A hodgepodge, if you will

*** The chevron pillow covers giveaway is still active until Thursday, August 4***
I'm having so much fun reading about your favorite movies! Keep the comments a'comin! You can enter daily too, so pop over and tell me about another movie that you love, AND, if you haven't entered yet.... what are you waiting for?
Comments must be left on THIS post to be entered.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand GO!
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Happy Tuesday!

I have lots of randomness to share today, and since it's Tuesday, you know I'm gonna start with this:

**Design Star**

Did you watch?

What were your thoughts?

Did you love the winning room?

Are you as ready for Cathy to go home as I am?

Hmmmmm??

For the past 2 weeks, she's pulled the,

 "You do the demo and painting while I go do all the shopping, mmkay? Bye."

No wonder the other designers have problems working with her.

*****

 I took a little trip yesterday to a place I don't visit very often. In fact, I usually try to avoid this place at all costs, but since the hob lob was blown away and this place happens to carry scrapbook paper as well as toilet bowl cleaner, well...

I did what I had to do.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you know I'm a Target girl. It's nice, it's new, it's always clean, I can sip on some Starbucks while I shop and they have the best clothes. The best. Target also sells scrapbook paper, but I needed it in bulk in a 12 x 12 size and I happen to know that Walmart's price on plain-jane scrapbook paper is better than Target's.

I have nothing against Walmart, mind you, but the one in my town is always crazy crowded and I've never once been there and not had a weirdo talk to me and/or touch my babe.

**A piece of advice from a mother of 3**

If you see a cute babe or small child while you're out shopping, and you don't know this babe, it is perfectly okay to make silly faces and talk to that babe or small child in a silly voice and totally make a fool out of yourself. I do this all the time. It is not, however, okay to ever ever touch said babe or small child and invade their personal space. EVER. This will make the mother freak out and turn into the mother lioness that you've seen on Animal Planet mauling large animals when they've come too close to their young. I have become a lioness several times since becoming a mother and it's almost always happened when someone got too close to my babes at the Walmart. I can't help it. People should know better but they don't. If you're a complete and total stranger, I don't know your story- have you been sick? Did you recently touch something disgusting? Do you bathe on a regular basis? Do you do drugs?

This happened, yet again, while I was shopping at the Walmart yesterday. I stopped to look at the little girls clothes (of course) and a woman, who also happened to have a small child in her buggy, came up beside me and started talking. It's perfectly fine to talk. She told me how old her little girl was and after seeing my phone in my hand (which had my shopping list on it) she explained to me that she had a cell phone too, until the small child in her buggy had thrown it into the bathtub. I chuckled and commiserated with her for a second about kids and how crazy they can be sometimes. And then I started to move on. She was already giving me a weird vibe.

I walked to the other side of the kid's clothing department where I'd spotted a cute pair of pjs. She followed. Now she's asking what I've found, and, "Oh what a pretty dress that is on your little one!". She touches MM's dress. "Oh what a pretty flower that is in her hair!" She touches the flower in MM's hair. I was barely able to stop myself from clawing her or altogether pouncing, but, I restrained. Did I mention she was missing a few teeth? I have no problem with people who are missing teeth, mind you, but again...she produced a pronounced weirdo vibe and had a bit of the crazy eye going on. I thanked her and got the heck outta the kid's clothing department.

Now...

where was I?

Oh yes,

I took a trip to the Walmart to pick up scrapbook paper for school and toilet bowl cleaner and a few other random items, and came home with this-

Hippo-on-a-bicycle pjs. How cute are they?

and these,

Simple little summer dresses- $3 a piece

and these,

LOVED these separates. And the bloomers are built into the skirt- $4.50 a piece

and this.

Cute little toucan top for $2

Can you tell she was proud of her new pjs?

You'll never guess how much they were.

Want to try?

Ok.

Ready.......

GO.

What's your guess?

Because here's the ticket-

That's right.

 One whole dollah for a pair of cute pjs for my E.

If you have younguns, you might just wanna get yourself to a Walmart. And remember- tax free weekend is THIS weekend if you're local. If that's not incentive to go forth and shop, well I just don't know what is.

*****

Have any of you heard of the online decor magazine

House of Fifty

The Fall 2011 issue came out yesterday and it's full of beautiful images and articles. You can subscribe for FREE too- just click the title above to go straight to their webpage and sign up to have it delivered directly to your inbox! Besides $1 pjs, getting a brand new home decor magazine in my e-mail box is pretty darntootin cool.

*****

One last shopping tip before I spend ALL of your money-

There are TONS of 'deal a day' sites that you may have heard of/already subscribe too-

Groupon,

Groop Dealz,

Peachy Cheap,

Pick Your Plum,

DealPulp,

Kid Steals,

Very Jane,

but if you haven't heard of Rue La La, well then it's high time someone told you.

A little over a month ago, I picked up these:

Cute, right?

And amazingly comfortable.

