My kingdom for a miniature Heath bar!

My husband is out of town on business tonight so that meant I got a night off from cooking - unless you consider microwaving a Hot Pocket, a bowl of ABC's and 123's and a Lean Cuisine cooking.  And I don't.

As I was eating my Lean Cuisine, I remembered why I stopped buying them many years ago when I was single.  They are horrible.  It was very bland, a little mushy and I found a chicken bone. Blech.

You know how you can eat a meal that isn't very good but you go ahead and eat it all anyway and then afterwards you are full but you feel like you haven't eaten yet because you didn't enjoy what you ate?  Well that totally happened to me tonight.

I was staring forlornly at my empty Lean Cuisine tray when I remembered that yesterday I had discovered a miniature Heath bar in Sarah's Halloween bucket.  Oh I do love me a good Heath bar and was thrilled to find it hiding under a pile of 3 Musketeers and Milky Ways.  

I grabbed the Heath with a little too much excitement which caused Sarah to ask suspiciously, "What is that?"

"Oh, that's just some toffee.  It's grown up candy.  You wouldn't like it," was my reply as as I tossed her a Milky Way and quickly ran out of the room.

I savored that Heath Bar.  It was crunchy, chocolatey, everything a good Heath Bar should be and I wondered why I ever stopped getting a Heath Blizzard at Dairy Queen.  And then I remembered the Brownie Batter Blizzard, the Chocolate Xtreme and the Midnight Truffle.  Yum.  Blizzards.  Yum.

Where was I?

Oh.  I was remembering that I had found a Heath Bar in Sarah's Halloween bucket which made me think that if there was one in Sarah's bucket then the chances were good that there was one in Peter's bucket.

So I went racing over to his bucket and started rummaging through all of his candy.

I caught my breath.  There it is!  There's a Heath bar! 

I reached for the candy bar.  All I could see was the brown paper and an HE written on it.  The rest of the candy bar was obscured by 3 Musketeers and Milky Ways.  Clearly, my kids don't like those either.

I snatched it up and held it close so that no one could see it.  I turned my body away from the questioning eyes of the little people and turned it over.

HERSHEYS.

I dejectedly threw it back into the bucket so it could lay with the rest of the second rate Halloween candy.  I pilfered through the bucket and came out a mini Moon Pie.

As I ate the Moon Pie, I sat pondering why anyone would like a Moon Pie. There's not enough chocolate covering the cookie.  The cookie is rather tasteless. It's filled with that weird marshmallowy goo.

Perhaps it just needed an R.C. Cola to go with it.

So now the kids are in bed and I have free reign over the candy buckets but I know there's nothing good left.  Laffy Taffy, Smarties, Starburst...all third rate candy. 

The Reese's Cups, Kit Kats and  $100k Bars are long gone.

Perhaps I'll just go to bed too.  Ahhh...sweet dreams....

Even though I ran 4.9 miles this morning, I don't mention it, yet this post still manages to be incredibly boring, leaving the internet shaking it's head wondering how does she do it?

It's supposed to be 81 degrees here today (yay!) but it's forecasted to drop to 59 degrees on Thursday (boo!) which is the day we are heading to the beach for a long weekend.

But I'm not too focused on the weather because I would rather spend a cool day at the beach than a warm one at home.  Not that I don't love home, but at the beach I don't have to cook, do laundry, clean -  you get my drift.

Anyway, enough about the weather and the beach.  Let's move on to a more exciting topic.

Tomorrow is my first volunteer opportunity at the kid's new school.  We are supposed to volunteer for 15 hours of service at the school per year.   And this will be my first and only hour so far.  I discovered at the PTO meeting last week that several families have not only met, but have already exceeded their 15 hours.  I better do some volunteering quick before they kick the kids out!

I'm also helping out with one of the Halloween parties in a couple of weeks and I did sign up to volunteer at the Book Fair in November.

By the end of this week they will have a bulletin board up with random things that teachers need done.  The thought is that if you have an hour to kill you can come in, peruse the board and find something that needs to be done that you would like to do.  I'm really interested to see what kind of activities are posted.  I would much rather make copies than head up the school auction if you know what I mean. 

