Tag Archives: write from karen

Simple Woman’s Daybook: May 4th

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Outside My Window: It’s been nice and cool and cloudy. The heat wave seems to be over and I’m content as I can still get by with my summer-ish wardrobe and maybe a light sweater. We’ve had a bit of rain but nothing remarkable.

I am hearing: Curious George on tv – we’re headed to my grandma’s for dinner soon but MM insists he finishes watching his show before his diaper change, after which we will leave.

I am thinking: Too many things at once – my brain is still pretty muddled with all the same things, trying to plan the upcoming weeks but pretty much completely unable to.

I am hoping: that Dream Company gets back to Dan soon! So far nothing, although we did hear from his old boss that they contacted him for a reference this past Friday, so we know they are still doing something and hopefully we hear soon. Not that I’m getting impatient or anything. :P

From The Kitchen
Monday: dinner at my grandmas
Tuesday: Spaghetti with mozzarella stuffed meatballs – yum!
Wednesday: Hot Dogs & Mac ‘n’ Cheese
Thursday: Hamburger Night
Friday: Chicken something or other

This menu is staring to look awfully repetitive but the price has been working well for us, so it will do for now. I look forward to being able to expand our menus even just a little bit…

I’m now reading: Lioness Rampant, the last book in the Alanna series by Tamora Pierce. I started reading Influence a couple of nights ago, only to realize it was absolutely nothing like what I thought it would be – you know, a memoir. It’s actually a coffee table book style collection of interviews with 20 famous-ish people who have “influenced” the Olsen twins. I really didn’t care for it at all and had no interest in the 20 people they interviewed so I abandoned it. I hope they do a real memoir someday, although I guess I’d expect that kind of book to come much later in their lives, which is fine.

I am creating: Nothing at the moment – I did take some pictures for my review of the Amazon Kindle 2 and shot the video for this week’s In My Opinion video meme (click the link for this week’s questions if you want to play along), so that’s sort of creative… I guess.

Around the house: We’ve been cleaning up clutter mostly, it’s been nice to see a lot of old junk go but we have a lot more left to do!

One of my favorite things: We’ve been teaching MM to spell a bit. Still very early on in the process but it’s been really cute. We got a book from Frecklebox (to review for Mommas Review) that has his name splashed all over it and we’ve been loving using that to help him learn to spell his name and dude it works and he loves it!

A few plans for the rest of the week: That totally depends on when Dream Company gets back to us and what they say. If it’s a yes, we’ll be calling moving companies and packing, etc. If it’s a no, hubby has a couple companies lined up to apply to via recommendations from some friends. Oh and tv of course, because you know I run my life by the tv schedule.

A Picture Thought: Here’s a cute picture of MM eating dinner with one of his new favorite bedtime / all the time stuffed animals – a little stuffed Westie that follows him everywhere, even to the breakfast table apparently. Picture captured by daddy.

In My Opinion: April 22

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This week’s questions for the In My Opinion video meme are:

  1. One of mom’s traits I admired is/was …
  2. I remember getting into trouble with my parents on this occasion.
  3. Are you more of a rule keeper, or a rule breaker? Why?

And here is my video response:

Your turn.

Three Small Words

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This meme In Three Words is published on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but for this week at least I’m planning to answer all three at once, if only because Karen did. Respond to the pictures below using just three words.

1. The very first impression you had when you met


originally uploaded by katiebate.

My answer: “Good, he’s smart.”

2. What brings out the kid in you?


a frivolous moment, originally uploaded by jenny downing.

My answer: jumping in waves

3. If you could tell him one thing

obama31

My answer: Make us proud.

Your turn.

Monday Morning Meme: April 6th

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Monday Morning Meme at writefromkaren.com

This is a fun meme by one of my favorite bloggers, Karen @ Write From Karen – to play along, just answer the questions below…

1. How has the economic downturn affected your spending? Please share with us the lessons you’ve learned from this economic downturn. Tell us about one positive experience that has happened to you as a result of this economic disaster. Initially the bad economy wasn’t really effecting us at all – now it’s effecting us in spades – getting laid off does that to you I guess. We’ve had to cut back our spending, dramatically, in every area but the positive angle on this is that we’ve learned that there were many areas that we could easily cut back on. We’ll probably continue to save a lot of money on things like groceries after this, because we’ve seen how little we can spend and still eat well. The other positive part of this economic disaster, for us, has been a huge increase in quality family time – with both the three of us and our extended family – something I will miss a lot when things ‘get back to normal’ and Dan is working again.

