HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!

Happy Holidays to everyone! This includes Merry Christmas! Happy (belated) Chanukah! Happy Kwanzaa! Happy First Day of Winter! Happy I’m-An-Atheist-So-Leave-Me-Alone Day! Happy I-Don’t-Really-Celebrate-Anything-But-This-Is-A-Good-Time-To-Take-A-Few-Days-Off Week! Happy WHATEVER you want this time to be for you!!! (Did I cover everyone? Did I offend anyone? Whew!)

Melissa and I will be taking some time off also to celebrate whatever we celebrate with our families, so you will not hear from us until after the new year.  Actually, probably not until after our kids go back to school, to be honest!

So Happy 2011 to all of you. And once again, thank you for reading our little blog!

Karen

Friday Funny- Seriously?!?!?

This is one of my greatest fears. I thought I had overcome it. I really did. When I first started using computers when I was in school, I was always afraid of the delete button. It seemed so final. I mean, delete and you never get it back, right? And then all of that work you just spent the last 2 hours doing... GONE. With one keystroke, all of that work is negated. I had a hard time handling that.

So I've always used the delete button with a certain sense of trepidation. I've never turned off those warnings that say,"Do you really want to delete that?"

But apparently I have been remiss. I have gotten lax. I got so ingrained in my routine that I just didn't give it a second thought anymore. Somewhere along the line I got over my whole fear of deleting.

Until last night.

Sitting on the couch, going through my emails, I tried to go back to my inbox after permanently throwing out all of my deleted emails.

Except that I was not in my deleted box, but in my inbox.

My entire inbox, completely deleted.

Unrecoverable.

Gone.

Vanished.

Buh-bye.

It's so overwhelming that it is actually funny is some small way. Small being the operative word here.

I know- you're just shaking your head at me, aren't you? And you're still wondering how I got locked in the basement? Fear not, dear readers, I was locked out of the house TWICE this week.

Seriously, I think I need a reality TV show. Then people might really believe me when I write about all of these things.

Yours, wishing you whatever it takes for you to get ready for Christmas before the weekend is out,

Melissa

HUSBAND VS. DOG

So I read this short article someplace, maybe Reader’s Digest, about how we should try to treat our spouses like our dogs. In a good way. And I started thinking about this. Yes, I give my dog more affection than I give my husband. Yes, I excuse more bad behavior from my dog. No, I don’t mind cleaning up after my dog.

But here’s the thing: If my husband ACTED like my dog, I wouldn’t have a problem treating him like my furry baby! For example, if he ran up to me with such excitement every time I came home, even if I’d only been in the back yard for 5 minutes, so, so happy to see me. Or if he looked at me with such gratitude and love in his eyes every single time I gave him any small amount of affection. Or if, when I asked him to do something, he just did it without uttering a word. Or when I put my cold feet under his belly to keep them warm, he didn’t even move or complain. Or if I do something wrong or a little mean, he instantly forgives me. Or how he somehow senses when I’m having a bad day and snuggles next to me as much as he can.

**Sigh** I love my dog!

Oh, maybe this is what the article meant. Maybe this is how I’m supposed to act toward my husband.  Hmmm, I’ll have to ponder that. But I’m definitely drawing the line at the cold feet under the belly!

Karen

Monday Madness- Putting Down the Pen

If you're a regular reader here at Macaroni and Chicken Fingers, you will know that we just released our THIRD e-organizer, The Caregiver Organizer for MY Special Needs Child. YAY! It's done!!!!! (Yes, I'm doing the happy dance. And it's a very, very happy one. Exuberant and a little bit over the top would probably be a better description, but I digress). I read Karen's blog the other day, the one in which she said we would not be writing anything for a while.

I could not be happier!

Seriously, I know I'm a writer, but there is a time to write, and a time to take a break. I'm quite proud (not in an arrogant sort of way, but more of a yes, we worked pretty hard on this and I'm really happy to be finished with it) of our accomplishment. We stayed the course and completed it!

