Five Question Friday

So I didn’t post yesterday which is the first weekday I haven’t posted on in a good long while – anyone notice? I think it’s safe to say the world’s not going to end, but I did miss it…

My dad is back home after his knee replacement – do yourself a huge favor and do not Google knee replacement images (I’m full of these handy PSAs). I’m not sure exactly what I thought was going on with his knee, but it was not that. [Side note: There was an older-than-my-dad woman who was in the physical therapy room at the hospital who had gotten both knees replaced and they were having her walk up the practice stairs by herself THE DAY SHE HAD SURGERY. Doesn’t it seem like of all days you’d get a break from walking stairs, it would be the day you got your TWO knees replaced?] Anyways, my dad is also a rock star and no doubt so is my mom for putting up with him during his recovery – I’m just saying…

So continuing on, five question Friday:

1. Where do you escape to when you’ve had enough?
I don’t know what this says about me that I drew a blank on this question, at least initially. Mostly because having a place to escape to immediately isn’t really an option, but with further thought, I do have things I do to help me decompress or regain my sanity:
– Coffee with a good friend
– Girl’s night out with my college friends
– Hiding out in the bathroom, with the door locked

But I’m also feeling pretty lucky because coming up in two weekends, I’m getting to escape reality for three glorious days with one of my BFFs. No kids. No WiFi. No alarms. All good.

2. What shows are you watching this fall?
How I Met Your Mother. Modern Family. Fringe. Prime Suspect. Vampire Diaries. The Good Wife. There are more, but those are the ones I watch as soon as I can after they’ve been DVR’ed.

3. What was the longest roadtrip you’ve ever taken and where did you go?
When I was growing up we drove everywhere we went and each year we took at least one long trip. I’ve driven (or ridden, rather) from Michigan to Florida, Maine, Montana, Colorado and Texas. The longest road trip was the three weeks I spent in early retirement with my parents after college when we drove all around the East Coast visiting every place but NYC (my dad couldn’t hack driving in the city). Distance-wise, our trip out west to Montana and Yellowstone was the furthest away – but that was just a two-week whirlwind trip. So many happy memories with all those trips – I can’t wait to take our little family on the road to show them all the sites I’ve seen.

4. Do you plan on taking your kids to Disney World?
I had to pose this question to my husband because I really don’t care either way – his response, “At some point.” So there you have it. I’m sure they’ll want to go and I’m sure we’ll end up taking them, but when your in-laws and friends are in Australia, your vacation plans aren’t typical.

5. What is something people would surprised to know about you?
Again, I had to pose this question to my husband… his surprising (and immediate) answer, “Your toes.” What he meant by that is that my second toe is longer than my big toe, not only that, but my third and fourth toes are also longer than my big toe. Apparently, that makes me a freak. I used to hate my toes and never wore anything open-toed but at some point in college I decided to embrace them and learned to love them, in all their freakish longness.


Linking up with Mama M for Five Question Friday!

Wednesday, Wednesday…

Oh my goodness, I am a tired girl and it’s only Wednesday (technically Tuesday night when I write this). It’s just one of those weeks… blah, blah, blah… really, it’s just life. You cannot be a parent and not be busy. When you’re responsible for more than one person, you are just busy. Busy, busy, busy. I’m just going to repeat my main points three times.

If you’re not already watching it (and you like cop dramas), you should be watching Prime Suspect. It’s great. What is not great is Revenge and yet I still am watching it when it comes on. I cannot explain my actions.

I went to a fundraiser tonight. Aside from some of the organization’s staff, I was the youngest person there. The food was outstanding and they had a DIY cupcake tower/bar with “streams” of toppings which is something I’ve never seen before – such a cool idea. The idea was you dip your cupcake in frosting and then dip it in whatever topping you wanted. Though I opted to have a Vanilla  Java Stout instead of dessert – totally worth the trade-off. The fundraiser was for an organization that promotes literacy in the county and so there were word games you could play and I ended up winning the Scrabble game (each person could draw 7 letters and play the best possible word) so my time playing Words with Friends totally paid off!

