what i did today

So another cousin is getting married this weekend.  They picked July 4th and are even giving their guests a fireworks display.  I’m pretty pumped.  Also pumped about my new dress for it.  It’s the most purple dress I’ve ever known and I’m pretty excited to wear it.  Hopefully I won’t look like a bad 80’s prom date.  My cousin probably wouldn’t appreciate that much.

Scott unfortunately is not able to go.  All I can say is South Carolina drivers, beware this weekend.  Heather thankfully is going with me and the girls.  Also thankfully my infection seems to be headed out my nose at about a rate of 10 tissues per minute.  Heather said she wasn’t feeling good so let’s pray she doesn’t have a week long thing like me because that would really stink for the trip and wedding.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the time off and sharing a special moment with my family this weekend.

A few random bits to get you up to date.

• Basically if I’m not blogging this summer, I’m either working or in the pool.  Or running an errand.  Or cooking.  Or laundry.  Or watching Netflix.
• I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the girls attended their first full day summer camp this week.  They went all week 9-4 to gymnastics camp.  They had a theme of water week.  They’d spend the day doing gymnastics in the morning, a water event of some sort (water balloons, slip ‘n slide), lunch, craft and more gymnastics.   And I think they fit movies in there sometimes.  They took lunch and snacks and clothes.  They were responsible for picking out what to eat for snack and lunch and also got themselves changed to and from leotard to bathing suit.  I am super proud of them!  I was a little skeptical after Monday how it would work out because they had the option to do half days which they requested for Tuesday after a full day Monday and Emma said, “I want a half day because I miss Mommy.” Aww.  But Lexi wanted to do full day so I told them they had to do full day Wednesday since Lexi left early Tuesday for her.  They ended up staying full day Wednesday and the rest of the week.  Lexi one day didn’t want to come home.  I hope this bodes well for Kindergarten.  Anyway, it was a fantastic week for them getting to do something with other kids and I had a great, quiet week of work.  I have to say while I enjoyed the quiet, but come lunchtime, I was ready to go get my babies!  I guess I’m proud of all of us!
• My iPhone 3G came back from the repair shop.  They couldn’t get it to turn back on.  So it’s dead, dead and currently up for parts on eBay.  The white iPhone 4 comes out next month so I’m just going to wait.  I’ve waited this long.
• I think I’d also be remiss not to mention I went last weekend to watch Melissa finish her first triathlon.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a little choked up a few times.  I’m so proud!
• Today my uncle and his family are coming to stay the day on their way to the beach so the girls are heading to Chuck e Cheese for a party and then spending the rest with them.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

OK, here’s the deal.  Lately I’ve been enjoying a lot of really cool online deals.  And not just deals.  Free gift cards?  Free clothes?  Free CASH?  Yep.

The best part is when you share it, it sweetens the deal.  So yes, this is a lot of referral links but if you help me out and sign up, you can then earn your own money!!  We all could use some extra cash right?  Let’s help each other!   Here’s how they work:

Cash for searching

Do you Google? Of course you do.  Turn that googling into Paypal cash or Amazon gift cards or any number of gifts with Swagbucks.com.  In just a few weeks, you can turn your searching into $5 on Amazon.  So far I’ve cashed my points into $15 to Amazon.  And it’s with LITTLE effort.  Sometimes they share what they call SwagCodes on Facebook or Twitter and all you have to do is input a code into their site to rack up the points. The best part is when you have people sign up under you, you get earn when they earn.  So that’s NO effort on your part and you’re earning serious points.  People are starting to pay for their Christmases with Swagbucks!

So go help me out and then you can get some other folks signed up and we all win MONEY!

Cash back for shopping online

If you shop at all online you need to get clued into eBates.com and ShopatHome.com.  I follow great coupon sites like MoneySavingMom.com and she’ll clue you into really good deals online and when you stack it with one of those sites, you get even sweeter deals.  This includes places like Walmart.com and Target.com! Once you get to $20,  they send you real live checks in the mail.  Fun!  So far I’ve earned about $25 back and I’ve just gotten started.  Not only that they give you CASH for referring friends! 

Cash for eating and shopping IRL

Groupon.com shows you a deal a day in your area to get a discounted gift card.  Yesterday I got a $25 gift card for $10 to Oh! Scrap, a nearby scrapbooking store.  This will be great for invitations or crafts for the kids.  And Groupon gives you $10 for referring friends!  10 friends and you have $100!  That’s serious extra cash!