But the one thing I am staying away from is driving. The kids have quite a few field trips on the schedule and there is no bus.  This means parents have to volunteer to drive and chaperone the kids. I really do not want to do that. 

I am a horrible driver.  Plus I am really bad with directions.  The thought of having to take other people's children (other people that I don't even know yet!) to neighboring towns to visit museums and see plays gives me the willies!  Just not gonna do it...unless of course they are in dire straights and then I would do it and be a sweaty mess by the time we got back to the school - assuming we made it back!

Well, I've got sheets in the dryer and unfortunately, they aren't magically going to put themselves on the beds so I better get cracking!

Tiny hand prints? Not any more.

Remember this poignant post I wrote two and a half years ago?  Take a minute and read it in case you have forgotten.  Tiny Hand Prints.

What a sweet post.

I still struggle with those hand prints.  I will go days and days between cleaning them off and no matter how long I go, within hours, the hand prints reappear - almost as if by magic.

I stopped getting upset by them along time ago. And not because I knew that the smudges were going to get larger and higher as my kids grew up and out and away but because I knew they were just going to come back again and again.  Nothing poignant about the dirt and grim - it's just a part of life with kids.

As I was cleaning this hand print off the glass yesterday,  I realized that the owners of the hand prints are about to have a new chore added to their chore list.

And that made me smile.

What is on their hands to make such dirty prints? They bathe and wash their hands on a regular basis, I promise!

Apparently, I have all the time in the world.

I was out for my morning run and decided to do 4 miles instead of my normal 3.  After all, I thought, I've got to work my way up to 6.2 miles if I'm going to be ready for that 10k in the fall.

And then it hit me - it IS fall.

So this morning it became apparent to me that I will not be running a 10k in two weeks as I had originally planned back in the summer when it felt like fall was waaaaaaaaay off and I would have plenty of time to get in shape for a 10k.

I guess I need to find a 10k in the spring and sign up for it and pay for it and put it on my calendar and train for it and then actually run it.  Sounds like a good plan doesn't it? 

On a completely unrelated note, my friend Jennifer's daughter, Caity, has been making bracelets and necklaces and selling them at local school Fall Festivals and at local gift shops.  Aren't they cool?  All the kids are buying them!

Caity is working hard at this and has made a lot of money doing it.  Sarah decided that she wants to make something and sell it as well so she can make a lot of money too. 

Sarah has a couple of things working against her.  Sarah is 7 and her mom isn't very crafty.  Caity is 10 and her mom is very crafty. 

She decided she wanted to make and sell scarves. 

SCARVES, people!  We do not own a sewing machine. I can barely sew a button and Sarah still has trouble tieing her shoes.  I'm not exactly sure how she thinks we are going to make SCARVES!   But she's leaving that tiny little detail to me.  Apparently her job in this little money-making adventure is to annoy the crap out of me until I come up with something for her to make and sell. 

I have been Googling "no-sew scarves" and came up with one made from a t-shirt.  So we made one and the problem is that it's a scarf made from a t-shirt.  I really don't have what it takes to go into a local gift shop and ask them to sell a scarf that I made from cutting up a t-shirt. 

I convinced her that it wasn't a good idea and then hoped that the whole thing would just die down.  And I was good for a couple of hours until she started asking me again what she could make and sell.  She wants to buy an iPad.  And if she can't make enough money for one, she is going to ask Santa to bring it.  HA!  I hope she has another plan because I can tell you right now, Santa ain't bringing no iPad. 

I guess I will spend my morning searching Etsy to see what the crafty people are making and selling and then spend my afternoon searching Google to see if there are any tutorials on how to easily and uncraftily copy what the crafty Etsy people are making and selling.

How am I ever going to be able to get ready to run a 10k in the spring if I'm spending all of my time crafting?  Good thing the spring is waaaaaaaaay off!

If I wasn't so tired, I could have come up with a funnier ending.

Dan and Peter left for a Cub Scout camping trip last night so it's just me and Sarah this weekend.

