It's time for some baby talk

I'm sure you're all wondering how the babysitting gig went, right?

Well, lets just say it went a little differently than expected.

It kind of made me realize how selfish Jesse and I are. I mean, we do what we want, when we want and however we want.  Not this weekend though.  This weekend, little tiny Allison called the shots in our house.  And it became very apparent that she was definitely not on the same schedule we were.

Poor little thing.  She's a little six month old baby who was teething and missing her mommy.  Let me tell you, most of the time she was not a happy camper. There was a lot of crying going on in the Deem household this weekend, and I don't think all of it was from the baby.

But we survived all the dirty diapers, crying, and disgusting noises that even the cutest of babies can make.

And I think she even had just a little bit of fun.

Although I'm happy to get back  to my own sleep schedule, I really miss the little squirt!
  

Our weekend plans

Okay, so I'm sure all of you have really missed me, and I'm sure you were like stalking my blog everyday to see if I had posted anything new, so to you I apologize.  Sometimes I'm just a slacker.

I blame this on the fact that I sit in front of a computer ALL day at work.  So naturally when I get home, the last thing I want to do is sit in front of my computer at home. But, I'm going to try harder. I mean, have you seen my list of followers recently? I'm at six.

Holla!

Yep, my fan club is steadily growing.  At this rate, I should have about 12 followers by December.  I don't want to brag or anything, but I'm kind of turning into a big deal. :)  Okay, I'm just kidding...

Please, I beg of you.  Follow my blog.  I've started joining a lot of other blogs and have even started to research some online writing gigs, but no one is going to hire someone that only has six followers. So if you are a member of my family, or my BFF (ahem... Amber) then I'm talking to you.

Moving on...

I am really looking forward to this weekend.  Why you ask?  Because we get to spend the whole entire weekend babysitting this adorably, precious bundle of joy.

This is our niece Allison.  Actually it's Jesse's niece, but she's so freakin adorable that I like to claim her as my niece too.  I don't think my sister-in-law will mind!   Anyway, I'm super pumped about having Miss Allison over for the weekend!  Do babies make everyone happy or is that just me?

Well, I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!

Don't forget to follow my blog!

The world's best husband

For real.

I need to get a coffee mug for him that says, "World's Best Husband" or maybe a magnet.  Remember those magnets that we used to buy for our parents for Christmas?  It looked like "World's Greatest Mom" was written in crayon? I remember my mom used to give me like $10.00 to go to school and buy Christmas presents, and I'm pretty sure I bought her the same dang magnet every year.

Anyway, back to my husband.  He needs one of those magnets.

He's done some pretty awesome things for me lately. 

First and foremost, he bought me a dishwasher.  A dishwasher!  Can you believe it?  I swear it was one of the happiest days of my life!  We've had it for about a week now, and I can't even think of the words to describe how truly amazing it is. Not only do I have a machine that washes all of my dishes, I also have somewhere to hide all of my dirty dishes!

Then, the other night he came home with another surprise.  I was sitting on the couch watching TV, and he told me to close my eyes and hold out my hand.  He had an awesome surprise for me.  So, I did what I was told, and immediately opened my eyes when I felt the box in my hands.

You'll never guess what it was.

Okay, Okay...I'll tell you.

The Clapper!  Yes, you read that right.  Like, "Clap On, Clap Off ... The Clapper!"

The first words out of my mouth were, "You didn't actually spend money on this did you?"  Thankfully he said, "No".  And then I got really excited.  "Let's put it in our bedroom."  I immediately said.

So, he hooked it up to his lamp, and I spent the rest of the evening hanging out in our bedroom and just randomly clapping.  That night, I went to bed with the biggest smile on my face because as soon as I got all snuggled in and found a good, comfortable spot on the bed, I clapped twice and everything went dark.

You little rascal.

My friend Hatcher: blah, blah, blah “My mom and her mobile scooter.”


Me: “Hey. You need a mobile scooter? I got one for sale.” (When I think back to the actual conversation, I picture myself saying this in a New Jersey accent, chomping on bubble gum while twirling my fingers in my hair. It may or may not have happened this way)

The other ten people in the room: "What? Why do you have a mobile scooter? That’s weird."


Okay, so we are selling a mobile scooter for one of our friends, and right now it’s just hanging out in our basement until we can find a suitable owner.


I kind of don’t want to sell it.

I like it.

I used to drive it around in our basement when Jesse wasn’t home.


Then…


I wrecked it.

I was trying to parallel park the mobile scooter. Which is a terrible idea, considering I can’t even parallel park a car. But I thought, “It’s just a scooter”. Surely it’s easier than parallel parking a car. Boy was I wrong.

I crashed into our desk.

And my husband took away the keys.

Hopefully I never need one of those scooters! Can you get insurance on those things?

random facts about me

I love accents. For real. Jesse gets super annoyed because anytime we talk with someone who has an accent, I will spend the next half hour trying to mimic it. This never seems to pan out though. I normally end up sounding like a Leprechaun or Forrest Gump. And sometimes a mixture of both.

I cannot wink. When I was younger, I would stand in front of the mirror and practice for hours.

I LOVE Dateline. I record it every Friday and Sunday and it's one of my favorite TV shows. For some reason, I'm really drawn to watching True Crime stuff even though it scares the crap out of me. Plus, I usually end up watching it by myself because Jesse kind of hates Dateline because the guy who narrates the Friday night show, Keith Morrison, has a super creepy and annoying voice. Therefore, I usually spend the night triple checking the door locks and sleeping with the nightlight on.

