Wii Love to Play

Continuing from the theme of the last post - weight loss- I will be getting a Wii Fit. As of yet, I am not sure if I will be ordering it off of eBay - it costs almost twice as much doing it that way - or buying it in a store.

Buying it on ebay
Pros: They will have one for me to buy.
Cons : I will have to wait on shipping.
Cons: With shipping, cost is much higher.

Buying it in a store
Pros: Save money
Pros: will know it is being bought from a reputable dealer
Cons: Very hard to find. Still

According to the pros and cons lists, I should be buying it from a store. But. I'm rather impatient..

I wonder how the Wii is made. The Wii fit looks kind of like a scale, but how does it know what you are doing on it? Same goes for the WiiMotes. How on earth do they work! I wonder if the machine part of the Wii is full of ram, like a computer is?

Whatever. Doesn't really matter HOW the Wii is made, its a darn cool thing!

Oh Dear

The other day I let Stuperman "play" with the camera. it's a very sturdy camera, waterproof, dust proof, and apparently fall proof as it has been dropped several times with no problems.

AHHHHNYway. I let him play with it and when he was done I scrolled through the pictures to see what he took. Then I deleted them. ALL. Especially the one he took of me sitting at my laptop. I knew I had gained weight but oh man. I had no idea how bad it looked until I saw those pictures.

I need to do SOMETHING. Something... I need to start walking, work my way up to jogging. maybe even running! But mostly? I need to stop nibbling on chips and cookies. Stop baking cakes, muffins and squares. Maybe start on some of those weight loss pills? Maybe even start taking some bodybuilding supplements!

Less snacks, more action, thats gonna be my motto from now on!

(Now, who holds the secret to making snacks taste gross?)

Pull Tabs!

I have made no secret of the love affair I have been having with Face Books Pull tabs application. it's OK, my husband knows about it - What I love about pull tabs - as opposed to the Scratch and Win application, is the odds of winning are WAY better. For example, I started playing S&W about six to eight weeks before I even knew Pull tabs existed, and yet, i am on stage four Pull tabs, and stage three S&w.

Another example? I won 80 tokens in scratch and win this morning, and yet, when I played pull tabs yesterday I won over 1000. Yea. It's like that!

Sometimes, on pull tabs, you win big - really big - like this - thanks to the handy dandy Xnumber. Scratch and win does not have that! Now, don;t get me wrong, You do not always win a huge amount, see, this one only won eighty tokens - which - let me point out, was the same on one ticket as I won with 23 different tickets in Scratch and Win!

And, lest you go away from here thinking every ticket is a winner, we have this - the "Sorry Try Again" Ticket. But, even with losing on, say HALF of the tickets you buy, you still have a better chance for tokens with the Xnumber than with S&W. Plus. Look how cute and polite they are when you lose!

Then there are the errors. Every face book Application I have ever come across has errors, but I htink, Pull Tabs might be subject to a few more than the norm. Some days you pull a ticket, and then reload due to error, pull a ticket, reload, pull, reload, but, pull tabs are too addicting, too much fun, to be bothered by some silly error message? Right?

Now, with all that being said, SEND ME PULL TABS!!

Butterflies? Maybe. Hopefully.

For years, probably six, hubs and I and the children catch caterpillars, and put them in jars and bug cages. We feed them fresh grass and tree leaves and spray a fine mist for water.

We always hop to see them cocoon and , eventually, turn into butterflies. Late last yea we gathered some caterpillars and for the first time, had a successful cocoonage. Unfortunately nothing happened after that.

The other day I was at a friends house, her place was crawling, literally with hundreds of caterpillars. She offered me a jar and me and Logan caught eight of them and brought them home. For two days they sat in the jar with wilted leaves and no air holes waiting for me to get off my duff and transfer them to the larger bug habitat.

This afternoon, Logan and I went into the woods to gather fresh grasses and leaves for the transfer. We pulled the tick out of the jar and were happy to note that there were five happy crawly caterpillars on it. I turned the jar over to capture the last three, only to have leaves and caterpillar poo fall out. Just as I was about to reach my hand in the jar to scrape them out, I saw three cocoons!

