Sometimes I lie but I have good intentions

As I mentioned in the previous post, UpTake is a hosting a contest.
Anyone can enter.
The deadline's tonight at midnight.

The prize is a spa getaway in Napa Valley at Silverado Resort for four people.

I admit it, I'd sell my children and run over girl scouts for a chance to win.

See, let me tell it like it is.
People come out of the woodwork for contests.
People with sick kids, hard knock lives and woe-is-me stories.

Do you know how hard it is to compete with Sally Sob Story and Henrietta Handicapped and Tanya Toenail Cancer?

Well, I only have one arm.
And one leg.
And I have fifteen kids (all adopted, of course)...that I home school.

In my free time, I serve soup at the homeless shelter...with my one arm, while balancing on my one leg.

I have no hair, because I donated it all to make wigs for chemo patients.
And I donated all my blood to sick people.
I even had all my teeth pulled to give to toothless people.

Why wait til I'm dead to take my organs?
I have a few I don't need...
I've chopped off a few toes for charity & donated a butt cheek to a good cause.

I recycle, volunteer, teach people to read and care for old people.
I bring food to the hungry in third world countries.

No one's more deserving than me.


So, I win.
Right?

Simply Savoring Life at Silverado

We all need to escape life's responsibilities and pressures every now and then.
We all need to stop and breathe in fresh air.
We all need to take a moment to relax and savor life.

UpTake is offering up a contest with Silverado Resort to one lucky blogger and the three people she chooses to accompany her.

I'm not more needy or more deserving then the next person.
I'm just your average person, wanting to get away.
To explore something new.
To take the time to remember why I love life and what I want out of it.
To spend time with those I love.

Who would I take with me?

My sister, who spent most nights of our childhood in my bed, surrounded by stuffed animals, listening to the bizarre bedtime stories I made up. She understands me better than anyone. She knows me in my entirety. She moved halfway across the country, and I miss her!

My mother, who inspires and amazes me. Who taught me I could do anything. Who showed me to approach life and everything in it with all I've got. She's someone I will always respect and admire and strive to be like.

My grandmother, who has always loved me unconditionally, and who I will forever associate with creaking porch swings, singing and the crickets of summer. Someone I'm still getting to know, even now, and treasuring every second.

These three women are part of my past, present and future. They've shaped me, and I've shaped them. We're intrinsically intertwined, and I want to savor life with them at Silverado.

One title can say it all.

I love taking pictures of my boys' Lego creations...and the scenes that are playing out.
Apparently the boys have an on-going war...and battle stations...and home bases.

As I was going through my photos, I found this one...and it totally cracked me up.

Taking a page out of this blogger's book, I think this photo needs a caption.


And don't forget about the UpTake photo contest.
A chance to win $250!

I'd like to see Barbie do this.

Do you know what these are?

This is where they are usually found...

Still no clue?
This might help...
or just confuse you further.

No, we're not aliens...

Seriously unflattering photo of me, I know.

Are my hints getting clearer?
Clear as mud?


Ok, I feel for ya.
Here, my boy and his best friend.

Have you ever gone paint ball warring?
It's a blast.

It hurts a little too.



BTW, don't forget, UpTake has a photo contest.
You could win $250.

Ketchup, Holiday Drama & a Contest

I've been spending all weekend playing catch-up (ketchup. hehe)
I've been catching up on sleep.
I've been catching up on blogs.
I've been catching up on laundry.
I've been catching up on spending time with my boys.

I've played a million games of Mario Kart, racing my boys.
Now my thumb hurts.

We celebrated Forced-Love Day as a family by hanging out at home all day with each other.
Playing games, watching movies, just being together.

My husband, Texas Homeboy, surprised me with an extremely thoughtful gift.
Our relationship has been rocky lately.
Normally, if I even get a gift, he's a last minute gift-giving kind of guy.
But two days BEFORE Valentine's, I came home from work to find he had bought and set up an external hard drive for my computer!

The best gift. JUST what I needed.
My computer was bogged down with thousands of photos and moving slow.
It was a thoughtful and wonderful gift.

I was touched.

Speaking of photos, UpTake is having a photo contest. You could win $250. Check it out!

Now on to the drama.
Remy, my 7 yr old, had to make Valentines for his whole class, of course,
But, Donny, my 12 yr old, is now in middle school and this is the first year ever he didn't have to make Valentines for the whole class.
Except, Friday, in school, his English teacher made them all make Valentines in-class. And they had to say something nice to each student.
Donny is respectful to all his teachers. And a good student. But this teacher sometimes drives him nuts because he feels like she treats them like children...young, stupid children.

And my son wrote down on one kid's Valentine, "Thanks for messing with Mrs. English Teacher."
And of course, the teacher saw this.
and pulled him out of class to talk to him.
And then called me.

What I've learned from this?
My smart, respectful son can make stupid decisions occasionally.

Now, let me leave you with this for now.
We've discovered our sweet Annie doesn't like stickers on her head.

Nature break

Head over to UpTake this morning if you have a chance!







Life's been a little busy, so let's take a moment, shall we?

Let's go on a nature walk.

I need to stop and appreciate the moment.

