I never thought it would come to this.....

Today we ate our cereal with powdered milk. Gag. I swore I would never let that happen, but I am an opportunist and last night when I was supposed to be going to the store to get milk (and valentines for Gwen's class party today...whoops) Bentley fell asleep and I passed by my bed. It beckoned me, and I lost all defenses. And here it is, half an hour till Gwenie's class, no valentines and we are using powdered milk for breakfast. Gag.

Don't worry, we are going to stop at the store on the way to her class.

ABCs of me

I got tagged by Katie to do the ABCs of me. And since it is 7:ooAM and I am awake and Ben is still screaming in my room, I choose this instead of helping him (hey, I tried to help him all night long with no success, so he can wait.)

A: Attached or single: Attached (really I am very attached, to Blaine, Ben and Gwen!)
B: Best Friend: Well if stuffing you full of awesome desserts and night then dragging your rear end to the gym the next morning three times a week doesn't make you a best friend I don't know what does, so I will say Ralphie
C: Cake or Pie: Texas sheet cake and any pie with chocolate (no fruit, yick). I refuse to choose between the two.
D: Day of Choice: Currently Thursdays, Gwen goes to a little class for three glorious hours. It's scary how much I enjoy it.
E: Essential Item: My bed. It is so big, and so comfortable and I bought it online for a great deal. Match that with the awesome one million thread count sheets and I choose my bed over any other bed I have ever slept in. I wish I could be in my bed right now, but it has been taken over by Bentley....grrrr...
F: Favorite Color: whatever color is left after Gwen has asked everyone in the room theirs (she gets a little upset if we have the same, I usually wind up with green, really though I like them all)
G: Gummy Bears or worms: definitely bears, but not a huge fan of either
H: Hometown: West Valley City, Utah
I: Indulgence(s): paying the big bucks to get Gwen in that class, the wii, and I am currently tempted to indulge myself by paying someone to come and clean my house (note: I know, I am a stay at home mom and it is totally my job to clean my house, but seriously I cannot get on top of it right now. We are seriously in a downward spiral of filth....well, that made it sound bad, but it's not that bad )
J: January or July: in Texas defintely January, anywhere else, July
K: Kids: Why yes, I have two adorable children who are the picture of perfection, nary a peep do I hear from either one. (Wait, I have to take out my earplugs, I think Blaine is trying to say something to me).
L: Life is incomplete without: My family and ice cream (I refuse to just give the obvious answer)
M: Marriage Date: Okay folks this is why I was excited to do this my marriage date? FEBRUARY 14, 2003 -- Happy five years (so what if Blaine went to work at 6AM and won't get home till 9PM, it's our anniversary dang it!).
O: Oranges or Apples: Apples of the Pink Lady variety (or gala, fuji, honeycrisp) but I would choose the worst orage over a red delicious apple any day.
P: Phobias or Fears: Wow, I can't think of any off the top of my head........except for flying, tornadoes, nuclear war, regular war, killer bees, snakes (rattlesnakes in particular), door to door salesmen, tsunamis, public speaking, something happening to Blaine or one of the kids, terrorists, heights, earthquakes......I should really speak to someone about this
Q: Quote: "Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day, but give a fish a man and he will eat for weeks!" sorry I just came across that yesterday and thought it was funny. I used to be really into quotes and have them plastered all over my locker, etc. Not so much anymore, I enjoy hearing a good quote but I don't have lots of favorites or anything.
R: Reason to Smile: The guy from the FBI who came to our door yesterday was indeed NOT there to talk to me about the leapfrog books (which was a relief), still it is somewhat disconcerting that the FBI came to my house.....that's another blog post. Another reason to smile is that there is a small possibility of going on a cruise (for the five year anniversary thing) sometime in like November.....
S: Season: There are three seasons in Texas; October-March is the Celestial season full of perfect, and I mean PERFECT weather. It's seriously the most beautiful weather ever. April - June there is a higher risk for tornadoes, so it's the season of terror and June-September this place is like a fiery inferno (quite the opposite of celestial), so I choose the Celestial season. Anywhere else in the world though I would choose summer.
T: Tag:...how about Cheyenne Alvarez (is that your last name?)
U: Unknown Fact About Me: I nearly lost my eyesight in one eye when a ferral cat jumped on my head and scratched my face when I was a kid (yikes).
V. Vegetarian ? Not really but we eat a lot less meat than we used to--mostly replacing it with portabella mushrooms (it's good you should try it!).
W: Worst Habit: As if I am going to post my absolute worst habit, no way. I can tell you some pretty bad habits though---like letting Bentley sleep in our bed, not folding the laundry until it is all wrinkly again, eating too much junk, not getting Gwen to bed early enough. The list could go on for miles....
X: X-Rays or Ultrasounds: ultrasounds? Never really had an x-ray, but if I had a brain tumor I would definitely choose x-ray.
Y: Your favorite foods: ice cream, homegrown tomatoes, olive garden anything, salmon, any treat (particularly any treat recommended by Ralphie or Janssen!)mexican food, oh wow, it is only 7:45AM but mexican food sounds so dang good right now....
Zippers or Zebras: Uh, zebras, I guess.....I am determined to come up with a better z question.

