Not bad after all :)

I started out this week feeling HORRIBLE! But as usual, when I need it the most, support comes pouring in.

I got another award!



Judi tagged me again - my own personal cheering section who has been with me my whole life (and ten months before that!). Thanks, mom!

Here are the award rules:

* List 7 things that make you Awe-Summ and then pass the award on to 7 bloggers you love.

* Make sure to tag your recipients and let them know they have won!

* Also link back to the Queen that tagged you.

You can copy the picture of the award and put it on your sideboard letting the whole world know….. YOU are The Queen of Alll Things Awe-Summm!

1. I am generally awesome at data entry - and sickly enough, I enjoy it.
2. I am usually optimistic to a fault,
3. But my dark sense of humor is awesome.
4. I am easily amused, and therefore frequently entertained.
5. I have good taste in friends :)
6. I can get along with almost anyone for as long as I have to.
7. I am determined.

And now to pass it along to seven MORE bloggers I love (and I've been trying not to duplicate lately...here goes nothing!):

• Sonja - an awesome photographer and mommy
• Carolyn - an awesome sushi lover with an awesome sense of humor!
• Jill - an awesome mama with an awesome faith
• Marty - an awesome musician and a resilient and insightful woman and mommy
• Hf - an awesome traveler and fun mom
• Ladybugs n Lizards - an awesome woman and awesome advocate for her children
• Mom of 2... (taking it one day at a time) - an awesome mom and blogger
  

It's hers now!

Way back before Maggie, I remember being asked how we'd utilize the bedrooms in our three-bedroom ranch if we had kids. The master bedroom has always been fairly obvious, and the next biggest room has been my office since I've lived here. The smallest room was in question. It made a kind of pitiful guest room, actually. The full-sized furniture kind of dwarfed the space. We'd talked about anything else we could do in there without using the floor, like a TV wall mount or floating shelves. Nothing ever really happened with it.

Now? It's the perfect Maggie room. We've got two small sections with books (one being a bookcase and the other a couple shelves on her armoire), her crib (which will take up the same space as a toddler bed), and the changing table. The room has all of Maggie's stuff in its sweet little place. It's hers now.

Contest!

Do you love the Body Shop? I love all of that sort of stuff. The only catch? It's great to receive as gifts, but I can never really justify buying it for myself. Mama's Money Savers is trying to make that a bit easier - there's a contest where you could win $100 worth of...well...Body Shop stuff!

First you get to take a little quiz, but it's really nice. It said I'm Super Mom. Yeah. Not hardly. I'm afraid Maggie may be a intimidating opponent on Jeopardy if the category were Disney movies if I'm not feeling up to snuff again soon! Poor kid :(

Anyway, head over and enter in time for Mothers' Day - the contest ends May 12.

Here we go!

I'm going to give it another shot. I see all these fabulous blogs with their coupon secrets and how to get groceries and things practically free. Every time I try to reduce our food budget (especially)..well, let's just say we don't need Solo Slim or other diet products to lose weight - lack of supply of food means demand just doesn't matter anymore, right? But I figure I don't have the energy to pick up a fourth job again, so I'll need to cut down on the spending instead.

What's your best non-annoying budget reducing strategy?

Another Award (and it's a really fun one!)

The zombie chicken says...

"The blogger who receives this award believes in the Tao of the zombie chicken - excellence, grace and persistence in all situations, even in the midst of a zombie apocalypse. These amazing bloggers regularly produce content so remarkable that their readers would brave a raving pack of zombie chickens just to be able to read their inspiring words. As a recipient of this world-renowned award, you now have the task of passing it on to at least 5 other worthy bloggers. Do not risk the wrath of the zombie chickens by choosing unwisely or not choosing at all…"

Thanks, Judi! I truly love this award. There have been so many people in my life who would really appreciate this award. Now it is my charge from the zombie chicken to pick five worthy recipients.

• Amanda (who will soon be on Wheel of Fortune and I can say, "I knew her when...")
• Becky (whose name I always spell wrong the first time I type it)
• Girl (who I don't right now have a parenthetical for, but I think she'll really like this award :D)
• Megan (who I can't say enough good things about - loser boys can't separate us, and neither can zombie chickens)
• Jodi (who I also met through teh crazy internet...)
  

Still fun :)

Our weekend ended up not really going as planned, but we still had a good time - of course :)

Saturday we headed off on schedule to the MetroParents Coverkids search...where Maggie pulled another 'easter bunny' and refused to smile for pictures. Hope this passes soon!

