Can it get any poopier?

Go here. Read the post entitled "If There's Pride, You Know a Fall is Coming!" Laugh. Cry. Because really, if that happened to me, I would probably be laughing and crying hysterically at the same time. I've had my share of poopy expriences, but I can't top that one.

These are cool!

Have you seen these? My sister in-law introduced them to me while we were out for the holidays. They are just absolutely wonderful! What are they, you ask? It's cough medicine in a cute little strip. You know, like those Listerine breath strips that you put on your tongue and dissolve? Triaminic Thin Strips are the same thing, except it's a dose of cough medicine, not mouthwash! These were an absolute lifesaver on our trip. Pouring cough medicine into a little cup while traveling in the car across the country is not a clean thing to do. So instead, I simply got some of these, unwrapped them and stuck them on the kiddos tongues. No spills, no drips, no mess! Fantastic! I have totally converted over to them. No more sticky cough medicine bottles for me thanks!

KNOCK! KNOCK!

Today the doorbell rang, followed by a knock, and then a loud "clank, clank" from the door knocker. Okay, that's one thing that will get me irritated fast, especially during naptime! Fine, ring the doorbell, but then to knock and then use the door knocker, well that is just rude. Not the best impression to make when you are trying to sell something. So I opened the door up wide enough for me to stick my head out. There was a kid there, I'm guessing college, I don't really know. He starts talking and it went something like this, "Hey, we're just in the area trying to get points for our ROTC group to go to Washington, D.C. and if you could just help me out with some points that wold be great!" He then hands me some papers and stands there. Uhhhh. . .what? So I say to him, "So what exactly. . ." At which point, he interrupts me to say, "Well basically it's, well to answer your question, well if I knew your question I could probably answer it better." Uh, ya'think? Obviously this kids mind reading ability is a bit lacking.

Apparently, if I bought a magazine subscription from him he would get a certain amount of points depending on the subscription I decided on. Of course, he didn't explain any of this to me. I was only able to figure it out because I've had other people stop at my door for the same thing. I'm not really one for magazine subscriptions. I'm already subscribed to the few I like. I told him that I would not be able to help him at this time. He then says that everyone else is buying at least two. Well, then, if everyone else is doing it! I then said that it wasn't in the budget for the month (I love blaming things on the budget!) Then he tells me that if I write a check it won't go through for at least two weeks. Sorry, no thanks! Then he says that he'll just have to stand out on my door step pounding on my door until I change my mind (thanks, you already did that and no, it wasn't that great). At this point in the conversation I say no thanks, and shut the door.

Moral of the story:

To those pounding on the doors of homes with small young children sleeping: if you are selling something, be nice and polite, explain who you are and what you are doing, and explain clearly and exactly what you are selling and why it's so great. And don't pound on the door!

To those whose doors are being pounded on: don't open the door!

Welcome and Come on in!

As promised, here is my home. There are a few rooms missing because they are not clean yet so I will post them later. But we'll start at the beginning. This is my entryway/front door. This is suppose to be the diningroom just off of the entryway but we use it as a whatever room. Our computer is in here right now.
This is the hallway to the kitchen, laundry room, and half-bath. I like to think of it as my little gallery.
The impressive half-bath. It needs some decorating help.
The family room looking from the entryway.
The family room looking from my "gallery".

The family room looking toward the front door.

The long wide stairs. (I love the extra wide stairs!)

The Masterbath.

The master bedroom

The Master Bedroom again.

The "gameroom" but we use it as another whatever room.

The upstairs bathroom.

E's bedroom

E's bedroom again.

And still to come, M's room, S's room, the kitchen and my super-cool pantry. Maybe the laundry room and garage. If I'm picture happy!

