post, I'm listening to little man periodically sniffling over the baby monitor in his room.  Poor little boy...I feel really guilty that I'm the one who got him sick, but kids get sick all the time anyway and to be fair I tried really hard to keep my germs away from him.  Unfortunately, baby girl woke up super stuffy this morning, so this bug is truly making its rounds in our family.  This is the first time she's ever been sick with anything, so it's a little nerve-wracking, but it could be worse...just kinda sucks that I really can't do anything for her except try to keep her as happy and hydrated as possible.  Oh, and use the little bulb thing to suck the snot out of her tiny nose...cause that's just super fun for everyone involved.  I'll just be happy when everyone's back to being healthy and I'm really hoping hubby doesn't catch it too...not that he's too bad to deal with when he's sick, he actually trucks on like nothings wrong with him.  Most times you can't even really tell he's sick except that his voice sounds a little stuffy and he blows his nose more.  I'm actually pretty lucky in that regard...he's not one to fall victim to the "man cold", you know, that thing that happens as soon as a man gets even a hint of the sniffles and suddenly turns into a snivelling man-child who acts like he can't even eat or go to the bathroom by himself.  So glad he's not like that!  Seriously, in the whole time we've been together I've only had to take care of him about 3 times...that averages out to about once every 2.5 years or so, not too bad. 

So Meatless Monday is actually still working out (so far)...this week it was meatless chili with rice.  Since my mom's chili includes beans, it was pretty much just rice and seasoned beans, still pretty good though and a lot more filling than I would have thought.  I served myself what I normally would for chili except with the rice (which I usually wouldn't eat with it), totally forgetting that rice swells up once you eat it...I couldn't finish it all, but it was tasty regardless.  I'm not sure what we'll do for next month's Mondays...I haven't gotten around to making a mealplan for next month.  Normally, I would have already had it done and printed out by now, but with everyone being sick and out of town company stopping by, it just hasn't happened yet.  Maybe this weekend.

I went to a hair coloring party at a friend's house last night...I now have purple chunks in my hair.  It's mostly in my bangs, but there are a few streaks in the back and sides, I just can't see them lol.  I'm really digging it, just wish the purple were a bit more vibrant...even in my red hair, the effect is actually quite subtle ( i know, weird, considering it's purple!).  I may try going back over it in a more vibrant shade of purple in about a week or so, kinda give my hair a chance to relax a bit before re-processing it.  I'm thinking about doing it in a different color once the purple grows out, maybe a green or blue, and keeping that up for a while...kinda using it to help my son with his colors.  He was already in bed last night when I did it, so he didn't see it till I woke him up this morning, but he noticed right away and liked it.  As soon as he saw it, he said "Mommy has purple hair!"...it was super cute!  Anyway, I guess that's about all for now...Until next time!

wrongs against the "mommy sisterhood"

Hello all!  Ok, so as much as I hate to admit it, hubby was right about changing up the kid's schedule...there, I said it!  All other members of the "mommy sisterhood" can feel free to hate me now for admitting that, at least in this situation, sometimes daddy knows best.  In all honesty, the first day went well and I thought it might have been a fluke...till the end of the first week, that is.  Seriously, my son has been a much happier child in the little over a week since we've changed up the routine.  Sure, he's kind of a bear to wake up in the morning (to be fair, I'm kinda like that too, so he comes by it honestly), but once he's had some time to fully wake up he's fine till naptime.  Also, I believe the naptime embargo has finally ended, at least for the time being...maybe it's less like an end to the conflict and more like a temporary (and somewhat shaky) truce.  Either way, I'm happy and so is he.  Baby girl, however, has taken to sleeping for a good stretch and then waking up ready to play about an hour before mommy's bedtime, which makes waking up fairly early in the morning with her brother a bit more difficult.  Like right now, she's sleeping and has been for almost 2 hours now, but I know that as soon as I'm ready to turn in for the night and am about to go lay her down in her bed (she's in my bed right now), she's gonna wake up completely refreshed and not want to go back to sleep for several hours.  Last night she woke up right after her dad got home (he works nights) and I really needed to go to bed, so I had to resort to feeding her a good sized bottle, putting her in her car seat and driving around for about 20 minutes...it worked like a charm (LOVE that!), but I really don't want to have to get in the habit of doing that.  I can remember when I was little, maybe about 5 or 6 (possibly younger), my parents would still have to drive me around for a while so I'd fall asleep in the car (I seriously had a blanket and pillow that stayed in the backseat of the car just for this), and I really don't want to have to do that with my kids.  Luckily, my son is pretty good about going to sleep at night on his own, so I've never really had to do that with him.  Maybe that's part of why I don't want to have to do that with my daughter...my oldest child has spoiled me lol. 

Meatless Monday went a bit better this week...no mild food poisoning to contend with this time, so yay!  I made some bean and cheese enchiladas this time and they turned out SO yummy!  I'm definitely gonna keep that recipe in rotation for a while, even if the "Meatless Monday" thing doesn't work out for us...seriously, they were that good.  Not to toot my own horn here, but they really tasted like I'd ordered take-out from a restaraunt, or at least that's what my mom said (cause she's not biased or anything).  But when family members go back for thirds, you know you must be doing something right.  Still haven't tried any of the recipes with lentils yet, but there's one on my mealplan for next Monday so here's hoping it's relatively tasty otherwise I think I may have a family revolt on my hands.  I know that hubby is hoping the whole thing crashes and burns before I make him eat a lentil, but I'm hoping that maybe if I just don't tell him it's lentils until after he's eaten it things may go a bit better. 

