Wednesday, November 30, 2005

Crazy Legs!!


Crazy Legs is here!!! Check him out at his blog: Crazy Legs

I hope he doesn't get too croaked up about his stay with us. *snicker snicker*

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

if i can make it....


DSC00513
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

...through this week I can make it anywhere!

So much time so little to do...wait...strike that...reverse it.

Christmas Bazaar for the girls school is this week and your truly is the official Grand Mompah of it. I never thought this would happen in a million years. I wonder if the other moms will be okay with all the cursing that will ensue today.

And the kitchen...ah, yes, the kitchen. Floor is in, countertops are not, neither is a backsplash. Soon though, pictures soon my grasshoppers!!

Sunday, November 27, 2005

Vajana's Very Vulnerable


frozone
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

I am very sick. Don't seem to be getting any better. I don't even have the whatever it is to go blogging, so I am sorry if I have not visited any of you lately. My mama insists its too much all at once, and she is probably right. I am whipped. Or whupped. Whatev.

I also realize I have neglected my Flickr account. 22% used this month and it's the last week! That's pathetic! Although I do have a good excuse, the USB cord is lingering in misplacedom since the kitchen redo, so I cannot offload any of my Stuff portrait pictures OR any awesome pics of my new house! (can you believe I again did not take any before pics of the master bath? Duh!) So this week you will be getting a retrospect...pictures already downloaded onto my computer and YEAH they will mostly be of DisneyWorld so get over it.

This weekend was also the Weekend of the Remodel and then Falling on the Couch completely Exhausted and Watching Movies on our New TV.

The first movie we chose was "The Incredibles". Love that movie.

"For the greater good woman!"

Part 3


atat
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

Saturday night of the Weekend of Remodeling and Lying on the Couch Exhausted watching Movies we chose to watch "Star Wars- Revenge of the Sith" in high definition. Wow was it amazing. God that movie is just a downer though huh?! Mmm but Ewan McGregor--whew he is a saucy one. Mamma like.

Every time a bell rings....


IMG_0239
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

I also realized this weekend that neither one of my children has seen one of my all time favorite Christmas movies, so i must go buy it somewhere and allow them to see it.

I bet as soon as they realize it's in black and white they will totally be not interested. Oh well, that just means time to myself!!!

Friday, November 25, 2005

still here

Did you think I had abandoned you? Well, I guess I did there for a little while. Things are quite insane around here. The cabinets are done, but the countertops won't be in until next week. I am in the process of painting our other bathroom today. LP went and got himself a nice TOY so he has been busy messing with that. I have to put up the Christmas decor this weekend, because my friends and I are going for a 'girls shopping' weekend next weekend down to the Ozarks. I cannot wait.

We pissed everyone off this year by announcing that next year we would NOT be going anywhere for Thanksgiving, that we'd have it at our house. We have 3 difference places to go to, and it is chaotic and very filling to say the least. Try eating 3 turkey dinners in one day. Not so easy. So they were all mad, whatever. We make the trek for Christmas, his moms Christmas Eve, his dad's for breakfast Christmas morning, then my parents house for dinner. We shouldn't have to trounce around for Thanksgiving too. So that's that.

I have a pretty severe head cold, that's put me out too. I also had to work today and yesterday. Oh and to top it off I 'chose' to be the chair for my daughters' school "Christmas Bazaar", did I tell you that? What was I thinking!! So all next week I'll be up at their school, supervising the selling and purchasing of cheap crappy items for the kids to get their family members. Who wouldn't want a thermal mug that says "#1 Dad!" Mandelbaum! Mandelbaum!!!

Okay, well LP got the HDTV stuff hooked up today and he is yelling at me to go watch Law and Order in hi definition. Cuz I need to see Briscoe up close and personal.

One last thing...guess WHO is coming to my house next week too!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Whistle while you work

Whew.

These past few days have just been exhausting. I don't remember birthing a child being more exhausting and stressful than having cabinets put into our kitchen. They don't give you drugs when you are enduring this cabinet birthing process that is for sure. They should.

The Cabinet Guy arrived early Monday morning to start the process, older looking gentleman, instantly reminded me of Michael Gross, the dad from Family Ties, because, well as mentioned before, I am stuck in the 80s. He starts talking, and immediately gets to work. No bs-ing around, I like it.

