My husband hates this story!

The darling puppy in the Wordless Wednesday post from yesterday is the subject of the story that my husband most hates for me tell! His name is Jonathan. Jonathan Rashleigh to be exact. He is a 9 year old Yorkshire Terrier and the way he got his name makes the love of my life cringe.

You see, my sweet Jonathan was named after a fellow in a boy band. Can you guess who? I'll give you a hint. This week I got the wonderful news that this group was getting back together and had a new song! That's right, folks, he was named after none other than Jonathan Rashleigh Knight from New Kids on the Block. Do you sympathize a little with my hubby now?

When I was a young teen, I was a huge New Kids fan. Other girls were all about Jordan and Joey, but Jonathan was the New Kid for me! I decided then that when I grew up I would have a puppy named after him because his name was beautiful, and he was pretty handsome, too :)

Imagine my joy to hear about their reunion on the news week. I immediately went to their website www.nkotb.com. Sadly I cannot see anything because I do not have the appropriate up to date software nor is it available for my computer :( But soon, hopefully, I will once again be able to check in on my fellas from Boston and sing along just like the old days.

Fast forward a few years, and I now enjoy some Justin Timberlake music. Funny enough his full name is Justin Randall. I often tease my dear hubby that we should get another puppy and name it Justin Randall. Our dogs would have the same initials and both be named after boy banders! Sadly he disagrees! Don't you worry... I'm still hanging tough! I'll get my way eventually.

Wordless Wednesday- Jonathan

I hate housecleaning

Last week my one goal for the day was going to the grocery store. Today I really need to clean the house ... but I hate cleaning my house. Don't get me wrong, I love the way my house looks when its clean. I feel better when my house is clean. I even feel like I've accomplished something after I've cleaned. I just hate doing it! It seems to take me so much longer to do even the simplest things. Does anyone else feel like that?

I did a post a while back where I cleaned for hours but didn't feel there was any evidence of it (refer to The Worst Housekeeper). So now instead of actually cleaning, I am once again writing about needing to clean! Does that make any sense?

I need some accountability here people! I will post pictures later of the progress. Yes that will take away from the cleaning, but it will provide me with a break! See you back here later!

Updated to add: So after hours of cleaning I managed to clean one room of the house. But at least it's the main room of the house!

I spend so much time doing precleaning (cleaning the sink before I wash the dishes, etc.) that I don't get much else done. I also did 2 loads of laundry. Don't think for one second that either of those loads are actually in drawers (wink). We'll live out of the laundry basket for at least a few days!

The Never Ending Bladder Infection Update

Woo Hoo! It looks like I finally have a clean bill of health! I went to a different doctor last week and had a few more tests run and they all came back clear. Yeah! I am very grateful to have not suffered any kidney or bladder damage throughout this monthlong ordeal. Sadly, I am most grateful to have enjoyed my first Diet Coke in a month this weekend :)

Yankee Candle Love

I just recently discovered the store Yankee Candle. Not like Christopher Columbus discovered America. It was always there, I just never went in. I mean, what's the big deal about some candles that smell good, right? Then a sweet friend gave me this for Christmas:



This is the Christmas Cookie scented jar candle. I cannot describe to you the deliciousness of this candle. Every time I light it I seriously want to get a spoon out and eat it! It smells yummy!

So then my sister in law Christy asked for a gift card from Yankee candle for Christmas. Being the loving sil that I am I decided I would go pick her out something instead. I will admit that the jar candles are somewhat expensive, but I was looking around and a nice sales associate asked me if I was familiar with their tarts? I told him no and he educated me on them. As the tarts are only $1.79 I decided this was the way to go! I bought Christy this beautiful tart burner (I think that's what they were called) and 3 tarts plus the tea light to melt them for like $25.


Plus the guy told me I could register on the website for email updates and get a $10 coupon for my next purchase. I went back and bought one for myself! I think this is my new favorite store!

One Goal for Today

Do you ever start your day with just one goal and seriously not know if you will accomplish it? Today the only thing I really need to get done is a trip to the grocery store. Sounds easy enough, right? Of course before I can do that there are many steps I need to go through at home.

I have to make the list and check with hubby to see how much eating out he is planning on doing this week. He works from home so we also have to plan breakfasts and lunches at home. Great for the budget, tough for the planning :)

Then out come the coupons! There are the coupons that I have leftover from past weeks and the coupons from this Sundays paper waiting for me to clip. Not to mention my favorite website that I always check before I leave www.coupons.com. It's 9:45 now and I have to run my first carpool for Alyssa at 11:45 ... what are the odds that I will make it?

