Back to Life..Back to Reality....

Have you ever noticed that you and your family get a little cranky when returning home from a wonderful vacation? Well, I DO...here's some phrases that may indicate that you just returned or are returning from vacation...

1. Why are you going so slow? You REALLY need to speed up...Ohhhh...look, we just missed that light. Hmmpph...(I won't say who said this one)

2. Me-"Back off you big Galute!!" (yes, I do call Joel a big galute when I'm only partly annoyed with him...he thinks it is kind of funny).

3. Me-"What do you mean we spent too much on ________? I did NOT! I promise you...scribble, scribble (that's me calculating what I spent)....see...way under what you said!"
Him-"Well, we spent it on something!...we spent it on living...it's fine."
Me-"Well, maybe we shouldn't get a___________, and we don't have to buy _______."
Him-"Caron, stop worrying about it....we are just fine."
Me-"Well, lets not go out to eat again until next Thanksgiving...and we can skip Christmas presents for us and we can walk to work and...."
Him-"Caron, seriously, things come up sometimes..."
Yeah..I'm a bit of a worrier sometimes...:)

4. Me-"I forgot my purse"
Him-"What?! But it was right there on the ________-?"
Me-"Well, I still forgot it...with my phone and my wallet, which has my license and credit cards....and btw..I need money tomorrow for ________"

ohh...money! and driving.... the perfect topics for fighting! (not that Joel and I ever fight :)!!! just discuss..;)

I'll Always Be a Minnesota GIRL!

So, this is the first year I will not be spending any of the holidays in Minnesota. I didn't think I would be sad about that fact, but I really am. I love seeing my nieces and nephews every year (and their parents too, of course!)....but since I'm a workin' woman now, I can't! I will probably never live in MN ever again... but I will always be a MN girl at heart! I wear my U of MN sweatshirt proudly and always cheer when we win a football game (even though I could really care less about football!) But, since I've moved down south, I've been asked a lot of funny questions about my home state...I think some southerners think that Minnesotans are close relatives to the Eskimos or something...:)!

1)Here's the most popular question asked of me.
"Do you miss the snow?"

My answer-
"Only on Christmas day!"

2)Another very popular question
"Do you miss the cold?"

I always say "NO!!!"

3) "Do you ice fish?"

I think to myself..."hmmm...do I look like an ice fisher?" but I answer..."no, but my brother-in-law does...he pretty much hunts and fishes any animal that moves."

4)"Can you say _______" again?" (insert nose, bag, rag, sag, bob jones, or anything with an O in that blank."

I say "Shut up...Minnesotans actually have one of the purest forms of English in the USA."

5) "Do you remember the coldest temperature you lived through in MN?"

"I don't really remember...I do remember my breath crystallizing on the dashboard on the way to school some mornings. Once my father took a cup of hot coffee and poured it over the snow and it turned to ice before it hit the ground."

So there you have it folks...a short synopsis of my background...I'm now off to pack for my Thanksgiving trip to SC!

Daily Shower Cleaner

Lately I've been going a little Daily Shower Cleaner CRAZY! I just love coating my shower walls with the stuff (don't ask me why?!? I have this new found obsession with squeaky clean grout). Unfortunately this concoction is not cheap, so I decided to look up a recipe on google. I found one that costs about 35 cents a bottle. I didn't want to keep the secret to myself...so I thought I'd post it (a recipe is a essentially a list after all!!). Kudos to "What She Said" for the great recipe! I can't wait until my store bought cleaner is gone so I can try it out! (I know..I'm such a nerd!)

4 cups of water
1 cup of Hydrogen Peroxide
1 cup of 70% Isopropyl Alcohol
4 tsp. Dishwasher rinse agent
1/2 tsp. dishwashing liquid

Little Miss Domesticated....

Lately, I've been trying to work on my housecleaning/organization skills. My mother-in-law is always, forever inspiring me in this regard. I do believe she is the ultimate hostess/house cleaner/planner! I aspire to be this way....here's a peak into the way I used to clean as a teen....

1. Throw everything in a pile...shove it all in the closet.
2. Throw it all in a pile...hide it under the sink.
3. Clear a space off my bed...go to sleep...
4. Friends coming over? Throw all of my clothes in the wash...(then I wouldn't have to fold them and put them away into my very messy drawers..ahh..my poor mom!)

Yep...you got it...I was pretty much a BIG MESS. Then I met miss Abigail Annie in college. She always knew where her keys were. Her notebooks were nicely organized. Her clothes were always neat and folded and she always had matching socks. I began to think that maybe my throw in a pile method wasn't so stellar. (although I always told my mom that I was organized in a pile sort of way-she always told me I would wish I were more organized in the future...but who listens to their mom at that age?:)

Over the last few years I've worked on my cleaning skills, but I've still been feeling like I was playing grown up. I do the dishes, iron and vacuum, but I never had much time to SCRUB my floor and the grout in my bathroom (don't worry, I cleaned them...just not as well as I do now) Plus, since I wasn't bringing home ANY of the bacon....I really felt young. Hopefully, that will change soon:) Maybe someday I'll even be as organized as Miss Abigail and my mother-in-law. I can dream, right?

It's Time to STOP Wearing American Eagle When...

