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Apr
30
It’s another dark and rainy weekend here, so hopefully I can get some reading in. Here are a few of the posts I loved this week, enjoy.
First, Ashley at Putting God First Place is giving away almost $1000 in prizes with Give! Win! Send! starting May 1. She is trying to raise money to attend the Relevant Conference in October, so while no donation is required to enter, you can help send Ashley to Relevant and earn extra entries by donating. Help a girl out and get a chance to win great prizes!
Now for some incredible reading:
Lori’s Reflections ~ Chill, Be Sick, Be Loved and Live Out Plan B
Moms Sharpening Moms ~ On Cruising and Battling
Healthy Spirituality ~ Internal Non-Violence – Discovering My Violent Heart
Mayhem & Moxie ~ The Universal Truths of Motherhood
Shaun Groves ~ There’s No Such Thing as a Self-Made Man
Home With the Boys ~ For Every Mother of Boys Got boys? Then you need to join the MOB Society!
The Gypsy Mama ~ How to not splinter your daughter’s heart
There, that should keep you busy for awhile 
Seriously good stuff. Have a wonderful weekend!
For more great reads, visit Saturday Stumbles at It’s Come 2 This
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Apr
30
I really need to work on setting and sticking to goals, so I’m going to participate in Monthly Goal Gathering at The Bona Fide Life. Several of my jobs have online forums where we can post daily or monthly productivity goals, and that really does help me to be able to look back and see where I need to be. Hopefully it will help with my goals at home too. Here are my goals for May:
- Get reading! One of my summer classes is a young adult literature class, and we will be reading several books. This is a very time consuming class, and the professor already sent out the reading list. I need to get a head start on that, so I’m making weekly reading a goal.
- Start getting paperwork completed for my kids’ summer camps that are in June and July. I shouldn’t admit this, but normally I wait until very close to the deadline, then frantically search for the paperwork until I am forced to call the camp and tell them I lost the papers. They have to send me new paperwork and then I have to send it express mail to get my kids signed up in time. I realize that this is not a good system and does not help my stress level, so I’m going to get started now, before I have a chance to lose the paperwork.
- Clean my desk. To be truly accountable I should probably post a picture, but I can’t make myself do that – IT IS THAT BAD. Just take my word that this one task will take most of the month.
That may not seem like much, but I’m not including work or school goals here, just my household goals. If I can actually get these three things done, I will be in good shape to start the summer with the kids home in June. Wish me luck!
If you want to set some goals for May and share them with us, visit The Bona Fide Life and add your link or comment. We can do this!
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Apr
29
Okay maybe you didn’t ask, but I’m sure that question keeps you up at night I should really save these gems of wisdom for some very important meme, but I will share with you now. Here are just a few of the reasons why this mama is Worn Out this week:
My son likes coffee. Fine. As long as it’s decaf, I don’t care what he drinks. So he makes coffee every morning for himself, and sometimes his dad will also drink it. I do not drink coffee. I do not make it – I don’t know how to make coffee. There, I admitted it. Since I don’t make the coffee, I have been a little baffled the past few days because when I am cleaning the kitchen after they’ve all gone off to school or work or wherever it is they go, there has been a muddy puddle of mud by the coffee pot. The first day I assumed “someone” had a spill. The second day I got a little annoyed. The third day, today, I asked both my son and my husband why they kept making a mess with the coffee. My son nonchalantly said, “Oh, I told you, I broke the coffee pot”. First, no he did not tell me. Second, so it’s broke, but he is still using it to make coffee??? Apparently he figured that a cracked coffee pot is still usable, and he could not be bothered with the mess he was making. I am still rolling my eyes over this one.
This group of guys that I live with is on a health kick. They make a lot of smoothies. I do not eat smoothies. I do not know how to make a smoothie. Well okay, I could probably figure that one out, but they don’t need to know that. So they all make their own. Earlier this week I was cleaning up the morning mess in the kitchen. Someone had left the big canister of protein powder out after making his smoothie. I grabbed the canister – did I mention it is huge – to put it away. I grabbed the huge canister by the top. The person who failed to put it away also failed to tighten the lid, so when I grabbed it by the lid, the huge canister thing crashed to the ground, leaving me holding just the lid. Sigh. At least I got most of it swept up before my dog could overdose on protein powder. And yes, my husband already pointed out that this is the second time this has happened, and I should know better than to grab it by the lid. I KNOW!
