Follow Friday

So every Friday, my TweetDeck explodes with "follow @so & so" all dang day. Ali took it a step further & brought it on over to the bloggy world & I'm jumpin' on her bandwagon.

Here's a list of people you need to check out like, yesterday. Seriously, why aren't you reading them already? It's ok, go ahead & click. I'll wait here. You can thank me later. Oh & I'm gonna be lame & only give you tiny hints as to why you should check them out. I like it when people are surprised.

1. Nerdy Jess: cupcakes, puppy faces & all around hilarity.
2. Caitlin: snark & baby love {for my bebes, of course}
3. Ashlee: randimosity, cute bebes & no shame in telling on herself
4. Ali: honesty, total "up-frontness" & general awesomeness
5. Casey: she tells great stories about her past & talks about her boobs
6. Bee & Rose: I just discovered her & I am a smitten kitten.
7. Cake Wrecks: because everyone deserves a laugh a day.
8. Craft Fail: I'm sick, I know, but I enjoy seeing that other people suck as much as I do.
9. Elephant Juice: Her bebe is adorable & she takes amazing pictures. And she's an incredible designer, too!
10. Finding Fairy Tales: warning: if you're offended by foul language...she is the wrong person for you!

That's it for today. 10 is plenty. So get reading. And then entertain the rest of us with your own Follow Friday & make sure to link up over at Ali's. GO!

Iz haz computer again

I finally got a laptop cord.

Oh. And we got rid of the dog.

Thanks to all who left comments/tweets etc. about how I would grow to love her, she'd make such a good companion & whatnot. Except I was in no way growing close to loving her. She wanted my companionship about as much as I wanted hers. My house was nothing but an enclosed yard to her.

Chase's uncle was more than happy to take her. He has a large yard outside of town where she's free to roam, another dog that she's already buddied up with, & no kids to compete with. After Chase left with the dog on Saturday, I immediately got my Mr(s). Clean on & began de-dogging the house. Vacuumed & shampooed carpets? Check. Swept & mopped floors? Check. De-haired living room furniture? Check.

And then? He came on Tuesday to help Chase map out our sprinkler system & brought the dog with him. And as soon as she was let into the house? She peed all over the floor. Like she was saying "Yeah, beesh, I'm still in charge. Just because I don't live here doesn't mean I'm alla the sudden gonna start respecting your carpet."

My sister also came up on Tuesday. Since she lives almost 5hrs away & is doing the nerd thing & planning on spending her entire 20s in school, earning one degree after another, we don't see each other much. Today we ventured into the big city {oh hai...can you see me rolling my eyes from here?} & hit up Target. I may or may not have a small obsession with that store. I made it out of the store only $17 broker {which may be a personal record} & with a tooth-achingly adorable box of chocolates. Want to hear just how awesome the chocolates really were? GO HERE.

And uh, people? No one told me just how freaking awesome TWO is. Why TWO & not two? Because the misery that TWO has been already warrants it's name being scuh-reamed. Yeah. But TWO is also a lot of fun. And in 6ish short weeks, Carter is going to be one. I'm having a much harder time with his 1st birthday than I did with Claire's.

Oh & if I normally comment you? I'm still reading, I promise. But when I do get to read your blogs, it's usually in like, 30 second chunks at various points throughout the day. So by the time I get to finish your blog? My mind's all dumb & stuff & I've already forgotten what I wanted to say to you. Still don't believe me that I've been reading?

• Casey got her tata's shrunken & then her doctor insisted on dressing her.
• Keely jumped out of a plane, got a new bed & found her colon a new best friend.
• Jenni became friends with Poison Control, found out that Poison Control doesn't like it when you make jokes about becoming good friends, & then finally proved to us that her kids are actually separate individuals & not, in fact, twins.
• Caiti took her dog to get chopped, turned 21 & came to visit the Beasty household.

Sure, there's been a lot more going on. Ali, Brandi, Ashlee, & Heather {to name a few} always give me something good to read. And I "met" a lot of new blogger/twitter friends thanks to BHAH09-or as Casey called it "the bloghippityhop". If you stopped by & I haven't come over to your place yet, I'm sorry. There's something about chasing around the two Beastlets & trying to return my house to a dogless state, all the while doing the normal day to day stuff, that makes it hard for me to get everything done online that I want to.

