I have an anouncement to make......

This is very exciting and I have been waiting to share this until I felt the time was right to tell everyone.......that......I.......

CAN SMELL! (sorry no baby news I gotcha though huh?) The picture is for the nose!

Seriously though this is big news in my life. As many who check this blog already know I have SERIOUS sinus problems and always have. Moving here to Oregon has only intensified it even more. I finally took myself to the doctor, a miracle in and of itself, and got my nose checked out. So my doctor put me on an antibiotic and then I was to start a steroid for a month to decrease the swelling of all the polyps in my nose. Now when I say "all the polyps" I mean that I have multiple polyps all over in my nose. He said I had so many that they were about coming out of my nose! Whatever that means? I couldn't see any. He couldn't even get a picture of my sinuses to see what was going on because I had so many polyps blocking everything.

So I have been on the steroid for a couple of weeks and am thrilled to report that I can smell!! Can you believe it?! Me? I can smell! The one who hasn't been able to smell anything for...EVER!

Now, there has been an up side and a down side to this. Of course I love being able to smell things and I would always choose that over not being able to smell. But there are benefits that people that can usually smell don't think about all the time. Do you realize that when you can't smell anything it is not only good smells that you can't smell? You also don't have to smell bad smells and let me tell you that since I got my sniffer back there are more bad smells out there than good ones! I sort of appreciated in a way that I didn't have to smell my daughters poopie diaper, or the garbage that needed taking out or the left over dishes in the sink from the night before.

Foods are tasting different to me and I am finding out that things I thought tasted good don't really taste very good to me now. And there are other foods that are amazingly tasty that I wasn't fully appreciating before.

I can honestly say that it has become a life changing experience. To go without a sense for YEARS, even though it is probably the least of all the senses you really need. But to then get it back and realize all the things that you forgot you were missing out on, is crazy! I am sure that it is a little bit of the steroid talking but I feel great. I have so much energy and am happy. I can't remember the last time I felt this good consistently for more than a day or two.

People don't realize how exhausting it was just to breathe. You would think that breathing is the thing that your body does involuntarily and you don't even think about it. I thought about it every day. Between asthma at 25 and a completely blocked nose year and years it was ALWAYS hard for me to breathe, ALWAYS.

I know it is ridiculous that it has taken me so long to start figuring this out but in my defense I did try (a little) a long time ago and nothing seemed to work so I sort of gave up. I thought that I just had to resign myself to crappy quality of life. There were times that I seriously would have just liked to stop breathing and cut off my nose I was so miserable.

I am nervous about coming off of the steroid because I am terrified that I won't be able to breathe or smell anymore. I will go back in and get some pictures taken of my sinuses to see if I need some surgery to figure things out in there and I hope hope hope that I can retain this level of sniferocity. I have a suspicion though that I am going to need some anatomical rearranging of my sinus cavities or something, if that is even possible.

Anyway, just wanted to pass on the good news! Next time you come to my house watch out because I will probably be sniffing you to see if you smell good or bad!

Don't Drink Orange Juice?

So those of us with girls might understand where I am coming from on this one. It is very precarious to deal with body image even as little girls. Dustin and I try to be aware of what we are saying and the way we talk about diets and bodies and such. While we aren't perfect and I am not trying to say that we are completely going to stave off any body issues with my girls, we really do try to stay aware of it. We aren't allowed to say the word fat in our house because I just don't like it. We try to focus on talking about eating healthy and why, instead of anything about diets and losing weight. When we are eating dinner we talk about the healthy foods. While I know that it is the best to teach by example (I am trying not to eat cookies before dinner :))we are trying to do our part to teach them the right things before they get to crazy about their bodies, which being a girl I know is pretty much inevitable.

So today I was a little bugged when Maddy came home from school telling me something that her teacher said. She said something to the effect that if you want to lose weight, don't drink orange juice. She said it was because it is like drinking 3 sugary drinks. While I know my daughter probably got the details wrong I was a little annoyed that the teacher was talking about that at all. Why would she even bring that up to 8 year olds? I really don't want my 8 year old worrying about "losing weight". I just really can't figure out what the teacher is doing talking about A: losing weight and B: telling the kids not to drink orange juice. I just find this weird and frustrating. I am trying to think of a context that this wouldn't be a weird thing to say to a class of 8 year olds. I don't know. What do you think? Does anyone have a good reason why the teacher might be talking about that? I would absolutely support talking about healthy things to eat and not eat or sugary drinks and drinking water instead, but losing weight and orange juice......I don't get it.

