Spin Cycle--January

This January has been all around a decent month.  It's had it's ups and downs but over all not too bad.  Let's see what has January brought us:

• Cabin fever has set in.  We have had cold weather but not much snow.  It has warmed up just enough to melt the snow we got for Christmas and create tons of slippery ice. With injuries and illnesses, we haven't gotten out skiing at all. Well Turbo has with school, but he's the only one.
• I have been able to get into a routine for making dinner.  My meal planning has been working and I have resisted the allure of saying figure it out yourself to the guys.
• We had a fun game night with friends.  Playing Cards Against Humanity with a bunch of people is time filled with laughter.
• Today is Bruiser's 6th Birthday.  His party is on Saturday.  He's pretty stoked to be turning six.
• This weekend is all about a kid Art party and the Superbowl get together we have with friends.
• We have done some pretty serious relaxing this month.  I've truly enjoyed it.

Now for some pictures from January:

We have had some truly spectacular sunrises and sunsets.

My Kiddos.

Cuddling puppies.

  How was your January? Spin it up and let us know!

Link up with the Spin Cycle!

Hodgepodge--Chilly!

Howdy on this fine hump day.  How about some questions?

1. When did someone last suggest you 'chill out'? Or, when did you last tell someone (or want to tell someone) to 'chill out'? Or, when did you last tell yourself to 'chill out'? I haven't been told to chill out, but I say it to my boys all the time.  Turbo gets rather intense about things and will sometimes snap at Bruiser for the smallest of things, so I often tell him to chill out or bring it down a few levels. Sometimes he actually does.

2. What most recently caused your heart to melt?  Watching Nick and bruiser play guitar together.  Nick is still learning, but the guitar that I got for Nick for Christmas holds a great deal of fascination for Bruiser.

3. "An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered." G.K. Chesterton

Your thoughts? When did you last experience either an adventure or an inconvenience? How did you see it at first, as an adventure or an inconvenience? Does it feel the same in hindsight?  We can most often turn our inconviences into adventures as long as we keep our wits about us. Nick and I will take a deep breath and then roll with the punches and 99% of the time we end up in a better place.

4. A Wendy's Frosty, root beer in a frosty mug, or a frosted chocolate cupcake...of these three, which one is your favorite 'frosty' treat? Wendy's Frosty most definitely.  I really like to have hot salty fries with it. 

5. Would you say your life so far this year has been more like a circus or a symphony? Explain why. We in general tend more toward the circus, but we have had our moments of symphony. humming the theme to the circus is sometimes the only way Nick and I can laugh at the crazy our lives bring us.  It really is a roller coaster ride.  Never not fun though.

6. Since it's a 'snow day' here, what's your favorite song containing the word 'white'? there are several, but the first that popped into my head was White Christmas.  Then Little White Church by Little Big town.

7. If you had to leave the city you currently live in, what would you find the hardest to leave behind? My house.  I love my house.  We have really made it our home and I would miss it tremendously. After that, it would be the friends and family we have here. We truly have built up a wonderful network of friends and family.

8. Insert your own random thought here.  My little boy turns 6 tomorrow.  Bruiser is my baby, but he's growing up so fast.  It was just six years ago that I was waiting for him to put in his appearance.  Now he's a kindergartener and looking so very grown up.

From this...

...to this.  Time truly does fly.

Random for Tuesday

Well, here we are at another Tuesday.  It's a good thing Tuesdays are random because a whole coherent post is probably not going to happen. So let's do this random style:

• Sleep.  Such a simple thing and yet so hard to do sometimes.  I really hate how familiar insomnia is around our house.

• Cabin fever is setting in.  This weekend is busy enough that we should be able to bust some of the fever, but I'm thinking we need a trip out of town soon to give us a change of pace.
• This sums up how I feel during the weekly grocery shopping:

•  I would love to have it snow.  We have ice right now.  Lots and lots of ice.  The university is busting up ice in the gutters.  4+ inches of ice in some places.  The sound of the back hoe scraping at the ice is as bad as fingernails on a chalk board.  And I just realized that my kids will never know what that sounds like. They have white boards now. No more chalk boards.
• So what is everyone doing for the Superbowl?  We will be enjoying sliders, chips and salsa and cheese dip and veggie munchies.  Appetizers and snack foods for the game.  With good friends of course!
• The art birthday party is coming along.  We plan to have one or two craft projects for the kids to do and then cupcake decorating.  Yes, mess in the making, but it should be fun.  I hate planning these things, but they usually come off pretty well. Wish us luck.

So there you have it, my random for the week.  Have a great Tuesday and random it up with Stacy.

Yeah, Monday

I can work with that.  Only 4 days until Friday.  OR only five days until Bruiser's birthday party. A number (as yet to be determined) of 5-6 year olds.  We finally decided to do an art party.  Which means painting, playdough. and other creative (messy) pursuits. Nick and I may be blithering idiots by Saturday night, but hey, the kids should have fun.  I hope.
This last weekend was another pretty quiet one for us.  We didn't do much and it was nice.  We did make a mean batch of green chili. I got to read a lot.  The boys hung out in the attic and it was an all around lazy weekend. I like having those.

So on to MMMM.  Freebie week and well, here's what I got for you this week:
Miranda Lambert with Only Prettier:

Lady Antebellum with Downtown:

Have a good Monday!

Spin Cycle--Traveling

So Ginny is asking questions about traveling.  You can answer a couple or all of them.  I think I'm going to answer all of them as we really like traveling around these parts.

1. Would you rather take a road trip or fly? We do road trips all the time.  I think, depending on where you are going, road trips can be more fun and less stressing.  However, flying is more practical for some trips.
2. Where is your favorite place to travel? I love going to the beach, we live in the Rocky Mountain West and beaches are scarce around here. But taking off for the mountains that are just a short 30 minute drive away is one of our favorite road trips to take in the summer.
3. Do you have any sanity-saving tips for traveling with kids? Currently, there are several electronic devices that make travel in a vehicle with kids much more fun.  We have several of these devices, but the one thing that makes our road trips go by in a flash is that I read out loud in the car.  Essentially, I am the book on tape. Turbo loves having me read.
4. If you could take a vacation without the kids, where would you go? I'd take Nick and head to Hawaii.  Beaches, volcanoes, warm weather.  Sounds pretty great for a couple of geologists.
5. What is your favorite activity to do while traveling? Do you like to read, sleep, listen to music, or play games? I am a reader.  I will read anything, but I love taking trashy tabloids and magazines on a trip with me. Especially if I am flying.  I also love my Kindle Touch for travel.  Tons of books at my finger tips.  Bliss. Not that we don't play car games.  License Plate, Road Trip Bingo, a scoring game for wildlife that we came up with, Memory games, we've played them all a time or two.
6. Is there a place you would travel to just for the food?  I don't think so.  I like to go see the sights, but food hasn't been a priority.  Maybe Maine during lobster season...
7. One of my goals is to someday come home to a clean house, but it hasn’t happened yet! When you leave your house for vacation, is it messy or clean? We try to have it tidy.  I like to have the dishes done, things straightened up, laundry done.  Just so it's easier to come home and then make a mess with the things we bring home.
8. What is one thing you would never travel without? A book or my Kindle.  I am seriously lost without something to read. So I make sure I have things to read all the time.
9. My husband cannot sit still for very long on vacation; he has to be constantly on the move. How about you? Would you rather have a relaxing vacation or have activities planned from morning ‘til night? I can sit and read and relax and enjoy being in one spot, but Nick and the boys like having things to do, even if it's just playing in the water. Not that I'm opposed to amusement parks, water parks, museums, and other attractions.  I just like relaxing and doing nothing more than reading too.
10. If you could photograph (or see) any place in the world, where would you go? Alaska.  That would be the one cruise ship I could get my hubby to go on.  Although, I would love to take the train from Denver to California. A train ride though the Colorado Rockies and then the Sierra Nevadas sounds absolutely fantastic.

How to you travel?  Grab the questions, all or which ever subset you want and link up with the Spin Cycle!

Wednesday Hodgepodge

Questions?  We've got Questions:

1. American Idol is back for a 14th season. Are you watching? Have you ever watched? If you were to audition for the show (or were made to audition), what song would you sing? No, we aren't watching this year. I'm sure Turbo and Bruiser would get into it, but we just aren't that into competition shows. Nick and I did watch the year Carrie Underwood won, but that was the last year we did. If we want a competition show now we watch Face Off on the SyFy network--it's a makeup artist show and there's very little of the back biting and nastiness that invades other shows.




I do know I would never sing in front of people.  The most I do is sing in the car to the radio.

2. Mark Twain is quoted as saying, "If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first."
So when did you last have to 'eat a frog'? Or two? How'd that work out? I look at this one as getting the unpleasant tasks out of the way as quickly as possible.  Mostly I do try to do this, but when I find a good book or have something more fun to do it's hard to stay task oriented.

3. If you were going on safari, what is the number one animal you'd want to see? An elephant. Or a giraffe.  Both are pretty cool animals.

4. January 21st is National Granola Bar Day. I know. Do you like granola bars? Chewy or crunchy? Your favorite flavor? How about regular granola? Let's exhaust this topic in honor of the holiday okay? Granola bars are a standard around our house--but only the chewy kind.  On occasion, I like the crunchy ones but recently, they seem so sweet that I'm just not that into them. I do like granola cereal with my yogurt. And I have been known to make my own granola.

5. If only__________________________________________.  There were more hours in the day.  Time keeps slipping away from me...

6. You can add one item to your bedroom. What will it be? Keep it family friendly please. another closet.  Clothing storage is at a premium in or bedroom currently.

7. What is one thing you've enjoyed about winter thus far? If it's not winter in your corner of the globe, what season is it, and what is something you've enjoyed about whatever season it happens to be? I have enjoyed the snow we got at Christmas.  Too bad it's mostly ice right now.  Hoping for more snow soon. Cold is easier to take when it's white outside.

8. Insert your own random thought here.  Turbo is doing a space unit at school and gets to keep a moon journal.  This could be interesting.  I'm not sure what his journal should include, but I know from personal experience, the full moon gives me insomnia. Turbo's journal will probably not have that included...

Random Tuesday---Procrasination

Yep.  Procrastination is the name of the game for this last weekend.  I did nothing in a timely manner. Except get Turbo to his bus for his meet at an ungodly hour.  4:30am to be exact. Ugh.  Saturday was a total bust productive wise for me.

• Yeah, so Turbo went to his first ski meet.  In a town 4 hours away.  They left at 5:00am Saturday morning. I got to make two trips to the Junior High cause Turbo forgot his phine at home.  At least I tried to be a nice mom and send him a good luck text and in the process discovered his phone sitting on the table.  
• And after that, I was cold, tired and just trying to get back to sleep.  It really blew my motivation out of the water. I did nothing I should have that day, like start laundry, do dishes, cook...

• Actually all we really accomplished was going to a game night at a friends house.  Cards Against Humanity was played to great laughter.
• Sunday was better.  I got a majority of the laundry washed and dried (folding came later). I did dishes, and then we rounded up the troops to go watch the Packers and Seahawks play.  Nail biting game if there ever was one. We also watched the Patriots stomp all over the Colts. The Superbowl could be an interesting game.  I'm not really rooting for any side in particular.  We were more Packers fans. I am hoping for a good game though.  And good commercials...
• Monday we had a holiday.  One of the few our university takes. I finished the laundry--the dreaded folding and putting away part.  I do have towels and sheets to wash, but that I can manage tonight.  I also grocery shopped.  Yep, overall a relatively unproductive weekend.
• We just might have a handle on the activity for Bruiser's birthday.  Bowling. He's not wildly enthusiastic, but we think it will be fun (and funny) to have 5 and 6 year olds bowl.

So there you have it, my random for the week.  Have a great Tuesday and random it up with Stacy.

