Its like I'm finally learning or something.

Last summer, I wrote a post confessing my DIY ineptitude.

I tend to think of myself as a creative person -- I write this here blog anyway, and was an art major for two years in college -- but I don't know...maybe its the execution I tend to fail at. (See photo of blue spray painted hand in that afore-linked-to post.) I think my flaws really lie in my wanting to cut corners and not spend all the money necessary to make something work. I see a can of spray adhesive at Wal-Mart marked at $7.89 and think, "Why spend eight bucks on something I'll probably only use ONCE when I have perfectly good glue sticks at home?!?"

I should really know by now that the $8 can of spray adhesive is worth oh so much more when it means I won't be going crazy chasing down the paper doilies that are blowing away in the breeze instead of sticking to the damn canvases I spent $22 on and with which I intend to make this "super cute and easy craft!"

My need to create ebbs and flows, sort of like my inspiration to post something here. My motivation to cook something using a real recipe works much the same way. So I knew it would only be a matter of time before I found myself in the clearance aisle at Michael's again, trying to determine if I could get away with that frame that's marked down to $4.99 but that's a wee bit too small for what I need.

You should also know that I set the default home pages of my Web browser at work to open up blogs or Web sites that are inspirational or that have pretty pictures on them. I change them up every so often, but they help to start my day off well. Even if I don't get to read anything on any of those blogs for the day, the images and positive words in the headlines make me feel good. This past winter, I added the Pioneer Woman's blog to my rotation.

I kind of equate reading Pioneer Woman with watching Oprah. If you want to have a successful blog, you should read the blogs of other successful writers. If you want to live a successful life, you watch Oprah.

So PW is known for her recipes. (She does have her own cooking show, you know...) So when I found myself with a pork loin in my freezer, I decided to search her blog for a recipe for it that might be just slightly more creative than my norm but still be within my comfort zone. I found one she calls Herb Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Preserves.

The recipe was easy - you season your pork loin with Herbs de Provence and roast it. While its in the oven, you make a sauce on the stove using some sort of fruit preserves. In her posted recipe, PW used fig, but mentioned you could use peach or plum or just about anything you like. That week I had done my grocery shopping at Target, and their choices for preserves were a little limited. I ended up finding blackberry preserves that sounded really tasty.

Now, you should know that I have one son that will eat just about anything. Nick likes spicy foods, and listed sushi as one of his favorite things on his second grade class assignment. When we go to Panera he regularly orders a bread bowl filled with french onion soup, and stopped ordering most meals off the kids' menu around age four. Will, on the other hand, is my picky eater. I have to bargain with him to get him to eat his veggies, and he declares just about any kind of potatoes to be "disgusting". He once wouldn't eat his pop tart because the frosting had turned a bit brown. It'll do that, you know, IF YOU TOAST IT.

Anyway...so this meal. I figured it would win out because A) its meat, and even the picky eater will eat meat, and B) the sauce is fruity - what kid doesn't like fruity? and C) why the heck wouldn't it?

Only...when you scoop blackberry preserves out of a small glass jar and add vinegar as the recipe indicates, it starts to thin out. And you see that its not really purple as it is...a really dark reddish...pink.

So when I cut my nicely seasoned, perfectly roasted pork loin that I was oh so proud of because it turned out just the way the recipe said it should (finally) into picturesque "on the diagonal" slices and drizzled the fruity sauce over the top and proudly served it to my family, the last thing I expected to hear from The Good Eater was,

"OH MY GOD MOM, IS THAT BLOOD?!?"

Both of their eyes were bugging out of their heads.

"EEEWW EEEWW EEEWW! I AM NOT EATING BLOODY MEAT!"

Unsure of what to do, I set the plates down in front of them anyway.

"DAD NEVER MAKES US EAT BLOODY MEAT, MOM."

Followed by a

"I'M GONNA PUKE IF YOU MAKE ME EAT BLOOD."

It was too late. Any argument I made that it was, in fact, NOT blood was met by fake gagging and choruses of "I'm gonna throw up!" I finally won (a little) by getting them each new plates and serving them pork that didn't have any sauce on it, but for the most part, kid-wise, the recipe was a bust. (I will note that it was absolutely delicious and if your kids are even slightly sane or if you have no heathens at all that I highly recommend it. Or, you know, you could just use a type of preserves that isn't RED.)

And then, after they went to bed that night? I went one step further into crazyland.

I crafted something.

BOOM. Totally on my level.

The Pop-Tart Predicament

Sometime over the summer it occurred to me that teaching my children to toast their own Pop Tarts would buy me an extra 30 minutes or so of sleep on the weekends. I immediately conducted a lesson on the quietest way to drag a chair across the room, the safest way to stand on said chair and the best way to fashion a mitt from a paper napkin so as to not burn oneself on the napalm that is a hot Pop Tart when it first comes out of the toaster.

From there we quickly moved on to toasting other things -- bagels, waffles, bread -- and before I knew it I had a six-year-old who made himself two waffles one morning and a sloppy mess of a bowl of oatmeal brought nearly to boiling because he had "accidentally nuked it for a real long time, Mom."

All small set backs aside, teaching my boys to use the toaster has been, until today, a super big win. They're learning self-reliance, I'm getting a titch more sleep and we're keeping the makers of all toaster pastries from needing a government bailout.

This morning, however, all was not frosting with sprinkles.

I was three rooms away drying my hair when I heard an all too familiar wail. I entered the kitchen to see Will standing on a chair in front of the toaster crying. What he said was this:

"BLAHBAWAAABAAAWAAAAAAHHHHHHH....AND NICK SAYS I HAVETA EAT IT!!!"

I soothed his tears and shooed his older brother away and finally got this translation:

"I accidentally made a chocolate Pop Tart but I don't want a chocolate Pop Tart I want a strawberry Pop Tart but Nick says too bad I have to eat it cuz I cooked it already and he hurt my feeeeelingssss!!!"

Dear God. It was 6:30 in the freakin' morning and I just canNOT handle tears over Pop Tarts at 6:30 in the morning. I told the small boy I'd eat the chocolate Pop Tart and helped him to find a packet of the strawberry kind instead. I left the room to finish drying my hair.

Again -- three rooms away, OVER the sound of the hair dryer which was 5" away from my ear holes -- I heard sounds of not one but TWO children in absolute hysterics.

I entered the kitchen to find two small boys in tears and what sounds like

"BUT I ALREADY COOKED IT AND BLAAAHBAAAWAAAAAAAAAHHHH! NICK HURT MY FEEEELINNNNNGGGSSSS..."

and simultaneously

"I'M JUST TRYING TO HELP CUZ HE WAS DOING IT BAD AND WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE AND HE'S SO MEAN TO MEEEEEE!"

