Sunday, January 31, 2010

One More Thing...

I made this one last thing while watching the Grammy's tonight. It's a wreath made out of pages of a book! (I knew I'd find a purpose for those old mass market romance novels!) Part way through, Myles thought he would do a Lady Gaga impersonation (from the American Music Awards). ha ha.
Here's a link to the tutorial if you want to make one for yourself. It turned out really cool, but I used up a lot of glue sticks on this and suffered a few hot glue burns. I think the finished product is pretty cool. I had to snap some quick pictures before heading off to bed. I have to decide where to hang it permanently.
Alright, I'm off to bed. We'll see if my sleep deprived brain will come up with any new projects tomorrow.

Crafty Weekend

We have had one crafty weekend. First off, Savannah wanted to make some ponchos for her webkinz. (Due to the fact that I have not supplied her with a sufficient amount of store bought webkinz clothes.) So, she made ponchos for every single one of her webkinz. And, she figured it out completely on her own. I took her picture her with a bunch of her newly ponchoed webkinz.
Then, last night we remembered buying the supplies, months ago, to make her a beaded curtain for her doorway. It's not actually beaded, but made out of pompoms. The result was fantastic!!

And, I finally finished painting my Dolly Mama frames. They turned out fabulous as well.

Friday, January 29, 2010

Shirley Temple Stopped By...

Last night Savannah wanted me to put curlers in her hair to make it extra curly. She's going to school today as Shirley Temple's doppleganger.

Monday, January 25, 2010

I'm Officially A Winter Hater

This past Sunday was planned to be a great one. I had learned that our local community playhouse was doing "Cheaper By the Dozen" and they were offering tickets to the evening show at only $7 per ticket. I had planned to take the kids. So we drove into Omaha to line up for the discounted tickets at 3pm. Tickets went on sale at 4pm. I was expecting a line. We had gone to participate in the Wicked lottery this past spring and the line was quite long. But, this line was all of 5 people long when we arrived. I still wasn't sure what to expect, so we stayed put and stood in that short little line for what turned out to be the longest and whiny-est hour of our lives.
"I'm hungry."
"I don't feel good."
"How much longer?"
That was all I heard on constant repeat for that entire hour. But, in the end, I retained my sanity, the kids retained their lives, and we had 3 cheap tickets to that evening's show! Woo-hoo.
We headed out to the car and it was snowing. Pretty hard. Flurries had been forecast, but this was more than flurries. Probably going to end quickly and be some sort of fluke, right?
WRONG!
We headed over to Mamaw and Papaw's house for a quick dinner before we had to be back at the play. The flurries had joined together on the road to form a super shiney skating rink. Stopping was not an option, unless you ran into something. Going was also a little tricky. Our first attempt at getting back to the play resulted in me sliding nearly off the road, into a snow drift and careening into a parking lot. We had travelled a whopping 2 blocks from Mamaw and Papaw's house.
With my heart racing and adrenaline pumping, I decided we were no longer going to go to the play. Tears were shed, and we slid the 2 blocks back.

After some begging and pleading, we convinced Papaw to drive us in their 4WD vehicle to the playhouse. (Yay Papaw for your superpowers behind the wheel!) We made it and only missed about 30 minutes. The play was great. Savannah was completely engrossed and it was so fun to watch her enjoying it. Unfortunately, the play is not a lot like the movie and the father of the family dies in the end. (I don't recall Steve Martin dying in the movie. What's going on? Hollywood did not properly prepare me!) So, I was the only person in the audience sobbing at the end. But, a show that can move me to tears must be good.
Then came the exciting part of the night. We had to survive the 40 minute drive home. In the dark. And the ice. And the blowing snow (which was a surprise addition once we'd reached open country. Yay, Mother Nature!) We had been offered the option of staying the night with Mamaw and Papaw, but I had to decline. Mostly because the prospect of going to work in yesterdays clothes with the bed head that always lands upon my head, was worth risking my life to avoid.
It was the scariest drive home ever! Complete white out on ice roads. It was basically the scariest episode of ice road truckers EVER, and it was happening in a pt cruiser! With a snow plow helpfully located about 3 cm from my rear bumper! Myles and I were nervous wrecks, Savannah went to sleep. Two kiddos--completely different personalities.