I'm a bit upset that I did not get them transfered to their proper habitat before they reached this stage, but that is way overshadowed with the joy that they have actually cocooned. we have NEVER, in all the years we have captured them, had caterpillars cocoon so fast!

Needless to say I am very excited about this, and hope to see butterflies soon!

oh em jee The BLAHS!

Ok so, I woke up, LATE, this morning, and of course this would be the morning that my middle son has to be at school early to catch the bus for his field trip (called the school, he got their JUST in time, his elder brother took his helmet and bike for him to put away, or would not have made it)

Eight minutes after I got up, the kids were dressed fed and hurried to school, and I sat down at my laptop to do my face book scratch and win tickets. Not that I am addicted to them. becuase I'm addicted to pull tabs, and one addiction is enough, ya know?

I got about half way through them when The Blahs set in. Just like that, I was exhausted. I convinced the three year old he wanted to watch a movie in mommy's bedroom and went back to bed.

Now I am up, and dressed, and drinking coffee. I have done the dishes and swept the floors. I should feel happy, at the very least, content, but I am SO tired, all I want to do is curl up on the couch for another nap - and yet, I got nine hours of sleep last night!

Maybe I should get some energy pills..... either that, or much, much much more coffee!

Momma Said

..that there would be days like this.

At 930 this morning the power went out. not a huge deal, as we have plenty of light from the windows and sky lights, and I can occupy the toddler with crayons and play doh. The problem was :

1. I had not made any coffee yet, and not knowing how long I would be without was really irritating to me. Its like when you want a smoke and all you can think of is your next smoke, I was getting the "Nic Fit" urge, but for coffee! Very stressful. I even tried to stick a filter over a cup with a few table spoons of coffee and drip hot water ( from the tap - so not that hot!) over it to brew a cup !

can we say desperate? And by the way, taking hot tap water and trying to make your own cuppa java? Doesn't work. By the time anything comes out the other side of the filter, not only is it weak, but its lukewarm. Sadness.

and

2. The new security system, which, I can work, kinda, but not really. When the power went off, the battery back up keeps the doors and windows and ect working, but an alarm beeps every three minutes, six sharp beeps, telling me it is off. For the life of me I could not remember where me and hubs had put the instructions book, and it took me almost an hour to locate it, only to read that all I had to do was push status, read the notice about the power failure, and push disarm on that part. it would disarm that alarm, the power one,but not the rest.

DOH!

THEN, after I got all that figured out and the power came back on. (which, by the way, as soon as the lights came back I was up and making coffee, I was worried that the power would go back out and I would have none.) So with the coffee brewing and the dishwasher running ( I loaded the dishwasher while I waited for the power to come back - again - thankful for the kitchen skylight!) I decided to hop online and bug the twitterer's with my tales of woe. Only. No internet.

[Insert gasps of shock and awe. Sympathy is welcome]

So I called the ISP provider, after running a diagnostic thingy on my end (I sound all smart, don't I?) and he got me to a bunch of stuff - unplug here, watch this light there, click here there and everywhere. We also talked about the weather. Its been raining for two days where he is. Non stop. Crappy!

Anyway. After about twenty minutes of trying this and that, the tech guy decided that the power outage had fried my modem and that I would need to head into the city and swap it out - at no cost- I was all, woe is me, no interwebs! Whatever shall I do?

Then, magically, it started working! And uhm. here I am! I bet you didn't even know I was gone, did you!!??

As for making supper tonight? I'm VERY tempted to suggest going to a franchise restaurant's tonight, just for the heck of it. I'm sure that the three year old would love it too, even if just for the chance to get out of the house! He even tried talking me into letting him go out int he rain because "Look Mom! I have an Umbrella! Umbrellas are for the raining days! Now I can go outside!'

But I was all "NO". And he was all "WAH". And that dear interwebs is how my day went. How was yours?

House Keeping Question

What do you use to clean your floors?

