“Walking through my house at night to get to Bryn’s room should be considered an Olympic Sport!”

When I woke-up Monday morning I saw this as a friend of mine’s status on facebook.  It shouldn’t have made me smile, but it did. I was relieved to know it wasn’t only me. Here are some of the other comments left:

“Ha, ha. I know that all too well.”

“Yay, it’s not just my house.”

“I hear ya!”

“I feel like a ping pong ball bouncing off walls and dodging toys! Last night I tripped over a Tangled Doll!”

“You should try to walk around in David’s room, LEGO’s everywhere! I think it gets worse every year…”

“I stepped straight from a tiny japanese action figure onto a monster truck last night. Sometimes I feel like the toys are alive and trying to get me.”

I’ll admit the toy tornado in my house drives my CRAZY. My husband always tells me to embrace the mess. Grrrr.

I let out a sigh of relief every time the mess is gone and I’m not performing gymnastics and contortions on a daily basis to get from one room to another. And because we’re moving, the house is a bigger mess than usual.

I’ve spent time checking out toy organization ideas on Pinterest and home décor websites. I now have some great clutter organization ideas for our new house, but I’m thrilled to know I’m not the only one out there fighting toy tornados.

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I remember as a kid my parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents always saying, “time flies by.” Of course, as a teenager time could not go fast enough. There were so many milestones to hit: sweet sixteen and driving a car, graduating high school, going off to college, turning 21, graduating college and making a name for myself in the world.

But now I’m a mommy and I understand the statement, “time flies by” often uttered by my elders. I see how fast my children are growing and changing each and every day. I told my brother-in-law one day how the kids’ birthdays are bittersweet. On one hand I am so blessed to have healthy, happy, amazing children, and on the other hand, they’re one year closer to moving out. I always shed a few tears on their birthdays.

I cried almost everyday the entire summer before my oldest began school last year. It was so hard to let my baby go. I had never spent a day without him.  Now I look forward to long weekends, along with winter and summer breaks so I can spend more time with him.

When I heard Lady Antebellum’s “Heart of the World” during the drive to my parent’s house for Christmas, I knew I had a new favorite song. As a mommy and wife, “Heart of the World” is a relatable song, especially the second verse:

I leave him sleeping as I rise early

Always up before the dawn

The house is dark, but I see clearly

Kettle sings a morning song

The bacon’s frying, babies crying

I soak up the sights and sounds

Minutes turn to days and I wish that I could slow it down

If grease is the soul of the kitchen

And coffee the drink of the Gods

Routine to perfect to mention

Time is a thief I would rob

 

Oh, and hope is the soul of the dreamer

And heaven is the home of my God

It only takes on true believer

To believe you can still beat the odds

I try to spend as much individual time with my children too. I plan little dates with them, spend alone time with my daughter while my son is at school and I have quality time with my son after school while his sister is sleeping.

Do you see time flying by now that you have kids or matured in age? Is Time a Thief You Would Rob?

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“As soon as Mommy finishes making a pee-pee we will make ham and eggs, okay?” I told my adorable two-year-old daughter.

Wrongly assuming I could make a fast tinkle and start breakfast in under a minute, I heard the sound that made me dash for the kitchen. To most people the sound of the microwave turning on doesn’t strike the fear of God in them, but all I could think of was, “Oh, God. The house is going to burn down!”

The night before, the kids and I made Christmas sugar cookies decked out with frosting and sprinkles. I gently wrapped the cookies in foil and stored them in the microwave to keep them from drying out while the frosting settled onto the cookies.

By the time I reached the microwave, the burning was well under way. My innocent looking two-year-old stood by the microwave proudly proclaiming she started breakfast as I was feverishly grabbing the burning foil, frosting and cookies out of the microwave. Luckily, she only managed to leave a few frosting burn marks on the brand-new microwave and we didn’t burn down the house. I don’t think our landlord would have appreciated that very much.

I guess I better start a potty schedule for me.

Does anyone know how to take off burn marks or cover them up?

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Like Target on Facebook and get a printable coupon for a $10 Target dollar giftcard after a $50 purchase. But hurry, there’s a limited quantity available and coupon must be used before December 10.

I printed out my coupon this morning and after a quick visit to Super Target, I came home with a new Target giftcard.

Happy Shopping Friends,

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I love getting my mail this time of year. Receiving holiday cards and letters with pictures of my friends and family always brings a smile to my face. Thankfully, I’ve mailed all of my Christmas cards and I’m relieved to have one more task checked off of my Christmas to-do list. Yay!

Are your Christmas cards signed, sealed and delivered? Has time slipped through your fingers and you forgot to purchase cards? Time passes too fast for me and if I didn’t make our Christmas cards before Thanksgiving, I’d be stressing out too!

Don’t worry if you think it’s too late to send holiday cards. Punchbowl is making it easy to send beautiful, free digital holiday cards!  You can digitally send your friends and family holiday cards with personal pictures and let them know you’re thinking of them this holiday season. Punchbowl offers digital greeting cards that have the look and feel of a traditional paper card with personalized touches like envelope liners, custom postage, and rubber stamps.

