My Phone Number Exposed On My FB Page!!

Yes, it's there for all the world to see!! Yet the only calls I receive are those who want me to get a loan with their Nigerian bank or help some forlorn prince move his trillions of dollars, but hey! Can I give this prince a couple of thousands of dollars, first?
😂

End of March Update

This month flew by fast! I've been overwhelmed by the events of this month. In our family we had three birthdays (max is 10!! Jay's dad is 85 & I'm 30 and holding!!) , five baby showers (for new nieces, nephews & cousins), two weddings (my bro in law & a niece) and two brand new bundles of joy (babies) born (Seamus 7lb 2oz new nephew & Heidi 7lb new great niece.) That's just the offline life.

Online life (blog related and not related, lol), The UPS, USPS & FED EX visited our home more than twenty times. Everything related to a review, except for birthday presents I bought for myself. (Books!)
But wait!! There's more ...

A #MSwarriors Christmas Wish List

Shout-out to "The Man"!! Affiliate links may be present in this post. It costs you nothing to click them. If you make a purchase, I will make a small commission which enables me to buy things like koolaid and cheetos. Thanks for supporting my small business.

My Christmas wish list is kind of different. Where I once wanted things like shoes, makeup, clothes, vacations, jewelry, etc ...
My wants have changed.

My "wants" now resemble "needs".

When your body betrays you and becomes a shell that you no longer know, life is no longer easy.

My New Harsh Reality - It really Sucks!

The day it happened was like any other day, the birds were chirping annoyingly outside my window, traffic was being obscenely loud on the state highway I live off of and my neighbor was cutting his grass for the 3rd time that week.

Pardon Our Dust, Rebranding and Irma Blows

Buh -Bye Diva Sweeps!!!
Hello Diva's News & Reviews!!!

Don't say you didn't see this coming, I've talked about it, screamed my frustrations repeatedly and had an all out hissy fit over the unfairness of being labeled a "deal" website (blog). Which is a huge turn off to prospective sponsors, who denied my blog at every turn.

The Joy of ...

The Joy of ____ (fill in the blank).

We all have our obsessions. Some folks would say cooking, others would say sex and let's face it ... those books have been written. 

My Most Busy Time of the Year

Spriiiiiiiinnnnggggg is almost here!!!
I have tons of work and projects to do. TONS!!
My seedlings are sprouting, getting ready for the rich soil in our container gardens. They are being called "My Tasty Babies". To anyone looking from a distance, I probably seem like a crazy lady talking to myself but I'm actually talking to my tasty babies. I play a little Eric Clapton, The Allman Brothers or The B52's - they seem to like my music (lol).
My projects list is vast.
Including a random list of fixer uppers and DIY.
My childhood home is my play ground.
Going through a house that needs a fresh coat of paint in every room, uncluttering, moving, trashing, thrashing (no not really, but it sounded good.)
My head spins when I think of just how much stuff one house can hold.

Since my last surgery, I'm having to cut back on my work load. Doctors orders!! It depresses me because I've always been a self reliant kind of woman, I've been suffering from depression since. It's hard to wrap my head around this "no working" thing. My husband is fine with it, he's said all the right things and I still wanted to choke the life out of him. Bwahahahahaha! Sad but true.

Perhaps my very physical job isn't the best option right now.
Perhaps I need to find something new.
Perhaps this chronic kidney disease could just piss off.
Perhaps ... I'll TRY to do less.
Maybe ... but don't hold your breath.

Getting Back To The Groove Of Things

My pre-spring cleaning break, is over!

 

Early Spring Cleaning

The flowers are in bloom, the pollen is swirling in the air. My allergies are screaming and my physician doesn’t have my allergy shots in his office ... yet. Let's not forget that technically it's still Winter!

My annual "Spring Cleaning" event has started a month early.

Usually during this time of year, I am all amped up to get my garden arranged and in order. I study last years layout drawing and decide what is going to be planted where. Start my seedling plants, get all of my containers washed out and ready. Not only do we plant rows of fruits and veggies but we have container gardens in various sunny spots around the front yard too.
I'm still doing this, planning my garden and harvesting the last of my winter yield.

I'm also in full on Spring Cleaning mode.
Only difference between this year and last year, is having to clean out my mothers house and get it ready to be put on the market. It's bitter sweet having to sell the house where you grew up.

After my last hospital stay (7 days and 1 surgery), I've finally had to face facts. The house needs to go. It's a headache I can't take anymore. I was hoping to hang on to it for my moms sake but I have a feeling she will out live me. Paying taxes on a house we can't live in (its not big enough, plus our house is paid off and we like it) or rent out (because Mumsey said no) makes zero sense.
Now I have to clean out her house and get repairs made to it, so it will sell quickly. Yay Fun <insert sarcasm> !!!

Has my lack of presence been noticed on my blog?
The magic 8 ball says "YES".

