Ho Ho Ho

Since I've completed all of my house projects my insatiable need for order and control in my life has now turned to the next logical thing: Christmas shopping! Would you believe me if I told you that I have purchased all the Christmas toys Santa will be bringing this year? I even did my shopping for Bailee and Maddie too so all the kids in my life are taken care of. The UPS delivery guy must think I'm crazy because every day this week there has been a huge Amazon.com box dropped off at my door. Yahoo for internet shopping! I still need to buy presents for the grown-ups but it's the kids that are important so they can wait.

When I told Jason I had Christmas in the bag before Halloween he said, "You know you totally have to blog that."

*Snicker*

Apparently the White House is offended by The Onion's use of the presidential seal on their website.

Two things:

1. There are not many things in this world funnier than a really good Onion headline.
2. Is it not hilarious that the White House is even talking about this publication?

Nutritional Schizophrenia

I just made myself an awesome sandwich out of cucumbers, red pepper hummus and sprouts on pita bread, yet I decided to wash it down with a wild cherry Diet Coke. Something just doesn't seem right about following up fresh veggies with aspartame.

Maybe I should go have a peanut butter cup?

Would You Like a Little Whine With That Cheese?

Ok, I've actually finished all of my house projects, which is GOOD, except for that now I don't have anything to distract me from the fact that I have to wait 2 1/2 months before we can think about putting our house on the market. If it were me, I would try to sell my house tomorrow and buy this house or maybe this house but as it so happens I am married to someone is, shall we say practical? And a little bit financially responsible? But ohmigosh isn't this one just adorable? I knew this would happen. Now that the house is in order the holidays are almost upon us and it does seem a little bit wierd to think about closing on a new house on Christmas. Plus, at the beginning of next year we have some extra money coming in that would put us in a better place as far as moving expenses go and any updating/remodeling that may have to be done on an older home.

I get that it's better this way. But it doens't mean that I won't pout about it. We're actually meeting with a real estate agent in two weeks to see a few homes and hopefully nail down the exact neighborhood we want and to give him an idea of our style. I'm going to have to hold back from shouting out "I"LL TAKE IT! WHERE DO I SIGN?" I'm kind of hoping that the houses I love are in the g-h-e-t-t-o so I will be able to stop obsessing about it.

You Got Chocolate On My Peanut Butter!

I've said this before but autumn is my absolute favorite season. Not only do I love the weather and the colors and Halloween but it also means that mini Reese's Peanut Butter Cups start coming in those little fall-colored wrappers. This is of course followed by the wonderful red and green Christmas wrappers. I would never sit down and eat 3 candy bars but for some reason it suddenly becomes ok to eat a dozen of those teeny little bite-size ones because they're so darn cute! And did I mention tasty? Sometimes I think I should start referring to autumn as "The Season Where A Significant Percentage of My Diet Becomes Peanut Butter." (Peanut butter in cup form, of course.) It's no wonder that I always ask for workout equipment for Christmas and start on a new exercise regimen every January. 'Tis the Circle of Life.

Simultaneously the Bane and the Joy of My Existence

More joy than bane. Really.

Sox Rule

You may not know this about me but I really enjoy watching sports. Yes, I do like "girlie" sports like figure skating and gymnastics but I can get into team sports as well. I'm not talking about all the time or in large Frat-Boy quantities, but every once in while I like to sit down on my bottom with a gigantic bowl of ice cream and marvel at the athletic prowess of others. It's somewhat similar to how I drool over the Food Network while shoveling in handfuls of microwave popcorn.

Anyway, my point is that the Chicago White Sox are going to be in the World Series! Which means one thing for me: I am about to emerge as one of those fair-weather fans that all the die hards loathe. WOO-HOO! GO SOX! I'm not ashamed to admit the truth. I was a Cubs fan a couple of years ago when they had that amazing playoff run (and subsequent outstanding defeat in the eighth inning of game 6 against the Florida Marilins at Wrigley Field and oh-my-god-i'm-getting-angry-just-thinking-about-it-again.) I was a HUGE Chicago Bulls fan back in the day of Michael Jordan and their six championship wins but what Chicagoan wasn't? Plus, you probably couldn't pay most people around here to go to a Bulls game anymore so cut me a little bit of slack. I also remember rooting for Da Bears back in '85-86 (at the ripe age of 7) and have memories of making posters for our Super Bowl XX party that year. I believe a bit of shuffling was even involved. The Bears have been a notoriously awful team for years now but every once in while I'll turn one of their games on and it they're playing well I'll cheer and root them on (although truth be told, finding games in which they are actually playing well have been few and far between.)

So I'm excited that I have a reason to sit front of the tv and cheer for a Chicago team again! Plus it seems that Chicago sports teams so rarely make it all the way to the finals of anything that it's extra special and exciting when someone finally has the chance to come out on top. I may be leaving Illinois for Cheese Country soon but I do know that no matter how long I live in Milwaukee one thing is for sure: I will never be a Packer fan.

Excuse Me, Do I Know You?

Recently there has been a flurry of people from the past popping into my email box. Over the past couple of months I've come back into contact with old classmates and friends who have stumbled upon this site and it's happened enough times that I feel compelled to ask:

Just how many of you are out there?

Somehow I manage to get about two hundred visitors a day on this page and I know it isn't all just family and wierdos searching for pictures of pregnant ladies. So come on, if I know you and I don't already know that you stop in here, speak up! Or else I'll have to think that whoever keeps searching for "sexy mama" just really likes reading about my home improvement projects.

Purple Begone!

