A little about me

Oops! I forgot to put this in yesterday.............Amy from Escape Into My Thoughts tagged me for this! Sorry Amy!

The rules:
1. Respond and rework; answer the questions on your blog, replace one question that you dislike with a question of your invention, add one more question of your own.

2. Tag other people.

What is your current obsession? The Sookie Stackhouse books

What are you wearing today? blue sweat pants and grey t-shirt

What’s for dinner? We had chicken breast in tomato sauce over rice

What would you eat for your last meal? Probably pizza

What are you listening to right now? The fan in the bathroom where my daughter just showered.

If you could go anywhere in the world for the next hour, where would you go? Only an hour??

What language do you want to learn? Don't really have an interest

What do you love most about where you currently live? Fairly small town but close enough to everything we need.

What style is your current home decorated in? A little bit of everything!

If you were a time traveler what era would you live in? I think I'd go back to the 80s with Amy

What is your favorite color? PURPLE!

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe? Hoodie sweatshirts

What were you doing ten years ago? We had just had our second daughter and were in the process of building our current home.

Describe your personal style? Simple

If you had $300 now, what would you spend it on? I need some new tennis shoes!

What are you going to do after this? I think I'll have some ice cream

What are your favorite films? Romantic comedies

Your favorite books? Right now Sookie Stackhouse book, see 1st question!

Do you collect anything? Rick Springfield memorabilia, postcards, manatee stuff

What makes you follow a blog? interesting posts, I love photo blogs, if I have things in common with the person

What was the most enjoyable thing you did today? wouldn't you like to know *wink*

Ann's Question:
What makes you comment on a blog? It interests me, have the time, in the mood, if it's a current post (I tend to get way behind reading blogs and hate to comment on old posts)

Amy's Question:
What is your favorite thing to do when you have some free time? take photos

Anissa's Question:
As you know I homeschool -- If you could would you? No, don't have the patience, organization for it and I tend not to follow through sometimes!
Do you agree with homeschooling? I don't' know. I guess if it works for you, then great. But don't try to push it on others which I've experienced before. I'm not so sure kids get the social activity they need. I know they plan outings and stuff with others but the parents are still around so I don't think it's the same as being away at school. I've also had some personal experience with some homeschooling people making derogatory remarks to me and my kids because they are in public school........we were treated like they thought they were better than us because of it........that is so not cool.

Tonya's question:
What is a talent you wished you had? I've always wished I could draw!

Amy's question:
What is your favorite Michael Jackson song? Wanna be Startin' Somethin' or The Way You Make Me Feel

My question:
There's been quite a few Celebrity deaths lately and it got me thinking. Though they are shocking and sad none of them have really affected me much. What is the one celebrity death that will really devastate you, if any? Mine is definitely Rick Springfield! He's been such an important part of my life over the years. He's so great and accessible to his fans and the fact that I've met him a few times will make it feel so much more real and close to home.

I am tagging:

Sooz from The News from Sooz
Amy from Random Thoughts
Shannon from Welcome to the Nuthouse

And if you're reading this and want to play along answer in the comments or let me know if you do it on your blog so I can come by!

Blogoversary winner!

There weren't many entries so I just wrote every one's name on a slip of paper, put them in our Dr. Seuss hat and had my daughter pick one. The old fashioned way!

And the winner of the $20 Target card is.......{drum roll please}......

Janna Bee!!

Congrats, I'm sending you an email to get your mailing address.

Balloon Rally

I love hot air balloons. Watching them, taking photos and I'd love to ride in one someday. So when I saw there was a rally coming up we made plans to go.

It was a couple hours away so we made and afternoon of it because after all the website listed quite a few other activities to do while the balloons weren't active. We arrived around 3pm so we had about 3 hours until the launch at 6pm. Unfortunately that was way too early. The "midway" concessions and games, Inflatable jump house and carnival games that were listed were non existent. The arts and crafts consisted of 3 table of people selling jewelry. And the car show had about 15-20 older cars, a few of which were leaving as we arrived. Needless to say we were a tad disappointed that the website seemed to make it out to be a bigger deal than it was. We walked the grounds and saw the sights in about 15 minutes.

So now what? We decided to take a ride around town and see what was around. We came across the downtown square area which looked kinda cool and quite familiar.

Does this remind anyone else of "Back to the Future"?

