... along with my usual rambling shit. No "deals" or coupons will be mentioned in this post. I promise! ;)
(All BEP pictures taken by yours truly)
If you're friends with me on Facebook, then you already know all about the fact that last Friday, I won tickets from our newspaper to go see the Black Eyed Peas!!! The concert was on Monday, so I quickly posted on Facebook to find a "date," since Rob works nights and couldn't go. So sad, so sad. A friend, Linda (not the one who sometimes babysits the kids) whom we met through Chloë's acting & modeling stuff, jumped right up and asked to go, so I thought, why not? Steph surely wasn't going to leave the baby to go with me, anyone else who I would seriously want to go with either has a baby, couldn't have gone, or lives a jillion miles away. And so it was.
The funny thing was, on Saturday, Linda (pictured above at the concert with me, looking terrible in this pic) called to tell me her daughter had just won tickets to the same concert! So Linda, Laura, her guy friend, and I headed up to Hampton on Monday to watch LMFAO, Ludacris (what an awesome opening act!!) and the Peas. Tabitha's 14yo daughter, Gia, watched the kids. I kind of felt bad leaving them for so long (ended up being 7 hours!) on a school night, especially since Jack wasn't feeling well... but it was the BLACK EYED PEAS, for Pete's sake! I couldn't pass up the chance. I ♥ them!
LMFAO, the opener, was, um, interesting. I'd never heard of them before this concert, and that's just fine with me. I didn't hate them - they were pretty funny, actually - but I didn't love them, either. They entertained, but when their set was over, I was ready for it.
Between each act, Linda and I moved up closer and closer to the stage. Oh, did I mention our tickets were on the FLOOR, and we were maybe 5-8 people from the stage at any given time?! We were so close to them. It was awesome. Her daughter wasn't so lucky, but their seats weren't terrible, either. Ludacris (above, on the right) was pretty awesome. That was a good time.
The crowd went crazy when the Peas finally came onstage. Taboo (left) and Apl.de.ap (right) were looking as hot as I've ever seen them. I was feelin' it!
When Will.i.am did his freestyle rap, oh, man... HOT.
Fergie... what's there to say? It was incredible being in the same room with this phenomenal (IMO) talent. Loved it, loved every minute of the whole concert!! I really had a ball and, a week later, am still way amped about going. What a great night!!
I didn't get home until nearly 0100, and poor Gia was exhausted. She'd slept, but not much. Just as we were pulling in, she texted me that Chloë woke up with an earache.
So, sick kid #2 for the week. On Tuesday, Jack stayed home, but Chloë felt better after a dose of meds. By Thursday, Sophia was sick, too! She came home early on Thursday and stayed home all day Friday. Poor kiddos had a rough week. I came down with Sophie's upset tummy on Friday, which wasn't too bad and hey, it probably helped me lose a little weight. I didn't really mind it...!
Friday, Sophia felt a lot better, but they wouldn't let her go back to school until she'd been 24 hours without the poopies. She went along and did all my running for the day. We went to the Navy base and got my TB test read (all clear), and then we went out and turned in all my sub documentation so that I could finally get fingerprinted. At last, I've only been waiting since September! Now I'm just waiting to get my official letter in the mail and then I can start. Can't wait!
Jack's very $$$ growth hormone meds had been delivered the week before, so we just started up giving him his nightly shots again. Unfortunately, I gave him one of the shots upstairs one night, and then I asked him to bring the box - which contained not only that night's meds but ALL seven vials of HGH - back down to the refrigerator. The meds MUST be refrigerated. I never went back downstairs that night, so imagine my dismay the following night when I found the box on an oft-neglected counter instead of in the refrigerator!! Augh!! I called up the manufacturer and discussed the problem with them at length on Friday; we finally concluded that the medicine was not longer effective nor guaranteed safe, and it would have to be discarded. Holy cow.
