I need some opinions

Over the past few years I havebecome a big advocate of hair donation for cancer patients. Ok well maybe not big but I'm working on my second donation cut and I need some help. I have recently learned that there are a number of different organizations to which I can donate as well as the fact that some of them also have the option to have people give pledges per inch that you donate.

I think this is a wonderful opportunity to do something really great and not only raise some money for those charities but also to use the opportunity to donate the hair so some person, man, woman or child, can have the hair they have lost as the result of cancer or illness.

But here is where I need your help.

One, I want to take a poll of sorts to see to whom I should donate.
1. Pantene Beautiful Lengths
2. Wigs for Kids
3. Locks of Love
4. Children with Hair Loss
5. Childhood Leukemia Foundation
6. Matter of Trust

Two, I want to see if any of you would be willing and/or able to pledge for my donation, possibly see if you have any other people from who you could get pledges.

I really want to be able to do the most good that I can with my donation which is why I am looking to you all for some input. To see which you think is the most worthy cause.

Poking

So I poke around periodically on Craig's List for free stuff. Sometimes it works out quite well, sometimes too well because I find things I want but never make it to go get them or I don't have the room for the stuff I find. However, today worked out quite well! I came across an add stating the individual was re-doing their garden so had ~70 edging stones that were free, the best part was they were only a few blocks away. So loaded up the munchkin and went to get them. Took ~65 of them, the others were either too cracked up or broken for me to see it worth it to take them for anything. and now I have free edging stones for parts of the garden!!

Then this evening I was doing some more poking around on facebook and came across some awesome pictures!

I took bean last week to have some pictures taken by a lady that offered up a children's sitting as part of a fund raising raffle, well we won the raffle. Now I just can't wait to see the rest!!

Stick with enjoyment

Well it's a wonderful 72 degrees and raining here. Actually I quite like the peace and quite the rain leads to, just such a soft and gentle sound, the only thing about moving somewhere with little rainfall for the year I would really miss.

But I think it's wonderful, definitely a nice change from the heat wave we had for a while there. And it's some natural rain for the flowers, which look like they are so close to having blossoms, I'm so excited!! Plus it will serve as a nice flush for the flower bed I almost poisoned.... Yea I had a major uh-oh for a while there. See we have a bit of an ant problem and I noticed the fresh little leaves of a bunch of my plants getting munched on, so I went to the store and got some insecticide, just some simple granules to spread over the ground. Well I held off on putting them down for a while but then one day I went to move one of my pots and noticed they had decided to nest right under all my beautiful new flowers. Of course in my haste and frustration; after all I had worked so had to get the blasted things to grow I was going to let the most populous beings on the planet destroy my efforts, so I sprinkled some of the granules right under the pot, in the flower bed. The last part was a problem. It served it's purpose to kill the bugs, however, it also worked as a strong chemical, probably acid, and burned the plants. In a matter of only a couple days my plants were wilting and I had brown leaves everywhere. So out came the miracle grow and the water, fortunately after a great deal of flushing the ground I think they'll all make a reasonable recovery, the plants that is, the bugs thank goodness are still gone. We did lose a few in the process, some infants that were just coming above ground, but again thanks to the rain I have new things growing in my pots on the stairs and will soon have goodies to transplant and fill in the holes.

As a result of all this experimentation however, I think I have come to a conclusion. Next spring, possibly even as early as late winter, I will plant my seeds indoors, though not in those silly greenhouse things, that was an epic fail, and then move them outside after I'm sure it won't frost anymore.

On another note in regards to the house and the rain though, we may soon have a problem.... a leaky roof... fortunately it's not my house so I don't have to worry too much other than making sure none of my stuff in the attic is anywhere that can be damaged by the leaking water. On the other side of that, I have to say something to the landlord and I'm pretty sure he's not going to be very excited about it all. Especially since it looks like there was a patch job done recently, past couple years anyways, there is dripped through tar all over the place where the water is leaking through. So I'll send him an e-mail and see what is to be done.