I need to remember the important things.

I need to remember to check the pockets of my boys' pants before washing them.


or be prepared for gross surprises in the washing machine.

I need to remember to look before sitting on the toilet, because little boys don't aim well...
or at all.

I need to remember to force my younger son to change clothes.
Daily.
Because he would live in the same outfit for weeks, if he could.

I need to remember to check the boys' calendars more often,
so that surprise middle school band concerts don't pop up the morning of.

I need to remember to...

make lists.
Because without my lists,
I don't remember anything!

What do you need to remember?

UpTake

As most of you know, I'm a blogger for UpTake.

They have big news!!

UPTAKE BECOMES LARGEST TRAVEL SEARCH ENGINE WITH THE MOST SOURCES, PRODUCTS AND OPINIONS

UpTake Emerges as a Major Player in Online Travel Industry by Building Key Partnerships and Garnering Funding in Tough Start-up Climate



PALO ALTO, Calif. – Nov. 12, 2008 – In just six months since its public beta launch in May of this year, UpTake’s travel search and discovery engine has grown exponentially. The travel industry’s deepest and broadest database of hotels and attractions has surpassed all other online travel search engines in terms of indexed sources, products, and opinions. With this announcement, significant new industry partnerships and $10 million in new funding secured, UpTake is thriving and growing in an economy in which many start-ups are struggling.



Since its public beta in May 2008, UpTake’s search engine has increased its total number of indexed sources from 1,000 to 5,000 making its database of individual travel sites nearly 10 times greater than any other travel search engine. The sources indexed by UpTake include trusted sites like Expedia, Fodor’s, goCityKids, TripAdvisor, Virtual Tourist and Yahoo! Travel...

Three cheers for UpTake!!

If you have a free moment, stop by and leave a comment!!

If You Give a Girl a Blog...

She'll talk about ANYTHING.

First, I want to say, no matter whose candidate won or lost, let's all remember to be graceful winners and not gloat if you voted for Obama...and not to be a sore loser if you voted for McCain.

We need to remember to be respectful of the Office of the United States President, no matter who it is, whether you voted for him or not.

We need to all come together.
Elections are fun and exciting, but they do often pit people against each other.
I for one am glad it's done with and we can work on coming together as a nation once again.

_____________________________________________________________________________________


November is Prematurity Awareness Month.
I didn't know until Darcy from Life with My 3 Boybarians told me.

Did you know that one out of every eight babies is born premature?!
I'm just asking that you be aware of this. That's all.

My Remy was born early...only a couple of weeks, which isn't bad, but he did have trouble keeping his own body temp up for a while.
Everything turned out ok.
thank goodness.

Speaking of Remy...

Here he is, my little monkey


I'm so thankful he can climb.



And I'm thankful he can read.




Even if he ends up doing most his homework on the football fields while Donny plays.



And speaking of Donny...

Remember how proud of him I have been?

Well, this was his reward ...
a new cell phone.

He doesn't call anyone, except for me.
But, he does text with friends some.

We'll see if he's responsible enough not to loose it.




Did you know that almost 300 years ago, this building was built?

Did you know that we have bawdy pub wenches in Texas?

Please leave comments at the Uptake Attractions blog if you have a moment.

Where do your children usually do their homework?
Where did you do your homework as a child?
Have you ever visited the two places I have linked to above?

Are you Up on Uptake?

Regarding yesterday's photo post, you guys are HILARIOUS!

I love some of the wonderfully creative ideas you came up with regarding that picture.

I wish I had an answer for you with what was going on in it,
but no one in my family seems to have any idea.

My mom has more old photos, so I'll see if I can get another one scanned sometime soon.


* * *


Next, let me announce the contest winner from last week.
(I know, I don't know what took me so long!)



I had planned to do a cute hat drawing video with the kids, but my printer ran out of ink, the kids wouldn't cooperate and I lost my desire to do it.

Long story short, I used that darn random number generator, adding in those of you with the extra entries. It was complicated, probably unnecessarily so!

Without further rambling, the winner of the 11" brand new fry pan and jambalaya mix is...

Scargosun!


And, as a bonus, I'm giving away a packet of jambalaya mix to:

Sassy Stephanie & Kimba!


Winners email me at rhea@tx.rr.com with your addresses.


* * *


Now, as you know, I've been job searching.
And, I've found some free-lance writing jobs and some blogging work,
but nothing full time.

I'm seriously thinking about applying to Target!!
I need something with good health insurance.


One of the places I am blogging part time for is called Uptake.
It's a travel information search engine, and I'm super excited!
I'll be posting about fun things to do and see in Texas...and possibly other places I've visited.

What I would love from you, is to click on over to Uptake and comment on posts with my name. Today...and any time you feel like it!
I don't get much comment love over there yet, and I've gotten spoiled with it over here.
You guys rock!!



I'll leave you with these photos of my pink streaks for now.

Natural lighting,
no photo editing,
no makeup,
crazy angles
weird facial expressions, and
I'm not even sure I brushed my crazy, frizzy hair.

It's Rhea Au natural con rosa!!
(I think I just mixed French & Spanish...and probably not even correctly)

and a plea for comment love at Uptake!!