Jack’s going through a clingy phase… he cries when I leave him at daycare again and tonight when the babysitter arrived, he came running out of his room, crying and saying,” I don’t want you to go, mommy!” What to do with this child? He is an unpredictable mystery to me.

Liam still loves kindergarten and still says recess is the best part, though he has nothing bad to say about it at all. He was telling me yesterday that if their lunch table was full that they could also sit at the peanut-free table. He takes a PB&J sandwich every day, I told him that he probably shouldn’t sit at the peanut-free table, hopefully somebody is monitoring it, wouldn’t want Liam causing anaphylactic shock. He does get to buy his lunch from time to time and the last time he was excited to tell me that he got a Gardenburger and he LOVED it! Hopefully no one will ever tell him that they are made out of vegetables.

And that’s all she wrote… look, a cute puppy:

Source: thechive.com via Ali on Pinterest

Top Ten Things I’ve Googled [Recently]

Can anyone remember what the world was like before the Internet and Google? Well, that’s a little extreme, of course I remember because I’m not that old to have forgotten or so young that the World Wide Web was always a part of my life (I’m just right). But it makes me laugh to think that I used to look up answers to things in a dictionary or encyclopedia. And if I couldn’t find the answers there I’d either not know the answer or ask my dad (because he knew everything, or was really good at faking an answer). Present day, if there is something I don’t know the answer to, I do what everyone else does, I Google it – either on my laptop or my phone – answers are really never more than a few seconds away. Of course, they aren’t always the right answers, but even the wrong answers can be amusing and it gives me the opportunity to use my skills of discernment to decide if I think that particular website is full of bunk (see Google makes me smarter).

And since I share a list of amusing search terms that led to my blog, I thought it only fair that I share a list of terms I’ve used in searching for answers to some of my many, many questions. The search terms people use are so telling about what is going on in their lives and what is on their minds, I actually since this mundane list fascinating about people. What won’t show up here are the number of times I turn to IMDB to help me remember where I’ve seen a certain actor before or to learn the name of a random guest actor on a TV show I’m watching. Also not here are the searches I do on WebMD… the modern version of my mom’s medical encyclopedias. At least I don’t believe everything I find there, otherwise I’d be quite certain I have cancer and also malaise (a general feeling of unwellness).

In no particular order, Google terms I’ve used (I’ve learned the more specific, the better):

  1. How does an upright piano work | Because I wasn’t certain the piano strings were called “strings” for my GR Symphony review for Kids on the Grand (coming soon)
  2. Natural heartburn remedies | Because I suspect that Prilosec is actually making my heartburn worse (I also used the term “Prilosec cause heartburn”)
  3. Sturdiest carry on luggage | We need a good suitcase we can use to strap Jack’s car seat to and tote him around the airport using just an “O” ring from the hardware store, our current one does not have a locking handle
  4. Computer acting like it’s the first time I’ve logged on | Because my computer was acting like it was the first time I used it
  5. How to get a toddler to sit still | I hoped perhaps someone found a miracle cure to toddleritis, no such luck. I believe this was in a moment of desperation.
  6. old navy free shipping code | Because if I’m shopping online, I hate paying for shipping
  7. star wars party favors | I have a five year old…
  8. russian honey cake | best cake I ever had and that was 15 years ago, but since it was in Kazakhstan, I’ve never replicated it but I knew Google would help me out. Now I just need to make the cake.
  9. Thai house grand rapids closed | Because my favorite Thai restaurant is now closed without any warning or signage left behind to tell us what happened… dear lady who ran Thai House – where are you? Can I come eat at your house?
  10. Group purchasing websites | Because I remembered I bought a JcPenney deal but couldn’t recall which site I bought it through, answer: Plum District.

So there you go, my mundane list of searches…


Top Ten {Tuesday}This post is linked to Oh Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday.

