want to win some stuff?!

Who doesn't right?? Well.. I am an avid reader of HookedOnNeedles.com and she is celebrating her 600th post with giveaways of stuff that she has made. I love her stuff!
Enter the contest if you wish you can find it here http://www.hookedonneedles.com/2010/08/600-posts-time-to-celebrate.html or visit her via the link on my sidebar ---------->
And I am so awesome that I get an entry just for helping her promote the contest! sweeeeeeeeeeeeet..

Garden visitors from this week

We have been getting some beautiful visitors to our house the last couple of weeks. We've also had a hummingbird, but i didn't get the camera in time. The poor yellow one, has a torn wing :(
Then there is this little moth critter thing pictured below. anyone know what it is? and of course 1 of our 2 frequenting monarchs.

Holy Hot Summer

Let's see.. it's august and I haven't blogged since Memorial Day. See what getting old does to a person?? They get all busy and forgetful. So much has happened and I meant to blog about it, but I got lazy.. Oh my.. I'm making excuses to my own blog why I haven't blogged. I'm a wee bit pathetic. Whatever. I own you.. mwa ha ha ha...

Anyway. We have had a crazy hot summer out there. Last year I feel like it never got hot, not a single heat wave. We've had a couple now I think and the major one temps were over 100! Thankfully for us we happened to be in Maine that week up in a small down called New Harbor. We enjoyed the beach on many occasions and spent a day up in Acadia National Park. If you have never been there I suggest you go. it's beautiful. The first 3 pictures here are from that trip. on the way back we stopped to visit my aunt Barb in Northport and had a nice visit!

Our vacation in Maine was in the Mid-coast region- which meant for us a 4-5 hour drive. It brought back memories of driving 8 hours to Millinocket crammed in a car with a shoehorn between my aunt and mother in the front seat. I remember being told I got that lucky spot because I had the skinniest butt. Thanks.
So anyway, There was a light house at the southern tip of the peninsula we were on (about a 5 minute drive). It happens to be the one featured on the Maine state Quarter. It is the Pemaquid lighthouse. if you visit here be fore warned. the place is loaded with poison ivy. I am the only fool who managed to get it.. thankfully just a couple spots, but Goddamnit, it was on my toes-very annoying. Oh! and the geology here was fascinating! take a look at the rocks view from the ledge sticking out in the ocean.. that's right, just behind Jason who was taking this picture was the open ocean!

ok. what else... um.  Oh! I have started my own business with the Pampered Chef! Which, btw, I'm very excited about. It actually is fun, and is nice to get out and socialize (not to mention earn some money too at the same time) I just had my second show yesterday, and when it cam to question time one person asked "when did you get started?" I said, "June", and they were all surprised because they all thought that I had been expecting an answer like 5 years, atleast. then I added that this was only my second show, and they were even more surprised! I received compliments liket hat at my first show with my mother in law as well. So I guess I'm good at it. Oh and I have to disclose that I'm an Independent Consultant, so you, my loyal readers don't' think that I work at the corporate office out in Chicago. and what would be a blog without a shameless plug for myself, right? (I will travel for shows!) If you are at all interested in the company or having a show please call or email me, or leave a comment and I'll get back to you. Like my pictures? I took them myself :)

The kids have been enjoying a fun filled summer including swimming, terrorizing their dad, and being lazy, as it has been bloody hot and humid this year. time outside has been mostly mornings and evenings. Both boys have learned to ride bikes earlier this season. Liam his Diego trike and Evan without training wheels. I was quite the Proud mama, as they both mastered bike riding the same say. And I just realized I have no photos of this! Must be fixed. I will get on it. I have noticed that I have not taken so many photos this year as I have in years past. I am keeping myself occupied with PTO things and now Pampered Chef, on top of working during the day and being a mom. i'd rather be busy than bored any day.

