HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Just a quick funny for the day:

What did the turkey say to the turkey hunter?

Quack, quack.

Ha! I thought it was funny.

Hope everyone has a great day. I plan to eat until I am in a coma. I am so grateful for my life and all the great people I have in my life including my new bloggy friends.

My Sister

As I wrote about yesterday, my sister is home from college. She is a junior at CSU, Monterey. She attended 2 years at CSU, Sacramento and decided to transfer this year. I miss her terribly, but I know that she's enjoying it there and who can complain about going to college next to the Pacific Ocean. She is home for Thanksgiving and I've already seen her twice. Lucky me! There is a big age gap between us, 12 years 11 months and 21 days to be exact. She is a Cinco de Mayo baby which always make her birthday fun. She is so fun to be around and as you can tell, she is adorable. She is very creative and loves to make her own cards for any occasion. She's the best sister a girl could have.

I made a fantastic meatloaf dinner on Sunday. It was so yummy! The whole family was over. My brother, his wife and 2 kids, me, my husband and our 3 kids, my stepbrother and his wife, my Mom's great cousin's daughter (I still haven't figured out what that makes her to me) and my Grandma. I have a big family and when you put us all in one house, it's a little (a lot) noisy and a little chaotic, but we make it work. After dinner we had pumpkin pie & whipped cream. YUM! The ruler loves whipped cream and if he sees the can, he will open his mouth like a baby bird and expect you to squirt it in his mouth. It's pretty cute.

My sister is going to come over tomorrow afternoon and help the queen and I work on a school project. It requires some creativeness, which I lack. In the morning I'm going to be cooking a turkey for the princess' preschool class. She is very excited! It's also pajama day at preschool which makes it even more fun. So, at 7:00 a.m. I will be putting the turkey in the oven. It's a 15 pounder and I'm not stuffing it, so it shouldn't take very long. The turkey I made for my potluck at work last week was fantastic. I impressed myself. But I digress. Let's get back to my sister.

I've had the privilege of working with my sister not once, but twice. She interned in our communications department in the summer of 2007 and then came back to work at my company, in my department, in the beginning of 2008. She worked through the second semester of her sophomore year and into some of the summer. She left in July to get ready to move to Monterey. She lives in the dorms. It's been hard not having her at my office or even in the same city. We do talk often and I'm glad that we had the time together that we did. Her Dad died last December and it gave us a lot of time to heal together and just be together through a very rough time in our lives. I can't imagine losing my father at 19 years old. She has been through a lot and she still continues to thrive in all areas of her life. I am so proud of her. This Thanksgiving is going to be rough. It's the last holiday we spent with her Dad. He died about 15 days after Thanksgiving. This year my mom and sister are going to my her boyfriends families house. I think that's probably for the best. None of us are up for cooking at my mom's house this year. I'm going to go to my dad's house this year. I could go on and on and on about how much I love my sister, but I think you get the point.

I hope y'all have a great Thanksgiving and that you are as grateful for your life as I am. May your families be as blessed as ours.

Live Simply

This is my motto today. It should be my motto everyday, but I tend to complicate life sometimes or maybe all the time. I make myself so busy and put so much on my plate that I can't enjoy the simple things in life. So today I'm enjoying my coffee in my favorite cup that reminds me to slow down. As I'm typing, I'm listening to Christmas music. I love, love, love the holidays. Since they don't make Thanksgiving music, I'm starting my Christmas music collection early. Every year I buy the holiday CD from Starbucks and I love them because it's such a mix of artists. A minute ago I was listening to Norah Jones sing about peace and now I'm listening to Dean Martin sing I'll be Home for Christmas. I have everything from the Kenny Chesney Christmas CD to the Nutcracker which is most favorite Christmas CD ever. I can listen to the music and see the ballerinas dance during each scene in my head. I've probably seen the Nutcracker Ballet at least 15 times and it never gets old for me. I've taken the queen every year since she was 3 except once. I'm hoping we can afford to go this year. I really want to take princess this year. She's never seen it and I think she would love it. We get all dressed up with our fancy dresses, shoes and purses. We take the binoculars because I've never been able to afford the close seats and then afterwards we get to go to a party with the ballerinas and other characters. We take pictures with them and they sign the kids programs. It's so much fun. I feel like a little kid every year when we go.

It's 11:45 PST and I'm still in my pajamas. I love lazy Sundays. I just put the ruler down for his nap. The queen and princess are outside with daddy raking leaves. I'm actually getting a moment to myself and I'm not doing laundry, cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming. I'm enjoying my second cup of coffee and listening my Christmas CD's. Life's good.