The majority of our floors is that laminated click wood flooring. We have it in the living room adn hallway upstairs and it covers 100% of the downstairs floor. In the kitchen and bathrooms we have linoleum, and in three of the upstairs bedrooms we have light beige carpeting.

I bought a Swiffer for the wood portion of the floors, and had been washing the kitchen and bathroom floors by hand. I did not like the residue left when I did the linoleum floors by hand so I switched to using the Swiffer for those floors too. This however, gets expensive ans the Swiffer needs fancy smancy cloths on it to wash.

So what kind of mop should I be using? I do not want one that will break constantly - thats why I had been doing the floors by hand, my mops kept breaking. I was thinking about getting a microfiber mop but do not know how well they will hold up to a house with three little boys a dog and a cat!

I sweep before I wash, but there is still a TONNE of cat and dog hair that gets picked up, whether I am washing by hand or mop. I like the idea, also, of a mop that has a machine washable head.

Also? The coffee stains on my bedroom carpet? How do I get those out? I tried an oxygenated carpet cleaner thing (oxy?), but it did not work :o(

303.9 Percent. That's a lot

I was reading in the local paper. Well, not the local paper, but the one for a city ten miles from us, that housing in our town is up. WAY up. Like a single family home is up 350% from LAST YEAR, and our place, a duplex, is up 303.9%. All in one year!

Our new neighbors paid 137,000 more for their house than what we paid for it. AND, we paid LESS than 137,000 for our house. The kicker? Their house is the exact same as ours. Same footage, same layout, same everything.

When we applied for our mortgage we had to jump through hoops. I have no fear of foreclosure on our place because the mortgage lady made damn sure we could afford the month payments on our loan. But in 2007 a new kind of mortgage lender was allowed to operate in our province. This mortgage lender acts much like the ones in the states, meaning, they allow you to be approved for way more that you can afford to be approved for.

Here is a great example. At the place hubs works, there is a guy who was approved for 250,000 MORE than what we were approved for three years ago and yet he makes the same wage as Hubs - and no, his wife does not work - just like me.

Fact is, with housing at the price it is now, mortgages that are 40 years long are the norm (ours is 20 years) and if you want a house now, you will have to loan outside of your comfort range. When housing prices started rising less than six months after we bought our house I was thankful we bought when we did, but now that I am seeing houses sell for more than double what we paid for ours I feel like we are blessed!

Not Quite what I wanted, But good practice!

I've always had trouble knowing what color looks good on who, and Smokey the dog is no exception! As excited as I was to make her a new dress, I am disappointed in the outcome. The dress itself is great, it was relatively easy to make - but for the one snag I had trying to figure out the pleats in the skirt.

The dress simply does not look as cute on her as the one we bought in the store, the blue one.

Here I am with the pleats all pinned ready to sew them.

The finished dress laying on the couch.

Close up on the detail of the top fabric.

And finally, Smokey the Pup Model

Hubs thinks a darker color will work, so I am going to make another one in purple.

Parker has requested I make her a red and green one for Christmas, and "can you put some bows on it this time?"

Medically Speaking

My sister has a Medical Id Bracelet. Actually, she has a few of them. They are VERY important to her well being. You see, when my sister was three and I was a newborn, she caught Hemloch-Shoiloin Purpra - don't feel bad for not knowing what it is, its a very rare disease. (and I have probably spelt it wrong)

Some people who come down with HSP are perfectly fine after recovery, some die, and others are in between. My sister is an In Between. the disease attacked her kidneys and completely ruined them, both, before my parents even knew she was sick. She had her first transplant when she was seven or eight. She has had four since. One of the transplants was to be from me, but during an ultrasound of my kidneys as part of the transplant work up, we found out I was pregnant with our first child.

Not only does my sister not leave her house without her medical id, she does not even take it off to bathe or sleep. On her bracelet is a medical ID number that gets entered into a computer - this can be done VIA cell phone. my sisters records and the drug types she is on, and her allergies (fatal) on top of that just will not fit on a bracelet alone.

its comforting , for me, to know she has her Med ID at all times, especially now, as she has been having a lot of problems with her Anti Rejection drugs and high blood pressure. I don't have to worry that no one will now whats what if she is unconscious when help arrives. Her medical ID bracelet has quite literally saved her life several times.

