Back in the Saddle.....

I think I came into this world with a love for horses. For as long as I can remember I have been infatuated with them. I was one of those little girls who had a small collection of plastic play horses and several books about horses. I even remember going to a place called Bit and Spur Riding Camp when I was about 9 years old. I STILL have the little t-shirt I got from that week at camp, the horse books and my plastic horses. My love for horses was rekindled when I attended Judson College. They have an equine (horse) science program there also. I began taking riding lessons as a sophomore and by the time I had graduated I had competed in several local shows and won several ribbons....which I also still have. I'm not bragging, I'm just saying. I actually graduated with a minor in equine science. Not that I was going to use it, but you just never know.

Today we were invited by friends to visit them at the barn while their girls were riding. You know I was all over that, as well as my kids. The little princess said, "I like horses mommy because you rode them." So we spent a couple of hours at the barn watching our friends' ride and after their lesson they gave the kids an opportunity to ride. After each of them took a couple of turns riding, we walked around the barn and looked at all the horses. We even got a biology lesson when one of the horses relieved himself while we were standing beside him. The princess ducked and looked under the horse and said, "eeeewwwww, what's he doing?" Nice. Thanks Mr. Ed, your timing couldn't have been any better. And the son got a HUGE 3rd grade boy kick out of the horse pooting loudly while running around in the pasture. Fabulous. That will be lunchroom conversation tomorrow. Guaranteed.

Of course, now the princess has her mind set on riding horses like mommy did. We'll see what Dave Ramsey has to say about that!

Here's a few photos of our fun day at the barn and a bonus video of the princess riding.



She coordinated her t-shirt just for the occasion:


My new friend Gus, the dalmatian that thinks he's a chihuahua:


First time alone on a horse and she refused to walk, she insisted on trotting!

Celebrate good times......come on!

There's a party goin' on right here
A celebration to last throughout the years
So bring your good times, and your laughter too
We gonna celebrate your party with you

I had a super spectacular fun day today. The hubby threw me a not-so-much surprise 40th birthday party for my upcoming big day on Tax Day. You see, I instructed him a couple years ago that he was to throw me some sort of birthday bash for the BIG 4-0. I even put a friend in charge of him to get the task done-- see ladies, if you want something done, you have to put a woman in charge of it! Thanks for the help Penni.


I guess there were about 25-30 people there and I am so thankful to have a great group of friends who shared this special event with me! I even got some "happys", which is what I call presents! I got gift certificates to some of my favorite places....Target, Starbucks and The Globe restaurant. And I also got several other fabulous "happys". Woo hoo.

I'd like to go ahead now and thank all the major greeting card companies for making birthday cards for the 40 year old so freakin' funny! I almost had a bladder control problem on a few of them. I should probably scan a few in during my spare time.

Besides my friends being there, the other two highlights of the party were the delicious cake and my super terrific slide show--- which I will share with you on my OFFICIAL birthday. So, please, do what is necessary to subside your excitement while awaiting the release of the video. I mean, don't you want to see a 40 year highlight video of someone you don't know at all?? (sorry, family and dear friends, I have discovered that you are not the only ones reading this)

So, I'd like to say thank you to my dear hubby for throwing me a wonderful party and again to all my friends for coming! I love you all!!

Swap and Hop......Part Deux

Lysa TerKeurst is once again hosting a Swap and Hop. She is teaming up with Karen Ehman, author of a new book "The Complete Guide to Getting and Staying Organized". The theme of this swap and hop is "organizational challenges". Wow. Good one, Lysa. Too bad everything in my house is completely organized. Move along folks, nothing to see here. *smirk*

As I have shared before, I am quite the type A personality and would love for things to be just perfect in my home, but alas it just ain't gonna happen. Things are clean but most of the time cluttered. I keep telling myself it's fine and everyone else lives like this, right? Can I get an amen?

Our most challenging area that lacks organization right now would be our storage room. We have been in our house for about one year now and our storage room still looks like, well, a storage room crammed full of junk. We actually bought a few pieces of the Rubbermaid FastTrack garage system which I LOVE. However, because there is so much stuff in there we could not put up the whole system. What good is that you may wonder? None!

