Not Me! Monday

Here we go again. I have not been having a battle of wills with my husband over who would pick up the trash that was left on the back deck after our 4th of July party. I definitely did not let trash sit scattered all over my deck because he said he would pick it up (prior to the dogs tearing 3 sacks of trash apart).

I have not broken my own rule of showering every day simply because I was too busy too shower. And I discovered that my hair looks clean and cute in pigtails! Not me!

I am not incredibly behind on my work. I have also not wished that school was starting again and have definitely not wanted to throttle my daughter on more than one occasion! August cannot come fast enough!

Be sure and link to MckMama with your Not Me! Monday post!

You know the rules, head on over to www.mycharmingkids.net to get the button and post your own confessions.

I did not take the kids for ice cream and french fries at 5:00, which is way too close to dinner time. I also did not seriously consider ordering more fries, I LOVE Braum's french fries!

My bedroom is not still filled up with all of the furniture I shoved in their to clean up the house before our 4th of July party. I am also not dreading opening up some of the closets in the house that I shoved more stuff into.

When my sister in law came over to lay out in the pool and I told her I would stay inside and get stuff done, I was not weak and ended up going outside to join her and also get some sun. There were definitely not too many "and"s in that previous sentence. And I did not get a little too much sun!

At our 4th of July party, my awful, horrible, and mean spirited neighbor (yes, she's that bad!) did not call the cops on us for doing fireworks. The police men that came did not think she was as pathetic as we do and felt bad for us having to live next to her!

Thanks for reading!

Lately

Well, I haven't been doing very well at keeping the blog updated on our daily happenings and have had a 1,000 things I wanted to blog about, but then forget or never get around to it, so here are some highlights from the summer so far.

May was a super busy month for us. Here are some pictures from what all we did that month!

Cadence had her dance recital.
My aunt Joyce got married and The Princess was her flower girl.

Callie, Ben's cousin also got married.


We celebrated Mother's Day at my house with my mom and sister.

Ben and I took my sister and her friend with us to see Ben Folds at the Cain's. My sister has loved Ben Folds since I introduced her to him 5 years ago but has never gotten the chance to see him. For those of you who don't know my love of Ben Folds, I walked down the aisle to his song, "The Luckiest".
My friend Holly also had her first bridal shower in May, for her upcoming wedding in July.
We actually had even more events in May than just this, but these are the important ones (and the ones I have pictures of!). May was truly one of the busiest months we had ever had. The Princess also graduated from Pre-K and had a Spring Fling at her new school. Now its time for me to work on a post about what we did in June. And get ready for the 4th of July party we are having today!

Father's Day

Father's Day is always a bittersweet holiday for me. Since my dad was killed when I was a child, I only remember celebrating Father's Day for my grandpa. Its a day when I am reminded that my dad is not here. It always makes me sad, but as I have gotten older, it has become more wistful than actually sad. However, now that I have kids, I am sad for them for what they are missing out on. I don't have alot of memories of my dad, but I know he would have been an incredible grandfather. Thankfully, my kids have a wonderful grandpa in my father in law. In fact, my brother in law's father died before he and my sister in law got married, so their kids and our kids only have one grandpa. We have told him that he has to be the best grandpa ever since he is all both sets of kids have! And he is! But, on days like this, I really miss my dad and really wish he was still here on earth. It makes me think about how different my life would have been if he would have been around. I know that was never God's plan for my life, but I still wonder about it sometimes. I know its not up to me to understand God's timing. Its just hard not to wish things had been different. I have always believed that one of the reasons that Ben was the right person for me was because he has such a great dad, and God knew that I needed a father figure in my life. I am so thankful for him. I am also very thankful for my uncle CurCur (Curry) who was my father figure growing up. On this day, I hope that all of the wonderful fathers and surrogate fathers know they are loved and appreciate. And daddy, I love you and look forward to the day when I can see you again!

