Happy Anniversary Andy!

This is not a picture of Andy, this is his favorite hockey player, Mario Lemieux. Andy doesn't want his pic on the internet, so Mario said he'd stand in. I must say, that Andy is better looking.

I thought I'd commemorate this 7th anniversary with the story of how we met and fell in love. Not because it is wild and crazy, nor necessarily intriguing... but because it is our story and Fischer may want to hear it someday... and I have the memory of a pea.

Andy and I actually went to the same high school. He was a year ahead of me, but I had seen him around. He had a peculiar sense of "style", that made him get noticed. He almost always wore fingerless wool gloves, two pairs of socks (2 different colors), 2 pairs of shorts (I found that out later) and at least two shirts. He never ever wore pants, no matter the weather or the occasion. I found out later, he didn't even own a pair of pants! His outfit was interesting, he worked the school store, he was always surrounded by friends, and he put his own picture in the yearbook about a hundred times one year. So, needless to say, I had noticed him way back then.

He says that I must have been a nerd, and that is why he hadn't noticed me back then. Whatever. Just because I went to an early morning bible study at the Belgium Waffle, ate lunch with the same crew everyday, and skipped classes to hang out in the theater rooms... doesn't make me a nerd! Sheila and I spent many weekend night painting things at my house, discussing this very fact. If only people (boys) had known how incredibly amazing we were!... Anyhoo... that is a whole other story...

Fast forward to my second year of college. I was taking an Intro to Special Education class (that all education majors have to take). The first day, I walked in late (as usual) and plopped down in the chair closest to the door. The chairs were set up in a circle and guess who was sitting across from me? That weirdly-cute guy that used to wear fingerless gloves every day in high school! He was still wearing his trademark Girbaud shorts. I noticed him, again.

He still didn't notice me, he was busy noticing the tan soccer chic to his right. This went on for a few weeks (same seats every week), then our class moved rooms. In the new room, we were set up at tables in rows. I sat directly in front of him every day. My roommate had to help me curl the back of my hair so that my head would look enticing. I don't know why I was trying to entice him when I actually had my eye on 7 different guys at the time (The 7 wonders of the world) - No, I was NOT a nerd!

Anyway, one day as I came in late, sporting Umbros, a t-shirt and ponytail, the only seat available was next to him! I sat there, strangely nervous and quiet. An outgoing friend on the other side of me made conversation with Andy, and the tan soccer chic, continued to pull his gaze to the right. I was ... invisible. He was sending my hormones out of control! We stayed in these seats for a week or two and then... drum roll please... I spoke! "Goodbye rest of the world, that super hot blond girl is soooo funny!!!" is what he was probably thinking. Sometimes it is really rough being immediately charming the moment your lips utter a sound, but hey... we all have our problems! After a couple of days of talking and walking out of class together, he invited me to a BBQ at his house. I said I'd try to make it, but I was super busy. So, two of my friends and I sat around all night waiting for the perfect timing to show up. Then we decided it would be really impressive if we rollerbladed over there. Andy roller-bladed everywhere, so this would surely be a good thing to do. Except that we didn't know how to rollerblade, we all owned a pair, but had no idea of how to get from point A to point B without a constant parking strip of grass to slow us down or break our falls. It took FOREVER to get there. We stumbled, scooted, crawled, careened out of control, and dragged our breaks the 10 blocks downhill to Andy's house. By now it was around 11:30 and.. the BBQ was over. Well, what can I say, sorry to be late, but I have a very busy social life.

My tactic totally worked! My friends were bleeding when we arrived, which made them look clumsy and me look like a rock star! We played basketball on rollerblades and then he rollerbladed home with us (uphill was much easier). He was so skilled on his blades and with the basketball it made him even hotter!

The next day I was packing for a backpacking trip with my real crush "Drew", when Andy showed up at my house for some reason with his roommate... a girl! Um, bad move. Who was she? Why was she at my house? Whatever, they chatted for a bit and after they left I didn't think of him too much for the rest of the weekend.

