Ghirardelli Luxe Milk Chocolates

Hey! Did ya hear? Ghirardelli just came out with a new line of Milk Chocolate bars. They’re calling them Luxe Milk Chocolates.

New Ghirardelli LUXE MILK chocolates deliver the ultimate milk chocolate experience with rich and creamy Ghirardelli milk chocolate using simply delicious, all natural ingredients.
As with all our premium chocolate products, we hand select the world’s finest cocoa beans to create our proprietary bean blend and roast them to perfection. Then we slow-blend in the purest ingredients such as real cocoa butter and natural vanilla, to achieve our distinctively intense chocolate.

New LUXE MILK chocolates are currently available at your local Wal-Mart, Walgreens, Borders, Linens & Things and will soon be available at your Target, Blockbuster and Cost Plus locatons.

Ghirardelli – Moments of Timeless Pleasure TM

Five Tempting Flavors:

LUXE MILK Almond –This rich and creamy milk chocolate made from the finest cocoa beans is perfectly complemented with all natural, toasted almonds.

LUXE MILK Hazelnut - This rich and creamy milk chocolate made from the finest cocoa beans is perfectly complemented with all natural, deep-roasted hazelnuts.

LUXE MILK Milk – This rich and creamy milk chocolate is made from the finest cocoa beans and highest quality milk.

LUXE MILK Crisp - This rich and creamy milk chocolate made from the finest cocoa beans is perfectly complemented with lightly toasted crisp rice.

LUXE MILK Duet – This divine duet of creamy milk chocolate and rich dark chocolate is made from the finest cocoa beans and purest ingredients.

I just recently got to try all five of the new LUXE MILK chocolate bars and YUMMMY! They were so good I had to hide them from Darly (she snags my chocolate stash and eats it all!) I doubt that anyone will be handing out these yummies for Halloween this year (they’re hogging them all for themselves!), but you can run to Wal-Mart (or one of the other retailers) and stock up for yourself. But remember to hide them from the kids!

Congrats DH!

Note the new shiney oakleaves on his shoulders!

Oh, and that's my head in the picture too. :p

30 Days to Natural

I try really hard to not be wasteful. I bought dishcloths to use in my kitchen instead of relying on paper towels…and I use them. I could probably use a hamper of sorts in the kitchen though so I use the dishcloths on greasy messes instead of grabbing the towels. sigh

I can brag that I’m very good about using my cloth grocery bags. I started collecting my bags a few years ago and have slowly worked my way up to 10 bags. And I remember to use them…even though it annoys one of the baggers at my grocery store because not all of my bags stand up on their own. I’m not concerned. I should keep my bags in the car though so I can use them at more than just my grocery store…I know Wallyworld & Tspot won’t mind. ;)

I recycle. We have a bin in the kitchen to put stuff that we can recycle. Dh carries it to work because while we have curbside recycling, neither of us can remember which trash days are recycle days. But we are recycling. We both ponder why we can’t recycle more.

Darly does her part too…she is constantly reusing stuff. Of course it’s annoying to me that she takes something that is destined for the trash, turns it into something that doesn’t look too much different than it did before and she saves it because it’s now art. Oh well.

I'd like to do more - as I'm sure all of us would.

Mom Central has teamed up with Clorox and GreenWorks to promote a healthy cleaning lifestyle. Check out the website!

They have daily tips on how to be a little bit greener. The tips can be delivered directly to your inbox every morning if you choose. I just signed up today for my tips, so I’ll have to keep you posted.

There are videos - they are following 3 women for 30 days as they try to green up their homes and their lives. The women are average every day people. The videos are real. I enjoyed watching them and I think you will, too!

I don't like harsh chemicals or the residue that some of them leave behind. DH hates the smell of harsh chemicals. The new Greenworks cleaners are terrific. I tried the all purpose cleaner. It smells so great and is as good as any of the others I've used, and it's natural! My stain prone kitchen counter tops have never looked better!

All of the GreenWorks products were developed using natural biodegradable ingredients that are free from petrochemicals. They were blind tested against the leading conventional cleaners. They clean as well or better - I'm not surprised!

I’m going to have to try out some of the other products too. DH will be thrilled to watch me cleaning.
Maybe I can be greener 30 days from now, too!

The List

Things I've gotta get done this week...

DONE: buy halloween make-up
DONE: buy pumpkin carving kit (cuz Darly has broke too many of our old kit's saws)
DONE: buy spice cake mix for pumpkin muffins
DONE: buy leave in conditioner for my hair
DONE: buy earplanes
make pumpkin spice muffins
make mouse ears & tail for Darly's costume
make bag for Darly's dolls to travel in that looks like the one from American Girl!