I will not leave my house without putting on mascara. I have blonde eyelashes that I'm not very fond of.

Jesse and I had no plans for Easter and no family dinners to attend, so we spent the day de-cluttering our basement and ate our Easter dinner at Red Lobster. After we got done feeling sorry for ourselves, it ended up being a pretty good day!

I think I'm definitely going to cry during this week's episode of The Office.

I am a horrible backer-upper. And I hate backing into parking spots. My dad, my brother, and Jesse are all backer-uppers and it drives me crazy! Just pull into the parking spot like everyone else does!

I'm really nervous that the show Parenthood is going to get canceled next season, so I signed an online petition to keep it going. I have no idea whether this is legit, but you can click here to sign it too!

Well, I guess that's all for now!  Have a great Wednesday!

Work. Cook. Sleep. Repeat. + puppy love

I am such a horrible blogger!  Sometimes I just think my life is so boring that there is absolutely no chance anyone could possibly want to read about it. 

And I've been stuck in a funk lately.  My life revolves around working, sleeping, cooking and cleaning. 

When I'm not at work, I'm worried about making lunches, or what we're going to have for dinner, or what I'm going to bring to our work pitch-in, or whether we have clean clothes or dishes...and on and on and on...
It's exhausting.  Work is rough enough for me.  I have lot of responsibility and a lot of stress.  And when I come home, I really just want to relax, but that never seems to happen.  There are always meals to cook and dishes to do.


Ugh.  There has to be more to life than this, right?


Anyway, I actually had a great weekend and thought I would share it with you!

Jesse and I spent the weekend back in good 'ole Knox County.  We normally have an okay time when we go down to visit, but we never really get to enjoy ourselves.  There are always about 20 different people who need our attention.  But not this time...

This time, we stayed at my aunt Michelle's house (who also happens to be one of my best friends), and we just got to relax.  We didn't really even tell anyone else we were in town.  It was glorious!

So my cousin Jaden, who is ten years old, said the sweetest thing to me this weekend.  I seriously think it might have been the most flattering thing anyone's ever said to me, and something I will never forget.

She said, "Valerie, I want to show you this journal I have, but I can't find it.  I wrote something about you."
Then she said something like, "Everyday,  it asks a different question. One day, one of the questions was, 'If you could trade places with anyone, who would it be?' Well, I said you because you're in the Air National Guard, you have red hair, you're a good singer, and you're beautiful on the inside and out."

Awww...it makes my heart melt!  I have been battling so many inner struggles lately, but somehow it makes me feel so incredibly good about myself, to know that in the eyes of a ten year old, I'm perfect in every way.

Isn't she adorable?

I just want to throw out there, that we went bowling and I beat Jesse.

We also got to bring our dog with us this time!  This is a huge treat for us because our dog is "the monster" and no one ever lets us bring her over!  But "Abby the Monster" got to hang out with her best friend all weekend and I'm pretty sure she had a great time too.

Here are the two dogs when they were just wee little pups.

And here they are now.

Aww..sweet puppy love!

It's a love / hate relationship

I've had kind of a crummy day.  Nothing bad has happened to me personally, but I've just felt kind of horrible and unfocused and let down.  You see, today turned out to be lay-off day.

 This is round number two.

I made the cut this time, but I don't know if I will always be so lucky.  I have a hard time doing my best and giving 100% for a company that makes it very clear that I am disposable. I mean, I'm very aware of the fact that there is someone in the Phillipines that can do my job for a lot cheaper than I will, but does that mean they should?

One of my co-workers posted something online today about how he felt like we were in some twisted version of a reality TV show.  You just never know who is going to be eliminated from week to week. It's kind of scary... We have absolutely no job security.

So sorry to be such a Debbie Downer!  Let me get on with what I'm loving about today!

1.  I'm loving this new food website that I've stumbled upon.  Like seriously.  I could spend hours and hours on this site!   www.foodgawker.com Click here to check it out! 

 All you have to do is click on one of the mouth-watering pictures and it will take you straight to the recipe.  Not only that, it will take you straight to the cook's blog, which will lead to more awesome recipes!

2.  I heard Eddie Money on my way home from work today.  I have had an incredibly weird thing for Eddie Money ever since I was a child.  I have very vivid memories of begging my mother to play "Walk on Water" just one more time...

Well, a couple of summers ago, Jesse and I went to an Eddie Money concert. To say I was excited would be an understatement. And from what I hear,  I may or may not have had one too many adult beverages.  Anyway, we were pushing and shoving through the crowd so we could get as close as possible. And once we finally made it up to the front, I started screaming, "I love you Eddie!" at the top of my lungs. Apparently, this has not happened at an Eddie Money concert since the 1980s because I was getting some majorly weird looks. 

Jesse swears it was the moment he first knew that I was "the one".  :)

3.  I got to watch the show "Parenthood" tonight.  I swear this show makes me cry every week.  It is my absolute favorite show on TV.  It's so heartfelt and true and real, and every week it leaves me wanting more.  I recently had to wait like 3 whole weeks for a new episode to come on and it was absolute torture.

Well, I think that's all I have for now.  I hope everyone else had a good Wednesday!