Lighting Is Everything

This week at Lena's school has a theme for each day to help raise money for Riley's Children's Hospital. They do this every year, which I think is wonderful! I love that they're getting the kids involved and teaching them the importance of helping others. However, it would have been nice if the school had actually sent a note home letting us know about these themes ahead of time.

The last couple mornings around my house have been a mad scramble trying to assemble the appropriate outfit for Lena. Yesterday was sports day so we had to locate her Bears jersey that she got for Christmas. Sorry to say, but the kid ended up going in it unwashed, because she didn't bother to let me know the night before so I could toss it in the laundry. I quickly did a smell and spot check, dressed her up, and sent her on her way. Oops!

This morning she informs me that it's going to Wacky Wednesday. I don't keep a whole lot of insane outfit combinations just laying around (though I suppose she could have worn her Hermione Granger costume if all else failed) but we ended up deciding on a beach theme.

It made perfect sense to both of us that the concept of wearing beach gear in January was about as wacky as you could get right about now. We grabbed her cover up out of the closet and threw on a tank top (figured a bathing suit might grab in all the uncomfortable places if worn too long) and a pair of jeans to keep her little legs warm. I also sprayed her with my Bath & Body Works Passport Tahiti so that she would smell of coconut for good measure.

As an after thought, we recently acquired a massive set of pixie dust glitter that my sister Holly had brought to do art the weekend she spent with us. They had a lovely gold in there that we thought could pass as sun dust in her hair.

I shared the photo below on FB this morning and should have either a) put a disclaimer on it or b) taken a different photo with more light.

Evidently my family thought I was posting some sort of public service announcement, because their comments were asking if Lena had lice! I guess when you're just looking at a thumbnail photo and don't bother to read the caption about putting sun in her hair I could see where you would get this idea. I'll have to make sure to shine a flash light on her head the next time we add glitter.

Continued & Ended

As promised I'm getting to ending my weekend review, since James was hell bent on going to bed last night right when I was in the middle of posting. Because I love him... I hurried up and finished and resolved to get back to it today.

Just a small recap leading up to the next events:

• Wake up 7am Saturday morning, get four kids out of house.
• James & Angel's birthday lunch.
• Grocery shopping at Sam's Club.
• Fastest shower known to man to get to sister's 21st celebration...

Turns out, I didn't need to take the world's fastest shower, because while I was told to arrive at 9pm, the party bus they had rented didn't arrive until about 10:15. Destination: Dave & Busters.

I could go into the detail about all the drama that occurred upon arriving at said destination (cough, cough: one girl was not of age and her boyfriend tried to sneak into the kitchen resulting in all of us getting kicked out before ever entering the establishment), but I'd rather just show off a couple of photos showing the good parts of the evening instead.

Birthday girl and her cake pops.



Our sister who came down from Chicago for the evening. One met us there and the other wasn't old enough.



Mama Playing Bartender

On the bright side... Sunday (her actual birthday) ended up being rather lovely with a lunch at Chili's as well as dinner at Mia Ranchito. Turns out she had a hankering for Mexican food I guess.

Weekend Part One... To Be Continued

Finally caught up on every one's posts from the weekend. Enjoyed reading all the crazy fun stories that people had shared. I kept spying the laptop out of the corner of my eye longingly... But was simply unable to snatch more then enough time to check the bank account to make sure the weekends activities didn't drive us into a crater we couldn't escape from.

Friday evening James picked up the girls from their mom's and I picked up Lena and her little friend Riana. We each got home around the same time and considering the Tasmanian tornado that had gone through our last Sam's Club trip we copped out and ordered pizza for everyone.

Now, our current house is rather tiny, but that's because I had gotten it prior to our decision to move in together. We've been making it work, but I will say that I'm looking forward to finding a bigger space when my lease is up (even though that's still a few months away). We had four girls, ourselves, three pizzas, two sides, three two liters, and a bag of plastic cups sprawled all over our living room and had a community dinner right there on the floor since the table simply does not have enough space to accommodate everyone, let alone all of the food. The girls enjoyed it greatly, I however am starting to realize just how old I'm getting. Getting off the floor was accomplished, however standing straight for about 5 minutes afterwards left a twinge all the way down my legs and to my toes.

Saturday morning we got up, made coffee, and organized four girls to get them up and moving since we had to go to James' parents house for a birthday lunch celebration for him and his sister.

 

We had a nice lunch where I consumed far too much Brown's Chicken since I hadn't had it since I left Aurora about four years ago. Apparently they don't believe in doing business here in NWI, which is a crying shame because I would probably single handedly support their establishment if they were to have one here in Lowell.

 

When we returned from birthday lunch, we dropped the girls off at home since none of them wanted to go and we made a mad dash for Sam's Club to refill out very sad and empty house.

