Too Busy or Too Lazy?

Hmmm, I haven't been posting in a while - that seems OK, not a whole lot of readers out there anyway!
I have a few tips to share with you though, tips that are like trivia - not always useless, but fun to know just the same. For instance do you know...

• to vacuum a drawer with ease, just cover your hose attachment with an old pair of pantyhose - just shove the hose through a leg- and vacuum away, the pantyhose will allow the dust to get sucked up, but won't swallow up all the small pieces.
• use Alka-Seltzer tablets to clean your drains.  Crumble up 2 tablets and then pour 1 cup of vinegar down the drain.  After 20 minutes, flush the drain with hot water.
• dip your dry markers in vinegar for 10 seconds and then let them sit for 10 minutes before using. 
• use a pencil eraser to clean your jewelry.
• use cooking oil and salt to remove water rings from wood surfaces. Use 1tsp. salt and a few drops of oil to make a paste and gently rub into the stain, wait 20 minutes and wipe away.
• wrap your cheese in foil to make it last longer.
• fix a scratched DVD by spraying furniture polish onto the mirrored side and gently wipe it off with a soft cloth (like the one used to clean your glasses).

I have tried these and they work for me but I cannot guarantee if they will for you, if you know what I mean!

Just within your reach...

Ever wonder where all of those missing puzzle pieces, Polly Pocket accessories, plastic animals, and game pieces went???? Well, just reach into your couch, really reach in.  Not just lift up the cushions and pull out the 2.89$ that lies under the cushions... Reach down into the depths of the couch, between the back and the springs....that little valley of space holds some real deep treasures.  I found all sorts of things and that is not even including all the stray goldfish crackers, cheerios, and misc. crumbs.  It was an AH HA! moment.

Halloween!

OK, I just took in all of my Halloween decorations from the pouring rain.  Tomorrow is Halloween and every year we go to my sister;s house and we all go out Trick or Treating together.  I don't want kids wasting precious footsteps to ring on my door and wait, only for no one to answer...
My kids are already discussing Christmas and they haven't even put on their costumes and filled up their buckets with delicious candy yet!?!? Stores used to wait until AFTER Halloween before lining their shelves with Christmas decorations, but this year I have noticed that Captain Retail has decided that they can share the store aisles, and put them both out.  So confusing?!?! Next, we will be giving out Christmas stuff FOR Halloween...
I admit, I have bought some Christmas gifts and even wrapped them the other day because I find that if I wait too long to wrap them all at once, they all end up looking like my 2 year old daughter did it.  No fancy bows, no brightly colored ribbons, heck, sometimes not even a gift tag with the name on it.  They are just thrown into a piece of too small wrapping paper, tape stuck every which way, tears in the paper and 3 pieces of tape trying to hold it all in place, and the name scrawled in black crayon directly on the paper - no "to" or "from" - just the name in bold print. Now all I am hoping for is that I can remember what is inside each one...

The BIG 5

My eldest daughter turned five this past weekend.  I remember when I was pregnant and when she was first born, people would always say to me "Remember these moments, they will grow up so fast, the time will fly".  I had a hard time at those very moments to believe them, most times, I just wanted to get through that day.  The sleepless nights, the constant fatigue and monotony of the days.  But, WOW, time does fly and I cannot believe that she just turned five.  She is so smart for her age, no really, she is.  I would say that about her even if she wasn't mine! To think that she has learned so much in her first five years.  The heart can hold soooo much love, it still baffles me how it doesn't explode like a balloon with too much air in it.  I love my girls.  Every year they pick a cake theme for mom to make,

Here's the cake I made her this year:

Something I love to do...

This is how I have decorated my girls' room.  They love to read...so do I.

Thought I had 10

Well yesterday I thought I would take a few minutes to clean the dining room chair that the 4 year old uses (soon to be 5!!).  It had turned a darker shade of dirty.  I have spot treated it all summer and after she vomited all over the chair on Sunday night, I knew that a scrub brush and some soap wouldn't cut it anymore.  So, in my overzealous state, I decided to remove the seat of the chair so that I could take off the piece of fabric to wash it in the machine.  After I took off the seat, I removed the first set of staples that hold the fabric in place only to reveal to me a second set of staples underneath that REALLY hold the fabric in place - all 456 of them.  After prying away at them with pliers and a flat head screwdriver, I stared at the mound of metal before me and realized that a regular staple gun was not going to work when it came to putting this mess back together again. I always seem to do this to myself, I have a brilliant idea, jump into it with two feet and then realize that this is going to take me a lot more time that I thought and probably require me to buy some tool or another.  But persevere I do!
First, I had to run upstairs and send off an email to my best bud's husband who has a hardware store in his workshop - and pleaded with him to lend me a staple gun.  Then, I washed  the fabric in the machine and got it back to somewhat resembling its original color, then I laid it flat to dry as I looked over the foam that they put in chairs in between the wood to make it soft.  I realized that my daughter had bounced on it one too many times and now the foam was no longer spongy - more like a flat sponge - the poor excuse for a sponge that the other sponges laugh at, so, to make even more work, I have to buy new foam, cut it out and redo the chair seat.  While I am at it, I will also- oh so cleverly - buy a piece of thick plastic that some people use to cover all of their  furniture with (bet they don't have THIS problem - the vomit will just slide right off!!) and velcro it with 2 sided velcro tape to the seat cover! If only I would have thought of this 3 years ago!