Update at 5:45... Got a call from school at 10:00 that Abby was not feeling well. Hair was still wet. Dried hair then picked up Abby. Did not have time to go before 11:45 carpool. Finally made it to the store after naps at 2:30- YEAH!

Works for Me Wednesday- Good Deals

So I have been reading several blogs and have noticed each week they have a post titled "Works for Me Wednesday." I have come to enjoy these useful tips and have decided to throw my hat in the ring with one of my own.

I am somewhat new to shopping online, but thanks to http://stylenotes.com I have become pretty adept at finding great deals at online sites and terrific coupons for some of my favorite stores. I saw this site featured in our local paper not too long ago and I have checked it everyday since. They have great information on some high end stores that I never dreamed I could afford like Marc Jacobs and L.A.M.B. as well as the places I shop all the time like Target and Gymboree. So go ahead and check it out. Add it to your Google reader. I know you will love it as much as I do!

Thanks to the blog www.rocksinmydryer.net for the great idea!

The Never Ending Bladder Infection

I apologize in advance for TMI but I have had a bladder infection since Christmas Eve. For those of you doing the math that equates to over 4 weeks and almost a month! I just got the news today that I am still testing positive for the infection after enduring a 3 day round of IV antibiotics that included 6 1/2 hours in the ER.

This is one stubborn infection and I am downright sick of drinking water and juice!!!! I am afraid to ask what else they can do me! We'll see when the doctor calls back.

For the Love of Snow

Yesterday our local weather forecasters predicted our first snow of the year. They hinted of a slight dusting earlier in the week but this time they were serious. There was talk of anywhere from 1-3 inches to up to 6 inches possibly! Now down here in the South we don't throw around the "S" word lightly. We don't see it often and we don't joke about it. There is no milk or bread to be found in this town!

My sweet children were so excited. We had to take them out of town last year so they could see snow for the first time. They were making big plans for the snow angels they were going to make in the yard this morning.

This morning, this is scene we woke up to! Notice there is no 1-3 inches of snow on the ground.


There is a slight accumulation on a nearby roof so naturally our cheerleading game was canceled and everything in the city is shut down for the day :)

Shortly after 9:00 this morning, we did start seeing some snow fall! I hope you can see what my children saw. My oldest daughter Abby came running into the room and yelled, "Mommy, it's snowing!" Can you see the tiny flakes falling? And we wonder why the north still hates us?

Woot!- I Scrapped Today!

I am so proud of myself. While my kids were at school today I successfully got my scrapbooking stuff out of hiding and dusted off and scrapped a 2 page spread from our Hawaii trip this summer. That may not sound like much but the task of organizing the pictures to decide what to put on the page took 20 minutes! Just dragging everything out to the table seems like a monumental task sometimes. Once I get it out I keep going back to it over the next several days. Here's hoping I can finally get this album done and get back to the family albums that are 18 months behind :)

John Black is back!

Woo hoo- John Black is back on Days of Our Lives! I have to say I was not too traumatized when he was killed off in the fall because he had been diminished to scenes where all he did was suck Marlena's face and make the classic Joey Tribiani fish hook face. If you watch the show at all you are very familiar with seeing both of those scenes rotated over and over and over. They had written his character into such a corner there was really nothing else to do with him but kill him off.

Sadly, his death had a hand in destroying my favorite couple Shaun and Belle as she turned to Phillip instead of Shaun for comfort. Of course she continues to do that on a daily basis for no good reason. But I am hoping they will eventually find their way back to each other as well.

The best part is that John has returned and is better than ever now that his character can actually do something! He has life again! He's feisty and I love it! I love watching Marlena fight to help him regain his memories. His scenes with Bo and Hope have been great. I am really looking forward to seeing him pretend to care about Belle in the next few episodes. This is such an exciting time to be watching Days! If those writers don't hurry up and get their junk worked out ... I don't want to miss an episode!

Super Thursday

What is Super Thursday, you ask? That is what I am now calling my Thursday afternoons! If politics can have a Super Tuesday, then I can have a Super Thursday. Every Thursday I pick my 4 year old up from school at 11:45. My 1st grader gets out at 2:20 but she stays at school and goes straight to ballet. That gives me a little break. She gets done with ballet at 4:00 and that is when the real race begins! We have to pick her up and get the 4 year old to gymnastics by 4:15. Luckily they are not far apart in distance. There was not another time that we could schedule the wee one's gymnastics so for now, the race is on.

Every other day of the week is pretty mild and manageable. We do go a lot of places, but Thursday is the only one with a real rush in between! It is time to go pick up my oldest, Abby ... On your mark, get set- Go!

