June Cleaver in Disguise

I know what you're thinking!! Winter? Already? In Texas? Well, it seems we've skipped fall and moved right into winter. Yesterday it was 85 and realllllly humid. As I sit here writing, the wind is howling, the rain in pounding and the temperature is dropping like a rock. In the next couple of days, we are supposed to have lows in the 30s. On the bright side, at least it will feel like football weather tonight at the highschool football game. Nothing says football like sitting on metal bleachers, freezing and wishing you were home watching Monk and Psyche on a Friday night.

On a brighter note, have you ever visited Woot.com? They have lots of things you didn't know you needed for really great prices and always $5 shipping. Today is a:

Breville 15-Bar Die-Cast Espresso & Cappuccino Maker with Knocchi Knock Box for only $179.99 + $5 shipping.

I'm assuming that is a great deal since I'm not really an espresso/cappuccino kind of gal, but it must be if it's on Woot.com.

When they offer a 2-pack of Snuggies for $9.99 + $ shipping I will be the first to order. I looks like I'm going to need them.

Okay. It's official. I am ADDICTED to Farmville on Facebook. I tried to resist. My friends would send me invitations to be their neighbor or make me enticing offers of free gifts or the chance to "adopt" an ugly duckling that they found wandering on their farm.

Being the wonderful mother that I am (ha, ha), when my oldest son asked me to please send him a gift for his "farm" I said okay. That's when the torment began. Now I am constantly going to my "farm" to harvest vegetables, plow land, plant seeds and buy miscellaneous decorative items and animals for my "farm". Yes, there's even an ugly duckling that is eventually going to turn into a beautiful swan.

One of my friends sent me a free gift for my "farm" and I wrote her back and told her how addicted I was. She is on vacation from work this week and, apparently, she's spending a lot of time at her "farm" because she said all she could think about was checking to see if her vegetables were ready to be harvested.

There are a whole lot of other "games" you can play on Facebook. I refuse to be sucked in. I don't care how many requests I get to play Mafia Wars or Farkle. I'm just going to go to my virtual gazebo on my virtual farm and watch my virtual crops grow. Fortunately for my manicure, virtual dirt doesn't get under my real fingernails.

Today is trash day in our section of our subdivision. Not only is it trash day, it is also recycling day, so everybody (well, almost everybody) puts out their recycling tubs for the recycle truck to pick up. My youngest son and I cheated the recycle truck just a little. We walked around and picked cans out.

He loves to collect cans. We turn them in for money. I love for him to collect cans because it gets him exercising. We're trying to save up money so we will have enough to go to Six Flags. We already have three tickets (1 from a school reading project and two for collecting Coke Rewards), but we need one more ticket and we also need to be able to eat when we're there because 9 and 13-year-old boys and a 45-year-old man can't go all day without quite a bit of food. I don't seem to require as much as they do (if I did I wouldn't be able to get out of the house, I would be so big), so it doesn't cost as much to feed me.

We get some strange looks from people as we are collecting, but we also had a lady ask us today if we came around every week. I said "We try to." and she said she would put them in a separate sack for us. I thought that was really nice. We also saw a man we know, told him what we were doing and he said "Nothing wrong with that." I think most people appreciate the idea of being thrifty and working a little harder in this economy. I appreciate that it's teaching my child the value of money.

This morning I asked Brett if he wanted to make a cake. Of course, being 9 years old and a junk food junkie, he said "Of course." He wanted to make chocolate cupcakes.

I looked for a recipe in one of my Paula Dean cookbooks and its said "6-Layer Chocolate Cake" and me, being the non-attention payer to detail that I sometimes am, neglected to see that the only part of the cake that was chocolate was the frosting. I don't know. Somehow when you see the words chocolate cake, you automatically think CHOCOLATE CAKE, not vanilla cake with chocolate icing. Fortunately for Paula, it turned out to taste really good or I might have had to sic Brett on her. A 9-year-old boy who LOVES chocolate cake, thinks he's GETTING chocolate cake and doesn't GET chocolate cake can sometimes be a little perturbed. All is well now and apparently the chocolate icing had some kind of sleep aid in it, because he's in there on the sofa right now taking a nap. That rarely happens.