So, eventually, some day, hopefully, ok, don't hold your breath {holy crazy comma usage}, I'll get back to get everything accomplished that I want to. And I'll get that new blog set up that I mentioned before. And if you choose to keep holding your breath? I'm not responsible for the outcome. Just sayin'.

BHAH-09

BHAH...doesn't that sound like some sort of interrupted laugh?

Seriously, though. If you're stopping by from PrincessJenn & Nic's awesome idea, BlogHerAtHome, welcome!

A little about me...I met the love of my life when we lived in the dorms, one floor apart. I followed him through a change in majors, a move across the state where I knew no one & had no job, got married & took on a redonk amount of student loan debt, intended to put off having kids til he graduated college, had a surprise pregnancy & miscarriage, decided to get pregnant with Claire, quit my job, moved again, had another surprise pregnancy {yes, I do know what birth control is & yes, I was taking it both times we were surprised}, he graduated, we moved again & then we welcomed Carter.

We live in Kansas, where Chase is a pharmacist with a big box store. It's one that everyone loves to hate. It's definitely not my favorite place to shop but seeing as how we live an hour away from the smallest "big city" in the state, my options are limited.

Claire {often referred to on here as Bear or Beastlet 1} just turned 2 & is sprinting towards 16 already. She {unfortunately} at times has the mouth of a sailor-totally my fault. She's independent, sassy, out-spoken...everything I've always wanted my daughter to be.

Carter {Roo, fat-man, baby-man, Beastlet 2...} will be one on September 11th. This kid is full of surprises. Everything about him, from getting pregnant to not knowing what each day with him will be like, is a surprise. He is the true definition of a momma's boy, has the gummiest grin you've ever seen, & could kick your babies' butt in a speed-crawling contest. And that's no small beans, considering he didn't' start crawling til he was 9 months old.

I'm a stay-at-home mom, husband keeper, life planner, schedule maker, grocery shopper, butt wiper, booger picker, chauffeur, cup maker, hot dog cutter, boo-boo kisser, hair comber & diaper changer extraordinaire. I'm 25, never graduated college, have always held mediocre jobs. I'm not incredibly talented at any one thing. I have lots of interests but can't seem to find the time in the day to pursue them all. I can't survive the day without a cup of coffee, I'm way too bitter that the closest Starbucks is 45 minutes away, I'm addicted to online shopping because it's too hard to wrangle my kids in a store, I like Twitter & FaceBook, probably a little too much & I hate to shave my legs.

{And apparently I'm incredibly gullible, as well. I just got back from being convinced to buy some kids books from one of those door to door salesmen. Not only did he leave my house with myChase's hard earned moolah, he also left with an apple, an orange, & a juice box because he told me he hadn't eaten all day. Gah.}

So there you have it. A brief overview, in 500 words or less. Stick around & you'll find out more about life in the Beasty household.

The start of something new...

Hello, bloggy loves...

I have really missed you the past 2 weeks.

Let's just say dummy dog is in the process of finding a new home. I am NOT a dog person, never have been, never will be. I can officially subtract 4 shoes from my meager shoe wardrobe. Notice I did not say 4 {pair} of shoes, because that would be too easy for the dog. Nay. She only destroyed one shoe from each pair. Methinks she's smarter than she lets on.

I have spent more time scrubbing pee & poop out of my carpet in the last 6 weeks of having a dog than I have in 26 months of being a parent.

The dog makes sure to go out of her way every.single.day to make sure & remind me that I am not her "person". I take her outside to do her biz & am lucky if she goes 1 out of 5 times. We come back inside, she immediately either pees on the carpet or waits until I put her out on the deck for her food & water, makes sure I'm not watching her, & then drops a big steaming load out there. The final straw was when I called her to go outside on Friday, she ran to the door to meet me & as soon as she stepped on the tile, looked at me & whizzed all over the place.

That dog? Knows how to push my buttons.

Long, long ago, I blogged about Bear dumping an entire box of Trix on my floor & what the vacuum looked like with a pound of fruity little balls inside of it. {heh...fruity little balls} I must have deleted the post because I can't find it. And I'm guessing the picture is on my laptop, because it's not on the trusty 'ol dinosaur. Anyways. The point being, Bear demonstrated her massive, super-baby guns {yes, she knows what her guns are & loves to kiss them}, dragged a 20lb bag of dog food into the living room & proceeded to spread it from one corner to the other.

Do you have any clue just how much food is in a 20lb bag? Do you have any clue how BAD it smells?

