My family doesnt know this yet but...

I have decided that we are going to change our diets in a major way... out with fast food and pizza ... in more healthy alternatives... and get read for this... fruits and veggies..

This will be fun...

Its been a while...

Since I last blogged, and since I have done a product review!

IDog

Ill start with the IDog. I loved the concept of these little critters, they barked, played music, and I THOUGHT they were able to have an MP3 player plugged into them and they would be a speaker for your music. I got the wrong one. I got the cheaper one for 14.99, and it did not allow you to hook up a MP3 player. Well... thats why I bought both girls an MP3 player in the first place! Although, they use them a lot. The IDog goes through batteries like they are going out of style!

My rating: Poor

Leapster

Leapster! We bought two of these, one for each girl. They love them, and still do. Now that they have had them for a couple of weeks, the cartridges are a little bit of work to get them to recognize it. I wanted to buy the battery packs and charging system, but wow! they are almost 40$ a piece. We only paid 59.99 a piece for the system! The girls still love them, and play them a lot. It gives me some peace and quiet, so of course, I love them.

My rating: Great

TAO Key Photo Key Chain

When Tony and I went on our mini vacation last weekend, we bought a TAO keychain that was an open box from The Sharper Image. After tring to charge the thing both with the usb to computer, and usb to wall charger, it still did not work. I called the company and they sent me a new one, and a labeled and postage paid envelope for me to send back the old one. They did not need a credit card or anything. Excellent customer service!!! I have not had the chance to use the product yet, but I can already tell that this one works. lol

My rating: Great

Swiffer Wet Jet

I have a swiffer sweeper vac that I can not live with out. I would cry if it died. Then I would wipe my tears and go buy a new one!! So since I love the vac so much, I figured I would give the wet jet a try! I am not sure I like it. I vac'ed before I used it, and it still seemed to have picked up some dog hair, but I felt like I was just moving the dirt and not really picking it up...But it was very quick, and thats what I need

My rating: Good

My robe

I got a robe and several pairs of pajamas for Christmas. I love them all. Its nice to have new ones to wear around the house. I also love my robe. I never was much of a robe person, but its been kinda cold in here, even with the thermostat cranked, so I have been wearing it. Very nice... lol

My rating: Great



there ya go. I posted

Happy Monday

Thanks to me for forgetting to pick up my pills on Friday, I did not sleep last night... After tossing and turning, I finally got out of bed at 5:30am. So I did some internet surfing and finally went and took a shower around 7ish. After that I got Caitlin up for school, and gave her breakfast. Around 7:50, i told her to start getting ready to go out to the bus... So she did. She walked out the door at 7:55, just as the neighbor and his boys were walking to the bus stop. Not knowing any better, we stood there with our kids until 8:18 and I finally called the school, no water main break this time, they transfered me to the bus depot. Turns out, the bus was at the stop after our stop at 7:58. For some reason she has to call the bus depot every day when she gets to that stop. PROBABLY because she is either way early, or way late, and drives away when kids are four feet from the bus. Anyways, she had already been back to the bus depot. Grrr... so fine. I tell the neighbor boys and Caitlin to get into the car, and I go in to get Zoe... Caitlin and Logan start complaining about space. LOL TOO BAD. I have a dodge neon. not big on space.


So I make it to school almost late myself... Blahblah Composition II lecture thing... get done, go to Tonys work, then to get my pills... I go get Zoe, get home, and theres a small doggie on a chain at my back door... WHOOPS! I forgot to put Zeus back in the house in the shuffle to get everyone to school and daycare!! hehh Good thing its 34 outside today!

Blogging can help with Scrapbooking!

I have not scrapbooked since we have moved here. We moved here June 2006. We moved into our house October 2006. I got my craft room set up sometime in Feb of 07. I have not printed any pictures for scrapbooking this entire time, but I have posted to my blog!

I was writing on the back of the pictures today and simply could not remember when it was or the exact month... I knew I had blogged about it, so I searched for that post and omg! Theres the date! lol


Anywho...

