Change your links.

Okay, it's official. I decided to take the plunge. I'm moving over to WordPress.

I hope you'll all follow me there.

Click here to follow me. You know you want to.

7 Quick Takes Friday

~1~

A conversation I had at the grocery store yesterday:
I walk in and see a large display of fresh, bakery-made bread, for 99 cents a loaf. I excitedly grab a loaf. A man standing next to the display says to me, "Good price on bread."
I say jubilantly, "I know! I can't make it for this!"
He looks at me like I am from Mars.
Sometimes, I should just keep my thoughts to myself.

~2~

I am so over snow. I am over winter. I want sun and warmth. I've had the "blahs" for the last month and haven't felt like doing a damn thing. Accordingly, please do not come to my home and ask to use the bathroom.

~3~

I don't "get" Valentine's day. Sure, I understand the symbolism and all that jazz. But I don't "get" the women who insist that they have to out for a "romantic" dinner on Valentine's day. I think waiting tables for so long (almost 10 years) jaded me, because I see nothing romantic about going out on the same night as every other couple in town, waiting an hour for a table, and then being shoved out just as quickly as possible to make room for the next couple waiting for a table. Ryan offered to take me out this year. I told him to wait until St. Patrick's day.

Expect a similar rant at Mother's Day.

~4~

I'm finally getting around to sewing up a skirt that I've had cut out for ages. How many ages? Since right after I had Leah. 25 lbs ago. I have a very strong feeling that this skirt is not going to fit me when it's done. But I have it cut out. It would be silly to do nothing with it. And it is really cool fabric. (Anyone out there a size 16 or so?)

~5~

I am considering moving over to WordPress. I've got a blog set up over there and I'm playing around with it. It seems to have a lot more options to play around than Blogger does.

~6~

Inspired by Chris's post, can I just say that I really, intensely dislike altar girls? Chris has a good reason (altar boys were originally to foster vocations to the priesthood), and I could steal hers, but the truth is, it just seems wrong to me. The altar girl phenomenon started, around here, when I was in junior high or so. Call me sexist, but it's just one of those things that girls should not do.

~7~

Why do people buy sports cars if they're going to drive the speed limit? The speed limit on the main drag in town here is 30. NO ONE drives that slowly. Little old ladies in their Dynasties don't drive that slowly. And yet, I inevitably get behind the balding, middle-aged man, in the midst of his midlife crisis, driving his little red corvette*, tottering along at 29 miles per hour. Are you kidding me, buddy!?

*Did you know that the song "Little Red Corvette" is NOT about a car? At all? I'm probably the last person on Earth to realize this.

I'm a Company Girl

You may have noticed the button on the right side of my blog, proudly annoucing, "I'm a Company Girl!" (Or maybe not. If you're like me and read all your blogs in a reader, you have no idea what I'm talking about. While you're welcome to click through, it's really not that big of a deal. Wow, do I get off on tangents, or what?)

Warning: the blog that I'm going to link to plays music. The player is near the top, on the left-hand side. Just thought I'd give you a heads up. I hate when I'm secretly blog-surfing at work and then some rock song kicks in, very loudly, over my speakers.

So what's a Company Girl? It's the brainchild of Rachel Anne at Home Sanctuary, a bit along the lines of FlyLady. Each day she posts a small challenge and awards points for completeing it. We're not talking big things--yesterday, you just had to do something involving bubbles. It didn't have to be cleaning. You could blow bubbles or drink champange. The idea is that by doing small things every day, you get a sense of a accomplishment and all that jazz. (Really, she does a better job of explaining it on her site, so you should go check it out.) At the end of the month, she with the most points gets a small prize.

And you know me. I'm a sucker for anything gimmicky. I've been staring at those sheets on the floor in my closet for three weeks now. But tell me I get 40 points for picking them up? Well, hot damn, I'm all over it then!

So thanks to these silly, arbitrary points (that suddenly mean so much to me), I have accomplished the following things this week:
Monday: scrubbed my kitchen sink. (Which really wasn't that bad, but it's not like it hurt anything.)
Tuesday: did laundry. (Which had piled up for an embarrassingly long time. Seriously. If you all know what a bad housekeeper I really am, you'd never come back to this blog.)
Wednesday: finally folded those sheets. And put them away. Woot!

Slightly off-topic, but speaking of those sheets, how often do you really change your bedding? I know you're supposed to do it once a week. I aim for once a month. We're not overly dirty people. It seems sufficient to me. (And considering that, prior to moving in with WunderHubbee, I probably changed my sheets twice a year, this is major progress. I'd also like to mention that I now make the bed every day. Yeah, yeah, that's what grown-ups do. But again, I used to make my bed twice a year. This alone is a huge step for me.)

