ProlificMom

I must confess that I was unprepared to be the mother of boys.  Actually, I will probably never be prepared to be the mother of boys – and I have three of them. Two are now teenagers.

How do you prepare for what boys can do when you grew up with only sisters?  My father was the only male in our house and I don’t ever remember walking into the bathroom and seeing the toilet in the upright position or even unflushed.  As long as I have known him he has been well trained, clean and organized – nothing like the three wild dogs who call me Mom.

When I was growing up, the worst things I remember doing were 1. Poking my sister in the breast with a  sewing needle because I didn’t want her to boss me around, 2. I touched a hot burner with my bare hand after my dad told me not to touch the stove because it was hot, 3. I got kicked off my best friends horse after he told me to stop kicking it in the flanks – what are flanks? 4. I tied green sewing thread across the yard from the tree to the front porch at about the neck level of a two year old….not a good surprise for my little sister.  5. I held a lit, black cat fire cracker too long and it exploded in my hand – more than once.  Sometime my ears still ring at night and I have to sleep with a fan on for static noise to drown out the ringing. 6. And I once held my sisters mouth shut while I blew into her nose.  But I never did any of the things my boys have done.  At least I don’t think so.  I don’t know where it comes from.

On a recent Sunday night I stayed up late to do laundry.  The last two loads were boys clothes.  I added a few of my own garments to wear to work the next day.  At midnight the buzzer on the dryer sounded off and I promptly opened the door to remove the clothes.  As soon as the dryer door opened a razor blade fell out and landed next to my foot.  I didn’t even want to know why.  My main concern was whether or not any of the clothes had been slashed.  Thankfully, after careful inspection, they had not.  Then, as I opened the front loading washer and began to remove the second load of laundry my sense of smell was assaulted by the distinct odor coming from a big ball of poop about the size of a super bouncy ball lodged in the rubber door liner!  I carefully removed each piece of laundry and inspected it for poop.  Finding none, I reloaded the clothes, removed the big ball of poop from the liner and restarted the machine, selecting the heavy duty setting with all of the selections turned on – hot water, extended wash, extra rinse, extended spin, stain clean – and I used an extra dose of 3x detergent.  This smell would be gone in no time.

The next morning at 5:30 AM I moved the clothes from the washer to the dryer – a process we call the hokey pokey – popped in two dryer sheets and then I took a shower to wake up.  After slathering myself with cocoa butter scented lotion I used baby power scented deodorant.  At 7:00 am I finally removed the clothes from the dryer and got dressed for the day.  On the way to work, I noticed that I could still smell the poop.  How could this be?  So, I stopped at the dollar store and bought a bottle of heavy duty fabric refresher that eliminates odors.  Back in the car, I sprayed myself down from head to toe before I entered my office for the day.  Unfortunately, I still smelled like a big ball of poop.  That is all  I could smell all day long.  I couldn’t wait to get home and change my clothes.   When I got home I asked the mister to sniff me and tell me what he smelled.  He crinkled his nose and gave me a whiff.  Then he made a bad face and told me all he could smell was something that smelled too sweet.

I don’t know what everyone else smelled, but all I smelled all day long was that big ball of poop.

Its snowing in Texas again.  I can’t believe it.  The kids were released early from school yesterday and school was closed today.  This gives them a 4.5 day weekend.  The boys have been VERY BUSY “working” outside in the snow.  They built a fort, shoveled the sidewalk and driveway, and built a snowman.  I got to help #5 decorate the snowman. He has a skrewdriver nose, button eyes  and mouth, leftover ribbon scarf, some old kid sunglasses and beach hat.  I think he looks very crafty.

All For the Love of a Cat

Please put the cat down and eat your lunch.

Thanks to the in-laws for their Christmas gift of a $50 Applebee’s gift card, we celebrated on new year’s eve with a night on the town.   First, we had dinner at Applebees.  I recommend the Smothered Chicken.  It was fantastic and I still have some leftover in the fridge.The gift card paid for most of the meal and we covered the rest.  Eating out has gotten very expensive since four of the five kids no longer order off of the kids menu.  Even if two of them share an entree, its pretty expensive.