Happy Holidays

Weeeee made it through Christmas!

I AM SOOO BORED.

I miss having home work to obsess over! I can not wait to get back to school! I go back on the second of January, the kids go back on the third. This term i have two online classes and one in house class. Criminology, Juvenal Delinquency, and Composition II. I think the composition might kick my butt, but I will try my hardest!

Today we are leaving for Wisconsin, and we will stay in a hotel once we get there. Then in the morning, we will go to my aunt and uncles, and await the rest of my family. I hope the trip is pleasant, since you never know how its going to go with a 6 and 4 year old!

Ok must finish packing and gathering stuff for our trip! Bye!

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

So I completed my last week of my first term last week. I am done! Whoohoo! I go back January 2nd, for my second term.

Guess what..... I am getting A's! Who knew?? I'm sooo proud of myself!


Ok Christmas is coming faster then I would like! I am on break, Zoe is on break since Thursday and Caitlin's last day was today.

I finished my christmas shopping on Tuesday, thanks to my wonderful hubby who sold a ton of cars! I am so proud of him!


I got a hair cut yesterday. They cut off nine inches, and i still have enough hair to put into a pony tail! I knew it was long, but my gosh...

Hmmm

Well its that time of year and some people need things like wishlists. So here is one of mine at Amazon.com


More to come later

Day Lights Savings

Not only do our electronics get messed up, our children's inner clock does not realize the time difference. I have never liked day lights savings because of this reason. Don't matter what time it is, the kids still get up at the ass crack of dawn. But when you change your clocks, they get up an hour before the ass crack of dawn. Thanks.


My kids are strange. Its Sunday morning and instead of watching cartoons, they are watching some kind of dog Olympics on Animal Planet. Three hours later, they are still watching Animal Planet. I tell them to go clean their room and they say but I am watching cartoons. NO YOUR NOT.

We are under a severe weather alert today. It is supposed to be windy. Um hello? I live in Iowa. Its either windy, or windy. Duh. But since its below 60, we might end up with a wind chill. Silly weather...

I took down the spider webs out side yesterday. I heard it is supposed to snow, so I wanted to do it before that happened. BTW, it was much more fun putting them up then it was taking them down. It makes our porch look a bit dull.

Now that all my flowers are dead, I miss them. A lot. I miss looking at them and realizing how much they have grown since the last time I looked at them! Time to pull them out of the ground. I am going to wait till its warmer outside. If that happens.

School Update

Weeee another busy week thats almost over! I have been studying for my Intro to Criminal Justice test since Tuesday. The test is not until next Tuesday, but I don't want to procrastinate when it comes to school. I want to know my stuff. I want to get A's. I want to prove to myself that I can do it. I know I am capable of getting good grades, my last year in high school proved that.

I am having a hard time finding a study technique that works for me. I know writing things down several times helps me, but it doesn't seem to be helping in this situation. In my Human Dynamics class we are learning about study techniques. I am trying to apply them to my other classes.

I have psychology home work, and I need to do some of my Document Processing & Presentation stuff. But mainly, I need to study for this test.


Blahblah blah...

Update:

Nothing new here... Well actually there is a lot new...


Tony and I celebrated our 7th anniversary yesterday! Woot! Its been a great seven years with a lot of ups and downs, but I don't think a marriage should be with out them! How boring would that be, right?

We finally got around to getting more family pictures done! (Thanks Kim!) Our last family picture was when Caitlin was 9 months old! Oops. I am not saying we haven't had ANY done of Zoe, just not the four of us!

I am still working on decorating my bedroom! I ran out of stuff to texture the walls! But even if I had some more stuff, I would have NO time to actually get to it since its a very messy project.

Today is week three of school. That means there are 7 more weeks of this term. So far so good. Now if only I could get my house work done too. I spent time doing homework Thursday and Friday, and I worked on it for 10 hours on Saturday, and about 3 on Sunday. Thats a lot of homework. Oh well, I guess I only have one project due every two weeks for Psychology, so this wont be a weekly trend.

