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I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

The below video is my response to the question: “Do you allow the kids to cook?”

What about you? Do you allow your children to help you in the kitchen?

I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

The below video is my response to the question: “Do you have any potty-training tips?”

*shrug* I don’t know, I thought it was a good idea at the time.

I recorded this mainly just to document some of the things I did with my boys.

Maybe it will help you. Or maybe it will reinforce your opinion that I am indeed a big dunce. Either way, I’m putting myself out there.

I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

The below video is my response to the question: “How do you maintain your childrens’ friendships through different school phases?”

Do you remember losing touch with good friends throughout your school years? I remember having one best friend in middle school and then totally losing track of her in high school. Mainly because she started hanging out with, er, the “tough” kids and I didn’t want any part of it.

I had a few best friends throughout high school, mainly through the drama department, but the one friend I was the closest to I pushed away. And that was entirely my fault – I was jealous of her and the attention she got from the boys.

I regret that now.

I’ve seen friendships come and go with my boys. For the most part, we’ve been pretty comfortable with the boys’ friends, though there are a few that I cringe every time it’s suggested they get together, simply because I either A. don’t trust them, or B. I’m not exactly sure they are a positive influence on my boys. But I’ve never gotten to the point where I’ve vetoed the friendships simply because they seem to be fizzling out on their own.

Tell me, how successful have you been in maintaining your school friendships? How successful have your children been?

I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

The below video is my response to the questions: “Do you volunteer? If so, what sorts of volunteer activities do you participate in?”

I’d like to apologize for this video. I couldn’t BE any more of a dweeb. Geez louise.

Anyway, I meant to add that volunteering your time and talents is a great way to give back to the community at large, not just in the schools. Not only does it bless those you’re helping, but it truly blesses you, too.

And you never know, it could also lead to a paying job down the line.

If you would like to volunteer, but you don’t know where to start or what you could offer, I ran across a website the other day that might help. It’s called iParticipate and you can put in something you’re good at, like website design, for instance, and the database will pull up volunteer opportunities that pertain to the search item you submitted for your immediate area.

Cool, right?

So tell me readers, what sorts of volunteer activities are you involved with?

I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

The below video is my response to the question: “Do you social network or not?”

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I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

The below video is my response to the question: “Vaccinations – yes or no?”

Are your children vaccinated? If not, why not? What do you think about vaccinations in general?

I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

The below video is my response to the question: “How concerned are you about swine flu this school season?”

Other things that we do to stay healthy:

• I spray keyboards, doorknobs, phones and anything else I can think of with Lysol on a regular basis.
• I boil our toothbrushes once a week
• Drink lots of juice, water and take vitamin C (I mentioned that in the video, but it’s terribly important. Stay away from soda and caffeine, it breaks down your immune system).
• Dust regularly
• Vacuum regularly
• Get lots of rest (stick to a sleep schedule. The more rested you are, the more you’re able to fight off infection)
• Drink hot liquids and burn the back of your throat on a regular basis (I know this sounds weird, but it kills the bacteria lingering in dark places). After pouring my morning coffee, I always take a big gulp first thing. Roll your eyes if you wish, but I haven’t had a full-fledged cold in over a year. *knockknock*
• Use nose spray to clean out sinuses on a (semi) regular basis. We use 4-Way Menthol spray and not only does it help you breathe, it washes bacteria away. I SWEAR on this method. Since using nose spray (don’t use it too much, too much is not good for you, but when you get stuffy or you’re feeling sick), I haven’t had ONE sinus infection and I used to get about two a year. Also, this is probably obvious, but do not share nose bottles with your family! One bottle per member. Label them (I do). It’s more expensive that way, but honestly, I’m looking at it as an investment toward staying healthy.

I should add, we’ve never gotten a flu shot. And we don’t plan on getting the swine flu shot when it’s available. Again, it’s another strand of flu and we’ll do everything we can to protect ourselves, but I refuse to allow the threat to immobilize me.