 

By the time we got home from the store it was time enough to put away groceries, shower, and rush off to my sister's house for her 21st birthday celebration.

 

Since James is pouting in the living room (should have skipped the Call of Duty silly) and wanting to go to bed I suppose I'll have to share the details of the night's events tomorrow. 

Curves Are Sexy

I'm starting to really get into the whole concept of a social media community at this point. I know that currently I don't have any followers on here, but that's okay. I'm mostly doing this to entertain myself. Plus I long since abandoned keeping a journal, because I realized the only time I felt compelled to write is when I was upset about something. So far, that's not the case here and I don't think it will be. There are far too many fun and colorful things out there to make this be an outlet for the drab. (Yes, I'm aware my background is in sepia. I do however plan on spicing it up now that I'm getting the hang of all the available tools out there.)

I'm also thoroughly enjoying some of the blogs that I have started following and I love to see a community of such strong and witty women around the world. In my personal opinion I think women are far too hard on each other and truthfully that's no good for any of us. I'm fully aware that I probably freak a couple of my co-workers out at times. It's not uncommon to hear one of them mention how they need to diet or that the non-Healthy Choice microwave meal is going to go straight to their ass. I immediately jump in every time and tell them that they're beautiful the way they are and they don't have anything to worry about. Which often results in a weird and uncomfortable look and a quick scurry back to their desks in order to avoid eye contact with me.

Let me make this clear, I'm straight, but I appreciate a women's natural beauty thank you very much. Too often do we put ourselves down (myself included) and I think it's important that we help each other out when we hear those self-damning comments. Women as a whole relay far too much on the opinion of men and are in constant competition with one another. Well enough of that I say!

It was reading Airing My Dirty Laundry's post today that set my mind on this path this afternoon. She was talking about how people were putting down the lead character in Girls. When that show initially came out I did watch a few episodes, but couldn't really get into it, but I respect the message they're trying to portray.

We should put more focus on being nice people instead of centering our world's around being cosmetically enhanced and believing that Cover Girl is that answer to all our worldly problems. Damn it, curves are sexy!

Oh The Joys of Working with Women!

I can already tell that this week at work is going to be a difficult one. My technical title is Quality Assurance Coordinator, but my boss has pulled me in to assist with some of the marketing, since I'm the one who gets to hear what the customers actually want.

Last Friday in our bi-weekly meeting he completely tossed me under the bus with the current marketing manager. In my personal opinion I think her job is harder than hell and extremely time consuming. But some things about it I consider fun. I have enjoyed getting into managing our social media (hence how I stumbled into Blogging recently) and I also enjoy picking out photos and helping make our ads a little more visually appealing. However, he told our marketing manager that she now needs to go through me before she publishes any ads or posts anything to one of our various sites that I'm currently taking care of. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back, but I've been getting results and basically doubled our following since I took over the content. I don't think for one moment though that I am more qualified than she is. I think the difference is that I am having fun with this stuff and she's not.

I appreciate her input and her expertise, but the last two days she's kind of been a little nasty about it. She's picking apart everything that I put up and putting it down. Yesterday I had updated out cover photo for Facebook with something for Martin Luther King Jr. Day and she proceeded to send me an email (mind you, we're about 10 whole feet away from each other) to tell me that we should keep our content strictly about our business. I am rather unsure how she found this the least bit offensive considering the fact that it's a national holiday and all, but apparently it upset her greatly.

But then I notice this...

Can someone please tell me how this is tire related at all?

If you ask me, this appears to be highly political and more likely not a very play it safe kind of move considering all the controversy about Obama being re-elected. (Side note: she did not ask me or even show me what she was planning.)

So this is not potentially offensive, but us publicly recognizing a national Holiday is? I'm confused...

When I was telling James about it over dinner he told me that she's threatened by me. I don't know how much clearer I can make this... I DON'T WANT HER JOB!

From Fires to Freezing

It ended up a wonderful weekend, though I admit being back at work today feels like break.

Saturday was in the mid 40's which we celebrated by making use of our fire pit in the backyard. Recently due to the cold it has been neglected, but I'm a pyro at heart and used the bearable temperature as an excuse to set flame to the old coffee table I stored in the garage for just such an occasion. It went up beautifully.

Saturday night we made steaks on the grill and had pretty much the entire family over for dinner. James handled the actual grilling while I stayed inside (the temperature had dropped by that point below my tolerance level) and I made homemade mashed potatoes because they're my sister's all time favorite.

After dinner is when the real fun began. My brother naively thought he was safe being in a home filled with all his sisters. WRONG! He fell asleep long before the girls did and suffered greatly for his mistake...



I suppose at the end of the day he should be grateful that he was in a room full of girls and simply ended up with pink nails and multiple glitter tattoos. Had the other two brothers been present he may have ended up with a multitude of permanent marker genitalia everywhere instead.