Carve Pumpkins
find earplanes in child size for Darly
Print out stuff for trip
pack for trip
give dog bath
find stuff for Sunday School class skit
plan the rest of Sunday School lesson
take dog to MIL's

get off this computer!

Weekend update with some extra stuff thrown in

hey all. I bet you've been wondering what all has been going on at "Chez Renee"...right? NO? oh, well...you're getting it anyway.

I'm gonna start with the extra stuff cuz it's more interesting.

On Wednesday we went to see Schoolhouse Rock Live Jr. It is a musical put on by Christian Youth Theater and seeing as they were showing it right down the road from my house, How could I not go? Besides we LOVE Schoolhouse Rock.

You know Schoolhouse Rock...right?

"It's Schoolhouse Rocky,
a chip off the block
of your favorite Schoolhouse,
Schoolhouse ROCK!"

I have to say that if you every get a chance to see this and you love the Schoolhouse Rock songs...then you should GO! This was so much fun! Darly especially loved the opening where the main character kept crossing the stage and after tripping over his TV remote the first time, makes a point to avoid it (while it's still on the floor) for the rest of the scene. Very funny...worth the trip!






Then on Friday we went to STEMpalooza This was a convention of all sorts of booths that had to do with Science, Technology, Engineering or Math. Unfortunately, I was drawn in by the advertisement of getting a free patch for Darly's Girl Scout uniform. If I had known that the patch was UGLY! we would have waited to go on Saturday where my friend said it was much less crowded. I don't know how many school groups were there, but the place was over packed with very pushy, rude kids. It seemed that everytime Darly got up to a booth to try something about 10 kids would come up and push their way in front of her. I also learned after we went how to do the entire trip for much less money. The event itself was free, however, the convention center charges $10 for parking (which is the norm for most downtown parking places). A friend later told me that I could have parked a few blocks away for only $5 and taken a free bus that stops about a block away. sigh! Well hopefully they do this next year, then we'll know to go on Saturday! Another bummer was the booths for local colleges that didn't bring anything but info on the college. They were just sitting there as most of the audience were middle school kids.





Some highlights of the trip were: The booth from our Zoo. Darly got to see a Prairie Dog up close and we got to watch as a stupid school kid fed his finger to her! Luckily the prairie dog didn't get a good chomp on the finger. Getting to make a video email of ourselves and sending a copy home. Playing with a static generator and me standing too close to the table and getting the static to discharge into the table skirt from my feet!!! (that hurt actually!) Darly answering loads of questions correctly (she didn't care for that part, but it made me feel good!) Free DVDs, tree seeds and a balloon rocket kit.






Saturday...hummm what did we do on Saturday? I don't remember a whole lot ... oh wait, now it's coming back to me. I made my brined chicken...So I started it around noon and while I was waiting on it, I went through Darly's Girl Scout badge book to see what badges she might have earned at the STEMpalooza.






Sunday was Church of course. First was Sunday School. We were notified earlier in the week that there would be a fire drill, so I didn't plan a whole lot of lesson. We managed to zip right through one lesson activity before the fire drill began...and then because it was pretty cold outside and our director had worn a very short skirt (hummm I guess she didn't get the message about the fire drill?) she sent us back inside very quickly. So I had to figure out more lesson to do. And as we were reading the Bible story one of the moms came to get her son because his older brother was getting confirmed. DH had to usher for our service and as I mentioned in that last sentence it was Confirmation Sunday. We had 32 kids get Confirmed! And the place was PACKED! Darly & I found two seats together but unfortunately they were right in front of the AC vent...burrr! The warmer seats up front were already all taken.





After Church we headed over to MIL's house to rake her yard. A very good thing because they had some high winds that dumped almost all of her neighbor's leaves in her yard. Luckily it doesn't look like the neighbor has that many more leaves to blow over into MIL's yard. Unfortunately, MIL's tree is the last one on the block to drop it's leaves (yesterday most of the leaves were still light green!) so when I go there this Sunday there should be a ton more leaves to rake up...sigh! Maybe I'll get my arms all pumped up!






Today should be a quiet day...Maybe I should sort out my office...or maybe not. ;)

The Precious Girls Club Combines Values and Fun into a Safe Online Experience

I know I’ve gone on and on about how hard it is to find age appropriate things for my little girl Darly. There’s one brand of toys in particular that really drive me up a wall. I really don’t understand what those folks were thinking. I know I’m not the only frustrated mom out there, and now thank goodness there is finally a company that is getting it right.

In today's world of virtual societies, life-like dolls and young celebrities with risqué images being marketed directly at children, there is a rising concern among moms that their little girls are being influenced by questionable role models. In fact, according to a survey conducted by Mom Talk Radio, a nationally syndicated radio show dedicated to real-life moms, 93% of moms feel like young girls today are being pressured to grow up too fast. The desires of today's moms are simple -- to stay involved in the lives of their little girls and extend the innocence of their childhoods.

