Boo!

Happy Halloween from our family to yours! Here's our little princess and my bff's little pink flower girl! Can you tell by the way Nora is looking at Ellie that she can't wait to grow up and be a princess too!

A local home that carves tons of pumpkins each year... it looks way cool after dark. There was everything from Abe Lincoln to Sponge Bob. So cool.

The right side of the house...

The left side of the house...

My favorite pumpkin... Go Obama!

guess what came in the mail today!

Pics of the New Kids concert from the awesome girl sitting next to me! I'll post some as soon as I pick my chin up off the floor...



(not sure why a part of a pic of Ellie is attached here...)

****edited to add****
Greg just called and asked what I was doing... told him I was wiping the drool off my chin :)

Following Uppercase Woman's lead... here's what I'm NOT focusing on today...

1) I'm not focusing on the fact that I work 40 hours a week, then pick up a 2 year old and then come home and succumb to her demands: I want milk, I wanna eat, read dis to me momma, color with me momma, toons please momma, etc, etc... all the while having a slight nagging headache and thinking about what to make for dinner, the laundry that needs to be washed and wondering, while walking thru the kitchen, what the heck is sticking to my foot... cause my floors are spotless ya know.

2) I'm not focusing on the fact that it looks like a tornado blew threw Ellie's toys and they are scattered throughout the entire main floor of our house.

3) I'm not focusing on the fact that for dinner I wrapped crescent rolls around a little bit of cheese and lunch meat... nutritious for sure.

4) I'm not focusing on what a bad vegetarian I am... I had one of the above mentioned crescent rolls.

5) I'm not focusing on the fact that I should be filling out 2009 insurance and flex account paperwork... but instead I'm enjoying Gossip Girl and then plan to watch Baby Mama.

6) I'm not focusing on the fact that Thursday is payday and it's always spent before we even get it.

7) I'm not focusing on the fact that Greg and I are contemplating trying Oprah's 21 day cleanse... while I sit here and drink a mellow yellow.

8) I'm not focusing on the fact that I sent my boss an email today asking her if she would consider changing my position to a part-time job and allow me to job share. We want another child and think it is pointless to spend my entire paycheck on daycare ($60 a day for 2 kids) and gas. If I could work 5 days every 2 weeks that would dramatically cut down on daycare and gas costs. I'm SO NERVOUS to hear her response.

9) I'm not focusing on the fact that I've applied for at least a dozen jobs in the past year and have had only a handful of interviews and have been turned down for every. single. one.

10) I'm not focusing on the fact that sometimes I want to get away from it all and travel the world on the NKOTB tour bus!

What are you not focusing on??

the loves of my life...

And you thought I was going to say Ellie and Greg. Pft.

















I mean these hotties...

Went to the NKOTB concert last night and it friggin ROCKED! They are more beautiful 15 years later. Sang awesome. Love the music. Danced my ass off. Screamed my heart out. Didn't sit down once. NOT ONCE! Donnie was hilarious. Joey was HOT! Jon was HOT! They sang and sang and sang and danced... just when I thought it was over they would come back out... They must have sang for 3 hours... I had a BLAST. Pretended Joey was singing to me all night long... cuz he was, so there.

We sat in the 5th row on the right side... this is literally how close we were. (This pic is not from my camera - this is how the show ended)


Natasha Bedingfield opened the show... she sings the theme song for The Hills... Pocket Full of Sunshine ring a bell?? Well she was awesome too.

My camera story. Batteries died after taking one picture of the boys. ONE! Here are the pics I got.

Me on the drive to pick up the crew... rockin the buttons, you like? :) such a serious face...

so I let out a few shrilling screams to let the NKOTB fairies know I was on my way to my boys...

The one picture I got before my camera died.

Then a brilliant idea popped into my head... the girl next to me (who I didn't know, Sarah) had a camera and she was just as excited to be there as I was... so we asked her if she'd email us the pics she took... Sarah had an even better idea... she'd put them all on a cd and mail them to me! My cousin gave her $5 for the cd and the shipping and she promised to do it for us!! How nice, huh! So I emailed her today with my address and it'll be here in a few days!!!! Will for sure post pics when I get them. Sarah put it best when she said, "I think I'm still in shock today." I couldn't agree more! :)

I literally fell into bed at 1:30 a.m. more exhausted than I'd felt in years! Woke up at 6:30... felt hungover. Ish. Took the first hour off from work so I didn't have to be in until 9. I should've taken off the entire morning! I can't believe I'm even still awake now!

