Monday Morning Musings - Bust A Move

Current song stuck in my head:
(WARNING: If you actually watch the video with the guy dancing, it might ruin the song for you. Just listen to it. Unless you need a good laugh, then you can watch it.)


The other day Addy, Aubrey and I were in the car and Hey Jude came on the radio. Aubrey and I were singing the "Naaaaa, naa naa, na na na na, na na na na" part and Addy started doing it with us. It was just the cutest thing ever.

Now that Addison is in a forward facing car seat, she thinks that we always have to watch a movie when we are in the van and that she has to have headphones every time we are in the van. And if I don't give her headphones and turn on a movie she pitches a major fit.

I just got to pay my Home Owners Association Fees for the new neighborhood we are building in. WOO HOO!! I don't even reside in a house there yet and I already get to give them my money.

Do you ever have contractors or repairmen come to your house to do work and then leave a mess behind? I had 2 guys in my house Friday working on stuff and one guy to repair my dryer and they all left a mess behind. It was really irritating to me. It always seems to happen whenever I have anyone in to do something. I know my house is a mess, and you probably think I won't notice one more thing, but honey, letmetellyousomething, I am very aware of all the messes in my house and I DO notice.

I am having a hard time not bustin' out with a Thinkin' Thursday right now because I have a big list of topics to cover. I am having a hard time choosing on for this week. I know you will be on the edge of your seat all week waiting for it.

I better go get something accomplished today. Happy Monday! Have a great week.

Flashback Friday - Chapstick Addict

My sister Kristy just did a post this week on lip gloss and her facination with it. This is an obsession that goes way back. I have the pictures to prove it. I will say this though, the quality of the stuff she puts on her lips has greatly increased. This is he her cup 'O chapstick she used to keep by her bed. There were other pictures of her room with these and I thought some of you might enjoy seeing them.

Kristy in a trance, applying chapstick

Allyson

Kristy's Room

Kristy's Hunk 'O Junk

Thinkin' Thursday - Turn ON The Lights!

(OK. So it's not Thursday anymore. I am pretending like it is for the next few minutes. I started this post yesterday and then ran out of time to finish it. )


Drum roll please! From the blog that brought you MONDAY MORNING MUSINGS and FLASHBACK FRIDAY, a new weekly post has been born. THINKIN' THURSDAY.

What is Thinkin' Thursday, you ask? It is chance for me to throw my opinion out there. It is a chance to me to make you say, hmmmm. (things that make you go hmmmm, things that make you go hmmm, hmmm, hmmm)

OK, anyway. My opinions. Because it is my blog. You probably won't all agree with my opinions, and that is fine. I just feel like throwing some thoughts out there because I feel like I need to. If you want to comment that is fine, if not, that's fine too. I just want to make you think.

I have decided to dedicate my first Thinkin' Thursday to the topic of......Global Warming and the recent Global Warming Conference that was held in New York City. WHAT? You didn't hear about that conference? Why not? Oh, because it was a conference of scientists who don't believe in Global Warming. (and we are supposed to believe the media isn't biased) I find the following video very interesting. Willie Soon with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics states that the data for the earth's climate changes over the last 100 years do not follow the same patterns for the c02 emission data like you have been hearing. He says that between 1910-1950 the Arctic was warming by about 2 degrees. During this warming period there were relatively no c02 emissions. In the 1970's the Arctic started a cooling trend, at the same time there was a huge rise in co2 emissions. Bob Carter from James Cook University says that Antarctica used to be warmer, but is cooling now and sea ice this year is at an all time historic high. Sea ice in the North Pole was decreasing but it is starting to turn around. Both scientists agree that our planet Earth is constantly getting warmer or colder. Here, you can watch the video for yourself:

So why all the Global Warming hype? Because it is the hip, in thing right now? Because someone is making a booty load of money? I don't know. I do recall an Oprah with Al Gore where he said people who don't want to cut back on their co2 emissions can send money to make up for the co2 emissions they put out. Hmmmm......that makes sense? I did go on his website and found ample opportunities to donate.

Click here to read an interview Glen Beck did with Anthony Watts, a meteorologist who started out looking at a temperature recording station (where we get all our data about the rising temperatures) to see if the type of paint they used made a difference in the temperature readings. He happened to notice that the recording station was six inches away from a heat source. He thought that was strange that someone would put it there. He went to another recording station near a fire station and noticed that the fire chief parked his car with the radiator end about 2 feet from the sensor on the temperature recording station which also happens to be right next to a cell phone building which had an air conditioner blowing exhaust on the recording station. He started looking at stations all around the country and found out that the majority of them are not in compliance with regulations. He found some on asphalt parking lots, on rooftops, near other heat sources. Hmmmm.....click here for more pictures.