I cleaned out our shed yesterday and threw away an entire large garage sack full of stuff. Now you can actually find what you're looking for when you go in there. What a concept!! The workbench can actually be worked on now without having to shove 10,000 items somewhere else and the tools are where they are supposed to be. I wonder how long it's going to stay that way? I'll let you know.

We went on vacation. We got back last Friday. I am still tired from vacation. I need another vacation, preferably one like in Kenny Chesney's song where he has "nothin' to do, but breathe all day".

We went to El Paso, TX, San Diego, CA, Los Angeles, CA, Las Vegas, NV, The Grand Canyon and then the next couple of days were a blur. I think we ended up somewhere in New Mexico and then Amarillo, TX before we actually got home. Our minivan kept getting smaller and smaller the closer we got to home. We kept adding "stuff" as we went along, plus we had had about all of the togetherness we could handle. Two weeks, four people, one minivan.... you do the math.

I thought the boys would have come home and holed up their rooms to get away from each other, but nooooooooo. I went in the oldest one's room and they were in there wrestling on the bed, then the youngest came in later that night and hung out on the bed with me and hubby. I guess he hadn't had enough togetherness.

On a more positive note, we have some good friends coming to visit. They are only going to be able to stay one night, but we're thankful for that one night. This was the only time they could come see us, what with our son starting band next week (whatever happened to summer vacation?) and their son having to do weight training for baseball (?????). High school puts a new perspective on life.

It's off to Wal-mart today and then coming home to do some dusting. I guess my vacation from vacation will have to wait a couple of more days.

I had some time to kill Wednesday, so I thought I would do a little shopping. Of course, I had tons of other stuff I could have been doing, but none of it was as much fun as shopping.

I went bebopping (I don't think that's really a word, at least not in the dictionary, but I like it because it describes what I was doing so well.) over to Garden Ridge. I was just wandering around, looking at all of the fun stuff they have when, lo and behold, there was a whole section of bag, luggage, purses, etc and there was a sign that said (something like) "ALL PURSES 50% OFF). My heart did a little flip-flop. I love purses and I love signs that say "50% OFF" even more. I bought the cutest purse for $9.99. Honestly, I think I could have bought several because they had a bunch of cute ones, but this one really caught my eye.



Normally I am a basic black/navy/brown kinda gal. I don't know why I liked this one so much. They had several different styles of the same colors/design and they were all cute. My oldest son said it looks very country. I don't think he likes it very much, but what does a 14-year-old boy know about fashion?

I have worked for a small personnel service in Mesquite, TX for about 3 1/2 years. A couple of weeks ago, we got a big contract to hire 75 people to work a 4-day temporary job. Keep in mind, when I say small, that means we have 5 employees. We had 3 days to find 75 people. Well, WE DID IT!! The company that hired us was really pleased with us, so today my boss took us all out to the Dallas Athletic Club for lunch (very swanky), gave us a small bonus and, when we got back from lunch, there were these beautiful roses on our desks. All of us got a different color, but mine was the most unusual. I absolutely love the color blue.



Isnt' is beautiful and isn't my boss sweet?

My youngest son is training to be a barber. He made this homemade Chia Pet at a community Arbor Day festival. It's growing so fast he's had to cut it twice already.

To make it they took old pantyhose (recycling at its finest), stuffed it with some potting soil and put some grass seed on top. They tied it off (sorry, I don't remember how) and we brought it home and put it in a container with water in it. Of course, they let him decorate it with wiggly eyes and marker, but I knew while he was using water-soluble glue, that the eyes were going to just end up floating in the water.

He's had a good time watching it grow and it certainly is cheap entertainment.

SPOT, TALLULAH & COOPER







These are my three sweet dogs. From left to right, Cooper (2 1/2 and a sheltie/manchester terrier mix), Spot (8 1/2 and a shepherd mix) and Tallulah (5 1/2 and a full-blood basset hound).

Spot is a "talker". He stands at the door and makes all kinds of sounds and talks to us while we're petting him.

