Home Sweet Home Campaign

At Oursoldiers.org they are running a Home Sweet Home campaign. You can create your own design on a t-shirt, or even upload a picture of yourself, your kids, etc. They will print the shirts and mail them to you or to your spouse/friend/family member who is deployed.

Their goal is to raise a million dollars for USA Cares, a non-profit service organization providing financial support to military families in their time of need.

Want more info? Click here. And thank you for supporting our troops!

Party in the FIP

If you haven't seen this video yet, you must. I went to college with two of these guys. They are hilarious and used to throw the awesome parties. They shot this video on their vacation on Fire Island this summer and put Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA as background music. The video has only been up a few days, but Miley Cyrus has already tweeted that she loved it, and it has been talked about on Perez Hilton and The Advocate. I'm absolutely loving it, and I can't get the song out of my head now!

WW: Awwwkward!

via Awkward Family Photos

Not My Child! Monday

If you've been wondering why I haven't posted in several days, don't worry, it's not because Jackson has been a cranky little shit. Nope, not my kid.

My baby wouldn't scream for hours at a time for no apparent reason. He wouldn't scream at the sight of the dog or get angry at me for making him sit in his high chair to eat. And he definitely hasn't been watching an insane amount of Dora the Explorer these last few days because it's the only thing that calms him down. Nope, not my kid.

He didn't crap on the living room rug or eat dog food last week either. Not my child!

My parents went to Disney World and all I got was this onesie

*Oh, you know that's not ALL he got, but "My parents went to Disney World and I got a ton of crap including this onesie" just didn't have the same ring to it ;)

Lovely

Jamie @ This is me; Consequently gave me this award:


Pass it on to up to 15 of your favorite bloggers. Be sure to comment on their posts to let them know they have an award!

These are my picks...check them out!

You Don't Know

The Newlyweds

Southern Fried Mama

Our Nifty Notebook

Bona Fide Mama

A NYC Housewife-in-Training

All That is Good

Some Dreams Come True

April's Little Family

The Mighty M Family

Navy Wife, Navy Life

The Life of a New Mommy

Spark's Notes

Books & Movies

Last weekend I went to see The Ugly Truth. It was predictable, as most romantic comedies seem to be these days, but it was very cute & funny. Plus I love Katherine Heigl! And come on, Gerard Butler is so incredibly sexy, it's ridiculous.This weekend I saw The Time Travelers Wife. I have to tell you that I really enjoyed the book, but this might be the first time that I've ever seen a book-turned-movie where I actually liked the movie better!! They stuck pretty well to the book & the 2 major things that they cut out were parts that I absolutely hated from the book. I seriously cried like a baby through the last half hour or so! It was SO good.

I finally got my hands on some books by David Sedaris. I really don't know what took me so long considering I've heard how funny they were for years, but I picked up When You Are Engulfed in Flames and Naked from the library, and they are hilarious (if you have an extremely dry sense of humor, which I do).

The last book that I read was City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. It's another fantasy/mythical creature type story only it is set right in the heart of NYC. It was fast paced and intriguing, and I couldn't predict a thing because of all of the plot twists. It was so good that I immediately ordered the next 2 books in the series and I'm pissed that they haven't arrived yet!

Lastly, Jason & I are watching True Blood. We stopped for awhile because we got too busy & Jason has been working so much that he was rarely home to watch it, but we finally got caught up this weekend! I freaking love that show, even though they are getting so far away from the books that I don't have a clue what is going to happen. All I can say is that Eric is really growing on me. He was always my fave from the books, but I didn't think they cast him right in the show. I'm starting to change my mind on that one. He's one sexy vamp! ;)

Do you have any good movie or book suggestions for me?

14 Months

Jackson turned 14 months old this week. This month he started pointing at things and making this clicking sound with his tongue & lower lip. And, Jackson is standing up on his own! For months he has been able to pull himself up to standing and then let go and just stand there, but now he is actually getting all the way up by himself. Of course I don't have a picture because he sits back down before I can even grab my camera!

We had another busy week this week! We read a whole lot of books. His new favorite is Oops! by David Shannon. (He absolutely loves the part when David spills his macaroni on the dog! And when David gets on his tricycle and goes WHEE! Jackson goes "EEEEE!" haha).We did some more finger painting and we tried "painting" with shaving cream, but he didn't really like that too much. I honestly think he hates the messy feel of anything he can't eat!

Monday we went to the zoo again. I bought a year membership, so now we go there pretty often. Sometimes I just NEED to get out of the house!

Baby Jaguars...how cute!

Tuesday we went to Pump It Up's open play time. It's one of those bouncy/inflatable places. I didn't really know how Jackson would react, or even if he would be able to do anything, but we decided to try it. At first he cried a little, I think the sheer number of people there made him upset, but I crawled into one of the big bouncy things with him and after a minute he started smiling and laughing. We pretty much just sat there bouncing for about an hour. He wouldn't even try to crawl around or anything, but he loved bouncing and watching the other kids. I think he'll probably like it when he gets a bit older.

