And you think you've got it bad

I received this heartbreaking email today.  What this poor poor woman has been through and yet thru it all her faith in God has remained strong.  So strong,  I think she has picked me to facility the donation of over $8 million dollars to churches around the world. 

I'm a bit unclear about her actual intent as she has not spelled it out here?  Perhaps she is afraid that some nefarious character will try and swindle her?  It is so clear she is not a Scam Artist.

I'm going to respond, she needs my help!

AM MRS. SONIA WILSON, A DEAF WIDOW TO LATE ROBERT WILSON FROM SEATTLE WASHINGTON,USA. PRESENTLY IN ISRAEL RECEIVING TREATMENTS, I AM 61 YEARS OLD, I AM NOW A NEW CHRISTIAN CONVERT, SUFFERING FROM LONG TIME CANCER OF THE BREAST,FROM ALL INDICATION MY CONDITIONS IS REALLY DETERIORATING AND IT IS QUITE OBVIOUS THAT I WON'T LIVE MORE THAN SIX MONTHS, ACCORDING TO MY DOCTORS,THIS IS BECAUSE THE CANCER STAGE HAS GOTTEN TO A VERY BAD STAGE. MY LATE HUSBAND WAS KILLED DURING THE U.S. RAID AGAINST TERRORISM IN AFGHANISTAN, AND DURING THE PERIOD OF OUR MARRIAGE WE WERE UNABLE TO PRODUCE A CHILD.

AFTER HIS DEATH, I INHERITED ALL HIS BUSINESS AND WEALTH. THE DOCTORS HAS ADVISED ME THAT I MAY NOT LIVE FOR MORE THAN SIX MONTHS, SO I NOW DECIDED TO DIVIDE THE PART OF THIS WEALTH, TO DONATE TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHURCH IN AFRICA, AMERICA ASIA, AND EUROPE. I PRAYED OVER IT, I AM WILLING TO GIVE THE $8.6MILLION DOLLARS, TO THE LESS PRIVILEGED. RIGHT THE THE FUND IS DEPOSITED WITH A SECURITY COMPANY IN USA. I AM OF AWARE THAT THERE ARE LOTS OF SCAM IN INTERNET, I SWEAR TO YOU WITH THE NAME OF OUR LORD THAT THIS IS NEVER A SCAM.YOUR HELP WILL SAFE MANY LIFE IN THE WORLD, LET GOD TOUCH YOUR HEART TO HEAR MY CRY.

LASTLY, I ALSO WANT YOU TO ASSURE ME THAT WHEN YOU RECEIVE THE FUND IT WILL BE USED FOR THE SAID PURPOSE. MAY THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE FELLOWSHIP OF GOD BE WITH YOU AND YOUR FAMILY I AWAIT URGENT REPLY.

YOUR'S IN CHRIST.

Word to the wise

Friday night we hosted 7 girls  for Anna's early 8th birthday party.  Since we are moving, I was a bit of a softy (or is it softie) and let her invite a total of 10 girls. This was a crazy move on my part.  I am quite lucky they didn't all come as I would have definitely lost my ever-loving mind.

Now Patrick just had a birthday sleepover a couple of weeks ago, he had three boys over and aside from the fight the boys had  the morning after the sleepover, it was all good.  When I say fight, I don't mean that they were name-calling or angry, I mean they were playing some fighting game they made up.

The girls on the other hand, oy.  Drama.  Much of it due to some being interested in running around playing and others wanted to do more sedate playing (think board game).  This led to tears about once per hour from someone who felt left out, and about every 90 minutes one of the girls wanted to go home. *Sigh* Now I know why my mom would only let me have 3 girls sleepover for my birthday as a child.

Around 12:30AM all the girls wanted to go home because they couldn't sleep.  Why couldn't they sleep?  Because they wouldn't stop talking!  So I told them all no, no they couldn't go home because I wasn't going to wake their parents up. They finally fell asleep around 1:30AM.

  All the girls were up jumping around by 7AM.  I am not a morning person, and when I don't get any sleep I am not-a-morning person to the 10th power.  Saturday morning it finally proved fortuitous that I married an annoying morning person because I had to have Tom oversee the girls til I had my coffee.  I didn't want to snap their little heads off first thing.

