People really are reading!

I've had an odd experience the past few days. I went to the Mother of Twins sale this weekend, and then another Mother of Twins event last night. And a number of people came up and said they read my blog. Or made comments about things I've written about. It was weird. I look at my stats, and know I have far more readers than commentors. But for some reason, I always imagine all the non-commentors as strangers, not as people I know and see on a semi-regular basis. It was kind of neat, and exciting to see some actual proof (besides the rather impersonal sitemeter stats) that others are reading besides my regular (and totally awesome!) commentors.

So hi all you lurkers...strangers and non-strangers alike. Leave a comment if you'd like...I love to get comments! Or don't. But if I know you but don't know you're reading, don't be surprised if I tell you a story I've already recounted on my blog!

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Catching you up on past "stories": The Mother of Twins sale was fun, although I didn't sell quite as much as I expected. And the money I did earn won't make it into our trip fund, since as discussed last time, our TV broke. Money...it goes out a whole lot easier than it comes in, doesn't it? Anyway, to catch you up on that story, we did get a new TV on Sunday. It's very nice, and I did get to watch Heroes last night when I got home from my meeting, so I'm happy. It was a great episode, by the by. Unfortunately, we had an old-style entertainment center, with a square opening for a television. We would have had to get a very small LCD TV to fit in the slot. So we decided to go with a bigger TV. Which means we now need a new entertainment center. Well, for right now the TV is sitting on an old coffee table, which is going to have to be good enough for a while.

If it's not one thing, it's another, right? And our "another thing" is that our stove broke. Well, only one of the four burners, but I do really like to cook so having only three burners is an annoyance as I often need to have all four going at once. Well, on the plus side, I do hate our stove, but once again, this is going to have to wait a bit before it gets fixed or replaced. I'll have to plan carefully for now to only have three-burner meals!

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Replies to comments on Sale Time!:

LauraC: Ah, not to read! That is a cruel and unusual punishment! And that book blog sounds really interesting :)

Jongirl: Thanks, momma :)

Goddess in Progress: Yay, it was fun to see you at the sale. Total chaos...fun, right??

Jacki: You should try to see if your local Mother of Twins club has a sale. The prices are generally much better than a consignment store, and far better selection as well. At least at our sale! You don't have to have twins to shop the sale.

Jaime: Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your SITS day!

Mary Ellen: Can't you write into to your message board ahead of time to see if anyone is selling? I mean, someone must have monkey costumes!

Melodie: Thank you!

Replies to comments on Aaaahhhhh! Broken TV!:

Goddess in Progress: That is a terrible time for a TV to break. Thanks for the BJs tip!

Three Under Two: I did think of you and your TV turn off week. Ack! I unwillingly participated! It wasn't that bad to go a few days without the TV, but I do really like Heroes :)

Gio: We survived, with sanity mainly intact. Mostly because there's no good TV on the weekends anyway ;)

Nancy: Okay, now you made us research a Costco membership. Which I couldn't talk TK into. I was so hoping for another warehouse club membership as I've heard Costco is better than BJs. Ah well...

Ronnica: Yes, I'm glad we're not sports fans of the loss of the TV would have hit harder! I did some extra reading this weekend and have to get my first book review up over on your site!

Melodie: Yes, I did get a number of comments from my boys. They are very glad to have a new TV to watch Backyardigans on.

ntsc: Thank you for the link to the directions to make local hot dogs. Unfortunately, my source for local meat had a fire at their store so I'm not sure where to get local meat anymore (anyone have a source they want to share? I have to attend some of those Verrill Farm fundraisers as I loved their store and would travel a ridiculous distance to go there, probably defeating the purpose of eating local but oh well...). Good golly, I'm going to have to join a meat CSA, aren't I? Anyway, thank you for visiting, and for the helpful link!

Aaaahhhh! Broken TV!!!!

Oh my. Our television is broken. We only have one TV. I love TV. What am I ever going to do??? Wah!

I can't even play my wii! Oh me oh my!

Stupid technology, making me all reliant on you for my happiness. Well, it could be worse. It could be my computer. Of course, unlike TVs, we do have a few extra computers sitting around. You know, in case we had to supply computers for a small company. One of the perks (oddities?) of being married to a computer guy.

So how long do you think we'll last before we buy a new TV? I mean, Heroes and Terminator are both on Monday. So we don't have long...

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Shouldn't be playing around online as I still have much to do for the sale and have to leave in just a few short hours. So I'll reply to comments on my next post! Hope you're all doing well, and have working televisions...

Sale time!

This Saturday is the semiannual Mother of Twins clothing and equipment sale for my club. It's a fun event where a lot of the moms from our club get together and sell massive quantities of stuff. I love it for a number of reasons:

• I get great deals on clothes and toys for my boys
• I sell some of my stuff (and that money is going right into our "trip" fund so that one day, a few years from now, we'll be able to drive cross-country).
• I clean out my over-filled basement of some of the accumulated stuff from the past three years.
  
• I help raise money for my twins club. The sales are our major fundraiser (since the club takes a cut of all the sales), and help fund a lot of our activities, like an annual scholarship and a Halloween party. It's such a fun and easy way to help our club.
• I see a lot of my friends and acquaintances.

However, it's also a massive amount of work, requiring hours of tagging clothes, plus spending Friday evening and most of the day Saturday setting up, working the sale, and cleaning up. But I'm looking forward to it. Hey, if I'm lucky, I'll get to rearrange books and have another "best day ever". Wish me luck!

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I've got my first post up over at The Book Nook about my favorite authors. Pop by and let me know if you agree, disagree, who you would add to the list, who you would remove...I mean, everyone has opinions about great authors, right?

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Replies to comments on John Travolta's Bread:

Melodie: That would be kind of cool, if John Travolta bought all my bread. Of course, I'd probably be pretty annoyed at him then, so perhaps not.

Goddess in Progress: They still have other varieties of the small slice, just not the Oatmeal. So all hope is not lost :)

Dawn: Thank you for stopping by! Hope you enjoyed your SITS Day, and I'm so glad to meet another Heroes fan!

Jules: I have a bread maker, but it's one of my kitchen foes. I just can't seem to make bread that doesn't just fall and turn into a dense, small block of yuckiness. And I'm still kicking around the idea of another blog to do with you, although I think you should start your own personal blog. You know I'd be reading!!

Nancy: I guess that could be a future job opportunity for Travolta!

John Travola's Bread

I went to the grocery store with 4 items on my list. How many of those items did I come home with? Three. Yes, I had a list. Yes, I looked at the list. Yes, it was a ridiculously short list. Yes, I still managed to forget one of the items.

