something new

I've been thinking about this, and talking about this for a long time. I decided it was time to just jump in and start writing about all of the little projects I am constantly working on. Maybe by writing about them I'll be able to keep better track of them :)

So here's a toast to my new blog
"May I write in you often,
May you inspire others,
May you always be fun!"

Cheers!

sugar babies

I cruised the new Dollar Tree in town today.

I have become that cool.

After checking the supply of pregnancy tests (we finally have a dollar store that stocks them! - and NO, I did not buy one) and picking up some dishcloths (my Williams-Sonoma dishcloths love to hang out with their Dollar Tree cousins) I hit the candy aisle. Birds sang as I dodged little old ladies, sunshine filled my heart as I gazed upon row after row of brightly colored boxes, I peed rainbows.

It never fails to amaze me how fabulous the candy selection is at dollar stores. I guess the grocery store has all of the same candy, but I never really spend much time in the candy aisle (potato chip aisle is a different story). I only came home with a box of Sugar Babies (self restraint - go me!), which I am now sharing with J. I would have come home with a bag of Sugar Daddies, because I lovelovelove them - but I couldn't find any :( Oh well, candy and my little family makes for a pretty great Saturday night :)

what i should be doing

What I should be doing rightthisveryminute is packing.

We are heading to Virginia Beach in less than 5 hours. So far I have packed nothing. There is a pitiful pile of J's clothes on the floor in our bedroom, and um, yeah, that's it.

Why do I lack motivation? It's vacation for crying out loud!

I couldn't sleep last night and woke up at 4 AM - maybe that's it.

On the plus side, I have arranged for someone to come and feed Zippy while we're gone.

I think I need more coffee...

story o' the week

JJ would not take a nap this afternoon. So he was a tad cranky, and I was tired. By 4:45 I decided to turn on Handy Manny and retreat to the office for a few minutes.

JJ watched Manny and played with his toys, and was happy :) Mommy played on the computer :)

When Daddy came home he found a happy, NAKED, little man!

JJ managed to wiggle out of his clothing and diaper. (and he peed on the rug, but it could have been worse)

JJ was very pleased with himself, and he was so cute that all we could do was laugh :)

sweet sixteen

JJ is sixteen months old.

I can't believe it.

To celebrate, on Sat night he climbed out of the pack-n-play and onto the (very high) bed in my parents' guest room, made himself a little nest and went to sleep. I had the monitor turned on, and no one heard him do it. He's a ninja.

He has also started sleeping through the night. He has always slept at night, but has woken up once or twice and needed me to rock him or nurse him (still nursing! :) ) back to sleep. On June 18th I woke up and realized I had had a full night of uninterrupted sleep, he's slept through every night since (except if we've been out of town). I love sleeping :)

Last week he also had his first hair cut. We went to the barber shop and he did so well - he just sat in the chair and looked around. I made sure to save his baby hair, and he got a certificate and a ribbon for being so good, but I decided he didn't need a sucker (because I am the fun police).

I love Binky!

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

One last milestone, JJ is finally into saying "Daddy." I know it makes J happy, but for the most part, he just runs around babbling nonsensically and singing the "Mama Song." And we think he's perfect :)

they caught me

A seriously soused city woman was cited Sunday for persistent disorderly conduct after crashing a party on Ohio 37 and biting someone.

From the public docket, duh.

Edit: I just reread this, and I want to note that this wasn't me, I just thought it was funny...but I didn't want anyone to think that I really run around drunk and biting, although...

destin!

On Wed morning I turned on the computer and nearly had a heart attack. I'm not exactly sure what was happening inside of the mysterious grey box that connects me to my friends, but it involved foreboding blue screens and scary words like "reconfigure" and "data loss." I couldn't handle it, so I called J at work, and he was zero help so I restarted the computer and prayed that all of my pictures hadn't poofed into a black hole somewhere.

Thankfully, they are all safe and sound (and now backed up on CD's).

