Cruisin for kids with Cancer

Is an annual motorcycle ride that my family participates in. I don't ride, so typically, my mom and I volunteer while my dad, Evan, MIL, FIL and Dave ride in it. all proceeds go to benefit the peds cancer ward at Carle.

Today was the 3rd annual ride and it was quite fun. There 40 bikes, which is down from last year. Some of that can be attributed to the fact that it looked like it might pour down rain at any second most of the day (it never did, but the threat of rain is enough to keep some people away) Not only did the family ride, they set up a group of people from work which totalled 15 of the 40 bikes. C also rode with my dad for about half of the ride. His very first poker run ever :) The ride goes by the hospital that it benefits so the kids can see the bikes. The ones that are able, come down to the circle drive to see all the bikes ride by. The ones that aren't watch from their hospital rooms. Today, there were no kids downstairs. We found out later that it probably meant there were none in the hospital today, which is superb.

There was a small snafu with my volunteering. We (my mom, Liz and I) took one car over and mom planned to follow the ride, in case C wanted to get off. They wanted me at the end, but I couldn't get in there until 12:30, which was smack in the middle of the ride and I wouldn't have a way to get from the beginning to the end. I ended up riding with mom for most of the ride and then when C got off we took off for the end so I could be there when the riders got there. It all worked out well.

When you ride in these things, you draw marbles at each stop. Each color of marble is assigned a point value and at the end, they tally all your colors and generally 1st, 2nd and 3rd get nice prizes and last gets some gag gift. First prize was big screen high def TV (retails for about $700) Dh won one similar to it the first year at C4KC. I can't remember what second was but third was an iPod shuffle. Last place was "Anti-Monkey Butt" powder. Apparently, it is similar to Goldbond and prevents chafing on long rides :) In addition to the prizes, they raffled off various gift certificates, food stuffs, and poster. Dave won a really nice leather jacket with Looney Tunes characters on the back. That will come in handy when he goes to Sturgis in a week. This year they also raffled off a beautiful quilt that took shirts from various Harley dealers and black cloth, with rainbow stiching and then on the back they had a gold ribbon (the symbol for childhood cancers) that was signed by survivors and their sibilings.

Viva Viagra

This commercial disturbs me greatly! A bunch of old dudes (I typed duds, which might actually be more accurate) sitting around jamming about Viagra? I think not.

Kitties

I love LOLCatz http://icanhascheezburger.com/ They kill me :)

Bras and babies

I need some new bras. Dh commented the other day "how many bras do you have?" "uh, 2, not counting the left over nursing bras for laundry emergencies, why?" "because every time I've seen you with your shirt off for the last week, you've had that purple one on" "uh, yeah" One problem is I'm endowed and have a hard time finding anything that I like. I wear a D, so not huge, but bigger than a lot of places make. I don't like bras, as a general rule, but I'm a little big to go without so it has to be something crazy comfy. I don't like sports bras and I HATE HATE HATE with a passion underwires. I don't get padded/formed bras in my size either. If I were an A or B, I would totally get it but at a C/D? I fill out my own sweater thanks! Additionally, because I don't like bras, I don't want to pay much money for them. 5 years ago (which is the age of one of my bras) I found some Playtex ones at Target that are great. They are white, lightly padded (to prevent THO, I found out recently), no underwire and $15 a piece. Perfect! Sadly, they don't carry them anymore. In fact I couldn't find any Playtex bras there at all. I also recently got one at Lane Bryant that wasn't too bad. My mom had a coupon for buy one, get one half off and then they had some other sale so we each got a bra for $10 a piece. Unfortunately, the one here has gone out of business (they claim to be moving to a new location but they said it will be at least a year) and I'm afraid to order online. I tried on 3 different ones, same size, just different colors and all 3 fit differently.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Now for babies part. Lizzie is sitting here with her play phone saying "Hi, Grandma Jill, Hi Randy. Hi Grandma Jill, I talk my Randy" She apparently decided to call MIL and FIL but was more interested in talking to FIL than MIL. :)

Secret update

I can finally talk about my secret. Dh got full time at work! We knew last week, but they hadn't finished interviewing everyone else so we couldn't talk about it. He has worked there for 2 years and has put in 2500 hours in the last year and nearly that many the year before. Full time status includes being assured of at least 40 hours a week (Typically he works around 60 hours a week but is sometimes, like over Xmas and all summer, dropped down to barely 20), access to insurance (we are keeping our current insurance for the time being because it is cheaper and covers more) and, best of all, a $7/hour jump in pay!!

