Vloggin' Vednesday ~ How To

What I Talk About Today:

How I Organize Baby Clothes

{The original video was about twelve minutes. The one you'll watch today goes about five/six minutes. I cut it off there before I started to talk about how I decorated Snowdrop's nursery/the guest bedroom/the playroom (it's all of those things) on a budget. If there is enough interest expressed in the comments, then I will post the rest of it for you. K? Awesome. :)}

So a few notes on this here vlog:

1. I had some really great captions going on here in the video but someone (ahem, Windows Live Movie Maker) kept stalling and messing up the placement of the captions. And then I fixed it and uploaded my video. But it was still messed up. So I tried again until the program had some error and closed before I had saved my most recent edits. I gave up because I've been working on this since naptime and they are going to bed for the night right now, so..... I just need to get it posted.

2. I forgot to mention that my mother-in-law is also partially responsible for all the baby clothes.

3. My baby & I did not match on purpose with our green shirts. We are just cool like that.

4. Sorry I say "um" all the time. Um... yeah.

5. If I ever have a boy, he is probably going to be wearing a lot of pink. And purple. He will be a girly man.
{I think you have to say Girly Man like Ah-nold. (Arnold Schwarzenegger)}


Thanks a bunch for stopping by my blog! Head on over to Adeline's Daddy and link up your Hot Vliggity Vlog for Vloggin' Vednesday!!

ZOMG .... Jaw Hits Floor.

Did THE Pioneer Woman just tweet to me?! ZOMG. dafjdafjekfjaewihrfaewfadnkdasfkdlnh!!!!! 

{LOL. How cool is this day?}

Okay. And have you seen that the BronxZooCobra has a twitter? It's totally been cracking me up. Do you Tweet or Twitter or whatever it is?? I've had my account for a while but I just started using it recently. Okay. That is all for now. There is the stinkiest child standing below me. I need to change her and run upstairs to shoot my Vloggin' Vednesday Hot Vliggity Vlog for the day. 

Totally Tuesday Randomness

{my pensive face. and an homage to vivian maier.}

Wow! Today was looooooooooong. I was busy ALL day. Seriously. I don't think I sat down. The girls had school so we were out of the house at 8:40am to make it there by 9. Then I took Snowdrop with me to run a couple errands. We had to get our money back for some rotten pork-steaks that we got from Whole Foods. I love Whole Foods. I'm not sharing that info to diss them. They offered to replace the meat... but.... well, I'm kind of outta the mood for pork now. I had actually been SO EXCITED about finding them, that I had called and left my husband a message that we were having pork-steaks for dinner. While not organic, the meat was humanely raised on a vegetarian diet, no hormones, antibiotics, etc etc. It was as close to organic without being organic. Whole Foods has this great rating program for animal wellness. In fact, they won't accept meat to sell unless the farm participates in the rating program. AND the farms are rated by a complete third part ~ a factor I find to be very important. ANYWAYS ~ I was excited to be able to make pork-steaks for the kids AND us, and for it to be a healthy meal. Oh well. Maybe next time... when the meat isn't rotten?

While we were there, I checked out the "nut-free peanut butters" and to my horror {okay I wasn't horrified but I was a little put off}, the nut-free peanut butters were mixed in with the regular peanut butters. In fact, I actually saw a Sunflower Seed Butter {a type someone with a peanut allergy might eat} inbetween a Peanut Butter and an Almond Butter. Most of the rest of the "nut-free peanut butters" {yes I know that sounds a little confusing but I'm hoping you understand!} were on the bottom shelves. So after I left and saw the regular grocery store's peanut butter set-up, I called Whole Foods and offered some constructive criticism. I was SUPER NICE. Really, I was. Because it was totally constructive criticism. I really think someone just didn't think of what I was thinking of.

