Archives for June 2008

Thursday Ten – Better Late than Friday Edition

1. Ten p.m., watching “Hopkins” on ABC and eating a bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. This day has been insane – The Princess had a swim lesson, then home where the Mother’s Helper was homewith Pumpkin. Then, on to try to have my day of productivity while my kids were being cared for by the wonderful girl who my kids are really loving a lot.

2. In addition to pounding out some work this afternoon, my best friend and I painted 75% of the playroom. I wanted three white walls and a purple accent wall. I’ll get the purple done over the weekend. I figure I’ll take the girls on a run to Home Depot tomorrow to pick the paint (the plan is to pick two from a paint chip, the lightest and the one a smidge darker and the wall will be half-n-half).

3. It was well into the 80s and oh-so-humid today. This kind of weather makes my hair fuzz up. I love ponytails.

4. Oh! Speaking of hair, I got about 2 inches cut off the ends the other day and highlights. I like the cut a lot and I’m getting used to the highlights which were done in a pretty subtle way but I’m still a bit iffy on the color.

5. Pumpkin is picking back up with the potty training. As Emily advised a LONG time ago, I told her, “No PullUps during the day.” I put her in a pull up or diaper for nap time and bedtime but beyond that, she’s in the big girl undies. Two days straight of keeping them dry. Yay!

6. As a reward for staying dry, the girls and I made ice cream cone cupcakes yesterday – making both the cupcake batter and frosting from scratch. The frosting was so good – I don’t really like cupcakes so much, but I made up for that by binging on pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate frosting.

7. I hate mosquitos.

8. I’m still crappy about updating my blog, but if you Twitter at all, click my link at the right and follow me. I’m not always interesting, but I do update more frequently. Plus, I think it’s fun to share how truly useless I am.

9. My most recent download was an oldie, “Drive” by Incubus.

10. I am on a mission to learn to like running (okay, to learn to tolerate it). This week, it’s walk four minutes, run three. Next week it’s walk three, run four. And so on til I’m running and not walking at all. I don’t know if I’ll ever love it, but I know that as far as workout goes, it blows walking away as far as a cardio workout, and with my thyroid still being cranky, I’ll take the extra kick of running.

The Dog Ate My Homework

I’ve been a pretty bad blogger lately, and it’s not that I have nothing to say – no, that’s not it at all. It’s that finding time to string some words together has been a bit more difficult now that school is out and we are on a daycare hiatus (until September 2… Sigh).

The mother’s helper thing was a good idea – I really like our little helper and the girls like her too. She spends A LOT of time with them outside and they love that. It’s hard for me to separate myself from work-mom and home-mom and so for a day each week, I can be total work-mom mode, so that the times when I’m less work focused, I don’t feel quite as guilty knowing I’ve spent all that time when my helper is here.

Pumpkin has done a mini-potty training backslide (dang!), and she also seems to be getting ready to dump her nap. She’ll still take a nice long nap – but then she’s up til 10 or later at night. Oy. I’m not really ready to phase out the nap, but I know it’s coming soon. Pout.

Having said that, don’t give up on me. I’m still here, I’m still reading your blogs – I’m just losing my grip on my routines and my reality a bit. Seriously – need my ticker. September 2 will be a banner day in the Chronicles house.

Thursday Ten, Jack Johnson on My BRAIN Edition

10. All pictures courtesy of me and my sis. Her camera rocks, and mine is mediocre but we got some decent shots. I inserted them “small” into my post – but you can click on any of them to make them bigger.

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One Stainless Steel Appliance in My Collection

June 14, 2008 by Leave a Comment

I really love the look of stainless steel appliances. I do. Of course, when Hubby and I moved into this house 6 years ago, we didn’t have the money for that stuff, and so we just matched the existing dishwasher that came with the house – white. Within a few years, we had to replace the dishwasher, and replaced it with another white model.

A few months ago, the little jobby-do (that would be the technical term for those of you not familiar with the anatomy of a dishwasher) that you close after you put the soap in broke. No big deal, we just put the soap in and hoped for the best. The past week, however, the little latch to open and close the dishwasher started acting a little ooky. And this morning? It broke.

Now, anyone who has a dishwasher knows there is a simple thing going on here: Your dishwasher kinda has to be able to open and shut. And once you’ve shut it and washed the dishes, somehow, you’ve gotta be able to open it again. Like, without using a screwdriver to wedge it open.

Ugh.

So, we ventured to Home Depot this morning. I hate appliance shopping because I find sales people fall into two camps: the ones that know everything about every product or the ones that know nothing about anything. Guess which one we had? We did a lot of wandering around, and finally picked a nice Stainless GE model. I wasn’t going to go for stainless before – they tend to be pricier – but given the promotion they had going on, cost wise, we only came out spending about $10 more with the stainless than the white model, and this means that from here on out, I can argue to replace any further appliance breakdowns with stainless as well (but only when they break – no frivolous appliance buying here!).