Why, again, did I decide two was a good idea?

And then I saw smoke coming out of the toaster. Oh holy crap on toast I'm going to have to call the friggin' FIRE DEPARTMENT and BEFORE 7:00 IN THE MORNING.

I peered into the top of the toaster to find one very burnt strawberry Pop Tart. I forced the toaster to pop it up, then dumped it onto a waiting paper plate.

The gist of the story was that Nick saw Will trying to get the Pop Tart out of the toaster and for reasons known only to six-year-olds, thought he should "help" his brother by toasting it again for him. After cranking the "darkness dial" all the way up to "black as night."

I dried more tears, sent the older boy away AGAIN, and threw away the burnt pastry. I shooed Will off the chair and put a new strawberry Pop Tart into the toaster myself and stood there, waiting for it to cook. Needless to say I didn't have time to put on any make-up this morning. Sorry office people.

So lucky #3 pops up as I'm coaxing kids into jackets and reminding them not to forget backpacks and I'm only half paying attention as I grab the Tart with a self-made paper mitt. A corner breaks off and I chuckle.

OK bastard Pop Tart you WILL come out of that blasted toaster.

I try again. The SECOND corner comes off.

WHAT IN HOLY HELL -- IS MY FREAKIN' TOASTER MESSING WITH ME?!?

I peered inside the now reeking toaster. I saw that when I dropped lucky Pop Tart #3 in, it somehow became wedged BETWEEN the little fork-like thingies that normally pop up the item you are toasting. And then, when the Tart got all good and hot and gooey? The fork-like things got stuck inside the Tart, meaning the rest of the damn thing was really pretty stuck. And since I'd broken off the top corners and the toaster had been going for about 30 minutes at this point, it was roughly 687°F and there was absolutely no way in hell that I could get the blasted thing out and NOT burn my knuckles at the same time.

I gave Will a cold Pop Tart and shooed him out the door.

Sorry, kid. Better luck tomorrow!

Mmmmm...ciiiiderrrrrr

Last week, I went to my aunt's for a holiday get-together and my cousin made spiced cider. It was yummy and warm and I thought it would be great to make some for a holiday gathering we hosted at our house this past weekend.

So I went to allrecipes.com and searched for spiced cider. I clicked on the one that had been rated the highest and saved it to my profile (which, incidentally, I appear to have created in 2004 and haven't accessed in YEARS).

Oh. My. God. It was SO GOOD. (And yes, we added rum, which I will warn you is dangerous because the tastes just meld together and you can barely tell you are drinking anything alcoholic.) It was like drinking Christmas and childhood memories and snowflakes all at the same time. (Well, not snowflakes, but hopefully you get my drift.)

Without further adieu, the spiced cider recipe.

Ingredients
12 cups apple cider (196 oz)
1/2 cup real maple syrup
4 cinnamon sticks
12 whole cloves
12 whole allspice berries
2 orange peel, cut into strips
2 lemon peel, cut into strips

Directions
1. Pour the apple cider and maple syrup into a large stainless steel saucepan.
2. Place the cinnamon sticks, cloves, allspice berries, orange peel and lemon peel in the center of a washed square of cheesecloth; fold up the sides of the cheesecloth to enclose the bundle, then tie it up with a length of kitchen string. Drop the spice bundle into the cider mixture. (I made my own "kitchen string" by cutting up strips of the cheesecloth.)
3. Place the saucepan over moderate heat for 5 to 10 minutes, or until the cider is very hot but not boiling.
4. Remove the cider from the heat. Discard the spice bundle. Ladle the cider into big cups or mugs, adding a fresh cinnamon stick to each serving if desired.

Darn it if I didn't forget to take a picture. Guess I'll have to make another batch!

Cranberry Cream Cheese Bread recipe

I originally posted this recipe in December of 2008, as proven by the watermark on the photo.

I keep saying I'm going to actually bake something this year. My kids reeeeeely want to decorate cookies but the idea of letting them go buck wild with frosting and jimmies and colored sugar makes my toes curl. (Though I swear by buying pouch mixes where all you have to do is add one or two ingredients and mix and they're ready to bake. I'll be "re-sharing" my favorite cheater pouch cookie recipe tomorrow.)

The one thing I'm really looking forward to baking this year is my cranberry cream cheese bread. I mean, look at how pretty it is!

Its yummalicious, too.

Without further adieu, here's the recipe. If *I* can make it, then one armed monkeys and you can, too.

CRANBERRY CREAM CHEESE BREAD*
8 oz. cream cheese
1 c. butter
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
4 eggs
2 1/4 c. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
2 c. whole cranberries
1/2 c. chopped walnuts

1) Rinse & drain cranberries.
2) Blend cream cheese, butter, sugar, vanilla & eggs - beat until creamy. (Hint: I put the cream cheese and butter in the micro for 30 seconds or so to make them soft enough to mix.)
3) Add 2 c. of the flower and the baking soda and beat well.
4) Combine the other 1/4 c. of flour with the cranberries, fold them and the walnuts into the batter.
5) Grease 2 large loaf pans and bake at 325 for 50 minutes.**
**It could have been my oven, but I ended up baking mine for FAR longer than 50 minutes. I baked both loaves at the same time and both were gooey in the middle after 50 minutes. I kept setting the timer in 5 and 10 minute increments until a knife came out clean. I believe they were in the oven for roughly 1 hr. 10 minutes before they were both done.

*I got this recipe from a co-worker a few years ago and I totally made up the name for this bread. Ignore the fact that there is cream cheese and four eggs in it - calories don't count from mid-November til January 1st, anyway.

Halloween cake FAIL.

Dang it. Ran out of icing AND space.

Hubster vs. The Bees

When we bought our house last fall, one of the big selling points for us was the sizeable backyard. The completely fenced in backyard, perfect for small boys and hyper dogs.

Seeing as we had almost no backyard to speak of at the old house...

The reason we had a second child: so Mommy wouldn't have to pitch.

...we wanted a home where our kids could run and play and get muddy, doing the things little boys like to do. Along with four bedrooms, office, family room with fireplace and wet bar, this house had everything we were looking for.

Once the weather got warmer this spring, we set about building our backyard little boy paradise.

A "Boyadice" if you will. "Boytopia"?

I digress...

Santa brought our boys a 15' trampoline for Christmas. (Santa, would you please, next time you decide to leave a 300 lb gift, actually wrap it and deliver it under the tree? Cuz being home alone on Christmas Eve sucked enough without having to drag a giant heavy box across the slushy mess that was the garage floor and wrapping the side the kids would see first at 12:30 in the morning. 'kay thanks.)

