Oh, the Things You Find When You Clean Off Your Kid's Desk

So I took today off (along with Friday and Monday) so that I could:

1.) Prepare for my favorite holiday ever...Halloween;

2.) Spend some time with my hubby (he took time off, too);

and my least favorite reason...

3) To clean. Really clean. Like gut-the-closets-drawers-and-rooms kind of clean.

So I started with my least favorite first...#3.

90% of this kind of cleaning involves sorting through stacks of paper. We should be ashamed of the amount of paper we use. Although we do recycle anything we get rid of!

Most of our paper use is allocated to the kids and their creativity: art, drawing, and writing - and I just can't part with a ton of that. So in going through the paper on Maddie's desk, I came across a gem that I just have to share.

This is...

Maddie's Share Time List, verbatim. She didn't write this for school. She wrote it just because.

I'll retain the spelling errors because it adds to the cute factor! The parentheticals are mine.

1. My name is Maddie Ranz.

2. My favorite color is pink.

3. My favorite place is paris. (She's never been!)

4. My favorite rock star is Nicole Anerson. (Who is that? Never heard of her)

5. My favorite thing to do is draw and scodder. (She means "scooter.")

6. The thing that I am best at is making friends. :)

7. My favorite dessert is ice cream!!!

8. My family is going on vacation soon!!!

9. My favorite sacrifist (she means "sacrament") is First Communion.

10. My favorite TV show is VICTORIOUS!!!

11. My favorite jewlry is silly bands.

12. My favorite kind of shoes are high tops.

13. My favorite store is Justice!

14. My favorite school subject is gym class.

15. My birthday is in March!

16. My favorite restdaront ("restaurant") is Chipotile ("Chipotle" - close!).

17. My favorite car is a convertable V. Bug.

18. My favorite fruit is cherries.

19. My favorite artis is Mutius. (Who the heck is that?)

20. My favorite song is "Make It Shine"!

21. My favorite movie is Camp Rock 2 The Final Jam!

22. My favorite number si 8,888. (LOL!!)

23. The place I go in the most is my room. (Um, that would be because she gets sent there when she's in trouble, which lately is a lot!!!)

24. My favorite sport is swimming.

25. I am GREAT at soccer!

26. I love dancing!

27. I have two trophies for it!!!!!!

28. I love buttons.

29. I love butterflys.

30. I love Joe Jonas!

31. Some people think Justin Bieber sings like a girl. I don't!!

I'm dying. I love this kid.
My favorite thing about this list, besides just the fact that she did it, is that I already knew 26 out of 31 of these, which makes me feel close to my girl.

But I guess we should start saving for Paris and put 8,888 buttons on her Christmas list. And let me know if you've ever heard of Nicole Anerson or this Mutius character...

I Blame Facebook

I know. It's been awhile, Blog. Almost two years. I should be ashamed. I am.

I have a confession to make. I've been seeing another social network. That seductress you all know as Facebook hooked her tantalizing claws into me and pulled me away from you. I wish I could say it took a lot of cunning and manipulation for me to give into the temptation. But She made things so easy. I'm a working mom. You know my crazy schedule. And Facebook just fit into my lifestyle so effortlessly: An update here. A comment there. An uploaded photo. These all only take a few minutes, even seconds at a time, and all via the convenience of my Blackberry. The thought of writing meaningful, interesting blog entries just exhausted me - I'll get to it later, I'd say. But the truth is, I just got lazy. I took the easy way out. I'm sorry.

So what brought me back to you? The other day a coworker mentioned that she once made Play-doh but couldn't remember an odd ingredient. And I chimed in, "Hey I did that! I've made BLUE Play-doh! And I burnt it!" And I knew I had written a blog post about it. So I pulled up this here Ol' Faithful and found it. Cream of Tartar. That was the the magic part of the receipe! I saved the day! YOU saved the day. More than you know.

When I got on here, I couldn't just leave. That would be rude. And honestly, I wanted to stick around. I couldn't help but poke around and read old postings and pictures of my girls from since they were way littler.

Suddenly I found myself so engaged in the past:

"Oh, yeah, I forgot that!"

"I remember her saying that now! How cute!

"OMG, look how little my babies are!"

"Dang, this blog ain't half bad."

I immediately had a mix of feelings. Sadness that my girls have grown up so much. Regret that I hadn't kept up with the blog and thus left many wonderful moments and comments undocumented. Appreciation that I at least had this bit immortalized for our enjoyment forever. And then resolve - to get back to it.

Yeah, I'm still busy. REALLY busy. Busier than ever, really. Full-time job, a good 30 minutes away. Two daughters who are both involved in soccer, a two-hour competitive dance team, Brownies/Daisies, cheer, guitar, swimming, and about to be gymnastics. Oh, and then there's that school thing they do that carries studying, and homework, and activities. I have new friendships I'm building, old friendships I'm nourishing, a newfound romance with my husband that I'm celebrating. And then there are those P90x DVDS that are glaring at me, laughing at my intentions to get back into working out. Not to mention a DVR that is literally bursting with series after series that I just haven't gotten to yet because I haven't had time.

But yeah, I can find time for this. I need to find time for this. Because I am lucky enough to have life, love, happiness, friendships, and even trials that are worth sharing. And remembering. And remembering again. So my story resumes...