Operations Laundry has hit a snag.

Today is a day that I must accomplish some major laundry. Seriously, can't describe the laundry operation that I am undertaking today. Mountain, piles, in every room. Some are clean, some are dirty, and some just need to soak and bleach and become pure if possible. First thing I need to gather together the piles to sort, LAUNDRY BASKETS.I know for a fact that we have three. I have to go on a quest to locate all three baskets today since they went AWOL.


Nope not here, but I can spy some laundry that needs corralling.

AH basket #1 all ready in Laundry process. Love that pro activeness on its part.

Oh this needs basket too, I happen to know this is clean, just didn't make it to its home.


Hooray basket #2, I found you as well as the pile of stuff to sort and put away.

Still looking for basket #3, but I must be close with piles like this spilling about.

FOUND IT!! Tucked away in a closet in the spilling over office. Casey is officially a basket snatcher. But I do think I gave permission for this snatch.

And this just made me giggle. Looks like a baggie of blow but it is actually just Casey's face scrub for the road, baking soda. Cause really we just need a little toot in the mornings, its better then coffee. GOSH I am totally kidding.

Blue & Light

Betty's perfect bed, one part of my day.

Evidence of my man.

Baubles

Clothing Cave

Toes and patterns

Our mingled fur

Yeah when its the size of a melon it's not good...

The left side of my throat is swollon, my ear hurts, my head is hot, my left eye feels full, I feel like I have dozens of pieces of popcorn stuck to the back of my throat. I think I have strep. That sucks.

I have a huge pile of things to mail out to people, so if you are waiting for mail, please forgive me. The post office always seems so far away, but really I just am admiring my pile still as it decorates that corner of my table. Post office is on my list for Monday.

Fridays are my favorite days, Casey comes home from trips on Fridays, Alex has no homework, the house gets cleaned by moi for the weekend, the weather report means something, meal plans are actually useful and USED, and the alarm clock gets turned off. Horray Friday!

Time to go warm the sheets for a wee bit, my body hates me right now.

Dust and Ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday, there are 46 days till Easter. Tonight at church Alex read the "adult sized" bible the entire time. Never before has he taken an interest in the services, usually he is begging to go to the kids room. I felt it was important for him to be there for the Ash services, the explanation, to take communion, to be part of it, to hear the praise worship, hear the laughter and singing and clapping and feel it all the way down to his new Skater Shoes soles. He did. And I cried over it. More so when he asked me if they were tears of joy over his bible reading. He received Ashes, praise from adults around us, prayers from our pastor since he was the first child to be marked tonight, and awe and wonder during the praise service. I gave up foods prepared outside the home, meaning anything that I don't make, and Alex gave up video games. We came home and started reading his Children's Bible, Day one Creation. We washed our ashes off saying prayers over each other as we wiped them away, and he solemnly said Amen. We said prayers for Daddy and the dogs and all our other family. And then he asked if he could wear his Long Live Rock and Roll shirt to school tomorrow.

We are blessed.

Spring is A Coming

You know spring is on its way when you can open all the windows in the morning to let in a fresh breeze, you have to turn on the AC if you decide to do some mad cooking, and you can hear crickets at night over the TV. *sigh* I love Spring, the pastels, the baby greens, the new. I have actually stopped watching TV at night this week so I can hear the crickets and craft instead.

Today will be a bit of Spring cleaning, some major laundry, baseboard scrubbing, super vacuuming (gotta love the Dyson for that) and some pantry organization. I do think its time to make sure all the food staples are being rotated out in an organized manner in there. Sometimes I randomly find a can of cream of something with the VONS label on it from when we lived in San Diego. Eepp!

On the baking side of cooking, I have been in love with this book. Every recipe in it has been amazing, from the Banana Sandwich bread (great with PB&J's), to the Country White, to the Honey White. So yummy. i also tried my hand at tortilla making over the weekend, they mostly turned out to be Gordita thick, but they worked great with the Taco Cups I made for dinner. Yay for something new that I have tried. next time I will buy the tortilla flour though.

On the Muffin front Archie has completely become Casey's wee Muffin pup. He follows Casey everywhere and when Casey is gone I find him sitting under Casey's desk waiting for him. This week Archie has even been a little depressed and keeps laying on Casey's slippers. Oh Muffin love, how sweet you are.

Know anything fun to do in Denver CO? Looks like their might be a trip in the very near future to Denver. I am excited!

Confessions in Irony

In an effort to do my job better I have been actively trying to break my old household habits, molding them lovingly and with cheerful excitement into new "awesome" habits. Take for an example, the kitchen sink full of last nights dinner dishes, now it is the kitchen sink, shining and empty with a dishwasher waiting to be emptied bright and early in the new beautiful day! Take for example my laundry which lives in a perpetual state of floor lounging where it can mix with carpet and dog hair. Now my laundry is visiting and loving the exotic islands of Closet and Drawers and has decided that it wants to stay. Take for example my sliding glass door that is the foster home for thousands of dirt and dried dog slobber colonies, now it is so crystal clear that the little muffins run into it on their way out to make a deposit in the yard.

