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!

The Keratin Treatment

My hair stylist/colorist extraordinaire, has been after me for THREE years, to get a Keratin treatment for my hair. You see, as I may have lamented on this blog before, my hair does NOT bode well in Humidity. And where do I live? Charlotte, North Carolina. Probably in the top five most humid places during the summer. Which means, I go curly in the summer (straight hair is not even on my radar when there's 90% humidity) and even when I go curly I'm STILL a bit frizzy.
She says the Keratin treatment is "life-changing." She's been wanting to give me one forever. I resisted, because of the formaldehyde stories I'd heard, but she told me Aveda does NOT use it. So, yesterday afternoon, I let her give me one.

First, I was pleasantly surprised at how painless it was. She brushed a bunch of crap on my hair that smelled like tanning lotion, let it sit, and then blew my hair dry and flat-ironed it. (The flatiron was at 450 degrees, which made me nervous--you know that "cooked tanning lotion skin" smell you get when you leave a tanning salon? Yep that's what my hair smelled exactly like.)

So, apparently, once you've had a Keratin treatment, you have to wait 72 hours to do ANYTHING to your hair. And I mean ANYTHING. I was surprised at the list of "don'ts" Here they are, in random order:

1) Do not wash or wet your hair for 72 hours. (3 days)-no surprise here. Although I am worried, because the 3rd day happens to be on Sunday, and I have church, and I have to stand up and conduct a meeting with my nasty three-days-unwashed hair. Ugh.
2) Do not tie hair into a ponytail. !!!!!! WHAT?? In all this heat and humidity? It's going to average 92 this week! IT WOULD HAVE BEEN NICE TO HAVE KNOWN THIS BEFOREHAND.
3) Do not wear hair clips. As If.
4) Do not wear hair bands. Um, how will I wash my face?
5) Do Not Sweat. Are you KIDDING? So, basically, don't do housework, don't go outside, don't work out...basically EXIST IN A VACUUM for three days? Asking me not to sweat is like asking the Pope to not be Catholic. It just. Isn't. Happening. And apparently, if I DO sweat *gasp!* I am supposed to runlikehell to the nearest blowdryer and flatiron and immediately blow the offending sweaty hair dry and flatiron it. OR ALL WILL BE LOST. Nice.
6) Do not place hair behind ears. OH MY HECK how am I supposed to remember that? So, what happens if I do? Do warning bells sound and some sort of Hair S.W.A.T. team descend on my house with rappelling ropes? (I asked, and she said my hair would naturally form in that direction and I'd hate it.)
7) Do not wear bobbypins. I haven't, since like age 25
8) Do not rest glasses on hair or use them at all if they are wide-framed. Apparently I will be driving all squinty because all my sunglasses are taboo. Thank heaven I wear contacts...
9) Do not have hair color/highlights done for at least 2 weeks. DUH.

Apparently, the Keratin takes 72 hours to "cure" like cement. So, I'm on Day One of the 72 hours. I will return and report at the end.

Movies and BUGS!!!!!!

Had a great weekend with the kids. Saturdays and Sundays are the only days Hubby has off, so we usually jam-pack all we can family-time wise, into those two days.
Saturday day was pretty busy, and then, Saturday night, Hubby and I went to an outdoor wedding. The setting was in a private back yard, the light was beautiful, everything went smoothly, and except for the bugs (little bugs, little bugs) it was a wonderful experience.
We went home afterwards, and the kids were all home (which NEVER happens, usually two or three of them are off somewhere at any time) so we all decided to see Monsters University. It was at 10 pm, and yes, we know that's WAY too late for a six-year old to be up, blah blah blah but it's summer and sometimes we do crazy stuff like that.

We got to the movie theater, and we were waiting in the foyer for Hubby to get our tickets out of the kiosk, and I had an itch on the front of my scalp. Now, I had worn my hair curly that day (humidity and straight hair don't exist in the same world together for me, unfortunately) and half up, half down. So I had a bunch of curls at the top. So I scratched my itch.

And felt something. Something BIG.

You know how you have that crazy fear feeling engulf you--your heart drops to somewhere in your shoes and your blood runs cold and your heart starts pounding? Yeah, me too. BIG TIME. Since I was in a roomful of strangers and my traditional reaction to having a bug on me wasn't appropriate (which involves what my kids have dubbed my "bug dance" and a lot of shrieking) I C-A-L-M-L-Y walked over to my daughter and asked her to take a look at my hair, and see what the big something up there was. She took a look, and didn't see anything. I told her look closer, so she did, and then she put her hands on her mouth in horror (I immediately realized she was probably the wrong person to ask) and we both started squealing and I kind of started hopping around. Hubby, clearly alarmed by our embarrassing display, came over and asked what was going on, and I asked him to look at my hair. He looked. "There's nothing there." Then he took a closer look, and said: "OH."

His reaction was enough to drive me into full panic mode. "GETITOUTGETITOUTGETITOUT!" I squealed, clawing at my hair. He told me to hold still (I swear I detected a smirk on his face) and he fished out a Huge. Black. Beetle. He threw it on the floor and it started scuttling away and I saw how big it was and I FREAKED. The people around me freaked. I heard one lady say "that was in her hair? EW!"