It is quite a large space and has great potential for being an organized haven. But we just can't seem to get it together enough to make it happen. The thought of sorting through it all is just so daunting. Where are the folks from TLC's Clean Sweep when you need motivation?? Road trip to Alabama anyone, to help a bloggy sister out...Karen? Lysa? Or the organizational book would be awesome too. Plus, there might be pictures....I love books with pictures!

Now for the shaming show and tell. Notice, if you will, the stack of empty storage containers just piled up together in the last photo. Yea, I can't believe I'm sharing this with the blogging world.

They're here.....

The Princess and her prize(s)




Meet Tony and Mikey....our new babies for the next 7 days.


Please see previous post to find out how we got to bring these little cuties home.

American Idol Inspiration?

This week they are singing "Inspirational Songs". Great! Marvelous! These are the songs that initiate an immediate reflex in my arm, and the next thing I know the radio station changes in my car. This won't be my favorite week at all. So, I will suffer through it in the name of blogdom.

Michael Johns: "Dream On" by Aerosmith. Ummm, Thurston Howell the third just called, he wants his ascot back. I thought it was a pretty good rendition. Paula said something about her Taco Bell dogs joining him on stage. Huh?

Sayesha: "I Believe" by Fantasia. She took on a big song and, well, sang it. Miss ADD here was fixated on her BIG HOOP EARRINGS. My mind ran on and on.....are those things heavy, do they hurt her ear lobes?? *yawn*

Jason "Dread Lock" Castro: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" with a ukulele. Where is Tiny Tim when you need him for back up? Oh yea, in a better place. Anyway, Jason sang very well, but I still can't get past that hair. Simon said, "fantastic".

Kristy Lee: "Always" by Martina McBride. Fine, I do like this song when on the radio. Uh oh, sparkly shirt, sparkly make up....major ADD distraction. I should e-mail her and tell her I have some gold play-doh that would make her whole hands, arms and face sparkly for half the price of her make-up. Not bad for the girl I have wanted to vote off the island for the last 2 weeks.

David Cook: "Innocent" by Our Lady Peace (who?). Remember he is my favorite and self picked winner of the show. Whoa, hang a minute buddy....is that Michael Jackson's coat from Thriller? Maybe not. I've never heard of that song in my life, but Paula was movin' and groovin' with him. (cleavage alert) And the hand sign: GIVE BACK! kewl.

Carly Tattoo Arm: "Show Must Go On". I really liked her hair tonight. She has a really good big sound. Randy and Paula thought the performance was ok and Simon thought she sounded "angry".

Cute little David Archuleta: "Angels". He's good, you know it, I know it. He will be in the final two. Period.

Brooke: "You've Got a Friend" by Carol King or James Taylor (whom I do love). I'm having a Woodstock party later this year, you think she would let me borrow that dress? It was an ok rendition but not great. Paula said it was "definitive". Does Paula know how to spell that? I think she got the kiss of death comment by Simon.

That's it folks. Nothing new in the judges' department. Brother Randy was rockin' in the house, Simon wore a black t-shirt again, and Paula had herself squeezed in that top like a sausage casing. I thought we might be in for a wardrobe malfunction!


Here are my predictions for bottom three:
Carly
Brooke
Syesha

My favorite tonight: Little David Archuleta

Who's gonna go: Carly


So, what are your thoughts or comments. I am NEEDING some comments! :-)

Spring cleaning.....

Who said spring cleaning had to be only indoors? Today I took the cleaning fever into the great wide open!

After working a full day in the OR (Operating Room for those of you not familiar with my work area), I came home and almost immediately began putting our newly tuned lawnmower to work.

Now I know what some of you are going to say...."your husband doesn't do the lawn", "YOU cut grass", "what???". Let me just begin by saying I am the oldest of four children and I have been cutting grass since I was about 12 or 13, right mom? I was never forced to cut the grass, to the best of my memory I volunteered to do it. I'm sure sometimes I did not do it with a grace filled heart. :-) And to this day, I LOVE cutting the grass!

After the grass was cut, the hubby commenced to weed eating, I can do that too, but don't like it as much as mowing or working the leaf blower! There's just something about blowing a spider into outer space with that thing.

After my part of the yard work was done I set my sights on something higher. Yes, it should have been praying. Praying for my sanity to return before I did something crazy, like getting on the roof and cleaning out the gutters. Yea, that would be too crazy for someone who will turn 40 in exactly one week.



I guess not too crazy. Let the rains come. My clean gutters are ready!!



