Fun For Friday

I hate carving pumpkins. It ranks right up there with changing a baby that had a blowout and has poop all up its back and down its legs. Yeah, it's like that. Only stinkier. I absolutely despise the smell of pumpkin guts. But nevertheless, we are good parents, and therefore indulge our childrens' desires to have rotting fruit perched precariously on our porch for the neighborhood bullies to smash.

I give you the following:


Emma's toadstools, which I actually think are very very cute. Better Homes and Gardens has some really cute stencils on their website.



Gretta's scary face. I carved this one for her (uh, obviously, since she's 3 and isn't allowed to use knives until she's 4), and I admit, I got a little impatient and may have accidentally cut off half the face. Either way, I think it looks a little like Voldemort, and a lot like Dom Deluise.


Maggie's haunted house. So cute! Sean did this one. He's a master at the teeny knife cutting through thick pumpkin skin. And to think with skills like that, he's still unemployed!


And here they are all together. So darling. We got cute little lights that flicker like real candles, and when we put them inside, and step way way back, they actually look pretty good. I mean, as good as hollowed out fruit can look, right?

Happy Friday! And Happy Halloween!

Fun For Friday

I know it's Monday, but I need something to make me laugh today, and thought I'd share it with all of you as well.

Who knew you could get Eye Pads at Walgreens? And for only $1.99?

Get it? Eye Pads? Like iPads? I crack me up.

Props to Sean for spotting this one.

Changes, Revisited

Well, the time has come to let you all in on my little secret.

Things have indeed changed. You see, I've been so lucky to have been working at a cute little salon in Riverton, a mile from my house. It's been awesome. I can work whenever I want, I've had time to grow my business, and I've been blessed to reconnect with some of the best people I know.

But the time has come to move on. It's sad in a way, but at the same time it's very exciting.

I'm moving to a salon in Draper called Salon Complete. I'll still run my own business from there, so nothing will change as far as scheduling and all that. Pretty much I'll be known as The Back Porch @ Salon Complete. I'm very excited to have the opportunity to grow my business even more now.

I'm sad to leave Suzie and her cute family; that's where I've been located for the last 6 months, but even though I had a hard time telling her I was leaving, I knew it was time. She was very supportive, as I knew she would be.

So it's on to bigger and better things. I'm very excited to get started. I'll be there beginning November 1, so if you need to schedule anything with me, call or text me, or email me, and we'll get you going just as soon as I get set up.

So that's that. Nothing huge like a baby or anything, but still big news to me.

Loungewear

I love the look of cute moms wearing Velour sweat suits and Shape-Ups as they peruse the aisles at the local Wal-Mart. Some moms are all blingy with earrings and bracelets and big sparkly watches and everything. Some are more casual, with just a simple imitation brand name purse and a fake hair ponytail.

But now I've joined their ranks, albeit begrudgingly.

See, it sort of hurts to wear pants. Yeah, I know. Sean is loving that part of it. Not really, not really. But the button to my pants is right at incision level, making the buttoning and subsequent bending over quite painful.

So here I sit, in the only non-buttoning pants I own, bright pink cotton capris. They were $1 at Wal-Mart. How awesome is that? $1. That's like cheaper than Goodwill used ones! And thank goodness I have them. Otherwise I'm afraid what the visitors would think when I answer the door in my G's. Hmmm.

But trust me, as soon as these incisions are healed up and I'm able to do up those buttons again, I'm giving up the bright pink capris. I may just invest in a new pair of jeans. I think 2 pair is essential for winter, don't you? That's a whole nother post, though.

What A Weird Couple Of Days

My Facebook followers already know this story, so if you're one of them, feel free to bag out of this post now. I won't feel bad, I promise. {sniff, sniff} I won't. Go ahead. {wiping nose with back of hand}

For those of you (my real friends) who stayed to read, here it is. What a weird couple of days. Holy cow.

Thursday night we stayed up in Midway. One advantage of having an unemployed husband is taking advantage of killer midweek rates at local resorts. We had a lovely evening of good food and a fireplace. Ahh. But I wasn't feeling great. Boo.

