You've Seriously Got to be Kidding!

Did you know that there is a movement among psychiatrists to recognize internet addiction as a mental disorder.  Well haul me away to the psych ward then because I have a full blown case of it!

In today's age many people look to the internet for a million things.  Let's see what I use my handy dandy computer for.  I'll give you clues and you can decide if I have the "INTERNET MENTAL DISORDER" (said in a deep voice).  It's like we'll be playing Blues' Clues except there will be waaaaaayyyyyy more than three clues and I will be using this computer as my Handy Dandy Notebook.

(By the way we don't watch TV on the internet so by me knowing what Blue's Clue's is about shows that I am not on the computer all the time).  Okay, shall we proceed.

• Of course we have the proverbial Facebook whom almost EVERYONE is on.  This is how I connect with people simply because talking on the phone with a baby, a 6 year old and a teenager around isn't necessarily practical at all times.  Besides if I want to talk, I can and if I don't want to be bothered then no on bothers me :)
• Online banking and bill pay - need I say more!  Who wants to sit down every payday and write checks to a million different companies and then have to get stamps to mail them and get them to the mailbox and HOPE that they get there on time.  Remember I am a stay at home mom so MANY times I pay those things on the day they are due.  I say online bill pay saves my sanity!
• Read the news - who has time to sit down and read the paper only to throw all of it away.  I get to read what I want and there is no waste.  I am being environmentally friendly here.
• iTunes is the only source I have for music.  I love to have music playing in my home all the time and having iTunes (or Limewire - but shhhh...I don't want the internet police on me now) gives me the ability to get any music I want in all different genres without having to buy a CD where I will never listen to any of the other songs.
• Google - remember when you were younger and you had encyclopedias?  Well that is my Google!  I search for anything and everything on there and no it does not take away from me knowing how to spell and look things up.  I am perfectly capable of doing that!  Google has not contributed to the demise of incompetent children.
• Scrapbooking - I love doing all of my scrapbooking and purchasing of my photos online (just remember to save them to an external hard drive - read prior post).  I cherish my photos and having the ability to do even more with them is awesome!  My kids will appreciate it someday.  They won't have to look back like I do at pictures of people I don't even know from who knows when.  Heck my parents can't even remember what the pictures are sometimes.  How does that tell your story to your future generations.  Scrapbooking on the computer is also a lot CLEANER than buying all of the stuff and doing it manually although I do make a random manual scrapbook every now and then.
• The fun one that my teenager hates is that I can check on her school work at practically any point in time and know what is going on.  I am not one of those parents who is ever surprised by anything that may, or may not, come home.  The administrators provide this as a resource to us so by golly I use it to the fullest.  If you're not, you're a fool!
• I also work at home on the computer.  Being a stay at home mom I get to set my hours and work when the kids are at school or they are sleeping.  Granted I love typing but what better way to make a little bit of spending money to make the hubby happy and be able to do it in your PJ's.  Seriously!!
• Blogging - okay so there are a million blogs out there but this is my outlet.  I enjoy it and you can't take it away from me.  If you don't want to read it, just move on but don't tell me that I am looking for something to fill a void.  Are you kidding me!  Can't I just like to write and share?!?!

Okay, there you have it!  A condensed list of everything that I do on the internet or computer.  Now you be the judge!  Is it an Internet Mental Disorder or me just being a normal person looking for better ways to be a better wife, mother, friend, daughter, and sister.  Take it from me, I have learned some amazing things from doing what I do AND it's a lot cheaper than therapy!!

Happy Surfing!!  See you around on this information highway!  I'm not pulling over anytime soon....

Wordless Wednesday

This is Alysia and I on one the rare occasions that she gets along with her mother.

These are few and far between during the teenage years!

Artist In Training

I am really trying to come up with the best way to do this blog since there are so many things that I want to do here and not enough time.  Bear with me as I decide what my plan of attack will be in this endeavor.

I have been a stay at home mom for about 6 years now and have been in the rut of just doing what needed to be done to get by.  It's so easy to just let the children entertain themselves while you get everything else done that needs to be done.  My purpose in being a mother is spending quality time with them and my 6 year old son convicts me of that the most.  So tonight when his little brother was asleep and his older sister was rehearsing for a play, I took the time to sit down with him and do some painting.  This was an idea I found on the internet and decided I would do it with him.  He thought it was the coolest thing.  Just spending alone time with him with no other interactions made him the happiest kid on the block.  I have to admit that I enjoyed the stillness in just not worrying about anything other than what color to use next.  These simple things are so easy to forget in our daily lives but yet so easy to do.

I am vowing to try to make more time with each of my kids so that they know how special they are to me and they never to a back seat to anything else that I am doing.

I started out by tracing some circles on a piece of paper with a cup.  James wondered what I was doing at this point and kept asking what we were going to do.  When he found out that we were going to do watercolors he was so excited to be able to do his and show his art teacher at school.

James thought that the water in the cup looked really neat so he insisted that I take a pic.  He kept trying to put red in there because it looked like "blood".  He is such a boy!

Save Your Sanity and Your Money

My greatest weakness is going to Walmart or Target "with a list" and coming home with a million other things that I never had any intention of buying.  I IMPLUSE shop to the greatest degree anyone could.  If my husband is with me he makes me stay to the list as best I can but I still HAVE to have one thing!  I don't know what it is but I always get more than I came for.  I am sure that a lot of people deal with this to some degree but it is a great weakness for me.  My husband could kill me sometimes because of it.