2. What is your opinion on the death penalty? Let’s say the person is a serial killer and has admitted his/her guilt, and it is your job to sentence that person. Could you give that person the death penalty? Why or why not? I’m not sure if I agree with the death penalty or not, but I lean towards not. I just don’t think any one person has the right to decide who lives and who dies, even if the who in question has done so. I know I could never make that kind of decision.

3. List five things you want your children (or your nieces/nephews if you don’t have children) to know before they grow up. (1) That they are extraordinary and worthy of simple, pure love – they don’t need to sell themselves short, date people just to not be alone, or give parts of themselves away so that their romantic partners will “stay” – the right people stay, regardless. (2) The importance of hard work – I want them to understand that to go far in life, and to be happy, you have to work for it – you have to put in your fair share and strive to do better where you can. (3) The ability to say no, when necessary – to not be a door mat and not spend too much of themselves trying to make other people happy – we can only do so much. (4) That I will love them unconditionally, no matter what they do and they can tell me anything. (5) Not to dwell to much on choices – life changes quickly and constantly, no matter how much you plan for – no use dwelling on every choice you make, there will always be another choice waiting for you afterwards.

4. You are given the power to kill people simply by thinking of their deaths and twice repeating the word “goodbye.” People would die a natural death and no one would suspect you. Are there any situations in which you would use this power? No.

What’s The Most Beautiful Place You’ve Ever Seen?

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One of the questions I answered in this week’s In My Opinion was “What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?” My answer was Wurzburg, Germany and I mentioned having pictures, but I think, did a terrible job describing Germany to you and how beautiful Wurzburg truly is so I went digging through my albums, played around in Picasa and made a collage of some of the better shots I took in Wurzburg for your viewing pleasure. I think it gives you a quick impression of what I think of when I think of Wurzburg.

What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen? Post some pictures on your blog – or better yet – do that AND talk about it on video – it’s not too late to participate in Karen’s video meme.

In My Opinion: April 1

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This week’s questions for the In My Opinion Video Meme hosted by Write From Karen are:

1. Should the individual or society be of primary importance?

2. What’s the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?

3. If you could spend tomorrow doing anything you desired, what would you do?

Here’s my video response:

more about “In My Opinion: April 1“, posted with vodpod

In my response, I mention pictures I took in Wurzburg, Germany – you can view those here.

Want to play? The questions for next week are:

  1. How many siblings do you have? What is your birth order? Do you agree with the birth order characteristics? Why, or why not?
  2. What’s the tastiest meal that you can cook? Do you like to cook? Tell us about your cooking experiences.
  3. Has anything bad ever happened to you that turned out to be for the best? Has anything good ever happened to that turned out to be a bad thing in the end? Tell us about it.

If you played along this week, or plan to, make sure you link up your post @ Write From Karen!

In My Opinion: March 11th on Vimeo

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In My Opinion Video Meme @ Write From Karen

more about “In My Opinion: March 11th on Vimeo“, posted with vodpod

This week’s In My Opinion video meme asked you to answer one or all of the following questions:

  1. If you had to spend one year living alone in a remote cabin, what would you spend your time doing?
  2. When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
  3. What’s your favorite music group/video? Now tell us why it’s your favorite?

Did you play along? Don’t forget to Link Up at Write From Karen!

Weekend Diversions: Kid-Safe YouTube, Mad Eyeballing Geography Skillz & Harlequin Mad-Libs

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I’ve got three fun goodies for you for this week’s Weekend Diversions, a little bit of everything per usual. The first is a website called Kideo Player! which plays only kid-friendly videos that might be found on YouTube. You can watch old school Sesame Street clips, goodies from Noggin and a lot of other neat things, too. There’s no searching involved, just click over to the site and enjoy. You can use your spacebar to skip to the next video. My son had a great time invading my interent time with me while watching the Kideo Player. Thanks to GoodyBlog for mentioning this yesterday!

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Now if your brain is feeling kind of squishy and infantile after that video diversion, you can head over to The Eyeballing Game and test your ability to see and make shapes, angles and lines. I became quickly infatuated with this game over the course of the week, finally getting a high score of 3.94 (lower is better) before forcing myself  to walk away. Just typing this makes me want to scoot over and beat my husbands score of something absurd like 2. Think you can beat my high score? Be sure to comment and let me know if you do!

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And now for a love story…

Typical. It takes wealthy tycoon dh eight years to pull himself away from his terribly important career in Paris, the City of Lights and come home for a divorce. And then he doesn’t even know who she is! Sure, Jen was a feisty schoolgirl when dh rescued her from a nasty family situation. But that’s no excuse for the man not to recognize his own wife.

