Check this out

When we built the basement and made rooms for the two older boys we let them choose whatever colors they wanted for their rooms. we did decorative paint lines, more than one shade, it was awesome. BUt Stuperman, his room has not been touched at all. The paint on his walls is a soft blue and is pretty nice, unless you look closely. there are a few chips and dings in his wall that need to be mudded and re painted. I would like to paint it the same or about the same shade of blue that it is now.

However, we decided that on one wall we would do this :

See! It's wallpaper!

Unfortunately it is the hard kind of wallpaper, you have to mix up the paste, add the paste, and put it up like that. I'm pretty nervous about it, but I will be asking my Mother in Law - who is really good at this kind of stuff - to help us.

Stuperman does not know about this at all, I want to send him to his grandparents house for a day and night, do the painting and the wallpapering and have him come home to it as a surprise.

I transfered money to my bank account form paypal ( thank you paid blogging) and in five days I will be sending the company a money order. I am sure It will be here by his birthday, it is still 63 days away.

Have you ever wallpapered? Got any tips? The paste is included with the panels, but will we need to prepare the walls in any way (other than washing them) Will we need any special tools for the job?

Passive Agressive Letter Writing Time

When I became pregnant with our third and FINAL child, I began leafing through flyer's that contained family rings. Then I began stopping in stores to see their selections. I told my husband that since we are done building our family, it is time for me to order my coveted mother's ring.

Please go back to the first sentence, the one that says when I was pregnant. That baby is now almost FOUR YEARS OLD and my finger sits bare and lonely. So, here's to you, Hubs!

Dear Husband:

Four years ago I brought up the idea of a family ring. I can understand how, with surgery bills and the gas spent taking Blue Boy to the hospital constantly meant that the first two years of Stupermans life we were rather broke. But now? We are doing pretty good. I will be turning 29 this July, a mere five days after our baby turns four, and the only thing I want is a ring on my finger so that everyone knows I am a mom.

For nearly ten years I have been a wife and mother. i have my ring symbolizing to all who care to look that I am a wife, but where is my symbol of Motherhood? How many times do I wait until the children are asleep before I go out for a bit of shopping and coffee? A Mothers ring is a great way to show off my boys even when I am not there! Not to mention that we were lucky enough to have had our children in months that have Beautiful Birthstones!




As this is the ring (above) I have my heart set on, (Size 6.5 please) (White gold) The only decision you will have to make is What order the stones are set in.

You could choose to do Oldest to youngest, Like so :

OctoberAprilJune

Or youngest to oldest, like this, Would work just as well,

June April October

Or, you could arrange the stones by the length of their names, oldest (6) middle(5) baby(5) And do it like this :

April OctoberJune

Which ever order you decide to go with in the end, will be fine with me. An added bonus is this ring will ship in 10 -12 days after you order it, so it is sure to get here by my birthday! Or, you know...Mother`s Day is coming up pretty fast too...

XOXO

Your loving wife!

*Blast From The Past*

As usual, no matter how hard I try to make sure all of the papers we need for tax time are together, I end up frantically searching for something int he days before deadline.

This year our deadline is Sunday - yea - two days from now - thats when our accountant is meeting us to go over everything and file pour return. Hubs thought he had put his T4 int he folder where it belongs, but I cannot find it anywhere, so there we were last night tearing up the house trying to find it.

We still haven't found it - Hubs is *just in case* asking at work today for a copy to be made - but we did find my old resume complete with cover letters!

And by old? I mean it is 13 years old! It was written out on a typewrite rat school and is covered in WhiteOut! It HAD to have been for a school assignment becuase it was ridiculous, I had recommendations in it from school age friends even!

I'm toying with the idea of changing the address and phone number portions and sending copies of it out just to see what would happen. At the very least, I would give someone in Hiring a good laugh for the day!

Dammit!

When this guy was born, my husband bought me two things, each very very different from the other. The first item he bought me was a gold chain with a wee locket just big enough to hold a tiny picture of our son. The second thing he bought me was a tube of Preperation H.

In the beginning, it appreciated the tube of ointment much more then the sentiment behind the chain, but now, hemorrhoids long gone, I love my chain. The locket has been replaced several time with different charms, and I wear it almost every day.

I'm absolutely heart broken becuase just minutes ago, I was wrestling with my oldest, the same one I received the chain for, and the clasp broke. I know that it was an accident, and I know that my clasp can easily be replaced, but it's still very sad for me.

Oh icky!

I have had, since puberty, problem skin on my face, and in particular on my forehead. I learned a lot of different ways to cope with my alternating uber oily/ flaky dry skin, but int eh past year things have grown horribly worse.

And you know, when I turned twenty, I honestly thought that I woul wake up, no longer a teenager and see the end of all my acne treatments and regiments! I wonder if all people do that? Think of acne as a teen disease and think it will just go away?