So I came across this site called http://www.alice.com/ and I think it is sooooo cool!  I joined - it was free by the way - and I stocked my shelves with stuff that I normally buy by the brands.  They had everything that I could need.  You can log in when you need your items and they will ship them to you AND it's free shipping.  So I am not spending any gas AND I am not buying anything extra hopefully.

You can set it up so that it reminds you when you might be running out of products so that you never run out.  You set up when you want to be reminded.  How much simpler can this get?

Check it out if you can and sign up.  We can save money and our marraiges together!  The less I go into a store the less money I will spend.

WARNING - Don't do what I did!

Okay, so two days ago while working at 10:00 at night my computer kept locking up on me.  I was so frustrated so I ran a disk utility on it and it told me that I needed to reinstall my operating system.  Okay.  So I went through the boxes I have packed so that we can move and I found the disks to reinstall it.  Not a problem.

So I insert the disk and it warns me that I need to back up all of my data or it will be lost.  It tells me how to stop the installation so that I can do that.  Went through the steps that it told me and then it proceeded to not want to do anything.  At this point it is about 11:00 at night and so I call Apple and they have the audacity to be closed at night.  I can't believe they aren't open all hours of the night so help me when I need it.  Go figure that they need time off.

So I went to bed and called Apple the next day.  They walked me through about three different ways that I could get my computer started to no avail.  They told me that it was a hardware problem and that I needed to call a technician.  AT LEAST I bought the three year Apple care protection to protect me!! 

So I called and found a guy that could come to my house that was authorized by Apple.  I have to use the people they want since it was under warranty.  Anyways he couldn't get anything more than I had done to it and told me that it was probably my hard drive that went bad.  So he took it back to his office and ran diagnostics on it and said that he could see all of my data and so he would install a new hard drive and then just migrate my data from one to the other.  AWESOME!  This was starting to look like it was going to turn out okay.

In the meantime I had to use my hubby's laptop while he went out of town so that I could finish the work I had in order to meet my deadline.  He was not happy about leaving it at home.  I thank him soooo much for that.  Now her just gives me a hard time because he thinks that I really bought him a computer just so I would use it.  Not!!  I actually love my computer and prefer to use it rather than his laptop.

So toda my computer comes back home all new and the technician proceeds to tell me that he couldn't get any of my data!  I swear I thought he was joking!!  What - - 4000 pictures, GONE!!!  I can deal with the music I don't have and work but the pictures I can't ever get back!  Four years down the drain!!  I am sick!!  He said that he could see all of my files but when he actually went in to recover my data that there was in the files!  ARGH!!!!!

SO....I got my computer back but now I have to spend a lot of time getting it back to where I want it installing all of the programs I need, etc.  I lost all of my email account addresses, the 100's of websites I had on my favorites menu, just to name a few.

So what did I learn this week that you can learn from me..

GET AN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE!!  No matter how much it costs it can save you a lot later on.  Don't learn the hard way like I did.

Don't have your home office in the same room as your dryer!  The whole reason that this happened in the first place was because of my dryer.  You see, my computer desk is always dusty and I never thought anything of it.  Well seems that the dryer creates dust in the air even though it is vented well and so where can that duct go other than in the back of the computer wherever there is an opening.  Every where there was a vent fan was an entry point for dust, and lots of it!  The technician said that he literally had to vacuum out my computer because there was so much dust in there.  Go figure!  Who would have guessed that having it in the same room would have created a problem like that.

Last but not least, if you do chose to not follow my advice, make sure you buy a warranty of some kind if you are getting a new computer.  That was my only saving grace during this whole ordeal.  $100 a year and a half ago when I got the computer is paying off right now.  I didn't have to pa a dime for the service or the part.  That's good considering I am going to be paying for a long time coming because I don't have my cherished pictures.

What are you eating?

Do you ever have days where you hear the dreaded question "What's for dinner?" only to remember that you don't really have anything planned so you throw something that isn't the healthiest meal you could have planned if you only took the time to do so.  Another option might be to just go out and grab something to satisfy your hunger because nothing was planned or you have a million other activites to do so there isn't time to cook dinner at home.  These nights are PERFECT for pulling the slow cooker out!  There are limitless recipes on the web anything you are looking for.  Whether you like making things from scratch or quick dinners; taking the time to do a little planning will save your sanity, checkbook, and the mindless nights of trying to figure out what you are going to do.

First and foremost you need to tailor your grocery list based on the weekly circulars.  This is where you will get the most bang for your buck.  Combining coupons with the circulars will put even more money in your pocket!!  Check out http://www.couponmom.com/ for tips and tricks on getting the most out of your shopping trips.

Here is a list of what I plan on making for the next couple of weeks.  I encourage you to take a look at what you're making too!  Post what your plans are to help other people get out of the rut of making the same old thing.

Potato Soup
Fish Tacos
Meatball Sandwiches
Creamy Chicken Casserole
Carbonara - this is Alysia's pick.
Chicken Quesadillas
Enchiladas
Bacon, Chicken, Tomato, Alfredo Pasta
Salisbury Steak - this is James' pick.
Talapia
BLT
Sauerkraut and Polish Sausage

What do you have planned for your upcoming menu?