Otherwise I am just going to enjoy the serenity the water offers and continue to sit here on my front porch and watch my munchkin play in her kitchen while I talk to you and then get back to reading my book.

I was going to do some laundry but yesterday Steph came up to say that the tumbler in the dryer isn't functioning properly... have to include that in the e-mail to the landlord too since it is his dryer.

Keep our fingers crossed

Another fabulous Sunday yesterday!

The gang traveled to Enchanted Forest Water Safari and had a BLAST!!! We hung out for a while in the lazy river, we went down some water slides, we watched Tori and Penny have a blast in the kiddie pool and just generally had a fabulous time. Though I have to admit one of my favorite moments was standing in the kiddie pool with Penny. She just has that beautiful chocolate color and watching people look at Matt and I with a half black baby was just too damn funny. This one lady looked at me and goes "Oh she's so beautiful! She must have gotten her color from her dad." To which I simply replied "No, her mom." and then watched the lady awkwardly smile at me and then walk away. Some people really are just too funny.

On a not so funny note though it was frightening to see all these young ladies in these teenie bikinis. All I could think of was bean and what she was going to look like as she got older and then the mom side of the brain kicked in and prayed she would be flat chested and awkward so I wouldn't have to worry about her in a bikini. Of course at the same time Matt and Tom were talking about how they have devised a plan so they can get both girls totally submerged in cars so that was they won't want to go to the water parks and be in small bathing suits.

Fortunately I have at least 8 and I'm hoping for more like 10 years before having to worry about it too much.

But all in all we had a blast and got a nice tan!

The best part was I got to have fun again this morning!

 I had my observation/second interview day today at the clinic and it was wonderful!

It felt so good to be back in a clinic and working with the animals again. Though I have to admit I was a bit confused to start. I thought I was going to be going in to work a bit and so I put scrubs on and dressed appropriately to be in a clinic and working with the animals. But when I got there they seemed to think I was more so going to just be standing in the background and watching. Little did they know I'd much rather get my hands dirty and be there holding the animals and drawing blood.

Fortunately they were very o.k. with me jumping right in so I helped restrain, watched some digital x-rays; so intrigued by the way! The digital images were SO good and just made everything so clear, the best part was the one image was just a tad too bright so Paul pushed a button and it was darker and easier to see everything! So cool!

And now I just have to wait and see what they think... **fingers crossed**

Then tomorrow we go to look at a possible daycare. The one I looked at Friday is not going to work, and we'll just leave it at that.

Well time to get to my book, the author just dumped half the characters off into a gully in their brand new custom rail car.

Holy WoW!

Wow so it is definitely hot out there. I know Detroit saw a heat index of 112F but the 109F we had here was plenty enough for me.

Fortunately we've spent the majority of the past two days indoors with the blessed air conditioner on.

As far as the tree of us are concerned though not too much going on. Munchkin is being cute as always and then daddy is working hard as always for us. Speaking of working mommy had a job interview yesterday. I actually go Monday to do a few hours on observation, see if I like the way they run their clinic and the Doctors like me so I have a bit of studying to do this weekend. Just brush up on a few details, make sure I know my goods before I go in and try to show a few new Doctors that I know my stuff. Then hopefully I'll have a job!

Then it will just be trying to figure out how to tie up the loose school ends so I can finish up and then apply for vet school. Actually I have to get the ball rolling on that stuff now seeing as applications have to be in by October. So plenty to do as always and since tomorrow is going to be another scorcher I think I'll spend the day inside and working on applications, laundry and cleaning up the kitchen. Because well of course I finally hand washed the floor again on Monday only to have the dogs go tracking mud into the house.

Hmmmm maybe I'll have to fashion a towel at the door to wipe their feet... Oh wait I have a three year old who will let them in the house anyways... Oh well, at least she's cute!

Ps. It being warm all day and night has done WONDERFUL things for my flowers! They are getting so big, I just hope they bloom soon, or at least bud!

