My first Roundup!

I have been dying to do an org junkie roundup since last year, but being the procrastinator that I am . . .I've failed.

Until Now!

I participated in the files round up and the best part is . . .so did Jeff! Jeff must have been channeling the org junkie because he sat down to do this on New Years Day, before I even know what the 2009 challenges would be! (What a smart man!)

Of course that means I don't have any before pics, but I can still show off our beautiful filing cabinet drawers. (See the slideshow in the next post, I couldn't get it to play nice in the same entry!)

I'm so excited for the rest of the years challenges, that I've taken before pictures of all of the challenges to ensure that I can show off more next time.

Not to mention with the fact that I will be out on Maternity leave in June, I expect to get a head start on the challenges for the last half of the year. Because after I start working again time will not be on my side!

New fangled alarm clock

Do you ever have an idea that you are so proud that you came up with all by yourself?

It's not a unique idea, and I'm sure that it has been done before . . .but I'm busting with pride this morning at having gotten my daughter out of bed with minimal fuss.

All I had to do was bark like a dog

and meow like a cat . . .

and moo like a cow . . .

and neigh like a horse . . .

and finally gobble like a turkey.

I guess Mommy does a good gobble, because I'm guaranteed to have her in a fit of giggles after just two calls.

Maybe I should just ask Papa for his duck call . . . .

UPDATE:

I have to admit, I'm a high strung person at work. I take work way to seriously and when things get rushed or start to fray, so do I. I've always been like this . . .

But I have met my match.

One of the women on my team can make the grand canyon out of a shallow ditch with nothing more than the frantic pace she keeps everyday.

I was like this until she joined the team, now I feel like a yoga instructor trying to unwind someone who is wrapped up like a human pretzel.

I feel like I'm trapped under a funnel cloud, and whenever I see her number on my phone or hear her rushing down the hall to my desk . . .that's the tail of the tornado pulling down to land on me.

Can you imagine the atmospheric pressure of being right where a tornado lands?

If you can't stop by my desk for a few hours someday and watch me literally shrink when the pressure starts to emerge.

It's a shame they don't name tornadoes like they name hurricanes or I'd write in daily to the National Weather Center with my recommendation.

Movies and tears

Yesterday was a rather fretful day at work . . . vendor demos, and they had all these little gadgets they wanted to plug in and show us . . .

but their gadgets don't work with our network security.

So frustrations galore led me to the decision that I was going to take a free movie pass I had from work to go see "Inkheart" by myself.

I was the ONLY one in the thearter. As a matter of fact I was about 2 minutes late and they had to start the movie for me.

The movie was good. Good in the way that movies are when you know they came from excellent books, so hundreds of pages of delicious dialogue have been crammed into 100+ onscreen minutes.

But the real treat for seeing the movie is that now I can read the book and have wonderful pictures of each character in my head as they do their daring deeds.

But that was last night . . . this morning was a different tale.

I made my daughter cry this morning. I mean all our wailing and screaming for mommy.

You see Alaina has decided to test out the lengths of her toddler power and the strength of the word "no." this morning she refused to get dressed because she didn't want to go to daycare.

I told her she had to go because mommy and daddy would be at work all day and she couldn't be home alone. She stuck to her guns with the word "no" as the answer for everything, and refused to let me help her get dressed.

So I left.

No, I didn't actually leave . . .I had to go downstairs and get my clothes out of the dryer.

But Alaina thought I had left her home. (Apparently she thinks mommy likes to drive to work in her bra and underwear.)

As I came back up the stairs, I could hear her wailing for mommy.(Don't ask where Jeff was at this time) So we had to have a sit down talk that mommy was sorry she scared her . . .but she needed to go to daycare on the days that mommy and daddy worked.

Hopefully there isn't any lasting trauma since she was laughing by the time we got into the van to leave.

Is this "A moment?"

Do you ever have a moment in you life when you think . . .

20 years from now I'll be standing at a banquet/podium/head table talking about this exact moment.

I wonder if I had one of those moments this morning.

I was driving Alaina to daycare this morning and she said, "Look at the big truck!"

In the right lane beside us was an ambulance.

"Alaina, that is an ambulance."

"Am-plance?"

