Heather tagged me so here goes.... The rules of the game are each player answers the questions about themselves. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog. 10 Years Ago: I was 17 and just starting my senior year. 5 Things on my to-do list today: 1. Go walk the neighborhood for prop 8. 2. Wash the kids laundry, 3. Saturdays Clean my house, 4. Make poppy-seed bread 5. Make dinner. Things I would do if I were a billionaire: I would buy a very nice house with 20 acres, never shop a walmart again instead go to Target, give a million to prop 8, buy exotic foods to cook new recipes that I read about in fancy cooking magazines, buy new furniture for a change and maybe even a working TV, pay someone to scrapbook for me, and then invest the rest because I like having money in the bank. 3 of my bad habits: 1. Spending way too much...

Lately I have been rather consumed in the effort of protecting traditional marriage. Four justices have deemed the effort in 2000 to be unconstitutional and so now through the Protect Marriage coalition, I am out walking the streets for prop 8 which is a constitutional amendment that says "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Currently same sex couples have been given licenses to marry. I feel the need to become active in the effort of preserving traditional marriage because I am scared for what the future holds if this fails. There has been cases in Canada where homosexuals have been protected by discrimination laws that pastors have been prosecuted for "hate speech" for speaking against a homosexual lifestyle. So if anyone who reads this blog wants to help in this effort there is a website protectmarriage.com that you can sign up or donate. And then we just pray that the silent majority comes out in full force in Nove...

When we moved to California 3 years ago, we moved to one of the most overinflated homemarkets in the country. Like any other couple with a good paying job we were anxious to buy a house. Everyone told us that it was a great investment and now was the time to buy. Of course most everyone you talked to had some job tied to the real estate business. But who would blame anyone for trying to make a measly 12K(on a 400K house) for just shoveling large amounts of paper work in your direction. Well about every couple months my husband would start to feel the urge to buy a house and we would go on these house hunting excursions. But the truth of the matter was we couldn't afford anything out there except for the house with a hole in the exterior wall and the one that included a semiautomatic at signing as a welcome to the neighborhood. Being the supportive wife I am I would accompany my husband as we looked at the homes and then come home and talk some sense into him. Needless to ...

I realized that Tom really doesn't get a lot of mention on the blog. He is of middle child syndrome. He just likes to watch and observe and then suddenly surprise us with all that he has learned. But he doesn't like a lot of foods at meal time. Since he first began eating solid foods he has rejected nearly every fruit or vegetable and mostly everything else unless it is BREAD. As a survival instinct he has learned to eat unnatural portions at breakfast because it is heavily laden with carbs. As a two year old he would consume 3 adult size bowls of frosted flakes or frosted mini-wheats. When dinner rolls around he seems to only have room for the bread. We have made a lot of strides over the last year and a half. He now loves beans especially green beans, he eats pickles and pickled asparagus, and applesauce and my homemade strawberry freezer jam. Not sure why it must be a processed fruit/vegetable item to be able to make the cut. Lately I have been on a Tofu kick. We ...

In the last two months I have had three birthday parties. I am so glad that they are done. Jacobs was the most recent and we threw him a Pokemon party of cours e. I planned lots of little games then tied it into a pokemon character. Then they put them in their Pokeball in a little folder that I made. It was probably the most fun birthday party where I spent the least. The biggest expense was probably all the ink I used on my printer to print off the pokemon. This year I put all my energy into the party and so the cake wasn't very exciting. I love to give my kids birthday parties and sometimes that just means cake and ice cream, other times it includes games and a meal too. I do not feel any pressure to perform to a standard of birthday party excellence- No jump houses, party hall destinations, and extensive party favors(does a piece of leftover cake count?) After growing up surrounded by extended family, I just don't feel it is a birthday with just my family sitting arou...

So this last month I have been working on a huge project. Dave and I took a risk and bought a whole storage unit(like a 30 ft one) of stuff. It included a lot of furniture, same place where we got our couches, beds, dressers, armoires, table&chairs, and various other large pieces. But then there were 40 surprise boxes that contained so me china we were told but otherwise we really didn't know. We figured that we were getting our value the furniture so what ever we got of value in the boxes would just be icing on the cake. I am both cheap as mentioned before and minimalistic. I don't want to spend money on decorative items that could only be broken or if I looked at clearance section there was a reason why it was there. I could probably count on one hand the decorative pieces that I have in my house, especially if you exclude living plants because that is Daves thing. If it doesn't serve a purpose like providing light or holding pictures I am not going to buy it....

At least the first one we paid more than 30 dollars for. So we have been married for almost 8 years and we have had numerous ugly couches for the duration of our marriage. One of our "honest" friends used to describe our fashionable furniture as Early Dumpster though maybe more accurately as Post Dumpster . Here is a review of all the couches we have owned for all those of you who were never privaledged to have known and sat upon them( maybe you are the lucky ones. 1st faux velvet brown velvet couch Which we left in UT when we moved-free 2nd our worst one yet a scratchy off white couch that lasted about 4 months $10 3rd A smokers couch this time the faux velvet thing again but with lots of flowers. (Actually it looked a lot like the couch in the previous post.) We left it in the UMN greenhouse for about 2 weeks as we daily sprayed with fabreeze. Couch Free, Fabreeze$10 4th A very heavy sofabed couch that was white with pink flowers, came with matching chair$30 5th A co...