Take Our Survey and win $1000

Well, no, not really, but I thought it would get your attention. I'm needing to make several more decisions about the house and I'm feeling insecure- yeah, I guess that's the best way to describe it. I am SOOOOO indecisive about big things. I have a hard time making up my mind b/c I know it costs a lot of money and that I will have it forever, well maybe not forever but a long damn time so I better be sure it is what I want!!So, I have a few things running around in my brain and I need your input ladies!
1. Pottery Barn swears they have slipcovers for every piece of furniture and why not, when you can simply toss it in the wash. Is that true? Can you really wash them and then viola! toss it back on the couch?
2. I know stainless appliances are all the rage, but I've heard the fingerprints and streaks are pretty bad. I'm not a neat freak but I have a child and a dog and Savannah (get it, haha! I am so funny). Thoughts?
3. I am also debating chrome, stainless or bronze (deep brown/black) fixtures and door handles, etc. I think I really like the bronze, but don't want to turn around in 8 years and think, "Oh, why did I do that."
4. We are considering a central vacuum system. I had one growing up and think they are great. Primarily since we will have a lot of hardwood floors, it would be good for that. If we go with a regular upright, what do the rest of y'all use on your hardwoods? I ain't swiffering the whole house!
5. I have a red kitchen and I love it, but am afraid a big kitchen with that much red will be overwhelming. Or do I just go for khaki walls and lots of red accents?
Ok- that's all. for now. Please respond to help my indecisive brain!

Home Alone

Hey. whatcha doin'? Yeah, I'm just hanging out at home. By myself! It's kinda of an odd night. College Football is upon us and my dear hubby just had to drag himself and our not quite 3-year-old princess out to the Thursday night game. I'm not kidding. I talked to him little bit ago and he said she is tired (well, duh) but they are having fun and will probably stay for the whole game, which began at 8:00. Alrighty then. Good for you. Don't wake me up when you come in.
So I am home alone. I don't know about ya'll, but when I have free time at home, and I mean real free time- not the 25 minutes you get while Dora is on, or the hour and a half you get after kiddos are in bed- I don't know what to do with myself. I feel like if I just lay on the couch and watch a marathon of "House Hunters" I'm being wasteful. I have SO much other crap I could be doing: fold clothes, load dishwasher, download my IL pics, do my nails...I even came home today with a to-do-list. What do I end up doing? I caught up on my DVRed shows, ate half a bag of boiled peanuts, chatted on the phone, I did upload the IL pics, made MIL's birthday gift, and visited bloggie land.
Speaking of, look what I found: holy crap! Not quite what I had in mind while looking for ideas for Savannah's birthday cake. I am sure Olivia was not thrilled either, but then again just who thinks a nekid likeness of themselves giving birth to an alien is something cake-worthy??
Oh! I added some pics to the earlier post so check those out, cuz I KNOW you've have been expecting them!

Children of the Corn

Illinois was a long trip, but overall, we had a good time and I'm glad to report that teen-pregnancy and drinking did not have an effect on us this visit. We did go sing karaoke one night, but I would have done that drinking or not.
The food in this town is different (if anyone offers you bar-b-que you're really getting a sloppy joe) but good. We ate from all the required food groups: pork tenderloin, fried chicken, brats and corn. Well, actually I stayed away from all of those but the corn, but I did get some chicken oscar. Yum!
Savannah usually had an accident a day but it was really because she didn't want to stop what she was doing to go potty. She even went poop a few times by herself. I guess she figured it worked out pretty good the first time so, hey, why not try it again. She also had a blast playing with her cousins and friends. There were so many kids at the cook-out we had! However, the majority of them belonged to my BIL and a friend so they were not my problem easy to manage.

We got to see lots of friends and family. Steve' grandpa isn't doing too well so it was especially good to see him. The old guy is 86, was shot down in WWII and lost his wife 15 years ago, so he's dealt with tougher things.

This week I'm playing catch up at work from being gone so long. I hate this time of year. From about the end of August until the first of October, is the busiest time. It's like running my own little school except that I do it all myself. I have to hire staff, arrange rooms, unpack boxes, order supplies and curriculum, rank students, send out paperwork, process paperwork, enter all data into the system, keep up with bus routes, arrange parent events, lead parent events, schedule field trips, lead field trips, handle discipline, give out snack, bandage boo-boos, blah, blah, blah... And Miss whats-her-bucket big-wig wants this to be a part-timeposition next year. Yeah, right.
Anyhoo... Hope you all have had a lovely summer and mine is comming to an end. Let the hilarity ensue!

three, six, one and a half...

