If you wake up any time after 6 or 6:30 on a walking day with Marlene, do not, I repeat, DO NOT go back to sleep. Otherwise, you will wake up at 8:30 and have to leap out of bed and into your clothes, drag your not so easy to wake up 3 year old (although she actually did pretty well this morning all things considered) out of bed and into her clothes as well (and she will probably “leak” while you’re trying to change her pull-up causing you to pick her up - bare bottom and all - and run to the bathroom to put her on the potty chair while you get her socks and shoes and throw them at her father because you still have to get your socks and shoes on), because you know your friend will be there any minute (but thankfully she had stopped to talk for a few minutes when she dropped her kids off at school because she must have had a premonition or she knows you really well or both). And neither you nor LG will get breakfast until you come back. Which is not totally bad because it means that you hopefully burned only fat calories. But still.

We had a guest yesterday. LG held up her unwrapped pink crayon to him and had this to say…

LG: The crayon is naked!!

While her father and I were trying to watch the State of the Union, she said the following…

LG: You are my mama and you’re my age.

We’ve been trying to teach LG her dad’s cell phone number for emergencies. She can already speed dial either one of us on each other’s cell phones, but just in case she (God forbid) ever got separated from us, we wanted her to be able to give someone a phone number. And since she loves to sing, we taught her a little song to help her memorize the number. Well, today out of the blue and with no prompting, she sang me the song - every number correct. Mission accomplished. Yay!

And finally, this has nothing to do with LG, but there is a commercial airing right now (in heavy rotation apparently) that has the song “Unwritten” in it. You know the one I mean? I don’t even know what the commercial is for, but I do know that I can. not. get. that. song. out. of. my. head. for. even. five. seconds. And I love the song. But the being forever stuck in my head thing is starting to annoy me.

By the way, I know I haven’t been posting here as often as I normally do, but you can always check my photo blog where I try to post every day without fail!

Happy birthday Social Butterfly!

Everybody Needs Gadgets

Too bad it’s not Christmas - these rechargeable animal flashlights would make terrific gifts!

A portable power supply that you can carry in your pocket.

I haven’t decided if this message tape is cool or a waste of time. I’m leaning toward cool, though.

This may be the smartest idea for a toaster…well…ever!

And this might be the most versatile bowl…ever!

And perhaps this is the cutest spatula…ever?

Food! Glorious Food!

It’s almost Super Bowl Sunday, so here is a yummy looking recipe for 7 layer bean dip.

Five easy pasta dishes that you can make in less than 30 minutes.

Something innovative in the world of cake decorating.

Recipes based on your cravings.

When good condiments go bad.

Creative Pursuits

How to photograph water drops.

How to make a pop-up Valentine’s Day card.

Really cool camera bag

How to make your own cookie cutters.

Make a thing a day.

A to Z Valentine’s Day gifts.

Techno Geekery

Understanding art for geeks is genius. But remember, not all art is safe for work!

If you use Firefox as your browser, do I have a plugin for you!

Life Is a Highway

The one month coupon strategy.

Creative remedies to combat dandruff.

Money-saving websites

100 books every child should read.

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

Caffeine linked to miscarriages

Get rid of fractions? Then how would we cook? Sheesh.

Good Ideas

How to get free trees and plants.

Inventory your home online!

Such a simple, yet effective way to be a ray of light in your community.

Good Reads

What always amazes me about medical breakthroughs is that 1) someone thought of it and 2) someone didn’t think of it sooner.

Whether Heath Ledger’s death touched you or not, read this.

The qualities you need to be a great parent to a preschooler.

For the Kids

Top 10 art materials for toddlers.

Laughter Is the Best Medicine

This is just ridiculous enough to be funny.

Too Much Time on My Hands

This is mindboggling.

This kinda makes me feel small.

Weekly Features

Pretty recipe of the week

Pretty recipe of the week 2

Pretty recipe of the week 3

Cupcake of the week

Tip of the week

Video of the week

It was an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful, perfect day here in the desert. And since the forecast is calling for rain the next couple of days, we decided to get out and take a little walk around the neighborhood and enjoy the weather. I took my camera and snapped a few shots of the interesting things I noticed along the way. And just so Marlene doesn’t wonder why we’ve never seen these things on our walks, it’s because we did all the streets that we don’t do when LG and I walk with her and her crew…lol! (Read on …)

The following is mostly for me to record something LG did that we want to remember since this blog seems to function as her baby book, but you can read it if you want to! ;)

Today I dragged out my measuring tape so that I could get a couple of LG’s measurements for her grandma who is going to make her some shorts. Mike was showing her the measuring tape and she started identifying numbers as she does quite often. But the surprise was that she identified numbers like 23, 25, 28, 26, etc. Whoa. No idea where she learned that, but it’s pretty cool. I also have no idea if that’s a big deal for a 3 year old or not. But I did look at a developmental list online and it said 3 years olds usually can identify written numbers 0 through 9 (she’s been doing that since she was 2) and count up to 5 (she can count to 13 - and then it gets a little dicey…lol).

So yeah, I guess I don’t have to worry about her too much. Her mathematical skills seem to be doing very well so far!

