Party of Five

I am a sucker for fun Meme’s so I have decided to start my own. I also happen to love Bravo’s Inside the Actors Studio, I figure it will be interesting to see how others would respond to James Liptons 10 question interview usually given to celebrities. It should be fun to see how far around the web I can get this to reach. Here we go.

The rules:
1. Copy and Paste the rules of the game at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags five people and posts
their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment,
letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read the
player’s blog.
4. Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.

Note: Please keep this link in your rules so the original poster can see how far the Meme goes.

• What is your favorite word?

Vacation: how could there possibly be anything but excitement when this word is being used.

• What is your least favorite word?

Welfare: only because where I live it is extremely rare that this is a good or productive thing.

• What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?

Perfect Weather: I have a really hard time being in a bad mood when the sun is shining plus I am far more productive.

• What turns you off?

Bad Attitudes (mine is a work in progress).

• What is your favorite curse word?

The good old fashioned F-bomb

• What sound or noise do you love?

My kids laughing

• What sound or noise do you hate?

Bratty kids in public places

• What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Graphic design: I should have thought about this 10 years ago.

• What profession would you not like to do?

Dentist: I would never want to put my hands into those disgusting mouths

• If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

“Everyone is welcome regardless of race, religion, or sexual preference.”

Tagging:*

1. Shannon @ Catharsis

2. Jodi @ Iridescent Bubbles

3. Jessica @ Life is Rantastic

4. Damien @ The speed of Life

5. Heather @ Happy Making

*even if you are not tagged but want to participate, please hop right in

Valentine’s Day is only an hour away so I feel inclined to share three of the sweetest things my wonderful husband has ever done for me. In no particular order here they are:

Most thoughtful: As a few of you know I had lap-band surgery last March. Part of the process involves going on a pure liquid diet for three days pre-op, then another five days post surgery. There’s more, but in a nutshell the last real meal you eat before Weight loss surgery becomes known as “The Last Supper” because not only will you not eat anything semi normal for weeks to come, you will never eat the same again. This wasn’t something I whined about to my husband because I was still trying to keep him on board with the process and didn’t want to utter a teensy complaint about it given that it took me a year to get his support as it was. So, four days before my surgery he surprises me with a baby sitter and sweeps me off my feet for a long drive giving me no clues as to where we were going. Two hours later we arrived at the front door of Ruth’s Chris, the best steakhouse ever. He said he wanted my last meal to be the best.

Most creative: Damien has never really caught on to buying jaw dropping gifts. In fact in the early years he didn’t buy them at all. Not entirely his fault since we have almost always been on a mega tight budget and we share a bank account, but he has been in the dog house once or twice regardless. Last year however on my birthday (which also falls on or within days of Mother’s Day) Damien got super creative and took me to Big 5 to pick out my own gift. If you are confused, so was I… at first. But he soon explained that my gift was to spend time with me, in the form of playing tennis together. We picked out rackets and headed to a court for my birthday…it was awesome.

Most Spontaneous: Damien and I hit it off very early. In a matter of three weeks we had a huge list of dates we had been on, including dinners, movies, meeting parents, Disneyland and more. However in our fourth week we ended up on the road to San Diego heading out to Sea World. I had never been, so it was a very magical trip, however I would have never guessed what was to come next. On the drive home we had this mad idea to get married and have a baby. So sure enough, after an official proposal, four weeks later we met at the alter and began our wild adventure toward the Party of Five. I’m not sure he will ever top the spontaneity of proposing one month in and pushing for a wedding 30 days later, but the best may be still yet to come.

1. “Night-Night“: One of the most calming parts of my day is when these words are finally uttered by my kids.

2. “Lets go“: I love getting out of the house.

3. Lively music: Having waitressed for 11 years, I found myself driving to work with a scowl on my face way too often. Instead I would play my favortie tunes to lift my spirits. It still works! No matter what my mood, upbeat music always makes it better.

4. “Mommy!” (when said with enthusiasm) Mostly the girls call out for Daddy, but when I hear them call out for me I LOVE it!

5. Live Piano: When Damien first brought home his childhood piano I thought it would make a nice addition to our decor, but I never knew I would love hearing him play it so much. It is very relaxing.

6. “I Love You!” Who could get tired of hearing this?

