Recovering Noah

This is for the legion of readers who've flocked over here from Corey's blog because for some unknown reason she mentioned that I look (and the caps are all hers) JUST LIKE JILLIAN MICHAELS from The Biggest Loser. What? You don't buy it? You think that picture looks suspiciously like Jenny McCarthy's body from her Shape cover last spring?? Oh, Corey. You do have some smart readers. Okay, I confess. My friend Chantelle did kinda get really, really creative with the photoshop after reading my lament about Jenny McCarthy's "yoga inspired body" in one of last April's blog posts. But what am I meant to do? I have tons and tons of Corey readers coming over here simply because Corey took too much NyQuil (or something) and decided to blog. I mean... have you actually seen what Jillian Michaels looks like? In my defense, I know this is a tiny picture, but I was afraid that if I posted a close-up, you'd really be able to see that the only things we have in ...

So, a brief (haha - you know it's going to be long) recap of our Thanksgiving week and the beginning of our Christmas festivities... Our Thanksgiving was pretty quiet. My mom had foot surgery and can't put weight on her foot for 12 weeks, so she wasn't able to go to my aunt's this year (too crowdedfor her wheelchair). So, being the good daughter I am, I decided that we would go to her house instead and that's what we did. (Although we missed you, Aunt Jane!) It was just me, Sim, and the kids with my mom and dad. It was nice. The kids ate their fair share of cool whip, played the Wii until Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving came on, and I took a 3 hour nap. Now, that's something to be thankful for! Oh yeah. And Eli informed us that he's a vegetarian - which he demonstrated by completing bypassing the Thanksgiving turkey this year. He says he's no longer a T-Rex. He is now a gentle Stegosaurus. I don't know what to think about my 6 year old still believ...

Weird title, huh? So, a few days I ago I was in the library looking for some books to read and I came across some by Sophie Kinsella. She's the one who wrote Confessions of a Shopaholic . I'd never read the book, but loved the movie, so I checked out the two books that the library had... The Undomestic Goddess and Remember Me ?. I finished them each in one day. They are THAT good. Am so loving her at the moment. She's my new favorite author. Good, fun, pure, chick-lit. Love it. Anyway, so last night I finished Remember Me? which is about a lady who's in an accident and can't remember anything from the last three years... including the fact that she's got a gorgeous husband. After I read it, it made me think what would happen if my husband got amnesia, woke up and found me standing over his bed saying that I was his wife. I mean, I would be a stranger to him, right? He'd have no idea that we've shared the past 15 1/2 years together. He'd have to fa...

Well, we had our bake sale and raffle on Saturday. We didn't make a lot on the bake sale, but coupled with the raffle tickets that we've been selling for the last few weeks, we made about $2150! THANK YOU!! We held our drawing at 2:00pm and all winners have already been notified. 1st prize: Emmitt Smith Football went to Julie H . 2nd prize: iPod Touch went to Steve K . 3rd prize: Wii went to Amy B . I really, really wish that everyone could have won. It broke my heart that we had to stop drawing names after three... but I have to remember that we raised a lot of money for Sarah's kids and that was the purpose of the raffle. We're talking with Sarah about her "wish list" for the kids and I believe the money raised will go a long way to purchasing items off the list. I'll take pictures of all the things we're bringing and post them here closer to to time to leave. And, in case you haven't checked out Sarah's blog , she's not going to be rec...

Tomorrow's our big bake sale and raffle for Sarah's Covenant Homes. If you missed the original post, you can find it HERE . Our goal was to raise $1500 for Sarah's kids and so far we've raised $1315!! $380 of that was through online donations and $935 was raised locally or through generous bloggers who sent money through the mail. Thank you so much!! We are $185 short of our goal. If anyone would like to buy a ticket (s) online, you would need to do so by 7:30 CST tomorrow MORNING. We'll be leaving shortly after that to set up the bake sale, so all online tickets need to be purchased soon. We'll be holding the drawing at 2:00pm tomorrow afternoon at a local grocery store and all winners will be notified by 5:00pm CST. I'll also announce first names and locations on my blog. Thanks again to everyone who has helped make this fundraiser a success. I cannot begin to express how in awe I am of everyone who has stepped up to help. There have been so many heartwa...