Friday I got a bill from the anesthesiologist who did the anesthesia for my ablation procedure last summer. Yes, a bill from something that happened in July. Stupid. And did I mention the bill was for $608? Yeah. Not happy. I tried to call about it yesterday, but oh yeah, it was a holiday so they were closed. So I called the insurance today and it seems that the anesthesiologist was “out of network”, so I am expected to pay the co-insurance on it. Um, hello? Should they not have figured all of that out before I had my procedure? Am I supposed to interview everyone in the operating room before I go under to make sure they’re all in my network? Wtf? I was in a network hospital being worked on by a network cardiologist. It is ridiculous that I should have to worry about whether or not the anesthesiologist is in the “network” or not. Just another way that insurance companies are ruining the health care system. Ugh.

And then today there was the new of the sudden death of Heath Ledger. I know people die every day. But he’s a dad. And I’ve enjoyed his movies. And he was only 28 years old. So sad.

Since I have nothing but sad and/or grumpy things to talk about, I thought I’d lighten it up a bit with a meme I found at 123Duck!. (Read on …)

I posted about our anniversary on the photo blog, so if you would like to go there to read it, click away!

As for Sunday? Well, it was eventful in its own way. First thing in the morning, our friendly neighborhood woodpecker was pecking away at the metal chimney cap. I went outside in my bathrobe to take his photo and throw rocks at him to get him to leave. The rocks didn’t work and it’s not the best photo, but here it is…

We had thought that it was a Gila Woodpecker, but after looking at the bird on the roof and then examining the photo, I realized it wasn’t. Luckily, I didn’t have to do much digging to find out it was actually a Gilded Flicker (also a member of the woodpecker family). Another bird to add to our list of birds we have hanging around our property.

Little Girl likes to eat bananas for breakfast (or banyanas as she calls them). Usually, she has to have one of us get them for her, but yesterday morning she got one (her 2nd one of the morning) all by herself! Here’s the evidence…

Then we spent some time outside in the beautiful weather…

They’re making progress (if you really want to call it that) on the hill near our house where they are building houses. The road is getting closed to being finished…

Someone who lives in the neighborhood to the east of us practices his golf swing and the balls land in our yard and our neighbor’s yard. Our neighbor, who has a special needs child, finally tracked him down and asked him to stop, but there are still a ton of golf balls in our yard. This one has seen better days, but LG was very excited to discover that there was another ball inside the golf ball…

And finally, some pictures of our sunshine girl…

Showing me what a bird does…

Everybody Needs Gadgets

Bake your own pizza on the stove.

I’m not a coffee drinker, but I’m sure some of you will love this.

Food! Glorious Food!

Classic baked chicken

Foods that help you fight off those nasty colds.

‘Tis the season for chili!

Why didn’t they think of flavored sugar sooner?

I love Rice Krispie Treats, but you can add other cereals to melted marshmallows, too!

Creative Pursuits

How and when to ask permission to photograph people.

Sewing projects for the car.

Techno Geekery

Need an ATM? Find one!

Life Is a Highway

Cake pan size conversions.

I often do not care for the names the stars pick for their children, but I think the name Christina Aguilera chose is pretty darn cool.

Design your own onesies.

Cooking measurement and conversion charts.

How to make a hair roll.

Wall graffiti that mom will approve of.

Travel and live rent free.

Moving? Have pets? Read this.

Top 50 parenting tips

Mattress shopping tips

Train for a race…without actually running?

Good Ideas

Eliminate unwanted catalogs.

How to make your cell phone batter last longer.

Create your own first aid kit for travelling.

Good Reads

Love always finds a way.

For the Kids

10 commandments for kids online

Too Much Time on My Hands

Can you name landmarks just by looking at an aerial view? I got 90%. Tell me what you got in the comments!

Ever wondered how a bobbin works? For some reason, this mesmerizes me.

Rules of thumb

Weekly Features

Pretty recipe of the week

Pretty recipe of the week 2

Pretty recipe of the week 3

You Act Like You Are 33 Years Old

You are a thirtysomething at heart. You’ve had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! You’re responsible, wise, and have enough experience to understand a lot of the world. You’re at the point in your life where you understand yourself pretty well. You are figuring out what you want… and how to get it!

Seventeen years ago today, I married a wonderful guy. He’s a good husband, a great provider, puts up with me (which is not always easy), and seeing him with our daughter makes me smile.

I wouldn’t say our life has been perfect, because we’ve had our ups and downs, but I wouldn’t trade the last 17 years for anything.

Happy anniversary baby. Here’s to 17 more years and 17 more after that.

I love you. You are the wind beneath my wings.

Well, this has been 24 hours or so I could have done without. Sunday-ish, I started having this blurry area in the bottom corner of my right eye. I thought maybe my eyes were just tired because I’d been using my computer a lot, so I determined to ignore it - it really wasn’t obstructing my vision, it was mostly just annoying. The blurriness kept hanging around, though, until yesterday when I started having pain around my eye - not in my eye, but around it. After a consult with Dr. Google, I decided that I should probably get it looked at since there were all kinds of scary things that it could be.