The kids had a great time posing for pictures but I think the people in the surrounding tables may now be blind  from my flash going off constantly.  Don’t those shutterbug moms just annoy you at restaurants?  We ate until we were completely stuffed.

mugging for the camera

goofing off again

After dinner we headed to the movie store and rented the final install of the Jason Bourne trilogy.  I think we are the last family in Texas to see this movie.  It was everything I heard it would be – a great action thriller.  And yes, we let the  children watch all that violence – but we watched it with them so we could talk about any issues that needed to be addressed.

Death by Brownie

After picking up the movie we went home where we ate desert which I had prepared before leaving for the restaurant.  I try not to buy restaurant deserts because they are so expense for a family of seven.  About an hour before leaving home I baked a pan of brownies in my bunt pan and left them on top of the stove covered with foil.  They were still warm when we came home.  I like using this pan for baking because its easier to cut slices for the kids.  All of my breads/cakes get baked in this pan.

Our new year’s desert:  Death by brownie.  My secret ingredient – about 1/4 cup of Hershey’s chocolate syrup added to the mix.  It doesn’t matter what brand of mix you get.  I use Great Value brand and I always add this extra ingredient to make sure its extra moist and rich.  Then I get a large scoop of ice cream and cover them both with more Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. UMMMMM, GOOD!

Death by Brownie

We watched the movie while eating the brownie desert and then groaned from being too full. This one fell asleep at 9:00 while rocking in his XRocker chair while these two updated their Facebook pages:

Rocked himself asleep by 9:00.

Updating Facebook

Finally, we ended the day by playing Yatzee and watching Dick Clark’s traditional new years eve show from Time’s Square on TV.  It was great to see him ring in the new year again. This has been a year of great trials and triumphs for the ProlificMom family, but through it all I can say that we have been truly blessed by God.  We are looking forward to a FANTASATIC 2010.  Oh, and In now just 3.5 months away from turnin 40.

I love Campbell’s chunky soup, but its so expensive.  Actually, it was so expensive but for quite a long time our Walmart has been selling it for $1.50 for the large two serving cans.  These are great and I usually eat one can every day at work.

I don’t know how long these will be posted but here is a link to coupons at Chunky.com

http://www.campbellkitchen.com/coupon.aspx#chunky

Enjoy!

Its Snowing In Texas!

Snowing in Texas AGAIN!

In case you haven’t heard, we had a white Christmas here in Texas.  My kids were totally hyped up, and I never ever thought I would hear them arguing over snowballs.  I told them I didn’t care who’s snowball it was.  Just go back outside with a bowl and make another one. Duh!  And today its snowing in Texas again – what an oxymoron!.

When its cold outside soup is my favorite thing to eat.  Well actually, its my second favorite thing to eat.  The other cold weather food I love the most is chili.  That’s about right for this Texas mom.

I love the Goodwill Store

I can’t tell you enough how much I LOVE THE GOODWILL STORE.  Fortunately for me, there is one just down the street from where I work.  Unfortunately for me, I am totally addicted to it.   Its like crack for frugal moms.  Every day it calls my name and it takes every fiber of my being  to not get into my car at lunch and drive down there.  And, if I do drive down there, it pains me not to walk out with a shopping cart full of re-purposed treasures.

Recently, the Mister surprised me at lunch on his day off and showed up at the office to take me to lunch.  After a quick lunch I told him we were going somewhere that I wanted to show him.  I directed him down the street to the Goodwill store.  I was thrilled and he indulged me.  The first thing I found was this decorative Christmas tag looking thing FOR $1.99!!!