So much fun

Well this weekend was a blast!

Saturday was relatively uneventful but Sunday! Oh my goodness we took Sunday Funday to a whole new level!

We started the day with a family breakfast, and by that I mean the whole family; Tom, Nicole, Penny, Mike, Becky, Matt, Tori, Joe and I, unfortunately Steph had to work. for whatever reason Tom called and thought it would be a good idea to go to Denny's for breakfast before we went to the farmer's market. Well then Matt decided it needed to be a much more populous event and so Mike and Becky and Joe got dragged into the process too. Kinda felt bad for Mike too because he originally said he didn't want to go and then when we told bean he wasn't going to come she started crying, so of course Matt made him listen to her cry over the phone and totally guilted him into coming.

After we had made quite the ruckus at Denny's we ventured down the road to the farmer;s market and I realized it had only just begun.

It all seemed to start out fine, but then little one realized she had LOTS of people to go bouncing between. So what did she do? Exactly that and every 30 seconds decide she wanted to walk with someone else, until she decided she was going to stick with Aunt Colie and then it just got funny. Matt went over to her to try to get her to walk with him and was quickly looked at and told
"Never daddy, I want to stay with Colie and my Penny cousin!"

I thought it was just too funny.

Then Tom saw the bouncy bounce, and the guy running it, well lets just say he made the mistake of telling Joe and Tom they could get in it after the kids were done.
Oh my goodness I have not laughed that hard in a very long time! To watch two fully grown men bounce about, especially when they were on the off bounce of each other and almost pushing each other through the roof of the silly thing, that was hilarious!

Then they convinced me to get in.

I have not had that much fun, just genuine childish fun is a really long time. It really reminded me how incredibly important it is to just let loose and have fun and feel like a kid again. You just have to remember that it's ok to have fun and laugh and pretend that you're only 8 again.

But eventually it had to come to an end and we headed home. On the flip side I believe I'm convinced that there needs to be a bouncy bounce at munchkin's birthday party. Partly for the kids, and even more so for the adults!

Then I went off for my spa treatment, which was fabulous!

Came home and the family was now in the back yard and resuming the good times. Not to mention it was CRAZY hot so I stopped at wal-mart on the way home and got a new pool for the munchkin, got her one with a slide, and she was too damn cute. It of course finally got cool and she was blue, I mean lips were straight up blue, standing there shivering but insisting that she was still going to play in the pool. So what does daddy say, I'll heat it up for you baby. And out came the grill and a pot. He actually started trying to heat pots of water on the grill to put hot water in the pool.

Lets just say that didn't last long, and the alternative was even more obscure and involved a torch.

Fortunately by then we had convinced the kid to go take a hot shower and head to bed.

But an awesome weekend none the less!

I feel so bad but it was so funny

Yesterday I have to admit I laughed at my own kid. It was just too funny though.

We were on our way out of the mall and she was running toward the door. I told her she just had to wait a minute so I could get my stuff out of the cart but she kept running. Now the doors at the mall have nice large glass windows on either side of the doors. Some of you may be able to see where this is going. So the munchkin is running and I keep thinking well she is going to run up and slap her hands on the window, nope, she ran straight into the window, forehead first. I couldn't help it, it took everything in me not to burst out laughing, and I did squeak out a few snickers because I just couldn't hold it in.

It was one of those moments where you wish you had a video camera recording at all times because that was probably a $10,000 video. But alas it was only my eyes that saw it but I had to share because well it was just too damn funny not to.

Otherwise not too much to report. I thought about maybe putting up a little of my other writing, I do write some  poems and things every once in a while but then I remembered most of that was on my other computer... and then didn't feel so much like writing more.

Almost a week

Well as the title indicates it's been almost a week since our last check in.

A multitude of reasons behind that; just didn't feel like it, didn't have time, etc. But none of those are particularly important.

