Misguided

My two closest friends commented to me (at separate times) that they liked the new banner on the blog.

Of course, I was flattered, since I spent the majority of my New Year's Eve working on it while watching the ball drop on TV.

I suppose it shouldn't have taken me THAT long to do my banner...it isn't that complicated a task.  I think I'm just a slow learner/worker.  Hmmm....so if you're good at stuff like online design, don't be a hater for me being in the preschool class of blog header design. Thank you very much.


Anyway, both of these friends told me the header made me look like a world traveler.  HA! Me? A world traveler? How cool does that sound?

Full disclosure, I have been to lots of places with my parents growing up and with my husband, but the funny thing is that three of the 5 pictures were taken last summer on our family vacation. The other two were from a whirlwind trip to Paris (3 days total...NOT enough time to see lots, but enough to walk blisters on our feet) and an ill-fated anniversary trip to the Keys.  That one lasted exactly one night- not even 24 hours because a hurricane was bearing down on Florida and we had to high-tail it out of there!

How do you pick pictures for backgrounds or collages?  If you have a blog, how do you pick the pictures for your header, if you have one?  My deciding factor was color.  I had a bunch of pictures I was playing with--pictures of the house, my kiddos, Southern stuff--but they looked blah.  I wanted things that were different in color.  The result you see is what I put together while watching Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest and Whoever Else Is Popular At The Moment.

Now you have insight into my thought process.

Scary, huh?

Big Plans

My daughter's birthday is in March. If your children are anything like mine, they start planning their birthday parties the minute the last one is done.

This was last year's party and it was GREAT...meaning it took place AWAY from  my house (no mess to clean up), it hadn't been done with her friends or us before, both boys and girls had a good time and the "goody bag" was a shirt from the facility. How super awesome is that? I just showed up with a cake and voila! Party!

And BONUS- we asked guests to bring a bag of dog food instead of a gift.  That way Daughter didn't get a bunch of stuff she really didn't want or need.  Later that week we dropped the food off at a shelter in our city. The HUGE payoff was that we all had fun, there was  no "present pressure" for parents and when we dropped the food off, they let us go back and say hi to all the sweet animals up for adoption.
SCORE ONE FOR MOM!

But since I've started blog-stalking, I've come across so many people who are amazingly creative when it comes to party planning.

It has me really thinking about the idea Daughter has come up with-- Mad Scientist party.

Fun, huh? I think so. Plus, we won't be committing a birthday faux pas of "repeat theme".
(Don't laugh at that---those with kids will agree that repeating a party theme can seem a little lame and can cause Mom to feel as though she's somehow less of a creative mom...or maybe that's just me.)

Even though I've got a few months till the party date, I've found some cute blogs with great ideas.

I'm  ready to order some lab coats and get my creative-former-elementary-school-teacher-juices flowing for some snazzy homemade invitations like these...

from partyplanningmom.blogspot.com

And for sure we'll have cake or cupcakes. But I really want to have a super cute food table like 

this adorable idea

photo from celebrationsathomeblog.com

I just love the owls.  They won't be making an appearance at Daughter's party, but you get the idea--themed backdrop, themed snacks, theme theme theme! I think that is the secret...make it all go together and if it doesn't, re-brand it so that it does fit.  

That last part may be  hard for me since I'm a "live inside the lines" kind of girl.  Lucky for me I am married to an "outside the lines" kind of guy and I've surrounded myself with other "outside the lines" people.  

It does take a village, y'all. 

What kind of at-home parties have you thrown? Are there other blogs you've found that have cute party ideas? I'm always looking for great ideas, so share with me so I can be a copy-cat! (In the nicest possible way.....)

Ice Ice Baby

I'm hoping I song bombed you with my title. It brings me back to sorority days, lip sync parties and really really bad early '90's music.  In a word, AWESOME!

But the title actually catches you up on our goings-on for the last few days.  Sorry to have been so slack in posting but we've had some excitement here in our corner of the South.

First, we pack up and head north to Tennessee to pick up our long-awaited newest family member.
THIS  is what we saw heading to our destination...

dum dum dum duuummmmm...Storm's a comin'. The leading edge of a storm system that is forecast to dump freezing rain/sleet/snow on the Southeast.  Our city was expecting a winter storm....and to prepare the city was prepping all 7 of their sand/salt trucks, the weathermen were on high alert (and so excited about it), and the kids were turning eyes toward the sky in hopes of a suprise snow day.  We kicked it into high gear and headed up the road to get this....

Meet Piper. Our newest family member. (please excuse my dusty floor. How did THAT happen??) I know, I know. Shut up! She's so cute! Plus she's sweet. And cute. And tiny.  Right now she's a pocket puppy. But not for long. She is an English Cream Golden Retriever. She'll be getting big soon enough.

We high tail it out of Tennessee, trying to beat the weather and make it home. Phew! I have time to hit the grocery store to stock up on every Southerners winter storm necessities- bread, milk and eggs. Everyone sleeps well and we get up to this...