We headed to Chick-Fil-A for dinner last night and then came home and watched an episode of Chopped Champions - something that would never happen with the boys.

Dan will watch Top Chef with me and even The Next Food Network Star but  he refuses to watch Chopped.  His rational is that there is no way people in real life would ever make an entree using squid ink, Fig Newtons, caper berries and tile fish. And he's right because why would you even want to eat squid ink and I don't even know what a caper berry or a tile fish is.  I'm totally on board with a Fig Newton, though. 


After watching the chefs get creative with the funky ingredient basket we headed to bed.  Sarah likes to sleep in my bed when Dan and Peter are gone and I like to let her.  This is the only time I will ever let her sleep with me.  I prefer the kids in their own beds and me in mine but when the boys are gone, it's a special treat for her...and if you consider having a foot in your back or an arm over your face special, well then it's a special treat for me too.

I woke up around 2:00 AM for my nightly I'm-an-old-lady-now-and-have-to-go-at-least-once pee and then settled in nicely until 4:10 AM at which time I heard a loud beep.  My blood ran cold.    A smoke detector was beeping.  Why, me?  I have to worst luck getting them to stop beeping and I knew I didn't have any 9-volt batteries and I knew that when one beeps, another will surely follow.

I laid real still with my eyes squeezed tightly closed as if some how that would make it stop.  But it didn't because 30 seconds later it beeped again.

So I did what anyone would do.  I got up and closed the bedroom door and climbed back into bed.

30 seconds later - BEEP!

So I hopped up, dragged a chair out into the hall, climbed up on the chair and pulled the battery out of the smoke detector and then climbed back into bed.

2 minutes later - BEEP!

BEEP?!

What the beep?

So I climbed back out of bed and pulled the whole smoke detector out of the ceiling.  And while I was doing that - BEEP!

It was then that I discovered that it wasn't the smoke detector in the hall that was beeping, it was the one in Peter's room.  So I took the battery out of that one and took it out of the ceiling for good measure and finally climbed back into bed.

BEEP!

You are beeping kidding me, I thought to myself.

The one in Sarah's room was going off this time.  I took that one out of the ceiling and climbed back into bed at which point Sarah said, "What are you doing?"  And by now it was 5:00 AM.  We finally managed to get back to sleep until 7:45 when the cat decided we should all be up.

MEOW!

MEOW!

Three cups of coffee and a trip to Walmart for 9-volt batteries have done nothing to improve my grumpiness.  Sarah's grumpy today too.

And everyone knows - two grumps don't make a right.

Or something like that. (Cut me some slack - I'm tired.)

Thank goodness there's a phone-sized pocket in my purse!

I had to take Sarah to the dentist this morning.  We settled onto one of the waiting room couches and I looked up to see another mother with her small daughter.  The daughter was happily playing at the kid's activity table and the mom was hunched over a clipboard filling out paperwork.

I immediately noticed that the woman was rather large and had on a low-cut top.  Her cleavage was on display and you could tell she was pleased with it and it's largeness. 

And then I noticed her phone.  It was wedged in between the fleshiness of her left breast and the fabric of her satin bra.  It was lodged so tightly that I am certain there is a permanent iPhone shaped indention on her breast.  No need for tattoos even though she had a couple of those as well.

Sarah leaned over to me and whispered, "Do you see her phone?  It's on her boob!"  And then I gave her the please-be-quiet face because I really didn't want to find out if this lady had a temper or not.  There's no telling what she had packed on the other one!

And I have the wreath to prove it.

Dan had a 7:00 AM conference call so I took the kids to school this morning.  There was a traffic accident on the way and the kids were beside themselves at the mere thought of being late. My reassurances of "I"ll walk you in and get you a late pass" did nothing but seem to agitate them even more.  But luckily we made it in plenty of time.  No late passes were necessary.

I had a doctor's appointment at 10:00 and roughly two hours to kill before I needed to be there so I headed to Target after a quick stop at Dunkin' Donuts for a cup of coffee. 

