Because I can relate

This video at Very Funny Ads speaks to me. Probably because this is how my luck runs.

The work of Satan

Doesn't it just figure that on the day I've decided to give up eating junk fo 40 days I would stumble across this tempting site. After I've been doing so good with my fasting today, I mean all I've had so far today is a half bottle of Coke and one Cadbury Cream Egg!

For real?

As recent years have shown, Britney has lost complete hairbrush function and decided to just do away with the rat's nest all together.

Seriously, can anyone tell me what exactly is wrong with this girl? I wonder how long her boys will run crying from her until they get used to their new bald mommy.

Public Service Announcement

Because I am a good person and I want to save all the rest of the people of the world from the misery I have been experiencing, I am sharing an important bit of information with all of you, my faithful readers.

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT ever buy this piece of crap that claims to be a vacuum cleaner. It is a poser! Apparently the engineers at Bissell misunderstood when the directions said that this vacuum needs to suck!

Every time I use this thing I have to tear it apart and unclog it. Often times this happens more than once during the same use. The process includes unclipping and removing the bottom plate then removing the roller brush and belt. At this point I need bamboo skewers (each time I wonder why I have three large bags of these and then figure someone knew I was going to be unclogging the vacuum a few million times). I then use the bamboo skewers to jab into the sucker hole and try to dislodge the crap that has collected in the hole. Then, obviously, I have to put it all back together again. The crap that is clogging it is usually a combination of dirt and pet hair. I understand that I have three pets but not a single one of them has long hair and quite frankly since acquiring the puppy I don't think my cats have actually used the floor, it's just not safe.

So I'm left wondering if this is typical vacuum behavior? Am I doing something wrong? Does the vacuum just not like me? Can someone please refer me to a vacuum that doesn't suck at sucking?

Smarty Pants

Upon having a discussion regarding school work and the other kids in her class I asked my 9 year old (never has to study her spelling words, gets good grades, it all comes natural to her)...

"Who's the smartest girl in your class?"

Her response...

"Uh, is this a trick question?"

Memories of June

This photo of my nine year old was taken this past June.

I cannot wait for a return to June weather.

Analogies

For homework my 11 year old had to complete a page of analogies. They were quite simple and the list of words needed to complete them was included. I decided she needed to be challenged so for most of them I denied her access to the list of words. I can really only remember the first one for some reason which was Heart is to Red as Sun is to ? At the end she had to make up her own analogy. Together we tried to come up with something original and finally decided on Bellybutton is to Lint as Toe is to Jam .

We're still walking around repeating our creation and giggling about it.

Candies and flowers and teddy bears oh my!

It's that wonderful Hallmark time of year again where all the women of the world build up this huge fantasy about all the romantic things their man is going to do to make this the V-day of all V-days, only for him to fail miserably and spend the rest of his life hearing how V-day 2007 was almost worse than V-day 2004, but if you really want pathetic you should hear about V-day 2003.

While I'm not overly fond of the impending romantic holiday I did decide it might be fun to share with all my loyal readers some of the things I've come across that I would like to give or receive.

Keeping in mind that this is not a holiday I get giddy about I couldn't help but choose a few of these to send to those I love or love to hate most. I have a few people in mind for this one. I couldn't have said it better. Then this is the one that scares me because well, I think it was written about me.

So some of you are actually into this holiday and need some last minute gift ideas you say? Oh, alright.

Do we women agree that this is mostly a women's holiday? Guys don't want chocolate, flowers, teddy bears and all that. Hell, cook him dinner and then do him on top of the table when your done and he'll think he's died and gone to heaven. If a gift is imperative I found the coolest key chain at Red Envelope. It's romantic, yet useful and his buddies will have no clue it's a mushy V-day gift. The best part? It's a gift for you girls too! Not your thing? Red Envelope always has plenty of unique gift ideas.

The extent of my Valentine gift buying includes my kids. This year for Christmas I bought them each a Webkinz and have they been the best gifts ever! My kids have so much fun visiting the website, earning kinz cash and furnishing their pet's virtual homes. I'm going to get each of them another one for Valentine's Day so their pets can interact. This cute little love puppy seems like he'd be the perfect Valentine's gift for the kiddies.

Now, if you're a man and you feel the need to send your love the requisite chocolate and flowers let's be sure you send her good chocolate and flowers. An awesome friend of mine from Wisconsin introduced me to Candinas Chocolatier. These are the chocolates of all chocolates! Make sure you read the story of how these little bits of heaven came to be.

Finally, the flowers. Maybe I'm not a typical girl when it comes to flowers but frankly, roses don't impress me all that much. If someone wanted to really impress me with flowers (hint-hint), tulips are the way to do it. The red vase adds a nice touch to this arrangement. I love the way this bouquet is put together.

I would love to see and hear about other's gift plans. I love unique ideas!

Kawaii Not

Here's a fun site I stumbled across. Some of my favorites are lick me, balloon and yo-yo. But this is the one that made the sick and twisted side of me giggle the hardest.

Raisins & Rice

I have this habit of asking my kids the perplexing question of, "Whatcha think?" My 11 year old usually responds with deep thoughts such as, "I don't know" or "nothing". This afternoon I asked her again and she responded with, "I don't know why but whenever you ask me that question I always think of raisins and rice."

