A recipe for happiness (the Heather way...)

and no, it's not sappy - this is me, not Maya Angelou!

#1 Creativity - here are some new layouts...  oh, my boys... Nick and Parker playing in Nick's new big boy bed

The inevitable bike riding lesson by the ever patient Daddy...(god I'm lucky he still loves me!)

then my most favorite pictures of Morgan right now, both the smiling and the serious

#2 Fantastically supportive family and friends
         the ones that live far away, but would still drop everything in a minute and drive to help, the friends that help you laugh, the ones that let you cry, the ones that send cheery flowers (even with purple bows), a mom that suggests a lobotomy might be helpful, the family and friends who offer to sit in waiting rooms and then get stuck with a full to-do list that I have prepared, the ones who give me space to filter through a range of emotions... and the best part...each one makes me laugh!

#3 My Ironman husband who knows after a rather scary and potentially uncomfortable test, the best medicine is a box of deliciousness from Ambrosia! 

You may have guessed by now that I'm having some intense medical testing right now.  I won't get too specific here, because although I am an open book, I would rather wait and be able to scream from the rooftops that I have been declared completely healthy (except for that nagging anxiety problem - hehe!)

From the way I look at it, if I even tried to donate this body to science, I'm too much of a nut for ANYONE to take it.  So the docs just better keep me alive and kickin' - I haven't even had a chance to REALLY embarrass the girls yet!!!!!!

once upon a time there was an OCD mother

who was introduced to the world of LEGOs...  A precious little friend in the neighborhood was having a birthday party and Ashley told me he LOVES LEGOs.  I'm like easy peasy - LEGOs it is....

Welcome to the LEGO aisle....

 

plus about 50 more "licensed sets" and each "licensed theme" has about 50 boxed sets.  So there are 50ish scenes to build for CARS, STAR WARS, etc.  I'm sure if you have a boy you are laughing your booty off!

I call Ashley in sheer panic mode.  Ashley fully understands the LEGO world and tells me what to buy...

So when I get home, I ask Shane, "When you were little did LEGOs come in sets?"  Knowing me, he didn't laugh hysterically, but just responded, "yes".  Then to make it worse, I go on to ask,

"so when you got a new "set", when you opened it did you pour those pieces into a Ziplock bag and cutout the picture to place in the bag too?"  Again, since he knows me so well, he says kindly, "No, you just dump them all into one big bucket."   Oh LORD!!!  OCD Mom CANNOT handle this.  And I have a zillion questions...

How do you build the helicopter again?
Why would you want to mix Toy Story pieces with Star Wars pieces?
Did you separate them by color, or shape?

Shane's answer: It's about imagination.  You just dump over the bucket and build anything you want. No way...not happening in my house...


As a consolation, he says, "there are crazy LEGO people who have LEGO rooms and they keep their LEGO sets in bags"  So he just called me a "crazy LEGO person".... 
 
So I'm still completely baffled by this "mixing of the sets" while I'm getting dressed for the party.  And then Shane hits me with the zinger...

"Do you ever take apart a scrapbooking kit and use it in other ways than it was intended?"  I stumble and say, "No, I mean maybe, (defeated)...Ok,  yes...."   And cheerfully says, "See, it's the same thing"...

He may think he won this one, but I could NEVER handle the mixing of the LEGOs!!!!!  For the record...scrapbooking and LEGO mixing is NOT the same thing!!!!!!

the waiting game...

so I'm waiting for a phone call...you know a watched pot never boils...but the nurse DID call this morning and I missed it by one second, so I called back like she asked and now I'm permanently fixed to this chair until she calls back...I may become one with this chair before she calls back...

but maybe I shouldn't be waiting, because I really need to hear from the doctor... I'm waiting on him to read some test results from Wednesday (yes, it's TUESDAY)...that's A LOT of anxious waiting time...and I'm the queen of anxious...so maybe the nurse is just calling me to tell me that yet again the doctor has gone on vacation and hasn't read my tests...hmmmm....if I was relaxed, I would go to my scrapbook room and wait the day away while enjoying some creative time...but I'm not enjoying much of anything right now since I'm WAITING.....

