I was walking in the door and then...

"Then What?"
"Huh, what was I talking about"
"You went to Target"
"Oh, really hmm I have no idea what I was going to say, I bought wipes there though. How about that raise at work eh"

That is me having a brain fart during a conversation. I do it all the time, it is so embarrassing. I always blame it on my pain pills and muscle relaxers but I honestly wonder if that is the real cause. Today is a random post day!

Sunday Monkey girl stacked blocks like she has been doing it since birth. I was just taking them out of the train and putting them up on the toddler table. I looked up and she was stacking them in towers of two. Then she stacked a tower of three. Then she knocked them all down.

Oscar Meyer died yesterday at 95 and I never heard it on the news. So I tweeted to them something like Oscar Meyer died and I am pretty sure he touched more lives then MJ and you didn't even report it. They replied, "and he asked that the Wiener Mobile not be at his funeral. No joke. "

Yesterday Monkey said "more juice" and she brought me her sippy cup and signed "more" properly. She also put her own dirty clothes in the washing machine. She also helped put up her blocks.

I haven't taken her to the library in over six months. The library soil near my house tested positive for something scary, I can't remember and she still likes to taste dirt. The library on the other side of town has a really creepy lady doing the toddler library time and stairs that she likes to try to climb. Basically, I feel like I am walking my bull in a china shop and it is exhausting. We have books at home. Somebody build a toddler friendly/mommy relaxing library type place I'll pay to enter.

Instead of giving you club cards the grocery stores should give you reusable bags with bar codes printed on the bottom. If you use it so many times they'll send you an extra one each year (as long as you keep your personal information updated). Then I won't have to remember my old phone numbers because I don't update my information.

Lately, I think that I know where I am going. So I just go without directions. When I get there and don't find it, I don't have an address written down or anything. I missed two park play dates.. that I went to.. if that makes any sense.

I joined Kashi, you can like sign up for Kashi newsletters and insider stuff. I took a survey and they sent me a coupon for a free box of any Kashi product limit of $5.00. They messed up though and sent me 2 WOOT! Now I don't have to decide between crackers or cookies.

Katydid and Kid has a great Tuesday post. She calls it Tech Tuesday and she writes about all the neat things you can do with blogspot and HOW to do them. So I stop by and read up to find out what I may or may not want to change.

I went to the outlet malls this Tuesday. I did pretty good getting needs except when I took Monkey into the shoe store. First she said "shoe", then she said "dog" and then she waved and said "hi" to some dog house slippers. So I had to buy them for her. When I buy her shoes I try them on her. She stands up and acts like she is in a bounce house. She keeps her knee's bent and stays low to the the ground. She has her arms out and her elbows bent. Then every so slowly she takes a step. This happens with the first 4 steps of every pair of shoes I buy her. Then she runs and the faster she disappears, I assume, the better they fit.

I kinda feel like a bad mom when I have to say "spit out the dog food", "don't chew on the dog bone", and "stop taking the dog's cookie and eat your own".

