( : Neat Things : )

Just a few things to share right now. I just got back from another glorious girls night. This time I went with my friend Becki. We set out for a manicure and pedicure (gift certificate from my sister from my recent birthday). That was nice to get pampered and be able to chat without anyone throwing a tantrum or hanging on me or having to get a few words in between laps chasing a toddler or asking, "Do you want grapes?" or "Did you go poo poo?" or "Did you hurt yourself?" ETC.!!! Then we headed to Domo 77 Japanese Restaurant which is very similar to Benihana. They just built a brand new one by my house and it's HUGE!!! It was fabulous and delicious and just fun and mesmerizing to watch them cut up all that food into little bits and fling it around in the air. Then back home again to thank wonderful grandpa for watching Little Buddy a second time this week. He usually watches him once a week for our date night but we switched it up this week. He had already had him for 6 hours on Monday night while I was in the ER for severe lower abdominal pain. This has become a regular thing for the last several months and is progressively getting worse. This time I could barely pick up Little Buddy or walk up stairs alone. Two days later I got hurrendous stomach flu (unrelated to pain but ucky to be so sick nonetheless), just in time for hubby's 3 days off. Guess what he got to do on his time off? Poor guy. I am so lucky that it DID happen that way though, I got to sleep and suffer in peace . . . . . . for the most part anyway. Thanks honey!

On to good thing number 2. I went for my follow up appointment with my gyne on Friday and was finally given a referral to a specialist. AMEN!!! I so want to know what the heck is going on with my pain PLUS, I just turned 36 and have a bicornuate uterus so cannot waste a single moment in TTC another baby. Which could take years if in fact Little Buddy was a miracle. So happy to go and get it all figured out. For the last few years they just kept saying to keep trying and well, I'm not getting any younger and don't want to miss what last chance I may have to have another baby.

On to good thing number 3. We got a piano!!! My MIL & FIL were getting rid of theirs and getting a pipe organ and asked me if we wanted their piano. I played some piano and then my mother has taught piano since I was in the single digits and I was so very fortunate to grow up in a house hearing piano playing nearly every day often for hours at a time. This way she can play for Little Buddy when she comes over or any one else can tickle the ivories too if they so wish. I always wanted to get one if the price was right and it wasn't too big. This one fits the bill perfectly. It needs to be tuned, a key needs repair and it needs new wheels too but all minor costs in comparison to buying a used piano.

Good thing number 4. I don't have a new picture cause we still need to order paper sopping bags and color coordinated tissue, BUT I have created a store label to be adhered onto paper shopping bags for the boutique that I had mentioned about a week or so ago. I also made a screensaver for her computer(s). Tomorrow, I will be heading south to the store and dropping off over 700 business cards and labels too. I will post pictures once I have the labels on the bags and then stuffed with color coordinated tissue paper. These will be for bigger spenders and gift wrapped requests. We do not think it would be cost effective to give them out to every single person that just buys a toe ring or scarf. The boutique also carries Ed Hardy and Affliction among many other popular name brands. She has been doing well. We are all very happy for her.

Have any neat things big or small to comment about today? I'd love to hear about it!

I Heart UPS!!!

I wanted to share my recent very positive experience with UPS. I wanted to send a package to my dear friend Electronic Goose. Upon finally getting it all together, wrapped up, addressed and ready to go I headed out a few Monday's ago to run my errands. I was thrilled to finally get my Christmas, er uh New Year's, er uh "Gift for the New Year," sent out to my pal out near Boston. Ugh, it was Martin Luther King Day! The places I needed to go the most were closed; bank, post office. So I then ran over to the grocery store to pick up a few small items. It then struck me that there is a UPS store right next to the grocery store. As I pulled up it looked open (yippee!!!), so I decided to take in my package and just ask what it would cost to send it. I figured it would cost more than the post office. I handed my package over to the manager? Then she was able to tell me that it should be cheaper than the cheapest postage through the postal service. She told me it would be $12 and the cheapest through the postal service would be $18. Oh, and they would get it there 1-2 days quicker than the post office.