For us, this is a severe winter storm.  To all my northern friends, this is just a dusting.  But this is ice.  So it looks pretty, but it is slick.
Our kids, not wanting to waste a day off, go outside and decide to do this...

Surprisingly, this took most of the day. It is ice, after all, and scooping ice into buckets and making the mounds is harder than it looks. They are calling it a starter igloo. I'm saying it is more of an homage to Stonehenge.

The frozen tundra outside gave us the most excellent excuse to enjoy these...

And do a little of this...

So what have you done with yourselves lately?  Hopefully we'll be thawed out by tomorrow. But if we're not, we'll play with our newest little friend.

Happy 1.11.11, y'all.

I've Got Boxes, How About You?

My husband owns his own company. This means that he works most of the time---iPhone, Laptop, email, texting, you get the idea.
So when he asked me if I could help him with something for his work, I said yes...plus the fact that he said he'd pay me by the hour AND I could have a friend come help me and he would pay my friend too! Score!
The task wasn't hard.  Box, label and ship 2000 small items.  Yes. I just typed 2000.  It didn't sound like such a huge thing when we were discussing this before Thanksgiving.  He and I both figured it would be something fun that my friends and I could do as an assembly line with the sweet bonus of getting paid to hang out and chat. Super Fun!!

Not.

He ordered the boxes before Thanksgiving in hopes we could do this in early December.  When the boxes arrived on December 24, I should have known it was a bad sign.
My friends were all busy with their families, so we enlisted the help of our 3 kids.  2 days later I was still taping boxes and my kids were still stuffing boxes and my husband was still trying to print out labels from the US Postal Service website.
Here is a photo of my dining room at the exact moment I was about to pull my hair out and tell my husband  (whom I love very much) that if he ever in his life had a thought of using me, my friends, or our children as a distribution center he should put that right out of his sweet little head before I beat him senseless.

Excuse the quality as I took this with my iPhone. Those boxes are stacked all around my table. 

In a moment of clarity, he decided to pay the UPS people to box, label and ship the remaining 1500 items.  In that same moment, he also called the Post Office to cancel the order for the remaining 1500 boxes.  So I'm done with the boxes, right?
No.
Look what showed up on my front stoop yesterday morning....

Yes! The 1500 box order that we had cancelled a week before! Anyone need a box?  I've got plenty.

Revelations

Today is the first day that everyone in my house has been healthy in a month.  They were all sick at staggering points throughout the Christmas and New Year's holiday.
To say that I was a happy mommy today when the husband and the kiddos were safely off to work and school is the understatement of the day....maybe the week.
Let's just go on the record and say that I really enjoyed my "Hallelujah Hot Chocolate" this morning.

Let's make that a non-fat, no whip, extra hot hot chocolate. I'm trying to get in shape. 

So the revelations.  I had a few today while out doing my stuff and I thought I'd share them with you. 

1.  Be sure the person you are responding to is actually talking to YOU and doesn't have one of those crazy "beam-me-up-Scotty"  Bluetooth phone thingys in their ear.  If you don't confirm the presence of the Bluetooth thingy, you end up looking like a complete dork.  Trust me on this. 

2.  Going through a drive-through at the lunch rush and paying for your lunch in quarters may cause the people behind you to give you the evil eye. 

3.  If you are a mom and you have a pre-teen or teenager, more often than not, whatever it is that is wrong in life is your fault.  This is true whether you have any idea what is going on or not. 

4.  Choosing a name for a puppy is harder than it seems.  Please leave a comment if you have a suggestion. We're getting a girl puppy and we're trying to think of something original.  

5.  If you go to the store without taking a shower, no makeup, wearing the same workout clothes you've worn for the last 2 days, you WILL see everyone you know.  This includes children you taught in the 3rd grade who are now juniors in college and are wondering how you came to be in such a sad state when you used to be the cool teacher. 

Amen.

Double Digits

I have 10 followers. 

I don't really know what that means in the Internet world, but to me it means that 10 people have seen my little corner of the web and have decided that they'd click the "Follow" button. 

Thank you for that. 

Thank you for the extra effort it took to follow me. 

I have no idea where I'm headed. 

I have no sense of direction.  Just ask my husband.  He is thankful every day that I have GPS in my car. 

I'm thankful I have GPS in my car. 

So thank you, those who are named and not named, for following me somewhere. 

It's always more fun to go in a group.

1/1/11

Cool date. What have you done today to start things off on a happy note?
 I  decided to make more of an effort with the "seasonal color" areas in my yard.  The name is self-explanatory and the spaces are not large, but they are pitiful for the majority of the year.
Off to the nursery I went and I came home with these...

Color? Check.

In the ground?

Check- sort of. 

If I was hearty enough to plant stuff in the rain they'd  be IN the ground and not ON the ground.
Will they live past the weekend?
Your guess is as good as mine.  Prayers are appreciated.