At my youngest son’s baseball game the other day, I begged whined pleaded asked my oldest son to go with me. I like it when he comes with me; we text each other during the game. While we are sitting beside each other. Mother/son bonding. Anyway, he didn’t want to go, but I guilted him into it convinced him that it would be fun. You know how when someone whacks a ball and it goes over the fence, but behind the batter? Everyone yells “heads up” so that no one gets hit with the stray ball. And in my eight years of going to my boys’ baseball games, no one has ever gotten hit with one of those stray balls. Until last weekend. Guess who got hit in the head with one? My son. The one sitting right beside me. I knew that darn ball was coming right at us, but I also assumed that he was paying attention and looking up. It happened so fast, and luckily it was more of a lob than a hard hit, but it still whacked him on the head pretty good. He didn’t even see it coming. I beat myself up for awhile, thinking I should have reached out and at least tried to catch it (yeah right) or deflect it away from him. He is okay, and because I have seen many injuries over the years from kids hit with a baseball, even some pretty serious injuries, I am very grateful that it wasn’t worse. He keeps saying that he never wanted to go in the first place, so of course he would be the one to get hit.
In an act of supreme klutziness, I managed to slam my finger in the front door today. Don’t ask me how because I couldn’t tell ya. All I know is that my poor ring finger turned purple and swelled up. When I reached into my jeans pocket by habit and lightly brushed that finger against my pocket, it hurt so badly that I may have screamed. This goes on my list of “things that do not happen to most adults, but somehow happen to me”. It’s a long list.
We are almost at the end of the school year, with just a few weeks left. So it is very fitting that now, so close to the finish, I get a phone call from my 12 year old’s school. I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize, and when I answered, it was my son. I instantly knew that something had happened, because otherwise he would be calling me on his phone. I refrained from saying WHAT DID YOU DO? but I was thinking it. Seriously though, this boy has never been in trouble a day in his life; he is the child that at every parent/teacher conference, his teacher says “He’s a good student, he’s just so quiet“. Well, my boy has come out of his shell. Apparently he and his best buddy were walking down the hall on their way out of school, because the last bell had rang. They may have been a little rambunctious. My son’s friend may have swung his backpack at my son. At which point my son returned the gesture. All the teacher saw was my son swinging his backpack towards the other boy. The backpack hit that boy’s leg, but because of where the teacher was standing, she thought he got hit in the, ahem, area where boys do not want to be hit. I guess she called them both over and asked the other boy if he was okay. That boy said yeah, it didn’t hurt, and that he thought it was funny. The teacher was not amused, and had my son call me. He is lucky that he didn’t get detention. Instead she just wanted me to know what my fine young man was doing. Needless to say, my son knows that I do not want to get another phone call like that ever again.
Well there you have it. That is just a small sample of the excitement that I experience on a pretty much daily basis. Try to contain your jealousy. But seriously, I think this kind of week is a perfect example of why all mothers are saints!
I read some article recently about being a successful blogger, and one point was that you should try to pass along some tip or bit of wisdom in your posts. Ha! Um, I mean here are my helpful tips:
- Do not let your teenager make coffee or smoothies.
- If you by chance happen to dump an entire container of protein powder on the floor, Do Not tell your husband. The sympathy you are looking for will not be forthcoming.
- Do not go to any baseball games. If you do, wear a helmet.
- Wear thick gloves at all times to avoid the possibility of slamming your finger in a door.
- If you get a call from a number you don’t recognize, just don’t answer it. It might be a telemarketer, or it might be your child’s school. Either way, it can’t be good.
There, I feel a bit wiser already.
Do these kinds of things happen at your house? No? Anything even close? Pretend, for my sake. Tell me what kind of week you are having.
I’ve linked this at Friday Fails even though it’s more like a week full of Fails. Hey, does that make me an overachiever?
For more Friday Fails visit My Blessed Life - and share yours!
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Apr
28
I know Mother’s Day is over a week away, but it’s never too early to talk about it. My family is not big on gift giving; we usually limit gifts to Christmas and birthdays, and the other holidays might get a nice meal. My most memorable Mother’s Day gift was actually before I even had kids. When I was eight months pregnant with my first son, my husband got me two gifts for Mother’s Day; the book “What to Expect the First Year” and a tube of Lanolin nursing cream. That’s right, nursing cream. See why it was memorable? But honestly, I asked for both of those things, and I was so overjoyed to be “almost” a mom that I wouldn’t have cared what he got me as long as it said Mother on the card.
The other great Mother’s Day gifts I have gotten typically involve something that my kids made me. Cards, sculpey clay figures, and drawings. I still have all of those things, and I still love them. One year my husband let my kids loose at a neighborhood garage sale with $5 each, with instructions to buy something for mom. The boys were probably six or seven years old, so you can just imagine the hodge podge of gifts that I got. But the look of pride and joy on their faces when they gave me those gifts that they had handpicked was the sweetest gift of all.
