YEAH--It's October!!!

You know what that means!!!

Pumpkin everything...

Halloween decorations...

 And HOT CHOCOLATE and CIDER!!!

Now if only it wasn't 90 degrees out, I could actually dress like THIS (minus that handbag):

Maybe in December??? :-(

PINTEREST LIES. (Sometimes.)

I probably am on Pinterest once every few days. I am not hugely addicted anymore, like at first. But I still love surfing and finding new ideas. One of my boards is literally titled "DIY And Pray It Turns Out This Way" because I am realizing something--only about 25% of crafts I do from Pinterest turn out the way the beautiful-perfect-lighting-soft-focus pictures do. In fact, a lot of my crafts end up looking like something you'd scrape off the bottom of your shoe.

Why else would the blog "Pinstrosity" be created? (If you need a good chuckle, go take a look. My new favorite phrase is "Nailed It!")

As with anything you glean from the Internet, you need to be wary of Pinterest as well. Yes, it's a wonderful vehicle of Craft Sensory Overload and honestly most of the recipes on there are TDF (To. Die. For.), but some are outright lies. Take my jelly-roll pans for instance:

I've had these babies for seventeen years. (Got 'em for my wedding!). As you can see, they are...interesting. Hubby calls them "seasoned." I call them gross. Well, on Pinterest, there's this magic "formula" with baking soda and peroxide, etc. that promises that if you whip it up, and scrub it on your pans, they will look like this:

Yep, after a little scrubbing, they will be all shiny and clean. You see the major difference here?

 

So, naturally, I was excited to get my old yucky pans brand-spanking new and beautimous. I mixed up the concoction, got a really scratchy sponge, and scrubbed. And scrubbed. And scrubbed. Here are the results:

BEFORE:

AND AFTER:

  

Yep, Pinterest LIED. I could have scrubbed until the next Hunger Games movie came out and my jelly roll pans would still look like this. I had to dub it a Pinterest Fail. My conclusion? Pinterest lies. But only sometimes. 
You just need to be wary of the pins with all the exclamation points. Some of them are a little outrageous. But of course the best way to find out is to try them yourself. 

Happy Pinning! (Oh, and the shiny jelly roll pans shown are the ones I finally went out and bought because I was sick of my gross ones. In case you wondered.)

Rememberance.

With my parent's generation, it's more like "Where were you on the day JFK was shot?"
My generation? 9/11, without a doubt.

I can't remember a lot of things. I probably couldn't tell you what I did last week, let alone twelve years ago. But I can tell you exactly what I was doing that day, and how events unfolded. On this day I always remind my kids (who were too young to remember) what happened. I tell them the story.

I will never forget. Ever.

Huh? Fall? What?

It's jaw-droppingly amazing to me, how fast this year has flown. I seem to be saying that a lot lately, every year. What does this mean? Are our lives on fast-forward? It seems that way, lately.

It's September. Halloween is in full swing in the stores, people are blogging about Football and sweater weather and pumpkins and fall leaves, etc. etc.

Where I live, it's still 90 degrees, and a little hard to get into the "Fall Spirit" yet. But we are getting there. I think I'll have all my Halloween stuff up in a couple of weeks. It's just...weird. Weird that we're already here.

Crazy week for me, so I'd better get going!

I LOVE being a Football Mom!

I will be honest, never thought I'd say these words! My kids have always been Soccer and Basketball. Football was just never a thing. My kids aren't "big." They aren't meaty. But Thing Three, who is currently on his 7th grade football team, is fast. He's a Wide Receiver. He loves it. It's like candy to him, seriously.

Every practice I pick him up from he has this huge grin on his face, even though he's soaked in sweat from sprints and pushups and suicides for the last 20 minutes of practice. He's always got a funny story, or just a report of how it went, etc.

(I will insert a small caveat here...football gear is NOT fun to clean, and I've pretty much given up on is cleats some days, but it's all part of the sport, right?)

But what I didn't count on--the GAMES. Football games are much more fun (although intense) than soccer. Everyone is pumped up, music blasts over the loudspeakers (you could probably bottle and sell the tangible adrenaline and testosterone in the air, haha) and it's just so much FUN. Granted, every single play he's in I grit my teeth and clench, because I don't want him to get killed, but it's still fun to watch the team work together. Right now we're 2-0 and our big rival game is today. STRESS.

