Just A Test

Does this thing still work? Well, yes. Amazingly enough. If only all tests were this easy!

So I don’t blog much anymore (obviously), and as I came back for this quick and easy little test, I looked around my dear blog for a few minutes and realized I’m not the only one who doesn’t blog much anymore. Only a few of my “blogs I read” are kept updated, although the ones that have been updated are enough to inspire me to continue, since as I clicked through and read a few minutes, I remembered how much I loved blogs and blogging.

HOWEVER. <—that’s a big however! There’s a lot of stuff that is killing the wonderful creature that is blogging. When you post life updates to facebook and instagram, then jot down all your innermost feelings in a bullet journal, and everything you could ever want to know is already on pinterest or in podcasts, on top of being so busy in real life that you barely get any of those things squeezed into it…it’s hard to find time to do it or topics that haven’t already been covered. For the record, that kills the mojo.

Anyway. Test Passed. Something Posted. Now we’ll just see if I can do it again next time I get a minute. LOL. That might be the truer test. =)

It's About Time

Well, it only took three years, but I finally updated the aesthetics of the dear neglected blog. For future reference, here are the before and after images, since they’re not that much different.

This time I got smart. I planned ahead for my problem of staying current. Now it’s the year dash question mark. That means the next time I get around to updating it, it might only be KC and me on there…but who knows…except the question mark makes it all okay! LOL!

Well, now that this is done, it’s time to get back to blogging again. I have so many thoughts running through my head, but most of them won’t make any sense without a little backstory since I’ve been so absent from the blog over the last few years.

I’m not sure how far to go back, since I don’t remember where we were when I lost track of blogging, but I guess I’ll just go with 2018.

We sold our NC house at the end of 2017 (it was like our favorite house ever…*sigh*), and moved to FL for KC’s job in January of 2018. We lived in a rental for 3 months (holy cow is it ever hard to transfer addresses twice in less than a year…I’m still trying to get all of the mail switched over). Anyway, we hated renting just like I knew we would, because we HAVE to be able to paint! LOL. All beige walls with patches showing from previous renters was totally KILLING us. Yeah, it’s a first world problem. I shouldn’t complain. But I was still really happy when we were able to move into our own place and start painting. Haha. I’m a professional at this point.

So that was March. Then we had a ton of visitors from back home (which was AWESOME, because living in a new town without all your old friends is pretty sad). Going to the beach and pool while all your old friends are still wearing hats and scarves is fun and all, but it sure doesn’t make up for all the missing them! =)

Summer was busy, the TDQ turned 14, the K-man turned 13, and just like that, we don’t have any kids in the house anymore. Just loads and loads of hormones. And also, they don’t want me talking about any of it anymore, because it’s so embarrassing, which is another reason it has gotten harder to blog. Teenage kids just don’t do the cute things little kids do, and even if they pull off something cute, they (or their friends at school) can pull it up on the internet and read it and be mad at you for ruining their life! So yeah, at least 60% of the things I like to talk, vent, brag about are gone…just like that.

Total rabbit trail, I did ponder for a few moments last week if I should delete all photos from my blog history, after finding out that the TDQ has someone with stalkerish behaviors that somehow found my blog and sent pictures from here to other kids at her school. Obviously, I’ve never posted anything bad, but I *THINK* I’ve addressed the problem and it shouldn’t happen again. Either way though, I decided to leave the pics alone and just hope that legal action doesn’t ever become necessary. Seriously, the things you never think would become necessary to think about!

Where was I? Oh yes, school! So the TDQ started at a private charter school which has been AWESOME for her! The K-man started back at Classical Conversations again, but about 3 weeks into it, I realized we had reached the end of the point where homeschool was beneficial for him, too. Sadly, we were too late to get him into the same private charter school as TDQ (well, the middle school version of it anyway), but we joined the waiting list and continued homeschooling.

October and November were total blurs on the calendar…I have it all written in my bullet journal (of which I am still totally HOOKED) but that would be the only way I could remember what all happened those months. We were just busy! Thanksgiving, KC and I took an early anniversary cruise while a friend from back in NC flew in to stay with the kids for Thanksgiving. That was awesome on so many levels. Our kids will want a friends-giving every year now. Haha.

December was another insane month! Our family was all over the place at all different times that month…that’s another unexpected side effect of having teenagers. They can sometimes travel without you now, so you have to manage four individual schedules instead of them always being part of yours. Anyway, we had Christmas Eve in Ohio with KC’s family, and Christmas Day in NC with my family. I wish we had had more time in both places so we could have seen ALL the peoples we miss, but time was too short to catch everyone. Hopefully we can catch more in the next trip north, but that will be awhile yet.

Anywho, so now, January! We finally got a call from the private charter middle school, and K-man is finishing out the year there! Hallelujah! I’ve already seen a huge difference! He just needed more of a challenge and something to occupy more of his time. And although he was incredibly nervous the first week, he is doing AWESOME. Hopefully he won’t kill me for saying this much. LOL. He is way more easily embarrassed than the TDQ. I try to be understanding although I’m not sure he appreciates my herculean efforts! LOL!