Sweepstakes and Tortilla Chip Review

I was offered to do two things that I love to do. Review a product and pass on information regarding a sweepstakes. One of the things that makes healthy foods so great is that you can save your "bad points". So when companies come out with health versions of foods you usually spend your bad points on you can save them for something really good...I mean bad. I am pretty sure that Guiltless Gourmet really understands this concept. They are having a sweepstakes with a grand prize being 4 days/3 nights in the sinful Las Vegas. Oh yeah I'll save my bad points up for some gambling or a show.
So my husband and I healthy food connoisseurs for about five years awaited the arrival of these Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips. Mr. OCD really loves corn tortilla chips that is mostly what he uses his bad points on. I just like to munch and stuff. I really miss the days of orange fingers. I do however enjoy more knowing the healthy lifestyle I lead will be passed on to my daughter.
Once they arrived I was sure Mr. OCD would love them. You could taste the corn. He also loves those kettle chips. These Guiltless Gourmet chips are very thick like those. Mr. OCD's review "They are pretty good, but are probably way to expensive". Then we were at Safeway and saw then in the healthy food section, they were only $2.99 for a 7oz bag. Not that bad for the type of product your getting.
Personally, I am not a thick chip fan...unless I am making nacho's. I really love to make the deluxe beef nacho's once in awhile. I am totally hooked on these guiltless gourmet chips for nacho's. Okay so over the last five years my beef nacho's have turned into turkey nacho's. I have started using fresh tomato's, garlic and lettuce in making them. So my deluxe beef nacho's should probably be renamed to Better For You Turkey Nacho's. I do however use as much cheese as I would like.
I did find myself consuming them down before I could gather all the Better For You Turkey Nacho ingredients. So I am going to have to recommend these to you! 18 chips per serving was quite a bit of munching. I was very satisfied after a serving of the chips. I really liked how salty they were too. I don' t know how they did that. They didn't list anything special like sea salt, just salt. They aren't outrageous in the sodium department, 8% or the RDA for the salted Yellow Corn flavor. I guess when you don't have to cover up chemicals in food, it just tastes like it should.I've posted the nutrition label so you can see for yourself.
Guiltless Gourmet tortilla chips come in many flavors, Blue Corn, Chili Lime, Yellow Corn salted and unsalted, Spicy Black Bean, Mucho Nacho, Chipotle and Chili Verde. They are available at Shoperite, Wegmans, Kroger, Safeway, Pulix, Whole Foods, Giant Eagle, Raley's and Albertsons. They are baked rather then fried. They are made with organic corn. They also offer dips, frozen wraps and dessert bowls.
To enter the sweepstakes you can enter a code off any bag at the website. There is also a way to enter without purchase, details are on the website. Once you redeem your code you will be told if you have won a prize right then. You will also be entered for the Grand Prize which will be drawn on September 30th. Prizes include $100.00 gift cards to the retailer where you purchased the chips. Well, I am off to Safeway to try out the Mucho Nacho flavor and get myself a code. The bag I was sent is code-less.

Online Shopping

One of my favorite things to do is just cruise around online and shop. It is like window shopping without dragging along a toddler, stroller and diaper bag. I can understand how online shopping has become a preferred method of shopping for so many! Plus, I can munch on whatever I want for free (well, I don't have to buy it it is already laying around the house). Last week I was looking at designer baby clothes. At Lou Lou's corner they have appaman clothes. They are super cute, I think my LO would love to have t-shirts with a bulldog on them. I was also looking that the barefoot dreams cozy hoodie, it looks so soft. Perhaps I could save up now and buy it in August for this winter. She is so funny in hoods, she tried to play peek-a-boo and walk at the same time. She really likes cats. When she see's a cat she tries to call it over like you call a dog. She makes a kiss noise and pats her leg. It is too funny. I've been thinking of getting her a stuffed cat. I noticed that jellycat has a really cute bunglo cat with stripes. She would love to cuddle with one of those.

Bathtub Ants

I told my husband when we moved in that there was something wrong with the bathtub. There is the top part and there is the tub part. In between the two is a uncaulked seem. It was filled with ickyness. He said oh no that is fine blah blah. I'll clean it and it will be fine. Then I went in for the tonsillectomy. It never got cleaned. Then he got a second job. Then this week we got ants in our bathtub. Everytime we get in the bathtub we have to wash away a couple of ants. I have never heard of this. Well, that combined with all the ickyness of three months of not properly washing the bathtub got to me.
Last night at 9pm, I ran to Target to get scrubbing bubbles. That stuff is the best! So, I spray it on and leave it and go to wipe it all down. I have to use my fingernail covered in a wash cloth to get the crack between the tub and shower units. Then I spray it all down. We have one of those shower heads that has the flexable arm, so I was able to get it under and spray up. Large chunks just kept coming out and coming out.
It dawned on me that it was more likely that these large brown, woody looking chunks could be the wall behind the tub (which leads to my closet). So I stopped and put in a work order for the office. Anyways, has anybody else ever had ants in just their bathtub, I think that is an odd one!