anyway...I did relax (mostly) this weekend at a crop in NOLA on Saturday.  It was held by a lady named Lisa and she holds them monthly in a Senior Center on Jefferson Hwy.  He-Lo-O(care of Aniya)....I want to be a Senior!  Bingo, Card Game Room, Craft Room, Humongous Flat Screen TV, a sign that read "no dancing powder on the floor" - which leads me to believe there is some serious "gettin' down happenin'" in the activity room, and tons of other stuff.  Man, I could spend a week there - just playing BINGO!!!

But anyway, I only spent a day, and we didn't play BINGO, we scrapbooked.  Well, Lisa is the hostess with the mostess (and I'm sure her friends Connie and Charlene, plus others help a bunch).  For $35, we got a ton of crop space, a dee-licious meatball and spaghetti lunch, hot roast beef po-boys for dinner, a door prize and EVERYONE, let me repeat, everyone got this....

Hello Adorable Halloween table decoration for my house!!!!!  Worth the $35?  Hell yeah!  When they came around to give these out, I started really checking it out because I thought I was supposed to choose one image, oh, contrere' mon frere'....we EACH got an entire cauldron!!!!  Then, when I used the frog on a layout, Lisa replaced it, oh yes she did! Each of the cutouts were stickled, chalked and googly eyed!

So the layouts from the crop aren't finished, I have this tendency to get them home and raid more of my stash and "spruce" them up a bit...But I have been scrapbooking at Scrapbooks and More in Denham Springs once a month, and I have some layouts from my last trip there....

FYI - I'm still waiting... But I think I have to get dressed now...The office is calling my name...

My little nerds...

I guess I can hope that they are really smart and both become plastic surgeons and I never look a day over 50...I'm not holding my breath, but I do whisper into Morgan's ear while she's sleeping "plastic surgeon" - I don't want to seem too pushy...

Warning...this is a total stream of consciousness post...there will be no linking sentences...there will not be a story with a plot or my favorite....denouement...have you actually said denouement since high school?...I haven't, but for some reason I think it in my head a lot...did I take my meds today??

I've been redecorating my house...for the last year...I don't like to rush things...And by redecorating, I don't mean "out with the old, in the with the new"...I mean move the old from one room to another room and add "new" things found at junk sales, flea markets, dusty warehouses, dark seedy alleys...you know... the good stuff!

A few months ago, I posted this picture of this little area in my "keeping room" (btw - what is a keeping room?  in my house it KEEPS crap, a kitchen table, it should keep barstools if I ever find some, and it keeps my new favorite place)

My "old" favorite place....

and here's my "new" favorite place...in the same "keeping room":

You should take comfort in knowing that if I took a picture of ANY OTHER area of my house...it would look like a train wreck.  I'd like to invite friends over only to my two favorite places...it wouldn't really work because they would have to keep their eyes open so that they could navigate the crap on the floor leading to my two favorite places...Maybe I'll just buy a condo at Perkins Rowe and fill it with ONLY my favorite places from my house and then pretend that I live there...I would have to win the lottery...I don't buy tickets so there is a zero likelihood of that...

PS - Susie Harris painted the French Market sign about the teak mirror - she is My Home Decor Diva of Louisiana!

I got some scrapbooking in this weekend...pictures from our Orange Beach vacation...

I wasn't at all expecting this to be a two page layout, so when I got to the second page...I hit a butterfly crisis...but I just took what I learned from Nicole Petersen about glimmer misting and glittering a plain butterfly and voila...i was set - thanks Nicole!

One last thing...I love these two pictures I took yesterday...I'm taking a BIG chance posting them without getting an OK from Jen and Ash, but I'm feeling crazy like that today...

Jen and Mia...

and Ashley and Parker...

I hope you have a great week...My goal is survival...Friday is the last tax deadline of the year...

Work Mom Lucy...

