more bloggy questions

okay, what is the best way to respond to your comments where you will actually see that i responded??

random info

okay, i LOVE hearing all of your thoughts about my musings and the mundane of my life, but i would LOVE even more if i knew who was commenting. so, if you don't have a link or picture with your name where i can figure it out, could you at least leave the first initial of your last name. so i'll know if it is becky a. from good ol' beach project or becky w. from childhood commenting for example.

if you are lurking from cyberspace and commenting even though i don't know you, kuddos to you! this obviously doesn't apply as the initial wouldn't help me in the least! :)

KEEP COMMENTING! i love the community of this!

kitchen nightmare!

our kitchen...it's in shambles. there is a pipe busted under the foundation. horrible. see the standing water?

so we are staying at my parents (thanks mom and dad!) while my precious husband attempts to fix this nightmare.

what are you up to this weekend?

thrifty thursdays-part 5--free samples

okay, i'll admit it. i'm a sucker for free samples. i tried StartSampling for awhile, but burned out on it.

now, i'm hooked on wal-mart's free samples. you go here, and just choose the sample you want mailed to you. they add new things each week. jon got some free facial lotion in the mail this week that i ordered for him. i'm sure it will get used soon. ha! and right now, i've got a pull-up headed to my house (where no one is in the potty training stages and won't be for another year!) but hey, when julia gets ready, that's at least 30 cents or so saved.

come on. you've got to have some better ideas than this....

foot bath

i bought this and it got here today. so, i thought i'd try it out. i have no idea if this is legit or not, but if it is, i definitely got rid of some toxins tonight!!

check out the progression...
ten minutes later...
twenty minutes in...
and at the end of thirty minutes...can you see how nasty this water is?? here's a close-up shot of the water, but it really doesn't even begin to do it justice...
"is all this junk in my body??" asks the girl who finished the detox bath and then took her vitamins with some girl scout thin mints to wash them down. good grief!

my favorite time

it takes a bit of humility for me to post these pictures...because, well let's just admit it, i'm looking a little rough. however, the other day, jon was home when i was putting the girls down for their afternoon naps/room time, and i said, "go grab the camera!" because quite simply this is my favorite time of the day. and this is the way we normally look. julia still in her jammies (at 1:00), me showered and dressed--no make-up yet, and abby in the midst of one of her many wardrobe changes for the day. or as in the picture, naked, yet again.

i'm sure part of the reason i love this time of day is because i know that there are a few moments of quiet coming my way soon, but the real reason runs a little deeper. when i am sitting with both of them cuddled up reading "hug" or "mr. brown can moo, can you" for the thousandth time, something in me feels settled and at rest. at times, i realize that this is one of those fleeting precious moments. my girls won't always want to cuddle up with their momma and read. but for now, we all snuggle up and enjoy some good books and lots of giggles together. all fingers in their mouths, of course.

what's your favorite time of the day?

ssshhhhhh...don't tell!

this is what happens when you get all ready to go to the pool (yes, sunscreen and all!) and then realize that the public pool closes at 5:00 and it's 5:10.

does the water ban really include this? surely not.


i like this picture. especially big. not sure why, i just do.

so what means summer to you? to me, it's the amazing watermelon i've been eating. yum.

jump, jive, and then you WAIL!

why do abby and daddy do this to me?

domestic bliss

there are times that a little domesticity (apart from cooking and cleaning) does the soul good. this morning, while julia slept and abby decorated my sewing/laundry room with ribbon...i finally made our cloth napkins. can you tell which fabrics abby picked out?
these were my favorite...
just doing my little part to TRY and be a good a steward of this ol' world we live in. i figure if i'm going to use disposable diapers (a complete non-negotiable!), then i could at least ditch the paper napkins.

in the midst of making these, i thought, "i could sell these on etsy!"

what do you think? would you buy everyday cloth napkins?

new shoes!

we took a spontaneous trip to macon yesterday so that jon could go to the memorial service for a man he dearly loved, dr. giddens. grammy had set up her house perfectly so that the girls and i could hang out there while they were all at the service. i think between abby and julia nearly a pint of blueberries were devoured!

we also went to one of the cutest children's shoe stores i have ever been to while we were there. here are julia's new shoes...she LOVES them--a true miracle as she has before this hated all shoes i have tried on her.

we weren't planning on getting abby any shoes, but she has been tripping ALOT in her crocs...last week resulted a complete wipeout, face first, on the pavement. so, here are her new summer play shoes!

