THUMP!

Happy Saturday!

I spent the first half of my day cleaning.
I cleaned the bathroom,
living room,
kitchen...even washed the floor,
did some laundry,
all that fun stuff.

Guess what.

You'd never know it by looking at my house now.

I find it depressing!
It makes me wonder why I even attempt to clean, since I know it will be messy within a few hours, hell sometimes even minutes.

Yet I still do it.
I clean.
Like it or not.
I'm always worried someone will come over,
and see the normal mess...
Which is what they see anyways usually, because like I said, minutes after I clean
its messy again.

I heard a quote ages ago, that totally rings true.
"Cleaning the house while the children are still growing, is like shoveling snow before it stops snowing."
So if you visit my house...
and see a huge mess...
please remember that quote.
Thanks. :)

This evening as I was cooking dinner, my daughter Kelsey snuck into the kitchen.
I didn't hear her come in.
I was concentrating on the food I was making.
I turned around, and there she was in my face saying "BOO!"
Scared the shit out of me.
I made an awkward noise and smacked her.
That'll teach her for scaring me :)
She totally got me....The brat.

So then, after having the shit scared out of me, I go to leave the kitchen.
I'm walking on out, normally, wearing my slippers...then it happened.
THUMP!!
I was on the floor.
My darling other daughter Jilly Bean, was doing some crafting things today in the kitchen.
She left a piece of tulle on the floor.
If you don't know what tulle is, its a thin piece of like netting fabric...
I didn't have the kitchen light on, so I didn't see it on the floor...Plus, I wasn't looking, I was just walking...
Once my foot hit that tulle, my ass hit the floor.
I wish I had a camera rolling as it happened to catch the look on my face.
As I was going down I kept thinking, WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON!
The THUMP I made was funny.
As I bet the look on my face was.
What wasn't so funny was the pain of hitting the floor... and the pain I feel now...
It kinda feels like I've been hit by a truck.
But still...at the time...it was FUNNY.
I was laughing and crying at the same time.
The girls laughed at me too. (Meanies!)
I couldn't stop laughing!
Laughed for about 5 minutes.
Once I got my fat ass off the floor (still laughing), I had to stand in one place with my legs crossed to keep from pissing myself. After 4 kids the pee control isn't what it used to be LOL.
But rest assured, I managed to keep dry. :) I know, you were worried.
Did you hear the big THUMP all the way where you live?
Or all the laughter?

I know one thing...
I'm not laughing now...I'm hurting. Its going to be an Advil night.

Tonight Kelsey painted my nails for me.
She did a weird, yet cool design on them, 2 colors.
She plans to go to cosmetology school after graduation...so she is practicing that kind of stuff now.
I'm not complaining, I enjoy getting my nails done.
Now...if only I could get her to practice massages and facials... :)

The 3 girls played hide & seek in the house tonight too. I love listening and watching that.
Bree counts super fast. When she hides she constantly giggles giving herself away.
Sometimes if the seeker says "hmmm where is Bree?"
Bree will reply, "HERE I AM!" and give herself away...she has a lot to learn...
Jilly asked where to hide once and I gave her a good idea, it took Kels a long time to find her.
Then I had to give Kels an idea...which is harder because she is bigger and harder to hide!
I told her to put on dark pants, put on a coat, and stand quietly in the coat closet.
So it would look like a coat hanging up basically.
It was a great idea in my opinion.
Unfortunately, Kels started to giggle as Jilly was looking for her and Jilly caught on.

That is how my Saturday went. How was yours?

Tomorrow I'm taking the girls over to my mom's neck of the woods to trick or treat.
Of course Bree & Jilly are super excited.
Kels might dress up to go with them, but I don't want her trick or treating, she is to old for that.
If she dresses up she might go as a frazzled mom, pjs, robe, messy hair, face cream on, and a kid (doll) strapped to her leg. My friend Dazee gave me that idea :)

Here is a peek at what my girls looked like on Friday when they went to the trick or treat downtown event here. Jilly was an Indian princess wearing a sari (her idea), and Bree was Cinderella.

Friday Freak! Be afraid, VERY AFRAID!

TGIF?
Sorta.
More like FF.
FRIDAY FREAK!
My friend Dazee wanted to do a fun link up,
of course I agreed to join along...
Because I'm nice like that.
And because I wanna scare the crap out of you.


Are you ready?
Are you wearing a depends?
Do you have a barf bag handy?
ARE YOU SURE??
.

.

.

