Yes... it's really me!

Today for Mama Kat's Writers Workshop I'm going to share something with you. Something old, something young, something that I look at and wonder, "What the hell happened!" 

Today I'm sharing a photo that represents how you see yourself.

This was my high school senior picture and I remember that day like it was yesterday. I remember getting up and planning what I was going to wear for pictures that day, and being glad that it was a Friday and that I didn't have to work. And the best part about that day was how incredibly awesome my hair turned out! I mean look at it! Everything went well... the curls.... my huge bangs.... everything! Perfect!

That night my friends and I went out partying to a movie and dinner. We had a blast.

So you're wondering why that picture? Why do you see yourself that way? And the answer to that question is, I'm not sure. It's me. A much younger version of me that's for sure.

When I look in the mirror I often times see that person. I see the person that had all these grand hopes and dreams for the future but still had no idea what they were going to do. Living day to day, having fun with friends and with barely a care in the world.

Some people loved high school, some hated it, and some were just indifferent about it. I loved it. If you asked me if I liked it back then I'm sure I would have told you no. It was a good time in my life. A time that I look back on often and wonder where did all the years go? How has it been almost 20 years since I've graduated!

I've changed a lot since then. I've learned a lot. Made mistakes. I've gone to college. Gotten married. Gotten divorced. Married again. I've traveled. I've had children. I've seen the world change around me at a very fast pace.

But that's me.

Wordless Wednesday - A baby & red velvet cake

This is what happens when your parents come over for a birthday dinner and share red velvet cake with your 8 month old son.

 

Ten Things I Believe

Recently I was obsessing over checking out some of my Twitter stats from the links that Gigi over at Kludgy Mom blogged about and found out that I lost some Twitter followers and 3 of them pertained to my most recent post and it got me wondering what in the hell that I did wrong (I'm still pondering this too). Was it because I tweeted to many times about it? Was it really an awful post? Was it just the point at which they decided that they didn't want to follow me anymore? Who knows. To be honest I was bothered by it for a bit and then after chatting with Gigi and Maria from 1000 Reasons I'm a Bad Mom I felt better. Things like that happen all the time.

I decided that since there wasn't a writing assignment for Back to School, Back to Blogging that I'd pick something from the Idea Bank.

There are many things in life that I believe and some you may agree with and some you may not. And hopefully I won't lose more followers because if it!

10 things that believe...

1. I believe that my kids are the most important things in the world.
2. I believe that there is a higher power(s) but I don't believe in the Christian God.
3. I believe that education is very important.
4. I believe that you can do anything you want.. anything. You just need to put your mind to it.
5. I believe in equality.
6. I believe in freedom of choice.
7. I believe in freewill.
8. I believe that hard work pays off.
9. I believe that love is important.
10. I believe Glee is awesome!

I'm sure that because of this I'll lose followers. It's possible that I may even gain some. But this is who I am and I'm being honest.

So, tell me. What do you believe? What makes us different or the same?

My week in a nutshell

Here's your warning. This is just me rambling about nothing all that important or interesting. If you stick around to read it all thank you.. but you must have nothing else to do or are really bored. And if not, then no problem. I probably wouldn't either!
And today starts another week! Oh joy... can't wait to see what fun and excitement it will bring!
This past week was one busy day after another, but then again that's really nothing to new around here. There's always something going on!
Monday started out with an incredible migraine headache that forced me to stay home and because the gods were smiling down upon me I got to sleep in till 10:30am! Can you believe it?!?! Of course I still had the headache when I got up and it stuck with me all day. Eventually, I made it to the chiropractor and he made it all go away. I was happy. I could stand, sit, turn my head, and even blink with out major pain!
Nothing exciting must have happened Tuesday since I can't remember it! So, let's move on to Wednesday.
Wednesday is usually pretty busy because that's piano night. And I normally stick around in town after work until my daughter's lesson. But this time I couldn't. She had left her notebook at home so we had to run all the way home and back to get it. So, I dropped her off and went home (again) and I swear within 30 minutes the phone was ringing.... she was done. Ready to come home! I should mention here that the lessons are supposed to be an hour long.
Friday was a trip! Aside from work the rest of the afternoon was running to get things for my daughters birthday party that night. I know... I know... I should have gotten the stuff sooner. I didn't though.
We had a plan and were ready to get in and out of the store quickly. And then we tried to get the balloons. wow. Let me tell ya... it shouldn't take 20 minutes to blow up 5 balloons and tie a damn string to them! Especially when you don't blow them up all the way! Seriously, these were the most pathetic looking balloons I have ever seen in my entire life. They were small and the strings were all the same color and the exact same length. If the person doing the balloons were a woman then I know they would have looked a lot better!
Now as a bit of advice. Do not go to a corn maze at night with a bunch of kids. We've been to the maze before and it was great, but it was daytime. We spent more time lost and walking in circles than anyone else in that maze. The kids were all excited when they found one of the stops. It was #9. Somehow we missed the first 8! No big deal. We moved on and walked... and walked... and walked. And then there was another stop. It was #9. This happened one more time too!
I swear these kids had me totally bamboozled! They assured me they knew what they were doing. But I was pretty sure that we were never getting out of there! We were going to be spending the night in the corn maze!
Eventually, we found stops #10 & 12. And by that time I was over the whole maze thing. One of the workers was out there in the maze and helped us find our way out. My 8 yr old was very happy! She was done too and didn't want to keep walking anymore!
There was one hell of a game of Marco Polo going on too! Although I'm not sure that it was a game as opposed to all the kids in the maze just yelling Marco Polo as they ran around. But all in all the kids had a great time and that's all that matters right!
Saturday brought my husbands class reunion and Sunday was dinner with my parents. And as a warning.... do not give a baby red velvet cake. They will make a huge mess with it and turn everything in a 3 foot radius red.
And now that I write about it ... I guess my week wasn't that bad.

