My new addictions...

So, now that we have the internet back, I have a problem... Craft blogs and etsy. I am addicted. Chronicles of a compulsive decorator, the shabby nest, in my own style, vintage revivals, house of Smiths, and funky junk just to name a few of my favorites! I have a million kajillion ideas of things I could do to this house and things I could make to sell! I am making all of my christmas gifts this year because of craft blogs. I have a garage full of furniture to help achieve the ideas in my brain that is stuffed with them. It's so fun, and yet, I bet Joe hates them. He doesn't like when I get creative because with me (tell me it's not just me...) creative= BIG A MESS!!!! I wish I knew how to post pictures of the finds on the blogs so I could show you!!! Someone (ahem Charlotte, pretty please?!?!) needs to show me what to do to make my blog as cool as other ones I have seen! Help! I need somebody... Anyhoot... I have also decided, because of these craft blogs and wanting new stuff in the house, I am having a garage sale. I am ready to part with stuff that used to mean a lot and now is just not my style. I will be glad to be done with some of this stuff, I just hope that people who gave these things to me don't get upset that I am selling... Know what I mean with that? With all of my Hoarders: Buried Alive watching, I have become more and more concerned that I may go that way... My dad is/was a hoarder of trash (ask Joe or my sister Cathy, they will agree, and possibly curl up into a ball and start crying... it was THAT nasty) When we got the call that he was in the hospital in a medically induced coma and we should come right away because he may be dying, we never in 284,729,327,239 years anticipated what awaited us in his rv. Nasty. I can't even describe it because there are no words to explain the "odor". That was the hardest thing I have ever done in all of my 25 years! (ok ok, 29... I tried...) My two sisters and I worked on it first, then Cathy and her hubby went back, and then Joe and I went back to finish. I was lucky enough to get to clean the bathroom portion of the rv. No words people... *insert shudder here... So, this post makes no sense, but what I am trying to say is I am excited to be out with the old and in with the new, even if it is a lot less new.

Confession of the day: I am a horrible giver upper of pop. I haven't been able to quit yet, but I am not drinking it every day like I was, and I see that as a step in the right direction. Yes?????

Love you all, MamaRa

Stomach aches and sleepless nights.

First things first, my son Benny is silly!  He has been so funny this morning! He pretended to use sign language to tell me that my friends are in trouble. So random! Anyway, I did a bad thing. Last night my stomach hurt more than it usually does (it has perpetually ached for probably two weeks now.) and Tate had a rough night, so my sleep quota was lacking. I knew that I would not make it today without caffeine, so I got a pop. I'm sorry about it, but I feel a little better after having it! I am less fuzzy for sure, but sadly my stomach still hurts. I am a bit of a hypochondriac, so I am convinced it's a peptic ulcer. I don't know what else it could be unless it's just bundled stress from our $ situation and another super sad possibility in my life that I currently can't discuss because nothing is fo sho yet. I only know that I don't like how this feels and I don't want to have to go to the dr. without health insurance... I am going to try taking something for heartburn to see if it'll help. Also today I was supposed to go swimming with my adorable nephew Braeden, but it's raining. Boooo.... he is still sleeping over though, so we'll have fun no matter what! The boys love that little guy! I realize that this made no sense, so perhaps the pop didn't help that much... Side note- Benny just ripped one and it was NASTY!!!!! hurl.....

Divorce and diet pepsi, totally unrelated....

Divorce- I have two friends who have no other choice but to divorce their spouse and another friend who just finalized her divorce. I am so sad for these friends because they couldn't make it work. It wasn't their fault that any of the marriages didn't work, and all of them were willing to work on it but the other half was already checked out. I just wanted to say that this truly makes me grateful for my own wonderful (albeit sometimes bossy... -.- ) husband. To my friends who have gone through this, I am here if you  need anything!

Diet pepsi- I just read the book  Food Matters by Mark Bittman. I loved it! My family is going to hate that I read it.... Have you ever had a feeling in the back of your mind that what you were doing or saying was not what you should be doing, but you didn't WANT to do what you should? That's how I am about food... I know that fruits and vegetables are the best options and whole grains and some meat is good too... Heck, it even says so in the LDS Word Of Wisdom!! That means it's kind of a big deal! Still, I ignored it... I think God would love loaded nachos! With a big diet pepsi from the fountain of love at Kwik Trip too! Perhaps he would follow it up with a 1/2 pound hamburger... Yeah, I think God is smarter than that I guess... Turns out, we really shouldn't eat as much meat as we do in America, and everyone is paying for it... Even the vegetarians who don't eat beef or the vegans who use no animal products at all are suffering! Want to know why? Cattle farms produce more pollution than vehicles! Isn't that sad? And also ridiculous if you ask me. Starting yesterday, I am cutting out soda from my diet, and lowering my meat intake greatly, and increasing the fruit and veggies! **** WARNING- I MAY BE CRABBY WHILE I GO THROUGH WITHDRAWLS... BEAR WITH ME****
So the moral of this story is, oatmeal with cinnamon, apples, walnuts, raisins, and a teeny bit of brown sugar is delicious!!!!

Confession of the day- I want school to start NOW!

Lots of love, MamaRa

The b#*ch is back!

