New Followers

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I am incredibly overwhelmed and humbled by all my new followers.  It makes me feel, well, IMPORTANT and LOVED.  A warm country welcome to you all!  I am a mom of three children, TJ, Miguel and Ladybug .  I am married to my best friend KT, not once, but twice!  Despite the fact that I live in the 'burbs I am a country girl at heart.  I try to find the joy and comedy in the often mundane day to day living. 

Thank you to all my new and seasoned followers.  I appreciate all your comments.  I will try to come and visit you back as time permits. 

Don't you just love the blogging world

and all the new friends me make? 

Repurposing

When I can create something that feels new that I have made over from something I already have, I feel so good. Cost $0.00! This is repurposing. -Verb-Repurpose: Taking a thing or a material and using it for a purpose not originally intended. 

In an old house, my mom was pulling down her beautiful white and blue balloon shade.   I loved that fabric!  She was taking the shade down to replace it and I scammed it off of her because she was just going to throw it out anyway.  I cut that shade up and sewed myself kitchen curtains for our old house.  They were pickin' cute, if do say so myself.  Two valances and two panels:  Cost $0.00 .

(See the curtains there on the left?)

I didn't have much fabric left, but I've held onto it in my scrap fabric for almost 12 years now.  Recently I was working on rearranging furniture in my room.  I created a little laptop area but needed a chair.  We had a chair upstairs in the kids domain, but it looked like crap!  I think they eat meals off of the fabric seat it looked so bad.  I decided that chair was my next project.  With my scrap fabric and a staple gun, I recovered that chair.  I love it and it looks perfect with the color scheme I have going on in my bedroom.  Almost new chair Cost $0.00!  Thanks mom!

What have you repurposed?

I've been dreaming

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Sunday was glorious and sunny.  It was the kind of sunny that you look outside and think that perhaps it is Summer or at least Spring until you actually step outside and FEEL the temperature.  Februarys in Idaho can be kind of dark.  Come to think of it, November, December, January AND February tend to be on the darker side.  The sun sets at an obnoxious hour of like 4:30 pm and doesn't wake its lazy butt up until 8:30 am the next morning.  That means I have been at work a whole hour before the sun even tries to grace us with a little light. 

Last night I dreamed it was Spring.  It felt warm and sunny, and I was planning my cute outfit for work which included capri's and sandals.  Yeah, I work in that type of environment.  Well, maybe I don't but that's how I dress, anyway.  When 5:30 am rolled around, I was snapped back to reality... a 20° reality.  I guess I will just have to enjoy the sunshine while I've got it and dream of warmer days to come....

Cell phone woes

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Son #2, Miguel, thought he'd do a little surfing on the internet recently with his phone. Surfing for ring tones, backgrounds, games, etc....We don't have a data plan, nor had we planned on buying one. We have the internet hooked up to the computers at home. We don't need it in our pockets, too. Apparently, he didn't "realize" that his bit of surfing actually costs money. He's 16, I think he knew. Imagine our surprise when we received a $230 cell phone bill. I mean, come on!!! He is now in debt to us and looking for a job. He gets his phone back when he can pay his bill. He thinks we are being harsh for what he terms an accident. Well, if I hit someone with my car, I have to pay even if it was an "accident".

What do you think? Is this enough punishment? 

Or do you side with Miguel and think it is too harsh? 

My Nooner

 

I have a secret shame. Something that if revealed could mean that others think less of me. I mean, I try to be all healthy and stuff...working out, eating right....I've even shared some favorite lo-cal recipes and some not so lo-cal recipes...This secret shame while lo-cal, is considered by some to be unhealthy...

Most every day after work I take a little pilgrimage to Fast Eddy's. What is Fast Eddy's you ask? Why it is only the best Chevron food store EVER. Why? Well, it's clean and there aren't any scary people. There isn't anyone that makes my skin crawl holding my purse tighter. No one to jump me as I'm crawling into my car. Not that it is a problem where I live, but let's just say, I'm a little sheepish of scary people. PLUS, this mecca offers .63 cent refills and a punch card to earn free drinks, and if you don't think that is enough...I can get a free popcorn anytime. That word FREE is like my favorite word....I saw a sign the other day outside an oil change joint that read, "FREE oil change to the first Lisa." It was calling to me, but I didn't need an oil change.

Anyway, holding out my holy grail refillable mug I fill up with first 3/4 Coke Zero and 1/4 Cherry Coke. I have it down to an exact science. I'm a drink mixer.  A mixed drink, if you will...Everything is properly balanced to give me my delicious lo-cal, icey drink with just a twist of sugar and cherry. Ah, I'm getting thirsty again just thinking about it....

What is your secret shame?

**Since composing this original post two weeks ago my mecca has raised the price of their refills to .79.  What the crap!? Here I am trying to brag them up and this is what I get in return.**

WOWW

"Son, if you really want something in this life, you have to work for it. Now quiet! They're about to announce the lottery numbers."

