July 6, 2012: Five Question Friday

Before we get started...

Today is the Oldest Child's 16th birthday. It's really hard for me to wrap my head around that, lol. Where does the time go? She's grown into a truly beautiful young woman. My birthday wish for her is that she follows through with her dreams and doesn't let fear, uncertainty, or jerkwads stop her.

1. Is love at 1st sight possible?

No. Lust at first sight is but not love. Can you trust and respect someone without actually knowing them? Not really. Love, trust, and respect all go hand in hand.


2. How did you choose your pet's name?

We got Bailey's name from a Boxer Dog name website, lol. We're that creative. 

We named Hannah after Muhammad Ali's daughter because he was a boxer. 

Our cat has gone through many names. He started out being Sophie when we were told he was a girl. We named him/her that just because we liked the name. Then when we found out she was a he, we changed it to Shelly which is short for Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory because of the episode where he had all the cats. Then we were watching old episodes of Psych and someone on that show had a cat they named Chairman Meow. The Mister thought that was so freaking hilarious that we decided that'd be the cat's official name. But to his friends and family, he's Dear Kit-ten or Kit-ten for short. That's because people used to call Chairman Mao Dear Chairman. 

Our rabbit's name is Rex because that's his breed. Yeah. Like I said, we're real creative, lol. 


3. What are you considering giving up (cable, home phone)? 

We stopped having a land line back in 2002 or so. We have four cell phone lines. What in the world do we need with a land line??? It'd be superfluous and a waste of money. Not once in all these years have I said, "I miss our land line." I also totally do not get why people with cell phones keep their land lines unless it's for business reasons and not even really then. I think land lines are dinosaurs and unnecessary. As for cable, I've been tempted to get rid of it for about three or four years now. What holds me back is that the majority of shows that I watch are on HBO and Showtime. I can think of three shows that I watch on CBS, ABC, NBC, or FOX. Everything else I watch on a regular basis is on cable channels. Some things I can watch online and that's great. But shows on HBO and Showtime, I'd have to wait for them to come out on DVD. I hate being behind on my shows. It'd be really hard to have to wait for my favorites to come out on DVD. And bottom line, until we get a better Internet provider with faster and more reliable service, getting rid of our cable isn't an option.


4. How much do you pay your babysitter?

I've never paid a babysitter that I can remember. I've always swapped babysitting with friends and neighbors. Now my kids are both old enough to babysit other kids so it's a non-issue. 


5. How "young" is old enough to babysit?

It really depends on the maturity of the person. Sometimes, I think a 12 year old would be old enough to babysit but in general, I would say 13 or 14. I think the Red Cross certifies babysitters as young 11 or 12 though. Probably 12.

Happy Tenth

We celebrated the youngest child’s tenth birthday yesterday. We had cake and presents and we took her out to dinner. She got some pretty good loot from ol’ mom and dad and has a card in the mail from my mom and a little something is on the way from Jennifer. She also got a card from Geoffrey at Toys R Us, a phone call from my mom, the Mister’s mom, and the Mister’s sister. Jennifer also called to make sure she got some birthday love. Why the rundown? Because she is normally forgotten on her birthday. The oldest child’s birthday is in July which is when they are in Ohio with the family. She always gets at least one party, more often it’s two or more though. She gets a couple cakes, TONS of presents, and lots of attention. Because the youngest child’s birthday is in February and all the family is still back in Ohio, they forget to call and they hardly ever send her anything. It’s sad and it’s unfair. Either show them both the same amount of attention or none at all. So this year, she talked to three of her six grandparents (welcome to the world of a multiply divorced family) and one of her four aunts and uncles (I didn’t count spouses.). It’s better than last year.

Anyway…

The Mister and I overindulged on dinner out and birthday cake last night and paid the price. We were up a good part of the night (and this morning for me) with upset tummies. I guess we can’t go from eating 95% healthy stuff to eating junk and not have some side effects from it. We also both had headaches which I think was from the sugar. How sad are we, lmao??

Today marks day one of week four of working out and eating right. At my weigh in yesterday, last day of week three, I had lost 8 pounds. 8 pounds in three weeks!! I’m pretty excited about that. I have one pair of jeans that are too big on me now and the Mister calls them my saggy butt jeans, heheh. My other jeans fit nicely and are finally comfortable. It’s nice to be able to have tangible evidence that the hard work and sacrifices are paying off.

Back to work for me.

Oh Yeah?

Today is the Mister’s birthday. He is now as old as me and dirt finally. He loves rubbing it in that I’m 70 days older, heheh. We went out to dinner and then we went and picked his bike up from our former neighbors’ house. Did I mention that we accidentally packed his motorcycle keys and didn’t find them until last night? Oops.

Today was also the first day of our fall semester. It’s going to be a challenging semester. LOTS of reading and HUGE papers to write.

So, this is short and sweet. I'm very tired and going to bed now. Toodles.

Some Stuff to Share

Today’s my birthday. I’m firmly entrenched in my 30’s now. I really hate that. The Mister and I went shopping yesterday and I got a new purse and wallet to match and a new pair of sunglasses. I told him that I didn’t want anything, and I really meant it, but we were out so why not. We also got Fools Gold, Juno, and the first season of The Shield on DVD. It was a fun time and good enough for my birthday.

