just miss kim

have you seen this?

On Friday, I went to the Walmarts to pick up a microphone for my computer. So I can talk the people that live inside of it. Which is really very fun.

While Brady and I were there, he pointed out this new video game.

That's Guitar Hero for the DS, in case you're not familiar with the game.

He bought it, using his birthday money.

And that pretty much sums up our weekend. We played that stupid thing over and over again. Brady worked his way up from Easy to Medium to Hard.

Other than that, not much happening at our house. Watched 2 discs of Lost, Season 2. Ate pizza. I think I might have cooked. Did a bunch of laundry. Gave the dog another bath. Read a book.

Hope you had a nice, restful weekend, too. Have a great Monday!

apparently

I had no idea that liking a Kid Rock song makes me a total dork.

Although... hello? Have you been reading this blog? I love Branson and digital scrapbooking. I'm solidly in the dork category already.

I honestly love all types of music. My knowledge of musicals isn't quite as extensive as some, but I listen to a lot of different stuff, and if I like it, I'll listen again.

So in light of the beating I took for the Kid Rock video, I thought I'd share my all time favorite song. The one song guaranteed to get me out of my seat and up on the table (and I have been known to dance on a table a time or two). It's a classic. If you still think I'm a dork, well, yeah, I know.

our blog to yours

This week's blog challenge at Sweet Shoppe is to blog about your favorite birthday.

I really thought about this one. I kind of got the short end of the stick where birthdays are concerned, having my birthday smack dab in the middle of the summer. My friends are usually scattered everywhere and I have a sad little celebration and lately have even been baking my own cake.

Then I decided to tell this little story.

I grew up in a small town -- Ellsworth, Kansas. Rascal Flatts sings about it. Really. Check it out here. When I was in high school, it was just a small town. Three thousand people if I'm being generous. We had Pizza Hut, Dairy Queen and a convenience store. It still is a small town, but now they have 2 convenience stores. And an Alco.

When I turned sixteen, my parents allowed a friend and I to drive to the nearest "big" town and go see a movie. My word, we thought we were the coolest thing ever. We drove down, went to the movie, got my first parking ticket, and ate lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant. I had that "man, I"m cool because my parents let me drive to a big town" attitude. I know we had the radio up too loud, the windows rolled down and were probably all kinds of obnoxious. Just to take you back there, my favorite song at the time was "Invisible Touch" by Genesis. I'm pretty sure the movie we saw was Karate Kid 2. How's that for a walk down Memory Lane?

Two weeks until my next birthday. Thirty eight. I'm really sliding into forty now, aren't I? And sort of looking forward to it. I'm sure having fun living life.

P.S. My friend? We keep in touch via MySpace. Who would have thought, twenty two years ago, that there would even be a MySpace?

random thoughts on Friday

1. Thursday night. In bed. Dan: "What did you do to the sheets?" (in a very annoyed voice). Me: "Made the bed with them. Something you haven't done in the 18 years we've been married." Dan: gets out of bed and rearranges the sheets to his liking, but wisely does not say another word.

2. I developed a philosophy of swimsuits on Tuesday. Really. I think about these things. I decided that I wear swimsuits that show cleavage in the hope that all men will look at my cleavage and not notice that from the hips down, I'm a hot mess. I don't so much care what women think. And I refuse to wear a suit that looks like something my Grandma would wear, just to hide the mess.

3. My kids are currently playing Fear Factor. Hey, I just raise them. They get the weird stuff from their dad.

4. I'd really like to own Kid Rock's latest CD. I like this song:

insomnia

If you'd asked me Monday, I would have said I'm having trouble sleeping.

Now? I've got insomnia.

Tuesday was going to be the perfect day. I woke up in the morning and walked on the treadmill for forty minutes.

Followed that up by doing ab exercises until my abs gave out.

Later that day, took the kids swimming and swam and walked laps until my fingers looked like prunes.

Shouldn't have any problem going to sleep, right?

To cap off the perfect day, the Haygoods did a live feed during intermission of their show. Which was, like, the most fun ever. Or at least in a few weeks, which really isn't saying much because boredom is pretty much the state of my life right now. Anyway, it was fun, and I even stayed up late to watch the autograph line. [Note to self -- no going through autograph lines when there's a laptop around. People on the internet will be watching what you say and do and it's just creepy. Didn't stop me from watching, mind you, but it was creepy.]

