Here Kitty Kitty Kitty grrrrrrr

So you all know I got a new kitten awhile ago. This kitten is a sweetie but he has a little too much energy. He also LOVES any container with water: his water bowl, the toilet, vases, the watering can. He will knock over any vase with flowers wherever it might be. He will also jump on the top of the couch and root through the curtains and the window shade to try to get the watering can that is on the windows ledge. Seriously containers of water are like crack to my kitten and its getting kinda old to me.
Last night I was laying on the couch playing on my computer and the kitten jumped up and was messing with the curtains. I had it and reached up to swat him down. Well apparently I should have paid more attention cause the cat landed on my face. I know a close up of my face is totally what you want to see in the morning so here we go (bonus grumpy face to get the point across):


Here is a close up on the damage on my schnozz:

Update: hawaii and election

So, wow, I just printed my boarding passes. I'm kind of in a state of shock that we're actually going to Hawaii. I made a list of stuff to pack and stuff that needs to get done before we leave. I have all my laundry done and changed the sheets on all the beds for the house sitter (well except for the master bedroom will do that tomorrow morning before we leave). I'm tying up the loose ends at work so my mind won't wander to the things that need to be done as I'm sitting on the beach.
I will be bringing my computer and probably blogging the trip so you can pretend its you sitting in paradise.

I feel incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to do this, its frightening though in this economic climate to spend so much money.

I'm politically burnt out. After watching all the ads and reading up I'm realizing that I don't agree with either canidate or either party. In the past I've strongly aligned myself to one party so this kind of comes as a shock to me. I think we need a drastic change and not one that can be brought about by Republican or Democrat. I think we need to get back to our roots as a country and start pairing back the government to what it was set out to be. I encourage all of you to do your research as to how our government started out. I will be voting but it won't be for one of the two major parties. Maybe my vote won't get someone elected but at least I can vote with clear conscience that I stand behind my vote and don't feel like I'm choosing the lesser of two evils.

5 DAYS!

Till I go to Hawaii!
WOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Getting it done

I have unrealistic expectations of myself. There, I said it. I expect to be able to work full time, keep my house amazingly clean, make a home-cooked nutritious dinner every night, eat right, exercise, maintain a healthy marriage, keep in touch with my friends, read, spend time praying, studying my bible and find time for my many projects.

Shocker: I can't.

I'm coming to terms with this and realizing that I need to find ways to be able to do what I can. This week I started making "easy meals" for dinner. Instead of thinking I can come home and make a meatloaf, mashed potatoes and asparagus; I come home just saying hey I can make scrambled eggs. Just by giving myself that break I'm usually able to go a bit higher than I expected. I'll add some sauteed spinach and onions in the scrambled eggs and grate some cheese and put it in a pita.

I've noticed this in my weight loss, if I look at the big picture and the whole amount I want to lose I get frustrated and lose my way. If I take it a day at a time and try to make good choices within that day it works better and I feel better about myself in the meantime.

In my house, my goal is to make my bed every morning and put away more than I take out. Everything doesn't need to be spotless all the time I just need to try to do what I can. If I keep on track with it the house can look pretty decent.

So I'm trying to take life a bite at a time. I want to start working at whats at hand, trying to throw away the ridiculous expectations that I place on myself and on others.

Picture Taking

So, you probably know that I'm into taking pictures. I carry my big old SLR in my purse ALL THE TIME and I'm constantly snapping away. Sometimes when I look through my pictures it just makes me smile with the things that I captured. Recently we babysat our niece, Princess Hanastasia. We took her to a monastery (cause thats where people generally take 3 year olds right?!) and went on a walk with her. She tends to steal our hearts a little more every time we hang out with her and this trip definitely followed suit. Here are some of my favorite pics of the day.

Life Got In The Way

So this summer it feels like I lost it and went into survival mode for a couple of months. I lost a good bit of frugalness and by just surviving we saved a good deal less than we could have. I didn't cook nearly as much as I should have, we skated by not going grocery shopping more weeks than I can count, we ordered pizza or went out to eat more than normal. Honestly I don't feel too bad about it, we were busy enjoying life and having so much fun we didn't have time for the normal stuff. Now that the summer is over and things are slowing down and the house is getting back in order I feel like I can tackle this and get back on track with our savings and also prepare more healthy meals for me and the hubs.
This past week we did eat healthy meals that I prepared myself and I'm going shopping today to make sure that we do the same next week. I'm keeping a tighter reign on us as far as spending goes and making sure we're not going too crazy. Any ideas for quick, easy, healthy meals for this week? I love a challenge so leave me a recipe :)

btw as far as weight loss goes I lost another 2 lbs this past week! Yeah!!