There it is. Update complete. I’ve now burned an entire morning and the laundry still isn’t finished.
Till next time! =)

Random Insanity

I’m sure there’s no one still coming by here that remembers back in the day when this blog was called “Random Insanity,” it’s been a few years (like almost 10…*GASP*). Now I have to go look at that again…has it really been ten years?!?!?!?!!!

HONKIN’ DADDY! My very first post on ye ol’ blog was on February 22, 2006. So my 10 year anniversary is next Monday!

ANYWHO. Back to my original thought. Random Insanity…it was my answer to the question, ‘If you were writing an autobiography, what would you title it?” the other night when we had some folks over playing games. And after I thunked up that answer, I had this flashback to the early days when I called this blog, “Random Insanity.” Scary, how much things change. Or not.

So, yeah, it’s “Always Faith” now, which is also true, but I’m pretty sure I’m ALWAYS going to be a little bit insane and a whole lot of random. Hahaha.

It’s not a bad life. I’m mostly happy with it.  

Today, I’m going to share five randoms:

5. This past Monday, they predicted 2-4 inches of snow. This is what we got. About .375 inches of snow and about 1 inch of ice. Bleck. But it WAS enough to cancel everything for 2 days. And make me appreciate teachers just a weeeee bit more.

4. I shoulda known it wasn’t going to snow. After all, I went and bought snow suits. We discovered at the last snow, that ours have somehow all magically disappeared. My favorite white spyder snowpants, too. I have looked in every single box in this house…nowhere to be found. ANYWHO, when it snowed last, is when I discovered their absence, and we had to go all old fashioned during the last winter weather. You know, actually coming inside and drying off before going back out again. How very old-school. So I determined when it looked probable that we were going to get more, that I would be prepared.

I just love Murphy and his crazy laws. Guess we’ll have snowsuits for next winter.

But the ice was crazy beautiful from the vantage point of our yard. I’m sure I would have felt differently if I’d been trying to drive in it, but since I wasn’t, I thought it was just lovely.

3. Then 12 hours later. Spring!

I just love the bipolar weather.

2. I am a terrible judge of time and I have no time to finish this post. LOL.

To be continued….

Wrapping It Up

Well, I updated the ol blog for a happy new year. I flipped through my digi scrap stuff and picked things I liked, then I uploaded the new header….and realized it kinda matches our Christmas card this year. ROFL…obviously I’m really into black and white and red at this moment. Hahaha.

So it’s the end of another year. As always, I can’t believe another year is gone. It seems like we just started 2013 and now it’s time to write in a new date.

I’m actually quite proud of me…despite all the upheaval and transitions this year, not to mention spending all my spare time on so many things from house to school to church, etc., I’ve actually got next year’s planner all ready to go. And now I’m wrapping up the blog décor for another year. Plus, all the Christmas décor is down and I have an empty slate for bringing out everyday decorations…and I still have ONE day left of 2013. I’m SO proud.

Also on wrapping things up, while we’re not quite there yet, we’re getting VERY close to seeing some “after” pictures of several rooms in our house. I can’t wait to get those posted. Ya’ll have NO idea!

I LOVE finishing things. Maybe my project for 2014 should be getting out ALL my unfinished craft projects and finishing them, then selling the ones I don’t need anymore…lol. Seeing as how our new (smaller) house doesn’t have a space for a craft room (and I’ve already experienced the trauma of trying to work on crafts in our basement…did I tell you about that?), it’s probably way past time for me to take a stern look at my craft supplies and just ditch a large portion of it.

Huh. Something to think about. =)

Aging

Well, I’ve got to stop blinking.  Maybe then time would slow back down.  It’s just getting away from me and I don’t know how else to stop it.  I was reading some of the blogs in my feed reader tonight and several of them are bloggers who post frequent photos of their kids.  I have thought it before, but it really hit me more tonight than it has before, that…uh…I’ve been reading their blogs for a LONG time.  As in, I read their blogs when their kids were born…and their kids are now seven…

I’m really not a stalker…although, technically I could probably be classified as a lurker since I read a lot of blogs without ever commenting on most of them except on rare occasions.  “Stalker” just seems like it has malicious intent behind it…and I am anything but that.  LOL. 

It just made me feel old tonight.  That’s all. 

I’m starting to feel that way a lot lately.  Munchkin is eight this month.  EIGHT.  Only 10 years to go.  LOL.  I get this feeling that I’m going to either lose my hair or go grey before then. 

K-man loves to tell me, “Mom, you’re almost 30, and after 30, you’ll be 31, then 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37—“ 

That’s when I cut him off.  Okay, son, I get the picture.  I’m getting old really fast.  Something about kids has that effect on a person. 

*sigh*

Must go now…I’m of the age now where it’s not optional to get my beauty sleep anymore, it’s a MUST…and it seems I always wake up before the magic moment when the beauty happens. 

It’s another sign, I guess. 

Note To Self

Next time you decide to write the Christmas letter in a post and then just write the address in the christmas card for anyone who wants to read it….

