Pinterest Addiction

Have you heard of Pinterest?  Yeah I know, neither had I until a few months ago and turns out several of my friends even at that time were "members" - why had nobody told me!?  As if the internet itself wasn't a world of information to begin with, now it's like EVERYTHING is in one spot!  ONE FREAKING SPOT!!!

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.  People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and share their favorite recipes.  I personally use it to expand my horizons, plan my dream home and mainly just drool over all the neat foods and creativity!

It's a beautiful thing!  Roy and I literally spent an hour last night just scrolling through the food section looking at all the yummy goodness and getting ideas for new recipes to try.  It's not just all about food though, that's just the #1 thing I look at most often... there are decorating ideas, ideas for kid projects, organizing, weddings, vacations, awesome photographs and sooooo much more!

If you haven't checked it out yet, I encourage you to do so... but be prepared to add a new addiction to your list!

Be Happy

In my cousin Tiffany's blog yesterday she talked about what made her happy this week and ended with the question of, "What made you happy this week?"  Do you know, even with all that I'm thankful for I couldn't think of one thing that I was happy about.  All thoughts immediately when dark and blah... what the heck?  I seriously just zoomed right in on all things that went wrong, were sad or just plain aggravating throughout the week.  I physically had to make myself stop thinking of all the bad and switch to the good... This past week this is what brought spots of happiness in my life...

Being able to spend time with life long friends

Pilots that weren't drunk and got me to and from my destinations safely

Spending five days where it was ALL ABOUT ME!!!

Spending five days driving a most awesome Dodge Charger

Eating the most awesome brisket from Rudy's in Leon Springs

That Sasquatch didn't get me

The most awesome co-worker ever covered me while I was out 3 days - she really went out of her way for me!

Most importantly I'm happy that I have a roof over my head, food in the fridge and a healthy family... there are many out there seriously hurting and cannot say that.  The hardest thing I've had to do in the past year... sit with a mother and grandmother and discuss the burial of their 23 year old son/grandson.

Counting my blessings...

Gettin' Crafty

Every once in a while I like to get crafty... nothing extravagant or consuming great amounts of time, just a crafty craft here & there.  I'm not good at designing spaces or being visibly organized but I do like making things and being different when I can.

Everyone at work pretty much has the same standard pencil holders, there's a few out of the norms but for the most part - we all went to Staples.  Well I want to be better organized at work... not because it will help me, but because it will look all nice & neat & perty.  When you're desk is a mess & scattered it gives the impression that you too are scattered - no so much in my case, in fact it's just the opposite.  If everything is neat, tidy and "in its place" I'm lost... I don't know where anything is.  If it's a scattered mess, I can take you right to what you're looking for... and that applies to all area's of my life.

So long story short... I got crafty.  To start off with,  I wanted bright & colorful pencil holders but didn't want to spend all day making them or my whole paycheck buying supplies to do the project.  So I cleaned up a couple jars I had laying around the house, bought a couple $.97 bottles of acrylic art paint and voila!

Cleaned up banana pepper jar...

 Squirt some paint in the jar and a dribble of water, slosh it around to cover inside... be sure to put the lid on before shaking.

 Tip it over to let all excess paint to come out.

and here you have it... the finished product proudly displaying my pens at work.  Pretty don't you think?  

  I plan on making more brightful holders.  Everyone needs at least one of them and they're usually out themselves.  They were fun, simple and cute - how could i pass this one up?  I'll be making more of these in the future... won't the be delightful all colored up and fixing one another.

**NOTE - I just realized this whole last paragraph makes absolutely NO sense.  Why?  Because I was literally falling asleep as I typed it and you all know how thoughts can run and jumble when you're falling asleep... oopsie.

The Mask I Wear

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
For I wear a mask. I wear a thousand masks-
   masks that I'm afraid to take off
     and none of them are me.    
Pretending is an art that's second nature with me 

           but don't be fooled,
   for God's sake, don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure
That all is sunny and unruffled with me
   within as well as without,
    that confidence is my name
     and coolness my game,
    that the water's calm
   and I'm in command,
  and that I need no one.
But don't believe me. Please!