Someone please remind me never to paint my bedroom lavender ever again. At first I thought it would be relaxing and calming, but instead after a while I started feeling kind of like and eight-year-old. I don't love the idea of a vanilla white bedroom either but I'm willing to live with it for now. All the better for selling.








Hi sleepy kitty!

Boo-Hoo

Let me just state for the record that when one of your many jobs is doing laundry for four people, "laundry day" is never done. Sometimes when I'm folding basket after basket of clothing I look into the pile of mismatched pink and purple socks and it starts feeling like the abyss. A very colorful abysss, but never-ending nonetheless.

In happier times, it's finally starting to feel like autumn around here. Best! Season! EVER!

Weekend Wrap-Up and Random Thoughts

Wow, I REALLY needed to get out of the house last night. We saw Sarah Silverman's film at Resfest and laughed so hard. You might think I'd feel a little bit guilty for chuckling at comedy that was so insanely far from PC and completely vulgar in every way. (Ok, maybe you wouldn't really think that. I am not easily offended at all.) In fact, there's very little I can think of that actually does shock me. Oh wait, I believe I would take offense with someone breaking up with my best friend of fifteen years when she was expecting to move in together and eventually get married. But I guess that's not the same thing, right? Hmmm.

I'm getting off topic though. I do want to mention that I was very happy to see my old friend Shiow last night at the movie. And since I know now that she checks my blog I want to give a big shout out and say HI SHIOW! YOU BIG BLOG-STALKER! I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS!

Hee.

Clean Cup, Move Down!

It's 7:30pm on a Friday night and I just finished putting the girls to bed. Yes, I said 7:30. We just finished off a long day of Juliana ignoring me and Ava whining and screaming at me. (Juli was supposed to be cleaning her room and Ava just isn't feeling well.) Truth be told, I just couldn't take it anymore and since it's getting dark out earlier now I thought I'd take advantage of it. "Sure it's bedtime! What do you mean you want to see the clock? Don't you trust me?"

Jason's out with Billy tonight so it's just me here. I'm going to have a glass of wine and watch some television. I am so DONE with today.

Plugging Along...

It's naptime so I'm working on this some more:



Hey, I'm pretty good! Doesn't this kitchen just scream BUY ME?

And Junk Did Raineth Down Upon Me

For quite some time now I have been "clean-sweeping" out my house in anticipation of our upcoming move. If we didn't already produce the most trash on our block, we have most definitely blown everyone away these past few weeks. It has been very liberating to rid myself of years of stuff that has been weighing me (and our house) down.

Over the weekend I had my dad over to help fix a few little things, one being the bathroom fan in our master bath. In order to get at the wiring better, he needed to access the fan through the attic in the girls bedroom. The attic is basically tiny crawl space with a bunch of insulation (or so I thought, having never actually been up there.) Anyway, he ended up pulling out three boxes of junk from one of the previous owners and found a fourth one as well that he couldn't quite reach. The boxes are full of old photos, birthday cards and letters, sports awards, knick-knacks and other junk from about 10 years ago.

Doesn't it just figure that as soon as I finished getting rid of all my crap I had to have someone else's bestowed on me.

The Second Coming?

The president has actually lost the support of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, of all people with his nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. The world as I know it is crumbling. Don't. Understand. What. Is happening.

What Have I Been Up To?

Paint, paint, and more paint. No time to blog. Must apply more paint.

The DMV SUX Ya'll! (So What Else Is New?)

Last Saturday I went to the DMV to get license plates for the Cruiser since I'm still driving around with Florida plates. After filling out all the paperwork and waiting patiently in line for twenty minutes (which was REALLY quick for that place, I know) I was told that I could NOT file my registration until Jason signed his name as well, since his name was also on the title.

Fine.

I didn't really want to go there with Ava or Juli so I waited until today to go back. Once again, I had all the paperwork filled out, complete with Jason's signature and a check made out for $143.00 like they told me to do. They are open from 8am until noon on Saturdays so after Juliana's soccer game was over at 11, I popped over there to finally take care of everything. At 11:30 I walked in the door and looked to take a number but didn't see any. There was one woman sitting at a computer doing nothing so I went up and asked her where the numbers were.

DMV Woman: "Ohhhh. It looks like there aren't anymore," she said and proceeded to stare at me.

Me: "Okay... Well can you help me get my license plates? I have everything filled out and ready to go."

DMV Woman:" Well, we're all done doing that for today. You can take it to the currency exchange and have it done there if you want."

Me: "Uhhh, aren't you open until noon? Can't I take care of it here?"

DMV Woman: "No. We're all done doing those today." she says SITTING IN FRONT OF HER COMPUTER WITH NOTHING ELSE TO DO A FULL HALF HOUR BEFORE THEY WERE SCHEDULED TO CLOSE.

I'm usually very nice to people who work in any kind of service industry because frankly I think it must be a pretty sucktastic job but I have to say that after making two attempts to have this fairly simple task taken care of and being shot down TWICE that I did in fact storm out of there. And I took the two pens I had in my hand with me.

Yes, I said TWO pens. So there.

*Side note: This all happened after we spent the early morning drving around Bartlett trying to figure out which gymnasium Juliana's soccer team was having their photos taken at since nobody bothered to tell me that Schrade Gym wasn't the gym at the school where every single game is being played. Apparently I am not as a good a Soccer Mom as all the other moms on the team since every other person knew exactly where to go Oh, and we missed the team photo by literally THIRTY SECONDS. They wanted to retake it once we got there but one other girl on the team had just left as we were coming in the door.

Juli still got her individual photo taken but I have to say I was heartbroken about missing the team shot. Thirty seconds. Grrrrrr.