7. Laughing: One of the best sounds ever, esp. when it is kids.

8. The final “schools out” bell of the day…awww sweet harmony!

9. Silence: This is actually quite the opposite of sound, but it tops the list anyways.

10. Running water (like rivers and streams)

11. Holiday Jingles: As soon as the time of year comes when they start playing Xmas music it starts to feel so magical.

12. Rustling Leaves: No explanation, just love it!

13. Anthony Hopkins & Morgan Freeman: These guys could turn the “books on tape” market in to a multi million dollar business with their calming voices.

This is my old look, and if you have stopped by my page in the last few days you cant help but have noticed the countless changes I have been making to my blog theme. From altering colors, fonts, headers, and sidebars to entirely new graphics and losing hours worth of changes by overwriting the wrong file, it has been a rather lengthy process…but as I have mentioned in the past, I am far more interested in spending mindless hours tweaking my blog theme, then actually writing interesting posts. It doesn’t hurt that I sit right next to my html and css wise husband who can advise me when I do something terrifying like remove one teensy semi colon and it sends my sidebar into outer space. Mostly I just like to have an excuse to play with pictures and color schemes in Photoshop which is precisely why I will most definitely do it all over again in a month or two. In the meantime I have only one or two things I still plan to add to this one so I can get back to actually writing about things that matter. Like how I am rooting for the Colts in today’s Superbowl merely to compete against my 11 year old.

I am about a month behind in finding this fun little reading challenge over at Busy Bookworm, but no less excited to participate. I tend to get board surfing the net and find myself searching for books to read, but when the hunt takes away any time I actually have to read I give up pretty easy. So this is perfect. The point is to pre pick 12 books to be read in 2010, read one or two per month and then post a review to your blog (plus I get an adorable button in my right sidebar). By pre picking the books I will have more time to get them plus know whats next to come without any time spent searching. It did however take two days to pin down my picks. Here they are in no particular order:

1.  Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
2.  A Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick
3.  The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks
4.  Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris
5.  Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
6.  Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
7.  Burned by P.C. & Kristin Cast
8.  The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
9.  Kiss of Death by Rachel Caine
10. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
11. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
12. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Steig Larsson (and probably the two following books since I am a sucker for a good book series)

(thanks to Jodi…I found my way over to this challenge through your site)

The first four years of his life, my oldest was an only child. Luckily we lived right next door to two of his cousins so playmates were close by.  Still though friends go home, and he was left all by himself. To this day we tease him about trying to bribe  them with candy to stay and play,  and when that didn’t work, throwing himself in front of the door screaming so that they couldn’t possibly get out. Oh the life of an only child in a single parent house can be a touch lonely.

Now, however, our home situation is very different. There are five of us, two adults for the entertaining, and three kids to keep each other busy. The youngest Riley doesn’t quite view this as a positive though. She never gets anything to herself, and has to share everything. Given that I was the youngest of three I feel like I can relate to her frustrations, but afterall she is only two so their isn’t much I can explain to her as of yet.

For all that, times are changing. See the big sister just started school this week. So now, when mom isn’t working, all attention is on her. The first day all by herself she was pampered with a manicure, pedicure, and haircut (thanks to a good friend). Now today is day two. She got to pick the cartoon, has all the toys to herself, doesn’t have to cut the banana in half (which I learned was apparently a very exciting thing), and is getting ready to go out to run errands with mom…all by herself. Out of the blue she said with more enthusiasm then I have seen in a while “I get to play all by myself” (to which I replied) “is that a good thing?”…”uh HUH!”

One thing for sure, her demeanor is very different, from the aggressive child who screams and shouts when big brother and sister are home to a reasonable one who is almost serene when they are gone. Poor thing just needed to get some time to herself.

Companies spend a lot of time and energy marketing to kids. In fact I’d guess that kids may be one of the biggest audiences in their business. They grab them with commercials, magazine ad’s, and product placement in their favorite shows. But the real kicker is when they use their favorite cartoon characters to sell the product. Well my oldest daughter just turned five and got what would seem to be the new hot ticket item for her birthday. A Zhu Zhu pet. These things are a wonderful replacement for a real hamster, however they have about 20 accessories to be complete. Ranging from housing attachments. to toys, the price can go pretty high to get your Zhu Zhu pet complete. So the little one noticed right away on the side of the box that wonderful attention grabbing image of a Zhu Zhu in a carrier. I’m thinking, “oh that’s cute, can’t cost much just for a little carrier that’s smaller than my hand”…um, thats where I was wrong. When I looked it up, the cost was…prepare yourself…$20. For less than eighth of a yard of low quality fabric. Holy Moly, time to improvise. So we decided to make one. Let me give you my disclaimer: I am not a seamstress. I have a sewing machine I have used 4 times and not very well I might add, but what the heck…she’s five right, who will notice crooked stitches?