And what did I forget? Hot dog rolls. I have the hot dogs, but no rolls.

I have a good excuse, though. Well, maybe not *good* but it's an excuse. See, I had to buy sandwich bread, too. I'm extremely high maintenance about bread. Here's what I'm looking for: whole grain, no high fructose corn syrup, tastes good, and is nut-safe. That's harder to find than you'd think, but we finally decided on Pepperidge Farm Whole Grain Oatmeal Small Slice. The boys like it, I like it, TK likes it. You don't know how many loaves we tried until we found this.

I was standing in the bread aisles, searching futilely for my bread. Luckily, the guy who delivers the Pepperidge Farm bread happened to be there stocking the shelves. He asked if he could help me find something, and I explained what I was looking for.

"Oh, that's been disco'd," he told me.

Now, I'm guessing that doesn't mean the bread has been dressed in a white leisure suit and given choreography by Doriana Sanchez.

I'm bummed. Not only am I missing my hot dog rolls, but now I also have to search again for the perfect bread. Luckily, Pepperidge Farm still makes the same bread in a regular size slice. It's just inconvenient since the regular size bread makes too large a sandwich for the boys to eat all of, but too small a sandwich for them to only have half of. I know, my life is so fraught with difficulties.

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In other news, I'm going to be posting on another group blog, The Book Nook Club. It contains book reviews and has a monthly online book club component. I'm sure I'll let you all know when my first post is up!

Geez, I move my recipe stuff over to The Veggie Project, now my book stuff over to The Book Nook. All I need to do now is find a parenting/twin blog, and sci-fi TV blog, and a general craziness blog, and I'll be completely out of topics for my own blog. Although I guess I could continue to recount the conversations I have in supermarkets. That makes for some really engaging reading.

As an aside, I have my apple peach blueberry pie recipe up at The Veggie Project. And I made that pie for my last book group meeting. It all ties together, doesn't it?? Food, book groups, me just generally being crazy...

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Replies to comments on Okay, who's watching Heroes?:

Nancy: I'm so glad the boys were well enough to go to school today. It was fun talking to you for 15 seconds :)

Goddess In Progress: You're so right...his taste in TV shows is right up my alley! Thank you :)

LauraC: Glad you got a chance to watch it. Great episodes, right? Oh, I can't wait for this season to unfold!

Trish: Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed your SITS day!

Melodie: Yay! A Veronica Mars fan! I love you!

Mary Ellen: Scarecrow? Heresy! You've obviously never watched Babylon 5, or else his Scarecrow and Mrs. King days would be overwritten by his wonderful turn as Captain Sheridan!

Kimberly: I hope you caught it over on NBC. Wasn't it great??

Okay, who's watching Heroes??

Wow, how awesome was that last night? Although please tell me that other people were vaguely confused. I have faith in the writers, though, that it will eventually make sense. Probably after it comes out on DVD and I get to watch it two or three more times!

Anyway, I'm not going to do Heroes recaps, but I just had to give a brief WOW. And comment for a moment about how much I love whoever casts the show. I mean, really. They have the greatest cast. Who did they add this week? Francis Capra! I was totally in love with Francis Capra as Weevil in Veronica Mars (please, oh please, tell me there are other Veronica Mars fans here. I'll think you're the super coolest!)

And who else did they add to the cast of Heroes? Bruce Boxleitner! Yes, we're talking about John Sheridan, from one of the greatest sci-fi shows ever, Babylon 5. I mean, just yesterday my post title was a quote from Babylon 5 (yes, I regularly sprinkle my entries with random sci-fi references I highly doubt anyone would notice. I'm a total geek.) How awesome is the casting for Heroes?

Okay, Heroes love fest officially over. For now.

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Replies to comments on And So It Begins....:

Gio, LauraC, Nancy, KCRSummertime, Jules, and Melodie, thank you for giving me some guidance on the "when to send to school" issue. Hopefully they'll be well enough to go tomorrow, especially since I have a dentist appointment scheduled while they're in school!

Nancy: That's interesting that you found the first episode of Firefly slow. It actually wasn't shown by Fox until they canceled the series, so TK and I didn't see that episode until after we'd seen most of the rest of the series. Of course we were interested in the characters and backstory by then! Glad you stuck through it!

Ronnica: Thanks! I'll email you!

And so it begins...

As most of you know, I love winter. I love autumn. I love when the weather turns cold, and there's nothing better than a beautiful snowy day.

Having said that, I've had a shocking amount of fear about this winter. I've really not been looking forward to the end of summer. The problem is: germs. And my boys' ability to catch all of them. For the past two winters, we've had a tough run from about November until May, with all of us catching lots of colds, and croup, and ear infections, and pneumonia, and other yuckies. And that's with the boys home with me, without even having the exposure to a day care or other group of children germ factory.

But this year my boys are in preschool. Needless to say, I've been worrying about how bad the winter will be. The boys made it a week and a half, but today I didn't send them to school. On Friday afternoon, their noses started running, and it's continued all weekend. They definitely have colds, that they've since passed along to me. It's not a bad one. No fevers, not much coughing, pretty happy demeanor despite the cold. Just some stuffiness and lots of calls of "Mommy! I have BOOGERS!"

So while I'm glad this cold is mild, I'm still feeling a bit conflicted about this winter. I'm trying to hope for the best, and not borrow trouble, but I can't help but be worried about what this winter holds. I hope my fears prove groundless!

As an aside, for all you more experienced moms, when do you send your kids back to school? I kind of think my boys were probably okay to send today, even though their noses are a bit runny. But really, their noses could be runny for the next week or so, and with B-man's asthma, he'll probably develop a cough that hangs on for quite some time. So what's the rule on when to send kids back after a cold?

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Replies to comments on You're Not Going To Believe This!:
BrendaJean: I seem to have the same power to turn scratch tickets into losers!
Jongirl (or jongir, if you so desire): Yes, it is a weird tradition to exchange lottery tickets for Christmas. Fun, but you're still weird!

Replies to comments on Why do I need an Ipod?:
Wow, did I get mixed reviews! I guess it confirmed my belief that we don't *need* an ipod. Having said that, I can see how it would be fun, as long as I managed to load my music on it. Yesterday, N-man was in a mood where he kept asking for songs from different CDs, so we had to play DJ for him. And I was like, "Hey, we need an MP3 player with a kids' songlist!" Who knows what we'll ultimately decide. We just may decide to get one of for Christmas/Hanukkah! Thank you all for sharing your opinions!

