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Author: October

  • Happy Chaos by Soleil Moon Frye (aka-Punky Brewster)

    If you have not figured out by now, I am a total 80’s girl.  Through and through.  I am the typical email that goes around…”you know you are a child of the 80’s if you had a cabbage patch kid collection, puffy stickers and know what getting slimed is on Nickelodeon.”  And of course, my sister and I were avid fans of Punky Brewster.  Yes, that show with the orphan who lives with Henry Warnimont, has the crazy shoes and funny personality.  I can’t tell you the number of times I DREAMED of being that little girl!

    A few years ago, my mom picked up the first season of Punky Brewster for me on DVD.  Just for ol’ times sake…  Well…MY two little girls were obviously attracted to the cover and wanted to watch it.  Pretty soon that was the only thing they watched.  My mom bought the other 3 seasons to finish our collection.  The girls can tell you what happens in every.single.episode.  (Obsession comes to mind…like mother like daughters…)  I must admit, they don’t make wholesome family TV shows like they used to…

    That little girl grew up.  (Both of us!)  Soleil now owns a shop in LA called The Little Seed that sells organic clothing for children.  She has over a million twitter followers and is constantly posting videos and pictures on her website about her life with her 2 little girls.  I am pretty sure she is a great friend…if you are lucky enough to have her as a friend!

    In August, she did a promo with Target to release her new book Happy Chaos.  For 30 minutes, she answered questions about parenting on twitter.  After watching the feed for a while I submitted a question…and she actually answered!!!  Punky Brewster saw something I wrote…and responded!!!  I felt like I was 10 again!

    Then…the first 10 people to retweet the TargetBaby tweet about Happy Chaos would receive the book in the mail.  You can bet my fingers were moving!  And I won!!! AND she signed the book!!!

    I read the whole thing on one of my trips. Maybe because I wondered what it would be like to be someone famous in Hollywood, maybe I am just a big nerd (well…I know that is true!), but the book was really good! Soleil talks about her life growing up mixed in with what she thinks about being a parent now and how it all relates. Aside from the fact that her children’s God parents are the Kutchers (yes that would be Ashton and Demi Moore), everything about her is “normal.”

  • Cleaning out the Russians

    What a mess!  My blog got hacked AGAIN.  Luckily since it happened a little over a year ago, I regularly backup my blog.  This morning I have spent time cleaning off the *shared* server I am on (probably the cause the of the hack…the price I pay for super cheap hosting), deleting EVERYTHING including the database, and reinstalling wordpress.  I have restored my posts, but the pictures will come later.  I do have those backed up as well…but I am changing how I insert pictures and am going to link from my archived files from SmugMug.  (And I am working on a new look for my site…so it is pretty plain for now.)  😉

  • It’s been 5 years

    Since we moved into our house.  (Give or take a day or two.)  My how we have grown!

  • Macro fun with sunflowers

    I took my camera out yesterday and took just a few pictures.  These are the “little” sunflowers.

    And a dead lady bug that Stacey found…just because she insisted on a picture of it.

  • The Dog Feeder

    Yes, it is similar to a deer feeder.  It is set to go off at 6:15am, 6:15pm and 9:30pm.  We can set the times and amounts.  Why??? Because we have a lab.  She thinks each time she eats it will be her last.  I can just hear her saying, “Steak and lobster, steak and lobster” as she inhales her food. And her internal clocks tells here when it is “close” to feeding time.  This contraption does not associate us with her feeding, so she does not annoy us…without end….waiting…for her last meal.

    Well, the $80 contraption broke a couple weeks ago.  Just the paddles that regulate the amount of food.  Pretty soon, our slim and trim Daisy had put on several pounds.  Being the frugal people we are [insert smirk here]…I took it apart.  Wade had the idea to use a milk jug to replace the original paddles.  Due to the design, I ended up gluing the new ones on the old ones.

    So far so good.  Daisy has lost a few pounds and has stopped pacing by us for her last meal.

  • The Growing Garden

    So far, this has been my best year when it comes to the garden.  I still have it under control (sorta) and we are actually able to eat what is being produced!

    I am a little disappointed in my tomato purchases from Home Depot.  They have not gotten very big.  (The ones I started from seeds are doing great!)

    Here is the garden now.

    We have mini pumpkins growing (I did not think they would grow…but they are doing the best!).

    Huge sunflowers.

    Cauliflower (an experiment).

    Even some leftover morning glories from a couple years ago (darn things! I keep picking them and they just grow right back!)

    Carrots (although Daisy has rearranged the carrots so this is a very small patch compared to what we planted…the rest never grew).

    Not in the garden, but on the back of the garage, our luffa is starting to grow.

    And under that we have onions…1015s! I am most excited about those! I love onions. And they seem to be doing the best of anything!

  • May 1968

    This is my dad.  Taken in May of 1968, according to the slide I found.  Yes, a slide, like the kind you fill into the round circle thing then push the button to get to the next picture.

    I only have this one picture of him when he was so young…a whopping 21 years old!  Taken during Vietnam.  Pretty good looking huh?

    Dad, do you have any more slides???

  • The rats are back

    Well, the rats are back in our garden.  We have not been able to pick a red tomato yet this season.  Just as they ripen, we find teeth marks in them.  {{{sigh}}} Since I don’t want a repeat of 2 years ago, they can just have them.

  • New Eating Habits

    Lately, I have been reading about the food that we buy now.  We are not in good shape as a country when it comes to our food.  There have been many things that have triggered my interest in eating healthier, but looking at my girls has been the biggest motivation.  Is what I am feeding them good for their minds and body?  While we eat healthier than most families…the answer is no.

    I stumbled across this blog Maria’s Health and was amazed at what she was making!  Everything we love…just so much better for you!  So I ordered her book.  Oh.My.Gosh.  The small book is PACKED full of recipes that sound awesome!  The best part is a lot are gluten free and low/no carb.

    With this change in eating comes a change in buying groceries.  I had to place a rather expensive order (I ♥ Amazon!!!) to get some of the ingredients.  This is only some of it, the rest will be delivered next week.  I told Wade…we can pay for it now, or we can pay for it later when we have health issues.  (And it is better than paying for some weight loss program!)

    Today I made my first recipe.  It was for cheese danishes.  They were pretty good!  The Stevia (Wade found it at HEB) is really sweet, much sweeter than sugar, so that will take some getting used to.

    (oh…and don’t forget to grease the pan! “fake” sugar does NOT come off of anything…even non-stick! lesson learned.)

  • Blurb Books

    A while back I was introduced to Blurb.  I found it looking for a way to print my blog to a book.  Well…they offer so much more than blog printing!  Every year I print (yes print) our family picture from the year and put them in an album.  I usually print 500-700.  Yikes! And this is what that looks like (there is another row behind these on each shelf)…

    This year I decided to put them in a “book” format.  As I went looking for companies, I could not find any for a decent price that could handle the number of pictures I wanted in the book.  In comes Blurb.

    The binding was a little looser than I would like, but that could be because I upgraded to the better paper.

    It is press printed, so it looks like it came from the press.

    But I still love them…I only have about 13 more to order!  The other neat thing is that you can share your book online, and other people can buy it.