Cash for reading emails

MyPoints.com is a LONG-standing site.  Basically they send you an email or 3 a day and you click on it and earn points.  Those points can be turned into GREAT gift cards.  You can also earn by taking surveys, shopping online, etc. I’ve been a member since I was in college and have earned SO MANY gift cards.  For the past several years I’ve been turning them into Starbucks gift cards!  They don’t have a referral link, but if you are going to sign up, I’d love to send you an invite.  Just to show you I’m not making this up: I’ve earned a total of 112,906 since 1998!  A $5 gift card is 1550 points so that’s 72 $5 cards!!  That’s a $5 card every 2 months!  Hey, free Starbucks every 2 months isn’t bad right?

I know it may seem like a lot but once you have these things going, it’s really not much extra effort and you can earn real money and gift cards, not just points in some program.  So help a girl out and go sign up!

The pool!

We’ve had nothing but drama with our pool.  Again.  Finally last week the guy said, ok, we have to Floc it.  That’s short for flocculation.  I know.  Just doesn’t sound right, does it?  But basically it’s the white flaky chemical you put in the pool, turn off your pump for 2 days and it sinks everything down to the bottom and then you vacuum it all up.  Well.  Smarty pants me forgot to turn the pump off for 12 hours instead of 2 after putting in the pool Saturday.  We thought it might still work but by Wednesday we had given up.  I took a sample of the water to the pool store and we had to start all. over. again.  Which included buying 4 bottles of floc again. Whee!  The super duper good news is when I woke up this morning I saw the bottom of our pool for the first time this year!  And the really strange part is it’s not very dirty!  I’m still not understanding why our pool would never clear up if it was nearly spotless on the bottom!  Anyway, hopefully by this weekend we will have a crystal clear pool on our hands finally.

Medicine!

So a few months ago I talked about starting thyroid medicine and I don’t think I mentioned it but I started birth control for my skin.  The past two months have been a bear.  The birth control pills made me CRANKY.  I felt like I had PMS 24-7 and the actual week of PMS was horrendous.  I haven’t felt that hormonal since I was pregnant.  Thankfully, my doctor knew right away what it was and we switched my prescription.  This week has been the first week on that and I can already see a huge difference.

As for my thyroid, I finally heard back yesterday and the dosage they have me on is too much so they knocked me down to 88mcg (for those that are familiar with Synthroid, mainly my mother).  I really thought they would up me because I just haven’t seen any difference from it so I think I was a little bummed they lowered it.

Dexter!

I swore I was not going to watch TV for the summer but then I got the bright idea to give Netflix a try.  Well, it has unlimited streaming of a lot of their DVDs and every night since getting it I’ve been watching Dexter.  Now, I was very hesitant in watching this show.  It’s on Showtime if that tells you anything.  But everyone raves over it and I see a lot of articles on it in the media.  So I gave it a try.  It’s very gory and it has awful language and on the surface, I would stay away from a show like this but it is seriously some of the best writing and acting out there and like a train wreck, I can’t stop watching.  So, that’s where I’ve been every evening for the past week which probably explains my lack of posting here.

Overall we’re enjoying our summer.  Lots of TV time, computer time, pool time and general let’s see how messy we can make the house time!

I laughed when I took a good look at this plant in our kitchen the other day. Emma got it from her teacher at the end of school and I just hadn’t paid attention to the fact that it was growing. It doesn’t happen much at our house. So when I saw it pressed up against the window I thought, “Geez, I know plants grow towards the light but that looks a little desperate.”

But then I realized I’ve looked a lot like this plant lately. Head leaned on the window, searching for the Light, the Source. Desperate to grow.

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Excuse me while I fangirl over Wicked.  I know I’m not the first or the last but last night was my moment to figure out what all the hype was about and I must gush.  Because it is very gushable.

Where to start?  Oh my.

I suppose I should say explain that I knew nothing about this play.  The only thing I knew is that it was about the witches of Wizard of Oz.  And I had my doubts.  Witches and spells and all that aren’t my thing.  I don’t like to see it encouraged and glorified.  I mean, the name of it is Wicked.  Could I really like this?  I know those of you that have seen it must be shaking your head.  No!  It’s not like that!  And indeed, it’s not.  In fact, it’s about a lot of other things that wickedness and witches.