MUCH THANKS to grammy and granddaddy for your sweetness to us and the girls! both girls have already had their shoes on this morning!

google--my blogging hero

just want you to know, i LOVE my google reader!! it enables me to read more blogs and waste less time surfing to see who has updated theirs lately. if you need help figuring it out, let me know. all i know is that i love it!

bahhh humbug to target and the BBB

Here's Target's response (that they told the BBB they sent to me...surprise, surprise, I didn't get this message.) Oh, and my thoughts are included for your reading enjoyment.

Dear Amy Sanders,

Thank you for contacting Target Corporation through the Better Business Bureau regarding your recent experience with a return. (I'm sure they are truly thankful that I contacted the BBB.)

As you know, Target requires a receipt dated within 90 days for all returns or exchanges of new, unused or defective items. That's why your local Target store declined your return. (Really? Is that your ridiculous policy???)

Since this is a gift you'll need to ask the gift giver for the gift receipt which we gave when it was purchased. If that's lost, don't worry. The gift giver can present the original receipt dated within 90 days to request a reprint of the gift receipt. (All this effort for a $6.99 outfit with a hole in it...)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and comments with us. Your feedback is helpful in our continual review of our return policy.

Sincerely,

Peggy

I think my favorite part has to be the "don't worry..." because it is always so easy to get the gift giver to give you their original receipt. WHATEVER!

The worst part, the BBB accepted their response. So they are allowed to be this yucky. Good grief!

abbyism

abby's favorite color is "lellow." i decided since she was four that it was time for her to learn how to say "yellow." so, we worked on the "y" sound. then put it with "ellow." after working with her for maybe 10 seconds, she said (very clearly i might add),

"i don't want to say, 'yellow.' i want to say, 'lellow.'"

so no folks, this isn't a pronunciation issue. it's a personality one. ;)

thrifty thursday part 4-one call, that's all.

i love the power of comparison shopping which is a huge part of the reason i get the sunday paper. this week, when abby told me she wanted to buy the play kitchen with her money, i started surfing the web. google and epinions.com are two of my favorites for bargaining. once i found the lowest price (shipping included), i called our local toy store and told them that i would much rather give them the business than some random internet store. would they be able to match the price? the answer was YES. not only could they match it, they beat it. as much as i love internet shopping, there is something good about having a store to go back to if you have issues.

so, there's the tip. shop around, and don't be afraid to ask for a lower price!
what's your thrifty thursday tip?

thankful

i'm thankful for new dear friends. we ran into our friends on a morning walk and wound up spending the morning together. got to love an impromptu hang out time with neighbors where EVERYONE gets along...well, at least as much as is possible for the munchkins!
what are you thankful for?

quiet

jon, abby and julia are on their way to the toy store to get this...
ahhh, the joy of an hour or so of quiet.
what would you do with an hour?

birthday party hangover

abby's party seemed to go well. the night before nightmare of my falling apart cake....
jon's ensuing brillance to find long skewers to hold it together (i said, "do you think spaghetti noodles would work?)this will most likely be our fond memory in years to come.

abby and friends seemed to enjoy the cake regardless of its appearance. they also had a blast with the wii that my sister so graciously brought to the party.
she was excited about her presents and loved being with her friends.

today, we are dealing with the post-party blues. aka, "the world no longer revolves around me and i'm going to throw fits until it does" blues. this has been intensified by the fact that julia has a fever of over 103. which takes the spotlight away from our little abs all the more. oh, and i think coming off the sugar high has to be brutal too...

the post party blues. and now julia is crying....

the perfect cake

isn't it lovely? i'll give you the real story tomorrow. one four year old birthday party done, and i'm wiped!

four

my little girl is four. she woke up this morning and "could hardly believe it" that she still fit in our bed for morning snuggles. because being four means that you are definitely bigger than you were at three. it has been a sweet day.

the morning started with candles and curious george--the movie that we've rented so often we decided it would be well worth buying.

a trip to bounce-a-rama with just jon and i...and her new friend, joe...that she met there. joe was seven and stuck around us, or should i say, abby, like glue. i told jon he better get ready. ;)


yes. they are holding hands. jon said he wasn't worried because she'd always be his little girl, but it was amazing today to watch her content to play with people other than us. however, we still got to play.


and my screaming face was for all for abby. i'm just sharing in her enthusiasm.

we went to chick-fil-a with nana, julia and uncle robert where they gave her an ice cream cone with a cherry on top.