Whenever I get coffee from DD, I know it's going to be  hot and not just hot-hot but smokin'-hot but I just can't wait until it cools down so I take a sip anyway and end up making a face like this:

I do it every single time.  And I think about Jim Carrey as Fire Marshall Bill every single time.

Anyway, after I burnt my tongue because I'm too impatient to wait on my coffee to cool down and I made the above face, I headed to Target.

Ahhh, Target.  Nothing soothes a burnt tongue like the peace and quiet of Target at 8:15 am. 

And then my cart started to squeak. I knew I had a squeaky cart the minute that I pulled it out of the cart rack but I thought to myself, "It'll be fine. Maybe it will stop squeaking."  I think that every single time.  And it continues to squeak every single time.

Much the same way I am too impatient to let my coffee cool down before I take a swig, I am also too lazy to walk all the way back to the front of the store to get a new cart so I continued to use my squeaky cart and tried to pretend that the squeak wasn't annoying me and that my tongue wasn't still burning.  I'm sure there's a verse somewhere in the Bible about impatience and laziness ruining a good trip to Target.  Or something along those lines anyway.

But all of my problems were forgotten when I found a beautiful fall wreath and placed it lovingly into my squeaky cart.

I've been wanting a fall wreath for the front door for years but I always told myself: 1) you could make a fall wreath way cheaper and way prettier than one you could buy at the store and then 2) since you were too lazy to make one and it's practically November, why don't you just wait until they put all of the fall wreaths on clearance and get one then.

And at that point it's Christmas and I realize I blew it and decide I'll just buy one in the fall and then the whole vicious cycle repeats itself.  Hence the reason I am 42 years old and have never had a fall wreath on my front door.

And now that I have purchased a fall wreath on hung it on my front door, I think I can officially say,

"It's Fall, y'all!"

It's no wonder people hate Southerners.

A list with bullets and a picture of hopefully-not-spoiled-rotten fruit.

My husband is out of town on business and the kids have friends over for a sleepover so I thought this would be a perfect time for a list - complete with bullets because I'm fancy like that!

• I think the kids are slowly but surely settling into their new school.  They seem happy when I pick them up in the afternoons - not happy that I'm picking them up, but happy with how their day went.

• Their school had early dismissal today for a teacher's meeting so we went to Chick-Fil-A for lunch.  There were several other kids there from school.  One was a boy in Peter's class. This little boy came running up to Peter and gave him a hug.  Peter got a big goofy grin on his face and told me who the little boy was.  That makes two friends for Peter that I know of!  And as for Sarah, she seems to be friends with all of the girls in her class. 

• The homework is killing me.  We haven't quite found our groove yet and when I say "we" I mean Peter and Sarah. I don't do their homework for them but I make sure they do it.  And making sure they do it feels like work to me - hard work!  I just can't get them to understand  that they spend more time whining and complaining about doing the homework than they actually spend doing it.  It is maddening! 

• I let Peter skip his allergy shot this week and I decided against paying him for each shot.  I am considering changing the time we do the shots.  We've been going on Wednesday right after his guitar lesson which means we don't end up getting home from school/guitar/shots until 5:00.  That's a long day for the kids and that might be contributing to Peter's annoyance with the shots. 

• I got a new camera for my birthday.  It's a digital SLR camera so I've got a lot of things to learn.  In studying about the camera, I have realized that I have gotten dumber as I have aged.  Terms like f-stop, aperture, shutter speed and exposure compensation are making my head swim.  I have to read and reread and still find I'm not retaining the information.  Luckily my camera has a full auto mode so I can still take decent pictures but the whole reason I got a digital SLR was so I could take really good pictures.  It's just going to take me a while.  I'll read a few pages, take a few shots with the camera and then realize that I don't remember what I just read.

• I just looked over and realized that I never cut the pineapple that I bought 5 days ago.  I better whip out my Pampered Chef pineapple slicer and get that thing taken care.   Mmmmm...fresh pineapple!

• I guess I better sign off before I start talking about the tomatoes that are sitting beside the pineapple that are also about to go bad.  Rotten tomatoes and rotten pineapples...now that's the stuff riveting blog posts are made of!

