Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I did not drive to Jaquelyn's school when I was supposed to be driving to Taylor's school to pick her up. It did not take me until I was practically at Jaquelyn's school before I figured it out. I am not that scatterbrained.

I did not let the cashier at Target recharge my card for my purchases after adding adding a pack of gum just to take advantage of the "spend $100 get a $10 gift card" special. I am not really, really, really hoping the credit for the first charge shows up before the rent check clears.

We did not eat our Thanksgiving dinner two hours later than planned because I did not fail to read the directions on the stuffing that said it needed to bake for an hour. And I was not already running behind when I finally figured this out. It is not almost a tradition to eat our meal soooo late because I always do something to mess up the eating schedule.

We did not spend more than 2 hours at Sears dealing with the Portrait studio on Wednesday. It did not actually pay off a small bit to be so patient with them and the result was not 6 sheets of our portraits printed right there in the studio due to a mistake by one of the employees. The manager did not decide to let me have them for free rather than throw them away since I had been so understanding through all the waiting. I was not totally psyched! I cannot wait to scan the pics in and show them to everyone!

I did not take Taylor and Teresa to our local Good Will on Saturday and spend over $50. It was not their monthly 50% off all clothing sale on the last Saturday of the month. I am not totally excited to wear the new holiday fleece I found there! I am not going to make the kids model their clothes so I can take pictures and put a longer post together soon.

My 4 year old is certainly not wearing clothes that my 10 year old wore at 6 & 7. Rebecca is not that tall....or is it that Jaquelyn wasn't that short? Either way they are not vastly different in height at this age.

Black Friday

Hello! Hello...Hello? Anyone still out there? Probably not but I will put a quick post together anyhow. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving yesterday. We had a fun, lazy kinda day that we all thoroughly enjoyed.
Today is known far and wide as "Black Friday". I rarely venture out on this scary shopping day, although I did when I was young and careless. This year, I actually found a few things that would be great for Christmas in the Target circular. so I dragged myself out of bed and showered at O Dark Thirty this morning. I DID NOT wait in line like the other morons die hard shoppers but instead walked in at 5:15am with no line and carts sitting around waiting for the *smart* shoppers. I actually found everything but 1 item on my list and that was only a "maybe" anyhow. It was not a mob house and when I was finished and ready to wait in line, there was one person in front of me. I stopped off at the grocery store, bought bagels for the Coffee Shop and was back in bed and asleep less than 3 hours after I woke up. All in all, definitely worth it.
Target was running a special this morning if you spent $100 you received a $10 gift card. I was pleasantly surprised to find my total just over and mentioned it to the clerk. After I had swiped my credit card, she informed me that I only went over because of the tax...my before tax total was $99.18 and therefore it didn't count. Are you KIDDING me!!!! Don't you think you could have mentioned that before I paid...I could have added a pack of gum or something. So she said she could ring it up again but my credit card would be charged twice and the credit would show up later. I wasn't thrilled but decided it was worth the extra ten bucks. Of course if I had remembered the motor oil for my van it wouldn't even have been an issue.

Na Na Na Na - Na Na- Na Na It's Shower Time! (Sung to the tune of Hammer Time)

You just know it's going to be a not-so-good day when this happens...
You're enjoying a nice leisurely shower. Your hair is full on conditioner and you reach for your pouf and get nice and sudsy. As you turn to start rinsing off, your shower head decides that it has had enough and the next thing you know it looks like this....


































Which makes the whole rinsing off process extremely difficult. So an unplanned trip to Wal-Mart is in order before a shower is needed again. Is it possible to find a decent one on the first try??? Of course not. Why can't the name of the company be ON the shower thingy so that I can figure out exactly which one broke and buy the same one again...yk since we already know we like that one and the water doesn't trickle through a drip at a time and it lasted so many years I can't even remember when I bought it. Anyhow, so that one is taken down...dried off thoroughly and returned for attempt number two. Finally one that doesn't suck is found and we are now able to not stink any more. Yea!!
Now it looks like this again.

Not Me! Monday!

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

I have not totally forgotten to write Not Me! tidbits down. Almost my whole list today is not from the week of Halloween. Oops!

I did not finish Jaquelyn's costume on Halloween day. I am not that much of a procrastinator. I was not sewing maroon stripes on a gold tie (that was luckily found at Good Will that very day) at 3:30pm. I make sure my kids costumes are put together well before Halloween.

We did not forget about carving pumpkins resulting in Jaquelyn carving hers at 4:30pm Halloween day. It was not a relief that Rebecca's didn't need carving since she only has to push the "Mrs. Potato Head" pieces into the pumpkin. This is not probably the last Halloween I will get away with not letting her try to carve something.

I absolutely did not allow my 17 year old to skip school so that she could work at Dan's coffee shop. Who does that? Not me! My kids always go to school just like they are supposed to and never miss it unnecessarily.

I did not run my dryer several times to re-fluff the clothes that were sitting in it. I did not find out after doing that 2 times that there actually wasn't anything in it!!! I was not incredibly irritated with myself for wasting all that electricity.

I did not spend a small fortune yesterday taking the two younger kids to the movies. When did it start taking needing a loan to be able to afford a simple movie? OK...my bad, it wasn't a simple movie since it was the 3-D version of A Christmas Carol...but still, it cost close to $50 and we shared our drink and popcorn!! Get real! We would not not have even gone if it hadn't been a Girl Scout thing. I am not a total Grinch when it comes to the movie theaters and always tell the kids to wait til it comes out on video DVD. That last sentence did not make me feel old because most people never say video anymore.

