my confused brain

i still haven't figured out why i end up staying up til 2 or 3 am when i can barely keep my eyes open other than that my brain is so not in sync with my body. my motivation only happens at night, but my body has to be running all day. the same thing happens when i'm having a conversation though. what i hear doesn't usually register in my brain until it's too late. by then i've pulled my most famous faux pas of putting my great big size 11 feet in my mouth. have you ever asked someone how things are going and they reply with "my mom's really sick right now" only for you to answer "that's good"? i have. my brain needs to be tweaked or something because not only does it take too long to hear things, it moves on before hearing them. i'll ask questions in a conversation and interrupt with a totally different subject before i've heard the full answer, afraid that i'll forget what i just thought of...although i should not have been thinking of anything else at all. so, in advance...or afterthought...i apologize to all who i so rudely converse with. it's not my fault...honest:)

the threads of each day

when i'm going through my life i sometimes forget to look deeper at each of the threads that hold it together. i decided to start my own personal blog to make myself more aware of the little things that make up each day to hopefully make me more grateful for all that i have and find more joy in my life. so welcome to my world and all the little threads in it...especially the snags along the way.

coupon frenzy

so i haven't been much of a coupon junkie in the past, but my friend introduced me to the "grocery game" a while back and i tried it and loved it. then i kind of let it go. but here and there i'll find some of my coupons and i'll use them. one day last week i had some that i didn't have with me when i went shopping, so i took them back in to get my money back. i ended up getting $9 back. i told shayla how cool it was to shop with coupons and kyra said, "that's weird."

then yesterday i was cleaning out my car and found a ton of coupons that were ready to expire. and they were for things i needed or would need soon too. i was actually on my way to the grocery store anyway, so i used those and in addition to the $15 i saved on store sales, i saved $16 just in coupons. i was pretty proud of myself. so i guess i'm officially a "coupon nerd". oh, and i had a $10 gift card from dsw and my coupons for places for having a birthday, all of which expired yesterday, including a $5 one from dsw. and dsw is already discounted, so after their discount and my $25 off, i bought a $55 pair of shoes for $25. wow, my life needs something if coupons are getting me this excited.

things i've learned from my kids

as i was laying in bed last night waiting for the nyquil to fully kick in, i started thinking about recent mishaps and such around here. then i tried to turn them into learning experiences :)

so here is my list of some of the things i've learned from my kids:

• no matter where i put the nail polish, it's never hard enough for kyra to get to and there's always more in the house that i don't know about...until it's too late. (but i have learned how to get it out)
• every day is either the worst day of their life or the best day of their life...never in between.
• it doesn't matter how far apart your kids are in age...they fight.
• it's less effort for them to throw clothes in the hamper after they've been washed and folded then it is to place them (again...they are already folded) in a drawer or basket.
• i'm either the meanest mom in the world or the best mom in the world.
• i should never say "maybe" or "we'll see" unless i really mean "yes", because that's how it is interpreted.
• kid's don't care if they match as long as they are the ones that picked it out.
• whether my kids match or not is not a battle worth fighting.
• the word "no" does not register in a kid's brain very quickly.
• no matter how clear you made yourself at the time of punishment, it always seems like news to them when you have to remind them of it.
• when there are tickets that earn them things involved, kids can be polite and kind to one another.

there are many positive things i've learned from my kids too, but i just felt like letting out the negative and maybe a little positive for now. anyone want to watch my kids now?

accuracy: conformity to truth or to a standard

are you the kind of person that, when relaying a message, summarizes or paraphrases it? or do you feel that to be accurate, you must give it word by word? i've discovered, though not usually conscious of it, that i am the type who must give it fully. as i watch movies or shows, it drives me nuts when the person knows the whole story, but only passes on part of it. or in the show "ghost whisperer", the spirits tell her messages to convey and as they do this, she's paraphrasing it as briefly as possible or doesn't say it at all. drives me crazy! so, as i thought about this, i recognized what i'm sure is one of many annoying qualities about me...that when someone knows something, they should know the whole story...at least when it's pertaining to me or my family. i feel that we treat people differently in situations when we have different amounts of information as to what is involved...feelings, physical circumstances, etc. so with this in mind, we may all become better at being nice on the road. and the messages that are given to someone else through us should be passed on as received. it is the person whom it is ultimately intended for who should do with what he wants once he gets the full message. being accurate is being honest. if you leave things out or "just didn't tell them everything" or "stretch the truth a little", can you truly call yourself honest? although this may make me a bit neurotic, at least i feel good that i can pass on the information honest and accurate.

i hope some of that made an ounce of sense, seeing as though it's after 2 am. i can't sleep because i hear a bear in my bed and my ambien hasn't quite kicked in. i read somewhere that if you have trouble sleeping, don't just lay there and hope you'll doze off. do something else to get you really tired. thus, the reason i'm blogging. but it seems that the sleep pill is finally working, so i'm outta here.

is that even a word?

why is a chair called a chair, or a rock called a rock? those are the questions i've been asked a lot lately by my 8 year old and also the questions i remember asking a lot through my life. since the words in our language had to start somewhere in time, they really weren't words at one point. which brings me to my point that any word i say could actually be a word if i say it is...because i would have just made it one. so the next time you react to your child's abhorrent behavior with a word like "crutz!" and someone asks "is that really a word?", you can now reply "yes, i just made it one".

we've been trying to come up with other words to say to replace "oh my gosh", since she sometimes slips and uses a word we don't use because of hearing it often at school. so please leave your comments with funny words we could use in place of that...whether they're real words or not yet.

our kids' fears...or ours?

sometimes the things our kids do that we think are so strange are actually a reflection of our own fears or actions. i know one child who will not eat anything unless her mom makes it for her. i'm now wondering if that stems from her mom teaching her not to take food and things from strangers or something like that. or maybe not. that thought came to mind today as kyra was eating a non-edible object off the floor and i responded by saying, "we don't eat stuff off the floor." and then quickly added, "or things that aren't food." after i say things like that to her, i wonder how she processed it, since she's absorbing everything i say into that little brain of hers. it just makes me try to be more careful how i phrase things. dids don't know that monsters are scary unless we tell them that. they don't know what scary is or that people don't laugh at things that are "scary". this is a drawback to having older siblings...they pass on their fears and dislikes just by voicing them. so from the moment that kid pops out we should be pumping positive thoughts and cheer into their heads. granted, they will eventually form their own opinions of things, but it all starts with us.