Wordless Wednesday!

The Godfather

Growing up, my husband looked up to him. Phil taught Cory so much. Phil is a computer guy and Cory was his young apprentice. I met Phil when Cory and I started dating and I can remember being totally taken aback by his forwardness and giant personality. I was this shy, self-conscious, sheltered person and he was most definitely not. We sat on the porch steps of his weekend escape from the city and that's where it began for me. The yellow house on the little hill with the pig flag hanging off the porch.

I've truly never met anyone quite like Phil. I've never met someone who's done so much in his life. He grew up in South Philly and migrated to Greenwich Village in "the City." A fitting place for Phil. He lives there with his wife Curly, the inventor of the "special wave" and lover of all things swine. On the weekends they come up to the "mountains."

We've got so many fond memories of Phil. Sterling silver Tiffany barbell rattles engraved with the boys' initials and birthdates, sharing Thanksgiving dinner, corn and ribs, cowboy hats, Indian rainsticks and incense, New Paltz craft fairs, Buddy the cat, pig overalls, Red Rider BB guns, Cory's bestman....the list continues on and on.

He's a photographer, writer, lover of art, an actor, a deep thinker, he's stubborn and has strong political views. He's forward and he'll catch you off guard. He loves deeply from the bottom of his soul. He's a submariner, a son, a brother, a husband, a friend. He's Phillip, The Godfather, Our Godfather.

We're thankful to have Phil in our lives and blessed to be able to call him The Godfather of our 3 children.

Conversation Starters!

It's Thursday and time for Conversation Starters with Zobmondo!

The rules: You must choose one or the other, and do not change any part of the question. These are the ONLY 2 choices.

Would you rather....

For the rest of your life, eat your least favorite foods hygienically prepared

OR

Eat your favorite foods prepared in risky circumstances?

My answer...

There's no question here...I'm a bit of a germ-o-phobe when it comes to food and restaurants. I'm totally choking down my least favorite foods. I'll learn to love them!

What's your choice?

Wordless Wednesday

JOY!

http://oh-dear-lord.blogspot.com/2009/09/little-miss-muffins-homemade-cookie.html

Click above to enter my cookie giveaway! Ends 9/20. FREE! FREE! FREE!

Conversation Starters!

It's Thursday and that means it's time for my conversation starters with Zobmondo!

Just a reminder of the rules:

You MUST choose one or the other, you can't add to or take away from the question to suit your answer.

The question:

Would you rather...

As a woman,

have quadruplets

or

have four babies, all 10 months apart?

My answer?

This is a hard one. I guess I'd have to go with quads. I think I'd rather do it all at once than to do diapers for like 6 years straight.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Seriously?

I don't know what made me notice this or why it bothers me, but seriously? Look at the outside package of the butter. The salted butter has a red outer package and the labels on the sticks are blue! The unsalted package is blue and the sticks red! What? Why? Some sort of stupid joke? Trying to confuse us? I think it's kinda funny actually. What person came up with that idea? "Yes, that's what we'll do, a switcharoo on the colors, perfect idea!" Yep, it's the little things...

Conversation Starters!

It's time for my weekly conversation starter with Zobmondo!

This week's question:

Would you rather....

Have one long, thick, furry eyebrow across your entire forehead

OR

an inordinate amount of ear and nose hair that cannot be removed?

My answer?

Well, I'm thinking since it doesn't say I can't get the unibrow waxed, that's what I'd choose. If I'm not allowed to wax it, at least I can grow bangs long enough to cover it.

What's your answer?

Cookie Giveaway?

So I've been wanting to start giveaways lately and wasn't really sure how to get started. I'm wondering, since I'm a baker selling on Ebay, if anyone would be interested in a homemade cookie giveaway? Good idea? Bad idea? It's okay, be honest!

Jillian Michaels' Fitness Ultimatum 2009

Should you buy it??? NO! Let me tell you why....

Let me first start by saying that it's not all bad...just mostly.

Jillian Michales' workout game is for Nintendo Wii and is compatible with the Wii Balance Board but also works without it. When first turning it on it prompts you to set up a profile with your name, age, height and weight. If you have a balance board, you can weigh yourself on that. The next screen allows you to personalize your character by making it male or female and choosing clothing colors. Once that's done you can go to the main screen which is set up like a camp. The cafeteria is where you can go for fitness and diet tips, most of which, I've found aren't helpful. There's a multiplayer option which I haven't tried, office, stats and training. Choosing the option to train brings you to your workout.

