Have You Caught It Yet?

...SpRiNG FeVEr, that is!

I didn't even realize that today is the first day of Spring, until I was watching a preview of the late news after Grey's Anatomy (poor Izzie!) last night. I was wearing my slippers, a robe, and had a wool blanket draped over my legs. I am really 87, and not twenty-faux. 

With a blustery wind blowing this morning, it's kind of hard to feel a Spring Fever coming on. I might have a slight temperature. My daffodils always bloom early, and the ones that weren't destroyed by the BigSnow create a bright, sunny pop of color against the barren wasteland that is/was my front flower bed. 

{Here are the things I love about Spring}:

*Flowers! (Hydrangea, Daffodils, tulips, roses, peonies, and azaleas are my favorite. I like flowers best when they are outdoors...I just seem to kill them-or they commit suicide- when they come into my home.)

*Flip flops! (I am not *allowed* to buy any more flip flops, but that doesn't stop Mimi from bringing a pair or two over as a nice Spring present every so often. Plain, with ribbons or flowers, polka dots, paisley, I don't care...I just love 'em)

*The color palette! (I'm a sucker for the pretty, bright yellows, blues, greens, pinks, oranges, and purples I'm seeing everywhere)

*Warmish weather. (I. hate. hot. Unless I'm at the beach. I don't mind a breezy, sunny Spring day though. Who would?)

*Easter! (I haven't bought an Easter outfit in more than several years, but I sure do love picking them out for my girls. It's almost a challenge to find two matching dresses that are sweet and girlish without looking like tulle threw up on them. I also love filling up Easter baskets. The chocolate rabbits are pretty great too.)

{Here are things I do not love about Spring}:

*Preschool and MOPS will be ending soon. (These are my two lifelines during the school year. I can actually run some errands on Mondays and Wednesdays without a three year old whining about walking instead of riding in the cart. This is, of course, nonsense because the second her little feet hit the aisle, she is driving me nuts helping me by dumping stuff in the cart. The end of the MOPS year is sad because not only is it a fabulous two hour break from my *amazing* children twice a month, but I get the chance to converse with grown women about topics that do not involve Cinderella or granola bars. Summers seem to be busy for everyone but me...the word "vacation" is not in T's lexicon. The girls and I are stuck at home while our friends travel to magical, fantastical places with names like "Nagshead" and "Myrtle." We used to have a condo to visit until my drunk aunt started shacking up there, but that's a post for another day.)

*Showing skin. (If I were writing this 10 years ago, I'd be blogging about the cute bikinis I found at Macy's to wear at the beach or the shorts I found on sale at Express. I think if I were to don a bikini at this point, I would emotionally scar myself and others for life. I like jeans and sweater weather. My paleness could rival Twilight's Edward, and if you saw my great-aunt Vera, once an avid sunbather, you'd know why I don't tan anymore. Albino-white legs poking out from capris just don't make me feel sexy.)

So, I haven't caught the fever just yet, but I'm getting there. I think that perhaps dragging our meager Easter decorations down from the attic will inspire some Spring Fever, but for now I'll curl up in my chair and watch this week's TiVo'd episode of The Office. 

Happy Spring! Have you caught Spring Fever yet?

Thrifty Thursday: It's Chic to be Cheap {5}

Today's Thrifty Thursday post will feature an item that was 

::{ThE BeST $15 DoLLaRs I EvER SpENt}::

I've spent a lot of money in $15 increments in my twenty-faux years, so it's really saying something to give this item a place of honor in my shopping trophy case. Drum roll please.....(scroll down)

So what? I bet you're thinking. An old 90's dollhouse with a couple of accessories out front? Let's take another look, shall we?

