The Crazee Chick's View of Life

Happy New Year! I will inundate you with a complete update of our amazing Christmas and New Years later but first I wanted to get our 'Christmas card' out to you all. As you know, I stink at sending out Christmas cards....I prefer the electronic, slideshow, 8.5 minutes of bragging to the 1 page Christmas letter with no pictures!  Yes, in case you forgot, I love to share my life and my family with you. Click Here to see Our Year in Review: Enjoy!! Happy New Year!  May goodness and love come to you in 2011! Love Lisa

Nut Free! Gluten Free! Dairy Free! All these words appear on the packages of food I bought today. In my shopping cart there was; rice bran, gluten free bread and, gluten free crackers (really yummy but could use some salt. I'm not allergic to THAT!), tahini, brown rice pasta, gluten free wraps made with teff flour (from Africa), vegan margarine and brown rice rice cakes. They are all pretty good but it's going to take some getting used to. Gone are the sauces, the gooey cheese, the crackers, the ice cream...and yes, the chocolate! Okay, truth be told, I do sneak an After Eight after the occasional meal but I'm not fooling anyone because within minutes of consuming it my throat gets all phlegmy and I started 'uh hem-ing.' It's a dead give away. The adjustment will take time and I am by no means denying myself over Christmas--I'm having those homemade cinnamon buns and that hashbrown casserole on Christmas morn, and I'm having yam casserole w...

Strangely enough, I got a call from my doctor's office about two weeks ago telling me of my appointments with a number of specialists. After a few moments of what was obviously a very confused silence, the receptionist explained that after my last visit the doctor reviewed my file and decided it was pertinent for me to see an allergist, an internist and have a full respiratory function test done. In case you don't know, about 1.5 years ago I became very sick and had a long recovery but I feel like I truly never fully recovered--I'm much more tired now, get sick every time I try to exercise, and just don't have the get up and go that I used to have. So, anyway, after over a year of my whining to the doctor off and on about chest pain, axilla pain and pinching, and a host of other maladies, she decided to send me to the specialists. Enter my first appointment with the allergist. As he asks me what he can help me with, I realize that I really don't have a clue w...

Hello... Remember me? I'm the person who used to think about this blog every second of every day. I thought about it before bed, in the shower, as I was shaving my legs, putting on my underwear, putting on my clothes, while working out, while sleeping, while baking...you name it and this blog was on my mind. Not so much lately. Sorry about that. Life's been silly busy lately. Maybe I should do a quick recap: 1. In November the one day freak snowfall almost foiled my big plans to go Black Friday shopping with 'The Shopping Bags' but the lure of 4 days of shopping, dinners out, and a weekend with my girls was more than enough motivation to risk life and limb, so into the van we all climbed and after hitting a couple of patches of black ice and a few moments of driving cautiously, we arrived at the Mecca--the mall--and began our pilgrimage. It was divine! 2. My first year in real estate has been amazing--I couldn't have even imagined that it would have ...

Tonight I started a new tradition.  It is my hope that this tradition will happen every Sunday evening at the dinner table where we will encourage conversation, enlightenment, support, love, share our fears, seek guidance, and learn about the world we live in.  Best of all, I hope this tradition will bind us together more closely as a family.  Let me tell you a little bit about what has sparked this idea... Last week I acquired a game called The Family Dinner Box of Questions. Essentially it is a box of cards with questions on them intended to encourage conversation during the meal. Some of the questions are: 1. If you could have any wild animal in the whole world as your pet, what would it be? 2. Who is the teacher or coach that inspired you the most, and why? 3. What is your best and worst personality trait? 4. What scares you? This is a great game because not only does it get your kids talking but it also teaches them about inspiration, personality trai...

Autum is officially here. How can I tell, you might ask? Is it because of my finely tuned and astute observational skills in which I observe the leaves changing color and falling from the trees? Is it the fact that my biorhythms are feeling slightly out of whack due to the shorter days and the longer nights? Is it because my internal temperature is in flux due to the colder weather? Is it because my nasal passages are as keen as a bear's and can smell the snow? No, it is none of those things. It's because of  loogies . What's a loogie you may ask? Well, according to the online dictionary, a loogie is defined as:      ~ a thick quantity of sputum, usually containing phlegm; Any thick, disgusting liquid . As I walk the kids to school in the morning, some considerate folk have blessed our travels with these wondrous weather 'forecasters.'  There they are on the sidewalk, haphazardly and frivolously placed, whereupon we tread with delicate fe...

The earth stood still today. No, it wasn't because the planets were aligned. No, it wasn't because yesterday's date was 10/10/10 (which happens only once every 1000 years) No, it wasn't because the month of October has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays, in it which, according to Facebook (and we know how reliable that is),only happens once every 823 years. No, it was more phenomenal then all of that. It was because I ironed. Sheets. Yes, I actually ironed sheets. Now, you need to understand that I only pick up my iron to move it from one location to another. Typically if something needs ironing one of three things happens: 1. it stays wrinkled 2. it hangs in my closet until gravity pulls the wrinkles out over time 3. I go and buy a new item of clothing. I just don't iron! So why did I do it today, you may ask? It was my front load washer and dryer's fault. It made Kiki's new bedding so wrinkly that I just could not stand to let ...

Our whole family is exhausted. How can that be? It's not like we've been hiking mountains, skiing in Aspen, touring Thailand on bicycle, picking pineapples in Hawaii, or scaling the Mayan ruins (although, these are all things on my bucket list). Nope, none of these things. Today in church we all looked like somebody had kept us awake for three weeks straight and made us do aerobics non stop. We could barely stay awake (and no, it wasn't because of the speakers because they were awesome!). At one point Kiki put her head on my shoulder and I put mine on hers and actually closed my eyes and fell asleep for a moment. I then looked over at Mo who mouthed out to me, "Mom, I. am. so. tired.!" followed by a gigantic yawn. Then a quick glance at hubby showed bags under his eyes so big that I contemplated using them as my briefcase instead of my current one because it looked like there was more room in his bags. Zee kept throwing himself across my lap and emitti...

Happy Thanksgiving! Okay, so I was going to write a post about all the things that I am grateful for such as my husband,kids, parents, brothers, sisters in law, friends, and religion but it was getting too intense and I was unable to find an opportunity to inject my sarcasm and I am feeling an very strong need to be cheeky tonight, so here's my list: I am thankful for:(in no particular order) 1. turkey, mashed potatoes, salad,yams, stuffing, pecan pie, ice cream..... 2. shoes with high heels that go clickety click on tiled surfaces 3. pretty jewelery with lots of shiny facets 4. smiles and hugs--they always brighten a day 5. beautiful songs such as 'You're amazing just the way you are.' by Bruno Mars because it helps to remind me that we, as women, are far too critical of ourselves and that our men only see our beauty and not all the flaws that we can't seem to overlook. 6. bedtime--nothing in the whole world feels better than crawling between those sheet...

Last year when our school PAC put on the Welcome Back BBQ we were all new members of the PAC and didn't have a clue what we were doing. Not so this year. We were amazing! Last year we fed about 565 people--this year the number was closer to exceeding 800! Oh yeah!! This year we rocked. The whole event ran like a well oiled machine. Jilly Billy ran the BBQ pit with Hubby, Rob, Keary and Jilly Billy's mom. The BBQ crew started cooking burgers, hot dogs and smokies well in advance of the expected crowd with the result that no one waited more than 3 minutes from the time they opened their bun until a burger was slapped on it! Just to give you a perspective--last year the wait at some points was 2 hours!  We used 2 4 ft grills, 2 regular BBQ's and 'the pig' --that's a lot of fire power! Miss K, Mazz, Jilly Billy and I began the morning at Jilly's store where we sliced tomatoes and lettuce for the condiment tray. After we finished at...

Prepare yourself. The shock could potentially be fatal. Yes, it's true--I am going to update my blog. It's been a while, and frankly, I just haven't had enough sarcasm in me to make the effort of typing words on a little screen worthwhile to you nor to me, but today something is different. I have had a splurt of energy. The most I've had in ages. I even came home from work and vacuumed, cleaned the bathroom and did two loads of laundry! Maybe it's because I ate meat. Nah...that can't be it. I've eaten meat twice this week and had only one burst of energy. (quite the vegetarian aren't I?) Don't judge. Anyhooo...since I am so far behind, I am going to attempt to only partially get caught up. I'm going to spare you most of the details--or else I'll just surreptitiously stick it all in on the next couple of posts and catch you completely unaware...ugh, digressing again...so soon. So, here are some pictures of the first d...

9:30pm Thursday "Hey Kiki, I bought your birthday present today and  I know you're going to love it!  I'm so excited to give it to you  right now as an early birthday present, would that be okay with you? (*wiggling with excitement*) "No Mommy!  I want to wait!!" "Oh c'mon Kiki...PLEEEEEEEASE?" "Well....okay!!" "Here you go, baby, happy early birthday!" "No, mommy, I changed my mind...take it back.  I want to wait!!" "Seriously, Kiki?!!....c'mon....PLEEEEEASE?  I can't wait until October and I'm pretty sure that you're not going to want to wait either..." "OKAY!!! I'll do it!!" (*wiggling with excitement*) "Oh my gosh!!" "I'm so happy!  I've been saving up for over a year to get an iPod after I accidentally fried my other one!  I can't believe you got me an iPod Touch!  Holy smokes!!!  AAAAAAAHHHH!!!! "Mom, I'm so glad you made me open th...

You may remember our Black Friday escapade last November? (If you are a new reader, or have a short memory, click HERE for a recap) Anyway, last November as we parked our very hungry butts in the booth at Maggiano's Miss Kay came up with the amazing idea that we should all re-assemble in July, take a three hour drive down to the US, shop and have dinner at Maggiano's to celebrate our birthdays. All 5 of us agreed...because really, July seemed soooo far away that it was easy to say "SURE!"...and we all forgot about it. But not Miss Kay who, I might add, has a memory that would make an elephant hide it's brain in shame. June rolled around and out popped an email from Miss Kay reminding us of our plan. Well, we all juggled our schedules to make things work and in July we found ourselves breaking out in the early dawn, armed with Starbucks, a catchy music CD, a van and a lot of excitement. Yes, we shopped 'til we dropped, yes we all got schmexy pedicur...