Author: dee

CD Review: Five For Fighting

Published by dee on October 8, 2009

It’s not likely that you’ve missed hearing “Superman” or “100 Years” playing on the radio, but if you’ve never heard the voice of John Ondrasik, a.k.a Five For Fighting, now is the time to remedy that. In his soon to be released album, Slice, John’s soothing voice tells a story of American life – a slice, if you will, of experiences and sentiments.

Other than hearing a few tracks on the radio, I’ve never really listened to Five For Fighting. I do love listening to new music though, so when I was given a chance by One2One Network to review an advance copy of Slice, I jumped on it.

After giving the album a quick listen, I couldn’t believe that I had never paid more attention to Five For Fighting. Between John’s smooth voice, the amazing melodies, and thoughtful lyrics, I was immediately hooked. Slice has been on heavy rotation for the last several days and I expect it will be for quite some time.

John will also be hitting the road in October with An Acoustic Evening With Five For Fighting. He’ll be at the Midland in Kansas City on November 20th (anyone want to buy me tickets?). Other dates and locations are listed on his site, www.fiveforfighting.com. In the meantime, you can check out the video for the single “Chances” on YouTube.

You can pick up Slice on October 12th, or pre-order it now so you don’t forget! For the latest updates, connect with John on Facebook or Twitter.

Disclosure: An electronic copy of the cd was provided by One2One Network for review purposes.

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Want

Published by dee on October 5, 2009

I need a maid, a personal chef, a cat puke cleaner-upper, a bill payer, a computer expert, a chauffeur, and an extra pair of hands. I need a clone of myself, actually how about 3 or 4? I need someone to do all of those things that I don’t have the time for or just plain don’t want to do.

I want to escape the day to day life and go back to a time when things were simple.

I want to go sit in a comfy chair and read for hours on end, maybe even finish an entire book in a single day.

I want to knit until my hands cramp up, then warm them while I sip on a cup of hot chocolate and reflect.

I want to find a great photography book and teach myself how to set my camera just so and get that perfect shot.

I want to sew and to have the time it takes to learn by trial and error with no distractions. I would like to make my daughter a dress.

I want to dust off my guitar and re-learn the few chords I used to know. I’d like to learn to play an entire song that I can strum and sing to my kids.

I want to devote an entire day to playing with my kids without thinking about that bill that needs paid or the laundry that is piling up.

I want to design web sites again and finally finish the one that has been promised for so long.

I want a job that allows me to see my kids for more than 2 1/2 hours a day – one that is meaningful and that I can be proud of.

I want so many things, yet I feel like everything I want is so unattainable these days. The thing I want the most is time. There’s never enough. We rush through the work week to get to the weekends, but when the weekend comes there is so much to cram into it that we miss out on the things that matter most.

Sunday evening I felt myself getting frustrated beyond belief. I spent most of the day cleaning, trying to make up for all that was strewn around from the prior week. We spent Saturday having fun with family, which was totally worth it, but it made for a lot of catch-up on Sunday. While I rushed around the house picking up jackets off the floor, tripping over toys, cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming the floors, washing and putting away laundry, and fussing at Zach repeatedly to clean up his toys, Hubby sat and watched football. Evie followed Zach and I around, taking out everything that Zach and I had put away. Hubby was having some computer issues and kept stopping me to ask me questions.

I took a break from cleaning to fix dinner. Hubby made his awesome guacamole that I had requested and we enjoyed a nice dinner together. Then I started in on the evening bath routine. While Zach was in the shower, I ran through the living room to put another thing away when Hubby stopped me yet again with a computer question. I was short with him. I just couldn’t take one more thing. I was in a hurry to get Zach finished with his shower so I could get him settled down with a TV show and I could try to get bills paid before my shows came on that I wanted to watch. Hubby snapped back at me after I snapped at him.

I just wanted to get done so I could finally relax. In that moment I felt so under-appreciated. I felt like I had spent all day working my butt off while everyone else spent the day playing and relaxing. I was short with my kids and my husband. I was stressed about the fact that I just can not ever get it all done. I will never be caught up. I will never feel like I can truly sit down and relax because my mind is going in a million different directions.

I need life to slow down. I want my kids to have happy memories, not to remember a mom who yelled all the time because she was always so overwhelmed with life. I don’t want to be in such a rush that I miss the good times. I want to enjoy this life, not look back years from now and wonder where all the time went.

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Review: Pelican Sorter from Tiny Love

Published by dee on October 1, 2009

I’m a little behind on posting here due to some recent medical issues and a surgery, but I wanted to tell you about this fun toy I received a while back. We have no shortage of toys in our house, but the kids are always up for trying something new and I love it when we manage to find something that is fun and educational at the same time!

I was contacted by a company called ebeanstalk, about their toy website dedicated to selecting good, safe baby toys. They rely on help from moms like me to help pick the toys. The toy they sent is called Sort n’ Learn Pelican from Tiny Love, who makes great developmental toys. It was a BIG hit at our house!

As soon as I got it out of the package the kids were dying to play with it. I only took pictures of Evie, since she is of the targeted age for the sorter, but her 4-year-old brother couldn’t wait to get his hands on it either!

The Sort n’ Learn Pelican is brightly colored and offers multiple levels of play. The pelican’s mouth opens up to reveal an electronic shape sorter with sound options and 3 language options. As the blocks drop through the sorter it tells the shape, color, or plays a fun sound. The sorter is easily lifted so the child can retrieve the blocks from the pelican’s mouth. Evie loved just putting the blocks in and taking them out of the mouth without using the sorter as well. She also quickly figured out that she could wrap her legs around the base to keep it from moving or tipping over while she lifted the top.