• Here's a picture of my hopefully-not-spoiled-rotten fruit taken with my new camera:

May your weekend be full of ripe fruit and no homework!  

All I needed was a red dress and elbow length white gloves.

Yesterday was my 42nd birthday! 

And don't think I didn't just have to stop and do some quick calculations before I typed 42 because can I really be that old? 

Apparently I can be.

My husband and I had previously celebrated our birthdays and anniversary on Saturday night with a nice dinner out, just the two of us.  And since he was at work yesterday and the kids were at school, my mom took me out to lunch to celebrate!

We went to Childress Vineyards and had a lovely lunch.  And since it was my birthday, she got me a really nice bottle of wine to go with lunch!  And when I say "she got" I really mean, "I ordered and since she was buying lunch she paid" for a really nice bottle of wine.

And honestly, I was only going to get a glass but the very helpful waitress informed me that the Reisling which I had just ordered was on special and to get a whole bottle would be cheaper than buying two glasses so it seemed like the most economical thing to do at the time.  (Thanks, Mom!)

And the wine was delicious.  I love Reisling.  It's sweet.  It's not dry.  It's sweet.  It doesn't burn.  It's sweet.

I don't like all wines but I do love a good Reisling and this Reisling was delicious. 

We ordered and were enjoying the lovely view of rows and rows and rows of grape vines when the waitress appeared at the table with the bottle of wine and a cork screw. 

And then that's when I remembered that when you order a bottle of wine at a nice restaurant the waitress pours a little bit and then hands you the glass and then what the heck do you do? I typically order a beer or just a glass of wine at a restaurant so I wasn't sure what my next move should be.

So I did what any smart, sophisticated, worldly 42-year-old  would do. I imitated what I have seen them do on TV and in the movies. 

I took the glass, sniffed it, twirled it around and then took a sip.  And then I shook my head approvingly.

What a total dork!  I guess I really need to look up what the heck you are supposed to do so that next time I order a bottle of wine in a restaurant I don't look and feel like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.  Because that's exactly how I felt.  Especially when the waitress stiffled a snicker.

But don't worry.  I showed her.  I ended up marrying Richard Gere.

O.k. so obviously I didn't marry Richard Gere but the wine was delicious, I had a nice lunch with my Mom and a great birthday so that's just as good as leaving behind a life of prostitution, falling in love and marrying a handsome wealthy man.

Right?

At the time I did wonder when Sarah had been eating vanilla ice cream in the car.

It was Wednesday afternoon.  I had just found out that Sarah did in fact have basketball practice at 6:00 that evening which meant she needed to change her clothes immediately if we were going to get to the allergist's office in time to get Peter's allergy shots before we had to be at church for Faith Formation class.

I raised my voice to a level somewhere in between panicked yelling and angry screaming so that the kids would know that I really meant it when I said, "Get in the car now!  Move it!  We are going to be late if we don't MOVE IT!"  Because, apparently if I'm not loud, either the kids don't hear me or they don't believe me.

The kids finally got in the car, I started backing out of the garage and right in the middle of my "I really wish you kids would do what I ask the first time I ask it" lecture when Peter screamed, "It's a BIRD!"

Peter and Sarah both started screaming and right as I was about to scream at them for screaming in the car, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw A BIRD flying around in the back of our car.

I threw the car in park while rolling down the windows, screamed at the kids to "Get out!  Get out!" and ran around to the back of the car to open the hatch.  The whole time I was doing this, I could hear the dull thumping noises of the scared bird flying into the hatch window.

She finally found an open window and made her way out of the car.  I ushered the kids back into the car and we began to make our way to the allergist's office.

Right in the middle of my pondering the expression "bird brain", I suddenly realized the watery white substance I had wiped off the center console with my fingers was probably not melted vanilla ice cream as I had originally suspected.

Thank goodness for the large bottle of hand sanitizer I keep in the car.

The never ending cycle.

Last night as I was putting away the last of the clothes from Mt. Laundry and silently congratulating myself for scaling it in record time, I glanced into the kid's laundry baskets and noticed...more dirty laundry! 