This and That

Our garbage disposal quit working the other day. Great, I thought. Our house is just barely a year old and our garbage disposal is broken! So I dutifully searched out and located our home warranty information to see if it was covered. Nope. Then I went through the individual manuals and warranties for our various appliances. Nope. So then I looked under the sink at the stupid contraption to see what I could see. Not much, except for a 1-800 number for service. Great! At least I didn't have to figure out who to call. I proceeded to dial the number and prepared myself to be on hold for heaven knows how long. As I was waiting to talk to a live human, I noticed a small sticker on the garbage disposal that pointed to a reset button. "Huh." I thought. And so I pushed it. Just then I was transferred to a real live person on the phone and she very happily directed me to push the said reset button that I had already pushed. And yes, it worked. Apparently if the machine gets overheated it automatically turns off and you simply have to push the magic red button and it works again. Walaa! We no longer have a "broken" garbage disposal. It was simply overworked.

I'm making my new favorite food for dinner tonight. Chicken quesadillas. So very, very yummy. If I get around to it, I'll post the recipe. Actually, there's really not a recipe, just directions.

Anywho, not much to report on. I did manage to get the house in presentable order and I did take pictures of my house while in that presentable order. So tomorrow I will give you the "tour".

Note to self. . .

Never buy the cheapest, smallest refrigerator you can find. The above picture is NOT my refrigerator but wouldn't it be nice to own that? When we moved to a new house we needed a refrigerator. So, wanting to keep expenses low, we bought the cheapest new one we could find. And it's really small! I don't know the cubic feet, but it's small. I literally can't fit leftovers in this fridge. There's enough room for the basics like milk, eggs, a few fresh veggies and fruit. But that's it. And when I say cheap I mean cheap in every sense of the word. If you open the door wrong, the shelves in the door become unattached and everything falls out of them. The shelves kind of bow when you have too many gallons of milk on them (by too many I mean 3). The one drawer we have sticks and is difficult to open and shut. And did I mention it's small? Grrrrrr!

I don't know when we will replace our current cooling device, but I doubt it will be anytime soon. Because really, it serves its purpose (be it small and cheap). I can't see us spending money on a new fridge because if we were going to spend that much money, it would probably be on something else. So for now, I will just complain about my small fridge and drool over big ones that have multiple drawers and shelves and water and ice that comes with the push of a button and built in TV's and plenty of surface area to tack on kids art work and calendars and notes and pictures. For now, I will stand tall (er. . .I mean taller) by my fridge because it's all I got!

And just for the fun of it, here is a description for the above refrigerator:

As technology has evolved over the years, kitchen tech has unfortunately lagged behind. LG is doing its best to make up for lost time with its new LSC27990TT LCD TV Refrigerator ($3500-$3700; Q2). While keeping its food-storing attributes fresh — it is a refrigerator after all — it also features a 15" LCD TV in the right side door that is cable-ready and has connectors for a DVD player, as well as a 4" LCD above the left door ice/water dispenser that features weather reports, date/time, calendar, recipies, and a personal photo album you can populate via a USB port. Other features include an in-door ice maker that frees up more space for food, an Opti-Fresh crisper that keeps food good longer by using an indirect cooling system, and a Grab-n-go door basket, wine rack, and tilting door bins. Emeril would be proud.

Uhhh. . .hello? Nice, but maybe too nice!

Is there anybody out there?

Okay, I realize that there are probably only like two people who read this blog. But just for the sake of wondering, I'm going to ask if there is anyone else out there who reads here. If you read my small, sometimes pathetic, ramblings would you mind leaving a comment to this post that you really are out there reading this.

I think that I am going to do a picture tour of my house next week. I will post pictures of my home so those who haven't seen it can! I know, I know, that's probably not exclamation worthy, but there it is anyway. I first need to clean my house and then I will post a few pictures a day. I am really into decorating right now, so it's fun to see everything finally coming together.

Ahhh. . .well, I've run out of ramblings for the day. So, until next time!