So then I called up the military mail-order pharmacy that ships it to us, to see about getting a replacement. I explained what happened, and the guy on the phone told me, "Well, I can send an early refill, but you'll have to pay for it." With much trepidation and a lump in my throat, I asked, "How much will that be?" I expected the answer to be in the thousands of dollars, so I was overjoyed when he told me, "It wasn't our fault, so you'll have to pay the nine-dollar co-pay again." Hell yeah, I'll pay nine bucks!! Phew phew phew!!!
Guarantee you I won't be keeping all seven vials in one place like that ever again!
On Friday night after the kids were in bed, I had a little manic streak and found myself busy in the kitchen. I was looking for something under the kitchen sink, which was a scary scene with all the cheap cleaning products I've been stocking up on lately. I pulled everything out, clean the disgusting shelf, and reorganized everything by current usage requirements, type, size, shape, color and alphabet. Okay, maybe not those last few things, but it looks good! I give it maybe five days before Rob messes it all up again, though.
After that, I decided to give the Hoover FloorMate I'd picked up a few months ago from a fellow Freecycler a try. Our floor is nastay right now, so it really needed a good scrubbing. Well, I took a "before" picture of the floor, but the damn thing didn't work. I had my water and baking soda solution all over the floor, but no suction. That sucked. I dried it up, but not before Lily (the dog) came in with her muddy footprints all over everything. That was fun.
Then, I spied the brown bananas on top of the fridge and finally decided to give my new mixer a spin! I know, I know, it's not the first thing I was supposed to make with it, which was the first thing Rob told me when he came home from work that night. Hmph. At least I finally used it! And believe-you-me, it was quite the thrill! That machine is a Godsend. I love it, love it, love it and will be using it much more frequently after this! So powerful and fast! My banana bread was mixed up in seconds. It even mashed the bananas for me, effortlessly!
And as good as that chocolate chip banana bread looked, it tasted even better. Yeah, I had some. More than a little. SO FREAKING GOOD! We have more bananas, so I may be making another loaf before I get to Rob's lemon poppy seed bread. I think this was the best banana bread I ever made. Seriously. And I thank the KitchenAid.
I stayed up all night that night, with the help of the caffeine-full Diet Coke I'd gotten earlier that day and the Black Eyed Peas on my iPod. Chloë and I had an 0800-1000 booth sale at one of the Food Lion stores in town, and I was in a really hyped mood, so there was no point in going to sleep for just a couple hours and possibly missing the booth. The time passed really quickly, although I can't say I got a lot accomplished after the kitchen stuff. I started packing up the van around 0630, but it was so extremely cold out (for here) that I was shivering uncontrollably and in tears when I finally woke Rob up to help me finish packing the cookies. Could. Not. Get. Warm.
That booth sale SUCKED. The girls were freezing and miserable, and we barely had any customers. No cookies were sold at all for the first 50 minutes, and in the end, we only sold 18 boxes. It was awful!
However, I had a good conversation with Nikki, our Leader who was there with her daughter, and we/I decided that I'm going to lead Sophia and her daughter next year - along with whomever else I take on - in their Daisy troop!! I'd been toying with the idea (I mentioned it here recently) for a while, but I finally decided to go for it. I don't know how to let them know, but I'll find out soon. I'm excited!! Technically, Nikki and I are both going to Co-Lead Chloë's Juniors troop (they'll bridge to Juniors at the end of this year) and Sophie's Daisy troop, but she'll mainly take over the duties for the older girls, and I'll have the younger ones. We'll help each other out as needed. She doesn't like to go to all the meetings, whereas I like that stuff. But I don't want to drag all the kids with me, so I'll go do that if she keeps my kids. She's got four of her own, so it'll be, uh, fun in her house during the meetings! It sounds like a really good plan to me. I can't wait to get started, now.
