I’m sorry I haven’t been around much over the past several days - either by writing or reading much at all. The garage sale days really wiped me out (more on the garage sale later), and then Saturday in general pretty much finished me off. I felt so miserable after we (finally) got home that day that I ended up just putting a DVD on for the kids and dozing off in the recliner until dinner time. Which ended up being late. After dealing with baths, I finally escaped outside for some much-needed peace.

I wasn’t the only one needing some ‘down’ time…

Soccer went pretty well on Saturday. Hannah scored 4 goals (remember - no goalies in her age group), although she and another little girl ran around playing tag together during all of the breaks. So both of them were noticeably tired by the last quarter of the game. No surprise there. 

(Hannah’s the one in the pink socks…)

Abby’s game was a very exciting one. They lost 7-1, but her team made so many shots on goal (most of which they missed, unfortunately), that it was a relatively even match. I spent at least half of the game watching from the play structure on the playground again though. Becca has now graduated to attempting to climb ladders - since she mastered the one on our slide at home on Friday.

The ones at the playground are a bit more challenging. Apparently stairs are for ‘babies’ though, not big 2-year-old girls. At least that’s what Becca now seems to think.

Sunday was just a very strange day. Not a bad day, just different.

I was awakened early by 3 little girls bearing a (slightly soggy) bowl of cereal. After opening Hannah’s gift (Abby made let me open hers last week) and eating every last spoonful, I went back to sleep. Thus missing church (sorry!), and I slept until Ron woke me up at 10:30. And I was still so tired! We had a low-key morning since we had no real plans, and I ended up lying down again while the girls were having quiet time.

A couple of hours later I woke up - and for the first time in several days actually felt decent again. I think all of the (much needed) sleep finally kicked this  cold out. Hopefully it’ll stay gone. The rest of my Mother’s Day involved me never actually getting dressed (I can’t remember the last time I spent all day in my pajamas - it felt very odd), ordering pizza in for dinner (although we made Abby’s day by Ron running out and getting her some tacos instead - her favorite, and she doesn’t get them very often), and staring at the computer wondering where to begin with trying to catch up on things.

And worrying about my mom. My brother called me around lunchtime from the airport - he’s going to be gone for a business trip (that he can’t avoid) for several days. He visited our mom in the hospital again - she’s off of the ventilator finally, but from what he gathered, she hadn’t eaten, drank or slept since. And since she’s someone whose anxiety issues include a healthy dose of insomnia, I can’t imagine how difficult not being able to sleep, while stuck in a hospital bed and unable to move must have been for her.

I’m feeling very helpless right now. I did call the hospital Sunday afternoon and attempted to find a way to talk to her. After 30 minutes on hold, I had gotten nowhere (except to find out that she finally had been given food and drink), so left my name and number. After I woke up from my unexpected nap, I called back and finally got someone who could transfer me in to her room, run down to answer the phone and hold it to my mom’s ear. She definitely didn’t sound happy, and I could hardly understand her, but I was able to wish her a Happy (or rather not) Mother’s Day and let the girls talk to her briefly.

I need to figure out a way to go and see her. I should have enough money from the garage sale earnings (about a final total of $200 over the three days, although we spent some on dinner  tonight and some on much-needed groceries) to cover the gas costs to get to Detroit and back, but will have to figure out how to ask for yet another day off from work, and how to make sure there’s someone to watch the girls in the evening of whichever day I go.

My mom told me today that if she’d known how bad this surgery would be, she would’ve decided not to do it and just lived with the knowledge that the aneurysm could rupture and kill her, whether in a week or in 10 years. And I can’t really say that I necessarily blame her.

Sorry, this post took a decidedly depressing turn, which wasn’t my intention. The good news is that the surgery was successful, and once she recovers, as far as I know anyway, my mom should be ok. It’s just the recovery that’s proving challenging. She may end up in a nursing home or rehab center for a few weeks since there’s nobody to take care of her at home. We’ll see how the next few days go.

I know it’s late in the day, but I wanted to make sure to wish all of you a wonderful Mother’s Day. I hope you all know just how special you are - thank you for making the blogging community such an amazing one!

