The Cast is Off!

Day my butt fell on the slopes

6 Weeks after

Before they took the pin out

6 weeks after the gracious, snowboarding mishap, I am finally free from the cast. Doc says the x-rays “look good” and proceeded to tell me he’s going to now pull the pin that’s been sticking out of my hand and holding my shattered bones together the past month and a half. ‘Holy shit’, I thought to myself (although my face probably showed exactly just that). “Don’t worry, I’ll give you something to numb it”, he said. “It should slide right out.”

Bullshit.

Don’t let anyone tell you any different… that shit hurt. Pardon my French, but I think I’m still a little pissed. And he was COMPLETELY wrong about it “just sliding out”. He sprayed some stuff on my hand which I assumed was the fake anesthesia and proceeded to yank on the ball while I squirmed on the examination bed, watching in horror. I think I was still waiting for the numbness to kick in, when the ball unexpectedly pops out…. leaving the pin still stuck in my hand. After deflecting the moment of ooops splashed across my doctor’s face, he calmly asks the tech if they had any pliers. I may have been hallucinating at that point, as I pictured Handy Manny and his pliers yanking that foreign object out of my flesh while singing in spanish. Weird, I know.

Finally, after much pulling, the thing comes out and they give me gauze and tell me to put pressure before I lose too much blood. Ok, I’m kidding. It didn’t bleed that bad.

Doc said I should have full use of my hand in a few months……… A few months really? I was thinking a week? Maybe two? He sent me off with no PT, only advice to get try to get back on my old routines, squeeze a ball every once in a while and come back in a month.

My wrist is really stiff and I have zero mobility on the broken finger. I can wiggle my other fingers ok and even bend them to make half a fist, but that’s about it.

This is going to be the longest summer ever……..

Easter Recap

Belated Happy Easter everyone!

We had a lot of fun over the weekend. Ethan went Easter egg-hunting 4 times, 3 days in a row – Friday at school with all his friends, Saturday at a local town center put together by a Kiwanis club, Sunday morning at home and then another one after church. I’m telling you, this boy is an egg-hunting machine!

I remember last year when we still had to kind of lead him to where the eggs where… but not this year! He tracked those eggs down like there’s no tomorrow. Granted he was with his own age group, I almost felt (a little) bad for the other kids who just stood there and stared at the eggs in front of them while Ethan swooped in to grab them with no remorse. I couldn’t believe how competitive he’s gotten!

After church with family, Mike, Sissy and I headed to LA for a Meet and Greet with the Lakers. My plan was to get my cast signed (which I’m hoping to get rid off today) and sell it on eBay, but we didn’t quite get that close to the players.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a blessed Easter like we did!

I’m off to see my orthopedic. Wish me luck!

150 Fun Songs for Kids for only .99 on Amazon

Here's the link to Amazon

Thought I'd post a quickie for those who have kiddos. Downloaded it last night and Ethan LOVES it!

Coupon: New York & Company Free $15 off ANY purchase

I’m still recuperating from working 24 hours straight so I’m not in the mood to blog, but I wanted to share this in case someone could use it over the weekend. I buy a lot of my work clothes from New York & Company.

Link to printer friendly coupon here

Chinese Fortune Cookie

This was in my fortune cookie tonight......


"You have a strong desire for a home and your family comes first."

It's found a spot on my wall, next to my family, where I can see it every day.

Works For Me Wednesdays: How to get Cheap Prints at Walgreens

Once upon a time, in the world of film cameras, most of us didn’t have a choice but to get our rolls of film printed. Otherwise, we’d never see the photos we took. Nowadays, it’s become quite normal to have hundreds (even thousands) of photos sitting in a hard drive without having to be printed.

That’s me. Guilty as charged.

I have more photos that what I can imagine to do with it, and yet, I don’t have any albums of actual printed pictures.

Every once in a while though, I run into mini-deals like this and I try to take advantage of it.

Upload your photos at Walgreens online and select in-store pick up to save shipping. It’s $5 for the first 50 prints by using code 5dollars. If you have more than 50 to print, don’t worry, it’s still .10 per print.

This coupon expires in April 11th, but they'll have this sale again, in cae you miss out.

Say Hello Big Boy Underwear!

It’s guess it’s time. We’re saying goodbye to diapers and hello to stench and stains and public restrooms and plastic bags in my purse waiting to be filled with little peed-in Spiderman underwear.

Ethan’s been ready but lazy for a while.

I’ve been not ready AND lazy for a while.

We actually started to introduce him to the idea wayyy early in the game – which I now learn that starting too early could actually mean the longer it takes for them to acclimate. He did extremely well for a few weeks, and then just started to show zero interest in transitioning.