my favorite part of the day though was our spontaneous trip tonight. i was having cake issues (i'll save that story for tomorrow), and we were running around getting the extra supplies needed to try to salvage it. i was asking abby about her day, and she said, "can we not talk about birthdays?" no problem. so, i turned on the radio, rolled down the windows and my child's face lit up like it was christmas. just driving around together was such fun. i love love love being with my little girl. she is precious.

thrifty thursday part 3. hello, good-buy...or hello, good-bye!

well, i'm ticked. so ticked that i actually contacted the better business bureau for the first time ever. let me backtrack. julia received a lovely outfit for her birthday. she wore it once, i took it off of her that night and noticed that alas, it had a hole in the sleeve. obviously defective. obviously not from anything that we had done.

so today, i took the aforementioned outfit back to target with the tags, but no receipt...because it is a gift. i got nothing. no help. no apology. nothing. you can make 2 returns in a linear (not calendar) year without a receipt and only if those purchases amount to $35 or less. whatever!

i am not deterred. to the phones i go. and i know, that in these cases, it takes awhile before you get to someone who actually has the power to help. so, i went through 3 people. finally made it back to a person who lives in america (no offense meant to those overseas...i love overseas, just hate outsourcing customer service.) well, joan had nothing for me. they couldn't do anything to refund my $6.99 outfit. nada. zip. this is target's ginormous corporate headquarters i'm on the phone with, and they've got nothing for me. so, i followed through on my threat. i contacted the bbb. we'll see what happens.

my encouragement though this thrifty thursday is that normally it never gets to this point. i was going to encourage you to call when you have issues. companies normally bend over backwards to keep their customers happy. your zipper on your kraft cheese doesn't work. call them. they'll send you a coupon to replace it. promise. you don't love your edy's ice cream. they'll refund your money. promise. they mean their 100% satisfaction guarantee. i even had an issue with my fridge last month. there was a faulty part. it took some perseverance and some looking up of corporate headquarters numbers (which you can find on the bbb's website), but i got the part replacement for free--that was a part that cost over $250, free. and the warranty had even expired.

so the humorous part of the target episode is this. as i was on hold, i hear their familiar jingle, "hello, good-buy, hello, good-buy. you say, 'hello,' i say good-buy." and i thought, indeed.

i say good-bye.

great day for pictures

today was a great day for pictures, but i didn't have my camera.

i went on a mommy & abby date today. we were headed to the movies, the free movies, which wound up costing me $10 in popcorn and drinks. well worth it for abby's first experience at the theater.

we were running late. stress out opportunity #1. i drove fast, not too fast, just fast enough to get there. :) and about two minutes into our trip there, abby's excitement took away my stress. but yes, i still drove quickly. we made it. got our popcorn, sprites and seats. hip hip hooray!

our dear friends had van issues and couldn't come. disappointment opportunity #2. but when we got there, we "happened" to choose the theater that our new neighborhood friends that we love were sitting in. hip hip hooray for good friends to wait in a theater with!

stress out opportunity #3, one minute into the movie, the scary pirate (in "the pirates who don't do anything--aka veggie tales!) popped up and abby was no longer excited. she was buried into my arms begging to leave. so, we left. she didn't want to try again. i didn't make her.

so what to do for our date? i'm racking my brains. we've got a babysitter for julia and about two hours. spontaneity was never a strong point of mine. so, i asked abby. she wanted to go to the toy store. so off we went. we played and purchased overpriced party favors for her b-day party this weekend. she's happy. i'm happy.

then, we went to the new "store" next door to check it out. it just happened to be one of those places that has huge inflatable obstacle courses and slides. again, entirely overpriced. but no one was there. and she wanted to try it. minutes into our adventure, it was clear that this experience was far better than any movie. she was having the time of her life, climbing, running, squealing and jumping. does life get any better for my energetic little extrovert? i think not.

so although it was not at all the date i had planned, i would count it a smashing success...minus the missing photos.

here's my random question. is chuck e. cheese fun for 3-4 year olds? we haven't been and are trying to decide whether or not to take abby for a special birthday treat.

what do you think?

as much as people tell me that my girls look like me, i have never really believed them. i think both of them look just like jon. until i stumbled upon the picture above this weekend. no question she has her daddy's eyes, but everyone i have showed the picture to says something like, "i didn't realize julia's hair was so red."

what do you think? maybe she looks like me??

it's dinnertime!