Sadly the nice weather didn't last though and this morning as I drove into work I was met with a white wall of flurries everywhere. While I'm not a fan of snow, I did notice this in the parking lot at work. I'm certain it's not intentional, but still kinda cool.

A Happy Housefull

I have wonderful 15 minutes of quiet for the moment. My brother and sister are down this weekend from Aurora which is absolutely awesome. I don't get to see them much these days because they're both in college and I confess I fail miserably at venturing too far from home. Six months ago I kept telling myself it's because I always had to work weekends seeing as how I was managing a restaurant. But even now that I have a normal 8-5 gig, I still haven't been up that way in ages. Instead my wonderful siblings took it upon themselves before school break was over to come and spend a weekend with their big stister (intentionally spelled that way).

Currently my Aurora sister is out and about with the Lowell sister and my someday stepdaughter. They should be home soon enough for dinner though because I let them know potatoes are on the stove boiling to soften for mashed. James took my brother and my other someday stepdaughter into town really quick for charcoal and when they return they will be preparing steaks on the grill. Gotta love 50 degrees in January! Lena is down the street at a birthday party that I will need to fetch her from here shortly.

It's been an awesome weekend so far filled with lots of siblings and this morning a mountain of waffles.

The first of three batches.

I'm Going To Stitch Her Lips

Lena has been hard at work the past several months crafting her art of sarcasm. Lately she's been hell bent on pointing out that I'm an almost middle ager.

As we were getting ready for school/work this morning she was holding Sam and called him a fluffy piece of meat and then proceeded to bury her face in his belly.

I made a joke about how it wasn't nice to want roasted cat for breakfast, in return she told me that she'd rather roast my hand. I told her I needed it to beat her with though (laughing all the while). Her response...

"I don't think you could even catch me mom... You are almost 30."

Consider her a dead child later when I have more time to properly tickle her to the brink of suffocation. Oops, sorry!

We Survived

So we made it through our final Christmas family get together. Surprisingly in one piece. It turned out much better than I had expected. My mom was in the house all of 5seconds when she "suggested" we move our cars down the street so that our "guests" had a place to park (i.e. her and my dad wanted the driveway). I was certain this was going to set the tone for the whole evening, see as how the entire week leading up to the event she had been rearraging my house, sending loads of crap down from her's, and basically telling me every step of the way what I needed to do because "she was no longer in charge of family get togethers." However, it turned out better than expected and there was no bloodshed whatsoever. I am incredibly grateful though that it's over and I won't have to deal with any of it for a few more months until the next holiday.

To Clean Or N....Nah!

I work for a midsize auto service business with seven locations and the first Thursday of every month we host a staff meeting for our sales people after we've closed. On this one day a month I do not have to be into work until 11am so for the next two hours I blissfully have the house all to myself.

The silence and the alone time is a welcomed as it is a rare treasure that hardly ever happens. For a few moments I did responsibly entertain the idea of cleaning up the house. In two days time I will be stuffing 15 family members into my tiny 800 square foot house to host the final Christmas get together. Yes, I know both Christmas and New Year's have come and gone, but there are seven children (myself included) on this particular side of the family and two of us are technically step-kids to one of the parents. Therefore we have other sides of the family that demand our holiday attention, not to mention that fact that four of us also have significant others with families of their very own that require some festive holiday consideration when scheduling yuletide joy into our calendars. Therefore we decided years ago that to even have a wisp of hope for enjoyment that we would host this small army sized gala on a day that everyone could attend without having to rush half comatose from one merry turkey to another.

I did, however, throw in a load of laundry for good measure...

Just Call Me Lorelai

My favorite quote of all time is as follows...

 

Thus far in my daughter's ten years on this earth I think I have done a damn good job of following this to the T.

 

I am the mom who sometimes wakes her up for school by turning up the stereo and jamming out dancing around like an idiot singing her favorite songs... Which of course elicits the response of "Mother!" Lena has become very skilled at the art of using that particular word sharply and as an insult. That is her equivalent of me using her middle name.

 

As a side note, one thing I have learned through this particular activity is that if your child plays a song over and over again until it makes you want to drill your eardrums out rather than hear it one more time, act like you love it and suddenly poof it immediately sinks to the bottom of the play list forevermore.

Despite my goofy antics however there still exists an amazing bond that could never be matched or replaced by anyone or anything... At least not until she hits those dreaded teenage years for now.

This blog is essentially life according to me. I fully admit that I'm sarcastic, opinionated, I drink entirely too much coffee, and I can be a royal pain in the ass. Yet, I am one of the most caring and giving individuals you will ever come across as well. I am blessed with, an amazing child who lights up my whole life,  a fantastic boyfriend, two awesome someday stepchildren, and not to mention an entire tribe of characters in my life that I call family. This my new dear friends, are our stories...