Going back to my last post about craftaholism (also "craft ADD"), I've been decupodgeing a lot lately.  My mom and I found this great empty box at the grocery store...it was used as a display box for corn muffin mix and it's shaped like those magazine boxes they sell at office supply stores.  We got it to hold my son's artwork from nursery school because the folder I'm currently storing it in is getting a lot full.  Well, it was just a plain old cardboard box and of course I couldn't just use it as-is, so I busted out the Modge Podge and my collection of scrapbooking papers and got to work.  Now it's mostly multi-colored polka dots with a shorter band of multi-colored stripes along the bottom.  I still have to cover the inside with paper, but in theory I could use it now as it is, I just actually want to finish it this time.  But still, not bad considering the box was free and I already had the papers and Modge Podge on hand.  My next project is to cover a cardboard soda flat in decorative paper to use as a mail tray on our hutch...not sure which papers I want to use though.  Anyway, I guess that's about all for now...until next time!

waterlogged banana and craft ADD

Hello all!  Lots of changes around our household as of late...we had our first "Meatless Monday" this week, I made Indian-style chickpeas.  They were fairly decent, but I'm not sure if I'll make them again...to be fair though, hubby and I were both fighting off what we know now was a mild case of food poisining (from frozen pizza no less, not even food from a restaraunt!), so I only ate about 5 bites of the dish before my tummy couldn't handle it anymore.  Hopefully next Monday will work out a little better.  Also, the barmops as an alternative to paper towels is working out quite well, even with my mom who previously seemed hopelessly addicted to paper products...she even asked if there were any other ways to go a little greener around the house!  We're still working out what exactly we'd all be willing to do though.  The biggest change this week though is the re-working of my son's daily schedule.  He's now going to bed about an hour later and waking up about 2 hours earlier than he had been, so when it comes time for his afternoon nap he's actually sleeping instead of just playing in his bed.  Today before nap time, he stripped down and asked to play in his little plastic tub that we have set up in our shower (it's an under-bed storage box that we got specifically for him to play with water in)...I think it's amazing that six months ago this same child would have screamed and cried at the mere suggestion of just playing in water, and now it's one of the things he likes to do most.  As I was filling up the pitcher in the kitchen sink to fill his play tub, he grabbed a banana off the kitchen counter and proceeded to peel and eat it, which is cool, I mean at least it's something healthy and not junk food, but I know my kid and I know he almost never eats the whole banana, so I figured I'd find it later, half-eaten and in an unusual place (like I normally do lol).  He ran off to play in the water and I needed to go attend to his sister, so I kinda forgot about the banana until after he was taking his nap later.  I actually had both kids sleeping and was contemplating taking a much needed nap myself when i walked into the bathroom and looked in his playtub...and what do I see, low and behold it's a very waterlogged half-eaten banana!  Who knew that a banana could absorb that much water...I mean seriously, it almost fell apart when I fished it out of the water.  I think that's gonna be a tough one to beat as far as wierd places to find half-eaten food. 

Anyway, on to a new topic...I've been finding new inspirations for craft projects to try out recently, I think part of it has to do with the scrapbooking show I record daily on my DVR.  Lots of new ideas every time I watch it, which is cool in a way, but you must also keep in mind that I kinda have "craft ADD".  Let me explain...I have a tendency to get an idea for a craft project to do stuck in my head, so I go out and gather all the supplies I'll need to do said project, then I sometimes get a little bored with it about halfway to three-quarters of the way through the project and move on to the next thing that gets stuck in my brain, leaving the first project uncompleted in the bag I'm using for that particular project.  You really have no idea just how many Hobby Lobby bags are sitting around my house with partially done projects in them...it's actually quite sad.  To be fair, I do periodically find a project bag and then finish up that crafty bit, but more times than not it's many months (sometimes years) before that actually happens.  I have discovered that if it's a project for my kids, I'm much more likely to actually finish it in a timely fashion, but if it's something for myself or just something that I was working on to pass the time or try a new technique, it often sits unfinished for a long time.  Example: somewhere in our storage unit I have a bag with a partially made crochet capelet (in white yarn, no less!) just begging to be completed, and I'd love to be able to wear it once it is...I have all the yarn needed to finish the project, the pattern (bought on clearance), the correct size crochet hook and even the perfect button for its closure, yet I have no idea when it'll actually be done.  I don't even remember why that particular item got set aside...I still love the pattern, it wasn't super hard (hard enough to be a challenge, but not so hard that I wanted to throw the blasted thing across the room), I absolutely adore the chosen yarn (super soft with a slight sheen to it and works up like a dream) and it wasn't a lack of free time...this project was started before I was even pregnant with my first child (he's 2 now, to put things in perspective a bit).  I guess what I really should do is to start going through all my old "project bags", either here at the house or in storage, and actually finish my old projects before I start any new ones...but that's something that's really hard for me.  Maybe in my case it's more like craftaholism than craft ADD, I'm always looking for my next "craft fix", going on my latest "craft binge", only to leave past benders behind in my wake, never finished, destined to do a craft walk of shame all the way to the closet or, let's be honest here, nearest available flat surface.  Is there a 12 step program for that?  Hi, my name is Mousie and I'm a craftaholic.  Until next time!