~Homer Simpson~

We were vandalized & traumatized

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**If you are easily offended, beware.**

Yes, it's true.  We were vandalized the other night.  It was quite the traumatic experience.  The graphic images have seared themselves into my brain...The other night the boys were on a winter cabin retreat for church.  It was me, KT, ladybug and a couple of her 11 year old girlfriends.  When we looked out the next morning we noticed yellow paint all over the driver's side of TJ's car.  Mistakenly, KT sent Ladybug to check it out.  She stood there staring at the artwork with a girlfriend trying to figure out the imagery.  When they took too long, KT went outside to check.  There on the side of TJ's car was a PENIS; An anatomically correct PENIS!  KT was mortified as Ladybug and her girlfriend asked him what it was... They thought it had something to do with shooting stars...  He sent them inside telling them he would take care of it.  Windex and paper towels in hand, KT scrubbed that artwork right off of TJ's window but not without snapping a picture and texting it to him first.  

So, all you friends of TJ out there who may or may not be reading this.....be warned, we have the proof  which I choose not to post here because of it's offensive nature.

Don't you love life with teenagers? 

Valentine's According to KT...

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When I married KT, he made it no secret that he hates Valentines Day. He says that people shouldn't need a commercial holiday to tell them when to celebrate their love. He made it VERY clear that we would not be celebrating THAT holiday as a matter of principle. Besides, he said and reminds me yearly, "Everyday is like Valentine's Day when you are married to me..." 

Oh REALLY?

On a side note, he has gone back on his No Valentine Commitment.  Last year he bought me tickets to the Rascal Flatt's concert and sometimes he gets me a chick flick and chocolate.  I'm now the one that says "Hey baby, I didn't get you anything because every day is like Valentine's Day when you live with me..."  

WOWW

 

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"When one door of happiness closes, 

another opens, 

but often we look so long at the closed door 

that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."

~Helen Keller~

A lesson learned

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Once upon a time, not too long ago.  I didn't like my husband.  I know,  shocker, what kind of wife would actually admit to that?  And, for KT, who I know is reading this, it was like 6 years ago, and I'm past that now,  so just keep reading...He used to come home so crabby from work.  He was so short tempered with me and the kids.  I was resentful because everyone else got the better part of him, I felt like we just got the left overs.  We weren't really even friendly to each other, and I began to distance myself.  I was too stubborn to leave him and say, "I give up!", that's the Swede in me, but something had to be done.  So, I decided that I wasn't going to live with this situation anymore.  I decided that I wasn't going to live the rest of my life unhappy.  I made the decision to change me.  Now there are some things that I know for a fact I could not come back from; abuse, infidelity and pornography.  KT you have been warned...

When I was little and had trouble with a friend, my mother would always say to me "Kill them with kindness." So, that is what I vowed to do with my husband.  When he would come home grouchy and mouthy, I would throw my arms around him and tell him I loved him.  I touched him more, thanked him, praised him.  When he was engrossed in sports and ignoring me instead of feeling resentful, I would sit on his lap and kiss him and just cuddle.  In the beginning, I did not want to do this.  I felt like I was a traitor to my feelings, and couldn't he see he should be doing this for me?  It was interesting how receptive he was to me, and how he began to change.  My feelings began to change, too.  I no longer disliked him, I actually loved him again.  I rediscovered my best friend.  Then I began to realize that maybe it wasn't him at all!  Maybe he was reacting to me and my withdrawal of affection.  DING, DING, DING!  I had been a major biatch!

I am grateful for a marriage that could withstand my bitchiness and for a loving Heavenly Father pointing me in the right direction.  I share this because, I hear of so many marriages breaking up these days...friends that had good marriages or what seemed that way to me.  KT has friends at work who are just walking away from 20 years of marriage.  I weep for these people and think they should just try to follow my mommy's advice and  "Kill each other with kindness"...

It worked for me!

Elusive Words

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Sometimes I sit with my fingers poised on the keys and nothing comes.

 I wait,

 patiently staring at the monitor hoping that my brain fog will lift. 

I want to share and think and feel with you,

my sisterhood of bloggers. 

But, alas,

the elusive thoughts flit around just out of grasp and disappear

 leaving me longing for that which I cannot obtain. 

Something has happened,

something that even my afternoon diet cherry coke can't cure.

 Chasing, reaching, grasping.

Mysterious words...

~Lisa Hamer~

WOWW

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"Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful

that which is distorted. "

~Percy Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, 1821~

A poet I am not!

Digging through a box of memories recently, I came across a notebook where recorded within its pages were my long lost bits of poetry. It is interesting to me how the world of writing mutates and changes through the years. Like the phases of the moon, different interests grow, wane and then disappear. Throughout high school and my early 20's, my writing interest lay in poetry. Some are pretty sappy, you know how high schoolers can be. Everything is about true love and romance, and looking through the world with rose tinted glasses. But, coming across this piece, it seems more timeless. A piece so versatile, I could have written it today or tomorrow, not yesterday. A poet I am not, but even still it evokes emotion and longing. Doesn't a poet pull from the depths of emotion to move a reader? Perhaps I will have one good bit of poetry in my life. Then again, perhaps I am biased because it is mine. This is my favorite:

Dreaming

~by Lisa Hamer~

When the sky a

soft black ebony and

the moon casts her eerie glow,

as my eyes flutter closed

in acceptance of the night,

it is then that he visits me.

Eyes blue, alive, sparkling

his mouth turned up

in a laughing wide grin.

He beckons to me,

and we walk together,

like browsing

through the tome

of my memories.
Even as a picture captures a moment

the details are, yet,

so vivid.

I turn reaching,

grasping for him,

and, in that moment,

he eludes me, and is

gone.

The night.

The mysterious, haunting night.

I lay there,

covers pulled up to my chin.