The Laptop Saga Continues...

Well, we've resolved the laptop issues... partially! The laptop will need to be sent away this weekend for about a 2 week vacation back to HP. The good news is that HP is being AWESOME in their customer service. The bad news is that I'll be without the laptop (and my pictures) again! So, in the meantime, I am going to do a huge dump of all that's been going on here in the last 2 months before I can't share my pictures with you for another long period of time!

Back in Business....

After nearly two weeks of being without my power cord for my laptop, my husband saved me today and bought me a new one! I have never been so happy to see that little blue power light come on in all my life. Our desktop is so slow that it is almost unbearable to use, so it's been a long 2 weeks. So, thanks for the save, sweetie. You made my day.

Now I can get back to blogging more regularly!

Sarah, Nancy and Val: Do NOT read this!

Ok, so as proof that my brain has TOTALLY left my body since these children were born, I am going to share a story about a little (or big!) faux-pas I made yesterday.

Sarah, Nancy and Val....my dog-loving friends.... you've stopped reading, right? No, seriously, STOP reading right now!

Yesterday, I picked Maddie up from preschool at 1pm. I rushed home because I was meeting someone at the house to give me a price estimate at 1:15pm. I pulled into the driveway and she was waiting for me. As I let this person into my home, the dog got out and I let him just hang outside for a few minutes to do his business and not bother me and our guest. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Fast forward 20 minutes and I am ushering guest out of the house and I get completely wrapped up in the nap process for 2 tired little girls. Finally get them in bed, finally get myself some lunch and settle into doing some housework and blogging before the little ones wake up.

Afternoon goes along normally and nothing seems amiss until dinnertime, when I am feeding my 11 month old peaches and she dumps half a bowl on the floor. Feeling lazy, I decide to call the dog to come clean up the peaches for me. Ben? Oh, Ben? Ben, where are you? OH NO! BEN!!!! I LEFT BEN OUTSIDE FOR THE LAST 5 HOURS!!!!!!

I go outside and start screaming for him to no avail. I knew that by this point he wouldn't be in hearing distance. I also knew that he does not have our phone number on his collar. So, I pack the kiddies into the car and start on a mission to find our poor puppy dog. By some miracle, I got only half way down our street when I see a man walking Ben on a leash. I pull up (looking so stylish with my mismatched baggy sweatpants and peach-stained tshirt!) and tell him that Ben was our dog. Were it not for my 3 year old in the back seat shouting "Ben I am so happy to see you!", I'm not sure this guy would've turned the dog over to me. Apparently, Ben had made it a few streets over when he ended up at this man's house and he took GREAT care of our dog all afternoon. He decided to take Ben for a walk through the neighborhood in the hopes that we'd be out looking for him. And, thankfully we were at that time!

Ben... I am sorry buddy. This whole memory thing.. yeah, well, I am working on it! Can't make any promises, pal, but I'm hoping I'll never leave you outside by yourself again :-) As my husband said "It happens to the best of us" which made me feel better, even though he followed it up with "although 5 hours IS kinda a long time"!

Dinner Dilemmas

I've never really been a great cook. I can certainly get by, but my cooking is only ever ok, not excellent. Other issues? I am a bad grocery shopper, I am a bad menu planner and I dont really even enjoy cooking. So, let's just say that dinner is a little bit of a disaster around here.

I need convenient, easy meals that are nutritious for my family. Sometimes, that can be hard to do... easy and convenient while being nutritious. I have tried both Super Suppers as well as Dream Dinners as an answer to this issue to varying degrees of success. I like the concept quite a bit, but have been hard pressed to find entrees that keep me coming back for more consistently.

Recently, I'd learned of Horizon Foods from some women in our playgroup. Horizon sells quality beef, poultry, seafood and other products directly to your door. I had been very interested in their products because they have a line of antibiotic free meats and poultry. My friend Dawn hooked me up with her Horizon distributor and he came to my house. So convenient! I placed an order for antibiotic free chicken breasts, tilapia, sea bass and antibiotic free beef hamburgers.

It has been so great having a stock-pile of high quality dinner choices right in my freezer. I havent had the fish yet, but we've had the ABF chicken and burgers and they are fantastic! Now I just need to have a stock-pile of sauces and/or toppings and I've got a variety of easy dinner combinations at my fingertips. The portions are all individually packaged, so you only defrost (in 5 to 10 minutes in cool water!) what you need. We aren't so good about eating leftovers in our house, so when we only make what we need, there is alot less waste for us!

Anyway, this has been a huge help to me, so I wanted to share. I have 2 coupons for those of you who live in the local area for new customers for $20 off your first order. Let me know if you want one of them. First come, first served! If you are interested contact Dave Howk at 484-651-0541 and he will come to meet with you for a consultation! Please tell him I sent you.

However, I can always use any extra help I can get. What are your short-cuts that help you out with dinner? Do you have any go-to easy recipes? Please share!

Technical Difficulties...

My laptop is giving me some major issues the last few days. It can't detect our wireless network. And, I've got no time to try to troubleshoot the issue. Quite frankly, I'm also a little low on patience right now too, so am lacking the motivation to troubleshoot. I am now relegated to the office to use the desktop, and that is no happy feat. It is dreadfully slow and I miss being able to prop up in front of the TV and multitask writing and reading blogs while enjoying my mindless reality shows. I remember when using the desktop made me blissfully happy.... ahhh, life before the laptop totally spoiled me! Ok, maybe I'll be motivated to fix it tomorrow.

Organization to the Extreme?