Paid Off The Car

We paid off the car last night. Eeeek! Last time we paid off a vehicle it got completely totaled in an accident that scared the breezes out of me. It really wasn't that bad of an accident. I was driving down the road and was seen out the passenger window a large work truck hitting my side view mirror. I reacted in a way to reduce injury to myself. I had been in intensive physical therapy and was just starting to make noticeable progress.
I slammed down the gas pedal and swerved. I am not sure just what happened after that, but I can tell you what the jeep looked like. The side view mirror was flipped inward. The third window back was gone, the gate or hatch was bent and the back window was gone. The passenger side rear lights were busted out. There was a huge gash through part of the last panel on the passenger side. It was a total mess.
We had been working toward getting a second car to go along with our jeep. It was a good vechile, a Jeep Cherokee sport. We had the racks and the dog cage in the back. We had traveled from Mississippi to Oregon and back and then back to the West to Washington in it. We love that thing. Once we got trapped in our third "business loop" (tourist trap) in Texas. We pulled into a church parking lot. It was empty and we made an illegal move and drove aross the grass (we didn't leave a muddy trail or anything). Then we get to the other side and the parking lot is full, the building is full of people and there were what felt like millions of windows and everyone staring out them at us. That was so embaressing.
So, we ended up getting another car and having to pay most of the cost of it. The Jeep payoff gave us enough to pay a down payment plus all the freaking registration fees. If we were in the enconomy that we are in now we would have needed some debt relief before we got another car. So as you can imagine we are walking (driving) on eggshells right now. I feel sorry for people who get behind the hubby on his way to work.
The only way we have survived in this economy is by budgeting and being very creative. From streching a pot of chilli by added cheap zuccihini to Hubby becomeing the Janitorial crew at his job as a second job we have just barely made ends meet. I know for many, they are not sure their job will be there tommorow. You can prepare for the worst to happen. I like the attitude of the people who write bill.com. They say you should think of budgeting as a battle plan. That almost makes it sound like a fun game. If you are in need of debt relief or want to prevent yourself from getting their you might want to check them out.

The Big Girl Bed

Well Father's day weekend, my dad brought up my sister's queen size bed frame. While I was preggo, he brought me a special queen size mattress but hubby hated it. We have on Oversize Queen and just couldn't get used to less space. So Monkey went from a crib to a nice framed and mattress, no box spring. That was it is low to the ground. My sister got a divorce and we ended up with the bed frame. We didn't even get toddler rails like we had planned.
There was one problem the frame was almost 1/2 foot longer then the mattress and it wouldn't get smaller. So there was a large dangerous gap at the foot of the bed. The first night I stuff a pool noodle in there and covered it with a blanket. It didn't kinda helped the anxiety, but not much.
We put her down and she was upset and scared. She got out of the bed and I went back in there and laid in the bed with her and sang and comforted her. I explained that this was her new bed. Then I left before she fell asleep. We are big on the ability to self comfort. She got out of the bed crying again. I went in there and put her back in the bed. I quickly tucked her in and kissed her head and left. She once again got out of bed crying and upset. I repeated the action. Then I heard the worst, most upsetting scream ever. I looked at our video monitor to see my sweet little Monkey fling the covers off her, stand straight up and march off her bed. I have never seen her get mad, but she was *issed!!! I was laughing at her. By the time I stopped laughing her, screaming had calmed down and she was wondering around the room. She got a few more blankies and a few more stuffed animals and climbed into bed. She tossed around and was sound asleep within the hour. Of course her head was perilously close to the foot of the bed and the dangerous whole, so I waited until she was very much asleep and moved her.
So not to bad the first time I went in there four times. Then for nap the next day I went and put her back to bed twice. Then the next night once. Now, she sleeps in there just fine. Also the next morning I put all our extra pillows in the space and covered it with a thick blanket and that works really well. The head board has two cubby holes that have sliding doors on them. I put books in one of them and sometimes after she wakes up from a nap she lays and reads books to her stuffed animals for awhile. That is super cute to watch and listen to. I also hooked up a nightlight to the wall right above her headboard. She hasn't figured out how to use it yet. I am sure it will be more used in the darker winter months. I also put up a fake fish tank that her grandma gave her. If she is having trouble getting to sleep and throwing her books randomly around the bed doesn't work, she will turn it on and watch it. Then she falls asleep looking at it.
My husband thought the transition would be very hard. I have seen super nanny get kids to sleep in their own beds time and time again. I used her methods because I have little guidance otherwise and they worked well for my child. I still giggle when I picture her marching out of bed. I am so glad we got the video monitor and that we live in a time where we could afford one! I think in the next few years it will be the one of my favorite forms of entertainment.

Sun Detergent

Okay, so my husband's eczema was getting bad and I thought it was our laundry soap. Turns out it isn't the soap, perhaps something in his new position as Janitor or the pool. We are going to keep looking for it though, probably have to go to the Dr. over it. It is on his hips, so weird.

I am still using the Sunburst detergent. I really like it. The bottle I have is "HE" that means it works in High Efficiency washing machines. Did you know that "HE" works in regular washing machines too? I love that because the bottle are so light that laundry isn't such a literal pain in my neck, when I buy the HE type of detergent.