Cooper is just hyper. He loves to bring us his toys when we are in the backyard because he wants us to throw them and him go retrieve them.

Tallulah is just a love. She would love to be a lap dog, but she's just a little too big. Bassets are big dogs on short legs.

All three were "free" dogs, as in we didn't have to pay to get them, but they sure have cost us a small fortune in vet care and other miscellaneous "fees", such as a library book that Tallulah chewed up.

They are worth it though because I know that I am loved unconditionally by all three.

I sit down at my computer and think "Today I'm going to post on my blog." and then I........ don't. It's not like I don't have anything to say. I would love to at least be able to write about things so I can go back later and say "Oh, yeah. I remember that now." or "That's when that happened. I couldn't remember."

Last week my oldest son won several awards at school. They had their band spring concert and he got best percussion student. The teacher said he had been a really big help to her this year. The day after that, they had the middle school awards ceremony and he got three: A honor roll for the year, highest average in English for HIS teacher and a Best Bear award for just being an all-around good student from another teacher. We are so proud of him. He's such a great kid. You would never know he's a teenager by the way he acts and I am so thankful. God has truly blessed me to have such a wonderful son and I thank HIM every day.

My tomato plants finally have some little bitty tomatoes on them. Those poor plants have been through a lot. If my dog isn't digging them up or breaking off limbs, they are getting drowned by all of the rain we have been having. I'm really surprised they are doing as well as they are. The bell pepper plants aren't doing so well. They've had it even rougher than the tomato plants. Maybe soon we can replace the fence around the patio so the dogs can't get on and mess up my pots.

My Avon business is hanging in there. I saw an infomercial about selling Avon and saw all of the money that some of those women were making. It made me really want to sell more. I am just not a pushy person, so it's hard to me to just approach people and say "Hi, I sell Avon. Would you like a brochure?" I did have them out at my garage sale and a neighbor saw them. She didn't know I sold Avon. She has actually ordered several items and I'm hoping she's going to be a really good customer for me.

I did find some little lamps at Walmart. They had two buffet lamps packaged together on clearance for $5. Can you believe they were only $5? They were perfect in my guest room. One is on the little table that I "rescued" from someone's trash and the other is on the piano. I try to be patient and wait my wants out, because eventually I will find something I like either cheap or free and it's a lot more exciting that way.

This morning I started walking for exercise. I got up at (gasp) 5:15 a.m. and walked for about 25 minutes. I am going to try really hard to keep it up.

Oh, good grief!!! I missed an entire month of blogging. It is now May 2, school is winding down for the year and the kiddos are winding up for summer.

My oldest son just got through taking TAKS tests. He took math and American history this week. Now he's ready for 9th grade. I wish I could say that I'm ready for him to BE in 9th grade, but that would be a lie. I'm not old enough to have a high schooler!!!!! Okay, I really am, but let's pretend that I'm not.

My youngest son had Field Day yesterday. I have never been so thankful for clouds in MY LIFE. Clouds and a breeze blowing. It made Field Day actually pleasant. It has been raining so much here in the Dallas area the last week that they had to make it Parking Lot day instead of Field Day. The kids seemed to have a great time. Of course, any time they aren't doing school work or testing is a great time when you're in third grade.

I didn't work this week, so I got some projects done around the house. When my mother was here last weekend, she made a comment about the valances in the gameroom, saying something like "So, you haven't hemmed those yet, huh?" I bought the valances at a garage sale for 25 cents each probably a year and a half ago. They matched the trundle bed cover I got at the thrift store perfectly. The only problem was they were wayyyyy too long. Valances are supposed to cover the top 1/4 of the window at the most and these covered the top 1/2 of the window at the least. I told my mom that I knew once I put them up, it was going to be a looooong time before I took them down to hem them and I was right. 1 1/2 years is pretty long for something like that. In dog years that would be 10 1/2 years. Anyway, I finally took them down, cut them off, hung them back up (looking muuuuuch better) (don't you like the way I'm emphasizing my words today) and actually made a couple of pillows to match. Am I a domestic divas or what? If you come over to my house, though, please don't look too closely at the pillows one is just a little smaller than the other one. Just glance at them and say "Wow, you did a great job."

