Searching for Rainbows After the Storm

(Update: I did a little research tonight to find out that lightning appearing in the rainbow was rare indeed! Check out this article and pictures of it during an Arkansas storm last year! You'll be amazed!)




Are you the type of person who runs outside after a storm to check for rainbows because you see the sun shining? I think that this is a very positive and hopeful action. Maybe I'm not such a "seeing the glass half empty" type person after all. :) Last week, I searched for this rainbow after a thunder storm. I spotted it and then saw something that I have never seen before.... a bolt of lightning within the rainbow! It was a bright orange zig-zagging lightning bolt. I didn't catch THAT moment on camera, but I tried to get the rainbow after that happened. The picture doesn't do it justice.


PS... Hey you! I've been updating my Southern Blog, too.

Job Woes

I really can't say much about this here, but I am so upset about some things at my job that I can barely even talk to my supervisor. His communication skills stink, so my evaluation had a few negative surprises. I feel as if I went to change a baby's diaper that smelled OK, but to my surprise there's a nasty poo everywhere and I have run out of baby wipes. The pissy thing about this is that our evaluations aren't supposed to be nasty surprises. We're supposed to meet with our supervisor several times during the year for "coaching" sessions to help us "improve". But this isn't the only sour point in my work life right now. There's so much more that I can't talk about because it has me very upset. I feel physically sick about this. I feel stuck, too, because I want to keep my job because of my wonderful schedule that allows me to be with my kids so that they don't have to be in childcare. You know... I really feel that I need to take steps to prepare myself for another type of work. Also, I might want the change once the kids are in school in a couple of years. I just told Mark that I don't want to be "up shit creek without a paddle". I surely need to find some more confidence our there somewhere. :) Please, just say a little prayer for me, & thanks for letting me vent.

The Buzz Cut Challenge

Mommy gave me a buzz cut today. Now I look a lot like one of these guys. Who do you think most closely resembles me? Harrison Ford in Blade Runner, Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard or Daniel Craig in Casino Royale?

A. B. C.

New Post on My Southern Blog!

I was motivated to start writing again on my other blog "Still South of the Mason Dixon Line"! If you have a moment, please stop by to read about my favorite Southern celebrity from Mississippi. Guess who! Here's another hint...a picture of his first guitar...

Messy Me

Are you the type of person that doesn't notice clutter until one more thing added to the pile causes an avalanche? Or perhaps you trip over it and hurt yourself before you realize that your floor is covered in junk? Unfortunately, this is me. With the war on depression going on in my head, I just feel lucky to get through a day taking care of the kids. That's my priority, and they have been extremely energetic and busy. Sometimes I feel very emotionally drained after a typical crazy day.

What is a typical crazy day, you ask? Well, one where MG bites MB's finger on purpose when he offers her a breakfast cheerio. Then we go grocery shopping & she lies down in the floor pitching a tantrum, and MB climbs out of the cart and refuses to stay in it on the way to the car. Try pushing a cart and carrying a big wiggly 1 year old under your arm while pulling a 3 year old along. By the time I get home I need a nap, but I try to get the kids to nap. One usually sleeps while the other doesn't. I do try to rest for at least 30 minutes at this time. Don't worry, if I accidentally fall asleep, there's always someone smacking me in the head with a ball or other such toy to wake me up. Next, I have to get dinner ready. Sometimes I have time to feed the kids before my hubby gets home from work. Sometimes there's 5 minutes left where I'm frantically trying to wash the dishes or pick up the massive explosion of toys at the last minute. There's always lots left undone when he takes over taking care of the kids while I go to work. :(

I guess I'm making excuses for being an unorganized & messy procrastinator. Sadly, the "lots left undone" part wouldn't bother me that much because clutter doesn't really get to me. It bothers my hubby, though. He is the clean, organized person. I'm a cluttery, let the kids have a free-for-all kind of person. It's OK to be a little messy, I guess, but not to the point of it being dangerous. Seriously, I'm always tripping over toys and hurting myself before I know it's needing to be picked up. Then I don't notice the stack of books and papers on my bureau until it all comes tumbling down when a fat cat lands on top of it in the middle of the night.

