Your. Side. My. Side.

This is a blog COMPLETELY dedicated to the “your side” of things. Your side of the bed, your side of the road, your side of the table…and so on and so forth!

Your Side of the Bed.

I love cuddling with my husband in bed, and talking about our day and the days to come, and just enjoying each other’s company…but let’s face it, he has HIS side of the bed and I have MY side of the bed…and once the cuddle time is over and we are trying to actually sleep, I want MY side to remain just that…Mine. So be that as it may, when I have to get up in the middle of the night to change Fisher’s diaper and then walk back across the room to the bed, I would like my side to be exactly as I left it. But of course, it isn’t. It’s like Sean has some sensor built into him that when I get up out of bed, he breaches the boundary line and crosses onto MY side! And then it takes a Sherman tank to get him up and out of the way so I can lie back down. Would I have it any other way? Probably not…but just sayin.

Your Side of the Road.

          This is one of my FAVORITES. And I actually have pictures to document this particular infraction. This one can occur one of TWO ways. A) You have some jack-wagon driving down the road, obviously preoccupied with something, and they start slowly swerving into YOUR lane. As such, causing you to lay on your horn, shout obscenities, pray…whatever the occasion calls for. Or you have option B) Bikers. And not the hot ones on motorcycles, I am talking “cyclists.” Although they are on a bicycle…they are pretending they are on a motorcycle or in a giant van and proceed to pedal their little bicycle in the middle of your lane…also causing you to have several instances of panic & loathing of their choice of transportation. Ridiculous. So this is my message to the bikers and the distracted drivers “Stay on YOUR side of the road or stay on the SIDEWALK!!” Typically I am in a good mood when I’m driving and listening to the Glee Soundtrack…but when I see you pulling your Evil Knevil stunts, just know that I am NOT afraid to total out my vehicle to prove a point, so long as my children aren’t with me, because it has full coverage insurance and a GREAT market value. J No one wants to run you over, I promise. So flipping me the bird when I honk at you to avoid a head on crash, or pass you because I’m afraid of running you and your two wheeled contraption off in the ditch, is just rude…so don’t do it.

Your Side of the Table.

          This is another one my husband is completely guilty of. I love him to death but when I eat, I prefer to have room to move around my cup or saucer or napkin, if necessary. However, that invisible courtesy line that gets drawn at a restaurant that divides the table into two perfectly sectioned off halves tends to get crossed. A lot…especially after the salad course, just saying. Is it that hard to keep your cup and plate and utensils on your side of the table? No. Now, I understand that sometimes the hostess thinks it’s HILARIOUS to stick you at the smallest table in the house because you two are on a date and it seems “romantic” but she is mistaken. This only causes massive amounts of plate & utensil crossover. Once you’re married and you get to go out to eat alone, without little hands that reach into YOUR plate, the last thing you want is to be cramped for space when you can pig out on appetizers, entrées AND a dessert. You need ample amounts of table room people…it’s just a fact.

Your Side of the Car.

          With this one I don’t mean the “actual” side of the car that you are on because let’s face it, that changes based on mood, weather, blah blah blah. I mean the way the rules go in terms of the radio control. IF you are driving, then radio control gets passed to the person in the PASSENGER seat. If you are in the passenger seat, then you have control of the radio/song selections. There should be NO gray area…but there is. It seems like my husband and I tend to bicker more about what we should listen to on car trips more than anything…but the best part of this one is…WE LISTEN TO THE SAME MUSIC. So I think we just fight over the “control” part of it…we like to see who is the Alpha-Male of the radio. But it usually starts with a gradual volume decrease by the opposing party…just to say “I’m aware of the song on the radio, and I don’t like it. So by placing my hand on this volume control, I hereby take control of the radio.” This can go back and forth for several songs actually, volume down, volume up. Until one person takes the next step into either changing the station completely or inserting a cd or iPod in the middle of the song. Usually it’s a song the other person is singing or actually likes, and then the great ‘Radio War of 2011’ begins. I usually win…but that isn’t the point. I am just as guilty of not living by the radio rule as anyone, but if we all would abide by the common courtesy of passing the radio control to the passenger if you are driving, we wouldn’t have the “Your Side of the Road” category. J

Your Side of the Sink.

