Preschooler No More!

Today was Little Moo’s Preschool Graduation! Talk about water works. This Mama Moo couldn’t keep the tears back. The ceremony was sooo cute. I can not believe that our preschooler is now a kindergartener! He did really well for the rehearsed dances, but guess which mama got to look on proudly as her child messed around so much while the director was talking that the teacher had to go remind them to be quiet. That’s right, this Mama! Okay, so I wasn’t particularly proud at that moment, but not entirely surprised and come on, he’s four!!!  I have just had the opportunity to sit helplessly watching on while your child is doing what he shouldn’t. What are you to do? It isn’t like you can stand up and yell “Hey, stop screwing around with the kid next to you and stand still like the rest of the children!”  so you just watch on and hope it doesn’t get out of hand.  This was only for a moment at the very end while the director of the program talked and they just stood behind her on the stage. He otherwise did really well. I don’t think he will realize what this all means until we don’t go back to school on Monday but we’ll deal with that then. For now we are the proud parents of a graduated preschooler!

 

Okay, so he is bustin’ a move in these pictures because he’s supposed to! Too bad I don’t have a picture of him rockin’ the air guitar, priceless!

Giving Up The Good Stuff

 

 

After much debate I’ve decided I need to give up my diet soda habit. I know, I know, I’ve said it before, lasted about a week then answered the sirens call of the dark bubbly. I just haven’t been able to completely kick it. What can I say, I love the chemically, bubbly, refreshing goodness! On a hot day nothing tastes better than an ice cold Diet Pepsi. For years I’ve convinced myself that since I don’t smoke, I don’t drink alcohol or even coffee AND in trying to be healthier I also don’t have my tasty treats to fall back on having this one vice isn’t so bad. And no, in the grand scheme of things I suppose it is not but we have reined in our snacking and started exercising regularly and I’m not really seeing results. Instead I’m losing and gaining the same couple pounds. Hello, as an obese woman I should not be fighting to maintain! The steps that I’ve taken thus far should at least be slowly getting me down in the pounds, but instead I’m just staying put. I’ve done some research and while none of the research is conclusive I think it is worth a try.

So, this is a huge undertaking for me. I have been drinking diet soda for 10 years or so and have never been successful in staying soda free. It truly is an addiction. I start with one can, then one can a day, then two, then 3 or 4. I simply must stop! My biggest concern now is the caffeine withdrawal. Even Zippercow raises an eyebrow when I mention giving up the good stuff. My biggest fear is turning into this without caffeine

I hope my husband and children can survive this with me. I know after some time I will get back to myself, but it could be a bit scary to start with but my hope is to go from this

To this

Okay, so I am not foolish enough to believe that just giving up diet soda will get me looking like that, but I hope it will help me on my weight loss goal. I am sharing my goal with my internet peeps to help keep me accountable and hopefully so I can get some support.

I will be finishing the soda I have, now my question is should I drink it at my normal rate or cut back and savior it???

What’s with the pineapple???

Mmm…Pineapple!!! It is my second to favorite fruit (strawberries of course being number one) but it wasn’t until a couple summers ago that I attempted to chop one up myself. It does look quite intimidating, doesn’t it? Okay, so maybe I’m the only one afraid of a fruit, but we all know I’m little strange so no surprises!  For those of you that may know me it will be no surprise I’m not skilled at wielding a knife  and the combination of a dangerous fruit and knife wielding Mama Moo is quite disastrous. Do you have any idea how painful fresh pineapple juice is in a freshly cut thumb!?! Yikes!! I still have a scar even! It was bad enough that I have suffered some post traumatic stress and have been unable to cut into a pineapples since.

Until now!

Enter the pineapple slicer and corer. It was a Christmas gift from my brother and sister-in-law and I am in looove!

Did you know that such things existed? I knew it had to, how else could you purchase pineapples already sliced and cored? But I had been unable to find one at any of our regular haunts. My brother and sister-in-law rock!!!

So this is how it works

Oh so carefully cut the top off the pineapple. Be certain not to accidentally cut off any appendages.

Then just stick the little do-hickey in the top and spin. So simple even a culinary challenged individual such as myself can figure it out!

Just remove the top handle, turn upside down and your slices slide right off! Look Ma, I have all my fingers!!! The process even squeezes some juice out that stays in the bottom of the pineapple shell (?) that could make for a great beverage in a very fresh and summery drink holder! Last but not least (and this step is crucial)

Find and marry a swashbuckling, pirate of a husband who will grill ANYTHING you hand him!

If you haven’t had grilled pineapple, you should! Go! Do it now!!!

The Grass IS Greener on the Other Side!

We all know the saying “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” meaning that whatever we have it always seem like someone has it better and the lesson of course is that we should appreciate what we have. And let me just say I very much appreciate everything I have and when I find the little green monster rearing its ugly green head I have the clarity to see that everything has a price and not always monetarily. But I digress because in this case I am actually talking about grass.