The other project I did this week was painting my little side table. I guess I will admit to digging it out of a pile of trash in front of somebody's house a couple of weeks ago. When I dug it out, it was light blue and was a tiny bit broken. It's one of those tables that has the drop leafs on the side and a little "leg" folds out to hold up the "leaf". One of the little fold-out legs was broken off. It was also filthy and the hinges were bent. I still haven't figured out how the hinges got bent like that. I thought I would try to strip the light blue paint, but when I went to Lowe's and Walmart, the cheapest paint stripper I could find was $6.50 and I really didn't want to spend that much on a free table, especially when I didn't know what the wood looked like underneath. I decided to paint it black (I found a quart of black paint somebody had custom tinted and apparently didn't like for $3.50 at Walmart) and put it in the guest room next to the rocking chair. After several coats of paint and hammering the hingest back straight, it doesn't even look like the same table. We still have to reattach the leg, but it looks great. Now I just need a little lamp to put on it. Hopefully someone will throw one out soon and I can redo it too.

Wow, I guess I had a lot to say, but who wouldn't after not posting for a month? I'm going to say I'm going to do better about posting, but please don't hold me to that. I can't guarantee anything.

Has it really been 15 days since I posted? Where does the time go? Sometimes I wish it would slow down, but then there are times, like when I'm at work, that I wish it would would go faster.

During the last 15 days Spring Break happened. What a trip!! We took the boys to Oklahoma to stay with my parents for the week and then went to my MIL's in Georgia for 3 1/2 days and then went to Bossier City, LA for a friend's retirement ceremony from the Air Force, then back to Oklahoma, then home to Texas. Hubby and I traveled over 2800 miles in 8 days. Considering a couple of those days were just spent puttering the few miles around her house, that was a lot of mileage to put on my poor van (not to mention my body) in those few short days.

My oldest son had a pre-UIL band concert Tuesday night and, as always, I was so impressed with way those 8th graders can play their instruments. It always amazes me how much they have improved since beginning 7th grade. The band teachers are just awesome. My son actually played 3 different instruments in ONE song. Talk about impressive. The only glitch was when he was switching instruments, he also had to switch his music sheets to another music stand and one sheet fell off. He had to play from memory and he stepped up to the plate on that. Didn't even miss a beat. My hubby told him afterward that it was going to do that again, please tell us so we can make him another copy of the music so he wouldn't have to worry about switching it around. That's just a disaster waiting to happen in a competition. Bless his heart. He's just 14 and doesn't even think to ask us to do things like that for him. He's such an awesome kid.

I had a Haagen Dazs ice cream party last night. I am a member of SheSpeaks. It's an online discussion board/word of mouth advertising site. About a month ago they asked me to host an ice cream party and I said "Free ice cream? How soon can it get here?" They sent 7 pints of different flavored ice cream, plastic spoons, paper cups, napkins, a tote bags and an ice cream scoop. How much better can it get? Everything I needed to have a party and it was FREE. They even sent it on dry ice, so my boys got to see dry ice for the first time. Two deals in one. Anyway, we tried passion fruit, coffee, brown sugar, ginger, milk chocolate, vanilla bean and mint. My favorite was the mint with passion fruit being a close second. Of course, you can't even go wrong with chocolate and vanilla. I didn't like the coffee at all. It was too strong for my tastes, but one of my friends loved it and the ginger. Overall, it was a lot of fun to have an ice cream bar and be able to share it with friends.

I'm not working today. In case you didnt' know, I work part-time for a small business owner in Mesquite, TX and the economy has really slowed down her business and so that has affected my work as well. That's okay, though. It gives me more time to blog. Whoo hoo!!