Wow, what's up with me and the absentee blogging, huh? Maybe I'm just in a blogging funk or something, but I just haven't felt like getting on here lately. Nothing's wrong - nothing like that - but I do get this way from time to time and I guess this is one of those times. Of course, this probably means that I'll be blogging like a mad fiend for the next week or so... that's kind of my pattern. :-) So now, instead of writing short little posts about this or that, I have to cram everything into a very lengthy, very wordy, possibly sleep-inducing post. Let's see. What's been going on? Well, RAD behaviors are on the rise in our little household. If I'm gone from blogging for awhile, you can generally assume that it's something behavior related. Nandi received botox injections a week ago and I swear her RAD behaviors have gone through the roof. Things had gotten 90% better over the last month. 90%!! She was such a joy to be around... it was like the ...

So, as most of you know, India is a country that is near and dear to my heart. In January, I'll be travelling with a group to Andhra Pradesh to volunteer at Sarah's Covenant Homes. If you haven't met Sarah , then you should! She is one of the most amazing, dynamic, selfless, funny, and giving people I've ever come across. Not only does she have a heart for India, but she has a heart for abandoned children who have special needs. Currently, Sarah has 44 children and she's taking in 10 new children next week. Can you imagine the cost of parenting 54 kids?? We're trying to raise money to help make things a bit easier on Sarah and her kids. SCH has only been up and running for about 2 years now. So they're still needing lots of stuff: wheelchairs, strollers, walkers, educational toys, clothes, and school supplies. 11 of us will be travelling to Sarah's in January and we can take 2 suitcases each. Let's fill those babies up! To help raise money to buy...

Well, it's been a truly frustrating week. One of my kids has a birthday today and the week leading up to it has been awful. We really turned a corner in the last few months, but this week... whoa, did we slide back down the hill. Good grief. There's been peeing in the bed for the last 4 days and today, birthday day, was greeted with pee soaked sheets and two "accidentally" turned over bowls of cereal at the breakfast table. Happy Birthday! Actually, this is not the birthday post. I'll do a proper one later. Things really had been going great. About 90% better and we were so proud of our little RADling. It's just amazing how things like birthday and holidays can cause regression. In other news from the week of H-E-double hockey sticks, we pulled Eli out of school and then stuck his little bottom right back in two days later. That deserves an entire blog post dedicated to just that. Someday. What I can say is that I've been played. Played hard. It's a sc...

I have had the great pleasure of meeting so many fabulous people through the blogging world. It's amazing how different circumstances - circumstances that can bring you to your knees - can connect you with people who care - and who understand exactly what you're going through. Mainly because they've gone through it themselves. Many, many months ago I was able to connect with Corey. She's beautiful and funny. She's an adoptive mom, too. And a RAD mom, too. She and her family have had to make the most agonizing decision to disrupt the adoption of their 8 year old son. I hate to use the word disrupt because it makes it sound like they're giving up or being really casual about it... like taking a puppy back to the shelter if it gives you too much trouble. That is NOT the case. Sometimes you just can't know what it's like unless you've walked in someone else's shoes. And, sometimes, you have to make decisions that just plainly make you want to die....

My sweet little Noah Bear is turning 8 today!! 8!!! I've already been gently reminded by my husband that it's a bit pointless to get teary-eyed over the fact that Noah will be 12 in four years. I think he muttered something along the lines of, "Good grief, woman, get a grip!" But I can't help it. My baby is growing up!! I'm going to share something with all of you that might make me sound like like a looney..... but a few years ago, I was in a really terrible place - and in the midst of my despair, I heard God's voice speak to me. Now, there are three times in my life that I've heard God's voice and this was one of them. And He said that Noah would talk between the ages of 8 and 9... so much in fact that I would jokingly regret praying for it all these years! It's really taking a lot for me to write this out and publicly broadcast it. I mean, what if it wasn't God's voice talking to me? What if it was my imagination and I'm going t...