So tell me, what has been your most memorable Mother’s Day so far? If you’re not a mom, what have you done for your mom, or wife, for Mother’s Day that made her happy? Anything from the tiniest, simplest gesture, like a long distance phone call, to the biggest, grandest Mother’s Day. Tell me how you celebrate.
Leave your comments below, and every comment on this post or tweet about this post will also count as an entry in my iPod touch giveaway. I’ve gotten quite a few emails from people that want to enter more but they don’t blog or do twitter, so this will give everyone an extra chance to enter. Thank you for sharing your Mother’s Day stories with me!
If you tweet about this post please leave the link and your Twitter id in the comments here, to get the entry for the iPod touch. Thanks!
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Apr
27
I’ve decided to participate in oh amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday because I need this list to remind me of my goals! Here are the top ten things I am trying to do to get healthy:
- Drink more water! This is so hard for me. I love water, but I have convinced myself that I need caffeine to survive. There’s only so much I can drink, so water loses out. With the various medications I am taking, I really need the water; I feel dehydrated all the time. So I’m making more of an effort to drink lots of water.
- Along with that, less caffeine. This one is hard because I live in a constant state of exhaustion, but I know it really doesn’t help.
- More sleep. Do we see a pattern here?? This one is hard too, because if I could stay up 24 hours a day it might be enough to get everything done that I need to do. Trying to get more sleep means less work gets done, but I know my body will thank me for it, and maybe I’ll be more productive.
- More vegetables. I’m a snacker, and while I don’t have a huge sweet tooth, I typically don’t reach for veggies when I want to snack. My beloved salsa at least has veggies, but I need to do better.
- Exercise. Everyone in my family is on an exercise kick, and my husband has lost 18 pounds since January by eating better/less and doing P90X workouts. I am the lone hold out with my couch potato ways. Really it comes down to being too busy to exercise, but I shouldn’t use that excuse. My cardiologist told me that 1/2 an hour of walking, five times a week, can lower your blood pressure by 25%! That is amazing, so I need to make time for this.
- Less stress. I’m not sure how to do this one, but I think if I try really hard to incorporate the other things, it might help me feel better physically, which would make me calmer. I don’t know, but I’m on a mission to get rid of stress!
- More joy! This might sound silly, but I really think making time for joy is a health benefit. I get caught up in the stress and the work that needs to be done, and I don’t give myself permission to take a break and laugh with my family. I went to two of my sons’ baseball games this weekend, and as much as I really needed to be working, going to his games made me so happy. That is a good thing, yes.
- Less medication. Some of the things I take medication for can be controlled in other ways – but that takes time and work. That is another reason for these goals; I don’t want to take seven pills each day for the rest of my life. I know I can’t eliminate them without my doctor’s approval, and I know some of them can never be eliminated, but I’m going to try to improve my health as much as I can.
- More sunshine! I was diagnosed as Vitamin D deficient, so of course I had to do my internet research on this. I was surprised to find that Vitamin D deficiency can lead to pretty serious health problems. I am taking a supplement now, on doctor’s orders, but I think getting more sunshine is definitely in order.
- More writing! This one might not seem health related either, but blogging and writing is very cathartic for me, almost like therapy. Some people do yoga, some mediate, writing seems to help me. So I’m trying to make time for it more often.
So what things are you doing to take better care of yourself? If you have advice or suggestions for me, please do tell!
Visit oh amanda for more Top Ten Tuesday posts
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Apr
27
This picture is actually from last spring, because I don’t have a camera right now, but this is what we’re seeing in our backyard now. And I love it! Bring on spring!
Visit Life With My 3 Boybarians for more Sweet Shots
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Apr
27
I have a good friend that is a big Seinfield fan, which I didn’t watch. She always says that she and her husband are like Jerry Seinfield, and everything evens out for them. If something bad happens, something good will even it out. So when bad things do happen to her, she immediately starts looking for the good thing, the thing that is going to even everything out for them.
One of the reasons I adore this friend so much is because she is everything that I am not. Confident, outgoing, very social and very optimistic. It occured to me today that we are opposites in another way, too. When bad things happen in my life, I immediately start looking for the next bad thing. The next thing to break, the next person to get sick, the next crisis. I look for it, wait for it, expect it. And I am usually not disappointed, because bad things happen in groups. Right?
Maybe it doesn’t have to be that way. I need to start looking for the good, the things that are going to even out the difficulties I’ve been having. Maybe once you start looking for those things, they actually show up.
