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Saturday, March 26, 2011

Desserts



Hey howdy hey, girls! How goes it this fine day? Well, I hope :) Friday was pretty good for me. Although I seemed to have been suffering from PMS all day long. Let me tell you, PMS with Prozac is definitely manageable, but still not pleasant...

Anyhow, Captain America Skyped me as the kids were getting ready for school, and I laid in bed and chatted with him. LUckily the kids are pretty self sufficient, and managed to get themselves ready and out the door on time. Good job, kids!

AND, he told me that he called the post office, and THEY FOUND HIS MP3 PLAYER!!! It was about the same size as the candies (peppermint patties) that I'd put in the box, and the same color, and must have fallen out in the post office, and they had it set aside for when someone called about it. YES!!! Thanks goodness. I was SO relieved!

Captain America took a picture of himself in the St Patricks junk I sent- hehe. Good job at humoring me, sweetie - hehe :)

And I was supposed to stop and get ready for exercise group at 8am (only giving me 10 minutes), but I was just having too much fun talking with my sweetie. And at 8:45am, we were done talking. And yeah, I'd totally missed exercise group. And I was supposed to take Kari and Laurie. Oops. I'm sure that they'd understand :) So I texted them both, explaining what happened, got Jim ready, and we headed out to the Dollar Tree for Bread, and Howdys for a drink. hehe.

I got 4 loaves of Bread at the Dollar Tree, all of the Natures Own that they had. I was totally gonna get some for Kari/Terra, but they didn't have enough. Sorry, girls! I found some cute mini cup cake papers for Easter, and decided to get them, along with some Jelly Beans. I was gonna use my leftover cookie doughI to make cookies for our luncheon today.

And we paid, and while at the check out, the lady TOTALLY tried to upsale me at the register. They do that frequently here in El Paso. "You want lotion for dry hands?" No, thank you, but I appreciate you pointing out my dry hands... *add sarcasm*...

And then we headed to Howdys. Jim had got a treat at the Dollar Tree, and I told him this was Mom's treat - hehe.


I'm teaching him well!~

And back in the car, and back to post. Singing the whole way, of course...


I texted that picture of me with the Howdys fountain to Charlotte, and somehow included a Local EL Paso number in the mix. Oops. Someone texted back and said "Wrong number, dude". Nice, not only did I butt dial someone a photo, but they thought I was a dude! ROFL!

And I was texting Charlotte back and forth song titles that were on my CD, and when it got to "The Thong Song' from the Glee Album, I accidentally texted Kari! AHHHH!!! So I texted Kari "Let me see your thong"... And realized that I'd done, and quickly wrote explaining what was going on. I felt SO silly, but my friends are used to it, and love me still - hehe.

Check out the pretty make up that I got at the Dollar Tree!
Jim watched some episodes of Kim Possible, and I started cooking. First, Cookie Dough. You can find the recipe HERE> I had left over from yesterday. I put a little cookie dough into the mini cup cake papers, then put them all on a cookie sheet. And they baked up nice and fluffy, and before they cooled, I shoved a Jelly Bean in the center. Kinda fun, huh?

I cooked some food for lunch too. Not sure what it was, but it sure looked good! hehe. I don't even know how to pronounce it. I know that Andrea had bought a box mix one time, and it was couscous, or something like that, so I got one, and I got this one too. And it sat in the cupboard forever.

The directions said to boil 1 cup of water, then pour over wheat stuff and season packet in a bowl, and cover and let sit in the fridge for 30 minutes. I almost had that much time. It sucked up the water pretty fast.

Then I added diced up leftover rotisserie chicken, diced up fresh tomatoes, and diced up cucumbers (no peels). And a Tablespoon of Lemon juice. And a Tablespoon of oil. And mixed it up, and put it back in the fridge. And the colder it got, the better it was. Next time, making it the next day would be FANTASTIC.
I applied a fresh coat of make up, got Jim ready, grabbed all my stuff, and headed for the car. And dropped Jim off at the bus. Just barely. But I did make it :) Bringing the Bus Driver treats ALWAYS helps, you know - hehe.
Me singing something or another.... Yeah, must have been an "angry" song - LOL!
And got to Terra's house, and visited with Kari and Laurie and Terra. It was a pretty fun lunch. They all wanted to know what my salad thing was, and I couldn't for the life of me remember what the name of it was. I knew that Andrea had made something like it, so I texted her the picture, and was like, "What's this?". And she texted back "Egg Salad?". Yeah, egg salad. And the name stuck. ROFL!

I worked on a project for my buddy Aimee, and got her sons b-day invite done, and put the laptop away. And mostly we just chatted. Laurie had to leave for a little kids b-day party, and Maggie came around 12:30pm.

Terra sells Sentsy, and we had an "impromptu" party. She pulled out all the scents, and we picked out what we wanted from the catalog, and Kri and Maggie and I ended up with Scentsy! I decided to get a big warmer. Maybe I'll like it better than the plug in ones. You remember my story about the cockroach, right?
I picked out this full sized warmer, Charlemagne (LOVE the Flur De Le - yeah, didn't spell it right, I know). And 3 bars. Kamu Kamu, some kind of apple pie cinnamon thingy, and the love one. That kinda smells like Victoria Secret lotion. You know which one I'm talking about. I think it was just over $40. Not too bad, right? I'm excited for it.

Kari
Maggie and her daughter, Hannah
And Terra and I

We left Terra's house around 3pm, and I headed for the bus. But not before loading all my crap back in the car, and taking 2 2 liters of Coke Zero home. Her in-laws had bought it, and she doesn't drink it. Um, yeah, I think us Hartys can finish it off...

I got Jim from the bus, and headed back home. And only had 30 minutes till Jake got off the bus, then another 30 minutes until Tom, Eme, and Joe got off the bus. I did some chores, and straightened up a little, and did some laundry. I'm ALMOST caught up. Almost.

And we drank our Soda...


Don't you wish I was your mom/daughter/sister/friend?




My kids will have MAD self portrait and soda skills by the time they're adults, don't you think? ROFL!

Jake got all of this things packed, and at 4:40pm, we loaded up in the truck, and drove over to the church to drop him off for his campout. They were going to the Tom Mays unit, over on Transmountain, where the girls and I hike!

I think he was excited about going, because as we were filling out paperwork and permissions slips, he was being handsy with people, and kept teasing Tom. I finally got so frustrated that I just left. Sigh. At least it was because he was happy. Grouchy and annoying is the worst - hehe.

We headed home, and had a VERY nice evening. We had leftovers for dinner, and the kids played outside after chores. I did about 3 more loads of laundry.

Joe and Jim played with the neighbor kids in the driveway for quite a while, and Eme went to play at the park with her friend, Estephanie. They played vollyball and soccer and hopscotch and had a WONDERFUL time.

Tom played his computer for a little, and I kicked him out of the house to play with Noah, the neighbor kid. It really was a good evening.

And I made some giant cookies for dessert. Because I was craving some chocolate. I added chocolate chips to the rest of the cookie dough, and made some BIG cookies, then frosted them with cream cheese frosting. I decided that PMS didn't count as a cheat, so I had 3. Yeah, WAY too much. But they were SOOO good. As long as I don't continue the dessert overeating, then I'm good. I can have 3 big cookies every once in a while and not blow my diet completely. Help me believe this.... :)


At 7:45pm, it was getting dark, so I made the kids all come inside, and they watched 2 episodes of Darkwing Duck, and I blogged. Then I put the little kids to bed, and Tom and I are just starting an episode of Chuck. And I'm done blogging, and am gonna go snuggle with Tom :) Night, all!

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Mmm, looks LOVELY Sharon! Pass the chocolate to me!


Friday, March 25, 2011

Chocolate Makes Life Worth Living

New stuff for the week, my dears!!! Hope you like it! Click HERE to go to my store to check out the new products! ENJOY!!!

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You know, one of these days, I'm gonna get on here, and be like, yeah, we didn't nothing today.... just not today - ha! Today was crazy busy...

Woke up after sleeping in my own bed, with no laundry man. I actually missed him.... I need the weight on the other side of the bed... gonna have to figure out a solution for that one, but NOT have a monstrous pile of laundry laying around.

Anyhow, I said my prayers, and headed out to help the kids get ready. Jake was running behind, and was yelling at people.

"Will someone bring me my shoes?" he was saying.

Silence...

"Why are you guys being so selfish and only thinking about yourselves???" he said...

Autistic reasoning, there... Or is that just 13 year old reasoning. hehe.

He left the house at 7am, and the other kids left the house at 7:30am. And Jim and I watched part of an episode of Kim Possible, then left for hiking. I was dropping Jim off at Childcare first. Can't let those 16 free hours a month disappear, you know!

I dropped him off in the hourly care room, and Rowan was already there (Laurie's little boy). Jim was SO excited to stay. And I headed over to Kari's house. She drives over the mountain. And here's me, busting a move with my dollar tree mic...

I got to Kari's house, and Laurie met us there too, and we all piled into Kari's car and headed over the mountain. And we went on the Nature Trail this week, because we've never done it before. And at the head of the nature trail, we found this bird observatory place. Kinda cool!




Unfortunately, the nature hike only took about 20 minutes. So we did it twice. And still had left over time. Kari had led the first "lap", and Laurie the 2nd, to they said it was my turn to pick where we walked. To the outhouse! ROFL! I had to pee - hehe.

So we walked there, and back. And you know, I kinda enjoyed walking on the road. I wasn't so concerned about where I place my feet, and I could look at the mountains and the scenery. It's BEAUTIFUL in the high desert, you know!

We finished up with our walk, and headed back on post. I drove back over to the child care place, and picked up Jim. He said that he had SO much fun! Check out these cool "glasses" he was playing with. hehe.

Jim and I hustled across post to catch the bus, and missed it. So I drove and dropped him off at Pre-school, then headed back on post. But I didn't want to go home. Terra and I were supposed to go to Costco, but she said that she was feeling sick, and couldn't play. So I decided to just drive around, and see where I ended up.

I pulled over on post at one point to make a phone call. I want Jake involved in some kind of After School thing, but he doesn't want it to be sports. So I got an email the other day about the Milam Youth Activity Center. Milam YAC. There seemed to be some pretty cool activities. Bio-something (building robots) seemed pretty cool, and Jake thought the Gamers Den sounded cool.

Anyway, I drove to what I thought was the place, but it wasn't. So I called the number from the email, and ended up talking with Ms. Susan, one of the directors there, for about 15 minutes. Super nice lady. She encouraged us to come and give it a look-see, and to introduce Jake to all of the kids there. Apparently the YAC on main post is more geared for sports. And this one is more geared for Non-sportsy kids. Yeah, Jake is definitely a non-sportsy kid.

She said that they were having an "open house" of sorts on Friday night, from 7-9pm, and that the WHOLE family was invited, and that we could come and check it out. PERFECT! I assured her that we'd be there on Friday night, hung up, and continued driving.

Yeah, I ended up at Walmart. ha! I just mostly "window shopped". I did end up with a few things. But not this, although I really really want one...


I got apples and a retractable clothes line and a rotisserie chicken (for lunch/dinner for me) a.nd 1 bag of sugar free chocolates (couldn't get anymore than that...). And paid, and headed home.

I had about 2 hours before Jim got home from the bus. I did some chores (laundry mostly), and watched an episode of something or another while I loaded my store. I made some phone calls, and got an appointment set up for Boxer to get his 2nd/3rd round of Heartworm treatment. And got Childcare set up for Tom/Joe/Jim on Saturday. Because my free hours will expire on the last day of the month. Eme couldn't go, because she's waiting on someone to approve her Asthma status, and the dude is on vacation for 2 weeks. Yeah, NOT so efficient... I tried to get child care for Jim for tomorrow (he had SO much fun at childcare today, that he wanted to go back), but they were full for tomorrow.

Then it was time to go to the bus. So I took Boxer. And yeah, the bus stop location was moved, because of the construction. But only for Pre-k. Don't ask... I don't know why...

Anyway, it was in a new location, and Boxer wanted to sniff out EVERYTHING. But it was near a main road, and I was worried that he or Jim would get run over, and yeah, it was stressful. hehe. I was having a hard time holding Jim's papers and my phone and Boxers leash and Jim's hand. Somehow I managed to "butt dial" 2 different people on the walk home, and didn't even know it. Nice, huh.

Jim watched a little TV, and I got a double batch of oatmeal banana cookie dough ready to be baked. Jake came home, and I had just enough time to get 2 dozen cookies in the oven and baked before the kids came home at 4pm.

We all loaded up in the truck, and headed out to the skating rink. They're doing Free Military kid skate on Thursdays at 4pm. Sa-WEET! I'm all about free, you know.

Since school is extended an extra 30 minutes, we were late, and only got 30 minutes of skating time, instead of the full hour. But the kids had a TON of fun, and decided they wanted to add ice skating to the list of activities for the week. Sounds good to me!





It's just diet lemonade, unfortunately...
Can you tell we're related?




Kari's daughter, Josephine




THe kids only got to skate about 20 minutes, then it was time to go. Kari and I decided that if we pick the kids up from school next week, that should give us a little bit of extra time. We'll try it...

And Jacob reminded me that he had a campout this weekend. So Friday night wouldn't work. Crap. So we decided to drive on over to Biggs and check out the youth center right now.

OMGosh, it was the coolest teen hang out place EVER! One whole room devoted to Legos. Seriously. They had this camera area set up, too, so they could make "lego movies". SO stinking cool. Lego's is one of Jake's favorite things.

And computers. And XBox. And the craft room was amazing. They had these ceramic dragons that they had painted, and Jake just LOVEd those. Then we saw the gym, and it had a HUGE climbing wall. They're doing something in April, where if you climb the wall a certain number of times for a certain number of days, you can win some REALLY good prizes. Jake was pretty impressed.

We saw the kitchen area, where the kids were cooking snacks and dinner. They get to do that every night, too. They were all SO friendly. There were even about 4 kids that Jake said went to his school. There was an outdoor hang out place, and then the tour was over. Jake begged and begged and begged to let him stay for an hour until closing, but I had to get the kids home, get dinner cooked, and then go to my meeting. He was pretty bummed. Because the YAC was the coolest place he'd ever seen.

The lady in charge said that while they could only really take 6th graders (Tom is 5th grade) and above, because Tom was 11, if Jacob would "vouch" for him, then Tom could come too. But of course, Jake said NO WAY to vouching for him. Poor Tom was crushed. Don't worry, Tom, you can go in August.

So, I'm gonna have to make up a "Schedule" for what days Jake can go to the youth center. He's super excited about it all. I think the next available time he can go (for us) is Saturday afternoon.

Anyway, we loaded back up in the truck, and headed home. I re-fashioned some left overs into dinner, and had the kids do their chores, and homework, and left Tom with directions, and Jake with separate directions, and I headed out to my Relief Society meeting.

Tom's so good, he texted to check in a few times, and told me all the important babysitter stuff. SUCH A responsible young man!

Charlotte got there a few minutes after I did, with her Howdys cup. Sigh. I didn't have time to get a re-fill on mine. So I made her sneak out with me to get a refill. ha! We totally would have been on time, too. Instead, we walked into the meeting about 15 minutes late.

But I had me some soda :) The had us split between 4 tables, based on when our birthdays were. Sorry, Charlotte, I wish we had the same birth month!!!

After a short "devotional", they had a pinata. They drew names to see who got to whack it, and when it broke open, most people dashed forward. Yeah, me? Not so much - ha!

Here's Charlotte "beating" me with the pinata poll after all was said and done - ha!
I sucked it dry within the hour...
Someone gave me a prize from the pinata. A dollar tree necklace! Woohoo!
Here's the ladies at my table.



THis was part of the pinata...
See, no more soda...
Charlotte texted me a picture of herself eating a cookie from the other table, so I decided to pose with the cake and text her a picture. ha!

The party got over at 8pm, and I didn't leave the church parking lot until 9:30pm. ROFL! The "after party" was pretty fun. Me and about 4 other ladies stood outside chatting. SUCH fun! I showed them all my "before" picture from losing 100+ lbs, and they couldn't believe it!

And finally, we all headed home. I realized that caffeine makes me sing SO much louder, but not necessiarly SO much better - ROFL! Still, I was belting out the Glee version of "Don't Even Know My Last Name". I was singing my little heart out!

Jake and Tom were still awake when I got home, so I sent them to bed, and sat down to blog. And was gonna watch a movie, but my old laptop that's hooked up to the TV (the broke screen one) died. It kept turning to a blue screen, then re-booting, then freaking out and repeating the process. Sigh. I DO have it all backed up, but it's backed up on the EHD that Captain America has with him. Yeah, not so good!

So I'm gonna have to put that laptop away, and take over one of the other old ones for the "TV Laptop"... But that's a job for tomorrow. It's now 11:11 pm, and I'm gonna hit the sack. I'm tired from my hike today, and need my "beauty" sleep - ROFL! I have exercise group in the morning. And Jim to the bus by 11am, then Crafters Lunch at 11 (which I need to make food for, too), then kids from the bus, then Jake's campout... Hmmm, I guess tomorrow isn't gonna be a "sit around doing nothing" day either, huh? LOL!

Oh yeah, AND I got an email today from Captain America, saying that he'd got his St Patricks day package. Yeah, someone in customs, I'm assuming, had gone through his box, and stolen his MP3 player that I'd bought for him. I wasn't very happy....

Click on the link below to go to my account to download the PNG file, and leave some love if you like my work. Thanks!


Like this one, Sharon! SWEET chocolatey face - hehe :)