          This one can by far be the worst and most disgusting categories I am going to write about today. Your Side of the Sink. Eegads. There are mornings when I wake up, and go into the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face and just wake up and enjoy the day, and I LITERALLY think that a small animal has gotten into a fight with my husband’s beard trimmer. YUCK. All of the little whiskers from him shaving are just everywhere! And it is LITERALLY like glitter…it sticks to everything, and you can’t get rid of it not matter how much you clean. Over the years, I have of course learned to put all of my things in the medicine cabinet to avoid picking up a hairy toothbrush, or a perfume bottle that has dripped toothpaste, or shaving cream on it. And I wish I could say that even when we had our OWN individual sinks instead of just one shared sink, it was better, but even then his nasty man-face hair STILL crept over onto my clean, organized side of the bathroom. Ick.

This blog was actually a lot of fun to write! I’m sure there are PLENTY more ‘your sides’ that we can all relate to! So leave me some of yours in the comment sections! J

Crazy Busy is SUCH an Understatement!

This is how BUSY I have been…I wrote this blog “Sour Puss” about three weeks ago…and I am just NOW getting around to posting it…I promise you though, I am in a MUCH better mood than I was in when this particular post was written. J

Sour Puss.

So do you ever just have one of those days where it seems like EVERYONE, yourself included, is in a super bitchy mood?

Today was that day in Northwest Arkansas.

I woke up in one of those, “I can already tell today is going to require me to use my bitch ammo,” type days. So when I was showering I had already started thinking about everything that I had going on, who I could have pissed off, what they were going to say to me, what I would say back to them. Then I started thinking about people who had pissed ME off, and it just didn’t make for a pleasant shower. So I just decided to skip shaving my legs and wear jeans because I was ready to just get out of that shower that was trying to make me feel better. 

So of course I was expecting to turn on the news and see terrible things, more terrible than the normal news, and it was going to ruin my day even more, so I kept the news off and decided to check emails…and BAM! There it was in all of its glory…an email, ranting and raving at me from someone who, frankly, I’m not too fond of right now anyways. My first thought was to turn on the news instead…and then my second thought was to snap back, with some well thought out witty puns and low blows, but I knew that was a bad idea. So instead I sat, and sat, and tried to come up with something nice to say because I am pretty sure that’s how the saying goes…’If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all…’ something along those lines. Either way, I tried to respond to said email as politely and cordially as I could muster…and apparently that was an EPIC fail, because I got an even LENGTHIER, sarcastically written email several hours later. Damn it.

I feel like I should be more upset about being on bad terms with someone that I’m close with…but let’s face it. Today is NOT the day to try and convince me that I am a nice person, because honestly I feel like the world’s biggest bitch today; a crabby, sarcastic, selfish bitch. Eegads. I don’t even want to be around my own attitude today. Haha.

I have to admit though, as the day has gone on I have gotten in a slightly better mood. My kids do that for me. It could be the worst day of my life, and their little arms wrapped around my neck giving me a hug makes it all just disappear.

I've Got Friends in Low Places...

          So today at the office I was chatting with our brilliant Lindsey Management repair men, and it made me start thinking about Kevin Bacon’s Six Degrees scheme. Jeff, one of our repair men, has a niece-in-law who is from Pine Bluff, which means I could PROBABLY connect myself to them in six degrees. And then Eddie, the other repair man, is from Forrest City, where my sister-in-law is from…so I could probably connect myself to him in six degrees. It really just blows my mind how small of a world it ACTUALLY is.

