The old clunker get’s a tune-up!

So every now and then your old jalopy needs a wee bit of a tune – up.  Trouble is when you take a vehicle in for a little work they generally find a lot more than needs to be done.  We took the beast in for new front tires and lo and behold it needed brakes, bearings and what-not as well.  So $1,800 later we drove it home and it’s been parked ever since.  Blasted money pit.

So my dear friends decided I needed a tune-up as well.  They said it wasn’t a make-over (because miracles are rare) but a little spa pampering.  So Monday they took me to the Tune-up shop.

The Ladybug Lady  (as Hope calls her), gave me a much needed trim and layer.

I wasn’t brave enough to have her whack it off.  I’m waiting to hit goal weight for that.  Then I’ll have her give me an Alice Haircut.

 

But only if I’m a skinny little thing.  Meanwhile Prince Erik is relieved that a trim and layers is all I had Ladybug Lady do.  Too bad she could get rid of my double chin as well.

Then Mommiverse  helped me put on a little paint.  I’m not a make-up girl.  Prince Erik wishes I was.  What you see is what you get.  But hey, I don’t mind applying some stuff every now and then (church and dates).

O.K. I’m sick of posting pictures of me, it’s not that fun.

After my war paint was applied Fancy took me shopping.  TJ Maxx and $100.  She wouldn’t tell me who donated the money.  So whoever you are Thanks from me, thanks from my family as well.  And my wardrobe thanks you greatly.  I guess my friends were tired of seeing me in workout clothes, and tee shirts all the time.

 

This picture is not the best but I love this coral colored top.  It even hides my muffin top – Kind of.  I ended up getting a couple of darling skirts, shirts and a yoga mat.  I’ve promised DARling that I’d take  a Hot Yoga class with her soon.  Maybe I can sweat off the weight.

Sunshine stopped by with her daughter to chat while I was undergoing my tune-up and take evidence of my overhaul.

 

Fancy and DARling treated me to a healthy lunch and even took turns watching Hope.  How cool are my friends?  It was one of the sweetest birthday presents I’ve ever received. Thank you ladies.

Now I’m off to help the Herd as we Tune-up the Garden.

And for Earth day don’t forget to check out my Mommy Blessings Blog for a free Green Giveaway.  Enter there for your chance to win this book.

Toodles!

Blogging Birthday Gifts!

Well I made it and lo and behold you all are still with me. Today I'm celebrating my 1 year bloggin' Birthday. And it couldn't have been a better year!

So instead of begging for presents and well wishes I'm going to have a Bloggin' Birthday Give-Away!


This here little Ghostie stands 12 inches tall from ground to crow wing and would look cute in almost any Halloween Home.

How to win little Ghostie? Submit a comment to this post and also write down the name of your favorite Crafty/Sewing/Artistic Website or Blog (I'm diggin' for Christmas ideas, you see). And if it's a frugal craft idea site then that's even better.

So I'll announce the winner a week from today!

And thank you for being my blog friends for the past year.

P.S. I'll be celebrating my blasted bloggin' birthday all week long so be sure and check back because who know's what other fun is in store.

I'd Hurl for You!

How much do I love my husband? Enough to lose my cookies for him? You bet. But only once a year. Tonight to celebrate his Forty-somethingish Birthday, I agreed to go to Red Lobster for dinner (my first time there, by the way.) Thanks to my family for the gift certificates from Christmas. What you need to understand is, that my husband, is the only person on earth that I’d go to a seafood place with. You see I had a horrific(for me) allergic reaction to fish with my second pregnancy and ever since, the taste, the thought and even the smell of seafood instantly turns my stomach into a rollercoaster ride to a not so happy place. It could be mental, but I have made an honest effort to occasionally try different seafood over the fourteen years since then, but always end up kneeling before that porcelain throne begging for mercy. Tonight was no different and the results were the same, even though I didn’t even eat fish, just chicken but the smell did me in. But by-golly, my Prince Erik loves seafood and I really wanted him to have a nice birthday.

Some of his other birthday highlights included...

The whole family taking him to see the newest Veggie Tale Movie, ’The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything.’ Sounds like something any father would enjoy seeing. This is another inside family joke. Quite a few years ago my husband and my boys sang the origional Veggie Tale Pirate Song at a church talent show. We've had the song memorized for years. And each boy can remember their individual parts with a little bit of effort.