Wednesday, they’ll deliver and install our new dishwasher. In the meantime, I think maybe we’ll have to use paper plates. The thought of doing dishes by hand until then does NOT appeal to me.

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Thursday Ten, I Know It’s Friday Version

June 13, 2008 by 1 Comment

1. I know it’s Friday but I was busy hiding in my office yesterday and fighting the urge to intrude on our Mother’s Helper with my freaky control freak tendencies. I shut the door to the office and basically tried to stay out of the way. It was hard. So, I maybe need a lesson or two in learning to let go.

2. My kid drew the above on the chalkboard in the playroom. I’m the stick figure on the right, in case you don’t know what I look like.

3. Music of the week: “Flavors of Entanglement” – the new album by Alanis Morisette. If you download it on iTunes, you get a whole bunch of bonus songs, including an awesome one called “Madness” and another called “On the Tequila”. I’ve been enjoying it.

4. Less than a week til the Jack Johnson concert – Whoo hoo! My sister and I are leaving our men at home and making an afternoon/evening of it. I can’t wait. We almost never do things together. With her being 10 years younger than I am, there really hasn’t been much common ground up until the past few years. I’m really looking forward to the concert.

5. I’ve been watching “So You Think You Can Dance” but it’s so early in the season, it’s hard to care about any of the dancers yet. I was spacing while I was watching last night.

6. Tomorrow, I’ll be going to see “Sex and the City” again. This time, me and a friend will be taking our husbands. We figure there is enough boobs in the movie to keep them amused. Maybe.

7. The season finale of Top Chef was on the other day and I was happy to see Stephanie win, even though her dessert looked like a hot mess.

8. I am getting a new dining room set this weekend. I wanted to wait until the girls were a little older and less likely to beat the crap out of new furniture, but, the thing is… I think we’re weeks away from all the chairs collapsing! We’re likely going to get a dining table, 2 -3 dining chairs, and a bench instead of chairs for the girls.

9. I started reading the “Twilight” series by Stephanie Meyer. I realize they are written for “young adults” but I had heard so much about them, I caved. And I am hooked. I’m midway through the second book, and I have the third on deck. Easy reads, for sure.

10. I’m a pretty crappy blogger lately. Forgive me. I’ll get my mojo back. I promise.

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Thursday Ten, The RedWings Won The Stanley Cup Edition

June 5, 2008 by Leave a Comment

1. Hey! The RedWings won the Stanley Cup! This is a huge huge deal to me because of all the sports on the planet, hockey is the one I truly love, and the RedWings are my favorite team. Glad to see the Cup returning to Hockeytown.

2. Game 5 on Monday night went into triple overtime which means the game ended somewhere around 1 a.m. Now, I love hockey, but that definitely crossed a line into maybe TOO MUCH hockey for one night. Once my eyes were crossing from exhaustion, it got a little hard to see the puck.

3. I went ice skating today. Hubby and I took the kids on Monday and I had such fun I decided to go on my own today. Forty minutes on the ice netted me a pretty decent workout – even in the cold air of the rink, I was sweating! I’m definitely trying to change things up with my workout to help combat some of this thyroid hooey.

4. The humidity today? Killer. I hate humidity. I’m one of those people who hates summer. I hate it a lot. Fall? Fabulous. Spring? Great. Summer? Bite me.

5. My doctor upped the dosage of my thyroid meds because after five weeks, nothing was really happening. Here’s hoping there is an improvement now. I’m a bit tired of being cranky, tired, achy, cold and pudgy.

6. I had a dream last night, and in the dream, someone was singing a song to me. I knew the song and was surprised that the person knew the song. And now? I can’t remember the song!! I wish I could. I am pretty sure it was a real song.

7. The Princess’s last day of school is tomorrow. Pumpkin’s last day of daycare was today. From now until September 2, life is going to be pretty nutty around here. And not in a good way. I’ve hired a mother’s helper to come watch the kids in my house while I work one day a week, and the rest of the days I guess I’m just going to have to juggle. Please know that I will lose my mind. That seems to be pretty clear already.

8. Is it tacky to make a ticker for when my kids go back to school before school is even really OUT?

9. Urban Dictionary’s word of the day today is “premature joculation” – the act of celebrating an event before it has been resolved. Sometimes followed by a quick retraction when things turn out differently. An example? All the RedWings fan who were ready to do a happy dance with 35 seconds left of the game Monday night. At 34.something seconds, Pittsburgh tied it up. End of celebration.

10. Life without ice cream is no fun. I’m really trying to watch myself so I can fit back into my regular clothes. I’m actually doing fairly well and am not missing junk too much – but my kids are talking about dessert and they are wanting the Mint Karaoke Cookie ice cream sitting in our freezer, and I’m trying really hard to not think about it.

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Got Estrogen?

June 2, 2008 by 1 Comment

Anyone else make it to the “Sex and the City” movie this weekend? I went with a group of ladies Friday night and enjoyed myself. I thought it would be better, but I still loved it. Was very impressed at the marketing and product placement they had going on. And if anyone is curious, me and Miranda have the same laptop.

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