I LOVE THURSDAYS!!!!!

I love Thursdays! I think they are my second favorite day (next to Saturday). Here's what I did today and why I loved it so much.

I got up a little after my usual time which felt like I got to sleep in. :)

Then, I went to take Rachel to Kids Day Out at church, which she loves, and that makes Mommy feel like not such a heel for enjoying my time alone.

I then came back home and met with a lady and gave her a brand new look for her day! She liked it, I thought it looked great, a fun time was had. I filled my travel coffee mug and set out to do a little shopping.

I went to Sam's and with no child, I was in and out of there in under 8 minutes!! WOOOOHOOOO!!!! Man, I love that.

I was off to meet one of my girlfriends at Target and we browsed around the whole store looking for clearance items! I LOVE that!! A side note to that is that I'm seriously the cheapest person I know and I barely ever by anything other than groceries that isn't on sale. Every once in a while I will, but not often.

After shopping at Target, my girlfriend and I went to eat lunch at Olive Garden. I love that place. We sat up at the bar because the wait was gonna be several minutes and with the time we spent in Target, time was of the essence in Olive Garden. The waiter at the bar knew my friend so well from her VERY frequent visits there that he didn't even so much as ask what she wanted to eat and even remembered that she liked extra dressing for the salad?! I mean, you hear of places like that in small towns, but my goodness! We live in a VERY populated area of Northwest Arkansas where you don't just know everybody, so that was really impressive! We had great conversation and then her husband, who I think is ultra cool, stopped by for a few minutes just to make sure she was ok after she hurt her back yesterday - he wanted to make sure she was ok to go get their daughters...... aaawwwww!!! Gosh, that man is sweet!! So we left Olive Garden and parted ways.

I went to the mall and shopped a little at the Disney Store and wished they had the beautiful Cinderella dress up costumes in adult sizes. After my trip to 'yeah right' land, I went to another couple of trendy shops and found that I won't be joining the Goucho trend - my butt is WAY too big for that.

I left the mall and headed across the way to my adopted mom's house for a minute and learned that one of my best friends who is getting married in a month has just been offered a honeymoon trip to either Hawaii, Paris, or Costa Rica!!! HOLY CRAP!!

After hearing that envious news, I went to get my baby girl. I LOOOOOOVE going to get her because she is so excited to see me and that just melts my heart!

We came home and I left shortly after that to get my hair cut - which I needed oh so badly.

Once my hair was cute again, we did a little more shopping and met Daddy for supper at Steak N' Shake - YUM!! The furniture store was right around the corner and of course, we had to stop by there because a few new pieces for our living room might be in our near future. Rachel decided to pitch a huge fit after being dragged away from the kids play area, so we knew then we had seen all the furniture we needed to see for the day.

Now we are home for the evening. The temperature is SO cool tonight and I think I need my long sleeve pj's for tonight. I'm planning on cracking my bedroom window and letting the cold breeze flow through and snuggling with Buff Daddy under the covers........ mmmmmmm......

I Wonder What Would Happen If:

I was sitting at lunch yesterday and something was mentioned that made me think of doing this on my blog and I said "I've GOT to blog about this" and everyone looked at me like I was a freak. Nerds. :) haha

Last night on Desperate Housewives, Brie totally proved why I had to write about this. She stood up in the middle of her husband's funeral and yells "WAIT!!!" She had to change the hideous tie he was wearing, but that's beside the point. There are so many times when I'm in a situation like a funeral or wedding or some other event where I'm expected to be proper and all the while I'm sitting there wondering "What would happen if I....". I'll give you examples.

Sitting at a funeral (since this is fresh on my mind from last night's show), I wonder what would happen if I just went into a maniacal screaming episode and stormed all around the room?

At a wedding when the minister asks if there's anyone who objects, speak now... what if I objected? Just for the heck of it. Not because I have an objection, I just wonder what people would think? (don't worry, April. I'm SO not gonna do this to you... probably not).

Sitting at the doctor's office waiting room, I wonder what would happen if I flopped down on the floor in convulsions or something and then immediately got back up and sat in my chair as if nothing ever happened?

What if I screamed at the top of my lungs in the middle of Wal-Mart, just because?

It makes me giggle when I'm in these situations and start thinking of what might happen. People already probably think I'm a little nuts for laughing to myself for no apparent reason. I really never would do any of these things. I just wonder what would happen if I did.

Technology SUCKS!

I have a headache right now because of technology. Ironic that I'm typing this out on something that was a benefit of technology, but anyway.....