Replies to comments on Arrr!:
Giovanna: How awesome are the Backyardigans? I must admit, *I'm* a little obsessed, too!
Bridget: I've never even heard of Lazy Town! I'll have to keep an eye out for it!
LauraC: Aw, cute pirates! And no worries about Firefly, although I still contend you're missing one of the best shows ever! Maybe you just want to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog online. Odder than Firefly, but no western themes. Well, except some brief singing cowboys. Very brief.
Juli Smith: Thanks for stopping by! I visited your blog, and it made me wish I was at all crafty. A pirate themed party must have been fun!

Arrr!

Ahoy, mateys! We be talkin' like pirates today. Now who'll be joinin' me, ye scurvy dogs? Arrr! (Yes, today is Talk Like A Pirate Day, for those land lubbers out there).



My boys love this episode of the Backyardigans and are always telling the that a pirate says "arrr". They also like to ask, "What do you do with a scurvy pirate?". The answer: make them walk the plank!

Why do I need an iPod player?

My book group teased me the other day. My husband and I don't have an ipod. We still live in the CD era. Hey, I figure I'm good since at least we're not still in the cassette era. Hey, I haven't played a cassette in, oh, 3 years since I traded in my last car.

I guess I'm always a bit behind the times in terms of my music formats.

But really, what do I need an iPod for? I probably wouldn't use it unless it was docked, and then how is that different from a CD player? Yes, I wouldn't have to change CDs. I guess that'd be nice, but doesn't seem necessary. And I couldn't play it in my car. And I'd have to move all my music from CDs to the iPod, which seems like it'd take a ridiculous amount of time.

So tell me, why do I need an ipod? Is there something awesome about it I haven't thought of? If I'm missing something, maybe we'll have it be our holiday present to ourselves this year (we can't get a wii every year :). I guess I would like it when I'm at the gym working out. Hmmm....

And please, tell me there are others of you out there, with no ipod...

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Random unrelated thought: N-man woke up this morning, pitter-patted into our bedroom, and announced, "It's bouncin' time!" Then he climbed up onto our bed and started jumping.

I wish I had that energy (or pleasant demeanor) so early in the morning!

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C0mment replies to You're Not Going to Believe This:

Suz: Don't worry, if I ever have proof that I'm psychic, I'll be yelling it from the rooftops!

Jenni: I really, really thought I was going to win. I'm dopey!

Nancy: You're going to love Firefly! I can hardly wait until you start watching.

Gio: I *know*! What a waste of $2!

Kimberly: That is too funny! Your dad must have been so surprised!

You're not going to believe this!

The other day I was walking out of the grocery store, and I passed the scratch-off lottery ticket machine. Just like every time I walk out of the grocery store. But this time, I felt pulled to it. I *had* to buy a lottery ticket.

I think I have to stop this story now and explain that I NEVER buy lottery tickets. Well, not quite never since my family has this weird tradition to give lottery tickets for Christmas. But aside from Christmas, I've probably only bought 10 lottery tickets in my whole life. So it's not like I always feel this draw to the lottery ticket machine.

I went to the machine, and they don't give change. So I checked my wallet: 2 singles! Just what I needed to buy a CashWord ticket. It was a sign! So I put in my money, pressed the button, and out popped by ticket. For those of you who haven't seen one, a CashWord ticket looks like a filled in crossword puzzle, and you have to uncover the letters in the words. Know what word was right in the middle of my ticket? SIGN! It was definitely a sign!

So I went home, and scratched my ticket. Within the first 5 letters, I got an "I" and an "N". Wow, that gave me my first word: INN. Which rhymes with WIN. Definitely a sign. I only needed three words to win back my $2...every word after that would be gravy. I was even hoping for 10 words for $20k! I scratched off a few more letters, and a I got the word "QUIP", which had no special meaning, except that having two words was only one word away from having THREE words, and starting to win.

So I uncovered more letters. Ooo, only need an "H" to get "HEADACHE". Only need a "J" to have "JOLLY". I'm soooo close!

Then I scratched off the rest of my letters. And do you know what? I didn't win! Nothing! Can you believe it?

I should have looked at the rest of the words on the ticket. "THRIFT", as in what I *should* have been thinking about as I passed the ticket machine. "EGO", as in what I had too much of thinking I could walk over and pick the winning ticket. "DISAPPEAR", as in what happened to my $2. "TRASH", as in what this ticket is. "BURLAP", as in, well, burlap.

If things like this keep up, I'm going to be forced to concede that I am not, in fact, psychic.

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Replies to comments on Love That Logo:

Nancy: The Fathers of Twins logo is even more hilarious. I've got Firefly in my purse!

Giovanna, Aubrey, and TinaBean: I'm sure the things I see in the logo say more about *me* than the logo :) I'm a Freudian nightmare!

Laura: I can't wait to hear what you think about Firefly! Are you going to blog a review??

Fit Me Pink: Yes, that guy was STRANGER and STRANGER! I can't believe what comes out of people's mouths. Of course, I can't believe what comes out of my mouth half the time!

Kimberly: I have to admit, half of why I love this shirt is that it looks a bit like a middle finger. I'm soooo immature!

Love that logo

I'm actively involved in the local Mother of Twins club. I have a great time with it...in fact, I'm on the board. I even have a shirt with our logo on it. That's pretty cool, isn't it?

It gets better. Our logo is hilarious. I don't know who chose this logo. It's supposed to be a mom with a baby on each side, and it's kind of heart shaped. I get it...mom, twins, love. Nice.

Yeah, well, what does this logo look like to you?




I was wearing my shirt the other day at the grocery store, and the fish counter guy stopped me by yelling out, "That's awesome...is your shirt flipping me off?" No, it isn't. Do I make things any better, though? Of course not. I answer, "No, it's supposed to be a mom with twins. But I think it looks a lot like a pe,n^is." (Sorry for the crazy punctuation, once again attempting to avoid any pervert traffic). Then I put my hand over my mouth, shocked by what came out. I swear, I think I have a short-circuit some where between my brain and my mouth.

So what do you think our logo looks like? And how much would you like to meet the women who chose this logo? I have to applaud their ability to choose a logo that simultaneously appears to be a mom with twins, a middle finger, and a phallic symbol. That's pretty impressive.

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Replies to comments on Book Group, as described by B-Man to TK:

FitMePink, I'm certainly making an exception to my lack of pink love for your blog. And I wish I'd seen your call for recipes sooner...I had too much to do to get any together. Plus, I "ruin" most of my healthy food with vast quantities of cheese and bacon ;)

Mommaof4Wifetor, Thanks! Our book group actually met at a friend's house, and I can hardly believe it, but she didn't pull out any trains for us to play with.