          Second story to prove my point – My best friend, Katrina, and I met each other in 2^nd grade, briefly because she went to school with one of my cousins, who
I am not terribly fond of… J Either way, I remember hanging with her at a birthday party at the park, but we went to different schools, and then my cousin moved away, so I never heard from her again until 6^th grade when she was on my

class team. We still didn’t talk or hang out but we knew who the other was. THEN
in 8^th grade we were in the same Science class and we paired up on our science
 

fair project and we have been best friends ever since. Literally like 10+ years. But here is the INSANE part of the story. We were looking through pictures one day because we had both actually taken a trip to San Francisco the summer before 6^th

 grade, and we were looking at each other’s pictures, now keep in mind, that we were NOT friends at the time the pictures were taken, but in the background of the pictures when we went to Alcatraz Island, you can see the other one of us in the background. I knew it was Katrina right away because she was infamous for these bangs she used to sport back in the day…the wall-o-bangs, we like to call it. So it was destiny that we were meant to be best friends!

          AND THEN. Sean and I met on our own, without anyone trying to play matchmaker or anything like that…but after dating for a while I realized that we had SEVERAL mutual friends, who could have possibly brought us together much earlier…which only proved to me that we had some hurdles to jump before we could find each other that way whenever we DID find each other, we would know what we were doing, or at least some of the way, and we could be a better spouse to the other because of our past.

Crazy, crazy stuff.

          This was just one of those blog posts that I was thinking about continuously, and if I hadn’t shared my thoughts I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on much of anything else. Which tends to happen a lot the more that I think about it, because I’m sure on top of my crazy obsessive compulsiveness I have some mild form of adult ADD. Haha.

          I have also noticed that the formatting on this post is incredibly wacky, which is driving me absoltuely insane, but I have tried to fix it...and no luck, so just bah! Lol.

Padded Toilet Seats and Peas & Carrots

WOW! It has been a while (once again) since I found the time to post a blog! So lucky you…you will get TWO blog posts combined in one! So exciting right? There should be a warning label on this level of excitement. J

So I have come to the realization that the hubby and I are the textbook definition of an old married couple. And oddly enough, we are both ok with it. Today is Saturday…and instead of getting up and going and doing something fun, we were up at 7:00 a.m. getting ready to go grocery shopping. And what was the main “golden” item on our grocery list that we needed to rise at the butt crack of dawn for you ask? A PADDED toilet seat…no pun intended. Yes, the hubby was complaining about the toilet seat that came standard on the toilet at the new house, so he has been begging for a new one. Finally, I broke down and we went to Wal-Mart to purchase said necessity. There were many options to choose from, wooden toilet seats, toilet seats with gaudy butterflies and frogs on them, regular cheap plastic toilet seats, $30.00 toilet seats…it was every butt’s Mecca. So after standing there for a good 5 ½ minutes, literally having a DISCUSSION about which one would be the best options for our tushies, Sean decided on a padded toilet seat. To me, they sound like a semi truck letting out the brake pressure whenever you sit down on them because they are deflating, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I also associate padded toilet seats with older people…I guess because every grandparents house I have ever been to, my own included, had at least ONE bathroom that had a padded toilet seat in there. So to me, this is a milestone in our relationship…going toilet seat shopping together as a family.

On another note! A few weeks ago, we were up once again at the butt crack of dawn on a Sunday morning, and we were laying in bed watching infomercials. It just so happened that one came on for The Baby Bullet…I of course was instantly hooked. It is a blender with a smiley face on it, who wouldn’t be. There is actually a lot more to it than that…it is a system basically that allows you to make your own organic baby food. After watching the infomercial for about 15 minutes we finally decided that it would be a good investment to make. AND BOY WERE WE RIGHT! I have been making Fisher’s baby food for a couple of months now and he loves it, and I love it even more. I know exactly what is going into his food, and where it is coming from! It is super cute, and really simple to use. I can make an few weeks worth of baby food in about half an hour! Seriously, parents it is amazing. I have posted a link to the website, any of you Moms out there that are considering making your own baby food, check it out! It is amazing. http://www.babybullet.com

I’ve also got some really great recipes for baby food that Fisher loves that I have come up with on my own, plus the Baby Bullet comes with a great little cookbook that comes with it, and an even bigger cookbook you can purchase extra, which I highly recommend. It comes with recipes that go all the way up into toddler age groups.