Friday 5--Cabin Fever

It's Friday!  Happy Friday everyone! Let's have a few random thoughts for this fine Friday:

1. Turbo has his first ski meet tomorrow.  He missed the first two meets but gets to go on this one.  He's excited and looking forward to the bus trip and race.  Not looking forward to the 4:45am be at the bus time in the morning.
2. We are all getting a bit of cabin fever. It always hits midwinter and with the ice and cold I'm just feeling like curling up, snuggling in and reading and sleeping.  I'm also getting snappy and snarly.  Time to think up some way of busting the winter blahs.  Ideas, anyone?
3. I'm taking some Christmas money and getting a decent waffle maker.  The one we have right now just doesn't get hot enough to cook waffles properly.  So some time in Bed Bath and Beyond looks to be in my future.
4. We are still kicking around ideas for Bruiser's birthday.  He wants a party.  We aren't sure how to have a bunch of 5-6 year olds in our house.  It's not exactly set up for kid parties.  We aren't sure what activities to have if we do have it at home.  The out of home ideas for parties are expensive or not appealing with the age group. How do you occupy 7-9 kids inside for two hours?  I'm so not good at this. Maybe we can take him to the zoo with a friend...
5. On a brighter note I have cooked most nights this week.  Used the crock pot twice and if I can keep the motivation up, will cook tonight.  However, Bruiser has been less than pleased with my dinner choices. I swear the kid would live on hot dogs and chicken if given the choice. So very frustrating.

Photos:  I'm heading to the way back machine:

Topical beach sunset.  Wishing I was there...

Majestic Moose.

Sail away Me Hearties!

Handsome guy!

With my Turbo.

 Go join up your own Friday 5 with Emmy Mom!

Spin Cycle - Lost

This week's Spin Cycle prompt is Lost.  Not lost as in missing, but the word lost and all it's many meanings.
There are far more meanings for the word lost than I thought:

1.  no longer possessed or retained:  lost friends.

2.  no longer to be found: lost articles.

3.  having gone astray or missed the way; bewildered as to place, direction, etc.: lost children.

4.  not used to good purpose, as opportunities, time, or labor; wasted: a lost advantage.

5.  being something that someone has failed to win: a lost prize.

6.  ending in or attended with defeat: a lost battle.

7.  destroyed or ruined: lost ships.

 

The refrain of "I can't find it"  is often heard in our house.  Nothing is really lost, or at least not totally.  But on occasion things do go away for a while and are harder to find.  

I have become the ultimate finder of the lost things in our house.  I'm not sure if it genetic, or I just have guys that can't find anything, but if they lose something they come to me to find it. I usually do, eventually.

My mother has a way of making the things she loses come back to her.  She tells on herself.  If she can't find something, she calls me and tells me she can't find it.  9 times out of 10 the lost item turns up shortly after she tells on herself.

Looking at the definition of lost, most don't have a positive connotation to them.  However, there are times when something lost isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Take losing a job.  Well, losing my job about the time I had Bruiser.  It didn't seem like a good thing at the time, but right now I am in a good place and I don't think I would be here if not for losing my job exactly when I did. So not totally a bad thing to lose my job. I guess it's all in how you look at things.

What would your spin on lost be?

Spin it up and join up.

 

Wednesday Hodgepodge--All About Those Words

Time for Wednesday questions:

 

1. What's your best piece of advice for a newly married couple? I'm asking for a friend. Make sure you communicate.  Talk to each other and really listen.  Don't talk at each other.  So much gets lost in the act of communicating if you don't pay attention.

2. Before we're too far into the new year I wanted to post a question Teresa submitted during the December giveaway. Teresa blogs over at Being Refined As Silver, so everyone go say hi.

Teresa asks, "What were you doing on December 31st, 1999?"and "Did you or your family make preparations for Y2K?"  I worked that day--a long 10 hour day at the chiropractor I worked for. I got home at around 6:30 and was just wiped out.  I made it until midnight in Chicago (I live in the mountian time zone) and said the world is still here; I'm going to bed.

3. According to Global Language Monitor, the most used word of 2014 isn't a word. It's the heart emoji. Huh? How can something that's not a word be the most used word, but I digress. What do you think was your most used word in 2014? "Really?!" said with varying amounts of sarcasm, disbelief or humor, depending on the occasion.