Each day, there are a handful of boutiques/brands that offer some of their items at a discount for the day. Yesterday, Vineyard Vines Kids was on sale, and since I'd picked up clothes for the girls at the Walmart and since O is the only one who actually goes to school and would need school clothes, I thought it was only fair to pick him up some goodies. Plus, I just sold over half of what was in his closet because it was too small. Here's what I picked up for my O man:

The Vineyard Vine polos were $15 and the t-shirt was $7.50. Now, I know some of you might be saying, "Isn't $15 a lot to spend on a shirt for your kid to wear to school where he'll drop his lunch on it and roll in it on the playground?"

Yes.

You'd be right.

But here's the kicker-

when you suggest Rue La La to friends, and they subscribe for the daily e-mail of what's for sale (subscribing is FREE, btw) and if they make a purchase, well then my friends, THEN you are given credit to spend yourself. I just happened to have $10 in credit, THANK YOU KOURY, so those shirts for O were actually $10 bucks a piece. And that I can live with.

So...

what are you waiting for?

http://www.ruelala.com/invite/mmathews46

Just click the link above to go straight to the site. Also- I must warn you- sometimes the deals are SO good that they sell out quickly. In fact, I didn't check the site until late last night and by that time, most of the Vineyard Vines stuff had SOLD OUT. The 3 shirts I picked up were the only ones left in O's size. **Word to the wise- don't wait. **

I've linked to each of the sites above so that you can check them out for yourself. Sometimes the deals are GREAT, sometimes they're a little lame, but it can't hurt to see what's on sale, am I right? All you'll have to do to subscribe is enter your e-mail address.

*****

And that's my randomness for the day.

I'm off to work on decorations for my classroom which I'll be sharing with you soon. Still can't believe it's time for school to start.

Happy day to you!

our first date

Today's post is all about the first date the hubs and I had, which occurred on May 12. Long before he was the hubs. Back when he was a super single hottie and he made me nervous and drooly. Yes, drooly. (it's a word. promise)

Below is the tale of our first outing together on a date-type-thing, bearing in mind that we'd known each other for 18 years prior to this. To avoid confusion, I will be referring to the hubs as 'C' in the story, since he wasn't yet 'the hubs', mmmkay?

***********

The idea for our first date actually came from Leno, or rather, Rebecca Romijn who was making an appearance on Leno. She brought with her a portrait of herself and a friend in hideous 80's thrift store clothing and recounted to Leno about how they went to a Wal-mart portait studio and had photos made in these clothes, and here's the kicker- they used different personas. They each gave themselves a 'charater name' and kept it up throughout the entire photo session. They paid in cash.

This idea to me was pure genius, so I proposed it to C, who of course said YES. We made plans for him to pick me up on the night of the 12th.

The night came and I waited,

and waited,

and waited.

C calls and tells me he's had an accident. (not gonna lie here- my first thought was, "God, are you trying to tell me something?")

He says he rear-ended the car in front of him at a light because he was staring at Louie Linguini (a popular radio personality in our state).

Since there were no injuries and very little damage to the vehicles, the cop who responded was able to write a report fairly quickly and, once again, C is on his way.

sheesh.

He arrives and we head out to the thrift store looking for some hideoderous 80's clothes. I settle on a petite dress covered in sailboats and missing a shoulder pad. If you've seen me, you know nothing about me is petite. I'm 5'9 and love heels. The sleeves made it to about the middle of my arm.

Perfect.

C settles on a maroon blazer, jewl-tone striped dress shirt, and a striped tie. I'd like to also state that he did in fact, wear pants, just can't remember what they looked like.

We leave, quite happy with our selections, and head back to my parents house to get gussied up. I found a pair of my mums HUGE-framed glasses from the 80's and some awesomely tacky gold jewelry. I tried my best to tease the snot out of my hair to create some sort of hot mess on my head, but in the giddiness of seeing C that night, I'd straightened it. Blargh.

Once we were satisfied with our tackiness, we headed to Wal-mart, but not before coming up with a story to tell the photographer. My name was Margaret and C's had to be, well, his actual name since he didn't bring cash and would have to hand over his debit card to pay for the pics. We decided we'd be brother and sister, and that we'd tell the photog we were having photos made for our mum for Mother's Day which was the following week.

That photog I mentioned? Let's talk about her for a sec, shall we? Those tacky-80's clothing-wearing-large-take-up-half-my-face-glasses-wearing-people we were pretending to be........you know, THOSE people?

She actually was one.

Her shirt was red/white gingham with appliqued pigs all over the front. 
There was also an appliqued barn.

Yep.

A barn, folks.

Just like my mom wore in 1988,

only this was 2006

And her glasses did indeed take up half her face.

Bless her...

We told her our story and it seemed to make her night that we were there to make these precious memories for our Mother, and that we'd chosen her to be a part of it. Before the photo shoot, she showed us what she'd just purchased for her own mum for Mother's Day- A gold necklace sporting a red rose with a gold stem and the word 'Mother' in front. You know the ones?

Anywho...

We picked out a backdrop (flowers, of course) and she went to shooting us.