Plum Good Yogurt ‘Smoothie’
                   1 Plum – Peeled & Pitted
                   1 Apple – Peeled & Cored
                   ½ Banana – Peeled
                   2 Tbsp. Vanilla Yogurt

Make sure all of your fruit is cut up into small cubes to make blending easier. Combine all of the ingredients into your baby bullet batch bowl, or blender if you don’t have the baby bullet just yet! Remember, if your baby is just starting on solid foods, you want to make sure their food is a smooth consistency, in order to achieve that consistency hold the baby bullet down for 10 seconds, or until everything is well blended and you do not see any chunks of fruit left. If everything is blended, and the consistency is still a little too thick, you can add apple, or pear juice to thin it down. If your baby is eating chunkier foods you want to pulse the baby bullet until their food is at the right consistency for their stage of eating! You can also pour these into Popsicle trays and freeze for your toddlers! They make a great summertime snack!

Sweeter Sweet Potato & Corn Casserole
                   1 Whole Sweet Potato – Peeled & Cooked
                   1 Small Can of Sweet Cream Corn

I prefer to use canned cream corn for this recipe, it makes it so much quicker and I just make sure to read the label and make sure there are no additives in it. Buying organic is also a great way to make sure that there aren’t any nasty things in your baby’s food. If you prefer, you can cream your own corn. Make sure your sweet potatoes are nice and soft and cut into 1 inch chunks. Combine the sweet potato and can of creamed corn into your batch bowl and either hold it down for 10 seconds or pulse it, again depending on what stage your baby is at. Warm in the microwave for 10 – 15 seconds and serve!

          Those are two of Fisher’s favorite recipes that I thought I would share with you guys. I will have more to come, because let’s face it…Fisher is a little piggy and LOVES to eat, so I have come up with some pretty snazzy combinations! J Also remember, that if your baby is just starting out eating solid foods, to introduce their foods to them one flavor at a time, so you can weed out any allergies they may have. Once you are sure which foods they can and cannot have, you can start combining flavors and keep your mind at ease!

          What exciting blog posts right!? I’m pretty jazzed. I have a marketing work to do tonight along with making dinner, cleaning AND folding laundry…and of course, watching my new favorite show…Glee! J So hopefully it won’t be another month before I post again!

Keep your eyes peeled for new posts and remember to follow me on twitter!! @JackNFishersMom

Cloudy Day Picture Dump

So I realized this morning that I have some pictures on my camera from this weekend that I need to post on here along with some other random pictures I will post as I get to them! So you can expect a few photo dumping sessions to occur over the next few days I’m sure! In the mean time, enjoy!

Jack decided he wanted to change Fisher’s diaper…he later discovered he didn’t want to! LOL

Whee! Going down the slide!!

Fisher was really ‘digging’ the sandbox...bad joke...bad haha

Just Jack…chillaxin’

When…when when when did he get so big and grown up?!

Tall skinny boy on the slide is MINE?! No way…

Rock climbing

Mom, I need another star…they’re so delicious

Lake Fayetteville!

Grandma and Grandpa came!

Who has Fisher!? Grandma does!

Thinking….

Everyone loves grandbabies!

Whew! That’s all I have for now! I will be posting more later on today once I get the boys down for naps!

Catch Me If You Can

Wow. I don’t even know where to start. Let’s see…my last blog was February 17^th…

so much has happened from that point until now. This blog could just be considered a catcher-upper.

Monday February 14^th was Valentine’s Day of course. And it was also the day that

I left my job at RE/MAX. It was a very relieving act that is for sure. I was getting fed up with the way things were running, or not running for that matter, don’t worry I’ll spare you all of the gory details. J So after that point, Sean and I sat down and had that great marriage chat of, “Let’s make some changes in our lives, what steps do we want to take.” And that, ladies and gentlemen, is when I decided to go ahead and do real estate classes, in an actual classroom so I could pass, and just be my own boss. It would give me more time to spend with the boys, and still be in the career field I love. So once that was all said and done, I called the real estate school and signed up for classes, which started on the 28^th of February. I don’t

really remember much else of what happened that week, it must have been pretty dull after that point.