Nevermind

So apparently I don't know what I'm talking about when I say it's high time for some life changing event to take place. We are NOT moving. It seemed as though everything was headed that direction (to move) and then suddenly, things changed and we are not moving. We will be staying put for the time being. I am a little disappointed because I really like the town we would have moved to. But it's all good! There are lots of good things about not moving.

We don't have to sell our house

Our family won't be separated

We have so many wonderful friends and neighbors here

We love our ward

We might be able to do some home improvements

So there are lots of positives. I guess we will just have to come up with something else for our big life changing event. Okay, it's dinner time and the kids are grumpy.

See ya later!

Gypsies

I have been married for almost six years. (Holy cow!) I have moved six times. And no, we are not military. That's a lot, I think. I guess we just like change. We've lived in three different apartments and three different houses. The longest amount of time we have lived anywhere was for 15 months. Sheesh! We have now been in this house for 14 months and, well, it's getting time to move again.

I was going to write a Christmas letter this year to update all of our friends and family about the happenings in our family. But when I sat down to write it, there wasn't much to report. I'm not complaining at all. It's been nice to have a "normal" year. 2005 was crazy with moving across the country, buying and selling houses, having a baby. The only thing I could think to write about for 2006 was to say that we didn't do any of the things that we did in 2005. I guess our lives don't stay the same for long. And I was thinking that based on our history, we have been long over due for some major changes in our lives. And wouldn't you know, last week something big happened.

I can't go into too many details yet because things aren't completely finalized, but it is a big change. It would be us moving to another town about four hours away. I want to do it. The town we would be moving to is small. I love small towns! We live in a huge city right now, lost in suburbia. The town we would move to is just so cute. Housing is little more expensive, but still doable. I hope that we get to go there. Of course, the down side to all of this is that I would be left behind to sell the house while hubby goes there to work. I hate selling houses! So that part isn't good, but I think that moving to this small town would be really good for our family. I hope that it works out and things go smoothly. I guess we will find out soon enough, so I will update when I know more.

I heart Jack Bauer

Okay, I've decided to jump on the "24" blogging bandwagon. I've been reading elsewhere in the blogosphere about the upcoming "24" season premiere and since it's a date this household has been waiting for, well. . .here is my post about "24".

My husband and I first met Jack Bauer in season three. We rented a DVD with four episodes on it and I think went back the very next day to get the next four episodes. It didn't take long for us to get hooked. I've read about the "Just One More" phenomenon that accompanies Jack-watching and we have succumbed to it as well. One episode of Jack Bauer isn't enough. I like my Jack in many doses. I found myself saying many times after the end of an episode, "Just One More?!!!" And so it went as we finished season three and then moved on to 1, 2, and 4. Then we got TV so we could watch season 5 each week, and let me tell you, that was a killer! Only one episode at a time? Serious? How can I only watch Jack one episode at a time? But we did, because we love Jack Bauer!

Obviously, this isn't a show for children. We would watch the seasons we rented late at night after the kiddos were in bed. But when we watched it on TV at it's regularly scheduled time, I'm afraid that our kids got a few glimpses of Jack here and there. Usually because we were so enthralled with watching that we didn't notice that our daughter and snuck (not a word, I know) out of bed and was watching on the stairs behind us! Whoops! Anyway, needless to say, she's seen enough of Jack to know he's one cool guy.

We got two fish for Christmas last year. They went without names for months because, well, I don't know why. Anyway, finally, one day I said to Emma, "Emma, what should we name the fish?" She thought for a minute and then without blinking, promptly replied, "Kya and Jack Bauer". And so we named our fish Jack Bauer. He eventually died, not living up to his namesake, but he was a goldfish so that's okay. He actually lived for a good nine months and I think that's pretty long for a goldfish.