Amidst a toy aisle filled with scantily-clad dolls and make-up kits, this isn't an easy pursuit. Moms are actively seeking wholesome brands that mirror the values on which they raise their daughters, but are having trouble finding them on the store shelves. 73% of those surveyed responded that they view the majority of dolls, games, shows and websites targeted at little girls as too sexy or inappropriate for their daughters and 79% refuse to buy into the current trend of children's apparel and accessories imitating adult clothing and pop culture. Coming soon, these Moms will have one more option for safe play that fosters mother/daughter bonding and family values.

In a world where little girls are growing up too fast, Precious Moments®, the inspirational figurine and collectible company, is happy to introduce the Precious Girls ClubTM. The Precious Girls Club is based on an all new book series for girls that revolves around the life of Katie Bennett and a diverse group of her friends. Through the experiences of Katie and her friends, wholesome values are reinforced in a fun and engaging way. Their world is brought to life not only through books, but also through a state-of-the-art virtual world and exciting retail product offerings, including figurines, jewelry, charms, and other related accessories. More than a club, it's a way of thinking and being, a safe place for young girls to discover how wonderful it is to be precious.

By visiting the Precious Girls Club virtual world (http://www.preciousgirlsclub.com/), young girls will be able to create a profile and make friends, participate in fun online games and have access to tools to start their own clubs in their communities. There will also be a charm bracelet component to the club, where members can earn charms by exhibiting "Precious Values" such as acting in loving, kind, helpful and responsible manners. The first book in the series, A Little Bit of Faith, will be available in select gift and specialty stores and online at http://www.preciousmoments.com/ beginning on September 1st. Related charms, figurines and plush dolls will also be available through those same outlets.

"With the Precious Girls Club, we set out to create a fun, engaging virtual world that supports the values and virtues that Moms desire in their daughters," said Bret Moore, Vice President of Marketing for Precious Moments. "We spent over a year working with Moms and daughters to determine what they wanted out of a virtual world and the Precious Girls Club delivers on those findings -- a safe playground from a trusted brand that provides a quality mother-daughter experience."

In addition to wanting their daughters to be raised with the right values, Moms are also concerned about Internet safety and the websites their children visit. The Precious Girls Club answers both concerns by incorporating value-based games, stories and characters into a safe and secure virtual environment.

Darly & I were recently given the opportunity to check out the book “A Little Bit of Faith” and the website http://www.preciousgirlsclub.com/ and I have to say that we were very impressed with them both. The story is very cute and engaging and the website provides a lot of fun for little girls. One of Darly’s favorite things to do is to call up one of her friends and have them log into the site so they can play together…of course this ties up both my phone and my computer, but the girls are having fun. Darly can’t wait to begin collecting the charms and I can’t wait for more books.

MRSA

As parents we constantly worry about the safety of our children. Whether playing on the playground, getting on the bus, or running on the soccer field it seems as though we have an emergency kit handy for everything. One hidden danger that has become a growing concern for parents is MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), a potentially life-threatening antibiotic resistant Staph infection. MRSA that is increasingly common in community settings, like gyms, locker rooms, childcare centers and schools.




Everly Macario, a mother of two with a doctorate in public health, lost her own young son Simon to MRSA in April 2004. After taking Simon to the emergency room with common cold and flu symptoms, and being released, Simon became lethargic with heavy breathing. They returned to the hospital where Simon was admitted to the ICU. Simon passed away the next day. During his time in the hospital, doctors were unsure of the source of his infection and it was not until months after his death that it was confirmed to be Community-Associated MRSA.



Everly is now committed to helping others understand what MRSA is and how to help prevent its spread, which is why she joined the STOP MRSA Now Coalition, a group of community members who have experienced MRSA first-hand and are standing together to educate others to help prevent the spread of MRSA.



STOPMRSANow.org offers information about MRSA and the STOP MRSA Now Playbook, which includes the following five-point plan, among other critical tips and information:





Scrub up - Wash hands frequently with soap and warm water for at least 15 seconds or use an alcohol-based hand rub sanitizer.

Wipe it down - Use a disinfecting bleach solution to wipe down and disinfect hard surfaces. (1 tablespoon of disinfecting bleach diluted in 1 quart of water)

Cover your cuts - Keep any nicks or wounds covered with a clean, dry bandage until healed.

Keep to yourself - Do not share personal items, like towels or razors, that come into contact with bare skin.

Use a barrier - Keep a towel or clothing between skin and shared equipment.