Here’s what I started with: the Zhu Zhu pet for sizing, two pieces of coordinating fabric, thread, scissors, and rick rack (would have used ribbon but this is what I had on hand).

I made a basic square with rounded corners, stitched it together inside out, turned it right side out and attached the rick rack sloppily around the edges.

Lastly I attached some handles and slipped the hamster into his new carrier. Not quite what the commercial advertises, but the five year old was happy.

(sorry for the fuzzy cell phone images)

Listen here, if I can put this thing together, anyone can. The best part is that instead of marketing forcing us parents to spend $20 for a piece of cloth that will be lost in the laundry in a week, I managed to make the little one extremely happy in less than an hour. Improvising rocks!

As a kid I can tell you my dad helped just about anyone we crossed paths with. He was by profession an auto-mechanic, but really he was just handy with almost anything. If someone needed help, stranger or not he was the guy who stopped, and he would never accept anything in return other than a thank you. As I have grown I can’t say that I see many good samaritan acts like these, but times have changed so drastically its easy to understand why. For one, just about everyone has some sort of roadside assistance and a cell phone to get help out to them. For another it is hardly safe to stop and check on strangers, especially in remote areas or at night. I also think as a general rule we own newer cars (unlike the days where we drove a car for 20 years until it was on its last leg) so there are fewer break downs. Still though, even in modern times, gas runs out, tires go flat, and on the rare occasion that you either do not have your cell phone or happen to be in between roadside assistance plans, help is always desperately wanted. On with my story.

Yesterday wasn’t one of our luckiest days in the Riley house, a few flips and flops through the day (nothing major), but we didn’t manage to be driving home from work until it was dark, slushy, and pouring down rain. On the darker “short cut” home though, we got a flat tire. Since I was certain that I opted out of the roadside assistance to keep our insurance policy low, Damien started out in the cold to change it. This is where I should mention that trying to find where the factory jack is installed in your vehicle, is like playing Where’s Waldo. Then getting it out of the housing is another puzzle. Ten minutes in the rain and we haven’t even taken the spare of the back of the car. The kids and I got to stay tucked away for the grueling 40 minutes that followed while Damien knelt in soggy snow and was getting soaked with fresh rain, but the good ol’ factory jack still refused to get the car high enough to put the full sized spare on. So just as we are about to freeze to death, a car pulls up and a guy steps out offering to help. In less than 10 minutes he uses his (far superior) factory jack and has us on our way. It was unbelievable to both Damien and I that someone would stop on a pitch black road, in the slush, with rain pouring down, and help change a tire for strangers.

Oh and when I called later to add roadside assistance to our policy I learned we already had it…go figure.

One of the quickest ways to ruin a diet is to give into the cravings that inevitably show up right when you are trying to be at your best. Hasn’t this happened to all of us? You’ve worked for days to eat just the right meals,  kept on task with an exercise plan, and been on your best behavior by not even indulging in the slightest treats. Then out of nowhere your mind sends you flying to the cupboards in a dire search for anything you shouldn’t be eating. Its most surprising when you have just finished a meal and can think of no good reason why you should want to eat again. This would be head hunger at its worst. Your stomach certainly isn’t calling you out, its your brain. So how in the world can you get beyond this calling? Here it is in a nutshell: dump the carbs, especially the white ones.

Even in moderation the bread, pasta, rice, and tortillas go to work on your blood sugar and when you least expect it, they leave you desperate for more. Cutting them out of your diet though won’t just help in reducing the late night frantic rushes to the fridge, you will probably also find an increase in energy, and possibly a better disposition. There isn’t a slow way to do away with these carbs though because if you look at your labels they are hiding in so many of the foods you would least expect. What I suggest is to go cold turkey. Try a carb busters diet like this one and let me know how it goes.

#1 – Do this for 10 days

#2 – Drink 2 quarts of water a day

#3 – You must have 45 grams of protein supplement and all your vitamins/minerals supplements each day

#4 – You may consume up to 3 oz of the following high protein foods, 5x a day

beef
pork
chicken
turkey
lamb
fish
eggs
low fat cheese
cottage cheese
plain yogurt or artificially sweetened (?)
peanut butter
beans/legumes

You may also have:

sugar free popsicles
tea or coffee
sugar free soda
sugar free jello
broths/bullion (sp?)
crystal light drinks

#5 – If it’s not on the list, you can’t have it for 10 days!!!!

#6 – Keep a food diary and try to get up to 30 mins of exercise daily