My latest challenge is excema. Its on my cheeks and upper arms and is freaking annoying. Right now I am keeping it under control with Shea Butter. I wonder what is going to happen next?

Oh Yea *sheepish Grin*

Hmm. I guess I should say "Oh Hia! I am Back"

Wellllll.. Kinda. This break from blogging and the internet has been So good for me, I feel like I have been hiding out in one of those Pigeon Forge cabins just vegging, relaxing. I have gotten a LOT of housework done, but even better, I have gotten a lot of trips to the park done, as well as a LOT of self reflecting.

I am scared to click the link up on he left hand side of my tool bar that says Bloglines, I'm afraid that there will be so many posts there I will be unable to read them all. You see. This week has taught me that I do not NEED to read all the updates on all of your lives. Sounds horrible, I know, but I was honestly addicted.

I think that this weekend when I jump back into blogging for real, that I will refuse to force myself to read them all at once. I am a fast reader, and I am sure it will not take *too* long to read all the updates - a week away - I think they will number almost 1200 updates..

In fact, this weekend back could not have been better planned as a return to blogging. I will be so busy that it will be just like this last week - lack of internet time I mean - that it will be easy for me to take it slowly!

(I am looking forward to being back though :o) )

WANT

This summer I want to be able to lounge by the pool in comfort. I want to have my coffee and smokes beside me within easy reach. (I want a tan). I WANT this chair. I'm not sure how well teak outdoor furniture would work in our long winters, becuase I sure as hell do not have the room to store one more thing in my garage. Any outdoor furniture would have to be able to stand up to the rain and the snow - and the sun.

I wonder if a winter tarp would work...

Summer's a Comin'

Wow. it's the middle of April Already. It's been raining now, off and on for two days , so I think thats going to help the snow melt completely. Either that or I am going to take a flame thrower to it...

My birthday is in the beginning of July, and I want to lose 20 lbs by then. I think its Kinda do-able. Five pounds a month..but I have been thinking about taking some form of weight loss pills. I was wondering if any of you have tired anything like that. Do they work? I'd like something that maybe boosts my metabolism, i can stay away from the chocolate chunk cookies, but when I see no progress on the scale day after day, it gets disheartening!

Goodie Bags full of Jealousy

People are blogging up a frenzy about the upcoming TequilaCon, about the next BlogHer convention, about J&J paying for them to go on a retreat - Even about how Disney paid for a bunch of bloggers to go and stay there!

While the trip itself would be awesome, what i am really jealous of is all the promotional products people get while at these meets! Magnets and pens, Compact mirrors, tee shirts, all sorts of wicked cool things!

Next time you are attending one of these meetings? Grab a few for me!

Oh No - recall?

I called my sister in law this morning. I wanted to reminisce about the early morning trip we had taken two and a half years ago to the hospital so my niece could be born. It was a very foggy morning, and the roads were horrible. Well. Last night, the roads were just as foggy - in fact, I would say they were worse, and another mom was making the trip to the city to have a baby.

It's still foggy now, come to think of it. Anyway. I called her and she told me they got their laptop back. I hadn't even heard they had it taken away! I guess that their laptop had crashed and when they called in to Future Shop, the guys there told her that there had been a recall on the ..motherboard..

So she sent it in and they fixed it up good as new.

I would be lost without my notebook computer. I used it to keep track of appointments and of course to blog, but I also get my weather and news from it as well as keeping up with family.

I think I will give my computer a few more kisses tonight when I put her to bed, just to make sure she knows she is loved!

Does this Make me a Bad person?

I have heard, online, on television, in print that Hilton Head is an awesome vacation destination and that getting Hilton Head rentals is the closest thing to heaven,but every single damn time I read the words Hilton Head, All I can think of is the Paris Hilton Bobble head Worth did a while back when they were making Celebrity Bobble heads!

Please tell me I am not the only one who does it! let me have at least a shimmer of normalcy, seeing as hubs vacation time got cut in half this year so no vakay at all, much less one as awesome as a trip to the Island!

the Count Down is On

I guess that until all of the snow is gone, the mud is here to stay, but with highs in the twenties expected for Sunday/Monday, that could mean the snow will disappear as soon as next week.

Lack of mud is important becuase as a mother I am very anal. I can recall driving my bike through puddles and coming home with trails of mud up my back and my parents not caring about it at all, but when my kids come in from playing in the yard, I make them take their boots and splash pants off before they can come inside!

I grudgingly allowed them to have their bikes the day before yesterday after threatening hell and brimstone upon their wee heads if they drove in the puddles. Now Rainbow Man, my oldest (8) is asking when he can take out his skate shoes and roller blades because the boys next door have theirs out already.