We brought with us, from the old house, a small sandbox shaped like a turtle, for which we got brand new sand. And we finally had enough room for the hugetastic wooden play set my aunt and uncle had been trying to get us to take off their hands since our children were born. (Seriously, their youngest is 17. Our kids were probably the only ones who still used that thing anyway.)

The hugetastic play set.

There is a deck off the kitchen where our boys have a picnic table for snacks, and a patio slab down below where they spend hours drawing (sometimes on themselves) with chalk or riding their bikes in circles around the fire-pit.

"Stand still. I'ma draw around your feet, okay?"

Add to that we also more than enough open yard for baseball and imaginary sword games and you can practically see the beams of sunlight kissing the tops of the wooden fence as angels sing praises to The Yard.

Do you see Will's "catcher's mitt"?

Only, a few weeks ago, there was an overtaking of near epic proportions.

Nick trotted into the kitchen one day to tell me, "Mom - there's bees over there. By the swingset? LOTS of BEES!" I went outside to investigate and sure enough there were. An entire horde of bees.

I texted the Hubster. Because that is how one deals with such situations. If garbage, bees or any other small varmints are involved it becomes man work.

Later, he's home and he goes out to investigate, only to come back and confirm, "Yep. Lots of bees. More bees inside than what you can see outside. I'll have to get rid of them."

Uh, you think? I suggested he call someone, and even was nice enough to look up the numbers of a few local exterminators.

Do you see how excited Nick is to get to "drive" the riding mower?

Days passed. He claimed to have called and I claimed to believe him. Finally, on Facebook, a friend suggested that he just buy a few bug bombs and throw one in at night while they were less active.

Meanwhile, our grass was growing as grass does in the summer. We had gotten a lot of rain and that long grass held mosquitos. Lots and lots of mosquitos. So many that our backyard Boytopia became nearly unusable. Cuz see, our riding mower was in that shed.

Don't you wish your kids were awesome enough to think to put an
entire bag of plastic balls on the trampoline like mine?

Which was a shame. Both because we weren't enjoying our new backyard, and because Mommy had to put up with poor little boys being eaten alive by mosquitos and then finding things to entertain them away from the Big Backyard.

Finally finally the stars aligned and Hubster had a day where he was not either working during the nighttime hours or sleeping to make up for all the days that he did. He armed himself with more bug bombs than was completely necessary and he set off across the yard toward the shed, RAID in hand.

Now, if I were any sort of good blogger at all, I would have been out on that deck with my camera on a tripod, capturing the essence of the moment. But I'm not. I'm a slacker Mom wanna-be-writer who works full time outside the house, and so I missed the moment where he armed himself with enough insectiside to kill the entire neighborhood's pests and handed the phone to our five-year-old child with instructions that he call 9-1-1 if Daddy was getting stung by bees and couldn't make it back to the house.

I shudder to think about how much therapy that child is going to need.

Did I mention my husband is, oh, a cop? A big ol' manly man of a man? Who fishes and hunts and kills stuff with guns and does so cuz he likes it?

And yet there he was, acting like he was going up against blue aliens or something. (Go to about :38 in that video. That is what I imagine he looked like while walking across the yard.)

BUT -- I was there a few days later when he went to make sure they were dead.

Cuz, see, I had had it. I was at the point that I was going to call the damned National Guard in to bomb our stupid shed and all its bees and get a goat to come eat the grass before I'd wait another day to have the grass cut. (Does the National Guard ever get to bomb anything? I'd bet they might do it for free just cuz they'd get to finally bomb something. But, again, I digress...)

So I approached the Hubster in my sweetest most "I'm your lovely wife" voice and threatened that if he didn't take care of the bees or the grass that really bad things would happen -- or really GOOD things would FAIL to happen. Most commonly along the lines of his dirty underwear staying dirty. Which, I'm surprised he didn't laugh at, seing as he does as much laundry as I do.

So off he went, to the shed, armed again with a can of RAID.

I think he used the whole can, no lie.

I like to think that bees are to The Hubster what snakes are to Indiana Jones.

Regardless, the bees are gone and The Yard has been returned to its former glory.

Just in time for fall.

What? Doesn't everyone slide their new puppy down a slip-n-slide?!?

Peep tea

Southerners, you may have your sweet tea, but I'll bet you've never seen anything like this. I introduce to you Peep Tea:

Ingredients for Peep Tea:

2 slightly weird but funny as hell brothers
6,387 packed boxes, 82 of which are marked "kitchen"
2 hr lag during which you have movers at your house and nothing to move

Instructions:

On your moving day, combine everything you own into two trailers. Have enough extra filling that the second truck and trailer is so overloaded Beverly Hillbillies style that you have to leave it parked on the street in front of your old house to deal with later. Have enough people to help you unload the first trailer's contents into your garage, then have everyone except you leave, allowing you to marinate in your anger at not having had a freakin' moving company just do the job for you.

While the husband character makes the 45-minute drive back down with his buddies to get the second load and the brand new bedroom set you ordered, have a friend that's better than you deserve come and help you to move every box that you just took off the first trailer into the appropriate rooms in your new home.

When your slightly dramatic mother and two slightly crazy brothers arrive, you will be pouring out the contents of various boxes and combining them into what you believe may be the proper new places. The arrival of these new cooks may cause your dear helping friend to leave, but the recipe's not ruined. Just make a mental note that you owe him - big time. Also make sure you are completely unable to decide on where anything goes except for the tin foil and the plastic wrap - those belong in that one drawer over there.

Call your hubby. Understand that while he's doing as best as he can, you have three people "helping" you unpack things that don't exactly need to be unpacked first.

Upon hearing you have nearly two hours before any real moving will begin, one brother will most certainly open a box to find packets of Pop Rocks, which the second brother will just have to eat. ("Dude! Pop Rocks!" may be uttered. The lack of this phrase, however, while funny coming from a 6'4" man, will not result in flat or dry results.)

The brother who finds the Pop Rocks will also find a bottle of wine shaped like a cat. This will be a key ingredient, so just shake your head when he thinks he's going to find a corkscrew.

Swear out loud when he actually does.

(Somewhere in here you should try to feel bad after making inappropriate jokes about wine bottles shaped like cats when you realize it was your slightly dramatic mother that gave it to you on your last anniversary.)

Laugh when you both realize the wine is old, the cork dry and the corkscrew crappy. Although the cat wine is a key ingredient, tease him for thinking he can still open the wine bottle.

Tell him you will NOT be the new neighbor that calls 911 in the first 12 hours in your new home when he sticks a steak knife into the dry cork.

Call him something that rhymes with "plumb ass" when he then sticks a cheese spreader into the cork. Laugh at him again when you realize this cheese spreader has a cheerful snowman on the end and its carrot nose has pierced his finger.