more than "just a housewife"

Hello all!  I don't know if anyone has seen some of the stuff going around lately (mostly on the internet) about housewives, but I have a question for you...at what point in our society did the art of homemaking go from being something that was encouraged, nay, neccissary, to being something to be ashamed of?  Even on TV you see characters in shows that are homemakers yet when another character on the show asks "What do you do for a living?" , they seem ashamed to admit that they stay home all day and care for the household...when did this become the norm?  In past decades, it was simply assumed that if you were a woman of a certain age (meaning in or around their child-bearing years here, don't get offended) that you were married and had children of your own (or were planning on it at some point) and that you took care of the home while your husband was at work from 9-5...but back then no one snubbed their nose at you for it.  I guess perhaps now, in our busy modern times where it practially takes 2 full-time incomes to keep a house humming, other people look down on us as slackers because our job doesn't pay us in money.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not dissing women who need/want to work outside the home...I think that's awesome that women have come far enough in our society that they don't feel like they're trapped at home when they don't want to be, that's just not my cup of tea anymore.  And I also know that there are some situations where it can't be helped, and that's fine too...do whatever it is you need to do to help your family and make it thrive, whether that's working outside the home, working from home or just making the home and family your job, which is what I've chosen to do...there's no right or wrong way here, just what's right for your own life and family. 

Anyway, back to the main topic here...why do we sometimes feel ashamed of the choices that we've decided are right for our families?  I know that I personally feel stoked (most of the time lol) that I get to stay at home with my munchkins instead of having to go everyday to a job that I hate just to feel guilty the whole time I'm there because I'm not with my kids...again, that's just my opinion.  And shows like "The real housewives of (fill in practically any major city you want here)" haven't made it any easier on those of us who do stay home.  To clear up a few misconceptions perpetuated by the show: we're not all "day drinkers", we don't all have nannys and housekeepers to do the work for us while we go out and shop all day (and to that point, we also don't all go out and shop all day anyway), we don't all have personal chefs available to cook each meal and we're not all bitches.  Now some of us are lucky enough to have some of those things, but I'd wager that most of us aren't that priveledged and are totally fine with that (I know I am)...it'd be nice at times, but definately not a neccessity.  What we really want (again, just my opinion here) is for people to see that this is a valid life choice that we've made out of love for our families, not just an excuse to slack off.  Anyone who's ever stayed at home taking care of family and hosehold for longer than a week (maybe even a day) can tell you that it's hard work, especially if theres small kids involved.  There's some little things that you sometimes have to learn to let go of, but it's way worth it to have a slightly messy house and seriously happy kids.  So the next time you ask a woman "What do you do for a living?", don't look down upon her if her answer is that she's "just a housewife", cause in all actuallity she is SO much more than that.

Ok, that's enough of that soap box for now.  Until next time!

the woman crazy

Hello all!  So happy that hubby found my other power cord for my laptop!  Actually, he's found quite a few things for me around the house lately, stuff that I've been tearing up the place looking for.  What's really odd (at lest to me anyway) about this new development is that it's usually just the opposite...I'm usually the one finding his stuff that he's misplaced.  I guess it was about time for that shift to happen, I mean I'm chasing after two little ones all day, stuff is bound to fall through the cracks so to speak.  It's also a little humbling...I'm used to being the one who knows where everyone else's things are...kinda lets me know that I'm not supermom and that it's ok cause I'm not expected to be.