OK, after all that's said, I feel like a lazy person. But you know what? I was just like this when I was a kid! I wouldn't clean my room until a friend was coming over, & I would frantically stuff all the junk under my bed! I never got rid of things even if they were broken, so I guess that I'm a pack rat. I'm depressed thinking about this. I should be out there cleaning now instead of doing this. Sometimes I'm afraid that anything that I do would not be enough. There are days when I get to some of those cleaning chores, but the undone things are still too many undone things. I'm very sad about this. Maybe if I didn't feel so tired all the time and had more energy, maybe I would be more motivated to clean. I don't know.

No More Poopy Diapers, Please!

Changing diapers hasn't ever grossed me out too much. After almost 3 and 1/2 years of it, you'd think I'd be immune to the gross diaper. Today I barfed on MG's floor by accident, because changing her diaper really made me sick. It happened out of the blue in the middle of changing her BM diaper. (Yeah, she's still resisting that part of potty-training) So I grossed her out, too. She was very upset with me and kept asking why I did that. I explained that changing her diaper made me sick because it (the poop) definitely was one that belonged in the potty. Then I explained how exciting and wonderful it is to flush it away down the toilet as it goes bye bye into a place where we don't see it or smell it. Lovely, huh? Maybe this will make a little dent in the potty training palooza. I don't know... we'll see.

Apple Picking Time

Yesterday I took the kids on a wagon ride, and we picked apples. I just had to take pictures!

Trying to Be Good!

I've been trying to make healthy changes in our eating habits. The first thing I did was look through several cooking books and magazines and pick out healthy, delicious, easy-looking recipes. Then I made a list and bought all the ingredients for three different meals. This is new to me since I'm famous for feeding my family chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas. I love to cook, but it's been difficult organizing things and convincing myself that I can make time to do it.

Now I really understand why people enjoy using the Super Suppers type of business where you can go to prepare and put together meals for the whole week in their kitchen. It's not easy to make home cooked meals every day of the week like our mothers and grandmothers used to do. I feel that it really is hard to have time for it since I work part-time and take care of the kids. I have to try and get dinner ready before my work shift starts at 5pm on the dot.

My first meal yesterday was a slow cooker deal. It was very easy! Today I tried something harder that ended up being too tedious and difficult with two wild toddlers wrecking the house while I played chef. I'm definitely going to pick the easiest recipes that I can find from now on! Here's our menu for the week. Hopefully I'll improve and may even get proud enough to post pictures of my special home cooked meals on my blog! Tomorrow I'm cheating and making the soup from a really good mix.

This week's menu-

Tue. Herbed chicken and vegetables over rice

Wed. Creamed chicken with muffins

Thu. Cream of broccoli soup with steamed garlic carrots

Fri. Chicken and Couscous Supper

Sat. Miniature veggie pizzas

Sun. You're cooking on Sunday, Metal Mark! :)

I'm ashamed to tell you this, but I really was stressed out trying to cook my homemade meal today. The kids were literally pulling out bureau drawers and dumping the contents all over the floor just for fun. I cussed like a sailor and then later when things calmed down, I told MG that I was very sorry for saying those things. She said and I quote "Try to be good, Mommy. Say shucks." Then she said "I love you." Maybe things will get easier and less stressful as I get used to doing this. It really helps to plan out the weekday meals in advance over the weekend. I really want my family to be eating healthier instead of the nasty processed foods or fast food!

You Bloghead!

Now I'm beginning to wonder if I should have gave in to Mark and named her Lucy instead of ...Metal Girl!

Sometimes when MG gets angry, she has started calling us names! Fortunately, it hasn't been anything really bad, but I have to suppress the urge to chuckle. She has resorted to borrowing expressions from her cartoons. Yesterday she got mad about something and said "You Blockhead, Mommy!" I've also been called a "Man Cub" which is an expression from The Jungle Book. I try not to laugh about it, because I don't want her calling MB or anyone else names even if they are hilarious. And she really is upset when she uses the words. I'll have to teach her to say "Bloghead" or "Metalhead" when she's mad at Mark. Hey, maybe I'll start calling him that when I get mad!

On a more blah note...it's been really up and down with my depressed moods. I'm OK until something upsetting happens. Like yesterday, I did something ignorant that set my whole day off wrong. Instead of saving my evaluation onto my flash drive, I saved it onto an old floppy disk. When I put the disk back into the computer, it blew up! Not literally, but the disk died. I had to do my whole evaluation over again! I was extremely sad because I hate doing the self evaluation anyway. Not fun, but I learned my lesson the hard way. Please, learn your lesson from me. Don't be a blockhead. ;)

Being Shy is Not a Sin

Questions for you...