And finally, for those of you who love Jack Bauer too:

Basic Truths About Jack Bauer

• Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.
• If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.
• If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.
• Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.
• If it tastes like chicken, looks like chicken, and feels like chicken, but Jack Bauer says its beef. Then you better believe it's beef.
• Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.
• 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.
• Let's get one thing straight: the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.
• Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.
• Jack Bauer played Russian Roulette with a fully loaded gun and won.
• When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer hates lemonade. Jack Bauer once won a game of Connect 4 in 3 moves.
• Osama bin Laden's recent proposal for truce is a direct result of him finding out that Jack Bauer is, in fact, still alive.
• Jack Bauer is the leading cause of death in Middle Eastern men.
• Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.
• When Jack Bauer was a child, he made his mother finish his vegetables.
• Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait, that is a real fact.
• Simon Says should be renamed to Jack Bauer Says because if Jack Bauer says something then you better do it.
• Jack Bauer won the Tour de France on a unicycle to prove to Lance Armstong it wasn't a big deal. He thinks yellow wristbands are gay.
• When Jack Bauer pees into the wind, the wind changes direction.
• Jack Bauer's favorite color is severe terror alert red. His second favorite color is violet, but just because it sounds like violent.
• When Google can't find something, it asks Jack Bauer for help.
• You can lead a horse to water. Jack Bauer can make him drink.
• Jack Bauer can get McDonald's breakfast after 10:30.
• When the boogie man goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Jack Bauer.
• In 96 hours, Jack Bauer has killed 93 people and saved the world 4 times. What the heck have you done with your life?
• Jack Bauer killed so many terrorists that at one point, the #5 CIA Most Wanted fugitive was an 18-year-old teenager in Malaysia who downloaded the movie Dodgeball.
• In kindergarten, Jack Bauer killed a terrorist for Show and Tell.
• What color is Jack Bauer's blood? Trick question. Jack Bauer does not bleed.
• Guns don't kill people, Jack Bauer kills people.
• If Jack and MacGyver were locked in a room together, Jack would make a bomb out of MacGyver and get out.
• People with amnesia still remember Jack Bauer.
• Jack Bauer literally died for his country, and lived to tell about it.
• Jack Bauer has been to Mars. That's why there's no life on Mars.
• Superman's only weakness is Kryptonite. Jack Bauer laughs at Superman for having a weakness.
• When Batman is in trouble, he turns on the Jack Bauer signal.
• It took Jack Bauer two minutes to beat a confession out of OJ.
• Jack Bauer's family threw him a surprise birthday party when he was a child. Once.

The words won't come

I've taken quite the hiatus (sp?)! Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the New Year have all come and gone. I sometimes wonder why I try to blog. Most days I have absolutely no idea what to write about. And on the rare occasion that I think of something to write about, my mushy brain is unable to put the words together for it to be coherent. Sigh. . . what can ya do? I promise that at one point in my life I could write. And, I could write pretty good. Now I seem to have regressed and the words just won't come! It's quite frustrating. Is it possible to get dumber? I mean, I swear I use to know more. Maybe I haven't been stretching my brain muscles enough and they have gotten, well, mushy. Who knows? Anyway, the point, if there is a point, is that I want to write more. I want to not be mushy. I want to be funny and witty and at least appear intelligent. So I'll try. But you know me, I can't promise anything because I just get too sidetracked and overwhelmed sometimes.

Christmas was great this year (except for the fact that everyone got sick and was puking off an on for a week and we were stuck in the car for about 50 hours and. . .well, you get the picture.) Except for all that and a bunch of other little things, Christmas was good. We saw family and friends and had fun playing games and eating lots of good food. We drove home and got in on New Year's Eve. We put the kids down and tried to watch a movie, but gave up and went to bed at 10:30 (how pathetic). DH just happened to wake up at midnight and told me to look out the window at the fireworks. I opened half an eye and said, "Umpmhuf," which meant "Happy New Year", rolled over and went back to sleep. Quite the party animals.

Anyway, it's a New Year and it will be interesting to see what's in store for us. I've got goals, and hopefully I'll actually accomplish them!

Until next time. . .