Once everyone had gone home and Anna had napped.  I asked her if she enjoyed the sleepover. She said it was even better than she had hoped.

Crazyness

I was going to write about a conversation I had with the B-man, I had some other things I thought were blogable, but, here we are.

My mind is empty as we rush toward moving and I don't know what to do with all the stuff we currently have in our house.  Tomorrow and Friday we have our garage sale, I'm hoping for much stuff to leave our possession.

Yesterday I trashed a couple of bins full of old junior high and high school notes.  Notes are what we used to write back in the Stone Age to converse with friends at school. They are like brick and mortar texts. LOL  As an aside, not only did we write notes to our friends on paper, and pass them in class, we also folded the notes into decorative  patterns!

I had forgotten until going through my bins of paper, that I used to write Smut for my friends.  For example, one friend of mine, was a huge Sting fan (as was I) , so I wrote a story of how a freshman in HS met Sting and they had a torrid love affair. T'was Fan Fiction and I didn't know it, t'was 50 Shades of Grey in the 80s.

I missed my calling!

But back to things of a wholesome nature. My Blog Spark sent me an email with a link to print up coupons for Ocean Spray Fruit Snacks!

Watershed Moment

For the first time ever, I made a recipe I saw on the TV.  Last week I was watching The Chew on ABC while doing the dishes and they had on some moms with great recipes for their Mom Week.  One lady made pasta with a red lentil sauce.

Since I decided two and 1/2 weeks ago to try being vegan (except for a couple of times that I've had fish lately), I was drawn to this recipe that sounded different, was vegan and was fairly easy. 

So I gave it a go!  And mmm mmm it is so good, I am sending Felicia who create the recipe a major Thank You!  The recipe is linked here.  It called for some fresh ground pepper and I didn't have any of that, so I used some of our Tastefully Simple Green Tea & Peppercorn Seasoning.

 I'm so glad we've got the Green Tea & Peppercorn Seasoning back as a returning favorite for June and July.  I've missed it so! I'm also glad that as a consultant, I got to order the returning favorites a few weeks before June 1st!

Mother's Day Facebook Envy

I should preface this by saying, I realize this is silly and petty and I am almost over it. But, I've got to get this whine out of the way so I can move on, build a bridge, get over it and all that.

As you may know, this is Mother's Day and many a mom is enjoying a wonderful, wonderful day, as they should.  Children and significant others have made special plans and showered gifts upon the awesome moms in their lives.  They are also posting their thank yous and whatnot to Facebook. Which is great. I'd so rather see the love than see people arguing politics.

Nevertheless, I'm a little bummed for myself because no one at this house takes me seriously when I say that the best gift I could get for Mother's Day would be:
1. a clean house.
2. to not have to cook.
3. brunch.

I would also love some flowers, but they just die--or chocolate, but I gave up eating dairy so that won't work. So I'd really have liked my 2 other dreams to come true. 

Alas, it's not meant to be. I did get two wonderful handmade presents from Anna and Bryce.  HUGE thanks to their teachers for doing those projects. And The Man did go to the store and get some coffee. 

Then he asked me twice if I had made coffee yet. Bummer right?

That is my whine in a nutshell.  I completely get that it is lame.  I am very lucky, far too many of my Facebook friends are missing a loved one who they'll never see again on this day and I am crabby about making Mac & Cheese. 

I'm shaking off my acting like a baby and restarting the day.  Happy Mother's Day to All!  I hope it is gloriously sunny and lovely by you today--and I hope you get spoiled, spoiled, spoiled OR that you do some major spoiling for a mom in your life today!

My mom with all her grandkids cept the baby, Byron, from last summer at Anna Ruby Falls in Georgia.

I've got to share!

So I've got to share, because for me this was super exciting. You may recall, last week, I saw an online premiere of an upcoming movie Mighty Fine  and then wrote a review of the movie on my blog.

Well today I got an email from the coordinator of the event over at Mom Central and it said that the writer and director of the movie "loved my post".  How cool is that!  A writer and director loved something I wrote! Squeee!

Totally Made My Day!