In other news, I've made a couple of executive decisions about things around the house.  The first one (and the one everyone's most on-board with) is that I'm instituting "Meatless Mondays" at home.  I read a little blurb about the movement in a magazine that I subscribe to, so I decided to check it out online.  The site is fairly user-friendly, so that was a big plus, especially considering I was researching this durring naptime (update: my son is actually starting to nap more durring naptime, which is just awesome for me, considering that his sister is starting to sleep for a good stretch at around the same time).  Read a little more about the whole deal and checked out some of the recipes on the website...most sound very delicious, and this is coming from someone who doesn't like a whole lot of vegetables.  So I decided that since I make the monthly menu for the household and do a good majority of the cooking around here, we'd try it out for a couple months, just to see how it goes.  If you're interested in seeing what this movement is all about, check out the website:  http://www.meatlessmonday.com/ .  The second executive decision, and the one that's gonna be the hardest for everyone around here (especially my mom) is that I'm trying to lessen our reliance on paper towels.  I know, I know...it seems crazy that I'm trying to do this, with a house full of people and two kids under 3, but I really think we can make it happen.  I've already been trying to use towels and dishrags to clean up spills and do general cleaning around the house instead of paper towels for a while now, so for me I don't think the transition will be too terribly hard...it's the rest of the household I'm concerned about.  My cousin who lives here is totally on board with this too, so at least I have one person in my corner...I think that's what they did a lot at her mom's house when she was living there, so it shouldn't be a difficult transition for her either.  And the kiddos, well, they're kids...they'll pick up the new habit faster than anyone else I'm sure (my son anyway, my daughter can't even sit up on her own yet lol).  We bought a pack of barmops at the store last night (we were picking up a couple other things anyway), and they're pretty good size to try and replace paper towels with, 12x12, plus they were pretty inexpensive...about $4 for an 8 pack, averages out to about 50 cents per towel, not including sales tax of course.  I figure that if we pick up at least one package every time we go to the store (which is a LOT) or even every other time we're there, we'll have a stockpile of them in no time flat and then we can pretty much just stop buying paper towels altogether.  Sure, I'll probably keep a roll or two hanging around for really grody cleaning jobs and the rare occasions that we fry something or cook bacon to absorb the grease, but barmops can handle everthing else quite well.  I even used one earlier to soak up my soda that little man spilled in my room...worked famously!  And after I was done soaking up the spill, I just rinsed it out in the kitchen sink, wrung the water out and hung it on the dishwasher handle to dry so it'll be ready for the next spill or to dry freshly washed hands.  Simple!

I don't really know why I've been all about changing things around the house lately...I guess the woman crazy has just been leaking out a little more lol.  I know when I was pregnant with my daughter I went a LOT woman crazy about things around here (mostly just nesting though lol), I even swore off all commercial cleaners except for laundry soap (hubby, the kids and I all have very sensative skin when it comes to laundry soap...seriously, we have to use one that's hypoallergenic and free of dyes and fragrances otherwise we all get super itchy)  But I found some recipes for natural cleaning products on what is now one of my favorite blogs, so I mostly use those...there's one on the site for laundry soap too, but I'd hate to make a batch of it only to find out that one or all of us are allergic to it.  So my cleanig supplies consist mainly of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), warm water, vinegar and a good helping of elbow grease.  The baking soda also acts as a mild abrassive, so it's really good for scrubbing off dried on gunk (highly technical term there, right?), but it's still gentle enough for me to use on our ceramic cooktop (it's one of the early ones, from back when they were the newest, greatest thing and the technology was still really new...you're not supposed to use any kind of soap on it at all).  I still use pretty much just that to do the cleaning around here and it gets everything very clean, plus there's no dangerous chemicals with two small children around the house.  So I guess on a small level, I'm subconciously trying to go a little bit greener...maybe that's part of it.  I've actually been thinking about the paper towel thing for quite a while now, just had to approach it in a way that the rest of the family wouldn't run me off lol.  Well, I guess that's about all for now...naptime is almost over and I've got a bit of cleaning to do.  Until next time!

holy schnikes batman!

Hello all!  Sorry about the brief hiatus in blogging, been a bit busy around here lately...also, my son broke the power cord to my laptop, which is just irritating (not really his fault though, he's just being a two year old and exploring the world around him, that was mommy's fault for leaving it out where he could get it).  I'm just irritated with myself for that though, but hey, lesson learned for next time...now I just have to find my other power cord that's floating around the house somewhere, still in its original packaging lol.  So I'm writing this on the desktop computer, which I'm finding out has a couple of serious downsides...the main one being that at some point, something was spilled on the keyboard and now some of the keys stick a bit.  Also, can't exactly pick it up and take it anywhere in the house with me...you never realize how much you really do that until you can't anymore. 

So, I kinda came to a random decision today...I've decided I'm going to write a book.  It just kinda came to me earlier today in one of those "Huh, don't think anyone's done that yet" moments.  That's when I decided to just do it myself...I won't go into specifics of what the book will be about, at least not yet...I'm gonna do a little research and write up a manuscript, then send it to some publishers and try to get a bite.  Don't know how well it'll do, if it even goes anywhere at all, but hopefully something will happen with it and I can get it all written out and then maybe sell a few copies. 

Onward to new topics...What's up with people who feel the need to vocalize their internal monologue?  I'm not talking about people who randomly voice the thought that's in the forefront at that particular moment, I mean the people who literally can't have a thought in their heads without saying it out loud.  I actually live with someone who's like that, so you can see where that can get a little annoying day after day.  Don't get me wrong, I love her to death, but I just really don't care if you can't decide between the blue shirt or the pink shirt...I realize that may sound a little hypocritical coming from me, considering I have a blog and all, but it's different in a way.  It's like, with a blog, someone can choose whether or not they want to read the ramblings from my brain whereas with vocalizing it, there's really not a whole lot of choice involved...I pretty much have to listen to it.  I think that may be part of why I hide out in my room with the kids a lot...that way I don't have to deal with it constantly.  That, and I have little to no interest in the shows she watches on TV...seriously, it's all teeny bopper crap and she's not even a teenager, which I could overlook if the TV weren't constantly on these shows along with her running commentary of them.  Anyway, that's another topic for another blog post.