I myself am required to have a Medical ID bracelet, though I have yet to order one. I have a fatal allergy to penicillin, which is one of the most widely used drugs (at least in Canada). I should really get off my duff and order one!

Pressured

This afternoon I met Rob - who on the outside seemed like a nice enough guy. In fact, my opinion of him did not change until after he had left! See, Rob left, along with a DVD instructions/manual combo, a "God" leaflet and a "Ten Commandments"push pen. I'm not even going to get into what I believe in regards to faith.

What I want to know is how does a person grow the balls to shove their religion into another persons face? What makes him think we hold faith in something other than him anyway? Why am I letting this bug me?

Part of me wants to call the company he works for - he was installing an alarm system for our home- and complain. Another part of me is stuck on the fact that while he was in our home he was a pleasant, non preaching kind of guy. He did his work, and did it well. He was nice to my boys, showing them the tools when he could have pushed them away.

Sigh

Sew, Can you help me?

Last Saturday we got Smokey THE cutest dress a dog has ever owned. That same night I got to looking at it and thought to my self, "Self, that looks pretty easy, I bet you could make a dozen dresses for Smokey!"

Then I promptly forgot about it until I went into the sewing room to grab the vacuum. Instead of grabbing the vacuum I pawed through the sewing cabinet looking at the different materials I had. I found the perfect set of coordinates and brought them all out to the kitchen. Making the top half of the dress was easy, from making the pattern to sewing and ironing, I bet it was under twenty minutes.

And thats when I ran into the snag.

As much as I have sewn over the years, I have never had to occasion to make little girl things. Riffles and pleats, lace and bows! I sat there for about half an hour trying to figure out how to make the skirt pleat and attach to the top, and then?

I simply gave up.

(and vacuumed the floors)

Dragon Balls, Z, & GT

Hubs has been watching one ofr of dragon balls or another for the past month. We started off with Dragon Balls, then moved onto Dragon Ball z. I assumed we were close to done with the whole set. I was informed last night, however, that he had just finished downloading Dragon ball GT, and that he and the boys would start watching it as soon as they were done with Z.

Occasionally I get "into" the shows. its hard not to when they are being played literally a foot from me, but the noise is annoying as hell!

*GAH*

Mornings suck. More than suck. Mornings can bite my A$$! I wish that I could remember to set the coffee pot up to auto brew so that at least I could have coffee when I wake up.

About the only good thing morning has to offer is that my facebook scratch and win tickets are in. Most mornings I scratch them and then head back to bed after the kids are gone to school. tomorrow though? oy vey, I am not looking forward to THAT! My MIL is coming over to help me with a little sewing project so I will not be able to go back to bed.

I need you to remind me to set the coffee up to auto brew tonight...PLEASE!

To paint or not to paint

Periodically I have enough will power to grow out my nails. Its great and all, having nice lengthy nails, but too long and it is hard to type, too short and the polish looks dorky - I LOVE dark polish, but hate how it looks on short nails.

Today and tomorrow I am painting a shelf for Blake's Alcove in his room, so there is no point painting my nails, but when I am done, and the shelf is up, what color shall I paint them? I have a beautiful shade of deep deep red, its shiny and twinkly and I love it, but it's rather ...red... for summer time. I have the same type of polish but in a deep dark blue.

I think I will go with Orange, It takes a lot to get it on, at least three coats, but when it is done right, its awesome!

Unless... what color do YOU want me to do?

sWiiT!

As of today, I have officially earned enough for a Wii. So far, just the console, but thats a darn good start. Now the time comes for us to wait for it to be transfered to my bank account and then we shall start stalking the game stores in hopes of locating a Wii.