What is important on the other hand is that it is July and the sun has given me a nice tan today and there has been progress in the garden. Though I do have to admit if I don't start tanning the front side of me people may start to look at me funny and ask questions. I definitely have gardener's tan. My entire back and my shoulders are all nicely colored, but then you get to my legs and my front side, well lets just say I'm still white. So I think tomorrow, after a few errands in the morning, I'll get my book and relax and tan my front side. My legs could use some help too, sitting on them most of the time while weeding or digging has resulted in them staying pretty pasty too.

On that note I have to say I love that I have found this interest in my garden, I just wish I didn't have so many dangerous plants. They're not dangerous in the sense that they're poisonous or anything like that, but more than half the bushes in my yard have thorns. There are a few in particular, my neighbor calls them fire bushes; really little round leaves, dense branches, they grow green and then turn this beautiful red and almost purple. But damn do the multitude of thorns that they grow HURT! I mean I don't want to be out working in long sleeves simply because I'd probably pass out from heat exhaustion, but my arms do not appreciate getting torn up the majority of the afternoon. And actually the thorns cutting my arms open I can deal with, but when I would occasionally catch one across my stomach as I was trying to cut the monstrosities from the fence, OWWWWWW! So I guess it's a bit of a catch 22 because if I don't cover the skin then it hurts but then if I do cover it and then it gets caught in my shirt that hurts just as much.

Anyways I got all the bushes shaped up fairly well, some look a bit sad, I cut a lot of dead crap out hoping it would spark new growth, and I'm still coaxing the rose bushes into hanging around, so maybe by the end of summer I'll finally have a respectable garden.

Speaking of respectable things to look at I was so proud for a bit thinking this plant that was coming up by the house was this super neat pink tuft thing, it now has huge leaves with thick stalks and when i chased the stalks to the ground what did I find? Why the root structure I thought for sure I had killed since I hacked it all up in the process of digging out that spot. so now I have this plant, more than likely a weed, though that term is so relative, and if it flowers I wont consider it a weed, if it doesn't, it's a weed and it's gone. and this time I'll be sure to actually take the root structure out of the ground.

Fortunately my potted plants are all doing well so I will have things to transplant, may do that tomorrow before I sun bathe.

Oh and for all of you who are wondering, Where was the little one through this weeding and gardening day? Well as soon as I turned the hose on she was a happy as a kid in a candy store. Gotta love being a kid and amused by being able to get yourself soaking wet.

The really funny part, when she would turn the hose on the dog! Guinness would run, then come back and stand just far enough away and bark at her, then start running in circles. Tori would then fill the bucket we have outside for them to drink out of and as soon as Guinness got close enough, SPLASH! to the side of her head. Lucky for her I always turn the hose to the mist setting before I give it to bean to play with.

Feelin Like it's Working

Well I have to admit it really does feel wonderful to know that people are reading and commenting, though I would love if you would leave a name. when you go to comment you can actually put in a name, when you open the drop down list and where it says Name/URL you can enter in your name.

Anyways, another hot one today, I think we're going to sped a good portion of the early afternoon inside and then maybe outside a bit later as it starts to cool off. May even let the little one play in the water. She has figured out how to squeeze the hose handle, and found it absolutely hilarious to chase mommy around with the hose. Now she used to have a blow up kiddie pool that we could fill up but unfortunately one of the dogs put a hole in it so maybe our day today will have to incorporate going to the store to get one of the harder plastic ones they can't poke a hole in.

And I think Ive officially decided I don't have the motivation to truly overhaul the front yard so I'm going to clean out under the bushes and then get one of those roll out gardens. A pretty ingenious idea if you ask me. A roll of biodegradable mesh filled with flower seeds and a bit of soil and fertilizer, all you have to do is rough up the ground and roll it out and viola, you have flowers in the garden. Now I just hope it's not too late in the season. Speaking of flowers I have to start thinking about transplanting some of my potted flowers since they are getting a little stifled in their pots.

Well between garden work and some laundry, since Matt has no clean jeans I guess I have real work to do now.