With more than 90,000 Americans affected by MRSA every year, we at Mom Central feel it is important to spread the word to Moms and families about ways to protect themselves. We would love your help in spreading the MRSA prevention tips and the STOP MRSA Now website, www.stopmrsanow.org

I know as a parent it can be hard to convince our children that washing their hands is important. Darly's Girl Scout handbook had an experiment to show how you need to use soap & warm water to wash with. You put vegetable oil and cinnamon in the child's hand. Have them wash with cold water alone. The oil won't come off. Try warm water...some, but not that good. Cold water with soap...still there. Now warm water & soap...that finally takes it off. However, even that didn't convince Darly that she needed to wash her hands. What worked for us was at Darly's gymnastics gym. The waiting area is right next to the bathroom and the walls are thin enough that you can hear if someone doesn't wash their hands. I pointed out to Darly that a girl in the bathroom, she didn't wash her hands...she opened the door to the gym, and then she touched the equipment, the water fountain, the bench...etc. Darly was digusted and now washes her hands all the time!

What a day!!!

hummm... as I was typing that title it showed up in the drop down box...so apprently I've used it before.  Oh well!

I started out the day by waking up at 6:45am to use the restroom, then fretting in bed until 7:15 worried that I would fall asleep and not get up in time.  But I got up in time.

Darly had her make up gymnastics class this morning at 8:30am.  Normally Darly is still asleep at this hour...and if I can...I am too on a Saturday!  But that's when make up classes are scheduled, so that's where we were.
When we first arrived, Darly was the only one there.  WOO HOO!  A FREE PRIVATE LESSON!  but that wasn't to be. :o(  the other girls showed up...just late.  Hummm I don't see these girls getting very far if they can't make it to the gym on time (course that was their parent's fault not theirs really.) 
One of the "moms" was actually the step-mom and the coach who subbed Darly's class on Thursday.  I had a very interesting time talking to her...getting a bit of the inside scoop on our gym and another one.

On our way home we drove down a street that has been under construction to see how things were going.  It appears that they might be just about done...YAY!  It sure has been a pain with all the detours.
This route took me by our townhall.  Where they had two signs out...one to remind me that today was the E-Cycling day and the other that I could turn in my mail-in ballot at townhall.

So I ran drove home and grabbed our old computer monitor and our ballots to go turn them both in.  I also decided to fill up my car with gas since I was out & about.

I get back to the E-Cycling drop off and find out that it will cost me $18 to recycle my monitor!  WHAT!  No one said anything about any charge on the signs.  I dig through my purse and I don't have that kind of money on me.  So I head to turn in my ballots.  NOPE!  Townhall is closed (even though the building was open!)  NOW I'm MAD!  Why didn't someone pull in the sign?

Off to get gas now...  And guess what?


yup, you guessed it...or something close.  The gas station was out of gas!  At least they aren't the only place in town that sells gas.  But I had to pay 3 cents more per gallon.  Oh well.

When I got home Darly was excited because since I wasn't able to recycle the monitor...we were now going to let her tear it apart.  And that's what we did.  That was interesting, trying to figure out what some of the parts did and salvaging the pretty rainbow colored wires.  While Darly & I tore apart the monitor, DH was cleaning the garage.  We got a lot of stuff thrown out...YAY!  We have a very long way to go though.

I also did some work in the garden and we put away the bbq grill for the season.

I hope dinner goes okay.

oh goodie!!!

I'm still working on getting all the plans together for our trip to California (mostly Disneyland) here soon. And while I wanted DH to get the reservation for our car rental, I suppose it's better that I did it...although he drove me crazy about it!!!

See DH will be in CA for work the week before we go out there. He will be renting a lot of cars for work while he's there. So I figured that he might be able to swing a good deal if he just went through the same car rental company...see they would see that he's renting like 6 vehicles for work and then wants a vehicle for himself afterward. But DH didn't want to do that and seeing how things have been working lately I can understand why...he's busy and trying to get anything done through work has been maddening!

So I looked up the car rates through one of the companies that we use. We aren't frequent travelers so we don't have any of those frequent rental accounts. However, since DH is in the military we have a few accounts through a company that sells all sorts of products at a group rate for the military. We have a few insurance and retirement things through them.

The also offer discounts for things like buying jewelry, flowers and car rental (I don't get the connection either! But I don't question it.) They have 3 car rental companies to choose from...they're major car rental companies and they have agreements with them for things like Free Second Driver, insurance coverage and no loss of use charges for cars that need repairs. cool!

I checked all 3 of the companies and found that the one would be able to get us a Ford Escape for a really good deal. But I couldn't book it cuz DH still didn't have his travel plans layed out...cuz it had to be booked through work. sigh... So I sat & I waited.

Back up a bit...
First I looked at prices for DH to rent the car and return it to the airport that he will be flying into.