"Yes. An Am-bu-lance takes sick people to the hospital to get better."

"OH!"

At the next corner the ambulance turned.

"Let's follow the Am-Bu-Lance Mommy!"

"Sorry, sweetie, we have to go to daycare. And people aren't suppose to chase Ambulances."

"oh . . . "


And I wondered . . . is my daughter a future reporter or paparazzi?

Happy B-Days galore!

We had two family birthday celebrations this weekend. One for Jeff's dad and his uncle and the other for my dad's mother.

Both were a little rough.

Jeff's uncle stayed home sick (the b-day boy), so his Aunt brought one of their grandkids with her instead.

A little background for that statement. . .

Jeff's 'uncle' is his aunt B's third husband. The last one died of cancer a few years back, but I'm sorry to say that he was a scary, rude man. He had been in a motorcycle accident, so was a little 'confused' all the time. Which meant he leered at the young female cousins and made rude statements to them. I was propositioned more than once at the family dinner table by him. Ick

Husband three is better, but he is loud and a bit ill-mannered. He has the bad habit of answering his cell phone at family meals and talking about the weather as loud as he can. When we only get together once a month or less, I deem this unforgivable.

Back to the present . . . So their grandson isn't related to anyone at the table except by marriage. He doesn't have much for manners, but reminded me of the kids in high school that were horrible to teachers and their own parents, but were respectful to Mimi and Papa when they came to our house because Mimi and Papa respected them.

In other words, no one has cared enough to take much of an interest in said child. It made for a rough time, but he was nice to Alaina and played with her so I think he's an okay child deep down. But he made it very clear that his least favorite person in the room was his new grandma.

On to the second family b-day. . .

Grams turns 89 tomorrow, so we met for the annual meal at Val's in Seward on Sunday. Jeff, Alaina, and I were the only grandkids there.

Which is sort of okay because there are only 10 grandkids, 5 of which live out of state now. But the aunt that planned it has two kids that live instate.

So did she not consult them to see if they could come before she set the date?

This isn't a big deal until you realize that Grams has been a bit depressed lately. I know this because she called me ten days ago to remind me that she hadn't seen me in a while and wondered if my parents had been up to Lincoln recently (she was fishing to see if they were coming to see her soon.) I feel awful when she does that, but Mimi has reminded me again and again that she calls the kids in our branch of the family, because when she does . . . we show up within a week to see her.

Life was much easier when all I had to do was cross the road to visit Grams.

Sorry for the somber tones of this post, but I've been feeling a little down myself lately. Heartburn and pregnancy have come to call again, leaving me short of sleep and revenously hunger most of the day. This make a crabby mommy indeed! I've been trying to make up for it by laughing more with my husband and putting on an extra cheerful face everyday. Which all in all just wears me down faster.

Only four more months to go . . . Then I get to lose sleep for an entirely different reason.

Happy Obama Day!

I know that Sis in the only one who isn't excited at all for today. She's waiting with pithy comments in tow for all the criticism to come of this year's golden boy.

I'm just eagerly anticipating any changes to the current status of the nation.

And this morning on my favorite radio station, they played the Barack Obama top ten that he did for Letterman last January. Barack read them himself and if you google the Brack Obama Letterman top ten, you can watch it on YouTube, because I don't like loading videos.

For your laughter . . .

10. To keep the budget balanced, I'll rent the situation room for sweet sixteens.
9. I will double your tax money at the craps table.
8. Appoint Mitt Romney secretary of lookin' good.
7. If you bring a gator to the White House, I'll wrassle it.
6. I'll put Regis on the nickel.
5. I'll rename the tenth month of the year "Barack-tober."
4. I won't let Apple release the new and improved Ipod the day after you bought the previous model.
3. I'll find money in the budget to buy Letterman a decent hairpiece.
2. Pronounce the word nuclear, nuclear.

1. Three words: Vice President Oprah.

Happy New President Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!

Auf Wiedersehen!

And so it is with no great sorrow, that we bid farewell to our Ford Taurus last night. (This is not a pic of our actual car.)

She was sold rather quickly to someone who drove past our house and paid in cash.

May she bring joy to the college student she is destined to belong to . . .
Now,

If only I could convince Jeff that the cash belongs in my hands for budgeting purposes.