Book-O-Knowledge

Once again let me share with you what I learned from one of my latest reads.

I was a bit surprised by how much I liked Gone for Good.

After reading this book I came to the conclusion that I should read more male authors. They seem to put less "mushy love stuff" in their writing. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of female writers that avoid the "mushy love stuff" as well and sometimes I'm all for the "mushy love stuff". But, for the most part I'm not into the romance part of a book.

Parenting Advice

When you've been buying the same butter, that comes in the same tub for about 4 years, DO NOT buy a different kind of butter! It will confuse the hell out of your children.

Staking my claim

I'm claiming my blog at Technorati!

I'm not completely sure what all that means at this point but everybody's doing it.

Be sure and check out my Technorati Profile. Even though I'm not completely sure what that means yet either.

Do you queue?

Because it's winter and I have so much extra time on my hands, what with kids in school all day and no yard to mow I decided it would be a good time to catch up on some movie watching. I admit to a little bit of pride over the fact that I don't watch much tv so I figured a couple movies each week would be acceptable.

Hi, my name is Tammy and I'm addicted to Blockbuster All Access. For the love of Margaret WHO introduced me to this idea? I'm obsessed. I am averaging 4-6 movies per week. Let's add this up, let's figure a movie averages 90 minutes times 6 movies equals 9 hours each week spent watching movies. It's damn near a part time job!

The pressure, you just can't imagine the pressure I'm under to watch these movies. The nearest Blockbuster store, where I can return my three online rentals and in exchange get three FREE in store rentals, is 20 minutes from my home. Therefore it's critical that I return all rentals at the same time to save on time and gas. I had to watch a movie at 10 a.m. yesterday so that I could return them all later in the day and get my new rentals. Although, up until I discovered Blockbuster Online, I hadn't rented a movie in nearly three years I am suddenly obsessively unable to go a weekend without a plethora of movie choices.

I won't even go into the time my daughters and I spend on the computer viewing trailers and adding new choices to our queue. Our queue then needs to be updated continually because once we get to the store to choose our three free rentals we suddenly realize we cannot wait for the USPS to deliver our next queue choices, oh no, we must have them NOW!

This of course begs the question, what's in my queue? What's in your queue? Please share, I NEED more choices!

The next 10 movies in my queue are:

1. Closer
2. School of Rock
3. Legally Blonde
4. Goal
5. Weather Man
6. Terminal
7. John Tucker Must Die
8. Break-Up
9. Friends with Money
10. Untouchables
    

Memory of a Man

Matt with our youngest

Four years ago today my children's daddy and my husband died of cancer. I've decided to take a moment to honor a man that died much too soon. Without a doubt we miss him terribly. He was an amazing dad, husband, best friend and all around great guy. His humor is unrivaled to this day. His mark on life has been left within the looks and personalities of three beautiful little girls. Each and every day I'm reminded of him by the things they say and do. To Matt...

Because I am a mother without healthy outlets

During a recent blog surf I found Melissa (Marissa, whatever) at Suburban Bliss. The first post I read was about her appearance on the Today Show regarding mommies and their alcoholic tendencies during their kiddy's play dates. Be sure to view the video segment because I suddenly view Meredith Vieira in a whole different light.

I was a bit appalled that they tried to make us (yes, I'm a cocktail/play date mom) look like a huge mass of irresponsible, alcoholic idiots. I've been wanting to write about it since I read Melissa's post and viewed the interview footage. But, as you can tell by reading this I lack a certain finesse when writing. Then today I read Dooce. I couldn't have put my feelings regarding this subject any better.

Mr. Mad Man bring me a dream

Is there such thing as a normal dream? I'm sure I never have them, my dreams are always so bizarre. Take for instance the latest dream installment.

It starts out with me getting completely drunk with some friends and then leaving my car somewhere, that I later cannot recall (no this has never happened to me), so that we can fly to Myrtle Beach. My entire family will be meeting me in Myrtle Beach eventually (we actually all went there together once). While I'm waiting for the family to arrive I realize a very good male friend of mine is staying in the house we'll be staying in. What the heck, he and I have sex while I'm waiting. That was the best part of the dream until, I realize he has plenty of other women there and he's fulfilling his obligation to humanitarian efforts by keeping all the women in the house happy.

It seems that at some point there was water and a boat involved which always seems to be a reoccurring theme in my whacked-out dreams.

Next thing I can recall is that we're packing to return home and I'm in a panic because once we return home I can't remember where I've left my car.

Once we return home my daughters and I are in a car and my 11 year old is driving (scariest part of dream). We stop at the aforementioned "very good male friend's" house because apparently he has returned at the same time. My 9 year old goes to his door to retrieve something he apparently had that belonged to us, and in the meantime my 11 year old decides to drive away. She figures her younger sister can find her own way home on foot! We return home because it seems I don't have the ability to overtake my 11 year old and stop the vehicle. Once we return home I realize it's cold and rainy and that I must quickly go get my 9 year old. So I of course leave her sisters home and go to find her. I find her walking down the middle of a road, wet and cold. About this time her sisters and all our luggage suddenly show up and I now remember I don't have a car because I can't remember where I left it in my drunken stupor. So the dream ends with the 4 of us walking home in the cold and rain with all of our luggage in tow.