These health scares re-surface from time-to-time (remember the West Nile virus and the Bird flu?) so I tend to just take all of the information with a grain of salt to begin with. Notice I said I don’t ignore it or don’t take it seriously, I just don’t freak out about it.

The media feeds on fear. So please, don’t allow the media to scare you into a hole. Talk to your families, practice good hygiene and stay healthy.

If you, or someone in your family gets sick, stay home. Don’t infect others. Drink lots of fluids, get lots of rest. Yadda,yadda,yadda.

Other than shutting yourself off in a sterile room, there’s really not much anyone can do so …. relax. Be smart.

So tell me, How concerned are you about swine flu this school season?

I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

The below video is my response to the question: “What blogging platform do you use?”

(Should have mentioned in video that there are NO technical issues with a wordpress.com blog. WordPress performs all upgrades automatically and I never have to worry about receiving an email from my web host again. In addition, my self-hosted blog was offline a lot — since moving to wordpress.com, my blog has a 99.9% uptime. (I think it’s been down once in the year and a half that I’ve been here. And that was only for about fifteen minutes!)

Your turn: What blogging platforms have you used? Which is your favorite and why?

Back-to-school is upon us. Not US specifically, the boys don’t actually start until August 25th, but tis the season to crack open those books and get back on a semi-normal sleep schedule.

I think I’m dreading the sleep schedule the most, if you want the truth.

For those that don’t know, Dude will be a junior this year and Jazz will be a freshman. I’m really looking forward to having both boys at the same school this year. And I’m REALLY looking forward to following Jazz around this Fall as he plays with the marching band.

I’m also hoping that all of his extra-curricular enthusiasm wears off on Dude and he actually gets involved in something this year.

I’m not holding my breath.

One nice thing about having high schoolers is that you don’t have to shop for back-to-school supplies. As long as the guys have a decent backpack (and that’s decent as in it’s strong enough to endure months of rough treatment and heavy books), a trapper to keep all of their subject folders, paper, pens, calculators, etc. in, then they’re good to go.

And we’re good to go on that stuff.

And since the guys are pretty much done with growth spurts (though Jazz had a pretty big one over the summer and I’m predicting he’s going to really shoot up there this year), the only thing I really needed to buy them were decent jeans and slightly bigger t-shirts.

Again, no biggie. But then again, I have teenage boys. I’m sure the whole wardrobe thing is an entirely different monster with teenage girls. I remember how CRUCIAL it was to have the latest and coolest thing back when I was in high school.

I can honestly say, I’m so thankful I didn’t have girls. (And not just because of the clothes issues, but for so many more reasons, as well. I should write about those reasons sometime).

When your kids reach the high school years, it’s all sort of anti-climatic. I watch young mothers frantically scouring the back-to-school aisles at the stores with envy. I honestly miss the days when the boys were actually looking forward to school. When they actually got excited about fresh pencils, crisp crayons, and funky notebooks.

Now, they could care less. In fact, it’ safe to say that they LOATHE school. Well, Dude loathes it, Jazz merely tolerates it and that’s only because he HAS to go to school in order to play in the band.

It’s a secondary priority.

But it wasn’t always this way. Kevin was going through old videos the other day and ran across this sweet gem. *SIGH* I can’t believe the boys were EVER this small. It seems like they’ve been the age they are now for like … forever.

I get tears in my eyes every time I watch this video. Every. Time. Their sweet little voices just MELT my heart and the innocent way they describe their days is just beyond endearing.

And their personalities are so obvious at this stage. Dude is all quiet and unobtrusive, cautious in his little boy way and Jazz is all in your face and demanding daddy to point the camera at him so he can make his point.

Yep. That’s about right.

After watching this, I feel like some explanations are in order.

I’m not in this video because this was back when I was working nights at Wal-Mart. Because believe you me, if I had KNOWN there were wild squirrels running around the ankles of my shoeless sons I would NOT have allowed them in the same room with them.