This is a lesson that I have learned time and time again, but it just doesn’t stick for some reason. Clearly this is something I really need to work on in my life; it doesn’t come naturally for me so I need to make it a daily practice. Looking for the good, expecting the good, and believing in my heart that the good will come.
Are you good at living this way, or is it a struggle for you, too?
This post is part of Tuesdays Unwrapped at Chatting at the Sky.
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Apr
26
Update: The winner has been notified by email. As soon as I hear back from the winner I will announce it here. Check back soon for more giveaway fun!
You know it’s going to be a good week when it starts with a giveaway, right? I went to a carnival fun night at a local school this weekend, and I won an awesome iPod Touch and iTunes gift card in their raffle! I don’t need an iPod touch, in fact I would probably never figure out how to use it, so I am giving it away to one of my lucky readers! Can’t beat that, can ya?
This is a brand new Apple iPod touch 8gb with a $15 iTunes gift card.
Here’s how to enter:
Leave a comment here telling me what you would do with this iPod touch if you win – would you keep it or give it away, and to whom. One comment per person, but there are other ways to enter.
More ways to enter:
- Subscribe to Unexpected Bliss.
- Mention this giveaway on your blog (include direct link in your comment)
- Follow me on Twitter (@UnexpectedBliss), leave a comment with your Twitter id.
- For an extra entry, tweet on Twitter about this giveaway. This may be done as often as you want, leave a comment for each tweet with the link to your comment and your Twitter id.
For each of the above that you do, leave 1 comment on this giveaway post, ie 1 comment if you subscribe, 1 comment if you follow me on Twitter, 1 comment for each tweet, 1 comment for mentioning this on your blog.
There will also be an additional chance to enter later this week; I will provide another opportunity in an upcoming post about Mother’s Day, so check back.
That is a lot of chances to win!
Open to US addresses only. Please make sure you leave a valid email address with each entry. The winner will be chosen via random.org and will have 72 hours to respond to my email notification. If I do not hear back within that time I will pick another winner.
This giveaway will end May 3, 2010 at midnight CST. This giveaway has ended. I will verify all entries and choose the winner using random.org. The winner has 72 hours to respond with their mailing information. If the winner does not respond within 72 hours an alternate will be chosen. As soon as I hear from the winner I will announce it here. Thank you for entering and check back for more giveaways this week!
If you don’t see your comment right away, it will show up shortly. I’ve been getting crazy spam comments lately, so my filter is blocking a lot. I will make sure all the giveaway comments are posted, so don’t submit twice. Thanks!
Good luck!
This is not a sponsored giveaway. Apple doesn’t know me, although I’m sure we would be BFFs if they did. I own this iPod touch and iTunes gift card and am giving it away all by myself. Cause I want to.
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Apr
25
It’s baseball tournament weekend here, so not much reading going on for me. Here are a few of the posts I loved this week:
Shaun Groves ~ Learning From Toyota and Jennifer Knapp
Daily Coping Skills ~ Why Buy a Zoo Pass?
Slurping Life ~ Channelling Eeyore
The Gypsy Mama ~ How to overcome a fear of heights
New York Times ~ E-Playgrounds Can Get Vicious
Kalyn’s Kitchen ~ Black Bean & Pepper Salad with Cilantro and Lime
Happy reading, and enjoy the rest of the weekend!
For more great reads, visit it’s come 2 this
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Apr
22
Well, The Big Reveal might be a little misleading. A better title for this post might be More Obscure and Random Facts About Me That You Probably Don’t Care About, but I’m going to post them anyway. That title is too long, so we’ll leave it as it is
I’m a pretty very extremely private person, and one might even call me shy. But I’m trying to overcome that, or at least share some bits and pieces of me with you, since others have shared their lives with me. While this list is probably not an all encompassing list of the most important things about me, it’s a start. Here we go:
- I was born two months premature, and I weighed right around three pounds.
- I have one sibling, a brother.
- My brother is 9 months younger than me.
- When I was a teenager and could fully comprehend what “9 months younger than me” meant, it gave me many sleepless nights. What were they thinking??
- My dad had his first heart attack at 36.
- My parents both grew up in tiny towns.
- When I was 11, we moved back to the tiny town my mom grew up in.
- For me, moving to a tiny town in the fifth grade was devastating. My grandma literally saved my life, by opening her home to me while my parents worked practically 24/7 and I had no friends.
- From the time we moved until about 8th grade, I was the outcast/new kid, trying to fit into cliques that were formed long before I showed up. It was hard, but looking back it taught me how not to treat people. I’ve never forgotten how it felt to be the outcast.