Around October of last year, we thought we’d try again. Our goal was to get him potty trained by the time he turned 3. Lola (the potty Nazi) would make Ethan sit on the toilet until something came out. Sometimes, that worked… although I worried if it was because of the encouragement or if we just scared the shit out of him – literally. So we turned to what any parent would resort to…bribery. We promised him he would get “candy” every time he would make a deposit in the toilet – liquid or solid. And that worked well for a few weeks, until around Halloween where we got an abundant supply of sweets in the house, and Ethan learned to exchange 2 drops of pee for a Snickers. Sly little fella……

We then transitioned away from treats to compliments. There were plenty of “Great job!”s to pass around. Last week, he actually went potty at Disneyland which earned him a deserving new puzzle book. A few times last weekend, he stopped in the middle of playing to dash to the bathroom to pee. It was a sign…

Then yesterday, his preschool teacher said he’s been doing so well with telling them when he needs to go to the bathroom, that they asked if we could bring in some underwear (and LOTS of change of clothes) to school.

It was like bringing home an A+! I was a proud mama!

So after my unexpected premature trip back to the ortho (warrants a separate post), we dashed to Target to get cute-sy Spiderman, Madagascar and Batman underwear. Mike insisted on the plain (cheaper ones) but that’s boring! I thought it would maybe encourage Ethan NOT to pee on his favorite superhero.

Or not.

He had 2 accidents before we reverted back to the diaper for the night. While both Mike and I are terrified of stepping on yellow puddles and little nuggets all over the house, we know Ethan will do just fine. I’ll post updates!

Fun-filled Weekend: Part 3

Sunday afternoons are my alone-time with Ethan (while daddy goes to school for a few hours). I don’t get to spend a lot of time with him during the week, so I always look forward to being with him on the weekends.

It amazes me how little it takes for him to make me laugh and vice versa. On Sunday, we spent an hour taking turns laying on the grass while the other jumps over, pulling the wagon back and forth, and then the next 2 hours blowing and catching bubbles in the yard until sunset.

It’s always sad when we run out of daylight… since it always means we have to start winding down and getting ready for bed. But we still have a blast, and I’ve learned to appreciate every minute I could get.

Fun-filled Weekend: Part 2

Throughout the summer, our city is hosting a family fun day every first Sunday of the month downtown. They set up booths in front of the library and several museums and have arts and crafts stations for the kids. This was the first time we checked it out, and we’ll probably go again. It gave us an excuse to walk around, hang out, Ethan proudly went home with stuff he made that is now prominently displayed on the refrigerator, and best of all… it was FREE!

Fun-filled Weekend: Part 1

This weekend was an “Ethan-weekend”, like most of our weekends. It’s so much fun to take him out now that he can participate and appreciate a lot of the places we take him to, instead of just admiring from the stroller.

We took him to a place called Camelot (Ethan called it “the castle”) to play miniature golf -- or as Mike calls it, “putt-putt” -- for the first time.

Ethan’s not a stranger to golf. In fact, we took him to his first golf course at 5 months in muggy West Virginia.

But it was fun watching Ethan try to handle the club like a hockey stick, and it was great to see him celebrate with a “Yes!” when he sank his putts in.

There was a part, where Ethan got a little frustrated with the windmill door… after trying to swing uphill about 15 times, he finally went up to the door, watched it intensely like he was plotting an attack, peeped into the house for the few seconds it stayed open and then knocked twice (as if a nice little leprechaun’s going to answer and Ethan would ask him to please keep it open so he could hit his ball into the windmill). Of course, no one answered…. so Ethan did what any problem-solving 3-year old would do…. he tried to pry it open!

He was disappointed to end the game after 9 holes, but it was so hot my poor boys were easily turning to a crisp so we just spent the rest of the afternoon indoors playing in the arcade.

Stayed tuned for Part 2 and 3 of our weekend!

OLD NAVY Coupon: 50% off a Single Item

1. Go to Old Navy Weekly
2. Vote for "best legs" on the mannequins, all stars must turn blue
3. Wait 15-20 seconds for a kite to appear, and click on it – it starts on the left lower side and flies (quite quickly) towards the middle behind the girls
4. If you got it, a message will pop up
5. Print your coupon or email it to yourself

OR you could just print the coupon below. It’s not a unique code, so enjoy :)

Kids in the Kitchen

We stumbled upon this event last Saturday on our way to see Monsters vs Aliens. It was called “Kids in the Kitchen” where they had booths for kids/adults to learn about nutrition and healthy choices. Ironically, it was sponsored by McDonalds (which typically wouldn’t be the first thing on anyone’s mind when you say ‘healthy’).

