The Thirteenth Month

We've all grown up learning that there are 12 months in the calendar. Well, in my house, we've invented a 13th month...Home Improvement. I designate it as a month unto itself because no project in this house has ever lasted less than 4 weeks. Much to my horror, most of them have lasted way longer than that!

With the wonderful "economic stimulus rebate" due to arrive this week, hubby & I have been anguishing over how to spend this tiny fortune that our generous legislatures have seen fit to return to us. We've easily spent (in our minds) 10 times what we're getting back, so it was finally time to nail down just what we're going to use this money for.

Hubby let the cat out of the bag yesterday and spoiled my mother's day surprise. He is building me a tomato garden! This is VERY exciting for 2 reasons. First, I LOVE TOMATOES! Anyone who has known me since I was a kid, knows that I'm not kidding around when I say I LOVE TOMATOES! Second, I kill plants. Not out of frustration or malice, but because I was born with a black thumb. When it comes to all things vegetation related, keep it away from me unless you want it to die. It's sad, but true. So, not only is hubby building me a tomato garden, but he's agreed to take care of it. I literally get to enjoy the fruits (ha, ha) of his labor! I'm very excited.

Well, after lots of discussion, I made my case for building a simple deck on the back of our house. This is something we've talked about doing for a few years and now it's finally going to happen. I'm excited and terrified all at once. In addition to the tomato garden and deck projects, we've also talked about finishing the guest bathroom. Yes, we tend to take on several projects at once, that cultivate a lot of anger and frustration until they are complete, at which point we sit back and enjoy the fact that we accomplished something. That is until that feeling passes and we have to start another fun project!

Stay tuned for pics of the fun that will begin in the next couple of days!

Running on Empty

It's 10pm and all is quiet in my house. That is unless you discount the sound of my leg muscles screaming in agony from the workout that I put them through this evening. I'm literally not sure if I'll be able to walk the 30 feet to my bedroom after I write this entry. I'm exhausted.

It's down to crunch time on my biggest loser competition and I'm feeling some extreme heat from my closest competition. She's the one who I started this whole contest idea with and she's been trash talking from minute one. I love her, but boy does she drive me crazy sometimes. After my pitiful performance at last week's weigh in, she closed the gap on my overall lead within .21%. I could literally hand her this win in 2 weeks if I don't get my rear end in gear!

Thankfully, hubby is trying to be supportive and urging me to stop making a monthly charitable donation to the YMCA that we joined 2 months ago. I just can't get my ducks in a row to get there with any kind of consistency. However, catching a glimpse of myself in a full length mirror this morning, pretty much gave me all the convincing that I needed. Yikes.

Well, this entry is not going in the direction that I had hoped, so I'm off to bed to recharge, regroup and hopefully wake up with a better attitude tomorrow morning!

A Knight to Remember

This past weekend was so great! I drove to Atlanta on Saturday morning and spent the day with my best friend. You know, girlfriends are awesome, but best girlfriends are one in a million. We had a yummy lunch at Taco Mac and then power shopped for a couple of hours, at the wonderful Mall of Georgia. I did minimal damage, miraculously! We then caught the new "McDreamy" movie, Made of Honor. Very cute and will definitely be one that I purchase for my personal collection. Of course, Patrick Dempsey could pretty much walk on screen and just smile and I would buy it. We then made a mad dash to Discover Mills to catch an evening show at Medieval Times. This was so worth it!

We laughed until we cried and cheered for our yellow knight who ended up saving the kingdom and winning the fair hand of the princess. How exciting! We enjoyed seeing the horses and the neat tricks that the handlers had them doing. And we enjoyed watching the very cute knights do battle with each other. The ultimate thrill came after the show finished and we made our way into the lobby area. Just as we were getting ready to leave, the knights made their way into the crowd for autographs and photo-ops. We were immediately 13 years old again! With giddy nervous laughter, we pushed our way through the crowd to our favorite knights and asked for photos with them. They happily obliged, as any good gentleman would, and we laughed all the way to car! We will definitely be returning to this venue for another night out and hopefully we'll run into our favorite knights again! Enjoy the photos and video!

Best Friends Forever

My Blue Knight

Horse Tricks Demonstration

Mommy Appreciation Week

This week is Teacher Appreciation Week at my daughter's preschool. The committee has planned all sorts of wonderful things for the teachers, which I do think they richly deserve. I'm making baked potato soup (from scratch) for the luncheon on Thursday. Yummy! All of the work going into this week got me thinking about something. Nurses get an appreciation week. Administrative Professionals get an appreciation week. Moms get a day. Huh?!?! What's wrong with this picture?

Being a mom is one of the hardest, under-paid, under-appreciated, and over-looked jobs that a person can have. And I say person, because we all know that there are some guys out there who take on the role of both mom and dad, and I don't want to leave them out. How is it that we get 1 day out of the whole year that's supposed to be to celebrate our role in the lives of the ones who depend on us, when other "real" jobs get an entire week of accolades? It just doesn't seem fair.

