February 28, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Keepin’ It Real February 2014

Good bye February! You were a blah sort of month. Being neither long enough to make any decent memories or short enough to skip through. March is a busy month for me. I cannot decide if I am excited about that or if I will indeed miss the carefree easiness of February. February is in no rush. It is the baby sibling of all of the other months. No responsibilities go to it. It is just a wee little thing.

Edited to add: . My husband (the sweet eternal optimist) was horrified at my less than stellar review of his birthday month.

Sorry Sweetie! I will add some happy memories to February.

The highlights:

My husband’s birthday

Discovering three wonderful new restaurants

Happy Belated Birthday Auntie M!

My sweet mom surprising me with chicken pot pie

My amazing friend Jessica painted my bathroom (sharing soon!)

A night out with girlfriends around a firepit

True Detective

My husband surprising me by coming home again after all ready having left for work to give me one last good bye kiss for the day

The Lego Movie

Many snuggling mornings

My nephew had his birthday and sweet birthday party

A three hour phone call with a good friend

I got to hold a beautiful baby girl

And she liked me more than my sister*

Wow! I guess February was a pretty good month, afterall!

Okay, enough of that. Let’s get real!:

Look! The carpet at the Pantages Theater is Humboldt’s twin! Poor Humboldt. I can’t. I just can’t stop embarrasing it.

Outfit outtakes.

Tonight for dinner I made homemade biscuits with homemade macaroni and cheese with fruit salad.

But last night, the kids and I had Trader Joes frozen breaded chicken tenders, oven fries with the most amazing new sauce that I have recently whipped up after seeing it numerous times online. Oh, the guilt! But it was so good! If you cannot wait for me to ever get to that post (cause, I mean, my picture of it is so good. How could you wait for such a delicacy? I should totally be getting a call from Bon Appetite any day). And really, who knows when that will be? Here is the easiest dipping recipe.

My daughter and son have both been working on giant paintings of our dogs in their art class. I will update when they are both finished, because I simply cannot wait. Of course, I probably will not get them framed until next November when the framing deals happen again.

I’ve started a post that is going to take me a long time to complete. I will be reviewing and rating around twelve different mascaras. It might have to be broken down into two posts. We will see. Here is the first mascara I have started.

Why am I doing this? Well, I purchased a huge mascara sampler from Sephora and just now opened it. And I have always wanted to be a scientist. So. Mascara. Check. Experiment. Check. Scientist Jenni. ????

Remember when I bought my husband that ice cream maker that I he ~~always~~ never wanted for Christmas? Well, I finally got around to ordering containers to start making my ice cream this week. For friends and family this is great news, because I cannot possibly eat all of the ice cream I will be experimenting with. I hope to perfect them now so I can share the recipes in the summer!

And on Wednesday night I made two small batches of homemade ice cream. One vanilla and one cinnamon. Each one has a certain twist. Brynne, you can guess what that is! The only way I will make homemade ice cream…

Unfortunately (or fortunately for my diet), ice cream and my tummy do not mix. So I just get a small taste of the stuff before passing it along. Sigh.

I also remember promising certain posts in January’s Keepin’ It Real that never made it up in February! I wrote my children a different letter instead and Stick In The Mud will go up in March. Also, My Husband’s Secret is being posted on Monday!

I really did this update so I could do a screen shot of a screen shot of my blog. I find this hilarious. I might have a problem.

I liked doing two outfit posts a week this month instead of one. What did you think? Less or more outfit posts?

You know that feeling you get the night before Christmas? That is the feeling I am having about my year blog giveaway! It starts March 10th and I am so excited!

Did you have a good February? Are you excited about March? Any fun memories to share?

*This is unfortunately not true and was added just to razz my little sis. Which is the perfect way to end the little sibling month of February! ; ). I do love you, Mandi!

February 6, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

It’s The Little Things: Amazon Prime Membership

I know. I know it is not technically a little thing. But it makes me happy. Unbelievably, weirdly, wonderfully happy.

Amazon Prime is a yearly membership in which you pay a set fee (as of this writing, it is $79, but that might change soon according to this CNN article) and get free two day shipping on most of their products on their site. Since I usually purchase all of our books from Amazon, this has been beyond wonderful. I will say this will probably not be worth the cost to you if you do not shop at Amazon a lot. Unfortunately, I spend a pretty good amount of funds there. I buy all of my beauty products, excluding make-up, (this is tricky, because I thought one of my products was covered under Prime, but I ended up paying $8 to ship one item. Make sure you check) from Amazon. I also tend to buy everyone’s toys through Amazon.

In addition to the two day shipping, I also receive unlimited streaming of many movies and television shows. The kids utilize this feature the most. Plus I have free access to their Kindle library. I do not use that feature though. You cannot hoard a paperless book.

On Life Hacker, there is a breakdown of the question, “Would I benefit from Amazon Prime?” It gives a better answer than I could, because they actually use math to make their decision. Imagine that!

I did write a post I have not published (and I am not sure I am going to, because one company earned an F) of the internet companies I used during Christmastime for gifts and Amazon was one of the few companies who earned an A+ from me. I think they do things right.

In the last five days, I have purchased three books. It is kind of like magic how quickly they have come. I have to stop myself from buying more just to see how fast they will get here. You mean you have to actually pay for the books? This isn’t really magic?

And now, Amazon has Sunday delivery! Yes, Sunday delivery! I am sure there are many differing opinions about this, but I love it. I have not taken advantage of this option (I guess I never shop on a Friday), but I might in the future. There are many articles stating this is a fantastic revenue venture for the U.S. Postal Service. Here is one of them from USA Today.

I bought “Fan Girl” on Saturday. I received it on Monday. I finished it on Tuesday. Now, that’s a beautiful thing! The situation of my house is, um, not so pretty.

