Magnolia Mom

I just love when Rude Cactus does the posts of numbers. I’ve kept that in mind, trying to find a good time to do a post like that. Well, unfortunately the time has come. LOL! I was hoping it would be some wonderful post about a vacation or new job. Not so much. I’ll just let you figure out why it is unfortunate by leaving you with the totals….
Days since this all started: 16
Days it seems like it’s been going on: 35
Trips to the emergency room: 1
Antibiotics Rob has taken: 3
Pain meds attempted: 2
Trips to the dentist (so far): 1
Root canals to be had this year: 1
Antibiotics that seemed to work for a few days: 1
Antibiotics that made his tooth hurt more than it ever has: 2
Phone calls to the dentist: 6
Phone calls to the pharmacy: 2
Cost of meds including all the ones that are wasted: $31.24
Days the dentist was on vacation while this was going on: 5
Times of puking: too many to recall
Dentists who said it was out of her “realm” to prescribe Phenergan: 1
Phone calls to relative for Phenergan: 1
Times Rob and I have decided we must be totally ignorant: 30
Times we mentioned that Rob is allergic to Codeine: 50
Times we wonder why we keep putting drugs into his system: countless
Days of work he’s missed: 4 (I think), but regardless WAY too many
Times I googled something related to nausea, drug side effects, etc: 42
Times I told the kids to be quiet because their Dad is sick: 164
Times I think he’s getting better: 7

Popularity: 2% [?]

So this blog seems to be turning into a cruise blog and I’m sorry to those of you who think of cruising as a ridiculous way to travel. Since we can’t take any big vacations now, it’s just been so therapeutic for me to write these cruising entries. I do plan to do some other travel posts, too. Anyway, so what else have we been up to now that it’s summer. Well….

This week TV Boy has been at Boy Scout camp and will return tomorrow. Here’s a couple pics before he left.

After leaving the Scout Hut, we took Monkey Boy to his Grandparent’s house for a stay-cation. While we were up there we met our new nephew and Monkey got to play with his other 2 cousins.

This time with both kids away has given me time to work on my job search and just go full force with trying to make something happen on the job front. I’m hoping that putting in this extra effort will give me more opportunities. Please pray that it will. After all, I need a vacation! And I have to work so I can actually take a vacation, right? And once again, I digress.

On Tuesday, my Dad dropped in for a quick visit. He’s been an official for RAAM again this year and on his way back he usually tries to stop by. We enjoyed the visit with him and look forward to seeing him again soon. I know he was bummed that the boys were away.

Last Friday, Pack 29 had their June Pack Meeting. It was held at the Forest Ecology Preserve. Monkey is now a cub scout!

Last week was VBS. Monkey Boy attended and TV Boy and I volunteered. TV Boy helped in the recreation station and I was with a 4th grade bunch. Here’s a few pics from VBS. See all pics here.

TV Boy is running cross-country for school next year, so he’s been training with the high school/jr. high teams every morning at 6:45. Rob, Monkey, and I have also gone walking during the time that TV Boy is running.

Other happenings of this summer include trying to stay cool, watching movies, enjoying being with each other (or at least trying), and before you know it we’ll be getting ready for school. How’s your summer going?

Popularity: 3% [?]

This week at Show Us your Life over at Kelly’s Korner is How You Met Your Husband week. I’ve written some pretty in depth posts about that here, here, here and here. I have most of the next post And baby makes three…(part V) started, but never finished it. Maybe I’ll finish that soon. Anyway, for this post I’m going to write an abbreviated version of these posts.

I was a sophomore at Texas Tech and Rob was a sophomore at Auburn. We met on AOL, when it was just beginning to get popular. We chatted online every night and day for a while and then started talking on the phone. I flew out to meet him not long after. Eventually I transferred to Auburn University. We dated a little over a year and then got engaged.

We were engaged for about 3 months, which made for some really quick wedding planning.

Our wedding was great. We had so many people come from far away to be with us during that special weekend.

We have now been married almost 13 years. 13 years??? WOW! That’s hard to believe it’s been that long.

Popularity: 2% [?]

For some reason, Rob gets an American Girl catalog. Oh, I just get all giddy looking through it. It’s a good thing they weren’t around when I was little. I’m not sure I would have had a collection of them like I did with Cabbage Patch dolls, but I sure would have like to have! I know CP dolls seemed to be quite expensive back in the day, but I know they weren’t $100.

Anyway…

The other day as I was looking through the American Girl catalogue, I found myself looking through it as if I were going to be placing an order. Circling my top choices and then narrowing it down to what my final purchase would be. I thought about having a little girl and what fun it would be to sit down with her and pick out what she would like. I know that would get pricey and my wallet is thankful that we were blessed with boys.