Mission Accomplished

Well I finally completed my first mission! I got my oil changed last week as a mystery shopper. It was kinda exciting! I got to pretend that I was a spy and they knew nothing about it! I will keep you posted when I get paid......if I get paid!

A little piece of heaven......

I think if I could live anywhere, it would be the Oregon coast. I absolutely love it there. I don't know if it was growing up by the ocean or what, but it is something I have found I can't live without. I don't ever want to live away from the coast. For some reason when I am not near the ocean it makes me feel a little claustrophobic or something. That doesn't really make sense I guess considering I can't run out into the sea, but that is the way I feel.



So obviously we went to the beach. It was the perfect combination of no work, no school, and great weather.....and it was GREAT weather! We had such a great time as we always do when we head over to the coast.

We went to Haystack Rock this time because the low tide was at the perfect time for us to hit the tide pools.

And then of course the endless combing the beach for sea shells. I think we bring home half the beach every time we go. We have a jar in the girls bathroom that we are trying to fill up with shells from the beach. Every time we go we try and bring the best ones back to put in the jar. Here is Lilly with her sand dollar. They were all over the place. And check out the way she is standing......on her entire foot! I was trying to figure out why this picture looked weird to me and I realized that it was because she wasn't on her tip toes...... and her weird facial expression.

That is one hot daddy.

And we also just dug and dug and dug.

Dustin's new beach hat. What do you think? A new trend?

Of course we hit Mo's for dinner, our favorite clam chowder place and then headed home. On the way home we saw a random sign for a fish hatchery. Even though it was down a side road for 8 miles and we didn't even know if it was going to be open as it was about 4:45 we decided to just go for it. It was open and the girls LOVED it! We fed the fish, talked to the fish, danced around the fish, and even posed for the fish.

Maddy and Josey had to say good-bye to every row of fish before we left. They were walking down the aisle waving good-bye and blowing kisses to each and every fish. We finally had to haul them into the car before they froze to death. It got REALLY cold REALLY fast!

We really had a great time. Seriously I think I want to retire there someday. Dustin and I have decided that SOME day we are going to take a week and just drive down 101 just the two of us in a convertible. It is about the most beautiful thing we have ever seen. Of course it probably won't be for another 20 years but we can dream right? Maybe by then we can afford to stay in hotels along the way and not sleep in our car for the week.

love it love it love it

I wanted to apologize to all those blog authors out there that I love to read. I haven't been commenting on any posts lately and while maybe some of you don't really care, I wanted to let everyone know that I am still LOVING reading every ones blogs! I have found a tool that has helped me keep up on every one's blogs but it is preventing me from commenting on peoples blogs. I have finally started using googlereader. I know that a lot of you already use this and I am SO way behind the times. But still I love it. If anyone that is a blog watcher out there doesn't use googlereader......start! It's GREAT!

I love Lilly

I seem to be in a funk with my smallest daughter. As I have posted before she is definitely my most difficulty child so far. With that being said though I know that I have to take responsibility for a percentage of my two year old's misbehaving and reactions. SO I am trying a new tactic. My inner dialogue to myself isn't always the most positive when it comes to Lilly. She frustrates me, she makes me angry often, and more than once a day I feel like a failure when it comes to her. So I am changing my inner dialogue. Instead of thinking how naughty she is and just waiting for the explosions, I am going to tell myself how much I love her and special she is.

Now it isn't that I don't feel this way, it is just that sometimes she makes it hard for me recognize these feelings about her! So here are a few cute little things that Lilly has done lately that make me love her.

Today when Dustin was leaving for work. She said to him, "Please don't go to work today." And Dustin replied, "Daddy has to go to work. But I will be home later tonight". To which Lilly responded, "But your my father......". Apparently she repeated this over and over.

Later this morning I was sitting with her at the table while she finished her breakfast and she looked at me and said, "Your so beautiful mom". Seriously I don't know why a two year old saying this makes me stand a little taller but it works!