And now the gorgeous wealthy tycoon thinks he’s going to hightail it with his final decree in hand. Uh-uh. Hopelessly Romantic Jen isn’t letting him off quite so easily. Not when she—now an award-winning writer—is finding him so irresistible.

Irresistible enough to get him to tie the knot again?

I “wrote” this story with the help of Harlequin‘s fun new Make Your Own Romance Story a pretty basic mad-lib deal with pretty hilarious results. Thanks to Karen @ Write From Karen for blogging about this yesterday. Her story was pretty terrific, too – you should go read it before making your own, which you will of course have to tell me all about!

Honest To Blog?

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I’ve been waiting to use that line ever since first seeing the movie Juno. The loverly Jen @ Our Daily Big Top has finally given me the chance to fulfill that goal – because she awarded me with the Honest Award yesterday! How great is she?

So here are the award’s rules:

  • Write a post about the award, link back to the person who gave you the award.
  • Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
  • Add links to those blogs on your blog.
  • Leave a message for the nominees on their blogs.
  • Name 10 honest random things about yourself.

Okay so honestly…

  1. I am terrified of the dentist – I know that normal healthy people make it a habit of seeing a dentist regularly, but they unnerve me and I’ve had such awful dental experiences, some of which I am still convinced were more the dentist’s fault than my own, that I now avoid going as long as possible. Yet I plan to somehow avoid passing that paranoia onto my own son, don’t ask me how…
  2. I am not much of a housekeeper. I try to keep things modestly clean, but to be honest, I hate vacuuming, mopping, cleaning the bathroom – all the usual things – the only chores I seem to be good at doing regularly are doing the dishes, the laundry and general tidying up. Anything involving a deep scrub and I probably haven’t done it recently.
  3. I actually make dh clean our bathroom, because he was raised by a germophobe and I know he’ll do it right the first time.
  4. I don’t know how to whistle, roller skate, use a yo-yo, and several other things that most kids learn as, well, kids.
  5. I’m a terrible swimmer – and will not go into water where my feet can’t touch the bottom.
  6. I have probably kissed more boys than you. Sorry, but it’s true. I’d be really surprised if it wasn’t. I was absolutely boy-crazy growing up and infatuated with finding love, so I looked everywhere and considered pretty much every guy I knew my potential perfect mate – in retrospect, I kind of wish I’d dated less looking back now.
  7. Speaking of being boy-crazy, I was a huge teenie bopper as a tween / teen – my favorite all-time band for YEARS longer than I care to admit was the Backstreet Boys and I was pretty obsessed.
  8. I hate reading the news. That’s kind of bad because not too long ago I was the News Editor of my school paper and went on to become the Managing Editor and even Editor-in-Chief for awhile (I was a terrible EIC which surprised me, but I was more than happy to go back to Managing Editor after finding out). I can tell you it is really hard reading all those articles when they are slightly completely boring to you.
  9. I spend way too much time online – sometimes I know I should be doing something else, like playing with my kid, but it can be really, really hard to tear yourself away some days. You guys are addicting!
  10. I am just as terrified of this pregnancy as I am excited – I think maybe I’ve read too many bloggers’ experiences now and the fear of miscarriages or any other kind of complication are all too real. I was literally holding my breath waiting to hear the baby’s heart beat for the first time and I know I’ll be just as nervous at the ultrasound today.

Phew – that was actually kind of hard – I hope you guys all still like me after that! Well I know seven of you will HAVE to like me, because I’m passing this award onto:

Thank You: and Happy Veterans Day

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Thanks to Karen for posting this cute comic first!

It’s Veterans Day! Do you have a special veteran to thank today? Or any family or friends serving our country RIGHT NOW? My family is blessed with many former and current soldiers, from the Marines, Army, Navy & Air Force and I have a very, very good friend serving right now in the Army. I’m quite sure none of them will be reading this, but I want to say thank you anyway. It is your hard work, bravery and dedication that allows us to enjoy all of our freedoms.

Be sure to thank those brave men and women in your life today. You can send a card to a deployed soldier, contact the Red Cross to send care packages, put a yellow ribbon on your car, or give them a call or visit in person and just say, “Thank you.”

Here’s a great quote from Father Dennis Edward O’Brien, USMC (thanks to MOMformation for posting this):

It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press.

It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech.

It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate.

It is the soldier, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.

It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves under the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.