And just in time for Christmas. Do you know there are only TEN days left? And probably only about EIGHT SHOPPING DAYS. I tremble as I type this. I have about half of my shopping done, none of my baking and none of my Christmas cards. Guess what my next writing project is about to be....

Yours, thinking there is RARELY a time when the pen gets rest,

Melissa

Friday Funny- It Was Bound To Happen

You will never believe what happened to me the other morning. Well, if you've been a regular reader here, you probably will, and you will also know it's pretty much par for the course.

The Hub is a restless sleeper. He tosses a large portion of the night. He also talks in his sleep. He doesn't just mumble, either. He holds demos and board meetings. I have learned more about Microsoft CRM and shipping methods at 2 AM than a girl has a right to know. Or wants to know. Particularly at 2 AM. All of this activity makes it a bit hard for me to sleep. You see, once I'm awake, I'm awake. The infinite music loop begins playing in my head and I can't shut it off. So to actually sleep, I go to the couch in the basement. I like it there. It's a little chillier, huge pillows and completely dark. I can shut the TV off and fall asleep (and that, my dear readers, is an entirely different post....). So the other night I slept on the couch. So far, I'm fine, right?

Well, in the B House, we have these locks on the door to the basement and the outside doors. You see, my Z1 was quite the escape artist at the ages of 2-5. Yes, he IS the reason a 20-year veteran of preschool teaching had to put bells on her door. The boy understands stealth. He's 9 now, and we still have these locks on the door. We figure if someone tries to get in the walk-out basement and come upstairs, well, when they try the door, they'll be quite surprised at the sound it makes while alerting us that all is not right in the basement. It also keeps the kids out of the basement playing video games before we get up in the morning.

Back to sleeping on the couch... So The Hub had to get up very early to take his mother to the hospital. She was having a small surgery, which she came through swimmingly, and he had to leave at 4:45 in the morning. He comes downstairs in his sleep deprived stupor and sees the door opened. I always leave it open when I sleep downstairs so the kids know where to find me if they need something. Well, again, in his haze, he thought,"Why is that door opened? I better close it." He closed it. And he locked it. Now this is not a normal lock that one can pick. It's a lock at the top of the door that slides over the door. There's no getting around this lock without busting the door down.

It's now 6:30 AM and I have toddled up the stairs. I turn the door knob and push. The door makes a loud clamor but refuses to open. I try again. And one more time. I bang on the door loudly, thinking I will alert my early riser children. Of course, they pick this particular morning to sleep in an extra hour. AARRGH! Having my cell phone in hand (I use the alarm), I text The Hub. Let's just say, it was not the most pleasant of conversations.

So how am I typing this, you ask? How did I finally get out of the basement? Since neither of my children could hear me, I decided a girl's gotta do what she's gotta do. I wrapped myself up in the soccer blanket, said a quick prayer that none of the neighbors would see me, and I walked around the side of the house and let myself in through the garage. Thankfully, that entry has a code and the inside door was not locked. Or maybe I should say, thankfully for The Hub. Still, all in all, it beats being locked in the bathroom. But that's another post entirely as well.

Yours, thinking I might get a hide-a-key rock,

Melissa

ANNOUNCING OUR SPECIAL NEEDS CHILD BOOK!!!

Sound the horns! Start the drums rolling! We are officially announcing the roll-out of our third eBook, The Caregiver Organizer For MY Special Needs Child.

And with this roll-out comes our HOLIDAY SALE!

25% off EVERYTHING!!!

Use coupon code “Holiday” at checkout to receive your 25% discount on any of our eBooks or hardbound books.

Whew! I gotta tell you, Melissa and I are tired! Not only did we just write 2 new books in the last few months, but we also put our original Child eBook in our new format. So no new books for a while! Now we are going to concentrate on selling, selling, selling. So if you see shameless plugs in our blog posts, well that’s just part of the game!