I was elated. I instantly said I'd take it. I was so shocked and pleased. They also have less waiting/crowds in the UPS store. All these years I thought that UPS was way more expensive. The manager was also able to give me the going rates for the postal service for my package for each type of delivery; parcel post, priority, etc. What a rip off the post office. What the heck is the problem? I cannot believe that postage is 42 cents and it is going to go up again soon. They also want to stop doing mail delivery one day a week? Give me a break. My dad just retired from the post office a few years ago. He was a computer engineer for the very sophisticated computerized conveyor systems at the distribution facilities. He said that it was such a joke. Half the time people were sleeping at work, out on fake disability, etc. He did work with a few nice people but they were few and far between. It's just amazing to me that in a federal job that you have to go through so much official training to get there is that much BS. It used to seem like the post office really had it together and was so honest and reliable. Maybe I was just a naive kid or too young to know at the time. Anyway, enough pissing and moaning. UPS is the way to go for superior package delivery.

Wisdom Wednesday

Dog For Sale

This is what is left of Little Buddy's teddy bear. He has suddenly gotten very attached to both of his teddy bears. He has a bigger one and then this one. I liked this one cause it was easier for him to carry or me to carry with Little Buddy. We got home the other night and this poor bear was laying on the rug by the couch. White stuffing was everywhere, the head was ripped off and flat from being "de-stuffed," and both eyes were chewed out of the head leaving some very eery holes in poor teddy's face where his eyes once were. This bear was a gift from Beth, my nurse/LC friend that helped me for two whole months with lactation to get breastfeeding going when Little Buddy was just born January 24th 2007. It was a very dark time in my life. He also had high bilirubin and had to have a light blanket at home. It was very scary and even the whites of his eyes were yellow. It was so sad. Then I got bad pumping advice from the LC at the pediatrician's office. My milk went way down. What a mess. Three of my goals in life (if I ever had kids) were to wait (which ended up being a stupid plan because I ended up having issues getting pregnant and carrying, another one of my brilliant ideas: planning children around my career, ugh!) then I wanted to stay home if/when I had kids and breastfeed. After taking awhile to conceive and then just barely being able to stay home because hubby got his dream job just as I conceived, phew, the breastfeeding ended up being the biggest and hardest thing. Oh, aside from having a baby as my husband graduated from the police academy and started at the pd. Ugh, what an awful, awful time. Yuck! Such stress. Then all hubby wanted to do was talk about himself. He was very detached and into his job. It was like, "Hellooooooo, we just started a family here, don't forget that we just had a baby!" After all, a job is just a job whether you are a cop, a garbage man, a doctor, etc. You will never get the days back when your children are babies. Life is much better now, but it has been a very bumpy few years here. To say that there was a LOT of adjusting to do is the understatement of our lives together. Think I now understand why many old ladies end up senile, with loads of gray hair, sags, bags, dimples, wrinkles, and talking to themselves. What a ride!

Oh, almost forgot, Grandma has agreed to try to fix Mr. Bear. I requested soft fabric eyes. Hopefully the kind of eyes that Tango does not feel inclined to chew out.

A Little Design On The Side

As some of you may know I was a graphic designer in my past life. Ha! Ha! That just came out of my screwy brain. Think you know what I mean though. Before I became a sahm (and even before I worked with Electronic Goose in a dreaded retail job), I was a graphic designer. I worked in publishing for 6 years. I worked at three publishing companies in those six years working my way up very fast from a part timer at a well known hunting and fishing publisher to a senior designer for a major publishing company in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. I originally dreamed of working at a really unique and fun graphic design place. As I finished school and being in the very competitive Chicago land job market I had to send out hundreds of resumes. It was disappointing to say in the least. I eventually ended up just taking out the yellow pages and cold calling any place that sounded remotely interesting. I could not afford to do a no pay internship, so I never got that experience to put on my resume. It was worlds harder to find a job.

So, I didn't get to do all the neat little cutsie design projects on a regular basis like most design majors dream of. I did however get to work on some pretty big and impressive ads, promotional pieces, magazine spreads, newspaper design, etc. I would do design projects on the side for family and friends from time to time which were/are usually very fun. I don't typically post any of the projects that I work on because they have pictures that I do not have permission to post on the blog that that family member knows nothing about. That's how I prefer it to be though which works out fine. I have been recently working on a logo, business card, letterhead, etc. for one of my friend's mothers. She will be opening a boutique which is not farm from where I live. She plans on having her logo (my original design) made into a neon sign, lighted sign for the building exterior, etc. It will go in the local papers as well. I have no idea why it feels so awesome NOW! I have had many designs I created on the internet, in people's invites, in magazines, newspapers, framed and hanging in people's homes, etc. Maybe it's because now I am able to put my heart into it. The money is not the object any more. I enjoy helping friends and family and making things special for them. It's not about handing it to a sales person and then having them get the kudos for my work. It's also no longer (usually) about designing something with lots of rules and constraints that ends up looking wonderful to a client but horrible to me. God, I hated that. Then my fellow designers would also think it was awful but it brought in the money for the account because the client was pleased with what we thought looked horrible. So embarrassing.