I can't remember how things progressed after that. It was May and school was almost out and by the time we moved out of our apartment, Andy was my boyfriend. He must of relentlessly pursued me until I finally gave in. I remember a lot of loooong walks with hours and hours of talking. Again, me charming the pants off him, I just couldn't help it. He talked about odd topics, and his point-of-view was so different from mine. his opinions were opposite, and yet he made sense! I actually remember thinking... well, I'm going to just have to get used to this (as if I knew he was the one).

I went to work at a summer camp a few hours away and he wrote me letters upon letters, and poems upon poems. He was so romantic and smart, and cute and doting! I was 19, he was 21.

We dated three years before he proposed. We'd known we were going to marry each other for years, but wanted to wait till we were done with school. He proposed at a natural spring in the mountains, the place he said we were when he first realized he loved me. We sat by the water and I talked endlessly about wanting to put this in my backyard and hang a hammock over it. I was going into the details of how I would get in and out of it... when he stopped me. He hadn't spoken much the whole time we sat there, I hadn't even noticed. There I was just being so charming again! Anyway, he said that our lives were just so perfect and he listed all of the ways. There was just one thing missing, and he pulled out the ring. I didn't now what he was doing, I was totally caught off guard, I sat there staring at the ring thinking, why does he have that? Then I stumbled back into reality and stuttered a OMG, yes!

He finished up his Masters, and I finished my dual major, and we moved 2 hours South (closer to our families). We were married on June 30, 2001. And everything has been completely perfect ever since!!! ;)

Andy is the kind of man that I hope my son grows up to be. I am very lucky.

Purging Pigeon

Another bird rescue. Last night we got a call from my parents' neighbor that they could see a bird in my parents' bedroom window. My parents are out of town, so we rushed to the rescue.

Sure enough, standing on one foot on the king-sized bed was a pigeon! Upon seeing us, it immediately started flinging itself at the window (it does have 2 feet, but obviously one may have been injured). Andy opened the sliding glass door to the balcony and it flew out... but not before I took a quick pic!

I think it came through the chimney, there was a feather behind the fireplace screen. Sure this was a one person job, but who doesn't love a bit of drama. It took Andy, me, the neighbor and Fischer to really purge the pigeon from the bedroom. Miraculously I couldn't find any bird poop ... anywhere!

Doesn't it's face look a bit mischevious or at least possibly tickled by the spectacle it has created?

Save the world by investing in girls

The Girl Effect is about girls. And boys. And moms and dads and villages and towns and countries.

If you want to help end poverty and help the developing world, the best thing
you can do is invest time, energy, and funding into adolescent girls. It's
called The Girl Effect because girls are uniquely capable of investing in their
communities and making the world better.

Find out more.

To invest in adolescent girls is to save the future of our world. 70% of the worlds out-of-school children are girls. If we can help to educate a girl, we can change her life and the life of her brothers, her family, her community, her country, the world. How is that for saving the world with a little bit of effort?! This is an incredible opportunity to make a difference in the world.

Start making a difference. Start The Girl Effect.

FOUND

My new guilty pleasure and extreme time waster is Found Magazine. People find notes on the ground or in books or anywhere, and send them in. It is a glimpse into a stranger's life and kind of makes you want to know more. For some reason, I can sift through these notes forever. I think it is just like my obsession with old photos of strangers. All of these things can make for a jumping off point for writing a book or story.... But that takes time and thought and effort.... nah, I'm not into time and thought and effort - I wish I was - but I'm kind of too busy doing nothing. Anyhoo, enjoy these notes and so many more! The captions underneath are sometimes as good as the note itself. it is fun to find out where the note was found and wonder how it got there!

Rescuing Robin

Last week, Fischer and I were out playing in the yard early in the morning, when we noticed a slew of birds in the garden... eating. I am convinced that they ate many of our seeds before they had a chance to sprout, and now they are eating our strawberries that are starting to turn red. I yelled at them, but they didn't budge, the dogs barked at them... didn't phase them. They have come to realize that the chain link fence around the garden protects them from being bothered while feasting at our salad bar. So... (now look away if you don't want to find out what kind of cruel, thoughtless and horrible thing I did next)... I opened the gate and sent Kaia in to chase them away. They were suppose to startle and fly away.