While improving my housekeeping skills I have been educating myself through the lovely inter library loan program. This past week I picked up Confessions of an Organized Homemaker, and now my house lays in disorder again while I consume the book. Stupid irony.

Stash Busting Scrap Swapper Details

Super Paper Stash Swap & Challenge.

The Idea: Hold a swap based around generous scraps. Reward the Swappers with 4 challenges with 4 fabulous prizes for the winners.

The Nitty Gritty details: Gather 40 6x6 squares of paper from your stash. Organize them in groups of 10, here are the groups:

• Cardstock
• Poppy Ink Kit Scraps, these must be patterned papers.
• "Trouble" papers, you know the ones you bought but they stump you when you try to scrap them.
• Favorites, come on you can part with a 6x6 square of it.

As you gather don't be skimpy or mean spirited because one of the prizes will be for the best swapper package received. So it is in your best interest to make up a great swap package.

The Challenges: These will be posted weekly, four weeks in a row. Each one will deal with one of the groupings of papers you will receive in your swap. You will be given a week to complete each challenge, link them back to my blog. The winners of each challenge will be posted the following week.

The Judges: The judges for each challenge will be special GUEST judge that will be announced with each challenge. *wink*

The Prizes: These are being confirmed right now, but they will be worth your time and energy. I Promise!!

I will pick four winners based on the individual challenges.

If you are interested, leave a comment with the following by February 21st:

• Your Name and PI board name if you have one
• Your style, sum it up
• Favorite colors
• Your biggest challenge as a scrapper
  

I hope you join me!!

52 Words

At the beginning of the year I started a project called "52 Words of Me". Each week I take a card from a deck of 54 that has the alphabet on it. I pick one word to sum up that week of the year. And then I squish that week and all my thoughts and feelings onto the tiny canves. It has been so much fun finding ways to make that space bigger, use up my mountain of scraps, and filter down to what was important in that week. Love this mini project.

My neighbor let me borrow her Gwen CD and man oh man, I am feeling Yummy Baby!

What's going around has come knocking

Alex is home with what might be Strep. His doctor is totally booked up and says to keep him home for another day and see if white spots develop. GREAT. It wouldn't surprise me if it is strep because out of the 21 kids in his class, 9 are out sick. All most half. I have set up the sick ward with flannel sheets tucked into the couch cushions, a TV tray with water and other 7 year old essentials, and he has free rein over the TV and game stations.

We are not the type of parents who make our kid "prove" they are sick. At the first sign of yuck we generally keep him home. Maybe we are too generous with sick days but I would rather my kid be at home, then have to suffer at school sick. We all know those parents who send their kiddos to school with snot dripping out their noses and germs filling the air with every breath. In fact Alex's teacher last year, had her son in class a day after he was exposed to Chicken Pox (which she knew about!) and what do you know, Alex gets CP even with the vaccine. So we refuse to be those parents.

Which brings me to our love of private school. We loved having Alex in private schools because they were not mandated by the state on days of attendance and all other sorts of funding-based rules. Granted we still paid for those days when he wasn't in school, but it was our choice. Now that bugman is in public school, we have to fight the attendance lady yearly over days missed. We monitor how many days they mark as absent, how many are late arrival days (due to doctor's appointments) and how many days are unexcused absences. Last year she made 7 of Alex's medical days unexcused absences and they tried to threaten me with holding him back. I of course took it to the next level, the school district, and discovered that those days should have been medical days and she just didn't mark them as such. Which also brought about a school wide audit of the attendance. What a crappy fight that was. So now, I micromanage Alex's attendance with records of my own. Luckily his teacher is amazing and is understanding and we compare notes every other month. Which I guess makes me one of "those" parents, the high maintenance ones. But at least I get what I want!

Proof that Shelter Dogs can be Divas

I got Betty groomed today for a stellar deal, Free! My neighbors groomer just hired a new groomer and she needed to test her out, so I got Betty groomed for free AND they gave her a makeover to use in their photobook. Betty now looks like a Diva, you can actually tell that she is part Poodle, she is adorned with a new rhinestone pink collar, blue bows, and a Shabby Chic Polo. She seriously danced out the door to me and hasn't stopped celebrating Betty style which includes lots of rolling, kissing, and romping around the house.

What more can a Shelter girl ask for? She is Our My Fair Lady!