.
Don't say I didn't warn you....

ok, one more time...
Are you ready and prepared to see something really really freaky, and gross??
.

.

.

.

.
Ok ok ok...Here it goes.
.

.

.

.

.
BEDHEAD!

Don't I look Booooooootiful when I wake up?

Do you have a bedhead picture of yourself?

Don't be chicken....

Go to Dazee's and link up and show it off.

Now, go wipe the barf off yourself and change your depends.

I'll wait.

lalalalalaladedededededodododolalalalala

Ok.

Cleaned up now?

QOTD: What were some of your favorite Halloween costumes?

Have a fun & safe Halloween weekend.

Make sure your tricks are not naughty ones...although, maybe you get better treats if they are...

hmmm....

Toodles!

Holy Hurricane!

This morning I was woken up at 5:50 a.m. because of a phone call. After I hung up the phone, I heard the sound of the winds whipping outside. I got up to look out and holy cow, it was like a hurricane! The rain was blowing sideways, trees were blowing like crazy, stuff was flying by...wow. I wish it wasn't dark so I could have gotten a better look, what I saw was all out by the light in the alley behind our home. I laid back into bed, and just listened for a while. The power went out 3 times in 15 minutes while I was in the bed. Finally the winds eased up a little bit, but were still super strong. I decided it was time to get up and shower, in case it got worse and took the power out for a long period of time.

On the way to the girls schools I saw a lot of trees and limbs down. One limb was in the middle of the road right around the corner from our house. I had to squeeze by the side of it, Kels got a little nervous. The girls made it to school ok. Thankfully the wind wasn't as bad as when I got up, if it was, Jilly would have blown away!

A few hours later I decided to go out with the camera and take a few pictures, of course I'm going to show them to you :)


Cool huh?

It's not looking to bad out right now, but I hear we are supposed to have winds continue through tomorrow sometime. There will be a lot of clean up in town this week I think. Thank God this didn't happen on Halloween!

I feel like I got a taste of what those in Hurricane regions go through. I'm glad I'm not in those areas. My taste was enough.

QOTD: Have you ever had home damage due to high winds?

Toodles!

Spirit

I've got spirit,

Yes I do

I've got spirit,

How about YOU?

ARE YOU WEARING PURPLE TODAY?

If you are not, you should.

"On October 20th, 2010, we will wear purple in honor of the 6 gay boys who
committed suicide in recent weeks/months due to homophobic abuse in their homes
and at their schools. Purple represents Spirit on the LGBTQ flag and that’s
exactly what we’d like all of you to have with you: spirit."

As the mom of a gay son, I am wearing purple for sure today, showing my support.

You know, we don't all have to agree with their choice.

Maybe it goes against your beliefs.

Maybe it grosses you out.

Maybe you are against homosexuality for a number of other reasons...

But you know what?

Just because we don't agree, doesn't mean we need to bully these people, and make their lives hell.

We can agree to disagree.

Live and let live. To each their own.

Lets have some peace in this world.

STOP BULLYING!

Play nice people!

No one should be made to feel so horrible about their life choices that they think they can not live any longer.

Suicide is bad for everyone.

Lets stop the madness.

What are you waiting for? Get on your purple.

Bullying hurts.

Suicide kills.

Peace.

Toodles...

Weekend...in pictures.

This weekend I took the girls to Sannauk Forest Preserve for photos. Jilly wasn't going to do it, so there not as many of her...but I did manage to get a few out of her. We also did pumpkins and leave raking...and well...I took a ton of pics over the weekend. Like over 800... I'd love to show you them ALL, but we'd be here all day LOL....so I put a bunch into collages to show you that way. Enjoy!




























Talk about picture overload...

Toodles!

Friends

Yay for friends! I have some. Not to many, but a few good ones...good ones are the best kind :)

I have my friend Amy from High School, she & I remain friends, we go in spurts of communication though. Sometimes we talk a lot, sometimes its a few years between talking. Now that she is going to be active on facebook maybe we'll get back in the swing of keeping up more. I've mentioned Amy here before, if you remember, I made her wedding cake when I was pregnant with Bree...and the cake collapsed on the way to the wedding...and I cried. I have a picture of it here. Things worked out ok though, we ended up salvaging the cake by just making pieces of it and plating it to serve that way...bad thing was no one got to see the pretty cake before the disaster.

I have Cindy, who I met several years ago through a caring-bridge site that we both visited. She ended up sending me a comment because she realized I lived nearby, and we've been friends since.