One baby robin was not so quick and instead hurled herself through the chain link fence and across the yard. But, Kaia is quick for a 92 pound slug... she chased the little bird all around until she finally heard me screaming "STOP!!!!!!" Kaia backed away and the bird didn't move. Oh no! I went to look at it and its wing was splayed funny and it was frozen there staring at me. Oh crap! Kaia broke it! So I put Kaia and Sophie in the house and Fisch and I went to get a box and call the vet. The vet is licenced to deal with it. They told me to call the aviary. We grab a box, paused for a moment to decide whether to grab the camera (as any good blogger would) and ran back out. It was gone! Fisch and I searched the yard... nothing. I brought the dogs back out to search... nothing.

One week later (today), Andy spotted the poor baby in the weeds by the basketball court (not far from the last place I saw it). I grabbed the box and some gloves and scooped it up (very easily) and brought it into the house. Called the Aviary, they told me to call a nature center over an hour away. The nature center has a wild bird rehab and asked me to bring it in as soon as possible.
Fisch and I jumped in the car with the scared little robin and 2 hours later (traffic and construction) found ourselves at the giant nature center. The rehab part was so small. I mean, closet sized. It was a tiny narrow room with three workers and oodles and oodles of cages covered partly with towels. (It was surprisingly quiet in there). They opened the box and checked out the babe, to find that she had puncture wounds (bite marks) in her chest muscle, which is why she couldn't fly. The wound was already infected. They gave her antibiotics while I stood there and spend some time cleaning her up. They said she'd rest there and heal, and then they'd set her free. She was almost old enough to be on her own.

Happy ending? Sort of. Although the little bird will probably be just fine I couldn't help but worry about the rehab place itself. It runs solely on private donations. There were hundreds of birds in there being treated. The staff works tirelessly to give them the care that they need. The rehabilitation specialist had gone home the night before at 2am and was expecting to do the same today. This is the ONLY wild bird rehab in the North half of the state and possibly in the entire state. I had found an exotic pet hospital that would have taken the bird, but I would have had to pay for it. $40 for the exam, $60 for the x-ray, let alone the treatments to follow.
After we walked out the door of the rehab, a woman followed by a herd of kids walked in each carrying a very tiny sick duckling. A few minutes later, we passed a man heading that way carrying another robin in a box.
The rehab accepts monetary donations (of course) but also had a long list of donate-able supplies. I'll be getting the word out to put a package together for them. If you live by me, expect an email. If you don't, check into your local shelters and wild rehabilitation centers and see what they need. Seriously the list had paper towels, cotton balls, tweezers, towels, sheets, etc. I'm sure we all have something at home to help. I was just kicking myself for giving our kennel carriers to the thrift store recently. They can always use more cages to give the birds a place to get well.

This is one of those times when, no-you can't fix the problem, but every little bit helps.

More Oooey Gooey Fun (and a colorful clean-up)

Fisch is definitely into anything and everything messy. Sunday afternoon we made a really sticky oatmeal dough. It was good for making mountains for raisin people to hike! I was hoping that he'd eat a bunch of it... no such luck. he'll eat the Karo Syrup art, but not the oatmeal dough - go figure. Fischer played with it for quite a while and enjoyed flinging it at the dogs too!

Our Oatmeal Dough:

2 cups boiling water into 1 cup oatmeal, stir. Mix in 1 cup flour (use more for less stickiness). I added cinnamon for fragrance and flavor and let him dust it with powdered sugar for fun and yumminess (not yummy enough, I guess). I tasted it and thought it was... relatively tasty.

After that mess we had to take a bath before the oatmeal turned to cement on his body! Lately, I've been able to get him excited about bath time if we color the water (just a few drops of food coloring). He loves to choose which color or whether or not to mix colors. (Learning about colors while you bathe? Is there anyplace you can't learn?) Bubble bath is always his first choice, but if we don't have it, we go for the colors!

Oooey Gooey fun here too.