the naptime embargo

Hello all!  So, my two year old has decided recently that he doesn't need a daily nap and it's driving me absolutely bonkers!  Ironically, this started coming on more frequently right aroung the time I finally got my 4 month old to start sleeping for a decent stretch around the same time he's supposed to be napping.  He's actually been refusing to nap about one or two times a week for a good while now, but it was only a couple times a week then, so I just overlooked it until now.  Now he just lays there playing in his bed or talking to himself quietly for a good hour or so before he finally nods of to sleep.  I really wouldn't even mind so much that he's trying to give up his afternoon nap (since he's getting a little older now) except that you can really tell the days he didn't nap much or at all...when I go wake him up in the afternoon after he's supposed to have been sleeping, he's seriously the crankiest little boy.  And then I feel bad for waking him up after he's probably just dozed off, but I know that if I let him sleep any later than that he won't sleep well that night, so it's really quite frustrating for both of us.  To be fair, ever since he was a little baby he's never really liked that dozing off sensation...he likes sleep, and when he finally nods off he'll sleep for a good three hours, it's just the getting there that seems to be the problem for him.  He's never been the kind of child that has to be held until he falls asleep or rocked to sleep every night, in fact if you try to rock him to sleep it just pisses him off cause he knows exactly what you're trying to do...and he's been like that since he was a baby.  This is the part that gets me- he'd much rather go to sleep by himself, but he doesn't like the feeling of going off into dreamland...I just really don't get it.  The worst part is that I know he still needs that rest in the afternoon and I know that he's tired when I lay him down for a nap cause he's always rubbing his eyes and getting cranky, it's just like he gets a second wind as soon as I lay him down in his bed...it only happens in the afternoon though, when I lay him down for bed at night, he generally goes right to sleep in no time at all.  I kinda feel like the bad guy, laying him down every day for a nap that I know he's probably not gonna take anyway, but I still do, on the off chance that he'll actually sleep and I'll have a happy, well rested little boy when it's time to get him out of bed.  

In other news, I'm supposed to be belly dancing at a local street fair in about 6 weeks...I'm trying to get a couple of my belly dancer friends to do it with me so that it's not just me dancing by myself all day...that would be very tiring lol.  I'm pretty excited about it...I haven't danced since the begining of my pregnancy with my daughter, so it's been a minute.  I've even already designed my costume to wear for the day, it's very pretty, in shades of turquoise, royal blue and purple...just have to get one more type of fabric and then buckle down and actually sew it.  Not sure if I'm gonna make a belt for the skirt that matches the top or just find a hip scarf that goes with it...the hip scarf would be more versitile cause I could wear it with more that just the one costume, but a matching belt would look more professional, which would be kinda nice considering I'll be dancing for tips.  At least performing in the fair is free, so really any tips I do make are pure profit, especially since the fair is so close to my house I could walk there if I wanted to (I don't want to, but the point is that I could)  As far as the dancing itself goes, I'm thinking one or two coreographed group dances (if I can get my friends to sign on too, hint hint lol) and the rest of them being mostly individual free-style dancing...I've found that sometimes the coolest looking dances aren't really coreographed, they just happen when you're playing around with the music. 

what's with kids these days?

Hello all!  Kind of a slow day around the house today, nothing super exciting.  Hubby working overtime again, so kinda bored except for spending time with kiddos...and blogging lol.  Was outside earlier having a smoke and I saw some neighborhood kids walking down the street...nothing that unusual about it, they do it all the time saround here.  When I looked closer, I saw that they were carrying baseball bats...still, not that uncommon, especially since they were walking toward the baseball field down the street.  Then I saw the girl that was in front of the other two bend down to pick something up and toss it towards one of the boys that was with her...didn't really think much of it till I caught a glimpse of what she was throwing to him...it was a glass bottle she had found in the ditch! (to be fair, the guys who drive the garbage trucks around here kinda suck at their job, seriously I've watched them go by on their rounds...they routinely miss the truck with some of the garbage and they always release the claw that grabs the cans before the can is actually touching the ground,  which results in the can falling in the ditch, being half-way in the street or so far in the middle of your driveway that you can barely get your car out without moving the can first, but thats another post for another day)  After she tossed the bottle to the little boy, he actually swings at it with his bat...I wish I were making this up!  So of course the bottle breaks, and that's when I know for sure that it was definately glass...as they're walking past my driveway (the bottle breaking actually happened between the neighbor's driveway and my front yard) I stop them and ask them if that was a glass bottle they just broke...I know it was, I know they know it was, I really just wanted to know what they had to say for themselves.  The response?  Kid who actually hit bottle: "Um, I dont know...guys, was that glass?"  Kid who originally threw bottle: "I don't know, probably not...let's go play at my house."  Kid who watched whole thing: "It doesn't matter dude!  Let's go, I'm bored."  Seriously, verbatum...I really wish I was kidding.  Now, I know, kids are gonna be kids, but come on!  After they had run off, I went to go check out the damage and pick up the broken glass that was now in my yard and my neighbor's driveway so no one would get hurt or damage their tires (the neighbors weren't home at the time), and sure enough, glass...a glass beer bottle to be exact.  These are kids that are aged 8-11 that did this...old enough to know what glass is and that it breaks very easily, basically old enough to KNOW better!!  They broke this glass in my yard, where my young son plays, and on the neighbor's driveway where their young daughter (around the same age as my son) plays...they know that small children live here, but they weren't thinking about that.  To top it off, at least one of these older kids was barefoot when the incident occured, which is just sheer genius.  The girl who was involved is the oldest of the three kids that were there, and she's worse than the other two!  This is the same girl, who, several months ago, received an archery set as a gift, which in and of itself isn't that big a deal...I practiced archery when I was about that age, but my dad was with me the whole time every time I practiced at home to make sure I was doing it safely and we were practicing in the back yard...these parents have given her no suppervision or instruction about archery whatsoever!  She's practicing in the front yard, shooting towards other houses and cars no less, including my house, with nary a grown-up in sight!  Not even a car in the driveway...I know this because when I saw her doing it, I immediately went over to her house and asked her as politely as I could manage if she could move her practice to the back yard...this was after I'd pulled several of her arrows out of my front lawn, again, where my son plays.  She complied, thankfully, and I found out later from my mom and dad (seperatly no less!) that they had both seen her doing it previously and told her the same thing I did.  What I wanna know is, where are her parents?  Why do they feel it is appropriate to just let their daughter run wild through the neighborhood doing whatever she wants?  I mean, the broken glass was bad enough, but the bow and arrows are just plain unsafe without proper supervision...she litteraly could have killed or seriously injured somebody, let alone the kind of property damage she could have inflicted!  The only saving grace to that is that she lost all of the arrows on other people's roofs cause she can't aim worth a flip (seriously, there's probably at least three or four on my carport as i type this..and I'm sure as hell not gonna go up and get them down for her!)  What's with kids these days?