I have my close mommy friends on my Dec. 07 mommy group forum too. Two of those moms I am really close to. They are Tammy & Kami. Tammy is in Canada, Kami is in California. We talk daily on skype. We would love to get together some day....if only one of us can win the lottery :)

A while back I met a blogger named Mindi. She is awesome and very sweet. She has a great blog, I can't link you to it though, because it is private. She & I got pretty close, but she has been pretty busy lately so we haven't talked as much, I miss her.

Mindi introduced me to her mom. She'd tell me often that I reminded her of her mom, which I wasn't sure if it was good or bad LOL. Come to find out its good. Her mom & I have become very good friends via the Internet. Dazee (aka Donna), and I first started by following each others blogs. Then we started shooting off an occasional email back and forth. Now we talk on skype daily! Donna is a hoot. She & I are a lot alike in many ways, but we also have differences on things too, which makes a great friendship. We both like McD's coke, and frappes, we both drink coconut creamer in our coffee, we both swear (yeah I know, not very ladylike lol but that is the way we are!), we both have a crazy odd sense of humor,we just hit it off really well. I hope some day we can meet up. Right now we are pretty far apart, me here in IL, she in UT. We will have crazy fun when we finally get together.

I wish I had my friends close-by so we could hang out instead of hanging out talking through a keyboard and computer screen. I am very grateful for my great friends...even if they are far away.

I made this for my friends...Feel free to pass it on if you want. Hugs to my girl friends!

Toodles!

Date-anniversary

October 19th, 4 yrs ago, Bill & I had our first date. We had talked online and on the phone, previously, but on the 19th, we finally got to meet in person.

I had to work that morning, and was anxious to get the heck out of there. Once I did, I ran home to freshen up, and went to our meeting place.

This is where we met. Sannauk Forest Preserve. Its just about a mile from where I was living. Isn't it pretty in the fall? This picture I took over the weekend, since I was there with the girls.

Bill was there waiting for me to arrive. He had this big ass grin on his face when he got out of his truck, I thought it was cute. We greeted each other, and decided to talk a walk around the area.

It was a brisk but sunny day. I just had on a thin sweater, and I was a tad chilly. Bill asked if he could hold my hand as we walked, I said yes. Frequently he asked to switch sides, I asked him why, he said he was trying to make sure both my hands were able to get warm. How sweet :)

After our walk, it was time to leave, I had to get home before the kids arrived. We went to his truck to talk for a few minutes first. When he opened his door, waiting for me in his truck was a dozen pink roses, my favorite! He definitely won me over that day.

That was the beginning of our love. We had a fast courtship, met in Oct. engaged by Dec., married in Feb...we were busy ;) When you know, you just know...

We've been together ever since. We've had good times and bad. He drives me totally insane sometimes, and I do the same to him...but, we remain together :)

Happy Date Anniversary Bill. I love you.

QOTD: Do you remember your first date with your spouse/significant other?

Toodles!

Change of Season Change of Blog

Hello! I'm in a fall mood, so I'm making my blog look a little more fall-ish as well...still doing some tweaking...Hopefully it looks decent when I'm done...

*Update: UGH! Struggling to size the header right. I got it just about the size I needed it but the closer I got to the right size, the more blurry it made my picture. Not sure what the deal is.. I'll have to deal with it more tomorrow I'm beat now and want to go to bed.

*quick question...white background or colored?

Toodles for now...

Show Me Saturday! Fall!

Howdy everyone! It is Saturday...and since its been like forever since I did a Show Me Saturday (SMS) post, I thought I would get on the ball and do one today. HOPEFULLY someone will link up...hopefully a lot of someones lol but that is probably just wishful thinking...

The theme today is FALL. Now you can take the FALL theme and use it how you want, fall to me means the season fall...but well if you have a picture of someone falling that floats your boat that would work too! Whatever you think of for Fall go for it. So, SMS means to show me, so show me your fall pics in your post, and link up.


If you would like to participate please follow these simple rules:

1. Blog about the topic with pics, after all its SHOW ME Saturday.
2. In your blog post, please include my Renee's Ramblings button and link back to me (you can grab my button over on the side, just highlight the code, hit control & C to copy, then paste into your blog post.) Easy.
3. Come back here and add your URL to the linky below.

Last week while sitting at my moms, doing our garage sale that no one came to, I had a lot of free time...So, I took pictures of the leaves, since the leaves are so pretty now at moms. Here are some of my favorites:























I showed you mine, now you show me yours ;) Then LINK UP below!

Happy Saturday!

QOTD: Do you do the raking of the leaves at your house?