I don't know if I blogged about it, but we put Tico in the craft room. He was peeing on EVERYTHING in the basement, and we just couldn't take anymore of it. We did this about a month ago. The bad part about him being out there, when I have my mandatory craft room Sundays is that he is sooo lonely that I cant get anything done!

Uh... Hmm... OK... thats all for now I guess!

Fly like a butterfly sting like a bee?

Wow.. week two of getting everyone to where they need to be and when is going okay so far, yet its only Monday so we will see how Tuesday and Wednesday go. Thursday and Friday I do not have class, and its just Tony work, Caitlin school, and Zoe preschool on Thursday.

Of course I have two appointments to throw into the mix, along with having to pick up and delivering of the fund raiser stuff from last month.

Ill be going to the Mall of America today to meet my aunt and uncle before they fly out to Australia and New Zealand for vacation. It always takes ME an hour longer then anyone else to get places.. lol I drive the speed limit and make many stops. I hope the girls sleep on the way home so I can just cruise back on into Iowa.


Although everyones schedules are now blending together a bit better since we have two cars, I have been slacking on the home front. Laundry is not getting done, the house is in constant disarray, the dogs are probably under walked... :( I have not made the bed in almost a week *sigh*

That will be next to put into the mix of things I guess...

Strengths Quest

www.strengthsquest.com

We found out our top five strengths on Wednesday. Some people find they don't identify at all with their top five, or maybe one or two, but not all. I pretty much agree with all five of mine. Here are my top five and some "definitions" of them..

Strategic
Sort through the clutter and find the best route
See patterns when others simply see complexity
What if?
Know there is more then one way to get from point A to point B
Quickly pick out relevant issues and patterns
Lightning quick evaluation of what wont work
People don't realize you have considered all of the options
Sometimes you think backwards

Intellection
Like to think, like mental activity
Like exercising the "muscles" of your brain
Thought goes in multiple directions, may be focused, may lack focus
Simply like to think
You are your own best companion
Mental hum, constants of your life

Communication
Like to explain, describe, speak, write, and tell stories
Bring a dry idea to life
Want information
May be criticized because you like to talk a lot
Reach out and connect with people

Input
Inquisitive
Collect things that interest you
Find several things interesting - Keeps your mind fresh
Always adding information to your archives
Don't feel comfortable with throwing anything away
Want to know more, crave information
Active and resourceful curiosity

Restorative
Love to solve problems
Analyzing the symptoms, identifying what is wrong
Enjoy bringing things back to life
Fix it, resuscitate it, rekindle its vitality
Readily take on projects others believe cant be "saved"
Quickly recognize problems that others may not detect
Other people might not like the fact you can quickly detect problems, weaknesses, situations and organizations


Now add those things to my bipolar, depression and anxiety, and you pretty much have me figured out.

Busy!

Oh my I was so busy Monday Tuesday and Wednesday that my head was just spinning! Monday I had to get Caitlin off to school, and went to my first class. Tuesday Tony went out of town and I had to get Caitlin off to school, Zoe off to school, bring Kim to the hospital, and I ran several errands. Then I had to pick Zoe back up. Tuesday night, I had a class. I found a babysitter (at the last possible second) for that night since Kim had another procedure done and I wanted her to get some sleep. Wednesday, I got Caitlin off to school, took Zoe to her new daycare (her second day EVER in daycare) and went to class. Then I had to pick up Zoe... (she had fun) Then I had to go to the online orientation that I had accidentally gone to on Tuesday... Then I attended my night class. When I got home, my husband was home! :D Then Thursday, I had to get Caitlin off to school, and take Zoe to preschool...........

Is your head spinning yet?????? Hehehe

And since today is Friday, and I apparently have ignored the house, I must clean clean clean!

DO NOT WANT!

I went downstairs to the laundry room this morning to look for clothes for Miss Zoe. This is what I saw crawling across the floor....... These pictures had a bottle cap in them, but it got cropped out of the picture. This spider fits perfectly inside the bottle cap.