Summertime Blues

So I actually wrote my congressman a while back, like several months ago and today, randomly, he wrote back. It was kind of weird. He does not support the issue I wrote to him about, but it sure was nice of him to write back.

I just thought it was funny, cross that off my life goals

#876 - write my congressman ----- check!

You know this is Earth, right?

presented by TravelPod, the Web's First Travel Blog ( Member of the TripAdvisor Media Network )

My friend Kris put this on her blog and said she made it to level 10. Well, she has a PHD folks so I can't compare myself to her (or else I feel really like an idiot at how far I made it). So try it you must and tell me how far you got and hopefully you won't put me to shame. I am embarrassed to say that the computers response more often than not was "you know this is Earth, right?". Maybe this is the secret reason I want to homeschool, so I can re-learn a thing or two. Couldn't hurt.

My kind of charitable contribution

Um, YES. Only I couldn't find the light version but the un-light version (featuring chocolate mint ice cream instead of vanilla) was only twenty more calories per serving. Each year I am so tempted by the cute little girls selling cookies outside of every store I go in to. I have a soft spot for thin mints. Blaine reminds me that I can buy the same cookies inside wal-mart for $0.99, only they are the "great value" brand. "But what about the CHILDREN!I want to support the children!" I remind him. It never works. Girl scout cookies are a whopping $3.50 a box this year, and the caloric content makes me shudder. The girl scout thin mint ice cream though (full fat version) is only 140 calories a serving (that is less calories than 2 girl scout cookies), plus the girl scouts still get $0.30. I think this means I can deduct the cost of the ice cream from my taxes, but I'm not sure. Go get some, and then invite me over to eat it with (for) you.

Five a day

A night out on the town! That's what we deserved today since Blaine had been gone since 6:30 AM and it was fast approaching 6:30PM and we didn't expect to see him until past 9:00. I racked my brain trying to think of what fine dining option would tickle my fancy. I decided that since I was going to have to deal with Gwen the whole time I might as well give her the choice of what she wanted, so I asked "Gwen, what sounds good for dinner?" expecting a half hearted "nuggets" or the typical "PBJ" response. Imagine my surprise when instead I got an enthusiastic "Broccoli! I LOVE Broccoli! Lets have Broccoli for dinner!!"

To me this says one of two things
a) I have raised my kid right and she has an appropriate love for vegetables
or
b) Her little body is so deprived of nutrients that her toddler brain is on it's last legs and in an act of pure desperation she actually requested broccoli.

I choose the first option though I fear it may be the second.

With such an honorable request though I did spring the extra thirty-five cents and got her a fruit cup instead of fries at chick-fil-a. We'll save the broccoli for tomorrow......

These are a few....

So, I am no Oprah, BUT I can offer you a list of some of my favorite things, or recent discoveries. So for lack of anything else to post I will do just that.



* Perfect Pasta - maybe I am an idiot, but I recently learned how to make perfect pasta. Boil your water, add your pasta, when it gets back to boiling put a lid on the pan, turn off the burner and wait 13 minutes. Perfect I tell ya, perfect. (thanks to my mother-in-law)



* Cilantro - So you know how you buy a honkin thing of cilantro only to have it go bad after you have used only a tiny bit? Well, and again this may have been obvious to the rest of you but I just discovered, you can freeze it! You chop it up tiny, or you can leave it as is, put it in a ziplock and voila, your cilantro will last as long as you need it to. Awesome. (thanks to my mother-in-law)



* Kirkland brand boneless skinless chicken breast. You get them at Costco. It costs more. There is hardly any fat, very tender, totally worth it. Ralphie, Meleah or Jamie will let you go to Costco with them if you don't have a membership, they're just awesome like that. (Thanks to Ralphie)



* http://www.retailmenot.com/ coupon codes galore for every online store you could imagine, and along the same vein http://www.ebates.com/ (thanks to me)

* Oxyclean - the spray! So Ben averages about three or four blowouts a day. Seriously. And I have been able to salvage almost all of his outfits with this magic stuff. It's amazing, and it is like $2, go get some.

* These little morsels from heaven : ate a whole pan, all by myself, in one day. Sooooo good. (Thanks Janssen)

* My new savings account. I don't know why it did not occur to me to shop around for interest rates on savings accounts. Blaine and I had the same account for four years making like .00000000000000001% interest, after a helpful post from Bart and a visit to bankrate.com, I got hooked up with nearly 6% interest and have been loving life ever since (did I mention the account was from the same bank I was currently using....?). Please, shop around for good rates, you may not even have to leave the comfort of your own bank.

* Did you know you can get free shipping supplies from the post office website? It's true; wish I would have known that before I shipped a thousand leapfrog books and paid for all of the envelopes.

* Did you know you can sign up for free samples from walmart.com? They mail them to you it's great.

* Texas weather. My sister called yesterday saying they got 13 inches of fresh snow and church was cancelled yesterday. It was nearly 80 dgs here. I have to say September-now has been the most beautiful winter of my life--at least temperature wise :).

Okay, well that is it for now. Favorite things must be in the air. It is what we are doing for enrichment this week and what Laurie posted about. Please, share at least one of your new favorite things in a comment!