So what's the verdict? Is this totally disgusting? Should I change them more often? (I probably won't, but I am interested in the thoughts of others.)

ETA: I added a poll on the right, so you don't need to incriminate yourself if you don't want to.

Another to add to my list...

After seeing CrazyMomQuilts version of the WhirleyGiggle Quilt, I simply must make this quilt.

(This picture is of the original "Scrappy Cartwheels" pattern, created by GreetingArts. The last link above will take you to the pattern.)

Bigger than I realized.

My mouth, that is.


Yesterday, at mass, the communion song was "Blest are They". I really like that song, and have a tendency to sing songs I like louder than usual. I didn't realize how loudly I was singing, though, until after communion.


The girl sitting in front of me was covering her ears. (In my defense, I was kneeling, as is proper after communion. She was sitting back. If she had been kneeling like she should have been, I wouldn't have been singing in her ear.)


I toned it down for the rest of the song, then asked Ryan after mass if I had been singing too loudly.


"Well....no. I mean, you always sing loud. And something about your voice carries. Even when you sing quietly, it still carries over everyone else."


Ooops.


Ryan's final ruling, however, was that the girl in front of us was a brat and she deserved it.

You like me, you really like me!

Okay, at least one person does. Or maybe she just thinks I'm unflinchingly honest, and thus worthy of this award. I'll take what I can get.

The fine print? List 10, honest things about myself and then tag 7 other people. (Why 10 and 7, by the way? Seems kinda random. But it's not my award, so I guess I'll just follow the rules laid out.)

1.) I have an unhealthy obsession with crappy reality shows. Girls Next Door. The Real Housewives of Orange County. Rock of Love. Newlyweds (back when Nick and Jessica were still married).

2.) Similarly, I have have some pretty crappy taste in music, too. Jessica Simpson. Brittney Spears. Ashlee Simpson. Lindsey Lohan. Certain crappy songs, ie, College Girls (Jesse Jaymes), What's Your Fantasy (Ludicrous), Golddigga' (Kanye West). What can I say? I'm a sucker for anything catchy.

3.) Since I'm talking about my love of embarrassing things, I may as well confess that I am also an avid fan of smutty romance novels. They're short, light on plot, and easy to read. I've got two kids. War and Peace is not going to be on my nightstand anytime soon.

4.) Oh, how about something more serious? I've got major body issues. I really really really dislike the way I look. I won't say "hate", because I'm not sure it's that strong, but I definitely don't like my body, nor do I think I'm pretty. I've often made the tongue-in-cheek remark that I wished I had the will-power to be anorexic. I want a lot of kids, but the thought of getting fat again freaks me out more than I want to admit.

5.) Okay, that was too serious. I've colored my hair since I was 15. Naturally, it's a kinda gross dishwater blonde. I color it light ash blonde. I am distraught, however, because I finally found the perfect shade, and now that brand is being discontinued. I don't know what I'm going to do. (But let me assure you, going au natural is not an option.)

6.) I gained 80 lbs with my first pregnancy. I started at 140 and just before I had Darren I was 218. When I got pregnant with Leah (3 months later), I was down to 180. Leah is almost a year old and I'm down to 160. I'd like to lose another 30 or 40. We'll see.

7.) I hate housekeeping. I love a clean, tidy, well-organized house. I hate keeping it that way. I hate doing laundry. I hate folding it, ironing it, putting it away. But by the same token, I would never allow anyone else to do those things for me. No way do I want anyone to know how messy my home really is. No way do I want someone else fondling my bras.

8.) I have symmetry issues. Things need to be even. Weirdest example? I try to have the same amount of food on both sides of my mouth when I eat. When I eat MMs, I sort out the colors. I typically eat three at a time, so, for example, I'll have one red on each side of my mouth and bite a blue in half. Yes, this is exceedingly weird.

9.) My dad is an alcoholic.

10.) I am so much like my mom, it's scary. We look alike, act alike, talk alike, sound alike. We say the same thing at the same time--all the time. If we sang in harmony, you wouldn't be able to pick who was singing which part. We've always gotten along freakishly well.

Thank God. That was harder than I thought. I have no idea who to award. I'm taking the lazy way out--if you read this blog and want this award, consider yourself awarded. (Just leave me a comment so I can read your 10 things!)

A Day in the Life of Me

By popular demand (okay, like, 2 people....but in my world, that constitutes "popular demand"), I present to you a pretty typical Saturday, complete with my snarky commentary.