But his number one best birthday present happened to come from little Hope. This morning she used the potty like a big girl for the very first time. Input imaginative celestial choir of angels singing the Hallelujah Chorus again, here. You’ve got to understand after having kids in diapers for over 16 ½ years we are finally seeing that light at the end of the smelly tunnel. No, it’s more like a Beaming spotlight. Regardless of the intensity and wattage of the promise of no more bottom wiping, in the not so distant future, it also comes with a twinge of sadness that our kids are growning up way too fast. However, I won't miss the diapers, just the sweet babies that made them.

So, on that note from the smell ridden trenches...Happy Birthday My Love, My Prince, My Husband & Extra Child all rolled into one. I love you!

My two Birthday Kids Prince Erik and Lea! At Red Lobster of course.

Dream On Day

It’s my dream day. I told you I’d update you on my dreams every Friday. I’ll let you know how my wrestle with the dreaded clutter monster went, but, before I regale you with that horrific battle, I thought I’d fill you in on yet another dream. It’s one of my favorites, and I’ve been living the reality of this dream in Technicolor and High Definition Sound for the past 16 years, 10 months, and a few odd days. It’s the dream of being a mom. Thursday, I celebrated my 9-year old daughter Lea’s birthday, and last night we invited some of her friends over for a little party.

Lea is my adventurer. Being the first girl after three boys, I went overboard with the girl stuff. It started the day we found out she was a girl. I was pregnant with her, of course, and decided that after three surprises, all boys, we wanted for the first time to find out the gender of our baby through ultrasound. So we took all three boys (8, 5, and 2) to the Dr. Appointment with us. Don’t ask me what we were thinking, because obviously we weren’t. They were not the least bit interested in seeing moving black, white and gray meaningless images and a super small screen. Now if you could view ultrasounds in none-fuzzy color on a large screen with sub-woofers with the main character dressed in a military uniform, you might be able to hold their attention a bit longer. Anyway they acted like typical-for-our-family little boys and jumped on furniture, talked extremely loudly, and teased and tackled each other constantly. The ultra-sound tech (obviously a little stressed) asked to have them wait in the lobby with dad until the end of the ultra-sound. Out in the lobby they continued their extremely active and noisy behavior, much to my embarrassment. After taking another look at my boys, he looked at me and said, ‘Well, it’s your lucky day… you’re going to have a girl.’ Being fully hormonal I of course, started bawling with joy. I had to buy my first little girl dress on the way home that very day. And wouldn’t you know it; Mickey and Minnie were on it, being the Disney freak that I am.

Miss Lea, however, has turned out to be more of a tomboy than the girly girl I was expecting. Hence the Jedi before Princess Fascination she had at Disneyland. Maybe she got the tomboy gene me, or maybe it was because she followed in the footsteps of three brothers. Whatever the reason, she‘s a tough little cookie. When she was little, there was a constant fear that she would take off and go on one of her own little wandering adventures. Starting at age 15 months, if the door was open, or unlocked, she would be outside, up or down the hill and off into the great unknown. There didn’t seem to be a need, in her mind, for her to stay close to home, too many curious places to discover. This however, led to a very anxious and paranoid mommy me. So we had to keep an extremely close hawk eye on her, install a couple of extra-high locks on the door, activate a very annoying security beep whenever entrances were opened, and get a family dog (Bridget) who could keep her company and alert us if she decided to take off. My paranoia got so bad I had her on one of those kid leashes while on our boat. She was constantly leaning over the edge in order to see if there was anything in the water. And if she couldn’t see anything, she would toss whatever was closest to her in so see if it would float. Good-bye, scuba goggles, watch, tee-shirt, glasses, etc.

Fortunately, she grew out of the run-way, run far away, really fast and chuck things stage and has decided that home isn’t such a boring place to be. Today, Lea is the greatest older sister and little mommy’s helper there is. She takes care of her little sisters with the experience of a girl much older. Someday she will make an awesome babysitter. Yesterday when I was getting ready for her party, she would constantly ask me what she could do to help, and then follow through and ask again. The persistence she had as a toddler has turned into a positive persistence for doing good. Lea has also has inherited my love for arts and crafts, and unlike her three older brothers, she loves to do school work. And let me tell you, that is an amazingly great thing and rare thing in our family. I don’t have to bug her to get anything done. So happy 9th birthday Lea, I love you and admire what a great job your doing as big sister, daughter, and friend. You are a true Princess and make my dream of being a Mom truly joyous.

Now back to my other dreams. I know, I know another too long blog, so just a quickie here. I’m doing o.k. on my ‘finding a place for everything dream.’

I'd show you pictures but my blog editor seems to be under attack at the moment.