Our only problem with this toy is that the top of the pelican’s mouth pops off really easily. I’m not sure if that was intentional or not, but the kids tend to get very frustrated by it. It is easy for an adult to pop it back on, but they don’t like having to stop and wait.

Overall I think this was a great toy. My kids haven’t gotten tired of it yet. It has become one of their favorites!

Here’s a video of Evie testing it out:

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Something For Me

Published by dee on September 27, 2009

Most of the things I make end up being gifts for other people. I make things for my kids, for other people’s kids, and for other family members, but I rarely ever make anything for myself. I have one tote bag and a couple of knitted hats, but that’s all I’ve ever kept for myself…until now. I finally make something just for me! I now have nice warm purple scarf for winter and I can’t wait for it to get cold enough to use it. It is just a simple garter stitch scarf that was quick to whip up but I love it!

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Back On Schedule

Published by dee on September 27, 2009

Tomorrow morning I have to drag myself out of bed at 6:30 a.m. again. I have to do the morning rush again. I have to drag the kids out of bed, get them dressed, fed, and out the door. I have to drop Zach off at preschool, Evie at day care, and get myself to work for the first time since my surgery a week and a half ago. I have to rejoin the real world and I’m not looking forward to it one bit.

My body is healing and I’m definitely feeling much better, though I’m not too sure how it’s going to feel to sit up at a desk all day tomorrow. My energy is back to a pretty normal level finally, though that is with getting to sleep in nearly every day. My incisions are still a bit sore, but that I can handle.

I have pushed myself just a little harder than I probably should have, but there were a couple things I didn’t want to miss out on, like watching the Red Sox beat the Royals at the newly renovated Kauffman stadium. I wasn’t about to let one little surgery keep me from catching the Sox this year!

We celebrated Hubby’s 33rd birthday on Thursday with a delicious dinner my mother-in-law made. The kids helped Daddy blow out the candles on his cake and for once I didn’t have a camera in my hands. Oops.

Then on Saturday we took Granny and Papa to Deanna Rose Farmstead. The kids always love going there and it was a beautiful day. Plus, I wanted to play with my new camera lenses a bit. Zach was brave enough for the pony ride this time without getting scared.

All in all it was a really nice week. If it wouldn’t have been for that whole surgery thing, the last week would have been a really nice vacation!

I can’t thank my in-laws enough for all the help they’ve given us in the last couple of weeks. They’ve read books, changed diapers, given baths, fixed meals, kept up with the laundry, and even helped take the dogs out. I know my recovery would have been a lot harder without them here and I’m a little sad to see them head back home in the morning.

But, back to the grind it is. It all starts in about 8 1/2 hours.

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Coming Out of the Fog

Published by dee on September 22, 2009

So the surgery on Thursday went well. They had me good and doped up so that I didn’t really even feel much of anything until the next day. The cyst was removed with no surprises, exactly as we had hoped. I slept for most of the day, only getting up for a small dinner and to see the kids for a bit in the evening.

Friday I felt great. I was surprised that I wasn’t hurting too much and decided that I felt good enough to go with Hubby to take Evie to her 18 month check-up at the doctor’s office. After that we stopped at Wal-Mart for a few things, picked Zach up from preschool, and decided to go ahead and eat dinner out. I was doing just fine until just about the end of dinner when Zach had to go to the restroom. As I waited for him I started getting a little dizzy feeling. Fortunately, Granny came in to check on us and I was able to go sit back down right away. I had definitely overdone it.

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday were pretty much a fog. I slept off and on. I’d get up for a while, only to find I needed to go back to bed. Between feeling dizzy and having a queasy stomach, I really couldn’t sit up for very long at a time. By Monday evening I was feeling a bit better, but with a lingering headache (probably due from a combination of too much sleeping and forgetting to take my Zyrtec).

Today, I’m finally feeling a little better. I got up, showered, and even fixed my hair this morning. I was feeling pretty weak afterwards, but was glad that I made the effort to do my hair. I had some breakfast, hoping that it would give me a little energy back, then went to Wal-Mart with my in-laws to pick up some groceries and a few other things. Again, I was pretty worn out after Wal-Mart but I needed to go.

This afternoon I’ve been trying to do a few little things but resting in between. I managed to put away a basket of Zach’s clothes and now I’m resting again. Everything I do seems to take a whole lot of effort, but I am trying to take it slow.

My pain is pretty well controlled and only bothers me when I do a lot of walking around. I stopped taking the Percocet on Monday and have only taken Naproxen since then. My incisions are healing, though they are now starting to itch like crazy and I have some really pretty purple and yellow bruises. This is the first surgery I’ve ever had where they have used glue to close everything back up instead of stitches. That is a little weird, but at least I’ll have less scarring on the stomach that no one will likely ever see again.

The kids seem to be handling everything really well, though that is probably because they have the attention of Granny and Papa to distract them. Evie keeps wanting to come up in my lap and every time she does she has to look at my “owies”. She has also been searching for owies on everyone else’s stomachs as well and doesn’t understand why they don’t have any.

I am so thankful to have my in-laws here to help out. They have been taking care of everything including getting to kids to and from school and day care so that I can rest. I don’t know how I would have done it without them.

The fog is definitely lifting today and I’m so glad to feel a little more like myself. Hopefully in another day or two I’ll be able to go into work for a little bit. But do you want to know what I’m really looking forward to? Being able to put on a pair of jeans again!

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