Mom vs. the Dot: Making it COUNT!

Are you familiar with the Hunger Games?  Whether you watched the movies or read the books, you may recall what it meant to be "A Career" when it was mentioned in this series of stories.  In the case of the storyline, it meant that certain people were chosen from a young age and trained exclusively to dominate and win in the Hunger Games, whatever the cost.  They were representatives of their community trained to do one thing - WIN!!  (at the cost of all others) When I think of being a Career Mom, the goals are not as easily defined.  I was not chosen when I was young to pursue this profession.  I was in my mid twenties when I first became a mom, and after the first few weeks, I thought: "Wow, this job stinks!"   There are no breaks.  There is no pay.  No pats on the back for a job well done.  Just sleepless nights, zombie days, and more and more work piling up with no end in sight.  I wondered, "Who in their right mind woul...

For weeks, I have had gallons of energy. Buckets even.  This is not normal for me, and I love it!  Summertime with its' warm weather and outdoor activities somehow turns off the lupus machine. But today, the switch toggled over to "on" and wouldn't you know it?  My tank was on "E" for hours. So naturally, it's grocery day.  Whee!! Basically, I feel like I have to flu.  Not sickness-wise, but fatigue-wise.  Kind of like the first or third trimester of pregnancy, when all you want to do is sit on the couch and wait until normalcy returns. So the troops and I headed out to the grocery store to see what we could do about restocking our pantry.  Even if I was having a bad day, we still needed groceries. Yup, it was one of those suck-it-up-and-go kinda days.  Thankfully, my oldest daughter, Aryn, loves to take on new responsibilities.  I handed her a quarter and she went and picked out the cart (or "buggy") and met us at the door....

We have endured our ugly wallpaper  almost 3 years now, and this week, we took action. Down with the vine-y wallpaper!! I normally love plants, but this stuff made me feel like vines were going to creep off the wall and grab me, like Kudzu.  Or that one vine from Harry Potter - Devil's Snare.  It grows rapidly and tries to suffocate you, unless you remember that it doesn't like light and blast it to smithereens with your magic wand. In preparation for wallpaper removal, I carefully took down our wall decorations, including our child's hand-drawn pictures that had been scotch-taped to the walls.  When we returned in the morning, we discovered I had missed one.  Yes, the flower drawn with Crayola markers on computer paper actually blended in with the jungle flowers.  We couldn't see an 8 1/2 x 11" piece of paper on the wall.  That's how busy this stuff was. Adios, crazy wallpaper!!   Well, anywho, my wonderful in-laws helped u...

Almost 2 years ago, we braved a winter blizzard to trek to the local pet store.  Our six-year-old daughter had been saving up her dollars and finally had enough to buy a hamster.  She wanted a pet so badly, and we thought a hamster would be a pretty safe first pet.  Low maintenance, doesn't eat much, just sits in a cage...so we said yes! How much trouble could a hamster be?  Besides, it was soooo cute! So, after following the pet store guy's advise, our daughter picked an adorable butterscotch-colored, long-haired hamster.  His little pink nose sniffled all the air holes on the way home, much to our daughters' delight. My husband carefully assembled the colorful plastic cage with all the cool trimmings with the "help" of our children (ages 6, 4, and 2 at the time).  They were even excited about putting the bedding in the cage and filling the cute little bowl with seeds.  The little water bottle was filled to the brim with fresh water. ...