I can’t believe it’s been a year

Since my sister had her baby. That was such a hard time for us. Isn’t he beautiful. I have forgiven my husband, by the way. That was so ugly of me. I still wish I’d been there for her, but she’s doing a fantastic job. I’m really proud of her. She’s an awesome mom. Dad was there, representing the family. I miss them both. Love You, Mason…

May 2008 Stats

I’ve been slacking on the stat updates lately, because I”ve actually been WORKING and not just messing around. except now. Here’s what I did in May and June is ALREADY BETTER.

$39 from PPP
$15 for completing a survey
$30.44 from Suite 101
$490 from hotel reviews
$750 from demand media

Total for May 2008

$1324.44

April 2008 stats

not being complicated here…

since it’s June and I”m just now checking out the April income. And May. Rest assured, June kicks ass so far. I can’t wait to send THAT update.

$129.75 from PPP
$24 selling coupons
$115 hotel reviews
$17.18 from Suite 101

TOTAL 279.93

Finding Joy amidst the twitter…. issues….

OK so twitter has become wildly popular and like many other online success stories, they just can’t handle it- technically speaking. They are upgrading and to be honest, I haven’t had a problem the past few days. OK I have, but only like once or twice as opposed to entire days in the past when I’ve gotten error messages.

It’s caused me to think quite deeply about the whale image they use for their error screen. It’s 8 birds lifting a whale with a net. Sort of gives you an appreciation for the immensity of the task, and an understanding of what’s gone on behind the scene to “get this off the ground.” What the f@$&K ever.

If you look very closely at the birds, you’ll see that 4 of them are going in one direction and 4 are going in the opposite direction. I think that’s their problem. They need to work together and set some common goals. Otherwise the whale is going to get pissed and eat them up.

Other twitter users have speculated different perspectives

Just another reason I can’t wait to move

Karla at Looking Towards Heaven posted about this free kids Summer movie series. You just click on your state and it brings up a bunch of free movie theaters in your state that are playing the childrens/family series over the summer. Of course, there isn’t one in Yakima but there are a ton on the other side of the mountains…. where it’s green.

Anyhow- check out Karla’s post, so you can learn more about it. Free movies in the summer. Heck- I’d pay movie price for popcorn in that case. (I don’t think I’ve mentioned my movie food boycott yet, have I? Don’t worry, I will.)

Bring it on, Sorority Sistahs

OK so the realtor is showing our house in 3 hours and My kids decided to turn on the hose in the backyard (because I wasn’t letting them dump out the toybox in the playroom again)

well- they created a mud pit and were very careful to keep their feet clean.

They knelt down in the mud to play with it with their hands.

Their feet are clean.

Oldest daughter is on a campout
Second oldest daughter is taking a shower (long grooming rituals for Drama Class)

So Basically the 7 yr old is “taking care” of the 5 and 2 yr old for me while the 6 month old naps (It’s her new hobby)

I’m only on the ‘puter because her naps always begin with a 30 minute drink. Otherwise I’d be yelling about the mud.

Instead I just locked all of the doors and when they’re finished with the mud I’m going to hose them down and put them in the car.

Nevermind that the car won’t start right now.

I’ll roll the windows down.

When the realtor comes I’ll put them in the stroller and we’ll walk to the park and I will be spared the mud-mopping today.

Sound like a plan? How fitting that today I discover this hilarious post from Motherhood Uncensored comparing motherhood to sorority hazing. Yeah- I hear ya, sistah.

Handmade Flower Paper

I totally love making handmade paper.Anyone else? I learned how to make it when we lived in Lynnwood. I used to dry it on my sliding glass door. I once printed out a picture of my kids on handmade paper, it looked so cool- printed in Sepia tones. When you dry it on the window it comes out really smooth. I like embedding flower petals and other things into it.

Oregon History Museum. OOPS- free parking!

Can you blame us, really for not noticing the meter, what with children needing coats, snacks, faces wiped, potty visits, finding the shoes they weren’t supposed to take off in the car, losing the lid to the water bottle and THIS awesome mural.

Would it be naughty or rude of me to suggest that perhaps the mural was better than the museum? I guess that wouldn’t be entirely true. The Oregon exhibit was cool- pioneer stuff and Oregon history. One of the downstairs rooms was horribly boring, the paintings looked dusty and old and boring, like maybe they’re from Goodwill or something. The frames looked old-fashioned, like stuff I’d find in my Grandma’s old house. I liked the baskets, but I’m a dork like that. Brandon liked the Navy stuff. There was a “shoes” thing where we saw some Chinese Women’s shoes that were 4 inches long. My daughter was horrified when she learned of the old foot binding process, and made sure I knew that we really needed to look into adopting Chinese orphans.

Because bringing 6 little girls to a museum is simply not enough???

Save the Animals

My M1 donated some of her Christams money lastyear to PETA. It was that commercial with the Sara McLaughlin song in the background. Dad & Vickie sent her and E1 a $50 VISA card for a Christmas present, and she decided to use some of it as a donation. Ironically, I remember my Dad grumbling through the grocery store when I was a kid “A whole friggin’ aisle of goddamm dog food. They eat garbage. Goddamn kids starving in Africa and here we are with a whole goddamm tenth of the A&P dedicated to somebody’s frigging slobbery hairy mutt.” So here’s my daughter spending his gift money on a PETA donation. When he reads this he will vomit (Sorry, Daddy)

Anyhow- she ended up on a mailing list and every week she gets some dire message from PETA about animal experimentation and other atrocities. They always urge her to send letters to congressmen and things like that. Well, today she received yet another set of free address labels. What is it with free address labels? Anyhow- she wrote them a letter. I could describe it but I’ll just paste it here. If you can’t read it here I think you can just click on it to make it more readable. It’s cute. Enjoy.

Stupid Oregon Gas-Pumpers

Today we went to the Oregon History Museum. Actually, first we drove all the way to Milwaukie (OK it was 10 minutes away) to go to the Safeway Fuel Station, because we have accumulated 90 cents in Power Pump Rewards, and that means 90 cents off per gallon. How wise to use it for a fill-up before driving 200 miles home, right. WRONG. Apparently Oregon doesn’t do the power pump rewards program and the idiots who pump gas for a living in Oregon actually made fun of us for mentioning it. What the F*&& ever- you bonehead. That wasn’t our only idiot gas-pumper story. How nice of the state to pass a stupid law for the sole purpose of employing people without brain cells.

The second gas-pumper incident involves us asking a gas pumper “where’s the nearest Washington Mutual?” to which he replies “uuuum uuuhhh, wellll… I don’t know, dude (heheheeh) sorry, man” and then, a lightbulb goes off “maybe that way…” points the wrong way on a one way street. So we circle around town for about an hour. Keeping our eyes open for a WAMU but really just looking at architecture, landmarks, people, no big deal. We find a wamu and head back for that intersection because it’s really where we needed to be.

Darned if there isn’t a frigging WAMU a block away from the jerk. How can you NOT KNOW about a business that’s a block from your work. Are you blind? No- just an Oregon gas pumper.

What a great reason to go electric or use bio diesel. Sorry, man.