And the winner is....

Congratulations, Britt! When I had Ben pull a name from the bowl, it was your name!  You can choose from a B&N gift card or Bath & Body works. Let me know what you would prefer and I'll get it out to you.

Thanks to everyone who participated in my little contest. I loved your entries; you are all so creative!!

Just the way it is around here. Did I mention a give-away?

On Thursday morning, I woke up at 5:30 am and I could tell I was wearing my glasses. 

I'm 99% sure that when I went to sleep at 11:00 pm the night before, I wasn't wearing my glasses.  And I'm extremely curious about what happened in the interim.  Was I dreaming of getting up?  Was I trying to find "the little people" that I once dreamed were clambering under my bed?  I'm just not sure.

But really, this isn't that strange of an occurance around my house.  A few times a month, I wake my husband up from a dead sleep by screaming loudly.  My heart will be racing, and I'll seem awake, but I'm not. After a few moments, I'll go calmly back to sleep while his heart races for awhile.  Actually, he'll sit and steam because yet again, Crazy Asleep Becky has struck again.  More often, I'll be standing in the closet, wondering where I am.  Or turning on lights in the hall, trying to (again) figure out where I am.  I've woken up more often in my own home in the middle of the night not knowing where I am than knowing where I am.  It's pretty fun.  Even better, a few weeks ago, I suddenly shot out of a deep sleep, yelling obscenities that would have embarrassed a trucker.  Shane wasn't too happy about that one, either.

So, yeah.  The waking up, wearing glasses thing isn't too far out of the norm.  But it does have me thinking.

And therefore, I'm turning to you, my dear readers.  I want to have my first ever give-away on this blog.  Come up with a pliable reason of why I would wake up wearing my glasses.  Make it really, really creative and I'll give you two entries. Write the reason in the comments section of this post.  I will select a random winner who will recieve a $10 gift card to either Barnes & Noble or Bath and Body Works (your choice.)  Contest ends Wednesday, January 27th at midnight. I will select and post the (random) winner on Thursday.

Good luck!!!

I'm nearly there....

It's been a long journey, but I think I'm almost a real girl now.

Remember back in 2008? I decided to start wearing make-up after a 10+ year hiatus.  I tried a little harder by buying some mascara, which I have faithfully worn (most) days since.  So now, the days that I go to work, church, or even the mall, I usually leave the house with adorned eyelashes and even lipgloss.  What an improvement. 

I love you, Estee Lauder Double Wear. You never smudge on me.

Last fall, we went on vacation.  The humidity inspired me to let my hair be on vacation too, which meant I did it curly everyday.  After a week of scrunching my hair, I kept it up when we came home.  Then we went to a wedding in Zion and I was inspired to use something to keep my curly hair curly.  It's simple really: hairspray.  In 2004 or 2005 I borrowed a bottle from a family member, but hadn't bought a single bottle since.  Ironically, I had bought the hairspray back in May when my boys decided to shave their heads so they could have spikey hair.  While packing for the wedding, I threw the hairspray in on a whim.  Surprise, surprise, it worked.  I've since gone through that bottle and am mostly through another.  So, in 2009, I discovered hairspray.  A revelation, really.  And I've had curly hair ever since.

Tresemme' hair spray: you and and your cousin mousse have been good to me.

So, this brings us to my latest discovery.  I have a very stylish friend who always has the poshest shoes.  She's even trained her husband to recognize a peep-toe pump from 2 blocks away.  I've grown covetous of her shoe attire lately, so I took a little trip into the shoe store on Friday and came away with these little ditties.  They are so much higher than anything I've worn in years.  And I love them and wish I could wear them every day. Proof: I wore them Friday to a wedding dinner, Saturday to the wedding, Sunday to church, and today to work.  I'm loving them.

You might pinch my toes a little, but hey, you're worth it.

Hairspray, shoes, makeup, lipgloss, doing my hair in something other than a ponytail/bun.  I figure I'm almost there.  Give me a few years, I might shave my legs on a regular basis (but this hasn't happened in the 16 years my husband has known me, so don't hold your breath.)  But I'm this close to being a real girl. In my all-boy household, I figure I might as well dress someone up.

Have you made any discoveries that seem obvious to the rest of the female world?

Anniversary

Tomorrow I will have been married to my best friend Shane for 11 years. In Hollywood, this is a lifetime. The evidence goes like this:

Brad & Jen were married for 4 1/2 years.
Britney & Kevin made it 4 years.
Pamela & Kid Rock made it 5 months.
And finally, Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman made it 9 days.

Yeah, to those people we have been married for eons. But it's gone really fast and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Now, Shane and I don't really give each other gifts for our anniversary. We prefer to go on a date to eat some yummy food and then browse the bookstore for awhile. But this year, Shane got creative and made me this. It's awesome and made me cry and all that good stuff. I knew he was doing something, but I didn't know exactly what (since I helped him get all the pictures from our various albums.)

So I wanted to share this, because it's great and more people than me and my kids should see it. I love that husband of mine. I think I'll keep him.

And, my beautiful niece is getting married tomorrow, so we will both have the same anniversary. Congratulations, Jacqui and Clint. It's a great day to be married!

Fun reading challenge (if you do that kind of thing)

So, I found a cool reading challenge based on the movie You've Got Mail with Tim Hanks and Meg Ryan.  Surprisingly, it's called the You've Got Mail reading challenge.  Basically, you read any or all the authors mentioned in the movie .  I loved this movie back in the day, and I love reading, so what isn't to love about this challenge?

Some of the authors included:
Jane Austin
LM Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables series)
Noel Streatfield (Shoes series)
CS Lewis

And a whole slew of other fantastic authors. You can read one of these authors or books or one hundred; it doesn't matter.  I have started this by buying Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, both of which I have never read, despite the fact that both took up space on the bookshelf in my closet for my entire childhood.  I have no idea why I never read them, but I didn't.  I'm also going to re-read Skating Shoes, my favorite Noel Streatfield book, and I'll throw in Pride and Prejudice and the Chronicles of Narnia series for good measure.

Fun stuff.  I started reading about Anne Shirley and her adoptive...parents today (they are brother and sister? Does that make them her parents or her...what???).  I'm looking forward to reading this book. 

Are you doing any reading challenges this year?  I hadn't realized until recently how numerous these babies have become.

New years resolution failure #1

So, my kids got DS Lites for Christmas.  Thomas had been begging for one forever (actually, he wanted a DSI, but I didn't want to pay for one, so he got the Lite. Eh.) and I knew I couldn't get one for him and not have one for Ben.  I wanted Shane and me to get the credit for them, so they came from us.  I found a few games at Game Stop which sells used games (hey, they work the same; we washed one of Ben's the day after Christmas and it still worked perfectly. Go figure.) and we were home free.

So, as I mentioned, I gave a four year old a piece of technology with really really tiny game attachments.  In addition, Ben has this possessiveness about his things that came out yesterday when he discovered his brother playing his favorite game (Mario Kart).  So, as any four year old would do, he decided to hide the game (or so he said.) And the place he decided to hide it was in the couch.

We spent over an HOUR searching the couch.  I imagined my kid shoving that tiny game cartridge as far as he could into any cranny in the couch.  I had my arm inside the crevices of the couch past my elbow, feeling around for the game.  I found a long hole in the bottom (that I didn't know was there) and so I had Shane lift up the couch while I searched the hole for the game.  We even tipped the couch up on end so that if the game was anywhere inside the couch, it would fall to the corner I could reach.  Yeah, it wasn't anywhere.

You guessed it if you are imagining that I lost my temper.  The thing that made me mad was that he hid it so that Thomas couldn't play it.  I was floored at how calculating he was.  And with the game lost, he couldn't play it either.  Granted, it's a stupid game, but it's the principle of the idea.  And I can't stand when something is lost; it wears on my brain and I cannot stop until I find the lost item.

So, I had failure #1 (that I'm admitting to, at least.)  Of course, an hour after I yelled at my kid for losing his game and for hiding it (because they were two separate things in my head), Ben was getting ready for bed.  And guess what was stuck to his stomach, just below his belly button?

You guessed it.  It wasn't in the couch at all. He'd shoved it down his pants for safekeeping, then forgot about it.  Why didn't I think of that?  But to hear Thomas tell the story is the best.  He adds at the end that his brother "had the game stuck to his bladder."  I giggle a little every time I hear him say it. Kids.

So, 4 days in I'm already breaking my resolution.  How about you?

2009 in review (a few days late)

Even thought it's past the end of 2009, I saw this meme on a friends blog and remembered I did it last year. I like how it lets me reflect on the year. So, I'm doing it now, 3 days after the fact. 

1. What did you do in 2009 that you'd never done before? Went to SeaWorld.
2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I've had the same one for multiple years now.  I tweaked it for 2010 to work specifically on keeping my cool when I really just want to blow it.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth? New babies in 2009?  My niece Lyndsay, friends Shelly and Melanie all welcomed little boys into the world.  Of course there were lots of babies born in my ward, and a few people I knew on the internet.  I love it when people bring little ones into the world!
4. Did anyone close to you die? Shane's sweet grandma died in May.  I cried this year when I opened my Christmas presents from his grandpa because they reminded me of her.  She is missed.
5. What countries did you visit? No countries, but I went to Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, and California.  That's saying something for this family.
6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009? More time.  Could I grow an extra hour in each day? Maybe just once a week, like say on Fridays?  Thanks.
7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? October 3, when we went to some dear friend's wedding in Zion.  It was our first ever get-a-way since having kids.  Yeah, I know.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? I went through the Old Testament.  It was eye-opening, and I learned a lot.  Especially that if God kept giving those Isrealites that many chances with as bad as they were being, maybe he can be patient with me, too.
9. What was your biggest failure? I probably spent far too much time on the computer.  Maybe I'll learn...
10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I had a cold in June that made me want to die, but other than that I felt pretty good. I did finally overcome the sciatic nerve pain that started in 2008, but it took a whole year to go away.  I'm still amazed that it doesn't hurt anymore.
11. What was the best thing you bought? I really like my laptop that has a working battery.  And, even though I didn't buy it this year, I fell in love with my iPod in 2009. 
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? I don't know how to answer this question.  Sorry.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? I think that the Tiger Woods situation is really, really lame.  I usually assume that people like that are behaving badly, but seriously, his was way over the top.
14. Where did most of your money go? Groceries.  I guess that's good, because we have food, right?
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?  Being at the beach.
16. What song will always remind you of 2009? Airborn Toxic Event's "Sometime around Midnight." Shane and I like to analyze it.  It is exaclty how a drunk guy would act at a bar when seeing his ex, but I think that he assumes too much about the girl.  See, there I go again.
17. Compared to this time last year, are you: Much happier, richer, nicer. Yes, happier.  Richer? About the same.  Nicer? Well, not to the lady at Nordstrom on Saturday, but I generally try. The problem was that I felt ignored by the salesperson when she finished helping others at the counter and didn't come over to see if we needed help, but went and helped the cute skinny knee-high-boots chick who came after us.  Shane had to remind me to be nice, and I definitely needed the reminder.
18. What do you wish you'd done more of? I wish our vacation had been a little longer.
19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Sitting in traffic.  It sucks.
20. How did you spend Christmas? Opening presents, visiting my family and Shane's.  It was a great day! Christmas Eve was my favorite.  We went to Walmart at 7pm, just me and Shane. It was total chaos, but we were just there for random, non-essential items.  Loved that moment alone with him.
21. Did you fall in love in 2009? Yes, with the beach.  And so did my family, which is awesome because it means we have vacations in our future.  Squee!
22. How many one-night stands? None.  Seriously?
23. What was your favorite TV program? Lost and Glee.  I also really liked Grey's this year.  We honestly don't spend a lot of time watching TV, but it's enjoyable when there is something good on to watch.
24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? No. I don’t think I hate anyone.
25. What was the best book you read this year? The Forgotten Garden. I read it twice.
26. What was your greatest musical discovery? Airborn Toxic Event. I also realized that most songs from Snow Patrol are really, really good.  I liked a few songs from Glee, especially "Don't Stop Believing."
27. What did you want and get?  Shane would say I get most things I want. :)  I did get my living room and hall painted.  Love, love, love it.
28. What was your favorite film of this year? Time Traveler's Wife. 
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 34.  It was Sunday, so I went to church.  But after we went to the Jordan Parkway and went on a run.  It was fun.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?  I can't think of one.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?  A Shade-type shirt under another shirt every day.  Lots of jeans and flip flops.  I wear make-up on my days off more than I used to. Shocker!
32. What kept you sane?Same answer as last year.  Running. I love it.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I still have a crush on Sawyer from Lost.
34. What political issue stirred you the most? Not political.  But healthcare reform makes me nervous.
35. Who did you miss? Shane's grandma.
36. Who was the best new person (people) you met? I met a few nice people in 2009. A few were in real life, but others were bloggers.  It's amazing how small (and large) the world is now.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:  I let a grudge go that had lasted for a few years.  I barely rememeber how I used to feel about this person, which is really liberating. It's good to learn that when you face things head on, tell someone that they hurt you, and move on it really works.  There are some other relationships I wish I could fix in the same way, but I don't think it will happen any time soon.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:  Nothing that sums up the year, but one I really like is: Then she leaves with someone you don't know but she makes sure you saw her she looks right at you and bolts.  As she walks out the door your blood boiling your stomach in ropes. And when your friends say what is it, you look like you've seen a ghost....