Wednesday we went on a playdate to a friend's house. Her neighborhood has a splash pad and we went over there. Jackson loved it! He absolutely loves playing in the water. The problem was that he maybe loved it a little too much. He wasn't scared at all, and he didn't want to sit in my lap. The water there went from about an inch to about a foot deep, and he wanted to just crawl right through it, with his eyes and mouth open and everything! I was trying to either hold him or keep him in the very shallow part, but he kept trying to get away. Then I put him in a baby float, but he hated that too! He kept tipping the thing over to try to get his whole body in the water. So eventually he was just throwing a huge tantrum so we had to leave. He was so worn out from it all that he slept all afternoon!

Our library is finally holding their baby storytimes again, so Thursday we went there. Jackson entertained everyone by crawling all over the place at a lightning fast pace (and trying to steal the toys from the other babies). Everyone kept laughing at his little crawl and saying, "He's so fast!" It's no wonder he isn't walking yet, that would just slow him down!

WW: Good Times

In keeping with this week's stories about my college roommates, here a few (of the probably thousands) pictures of us.Christmas 2005

At Madame Tussauds in Vegas

At my Bridal shower in 2007

When they came to visit me in Charleston
while I was pregnant with Jackson

The Good Roommates

Kristin, Emily, me, Liz

If I had a horrible roommate my freshman year, my next set of roommates more than made up for it.

Emily and I met in a student organization that we were both involved in. Then we had a class together and started hanging out a little bit more. We still didn't know each other very well, but at the end of the year when she and two other girls got an apartment and needed another roommate, she asked me if I'd like to move in. I knew I was taking a pretty big risk moving in with three strangers, but luckily it worked out well.

The first night that we lived there, we decided to have a few drinks. We were sitting around the living room drinking screwdrivers when Emily declared that she thought she could do 10 shots of vodka in 10 minutes. And we let her try.

Well she did it, and for about 15 minutes after that she was fine. But then it all went downhill from there. She ended up vomiting in an empty moving box in her room. At this point, I locked myself in my room (and didn't really feel that bad about it since I still didn't know them very well) while one of the other girls helped clean her up.

But we got along famously. After a year, Liz switched schools, but she still visited often. Emily, Kristin, and I remained roommates until they graduated (I was in Grad school at the time). We hosted parties and had more girls nights out than I can count. We took roadtrips, flew to Vegas, and went to Mardi Gras.We lived through plenty of arguments, heated debates, horrific hangovers, and each of our bouts of depressions because of break-ups, family troubles, and general stress (All of which seemed to be curable with a pint of Brusters ice cream, a cheesecake, more alcohol & several viewings of the worst movie ever: Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights). We even survived the night I set the refrigerator on fire and then ran out of the kitchen.

Every Thursday night you could find us at our favorite cheap dingy bar drinking 32 oz LITs and eating grilled cheeses. Every Saturday in the Fall you could find us tailgating and then headed to the football game. We spent most nights together (usually with Jason tagging along), whether out at a bar or a party, or just sitting around the house watching movies. But my favorite nights by far were the ones where we just sat out on the balcony, smoking heavily and talking about life. or more likely, debating politics.

We saw each other at our best and our worst. (Of course my worst was getting drunk & throwing up all over myself and then trying to take a shower, blacking out and having to bang on the side of the tub until they came and got me out. This only happened twice, and one of these times Jason just stood in the doorway and laughed at us. )

Even though we haven't lived together in over 3 years now, and even though we've all had other roommates since then, each of us still refers to the rest as "my college roommates." Now that term has taken on a new meaning, synonymous with "my BFFs!" but somehow more. It's probably a lot easier to be friends with someone if you don't live with them, if you don't have to deal with their mess (literally & figuratively) all of the time. I don't know how we made it through all of those years without killing one another, but we did. I don't even want to think about what my life would be like if I had never met them.

Roommate Nightmare

I lived in the dorms my freshman year of college. Most people seem to either have wonderful stories from the dorms, or horrible ones. Mine was just bad.

My roommate, we'll call her Ashley because that was her name, was ridiculous. She got to campus a week before I did for sorority rush. Now, I'm not the sorority girl type by any means. I never thought I should rush, I never envied them in any way, but because of her, I definitely came to hate the whole sorority girl "type" for awhile. Later I found out of course that not all sorority girls are as dumb as this girl.

Anyway, so by the time I showed up to move all of my stuff in, Ashley had already taken over our whole room. She hadn't just decorated her side, she had her stuff literally everywhere. Luckily, my family is not the type to let anyone run over us, so we immediately started moving her crap and dumping it unceremoniously onto her side of the room.

