Archives for 2007

Hey all… I’ve managed to tear myself away from my new toy so that I can post a new blog about the holiday festivities. I spent the morning running errands – going to my old cell provider to pay the absurd cancellation fee so that I am no longer running two cell plans, went to Starbucks for a gingerbread latte before the season ended and the opportunity to get them was gone, and to Barnes & Noble.

At Barnes & Noble, I picked up a few new books:
1. The Fountainhead – By Ayn Rand
2. Songs of the Humpback Whale – By Jodi Picoult
3. Other People’s Love Letters – Edited by Bill Shapiro

For those of you who are PostSecret fiends, I think you might like “Other People’s Love Letters”. It looks to be very similar – excerpts and letters in their entirety that other people have sent others. Because I love to live vicariously through others (which explains my Post Secret fascination, as well as my love for reality TV), this looks like a fun one to look through.

The girls had a great Christmas, getting completely spoiled rotten. The big hits this year was anything Hannah Montana related (for The Princess) and a brand new CareBear for Pumpkin. The Princess has been listening to the High School Musical 2 Soundtrack bunches and The Princess is loving Dora the Explorer – Puppy Power.

So, there’s a lot of stuff sitting around my house now. It’s a mess, and the kids are too wired to nap or even chill out a bit. Consequently, I’m a little wound up as well. I’m ready for the holiday excitement to die down.

I’d love to tell y’all about what a fantastic time the girls had for Christmas and all their new toys, BUT… I got a new toy this year… Hubby bought me my iPhone, and to be honest, I’ve been playing with it for an hour now, and am just having too much fun to post. Maybe tomorrow.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

I cannot believe that tomorrow is Christmas Eve day. For all my scrooging and bah humbug-ing, I’m really actually starting to feel the spirit a bit. Shucks- I even plugged in the Christmas tree lights tonight! Part of what has finally started to lift me about the holidays is the fact that my daughters are so excited. The Princess has been well aware of the magic of Christmas for a few years now, but last year, Pumpkin was only starting to get it. This year, she gets it.

Lately, when we drive down the street at night and she sees a house with decorations: lights, inflatable Santas, you name it, Pumpkin gets this look on her face and says: “Everybody’s ready for Christmas again!” It’s adorable – and she just says it over and over with each decorated home we pass.

Tomorrow, we make Monkey Bread for our Christmas morning breakfast. We’ll also be preparing brownies for a Christmas dessert (brownie sundaes with PEPPERMINT ice cream and hot fudge – yeeeeeeeeeeeah). I did make a run to Costco and bought a gigantic pecan pie for those who might prefer a more traditional holiday dessert (weirdos). Already, I’m looking forward to the cinnamon smell of the monkey bread that will take over the house. Then it REALLY feels festive.

Tomorrow, we’ll also spend much time online tracking Santa’s whereabouts on the Norad site. I am more amused by it than the kids are, but, that’s alright!

We’ll let the kids each open one present before bed. We’ll be taking Stepson home tomorrow night so he can spend Christmas day with his mother – she’ll bring him back later Christmas day for the rest of the week with us. Then it’s freakin’ Christmas.

Wow. Time flies.

The second attempt fared better than the first – the woman who waxed my eyebrows this afternoon actually noticed!

Though, really, it’s still a very subtle difference. It’s a darker brown than originally (no darker than Monday, though). Today, Sis put a straight red over that. The result is that in certain light, the red is very present, but for the most part, it’s just very shiny dark brown hair. I’m alright with that. Annnnd a plus side is that it didn’t go red enough to make my eyebrows look funny on my face. I was worried about that.

Yes, I am having trouble thinking of a subject again, so I’m just going to throw out some random facts. Doesn’t that sound like a super-big-bunch of fun!?

1. My last two downloads from iTunes were: “Apologize” by One Republic/Timbaland and “Ready, Set, Don’t Go” by Billy Ray and Miley Cyrus. Sadly, I can’t even blame the Billy Ray/Miley download on The Princess. The song is just sappy and I like it. It was stuck in my head after seeing them on Oprah yesterday.

2. Purchases I’ve made today: Peppermint ice cream and hot fudge (regular and sugar free). Wrapping paper (to wrap gifts from Santa). M&Ms for The Princess’s stocking. Yogurt. Cheese. Goldfish Pretzels. Annnnnnnnnnnnnd a gingerbread latte!

3. Why Bell Ringers Annoy Me: There was a bell-ringer inside the grocery store today. He all but chased me down with a basket of candy to offer Pumpkin. He then offered HER the basket to choose her candy. Of course, she chooses the small hard candy choking hazard which I then had to take away, and replace with a Hershey Kiss (which she ate and made a big mess of her face in the middle of the store). Then I felt obligated to give the Candy Pusher money. WHY can’t they just stand outside?