On to a contest. One of my last winners never responded so I still have 5 coupons to give away. They are for a completely FREE bottle of Sunburst detergent. This stuff smells great and not over powering. The clothes are clean and the detergent is pretty cheap. They also have 6 different scents to choose from.

Go to the Sunburst detergent website and tell me which scent you'd try if you win. You have to do that to be entered.

You can get an extra entry for each -
tweeting about this giveaway
@Native_Momma is giveaway 5 bottles of Sun burst detergent
posting about this giveaway on your blog
posting about this giveaway on a giveaway site

Make sure to leave an extra comment for each entry

Giveaway Ends on July 15th

Meatless Monday - Christmas In July Pasta

Have you ever had Fava beans? In the UK, they are called broad beans. They are a bit of work to deal with, but that is what my organic box has been containing. They are really yummy, a sort of nutty buttery taste. First you have to remove them from the outter casing. Then shock them in boiling water and throw them into cold water. Next you removed the outside of the bean to find a pretty green bean on the inside. Sweet! Now we can make our pasta!
First try to have about 2 cups of fava beans.
Next chop up half an onion and a few cloves of garlic (okay you can use only one clove but I really like garlic).
Saute in a small about 1 tablespoon of olive oil until the garlic is brown and the onion is tranlucent.
Next add in 1 tablespoon finely chopped cilantro
Stir in 1 cup of vegetable broth
Add some salt and pepper and bring to a boil.
Throw in most of the fava beans 1 1/2 cup
Let that all cook togather for about 3 minutes.
Then blend it all up in a chopper or blender along with an additional 1/2 cup broth
In your pan add one can diced tomato, the remaining fava beans, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer and stir in the puree from your blender. (see now it is red and green like christmas colors) This only needs to simmer a few minutes maybe 5
Cook your pasta up, I like to use a whole wheat spaghetti because it is very filling.
Once you've cooked the pasta reserve a cup of the pasta water.
Drain the pasta and toss with the sauce.
Thin the sauce out with a little pasta sauce until pasta become glossy, if you'd like.

Monkey Girl On The Playground

Here is a great picture of my daughter on the playground. She wasn't to into them at first, but has recently gotten the hang of the whole playground scene.

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I Am Back .... I Think

I am thinking of airing the dirty laundry today. I don't think I will, but I have almost convinced myself that it would make me feel better. It probably won't. Perhaps, if I just write it out and save it and make a decision when I am not down that would be the best thing to do.
Last weekend we got some very tragic family news. I am very upset by and and I've let everything go, blogging, housework, good wife stuff, and have only manage to hang on to the good mom things. With my hubby working the second job, I have been alone with my thoughts, and no motivation to do anything (except make baked goods and leave the kitchen a disaster area). This has been a horrible combination for my head and my heart.
Anyways, I know that when I plunge into depression or am dealing with it the best thing is to keep doing things that you were doing before. If you lose your job (or blog followers) then you just feel more depressed. So, I am making myself come back to this and be "on top" of things around the house. I am sorry I haven't made the rounds to comment. I am not going to jump back into that right away because I am afraid I'll come of as jaded. I don't want to Debbie Downer all over your blogs LOL.
So, tomorrow I have a great recipe for Meatless Monday and I'll start my give away for the laundry soap. Plus I might have something else in store to give away later this month. So there you have it I am back.
Now, to leave you with a litte giggle.
I forgot to add on my post about Monkey's 18 month check up that my she got a free shirt because they were celebrating kids. Yes, my pediatricians office was celebrating kids!?!

I Love Strawberries !!!!

I love strawberries, but I have a black thumb. I kill everything almost as soon as I get my hands on it. So for the last two years I have been on gardening hiatus. This year I decided that I am not going to longingly stare at the neighbors patio or plot ways to steal their fruits or herbs without them finding out. How, can black thumb me manage this? Well, I went and bought everything and asked my husband to transfer the plants every five minutes until he did. Then I told him he was in charge of the plants this year. Now, I nag him if I think the plants look dry or withered. He takes care of it, with a sigh. Awww, my hubby is so sweet.