First, a traditional pose-

I wasn't kidding about the glasses.

Or the dress.

Or the shirt.

Next, she took individual shots of us. She went to a box of props and pulled out a flower. I'm laughing as I type this, but how oh HOW on earth did we not lose it and bust out laughing.

She pulled out a flower for me to hold, folks.

Here I am in all my individual flower-holding pose glory-

The one shoulder pad in the dress in on my left, fyi.

Now, back to the 'date' part of all of this, C and I are having a field day with the fact that we were pulling one over on this poor woman, bless her heart, and are making, "can you believe we're doing this?" faces at each other all the while. I was also thinking, my my my...he's still a hottie in those hideoderous clothes....

After she'd taken the shots of me holding the flower, C speaks up and says he'd like to take a pic like that too.

Holding the flower.

I almost wet myself, but I kept it together.

And in case you were wondering how many crazyhideous pictures came in our photo package-

and there's an 11 X 14 not in the picture because I can't for the life of me remember what we did with it.

That cardboard frame was also included and the bottom states,

"Happiness is..."

Our total cost for these pictures?

Well folks- see for yourself....

a whopping $6.88.

For loads and loads of silly pics of us.

If you look closely at the top of this next pic, you'll notice the backdrop doesn't go all the way to the top on the right side.

That's because the photographer, God bless her, had to hold it behind us with one hand while she stood in FRONT of us and squeezed the blood-pressure-like thingy that took the pic.

Yep.

Not makin this up friends.

So...

in a nutshell, that's the tale of our first date.

It ended with us watching tv for a bit, and then C leaving for home.

No kiss.

In fact, it was quite a while before we had that first kiss.

Maybe date #4 or #5?

That's okay though- we made up for it after the wedding by having lots of babes.

(sorry to those of you in my fam that read this...)

And, just in case you're new here to the ole' blog and are thinking that we actually look that homely,

I assure you, we do not.

At least, I'd like to think we don't.

Happy Saturday friends.

And next weekend, just for kicks, head out to your local thrift store and pick out some tackiness and have your picture made in it.

It's a guaranteed good time.

pinky promise

weekend recap

hello all!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

I actually took very few pictures, which is probably a good thing since the girls both had snot dripping down their faces and O woke up at 7 Sunday morning vomiting in bed. Was that too graphic?

sorry

I was covered in pretty much every bodily fluid yesterday with the puking, and the snot, and oh yeah-

did I mention the babe had a touch of diarrhea?

because she did.

and she'd peed through her diaper during the night so when I picked her up yesterday morning to love on her...

bam.

pee on my pj's.

But hey,

it happens.

moving on to some happier times from the weekend-

My parents took us out Friday night for my birthday.

We ate at Iguana Grill which is one of my faves and YUM-O, it was good.

MM really dug the decor too-

lots and lots of lanterns hanging all over the ceiling-

Saturday morning was the pancake breakfast for Cinderella. As some of you know, I'm currently directing the show for a children's theatre company in my town and before each show opens, we usually have a breakfast- it's a great way to raise some money that goes towards the show's budget,

AND

 who wouldn't want to eat pancakes with Cinderella and her entourage? I loved seeing the little girls coming to eat in their Cinderella dresses! So precious!

aren't those costumes fab?

by the way-

if you're local, the show opens Friday night for the public and will run through Sunday. Show times are 7:00 pm Friday and Saturday night, and 2:00 pm on Saturday and Sunday. If you have young children, or older children, or if your children have children, or if you KNOW any children- you won't want to miss it! You can purchase tickets online HERE.

I needed to get out of the vomit house last night so MM and I took a little trip to Wal-mart. I'm not usually a Wal-mart gal and to be quite honest I felt like I was straight up cheating on Target, but I'd heard good things about their Better Homes and Garden line of home decor items, so we went.

Just look at the lovely sunset we saw on the way-

There was also some sort of carnival set up in the parking lot of what used to be a Dillard's department store. I'm sure those rides that are packed up and moved around a lot are 100% safe.

Well-

BHG did not disappoint. Just look at these lovelies...

Barbie totally had this one in cardboard in her very first dream house. Anyone else remember that? Circa 1961?

Since I'm still working on our Master Bedroom re-do, I needed some pillows in my accent color to go with the new bed linens. Wal-mart sells 1 and 2 yard packs of fabric in several differnt patterns/colors. I totally did not know this.

Now I do.

Two yards of pumpkin orange came home with us.

MM was doing a few ankle exercises while we looked at fabric.

And...

while it's not an actual craft project,

I did work on something this weekend-

whatcha think?

Are they blingy enough?

And last, but certainly not least,

I picked this up to read because you can bet your sweet bippy I'll be going to see the movie.



10 points to the person who can tell me what show "bet your sweet bippy" comes from.

And was it 'bippy'?

I guess I'd better be quoting it right if 10 points is up for grabs.

Anywho...

have any of you read this? If so,

what did you think?

I'd love to hear...