It was that big. It had landed on my head from somewhere, and burrowed in my curls. We checked for eggs (and poop! ugh!) and went into the movie, thoroughly grossed out. Yuck.
By the way, GO SEE Monsters University. It was awesome. And my daughter, apparently, liked World War Z, despite it basically being dubbed a "huge turd" by movie critics.
I guess we're easy to please...

ARE YOU INSANE??? NO WAY IN *Gulp* Sure Honey, Whatever You'd Like...

Thing Three wants to go out for Football. He's 83 pounds.

You see my predicament, don't you? Yep, you spotted it right away. I am the kind of mom, who, when one of my kids expresses an interest in a sport, I ENCOURAGE them. I want my kids to be active. I want my kids to be on team sports, because it teaches them how to get along with others.

I also like to see my kids ALIVE, too. Without broken bones and concussions and separated shoulders and torn ACLs. (Did I miss any other potential football injuries?)

Thing Three, to his credit, is fast. Years of soccer have made him so. He would be a cornerback or wide receiver. Catch the ball, and run like hell, and don't let any of those huge boys pulverize you into a pile of human jelly. That's literally the advice I am giving to him.

Despite my extreme anxiety for his physical safety, I bought him cleats. I bought him gloves. I signed him up for football skills camps and conditioning. He really really wants this. Is it bad that a teeny tiny part of me hopes he doesn't make the team? 99.9% of me will be glad if he makes it. Not going to lie. It is HARD to get onto the teams in our school. You have to be a super athlete, or know someone in the system, simple as that.

So, I am outwardly supporting him, and buying him protein shakes (ten pounds, JUST TEN pounds would help put my mind at ease) and encouraging him.

But inside (especially when I drop him off at conditioning and see those hulking boys), I am frankly, terrified for his safety.

UGH.

Such is Life.

Got some bad news today. Can't really say much other than "Oh, well, I tried."
That really is the way of things, isn't it? We try things, and sometimes they work out, and sometimes, they don't.

I am not going to sweat it. I am going to chalk it up to experience, try to move on, and push forward. Yes, it is embarrassing and upsetting, but I only have myself to blame. I'm in the "Couldawouldashoulda" phase.

I was looking back at some of my posts ten years ago, when my kids were very little and I didn't have time to tie my shoes, let alone do much else. I was funny. I was actually DANG funny. Now, I have two teenagers, a tween and a 6-year old. My sense of humor is still there, but I think it's sharpened into jaded sarcasm at times, and thinly-veiled snark the rest of the time. ;-)

I've decided I just can't sweat things so much. I need to get over myself, get over some of the crap around me and find my happy, witty place again.

I'll get there. I promise.

Are We Getting Lazier?

My daughter is finishing up a Shakespeare unit at school. She was on the computer yesterday asking me what England was like during Shakespeare's time. 
Well, I walked right over to my office and picked my copy of "Shakespeare's England" off my bookshelves. I handed it to her. "This has everything you need," I said. 
She took one look at it and shook her head. "Who has time to read that? I just need to Google on the computer and paste it." 

She didn't even open the book.
 
I've just discovered a major difference between my generation and hers. Not sure how I feel about that.

I remember going to libraries and getting frustrated because the big reference books I needed couldn't be checked out. They had to stay IN the library. So I had to get pencils and paper and write down NOTES. I had to WORK for my homework. I had to search through dusty card catalogs and go on hunts for the books I needed, and I checked them out. Then I had to READ them at home, and pluck what info I could from them and use it.

Fast forward to now and any info you need is a Google search away--and you can just use it any way you please. You can copy and paste right into your document. Its as simple as that.

I guess I understand why my kids have more homework than I did when I was their age. Because their resources and technology are faster and more accessible, therefore they can get more done in a shorter time. 

I'm wondering if we should even call it "homeWORK" anymore. ;-)

Heart Broken

I'm taking a break from wit today, since I don't have any. I'm upset by the devastation in Oklahoma, but worse, about the elementary school deaths.

Remember as kids, growing up, we'd have the "tornado drills?" The teacher would tell us to crouch underneath our desks? I always wondered what it would be like to be in an actual tornado.

I found out, years later, in my late twenties. I was working at Dillards in Sugarland, Texas, and a tornado tore the side off my store. It was terrifying. It was devastatingly loud. No one was killed, thankfully, but we were all shaken up and freaked out.

My own kids are scared of tornadoes. Whenever we get a "Tornado Watch" or "Warning," I reassure them that they will be safe, that they need to go to sleep and not worry. And they believe me, because something that horrible doesn't happen all the time.

I think of those poor children in Moore. They were in their schools. They knew it was coming. They were terrified. And then it hit them dead on. I can't wrap my head around what they must have experienced.  Makes me want to hug my kids a little closer, today.

My prayers go out to the vicitms and their families. I have some links for donations if anyone feels inclined.

If you want to donate to help the disaster victims, you can donate at the Red Cross: Red Cross Disaster Relief fund

Or, more local to the victims,  the Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief's Website. This organization says donations will "go straight to help those in need providing tree removal services, laundry services and meals to victims of disasters."
It is requesting monetary donations (It says clothing is NOT needed). For more information, and to donate, visit Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief's website.