Let me enlighten you, my friends.

{A: food spread across the floor. B: In the vacuum. I'm guessing it was able to hold about 2lbs at a time.}



And just in case you didn't know...dog food in your vacuum makes your house smell disgusting. The end. And all that dog hair that got sucked up in the vacuum? Yes. Yes, I did just dump it all back into the bag. She licks herself all the time anyways, so a little extra fur won't hurt her too bad.

At least it wasn't the redonkulously expensive food that I have to drive FORTY MILES to buy for her. It's either drive 40 miles & pay $42 for a 25lb bag of food or continue to use my carpet shampooer multiple times a day to get diarrhea off of my carpet {you know, since she refuses to use the bathroom out in the yard & likes to hide in either the kids' room or playroom}.

OK, so anyways. Besides the beastlets growing up too fast, the dog chewing up my laptop cord, not being able to sit down at the desktop & blog lately, & finding the dog a new home, something else is about to change. In two phases.

{First} I am taking Momma Says & jumping ship. No more of Blogger's dirty little shenanigans for moi. I'm tired of wondering what happened to all of my wonderful bloggy loves, going off to search for them, only to find that hey, they posted 3 times this week but Blogger & her dirty little wench, Google Reader, have yet to update & let me know I've got more reading material. The actual move & new design is still in the works & it may not happen for a few weeks, but I'll let you know when it's all said & done.

{Second} I'm going to do a little spin-off from Momma Says. Sure, over here on Momma Says I enjoy writing about life in the Beasty household, about what Bear said or did, who pooped on the floor this week, what Crazy Neighbor did today. Lately I've really gotten in to trying out new recipes, making homemade breads, cloth diapering; we all know my love for my homemade laundry detergent & I've been nosing around, trying to find the most effective homemade household cleaner. So when I get the spin-off up & running, it will address these things. Reviews of what I've done around the house & what worked {or didn't} for the Beasty household. I'll be open to taking suggestions-what have you tried that you think I should? Is there something you want to try but you don't want to invest the time or money into it, not knowing if it's worth it? If it's reasonably priced & not ridiculously time consuming, and if you sweet talk me enough, you could quite possibly convince me to try the product out for you & tell you what I think.

So thanks, everyone, for being patient & forgiving the last few weeks while I've been MIA over here at Momma Says. The sooner dummy dog gets out of here & the sooner I can get a new laptop cord, the sooner I'll be back to your regularly scheduled sarcasm & embarrassment. And I hope you'll all stick with me through the transition to a new site & the creation of a new blog.

**********

OK, so it's been a whopping 10 minutes since I hit publish & I'm already back for an edit. And it's an exciting one!

My amazing bloggy buddy, Ali {who can be found over at My Life With Them} got ahold of me & said she wanted to help with the new blog. YES! Let me tell you something. Ali will NOT disappoint! She's become one of my best online buds & I seriously cannot wait to meet her IRL at BlogHer '10!

OH HAI Internets

Oh HAI Blog! I've missed you!

Where have I been, you ask? Why have I neglected you? you want to know?

'Ol Dummy Dog decided my laptop charger made a tasty post-breakfast snack.

I looked down to see the Roo-Monster holding a 2ft piece in his hands, waving it around like a lasso.

Sure, sure, I have the trusty 'ol desktop to get me through these hard times. But the kids? They disagree. I try to sit down in the warm, cushy chair to devote some attention to you but they want nothing to do with it.

I sit down, I type a few loving words to you, try to get you to forgive me for abandoning you. And then the leg pulling & hand slapping starts. Sticky little fingers try to sneak their way up here, to try & claim their stake on my time. They try to let you know, sweet little blog, that they are really the ones in charge, the ones who deserve every ounce of my attention.

So blog, can you please forgive me? One of these days, during naptime, I'll try my hardest to sneak in here & share my deep, dark secrets with you, a la "Dear Diary".

Love,
Cara

RTT: Who's listening to you?

If Keely were an alcohol, she'd be like fine wine because her RTT's just get better every week.
If Keely were cheese, she'd be an Extra Aged Gouda...only getting better as the years go on.
If Keely were a...ahh, frig, I dunno...don't you get the point already? She fracking rocks & so does her RTT. So head on over, read what she's spewing this week, do your own & link up!

