Love me just a little

You Are Occasionally a Narcissist

While you have healthy self esteem, you're really not that full of yourself. Compared to most people, you're quite humble! Though occasionally, you can't help and reflect on how great you are. There's nothing wrong with being proud of yourself - as long as you don't let it go to your head!

Are You a Narcissist?

The times I think a little too highly of myself are when I think back to my High School days. I was part of an award winning choir & I remember them as my 'glory days.' It's easy to get full of yourself when hundreds of people are clapping a & they give you a trophy!

Thank you, thank you & a million thanks to you!

Oh you guys are great, thanks so much for praying. It took me 4 hours to do all my running around but I was able to get our account into positive territory again & our financial butt is saved. I love the Ellensburg WAMU branch - they actually called & offered to waive the fees if I could bring it positive yesterday. We would have had over 200 in fees so now we actually have enough for gas the rest of the week - yay!

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In the middle of all the money hoopla yesterday I got a call that put another urgent item on my list. I am part of a community group in Sprague & recently inherited the responsibility of the blog. It's been on the back burner, I actually have not touched it until yesterday's call. I found out that the blog is more important than I thought. Turns out that our group needed me to post on a couple of new things in the community for a grant. A grant that must be completed today! Oh fiddlesticks!!

I had no idea the blog was that important, I wish the lady that passed it on to me had let me know that the grant writers used it - I would have done this weeks ago!

Oh well, it's done now & if you want to check out the Sprague Horizons Community Blog you can see what took me a ridiculous amount of time to do.

I had never messed with slide shows & was not sure what site to use. I knew the other lady used Flickr for pictures so I worked for a long time uploading & editing there...only to find I couldn't make a slide show using the free service. Then I checked my notes & found she used Slide to do the shows. Girrr! At that point, it was time for Chris to get up for work (that would be 2:30 in the morning folks) he gave me a good scolding & sent me to bed.

I had to finish this morning so first thing I made myself about a gallon of coffee & got going. I'm so glad to have the weight of it off my shoulders, from now on I'm posting there more often!

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We are leaving on vacation tomorrow, hopefully right after Sam gets out of summer school. That's the goal anyway, with all my detours yesterday we'll see if I can get ready in time. I've been really looking forward to this vacation, it's a family reunion & I haven't been to one on that side of the family since I was in High School. I'm going to find a lot of changes!

Here is a picture of the founding members of this reunion...

(L to R) Uncle Bruce, Aunt Ruth, Grampa M, Grama M, & Aunt Jane.

They have all gone to be with the Lord & are all greatly missed, this picture is of the last reunion they were together (and the last one I attended) in the late 80's. We have had them every 3 years for as long as I can remember.

So I'm very excited to get out of town & have fun with a whole lotta 1st, 2nd, 3rd and who knows how many other cousins. It's going to be loud & crazy & above all fun, fun, fun!

We are going to Wallowa Lake Resort in NE Oregon & I hope to have a lot of pics for you next week.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone & thanks again!!

Prayers pretty please

Ok, I have a million things to do today, we are going to a family reunion on Thursday & I have a lot to get done before the trip.
So this morning I gave my email a quick check before attacking my list & found a message from our bank that we are overdrawn -by almost 400 bucks.
Jumpin Jehoshaphat, dagnabbit, frickin' frackin, and a big oh poop!
I went over my grocery receipts for items I can return & raided the coin jar - that plus the money I can take out of my other bank (vacation fund, emergency fund) will just barely make up the difference.
This took me forever, between finding stuff & just sitting here stunned & now I have even less time to get the new emergency stuff I must do plus me to do list done.
I would appreciate any prayers you could send our way. That we won't get in the hole again before Chris gets paid on Thursday, that we will have enough for our vacation (we ARE going no matter what!!) and that I won't kill Chris for not keeping up with the accounts. Oh, and that I can get my list done & the kids won't be a problem today.
Thanks guys, you are the best...I'm off to put a band aid on a severed limb :)

Adah on wildlife, bike savings & my kitty blogs in his sleep.

I had a funny conversation with Adah this morning while we were lounging around in bed.