Well, I had to call a plumber and HE shows up, cute boy. Unfortunately he is here for a matter of about 5 minutes so that doesn't last long.

Then........the whistling commences.

I told the Cabinet Guy if he wanted to listen to some music, I could put some on during my breaks but that I am working during the day and need to listen pretty closely to the doctors on my headset. He tells me, "oh no, I work very hard, I don't take lunch even, music would distract me."

Okay, understood.

So I put my headphones on and from the kitchen I hear the Whistling. First song he starts in is "Tequila", so I am afraid he is going to jump on the counters and doing the Pee Wee Herman, but we HAVE no counters at this point so that didn't happen.

The phone rings. Did I mention I have my phone set to ring the 1812 Overture? I didn't? Well, yeah, it does. So Whistling Woody starts in with that tune for about 20 minutes.

I offer the music again, really, I can play some musi....."NO thanks."

Mmmkay.

This goes on all day Monday, yesterday and now today I accidentally left my cellphone in the kitchen, which ringtone is the Peanuts theme.

I am at work at the computer in the front room, and Whistling Woody is --NOT QUIETLY-- whistling his heart out. That Peanuts theme, he just can't it out of his head. He is putting in cabinets and rocking the Snoopy jam. Me, on the other hand, I'm trying to listen intently to the doctor on the other side of my headphones, dictating about a woman who has insisted she was pushed down by a ghost, all in a foreign accent. This, at the same time that WW has now come to that part in the song with the staccato piano...Da DA DA DADA....Da DA DADADA.... and I slowly lose my mind.

Today WW is gone, finally, after a long exhausting, tiring day. I'd like to say I will miss his whistling antics, but yeah, I won't.

BUT MY CABINETS ARE DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, November 13, 2005

back in a few

Can't talk...cabinets...going in this week...too much craziness going on...will resume in a few days....

Friday, November 11, 2005

Bad Development

People, I am pissed. One of my very favorite shows, "Arrested Development" has been CANCELLED!

Every time I find a show that completely entertains me like this did, it is gone.

The Simpsons has been the only one that truly has remained, and seriously, how much life does that have left? It is so ready to jump the shark, if it hasn't already. (just wait, this season there will be a cousin Oliver or something, or hell maybe even Ted Mcginley)

Arrested Development was Hee-larious. I love this show!

Strangers with Candy, again, one of my favorites. Gone.

Exit 57! The State!!!

Hell, "Police Squad" only had 6 episodes! SIX! Does anyone else remember it? Yeah, it was the series that led to the very popular Naked Gun movies. It was one of the only shows when I was a kid that I could not miss. That and the Muppet Show of course. (oh, and okay, I admit it, the love boat)

I'm done. This stinks. Just when I think TV has finally evolved, it gets canned again.

Sigh.

I wonder how much longer Reno 911 has left?

Thursday, November 10, 2005

Vajana's Corner of Wisdom

When I was in college, I was convinced I would never have children. Never, never never. First of all, I thought it cost too much, and I thought the world was too violent, too cynical, too...awful to bring more humans into. I had decided I would just be the cool 'aunt' to all my friend's kids and take them to my lake where I had sea doos and jet skis and what have you, cuz, well, I didn't have KIDS so I could spend my money on such things.

I also thought kids just WHINED way too much. I used to work at a daycare, and I would see the fussing and the whining, and the sheer lack of discipline parents had on their kids, and decided that child rearing was not for me.

And Barney, he was a HUGE birth control pill. I hated Barney. That purple freakin' dinosaur was a mockery in the face of Big Bird.

Sleeping was also a big factor to consider. I Looooooooooooved to sleep. Some weekends I would wake up, eat dinner only to just go back to sleep. If I wanted to take a nap, I WOULD. With kids, yeah, that wasn't going to happen.

So I went on, firmly deciding that I would not have kids, and get my ph.D in whatever I wanted and travel the world and ladee dah.

Then I met LP.

And what happened? Well, I knew I was going to spend the rest of my life with him. He was the One. This did not happen overnight mind you, it took a little while. But I knew. And, knowing that, I guess I figured I didn't have to be careful. But I shoulda. And I didn't. So the stick turned pink and all hell broke loose.

