Awfully Chain-letter-ish

What's in a smile? a lot. Today you should try to smile at as many people as you can, cause otherwise you are perpetuating a problem that I have just recently become aware of again. The problem is this; People are so miserable now, (money issues, housing issues, marital issues..ect.) that they don't smile unless someone else smiles first. But since everyone is miserable, no one is smiling.. so start something with a smile today :)

I have been a victim myself recently of the grouchy people. I went to the post office, I place I avoid usually because of the strange bullet-proof windows the tellers sit behind and the strange 'lift this, close that and step back' system they have that makes me feel REALLY far from my little town of Mars. (is it strange to miss the post office?) Anyway I had to go yesterday and the lady was so short and grouchy, and they weren't even busy! I am pretty good at trying to figure out what made them grumpy, like a busy day, pen ink on thier shirt, impatient people yelling at them... who knows? But this lady was just coming onto her shift, it wasn't busy AND she had a stoll to sit on! no excuse for her non-smiling face to snip at me... Of course I did the wrong thing, not smiling back BUT I did hold the door for an elderly lady on my way out.. does that count? And the bird is in the air (Ami you'll get your package, complete with sunshine when you get home)

Healthy and Happy

Ok maybe my blog isn't cut out for a theme... so back to what we know,
cute pictures of Claire:

While I am enjoying this pregnancy, which has been only slightly more trying than my pregnancy with my first, I am NOT enjoying the 'motherly body'. I am having dreams and fears that I will never get back to the body of a 25 year old. (btw my birthday is coming up :) )Please do not ask for pictures of my 'belly'. be content that it is BIG and that there is a baby inside it. I look roughly like Claire does in the picture above^. Which brings me to the gadget of the day, a weight loss gadget... I'm not sure if I should put it up though because then you will be losing weight while I am still gaining.. and then you will look better than me... So I think you should do the opposite of what it says... yeah.. that will make me feel better..except then you'll all be fat and unhappy.. and who wants fat unhappy friends and family? not me... just stay healthy and happy. :)

Things to Ponder

So during this blog renovation I have been giving a lot of thought to what my blog is.. is it a mommy blog? where I post an insane number of pictures of my offspring and share witty stories about my day as a mom. or how about a knitting blog? that's a pretty easy no.. I don't think I've finished one knitting project in my life. how about a cooking blog? where I share all my chef-ly wisdom and pictures of my lovely concoctions. What do you think?

Polling the Audiance

Does anyone know if salt goes bad? like at some point are you supposed to get rid of it? We don't use that much salt, and Grandma bought it in BIG containers... It is still salty, so that's not a problem..but Bible quizzing taught me that. (thanks mom and dad).
See how much better my activities were than my evil sister who danced around in frilly costumes to hokey music?
So if you know if salt goes bad, please pass along the love. Thanks.

How Many Times did You Try to Pass?

OK today we add the parking game in honor of the many times I tried to pass my drivers test.. I think it took 4? tries. The first time I think I failed before we left the parking lot... he said 'turn on the headlights' and I instead made the wipers go. The next time I 'ran' a red light, but that wasn't my fault.. I'm not sure what happened the third time, I think that was just the parallel parking... yes... I remember now, because it was the first time they even let me attempt the parallel parking part of the test, the other times they saved me the humiliation...And in the end the guy giving me the test told me what to do to parallel park the car... Now I am fully licensed and a very good driver with only one accident ever and I live in NYC land of parallel parking, imagine that :)
Anyway since the instructions are for the visually super gifted I'll hash them out here so that everyone can enjoy hours of frustration trying to parallel park a car. After all we here at 'ugly blog central' are equal opportunity time suckers.
To play you must hit the 'continue' on the first page and then you will move to the second page which tells you where you have to park (the yellow parking spot)... then you have to hit 'enter' (on your keyboard). To control the front wheel drive car use your arrow keys to control the wheels and the brake is the space bar... have fun.

A Ploy to Keep you Reading

So while I am in ugly blog purgatory awaiting the proper number of hail Mary's to be sent out for me, I plan to make the most of it... Already you can do so many absurd things on my blog and I plan to add a new one every day until the Great Fix! So far you can play pacman.. go ahead >>> try it. It leaves you on my page so that you can log your blogging time while not actually reading my blog. You can also watch the underside of a frog walk 'up' my blog (at least 2 in. of it). Tomorrow I plan to add the Andy Warhol art of the day.. I don't know how long that will last though I mean he painted many masterpeices but still I plan to blog for a LOOOong time, will they begin to repeat masterpeices? That seems like cheating to me... maybe instead of that silly thing I will add the fashion tip of the day or the worlds most strange hit counter... Stay tuned.