"Dragonfly is going to come in & get us. They fly, they’re birds."
"But they don’t have feathers, only birds have feathers."
"Yes they do!"
"No, birds have feathers but not dragonflies. God made them with wings but no feathers."
"Well, we will have to take the feathers from the birds & give them to the dragonflies."

Isn't she sweet? Poor naked birdies!

~~~

It’s a great start to your day when you have to wring out a load of laundry by hand to put into the dryer. Our WM has been on the fritz for awhile & it’s starting to drive me nuts. Sometimes the spin cycle does not work all the way. I open the thing & the clothes are just sitting in the bottom, not all stuck to the walls like they normally are. It’s especially great when there are towels in the load, most especially, bath towels. Then it takes 2 cycles in the dryer to get them dry. Fun!

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I got to thinking about the bike today. (BTW, my pal over at Organized Doodles asked a few particulars about this gem. It's a Suzuki SV1000 2003, 996cc's, top speed of 177) Seems like every time Chris gets home I ask him how his ride was & he says "my butt hurts."

I so want to smack him for that, he's the one who wanted the dang thing in the first place! I go through moments when I'm ok with it but most of the time I resent the dagnabbed thing.

So I thought I'd figure out how much we've spent on the thing so far. (Cos' I needed to fuel this fire, right?) These are all approx figures but I think a lot of them are on the low side.

Down 300

Insurance 30

Jacket 100

Helmet 80

Backpack 50

Rear tire 300 (!)

Front tire (2 weeks later) 150

Total 1010

Hmmm, what was it we spent on his gas pre-bike? 800 if I remember correctly, and the above list does not count gas for the bike so far. I didn't feel like looking all that up so I left it off the list. Yes most of these expenses are a one time deal. (I don't know how long tires last on this baby but I hope it's a looong time!) And we must remember that he will only be able to ride until mid to late October here. I'm NOT letting him ride once the frosts hit. So all winter we will be paying insurance & payments (about 190 total) for something sitting in the garage. Kind of like we're doing for his car right now.

So as of now we are over 200 in the hole for this thing plus gas.

Ha-rumph!

~~~

My sweet lil smudgie was watching me blog & fell asleep - I keep the laptop propped up. In my head it won't get quite as hot that way :)

Isn't he cute? He's grown a lot since we got him, it will be fun to see how much he weighs at his next vet visit.

Then Sam came over asking if he was awake & 'had' to pet him. Woke him up just enough to switch positions.

And he ended up like this.