Toodles!

Amazing

Today I didn't get anything accomplished.

I spent my day watching CNN Live online.

Never thought I'd spend an entire day watching anything on CNN. I'm not a news junkie like my mom (sorry mom!).

It started last night really.

I got on CNN Live online to watch them make the first rescue of a Chilean miner.

When he came up, and his boy hugged him, I cried like a baby...

I wanted to stay up and watch more, but I was exhausted from crappy sleepless nights lately so I went to bed.

This morning I turned it back on and I've been glued to it most of the day.

I wasn't alone...I was chatting with my friend Dazee on Skype all day and we watched together, and cried together.

It was amazing watching each one head up, and get out, and the reunions with their family.

Some of the miners (well one...) has some controversy to him, apparently he had an affair, and his wife AND mistress met at the rescue site. Talk about awkward!

The reunions with children involved made me cry each and every time today. One especially, a 11 yr old sister to one of the miners...she stood waiting and waiting, trying so hard not to cry before he even got out. You could see her chin quivering. Once she hugged him it all let loose. So sweet.

While my house is a mess, I think it was worth it, to view this. These miners are getting a new lease on life. History was made with their rescues.

I was amazed watching today, that their president was there almost the whole time, greeting the miners as they came out. That makes an awesome president in my book. Other countries presidents should take notice and learn something...be there for your people.

Kudos go out to all the rescuers, who put in so many hours, and risked their lives to make sure these men got to safety to be with their family again. Well done.

I bet it will be kinda freaky for the very last rescuer to come up...being down there totally alone for a bit...make sure you turn off the lights dude :)

QOTD: Did you watch any of the rescues?

Toodles!

Discovery

I made a discovery this last week, and its something I'm not happy about....and its probably TMI... But, I'm going to talk about it anyways.

Ready?

My arm pits stink.

Gross!

Weird thing is, they never have before! I know you are saying "surrrrreeeee, your armpits never stunk, yeah right". I'm totally serious. I've always used deodorant, and never had any problems. In fact, my son for some odd reason smelled them one day and commented that they didn't stink, they smelled kind of sweet like Cookie Crisp cereal (LOL). My pits always smelled kinda sweet and not stinky...until this last week or so.

I'm assuming its my switch in deodorant brands, I opted to get a cheaper one last time, and I'm thinking I made a bad decision! Next time I go shopping I'm getting one of my old kinds, hopefully I'll go back to sweet smelling pits :)

Bree likes to cuddle under my arm, I don't want her smelling like stink pits! Poor kid. I want my sweet pits back :)

Aren't you glad you read this post? Hehe

Toodles!

Dancing With The Stars

Who watches this show besides me? While I'm not thrilled with the casting this season, I still watch it. Derek & Jennifer are my favorites this season. Derek is HOT, sizzling HOT...and he & Jennifer dance great together. I actually called and voted last night, something I normally don't do until the end.

There was some comedy on the show last night. The video of Corky Ballas & Florence Henderson rehearsing was great! They had Florence's daughter, and Mark Ballas (a pro on the show, who is also Corky's son) watching to tell them if their dance moves were appropriate or NOT appropriate, they would hold up a sign to show their feelings...OMG it was funny, I was laughing out loud. Mark's laugh at his dad was great. It is nice to have some comedy in with the show.

I love Mark Ballas, but I really hope his partner Bristol is sent home tonight...Sorry Mark.

I'm enjoying Kyle Massey's dancing, and so is Jillian, she voted for him last night using my cell phone. He has youngness to him, and he is entertaining.

Tell me what you think of this season so far :)

QOTD: Did you have a good nights sleep last night?

Toodles!

Fall Fun

While at my mom's house today for the garage sale, Jilly & Bree raked a little pile of leaves.

Many giggles were had in that little pile of leaves.

The leaves were falling from the trees, and the girls were scooping them up and throwing them at each other.

Jilly buried Bree in the leaves.

I love the colors of the trees at my mom's house.








Toodles!

Signage

I had to make signs for our garage sale this week. I wanted something cool, that would grab peoples attention.

I had a good fun idea, I thought anyways...But Kels said it wouldn't be a good idea...

I wanted to make a drawing of a butt. Then put next to it, "Help us clear out the junk in our trunk, attic, and basement, come to our garage sale!" I think it would have been awesome.

Instead I made these signs:


I thought they were kinda cute...I had a lady comment on them today. She asked who made the cute signs.