The Boat Anchor

The Mister calls it “the boat anchor”  because its made of cast iron and weighs a ton.   After debating where it will be mounted in my plane-jane undecorated house for the last two weeks, I decided on the bare space over my kitchen window.  By the way, those kitchen cabinets are getting a planned makeover in the next few months.  At one time we were going to replace them, but they are so expensive to replace.  So, we decided to paint them Kilz Casual Colors ‘blackbread’.  Its going on all of the cabinets in the house and a few furniture pieces as well.  I can’t wait to show you the results.

Over the Kitchen Window

Freecycle Armoir

Look at what I found through Freecycle!

I couldn’t believe it.  Saturday morning I opened up my email and there it was, listed for FREE.  The only catch…there was no photo.  So, I called the Freecycler and asked if it was still available.  Then, the Mister and I scheduled a time to go over and take a look.  We took the seats out of our van just in case she was a keeper.   As soon as I walked into the room I knew I had to have her.  Isn’t she just ugly beautiful?  My new motto:  Ugly – Its the new beautiful.

Can you see all the potential?  The Mister is not crazy in love with her but I think she will grow on him once we complete her extreme makeover.  As soon as we got her home the mister insisted that we deposit her in the garage so he could start sanding her down.

And the hardware?  He insisted that it will go.  We have the perfect pulls picked out at Target. These are Liberty Half Round Foot Pulls and Liberty Hammered Pull in oil rubbed bronze.

I cant wait to get this project completed. So, here is what I envision.  She’s going to get a good sanding down with some 80 grit sand paper.  Then, primed inside and out.  Followed by two coats of Kilz Casual Colors “blackbread” which is so dark brown its almost black.  I cant wait!  She is going to be gorgeous!  And when we are finished, she’s going into my bedroom.

One of my my favorite inspiration rooms can be found here by the lovely Rhoda at SouthernHospitalityblog

For More Bedroom Inspirations:

Here are some more of my favorite inspiration rooms.  I think they were all from Better Homes and Gardens Real Life Bedrooms but  I lost the link.

Where I’ve Been:

You’ve probably been wondering where I’ve been lately.  First, I decided to change my habits.  Instead of staying up late and blogging past the midnight hour, I have been making myself go to bed at 9:00pm.  This has drastically improved my life.  I’ve been a lifelong insomniac and there is no end to the reasons for staying up late.  After all, there are not enough hours in a day to do everything I need to accomplish.  But I’m getting older and I have too many day time responsibilities, so  my life has to change.  No more late night blogging for me.  I’m just going to have to find another time to do it.  Being a full-time working mom is a challenge

I fell in love at Goodwill:

So, here is what I’ve been up to.  I started reading other mother’s blogs and learning about being frugal and shopping at places like Craig’s List and Goodwill and Freecycle.  Now, instead of having a problem with insomnia, I have a problem with Goodwill.  Its addictive – like crack for moms.  Recently, I innocently went to our local Goodwill store to drop off a few bags of donated clothing and decided to go inside.  One hour and $85 dollars later I walked out totally smitten, in love with thrift shopping.  Its totally addictive.

Goodwill finds – Before (the after will be in a later post):

Here are only a few of my thrifty finds.

Look at these three beauties!  the Tall one is a very heavy Stiffel lamp and I didn’t  pay more that $8 for any one of them.  And I got two perfect lampshades for $2.50 each to go on the smaller lamps in my bedroom.  I can’t wait to show you.   This is my before shot when I was taping them before painting.  Stay tuned for more on these beauties!

Sorry, but this photo is turned on its side.  Just look at this beautiful mirror.  It is plaster cast and heavy as a boat anchor. Just wait till you see what I did with this thing.  There is an interesting story literally behind this one.  It was my most expensive purchase at $8.50.  Check back on a later post for the full step by step before and after on this vintage mirror.

And finally, this was just too cute to pass up for $2.50 and I painted it brown and hung it in my newly refinished laundrey room.  I can’t wait to do a blog on that one.  It’s now my favorite room in the house.

Goodbye for now and happy thrifting.  I’ll see you at Goodwill.