Mommy Needs a Cocktail Party

Last night's Mommy Needs a Cocktail Party was so much fun! Thank you to everyone who came and for all of the fabulous food and drinks!!! It was fun to actually finish a conversation (rather than run off to chase a little one in the middle of it!). I definitely want to do it again... soon!

There is an actual blog and party company called Mommy Needs a Cocktail along with shirts over at Baby Brewing, if you feel like planning one for your mommy friends.

Fischism

After waiting for a few unsuccessful moments on the potty:
"That butt not working!"

Just clicking around: kiddo fun

Summer is here and some of the school-aged kids are already bored, and some of the toddler moms are needing new and exciting ideas. I've been clicking around looking for activities, so thanks to all of the creative people out there and thanks to GoodyBlog for a few links. Here are a few to keep us all busy for awhile.

• First is for the littlest ones. Instructables (a fabulous how-to website) has a great list of How to Amuse Toddlers. A lot of the ideas are things you know but may have forgotten, or old favorites tweaked a bit. The best part is, almost all of the ideas are using things you have around the house!! I really liked the Animal Safari idea.
• Second is a list for all ages over at An Uplink Life. They have a great list of 150+ ideas for family summer fun. Again, a lot of good reminders of things you used to do and forgot about: making clover chains, play marco polo, tie-dye, etc. The last item in the list is my favorite (if I was that cool kind of mom). The list includes links to fun projects and activities, such as the Obsta-Cool Course over at Family Fun, and the Fairy Village over at And Everything Nice.
• And for the Green family raising Green Kids, head on over to The tree Hugging Family for a great list of Great Summer Projects, Crafts, & Nature Activities for Kids. I personally would like to try making candied flowers and a solar cooker! The idea for Wind Clackers looked like it could double as a great idea to keep the birds out of my garden!

Let's get creative and go crazy! I'd love to hear any other ideas if you'd like to share.

Summer is in full swing

Aaaaahhhh, we are settling into summer quite nicely. Andy is on summer vacation and Fisch and I are following suit. Here is a little update on the summer so far.

Fisch had his last day of Little Gym, Daddy and Grandma came to see him show off his tricks. The pics all turned out a little blurry, but this one is of him finishing a forward roll on the beam. I'm pretty sure that Fisch was his teacher's favorite!!! (jk, Jenny).

Fisch went to his first amusement park and LOVED it! He loved the rides the churros, the Dippin' Dots... everything! His favorite was the helicopter ride, but he was so hight up that I couldn't get a good pic of him in there. These will have to do.

Daddy taught Fischer how to drink from the hose. I know it is bad... but I can't make all the rules! Everything is growing nicely in the garden. I love it! It is so fun to go in there everyday and look at the what is happening!! We've go tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, strawberries, peas, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, watermelon, cantaloupe, grapes, green beans, herbs, artichokes, broccoli and spinach all growing and growing! Very cool!

Sophie and Kaia have been shaved for a more aerodynamic summer and to give me a break from dog hair in the house! Unfortunately for Kaia, her new do - has revealed a lot of gray!

And this last one is from a beautiful walk in the park with some of our playgroup buddies. (BFF said that she was unavailable to be photographed at this time- too bad too, because her outfit matched the flowers!).

Fischism:

Fisch is obsessed with whether or not every biker and motorcyclist is wearing a helmet. No matter where we are, they don't get past him without being noticed and reported on:

"Mommy that guy wearing a helmet!"
"Mommy that guy not wearing a helmet. only wearing a hat"
"Mommy that guy not wearing a helmet, so dangerous, crash, get hurt really bad"

Sometimes he dwells on the helmetless person's impending doom, (especially when we are in the car), so I'll say "Let's say a quick prayer for them" and we pray for their safety and that they will wear a helmet next time.

So today we're walking along a park trail when he happens to see a girl riding a bike without her helmet.
"Mommy that girl not wearing a helmet... that not safe"
Then he yells out to the girl, "I'll pray to God for ya!!!"

