Yeah, Yeah....I know.

I have been a bad blogger. In my defense things have been crazy.

I am a marked woman. I was outside my mom's house last night, when a car drives by, backs up and yells, "Garage sale?" I answer tomorrow. 8 am. They have seen my car at my mom's house in the middle of winter and stopped to ask if I have any of the stuff I sold at my garage sales and if they could buy some. People leave notes on my mom's door saying they want to buy 15 boxes of Fiber One bars and to call them. It is totally crazy. I am not far from the joke that Felicia came up with. "Yo man, you got the Duncan Hines?" Like a drug dealer only with food and beauty products. It is my hobby and has totally changed the way I do things, but sometimes it is a JOB. So lets get some bragging on my hobby out of the way.

The kind folks at Glade, Coca Cola and P&G have been kind enough to sponsor my family for Christmas. By this, I mean that the deals on these products have been so lucrative that I am turning coupon money into gift cards and presents. I currently have $115 in Meijer gift cards and $100 in on your next shopping order coupons that I can use on anything in the store (including more gift cards). I have $193.50 in on your next shopping order coupons for Jewel and that is still climbing. Not to mention that I will restock my wall of cereal for pennies with the current General Mills deal. To say this is the deal of the year is an understatement.

That takes care of the couponing portion of this post. I am not sure how many people are actually interested in it, but I like to throw it out there.

Andrew is a boy, when did that happen? He was just a baby yesterday. He is getting bigger and smarter with everyday. He is loving and sweet. He really is a joy to parent. We are working on teaching him to read. He can spell his name and loves the Ramones. What more could a mom want?

Justin joined a band. It is nice for him to have something outside of the house that involves grown ups.

Work has been stressful and really busy. Hence, I am not working at the pumpkin farm this year. Plus Andrew is now old enough to emotionally destroy me when in the morning he tells me he doesn't want me to go to work because he misses me. So I need my weekends to spend extra time with him.

That is about it. Hopefully, I will be better about posting in the future if anyone still actually reads this.

Wahoooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chelsea beat Liverpool to reach the finals of the Champions League!!!!!!

I couldn't watch the match, so I had to depend on the text updates from the BBC. I had to watch those through my fingers. I am so excited and will be figuring out a way to watch the final.

The wayback machine

So, who remembers this:



The Easter Bunny included a Fraggle Rock DVD in Andrew's easter basket. He loves it and now will sing the intro. It is hilarious. He mangles the words, but gets the hand claps right. The best is where he puts his hands on his face at the end and says "Down in Fraggle Rock" in a pretty decent imitation of Boober Fraggle. I had no idea he would love it so much when I bought it but I hoped that he would enjoy it as much as I did when I was young.

I walk the line.

A friend of mine sent me an email yesterday titled "Things to Remember". One of these things was there is a fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness". Well my friends, I am attaching pictures of where that line just might occur. What do you think?

This is in my dining room. I think it adds some color to the room, like edible artwork.



Another view.



This is in my bedroom. That is where I have temporarily placed the "overflow" It is pretty much all varieties of Total.



So where do I fall? I would lean towards mental illness if I didn't know that I either paid just tax or made money buying this stuff. Although, looking at it, I realize I should have bought more Wheaties. I did leave a space for an additional 7 boxes of Rice Krispies with Strawberries. I am still debating on the Special K. I would have to pay $0.50 + tax for every 7 boxes. I would turn a profit with the mail in rebate, but is still entails "paying" for cereal. So, now you can see what I have been up to lately. Come by, visit, bring a spoon!

Goodbye sweet Labrakitty.

Last night Felix died. For those who never met him, he was just the biggest ball of love you ever met. We called him our Labrakitty because I swear he was half cat, half Labrador. 25 lbs and would beg for food. He came to us from some friends and he was part of our family for 7 years. There is a giant size hole in my heart today. I leave you with one of my favorite pictures of him.

My funny guy.

So Justin and I are sitting on the couch watching "How Clean Is Your House" on BBC America. I watch this show and feel much better about the state of my house. It may be messy, but I don't live in filth. The big lady with her hair in a bun (I think her name is Aggie) is showing the homeowner how to clean the refrigerator gasket with a toothbrush and some toothpaste.