Gio, Book group was a riot, although we were even less focused than normal (I don't think that book really lended itself to discussions, though). I had a piece of pie for breakfast. What, I figure it has to be better than a donut!

Replies to comments on My DVR:

Gio, I can hardly wait until the next SYTYCD season!

Laura, it was incredibly easy to miss Firefly unless you were a wicked big Joss Whedon fan. Fox showed it on Friday nights at 9pm. Sometimes. Sometimes not. And they didn't show the first episode. And they canceled it in a heartbeat. *Everyone* missed it. Except my husband (a sci-fi lovin' engineer) and I (a plain ol' sci-fi lovin' geek). We stayed home every Friday night while it was on, and that was back in the pre-kids days when staying home Friday night meant something. I'm a little jealous that you get to experience Firefly for the first time. It's really wonderful, one of the best shows ever. And then you get to watch Serenity (probably my favorite movie). Yes, I'm definitely jealous. Push it up to the top of your queue, and enjoy!

Nancy, oh, you have to watch Firefly! It's so good. I'll lend it to you if you'd like. And glad I got your kids hooked on Wonder Pets ;)

Angie, whew, so glad to hear I'm not the only One Tree Hill watcher! Love your site...what a good idea!

Book group, as described by B-man to TK

"Mommy's going to play with her friends at the book store. I want to go, too."

I love book group!

My DVR, plus cooking for the cure

We'll start with the light stuff: I guess it's all the rage to blog about our DVR schedules. I saw it first on Laura's blog, though she admits to seeing it other places, so who knows who I'm originally copying :)

Well, here it is:

Mondays: This is my big night. In fact, I've had to eliminate two shows from my lineup (Gossip Girls and How I Met Your Mother) due to the fact that my DVR can only tape two shows at a time. It takes TK and I all week to watch out Monday shows!
8:00 Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles (I'm really loving this show! I started watching it because it stars the girl who played River in Firefly)
8:00 Chuck (I enjoy this as well. I started watching this since it stars the guy who played Jayne in Firefly. Yes, I loved that show!)
9:00 Heroes (Love, love, love it! Season One was a lot better than Season Two, but I felt like they really had to hurry along their story due to the writers' strike last year. So I have high hopes for Season Three!)
9:00 One Tree Hill (Yes, I'm embarrassed).

Tuesdays:
8:00 House (TK and I don't watch this religiously, but let them build up on our DVR. Sometimes we watch 'em, sometimes we delete them if we're getting close to our DVR limit).
9:00 Fringe (We watched the premiere and thought it was okay. I'm not sure if we'll keep watching, though).
And Tuesday question: where is Reaper? It was on the CW last fall, and was renewed for a second season, but isn't in the lineup yet. Weird.

Wednesdays:
8:00 Pushing Daisies (This is an odd and wonderful show!)

Thursdays:
9:00 Supernatural (Surprisingly scary sometimes. The first episode still stands as one of the scariest things I've seen on network TV.)

Fridays:
They're not on now, but we watch Monk and Psych. They had their last "summer" show this past week, and won't be back until January.

And that's it! The show I'm most looking forward to this season is Dollhouse, which is scheduled as a midseason replacement so it won't be on until January. So it's not on my DVR yet, but it deserves a shout-out from me anyway since I'm counting the days!

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Now for the fun-serious stuff: KitchenAid has a line of "cook for the cure" items. For every item purchased, KitchenAid donates a certain amount to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. That's awesome. Only problem is, it's all PINK. I know, how stupid that this would bother me, but I *hate* pink. And it would clash something awful with my muted fall colored kitchen (all oranges, yellows, greens and golden browns). And I *hate* pink. Did I mention that already? But finally they have an awesome new product. It's a platter called "Pass the Plate".

The idea is that you buy a platter ($25, $5 of which is donated), register it on their site, then cook or bake something for family or a friend. Give them the food on the platter. Then they do the same thing, cooking or baking and passing along the plate to someone else. And it just keeps going, spreading food and love!

The plates just went on sale today, and when I headed over to their site at noon, they were already backordered. But I ordered one anyway, and I'm looking forward to getting it and cooking (probably baking :) for someone. Now I'll just have to decide who. Since this does have a bit of a "chain letter" component in that the person I give it to is supposed to pass it along to someone else, I have to make sure it's someone who wants to do it, not someone I'm bothering with it.

If you'd like to buy a plate of your own, head over to cookforthecure.com.

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Comment replies:

Giovanna, Nancy, and Tracy: Thanks for the potty advice. It ended up that B-man kind of freaked out and demanded pullups today so he didn't pee on the floor at school. We let him wear them, but I took him to the preschool bathroom before class started. He did fine, and had a dry pullup at the end of school. We'll see how Wednesday goes!

Just Say Julie and Keeper of the Skies Wife: Thank you for stopping by! I hope you'll be back! I'm so enjoying my SITS week :)

Potty Training Advice needed!

B-man is largely potty trained. He still has accidents once in a while, but they're getting pretty rare. Even when we're out, he'll usually ask to use the potty if he has to go (we have him wear pull-ups for longer excursions where there won't be a potty easily accessible...luckily we've always been able to find him one in time so I'm starting to have him go out in undies sometimes).

My problem is preschool. He's only gone to preschool twice (last Wednesday and Friday mornings), and both times, he had pee accidents. The teacher assured me they were used to it, and fine with it. In fact, they have you bring in extra clothes on the first day of school expressly for this purpose. Every morning, I've shown B-man where the potty is, and he's even used it once when I was with him. It's a tiny kid sized potty, right in the classroom. So I don't think it's a problem of him not knowing where it is, or being intimidated of the size. I just think he gets so interested in all the fun things, he's forgetting he has to use the potty.

Should I put him in pullups for preschool tomorrow and tell him he can wear undies on Wednesday if he uses the potty at school on Monday? Should I just put him in pullups with no explanation? Should I let him wear undies again? If I do let him wear undies, and the accidents continue, how long should I let it go before I consider using pullups for preschool? What would you do? While it's only the 2nd week of school, and I know that pee accidents are completely normal at age 3, I feel bad for the teachers always having to clean up after him. I mean, I've subbed in a preschool. It's hard work, and ill-paid. I don't want to make their job any harder than it already is. But on the flip side, I don't want B-man to feel like he's being punished for having accidents. But on the flip side again, I'm just not sure he's reliably enough trained to be expected to make it to the potty yet while at preschool. I don't know...give me your opinion!