I am not going to be spending a fortune in gas these days with all the different places the kids have to be picked up and dropped off from everyday. This is not what a typical day looks like...
8:15am drop Jaquelyn off at school
8:50am drop Rebecca off at school
11:30am pick Rebecca up from school
12:10pm pick Taylor up from school and take her to the coffee shop to work
3:00pm pick Taylor up from coffee shop and drop off back at school for track practice
4:00pm pick Teresa up from Color Guard practice (3 days per week)
4:30pm pick Taylor up from track...2 days/week take her to the YMCA for volunteering
5:15pm pick Jaquelyn up from school/basketball practice
Ah the joys of parenthood.

I did not totally forget to go back to the coffee shop after dropping Taylor off at track practice today and finish closing the shop up. Oops...gotta run!

Christmas Cards Galore

Five year-old Noah Biorkman is in hospice and we need your help to make this the best Christmas ever by sending him Christmas cards! His family will be celebrating Christmas this weekend.

Noah was diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma in February 2007. He went into remission in August 2007. In September 2008, Noah relapsed with lesions in his right arm and right leg. After going through six different trials, the cancer continues to spread. Noah is an angel and we are blessed to have him in our lives.

Please help the fulfill the Biorkman family's wish to make this the best Christmas ever for Noah. You can send your Christmas cards to:

Noah Biorkman
c/o Scott Biorkman
3480 Petoskey Way
Milford, MI 48380

I found this information in several different places on the internet, including Snopes so I know it's not an "urban legend". Let's see if we can make a difference in this little boys life and show him a great Christmas before he has to say goodbye to his family. This would have been a great project for Jaquelyn's girl scout troop if I had just found it last week instead of today. Let's everyone try to spread the word and get as many people involved as we can!

Wordless Wednesday - Sleepy Girl

Iron Chef November

Well I have been meaning to put this post together and now the deadline is upon me so I suppose it's now or never. I have gotten sooo lazy about blogging lately.

Anyhow, Heidi over at Sacred and Profane is hosting another Iron Chef challenge so I thought I would give it a whirl and see how things turned out. This month's topic is holiday recipes. While I don't have an actual "holiday" recipe, I do have one that I take to potlucks and such...whether it's around the holidays or not. Since we spend the Christmas holidays at the in-laws, I don't do a lot of holiday cooking per se. I have actually submitted this recipe for a previous Iron Chef competition but since it wasn't one of the chosen three, I decided I could submit it again. If Heidi decides otherwise, well...so be it.
So without further ado.....

Cheesy Hash Browns

1 sm carton of Sour Cream
1 can of Cream soup (your choice...we use whatever is on hand, usually chicken)
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 c chopped onions
8 oz. shredded cheddar cheese

Mix these together then add
1 bag of shredded hash browns

Put into a large pan (I use 9x13 and I prefer glass)

Topping:
3/4 stick melted butter
1 cup of Crumbs...cornflake, rice krispies, whatever you prefer really
Mix together and put over the top.

Bake at 375 for 50-60 minutes and then Yummy!!

We adore this and everywhere I take it it's gone in a flash.

Praying For Stellan In Boston

Updated:
Stellan's surgery went phantasmagorically awesome!!! He is still not out of the woods due to a few other problems but it looks like he might be SVT free for good!! You can read all the details at MckMama's blog and get the low down there.


I hope everyone who reads MckMama's blog is keeping them all in their prayers today. Stellan is undergoing surgery today to try to control his SVT. Let's all hope and pray that everything turns out well.

Girl's Night Out

A few weeks ago it was homecoming weekend in these here parts. The plan had been for Taylor and possibly Teresa to attend the dance they were having on Saturday. Their friend Micayla was also going to join them. Unfortunately, those plans fell through due to all the stupid (but I'm sure necessary) rules about id and such for out of school friends. So then many things were discussed and ideas were tossed about and the final decision was a girls night out for dinner. Some place fairly dressy so that the homecoming dresses could be worn. Since Marghee was here she joined us and we drove over to Annapolis and hit PF Changs.
We all had a good time in spite of the pouring rain and by the time we were finished, the rain had stopped. Silly me forgot my camera in the car so there aren't any restaurant pictures but I did run out and get it as we were leaving and snapped a few by the fountain in front of the restaurant. The first pic is me, Marghee and Pam. The second is Teresa, Micayla, Sophia and Taylor.

Finally A Halloween Post

I am getting lazy again with the whole blogging thing. There are a ton of things I keep thinking about blogging about but just can't seem to get around to actually doing it. So I finally decided to download my Halloween pictures and put a quick post together before I started my computer work.

Halloween is a fun time around here. I enjoy decorating and am always on the look out for cute decorations the week following Halloween. Through the years I have collected quite a few and love putting them up in different places and trying new things with them.
My dad comes to visit us each year at Halloween and we look forward to the a lot too.
Since I am a totally mean and cruel mother, my kids are not allowed to trick or treat when they hit the teen years so it's just Rebecca and Jaquelyn that actually get candy. Teresa and Taylor stay home and get to give out the candy...and eat a fair amount of it I'm sure.
This is the first year we have tried going around our own neighborhood and it seemed to go pretty well. We live in a fairly new neighborhood so in the past there really weren't enough houses that were occupied to bother with staying around here but they pulled in a good amount of candy just walking around here.


Here are Hermione (from Harry Potter in case anyone didn't know) and my little angel.

Wordless Wednesday - More Pictures From My Flight Lesson