So I can share some from our trip to Destin, FL :)

We stayed at a gorgeous house on the beach, the (gated and guarded) community was so nice, palm trees everywhere, a really nice pool and of course the beach was fabulous. If you want to plan a trip let me know, because I would highly recommend the house we were in, and later we found out that Britney Spears has a home in the development - so now I feel really cool (we got a great deal because we booked late, and we shared the house with another family, otherwise we would not have been there). As fab as the house and community were, I have no pictures of them - sorry!

J went deep sea fishing, and I now have 25 lbs of fish in my freezer. He caught amberjack, red snapper, black fin tuna, wahoo, and a barracuda (which is not edible). Now it's my job to figure out how to cook all of this yummy fish! While J was fishing I went shopping at one of the best outlet malls I've ever been to - I scored a great deal on a Micheal Kors purse :), so that made up for J abandoning me for the day.


JJ drives us to FL ;)
playing in the tidepool

JJ and Daddy caught a shark!

swimming with Mama

at the Gulfarium

Alligator Hunters!

father's day

redemption

J is off the hook, he sent me this response.

Sorry. Should have taken an extra minute to put some more thought into it. Thank you for putting up with my work-mode email and offering to share your baking talents with the world.

Love,
J

I love him :)

erm

I just received this email from J:

Alanna,

I volunteered to bring a dessert on Tuesday for the taco lunch fundraiser.

Thanks,
J

So, this is what I sent back to him:

I think you need to rephrase that:

"My wonderful, perfect and beautiful Wife,
I would love for you to make a dessert for me to take in for our fundraiser on Tues. You are such a fabulous baker - I want to share your talents with the world.
Can you do this for me?
Love,
J"

I'll gladly do it, just remember that you love me and I'm not your employee.

back to reality

We had a wonderful vacation, and I promise a post full of cute beach baby pictures (after I find the USB cables), but now it's back to real life.

The good news? This summer, real life means a daily trip to our pool :) And, the pool we belong to is fabulous and wonderful and smells like pink cupcakes; so it's my favoritest place ever. I will also post pics from our awesome pool, but not right now.

Right now I have a back-to-real-life tale for you.

Every other Wed. I try to deliver groceries to the housebound elderly in our city. It's an ongoing service project for Service League, and the Agency on Aging sets it all up. What we do is pick up the prepacked groceries from the store, deliver them and bring the money back to the store. Simple, right? Is anything simple with a 15 month old??

Today I delivered 4 orders - highly unusual, I usually do 2 or 3. The first three were easy, it takes time, but the recipients are so grateful, many of them would be unable to live unassisted without this service, so the good feeling you get totally makes up for any slight inconvenience.

The last order was for Miss Margaret. I love her. I love her because each week she orders 3 pints of Vodka and a jar of olives. And each week she tells you that the doctor made her give up cigarettes so she decided she would drink. I think, at her age, she has the right idea. I am also grateful to know that she no longer smokes because she has quite a few oxygen tanks lined up in her hallway, and explosions are scary. I think she dyes her hair every week, she must because I've never noticed roots, and she always has her makeup on. Sometimes (usually) I wish I could sit down and have a martini with her; although I would bring the vodka because she gets Five O'clock, and there's no way I could stomach that.

Anyway, she's such a great character, and so sweet that the very short visit with her completely made up for the fact that as I left the building, the fattest chihuahua I have ever seen totally tried to eat me.

I wish I had footage of me carrying JJ, and running away from this fat little bully; which was tethered to a shopping cart next to a Swisher Sweet smoking, fat old lady.

Had I been bitten I would have called the police, hoping for a write up in the public docket :)

vacation

We are leaving for Destin, FL on Friday :)

To get ready we bought JJ a big boy car seat (front facing), I think he enjoys looking out the windows, he loves putting toys in the cup holder. We also bought him a DVD player, and I actually had to purchase a few DVD's for it - because I just have some Handy Manny episodes saved on the DVR for here at home. Man, those DVD's are not cheap.