Music Monday: Liam’s [Current] Favorites

Real quick, a shout out to my dad who’s having his knee replaced today:
Love you, dad! Hope the surgery goes smoothly and recovery even better!
See you Wednesday! Love your pumpkin dunkin’

Here are the songs that are on constant rotation in our swagger wagon by Liam’s request (and really, Jack’s request too, someone wants to be just like his big brother):

Moves Like Jagger | Maroon 5


Where’d You Go [clean version] | Fort Minor


Teenage Dream | Glee cast version (he can sing all the lyrics, thankfully he doesn’t ask what it is about)


1234 | Feist


Also, happy birthday to my sweet friend, Sarah, and sister-in-law, Janelle! October is full of birthdays of people I know and love – it’s apparently a very popular time to have babies (and about 9 months prior was/is a popular time to make babies – just sayin’). Happy mid-October!

Five Question Friday

I found Jack’s flip-flop in my purse today. Thankfully I found it before the meeting I was headed to. This is kind of indicative of how my week has gone. Random yet all turning out for the best.

Here’s what I have on the list for this weekend:

  • Make/start four Angry Birds costumes
  • Watch Liam run around a soccer field for 60 minutes
  • Walk with Sandy
  • Complete week 5, day 3 of Couch-to-5K – 20 minutes of running sandwiched in 5 minutes stints of walking
  • Get family photos taken
  • Find a good quality carry-on suitcase that we can pack full and hook Jack’s car seat to for toting it (and him) through the airport
  • Church
  • Go to a symphony concert for kids with Liam, my BFF and her daughter (Liam’s BFF)
  • Gather and tag clothing for my MOPS’ consignment sale
  • Catch up on my bloggity blog reading

1. Do you prefer your ice cream in a bowl or in a cone?
I gotta say, I really don’t like cones. I prefer pure, unadulterated ice cream (preferably of the coffee variety).

2. What three things do you love the smell of?
Good men’s cologne. Freshly bathed children. Coffee.

3. Giftcards or no? (In regards to gift giving…)
I love gift cards if I’m the receiving in, much better than getting something I wouldn’t use or don’t like (does that make me snobby, ungrateful or just practical?). But I like giving good gifts, the right gift, to people I’m giving gifts to. It seems like a double standard, but so be it.

4. What sports did you play in high school if any and do you still play them?
Um, yeah… sports. Have I mentioned that I earned an academic letter? I do have a funny story about sports and high school. Well, two stories.

The first was that I contemplated trying out for the track team so I could do discus or shotput (why? why? why? I think there might have been a cute guy involved). Training for track started during the winter, while there was still snow on the ground and even though I had no intention of being a running member of the track team, I was still expected to train with the rest of the team until it was warm enough to actually try out on the track. So we had to run in the school. My interest in track lasted about two days and then I discovered friends hanging out in one of the classrooms, practicing German and my interests changed (despite the fact that I was taking Spanish).

The second story was my short-lived thoughts of trying out for the girls’ tennis team as the rumor was that no one ever got cut because so few people tried out – what can I say, I liked to succeed at the things I tried to do and tennis seemed like guaranteed success, at least in the making the team aspect. We’ll ignore the fact that I had never played tennis before… at the same time as this interest in tennis was running its course, I was exploring my future college options, requesting catalogues and visiting a multitude of websites. I had pie in the sky fantasies about being accepted to some fancy, big name school so along with local schools, I requested information from places like Harvard, Rice and Vanderbilt simply to get the catalogues in the mail. I must have listed myself as being on the tennis team on one of their forms because during the summer I received a personal letter from the tennis coach at Vanderbilt, inviting me to contact him and apply at their school. And for a second, I kicked myself for not actually trying out for the team and then I laughed a whole lot.

5. Were you in band in high school? What instrument did you play?
Nope, but I was friends with lots of people who were in the band – does that count? And I was in the orchestra in middle school – something way less cool than being in the band – I played the violin.