I seriously want to be a groupie and follow them around the country, no the world... oh! and I bought one of their ridiculously priced tee-shirts (thanks mom and dad!).

Dear Sarah (click)

A very powerful message from the young girls of America.

a week in the life of me...

Monday was a holidy for me... thank you Christopher Columbus... so I watched Hunter while Tanya had a dr appt. Can you tell these two are bff's... I hope to god they make it thru middle school and still like each other!!!!!!!



Before we left last weekend for Hayward I pulled out my down vest. When Ellie saw it she said, "momma bring her life jacket?" (hahahahahahaha)
Yesterday (puke day)... During one of her puking episodes I ran over to her to try and catch as much as I could in a blanket and then started cleaning her up when she was finished... I forgot that I had started filling the sink for dishes... I caught it just in time... that could have been a major mess. Ugh.
This is all Ellie wanted to do yesterday. Lay around. Max kept an eye on everything from the basket.
In one of the few moments of the day that Ellie wanted to be up and moving... she found a scissors that I had left on the coffee table... and cut her hair. Doesn't look like much there, but there was much more ALL OVER THE PLACE... (it was a grand day yesterday)
Oh yeah, (clearing thoat) here's proof of the broken (right) hand.
What a week. On top of that I had to deal with work. Nuff said there. Now to all my wonderful readers... if you feel sorry enough for me I'd be really happy and feel oh so much better if someone sent me this... :)

Hey anonymous commenter(s)... I'm going to turn off anonymous comments (even though non have been bad) I just hate getting them and not know who it is... it takes just a few steps to make an account name... sorry.

I just can't watch this damn show The Locator without a box of Kleenex! Wow. It is so good. I can never watch an episode without crying like a baby. Full on sobbing almost! I'm pathetic. Must be PMS'ing.

Today has pretty much sucked. I've washed about 8 loads of laundry. Ellie has been puking all day. We've gone thru 5 outfits, I've washed clothes, blankets, pillowcases and toys. Yuck. Tonight she ate a piece of toast, a banana, a small bowl of applesauce and an itty bitty glass of water over a span of 2 hours and has kept it all down. About 10 after 7 she told me she was tired. Love that about her, she just knows when she is tired and wants to go to bed. Things are picked up and I'm FINALLY relaxing. Why does it seem like kids are always sick?!

So I'm a week behind. We went to Hayward (Greg's hometown) last weekend. Spent the weekend with his mom and sister and had a really fun time. I was feeling a bit exhausted and a little under the weather... got off work early Friday and we headed up. Got there just in time for dinner... had a nice dinner put Ellie to bed and then played a game of cards... I never win, ever.

Saturday morning we woke up and planned to go to Copper Falls and hike one of the trails. It is an awesome place and if you are ever in northern WI head to the little town of Mellon and visit Copper Falls. You won't be disappointed. Ellie slept during the ride there... I fully intended that she would walk during the hike... but no. She was half asleep when we got started and wanted to ride in the stroller. I don't recommend a stroller. There are to many steps and tree roots to climb up, down and over. Here are a few pics.

Ellie and Grandma Melly

Auntie Becca... told you this place was beautiful, huh!
Miss Ellie... she keeps calling the forest the "jungle"... cracks me up.
Beautiful waterfall
the stairs sucked arse... going up and down... lifting the stroller... usually with Ellie in it... I biffed it while going down one set... while carrying the back of the stroller (they were stone steps and they were wet)... good thing Greg had his footing or I would have pushed them both down the stairs... see how happy Greg and Grandma are to be carrying it up these steps!
Grandma and Ellie. I think Ellie's face looks SO FUNNY here! :)
awwww... aren't we cute :) and yes, my eyes are open... the sun was just bright
I thought this tree was SO WEIRD!
After the day at the park I was wiped. I crashed as soon as we got home. Greg woke me up when our Vietnamese take out dinner arrived. It was SO GOOD. After dinner I read a bit, Greg enjoyed a few of these... and Ellie carved a pumpkin with Grandma.
Sunday we woke up... Greg helped his sister move a few things from her old house... then we went to our usual lunch spot, Coop's, for pizza. They never disappoint. I am craving their garlic bread right now!

Going up to Hayward is like a little mini vacation. I love it. Greg and I get an extra couple hands with Ellie and can take a little bit of time to ourselves. Which we rarely get. I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed, feeling sorry for myself (lame, get over it, I know), crying, sometimes angry, usually frustrated... I'm either at work (which is highly stressful lately) or I'm at home with the demands there of Ellie and Greg... I just don't get a ton of "me" time or "us" time with Greg... which we also really need. I'm hoping in the next month or two we'll get a night or two to ourselves... I'm attempting to get those in the works.

