Author: Melissa

Losing the phone. Occasionally losing both phones.

Say I'm going to do something. "Sure! That item is in the closet!"
Go to do it. "Let me get it before I forget."
Get completely distracted. "Wow! This closet sure is messy! Better reorganize it!"
Forget what I said I was going to do. "What do you mean where is the item I left to go get thirty minutes ago? What item?"

Never, ever getting the mail. (Its too cold to go get the mail!)

Empty the trash can, but forget to put a new trash bag in.

Leaving half-empty cups of coffee all over the place.

Let my car practically run out of gas because I really hate pumping gas. (Again… Cold!!)

Not answering  the phone. (See item #1)

Throwing away something that is recycleable because I'm too lazy/busy to take it outside to the recycle bin.

Cleaning and organizing his stuff. Then he can't find anything and I can't remember where I put it.

Forgetting to put the memory card back in the digital camera.

Requesting movies from Netflix, then taking forever to actually watch them.

Having conversations in my head. You know, where you think you talked to someone about something. But you actually only thought about talking to someone about something – you never actually did it.

What do you do that drives your husband crazy?

p.s. Husband is enjoying this post WAY too much. He keeps saying "You know what else you could add?"

Husbands are no help whatsoever at a time like this, since this is yet another time in life when they can simply wear a tie and sport coat and fit right in, while you have NO IDEA WHAT TO WEAR.
Pants? Skirt? Dress? Heels? Flats? Just how fancy? Like nice church wear? Or more like a wedding? How fancy is the wedding? Is it in the evening? Wait! Forget the wedding. We're talking about his holiday party for work.  AHHH!!

Help, Internets.

Outfit A:                    Outfit B:
         

Outfit A is a sleeveless shirt with wide leg black pants, to be worn with heels. Jewelry is yet to be determined. Clearly not a necklace, probably a chunky bracelet and dangle earrings. Hum… looks a littlefrumpy in the picture….

Outfit B is a black skirt and strapless satin shirt with a ruffle-y black cardigan. Silver jewelry. Heels.

I'm leaning towards combining the two and wearing the top half of Outfit B with the wide leg black pants. Humm…

UPDATE: Picked up a different black sweater. Now I'm thinking this top with the black pants:

Alright, you guys! Party is this Tuesday! What should I wear?!?!??!?! VOTE!!

I realize that I've totally disappeared off the blogosphere this week.

On Tuesday my husband called me from work and told me that his co-worker was telling him he refinanced his house for free. We have  the same mortgage company, so he suggested I call and ask about this no-fee deal.

So I did. Now we're refinancing our house. For a lower interest rate. For free. (Seriously – if you have your mortgage with Wells Fargo, check it out!) Our monthly payment will go down and we don't have to pay anything! Merry Christmas to us! Finally the crummy economy is working in our favor.

Well, just as I was patting myself on the back for saving us money, on Wednesday afternoon I got a call from an appraiser. He asked if he could come and appraise our home on Friday morning. "Sure! No problem!" I said, looking around at the piles on laundry that had been sitting on the family room floor since Sunday, the Christmas decorations half put up and the explosion that was the girls' room. Woah, boy.

So yesterday I was a little whirlwind of cleaning supplies, only stopping to remind my kids every 7 minutes "Do NOT make a mess! Or else!" But of course they did. Which I then had to clean up again while lecturing them about obeying and helping mommy. Which they ignored as they plotted what mess they were going to make next. Repeat 3,765 times.

Then last night I decided to relax by taking our Christmas picture. Instead of telling you about it, I think I'll let this picture speak for itself:
  
Sadly, this was one of the best. Sigh.

In the five and a half years that I have been a parent, I have never even come CLOSE to calling Poison Control.

Then we had Colin.

Who we found chewing a silica gel packet. You know, like you find in shoes? That says "Do not eat!!"? That had a hole in it because he CHEWED through it? And ingested some???

And I must remind you that he is only 8 months old. And not crawling. He's not even mobile and I can't take my eyes off him for a second. (Husband and I were both in the room, within 2 feet of him when he managed this little adventure.)

I am going to get nothing done for approximately the next 6 years.

note: photo was not staged. soccer balls really are his favorite toys!!

We now have something on our calendar every single day until we leave for Christmas.

Every. Single. Day.

Parties, the Nutcracker, school concerts, playdates, cookie exchanges…. A lot of it is stuff that is fun, but jeez.

I'm going to need a lot of Satrbucks Peppermint Mochas to have the energy for all of this.

Hello. My name is Melissa. And I'm 30 years old. And I had never been shopping on Black Friday.

Until this year.

Somehow, I found myself standing outside Circuit City with my husband and sister in the freezing cold at 4:30am. Waiting in a ridiculously long line. Freezing. At FOUR THIRTY IN THE AM. I am normally not a morning person and Black Friday was no different. I was so grumpy! Even though I was supposed to be going shopping! Because even shopping isn't enough to make me cheerful when its 4:30am! 

Anyway, we survived Circuit City and decided to head over to Target, since we were already awake. Now THAT was how I pictured Black Friday!! Cars were driving around the parking lot looking for spots. There were NO shopping carts left. At all. You couldn't even move in the toy section and people were pushing to get to the dvds. Hilarious!! 

We got some great deals and had fun, but I'm not sure if I'll go next year. 

It was totally worth it this year, though. Say hello to my new laptop!!

I finally got to see Twilight last night. I've been dying to go, having read all over the blogoshere about what you all thought. Most of you hated it at first, but seemed to come to terms with it after seeing it again.

I liked it!

Let me explain:

• I did not like it anywhere NEAR as much as I loved the book. Not even close. (But that is hardly surprising. I think the only movie I like better than the book is the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, but thats mainly because I found the books long-winded and confusing and I kept having to start over.)
• I was deeply annoyed that the movie makers seem to think that the audience is incredibly dumb. All sense of mystery was gone. They felt the need to spell everything out as blatantly and obviously as possible. Like when Bella was figuring out Edward was a vampire. She reads "cold-one", flash to when she touches his cold hand, she reads "strong," flash to car accident. WE GET IT. Who seeing the movie doesn't know he's a vampire? You put it in the stupid preview – its not a super secret mystery! Then they exaggerate characters. Like when Carlisle says "I hate the thought of taking life. Even a sadistic, psychopath hunting someone I care about." (or whatever he said.) Whatever! We get that he's all compassionate and stuff. But don't turn him into a total wimp.
• I was prepared for lots of annoying changes that didn't need to be made, thanks to all of you who wrote about it. So while they were irritating, they didn't detract from the movie. Much. Except for the blatant, unnecessary change of the townspeople being attacked by "some kind of animal." What? The arrival of the others was a huge surprise in the book that takes everyone off guard. Clearly they were aware of the others being around – Edward would have never taken Bella to the game if he knew there were others in the area who might find her. Duh.
• I was really disappointed with the ballet studio scene. I thought it was so well written in the book. But by making those unnecessary, annoying little changes, the movie captured approximately none of his anguish and fear over Bella's life. Pity.
• As for the actors, loved Edward, Bella, Emmett, Billy, Angela and Charlie. And Esme. Jacob, Alice and Jasper could grow on me. Rosalie was not nearly as beautiful as she is supposed to be. I would like Carlisle better if he wasn't so wimpy, but I don't think that's the actor's fault.

So, that's my two cents on Twilight. Good. Not great. But enjoyable. I'm still dreamy over Edward ;-) 

But it did not capture my imagination NEARLY as much as the new Harry Potter trailer I saw right before!!! HOLY COW! Now that looks amazing!

Know where he is? hint: Its in Italy…