~ 100 ~

One Hundred Things About Me -- For My 100th Post (in random order)

1. I'm baking a Jewish Apple cake while I type this.
2. I'm addicted to office supplies.  Mostly pens, clips and Post It notes.
3. My most favorite thing in the entire world is kisses from my children.
4. I hate clutter, but I keep finding it.
5. I love to read, but have dry spells that can go a year or more.
6. I prefer cake over pie.
7. I think I can't stand my brother, but I know that I really love him.
8. I don't have many friends. The ones I do have, I don't talk to as often as I'd like.
9. I procrastinate.
10. I miss breeding and showing dogs.
11. I sing songs to torment my kids, just like my Mom did to me.
12. My normal body temperature is 97.9° F.
13. I miss singing karaoke.
14. I love to cook & bake.
15. Watching Spongebob Squarepants is my dirty little secret.
16. I'm terrified that either of my children might get a fatal illness.
17. I know more about dinosaurs because of my son than I ever could have imagined.
18. I miss my Mom and wish she were here to watch the kids grow..
19. I have never been whale watching, but would like to someday.
20. I have had surgery 4 times. My right eye, right leg & ankle and 2 c-sections.
21. I used to have a flower garden.
22. My favorite color is Orange.
23. My children are my life.
24. I love the smell of puppy breath.
25. I wish I'd gotten my judges license.
26. My Mother was going to name me either Margaret, after her, or Heather, but chose Stacey instead.
27. I never learned to ice skate, and I really don't want to learn.
28. I love the sounds of the night in the country.
29. One day I'd like to see the Northern Lights.
30. I wish I could knock this house down and custom build its replacement.
31. I had a hard time choosing names for my children. If Big C was a girl, he would have been named Aurora Margaret. If Little C had been a boy, she would have been Nolan James.
32. I wish I could do carpentry and basic electrical stuff.
33. I still have a hard time believing K loves me as much as he does sometimes.
34. I miss wearing a watch.
35. I am a psycho mom, never letting my kids out of my sight.
36. I miss my Grandmother.
37. I wish I'd had more time with my Grandfather.  I have only a few warm wonderful memories of him.
38. K was my first love.
39. I appear super outgoing and chatty to people, but I'm really not.
40. I love the smell of cut grass.
41. My oldest friend is Shannon.
42. I rarely eat ice cream.
43. I look at pictures of my children when they were babies and cry being overwhelmed with love.
44. I am very conservative.
45. I hate onions, the texture not the taste.
46. I am afraid to die and leave my children motherless.
47. I just bought my first firearm.
48. It will be followed by more.
49. I can't stay up as late as I used too without suffering the consequences.
50. I have arthritis in my knees.
51. My favorite holiday is Halloween, I love doing the make-up.
52. I am a hard core soda drinker, mostly diet, but I want to kick the habit.
53. I have been cigarette free for 4 years.
54. I love snowballs.
55. I dissect my steak/meat before eating it.
56. I have never done illegal drugs.
57. I cannot have certain foods touching on my plate.
58. I have been out of school for 19 years.
59. I am not a cat person.
60. I am a great bubblegum blower.
61. As of today, I will be a Karate Mom.
62. My second favorite color is yellow.
63. I am a good listener.
64. Sometimes Christmas music makes me cry.
65. I love God, but don't always understand Him.
66. My favorite sounds are my children saying, "I Love You, Mommy"
67. I craved Ice Pops & snowballs when I was pregnant with both my children.
68. I am so tired of stinkbugs!
69. I sing in the car...loudly.
70. My favorite animal is the Elephant.
71. I like wide open, green places.
72. I am terrified of tornadoes.
73. I ♥ Doctor Who!
74. I am pretty sure I will always be a fan of Christopher Walken.
75. I miss K's father.
76. I rode an elephant once when I was a kid.
77. I have been on an airplane 2 times.
78. I have been to 12 of the continental United States.
79. I've been wiping butts for 4 years.
80. I was pregnant 18 out of 24 consecutive months.
81. I've assisted in C-Sections on my dogs.
82. I am working on being a scream-free parent.
83. I wish I were healthier and in better shape.
84. I'm working on it.
85. I love a gorgeous kitchen, too bad I don't have one.
86. The perfect temperature for me is 78° F
87. My blood pressure was once 223/109, I was in a lot of pain.
88. I am sucked into the show Black Orphan.
89. Labyrinth is still one of my favorite movies -- Little C's too now.
90. I only have 1 sibling, a brother, J.
91. Sometimes get baby rabies and want a 3rd child.
92. I am completely content with the 2 I have.
93. I am blessed to have K as my husband.
94. I wish K's family lived a bit closer to we could see them more often.
95. I used to wear acrylic nails, I don't anymore.
96. I haven't cut, colored or highlighted my hair in over 6 months.
97. I wear shoes until they get holes in them or fall apart.
98. I buy clothes once every few years.
99. My birthday is January 5th.
100. I'm addicted to carbohydrates and need to kick the habit.