So, with little fanfare, I am now proclaiming that this week shall be known here forward as MOMMY APPRECIATION WEEK! For all you mommies out there who work tirelessly as the CEO of your households, performing such exciting tasks as chef, chauffeur, nurse, teacher, dishwasher, carpenter, bookkeeper, dog whisperer, etc., I salute you! This is your week! May your kids, spouses and other loved ones shower you with the love and admiration that you so richly deserve. And soak it up...because it'll be another year before you get it again. Ha ha!

My Grandma, My Hero

Today is a very momentous occasion. It is my grandma's 86th birthday! My grandma is a truly amazing woman. I spent most of my formative years in her care and I feel very lucky to have done so. She taught me the importance of taking risks, being honest, being yourself and how to make a yummy pot roast. After my granddad passed away several years ago, I was concerned that my grandma might lose her zest for life. Boy, did she prove me wrong! In celebration of her birthday this year, my grandma decided to go hang-gliding for the 3rd TIME! Here's the pics from this incredible event. Grandma has shown me once again that age is just a number and that you only live once, so you might as well live life to the fullest! Happy 86th birthday Grandma! You're my hero.

Getting ready to take off

Air born!
A graceful landing

Weekend Update with Your Host, Angie

Well, TGIF! This week flew by in a blur, but boy am I glad. We've already had a very busy few hours around this house.

After staying up way too late last night watching the movie A Mighty Heart, I woke up feeling amazingly awake with only having about 4 hours sleep. I recommend the movie for anyone who's willing to hang with it for the first hour and 25 minutes because the last 20 minutes are worth it. Angelina Jolie's performance was GREAT, especially towards the end. I haven't been that moved by a performance in a very long time.

We hurried through breakfast and made it to the weigh in that I've been dreading all week. You know, sometimes, it just sucks being a woman trying to lose weight. I gained 2 lbs this week, but I'm still (just barely) winning the contest overall. Now, it's on! I have to pull out an overall win in 3 weeks so I have spending money for my big trip at the end of this month!

Speaking of travel, I am heading to Atlanta tomorrow to spend a couple of days with my best friend, Angela. Yes, we have the same name, but no one calls her Angie and no one calls me Angela, so it works out. School was a nightmare for us, as we've known each other since Kindergarten, but I digress. We're planning a weekend of seeing the new Patrick Dempsey movie and having, what I'm sure will be a hilarious night out, at Medieval Times. Stay tuned for details when I return!

Oh, one good thing that happened today was that Ailey had her 2 year old checkup and she got a clean bill of health! You can't ask for anything better than that. I was, however, surprised to hear the doctor's estimation of how tall she'll end up being. He's guessing around 5'6". That's taller than me! Lucky for her, it appears she'll get my hubby's frame because he's tall and lanky. Thank heaven for small favors.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Thank God It's Almost Friday!!

Hey folks! A friend that I don't get to talk with much these days called me out of the blue today. I was very happy to hear from her, but even more excited to hear that she's been reading my blog! I guess there are more of you out there than I thought! So, I then realized that I hadn't written since Monday and thought that I at least needed to give a quick update before my wild & crazy weekend.

I feel like I started this week, already behind. Monday morning came and I felt like it was already Wednesday. Geez! We've had lots of activities, which is nothing new. Thankfully, this week has wrapped up our music classes until Fall, so we get a break from that. I've been feverishly scheduling the couple of Summer classes that I want the girls to participate in. Swim classes and a fairytale ballet class are the 2 that we are tackling so far. I'm really hoping to utilize the several area museum memberships that we've got. The Tennessee Aquarium is at the top of that list! We've got a real gem in that facility and we just don't get there as often as I would like.

Last night, hubby surprised me with a babysitter and date night! That was a HUGE surprise, because ever since tiny tot #1 arrived (3.5 years ago), couple time has been reduced to waving goodbye as the other leaves for work or occasionally watching a favorite t.v. program together. Thankfully, he's jumped on board the Grey's Anatomy and Top Chef bandwagons, so I at least don't have to watch alone! We enjoyed a wonderful kid-free dinner at a local favorite, Tony's Pasta, and then Jake challenged me to a game of bowling. Big mistake. Due to my hatred of P.E. classes and the fact that my college required 2 P.E. classes for graduation, I opted for a recreational sport class...and it was bowling. Yes, I took bowling as a credit class in college and I loved it. And I got an "A" in the class and it was HARD! The teacher was a fanatic about the sport and did not take kindly to students who took his class for what was rumored to be an easy "A". So, I mustered up my skills from college and proceeded to whip Jake's tail by 50 points the first game! I was quite proud. Not one to take defeat easily, he challenged me to a 2nd game and then proceeded to beat me by 12 points, but I am still reeling from my victory! We ended the night shopping at Toys R Us for birthday party gifts for 2 friends and then coming home to enjoy a new episode of Criminal Nights. How exciting huh?

Well, my youngest is literally climbing my leg because she wants to watch those videos that I posted here last week. See, I told you they loved them!