4. Speaking of words, it's that time again. Time for Lake Superior University to present a list of words they'd like to see banished (for over-use, mis-use, and general uselessness) in 2015. You can read more about the decision making process here, but this year's top vote getters are-

bae (before anyone else), polar vortex, hack, skill set, swag, foodie, curate/curated, friend-raising, enhanced interrogation, cra-cra (as in crazy), takeaway, and -nation (a suffering sports suffix).

Which of these words/phrases would you most like to see banished from everyday speech and why? Is there a word not on the list you'd like to add? Polar Vortex.  When I was growing up those were called arctic cold fronts and they happened every winter, multiple times. I'm not sure why they got a PR makeover, but I don't think they really needed one.

5.  January is National Hot Tea month? Are you a fan? Do you like flavored teas? How do you take your tea? Have a favorite cup or teapot? How many cups of tea do you consume in a given day? I have a cup of tea a day--most every morning.  I love chai tea and also several of the teas from Celestial Seasons.  Not such a fan of ginseng tea, but I will do green tea, but prefer well done herbal teas most of the time.

6. Whatever happened to________________________________? Common courtesy. Or common sense?  Both are lacking in today's society.  They claim the 80s were the me generation, but I think we are far more about ourselves these days than we should be. There is also a lack of common sense.  Anyone who was using common sense would never put questionable materiel out where the general public could find it.  At least you would hope they wouldn't...

7. What is one book on your must-read list this winter? As You Wish: the behind the scenes of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes.  I'm most of the way through it right now.

8. Insert your own random thought here. Even with our lazy weekend we still manged to have a spectacular sunrise on Saturday:

Have a great week!

Randomly Tuesday--Marching through the week

Oh, Tuesday.  Better than Monday, but still too far from the weekend.  So, let's random things up around here:

• The whole family has been enjoying watching The Librarians on TNT.  We first watched the made for TV movies of The Librarian with Noah Wylie.  They were fun movies in the same lines as Indiana Jones.  Adventure with magic thrown in for fun.  The TV show is just as fun and we are really enjoying it.
• I'm not a fan of ice.  We got snow over Christmas and it has warmed up just enough to create ice.  Lots of ice.  Everywhere. Makes walking to work a challenge.
• Nick needs to order some beer supplies.  He hasn't brewed in quite some time.  I'm hoping for a dark beer and he loves making reds and IPAs. In that tone:

• I had to get a new Kindle Fire HDX because my old Kindle Fire stopped charging.  Everything else worked fine, but the stupid thing wouldn't connect to charge. Technology is grand!
• snickered at this:

• Last night is got an amazing good night of sleep.  To bad it's not usually a repeat event. Maybe I should try this:

• Probably wouldn't work.

So have a great Tuesday and random it up with Stacy.

Kicking back and Doing Nothing

We spent the weekend not accomplishing much of anything.  And it felt awesome.
Saturday we had friends over and had a wonderful dinner and a good time talking and catching up as we hadn't seen these friends in a while.  A good time was had by all.  We definitely need to do that more often.
Sunday was a day of doing absolutely nothing at all.  We watched movies and I read.  OK, I did do dishes, but that was it. It snowed and the left us house bound and so we just watched movies. Several Harry potter movies, Failure to Launch, Monuments Men, and bits and pieces of other movies--it was free preview weekend for the movie channels.
Next weekend we get a long weekend and Turbo has a ski meet in a town about 4 hours from ours.  Means an early morning/late night kind of trip for him, but he should have fun competing in his first meet.
We hope to be able to do something more than standard household chores next weekend, but we will need to see what the weather dictates.

So after our totally laid back weekend, lets see what I can come up with for MMMM.  Freebie weeks get me sometimes.  Let's see:

Lee Brice with Drinking Class:

Toby Keith with Drunk Americans:

And a bit of a throw back: Brad Paisley with Alcohol:

Yeah, so a bit of theme, but hey drinking goes with relaxing right?

