tiffany's spot

Of the following posts, which is your favorite? The Poopin' Doll Pooper Scoopin Teenagers Will Eat Anything Or another that stands out?

Congrats again to our friends Tracey and Trevor and their new baby girl! I nabbed her from facebook. I was a Navy SEAL in a past life.

. . . and boy was it good. It was loaded with chili, tomatoes, juicy salty pickles and cheese and served on a huge sesame seed bun. It made me wish I had brought home two. In case I'm not clear - it was so de-hiphugging-licious. Mmmmmm. Let me point out that eating a Fatboy Burger hours after one has already had supper is probably not conducive to my weight loss plan, unless . . . the plan died. I admit it, the plan has been hit out over right field and carried by the wind into the bleachers somewhere. Totally blaming the wind on this one. I would still love to be down to a ticker weight of 10 pounds or so before I have to shimmy my voluptuous bread-dough backside into a pair of sexy denim cut-offs. My new plan? Come up with a plan (or perhaps just resurrect the old one) and maybe try sticking to it for more than two weeks. Part of my new plan is to log my exercise into the side bar of this blog. I know, you may not be all that interested. You don't have to look at it if you do...

Reading the comments from my last blog post it becomes apparent that I wasn't the only one with basement issues! My house now houses the first and only basement that hasn't been overly creepy. My first house (from ages 0 - 10) was in a big old rambling house that boasted a "full basement" that was neither finished nor finishable. It had these creaky old suspended stairs that were so close to the beams you had to duck as you walked down them (I only know this because I moved back there when I was 15). The basement itself was pretty much a concrete hole underneath the house. Remember basement walls that didn't reach the ceiling and you could see earth above them? It was nice. Remember spiders? And spiderwebs? I really really really hated spiderwebs and to this day I abhor spiders. I didn't go down there unless I had to. When we moved to the farm (age 10-15) the basement was a little better. It wasn't half so dungeonish. It had a couple of little closet-like ...

Remember the post containing the video of Tennyson launching himself out of his crib ? I decided that I needed to end the insanity and make him a little safer. Because, if he can jump out, he will. Oddly enough, I can't just tell the baby to stay put and hope he listens. Go figure. Current situation: Bedroom #1 : Jordan and Tennyson's room. Actually the bigger of the two rooms, square footage wise, but two twin beds won't fit in the room because of where the bedroom door and closet doors are. A twin and a crib fit, and bunk beds would be wonderful. Bedroom #2 : Mitchell's room. The smaller room, but would actually contain two twin beds because the layout is different. Other considerations: When Tennyson stops napping I want to put the boys in the same room. I don't want to do it sooner because there's no way I can get them both to go to sleep together in the afternoon in the same room. No, I haven't tried, and no, I'm not going to. I don't really wa...

You know those bad mommies who have their first baby and then take a million pictures of their baby and then the next baby comes along and is virtually undocumented in film or baby book? I can totally top that. Steven and I were resting on the couch a few nights ago. Dinner was cleaned up, the kids were bathed and dressed for bed, and we were just waiting for bedtime to finally arrive. Sometimes, to help the kids calm down for bed, I'll turn off all the lights in the rest of the house and just leave a lamp on in the living room to watch Treehouse read stories by. This was one of those nights. It wasn't helping, Jordan and Tennyson were running around the living room like little crazy people, and we were laughing at their antics. Then I heard a noise in the kitchen. A little rustling. The last time I heard a little rustling in the kitchen it was a mouse, so when I heard this little rustling my ears perked up right away. I heard the little rustling again, along with a baby gurg...

I'd like to take a sec to congratulate Tracey and Trevor on the birth of their little daughter Jayla Emerson Z. She was born yesterday morning. I'm going to watch Lyla's blog for pictures and more details (she's their sister you know!). I knew that statistically, someone had to have a girl someday. Congrats Tracey and Trevor! Happy Valentine's Day!

