Instagram

There's this cool app you can get on your iPhone called Instagram.  It's kinda like Facebook for photos.  I am in love with it.  I didnt used to like the Instagram look at all, but I'm a convert now.  Here are some pics I've taken since the first day of school with Instagram:

First day of School

First Day of School

Lake Day with our dear friends.... how many kids can fit on one intertube?

Storm chasers camped out on the back patio

Gilbert Temple at Dawn, taken during an early morning group bike ride

Smoothies a grandma would be proud of:  strawberries, blueberries, bananas and apples.

A good friend of ours wanted to see a picture of Eric with hair... this is what I came up with.  Eric and Christy circa 1993 on our first wedding anniversary.

More smoothies.... 

Brayden doing backflips on the tramp

Max feeling lonely with all the kids gone at school

My badge for work.  I love my new job!

How Taylor survives a dust storm during their swim meet.... I guess it worked because he got a great time on his 500 Free that day!

Three more days until the first quarter of school is over.  The greatest thing about my job is that I only work on days when the kids are at school.  So, all five of us get 18 straight days of vacation!  Too bad, Eric will be a stressed out mess during that time because he got slammed with writing 48 performance reviews between now and the end of October.

Lots of Random Nothings

I haven't been able to come up with anything to blog about for a couple days.  I haven't even been terribly vocal on Facebook either.  Here's some random stuff that's crossed my mind lately... but believe me, none of it is earth shattering.

*Two weeks ago, I missed Taylor's annual physical.  I had forgotten to write it in my calendar, and the pediatrician reminder call went to the old disconnected phone number.  I absolutely hate it when I do something like that.  Because of my goof, I had to reschedule with the doctor that isn't my favorite, but at least they didn't charge me a "no show" fee from the missed appt. 

*I was completely successful at cutting back to one can of Diet Coke a day... that is until allergy season hit me like a tidal wave.  Let's just say the last three weeks have been nothing but misery day in and day out.  I can't wear make-up for longer than an hour, because it gets rubbed off.  Most of the "non-drowsy" OTC antihistamines make me not only tired, but very "foggy-headed", so not only do I lack energy or motivation to do anything, but I lack the common sense to make a coherent decision about anything.  I finally "cried uncle" yesterday and went to the doctor.  She gave me a scrip for high powered eye-drops and Allegra.  Allegra is the only antihistamine that works for me without "negative" side effects.  Let's hope they haven't changed the formula recently and I will really see some relief!

*Project Runway is over.  I'm sad about that, but happy that Seth Aaron won.  (Sorry for the spoiler, if you haven't seen it yet.)  He's a quirky guy, but I love that he is married, has two kids, and just has AMAZING talent.  Not that I would ever really wear anything of his, but I always LOVE his creativity.  And his speed.  Holy Crap, he is fast!  And I loved the fact that he wasn't big on bashing other designers.  That kind of attitude goes a long way in my book.  For all you Emilio fans, I liked most of his work too, but those last few episodes where he was so arrogant and full of himself really bugged me.  Emilio finally got his slice of humble pie on the final runway when he didn't win.  Did you see his face?  He was sure, I mean SURE, that he won.  And honestly, his runway show was boring.  And that print he made with his name (again....) was hideous.  It looked better far away, but up close, I thought it was so freakin' ugly. 

*Our favorite Family Night activity is to watch Sunday's episode of Amazing Race together.  We are huge fans of the Cowboys.  I really hope they win.  They are awesome.  Again, not engaging in  cat-fights and slamming other teams goes a long ways in my book.  I love the team that runs a good clean race.  And the Dating Models?  Seriously.... I keep praying every week they will go home.  Newsflash Brent:  Wind happens.  Life isn't fair.  Get over it.  Whew... it feels good to say that. 

* I'm not sure what I will do tonight without Lost.  I guess it will be a warm-up for when it's all over.  But at least I will have answers and closure then.  Tonight?  Just more anxiety about how it's all going to end in a way that I can be happy about.  I could post blog after blog after blog about my thoughts on Lost, but I'm too lazy.  So, if you really want to get some good info, go to ew.com and read the Doc Jensen articles.  This guy knows his Lost.  Backwards and Forwards and Sideways.  Ha, ha, get it?

*Two weeks ago I had to bribe Brayden to take a bath... and we were lucky to get him bathed without a fight twice a week.  Lately, he wants to take two baths a day.  Where did this come from all of a sudden?  It's really weird, and quite annoying, because he always wants to take baths at the most inconvenient time for me.  Because you know, it's all about me, right?  I am so ready to send him off to Kindergarten. 

*Saturday is Taylor's Eagle Project.  I still can't believe it's here.  We'll be planting 40 trees at a local city park/sports complex.  A typical temperature for May 1st in the Phoenix suburbs could range anywhere for 90 to 100 degrees.  The forecast for this May 1st?  Right now they are saying 78 degrees with a chance of Thundershowers.  Seriously?  Instead of providing shade and water, I might have to provide umbrellas and hot chocolate.   At least we won't be having to treat anyone for Sunstroke!  If you live near by and want to volunteer, leave your email addy in the comment box and I'll email you a flier with all the details. 

Follow Through

I have three drafts of posts that I began on Friday saved in blogger. I didn't finish any of them. I can't seem to commit to publishing any of them.