Then DH says that I should check the prices for pick up at where he's flying into and drop off at the airport that Darly & I are flying out of cuz he'll see if he can fly out of the same airport. I do and it's the same price. but I still couldn't book the car cuz he didn't have his flight info yet. grrr

I kept checking the rates and was amazed that it was holding. I thought for sure it would be gone by the time DH finally got his flights booked.

So today Dh emails me to check the car rental to pick up at the town he'll actually be working in and book whatever price was cheaper. I emailed back to verify this as I had no idea how he would get to the car rental after he dropped off he cars at the airport location. He says they're renting some from each location.

So I check and from the town and nope, they don't have my deal...AND it looks like my deal isn't at the airport location anymore. Wahhhhh!

But still not giving up, I back up and type in to book at the airport again...and low and behold...my deal is still there!!! YIPPEE!!! I booked that sucker before it disappeared again!

DH was away from his desk as I did this and now he's catching up on the 5 or so emails that I sent him. I just replied to his answer to one of them telling him that he's replying to old emails and he writes back "Who you calling old?" I reply "you of course!" hee hee (he's 4 years older than me...but acts much younger most of the time.)

No longer a major pain...

Today DH got promoted.  It was a nice ceremony and it all went off very well (I found out why later!)

I did end up coloring my own hair yesterday for the ceremony and it turned out just fine.  Darly said she only noticed that I had colored it because she couldn't see my roots... PERFECT!  That's just what I wanted.

I decided to wear a very cute pair of shoes for the ceremony...but I know they aren't "standing shoes", so I wore my fake crocks for driving.  I ended up taking my painfulcute shoes off during the reception.  LOL!

I had asked DH to find out how we were supposed to get onto the base...he never did.  He just told me to try the gate and if I needed something else they would send me to the visitor's center.  GRRR!  I get there with MIL, BIL & SIL in the car with me, and I notice what level we are at and think, oh I shouldn't have any problem... but NO GO!  AND they took my ID card (AGAIN! grrr!)  They made me go to the visitor's center, but since the road is being torn up that was fun.  We had to wait, of course (so glad I was wayyy early) and then the guy fills out our visitor's form which luckily I was able to do with just my ID (the guard gave it back to me...whew!)  However since my ID has DH's old level on it, I now have an invalid ID cuz DH got promoted.  sigh  another trip to the base to get a new one...but Darly needs one too now.

So we get to DH's office.  He isn't there and I'm wearing my cutepainful shoes.  DH has 3 chairs in his office and we were a party of 5.  I shared a chair with Darly, & BIL stood.  Two of DH's bosses came in while we were waiting...one actually "pumped" us for info to use in his speach for the ceremony!  He got a good joke from me to use.

The ceremony went well, but the guy taking pictures had the battery go dead while he was shooting the ceremony.  He missed me pinning on DH's new rank.  DH tells me as I'm doing the pinning that it's a race between me & his boss.  great... I was having trouble with one of the pins.

DH got blubbery during the speach and skipped over most of what he planned to say about me & Darly.  Turns out that he was too emotional to say all of it...I should ask for his notes.  hee hee

And when it came time for the reception, he mentioned cake...we were expecting cake.  But NO CAKE!  Apparently there was a misscommunication about who was supposed to go buy the cake and instead of figuring this out, no one got the cake.  sigh!  I really wanted cake.  I told DH to go to work tomorrow and tell them all that I'm really mad cuz there was no cake!

DH says he probably should have gotten the cake himself. He had to write the entire ceremony himself.  Luckily he had enough ice cream & other goodies.  I told him that it appeared that there were a lot of folks who were just there for the food, but he said that no, most were folks he actually worked with. 

After the reception, I crammed my feet back into the cutepainful shoes and we headed ... for a tour of his office for his brother & sister.  ARGH!  Just what my poor feet didn't need.

Finally we were on our way to go out for dinner.  I changed back into my very ugly fake crocks to drive and decided to just keep them on at the restaurant cuz, who's gonna look under the table at my feet?  Dinner was very good.  And I'm stuffed & tired.  but I still want some cake. ;o) 

LOL!

Today is Columbus Day and so for most folks that means absolutely nothing... for me it means that my DH is home from work... and since I forgot about it... I have no groceries! :p  Shoot, Columbus day isn't even listed as the most imporant thing on my calendar today...

Thanksgiving Day
Action de grace (CAN)
Columbus Day (US)
Health & Sports Day (JP)

How's a gal supposed to remember a holiday when it's hidden like that???

But that's not the LOL part.

Here's the LOL part and it may take me a bit to get to it...so hang in there...