4. I haven’t done any cardio in two days. I’m going to have to drag my butt on to the treadmill tomorrow! I was able to lift weights during Pumpkin’s nap today – but then I was just not feeling it about getting on the treadmill. I’m hoping tomorrow is the day.

5. Speaking of tomorrow – THAT is the day we try again on the hair. Wish me luck!

Today, I got to sleep past six (barely, but that’s alright), and I am feeling a smidge better and a smidge less Scrooge-like. Hubby was able to take a late lunch and as I type, he is probably eating cupcakes with 20 other sugar-buzzed kindergartners. This is actually an awesome turn of events – I do handle the bulk of the kid-related things – it’s nice for her to have him there for a change. And it’s nice for him to be there and see how crazy-making those things can get!

Of course, my conference call was somehow cancelled, and though Pumpkin is taking and needing a nap – it kind of irks me that that was the reason I stayed home, and it was all for naught. Oh well – bright side: No conference call. That’s good stuff.

Pumpkin and I ran some errands this morning. When we got home, she asked to play in the playroom. She proceeded to entertain herself among the toys for nearly two hours. It was amazing. It’s a fantastic mess in there now – but she was having so much fun. She also spent much time on The Princess’s bed “reading” many many books. She’s getting to be such a big girl.

One of our stops this morning was to the library. I picked up a ton of Dr. Seuss books because nothing is as much fun to read as one of his verses. How can you be in a funk when you’re reading about Sylvester Monkey McBean or Daisy Head Mayzie? I am excited to read the books to the girls tonight – what fun we’ll have!

At the library, we ran into a friend and her 6 month old baby. Pumpkin looked at him and said, “When I was a baby I used to be little.” She is completely exploding verbally, and it’s so much fun. She’s still hard to understand a lot of times – which is difficult because even at 2, The Princess was so well-spoken and easy to understand. But, kids are kids.

So, it feels a bit better to be on the other side of my mood, and I’m grateful for the new day and the better attitude, because yesterday? Yesterday straight up sucked.

So, here we are, less than a week away from Christmas and already I am ready for the holiday and Christmas break to be over. We have had the Christmas tree up for nearly a month it seems like, and I’m tired of picking up ornaments that migrate from the tree to the couch or other areas of my living room. Not to mention, my artificial tree has shed needles because the kids have been playing near it.

My closet is filled with presents and I’m really ready to have that “back”. Of course, with two young kids (especially Pumpkin!), we’re unable to put the gifts under the tree. Consequently, they are everywhere else. I even have a box of gifts that we received from my dad and his wife – that box is in the mudroom. I have a giant Rubbermaid tote filled with the gifts I haven’t wrapped yet – those are the Santa gifts and stocking stuffers. Those require that I go out and by a secret roll of paper that the girls have not seen yet, and then hide it until I can wrap gifts. (Note for those who don’t have kids: It would be waaaaaay easier to never start that whole “Santa” stuff in the first place!).

Tomorrow is The Princess’s school Christmas party – and the time coincides with Pumpkin’s nap and a conference call for work. I dread telling her that I don’t know if I’ll be there – especially since we went to a school function for my friend’s daughter. Feel kind of rotten I can’t be there for my own kid. Tomorrow evening, we are invited to The Princess’s teacher’s house so that all the kids can count the Christmas trees (they live in a huge old Victorian house – and have a Christmas tree in every window). After that, it’s onward to the elementary school so we can see The Princess’s gym class put on a gymnastics show. WHO on earth thought this was a good idea the week before Christmas?! To be fair, it’s really not that big of a deal – I’m just feeling overwhelmed with the prospect of Thursday. That’s just too much stuff going on. Thursdays are usually pretty gruesome anyway.

Friday is The Princess’s last day of school for TWO WEEKS. Love my kid. Don’t know what I’m going to do for two weeks, though. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to coordinate some playdates and trade houses. There are enough other five-year-olds in the neighborhood, I’m hoping we can work something out. Stepson is supposed to be here all next week, as well – so one more kid to the mix. Hubby is supposed to be taking some time off work, or figuring out alternate arrangements, because between the girls and work, I can’t really handle it! Seeing as how we’re currently waiting to see if Stepson is going to be expelled from school, or merely “just” suspended, I really don’t want to deal with it. He’s grounded from damn near everything, and I don’t want to deal with a 12 year old who has nothing to occupy his time.

Really, I’m not totally scroogey. It just feels like it today. Then again, I’ve been up with kids since 5:30, so I’m not easily amused today. Bah Humbug!

This afternoon, I was cooking something and as I started to crack an egg into the bowl, Pumpkin told me, “There’s a bird in there!” I told her that no, this particular egg did not have any birds in it, then proceeded to crack it open and dump the egg into the bowl. She looked at it and said, “No bird. Just juice.”

