Welcome to the fabulous and sometimes insane life
of a working mother who is trying hard not to
let her whole existence be determined by her
cute little munchkins, yet continues to be drawn
in by the adorable and sometimes annoying tiny people!

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

These Boots are Made for...

So I am completely and totally addicted to www.polyvore.com It is like paper dolls for grownup girls! It is too much fun and I am quite sure I am wasting way too much time creating dream outfits. But I am thoroughly enjoying living in the dream world where I wear things like this!


My sister and I are even making a game out of it. We are going to pick one item that we both have to use and then see who can create the best outfit! We are thinking of it as a lot like Iron Chef America but with a great hat or a pair of red boots instead of lobster or pomegranates as the secret ingredients!

Monday, November 14, 2011

He Has Lost His Mind!

Last night I began the buying for Christmas. Now as someone who loves to shop, you would think this would be something I would enjoy. Alas, someone poisoned my happiness. This someone is the person who is always thinking about the funds. The someone who has created an Excel workbook including every small aspect of our family's financial life. The same someone who held off on proposing to me for 2 years (driving me to the point of insanity with guessing when he was going to pop the question) so that we could be "financially stable"!


Don't get me wrong! I appreciate him more than anyone, including himself, could ever know. Lord knows where we would be if I and my ADD self was in charge of our finances. I am quite sure our electricity would be frequently turned off and I would probably not be sitting here blogging because our Internet service bill would not have been paid. That being said, he is such a dadgum buzz killer when it comes to shopping!

I am pretty much in charge of the Christmas shopping. And when I say pretty much, I mean that I do it all with very little input from him. Yet, inevitably, he will have complaints about the amount of money that has been spent on Christmas. Of course, these complaints always seem to come after everything is wrapped and under the tree. And some have even come at the exact point that we are acting like little elves and helping "Uncle Bob" put out his gifts. At this point, we are tired, cranky, thinking about the long day ahead which will no doubt start extremely early, and trying our hardest to be quiet, and all his questioning does is cause me to slip into crazy psycho mode!


So in an effort to avoid the aforementioned drama, I decided to include him ahead of time. I mean its not fair that I am put in charge of making all of these decisions only to be scrutinized in the end like a tiny bug on the sidewalk being burned with the sun through a magnifying glass. He should have to be apart of these decisions, too!

Well...it did not go well. Everything I added to the list caused his jaw to start clinching and his breathing to speed up. Look its not my fault that our 7 year old is the only one we know without a Nintendo DSi and she asked for one. Its not my fault that the stupid things are $159 or that its cheaper to buy a bundle deal including the console, case, and 3 games for $189. Its not my fault that Santa (Uncle Bob) would never just bring her one thing.

I mean I did tell the girls about the e-mail I received from Santa asking if we would be willing to ask for only 3 gifts because due to the population explosion he was having difficulty getting gifts to all of the children in the world. Heck, 3 gifts was good enough for Jesus and that is all my children need,too. They were good with that. As long as one of those gifts is a Nintendo DSi.

So what is his solution to counteract the ridiculous amount of money we are having to spend on just one of our 3 children? We spend no money on the baby. Absolutely none! We go upstairs into the attic and pull clothes out of the 9 month box and wrap them up, and then find other toys that our children have forgotten about and put them out. That or go to the dollar section at Target, which I am quite sure does not contain items suitable for a 6 month old.

I swear he has lost his mind, and he is causing me to lose mine. Most wonderful time of the year....hmph... we'll see!

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Kicking It Up a Notch

With 5 weeks until we launch (see previous post), I feel the need to Kick It Up a Notch on the weight loss spectrum!

I have now lost over 15 pounds since I started on this weight loss trek at the end of August. The majority of it coming off in the last month, seeing as the first month was really more of a roller coaster ride of losing and gaining. It took me really getting serious and discovering Zumba for the pounds to start coming off and my body to start changing.

Now my arms are quite tone and have departed from the stage where my tricep flab shakes when I moving my arm. My stomach is actually hard in places, and I have depleted almost all of the cellulite on my thighs and bottom.

But there is still much to be done. Especially now that we have 35 days until we go on our cruise. On Tuesday, my dress arrived. When I say dress, it is with a tone of much reverence because it is the most expensive dress I have bought since getting married. It wasn't ridiculous but it was still much more than I would ever spend on an item of clothing.

I love it! It is sparkly and revealing and very, very sexy. It hugs all of my curves. My newly toned booty, my curvy tatas (which were bought just so ya know!), and my not so toned belly. The top part of my tummy is all tight and hard. However the baby making part appears to be resistant to all of the toning and crunching and slimming attempts. Plus it is causing the dress to lack about 1/2 an inch from zipping all the way up.