Wish you had some cheese.

Gape at him with your eyes wide and your mouth hanging open when he actually opens the stupid bottle of cat wine with the cheese spreader. Be sure to mention the bits of cork floating in the wine, though you know this roughage is probably good for you.

Next, while you're still wishing you had cheese, this unique chef-brother of yours will find a plastic water bottle and the barrel grating mechanism from a hand-crank cheese grater. This is an important step: He will "triple filter" the cat wine through this cheese grating barrel.

Once satisfied, you should pour it into the first glasses you find, especially if they are large plastic ones from a hotel with an indoor water park.

Try not to die laughing when your second brother, while scavenging through kitchen boxes like a hobo, finds a box of peeps and eats three before he loudly proclaims them to be stale. Remind him that Easter was six months ago.

Chew your cork while you realize that they do, however, make the perfect garnish.

The party.

So, the other thing that's kept me from posting lately was the party I mentioned yesterday. My younger brother turns 30 this week, and his girlfriend approached me almost a year ago, asking if I, the family party planner, would help her throw him a surprise party.

How could say no? (Its a sickness, really.)

We planned for months, laughing and joking as we IM'd each other and sent messages via Facebook. We got to know each other better as we took secret trips to the party outlet store, and bonded while we shopped the aisles of the dollar store for items to put into our "man-yata". (Its like a piñata, but for men. Filled with things that, um, men like.)

This past Saturday was D-Day. D Day to pray for nice weather.

We reserved a picnic area at a local park, so I was in a state of near panic when the forecast called for afternoon thunderstorms. We had only two small tents, so my Dad came prepared with a large canvas and plenty of rope, but that didn't really put my mind at ease. It was so windy when we got there to set up that the first tent literally blew away, rolling end over end toward the street before we could stake it down.

Because my brother Al rents the upper of our duplex, we needed not only a plan to get him to his own party, but one to get him out of the way so we could load up our mass amounts of party supplies as well. The idea? Take him fishing!

So my dear Hubs, forever making sacrifices to help his crazy wife, came home from working an overnight shift and packed up to head out fishing. He, my brother Jeff, Al and Nick headed out for the lake around 9.

Now, it was necessary to bring my boys along on some of the party planning trips - they were with us the day we picked up Jorge (that's "Hor-hey" for you non-Spanish speakers) from the party supply store. By this time last week, Nick was excitedly counting down the days until the party, riling up his brother, chanting "PAR-TEE, PAR-TEE, PAR-TEE!" and talking about the "pinana" while I nervously glanced around to quickly make sure Al wasn't just outside the window.

In an effort to make my day-of workload a bit lighter, Jay suggested he take Nick fishing with him.

I thought he was nuts. Surely the fishing crew would barely be out of the driveway before the secret was given away. But Jay spent all day Friday coaching his four-year-old.

"What're we doing tomorrow?" he'd ask.

"FISHING!" Nick would shout. "And then the party!"

We'd shake our heads and roll our eyes and try again, until finally, this process repeated enough times, we finally got the results we were looking for.

"What're we doing tomorrow?"

"FISHING!!!! And then nothing else."

Close enough.

Saturday morning, Nick leaps out of bed to say, "MOM! Its going to be so much fun - I can't wait to go fishing. And nothing else!"

Heaven help us.

ANYWAY...the boys headed off to fish. I'm pleased to report that the secret was kept (good boy!) and they got Al to the park without him suspecting a thing.

It was a loooong day, but a great time. The weather even cooperated.

My brother Al & our Dad


Duck Farts
"Fam-ly tradition..."


Tomato thief


Al & our Grandpa

Knocking you out with these American thighs

I sorta need to get back on track. I haven't been posting as regularly as I usually do, and I feel like my brain is beginning to whither from lack of creativity. I feel that if I just start writing something -- anything, the ideas will flow more freely...or some such junk.

It's hard to know. I haven't had many thoughts about anything lately. My creativity juices have been sucked clean from my head. Kinda like a crawfish. (Or is it 'cray-fish'? We northerners never get it quite right.)

Wow...that's some great imagery there. Sorry for that.

Or maybe not. If I can still invoke any feelings (even the 'eeeeew' variety) then I've still got something, right?

Ooh! Here's a fun fact for ya - back in February I read several posts by southerners detailing their Mardi Gras celebrations. (Most were written in slurrrrr.) What a few of them pointed out was that drinking is seen as a big no-no in most of the Bible belt, and Mardi Gras was the one time a year people really let their hair down and made a big to-do.

For like four days or something. Don't quote me on that.

Here in the north? Its too damn cold in February to do anything but hunker down, bust out the Snuggie and pray for spring (which I'm still not convinced we are experiencing yet).

So even though we have to sit idly by, teeth chattering and fingers numb while we watch you down mojitos and earn strands of beads via twitpic MONTHS before the frozen tundra begins to thaw, we get our revenge.

For you see...we have Catholic churches here. Lots and lots of Catholic churches. And they all have festivals. Every weekend, from May through September you're bound to find at least one.

And Catholic church festivals are known for one thing: THE BEER TENT.

(Oh, and meat raffles.)

(And pokerino. But mostly the beer tent.)

We Catholics don't frown upon public drunkenness. That means that on any Friday or Saturday night you can find yourself with a frosty beer in one hand, a hot ear of corn in the other, standing in front of a local cover band, dancing and jumping (and sloshing) and singing at the top of your lungs. I mean the best version of "You shook me all night long" is always the one accompanied by a couple of hundred drunks.

On top of that, Milwaukee prides itself for being the City of Festivals. Just check out that list - every ethnicity gets its own weekend festival. (We have a TRAIN FEST? Who the hell KNEW?!?) If the city could prove we had a substantial population of Lativans, well, we'd have to squeeze them in sometime in October.

You know...before the snow flies.

On top of THOSE even, there is the State Fair (a full 11 days of fried-everything-you-can-think-of-on-a-stick and more beer) and the county fairs. By the time September rolls around we're all on diets trying to stave off heart attacks. (Seriously - they plan to offer chocolate covered BACON this year. Uh, can I get a side of AED with that? Thanks.)

Then there's the Mack Daddy of them all -- SUMMERFEST. The world's largest music festival. Eleven stages of music free with your admission and a twelfth headliner stage you pay extra to go see. I tell ya -- nothin' beats sitting on the shores of Lake Michigan with a cool breeze at your back, eating a pulled pork sandwich, drinkin' a Leine's and listening to the likes of The Offspring or the Dropkick Murphys. Or both at the same time, which I just might try and do.

So I'll take Lundi Gras, Marcredi Gras and Vendredi Gras over your little ol' parade any day.

