NaBloPoMo Day 11

A brief conversation with my son.

Me: Hey Boo! How are you tonight?
Little Man: goo(d)
Me: How was My Gym today?
Little Man: goo(d)
Me: What was your question today?
Little man: Daddy, what was my quesion today? I don't know my quesion.
Me: Ok, I love you sweetie pie
Little man: I love you too mommy! Want to talk to Munchkin?
Me: Sure

The part of this conversation that stood out to me most outside of I love you mommy was asking daddy about the question. He was so clear and concise and sounded like a little boy without speech issues. He is so sweet and I am so glad he is getting speech at school. It is helping tremendously!!

Stepping up on the soapbox: If you have any question about how your child is progressing in the physical development or in speech please talk to your doctor. Here in Tennessee there are early intervention programs that last until age three that are free to your child. Please utilize them and get what your child needs! Thank you and I will now step off my soapbox.

NaBloPoMo Day 10 and {TWD} Cran Apple Crisps

I am planning on making my Cran Apple Crisps for dinner tonight. They look delicious on everyone elses page. However my daughter and my husband "don't like cooked fruit" so I make have to make a slight alteration to theirs.....we'll see. :)

Last night was crazy at work. Someone decided it would be a good idea to pull the fire alarm so we would have to evacuate the building. I am not sure what people are thinking when they do something like that. It really messes up things for everyone else. Once we got back in the building we were able to close up and go home around 10:15.

Come back and check out my photos of my cran-apple crisp! :)

NaBloPoMo Day 9 A Day for me

Well, not a whole day mind you but a couple of hours anyway. I am not sure when the last time I did something just for me was that didn't include taking a shower, watching TV or playing on the computer. I just don't take time for me because for some twisted reason I don't think I need it or deserve it. Because I am away from my family so much for work I would rather hang out with them and feel like time away from them breaks my heart...co-dependent much?

Things have been tight lately so it has not been an option to just go hang out at Starbys and drink overpriced coffee while reading the latest and greatest gossip magazine. This morning though I went to take care of a bill and got a nice surprise. It was about 1/4 the amount that I thought I needed to pay. Now, I could have thrown the extra at another bill but we have a car in need of an O2 sensor and an exhaust manifold. Hubs was quoted around $900 for the repair. I went to Auto zone to find out the price of the parts and called a local guy who said he would charge $77 for labor. The parts were still $300. Since I knew we wouldn't be spending $900 I decided to head over to Goodwill.

I ended up spending $6 on a shirt and 3 books. I would have bought a 4th but Black Beauty had apparently been used to stash something in it. The pages were cut out like you would see in the movies. I spent $3 at Panera and sat and read one of my new Goodwill finds.

After having lunch with my Munchkin I ran home and changed for work. Hubs called to let me know that they were only going to fix the O2 sensor because they were able to get the old one out without stripping the threads. Grand total parts and labor: $187. Woo hoo! I felt even less guilty about the $6 trip to Goodwill. :) Later I got a text from my hubby stating that it takes 33 minutes to walk from the car shop to our house. A few minutes later I got another text saying it took 36 minutes to fix the car. Doh!

Now I am at work anticipating the end of the work day. It has been a good day but I miss my family and can't wait to get home to them. I am thinking about what to write tomorrow and wondering if I will be too lazy to bust out my thumb drive with pictures to post....we'll see.