I was pregnant, and sick, and I couldn't tell anyone. He wanted to get married, I wasn't sure, I didn't know what to do. We weren't living together at the time, I was still living at home.

Then I had a miscarriage.

And it was THEN I realized, we loved each other. He was awesome and supportive of me throughout the entire ordeal. And it did not matter what happened, as long as we were together.

So guess what. I got pregnant. AGAIN. Two weeks later!!! On purpose. Everyone thought we were crazy, but they didn't even know I had been pregnant before. And do you know that NO ONE knows this story? No one but me, LP and now the internet. I never told anyone. I planned on telling Al, just because I want her to know she was loved from day one.

But I am really going off on a tangent here. My point is this...Kids completely and totally change your perspective on EVERYTHING. It makes you selfless. It teaches you how to treat others. It makes you realize that person you made fun of in 4th grade was someone's child and if that happened to YOUR kid you would THROTTLE someone. Kids teach you to lighten up. They teach you that you would absolutely trade a night's sleep for a night of snuggling with the smell of a newborn. That for all the whining, the sound of a 2-year-old singing makes up for it. Kids remind you that making funny noises and faces is still funny. They let you relive a little bit of your own childhood. They also make you respect other people's opinions than your own, cuz usually your kids have the exact OPPOSITE opinion that you have!!

When Al was around 18 months old, I was doing the dishes and "Sesame Street" was on. I was too busy to realize it was OVER, and the next show came on.

Yep. It was Barney. She was immediately hooked. She loved Barney.

Kids. Man, do they change your life.

They make it brighter.

(Thanks to Bug for totally inspiring this post)

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

However....

My good mojo apparently does not transcend the area in which I live:

St. Louis leads the nation in cases of gonorrhea, according to statistics released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The city ranked second in chlamydia and fifth in syphilis nationwide. St. Louis has long ranked high in cases of sexually transmitted diseases.

uh....yowza.

little luck

My husband has finally seen the light. All these years, I have told him, what goes around comes around.

Today he found out he is going to be getting a nice happy bonus for no reason (other than to say thanks for having to fire all of those people we made you fire) as well as a Best Buy gift card for working on a project.

I also got a call from the cabinet installers saying that they can start work THIS Monday instead of a week later. Woo hoo!

The planets are finally aligning in Vajana's favor, it's a good thing.

Monday, November 07, 2005

Won

Okay, before I start anything, you must read this: Pirates of Somalia Pirates. And I can't help myself but thinking that Jack Sparrow had something to do with this.

Now back to the regular boring old chapters of my life.

This weekend was so exhausting I ended up vegging out last night on the couch, watching "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" for the 10 billionth time, which I guess makes it close encounters of the 30 billionth kind? i don't know, but I was actually aware enough to realize, for the FIRST time, that when Richard Dreyfuss is boarding the mothership, the background music is "When you Wish Upon a Star" and if you are a true dorkus like me, you will remember how obsessed his character was with seeing Pinocchio earlier in the movie. And I am 32 years old and I just realized this. Talk about paying attention.

Does anyone care about that last paragraph? Oh well, I'm entertaining myself this morning.

Saturday night was our kid's school's annual auction fundraiser. LP and I put together a Power Point presentation of all the live auction items, so we have to go. There were a lot of cool things up for bid this year, including two Mexican trips, a cute black labrador puppy (who was there and I had to take away the paddle from LP cuz he wanted it so badly, but the cute little guy ended up going for $2500 to a surgeon so yeah that was a little out of our price range) and a signed David Eckstein bat, which the principal bought and donated back to school, which was very neat. We ended up WINNING the last item of the night, non-uniform days every Friday for the rest of the year for both of our girls. Yes, I know, it makes absolute sense that I pay a ginormous amount of $$ each month to send my kids to a private school to wear a uniform, and then I turn around and pay MORE $$ so they don't have to wear it! I'm CRAZY like that. Crazy.