• Are you shy, or do you have a child who is shy?
• What have been some of your experiences with being shy? or What have been some of your difficulties communicating with a shy friend?
• Pick a cartoon character that most closely portrays your personality. (I picked Bashful from Snow White)

Are you shy, or do you have a child who is shy? The reason I ask this is that I have begun to realize that often shyness is portrayed in a negative light, and sometimes shy children are picked on by peers and even by teachers to the point of cruelty in school. Sometimes they're just overlooked or ignored. I have often encountered people who tell me that shyness is a mental problem or a phobia. When I did a Google search, most of the sites that came up were very negative and once again viewed shyness as a bad thing.

I was a very shy child. That in itself wasn't a huge issue, but it got worse when my dad died and I became extremely withdrawn with a low self esteem. I was definitely picked on cruelly in school. It's something that I don't want my children to go through. If you're not encouraged by teachers to talk and are just put down for being who you are, you begin to believe that you have nothing important to say. Those things can further hurt your self esteem.

I'm all for embracing diversity, but I think that diversity should include accepting people for who they are. That includes shy people. Being shy is not bad, it is not a disease and it is not a phobia. If it leads to a person being depressed or to have a low self esteem, I think that it's not caused by the shyness itself. It is caused by other factors including how that person is treated by others.

The thing that got me on this topic is witnessing a quiet adult that I know being passed over for many opportunities just because of the quietness. This person isn't even really terribly shy, just quieter than some people. This person is smart and thinks things through before he opens his mouth. It angers me that even being a little shy or quiet is causing him to be judged in a negative light by one or two important people. It's far worse than I can describe it, but I can't put all the details here. It makes me mad because the outward and public speaking activities of this person far outweigh the times of quietness.

This has happened to me also all of my life. Some people treat me as if I have nothing in my brain since I don't say much. I'll never forget the kid at my church who told me that he knew why I didn't have a boyfriend. It was because I had no personality! It really hurt my feelings. I guess he thought that I didn't have those either.

Well, I did find one site that is helpful concerning shyness. I didn't agree with everything, but it discusses shy celebrities. It also talks about ways to overcome some aspects of shyness so that it doesn't hold you back in your job or in other things that you want to accomplish. I feel better talking about this. I just wish that people would realize that it takes all kinds of people and personalities to make the world an interesting place.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Here is that site that I mentioned.

http://www.shakeyourshyness.com/

Cheesy Loves Me

Each evening, I normally sing a few lullabies and songs to get MB to go to sleep. I usually let him sit on the sofa with me with his blankets while I do this. I started singing "Jesus Loves Me" and he excitedly rolled off the couch and hit the floor running. He ran all the way into the kitchen and yelled "Cheesy! Cheesy! Cheesy!" while pointing up to the cabinet where we keep the Cheetos. It's funny that he thought that I was singing about cheesies.

Speaking of eating cheesies late at night...I'm learning to take baby steps as I try to lose weight. Today I asked myself what I really want and what my minimum goal is. My minimum goal is to tighten up the floppy belly a little and lose ten pounds by October 1. I think that the kind of person I am, I have to concentrate on a small goal like that. I basically want to look and feel better before our trip to visit my family down South in October. I really got a good start on exercising today. I got up early and went walking. It really made me feel good.

The only thing that went wrong today is that I forgot to eat dinner. Sometimes it is hard to remember that when I'm trying to get the kids to eat & especially if they are being stinkers. Since I'm exercising more & working on the depression issue, it is a huge downer if I don't eat right. I really felt terrible & evil by the time Mark got home tonight. Thank goodness he knows what to do. He got the kids ready for bed and kind of took over with them. And now I get to post for the first time in days. I feel more sane after getting to do that. :)

We had a good time on our trip to see the trains in Strasburg, PA. It was a little harder keeping up with two very energetic toddlers, but they both were able to enjoy it more.

It's such a beautiful relaxing place. We stayed at our favorite Motel... "The Red Caboose". The neat thing about it is that the train track and trains go right by and you can watch from the front porch! Your room is a real caboose that's been refurbished. If you visit Mark's blog, there's an additinal picture. :)

We're Back

Hello. We're back from our little trip to the Strasburg Railroad. It was fun despite the bit of extra trouble I had with being depressed. Blah to that! I'll probably feel better tomorrow & will post some fun pictures of the trip. I've been reading the new Harry Potter book & like it so far. I had to take a quick peek at the end, though, because I didn't really want to read it if Harry Potter met his demise. Silly, I know, but it would have made me sad!

