Selling Sweetness

Spencer is selling candy bars for his school. Okay..... You have officially been warned! He will come at you with his box o'sweetness and a smile and hit you up for a dollar! When he first came home with the box, he thought people donated a $1 and *he* got to eat the candy bars. I quickly explained the concept of SELLING candy bars to my innocent child. He has sold about 30 so far--mostly to family. He actually sold 6 to strangers at a restaurant when we were having lunch on Saturday after hockey practice. He gets really into it! Little IV was his partner-- they were all about selling some candy bars!

Love Languages

Last night, Toby and I went to hear Dr. Gary Chapman speak on the Five Love Languages. What a fantastic speaker! He gave highlights from several of his books and shared communication tips for children, marriage, family, workplace, etc. that were intuitive, enlightening and entertaining. Before the speaking engagement, we met some friends (Dee, Julie, Barry and the kids) for dinner and had a nice evening out with friends. While we listened to the speaker the kids watched movies and did crafts-- I think they had as much fun as we did!

Pop Culture Madness

I was looking for old stuff for my Ipod and I found this tag from a friends blog:

The rules are as follows: Go to popculturemadness.com, click on the "Pop Music" box and select the year you turned 18. Paste the list of the top 75 songs. Make snide comments as appropriate.

Here are mine:
1988's Greatest Hits
1. What A Wonderful World* - Louis Armstrong *didn't even make it in the top 100 when released in 1967!
2. It Takes Two - Rob Base & E-Z Rock (who???)
3. Da Butt - EU (Da Butt was #3??????)
4. Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard (Still a classic!!!)
5. I'll Always Love You -Taylor Dayne (blah)
6. Sweet Child Of Mine - Guns N Roses (this CD is still in my car)
7. Hot Hot Hot -Buster Poindexter (blah)
8. Just Got Paid -Johnny Kemp (who?)
9. Paradise - Sade (blah)
10. Kokomo - Beach Boys (Gotta love the Beach boys!Esp. if Stamos is drumming...)
11.Man In The Mirror - Michael Jackson (this is when he had a nose...)
12.Red Red Wine - UB40 (white boy Reggae)
13.Don't Worry, Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin (this was cute the first million times)
14.Every Rose Has Its Thorn - Poison (Rock on)
15.Welcome To The Jungle - Guns N Roses (they went shark jumping after this album)
16.Pump Up The Volume - M/A/R/R/S
17.One Moment In Time - Whitney Houston (was she sober then?)
18.Wild, Wild West -Kool Moe Dee
19.Roll With It - Steve Winwood
20.Push It - Salt N Pepa (I swear I thought this song came out in Jr High)
21.The Flame - Cheap Trick (good one!)
22.Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird (Medley) - Will To Power (blah)
23.1 2 3 - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
24.Power Of Love - Laura Branigan (blah)
25.Need You Tonight - INXS (I like this one!)
26.One More Try - George Michael
27.Can't Stay Away From You - Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine
28.Hot Hot Hot!!! - The Cure
29.The Promise - When In Rome
30.Don't Be Cruel - Bobby Brown
31.Nothin' But A Good Time - Poison
32.Chains Of Love - Erasure
33.Bad Medicine - Bon Jovi (80's metal still rocks)
34.Honestly - Stryper
35.The Way You Make Me Feel - Micheal Jackson
36.Strangelove - Depeche Mode
37.Angel - Aerosmith
38.Always On My Mind - Pet Shop Boys
39.Candle In The Wind - Elton John
40.Tomorrow People - Ziggy Marley & The Melody Makers
41.Forever Young - Alphaville
42.Pink Cadillac - Natalie Cole
43.Forever Young - Rod Stewart
44.Parents Just Don't Understand - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
45.Tall Cool One - Robert Plant (this one used to be a favorite!)
46.Beds Are Burning - Midnight Oil (ugh! I hated this song!)
47.In God's Country - U2
48.What's On Your Mind (Pure Energy) - Information Society
49.Just Like Heaven - The Cure
50.I Know You're Out There Somewhere - Moody Blues
51.Wild Wild West - The Escape Club
52.So Emotional - Whitney Houston ( I bet she is...)
53.Girls Ain't Nothin' But Trouble - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
54.Wishing Well - Terence Trent D"Arby (ugh! hated this one, too!)
55.It's Money That Matters - Randy Newman (He sings?)
56.It's The End Of The World As We Know It - R.E.M. (I swear, I can NOT sing this sober.)
57.Under The Milky Way - The Church
58.Like The Weather - 10,000 Maniacs
59.Tell It To My Heart - Taylor Dayne
60Kiss Me Deadly - Lita Ford (she can ROCK!)
61.Never Gonna Give You Up - Rick Astley (HE can NOT Rock.)
62.Never Can Say Goodbye - Communards
63.Don't Be Afraid Of The Dark - Robert Cray Band
64.What's The Matter Here? - 10,000 Maniacs
65.Groovy Kind Of Love - Phil Collins
66.Fat - Weird Al Yankovic (I admit it. Werid Al cracks me up.)
67.Monkey - George Michael (IS this the same monkey that George spanks???)
68.Rocket 2 U - Jets
69.Hazy Shade of Winter - the Bangles
70.Piano In The Dark - Brenda Russell
71.Tell That Girl To Shut Up - Transvision Vamp
72.I Found Someone - Cher
73.Spotlight - Madonna
74.When Will I Be Famous? - Bros
75.Englishman In New York - Sting (I don't remember this one either!!??!!)