My advice to them was to mimic the regular grocery store's shelf. They had all the nut-free peanut butters on the top shelf and none of them was mixed in with regular peanut butter. I explained to the gal that my daughter has a peanut allergy so we can only have nut-free peanut butters. But I can't feed her a nut-free peanut butter if it's been stored next to a regular peanut butter. I do not expect the world to change for us BUT if I can make it easier on us by getting some things to be changed... I am all for speaking up! :) The girl totally thought what I was saying made sense and she said that they take customers' suggestions very seriously. I hope next time I go there, I see a change. That would be cool. My daughter is not SO allergic that she'll die from inhaling a peanut particle ~ but I still would not buy a nut-free peanut butter that was sitting next to a regular one.

So I spent my $4.59 for 15oz of SoyNut Butter at the regular grocery store. {$$$$$$$$$$$$$} I will let you know if that works out for us. I know I thrive on knowing that other people are going through similar experiences ~ I haven't really found a peanut support blog out there. Any of you know of any? I've got an idea in the works for a peanut allergy blog... advice, brands, etc. Like I said, it's in my head so.... it might take some time to get worked out of there. If there is any other peanut allergy parent out there that would like to tackle this with me, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE comment or email me. I could totally use another brain on this one. :)

SO I got my package yesterday. I'm not going to talk about the events leading up to this, I won't even link my blog post {but if you go back in the last week it's there, haha}, but the supervisor I spoke with on Monday was very apologetic. I was very nice and didn't say that Kim was a bitch. I said "Kim was very helpful, I'm so glad she was able to find my package. I do have to say however, and I don't want to just speak ill of her or anything but her attitude when I called was just out of line. I might have been all up-in-arms but she gave me the attitude of like "And what do you want me to do about it?"" The supervisor seemed to agree with my description of Kim's attitude. HM. Whether or not she really agrees, at the very least I was given that impression. And that's what counts, right? :)

So this package was from my paternal grandmother. My Nana Kay. I love my Nana Kay. Shit. Tearing up already. We actually have never met in person. I know, I know!! Get my ass down to Florida and meet this lady! {We were hoping to be there right now, at the end of March. Unfortunately due to money & work, we could not.} She & my Pop-Pop {now deceased} were actually the ones looking for me when we first found each other online. {Have I told you before that I love the Interwebs?} We have a terrible lot in common, the backbone of which is our love for theater, dancing, singing.

Anyways, so she sent the girls coloring books and $10 to Snowdrop for her birthday. Wouldn't you know it, the girls have been BEGGING ME for new coloring books for the last couple weeks. BEGGING. I know so many people, in real life and BlogLand, who have adopted children or are considering it ~ and I don't say the following to frighten you or give you fears or anything like that, or make you feel badly about your own relationships with your adopted children, etc, this is just MY personal experience, my sister doesn't even feel this way, so this is just my perspective on my life experience as an adopted child ~ I have never felt like I "fit in" to my family. {I promise I will write a post, or many posts, about my adoption and my thoughts on it some day. I need time to sort things out in the ways I want to share them, you know? Because I DO want to share them. My feelings on the whole adoption thing grew a billion times stronger when I became a Mom. It's often hard to rope in. Thanks for being patient.}. They are all golfers, I LOATHE the sport. Yeah, I play it but I LOATHE it. I wanted to be an actress, an artist, a dancer, a designer, a writer; they are doctors, teachers, nurses, lawyers, etc. This would not have been an issue, of course, if my adoptive family had made more of an effort to develop my interests instead of forcing theirs on me. Very Briefly, I just feel that they so often tried to change me to fit them instead of accepting what they got and loving that (what they got) instead of what they "dreamed of". {My mom actually once told me that she prayed the baby (that ended up being me) wouldn't be redheaded.....}

So when my Nana Kay {who I've never met in person, who I actually haven't talked to in the last few weeks} sends my girls coloring books, without knowing that it's a current wish of theirs... it just reminds me {tears} that somewhere out there are people just like me, who think like me, and act like me; people who know what I'm thinking without me saying anything. We are on the same wavelength in the same dimension, though we've never even touched hands. That's just so f*ing cool. :) {To be noted: The girls colored for two hours non-stop yesterday.}

And it also makes me wonder what other times in my life that we were connected like this and we didn't even know.