The next week however, was when my life took a dramatic turn.

Over the weekend my grandmother took a turn for the worse. We knew it was getting close, but let’s face it, no one ever wants to truly admit that it’s coming, and so we were all on edge and waiting. Wednesday February 23^rd I got a phone

call from my mother saying that I needed to go up to the hospital and prepare myself to say my goodbyes. Sean drove me up there and I hugged and kissed on that beautiful woman until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I made my peace and thanked her for everything she had done for me, and for the person she had made me. I told her I loved her, and I thank God each and every day, that for a few moments that night, she had the strength and the lucidity to tell me that she loved me back. And I won’t ever forget the sound of her voice saying those words. That night was a haze, and the next day wasn’t any better. I had never prayed or cried that hard in my life, and I knew deep down in my heart that everything I had been preparing myself for was right around the corner. I was right. On February 24, 2011 my wonderful grandmother left us, and went to join God. It’s so hard for us still here, and we know we shouldn’t dwell, but it’s hard.

The next day Sean stayed home with me, and we let Jack go on with his day as usual. I hadn’t quite figured out how to tell him that she was gone…so we spent the entire day at my mom’s house with my big brothers and had a good time. We laughed and we cried and we just spent time as a family. I know it would have made my grandmother happy to see us come together like that. The weekend was a blur, and by Monday I had gotten up the courage to tell Jack. He was heartbroken and didn’t understand, and asked a lot of really hard questions that I tried my best to answer…but let’s face it. No matter how many parenting books you read or classes you take, NOTHING can prepare you for that conversation. But, once it is all said and done, you move on together as a family and begin healing.

Which leads me to the next phase of the catch up blog.

The Monday after my grandmother passed, I began my class for my real estate license. It was a two week class, every day…and let me tell you, it was exhausting. Haha! But I made it through and passed! Woo! I will post a picture of my diploma on here! Somewhere in those two weeks, we managed to sign a short lease on a place in Fayetteville so that we could move down there to be closer to Sean’s work. Then, the weekend AFTER my class ended we packed up our amazing house, and moved. L I can’t say that I was 100% keen on being in Fayetteville, it is unfamiliar territory and a little overwhelming at times, but we have been here for a week now, and it is slowly growing on me. Never will it hold a flame to Bentonville, but let’s face it, we want to be down this way because of the land and country that is available to us so if living IN Fayetteville temporarily helps us fulfill our goal of buying a house then that’s what I’ll do!

So that is where we are as of now. In Fayetteville, adjusting, healing, growing, loving and just being together as a family. J There are a lot of little details that have happened that didn’t make it into this blog, but you’ll pick up on them as the blogs go on. Now that things aren’t so hectic anymore I will have time to blog everyday again. Whew! And that’s good, because I missed it!

Crazy Little Thing Called Love...

This blog is dedicated to my three most favorite people on the planet! Sean, Jack and Fisher…my boys J Never in my life have I had a more amazing Valentine’s Day.

Friday night the roads were still kind of crummy but we HAD to get out of the house before Mommy went stir crazy. So we went and picked up my Valentine’s Day present from the mall and I got them early! I got a beautiful diamond necklace and an even prettier ruby & diamond ring. *Sigh* My man has such good taste. I’ll post pictures of the goods. After that we grabbed some much agreed upon Subway and went home and cuddled on the couch.