Thanks!

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Replies to comments on Mommy MeMe:
Rachel: Thanks for the head's up that I'm saucy! I hope you do play along!

Nancy: Glad the picture made you laugh. I wanted to play along even though I don't post personal pictures on my blog!

Replies to comments on It's official...I'm SAUCY!:
Marla, Summer, Kimberly, Fit Me Pink, Tiffany, and Heather: Hi, and welcome! Thanks for stopping by! I'll be heading over to your blogs as well!

Gio: Go check out The Secret is in the Sauce. I have a button on the right side of my blog. It's a fun way to find new blogs to read!

Nancy: Thank you! You're too sweet!

Multiple Madness Mommy: Thank you! You're too sweet, too!

It's official...I'm SAUCY!

Dude, I'm saucy this week! This is so exciting! Hi to all the SITStas! Boy, I'll have to be exciting this week...oh, the pressure :)

For all of you visiting for the first time, WELCOME! Take off your shoes, make yourself at home. A little about myself: I'm a SAHM with 3 year old twin boys who just started preschool last week. I blog about parenting, cooking, books, and whatever oddness strikes my fancy.

Looking forward to "meeting" you all.

And to all my regular readers, don't worry, I won't let this go to my head. Well, maybe just a little. If you catch me chanting "I'm saucy, I'm saucy", feel free to give me a quick smack.

Mommy MeMe

I was tagged by the lovely Ms. Giovanna Diaries

Instruction: Post a picture of you and your kids.



Oh dear, was that a cheat? I swear, it's me and my two lil' jokers. Ask anyone, that looks just like me, right down to the two heads. And my boys are working on their mustaches. Okay, fine, I know this doesn't really count, but I'll toss you out this freebie...something about me you probably don't know: TK and I collect playing cards. We have around 500 decks. All put away currently so the boys don't get into them. So we've kind of cooled on the whole "collecting" thing, but I still think playing cards are really neat.

Happy now? I'll go on...

1. How many children do you have? Two, fraternal twin boys.
2. What are their ages? Turned three this summer.
3. What time of day do you start your day? 6, unless one of the boys is up earlier.
4. What do you eat for breakfast? I'm addicted to Carnation Instant Breakfast...I love milk, I love chocolate, I love an excuse to have chocolate for breakfast. But I'll also eat oatmeal or pancakes or eggs or whatever I make for the boys. Just not cereal. I don't like cereal. It gets all soggy and...gross.
5. Do they watch TV? Yep. Mostly just Backyardigans. And sometimes Blues Clues or Jakers. 1 or 2 shows a day, maybe 3 or 4 times a week.
6. What are their favorite activities? Going to the zoo, the farm, or the playground. N-man like to pretend he's different animals, both like trains, and B-man loves board games (Hi-Ho Cherry-O, Thomas Bingo, Hungry, Hungry Hippos: you name it!)
7. Do you get a break during the day from them? They just started preschool this week, three days a week for three hours a day.
8. How do you end your day? Reading, watching TV, or blogging/playing of the computer.
9. What is your best parenting advice? Be adaptable and accepting.
   

Now I'm supposed to tag five people, but I'm feeling a bit anarchistic. So I'm tagging all of you. Well, all of you who haven't already been tagged. And who are mommies. And who are interested. Oh heck, you all get a pass. Play along if you'd like...I'd love if you did!

_____________________________

Comment responses to 1st Day of Preschool:
Nancy, now that you mention it, I think it was you that said that all twin moms look alike. I totally stole that from you, and am officially giving you full credit!
Three Under Two: Wouldn't you know, at preschool today I looked at the floor and sure enough, instead of a circle there is half a hexagon taped out on the floor. Once again my little N-man came home upset that circle time "Isn't *really* a circle".
Mary Ellen: That's exactly it, that they have this secret life now. It's so weird!
Gio: Looking forward to Monday! And this commenting on comments thing is something I saw over on Three Under Two's blog...I loved it! I'm never sure what to do with comments...sometimes I reply in the comment section, but I feel like people never see my replies. So I'm trying this out!

1st day of preschool

It was weird. I've been a stay at home mom for my kids' whole life. Besides a few months of a 2 hour-a-week drop-off playgroup, I've pretty much always known what my boys have been up to. I know what their experiences have been...what they've done in any given day. Now there's this 3 hour block of unknown that I have to rely on their reporting of what went on. Here's what I got:

From B-man:

• They didn't read ANY books. (That was what he was most looking forward to)
• I played on the playground.
• I made this bracelet. I chose PINK beads (there were many color beads on his bracelet, but only the pink ones were worth reporting).
• I didn't pee-pee in the potty. (I know this to be true as I got back a bag full of peed on clothes. Or more precisely, Nancy got back my bag of pee-pee clothes. No one at the school can tell Nancy and I apart. You know how all those moms of twins look alike. Except we don't so it's a bit odd. But Nancy, I have a theory...I wonder if they're getting confused with the hair color since your kids' reddish with blonde highlights is closer to my hair color, while my kids' brownish with red highlights is closer to your hair color. That's all I can figure...)

From N-man:

• Mrs. Teacher put this stamp on my hand (and Mrs. Teacher isn't a fake name I made up, that's actually what he called her).
• I didn't have any germs on my pretzels or raisins. (What? I can only guess they talked about washing hands before snack??)
• When I asked if they had circle time, N-man answered, "It was more like a hexagon." (Um, okay?)

So we survived our first day of preschool. N-man had a breakdown and didn't want to leave the house to go to school. I had to drag him out kicking and screaming and force him into his car seat. We were still a few minutes late for school as I was trying everything I could think of to calm him down before we left. By the time we got to school, he was fine.

B-man was a different story. I gave him a kiss, and he grabbed me in a death hold and wouldn't let go, sobbing uncontrollably. I handed him off to the teacher and left. The director was standing outside and said I could call her in a little bit to get an update, and that she was sure he'd be fine. I knew he would be. At the boys drop-off playgroup through Early Intervention, B-man cried nearly every week for a few minutes at the start. It breaks your heart, though.

Sure enough, I called when I got home and was assured B-man was fine and enjoying himself on the playground.

How did I spend my time, you may wonder? Tagging clothes for the Mother of Twins clothing sale. I know, I'm wild and crazy.