A few months after I turned twenty, I hit a crossroads in my life. I had become disillusioned with college and was being strung along in a dead end relationship that I needed to end but didn't have the strength to do so. I needed to find a way to escape from everything. I needed excitement in my life and I needed adventure in my life.... and I needed to find a way to get out of taking mandatory Calculus in the Spring semester. So I signed up to study abroad. I was certain that it was going to be the start of a new me.... a single me... and just the ticket I needed to get out of taking that dreaded math class. I wanted to leave as soon as possible, but I couldn't decide where to go. So I narrowed my choices down to England and France. Mainly because at twenty years old, the world revolved around my social life and I was pretty sure that England and France had the cutest guys on the European continent. So much for the new and single me, eh? I'd never been to either country......

Yes, I'm still here. Considerably lighter, as you'll find out in a minute. But first things first.... Our computer is still hijacked with a virus. Actually, we've been too busy to take it to get fixed, so we're still scamming... er, I mean, borrowing my parents' laptop for the time being. And since Noah's attracted to the keyboard and the blinking lights, we have to turn it off everytime we get off it... which means, we've canceled all opportunity for me to be seduced by the come hither and check thy email looks everytime I walk by, so I haven't been on it much lately. Okay, so the real truth is that I'm just too lazy to turn it on and wait for it to boot up. Plus, Sim's still working crazy long hours and someone has to do the parenting around here. And even though Eli thinks he's the boss of the house, he's definitely not, so I'm having to step up and do some parental duties which includes, but is not limited to carting them off to...

We have been plagued with the plague. Viruses have not only infected our family, but also our computer. Yes, our new computer. Did you know you're supposed to put an anti-virus on it? Don't laugh. I'm the same woman who blew up her previous computer because she didn't know she was meant to dust it. I'm sorry, but maybe I'm just not cut out for computers. Everytime I hear the word firewall , I think of a stone wall on fire. Actually, I think of Hadrian's Wall on fire. I have no idea why. And I'm not even sure stone can burn. But that's what I think. And spyware makes me think of Sherlock Holmes and then that makes me the think of the new Sherlock Holmes movie that is coming out on Christmas Day and that makes me think of the actress Rachel McAdams who's in the movie. Which, of course, brings me to the Mom's Night Out night that I participated in a few weeks ago - and my first night out since May of 08. And then I think about how we watched The...

As you can tell, I am back and finally connected to the real world again... via our brandnew laptop. I would tell you about how Sim braved Friday night traffic and drove to 4 different Best Buys in 3 different counties with the farthest being 2 hours from our home in order to get a computer that was on sale, and how he got that computer home a week ago but that it was broken and how I swear if he could have he would have crawled up into fetal position right then and there and cried. But I'm the only one allowed to do that in our family. So I did. And I certainly won't write about him comparing me to a crack addict and saying I need to go to a 12 step program for Google addicts..... but we won't talk about that. And you did read the part where the first computer he brought home was broken right? I guess God was trying to teach me a lesson and didn't feel it was important that I get on the internet immediately to find out if the guy who plays Hector on The Electric Co...

Yep, it's dead. Gone. Gone. Gone. You're supposed to clean them. Computers. Did you know that? Yeah, if you don't, then all sorts of dust and dog hair and who knows what collects in it and then it overheats and fries. Apparently, CPU stands for Clean Periodically U (Idiot). I barely remember to dust the tops of the pictures frames and clean that back part of the toilet that no ones sees. Am I really supposed to remember to clean the inside my computer, too? Sigh. It's a shame really. I had all sorts of interesting and thought provoking blog posts that I was preparing to write. Like, How to Teach Your Children to Sit Down at the Dinner Table Without Resorting to Duct Tape and How to Go Green: Save Money on Trash Bags By Shoveling Your Dog Poo Over The Neighbor's Fence and From Fat to Fab: How to Get Bikini Ready On a Steady Diet of Ben & Jerry's That one was my personal favorite. I was even going to post pictures in my new itsty bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka...

