With 2 husbands, five children, six dogs, three cats, and 816 miles between us, we had to find some way to keep our sanity, and T-boxes aren't always the answer.
Here's a story about how bad things happen to good people. A man and his wife (who is also a nurse for the county department of health) co-own a construction company prior to the economic downturn. I think you know how that ended.
Fast forward a few years and now the man needs a liver transplant. The good news is that they got the call this weekend. The bad news is this. It. Is. Not. Cheap. Never mind the emotional and mental toll this process takes. The procedure is at a hospital a few hours away. She can't work during the recovery period, expected to be at least a month.
This couple are the fabulous mother and stepfather of my awesome friend Gabby.
Some of you know Gabby. Some of you have checked out her super creative craftiness when we've given her blog a shout out.
She is not just my online/co-crafty friend. She is my real life friend. Our daughters are in school together. Our sons wreak havoc together. We escape the stay-at-home-mom realm with girls' night outs. She makes me crafty stuff, "just because." She has watched my children so I could go to eleventy hundred doctor appointments.
Gabby and her family need your help.
Bad things happen to good people. But good people can happen to bad things.
If you care to, please check out their story and consider giving a donation. It is tax deductible through this website.
Every dollar counts. If you are unable to help financially, prayers, good thoughts, and positive comments on their website guestbook don't cost a thing and are greatly appreciated!
Please to be reading the title in a singsong voice ala 'Troy
and Abed in the Morning' from 'Community'.
Since we've been a bit remiss in blogging lately this is
your lucky day! This is SUPERBLOGDOPPLER5000!!! Now with 3-D technology and
smell-o-vision! (Not really, we don't have that kind of money. But you can
pretend.) And now, co-written for extra bloggy goodness...
Lauren:So....to kick off this blog
in the style of a talk show (blessedly without people yelling overtop of each
other, but sadly without hot male guests), I'd like to introduce...meeeeeee!
Nikki:But we can't promise that a
chair won't get thrown, the little people get belligerent sometimes.
Lauren:This is true. We should
probably clarify that the children would be the chair throwers and not us
throwing chairs at children. Dogs maybe. Specifically Miles. The dog with
eleventy hundred lives. And zero brain cells.
Nikki:Oh Miles...
Lauren:In Miles escapades the past
couple of weeks, the score is Gate being left open by the landscapers: 0,
Miles: 1 and Little dog next door: 1 and Miles's nose: 0. So it's a draw.
Nikki:You forgot about 70lbs of
Great Dane mix cowering from a fly in the house. Paint an accurate picture of
the special for our readers, please.
Lauren:Oh, yes!!! Cowering and
quaking in my lap because there's a fly...not even a horsefly or dragonfly...a
regular old housefly!!! Oh look, here's his royal moron-ness now. Miles, how do
you do it? How do you stay in the character of a total buffoon day in and day
out? Do you subscribe to the school of method acting or are you just
particularly suited to the role?
Miles: *chews on something that is
not a dog toy and gets on the bed with no sense of shame.*
Nikki:You have to admit you collect
the crazies. They find you somehow. Also, can I add that HOLY DAMN I put too
much horseradish on my sandwich. Wow! Should have tried that a couple of weeks
ago when I had a sinus infection, maybe it would have helped.
Lauren:Oh, damn! I don't know. I
think the Percocet/Benadryl combo was pretty genius. (*Do not try this at home,
kids.)
Nikki:No no no no! You're thinking
of the two Lime a Rita (not bad, btw) benadryl combo from my allergy attack
last week when I woke up three hours later and didn't know where the children
were. (No worries, Mr. PotRoast was at home and had put them to bed. He rocks.)
Lauren:Duh! Silly me! I do get your
benders confused. (*She really doesn't need a program, promise.) Question: If I
had a salad for lunch, does that mean I can have extra Ginger Lemon Creme
cookies?
Nikki:Answer: DUH! We've been over
this before.
Lauren:Yesssssss! I should be
stitching. AK might show up for a Paris inspection.
Interruption
due to technical copy/paste difficulties (I told you we weren't fancy.) Now,
back to your regularly scheduled blogging.
Lauren: oh
look!
Nikki: Oh
hi!
Lauren:
Dude! Here's why I love Sarah Jessica Parker. She's hosting a fundraiser.