Ethan had a lot of fun.

He played games, talked to the firefighters, did arts and crafts, exercised with the Soldiers/Marines, he even won a $25 giftcard to Mickey D’s – which, of course will be used towards apple dippers (ok, maybe some chicken nuggets, too).

There was a booth where they had laid out a bunch of food (healthy mixed in with the junk), and Ethan was supposed to pick 4 items to pack in his lunch bag. Proudly looking over his shoulder (and praying he would pass on the bag of Doritos), Mike and I watched Ethan pick a bag of nuts, a juice box, a milk carton and an orange! Then we realized he probably just wanted to stuff everything in the bag and bring it with him… :)

We also got several kid-friendly recipes that we collected by visiting each booth. Ethan got a free event shirt, a canvas bag, and a free Army shirt for doing pushups.

Hot Pink, Eyebags and a Great Catch

Horrible bags under my eyes....

I have been in a cast for 4 weeks now for my broken finger. The cast, bright in hot pink, goes up to almost my elbow. It’s extremely uncomfortable, gets heavy to lug around and very difficult to sleep with (I've actually hit myself over the head with it a few times, and Mike insists I gave him a black eye). I’ve noticed I’ve been more tired than usual… my doctor just says the body takes a lot of energy to heal. I still have a bottle of vicodin for those intolerable nights.

It’s unfortunate that my job relies heavily on my fingers to work on the computer and my hands for production. It’s been a royal pain in the you know what, but I’ve quickly learned to compensate with my left hand, and even though it’s slowed me down, I’m at least still getting things done.

But can I just say, that I’m the luckiest girl to have the greatest husband in the world?

Ever since I got imprisoned in this cast, he’s been so helpful and understanding. Even though I know he probably cringes when he hears me yell “Babe!” from the other side of the house, he’s been SUPER when it comes to doing things I normally could do myself.

He does laundry, cooks dinner almost every night, even grocery shopping! He wraps up my cast before I get in the shower, buttons up my pants, and doesn’t complain when I wake him up early morning to tie my hair in a ponytail (he’s actually gotten quite good at it).

Babe, if you’re reading this… THANK YOU, and I LOVE YOU.

Works for Me Wednesdays: How to Watch TV Shows/Movies Online

Fact #1: I don’t have time to watch tv.
Fact #2: When I do find the time, I would prefer to not have to watch commercials.
Fact #3: DVR is one of the greatest inventions known to mankind.
Fact #4: When you can’t access your DVR, if someone deletes your DVR recording, or if you don’t have the channel to DVR to begin with, you can always go online. Rest assured, someone else in cyberspace has recorded your show and have posted it online for your viewing pleasure.

Online streaming is how I survived 2 seasons of Top Chef and Project Runway without having Bravo on our cable package. I’ve also found myself watching Friends from the very beginning. How great is it that you can watch any show you could ever think of on demand, AND without the annoying pause for commercials.

But it’s not just tv shows anymore either. Gone are the days when you have to wait until weeks after release from theatre for it to go on betamax//VHS/DVD at your local Blockbuster. These days, movies get posted online before they are even released in the US. Granted you have to sort through several to find a good quality copy.. they do exist.. and they can save you the $20 you were going to spend at the movies.

My top picks are Tv Links, Surf the Channel and watch-movies.net.

I’m sure that there are plenty others, maybe even better ones. But these are the sites that I have been using and have consistently given me hours of entertainment without annoying popup ads and worse, viruses.

Monsters vs Aliens

Most of the time, we take him to the drive-in (luckily, we have one of the very few left just a hop, skip and a jump away). We’ve taken the truck with a twin mattress and some El Pollo chicken and unlimited snacks that don’t cost an arm and a leg. He generally does well if it’s a movie he’s interested in… we thought he would do okay to see Monsters vs Aliens in theatre, so we took him to see it in 3D over the weekend.

He started out good, fascinated with things he thought he could reach -- did ok for the most of the movie. For the first 10 minutes (about how long it took for them to set up the plot), Ethan kept asking “Where are the monsters?”. While Mike and I were busy trying to match the voiceovers to the characters. Now I know silence is golden in the theatre and all that jazz, but after a couple of other parents ssssh-shing their kids and babies crying in the background, we just kind of gave up. It was matinee after all, and a family movie. Between balancing on the folding seat (we didn’t get a booster chair), looking for the monsters, clapping for the monsters, and fighting for the popcorn tub, Ethan thought it was entertaining. He did start to get antsy towards the end and didn’t want anything to do with the 3D goggles – which only made the movie looked like you were watching it drunk.