I want to blog about Ian's toe, but I really want to have a picture or two, so maybe I will do that tomorrow. But who am I kidding?

I have a meeting at 8:00 a.m., then 8:30 a.m., then ward choir at 10:15, then church at 11:00, and then a missionary coordination meeting at 2:15. I will be at the church for seven hours, minus the half hour in between welfare meeting and choir which I figure will give me just enough time to throw dinner in the crockpot.

By the time I get home around 3 pm I expect to be wasted... plus I'll be awaiting company which will arrive just in time to consume the brisket that will be simmering in the crockpot all day.

So, I probably won't get around to blogging about the broken toe for a few more days.... ya'll know how hard it is to blog when you have company...

But hey, I blogged tonight... and really about nothing at all. But I just wanted to check in. Now it's time to check out. I have a meeting in exactly 8 hours....

Night, night. Sleep tight!

Inspiration

My blog is my internet home page. I see it several times a day when I log onto the internet. And yet, here it has been for a week and I still don't have a concrete thing to blog about.

I could do a "brag " post about my freshman son going to Regionals for Swimming. Of course, he isn't likely to make it past that point. The competition is fierce!

I could do a "stressed out" post about the 24 hour period a few days ago in which Eric and I were more than 50% sure he was going to be laid off in a couple weeks. (False Alarm, we are safe... for now.)

I could do a "parent of the year" post because given the amount of video games my kids have been playing lately, I'm guaranteed to be voted out of that competition.

I could do a "frustrated" post about all the drama and what-not of daily life.

I could do a "project" post and show you a tablecloth project I've been working on. I came up with the idea 6 weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to working on it.

I could do a "complaining" post about how tired I feel all the time and how poorly I've been managing my time. And how I NEVER get enough sleep!

I could do a "gratitude" post because after more than a year of having broken gears on my bike, Eric got them repaired on Saturday! Thank you Sweetie!

I could do a "life's not fair" post and go into detail about all completely unfair situations of life.

I could do a "wish list" post since my birthday is coming up, but I don't even know what I want. World Peace?

In the end, I won't do any of these and just wait for the perfect blogging opportunity to come. For me, I find that blogging is "feast or famine"... just got to wait for the right inspiration to come my way!

Aren't computerized stickie notes so fun?

Can you think of a more fun way to write random bits of nothing?

I learned the stickie note trick from this wonderful blogger. (No, I don't know her, but I stalk her blog on a regular basis... check it out, I think you'll love it too!) Here is the website where you can go to make your own! Enjoy and have fun with it!

Weekend Recap

Random bits of information from the weekend:

• Friday night I said goodbye to my best friend who moved to Tennessee this weekend. It was depressing, to say the least. Thank goodness we both have Verizon... free mobile to mobile minutes... :)
• I combated that depression on Friday night with Oreos, a self administered pedicure and 2 episodes of Bones. It worked wonders and I really enjoyed showing off my freshly painted toenails at church today... not that anyone else noticed them, but I stared at them a lot! (I've completely neglected my toenails since the pedicure I got on my birthday... back in early November, so they've been looking atrocious for a while now...)
• Saturday I took Megan shopping for new church shoes... after 2 hours and 4 stores, we finally compromised. I bought her shoes that had a higher heel than I wanted, in return for the privilege to borrow them on occasion. They are totally cute and fit both of us!
• Eric and I have been watching episodes from the show, My Own Worst Enemy with Christian Slater. Both of us are undecided if we like it, and we suspect it got cancelled since there only seem to be 9 episodes to date.
• Today my alarm clock went off at 5:45 instead of the programmed 6:45. In Arizona, we don't switch for Daylight Savings, but my alarm clock took it upon itself to switch automatically, so we got woken up an hour earlier than we needed to... needless to say, it ruined my day. I've had a headache all day long that even brought on a few hours of nausea and upset stomach this afternoon. I finally got desperate and took Excedrin at dinnertime and now I feel normal again.
• Eric rescued me this afternoon and took over washing dishes and making dinner for kids while I laid in bed and moaned in misery. He made the kids pancakes for dinner and they were in heaven. I think the boys might have OD'd.
• I'm reading two books about the WW2 era... One is The Book Thief, the other is The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society... I like them both, but they are so different. Interesting that I happen to be reading them both at the same time and didn't really know they were about the same era when I started. What strikes me is how amazing the people of that generation were. They got by with so little and endured so much tragedy, yet found happiness in the small and simple things of life. Definitely a lesson our generation could use...
• Tonight Brayden went to bed in nothing but spiderman undies and one flip flop. We couldn't find the other. He wasn't willing to wear any clean jammies he had and when I suggested he re-wear a pair from last night, he absolutely refused because they were "too dirty." Whatever...
• Tomorrow is our first official day of Spring Break. What am I going to do with the kids? I know I'll be rationing out the TV/Video Game time and taking them all to the library to find some good books to read over break, but beyond that, I don't know. Of course, I can put them to work on the weed problem in our backyard... it's a bit out of control!
• Only ten more days until we go on Trek with the Youth. I'm really looking forward to most of it, except the sleeping-on-the-ground-with-nothing-but-a-tarp-in-the-desert-with-all-the-tarantulas-and-other-creeping-things part... I don't think I'll get much sleep... and please don't share any tarantula "stories" with me before I leave... I've heard enough of those to last a lifetime!