The only draw back is that there are 105 people picking runs in front of him and they all have to pick at least 40 hours. He will be stuck doing the worst of the worst for another couple of years until he can move up where he gets some choice in the matter. Probably nights and weekends, although he is really hoping not to have to drive "safe rides" (a service for our university that involves drunk college students calling and requesting a ride anywhere they want to go). Honestly, nights and weekends will work out well for us. It will allow me to help in C's classroom while he stays home with Lizzie. It will also help when I go back to work, if one of the kids is sick, he'll be home so I won't have to take off nearly as much time for that sort of thing.

WOO HOO

http://www.lungil.org/newsarticle.cfm?ArticleID=28

So much for mayor cancer and his "lets repeal something that already passed"

I said during the whole election "you know what would be funny? All these people spent all this time and money and energy to get elected on the smoking issue and now the whole state will go smokefree and it won't matter" And that is what happened.

Funny boy

We were at lunch today and C finished all of his pasta and then turned to his potatoes and said "come here potatoes and join the party in my tummy" ROFL

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - spoilers

Caution, this post contains SPOILERS. I'm going to try and change the text color so you have to highlight to read it because I don't want people to be spoiled that don't want to. Highlight if you want to be spoiled. So after much playing, the text is white. I won't change no matter what I do. Better than nothing, but you can still read it if you try hard.















I finished the book last night. I read somewhere that two main characters die but I think that was a lie. At least 7 people that I would consider major characters died. Mad eye died at the beginning in the first battle with the Death Eaters. Then Dobby died when he helped them escape from the cellar. Then at the Battle of Hogwarts, Fred (I cried for most of the rest of book about that one), Tonks, and Lupin died. Crabbe died when he and Goyle and Malfoy went after Harry when he was looking for the Horcrucx. Then Voldemort killed Snape and Harry killed Voldemort. I'm sure that she was talking about Fred and Snape, but I think the others were main charachters as well

Turns out Snape loved Lily Potter, which I think everyone knew, but it went farther back than people believed. He lived near her as a child and fell in love with her as soon as he met her. He switched loyalities to Dumbledore when Volde went after her. Dumbledore was dying anyway (he put on one of the horcruxes and it cursed him) and he asked Snape to kill him when the moment was right so that he didn't have to suffer a cursed death. He also knew that Draco was supposed to kill him and asked Snape to do it instead.

Harry lives and marries Ginny. Ron and Hermione get married and the book ends with them sending their children off to Hogwarts, to see Professor Longbottom

Harry Potter Party

We are leaving here shortly to go to various HP Parties. One at the library and one that book store dh has his copy reserved through. I'm going to have to wait to get my copy until tomorrow when the other library opens.

I'm taking my camera and I hope to get some good shots. I have an HP kit that I'm looking forward to scrapping with. This might be my last chance to use it. :)

World Series of Pop Culture

I have been watching this show for the last 2 weeks on VH1. I'm kind of a trivia junky and pop culture is my thing so I expected to do really well on this. I have been amazed at the things I didn't know and the things I did. They had a Patrick Swayze quote catagory the other night and I expected to bomb on it, since I've only ever seen one of his movies more than once, and most not at all. Out of 6 questions, I got 5 right and the one I missed, I had never even heard of the movie. Then tonight, they had a Dirty Dancing catagory. I was thinking "I've got this locked because I've seen the movie a million times" (the one PS movie I have seen, repeatedly). I got 1 freaking question right (what does Baby help carry that allows her to meet Johnny). The others, like what was Baby's real name and what was the name of the resort, I totally missed and should have known.

I told Evan I'm going to be on the show next year. I will either get a team together (my dad and someone else that is a trivia junky) or I will play on Almost Perfect Strangers 3.0, which is the internet team that don't know each other before hand.

Lizzie loves the Wonder Pets

When I try to imbed this, it says no video so I'm just posting the link and you guys will have to go watch it. :)

http://s162.photobucket.com/albums/t272/mom2cne/videos/?action=view¤t=d572f5f9.flv

Also, I think she watches too much TV. She woke me up at 3 this morning by repeatedly hitting me and saying "mommy, I watch toons?" over and over. When I told her no (it was 3 in the freaking morning) she screamed and yelled until I promised to watch Wonderpets with her this morning.