My youngest son it staying after school today for LandSharks. It's an exercise program where they walk around outside. Anyway, they were supposed to do it yesterday, too, but the weather here was nasty; rain, cooler temps, lightening, etc. They called me from school and said they weren't having it and were going to hold him at school until they heard from me. Well, I didn't know they would cancel if the weather was bad. I thought they would probably just run around the gym or something. I stayed a little later at work than usual. Fortunately, my neighbor was able to pick him up when she picked her children up. When my son asked me if I was going to work today, I told him no and he said "So you learned your lesson, huh?" Meaning I will NEVER tell my boss I can work later because he has an after school activity, unless my husband it home. Too many variables and I am a paranoid mother. Oh, well, when you never stop learning and some lessons are hard then others.

Yesterday it was in the 80s and today we're barely into the 40s. Yesterday was sunny and breezy. Today is rainy and windy. My only consolation is that "Spring showers bring May flowers".

Finally, on my second attempt at planting bell pepper, I have two little plants poking up out of the dirt. I was about to give up and go buy some plants at Walmart when I got ready to transplant my tomato plants (11 total from seed). I'm trying container gardening this year because having 3 dogs who like to destroy plants is not conducive to inground gardening.

We got the rest of my youngest son's project to school today. I was so glad we took the poster yesterday because it would have been a nightmare trying to keep from getting it wet this morning. The rain was coming down pretty good when we pulled up in front of the school.

We went to Taste and Trade last night in Mesquite, TX. It is so much fun. I would guess at least 50 businesses in the area had booths and they give away free goodies, i.e. flashlight, key chains, notepads, balloons. You know, all that promotion stuff that the kids love to get. The theme was old game shows, so a lot of the booths had games for people to play for prizes. The best part was the free food. 20 restaurants were there and we had chicken strips from Whataburger, pasta from Carinos, barbeque sandwiches from Texas Roadhouse, chips and queso from Chilis, and too much more to mention. I was stuffed when we left.

Unfortunately, tonight I have to cook, but I decided hamburgers are in order since we didn't have those last night.

I am trying to enjoy today's weather because tomorrow the bottom is supposed to fall out. Rain, wind and colder weather. It sure is going to hard to go from the 80s to the 50s in 24 hours. Gotta love this "spring" weather in Texas.

We got both of the boys' school projects finished last night and most of it was taken to school this morning. My youngest had to do a project on Ole Kirk Christiansen, the man who invented Legos. That was a really good inventor for him because he LOVES Legos. He is going to display his Lego "robot" that he and a friend made. I figured he could just take that tomorrow. He went ahead and took his cardboard project board since the weather is supposed to be bad tomorrow. Rain, cardboard and glue just don't get along very well.

Today I'm just going to do a few minor projects. I went ahead and got a lot done yesterday, so I can take it a little easier today.

Well, the frosting on the cake didn't help at all. It was a little runny and kind of oozed down the side. It was really good though. I will be glad when it's gone. It just sits in the refrigerator calling my name. One more piece and it will be GONE.

Today I am running around crazy, trying to get all of my normal housework done, plus printing Avon invoices so I won't have to do that Thursday. Thursday both kiddos have functions at school. The youngest has open house and the oldest has a band fundraiser.

The fundraiser is really neat. It's called Taste of Forney and they get all of these restaurants, etc. from the area to bring in food and we get to sample the different foods, plus we get to be entertained by the bands while we eat.

I'm also trying to work some more on our church auction, getting donations. In this economy, it's a little tougher to get people to give.

Hopefully the rest of the week will go smoothly since I'm working so hard today.

All I have to say is.............thank goodness for frosting!!! I just baked my oldest son's birthday cake (14 years old tomorrow) and it tastes great, but it looks terrible. I made a dark chocolate cake and it is really moist and chocolaty, but it was really hard to get out of the pans. I know it will look much better once I put cream cheese frosting it will look MUCH better, although I'm not really good at frosting either so I could be wrong. Okay, this I do know for sure. It's going to taste really good. How could it not with dark chocolate and cream cheese, right? I'm also making homemade pizza crusts for dinner tomorrow night. I have to work at my part-time job tomorrow, so I thought I would got ahead and get the crusts ready and then all I have to do it put the sauce, toppings and cheese and I'm ready to go.

On another note, I'm working on getting donations for our church auction on April 25. With the economy the way it is, it's really hard to find companies that can donate. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

The wind is blowing really hard here in Texas today, but at least it's warm. I have my little tomato seedlings in my guest room and I am just itching to plants them in my containers outside. Come on Spring!!!

