There wasn’t a winner for last week. No one sent in a guess.

I’m going to blame it on the holidays and allow one more week. One guess per person, deadline January 5th 12midnight EST, winner chosen from all correct answers using random.org. See last week’s post for photo.

Have fun!

Ha… you thought I was going to forget, didn’t you?

Here are the new rules: You have until Tuesday, December 29, 2009 to respond. One guess per person. Prize is a $5.00 gift certificate to Amazon.com again. Have fun!

P.S. I ran out of time yesterday. I was going to rant about the reasons I am so fat. I’ll have to save that for another Tuesday. *smiles*

Hi,

Ready to listen to some great music? It’s all about me today.

Unwritten

Home Life

I Don’t Want To Be

No More “I Love You’s”

Every Kinda People

New York Minute

That’s it for me tonight. Sleep well!

Hi,

No, this post is separate from the Music Monday post that I’ll put together later. I wanted to share that I put the domain name Creative WAHM up for sale on eBay. Here is the listing:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140369060637

I originally purchased it in 2007 with the intention of creating an advice site for women wanting to work from home. But year after year, I got distracted from it and never made it into anything. I have had sites up there, but my attention was continually pulled elsewhere. So, if you are a Creative Work At Home mom and would like to start building a website, here is a great Christmas present you can buy for yourself. If it isn’t the right fit for you, please consider passing along the link. Perhaps someone you know or a friend of a friend would be interested.

I appreciate you taking a look!

Chaos

Oh man… I messed up my posting streak.  That’s okay… I’ll try to fit them all into this post. *grins*

For Free-For-All Friday:  First, I re-found a really great message board: http://forums.online-sweepstakes.com/. They were very helpful with my Wordless Wednesday Game. With their advice, this Wednesday’s game will run for a full week.

Malwarebytes is my favorite spy-ware scanner and it is found here: http://www.malwarebytes.org/.

Did you know that Wal-mart gives away freebies? http://instoresnow.walmart.com/In-Stores-Now-free-samples.aspx.

For So Many Goals Saturday: My goals are simply to get the house ready for the holiday. Christmas Eve we are going to start a few traditions just for us. Don’t ask, because Brendan and I have no clue yet. Then we are having an open house for family and friends Christmas Day and then again on Saturday. The kids are home from school for Winter break, so I will be taking my fair share of generic Ativan and doing the 30/30 thing until then. Maybe cut back on sleeping. Yeah… that might work.

For Spiritual Sunday: We can touch on the “Reason For the Season”. As non-Christians, Jesus is not the reason for us. I think it has been pretty well proven that, assuming he existed, he was born in June. Christianity was trying to convert the Pagans so they created as many holidays near the old holidays as possible. Winter Solstice became Christmas. But, I don’t have a problem celebrating his birthday at anytime actually. Just as I appreciate being able to honor Martin Luther King and wish we did the same for Einstein’s birthday along with Gandhi’s day. When we have been so blessed to have such amazing people who have touched the world in a positive manner, they should be celebrated. What about Mother Teresa and Darwin? Their contributions to the world should also have a place among all of commercialization.

I might wish someone a Merry Christmas if I know they are Christian. I might say Happy Yule if I know that they are Pagan. Usually I will stick with Happy Holidays. Though I do like October Wife’s Happy Retail Commercialization Day as it is the most honest these days.

Well, it is finally cool down here… 58*F. So, I’m going to enjoy having my windows open and taking care of things around here.

Chaos

Hi everyone!

A huge thank you to those that played my first week. I hope you enjoyed it. I’m looking forward to next week.

Ready to see the original photo?

The winner is WaltzingDog!!! Congrats! Don’t get spending your big prize all at once, you hear? *grinning* Thank you very much for participating. I will get your gc out to you tonight.

Chaos

Hi! I’ll be posting the winner to the “Wordless Wednesday Game” at 5pm EST today.  You have until then to make a guess. A winner will be chosen from any correct answers. I thought I would get Tutorial Thursday going though in case someone needed a last minute Christmas idea. They were big hits the year I made them. I hope you enjoy it!

No-Sew Fleece Blanket Tutorial ©2009 Melissa Olivero

*Please note that while this tutorial was written wholly by me, I am not the originator of this idea. These are the steps I used to create the item.

ITEMS NEEDED:

•  Rotary Cutter
•  Large Cutting Mat
•  Medium Cutting Mat
•  Ruler
•  2 coordinating fleece fabrics at 1 1/4 yards each (1 yard & 9 inches)

1. Put your two pieces of fabric together with the good sides facing outwards. Double check that they were cut at the same length & width and correct if needed. Some people may prefer to pin them together at this point. Lay out on your large cutting mat.
2. At each corner, cut out a 6″ square. Lay that fabric aside. Hopefully you’ll find a use for these squares in a future project.
3. On each of the four sides, make a 6″ length cut at every 1″ to create a fringe.
4. Once all sides are completed, you’ll need to double knot it all the way around. When I was first taught to make these, I was told that a single knot would be sufficient. I had a 3 year old at the time though, had given the blankets to other children and learned that you need to double knot. You’ll want to do a combination of an underhand knot and then an overhand knot. The end result should have one fringe strip laying on the opposite side fabric. As in the photo shown above, the white strip is tied to show on the print side while the print fringe shows against the white side.
5. You are done.

Nope, not so wordless, but close. This is how this will work. Every Wednesday, I’m going to post a photo of a random object (this first one should be easy). Post your answer in the comment section… one answer per person please. You have a little over 24 hours to make your guess. I will assign a number to all the correct answers in the order that they were received and then use http://www.random.org/ to choose a number. This week, to start the game off right… there will actually be a small prize — a $5.00 USD Amazon Gift Certificate. I know it isn’t much, but it just a little something to make it fun. I don’t know if there will be a prize every week. I may tweak the rules as we go along… right now: guess only once and be able to receive the gift certificate in US dollars in the amount of $5.00. You have from now until 5:00 pm EST Thursday December 17, 2009 to make your guess. If you have any questions, post them.

Ready? On your mark…

Get set…

GO!

P.S. As the weeks go on, the pictures will become more difficult. I didn’t have a lot of time to think of what to do since this was a spur of the moment thing. The picture was taken with a digital camera and other than being cropped, it was not manipulated in any way.

Dear Diary,

I think I am doing really well with this new posting schedule. I’ve been blogging consistently since last Thursday and that is probably a record for me. Tantrum Tuesday is supposed to be my day to *be real*, vent, bitch, complain, whatever you want to call it. But…. to be outright negative is so not me. I’m very passive aggressive. I am better keeping at keeping it all bottled up or making veiled snarky comments or just call my Mom and/or Christine and tell them everything. I’m VERY comfortable handling negativity that way. It is way easier that I tell them every mean thing that people have said or that I’ve seen them do. This way it is released from me and I avoid being confrontational. That’s probably the way it will stay too.

The timer is beeping at me so my “break time” is over and I have to get back to doing chores. I’ll finish this later.

Okay, back again. The twins room is much better now. Everything is out from under their beds, tv stand and bookcase and put to rights again. Remember, you can do anything for 30 minutes. Yep… that’s what I’m doing today — thirty minutes cleaning and then thirty minutes computer time. Some days that works and some days it doesn’t. Today is a good day. Maybe that’s because I forgot to take my med two days in a row and I’m mildly manic?  I always appreciate it when I am like this… so functional — I barely recognize myself. LOL

I’m resorting to random vents as my emotions are still too jumbled to be truly honest about the way I feel about anyone or anything at the moment.

• I wish I could feel like I feel today — every day, but add in being able to go shopping without freaking out (like this morning) and being able to socialize again.
• I think croc shoes are ugly and wish people would stop wearing them. I actually saw an idiot wearing them as he drove a motorcycle the other day.
• I wish I was better at disciplining my children.
• I AM SO DONE BEING JUDGED BY OTHERS. If you don’t have anything nice to say about me, the way I parent, the way I keep house… then leave me the hell alone.
• I wish I could find the perfect organizational system that would be intuitive and inspiring.
• I think that 2010 will be the year I finish writing a book and get an agent. My worst flaw is procrastination. I hate that aspect of myself more than anything else. If I can get myself to follow through on just one major project, maybe my life would change for the better.
• Most of the things I dislike the most have to do with myself, so I’ll end this here.

My time is almost up again. Next on the list is my oldest son’s room. I feel too good today to really complain about anything, so I’ll see you tomorrow for the Wordless Wednesday photo. What in the world am I going to find to post? You know, there used to be a site that posted a picture a day or a week and you had to guess what it was. You didn’t get to win anything other than the satisfaction of being right. Maybe I’ll do something like that… that will be fun.

Chaos