All in all, not a bad blogging companion. He sure doesn't interrupt like the kids do!!

~~~

Have a wonderful weekend y'all!

Much ado about...

K, planned on posting my recipe today but time got away from me. I'll post 2 next week to make up for it.

Today was a busy day - much more than usual. I should state for the record my goal in life is to NOT be busy. Granted, I have 3 kids & the older they get the busier I'm going to be but I can still dream right?
So morning was normal, kids wake me up & beg for breakfast for 20 minutes while I'm a good example lesson on what not to do by laying in bed until the last minute possible.
(I'm so proud!)
Took Sam to summer school, came home, set the twins up with a movie & jumped in the shower.
Started cleaning up the kitchen (holy cow, I think every dish was in the sink or counter) & picking up the house. I felt like poo-poo yesterday so I laid on the couch as much as possible. I think I only got up to attend children (fix food, & change movies) & use the bathroom. The house was a mess!
Go pick up Sam from summer school.
Get call from BFF asking if I'm going to reading program. Ummm, I should but I don't wanna. Oh phooey, I'll go already. There's only 1 week after this & we've only gone 3 times.
Make lunch, eat lunch, go to library.
Endure chaos that is summer reading program (I might just blog on this another day - it's, to put it nicely, not planned well.)
BFF asks if I want to do dinner together - yupper-do! Her hubby works swing shift & it's Chris's night at my sisters so perfect timing.
Go to extremely overpriced small town grocery store to get more dinner fixins.
BFF arrives with kids, we shoo all but the baby out to play in the sprinkler.
Kids play, we talk. Kids fight, we yell. Kids play, we talk...ok you get the idea.
We eat, the kids run around the house chasing each other & yelling, we shoo them upstairs so we can hear each other talk.
Kids fight.
"Ok movie time kids, everyone on the couch!"
We talk until movie is over & it's 30 minutes past bedtime.
They go, but we wish for a sitter.

Wow, that ended up a lot longer than I thought and all to tell you I didn't have time to post my recipe. Don't you feel informed now? Yeah, I wouldn't either :)

Whew!

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I spent approximately 1 hour, 45 minutes grocery shopping with my kids today. I'm sure that's all I'm required to say but I will elaborate (as I'm apt to do) just so you can get the full effect.

We had a marathon trip today, all in the pursuit of saving a buck.

Of course I negated that savings by forgetting my list (and I need my list) and having to drive the 25 miles home & turn right around & drive 25 miles back to Cheney. I just love running in circles, don't you?

So we are finally back in town & I stopped by the first 2 stores to pick up the sale fliers. These stores are relatively small & don't do mailers (which annoys me to no end) so to find the best deals I have to do it this way.

Then we were off & running in Safeway (much to the delight of the kids, who were very sick of their carseats by this time. "Why do we hafta go back mom? "Mom I wanna get out of my seat." "Mom, she's touching me again.")

I have a new rule for grocery shopping which, depending on one's point of view, makes me look like a drill sergeant (minus the swearing) or an overbearing evil mom. (I know this from the looks I got from other moms, the ones with 1 child under walking age were the funniest ones. They just looked scared they'd have to do this someday too - HA!)

Before I started this new thing, my shopping consisted of my kids all doing things they are not supposed to, different things that is, all at the same time. Sam would be wandering on ahead, eventually turning the corner & on his way down the next isle. Adah would be standing on the side of the cart, the front of the cart, 'helping' me push (aka getting in the way & tripping me), or standing in front of the cart impeding my progress. Eli would be dawdling behind, inspecting things on the shelves (preferably in glass jars) & freaking out when I got too far ahead.

Meanwhile I'd be attempting to yell at all of them at once. "Sam come...Adah knock it...Eli put that...Sam I said..." while simultaneously shopping for the best deals. (Mom's head explodes.)

Sound like fun? Yeah, notsomuch.

So now I make them line up behind me & stay there the whole time. This consists of me repeating my orders approximately 1364 times during each hour spent in the store.

Have I mentioned that my throat hurts? (Chocolate ice cream goes a long way in soothing a sore throat. Just in case you are wondering, that is.)

Ok (I know, I know, on with the story already) so to give you a glimpse of my shopping nightmare fun I'll tell you what you would see if you were a fellow shopper doomed to lucky enough to be in the same store as my lovely family.

A mom, looking very grim with 3 kids straggling behind her. This mom occasionally asks in a very gruff tone, "Adah, why are you walking next to me? "Where are you supposed to be walking?" after which Adah would reply "behind you mom." and fall back with her brothers. At other times you might hear, "Sam let go of my shirt." "Sam let go." "NOW SAM!" or, "Eli, stop pushing Sam." "Eli stop touching the pickles." "Eli do not touch anything other than your own body!"

Now repeat this scenario for the next hour & forty five minutes (spanning 3 stores) and you've got the picture. Kind of reminds me of the back of the shampoo bottle I bought today - lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, rep...

*sigh*

By the third store I was beginning to think about alcohol despite the fact I usually drink only once a year on my birthday. (Mexican restaurant+strawberry margarita+birthday=one happy me!)

Hey, maybe some rich TV producer could come up with a reality show that involves grocery shopping with crazy kids & frazzled moms. I'd clean up with that...unless I was competing with BECAUSE I SAID SO that is.

Now I'm home, the kids are in bed & I'm happily blogging while eating a pile of ice cream soothing my throat.

So...how was your day?

Doodolie-do

I just love Rick over at Organized Doodles. He's such a fun artist & always has me on the hunt for eggy. (And I love eggy in this doodle...too perfect.)

My plan this evening was to watch an episode of Extreme Makeover Home Edition online (which I did) and then take the laptop to my room & watch a movie in bed. Then I thought, "I should check blogs for a minute." and now it's 2 AM.

Whoops.

Yup, going to bed now. I mean, now. Uh, now. Ok after I turn off the dang computer - get off my back already, geez!