I Did a Stupid Thing

Well here is what happens when you are looking for something to do... While most of my time is occupied with my lovely little one, sometimes she does not require undivided attention. This leaves me looking for something to do, that can be stopped at a moments notice and doesnt require much brain power (I conserve it during down time).
My blog looks like this.... I have been BEGGing! my lovely 'blog designer' to make my blog pretty... she has done some others, Miss Brenda and Amidala are only some. Although she only takes credit for her 'creativity' on my blog (see bottom) my blog is still just the standard template. :(
So yesterday during naptime, I got myself into the biggest pickle... (moment for hot benny)... I decided 'how hard can it be' 'I can stop anytime and come back to it and finish tonight' 'I have photoshop' 'I WILL MAKE MY BLOG PRETTY all by myself'.
This was a bad idea for several reasons: I don't know what I'm doing (I am so out of touch, did you know HTML is obselete now it's all X rated, It's like XMTL or something like that)... it is much harder than you may think it is (at least for me)... you can't really stop anytime, cause you have screwed up your blog so badly it is unrecognizable... and you will live in constant fear, losing sleep over that fact that your blog designer will see this as a revolt and LEAVE IT THIS WAY!! >:O
I tried really hard, I followed all the instructions that were given, I upgraded... peice of advice NEVER UPGRADE!... This is because apparently Blogger wanted to make it more difficult for ameatures like me to update their blogs, so the 'new' betablogger is near impossible to alter and make pretty, I found this out AFTER I hit the little button.. I saw it... I said 'what does this button do?' and my brain (remember it was in conservation mode) said 'PUSH IT!'.. never a good idea, in StarTrek or Blogging.
The only silver lining to this all is that since I don't know what I'm doing my blog designer is still taking the credit for my blog although it looks ... well... you can see for yourselves.

Nobody is Posting

Nobody is posting... So I'll be the bigger person here, although not as elegant as my mother I can still type word to webpage. So here's what we have been up to. The house is sold... the house is NOT sold... they want to take down the tree out front (the one that is bigger than the house)(and the oldest tree in Bayside)(the boyscouts told us so)(I love boyscouts)...the house is sold.... if we cut down the humungus tree... the house is painted... kind of... there are no switchplate covers on anything in the house (Claire learned the hard way what happens when you stick your finger into the lightswitch box)...the house is painted... I am pregnant.. like really big... Really, really big... my aunt may show up at my door with her family to see my daughter... that's ok, cause the house is painted and I have an extra room and a pull out couch... I am not going to FL on sister's week'end'... I am sending things to FL instead... the thing is not my daughter. We have three fish.. one died... we got another one... we have to get rid of the new one... we got a new-new fish... we have to get rid of the other two that we had previously because they are mean and killing other things in the tank... I feel like my life is floating in a sea of manontany... But I can still fill a page on my blog for all of you to try to sort through. So would someone with SOMETHING going on in thier life please write the next entry? Oh and if you were wondering... the wiggles have only come to North America once, they did not come to NY and they have no plans to come in 2009 to NY... if you know someone in Finland who would let us come in June/July 2009 to see the wiggles and stay at their house let us know... Really that's everything.

The Box is Always More Interesting

Honest... she has real toys...

Bucket Head

Our new love is a bucket...

Seven Swans a Swimming

Ok finally I see why we are here and why we have endured over a month of painting going on in the house... It's all for this:

These were hand painted (after a stencil was traced onto the wall). They made me laugh. They made the painters smile, so much that they knew I would get a kick out of them so they came and got me before they started to spackle.
It's all worth it now. I forgive you mother-in-law. :)

Perspective

Almost two years later and she still loves him.

Resolution

Ok I'm obsessive... I admit it and recognize it today. I apologize to those of you who have been targets in this latest rash of obsessive 'dad-like' behavior. I resolve to fix it today. To do this I plan to:
Only post one (ok maybe two) comments on any one person's blog on any given day on any given post.
Wash only the dishes (not the counters/table/floors) when my husband needs the sink
Allow my husband to help raise our child. Because after all he knows about as much as I do.
Be more flexible.

Additianally I plan to exercise biweekly. (difficult to do with painters in the house who will see you all sweaty and gross)
We'll see how this goes... I plan to start tomorrow, as I have commented twice on Ami's blog today already.... is it only 8am?