I'm am going to stop writing for now, hopefully I will remember to post more frequently as to keep all 3 of you updated. more photos can be found on my web album  if you feel so inclined to check it out.
Until next time- have a great summer!

Memorial Day

first I'd like to thank all over our nations soldiers who gave the ultimate sacrifice defending our nation and its beliefs. This morning we ventured out to the parade. It was nice we happened to be near the cemetery and saw the gun salute and heard taps played by 2 talented trumpeters  from the GHS marching band.

Saturday I had my BBQ which was a good time, and ended up with less people than expected- but still had a pretty good number. It did rain a couple times and at each shower we added another pop up tent canopy thing- we had 3 up for some reason my husbands family likes to keep them in their vehicle.. i guess it's it's one of those "you never know when you're gonna need it items".

Today was spent farting around, and doing laundry. Jason informed me that our clothespin bag got mangled in the storm and we needed a new one, so I made one up. I'm crafty like that.

Here it is, made out of a pant leg of the husbands old pants and some fabric along with a plastic kids hanger that I no longer need. go to my sidebar and visit HookedonNeedles.com to find out how to make one of your very own using an old pair of pants.

so after i finished up the laundry i decided to venture over the neighbors and trim their bushes. it's a rental and the landlord doesn't do it, and they are on the corner making it very difficult see around when people need to get out of our street. i hacked them enough so we can now see alright, I think, and now my forearms are all wonky as i did it by hand.

couldn't have asked for a nicer weekend.. weather was super and it was pretty relaxing!!

it's official...

I am officially on my way to getting old.. I've hit 30... it's all "approaching old' now until I determine I'm old enough and my age just going backwards.In my lifetime so far I have seen the rise of great things, such as cable & satellite television, video games, computers and the internet. I have gone from never in constant contact with others to not being able to be away from my phone thanks to the progression of cellular services- gone are the days of "pagers", and I bet if you mention that to a teen today they won't know what I'm talking about..."you know when I was a kid we didn't have cell phones like you guys do now. We had pagers where someone would dial the number and you would beep and be expected to use a land line to call them back." *gasp* shock and fear on the faces of those hearing the old fogey story, "and before that our parents would just shout out the door and the rule was stay within shouting radius." gone are those days for sure! I've seen the change over of Cassettes to mp3's with stages of CDs and illegal mp3's between. Even now, I cringe at the idea of having to pay for an mp3 as when I was in college, we would rip and share our music collections on the network and no one seems to care.. it was about volume and how many new songs you could acquire in a short amount of time. it was great. My video gaming experiences began when my cousins gave us their Atari when Nintendo came into the scene- alway sa step behind everyone else, but i didn't care- In my house now I currently have a working SNES & N64. and a Wii too. Never did have a game cube, or own another system since that Atari.

I rememeber being jealous of my friends as a kid because they had pay channels like Nickelodeon & Disney where we would go over and watch all the Double Dare and You Can't do that on Television we could... then they would have free Nick & Disney week where even the poor like us with basic cable could experience the awesomeness of programming for kids at our very own home. if i didn't have channels like Noggin and Nicktoons now with my own kids.. I think I might have had a stoke by now. How did our parents cope?
OH! they would make us play outside.... that's right.... and boy did we run amok all over Onset, right ladies?? Gosh. the places I went to on my own and the only rule was "be back before dark" and there were no cell phones.. how many of us who are parents now would let your 8 year old walk to the cash market about 1/4-1/2 mile away to get milk or whatever and not worry about all the whack jobs that you think are going to get your kid?? yeah didn't think so. And oddly enough it was the norm. Onset was out of the sketchy phase (sorta) and we got to reap the benefits of it.

I am of the generation where our whole life has involved some sort of electronic technology that has evolved into necessary items in our workaholic-multitasking lifestyles we now deal with. Imagine if there were no computers. Really. I can't do it. I would go crazy if they didn't exist to occupy my little brain in one form or another.... that's for sure.. as if I weren't crazy enough as it is. HA!