We headed from there to Shepherd, a few hours north, to meet my parents and stay in their rv for the night while enjoying the Maple Syrup Festival. The catch? About halfway there, it started raining. And kept raining. And kept raining. It actually rained off and on (mostly on...) until the next morning, when we woke up to cold and wet :( The forecast had called for 80 degrees! So we borrowed all the warmer coats and sweatshirts in the camper and bundled up for the walk to the delicious pancake breakfast. It was still only mid-morning when we all decided to throw in the towel and head home.

The surprise? It was sunny and 80 at home for a couple hours til the storm caught us again...

10 Random Things for a Friday

• It's like 80 degrees outside today, but unless I've been in the sun, I've been shivering.
• I didn't make it to the bank today, so I'll have to submit my chocolate show tomorrow - very last chance to order - send me an email :)
• I'm really looking forward to the super nice weather this weekend.
• I'm still not sure what Maggie is going to wear for the CoverKids search tomorrow...
• I've got the munchies again.
• We get to take the 'fun' car on our road trip to meet my parents tomorrow. Yay!
• My Good Housekeeping magazine from last month disappeared before I even got to read it :(
• I never did find my Easter decorations :(
• Next weekend will be May already!
• I'm going to go get some chocolate chai cool whip dip and graham crackers now.
  

When I go to work, it's a PARTY!

Tonight I got to go work the surprise vendor thing I heard about yesterday morning and had a great time! It was also a fundraiser for Relay for Life, to help fund research and treatment of breast cancer, and other cancers according to the American Cancer Society.

I won't even try to tell you how it all worked - it was a 'quarter-mania auction' that confused me even until it was under way. The important part (besides making money for Relay for Life!) is that it was fun, and I got my name out there and made new contacts. Yet another tough night at work in the life of a chocolatier ;)

Blogger Award

Yay! Judi gave me the Blogger Awards Statue :) Hadn't seen this one yet! It's always nice to hear there's someone out there who likes you, right? I truly appreciate it.

I'd like to pass this along to:
Two Lines On a Stick
Sunrays and Saturdays
Organized Chaos
Memoirs of a Neurotic
Mom of 3 Girls

Another Surprise Trip!

While my surprise trip today was long enough to think of a great post, it was also long enough to forget it again. Maybe if I'd gone all the way to Dallas Texas hotels it would have come back to me again, but I'll never know now.

This afternoon (right at rush hour, actually), hubby summoned Maggie and I to go pick up car parts, then drive to his work where we'd meet up and head over to see my new niece. Oh, and my brother and sister-in-law. We had a nice visit, and Maggie got one of her favorite meals - pizza! - before staying up hours past her bedtime again. Oh well. Tomorrow isn't an exceptionally strictly scheduled morning. We just need to go back to return the dirty car parts and drive by the post office on our way to lunch with Uncle Matt. Yay!

Hold on Tight!

So I've been sort of hiding out under my rock as much as possible lately, but the universe has started tap-tap-tapping on my door.

I'm finally back to work steadily again, which gives me more motivation for everything, or at least more of a need to keep it all organized. This morning Maggie and I went to a Kindermusik class just to check it out. I think it went pretty well, so we signed up for the last five weeks of this semester.

A friend called this morning in need of a Dove Chocolate Discoveries chocolatier for an event tomorrow night. I think I'd originally turned the event down a month or so ago, but now I know I need to get moving again. I called Papa, and he's coming to sit with Maggie tomorrow (more like play jungle gym to crazy-for-Papa Maggie) while I go to 'work.'

This weekend, we're headed to the Metro Parent CoverKids Search. We had a good time at the event last year, and I just love the commemorative magazine cover picture they let you get of your child. From there, we're headed to join Mimi and Papa at the Shepherd Maple Syrup Festival. A fun night of camping, festival stuff and time away from the computer!

Dream Projects

There are so many things I'd like to get done around the house. Somehow it seems like working from home gives me even less time to get stuff done. When I might ordinarily be able to sneak in a part of a project here or there, I've got Maggie in tow. As much as she'd love to 'help,' her help isn't exactly helpful yet, if you know what I mean.

Hubby works way too much to get to it all too. The good news? He has a job. The bad news? He's covering jobs for several others at the same time. It sucks, and I don't want to make it any worse for him than it already is.

I'm willing to hold off on the big fancy stuff, like one of these gorgeous vessel sinks. I'm just looking at stuff along the lines of replacing the outside garage lights since I like to have friends over after dark, making it so our bathroom doors shut, and grabbing a tube of silicon to stop our shower from draining on the floor, and permanently attach hubby's shaving mirror to the wall of the shower so it will quit making suicide jumps toward my toes.