Most of the story goes like this:
Me: "Crap! I can't see anything! "
Myles: "I don't feel good. "
Me: "I don't either." (going 20 mph, and glancing at rear view mirror) "Crap, there's a snow plow tailgating me!"
Myles: "He's not doing us any good behind us. Are we even on the road?"
Me: "Crap! I can't see anything!"
After that repeated over and over, we made it home. Savannah slept the whole way. I felt like I'd been driving for a week. And my back hurt from hunching over the steering wheel to try to see through the blowing snow. My hands were cramped up from the death grip they had maintained on the steering wheel. The drive usually takes us about 40 minutes. This night it took us over an hour and a half. (And now I know how long it would take to crawl from Mamaw and Papaw's house to mine.)
I'm officially a Winter Hater. Mother Nature is not my friend. Well, not until springtime. We may make up then.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Ice Storm Wednesday or The Day I Crafted up a Storm



Today I woke up to an ice storm. Actually, I woke up at 5am to the phone ringing and the caller id said it was the kid's school. They were calling to tell me that due to the ice storm, the kids were having a 2 hour late start. Geesh. Tell me that at 7am. Now, I was awake and my heart was pounding. So much for sleep. So, I got up, rode the exercise bike, took a shower, played around on the computer, and headed to the kitchen for some breakfast. I then washed a sink full of dirty dishes and made some chocolate chip banana bread. Quite a productive morning. Then I got the call from the school that it was going to be another snow day. Or ice day, I guess.

Unfortunately for me, I still had to head to work. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the main roads weren't icy and I wasn't doomed to crash the car this morning.

I got into a crafty mood this afternoon and made some Valentines Day decorations. I had found this paper garland on the Oh So Crafty blog. It was super easy to make so I made a second one. I made myself a heart template because I don't have a heart punch and because of the ice storm, I wasn't going out after one. After leafing through many old magazines and finding pages with images that I liked and cut them out. After that, I just sewed them all together into a garland and VOILA...



My kitchen is decked out with some adorable Valentine's decorations. Now for the rest of the house...

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Pierced!

Savannah has been begging me to take her to get her ears pierced. Sometime before Thanksgiving, she just decided that she wanted them pierced. BADLY! I had thought that maybe we would get them pierced as a Christmas gift. But, then I forgot. And, to be honest, I wasn't all that excited about the prospect of cleaning her earring holes and twisting her earrings anyway.
My ears are not pierced. I had them pierced when I was 6 years old, but the earring got embedded in my ear and had to be pulled through from the back. I was traumatized and have not had any desire to have them pierced again. Well, not until I was 12 or so. Then, I thought I wanted to have them pierced and accompanied my younger sister to have hers done. The plan was that if it went well for her, I'd do mine as well. Only, once I saw the ear piercing gun go up against her earlobes, I nearly fainted. I had to be removed from the room. It was embarrassing. Ear piercing trauma number 2.
So, when Savannah started ramping up her campaign for the ear piercing, I started to get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach again. Bad things happen in 3's right? Would this be the setting for my third ear piercing trauma? I can just imagine the stories. Savannah's ear piercing would have gone smoothly, except her mother suffered a concussion after she fainted dead away in Claire's. Or vomited on the Claire's employee. Or shrieked and made the piercer jump and accidentally pierce Savannah's nose. The potential for disaster seemed great.
But, since I am a mom, I had to suck it up. And, we got the ears pierced. Man, that girl is brave. She didn't panic beforehand and she didn't cry (which earned her 2 suckers!).
And, even better, I didn't embarrass her by fainting, vomiting, or shrieking. I've even been able to help her clean them without needing anti-nausea medication. But, we'll see how the first earring change goes. I've got until Saint Patrick's Day to build up that courage.

Gotta Love 'em

This is an exerpt from a conversation between Myles and me last night.

Myles: What's that huge thing on your face?
Me: (perplexed) My smile?
Myles: No, its big and red and gross looking.
Me: (glaring at him) I don't know what you are talking about.
Myles: Well, you have some huge red thing on your chin. It looks really gross. I think it's a zit.
Me: Thank you for bringing it to my attention in such a sensitive way. I'm really glad that it's not that bad nor is it very noticable.
Myles: You're welcome.

Aren't kids wonderful?
(By the way, I was going to add a funny cartoon-ish picture of someone with a zit here for fun. I googled "zit" and looked at the images. Don't ever do that! Blaacccggghhh!)