She is always so excited to see me in the mornings and after nap time. She rushes to me with a hug and yells, "Good Morning mom"!

When she can't go to sleep for her nap time or bedtime she sits in her crib and sings and sings and sings.....at the top of her lungs. I think the neighbors can hear her! But it is about the cutest thing I have ever heard. She can also sing every princess song. Which is another thing I love about her! And she always tacks on the darth vader theme song at the end which makes me laugh because that is our little nickname for her. She really is a lot like darth vader in this household.

She loves dresses, and would prefer to wear a dress any day of the week. And she loves loves loves make-up. I hope she totally gets this from me because I love dresses and make-up too.

She loves to shop with me (except when she is tired). She is always so sad when we are heading home. She constantly asks me in the car, "We are going to one more store mom?".

Every night, probably to get out of going to bed, she says , "I want to talk about Jesus!". Okay it totally works because how can you turn down that proposal?

She loves to pull all the couch cushions off the couch. I don't like this much as it means I have to put them all back on. But she pulls them off and then jumps off the couch into all the pillows yelling "CANNONBALL!". She absolutely loves it. The other day I asked her not to pull the pillows off and she said to me, "It's my pillow wonderland mom". Where she got that I have no idea.

Okay, these are just a few things off the top of my head that have made me love little Lilly and that make me look at her during the day and want to kiss her instead of put her in a time-out (even though she still needs those too). I am going to do a post about some of the things I love about Maddy and Josey next, I think it is a good exercise.

I do love you my silly Lilly. Your like a little crackling fire. And while it seems that this spirit is a little hard to manage in a two year old I am excited to see what this drive and spirit brings to the rest of your life. You teach me things everyday as I hope I do for you as well.

I hate days like this

So I don't have any fun pictures for this post and trust me you probably wouldn't want any. I had one of those days that make you want to sit down on the couch and just cry. The crying was partly due to being tired and partly just do to being a frustrated mom.

My day started at 5:45a.m. as it always does on Monday mornings. Let me tell you that from a person that is not a morning person, 5:45 in the morning is disgusting on any day of the week but for some reason it feels particularly disgusting on Monday mornings. But I have to be on a conference call every Monday morning for my job. So I was up for that and then worked for about an hour. At about 6:30 I decided that, instead of laying back down until 7:30 (the latest possibly time I can get my kids up to get them to school on time) I would just shower and get ready for the day. So I went ahead with that plan and got the girls up and they miraculously didn't miss the bus like they do 90 percent of mornings. I then proceeded to bathe Lilly and get her ready to head to the doctors office with me.

It is one thing to take your child to the doctor.....it is a completely other thing to take your child with you to your doctors appt.....never a good idea. However she did fairly well and I didn't loose my cool throughout the visit, which again is miraculous.

From there we headed to a couple of grocery stores. Probably not the best idea on my part since we were pushing lunch time but I needed to get some things done. While I was at Albertson's getting a few more deals, Lilly was OUT OF CONTROL. I was SO embarrassed. Do you ever have those days where you are so embarrassed to be out in public with your children? I didn't have all my coupons together like I normally do and so I was flustered at the register and Lilly was all over the place, and the cashier wasn't being very friendly to me (probably annoyed because of the amount of coupons and transactions.....I don't blame him). Seriously by the end I was starting to perspire and about to burst into tears. Luckily I did have a friend there that took Lilly for me for a few minutes so I could finish my transactions and that was very helpful. But then my $15 dollar coupons didn't print on 2 of my transactions and the cashier was even MORE annoyed with me that I wasn't going to let it go!

So I left the store seriously almost in tears and headed home. I layed Lilly down and instead of cleaning my house I decided to lay down for a few minutes.,.....even though I knew that I needed to be at the bus stop in about an hour. Maddy was not coming home on the bus today which meant that Josey was going to be coming home alone. I told her that I would meet her at the bus stop at 2:30 so she wouldn't have to walk home alone. So I laid down and FELL ASLEEP! Like I TOTALLY fell asleep. I woke up and looked at the clock and it said that it was 2:50! It was almost 3:00 and Josey wasn't home. I jumped off the couch and almost ran out the door with no shoes on. I ran down to the bus stop and she wasn't there. I ran back home and thought that maybe she went to the neighbors and thankfully she was there playing. She said she knocked on the door (because it was locked!) but I am not so sure. Anyway, again I was totally embarrassed and wanted to go home and cry. But now I needed to take all three of my girls to the dentist.