My Chickie

According to "Bless this Chick"-- this is me! Damn near eerie how close the resemblance is, eh?

I got a call from my friend Maureen last night at 8:00 pm, she was heading south on I-85 towards Charlotte for a meeting and was getting ready to pass by the closest exit to my house. I quickly grabbed my keys and jumped in my car (true friends don't care if your hair and make up aren't touched up, right?) and ran up to the local diner and met her for a bite to eat and a few laughs!

Native Henna

The color curse has been broken! We are redoing our bathroom this weekend and I actually chose a COLOR (yes a color!) for the walls! I have an odd fascination with offwhite/cottage white/antique white/eggshell and I have a slight phobia about painting with color. BUT... I chose Native Henna (which is a mush of sage, artichoke-ish green) for the walls, trimmed in Antique White to match my bathroom fixtures. I am accenting with accessories in a very pale pink that looks really nice with the sage green--not too girly but very pleasant. We cleaned out EVERYTHING, taped and trimmed-in last night. We hope to finish up tonight when Toby gets home from work.

Before we painted, we cleaned out our closets. Then when we got ready to paint, we realized that we had thrown out all of our old clothes and couldn't find anything we wanted to ruin with paint...so.... Toby ended up painting in just an old pair of boxer shorts and I painted in an old Tshirt and panties. The next morning, Spencer wanted to paint the outlet and light switch cover plates (we had promised him he could paint them!) so I went to get some newspaper to put down and he stripped down to his underwear...HE THOUGHT YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PAINT IN YOUR SKIVVIES!!!!! I explained to him that Mommy and Daddy had only painted in our undies the night before because we had packed all our old clothes up and because all our summer clothes were put away ----GEEZ!

I also scrapbooked a little this weekend! I worked on a few layouts from our Sept 2006 Beach vacation!

His vacation...

You know how Toby works CRAZY hours during the holidays??? The poor guy works around the clock 7 days a week at Christmas! Anyway... I was in the hospital, the week between Christmas and New Year's. Toby was very supportive-- he had not used any sick time all year so he used some sick days (since the Christmas rush was over) and stayed with me at the hospital. Spencer was MORE THAN HAPPY to stay with Nana and Boppa. Toby brought me some nice Aveda bath products and tried to convince me to pretend I was at a spa get away--haha. He packed himself a bag, full of treats he received at Christmas, and stretched out on the couch in the private suite I was lucky enough to score at the hospital (ironically donated by Bank of America) and slept on and off for 4 of the 5 days that I was there!!!! I was thinking of what a sweet, supportive husband I had and how he stayed by my side the entire time....but I think my poor guy was just tired and I was his ticket to a little R&R compliments of High Point Regional Hospital!!!!! Regardless, he got some much needed rest and I had him with me so I guess it worked out... but still, I'm onto him!!!!!!