And then to top it off, turns out it's National Moscato Day!
Barefoot has a nice Moscato chilled with some gouda cheese and crackers. mmm mmm.

#Wordless Wednesday Happy Bday Mr P!

I had to go with a Silly Picture.
Happy Birthday Patrick!

Really Small Piece of Yellow Plastic

Remember how I was talking last post about getting rid of stuff in anticipation of our moving later this month?  How I enjoy the reducing of  'stuff'?  Well this morning, The Man was pretty bent out of shape. 

Turns out I threw out a piece of yellow plastic that was part of  his table saw.  Woopsie. As fate would have it, The Man realized it was missing after the garbage man had come and gone. Now I have to check with The Man before I clean out a drawer/cabinet or box.  *Sigh*

Wait, I just had an Oprah-worthy A-ha moment. I'm going to empower The Man to clean out and pack his own assorted stuff. This way I won't run the risk of throwing out other stuff that looks like junk to me that he likes, or is actually useful.
So after that debacle, which occured prior to my first cup of coffee...
I took my bowl of potato salad which I made with our new Garden Veggie Dip and headed over to Anna and the B-mans school for the Teacher Appreciation Luncheon.

Here is my Garden Veggie Potato Salad Recipe. I prepped the individual components last night and then mixed it all together this morning.

3 lbs washed and quartered yellow potatoes (skin on) boiled until they are fork tender
4 slices of Turkey Bacon cooked and crumbled. I made the turkey in the oven, that way the turkey bacon doesn't burn.
4 stalks of celery, chopped
1 bunch of green onions white and about 3 inches of green chopped
2 tablespoons of Garden Veggie Dip Mix mixed with 1 cup light mayo.

Super Easy, Super Good and 1000 times better than store-bought tater salad.

If I had a TV show

If I had a TV Show, I think this would make for a great theme song.

Of course I do not star in, write, or produce any half hour comedies.  Though I'm open to it!  I think if I could work with a team of writers I could manage something decent.  Or at least I like to think so. How terrible was that last sentence, first I started with Or and then I ended with so.  *shudders*

Here we are another Monday, and you know what that means?  Tomorrow is trash day!  I love getting rid of stuff.  For me, the best part of the moving process is getting rid of useless stuff we shouldn't  have been holding on to in the first place.

As I have mentioned, The Man is with us for the next few weeks to help facilitate the moving and so he can prevent me from pitching most of his stuff, especially what is in the garage.  Most everything that is in there looks broken or pointless to move.

 Tonight I am going to mention that we are having a garage sale this Thursday and Friday.  I'm hoping he will see the light that he will need to help. The man doesn't like garage sales. I'm thinking most men don't.

Hey that could be a swagbucks poll of the day!  Swagbucks is a search engine I use because I earn 'swagbucks' that can be redeemed for gift cards.  I'm always surfing the web, might as well earn some gift cards for my time, right? I also earn points for referrals, so wink wink, nudge nudge, here is my referral link.

The daily polls that they have are submitted by users and are on any subject you can think of to ask an opinion.  Today the poll concerns what is your second favorite way to eat potatoes.  So you see asking about garage sales would be totally fitting with the tone of  Swagbucks Daily Polls.

Mighty Fine, Movie Review

As I mentioned quickly yesterday, I was able to see an online premier of the movie Mighty Fine last night. Here is a short description of the story from the writer and director Debbie Goodstein:

The story of "Mighty Fine" is fictional, but it draws to a great extent on writer/director Debbie Goodstein's vivid memories of her childhood. "My father had anger issues, ups and downs, and living in his world could be a bit of a rollercoaster ride," says Goodstein. "He loved his family but had self-destructive impulses and a rage that made life with him unpredictable and sometimes very scary." Many of Goodstein's friends also had fathers similar to her own, and she contrived the character of Joe Fine as a composite. Goodstein sees Joe as a creature of his time, someone who couldn't exist today: "Joe Fine is the king of his castle, like so many men of the seventies. But even then, things were changing rapidly, and men like Joe, with all their bravado and patriarchal dominance, were poised for extinction. Today, with so many women in the workplace, that castle has become more of a stronghold of equanimity."