With the exception of a couple of new people, the dining room set, and the home office, I got the dollhouse and all the accessories for only $15! I walked into a local children's consignment sale to buy some Spring clothes for my kids early last year. I was shocked to see that baby marked for such a low price. The new Fisher Price version sells for close to $200, I am told. This one is clearly not new, as evidenced by the missing trunk door on the car, and the fact that the kitchen table's candle no longer lights up, but I felt like $15 was a steal. I knew it would make the perfect Christmas gift for Natalie, and so it stayed hidden in our downstairs shower (which no one has used in two or three years...it's the cleanest spot in the house!) for months. I really struggled with the idea of her *big* gift being used, but I came to the conclusion that that was just crazy talk.

To my three year old, this was not an old, circa early 90s, used toy. It was the highlight of her Christmas. If you don't believe me, look at the expression on her face when she saw it under the tree on Christmas morning:

As evidenced by the plethora of playthings in our home, I don't have anything against new toys, but they sure can be pricey! This is a picture of her *big* gift from the year before. No, that's not Natalie. I don't have a picture of the actual toy because it is in the attic. Get my drift?

Kids lose interest in things so quickly! I can't even count the number of toys or books she just had to have, and they now lie in the black hole I call "Toy Box", or they have been secretly donated to less fortunate children who will no doubt also quickly lose interest in them. After that fabulous, thrifty purchase, I will never look down my nose at consignment sale or even yard sale toy purchases! That's not to say that I won't ever buy a new Christmas toy again (cause I love me some new stuff!), especially as they get older, but this was just too perfect!

If you don't have children, you are probably wondering why this was money well-spent, as opposed to the mink coat I got for free from my grandmother's closet. Unless Natalie enjoyed spending time in the closet, which she does not, the mink does not occupy her attention for a period of time longer than to ask if Granddaddy killed that coat. That house keeps her occupied for several (non-consecutive) hours every day, I'd bet. That time is gold. Sometimes, Michaela Byrd will even sit under the dining room table (commandeered for play now), waiting to scavenge any stray "baaaaybeees" who might fall from their perch. 

It's also been fun to work in the kitchen and hear her playing. The dollhouse mommy seems to do a lot of yelling. Ahem. 

Cost of dollhouse: $15 (plus a few disinfecting wipes)

Cost of extra people: $10 (Valentine's Day gifts)

Cost of time so that Mommy does not lose her sanity: PRicELeSS

The crib mobile lights up and plays

 (annoying) music.

You can change the picture on the TV, and it even came with three (enormous) VHS tapes....Get with the times, people. It's all about the Blu-Ray now! 

This picture shows the obvious differences between the old (right) and new (left) versions of Fisher Prices' Loving Family. The old people are chunkier, and quite frankly a little alienish looking. Natalie definitely noticed the difference. 

Natalie named the bride and groom (she took the bride's skirt off, as she clearly prefers the more casual capri look) after Matt and Kate, her uncle and aunt that got married last November. Matt and Kate are allowed to enter the dollhouse now, but there was some major segregation going on after the first time I put them in there. She threw a huge fit the first time she saw that I'd set them up in the kitchen (sometimes I play clean up the dollhouse after she goes to bed), and shrieked, "Matt and Kate will never eat in my dollhouse! Never!" For some time, poor Matt and Kate had to sleep in the car in the "driveway." This is where Matt and Kate have to sleep now:

Poor things...they are newlyweds and they have to sleep on opposite sides of the roof. 

So, do you have any stories of toys, books, or games that you bought for a song and that your kids seem to love more than the $40 car set that broke after two uses?

Chocaholic

My oldest, Natalie, succombed early to a family disease...

Chocaholism.

I think it might strike Michaela Byrd as well, but the jury is out.

Any time our mailbox is graced with a child's birthday party invitation, I hear the same question.

"Will 'dere be cake?" If there is, and if it is chocolate, you've made her day.

Come to think of it, she looks for cake at just about any formal (or informal) occasion: weddings, barbeques, school parties, MOPS meetings, trips to the grocery, you name it. 

Cake, ice cream, cupcakes, muffins, cookies...I feel very grateful that she seems to have been blessed with a metabolism from her father's side of the family. Sweets are a rare thing in our house (for the kids, hehe), reserved for special occassions. I like to offer a sugar free popsicle or sugar free (chocolate!) pudding as a reward for eating all of her vegetables and making a real effort with the rest of the meal. As of yet, she has not noticed any difference between those treats and the "good stuff." She thinks Jell-O's sugar free chocolate pudding is heaven on earth!