To bad the signs didn't bring in a bunch of customers...it was totally dead today, so disappointing. Garage sales are a ton of work, and to not have crap for sales...well...its depressing!

We planned on doing a one day sale, but now we are going to do it tomorrow too, to see if we have better luck and better sales. Cross your fingers for me!

Toodles!

Glass Galore

I like meatloaf. I make it frequently. I make it in the same way, in the same glass baking dish, each time.

That will no longer be an option.

Why?

Because. Because when I made it yesterday, the same way as always, something happened. Something that about made me piss myself.

You see, I had taken the meatloaf out, drained some of the grease off, set it on the top of the stove, as always. Then I went to mix the ketchup and brown sugar mixture that I spoon on top then bake on for a bit. As I was mixing it, all the sudden, KABOOM! I turned around to find glass shards EVERYWHERE. The glass pan just shattered, blew up. Not sure why. I am sure it scared the crap out of me.

I'm thankful no one was in the kitchen with me. It could have really hurt someone.

What a mess to clean up...glass was everywhere. I ended up with some in my thumb. Ouch. I did get it out though with some tweezers, but zowies it hurt.



One piece landed in a candle that was on the counter, it melted the candle and got embedded into it. Kinda cool...if flying hot glass can be cool.

The glass seemed to all fly away from the meatloaf. I checked it really close, since Bill wouldn't let me pitch it, God forbid we waste anything...but I sure couldn't enjoy it like I normally do, I was worried I'd bite into a piece of glass at any second....

QOTD: Have you ever had a glass baking dish shatter?

Toodles!

Sweetness

I'll post more in a bit, just wanted to do a quickie for now....

Bree can be such a sweety. Tonight I'm exhausted from garage sale hell. I told Bree I was super tired.

Bree said, "Mommy,you can lay your head down on my arm and sleep."

I did what she said, I laid my head down, closed my eyes and pretended to snore.

Bree softly kissed my head and whispered, "Good night mommy, sleep tight."

Awwww.

Mad about Moo

Moo is our dog. She was originally named Jasmine, but she looks like a cow, so she got nicknamed Moo...and it has stuck.

I'm not overly fond of Moo. In fact, lately, I'm really not liking her much.

Several times a week Moo is mean to me, and it makes me mad. I let her out before I go to bed to do her business, then I put her in her cage for the night. Seems like she has sleep radar, and if I start to doze off, she starts whining and barking to go out and pee again. Some nights she'll only wake me once or twice. Some nights it is out of control...like last night. Seems like every 5 minutes she was barking to go out again. By 12:15, 2 hrs past the time I tried to go to bed, and after about 10 trips outside with her, I had had enough. I gave her a small portion of one of her tranquilizers. I guess that is bad of me isn't it? I just couldn't take it anymore. I was already exhausted from the night before and so looking forward to sleeping, then she postponed that for me, I was so tired. I need Bree & Moo to cooperate, and let me sleep a few nights uninterrupted, I need it so bad, I'm sick of feeling tired all the time.

While I'm mad at Moo, Bree is mad about Moo... She seems to enjoy talking to Moo a lot lately, sneaking treats to her, laying by her cage, and giving her hugs & kisses as well.

Here are some cute pics of Bree & Moo doing hugs & kisses this afternoon



QOTD: Do you have/go to garage sales often?

Toodles

Busy & Lazy :)

Busy & Lazy. Those are my excuses for being a blog slacker.

As you know, if you read my blog, I've been busy with cookies & such. Then I had a messy disaster of a house to clean, for it all got put off while I did cookies.

Then I had a case of being lazy. I didn't feel like doing anything, and blogging was included. I've been tired, and cranky. The neighbors dogs have kept me awake until around midnight a few nights, along with Bree's wakings and my own dog needing to go out. I would really love to have a few nights of uninterrupted sleep.

Next it was busy again...spent most of yesterday out at my moms. She & I are having a garage sale at her house on Friday, so there was a lot of pricing...and repricing, since Bree kept taking the dang stickers off! I still have a few more boxes of stuff to price that is down in my basement yet, and I have tables to get hauled over there too. Thursday I go back to set everything up, and Friday morning will be sale time. Fun fun. Not. Garage sales are so much work! I hope everything sells, so I don't have to find a place to send it too. I sure as hell am not bring it back home.

Well pooh, there was more I was going to tell you all, but after having a bunch of interruptions I don't remember what it was! LOL I'm getting so old.

QOTD: What do you like to eat on a cool fall day?

Toodles!

P.S. Here are a few pics of some of the cookies I made last week: