Well Isn't That Nice (It starts with an F, and it's Friday, but it ain't 'Follow Friday' - but you can play along)

Oh friend. My dear, dear friend. You know the hours of research…the calculations…the consultations…the blood, sweat & tears I put into every one of my products. I don’t insist that you use them. Even though your own kids swear they work better than your remedies. I don’t preach to you about the merits of doing things the natural way. So please…PLEASE! When someone is interested in my modest little concoctions, don’t butt in and say things like, “Oh! Try shaving cream! Shaving cream works just as well!”

I love ya honey, but this is for you!

So what's this all about?  If you missed last week's post, check it out here.

So, is there someone you’d like to send a flower to today? Or maybe you'd just like to flip someone the bird. Well, now you can do both! I'll be celebrating brazen acts of passive aggression right here for the next few Fridays – or maybe longer. We’ll see.

<a href="http://teddystartedit.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1013.photobucket.com/albums/af251/TeddyStartedIt/WellIsntThatNicebutton.jpg" border="0" alt="When flowers just don't say it all"></a><br />

G’head. Grab it! You know you want to.  So do it!  And don't forget to leave your link.

The Dingo Ate My Baby! (And Blogger Ate My Comments)

5:00 AM. My bedroom. Me. Sound asleep. (A rare and precious thing)

Buddy Boy tiptoes in, climbs onto the bed and lets loose the song in his heart.

“D-I-N-G-O! D-I-N-G-O! D-I-N-G-O! And Dingo was his name-o!!”

Oh yeah! More obnoxious than any alarm clock I’ve ever heard. But something about the substitution of the D for the B made it all a little hysterical – even at that hour. And in that early morning fog, my response was, “But the dingo ate my baby!!” The reference was completely lost on Buddy Boy, but since I screamed it at the top of my lungs in my best Aussie accent, he busted up laughing. Not a bad way to wake up after all.

I got the kiddos ready and out the door early, I was pretty sure it was going to be a nice productive day…until I got home, checked the blog and realized that Blogger had eaten over a dozen of the comments on my giveaway post. And, since I’d already deleted the comment emails from my inbox, well, I was a little unhappy. How was I going to do my giveaway when the comments were…gone!?!? So, I wasted a few hours trying to figure that out and got nowhere. Fortunately, the comments reappeared yesterday. Now, if only I could get my kids to stop screaching, “The dingo ate my baby!!!”

Oh, and if you're wondering wtf I'm talking about, here you go (minute mark 3:39).

And if you haven't entered my giveaway - today's the last day.  So go here and tell me what's bugging you.

This post is brought to you by Follow Friday.

Things Bug Me (So I'm giving some things away)

Ugh! Sometimes things just bug me! Like today. It’s what I call in inconvenient day. I know you know what I’m talking about…the kind of day where it’s just one inconvenience after another, after another.

The Man usually takes Buddy Boy to school on Fridays so I can be at the gym by 8:00. There’s an 8:30 yoga class that I love, and I like to get a good beating in on the treadmill before I get my chill on. Well, Mr. Man had an early flight this morning. No biggie. Buddy Boy can be a little late to school – it’s just Pre K. It’s not like the State’s gonna come after me for truancy or anything. So the day could have been fine, but nooo....

What do you mean the Kids’ Klub girl is running late?! This is cutting into my cardio time!

No! No! No! Not the gym-hoochy! Please, take your Juicy sweat suit, Coach tennies and all that perfume your wearing to the other side of the gym. PLEASE! Keep walking…keep walking…stop stopping! NO! Don’t stop. Not here! C’mon! There are 12 open treadmills over there! Arrrrrgh!

Oh tell me no! That’s not the Group Exercise Coordinator walking into the yoga studio, is it? You’re a rockin’ kick-box instructor, honey, but you can’t teach yoga for $#!+. Oh yeah, it’s definitely one of those days. Oh wait! She’s going into the spin studio. Oh, and there’s my little yogi. Whew!

Alright! Sweat’s on. Mat’s down. I’m ready to breath. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa…! Seriously? Group Exercise Coordinator’s got to have the music that loud? She’s in the spin studio all by herself!

And so it goes. The inconvenient day. It will continue to be inconvenient. There will be traffic jams, and wardrobe malfunctions. The phone will ring while I’m running out the door to the Vet’s this afternoon, which will mean I’ll be running too late to stop for gas, which means I’ll have to fill up on my way to get the kiddos, which means I’ll have to find some way to duck chatty mom or we’ll be late for the Pediatrician, which means…(blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.)

Oh yeah. The whole day’s gonna bug me. No doubt about it. But I’m going to have some fun with it. Let’s play a little game, shall we? Tell me what’s bugging you today. That’s right…whine and complain until your heart’s content. You can tell me in a comment, you can rant about it on your own blog (but you’ve gotta link to this post and leave me a comment about what you’ve done so I know you’ve done it). Comments will close at midnight (CST) on the 29th. On the 30th, I’ll announce the 6 complainers who made the finals. 4 will be chosen in some random fashion, 2 will be my personal favorites. Then we’ll have a vote. Voting will close at midnight on the 13th. I’ll announce the results on the 14th.

The winner will receive this & this:

The 1st runner up will receive this.

The 2nd runner up will receive this.

And everybody else who left a comment will receive a coupon code for 20% these products in my shop. At least that way, the bugs wont be bugging us.


Oh yeah, and it's Follow Friday. Come play along.

Whopper Cake (or Big Pile of Pooh)

Buddy Boy was Star of the Week this week. Yeah, wow! OK, not so wow. Every kid gets to be Star of the Week. All this really means is a lot of extra work for Mommy (aka: me). Monday he was to bring photos of his friends, family and favorite things with the class. Friday, a special friend could come to school with him to share a favorite story and a yummy, nut free, non-candy, over-processed, over-preserved, individually wrapped treat with the class.

Last Friday he brought home the empty photo album. He was actually given the option of filling it with pictures or making a poster. Of course my kid chose the poster. OF COURSE…because he’s my kid and he’s inherited the “do everything the hard creative way” gene. The poster was his idea, but it was my project. I was up until 2 AM Sunday night working on it. His poster rocks…of course.

For his story, Buddy Boy chose Whopper Cake by Karma Wilson. It’s a really cute book about a Granddad who makes a whoppin’ big cake for Grandma’s birthday. It has a recipe in the back, so I had the brilliant idea to make the cake in the classroom with the students for the treat. I was shocked when the administration gave the OK – as long as I brought unopened ingredients to work with. (You know, so I wouldn’t poison the kiddos…because I might do such a thing.)

OK, before I get too snarky, let me give you a little background.

** (optional reading - skip this part if you’re in a hurry to check off all those other blogs on your reader list.) **

• Buddy Boy’s school is a faith-based school.
• I was raised in a very fundamental religious environment, and attended parochial school from grade 1 through college.
• At one point, I seriously considered entering the seminary. (OK, maybe not that seriously, but I did considered it.)
• I no longer practice my religion.
• The Man is a lapsed Catholic.
• We have not tackled the subject of God with our kids…yet.
• In general, our part of Texas is populated by very conservative, devout people. God is ever-present in our community.
• I do not have a problem with God.
• I have a HUGE problem with dogma.
• I asked questions about the role of doctrine in the classroom before enrolling Buddy Boy in this school.
• I was told one thing, experienced another, and spent the first couple of months trying desperately to convince people that while I am religionless, I am NOT a High Priestess of the Prince of Darkness.

** (resume reading here) **

So, back to today. I went to school with my boy. I brought unopened packages of all the ingredients for our cake. I brought aprons and spoons for all the kiddos. I premeasured and made certain that every child had a part to play in the making of the Whopper Cake. It was fun.  I baked the cake in the kitchen of the fellowship hall while the kiddos were learning, playing, and doing whatever pre-k'ers do at school.

Now I've got to tell ya, there are people in this world who will eat whatever comes out of my kitchen. I wouldn’t say I’ve got mad skills, but people like my cookin'. And desserts are my specialty. Need proof? Here’s proof:

Buddy Boy's NASCAR cake - and yes, the cars were sinking in a sea of dark chocolate.  What can I say?  It was 95 degrees that day.  It was still a heckuva cake.

Hello Kitty CakePops for Ladybug's last birthday - so sweet they rotted teeth on contact, but they were too too cute. (Bakerella gets the credit for sharing the idea and how-tos.  She's amazing, you should check her out!)

And then here’s the Whopper Cake…or as I refer to it, The Pile of Pooh. Dig in!

Don’t ask. I have no idea what happened to this cake. Maybe it was the Devil getting back at me for declining the High Priestess position. I dunno.  What I do know is that I’ve got the sweetest kid in the world. When I asked Buddy Boy what he thought of the cake he said, “It was GREAT!” When I asked him if his friends liked it he said, “Oh, they LOVED it!” When I asked him if it was a mess he said, “Yes Mommy, it was a WHOPPER mess! But I don’t want your feelings to be hurt. It was really good!” And then I cried a little…and ate some pooh…and you know, he was right. It was pretty good – even it if did look like pooh.

Happy Friday everybody.  I hope you had a whopper of a day (and not in a pooh way.)

It's Follow Friday - play along.

Sublime Kindness

I needed some chocolate today. And I'm not using the word need lightly here. I'm not talking about needing it like an addict needs her junk, I'm talking about needing it like a mama who's just realized she used the last diaper 2 hours ago. We're talking serious need, people...serious need.

Well, getting the chocolate wasn't supposed to be a problem. There's a fine little chocolatier right down the street from me. Sublime Chocolate. Mmmmmmm...good stuff. I was excited to go there. They've had a shop on the other side of town for a couple of years now, but I'd read recently that they'd opened a shop on my side of town. Perfect! Sublime, even. So, Buddy Boy and I hightailed it over there...only to find a sign on the door that read "Opening Next Week". WHAT?!?!?!?! NOOOOOOOOoooooooo!!!! (I swear they could hear me screaming in Lubbock - which is far from here, trust me.)

While my son & I made the sad slow walk back to the car, he mentioned to me that he saw someone inside. "Maybe they have some chocolate, Mommy." Well that's all the encouragement I needed, so we crossed the street again and knocked on the door. A workman came out. I told him my story - that I needed one small piece of chocolate. He got the owner, the owner immediately got on the phone, called his kitchen on the other side of town and we were back in business. It took 15 minutes to get to the other store. There was a sign on the door. "Close for Spring Break", and a smiling lady on the other side waving me in. The door wasn't locked. They were waiting for me. I walked out with not one but a dozen beautiful, exotic chocolates. Confections like Lavender, Peppermint Tea, Honey Caramel w/Hawaiian Red Salt and Curried Coconut.

The folks at Sublime will probably never understand what their small act of kindness meant to me, but suffice it to say it meant a lot.  Sublime ships their incredible creations all over the US. So if you need something truly special, from a truly special kind of business, please keep them in mind. I'd love to repay a little of their kindness. Oh, and if you need me to do any taste-testing for you, don't hesitate to ask.

By the way, it's Follow Friday.  Join the fun, wont you?