This week’s Contest Round-Up is posted over at my new review site! Come and check out the great giveaways happening around the blogosphere this week. 

And don’t forget to check the Contests page during the week for even more great giveaways!

Tomorrow (sorry - today, it’s after midnight) will be a long, busy day. It will be the third (and last) day of our garage sale over at Kristi’s house and both girls also have soccer. So our day will look something like this:

Head over to Kristi’s and help set up the garage sale until 9:45 am.

Hannah’s soccer game from 10:00 am until 11:00 am.

Back to the garage sale. Eat lunch at some point.

Abby’s soccer game from 3:00 pm until 4:00 pm.

Back to the garage sale to help finish closing and packing up. Drop load of things that didn’t sell at Goodwill on the way home. I’ll have to run back over there once Ron gets home in order to bring the rest of the stuff home since I can’t fit our tables and all of the bins and boxes in the van while the kids are in it.

I’m planning on bringing the girls’ Leapsters and a lot of books to help keep them occupied while we’re at the garage sale, but Becca’s going to be into everything. The past couple of days were nice - the girls were at daycare, so I could just focus on the garage sale.

We haven’t made as much money this year as in past ones - mostly because we don’t have big (expensive) items to sell this time. No furniture, baby gear or big toys. We’ve done really well considering that it’s mostly baby clothes and toys though - over the two days we’ve made about $120. I think I’m going to put Becca’s carseat out tomorrow - her shoulders have hit the upper slots, so even though she hasn’t outgrown it weight-wise, she’s too tall for it. I already went out tonight and installed our booster seat with the internal harness for her. It’s not as cute of a seat (her other one had a floral pattern and this one’s just navy blue checks), but I think she’ll be more comfortable anyway. And hopefully we can sell the other one tomorrow (sorry, today!).

I spent Friday afternoon at the garage sale, but spent the morning at Abby and Hannah’s school.  See, today was ‘Special Person’s Day’ for the first grade. We’d tried for 2 weeks to try and find someone that could go, but both of her grandmothers have had surgery now, Ron’s dad had too much running around to do today (and that’s not his kind of thing anyway), and my dad lives 2 hours away. All of her aunts and uncles work or live out-of-town, and there just wasn’t anyone else who could go. She was so upset Thursday night, so I promised to drive her and Hannah to school Friday morning and talk to her teacher to see if I could go. They prefer that parents not come to this particular event, but as Abby’s teacher told me, there’s usually a few kids every year who have a parent come because there’s no other option.

So I got to see a very cute choral program put on by all 3 first grade classes, to make a craft (paper flower made out of handprints) and have refreshments with Abby and tour her classroom and the rest of the school. Since I don’t get to go to school very often, it was nice for me to be able to see her desk and visit the library and music room with her. Abby was very excited to show me around. Her only ‘bad’ moment was when I had to leave - the ’special people’ had the option of taking their student(s) out to lunch, but I couldn’t, so Abby had to stay and eat at school. But since Hannah’s class was getting out right as I was leaving, I figured I might as well take Hannah and drop her off at daycare instead of having her ride the bus - since I was right there anyway…

Yeah, I know - bad idea.  Abby got pretty upset, but she was fine by the time I picked them up at daycare later on.

All in all, it’s been a busy, but good, couple of days. I’m still stuffed up and not feeling well, but at least able to function. I’ll have to spend some major time getting caught up on all of my blog reading though - even after weeding out all of the news items, I’m still up over 400 posts to read. Yikes.

The contest round-up will be up later on today (Saturday), but over on the other site - where it will be from now on.  Head over and check it out! 

‘Night all…

It’s Friday again! My favorite day of the week. Especially when I have the day off.

Today is another busy one though - I’m taking the girls into school so I can talk to Abby’s teacher and will probably be attending her ‘Special Person’s Day’ later this morning since none of her grandparents are available. Then back to the garage sale in the afternoon. It went well yesterday - I made about $75 but Kristi made over $200 (she had some bigger items to sell, mine’s mostly clothes and toys).