So after asking around, a friend of mine suggested getting a waist trimmer. It is a simple little device sold at your local Wal-Mart in the workout section. The one I bought was made by Gold's Gym. You warp it around your waist while you are working it out. It helps you remember to tighten your abs but most importantly it causes you to sweat out all of the water weight from that area.


I admit that I was skeptical. I mean come on how much difference can it make. I bought it Thursday afternoon and wore it during Zumba that night. When I was finished, I could feel the sweat pooling at my belly. It was so gross when I took it off. Sweat was dripping from me and the belt. I looked in the middle and it did in fact look flatter and when I weighed myself the next morning I had lost a pound in one day!

Since then I have used it every time I have worked out and my tummy continues to look more and more trim. Maybe this was the key to Kicking It Up a Notch. A belt and some serious carb and calorie watching and Zumba partying!

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Fashionably Four


I do up some birthday parties! I try not to go overboard but inevitably it happens anyway. It could be my obsessive personality that believes if you are going to do something you should go all out or go home.

Anyway, birthday parties have become a thorn in my husbands side. I plan and order and make and create and decorate for weeks before. He thinks I do to much and that it causes unnecessary stress. He just doesn't understand! Yes it is stressful, but I also love doing all of it.

This year we put on a Fashionably Four birthday party (I love alliterations!). It was perfect for my little DIVA!










We have a plethora of dress up clothes as does my sister-in-law who has two little girls. So we
set up a "dressing room" by lining every hangable item with dress up clothes.














In the living room, we set up stations. There was a station for getting your nails painted. There was a makeup station and a hair station. There was also a section for accessorizing, complete with boas, crowns, jewelry, and shoes.









After dressing and accessorizing, we had a fashion show complete with a runway that I made out of a folded up gymnastics math and covered with a black sheet. And the paparazzi went crazy over the new models we unleashed into the world.
















We even had fashionable cupcakes and fruit.




The whole party was relatively easy. The Dollar Tree provided cheap accessories and I got Fancy Nancy gift boxes from Celebrate Express.Everyone also took home a crown and boa so they could be fancy and fashionable away from the runway. It was so much fun!


Monday, November 7, 2011

Scrumptious Shrimp Pasta

2 lbs shrimp (I use frozen from Sam's and just thaw it out)
1 box of linguine
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
8 oz sour cream (I use fat free)
1 cup mayonnaise (I use fat free)
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
4 tablespoons sherry
1 cup shredded shredded cheese

Cook pasta following instruction on box. Place pasta in bottom of a 9x13 pan. Put shrimp on top of pasta. Mix everything but cheese in a bowl and pour over top of shrimp and spread it out. Cover with tinfoil and cook for 25 minutes at 350. Uncover and sprinkle cheese over top and back for another 5 minutes.

*Freezes well just prepare up to the point of putting in the oven and then cover and freeze.

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Stick a Needle in My Eye

So back in February I started seeing floaters in my left eye. At first, I wasn't really sure what they were. I thought that maybe there was dirt in my eye. Alas, that was not the case. My vision in my left eye began to deteriorate. Because I was pregnant, the doctors thought that maybe it was caused by the pregnancy.

After giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, my vision did not improve as it should have after all of the swelling receded. So I was sent to a specialist: one of the most renowned surgeons in the Southeast. And it turns out that I had a macular bulge, which is extremely rare for anyone under the age of 50.

So 6 weeks after giving birth, I went "under the knife" or the needle in this case and had surgery one my eye and enjoyed the best sleep I had had in 6 weeks (more if you count all of those sleepless nights before giving birth). However, it took a while to actually be able to see out of my eye again and even longer for the vision to return to somewhat normal.

The latest development occurred last week after I waited for over 2 hours in the waiting room. After waiting for so long, the doctor informed me that the drops I had been using since the surgery to reduce post-surgery swelling had not been working. The way to solve it: an injection into my EYEBALL!!! I about freaked out, but he assured me it would be no big deal. I beg to differ sticking a needle in my eye is a big deal (and not just when you break a promise).

But what was I to do? I agreed and really didn't feel anything. However, my eye started hurting and watering shortly after ruining a perfectly good trip to Target, and by the time I got home it was seriously scary looking. It was blood red. Not bloodshot, but it looked like blood had pooled in my eyeball.

Turns out he had nicked a blood vessel with the needle when he did the injection. It cause a hemorrhage in my eyeball, which is apparently just like a bruise. But you can see the blood because it is not covered by skin. It is supposed to go away in 2-3 weeks. In the mean time, I am stuck looking like a Halloween costume that hasn't been put up yet and should probably be on the 75% off rack. On a positive note, I am having a lot of fun freaking out my students.