July 4th at the Zoo

I meant to post this a couple of weeks ago. Here are a couple of pictures from our July 4th outing. We visited our favorite zoo. I really love going to this particular zoo. It's so shady and wooded and just a beautiful, relaxing place. You get to be closer to the animals there than at some of the bigger zoos. MG's favorite animals are the lizards! What's your favorite zoo animal? And when was the last time you visited the zoo?

Being Creative

Hello! I thought that I'd add a few fun things to my blog. It cheered me up to do something fun. Also, look at these funny pictures of Tansy! I will have to keep them around for a few laughs! Have a great weekend!

Fatness is in the Eye of the Beholder

I became friends with Yoko from Japan and Betty from Kenya during my first year in college. Yoko told me that her family really teased her when she went back home for a visit. They thought that she'd gotten fat during her first year in the US. She wasn't overweight! She looked so tiny to me! With Betty's family, it was an opposite reaction. They were horrified that she had LOST weight and thought that she looked too thin! So, who is fat?
I know the answer. It's me. I am fat! Sometimes I see other mothers with kids and they are so thin! How did they get so tiny after having two and sometimes three kids? How did it happen? Were they ever chubby? Why am I having such trouble losing weight? Maybe they had to struggle and diet just like me. Maybe it's easier for some people to lose weight than others just depending on their body type.

Well, I had been trying to cut back on my eating and trying to exercise more,but it wasn't good enough. I have been stuck at the same weight for several weeks. Today I decided that I have to start doing something more drastic. I started using slimfast. I thought...hey, this isn't so bad. I had a slimfast shake and a spoon of peanut butter for breakfast. Later I had a celery stalk for a snack. For lunch, I had the shake and a baked potato. I started cooking dinner and felt so extra hungry and mean & kept making mistakes & fumbling things. Now I feel ok since I ate a normal dinner... lots of squash from the garden and two small slices of pizza! Hope that this gets easier!

Many hours later......update 4:11 AM
WIDE AWAKE! I'm mean and hungry, too. I drank a cup of coffee around 9PM...big mistake. Now all I can do is contemplate life and think too much, because I am not going to give in to the temptation to eat. I just now drank a glass of water, and that feels better. This isn't going to be easy is it?

The Totally Terrible Toddler Workout

I should lose weight if I repeat this workout every day, but I would probably lose my mind as well. Here's what you do....

Take two toddlers outside on a hot day and let them loose.

Chase two toddlers down the steep hill to the garden and make sure that you catch them before they take off down the road.

Lug two toddlers over your shoulders back up the steep hill.

Put two toddlers into the sandbox to play.

Now, the two toddlers will immediately hop out of the sandbox and go running down the hill again. You may repeat the whole workout four times or more or until you get smart and put the kids into the house instead of the sandbox.

*Be sure and drink plenty of water and take deep breaths so that you don't hyperventilate or pass out. Also, don't yell too loudly while all this is going on or you will get a sore throat.

Whew....I really need to get in shape so that I can keep up with these two!

It really bugs me that blogger is doing this malfunction that doesn't allow me to put in a title! Argh! I wanted to write about bad customer service because I got mad at a hair stylist who was extremely rude to me today. It really doesn't happen very often, so I always get caught off guard when it does. Since I always try to be nice to everyone, it really makes me upset when I get someone being a turd. I never tell a rude person off because I'm never ever expecting to be mistreated. So you guys get to hear about it. I think that if someone was being mean to my family, then my claws would come out, and I wouldn't just stand there and take it. Oh, well. My job involves customer service, and I know that I'm always nice to my customers no matter what mood I'm in personally. Do you guys have any bad customer service stories? I hope that Mark will write about his crazy experience with a cashier at Target. :)

Learning to Blog

For my job, I'm learning how to blog. Isn't that cool? We get to find ways that blogging is useful to our work & learn how to do all kinds of fun things. I'm going to work on adding some new things to this blog. I feel that I'm learning so much. Now I feel goofy because I have four blogs. This one, the Southern one, a secret poetry one and a work blog. I'll be adding some fun things soon! :)

Buggy Flowers

These are images from our Summer flower garden....