________________________

Comment responses to Pig Won't Goes to Preschool:

Giovanna: the book has apparently gone out of print. So maybe the MOTs did rise up in protest :)
GIP: I thought it was interesting, too, how the boys distilled the ideas of good and bad from the story.
Nancy: You'll have to share if you got any more information about preschool!
Three Under Two: I've "lost" many books here (don't hate me, but I "lost" most of the Disney library...I just couldn't take the constant princesses anymore! Pig Will and Pig Won't may have take a Disney Vaca as well :).
Maggie: Nothin' better than a good ol' book burnin'!
Crazy Momma: Hope you enjoyed your SITS day. I really enjoyed your posts!
Aubrey: Hi! Glad you stopped by!

Pig Won't Goes to Preschool

We have an awful book. We got it as a hand-me-down from the boys' cousin. It's called The Best Babysitter by Richard Scarry. Yes, one of the Busy Town books. Here's my problem with the book: it's about twins. One is good, one is evil. Their names are Pig Will and Pig Won't. Didn't anyone tell their parents about children living up to the expectations that are set for them?

I hate the "one good/one evil" twin stereotypes. I mean, you would think most people would realize that with twins, there isn't really one good and one evil twin. Well, unless you're Spock. But that Star Trek universe is jacked anyway. But still, I've been asked three times which one of my twins is the "good" one and which is the "bad" one. It's a reasonably common comment parents of twins hear.

Let me tell you now: neither is pure evil. Neither is pure good. They both just are. Just like every other kid. Having twins doesn't dilute all the positive attributes into one child and all the negative attributes into the other.

Well, unless you're Pig Will and Pig Won't. I hate this book. So of course the boys love it and always want to read it. And they've distilled the basic message of the book into this annoying habit: when they don't want to do something, they shout "I'm Pig Won't!" Ugh. We're in the middle of the grocery store and B-man won't get into the cart and he yells, "No, I'm Pig Won't". I say it's time to leave the library and N-man doesn't want to go so he says, "I won't leave. I'm Pig Won't."

Have I mentioned that I hate this book? What must people be thinking? That I call my boys pigs? I don't. They came up with this all on their own, with a little help from the stereotypes perpetuated by Richard Scarry.

Well, B-man has been very nervous about preschool. Whenever we talk about it, he says, "I won't go. I'm Pig Won't." I've been a little nervous about how this was going to play out. I've been having nightmares about having to peel a shrieking child off my leg every morning for the next two years.

So yesterday was the preschool orientation. They opened up the preschool for an hour so parents could come with the kids and meet the teachers and play in the room. B-man was *not* looking forward to it, but we got him there. He walked into the room, hesitantly looked around, saw some fun toys, and off he went.

At the end of the hour, I asked how he liked preschool. He answered, "I'm Pig Will now."

Whew. That's a relief. And maybe I don't totally hate that book. Let's just hope Pig Will sticks around for tomorrow, the first official day of preschool!

Blogging comment answers

I'm going to try something new. Borrowing from Lit & Laundry (in what I'll hope she takes as the most sincere form of flattery), I'll now be responding to previous comments at the end of my posts. Well, at least I'll try to. We'll see if I can stick with it.

From Twilight Series Rant:
Mary Ellen, I'm considering trying to write a YA novel for NaNoWriMo this November. We'll see which story idea captures my fancy. I better decide soon!
Gio, I never want to write about our book club books ahead of time, since I know a few of you in the book group read my blog. And I don't want to "ruin" our discussions ahead of time. Plus, I only get this fired up when I hate a book, and it's been a long time since I've hated a book group book.
WriterDad: Unfortunately, becoming a vampire doesn't turn you into a girl. The books would have been far more interesting if they had. "No, Bella, I can't possibly have sex with you," Edward stated emphatically. "Why not?" Bella whined. "Because becoming a vampire requires a complete pe.nec^tomy," Edward revealed. "Well...drat. Wait, what's a pe.nec^tomy?"
LeeZee52: Congrats again on your SITS day!

From The Best Job Offer Ever:
Maggie: I know. I can't believe it's preschool time already!
Nancy: Ha! My secret plan worked, to make you all read my spam.
Mommaof4: Preschool must be on the horizon for your oldest two...next year? It's exciting and unbelievable!

The best job offer ever

I got a funny email today. I love scams. They prey on the desperate or greedy. Nice, right? People suck. Here's the email. I guess I will be going back to work, as this is just too good to pass up...

Greetings,
You have received this message because you have published
your resume at careerbuilder.com [No, I didn't] and you
meet our criteria [Really?  And just what are your
criteria?]. And we offer position in our company [Is it
a position in proofreading?  Because you could use it.
Or do you save money by omitting "you"'s and using
sentence fragments?].  Our company Scammerific [I deleted
the real name as it looks like a real company name was
used, I'm guessing without their knowledge] Jewellery (SJ)
is one of the most prestigious manufacturers of exclusive
jeweller [Why?  Why?  We don't need no stinkin' Y's]
production in the Western Europe [Wow!  All of *the*
Western Europe?].  SJ Production differs by uniqueness
of each product and makes individually for each client
[Wha huh?].  The individual, professional approach and
long-term experience allows to achieve [Who?  Allows who?
Please, I'm so curious.] high parameters in the jeweller
industry field.

We provide the best working conditions for our employees
[The BEST?  You promise?]:

Working with us you will get:

- fixed salary
- material bonuses
- a bonus for the housewives [So do I have to mail you the
housewives, or do you pick them up?]
- qualified support of the skilled manager
- work in one of the best team of the Europe [The grammar
team?  Oh wait, I know...Manchester United! (Double PS to
diss myself, I had to dig deep for that one.  I
can't even name American sports teams!)]
- we can help you to open credits with minimal percent 
[What?  Do I have to pay you now?]
- challenging experience in the highly perspective field
of business [But will railroad tracks seem to come
together at the vanishing point in the distance?]with
great future career possibilities.

We also provide medical insurance and an annual salary
of $65,000/year. [Oh good. This certainly doesn't sound
too good to be true or anything.  What was the job
again?]  The salary is paid monthly. If you have kids
then you'll receive additional income [For what?  Do I
have to put them to work too?  No?  Good.  I have 97
kids then so cough up the extra dough].  The contract
is rather flexible so if you wish to alter some clause. 
[I'm sorry, did you get distracted in the middle of
that sentence?  So if I wish to alter some
clause...what?  Don't leave me hanging!]


If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to
ask them via our email:
you'reanidiot@gmail.com  [Yes, I did change that
email address. But it was gmail.  Which I don't
find at all suspicious.]