Wordless Wednesday-Weekend of Cakes

Above cake was made for my friend Mary's wedding this weekend by my best friend T who is AMAZING!


This cake was made by Dirkey for a friends retirement party. Its a yellow cake with buttercream and a raspberry filling; it was decorated with buttercream, fresh raspberries and fresh flowers.

Interesting Article on BPA's

Click here to read. Article links plastic bottles to Diabetes and Heart Disease, two things that run in my family already! There are also some other scary things linked to it in the article.
This is why I always use my Klean Kanteen from Non Toxic Tots.
I recently renewed my dedication to not use plastic bottles its amazing that I don't generally get drinks while I'm out but I still accumulate a good amount of plastic bottles. I just have to remember to ALWAYS bring my Klean Kanteen!

Vacinations

New Jersey recently passed legislation to make vaccines mandatory for those attending schools or day care. One of the mandatory vaccinations is for the flu. Personally I have never had a flu vaccine and probably will never. There is a good amount of debate flying around on vaccines and the links to autism and also just some of the questionable ingredients found in some. The legislation and debate troubles me, I feel like I'm forced to do something that I'm not sure is right. Without having researched to heavily on the subject I feel I would probably space out the vaccines with my own children and I would probably delay them until my children are a little older and there systems more able to handle outside stimuli. I know that a vaccine is basically introducing a small amount of the disease so that your body makes antibodies to fight off future attacks. It just doesn't seem right to do this to infants, but thats just my opinion.

So anyway there is an exemption that has made its way to New Jersey Legislation and I want to put the link up that if you feel so inclined you would sign the petition in favor of Conscientious Objection.
Link to Petition
No, you don't have to live in New Jersey to sign.

Six Days Later!

Wow, I've really been slacking in the blogging department. Oops!

This weekend was insane! I took a half day on Thursday then had off Friday until Today. During that time I was helping a friend with her wedding (Friday Night), making a cake for a friends retirement (Sat Afternoon), driving down to a friends shore house (Sat Evening) and sleeping over, chilling at the beach with a good group of friends, driving home, and completely overhauling my house.

Yesterday I realized that the hubs forgot I had off of work when he called me a couple times to make sure I was awake at 7am. I decided I wanted to surprise him with a clean house and dinner on the table when he got home from work. This may seem like an easy task for someone who has the Whole Entire Day to get ready for it, but our house was hurting. The hubs and I both got new computers last week (yes that was the surprise!) and we spent the whole week playing with them while the house crashed down around us. It was bad! It was REALLY REALLY Bad! I went to town and cleaned the whole upstairs (I'm talking polished the furniture and everything). Took clothes to Goodwill and while I was out got an oil change with a free car wash. Started doing 6 loads of laundry. Changed sheets, vacuumed, did dishes, organized closets, scrubbed both bathrooms, moved about 200 cd's back to where we keep them (to be organized by the hubs), replanted the herbs that died while I was away in July, cleaned the cat litter, paid bills, organized our paperwork. By the time the hubs got home dinner wasn't on the table and I was grumpy! So much for a surprise right!! Welcome home the house is almost clean and I'm tired and grumpy!! Ahh I had the best of intentions. The hubs was a trooper and made dinner and helped clean last evening. Oh yeah I even washed our shower curtains, apparently you are not supposed to dry them though cause now we have a mini skirt curtain! :)

Today though it was like waking up to a clean slate. Everything was where it should be, I put away the last load of laundry before I made my way to work. I put a little extra effort into the way I'm presenting myself. It felt so good to ride to work in a clean car and I'm excited to come home to a clean house as well. I'm going to work at getting the house and the yard in better order and taking the smaller steps to keeping it like that. Weight loss has been going good I'm over the 20lb down mark now I'm working on my 40lb which I hope to have by Thanksgiving. Have any of my fluffy readers tried Dietbug? Oh My Gosh, I love it!! It has really helped me figure out the best way to eat. You have to keep your calories, fat, carbohydrates and proteins within a healthy range. It has really helped me to understand the whole balance to how you should eat, I feel like I kind of get it now. Well thats about it I have a few other things to update during the week as well.

Oh be careful little fingers how you type websites in

So I'm well versed in accidentally (and innocently I might add) finding websites that I really didn't intend to. When I was back working at the mortgage company I wanted to look up a local sporting goods store to see if they carried something. I just typed the name of the store + .com; what popped up was NOT the sporting goods store. Well the name of the sporting goods store was D*cks so maybe I should have seen that coming but I didn't and I was in the middle of this giant room with a screen full of something other than sporting goods. Can you say MORTIFIED?
My SIL Reneebob had the same problem yesterday. You see, I got her hooked on a certain celeb gossip queen. Yes I know, I'm ashamed to admit it but I do read some of them. Poor Reneebob was just looking for some good humor but accidentally typed net instead of com and she got something entirely different. Oh jeez.
So the moral of this story its probably just easier to google then click through.