Book of the Day

Harriet You'll Drive Me Wild by Mem Fox and Marla Frazee is my new favorite book! I found it on my shelf the other day, I didn't know I had it - and definitely had never read it. However... Harriet IS Fischer and that mom is ME! This book is very cute about little Harriet who is a "pesky child" but she "doesn't mean to be". She is just like Fisch, where in the course of her day things get broken, messes get made, and curiosity kills the cat (not really). Anyway, her mom is patient and patient and patient and then blows.... and apologizes and they talk about it and end up loving and laughing. I hate to admit it, but the story is VERY familiar to me and my daily life. It is good to remember that Fisch is a regular kid and I'm a regular mom and sometimes things just happen! But... we apologize, and talk about it and love and laugh and it gets all better.

If you ate the cheesecake I made last night - DO NOT read any further!

So yesterday I am all wrapped in making a Father's Day Cheesecake (the real kind, from scratch), and I'm making the world's biggest mess, I'm flustered and stressing about the whole thing (because lately everything is much more stressful than it should be)... when I notice that my darling boy (who is "helping" me by sitting on the counter making a huge mess of bowls and graham cracker crumbs and lemons and spoons and what-nots) has just PEED all over the counter, right in the midst of all of the mad mixing and masses of ingredients!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! I went a little crazy after that.

Meme: Toddler "Favorites"

Here is a meme for your little one. Ask him/her the following questions and post it! It is that easy! The trick is not to lead them to their answers. Post them whether you think they are right or wrong or whether or not you think their answer makes sense. It is just fun to see what they say, and then do it again in a month or two.

Fisch: 27 months

1. Favorite letter: F
2. Favorite color: brown
3. Favorite shape: choo choo train with whistle on top
4. Favorite thing to eat (what do you want to eat?): cookie
5. Favorite drink: apple juice
6. Favorite food: apple sauce
7. Favorite book: Puff the Magic Dragon
8. Favorite song: Puff the Magic Dragon
9. Favorite friend: Annika
10. Favorite number: 9191
11. Favorite TV show: basketball
12. Favorite toy: basketball
13. Favorite thing to play outside: bike
14. Something I know is a real favorite and he can't live without: 2 blue satiny receiving blankets, Soothie infant binky, plush "sophie dog", and bunny (all of which are his best bedtime friends)
    

OK, your turn. Feel free to add or skip some of the questions as you see fit. Leave me a comment if you do it on your blog. I'd love to read what your little one says. I especially want to tag Jenny, Liz and Angela for this one. Don't have a blog? Leave your meme in the comments (Lauren).

Blogging over at Little People Swap today

I'm over at the Little People Swap today, writing about road trip ideas for the kiddos. Come visit!

Another Fischism

As I'm in the bathrooom blow drying my hair and Fisch is in the other room (kitchen family room area). I turn the dryer off and call out:

Mommy: Fish... What are you doing?
Fischer: I not being naughty, I just looking at stuff!

---So I go out to look and find him playing with some bread pans I'd borrowed from my mom--- ok all is well, back to blow drying----a minute or two goes by, then:

Fischer: Mommy come here! I peed in there!
I run out to a very proud and smiling child holding a bread pan full of pee!!!

Mommy: (trying not to smile) Fischer, that is naughty. We don't pee in there!
Fischer: I not naughty! I sick!
Mommy: You are not sick, you are in time out... let's go!

Save the world by emailing as usual

Here is another free and easy way to make a difference. I just made the switch and am now supporting ninemillion.org with every email I write! It seriously took less than a minute!

The i'm Initiative from Microsoft makes helping social causes easy. Every time you use Windows Live(TM) Hotmail(R) or Windows Live Messenger, Microsoft shares a portion of its advertising revenue with organization you choose from a list of some of the world's most effective social cause organizations. Exactly how much will Microsoft share with its partner causes? Well, that's up to us and the growing masses of registered i'm Initiative users. The more messages we send, the more they give. It's an incredibly easy way to address an issue you feel passionate about including poverty, child protection, disease, and environmental degradation. All you have to do is join and then send IM and e-mail messages as usual. Visit http://im.live.com to join.