RESIST!

Or else print off labels.  By the 35th time of writing out http semicolon slash slash alwaysfaith dot blogspot dot com slash 2011 slash 12 slash christmas-post dot html, you will be kicking yourself for that dumb idea.  Consequently, at least half the Christmas cards will probably never know about the Christmas post because you will start just leaving it out of every fifth one..and then every third one…and then every one…hahaha. 

And that’s where I’ve been all week…trying to get all the cards done, trying to get gifts made, trying to get appointments taken care of….you know…that sort of thing.  And I have photos right now that need to be edited and two of the three sessions need to be wrapped up by tomorrow…but my eyes are crossing right now…so I guess I’ll just get up early in the morning.  =)

(Where are those cross-eyed smiley faces when you need one?)

Night.

Honey, I’m HOME!

Yep….we made it back!!!  I popped on here to delete this post that I wrote last Sunday and scheduled for this coming Monday (in the event that we didn’t make it home) and then I decided…lol…I’ll just share it anyway…except I AM home safely (thank the Lord).  So for what it’s worth, this is what I was worrying about before I left home last Monday morning. 

In the unlikely event -- that something should happen to me and I should not return from this trip…

I am pretty sure that my kids will be taken care of because lots of people love them…but nobody likes my dogs, so Mom…or somebody, can you please see to it that somebody will love my dogs the way I do…even if it’s not you? 

And I shall schedule this post for the future…if it posts, it must have been my time, and don’t cry about it.  Much. =)

Or it’s possible that I might have forgotten to delete this post…in which case, never mind all that. 

But perhaps I should just let it post so whenever my time DOES come, ya’ll know that I really want somebody to love my dogs.  Cause they’re God’s creatures, too…even if they don’t have souls. 

OBVIOUSLY, I worry about my kids first, and we’ve got guardianship papers and power of attorney stuff, so in case of emergency, that stuff should be all in order, but dogs don’t really qualify in that sort of thing, so…

Please…love my dogs.  Let them stay inside and be your babies and let them visit my kids (if you’re not the one who has the kids) every so often and let them love you back and sleep with you and guard your house for you.  For me.  Okay?  Thanks in advance. =)

By the way…I love all ya’ll.  Mean it. 

AnyWHO.  Now, I feel rather silly for even being worried but I’m very grateful for safe travels and that our kiddies were safe here at home with the in-laws. 

But we spent all week with no internet or phone (it cost TWO arms and TWO legs for that stuff on the boat) so now I’m trying to catch up on everything.  I don’t remember if I mentioned where we were going, but we took a cruise ship to Mexico for our 10 year anniversary.  Celebrating a little early since our anniversary isn’t til next month, but we didn’t want to miss Christmas with the kids…so all week, we were on THIS:

And by the way, the above picture was NOT color enhanced in photoshop.  That’s straight out of the camera (just a slight sharpen action and that’s it).  That was on the dock in Costa Maya.  I have tons of pics but I’ll make that another post later this week. 

Also, don’t forget, if you’re interested in getting into the digital scrapping thing, the giveaway for that ever so fun and helpful program ends tomorrow…uh….I guess tomorrow night since I’m usually too busy on Sundays to get to that before then.  So…CLICK HERE and leave a comment on that post. 

Oh, and one more thing before I go….

Ain’t we cute?  This was formal night on the cruise…they had photographers set up in like 10 different places taking photos…but we only bought two.  Notice, you only see one arm on each of us in this picture…that’s because it took our other two to buy the two photos.  HAHA.  I’m kidding…sort of.  LOL. 

So…more to come.  Stay tuned (or if you don’t care to see any more, then I guess it’s more like “be warned” hahaha)

Oh and BY THE WAY…it’s not quite our ACTUAL anniversary yet, but I still really like this post I wrote on our fifth anniversary…and if you’re a nerd like me who likes to see then/now photos, there is a THEN photo of our wedding day on that post…I love that sort of thing.  LOL.  Okay…leaving for real now…

A Little Housecleaning

In case you didn’t notice, I did a little housekeeping over on the ol’ linky list over there.  I went through my google reader and deleted everyone that didn’t post anything at all in 2010.  I figured it was time…and now that my list is shorter, maybe I’ll have time to read the ones I still subscribe to.  *grin* 

A note to my “real life friend” bloggers, you guys who didn’t post last year got the cut, too.  Love ya and all, but you really should post.    However, if you start blogging again, please please please be sure to tell me so I can link back up and read again.  =) 

I really miss you guys.  =(  Especially you, my hubby…who hasn’t blogged since 2008.  >:( 

Anyways, so that’s that and I updated the header last night and changed the credits down there, too.  And there it is…blog is all tidy again.  =)

Happy November!

*If you came by to look at my October Photo Hunt Pictures, and want a little shortcut there, you can just click here. ;-) I’m just nice like that. LOL. ;-) ;-)*

Well, they say it takes three or four weeks to make a habit. (I’m of the opinion that it is based on it being a GOOD habit you’re trying to create. Personally, I just THINK about a bad habit and it’s suddenly second nature.) But anyway, if THEY are correct, then blogging daily should be a habit now, right? I was looking on lifehack at a list of tricks to build new habits…it’s inspiring. Maybe every month I should add a new habit (a good one) to my repertoire.