I look at Justin and say "Hey, I should do that. Our refrigerator gasket needs cleaning and that is a great way to clean it." He looks at me and says, "Wherever will we get the toothpaste?"

By the numbers.

3

I have a 3 year old. When did this happen? Wasn't he a baby just last year? Time goes by so fast. It is so amazing when they start to become little people. We are having issues with potty training, he just doesn't want to use the potty all the time and getting him to poop in it, seems like the impossible dream. It will work out. He is just trying to assert some form of control.

208

The number of 3 Muskateers Mint bars I bought last weekend. If I can find them tomorrow, I may buy more. You may think that I am the mayor of crazytown based on that, but I now have $59 to spend at the grocery store and $50 of that is pure profit. It makes sense, even if it is crazy. Oh, I should add that I bought about 100 more of these prior to last weekend, so my overall total is over 300. Bet you can guess what everyone got for the holiday season.

30

The minimum number of additional containers of baby wipes that I have to purchase between now and 1/10/08. Difficulty: I can only buy in groups of 2 per transaction. I will probably buy more than that, but that is the minimum that I plan to pick up.

140

The total dollars made the last time I distributed my list. I sell off some of my excess to my co-workers for cheap. I do this at least monthly, but plan to try for a biweekly plan in the new year. I have a vacation to afford.

1

Missed toll on my way out to visit Felicia. I was told that I need to get an I Pass. I want to get one, but in this case, my tinfoil hat comes into play. I just don't like the idea that the government knows where I go. Not that I go anywhere interesting or have anything to hide. It just creeps me out a little. I will get one soon, but the tinfoil is still stuck on my hair so be patient.

Score!!!!

A little background first. I belong to a website called Bzzagent. You sign up to try new products and tell people about them. Word of Mouth advertising or Buzz type of stuff. So far, I have been in a few campaigns, nothing spectacular but still kind of cool. I am in a KMart campaign because I live close enough to Rockford to qualify. They redesigned the stores in Rockford and are doing a campaign. I have to visit the in-laws, so I signed up for the campaign and they sent me a $10 gift card. So far this is the coolest thing I have gotten from the site until now.

My campaign package hasn't arrived yet, so I won't totally believe it until I see it, but I got into the new Sonicare campaign. According to the campaign materials, I will be getting this. Apparently, it retails for $179.00. I am totally excited, because as you all know, there is no way I would ever spend that on a toothbrush unless there was a gun to my head. (And even then it would be hard.)

Hopefully it will come soon and I can rave about how well it works. It had better be amazing for that kind of price tag.

The rundown

So, things have been crazy for the last 2 months. At the end of August we went to see Thomas the Tank Engine at the Illinois Railway museum. We did this last year and Andrew loved it. This year he is really into Thomas, so we thought he would enjoy seeing all of the trains more this time. Actually, he really just wanted to sit inside of LEGO Thomas all day. When we tried to leave to go for our ride on Thomas, he sat down in the middle of the path and cried. I took a picture of it. He had to spend a timeout sitting on a haybale because he would not listen. He did enjoy riding on Thomas and he really loved LEGO Thomas. It wasn't a bad trip. He is just going through a stage where he is testing us.

The second weekend in September, we had a garage sale at my mom's house. All of my stuff sold incredibly fast. I brought out well over 100 bottles of shampoo and conditioner. It was all gone by Friday afternoon. It was seriously crazy. I went back home Friday night to get more stuff for Saturday. All in all, I made $900. It was a really good day.

The next weekend, I started back at Kuipers Family Farm. I work there every weekend September 15 - October 31. I generally take 2 days off during that time. This year my first day off was to attend a first birthday party for Felicia's son. That was a blast. Andrew barely left the bouncy house all day. The second was to take Andrew to the pumpkin farm to run around and play. This year, the weather was perfect and we had a blast. Last year, the day I picked was so cold and miserable that we just bought a pumpkin and left.