Getting More Personal

I'm going to give this blog another run and try to make it a little more personal. There are tons of blogs I read every day, but I can't seem to get my act together enough to write one. So far, I've always tried writing about something. I think this time I might take the Seinfeld approach and write more often, even if it's about nothing (grin).

Sometimes my day is just hectic and crazy and I struggle to stay sane! Some days I feel like mom of the year. I want to be able to look back at both my victories and my disasters and know that in every case I did the best I could.

One small success I had this morning was with my youngest daughter Alyssa. She's 4 and 1/2. She was feeling particularly persnickety this morning and did not want to tell me what she wanted for breakfast or even what she wanted to drink. Well mornings in our house are very rushed. None of us are morning people so we sleep until we absolutely have to get up. I will admit I have been known to lose my temper when either of my girls gets in one of these moods. Not this morning! Today, I very calmly told her that she could pick her breakfast or I could but that was her choice. Then came the sass! I continued my unusual calm voice and called her into the kitchen and told her that she needed to watch her voice and speak with respect. It took a few minutes and a few demonstrations of what her voice sounded like, but we got there.

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The Worst Housekeeper

I am going to take a detour from Days today because I honestly don't know if I will even get to watch today's episode. I don't know if you have a friend who's house makes you feel a little better about your own housekeeping. If you do not, I am here to be that friend today! I think I can declare myself the worst housekeeper! I really do try. I just stink at it!

Take today, for instance. I spent 3 hours this morning cleaning my house. Do you know what my sister's house would like if she cleaned for 3 hours? I guarantee you could eat off the floors and all your clothes would be neatly folded and waiting in your drawers! I don't know how she does it. Now at my house after 3 hours of cleaning, this is what I am left with:

An end table with a pile of junk!

A computer desk screaming for organization!

A dining room I dare not enter!!!!

So what exactly did I do for 3 hours, you ask. I did wash dishes. I did sweep and mop the kitchen and the bathrooms. And lets not forget the monumentous task of vacuuming even though you will not be able to tell it as soon as my darling children set foot into the house. So for the 3 hours of work I do have a kitchen that looks half-way decent:

Don't hold the Totino's pizza box on the counter against me. I had to write this during my lunch break. Then it's right back to cleaning!

Shawn and Belle- The Right Track at Last

So between summer vacations and my kids starting back to school, I have been very neglectful of my blog. I have managed to watch Days, but sometimes only half-heartedly. Imagine my joy when I saw the preview this week for an upcoming wedding with Shawn and Belle as a possible couple!!!

I have rooted for this couple since that hokey last dance in high school. I have suffered through Belle's doomed marriage to Phillip and Shawn's rabbit chases of Mimi and Willow. When they finally found each other they have been sidetracked by all of these lies. It seems like today they are finally getting back on the right track- Yeah!!!

After months of Shawn calling Phillip out for wanting to get back with Belle, she finally sees it, too and calls him out on it! And he has the nerve to try to defend it! I'm a little nervous that we are going to get Psycho Phillip back any day now. Then Belle goes to the hospital and immediately tells Shawn about Phillip hitting on her. Well, how about that! Honesty in a relationship can work wonders!

How fishy was Phillips timing in finding out that Lauren was in San Antonio? I have read other's opinions that Phillip and Lauren could be in on this together to string Belle along. It might have started that way, but if it did, I certainly think he got more than he intended when she dropped off the baby. What if Phillip paid her the money the first time she asked with the condition that she help lead him on a wild goose chase to help him get Belle? If that were the case, he could have been the one that left "Pocket" at the hospital for safe keeping until he finished resolving things with Belle and Lauren. Just a little conspiracy theory. It seems like Belle is wising up to his schemes and trying to communicate better and that is exactly what I have been waiting for for these two.

Are they for real?

Oddly enough I am talking about Jeremy Horton and the DiMeras! Did you ever think you would see this pairing? First off, could Jeremy be any more of a jerk? This really seems to be his only purpose on the show. He isn't even intelligent enough to line up his own financial backers for his "business ventures". His girlfriend, Stephanie, and a girl he hardly even knows, Chelsea, had to line up Max for him. Then as a reward he treats them like dirt. The way he talked to Stephanie today was despicable and the fact that she stood up for him was just sad. I can't believe Max was dumb enough to invest in the flying part of the business and then even dumber to get in on the questionably illegal part! Clearly the guy running this "business" is not making good decisions if he has lost all his previous backing, and on top of that, who wants to be in business with a jerk!