It's not multi-level marketing [Okay, then what is it?],
not sales position [Really, what is it?] and absolutely
free for start [what about for middle?  Or for end?]. 
We would like to point out that this job may become a
good additional employment for you [I would like to point
out I don't believe you]. You may have a primary
employment or a running business and stillcooperate with
us because this job will not take a lot of your time
[For a piddling 65k I would hope it wouldn't take a lot
of my time.  Geez, it'd be almost like someone expects
me to WORK for money.].
We are looking forward to hearing from you [I hope you're
not holding your breath].

Who falls for this crap? Sadly, I know. People who desperately need money. And they probably get dragged into something illegal or have to provide bank information for direct deposit and then have their entire account wiped out. Or have their identity stolen. Or something equally horrid. Or it's people whose only mistake is that they're gullible and a bit greedy. I wish the answer was the no one falls for this crap.

Unless maybe it's not crap. What do y'all think? Should I apply? Hee!

In seriousness, I did just have a potential job kind of fall into my lap. It would be doing accounting, and would probably take up nearly all the time my boys are in preschool. I talked to TK, and he's so awesome. His immediate response was "Why would you want to do that? If you don't give the whole writing thing a try now, when will you ever have time to do it?" I love that he's okay with us not maximizing our earning potenial. I sometimes feel like if I went back to work, we'd be able to do x or buy z without worrying about it. But luckily, those x's and z's aren't the necessities, so the game is still on to write, write, write. Preschool starts on Wednesday, so I'll be focusing more on my writing adventure...

Twilight Series Rant

Oh, hold on to your hats, because you're going to be subjected to some ranting the likes of which you haven't seen since I read that piece of trash My Annoying Sister's Annoying Keeper.

Okay, fine, that helped me get some perspective. I'm nowhere near as annoyed at the Twilight series as I was at My Boring Sister's Whiny Keeper. In fact, I found the Twilight series to be entirely engaging and surprisingly readable. I mean, there was never any risk it would make my "best books ever" list, but I was enjoying them quite a bit.

But I'm going to complain anyway. Because the further it got into this series, the more disappointed I became, until I was completely disgusted with how worthless Breaking Dawn was.

Before I go any further, let me say right now that I know Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon. I have no problem with that. In fact, anyone who knows me knows that one of my favorite authors is Orson Scott Card, who happens to be a Mormon. Many of his books make my "best books ever list". Heck, I even like his Memory of Earth series, which is based on The Book of Mormon. So I'm not going to give her a pass for the problems I have with this book simply because of her religion. Nor am I giving her a pass because she writes for a YA audience, since you all know I'm in love with YA fiction and it *can* be done well.

This just wasn't.

Anyone who hasn't read the series, go ahead and stop reading this post now. First, this is going to be filled with spoilers galore, and I don't want to ruin it for anyone who might read the series in the future. The author does a fine job of that all by herself.

Besides, this will probably be phenomenally boring if you haven't read the series. Okay, fine. It might be boring even if you HAVE read the series.


So last warning: Here be spoilers. Read on only if you want to be spoiled. Like a rotten tomato. Or my sweet boys. As an aside, I had a tomato sitting on my counter from last week's CSA, and it looked fine. Until I gently touched it. And it exploded. Seriously. It was disgusting and amazing all at once. I love science. Luckily, my boys have not yet exploded when I let them play one more game of Bingo or eat some ice cream. Yes, I spoil them. Okay, back to the annoying book. No way are my cute kids distracting me from my rant!

So, here's my main problem with the book: everyone sucks. Hee, get it? They're vampires? Okay, seriously, there is no one likable.

Bella: whiny, co-dependant, ignores her friends, treats people badly.

Edward: controlling, abusive, whiny, annoying.

Jacob: Okay, I kind of like Jacob. So of course SM totally emasculates him by having him be completely obsessed with Bella. And don't even start me on Nessie. What a cop out. "Oh, nothing makes me happier than to be tied to all the people I hate forever. That's awesome, and I'm not even being sarcastic. Thank goodness I had this lobotomy."

Alice: Ugh. She sees the future so uses that power to plan parties Bella will hate? And, she spends money obsessively. Great, you're going to live forever so you mess up the world by buying endless amounts of expensive clothes and only wearing them once? And, she became more of a means to progress the plot rather than an actual character.

Charlie: Completely helpless, and so detached from his daughter. And could he be at all effective as a police chief when he's completely clueless?

Renee: Not a very good mom, and doesn't really do anything for the story. Is she supposed to make Bella look mature? It doesn't. It's just odd, and a useless character.

The werewolves: "We hate the vampires. But I guess we're okay with *these* vampires. And I guess it's okay if they can kill people, as long as they go a few miles away. Because even though our entire purpose, passed down through generations, is to protect people, it really wasn't *that* important to us. Oh, and we're totally ninnys."

The "bad" vampires: "We're super powerful. No really. We are. Shut up! I mean it. We're the most powerful. Yes we are. Yes we are times one million. We're not? Okay, we'll go away now." Um, yeah, are we supposed to believe they just walk away? They don't plan to pick the Cullens off one at a time, even if it takes a hundred years?

Bella's school "friends": Just placeholders. Was Mike just there to prove how beautiful and desirable Bella was? Was Jessica nice or not nice? Was Lauren the "mean" girl? Or was Bella? The school friend stories were never fully developed, and just dropped at a whim. All they did for me was prove that Bella was a terrible friend.

Problem number two: I'd joked a few posts ago that what Twilight needed a little more of was some sex. Yuck, who thought getting my wish would leave me disgusted? First, the sex was pretty much all behind the scenes, which is fine (and even preferable) to me. But it was just...gross. I mean, the first sex scenes were pretty much abuse. But Bella *liked* it? That's messed up. And of course it immediately results in pregnancy. And later sex...um, it's just jokes about wrecking beds and houses. That's just disturbing. This wasn't at all entertaining. And, authors always give away a little about themselves when they write, but I hate for it to be obvious and have it pull you right out of the story. But there was plenty of it in this story. I have to give one example about sex, that was actually kind of disturbing to me. It's about Bella being nervous after her and Edward get married, about the first time they're going to have sex. Okay, that's a completely understandable emotion, and certainly could have been done well. But instead we get this:

How did people do this--swallow all their fears and trust someone so implicitly with every imperfection and fear they had--with less than the absolute commitment Edward had given me? If it weren't Edward out there, if I didn't know in every cell of my body that he loved me as much as I loved him--unconditionally and irrevocably and, to be honest, irrationally--I'd never be able to get up off this floor.

