SAHM vs WOHM

Being a working mommy is hard...someone else gets to see your child's development more than you at times. Someone else gets to see their first milestones sometimes.

I've felt guilty at times for working while Scoots is growing up. But we can't afford to have me stay at home. We need both of our incomes to make the ends meet. Sam makes pretty good money, far more than I do, but we do have a certain level where we like to live. If we want to eat out, we'll go do it. If I want to buy a new shirt, I do it. Sometimes the cash isn't always there, and unfortunately, credit cards are. But that's another topic....

Anyway, Veronica over at 5 Minutes for Parenting wrote this awesome post about working moms. Read it- you'll be glad you did. Here's a brief snippet:

The media-manufactured "Mommy Wars" tell us that mothers resent and judge each other. Sometimes we do. But sometimes we recognize that the world needs different people to make different choices. The truth is that as we all struggle to provide the best for our kids, we can't make it without each other. Your choices affect me, and mine affect you. We really are all in this together.

Strange paranoia

I don't know what the issue is, but for some reason I don't like to be on a different floor than Sam and Scooter if they are asleep. In the house we just moved out of, the bedrooms were upstairs and the living room was on the main floor. I HATED being downstairs if they were up in bed- watching TV, reading...pretty much anything.

I've always loved to sit and read at night when I can't sleep (well, pretty much anytime, not just when I can't sleep- I love to read!). Last night was one of those nights...after unpacking all evening, I just couldn't sleep. So I wandered out to the living room and snuggled onto the couch with a new book from the library. And was perfectly content, knowing that I was on the same floor as my boys.

Kailani's got more freebies!

An Island Life has posted another freebie- Flower Peddler Bath & Beauty is giving a $50 gift certificate to one lucky person! Go check them out and post which product you'd like to try on Kailani's blog.

Boy, with moving this weekend, I couldn't keep up with all of Kailani's giveaways!! She's got a great one from My Mommy's Bracelets- they are giving away one of their popular Baby Girl “Lil’ Princess” Bracelet to one lucky winner!

Here's a couple of my favorites:

...and here's the one they are giving away-

We're in!

We are finally in the house that we've owned for more than a month and have worked so hard on. We got moved in on Saturday!! We've still got some stuff at the other house that we are renting, but we are IN!!!

Scooter loves his room, and actually spends the whole night in there (rather than coming to our room and "snuggling" all night). Although, he's been playing pretty darn hard with the new friends lately, so that may have something to do with it. :)

We decided we moved in just in time- the neighbors in the cul-de-sac behind us had a huge block party- over 100 invites went out. Live music, dunk tank, yard games (horseshoes, ladder golf, beanbag toss), and TONS of yummy food- not to mention the two huge tanks of beverages, including the mystery beer cooler! Jello shots went around later, and margaritas in a bucket followed after that. We had a GREAT time!! Met lots of new people, and just reinforced our feeling sooooo good about living in E-Town!!

What Would You Do?

We (meaning Sam) loaned our router to a neighbor last spring (2007). We moved 1 1/2- 2 hours away from there in August. Said neighbor never returned the router, and honestly- I didn't know about it. Sam either forgot or neglected to mention it.

Anyway...almost a year later, we have purchased a new house. Sam needs the above mentioned router to do some work in the house. We knew this was a possibility when we started looking at houses in April. I called the neighbor and talked to the wife (aka, an old "friend" of mine- part of a girls group that we had). I told her then, in April, that we could meet them halfway or they could ship it to us. She said to call back and talk to her husband.

Well, I forgot until today, and it's finally starting to get under my skin. Sam refuses to do anything about it, and would be perfectly content to go buy a new one. Um...no!! This was from his grandpa (who has passed away), and besides- he does NOT need to go buy a new one when we already OWN one!!!

So I call today and talk briefly to my old friend. She lets me talk to hubby who was right there. Turns out that he is going to be heading to Burlington this Friday and can meet me about 35-40 minutes away from me, in Washington. That is, if the timing is right.