So to celebrate this wonderful news I went around my house and turned on all the lights and plugged in all my appliances. Then I started my car and just let it sit in the driveway. Just for fun. Really, I didn't. I think that this earth is a gift to us and we do need to take care of it. I think that we have a problem with overdoing it in our country and it is good for us to cut down on the unnecessary things that bog our lives. But I don't think we need to have wide spread panic about something that, well, doesn't need to be panicked about. I don't think hard working Americans need to be swindled out of their money.

Besides, what makes Al Gore an expert on the environment. Well, I guess if you are smart enough to invent the Internet......

What The Heck Is Wrong With The Girl Scouts

I had totally forgot that I had ordered them. We were in the kitchen and we had just finished eating dinner. We were cleaning off the table. A truck pulled up outside. I asked Steve who it was. He told me and the kids immediately shouted, "It's our Girl Scout cookies!!!" OH YEAH!!! I forgot about those. I was so excited. Now we had dessert. It was all I could do to pay the girl and then rip the grocery bag open to get my cookies. Before I even pulled the first box out of the bag I could tell something was wrong. The box was smaller than normal. I opened one side of the flap and could tell something was wrong. There weren't very many cookies in there. Then I pulled out the cellophane tube of all that is good in the world chocolate minty put a smile on your face delectably thin happiness. I held them in my hand and looked at them with a disgusted/confused look on my face.

This is how I eat Thin Mints. Frozen. Pop one whole cookie in my mouth. Enjoy. First of all, if you haven't had them frozen, you are missing out. Try it and you will never eat another room temperature Thin Mint again. Second of all, they were the perfect popping size. Well NOT ANY MORE! What the HECK?@#! You don't mess with perfection people. Ya just don't.

I want my money back. Girl Scouts of America my booty.

Fabulous Five

My sweet little Aubrey turned 5 on Monday. We had a party with her friends on Friday. They came to our house for cake and ice cream and presents. Then I did the craziest thing I have ever done and took them all swimming. It was fun. On Monday we had a family birthday dinner and party for her. I can't believe she will be starting kindergarten in September!

Raising The Roof

The past 2 Saturdays Steve, Zac, and some very WONDERFUL friends have been working on our roof. The girls and I took them lunch last Saturday. Here are some pictures.

Ash, Max, Aron, Zac & Steve

Zac who at one point almost fell off the roof while showing off for his sisters Our view off our back deck

Blaze Of Glory

It's that time of year again. Arena football. Saturday was the opening night for the Blaze. Aubrey got to go with her daddy on a special date. She was so excited and she had so much fun. I got to hear all about it. She enjoyed watching the cheerleaders but informed me that they were dressed immodestly. She also told me about how boys have to use little potties and stand up to go to the bathroom. I am glad it was so educational for her.

Shayn, Scott, Aubrey, Steve

Monday Morning Musings - Alien Boy From Outer Space

We walked home from school the other day and when we got to the house, Steve's friend's tuck was parked in our driveway. Zac said, "Did dad get a new truck?" (That is a very reasonable question at our house) Then as we got closer he said, "No. Dad would never buy a Ford." I thought it was funny.



I don't know what to do about my 365 Thanks blog. I started it at the beginning of the year and then my dad passed away and I haven't done it since. I don't know if I should try and go back and fill in the missing days or just start from today. (Or just scrap the whole thing) I don't want to do that because I don't want to be abandoning my New Year resolution but (whispered in confidentiality) keeping up with two blogs is a pain in my bahooty.



Steve and I went on a real live gen-U-ine date on Friday. It was a very busy day so when we decided to go I had about 10 minutes to figure out what we were doing while he went and took care of some work stuff. I got online to look up movie times. I found that that was a problem. You see having a DVR means that I don't ever watch live TV. Ever. If there is something on that I am going to watch at the actual time it is on, I will do something else for 15 minutes, then watch it so I can fast forward through commercials. I was looking at the movie times and being that I haven't seen any movie commercials, I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at. So I had to look up each individual movie to see what it was about. I got to the one, I can't even remember what it is called now, with Jack in it (good casting of him in that role though). I had remembered seeing a commercial for that movie when Steve was watching something and I remembered it looked like something I wanted to see. Vantage Point. I think that is what it is called. Anyway, I thought it was about time travel, isn't there a time travel movie out there? So I'm watching the movie and I kept waiting for the guy to time travel. I was really confused. I was a good movie though in spite of the lack of time traveling. I did feel for a few minutes like I was watching Groundhog Day, but Steve reminded me that there are no bombs in Groundhog Day.