~

Thanks for listening/reading! :) 

{if you made it this far. hahahaha}

Sweet ~ A Paper Mama Photo Challenge

Who doesn't love a good Paper Mama Photo Challenge? The theme this week is: Sweet. I looked through lots of pictures but settled on this one from Snowdrop's First Birthday {yes, this is from December 30, 2010, sorry!}. She just looks so sweet with that chocolate frosting mustache and chin-beard. {Aaaaaand, sorta funny too!}

Share your Sweet pictures & check out all the others over at The Paper Mama!

Paper Heart Camera Show & Tell ~ Self-Portrait: Kitchen

Show & Tell ~ Self-Portrait: Kitchen

Inspired by Chelsey's Picture {thanks lady!}

Show:

Tell:

Treated myself to the whole $5.11 Triple Grande Caramel Machiatto with Extra Foam. {Yikes, they raised their prices again!! This was an expensive morning!} I've been up since 3:30am and because my espresso machine is loud.... it was the right day to treat myself. So I snuck out of the house {literally, I had to sneak ~ you moms know exactly what I'm talking about!}. This was a pretty accurate self-portrait. Thanks for the inspiration, Chelsey! My face is not ready for a self-portrait picture this morning. Hahahaha! 

I had a little trouble getting the shadow out of the picture. If I had more time today, I'd work on that.

Show & Tell your own self-portrait kitchen picture over at The Paper Heart Camera!! Hope to see you there! :) 

Shoot & Edit ~ Green

Green is the theme this week for Shoot & Edit with Jill & Ashley! Share and post your SOOC shot over at Jill's blog today, and share your edited picture at Ashley's blog on Thursday! Ok? Awesome!!~
Here's my SOOC for this week:

Come back & check out my edited picture on Thursday!! Thanks for stopping by. :) 

Spring Snowstorm

***If you're stopping by from Macro Monday, thanks for coming over!!! My Macro Monday entry is the second to last picture from the bottom. {Letting you know this in case you only want to see the macro shot. Even though my other shots are pretty, too!}***

Our backyard/across-the-alley neighbors have a beautiful magnolia tree in their front yard. Beautiful probably doesn't do it justice.... Majestic is more like it! :) Every Spring it just explodes with blossoms ~ I think I might say it's the most beautiful tree in our neighborhood. Just brilliant! {I'll get some regular pictures of it one of these days... without the snow, so you can see what I'm talking about. :)}

We had a weird snowstorm on Saturday, unpredicted as far as my husband and I know. It lasted ALL day; literally, continuous snowfall all day. It was gorgeous, you know I love snow, and so unusual to see all the blossoms covered in powdery white fluff. I was so much prettier than snow on leaves. I hope the snow didn't ruin the blossoms/trees/springtime flowers but I totally hope it wiped out some bugs! :) 

Here are some pictures I took of the magnolia tree. 

 

{SOOC, a little overexposed? But I like it anyways. It's soft & white.}

{SOOC ~ same as above.}

{SOOC}

 

{SOOC}

{submitting this one -above- for my very first Macro Monday link-up! It's not a super-macro picture but it is a big tree so... hard to get too close. Haha!}

I did edit the first four pictures. They just needed a little kick in the lighting department, and with a little color curves. It's easy to edit that way and I liked the results. I usually don't do too much editing anyways. A little contrast here & there, and little lighting bumps. There usually is not too much time to spend editing, you know? But the last few were SOOC. Awesome!! Anyways... so....

 The fourth picture down was cool. I liked how strong the trunk looked and how it reached all over the picture... I was adjusting the color curves when I noticed how neat it looked "solarized". Check it out: 

Hope you liked these pictures! Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday ~ March 27, 2011

I love Scavenger Hunt Sundays. The kids {and my Hubby, who am I kidding!} usually prevent me from participating. But I really do enjoy it. And seriously, Mrs. Ashley Sisk has got to be one of the NICEST bloggers out there! Her blog is one of my favorites so I do like to participate in her challenges. Plus, I have learned SO MUCH from her about photography & life & faith, whether or not she was trying to teach. I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way!What a well-rounded blog {and blogger!}. :) 
So.... Scavenger Hunt Sunday.... this week, I took ALL the pictures this morning. In the span of like half-hour. In my kitchen. Well, the one is from my pantry. :) It was my own challenge-within-a-challenge. I did pretty well, I think! :) 

