Dear Life, Can I have mine back now? Please?

Oh my goodness! I feel like I have been kept away from my computer for so long. It's usually past 11pm at night when I get the chance to REALLY get on (Facebook doesn't count - that's mindless).

Not only have I been cleaning up after getting our floors done (so nice and shiny!) I also was cajoled into reading Twilight by my friend, Carol. So I read the first one with a bit of trepidation. I am a huge sci-fi fan, as many of you already know, and I heard that Twilight was a teen novel - so I thought - how good could it be? Well, lemme tell ya ....

Sooooo goooood.

It took me 8 days to read all four books. I fell in love with them. I usually take advantage of the girls' naptime to do computer stuff. But not this past week! I sat in my glider and just read. And then I sat in bed at night and read. Until 1:30am. I am sad that I read them all and it's over - but glad that I will have some semblance of a life again!

Thanks for all the comments while I was away - I miss you guys!

Circa 1991

Someone please tell me why my cheeks needed to see better.

Layouts and Misspellings

I am attempting to change the layout of Twice as Nice all by myself. Basically I'm too cheap to hire someone and I knew I could do it if I just had some instruction! I found a site that took me step by step on how to create a three column layout - and have both columns to the side. (I am trying this all on a test site that I made up - that's why you don't see it here.)

It worked out great and I really like it! Now I am trying to put up a background that I also made myself and I am stuck. I can't get the background to fill the entire screen - only the middle - so there is white on the sides. I have been fooling around with it for a week and it is driving me crazy. I have one site that I am going to send a question to, and hopefully they can shed some light on what I am doing wrong.

On a different subject, we got all the paperwork together for the girls' preschool registration - and I don't know what the issue is with my name - but parts of it are spelled wrong everywhere! Andy got their birth certificates yesterday and my maiden name is spelled wrong - and it is a pretty common name. Nothing crazy. Just a plain old' Mc- name. So now I have to call town hall to see if the clerk who typed it up made the mistake or if it there is a mistake on the form they have on file.

Then, when I picked up their Baptism certificates - my first name is spelled wrong. "Rose Marie" - two words - wrong. So I'll call them, too. You know, because my days are so empty and I have nothing else to do.

It's so funny because if we have another girl (one day) I have the name all picked out - and I was tempted to go with a slightly different than normal spelling because it's so pretty that way. I've changed my mind. No need to put her through that torture.

Where did Rosie go?

Here I am!

What a lovely shot ... just keeping it real. "Look, Ma, no cavities!" Which is true.

I've been away. For no other reason other than this blog got away from me. I had a ton of things to do and when I had a free moment I was more in the mood to eat Pizza Combos and watch TV or buy digiscrap supplies.

Then I would feel bad about being away - and even worse about not visiting my friends and leaving lots of lovely comments. It's like when you forget to write a thank you card, and the longer time goes by the weirder you feel about writing it. If you had just written it the first time you remembered that you forgot ... all would be well.

Right now I am in the midst of getting all the paperwork together to register the girls for preschool this September. I already went and filled out the paperwork and payed the $100 (!) registration fee - but I guess I was the only dunderhead who didn't bring their birth certificates, health records, and Baptism certificates (Catholic school). Then we realized we never even got their birth certificates! So Andy is going to town hall on his lunch tomorrow to pick them up - I am going to Church on Thursday to get their Catholic certifications, and Dr. B's office is faxing over the health records. Whew.

I am also preparing for company this weekend! Andy's brother Matt and his wife Jenny are visiting us from Mississippi and I am excited for them to see the girls. I have to start a-cleanin'!

I finally visited my friend Rosanna and her new baby, Colin! He is the cutest thing and I started crying when I first held him. Just so precious. It definitely made me sure that I wanted another one. Rosanna's hubby, Brian, has a brother who is a professional photographer and he took the most amazing pictures of this baby. She emailed them out and I made this ...

(I smudged out his birthday and stuff for privacy.)

I absolutely loved making it and I am going to print and frame it and give it to them as a present at the Baptism. I want to do them for all the babies in my life!

OK - so I owe you all an "A-Z on Monday: F is for ..." - I think I am going to do both F & G this upcoming Monday to keep them all on the same schedule. THANKS to Jen (creater of said "A-Z" who emailed me to make sure everything was OK. And to everyone who left me comments on my last blog post. I love my blog friends. :)

Look for comments on Wednesday!