For Obama.
She said, "It should be fabulous." EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Maybe I
should have been more excited about the chance to win dinner with George
Clooney, but I want to hang out with SJP! I didn't mean this for the blog. I
just had to share as it was in my e-mail when I opened it up.
Nikki: I'll probably incur your wrath,
but I've never cared for her.
LOL-too late!!!
:)
Lauren: WHUCK?!
Nikki: She annoys me
Lauren: DUUUUDE! SHUN!
Nikki: Sorry.
Lauren: FINE! When I win I won't take
you.
Nikki: FINE!
Lauren: I will take George Clooney.
Nikki: FINE! See if I care!
Lauren: Now all bets on my Billie
Piper snarkiness are OFF!
Nikki: OH MY DAMNS!!! It's ON like
Donkey Kong!!!
Lauren:
Please to be inserting donkey kong video here...
Lauren: Why does Living Social think I need pole dancing classes? Like
every other week. OR Boudoir photo shoots?
Nikki: Or vajazalling?
Lauren: YES! Let's discuss vajazalling.
Nikki: Although in a way they are all
kind of connected. Google thought I wanted Russian mail order brides once.
Lauren: Well, you do, don't you?
Nikki: I don't know if they have to be
from Russia.
Lauren: True. Back to vajazzling. Is there a way to insert a poll? We
should see if we're the only people who believe paying for Swarovski crystals
to be glued onto one's lady bits is nuts! (Pun totally intended.)
Nikki: *snort- You said 'Insert a poll'
Lauren: LOL! That's what she said!
Nikki: I'm not sure how to do a poll on blogger, but I encourage
everyone to leave their opinions in the comment section and mayhaps we can
revisit this topic at a later date with some quantifiable data to back up our
hypothesis.
Lauren: Yes. That sounds good. So people....vajazalling....thoughts? (Carol's
comments are likely to be epic. Also, her comment is likely to be the only
one.)
Nikki: I disagree. And I double dog dare others to weigh in on this
super important matter. Because I think it's ridonkulous.
Lauren: It IS an important issue. Much along the lines of nuclear
waste and world peace. Also, only losers don't take a double dog dare. Gasp! Maybe we should send Katie
Couric or Oprah an invite to our blog. I feel certain they would want to be in
on this ground breaking discussion.
Nikki: You know it. We are on the front
lines.
Lauren: On to stitching news?
Nikki: sigh-I suppose...Lauren doesn't
want to talk about lady bits any more, I apologize if you're disappointed.
Lauren: LOL! I want you to know I just broke a nail. Blogging is
DANGEROUS.
Nikki: I don't think we have worker's comp.
Lauren: SCHMIDT!
Nikki: So...stitching...I'm done with London THANK GOD! (no offense
to your mom) But that piece deserves every bad thing said about it. It's
gorgeous, don't get me wrong. I love looking at it, but it's a pain.
30 Hours. Suck it St. Paul's!
Lauren: I know. You flicked off St.Paul's
while watching Sherlock. That says it all.
Nikki: I totally DID! Screw you St.
Paul's!
Lauren: But it's gorgeous.
Nikki: I know. But that doesn't take away from it's pain in the
assness.
Lauren: No. No it doesn't. And in sampler news?
Nikki: Oh sampler...you're boring me to tears right now. So sad! I've
only done about two hours on sampler since my last update, I'm just not very
motivated to do anything on her. But I did make sure the second peacock was
finished, that was seriously bugging me.
Two Peacocks- I feel better
Lauren: Yes. You and your
symmetry complex.MTM...
Nikki: Yes!! Let's talk MTM since we
FINALLY have all the fibers for it!
Lauren: YES! I picked up the last two
(kind of since apparently we will need 4 cards of the PH01 metallic...DOH!)
fibers from my LNS. It only took the Waterlilies folks a bajillion weeks to
ship one of them. Did my first two over-one butterflies. So pretty! I heart
them. (Except that I have to do them again on the other corner.) And I've been
PH01-ing but still have some more to go. Not much longer until it heads back to
Nikki.
Nikki: and it is prettiness!!!
Lauren: In gay Pear-reeeeeeee....
Nikki: oui oui
Lauren: The over one madness for the
fleur-de-lis roundabout is DOOOOONE!!!!! (Imagine me saying that like Oprah.) I've
done some more filling in of the center. Paris is slow going. The over-one work
took many hours with little to show. Le sigh.