My mother (Mimi, she is called in our house) is a real handicap in my efforts to steer my kids away from Chocaholism. Because she sneaks little cookies and pieces of chocolate to Natalie, the child has reverted to behavior that mirrors Pavlov's dogs. When she sees Mimi's car pull into the driveway, she rips the front door open.

"Hiiii, Mimi!" she shouts, as Michaela Byrd bounces up and down beside her. "Do you have any "tweets" for me?"

Mimi is somewhat perturbed that her presence has come to signify a showering of desserts, but it's her own fault, I think. 

I was feeling some major cabin fever yesterday, so when the girls finished their dinner, I asked if they'd like to run to Baskin Robbins to get some ice cream to bring home. Of course the answer

was yes (from Natalie. Michaela Byrd was busy figuring out a way to scale the sideboard to reach the dog water), and after an hour of getting shoes and coats on, finding my coupon, loading them in and out of the car, and spooning half melted ice cream into a cone, we were done with our ice cream adventure. Natalie held up her hands. 

"Are my fingers clean?" she asked. They were smudged with chocolate ice cream. 

"No, let's wipe them off." I said, getting up from the table to grab a wet paper towel.

"Noooo...but I licked them!"

There you have it. That could totally be my Thrifty Thursday post for this week. Who needs paper towels when you can just lick your hands clean? Plus, it's thrifty 'cause you are saving some for later. Right.

Let them eat cake! (I think she and Marie Antoinette would have gotten along just fine) First experience with cake. It's so wrong, yet so right.

I don't know who this kid is, or how her picture got on my blog. Her parents should be ashamed of themselves for letting her eat cake like that. 

If I had a goatee, I'd want it to be made out of chocolate too.

The Lord Loves a Cheerful Giver

My girls spend a good part of the day playing alongside of each other...not so much with each other. This is mostly because Natalie is three and Michaela Byrd is one. Natalie likes to play with her dollhouse; Michaela Byrd likes to see if she can sneak into the darkened bathroom and play in the toilet. Not exactly playmate compatible. 

When they do play together, it's such a brief and fleeting moment that I usually feel the urge to grab the video camera and capture the rare occasion for posterity. Their minute-long playdates usually end in shrieks (both girls) and hair pulling (Michaela Byrd--she fights dirty). I am looking forward to their teenage years with the greatest anticipation. Excuse me while I go fix a stiff drink.

What? It's only 3 pm?! Never mind then....

So you can imagine my pleasure when Natalie announced the other night at dinner that she would like to share a piece of bread with her sister. I glanced at Michaela Byrd, who was happily drinking her sippy cup, zoned out in a milk-induced coma. She must have looked famished to Natalie.

"Here," she said, reaching across the table to hand me the piece she had so lovingly selected.

I looked down at my palm. It was empty. Except for a crumb so miniscule, Bill Nye the Science Guy would need to bring his microscope in for us to see it.

"Um, thanks." I said. Clearly she was worried about Michaela Byrd filling up on those carbs. Clearly.

Hey, it's a start!

Can you see it? 

All in the Family

I don't use Facebook very often because I am lazy and don't like clicking around all over the place to stalk my friends. I logged on last night and had a most pleasant surprise! My cousin, Blair, sent me one of those instant message thingies. He is a very busy college student at Texas A&M, and I am sure he had much better things to do than message me...like finishing off the last of a six pack. At any rate, I smiled when I saw his name pop up.

My brother and sister and I like to call him "Blayah," because that's how his name sounded when our grandparents said it. Granny and O'pa were/are both from Virginia, but somehow adopted the Texas twang after all their years of Air Force moves. Blayah is the youngest of the four cousins, therefore I feel entitled to pick on him as I feel led. As my blog's readerhip has apparently expanded to include the college crowd, I know he'll see this. Perhaps I should also start a series on "it doesn't matter which major you pick because no matter what kind of job you get and how much money you make, your kids are going to bleed you dry."

