November Passed Me By

I of course had planned to write an insightful post to share with everyone, but today there is nothing bouncing around in my mind to write about. This is my mental day off. Well, that’s not entirely true. Not much going on in my family to write about, but plenty with things outside of family to chat on.

Right now I am co-planning a BIG Twitter Trivia event happening on Friday, Dec 19th with Dara Blaker, President of Helpful Hallie’s. We are hoping to do a big re-launch of Dara’s product, Mighty Miracle Mist, and to keep with the season of giving, plan to share a ton of other websites and blogs with you. 

I have been meeting some great people with the sites that we will be sharing with you that night. Plus, we have some fun giveaways planned. It is going to be an AWESOME event - more to follow. Make sure to sign up for my RSS feed so you can keep up with posts on the event.

My pretty mug can also be seen floating around with the Luckystartups.com guys, Aronado and Dennis. I have the awesome title of Kick Ass Intern. I am in the process of getting some social network pages and sites set up for LSU, so we can reach more people and start-ups.

No clue who the LSU guys are? They are an amazing duo that interviews any and all start ups LIVE online. Great opportunity to get immediate feedback from guests, other start-ups, and more. You can find them online at Luckystartups.com, follow them on Twitter @luckystartups, or on our Facebook fan page.

Hmmm… where else? Oh yea, my marketing business. I have been making some great ground with CreateChatter Marketing & PR. From marketing, to some event planning, even as far as consulting, I am meeting some great clients, and netowrking with some amazing people.

I am working on marketing, PR and event planning with Helpful Hallie’s, consulting with Hippos Toes, and even working on some possible community management with some fun family sites. It seems to be flowing along. Of course I am always open to new clients so send me an email - don’t be afraid to see!

And now, one of my final thoughts for this post - NaBloPoMo. Yep, I have signed up for December - 31 posts in 31 days - every day of the month. I slack when it comes to posting, I know. I thought if I had some encouragement to get me into a routine, maybe, just maybe, at the end of this 31 days, I might be in a better routine to post more frequently and to to keep on schedule.

I think that’s it for now. Tomorrow, maybe even later, a post will be up about the big Twitter Event, so make sure you stay tuned!

~ TTFN

Posted in Just Stuff, Links Around | No Comments »

Wedding Bells

We all know that they are not for me! One of my sisters - three years older than me - is getting married in September. After six years of dating and being engaged with her guy, they are finally tying the knot. I am happy for her. Glad that she has finally found the right guy. She asked for Miss K to be her flower girl and of course I said yes. Miss K is only concerned about eating wedding cake of course. My concern - going home.

Going home is a whole dark place that I don’t even want to think about. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family, but I love them from afar. That’s not right either, I shouldn’t have such anxiety about returning home, but I do. The next day that ticks off and the closer we get, the harder I am starting to take it.

There is a whole story behind ‘home sweet home’ that left me with bitterness. I grew up fine, my family was great, but once my father died of cancer when I was in high school, everything went down hill. Left at home to take care of my mom, four nephews and a niece, within two years home was no longer home, I left home at 18 and haven’t been home since.

It can really way on someone to leave at 18 and return at 34. In this long time span, I served in the Navy, married, had a family of my own, and have tried to accomplish things I don’t believe I would have had I stayed at home. Don’t get me wrong, I have stayed in touch. I fly my mom out once a year, tons of phone calls every month to mom and my sisters; we are together, just not in person, and there has been no reason to return - until now.

So, in order to celebrate the occasion and keep myself on the sanity path, I hired a personal trainer to get my butt into shape. Tuesday, Thursdays, and Saturdays, I will be working my ass, both to get into shape, but to help focus my frustrations on going home. Hopefully, this will help clear my head and let me let go of my own personal demons.

Wish me luck. I’ll need it!

Posted in Life's Little Adventures, Marriage, The Bitch Session | 3 Comments »

Simple Home Basics

If you have visited my blog enough to look around, you know by now that I write for a few other blogs around the huge world wide web. One blog in particular is Simple Home Basics. Still a work in progress, Simple Home Basics, is a combination of original content and the scattered information around the Internet pertaining to your family and home.

Currently, Simple Home Basics offers five areas of interest - Home, Family, Entertainment, Organization and Community. Each area is updated weekly and can offer you a recipe, a craft, or a fun activity for the family to do.