I napped (I think? I can't remember) after that, and then it was time to get ready to go to the evening booth sale at Farm Fresh. Rob and Jack were off to Hampton (the same place where the BEP concert was on Monday) to watch the car races with the Cub Scout pack. They couldn't get an extra ticket, and I couldn't find a babysitter, so Sophia had to come with me to the booth sale. I put her in Chloë's old Daisy uniform (which will be hers next year) and made her an honorary Daisy for the night. How cute does she look?! (The one pigtail was blowing in the wind; they really did match, I swear!)
Sophia was beyond excited to help sell cookies! She couldn't wait. I had to talk to her repeatedly about behaving like a big girl, but for the first hour, she really did great. She asked the customers if they would like to buy cookies and relished saying, "...to support our troop!" Her favorite part was leading them over to the cookie table, where I was, and helping them select their varieties. She would hold a box of cookies up that she wanted them to buy with one hand, with her other thumb in her mouth, and just look cute. It worked so well, we ran out of the three slow-selling kinds of cookies that I kept telling her to "push"!
After the next mom-Brownie pair arrived to relieve Nikki and her daughter, Sophie and I quickly ran home to grab the rest of our cookie stock. In the five minutes we were there, Sophie had time time go potty, grab a drink, and get a booboo. The booboo part deflated her, and she wanted no part of selling cookies when we got back. She sat by me or near/under a table behind me for a while, until her mood improved, and then she got back out on the floor again. It was by far our best booth sale this year, and we had a lot of fun!
The boys were still out at their races when we got home, and Rob texted me picture after picture of Jack having the time of his life. It was a thrill-a-minute for him, I heard. He loved the crashes! I'll have to get those pictures off my phone and share them another time.
The girls and I watched Little Women, and Chloë was sobbing big, happy tears during the whole thing. My little emotional baby girl. It would not surprise me at all if it turned out she's bipolar, too. She loved the movie, though, and watched it again on Sunday. Sophia and I fell asleep snuggled up on the couch together, and I didn't wake up until Chloë was kissing me good-night. And then again when Rob and Jack came home, and he lifted Sophie off me so I could be comfortable. She's getting so big and heavy!
I did not wake up until noon the next day, thanks to someone coming to buy some cookies from us after seeing the soap-writing I'd done on Vanna's windows about the sale. Thank goodness she did, because I was supposed to pick up more cookies at 1100 for the booth sale at 1300! I raced out, picked up the cookies, and then dropped them off at M's house for the booth. Chloë and I didn't have to do this one, thankfully.
While that was going on, Rob and the Littles were outside in the sunshine. He was painting the house trim, while the kids and Neighbor Kid were driving the Power Wheels all over the driveway. Chloë and I went out delivering and selling more cookies. We didn't sell a whole lot - less than 10 boxes - but every little bit counts. She was just starting to fuss about being cold and hungry when M. called to say she was on her way back from the booth sale with the cookies. Saved by the bell!
M. and I chatted in the driveway for an hour after taking inventory of the cookies and money. Her daughter got in the toy cars and drove around, having lots of fun. It was a good visit; we plan to do it again soon. After they left, Chloë and I delivered more cookies until dark. It was a full cookie weekend! Two more weeks, and then it's OVER. Yay.
And now that it's 0300, I should either go crash... or make some banana bread. I'll let you know tomorrow what I decided!
Fin.
I want a fancy mixer! And some banana bread batter...
Posted by: Nadine | 04 March 2010 at 13:41
Glad the concert was fun!
Posted by: darci | 03 March 2010 at 00:46
your daughter is to cute, her eyes are very beautiful
Posted by: Generic viagra | 02 March 2010 at 00:32
oh yeah.. you lucked out big time on the 9 bucks for meds!! Whew!!!! I am happy for you!!!
Posted by: Adoption of Jane | 01 March 2010 at 12:58
Oh your daughter is adorable!!! Black Eyed Peas sounded like a blast. I like Taboo he's so hot, but Will bugs the heck out of me, i don't know why he just does. LMFAO are super crazy but funny.. and I am in love with Ludicris!! Hot stuff that Ludi is!
Posted by: Adoption of Jane | 01 March 2010 at 12:56