Anyways, chatting with Blair brought back all kinds of memories. Because he is an only child, he was willing to follow along with just about anything we said. One of my earlier memories of our Texas visits was when we forced invited him to take on a role in our annual Christmas play. Jamie, Alison, and I did the same play every year for our parents, and it usually involved my brother making several quick changes from his Santa Claus costume into an Elf outfit.

The plot roughly revolved around two children who go to the North Pole to convince Santa not to cancel Christmas. They help the elves make the toys, and Christmas is saved. Hilarity ensues. (Don't try to steal our idea. It's copyrighted...probably by someone else.) We decided to make things easier on Jamie that year, and convinced Blair that he would be the perfect elf. Poor Blair couldn't have been much older than three or four, and I don't think he really knew what a play was, much less an Elf. He forgot his lines and kept saying "Let's play da play" over and over during our rehearsals. As the director and star of the show (I was always the star), this was somewhat nerve wracking to me, but our parents all found it endearing. Speilberg wrote in and requested a screenplay version, but we had other projects in the works at that time.

The other reason I loved Blair was because he lived all the way in Texas while we lived in Virginia. Because he is six years younger than me, and lived so far away, it was especially easy to pick on him because he didn't have the advantage of knowing all my tricks. You'd think Jamie, just a year older than Blair, would look out for his cousin, but he wanted to be in on the hazing. I guess he figured he'd been through his fair share. At some point, we got him to believe that an army of the "Brain Washers" from space had invaded San Antonio. I'll never forget the glee I felt when Blair ran screaming from my dad, who we recruited to play the part of someone who had been brain-washed (I think I got my teasing streak from my dad). I am a mean person.

Despite our run-ins, Blair grew up to be a normal person who is not on medicine for psychotic episodes. He must be pretty normal because he just got engaged to Lauren, who I secretly refer to as "Texas Barbie" because she looks just like my perfect Happy Birthday Barbie from 1987. No matter how much your family traumatizes teases you, you can still turn out to be perfectly fine.

Blayah, if you read this, leave me a comment, or I'll send the Brain Washers....Isn't family great?

Olé!

{10 ThInGS I LoVE...}

{...AbOuT My HOnEy, T!}

In honor of today, his 30th birthday, I want to do a little list of some of my favorite things about my hubby of 7 1/2 years!

1. He knows something about everything! This is astonishing in and of itself, as the last book I remember him reading was O'Reilly's Culture Warrior two year ago. He does not usually like to read unless the item features pictures of guns, sports, or motorcycles. I think his knowledge comes from the fact that he is able to listen to just about anything (except for instructions regarding his children) and remember it. This came in handy in college, and it comes in now during his marathon Fox News/History/Discovery Channel viewings.
2. He's kind of a looker. I've had a crush on him since I was 4 or 5 years old. I was always mesmerized by how cute he looked on the soccer field. --Now I sound like a boy-crazy 14 year old.
3. He is generous to a fault. It's his birthday this week, and he took the proceeds from a Gunbroker.com sale he made to buy me a new laptop!
4. He is handy! We couldn't live in this house if T wasn't a handy guy! So far, he has chopped down enormous trees rooting up our driveway, mulched the side yard, drywalled the Living room, made a Dutch door, turned a broom closet into a custom desk and then into a new coat closet, installed light fixtures, a new front door, built a closet in the bathroom, installed flooring, made built-in cubby bookcases, installed attic stairs, and countless other things that would have left us broke by now!!
5. He is a great breakfast cook. The man can fry up a mean slab of bacon! His pancakes are perfection.
6. He is patient.
7. His girls' faces light up when they see him!
8. He has a great work ethic. He is a wonderful bread-winner, and loves to take care of us.
9. Even though he is shy, he is a great leader. He leads by example, as he has learned from his dad and his boss, R. The guys who work for him ask for his opinion on all kinds of things. One of the delivery guys recently fessed up that his girlfriend was considering having an abortion. T talked to him without making the guy feel bad, and even went so far as to say that we would be willing to adopt the baby if they couldn't care for it. Something T said must have registered, because the mom decided to have the baby.
10. He is selfless! He is always willing to drop his plans at a moment's notice to help someone out.

