Gracie's Video

Gracie's Video from Michelle on Vimeo.

You may need to pause the music at the bottom of the page before watching this

Saturday, July 11, 2009

And the Winner Is...............

(Insert drum roll here)

Debz!

Her Blog is Sugar and Spice & A Little Rice. They received their referral not too long ago for a beautiful 4 year old little girl who will be named "Jazmyn".

Congratulations Debz! I can't wait to make the bracelet for your little girl. I will e-mail you for your address.

Thanks so much to everyone for playing. That was fun!
I see more blog give aways in my future :)

Friday, July 10, 2009

Blog Give Away Ends Tonight at Midnight

I had 28 people sign up for my blog give away.


Tomorrow I will put the names into a hat and have Joe pull the winner for me. Apparently there is some kind of "random name generator" you can put all the names into and it will choose one for you, but I'm too tired to go look up how it works so I'm just gonna do it the old school way.


I'm closing off comments as of midnight tonight so if you want to enter, do it now!

Here are the people I have signed up so far. If you don't see your name there, drop me an e-mail and I'll make sure you get entered. scrappermg(@)cox(dot)net

M3

Rhonda (2 entries)

Natalie

Suzanne O.

Daniella

G Hadden(2 entries)

3D

Kayce (2 entries)

Jill

Dannye

Lea

Jenna

Briana's Mom

Carrie

A Tonggu Momma

Michele

Liene

Ilja

Bill & Linda

Barbara

Janice (2 entries)

Snowflowers Mum

Debz

Nikki- A Mom-in-W8ing (2 entries)

2China4S

Since my blog posts all show up on Facebook also, I had a couple of people enter over there too. I don't want to put their full names here so I'm only posting their initials.

L.B.M.

K.B. (Isabella's Mommy)

L.T.P.


I'll post tomorrow afternoon who the winner is.

Thanks for playing and Good Luck!!



Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Book Give Away

My friend Kayce is doing a give away for some very cool books from Barefoot Books.

Even if you don't win the give away, you should check out her books and maybe order a few. They are such beautiful books.

Head on over there and check it out!


It must be the season for give aways.

There's still time to enter mine too!

Well crap

We just got two pieces of bad news and it's freaking me out big time.

It looks like the job my husband got two and a half weeks ago(the one he was supposed to start last Tuesday) fell through.

As in, no job for him. For now anyway. It turns out they are very slow right now due to the economy and weren't able to sell enough time(it' s at a tutoring center) for him to start working. The person in charge told him she was hopeful she could still sell enough for him to work the remainder of the summer but he couldn't start for a couple of weeks.

Uh.......yeah we kind of needed him to start now.

A few hours after that little bit of news we found out that the apartment we were planning on renting in the same complex we are in now was rented to someone else an hour before we went over there to sign the papers due to a "misunderstanding" (read: screw up) with the leasing office. Now we have to rent an upstairs apartment instead of a downstairs one, with half the storage space as the other one.

We need a lot of storage space to store all of the baby's furniture and crap stuff, plus we are going from 950 square feet to 640 so we need to store a lot of other stuff too.

We were going to rent a storage space but we can't really afford to. The reason we are moving is to cut expenses and they are insanely expensive.

Also, we haven't lived in an upstairs apartment in 20 years. Before we had pets. I know it doesn't seem like a big deal but have I ever mentioned that I hate change?

I keep telling myself that everything will be o.k.

Everything happens for a reason.

Right?

Wordful Wednesday

Not Wordless today. Because this post is full of words.


It's my day off. How I love my day off.

I had to go to the lab today to get some blood work done for the visit with my kidney doctor next week.

When I arrived at the lab, there were only 2 people sitting in the waiting room. I signed in and had a seat and waited for them to call my name. I know the drill.

Within 10 minutes that place was packed. Probably 10 or so people came in after me. I was reading my book and not paying much attention to the time when I hear them start calling names off the list. A lot of names. Then they start calling people to the back to have their blood drawn and I notice that the people they are calling were people who had just gotten there a few minutes ago, and after I had.

I go up and wait behind the line like they tell you to do and when it's my turn I approach the counter and the woman behind the desk says to me(without even looking up) "Please sign in and have a seat and wait for your name be called"

I was like "I did sign in. Like twenty minutes ago. I'm waiting for you to call my name."

She's like "Where is your name on that list?"

I point to it. It's about 8 or 9 names above the last name on the list. All of the other names are highlighted. Mine is not.

She does a double take and says "Oh. You got skipped somehow. Do you have your paperwork?'

I handed it to her and she asked me to have a seat again. They called me to the back 5 minutes later.

It was a mistake. I get that. Here's the thing though.

It happens every single time I go to the lab. And not just that lab. ANY lab.

They always skip my name on the list, or it gets highlighted and they think I have already gone to the back.

Seriously. Every time. Am I invisible or something?

It really is annoying.