I hate it when I haven't even finished doing the laundry and there is already more to do.  I dislike that almost as much as I dislike throwing  a piece of trash into a freshly emptied garbage can.  It's the cycle of a mother's life I suppose.

I checked "laundry" off my to-do list anyway.  Although it was a small light check and not the large bold check I was planning to use before I noticed the new dirty laundry. 

The kids headed back to school this morning with a spring in their step and I headed back to work at the preschool.  And it was while I was playing balloon toss with one of the kids that I said under my breath to no one in particular, "I miss my kids."

So it's no surprise to me that as I downloaded the Christmas pictures this afternoon, this was hands down my favorite.

This is my husband reading the Christmas Story to my kids right before going to bed on Christmas Eve.

I love that man and I love those kids.

I must.  Because they are the ones responsible for all that dirty laundry!

I just made a big mistake.

As I was bending down in the kitchen to get something from a lower cabinet, I glanced up toward the counter tops and to my shock and dismay I realized that they were covered in coffee grounds, salt, pepper, bread crumbs and various other crumbs of unknown origin.

The beauty of my dark speckled granite counter tops is that they do not show dirt and grime.

The problem with my dark speckled granite counter tops is that they do not show dirt and grime.

Guess I have another item to add to my to-do list.

sigh

Welcome home, indeed!

She's all about her loose tooth!

Sarah is obsessed with losing a tooth.  Peter has lost one.  Her kindergarten BFF has lost two and Sarah thinks it's time she lost one too.  I think keeping up with your kindergarten BFF is probably more important than keeping up with your big brother.

For the last month or so she talks nonstop about loose teeth, wiggles her teeth, wonders when oh when will she have a lose tooth and constantly asks me to check for loose ones all to no avail.  They are all holding firm in her five-year-old gums.

Yesterday afternoon she was nibbling on a fun-sized bag of Skittles.  (And yes, you know you are thankfully at the end of all the Halloween candy when the kids are down to Nerds and Skittles and Dum Dums.  Where did all those Reese's Cups go?  Hmmmm....I wonder....)

And as she was nibbling on a Skittle she let out an "Ouch!" followed by "Mom!  I think my tooth is loose!"

So I wiggled it and I wasn't sure one way or the other so I said, "It just might be."

And then the phone calls began.  We had to call Grandma and we had to let Daddy know at work.

And then there was more wiggling.  And then there was lots of excitement and anticipation at the mere thought of letting the kindergarten BFF know at school the next day.

And then she wrote "Loose Tooth" on multiple Post-It notes and encircled her dinner plate.

When I asked her why she was doing that she stated very matter-of-factly, "Mom, I am all about my loose tooth!"

I guess the Tooth Fairy better stock up on ones just in case.

I would have done anything to make that noise stop. And now I'll be paying for a long, long time.

About two weeks ago as I was pulling in the driveway I noticed a cat sitting in front of my door.

That's odd, I thought.  Why is the neighbor's cat sitting at our front door?

As I approached the cat I realized that it was not our neighbor's cat, just a similiarly colored cat that looked as if she had not eaten in days.

I took one look at this cat and knew I was in trouble.  The way it was laying on my doormat as if it was his own personal bed made me realize that this cat had decided it had a new home.

"Go away, cat.  Go back to your home."  I said half-heartedly as I scurried inside.  The cat tried to make it's way into the house but I pushed it back.  "No. You are not coming inside."

I sat down in the office, which is conveniently located right off the front door, to check my email.  And then I heard it - that horrible moaning, mewing sound that only cats in heat or cats that haven't eaten in days can make. 

I had to make that horrible noise stop.  How was I supposed to concentrate with that noise?  I'll take fingernails on a chalk board over a cat moaning any day.  And I really hate fingernails on a chalk board.