Who missed me??? It's ok, you can tell me! I feel like I have been unable to truly whine without this blog, so I apologize if I get annoying... What's new in my world you ask? Well... I put my gym membership on hold until I can find a way to make it work... Sad, but it had to be done. I have pink streaks in my hair from my 1/3 life crisis which magically turns me into Jem! Who wants to be a hologram with me??? I have way more amazing friends than I thought I did! I love having friends!!!!! I think this is the first year I actually have a decent tan too! I am so shocked that my norwegian skin isn't super ultra bright white right now! Now the bad news.... Since Tate is on summer break, my patience is wearing thin even sooner in the day and his inability to listen and outright defiance is driving me BoNkErS and I have no idea what to do about it! I know he needs a schedule with what to do when, but I am way too flakey for that kind of thing and my brain simply cannot think like that! Thankfully he starts 5 weeks of summer school Monday so this mama can have a break! Yesss..... Don't get me wrong, I love my little Tater-Bug, but I think his summer mission is to get me into a fitted hug me jacket in a padded room... Also, the kiddos have been fighting more and more. I thought I would get lucky and they would love each other all the time and be sweet and cuddly... I have very vivid dreams... I am getting tired of the tattling and screaming and whining.... It hurts my throat! (get it???) Well, this post was just to let y'all know that I am back online, so you'll get more posts! Love you all!

I almost forgot my confession of the day! I had leftover sopapilla cheesecake for breakfast! I have already forgotten all about that gym membership apparently....

MamaRa signing out!

Please please please!!!

I am sure my sister will have an amen to say about this (right Cathy????), but when I was younger, I was a BRAT! You probably can't tell now, since I am so kind and giving (sometimes...), but as a child through my teenage years, I was horrible. I was horribly spoiled by my parents. I'm not sure if it was because they were older, divorced and wanted me to pick favorites, or simply because I was the last (and cutest! :-p) baby. If things didn't go my way, I would give up and go pout obnoxiously. I remember sitting on my sister Debbie's steps pouting for a long time at a family get together, but for the life of me I can't remember why. Looking back, I see how juvenile my behavior was, but then, I WAS juvenile....Nowadays I try to be more giving and caring. I try not to be selfish (although I am sure Joe will disagree with this statement until the day he dies, just because he likes to disagree with me) and honestly with kiddos, I don't have too many opportunities to be selfish. Here's the thing though... I don't WANT  to give up my gym membership. We talked about it and decided the extra million dollars (give or take) would really help us, but now I don't know if I can.... I know, it's horrible. Paying all the bills on time and paying the full 10% tithing are super important, but so is my sanity, right? RIGHT?!?!?!!?? Does anyone have any ideas? I could have a bake sale once a month... I could clean houses for cash.... Anyone wanna buy one of my eggs? I make cute kids! Nobody? That's too bad.... I take donations too! I want y'all to brainstorm some ideas for extra dinero for the gym. I'm a good cause, right?

Confession of the day: I smell.... yay overly crowded kickboxing class!

Friends- my own personal drug!

I love all of my friends. You know who you are! I have the most supportive, loving, silly, adorable, (sometimes) dirty minded friends a gal could ask for! I had so many positive responses to my talk Sunday from my church friends, I had one friend help me dye my hair and another cut it, saw my ldbff this weekend, and just now a friend came to bring me and Benny to his school because I could NOT find my stinking keys! (they were between my seat and the center console in my jeep... duh...) Last night we went to a friend couple's house for dinner. We had a BALL and Joe ate like he was a king! (sorry about depleting your food stores Wisemans!) I honestly think I would shrivel up and die if I didn't have friends. Joe would agree! He, in his own "sweet" way, calls me a friend whore. I L-O-V-E love friends! There was a speaker at Time Out For Women, which is a church run 2 day extravaganza of spiritualness and humor, who said that NOT having friends is like smoking 15 cigarettes a day! That doesn't sound healthy! That makes me think that the 495 friends I have on facebook make me healthy, or at least healthier... I doubt it means I can stop exercising (which I am FINALLY going to get back to doing since I can breathe again...) or eating better, but I feel every little bit counts, right? I wanna know what the best thing a friend has done for you is? What is something you have done for a friend that was super amazing?

Confession of the day: I bought two cartons of ice cream and waffle cones from Aldi yesterday... Don't tell the kids!

Running around in your undies!

Confession of the day: Sometimes I think it would be really nice to live in a nudist camp because then you get to skip out on doing so very much laundry... I hate, nay, I LOATHE laundry...

So, I like to compare and contrast, does anyone else have a child that could hang out exclusively in their undies (today they are Incredibles...) all day long and is ok with it? I get up after my children (jealous?) and every morning Tate is dressed. Sometimes he is wearing real clothes, sometimes he is Obi Wan Kenobi. Benny however, wears naught but the panties. Is that strange? It is currently 11:53 and he is still in them. I have tried to coax him into clothes, but he simply doesn't care. Is that weird? Should I be pushing him to get dressed, even if we aren't going anywhere? What do ya'll think? He IS only 4... Moving on, is anyone else super blah about today and the gray skies? Boo hiss to this sort of weather! My house is STILL a mess and I have no motivation to clean it! I LOVE music and have to listen to it for motivation most of the time, but I still don't think even that would help on a day like today...

Today's post was brought to you by the letter B and the number 4.
The end, Mama Ra