We spent some time down there walking around and checking out a few shops and them drove around a bit more and found a Pizza Hut to have dinner at and headed back to the grounds in time for the launch. By then the place was packed. Obviously the locals know when it's time to come by!

We found a spot in the bleachers and listened to the emcee ramble on about something until it was time for them to head out. They started with a lead balloon who inflated and took off. That one set out first found a good place to land, set out a target and the rest competed to get as close to that target as possible. The rest could not start until the first was clear of the ground. It was neat to see them all start inflating at once.

Here's a couple pics. I plan to put some more up on my photoblog soon too.

Once the launch started in was fun. We will definitely know for next time that we don't need to arrive so early. And possibly then we might be willing to stay for the balloon glow later in the evening. We decided to skip that this time because by this time the kids had had enough and were ready to head home.

As we were getting on the freeway to head home we noticed a bunch of the balloons still in the air. As we drove we were able to see the spot where some of them were starting to land.

It started out a big rough but it turned into a great afternoon/evening as a family!

It's my blogoversary!!

Two years ago today I took the plunge and started this blog. I was a bit scared, didn't know what to expect. I was worried that no one would read it, but also worried that some one might! Yes, I'm weird like that.

I wasn't sure if I'd make it this long. I usually tend to start things and never follow through......just ask my hubby! But here I am two years later and still loving it...most of the time. I just went through a dry spell where I felt I had nothing to blog about and almost decided to quit. Now I have a list of things that I'm wondering when I'll have time to blog them! Crazy.

Anyway, in honor of my blogoversary I thought I'd have a little giveaway! Up for grabs is a $20 gift card from Target!!!

Who doesn't love a giveaway and a little Tar-jay?!

I don't have it in hand yet so to give me a day or two to get a hold of it and to give people a bit of time to get entered I'll let this run for a few days. You have until Friday, June 26 at midnight to enter. I'll post a winner on Saturday morning.

All you have to do is comment on this post to let me know you wanna win! And if you wanna follow me that would be cool too! :)~

Good luck!

Happy Father's Day!!

It's been a busy, fun weekend! Yesterday we drove a couple hours to go to a hot air balloon rally. I will blog and post a few pics about that soon.

But first, since it's Father's Day........some photos of the kids with Daddy! This one was taken yesterday during our adventures.


Today, Skowt decided to cook breakfast for Dad (and the rest of us). He's usually the one who makes breakfast on Sunday mornings when we're all home. She needed a little (ok a lot) of help from me, but she did do the pancakes herself.

Then we decided to go out and do some fishing. Well, they fished. I watched and took pics. 156 of them to be exact. And not one of me. You wouldn't even know I was there besides the fact that there are a ton of pics of the 3 of them! Someone had to take them!

All three of them caught a fish today! Skowt started it all and turns out hers was the biggest of the three!

Hubby was next after he lost one. The line snapped on the first one he hooked.

And the day would not have been complete if Tiger hadn't gotten one too! She tried to get daddy to reel it in but he made her take the pole back and do it herself. I'm so glad he did.

Writer's Workshop: Current Read

I'm playing along again with Mama Kat's workshop. I can't think today so I'm picking the easy one!

1.) Grab your current read. Let the book fall open to a random page and share two “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.

I had my daughter randomly open my book and pick a page. Since I just started this book and am only one chapter in this will be a little teaser for me too.

"I like to shower," he said, pointing to the clear shower stall in the corner. It was big enough for two grownups and maybe a dwarf or two.

Hmm. That sounds like it could be....um...interesting! lol
It's from the book Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris which is now the HBO series True Blood. Yup, another vampire story. A friend was talking about the series on facebook a few months ago and I had to go find me a copy.

18 and Life

The other day hubby and I were talking about our anniversary plans. Yup, today we've been married 18 years!!

Anyway, I've been wanting a tattoo and mentioned something about him getting one also. He said maybe we could get something as an anniversary celebration and then the Skid Row song "18 and Life" came on the radio. "That's it!" he said "It could say 18 and Life. We've been married 18 years and are in it for life".

Um, yeah, nice thought but I really don't think that's what the song is about and I'm not getting that written on my body for all eternity!

So this morning on my way to work I was thinking about it being 18 years! Wow! Then it dawned on me. I'm 39. That is almost half my life. That make it sound like such a long time! Great another thing to make me feel old!