Anybody else having "old moments"? they crack me up and make me a little sad at the same time every time they happen. Last night we went out for dinner, and it donned on me I couldn't remember the last time I got carded. Shit.. when was it?! As much as young people loathe getting carded it makes us old fogey's feel young for a few minutes, "I look under 27?! Thanks-here you go!!" My most recent old moment occured while I was at a walk for Meals on Wheels. Shut it up. I'm not old enough for that service (yet). We were walking and there was a group of teenagers dressed up as characters from Green Eggs and Ham. One chick had shoes like these:

I was all like "What?!", and said to her, " Those are awesome Punky Brewster shoes." She looked at me like I had 3 heads, shook her head and said, " I don't know what you're talking about" WHAT?! geez kids today, man... don't know what they're missing. So I went on and told her about the show, and she said to her friends something along the lines of, "great now I'm wearing shoes from the 70's" OUCH! I mumbled back a reply of "the 80's.. it was during the 80's"... *sigh*

next weekend is the birthday bash. BBQ & teriyaki steak.. Key things for me. When I think about celebrating my birthday those come to mind. Things I will be missing this year: my family (husband & kids excluded)- I live several hours from all of my family (mom, sister, cousins, etc) My grandparents are gone and I miss them all the time. Also missing this year a massive parade and receipt of a bathing suit (i assume no one has purchased me a bathing suit).. Also things which I associate to celebrating my birthday-- as We often went to my Grandparents on Memorial Day weekend in Newtonville and had all of these things!

ahh sun.. glorious sun!

the sun is shining and the weather people are predicting decent weather today "hold it right there bucko", the sun says, "screw this, have some cold back". "oh gee thanks", I say, "it was nice knowing you and your warmth on my skin, helping my body to make it's own vitamin D".. that is how the remainder of this week is going to be played out weather wise. awesome. not. it's just about as awesome as coming down with a cold on the first day of spring when you managed to make it through flu-season-from-hell scott free. yet, the cold itself is fine, and mainly i'm just blowing my nose- it was a minor illness really, and i muddled through fairly complain free.well i have been complaining lately more about my lips that got wind burned on my walk home from the park the other day. I could feel it happening, along the same lines as you know when your going to end up with a sun burn because you can feel your self crisping up, sort of like that and it wasn't bad for a couple of days, and then BAM! lip agony ensued. for crying out loud.. I'm stronger than this, at least I should be-- I'm super-mom!! I can't let something as lame as chapped lips bring me down to a whimpering lump. But sadly the battle  has left me into a whimpering lump in constant love of a petroleum based product to soothe my lips (oh and my nose from all the nose blowing).
So I made a trip to Wally world with little dude to pick up some items, that for some reason only they carry- and then they were out of and bought 2 new lip balms.. (as the carmex from by bedside table disappeared over night)  Chapstick with the blue label- a great classic, and a fancier Blistex called "silk & shine".. I used both going between each depending on which one was within closer reach. I wake up the next morning, and man oh man my lips were swollen and I looked like one of those freak women who over imflate their lips with collagen. it felt awful and looks way dumb too.. why do women think they need this. and my lips were still chapped so it was uncomfortable. so I took a Claritin (as thanks to my last bout with poison ivy, I am allergic to Benadryl), and some Tylenol hoping that something would bring the swelling down. and it did. yay. Yesterday was fine otherwise, felt like a crossed off several items of my to do list at work before I had to head out to get Evan for his last- until his cleaning- Dentist appointment.
Awesome. you can hear my sarcasm, right? good. so Evan is fine he goes in (he was getting a spacer put in) and there were other kids in the waiting room, and then we hear the scream of death from the back. lol. poor kid. Yes it was my kid, and I could tell. the other kids look around, and the dad that was there stopped reading his National Geographic. I look up, "that's my kid.. he's getting a spacer put in.. poor kid has had a bunch of work done.. he's a trooper, really", one kid looks at me, "is he getting a filling??", "nope", I said "he had to get a tooth out a couple weeks ago because he doesn't take care of his teeth and now he is getting a spacer put in to make sure his teeth don't move until his grown up tooth comes in when he's 12. " the kid was wide-eyed and panic-stricken as another scream from the mouth of my eldest son came out from the back, "so be sure to take care of your teeth, keep them clean and brush a lot." He nodded nervously, "oh, I do.. i brush", and he turned and walked towards the dental based video gaming center (yes really).
Evan, I love him to pieces, but he suffers from an undiagnosed-by-doctor case of anxiety whenever he is out of his comfort zone. he freaks out and shuts down... cries/whimpers/whines fairly inconsolably for a long period of time. The dentist said that he shouldn't be in any actual pain, but it will feel funny for a day or so (because it's tight around his teeth) but should be fine tomorrow. okay. I thought the world was going to end. as much as i tried to comfort, console, and help him, my patience was put to the limit. Thank God It wasn't pms time because it would not have gone so well if it were, the poor kid was starving and kept wanting to try to eat something, but wouldn't close his mouth or swallow his spit so it was pooling in his mouth. he wouldn't even let me put a cloth in there to absorb it. he was cranky because he was so hungry-as I'm sure he didn't eat his lunch at lunch time like usual- so the entire evening was spent with him doing the tired cranky whiny cry noise that pieces your ears painfully like the thought of stabbing a  pencil in your eye. He wanted dad home who was at a book group, and I couldn't find my flippin' chapstick!! F*** I think I left it at work. nor could I locate any misplaced chapstick, my aquaphor, or a stray tube of A&D which i knew was useless to look for-haven't has the clear kind in eons.. so i sent the hubby a text to pick up a small tub of vaseline on his way home. and he did!! glorious Vaseline! I figured if I managed to lose a container of Vaseline, I deserved to have my lips chapped. RELIEF... ahh.. sooo soothing.. I can't remember the last time I have felt so dependent on a petroleum based product... seriously.. this is ridiculous. Things are looking up the husband is home, my face is no longer on fire, and Evan has stopeed crying!! yes! and he fell asleep just as Idol was starting.