I should alert you, it did not occur to me to start documenting my day until about 8:00, when I had already been up for an hour. Fortunately, all you really missed was unpleasant and unattractive morning face and the shower that I took. And I'm since I'm not cool with posting pictures of myself in the shower (not for free, anyway), there really isn't much that you missed.

So at 8:00, my day started with last night's dishes:



They wouldn't fit in the dishwasher, and I was too lazy to wash them last night. Bad housewife.

While doing dishes, I brewed some coffee:



And while preparing my coffee, I realized how disgusting my stove looked (I feel like I'm writing the housewife version of, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"):



So I decided I might as well wash the stove, too. The Boy (I've decided it's amusing to refer to him as "The Boy") was very upset that I had to audacity to clean the stove without seeking his assistance. He kept tugging on my leg, saying, "I scrub! I scrub!" (Which of course came out "I scub!") Far be it from me to discourage any proclivity my son might posses for cleanliness:



With the dishes and stove clean, I got out hamburger to thaw for supper:



And put away the bread I made last night (does that make up for not doing the dishes?):



At this point, Mom (that's me, in case you're having troubles following along) needed to reassemble the kitchen, without any knee-high assistants. I set The Boy down to color:



While The Girl happily watched (and did her best to snatch said crayons from The Boy):



At this point, I went back to the kitchen to finish cleaning. As I shuffled stuff on the counter around, I looked at my pile of cookbooks and thought, "I should really do something with these recipes....someday."



And now, the kitchen was clean:



If not the dining area:



Fortunately (?), I was able to put off cleaning the dining area for a bit longer, because I have not yet trained my children to change their own diapers:



I made the bed:



And stared at the pile of laundry that I should do, but for want of quarters:



By this time, it was 10-ish, and we were all ready for a break. We had story-time:



I had breakfast (that's my third cup of coffee):



Changed The Girl again (note, the new outfit):



And then took another break (Fons and Porter was on!):



After Fons and Porter, I checked out blogs:



And took this random picture of The Boy:



And cut out a pre-printed dress for Milehi:



In the middle of my cutting, The Girl woke up from her (far too brief) morning nap, and The Boy thought he needed to eat. (What IS it with these kids?!) It was a bit chaotic, and no pictures were taken until after lunch was eaten:



After lunch, The Boy napped, and Mom sewed:



With some help from an inquisitive assistant (no, she didn't really sit on my lap the whole time, and please excuse my lack of make-up):



Then The Girl and I got the mail (thank you, St. Judes, for the address labels):



And I decided to start supper (Pinwheel Cheese Meatloaf, from The Total Woman Cookbook). Unfortunately, it didn't occur to me to take a picture of supper-in-progress until it was in the fridge. You're just going to have to trust me that the following picture is of meatloaf:



Then, I made up some more formula:



And swept the kitchen:



Now we start to get into a shady area, in which I must not have taken many pictures, because I swept the floor at about 2:30. The next picture I have is when I put supper in the oven at 4:30. Oh, wait. I know. I was watching "The Cutting Edge" on ABC Family.

Anyway, here is supper in the oven, at 4:45:



At 5:45 we ate (those are Betty Crocker boxed potatoes, which I love, but just learned Ryan does not). You're going to have to trust me when I tell you supper tasted much better than it looked. The loaf kinda fell apart, which I anticipated, but it tasted really good (but I'll blog about the recipe in a separate post):



Then I did more dishes (again, they wouldn't all fit in the dishwasher), while Ryan bathed the children:



Now, again, there's another big block of blankness here. From 6:30-9:00, I have no documentation. Not that anything exciting happened. I caught up on some blogs, helped get the kids in PJs, sent Ryan off to work, and put children to sleep. Leah went to sleep about 9:00. And this is what my living room looked like:





In the interest of not tripping over stuff for the rest of the night, I picked up:



And now I'm here, blogging. I may sew some more on my quilt. And I should probably iron a dress to wear to church tomorrow. But you get the idea.

It now occurs to me that there's a lot of random things left out. Yes, I changed The Girl more than twice, and I did change The Boy as well, even if I didn't document it. Mainly because I was lazy, but besides, do you all really care about that particular aspect of my day? And I promise, I fed The Girl, as well. It's just hard to take a picture of yourself, sitting on the couch, feeding your daughter.

And that was my Saturday. I should have waited for an especially productive Saturday, and led you all to believe that I was some sort of super-mom/wife, but most of you know me too well to believe that, anyway.