A Pain in my Neck!

Stress does weird things to you as you get older. This week I have a new one (for me). It is quite literally a pain in my neck.

It was fine all day yesterday (you know, when I had the opportunity for a free massage). And it felt fine this morning.

Then I had to hang a shelf. I think I've mentioned before that I am shelf hanging impaired. I have a real problem with the whole "straight and level" thing.

I may have also mentioned that the very pretty shelf I had hanging over the desk upstairs fell (the cheap bracket broke right in half!) two weeks ago....about 2 second after Jordan walked under it. Half a step slower and the kid would have had a concussion. But he was having a lucky day and made it out alive....though terribly frightened.

This shelf had been home to everything I didn't want Celia to have: pens, pencils, markers, scissors, envelopes, the few paper bills we still get, paper cutter. All that fun stuff. Luckily, I had an extra shelf just sitting around, looking for a home.

I've been asking Chris to hang it for me, but he hasn't gotten around to it. This morning I took the phone bill and markers away from Celia for the millionth time and had had enough. I decided to try and hang the shelf myself.

Target made the whole "straight and level" thing really easy for me. This is a floating shelf. You screw a long internal bracket to the wall, then put the shelf on. So all I had to do was hold the bracket up, with a level on top, and screw the thing in.

Easy as pie.

But then I couldn't get the danged shelf to hook on. And you can't see back there to figure out WHY it wouldn't hook on. I may not have uttered any swear words, but I sure was thinking them!

About the 47th time that dang shelf slipped off the bracket and almost crashed into the computer monitor and printer, that pain in my neck decided to show up.

Dang it.

Anyway, I finally got the up, just in time for a friend to come over and play. I abandoned all housework and took the girls outside.

First, we had to check out the pink flowery bush thing .



Then we had to swing a little. First, like mature ladies.


Then Celia had to swing on her belly like a crazed monkey. Not that you can tell it from this picture.....but I like it anyway.


Then we had to get out some chalk and color on the playset. Now, last year I painted some plywood with chalkboard paint and hung it in there. The boys have decorated it with sweet sentiments like "Stay Out" and such. The girls are happy to just scribble all over the playset.


Finally it's time to come in and eat. She's getting tired. I just love those little wisps of hair on her face!

***NEWS FLASH***

CELIA POOPED IN THE POTTY.

ON HER OWN.

A REAL, HONEST TO GOODNESS POOP IN THE POTTY.

It's a great day.

Infatuation

Spring is in the air and love is floating around. We've all discovered new found love in some interesting places.



Celia has a serious ducky addiction. She's always loved her ducks, but at an Easter egg hunt this past weekend they hid some little ducks with eggs. She was perfectly content plucking brightly colored eggs in her basket, but once she saw those ducks it was all over. Her eyes got all big and she screamed "Duckies mama, duckies! All the duckies I could ever need! Duckies!" She abandoned all efforts at getting eggs and began scooping up ducks like there was no tomorrow. No other toddler even had a chance at getting a duck, she snatched them all up. In the effort of sharing, we did let everyone pick a duck from her baskets who didn't get one (we still brought home around 10-15 little Easter ducks).



Add those to our already fleet of ducks and you have a regular ducky army. The big ducks usually reside in the bathroom as we allow those in the tub...but the little ones roam the house at will. I don't let them in the tub because they don't drain well and get all nasty inside. The big ducks all have names like: Ivory, Magenta, Violet, Peachy (she's the favorite). You'll also see George in the back. George is an honorary duck. He's really a big blowfish that terrified her for the first two weeks of his existence (she dropped him and ran when she pulled him out of her stocking at her grandparents house and for two weeks demanded "Take him out the tub. He's scarin' my ducks"). She now loves him and treats him just like he's a duck.



Her second love is not necessarily a new love. She's always had a taste for chocolate. But since Easter she's discovered how great it is to sit with a small plastic egg of pastel M&Ms. This is Easter morning....yes, she's wearing several pairs of new panties over her pajamas. The bunny brought them and she was very eager to wear them.



Jordan is in love with his new iPod. If he had his way, he's listen to it all of the time. But mom won't let him take it to school, church, or during dinner. That does leave a lot extra listening time though!

My current new infatuation is CVS. I love that place. I bought some make-up last week, which totally does not work for me. I also accidentally threw away the receipt.

My favorite manager took it back, no problems at all. He was more than happy to do so. I would say that I've got a crush on him, but I honestly can't remember what the man looks like (I do remember he is normal looking, slightly attractive...I would remember a 3rd eye or snaggled teeth). What I do remember is any time I've had to deal with him he is so sweet, polite, accommodating, and basically gets me whatever I need. I don't really want to know him any more than that...because that's obviously a fallacy I'd like to keep intact.

So they took the make-up back, gave me some money. Which I re-invested in items that will give me more Extra Care Bucks. (I didn't actually pay for the make-up in the first place, I used some ECB from the last deal they had). Basically at the end of the month I will have 5 bottles of Listerine, 5 really cool looking Oral B Sonic toothbrushes, 5 Softsoap body washes, 5 tubes of Crest Natural Expessions toothpaste, some Aleve and Excedrin. None of it will cost me any money. (Most will get donated to charity or given away to friends, we have so much of this stuff already and things like toothpaste do expire. Let me know if you want some!). I'll also have a boatload of ECB to spend next month on whatever they are offering. Plus I always need to get a few extra things to get me up to the total ECB I have so I can shop around for other useless stuff (like Easter clearance). It's a total shopping high which costs me no money.

If you want to figure out how to get started on these ECB deals, e-mail me and I'll try to help. Better yet, visit the CVS forum at families.com. That's where I get all my information and the ladies there are amazing about finding deals and sharing them with the world!