Hello?

No, I haven't fallen off of the face of the earth. I have been rather busy and have neglected my blogging quite a bit. I have a few posts to catch up on, and I will post them, I promise. But for right now, I just wanted to let you all know that I am still here and I am still kicking!

I was reading a fellow bunco buddy's blog and found out that I had been tagged. It is apparently my turn to make a list for all of those that read my blog. It is a list of 50 things you might not know about me. So without further delay, here it goes....

1. I was born in the Autumn, ironic, no?!

2. I have a small tattoo on my right back shoulder blade. It is a butterfly, and no, there are no regrets.

3. I am terrified of clowns. I know, freak! Can't help it, don't know why, just don't like them!

4. I also do not like mascots. I think it has to do with not being able to see their faces. They don't talk, they might be making rude gestures with their faces and I don't even know if they are even looking at me or not. Weird, I know.

5. I have never been outside of the continential United States.

6. Would love to visit Italy and Greece. Yummo food and gorgeous views!

7. I am very anal about things. It needs to be perfect or not at all. That causes some problems at times.

8. I am a visual organizer. What does that mean? Basically, out of sight, out of mind.

9. I am trying to be better about organization and keeping my life in order.

10. I found my salvation at the ripe age of 33.

11. I am very curious about religion and the bible. I am always wanting to learn new things and find answers to questions.

12. I am the child of what some might call a "dysfunctional family". We seemed to function pretty well for the title that we held.

13. I am the oldest child in my family.

14. I have two brothers. Johnny, is 28 and is my maternal brother. Dylan is 18 and is my paternal brother.

15. I was engaged twice before I found my one true love. Wouldn't change a thing, either. All those choices led me to him.

16. I used to think that "family guy" was the stupidest show ever, now I am totally addicted to it. I love little Stewie!

17. While I was in labor with CX, I had them turn the tv to the "Simpsons". I still remember which episode it was!

18. I had extreme baby blues with Sis the first few months of her life. I didn't know what it was at the time, but looking back, it all makes sense.

19. I am on an antidepressant, but I am not depressed. Apparently I am blessed with PMDD which is extreme PMS! Yay me!

20. I love Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, especially around Easter. They seem to be extra yummy then.

21. I loathe people who leave their blinkers on while driving down the road. How on earth do they not hear that "click, click, click" sound?!?!?!

22. I also have a problem with people who don't use their blinkers. Hello! They put them on the car for a reason! (Sorry, I'm getting a little sassy.)

23. I love to cook for my family, but I hate to clean up the kitchen.

24. I am a crafty girl.

25. I would just about do anything to make my kiddos smile. I'm not a push-over, but I try to do what I can.

26. I enjoy a drink now and then. Socially, of course.

27. I have a severe problem with drinking Diet Cokes. Can't get enough.

28. I am not happy with my body.

29. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Elkland, MO.

30. I can curl my tongue, can you?

31. I seriously dispize commericals. DVRs are awesome!

32. I am one of the most ungraceful people you will ever meet. I fall up stairs!

33. I am a rather shy person.

34. Dave Matthews' voice makes me melt like "butta".

35. I have many friends, but haven't found that one that is my BFF. Maybe I'm too reserved or reclusive.

36. I was a cheerleader in high school, captain actually.

37. I do not like to iron anything!

38. I can kill any plant that you give to me. Honestly, I can kill a cactus.

39. I have a scare on my right hand from my fish, Philbert. Long story, if you want to know, just ask me sometime.

40. I snort when I laugh really, really hard.

41. I am drawn to the tackiest item in the store. Can't help it, I want to take the rejects home and love them.

42. My favorite color is green.

43. I love to use power tools.

44. I get easily distracted. And forget to follow thru with things.

45. I love to start projects, it just seems hard to finish them.

46. I love the smell of fresh cut grass.

47. I love the fall and wearing sweaters.

48. Halloween is my favorite holiday. You get to pretend to be something other than yourself for a little while.

49. I want my children to grow up to be happy, healthy christians.

50. I love watching the St. Louis Cardinals. Go Cards!

Baby Sis

Okay, so my baby isn't a baby anymore, or so she keeps telling me. "Momma, I am 4 now. I am a big girl and can do it all by myself." Of course you can, princess!
She was so excited for her party last night. All day long she kept wanting to help me set up, help with the cake, help with this and that. I haven't seen her this excited except for Christmas. It was her first big kid party, and she wanted to have a slumber party soooo bad. We decided to have a pretend slumber party and we decorated the table like a bed. Complete with pillows and stuffed animals. The bar was also a bed, minus the animals. There were streamers everywhere and it smelled of fresh baked cake. I don't know why, since I baked the cake the night before.

She came up to me after we had everything set up and told me thank you for making everything so beautiful mommy. Of course, I melted. It made all the late nights and stress just float away. That's all I ever wanted for her special day, was for her to have a great birthday.

And you know, for 4 year olds they sure know how to act at a slumber party. They were in the bedroom, door closed, my 80's music blaring and there was about 10 different things going on at the same time. It was so stinking cute! They had a pillow fight, played musical pillows, made homemade slipper socks and were sent home with a scary book, glow in the dark bracelet and a toothbrush. They all seemed to have a really good time.

One of those days

Do you ever just have one of those days where you feel like any little thing is going to set you off and you are either going to bite someones head off or cry like a little baby? Well, today was my day like that. I feel like I have been having a lot of these lately and I don't really know why. Jeff seems to think that I am stressed out, but what on earth do I have to be stressed about?!? Seriously. The world according to Autumn is just a little hectic now, with birthdays coming up, but for the most part I don't seem to have that much on my plate. Or do I?

Let's see...CX is playing baseball on Friday nights in Springfield, he has practice on Monday nights, Jeff is playing softball on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Sis has a big birthday party coming up and so does CX. (Which maybe is my stresser!) CX's birthday invitations are giving me fits! AAH! Mario Kart is driving me nuts!

No one in the big metropolis has anything for this theme, so I am having to make invitations for this shin-dig and it is pushing me to the edge. Of course, I am trying to make my son happy, and he is very particular about things. I have NO idea where he gets that from!

Or maybe I am stressed because it is very late at night and I am not sleeping well when I do sleep. Did that make any sense? I don't know. Okay, I am off to bed now. Hopefully I will get some peaceful sleep tonight so my husband will stop telling me, "You know, you look really tired and stressed. Like you hate the world or something." Thanks honey, I love you too!

Shabby blog

Well, I have been playing around with this blog thing for a while now. I am trying to make it my own, but I am having some difficulties with certain things. But I think that I am doing okay so far. What do you think?

I went to this awesome website http://www.shabbyblogs.com/ and everything that they have on their website is absolutely free to download! Yep, FREE!!! I love it! And they are super cute and some of it is fairly easy to load onto your blog and others are giving me a headache! Oh well. I will just deal for now.

If you know of any other sites that might be good for free blog stuff, please let me know. I am still a pup when it comes to blogging, but I want to make it my own. Thanks!

Birthdays

We headed to Grandpa John's house tonight for a birthday celebration for him. Grandpa John, Jeff's grandpa, turned 91 today. Can you imagine all of the things that that man has seen in his life time?!?!? Wow! I feel old when I talk to people who graduated high school in 2003. (Yes, I am talking about you! You know who you are!) I am just a young whipper snapper compared to John.
His wife, Pauline, passed away last year at the young age of 100. Can you even wrap your brain around it? I sure can't! She was so feisty and always spoke her mind. People would say, "She's 100. She can say whatever she wants." But in all actuality, she just didn't give a damn about anything. If it hurt your feelings, it hurt your feelings, she was just saying it like it was. I was absolutely terrified the first time I was going to meet her.
I guess I don't really know where I am going with this entry. I just wanted to stop and think about all the things that I have seen so far in my lifetime, of almost 34 years. AAH! I can't believe I just told you all that! So far, I have seen cell phones go from this phone in a bag thing to a big ole honker that you had to pull an antenna out to a small sleek flip phone to a phone that you just touch the screen and you can get anything you want on it. Anything! Amazing! Or what about television?! Now granted, I lived out in the boonies, and I still do, but I only had three channels when I was little. Now, I have no idea how many channels I have and I don't hardly watch any of them. MTV actually played music videos and the TV went off of broadcasting at 1 am. We rarely locked our doors and now, as soon as I get home, they are locked behind me.
Maybe these things are all supposed to happen, but I can't even imagine what my kids will have witnessed when they are my age. Do you remember when we would watch the space shuttle take off on TV, now, does anyone ever even know when it is going into space? That was a huge event in my school....we always got to go to the cafeteria and watch it on TV. AWESOME!
I don't know, I just feel as if sometimes the things that we are watching happen are actually hurting us in the process of moving forward. It seems that the more technology we have, the more scared we are, the more alone we are, the more we miss out on.
These past few weeks I have had to kick my kids outside to play. Literally! They just want to hang out inside while they are on summer vacation. When it was summer for me, I don't ever remember being inside the house. Mom would get mad at Johnny and me for running in and out of the house all day long. We would sit on the front porch and watch storms roll in and we were always exploring something. But we were always outside!
I am just rambling and I don't know how the heck I got off subject of birthdays, but Grandpa John, I just want to wish you a very, very happy 91st birthday! (He has no idea about this because he has no computer.) But we love you anyway!