It probably doesn't help that I have sleep issues. Night terrors. Every once in awhile, I wake up thinking someone's in my shower and try to convince Dan to go get 'em. In that strangled not quite human speaking a person does when they're not really awake. I also do things in my sleep. One night I woke up and I was neatly stacking all the books from my bookcase on a chair beside my bed. Once I woke up and realized that in my sleep, I'd switched my wedding ring from my left hand to the right. So far, I haven't hurt anyone. Except my college roommate. She came in early one morning after a night out and I flew off my bed at her. I was on the top bunk, so picture that one.

So I'm going to have a little contest. Not a real contest, but a Haygoods rules contest. [That would be where you have the contest, pick a winner, and then don't give them a prize.] Here it is -- when Chesney can't sleep, she toddles out with her tousled hair and asks me what she should think about to go to sleep. Usually I tell her to think about some upcoming event -- what book she'll check out at the library, where we should eat lunch on Saturday, what she wants to play when she sees her favorite cousin Livvy. Then I tuck her back into bed and she's out in a few minutes. So I need you to tell me what to think about that will help me sleep into pleasant slumber. I'll pick a winner after I see if I get any responses. And you'll get a personal one on one meet and greet with me as a prize. Not really, but if I see ya around, I'd be happy to say hi. Thanks for playing.

this week's layouts

I poured myself into scrapbooking again this week. Thought I'd share some of them with you again.

a happy layout (and a freebie)

So Kaye Wieniecki is having a guest creative team call, and I stinking love her stuff, so of course I had to try. For the call, I needed to create a happy layout, and this is what I did:

The alpha I used for the title and the flowers are Kaye's. Fun, no?

Mostly I wanted to share that layout after my depressing blog post yesterday. I had a lot of fun creating that layout. I love to use bright, happy colors and patterns. The photos from our session are also just too much fun to scrap. I will be using them over and over again... can't stop myself.

A nice bonus to this layout is that I used one of my own templates to create it. I have a whole stash on one of my hard drives, and I just pulled one up and let the layout fall together. If you'd like to download it, you can grab it here. Have fun with it. Tell your stories.

OK, summer can be over now

I don't do bored well.

I'm bored. I like working. I can feel myself itching to go back to work. Play. Talk to adults. Teach. Even do paperwork.

I struggle with depression every summer. I enjoy the first two or three works, and then I start getting bored. (I know someone out there is thinking... are you crazy? Yes, I may be. Sorry.) My kids, while I love them, just don't need me as much as they used to need me. They make their own meals half the time (because really, do they need me to prepare their Easy Mac?), and are off in their rooms doing whatever preteen girls do (hair, nails, and moon over the posters on their walls) and teen boys do (apparently not breathe -- can he not smell the funk in his room?, play PlayStation, watch baseball).

So while my husband is counting down the days to Branson (4 weeks, he says everyday... although Saturday it was "4 weeks from now we'll be watching the Haygoods"... see, it's not just me that's obsessed), I'm counting down the days to Branson, knowing that when we get back, it will be a quick turn around and I'll be back to work.

In the meantime, I'll probably read a half dozen more books. Spend too much time on the internet. Cook too much food. Force myself to go on a walk every day to counteract the cooking thing. Scrapbook some more layouts. It'd all be fun, if it wasn't so boring. So sorry prepare yourself for complete boredom... this blog is the next thing to go...

what do you think?

We got our prints from our photo shoot this weekend, and our CD with a copyright release allowing me to use the photos for personal use and reprinting. So I decided to redecorate the blog. What do you think?

what my fridge says about me...

So I did this little thingy for Sweet Shoppe Rewards:

What Your Fridge Says About You

You tend to be a very hedonistic, greedy person. You have trouble saying no to what you want. You tend to be a fairly thrifty person. You splurge occasionally, but you're mostly a saver. You don't tend to be a very adventurous person, but you do surprise everyone now and then. You have a bit of a wild side. You are not very responsible, and you don't pretend to be. Life's too short to do what you're supposed to do. You are likely single - and a workaholic.

What Do the Contents of Your Refrigerator Say About You?

Doesn't really make much sense does it? For one thing, I didn't think all the questions were fair. It was supposed to be about my fridge, but it included questions about frozen pizza. Don't know about y'all, but I keep my frozen pizzas in the freezer. And my fridge isn't exactly well stocked at the moment. We had planned for the kids to be at my parents house for the week, so Dan and I spent a total of $22 on groceries this week. About 1/4 of that was pop. I already ate all the fresh fruits and veggies. So my fridge is pretty full, but it's mostly eggs and condiments. Not the healthiest. But it was fun anyway. I don't think about the contents of my fridge very often. Maybe I should. I'm enjoying that I'm hedonistic and yet thrifty. Yup, that's me to a T. Happy Friday all! See ya next week!