Too Much Sugar for a Nickel. Indeed.

Wow! What happened to the month of November? How can it possibly already be the end of the month (and almost Christmas!)? 

Well, time does seem to go faster when you are busy...and we have certainly been busy this month.

We've had lots of projects going on around the house - from the unplanned (a plumbing leak in The Princess's bathroom, which flooded her bedroom carpet) to the planned (cleaning and organizing drawers and closets). We are hoping to try to sell the house again in the spring and the unplanned plumbing emergency forced us to move up some of our planned projects on the house - such as re-carpeting and painting The Princess's bedroom. And since her bedroom was already torn apart, she decided to repaint her furniture as well.

In the midst of all of our house projects, Mr. Wonderful and I made an unexpected 24 hour trip down to clean and pack up my mother-in-law's condo in South Florida which was just sold. 

We've also been busy harvesting lemons. Our lemon tree is practically falling over with the overabundance of lemons we've been graced with this year. I've been frantically searching on Pinterest for all lemon recipes - we've been eating lemon pasta, lemon chicken and salads with lemon vinaigrette. 

This is the point where I WOULD normally insert a photo or three of the aforementioned lemon tree literally dripping with lemons and of the elf labor (aka the kids) picking the lemons. I would also normally insert a photo of The Boy's first college acceptance letter and of The Princess painting her furniture and of our Thanksgiving feast.

But.

Stupid Blogger or stupid Google has done it again. Apparently, I have once again gone over my alloted photo space and I cannot use any more photos unless I pay. Which I was going to do, grudgingly. Except that I can no longer just pay a flat fee like I did before. Now Blogger/Google wants me to pay monthly. As in, my credit card will be charged every single month until the end of time for the dubious honor of being allowed to post my own photos on my own blog. 

Well, I've been planing for a while to switch the blog over to Wordpress - I set everything up a couple of months ago while I was sick in bed - I even came up with a new name for the blog. I wrote everything down in a notebook - my username and passwords and a new email address to correspond to the new blog.

And now? Guess what? I've lost my notebook with the new username and password. Somehow, in the midst of all my organizing (stop laughing!) and cleaning and whatnot, I've misplaced it.

And so now I'm incredibly annoyed and frustrated. The PMS isn't helping, either. So, for today, I am giving up. But not for long...tomorrow I'll be back searching for all of my information so I can make the switch and move on with "Too Much Sugar for a Nickel." (Possible new blog name? Or maybe I'll leave it Mommie Dearest. What do you think?) 

I'll keep y'all posted and let you know when I get things back on track. 

The Blog is Half-Empty. Or Half-Full.

It's been rather quiet around here lately. I've been busy trying to get caught up on stuff and trying to ignore the disgusting mess that my house is. I keep thinking that eventually someone else besides me will decide that the dustballs and pet hair tumbleweeds the size of Kansas are so awful that they will take care of them for me. Thus far, my devious plan is not working. I suspect that I will cave before anyone else in this house even notices.

The kids have been busy with school and dance and college application type stuff and have been hanging with their BFFs ad Mr. Wonderful has been working a lot...

The weather here has been fabulous. We had a bit of a cool down - the high temperatures have been in the mid-70's and it has been delightful. I've had the windows open and have been enjoying the sounds of all the birds (there have been tons of birds hanging around lately!), especially the eagles - who really seem to be enjoying the cool, breezy weather!

In other news, I am SO excited about a couple of movies coming out soon. I don't usually get excited about movies - we usually just wait for them to come out in video. But...

I am really excited to see The Hobbit. And if the trailer isn't quite enough to enthuse Tolkien fans, how about this safety briefing from Air New Zealand?

How cool is that?

But I am really, really, really super excited about a movie coming out Christmas Day. I'm not usually a fan of this type of thing, but because I am a humongous Les Miserables geek, having seen it umpteen times, this one caught my attention...

Seriously. I can't wait.

Can. Not. Wait.

And finally, today is a sad day for our family and our community. It is a day for remembering two very special people whom we were lucky enough to know and love. Three years ago today, Kevin and Katie Whitelaw became angels. 

Kevin and Katie, we love you and we miss you. 

The one about lockers, voting, Katniss and Peeta and General Hospital

Last week I mentioned that I had been sick but thought I was getting better. And then I got worse. The cough started up again and I was miserable. But today I can happily report that I really AM getting better. Actually, today is the best I've felt in almost a month! I don't know what kind of hideous bug I had but it really knocked me off my feet. 

In other news, I also mentioned that The Princess has been dancing every weekend in various workshops, etc. And last weekend she had her first dance concert of the year at her school. This (the past three weeks) is the first time in her life that I have ever not been there to watch her perform. I asked her to try to get some pictures for me. She did pretty well with this at the workshops...

But at the dance concert this past weekend, she sent me a photo of her inside a locker.

Honestly...that's not quite what I had in mind.

Then she sent me an interesting photo of her at dinner later that evening...

Again, not really what I had in mind.

I did like this one of her stretching at school though!

In other news, The Boy voted in his very first election.

I'm really proud of how he paid attention to the issues. He researched and watched the debates and educated himself, and he came to his own thoughtful conclusions about whom to vote for. 

This is his last week of Cross Country. they have one more meet this weekend and then he's done. He's looking forward to a bit more free time! I'm thinking he still has some college application essays to write...