Anyway, this is the business card that I designed for the boutique. I cannot give out all the info about the boutique because I do not have permission. It will be a mix of ladies and men's items, and a mix of both clothes and accessories for many styles and sizes. She asked that I make a set of silver business cards for the guys and a set of pink business cards for the girls for her. Her store is opening before we would be able to get an order done from a printer so I printed them on my ink jet just to get her rolling and so that she'd have something to hand out for her grand opening which is tomorrow. She asked for 100-150 cards. I printed up 166 cards total and about half each of pink and silver. I then found this 4 tier card holder at Staples and thought it would make a nice effect to alternate color for each tier. I had no idea how it would transport to go to her grand opening tomorrow (with Little Buddy in tow), so I tied a thick pink ribbon around it to keep the cards in place and I think it's almost too pretty to use them now. Ha! Wish I could show you the rest of the logo, it's a vintage angel with horns and a halo (the name of the boutique is Heavenly Sinful). It had a devil's tail but she was freaked out by the tail so the angel is now "de-tailed." Hope she likes the cards and the holder!!!

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. ~ Wernher Von Braun

My New Best Friend

Meet the Roomba 560, my new best friend. I have fantasized about having one of these forever. Our dog sheds so bad that our floors are furry just a day (even hours) after a thorough vacuuming. I have told people that I wanted a Roomba for a long time. See Little Buddy is terrified of the vacuum cleaner and then when he takes a nap or goes to sleep it is too noisy, plus usually I am ready to drop or do laundry, cleaning, unwinding, etc. So the floors just get furrier and furrier and crumbier too. Dirty floors really depress me and I felt like there was little I could do to remedy the situation.

About 2 weeks ago as my 36th birthday was approaching (February 9th). Some family members were calling my hubby asking what I wanted for my birthday. My SMIL remembered that I had wanted a Roomba and asked if that would be a good idea, seeing as though most women do not want appliances for gifts unless they are requested. My husband told her it was an awesome idea and so 6 of my husbands family members went in on one for me. Imagine my delight and surprise when I opened a big box in the middle of a restaurant during my birthday brunch and the whole place saw the Roomba box.

I think that older Roomba's were not as good as the current newer and improved models. They got a bum rap for years but I still thought it was an ingenious idea. The night I got it I came home and instantly started to charge it. I had heard all kinds of stories about them getting caught up in stuff or the compartment being too small, so I made sure to pick up and move lots of things. I moved electric cords, tiny little toys, picked up chairs, shoved furniture apart so Roomba could clean between it, swept out the corners and any other dirty nooks that Roomba cannot fit in, I also removed storage bins from under the beds. Then I let Roomba do it's thing. WOW! It did the whole room and then shut off when it had gone over everything (I think twice). The dust piles I had swept out of corners or nooks were all gone, the area rugs, ceramic AND hardwood was all clean. The biggest reward to when I turned the Roomba over and opened up the dirt chamber. YOWZAH!!! Now, I don't know about you but I like to see dirt when I clean, like on the dust rag, vacuum chamber, dust pile, etc. I know, I'm weird but I think most of us are like that. I would also like to say that I am making sure to empty the dirt chamber after each room so it does not overload or break. This thing is a priceless gem to me.

I also really only let it do one room at a time. The first night I was sitting and relaxing and went on the internet and my floors were being cleaned . . . . . . . . . . AS I RELAXED!!!!! Ha! If cars, large screen tv's, motorcycles, etc. can get a guy all hot and bothered, then this is the woman's equivalent.

A few drawbacks to be completely thorough with this product review. It cannot clean corners. It has gotten stuck under the side of one dresser and the pipes near the furnace once. It just sounds a warning tone and turns itself off. I have no idea how it would handle an area rug fringe but I think you could possibly just tuck it under? It cannot vacuum my carpeted stairs. The only thing in our house that is carpeted. I will need to buy a dirt devil soon cause using the humongous vacuum to clean them is completely back breaking and not at all thorough. Oh, one last thing is that you should really not be in the room when it is going cause it is like being chased and then you need to jump out of it's way otherwise it turns the other way and maybe won't clean that spot as well. I tried to run it in my kitchen the first night while I was putting away dishes and cleaning in there. If you guys could have seen that, none of you would have made it through the whole episode without peeing your pants. Honestly.

I think every woman should have one of these.