Friday night we went to Jacksonville for dinner. We got there early so we did a little shopping that day too, heheh. I got the cutest pair of sandals. Check them out:

I absolutely love them and they are very comfortable and they were on sale too. I also got a new pair of running shoes but the arches hit my feet wrong so I’m giving them to the oldest child. It’s too bad too because I really liked them and I have the hardest time picking out running shoes. Just ask Jennifer. She went with me back when we both lived in California and it was probably the most painful shoe shopping trip she ever suffered through. I still need new running shoes though because my current ones make my toes go numb on the elliptical. Not a good thing.

Oh. And I also got the newest “Stuff” pack for the Sims 2. It’s Ikea furniture and I love it!

When I’m depressed, I shop. I’m not a comfort eater, I’m a comfort shopper. I’m feeling much better these days, LMAO!!

I also have another picture that I want to share because I find it hilarious:

This is Bailey being silly with her rope. She cracks me up when she does this.

And this picture is the oldest child’s guinea pig, Bacon. We’ve been Bacon-sitting for her while she's in Ohio and he’s a cute little guy. He likes to sleep in this dish which used to be his food dish. Now he has another food dish that's too small for him to sleep in.

Lastly, the following picture is the view from our hotel room in Asheville. It was pretty nice, huh?

That's it for today. Sorry for all the previous funkiness.

Ahhh!

The party part of the evening is over. The girls are in the other room sorta playing quietly but not really, lol. They had a really good time and the child seemed to be happy with her loot. She got stuff from us, her sister, her friends, teachers at school, Jennifer S., and 2 out of 4 of her grandparents which is better than most years as far as the her family is concerned. The Mister and I got her an iPod shuffle for her big gift. We found it really odd that she never asked for an iPod nano or a full sized iPod. She likes how the shuffle is small and cute, lol.

Now, I have to tell you about our Dominos experience. I know!! But I swear I'm not making this stuff up. I ordered three pizzas at 6:20 pm via the Internet. We usually get very excellent service from there and I figured that'd give us plenty of time to eat, then presents, then cake. Well, 7:20 rolls around and I have a houseful of complaining, hungry kids on my hands now so I call to see where our pizzas are at. The girl tells me that they're shorthanded and ours will be the next delivery. 30 minutes later, our food finally arrives. It's not a delivery person that I recognize but he immediately apologizes for our wait. He goes on to explain that he's the district manager, most of his crew is out with the flu, and he's going to put us in for another order of what we got tonight for free the next time we call. How's that for good service??? Yes, the pizza was late but you can't predict the flu and they owned up to the less than stellar delivery time. We're going to have to wait to take him up on the free pizza cuz that's way more than the four of us can eat but it's $43 worth of free pizza. I'm stoked.

I wish you all could hear what I'm hearing, lmao. I just heard the longest, most drawn out screech that I've ever heard. Kids are so funny.

Can I Go to Bed Now?

I spent the majority of my day getting ready for the youngest child's birthday party tonight. I did a pretty snazzy job if I do say so myself. I even made goodie bags for the other kids which I think is retarded, no offense to other parents who think it's not. My bags, however, are the best bags that I have seen. They're not just filled with candy and junk but neat little girlie type stuff and they're in Littlest Pet Shop bags that they'll be able to keep and play with. The Mister is supposed to bring home the cake and he texted me to let me know that he can't get off of work early so I guess I'll have to keep the kids entertained until he can get here. This is the type of day where I hate his job but what can you do. Even though I'm tired beyond all belief and my feet are killing me, I'm really looking forward to her party. I think everyone is going to have a lot of fun. It's a sleepover so I'll rest up tomorrow afternoon after they all go home, lol.

In other news...I have no other news. This is all I've been doing today. I have less than an hour before everyone gets here so I'm going to get off of here and try to get some homework done.

I Wasn't Done

My Simpsons post wasn't what I even wanted to post about today, lol. I saw the article first thing after turning on my comp and had to blog about my outrage. Anyway, on to something else.

I'm coming to realize that I rely on non-traditional means of communication too much. How did I come to this realization? Yesterday was my sister's birthday. I wished her a happy birthday by leaving a MySpace comment, lmfao!!! How retarded is that? Especially since she hasn't even logged on to her page since 7/8. The very worst thing is that I don't feel all that bad about it. A pretty, glittery graphic of a half-dressed man is better than an obligatory phone call in my opinion. Think about it. I had to 1.)Perform a search. 2.)Find a website with graphics. 3.)Pick out the perfect graphic to convey my message. 4.)Copy and paste the code to her comment page. A phone call consists of pressing speed dial 5. Big deal. A phone call doesn't glitter and flash, now does it? Nope. And the graphic was to the point without going off on another tangent as would a phone conversation. I would have inevitably ended up talking about myself and what I was up to at some point after we finished talking about what she did for her birthday and what gifts she received.

So in conclusion...Yes, I use non-traditional means of communication, BUT, it's from the heart and I put more effort into it than I would a phone call so it should count for more. That's my opinion and I'm always right.

Stuff

I feel like rambling. I know. What makes this different than any other time that I post? Well, :P to you.

M's birthday went really well. She and her friend had a good time last night and she liked all of her presents. Today at the beach was kinda blah. There have been storms in the area so there was a yellow flag up today and it was definitely warranted. The surf was very rough. We only stayed about 2 1/2 hours.

On another note, C and are taking tentative steps to selling the house in VT. It's a long, boring, and complicated story that promises to have many plot twists but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the process won't be too painful. The ball, for the moment, is in our renter's court so all we can do now is sit and wait to see what she says.

Tomorrow is going to be full of the homework that I put off during the week. I suck.