Fischism

Today while playing in a fountain at a children's garden:

Fischer: I want to play in the mountain.
Mommy: It is a "fountain" fff fff fffountain, with an "f"
Fischer: fff fff mountain. I want to play in a mountain with an "f" on it!

Tip-toe through the sidebar

UPDATE: All of the following links can still be found in my sidebar, however they are now text links and on the right hand side of the page (a bit re-organized). All wonderful and worth checking out.

Let's take a moment to play around in my sidebar and remind ourselves of a few simple ways to save the world. Once we scroll past the slideshow of my beautiful baby, the categories for my random postings, the blogrolls for my favorite reads and my familial reads we come to the first point of interest:


Visit 29-Day Giving Challenge
This is a fun way to save the world: give. Give of yourself or give a gift to be held. Make a difference in your own life as well as the lives of others.

Give one thing away each day for 29 days. Share your stories about how it
impacts your life to focus on giving. Join the 29-Day Giving Challenge community
today.
Why? Because to see the world change, we have to do something to
change the world. Plus, the best way to attract abundance into your life is to
be in a perpetual state of giving and gratitude. Be an important part of the
global giving movement that inspires more generosity on our planet.



The R word campaign is just a reminder of your responsibility to others when you open your mouth. Your words are powerful. What kind of power do you what them to have?

The “r” Word Some people have mental retardation. While mental retardation is
not a bad word, when used to describe someone or something you think is bad it
becomes another thoughtless hurtful word. People with mental retardation are not
bad, their condition is not bad, the prejudice and discrimination to people with
mental retardation is BAD…and WRONG! Please stop using the word ‘retard’, it
hurts people with disabilities.

Every Day you can click on this button , and sponsors will donate money toward free mammograms. That is all you do. You click, they donate, a life may be saved. It doesn't get easier than that! After clicking you'll notice at the very top of the page are tabs for other "click projects".

You can click to give food to those in need at the the Hunger Site.

You can click to to give free child health care at the Child Health Site.
You can click to give free books at the Literacy Site.
You can click to protect natural habitats at the Rainforest Site.
You can click to give free food and care at the Animal Rescue Site.

All of these are just a click, just a second of your time, no money, barely any effort... and you can make a big difference.

• 

Free rice is another FREE way to help end world hunger. Click on the button and you will be moved to a page where you can take a vocab quiz. For every word you get correct 20 grains of rice are donated to someone in need.

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com.
FreeRice has two goals:
Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free.
Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

This is made possible by the sponsors who advertise on this site.
Whether you are CEO of a large corporation or a street child in a poor country, improving your vocabulary can improve your life. It is a great investment in yourself.
Perhaps even greater is the investment your donated rice makes in hungry human beings, enabling them to function and be productive. Somewhere in the world, a person is eating rice that you helped provide. Thank you.

Team In Training is a fun way to train for and complete an endurance event (marathon, half marathon, triathlon, etc.). All the while you are raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. This is an incredible experience, and although it is much more of a commitment than the organizations above... it is well worth it. You'll make new friends, get in shape, accomplish a major goal and SAVE LIVES - not to be taken lightly. I thoroughly enjoyed my experience and will definitely be doing It again sometime.

Remember when you all freaked out at the suggestion of making your own sanitary napkins? Well, bite your tongue and check out this terrific organization called Goods 4 Girls. This project is to get reusable sanitary napkins to girls in Africa so that they do not have to miss school every time Aunt Flo comes for a visit. What you can do is buy, make or donate money toward these reusable pads. There are lots of ways to do it and all of them would make a huge difference in another woman's life. (can you imagine having to use newspaper, camel skin... or nothing at all?) The cost is low, and the good is great!

Goods 4 Girls was started to seek out donors to sew or purchase new, reusable menstrual pads for donations to areas of Africa where these products are needed most. Providing reusable supplies not only provides a more environmentally friendly alternative for these young women (in areas of adequate water supply for washing), it reduces their dependence on outside aid organizations to continue providing for their monthly needs.

