Wild Week Ahead!

I wanted everyone to know that posting may be sparse this week because we are having Vacation Bible School this week!! How is it that I can work a 3 hour VBS and come home feeling like I have done hard labor for a 16 hour shift?!?

My goodness it's just exhausting!

MOTS is loving her class and Hollywood is next door to me, which is fun because her class and my class are teamed together so I get to see her quite a bit during VBS.

PBJ is okay being in the nursery, although he can't sleep through the crying. On the plus side, cutting his naps in the morning to 20-30 minutes has meant that he naps for almost 2 solid hours in the afternoon. This is a good thing except that I am too exhausted to take advantage of it.

So, enjoy your week and I will update as I can based on schedules, etc.

~C

Summer Jobs

I was a lucky kid. I never had to find a summer job. I know, I know...brat.

Most of my summers were spent sleeping in, although Mom would call around 10ish "to make sure we were up." HA! We watched many, many reruns - The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, The Munsters, The Addams Family, Green Acres, etc. - and game shows - The Price is Right was a real favorite!

But there was one summer when a job fell into my lap. I was a receptionist for the company that did our senior pictures. It was miserable. See, as many of you know, senior pictures are kind of a big deal, so when things don't go well people (especially parents) get really upset! And who gets the earful? That's right, the receptionist!

I spent most of the summer addressing mass mailings, fielding phone calls from people "that never got the appointment card," and listening to disapointed mothers complain about the picture proofs (that they would try to steal!).

I also had to babysit the other receptionists. Cause, you know, like, they would "forget" their shifts, call in sick (to go to the water park), and disappear (to flirt with the guys that were in studio). Ugh.

When school finally started I was so relieved, because with marching band season starting up I was able to quit. I don't think I have ever been so happy to start school. On the up side I did get a paycheck, if you can call it that. And on Memorial Day I got to spend the day in the office answering the phone (3 calls I think), reading, and watching the entire Indiana Jones series. I got paid double for that day! Woo-Hoo!

Summer jobs aren't all bad I suppose. I'm just glad I didn't have to ever worry about it. Thanks Mom and Dad!

How a Free Tool Can Actually Bankrupt You.

WARNING: You should read this post at your own risk. I can not and will not be held responsible for your wallet flying open and money that comes flying out of it because of my pointing you in the direction of Kaboodle.

See, Kaboodle is this VERY nifty tool for shopping online. You are browsing the internet, looking at all the cool things that you want/need/must have and it never fails, always find more when you don't have any money!

Kaboodle to the rescue! Now when you are flat broke and want to browse you can! Just add your stuff to Kaboodle. Then when you have saved up the nickels and dimes (incedentally, are you finding that nickels and dimes are all you have left after filling up the gas tank lately?) you can browse your Kaboodle and find someone else to take your money!

Spending your money just got easier courtesy of Kaboodle. Don't you feel richer for knowing this? In the metaphorical sense of course since in reality Kaboodle is going to make you poorer... I'm just sayin'.

Anywho. go forth and find the decorations for your dream house, photography equipment for you aspiring photogs, digi designs for you digital divas and let's fill those Kaboodles! You can organize by topic and create wishlists... the possibilities are endless.

And all of you lucky Firefox users can add sweet little browser buttons that allow you to add to your Kaboodle with the click of one button. You lucky thing!

But don't blame me okay? I mean, you would have eventually spent that money on something right? Even if it was something as mundane as groceries, or toilet paper....

Movies and something I had not considered...

So, The Dark Knight opened this last weekend and had record breaking ticket sales.

I immediately know why, even if Hollywood couldn't figure it out. Duh, there's not been a movie as hyped as this one all year. Also, one of the lead actors (Heath Ledger) sadly passed away earlier this year. Add to that the lack af many good movies and VOILA! you have a record breaker on your hands.

But then....Party Boy asked me a pointed question. If The Dark Knight had been released on Memorial Day weekend or July 4th weekend, which have historically been the release dates of the huge summer blockbusters, would it have been as big?