While I was waiting for them to call my name a woman came in with an elderly gentleman and her two children.

Two beautiful little girls, about 2 and 4 years old. Huge blue eyes, blond hair. SO sweet. The littlest one sat on her Mom's lap and the older one sat next to her grandfather holding his hand.

Here's where I have a confession to make.

I felt a little stab of jealousy. How lucky she is, I thought, to have not one, but two beautiful little girls.

The smallest little girl was staring at me so I smiled at her and went back to my book.

A couple of minutes later the woman's phone rang.

I was annoyed. Did she really have to talk on her phone in the waiting room? Couldn't she go outside? Can't she see I'm trying to read my book here?

Jealousy can make you think nasty thoughts.

I resumed reading my book and tried not to listen to her conversation.

She seemed a little upset. She was talking to her Mom. The conversation went like this:

"Mom? It's me. Where are you?"
"I'm at the lab. I have Dad with me. I need you to come and pick up the girls."

At this point she was crying. I am trying to focus on my book and not let on that I am listening to her conversation.

"I have been bleeding. The Doctor says it doesn't look good. I have another ultrasound in 30 minutes and most likely a D&C after that. Can you come get the girls?"


They called my name just then. She had hung up the phone and was crying harder then. Her Dad was leaning over the little girl next to him and patting her on the back.

I felt like a horrible person for feeling jealous. But mostly I felt so badly for her. So sad.

You shouldn't assume things about people because you never, ever really know their story.

I hope I can remember that.

After I left the lab I went for a 45 minute walk around the lake near our house. I was walking at a good pace and getting a pretty good workout in.

There were runners zipping by me and even lapping me as I huffed and puffed my way around that lake.

Runners make me feel somewhat inadequate. Did you ever notice you never see any fat runners?

I wish I was a runner.

But I am so not a runner.

So. Not. I have never been a runner.

I'll have to settle for fast walker.

While I was walking around the lake I kept having to dodge these guys:

I try to keep a wide berth around them because I grew up at a stables and the geese there were mean. This one seemed okay.

But I still didn't let him get too close.

And lastly, on a totally unrelated note, when we get closer to referral I am totally going to park in one of these spots.

It's only fair. :)


Don't forget to enter my Give Away!! (Click Here)

You have until Saturday to enter!

Monday, July 06, 2009

Fourth of July 2009

Most of the pictures I took yesterday have other people's children in them and I don't post those here without the parent's permission so here are a few I can post.

Before we left for the party. Obligatory picture on the porch.

It was a block party so several streets were blocked off and the kids could roam freely without worrying about cars.








Joe and my good friend Carla. We have been friends for 26 years! Her family had the block party that we attended. Thanks Carla! We Had a great time!






This is Lilly. She is such a sweet doggie. She is a rescue that Carla found wandering the street(in heat!). Carla has gotten her fixed and now they are looking for a good home for her. She really is so sweet. Potty trained, not barky, loves kids. She loves to be carried around in a purse! Last time I visited Carla I put her in my bag(pretending to take her home. Joe put the kibosh on that). On Saturday I brought the same bag and she tried to climb into it! SO cute!


She is really tiny and she's done growing. Here is Joe trying to give you an idea of how small she is. So if you are in the Orange County/Los Angeles area, Lilly is looking for a home!

We headed home to watch the fireworks outside our house, like we do every year.

I took a few shot of the fireworks with my point and shoot camera. Some day I would love to have a nice camera that takes amazing photos of fireworks. For now, these will do.



We had a great Fourth!

Don't Forget to enter my Give Away!!

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Giveaway!


In honor of my blog birthday last Friday, I wanted to do a give-away as a small token of my appreciation to the hundreds of people who read my blog everyday.

Ha! I crack myself up. I meant for the 5 or so people who read.

Anyway, it's not a huge deal, just a little something to say "thanks".

Up for grabs is this fabulous picture frame that my sees-ter made. Don't worry, she said it was o.k. for me to give it away. I asked her first :)



Isn't it pretty? I love the blackbird. This is a wood frame, with a little wooden dowel that you stick in the back to make it stand up. I don't believe it can hang on the wall. Unless you wanted to add a hanger on the back yourself.


I'll also throw in these cute little notecards:
And yes, I did pick these up at the dollar bin at Michael's. But who cares, they're cute, No?

To top it off, I will include a name bracelet similar to this one:


I realize that I already made a boatload of these for most of my Blogger friends, so if you already have one maybe your daughter has a little friend who would like a matching bracelet.

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post.

I'll leave it up until the end of this week and on Saturday(July 11th) morning I'll randomly choose a winner.

Only one comment per person please, and spread the word!

On second thought, if you post about it on your blog I'll give you TWO entries! (But then I guess you would have to leave me another comment to let me know you posted about it.)

I'm new at this. Can you tell? :)

Thanks for reading and Good Luck!