It’s about beauty of character.  Friendships.  Love.  Misconceptions.  Judgments.  Selfishness and selflessness.  Being yourself.  It truly was a beautiful story.  Yes, there’s witches and spells but at the end of the day the point of it was becoming a better person.  When you walk away from a musical and you want to be a better person, it is indeed a beautiful story.

I love what Scott said to the girls this morning when the girls talked about the eviilll green witch,  “She just wanted her sister’s shoes backkk!!!”  It’s just amazing how they pulled the Wizard of Oz into the story. I adored the line. “There’s no place like home”.  And I loved how the Tin Man came about.

I loved the comedy.  Elphaba’s parody of Glinda was hilarious.  Glinda well, Glinda was just hilarious with all her kicking and what not.

I loved that they threw in a love triangle.  I love that they went with the expected but unwanted pairing and that he gave it all up for Elphaba.  I especially love that they got their happy ending.

I think most of all, I loved the character development in this story.  Because it’s not your typical character development.  Part of what’s so interesting is it’s almost working backwards.  We knew how the story, and specifically, the characters ended.  We knew who they were supposed to be.  So the whole first act is almost an undoing of their characters.  Who these people really were versus what we knew.  But then the second act is understanding how they go from those characters to the ones we knew they were.  And the whole time they’re really neither who we thought or who we were introduced to but a wonderful blend of the two.

The talent was out of this world.  Their voices and music were perfection.  At times, it filled the auditorium (and my heart) to the brim where I thought it might explode.

I can’t do a review and not talk about the set and even the logistics of the play.  I loved the sets and how (seemingly) simple they transitioned from one to another.  There was never an awkward pause or a mistake or a stagehand you had to block out in order to continue enjoying it.   Even the mechanics of the show were outstanding.

And lastly, I have to confess that I had NO CLUE that the original Elphaba and Glinda were Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth who have guest starred on Glee.   I have to admit that I did not appreciate their appearances nearly as much as I should have and I’m going to have to go back and rewatch their performances.  I only wish I could have seen the original cast perform Wicked.

I’m sure I haven’t even begun to properly review Wicked but it’s a start.  Bottom line is this is by far my favorite Broadway show and it’s a must see.

I’m not having a good day but this weekend there was a lot of happy.  So I’ll just share that.  Big congrats to my cousin Kristen and her new HUSBAND Stephen!  And huge thank you to our hosts for having such awesome toys and sharing them well.

See the whole set here

I keep floundering on my Memorial Day weekend recap so I’ll do what I do best: make a list.  Here are my Top 10 Moments from the weekend:

1. We swam!  The pool finally got warm enough (and clear clean enough) to swim.
2. We went to a dance recital Saturday night.  We are friends with a family and their two kids were both dancing.  One is a very talented young lady that was in youth group with us at our last church.  The other is just two years older than Emma and I believe both my girls have a crush on him.  Needless to say we always have a great time with them and it was a pleasure watching them dance!  Even though it was 3 hours.  Whew!  Thank goodness for dance moms that know to pack Teddy Grahams!
3. Went to church and listened to guest speaker Will Browning.  If you’re near Ladsen, SC near Charleston, SC please check out his church.  Fantastic speaker.
4. Attended a graduation ceremony for another young lady that was in our youth group.  It was so cute decorated in zebra and teal.  She even had candy and koozies as party gifts.  I can’t believe all our “kids” are graduating!
5. Made another prune cake.  Why haven’t you made it yet?
6. Watched Meet the Morgans with Heather.  Cute movie.  Glad I waited until DVD though.
7. Made lunch for Scott’s family Memorial Day.  I can not WAIT to tell you about the corn salad.
8. Ate dinner at Mom’s.  My burger had no less than 4 sauces on it and it was delish.
9. The plan had been to swim but like many, it was nixed with all the rain.  However, it cleared up enough and was a beautiful evening. Dad got a new Jeep and was cleaning it up and then we vacuumed our car and then Mom had some magic cleaner and you know, once you clean one spot, you clean more.  And then all the sudden we were full on detailing the car.  And then Heather couldn’t be left out so we did her whole car.  It was fun to get something done and do it together.  Even the girls were helping!
10. Rested.  In between all this it was a very calm and quiet weekend and just what we needed!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Check out more Top Ten Lists over at OhAmanda.com