I’m still fighting this darn cold - it’s one of those annoying ones where I’m congested, feel sick, my head and throat hurt, but I’m still able to function without being completely down for the count. Which is a good thing, I guess.

So anyway, I’m way behind on my blog reading and am hoping to get caught up this weekend. So I’m curious - how many of you read blogs in a feed reader of some sort (like Google Reader or Bloglines)? If so, how many unread posts do you have right now?

I currently have 619 unread posts (yikes!). But 100 of those are news items that I’ll probably skip reading when I finally get time to catch up. It’s still going to take me a while though!

Be sure to check out An Island Life for other fun Aloha Friday questions and to play along!

I’ve got a lot to update you all on and very little time since I’ll be busy all day tomorrow with no time to post. So here’s a quick rundown of 13 updates to hold you over until tomorrow night…

1. My mom is still in the ICU recovering from her surgery yesterday. It’s a pretty significant operation, requiring her to be put on a heart and lung machine and she’s still on a ventilator even now. Apparently she’s about where they would expect her to be after this surgery though, and she breathed on her own for an hour this afternoon, which we’re told is a good sign, so everything seems to be going well so far. She’ll stay in the hospital for a total of about a week - my brother’s going to go over and visit her on Friday. Right now she can’t speak and isn’t awake for much of the time, so even though I feel like I really should be there, there’s just not much that I could do even if I were. Thank you so much for all of the prayers!

2. Speaking of surgeries… Ron’s mom had her kidney transplant a few weeks ago and is doing well, from what I’ve heard. Ron took Abby and Hannah up to visit her in the hospital when she was re-admitted a couple of weekends ago for evaluation, and she went back home a day or two later. We’re hoping to get up to visit them soon.

3. I will be over at Kristi’s house all day tomorrow (Thursday) for our annual garage sale. Usually we do it the first weekend in May, but Kristi had to go and take her family on vacation (the nerve! *just kidding*) last weekend, so we’re holding the garage sale this weekend instead. Hopefully over the 3 days (Thursday through Saturday), we’ll make enough money to be able to finish some things that Ron started in our yard last year. I mostly have baby/toddler clothes and toys to sell this year.

4. I have a cold. In fact, I really should be in bed right now and will be heading there as soon as I post this. My throat hurts, my head hurts and my nose is running like a faucet. Oh yes, and we just ran out of kleenex.

5. Ron attempted to move Becca from the floor in her doorway to her bed tonight. She woke up as he was putting her in bed, immediately slid down off of the bed, gave him an angry glare and marched right back over to her doorway. Where she promptly proceeded to lay down and go right back to sleep. I just don’t get this child!

6. My review site is up and running! If you haven’t had a chance yet, stop over and take a look. And if you like what you see, please subscribe so that you don’t miss a single post. 

7. Don’t really know anything new on the job front. I put in an application for my job (yes, strange - I know) a couple of weeks ago, but apparently the new company is not giving any special or preferential treatment to those of us already working here. Their job posting was kind of sparse on information, so I have no idea what the salary range would be or even when the deadline is to apply. We’re all still on pins and needles and trading information (and rumor) as we get it. I did apply for another job that I came across in town today, but it’s a long shot.  We’ll see.

8. We got up on time today. 

9. Hannah came home from her cheerleading competition last Saturday with 2 completely different pom-poms than she arrived with. Not even from the same owners. Thankfully they were labeled (as are Hannah’s), so hopefully her coach can get them back to their rightful owners and get Hannah’s back to her. I wouldn’t be so worried about it except that the things are $16 a pair and Hannah’s are almost brand-new.

10. Abby has her next soccer practice tomorrow night. After thinking about it and reading everyone’s advice, I’m not going to mention or bring up the comment that was made by one of her teammates. If someone else brings it up, then we’ll deal with it, but otherwise, I’m just going to pretend I never heard it and keep cheering Abby on. She really does love to play, and that’s the only thing that really matters anyway. Thank you so much for all of the comments and advice - you all are awesome!

11. My nose just won’t stop running. And I’m tired. So I’m going to skip #12 and #13 and just head to bed.

Good night. 

