What's making you think today?

A few things.......

1. I was quoted in Blogtations today. Check the site out - it is pretty fun to read all the quotes from other bloggers. As one blogger put it "It's like Bartlett's, but bloggy".
   
2. I am still embarrassed that I mentioned tightening one's financial belt in one post, then in the very next post talk about my ridiculously priced shoes. In my defense, I did earmark Christmas money towards the purchase. But still. I have weird hangups about spending so much on a pair of shoes. Granted, not on a handbag, but definitely not so much on shoes. *gulp*
3. Speaking of handbags, I am officially done, done, DONE with diaper bags. Squee!!! We do not use bottles or sippy cups and neither kid has massive blowouts any longer, so there is no need for umpteen extra outfits. I have a Fleurville MicroPod for diapers, so now all I need is a handbag big enough in which I can stuff some Hot Wheels, finger puppets, and granola bars. Did you hear that, World? I AM SO DONE WITH DIAPER BAGS. I am so excited about checking out the outlets in Branson this weekend that I can hardly stand it.
   
4. While we are at Silver Dollar City this weekend, I am tempted to stick a sticker on Arun's back that says "My mom's cell phone is XXX" in case he gets lost. Good idea? Bad idea? Am I just paranoid? I am meeting up there with my dad, step-mom, brother, BIL, sister and their kids. Still paranoid?
5. I am so lame that I will admit that I am a little stressed that Twitter may not have their IM capabilities up in time for me to Live Twitter my Big Hillbilly Extravaganza this weekend. Just another notch on my I Have No Life belt.
   
6. GA over at Ain't No Free Lunches has a thought-provoking post about the tornadoes in Iowa this past weekend. An entire town was wiped out and GA, a native Iowan, is from a nearby town. As you can imagine, GA was shaken by the news that an entire town he is familiar with was wiped out - completely. This concept of small town life is not foreign to me. Until the age of 11, I lived in a town with a population of 1,000. After that, we moved to a town of a population of 2,000 (?). GA's post got to me. I will wager it will get to you, also.
   

Source: Des Moines Register

Baldknobber sounds sorta dirty, does it not?

So, remember how I said that I might have plantar fasciitis? Well, either I do not have it or I caught it just in time. My left heel is a squillion times better now. I am still hobbling first thing in the morning, but overall, my day time hobbling is at a minimum now. In short, I am only wearing my uber-expensive Josef Seibels these days and have totally forsaken any sort of flip-flop, Ked, or other flattish-type of shoe. I bought the Josef Seibels last fall in lieu of a Christmas gift and felt horribly guilty for spending such money on a pair of shoes, but holy crap, folks! My feet began to feel better the very next day after I began wearing them exclusively again. Also, would like to give a hat tip to Wikipedia. I was doing absolutely EVERYTHING YOU SHOULD NOT DO in my mistaken belief it would help (i.e. wearing FLAT shoes, going barefoot when possible). Thanks to Wikipedia, I reversed nearly everything I was doing.

So, this Friday I am packing the kids up in the car and we will be on our way to Branson. Yes, you read that correctly - I am driving all by myself with two kids all the way to Branson. Better known as "Redneck Vegas" - less booze, tons more kids, no sex, same amount of sequins.

I am feverishly excited about this trip. I love roadtrips. I suspect I am being naive (or foolish or just plain stupid. Your pick). However, I cannot help but think of how much fun this will be. I cannot resist making plans to do Lifelong Character Building activities such as the Fantastic Caverns on our way down......packing healthy, wholesome lunches to eat with nary a fry in sight .....lovely jaunts in parks to stretch our legs.....two peaceful, dozing kids lazily watching the world go by outside their windows while we have long, thoughtful, bonding conversations. It is trips like these that keep kids off The Dope and away from Heavy Petting in their teenaged years. Right? Either that or it's the memories that drive them to it in the first place. *sigh*

Anyway, I will be sans computer on the trip, but will definitely be Live Tweeting away on the trip.

Did you know that the library has free books?

This weekend has found at least 2 members of this household sick at one point or another. Today it is my turn and X is finishing up the last of his Snotfest. Bah. All social engagements were canceled and we have just been lounging around the house. I did get an entire book read, so all was not lost.

We had a wonderful trip to the library on Friday where we picked up a ton of new books on spiders. I am dreading the inevitable heartbreak when Arun learns about the advanced concepts of Borrowing and Returning but in the meantime, we are mightily enjoying learning about even more types of spiders.

In other animal news, we are now the proud owners of a fish. A male betta named Dory - I am guessing that particular naming scheme has never, ever occurred in the History of Naming a Pet Fish. My boy? He is unique and has too much imagination to merely copy from some lame Pixar movie. Anyway, the fish is on Day 3 of Staying Alive. Keep Dory in your thoughts and prayers, is all I'm sayin'.

The other day, D. Jain had a question about how X and I came to the decision for me to stay home full-time with our kids and how we go about doing that. She wants to stay home after having kids and her husband wants her to work. Um. I always knew that I wanted to stay home with my kids for the first few years, at least. X and I discussed it while we were still dating, so our plan was already in place before we even got officially engaged. X was fine with either my working, or staying home so I was pretty fortunate in that the decision was really up to me.