The next part of my plan is to earn enough for the Wii Fit, and then, use it. Last winter I was on DDR, dance Dance Revolution, every day for hours at a time, and I lost weight. I could see changes in my legs, my butt, hips and stomach, and the best part of it, DDR was fun. Then, Hubs got a PS3 for Christmas and the PS3 and DDR was moved downstairs to the rec room. And that was the end of my exercise routine as I rarely go downstairs.

We bought a DVD shelf thingy (above) for keeping the DVDs in, to make room for the Wii and all the accesories we will need to purchase, so thats one step out of the way.

I can't wait!

ZooToo Pet networking

I blog, I've MySpace'd, I twitter and Facebook - those are all things I do for ME. For my pets, I ZooToo.

ZooToo is a pet social network. Not that I let Tigger or Smokey spend all night online, becuase at 3 years and 8 months, respectively, they are much too young for unlimited internet usage!

Zootoo is a place where I can go and see, by area, pet owners close to me or I can choose to see only owners with the same breed of animal as me.

One of my favorite parts of ZooToo is the Pet Wars. When you set up your pet profiles you have the option of uploading a picture of your pet(s). Once your photo is uploaded it is randomly placed into Pet Wars where people vote with a click of a button what pet is cutest!


I voted for Gordo, by the way, I am a sucker for puppy dog eyes!

Another cool feature of ZooToo is the ability to sign up for free pet related samples, from dog food to bird treats! There is even a place for you to journal your thoughts. I've noticed a lot of people journal from the pets point of view and a lot of them are hugely amusing!

If you have a pet, be it a fish, a snake or a dog, consider joining up with ZooToo, in fact, if you leave your email in the comments, I can send you an invitation - although you certainly do not need an invite to join!

The Magic Of Disney!

Disney - just the word brings up images of smiling kids, dancing mice and happy families. Most of us have seen a Disney movie, and many of us own collections of Disney movies. One of the best parts of being a mom is sitting with my boys watching them watch a Disney classic for the first time!

When we were pregnant with our first child, we decorated his nursery with the theme 101 Dalmatians.

Now you, and me, and everyone else, has a special chance to bring the magic of Disney into our homes! On Saturday, September twenty th, in Utah, the Sanders Art Studio is presenting The Magic of Disney Fine Art Exhibition.

This will be a LIVE performance, held at the Hogle Zoo (in Utah) from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. Trevor Carlton, who started painting In high school, brings a unique experience to the stage, sure to inspire, energize, and engage audiences of all ages with his signature blend of artistic expression, music, dance, and high energy entertainment!

The exhibit showcases over 30 of your favorite Disney Classic Film moments such as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Kermit the Frog, Peter Pan, Mickey Mouse, Pirates of the Caribbean, Mary Poppins and much more.

In addition to the exhibit, over 300 limited-edition Disney Fine Art Giclee's on canvases are available for purchase on a new website and virtual gallery at Sanders Art Studio.com.

In case you, like me, are unsure what exactly a Giclee is, I offer this definition: In the Giclee process, a fine stream of ink, more than four million droplets per second is sprayed onto archival art paper or canvas. The result is similar to an airbrush technique but much finer. Each piece of paper or canvas is carefully hand mounted onto a drum that rotates during printing. Exact calculations of hue, value, and density direct the ink of four nozzles. This method creates a combination of 512 chromatic changes "that is over 3 million possible colors of highly saturated, nontoxic water-based ink." The artists color approval and input is essential for creating the final custom setting for the edition.

This is the perfect time to start a Disney collection for your walls, one to match the one in you DVD case!

Hand me Downs

We just gave the trike in the video above to my brother. His daughter is two and a half, and just as big (or bigger) than my soon to be four year old son. Last weekend we moved Logan from the trike to an actual bike ( with training wheels) and since we have no more little kids, we opted to give it away rather than store it or send it to the dump.

One of the best things about having all boys is the hand me down factor. They each used the same crib, same toddler bed and same "bed". Parker (8) has a new bed, one more suited to his age, and Blake (6) got his big kid bed last month. There are outfits that Logan is outgrowing that I remember being too big on Parker.

Being able to reuse clothes, toys, even furniture has saved us a lot of money!