Awkward & Awesome Thursday

Awkward: 

1. Kendall's piano teacher calling at 8:00 pm to reschedule a lesson for the following morning and after saying, "yes, that works perfect for us", promptly forgetting all about it and not showing up the next day. When we were at home doing nothing. Sometimes I suck at being a mom.

2. That moment when you realize you have just "overshared" in the most supreme way. This is known as the "awkward-doubler"... unfortunate for both parties involved!

3. Another doubler - when an unexpected visitor shows up at 6:30 in the evening and your children tell them that mommy and daddy are having "alone time in the bedroom". There is pretty much no way to save your dignity in an occasion like this, no matter how fast you jolt out of that room.

4. Attempting to save it anyway, only to be greeted with... "well that was bad timing on my part!" by said visitor. Okay, how about we ALL pretend nothing was going on, alright?!!

5. Please see #2 - I may have just repeated it.

Awesome: 

1. My new phone. Yes, I'm still going on about it and I'm not ashamed. It rocks my socks.

2. Waffles with butter and powdered sugar instead of syrup. YUMMM.

3. Our weather lately. Low to mid-80's, clear skies, and minimum humidity; the perfect trifecta for sending your kids outside ALL. DAY. LONG.  

4. Compliments from my husband, the best complimenter in the world. He is not one for generalization, but will go into great detail and make you feel 100% amazing. Example: after speaking at church last night (something I was really nervous about), Russ didn't just tell me I did a great job, but said things like: "you know, it's pretty amazing how smooth your voice is, it's really calming." and, "Not many people having speaking voices like that, it actually makes the room stop and listen." There was more too, but I don't remember the rest because I pretty much curled up and purred after that.

5. Long lost friends finally moving back home... welcome back Justin & Joni!!!

Spoiled

What you see here is the perfect example of a spoiled wife. 

A happily spoiled wife. 

A happily spoiled wife who is in HOG HEAVEN playing with her now toy.

Move over beloved Kindle, the Motorola Atrix has arrived and completely stolen my heart!!!

Monday confessional - Eeevil me

If you were to ask me, I'd say I'm a pretty happy and upbeat person. Not prone to pessimism, gloominess, or cases of the blues; I wake up chipper, am up for anything fun, and always optimistically hope for the best (especially when it comes to things like the budget, which I mess up more frequently than I'd like to admit). 

HOWEVER... 

I will confess that if I get too tired I can turn into a regular ol' grumpy-pants. 

And if that ever gets combined with a bad case of "it's that time of the month so DON'T MESS WITH ME!", things can get a bit ugly. 

And if you take that combo and add to it me getting my hopes up for something very exciting (like buying a fancy new phone with bells and whistles, for example) and then my hopes getting dashed to the ground (because we arrived at the store only to find it closed early because it's Sunday, and someone didn't do their homework and look up the store hours before leaving the house, for example), you suddenly have a case of "EEEVIL JODI".

Evil Jodi pouts and complains. Evil Jodi is very short with you when you suggest anything she doesn't want to do. In fact, she'll probably be quite rude and tell you your ideas are stupid. Not quite outright of course, because she was brought up with good manners, but in so many words that you get the drift. 

And then she's likely to give you the silent treatment.

She will NOT make you a fruit smoothie. She will NOT sit and watch the A-Team movie with you even though she loved it the first two times. And how DARE you suggest she is having a bad attitude! That's it - she's leaving you to your own entertainment and going to simmer in her NON-stinky-thank-you-very-much attitude in the bedroom!

I'm afraid to say Evil Jodi does not have very good self-control over her emotions. At all.

Luckily for her me, I married Captain Awesome, who doesn't blames me when I'm dealing with the deadly combination described above and is instead very patient and enduring, until I put myself to bed for the benefit of all, when I'm sure he heaves a giant sigh of relief to have escaped my presence.

It's a good thing Evil Jodi doesn't come out very often.

 

Myself in happier times, aka, at the pool with the fam earlier yesterday afternoon ;)

Goodwill soulmates, questionable drivers

Yesterday, my sister-in-law Cara and I traveled an hour and a half south to Corvallis with a car full of kiddos to watch our nephew play baseball. (His team lost their first state game and it was kinda sad, but it's double elimination and they played again this morning and 10-runned the other team so the Vikings are still in the tournament!)

GORGEOUS day for baseball in Corvallis!

ANYWAY. After the game Cara and I decided to hit a few thrift stores in town, which turned out to be super trendy consignment stores. As in, $15.00 and up per item. Not bad prices for the the types of stores they were and the brands they had, but not the kind of thrifting we were looking for. So we headed back to Albany to find the giant Goodwill we passed on the way down and after about 5 wrong turns it showed up! We were quite proud. 

Time we entered the store: 6:30 pm.

Time store closed: 9:00 pm. 

Time we exited the store: 9:07 pm.

Don't ever go to the Goodwill with Cara and I. You'll never get out of there. 

If I'm not on a time schedule, my motto is "We leave when the kids are done" and sometimes they'll last for an hour. But with cousins together, a well-stocked toy isle, and a great book section, the kids were just fine and dandy, so Cara and I got to shop the whole store, and then try on about 30 or so items each. 

Totally not what we normally get to do and totally fun!

Some cute new things! Also purchased: shorts for my kids, sandals for Kendall, and Pictionary - the best board game of all time.

Oh and this dress/swimsuit cover, which I wore today. (Trying a new hairstyle - don't laugh)

Total spent: $41.00. WELL worth it.

By the time we were done we were famished and ready to find Dairy Queen for a late dinner and dessert treat for the kids. After stopping at a Dutch Brothers coffee stand for directions, we only circled town 3 times, drove into one dead-end park, two dead-end streets, and took one accidental turn into a wrong-way lane before finding it! Again, we did ourselves proud!

Don't ever go driving in a strange town with Cara and I. You'll want to strangle us WELL before you reach your desired destination. Which you may or may not ever reach.

To complete our evening of misadventure, we missed our exit off the freeway to get back home because we were chatting instead of paying attention, and had to drive 9 miles further to take the next one. 

All the better for making our fun outing together last a bit longer, we say!

Dear Cara, 

Thank you for being my Goodwill soulmate.
I had a SPLENDID time.

Love, Jodi

10 Things (random edition)

1. A recent mini-project: fixing and painting this picnic table that Russ picked up last summer for $20.00. It has been invaluable to us since we got it, but not the prettiest thing. Or sturdiest.

Before (well, during)

We used this oil based paint/stain because it was leftover from a play structure Russ painted, and therefore free. Now Russ is going to drill a hole down the middle big enough to put a huge crank-open umbrella in it - so excited!

After

2. While I was finishing painting the table yesterday morning, Blake went on a mini run of terror. Within 1/2 an hour he had:

- scribbled all over our front door with a builders pencil.
- plugged our bathroom sink to play with toys in the water and then left the sink running and left the room, flooding the entire floor and underneath my counter, where apparently the sink run off hole empties into.
- left a nice skid mark in his underwear, decided to change himself into his swim trunks, in my bedroom, on the floor, and transferred said skid onto my carpet.
- Ewww.
- I was not pleased.

3. Tortilla Land raw tortillas - have you tried them yet? SOOO easy. After the 4th one Kendall was making them on her own. 30 seconds each side on a hot fry pan, no oil, no butter, nothin'. Super hot, super YUM.

4. My current guilty pleasure.

Hot mocha with a little creamer. I bough the creamer as a special treat for Sunriver, but when that trip didn't happen I couldn't let this lovely stuff sit all lonely in the fridge!

5. We spent the afternoon at the pool yesterday afternoon with Tricia and Cara and most of their kids. Thank you Safeway for free swim coupons on the back of our receipts! When we came back home my kids bee-lined it for... our pool. Oh, to be young and never ever swimmed-out.  

6. Last night Russ and I had nursery duty at church. 4 one and a half to almost two year olds. 3 boys, 1 girl. The three boys played and fought over every car/lego/toy hammer/ball you could find and the little girl found 4 dollies and held them tight all evening - while standing at the play kitchen.

Gender predisposition anyone? So funny.

7. Today we're off to my nephew's State playoff baseball game in Corvallis. Go Derek! (This will be the first game we've attended this year, so the hour and a half drive is worth it to make the last-minute attempt to look like semi-supportive family members ;)

8. Last night Mum and I went on a spontaneous late-night grocery shopping trip to the Walmart Supercenter in Woodburn. I shopped there for years before switching over to Winco & Target in Clackamas because it was closer to Costco, but last night was like returning home.

I forgot how HUGE there selection of EVERYTHING was. I Picked up so many things I haven't found anywhere else and several things I hadn't seen before... yet came under budget. Always a successful way to end an evening. (That and the mini Ben & Jerry's ice cream cups we enjoyed on the way home :)

9. And now I can't think of two more things to make it to 10.

10. So I'll call this good :)