Here we go! The items this week are:

Decay, Groups of 3, Kitchen, Things That Make You Go Hmmmm, and 'Me Time'

{decay ~ a "plant" in my kitchen window. i think i'll plant a new one this year and try again!}

{groups of 3 ~ measuring cups inverted! one of my newest favorite filters!! thankyouverymuch, ashley!}

{things that make you go 'hmmm' ~ i'm such an advocate for eating fresh, natural, un-processed food. yet, i continue to buy boxed (organic!) macaroni & cheese by the case for my children. hmmmmm.}

{kitchen ~ my love. my green kitchen-aid mixer. i had it long before i was married. i like that i can see the rest of the kitchen & myself in the glare. though perhaps i should have given it a little wipe-down first. i can see some flour on it.}

{"me time" ~ i love blogging. my husband delayed me three hours in posting this because one of his friends was over and i was "being rude". whatever. they were watching basketball! i love to blog. i love to read your blogs. i love blogging. it's totally some of my "me time".}

~

Go on your own Scavenger Hunt Sunday and link up the pictures so we can all check them out! Link up at Ashley's Blog ~ the items are listed there & at the top of my post! Have fun!

Thanks so much for swinging by my blog. :) 

Notes for Monday's Complaints to the Post Office

I drop the F-Bomb a few times towards the end. Be warned, that is all.

Our post office... sucks. For real lack of a better word. BUT if there's one thing I REALLY hate though, is bad customer service. I despise it. Despise.

On Thursday, I missed a parcel from my biological grandmother. No real biggie, although I do LOVE getting stuff from her. I called & rescheduled it for Friday.

It didn't come. I called again, irritated this time so I filed a complaint but didn't request a callback, and scheduled another reschedule. For Saturday.

It didn't come. {We got our mail but no parcel. No knock on the door to say "Hey, I'm coming back in the next hour with a parcel for you, when I'm done delivering this large bag of mail." I don't expect my mail carriers to carry my shit around all day, but I DO expect a knock on the door if we're expecting a redelivery.}

So I phoned the 800 number and filed yet another complaint, this time requesting that I get a call back. The very nice gal on the phone (who initially apologized to me and was very kind and took all the appropriate customer service steps to ensure we fix this problem) also gave me the direct number to the station that services my zip code, in case I wanted to call them personally. She must know I like to do that.

I've called there before. See, we've had LOTS of trouble with our carriers {it's a different person every day}. Mainly things like getting our neighbor's mail (they had a dog and the guy didn't like putting mail in the door slot so for a month we'd be delivering mail to our neighbor; not a terrible inconvenience but it's not my job!), receiving "Sorry We Missed You" slips when I've been sitting on the couch 5 feet from the door all day (!#@$%^&*), and the time we 'coincidentally' didn't receive mail on Tuesdays for like two months. Just Tuesdays.

So I called. Kim answered the phone. Yep, using her real name. What a bitch! I started the conversation by requesting to speak to the mail carrier supervisor. She goes "That me." {That's not a typo, she said "That Me".} I explained my issue and expressed my irritation "I've had to HERE. Like, if you could see me, my hand is above my head. Here. I have it had it to here." I might have been bitchy about it ~ frankly, I'm entitled to be a bitch about it at this point though. {Yes, I am. I don't HAVE to be a bitch but if I want to be ~ I can be at this point.} And instead of doing what she SHOULD HAVE DONE, she goes "Mmmhmm." Mmmhmmm? No, 'Sorry'. No, 'Can I get the confirmation number for the redelivery so we can check out what happened'. The correct answer, KIM, is "Maam, I am so sorry we are having trouble getting your parcel to you. Can you give me the confirmation number for the redelivery and I'll go investigate what happened."

I maybe shouldn't have been all up-in-arms but frankly, it's not MY job to be nice in this situation. It's HER job to be nice to me and to fix the problem. If I'm not swearing or threatening, which I wasn't, then she should be nice... She should be apologetic (like the other gal at the 800# was). I shouldn't have to prompt her to take down my confirmation numbers and look stuff up for me.

Had she been walking instead of talking, her feet would have been dragging on the floor. Dragging. There was a constant silence on the other line. I almost felt like she was FaceBooking while talking to me, do you know what I mean?

So after I prompt her to take down my redelivery confirmation number, she goes "There's nothing here in my system with that number." Now, I find this hard to believe and I tell her so because I just got off the phone with the USPS who had no trouble assigning or finding this number the past two days. I tell her "Sorry, I don't mean to say that I don't believe you but... I don't believe you!" Then the bitch goes on to tell me (with the same lazy attitude from before) "Well, *I* printed out the papers this morning and there was nothing about a redelivery. There was just a package pick-up on...(then she tried to give me a street name, as if I give a fuck where the package pick-up was scheduled)." Again, no "sorry I can't find this number, give it me again because maybe I put in the wrong numbers." Just a complete denial of there even being a parcel at all. Which of course, makes me even more mad. She's IMPLYING that I'm asking for a parcel that doesn't exist! THE NERVE.

At that point, I see that KIM is useless, a bitch, a lazy ass bitch who isn't going to be able to help out today. I requested her supervisor's name. Then I continued the conversation. I had her look up my complaint confirmations to see if she was able to find those. She was. That's what she told me, "I got that one." Then silence. No, "I read over the complaint and now I see why you are so upset about this." Just silence. So then I had to prompt her to look up the second complaint.

The rest of our conversation involved her being a bitch and basically like not-giving-a-shit that she fucked up. I mean, if she was in charge of the carriers, I can only assume she'd also be the one in charge of making sure re-deliveries/pick-ups/etc happen. I am no longer angry with my mail carrier ~ I see now that it wasn't her/his fault.

It was Kim's fault. And she was a bitch about it. A Class-A Bitch. 


She ended up finding my parcel {imagine THAT}{"I was able to find your parcel. It here."} { and only through my own prompts to run my re-delivery confirmation numbers again, and after sitting on hold way too many times to be appropriate} and she confirmed TWICE. TWIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICE to me that my parcel would arrive on Saturday before close.

I do want it noted here that after Kim twice confirmed I would receive my parcel on Saturday, I apologized to her saying "Thanks! I really appreciate you getting that out to me today! Kim, I'm sorry for biting your head off earlier; unfortunately though as supervisor, you are in the position where that is bound to happen from time to time. Have a great rest of your day, Thanks for getting my parcel out!"


My parcel. Never. Came.


As it all turns out, I could have picked up my missed parcel in less time than it would take the US Postal Service to do so. {I had the option of picking it up two days after Thursday if I didn't take the option of calling for a next day re-delivery. I have three young kids. Like I'm packing them up to drive to a post office in the ghetto to pick up a parcel.}

W.T.F.

I JUST WANT MY MOTHER-FUCKING PARCEL. GOSH DAMMIT.

Wow. Not only was she a BITCH the entire time (not ONE apology for their office fucking things up), but she LIED to me. LIED. As I see the situation, I don't see what else could have happened that day other than her deciding to not call my carrier to come back and redeliver the package. Yes, we had a snowstorm LATER THAT DAY (well past the time of being able to use it as an excuse, plus it wasn't even sticking on the roads, so...) but isn't the motto of the USPS to deliver mail in any kind of weather? You can't count on the milkman, but at least you know your mail will get there, right? 

See, and what Dumbass Kim doesn't realize, is that had I received my parcel on Saturday like she confirmed I was going to, I would have dropped the whole matter before Monday even rolled around. But now, I gotta call her supervisor and complain about a ton of stuff. As a "supervisor" Kim probably should have realized that. Do I believe she's actually a "supervisor"? No. A real supervisor would have known the  correct way to speak to a customer & would have fixed the problem.

I'm also calling the 800# AGAIN and filing yet another complaint.

Thank you for reading my vent. It will provide me with a good set of notes from which to base my Monday Bright & Early Conversation with Carlene, supervisor of Kim. 

Snow and Boogers

I took lots of pictures today but didn't really have time to post any. My sister brought back our car {we "let" her drive herself back to school last night.... ha!}, we were cleaning stuff, just busy with Saturday House stuff. 