T would be really embarrassed if he knew I wrote this! He knows I have a blog, but he doesn't read it so far as I know. At 30, he is much much older than my twenty-faux years (hehe), but I love him anyways.

What's the one thing you love most about your significant other?

Gimme a Break!

I found this gem in the editorial section in our local paper, published on February 14, 2009. Novelist Kate Dolan found a humorous way to update the description of the "Proverbs 31" wife. Whenever I want to feel really bad about my wifing/mothering skills, I read Proverbs 31. Okay, okay....I know it's supposed to be inspirational, but sheesh...

Kate Dolan's take gave me a smile. Hope it starts your weekend on a laughing note!



Verily, doofus, give thy Proverbial wife a break

Several years ago, our Bible-study group examined "The Proverbs 31 Woman." For those not completely "up" on their Proverbs, let me explain that the 31st (and final) chapter of Proverbs describes, at length, "a wife of noble character."

The author endows this wife with seemingly superhuman virtues and skills. She makes cloth not just for her family and her household, but as a going retail business. And that's just for starters. She also plants a vineyard, imports food, feeds the poor, and instructs the household. The writer notes that she never sleeps or even rests. No wonder!

I got tired just reading about her workload. My reaction: There is no way one woman could do all these things. But one woman in my Bible-study group had a different take. Instead of seeing all the things in the verses that we cannot seem to be able to do, she looked at things she already did for her family and saw how they fit into the pattern of the "noble wife." That is certainly a more encouraging approach.

Still, there are a lot of verses about "grasping the spindle" and "making linen garments" and other things that most American women just don't do much anymore. So I thought I'd update the verses a little to help a suburban wife of the 21st century relate to the ancient wisdom. Here goes:

A wife of noble character who can find?
She is worth more than a Nintendo system with Rock Band and Wii Fit all bundled together.
Her husband trusts her with all the credit cards and the remote control.
She brings him excellent credit ratings all the days of her life.
She selects volunteer cutting assignments from the kindergarten teacher and works with eager hands.
She is like merchant ships, bringing in food from the store with the best coupon deals that week.
She gets up before the clock radio kicks on; and microwaves sausage patties for her family.
She considers a lottery ticket and buys it; out of her Bunco winnings she enters a basket bingo and wins a birthday gift for her mother-in-law.
She works out at the gym vigorously; her arms are strong enough that she doesn't have too much of that hanging flab when she raises her forearms.

She sees that she's getting a good return on her 401(k) rollover, and her lamp always goes out at a reasonable time (but she can turn it back on if the kids need something or the dog starts whining).
In her hand she holds the steering wheel, and grasps the box of Cheez-Its to hand out to the kids in the carpool.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household; for she has arranged to go in late for work on days when schools open on a two-hour delay.
She makes her bed most days even if no one's coming over.
Her husband is respected at the city sports stadium, where he takes his seat among the season ticket- holders.
She makes allergen-free brownies and sells them at the bake sale; and supplies the Scout troop with sodas for the party.
She is clothed with strength and dignity, or at least sweats that are clean, with not too many paint spatters.
She can laugh at the ridiculously high heating bill.
She speaks with wisdom, and can faithfully instruct her family on how to change the bag in the vacuum cleaner.
She watches over the affairs of her children text-messaging each other in the same room and does not eat anything from the Cheesecake Factory.
Her children arise and, though they call her really bad names, at least they're up in time to get ready for school.
Her husband praises her (from his seat with the season ticketholders): "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all."
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who has read this far in my bad paraphrase deserves to be praised.
Give her the reward she has earned: A rest. (In other words, that's the end.)

{Amen, Amen!}