real quick like

Both kids have reward charts for different behaviors we're working on. Last night we took them to the mall and Kera picked out one of her rewards. It was suppose to be a piece of jewelry, but I figured anything from Claire's probably qualified. She carried this thing around the whole store while lookgin at everything else, so it was what she loved. She looks pretty darn cute in my honest unbiased opinion.

Then, today was my day to go get my hair done, which is always so nice and refreshing and relaxing and everything else that a woman usually needs. I love the fall/winter tone of it. :-) There's just nothing like a haircut to make you feel oh so good about life.

Sugar Buzz

Is it too early to throw away the uneaten Halloween candy? Seriously. I'd really like to take both the girls' candy buckets and trick-or-treaters' bucket and just pitch it into our already overflowing trash cans. (I get the good wife award of the week for last week since I forgot to take the trash out to the street). We've been eating the candy we'd planned on giving out for almost 2 weeks already and now we have all this other candy and I've already had enough of whiney crazy kids. Of course I'm tired of giving into my sweet tooth as well, that sucker is super strong!

Although, now that I think about it, it might be good to have some sugar around for this month, you know since I've recklessly decided to jump into NaNoWriMo again. Let's see, its already November 2nd and you want to know how many words I've written so far?

Zero. Zilch. Nada.

(I know theres a movie with that line in it, a kids one I'm pretty sure, any guesses?) Why haven't I written? Well, Sundays are busy around here anyways and to be honest I wasn't sure what I wanted to write. I'm still not 100% sold on what I'm going to spend a month typing about. I think I need to figure it out today, though.

Back to the candy, though. Halloween was good. Not too busy and just enough friends and family. I made a super yummy chili (chili for some reason has become traditional Halloween fare at our home) and then the guys took the kids out on the street while my mom and I put our feet up and had a relaxing chat. Of course I jumped up every 4 minutes or so to hand out candy, but I'm not complaining. That is less candy we have in our home. I'm a generous candy hander-outer, too, as in I give out handfuls to the lucky children brave enough to venture down our cul de sac. We don't usually have many kids ring our bell--I think it has something to do with the houses on either side of us being dark most years and kids being too lazy to walk down to our lone lit up house.

Here are the kiddos in their costumes....

Kera was a butterfly. I was so lazy simple this year, using wings and antenae from a shop in the mall, then putting her regular clothes on except for a $5 tshirt from Old Navy.

Lindsay was a cat but she told everyone she was a leapard. Again, from the mall and Old Navy. I think the tail is so cute!

All the kiddos: My lil' nephew is a hippo, the cat leapard, my older nephew's friend the werewolf, the butterfly and my older nephew the grim reaper.

Signs of the times: Using kitchen sanitizing wipes to clean the candy before anyone can eat any. Thank you good ol' H1N1 for changing yet another holiday tradition.

Erik wore a mullet wig and some "bubba teeth" (I know, aren't we the most politically correct family ever). At first they both really bothered the girls and they'd run away from him while he was wearing them. Of course it probably didn't help that he was chasing them and telling them they needed kissies. I would've run from that too. But it was funny, by the end of the night both girls wore the mullet and were really hamming it up.

Alright, enough procrastinating, time for me to go get some "real" writing done!

We'll see.

Like the new layout? Yeah, I needed something different. It's better than it was, but not sure if its gonna stick. We'll see.

I am three days (counting today) away from starting NaNoWriMo 2009. What is NaNoWriMo you ask? No, it has nothing to do with H1N1, this is National Novel Writing Month. It is a month of writing, with the goal to reach 50,000 words by November 30th. Its a great opportunity for anyone who's ever thought "I'd like to write a novel", because the focus is output and not exactly quality--its just about getting those words on the page. I like it because its a way to really immerse myself in writing for a month and gets the creative juices flowing and helps me get into the habit of writing. Well, that's the idea. Last year I did it, and although I reached the goal of 50,000 words in a month, I was so burnt out by the end that I've only touched what I wrote that month a couple times in the last year. It still sits in mostly the same state as it looked on November 30, 2008. Maybe this year will be different--I hope so since I'll have a bit more free time. We'll see.

