House stuff

I want this bedding set from Kohl's for the new bed we're going to get when we move. We will be buying a King Sized bed and putting our Queen in the guest room. I am in love with this bedding and the color scheme. So I am posting it here so that I can come back to it and buy it once I have the money. :) They have curtains that match and I want to get those too.

I like this lamp from Target.

Brrrr

It is currently -6 without the windchill. My heater stopped working today. Nice, huh? The kids and I are in layers and we're still cold. Hopefully Chris can fix it when he gets home. Tonight is supposed to get down to -40 or so. They are cancelling school and college classes today and tomorrow because it will be dangerously cold. Lovely. Why do I live in Minnesota again?

I've been having a really bad day. I had some drama with a friend this morning but we've worked it out. Then on my message board 2 of my favorite moderators have stepped down. I'm taking it personally even though I probably shouldn't. I seem to have fallen into a pattern of having people leave me, which I guess is what I deserve for leaving everyone back in Memphis. First my sister, then almost a close friend, then 2 of my mods. Who next?

I'm on my period and it's been really tough on me this time. I rarely get PMS. Last night I felt so sad for no reason so I went and took a hot bath and listened to Sia's album 'Some People Have Real Problems'. I wanted to stay in the bath for hours. I got out and slathered myself with some yummy smelling lotion and I felt better. I've just been so sad. And it's hard for me to even admit that because I am always the happy, bubbly person. I hate PMS. I should be back to my normal self tomorrow.

I want to feel like myself again.

Pink Eye

I get pink eye way more than the average person ever should. What is going on? Seriously?

I understand why I got it twice within a couple weeks time last year. The boys were in daycare and brought it home to me. But why now? Ian must have picked it up in Sunday School this past Sunday. His eye was red for a couple days and now its fine, but yesterday mine was all red and sore. So I figured it might have just been irritated, but when I woke up this morning it was obvious that it was pink eye. Again.

So I keep washing my hands and I'm trying not to rub my eye at all. I've been putting Visine in my eye which makes the red go away for a bit but my eye is still sore. It better go away ASAP. I'm going to have a house full of people this weekend! Ay!

Heath Ledger Dead

So by now the world knows about Heath Ledger's untimely death. Ordinarily celebrities' deaths don't effect me much because I don't really know them, and usually because it has something to do with stupidity and drug overdoses. But with Heath, the circumstances surrounding his death are just incredibly sad. The autopsy this morning was inconclusive and it will be another 2 weeks for the toxicology report to come back.

They are reporting that:

• He had pneumonia
• He had just travelled in 3 different countries in the previous few days
• He was terribly disturbed after delving deep into the role of the maniacal Joker in the new Batman movie
• There was a bottle of prescription sleeping pills near his bed

He had done an interview recently where he said the role of the Joker had made him anxious and he wasn't getting more than 2 hours of sleep a night. He would take an Ambien and it wouldn't work so he'd take another one and it would knock him out for an hour. Then he would wake up having an anxiety attack.

I think I am so upset by his death because it was so accidental. He has a 2 year old daughter who will only ever know her Daddy through his movies. Other actors have nothing but the nicest things to say about him. He just seemed like an all around decent guy. And now he's gone in the blink of an eye.

As morbid as it sounds, I watched (live) on tmz.com last night as they wheeled his body out of his apartment. And I replayed it in my head last night when I was trying to sleep. It's just not fair. I hope his family can find some sort of peace with all of this.

Hello

Well I have decided to start a new personal blog. I have a Livejournal that I have had since 2000 but I don't really post there anymore. Back when Livejournal was super popular all of my friends had one too, and it was fun to read each others' blogs and comment each other. These days I just want an outlet for my ramblings and I rather like the idea of basically being anonymous since only maybe 3 people who know me in real life would read this. So it's a fresh start and it feels good.

Instead of a big introduction I will just jump right into journaling.

Yesterday on the messageboard I run, there was some drama that broke out. Drama is nothing new to a messageboard with 2500+ hormonal women, but this drama involved a friend of mine so it was especially taxing. She was accused of something she didn't do, so I had to be shown proof, which was her PayPal records. She had no problem showing me, and everything added up and all was well. She was accused of scamming people because she did a donation drive for one member who was struggling to survive and had her newborn in the hospital with a heart condition and another child at home. She collected diapers, wipes, outfits, toys, bottles, formula, etc for this woman, and any cash donated was used for shipping everything to her plus one more big diapers & wipes purchase from Walmart. Well this woman decided that she was being scammed because she thought there was extra cash left over and she was entitled to it. Excuse me? My friend did this out of the kindness of her heart for this gal, and they were close friends too! So once I was able to clear her name I made the ungreatful one apologize publicly on the board. Sure it was a bit of public humiliation, but she was telling everyone that H had scammed them out of money so it was only fair for her to apologize publicly to clear H's name. So she did and the other members tore her a new one. Whew. It has tapered down today and I think everyone is moving on. Sometimes I just can't believe I got myself into the mess of being the Admin of such a big mommy board. It really is a lot of work. Even while I was working full time I would have to do stuff on the board during the day. Very time consuming. Every issue anyone ever has, they come to me. I have to mediate squabbles between members, research possible fraud and lies, organize events & exchanges, etc. I do have a fabulous team of moderators who help me tremendously though, although we all don't always get along. So that was what I was dealing with all day yesterday...oh the drama!