A good story, and a good movie more specifically, sticks with you long after the credits. Mighty Fine is such a story.  The mother and two daughters are held hostage to the mood swings of the father played by Chazz Palminteri. One moment he is a doting father and husband lavishly spoiling his children and the next moment he is brandishing a shotgun. His unpredictability adds all the suspense this movie needs.

What sticks with me most, is that in this movie Debbie Goodstein is able to show us that the father, Joseph Fine, is not one dimensional.  We know that financial difficulties and his own childhood are major factors in his deteriorating mental state. This insider knowledge makes it difficult to vilify Joseph and adds shades of grey to the film.

All of the actors gave wonderful performances.  Andie MacDowell, as the mother and a holocaust survivor, plays a women who was rescued by her husband and therefore is deeply indebted to him. At the same time she has two teen daughters who need her strength.  It is wonderful to see while Stella is bent by her wartime past, she is not broken.

The two teen daughters are played by Rainey Qualley, who played the older and most outspoken family member Maddie; and Natalie the writer played by Jodelle Ferland.

As a parent, this movie was a stark reminder of how harmful unpredictability and  uncontrolled anger can be toward children of any age.  While I am not much like Joe, I will certainly think of him often when I am tempted to lose my temper. Mighty Fine shows that most of the time, when parents are angry and take it out on their children, it's not because of anything the child may have done, but is due to outside factors.

The movie is opening up in select theaters on May 25th.  You can see if it is playing by you here.


Disclosure: www.momcentral.com/mcc “I participated in a campaign on behalf of Mom Central Consulting for Mighty Fine and the distributor. I received access to an online showing of the film and a promotional item to thank me for participating”.

Driveby Blogging

Hi all!
How is your Thursday going?  Im getting ready to watch an online premiere of a new movie.  I got the opportunity through Mom Central. Im very excited, I've got on an after 6pm formal dress. I'll let you know my review tomorrow. 

Plus The Man is home for  3 weeks to help us move!  Yippee! 

Wordless Wednesday Jellies!

At the Shedd.

Is it Yogurt or Yoghurt?

Today was a yogurt day. First I received this email response to my email to the makers of GoGurt, one of Patrick's favorite foods.

First here is my email:
Originated by Consumer: I purchased 2 boxes of Spongbob Squarepants Go gurt Strawberry Riptide/Bikini Bottom Berry. My son loves the Bikini Bottom Berry and won't eat the Strawberry. Much to my dismay both boxes I purchased contained 8 strawberry and no Bikini Bottom Berry. The complete info on the sell by portion of the package said: 31MAY 2012 RCJ 0036 26525 I would like product coupons to purchase 2 replacement boxes as these are a staple in my household. Thanks so much! And thank you for making gogurt now without artificial colors!

And this was the response:

Hello Ms. Hamel:

Thank you for contacting Yoplait with your inquiry.

The Go-Gurt product has had a reformulation. We have removed the artificial color from the product and replaced it with natural color. Due to this change, the Bikini Bottom Berry product is no longer blue. Please check the Go-Gurt tube to see what flavor is listed on the tube. If the tubes are all indeed strawberry, please reply to this email and let us know.

Oh the Irony!

And now I can't even check the tubes because Anna and her friend took all the Go-gurts, opened them and mixed them together in a bowl when they  were playing "Cooker"

*Sigh*

Then I got an email with a link to get 30 cents off a cup of the new Lactose Free Yoplait Yogurt. So maybe I'll give that a try?  Quite good timing for this coupon, Anna has been complaining about her stomach hurting frequently and we've begun to suspect she might be Lactose Intolerant to some degree, esp. since the Man is Lactose Intolerant.

Here is the scoop from My Blog Spark that sent me the link for coupons!

Lactose Free comes in four delicious flavors - Strawberry, Peach, French Vanilla and Cherry - and contains 50% of the recommended Daily Value of calcium, with vitamins A and D in every cup. Lactose Free contains no artificial sweeteners and can be used in some of your favorite recipes - like chocolate crème brulee and strawberry cheesecake.

Lactose intolerant or know someone who is? We wanted to let you know that you can visit http://bit.ly/IiJBKU to download a printable *coupon for $0.30