On a better note, I switched to my new bag last night after the kids were in bed...LOVE it!!  Plus, I got rid of all the junk I'd been carrying around in the old one for so long...it's amazing how much more room I have in the new one without all the stuff I really didn't need in the first place.  It's like my bag went from being 5 pounds to maybe one...so much easier to tote around with two little ones, I can even just toss a couple diapers and some wipes into it and be on my way!  Kinda freeing in a way, not having to lug around two seperate bags.  And it's super cute, which is a big bonus also. 

So I finished my sister's album the other day, and it was so much fun to make that I'm gonna make another one just for me!  I made sure to print out some extra pics when I printed out the ones for my sister so I'd have some for my album, and got a heart shaped tin that will fit the mini-book I already have cut out.  I can't wait to decopodge (not sure I spelled that right) the tin, just have to decide on what papers to use!  It should be another really fun project...hopefully it'll come out just as beautiful as the first one.  Well, that's all for now, gotta give baby girl a bath...I think she's about to start teething, she's been drooling all over the place lately. 

bus drivers!

Hello all!  So, today I'm coming home from the bank, minding my own business, waiting at a red light when all of a sudden my car gets bumped forward!  I look in my mirror to see that the school bus full of kids that was behind me with its bumper against the back of my car!  So I pull into a parking lot near the light to check out the damage, the bus pulls up alongside me and the driver opens the door to ask if I'm ok, which I was and thankfully so was my baby, who was also in the car with me.  There wasn't any damage to the car (not that it seemed that important to me at the time, I was just glad my daughter was alright), and at the time I was too shaken up to be mad that it happened, but I have to admit that now I'm pretty miffed!  I mean, we were stopped at a light people!  How hard is it to not hit the car in front of you?  Plus, this was after school had let out, so the bus was FULL of kids! Like elementary school kids too...they had to have been SO freaked out, I know I was.  But I got the bus number and the school district it was from, so come Monday when they're open again they will be getting a phone call from me to complain about this.  And it's not even a vindictive thing; I don't want to get the driver fired or anything, I'm not trying to sue him or the school district, I just feel that the district really needs to know about this for the safety of the kids!  I mean, this time it wasn't a big deal, but what if it had been?  What if it'd been more than just a bump, what if it'd turned into a full-on crash?  All the kids on that bus could have been injured...I mean they have seat belts on the busses, but come on, how many kids do you know that wear a seat belt on the bus to school?

Anyway, on to a different topic.  I got a new purse today, it's purple mock croc with silver hardware and pretty darn roomy...should make a super cute "mommy purse".  I realized the other day that the last new everyday purse I bought for myself was before my son was born...he's now 2.  Needless to say, it was time for a new bag.  I'm actually kinda surprised that the old one has held together this long...maybe that's why I didn't realize until recently just how long it'd been in rotation.  And I love how getting a new everyday bag litteraly makes you go through all the crap in your old one to get rid of the stuff you've been carrying around needlessly.  Personally, I'm really bad about holding onto recipts for stuff I know I'm never going to return anyway...you know, like Taco Bell reciepts from six months ago, things like that.  And you always find cool stuff that you forgot was in there too, am I right?  Last time I cleaned mine out I found my favorite shade of lipstick that I thought I'd lost at work, some earrings I'd forgotten I even bought (seriosly, still in the packaging from the store!) and this really cool clip that you can use to hold a bottled drink hands-free (it's pretty cool, can clip on a purse strap or belt loops on pants).  Really glad about that last item, seeing as with two kids in tow I really need that extra free hand sometimes :) 