so after idol we head up stairs and at some point during the night Evan gets some water in his system, and then I am awoken by the strange sounds of splashing water. I just assumed Evan was getting a drink out of water from the bathroom, and then I heard him throwing up.. eew. yeah. he trew up only water and managed to puke on the floor. and miss himself. not bad... i handed him a big bowl, cleaned up with a towel and e was asleep before I finished... couldn't get back to sleep. it was 12:30, the husband couldn't get back to sleep either. turned the tv on. i fell asleep eventually and then I heard him throwing up again, poor kid.. atleast it was in the bowl this time, and then he was done. back to sleep. Poor kid.. he finally gets something in his stomach, and he ends up throwing it up.

so it's a new day now, and as i get dressed I open my sock drawer to find my missing Carmex!! WIN! how the hell it managed to get in there is beyond me.. but it has menthol in it and it has that awesome cooling effect on my lips. double WIN! Evan tried to have breakfast this morning and either gets a wad of phlegm stuck in his through or a bit of bagel, and he starts crying again.. poor kid. In the end, we are home. I gave Evan the option seeing as how he got sick last night and technically he should stay home, but he agreed, and and asleep on the couch.. and I'm on the computer blogging for the first time in a while. I've been meanign to blog for several weeks now, actually.

They must not've had lookouts

One of my all-time favorite things about growing up in Tesno was that I lived across from Standpipe Hill. That place was like a second home for those who lived in our neighborhood. In the summer we would build hideouts and pick wild low bush blueberries. The lower portion that was directly in front of our house was over taken by an invasive weed common to our area, but commonly known in my household as "bamboo". We used to sword fight with that stuff and make our own little "crop circle" rooms in our make believe house or palace or ship or what-have-you. In the winter it became our winter wonderland full of various paths and trails in which we would spend umpteen hours sledding our lives away. One winter I lost a pair of glasses while sledding and found them smooshed into the ground several years later during one of the warm months. I know they were mine because they were this hideous brown plastic in a classically awful 80's shape.