I guess living in the cold Midwest actually works for me. Well, if the temps ever make it above 70 this year I should say.

Some days there's just not enough coffee

Lord knows I've written my share of posts about bad mornings, bad days and bad weeks.

I'd like to think that if I didn't have to work, I'd have more time to slow down, not spread myself so thin and avoid having so many Mommy melt down moments.

I like to imagine I'd have time to make brownies - from a box mix, let's not be completely irrational - time to take the boys to the library and more time to just play in the yard.

I'd have time to hem the curtains in my kitchen. (Cuz, see, when my dog ripped one jumping up to look out the window and I went to order a new one from JC Penny, I assumed I knew the length I had previously purchased. So I went ahead and ordered the 30" curtain, which hangs quite a bit shorter than the other that actually is 36". I like the shorter one better, and told myself I could just hem the longer one to match instead of returning the new one. That, however, was two years ago.)

I'd have time to plant some veggies and time to shop farmer's markets and time to start a compost bin. I'd be patient enough to shop second-hand stores and maybe even join a co-op. I'd make my own laundry soap and other cleaners using nothing but vinegar and water.

These days, however? When hubby's at work and I wake on a Saturday morning to find the dog had diarrhea all over the kitchen floor and that we're nearly out of paper towels? And for some God-forsaken reason after that I decide its a good idea to hit up rummage sales with two small boys and my MOTHER in tow? And then stop for lunch once we're well past nap time? And then fight with my boys when they come home overtired and then won't nap?

I'm glad for shortcuts.

Hey...whatever works.

Works for Me Wednesday: The Frugal Diner Edition

This post is not sponsored by either restaurant.com or uPromise. They're just both sites I really like and use.

Kristen of We Are That Family (and home of Works for Me Wednesdays) issued a challenge for this week - write about something frugal. I sat and wracked my brain, knowing I'm good at frugality but unable to think beyond reusing this and recycling that but nothing was all that interesting to write about till I thought, "Screw it - I'm going out to dinner with our friends and maybe I just won't post tomorrow."

It hit me, while sitting in the restaurant.

The big "Duh-UR!" moment.

The waitress had brought back our bill, and in her gravelly "Patty and Selma" voice told us that she'd taken our $25 off the bill already. (She also added 18% gratuity that she wasn't exactly worthy of, but...I digress.)

I'm a uPromise member. Admittedly, I haven't saved a whole lot for my kids' college tuition that way, but eh...every bit helps, ya know? Sometime last fall I got one of their newsletters with an advertisement for cheap gift certificates through one of their partners, restaurant.com.

Restaurant.com offers gift certificates (that you purchase and print out on your home computer) at a big discount. Typically you can get a $25 one for $10, and a $10 for $3 or $4. Of course, there are stipulations with most of them (most along the lines of a minimum amount of money you must spend in order to redeem it, or one per table, etc.).

But this newsletter from uPromise had a coupon code in it for a discount - making all their gift certificates 80% off.

You'd better believe I snatched up as many as I could! In fact, that made $25 gift certificates $2 a piece. (Do the math - I was floored at first, too. $10 at 80% off = $2.) I got $200 worth of gift cards for $16.

Christmas shopping, complete!

You can also email the gift certificates, making them nice last-minute gifts. You can buy a certificate for a particular amount, and let the recipient search their area and select which restaurant they'd like a certificate for. (Gifts with no guesswork? EGAD!)

And the coolest thing is that this 80% off deal wasn't a one-time thing. I've seen it several times since then, so I'm thinking its a regular occurrence.

I've used the certificates on many occasions (most recently Tuesday night's steak dinner with our friends) and as long as you read through the stipulations before you hit the restaurant you should be good to go. I've never had a restaurant NOT accept one.

Hop on over, join uPromise, and sign up for their newsletters. Even without the additional discount the restaurant.com gift certificates are still a pretty good deal - especially if you can swing a date night with the hubby!

As good as a walk-off home run

We're big sports fans 'round these parts.

The Brewers's home opener was Friday, and with the exception to a GREAT end to that first home game, their performance has um, left something to be desired. (What the HELL, Suppan?!?) The first home series was against the Cubbies, and we looove the Cubs/Brewers rivalry.

I whipped up a little gametime snack on Friday, in honor of the festivities. You know me...its RE-HE-HE-LY easy, or I wouldn't make it at all.

First, cube up a pound of Velveeta cheese.

Add a can of Red Gold diced tomatoes with green chiles.

Microwave it in two minute intervals, stirring in between, until its a bowl of molten cheesy goodness.

Serve with tortilla chips, bagel chips or pretzel rods, and your beer of choice.

This cost me about $5 to make, as compared with $3.89 for a 12 oz jar of the premade stuff. (I ended up with about 3x as much.)

Good luck keeping your four-year-old's fingers out of the bowl. I swear he would have licked it if I'd have let him.

For more recipes, check out A Southern Fairytale and Blessed With Grace. Want more Macro Shots? Check out Lisa's Chaos. Need more still? Check out I am Blissfully Domestic.

*Just in case some of you aren't baseball fans.

Joining the "in" crowd

I have never been much of a joiner.

In college, I belonged to zero clubs, joined zero sororities and never did any extra curricular student anything unless it was required for a class.

In high school I was an athlete simply because I wanted to be. I was a varsity swimmer because swimming was something I learned to do before I could remember and always loved to do. I joined the ski club before it was cool and I can remember vividly sitting in the bus on the way to Alpine Valley with my walkman on, loud in my ears, listening to U2's Joshua Tree album on cassette, trying NOT to appear scared shitless to be the only female on board. I was 14.

Now, I'm not saying I'm anti-social. Far from it. In fact, after those first few bus rides alone, I convinced several friends to join the ski club, had them skip the introductory class on the bunny hill and freakin' taught them to ski myself. (Steph, Hubs, if you're reading this - FREAKIN' COMMENT already so people know I'm not exaggerating!)

I am the "party planner". I plan the girls nights out, the cook-outs and bonfires in the yard and the family outings. I plan tailgate parties and holiday gatherings and host more dinners at my house than most other folks would be comfortable with.

Maybe it was teenage angst. I don't know. I did join VICA in 12th grade and serve as its vice president. But that was merely so I could get out of school in the afternoons. (In our school district, so long as you don't blow some class completely, kids have enough credits to graduate halfway through their senior year. Instead of sitting around all day for months taking blow off English classes on Comedy or Science Fiction, the kids who were smart enough to do the math early could finagle themselves into a co-op of some sort or another and get out of school early in 12th grade to work instead. Liking graphic design, I began taking what our school called Graphics classes in 10th grade. The course comprised of laying something out on a computer, printing it out in color separation, making negatives, etc etc and eventually printing the piece on old AB Dick 360 offset presses. I LOVED Graphics class. I was really good at it -- my senior year, on my 18th birthday, I went to a city-wide competition and took FIRST PLACE in Graphics, beating nearly 100 other people (mostly guys) for the title.) Wait - where the hell was I going with that ramble? Oh yeah -- I wasn't really a joiner. But joined VICA (vocational industrial clubs of America) out of necessity.