I don’t have a primary care physician (again) because my last one closed her practice, but I had the name of one I was planning to use, so I called there to get an appointment, only to hear there were no new patient appointments available until next Friday. Um, possible detached retina - waiting a week and a half? Maybe not such a good idea. The appointment setter suggested I go to Urgent Care, which I did. The urgent care doc couldn’t see anything, but thought it best I go to the ER. So off to the ER I went. When they finally got me back there, the PA in the ER also couldn’t see anything, but wasn’t overly concerned. He told me the best thing to do was follow up the next day with an opthalmologist.

So, this morning, I set out to make an appointment with a specialist…without a referral. If you’re on or have ever been on an HMO, you know how effing frustrating referrals are. I found a doctor that would be able to see me (after first managing to calling two pediactrics only doctors), called the insurance to see what to do about the referral, was told the written referral from the ER would be sufficient and called the doctor back. Well, then they told me that I needed to see a retinal specialist, so I had to call yet another doctor. Finally, I got an appointment, went to the office, waited an hour to get called back, got called back, got my eyes dilated, got examined (which OW! bright lights! shining in my eyes! ow!) and the diagnosis was…

…eyes are perfect, no problems, no retinal detachment, vision is great, everything is wonderful, but he didn’t quite know what was causing the blurriness - possibly my ocular migraines. So, now I’m just waiting for my eyes to undilate - they’re much better than they were. I can at least read things close up again.

It was quite a stressful time, though, worrying about whether there was something critically wrong with my eyes. My eyes, other than an astigmatism (that got better after my pregnancy oddly enough) and some nearsightedness, have always been pretty good, so it was scary to think something might be wrong with them. The blurriness is still there, but it doesn’t effect my vision, and I can live with it, I suppose, as long as I know there’s probably nothing to worry about.

Next on my list of not-so-fun medical procedures? A mammogram. Yay 40s! :P

P.S. I still hate, detest, and otherwise loathe insurance companies. Bah humbug.

If I had the opportunity to go back in time and change one thing about my life, it would be keeping my very young self or my pregnant mother from taking Tetracycline which caused staining (and I’ve been told it also can affect the matrix of the teeth and cause them to become brittle which seems to be what happened in my case). I figure that would have prevented most or all of the dental issues I’ve had in my life. Who knows? But that’s the thing I’d go back and change.

So, anyway, I have a lot of dental issues. And it’s going to cost a lot of money to fix them. And dental insurance? Is sort of worthless if you ask me. Yes it covers certain things, but it doesn’t cover what you really need it to cover if you’ve got a lot of problems. It won’t even cover the extractions and deep cleanings I need before I can even think about the dentures or implants that I’m going to need once we get my mouth in a little better shape. And don’t even think about insurance covering implants since that is considered “cosmetic”. Cosmetic my butt. I need to chew don’t I? Isn’t that what teeth are for? Bah humbug. (Read on …)

I just want to point out (since it may never happen again in our lifetime) that the Arizona State University men’s basketball team is ranked in the top 25 in the nation in both the AP and USA Today/ESPN polls (for the first time in 13 years) and that other team that lives down in the south part of the state is NOT. And also that we actually BEAT that other team that lives down in the south part of the state last week. And I only point that out because in the last 26 games they have played against each other, Arizona State has won a total of 2. Including the one last week. So you see, it’s kind of a big deal.

To be fair, I should also point out that the team that lives in the south part of the state was without their leading scorer. But still a win is win and one game does not put you in the rankings nor take you out. So I will enjoy it while it lasts. ;)

I have to go to the dentist this morning. I hate going to the dentist. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I get anxiety attacks. And it has nothing to do with pain. It’s a lot of other stuff that I might explain after I get home and have survived. So, yeah, pray that I don’t run away I guess. *sigh*

This completes my first year of Surfer Sunday. I’m thinking of ways to tweak it and make it better in the next year. I hope you’re still enjoying it!

Before you click on any of these links, go tell Marlene happy birthday!

Everybody Needs Gadgets

You know how you cut a piece of pie and the filling starts oozing all over the empty spaces? Well, that wouldn’t happen if you had a Pie Gate!

Creative Pursuits

How to shoot light trails.

Techno Geekery

Another snowflake maker…with a twist.

Life Is a Highway

How to avoid the 10 worst energy zappers.

I don’t think there could possibly be a calendar smaller than this one.

Get gum out of your carpet with peanut butter.

18 things to do with canning jars.

How to read more books this year.

How to mind control customer service reps to get the solution you want.

Good Ideas

Dr. Grammar

Tips for removing a ring that’s too tight.

LoJack for laptops

If I had $3 million to burn, I might think of owning an apartment on this luxury yacht. I saw a show about this ship on the Travel Channel and it seems pretty cool - your own home away from home traveling the world.

Manage your home with a household notebook.

Good Reads

Busting medical myths…you might be pleasantly surprised to read some of these!

Weekly Features

Pretty recipe of the week

Pretty recipe of the week 2

Video of the week

Mike and I went to the Home Show today. On the way home, we stopped by the place where we met, which is fitting since our anniversary is next Saturday. Read more about it over here.