Now I have my weekends back, but with impending holidays I feel like I am being shot out of a cannon. One of our office employees at work retired this month, so I have additional responsibilities there. I am trying to go through my stockpile and make a list of things to sell off. I am reaching critical mass on dish soap. Trying to get my house back in order and trying to decide what we are doing for Andrew's birthday this year. I think the theme will be Thomas, but sometimes he insists he wants a Doctor Who party. (although, he says it more like "Docca Who")

I turned 33 in October or as I have coined it, started my Christ year. This is due to my husband telling a friend of ours who was considering giving up being in a band to give it until he was 33, because that was when Jesus did his best work. For my present, we decided to order Doctor Who series 1 and 2. The season sets for the new Doctor Who series on BBC. I caught a few episodes of it a few months back and now we are totally hooked. We are working our way back through the classic stuff too. Bonus, the current Doctor is totally hot. (and he is Scottish. His normal speaking voice is lush.)

Basically, I have been working a lot and trying to keep up with my couponing and my family. That is why my posting has been non existent. I will try to remember that my adoring public requires me to post. I will try to get some pictures up of Andrew and of my cereal stash.

Okay, okay already.

Yeah, I am a big slacker. I know.

But in my defense I was working 7 days a week for half of September and all of October. That and everything else in my life left me little time for blogging. I will post more over the weekend, but until then enjoy Spandau Ballet's "Gold". I heard this today on Virgin Radio and remembered how awesome it is.

I C U P

My dad and stepmom were in town last week. They came up from Florida to bring my grandmother's ashes back to Wisconsin and to have a memorial service up here. My grandmother passed away in July. She was 94, lived a great life and was one hell of a lady. I will always have fond memories of her and not just because she could take her teeth out. (When I was little I thought she was the coolest because she could. I begged my mom to take her's out too.)

While they were in town, I used my 3 bereavement days and took Andrew to my Aunt Bea's house where they were staying. My stepmom cannot get enough of Andrew and decided that he was ready for potty training. We were planning on concentrating on potty training during Justin's break from school. Nana took him to the bathroom constantly and now he is almost potty trained. He still has a little trouble telling us in time, but if we take him frequently, his diaper stays dry. He even pooped in the potty for Nana. He was rewarded with an ice cream for that. I am glad to have him using the potty and really glad that Nana could be a big part of a milestone, since they are so far away.

If I sound unhappy, it might be because I had just stocked up on diapers. I have 3 packs of Huggies diapers and 6 packs of PullUps. Now to find someone who can use a sweet deal on size 5's.

Are you ready to rock, St Louis?

Today Andrew got his first guitar. It looks big, but it is a smaller guitar made for kids (although it is for kids older than Andrew) The guitar comes to us via Andrew's Uncle Cooper. So now Andrew has his own guitar to use when rocking out with Daddy. Bonus: the guitar is red like Murray's. (For those of you not in the know, Murray is the red Wiggle and he plays the guitar)

Andrew also got a shaker at the music store the other day. He really likes the music store and when he and Justin were leaving he said, "Bye Rock n Roll!" Yep, he is his father's son.

My son, the Ninja

With the change to the toddler bed, Andrew is able to get out of bed on his own. There are some problems with this, one of them is that he is really quiet when he gets up in the morning. He has always been this way, but it scares me now. Yesterday morning I wake up at 7:15. Open my eyes and hear Hi Mommy! There is Andrew, sitting in my computer chair watching me. We have the monitors cranked to hear every little noise coming from his room and he still manages to beat us. He makes no sound. It is disturbing. I may need to sign him up for Ninja training, he apparently has the gift.

Ready, Set, GO!!!!!!

My Pantene coupons came today. Now comes the crazy part. I have to try to find enough Pantene in the old style bottles to use them all. That is 60 bottles folks. Wish me luck, for I will be visiting a lot of WalMarts. (shudder) I will update as I get through the WalMarts.

DeKalb - They only had 1 bottle. Coupon is for $5 off 3, one bottle does not help me.

Elmhurst - 27 bottles. The motherlode!!!

Glen Ellyn - 2 bottles, again, this does not help.

St. Charles - 6 bottles, not bad, not bad.