Saturday morning we got up early and had the whole day to ourselves while the boys were at the babysitters and grandparents houses. We went to Fay-town and hit a thrift store and pulled some shenanigans…don’t worry, I’ll post pictures of that too! Then we went to lunch at the Catfish Hole – UH MAZING. I got a steak, and it was the most ginormously delicious steak I have ever had. It was literally about 2 ½ inches thick and about 8 inches long. Of course I only ate about half of it before I had to make myself stop. Then…OH THEN…I got the second half of my present…Justin Bieber. No, not the actual Bieber. But I did get to go see the movie, and my amazing hubby-cakes actually sat through it with me. There were about 100 pre-teen girls in the theatre with us squealing every time Justin’s smiling face lit up the screen and then the few adult women who were in the theater squealed louder when Usher showed up on the screen. Because let’s face it...he’s Migh-T fine. After that we came home and lounged around watching movies until both boys came home, where we proceeded to fill ourselves up with massive amounts of ice cream and brownie fudge. J PERFECT Saturday.

Sunday, we did nothing. Absolutely nothing, we barely even answered phone calls or got off of the couch. Finally we had a birthday party to go to at 4, so we managed to get up off of our lazy butts around 3 and head to do that. We went to this place called Jump Zone which is every parents DREAM. It has about 9 giant inflatable jump areas in this huge warehouse where you pretty much just pay $6.00 to let your kids go run off every ounce of energy they have. Brilliant. So of course Mommy had to climb up the 25 foot pirate ship slide and go down it. And let me tell you, it was not easy. It was a straight up climb, with my jeans falling down and a little girl behind me telling me to hurry up because I climbed to slow. But the payoff was well worth it. You literally zoom down the inflatable slide into an even giant inflatable wall. Most. Fun. Ever. We also went ahead and gave the boys their Valentine's Day presents, Jack of course got candy, a few little toys and some glow in the dark stars for his ceiling. Fisher, was much more excited to get his little soft puppy dog cuddler. I call them cuddlers. They are actually tiny little blankets that don't actually cover them up. They just cuddle with them...hence the name. :) That's copywritten by the way.

Monday, I went and got Sean’s Valentine’s Day present, because I was a little behind on doing that, and after the events that took place on Monday – WHOLE OTHER BLOG COMPLETELY! I had plenty of time to do some shoppin’! He has been dying to learn the guitar, so I went to Ben Jack’s, our local music store and got him this awesome Fender starter kit for an outrageously great price and now he has been practicing like crazy.

I took pictures of all of our rad presents - they are below!

Sean's Awesome Guitar :)

My GOREGOUS Necklace

My OTHER Gorgeous piece of jewelry – My ruby ring!

All in all, I have to say it was a pretty awesome Valentine’s Day.

Never Underestimate the Power of Wishes...

Oops.

I think I may have prayed a little too hard for this snow…because now we are drowning in it…20 inches at least, to be more exact. But the weather station is calling for more than that. 

So I am taking this time to publicly apologize for wishing too hard for snow. I honestly had good, somewhat slacker-like intentions in mind when I wished that hard. Swear. I only wanted 3 or 4 inches – just enough to give me a day at home. 

Now I am sitting here watching the local news waiting to hear from the hubby about when he will be able to come home – IF and that is a very big GINORMOUS “IF”, he can even make it home. :( If he can’t make it home I am going to be devastated. I hate being home without him, and I really hate the idea of him being stuck down in Fayetteville, away from me and the boys. Ugh. 

I am going to say it is time to officially take an oath…

“I, Mama, solemnly swear, to never wish for snow again, except around Christmas time when it is appropriate. Furthermore, I also promise to never EVER complain about Summer again, which I know is somewhat of a lie because when it is 100 degrees outside I will inevitably complain…but here’s to trying.”

 I do believe it is time for pictures of Snowmageddon 2011 – Don’t you? :)

 

The Prediction

 

The Cupcake Trampoline

 

The Grills with Snow Hats

 

Goodbye Swingset

 

Where’s the Road?!

 

Cupcake Trampoline May Break Under the Pressure

 

My Survival Tool

 

Well, there you have it…and we STILL are not finished yet! I’m going to say that it is a pretty safe bet that Sean will be staying with his parents in Fayetteville. I am SO ready to buy a house down there I can’t even stand it anymore. But that is a blog for another day…or another hour, since I am definitely going to be stuck inside for a while. 

Everyone stay warm, safe and sane. Hopefully we thaw quickly.