If you would leave a comment I would love to hear from you. It will make me feel special..Hi Mom! :)

NaBloPoMo Day 8 Locks of Love

For the last couple of months I have been thinking about chopping my hair off. It had gotten really long and was to the point that my husband would roll on it at night making me wake up
from a dead sleep in serious pain. My kids somehow kept managing to try and bald me, not on purpose of course. And, every collared shirt or hoodie gave me knots that were not to be reckoned with.This morning I took a look around the interwebs trying to find a photo of heart shaped face haircuts. I do have a heart shaped face right? That is what I was told at a Mary Kay party anyway. Instead of printing off Reese Witherspoon or Christina Ricci I found a photo from my facebook page from about 7 years ago. I was at the Dove awards with my hubby, the band and the other band waives and I looked hot! At least I remember getting quite a few compliments that night. The other wives and I looked like Rock Star Wives! Anyway, I printed the picture and my daughter said "Hey, mommy! That looks like you, only with different hair!" Glad you see the resemblance dear. One more kid later and no hair cut for a couple of years and you are seeing the end result.
After church hubs and I took the kids to Qdoba. We had a buy one get one free coupon and spent less than we could have at McDonalds. My handy dandy Citipass also had a coupon for a day spa in the same complex. The coupon was for $10 off a haircut OR I could get a free haircut with any color job. The haircut was $51. The color was $89. Um.....hm no wonder I haven't had a haircut in quite sometime. My friend Angela had raved about Monique at Great Clips so that is where we went (we are on a budget here people! $10 is a good price for us at the moment). I explained to Monique (who I am quite certain is not the same Monique Angela told me about) that I wanted to do Locks of Love. She got out her measuring comb and sure enough, there was enough hair for donation. The rubber band was placed, a large amount of hair was hacked off and the real haircut began. Monique did a pretty good job of making my new do look like the photo I took in but it is a little bit shorter. That is Ok though, it is hoodie season and now my hair won't tangle like it has been.

I have been wanting to do Locks of Love for quite some time. I am glad that I finally got to do it. If you don't know about Locks of Love you can go here to find out more!

When I went to the counter Monique said there was no charge since it was for Locks of Love! Not expected at all. At least I had cash on me for a tip. I think she did a nice job and will go back to her. :)

NaBloPoMo Day 7 A beautiful day in Tennessee

8 years, 6 months and 7 days ago my husband and I packed up everything we owned (that fit in a 750 sq foot house) and stuffed it in a 27 foot truck with another family and moved to Tennessee from California. The band had a record deal and we were all moving out together. We made quite a caravan with 2 27 foot trucks, 2 car trailers and 3 other cars being driven.

We took our time getting here, spending the night in Arizona, twice in Texas and once in Arkansas. 2 pets made the journey with us our cat and the bass players chameleon whose life I later saved by force feeding it meal worms. The night we camped in Texas there were tornado warnings but I don't recall being terrible alarmed. Bean (our cat) spent the night in the car in her crate. I don't know if the storm freaked her out but she managed to dump her mini litter pan in her water and had clumping cat litter stuck to everything from her tail to the windshield of the car.

In Jackson Tennessee we left a trailer at a shop with a flat tire and drove one of the extra vehicles. We got to where we were going while it was still light and had to use wire cutters to get the lock off the first truck. The keys were in Arizona. We unloaded the first truck and I got lost trying to go get drinks for everyone. The second truck we unloaded in the dark because the drummer didn't have electricity...or so we thought until we realized the AC was on and all of the lightbulbs were burned out.

One of the things about unloading a truck in the heat is you realize how hot and humid Tennessee is. As fall came around I was missing California tremendously, especially the weather. I said out loud to a neighbor on a glorious beautiful day that "It was a California day!!" She quickly corrected me by saying "No, it is just a beautiful day in Tennessee!"

This conversation happened several years in a row. My sweet neighbor moved back to California to be with her family and today I caught myself saying "It is a beautiful day in Tennessee!" This one is for you Bernie! :)