Also on Punchbowl,  you can plan a holiday or a New Year’s Eve party that will make history.  Punchbowl makes it easy and fun to plan any event. 

Now, off to work on my to-do list.

Disclosure: Punchbowl is a sponsor of My Rays of Sunshine

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It looks like I’ll be burning the midnight oil on Christmas Eve.

When a Christmas package was delivered to our house, my 2-year-old princess ran, grabbed her keys and tried with all her might to carve the box open.

After her failure to open the box, she begged me to open it for her. I had to look inside and tell her the store sent an empty box. Needless to say, the screaming and crying began, followed by the comment, “Come on man.”

With her persistence no wrapped Christmas gift will be safe or untouched under our Christmas tree. Luckily, big brother is at school all day and it is much easier to hide his presents. Maybe he’ll keep the Christmas gift mystery alive, but I highly doubt it.

I hope I have a lot of hiding places and plenty of boxes to hide their presents!

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“I spit out my cheerios…”

“Sometimes something is so wrong you can’t believe it’s real.”

“Please sign this petition, your daughter will thank you.” – an email I received.

J.C. Penney was forced to remove the shirt “I’m too pretty to do homework, so my brother has to do it for me” after an uproar this week in social media land.

Is it just selective outrage? I haven’t read or heard any outrage over these Girl Power shirts by David and Goliath.

And I haven’t heard a peep from anyone screaming to ban these kids shirts from David and Goliath.

Thankfully, David and Goliath have posted on their landing page “our apparel is stupid”, but I’m sure there is someone out there with too much time on their hands trying to ban David and Goliath.

I agree with Ricky Gervais when he said, “You have the right to be offended, and I have the right to offend you. But no one has the right to never be offended.”

The shirt is tacky, but if you don’t like it or it offends you don’t buy it. If the shirt doesn’t sell, then J.C. Penney will not purchase similar shirts in the future.

I’m curious, while everyone is so upset over the message this shirt sends to girls, but what about the message are the protestors sending to boys?  I’m confused.

What do you think is the J.C. Penney shirt outrageous? Or is just a case of too much outrage?

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I’m getting ready to take a shower when I hear my 2-year-old screaming at the top of lungs.  I find her sitting next to the shower crying hysterically. I immediately thought to myself, “did she fall down? Did she step on something?”

No, there was a spider crawling down her leg!

I pulled her away from the shower and began to feverishly brush the spider off of her. Her screams were louder and her tears were falling harder. Finally, I pushed the nasty little spider off of her.

I’ve never heard her scream so loud or cry so hard in my life. She handles her vaccinations better than this. I wrapped her up in her towel and tried to comfort her by rocking her. After an hour of screaming, I finally checked her for any bites. I didn’t see anything but flushed skin. I gently put her on the bed while I headed to the bathroom looking for the culprit.

I didn’t have my glasses on so every little black object looked like the spider. When I spied what looked to be the spider I crept closer to it, but I couldn’t clearly identify what it was. I convinced myself it was just a fuzzy from my black slippers. I reached down to grab it and “the fuzzy” quickly crawled away.

All of the sudden, I heard a pitched scream behind me. My baby was standing there watching the spider creep away. Her scream startled me and my only reaction was to beat the crap out of the spider. (Yes, I know some people are superstitious about killing spiders, but this one was asking for it!)

I nicely put him in a wad of toilet paper and flushed him away. Adios amigo! I thought this was the end of the bad spider nightmare, but I was wrong.

This weekend we were driving to House of Blues when on the way there a little fly decided to join us. This annoying fly decided to torture my baby by flying/buzzing around her and landing on her car-seat. It was her bug nightmare all over again.

She began to hysterically cry and scream. Do you think we could get the fly out the window? Not a chance. She was kicking her legs with each scream and cry getting louder, but the awful fly continued to pester her.

When the fly decided he completed his mission of terror, he flew out the window (I’m sure with a smile). My baby was drenched in sweat and tears by the time finally we parked the car and took her out of her car-seat. My poor little girl.

Now, bugs are haunting her in her dreams. Last night she had a nightmare and all I could understand through her tears was, “he got me Mommy! He got me!” No doubt, a nightmare about a bug .

In case she wasn’t completely fearful of bugs, my slipper left a fuzzy on the ground and she ran towards me screaming “no bug. Leave me alone!” Thankfully I could pick-up the fuzzy, show her wasn’t a bug and toss it in the trash.

A warning to all bugs out there; mess with my kids and you will mess with me.

Now, back to loving my little lady bug.

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I read an article on The Huffington Post by Michelle Madden at The Sweet Beet. In her article Madden believes food is too cheap. Her proof, recently her parents were visiting from Canada and she was preparing dinner for them when she went to the store and couldn’t purchase just three chicken breasts.

I rang the bell at the butcher counter. “I’m looking for just enough chicken for three people, but I only see big sizes.” He came around the counter. “We actually don’t carry small sizes, but we have a special on where you can get two two-pound packs of chicken breasts for the price of one.” (Buying just one was not an option — the second one was bound with cellophane to the first.) “So I can’t buy just one of the packs and I can’t request a smaller amount from you?” “No, but this is an excellent price and you’re getting a lot of chicken.” He was right. I was getting a lot of cheap chicken. The problem was, I didn’t want a lot of cheap chicken.