So, I love AE. I think they make the most comfortable clothes in the world and they aren't as expensive as J. Crew or Anne Taylor. The problem is that I'm 27...almost 28 *shudder*.....I've decided I CAN'T even step foot into AE anymore. Plus, I'm a principals wife....I don't really know what clothes I'm supposed to wear for that role...but probably not AE ones:) I have been asked when I was going to start wearing ugly, frumpy principal wife clothes...hopefully I'll never have to do that.
So, You know it's time to stop wearing AE when...

1. A 15 year old asks you to dance at his high school homecoming (I'm not even making this up....this really happened to me)

2. Your patients continually question if you are old enough to care for them.

3. You are married to a principal...who doesn't recognize that you are not one of the high schoolers when you surprise him and drop by the school (yes, this did happen once).

4. The rest of the staff at your husbands school also thinks you are a student when you first meet them (when Joel is not around of course). They also question why you are going to the principals office....They then look really surprised when I call Joel by his first name :)

5. Your husband won't give you a hug in public because he's afraid someone will mistake you for a high schooler...making him look like a bad principal (I'm glad he's sooo careful!)

6. You're 27...yep...I guess that's really the real answer here....time for me to move on to the adult clothing stores.

His Thoughts/Her Thoughts

Before I got married, I had dreams of road trips with long conversations, supper with long conversations.....eating breakfast with yes...LONG CONVERSATIONS. I learned very early on that women have about a billion more things on their mind most of the time. Here's my example....

Her thoughts...
hmmm..I think tonight was really fun. I hope I didn't offend _____ when I said ____. I really hope she didn't take it the wrong way....hmm...but the food was good...but I really should not have eaten that______. I feel so fat...I feel like a big, fat, fatty. Ugh...I need to be more careful tomorrow. It was really funny when _____ said ______. Ha...that was so great...hmm...I wonder what Joel is thinking about the evening..."What are you thinkin' about, hun?"

His answer..
"oh, nothin"

Me...
You can't be thinkin' about "nothing." That is physically impossible.

Joel..
"Well, I was thinking about the gas mileage we are getting"

My thoughts..
Gas mileage..seriously?

Another evening...

Her thoughts...
I love being married. I have the best husband in the whole, wide world. He is sooo great and smart. I wonder when we will get to go on vacation again. I think it would be so fun if we could go to______. I'm gonna hafta shed a couple of pounds before we do that though...Yikes..a swimsuit. I hate swimsuits. Why do guys get to wear big, baggy clothes...and we're stuck with tight, little things? It's so unfair. I wonder if I would rather be forced to wear a swimsuit to Wal-Mart...or jogging down the street...hmm..that's a hard one..I'll have to remember that one and ask Joel on our next road trip. Ha...I can store up some baby names too. He'll LOVE that. It's funny, cause he used to like talking about that stuff when we were dating..but he doesn't now..I wonder why. Hmm...I wonder what he's thinking about right now..."Joel, what are you thinkin' about?"

Joel.....
Oh nothing.

My thoughts...
Seriously, do I have to tell him that it's not possible to think of NOTHING?

My answer...
"Seriously, I want to know what you are thinking about!"

Joel..
Oh, I was just wondering when I have to take the car in to get the oil changed. I was also thinking about when ____________ made that awesome touchdown.

Me...
"Don't you ever think about anything interesting? Gosh, it seems like it would be so easy to live in your head for a while."

My thoughts.
"Seriously, I want to have a brain like that. No worrying about what you ate, no worrying about what he/she said...no worrying about whether I chose the right outfit for the evening...just oil, cars, and sports....seriously...I need a brain like that...although, it does sound kind of boring...hmmm."

Joel's thoughts (as my brain wonders about everything mentioned above...)
I think I should probably rake the yard this weekend

And this is what I have learned in my first year of marriage folks. Don't get me wrong...Joel and I do have great conversations! He's very intelligent (much smarter than I am :)....it just seems that his thought life is sooooo much simpler....oil changes, cars, work and sports....I think I need to learn from him!

Fun Size

Since it is the eve of Halloween, there has been an abundance of candy coming my way. It is all "fun size." I always wonder why they name these itty-bitty candy bars "fun." I can understand why a king size snickers is "fun," but these bite size mini's just tease you with their chocolatie goodness. I have come to believe that fun size is really from the devil. Here's why...

1. I'm sure these fun size candies were made specifically for Halloween...hence they are CLEARLY from the devil :) (j/k...I do think it is a fun holiday).

2. I've always been one to watch what I eat. These fun sizes are TrIcKy! I always think to myself when diving into a big bowl of small candy "One can't hurt me, right? It's not like I'm eating an entire candy bar?...mmmm...that was good...I think I need to try the reeses peanut butter cup one too...and I can't leave out the twix and snickers...I LOVE Twix and Snickers!....ooohh look! There's a 100 grand...I have to eat that crunchy, chocolatie goodness" Then I add up the calories I consumed from trying to eat just one fun size and realize I really devoured an entire KING size...plus some..See they ARE the devil.

3. They should really be named "You can't eat just ONE size." I think the point above demonstrated why.

4. They should also be specifically labeled with the exact calorie amount...and they should also say "I may look like a fun size, but you won't be thinkin' you are such a fun size when you are struggling to button your jeans next week." Seriously, I think these small size candy bars are the reason America is becoming obese. I would never buy a candy bar...but put these stinkin' fun sizes in front of me...and I let my guard down and consume WAY too many of them!