Friday 5--New Year Promises

So, after having had a full week of 2015, it's time to do my promises for the year. I do promises instead of resolutions.  Resolutions are grand and easily broken, but promises are a bit easier for me to keep.  So in keeping with Emmy Mom's Friday 5, here are five promises I want to keep this year:

1. A promise to myself to get active.  Walking, exercising, running, something to get me moving.  If I could figure out a way to read while doing an activity, I'd be so much more inclined to exercise. 
2. Start adding a new recipe at least once a month to our menu plan.  I have succeeded in coming up with a menu planning routine that works fairly well for us.  Now I just want to shake up the rotation of meals and recipes.  Some of this is in hope that Bruiser will try new foods and get more variety in his eating habits.  A mom can hope!
3. Get out camping and hiking this summer--biking as well.  Now that Bruiser can ride a bike we can all go on bike rides. We also need to take the kayaks out with some regularity.
4. Get my scrap book room set up.  This one will be fun to get organized and I should be able to get some work done on several scrap books that I need to finish.
5. Institute a date night with Nick.  I'm aiming for once a month.  Turbo is old enough to watch Bruiser for an hour or two, which let's Nick and I go out for dinner, a walk, a drink, something outside of the house together. If I can swing twice a month, all the better.

Now 5 pictures:

Hope everyone had a great start to 2015!

Spin Cycle--Word of the year--2015

So it's once again time to do a word of the year.  Last year my word was balance.  I think I got that one relatively well handled.  I need to keep working at it as keeping blanace in my life is an on-going process.
Now to choose a new word.  Let's see some possibilities:

• fearless
• adventure
• happy
• patient
• inspiring
• industrious
• organized
• brave
• confidence
• consistent
• trust
• focus

Well, that is a list.   I think this year the word will be consistent.  We have a budding teenager on our hands.  Turbo turns 12 this year--solidly a tween and we have to be consistent with him or the actual teen years will be tough on all of us.
Being consistent leads to organization.  I have been consistent with chores around the house and strangely I have more time because I put in the ten minutes here and 20 minutes there that are needed.
Meal planning needs consistency.  I'm getting better at it.  I think we have a system that works.  Now to keep the motivation to actually make the meals.  However we all feel better for a routine and routines are best when consistent.
So there you have it.  My word for the year.  Consistent.  A pretty good word really.

What would your word be?
Spin it up and join up.

Christmas 2014

Yeah, so I really should share a bit more about our Christmas.  Mostly in pictures:

Guiness had his 14th Christmas

A couple of very happy guys.

Christmas hats in the snow.

Merry Christmas!

Our beautiful tree.

Cookie making

Christmas at Papa and Nana's

Santa was good to them...

Nick and his new Guitar.

Bruiser and Nick with the guitar.

It really was a wonderful holiday, even if I did end up sick the next day.  Hoe everyone's Christmas was fantastic!

Tuesday Thoughs Might be Random

Yep, the thoughts around here are trending random.  Or maybe not.  OK, more random than organized, let's go:

• Our weather has been on a roller coaster recently.  Last week we were far below zero and now it's hovering in the mid 30s.  Heading to the 40s during the day by Thursday.  It's melting the snow and creating ice.  Lots and lots of slippery ice.  Fun.
• I won the dinner lottery laast night--100% approval from all family members.  Of course I stacked the deck by cooking chicken wings, but it's still nice to not have to coax a small child to Just Eat Already!
• This:

• I got Nick a guitar for Christmas.  He's wanted one for ages and he's not sounding too bad on it.  It helps that he's not playing the same thing over and over. 
• I'm trying to come up with ideas for the craft/scrap book area that I get now.  There are certain thing that have to stay in the room but Mostly I get a space to scrapbook and need to think about what I want it to be and what would be the most effective use of space and most effective for me to scrap book at.  I think I want a counter at about waist height and a good stool.  Shelves and maybe drawers to sort the supplies I have and a good area to work in.  Pretty sure I don't want a table.  The room isn't that big and a table just takes up space and tends to get cluttered. Time to start hunting the interwebs for ideas.

So what's your random?
Random it up with Stacy.