This is where I beg you to go to your Shelter, find a forever friend and celebrate their new life with you. I will never go to Breeder when there are lovable specials dogs that need homes and families in the worst way at our local shelters. This is why we look and open our doors every month to any size pups that needs a home. Even if it is a temporary one.

Doing this has taught Alex some of the most valuable lessons, he knows how to care for something living with love and compassion. He knows how to train dogs and read new dogs for friendly signs. He knows the Joy of finding a home for a pup, how to celebrate the love that they bring to their new owners. He knows how to love and embrace life. He knows that anyone, no matter what their situation, Can help others.

So spay and Neuter your pets, stop unwanted litters, and support your local shelters. They need all the help and support they can get. Even it is only picking up a couple cans of food a month, or donating your old towels and blankets. Contribute as an Angel sponsor to dogs and cats who need to be treated for heart worms. Or even taking an afternoon and going in to give a shelter pet an hour of time, playing, loving, snuggling, bringing them some joy. Just give a bit and know that your little bit is a generous contribution. Educate yourself on the needs, which are many and great.

I promise you, it will make a difference.

Here is Betty's shelter story, she was horribly abused by her previous owners. So much so that the police forced the people who owned her to surrender her to them when the police went there on a domestic violence call. She was treated for heart worms at the shelter through the loving support of an Angel Sponsor. We literally stopped by on a fluke, we all ready had three dogs at home. But we had been looking for a small dog to keep indoors, preferably an older female. In the last kennel building, Alex spotted a small bit of black fur hiding in the corner, trying to stay away from the two other dogs in the room with her. We quickly found someone to bring her out to us. When she came out the door slowly and cautiously, the first thing she did was give a welcome lick to Alex and we immediately knew she was coming home with us. She was horribly shaggy and matted, and we could tell that she had cataracts. She was an old girl who had had a hard life and needed a special home to spend the last couple years of her life in. An hour later we brought her home.

For the first week she did nothing put stay curled up, out of the way, trying to blend in and not bring attention to herself. She approached us cautiously, but she wanted love so desperately. Betty immediately bonded to me, she slept on my side of the bed and would climb into my lap anytime I sat down. The first night she opened up, Casey and I were floored at her lovable playful demeanor. She was flirty and frisky and Adorable! In that time frame we got her groomed, fed her special food to help her coat and skin, and showered love on her. She fit right into the pack of pups we had all ready, they immediately excepted her and seemed to recognize a fellow shelter pup. In the last 4 months we have had a couple hick-ups where she was immobilized by fear and reacted defensively. So we have learned to shelter her from stressful situations. She has learned how to climb up and down stairs and how to eat food from her bowl instead of grabbing a bit and hiding around the corner to eat it. She has become loved. And to think someone beat her, shot her with BB's that are still under her skin, starved her, and neglected this love muffin. Luckily for us we saw the diamond in the rough and celebrated her new life with us and our crazy pack of pups.

So if you are looking or have room in your hearts and homes for another pet, please go to your local shelter and find a Betty to love.

The Pile of Life

Once there was a little girl with pigtails and freckles who woke everyday to a mountainous pile of life next to her. Some days the Pile was massive with nooks and crannies that frustrated her and seemed to make the day extend forever. Other days the Pile was delightful and fun, a breezy accomplishment. Today she woke up and discovered the Pile had invited along a friend or two. So the little girl with pigtails and freckles decided to to the Pile and its many friends to Go to Hell and off she went to enjoy the fog and a wondrous land called Target. la!

You know you want to giggle

* Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good) a super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Archie McMuffinator

Meet Archie. Muffin #2, Doggie #5.

Can someone locate my focus for me? I seem to have lost it somewhere between Wednesday and Thursday. I'd like to have it back in play by Tuesday, meaning tomorrow.

Imagine

The camera went Cajun with Casey, which included all the birthday pictures, so there will be a slight delay in posting those. So in lu of pictures I want you to close your eyes and imagine, a huge yellow sponge bob cake, a Daddy driving home from Houston after a 6 hour flight from Boston when his connecting flight from Houston to SA was cancelled (gotta love Daddy love) getting home at 4am, more gifts then at Christmas, even more gifts after spending his awesome gift card from Poppa Loren, a super excited 7 year old, a super shocked Momma looking at her 7 year old "baby" (times flies), lunch at Olive garden the birthday boys choice because they have root beer and spaghetti, more Lego's then should be legal, and a small sweet Archie Muffin.

Once I get my battery charged up again on my camera, pictures will be posted from tomorrow on.

Time for a bath, bed, and alarm in the morning.

Sneaky Shot

As I was going through the digital pictures today I found Alex's sneaky shot. Cracks me up.

Life has been busy, two big things on the horizon. Good things, busy things.

More to come once this weekend slows down, cause I am busy getting things ready for Bugman's 7th Bday!!