This is our backyard from the furthest corner of our property. Sure from here it looks green. Okay so it is green, but is definitely not grass. Most people have grass with a couple weeds in it. We have LOTS of weeds with a little bit of grass in it.

Like this, what the hell is it? I certainly don’t know but it might bite you if you step on it.

See, green. Not grass. And these…

These are enough to make Zippercow’s eye twitch. We have fought valiantly every year, and someday our yard will be grass and not a carpet of weeds. Our neighbors have slowly filled us in on the details of this house as we get to know them. Apparently there was never even grass planted after the house was built (in the backyard that is) so any grass that is there is purely by accident. So yes, in our case the grass is actually greener on the other side of the fence. Mostly because they have it!

I long to be able to run through the grass with the kids in bare feet

without my foot being cut by some terrible weedy thing.  Oh yes, that actually happened to me in our very yard. Oh how I’d love to twirl in song with careless abandon much in the fashion of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. Of course my singing won’t be nearly (or at all) impressive but still…In the mean time we will cautiously wander through the mean green weeds of our backyard with steel shoes to protect our feet.

There is one thing that grows prolifically (other than weeds) in our yard

Rocks! That’s right, it is just about harvest time and it is a plentiful crop!

We will start taking orders May 16. No checks please!

Finally!

Do you remember that one time when I said we were painting the interior of our house? Oh, and that when we were done I would post pictures our our lovely painted home? Oh, you don’t remember… Wellllll we  finished about a month ago and I thought that maybe I’d finally share with everyone else!

This is our kitchen before we moved in…

And our kitchen now (2 years later) We have painted, removed the terrible tile and put the new floors in and I love all of it!!! I made the valance from an old set of curtains and purchased the artwork on the wall from the clearance section at Ross. I almost put it back (because I talk myself out of most purchases) but my dear friend convinced me it would look nice. That was before we painted of course, but I think I love it even more now!

 

Our living room before we moved in…

Our Living Room After…Yep, couldn’t even be bothered to turn the TV off first. How I Met Your Mother Anyone?

 

The view down the hall before…

And after! Who knew we’d spend so much time looking down this hall telling Little Moo to get back in his room at bedtime. Okay, so it isn’t totally shocking!

Our dining room before we moved in. Don’t mind our real estate agent in the shot. You get the idea!

And now! Tada!!!! Painted and I’m sure you will notice that there is no carpet in the dining room. Whose brainiac idea is that anyhow? In what circumstance is it EVER a good idea to have carpet under a dining room table?  Even if I didn’t have children I lack the grace it takes to be human and am always spilling things so…

 

You might noticed nothing is really staged. It was enough that there aren’t piles of junk everywhere, so this is what it looks like clean…mostly. You might have also noticed that some of the walls are blank, specifically the dining room. I haven’t decided what I’ve wanted to do with the space and much like  with the shelves pictured below I have decided that instead of just buying something to fill the space so that it will be “finished” I am going to wait until I find something that I think is perfect. I have a lifetime to live in my home and collect things that I enjoy. For now we’re  happy that the walls aren’t white and that I have something on some of the walls

So this is the inside of our home! Sure it won’t be in any magazines but we love it and enjoy making improvements as time goes by!

R.I.P. Yard Sale Brita

Late Sunday evening a sickening snap echoed through the house followed by a howl from Zippercow that sent me rushing into the kitchen, certain that Zippercow had hurt himself. It was worse. So much worse.

The spigot for or 18 cup Brita water filtration tank had snapped off.

See? The little blue thingy (yes, technical term) is supposed to be attached to the white thingy. Yet clearly it no longer is. Do you know what can make Zippercow look like this?

And that of course is this:

You see, Zippercow is actually a blob of water that miraculously walks about on two legs.  By that I mean he drinks gallons of water a day and he does not like tap water either, so he has to drink gallons of fancy filtered water. Enter yard sale Brita. Oh the times we’ve shared together.

Yard sale Brita joined our family a couple years ago. We were (strangely enough) at a community yard sale and came across this filtration system. We previously were using a pitcher variety that had to be refilled multiple times a day so we were intrigued by its size AND it also came with a box of the replacement filters. After some deliberation we decided it was important we welcome this yard sale Brita into our lives. Then a couple houses down we found 2 more packages (containing four each) of the filter replacements. In the end we had the filtration system and 3 boxes (four filters each) of replacement filters for less than $10. Zipper cow was ecstatic! He could have tons of cold filtered water and we were able to do it with very little money!

Yard sale Brita is survived by one replacement filter. That’s right, we still have one of those suckers left! And of course yard sale Brita was quickly replaced.  We had to, Zippercow almost had to drink tap water!!! The new filter system is thinner, shinier and fits in our fridge better. So we replaced our old clunky filtration system with an new, sleek and sexy model. Hopefully after this post Zippercow won’t decide to do the same to me! Most likely not, because much as he found this time “trading up” cost us five times as much as our old one and we only got one filter with that.

So yard sale Brita, we bid you adieu! You were the freakin’  giving tree of filtration systems and you will be missed greatly.