Anyway, visit our website here and take advantage of our Holiday Sale of 25% off ALL our products by entering “Holiday” at checkout. The sale goes until the end of the year!

Happy Shopping!

Karen

Feel Like Christmas Yet?

December 6th already? How can that be? Weren't we just on the beach?

The weather outside will definitely tell you that it's been a while since we've had hot temperatures. I say, if it's going to be this cold, bring on the snow! Love snow days with hot chocolate and cookies and a fire... for the first few hours until the kids get stir crazy. :-)

Every minute we are inching toward Christmas. There is still so much to do! Shopping (that's endless. Seriously.), wrapping, cooking, baking, parties, and the list goes on and on. But when does the moment hit you that it actually feels like Christmas? Sometimes it comes in an unexpected gift, or the music on the radio or putting up the tree. I must confess, this year's tree was quite the ordeal. My mother gave me her tree- it's 7 1/2 feet tall and each branch has to be put in one at a time. Took us no less than an hour just to get the tree together. Oy!

Still, with all the hustle and bustle, I love Christmas. We make time to get together. We choose special things for each other. We eat goodies that we won't eat for another year! We (sometimes) pause and reflect on what has been and where we are and what we hope the New Year will bring.

Yes, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Yours, thinking I need some more white lights and poinsettias,

Melissa

Friday Fun- Boys will Be Boys....

The secretary patched me through. I waited for the vice principal to answer. "Hello, Mrs. Bishop," she said warmly.

"Hello Mrs. X, " I said. " I'm calling to see if you would like me to stop by and install a speed dial button with our number on it. Seems my Z1 has been beating a path to your door this week..."

She laughed, for which I'm grateful. It's been a busy week at the B house. My normally wonderful Z1 has been, uhm, well... he's just being a tween age boy. It was the second time in as many days that he had been to see Mrs. X. Once for finding his way onto an unauthorized website on the school computer and the other for being the funny guy at the lunch table. Lunch time seems to be a bit of challenge lately.

What was he doing, you ask? Lunch that day consisted of breakfast items. Pancakes, sausage, fruit. It was the sausage that got him into trouble. Apparently he thought that instead of eating the sausage for nourishment, it would make a better a better "Boy Body Part" and proceeded to demonstrate this brilliant idea to his tablemates. They thought it was hilarious, of course, except for the one who ratted him out. (Which, BTW, I don't have a problem with, because it was inappropriate, and hearing that from the vice-principal, particularly on a conference call with his father was a much weightier correction than anything I could have done).

But at the end of the day, when I came home and his father tried to tell me about it, he laughed so hard he cried. He couldn't even get the story out.

What IS is about boys and their parts??!?!?!

Yours, wishing you a wonderful weekend,

Melissa

BYE BYE TWITTER!

Well, I did it. I finally deactivated my Twitter account. I’m sure it’s a great social media tool for many, many people, but I just didn’t get it. For some reason, unknown to me, there were 1500 people out there following me, and more every day. Why? No, really… why?

I have nothing important to say. And even if I did, I certainly can’t say it in 140 characters or less! But let’s just say, for argument’s sake, that I had something very profound to tweet. What if none of my 1500 followers happened to be on Twitter at that precise moment? They would totally miss it and my profoundness would be lost forever! What a waste!

Nope, Twitter is not for me. The funny thing is, I haven’t tweeted anything in a really long time, but I keep getting new followers anyway. How does that happen? It must be my glowing reputation I suppose!

So I bit the bullet and hit the “deactivate my account” button. Of course, it’s not that easy. They want to know why you want to quit and they want to warn you that if you say “yes, I really, truly do want to quit” (my words, not theirs) you can’t change your mind later, but eventually, they let you fly away. (Get it? Twitter…bird…fly away. Haha!) And now, I feel strangely…FREE!!!

Karen