I certainly don't. I just finished doing my taxes with the free edition of TurboTax. You can do your taxes free if you are filling out 1040, 1040EZ and Schedule A. This is for basic taxes only, but for a minimal charge they will also do more complicated taxes. You can also e-file free, so you can get your money back even faster. Whoo hoo!! Grand Canyon here we come.

My youngest son stayed home from school today. He said his stomach hurt. I think it's the muscles in his stomach. Remember the snow day and how they were pretending to be penguins? Well, apparently the youngest penguin overshot the boogie board and pulled some muscles in his little penguin tummy. They were doing sit-ups in PE today and he just didn't think he could do sit-ups with his tummy hurting. Since his birthday is Sunday I thought this would be an okay day to miss school. I told him we would just call it a mental health day.

Since he's home, I guess we're going to go to CiCi's and get a $5 pizza for lunch. Are we big spenders or what? Tonight for dinner we are having steak, baked potatoes and broccoli salad.

Have a fabulous Friday!!!

Well, we managed to get through yesterday with no broken bones. What a relief!! Nothing screams broken bones like a child saying "Look, Mom. I'm a penguin" and then runs across the ice, flops onto the boogie board and goes whizzing down the driveway. I just came back into the house and said a little prayer.

I never did get around to watching "Baby Boom". I just got busy doing other things, like making treats for my dogs. I have found out it is A LOT cheaper to make them than it is to buy them, especially since I have three dogs and they like to have a lot of treats. I found the recipe on recipezaar.com. In fact, I find a lot of recipes on recipezaar.com. You can just type in an ingredient like chicken and it will give you tons of recipes that have chicken in them and many of them are rated by people who have actually made the recipe.

Since the kiddos are back in school today, I won't have to make lunch, but I will have to make dinner. Tonight we are having homemade pierogies (again from recipezaar) with sausage and tossed salad. I would like to say we are also going to have homemade rolls left over from yesterday, but I have a feeling there won't be any by that time. My youngest son loves rolls, so they usually don't last very long.

Have a wonderful day!!!!!

Well, officially it's called a Bad Weather Day and we really only have ice, but let's not get technical.
The kids don't really care what's it's called as long as they get to stay home for the day. They are outside sliding down the driveway on boogie boards (you know, like you're supposed to use at the beach) and I'm in here praying that they don't break a limb. The roads are bad enough without a mother, who is a nervous wreck at that point, trying to drive her hysterical child to the emergency room.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, we are going to stay home and do "snow day" activities. I think I will watch the movie "Baby Boom" with Diane Keaton. It's perfect for this kind of day. I'm also going to make potato-cheese soup and homemade rolls for lunch. How much better can it get?

For dinner we are having beef stir-fry and eggrolls. The stir-fry is sooooo easy. Take 1 lb. of beef strips and brown it. Drain. Add a package of frozen stir-fry veggies, two packages of beef ramen noodles with seasoning (chicken will work if you don't have beef) and two cups of water. Cook until noodles are soft and veggies are tender. I buy eggrolls already made. They are a little bit more than I like to spend, but they are worth it.

I've started a new blog http://www.adventuresinsellingavon.blogspot.com if you would like to check it out.

Stay Warm!!!!!!!!!!!

After a lot of musing about the name of my new blog, I came up with June Cleaver in Disguise. I've been called a Martha Stewart wanna-be, but I think June Cleaver just fits me better. Of course, I don't run around in heels and a dress, never scrubbing toilets, but I do like to make my house a great place for my family to be. I also cook A LOT, having a home-cooked dinner on the table most nights. (Tonight it's pork chops with cranberry salsa)

Unfortunately, we don't all get to eat together every night because of my husband's work schedule, but we do try to eat together as often as possible.

In the days and weeks to come, I hope to make new friends through my blog and, hopefully, learn a few things a lot the way.

I am also an independent Avon representative, so if you are interested in purchasing Avon products, I would love for you to visit my website at http://blowry.avonrepresentative.com