I have a secret

I was really productive today (no that isn't my secret, I'll get to that in a minute). I didn't get up until almost 10 but in the last hour I have cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom, picked up the living room, swept and mopped the kitchen, living room and bathroom, straightened up the laundry room (none of the clothes are put away, but they are all sorted into baskets and off the floor). I changed the sheets on mine and C's beds, fed both kids, ran two loads of laundry and took a shower. Now I have to feed myself and figure out something to do that doesn't involve going outside, since the weather bites. This is about the cleanest my house has been in 3 weeks and it all started because I decided the sink in the bathroom was icky and I was going to wipe it down before I got dressed this AM (I keep Clorox wipes in there so I can wipe stuff off because I hate to actually clean the bathroom). Since I was doing that, I decided that the rest of it needed done to and then I decided to do the floor but I hate to get the Swiffer out for just the bathroom so I picked up the living room so I could do it to and then just caught the kitchen on my way through. Since the floor was done in there, it made sense to clean everything else so that it would all be done. The laundry was just a different beast but I've been putting off doing it for at least 2 weeks so I finally just had to suck it up and get it done.

My secret is about dh's job. I can't tell and it is killing me so I'm going to tease you so you can die with me. Hang tight for next week though when all will be revealed. :)

Harry Potter

First of all, yay, I'm not a spammer anymore. Blogspot suspended my account because it had "characteristics of a spam blog" I had to go through a verification process to prove that I was human not just a spam bot. I also emailed them and asked what triggered it and how I can avoid it in the future.

Second, We went to see OoTP tonight. I thought it was great! The special effects where superb. I read the book a while ago so I can't really compare it to the movie, although dh says that the Sirius Black scene at the end is quite a bit different. We took C and he did ok. It was a little slow and there were several scenes that required reading (lots of spinning newspapers and Umbridge decrees) so I was having to tell him what they said all the time. He got a bit antsy but during the last 30-45 minutes, things really heated up and the action was intense. He was absolutely riveted to the screen during the battle at the ministry. Personally, I got a little ansty at about the hour mark but overall it was a good movie. For as dark as I remember the book, there were several moments that were actually LOL funny. And for once, I wasn't the only person in the theater that was laughing (generally other people don't seem to get the jokes). HP is turning into quite a hottie! Ron isn't bad looking either, although I think he has doubled in size since the last film! He was really freaking tall. Hermione doesn't seem to have changed much since the last film. Actually I went looking for pictures of her from the first film and can't find any good ones. From the little bit I could see on the cover, it doesn't look like she has changed all that much from the first film. Gotten taller and thinned out a bit, but nothing major like the 2 boys.

I'm sad there were no Quidditch scenes at all. There weren't even many flight scenes (the one at the beginning is brilliant though so I guess that makes up for it), which are some of my favorite scenes in the other movies. The Department of Mysteries scene is fantastic and the actors do a really good job of it (and all the other scenes), considering it is all green screen. I thought Emma Watson did a great job. She seemed to really be able to convay (which I'm sure isn't spelled write, but I'm too lazy to look it up) a lot with a glance or facial expression. The scene where she introduces Luna to the others is a great example of this.

Harry Potter

I'm going to see Harry Potter in 3.5 hours. You can be jealous now. Or not, if you are like me and the new book in 3 days (and some odd hours, dh has it on his computer as a widget LOL) holds way more interest than the movie.

School supplies

I LOVE LOVE LOVE school/office supplies! I could go to Staples and easily spend an hour, lusting after pens and markers and paper. However, I don't like HAVING to buy school supplies, especially when you are hunting the sale. Normally, sale shopping is the only thing that makes sense to me. I refuse to pay full price for nearly anything.

Walmart has school supplies on sale crazy cheap this week (glue for 20 cents, markers for 88, etc) and I thought "C is going to need all this stuff in a few weeks, might as well get it while it is on sale" What a pain that turned out to be. We went on Sunday afternoon (the day the sale started) and found that they were out of markers and scissors and only had one suitable backpack (everything else was either pukey pink or 14.96, instead of 6.96) Fortunately, C digs Spiderman so it was ok and the one he actually picked out. Also fortunately, there was another brand of blunt nosed scissors that was regularly priced, cheaper then the sale scissors. So I was able to get those and all the glue (he needs 12 craploads of glue for school) he needs. We went back today and bought the last box of classic color markers they had (they had some pastels, but only one box of them). Major PITA.

A secondary rant to buying school supplies is the supplies I'm expected to buy. They are asking for Ziplock bags, Clorox wipes and Kleenex. IMO, those are things the school should supply. The bags, I sort of get because they do the "book in a bag" program and the bags are to protect the books and keep everything together. I imagine they get beat up fast. But Clorox wipes? I really don't think so. I'm sending some because dh practically begged me not to start out as a trouble maker. The other thing? The supply list wants several bottles of glue, glue sticks etc and then says "don't put your name on this stuff, we'll share" Again, I think not. I'm labelling EVERYTHING, including individual markers. I bought decent stuff for MY CHILD and I'm not having him using crap because someone else decided to buy junk. Selfish? Maybe, but I don't have a ton of money to spend and I am providing for my children, not everyone else.

