Tuesday, June 9, 2009

oh my those are huge!!

Just rummaging through the photos from when we went to the lazy 5 ranch on Mothers Day and I ran across this one....

I'm never in pictures, because I'm usually the person taking them, so when the hubs decided to take some pics of me and the boys it didn't turn as well as planned.... I should post the entire set of photos that he took during the time at this fence, but this one is just funny to me.... one kid is really worried about the gigantic set of horns coming up after us, the other kid is in some other world, and me - I look like I have a cow horn in my head and of course, I'm in NO way prepared for a photo!!! These are the best kinds of memories for me, absolutely random moments with the kids.


Sure was a big set of horns on that one...

Monday, June 8, 2009

random tuesday thoughts - dont pee in your pants


Head over to The UnMom for more quality randomness for your day....
  • We are headed out this morning to watch the big guy graduate from 5th grade. I cant believe it.... man he's growing up fast!

  • Thursday - we're off to the beach... and that couldn't be soon enough. I need to be at the beach. It soothes my soul, I heart the ocean.

  • Our 10yo wondered about being a Nascar driver as a career, in lieu of going to 4-8+ years of college, and when I told him that sometime they pee (and other stuff) in their suits because of extremely long races w/o bathroom breaks, he sortof gave up the dream.

  • Along those same lines, I recently added a word to my vocabulary. Speeze. Sneeze + Pee. Definition is only understood by those moms who've held their bladder so long that when they sneeze the get a subtle reminder that they should realy go pee.......

  • I made a summer activity chart so that we can have SOMETHING to look forward too, even if it's a neighborhood adventure. Most all of our outings, excursions will be free and we've joined two book programs for the kids and the oldest can't wait to get things going! There are ALOT of resources locally, and once I started looking for stuff to do - we came up with tons!! I work from home, so our goal is to have one 'together' activity per day 3-4 days a week, then one just 'chill' day each week. We're fortunate to have 2 really fun pools in our neighborhood that we have access too because we're members of a scandel HOA. One even has a splash pad!

  • Why does Wendy's keep messing around with the Frosty?? First Vanilla, and now Coffee Toffee Twisted Frosty and the Cino-Frosty. You don't mess with the Frosty, it's a classic item..... I haven't had one in forever, and even the Jr. Frosty is 4 weight watchers points, but still - don't mess with a good thing!!

  • My 3yo is talking in his sleep. He's saying "just one more time". Usually he says that to get his way before going to bed, about reading a book, or playing a song, etc., so it's funny to me that he's saying it in his sleep...

That's all I have for RTT. I also posted some randomness about our lives recently on my other blog HERE.

Sunday, June 7, 2009

5 minutes or less, absolutely random.

I've been bad at blogging lately, been under the weather a bit and in general -just not into it. So I thought I'd update my family/friends/blogland in 5 min or less on what's been going on in our little part of the universe.
  • We're headed to the beach next week!! YAY!! We are excited about a 4 day getaway!!
  • Big E is almost done with 5th grade!! Go big E!!! He passed his EOG's and did an excellent job on the scoring!
  • Little J still needs to work on saying holy crap... ALL of that is MY fault. I'm so bad...
  • Today we saw a sign for a "beef jerky outlet" near a large mall in our area.. what's that about?? Is there really a place where you shop for beef jerky in mass supply like that??
  • I officially cooked ZERO meals this weekend, and I'm not feeling any guilt. I've been sick, and darn it - I'm just glad to have antibiotics and hearing back in one ear. I did, however, make one dandy oreo pie with sugar free oreos and mini pie crusts... the pie is as guilt free as a pie can possibly get with chocolate, and of course using moderation in portions is a must with goodies like this.... HERE is the recipe.
  • Little J is in love with the apples that were delivered by our local organic veg/fruit delivery service.... he's on his SECOND one tonight right now!!
  • Did I mention we're going to the beach? The beach feels like home to me, because I grew up visiting the beach almost every other weekend EVERY summer until 1987 when we moved closer to the foothills in our state. We lived close enough that my mom would take us as often as possible. You'd never know that now, because I'm so white that I could blind you with the whiteness...either way - it's peaceful and feels like home in my soul to be beside the crashing waves and the warm sand. Hopefully we'll go back in August for my birthday as usual.
  • OMG - 4 more payments on my car!!!YIPEEEEEE

