Google Game

I saw this over on Amy's blog and thought I'd give it a try since I'm at a loss for topics lately. What you do is go to Google, and type in your name & a word (see list below) and see what comes up. There's no tagging allowed, but if you do try this, let me know.

I didn't necessarily go with the first one that came up. Some didn't make sense or were just plain creepy! Much of the stuff that came up had to do with Jamie Lynn Spears


Lynn Needs: to develop a larger repertoire of reading vocabulary.
Lynn Looks: ahead to 2009
Lynn Likes: grapes but not potatoes (no I like 'em both)
Lynn Says: no Hollywood for her right now (I need a break from the spotlight)

Lynn Wants: to run away (sometimes I do feel that way!)
Lynn Does: damage control
Lynn Hates: Common Sense, Loves Wasting Time (I don't know about hating common sense, but I am good at the wasting time thing!)
Lynn Can: help (well I'll try)
Lynn Goes: crazy (yup, I'd say that's pretty accurate!)
Lynn Loves: actually loves Joel (um, who is Joel?)

How sweet

We went to the car show in MKE on Sunday. My mom wanted to check out some cars. She's been thinking about buying on for a couple years now! She needs to make up her mind already. Anyway, after the show the girls were beat. Skowt had a sleepover the night before so probably didn't get much sleep and Tiger had been sick. Here's what I found a few minutes after we got home.
Both of them. On the couch. Resting. Together. Under the same blanket. A-maz-ing!

And since today I get to go pick up and sort around 2500 boxes of girl scout cookies, I thought I'd do this little quiz. Hmm. Interesting. My favorites are the carmel delight though!

You Are Peanut Butter Sandwiches / Do-si-dos

You are easy going and naturally happy. You don't need a lot to make you smile. You genuinely care about people and are a great friend. You're always doing your best to make the world a better place. Even though there isn't an immature bone in your body, you still are like a big kid sometimes. Why make life complicated when the best parts are actually quite simple? You enjoy the small joys of life.

What Girl Scout Cookie Are You?

Book signing: Barbara Delinsky

On Thursday night I went to see Barbara Delinsky with a couple friends:

I must admit though that I have not read any of her books. I went because I wanted to spend time with Amy & Kelley and also because it sounded interesting. It was. Interesting to hear an author talk about their work and why they do what they do. I found out she is from my home state: Massachusetts!

I also went to play paparazzi for Amy. LOL You can see the pic I took of her and Barbara on her blog.

But now after going I've decided to give one of her books a try. Not sure where to start. Any suggestions Amy? Maybe I should just start at the beginning. I'm the kind of person that likes to read books in the order that the author has written them. Even when the books have nothing to do with each other and do not need to be read chronologically. I'm just weird that way.

My mom said she thought she may have one of her books so I went to check out her stash. Well, it's like trying to find a needle in a freakin' haystack. I don't know how may books she has but they have overtaken her closet and there is no rhyme or reason to the way she has them. Check it out. Excuse the poor quality of the photos. They are in a dark closet and it was early!

You should be able to click on the photos and bigify (yes it's a word, I saw it on another blog so that makes it so) them if you aren't able to read the text I put in.

We've talked about her sorting and making a catalogue of all her books but just have never gotten to it. I'm sure it will be an all day project (if not longer). But it would make it a heck of a lot easier for me to find something I want.

And it would keep her from buying duplicate books as she has been known to do in the past!

What keeps you going

Tiger was laying on the couch with her arms up looking like death warmed over. She'd been home sick all day.

Me: What's up?
Tiger: I need a hug.
Me: Didn't you just get one from Daddy?
Tiger: But I need a Mama hug!

She can be frustrating and a pain in my youknowwhat, but you can't help forgetting all about that in a moment like this.

We survived!

Skowt survived her first full night of babysitting! And with 3 kids. I'm impressed. She even changed her first diaper on her own......without getting peed on, I might add! :-)~

Mom survived the night too. Didn't worry myself to death wondering if she was OK. I was even able to get to sleep (I had to work early the next morning). Hubby did the waiting up for her. I of course did wake up when she came home and he came to bed. Then had to drill him on how everything went before I could get back to sleep.

She's working on saving money for her band trip to Florida next year. She already has almost $100. We don't have an exact figure yet but based on what they estimated she's only has about $550 more to go! She is determined to save it all herself. For some reason I think she thinks we won't let her go if she doesn't come up with the money on her own.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I don't have any big plans for Valentine's Day. When you've been married a while you don't make a big deal out of it as you used to. Hubby did wish me a Happy Valentine's Day this morning. Those were the first words out of his mouth. He usually doesn't remember so quickly. He also got me a card and attempted to make me something.