BTW... read Greg's blog lately? Yup, my bright hubby got PO'd at work and punched a cement wall... BROKE HIS HAND. (big eye roll) I figure at least he didn't punch the guy who pissed him off, huh! And to all you over-reactors out there... I've never seen him display this form of anger or aggression EVER. NEVER EVER. So don't think he does stuff like that at home.

red-faced & utterly embarrassed

So, you all know how I talk about my job... love, love, love my job (snicker, snicker)... anywho... we had an agency wide picnic on Thursday. Walk into the building and grab a name tag... then realize that each tag has a number on it... great... I don't get to sit with Kelly. Each table was numbered so we had to sit at the table that our name tag said... I HATE when they do these things... try to get us to mingle with others... yuck. puke. hate it. It only gets better. So now I'm sitting at a table with strangers... whatever... I can handle it. We are told to pair up with the person across from us... ask them a series of questions to get to know them... then the kicker... we have to introduce them to the crowd... so I introduce my lady... say what dept she works in, her job title, where she lives and the most challenging thing about her job... then she does the same for me. BUT when she got to the question regarding what the most challenging thing about my job is... my answer was "my clients." This woman got up and told the crowd that the most challenging thing about my job was "the people she works with." The crowd erupts with laughter... she immediately realizes what she said and how it sounded and she kept repeating, "that's not what I meant! that's not what I meant!" I just burst out laughing and turned beat red... because, little did she know, what she'd said was OH SO TRUE! Sometimes I feel like I'm back in middle school... the "let's hate her this week bullshit"... that's how bad it is. Bully's suck and they tend to pick on one person (not me), but this woman they pick on is the one person in the office that I really think I can trust and I get along with her the best of all. If she wasn't there I'd be LOST! LOST! She has helped get me through some of the tougher days so them picking on her (they think they are better than her) really irritates me. Catty girls suck.

apple pie adventure

Greg brought home a huge bag of apples from a lady he works with. I had no idea how we'd eat them all so I thought what the hey, lets try to make an apple pie. I'm about 1 for 5 lately in results of a recipe working out... not so good. But the apples were free and I thought why not just give it a try... my little (winking) helper...

the 2 brown balls are my homemade crust, made with whole wheat flour, that's why they're so dark...
rolled the bottom crust...
poured in the sliced apples...

top crust...
the final result... a totally yummy apple pie!

still here...

We've been gone since Friday... up north at Greg's family's house (on the lake, heaven)... just got home about 2 hours ago and I'm to tired to post... I'm just gonna read tonight... posts to come:

• my first homemade apple pie
• work picnic
• weekend up north part 1
• weekend up north part 2

sicko kid

My poor little baby is sick. We've been on a good run of health here in MNclampitville. But the fever fairy has struck. Friday night was a rough one... Saturday was even worse... Ellie has never once slept in bed with me for a night. It's just something I refused to start because I didn't want it becoming a habit we couldn't break. But Saturday night, she slept with me. Greg was working overnights and at about 11:30 she woke up screaming. The fever continued all day Saturday and Sunday. At one time it was 103.1 on Sunday... alternating Motrin and Tylenol really helped keep it under wraps... but the minute we went to long without meds it spiked right back up. This morning her fever was only 101. Greg gave her some med's and it came down. I really had little choice but to send her to daycare for a few hours. Greg had just gotten home from work and needed some sleep. I am scraping by on sick time. So yeah, mom of the year, I took her to daycare. Told them how our weekend had gone and fully expected a call, before Greg got there, asking me to come pick her up. To my surprise... they never called. I couldn't get her into the dr until 2:45. Greg picked her up at 2:30 and they said she was fine, ate fine and played all day. (?!) He takes her to the dr and she has a 102.4 temp. Go figure. Anyways, dr checks her ears, throat, teeth, etc... see nothing wrong. Decides to take blood to check her white count... comes out fine. In the end he decides on the good old trusty "viral infection". Rest, relax, fluid, meds. Good thing Greg is home the next two days with her!

Tonight we had a great dinner and cuddled in bed while watching our wedding video. Ellie is so funny she keeps telling Greg that mommy is married. "Daddy! Mommy is married!" Way too funny. Here are a few pics... we are so bad at getting one good picture. Someone (usually miss Ellie) is always doing something weird...

