Saturday, November 27, 2010

Christmas card

Joy Wreath Holiday 5x7 folded card
Shop hundreds of holiday photo cards at Shutterfly.
View the entire collection of cards.
Here's the fantastic card I made on Shutterfly.  Of course it took me forever to make.  Not because the site is hard to use at all--in fact it's super easy--but because it was so difficult to narrow down which card design was my favorite.  I could have spent hours looking through all the card options.  There are literally hundreds of cards to choose from and then you can customize them a dozen different ways to further personalize them.  I am thrilled with the card I made and hope it looks as great in person as it does on the computer.

Friday, November 12, 2010

Have you borrowed money lately

We last bought a house in 2008.  Due to being relocated we are once again buying a house just a little over 2 years later.  This time is NOTHING like any of the times we've bought a house before.  The new lending and banking guidelines are un-freakin-believeable.  They are nearly impossible to satisfy.  The government has freaked out and gone the extreme opposite direction from where they were 2 years ago when they were encouraging anyone and everyone to borrow money to the exact opposite where now it's amazingly hard to borrow money.  Just to get mortgage rates run you have to fill out a 19 page loan application, submit to credit check, and give the lender permission to pull your last 2 years tax returns--all of that JUST to get rates run!  Once you get past that then you have to keep detailed paper trails of everything, be able to explain every last dollar in your bank account, can't spend any large amounts of money prior to closing, and on and on and on.  I keep thinking they are going to ask us to submit to DNA tests next.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

A house is not a home without love (and paint, carpet, new AC units...)

Ok don’t fall over from shock but after 5 months we finally put an offer on a house.  We found out we were being relocated back to MS the last week of July right before school was to start.  By that time, all the houses in our prefered area had been snatched up by people just wanting mailboxes to get their kids into our great school system so we were left with little or no inventory from which to choose.  We knew all along we really wanted to be back in our old neighborhood.  In the mean time we've been bunking at my parents house (which is also in our old neighborhood.) 
So this week it finally happened--well, rather hubby convinced me/ talked me into putting an offer on a house.  No, I’m not jumping up and down because frankly it's not my favorite—it’s a real fixer-upper—as in major fixin’ to be done.  It definitely needs serious work in areas--it's VERY outdated and has been vacant for over a year, but it’s a heck of a deal and hubby's trying to convince me that we could go in and redo everything the way we want it done. We'll see what comes of it but we did go ahead and make an offer and now are just waiting to hear back from the sellers. 

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Shuttering at the diminishing days til Christmas

On your mark,
Get set,
GO!
The Christmas countdown is on! 

At the time that I am starting this post there are 58 days 2 hours and 56 minutes until Christmas....But who's counting?
              That means if you are going to get Christmas cards made, addressed, and actually mailed so that friends and family get them PRIOR to Christmas day then it's time to start planning.

I'm a bit of a Christmas card freak and not only do (make, address, and mail) our cards but my parents' cards as well and keep extensive mailing label databases for each.  This year I am already planning on using Shutterfly for our cards.  We always send out photo cards because let's be honest that Christmas cards are a competition to see who has the cutest kids.  A competition which we dominate with our two beautiful girls of course!

We have used Shutterfly 2 or 3 times for our Christmas cards, but I'm going to admit that we did not use Shutterfly last year.  I thought I had found a good deal on photo cards on another site and, sure, they were cheap....but price ended up not being the only way in which they were cheap.  They looked ok.  Nothing spectacular.  They looked like I had printed them out using my home printer.  The quality was as poor as the price was cheap.  I was disappointed but it was too late to get new cards made. 

So after a lackluster year, I'm going for major pizazz this year with our cards.  Right now, the front runner choice for our card is the Classic Red Square Christmas Card 5x5 Flat Stationery Card by Stacy Claire Boyd.  You can put 8 photos on it and customize the message in the red square.  I love being able to personalize the greeting.  Our family has a signature quote from Gladys in the Best Christmas Pagent Ever that we always put on our Christmas cards and I think it will look awesome in the middle red square in this card. 

While browsing Shutterfly's site I also found two new obsessions: personalized Christmas gift tags and personalized Christmas address labels.  Shutterfly has really branched out to be a one-stop-shop for all your Christmas needs.  I especially love the Retro Wheel Bright gift tag because it's very vintage looking but also while it is festive and perfect for Christmas, it could also be used year-round for all your gift giving occasions.  It also has corresponding address labels which are super cute and again could be used year-round but especially at Christmas. 

Hurry to order your Christmas cards while Shutterfly is offering 20% off all holiday cards!  Time is ticking......after writing this post there are only 58 days 2 hours and 25 minutes left!

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

My favorite obsession

I love Glee.  I am not ashamed to admit that I look forward to it every week with total giddyness all day on Tuesdays.  My husband who is a total tough guy, man's man, beer and football kind of guy, even loves Glee too.  It's the ONE show (besides football) that we watch together every week.  So I have been extra excited today about the RHPS episode coming on tonight.  We have an elegant theatre in town where Gone with the Wind first debuted which does a midnight screening of RHPS without fail each Halloween.  I adore RHPS.  I do get that many many people don't support RHPS and it's "message" but there is no denying it is one genius piece of musical theatre.  So you know where to find me tonight at 7pm....