This is proof positive how DIFFERENT men are from women when it comes to parenting styles. Gah.

Also, I have no clue HOW those squirrels got into our enclosed back porch. To my knowledge, that is the first and LAST time that ever happened (unless Kevin is not telling me something — honey?) So, the fact that they are in the porch area to begin with is bizarre.

I guess I should be thankful that the screened door was closed, otherwise the squirrel who was trying to get into our house would have gotten in and lord knows what sort of surprise THAT would have been for me when I got home from work that night.

I also don’t understand how allowing a couple of wild squirrels to run around you can be so commonplace. Notice the conversation is not centering around the fact that we have wild squirrels running around but on how the first day of school went. What the heck?! It’s like Kevin, wild squirrels — deal with them FIRST and then ask the boys how their day went. LOL

(Silly man)

Looking back, I wish I had done so many things differently. I really wish I had chilled out on the whole school/homework/sleep issues. I was so uptight and so controlling, I honestly think they hate school today because of me. I was so hard on them.

*sigh*

Take a chill pill, people. Learn from my mistakes.

If you haven’t heard, I’m participating in the Say it Face to Face web conversation. In essence, someone asks a question and we respond to those questions via video.

And if you haven’t guessed, I’m having a BALL playing!! I hope you’ll consider hoping over there and playing along, too!

Here is my video response to the call for tips on how to help your child make the kindergarten transition.

Do you have tips on how to make the kindergarten transition easier?

Kevin’s band, Midnite Thunder, played at Cartoons this past Saturday. (Kevin is the guitar player on the right). Here is one of the videos I took that night:

The quality stinks, sorry about that. I was sitting near the back (there was a birthday party and they took up most of the front section) so I couldn’t get any closer.

Kevin was not happy with their performance, they couldn’t seem to get their endings in sync. But the man is never happy with his performance, so that’s nothing new.

I sat with my in-laws (thank goodness they came, otherwise, I’d have been totally alone and my LOSER status would have been confirmed for all to see). And I actually had an alcoholic beverage (okay, two) this go-around. I haven’t had a drink-drink in oh gosh, YEARS. I’m just not that big into alcohol.

And I hadn’t planned on having a drink that night, but I got there before my in-laws, and I was sitting by myself and feeling like a (bigger) loser, so I went ahead and ordered a Vodka Collins.

OMG! I had forgotten how YUMMY Vodka Collins were! They taste like a kicky lemonade, in case you’ve never had one.

(Don’t worry. I drank water after my second call for alcohol and was quite sober (ish) to drive home afterwards. I kid. I was fine, folks. Seriously).

So, there I am, drinking in front of my in-laws. I felt weird at first, and even more weird as my buzz came on and I had to put all of my energies into enunciating my words so I didn’t SOUND drunk in front of my in-laws, but it was all good and besides, this is who I am.

Take it or leave it.

The dancing girl — you know which one I’m talking about. I was told she was not drunk. Whatever. I’m not here to judge. I DO, however, admire her guts to get out there and have a good time and at the very least, she was entertaining to watch.

The band is playing again this Friday night, July 31st, at The New Key Largo. I think I’m going to take the actual video camera this time (as opposed to taping on my Canon PowerShot) and see if I can’t get some better footage.

And this is assuming I’m level-headed enough TO tape them because hell yeah I’m having another Vodka Collins.

Because I’m WILD like that. *snort*

(By the way, I Tweeted about this, in case you’re interested).

This video carnival, aptly named Vlogemotions (get it? Video + blog + emotions = Vlogemotions) focuses on one specific emotion per week and is brought to you by Fort Thompson.

If you’ve been following me on Twitter, this won’t come as any big shock. It’s consumed my entire week so it’s pretty much been all I could think about or deal with the past several days. Think of this as an explanation for all those cryptic tweets.