Last night while laying in bed, I started thinking about being pregnant. I'm one of those weirdos who likes being pregnant. I started thinking that maybe I don't want to wait 4-5yrs until we have a 3rd. And then Claire reminded me all. day. long. why we're waiting until they are both in school. At one point she looked at me & gave me the toddler version of "blah blah blah." I. Came. Unglued.

Anyone else with one of each...does it seem like your boy is more sensitive? Roo should win an award for his dramatics.

The downside to attending the 4th in a small town? I had not one, not two, but SEVEN fireworks thrown at my car while I was driving. All by the same redneck fam chilling on their golf cart. In their front yard. In a town with no golf course.

While at the pool the other day, I had the following chain of thoughts: "When did little kids start getting so fat? I mean seriously. That 6yo weighs almost as much as I do!" "Whaaaaaat? When did teenagers start wearing such skimpy bikinis? I mean, sure, I wore one when I still had a body, but no way I'd go out in public like that." "Am I seriously thinking these things? Lord, I'm turning into my grandma."

Ever notice that waiting rooms, no matter what type of place they're in, never have clocks in them?

The funky lump on my finger? A Ganglion cyst. Yeah. It just sounds nasty, so I have no desire to ask Dr. Google what it looks like. And apparently it's so big that my doctor doesn't feel comfortable removing it himself, so I'm off to see a hand doc in a few weeks. Last week I said it had doubled in size since I found it? It's doubled in size again. If it keeps growing like this, I'm not going to be able to bend my finger any more.

So Cranky Neighbor (not to be confused with Crazy Neighbor) is a royal B & has done her best to make me feel unwelcome since we moved in. Today? I realized that she had her baby monitor on the same frequency as ours. And hers was constantly drowning mine out. I heard some pretty ugly stuff on there. And my heart got all big & puffy when I saw the look on her face after telling her she may want to change her frequency. Yes, Nagzilla, I heard the things you screamed at your kids today. And no, I won't be sending my kids to the school you teach at.

Now. You. Yes, you! Go random it up.

I still don't like her.

Pioneer Woman, that is.

Since Chase has decided he's in a food rut, I put on my big girl panties & headed over to her website to dig through her recipes. I figured since it was for Chase, I could ignore everything about her that annoys me & just go straight for the food.

{A small side note: My husband thinks he's in a food rut now? Perhaps he'd like to keep complaining about it & then I'll show him what a real "rut" is when he's forced to eat PB&J for days on end, while my apron hangs in the pantry, nice & clean.}


Now. Were where we? Oh yes. The recipes I stole from PW & slightly modified. Steak bites & crash-hot potatoes. Along with sauteed zucchini & homemade potato bread.


And Chase promptly apologized for ever using the word rut. My secret? Butter. And lots of it.

Now, if PW could just quit babbling & get to the fracking point, she'd be goodtolerable.


In other boringly domestic news, I've been dinking around with my laundry detergent "recipe". We have a farmer's market here every weekend & one of the vendors sells handmade soaps. On a whim I decided to pick up a few bars from her "reject" pile to try out in my upcoming batch of soap & let me tell you. Spending the extra money on the soap was worth it.

The detergent smells uhhhh-may-zing. The soap isn't overly scented but just enough so that I didn't put any essential oil in. Perhaps it's just my imagination (although we all know I'm pretending it isn't) but I think the kids' skin has cleared up even more.

I also found that I like my detergent with a little more Borax than the original recipe called for. I usually do about a 2:1 ratio rather than a 1:1. Since it's a booster & a whitener, I've been able completely cut out OxiClean. You can also make a little paste with it & apply directly to spots before washing, which has eliminated the need for any kind of spot treatment products.

I played around with the amount of detergent I used in each wash, too, after reading a recipe on another blogger's site. When I started out using my homemade detergent, I was using only 2Tbs (or 1/8C) per load, as recommended by the original recipe I'd found. Her variation called for 1/4C if you had hard water. I've found that if I toss in a really dirty load of clothes (or Chase's clothes after a softball game) & use 1/4C of soap, the clothes come out clean & fresh smelling & don't require an extra wash like they sometimes did in the past, with commercial detergent.

So there you have it. Things have been so exciting around here lately I've been reduced to posting pictures of what I eat & debating the merits of an 1/8C of laundry detergent vs. a 1/4C.

I'm sorry.

(also? WTH Blogger. I've tried to adjust my font size about 09283 times & you still won't save my changes. Wench.)