What a munchkin

Sometimes she is just down right hilarious. Others a little less so. Today as I was trying to clean up the house I felt so bad because she wanted so badly to help but the are two issues to that assistance; one, the chemical component, two, the fact that she usually ends up making more of a mess. So I try to find other ways in which she can help. For example in folding or putting away the laundry she is handed her underwear which she can simply put in a drawer. Otherwise we end up with a massive pile of clothes in her "dresser" and then I have to refold them all. Or when unloading the dishwasher she can pull out her utensils and put those away and when we get to the top shelf she reaches to hand me the cups that I then put away in the cabinet. In the first attempt with her assistance she came walking at me with a meat knife, now she can only pick up her utensils. Today it was cleaning up the laundry and then cleaning up the toilet. Both of which posed new challenges. With the laundry it was getting her to discern between clean and dirty. She had a pile of clothes that I had put on her couch to put away and while I admit it was partly my fault for no putting them away before asking her to clean her room, she proceeded to say "But mommy there's too many clothes for my elephant." her hamper looks like an elephant. So after figuring out the laundry issue in her room I decided it would be best to have her just clean up her room in general.

Now usually this is a relatively simple task for her but in this case more than half the contents of her room was scattered about her floor. The result was a stash of dress up dresses under her picnic table, a bed full of blankets and stuffed animals; ok at least she was close there, and her toy box well the shelf had some of her movies and a few pairs of shoes, but only two books which is what the self is meant for. Now inside the box, more shoes, her toys of course and then we found several socks, some more shoes, a sweater, several stuffed animals, her crayon box, her empty crayon box. so mommy decided the toy box needed a bit of an overhaul. We didn't entirely empty the box but we did get the majority of animals back into the animal hammock, books on the shelf and shoes in the shoe basket but when it came to searching the bottom for the crayons, that got interesting.

She insisted that she had dumped them all on the front porch so I told her to go get them, her response "No mommy my crayons are in my toy box and you have to find them so I can color a picture. Oh look there is my picture mommy!" She climbs over me to grab a piece of paper and then continues on about a ten minute rant about coloring and making pictures with an end of "Oh no mommy I have no more stickers to make my pictures pretty." 

After getting the rest of the toy box situation under control I wanted to get the toilet cleaned before we headed out to take bottles back and possibly head over to Ema's. she wanted to help clean the toilet. But I already hate cleaning the toilet and really didn't want her anywhere near the bleach concoction that is lysol bathroom cleaner. So I try to usher her off only to have her come running around the corner "Mommy I have to clean my toilet so I don't have poop on my butt because I went poop already and you have to clean the pee." One of the most jumbles sentences I've ever heard from her but I couldn't help but laugh and then was sorely disappointed in my move to inhale the fumes.

Fortunately we were done at that point and the task was to get the bottles in the truck and then go to Ema's. Little one and I took a vote though and decided we would rather go to Ema's than take  bottles back and it was a good thing we did too as Poppy (Matt's dad) was at Ema's and bean hasn't seen Poppy is quite a while. She had a blast with Poppy and Ema for a while and then the storms started to roll in and it was off to home.

She never fails to amaze me with her little attitude and personality and I'm sure she will always continue to impress me with the variety of things she says and does, and the fact that she does them almost every day.

My pups

She was just looking so cute I had to share

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Quite the weekend

We had quite the busy weekend, and now a lazy holiday! :-) Friday was great Matt had gone into work early so he was home early and we were all able to sit down and have family dinner. Though we only barely had dinner since tiny is back on her I'm going to pick like a bird kick and Matt wasn't too terribly hungry.