Another Hint-What the hubs sold

So here is a little video I made on my new toy.  The hubs sold this to get me my new little friend.

Yes Melody we do have a flip video which was used here but it was a gift for the hubs birthday that I stole not what he bought me with his proceeds.

So this is my first foray into the wild world of videoing so be nice :)
Oh No! Now the internet knows how I sound!!!!

A Hint

This makes me laugh :)

I just realized today that how most people act in a photobooth is how the hubs and I act all the time; silly, goofy and completely schmoopy!

The last pic cracks me up, I look awfully proud of myself and the hubs just looks stunned :) LOL!

Its a hint cause I used my new toy to do this little collage.

New Toys

So the hubs sold a big toy of his and he used the money to buy us both fun toys.  Just a little hint my toy will be used for this blog and my photography and it came with its own freaking awesome little extra.  Update probably tomorrow with what it was with some video footage.  Just so you know my hubs is the best, he really does spoil me!

Night All-

Dirkey

Simple Living

I was very inspired a couple months ago reading Like Merchant Ships to simplify my wardrobe. Currently the hubs and I share one large dresser and the closet. We have it divided evenly, however, my side is constantly overflowing and threatening the rest of the bedroom. I went through last week and took out things in two piles; one was very gently used to be taken to a consignment shop and the other were things that have gotten a lot of love (mostly stained) to be taken to either a thrift store or homeless shelter. I went through everything and was very strict with myself. If it stayed in my closet I had to start including it in my rotation (which as of the whole summer has been 1 pair of green capri's, 1 pair of grey shorts and 1 pair of jean shorts). When I got through I had two very large lawn and leaf bags full of clothes that needed to leave our house. I did go out and buy a few nice shirts as I really didn't have much other than t-shirts in my closet.

The closet is now separated by color, style (tank, short sleeve and long sleeve). I have several sizes of clothes in the closet organized by size so when I undergrow the clothes I have now I can get rid of them (hopefully consignment shop) and just start on the ones waiting in the closet. When I get down to my ideal size my closet should look pretty minimalistic but even now its definitely 100 times better than it was. It does bring me peace to try and pick out clothes and I feel less slovenly since there is nothing I can pick out with a stain on it. It also will save us money because I can see exactly what I have and if I need anything instead of just trying to remember and hopefully I will spend less money!

Just with that completed I am inspired to try to do the same with the rest of the house to go through with a discerning eye and keep only what we will truly use. The hubs and I try very hard to be cautious with our spending habits to not buy too much clutter, but even so it does find a way to fill up our rooms.

After much prodding-Soggy Mama has been launched

My good friend Melody has been gently persuaded by me for the past 2 months to start a blog, and if you know anything about me and how I gently persuade people it usually is similar to a 2 year old trying to convince you to do something. I start out all nice like "mama drink?" then in about 5 seconds it moves straight to "MAMA DRINK MAMA DRINK MAMA DRIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNKK!!!". In this case it was "Melody you should start a blog" all nonchalant like, then quickly moved to "MELODY BLOG, MELODY BLOG, MEEEEEEELLOOOODYYYY BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOG!!!!!!!"
So like any tired mama she just gave in and started one for little old me. Now I can waste away hours reading about her fabulous toilet swishing life and just dreaming of when we move out to our big duplex in Lancaster to be neighbors.
Without further ado I bring you Confessions of a Soggy Mama

General Rambling

So I'm still here, there are a few things running around in my brain.
One of them is this store the clothes look so neat and she will make them according to your measurements. Serious clothes ogling going on by me.
The second thing running around in my brain is all the interest in Sarah Palin's daughter, seriously she's not running for VP. It is so annoying that any time in this election is taken to disect this poor 17 year old girl. I have heard so much about this that honestly I have no idea what her stance is on most issues. Well, I do know she's a babywearing mama so thats a positive anyway.
The third thing is the commercials for high fructose corn syrup. Seriously?!?! With a nation that struggles so much with obesity and its related problems why would anyone actually push the use of high fructose corn syrup.
All three of these things really deserve their own post so well thats something you can look forward too! In other news I had another birth I attended on Saturday as a doula, it was just beautiful! I'm such a sap I wonder if I will cry every time I act as a Doula because thats the trend so far.

So Proud!

So the hubs got a job he went up for a couple of weeks ago. There were a few of his co-workers that also applied and he was worried that he wouldn't get it. I'm so proud of him and his super smart brain.