Oh and THEY also say that if you build a habit and then break it, it is MUCH easier to pick it back up in a shorter amount of time. So for November, I think I’ll continue a habit, pick up an old habit, and start a new one. Hmmm…I think that could be doable.

So for JUST the month of November:

1. November will be my Thankful Month. A daily post that highlights something (or someone) I’m thankful for. (continue a habit)
2. Make my bed up all the way to decorative pillows (instead of just pulling up the bedspread) every day. (pick up an old habit)
3. Clean ONE thing in the house every day. Do it without thinking of all the other things that need doing, which makes me overwhelmed, which makes me procrastinate. (start a new habit)

Maybe by New Year’s resolution time, I will be perfect and won’t need to make any resolutions. HAH. Not likely. LOL!

Although, I have to say, since the end of summer and things calmed down a bit with our foster kid situations, I have actually gotten a handle on this years ONLY new year’s resolution. LOL! I just had to read back to my first January post to figure out what it was…so doing it was unintentional…haha!

Another current habit I’m going to continue is participation in the Photo Scavenger Hunts… ;-) For November and December, there is going to be a 10 item list. Here is this month’s list:

1. Home Sweet Home
2. Thankful
3. Family
4. I Ate This- Thanksgiving Edition (if you don’t live in U.S then pick something you ate in November)
5. A Turkey
6. Something Hand-Made
7. Something Hot
8. Something Cold
9. Something Orange
10. Anything Goes (Any photo you take in November!)

To join, go here and enter your name in the linky.

Oh and before I go, today I’m thankful for chocolate. I picked something simple today since this post is already long enough. ;-) And now I’m going to go eat some. Goodnight! =)

Happy October!

OMW! I cannot believe it is OCTOBER already?!?!  I am exhausted and I don’t even feel like blogging, but I thought it would be pretty bad to attempt to post every day for the entire month and then quit before I even started.  LOL. 

Here’s some random for you:

(while watching my mom – otherwise known as Nonna to the kids – get in her car after spending an hour or so with us) “*sighhh* (very soberly) I just love her.” –K-man

(in the car on the way home from choir night – kids are in quiet time listening to music to settle down so that when we get home they will go right to bed without fuss – and by the way, it worked because K-man had already fallen asleep) “(very quietly) Excuse me? Mom?  I think something VERY bad is going to happen on Monday.”  (What?) “Well, my friend isn’t going to be my friend anymore.  I think she likes my other friend better than me.  And that’s VERY bad.”  -Munchkin

(K-man crying in the car) “I’m crying cause my head hurts.”  (Why does your head hurt?) “My head hurts because I had too much playyyyy.”  -K-man  (Mommy was bad and couldn’t help laughing…lucky for me, he didn’t take offense.)

And there…I think that’s enough words to classify as a post.  Day one – CHECK! =)

Crazy Life

It’s official, I’m a horrible blogger anymore.  I haven’t even felt like blogging anonymously lately.  Well, okay, I take that back…I actually have felt more like posting some major rants but I have totally resisted.  Partly because if anyone ever stumbled across my pink apartment (not that I actually HAVE a pink apartment), but IF I did, and IF I ranted the way I wanted to about the topics I wanted to rant about, it would give away my anonymity…lol.  Not that anyone will ever find my hypothetical pink apartment…teehehe.  How did I get on that? 

ANYWAY.

So I really don’t even feel like being here now, plus it’s already getting late and morning is coming way too quickly these days…soooo…how bout I just wrap up with misc pictures from this month?

I found this jewel at a yardsale on Saturday.  A quarter for the lid and plastic dish it’s sitting on.  I couldn’t resist it for $.25…it reminds me of my Grandma.  Grandma’s was beat up, too, and always had homemade biscuits underneath that dome…

Well, I ain’t Grandma, but I did bake some cookies today to put in it…and most of the cookies are gone already…how does that happen?  LOL!Speaking of Grandmas…KC’s grandma was here today…that was nice.  She’s 90, although you’d never know it…she is spryer (is that a word?) than most 70 year old’s…yikes.  

Let’s see…here’s a random shot from labor day.  This is when Little Mama was still here…

speaking of her, she’s doing good, I think…settling in her new place okay.  Weird though, with her not being here.  Gonna take a little getting used to again.

And last, here’s a few shots from 9/18 at my cousin’s wedding.  Have a great night! 

OH and the facepainting shots are from KC’s company picnic which happened earlier in the day before the wedding.  We washed it off before the wedding…somehow it didn’t quite fit with the formal look…lol.

For anyone who still reads this blog…thanks.  =)  PS I’m going to try to do better.  I don’t think there is an exact NaBloPoMo anymore…I think it’s any month you want to do it now, but I’m going to try for October…we’ll see how far I get.  LOL.  It’s good to have goals, right?  LOL!  Anyway, goodnight!