While my hubby was getting his gloves dirty, I was online and came across this really great opportunity. Authentic Haven's Brand Natural Brew Soil Condition Tea, send me a sample of their product. I though hmmmm, perhaps I can garden now. Okay, well I didn't want to risk it so I told hubby to use it on one of the strawberry plants and not the others. That way we could see the difference if there is any. I mean it isn't magical and can prevent me from over watering or something like that. It is just manure in a oversized teabag.
The results were amazing. First off, let me tell you a little more about the product, because I am sure your thinking manure in a tea? Right, okay so that is what it is, it is dried out manure in a bag about the size of my fist. You soak it in a bucket of water overnight. Then you use it on your plants to water them. Why on earth would you do that? Because manure is great food for plants and I live in an apartment I don't have room for a bag of manure. You may also be aware that I am physically incapable of carrying a huge bag of manure. These tea bags weight pratically nothing, way less then a pound.
As I was saying the results were amazing. The plant we used the manure water on, had berries about much bigger then the one we just used water on. There were also more berries on that plant. There are no words to really describe the huge differance so here are pictures. This stuff is pretty cheap, it is a form of recycling and yields more food. The only draw back was my dog kept trying to eat it because my dog is gross!

Here we have strawberries with just water.














Here we have berries with Authentic Haven's Brand Natural Brew Soil Condition Tea.

18 month appointment

A couple weeks ago Miss Monkey went in for her 18 month appointment. It was totally exhausting. First off, just before the appointment the APA decided to issue a recommendation for autism screening at the 18 month appointments. So, I had to fill out three survey's that pretty much all asked the same things. One of the survey's pretty much asked the same three questions in about ten different ways. That wasn't a big deal, except they put us in the little room and so I had to also keep her out of the Dr. Office trash ewww!
She isn't talking really. She says like 5 words maybe and they wanted her to be saying 10 words plus Mom and Dad and two concept sentences (not all done, but want that). She isn't doing any of that on a real regular basis. So they wanted her to go see a specialist, at 18 months. I said no. Some days she is like an echo, but will never say the words again. Plus, my sister when through the whole see a specialist thing at 18 months and by the time her appointment came up he was talking and the specialist said she could not help any. So, I sorta felt like it was kinda a "con". She was on state insurance and they paid everything. I am not and I have to pay out of pocket for quite a bit of stuff.
Right on que she woke up yesterday morning and somehow managed to drag the garbage can out of the kitchen (w/o coffee I am useless!) and Mr. OCD told her to put the garbage can back and she said garbage can clear as day and she still says it. She also started saying Fishy, and gulb, gulb. She started saying kisses and nose over the weekend. So those combine with her other approximately five brings her right up to speed.
Back to the appointment! After asking me approximately 10 times if she can stack blocks, or objects 1 in by 1 in on the survey, the Dr. actually brought out 3 blocks to see if she could. I just don't understand why they ask and then just check, seems like a waste of time and money to me. Just have the Dr. check and have a check mark yes or no on the chart. Don't waste the parents time, don't waste the ink and don't waste the paper. I would like to announce, that I wrote down that she didn't stack the blocks and she didn't do it for the Dr. either.
She weighed in at 28 lbs (that can't be right she feels heavier) and 35 1/4 inches tall. Then came the shots and you won't believe what happened. She was on my lap and the lady walked in with the shots. She drank the Tylenol, then wiggled down. The nurse was reading the shots to me to verify so it wasn't a big deal it wasn't shot time yet. Then she just runs full speed from one corner of the room to the other. She reaches up and suddenly bashes her face against the wall. I was in utter shock, she hasn't ran into a wall ever, especially not face first. The nurse was still turned around and has just said so that is just two shots today when she heard her cry. She thought that Monkey knew what a shot was and wanted out of there. I had of course picked her up and was comforting her. The nurse turns around and I said, she just face planted on the wall.
I was thinking nice we haven't even gotten to the shots and we are having severe melt down. So, I calmed her down so we could give her shots. She didn't like the shots but recovered well. She was so funny, she wanted to walk. She limped out of the room and tried to find somebody to show off her limp and went the wrong way. Then I finally got her going the right way and she proudly limped past the nurses station.
Finally, we were making the 21 month appointment. Yes, I have to go back in 3 months to say "she talks" (can you hear my eyes rolling to the back of my head?). Autumn is trying to steal a pen from the receptionist, while limping. I am waiting for another receptionist to write down my appointment. Then I just started laughing. The receptionist both thought I was nuts! This was the most silly hour I've had since I had a toddler. The faceplant just kept replaying in my head and I just have no clue why she did that. I have no clue how she built up that much speed in the little room. Then that night on America's Funniest Video's there was a video of a little kid essentially doing the same thing, and then I didn't feel like the worst parent ever (and I laughed again).