The movie was cute overall. It centered itself on Susan, the giant girl, while the rest of the monsters – a blue gelatinous blob who falls in love with green jello, a brilliant scientist who turned himself to a cockroach, and a creature made of equal parts fish, ape, and frat boy referred to as The Missing Link -- just kind of followed in her shadow. The boyfriend was an ambitious jerk. The president in the movie was an idiot, I didn’t find him funny at all. There was a part in the movie where the “alien” started to attack, and the president said “we have to raise the terror level to code brown, because I have to check my pants”. Seriously…

In my opinion, it didn’t live up to the other Pixar movies. While the concept of the ass-kicking girl is all good and dandy, I didn’t really find myself all too interested in her character (it took her half the movie to realize she didn’t deserve her jerk-of-a-boyfriend). Oh well.

Ethan enjoyed it though! :)

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Works For Me Wednesdays: How To Volunteer When You Don’t Have the Time

I’ve always been a firm believer of paying it forward. I was a girlscout throughout grade school. In high school, some of my Saturdays consisted of waking up at 5am to help peel 500 potatoes for the local soup kitchen. In college, I spent a lot of time as a youth leader for the youth ministry, and once, I helped fix a home for a very deserving family through Habitat for Humanity. In my few years as an Army wife, I spent a lot of time with the Family Readiness Group, a nonprofit organization that helps families when their Soldiers are deployed.

Nowadays, being a working mom doesn’t leave me with very much time to dedicate somewhere outside of my work and family. Physically, anyway…

Thankfully, there’s plenty of opportunities for virtual volunteering! In this day and age, you’d be surprised how much you could do from home and over the internet. One of the organizations I’ve worked with recently, Youth Technology & Education Center in St. Louis Missouri, asked me to design a postcard to thank all their sponsors and contributors.

All it took were a few emails to get that simple sense of contribution -- as little as it seems.

I found them through Volunteer Match. It’s easy to search by location, by areas of interest, by groups and you can filter for virtual opportunities. But of course, if you’re so inclined to volunteer the old-fashion way, there’s plenty of opportunities for those too!

Splish Splash

Since both my camera and Mike’s camera croaked last week – I dropped mine and Ethan dropped Mike’s – AND I can’t even hold my nikon because of my cast…

I’m resorting to archives (for now) until we get a replacement.

These are actually only 2-3 weeks old… taken during one of Ethan’s fun times in the tab. It’s probably getting to that closing point where it’s going to start getting weird taking photos of him in the bath… for now, I think we’re okay!

Ethan actually loves taking bath -- or as he calls it “water down there”. Recently, he’s gotten used to taking showers – he calls it “rain”.

Stubbles

Love is....

...letting him be stubbly.

I don’t know about you, but I personally do not like stubbles. And this particular dislike of mine resulted in a cunningly provoked fight between me and the hubby.

I don’t like it. I think it makes a man look grungy and dirty, like they don’t care to take care of themselves. I think it’s ugly. And it feels “funny”.

Case in point: Ethan tried to give Mike a kiss one time and scowled “Your chin hurt my mouth, daddy”.

He insists he’s doing it for “Mustache March”…… it’s apparently a whole underground movement against clean-shaven faces all over the country. And I say, if I wanted a Chewbacca, I would’ve married one!

In fairness, Mike has had to shave everyday for the past 4 years because he was REQUIRED to (uniform and all), and now that he doesn’t have to, I suppose I could cut him a little slack. He did shave for an interview 2 weeks ago, and as a token of peace, shaved again yesterday.

So now, peace has been restored in our household.

And I promise to be a little more lenient with the mustache/beard rules, AS LONG AS HE NEVER lets it grow out like this guy.

Ew.

Coupon: Free Arbys Roast Burger with purchase of ANY drink

You can print the coupon above (click to enlarge and then print) or you can get your own by signing up for the ARBYS EXTRAS program. Fill out the form and they will email you a welcome coupon good for 7 days after you activate the coupon.

A small fountain drnk is around $1.60 so you can get a decent meal for under 2 bucks!

Enjoy!

Coupon: Aeropostale 30% Off Friends and Family Sale

Valid March 19 - March 22

AND you can use it on top of their clearance! EDIT: Apparently, this varies from store to store.

Get coupon here

Pink is the New Black

I finally saw my Orthopedic after having surgery done 2 weeks ago on my thumb. They took the surgical splint off, took one look at the pin protruding out of my skin, and said,

"See you in 4 weeks!"

Crap.

4 more weeks of this!?! Though I can't complain, especially after hearing about actress Natasha Richardson's skiing accident that left her brain dead. My prayers go out to her family.

That just looks disgusting, and yet I can't stop looking at it......

Who woulda thought I would pick pink?

Now I have to buy new pink wardrobe to match!