We have a "Work Mom" and she's way more vocal with her opinions than our Real Mom...which sometimes is disturbing...but then again she knows EVERYTHING about me and Ashley because we spend more time with Lucy than our real mom....So we were looking at pictures that I had taken of the girls and Lucy said something that I will never forget...It almost brought a tear to my eye but I had already taken my "be calm and don't cry meds" so I didn't...but if I had forgotten to take my meds (which Lucy asks me about on occasion) I would have been waterworks...

She said,

"If you ever wonder if you've done something good in this world just look at them"

Thank you Lucy for that piece of wisdom (feel free to hold back on some of the other "bits" of wisdom).  But I will keep this in mind when I want to bang my head against the desk on the fourth day of reviewing the SAME tax return...not that this is happening right now...

School Rules...

If we are friends on Facebook you may have seen my post last week about getting yelled at by a Kindergarten teacher and a Crossing Guard (I think it was last week, but I've compartmentalized the episode as much as possible).  This picture from the Anne Taintor blog reminded me of that pleasant event...

There were so many funny responses on FB that I decided to share the event with you - my one reader...

So the girls "missed" the bus...I choose to believe they really thought they missed the bus when they heard the garbage truck...this train of thought is easier than believing they are filled with evil and together they plan little ways to make my life miserable...

Fine...so we head out to the carpool line...Avery becomes hysterical because she has never been dropped off on the carpool line and doesn't know how to get to her classroom...legitimate worry...naturally I ask her big sister to please show Avery to her classroom and naturally Morgan being the "gem" she can be freaks out because "it would make her late to her classroom and then she would get in trouble with Ms. Daigle and she wouldn't have time to put her backpack away and then she would get sent to the office..."...how soon can we get her started on my meds???

So I park the car and I get out with M&A at the carpool line.  I explain the situation to one of the carpool teachers and she completely understands and tells me to walk Avery to class.  On my way to Avery's class, I smile at the Asst. Principal, the School Secretary (Major RULE enforcer) and plenty of other teachers.  No one stops me... no one frisks me or calls security...

I walk Avery to her classroom and the children wait in the hall until the bell rings.  As I walk down the hall to leave the building I am summoned by a Kindergarten teacher.  In a very mean "you are a Kindergartner and you have broken the rules" voice she says that I am not allowed to be in this hall, I could get every teacher in trouble and I should know the rules.  I politely with a warm smile explain the whole bus vs. carpool line thing and tell her that it was at one of the carpool teacher's suggestions that I walk Avery to class.  Then she insists on knowing the carpool teacher's name...WTH????  I have no freakin clue!...She says she will talk to all of the carpool teachers and make sure that this doesn't happen again...do i look like some habitual rule breaker?  I was an A in conduct kind of girl.  I READ the student handbook!  Through that whole mess Avery sees me at the end of the hotel being reprimanded and comes running down the hall hysterically crying.  I'm allowed by mean K teacher to give her only a hug before mean K teacher escorts her back to class.

I leave the building practically in tears myself because I hate that Avery is upset and I'm more than a little pissed at the K teacher...So I get back to my car and drive out to the street where the crossing guard directs traffic.  I stop at the stop sign and wait for him to give me the "White Gloved Wave" to proceed.  I am totally distracted worrying about Avery and replaying the event in my head.  Still watching for "the hand", the crossing guard yells, "If you'd put your signal on, I'd know where you wanted to go"...and yes, at that point, I did lose it...tears streaming...makeup destroyed...and the beginning to a beautiful day...

Which circles back to the the above Anne Taintor caption :)

Coffee on the porch, pumpkins...

and I unpacked my "winter" clothes... you know what that means...It'll be 92 degrees tomorrow :)

Seriously, it's FALL...I love Fall!  My dream would be to live in an area with changing leaves, hills, brownstones, piles of leaves and beautiful colors at every turn...alas...I live in the tropical area called Louisiana...

One of my favorite movies is Mary Poppins and thanks to my mom, my girls love it too, so I couldn't help posting this from Mila's Daydreams...

Have a supercalafragiligistic week!  Oh...and who doesn't love a spoon full of sugar??