I took a couple of pictures this morning of our lazy Sunday. The ruler was just lounging on the couch watching cartoons and the princess was hanging out in the rocking chair. Couldn't pass up a Kodak moment. Their so dang cute. Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky in the kid department. I don't know where the queen was when I was taking pictures, but I didn't get one of her. I wish I would of because her hair this morning was hilarious. The right side of her head had a huge bald spot because of they way she slept and it was sticking straight up.

I hope that you are all enjoying your Sunday. Check back tomorrow and I'm going to post about my sister. I don't think I've ever mentioned her in my blog yet, but I will introduce you to her tomorrow. She's home from college for the week so we are going over to my Mom's tonight for family dinner. I'll be doing most of the cooking since my mother isn't much of a cook. My step dad (my sisters dad), passed away last December and he did all of the cooking. He taught me almost everything I know about cooking and so I want to treat my sister to one of our favorites that he used to make for us. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes , a special red gravy, corn and rolls. It is my all time favorite meal that he made and I have perfected the recipe. I'm a little sad as I type this because I miss him terribly and it's hard during the holidays when a loved one isn't with us anymore. I know that he is in heaven and that one day I will see him again, but it doesn't mean that I don't wish he wasn't here making meatloaf for all of us, but he's not, so I'm proud to carry on the meatloaf legacy.

HAPPY THURSDAY!!!

Today I'm just going to talk about the good things in life. This morning I found it ironic that on my way to work with my friend Becky, who was nice enough to give me a ride again, we got pulled over, but it worked out just fine. I was feeling a little bit like the sky was falling, but it's turns out it's not. You can find out more about our morning here.

I finally got my rental car this afternoon. I couldn't get it last night because I didn't have my driver's license. The police officer gave it to my husband on Monday after the accident and he forgot give it back to me. It worked out for the best because I got a pretty cool car. It's a Ford Escape Hybrid. It has satellite radio which is really cool and it get really good gas mileage for a SUV. It's normally a very expensive rental, but since it was the only car left at the rental place, I got it really cheap. YAY ME! Things are looking up! I must admit I'm a little apprehensive to drive home tonight in traffic, but I'm sure everything will be fine. I drove last night, but I didn't go very far and it wasn't in rush hour traffic. I must admit that I'm feeling pretty decent considering that someone plowed into me 3 days ago, but I'm still pretty sore and my right elbow is bugging me a bit. I think I'll make an appointment with my doctor just to be on the safe side.

My hubby has been great through all of this. Between me being sick and then the accident, he has really stepped up to take care of stuff that I would normally do. So I want to publicly thank him and let all my bloggy friends know how much I love him and how great I think he is. I don't always tell him that so I wanted to make sure I put it in writing. I appreciate everything he does for me even though I don't always show it.

And now just for kicks I wanted to show off my adorable children. I haven't written much about them lately. I've been a little self absorbed with all the stuff that's been going on so I thought I'd show off some cute pics. The princess has her first band performance during an assembly at school tomorrow. I'm so proud of her. She really enjoys playing the clarinet and she's pretty good. I enjoy listening to her practice and hope that she will continue with band in the years to come.

The first one if of the ruler. He takes his coloring very seriously. When he's not using the coloring book, he is under the table creating art on the kitchen tile. One of these days I'll take a picture of one of his masterpieces. Thank goodness for washable crayons. The next is the queen and her friend Violet on Halloween. The queen was a zombie doctor and Violet was a zombie cheerleader. The last picture is of the princess. We went to a roller skating party a couple of weeks ago and this is her out on the rink. She thinks she's hot stuff and well, she's right.

I hope everyone else is having a great Thursday. When I get home from work I'm going to cook a 20lb. turkey for our Thanksgiving potluck at work tomorrow. I can't believe it's only a week away.

Thanks to everyone for all your comments and prayers. I know that I've been complaining a lot lately and I appreciate your tolerance. I am going to spend the next we focusing on what I'm grateful for. One thing I do know is that I have a lot of things to be grateful for and I need to start remembering what they are.

HUMP DAY!

As Wednesday is usually referred to, I would like to get over it. I would like to start my week all over again, but that's not going to happen. I haven't blogged in a while and I feel like I have a lot to talk about, but I'm going to do my best to keep it short.