We also had a soccer tournament this weekend, and Al ended up 1-1-1 which wasn't too bad, for our first tourney anyway. It was also my dad's birthday, and every year we have to go to this Wurstmarkt he ADORES. Like I told my friend who was completely stunned that I went, I loathe wurstmarkts, I love my dad. In case you don't know, southern Illinois is bountiful with the German heritage, and wurstmarkts are basically church dinners with German food, i.e. bratwurst, knockwurst, sauerkraut, green beans, and mashed taters. Real healthy. But my dad is 100% German and loves German food, so I go. And I eat later. My little mama picked out some what-appeared-to-be banana pudding from the dessert table, and when she tried it her face scrunched up. I took a spoon and tasted it, and seriously, it tasted like floor wax. My mother, She Who Makes Mountains out of Molehills, insisted on telling one of the poor 16-year-old servers who probably was being made to volunteer by her mother, that this pudding was AWFUL, and that her granddaughter should get another dessert. I told my mom that it was probably a disgruntled old lady who wasn't invited to the quilting bee and she must have laced the pudding with Windex. I don't know, we are all still living today so I think it's OK.

Okay so that was my weekend in a very big nutshell. I think I have the storytelling abilities of, well, of someone with no storytelling ability.

Mrtl has brought us the theme "Won" for Motif Monday, and since I just went on a little much about the wurstmarkt, I guess my winning the non-uniform days is motif enough. I can say that I am not a winner by nature. I have won on two occasions: once in 8th grade I won a beach ball at our school carnival. The other time was in 2001 when i wrote an essay about my best friend and we won a trip to Palm Beach. That was fun. I enter sweepstakes all the time though, and never win. I have just recently started Blingo, because with medical transcription I am searching medical terms regularly.

So with that, I have to get back to work. Enough slacking and boring everyone for the day!

Friday, November 04, 2005

spfriday DOWN UNDER


spfriday
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

So I'm a little late but at least I've done it. This week for SPF:

*Your doormat

*Favorite pair of socks

*Rugs

Now, I could have really gotten creative with this one, uh...ya know, 'down there' certainly has interesting connotations, but I decided to be PG today.

Plus do you remember I'm getting my kitchen remodeled? Yeah, you know why I haven't been talking about it? They SCREWED UP MY ORDER twice now. Today the gal called to tell me the one cabinet we were waiting on won't be delivered until NEXT Friday, and the installers can't install it until the 22nd (yes, that IS the week of Thanksgiving, thanks for that). I can't very well discuss a remodel that doesn't exist yet, so I will instead show pictures of things already finished in our house.

This weekend is the girls' school auction as well as a select soccer tournament so I probably won't show back up until Monday, so have a fantastic weekend.

doormat


doormat
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

Enter the Vajana household and you are welcome! So there! And yes, it is from Target.

My favorite sox


sox
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

These socks are SO comfy and warm, and I think they are my favorite because they were a gift from someone that I didn't expect a gift from, and it was a really, nice surprise. And living in the Midwest your feet just have to be warm otherwise we get crabby.

bathroombefore


bathroombefore
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

Instead of my rugs, I decided today would be the day I show you the before and after pictures of our bathroom. I made sure there wasn't any tampons in the after pictures though.

bathredo


bath1
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

I did the color wash myself and it turned out great. I am so happy about how it all looks!

bathroom redo


bath2
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

Oooh look at the ambiance in this picture. The candle is there for ambiance. Seriously. No really.

Thursday, November 03, 2005

Memory

I grew up in a neighborhood of very tight knit families. There were a lot of kids, and almost as many old ladies living on the same block. There was an alley behind my house that I considered mine, because if someone was driving on it that we did not know, well something was going on because that never happened.

These were the days when my mom would push us out the door in the morning and not expect to see us until dinner that night.

We spent a lot of our time at the nearby school on the playground, or when it was really hot we would actually go and pop tar bubbles on the street (uh, gross.). We would go down to the creek and try to find treasure, and one time my brother even attempted to raft down in it in a rubber raft (unsuccessfully, the water was not even a foot deep).

We played pickle for HOURS on the street. We played Swinging Statues and Shadow tag. We played Ghost in the Graveyard.

If we went to someone else's house THEY got to make the rules. We had to abide by them.

If the back door was locked, that meant Mom was mopping the kitchen floor, go to the front! Some days we would just roll down the hill in the front on my house, for hours and hours. Other days we would watch my brother make videos of himself pretending to be Indiana Jones.

Breezy, sunny fall days remind me of these days.

I think I'll go ride my bike.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

halloween


halloween
Originally uploaded by Vajana.

Sugar high? What? Who, us???

No thanks, we've already got one.