I told him that when the mud is gone, thats the day he can bring them out. When I think of it, which I try not to, All I can picture is him skating down the driveway, hitting a patch of mud and heading face first into it, and that is NOT a mess I want to clean up!

Happy Birthday baby!

Today Stuperman and I joined My girlfriend and her daughter for an afternoon at the indoor pool. We had a blast, despite the fact she is due to give birth any second. She is concerned that she will not know when she goes into labor becuase her stomach has been sore for a month, and she has been experiencing realistic braxton hicks contractions for just as long.

I suggested that maybe when he back begins to hurt along with the Braxton Hicks, she could start timing them, but she explained that she has been seeing a massage therapy genius since the start of her pregnancy so she has not had a sore back the entire time, and she doesn't expect too! ( I wish I had thought of that when I was pregnant!)

When we were done swimming, and int he change room, she all of a sudden stiffened up and grasped her very large belly. I asked her if she was having a contraction but she said no, she had felt a gush of water leak! She is unsure if it is just pool water that had been stuck up "there" or if maybe her water is breaking. In any case, when I came home, I made sure that the phone is fully charged and have kept it by my side!

Babies are So exciting!

Survey Says:

I just read an article in my local newspaper about online banking security. How banks tout "Bank online in minutes" with a "100% refund if you are hacked while on their secure system". The problem is that for people to get the 100% refund if hacked, there are six bazzillions steps you need to take on your home computer to be eligible.

They surveyed a group of computer securities students - students who are studying online security and even they failed to satisfy the requirements the bank has for the refund policy.

This is scary for me becuase, number one, I had no idea there were requirements (I will re reading the fine fine print tonight! and making sure we meet them!) You see, we do at least 99.9% of our banking online, from paying our student loans to our bills and mortgage, we even do online auto insurance for our car!

I had felt pretty secure with the banks statements of safety and when they backed it up with the 100% refund, I was hooked.

It will be a hassle like you would not believe if we had to go back to doing banking in person, but comparing the hassle to the potential risks we face, it may be worth it!

LOLlaughter

By now, everyone who is anyone has been to, and fallen in love with the site I Can Has Cheese burger, home of the LOLCat.



But have you been to the sister site, I Can Has Hotdog? Home, naturally, to the LOLDog?

It offers up such delicacies as these pups (both in need of some anti wrinkle cream )



And this adorable blast from the past ( At least for me, Do you remember Elvira?)



If you have not been to I can has a hotdog yet, please go check them out, They never fail to make me smile.

In fact, almost every day I change my desktop to a new lolcat or dog photo!

Good Idea, Bad Idea?

A whole year (plus!!) ago, my fathers house flooded due to a water main break. They lost the entire contents of their basement - which as thats where they lived ( granny lives upstairs in dads house) was everything they owned.

Books, pictures furniture, computers, the water came in at such a force that it gouged actual holes in the cement basement floors!

Now, I don't know how it is with other places, but here, if we do NOT have insurance on our home, we do not have a mortgage, our hose will be taken back from us by the bank. And, we have good coverage, not awesome, but certainly adequate, at a very nice rate. Under four hundred dollars a year.

So. Dad and MM had insurance, and all of the things they lost were covered (except pictures *sob*) (which is why periodically I copy all my pictures to CD and stick them int he safety deposit box) But, trying to remember each and every thing they had was really hard on them.

Anyway. In a worst case scenario, a flood or fire or etc, would it be a good plan for me to go and make a photobucket account or flicker or something - can either of those be made absolutely private? Thats important, I would want the account to be viewable ONLY by me.

So would it be a good plan to take and make an account somewhere and room by room, drawer by drawer, closet by closet, itemize everything we own, so that in case of something we can prove to our home insurance people that this is what we lost and this is what we need to replace?

And, for electronics, would I need to take care to photograph serial numbers and whatnots or is a picture good enough?

Wish Me Luck!

Have I ever been busy!

I'm pleased to report that my children are back in school - YAY! Spring break would be better if it was in summer so I could end them outside..

And. I am going to a casino tonight!

I've never been to one - an actual casino - before.

When I turned 18 my dad, granny, an aunt and an uncle took me to a small town bar in Manitoba. dad wanted to buy me my first legal drink ( I had a coke - I've never been an alcohol fan) Anyway there was a single slot machine at the bar that day and me and my aunt went over and popped in a quarter. it was a first time for both of us. Nothing happened when we put the quarter in so we tossed in another one and pulled the handle.

All of a sudden a siren went off and lights at the top of the machine were flashing. Thinking we had broken the machine, we hightailed it back to the table. Then we high-fived as we successfully pleaded innocence when the manager came to our table asking if we were the ones who had set off the machine.

This time? If the lights go off, at least I will know enough to stay there and collect my winnings!

(FYI - we are all taking 20 bucks. when the 20 is done, so are we)