As mentioned before the blog is still a work in progress. Wanting to make sure that your first visit is not your last, we want to offer the best, most friendly content possible along with ease of use.

Stop by Simple Home Basics and peruse around. Let me know what your thoughts are on looks, ease of use, and content. Our readers are important and so is your feedback - that is what will help Simple Home Basics grow.

Posted in Blogs I Like | No Comments »

The House is Not on Fire

All I heard was my daughter screaming, “Mom the house is on fire!” Here I am running into the kitchen trying to figure out what the heck is going on while smoke just pours from the microwave. I realized one thing very quickly -NEVER - let a 12 year old use the microwave without having listened to all of the directions first.

So, lunch time rolls around in our place and both of the kids want to have mac-n-cheese with their lunch.  OK, not a problem. Well they like those microwavable kind that are all individual, just made for them. As my daughter sits down to eat her lunch, I begin to make a mac-n-cheese for my son when he so adult-like states, “I can do it mom.” OK, fine, I begin to tell him the directions. “I know, I know.” You know how 12 year olds are. Well, he knew, he put the container in the microwave and I went off to use the bathroom.

Why is it that EVERYTHING happens when the mom is in the bathroom? Anyway, my daughter begins screaming, I’m trying to get put back together from using the bathroom and run to the kitchen all at once. The smell of burnt popcorn is just billowing throughout the house now. What? Popcorn? He didn’t make popcorn! Well, not popcorn, but the melted container of mac-n-cheese, burnt to the turntable because my son forgot to add the water, but remember, he knew. It was still my fault for not forcing the directions on him, but he has made them before, so I never in a million years would have guessed the one thing he would forget - to add water.

So, the burnt container is now laying underneath the snow that has fallen here in NW Arkansas. I was trying to think of something quick to get it out of the house - throwing it outside was a good option at the time.  My house SMELLS. I froze everyone out with the doors open along with the windows, but the smell is still lingering. But, that burnt smell is most likely helped by the fact that when I turned on our DVR later in the day, it too burnt out and the smell from that burn - toxic! OMG, my house smell is just grotesque. If a house could have BO smell, mine does!

So, the microwave makes everything stink, my house smells gross, and I am down my shows for the week thanks to the burnt DVR - doesn’t really matter the shows were most likely reruns anyway. We are thankful that the house really did not burn. So that is how I spent my Thursday, at home, snowed in with the kiddos!

Posted in Life's Little Adventures | 5 Comments »

So Long Mac

Last week one of our cats decided to sprint from an open door.  No amount of searching resulted in finding him.  Now mind you, we live in the woods now and it has been freaking cold.  I’m not real positive that he would be able survive, but cats have survived some of the weirdest stuff.  Hopefully our Mac has been doing OK.

My daughter is MAD that he is gone.  We all are upset, but she is mad at him for not coming back.  Everyday the first thing she asks, “Is Mac home yet?” and I always have the same reply, “No.”  Eventually maybe.  We are all sad that he is gone.

Posted in Life's Little Adventures | No Comments »

Christmas Is Over

Christmas came and went quietly.  My kiddos were up first and my daughter ran into my room, “Mommy, Mommy.  I got…” and off she went, listing everything Santa brought her and she ran out of my room.  Basically, that meant get out of bed and get your butt in here.  I rose slowly, exhausted for having to wait for Santa to show, but tickled by the sounds coming from the other room.

As I traveled by the sofa, I noticed the lumpy shape sleeping there was my son.  He obviously was up spying.  He is old enough to understand that Santa is your belief in the Christmas holiday and not a true figure, but since we still have a young one that believes in Santa completely, I make him do a list and all the festive things to help the magic for his sister.  He doesn’t mind playing along, but that also means he has no clue what he is getting either - so, the spying.

It takes months to build up to this day and then only about 20 minutes to rip through everything and begin to play.  Between the scooters running over my toes and the little hard shaped toys that came with the Littlest Pet Shops that were stuck in my foot, Christmas morning was perfect.  Everyone got along, including Dad, and we were able to enjoy each other.  Now that everyone was in good spirits, time to make coffee!

I had my cup of coffee, started bagging the wrapping paper and such for recycling, and began the search for little parts already missing - we found them all.  Then as the morning became afternoon, al the happiness was starting to fade, kids starting yelling, Dad started with the kids, and I was a frazzled mess.  Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! 

Posted in Life's Little Adventures, Marriage | No Comments »