I guess I'm just not a big "do it cuz everyone else is doing it" kinda girl.

If you've ever blogged, even for a day, you probably know what carnivals are...bloggers will host weekly themed posting events. They'll put up a Mr. Linky thing, and anyone who writes about the same topic that day puts in a link to their post.

Now, going back to my "I'm not a joiner" roots, I'm sure you can imagine I was a little hesitant to just jump in on the party.

But I'm also a writer. I gots a jernalism degree to prove it. Back in the days of my many many college writing courses, we'd be given writing suggestions. The assignment might be to write an editorial, for example, and just so we weren't left dangling out in the wind, the professor would list a few topics we could write about. Those were writing prompts.

So thinking of them that way, I periodically would join in on some of these weekly carnivals. But only, you know, if I totally felt like it. Cuz, um, I'm totally too cool to just jump in and play along cuz someone said so. (Steph, you just keep quiet about my propensity to be just a teensie bit stubborn, 'kay? ZIPIT.)

Recently, I've gone outside my little bloggy comfort circle and started to find new blogs - ones I've never heard of or seen of before. And with that comes new carnivals. I've used these bloggers' "writing prompts" to inspire posts lately (or, who am I kidding? stretched their definition a teensie bit to make my post fit what their carnival was about).

And with that? Comes new traffic -- new readers.

And isn't that what we're all after anyway? I mean, its one thing to have your little niche on the Web, be able to share what you want and have friends that "get" you, and blah-diddy-blah, but there are very few of us who could honestly say we aren't interested in finding new readers. Cuz why say something if no one is going to read it?

(I will spare you the "blogging is narcissistic" speech.)

So...I've decided...I'm putting on my big girl panties...and I am going to join in.

Whew. That feels good to "say" out loud.

Maybe one day I'll be important enough to get 50 comments on a post about whatever the hell mundane thing my kids did lately (or my long rambling thoughts on playing along in blog carnivals) but today I'm not there. And because I often find these carnivals by the links to them in other's posts (and appreciate them when I see them), I'll start doing that in my posts, too. (Unless I forget, make an error or otherwise don't want to.)

Cuz you know what? Bloggy carnivals work for me.

Here are just a few I've found recently. Know of one I missed? Leave it in the comments and I'll update my list. Thanks!

Macro Monday
http://lisaschaos.com/

Not me Monday
http://www.mycharmingkids.net/

Mouthwatering Mondays
http://asouthernfairytale.com/

Your Life, Your Blog (Mondays)
http://www.reallifeblog.net

The married sex challenge (Mondays)
http://thediaperdiaries.net/

I am Blissfully Domestic (up Monday nights)
http://blissfullydomestic.com/

Promote your Post (up Monday nights)
http://www.momdot.com/

Random Tuesday Thoughts
http://www.theunmom.com/

Tackle it Tuesday
http://5minutesformom.com/

Tempt your tummy Tuesdays
http://blessedwithgrace.blogspot.com/

Tuesday Tributes
http://halftimelessons.blogspot.com/

Take me back Tuesday
http://nateandjakeandme.blogspot.com/

What I learned this week
http://www.musingsofahousewife.com/

Wordful Wednesday
http://angiescircus.blogspot.com/

Works for Me Wednesday
http://www.wearethatfamily.com/

Wordless Wednesday
http://5minutesformom.com/
http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/

Real Food Wednesday
http://kellythekitchenkop.com/

'Fro me to you Thursday
http://marcywrites.com/

Thousand Words Thursday
http://www.themomjen.com/

Thursday Thirteen
http://thursday-13.com/

Show & Tell Fridays
http://kellishouse.blogspot.com/

Photo Story Friday
http://carriestuckmann.blogspot.com/

Finer Things Friday
http://amysfinerthings.com/

A Beautiful Life (Fridays)
http://theinspiredroom.net/

Hooked on Fridays
http://hookedonhouses.net/

Blitz-it Fridays
(Organizing blitz)
http://organizedeveryday.blogspot.com/

Sky Watch Fridays
http://skyley.blogspot.com/

Photo Hunt (Saturdays)
http://tnchick.com/

Weekly Winners (Sundays)
http://sarcasticmom.com/

The Ultimate Slacker Mom confession

C'mere.

Closer.

CLOSER.

I have to tell you something.

Promise you won't judge, OK?

I don't balance my checkbook.

Like, EVER.

Are you shocked?

This is how I used to keep track of my bills:

I am très chic, no?

Years ago I kept one of those teensie tiny little checkbook registers, adding and subtracting everything down to the penny. But you know how those things are...one little mistake and you end up with half a page of scribbly blue and black ink.

Some time after we got married, Hubs and I bought a computer and Quicken software came with it.

Somehow I just couldn't keep the thing synched with our bank account properly.

(I admit - I actually sent in for that free training CD from the Video Professor. That didn't help me, either.)

Once it was off by a hundred dollars or so I'd scrap the whole thing and cheat, putting in a fake entry to make it balance.

That quickly got irritating and I made up my own system.

Enter The Big Purple Notebook.

The Big Purple Notebook was simple. Because we don't get many paper bills and pay most things online, I would simply keep a page for each month listing our bills, when they were due and how much they were for. In that list (sorted by date) were also our pay dates with approximate amounts filled in as well.

The page or two following would be left for doing math and estimating what our remaining balance would be.

Our online bank account records were reviewed regularly to make sure no "weirdness" was going on, and to confirm that our payments went through. We're relatively conservative spenders, so this worked well for many years. We always kept a few hundred dollars of "cush" to cover any unexpected expenses or to pay for a larger item or repair if we wanted it or needed it.

Lately, though, I've wanted something more. My system (or complete lack thereof) didn't allow for a whole lot of budgeting. I browsed Web sites for hours looking for the perfect accounting materials.

I gave up. Products with good reviews looked like bus driver mileage logs with grey carboard covers and vague shots of graph paper inside.

I have an affinity for pretty office products, people.

So I bought this at the local Wally World:

Definitely a step up from the The Big Purple Notebook but its far from perfect. I'd love to find a great organizer and budgeting system that's easy to use and pretty, too. (You'll see I have a pretty new notebook and an expanding organizer that matches for miscellaneous paperwork.)

What do you use for bill organization and budgeting?