Unfortunately, I will be MIA a lot in the following weeks.
I hope to still do the hops on my blog and the sweeps on my fb page, I need more viewers and likes before I can get any sponsors to host my own stuff.
I am not going to be able to help other bloggers who are giving away prizes from sponsors. It's my biggest regret right now, so many of those bloggers have given me advice and answered any questions I had. My offline life just got swamped with demands I can no longer ignore. The stress is literally killing me.

Plus I need to remember to buy a laptop!!!
Doing 100% of my online work, by tablet, SUCKS!!!!!
Hahaha. No, it really does suck.

Stumbling through the rain in a one horse hyundai

(Written Friday Night, when the house was quiet. Posted on Saturday!) When my van breaks down, it's a problem and it breaks down often. This morning the van wouldn't crank at all. It's a passenger van that can seat up to 15 people, Ford econo-something. When the van doesn't work, I have a backup CAR. Not ideal for hauling 9 kids but it runs, albeit quite loudly. 

I had to make two trips in order to get all the kiddos to school. The first trip was to the elementary and then middle schools. Those kids barely batted an eye when they heard the beast come roaring in front of the schools.

NOOOOOO! Not this again!

I got a phone call around noon, from the elementary school, "come pick up Max, he's very sick. And bring a change of clothes!"

I get to the school, had just parked when my phone rings again. "Can you cover for Nita tonight? She called in sick." Not knowing what awaited me inside the school, I said "let me call you back."

Being A Secret Santa and Staying Debt Free. Can it be done?

Being a secret santa -
Last year we sponsored five children of various ages from three different families, on top of the nine children we already have to buy for. This year we are sponsoring four children from two different families. I wanted to sponsor more but it's not in our budget.

We are not rich.
We do not own credit cards.
Our house is paid off.
We are debt free.
It was the hardest 3 years of our lives, but we did it!

I work part time, my husband works full-time and then some. Kids are expensive, no matter how you look at it.

As a family, we like to help those in need ...

At church tonight, we received our "wish lists", items the kids want Santa to bring them, and I am appalled at the items listed!!

My Worst Halloween Decorating Disaster.

I've got that Question on the "Fall is in the air" Giveaway Hop.

My absolutely worst halloween decorating disaster happened in 1998. Living on my own for the first time, I decided I was going to go all out and make my yard be the most frightful on the block.

Blow up decorations were a new thing, they were also really expensive. So I didn't go that route, instead I bought 20 packs of fake spider webs, dug some dirt up in the back yard and put the dirt in the front yard to look like a fresh grave. I used a fake hand that I splashed some red paint on, half burying it in the fresh dirt/grave. Cut a headstone from a piece of cardboard box, painted it and then put some corny epithet on it like "here lies stu, he choked to death eating stew, now he's dead with nothing to do."

When My Mom Gets Sick...

Is when I worry the most.
She's the last person in our house, to catch the 48 hour stomach virus and we're going on hour 80.

At the age of 71, my moms crippling arthritis ended her days of walking with a walker. Mom became immobile and it was hard for her to accept it. She's 76 yrs old now.

When she gets sick, it's really bad by anyones standards. Hospital visits are deemed necessary because she gets dehydrated fast!

And I worry so much, I think I'm developing another ulcer.

I could write a separate blog about my mom, alone.
But once she heard me say I was writing a blog (described to her as an online diary, she knows nothing about the internet!) mother made me promise I would Not write about her.

Promise broken!

So there you go.
I am a promise breaker.
No sleep for the wicked.

How many days does it take to change a lightbulb?

This is a relevant question in my house.
Our main bathroom, off the hallway, has 2 light fixtures that have one bulb in each. Regular size bulbs, I prefer the 75 watt. Usually, when one bulb dies there's a backup in the second fixture, so the bathroom is never dark. What happens when that bulb dies? In the middle of the night, no less? The adventure of "going potty by flashlight" begins!

It's not as glamorous as it sounds but if you are desperate for something to do with your family, by all means, give it a try!

Dear Angry Dad in the Carpool Line

I've seen you lose your mind, while sitting in the long carpool line. You are quite the entertaining little man. I especially enjoyed your screams of "How MUCH LONGER IS THIS CRAP GOING TO TAKE?" But NOTHING can beat your performance of "I'M TOO BUSY FOR THIS HOLY HELL! HURRY THE EFF UP YOU COMPLETE MORONS!" All said while you were beating on your stearing wheel and screaming out your window.

My Latest Wins & Update from Last 2 Wins

Good things come in 2's for me.

My 1st win was from a contest on Facebook. I received a coupon in the mail last week for a free box (8) Blue Bunny Ice Cream Sandwiches. We used the coupon the same day and bought the Birthday Cake Ice Cream Sandwiches. My opinion - Oh Em Geeee!! They were so good. Twice as big as other name brand ice cream sandwiches, sooo creamy and they tasted just like a birthday cake!! My family gave them 2 thumbs up, way up.