On a totally different note... I just flipped the channel to the Duggar family show... you know that one? Holy Lord. The oldest son just got engaged and they aren't going to share their first kiss until their wedding day. Holy baageezez. That takes some MAJOR dedication. You can tell by how they are holding hands and looking into each others eyes that they just wanna jump each others bones... they even have to go on their date tonight with a chaperone (one of the sisters). Holy cripes. Hahahaha! One of the little sisters just said, "I think this is going to be a very short engagement." Ya think!!!

We all have our political beliefs... I don't like to talk about them to much cause I don't want a bunch of mean comments left for me. But I just cringe when I hear Palin say she doesn't believe in abortion even in the case of incest or rape. She'd like to offer them counseling and adoption opportunities. Try telling that to a 12 year old girl who is pregnant by her uncle. Seriously. What the hell? This infuriates me. Makes me ill. I want to protect my daughter from, god help us, this ever happening to her some day. I can't imagine telling my 12 year old, that no, you've got to carry the baby for 9 months and be reminded every single second of every single day who did this to you and then after all that you are going to go thru labor and delivery and then give the baby away, and then deal with healing, milk supply, emotions... all because someone else thinks they can make a better decision about your body than you can. Sick.

So during this past week I've applied for a job, taken the required test for the job (scored a 91), participated in an interview and got notice that the job was offered to someone else. Very frustrating and disappointing.

I've been in my position just shy of 2 years. I work hard. I actually like my job (the work). I'm just ready to move on/up... and I don't like the lack of compassion that seems to have overtaken my coworkers. Maybe I'm naive. Maybe I haven't been around long enough to "harden". But we are all people. We all have issues. We all need food and water to survive. We all need love, compassion and understanding from others. We all need to be able to put ourselves in anther's shoes. I love talking to people. I've built a great rapport with many clients. Just yesterday I was talking to one woman who was upset because I'd sent her paperwork. She felt overloaded with paperwork. She was going thru a divorce. She was sad. She cried. She needed to get her kids on public assistance. She was ashamed. I listened. Told her I understood. Explained why I needed the paperwork back. Listened some more. Told her not to be ashamed of being on welfare, cause you've gotta do what you've gotta do for your kids. Told her not to worry about what others think of her. Not kidding, this lady said, "why are you being so nice to me, you don't belong on that floor." (floor meaning: department) Wow. Wow.

A kind heart and an open ear go a long way.

Anyway... back to the job... I really wanted this job. Thought it would be very challenging and interesting... always changing... I'm very glad the girl who got it did... I wanted her to have it before some of the others who applied... my only issue is in the decision making... how does an interviewing committee make an educated decision without reviewing a person's resume, work history, schooling history... that is what happened. They had NO INFO ON ME or the other applicants! I feel like they knew who they were going to give it to but had to go through the proper steps first... which makes no sense... seems like a waste of time for the other applicants...I have a 4 year degree and scored 11 pts higher on the test than the girl who got the job. She has had some experience in parts of the job that is opening... but still... I could have LEARNED the job. I could have learned the job. I'm just very disappointed. It's been a long week. I'll get over it. Soon enough. It just royally sucks arse. Life goes on.

I've been tagged by Amanda. Here are the rules: 1) Link the person who tagged you 2) Mention the rules on your blog 3) Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours 4) Tag 6 fellow bloggers by linking them 5) Leave a comment on each of the tagged bloggers blogs letting them know they have been tagged.

1) I am addicted to chap stick. Specifically Natural Ice Original SPF 15. Love it. I will seriously have a nervous breakdown with dry chapping lips the moment I realize I left the house without a tube. So, I've put one by my bed (actually 2), one in my purse, one in the truck, one on my desk at work, one in the bathroom, and probably a 20 some more in miscellaneous purses upstairs in my closet.

2) I'm a scab picker. Gross? Yes, I know. If I've got a good scab, it's gonna get picked.

3) I love to rearrange furniture, reorganize and clean. Greg hates that I like to rearrange the furniture. He never knows what he's coming home to. :)

4) I love to bake. My recipes don't always work out... but I love giving it a shot. (Don't mistake baking for cooking... I hate cooking.)

5) I have a very easily irritable stomach. IBS? Not sure, but I can eat something and know in a matter of minutes if it's gonna stay in or not!! (TMI? sorry)

6) I love learning. Mainly about eating healthier, women's health issues, politics... before having Ellie I was fascinated with Newsweek... now I just don't have the time to read it. Every day I think about going back to school for something... social work, HR, medical assistant, finish my LPN degree (I took one semester before being laid off from my job, thus not being able to afford to go back.)

I hate tagging specific people... so if you wanna do it, consider yourself tagged!