He's still my bouncing baby boy

Have you ever heard anyone suggest that you should take some of your kids' toys, put them away (when they're not looking, of course) and bring them back later? Sort of to keep things fresh?

Well guess what - it works.

Will bouncing from Mommy Wins on Vimeo.

For more Works for Me Wednesday, check out We are THAT Family.

I was askin' for it.

Do I even need to tell you again that I've been painting here at home?

Hubby felt it necessary to capture another project in progress.
Thanks hon!

The good news is that we no longer have to move so quickly. The union my Hubby now belongs to revised their requirements for residency, so we no longer have an "end date" by which we have to move.

But we're ready. Ready to start the "fun part" - ready to be on to the next headache, the next stress. Ready to stop worrying about this house and start looking at new ones already.

I'm finding it hard to keep myself motivated. As soon as I have one project done, another jumps in its place, shouting, "ME NEXT! ME NEXT!"

Shut up, project.

So I take advantage of motivation whenever it strikes. This past Thursday afternoon I came home from work. (Translation: I had been out of the house, no one shouting "MOOOM!" at for more than eight hours. You can get drunk off that sort of respite.)

"Hey Nick! Wanna help Momma paint?"

He'd been begging for weeks to be allowed to paint something. Half of the porch floor needed painting, and I thought, "Eh...simple enough, right?"

Honestly? He was pretty damn good about it!

I gave him the roller loaded with paint and he rolled away happily (mostly in the same spot over and over again) while I cut in around the edges. That being done, I'd drew a little square for him.

"Here - you fill in that square for Momma."

"OK!"

And he did.

We worked this way until a good portion of the floor was covered. Every so often I'd stop, load up the roller with more paint and draw another square. The space was narrow so I was very specific about where he should stand and in which direction he should "roll".

He didn't care. He was happy to be helping and he was doing a really good job. His squares needed to be touched up a bit in the end, but he was listening well and we were talking about the letter of the week at preschool.

Now, I must tell you that before starting this project I told him that if he got paint on hands he couldn't cry. I told him it'd wash off, it was part of being a painter.

When he first rolled paint over his toes (and hand-me-down play shoes) he didn't freak out. Just, "Uh oh, Mom! Paint! On my toes!"

Oh thank God. I was beginning to worry about his boy-ness.

The second time? He laughed.

I was happy to see paint on his hands and that he paid no attention to it.

Finally, we got to the section just in front of the door, and he started yelling for his Daddy to "Come see! Come see!" I told him to finish up his square, and that I'd go get Daddy.

We almost peed ourselves laughing when we came back out to this:

Is that bad?

Dirt smells good.

No, really, it does.

If you can smell dirt, that means things are thawing. And its no longer winter.

(I hear choirs of angels singing - I swear. Oh wait - that's just the drunk neighbors hootin' and hollerin' over their green beer. Happy St. Pat's!)

I took the day off today to work on a few projects around the house. I have vacation time built up and with selling a house and buying another I'd be fooling myself to think we'd actually have time for a trip of any sort this year.

I got a head start yesterday afternoon. When I got home from work I scrubbed at the back (cement) steps with a wire brush before painting them.

Something like that sounds like a simple project until you add a four-year-old into the mix.

I mean, scrub, sweep, paint. What's that take, like an HOUR, tops?

Wrong-o.

"MOM! My baseball tee's broken!!!"

"MOM! Where's my football? This one's Will's football. I want miiiiiine!"

"MOM! Can you get my bike out of the garage?"

"MOM! I CAAAAAANNNN'TTTT DOOOOO IIIIIIIT!!!!" Followed by a WAAAAAH! and a Wah-hah-hah! and then WAAAAAAH! some more.

And if you think THAT'S bad? Oh, you should have SEEN the kid once he tipped his bike over.

Into the mud.

Oh lawdie. The kid's got an issue with mud.

"BUT I'M DIIIIRRRRRRTTEEEEE!!!"

I should have thrown mud at him.

Instead, like the mean Mom I am, I made him stand there, full of mud and crying so I could finish painting the last 12" of bottom step.

Total project time? 3 hours and 12 minutes.

I kid you not. It was cold and getting dark by the time we headed in. (Oh, and I'll just let you imagine the near freak-out Nick had when I teased him and told him we had to climb into the house through the window. Those pretty dark brown eyes went big as saucers I tell ya!)

So, off I go, to finish raking and edging. And painting. And scrubbing. And laundering. And...

Goin' for extra credit

I've admitted before that I wish I were a better, more adventurous cook, but I most certainly did not goof up a simple recipe on Thursday night. (And it was not the really easy chicken-and-rice-in-a-dish-pop-it-in-your-oven-and-you're-done recipe that comes on the back of the Cream of Chicken soup label. Nuh-uh.)

And in no way was I apprehensive about attempting another new recipe on Friday.

Nope. Not this chick.

I most certainly did not go out of my way while on the way home from Nick's swimming lessons to hit the Micky D's drive-through. Cuz that would be silly, seeing as that I had previously decided I'd try this super-easy, four ingredient, open a few cans and you're halfway done recipe.

It did not require a phone call from the Hubby who sounded all disgusted at the thought of eating MORE fast food to make me groan in frustration and hightail it home. (I most certainly did not squeal my tires while speeding away from McDonald's, either. Despite what my children shouting, "MOMMY! DO IT AGAIN!!!" may lead you to believe.)

But that recipe? Was not bad.

Oh, OK, I can't keep up with this "not me Monday" stuff, cuz the pasta I made was sooo good. And easy. And my kids asked for more.

I'm doin' a little happy dance over here. I was so pleased to come across this 'Fetuccini Delight' recipe especially seeing as it's Lent and if you're Catholic, you know how hard it can be to keep things interesting on Fridays! (And if *I* tell you its easy, and *I* didn't screw it up - you know it'll rock your socks.)

Of course, I'll share:

Fetuccini Delight
Ingredients
1 (6 ounce) package fettuccine
2 (14.5 ounce) cans Red Gold® Diced Tomatoes with Basil, Garlic & Oregano or 2 (14.5 ounce) cans Red Gold® Petite Diced Tomatoes with Garlic & Olive Oil
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Directions
Cook pasta according to package directions; drain. In a large skillet place the undrained tomatoes and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 5 minutes or until thickened.

Stir in pasta and basil; heat through.

Sprinkle each serving with Parmesan cheese.

That's it. You're done.

I'll admit, I improvised. I didn't have fetuccini noodles at home, but tons of spaghetti, so I used those. I think you could use just about any kind of pasta. I also had one can of each of the Red Gold tomatoes listed -- mmmmm nummy! If you click on over to the Red Gold site, you'll see they suggest trying different types of cheese if you're more adventurous, and I didn't have fresh basil, so I used far less of the dried stuff. Was still good.