I mentioned, "Could you just ship it to us?" He said if the timing didn't work out to meet, then they would think about it.

What would you do?

Game giveaway!

Lailani over at An Island Life is giving away the coolest game I've seen in a long time- Jishaku! Head on over there and check it out. If I don't win, I may still have to go buy this!

Odd to see

Our new puppy (the boxer), Laila loves to attack and play with Reese (the pug). Reese is not too terribly fond of this, as he's the ripe old age of 7.

Reese usually stays far away from Laila, lest she pounce on him unexpectedly to start biting his tail.

So to see these two relaxing and snuggling together is a very strange sight!

Sparklers!

Scooter has been begging to do sparklers, so we broke down and bought some for him.

At least he can pronounce it this year...last year, it came out as "F-ers". Yes, the full F word. My mother-in-law about had a fit.

New to town

We're not completely moved in yet, but we took the chance this weekend to enjoy our new town's parade. It was super cute, and so typical Iowa- tractors mixed throughout the parade! Only in small town Iowa, I tell ya.

Silly me forgot the camera, otherwise I could show you a pic of Scooter with chocolate all over his face from candy.

We did see our new neighbors there with their dogs- we match them, by the way. We have a pug and a boxer (plus a lab), and they have a pug and boxer also. We left ours at home. They brought theirs, all dressed up for the holiday. The pug, Lola, was wearing her grass skirt and little lei bracelets on her paws. Zoey, the boxer, was wearing a very patriotic flag bandana. Super cute!!

Almost...

We're almost there- finished with the new house, that is.

About this close. I have to finish trimming up the frustrating red walls yet, then I'm DONE!! Whoo hoo!! Had a very frustrating problem this weekend though....

I had originally bought 5 gallons of ceiling paint tinted to a yummy horseradish color (a creamy white). Sam painted all the ceilings, and ran out with the second half of the master bath (it's separated by a walkthrough wall). So I had to go buy more horseradish so I could finish the rest of that, and then trim all the corners.

I went to Wal-Mart and bought the paint.

Came home and did most of the house in one day.

Came back the next day and finished up....only to find out later that it wasn't the right color.

I was pissed at the situation. Sam was pissed at....me. Oh YES, darling, of course it's MY fault! I told the guy at Wal-Mart to mix it wrong! All my fault. He said I should have noticed that the paint was white, and not the creamy color. Well, you see hon, YOU were the one putting the paint on the ceiling while I was doing all the other walls!! YOU were the one dealing with the horseradish-freaking colored paint!!!

My bad, totally mine. So I go to a different Wal-Mart and show them the color sample and have them mix a new batch. The guy couldn't figure it out.

Came home and did everything over. Still have no idea if it's the right formula or not.

At least it's done. Damnit.

My first award

I'm pretty new to blogging and don't have many people that read me. So I'm super excited that I've been given an award!! AnIowaMom sent this to me.

Here's the original blogger who designed the award: Crystal
Her son, Noah, was saved by a heart transplant, ironically enough on the luckiest day in any of our lives- 7/7/07.

I'm passing it on to Jody

CD Contest

AnIowaMom is giving away some CD's...Josh Groban (who is so great) and William Joseph (who I've never heard of-count me OUT of the loop on this, apparently). Head on over and check them out!
http://www.aniowamom.com/an_iowa_mom/2008/07/contest-josh-gr.html

Doing some reading...

Not books, silly! I've been reading the archives of AnIowaMom's blog...gosh girl, I feel like I know you now! Just trying to get a feel for my new hometown :) I also followed lots of different links from her blog to various ones across the internet universe- specifically RocksInMyDryer and 5MinutesForMom. I visited some others, and need to check out IowaMoms a bit more.

Gee, I really should get some work done....but it's so nice to be able to surf the net when I'm at work, in between patients!