Batavia - 12 bottles. Good haul.

So far, so good. Only 5 coupons out of the 20 left. I can live with having to eat those if necessary.

Recurring trends and not having CPS called on me.

Will CPS take my child away if I duct tape him to his bed? This was a question that popped into my head last night. My child finally fell asleep in his bed at 11:00 pm. He goes to bed at 8:00 pm. 3 hours of having to go in and tell him to stop playing and get back into bed. I was seriously contemplating busting out the duct tape. Tonight he actually went to sleep quickly with no getting out of bed. All I can think is "Thank ya Jesus" (this being said like a faith healer) This week has been full of fun with children, let's recap shall we.

Sunday we took down the crib and now Andrew gets to sleep in his big boy bed. He was angry because he doesn't want his bed to be a bed. His toddler bed is a choo choo train and he wants it to be a train for playing on. Sunday afternoon nap was a lot of him getting up and playing. Sunday night we were out at a friend's house and he got to run around catching lighning bugs, so he passed out in the car and never woke up when we put him to bed.

Monday was a trip. I got home from work and asked where Andrew was. I was told by Justin that Andrew had been sent to his room until I got home. I inquired why and was told he locked Justin out of the house. Here's that story. Justin went to put some laundry in the dryer, to do this he has to leave the apartment for a minute. He gets to the door to come back in and it is locked. He knocks on the door and Andrew lifts the curtain. Justin asks him to open the door. Andrew tries and can't, gives Justin the "I don't know Daddy" look. Justin tells him to unlock the door and let him in. Andrew says "No" and then pushes the curtain against the door so that Justin can't see him. Justin had to take the air conditioner out of the window on the front porch and climb in that way. Good thing we bought an air conditioner. Monday night, Andrew doesn't fall asleep until late. Apparently he doesn't realize that we can hear his counting chair when he gets out of bed and sits in it. Lots of going in and telling him to get back in bed.

Nothing much going on Tuesday. Tuesday night is the same as Monday. Lots of telling him to get back into bed, lots of him trying to stall. Good times.

He is such a little character. His vocabulary is growing so fast. But last night, I seriously considered that he might really be part monkey (and not just because of the fur on his back) and I might have to tie him to his bed.

Do they make LoJack for people?

I had a horrible nightmare over the weekend about my child being taken. In the dream I saw the creep and was chasing them and screaming. I woke up panicked and 5 days later, I am still unsettled by the dream. This is all part of the paranoia that I have started to develop since becoming a parent. I have had dreams of him falling off a bridge and now this one. I know there are others that I can't remember.

The world that we live in seems more dangerous than when I was a kid. We used to go out and ride our bikes all over the place. We'd be gone for the entire day, sometimes taking snacks and not even coming home for lunch. We would stay out and roam the neighborhood after dinner until my mom called us in after it got dark. How do I give Andrew all the great childhood experiences without developing an ulcer? Luckily I have a few years before he can go out on his own, but it's coming. How do I make sure the paranoia will not rub off on him? I worry that it already has when we are outside and Andrew grabs onto me for dear life when the local homeless man walks by. (To be honest, we believe that he is homeless and he mutters to himself so he is kind of scary.)

I don't want to smother him, but I am worried about my sanity as he gets older. I already worry and he is never out of my sight. I think I need to revisit the doctor and resume the Prozac. Hopefully we can get pregnant again soon, so we can decide when we will be done having kids and I can look forward to long term Prozac usage.

I am sure that Justin would like me back on the Prozac too, right honey?

In the interest of sharing.

I thought I would share with you that my drag queen name would be Jackie Hale.

I envision some sort of Navy theme, with a cute sailor hat.

(Take the name of your first pet for your first name and the first street you lived on as the last name. Yeah I know the formula is the same or similar for other "names)

It is done.

My transition to complete dork has been completed. Following is the incident that signaled the change.

We were watching Star Wars last night. Well they cut to a shot of the Death Star. Andrew pointed to it and said "Moon". I calmly and instantly responded, "That's no moon, it's a spacestation."