DH's Brother & Sister are flying to Denver today for his promotion ceremony tomorrow.  Dh is on his way to the airport now to pick them up.  DH took my cell phone so they can call each other to meet up.  I spent a bit of time this morning showing DH how to use my phone cuz I have it set up for the key lock and BIL's phone number is stored in my call list (course DH tells me he won't use my call list...he'll just plug in the number...so I teach him how to make the call that way.)  DH puts the phone in his pocket and he's on his way...

My cell phone is a Tracfone.  It's a pay as you go service.  However, I got annoyed with having to buy more service each month (I had to log into their website and purchase the service with minutes...it was a pain!)  So I set up my account for a plan that automatically gives me more service each month and charges it to my credit card...I know it sounds almost like a regular cell phone, huh?  and it sends me an email to let me know they did it.

I have my email account set up so it tells me when I get new emails while I'm online.  I was happily doing my usual morning internet routine when I get a ding that I have a new email from my cell phone company.

Okay folks... Here's what you've been waiting for...  the funny part...
Tracfone also sends me a text message when they've added more service to my phone...and of course that means that the phone beeps!  I didn't tell DH about this, cuz I didn't pay attention to when they would be adding more service to my phone.  So I picture him driving down the road to the airport and all the sudden the phone beeps at him!  LOL! 

I thought about calling him to let him know, but he would get annoyed with me to bug him with something so unimportant.  We'll see when he gets home how it all went.

I need to get my roots done (yes, I color my hair!) for the ceremony tomorrow.  But I'm torn.  I would really like to have my hair stylist do it, but seeing as I didn't call her two weeks ago for an appointment, I doubt that she can fit me in and I know she'll charge me a lot of money.  Or I could do the color myself, but I would like to do highlights too, and I worry that I might mess it up and then look funny tomorrow.  Perhaps I should just play it safe and just do the base color...then highlight it later.  Yeah, I think I'll do that.  sigh!

more proof that I'm loosin it!

K. I'm sitting here at the computer doing my usual morning routine of visiting all my email accounts, and checking the blogs and the most important thing...drinking my breakfast (aka coffee).

and somewhere along the way my body is saying..."more coffee please" and I'm in the middle of reading something so I'm responding... "okay, I'll get up and get another cup in a minute."

Yeah, I'm crazy...so what?

So finally I get up to refill my cup of coffee...only to look in my cup and notice that there's still about half a cup in there! but since I let it set there...it's now cold. :(

see the statement above!

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I got a few tags...I'll take care of them here...

I was tagged by Joan over at The Erstwhile Librarian for this little meme today and I thought I'd give it a whirl.
What you are supposed to do is copy/paste my post, remove my answers and type in yours and then tag four people in your lists! Don't forget to change my answers to the questions with those of your own.

Four places I go over and over
*Library
*Church
*Grocery Store
*Park Day

Four people who e-mail me regularly
* My friend Jen
* My friend Heather
* My friend TC
* and a bunch of "friends" who want to sell me stuff! ha ha (I have other friends who email me too, but I couldn't resist putting something funny...and besides these folks who think I need a bigger __________ email me much more often.)

Four of my favorite places to eat
* Home!
* MIL's house
* and my two most favorite restaurants went out of business. :(
* Dh & I are now looking for a replacement celebration restaurant...we're open to suggestions...looking for a casual, quiet place.

Four places you'd rather be
* Someplace warm - like the beach
* Someplace cozy - like a cabin in the woods with a fireplace
* Someplace snuggly - like in a hug
* Someplace fun - like in a pen of puppies who are all trying to get to my face. hee hee

Four TV shows I could watch over and over
* Good Eats
* Mythbusters
* Dirty Jobs
* America's Funniest Videos

Four people I'm tagging
* Oops! I don't do that! But if you wanna...feel free!

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And then Heather tagged me for this one...

The object is to tell you 6 things about me you MAY NOT KNOW... but like Heather, I blog which means my life is usually an open book. So this is gonna be pretty hard to come up with...

1.) I'm very lazy. (are you in shock?) I know I post a bunch of stuff that we do around here, but honestly when it comes to the day to day of taking care of the house and such...I hate it and let it slide as much as possible. So I get pretty irritated with things like DUST! What the hey is up with dust? I mean, you clean and it should stay clean if you don't do anything to get it dirty...but NO! there is Dust that comes up and dumps all over your nice clean surface...so you have to clean it again and again. Needless to say...I let it pile up. My friend Jen has a wonderful sign in her house that says something like "admire my dust, but please don't write in it." I need that sign. (hint hint Jen...you could cross stitch it for me!)

2) While I'm pretty computer savy...I can't for the life of me get used to things like a palm pilot or scheduler. I'm pretty sure that my cell phone has a calendar in it...but I have no idea how to use it. I bought a electronic scheduler...it's in a box around here somewhere. :p I have tried those free online schedulers...ummm no go! The one even had the ability to transfer all my appointments from it's calendar to my Outlook calendar...and I'm thinkin "why not just put it on the Outlook calendar and forget the online version?" I ended up deleting it within about a week. I wasn't using the Outlook anyway. sigh So I have 5 paper calendars. Two are here in my office... the one is on this month and the second one is on next month so I can keep up with 8 weeks at a time. Then there are two in the kitchen...one of those is a week by week dry erase calendar that the weeks move up (note to lazy self to go update that one!) and a regular calendar that I use to update the dry erase one. (I took pictures of all of them once...so that isn't something you don't know...it's the I can't use the electronic version that's new news.)

3) my office is a bunch of piles of information that look very much like clutter! I don't know how many piles of stuff that DH has laying round here, but his piles are all on top of filing cabinets that he needs to put the piles into (but I suspect his filing cabinets are full). Then there are my piles...and Darly's piles. I went through a bunch of her stuff the other day and found a lot that could be tossed. she likes to save bits of paper for future crafts...it drives me nutzo. I have tons of scraps of paper laying around with notes on it. some of it still relavant some not...some important with unimportant stuff mixed in. ARGH!

4) wholy smoly...what else is there that you don't know about me? How about this? I like to be HOT! In the summer I'll go sit on the back porch in the sun and read until I just can't take it anymore. In the winter I'll bundle up and sit in front of either a fire or in the sunny spot of the window with the blinds open...and I'll stay there until I'm roasting. I can't stand the cold and I can get pretty cranky about it too. Course if my ears get cold, I get a headache...so that's a good reason to be cranky...right?

5) I can't believe I made it to 5. You know how most kids grow up with an idea of what they want to be when they grow up? Well I never had that. I didn't even really have any idea of what I wanted to do with my life when I went to college. I just kind of floated along. I majored in the subject that I got the best grades in, but there was no career in that field that interested me. And even now I don't know what it is that I want to do. I know that I have 8 more years of this homeschooling gig, but after that...who knows?

6) okay, no one else tag me with one of these kind of memes cuz I have run out of things to tell you about me! There is seriously nothing else in my life that you don't know. why do I tell you all this stuff anyway?

The week in review...

wow this week has gone by so quickly...I can't believe it's Thursday already...didn't we just start on Monday?

Monday: I helped out at Church to get a mailing out. I was a bit put off that the secretary didn't have everything ready... she was still running copies when I got there and they still didn't have final approval on the acutal letter that was being mailed. I went in at 9:20am and didn't get out of there until about 12:10.
After I got home Darly was itching to go to her friend's birthday party...but I still hadn't heard from the birthday girl's mom yet... this party wasn't really planned all that well. Mom still needed to run a few errands and told us that she would call when she got back home for us to come over. She called after 4pm...I get Darly there at about 4:30 and stayed to chat a bit. I didn't get back home until 5:30...and of course I didn't feel like trying to start making dinner that late...so DH & I went out to dinner. DH was a grump, so that was a real pleasant dinner. :p

Tuesday: We had plans to go to a fall festival with our friends...but I had to wait until the birthday party girls woke up from their slumber party. From what the girls told me, they woke up long before the mom did. I didn't get to the farm until 12:30. But we all got in and had a lot of fun. The kids got to pet goats and see rabbits and a baby alpaca and ride on the barrel train ride a ton of times. The farm added a swing stucture from one of those expensive playground selling places...I joked with the other mom that we drove all that way and paid all that money for the kids to swing on a swingset that we could have done at the park down the street! We then loaded up the waggon and went to the pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins... I think they had pulled all the nice looking pumpkins to use as decorations by the barns cuz out in the fields the pickins were slim! And the prices they charge make you wanna choke...I should have told Darly to just set the pumpkin down an we'll get one from the store for a lot less! oh well.
Tuesday night is gymnastics class. She had a good time, but didn't really get to try too many of the skills she worked on during her private lesson that she had on Saturday. Perhaps she'll get to do them Thursday.

Wednesday: was park day. Darly was bummed cuz her friends that she spent most of Monday & Tuesday with weren't there. But some other friends did show up. She played, I talked it was fun. On our way home we stopped off at the bakery thrift store. It was interesting... I have to check the price I pay for our normal bread to see if I got a good deal or not. Darly got to try her first and last Moon Pie...she didn't care for it. Oh well.
Wednesday night is Confirmation class and since it was the second week of the month they go do something fun... like see Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Darly asked me to come along. It was a really cute movie...a bit predictable in places, but not too cheezy. The only part that was too far fetched for me was that the main character Chloe (a Beverly Hills spoiled chichahua) is kidnapped to be in dog fights!!! And her first "fight" is up against a Doberman. Luckily Chloe is rescued from the fight by a former police dog who then helps Chloe find her way home. It would have made more sense to me if the rich dog was kidnapped to be ransomed...and once the ring leader of the dog fights realized who Chloe was that is what he wanted to do, but to start off with the dog to be in a fight was silly in my opinion. Of course they needed a way for Chloe to meet up with the dogs who help her and who is gonna belive that the former police dog and the muts were kidnapped for ransom. oh well.