More on last night

Dh's daughter has been here for the last 2 weeks. This always causes problems (partly because everyone assumes that because I'm home, I don't mind adding a third child day in and day out). Last year, I talked to her mom and told her that I didn't think that we would be able to have her this summer. Mostly, because I was supposed to be working this summer but partly because it is a real pain. Her mom seemed relieved that she wouldn't have to deal with it. Then MIL got involved and insisted that she come for 2 weeks. I was told at that point in time that MIL was taking off work for the whole time and hanging out with her. That was fine with me, as long as I wasn't involved.

She got here July 4th and hadn't been in town 10 minutes when the phone calls started. Mil was having a cow that dh wasn't there to meet them when they got to the house. She also mentioned that she and FIL had to work the next day and that they would be bringing A over that morning. Fortunately, dh put his foot down and told her that she asked to have her here, she needed to figure out what she was going to do with her. He told her that he was off between 10 and 2 (he works a split shift) and that she was welcome to come by then but outside that time frame I wasn't available. I was ready to have an absolute fit so it was a good thing he told her that.

The other part of the problem is A and C fight like cats and dogs. They can play together for maybe 15 minutes before they get violent with each other. They are 10 and 5 and really can't stand each other. Lizzie is nothing if not loyal and will take her brother's side every time so it ends up being the 2 little kids against A. She fights back harder and then someone gets hurt and I have to yell. She is also really rude and talks down to C all the time. She is rather rude to me as well but I generally ignore her. C asked her to do something for him one evening and she made a shooing motion with her hand and told him to go away. I stepped in and said "he asked you nicely to help him, he said please and you need to help him now. Thank you" She rolled her eyes and muttered "whatever" I told her "do not roll your eyes at me. That is incredibly rude and I won't put up with it. You will be polite when I'm around." What I told dh later was that if she was one of my kids, I would have threatened to smack her eyes out of her head for a stunt like that.

She is leaving today and MIL was on my ass all day yesterday about getting together and seeing her before she left. I put it off as long as I could but finally had to call MIL and ask if they wanted to come over about 6. They got here and the kids were fighting like always. C spent a lot of the time in time out because he was really having a rough time with her. A was also put in time out because she kept hitting him (he has a welt under his arm where she hit him with the sword she was playing with) and telling him to leave her the heck alone. C went in the house to go to the bathroom and when he came back out, she grabbed his arms, pulled them behind his back, twisted them and then shoved him face first into the bush stumps that we have near our fence. Then she tried to tell me that he hit her first so she did it to defend herself. That is flat bull and I told her so. After I got C settled and his cuts and scrapes cleaned (he has several cuts on and around his mouth from being forced into the bushes), I went back outside, collected Lizzie and told A I hoped she had a good trip and that it was bedtime so we would see her later and walked into the house. I know, probably petty and childish, but I was PISSED! Had C done that to Lizzie, I would have spanked his butt and sent him to bed. I do occasionally spank my children but I have said all along that I would never spank her because I know, as a mother, I would come UNGLUED if someone spanked one of my children. But last night, I was as close as I've ever come to smacking her. I was so mad that she, being much bigger, did something that mean and that violent totally on purpose.

ADSR topic is museums with amazing somewhere on the layout. I think I have a couple of museum pages all ready done, I just need to alter them to include something "amazing" Is that cheating, cause we haven't been to a museum in awhile so I don't have many recent pictures of museums.

Compelled

I have a whole big entry that I'm composing in my head. Hopefully it will make it to the page. Long time readers know that I bitch about the same thing every summer and that I'm an all around bad person. Yet again, I have something to complain about. Maybe tomorrow since it is midnight.

ADsR starts tomorrow. On one hand, I'm excited. On the other, I know I that will probably mess up and not get my shit done and ruin our chances for the grand prize. I'm a big slack ass like that. Fortunately, I have lots of pictures to work with, since I only scrapped 2 days of our KY trip. That thing at the top is supposed to be my race blinkie. Apparently, it doesn't blink here. http://s162.photobucket.com/albums/t272/mom2cne/Amazing%20digiscrap%20race/?action=view&current=Procrast-blink-3.gif There it does though and I think it is damn cute :)

Bed now, post more later

New blog

I've been using LJ for awhile but I'm thinking it is time for a change. I'm going to try this out and see how I like it. More later.