HEB!!

This is a Texas institution. HEB is a grocery store whose tagline is Here Everything's Better. I have to agree with them in regards to our local HEB. We got a new one that tries to be more like a Whole Foods Store. They lure you in with tons of samples of their new wares. This morning, after sweating it off at the YMCA, I drive to HEB for butter to make cookies and some salad fixings. In addition to that I find myself sampling their wares. I start off with a King Cake, I think it has something to do with Mardi Gras, as the packaging has green and purple beads on the outside. I head to the produce section and on the way I sample a piece of California Roll. Yum! I also sample the freshly made tortillas that rival the tortillas made at my favorite Mexican restaurants, in fact next time I make fajitas for the family, I will buy tortillas there.
Making my way past the live cooking setup, where I try out a dip, they have a rotating selection there. Into the deli section I go, where I find my favorite rotisserie chicken salad and a cracker to put it on. I also come across freshly ground honey roasted peanut butter and another cracker.
I have wandered all of the way through the store and I make it back through the bakery section, does it surprise that area is my favorite? I discovered a mini banana nut muffin, hidden and enjoyed it!
Was this what my mom was referring to when she said, don't ruin your lunch? I don't think I ruined my lunch, but I think I might have ruined my workout, huh? The funny thing is that the girls absolutely love this grocery store. Instead of them getting irritated because I need to take them to the grocery store, they get mad at me if I go there without them. Which I did today! Heehee. I am just sad the doughnut samples weren't out.

AAHhhhh, The Rain...

I am not at all homesick, but I have to say my dealings with the rain have left me with coping mechanisms for the rain. This morning, I went outside to take the trash out. When I came back in, I told the girls they had better get their umbrellas because it was drizzling. ( I broke down and bought them umbrellas for Christmas.) After about 5 minutes, the girls and I headed for the front door. The noise stopped us short. It was not raining!! It was seriously coming down! The girls said, hey why don't we drive. I told them that was ridiculous, we live about 1,000 feet from the back door of the school. By the time we loaded up and got in the car rider line, with everyone else who decided to drive all of a sudden, the girls would be late. So, we opened our umbrellas and started to make a break for it. I did not have an umbrella myself and my hood was getting soaked. So, I picked up Fiona and gave her a piggyback ride while she held her SpongeBob umbrella over my head. Then we took off running! Buttercup left us in the dust, but I was carrying Fiona on my back with my bad ankle. But, we had a good time running through the rain to the back door. I have to say, I appreciate all of the practice I have had with the Oregon rain, at least it was much warmer here. Plus the girls were good sports with it.

I Forgot

That when you go to the eye doc, especially a new one, they like to dilate your eyes. I think they just enjoy being sadistic. Of course, the lovely sunshine I enjoy so much was out in full force.

I always wear sunglasses, but this was ridiculous. I still had to drive myself home. My eyes were tearing up and blurring all of the way home. I suppose that's why there was a sign that say, if your eyes have been dilated, you need someone to drive you home.

Thank heavens, I made it home safely. I had already opened all of the blinds to allow the beautiful sunshine in, so I had to make a quick trip around to shut all of the blinds.

I toyed again with the idea of Lasik. I really hate my glasses and contacts, but the doctor said if I was nervous about it, then I shouldn't. Bummer, I was hoping she was going to be all positive and talk me into it. I guess when my contacts are still so cheap, I won't worry if I lose one while playing at the water park. I am going to get new glasses because the ones I have are driving me nuts.

PS I bought season passes for all of us to the local water park for Valentine's Day. I think Hubby is going to be very excited.

Webkinz

The people who invented Webkinz are super geniuses. The girls begged for them for Christmas and I got them each one. The website had crashed on Christmas and we couldn't log them on. Then, it wouldn't work on one laptop, I have a feeling that it had to do with the evil that is Windows Vista. We managed to finally get the girls logged on and then Fiona wasn't reading enough to be able to play by herself, causing her to call me every 30 seconds to let her know what was going on. (Like I cared, huh?)