I thought that it might be a brown recluse spider... So I googled them, and came across this picture. Yup ... Close enough for me... *shudder*






Now I feel kind of silly since yesterday I posted this in my children's blog...

First Day of one class

Today was my first day of Human Dynamics. It started out with roll call, then sign in, then initialing the "contact" sheet with our information on it.

We then went through our class syllabus. Talked a bit about the books for the class, and then we each said something about each ourselves. This is a huge part of the class since it is about learning about ourselves. Our strengths, not our weaknesses...

We then had a sheet of paper with a few squares labeled things like "has pets", "traveled to another continent" and so on, then we had to collect "signatures" of the people fitting those "titles". Once we got as much from our classmates, we were off to find the rest from students and faculty in the building. Once that was completed, we were free to go.

I had fun. I told my husband that I had "fun", and he kind of looked at me like HUH? FUN? Wednesday we are going to be taking our"strengths quest assessment" to learn our top five. Ive started reading the book about the assessment, and it seems very interesting. I almost can not wait to do it!

Got some spare change??

Apparently, banks are getting rid of their change counters. Well they are in my city anyways. WHY?! .... My bank bags the change then sends it to Des Moines for them to count and then they credit your account. WHAT?! They told me First Citizens might still have one. So I load Zoe back into the car and drive a block. We get out, go inside, and the teller says "Its a five dollar fee if you do not bank with us." "WHAT? I don't even know how much change I have, but I know I am not giving five of it to you to count my change and give me paper money..." (Didn't actually say this but OOhhh So wanted to) She told me she could waive todays fee. Great. Thanks. I walked out of there with $7.59.

So what is the point of saving that change then?? I usually use mine for when I completely run out of money. But if you have to have it "sent out" by your own bank, or pay a $5 fee for a local bank to count it, whats the point?? Why is there "change" then??

WOOT! FOR SUNDAY!

Woot! Football is on tv! Yes... I know.. I am actually CHEERING for football. About three weeks ago, I asked hubby if he was going to continue to watch football, he said ya probably. So I handed him my glasses and tried to take a nap. A few minutes of laying there not sleeping, I said "HEY why dont you call your brother and see if he wants to come watch football, and I will go play in my craft room! But theres one catch, the kids stay in the house." He said okay! And off I went to my craft room. It is so nice to be in my craft room alone. Completely alone, expect for the cat that we kicked out of our house and into the craft room. He can be a pest, but I dont mind...


WOOHOOO FOR FOOTBALL!

(and craft room day!)

oh yea

a blog! hehe


Hmm whats new... my glasses start soon, in less then two weeks actually... I am getting nervous about baby sitters, class schedules, homework, PEOPLE...

In the mean time, I am trying to decorate our bedroom, and decluttering our home. There is clutter everywhere... I am sure its not as bad as some peoples houses, but I don't want to deal with the clutter anymore. Like flylady and several others often say, a cluttered house can make you tired, depressed, and lead to a cluttered brain & life. I would love to get rid of everything but the basics, but that will never happen because we all have a slight hoarding issue. LOL

Zeus got fixed on Wednesday. He is really bruised. The sack that is left is black, and around his incision is very red. It is not warmer then the rest of him, so I am hoping there is no infection and it is just bruising.

Kim drove me to the vet to drop of Zeus, then we went to IF to visit the grandma greats. They were very happy to see us and the pictures that Kim had done from her friend the photographer.

I was going to finally have my garage sale today since the neighbor is having one and she put an ad in the paper. I was going to use her publicity to get people to come to my sale. After much procrastination, lack of planning, and plain laziness, I decided to donate all of it to the local womans shelter. I hope they pick stuff up since they don't have an address published anywhere.

Ok maybe more later...

Mom.

Lois. Lois. Lois. Lois. Lois. MOM...Mommy Mommy Mommy Momma! Momma! Momma! MA! MA! MA! MOM MOM MOM Mommy Mommy Momma Momma!

*WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaT?!!*


Hi.................... hehh



LINK!

Look what my garden sprouted!