SO! We headed to the dentist. Everyone got their teeth cleaned and did pretty good but it is just hard having all three in the dentist office at one time and I was exhausted afterwards. So I walked in the door to a messy house, groceries to put away and hungry children. So what did we do for dinner? We went to Costco and met Dustin there. He was very sweet and bought me flowers while we were there but given the day I already had it probably wasn't the best idea to take everyone to the store again. I could just feel my frustration level rising and rising.

On the way home I needed to stop and fill my prescription.....keep in mind I still had Lilly with me. We went in and they started filling it and then told me the copay was 50 BUCKS! What!? So I told them to please call my doctor tomorrow and see if there is something cheaper I can fill. So I didn't even get my prescription. Meanwhile Lilly was again a little tired monster by this time.

Anyway, I just wanted to get the day out. And hopefully it made someone else feel like they aren't the only one's that have these kinds of days. I don't even want to go to bed at this point because I don't really want tomorrow to come. I am afraid it will just be more of the same as I have a whole list of things to get done tomorrow. Maybe I am a little pessimistic? All I know is I really want my mom to come visit. What are you doing this weekend mom? Please please please?!

grocery shopping conquests

Well after prodding by my mother and husband I decided to post about my grocery shopping this week. They probably suggested it because they were tired of hearing about how excited I was.

So here it is! Last week I went to Safeway and spent 25 dollars out of pocket, and saved 150$!!!! I was so excited I almost skipped out of the store!

But here is yesterday's latest conquest.

Albertson's has a great deal going on as I know some of you know about. But I went this afternoon and spent 11$ and some change. But I got 15$ back......in cash! SO I really made 4 bucks in hard cash off of that transaction! CRAZY!!! I only got the cash back because the machine wasn't working that was supposed to print out the 15$ coupon for your next purchase. I would have been happy with that but I'll take the cash. I am always more pleased to actually just get the cash back to spend anywhere! I plan on going back multiple times this week. I love the new Albertson's double coupons, they are great.......and in the words of a friend.....I am a coupon nerd.

update

A bunch of people have asked me about this new job (and yes that means more than those who commented) so I thought I would just post how I found out about them and the companies I signed up with so you all can check it out for yourselves if you want.

I will say this isn't particularly a job that you EARN money doing. It is really more for just getting things for free. To me that is almost like getting paid especially if it was something I was going to do anyway, like get an oil change.

Anyway here is the site that got me interested in it moneysavingsmethods.com And I linked it to the part of the site that talks about the mystery shopping. You can get the links to mystery shopping companies off of this site but here are the links to the ones that I signed up for intelli-shop.com and athpower.com and servicelseuth.com. There you go if anyone wants to check them out. I will let you know if and when I get paid for the oil change next week!

I have a new job.....I'm a spy!

Okay maybe I am not a real spy....unfortunately. BUT I do have another job! And I am quite excited about this one and thought others out there might want information about it as well. I am a mystery shopper.

Now, I have actually been a mystery shopper previously. It was a long long time ago and it didn't work out so well. I had to go through a long process of applying and interviewing and then had to complete a certain amount of jobs a month and I had two small children that were making it very hard for me to remain inconspicuous. I seriously think one store was about to call the cops on me because I totally looked like a shop lifter while I was trying to "spy" on the employees. BUT this time I love the way it is set up. It is a very simple process to sign up and then you just apply for whatever job and whatever amount of jobs you want!

So next week I have my first assignment. I get to go get my oil changed in my van (which I need anyway) for free. They have lots of restaurants in my area that need to be reviewed so after I do this first job and make sure I get paid and what not then I am going to hit the restaurants and take my husband on dates for free! There is one in Lake Oswego for Stanfords (a restaurant I really like) that gives you a reimbursement value of 100 bucks! That's a good dinner!

Anyway just thought I would post about it in case anyone else is interested in looking into it. Just let me know and I will email you about it.