Happy Anniversary Babe! Love you!

Things that make you go Hmmm?

I just signed on to Google where I have the weather right at the top of my iGoogle page. Here's what it says....

76°F
Current: Mostly Cloudy

Wind: S at 0 mph

Humidity: 34%

So, if winds are at ZERO mph...why is there a direction listed?

I don't know how many times I've said I should have been a meteorologist. They can be wrong all the time but they never loose their job!

Randomness

*So I thought I'd do another post of random thoughts like last week. I may start doing it more often. I just always had this idea in my head that each post needed to be about one specific thing and a certain length or it'd be a waste. But that just kept me from posting and stressing that I didn't have anything worthy to say.

*Both my kids graduated today!!! One from 8th grade and one from 4th.
Well........if you want to get technical, it was a Transition Ceremony (8th) and a Fourth Grade Promotion. I was stressing because they were only scheduled and hour and a half apart and I thought I was going to have to miss parts of both. But the first went very quickly. Actually they both did and all I missed was the cake and punch after Skowt's and before Tiger's for travel time. Then we took them out for dinner a Chili's to celebrate. Skowt also received an award for Academic Excellence! Yay Skowt!

*I think I've decided to stop doing the 52 photos of me thing. At first I was determined to finish. I know I need to hand the camera over more often in get in the picture but forcing myself to do it every week and posting it just doesn't work for me. I like the idea of regular features on a blog but on the other hand I feel pressured to do it every single week. I think I'll just stick to ones that don't need to be done every week and I can do when the mood strikes me. Plus, I don't know about you but I was getting sick of seeing my mug so often around here! lol

*I put the first season of the Showtime show Californication on my Netflix cue and got the first DVD a week or two ago. I wanted to check it out and see what it was like, find out what was going on before Rick Springfield makes his appearance this coming fall. I've only had a chance to watch one episode so far. I can't exactly pop it in around the kids! Um, wow! First episode and there were 4 different naked women so far. And from the article I saw today Rick's character is supposed to put the main character to shame. This should be interesting!

*Anyone ever do any geocaching? Hubby and I were walking some trails with the kids last week at a local county park and were discussing the possibility. Thought it may be something fun to do as a family.

*It's June 10th. It should be warm right? Then why am I still using my electric blanket at night and wearing sweats during the day? Hmm?

The first step

Well, I took the first step toward making my dream of doing something with my photography a reality. I enrolled in one of the online classes I was thinking about taking. I.am.freaking.out. Big time.

Late last night I clicked on over to Better Photo to see when the next round of classes start. Well, they actually started on Wednesday June 3rd but they were still accepting enrollment in a bunch of classes that weren't full yet. Including the first one I was thinking of taking. It's a class to help you master my particular Canon camera model. Now while I've had this camera for over two years now, I'm sure there are quite a few things on there that I have no clue it can do. So while some of it may be a review for me (which can only help, right? And improve my skills) I'm hoping to learn some new tricks.

I was nervous about signing up for anything in the first place. Wondering if I'll be able to find the time and discipline to get the assignments done and be happy with how they turn out. But if that's not enough I'm starting off 3 days behind!!
Way to put stress on myself!

I got the emails today about how to get started and a pre-class survey to fill out so I guess I better stop blogging and get to work!

Writer's Workshop: Career path

First I want to say thanks for the suggestions for blog topics on my last post! They are much appreciated.

Amy suggested I head over to Mama' Losin' It and choose one of her weekly prompts to write about. I had been considering it because I've seen Amy do them before so I decided to give it a shot this week.

4.) If you could change career paths now and be anything you wanted to be...what would you be and why?

This one is a no brainer for me. I thought I'd start with an easy one!
My current job is so far from being a "career". I work part time in a convenience store/gas station. Not glamorous at all. But most of the time it works for us. They have always been very flexible about my schedule and working around my kids. So for now, this is where I am.

But what I have always really wanted to be is a photographer. I used to tell my mom I was going to be famous some day. I think the being famous part is out! Right now I think I'd just like do some portraits, I'd love to get involved in doing high school seniors.

Around my junior/senior year in high school when they start talking with you about your future I had told my parents I didn't want to go right to college. I was undecided and wanted to take a year, decide if photography was what I really wanted and look into where I could go to school for it.