Friday, April 23, 2010

Weather freak out

I am a weather freak.  I check the weather dozens of times a day.  If it storms at night I stay up all night until the storm passes.  I have a plate signed by the man who was the local weatherman from my childhood on display in my kitchen.  I'm over obsessive about the weather.  I like to be in control of my surroundings and the weather is one thing that I have no control over whatsoever and it makes me feel very vunerable and uneasy.  I was 8mons preggo on bed rest when Katrina hit (we lived in South Mississippi at the time) so I have extensive history with bad storms but tornadoes are a whole other variable.  We knew Katrina was coming.  We had time to prepare (although no one was prepared for the 8days without power and gas shortages.)  We saw it coming.  With tornadoes you have no clue where they will hit and it is strictly the fickle finger of nature as to who/what gets hit and what is left untouched.  We have been forecasted for severe storms here this weekend so I'm drinking my Coke Zero and getting ready for a long night ahead of me.

Monday, April 12, 2010

BABIES

I'm a BzzAgent (fantastic program I love contributing to) and as such have been given the opportunity to be a BABIES Ambassador and learn extra about the new film BABIES.  My understanding is that it follows the first year of life of four children from Mongolia, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Namibia.  It's release date is May 7, 2010.  Be sure to watch the trailer below first and then become a fan of the movie on Facebook:


The film looks amazing and reminds me how amzing children are, how amazing people are, how amazing humanity is.  It will make you want to live a more joyful (meaning FULL OF JOY) life.   Look at this picture--pure JOY!


And just for fun, check out the hilarious Jimmy Kimmel spoof here:

Friday, April 2, 2010

Just doing my job

Our 4 year old just asked me to get her a cup of “icy cold water” to go with her snack of Cheez-its.
I said “Sure.”
To which she said “I love you so much that’s why I let you work for me.”

We definitely know who's the boss at our house!

Friday, February 5, 2010

Snow in the South

We had 9 inches of snow last weekend.  The kids were out of school for 3 days plus the weekend--that made for 5 very long days!  Last year we had what the weatherman called (at the time) a "freak" snow of 14 inches.  Hmmm....We've lived here 2 years and year 1 we have 14 inches and year 2 we get 9 inches.  Somehow I think snow is becoming an expected thing and not so much a "freak" thing (Al Gore anyone?!?)  Or maybe it's just God's way of punishing this Southern Mississippi girl who's used to wearing flip flops year round!
When hubby lowered the tailgate on the truck we had a perfect batch of snow to measure.  Note the quarter inch layer of ice on top.  We had ice/sleet/freezing rain come through first, then heavy snow for an entire day, and then another night of freezing rain/ice on top of the snow.  Needless to say hubby banned me from going anywhere.  You know us 'Sippi folk don't know how to handle the white stuff. I can ride out any hurricane but don’t have a clue what to do with snow!  The pan was in the back of the truck to catch clean snow for snow cream.
Our snow dogs!  The big one loves snow but the beagle hates it, but it was over her legs up past her belly so she had a really hard time walking in it.  The big dog would bound through the snow like Tigger on Winnie the Poo just hopping everywhere.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Titles/Groups/Cliques

A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow.    Tommy Lee Jones as K in Men in Black (1997)
Here's my confession: as a general rule I don't really like people.  I like individuals but not people as a group.  I believe in the general goodness of mankind but I also believe that generally mankind is pretty darn stupid. 

I also hate labels.  I hate being put into a group with a title.  I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat but that's not ok with people so they gave a label of Independent to the leftover voters.  Nope, I'm not one of those either.  I tend to be a Republican in financial matters, a Democrat in social matters, and neither in environmental and health care issues.  I am extremely against big government but I realize that a certain minimum level of government involvement is needed.  So what does that make me?  Probably part of the growing majority in the US right now--the group called "unhappy-with-all-policy-makers-who-no-longer-drive-their-own-cars-or-haven't-paid-for-lunch-in-10years."

Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Biggest Baby I Have

Sorry I’ve been so long without writing! Been a crazy holidays. I was so behind in Christmas shopping between the 10 days I was down with the flu back at Thanksgiving to spending all my free time looking at different schools (we withdrew our oldest from the school she had been in and put her at a new school--very long story behind it all) that as soon as the girls got out of school I did nothing but shop and decorate. We had some of hubby's family come in town the Monday after school let out so I was frantic trying to get everything together. Then hubby and I had planned an adult vacay for the week after Christmas as our Christmas present to ourselves while the girls went to Mississippi to spend a week with my parents—but instead he started with fever the day after Christmas and ended up with the flu so I’ve spent the past few days playing nurse to one BIG 34 year old BABY! Thankfully the girls were in MS nearly the entire time he was sick so they weren’t exposed.
I have birthed two children, two c-sections, 3 months of pre-term labor, 3 months of bed rest (including 10 days from hell during Katrina--was so hot I might as well have been in hell), suffered mastistis both times, and on and on and on but my goodness he gets the freakin flu and he thought he was going to die (unfortunately I wasn't that lucky!)  He couldn't (of course he could but he wouldn't) even get out of bed to get his own Sprite.  Why do grown men become the world's biggest whiners when sick?  I finally got smart and started drugging him with nighttime meds in the middle of the day so he'd hush!