They say it's your birthday!

Okay. Not me, or anyone in my family... Happy Birthday to Mallory, Colette and Scott!

Today we got to go to two birthday parties for a total of three people. We left the house at 2:30 PM and didn't make it back til about 9:00 PM because we are par-tay animals!!

Somehow through all the revelry we didn't have any cake. Go figure. We left the first party early to get to the second party, and we left the second party before the cake was cut because it was already past Maggie's bedtime. Oh well. I did get to have meatballs and corn and plenty of nacho dip and jello shots and a margarita. And Maggie helped herself to the spoon out of the nacho dip at the second party and was walking around with it enjoying the party on her own :) That's my girl.

Life's full of tough choices...

Like what I want to pick out for my $100 of Arbonne stuff - woo-hoo!! I had promised myself that I would pick it out before I went to bed, but it just didn't happen. Luckily we're out of work again, because by the time everyone was gone, I was fighting a headache. I took a sinus pill again, but I suspect it may have been the pretty smelling candle I had going in the bathroom. Truly, I'll never learn. They smell so nice, then a couple hours later my head feels funny and I start feeling kind of blech. It's mostly the flowery ones that do it, and unfortunately they're the nice candles, so I can't bear to just throw them away.... So I suffer for a beautiful smelling bathroom.

Fun, Fun, Fun!!

Yesterday was starting out as my third blah morning in a row, but things changed pretty quickly! Around 10:30, Diane called to see if Maggie wanted to play with Ryan while we grown-ups hung out. Of course that sounded like fun, and it would take them just as long to get here as it would take me to get showered and be wearing something other than my PJs. Not that I'm ashamed of my penguin PJs, but it would have been a bit uncomfortable to be the only scuzzy one...

They got here an hour or so later, and we all commenced to chillin. Since I'd skipped grocery shopping in favor of showering, we had pizza delivered for lunch. Seriously? We were living the high life. They stayed til almost 2pm, when it was time to get the kids to nap. Maggie and Ryan fell asleep within minutes of being separated.

After they both slept for a couple hours, Ryan got to come back! Yay! Diane and her husband headed out for date night while my hubby and I found out a little of what it would be like to have two kids within a year of each other (Ryan is just 10 months older than Maggie). We had tacos for dinner (no kid complaints there!) then walked up to the Dairy Queen for dessert. Well, the two tallest of our party walked while pushing the short stacks in strollers ;)

All in all it was a fun day with little people and big people alike!

And Then What?

What started yesterday morning as a pretty mundane day ended up being a relatively fun afternoon. After Maggie went down for her nap, hubby called to say he was headed to his sister's house to help her hook up her hot tub. Besides the hole in it, she was having issues with the electrical-ness, which should be hubby's area of expertise. Maggie and I decided to meet him there, then we could all go to dinner.

Once he arrived there, he got right to work. My job was making sure Maggie didn't wander the wrong way and get zapped, and his sister's job was plugging and unplugging on demand while he messed with the wires. At one point she jokingly asked, "What happens if I don't unplug when you say so?" I was standing close enough to tell her, "You get to support Maggie and I." It took her a minute, but she realized what I was saying. There's life insurance, and then there's the cause of any incapacitation (wow - that's a word?) being family and picking up the slack. Hahahahahahaha...

Don't worry - we all made it through the evening in one uncharred piece.

Wordless Wednesday?

Thanks for a very happy Easter!

Once the drama with the bunny was over, Maggie was able to go on and enjoy her Easter weekend.

Saturday we went to Grandma's, where Maggie did her very first egg 'hunt,' and got a fabulous bonnet. Hopefully Grandma got some good pictures of Maggie in her dress and bonnet, because although she wore the same dress the next day, we only took pictures outside with her jacket covering her dress!



Sunday we headed to church and then Mimi and Papa's. If she'd thought of it before hand, she may have thought it was too good to be true, but Mimi got her a hat too!! Yay!! Tomorrow it may be hard to decide which one to wear, but today there was one for Maggie AND one for Mimi...



Maggie also (of course) ended up with plenty of traditional Easter candy. Hopefully she doesn't grow to like it quite as much as her mommy does - YUM! Yesterday she was a little hesitant at first, but then really enjoyed her first Peep. Today she attempted to cram one of those big mallow eggs in her mouth as one bite - don't think so, kid!