I'm finally feeling healthy enough to get outside and run or walk and so the last couple of days its been nice to do so. It's definitely colder here than fall temperatures, but I just bundle up and get going. I'm usually peeling off both gloves and ear-warmer by the end of the workout anyways. There is just something really invigorating about going for a run or walk when the weather is cooler, I'm really starting to like it. It was nice to listen to my new music too, since I finally got the whole iTunes formating to mp3 thing figured out. It really wasn't that difficult once I looked at it with a clear head and calm attitude. I'm still a PC through and through however. :-) Anyway, my goal is to keep walking and running throughout the winter--the only thing that could stop me is if the weather is bitter cold or the roads are icy (of course then I have my treadmill as backup)--so we'll see how I do with that goal.

I'm really interested in making this blog better, having it be "more" for lack of a better word. I'm still trying to figure out how to do that, but I just want it to be more than me retelling my days or what we're doing as a family, you know? So, my question is for you, dear readers (all seven of you), what would you like to see in this here blog? What would really make you want to check it everyday for new posts? We'll see what you say. :-)

Why I will never be a Mac

One of my friends gave me a gift card to iTunes this year for my birthday. Seeing as I'm always needing musical inspiration for either running or writing, I was excited. I have like this ongoing/everchanging list in my head of songs I like, so I couldn't wait to sit down and download them. Last night after the girls went to bed I had a few moments to myself to do this, so I pulled out the gift card and player and sat down at the laptop.

My first hurdle was the fact that my mp3 player's memory was full. I'm seriously thinking about asking for one with more for Christmas, this one barely has half a gig, which just isn't much. Anyway, I checked the memory and sure enough no space. So I hooked it up to the laptop only to find that I couldn't see any of the music on it in order ot delete some. I googled the website for the manufacturer of my player, got some tips and tried a few things only to figure out that my media player on the laptop was like 2 versions old. Thus began the download of the most current version. Once that was finally set I could see all the music, yay, so I copied it onto the computer and then went through the list and deleted some songs that I typically skip over in the course of a run anyways. Okay, so I had some free space.

Next, I headed on over to iTunes only to figure out that I had to download it in order to buy anything. That was kind of a pain becuase I don't use it for managing my media, but I was able to download it without it taking over, which is the case sometimes.

Finally, I got to the iTunes store, plugged in the gift card number to redeem and lo and behold, I have to have an iTunes account. So, I sign up for an account. Then, finally, I'm browsing through music. It takes me a few minutes to figure out how to get to where I want, but I do and I'm finding music that I just can't wait to listen to on that uphill section of my regular running route. I spent all but eleven cents and then decided I wanted that music on my player right then so I could use it today.

Wait, how do I get my music from the iTunes thingy to my player? I couldn't see any sync command within the program so I tried finding the music folder and copying and pasting into my player. It worked but that's weird, that one song I just copied is not in mp3 format. Hmmm, I wasn't sure about it, so I searched through the iTunes help quickly and found my answer.

What? iTunes will only sync with iPods? What!?!

Yeah, all that time spent on that music and its stuck on my laptop. I was too frustrated to search around too much for a solution to this problem, although I'm sure there's one out there. It just boils down to how propriatary Apple is in their products, which is why we don't deal with them at our computer store and why I will never purposely purchase anything else from them.

Thirty-three

This weekend I had a birthday, turned thirty-three if you must know. Friday night we went to my favorite chinese food place in town with most of my family, which was fun. But what I really wanted to do was relax with my girlfriends, no hubbies and no kiddos. So, last week I sent out a few invites and then yesterday I cooked little tiramisu cups and crab/artichoke dip and opened a bottle of wine. Then some of my friends came over and we ate and drank and talked and relaxed. It was wonderful. :-)

One of the wines I picked up. I couldn't resist the name, not that I'm an angry housewife, but the label cracked me up.

My dear pregnant friend Yvonne with her wicked witch of the west socks. Isn't she cute?

My friends and I. This is before I asked Erik to take a close up picture. How come men aren't very good at taking close up pictures?

My friends and I, close up. :-)

Now that birthday week has passed and I'm sort of feeling healthy, its time to jump back on the healthy eating/workout bandwagon. I think I look sort of like a chipmunk ready for winter in those pictures! ;-)