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

For the Love of Girl Scout Cookies

Can you guess what delicious treat is coming my way? Girl Scout cookies!!! My niece is in girl scouts this year. She is a brownie, and a very cute one at that. Sadly, it seems that today's brownies do not wear a head to toe brown Brownie uniform. They only have a sash that they stuff into their backpacks on Brownie meeting day. Can you believe this? I remember my Brownie days and the huge amount of pride I had in my adorable brown Brownie uniform. All of the non-Brownie girls would look enviously upon the brown uniformed Brownie girls. And the boys always chat us up about what cool badges we had sewn upon our sashes. We would bask in their admiration, while straightening our sashes and pulling up our brown knee socks. I swear half of the appeal of brownies was the cute outfit. But, the other half of the appeal was the cookies.
Well, it turns out that my niece has set a cookie selling goal of 50 boxes. If she meets this sales goal, she will be rewarded with a hefty commission. A Girl Scout Water Bottle. And, as her aunt, I have been informed that I will be responsible for purchasing 45 of those boxes. Her mother will purchase the other 5. Hmmmm.

Actually, this doesn't sound like too bad of a deal to me. At 3.50 a box, this would only set me back about $157.50. So, I couldn't buy groceries for a couple of weeks. We could totally survive on cookies, right? But, I will also have to figure in the cost of the larger sized wardrobe I will be requiring after I scarf down 45 boxes of cookies. On the plus side of that (and I said plus side, not plus size), I would get to do some shopping. And it is clearance season.

Now, I just have to decide how many of which cookies I want. Tough decisions. Tough, mouth watering decisions.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Clearance Racks and Temperature Tuesdays

Savannah and I went to Target today to dig through all their clearance racks. We only hit one target store, and I'll be hitting another tomorrow. We came home with some loot, though. And I didn't spend much at all!! The after Christmas clearance season is my favorite season of the year. Here's a sampling of some of our goodies.

First, we have a brand new pair of long johns for Myles. The fact that these are smurf colored didn't influence this purchase at all. He will now be known as Myles Smurf whenever he wears these, much to his chagrin. :)
Savannah scored a cute pair of flats. She has decided to wear them to school tomorrow which means that she will have to pack her snow boots and her sneakers in her bag. Such a variety of footwear just to get through a day in the third grade! (These only cost me $3!!)
The next two pictures show my great finds. Two sweatshirts, one cost $2.98 and the other was $6 and one shirt for only $2.24. The fabulous and extremely soft black gloves are Savannah's. My favorite item of the season is featured in the second picture. Knee high socks. I'm starting a collection. When living through a winter with -40 degree wind chills, knee high socks are a must.


After we finished picking over the clearance racks, I remembered that I needed to pick up a new protective screen cover for my new ipod touch. I bought a three pack knowing full well it would probably take me 3 tries to apply the darn thing correctly. Allow me to properly set up this disaster. Christmas morning I was surprised with my new ipod touch. It is a step up from my ipod nano and I love it. It can hold most of my audio book library along with some fun apps. And, unlike an iPhone, I don't have to deal with bothersome phone calls during my farming sessions on tapfarm, nor do I have that horrible monthly bill.

In addition to the ipod touch, I was given a protective case for it in lime green (inspired by my love of Wicked) which included a screen protector. Unfortunately for me, I am a mental defective when it comes to applying the screen protector. I couldn't even figure out which of the Saran wrap-ish pieces of clear plastic was the screen protector. And was left with a bubbly, dust covered disaster after many repeated attempts. Today, I bought myself a new package of screen protectors and had planned to detail my ability to effectively adhere Saran wrap to the screen of my ipod. Here's the beginning of my new smartness...
First is a before picture. This is how my ipod has been shamefully going through it's life so far.
And, this was meant to be step 1: After removing all coverings and thoroughly cleaning the poor ipod, remove new screen protector from package.
I did this and the screen protector didn't quite seem to be the same size as my ipod. Hmmm. Upon closer inspection of the package, I had purchased screen protectors for an iPhone! DRAT. So, I had to return the sad ipod to it's green case and reapply the crappy screen protector. I did wash it off, though and while still bubbly, it looks slightly better. Tomorrow I'll be returning to Target (I wanted to hit another one anyway) and I'll be purchasing the correct screen protector. So, this story is to be continued...
But to end my day on a positive note, today was Temperature Tuesday at Runza. That means Runza only charges whatever the temperature is at 6am for their runza sandwiches. Today, Runzas were 4 cents. For those of you who aren't from Nebraska, here is a link to Runza so you can see what you are missing. They are supremely yummy. Unfortunately, the holiday season has caused most of my jeans to shrink (surely, this must be some sort of laundry issue, right? It can't have anything to do with the hours of couch sitting and face stuffing, right?) Well, Temperature Tuesdays are followed by Exercising Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays. :(

