For me?

This took so much longer to compose then I ever thought it would.

I have been honored to receive a blog award. Thanks Audrey! She is an incredible writer that is sharing her journey with us about her fight with stage 3 cervical cancer. A battle she will conquer and then write a fabulous book for other people facing the same scary journey!

This award is not free, I actually have to share some personal facts with my readers? Do I still have any readers? I have not blogged regularly enough lately, I may have lost all of them...please don't leave. I will do better, I promise!

Okay. 10 Things You May Not Know About Me:

1. My computer is a Mac! LOVE IT!
   
2. The first time I pierced my nose was in the parking lot of a Grateful Dead show in 1994. I think he was stoned. Sometimes I still wonder why it got infected. :)
3. I was once a best man in my best friends wedding. Yup! The bachelor party pretty much sucked!
4. My first car was a 1972 Chevy Nova my parents bought it because they thought it would keep me safe. The irony is I ended up hitching rides with so many strangers because it was always leaving me stranded late at night! It was a total P.O.S!
   
5. I might have a wee bit of a crush on John Stewart from the Daily Show.
6. I cannot seem to fall asleep without the TV on, terrible I Know! Frequently it is the fella from the previous item that I fall asleep watching.
   
7. I hate sleeping in hotels, to many Dateline episodes I guess.
8. When I was 19 my best friend/room mate and I found a tattoo parlor in the phone book and went for tattoos on sudden whim. I find it interesting how many tattoo parlors are closed on Sundays...I think it is less about the day of the Lord and more about the Saturday night sleep off. Ask me if I would get the same tattoo again... Nope! I tell that to my kids a lot. Hopefully they will learn from my error. I love tattoos---just not my tattoo.
   
9. I have had the same Cell phone number since I was 22 years old--16 years.
   
10. My children are obsessed with how many blog followers I have. If I have befriended others. If I will post things or not post things. They did a big happy dance recently when one of my favorite blogs I read, became one of my followers as well. I think partly because they get a huge kick out of the picture on her header...check her out -- She is awesome, but we just call her Sticky.
    

I am passing this all on to --->

Marci from Marci's Musings

Sticky from Not too sticky

The Good Cook

Right on Mom

Talking Trash

Jan from Jan's Place

Airing my Dirty Laundry, One Sock at a Time

Amy Kate from Little House On the Quarry

To my above mentions do not feel pressured to do anything. If you want just post the little picture on your blog somewhere and pat yourself on your back feel free. Just know that I think you ROCK!

I would like to offer this award to any new bloggers that have not gotten an award for your sidebar. Have at it baby, it is yours...let me know so I can come read your 10 things!

Girls night out blog hopping...

Wow, is it Friday already? I would say thank goodness but I have had the whole week off so every day has been laid back. It was an unplanned vacation, one of the problems with going to a strictly on call schedule...sometimes nobody calls. Looks like next week should be a little better, yeah for the paycheck!

Happy Girls Night out, I am going to be participating later tonight. All this talk at Ann's working out fired me up to head to the gym for a couple hours. Then I will come home and promptly blow the work out by drinking one of these...

A Dirty Mama
After all it is Mothers Day weekend

• 1 jigger Brandy
• fill glass Half-and-half
• 1 jigger Kahlua
• 1 jigger Vodka

Virtual calories add up to nothing right? Good thing, because according to supercocktails this little baby packs a mighty 420 calorie punch...ouch!

Who know maybe by the end of the night I will look like this...

This is still one of my favorite stupid movies! Something about Mary in case you missed it, I think my Mom might have hated it...Guess she won't be getting it for Mothers Day this year.

And just for the fun of it take a peak at this...

I am afraid if my Mom had made sushi when I was a child it may have tasted something like meatloaf. No offense to my Mom--I just don't think she has ever made sushi.

Happy Mothers Day to all you Moms out there. Enjoy the day you are supposed to relax and be waited on. It usually does not work out that way here-- but here is to hoping!

I ♥ Faces, week 1

I ♥ Faces is a photography site focused on the art of capturing faces and their various emotions. This week the theme is hats...gotta have one.

I love to cruise through the gorgeous photos and dream of a nice SLR camera...one day I tell you, one day! This week I am going to try my hand at it, just for the fun of it.

This picture is of my niece, Avery. My sister actually took the picture of her with her Nikon SLR. I fell in love with it. Her picture was pretty all on its own. I digitally manipulated it a little for a little more punch. I sharpened it, and boosted the color and cropped it down. I hope it meets your expectations sis! This is a collaboration submission, and since I am late and it doesn't count anyhow-who cares!

I do have pictures of my own kids but this is truely one of my favorite "hat" pictures on my computer. Since we all love this little cutie it seemed like the perfect picture for today.

My adult photo is one of the cast members at Disneyland from our trip last summer. Ahhh, makes me want to go back! It is a little darker then what I would like but not bad considering I took it with my daughters point and click... again I tweaked the color, sharpened and tried to get out some of the fading in the lower left corner.

I have to say that I love Picnik! I am inches from paying for their premium service.

What are they thinking?

My kids are all in a public elementary school. A school that apparently must not have any money at all. None. It must not, I swear.

They have come up with the most insane fund raising idea. I kid you not. Hopefully you agree with me and do not think I am the insane one.