Hmmmmm. I don't think so. There was too much competition those weekends. Iron Man on Memorial Day and Hancock on the 4th. I think it might have split the take, you know?

Personally? It kills me that they didn't release it one of those weekends, you know, when I could have actually GONE???

Yeah, I wanna see The Dark Knight. We are so getting a babysitter soon. Real soon. I will see The Dark Knight in theaters... I will.

A Word About Mine

A word about my one little word.

It seems to be working. We are over halfway through the year and while I still have days that I must make myself refocus on being joyful it does come easier.

Joyfully...

Environmental Frustration

Occasionally I decide that we need to do more - reduce our carbon footprint, recycle more, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera... (hee hee).

Only, when I do try to do more I get lambasted by environmentalists. And it always leaves me mentally scratching my head, because no matter what I do, it never seems to be enough for anyone else.

Case in point - cloth diapers. I love them. I primarily decided to use cloth because I wanted the money savings. As a SAHM, I evaluated, do I have more money or more time? While both seem to be in short supply on most days, I tend to run towards the end of the more time spectrum, so washing an extra load of diapers seemed a small price to pay as opposed to spending thousands on disposables. And, have no fear, I don't care what kinds of diapers everyone else uses...my environmental concern ends with what I do (or don't do, as the case may be) to be green.

So, I am all happy because I will save some significant moolah in the grocery budget this next couple of years only to be criticized (on a cloth diaper message board with a seriously environmental bent that I obviously missed) for my choices. Apparently buying "regular" pre-folds and covers isn't enough. You have to buy the mega-expensive natural fiber, unbleached, preferably hand-crafted by a WAHM diapers. Then I got lectured on how I was negating any environmental good I was doing by choosing cloth because I was washing them and using SO MUCH WATER. Even the fact that I own a front-loading, environmentally friendly washer wasn't good enough.

Whoops. Now I start backing away. Uh-oh, how am I planning on drying said diapers? Well, I'll use the dryer. I'll tell you what, that revelation nearly sent the uber-greenies off the deep end. All of that energy wasted. Now I am starting to feel like my carbon footprint is probably bigger than anyone else in town.

And yet, I dare not use the evil disposable. All of that water and energy wasted! And the landfill pollution! Sigh.

But then I decided to quit listening and get back to what worked for me. I'm not using any more water than I was before Junior, so that's good. And the energy bill has remained much the same. Also good. Plus, mot putting tons of disposables in the landfill is a good thing, right?

The lesson I learned? For me environmentalism has be all about increments. Little bits at a time. We bought energy saving appliances when replacing the old ones from the great cheese dip disaster of 2007. We bought CFL light bulbs. Little things that will add up. And in time we'll get greener and greener.

For now, that has to be enough and it is for me.

And before anyone even brings it up...no, I do not believe it is environmentally irresponsible to have kids in the first place. Anyone with questions on that needs to visit Books and Bairns. And know this... Angi will take you on here too if I beg enough....

Confessions of an Avoidant Personality

Have you ever had a hobby or activity that you really enjoy? And then suddenly life gets in the way and you wind up missing some serious time with said hobby? And then getting back into it is hard and so you don't and the next thing you know it's almost embarassing to get back to it? Yeah, that's me.

Sorry for the huge lag in posts. Really.

See, I got really busy when Junior started getting seriously mobile and it was hard to have a coherent thought, much less put it on paper (so to speak) between pulling him off the curtains and monitoring where all of the cords in the house were and making sure they didn't get unplugged and eaten... sigh.

Compound that with a lack of baby schedule and well, there's very little time in the day.

Happily Junior is still mobile and now is on a rough routine. This leaves me a little more time. Whew.

So, I've been avoiding my blog. Because I was embarrassed. But I am back now, although I can not promise daily posts, unless somehow this blog goes viral and I start getting a check for my work here, in which case I will happily post every HOUR!