My wish list:

Just Like You doll: Light skin with freckles, short red hair, green eyes

Lanie, which is the 2010 doll, is precious. I know I would have a hard time resisting adding her to my collection as well.

I love that each doll comes with her own book.

Dressing like your doll is just the cutest idea. I had a couple outfits growing up that matched my CP dolls. It was so fun. These are just irresistable.

In the historical doll collection, Molly and those braids just have me head over heels. So cute!

When funds are low, it’s fun to “catalog” or “window” shop. Maybe someday when life returns to normal financially, the little girl in me can be treated to an American Girl doll. What does the child in you want?

Popularity: 4% [?]

I’ve been working on this post since November. I have been trying to come up with a 100. When I numbered them last night, I was excited to see I had 50! (and then I added another one today.) I’ll come back to this list as I think of other things I want to do.

1. Visit the Golden Gate Bridge and take hundreds of pictures of it
2. Ride in a helicopter
3. Have some of my photography work published
4. Eat fish and chips at a pub in London (I’ve eaten at a London pub, but didn’t eat the fish and chips.)
5. Go on a cruise
6. Hike on St. John Virgin Islands
7. Scuba dive
8. Have a prosperous garden
9. Take my kids to Disney World
10. Go see a Broadway Musical
11. Go dog sledding
12. Go to Alaska
13. Take dance classes with Rob
14. Take an adventure through the Sand Dunes
15. Parasail with Rob somewhere in the beautiful Caribbean
16. Ski in Switzerland
17. See an event in the Olympics
18. Take Rob to an All-Star game for his birthday
19. Snorkel somewhere beautiful
20. Watch the ball drop in Time Square on New Year’s
21. Take a romantic Gondola ride through Venice
22. See the launch of the space shuttle in person.
23. Visit New York City
24. Go horseback riding through the mountains (Did this on my honeymoon)
25. Go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans
26. Swim with Sting Rays
27. Throw a fish while visiting the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle
28. Take my kids to all the great kid places in San Diego (SD Zoo, Disney’s Wild Animal Park, Legoland)
29. Try lobster (didn’t love it. tasted good, didn’t care for the texture)
30. Go see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in person
31. Dine at Mesa Grill in New York
32. Go White Water Rafting (Did this on my honeymoon)
33. Learn to ski (again)
34. Go to Hawaii
35. See Christmas lights while being chauffeured in a limo
36. Take a driving tour on Route 66
37. Go hot air ballooning (hated it, but I was a teenager)
38. Try escargot
39. Send a message in a bottle
40. Go to Ireland
41. Try snowboarding
42. Stand in the 4 corners
43. Go snowshoeing
44. Try calamari
45. Eat at Lady and Son’s in Savannah
46. Go to Australia
47. Drink beer at Oktoberfest in Munich
48. Be an extra in a film
49. Own an RV
50. Take a vacation on a houseboat
51. Complete an entire year of flickr’s 365 day project
52. Ride the NYC Subway
53. Become fluent in a foreign language
54. Go the top of the Eiffel Tower
55. Run a 5K
56. Go to the top of the Empire State Building
57. Learn to play an instrument (Did this in school)
58. Be on a reality TV show
59. Participate in one way or another with RAAM
60. Write a book and get it published
61. Ride a hovercraft through the Everglades
62. Go to all inclusive resort.
63. Enjoy a drink at a swim-up bar.
64. Go to Thailand
65. Stand on the Equator (added 3/1/2010)
66. Visit the Boneyard…better yet, do a photo shoot there! (added 8/16/2010)

What are some other things I should add? Have you made your list?

Popularity: 4% [?]

I have a box of old T-shirts that the boys have grown out of that I just couldn’t bare to throw or give away. Since I’ve been trying to do more sewing, I decided it would be great to take these old T-shirts and make something ‘memorable’ and/or ‘usable’ out of them. The first attempt was to make a T-shirt pillow. I already had some soft fleece fabric that would have a similar “feel” to the T-shirt fabric. You alwa So here’s what I did:

1. Lay the T-shirt out flat. Iron it, if need be.

2. Mark out where to cut. Since I’m a serious novice at sewing, I don’t have all those fancy sewing tools, like a rotary or grid plastic. (So don’t laugh!)

This is probably the best job I’ve done cutting fabric.

3. Place the T-shirt cut out and place it face-to-face with the other fabric.

4. Line it up with the fabric and place straight pins in it to trim the back side fabric.

5. Another good job of cutting. Then, hem 3 1/2 edges of the pillow, leaving enough room on the last side to be able to stuff the pillow. Removing straight pins as you go.