Speaking of the kiddos, my baby girl learend to roll over!  I'm so happy about this!  I think she learned it earlier than her brother did, but it's been a while, so I'm a little fuzzy on when he actually did it...I know I have it written down somewhere though lol.  To be fair though, when he was this age the house we were living in didn't have a lot of floor space for him to get regular "tummy time", so it took him a little longer.  She's getting so big...she's about to move up to the next size diapers!  Actually, the ones she's in now are already a little too small, but I don't know anyone with a baby younger than her to give them to and they're only a bit small on her, so I'm just using up the last few I have on hand.  Luckily, I already have a couple packages of the next size up on hand here at home, so I don't have to run out and buy them in the middle of the night or something.  Anyway, I guess that's about all for now...oh!  I finally finished my sister's mini-album!  I haven't been able to get to the post office to mail it off yet though, so I still have time to take some pics to post here before I ship it...as soon as I figure out how to add a photo to a post lol.  Until next time!

happy v-day!

Happy Valentines day all!  Hope it's been a good one so far!  It's been a busy day in our household...day school for my son, work for hubby and my dad's birthday...whew!  Made a lasagna (from scratch!) for dad's birthday supper...mental note:get ingredients the day before next time, as it takes a LONG time to make it (ironically, not a whole lot longer than just baking a frozen one, but I digress).  Super tasty!  Hubby should be happy too, he really likes my lasagna. 

Still working on the mini-album for my sister...it's taking longer than I had hoped, mostly because I'm only working on it durring naptime and after bedtime.  But I have gotten a little over half the pages done already...I'll work on it some more after this post :) .  I just found my paper trimmer again, so cutting out all the teeny tiny pictures for it should be a LOT easier this time...I'm using the index print size from my photo printer, so the pics are literally postage-stamp size.  I seriously got a crick in my lower back from being hunched over for so long when i cut out the first batch of pics, also had to print out some more pics as not all of the ones i wanted to include got printed out the first time, plus was running very short on pics.  That added about another hour onto the project.  My computer and the photo printer weren't talking to each other and it was the first time for me to use the software that came with the printer, so there was a steep learning curve as I've only ever used a memory card plugged directly into the printer to print my photos ( and my mom made it look SUPER easy cause that's the only way she's ever used her printer.  Bet if it were straight from the memory card I'd be the one making it look too easy lol).  Anyway, I have high hopes that it will get finished tonight so that I can mail it out tomorrow, a day late, but oh well...I'm sure they'll love it anyway.  I'll be sure to post some pics of it when it's done, assuming I can figure out how to do that lol.

I have a follower!!  A very dear friend of mine checked out my blog, the first person besides me to read it lol.  To be fair though, she's the only person besides my husband that I've told about it...guess I need to start mentioning it to people, at least if I want anyone to read it.  By the way, J, I would LOVE to join yall on a stock-up trip, give me a ring and we'll talk about a day and time when you wanna go back up there.  We'll probably need to take my car though, cause of the car seats.  SO stoked to have readers now! 

Well, that's about all for now...gotta give baby girl a bath, then (hopefully) finish up my sister's mini-album...more trimming of tiny pics, but at least I have my trimmer now to do it instead of cutting them all out by hand.

bloggies and bathtime

Well, I visited one of my favorite blogs today called down to earth...perhaps you've read it.  It's this awesome blog about simple living, something I really can't do right now, but seems like it'd be up my alley.  I love how the writer, Rhonda, and her husband do pretty much everything for themselves...we're talking baking, cooking practically all meals from scratch, raising their own vegetables, raising chickens (or chooks, as they're called in Australia), canning and preserving, even making their own laundry soap and cleaning products!  Actually, I use several of her natural cleaning recipes and ideas here at home...I just can't bring myself to use most commercial cleaners in my home anymore, with small children running around and putting almost everything in their mouths, who knows what kind of harmful chemicals are in those things!  I've found that warm water and plain old baking soda can get almost everything i need to clean around here sparkling and clean, plus baking soda acts as a very mild abrassive for things that are really stuck on and gunkified (highly technical term there lol).  And if something needs to be more sanitized than that, white vinegar works wonders!  I've never really been a huge fan of bleach...it's absolutely horrible for the environment, not very safe around children plus, it just plain stinks!  Anyway, back to the point.  Down to earth has been nominated for a bloggy this year (yay!) in the category for "Best Australian or New Zeland Blog".  If anyone reads this before voting closes (Feb 20, I beleive. Don't quote me on that though), definately check out Rhonda's blog and vote for it!  Just the way they live so simply and with such a minimal carbon footprint is down right inspiring, the blog itself is written beautifly (I think anyway) and they're both such good and genuinly caring people (not that I've personally talked to or met them, but you can just tell by her writing and responses to her followers questions and comments). 