Saturday, June 6, 2009

frugalness: TGIFridays BOGO coupon


Go HERE to get your BOGO coupon for June from TGIFridays!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Wordless Wednesday - Rivals

Quite and interesting moment... with the Time Warner Cable guy AND the Direct TV guy.... Read all about it HERE.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

a haircut makes him look so much older


frugalness: it's back, another HUGE discount on Flip Ultra

I've blogged about this 2 x's now, and this deal has returned... this time saving a whopping 100.00 on this Flip Video Ultra Series Camcorder, 30-Minutes (White). BRAND NEW for $49.99!! That's a super huge savings!! The vender selling this product at this reduced price shows only 14 available at the time of my post...this sale won't last long!!
  • Simple to use, pocket-sized camcorder with one-touch recording and digital zoom

  • Holds 30 minutes of full VGA-quality video on 1GB of built-in memory; no tapes or additional memory cards required

  • Convenient USB arm plugs directly into your computer for easy viewing and sharing

  • Built-in software lets you easily e-mail videos, upload to YouTube and AOL, and capture still photos from video

  • Watch videos instantly on TV with included cable

TWC - WTH were you thinking???


I'm going to take a moment and do what my husband may say I do best at times, and rant. So instead of my typical fluff posting of recent months, I'm going to make this one all about complaining and ranting.... if that bugs you - then I guess, well, what are you doing still reading???

Gather round' kids, it's storytime in Sarahland... actually I'm going to give the cliffnotes version.

We opted out of TWC for our cable provider after 12 long years of service with them, so last Saturday we took the cable box back and made sure that our internet service would stay the same, because it's the only really decent internet provider in the area. SO, I get my receipt showing canceled cable service and remaining internet service and we're on our way. We already had Direct TV installed several weeks ago and were having problems with a few channels so we had a service appt. set for Thursday of last week to get that corrected, so fast forward to Thursday...

Thursday morning after we got home from taking big E to school, I decided to stick little J in the bath because he was really stuffy and a bath always seems to help open his airways up a bit when he's stuffy. While he was playing in the bath DTV called me to ask if they could come to the house early because of schedule changes on their end and I asked them to give me 15 min to get the kid out of the bath, but otherwise, sure. So I get little J out of the bath and get downstairs to see a Time Warner Cable van in my driveway (yes, NOT Direct TV)?? I was puzzled, so I stepped outside and asked the total arsehole gentleman what he was there for, and he said to me in a condescending voice "ma'am, you DID change your services" and I replied, "right, but no one notified me that you'd be here today and I didn't receive a courtesy call, which has always been the case in the past 12 years with you guys so I hope you can understand why I am puzzled that you're here." (needed the jerk to know I wasn't an idiot to their practices in general) He again replied "ma'am (as if I'm 12) I'm here to downgrade your services, ok?" I'm a bit annoyed because he's pulling the waffle house "ok sweetie" tone with me that I loathe and I decided to leave it alone, I said "Ok, please verify on your work orders that our internet service is to remain the same" he said AGAIN with the "you idiot" tone "yes, you're downgrading your CABLE because you opted out of CABLE ma'am, not internet, your internet will not be interrupted because that's an entirely different line".... I said "great!! thanks, and have a great day!!" and walked in the house....

5 minutes later, when he was leaving my driveway - my internet was DOWN. So I called TWC, got the run around for several minutes then finally they called him over dispatch after I told them that this seemed almost intentional and I hear him say "oh, I thought I had disconnected the right one but I wasn't sure." RIGHT - wasn't sure my rear end. So they tell me he's headed back to our house and after his tone and attitude w/ me I asked them that he not even come to the door this time, just do what he needs to do outside and leave. I was furious!