Ten-Four!

Alright, I admit, I have been slacking here.  Who would have thought that a blog could take so much time! I had visions of just "popping" onto the computer and rattling off a post everyday.  I can't even seem to find the time to sign in to the blog site, let alone "rattle off" a post.  My children always find something for me to do whenever I appear to slow down.  Why is that? I mean do they have to be such slave drivers?  And my computer is old, ancient-old really. Just turning it on takes a good 12 minutes.  I laugh whenever I am on the phone with Bell and the Tech Support person says "OK, Restart your computer"...I tell them to put down their phone, go and get a coffee, take a bathroom break, call their mothers, and then come back to me, - my computer should be up and running by then.  I constantly have to tell them "No, Seriously - GO".  Only after about the third "Restart your computer" do they truly comprehend my request.
OK - Here's a ten minute "time-out" for yourself today - if you like to read, and I LOVE to read, pick up the BOOKMARKS magazine (http://www.bookmarksmagazine.com/) at your local bookstore/good magazine shop or if you live in the States or are planning on taking a day/weekend trip down, pick up RT Book Reviews (http://www.rtbookreviews.com/)  at Barnes and Noble or Borders Books.  And if you love to shop on-line like I do, visit their sites and subscribe to 2 wonderful magazines that review books - all kinds of books.

Amazon.ca lowers minimum order to $25 - thestar.com

Amazon.ca lowers minimum order to $25 - thestar.com
Yippeee! Let the online shopping begin! So happy to have spotted this while browsing Amazon's website. Too bad it was AFTER I had already ordered 2 separate book orders...Oh well, let's see what Chapters/Indigo does now. I also wonder if the things I place into my cart will still add up to less than the required amount to qualify for free shipping and I will still have to add additional books just to get the free shipping! (Usually I am just missing about 2$...so I add a 12$ book?!?).

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just fixed my time zone here, apparently I put Pacific Time instead of Eastern?!  Noticed this only today.
Well, Thanksgiving has come and gone and I am still full.  There's something to be said about eating that much on one given day - a day of Thanks, on top of that.  But the food, ohhh, the food, it was so good. Mounds of mashed potatoes, slices of moist turkey, a few carrots in there for color, and the stuffing, ohhhh how I love stuffing.  Don't let me forget the gravy - Streams of gravy running through the hills of mashed potatoes and turkey....mmmmm, and then feeling so full and swearing that I will never eat again.  Only to find myself at the fridge a while later for a little something sweet...

OK, I have been writing this post for 3 solid days now, getting a few lines in and then my kids find me and I have to log out.  So, before they discover me again and realize that I appear to have "nothing" to do, I shall sign off with a little tip - do something that you enjoy at least once a day, a week, whenever you get the chance! I love to paint, maybe I will post some of the paintings that I have done for my children's room.

Today's Ten

Being at home all day with my kids allows me to notice how gross things can get around the house.  For example, I noticed how scummy the bath toys can get, when I walked by the bathroom and found the 2 year old trying to suck the water out of the little holes in the toys made for squirting your mother or father while they bathe you.  Many times I have thrown everything in the dishwasher to clean them or soaked them in diluted javel (and then rinsed them), but as I gagged at what she was doing, harsher measures were needed.  A soap scum/mildew build-up could be seen on some toys that were no longer in circulation, so I hauled them all over to the sink, filled it up with straight vinegar, and squeezed the vinegar into them all and left them to soak.  After about an hour, I squeezed out all of the vinegar (and watched the grime be spit out...eww) and refilled them again.  I did this a couple of times and then threw them all in the dishwasher for a final cleansing, dried them out overnight, and then voila! - very clean! Then, my kids found them and brought them all back into the bath tonight...*sigh*.

Here we go!

OK, setting up this dam blog took WAY over ten minutes.  More like ten x ten minutes.  Then I had the PERFECT post (you will have to take my word for it) and "Blogger" ate it up.  I mean, where did it go, what the heck happened? Oh well, now if I even attempt to rewrite it, it won't be the same.  But I can see this blogging thing eating up my precious time - the time where both my children AND my husband are sleeping.  My nighttime reading will suffer, look! It already has.  I still have to finish Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.  OH, but that's another post for sure, what a great trilogy.  But I digress, I wanted to blog to record my useless information and trivial stuff for all to read and thought that "blogging" would be fun.  I also like to say the word "blogging" and "Yes, thanks for asking, I do have a blog" (must be read as if smoking a long cigarette and sipping champagne and eating bonbons)  But after the 100 minutes it took to set up the blog, I am tired, exhausted, and mad at my almost 5 year old laptop (whose real age would be 5 x 60 in computer years) for spontaneously deleting my previous post before I could press "publish".  But I will return with my 300 year old computer tomorrow for another "GO" at it.