One day my printer worked fine. It ran out of black ink and we replaced the cartridge. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? WRONG! I have no idea what happened or if my printer just decided to all the sudden get PMS, but it just completely stopped printing black ink - even with the new ink cartridge and the other new one I bought just in case the first new one was a lemon. Nothing worked. That is so dang frustrating when you do everything you normally do and then it just all the sudden, for no apparent reason, starts hating you and stops working. Now I have to send it to the company to have them look at it and try to fix it.

My dear computer guru friend is being gracious enough to loan me a printer while the other one is in the shop. The only problem with that is he gave me two to try out and up until this point, neither of them want to cooperate either.

Here's what I think: I think it's me. The equipment senses my dependance and all of the sudden it decides to get an attitude and put me in my place for using it so much. I just really want things to work when I plug them in. I don't want to figure out how something works or how to fix something, I just expect it to work like it says it should. Is that really too much to ask?

My day is definitely not going like I planned. I wanted to organize my 'office' and get a lot of stuff done. I haven't gotten to do that yet. And my legs REALLY need to be shaved.

I'm off to get my hammer.......

Sometimes I Wish...

Sometimes I wish for these things:

* No responsibility - this is a big one. Sometimes I get really overwhelmed at all that I have to do as an adult and everything I have to remember.

* Long hair again - I look at ladies with longer hair and kick myself on occasion for having cut mine off.

* Eating freedom - I wish I could just eat every bit of ice cream, donuts, sweet whatever, chips, Big Macs, you name it, without gaining an ounce. I don't really want to exercise to help out in this matter, either. My brother and dad both have this type of metabolism and it's really disgusting that I didn't get it! Why couldn't my brother have been the one to gain a pound by looking at a piece of chocolate cake? What would it have mattered to him?!

* A bigger closet - doesn't every woman?

* To be more organized - I like keeping things organized, but sometimes it just overwhelms me to think about getting things organized in the first place. Then I just let things pile up too long and then say "forget it".

* To be able to read faster - I read so slowly and yet I love to read. I wish I could read really fast and thus be able to read more because of it.

* To be clever - I admire people who are funny and clever with their thoughts - my husband being on the top of my list of those people. He can come up with anything right off the cuff and I so can't do that. I admire that and wish I had that quality.

There's so much more, but that's all I have time for. OH! That's another thing I wish. I wish I had more time to do whatever I want to do. I guess that falls under the responsibility thing, huh? Better go get those responsibilities taken care of so I can not feel guilty about blogging. :)

Football Saturdays

This will be the place my family will be sitting every Saturday from now til the end of Kansas State's football season. As you can see by the attire, my husband, and thus my dauther (and step-daughter, not pictured) are big K-State fans. Hubby is a grad from there and one of the biggest football fans I've come in contact with. You really can't hold any sort of conversation with him during a game because you'll be interupted by "GET IN THAT ENDZONE! GET IN THAT ENDZONE!!!!!" or "FUMBLE!!FUMBLE!!FUMBLE!!". So, for the remainder of the football season, this will be my life. Once the weather cools, it will be chili and pumpkin pie at my house to go along with the game!! I do enjoy that!

Nightmares

I'm in the middle of a book right now that I'm really enjoying. It's not a thriller exactly, but it is suspenseful. The main character has a bit of ESP - kinda like the chick on Medium on NBC - and has a way of 'seeing' things. Her best friend was murdered in a small town in South Carolina when she was 8 and now, at 26, this girl is back and wants to find the killer.

So then last night I read until I fell asleep, as is my usual routine. I don't know if it was something about the book or what, but I woke this morning at 5:30 to my husband saying "it's ok! I'm right here! It's ok!" and I was whimpering. I very rarely ever wake up like that, but when I do, it scares the pee out of me. I had been having a nightmare of sorts. In my dream, I walked into my daughters room. She was in our living room with one of my friends who had come to visit. It was early in the morning and the sun was just starting to shine - beautiful. I thought it odd that her window was wide open. We normally have screens on our windows, but where was her screen? And what was that box doing under her window? It was wet with dew. Strange. I picked it up and started to walk out of her room, but between me and the door, through the slats of her baby bed, a man was crouched on the floor. He reminded me of the Donnie Wahlberg in "The Sixth Sense", but scarier - if that's possible. I yelled for my friend to get my daugther and get out. He grabbed me and began to drag me back toward the window. Rachel!! I've got to get to Rachel!! I began screaming, or trying to, at the man. My voice caught in my throat and nothing would come out. I couldn't yell. I couldn't scream. I couldn't speak. Run!! RUN!! Get Rachel out of here!!! It was all in my head, but nothing was coming out of my mouth.