NaBloPoMo Day 6 Beat Down

It is Friday, the sun is shining brightly, like every red blooded American I am looking forward to the weekend.
However, today I feel beat down. There is a lot going on at work, people are sneaky and I am missing my kids. I should be looking forward to hanging out with my girlfriends that I am going to play Bunco with but I am feeling guilty about leaving my kids and hubby behind for the evening. I worked late (10pm late) twice this week and didn't get to see them at all. I worked 40 minutes over last night and didn't get to see my kids for very long.
I feel like a bad friend because I have invested close to zero in the woman that speak truth into my life this past year.
I know I should feel blessed that I have a job "in this economy".
I just know I want to be with my kids and my husband more often and I would love to be with the rest of our families more often as well.
I had a friend come in and tell me about the speaker that was at work yesterday. The guy talked about taking ownership of your feelings and how you control how you are feeling.
Well, today I am feeling anxious. The last time I felt like this was several months before I got married. I was living with three girls and things were not going well. I had serious anxiety for a couple of months until I was out of that situation.
Hopefully the weekend will bring renewed perception and a better attitude on Monday
Sorry for the downer NaBloPoMo today, it is hard to write something upbeat and fun when I feel like this. Tomorrow will be better. :)

NaBloPoMo Day 5 A lost tooth and random thoughts

First and foremost my day started off with pulling my sons tooth. It has been hanging on by a thread for days and the big tooth is halfway in behind it. He has been showing off his "shark" tooth to everyone who will look..along with the bruise on his forehead that he garnered when he sneezed so hard that he whacked his forehead on the doorjamb. Nice... I had a washcloth in hand this morning so I could get ahold of the tiny tooth, pulled it and waited for the firestorm fit I was sure was to follow. It never came! I don't think my Little Man even realized I had pulled the tooth out. I showed him and told him how excited I was for him, he showed his daddy who told him how proud he was that he didn't cry and we gave high fives! He took it downstairs to show big sister who helped him get a baggie to put it in so that won't get lost before the tooth fairy comes tonight. I thought he was pretty excited but I found out later today that he didn't even tell his teacher! Oh well.



On another tooth front, I had my 6 month checkup today and am cavity free! Woo hoo! For a girl with a mouth full of metal that is always a relief. No crowns or root canals for me this time. Yes I do brush my teeth, I also floss on a consistent basis, it is hereditary and I have soft enamel.



I was stuck in traffic this morning on my way to work.



Have you ever gotten in trouble for a status update on Facebook? I try very hard not to post status updates that are going to get me in trouble. Controversial, yes. Get me fired? No. Apparently a very innocuous status update that had a couple of comments on it got sent to someone who brought it to someone elses attention. The update has been deleted but for the record my update could have been concerning anything other than work. I am irritated about the situation but will not be posting anything else that can be construed as negative for my job.



While in the dentist chair this morning I was watching something with very little sound. I caught that the previous mayor of New York was on a new ship that was built from steel from the World Trade Center. I am split on my feeling on this. I think it is a neat tribute to change it from victim status to destroyer. But, the WTC went down once what is to stop someone from doing that again in the ocean?



I had a dream the other night that I was hanging out with Dwight Shrute. For some reason he came to my kids school and we were going to see Little Mans class. He made some comment about how he never had any kind of learning disability and was very flippant about kids with disabilities. I had to put him in his place that there is not shame in having a learning disability, or a brain anomaly, or a physical issue. He was very sorry and apologized profusely. We got the kids report cards the other day and Little Man is having kind of a hard time staying on task. Because of his ACC he is having a much more difficult time in school than Munchkin did. I wonder if this dream was me trying to tell myself that it will be OK for him to do Kindergarten a second time if that is needed. I really want to do whats best for him. He likes school, he likes his teacher, he likes recess but he is struggling to keep up with the other kids. I think the structure is fantastic for him and that he is learning. He has a fantastic speech teacher that is doing wonders with him. Ugh, decisions decisions....



One last random thought for the day...when you pull up to a stop and see someone you kind of know, what do you do after you acknowledge them? So you just sit there and feel awkward, do you keep sneaking peeks to see if they are looking back at you? Do you completely ignore them? I just took a very unscientific poll and apparently I am not the only one that feel awkward at stop lights so if I try to ignore you after acknowledging you just know I feel awkward and don't know what to do. :)