I almost wish football season lasted longer. But that's ok, because Basketball season is pretty dang fun too!

:-)

Anyone Who Can Neatly Fold a Fitted Sheet Has Obviously MADE A DEAL WITH SATAN.

I think I'm missing a certain gene that other women have. I can't fold fitted sheets. Or round tablecloths. Why is this? I can fold shirts, pants, socks, towels, washcloths, I AM EVEN A LITTLE HANDY AT ORIGAMI. Yet stick a round tablecloth or fitted sheet in front of me, and I must walk away. I. Can't. Do. It. I know women who can. I consider them Freaks Of Nature.

Yeah, feeling a little inadequate today.

And while I'm at it--I seem to have missed out on some other genes that females have. Like, the "cute bubble handwriting" gene. My handwriting could be called spidery at best. And I'm also missing the "I can style girl hair" gene. Because even though sometimes there's a whole lot of Try there, it just doesn't happen. You should see my hair sometimes. You should've seen my poor daughter's hair growing up. It was either A) in a ponytail or B) in TWO ponytails. I can't French braid. I can barely braid. I'm sure my daughter resents me for her lack of cute hairstyles growing up.

And yes, today is Laundry Day. That would be the reason for my little rant. And since Brevity is the soul of Wit, I'm done for now.

Cheers!

Juice Extractor FAIL.

So, this summer, Hubby and I decided we were going to be healthier. And of course, the first thought that popped into our heads: JUICES. As in fresh fruit juices and smoothies.

It was, at the time, we thought, a brilliant idea. We scoured the internet looking for juicers and juice extractors and we settled on this baby:

It's the Cuisinart Juice Extractor. Wasn't cheap, either. We were going to do it right. 
So, we bought the Extractor, and I looked at the recipe book and found a few we really liked. Went to the local Harris Teeter and bought fresh mangoes, strawberries, blueberries, lemons, oranges, etc. etc..
I was a bit alarmed when my fruit purchase totaled $50, but we were going to have AWESOME FRESH juice packed full of antioxidants, so it didn't matter.
Got home, chopped up the fruit, and started the juice extractor. Fed most of the fruit into it and although the noise scared me (and the kids) a lot, we were all ooohhing and ahhhing over the teeny bits of juice that were pouring into the collection container.

Well, I used up all the fruit, and the collection container was only a quarter full. Hubby and I looked at each other, like huh? That's it? That's all we got from that buttload of fruit we put in?

I removed the little pitcher/dispenser and poured the juice into a cup. ONE small cup. We all tasted it. It was MAGNIFICENT. It was the best fifty-dollar cup of juice I've ever had.

Then, I lifted the lid on the Extractor, and UGH. PULP EVERYWHERE. And it was slimy and gooey and stuck to everything and it took me 45 minutes to pull apart the durn thing piece-by-piece and hand rinse each piece and dry them and put them all back.

So, my conclusion? $50 worth of fruit, 10 minutes worth of chopping, 5 minutes feeding said chopped fruit into a funnel that was so loud I think I've lost some of the hearing in my upper ear registers, and 45 minutes of cleanup. The result?

Eight. Ounces. Of. Juice.

Granted, it was SUPER YUMMY HEALTHY OH MY GOSH I MUST SIT DOWN THIS IS SO DELICIOUS Juice, but it was just juice all the same.

I am looking at the picture above, and how full the orange juice container is. I am concluding that either A) the advertising people simply bought a carton of orange juice and poured it in there for the picture or B) they spent an hour feeding 96847487 oranges into that thing. And C) They're all deaf now.

So, my super awesome juice extractor looks great on my counter, and I dust it dutifully once a week. And I go to the store and spend $2.99 on a HUGE bottle of fruit juice, and for some reason I feel like that's just fine.

Oh well.

I'm Ready for School to Start...

I think we've officially hit the point, where, the kids are freaking out because it's the end of summer, and I am ready for them to be back in school. Not because I don't love them, but because I am ready for some more...structure. And a cleaner house. Love my kids, but they are kind of super messy...