Update

We have so much time, and so little to do! Strike that, reverse it


This is gonna be quick, more to follow over the weekend or next week depending on how I feel. Vacation was good. We had a lot of fun. It was so great to spend time with Lisa and Bobby. Lisa has some pictures over on her blog if you haven't already seen them. Justin didn't clear off the card for our camera, so I have to get pictures from other people before I can really update with pictures.

We got back on Friday (the 22nd) at 2:30 am, I got up at 6 to go to work. I only lasted a few hours at work, went to my mom's to pick up Justin, Bailey and Andrew. Drove Bailey home and took a very short nap (15 min) at my inlaws. Drove us home, we had dinner, went to Jewel because I had coupons that had to be used that day for free milk and we were out, then came home and crashed. Sunday was spent mostly relaxing because I was beat.

Spent most of this week trying to get caught up on work. End of the month is here and I am a week behind. I seem to have a sinus infection or head cold. Feeling lousy, can't take a sick day from work until Tuesday at the earliest. Lets hear it for double doses of Advil Cold & Sinus.

I have only been doing the can't miss deals as far as shopping goes, and I have still managed to accumulate 40 bottles of BBQ sauce this week. Not to mention the moneymaking Boost and Glucerna cereal deals. Anyone know someone who likes or uses Boost? I am going to have my mom try the Glucerna cereal, if she doesn't like it I will donate it somewhere. If this wasn't such a monster moneymaker, I wouldn't have bothered. I generally don't buy things I won't use, well except the Just for Men haircolor and the Nice and Easy Blonde Root Kits. But those netted me a profit too.

Best shopping trip of the week was at Jewel:
12 Suddenly Salad
12 Kraft BBQ Sauce
8 Chex Mix
1# Nectarines
1# Bananas

Total spent $0.58

I think that is all for now, not sure because the sinus pain, pressure and congestion messes with my ability to think.

Florida here we come..........again.

We leave Friday morning for vacation if FL. We always go there because my dad and stepmom are there and want to see Andrew. This year there's a twist. My mom is coming too. Oh and we are taking Justin's 10 yr old sister. No problems with either of them coming along, but it will be weird to spend the day at Disney with my dad, mom and stepmom.

Thanks to my mom's timeshare, we will be staying at the Liki Tiki resort. Peep here to see a slideshow of how awesome this place will be. It is really close to Disney which will come in handy Saturday and Sunday. Saturday we will all be going to Disney. Sunday it will be me, Justin, Bailey, Lisa and Bobby. It is going to be so much fun going to the park with Lisa. We have been friends since the 8th grade and she is more a sister than a friend. The whole reason for picking this weekend to go to the park is for Star Wars Weekends. Justin made a comment last year about how he would love to attend, so I planned our vacation around it. Sunday he will have plenty of time to devote to it, since Andrew will be staying at the resort with my mom. I wish we were going next weekend though, I would love to meet Warwick Davis.

Andrew seems to be excited about the impending trip. He keeps asking for "BumpaNanaMickey" which is how he refers to my dad and stepmom. On Monday he took my hand and led me to the door because he wanted to go see them. He has recently connected with Mickey, so I think this time the park may have a big effect on him. My only worry is that it will be really hard to leave. It has always been hard for my dad to leave him, but this time Andrew may have a hard time leaving Bumpa.

We are taking my sister-in-law Bailey with us. I think it will be really cool to see the park through her eyes. She has never flown before and worries about flying because of 9/11. I hope that we can calm her fears and that she can enjoy the flight.

I raised spending money by selling off some of my stockpile. I made around $500. I called my mom and asked "Who's the crazy one now?" She always tells me I am crazy when I come home with 12 razors and 40 bars of soap. Don't worry, I still have 50 tubes or so of toothpaste. I didn't sell it all.

An example of the crazy taking over, I have decided I can't travel without my coupons. So I have been clipping everything from the last 2 months and will be getting a case for them. Hopefully I can find something suitable. We have a kitchen in our condo and I cannot pay full price anymore. So if I have to go grocery shopping, I need my coups.

I was going to post a link to or clip of Lazy Sunday (SNL skit) but I can't find a decent one. So I will leave you with this.
Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious