The Answer

I've found a happy place on the internet. I'm adding OrganizedHome.com to my link list at left. I was wandering around checking all the great links I find in my monthly O - Oprah magazine. Two featured websites relate to meal planning. They are mealmixer.com and relishrelish.com. They look great and offer free trials but there's a subscription fee. I marvel at sites that charge subscriptions - my web expert friend Lundy long ago realized that web advertizing revenue eclipses any subscription/download fees you might charge. And if you build a great site, they will come. Most folks know that newspapers and magazines don't make money from subscriptions, but from the ad revenue. That's why the fall fashion issue of Vogue is bigger than the old Sears Wishbook! That's also why you can find amazingly cheap subscriptions that barely cover the postage if you look around - Amazon had some great deals at the end of December - I think I got a year of Marie Claire for $3.

Back to the great website: OrganizedHome. It has everything you could want. My current wish is for organization, specifically to cut the clutter. There's an article there that describes 5 different mindsets that contribute to a clutter problem. The frightening thing is that all 5 describe me! They are: 1) The Hoarder ("This might come in handy some day"), 2) The Deferrer ("I'll think about that tomorrow"), 3) The Rebel ("I don't wanna and you can't make me"), 4) The Perfectionist ("Next week, I'll organize everything perfectly"), and 5) The Sentimentalist ("Oh, the little darling").

Oh, my goodness - it's humbling when you see yourself in writing. I started today by gathering lots of great eBay stuff (part of my problem - oh, this might be worth something one day - they didn't even cover that in OrganizedHome!) and taking it to RightClick - a great little place near my home. They sell the stuff on eBay and keep 35%. Only problem is, each listing has to exceed $50. None of my stuff qualified, natch. And it's the wrong season for barely used football equipment. My short term plan is to take everything to the attic with the intention of going through it methodically, regularly, but with the reality being that it'll stay there until Mack and I die and Evans has an estate sale and totally random strangers are sifting through my underwear drawer.

Enough of that. Check this great site - it's full of info, forms, ideas for FREE!! There's lots of good content. I plan to lurk around there - maybe even more than my beloved Pioneer Woman! She won the bloggie awards, by the way. No surprise!

Waffle Talk

Does anyone out there remember "Coffee Talk" from Saturday Night Live? The skit where Mike Meyers dresses up like his mother-in-law and frequently says he's "verklempt." I think the other baseball moms were too young to remember this, so when I fanned my face and said I was getting verklempt upon seeing Dori's very handsome son who's a freshman in the Merchant Marine Academy and came straight from the airport in his uniform to watch his little brother's baseball game. They have to travel in uniform - did you know that?

In case you're not familiar with "verklempt", it's a Yiddish word which means choked with emotion. I looked it up just now in a very cool website called UrbanDictionary.com. It's so cool, in fact, that I'm adding it to my links list - at left.

All this to say, my Waffle Talk title is a take on Coffee Talk. I haven't made waffles in two weeks. Last weekend I was ensconced at the hospital with daddy and sister. Disgruntled hungry teenager complained. Yesterday he wasn't home - he spent the night with friend from school so they could play in the wonderful snow. I should be at church right now, but being the "sleep slut" that I am (see Urban Dictionary's word of the day!), I woke up at 10:00, thinking I could hurry up and make it to church and when I walked into the kitchen and the microwave clock said 11:00, I had one of those Twilight Zone moments before I realized this is Spring Forward day. So I stayed in my pajamas and made waffles.

I'm signing off now and am heading back to Urban Dictionary to find some other fun words!

More Snow!

As you can tell, we've had quite a bit of accumulation since I posted about an hour or so ago. I checked the news and they are predicting 2-4 inches for Memphis. Quite a bit for us. It is still coming down pretty heavily.

I suppose it's all those years of conditioning as a kid wanting to get out of school, but I just get so excited when it snows. Especially now that I don't HAVE to go to work. Back in the day when I was doing CPA work, it was unthinkable to stay home from work this time of year. Every single time it snows, every partner in an accounting firm offers to chauffeur his employees if they're afraid to drive in the snow. I took advantage of that once or twice!

The corporate tax deadline is March 15th, so the CPAs are really under the gun, and then of course April 15th is looming, and we all know what that means. That reminds me, I've got to get started on ours!

Snow!

I just this minute took this photo. Went outside in slippers with wet hair just for you! After some on and off snowing and sleeting this morning, it's finally really coming down. Hopefully I'll be able to snap a picture with these daffodils covered in a blanket of white very soon. It is unbelievably good luck to have the snow come on a Friday with no school to start with, nowhere to go (no family members in the hospital for a change), and a fridge full of food. Any Memphian knows the grocery stores are flooded with people stocking up at the first hint of snow.

Diana called and said she couldn't go to Archiver's tonight with the weather situation and I was relieved. Every Memphian also knows that the city comes to a screeching halt when the snow comes (once everyone's been to the grocery store). Now, if our power will just stay on!

The Scream

Here's how I'm feeling. In case you don't know, this is a painting by Edvard Munch called "The Scream." He painted it in 1910 using tempera and pastels on cardboard. I found that interesting - he must have been a starving artist at the time and couldn't afford canvas.

Actually, I'm just on the verge of this. After spending six days at the hospital taking care of my daddy and sister (they're both ok), I'm at loose ends. When I finish this post, I'm going to sit down with my Hip Household Organizer (see previous post) and try to make a good list. Have I told you I'm a list maker? I'm sure I have a thousand lists all through the house. I even have a little post-it note on my computer desktop. An image, not the paper thing.

I slept till 10 this morning, so am feeling rested and as soon as I can get my thoughts organized, I'll be fine.

Strange thing, I was just about to say I was hoping for snow and I looked outside, and what do I see, but snow falling! I could use being stranded at home for a couple of days. I'm supposed to go to a crop at Archiver's with Diana tonight, but if the snow accumulates, I won't go. I haven't even checked the weather reports this morning. My friend Mary and her family are headed to San Antonio for spring break. I hope they won't have any trouble traveling. Her husband is fearless, so I'm sure it won't deter them. He went with their son to Philmont last summer. It's the big Boy Scout camp. It's the real deal when it comes to roughing it. They hike for miles and miles in the mountains with only a backpack. No rest stops with toilets and showers and real food (well maybe one along the way). Well, I'm really wandering with this post. I'll have to get her to remind me of some of the very interesting details and do a whole post on it later.

Back to snow - school's out for spring break today, so no worries about going anywhere or kiddo driving in this.

Ok, I'm finishing up here and sitting down to get organized. Happy Snow Day!!!

Baseball and Thankfulness

I'm just back from about six hours at the baseball field, and loved every minute. We had a double header scrimmage against another high school. It was lots of fun catching up with all the families. It was one of those strange weather nights - cold at 5:00, then kind of warmer, then colder and very foggy. Strange foggy.

Some of the parents arranged a cookout so there was lots of good food. Gosh, that first hotdog of the baseball season tastes good!

Lots of batters were hit by pitches - that's not unusual early in the season. Or mid-season. Or the end. It's always scary. One kid got beaned (baseball-speak for hit in the head/helmet), but luckily all those guys were all right. One kid who wasn't all right was a fielder for the other team who was hit in the mouth by a ball deflected off his glove while he was trying to field it. Two of his teeth were knocked out. The guys walked out to second base, where it happened, and kicked around in the dirt for about five minutes, and naturally did not recover the teeth. We didn't know what was going on, exactly, on the sidelines. We decided all the moms should have gone out and gotten down on our hands and knees and felt around for the teeth (how else could you find them in the dirt?) until we found them. Besides, can anyone with a Y chromosome ever find his socks, much less two little teeth in the dirt?

I don't mean to make light of this at all. We are praying for a speedy recovery. One of the dads said he was in the emergency room and they were waiting for an oral surgeon. Which brings me to the title of this post. I try to remember to be thankful at the end of every baseball game. Thankful for our strong, healthy, good boys. Thankful for a safe environment (including our beautiful ball field) and skilled coaches and supportive families. Thankful for the great education our boys are receiving. Thankful for all the great friends I've made over the past four baseball seasons.

Cool Project + Great New Blog

http://aherncentral.blogspot.com/2008/01/altered-itemme.html I ran across this great project while checking one of my favorite blogs today - Emilie Ahern. I've added a link to her blog at the left and here's the link to her project shown here. http://aherncentral.blogspot.com/2008/01/altered-itemme.html She's a great photographer and is very creative - you'll find lots of fun ideas there. This whole blog thing has become very addictive for me. I hope you'll like some of my great finds.