Ack...the internet has been sporadic this weekend. She (why is it that when something gives us trouble we refer to it as female?) was down for the majority of Saturday, coming up for a short period, at which point I posted immediately for fear it would go down again. Today it was the same thing, except that it would come up from time to time, but right when I was ready to post or send an email, it ran back inside for a snack. Kind of like my kids.

I have to tell you people, I am tired today. In fact, there is a part of me that cannot wait to go to work tomorrow. Meelie was sick today, the "worshipping the porcelain god, tossing your cookies and I'm so miserable I don't want to be alone", type sick. Poor kid. It was your common variety bug that seems to have settled down now. I wasn't able to do any painting because I couldn't leave her alone. Not that she was deathly ill, but because she would call out for me whenever she couldn't see me. I went to the bathroom once and she started hollering for me, until I opened the door and screamed "I'M IN THE LIBRARY SWEETHEART!!"

On a side note, why is Daddy not good enough? The poor guy would come in to give me a little break (Quick! Let me go to the bathroom in peace and see if the internet is up!) and she would be asking him where I was the whole time.

I will say that if I have to watch one more epidsode of Sponge Bob Square Pants, Drake and Josh or Naked Brothers Band I will end up spending the day at work digging my eyeballs out with a paperclip.

We've pretty much finished up Chickie's room, with only a few minor details to take care of. Yes, it took us a while, but, we are both new to this, and we both work full time. Not only that, we need to taxi our children around to the various extracurricular activities. It makes it hard. We are slowly getting into a groove though, by deciding who does what. For example, I'll be doing most of the prepping for the rooms, and then painting. This is done after the carpets are ripped up, the carpet tacking is removed, and the floor is prepped. I paint, and then my husband follows up with the flooring. I'm sure most of you are asking why things are taking so long, but you just need to look above for your answers. We are new at this and learning as we go. We work full time and are busy taking our kids here and there. But it is getting better. By the time we are all done, I'm sure we will be pros.

Here are some of the things we have learned after doing the "first room."

1. If your room is small, empty it out of all the furniture. We didn't do that with Chickie's room and we paid for it. If you empty it out, there is a lot more room to move around and you don't have to shift the furniture around to accommodate. you


2. Two coats of paint, no matter what anyone tells you. One coat might look great for a day, but then some parts of the walls will soak up more paint and you are left with a lot of touch up work.


3. Masking: Take the time to do it right. It will save you quite a bit of time in the long run


4. Paint around the door casings first. Trust me on this one.


5. If you work in a shaded area, get work lights that go on stands.


6. Everything takes three times longer than they say on the home improvement shows. And if they say it's easy? Watch out.


7. Talk to the experts. If you have someone you know, or someone who lives near you, ask them for advice and what were some of the problems they ran in to.


8. Clean as you go. It takes some extra time, but clean up after every "job" you do. Get rid of the uneccesary tools. It makes a huge difference.

As we move forward, I'm sure we'll have many more tricks of the trade. We are learning, more by trial and error. It's all good. Once we are finished? I can honestly say I NEVER want to do this again.

Soon, we'll have some flooring tips up here so that you don't have to make the same mistakes we did.

Tonight, Meelie told me I sucked. I agreed with her. I do. Really big time. Just be thankful you don't have me as a mom. I would make you honor your commitments. For instance, for the sake of this post, let's just say you were a member of a Cheer Leading Team that had a major competition on December 1st. To sweeten the pot, we'll just say that you have ALL NEXT WEEK OFF from practice because school is out all next week for the Thanksgiving Holiday. And then? Your friend's parents offered to take you to dinner with them that same night that you had your last practice before break, before a major competition, and I said no. You can't go. You have to go to practice.

So you see? I suck. I'm mean. But I'm making sure my kids no what it means to honor commitments. And I won't back down. No matter how much it sucks. No matter how much I hurt.

I am finding it extremely difficult to come up with posts now that I am involved in NaBloPoMo. It's funny how when you have deadlines, and commitments everything becomes just that much harder. I've had to plan all of my days around posting so that I make time to actually post something, while not taking away from my responsibilities, or time from my family. Don't get me wrong. It's been a lot of fun, and I've met some incredibly bright and gifted writers. At the same time, I will be glad when it is all over, yet am not at all adverse to participating again next year.

There have been many times when I am surfing different blogs, that one or both of the girls sit next to me. They usually get bored after a while, but they have their favorite blogs that they love to read, almost on a daily basis. I'm starting early with all of them. After all, a family that blogs together, stays together....or something like that.