Really? That's your best argument against premarital sex? That all girls should be ridiculously insecure? That they should have so little confidence in their own worth that they should require a commitment of MARRIAGE before they are willing to expose their imperfections to the person they supposedly love? I mean, I'm certainly not one who is ever going to convincingly argue against premarital sex, but at least I can understand some of the arguments (i.e., risk of pregnancy, risk of disease, lack of maturity, etc). But not to have sex because a person is too embarrassed of themselves? That's not right. Geez, reading this makes me want to go out and tell some high schoolers to start having sex. Just kidding. I would never tell a high schooler to start having sex. I trust they can think of it all on their own. But seriously, if I had a daughter I would hope she would be a strong enough young woman to wait until the right time because it was the right time, not because she was embarrassed of her body, or even worse, embarrassed of who she was.

The ending of this series was just a mess, a "neatly" tied up "and they all lived happily ever after". And by "neatly" I of course mean, "cheatly". Because it was all a cheat. The Bella-Edward-Jacob triangle was interesting, but the Nessie solution was a big cheat. You can't solve the problem of Bella and Jacob being in love by introducing a magical creature who negates it with absolutely no ill-feelings. Cheat!

And all of the Cullens and their allies having the superest super powers? Cheat. Especially given that Bella was magicially the most powerful of the powerful immediately. I'm willing to suspend disbelief, but that was going a bit too far.

And the "bad" vampires just being so easily defeated? I read hundreds of pages gearing up for a fight. And no fight? Yes, a let down. And unbelievable, as I stated earlier that those vampires so committed to fighting Cullens at any cost would walk away so easily, presumably for all time.

Okay, I'm stopping now as this is getting long. I wish I'd picked these books for my book group choice, although I think they would have all shot me if I chose a 4 book series :)

Have you read the series? Please share your opinion. Love it, hate it...just tell me why! I'm just feeling incredibly let down by the end of this series. While I enjoyed the earlier books so much, I feel like I'll never be able to enjoy them again knowing how badly it all ends.

Wait, I forgot. I'm stopping now. Really. Right....now.

Face Rank

I recently read Extras by Scott Westerfeld. It's an interesting book...a fourth (and final, I think) book in a series, but it's not as linearly related as the first three books (Uglies, Pretties, and Specials). It's a post-apocalyptic book, and even better is about the potential decline of the civilization that had been built up after the decline of our known civilization. Oh, how I love me some Apocolypse.

Anyway, in this book, the society has evolved to have a reputation economy. People earn credits based on two things: doing things that will help society function, and being famous. So, you babysit some kids, and you get credits. Or you do something outrageous to get noticed, boost up your "face rank" and get credits.

It was an interesting idea, in that it oddly reminds me of blogging. At least the "face rank" part. Okay, fine, we don't actually get paid for this. Well, maybe a tiny bit if we put up advertising. But I still get that feeling sometimes of that there's a drive to boost up the face rank, get more readers, more comments.

I don't know, my main reason to start blogging was that I like to write. And even more, I like it to be a two-way street...to get immediate feedback. What works, what resonates with people. It's a little less like shouting into a dark cave this way. I like blogging. But I've never really done anything to seek out readers. Oh sure, I've started reading The Secret is in the Sauce, but that was mostly to find blogs I would otherwise miss. I don't think I've gotten any new readers from there, except in response to comments I've left. Oh, and I leave lots of comments, especially if I have something to say, but also just to say hi since I know how fun it is to get comments. I don't know, I guess I'm not too good at boosting my face rank. But you know what? That's fine with me. I like blogging and I'll keep blogging.

A few things got me thinking about this: obviously, reading Extras is what started this train of thought. But coincidentally, ThreeUnderTwo at Lit & Laundry just posted about Guilt-free Blogging. Kind of along the line I've been thinking, of letting go of the "face rank" aspect of blogging. Except that I never could get really motivated to do the things "right" to build my readership anyway, so I don't have much to let go of. I've been blogging guilt-free, I just didn't know it! But now I know what to watch out for, to make sure I don't get sucked into the darker side. You know, if someone starts leaving me comments that say things like "I find your lack of faith disturbing", or "You don't know the power of the dark side", or "Luke, I am your father". I'm on my toes now.

And now for a totally related thought:

I've said all that, now read it and weep: my face rank is zooming off the charts. I just got my first blog award, from the incomparable Nancy at The Zimmer Zoo. Thank you, Nancy!

BFF Gold Card

Here are the rules:

Rules: You may choose 5 awardees

Choose 4 faithful readers of your blog.

1 should be someone new or someone far away.

So now to choose, which kind of sucks. Because I love all of the blogs I read. Luckily, Nancy already gave this award to some of the blogs I like. So I'm going to give this to people I know in real life. Here goes:

1. Giovanna Diaries: a fun, wonderfully sarcastic, and interesting mom-of-twins, who rarely comments on the fact that I am both a bad driver *and* a bad passenger. And she still keeps carpooling with me...

2. Snickollet: another mom of twins, bold and brave and a good writer to boot.

3. Hannah and Sophie: Watch Us Grow: she's the one who told me about my awesome CSA, for which I'll be eternally grateful. Oh, and she's another mom of twins. Can you tell there's a pretty strong community of twin moms??

4. Two Moms and A Baby: I've know her since our pre-baby days, and is proof that yes, I do know people who don't have twins. A funny woman, who hasn't updated her blog in a few days. Forget about this guilt-free blogging stuff, just get up a new entry. Hee, I'm kidding!

And 5, for someone who is far away, Writer Dad, a friend from college who had the bad taste to move out to California, and even worse, like it. He might just make fun of this award (or ignore it...any of you can feel free to ignore it if you so desire), but I just wanted to point you all his way since he and his wife just had that terrible 1st day of daycare day. Could I pack any more "days" in that phrase? Maybe he'll give me a better re-write of that sentence.

Something for all you non-Twilight fans

Okay, per Nancy's request, here's something for all you non-Twilight fans. TK and I caught this preview on On-Demand last night. We cracked up for about 10 minutes. It's for the movie Strange Wilderness.



There's a darker side to this story. We were total suckers and actually rented this movie last night via On Demand. It was not funny. In fact, it was one of the worst movies ever. However, that preview still stands as one of the funniest things I've ever seen. So watch the preview. Heck, watch the preview 40 times in a row, and it'll still be funnier and make more sense than the actual movie.

I'm so sweet...not only do I give you a funny trailer to watch on your day back from a long weekend, I also save you $5 by warning you not to rent the movie. You can thank me later!

Random unrelated thought: I took most of the long weekend off from being on the computer. I checked email a time or two, snuck in a few peeks at blogs, but was mostly offline. I missed my drug of choice: the internet. Welcome back, sweet digital drug!