There are 4 different types of workout to choose from. Weight loss, intervals, strength training and hill climb. The descriptions are as follows:

Weight Loss: Helps you lose weight

Intervals: Maintain a steady workout

Strength Training: Increase and maintain muscle tone

Hill Climb: Build your endurance and push yourself

With each you are able to choose your time limit of 5, 10, 15, 30, 46 and 60 minutes and intensities of light, medium and hard. I've only done medium. With each one you start off running in place and swinging your arms. You run through a park on a dirt path past trees, trees, benches, and more trees. No flowers, no people, no nothing. How long you run depends on the length of your workout. At an hour it's approximately 4 1/2 minutes. After each running session, you do things such as paint grenade toss, cannon attack, handcar pump, log jump, boxing, punching bag dodge and more. I have been finding that only with this particular game, the Wii controls aren't sensitive enough. About a quarter of my workout has been spent shaking the controls now knowing why they don't register on the game.

As I said before, the graphics are awful! The workout is set to the worst music! I actually find it much easier to get through the workout if I turn the volume down and turn on my own music. And I have to say that Jillian isn't very motivating. Unless you call random insults motivating. Such as "I could have done it better than that." Not my idea of motivation.

So, I'm very happy that I'm only borrowing it from a friend and that I didn't actually pay for it. At first I did like it, but I got tired of it very quickly. It does it's job of getting you sweating, but I hate exercising in the first place, the last thing I want is something that's boring on top of it.

I also have to say that after 372 customer reviews at Amazon.com, this game has only a 2 star rating (out of 5.) Hmm...shouldn't that be a clue?

Now just remember, this is my opinion and there's always gonna be people who like and dislike things. If you have this game, let me know if you like it!

Giveaways....?

Okay, I've searched and searched and posted on twitter and on mombloggersclub.com and can't get any info. I really, really want to do giveaways on my blog but have no idea how to get started! Can anyone give me some info? Pretty Please?

Momma's littlest helper

Momma's little helper

Helping Momma with dishes.

And cleaning the fridge.

And he's an organizational expert!

(He made the mess, not me..)

He's learning early on how to coupon!

And trying to be like his big brothers.

Ah, the reasons there are no two rooms clean at one time in our house.

Soulful Sunday

I love this picture of my boys at the Bronx Zoo. This year was our 9th annual trip to the zoo, our Mother's Day Tradition. We go with our children and their grandparents.

Choose Your Battles

I love this phrase and remind myself of it daily as I raise 3 little boys and 1 very big boy. Fighting battles like putting the toilet seat down, even if there are more of them than me and getting the pee INTO the toilet and not spraying it onto every surface of the bathroom. The battle I've given up on is keeping their bathroom fresh smelling and I've decided that with 3 boys all 5 years apart, it's bound to reek for the next 17 years weather I like it or not. That or make them sit like girls to pee (which I threaten to do on a regular basis.) Like taking drinking glasses out of their bedrooms BEFORE the milk curdles and then finally dries out and you can't figure out why your room smells like vomit and foot funk. I know, ewww! Comes with the territory I suppose.

And I'm wondering why, when the garbage can is in the cupboard under the sink, do they put it IN THE SINK? Or when all of the spoons are dirty (all 3...they've lost the other 5) do they have to use my plastic ones I keep for cookouts and such instead of washing one. Or they get a drink and not only leave the container out, but don't clean up the sticky juice they spilled on the counter that's now dripped onto the floor and between the counter and the stove? Perfect to attract those colonies of ants I'm battling to get rid of.

I wonder why my hubby always leaves the car without gas, leaves his dirty socks under the end table and candy wrappers on the couch. Why he thinks he's done a thorough job cleaning his whiskers OUT of the sink and completely ignores the ones stuck to the faucet and all surrounding areas. Why HE has to use the toilet right after I've cleaned it. Again, I know...ewww. But come on, I can't be the only one!

Some things I guess are never-ending battles.

Twit What?

Okay my friends...I've signed up for twitter...now what? I'm feeling very overwhelmed and kind of behind the times here. What's your best advice for me in using twitter?

My goal in signing up for twitter is to promote my blogs...but I don't know what to do now that I've signed up! Help a "living under a rock" friend out and guide me a little! THANKS!

Al's Big Buys 9/3

Beware all you health food nuts...this post might make you cringe.......