There IS A Danger

In how much of your life on the internet you connect with your identity on social networking sites, etc.  Thankfully, if I have landed myself in hot water over those connections, I have yet to know about it, (well, my hot water seems to come from sources outside those connections…*SIGH*) but I keep having small incidents lately that make me question how much I write on my blog.  Particularly when I think about people finding or reading it who might not have my (or my families) best interests in mind. 

Then I have to remind myself that I am cautious.  And that God knows everything.  And that “He’s taking care of me, in ways, that I cannot see.”  And even if people were to figure out a way to do me wrong, they could do that without ever “finding” me on the internet, and it’s all in God’s hands anyways, so…I’ll just continue being reasonably cautious and continue to remind myself that I can’t control the world. 

Naw, duh, right?   

I feel like it’s tempting fate just to say that, but then I have to also remind myself that there is no such thing as fate, well, never mind.  There IS such a thing as fate, but His name is God.  LOL! 

ANYWAY.  In other news, the K-man is having p-o-o-p issues for some odd reason…I’ve lost count of the underwear that’s been washed out in the last couple days –and tonight…on the rug (EW), and then in church…he had to go out to p-o-o-p THREE DIFFERENT TIMES.  WITHIN 2 hours.  YUCK.  And being three, he must be accompanied by a responsible adult.  Or me.  Whichever is available, but usually it’s me. LOL!  At least he made it to the potty there, though.  *sigh* Needless to say, I will be happy when he gets his p-o-o-p thing resolved.

Busy weekend ahead…not sure when I’ll get another chance to post, but until then…

Bloggy How-To's #1

A series of Blogger HTML How-To's For Dummies...by a Dummy (lol)

In the interest of full disclosure, I am no expert, so be sure to copy all your code into Notepad and save so that if you mess up your blog, you can't blame me. =)

Since I was asked, and also since I see a lot of blogs in my surfing who seem to have a problem with this, the first How-To is on headers. 

(Click on any screenshot to see it larger)

The simple answer is: Go to your Layout > Page Elements (you can get there from Dashboard by going to the Layout Tab - see screenshot at right) and then click on the "Edit" button for the Header (see screenshot below)

Once you've clicked on the Edit for your header, a Configure Header screen will pop up and you'll enter your blog title.  Skip description because you won't see it anyways.  Next is the option to choose a photo.  Choose upload from your computer and find your header image (hopefully it's one that has your blog name on it because it just makes things a lot easier).  Next is placement, and if your photo has your blog name on it, choose "INSTEAD OF"....if your photo is just a photo, you'll want the "BEHIND" option.  Mine is set on Shrink to Fit, but this may or may not work if your photo isn't sized correctly.  More on that in a sec.  Then click Save and the window disappears bringing you back to the screen shown in the screenshot above.  Click on that orange SAVE button in the top right area and then a view blog option appears in that white space above your blog layout.  Click it and see how it looks. 

NOW.  If you've done that all good and well and it's still not working, you might want to check your picture. 

Here's where it comes in handy for me to know what kind of picture editing program you're using.  Or actually, it may NOT be very handy since most of you all use programs of whose capabilities and functions I'm not quite sure.  SO.  IF you happen to use an editing program in which you can crop or resize an image, you'll want to resize or crop to an image size that is more appropriate for the area of the header in which you're trying to put it.  And for those of you who checked the box of "HUH? WHAT'S EDITING?" Let me just put it in these terms....if you have a 5x7 photo and you try to put it in a panorama picture frame, it's not going to work so well.

So.  What image size do you need to be cropping/resizing to?  Okay...screens are different, but as far as I can tell, resolution is generally 72ppi (pixels per inch) for web purposes.  So when I crop a photo or design a piece for my header, mine is 980 px wide x (somewhere between 3-400 px tall) at 72ppi.  The height is negotiable because it's not a fixed distance in my html (or at least that's the answer that seems to fit my experiences).  To find out what your header width needs to be, you'll need to go to Layout > Edit HTML and scroll down a ways until you see the code I've highlighted in the next screenshot. 

Then, if you scroll on down a little further, you'll come to the /*Content section or something called content-wrapper, which will tell you if your width of your wrapper is the same as your header.  If it's not and your header placement is off, this is probably why, and it will probably require some troubleshooting (which I'm not getting into in this post -- LOL). 

 

A good template to play around with customizing is the Minima templates in blogger, because they're fairly simple and easy to read.  Some of the other ones stretch areas (which means that you're not dealing in fixed pixels and therefore -- at least in my experience -- will have trouble figuring out how to move and adjust areas of your blog...like the header).  Maybe I'll figure that one out and How-To it later. 

Anyways, this concludes How-To #1.  If you want some homework, you can go read this post where I originally started when I was FIRST trying to learn how to do this stuff.  I would have just referred you to it to start with, but it was written in the days of OLD blogger and parts of it are no longer applicable.  She writes a good how-to though and let me tell ya, it was a WHOLE lot harder back then to put a banner on your blog than just clicking Edit and uploading.  LOL! 