We turned in early, and despite a magic sleeping pill, I tossed and turned all night, not really able to pinpoint what felt bad, I just didn't feel good.

Friday morning we had an early tee time, so we got up, ordered breakfast (free with the midweek deal! Woot!), and started getting ready to get our golf on. Well, I couldn't eat anything for breakfast. Not because I physically couldn't like normal (my lap-band is tight in the mornings, so food is hit or miss early in the morning), but because I was nauseated and achy. I thought maybe I was catching a cold. I worked through the ick, and headed out on the course.

The first few holes were fine. I actually had a great couple of drives, and a pretty good chip on to the green (golf clap here, thankyouverymuch). Then hole 5 came around. We were sandwiched between 2 foursomes, so we had to wait for them to clear the fairway. I teed off, and it was good one. Problem is, I tried to cut the corner, even thought the GPS on the cart specifically said not to. Oopsie. I hit a house. {Head bowed in shame}. Don't worry, though, I had a phone number all ready to give the owners in case they popped out. It may or may not have been 867-5309. (Do you get it? Do you? Ha, now you'll be singing that song all day!) Don't worry, it just hit the roof, and the way this economy is, I'm pretty sure that house was empty.

Right after I hit the house, and I'm talking right after, the aches and pains I had been feeling for the last 12 hours localized in my lower back. That Karma, she's a bitch. So I told Sean I'd have to take a couple of holes off. Since we were still waiting for the foursome in front of us to tee off, we had quite a wait ahead of us. The pain was getting worse. I was pretty sure at this point that I had another kidney infection. We just decided to head home. I didn't argue.

We started driving down Parley's, and at about the Quarry, I could literally feel the pain move from my lower back, around my side, and settle in just under my bellybutton. It was like a hot knife was twisting inside me. It didn't feel nearly as good as it sounds. By the time we got to I-215, I was crying in pain, and told Sean to take me to the ER.

Sure enough, a temperature and elevated white count confirmed the diagnosis, and my appendix came out about an hour later. Luckily for me the surgeon on call was a family friend who has done several surgeries for us. That made me feel better.

I spent that night in the hospital getting the best rest of my life (note the sarcasm), and came home early the next morning. Really, I can't believe all that happened so fast. I still can't believe it's Tuesday. It's like I missed 4 days of my life or something.

So that's that. One adventure after another around here. I swear, if we could just catch a break for a minute it would be a miracle. For now, though, I'm steering clear of Karma. You just never really know when she'll strike.

Ch ch ch ch Changes

Things are gonna change, I can feel it.

Okay, that's 2 song lines in 3 blog lines. I should probably get some of my own material, huh?

So I have some changes coming. Good changes, I think. I hope. I've been marinating this idea around in my head for a while now, and finally it's coming to fruition. I know it will be tricky, but this isn't the first time I've jumped off not really knowing where I'll land. It's probably not a big deal to the rest of you, but it's a pretty big deal to me. It puts me in charge of what I want to do, no more worries about the little annoying things.

I know I couldn't be doing this without Sean around. He's the computer guy, the technical guy, the voice of reason when the business end of things gets to be too much for me. When in doubt, he'll make me up a spreadsheet so I can understand just what the heck I'm actually doing. I'm adding that to the "reasons to not get a divorce" list. There are more reasons on that list, and one day I'll publish it, but for now, that's a little preview into how I'm managing to make it day by day. It's been a rough patch.

Seriously, though. Losing what we've lost, nearly losing our family, and trying to make the best of things is hard enough. Now I have this, and I'm kind of freaking out. But it will work. Or so I'm told. When it's time to tell you what it is, I will. But for now, just keep your fingers crossed for me that it will all come together.

Too Sexy...

... For this bench. Gotta love Lagoon and the fun people watching that comes with it.

*Apologies for the poor picture quality. This was obviously taken on the sly with a cell phone.

Today's Fun For Friday contains the following: A home made cake wreck, an ecstatic Maggie, and a 7 candle, which I'm totally in denial belongs to my middle child. She can't possible be 7. But alas, she is, so here you go. Enjoy.