We have a bunch of old vinyl records in the basement. Many of them that aren't worth anything anymore. We've been trying to come up with something to do with them rather than just toss them all out. We can't find a place that will take them for recycling. So in searching around online we came up with the idea of painting them and making them into some sort of wall decoration or clocks. We've seen some pretty cool ones.

So he's been messing around with painting some of them and came up with this for me:

As you can see the edges of the hearts are a little rough. I just think he needs to use a different, more sturdy material for the stencils. He just tried paper and the paint seeped up under it. Otherwise I think it looks pretty cool!

Skowt has her first official babysitting job tonight! She's excited, but also a little nervous. So am I! I'm kinda glad we don't have any plans tonight so we can be home in case she runs into any snags and needs to call home.

Flashback Friday: Big Sister

I was digging through some old pics again (I really need to get them organized). I just joined Facebook recently and was wondering if I had pics of some old neighbors friends I found. I don't :( Didn't think I did anyway, but it was worth a shot.

Anyway, I thought I'd post one I did find to show you what a great big sister I was when growing up and how much I loved my brother!

Yeah, loved to make him cry! Heehee! Look at the grin on my face while he's screaming his head off!

A penny saved

As of the first of the year, in and effort to cut down some of our spending and get some bills paid off, we started paying more attention to the grocery store sales and cutting coupons. I saw a couple blogs with tips and decided to give it another go.

We used to use coupons all the time when we first got married and especially when we first had kids. Diapers and formula are expensive! But we got out of the habit of it. It takes time.

Well, just in this first month we've made quite a difference. During one shopping trip we cut the bill nearly in half with all the sales and coupons. I won't say we're great at it yet. If you've got any tips or blogs worth reading about saving money let me know. But I'm happy with our start. And while in that first month we didn't actually spend any less on groceries (we stocked up on a bunch of things that were on sale and we had coupons for) we do have A LOT more to show for the money we spent!

We're also trying to cut our spending on eating out. That is where I think we can save quite a bit. We tend to get lazy sometimes and if we don't feel like cooking dinner we'll just order pizza. If we head out for errands in the morning we always seem to end our outing with a stop for lunch. So far for February we're on the right track.

I'm just such a sucker for eating out and not having to cook myself!!

Photography can be dangerous

Today hubby took me on a drive to get photos of bridges for this coming Saturday's Photohunt. But in that short hour long trip I feared for my life on more than one occasion! Let me share what happened:

• First I had to walk through a field of frozen snow in sub freezing temperatures, getting said snow in my shoes. I could have easily gotten frostbite and died a slow painful death.
• Then to try to get a good vantage point of the bridge I had to walk dangerously near the edge of a raging ice cold river. What if I had fallen in? Another death by freezing.
• On the way to the next stop we drove over at least two mammoth size craters that stretched the width of the road at a speed of 45mph. We were air born for a good second before we came crashing back down to earth! Luckily I was unharmed and the airbag did not deploy.
• As we approached the next bridge hubby decided to do a u-turn to face the other direction so I could get a shot out the window without having to get out of the car. In doing so he nearly drove me off the side of a mountain, not once but twice! Well, Ok it wasn't really a mountain but it was a really steep hill.
• He then pulled out into traffic as he likes to do so often because he drive like a maniac. Of course traffic was coming from my side of the vehicle and I could have easily been creamed by an SUV. Yeah, it was turning onto another street but I didn't see that at the time.
• We stopped at one place where the road curved drastically under the bridge. The first time we got out was not a problem. But the second time, on the opposite side of the bridge he parked so I was on the side of traffic. While exiting the vehicle and attempting to walk across the street I almost got creamed by a big pickup of some sort screaming around the bend.
• And lastly, we stopped to take pics of some old rusty metal equipment from a old sand and gravel quarry (ya know, like where Fred Flinstone worked). I was constantly looking over my shoulder in fear of being surrounded by cops and thrown in the slammer for trespassing.

My hubby is usually pretty cool about helping me out with these things but seriously today I think he was trying to kill me! ;-)

But since I was lucky and made it out alive, you should be able to see some of those photos on my photoblog in the near future!

Favorite things swap

Saw this over on Amy's blog the other day. I've been thinking and debating over whether I wanted to do it. Not sure yet what I'd all include but I think it will be fun. Plus, I love getting and sending mail and I'll hopefully make some new bloggy friends. So if you're interested too click on the graphic to check it out!