And that's when I woke to my husband's consoling. Peace rushed over me to know it was all a dream - a nightmare.

Is it bad...

My husband and I had a conversation over the weekend about our household duties and how he was going to make up a schedule of things we'd do each day so that we could be 'organized' with our housecleaning. I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed because of having to pick up after children all day and then sometimes pick up after Hubby at days end - not to mention pick up my own things. Now, I'm not saying that Hubby doesn't do anything around the house. That simply isn't the case. He really does help out quite a bit, but there are moments when I wonder "if I just left those dishes there, I wonder how long it would be until he realized there was mold growing and then pick them up himself?". So, after our conversation, we have this color coded cleaning chart hanging on our fridge (which is great for me because I take well to lists like that). Now this was all done so that I could do what I had time for during the day amidst caring for the kids and working my business and then whatever I didn't have time for, Hubby will take care of in the evenings after he gets home. My question now is, since I have all the things done that are on the list for today, is it bad that I don't want to work? That was the whole reason this was done is so I could have more time to work and now I don't want to. I just want to sit down at watch 30 Minute Meals or...eeek! Oprah!..... or read my book that's due back at the library in a couple days or really anything other than work. Is that just terrible?

Advice on Forwards

Ok, I'm all fine and dandy with those people who want to send me some sweet story on a forward, but if it's some kind of a deal where we can earn money from Microsoft if we forward it to everyone in our address book.............COME ON PEOPLE! All I have to say is before you forward anything to anyone, if it's any kind of a deal where there's one iota of a possiblity that it is maybe NOT true, please go to www.snopes.com and search for it. I guarantee you that 99% of everything you see on forwards is on this webpage and the majority of that is false.

Whew. I feel a lot better now that I've gotten that said. :)

Today I'm Thankful For.... (2nd Edition)

I know I have posted on this topic very recently, but today I feel like I need to do this again.

Today, I am thankful for:

*My husband. He truely is the most wonderful man in the world. Even though dirty clothes may lay in the floor and lights are left on after he leaves the room and the things he does to help sometimes don't meet my 'standards' as far as housework is concerned, I could never ask for a better partner in life. I don't tell him that enough.

*My daughter. She is my joy. Everything she does is precious. My favorite things she does now is when I ask her a question and she answers "yeah" and when I ask her where something is, she says "Um...." It's SO cute!

*My step-daughter, Tanner. She is so funny and smart. I'm blessed to have her as a part of my life.

*Understanding People. Sometimes when I screw up royally, I'm thankful for people who can forgive and not hate me because of it.

*My friends. God has a way of putting those people in my life who I need at just the right moments. I don't have just one best friend. I have many bestest friends. I have those friends who are so different from me and yet provide me with such blessing. To those of you reading this blog, I love you and thank God for you!

*My church. I'm thankful that I don't attend a 'feel good' church but one that can present the word of God in all its truth, no matter how much my Pastor steps on my toes because of it.

*My home. After watching several episodes of Little House on the Prairie this weekend, I'm very proud of the home I have. Not that I wasn't happy with it before, but it just made me realize all the more that I don't NEED a lot of fancy things or a big house to be happy. I'm so blessed by what I have and I SURE don't say that enough.

*Mary Kay. I'm thankful that I'm a part of a business that seeks to support and encourage women and one that will give me an opportunity to do something I really love (play in makeup and make women look and feel beautiful) while I make money to help my family.

That certainly is just the tip of the iceburg, but today I just wanted to say I'm thankful.

Hobby Lobby

Ok, can I just say that Hobby Lobby is one of the coolest stores ever, yet somewhat overwhelming. I went there today with one project in mind and left the store wishing I had a million dollars so I could go back and buy anything I wanted to and craft all the rest of the days of my life. And the really sad thing is, I don't care for crafts too much. I mean, I like some thing, like classy crafts (wait - is that an oxymoron?), but I'm not much for just crafty things like this soapbar accessory thing that I created in high school that was wrapped in a washcloth and pipe cleaners. It was really cute, but very garage sale-ish. Not that I'm at all against purchasing things at garage sales............ shut up, I know - total tangent. Anyway, back to Hobby Lobby - that place is just incredible. I really think I need a day to just walk around in there and get some ideas of things I'd like to do - WAIT! THAT could be my vacation that I so desperately need!!!!! Walking around in a store and NOT having a baby that's frustrated because she has no more juice and I won't let her have my keys after the 5th time she's thrown them down........ ahhhhh..... that sounds heavenly right now. Top all that off with a Venti White Chocolate Mocha...... oh my gosh!!!