I ordered “The Magician’s Elephant” and “Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore” on Monday and I received them on Wednesday. Unfortunately, housework did end up dominating and I have not started those books yet. But I know they are there. Cheering for me from the wings when others might not.

I am not gonna lie. It has been a tough couple of months in terms of health and some other things going on behind the scenes here. A new book just makes me happy. It takes me away. Being able to get a little bit of another world in the dreary mail, is real-life magic.

It’s the little things: an upgrade on Amazon that upgraded my life.

Have you upgraded to Amazon Prime? Do you think it is worth the extra money? I was a skeptic for so long, but I am now reformed.

I love it!

* This is just my review of Amazon Prime. I am not being compensated for this post. And, as with all of my reviews, your experience might differ from mine.

January 31, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Keepin’ It Real January 2014

January is just about over. How can this possibly be? This is my monthly post where I share outfit outtakes, random musings, and stuff I could probably share if I ever got myself an Instagram account.

Instead we get this:

My massive amount of laundry I had to fold in the background. There is nothing I hate more than putting laundry away. How about you? Thankfully, I am all caught up now, but…ugh!

Picture of an outfit I have worn twice (once with the vest and once without) and have yet to get a “real” picture of.

One night I was making sandwiches for the kids’ lunches for the next day. I realized I only had three slices of bread. So, the kids each had 3/4 of a sandwich one day. They probably never even noticed.

Outfit Outtakes:

I do not want to know what is going on here. Perhaps I am trying to become one with the ostrich.

My son was sick. I had to call the school to let them know. This makes me nervous. I always mess up. Usually, I make my husband do it. But Monday I was feeling brave.

This is how the message I left went (with obvious name changes):

“This is your child’s school. At the beep, please leave the name of your child, your name, your relationship to the child, the date, and the reason they are calling in sick.

Thank you and have a wonderful day.

BEEP!”

“Um, hi, this is Mrs. Gnomelover. I am calling my son, Little Gnome in sick today.”

I couldn’t remember the date, so I said, “Today is Monday.”

Then I decided to add in a little extra help. You know in case they couldn’t find his name. Even though at this point, I am sure they have my name memorized from the caller i.d. after all of the crazy things I have called about over the years.

So, I added, “he is in Mrs. Pepper’s class.”

I hung up the phone. Breathed a sigh of relief. It had gone better than expected.

I looked to my left. My husband was laughing at me. “What?”

“He’s not in Mrs. Pepper’s class!”

That is when I kind of woke up. Oh, yea! Mrs. Pepper was his teacher from two years ago.

I called back. Listened to the message.

“BEEP!”

“Hi. It’s me.” I wasn’t going to go through the nonsense of pretending they did not know who it was. Or that this call would not be added to my tally for “Kookiest Mother of the Year.” I know I’m winning. It isn’t even close.

And then I started laughing so hard I was crying.

So I half sobbed and half shrieked into the phone, “He doesn’t have Mrs. Pepper! He has Mrs. Lemon! Bwahahahaha! Thank you. Brawahabyehaha!”

I hung up.

Then I realized I forgot to add what he was sick with. I didn’t call back. I figured I didn’t need to. I am sure they figured he might have caught my illness. It is quite ~~catching~~ ~~hereditary~~ made up.

One of the good things about living in Southern California is barbecuing in January. Yum!

I don’t foresee many changes occurring in February with this blog. I am going to see how two outfit posts a week go over in February. And more stories.

Here are some posts that will be coming up in February:

My Husband’s Secret
Dear Children: Being a Stick-In-The-Mud
Chocolate Cake
Reading: Eleanor and Park
Next week there are two outfit posts: Classy Lady and From My Closet

And many more stories I have written lately!
I can’t wait!

What is a “real” moment you have had lately?

Here are December’s and November’s Keepin’ It Real posts in case you missed them or just like looking at bad pictures of me.

December 30, 2013 by gn0mel0ver

Keepin’ It Real December

December is almost over! It was a whirlwind of activity, procrastination and happiness. I am sad to see it end.

Today is my mom’s birthday. Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!

On to the realness:

A piece of lint on my kitchen floor. I think the signs are pointing towards wanting me to go somewhere. Hmmm. But where?

Pajama Party excerpt:

One of my sweet friends insisted on doing some of my dishes by hand. She handed me the wet dish to dry. I have a confession. I hardly ever (and I mean hardly ever) hand wash my dishes. I actually love to do dishes. Load them into the dishwasher. Put them away. I do it at least once a day. But every item goes into the dishwasher. I couldn’t live without it.

So, I dried them with a paper towel. I almost peed my pants laughing when she told me I was supposed to use a dish towel.

She thought I must not have any dish towels. Then I had to show her I had a collection.

She asked me what I use them for. And I said, “to dry my hands.” What a concept: dish towels be used for dishes. I will have to remember that next year when I hand wash a dish again.

It reminded me of the time I was newly married and my mother-in-law came to my house and was shocked to see me cleaning absolutely everything with just Windex.

Housekeeping has never been my strong suit.

Good thing I chose to be a housewife.

I made chocolate bowls for ice cream one night. How do you think I did?

Outfit outtakes.

My dresser in December. Now my whole bedroom looks like this. It was a casualty of Christmas. I hope it can be revived.

Look at what my mom and stepdad gifted me for Christmas on Saturday (we celebrated late with them). It is a necklace I have been wanting for over a year. It is from Knit Knit on Etsy. It is a hand embroidered fox wearing a bow tie!

Thank you guys! I love it!

How was your December? Are you ready for 2014? Or do you feel like I do above (and, yes, that is a giant pimple.)?

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

it

Keepin’ It Real February 2014

It’s The Little Things: Amazon Prime Membership

Keepin’ It Real January 2014

Keepin’ It Real December