I had a great weekend. Saturday was the princess' last soccer game for the season followed by her party. We played indoor soccer for an hour (SO FUN!) and then went to a pizza parlor and had pizza, cupcakes and handed out trophies. Sunday I had to get up bright and early and take the ruler to the doctor. He's had a rash for a while and it wasn't getting better, and he was scratching a lot. He has eczema so I'm not immediately alarmed when his skin breaks out. So off to the doctor on Sunday am. Thank goodness for urgent care clinics. I didn't have to take any time off work. His eczema got infected while scratching it so we have some antibiotic ointment and a steroid cream to help it heal. The rest of our Sunday was pretty mellow. We went grocery shopping, did some housework and watched football. Unfortunately, the Redskins couldn't beat the Cowboys which was very disappointing to me because I'm a Redskins fan. Now I have to listen to my 2 co-workers that sit very close to me that are Cowboys fans. :-(

So the excitement of this week started on my way to work Monday morning. I'm all proud of myself because I left the house early. I had a new outfit on that I bought at Ross on Friday. The outfit cost me $13 for the shirt and pants. I'm such a bargain shopper. So I'm at a stoplight getting ready to turn left when I notice in my rear view mirror that the car behind me is going really fast and is not slowing down. I look in my rear view mirror again and realize that this guy is going to hit me. So, I hold onto the steering wheel, let my foot off the brake and he plowed into me. He hit his brakes about 20 feet before he hit me. Didn't do me much good. He knocked me through 3 lanes of traffic and into oncoming traffic. Needless to say that I was a little shaken up. I called 911 and then got out of my car to look at the damage and see if anyone else was hurt. I apparently hit the person in front of me and he hit another car in front of him. I felt okay at first, but as the adrenalin wore off I really started to hurt. I was real dizzy and my neck started to ache and I had a screaming headache. I can now say that I've had an ambulance ride to the hospital. If I never have to do that again in my life time, I'll be okay. After an examination and x-rays, they sent me home with ibuprofen, Valium and vicadin. I was in a Valium coma for a couple days. Now I am ready to rejoin the real world and move on with my life. I thank God every moment than none of my kids were in the car with me. It could have been a lot worse.

I'm back at work today. I'm a little slow and have to keep getting up and down so I don't get to stiff, but it's nice to be alert, coherent and productive. I'm starting however, to feel lately like the universe is out to get me. Am I karmicly cursed? Am I being punished for something I've done? I know that stuff like this happens and that it's just a part of life, but I'm kind of feeling like I'm being ambushed by the universe. I know that this isn't true, it's just the way I feel.

With any luck, the remainder of 2008 will be uneventful. Now I just have to figure out how to get a new vehicle that will accommodate my family. I was using my mothers car temporarily (which is the car I was in when I got hot) until we could get back our feet and get a new mini-van. Things have been tough financially and we had to give back our van to the finance company in August due to a loss of income. The car I was driving is a total loss and so know I have no idea how I'm going to get another vehicle. I do have faith that God is going to take care of me, I am just impatient and want to know how right now.

Thanks for letting me vent. I hope there will be a vehicle for my family coming in the near future or I will be taking the bus for a while.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BECKY!!

Today is my bestest friends birthday! I won't tell you how old she is, but she's older than me. Only by six months, but not the point, she's still older than me. Anyway. She is the one who got me started with this whole blogging thing and I thank her for it. I'm having a blast.

I'm going to get mushy for a minute and then I'll chill out. I met Becky 22 years ago at church. Yes church. We immediately clicked and have been friends ever since. We spent a lot of time getting in trouble when we were younger, but I think we have grown up to be pretty good people. Sometimes our challenges and hardships were overwhelming, but we have walked through most of them together. There were a few years that we lost touch when she moved out of state, but we have cruised through life together for the last 12 years . I've watched her grow up so much and become such a incredible woman. Though life has not been easy by any means, she still gets up every day, puts one foot in front of the other and marches through life like a true soldier. I cannot express the love that I feel for her and can't imagine life without her. I am fortunate enough to have her working in my office now, 1 floor above me and can go visit or just say HI anytime I want. She loves my children as her own and she tolerates my hubby. HA! I know that she would take a bullet for me and I would do the same for her. She is the only kind of friend to have and I'm glad she's mine.

So, please give Becky some birthday love today. She thinks it's just another day. I beg to differ. Today I celebrate your birth and that you have survived yet another year on your incredible journey called life. Here's to many more years of love, joy, health and frienship. I love you with all my heart!!!!

CHEERS!

Not Better Yet

If you can't already tell from the title, I'm still sick. I finally went to the doctor on Monday and found out that I was really a lot sicker than I thought. If you thought a sinus infection and an ear infection weren't enough, let's through bronchitis into the mix. I'm not by any means a good patient. I over do it all the time and don't take time to rest when I'm not feeling well, but this scared me a bit. My doctor told me that if I didn't stay down and rest, my bronchitis would turn to pneumonia and I would have be hospitalized. That was enough for me to plant myself in bed for the last 2 days.