Now, who failed at Not Me Monday? Not me.

(For more recipe ideas, check out Mouthwatering Mondays at A Southern Fairytale.)

Win-o-the week: Creating a navigation bar for your blog

So I was going to originally post this on Saturday, but then, well, LIFE happened. And darn it, it was fun. Better late than never!

First: these instructions only apply if you use Blogger. Wordpress, Typepad and others use different programming, so the instructions I provide are in XML. Its my intention to word each of these "tidbits" to be useful for those of us {ahem} who may not be the most technically inclined. Even so, if you find that I've gone too fast or missed a point, please email me or otherwise let me know. I'd be happy to help as much as I can.

You've backed up your blog template, right? 'kay. Good.

On we go.

Just so everyone knows what I'm talking about, when I say "navigation bar", I'm talking about what I have up at the top of my blog, under the header graphic and over the place where my posts start. See the "Home", "Meet Mommy", etc?

They're super nice if you're browsing someone's blog and would like to get to know them better. Imagine you've followed a link from a blog carnival and think, "Wow, this gal's really funny/clever/good at making cake. Wonder what else she's written!" Because carnivals request that you include permalinks, having a "Home" button so that folks can easily jump to the most recent post you've written is a good idea.

Think about what other information you'd like to make easily available to your blog buddies. Of course there's your Blogger Profile (see mine here) but you may want to create a more in-depth or unique "about me" page. Wordpress and other blogging programs have dedicated pages for such things, but you can cheat on Blogger by writing a post, changing its date and burying it in your archives.

This is also a good way to clean up your sidebars!

Once you have decided what pages you'll link to in your nav bar, copy their permalinks into Notepad or something similar. (I find it easier to work with.)

We're going to start by modifying the code IN the Notepad document you used to make your template back-up.

Step 1: Save a copy of your blog template backup. Call it whatever you want, so long as you know you aren't modifying the original. I can't tell you how many times I've goofed in my code and had to restore from a backup just like this. Code is picky - if even one . is off, your page may go all "wonky" on you.

Step 2: In that copy of your template backup, find the

/* Page Structure----------------------------------------------- */

section and scroll till past all the entries (#right, #main, etc.) until you see

/* Title & Description----------------------------------------------- */

Just above this 'Title & Description' code, we're going to enter a little section defining the style of your "navbar".

This is the code I have in mine. The sections I've bolded are where you're going to need to get a bit creative and adjust the numbers (leaving the px in place) to account for the size of your header graphic and the height of your nav bar. You'll have a chance to preview this after you copy it into the code section of your template.

#navbar-wrapper { height: 55px; width: 1030px; top:260px; }
#navbar { height: 55px; width: 1030px; }

"Top" here refers to the number of pixels from the top of the browser window you want your nav bar to start. Depending on the size of your header graphic, you may need to bump this number up or down.

Step 3: Find


Just under that, we'll need to put the actual code that defines what should be in the nav bar. I'd allow you to just copy and paste what I have below, but Blogger was having a near heart-attack and kept reformatting the code when I put it into one of those handy dandy little boxes that will let you copy code. You'll just have to be extra super careful to type this out exactly.

You'll obviously replace 'http://www.yoururl.com' with the appropriate corresponding URL for your blog or individual post, and you can change the words (Home, About Me, Awards) to be whatever you want those links to read.

Step 4: Now we'll go paste your new code in over the old. Do a "select all" of the entire document where you've just added the nav bar code, then copy.

Then, from your dashboard, click layout,

then Edit HTML.

You'll see this:

Put your cursor anywhere inside that 'edit template' box, and select all again. Only this time, just delete the code. Then do a paste of the new. Click Preview.

You'll see a preview of your new blog layout that isn't yet made "real" yet. You can then go back and forth, adjusting things as you'd like until you're ready. Then click Save Template.

Congrats! You should then have a pretty navigation bar!

Want some examples of good navigation bars? Check out Sarcastic Mom, Anglophile Football Fanatic and Autumn at Oak Hollow.

*These examples use font only for the nav bar. If you choose to use graphics for your buttons, the code is a bit different. I recomment uploading those graphics to Photobucket, and then the code would look like this:

Was this helpful to you? Stumble it so that it might help other bloggers, too!

"Can I be excused? My head is full."*

I'm never one to admit I've got too much on my plate.

I guess I'd rather be a bit stressed overall and still have the opportunity to do 995,000 things than be well rested, calm and sane and only do 4.

But this is what overload feels like. There isn't some stressful breaking point where you just lose your mind and tear out your hair and wear your pajamas to the office.

Its apathy. Melancholy. Blech. Whatever.

I should be overjoyed for the Hubster - he started his new job - his dream job - his work your arse off cuz you really want it job - yesterday. I'm so unbelievably proud of him and all he's done to be a good husband and father to his family.

I decided a dinner out to celebrate was called for.

But you know what? It wasn't fun. At all.

The kids were tired (it was a loooong weekend and on top of it Auntie fell for the "ifI'mreallyquietshewon'tknowI'mnotnapping" game) and they wouldn't eat and whined the entire time. And even though it was buy-one-get-one burger night and we had a gift card? We would have enjoyed it more some other time when it wasn't a Monday all day long.

Eh...but whatever. We're getting somewhere on the house but I've decided I'm not going to worry about it for a few days. (Sha...right...) I'm going to use some of my birthday gift money and book myself a massage and pedicure, and instead of writing up my Blissfully You column?

I'm going to bed.**

Here's a quick look at the before and after on our kitchen floor. Only about a bajillion times better!

Before:

You can see the ancient 1950s linoleum in the upper corner.
Over the top was the cheap vinyl floor we put in when we bought the house
nearly nine years ago. Little did we know we'd be in this house THIS long!

After:

Beautirific ceramic tiles (that look like stone).
Mmmmmm....yummalicious tile. Makes me want to, like, COOK
or something. Ha..hahahahaha! Ha. *snort*

*156,000 points if you knew that was from a Far Side cartoon.

**I'm usually one to edit a post 57 times if I see even the smallest of problems with it. I actually wrote this Monday night to sound as if I were writing it Tuesday morning (when I'd scheduled it to post). However, I was so tired that when I wrote "I'm going to bed" as the somewhat-notreally-closing line, I thought it was perfect. {*snort*} In reality, I make it sound like I'm going back to bed on Tuesday morning, which I really wish I could do, but sadly, here I sit at my desk AGAIN. Whatever, I'm rambling...my point is that I'm leaving it because it SO clearly illustrates my overtiredness and "meh" attitude. Maybe I'll just post a picture of fuzzy bunnies tomorrow.