- I am what you might call a “non-athlete”. I tried softball, basketball and track, and I think it was relief to everyone when I gave up and went back to my first love, reading.
- When I say I lived in a tiny town, picture dirt roads, no stop lights, no fast food. That tiny.
- While I was in college, I volunteered for CASA for several years. I did it until I had my first child, and I would love to do it again when I have the time to devote to it. If I didn’t have to work, I’d spend my time volunteering with kids.
- I met my future husband while in college. Our respective colleges were three hours apart, so we did the long distance relationship thing for four years. I guess absence does make the heart grow fonder
- Maybe the long distance relationship is why I never noticed how very different my husband and I are. Actually, I think I knew it, but it didn’t matter. Still doesn’t, in fact, I’m pretty sure we make each other better. I hope so anyway.
- When we first got married, we rented a teeny tiny house from my inlaws. Next door to my in-laws. Yep. But really, they are wonderful, so it was okay. And I don’t cook, so we managed to make our way over there for dinner quite often.
- I got pregnant with our first son three months after we got married. Shocking, but oh so joyful.
- The next few years after that were a sleep deprived blur, but I know we had fun.
- Baby boy #2 came along two years after his brother. More joy, less sleep.
- Our second son was born with two thumbnails on one of his hands. He had the extra one removed when he turned one. Who knew that removing a tiny thumbnail required a full cast from his shoulder to his hand?
- That little stinker wiggled out of his full arm cast the very first night.
- We tried to get pregnant again for about six years, but it apparently was not in the grand plan for us.
- We moved three hours away from our families about eleven years ago. No more free babysitting from the grandmas and aunts.
- Consequently, we did not go on a “date”, or go anywhere without our children for at least five years. I know, I know!
- We brought a new baby to our home about six years ago. We adopted our Labrador mix (Coach) from a local lab rescue, and I’m not exaggerating when I say he is the best.dog.ever. I grew up with dogs, so I should know; I’m not just biased
- Let me get on my soapbox and say that if you want a dog, I highly recommend labs, especially if you have kids. Also, I highly, extremely, very much recommend adopting from a shelter or rescue organization. Our Coach’s mom was left tied to a fence in the backyard of an abandoned house; she was pregnant with Coach and his siblings. Luckily someone saved her, and the mama and several of the puppies ended up being trained as helpers for handicapped people.
- Coach is definitely smart enough to be a helper dog, but we are so glad we got to be his family instead.
- One of my sons is very talented musically and artistically, and the other one is a talented athlete. Because of that, many people question whether or not they are really my children. Luckily, I have the c-section scars to prove it.
- My favorite thing to do still is reading. I just need more time to actually do it.
- Some of my favorite authors are Stephen King, Anne Lamott, and Maeve Binchy.
- I’m not a big TV watcher at all. The only shows I watch are ”24″ and “The Middle”. (All you “Glee” lovers, don’t hate me)
- Right now I’m in graduate school, trying to get my master’s in library science. My dream is to be a librarian at a middle school. My goal is to make it through the program.
- I am very scatter brained. I have been known to put my car keys in the freezer and then forget what I did with them; leave the house without makeup on – not intentionally, I really thought I was ready, lock myself out of the house, lock myself out of my car, lose my cell phone then find it in the laundry hamper, and I often forget how to use my own remote. I am not proud of these things.
- My husband is completely the opposite of scatter brained, which is helpful. And he has finally stopped rolling his eyes at my absent mindedness.
- Our oldest child shows signs of taking after me in the scatter brained department. I hope he has a patient spouse.
- I believe we all have guardian angels. I think I must have a team of guardian angels. When I was 18, my car hit a patch of ice on a bridge and rolled several times before landing upside down in a ditch. I was so not hurt that I didn’t realize we were upside down and wanted to drive away before anyone saw me in the ditch. A few years ago I was driving in a rainstorm in heavy traffic on the highway. My car slid off into the median ditch and ended up on the other side of the median, facing the oncoming traffic. When I caught my breath, I pulled back over to the ditch, turned my car around and drove home, with only mud and grass all over my car to show for it. I don’t think anyone would have believed that actually happened, except I left deep tire tracks in the mud all the way across the grass, showing how close I came to hitting the concrete divider before my car stopped right beside it. It truly is a miracle that I’m still here.
Speaking of miracles, are you still here?? Whew, coming up with a list of things about me is hard, and I wasn’t even aiming for interesting things! Now you know a little more about me. Please don’t hold this post against me, I promise I won’t do it again.
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My boys
Where did those little guys go?Cuteness overload
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