I am feeling better today, just not enough to go to work. I'm afraid that if I jump back into everything 100% that I will land my butt in the hospital. NO THANKS! Lucky for me, things are super slow at the office and my bosses and co-workers are very understanding. As I sit here typing I realize that I'm not 20 years old anymore. My body is not as resilient as it used to be and I need to take better care of myself. As I'm sure most of your understand, I try so hard to balance my life. Between 3 kids, a husband, the house, work, friends and relatives it seems as if I'm constantly being pulled in too many directions and I'm not good at saying no, or just leaving the dishes or laundry for tomorrow. I'm also not good at asking for help when I feel overwhelmed. Somehow I think that it is going to make me less of a mother, wife or employee and what I forget is that asking for help is a very human thing to do. And last time I checked I'm human. We as people like to be needed, helpful and nurturing. So maybe this is my lesson. I usually need a big wake up call to remind me to slow down and enjoy what's in front of me. And lastly maybe I should ask my friends and family for help. I know that I would be there for them in a second if they asked and they have. And as many times as they offered to help, I've turned them down thinking that makes me less of a woman. It doesn't and deep inside I know that.

So this is a lesson in humility. I am not super mom, super wife or super employee. I am Jennifer and I am human just like everyone else. I guess I should start acting accordingly.

I AM SO SICK!

I started feeling bad last week. I think it started on Thursday. I knew that I was coming down with something, but it was the day before Halloween and besides who has time to be sick. NOT ME! I use the bulk of my sick time at work for my kids. With 3 kids you can imagine how much time I use. So...I powered through Halloween and then the weekend. With soccer and all the other household and mommy duties, I just ignored my cold. By Monday I was feeling pretty bad, but I took my Tylenol Cold and pushed forward. I made it through Tuesday and realized that I wasn't getting any better. I stayed home from work yesterday and slept all day. It's the only time I can get any rest. The queen is very kind and just wants to lay in bed with me and watch TV. Last night she rubbed my feet and kept checking on me to see if there was anything she could do or if I needed her to get something for me. When the princess and the ruler show up it's a little chaotic. They just want to jump on the bed and play which is great every other day, but not when I'm sick. Thank goodness I have a great hubby. He really takes care of me and allows me to rest. He also yells at me when I get out of bed and start doing stuff around the house.

Today I am back at work, but I don't think I'm any better. I can't breathe out of my nose. I can't smell and I can't taste. It's driving me nuts!! I have tried close to everything to clear my nose. Tylenol Sinus, Tylenol Severe Cold, Theraflu, Alka Seltzer Cold Plus, Homeopathic remedies - tea for colds, a hot steamy shower, Emergen-C, vitamins, shower soothers (these cool little round tablets that you put in the shower and it has menthol in it. The vapors are supposed to open your sinus'). So the only things I haven't tried are a humidifier (mine broke the last time one of the kids were sick), Ocean Spray saline nose spray, echinicea and patience. If you have any ideas, I would love to hear them. I know that I'm supposed to rest and take it easy, it is truly difficult for me to take a day off. Even though I was off work yesterday, I still helped the hubby with the kids and getting their things ready for today. I'm not the best patient and I don't sit still easily.

I am hopeful that I will be able to breathe tomorrow and that I won't have to use so many tissues. My nose is so raw and the tissue at work SUCKS. One of my co-workers went to Target at lunch and bought me Kleenex with lotion. She is my new best friend for the day.

Becky..this doesn't change your best friend status. Ha Ha

GET OUT AND VOTE!

If you haven't already, please take the time to vote today. This is an exciting election and I'm proud to be a part of it. No matter what party you are affiliated with, it is so important to take part in one of the greatest rights in America. We get to pick who will run our country for the next 4 years. There is record breaking voter registration this election cycle and the hope that we will have record breaking voter turn out at the polls. Americans are fired up about this election and they should be. History is going to be made tonight (in my opinion) as we embark on a new journey in America.

Being from California I do understand that I tend to fall to the left when it comes to politics and that not everyone agrees with me, but I have noticed that the older I get and 3 kids later , I have developed some conservative ideas and that shocks the hell out of me! I am still a Democrat, just not as much to the left as I was in my youth. I believe that my youth was full of ignorance and opinions based on belief and not experience. Over the years I have had many experiences in life that have helped shape who I am and have also allowed me to make informed decisions in politics.

So if you haven't cast your vote, now is the time. Be a part of history. Take advantage of the right you have been given in this great country we live in!

