Farm Animal Sounds

Posted for Michael's viewing pleasure, and for my brother to get more views on his silly YouTube video. He can certainly find ways to make a little money in some of the most odd ways. But, all the little things add up.

By the way, I just redeemed my 11th gift card from Amazon via Swagbucks.com. I could've had 13-14 by now, but I took a chance, and entered into a bunch of sweepstakes. Swagbucks gives you points for doing what you do already on the Internet. I find I gain the most points by using their search engine, (although I keep Google handy). Sign up here to start bringing in some gift cards yourself!

Dreams do come true...

When I lived in Russia, many of us girls conjured up lists of our life goals. *Others may call these bucket lists. Mine consisted of 33 things, some of which include: "Have a large funeral" (Which I talked about here, actually), "Go a week without chocolate" (Make that an entire month! Booyah!) & also, "stop biting my nails" which by now, don't think will ever happen.

The irony of that however, is there are many goals on my list that I never thought would be entirely possible in my lifetime anyway--for example, #2 Visit Space. For sometime, I was very interested in space & astronomy. I still find it fascinating, but don't research it to the same extent as I once did. I knew being an astronaut really wouldn't be in my league though, because of my poor eyesight, and lack of smarts & training. I read about people who had been training to be astronauts for over 10 years, but had yet to go in a spaceship. Ca-razy!

In Russia, I must've talked about going to space all the time, because Anna even tore a picture of an astronaut from a coloring book, colored it for me, and autographed it with, "Good luck in all your future endeavors!" I still have the picture in my journal right behind my "life goals" list.

Why is this topic on my mind? Well, today, on the radio, I heard the most fantastic news. Starting at just $200,000, regular people like you and me can travel to space!!! Nevermind, it's for a total of four minutes; it's space nonetheless. This news gave me hope that by the time I can afford it (maybe we'll delay buying a house for some time), travel like this will be much more popular, refined, and inexpensive. Oh, and did you note the date this shuttle was successfully launched? 10.10.2010. It has to be a sign.

Until then, I'm accepting donations.

Running with Scissors

I went on a shopping spree today. I'm leaving all the tags attached the clothes because I'm almost certain most all of it will be returned tomorrow. I can't stand the guilt that comes when I buy outside of my budget.

I like to buy my pants online at Alloy.com. It's a teen site, however, I feel comfortable buying pants from them because I have for years, and they come in 37 inch inseams! As I perused over their clearance section just barely, I could not help but laugh. And I'm sure you will too. Do you wonder why these pants are clearance?

Looks like they need to fire the guy who was running with scissors at the Alloy factory. I laugh at this style now, but just had a story come to mind. Because it was the cool thing to have little tears at the bottom of your pants in high school, I took some scissors to my pants, and created a small slit on either side that just rested against my shoes. After school, I was hanging out with some friends in the hallway, and my pant leg hooked to something, and just tore the entire way up the seam past my knee, completely destroying those pants, and creating quite the embarrassing moment in front of my friends. Seriously, what was I thinking?

And now, I'm going through a new dilemma. To skinny jean, or not? I remember throwing away skinny jeans and thinking "good riddance" because I thought flare pants were the most gorgeous thing.

In case you get bit by the shopping bug, whether clothes, or Christmas gifts remember there are ways to earn additional cash back on the purchases you make online. My personal favorite is shopathome.com. Instead of going directly to a store's website, I get there through shopathome.com and they give me back a percentage of my sale. It's easy, and it's free, and includes large retailers such as Target, Walmart, and Best Buy, as well as hundreds of other small stores. It's great!

You'll earn an automatic $5 after your first purchase within 60 days of signing up, and I'll get an additional $5 in my account if you sign up through the link on my blog! :)

Cupcakes!

October 5 is the perfect day to make cupcakes.

1. It's my brother, Willie's birthday. Happy birthday!

2. I found out my neighbors' grandson's 1st birthday is also October 5. Our neighbor has never met his grandson because they live too far away. But he happily shared photographs with us. We wanted him to be able to celebrate Dean's 1st birthday from a distance.

3. I received an email (from a radio station) that gave me some fun facts to read. It stated, "The most common birth date is October 5." <--Reason to celebrate!

I got the cupcake holder idea from Tysha's blog. The process of wrapping the box was more complicated than I had hoped, but in the end I fell in love with it, and definitely plan on delivering cupcakes in this style from now on. Isn't it cute?

Michael was so excited for the present--he thought it was his birthday!

I also bought a new mini-cupcake pan. I was very pleased with it, and hope to make some cute minis for an upcoming baby shower I'm hosting.

A story with some pictures

Sometimes I think that I'm addicted to blogging, but then I look at how neglected my blog is and feel better about myself. It's all in my mind, really. When I go through various events of my day, something may catch my attention and I'll immediately start conjuring up a post in my brain. Most of the time these posts never make it here.

The worst though, is when I'm in the middle of doing something "fun" or out-of-the-0rdinary, or even just the ordinary with Michael, and I think to myself, "I need to grab the camera! I want to remember this moment forever!" Do you ever have these moments?

I don't think my Mom had these moments like I do. She lived in the days of film! *Gasp* (I love you Mom!) Therefore, she couldn't (well she could), rather she would choose not to take 15 pictures of the same moment, because that's simply too much film. One or two pictures would suffice. When I look through my old scrapbooks, I realize most of my pictures are from big events; first day of school, birthdays, Christmas, vacations, and the occasional random picture. I love my scrapbooks, and the memories they awake.

I didn't need to have a picture of me playing make-believe to remember I played it. I didn't need a picture of me having snowball fights, or playing nightgames in the middle of the street to remember how much fun I had. I know my Mom now takes many more pictures with her updated digital cameras, or her phone camera *gasp*! -but hardly any get printed. Do your computer folders bulge with photos?

I know mine do. Well, used to. Before our computer crashed. *sigh* It's okay, I've started a new set of pictures. And with each one comes the potential of a blog post, so I can "remember this moment forever." So with no further waiting, I present:

Michael having fun in a toy that he hasn't seen for months!

Now, Michael, you can always remember you lived this moment.