Fish in a Bag Revisited

You may be wondering what happened to 'fish in a bag'. Join the club, We were kind-a left hanging after the initial shipping of the fish in a bag... well all I have to say about that is:
You will get nasty letters saying 'where's my fish in a bag' 'what did the fish look like when it arrived in the bag' 'where is the fish now?' are you prepared to deal with that.. I don't think so... so start posting some answers.
I on the other hand will take you on my OWN fish in a bag adventure from start (kind-a) to finish (kinda).

Today we bought a fish in a bag!

We put that fish into a bucket.
Then into our tank (come to my house to see her)

My husband, although he reads all the blogs involved in the fish in a bag saga does not understand my obsession with fish in a bag... someday I will meet a man who understands me..
He will be gay no doubt, but at least then we can shop together, maybe for fish in a bag. :)

Will You be my Valentine?

Why are you Naked?

Today we learned zippers... well I guess we learned them last night or early this morning because Claire woke up in just a diaper this morning... Childhood is lovely :)

Blah, Blah, Blah

Not much to post about lately. Not much going on, yesterday we bought some coffee and had brunch with my in-laws... nothing exciting. I'm feeling kind of left out my mom has family members dying around her, my sister has a new boy, and my other sister, well she hides under a shroud of mystery so I don't know what's going on with her, but last I talked to her she was living on faith and some bubblegum with her husband and new cat and I think they are still in Grove City, their life is so exciting you can never be sure what country they are in. My life in comparison is dull. I'm living vicariously through them. I don't think they know this because they don't update their blogs enough.
There is some excitement but, it's not blogable yet (soon hopefully) and sometimes it's not that exciting.
Oh and I'm still pregnant. But that's not exciting again till I have a scanner or the baby, I'm thinking baby may come first.
So to those of you living exciting lives out there in the 'real' world. Keep blogging for those of us living through you... and for goodness sake, details!

Main Entry:		dull
Part of Speech:		adjective
Definition:		boring, uninteresting
Synonyms:		abused, archaic, arid, big yawn, blah, colorless, common, commonplace, dead, dismal, dreary, driveling, dry, familiar, flat, hackneyed, heavy, hoary, ho hum, humdrum*, insipid, jejune, longwinded, monotonous, oft-repeated, ordinary, out-of-date, plain, pointless, prolix, prosaic, prosy, repetitious, repetitive, routine, run-of-the-mill*, soporific, stale, stock, stupid, tame, tedious, tired, tiresome, trite, unimaginative, uninspiring, usual, usual thing, vapid, worn-out
Antonyms:		active, exciting, interesting, lively

* = informal/non-formal usage

In need of a Terrible Towel

Not a List

First off.. yes, we are having a boy!... Cody is the running name, we'll see if it makes it till July 5th. No pictures because apparently if you allow a 16 month old to stand on your scanner, it won't work anymore. If you wanna see them, you'll have to come and visit. :)

And this just in...
Apparently list making is NOT a elemental step for productivity. I was misled in 7th grade. Today I did not make a list and so far I have made sauce, meatballs, chicken cutlets for chicken parmesan tonight and browned the meat for tomorrow's dinner. Claire and I made it to the grocery store and bought more than just a swiffer duster and ziploc bags. In fact we got everything on our list except perogies, we couldn't find those :( I have done 2 loads of laundry and our 'living room' looks like someone could come and visit. (maybe not a motherinlaw, but I'd let my mom come). I also got dressed and plan to take a shower later... but that's just a plan, not a list.

Lists

So today I aspire to be as good as my younger sister and get down to business and get some stuff done. I have made a list since somewhere (I have no idea where) I heard or was taught that making lists is a valuable part of being productive. (it may have been in Study Skills class in 7th grade) Unfortunately I am a fabulous list maker, perhaps it has to do with my love of paper products. My lists are so fabulous that I can make two kinds. The one that outlines the day I want to have, and the one that is more honest about what my day will actually look like.
Here is what I've got so far:

Scan Cody's pics and post on Blog
Get Claire's pics in box
Dishes
Sigh at Rachel's room
Laundry
Take pants to cleaners
Think about cleaning out Cody's dresser
Look at ways to hang brooms in the new house (which we don't have yet) (not even close)
Fixate on one useless task and allow it to consume entire day
Get dressed

And thankfully I stopped to make a grocery list. So far we have:

Ziploc bags
Swiffer Duster (for my motherinlaw)

I'm gonna have a Great Day!