Here's Thing Three in his practice jersey today. He's so excited. I am nervous and looking for some really great protein shakes...but he's happy as a clam.

I am also realizing that I am currently not a soccer mom. None of my kids are playing soccer. So, does this mean I have un-earned the right to call myself a soccer mom per se? Or does the term "soccer mom" really encompass any mother whose kids play sports? Right now I'm a Football/TaeKwondo mom, and in the fall I'll be a Basketball mom. I think I'll keep the blog title for a while, yet...

This week has flown by! July was a blink, and August is starting to get that way. SLOW DOWN!!! Seriously! Before we know it we're going to be carving a Thanksgiving Turkey!

Oh, and Thing Two knows what he wants to be for Halloween:

Yep. "R" from Warm Bodies. He's tall like Nicholas Hoult, he has the eyebrows, and I've already bought the EXACT red hoodie and a wig and I'm looking at makeup tips. It will be AWESOME.

Thing Four, who is six, wants to be a pirate. Could it be any easier? ;-)

Back from Vacation!!

July was a busy month for us. We went to Disneyworld over the 4th (yes, call us insane idiots but with early-entrance "magic hours" and Fastpass we seriously rode all the rides we wanted to ride by noon, every day. :-) Hubby was the Intrepid Marching Schedulekeeper: we were scrambling to keep up with him so we could get everything in as quickly as possible. Then, if we wanted to, we repeated a few rides, and if we got tired after about 5 or 6 hours in the boiling sun, we went back to our rooms and hung out for a while, before heading back out. It was awesome. We bought way too much Disney stuff, but that's what we were there for, right? ;-)

We just got back from Utah, where we spent a week with family, before dropping our two oldest off at EFY Provo. (EFY stands for "Especially for Youth and it's a summer camp put on by our church.) Things One and Two won't be home until Sunday. Apparently they are having a blast.

We had a ton of fun in Utah, we went to Park City and hung out for a few days, did the Alpine Slides and roller coaster and took the ski lift up the mountain. It was gorgeous.

Now we are getting back into normalcy, somewhat. Thing Three has football tryouts today (cringe, gasp, STRESS) and the next two days. Hundreds of dollars for camps and gear and now he's missing his annual summer Boy Scout camp, all for Football. We will see how it goes!

I have started writing again. I haven't written a word in a month and a half. It was awful. So I have a lot of words in me. I am writing the sequel to a story I have been submitting. The book naturally didn't end with the first one, and the word count was already at 89K (which in my opinion, is "pushing it" for YA), so I started where I left off, and so far, I have 22K. (I wrote 5K yesterday). I hope to have Book Two finished up and edited by the end of September, and ready to go to beta readers. Exciting!!

Fingers crossed on a new development, as well. I hope to have some good news soon. :-)

I am not sure whether or not I'm ready for school to start. With the kiddos in school, I will have 8 hours to myself during the day, to get housework done, and WRITING. I have another novel I'm itching to write (it's about 1/2 finished) so I can work on that. Hopefully I'll have it ready for submission by the new year. 2013 seems to be flying along just as fast as 2012! What is the deal???

Keratin Woes, Disney, and EXHAUSTION

So, I survived the Keratin Treatment.

This was me on day two. Stick straight hair. And yes, it looks green in this photo. Don't ask me why. My iPhone is acting up or something. ANYWAY, I couldn't bear to take a picture on day three, because I was U-G-L-Y. (Well, my hair looked like the Crisco Fairy had been generous, if you get my drift...)

Anyway, I love it. I love my hair now, it's so...silky!

So, we just got back from going to Disneyworld over the week of the 4th of July. Yes, we were crazy. Yes, we covered four parks in three days. (We did Epcot and Animal Kingdom together one day.)

We are EXHAUSTED. We walked so much. According to my Fitbit, I averaged almost 18,000 steps per day. That's nearly twice my daily step goal. CRAZY!!


But we had fun! Here's Hubby and Things 1-4:

Yeah, I never used to post pictures, but if I put them on Facebook, I can put them here. :-)

I hope everyone had a happy and safe 4th of July!