Here around my neck of the woods, fairly uninteresting day...made a quick trip to the grocery store to get gluten-free ravioli for supper tonight (would have LOVED to have made them myself, but alas, it takes me a long time to make pasta since i don't have a pasta machine...well, not one for food anyway, mine's dedicated to polymer clay lol).  Amazingly enough, both kids were very well-behaved in the store (to be fair, my 3 month old daughter pretty much slept the whole time like she usually does, but hey, I'll take it where I can get it), especially considering it was super crowded so it took a little while to get around to everything we needed.  I really wish there were more stores in our area that carried gluten/wheat free products...as it stands, the only two that do are larger chain stores (one of those being the ever-present Wal-mart), the smaller local chain (and I mean like, three counties local) where I'd rather spend my money only has a few items on the shelves.  They usually run a little bit higher price-wise, but it's WAY closer than the two big chains, which saves me gas, plus I know that my money is helping boost the local economy instead of lining some no-name corporate CEO's pockets. 

Gave the kiddos baths today...it really baffles me how my son has done a total 180 on his opinion of baths recently.  Seriously, six months ago when I'd bathe him he'd scream and cry so much you would have thought I was torturing the poor little guy...and all I was doing was trying to keep him clean!  He'd pretty much been like that from the first time he ever had a bath, so, in order to keep a little bit of peace in the household, I'd literally developed a system to get him all washed up in as little time as possible.  I did this for a little over two years, so I had it down to a science lol (hint: if you have this problem with any of your children, bubble bath is your best friend! It's fun, smells nice and since it's soapy water anyway, you can just scrub 'em down with a washcloth.)  Every once in a while, I'll let him take a shower like a big boy with his daddy.  I actually think that this is what helped turn around his opinion about baths...see, my son (like me) really doesn't like to be in water at all, he especially doesn't like water in his face (just like mommy).  But in a shower, water is everywhere...you can't help but be in it.  He cried A LOT at first when he realized that he couldn't get away from the water, but since he had daddy there to hold him, he gradually got more used to it cause he knew nothing was going to hurt him with dad right there, so water didn't seem so bad anymore.  Fast-forward to today: I'm in the kitchen, cleaning out the sink so I can give little man his bath.  He's in the other room playing and I haven't told him it's bath time yet cause I don't want it to be a fight trying to get him to take one.  He hears the water going and comes running into the kitchen, stripping down as he's coming my way.  By the time he gets to me he's ripping off his pull-up with one hand and trying to take his shirt off with the other...I look down at him and he's got this big grin on his face and he says to me "Mommy, I want a bath!".  You can imagine my shock...my son who, for the past two years has cried bloody murder the second his little bottom hits water actully WANTS to take a bath!  So I plunked him in the sink before the water had finished filling up, just in case he changed his mind and decided to run from me.  And it went really well!  He still doesn't like water in his face (then again, neither do I), but today the only bath time tears were when I tried to take him out of the bath, and I'm just fine with that. 

first post EVER!!

Hello all!  I'm new to blogging and this is my first post ever, so bear with me :)  I guess I should talk a little about myself, so here goes...I'm a SAHM with two wonderful kids, a boy and a baby girl and I've been married to my awesome husband for almost 5 years.  There's not a whole lot to do for fun where we live, so I figured I'd start a blog cause, well, what else do I have to do?  Not exactly sure what all this will entail, but it'll probably be a little bit of everything that I'm interested in (which is A LOT by the way) or whatever random thoughts i happen to have that day. 

Speaking of random thoughts...I happened to watch a documentary the other day about the broken state of our education system...perhaps you've heard of it, it's called Waiting for "Superman" .  VERY informative little film there.  It really just hurts your heart to see these smart kids routinely getting the short end of the stick and no one in "the system" seems to notice or care...seriously makes me want to homeschool my kids! Anyway, if you've seen it already, you know exactly what I'm talking about...if you haven't seen it yet, watch it, especially if you have little ones. 

So, on to other things...I've been in a sort of "crafty" mood as of late, probably has a lot to do with the fact that it's just been to dang cold outside to do anything but stay in the house.  I've been crocheting a lot of little dish scrubbers lately...they're nice, quick and easy little projects, and the best part is that once you get the chain and first row of SC done, you really don't even have to count stitches on the little buggers anymore.  You just keep going until it's the size you want it to be, do a little edging and you're done!  Great for when you really just want to finish a project quickly, but can also be set down at pretty much a moments notice.  That last part is what makes them so awesome for me personally, seeing as how I often have to set down a project to run after a boisterus 2 YO lol.  Also been getting started in digital scrapbooking...got a program around Christmas time, haven't been able to put it down since!  In fact, I've been inspired by a scrapbooking show on the local PBS station to alter an altoids tin and create a mini album to go inside of it...I plan on sending it to my sister and her kids for Valentine's day (They live in a different state and I only get to see them every couple of years or so, (Actually, this past year we've seen them about 3 times, but this is highly irregular) and I figured it'd be a nice thing to let them know we're thinking of them.)  Hopefully I can get it finished in time to mail out, not really sure how long it'll take to get there from half-way across the country.

Well, I guess that's all for now...gotta get some sleep so I can get things done around the house tomorrow, plus the kids get up fairly early...well, at least the younger one does lol.  Also gotta at least get started on my mini-album so I can get it finished in time to mail to my sister...I'll be sure to take some pics so I can post how it turns out.  I'm SUPER excited to do this one!