Then we find out that Jeremy's supplier of the fake designer clothing is none other than Tony DiMera. So the DiMeras really have nothing better to do now than to replicate Guccis and sell them on the black market. They are really done tracking down and torturing Bradys and anybody else who gets in the way of their vendetta. Is this what this family has been reduced to? Just when the DiMeras were becoming the perfect family of villains, we get thrown this stupid story! I believe Jeremy has become the new Willow. He just doesn't fit and he is starting to mess up my other storylines. He may have already worn out his welcome in Salem!

Love those DiMeras

I am loving having the Dimeras back in town and back in control. This story about Colleen is such a great way to showcase how bad they can be while also showing that they can be rational about it. I love watching Stefano trying to decide whether to end the vendetta. We all know it will never end because Tony has now gone crazier than his father!

Just when it looks like you can declare all DiMeras villains, EJ starts acting like a good guy and Steve turns up at the DiMera mansion revealing Brady family secrets while EJ is lying to his father to protect the Bradys. How can this be? Is it all a ruse? Kayla would not let Steve leave that island if he was not deprogrammed. The question then becomes did he overpower her, trick her, or lie to the DiMeras? Hopefully we have the old Steve back and he is in on the plan with the Bradys. According to the spoilers for next week, he comes to Hope's rescue so there must still be some good in him. There is still no telling about EJ. His stripes can change on a dime. He better watch himself though. His daddy is not going to be happy about his deception and there are only so many times that Stefano will be made a fool!

How about this new pace?

So it's been a while since I've blogged about Days and the main reason is because of the pace of the show (and the pace of my life lately). Man they have kept things moving lately and I gotta say I like it! TPTB have started to clean house (thank goodness) and have gotten rid of some dead weight that was slowing things down - namely Willow. My biggest fear was that we would be left with a who killed Willow storyline and what happens to Willow's baby story. I was very happy with how quickly both situations were dealt with so we can move on with stories and characters that we actually care about.

Now that the DiMeras are back, it is clear who the villains in town are. There is definitely a battle between good and evil and I love that we are finally getting to see some answers about why it all started in the first place. The small battles over Sami, Lucas, and EJ are exciting and well written. I don't even mind seeing another "Who's the daddy?" story because it makes sense when you see how it relates to Colleen Brady and Santo Dimera's affair in the past.

The dreaded flashbacks have even become welcome and entertaining. I love seeing the old characters relive scenes from the past and they have done a good job of keeping them timely. Today's show used a recent flashback with John and Marlena when John was in a coma to show why Marlena was so determined to stay with him instead of leave the building while he worked on the bomb. It seems like they used to use flashbacks to remind us of what had happened the day before. Maybe they have finally realized their viewers are smarter than that!

Finally, my favorite storyline ... Shaun and Belle. I never thought Phillip could be redeemed but it looks like he has changed his ways. Whether Papa Victor has or not may determine how long it stays this way. Shaun's attitude in the coming days may influence it as well. I am again thrilled that they moved the missing child storyline along quickly. It was definitely the right way to take the story but Old Days would have drug it out all summer long. I think the real story here is in how Shaun, Belle, and Phillip rebuild this family with Claire. I see a real battle between Shaun and Phillip and for some reason I see Shaun coming out looking much worse than Phillip. If he continues to try to kick Phillip completely out of Claire's life he will look like a total jerk and like he is turning his back on the agreement they made on the boat. As much as I don't want another love triangle, I believe this has isosceles written all over it!

The Great LUMI payoff!

What a great payoff for Lucas and Sami today! First of all, thank you for not dragging out the wedding. We have seen enough Sami weddings in the past. This one was just long enough to get the sweet stuff in and of course one "Gasp" moment as we all wondered if EJ would dare interrupt.

Then on to the reception where the real fun began. Of course Kate somehow got that incriminating picture into the slide show. I love that Lucas is standing by his new wife! I wish we saw a little more of that in real life. Too many times we file for divorce just because we're bored with each other! Here Lucas had real reason to be concerned and he wouldn't hear a bad word spoken about his bride. I think that is precious. Even more precious was the new tradition he started of "sharing" cake with the mother of the groom ... smashed in her face of course! She so deserved that for all the hateful thing she has done to Sami. Way to go Lucas! You have made a great start in your new marriage!

Not to be outdone, our sweet Sami decides to makes peace with EJ on the way to the honeymoon and let bygones be bygones. She even offers him a handshake (awwww!). Who would have thought she would follow that with a left hook? Way to go Sami! He was so not happy. The wrath of EJ will be felt in coming weeks. Until then, the honeymoon should get off to a great start, once Sami finishes telling Lucas that the baby may not be his. Oops!