I am going to start this post by saying that having a second child has been fantastic! Never once have I regretted it or been anything less than totally ecstatic that McKenna is in our lives. That being said, however, I won't deny that it has been just a little bit tricky for me to get this whole "Mom of 2" thing down pat. While I feel that life is starting to return to more of a "normal" (whatever that is!) state, it feels like, to me, that having the 2nd child has been more than double the workload.

In the last few months of taking care of 2 kids and learning to give them both what they need, some things have been slipping through the cracks more than I would like. There are some household tasks that are "mine" that I haven't exactly been on top of, like paying the bills on time (I was late with the car payment and with the credit card payment on 2 separate occasions!) and keeping up with some chores, especially the laundry and keeping groceries stocked in the house. It was all really just feeling out of control and we were flying by the seat of our pants a little too much. I would just attack things when they got too stressful (or the laundry pile had gotten too tall... that just made me think of Kelly's post at A Rainbow After the Rain). So, I devised a plan.

I now have a schedule for some of my household chores. And, to say that out loud sounds totally ridiculous and much more complicated than someone's life should be.... I realize that. But, to me, it has made life so much less stressful and made our house run more smoothly! See I would just live knowing that the laundry was piling up, or the bills needed to be paid, and stress about it. But, the stress wasn't helping take action on it, it was making me feel overwhelmed. So now, I know don't have to worry about the laundry today.... it isn't laundry day.... no need to spend another minute thinking about it!

So, Tuesday is now the day that bills get paid and Thursday is the day that the laundry gets done. I know it sounds totally over the top... but it is working out so well for me!

To my dear husband... I AM SO SORRY!

yeah... so the morning went pretty well (see post below) but the afternoon is NOT off to a great start.

i am a little bit of a safety freak (shari and jenn ... i hear you both laughing right now!). i keep our windows and doors locked at all times. When the windows are open (which they often are not open due to some severe seasonal allergies that hubby and I have developed), i feel the need to be on the same floor as the open windows. i will not leave ANY windows open when we aren't in the house, not even the 2nd floor. i am the person that locks the car inside the locked garage. so, it will come as no surprise that i have never considered the whole hiding a key outside thing. always seemed like i could never hide it in a place that some intruder couldn't find it. we do have one friend and a few family members that have keys to our house and i've never thought twice about needing any other back up plans... until today.

yes, i locked myself and my two sweet, unsuspecting children out of the house today. i absent-mindedly switched the lock to the garage door behind me when the big waterloo gardens truck pulled into my driveway and i went out to find out what was going on.... i havent ordered anything from them. they were trying to make a delivery to the former owner. well, guess what WG.... she hasnt lived here in 4 years. May be time to update your records, ya think?

the great news is that i had both of the kids with me... i would have been a complete mess if one or both were locked inside the house without me. the bad news is that neither maddie or i had shoes on, i didn't have my cell phone and it was nap time!

so, off to our fantastic (and retired - a bonus) neighbor's house to use the phone. call matt at work and on cell - no luck. call friends that have key on chance someone is home - no luck. call brother-in-law who has key in case he has to work a late shift today - no luck. keep calling hubby's cell until i finally get him. no one can help us out, so he has to come home. this is matt's first day back to work since vacation and i know he has a mountain of things to do today.

Matt... I'm sorry I'm an idiot and a safety freak! Thanks for coming to the rescue.

After naps I am headed to Lowes or Home Depot to get a key made. I am still not down with the idea of hiding a key, but I do trust our neighbors and will be giving them a key to hold for us in case of emergency. But, hopefully, my brain will return one of these days and this will never happen again!

Inspiration sold at Target :-)

I had the luxury of getting out for a few hours yesterday to run some errands without the girls! This doesnt happen very regularly, so I always get a little "drunk" on my freedom when I can just get in and out of the car easily, not have to heave 2 kids into carts, not have to negotiate buying new toys, snacks, or games with Madison, and certainly not have to simultaneously dangle McKenna's favorite toy in front of her with one hand while steering the cart accurately with the other.

I really capitalized on my freedom yesterday as I leisurely wandered through Target. I got to explore whole sections of the store that I dont normally visit because I was by myself. As I was walking by their Art and Frames aisles, I decided to duck in and check out what they had.

Now, I've been in my house for 4 years. It is furnished, and most rooms are painted. But, that's been the extent of my "decorating". It has always been next on my things "to do" list, but we've just never really prioritized time or money to decorating. Something else always just seems more important or necessary. And, I often just dont have the time to actually look at home decor items when I am out with the kids. So, my walls look a little blank and I've committed to trying to pick up some things here and there to try to start making a change in that.

Enter Target. They had some stuff on Clearance that I really liked, so I picked up a couple of different metal signs and one framed piece. I love the framed piece. It is so simple... just a pink frame with a scrapbook style inspirational message inscribed inside. When I saw it, it really invoked alot of emotion in me..... I know, getting emotional in the middle of Target from a sign????..... I can be a little over the top sometimes :-)

It says " If you are confident, You are Beautiful". I love this as a message in general, but especially as a Mom of 2 girls. From my own experience growing up, I know that instilling confidence is one of the main things on my "You Must Accomplish As A Parent" List for my girls. As kid, I was generally more of a follower than I was a leader, and my confidence definitely wasn't where it could have been. I had some issues with my appearance (the braces and the teenage acne certainly didn't help, either) and I also put alot of value in what other people thought of me. I didn't really get a sense of myself until my mid to late 20's. That's really too late to develop that. I want to make sure that my girls always know how great they are and how much they have to offer. I know that I can only do so much. I can only encourage those thoughts for them but some of that will come from inside themselves. But, I am happy to do whatever I can to help foster those feelings....... even if it means hanging a sign from Target in their bathroom as a reminder :-)