Hope this was not too totally confusing.  And if any NON-Dummies (in HTML world) happen to stumble across this post, please feel free to correct any technical errors (gently please, dummies have feelings, too...LOL). 

Life Is Full

Some days it is too full.  And some days it should be full but my body goes into rebellion and curls up in a ball and goes to sleep. 

And on those days my mind feels extremely guilty of not getting more done.  But then the other part of my mind convinces me not to be guilty because the first part of this week was crazy and the rest of this week is likewise, so I shouldn't feel guilty about being unproductive for a couple of hours. 

Tomorrow and Friday, I'm supposed to go back to the place I used to work and volunteer for a good part of both days to help my mom.  In between that, I have a dentist appointment, the hubby and kids to take care of, and sleep.  And Saturday, there is a consignment sale in the county kind of like the one I just sold stuff at....and I'm going to go to that first thing.  Then, if it's raining, I'm going scrapping.  If it's sunny, I'm coming back home to work outside with the hubby. 

Blogging time has been spent trying to help the hubby change his template to one that will fit the widgets he wants.  He had to pick the most complicated template in the world and I don't know who wrote the original code, but I'm convinced they put useless code as filler in it just to confuse anyone who might try to tweak it. 

Anyways.  I say all that to say this....please forgive my blogging inadequacies this week.  I've got a couple of draft posts that I'm going to complete this afternoon and schedule so that the blog won't be completely neglected all weekend.

Sometimes I have to remind myself why I'm here though.  This blog is to keep track of myself, so I can always look back and remember stuff....because otherwise I would totally forget.  There's something about looking at your stats and seeing that people are reading your brain that kinda makes you forget you're not doing it for them.  I mean, it's all great that people care about what I'm saying...and I love that...especially when they leave sweet comments, but it's still just my journal...

And just in case you want to read more....here's what I wrote the LAST time I had the nerve to read some article about how to be a better blogger.  LOL!

Monday Messages

Dear Monday,
I'm so tired and worthless today that I don't even feel like writing. But I will. Because I'm not a quitter. Even though sleep is really sounding good right about now.
Truly,
Sleepy

Dear Hair,
I think it is interesting to note that you are still falling out at a rate that is...yes...still alarming. Considering that I emptied the animal from my trash can last week and a new one is rapidly forming, I am giving serious thought to another doctor visit. I will wait a few weeks while I keep trying the other things that my wonderful blog readers suggested. I think I've reached the end of all the suggestions, so now I guess I'll wait and see if any of them worked. Changed shampoo - CHECK. Taking hair and nail vitamins - CHECK. Get a trim (actually they layered it to make it look fuller but it still feels really thin even though it looks a little better now) - CHECK. Possible iodine deficiency...read a book about it and taking supplements to see what happens - CHECK. Taking a multivitamin - CHECK. So come on now, hair. How bout sticking around for a few more years, huh?
Sincerely,
The Head You're Supposed to Stay Attached To

Dear Camera,
I will get all those un-downloaded pictures off of you very soon. I hope. And maybe they will even make it to the blog. Maybe.
The Shutter-Bug

Dear internets,
I found lots of fun stuff this week....for instance....did you know that if you subscribe to a bunch of blogs in Google reader, you can put a 'next' button in your bookmarks at the top of your browser and every time you hit it, it goes to the newest post in your subscriptions? Not only that, but directly to the blog post so no more having to click over to make comments. AND it marks it as read in your subscription list. How cool is that? Here's where I found out about that nifty little trick...they can tell you how to do it, too! And get this...when you hit the 'next' button and you have no more new posts to read, you find the end of the internet!!!!! I didn't even KNOW there was an end to the internet. Hahaha. Pretty funny, that. Then I spent more time reading about home management notebooks on one of my new favorite sites (simple mom) and thought about the fact that I should totally be more organized. *SIGH* THEN, I checked my email and found one of those cooking newsletters with a yummy sounding recipe. So I added it to this weeks menu and tried it tonight. And it was so good, that I'm going to add it to my recipe box as soon as I publish this post. Oh and yesterday I spent a zillion a few hours checking out a top quality free blogger template site (at least I haven't found any secretly downloaded viruses attacking my computer YET) and then picked one out for KC's friend because KC asked me to....and then I re-wrote (or copy/pasted, as the case may be...hey, that STILL REQUIRES TALENT, let me tell ya!) about half of the code to make it blogger fonts & colors compatible so that KC's friend could just "plug and play." Yes...I'm so nice.
And really....I could go on forever (wanna hear about worm farms? surfed by some interesting posts on THAT, too....LOL!)...the internet has been SOOO intriguing this week. But I'll stop. Sleep calleth. So, my dear internets. Go forth and click.
Love,

My Hubby...

Has a new love interest.  Lucky for me him, it's a blog and not a person.  I'd hate to have to hurt somebody, ya know?  LOL! 

Anyways, he's making me a little sick, because his new blog?  Well, he's got the traffic in one week that it took me about six months to pick up.  HAHA. 