Three
The number of consecutive nights of drinking Steve had lined up before we even got into town. We're in Illinois this week visiting Steve's family. It's a relatively small town in the middle of a cornfield where teen-pregnancy and underage drinking are the norm. Even when Steve was in Navy bootcamp, they had to take a class on health science or whatever and in the textbook, it listed his town as #1 in the nation for drinking per capita (or something crazy like that). His parents own a tavern for crying out loud. Anyway...I'm just saying drinking is the thing to do here whether you're 14 or 94 or it's 5:00 Friday or 9:00 Sunday morning.
Six
The number of times we had to pull-over on the side of the road for Savannah to go potty during the drive here. And when I say side of the road, I mean that Steve hit the brakes and we pulled over on the shoulder so she could hand her hiney over and tinkle (or poop). She's been wearing big-girl panties and doing really well the past week and half so when she said she had to go potty, we knew she meant it. But here's the best part... One and a half
The number of hours Savannah was sleeping before we discovered what she did. When we got to my MIL's house, Savannah had just fallen asleep, so Steve gently went and laid her on grandma's bed. She started to wake up, but he told her to go back to sleep. We shut the door and didn't hear anything more so we figured she went right back to sleep. Uh , no. Steve goes down there an hour and a half later to wake her up and he says she has poop everywhere. Oh great! So I go in there and she is sleeping like a rock, but she does have poop on her ankle, on her leg and around her crotch. I look closer and she doesn't have on any panties and her shorts are on backwards! So I go look in the bathroom. Like, Goldolocks, the evidence betrays her and she is busted! There are wet and poopy panties on the floor. Poop and toilet paper in the toilet and poop on the seat. Apparently, she had to go, but didn't quite make it. But no worries- my big girl took care of it the best she could, despite being in a strage place, put her shorts on and went back to sleep!! And much like Goldilocks, she woke up alarmed to see us all standing over her laughing about what she had done!

Just for Fun...

Oh yeah- I saw this cute post on another blog...
Go here and it will tell you the #1 song for a particular date. Here's our family"Hot List":
My b-day: Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John
Steve's b-day: The Sound of Philadelphia by MFSB and Three Degrees (anybody ever heard this one, let me know!)
Savannah's b-day: We Blong Together by Mariah Carey
Our anniversary: Honey by Mariah Carey
My high school graduation: That's the Way Love Goes by Janet Jackson

Guess what kind of day we've had?

Remember how when you were a kid, your parents used all kinds of parent logic on you like, "If everyone else jumped off an bridge, would you do it too?" And how it was completely wasted on you? No effect whatsoever. All you got out of it was that your parents had lots of ways of saying "no."
And isn't it amazing now that you are a parent that you use the same parent logic and it makes perfect sense to you? That somehow you hope that parent logic has evolved over the past 30 years and is much more effective now.
New! Upgrade to Parent Logic version 298.0!
That when you say, "You should have thought of that before you did a face dive off of the couch," your child will turn to you and say, "You're right mom. I wasn't thinking." Or when your dear child asks, "Why?" for the millionth time and you say, "Because God made it that way." They'll say "Ok," and shut up.
Maybe your parent logic will put an end to uneaten broccoli and unbrushed teeth forever. Maybe you'll be so smart and quick witted, that your kids will never question you again....
No, I think it's a fate we all must endure, much like death, taxes and Donald Trump. So instead of pondering this anymore, I'll just stop here. Why? Because I said so!

I've never been so excited to see wood...

...on our new house, that is. The framers came Thursday and put down the floor. They came back Friday and did all of this:

Man, those guys work fast! This is looking at the front of the house where the front door will be.

This is the view from the great room where we'll have that big wall of windows and doors that look out onto the porch.

I'm so excited! We could actually walk around and see the dimensions of the rooms and get a feel for the actual layout. Whoo-hoo!

Anyway, I just wanted to share that...

WTF Friday

Oh, S**t! I found it....