dinnertime...it's supposed to be fun. at least that's what all the experts say. but if you had been at our house tonight, you wouldn't have had a whole lot of fun. at least, i didn't. abby decided that spaghetti was not her favorite (a meal that she normally loves) and decided to whine about it the whole time. ridiculous. whining. it is enough to send me to the funny farm.

and then there is this left to clean up while jon bathes the girls. i am using blogging as a means of escaping for the moment.


anyway, at one point during dinner, the tide turned slightly, and we had a rousing game of "i spy." a glimmer of fun in the midst of an otherwise tortuous meal.

what do you do to have fun at dinner?

trip to the ER

i think my husband just wanted some blog time and figured the best way to do it was to having something to do with drugs, doctors and the likes this week.

well, yesterday he came home from work and said that he had white spots on his throat. i got out the flashlight, and it was out of control. i immediately grabbed the phone to call his doctor. it was 4pm. they close at 4:30. i basically asked for mercy. could they please work him in. it was obvious he had strep, obvious he needed meds. i have 2 small children (aka-let's not get the whole family sick) and my sister is having her wedding reception on saturday. not to mention that jon leaves for work well before they are open and wouldn't be back until they had closed on friday. what did i get for my pleading for mercy. NOTHING. no compassion. not even a kind word. i got transferred. i got told they couldn't help. protocol ruled. they don't work people in after 3:30. he should just go to the ER! so, i got off the phone and we changed his primary care doctor with our insurance company. from now on, jon is going to see my new KIND doctor who will actually CARE.

yeah, and he had to go to the ER last night to get some medicine. and they gave him loritab for his pain. LORITAB! a little overkill don't you think? i mean, i got loritab when i had a c-section. he just has strep throat. mercy.

all of this makes my blood boil.
what gets you boiling?

thrifty thursday part 2

yes, i know it's friday. but this week has just been weird. so, to keep with the medical theme i have going the last few days, i'll share my thrifty idea for medicine!

for those of you who don't get a sunday paper, this idea ALONE makes it worthwhile. we have developed quite a relationship with our local cvs. the pharmacist is so sweet to my girls and answers all of my millions of questions. not to mention that he spoils the girls rotten by letting abby choose a toy once every two weeks or so. oh, and she gets to pick a toy for julia too. bob is so loved by our family that abby just delivered a birthday party invitation to him and his wife this morning. but i digress.

one of the reasons we consistently go to our cvs is that they honor the coupons from other pharmacies. you know the ones, "transfer your prescription and get a $20 gift card." it's not something they advertise, i just asked one day if they would do it to keep from having to transfer yet another prescription. so, earlier in the week, i got a $2 prescription filled and got a $30 cvs gift card. jon needed a prescription filled for his strep throat. $4 meds, and i had another coupon for $25 gift card. so, we spent $6 in meds and got $55 of cvs money. very nice.

what's your thrifty idea for the week? come on...i know you've got them.

detoxing from what?

these are just a few of the meds that have been given to me. most of which i've taken at least some of. good grief! and i wonder why my body is out of whack.

two sides

do you ever feel like you are living a double life? that there is the one side that everyone knows and then there is this whole other side of you? well, that's how i have felt in this whole blogging adventure. because the whole time i have been blogging, i have been dealing with alot of headaches...and i mean daily, horrible headaches. so sometimes, the happy "yummy" life just doesn't seem real. it is though. there are sweet moments of grace in the midst of the pain. God is good to me in that, but mostly, the last 2 weeks have just been hard. discouraging. full of pain. a longing to hope that maybe at the end of this journey of getting the toxins out of my body, i might actually begin to be a normal, healthy person. and at times, a longing to just go home. heaven, home. no, i'm not suicidal. migraines are just horrible. and they make me long for more. isn't that the point of pain though? i'm not sure. still trying to figure that one out.

fun pics

julia found jon's hat, and a random goldfish under the couch. who knows how long it had been there....

as abby just said, "smoothie it up!" i love my magic bullet for small jobs (yes, i bought one this week.) but you can't beat a full-sized blender when you are mixin' for the family.

while i was sleeping

i am on a quest for better health. which means that i am starting to exercise (don't tell anyone, but i even spelled it wrong. thank goodness for spell check.) and i am a detoxing by taking lots of supplements and trying to get the years of migraine/sinus medicine out of my body. all the detoxing has made me feel icky all week, and so today, when jon got home, i went to bed. i slept most of the afternoon. here are the pictures of abby and julia enjoying some strawberry ice cream while i was sleeping.