Today, I brought the kids out to play where they sledded in our side yard making do with what is left for snow... and it reminded me of when we didn't care how little snow there was, we were going to sled! We would use our sleds and "truck in" tidbits of snow form various areas on the hill to the "main path" (as we called it), and we would strategically place them to try and cover the entire thing to get a smooth run. We never seemed to mind or complain about it either. Sometimes we would try and surf down- of course this was before snowboards- and fall on our faces.


One of the most fun place to sled on Standpipe, though, was the Big Hill... it was tall, it was steep and there was *maybe* 5 ft of grass before you touched pavement, just to be caught by the concrete posts with wires as a fence to catch you before you ended up swimming after the run. The trick to this hill was that you could not sled this hill safely unless there were atleast 3 of you. The unwritten rule in the 'hood was that there HAD to be 2 lookouts- 1 looking left down E. Central and the other at the other corner were Main Ave (not pictured) comes in over the bridge as well as keeping an eye on the traffic coming in from East blvd. Then after you flew down the hill you had to hurry and get out of the street (if you didn't roll out while still in the grass) all the while laughing and and looking up and the daunting task of getting up the hill. It didn't matter that the top edge of the hill was slanted in such that it made a ramp- you could go that way, but it took a while to walk up, most of the time we tried to climb the steep side usually failing and losing our footing and sliding down several times before we would cave in and walk up the long way.

While at my sister's recently visiting with her family and mom and Jess and her kids, we were talking about the hill and Mom commented that it was in the police log that someone called the cops because kids were sledding into traffic. My sister and I at the same time said, "They must not've had lookouts" and we laughed and laughed... 

Surely I am surprised

that my sister nor my mom blogged about this weekend! (oh, and don't call me Shirley) Myself and the wee ones ventured down to 13th street for some family fun & debauchery. Friday night we arrived and the boys had a blast playing. On saturday we ventured out in the sunny and windy outdoors, to let the kids run amok at Hammond and expel some energy. Went fairly well. one child was cranky because he wanted to be pushed on the swings. but all in all it was a fun but chilly time.

we then prepared our family favorite Christmas cookies with halloween themed cookie cutters, and continued to get ready for a night of fun. which it was. the house was full of children, moms, & Pizza.. and briefly Scott was there begging for his brother to rescue him- he couldn't arrive fast enough! We hung out had a little wine, and even got mom to play guitar impromptu with a kid size piece. she tuned it and was good to go.. we got her to play rickety tickety tin, and then puff the magic dragon. Why is it that our kids weren't phased by the creepy song rickety tickety tin, which was a girl scout campfire favorite back in the day? They kids loved it! after a few hours people had to leave as the kiddos were up way past their bed times- well not mine.. mine are night owls and are up to 9-9:3 on a normal basis.

I've been crafty

The last couple weeks or so I've been busy making these such items:

Latest item: the hat with a pom pom in a basketweave crochet stitch.. it's super warm as it's part wool. I finished the hat earlier today, and took me no time to do. Last week was the scarf which is long enough that it can wrap around my head and wrap my neck keeping me toasty warm on the days I can't seem to find my hat.. last week I also finally finsihed Evan's earflap hat, which he loves, and  because I had some spare yarn I made a head band too. lol.. then New years weekend was consumed by an impromtu quilting project of our own original design, which is nearly done now.. it's been sitting in a near complete stage the past week or so.. just some finishing touches on lettering and it's done.

What do you think?? I know not spending enough time watching the kids, but it's good to keep busy with all this cold. The husband is working on an afghan which we will be raffling off later this year. I have also become quite good at taking self portraits with my cell phone :)