You know how that goes!!

 I'll get to posting more pictures tomorrow {and I really hope to get in a Sunday Scavenger Hunt, too!}... but for now, one glance of our crazy Springstorm! :)

{magnolia tree blossoms from the yard behind ours ~ if you think these are beautiful, just wait until you see the rest of this tree!}

One closing note: My children have no problem eating their boogers during the day {ew.}. It's a constant thing, the finger in the nose that every so slyly {?spelling?} slips down into the mouth, and back up again... but as soon as we close their door for bedtime & get downstairs, the one of them "NEEEEEEEEEDS A KEE-NEX" {neeeeeeeeds a kleenex}. She is currently throwing a fit at her door because she wants a kleenex. 

She said "no" when I told her to eat it. 

I'm not a bad mom, right? 

{brb}

Okay. So I just went up there. With a kleenex. 

Nose is wiped, all is good. And my girls {the twins} tell me that they want to "cuddle". They spent their naptime "cuddling" in one bed this afternoon. It's way, impossibly too cute to say no to that. 

So I tucked them in, head to toe. That's how they were in my belly, head to toe. 

{holding back the tears}

I love those girls. Even if they do eat boogers.  

Have a FABULOUS Saturday night!!

Project365 ~ 77 to 83

Welcome back for Project365!!! If you're a return linker-upper, thanks for linking up!! I really love seeing more names on the list and checking out your pictures. If this is your first time at my blog, welcome! Thanks for stopping by! I am having so much fun this year with Project365. I think it's a great way to capture little things and everyday life. If you haven't started yet, you totally should ~ like tomorrow. :) 

And then link up so the rest of us can check out your fabulous life. Okay? Awesome.

~

Project365 ~ Days 77 to 83

{my little snowdrop}{i LOVE this picture!}

{Mr. Froggy Oggy. Snowdrop's Best Lovie Ever.}

{20 pairs of socks & 7 pairs of un.di.es. -from Gymboree- for $31. I love stacking coupons!}

{A Watercolor Edit from my first Shoot & Edit participation}

{a shelf in our pantry}

{making cookies with my baby}

{time for snowdrop to make her very own paper plate art}

~

There's lots going on today other than Project365, like the new Fabulous Friday Linkie Party that you oughta go check out and link up to! My Fabulous Friday post is right here, if you want to check that out.

Please link up your pictures below and don't forget to grab my button from the sidebar. :)

Thank you so very much for looking at my pictures & stopping by my blog! It means a lot to little ol' me! Really!! :) 

Linking up as usual to:

the naptime momtog

the daily wyatt

{and some others, too.}

Fabulous Friday ~ March 25

Welcome to the very first Fabulous Friday, where we share any photo from the past week that we took and think is fabulous! I like a fun challenge like this! 

Be sure to link your own FABULOUS picture at Jennifer's Blog!

I took this picture at night and it came out totally black. You can check out the SOOC shot, along with some other edits, here. I had a great time working on it for Ashley & Jill's Shoot & Edit Challenge. After editing, I realized how many pictures I've discarded that were totally black, that I might have been able to save. I might not be so hasty to get rid of them in the future! :)  I had some good suggestions in the comments about other ways to edit this picture. I took the advice and played around in PSE for a bit and came up with this. 

It's embossed. And I think it's totally rad. :) 

Share a fabulous picture from your week at Jennifer's Blog! 

And thanks for stopping by my blog! 

If you are doing your own Project365, check out my pictures from this week and link up your own! 

Fabulous Friday ~ Linkie Party Starts Tomorrow!

Hi! So, Jennifer over at the mcdougall photography blog is hosting a Fabulous Friday Linkie Party! The first day is tomorrow. The main idea of the linkie party is to link up any picture that you have taken in the past week that you think is FABULOUS! Easy, right? And another opportunity to share some of those awesome pictures that I know we all have been taking. :) 

Anyways, head on over to her blog tomorrow and link up your Fabulous Friday picture!

And don't forget to come back to MY blog tomorrow and link up your Project365 pictures!
I can't wait to share my pictures from this week and check out yours! . :)