Yeah, I'm not jealous. 

And really, it's not him making me sick...it's this stinkin' cold.  So I guess I'll forgive him and say lots of nice things.  Like how professional his blog looks and how he did a really good job of tweaking the code to make it look awesome.  And then there's his posting.  Brilliant guy, my hubby.  Now for anyone who is bored by the stock market, it's probably not the blog for you (I confess, unless he's telling me how much money he's making, I sometimes fight the yawns, myself) but since I love him and everything almost everything that he is interested in, I try to be supportive.  In all aspects....including the learning process (note Rule#6...LoL)

....and yes, what he said in Rule#6 was kind of a big deal for me to wrap my brain around, but he has learned...and after about six months hours, I forgave him.  Naturally, forgiveness is much easier when I see him applying what he's learned to bring some of that money back...haha...but I kid...really....after seeing how bad he felt about learning the hard way, I couldn't really be mad.  It also helped that I tried not to think about it.  Maybe I should start a blog about how to be the wife of a stock fanatic...hahaha.

So I figure I'll blog about him now so that I can say "I knew him when" because that may come sooner rather than later. 

Oh, and if for nothing else, go to his blog and check out his blog header....because yours truly was his bloggy technical assistant and header designer.  By bloggy technical assistant, I mean that I answered lots of questions like: where do you find the code that makes this letter bigger?  And how do you get this box to move over there?  Can you change the color of this graphic and design me a header? .....and you get the point.  I'm not complaining though...he's finally as interested in blogging as I am.  Haha!

FYI: Recipe Box

Items that I've tried in the menus and liked, have been added to the first sidebar over there, right under Past Insanity for anyone who may be interested.  This will be easier than trying to dig through the weekly menus to find a specific recipe. 

Also, weekly menus now have their own label in case anyone does need to find a recipe that I didn't add to my recipe box.  ;-) 

I will continue to add the recipes that our family enjoys to my recipe box as we find new ones. 

Trying Out Live Writer

On the recommendation of (the other) Faith, I decided to download and try Windows Live Writer and so far so good.  It downloads the settings from your blog and it's like you're typing directly into your blog, not in the post screen (that drives me crazy when I hit publish and the way I typed everything out is all changed). 

So basically, I'm checking to see if this is going to publish differently than it looks when I'm typing.  

And wow.  The way it loads pictures is thousands of times better....you can change all the settings right there without having to delete and re-upload if you got the placement or size wrong.  It even does borders and everything.  WOW. 

So far so good.  What else shall I test.  Okay how bout a map? So here's a map.  Look you can even do pushpins.  How fun.

A Map of Montana

 

 

 

 

Oh cool...and I don't have to play around to make my text fit down below it!!!  Woohoo!  And apparently spell check is automatic b/c it's telling me that Woohoo and b/c are not spelled right.  HAHA.  Nice. 

Well, okay now....I'm gonna post and see what happens. 

Catcha later!

*EDITED TO ADD: Wow....that was perfect....how cool! (Giant thank you to [the other] Faith)*

Life Is Funny

Yesterday life was surprising...today it's funny. Funny, as in "twisted." LOL.

You know, when you're a kid playing freeze tag with all your friends (especially the big kids b/c that makes you feel important), the last thing in the world you want is to be tagged (unless you're being tagged to become un-frozen, that is).

But then you grow up and become a blogger and you live for the day when somebody tags you. And you're it. LOL!!!

And yes. The talk of playing freeze tag in the dark with the older kids is the voice of experience. *grin*

Anywho, Melissa tagged me and although I've actually been tagged for this one before, being on the total high that comes from getting another real tag (not the --hey, if you're reading this and want to do it, then tag, you're it-- kind of tag), I decided to come up with seven NEW weird and random facts about myself.

Cuz you know, I have a never ending supply of those things.