Weekend Re-cap

What a soggy weekend it was. Halloween was a crazy day! After my post on Friday morning, my day went kind of haywire. Right after lunch, I got a call from our nanny that I needed to come pick up my son because the nanny's daughter was in the emergency room.

Now before we move forward with the rest of the story, I would like to tell you about our nanny. Nanny sounds so pretentious, but we really haven't found any other appropriate title for him other than manny or mansitter. And yes I said him. He is a great guy that takes great care of our kids. He is a stay at home Dad who wanted to make some extra money so he didn't have to go back to work. It's been a fantastic expierence so far. Before he started in July, I was taking and picking up kids from 2 different child care centers. Not so easy when you have to be to two places by 6:00 and you get off work at 5:00. I was totally stressed out all the time. Even though the hubby does help, he goes to work early 2 days a week and work late 2 days a week. So the bulk of the taking and picking up was on my shoulders. When our nanny approached us we were thrilled! I had another woman approach me before this, but she then changed her mind. Now I have someone who comes in the morning to take the queen to school, the princess to preschool and someone to watch my sweet baby boy. The nanny's daughter is the same age as the ruler so it works out really well. He then picks up the queen and princess from school and they are waiting for me when I get home. All of this is done at a very reasonable rate that is cheaper than what I pay for all three to be at a child care facility. It has allowed the queen to do things like band, drama club and both girls to play soccer There is no way I could do all of that stuff on my own. His daughter is doing fine. She was dehydrated and it was causing cramping in her little tummy. They gave her some IV fluids and she has recovered completely

Ok, back to the point of this story. My crazy Friday. The hubby had to pick up the queen and the princess from school. The emergency room that the nanny was at is very close to my work. I had a deadline on a project so I had to bring the ruler back with me to my office. This is a picture of him in my elevator. What I could have had done in an hour, took me 3 hours. A 2 year old in a office is never a good thing. He wanted to climb up the stairs, visit everyone in their office and generally just snoop around to see what he could get in to. So I finally finish my project and get out of the office an hour later than I had intended to. Then had to stop and get gas (it was $2.39 YAY!), and with traffic it took me an hour to get home. After that it was a quick piece of pizza, making sure everyone was so cute in their costumes and out the door we went. My friend Jennifer and her daughter Violet came trick-or-treating with us like they always do on Halloween. It's become traditon. I think this is the 4th or 5th year in a row that they been with us on Halloween.

The ruler was not that fond of all the scary stuff. He lasted about a half a block and he was ready
to home. It had started to rain so the hubby took him home. We finished the block with the girls. They had a good time. I went home to get the boy ad we were off to party the the prncess' soccer coach invited to. The hubby couldn't go. He has a 2nd job as a bouncer at a local sports bar and he had to be to work earlier than usual due to aparty they were having for Halloween. After that we went to my Da's to show the kids off and then it was home to bed.

The queen's soccer game was at 9:00a.m. on Saturday. Not only was it the morning after Halloween, but it was rainy and soggy and cold. It rained all day. I don't think it let up once. I let the hubby sleep and dragged all 3 kids out in the rain. The ruler wasn't feeling so hot, but the princess loved the puddles. It turns out that we lost the game but only by 1 goal. We were at one point behind by 3, then we tied, but in the end the other team pulled it off.

It turns out the the boy had a 102 degree temperature and that's why he sat on my lap during the whole game. He slept most of the afternoon on Saturday. We took a nice long nap together. I have had a cold since Thursday and it's still holding on. Yesterday he was back to his spunky self. His temperature was still hovering around 100 but you couldn't tell.

Becky came over on Saturday night and watched the kids for a few hours. I had a meeting and the hubby had to go to work early again. Thank God for people who are willing to watch my rugrats.

Yesterday I took the queen, the princess and Violet to see HSM 3 (High School Musical for those of you who didn't know the acronym). The girls had a great time! We then proceeded to Costco and then home. The kids played played outside for a while. Jen came to pick up Violet. We all had dinner together ans then it was time to get ready for the wee ahead. Bath, PJ's, brush teeth and finally bed. I'm getting tired just thinking about my weekend. Sometimes I'm just ahppy to come to work on Monday, just so I can sit still. With soccer coming to an end and winter fast approaching I'm hoping for those weekends where you don't go anywhere. We just stay inside and watch movies, or play games and just enjoy each. Yet another reason why I love this time of year. We get to slow down and enjoy our life.

Have a great week!

P.S. I'll post Halloween pics tomorrow. Forgot to bring the camera with me today. Sorry Becky. You'll have to wait one more day!