The Eat Well Guide is a free online directory of thousands of family farms,
restaurants, markets and other outlets that offer local, fresh and sustainable
food in the United States and Canada. Visitors simply enter a zip or postal code
to search for food that is free of antibiotics and added hormones, and produced
by healthy and humane methods that include organic, pasture-raised and heritage.

For those of us who are trying not to use all of those plastic bottles and instead have switched to filters.... what to do with the filter? You can't recycle it or reuse it... so what's a greenie to do? Sign the petition to get the Clorox company (who owns Brita) to make some changes. Also you can send your used filters to the address on this site and they will give them back to Brita for us (as a visual aid to the landfill clogging problem of the current filter design).

Use the Z Report. At the Store. With Text Messaging.
Posted by Jeremiah McNichols
Have you read and reread the Z Report on BPA, but have trouble remembering which brands are which when you get to the store?Have you been meaning to replace some bottles or a sippy cup, but have a hard time deciding when you're staring at all those products on the shelf?Now you can keep the Z Report at your fingertips, with information that doesn't go out-of-date, updated with new products at the same time they arrive on store shelves. Thanks to a partnership between ZRecs and Mobile Commons, our comprehensive directory of BPA in children's feeding products is now available via text message.

Well, now I think we are all acquainted with the sidebar, and maybe we can make a few easy changes or larger commitments to do our part in saving the world!

Live it up this weekend!

Don't you think I probably NEED these shoes?

I have these shoes, they are a few years old now, but I LOVE them! They have been my absolute favorite shoes - EVER! This picture is of the shoes relaxing on my feet after hiking around Zion. The shoes hiked it and did great! Years later, they still look this good!

Don't you think that this pair is COMPLETELY different and that I probably need them too?

Book of the Day

A Child's Book of Art by Lucy Micklethwait appears to be out of print, although you can get used copies on Amazon. Fischer and I checked this out at the library and surprisingly, he loves it! It has many famous paintings, but is organized in a "first words" format. It is really interesting and disects many of the pictures so that the little readers really take note of all that is happening in the picture. After reading and talking about art for little ones the other day, I decided to check out a few. This one was definitely worth mentioning. In fact, I think I may just have to find a copy to buy.

Fisch and BFF - First Date

I'm aware of the bad pic of the lady holding the babies, but look at those two! Aren't they so cute? This is the beginning of their friendship. Fisch was 3 days old BFF was 6 weeks old.

Boxing Me

Today was not perfect, but that is the point... it isn't going to be... so "WonderMe" is going to have to keep on swinging her fists even after "CrappyMe" gets a jab in. WonderMe made good food choices until 3:45 (even going to a restaurant for lunch!). WonderMe also weeded the garden, recommitted to the 29 Day Challenge, got Fisch to Little Gym (almost on time), worked, picked up, and did some laundry! I know that WonderMe probably sounds like NormalYou, but that is why I've had to make some changes!

CrappyMe ate the cookie dough that she made with her student. CrappyMe also is just sitting down to dinner at 9pm. CrappyMe didn't clean the bathrooms - again.

So, CrappyMe and WonderMe were about equal today. But after reading the comments from my last post, WonderMe is a little stronger and is planning a stronger attack for tomorrow.

New Month = New Me

I am sooo all or nothing. I have once again failed myself at achieving my goals for my own well being. So, during the month of June, I am going to be a fighter. I am going to have to fight myself to make me follow-through! Last time I made such a great new plan, I did it ok for a bit, but as soon as I slipped up on one of my goals, I just bagged them all. You know the old phrase"don't throw the baby out with the bathwater"? Well, I need to keep that on the forefront. "Just because you spill a drop of milk, doesn't mean you pour out the whole gallon"! So here it is: I will exercise, follow the WW point system, and I WILL NOT PROCRASTINATE my to do list. However, if I fail to uphold my own goals, I will "start over" the very next MINUTE! I will not let everything go to hell just to "restart" tomorrow or Monday. Mark my words people, Lisa is a fighter and she will defeat the crappiness in her and overcome! Yo Adrian!!! Unfortunately for you that means I'll be updating you on my progress...often!) Oh and BTW, I could totally use some support, so if you've got any encouraging words this month, please send them my way.