I tried to ignore it as I read through my email.  But the sound got louder and louder and more pathetic and I couldn't take it any longer.  So I scrounged through my refrigerator and pulled out a couple of slices of sandwich meat and put it out along side a bowl of water.  The cat looked at me as if to say, "Sandwich meat?  Are you kidding me?  Do you know how much sodium is in this stuff?  And what about all of the nitrates? Are you trying to kill me?"  To which I replied, "If it's good enough for my husband and my kids, it's good enough for you."

So he scurried off leaving the food untouched and I felt satisfied that I had at least tried to do a good deed.  I hope he finds a good, sandwich meat free home, I thought.

And I assumed that was the end of things until the kids got home from school and excitedly screamed, "Mom!  Look!  A cat!" 

And I knew it was over at that point.  The fish has long since sufficed as a real pet and Sarah has been begging me "for a sister or at least a dog Mommy. I need someone to play with." 

So I reluctantly bought some cat food at Wal-Mart and it has been ours ever since.  She comes and goes as she pleases  but she always seems to make it back in time for breakfast and dinner.

In fact, every morning while I'm sitting in the office before the sun comes up, the cat (Who has since been named Gray-Gray by Sarah.  She would not even consider my suggestion of Kit Kat. Yum.  Kit Kats.) will take her bowl and scrape it back and forth across the porch and bang it into the door until I feed her. 

So the kids have a pet and I have another mouth to feed.  That's usually how things work around here.

 

 

If carpets could talk, mine would be saying, "Thanks and it's about time!"

As I was vacuuming today I could  hear the sound of my carpet breathing a big sigh of relief.

Or maybe that was just the sound of dirt, debris, fish food pellets and cat food being sucked into the vacuum.

And yes, I said cat food.

More on that later.

A much better way to start the day!

It all started during preschool right after we moved into our new house.  Every morning while the kids were eating breakfast I would let them watch Little Bear or Miffy.  And then it gradually turned into The Magic School Bus and Arthur.  And then Sponge Bob. 

I knew eating while watching TV probably wasn't a good idea but it seemed o.k. at the time.  The kids could see the TV from the kitchen table so it wasn't like they were eating in the family room.  And it seemed to help them wake up.

Fast forward several years and now both of the kids are in elementary school. We are getting up even earlier than we had to for preschool and we have a bus to catch.  We only have about 40 minutes from the time the kids get up to the time they get on the bus.  And we have a lot to do in that 40 minutes.

They have to get dressed, eat, brush their teeth and their hair.  All of this is very doable in 40 minutes.  However it seemed that I spent that entire 40 minutes yelling at my kids. "Eat faster!"  "Don't forget to brush your teeth!"  "Put your shoes on NOW!"

About a month ago I decided that this was a horrible way for all of us to start the day. And I realized that the culprit was the TV.  The kids were so engrossed in whatever show they were watching that they didn't want to get ready for school.

So one Friday morning after finally getting fed up with the constant yelling, I told them that on Monday there would be no TV at breakfast and instead we were going to read the Bible.

I started my day with prayer and devotions so it only made sense for the kids to do something similar.

I headed to Lifeway Christian store and I looked through all of the kid's devotional books and realized we just needed to start simple.  So I bought a Bible.  My kids have many children's Bibles but they only contained stories.  I wanted us to read the entire Bible.

So I purchased The Day By Day Kid's Bible by Karyn Henley.

For the first couple of days the kids  were not happy about not being able to watch TV with breakfast but let me tell you it has been a lifesaver. While they are eating I read one 7 minute section.  Sometimes they ask me questions, sometimes they don't.  And sometimes I wonder if any of it is sticking in their sleepy little minds.

All of the early morning screaming has stopped.  (Well except for that one morning when the bus came really early and we weren't ready!) 

I can send my kids peacefully out the door knowing that they have heard the Word.  And really, what better way is there than that to start the day?

"...but the word of the Lord stands forever." And this is the word that was preached to you. - 1 Peter 1:25

For more Works For Me Wednesday ideas, please go here.

This is how I know that we were meant to be...

My husband thinks he got the better end of the deal with me.

But I know I did.
 

If you give a mom a bread machine...

Have you ever wondered what happens when you decide to make your pizza dough in your bread machine but then leave the house and don't come back for 4 hours?