The first day I was there she told me that she almost asked for a room change before I got there, because from the sound of my name, she thought I might be a black girl. Because OH! the horror! At the time I just thought she was unbelievably tacky, but later I started wishing that she had been just a tad more racist and maybe I would never have had to live with her at all.

Ashley was a busy little bee that first week, and I don't know how she did it, but by the time I moved in, everyone on our hall (including our suitemates AND the RA) hated her. Therefore, when I moved in, everyone automatically avoided me as well. I guess they thought that she and I would end up BFF's or some shit. Because of her, I was unable to make a single friend in that entire dorm that year, despite the fact that I hated her too. It was downright miserable for awhile. There were nights that I wanted to just run down the hall, knock on someone else's dorm and scream, "I hate her too! Someone let me in!" I needed to get away from this chick.

She had a tendency to say whatever was on her mind, no matter how stupid it was. What amazed me though, is that I don't think she ever realized how dumb or mean she sounded. One day, I was sitting on my side of the room, minding my own business. I started to pour myself some cereal when I heard her gasp and start yelling, "OMG! Are you drinking WHOLE milk! OMG! OMG! Do you KNOW how FATTENING that is? That is SO disgusting!" While I just sat there shocked and confused as to why she cared, she proceeded to call her boyfriend and tell him that OMG! Can you believe it? She's drinking WHOLE MILK! She did the same exact thing a week later when she saw me dipping some chicken in honey mustard. "That is the most fattening condiment you can use!" she would say. I was just surprised that she knew what the word condiment meant.

Ashley wanted to be a veterinarian. I didn't really keep up with her after freshman year, but I think it's pretty safe to say she never made it that far. For one thing, her class schedule always seemed to be filled with bullshit classes, including 3 different scuba diving classes and 2 optional orientation courses so that she could get "easy A's." The only "real" class that I remember her taking was a low-level science course that someone told her would be super easy because it was the one that all of the athletes took. She failed it.

But because she wanted to be a veterinarian, she always had her TV (the only TV in the room) switched on to Animal Planet. For the most part, this didn't bother me. What bothered me was that it somehow seemed that every single time I tried to eat a meal in my room, she would either be watching a show where they were doing surgery on the animals, or rescuiing abused animals. There's nothing in this world like trying to gulp down some nasty ramen while watching a show where a dog is expelling worms.

The worst thing of all though, was her boyfriend. We'll call him Gary because I sure as hell don't remember his name, even though I'm pretty sure it was doodled on the front of all of her notebooks. He went to college somewhere in Florida, and he was as dumb as she was. She would talk to him on the phone for hours at night, usually when I was trying to sleep. The first time that he came to visit, Ashley asked me if I could leave the room so that they could have sex. I found somewhere else to stay that weekend, and afterwards I always tried to time my trips down to see Jason for weekends that Gary was coming to visit.

That didn't always work though. One Sunday morning I was standing in the bathroom in my towel, about to come out to my room to get dressed (Ashley had told me she would be gone all weekend), when someone started literally beating on the bathroom door as if they were about to bust through it. He started screaming Ashley's name, telling her to come out of the damn bathroom, and he would not be quiet long enough for me to tell him that it was me in there. I still don't really have a clue what was going on, but Ashley showed up a minute later. I waited in the bathroom for almost an hour while they yelled at each other. Then the RA showed up and tried to kick Gary out, not only for the commotion he was causing but also because it wasn't time for visiting hours yet, and eventually the campus cops had to show up and drag him out. They also banned him from ever coming inside the dorms again, even during visiting hours.

I don't know what the original argument had been, but this little debacle did not break Ashley & Gary up. Instead she finally wised up and decided it would be better for her to just get an apartment. It was probably one of the best decisions she ever made, because if I had had to live with her for very much longer, I might have had to figure out a way to poison her coffee.

Do you have a horrible roommate story to share?

Adorable

Theta Mom gave me the Adorable Blog award!

Rules for The Adorable Blog Award:

1. Include the award logo in your blog or post.
2. Nominate as many blogs as you like.
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.

I am passing this award on to:

Emma @ Toddler Awesome

Brandy @ Life of a Small Town Girl

and Michaela @ Mama Michie's Musings

But here is some real adorableness for you :)I'm ready for lunch, Mom!

TMI Thursday: A Puking Story

If you don't feel like reading a horribly embarrassing and yet disgusting story today, please hop over to my sister's blog and wish her a Happy Birthday! Love you Jamie!!

Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, "how many readers can I estrange THIS week??" TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else's!

I have had many drunken nights that have ended with me hugging a toilet seat (or face down in the grass, you know, whatever is closer), but none of those can begin to rival the pukefest that I am about to describe.