We were very happy to add matching aprons for Maggie and mommy from Mimi to our collection. Maggie's smock will go perfectly while she works on her new easel from Grammy and Grandpa.



We were able to spend some time with all of our favorite people this weekend - thanks!!

Hoppy Easter?

Well, the day started out well enough. Maggie and I got up and had breakfast. When it was time to start relaxing and play, I talked her into taking a bath instead. Once she was clean and dressed, I snuck in a quick shower for myself. After stashing her pretty pink dress in the diaper bag and getting the stroller into the trunk again, we hit the road.

It was a little bit further to Twelve Oaks than to the mall right by our house, but I knew she had liked the Easter bunny there, so I figured it was worth the trip. And the bunny costume there was cute too. Once we got to the mall, my first mission was to find a pair of white tights to go with the dress. Fifteen dollars later (are you kidding me??), we headed to the restroom to change her into her new tights and pretty dress. We got nothing but compliments from there on out. She looked adorable!!

In line for the picture with the bunny, Maggie was having a ball. She kept pointing, saying, "Bunny," and waving and blowing kisses. I was so proud that she was still cooperative after hearing other people's horror stories. We already had two good Santa pictures and a good bunny picture under our belts, and it seemed to just be getting easier.

Then, it was her turn. "C'mon, Maggie. Let's go see the bunny!" One of her first spoken words is still one of the most audible. "No. No. No," while shaking her head. I didn't want to be 'that mom,' so we just hung out for a while. Luckily it was the middle of the day, so there was no line. I sat with the bunny, I sat on the ground at the bunny's feet, I gave Maggie fruit snacks while I was with the bunny and I gave the bunny fruit snacks to give Maggie.

Finally, it was time for the bunnies to switch shifts, and we'd been there over an hour. I decided we'd go with what we got. So here it is....

Hoppy Easter!!

Introspective

I was feeling so introspective earlier. It wasn't hard to do after a busy weekend, with finally a few quiet minutes and a thought-provoking sermon when Maggie and I made it to church this morning. The sermon was about anxiety and unfortunately, didn't offer any real remedies. I think the best thing I took from it is, "Hey, yeah. We're all anxious. That's because we're sane. Do what you can, and don't worry about what you can't...." Yeah. I know I oversimplify everything.

The other part of the sermon I really appreciated was Reverend Alex's description that when anxiety hits us, it's like a giant mallet ringing us like a bell. Then we go out and interact with others, and now-a-days, most of them are vibrating like a ringing bell too. If you're the one in a million that isn't anxious, all that vibration of everyone else's anxiety is going to bump into you and make you anxious too, most likely.

I could totally get what he was saying on that. I remember right after 9-11 I didn't want to leave my house. Not because I was afraid to, but because I felt like I was absorbing worry from those around me. It sounds weird to say it, but I can totally remember it. I think the way anxiety is hitting me now it's even more tangible. It's the foreclosed houses for sale, that you know are foreclosed by the notes on the door. It's the businesses advertising their final sales as they go under. It's the boarded up vacant buildings.

Lately, the least amount of anxiety I have is in my house. I make it a point to keep it that way. I don't watch the news and I don't even see much TV. PBS Kids keeps things light and cheerful around here, or music, or just Maggie's babbling. There's no point in worrying about things I can't do anything about, so I try to keep my focus positive.

10 Random Things for a Friday

1. Apparently I like candy better than wine, or candy-flavored wine. Just sayin...
2. Cheese and wine go together, but not in the same glass.
3. I had fun at the wine-tasting event this evening :)
4. I'm still kind of giddy that hubby and I had two nights out in a row without Maggie.
5. Tomorrow will be a fun family day, with Maggie and her lil cousin Olivia.
6. I gave a chocolate catalog to a stranger today. Go, me!
7. The friends we went out with tonight called my kitty cat fat. She's really just fluffy.
8. Hey Tammy? I didn't know that my mom actually knew the name in advance til you told me last week :D Thanks! Hahahahahaha...
9. I hope spring is finally here to stay.
10. Starburst makes the very best jellybeans.
    

Here's Your Sign!

I wish I'd taken a picture of it earlier, because when I finally grabbed the camera and decided to stop and get it yesterday, it was gone.

For a few weeks, one of those light up signs - where they can change the message - was on the side of eastbound Interstate 96 between Lansing and Detroit. It said, "SAVE LIVES - AVOID DISTRACTIONS WHILE DRIVING."

Seriously? Did someone think putting this on a giant sign by the side of the road was the best way to get people to pay attention to the road? Huh.