Dear So and So

I saw this on a blog I read and thought it sounded like a fun way to vent your frustrations. Lets try it out and see how it goes.

Dear lady at the Cricket store,
It was very un-cool of you to run in the minutes they opened the doors and get the coveted first in line spot, even though myself and 5 other people had been there waiting for 15 minutes longer than you had. You should learn some etiquette.
Thanks, woman with the boy in the pink stroller

Dear Princess,
When mommy is trying to nap on the couch, please refrain from continually taking the pillow off of my head (yes, I sleep with a pillow over my head!), and asking me questions I have already answered. No spongebob, no friends' house, just let mommy sleep!
Love, Mommy

Dear Mr. Wright,
You need a new sense of time. Please stop telling me that a quick errand will take one hour and then be gone for 3 hours. It makes me want to strangle you.
Love, your incredibly patient wife

Dear mom and sister,
Please stop putting me in the middle of your fights. You both confide in me and its too hard for me. Leave me out of it!
Love, Amber

That felt good! I may do that one again!

Not Me! Monday

WARNING: THIS POST IS WRITTEN BY AN ESPECIALLY CRANKY MOMMY.

I did not waste 30 minutes of my day talking to a women who argued with me about what my organization does. Seriously lady? I think I know what our beliefs are a little bit better than you do.

I did not take 2 tylenol pm last night when I went to bed, even though I was totally exhausted, because I had a headache and I wanted to be able to sleep through the night. I did not have a tylenol pm hangover all day today.

My daughter did not back out of another VBS this morning with a friend, while the friend and her mom were waiting for KK in our driveway.

I do not feel as if my children are punishing me for being gone all weekend by being whiny and clingy. I also did not have one of the best weekends EVER!

I am not about to put my especially cranky son to bed an hour earlier than normal, to save my sanity and help him feel better.

I am not mad at my husband because he accidentally lost 6 years worth of files and half of my pictures when he was re-building our computer. I know it was an accident, but he didn't lose any of his stuff, did he?

That's all the bitching I am going to do for now. Hope your day was better than mine!

Also, on a horribly sad note, I ask that all of you pray for the family of Courtney, a friend of my little sister's, who was killed in a car accident. She was 15 and her 17 year old sister was driving. Claremore Daily Progress has the story on the accident. I hope that you will all also remember that cars are deadly weapons. Please remember that just one moment of texting, not paying attention, etc can cause you or someone else to lose their life. (I do not know the details of what caused the accident and am not implying that anyone was irresponsible. This is just a reminder.)

Frugal Friday

Okay, let's see all of the frugal things I did this week.

First, we made it until June 1st before we turned on the AC! Actually, I broke down on the evening of May 31, because it was super hot and Ben was gone for the night and I did not want to have the windows open at night while I was home alone. However, we actually ended up turning it off just two days later and have not turned it on since. I got my bill in the mail and it was not nearly as low as I would like, but I was forgetting that we are running the pool, hot tub, and aquarium along with everything else.

For the last three weeks, I have made all of our meals from the pantry and freezer. Usually when I do my menu plans, I find recipes that I have 3/4 of the ingredients and shop for the rest. These last 3 weeks, I did not shop at all; I just made the recipes work with what I had on hand. Sometimes simply staying out of the store saves money. And to be honest, I have a tiny kitchen that was bursting at the seams with my stockpile and we really need to get some of the stuff used up.

Tomorrow, I am having a last minute garage sale in an attempt to raise some more money to help with our bills. I have had boxes of stuff to take to Goodwill and the pregnancy centers, but my plans kept falling through and I did not want to hold on to it all for my mom's garage sale in July. I have never had a garage sale by myself (without my mom) and I will also have both kids by myself for the last half of the afternoon, so wish me luck! I actually got Ben to get rid of some of his junk, so that's a huge plus!!

Well, I am off to get some sleep before the big garage sale! If you are in Tulsa and want to come by, email me for my address!