(Sorry this is so long. I had no idea it was six minutes!! But it felt good to talk it out and get my frustration out so … if you experience anything similar, please let me know! I’d be interested in hearing how you handle the times you’re incapacitated. Thanks for listening!).

Here is my emotional contribution for the week:

(Subscribers, you’ll have to click over to see the video. Sorry about that!)

This video carnival, aptly named Vlogemotions (get it? Video + blog + emotions = Vlogemotions) focuses on one specific emotion per week and is brought to you by Fort Thompson.

Here is my emotional contribution(s) for the week:

UPDATE TO CLARIFY: I feel it’s necessary to expound on something I said in the video because there will be a few people in my life that will question my meaning. I said something along the lines of “this is the first time the boys have really had to deal with death,” or some such nonsense, and that’s not entirely true.

What I meant to say is that this is the first time they have understood what death really is and mature enough to process grief. They’ve had family members die, but they were too young to really know what was going on.

This video carnival, aptly named Vlogemotions (get it? Video + blog + emotions = Vlogemotions) focuses on one specific emotion per week and is brought to you by Fort Thompson.

Here is my emotional contribution for the week:

Update: My pants are feeling loose and comfy once again and my husband commented on the fact that you can actually see some sort of definition in my arms now as opposed to the flab before so I think I’m making progress! W00t!

Seriously, the problem of looking decent for vacation pictures – you know, the pictures that will be going into the family album for all eternity – gives me nightmares.

I’ve been stung, and so disappointed, in year’s past. It’s time to be proactive, I think.

This video carnival, aptly named Vlogemotions (get it? Video + blog + emotions = Vlogemotions) focuses on one specific emotion per week and is brought to you by Fort Thompson.

Here is my emotional contribution for the week:

Update: Twelve and 1/2 days until school ends! W00t!

The orthodontist said … four more weeks!

This is like the FIFTH time they’ve pushed him back!! Take those damn braces off already!

Aargh!!!!!!

This video carnival, aptly named Vlogemotions (get it? Video + blog + emotions = Vlogemotions) focuses on one specific emotion per week and is brought to you by Fort Thompson.

Here is my emotional contribution for the week:

In case you would like to learn more about the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) project, you can find their website here.

I think I’ll vlog whether or not I cracked open my novel next week. If anything else, that should motivate me to DO something about it, right?? I suppose my emotion for next week could range anywhere from ecstatic to depressed. We’ll find out next week.

Thanks for visiting! I’m really enjoying “meeting” so many new faces!!

A video carnival?!

I’m SO on it!

This video carnival, aptly named Vlogemotions (get it? Video + blog + emotions = Vlogemotions) that focuses on one specific emotion per week is brought to you by Fort Thompson - a blog I recently discovered and have been glued to ever since.

Here is my emotional contribution for the week:

(Hey! I sound like an infomercial! Aaaand, I’m a fast talker. Can you keep up?)

And did I mention that if you participate you’ll be elgible to win a nifty video camera?!

No?

Oh, well never mind. Forget I said anything. Because if I HAD told you about that, it would have reduced my chances of winning and considering this blog is all about me and my self-indulgent nature (*snort*), I want to win this little puppy for myself.

Seriously, play. It’s so much fun to not only make a fool of yourself, but make a fool of yourself ON FILM.

By the way, in case you’re curious, I visited TJ Maxx and Marshalls for the first time - ever - today and I was pleasantly surprised by not just their selection but by their awesome prices. I will be shopping there again.

I also went to Sears (hello cute sporty stuff!) and bought my leather flip-flops, for half price at Shoe Carnival (because mom bought a pair of shoes for herself and they have a buy one, get one for half price thing going).

Man. If I could just hit pay dirt like I did today every time I was forced to go shopping, I COULD become a regular shopper.

Now there’s a scary thought. And I think I just heard the *THUD* of my husband passing out in the next room.