My first review post is up at my other site - for Norton 360 Version 2.0 software.  Stop by and check it out! 

Photo by bfick
Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve been keeping things from you. Well not ‘things’ but specifically one thing. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out, but I think everything’s set - at least for now, so I’m ready to let the world see it. 

‘It’ is my new review blog! Yes, I’m following in the footsteps of some of my favorite bloggers and starting a second blog, where I’ll do reviews, host giveaways, and share my favorite (and not-so-favorite) things about, well - stuff.

I’m a bit nervous about this, so any advice that those of you who have done multiple blogs might have would be welcomed. I’m still playing around with the template - although I like the one I (finally) chose, it still needs some tweaks and finessing. And I’m hoping to talk Ron into designing a header for it, as well as a button that people can use to link to the site.

Right now, I’m calling it, “Just a mom’s take on things…”.  And really, that’s all it is. Just my own views, opinions, thoughts, what have you. I certainly don’t claim to be an expert, but I think that I can give a fair, balanced and honest review based on how well something works (or doesn’t) for me and my family.

I’m still working on getting a domain name set up, so for now you can find the site at http://www.momof3girls.net/reviews. Please take a peek over there and let me know what you think!  I’ll have my first review up later today over there, and a second one to come by the end of the week, along with a fun giveaway (or two) to help celebrate the new site - as well as the anniversary of starting this blogging adventure here at Mom of 3 Girls, back in May of 2007. Yep, that’s right - my Blogoversary is this month and I want all of you to help me celebrate it!  So stay tuned both here and at the new site for details coming soon… 

This really won’t change things here at this blog - I’ll continue to write about our life, the girls, and anything else that comes to mind.  The only real change is that I’ll be moving all reviews over to the new site, and I’m also going to move both the Contests page and the weekly Contest Round-Up over there as well. It just seems like a better fit there, and Ron will be happy not to have to scroll through lists of contests here every weekend to find the ‘good’ stuff, as he puts it. 

So that’s about it - I’m really excited about this and hope that you will be as well.  Please consider subscribing to “Just a mom’s take on things…”.  There’s one of those handy little orange RSS/subscribe buttons right up at the top right - just click and voila, you won’t miss a single review or giveaway.

That’s it for now, I guess - hope to see you over there! 

See more Wordless Wednesday here and here

I haven’t had a chance to do much more with our front yard yet - but am hoping to in the next couple of weeks. I’ll keep posting updates as I have them.

This week, my whole house really needs to be tackled. Big time. But since I don’t want to completely depress myself and I want to show something actually getting done, I’m going to show you the only room that is currently in decent shape.

It certainly didn’t start out that way.

Becca hasn’t napped at home in months. Usually she sits quietly in her room and plays or looks at books. But, since she learned that she could walk out of her room at any time (probably linked to the whole not wanting to sleep in her bed phenomenon), keeping her in there for ‘quiet’ time has been problematic. The addition of the safety gate to her doorway has created quite a challenge for our little one. She is bound and determined to beat the gate. Whether to figure out how to climb over it, open it, or push it out of her doorway all together, she pretty much spends all of quiet time in various attempts to outwit the gate.

On Sunday, this included the game of dropping (or throwing, I’m not quite sure which) toys over the gate into the hallway. By the time that we released her from the tortuous prison which is her room and chucked all of the various stuffed animals, clothes (pulled from her hamper), books and other assorted items back into her room so we could actually get through the hallway, her room looked like this:

Being entirely fair, her room wasn’t exactly clean at the start of quiet time either. But this mess was enough to actually get me to finally step in and get it picked up. Becca can and does help to pick up her toys (sometimes), but this was way too much for a 2-year-old to handle

Here is the final result. I even emptied her hamper, although the basket of clothes hadn’t actually made it any further than the kitchen until I ran home at lunch today and finally carried them downstairs to start a load of laundry.

Now I just need to tackle the rest of the house. Oh yes, and get things sorted for the garage sale that we’re having Thursday-Saturday at Kristi’s house. And finish the laundry. The list never ends…

What are you tackling this week? And check out other Tackle It Tuesday posts over at 5 Minutes for Mom!