I am ready for vacation, maybe not ready for the car ride, but ready to get out of here and relax for a week.

See you later!

three for tuesday

Hey Laura - thanks for the post idea :)

1. We went swimming this afternoon! I managed to get JJ covered in SPF 60, rash guard, hat, and totally forgot to put any sun block on me. My shoulders are toast, but my daily facial SPF get my face free from burns, so that's a bonus :)

2. We are having french toast bake, bacon and strawberries for dinner!

3. Tonight is our last music class for this session. I decided not to sign JJ up for the summer session because we'll be gone quite a bit and we'll be busy at the pool. But we are for sure doing it again in the fall. If you have kids up to 5 years old I highly recommend Music Together classes - they are so much fun.

bonus points

J totally surprised me this afternoon, and made me really happy :)

We were supposed to go to a picnic and fishing tournament for his office; most of the guys in his group are newer hires, only a few are married and I doubt there are any other kids besides JJ...so not really a lot of fun for me at the playground by myself. The picnic was cancelled because the river is high and the current is too swift for good fishing (or something like that). J called to tell me that and I was disappointed because his other option for the day was to go golfing with one of his friends, and then to a cook out. Here's the convo we had:

J: The picnic is canceled.
AR: So you're abandoning us for the day? :(
J: I thought we could go to the zoo.

:) :) :) :) :) :)

So tomorrow we are headed to the zoo, and J has earned himself some bonus points :)

docket goodies

From the good old public docket:

"Police responded to a domestic disturbance Sunday in town after a male found his girlfriend's sex toy, thus violating a mutual agreement in which they each were supposed to get rid of their respective sex toys.

A decorative bowling ball was purloined from a yard Friday on Edgewood Drive."

The best part? The whole town was just in a major uproar because they almost had to lay off 13 police officers. I think the city could save a lot of money if people wouldn't call 911 every time a house is TP'd, or a Nigerian Prince solicits them via email (recurring items from the docket).

hypothetically speaking

If someone,

perhaps this guy:


were to, potentially, disassemble the baby gate before 8:30 AM;

then,

hypothetically,

is 8:31 AM an appropriate time for a drink?

PS - that picture is from Mom's Group, at the Church. I don't have couches, or carpet, quite that ugly. :)

yep, i still live here

This morning, I was going to post a link to this story, but then I got busy. I'm not sure what I was doing because I really accomplished nothing today (but JJ and I went for a walk), but I digress.

So, just a minute ago, I check my email before heading to bed, and I see that Yahoo has picked up the story. I KNEW it was gold!

Read it, laugh at it and then remember - I LIVE in this town.

Lord, please bring me a Target.

teeth

Yesterday JJ rammed me in the tooth with his head (yes, he managed to land perfectly on just my left front tooth). It has been in pain ever since. I am convinced that he cracked it up in my gum and that my tooth is going to fall out. He, of course, was completely unfazed and laughed his crazy little head off.

I am seriously worried that my tooth is going to turn grey and I will be banned from all social engagements.

sunday morning

We should be at Church. But JJ is napping, and one of our cardinal rules is to not wake the sleeping baby.

Instead there is laundry running (totally 'forgot' to do any laundry last week) and I am about to de-clutter my closet (big fun!). I've decided to have a garage sale next weekend, we have too much stuff and I would like cash in return. Thank you. Actually, the Oprah has been sending me Peter Walsh's updates and the one that came this week said "Have a Garage Sale," so I said "OKAY!"

I also really want to have a home furnishings swap like Oprah did last week - except, I only plan on inviting my well-off friends so that I have fabulous things to pick from for my house - hehe! In my mind I will come out of it with great designer throw pillows and accessories and they will go home with stuff from TJ Maxx.
This plan is sounding better by the minute :)

Beyond that I have been thinking of starting a second blog - just to throw all of my home keeping/entertaining/cooking stuff on. What do you think? What are the chances I can actually maintain two blogs?

how to celebrate earth day

Eat a green crayon.