Holiday Card Time!

Hey friends-

I absolutely love love love Christmas cards. I love creating them, and I love receiving them. I love to see how my friends and family are doing, and how their families are growing and changing. When I send mine out, I try and do it super early, so I get more back. They make a great decorations. This season, I am super excited, because my favorite online printing company, Shutterfly, has some awesome designs. I am going to have a hard time choosing. First, I need to pick the family picture we are going to use. That is half the battle, right?

Check out some of the cute stuff Shutterfly has this year:

Check out their holiday photo cards here:
Or their beautiful stationary cards here:

Or a nice, traditional holiday card here:

This year, Bloggers get 50 free holiday cards from Shutterfly… sign up: http://bit.ly/sfly2010

How cool is that?

Watch for my Christmas card...I promise it will be cute!

Deals to Meals!

I know it has been a while since I posted, but I wanted to tell you all about this fabulous site I have been using for over a year now. It is dealstomeals.com and it has saved me so much time and money! For only $5 a month, the weekly local grocery ads are scoured and compared to Walmart, Costco, and Sams Club. Then, she tells me what to buy and where! The best part is, I price match at Walmart :) Check it out!

Bite Me...

Yes, I am a nerd. So yes, I was there on Thursday night. And yes, I paid double the price of a normal ticket to sit on the second row and stare up at Jacob in all his bare-chested glory before ANYONE else in the state.

Now, if I had not read all 4 books, I would have to admit, New Moon would have made me switch teams. No, not THAT kind of switching teams, you sick-minded freaks. Switch from Team Edward to Team Jacob. However, I have read the books. So though I am still swooning, I must remember that I want Bella to be with Edward. Sigh.

But that is not what this post is about.

No, this post is about what happened AFTER the movie. On Friday, my FNF and I planned on hitting the New Moon Experience at the Expo Center. Now before you vomit in your mouth, realize that my good friend Mal is in the Twilight Music Girls group and was playing at the event. So I went to see her.

Turns out I should have JUST gone to see her. We got there at 7:20 and were done by 7:25. Ohmyholyhellitwaslame. Imagine, if you will, hundreds of middle aged housewives in Bite Me T-shirts that are 2 sizes 2 small wandering from booth to booth stocking up on the newest Edward scent of candle wax, Jacob cupcakes, New Moon airbrush tattoos, and Team Edward nametags. They stood in line to enter mall-type photobooths with the Volturi in the background and watch a pimple-faced, big nosed "Edward" play the piano on Stage 2. It really made me physically ill.

Did I mention TMG wasn't performing until 9?

It was quite possibly the most excruciating hour and a half of my life.

At least the TMG rocked!

P.S. Did I also mention I paid $22 bucks to attend this event?

Now that's what I call SERVICE!

Yesterday in Primary, we did an activity where we all stood around in a big circle and the kids were supposed to pass a bracelet and tell 1. Why they love their families and 2. What they do to serve their families.

Typical primary answers:

"I Wuv my family cuz I Wuv my family. I serve dem by being not mean."

"I love my mom and dad and sister and udder sister and udder sister and brother sorta and I can clean my room."

But my favorite came when it was little Johnny's turn. 6 years old. 2 feet tall. Blond faux hawk.

"I wub my family cuz they do nice things for me."

Prompt from president: "And how can you serve your family, Johnny?"

"I serve dem because I shot a big buck deer wight in da butt for my daddy."

Yep folks. That's true charity right there.

I'm BAAAaaaack...sorta

SO, you know how you can go on those all-liquid-purge-your-system-of-all-impurities diets? That's kinda what I've been doing. I really got into this blogging thing. And then I overdid it. And I needed a purge. So, for the past few weeks, I have read NO blogs, written NO posts, and just Zenned (is that a word?) for a while. I de-toxed, if you will.

I knew something truly funny had to happen for me to be motivated to write a post. Yet nothing truly funny HAS happened. Have I lost my edge? Is my life REALLY this boring, or have I lost the ability find humor in the mundane?

I mean, there is always stories about my students. But those get old.

Or J or the Bug. But I think I'm the only one who finds those funny.

Hey, here's one for ya! Yesterday, I took my friend to help register her at the college I teach at. She's been out of school for a decade, is naturally nervous about going back, and was excited to start this new program.

We get there and are assigned to an advisor. This is a lady I don't know at all. She is short, pudgy, and wearing a button-up shirt 2 sizes too 2 small...so you know what happens to button-up shirts when they are too small, right? And did I mention she was pudgy? So, avoiding looking at that area of her body, I explained why we were there. Oh, and my friend is a single mom and brought her cute 2 year old along to register.

She was feeding her some snacks when our dear Advisor looks at us with ultimate distain and says, "Actually, can you NOT feed her in MY OFFICE?" My friend graciously put the food away, and as a 2 year old does, she started begging for more. The Advisor rolls her eyes and says "UMmm, do you want to take her OUT and feed her? Then we could try this again." My friend explained that wouldn't be necessary and asked if we could shut the office door to keep her from running away (her little girl, not my friend, though I wouldn't have blamed her at this point. I was close to running myself.) The Advisor then replied "NO. I like it OPEN."

So how do you guys feel about this? I mean, to me, and advisor is the first point of contact when you go back to school. They are supposed to be the students' advocate. Right? Or am I pissed off for no good reason? I mean, I am SERIOUSLY bothered by this woman. To the point where I want to write her boss a letter and put my own job on the line.

What say all ye? (Or all ye who didn't abandon me during my detox).

Hiatus

So....since I started blogging, I have enjoyed it. I started out with our private family blog, and I loved giving updates on my Bug. But I felt like I had so much more to say, so I decided to start a public blog, keeping private details well, private. And I have enjoyed it.


But recently, it has kinda felt like a chore. And I don't need any more chores. I have felt like I need to post a minimum of like 4 times per week, and each post needed to be on something funny or interesting. Otherwise no one would read.

But I have now decided I don't care. I am going to write when I feel like it. It might be once a week. It might be once a month. It might be funny. It might be boring. It might be random pictures of the Bug. But that is what makes me happy. And I hope you will all still read. And I will read yours when I am in a reading mood. And I will comment when I feel like commenting. No more obligations. No more commenting so you will come comment on my blog. It is waaaaay too exhausting! And I love to write. And read. I want it to stay fun!

On my backpacking trip last weekend, I was in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the stars to stare at after dark. No electricity. No fires allowed. My backpacking tent has a mesh top and sides, and for the first time, I saw the Milky Way. I never knew that you could actually SEE it! It was awesome. And as I lay in my sleeping back, feeling every rock and every red ant crawling under me, I felt RELIEF. I couldn't blog. I couldn't facebook. I didn't HAVE to. I could lay there and listen to MoTab on my ipod and just stare at the stars until I fell asleep. And I loved it. I came home after a few days to a snotty-nosed, clingy toddler. And I loved it. And I need to spend all my home time with him. Which I am actually really good at. But when I am at work, I miss reading the news. And working on my novels (yes, call me Earnest Hemingway. I'm the psycho, silent writer-type). And, well....working.

So, I hope you all understand. And don't worry, I'm not going to stop! I'm just not scheduling my online life anymore. And for a while, I think I will be on Hiatus. I need a little detox.

Until then, here are some pictures from my trip. It was beautiful. And there were no other people. Just us. (P.S., I couldn't figure out how to stick the slideshow in this post, so scroll down to the previous post to see them!)