6. After hemming the last side, flip the fabric from in-side-out.

7. Stuff the pillow with Polyfill Pillow Stuffing until filled as desired. Since my pillow wasn’t really big I didn’t want it overstuffed.

Here’s what it looks like after stuffing it.

8. Finally, hem the last part of the pillow.

The one thing I may do is to add a decorative trim to the edges of this pillow. I just didn’t have anything I thought would look good.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Yesterday I was able to sit back (for the most part) and enjoy the day. Being observant of my surroundings, I became mindful of how thankful I am for a few things, like:

• great in-laws that I get along with
• a brother-in-law that is quite helpful and enjoys being with his nephews
• making it a family tradition to have homemade pasta every Christmas
• Rob’s Italian heritage, which enables us to have that homemade pasta
• a nice home to be able to host holidays
• 2 healthy boys that have such a sweet heart and I really appreciate when they “show” it

I know there are many other blessings in my life, but those are the ones that came to mind tonight.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Ok, so Rob and I started having “date night” back in December. We would go every other weekend and we would take turns planning it and usually it was a surprise. So I’m going to recap our dates and what we did…

Dec. 8 – (planned by Rob) We went to see the ballet, Nutcracker, and ate a fancy restaurant called Dawson’s at Rose Hill

Dec. 22 – (planned by me) I pre-purchased for the movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets. It was the night after it premiered so I wanted to make sure it wasn’t sold out. After that I had asked Rob to email me restaurants we didn’t go to much that he would like to go to more or just some of his all time favs. I narrowed the list down to a few. I wrote them on little pieces of paper and before the movie I had him draw one. Actually I had him draw 2, one just for backup if the first one was too crowded. The restaurant he drew was Longhorn, which was only about a 5 minute way. Rob thought it was really intriguing, because when he drew he didn’t know why or what he was drawing. All he knew was that he was making a decision by drawing. I did it this way because I didn’t want to take the blame for doing something bad. LOL!

Jan. 5 – (planned by Rob) He took my ‘interactive’ idea and made a little quiz like thing on his computer and so I had to choose from different pictures and that would determine what our date was. What I ended up choosing inadvertently was a movie with dinner of course. We saw a great P.S. I Love You. GREAT chick flick! After that we went to our fav restaurant, Durango.

Jan. 19 – (planned by me) I went back the list of places Rob said he wanted to go to more often and chose a restaurant called Ole Auburn Ale House, which was nice and different. We had been there one other time with some family that came in to town for a football game. After that we came back to the house and watched Bourne Ultimatum, which I had rented prior to the date.

Feb. 10 – (planned by Rob) Valentine’s Day Date early.

Feb. 23 – (planned by me) dinner at Carrabas and then to see the Columbus Cottonmouth Hockey Game. It was awesome! We got free bobbleheads at the game. We seriously need to make this a tradition and go much more often. I HEART hockey!

Since when we went on our cruise without kids and it was awesome. We’ve been so busy with other things that we haven’t resumed our dating schedule….

Popularity: 2% [?]

Makes: 1
Making Time: 10-20 minutes depending on age

Materials:
Wooden ice cream spoon
White glue
2 googly eyes
1 magnet (or instead of making a magnet you can use a safety pin if you prefer to show it off with your favorite Halloween shirt)
5-6 White Jersey potholder loops or 1 old white shoe lace

Instructions:

1. Cut each loop one time, so that it is no longer a loop.

2. Spread glue on both sides of spoon.

3. After getting one end of loop to stick, wrap entire spoon with white loops. I found that the pot holder loops work much better than the shoe lace. Looks more ‘real’ too.

4. Determine which side will be the front. The side that will be your back is where you can tuck loose ends in so they’re not sticking out.

5. Separate the at the top and glue on eyes.

6. Glue on magnet.

Enjoy! Happy Halloween!

Popularity: 1% [?]

This year is the first year of decorated for fall in several years. I love decorating for fall. It’s nothing major or extravagant. I love mums and pumpkins, but you won’t see those this year due to lack of funds. We will carve a pumpkin, but haven’t done that yet. I also love pumpkin spice candles in the fall. MMmmmmm….

Most of my Fall/Halloween decorations were gifts from past students. I also used to love to go to Big Lots and find little knick-knacks too. I have some great ideas for Fall/Halloween decorations and recipes. I’m hoping to go next week and find some good deals on the materials I need to make them. Stay tuned as I will be posting them next week.

I made that pumpkin on the right.

I love candy corn! I like looking at it more than eating it. It’s just so festive and colorful!

I made this black cat.

My mantle

I have a few other things out, which I didn’t take pictures of. So maybe I’ll post those later. Happy Fall, Yall!

Popularity: 3% [?]