One good thing that came from the board yesterday was that someone mentioned something called a Tassimo. So I looked it up and it looks awesome! -click- It makes single cups of coffee, tea, hot chocolate, espresso, latte, and cappuccino. It is so amazingly convenient with making one cup at a time. I don't drink regular coffee but I do drink the flavored stuff. And we'd all drink the hot chocolate. Mmm. I want one of these so bad. I can't buy anything right now since we haven't closed on our house yet. I would love to have one for the new house though. There's a perfect spot for it in the kitchen.

My kids are in the playroom watching the movie Aladdin. I love Disney movies. I want to collect them all. My favorite one is Little Mermaid. The boys don't particularly like that one but they love Monsters Inc, Toy Story, and Lion King. We'll see if they like Aladdin or not. I really want to take Ian to see the new Veggie Tales movie: The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything. I think it looks cute. I would have to take him once Chris was home so he could watch our little one while I take Ian to the movie. I think we will try to do that this coming weekend. It will be fun to spend some mommy/son time with him.

Chris and Ian have had some kind of stomach big for 3 days now. It's horrible. They feel just fine and have no other symptoms besides nonstop diarrhea. I'm tired of poop around here! Poor Ian sometimes doesn't make it to the bathroom in the middle of the night so I wake up to a yucky bathroom. Both of them get up so much during the night to 'go' that its a wonder they get any sleep at all. Chris took yesterday off work hoping he would get better but he didn't. He's working today though. I hope nothing embarassing happens to him. All I let him and Ian eat yesterday was toast, bananas, and corn flakes. They say to go by the BRAT diet when you need to firm up stools...bananas, rice, applesauce, toast. So that's what they did but it hasn't worked yet. I hope it goes away quickly. My poor guys. Luckily the little one and myself have been spared.

I'm having a Pampered Chef party this Saturday here at my house. I attended a friend's party in November and had so much fun! So I booked a show. My friends are looking forward to it too. I love Pampered Chef products. Everything I have ever bought from them has been awesome. And because we're buying a house right now, I can only really buy stuff if I get a lot free or discounted. But my friends know there's no pressure to buy stuff. I just really want the Mandoline. :) It will be fun. We'll be making 'Chicken Fajita Pizza' which sounds heavenly!

Let's see, what else is new in my world. Well the house buying thing is coming along nicely. We tried to get the bank (seller) to pay for the home warranty but they refused, so our realtor bought it for us. She's great. She's actually Chris' boss' wife. So that part is taken care of. We've asked to have our closing date pushed back to 2/15 instead of 2/28 since it looks like we've got someone who wants to move into our townhome on March 1st. We're still waiting to hear back from the rental management company to let us know for sure. When the couple was looking at the place they absolutely loved it. The lady said "This is it! This feels like home to me." So that was encouraging! I just want to move into my new house ASAP and get settled in. I can't wait for my kids to finally have a yard to play in, with a nice swingset out back. This spring is going to be wonderful.

Speaking of spring...is it almost here yet? Gah! We've been fighting -24 windchills lately. We got some snow all day yesterday but it was only about half an inch. So it looks pretty but isn't enough to cause problems. I am not a cold weather girl at all. I'm from TN and miss it terribly. Well I miss the warmth but not the humidity, or the crime, or the poor schools, etc etc etc. There's so much to love about Minnesota but the winter is NOT one of them.

I sent in an application to put Ian in preschool today. This would be for the 2008-2009 school year. I can choose the 2 day a week option or the 3 day option. It's only $40 difference in monthly cost for the 3 day option. It's only 2.5 hours a day but I suppose that is all they really need at this age. Since his birthday is in December he can't start Kindergarten this year, so I wanted to put him in something to get him out of the house and socializing with other kids. He will love it. I think he's smart enough to start Kindergarten anyways, but the age restrictions are tough and there's no getting around it. It will be ok though.

Well I suppose that is enough for the first day. I didn't mean to write a novel. Since I am at home with the kids these days I don't have adults to interact with and talk to, and I'm terribly phone shy so I won't call anyone to chat, so this is what I'm going to do. I really need to work on my issues with the phone. I'm just irrationally afraid of talking on the phone. I dread any awkward silences or saying something stupid. Plus I never know when to end the conversation. I don't want to end it too soon in case the other person has more to talk about, but I don't want to keep it dragging out if the other person has nothing else to say. So I avoid it as much as possible. It's sad, I know. I'll work on that this year.

:)