Blog Boycott Day

Ahh.... Time to relax! Why not come join us!!





 Today I am going to ignore the blogosphere! I'm hanging out on Twitter and going to spam the hell out of it with all my Follow Friday Tweets!

Come find me on Twitter to chat!

Nostalgia ~ My Dishes Revisted

Recently, I got this really great new dining room set! It's amazing. And the best part is that my dining room now looks like a real "adult" dining room. Ya know, the ones with the nice furniture that isn't old and crappy.

Anyway, that's not what this is all about. But it is what started it because I emptied the old hutch to make room for the new one.

I have this set of dishes that my husband bought for me and they're very special to me because they're the exact same set of dishes that my grandparents had when I was younger. And I love them.

They're the blue and white Currier & Ives set and they're the dishes that my grandparents used as their daily dishes. I have so many fond memories of my grandparents and using those exact dishes for big family dinners, for simple things like a bowl of cereal, desserts, and just about everything in between.

Every time we visited my grandparents my grandma would make this soup, it was the instant type out of a box but it was really good. Eventually I learned that it was Mrs. Grass' chicken noodle soup, you know the kind with the little egg and skinny noodles. As kids we loved this soup and I still do and so do my kids, but we always used those bowls. They weren't deep though, more big, round and shallow. And then for a snack after that she'd give us fruit with cream cheese. Have you tried it? It's really good!

Those dishes have always reminded me of my grandparents and those times so when I happened to find some at a local antique store I was so excited. I knew that I had to have them! But here's the thing, it wasn't the complete set and they were selling them by the piece which came out to a rather big total price. Sadly, I passed and didn't get them.

About a year later I was looking through some local classifieds online and happened to find the set of dishes again! This time though it was a complete set for at least 10 - 12 people. There were serving pieces, salt & pepper shakers, gravy bowl, cups, saucers, dessert plates, and even an ash tray! The best part was that they were practically giving it away! I think that we paid like maybe $100 - 150 for all of it. I couldn't believe it!

My husband went and picked up the dishes for me and from what he said the people just wanted to get rid of them. I felt like a little kid at Christmas! There were boxes and boxes of dishes and I had to go through all of them even though it was late in the evening.

I've only used these dishes a few times since getting them and it's usually when we have a large family meal. I don't use them mostly because I'm afraid of something happening to them. They hold such great memories for me that it would kill me to have one of them broken, but then again my grandma used them everyday and they survived through 9 grand kids. Maybe I should get them out and use them more often, be a bit more trusting (but watchful!), and enjoy them.

Do you have something special like that? Maybe it was handed down to you through your family or just something that you picked up along the way. Maybe it's dishes, a trinket, or a piece of jewelry. I'm not talking about a picture though because I believe that those are something different all together.

Love & Kisses to all of my Followers

This weeks writing task for Back to School, Back to Blogging has been taunting me all week. I mean how do I do this? Who do I focus on? And what if I offend someone that I should have chosen but didn't? Ugg.... decisions, decisions. So, here's the task that I'm stressing about.
 
Writing Task: feature a few of your loyal followers in a post this week. Act as if you’re their media agent and you’re trying to get them a job. Sell them to your community – talk about how fabulous they are. Or maybe just say thank you to specific followers for their support.

Now, do you see my dilemma? All of my followers are important and special to me! Without them my blog would be nothing. Nothing. It'd be just be talking to myself... I do that enough because, duh... I have kids!

I thought about it for a bit and looked through all the people who follow my blog and all that jazz. I decided that I wanted to thank everyone. Because they have all taken the time to read my blog when often the only thing I post is something from a challenge or a meme.

I was looking at my blog yesterday for a really good post to share with Kris over at Pretty All True and realized that my blog sucked! Holy shit! How did this happen! It was totally not what I had intended! Nothing special or original there so I didn't leave a post for her. And being all pitiful feeling and what not I tweeted about it and Ashley from Just Another Mom of 2 pointed out that's how she got started and the challenges & meme's are a good way to start when you're trying to figure things out. I hadn't thought about it that way and it made sense so after that I didn't feel so bad. Besides with hard work it'll get better, right?

Today I looked again and decided to focus on two followers in particular.

Barb from Second Chance Moon and I started blogging around the same time and became blogging buddies during the #31DBBB Challenge and since then I've followed her blog and she's followed mine and I make sure that I read her blog on a regular basis. She has a great blog and is a wonderful writer! Go check it out... now!

Okay, next in line is my friend who has a name but I don't know it because I'm silly like that at times I guess over at One Girl Ideas. She has a teen just like me. Enough said! No, really... she takes the time to actually visit my blog and I know this because she has mentioned me on her blog! Cool, huh!! She will send me tweets asking how things are going and things like that. Like a real friend! I love it.

Both of these ladies are new to blogging and are putting in a lot of time in effort in their blogs trying to grow & promote them. Take a few minutes to check out their blogs, leave a comment or two, and follow them. They are really great ladies!

Wordless Wednesday - Washington D.C.

In April of this year my daughter took a trip to Washington D.C. with her 8th grade class and after participating in an essay writing contest she was chosen as one of the student to take part in the wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

To take part in this is a once in a lifetime event and as parents we were extremely proud of her. My only wish was that we were able to go and see it.