Today: Darly is upstairs doing who knows what...well I can assure you it isn't cleaning her room...even with the incentive of getting paid for keeping it clean. sigh

The ceremony

Well as you can see in the picture, Darly DID cross over the bridge! But as you can also tell (if you look closely at the child) she did it under protest...or is that goofiness?

At any rate she did and so did the others. We had 5 girls "Bridge up" (or move up) to the next level of Girl Scouts. Two brand new Girl Scouts who were Invested and 3 girls who were Rededicated.

about the bridge...yes, originally I did plan to cut out rails and make it look more like a real bridge...but as the deadline got closer, I got lazy...slapped a coat of white paint on it and glued the daisies on. Everyone said that they liked it, so I went ahead and saved the parts to use next time too. The girls had a good time crossing the bridge a lot before we started (I had to re-attach one of the rails ...note to self: take extra staples next year!)

Sticky fingers and more tweenage drama

after putting it off for as long as I can, I finally got around to working on the bridge that I'll need for our Girl Scout ceremony tomorrow night.  I still haven't finished it yet...and the last bit will be done at the location.  But today I got the rails for the bridge cut out and made from two very large sheets of cardboard.  Then with Darly's help I painted them white and glued on Girl Scout Daisies to the one side.  (originally I was going to do all this cutting to make the bridge look like it had rails, but laziness won out!)  But the glueing is what lead to the sticky fingers... I used spray adhesive to glue on the daisies...and of course I got tons on my left hand.  :p  so while I'm typing, I'm sticking to my keyboard.

and now for the tweenage drama...

Darly was helping me with all the bridge work, sighed and said "I won't get to cross the bridge tomorrow."  To which I replied that she was wrong because I'm going to have all the girls cross the bridge.  And being the argumentative tweenager that she is she had to keep on arguing...and then declaired "Well, I'm still not crossing the bridge!"  and I told her that she HAS to cross the bridge cuz everyone else is and she'll be left out.  She then stromed off...to which I told her to "Quit it!"

This isn't going to be fun!

oye! my head hurts!

I'm not sure why I have a headache...but the following sure didn't help it any.

Tonight was Darly's confirmation class. She insisted that I come in for the first part of it, which should have been okay...

But they decided to do a presentation on World Vision. For anyone who doesn't know, World Vision is one of the child sponsorship programs. They showed the kids two videos about the program. The first one showed a family with 6 children who sponsor another 9 kids! The message I got out of it was "If we can sponsor 9 kids on our budget everyone of you should be able to sponsor at least one kid." But I think it was the second video that got me the most upset... the message it seemed to be saying was..."You're lazy rich americans and we're poor so you should help us" Seriously the video had kids asking "How far do you have to walk to get water for your family?" and "The average American teen spends $101 per week, that much can send a child in Africa to school for two years."

Now don't get me wrong here... I'm not upset with the folks at World Vision. I mean this is their job to get folks to sponsor the children. What I'm upset about is that this presentation was shown to the confirmand kids. Why are they showing this to the kids? It isn't as if the kids can go sponsor anyone. Are they trying to get the kids to guilt trip their parents into becoming sponsors?

GRRR!

And then to top this evening off I had the mother of one of the children in my Sunday School class tell me off for embarrassing her child. I had come up to the child after service on Sunday because I had noticed that she had accidentally taken on of the textbooks that we were not supposed to let the kids take home. All I said to her child was that they weren't supposed to take the books, she could return it next Sunday. But apparently the way I said it made the child embarrassed and now she doesn't want to return to Sunday School (a problem for her because attendance is required!) I told the mother that I thought I had made it quite clear in class that they weren't allowed to take the books...I mentioned it a lot at the beginning of class because my "arguer" kept asking why they couldn't take them and couldn't understand why. I also reminded the kids before they left to turn in the books. So I was a bit shocked to see this child with the book when I did.

I know that sometimes I have a tone to my voice that comes off as not so nice...but I am awefully sure that I did not use any such tone with this child. I just went and asked my kid if I sounded mean...she says nope. So the only thing I can see is that the child is suffering from severe teenage embarrassment (and should probably just get a grip!) sigh!

no wonder my head hurts!