Please don't post this to Cake Wrecks. Maggie made it herself, and I think it turned out pretty good.

Ta-Da!

Happy Friday!

Maggie

Today is her birthday. I can't believe she's 7. It seems like just yesterday that I was having a scheduled C-Section, all calm and ready, only to be blindsided by the pain of the incision and the stark realization that the epidural didn't take. Yeah, did I mention this was during a C-Section? Uh huh. Totally was. Ouchy to say the least.

It's kind of a funny simile to Maggie's whole life. She was a great baby. She had a head full of dark hair, and she sucked her thumb, so she hardly every cried. Then she turned 2. Oh boy. Just when I thought I had a perfect baby and could relax and enjoy having 2 kids, the terrible twos hit. Man, that kid could scream. She still can. Her anxiety issues started becoming more and more apparent, and I knew she would be my kid that needed a little extra special attention. We went through 2 years of her only wanting to wear soft pants, and donning a Belle dress over the top of every outfit. She never let me comb her hair, and taking a bath was a battle. Too much stimulation, we later found out.

But as the years have passed, and we've learned more about what makes Maggie Maggie, she has become a very enjoyable loving daughter. She is a joy to have in our family. Some of the things we love about Maggie are:

• Her love of crafting. She got a tape dispenser and 6 rolls of tape for her birthday. She is in heaven.
• The way she sings like no one can hear her.
  
• How she can be a little mother to the little kids, but tries to be a tween for the bigger kids.
  
• She still wears a tutu some days.
  
• She loves to be homeschooled.
  
• She is learning to read, and will devour any book she can get her hands on.
  
• She has great hair.
  
• When she's tired, she's tired. She will ask to please go to bed.
  
• She still hates to take showers, but baths are okay.
  
• She has great tanning skin. She still has tan lines from LAST summer.
  
• She's terrified of mosquitoes, and for good reason. She has major reactions, and have had her legs and face swell up to the size of a dinner plate.
  
• She likes to clean and organize things.
  
• She's very kind and loving.
  

We love our Maggie, and we're so glad she's part of our family!

Lucky Seven

Maggie's birthday is tomorrow. We have a tradition that we go together and pick out a cake. She took it upon herself to design the cake.

Here it is.

I think she may just have a future in cake design, what do you think? I was very proud of her. Stay tuned tomorrow for a list of things we love about Maggie.

Birthday Girl

Today is my moms birthday. Hard day. Instead of posting on this blog, I thought it would be more appropriate to blog on her blog. If you want to see it, you can go there. If not, carry on.

Five Year Blogiversary

Today marks my 5 year blogging anniversary. How crazy is that? 5 years? Wow. I'm just gonna recap some of the things that have happened over the last 5 years. Some have been blogged, some have not. Either way, I need to remember why I do this. In no particular order, other than this is how my memory works, we have the following:

My mom died.

I had Gretta.

Moved to Illinois.

Moved back to Utah.

Attended marriage counseling twice.

Lost 40ish pounds.

Started running.

Been through approximately 3 broken bones and a set of stitches between the kids.

Sean had 2 surgeries.

Traveled to fun parts of the country.

Made awesome friends.

Dad got married.

Meg got married.

Gained 2 1/2 neices on my side, numerous others on Sean's side.

Started a business.

Had some awesome girls' trips.

Made a fool out of myself repeatedly.

Started homeschooling.

Been through a job loss.

Suffered through a major bout of depression.

Tried to find the true meaning of Christmas.

Had my first garage sale.

Hung out on the porch with Kate.

Hid in the basement when the tornadoes came.

Crashed the Vangina twice.

Sean got rear ended 3 times.

Been through the coldest winters I have ever felt.

Realized I need my family.

So many other things have happened. I still go back and read my old blog posts, and though most of the time I remember writing them, sometimes it's like I'm reading someone elses blog. I don't recognize my writing style or my humor. For some reason when I write, the words sound different in my head than they do on paper. I guess it's okay, seeing as it's my blog, and I can read it and write on it however I choose. But still, I can't believe it's been 5 years. I never imagined I would stick with something for this long.