My surface may be smooth but my surface is my mask,
My ever-varying and ever-concealing mask.
Beneath lies no smugness, no complacence.
Beneath dwells the real me in confusion, in fear, in aloneness.
   But I hide this.
    I don't want anybody to know it.
     I panic at the thought of my
            weaknesses
      and fear exposing them.
That's why I frantically create my masks
          to hide behind.
They're nonchalant, sophisticated facades
          to help me pretend,
To shield me from the glance that
            knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation,
   my only salvation,
       and I know it.

That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
   and if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself
   from my own self-built prison walls

I dislike hiding, honestly
I dislike the superficial game I'm playing,
   the superficial phony game.
I'd really like to be genuine and me.
But I need your help, your hand to hold
Even though my masks would tell you otherwise
That glance from you is the only thing that assures me
   of what I can't assure myself,
     that I'm really worth something.

But I don't tell you this.
   I don't dare.
      I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me, that you'll laugh
   and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing,
        that I'm just no good
             and you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate, pretending game
With a facade of assurance without,
And a trembling child within.
So begins the parade of masks,

The glittering but empty parade of masks,
   and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's nothing
   and nothing of what's everything,
                 of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
   do not be fooled by what I'm saying
Please listen carefully and try to hear
   what I'm not saying
Hear what I'd like to say
   but what I can not say.

It will not be easy for you,
   long felt inadequacies make my defenses strong.

  The nearer you approach me
   the blinder I may strike back.
Despite what books say of men, I am irrational;
I fight against the very thing that I cry out for.
   you wonder who I am
    you shouldn't
     for I am everyman
     and every woman
      who wears a mask.

Don't be fooled by me.
At least not by the face I wear.
~Author Unknown~

Ugly Toes...

I don't do "girly."  I just don't do it... it's not me, it never has been.  I'm not one of those girls that has or has to have tons of girl friends that get together every Friday night to do our nails, hair or whatever it is girly girls do.  I don't do girl trips, girls night out, spa trips etc.  I have female friends that I'm close with and talk to about most anything but we aren't the "lets get together for the evening, drink wine and giggle all night" kind of girls... and I'm happy with that.  But just because I'm not a girly girl doesn't mean I don't like to be treated special, treated like a girl and pampered once in a while... which brings me to ugly toe day.

Toes are ugly, they just are.  I don't care who they're attached to, they're ugly.  Well here we are now, diving into the summer and guess what... it's toe fest out there!  Sandals, flip flops, toe showing shoes are everywhere.  Yes I wear them too but never gave my toes a thought... years ago, and I do mean YEARS ago, a male friend of mine said that painted toenails on a woman were sexy.  Really?  Well I suppose if anything was going to make them not so ugly, polish would do it... but sexy?  So here I am after all these years and guess what... I broke down and got me some sexy toes... ok, maybe not so much sexy, but not as ugly as they once were... I have... GIRLY TOES!!!!!  AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH  How'd that happen and why?

Here we have the elusive ugly toe in a "before" picture... notice on the right foot, the second toe is somewhat deformed and left crazed from a traumatic experience in the early 2000's.  On the left foot we have Mr. Pinky toe with a split nail... that's two, two nails in one.  Gross huh?

The "after" picture... ugly toes now sexified... I guess.

I'll have to admit, even though I'm not so much a girly girl, I did like having them done and they do look better than they did before... me thinks.

The Devil in Disguise

A quick bit about me... I'm married with two beautiful angelic children, hahaha.  No seriously, they ARE beautiful and they ARE angelic... it's just that when the Devil takes over, my boy runs the gamut full force and I swear he's going to give me either a heart attack or a stroke before I turn 50!

Here he is being all charming and debonaire...

Then if you look closely you can see that little Devil grin shining through... 

and right there on church grounds no less!!