Steve thinks I need to inform everyone that we are not doing the kitchen I posted in my last MMM. We had to decide really quick what we were going to do on Friday (one small reason why that day was so crazy) because Steve and his friend Scott are doing a booth in the Home Show this week and Scott needed an idea for a counter top to put in the booth. Steve suggested that he make our island for our kitchen and use it in the booth. So we went and picked out the island cabinets for our kitchen. We decided that as much as we liked the red, we didn't want to commit to a red kitchen/family room for the next gazillion years. We saw this kitchen at IKEA before and fell in love with it. We decided to do this one:

Last night Zac was telling me that the night before he had a really bad nightmare. He said that someone had built a machine that shows you what your spirit looks like. He got into it and it showed that he didn't have a spirit, he was an alien. So I told him, "Zac, your father and I weren't planning on telling you this yet, but......One night we were sitting out in the back yard and this big meteor came crashing down in the corner of the back yard (I even pointed for emphasis). We ran over to see what it was. When we got there we could see that the meteor had cracked open and inside it was this little tiny cute alien creature that was the size of my hand. We picked it up, named it Zac and have loved you ever since." The child is 10 freakin' years old. I didn't think he would actually BELIEVE me. The problem with him is he watches the History channel and the Discovery channel and they always have shows on there about aliens. I have banned him from watching shows about aliens but apparently they have already done their damage. And now I've done mine....

I don't want to say this about my most fav-O-rite show, but American Idol is really boring/irritating me at the moment. I know it is because I don't know the contestants that well yet, but come on. They are doing horribly. And last week they had to do songs from the 70's and the week before songs from the 60's. I don't know if it is because they are so young that they have just never heard a song from the 60's or 70's before, or what. Those are the best 2 decades for music. Ever. All the best songs came out of those years and they are picking some horribly boring stupid songs from that time. They need to let me start pickin' their songs, or sumpthin'. There is one exception, my favorite contestant singing one of my favorite songs:

Flashback Friday - Bonus

Sorry I'm a day late with my Flashback Friday. Yesterday was a little busy. Last week I tried to scan a bunch of pictures from a party we had at our house when we were growing up. My scanner gave out 1/2 way through. I have finally scanned the rest of the pictures. Here they are:






My friend Diana did a post the other day about a time that she and my sister went to the airport and acted crazy. It reminded me of some of the fun I have had at airports. Here are some pictures of me and a group of my friends at the airport one night. We went around taking goofy pictures. There was another time we went to the airport (I don't have pictures of this instance) and kept causing scenes. One time we were on the escalators and this guy and I pretended like we were married and we were screaming and yelling at each other. We went around the airport all night doing things like that. It is so sad that all the fun has been taken out of the airport. Sigh....my children will never know the joy of hanging out at the airport all night.....or making prank phone calls (darn caller ID).....it's a sad, sad world we live in now.

You Have One New Message

Last week my I had a voice mail come through on my cell phone and it was an old voice mail I had saved that was about to be deleted. It was a message my grandmother left me with the information about my aunts flight when she was flying in for my dad's funeral. It was so weird listening to that message. I could hear my sisters and their kids in the background at my mom's house. Those few days right after my dad died were so.....sigh.....I don't know. Crazy. 10 million phone calls. 10 million people. 10 million things to do. Running on no sleep. Hearing that message and remembering all that went on in that time, it was like a dream. Like it wasn't real. Like it didn't really happen. It was kinda weird.

I found this video on my mom's flip camera. I took it the weekend before my dad passed away. That was the weekend we were having our kitchen floor sealed and our house smelled so bad so we spent 2 nights at my parents house. This is a video I took one night. I am glad we spent that weekend with them.




I keep thinking about the day my dad died. It was a Saturday. My grandma was in town. We had friends in town who were staying at my parents house. We were going to go up and spend the day visiting. The week before had been so crazy. We had so much going on and we were all running in different directions. When we were getting ready to start getting all our stuff and kids together to go up to my parents house, I started thinking that maybe we should stay home. I was tired, didn't feel like loading everything up, Steve was actually home all day, and we were going to be going to my parents house the next day for Sunday dinner anyway. My head kept trying to talk myself into staying at home, but for some reason my heart kept trying to push me out the door. I didn't want to deal with making the decision any more so I asked Steve if he thought we should just stay home. Steve is a homebody who isn't at home all that much. Usually when given the option, he will opt to stay at home. He thought about it for a minute and said, "No, Let's go. Let's just load everyone up and go." It was strange to me that he said that because that wasn't the answer I was expecting from him. I told him I kept trying to talk myself into staying home because it would just be easier than loading everyone up and I was tired because I had had a long week. I said even though I keep trying to convince myself to stay home, there was something in me that just wanted to go. He said he felt the same way.

So we went. And we had a very good day. My dad was in such a good mood that day. We enjoyed our time with him. I am so thankful that we were able to be with him, just hours before he died. I am thankful my children were able to be with him on his last day on earth. I am so thankful for the still small voice that kept prompting Steve and me to go. I am thankful that we listened.