So you'll have to take my word (yes, it's still good) for it, but I am making progress on my back room. I’m doing it, and I’ve been working at this whole de-clutter / find a place for everything, all week long. I’ve come to the conclusion, that like the layers of Shrek’s onion, this dream is definitely going to take a lot longer than I thought it would. But I’m here for the long haul, and dang-it I really want this dream. So even though I didn’t finish the room in a week, I was able to tackle and finish some other projects like my dining room and the front porch. They were not on my list of to-do things, but I had to bump them up on account of my daughter’s birthday. You know the CHAOS factor – Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Well the Chaos is almost conquered in the front of my house. Yeah.

I promise a much shorter blog next time, and pictures.

Frazzled Fawndear

I’m a bit frazzled at the moment. However, frazzled is normal for me. I was thinking of adopting ‘Frazzled’ as a permanent intro to my name. Doesn’t Frazzled Fawndear have a realistic ring to it?

I bet you were wondering what the cause of my frazzle was this week. And even if you weren’t wondering, I’ll go ahead and tell you. I have two birthdays to get ready for. My Lea turns 9 tomorrow, and my husband turns 40 somethingish years old on Saturday. Picture me either standing around, like a deer frozen in headlights wondering what to do, or running around like a chicken with my head chopped off, trying to do who knows what at the last minute and you’ve got a pretty good mental picture of myself this week. Have you ever found (cheap but nice) presents? By the way, I don’t think they really exist. Usually all I can find is nice but cheaply built, but still attached to a moderate price tag. I’ve heard of people who luck into awesome deals and find remarkable gifts for next to nothing. I think I missed those deals when I skipped the after-Christmas sales in an effort to let our checking account recover.

Today I tackled preparations for Lea’s birthday. We normally don’t let our kids have birthday parties with friends except for big years for them like when they turn 5, 8, 10, 12, and 16, etc. Now before you think we are horrible parents. We still celebrate their birthdays with a family party, but hold off on the big, impress your neighbor’s with your creative theme skills, invite 15 wild and crazy kids(in addition to my own half dozen), have some really expensive themed goody bags, piñata’s and don’t forget the gi-normous Costco cake with it’s leftover’s for a week. So you would think I was off the hook for some outrageous party for Lea because she is turning 9. Wrong! We decided that since I’ve been homeschooling her this year that she needs all the peer time she can get. So the party is on. We made that decision Sunday morning and I’ve been scrambling ever since.

The trick comes around because we need to keep it healthy. Evo-man is starting phase II of his kid fitness program and parties with their regular food fair are not on the menu. So I’m making enough cupcakes out of a fat-free brownie mix for everyone to have just one. The regular ice cream will be replaced with frozen yogurt. And thanks to the Dollar Tree, I didn’t have to go into hawk for the goody bags.

Lea loves art and so we are having a fairy art party. Being insane, I always have a craft for the kids, so we are making flower fairies. I found all the supplies at the dollar store as well. We will also be playing Pictionary – kind of goes with the art theme. And Dad will pull out some of his magic tricks. However I don’t know how he will incorporate the magic with the theme of art and fairies. I just hope it doesn’t involve wearing tights. The magic tricks were a hit when we had a Harry Potter birthday party and a when we had a Lord of the Rings Birthday party he dressed up as Gandalf and that worked out perfect. We will have to wait and see on that one.

I still want to hit my un-clutter dream of this week of my back room. I’ve been keeping up on the 'more out than in,' rule, and the de-clutter some space everyday. Plus, I've added in some of the great comments made by my blogger friends like find a place for 10 things at the end of the day.

My amazing friend Kami came over yesterday and helped me find my front porch. I took the before picture after we had already removed a cooler, a couple boxes of trash and charity donations. So this is really the half-way there picture. It still looks bad.

However when we were finished I threw out a garbage bag of shoes, and had another bag of good shoes that I could donate. I got rid of the bench by taking it out to the back porch to collect clutter there. That will be a future project. Sooooo the only thing left on the front porch is the rugs and a bag of tulips to plant. Oh and some really pretty hanging planters. In a couple of months I’ll probably plant them full of fake plants because I kill every living plant I’ve ever had. I’m going to try to let nothing else stay on the front porch until I can find a cute little wrought-iron mini table and matching pair of chairs. I thought they would match the planters.

Then I could have something to sit on while sipping lemon flavored water and yelling at my kids to reminding them not to go so blazingly fast, while biking, skateboarding, or running down the hill in front of our home.

I even found time today to unload at the thrift store drop off. Yeah, now I can see out the back window of my tank-mobile again.

Anyway, this frazzled lady needs to get back to cleaning. It would be nice to have a birthday party in a home you won’t lose the kids in.