Blog subtitle for the day: The things we do when AT&T has a problem with my high-speed DSL line and my internet isn’t functioning, and I can’t do work, or surf the web, or read blogs, or check my MySpace, or do anything even remotely productive or entertaining.

My sister is in cosmetology school and a few weeks ago at a wedding, we talked about coloring my hair. My hair is brown. Just brown. No highlights, no nothing. Brown. I wanted to add some red to it, maybe make it more of a mahogany color – keeping the brown with some pep to it, without being that fakey red cherry Koolaid color. We decided today was the day.

First stop on our adventure: Starbucks. (What? Are you NEW here? Of COURSE we stopped at Starbucks). I had a buy one get one coupon, and never usually buy two coffees at once – so a gingerbread latte for me and a white chocolate peppermint mocha for sis. Problem? This is the same Starbucks that made me that gruesome gingerbread latte previously. I think their sugar-free gingerbread syrup is just wrong. And… they left the peppermint out of Sister’s mocha. I ended up dumping most of my drink out the window. It was horrible.

Next stop: the beauty supply store. First, we browsed nail polish colors. I love that my sis gets a discount on this stuff – OPI nail polish was half price. We had to pick up some “I’m Not Really a Waitress” for my mom’s Christmas stocking. We found a few other shades (including one for me, which I’m sporting on my toenails – Mrs. O’Leary’s BBQ). Onward to the hair color. We flipped through the creepy hair swatches, and my Sis being conservative decides we should maybe mix two colors together – a brown undertone (Walnut) with a red on top (Sangria). We then wander around some more, get some other stuff (including Redken Glass which rocks when you’ve straightened your hair). Sis is the queen of Hair Product. She just is. We were there quite some time, but what fun. My kids had a blast, for some reason, they were oinking like pigs all the way through the store. Whatever keeps them happy!

Back home we went. I prepped some lunch for the kiddos and Sis started painting my hair with the color. Her gloves looked like she had been butchering something, and the bowl of color just looked like a hemmorrhage. I was actually worried it might be too red, and she kept saying, “Don’t worry – it always looks redder in the bowl.” In the midst of the hair painting, AT & T’s repair guy showed up. Sis answered the door, red dye all over and the man looked at her like, “Oh my god, what did I just walk into!?” I wandered to the door, all snazzy with my goopy hair and a smock and spoke to him about my internet issues (to which he informed me that it’s NOT my line like the idiot customer representatives have been trying to tell me, but in fact it’s a bigger problem that is affecting many people and they will fix it! Pronto!).

We paint. I sit. We rinse and wash. And voila.

You can’t see the difference.

Actually, if you can see ANY difference, my hair looks to be a darker brown. It’s like that line in the movie Beaches (You know you saw it), “You just spent two hours dyeing your hair the same color?” After the hair cut fiasco last October, I know Sis was being uber-conservative because she didn’t want to ruin my hair again. She’ll be back on Saturday with more Sangria. No Walnut. It’s definitely not ruined, and I’m fine with it – it’s just so laughable that we spent all that time and it’s very subtle. Like so subtle, why bother?! Ah well.

If it’s any indication of what kind of weekend it’s been, it’s about quarter to nine here, and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open. I’m exhausted! The girls have been tucked in for an hour (We are SO screwed when they learn to tell time and realize we’re putting them to bed early!). Pumpkin was definitely tired and ready to zonk out – she didn’t even get up and give me any drama. The Princess stalled a bit, but was still out like a light within about twenty to thirty minutes.

While yesterday was extremely productive, I think I’m just worn out from having the most full day since I got hit with this sinus infection or whatever it was. Yesterday was the first day in about a week that I was able to get on the treadmill (prior to that, I wasn’t sure I’d make it since breathing was sort of difficult – and you all know, breathing is definitely something one should do). I completely ramped down my speed, didn’t up the incline, and just walked slowly… or should I say, moseyed? Then a few hours of walking around the mall. Staying up to watch a DVD.

This morning, I was up fairly early again. Got on the treadmill again. And honestly, the rest of the day is pretty much a blur. I’m sure I didn’t do much of anything. I know I laid in bed for an hour with my eyes closed pretending to be sleeping… I might have actually dozed for ten minutes, but I’m not sure. (Oh wait! As I type this, I remember how I spent my morning – I scrubbed all the floors in the house – I guess I have a reason for being tired. Duh!). Listened to Hubby and his friends yelling at the tv during football – this might be a good time to remind y’all that I hate fantasy football. I made dinner for everyone. I did a mini-workout. And now… It’s not even nine and I’m ready to turn in.

This is pretty sad!