I was a freshman in college and I was still relatively active in my church youth group back home (and by that I mean, I still bothered to go the few times a year that I went home). That year the group decided to go to the Shakespeare Festival to see A Christmas Carol and since that was only about a 30 minute drive for me, I decided to meet them there.

The day that we were supposed to go, I woke up feeling miserable. Surprisingly, I was not hungover (I wasn't really a big drinker at this point), but I definitely felt like it. I thought it was just the combination of working late the night before, having to get up early, and a sinus infection, which I get pretty frequently in the winter. On the drive over though, I started feeling like it might be something more than that. My head was swimming, and I had to stop at a gas station to get some medicine for nausea.

Thinking I would be fine after I took the medicine, I stupidly continued to mall where I was supposed to meet the group. They took their time looking around shops while I was constantly looking around for a bathroom just in case. When we were in Dillards looking around, I finally realized that I needed to go to the bathroom. Now.

Luckily I made it into a stall just in time and puked my guts out. I had a raging headache and was starting to feel dizzy, and I remember wondering if I had even eaten enough in the last 24 hours to be puking that much.

I stumbled out of the stall and slumped down in one of the chairs in the bathroom. I felt like hell, and apparently I looked like hell too because a woman walked in with her young daughter, saw me, and then turned around and rushed her kid back out of there.

One of my friends finally found me. She got me something to drink, I took some more medicine and after a few minutes I was feeling much better. I figured I was feeling well enough to go to the show with them, and anyway I couldn't possibly have anything left inside me to puke up. Right?

As it turns out, I was so, so wrong.

We made it through the first half just fine. It was during intermission that things turned ugly. Everyone was asking me how I felt, and while I was sitting down and concentrating on the show, everything was okay. But then, standing in the middle of crowds of people, I started to feel dizzy again. I kind of shook my head at them all and looked towards the bathroom. It was down the stairs, and the line was ridiculously long. There was no way I was going to make it. Just as I was thinking that, one of the guys brought over a coke thinking it would settle my stomach. I took one sip, and immediately barfed all over the floor in the middle of everyone.

I didn't even have time to be embarrassed because I, my friends, was not done. Not nearly.

I'm pretty sure I pushed people out of the way as I ran through the front doors and out onto the balcony, slowing down only when I knew I couldn't hold it anymore. Then I puked over the balcony through the rest of intermission and well into the next half of the show. When I was finally, finally done, I just went back to my car. I was a little surprised that no one showed up before then to try to make me leave, but then again that could have been because of the forcefulness of the vomit.

Pretty isn't it? At least it is when someone isn't throwing up all over it.

WW: I didn't do it!

Baby Hitler?

Me: "So what do you think Jackson should be for Halloween this year?"

Jason: "He could go as Hitler. That's always fun."

Me: "Um, yeah. That would be....awesome."

Jason: "But then he could never run for President."

Me: "I know, people would be all, 'But he was raised by Nazis! We have proof!"

It's not your party, so stop crying.

I love birthday parties, but I don't know why we have them for such little kids. Seriously, who was the brilliant person who first thought, "Hey, let's get a bunch of really young kids and babies together for a party. We can schedule it during the afternoon to guarantee that none of the kids get a nap, them stuff them all full of cake, ice cream and excitement until they are cranky and exhausted, then send them home wide awake and screaming with their equally exhausted parents. Yes, that sounds like the perfect day." Tell me again why we do this to ourselves?

The mother of the little boy whose party we went to today told me that she ended up having gall bladder surgery last weekend. She is the second friend of mine have had emergency gall bladder surgery in the past few months. I guess this little fact isn't really that remarkable in itself, but what amazes me is that both friends went through years of being shuffled from doctor to doctor and diagnosed with everything from Celiacs disease to Crones disease to gynecological problems. And both of them ended up only needing their gall bladder removed. I swear if I ever have stomach pains for more than a few days, I'm just going to walk into the ER and demand that someone take my gallbladder out right then and there.

The other friend of mine who had the surgery is actually a Med student and her doctor told her that those were the biggest gall stones he had ever seen. This is even more impressive if you could see the girl, who probably doesn't weigh 100 pounds soaking wet. If there's anybody in this world who didn't really need to have 5 more pounds cut out of them, it's her.

On the other hand, I feel like I could deal with a little surgery like that if it meant losing a few more pounds. I have been trying my hardest to lose weight since my sister's wedding is coming up in December. I have already lost about 9 pounds mostly through a change in diet and a little bit of exercise. Of course I still have a long way to go to get to where I want to be, especially since I realized yesterday that at least a few pounds have come from my boobs. Unlike my husband, who swears he doesn't care how much weight I gain as long as my boobs keep getting bigger, I actually did want to go down a cup size or two, I just didn't want my boobs to be the first things to go. Because I swear, if I starve myself for months only to end up with a flat chest and a still-pregnant looking belly, I am going to be PISSED.