100 Things About Me #89

Chic Cheap Chick

...Say that 5 times fast.
If there were a reality show for people who could put together the best look with the least amount of money, I would sign up to be contestant in a heartbeat and quite possibly win the $2000 and Saturn Vue!
Now, when I say, "cheap," I don't mean that I save ketchup packets from Wendy's to refill my bottle at home and I don't mean that I dumpster dive for lawn furniture. I don't have a Vera-wanna-be purse and I don't only shop at Wal-mart. And it's not that I can't afford nice things, like when we were first married. At that time, Steve was in the Navy, I was unemployed and we lived in a 1 bedroom apartment. Buying a new shirt for $20 was an occasional splurge. Even a few years later, I was the "bread-winner" on a case manager's salary while Steve was in college. Now days, I just can't bear to pay retail for this stuff and to be perfectly honest, it's more fun when you can find that fabulous deal like a Strasburg dress for $1.
One of my favorite ways to find a deal is to shop consignments sales. Just the other night I bought 24 pieces of clothes (including pajamas, corduroy pants, a Gymboree dress and jeans) and 3 pair of shoes for Savannah all for $76. Deal! I'm also a consignor for this sale so I expect to make at least half- if not all- of that back.
Another place for deals: yard sales. Now you have to be willing to dig and sometimes you don't find anything but old Barney PJs, but I have also found smocked dresses for $1, a Ralph Lauren dress for 25 cents and Lilly Pulitzer overalls for 50 cents. Just be sure an wash them as soon as you get home.
Goodwill and thrift stores are usually not quite as cheap as yard sales, but they also have potential. I have bought a Lilly skirt for $2, a Kelly's Kids dress for $2 and Ralph Lauren pants for $1.25. One of our lastest finds: a Lucky Ducks game for 50 cents and those of you in the pre-school set know how much they love that annoying game.
It's usually easier to find kids stuff, but I have an $8 outfit I proudly wore this past spring ($2 knit top, $3 Loft capris, and $3 metallic flats). And my mom (see, I get it honestly) loaded up at a department store sale last year and got several things for $1.98 each.
Oh, I still pay good money for stuff sometimes, but even then, it's usually not full price. Trips to the grocery mean I take my coupons and I always check the sale rack at high-end stores.
To the few of you out there who may be turning your nose up at me, I say, "Go ahead. Pay full price. That just leaves more deals for me."

If only it were this easy...

In case you haven't seen this clip yet:

If only it were this easy to get babies to sleep...
Turn up your volume.
http://www.chilloutzone.de/files/08071701.html

Semi-Wordless Wednesday

This is where I'd rather be right now: lovely, warm Waikiki in front of Duke's Canoe Club enjoying a fat slab of Eskimo pie and gazing out at Diamond Head.... (I really took this photo when we were there last year)

Hell, I'd settle for being here right now, I'm so bored:

We have school registration today. The days and place were changed because our school is under contruction so no one is here and I have been here since 9:00 this morning and it is freezing inside and I am B-O-R-E-D! Same thing happened yesterday, just a differnt time. I was here noon til 6:00. Aaaaaagggghhh!

On a separate note, here are the cabinets I want for the new house. I got the pic from Rate My Space! See, I told you I love that site!

House Update

Well, things are moving kinda slow, but they are moving. Our foundation is up and today the framers came. They pretty much only dropped off some boards, but it appears they were there. It is hotter than hades this week, so I can't blame them for not sticking around. It's a heat index of like 104 with 95% humidity! We were out there ourselves yesterday evening raking and shoveling up some of the rocks and debris. Sweated my ass off! But it saves us $ and that is why we are doing some of that stuff ourselves.
When the framers get going, they need to know how to frame for the doors and windows so that is our next thing to choose. I want to have a big wall of windows in the great room with transoms on top. We'll have really tall ceilings in there so we definitely have room for it. Kinda like in this room.
And I want transoms around the front door, too.
Next is plumbing. I pretty much know what I want, I just need to get a little more pricing info and decide. I want something that looks vintage, probably in a brushed nickel or stainless steel. Like this.
It's still early, but at this point they're thinking to be finished around Feb-March. That's when the real fun starts: decorating!
Here's one more link for you... After spending the majority of Saturday evening watching HGTV, I went to their site and found this. You can post your own pics, be it a disaster or something you want to show of and people rate them. Then, HGTV picks some of the lowest rated spaces for a TV make-over. I've already seen a lot of beautiful rooms (find member Campbell1082 -to die for!) so go check it out! Let me know if you decide to post your own...

WTF Friday: Buffet Style

We have several "WTF" offerings today. You can choose as many as you'd like and come back for seconds. Ice cream and dessert bar not included.

- Darius Rucker (from Hootie and the Blowfish) has a country song out that is in heavy rotation on one of our local country stations.


-Steve has taken to drinking Earl Grey tea.


-While at the zoo today, we saw turtles mating and a monkey of some kind masturbating. nice.


-This is a sign posted at the fountain at Waterfront Park in Charleston.
It's a freakin fountain that splashes on the ground! What moron drowned here so that this sign was needed?!

- Every single thing about the show, "America's Got Talent." The contestants, the judges, the audience, the whole sha-bang!

I hope you enjoyed today's selection. Be sure and tip Jolene when ya'll are done. Have a good day, now!