Lauren: Godzilla is awake. Doesn't he know
that I'm blogging and had plans to stitch???
Nikki: Godzilla!!!!! I told you the little
people were going to get belligerent!
Just a quick post to wish all our mommy readers a very Happy Mother's Day today (if you're in the US). If you're not in the US, then Happy Belated or Early Mother's Day depending on your country, and if you don't have one then that's crap and you can totally borrow ours!
The lovely ladies from RFML made up this awesome chart that I felt was worthy of sharing. Enjoy!
Hope your day is everything you want it to be. For me personally, I did NOT get woken up at 6 am with lukewarm coffee and an Eggo French Toast stick that was still frozen inside, so that was genius. I also did not have to clean up Old Dog's pee. Win-Win!
We've been waiting on the kit for Butterfly to arrive for...I don't know, FOREVER. I think it was ordered during the Reagan administration. It finally arrived on Saturday. I immediately began stitching
well, after I did this of course
and by Wednesday we had this.
Seriously! Pics don't do it justice. And this piece is soooooo addictive! I would keep going, but Lauren would hurt me.
She's been put away for now. And I've brought London back out. For a bit.
It wasn't this hard the last two times. I swear it wasn't. This kid is going to be the end of me, good thing she's the youngest.
We introduced the training potty when she was a little over 2.5. She seemed like she was very excited about it, but in reality, could not care less.
Fast forward about six months. She's 3. It has to happen now. It just has to. I'm done cleaning butts. Done.
Start potty training in earnest. Everything you read/see/watch PROMISES this should be no more than a two week process, and if I see one more 'Train your kid in ONE DAY' pins on pinterest I'm going to punch someone in the neck.
You see, these guides have not met my child. Stubborn is only one aspect of this little darling. She is also tenacious. And spiteful. And tenaciously spiteful. Soooooooo tenaciously Spiteful. I called her 'Tenacious A' when she was little, and maybe that should just be her moniker on here. This kid has also never tried anything out first, or gradually worked her way up, she will just go from not doing it to doing it. It's been like this with everything. Sitting, crawling, walking, sippy cups, saying her sister's name, etc. She didn't do it until SHE was ready and then she just did it. She never cruised the furniture or took a toddling step or two before dropping back down to crawl. No, she just stood up one day and walked her happy little butt all over the house like she'd been doing it forever!
Based on this I fully expected potty training to be the same. I just assumed that one day I would turn around and she'd come out of the bathroom after having wiped/flushed/washed up and just look at me with that 'What? It's not exactly difficult.' look on her face and that would be that.
If that scenario is going to happen, I'm still waiting. To be fair I wasn't exactly 100% consistent in the early days. We'd try a little bit in the morning and then maybe go a day or two with out. But about three weeks ago I decided enough was enough and this was going to happen whether she liked it or not.
"How's that working out for you?" you might ask.
Ummmm, IT'S NOT!
Consistency was also apparently not the key. Kid has a bladder of steel when she wants to (clearly did not get this from her father) and also does not care about getting wet. So all of the ways of making this unpleasant for them so they decided that it's just better to go in the potty. HA! She laughs at that.
We've had some minor successes this week that I'm hoping were not a fluke, but I'm pretty sure she's just messing with me. I know she's not going to go to Kindergarten in pull-ups (despite what some may say), but I would like her to go to pre-school in the fall and for that she needs to be freaking potty trained!!!
Because this is what it usually devolves to...
And when the underpants end up on the head it's best just to walk away. Life lesson folks, take note.
So....enough of that.
On the stitching front I have received London and the Sampler from Lauren. Did 5 hours on London and...this will take forever. Sampler, as always, is a welcome break except I started on that ginormous house in the center which felt like it took forever, and I only did the outline!
20 hours
Stupid house
Butterfly kit should arrive TODAY!!!! If it doesn't I'm hiring a donkey and going to Tennessee to get it myself. I also got myself a new sewing machine for Mother's Day so expect some really special looking pieces to be showcased here over the coming weeks. And by 'special' I mean 'I can't really sew'.
Edited to UPDATE!!! Butterfly Kit arrived!! Stitching commenced almost immediately
