How do they have SO much crap?

I spend 95% of my time while I'm in any store saying things to my kids like "No, I'm not buying that today...No, I'm not buying that for your birthday...No, I'm not buying that because you picked up a kleenex off the floor and threw it away...No I'm not buying that because you went to school today when you didn't want to...No, you don't have enough allowance to buy that for yourself...No, no, no, no, no!!"

I'll save my rant for another day about how I hate raising children in a place like where we live and the attitude of entitlement/greediness/spoiled-ness (is that a word?) that seems to exude from every where here.

And yet despite my hardly ever buying them anything, they still have like 15 times more junk than C & I do? C spent most of the day in there room sorting and organizing toys on Sunday, and yet there is still a TON of stuff everywhere! I think it must multiply in the night, its just never ending. I don't even want to go in that room anymore because its so overwhelming. I just don't get where it all comes from, aaaaahhhhh!!!!

I just don't know what to do with it. I don't even have the motivation to get rid of it on Freecycle, it takes too much work to sort through it all. I'm glad that someone else is going to pack it all up for me when we move...but I still have to unpack it and figure out where to put it...I think I've got it worse.

100 pushups update

So dear readers...if there are any readers...I will admit to being a slacker. Yeah I know, you knew that already. I have taken a break from the 100 pushups challenge. First I got a cold from my daughter and was feeling like crap, and then a whole bunch of life changing things occured in a short period of time, so I just kept really and honestly forgetting to do them. My goal is to start up again by mid-October. Once we've moved and I've had a couple weeks to get my life back in order I will definitely resume the challenge. Maybe then there will be enough available space in my brain cells to spend a few minutes 3 times a week killing myself on purpose!

Its Biggest Loser time again!

I have a love-hate relationship with this show. It irritates the heck out of me to watch it, but I can't help myself. To me its like the accident on the highway that you can't take your eyes off of...horrible and fascinating at the same time. Last night was the first show of the new seasons. Families this time, married couples against parents & kids. I'm fairly certain if C and I were on this show together we'd expend more calories arguing with each other than working out. He thinks it would make for good tv, I suppose he's right.

Somehow I always seem to be eating something horrible for me on the first episode of this show...like EVERY time. Not sure why that happens. It must be some sort of sign. Last night it was brownies. I've been craving brownies for a few days now, ever since someone posted this all edges brownie pan thing on the Granola Chicks board. I bought a box, but I didn't have any eggs. I finally got eggs, but only got around to making them last night. Has to be a coincidence...

I did hop on the elliptical trainer and bust my butt while they were baking though, That's gotta count for *something* right?

I think the cast is kinda boring this time actually, hopefully things will get more interesting as the weeks go on. Jillian is scarier than usual this season. I wouldn't be surprised at all if someone actually did die on one of those treadmills to see her standing over them yelling at them to get the #*&^ up!

Would you take makeup advice from...

a guy wearing blue and pink eyeshadow who had hair poufier than you did in the 80's???

On Friday I ran into Sephora because I was running way too low on my beloved Bare Escentuals makeup. (If you don't wear mineral makeup or haven't heard of it...get out from under that rock!! The stuff is aweseom!!) There are 2 guys working on this particular day. Now I know there are plenty of male make-up artists out in the world and that is totally cool with me. But most of the ones I've seen don't actually wear makeup themselves and even if they do it is usually tasteful. These two men...not so much. The one guy at least stuck to a basic black eyeliner and his hair while over gelled and styled wasn't the worst I've ever seen. But the other one had like this big bouffant going and could have passed for a circus clown with the blue and pink eyeshadow. It was quite distrubing, I can't even describe it well enough, you really had to see it in person to appreciate it. I'm seriously not being judgemental here...the one guy really looked THAT bad, and the other was right up there in the freaky factor.

Now had I come into that store needing help from someone who worked there...well there's just no way I could seriously take any makeup/skin/hair tips or advice from people looking like THAT. Women, well most women, simply do NOT wear their makeup like that, and that hair hasn't been in style since the 50's. Maybe as a gay man you can pull it off...or THINK you can pull it off (trust me, you can't!)...but a woman looking like that would be a laughing stock. How could I trust anything they had to say, or even look at them with a straight face for that matter?

I had my children with me, my boys are 6 & 7 years old...I'm sure you can only imagine the thoughts running through their heads. But thankfully they kept them from running out of their mouths until we were out of the store. And THEN they fell into fits of laughter for the next 5 minutes.

So awhile ago I taught myself how to knit...

The only problem was I couldn't figure out how to read a pattern to save my life, so I never really did anything with my meager knitting knowledge. Not long ago I decided to pick it up again and see if I could do any better the second time around. This time I did a google search for easy knitting patterns, hoping there had to be someone out there like me who needed to have it explained to me like I was 2 years old. And so I made my first completed knitting project...a dishrag. Which will probably become unraveled should I ever use it because I was too lazy to weave in the ends of the yarn and just cut them off. But here it is...



Fresh off my knitting victory I joined a "Knit-Along" with a few other moms from the Granola Chicks board. We are all knitting the same thing and posting our progress. I finally got mine underway. We are making a neck warmer, kinda like a scarf, but small to fit just around your neck.

Ok, if you can't picture it, here it is...



And here is mine so far, I think its about 4" long so far and its supposed to be 16" when finished.

Parents all over the country are rejoicing today!

And I am one of them. Yes some lucky parents with early school start times have already experienced this joyful day...but for the rest of us, it has finally arrived, the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!

I am especially happy this year because FINALLY both my boys are in the same school for exactly the same time!! The past 3 years the drop off and pick up schedule has been all over the place and gets very exhausting...but now I only have to go to the school twice a day, and maybe only once if C takes them to school.

So after a fairly calm morning of getting up way earlier than they were used to and getting ready right away...we were actually done early!! That's like, never happened before, LOL. So, knowing how awful the parking situation is we decided to walk to school.

R went to his line with no problems of course, went to his class and sat down easy peasy. E had a much easier transition than in the past. We couldn't find his class when they were lined up for the morning assembly. I didn't know for sure what his teacher looked like, so we stood off to the side. He was all concerned he wasn't going to know where to go, so I think he was flustered and a bit nervous. Once he got in he seemed a little anxious when he was unpacking his school supplies. But, there were no tears and not even one "I don't want to go!!" like every past year, so he's making progress!!

Here there are before we headed off to school!

E's first day of second grade...


R's first day of first grade...