You see, we pay property taxes. A large portion goes to education.

We go to school fundraiser auctions and spend more money to support our kids school.

We have bought magazines, wrapping paper, books, candy, kitchen storage containers and many more items that had it not been a school fundraiser, I would not have spent money to own.

I supply Kleenex, baby wipes, pencils, paper, crayons, and any other item they call on me to send in with one of my 3 children.

This one takes the prize though. Next Wednesday they are trying something new.

It offends me.

I have been writing this blog in my head from the moment I heard the plan. I have half a mind to complain.

Next Wednesday they are having Art Gallery Night. What is that and why does it have me so fired up? I know, that is what you must be thinking. Let me explain it to you.

They will be selling the kids art work. Yes, the art work my kids have been working on. They want the parents to come and look at the kids art displayed in an art gallery setting and then buy it! Yes, I need to buy my kids art if I would like to have the pleasure of displaying on my fridge. Apparently only the parents can buy their own kids art-good news in case any of mine are a future Picasso. So of course we will have our usual "white horse" donors to the rescue. The rest of us will try to scrape up some cash to buy some of the art my 3 kids have created. What about the kids who's parents cannot attend? What about the parents like us that have multiple kids, how do you buy it all? How crushing will it be if I did not buy the piece that they thought was beautiful? The biggest question I have--what will they do with the unsold merchandise? Will it make its way home sooner or later?

I suppose if we were not in a economic meltdown perhaps it may be just a slightly bad idea. Considering that people are loosing jobs and homes, maybe this is terrible idea.

To make matters worse, they are totally pumping the kids up like Barry Bonds on 'roids. "It will be so cool that your parents can buy your art." They even had a period over a week where they did art every single day. I love it when my kids bring home special things they have made me. I feel like it is one of the glimmers in this public school machine I look forward to. I feel bad for the parents that cannot at this time "afford" the luxury of owning their kids art. My husband said I should not go out of protest. The problem is that will hurt my kids more then the school.

So next Wednesday, my checkbook & I will be attending "Art Night". Hopefully I will buy all their favorite pieces!

At least they were nice enough to let the kids pick one item to take home free of charge...kind of a teaser I suppose. The first one is free, the next one will cost ya! Geez!

Tag, your it!

I have been tagged - for the first time by Jan over at Jan's Place. You can call her Jan, I call her something else...Mom.

This should be easy, my task is to record ....

" SIX UNIMPORTANT THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY " in no particular order of unimportance

1. a pedicure
   
2. a perfect cup of espresso, espresso con panna for me
   
3. clean floors, no muddy paw prints or bits of paper
   
4. chocolate, the good kind. None of the waxy stuff here!
5. taking a perfect picture
   
6. the smell of clean laundry

Consider yourself tagged if you read this and feel up to sharing your list! Funny how sometimes the little things are soooo nice!

“Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.” -William Feather

We have a bit of a Birthday season in our family...in less then 2 months we have 11 birthdays. This year we will have 12 since we get to celebrate the birth of a new member of the Spring Birthday Club. We are all very excited to meet the little guy so you won't hear me complain at all!

I would like to take another minute to wish my other half a happy birthday. You have seen a lot in your long life! Thanks for sharing all your wisdom with those younger than you. We sure appreciate it! Can you tell I am younger? You can bet I will not let him forget it either!

We all love you, even when you are goofy! Like in this picture taken while on a trip to Alabama for a car race. I was not there, but if I had to guess I might think you had a few drinks first.
Am I right?


I am going to hear about posting this picture...glad he does not know the first thing about blogging or he would remove it. I like it because he looks so happy. I try to not think about the fact that he was thousands of miles from home. Hopefully that did not contribute to his happiness.

A night out with the girls~ Virtually that is

Well, I think I will play tonight. Somehow with a pandemic going on I got the day off. Not sure how that happened but you can be darn sure I am not answering my phone if my boss calls!

I think I will have a mint julep as suggested by our hostess and enjoy the 70 degree weather we are having. You know, vitamin D is suspected to help prevent some respiratory illnesses. All the more reason to sit in the sun and enjoy a gorgeous day. Might have to pick up a bottle of the vitamins to additionally supplement since we live in land deprived of sunlight on a regular basis.

Tonight Ann spoke of potluck disasters. She was even honest enough to share her own. How nice, make me feel like I am in good company. I had one experience as a newly wed at a neighborhood BBQ. I brought a plate of fresh strawberries with a cream cheese dipping sauce. I think now that I missed the part about adding something to make it sweet. I happened to be behind some girls as they tried it and commented, "this stuff tastes like crap..." That was the last time I ever had that happen. Since then I regularly use a proven set of concepts, ones that never let me down. I also am the woman at potlucks scooping up huge servings of "crap" to spare the feelings of some poor soul that made a bad potluck contribution.

I went to a silent auction a few years ago for the kids school. Someone had submitted a home made decorated wood purse/container that no one was bidding on...well darn it all if I did not win that too! It still sits here on the piano reminding me to think of others feelings. All in all I think it was $30 well spent. If there was even one bid I would have just let it go, I just hated the thought of that person going to all that trouble and having no one want it!

Happy VGNO ladies!