With that being said, Meelie told me that she wanted me to publish her story tonight. The topic is fairly obvious if you look at the subject. They are beginning to write "stories" using some of their vocabulary words (they will be underlined). She seems to have a fairly good grasp on some of the words that she used, some cause you to sit back and scratch your head. But that's ok. It's all about practice.

Without further ado, I give you "The Halloween Night" written by Meelie, and not changed one single iota by her mother.

Q: What kind of candy chuckles?
A: Laffy Taffy

Now you see what happens when I spend the afternoon, and part of the evening with a 9 year old girl who has one of those joke books. I listened to various groaners ALL.THROUGH.THE.GROCERY.STORE.

For instance:

Q: Why is your nose in the middle of your face?
A: Because it’s a “scenter.”

Get it? A "SCENTER". Bwahahahahahahahahaha!

Ok, I’ll stop now.

Tonight I’m preparing Zuppa Toscana for my husband’s potluck lunch at work which is tomorrow. Every month, they have a potluck lunch to celebrate all of the birthdays. He wanted me to prepare some kind of a soup or stew.

I know many of you are familiar with Olive Garden. We love it but rarely go because the closest one to us is about 45 miles away. This is one of my favorite soups. I've never made it before so I went hunting here and discovered two good recipes, which can be found here and here. There are some things I like about both recipes, so I'm going to combine the two of them (using what ingredients/measurements I like) and see what happens. One of the things I will do is replace all water with chicken broth to give it more of a robust flavor. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Right now I need to go get the kids in bed, then drag out the old reliable crockpot and have at it.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Somehow, that loses a lot of sincerity when a 9 year old says it and it's really, really, really hard not to laugh. If she only knew...

Speaking of missing part of your derriere (one can dream), we've been busy. It's going slower during the week because of working and all the parental taxi duties we find ourselves involved in, but it looks as though the floor in Chickie's room will be done (breath in) tonight (breath out). We are hoping to have the baseboards put back up, as well as all of the cover plates for the gazillion electrical outlets tonight. Tomorrow, I'll do some touch up in the painting department (this is where I drive my family crazy because I'm a perfectionist - don't say it Mom) and the curtains hung. My husband also has to do the T-molding for the transition from the floor to the carpet in the closet.

And then my darling readers, we move on to the hallway. But that is for a different post. I am praying that this will go faster. But we are getting there.

Right now? I need to go pick up Chickie from her performance at a PTA meeting and come back and help her work on her outline for a Social Science project. Other than that, I've got nothing to do. How about you?

Meelie has a Cheer Leading competition coming up on December 1st. They’ve been putting in quite a few hours practicing. One of the main reasons they are working so hard now is that they won’t be doing anything during the week of Thanksgiving. Today, since there was no school, they had practice from 9:00 am until 4:00 pm.

I really thought she was going to be wiped out when I went to pick her up on my way home from work. I got there a little early so I was able to watch them practice. This coach is really good. She works their tails off and is a major perfectionist. She makes them do things over and over again and isn’t afraid to yell at the kids when they aren’t listening or they mess up. Don’t get me wrong, she doesn’t yell just for the heck of it, or to embarrass the team, she always has a reason and she handles it well. You can tell the kids are ok with it, and even want to work harder.

When practice was through, Meelie came running up towards me, filled with energy and eyes that would light up a stadium. She had a blast. She said she wasn’t tired at all and wished it could have gone on longer. When I looked around the room, I noticed that all of the kids were like that. Practices like these are a fantastic way of helping the kids bond together as a team.

As she was getting her stuff together, another mom approached me and asked me if Meelie and I wanted to ride to the competition together. I was thrilled because it’s a 2 ½ hour drive, and it would be nice to go with someone else. We’ve been talking a lot during practices and such and have been building a friendship. Well, if I were truthful, she’s been trying harder on that end. I’m just not sure how to reciprocate. I really like her. Knowing another mom from the team will be great. Plus, she also said she is going to be talking to yet another person, to see if she and her kids want to go as well. So that would make TWO women, who are potential friends. We have kids about the same age, and are busy with all of the activities that go along with it. I’m thinking maybe this Cheer Leading thing may not be so bad after all. I just may learn how to make new friends and enjoy myself. I can hardly wait!

We’ve completed the painting in Chickie's room (except for some minor touch ups) and it turned out really well. We learned quite a bit in the process which will make the next area we tackle much easier. We finished up some necessary errands today, and then started on the flooring. I do most of the fetch and carry at this point, but mostly, I stay out of the way and let my husband figure out things.

It's going really slowly. I'm beginning to show signs of breaking down and screaming "FOR THE LOVE OF PAUL AND ALL THAT IS HOLY, WHY ARE YOU NOT DONE ALREADY?" To be fair, we've never done this on our own before, and my husband wants to do most of this himself. It's hit and miss at this point, and he is learning as he goes but it is driving me nuts. Funny me, I thought we would already be starting on our second bedroom by now. My how naive I was. This is the point where I give myself a stern lecture and convince my feeble mind that I need to back off already. This is a project that is well worth doing. We are new to it, and HELLO MOOGIE, Rome wasn't built in a day.

I know it will go faster with more experience. I understand the need for my husband to do this himself. And I am in total agreement with it. But Lord love a duck, it's been so hard for me to just let it go. So very, very hard. A neighbor, who has a lot of experience with all of this offered to come and help my but my darling, pointy headed husband declined, bless his heart. To be fair, when we hit the living room and dining room area, he and some others will help us do it as that is going to be a HUGE job.

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do and the woman just needs to let him do it already!

With that, I'm off to clean the kitchen from top to bottom because I need to do something that will be finished. I need to be honest here (even if my mind is vehemently disagreeing with me) and tell you that my husband is doing a wonderful job. What floor he has put in looks fabulous and I am proud of him for tackling this on his own so that in the future he will know what he is doing. Yes, it might be slow, but people, it's going to look so wonderful when it's done.

We are tackling Chickie's bedroom first. She doesn't realize it, but we are using that room as our experiment. It has been ages since my husband or I have painted, and we have never laid floors. My husband has helped with the flooring, so he knows what to do, so that is a bonus.

But people? The prep work nearly killed us. First, we ripped up the carpets. Then, we had to take the carpet strips up, which of course, left little indentations in the cement. Next, we removed the baseboards, and as we were doing so, we realized that before we put them back, we will need to sand and re-stain them. Not all that bad, but some added extra work we hadn't counted on. My husband patched up the holes in the wall as well as on the floor. In between times, there was much vacuuming to be done. But wait! We had to remove the blinds, and the rods, as well as all of the face plates. The masking came next (I HATE that part) and then we were ready to paint.

We covered what we needed with a drop cloth, and away we went. Chickie wanted to help paint, which was fine. She required very little tutelage before she got the hang of it. The dicey part came when Meelie wanted to help. Considering she is just nine years old, she didn't do too badly.

The two colors in Chickie's walls are Blue Heron and Duet Green (two walls each). We've finished off the blue, and now my husband and Chickie are doing the areas that require a small brush and they have kicked me out of the room. Which is totally understandable because there is not very much room left. I was kind of bummed though because I like to paint. Go figure.

We are all taking a bit of a break (they are done now) and when the blue dries, we will paint the remaining walls with green. The blue is beautiful! I'm looking forward to seeing what the green will turn out like. We decided to go with the really good quality paint, which, though more expensive, was worth every penny we paid. It's looking like we will only need one coat (original was contractor white). We'll check it in the morning to see how it looks, and make our decision then.

It's been a productive, yet slow moving day. It's hard when you are learning as you go. I'm guessing that the more experience we get under our belt, the easier it will be and it won't take nearly as long. The goal is to get the floor in tomorrow. I'm really hoping that goes as smoothly as the painting.

Now I'm going to kick back with the rest of the "workers" and in a little bit, work on the remaining walls.

If you knew me, you would know that I am not a person with the greenest of thumbs. The joke around here is that I could kill an artificial plant. A couple of weeks ago, I bought some kits for flowers (bulbs) at Lowes that contained everything I needed. I followed the directions closely, and two weeks later, this is what I have.

I set all of the bulbs in the corner of my sun room which has an unlimited supply of light. I planted them two weeks ago and the Amaryllis in the center is going crazy! The one on the left is a Paperwhite, and is just now showing some green. The one on the right is another Amaryllis (Apple Blossom) and it's coming right along.

The first shot I took of this flower was in the window but It really didn't show off the vibrant color. There is another bloom right behind it that you can't see yet but it hasn't opened up yet.

Since the color didn't come out all that great when I took it by the window, I moved the plant on to my office chair and the true color came out.

It's a great way to bring some spring time into your home, even when the weather doesn't feel that way outside. The problem I'm having is that I have no clue what to do when the bloom dies off. Any advice?

The Great Home Improvement Project (GHIP) will be moving forward this weekend. Please bow your heads and offer a moment of prayer. This is it folks. We have cleaned the garage. We have de-cluttered. We will continue to throw out and consolidate as we move from room to room. I am already tired thinking about it. But there is also a part of me that is so excited to finally be starting. I know that once we begin to see results, we will become motivated.

Or divorced. Time will tell.

We will be starting on Chickie's room, to warm up. We're trying to tackle one room at a time, at least for painting. What we are thinking of doing is to also add the flooring. Room by room, we'll move through the house. I'll most likely hold off on the decorating until the painting and flooring are complete. I can hardly wait.

In the initial discussions, I really wanted to hire this done. I am not one who copes well with a house during renovations. I need it to be done, and to be done right flaming now. It bothers me to have things up in the air, and I am known to have the patience of a gnat. On a good day.

I have to say that doing it room by room appeals greatly to me. The difficult part will be when we are working on the living/dining room area, and the kitchen. I do believe that if we can get a few rooms under our proverbial belts, it will help me cope.

Now, if there are any of you who would like to come and help, we have a place for you. Free room and board. And food. And alcoholic beverages...but those are for when we are done for the evening.

Carry on.

I was flipping radio stations on my way home from work yesterday, when I came across a station that was playing Christmas music. I listened for a while, thinking it was perhaps a joke, or they were just playing a song here and there to get everyone into the spirit. It turns out, that starting November 1st, this station plays nothing but Christmas music, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. It is only November 7th. We haven't even had Thanksgiving yet. Gag.

Look, I enjoy the holiday tunes, just as much as the next person, but HELLO? Are we not starting things a bit early? The stores are already stocked for Christmas, and we just finished up with Halloween. It seems as though each year, we start earlier and earlier. If we keep going at this rate, we will have it all year round.

I always start getting uptight during this time of year. I think it's mostly because I think too much about all I have to do. The gifts, the parties, and all of the kids extracurricular activities drive me bat crazy. I've made a vow to myself to try to minimize my stress level by writing down all the things I need to do, and prioritizing them. I figure this way, I'll give myself tasks to complete throughout the season, which will help me keep my shoes on, and prevent myself from wadding up my panties in a ball.

First off, my goal is to have all of my Christmas cards complete by Thanksgiving. This means of course, that I actually have to go out and purchase some before hand. My list isn't long, so that shouldn't be too difficult to do. I think I'll be able to reach my goal if I just stick to writing out a few of them a day.

Back in the day, when I was single, I had a roommate that finished all of her Christmas shopping by Halloween. This included the wrapping. Secretly, I hated her guts. Not all of her guts, just the really organized, anal guts. The rest of her was fine. I'm going to shoot for being complete with all of my shopping (except for the last minute, unexpected things) by the end of November. I'm already gathering ideas for the kids who are becoming increasingly harder to buy for. I'm not sure I'll make it, but I'm going to give it a try and see what happens.

I've also started writing everything down in my calendar which has its good and bad points. Good because I'm aware of everything that needs to be done, but bad, because, well, I'm aware of everything that needs to be done, which causes me to spontaneously combust. Pink wine helps.

These are my goals for the remainder of the year. What about you? How do you prepare for the holidays?

Lastly, would you like to share some of my wine? I have some cheese and crackers to go with it.

I need to share a funny story with you. A few days ago, I read this post and it really made me laugh. Here's why.

About a year before the dates for Daylight Savings Time changed, we bought some new clock radios that automatically followed the "spring forward-fall back" routine that we all know and love. It was fantastic because you just didn't have to think about it. It was wonderful. I just wish all of my other clocks were like that. Well I used to wish that anyway.

When we went to Daylight Savings time this year (remember the change-it's important) I really didn't think much of it, but remembered to set the clocks because I knew they were not going to automatically change because we started early. Everything was fine, until.....

On a Monday morning, my alarm went off at 4:30 per usual. I got up, got ready and headed out the door. I need to say that I'm not at my most observant that early in the morning. As I drove to work, I was amazed at how light the traffic was. It's not all that bad in general, but I hardly saw any cars on my way in. When I got to the parking lot, it was really empty. I didn't think much about it until I walked in the door. I think I was about the 2nd person in the building about then, and all of a sudden it hit me. This would have been the weekend that the clocks normally would have changed. Can you see where this is going?

When I took a look at the clock in my office, it said 5:00. Our clocks had "sprung forward" automatically, just as they had been programmed to do. Even though I had remembered to make adjustments when the actual time change had occurred, I had forgotten to take into account the fact that they were still programmed to change at the normal time. I was an hour early.

I found out later in the day that the other person in the building had the same thing happen to her. We still laugh about it today. She called me Sunday night to make sure I had adjusted my clock to the correct time.

Needless to say, I don't think I'll be doing that again any time soon.

Everyone who has ever discovered a cup that had, at one point contained milk in it, AND was a few days old, please raise your hand. I really hate rinsing those out, don't you? I remember finding bottles and sippy cups hidden behind the couch or wherever, day/months later, and just throwing them out. Now that my kids are older, and they can walk, and occasionally think for themselves (though that's debatable), why is it that they cannot carry their cups into the kitchen and rinse them out?

The sad thing is, it doesn't stop there. Why are there food wrappers left on the floor, in the couch or under the couch? I am constantly finding apple cores and orange and banana peels left everywhere. Can you tell me what's with the empty gallon of milk that is sitting on the shelf in the refrigerator? Or the empty cracker boxes or cookie containers that are in the pantry? I could go on but I'm starting to hyperventilate.

Is it just my kids, or does anyone else have this problem? Do you have any tips on how to STOP THE MADNESS?

I climbed in my car this morning to head on off to get my ears lowered and noticed that the inside of my car had the distinct smell of french fries. I took a quick look around and found out why. Inside my console, someone had dropped dumped some of these and apparently, they were too lazy did not have the time to pick them up. Since I was running a little late, I didn't have time to pick them up myself, so I essentially ran errands this morning with "Ode De La French Fry" scent assaulting my nostrils. I am still smelling it now.

After all of my errands were finished, I headed on over to Sonny's to meet my husband for lunch. I was able to secure a parking spot near the front, despite the fact that it was filling up pretty fast. I did attempt to save a parking space for my husband, but the lady in the Hummer was not having any of that. I narrowly escaped with my life, and it was only my quick thinking that enabled me to dodge a huge bumper, and land on top of a Jaguar's hood. It's a rough life here in Redneck country.

Once I climbed off of the hood, I headed towards the front door and noticed that there was this SUV taking up two spaces. During lunch hour. In a parking lot that is not big enough to begin with. Am I the only one or does this annoy anyone else? To be fair, I guess you could say that the driver of the SUV was a really bad parker, but I'm thinking not. In spite of it all, I enjoyed my lunch and I would imagine it had something to do with the company. And I'm not just saying that to butter my husband up. Honest. It has nothing to do with the fact that we need to do a little bit of work around the house before we start painting. I would never stoop so low.

"It was a dark and stormy night."

"Retreat Hell! We just got here!"

"Come on! You apes want to live forever?"

"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn."

"You'll never take me alive, Coppers."

(extra points for those readers who can guess where those quotes came from)

So many topics. They run through my head all day, and then when I sit down to write about them, they promptly disappear. I have 30 days in which I will be posting each and every day. Some tell me I have issues, and use such words as "Raving Lunatic" and "One nugget shy of a Happy Meal." I cannot argue with that. Personally, I love "One sandwich short of a picnic basket" but I'm not picky.

On with the show.

Note: Today marks the beginning of National Blog Posting Month. I've written about it here, and you can come and visit me here. As an added EXTRA bonus, I have posted a picture of my husband's legs. I could (and do!) just stare at those all day. If that doesn't excite you, you are dead to me.. But hey, that's just me. Go on. Give him a shout out! He has a big Honey Do list this weekend and I need all the help I can get.

Goodness this is getting long, and I haven't written anything yet.

I was driving the girls to various extra curricular activities tonight, and we were doing our usual "let's everyone talk at once" routine All of a sudden, this pick-up truck pulls into traffic, right in front of me, and proceeds to move along at about 10 miles an hour.

Me: Hello?
Princess S (friend of Chickie's, another dancer): Hello!
Me: I wasn't talking to you sweetie.
Princess S: OK
Chickie: What's wrong?
Me: Thinking: DUDE, there is a reason that the sign says 45 mph. I am running late And you are in my WAY. Saying: Oh nothing, I think the person must be confused.

We pass "the person".

Chickie: Oh, he is old, so that explains it.
Meelie: And he's from Indiana (sorry Mom and Dad).
Chickie: Well, at least you are not behind him on the freeway.
Meelie: Stupid foreigners.

Guess what November is? It's National Blog Posting Month! This fantastic idea was the brain child of this remarkable woman. All you need to do is post once a day in November, including weekends. Sounds simple right? Ok, maybe not but I'm up for a good challenge and what's 30 days anyway?

Here's all you have to do:

1. Go to the homepage, and become a member of the community.
2. Head on over to the official blogroll and add yourself.
3. Take the time to peruse the many groups and join the one's that interest you. You'd be amazed at the friends you can make.
4. Starting November 1st, get those fingers moving. Once a day, that's all they ask.
5. Thanks to a heads up from this woman, I went ahead and ordered a copy of this book.

That's not so hard is it? What are you waiting for? Come on over and get signed up for all the fun!

Hang on during the month of November blogworld. Keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times. November is going to be a bumpy ride!