I know it's been forever since I posted on a grocery trip. I honestly haven't gotten enough fabulous deals to make it worth it. This week was a pretty good week.

Let me start by saying I couldn't go shopping until hubby got home with the two eldest after soccer practice. I left my house at 8pm...ugh. I'm already tired, been dealing with a whiny baby all day, boys arguing and on top of late shopping, afterwards I had to bake a cake.

As I'm shopping I go by the ladies room and decide I'd better go then before I got to the other end of the store. So I'm in the stall and there's this little girl with her face up against the crack in the door trying to look in at me!!! O-M-G! So I slapped my hand up in front of her face so she couldn't see me and she stayed right there 'til her mom was done in the other stall. Seriously? NOSEY-RUDE! Ok, I get over it and continue on. Here's the deals I got the past 2 days.

23 Nesquik Chocolate Milk on sale for $1.00 each minus .80¢ coupon = .20¢ each

20 Reese's Peanut Butter cups free with coupons!

20 NY Pretzel Pretzel-fills on sale for $1.84 minus $1.00 off coupons = .84¢ each.

12 Luigi's Italian Ice on sale for $1.66 minus $1.50 off coupon = .16¢ each

20 Tony's Crispy Crust Pizza on sale for $1.00 each minus .50¢ off coupon = .50¢ each

8 Turkey Hill Ice Cream on sale for $1.77 each minus $1.00 off coupon = .77¢ each

9 Jif Peanut Butter on sale for $1.99 minus $1.10 off coupon = .89¢ each

3 Quaker Granola Bars and 2 Quaker Instant Oatmeal total for all 5 with coupons/sales $4.48

No coupons but worth mentioning was ShopRite butter for $1.49 per pound. I got 20 pounds...I'm a baker...I LOVE butter sales!

So in the end I got $294.35 worth of groceries for $186.70 for a total savings of $107.65! WooHoo! Love it!

Conversation Starters!

I have this book called Zobmondo. This is the craziest book! It is "The outrageous book of bizarre (pff...I've been spelling that bizzare..lol) choices" and some of it's content is pretty crude. So inside the book it gives the description of Zobmondo...

Zobmondo: a slang expression derived from the negative exclamation "zob," to express horror, pain or frustration: "Mary tripped over the log and stubbed her toe. 'Zob!' she cried." Zobmondo!! expresses the utter dismay that zob cannot begin to describe.

The purpose of the book is to inspire ridiculous, fun conversations and debate. You MUST answer the question. No changing the question or saying "well I would do it IF."

Zobmondo!! offers a warning before reading the first question: Proceed with caution. This book is only for those with a twisted imagination. Be prepared to leave conventional thought behind and join the ranks of the demented and insane.

That being said, I'd like to start a weekly Zobmondo conversation starter! Here's the first question....

Would you rather get a bad case of poison ivy way up inside your nose or inside your inner ear?

My answer? My ear of course! I'd much rather be seen with my finger in my ear than up my nose!

What's your answer?

P.S. you can find Zobmondo!! at Amazon for really cheap.

Buffering.....Buffering.......Buffering

I cannot even tell you how much I -heart- dialup....*blink*blink*. No, really! Nothing makes me happier than to wait a full 20 minutes, yep...TWENTY minutes to upload a picture *sideways smile* to blogger and facebook! If I'm having a really lucky day, my laptop will overheat and shutdown with no prior notice *double thumbs up*. Or one of the kids OR dogs will trip over the phone cord leading to said laptop and pull it out! Joy! Joy I tell you!

Youtube? Pff....what's that? Seriously! It's fabulous to be able to watch half second clips of any given video so a 2 minute video takes about 4 minutes.

On the phone with tech support.....them"Okay Mrs. ***, if you'll just log onto the internet, we'll talk you through it"....me "hmmm.....well? I'd LOVE to but you see, I live on this street, it's only a half mile from houses with high speed...I'm not the only one on the road otherwise I'd understand. There are 11 houses within that half mile. ELEVEN. So sorry Mr. Techy Guy, you won't be talking me through anything." NICE.

So I think my property taxes should be lowered for being in a less desirable area, afterall, high speed internet is almost a necessity these days, right? Pff...

Have You Seen......?

Have you seen my cake blog? Looking for more followers........just click on the words "cake blog."

Note to Self:

Note to Self:

Do NOT fall asleep with a cough drop in mouth or it will end up a sticky mess underneath your pillow!

(yep, this is what happened to me last night, nice)