Card Crazy

Friday Night-- Card Making Class
Friday--late night--Came home and I had the most wonderful (HUGE!) get well gift of awesome cards from my friend Valerie from Florida! They look like handmade cards--really cute, perfectly embellished but they are manufactured. I am totally impressed with the organizer box that they are in. I can use that for the cards that came with it and my handmade cards!
Saturday-- I went to a Card Making workshop (Stamp Camp) with a group of friends. We had so much fun!...and then I totally crashed. I am still sore and VERY tired from being sick and the change of medications, etc. But... I have lots of cards now and I had a creative weekend of play!

A beautiful surprise

Today was a banner day for Random Acts of Kindness!! I got "get well" flowers from my friend Maureen in Virginia. I was really feeling lousy and they TOTALLY brightened my entire day. There are some people in this world that make you smile no matter what and Maureen is one of those folks! She and I have worked together for nearly 10 years surviving reorganizations and mergers. I don't have many loud mouth, Syracuse-orange wearing yankee friends that I claim, but I will keep Maureen!--hahah!~

Welcome 2007

I know..I have a stale blog! But at least I know lots of friends and family read my blog because I have had many hints and jabs that I need a fresh posting!!!!

Spencer had a magical Christmas! Santa brought everything he asked for plus a few surprises. Everything Spencer unwrapped became his new favorite toy. He oohed and ahhed over every single thing--no matter if it was a $100 toy, clothes, or a $1 stocking stuffer, everything impressed him! Here are some of our favorite Christmas memories from this year:

• Spencer getting his new little robe on and just perfect (a la Hugh Heffner) before he came down the steps for Christmas.


• Christmas Eve, Spencer left "Reindeer Food" out on the lawn...and just as he posed for a picture sprinkling the Reindeer food, our dog walked up beside him and pooped right on top of the pile of reindeer food!!!!!!!


• The big hug I got when he opened Hide-and-Seek Sammie from Me.


• The big hug Daddy got when he opened the new Baseball Bat from Daddy!

Those of you that are local know that I have been sick nearly all of December with sinus crud, bronchitis, etc. and by Christmas I was REALLY sick. The morning after Christmas, Mom and I both went to Urgent Care. She had a sinus/respiratory infection and got some medicine but my white blood cell count was way off as well as my sugar so they put me in the hospital. All that infection was pretty much raging and my sugar was dangerously high (over 500). The worst infection was in my right kidney (very painful!) I stayed in the hospital Tuesday through Saturday and they pumped me full of antibiotics and insulin. We had one little mishap where the night pharmacy sent my antibiotics mixed with dextrose (sugar water) instead of saline for my IV and no one noticed until the next morning when my sugar went up 200 points--ugh!!! The week of high sugar messed up my vision. Goodbye to my perfect 20/10 eyesight and hello farsightedness and "loss of focus"--but at least I didn't have any permanent damage that didn't require anything other than (gag!) these new goofy ass reading glasses. I miss my perfect eyesight. It would have been okay to have a gradual decline but this sudden shift is hard to get used to!

Now for a New Years update. We had our usual New Years Eve Party and it was awesome. Okay...I couldn't partake in the food or beverages since I had just come home from the hospital but I had one drink and very moderate food choices--- everyone else was off the hook. We played the Newlywed Game and Julie and Barry won as they should have since they cheat like hell. Mike and Dee tied with me and Toby and Jimmy and Lucy came in last. Some of the singles heckled us but we had a blast and I am STILL razzing Toby about one of his answers!!!!! In his defense, he had several drinks--but still...what was he thinking??????