Of course, any good husband of a blogging wife would immediately come out in the name of blogdom to photo the moment of insanity. Thanks dear!


The sweet reward for my intense labor!

In the news....

I have to admit I am a news junkie. Each evening after the kids go to bed, I make my rounds on the Internet. I peruse my favorite blogs (see sidebar), The Tuscaloosa News online, and then flip on over to three news websites: Foxnews, MSNBC, and CNN. I'm not sure why these three, it's just part of the ritual. (see previous posts about OCD son).

Anyway, tonight a couple of news titles caught my eye and I felt compelled to make comments.

#1: '80s boy band New Kids on the Block to reunite



Ummmm, really??? Because I must admit that I never loved these guys. Not even back in the day....and I WAS there. I also never knew that taking this picture back in, oh, about 1988 would have been so important now:



This, not so good photo, is a poster that hung outside my dorm room. I made it all by myself. Why I didn't have sense enough to take the picture directly in front of the poster, I have no idea. It was made from NKOTB --pulled that right out of the ol' memory-- trading cards. I'm sure I had a few sarcastic remarks next to some of them, but the title of the poster is : NEWSFLASH The New Kids Hit Puberty (Finally).

And why I saved this little jewel for the last 2 decades is also beyond me, but somehow I knew I would need it:


It's a handy dandy little book all about the NKOTB. WOW! Who gave this to me and why? I'm positive it was a joke, but the whole thing eludes me. *sigh* All I can say now is one word: eBay! Ladies let the bidding wars begin!




#2: Babies' lack of sleep boosts later obesity risk

The story highlights:

# Tots who sleep less than 12 hours daily at greater risk for overweight in preschool
# Kids who slept the least, watched most TV had greatest chance of becoming obese
# Sleep's impact on appetite hormones may explain the effect

You may ask why this story caught my attention. Well, maybe because the first 9 months of my son's life is a complete and utter blur. He came home from the hospital with his days and nights mixed up and nursed every 2-3 hours for MANY months. I honestly don't think he slept through the night until he was about 6 months old. So based on this article he should be quite the porker! I bet most obese people can't remove their SLIM jeans without unbuttoning them. You decide:


Count his ribs with me, if you will.

Check out those arms and legs.

Going once, going twice.....SOLD!

The highlight of this weekend was attending the annual fund raiser at our kids' school. The night began with a yummy BBQ supper in the school cafeteria. Funny thing though, I remember those little round seats being bigger?! Oh well.

After dinner, we all made our way to the gymnasium to bid on the silent auction which was followed by a live auction. The items up for bid varied from Webkinz to vacation getaways! Each class prepared a basket of items based on a theme chosen by the teacher. Then each child brought an item to "donate" for the basket. The princess' basket theme was baseball and the homeroom mom only needed $5 from each child because she had large items donated! And our son's teacher chose a "pamper me" theme, so we donated a foot care kit. Who couldn't use one of those???

Anyway, we put out a few bids on the silent auction because we knew we could not compete on the larger more expensive items. The princess honed in on the Webkinz items but was outbid quickly by children with larger piggy banks. I refuse to pay one more dollar on the little creatures! Of course, my OCD son honed in on this:



His OCD tendencies came shining through immediately. Oh how I wish I had taken the camera! Picture this, if you will, my son hovering over this paper while pacing and wringing his hands if anyone walked up just to read the flyer! He had his wallet in his pocket and knew exactly how high he could bid. He said, "I can only go up to $27 and then I'll need some money from somebody else." Yea, not mine I was thinking.

We had to all but physically remove him from the scene of the crime while time ticked down on the silent auction. After banning him from the auction floor, he had his friend run down and check to see if he was winning with only three minutes left. He was. Finally the buzzer rang and we all were relieved that the torture was over. It was only a matter of time before we found out that Caleb had lost the weekend with the little rodents....he was beaten in the last few minutes by someone else. HIS SISTER! Yes, the princess, at some point, snuck down on the floor and put her name on the line below his! We pick the rodents up Thursday, stay tuned....

The night was not over for us, we found out that we won a couple of other items.


Hopefully, this item will make up for the rodent fiasco of 2008. We won it for about half its retail value. We plan on using this for Caleb's birthday party next month.