Fiona finally got the hang of it and has been spending a lot of her quiet time on the internet playing her games. I went to log her out yesterday and I realized that she had blown through most of her money that she started out with. Of course her kitty needed a dishwasher in her room, what cat doesn't? The food levels were starting to sink and I knew that I would be required to come in and fix things. So, I took it upon myself to check out the labyrinth of webkinz and figure out how to help her. I learned that if you played games, you could earn more money, allowing you to spend more. When she came home today I showed her I had taken her 22 dollars and made it into 394 dollars. She was surprised and very pleased. 30 minutes later, she had blown through a good portion of it again!! I told Hubby about the scam and he said, so basically you are logging our child onto the internet and teaching her how to spend money.... Like I said genius!!

Also, the code that you get when you spend $13 on a stuffed animal only lasts for 12 months. So, not only do you have to pay to get logged onto the website, you have to keep buying them in order to keep playing ! Genius...

Do your kids play with webkinz?

A Mental Health Day

I think Princess Fiona needs one. She has been doing a lot of work. Her school schedule is 7 hours a day. I don't think I have ever gone to school that long. I also signed her up for twice a week swim lessons. We want her to be proficient when we open our pool this spring. She has also been having a few problems sleeping as well. It's not unusual for her to be bugging us for food at 5am....even when she's not on steroids.

It's one of those things I worry about. Should I let her take it easy all of the time or should we continue treating her like a normal girl. We usual err on the side of easiness. We treat her like a normal girl, but give her opportunities for down times.

I am not one for regrets, but that's usually because I live my life doing the things I know I should. On the other hand, cancer is perilous for little people and often times, my head wanders to what if, what if my baby girl doesn't make it. I try not to think that much, but I can't help it. The thoughts just creep in. If something were to happen to her, I don't want to think, maybe I should have let her stay home everyday and let her do whatever she wanted. She is doing amazingly well with her treatment. Part of me thinks if the cure isn't killing her, is it working? Or maybe she was just made to do this and even though we have had to do it, it didn't have to be awful all of the time. In our church we believe that Heavenly Father doesn't punish us for stuff we have done, but things happen to us to teach us what we need to learn here. In trying to explain such things to the girls, I used the Disney movie Sleeping Beauty. When Maleficent curses the baby and then leaves, two of the fairies remind everyone that Merriweather hasn't given her gift. And she says, I can't undo this fearful curse, but I can help. Heavenly Father couldn't undo her fearful diagnosis, but he certainly has helped and for that I am truly grateful and hopeful.

A Snoozer at the Grocery Store

What is it about the grocery store, just about any grocery store, that puts me to sleep. I put off the weekly trip to SuperWalmart until today. I can't put it off any longer because I NEVER go grocery shopping on Saturday. It only takes me 5 minutes to drive there, in 'traffic', but I have built it up in my mind. It was even worse when I went to Winco, which was over 4 miles away. Between the traffic there and the Portland rainy weather, I really dreaded the shopping trip.
But, it seems every time I am headed for the grocery store I am tired! And when I get a cart and start drifting through aisles it gets worse. I am greeting people right and left with the sight of where my tonsils should be.
I think maybe it starts when I am planning the menus. Between all the picky majesties that live in my house, I am limited in what I can cook. Top this week off with late duty for hubby and my impetus for cooking meals is gone.
Do you think grocery stores have radon leaks? Or a fan blowing over warmed milk? In order to recover from the snooze fest that was my grocery trip I had to come home and sit down on my couch, watch Tivo'ed Beverly Hills 90210 (don't tell anyone or my credibility is shot!) and eat Ghirardelli squares. My favorite chocolate from my favorite city. It makes it all better that I only eat the dark chocolate. Plus, they support Make A Wish. So, I am clearly doing only good while eating too much chocolate. Thank heavens I won't have to recover from grocery shopping for another week.

Just Another Day

I haven't posted recently because I don't have much to say. The girls went back to school on Tuesday, but Hubby is working the later shift, so I spend the morning with him. I don't have anything really to paint, or that I'm allowed to paint.
This morning I continued my trek back to the Y. I took a Zumba class from a new instructor. After 'shaking what my mother gave me', I wondered if she saw me shaking it, would she ask for it back? I prefer the Friday class because it's classroom doesn't have mirrors. I am a lot less self conscious if I am not watching myself. I do get a kick of watching other people. Some people are a lot more free in dancing to the music and others are clearly uncomfortable. I think I am in the middle.
After the Y, I went to Home Depot looking for a dehumidifier for the house. It's apparently much better for your house if the humidity level is under 50%. I am also concerned because Fiona still has her cough. I think she might be allergic to the mold in the air (there's not any in our house), just like Hubby. I looked around for a while until I asked. The employee said they didn't have any, only regular humidifier. Why on earth would you want a humidifier in the lovely area of Houston, Texas?
I then limped off to Target ( yes limped, the ankle didn't appreciate Zumba as much as I thought it would), where I looked for a particular DVD for Hubby because he tried to Tivo a movie last night and it didn't work. Target didn't have it, but I found the 75% off toy sale....This is why Target still has my loyalty while Super Walmart gets more of my business. I found so many toys to buy for Christmas and birthday presents. I found the Harry Potter DVD Scene it game for $4.98!
But it's nice to have 'nothing' to do and just enjoy myself. With the girls gone all day, I am excited to see them and even have the energy to be the single parent through dinner and bedtime. I hope your post Christmas letdown is over and your New Year is going how you hoped it would!

Drumroll please....

This is Miss Buttercup's new room. Hubby and I were up until 1am on Christmas Eve because we were putting her stuff together. She wanted a Hannah Montana room, but I didn't want to really pimp it out because you know in a few years she will be horrified by Hannah Montana (sort of like she is about Dora now, even though we have pictures of the Dora cake she had me make her for her 3rd birthday). We found a few cool things from IKEA, I never visited one until we moved here. Lots of it isn't our stuff but it works well for the girls.

In this picture we have this awesome guitar clock I bought at Disneyshopping.com because it was the best Hannah Montana clock I could find. Also, the color, on the walls, in these pictures isn't as dark as it is on the wall. I also found a beaded flower curtain at Target. We took the door off the walk in closet and it makes the room seem even bigger. There's also a Hannah Montana lamp on her bedside table.
She and I had a good time picking stuff out for her room. She got to pick out the color and we surfed for hours on the Internet looking for the perfect polka dotted bedding. But after I while I made it seem like I was too busy to do anything else, so I could put stuff together for a big Christmas surprise. I was pretty bummed when she got up early and saw it before I could show it to her. Fiona gave me a good imitation of her shocked face. So, once again, Buttercup's room is my favorite room in the house. It's so bright and cheerful and frankly I would've liked this room when I was younger.

Unusual Things about Texas

Don't get me wrong, I love living here, but there are things I didn't know I absorbed living in Oregon my entire life. I'm very conservative, relatively oblivious to the environment and pretty open to letting people do their own stupid thing as long as it doesn't interfere with me. But, there have been a few things that freak me out!

First, I would like to write a law regarding motorcyclists and their lack of headgear. In order to get your motorcycle designation you should have to do a couple of things. First show your proof of medical insurance, that way, when you end up on life support, the state of Texas won't be liable for the price of your care. Secondly, you should have to sign an organ donation card. So, when you do end up on life support, we can use your organs to help others. I believe head trauma is the easiest way to procure organs.

Back in Oregon, there were a couple of reasons I used the recycling bins. One, it was the easiest thing to drop the newspapers into. Two, I was able to fit more trash in the little trash can if I put our cereal boxes and milk cartons into a recycle bin. But here, we have a trash can, plus we can put out all sorts of sacks full of trash with our trash cans. It just seems weird not to put stuff in recycle bins. We haven't gotten our first trash can bill yet, so I don't know if I can call and get recycle bins or if they even have them. I haven't found one house yet using them.

Fireworks!! In Oregon, they only set off innocuous fireworks on July 4th. Here, someone has set off fireworks every day since Christmas vacation started. The girls' friends were over on New Years Eve and they invited the girls to watch the fireworks from 7 to midnight. Since, they are little kids, I thought maybe they didn't understand when the fireworks were actually going to occur. They were off by an hour or so....in length. They went on past midnight. And we aren't talking about sparklers and squealers, at one point hubby wondered if someone had gotten their hands on 1/8th sticks of dynamite. AND it was coming from both sides of the house.

Last but not least, the smoking!! I thought most people didn't smoke any more. I also thought most places were smoke free. Not here. When we went into our first Denny's and they asked us smoking or non, I think the waitress was a little taken aback at my vehemence when I said, NON! I could seriously do without the smoking.