My 2nd win was from a Blog giveaway that I received yesterday. I won a 2 month trial membership to IndieFlix!!! Independent movies we can watch on our Roku (that I got from another win, last year). I was so stoked to enter this contest on the Mom Saves Money Blog, a 2 month free trial gives us the chance to see if this would be something that we would enjoy, before committing to a monthly or annual membership. I viewed a few trailers on the site before I entered the contest, I like to make sure that this was something that me and my family would enjoy. IndieFlix has literally thousands of movies, some are short movies (18 mins and less) others are long (Go as high as 200 mins or 3 hours 20 mins).
Do me a favor and go visit Mom Saves Money. She's got some sweet printable Q's on there (scroll down to June 20th)!! It's definitely a blog to bookmark.

I am so happy with both of these wins. YAY!! Both are things we have used and can use again and again.

-----------------------------------------------------
Update from my last 2 wins

- I received the 5 free product coupons from Gorton's seafood (and all the other goodies). We used 2 of the coupons and bought a package of beer battered fish fillets and a box of popcorn shrimp. The same day we bought our seafood, we lost power for 12 hours after a really bad thunderstorm. When the power came back on around 5 am est, I started cooking both the fish and shrimp, since both were cold but completely thawed out. We had a seafood dinner for breakfast, complete with green beans and mashed potatoes (both of which also came from the freezer because they had thawed out, it was sooo hot that night!) I didn't get ANY complaints, the family was happy to be eating such yummy food!!

- I received the young scientist kit this past Wednesday. Clifford the Big Red Dog Kitchen Kit. It comes with a lot of activities including an exploding volcano!! I have plans for this kit, when the summer heat gets to be too much and we NEED to stay inside, is when I will pull out this box full of activities. My 2 littles are both 6 years old and they love things that are messy or things that have the potential to be messy. (and play doh, they love play doh even though I make the home made version of it. lol.) I see some fun times in the near future!!

Hope you all stay cool and have a great weekend!
I've got some contests to enter and share here on my blog.
Peace, love and chicken grease :)

Old Twitter Acct Hijacked by a JackRabbit

Like the title says, my old twitter account got hijacked, this morning. I was checking my email account that's associated with that twitter account, yes... it's the same email account that has been over run with junk mail, and I noticed where someone had replied to a tweet. I couldn't wait to see who had replied to a tweet since I had not tweeted since 2012. Lo and behold, It was some drivel, junky, crap with a suspicious link. My blood pressure went through the roof!!

I quickly signed into my old account and changed my password. Then I clicked on my tweets!! It started 7 hours ago and only approximately 40 tweets had been made. It could have been a lot worse if I wasn't so diligent about checking my emails. I have a little over 300 followers on that account, so not all of them got the stinky message, I feel bad for the 40 who did get it.

My nickname for people who do shady acts like hijacking my twitter account is "JackRabbit". It started when I realized that my potty mouth language was being picked up by little ears and repeated, when my (then) 2 year old niece called her sister a "axxhole" at church (of all places!!). Now, when my 6 yr old niece gets mad she will scream "You lousy JACKRABBIT!!!" and my embarrassment is considerably less knowing I have stunted her potential vulgar mouth.

Getting this blog up to speed

I know it looks like I haven't been on or doing anything, but that's not entirely true.
 
I noticed a few days ago that the "next page" link was missing.

I had to find it!!

Now I know why people give up easily on blogger and just buy their own domains and do wordpress blogs. lol. I've been busy reading hundreds of articles and have had to refresh my .css mind (if you don't use it in 4 years, you lose it, kinda deal).

Posting a lot of anything is not a good idea, IF you don't have a "next page" link on your main page. So I'm hoping to have everything kosher by Sunday night, after all... this is not my only blog. I have a local blog for a local yahoo group I'm in and that blog needs a "next page" link as well. I'm killing two birds with one stone.

However, I will be posting a few contests during all this. I know a few people have asked me why I suddenly stopped posting. After explaining about the missing link four times, I decided to blog about my little trials and tribulations with the set up on blogger. It's not fun or cool. Blogger would be so much better if they provided this service, but no use in whining about it. :-)

UPDATE - 7:15pm EST

I FINALLY fixed my problem!!!!!!!!!
I'd like to take this opportunity to Thank Jesus, who answered my prayers after listening to me pray, whine and gripe. This blog is a labor of love, no doubt.

Mondays. Blah.

I am not a "Monday" person. Sundays are always so busy for me, I need Mondays off just to recharge. But do I actually get Mondays off? Not exactly. I still have to clean, cook and do a million other things that I do every day of the week, It's just that now I'm grumpy while doing those things.

I did manage to take a nap today, so that helped some.

Now I'm going to post a few sweeps that I think are awesome and then go collapse into bed and sleep like a rock.

*Yawn*

Hope your Monday was better than mine :)