That's what a lady asked me at Walmart the other day. "Are you barren?" Uh, not only was that a bit personal, but does anyone even use that word anymore? Granted, I do believe she was born around 1874, so maybe that was the word de jour back in the pioneer days, but come on... barren ? And the truth is that normally I would brush off a little linguistic faux pas like that, but girlfriend was carrying a Coach bag and wearing some ultra fab little trendy shoes, so I know it's not like she just stepped off the covered wagon yesterday. Anyone who spends their days shopping at the Galleria cannot claim to be so out of touch with reality that they didn't know that it wasn't couth to refer to someone as barren. Although spending my days shopping at the Galleria would probably suck out some of my brain cells, too, so I guess there could be a little truth to that. Dude, they don't even have a Birkenstock store there. I think that in itself demands a prompt call to ...

And I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control And you know what? I think I like it. Yep, there's something major happening that's causing me to break out into the Pointer Sisters in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. I'm finally on a schedule. Now, if your first thought upon reading that is that my bowel movements are finally moving regularly... well then 1) You're either my grandpa's age 2) You're a nurse or 3) You're a mom to a child with special needs... 'cuz you know we all have Phd's in Poopology. But no, that's not it. I mean, thanks for caring and all, but I'm referring to something completely else. (But if you ever have any questions about poop, I'm your girl.) No, I'm excited because I'm on the other kind of schedule. You know, a regular routine. Like, where you get up at a certain time of day, put on real clothes and don't try to pass off your pajama bottoms as yoga pants, actually brush your teeth for...

Well, it’s been pretty quiet on this end, hasn’t it? I thought I’d wait until things got better to tell y'all how Eli’s first week of school is going. And by getting better, I mean waiting until it doesn’t take 3 teachers and a vice-principal to pry him out of the car and me not sitting in the parking lot clutching my bosom crying, “My baby! My baby!” and not caring that I was holding up the carpool lane. And that day… was today. The little stinker hopped out of the car, waved goodbye and took some unknown teacher - who’d better not think she’s going to replace me - by the hand and then he was off. And then I sat in the car, leaned on the steering wheel and cried, “My baby! My baby!” and promptly called my husband and informed him that I needed to get on medication to sort out my mood swings and indecisiveness. It’s hard living life as a complicated woman. Only one more day and then I have him for TWO WHOLE DAYS before I have to send him back off to the land of Oh-My-Gosh-How-M...

So, uh, I turn 18 this week. Okay, well, 18 PLUS 18 - and one thing I've learned - quite recently, actually - is that I don't need more stuff . Having too much stuff leads to too much stress. Where do I put it? What do I do with it? Is the thrill of it still there after I buy it and get home? The answer is most often no . Hi, my name is Leslie and I am a garage sale-aholic. Seriously. It runs in my veins. My first dollar was earned when I was three and I sold a plastic bird whistle at my Pa Lester's stand at Trader's Village Flea Market. And then I helped with his stand when I got older. And my parents actually have a stall at First Monday in Canton. Trust me, when I say that my entire life has been about finding a bargain and snapping it up - because you never know when it might come in handy. And duplicates? Awesome. Triplicates? Even better. Don't believe me? Remember my post about how Nandi has moved into our closet? (It's a 10x10, just as an FYI, and I wil...

My friend, Amutha, had this video posted on her Facebook page and I just had to steal it and post it over here. It's of an adorable little girl singing the Indian National Anthem in honor of India's Independence Day. Enjoy! P.S. I'll be back to blogging soon. As in, probably sometime today or tomorrow. I'm finally getting my groove back... I think.