It was so hard coming up with 100 things about myself. Easy to see I'm not a frequent blogger since it took me 4 years to get to 100 posts.  So here is to the next 100, eh?  Cheers!

-MoM-

Boggle...it's Not Just A Word Game

It is what I find my mind doing a lot lately.  I'm a passionate person.  Anyone who really knows me can tell you that.  I've felt myself pulled from one end of the emotion spectrum to the other in recent months.  I'm pretty happy with life at the moment, where it concerns my family.  Its the outside world that just boggles, terrifies and fills me with dismay and hope at the same time.  Being a passionate person, I'm not very lukewarm on any issue.  I don't always see things black and white. But when I see it clearly as one or the other, I hold my ground.  Everything from abortion, to terrorism to economy to the 2nd Amendment, I have my own very clear lines drawn.  But what I can't seem to wrap my head around is if people are really actually listening to what they are saying? Or are they taking sides based on what mainstream media tells them to believe rather than make up their own minds and look at the big picture?  I don't know.

I want to talk about some of the things I have on my mind in the next few weeks.  Some of is a bit older, but still on every ones mind, like the Newtown shooting.  Others will be as recent as the bombings at the Boston Marathon.  Some will be international, such at the passing of Margaret Thatcher, and intimately local, like the gun legislation in my state.  I doubt I will discuss them in chronological order, but rather how it applies to what I am feeling at the time.  I'll also have some tidbits of non-current event stuff...like what's happening in my life and with the kids etc peppered in between I'm sure.  We've had our own brush with tragedy in the past 6 months that I will eventually share as well.

 I'm not a political analyst. No, I'm not a political blogger or a journalist.  But I am a mother.  This is the world my children are growing up in.  These issues are important to me not because of how it affects me, but how it affects my children now, and in the future.  So if you are wondering why I'm talking about these things, when my blog is dedicated to my children and family, you now know.  Everything that happens in this world directly affects them....sooner or later.

-MoM-

You've lost someone.  One of the most instrumental human beings in your life.  I'm sorry.  I can say that I've been there, and I have.  I can say I understand the pain, and I do.  I could tell you that it gets easier with time.  But then I would be lying.  Because it doesn't.  It just gets different.  Nothing I could say can ever make things better.  So I just don't say anything.  Nothing anyone ever said to me ever made me feel better.  Even though I know they meant well.  That part of your life, the huge chunk that is no longer there, is going to suck.  Nothing will ever fill it completely. 

What I can say is this.  I love you.  I have since the moment I met you. I always will.  There isn't another person in this lifetime that I'd rather be with and have as my partner, the father of my babies, my best friend and my husband.  You are my one.  I wish I could just make it all better.  I can't.  If I could, I'd take the pain you feel into myself, so you wouldn't have to feel it.  I can't do that either.  Makes me kinda good for nothing doesn't it?  Except for one thing.  I love you and that will not change.  Always remember that.  You are my other half, the part of me that was always missing.  Let me be that for you.  Let me do the one small thing I'm good at.  Let me comfort you, be your safe place, your shoulder, the one you never need to cover up your feelings with.  It isn't much.  But it's all I have.

-S

Earthquake Schmerthquake

I didn't feel it.  Not a thing.  I wasn't sleeping or half comatose from lack of sleep, I was just chilling out with my kids watching a movie.  I'm not saying there wasn't one, just that I didn't get to feel it.  So I'm slightly pissy about it....I miss out on some of the more exciting things like that.  Happily, no one was hurt.  But yanno...it might have been cool.

The knee jerk panic that occurred, well it was a bit dramatic, but I mean come on, imagine 30" of snow dropping on LA.  If you've never dealt with something like that, then yeah, people are going to go a little nuts.  Looks like people did return to normal quickly.  So kudos peeps!  We are a bunch of the awesome!