Direct TV arrives during my phone call, and he's amused, he also tells me that HE could reconnect it for me at the outside box but he'd just let TWC do their thing.... SO, TWC arrives shortly after DTV does, and that was interesting. The TWC guy is in the yard for a while and I tell the DTV guy who's in my house that I need to go stick the kid in the bed for his nap and I'll be back in 2 minutes, I walk back down my stairs and guess who let himself in (without knocking) the TWC guy!! I asked the DTV guy if HE let him in and he said "NO MA'AM, I'd get fired for that!!"... so this guy let himself into my house!!!! Not only that, he didn't even speak to me, just stood there staring at me while he put his shoe covers on. I finally said "do you need to ck my modem or something?" he nodded yes, and I pointed him to it. He was upstairs for 15 min, then walked out of the house, then WALKED BACK IN without knocking (each time before with TWC and with DTV, anytime they come or go they knock... courtesy? Anyway, the last time he walked in, he came into the kitchen, said "its up" and then walked off.... nothing else. No apology, no have a good day - nothing.

The Direct TV guys had to pick their jaws up off of the ground and couldn't believe how the man treated me. All I can say is WOW. Daniel with Time Warner Cable, WOW. You have to know that I fully understand that people have bad days, people make mistakes, it happens - but letting yourself into someones home is not appropriate.... knock first dude.

So I want to know - TWC, what the HE%# kind of service is that after spending TONS on cable and internet for the past 12 years???? We're debating on dropping internet and going with a different provider, the only problem with that is I've had the same email address for a VERY long time, and so has my hubs. We both depend on that email address for our income to a degree, because we both do alot of work from home.... argh - I'm frustrated...... Took a photo of the two vans in my driveway because it was amusing at one point or another - took it with the crappy camera because I didn't want to be obvious and walk out to the yard and take a good one with the good camera. I haven't handled this with the company yet - but I plan to - this week, somehow.

Random Tuesday Thoughts - 5 min or less version


I haven't been much in blogland in the past week or so and I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. Hop over to The UnMom for lots of random thoughts from random people about random things....
  • First and foremost, let me say that the Burger King commercials are getting more and more funny in a creepy kind of way. The King has a certain potential stalker characteristic.... or is it just me??

  • Last week was full of random insanity, like at one point I had a confrontation with a cable guy... he let himself in my house w/o asking.... wow. Yes, I'll blog about that separately sometime later today at my OTHER blog, so check back for those silly details if you're interested, and look out for my wordless Wednesday on that one....

  • There's 9 more days and then I'm headed to the beach, we're going on a whim. I really need to get away for a few days!! The whole family is super excited!

  • I'm a little frustrated about the lawn guy, we hired a lawn guy 4 years ago really because my husband had major heart surgery and during recovery we just got lazy and didn't do it ourselves... our yard is the side of the average sidewalk (sarcasm) really it's small maybe 1/4 acre and the cost of paying someone to mow it each 2 weeks is not extreme. The drought has almost guaranteed me frugality on that one.... anyway - so the OLD lawn guy broke his leg and we found a NEW lawn guy who's priced just the same (dirt cheap really) and now he's AWOL!! Called him several times, so I think I'm about to order one of THESE since it's eco friendly and we have a super small yard anyway. We can barely get dirt to grow around here so our grass isn't all fluffy and pretty like I'd like it to be.

  • To further my minimal yard work, we're also getting a play set for the back yard, and going to drop lots of mulch or shavings around it with a border - that'll also cover up those baldspots in the yard and I will be a little less ashamed of our rocky, red clay and weedy back yard. :-(

  • Well people, I'm off to write a letter to that cable company, one that I can read over the phone when I call so that I'm as tactful as possible.... AND I have to call that lawn guy AGAIN. I'm betting I'll have a nastygram in my mailbox today from the HOA! Thanks for stopping by to read my short random Tuesday bit!

Monday, June 1, 2009

mommy's timeout

I took a mommy timeout for a few days... will be back in blogland this week!!

Needed to clear my head.....

Quite literally - been trying to shake off this bug I caught with the family, and today it kicked my butt officially. I have had a sinus issue going on since February and just been soooo stubborn and trying to use natural remedies all I can. Since February my right ear has not been at it's full potential, and as of yesterday I hear nothing out of it from the sinus pressure (hoping that's all it is)...

Yes, that's right I said it, I'm not super human afterall..... mommy's get sick too.... shhhhh.... don't tell anyone. I'm headed out to the doctor to grab a prescription for a new superwoman cape!