1. I used to think guacamole was discusting (think baby poo) but then my uncle Mark made some homemade and it was incredible. I still don't particularly care for it when we go out to eat, but I could eat my weight in my uncle's version. If I ever decide to try it, I'll have to post the recipe...he tried to show me, but I do not remember all the amounts and it seems like there were some unusual ingredients in it that I never would have imagined. Maybe I can google it and get close enough to jog my memory.
2. I can pop my third thumb joint (the one next to my wrist). That goes back to the days in SC when us kids used to sit together in church and try to come up with new ways to get in trouble. LOL.
3. Speaking of food and the past, I remember my aunt Betty used to make us peanut butter and banana sandwiches when I was a kid that I L-O-V-E-D, but I googled it and googled it and other than the fact that Elvis liked pb & b, I could not find anything resembling what she used to make. I remember it was mashed together and had an ungodly amount of sugar in it and tasted more like candy than a sandwich. It wasn't toasted either, which was apparently the way Elvis liked it. Aunt B made it for us one day and my brother (the child genius in the cooking department....I think that will be my next strange thing) watched her do it and figured it out at home and he and I had peanut butter and banana sandwiches Aunt Betty style for MONTHS on end. Until we figured out that it was a lot faster to just smear pb on a bread and stick half a banana on it. I'm sure mom was happy about that, too, since there was much less sugar on that version. LOL!
4. Okay, on the cooking thing....when I was a kid, my reputation as a cook was pretty pathetic. My dad always said I was the only person he knew who could burn a pot of boiling water. (In my defense, I only did that once or twice and that was because I was an avid --read distracted-- reader...hey, I was a stellar reader...that counts for something, right? Maybe I should have read cookbooks.) Anywho, as an adult, I have come to the conclusion that it wasn't really my cooking, since I do pretty good now. Okay. Decent. Alright? My point is, it wasn't my cooking....my brother was just a culinary mastermind and the fact that he could bake biscuits that tasted like grandma's at the age of 8 when my MOM couldn't even get them to taste just like grandma's HAD to be what made me look like such an awful cook. I'm sure that's it. LOL!
5. I think I must be hungry....so far 3 out of 5 of my strange things have to do with food. Why break the trend now? Okay, maybe this is not a weird fact, but I cannot grocery shop if I'm not at least a little bit hungry. If I go after I eat, I MIGHT be able to make myself buy one or two things, but I end up passing up things I know we'll need for meals the next week just because I'm not hungry for it at the time. I know it's a common thing not to grocery shop when you're hungry cuz you spend more, but if I don't, I don't get even the necessities....and that means I just have to go out again, which actually costs more. Haha.
6. Okay...let's get off the food. I spend at least an hour at the beginning of every trip, mentally going over what I packed to make sure I didn't forget anything. I don't know why, since, by the time we're on the road, it's too late to pack whatever little item that was forgotten. I guess it's probably so that I'll have the rest of the trip to mourn and worry over the forgotten item. It is in my favor that I have not yet left behind any little PEOPLE, which is the most important thing.
7. My great grandparents imigrated to the US from Italy but none of my family speaks Italian. They came over in a time when immigrants learned to speak English when they came to this country (haha), but I do wish they would have handed down Italian as a second language. Other than Nonna and Poppa, which is what my kids call my parents (thanks to google), I don't know any of it.

Okay. That's seven.

I've also decided I'm going to go out and find seven random blogs to tag. Maybe I'll even get adventurous and pick blogs that are totally new on my blog-scouting-radar! *grin*

So....tag, you're it:

Stacy, never mind the rest.

And with the exception of the first one, which is a recent find, the rest of these I bloghopped to find and randomly chose because they looked interesting. *GRIN* Not that my google reader isn't already packed to the gills, but it's probably going to get a few more added. EEK. *EDITED: NEVER MIND....*

So now to hit post and go leave all my tag-ees a comment. =)

And of course, as always...anybody else who reads and needs some blog fodder...feel free to consider yourself tagged.

Life Is Full Of Suprises

And that pretty much says it all.

Some of them good....some of them...(like certain downward spiralling investments) not so good.

And some of them just plain interesting. Like the fact that I found out a couple people that I never, in a million years, would have guessed would be reading my blog - DO...zoieks!

Actually, on the guessing game, I never did guess who my mysterious person was....despite several good clues. (That settles it, I am officially clueless! Haha.) Anywho, they finally told me who they were, but they prefer to remain anonymous, so ya'll will just be forever wondering. *grin*

Before I found out who they were, I thought maybe there was some wild reason they needed a secret identity...like maybe they were undercover spies in a foreign country using my blog comment section to pass messages back and forth...but then that didn't work b/c I don't generally have comments with unfamiliar identities, so I pretty much scratched that idea pretty quick. Anyways. They're just everyday people...so ya'll don't have to worry about the possibility of my blog comment section getting hijacked by spies sending messages...LOL. Not that anyone but me would ever even consider that possiblity....hahah!

A shoutout to the kind folks who were so kind as to leave a comment or email me...
MixMonk, Anonymous, Teresa, Nikki, Amanda, Melissa, Amy, Rebekah, Kelly, Stacy, & Jules.

Thanks, you guys....ya'll totally rock!

And one more thing on surprises...

*warning...possible spoiler ahead -- although I think we're behind on watching it since we have to wait until it comes out on the internet*

Heroes is driving me nuts. What's up with all that? Peter goes bad. Then his dead father shows up again and I think he's pretty much evil and he steals all of Peter's powers so Peter isn't a Hero anymore. And Siler turned to the good? I am getting confused on who is good and who is bad now....or for that matter, what dimension they're in...past, present, or future.....it keeps changing up. Sheeesh. One surprise after another. At least what's his face that reads minds is still good. I like him...his personality reminds me of KC. He's cute like KC, too. He needs to stay a good guy. But who am I? Not the writer, that's for sure.

Well, all this blah blah blah....another random post full and it's much past my bedtime. Revival this week at church....everyone's tired and I've paid for a spot in a gym to be part of a huge yardsale on saturday so I've got all that I'm trying to get together, too. Cleaning out all the kids summer clothes that are too small or need to be packed away and pulling out the winter stuff to go through and weed it out.....CRA-ZYY.

all that to say I'm tired and going to bed now.