What a Winter

I thought I'd take the camera with me today when I drove to work. This is what it is still like driving in Nebraska with all of the snow we have gotten in the past month. It's quite unbelievable. This is what our street looked like as I drove the kids to school this morning. The trees were all covered in ice and it was a little foggy out.
This is the street we drive to get up to the school. It's nearly impossible to see any oncoming traffic. On the right is a full parking lot and the mountains of snow are so high that you cannot even see the parked cars.
After I drop the kids off, I have to drive down the road behind the school, which has only been widened a single lane.
This is a shot of some of the icy trees I passed on my way to Omaha.
A stop sign in the snow.

A mailbox in the snow.
And a scary stretch of one of the county roads that I have to travel.
And this is my prediction of what our streets will look like after our next snow. This has been one crazy winter.

Monday, January 11, 2010

Just Another Manic Monday

I am having a whopper of a Monday. I woke up this morning and had to get the kids ready for school. This is suddenly a strange disruption to my usual routine of leaving them at home with B because of a snow day. I discovered that I had absolutely nothing in the house for me to eat for breakfast and decided today was going to be a McDonald's morning. Yum Yum, right? So, I slip slide my way all the way to Omaha, excited to see a full 2 lanes of highway open for my entire travel. (Friday's commute involved long stretches of a single lane of plowed highway and me hoping a semi didn't come along to clobber me.) But, the traffic was moving soooo slowly once I got to Omaha and I was not going to work without my McDonald's. So, I was late. And to compound the situation, I had forgotten that the street I usually drive down was closed and I had to detour unexpectedly making me more late. I pulled into the parking lot, sought out an acceptable parking place, grabbed up my bags and my drink and hustled into work. I walked all the way across the building to my desk before I realized that I left my much desired breakfast in the car. Damn. So, I put my things away and grabbed my pass key and dashed back out to my car. And realized that I had left my car keys in my purse at my desk. My third attempt at getting to my breakfast was successful. I guess the repeated laps around the building was the universe's way of helping me work off those breakfast calories.
I got home this afternoon to discover B was out on the roof trying to push off the 2 feet of snow that has accumulated up there. While he is home alone. And standing on snow covered ice. Alone.
Miraculously, he never slid off the roof and the snow has been swept away. Over one small portion of the roof anyway. Unfortunately, the temperature warmed today and some of the snow and ice started to melt and drip down the back door. The gutters are overflowing with ice and are causing a spectacular fountain to pour down over our back door. This is causing an especially slippery patch of ice to form on the top step into the house and causing us to employ awe inspiring feats of daring to get into the house. Tonight, the back door is completely encased in ice from our roof fountain and will not close completely. This winter is proving to be very challenging.
And, because of the astronomical amounts of snow outside, the dogs prefer not to do their business out in the little patch of real estate that has been shovelled for them. They much prefer to leave me a present in the back porch following their evening meals. And, believe me, a present from a Great Dane does not go unnoticed.
Tomorrow is Tuesday and Tuesdays always go more smoothly for me. Plus, I'm taking Savannah shopping at Target. It's clearance time and a little retail therapy just might restore my sanity.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The Great Icicle

This is one of the icicles that we broke off of our house today.



WOW!!
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We've got SNOW!!

Well, we've got enough snow to last us until 2015. I am home again after taking my 4th day off of work due to snowy roads. The kids are home for their 4th snow day of the year as well. By our estimates the snow will likely melt off by the 4th of July and that is also the date that the kids will get out of school for summer break because of all of the snowdays.
The snow was blowing so badly today that all of the roads in my entire county are closed. That sounds pretty bad. I haven't left the house to find out. Additionally, it's about -20 degrees outside. I'm starting to think hibernation sounds like a good idea. I'll be cuddled up with the kids today under quilts watching movies and reading books while chili is cooking in the kitchen. We know how to do snowed in.
The kids got new sleds for Christmas and this year we've got enough snow to actually use them right away, but it's been so cold that I haven't been motivated enough to take them to the big sledding hill. I know it would involve about 45 minutes of prep work and bundling for only 5 minutes of sledding fun before frostbite starts to set in. A warm up is coming the weatherman promises. As soon as it does, we'll be out sledding!!
By the way, the picture above does accurately represent what my backyard currently looks like.