Thanks!!

Is that Romance I smell...or something else?

Romance is not often in the air around here,
and on the rare occasion it drifts by,
it is immediately flushed out and dissipated
by much more noxious boy fragrances that rule this house.


My husband is an attorney who works long hours,
my boys are both in sports, which take up a lot of time,
and my elderly father lives with us.
All those ingredients do not a romantic environment make.


So, when my mom offered to watch the boys and told us to look up romantic hotels,
I threw the children from our moving car and sped out of town leaped at the chance.

We ended up deciding on a bed & breakfast in Fredericksberg, Texas,
a delightful small town settled by German Americans in the 1800's
that is now a popular Central Texas destination for bed and breakfasts, abundant hunting, fishing, antique stores, museums, the German influence in the form of bakeries, restaurants, stores, and peaches.

My husband and I had big plans. We checked into our B&B, and then headed out walking to browse antique stores and have dinner at the famous Fredericksberg Brewing Company.

It was wonderful to be kid-free, work-free and just plain old FREE to do what we wanted.
As night fell, we headed back to our quaint little romantic B&B
to test out the large hot tub surrounded by candles.




As we stripped our clothes off, turned out the lights, lit the candles and poured in the bubbles,
I began to feel a little sick to my stomach.
I tried to ignore it.
This was our moment.
Our romantic shining moment that had to be perfect.

As we climbed in, giggling as we bumped and slid into the tub, I was reminded why I loved this man, and how he was still the 13 yr old boy I'd fallen in love with,
albeit grown up and hairier.

We held hands, locked eyes, and leaned in for a kiss...
that was interrupted by my sudden urge to vomit.

EVERYWHERE.

It kind of killed the mood.
And so that night, in our big four posted canopied bed, my husband slept like a baby



while I cradled the toilet and slept on the bathroom floor.

And the entire car ride home was spent clutching a bowl and moaning in agony.

It was not the trip we'd planned, but romance had been in the air, briefly,
and we clung to that memory
and laughed about it for years to come.

Even those intended-romantic-resulting-in-non-romantic moments strengthen the love and bond of a marriage and life together.

Life experiences that make up our quilt of memories.

What are your more memorable romantic or non-romantic moments?

Texas Word Tangle Summer Giveaway

SURPRISE!!!!

I've decided to host my very first, blog GIVEAWAY!!! I'm new at this, so bear with me. First of all, you want to know what I'm giving away, right? Well, here is the bulk of it, displayed by my helpful assistant, Remy.

Let's get closer, shall we, and see better what colorful fun stuff I have in store for you.

Yes, that's a cowboy hat, a brightly striped tote bag, a rainbow photo album, a patchwork journal, bright pink notepads, glittery gel pens and some colorful jewelry.

Here I am modeling the hat. (Excuse my frizzy, unbrushed hair. It's clean, freshly washing, I promise.)

I wore this cowboy ten years ago in my first rodeo where I did the barrel racing on horseback. My horse, an Appaloosa named Indian Runner, slipped on the last barrel, but we pulled it out and made it back to the gate in record time. My hat flew off and into the stands, and the guy who caught it brought it to me after the event. It was Brad Pitt!! I won but I barely noticed because Brad Pitt was beside me. I was given a trophy and a huge shiny belt buckle. That hat is special to me and it's been good luck to me ever since...

Ok, just kidding. That was all a tall tale. Here in Texas, we like to tell stories.

Not lies, mind you...stories.

Ahem, well, moving on. Did you notice this little guy next to the tote bag? Yep, a gift card to one of my favorite places, TARGET!

And, while this is a fabulous amount of stuff I'm litterally throwing at ya, I can't promise I might not add a little to it when the time comes to mail it off. Because I LOVE to give gifts. And, as this is my premier giveaway, I've gotta do it right.

Now, there are some rules. And, because I love a challenge, they're a little complicated. You see, in order to be entered for this contest, you have to go to Uptake and leave a comment on their blog...then come back to my blog and leave ME a comment telling me you did it. Easy, right?

Uptake is a travel search engine that combines all travel sites to bring you the most information at your fingertips when you're planning a trip. AND, on their blog, they are featuring interviews by locals about their cities.

So, choose a blog on one of their featured cities. (I like the one on Austin the best, because I lived there for 19 years!) And when you come back to comment on my blog telling me you did it, let me know which city you chose to comment about and WHY. And, yes, I'll be checking to make sure you did it.

If you want to earn EXTRA entries into my contest, feature my giveaway in a post on YOUR blog. That'd be great! I'll give you two extra entries in addition to the first one. (one plus two equals three) Feel free to copy and paste the first or last picture in this post that features the giveaway name.

Sound like fun? It should be. You see, my sister works for Uptake, and I want to bombard her with comments. I don't think she believes we bloggers can take her site by storm, but we can and we will, right?!! Let's do it, have fun in the process and someone will win something!!

So, before you go, one last thing. Here's our sweet Annie modeling the cowboy hat. Start your engines and let's go!!

Oh, yes, one final thing.

This contest ends Saturday night at MIDNIGHT central stardard (Texas time).