The financial side of things? In a nutshell, we bought a house that we could afford on one salary and even then, we still bought way less than we could have actually bought per the bank approval. We also have a policy of having only one car payment at a time and trying to have at least a year or two of no car payments (to save towards buying the next car). Sure, I am driving a fancy car with GPS and fun stuff like XM radio. But I love, love my car. It's a good thing, too because I will be driving that car for at least 5 more years. I better love it. One thing that has always grated my nerves is when someone says I am "so lucky" I get to stay home. I am not "lucky" that I get to stay home. I am lucky that I get to live in a nice house, drive a nice car, carry a nice purse and wear nice shoes while doing so. We would have definitely downgraded our lifestyle for me to stay home. No, I am not saying that everyone should downgrade their lifestyle, but I do recommend living on one salary before you have kids and giving yourself financial flexibility to make whatever decision is right for your family. Easier said than done, though- I'll admit that.

I guess if I were giving advice, I would just say to try and build flexibility in your lifestyle and hold back from making Set In Stone Decisions. One never knows how parenthood is going to affect them. Who knows? D Jain may actually want to work after having kids or her husband may want her to stay home after all.

Book Review: Margarita Mama - Mocktails for Moms-to-Be

A few months back, at X's urging, I seriously considered doing ads on this site. While I wish I could lay claim to having taken the Higher Road, in truth, I decided against doing ads because I am lazy. LAZY, I tell you. If I were to begin doing ads, I would feel the need to get all professional-like with this site and start doing a posting schedule and then before I would know it, I would be all serious about this here site. And truthfully? I want this site to be fun. Not serious. However, my lazy nature does not preclude me from accepting free books. As such, I am actively going in that direction. All books I review that have been sent to me by the publisher will be reviewed under the label "Queen of the Free Bees". I may accept other things to review, but rest assured, I will not be reviewing laundry detergent anytime soon.

Margarita Mama - Mocktails for the Mom-to-Be by Alyssa Gusenoff
This small, compact book of non-alcoholic drinks is fun to read and has whimsical illustrations. To boot, it has tidbits of helpful information related to pregnancy and drink-mixing throughout. The drinks have cute names like "Bulging Belly Button", "Materni-Tea", "Raging Hormone", and "Swollen Feet Fizz". Not only would this book be great for a mom-to-be or someone hosting a baby shower, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in making non-alcoholic drinks. There are recipes for sangria, martinis, mimosas, daiquiris, and of course, margaritas. My only regret was that there was no recipe for a gin and tonic - my very, VERY favorite of all "hard" drinks.

I am giving away my review copy of this Margarita Mama! Comment on this post by Midnight, May 28th (Wednesday) if you would like to be included in the drawing for this fun, little book.

Did you know that a spider's blood is blue??

I bet not.

Dude, we need a new spider book. STAT. Every single day, we are reading the current one, like 5 or more times. IN A ROW. We tried out another spider book last night and the pictures were horrible and not even properly annotated. No bother, because between Arun and I, we were able to identify every.single.one of them without the proper labels.

Anyway - I have loads of unimportant, uninteresting stuff to get out of my system. I do not have much time because I am supposed to be gunning for a Self Imposed Deadline for FoodieBytes. Let us see what I can get out in the next few minutes:

1. I am fairly certain that I am suffering from plantar fasciitis. My left heel is killing me and every morning, I hobble around for about an hour until I can work myself up to a Subtle Limp. According to the link, I need to avoid sandals and backless shoes for awhile. Great! Just great.
2. When I was growing up, a "thong" was something you wore on your foot. A "flip-flop" was something your stomach did when you fell in love or ate a bad meal. Am I totally Old School here or is it not in incredibly BAD TASTE to be able to see the back of one's thong when one leans over? Particularly, when one is leaning over into her MINI-VAN to fiddle around with her BABY?
3. Amy of Amalah has had some interesting posts about staying at home. They have really made me think and the comments were very interesting. I was tempted to write a post about how staying at home is not that bad. But I think I have subjected everyone enough to my diatribes about that. Yes, I love staying at home. Yes, I still consider myself a CPA, but much like my Status as a Catholic, a non-practicing one. Yes, "staying" home is sometimes boring and monotonous. Yes, I sometimes resent the fact that X can just come and go with leisure and not have to consider who watches the kids. But no - I do not feel as if I am a drain on our resources - "his" money is OUR money and I spend it with unabashed glee and abandon. And no, I do not feel as if I "lost" myself. Seriously - am I the only mother out there who feels as if she found herself after having kids? Besides, I would be heartbroken - no, make that devastated - if I had to go back to "work" and stick the kids in daycare. I stay home for all of us - it makes all four of our lives easier. So while some days are boring, other days I have to stuff back the guilt I get from knowing that my job entail things like trips to zoos, parks, museums, or farms.
   
4. Finally - there is much Simian Snappage to be had - click on any of the following snaps to get to the Flickrage. I uploaded about 35 and I have made them public.