My kids used to sleep from 8:00 pm - 8:00 am. It was beautiful. Then they started waking a little earlier. That was okay, 7:30 wasn't too bad, I don't even mind 7:00. It's a small price to pay for having all the kids snoring away in their beds by 8:00 at night, giving me some much needed downtime. Every once in a while I'd hear Tennyson grumble a bit in his crib a little earlier, but I'd ignore him and he'd generally fall back to sleep. These past couple of weeks, he's been getting up between 5:00 am and 6:30 am. Lately I've been thankful when he even makes it to 6:30. What really doesn't help, is that he does this: That's right. He launches himself from his crib. That pretty much curbs the whole "falling back to sleep" thing. A couple of days ago I finally decided that I wanted to see how he did it. The worst part is the part just before he swings his legs over, when it looks like he's going to fall off the corner head first. I bet...

I was online, and I discovered that you can download "skins" and apply them to your blog. It gets rid of the blogger template and gives your blog a whole cool new look. I couldn't figure out how to get the "dashboard" "my account" "help" and stuff back to the top of my screen. I also didn't opt to save my widgets and stuff, so now my links and that are gone. Not that it's a big deal, I can still find all of you thanks to my new reader (also a very cool new feature!). My biggest frustration - I really really want a new skin on here, but I know absolutely NOTHING about mucking around with the HTML. ugh. Be prepared to see my blog in a state of upheaval until I figure this out. Oh yeah, and there are about 98 new posts today so keep going.

About exercising. Remember that whole thing with www.myfitnesspal.com and exercising and eating right? It sort of died. I can't help it! I suppose I could help it but I'm having a heck of a time finding motivation to get back on the weight loss wagon. You know how losing a few pounds makes you feel all skinny and pretty in your clothes? And that motivates you to continue being good? And how if you plateau again at that point eventually you stop seeing how you've slimmed down a bit and instead only focus on how much more you have to go, and all of a sudden all you can see is muffin top? It's not like I don't have the means. I know that eating a box of granola bars is probably not the best weight management tool. I have probably a dozen workout videos. I have a complete set of pilates videos, the tae - bo videos, and a couple of one-off videos. I have a treadmill that doesn't work, an exercise bike in my mom's shed, an aerobics step that keeps the bik...

Ellen's wearing gray today. I think the last time I watched she was wearing black. I really shouldn't criticize her absolute lack of colour because if anyone looked in my closet they'd see a lot of blue, grey and black. I mixed it up a little lately. I bought a sweater, it was brown. I bought five new shirts (don't worry, they were on sale) a couple of months ago, and along with the two black ones and a grey one there was a purple one and a red one. I'm not big on red, but it was one of those red t-shirts that were made to help fund aids care in Africa. It says “ Inspi (red)” on it. How clever. I guess I notice Ellen's lack of color palette because celebrities, at least while on TV, are generally stylish. I know that if I had a team of fashion people I'd make use of it! I guess it could be argued that she's more authentic, I don't know. You may be thinking that I've been slacking lately. In my defense – you've been slacking too! I need some q...

Do you ever open a door into a dark room at night and flip on the lights, imagining that the sudden illumination will reveal a scary, evil man standing inches in front of you? That he's been just waiting in the dark for you to come down and meet your demise? Sometimes I do. Not always, just sometimes. Sometimes when Steven is working the graveyard shift and I am here alone, the sole defender of my children and my home. It is when I am alone here, at night, after all the kids are asleep that my mind wanders to the dreaded “what if's .” What if I was laying in bed one night, sleeping, or almost sleeping, or just laying here awake. What if someone crept down the hallway, searching for easy prey. What if he appeared in my doorway. What would I do? Nobody would hear me cry out for help. But wait, Jordan might hear me, Jordan might come. Then what? What if I just accepted my fate without a sound. Would the kids remain asleep, would he leave them alone? Okay, I know this is...

I just watched Mamma Mia with my Mama. It was exactly what I expected - it even ended the way I thought it would end, and I didn't know that much about it before watching it. It was cute, kitchy , melodramatic and totally predictable. I'd recommend it to anyone who wanted a light-hearted, man-not-home, girlie movie to watch. Some highlights: Meryl Streep . I always think of her as being so refined and snooty - kind of a classy, untouchable, standoffish, award-winning actress. Who'd have thunk she'd be jumping on the bed and writhing around on the floor in song. And I can't say enough about her overalls. Not very Meryl Streepesque . The use of every Abba song ever made, even if it didn't fit into any of the movie's plot lines. The spontaneous crowds that gather to sing the song. I especially like the crowd of men who appeared out of thin air to dance around in flippers. That was funny. I always get a kick out of the way crowds of people burst into song in mu...