Saturday on the other hand was... well it was an interesting day to say the least.
We have been talking since we bought the gazebo about possibly building a deck or something underneath it. It would sever a few purposes if we did actually. One it would get it up off the ground so that when it rains the bottom of it doesn't get totally covered in dirt. Two, getting it up would make the dogs a little less likely to go charging through it when they play. I swear they have little to no reverence for their own health or safety. Guinness and Feeny were chasing each other the other day for possession of the ball and one of them, *SMACK*, head or hip or some major part of their body slammed straight into the corner panels. But of course they just keep running with no recognition of the hit. So lifting it would hopefully make them a little less likely the bash into it. And third if were were to build it up on some sort of deck it would allow us to have something other that dirt to walk on. The only downside to this plan would be how exactly to place said deck in the yard.
We don't want to put up something permanent since we don't own the place but of course we need it to be sturdy. Then the idea became well we'll just dig a few post holes and have it be a removable platform. This method would also serve well for winter, this would allow it to be easily removed since that spot in the yard is really the only place to put any accumulation of snow. Then the problem arose of how do we accommodate for the yard being so crooked? we didn't want to make it exceptionally tall but in order to give it clearance on all sides, one side would be about a 8in. step from the yard.
The solution, Matt says he'll level the yard.

Now I had my apprehensions to start. I knew it would be a substantial undertaking but figured well we do have a three day weekend to do it, plus it will get me motivated to go work in the garden again and get this huge vining rose plant moved and maybe some more flowers planted. So Saturday morning wee got up, had breakfast and headed off to home depot.

We pick up a wheelbarrow, a tamp; a tool by the way I had never heard of until Matt mentioned he would need one, and a longer handled shovel. Now at this point I was beginning to question the undertaking, realizing exactly how much dirt was going to have to be removed and the time, it was now almost 1:30pm. But we went at it anyways. I started digging at the rose bush, needed some help when I got to the roots as they had grown around a piece of the rebar used to hold the fence in place. So they got chopped up and transplanted to one of the major holes in the bush line down the fence. We'll see if they make it. Then of course I had a spot to fill and our neighbor had gotten a huge collection of day lilies from her sister, had used what she wanted and then gave me the rest so we hacked that into a couple pieces and again we'll have to see if they take. Rose said they may not look great the rest of this summer but that next spring they should come back really nicely after they've had a chance to set new roots. As far as the rest of the leveling, well he got a lot done but just ran out of steam and daylight to finish so that will have to be finished up next weekend, thankfully it's only four days away!! Plus super excitement! I have a wonderful friend ;-) who is sending me Country fest tickets!! So I will finally be going to the first real concert of my adult life. Yea I know that sounds a bit sad but it was just never really my thing. Went to a few ammature gigs in high school and as a member of band a chorale I was in a number of performances but the concert scene just never really appealed to me. Not sure if it is something we can bring the munchkin to though so we'll see about that part of the plan.

Then to cap off the weekend we went to a wedding last night and had a blast!!! My first Jewish wedding and let me just say do they know how to have a good time! The ceremony was beautiful and the Rabi was great and translated a lot of the Hebrew marital contract that was recited by both parties. Then there was a series of blessings, some recited, some sung, again translated and then the traditional breaking of the glass; which until I read in the program had no idea what it was really for. Then went to the country club for a fabulous cocktail hour with lots of cheese, fruit, crackers and fresh carved turkey and corned beef. Then we came to the  open bar, it was all over from there on out. We were eventually moved into the ballroom and of course the traditional couple's first dance, the dances with the parents all that fun stuff. There was a cute little slide show and had to laugh when Matt's tenth grade self came across the screen. Great dinner and just a continued wonderful time all night, then bonus, with it being so close to the 4th there were fireworks. So everyone went out to the balcony and we toasted and watched the fireworks. It was truly a wonderful evening and of course the bride and groom looked fabulous and we wish them all the best in this next stage of life!

And little one stayed home with the aunt and uncle and form what I was told had a relatively quiet night, the occasional hiccup but of course to be expected from the monster at this point.

Now we've had a lazy day watching cartoons, eating and a bit of cleaning before possibly finding somewhere that we can take bean to to see some fireworks this evening.

Nifty!

Gotta love the world of technology sometimes. I have finally found a way to upload some pictues for the blog. And I have to admit it is definately the easiest method for me. Simply an application on the smartphone, yay!!

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