 

So, lately he's become quite an escape artist... on the go, doesn't like to be cooped up in the house.  So what better way to fix that other than taking off outside when our backs are turned!  He's gotten outside before but it's never been this bad before.  One day last weekend I was literally in the bathroom doing my thing when my daughter comes and says, Where's the boy*?  So off I went and sure enough there he was in the front running up and down the sidewalk in the rain wearing only a t-shirt and pull up. And if that weren't bad enough, of course the dog went out with him and was checking out the neighbors dog too.  Heart attack #1 for the weekend right there... you just never know what could happen.  A stranger could come along and snatch him right up, he could run in the road and get hit - anything could have happened and that scares the bajeebers outta me!  Couple more times he snuck out and got into the car and was pretending to drive... then he snuck out with the dog again while I was vacuuming.  SERIOUSLY!!!  I was in the living room vacuuming, I turn around and see that the sliding door in the kitchen is open and there they both were, in the yard.  The dog was taking a dump so I shudder to think what could have happened had the boy got tangled in that mess.

Let's fast forward to Tuesday, day 3 o f Houdini's adventures.  The hubs works midnight's so the boy usually goes to daycare on his work night so he can get sleep, but then he's there on his days off even if it falls on a week day.  So Tuesday morning the hubs comes home at 6:15am super tired and hoping the boy will sleep longer... one can always hope.  Well long about the day apparently hubs fell asleep for a brief moment in the chair and when he woke up the boy & dog were gone and the back door wide open.  So he rushes to get clothes on and by the time he's outside to see the boy dog combo in the neighbors yard, the police had arrived.  Oh yeah, never a dull moment around here... don't know who, but someone saw him out there chasing the dog around.  I honestly have to assume it was a passer by because all the neighbors know us and have seen the kids out there running around and know we've had these issues of late.  HOWEVER, if you were a passer by and didn't know better I suppose it would only be natural to call the police when you see a 3 year old in a diaper chasing a pit bull through the neighborhood.  Yes that's right, I said pit bull and for all you nay sayers, bite me.  The sensationalized media hype about Pit Bulls is a topic for another day but for now I think these pictures speak big volumes in disproving your vicious myth.

So after that "little" incident we decided it was time to invest in a chain lock...

It wasn't long before he tried sneaking out again... from the living room I heard the door slide open and then a little voice say, hey guys door not open.  hehehehe... nope it sure doesn't.  But that didn't stop him from at least trying to squeeze out it... anyone want to take bets on how long it will be before he finds
a way around this little set back?

*Actual names omitted for security reasons

Unexpected Guests

I absolutely love surprise guests, it's how I know who is a real friend and who isn't - they aren't afraid to just drop in any time!  I know some people freak out because their house may be a mess, they may not be dressed or whatever but I say screw it and YAAY, come on in!  Oh sure you will likely show up on a day my house has been terrorized and looks like I haven't cleaned in three weeks but I don't care... #1 I have two very active young children and #2 you just showed up unannounced, you certainly can't expect a tidy home without warning.  So I guess if you're judgmental and particular then please, by all means - call first... or if you're traveling a great distance to get here, cause it would suck if you drove five hours to surprise us and nobody was here - I've done it and it sucks.

But I digress...

Last week we've had a couple of unannounced guests show up... not the type you may expect, I know I didn't expect them, but it was exciting all the same!  On Thursday evening I was relaxing, watching one of my shows when my daughter comes in all excited and says "there's a geese in the back yard."  "A geese huh?" "yeah, it has a green head."  "that would be a Mallard."  And then it clicked - what the heck is a duck doing in our yard??  I know we live fairly close to the water but we're also "in the city" and there isn't much wildlife happening around here.

I got up to check and sure enough, Ma & Pa Mallard were strutting around the back yard!  The kids were so excited, they were feeding the ducks right from the back door!  Who needs to go to the park to feed the ducks - they come to you now!  Pa Mallard was such a gentleman, he was letting Ma get all the food first and just stood by watching, checking things out like all good protectors should.  Pa toured the yard, the bushes, the flower beds all for what I believe to be a nesting spot.  That's when I got excited!  How kewl would it be to have baby ducks in your back yard?  I'm a country girl at heart and would love for my kids to experience that!  They eventually left, but came back the next day... and I haven't seen them since.  I'm hoping they just went away for the weekend to visit family... If they come back I'm going to have to invest in some real food for them. I mean, after all, we can't have the Mama eating poorly if she's expecting and has to raise babies... she needs good nutritional feed!

Happy Mother's Day Ma Mallard