Well, my dad would not hear of it! He insisted that if I did not attend college right after high school I'd most likely never go back and insisted I go. If I remember correctly he even said they would not help financially if I did not go right away. I had no clue what to go for. All the those career path tests they have you take suggested I go for engineering. Not interested. So he said I should go for business because it was a broad choice and I could get any number of jobs.

So I picked a school close to home and majored in Business Administration. When the end started nearing my advisor suggested I go on for my master's in finance........he was the finance professor so of course he would suggest that. This time I held my ground and said no. I didn't even want to go to college (at least for this) why would I go for a master's degree.

I graduated, had a service create a resume for me and started sending them out. Nothing. I quickly learned that Business Administration was too broad of a major and I did not have enough experience or knowledge in any aspect of it to get a decent job. Great. So I eventually gave up and just took on a full time, higher paying position at Kmart where I worked at the time.

I eventually got fed up with that job and decided it was time to go take some photography classes. I quit and got a part time job at a bank and enrolled in a couple classes at a technical college. I loved it. I took a 35mm film course and developed and printed my own photos. I also took a view camera course. You know those big ones with the drape over the back that you stand under. The kind that Ansel Adams used. That was fun too. I was all set to take another the next semester when I found out I was pregnant with Skowt. Since those things weigh a ton I decided to hold off for a bit because I didn't want to be lugging them around while pregnant.

Well, you know how that goes. Life gets in the way, a second baby and I never went back. Now all these years later and I'm about to turn 40 this year and I am wishing I would have done things differently. Regretting decisions I made and the fact that I took my father's "advice" about going to school.

My hubby has been encouraging me to stop looking back at the past and look forward toward what could be. What's done is done and it's time to forget it, start a new plan, set some goals and start over.

As much as I'd love to listen to him, it is super tough for me. I had some issues growing up during my teen years and I have always been a "glass is half empty" kind of gal. No matter how great something is I can find the negative in it or think of what it could have been.

I really want to get past that, but when you've been doing it your whole life it's kind of who you are. You can't just flip a switch and things will be different. So I promised him I'd work on it and take some classes. Try to improve my skills and gain a little more confidence in myself and hopefully within a few years I'll be that photographer I've always wanted to be.

BTW, if you'd like to see some of the photos I've taken recently check out my photoblog here.

Tuesday Thoughts

Just a bunch of random thoughts because none of them are worthy of a full blog post.

*I have off of work today, but I still have to go in at 1pm for a store meeting. Grrrr!!

*I am almost done reading Midnight Sun. I held off for a long time because I wasn't sure if I wanted to or if it was the right thing to do because of how it was leaked. But I am soooo loving it. It gives a whole new dimension to the story of Bella and Edward. I'm gonna be bummed in 46 more pages when it just cuts off in the middle of the story! Will she ever get over the hurt enough to finish and publish it? I hope so!

*I watched the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night. Did you? I am so too old for that! LOL Some stuff was funny, but some of it was just stupid and crude. And my kids wonder why they can't watch. I'd love for them to see their favorite stars on TV like I used to when I was a kid, it's all that other crap they throw in that they don't need. Anyway, why did I even watch? Well to catch a glimpse at Robert Pattinson of course! Oh and to see the premiere of the New Moon movie trailer!! It's way cool and I'm looking forward to November 20th!

*The guinea pigs get to go home today! Yay! Actually they really haven't been that much of a bother it's just that they smell and they are making a mess of Skowt's carpet! Tiger is sad to see them go. She is now bugging me for a hamster, while Skowt is going for a bunny.

*Skowt wants to join the tennis team next year in High School. I am trying to get info on that and get her signed up for some summer activities and lessons but NOBODY is calling me back. It's getting quite annoying. Doesn't anyone return phone calls anymore. Why have voicemail if you aren't going to call me back?

*I am really frustrated with the school drop off line in the morning! How difficult is it to pull all the way forward to the end of the drop off lane? Why does everyone feel they have to drop their kid right at the front door and cause a huge backup out to the street on some days?

*And last for today and the reason I'm doing this all inclusive thoughts post........I NEED HELP! I was worried when I started my blog almost 2 years that I'd run out of stuff to talk about. Guess what? It seems to be happening. The more I fret about it the more blocked I get! So give me some ideas, tag me.......something to get the juices flowing! Because as much as I've come to love blogging, I've started to consider giving it up. My two year blogoversary is coming up in 21 days and I got nothing.