Well, I'll tell you what happens.

You will open your bread machine thinking "eh, it'll be fine" and will be practically knocked over by the smell of cheap wine.  And then you will think to yourself "I guess the yeast in pizza dough really is the same as the yeast in alcohol!"

Have you wonder what happens when you think that it will be o.k to use anyway and try to remove the dough from the breadmaker to salvage it?

Well, I'll tell you what happens.

The dough will be so sticky and gooey that it takes a 1/2 cup of flour just to unstick your fingers from themselves.

Have you ever wondered what happens when you decide you will just make another batch of pizza dough the old-fashioned way and open up your refrigerator and realize that you used your last tablespoon of yeast on the sticky drunken dough that is completely unsalvageable?

Well, I'll tell you what happens.

You immediately call Hungry Howies Pizza and order a "real pizza" as your kids like to call it making them extremely happy.  And then you will pay the bill and remember why you make homemade pizza in the first place.

Proof! I finally have it!

This afternoon, Jennifer dropped off her two sons and her youngest daughter while she and her older daughter went to Brownies.

Sarah and Cheyanne practiced their handwriting and when they got bored with that asked to watch the My Little Pony DVD.

I popped up a couple of bags of popcorn because I knew the minute Cody, Colton and Peter smelled it they would drop their Lego's, guns and swords and coming running.

Sure enough before the second bag had finished popping the three boys began to come out of the woodwork. I assumed they would grab some popcorn and head back into which ever rooms they had emerged from to continue playing their testosterone games.

But no! The three boys sat completely rapt for over 45 minutes watching the Flutter ponies flitter and flutter all around Flutter Valley.

45 minutes! The popcorn was long gone so it wasn't the food that was keeping them there. I think they were actually enjoying the movie.

So I have it! I finally have it! I have proof that men do enjoy chick flicks.

It might be time to rent a good Jennifer Aniston, Drew Barrymore or Reese Witherspoon movie and watch it with Dan. Surely he won't mind. After all - I have proof.

R.I.P little orange one.

Our goldfish, Goldie, is no longer with us.

And it's all my fault.

On Wednesday night I noticed that her water was a getting murky. It had been two weeks since I had changed it last, so it was time.

As I was measuring the water temp while I filled up the bowl, I was wondering to myself, do I normally get the water to 74 degrees, 76 degrees or 78 degrees? I couldn't remember even though I had just changed her water two weeks ago.

I think to myself that 78 degrees will do just fine. (I later learn from my husband that we normally do between 68 - 72. Uh-oh!)

I put her back in the fresh water and watched as she darted around. She is always so excited to be in a bowl of fresh water that she normally darts around for a couple of hours.

But after about 1 minute of darting she stopped. She would occasionally float to the top for air and then back to the bottom where she would just sit.

Hmmmm, I thought, something isn't right.

I called Dan in for a consult. I had forgotten the chemicals you are supposed to put in after you replace the water so we quickly put those in.

But that didn't help.

We went to bed expecting the worst but she was still alive the next morning. She was barely moving though so I knew she wasn't long for this world.

After the kids woke up I told them that Goldie was probably about to die. Peter got mad at me for cleaning the bowl and for causing it. Sarah didn't seem too concerned one way or the other.

And sure enough, later on that afternoon, she was gone.

Sarah got excited and asked if "we could flush it?!" (She's just like me in this respect. She doesn't get attached to things very easily.)

Peter got upset at this idea and wanted to know if we could bury it. (He's exactly like Dan. He wants to keep anything he's every owned as nearby as possible.)

They bickered for a bit but when my husband got home he decided that Goldie would be great fertilizer for the garden so that's where she is resting right now.

And no, there was no little shoe-box coffin. There was no eloquent eulogy spoken as she was being placed beneath the tomato plants. And no, there were no tears, just requests for another fish or a dog from the shelter.

Looks like we will be heading back to Wal-Mart this weekend for another 37 cent fish.

And my husband will be in charge of any and all water changes because I can't have the blood of another goldfish on my hands!