Today, in case you were not aware (as I was not), was Mole Day. The Princess had to make a mole for Chemistry to celebrate this momentous event. She went to a friend's house this weekend and they worked on their moles...

Katniss Ever-Mole and Peeta Mole-Ark

The Princess's mole was Katniss Ever-Mole. These photos were taken while they were still works in progress. The completed moles had accessories too - Katniss had a bow and arrows made from pipe cleaners and more embellishments on her cloak of fire. Peeta had camouflage and a loaf of bread.

Cute, no?

Also, since I've been sick this month I started watching General Hospital again. I started watching this show a million years ago when I was in middle school. It came on around the time I got home from school and I watched it in high school and college (I remember watching Luke and Laura get married while sitting with my roommates in the dorm) and then periodically through the years until I had babies. I haven't seen it in years. (If any of you watch or watched this show - I started watching it around the time Laura killed David what's-his-face and started seeing Scotty - a LONG time ago!!)

Anyway, out of pure boredom, I began watching it again and was immediately sucked in. It seems that the show has been bringing back all sorts of characters from the past (from MY past) which is really fun. But...now I'm addicted again. This is not so good. Now that I am feeling better I just don't have time for an addiction like GH. But still. *sigh*

Excuses, excuses...

This has been my life for the past couple of weeks. Somehow, somewhere, I managed to pick up a nasty bug which basically kicked my butt.

In addition to Strep Throat, I had a nasty cough. The doctor gave me medicines which helped, but they also wiped me out and made me sleepy. I lost my voice, which is terribly frustrating (although I'm not sure that the kids minded me not being able to yell at them), and now, due to the constant hacking and coughing, I have pleurisy. 

But...I think I'm starting to get better. Even though I still don't have a voice. 

Anyway, what I'm trying to tell you here is that I'm not really sure what I've missed the past couple of weeks...due to the constant hacking and coughing and sleeping.

The Boy has been busy with college application essays and cross country meets and homework.

The Princess has been busy with dance workshops every weekend and has a dance concert at her school this weekend. 

Mr. Wonderful has been busy being wonderful and picking up the slack and driving carpool for his sick wife and picking up prescriptions and cough drops. He's been Mr. Mom.

I don't know how I would have gotten through the past couple of weeks without the help of Mr. Wonderful, and the driving abilities and helpful attitude of The Boy, and the fabulous family spirit at The Princess's dance studio which allowed me to continue sleeping off the meds while The Princess's dance family stepped in and took her to her workshops so that she didn't have to miss them.

Hopefully, this vicious nasty bug from Hell is on it's way and I'll be back to myself soon...but thank you to everyone who stepped in to help. You're awesome!

Let them eat cake

The Princess has a birthday coming up in a few days. It's a pretty big birthday - she'll be turning 16. How this is possible, I don't know. I can't believe my little cherub is so grown up! And I definitely can't believe that I am old enough to have an 18 year old and a 16 year old.

The Princess wanted to just have a few special friends over to celebrate. A lot of the girls at her school are going all out - having huge Sweet Sixteen parties with formal dress, etc. The Princess stated (with a horrified expression on her face) that that was just NOT her style. She opted for low key and casual.

Of course, her idea of low key and casual is shorts, a t-shirt, and a tiara. And she kept referring to her guests as her peasants. She kept trying to upgrade herself to Queen status, but I quickly put a stop to that by informing her that there was only one queen around here and that was ME!

The Boy and his BFF, Miss B, helped chaperone - which primarily consisted of constantly reminding the high and mighty not quite sixteen year old Princess to stop referring to her lovely guests as peasants. Apparently, the other main part of hanging out and helping chaperone consisted of helping to eat the food.

The Princess's BFF, The Court-i-nator, made her a birthday poster and a CD/slideshow of photos of them growing up as best friends since the age of three. It was truly one of the sweetest and most thoughtful gifts I've ever seen, and it brought tears to my eyes.

We have a tradition at The Princess's birthday parties, that the girls decorate the cake. We've done this ever since she had her first sleepover party in the 2nd grade. It's not very...stylish, but the girls have a ton of fun squeezing glitter frosting everywhere and dumping peanut butter chips and M&M's and dollops of nutella everywhere. 

They tend to sample the decorations as they work. And by the time they've had their first slice of cake (but certainly not the ONLY slice of cake of the evening), they're buzzing. And giggling. And basically bouncing off the walls.

As one might guess from the amount of sugar on that cake!

In order to preserve the windows and glass in the house, and my sanity, we went for a jaunt around the lake to allow the sugar high to wear off a bit.

After the boat ride, the kids all decided that The Princess should be pushed into the pool sixteen times - one push for each year of her life. The guests/peasants all seemed to enjoy this part of the party.

(Dear Precious Princess, That's the problem with acting all high and mighty and referring to your friends as your peasants. Peasants tend to revolt. Life lesson, sweetie!)

After the boat ride and dictator Princess dunking, the kids ate pizza and popcorn and more cake. They watched a movie and giggled a lot. They went to the Princess's bedroom where they giggled some more. They finally went to sleep around 1-ish. I think. I'm not really sure because I finally fell asleep around 1-ish. So actually, I'm not sure what time they finally went to sleep!

It was a fun birthday celebration for The Princess.

Aka, my little baby girl.

Because no matter how old or imperious she gets, she'll always be my baby girl!