And the final item we won was a cute little basket filled with my favorite theme goodies. COFFEE!!! It had 3 bags of coffee, 5 coffee mugs, 2 bottles of flavoring, and a couple of tea things. The starting bid was $15 so we thought why not. I checked on it a few times and we were still winning, and I was excited. The auction ended and I was the proud owner of a basket of coffee fun. After getting home, I suddenly realized why no other coffee lover bid on this fabulous treasure. ALL 3 BAGS OF COFFEE ARE DECAFFEINATED! WHAT??? My coffee basket excitement clearly affected my optic nerve. I did not see the print on the basket label (which clearly said DECAF). Whatever! I'll find some poor decaf soul to give it to.

The next surprise came out of the basket. The extremely cute dog mugs that my kids just l-o-v-e-d! The princess to claim to the white one because, "it looks like a real dog." Yes, I think so, don't you?



Yep, they were too cute for words.....ummm, but how about the words written on them:



I have already made plans to be out of town for next year's auction!

You know you're getting old when....

There could be any number of things in my life right now that would answer that question. I could probably do a stand up routine on it.

But today I can answer that question with....You know you are getting old when you pick out a new washer and dryer as your 40th birthday present! There was a day when that would have sent me over the edge but not today. It was an event in our home. We are putting away the old and bringing in the new.

My heart skipped a beat when the Sears truck pulled up outside to deliver the goods. I think the lemonade and cookie tray may have been overkill! I promised the guys I would put in a good word for them to get a raise.



Goodbye friends of 15+ years. You have been worked to death and never complained, you just kept going. We've had some good memories, like the time you thought it would be funny to pop a hose off the back and completely flood the laundry room and entire kitchen. So long energy inefficient, water guzzling buddy. Al Gore says you must go or that crack in the arctic ice shelf will be my fault.


Hello new friends! You've got years of work ahead of you. Your energy efficiency and decreased water consumption could not be beat. Hope you can live up to your predecessor's excellent reputation and hard work ethic.

American Idol Does Backwoods Barbie

Of course, the first thing that comes to my mind when I see Dolly Parton is this:



I can't tell you how many times I watched that movie back in the day. My 8 year old wanted to know, "Isn't she from Hannah Montana?"

Brooke sang about some chick named Jolene. In the infamous words of brother Randy, it was just ok for me dog.

David Cook, whom I decided last week is my pick to win the whole thing, chose Dolly's favorite song "Little Sparrow". He is just totally awesome. It wasn't as great as last week, but good enough.

Ramiele sang some song about ever crossing someone's mind. All my mind could think of during that song was where in the world did she get that crazy outfit. I think Molly Ringwald wore that little number in some movie. Really.

Jason Castro. I still can't get past the hair. And I hope Dolly sanitized after touching it. I believe she called him "funky lookin'". Ya' think, Dolly?

Carly did a pretty good job tonight singing "Hear You Come Again". Obviously Paula loved it based on her multiple OMG comments. I am still distracted by her tattoo arm.

Little David A. almost caused an eyelash malfunction with Ms. Dolly. Phew, that could have been disastrous. Once again, he did a great job and I think he will be one of the finalists, the pink princess phones probably lit up the phone lines tonight!

Kristy Lee, bless her heart, sang about a "Coat of Many Colors" while barefoot and wearing a dress with too many colors. And were those earrings dream catchers? I am almost positive some of our native Americans want those back.

Syesha, or as Dolly called her Shy-esha, sang that incredibly annoying song "I Will Always Love You". She sang atop the piano and too was barefoot, what is up with that? Is that some hidden insinuation that people in Tennessee don't wear shoes? Perhaps.

Michael Johns gave us his rendition of "It's All Wrong, But It's All Right". He did a really good job. He would probably be my second pick. One question here, how come folks that speak with a British/English accent don't sing with one. Hmmmm.

Praise the Lord that Paula's carpal tunnel was not acting up this week and she left her black orthotic gloves in the dressing room. She replaced them with about 25 gold bangle bracelets, which I'm sure had some sort of healing power. Simon's wardrobe is still lacking color qualities and our main dog Randy was in da' house! Favorite quote from Simon this evening, "I think I'm about to lose my season pass to Dollywood!"


Well, that's my review for the evening. My pick once again is David Cook. I am so hoping that Kristy Lee takes her barefoot, peacock dress of many colors home. Peace out.