I’ve never heard of the store she went to so I don’t know if it is club style store (Costco) or a regular grocery store. The main grocers where I live do not offer butcher blocks, but the stores offer several brands of meat and if you ask, they will break a package for you. But here’s a suggestion for Madden, freeze the extra meat and use it for a future meal. That’s what I do and instead of getting one meal out of a package of meat, I get several meals.

As a Mom and the grocery shopper for our household I can testify food is NOT too cheap. I don’t know Madden. I don’t know if she has a family to raise on a limited budget or if she is single, but for those of us who are trying to feed our children nutritious, healthy meals, the rise in food costs make it hard for those of us tightening out belts.

Today I was checking my email and I noticed this story on Yahoo! Food Prices Jump Most Since 1974.

Food prices soared 3.9 percent last month, the biggest gain since November 1974. Most of that increase was due to a sharp rise in vegetable costs, which increased nearly 50 percent. That was the most in almost a year. Meat and dairy products also rose.

Energy prices rose 3.3 percent last month, led by a 3.7 percent increase in gasoline costs.

And now there is fear of rising food prices leading to more riots around the world.

A senior economist at the worldwide bank HSBC has warned of civil unrest in Britain if food prices continue to soar.

Speaking on Jeff Randall Live, senior global economist Karen Ward cautioned that the UK could experience the kind of food riots seen in other countries.

“Even in the developed world I think we have very, very low wage growth, so people aren’t getting more in their pay packet to compensate them for food and energy, and I think we could see social unrest certainly in parts of the developed world and the UK as well.”

Rising prices contributed to riots across North Africa and the Middle East in the past several months that have toppled leaders in Egypt and Tunisia.

So while I’m grocery shopping and noticing the grape tomatoes my children love have jumped in price from $2.50 to $3.99 a carton and I can’t purchase a package of three organic chicken breasts for under $8, there are other’s complaining food is too cheap.

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This is what my street looks like. There are three houses in a row for sale, including ours.

For almost three years I have been cleaning the home I’m living for a realtor to show. First it was for our house that we owned. The realtor was horrible. She would call an hour before she wanted to show our house (if we were lucky she gave me that much notice) and then would never show up. At the time I was pregnant, had a three-year-old and dog to clean-up after and drag out of the house. After all the inconvenience of no shows and short notice cleanings, she never sold the house.

She was followed by the second realtor. This time I had a newborn, four-year-old and dog to rush out the door. Realtor number two never sold the house either. Lucky for Bank of America, they now own the house due to two incompetent realtors. I would also like to thank Bank of American for laying off my husband so we couldn’t pay the mortgage in the first place.

Now, my husband has a good job and we are renting our current home. When our landlord told us around Christmas he wanted to put the house up for sale we were able to talk him out of it, for a little while. Then he called me on Valentine’s Day and told me was going to list the house as a short sale because he wants to just get rid of it.

Great, here we go again!

Cleaning a house for realtors is a pain in the butt when it’s your own home, but when it’s not your home, it’s much worse. So his realtor called me and scheduled a time to take pictures of the house. I cleaned the carpet, touched-up the paint and cleared any clutter from the house. 30 minutes before she is supposed to come by she cancels. Strike one.

Two days later she stops by to take pictures. Guess what happens next. She goes to take a picture of the kitchen and her camera doesn’t work. She told me she’ll call to schedule another day to finish taking pictures. But hey, she told me we were the cleanest house she’d been to. Strike two.

She calls a week-and-a-half later and says she’ll be by the next day at 11 to finish the pictures. At 11:50 she shows up, apologizes for being a little late and finally takes the pictures. It took her three weeks to take pictures! Seriously? Strike three.

Yesterday she called and wanted to show the house today between 10 and 11. Ah, the one hour window. The people coming to view your house don’t want to see it, but the realtor drags them to it anyways. We cleaned the house the night before and I woke up early this morning to clean the bathrooms.

We, my five-year-old, one-year-old and yorkie left the house at 8:30 to take my son to school. There was no reason to go home after we dropped him off at school (it’s an hour journey to school round trip). So the baby, dog and I went to the post office, bank, Dunkin Donuts and tried to find a park to play at where the dog could go. No such luck. Every park we went to had a sign that read no pets allowed. The three of us had an hour and half left to waste.

We drove around various neighborhoods hoping to find a new place to rent. Then my phone rang. She needed an extra hour to show the house, she was running a little late. I’m not sure she understands what a little means. Half a tank of gas and five hours after we left the house this morning, we finally made it back home. This realtor needs to be benched.

I’m setting the rules now. She has to give me 24 hours notice and the longest window I will leave open for her to show the house is 30 minutes. It’s called time management and it’s obviously something she needs to work on. Gas is too expensive for me to drive around for five hours and it is completely unfair for my children to never get any time with me because I’m constantly cleaning the house for an incompetent realtor.

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