I shoplifted tonight

Accidentally!

"It is 11:17pm - do you know what your wife is doing?" She is shoplifting notepads from the Dollar Spot in Target.

Tonight I went out with my friend Lisa to do some Christmas shopping. We both needed to go to the exact same places: Target, Babies R Us, and The Walmarts. We had Chinese food, too - yum.

Target was our first stop and all we needed was gift cards. Riiiight ... because it's so easy to walk into Target and leave with ONLY the thing you went in for. So we browsed - and found nice magnetic notepads in the Dollar Spot. Only a buck! How can you go wrong? I picked up one that was lavendar with cute little mittens down the side - the girls would love it. Then we found gift bags - TWO for a buck. Can't pass that up - no way no cow. So I am mentally doing a tally of how many bags I should pick up (ten sets) and go on my way. Got some PJs for the girls. Got them some gloves for the girls - again, two for 99 cents.

Go to pay. "Hey wait, Lisa ... can't find my neato notepad ... I put it down when I was getting the bags ... let me go pick it up."

I couldn't find it by the bags, shrugged - there are more important things to worry about - picked up another one. Not the pretty lavendar one - couldn't find any. Paid and left.

Went to BRU. Paid and left.

Went to Mr. Chu's. Paid and left.

Went to The Walmarts (love calling it that). I had to return some things there so I was at the Customer Service counter. Open my bag to get my receipts - this required digging.

"Hey ... Lise?"

"Hmm?" She is browsing the circular not looking up.

"C'mere."

There in my purse I find ...

We both exploded into a fit of giggles. How stupid am I? What possessed me to put this thing in my bag? The joy of finding gift bags at two for a dollar? Man, I need to get out more.

Needless to say, I will be visiting Target tomorrow night to return the purloined notepad. My question to you all is this ... WHAT THE HECK DO I SAY?

Away

Hey all - I will be away until Sunday. The NJ Association of Twin Mothers Clubs is having their annual convention in Atlantic City this weekend - whoo hoo! I'm especially excited because each club votes on Member of the Year - and yours truly was chosen from our club! There is a little recognition during the Friday night dinner, which is nice. :)

I will be all on my own for three days! Andy will be with the girls all weekend - they will have a blast. I'll fill you when I return. Until then ... here is the reason and origin of why I am going away in the first place ...

When Mama's Sick

The past few days have been painful for me - literally. I have a cut on the back of my ear (have no idea how I got it) and it caused my lymph nodes to swell up to do their job. Have you ever read the resume for a lymph node? They get on a conference call and recruit white blood cells (WBC) from all the other companies in one's body and promise them coffee and donuts if they come to work early. So the WBCs all come - and fill up the LNs like a bad office party - you know - karaoke, sitting on copiers, eating all the shrimp, making passes at the boss. The WBCs get themselves into such a frenzy that their pain is then felt by the owner of said body - times 1000.

The entire right side of my face felt like I had a migrane. My ear, my jaw, my cheekbone, down my neck, the top and bottom of my skull. I went to Dr. B and he found the cut, gave me some ointment and told me I could just take Advil for the pain. It would just have to heal. I don't like taking anti-biotics, so I was fine with that.

Except the Advil didn't work. Neither did Aleve. My head was throbbing and I couldn't sleep - which I have a hard enough time doing as it is. I called again, and he prescribed me Vicodin for the pain (I am allergic to codeine). Andy took yesterday morning off to spend the morning with the girls so that I could catch up on all the sleep I wasn't getting. He was a bit stressed out because he had a bunch of meetings he had to prepare for - so I am thankful he was able to do that. (Thank you!)

By yesterday around 11:30am I had three doses of the V in me - and I found out that it affects me the same way the codeine does. It made me stunad ("stoo-nahd") - which is my Italian family's word for dopey. I knew what it was, and I knew all I could do was let it pass. I was basically passed out on the floor - my aunt came over to take care of the girls for me and I just slept (thank you!). My mom comes over after work every day to help me feed the girls and put them to bed, but last night she went solo (thank you)! I felt fine and horrible in waves for the next few hours - I even managed to sit at the computer and do some blogging - and then by night I was fine completely.

The up side is that my pain is gone! It still hurts around the ear itself, but I don't have the pain radiating all over my face anymore. Advice - if you don't want a WBC office party in your head - don't cut yourself behind your ear.