How do you clean up after the holidays? For us, it is a tad more interesting. Madison’s birthday was yesterday (she turned 5!), so we always have the quick cleanup that needs to be done from the time we get back from visiting Wisconsin and her birthday party. I usually get about a week if we are lucky. Since we have the basement now, Bill let me keep up the Christmasy decorations, but we did pull down the Christmas tree. I need as much room as we can get, and this is pretty much the only way I was going to get it. I figure everybody will hang out downstairs for her party just like they did for Christmas Eve. The sad thing is that we are the only one on the block who still has their outdoor lights up. Now, we don’t leave them up till June or anything, but it seems that it is kinda odd that on 8th of January that everyone has packed up everything already. Now, I’ve slacked this week, and I have to get all my cleaning done tomorrow with the kids underfoot. This should be interesting. My sister is arriving tomorrow, so its not quite the end of the world if she’s the only one who sees my non-clean house.
How do you clean up? Do you have a set plan? Do you just do a little bit each day?
TThis post is sponsored, but the ideas, thoughts and ramblings are my own.
Since having kids, I turned into a big softie. Yes, I’ll actually admit it. I cry at things I never would have before, and I think about things that never would have crossed my mind before having kids. I’ll be honest here — I get all teary eyed at Sears new commercials. Their new campaign is about how one gift can change someone’s life. Since I absolutely love Ty Pennington, I thought I’d show you what he had to say:
Okay, now that I’ve got myself composed again, I need to tell you what wishes Sears answered for my family. I was provided a $100 gift card from Sears that we were able to use this weekend.
Bill and I bundled the kids off early yesterday morning and headed off to Sears. I luck out since Sears is actually walking distance from my house, and we actually shop their quite a bit — off the top of my head, we got a bench, our snowblower, and our lawnmower from there. However, on this trip, we had no idea what we were going to get. My Christmas shopping is pretty much done, so we were going to try to find something for the kids.
The first place we checked out was the outdoor decorations. Madison is always wanting more for our yard, and this isn’t something we spend a lot of money on. Shortly after this picture was taken, Will decided to lay on the floor and talk to one of the deer that they had for a decoration. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the camera out fast enough to get that embarrassing photo of him. Nothing really caught our eye in this department, so we headed over to toys. Of course, there were a lot of toys to pick from, but really, my kids don’t need another $100 worth of toys right before Christmas. Since the favorite part of any store for my husband is electronics, we headed to that department.
Once we were in electronics, my husband immediately walked towards the TVs even though we really don’t need one. Plus, $100 doesn’t really buy a TV (or at least not the ones he was looking at). Madison was being her normal hyper self running around looking at things until she saw the guitar hero bundle. Yes, that is my whole family playing Guitar Hero in Sears. Madison asked us if we could buy her the drums.
Now, the school district I live in has cut the art and music programs from the curriculum and will not be adding them back. I have written many posts on this blog about how awful I think this situation is and how I feel that music definitely is a class that should not be cut. My daughter loves to play instruments and sing. I can’t imagine depriving her of it. With the $100 Sears gift card, we will be able to fulfill her wish and give her the additional music support she will not be getting from our school. Who knows — Madison may end up to be talented singer, dancer, in a band, etc. However, I’d love to give her the stepping stones she needs to reach her full potential. (Plus, well, Guitar Hero is fun for mom and dad too. Dad was all over getting it when I told him there was 3 Tool songs and Freak On A Leash by Korn. I also need to add that the gift card paid for a portion of the cost of this bundle. I paid the rest.)
Since we got such an awesome family gift from Sears, I’d like to extend this awesome opportunity to one of my readers. Yes, I’d like to give you a $100 gift card to Sears to use however you like.
You can enter via blog comment, tweet or blog post:
Blog Comment:
I just need you to tell me what you think you’d want to spend your $100 on. Head on over to Sears and let me know the item number of what you like.
Twitter:
I’ve made it super easy for you to Twitter about this contest. Just tweet out this message:
RT @blm03 please grant my wish to win a $100 #Sears gift card – tweet to make your own wish: http://urlbrief.com/8e0599
Blog Post:
You can also enter by writing a post about the contest and linking back to this post. Make sure you leave a comment with the URL to your post, so I can count it as an entry.
Each tweet, comment or post counts as one registration. You can register up to three times by tweeting, leaving a comment, and doing a post on your blog. The winner will be chosen at random by IZEA based on all entries. This contest goes until December 23 at midnight EST. Good Luck!
Check out the other Izea Insiders for more chances to win:
I took this picture of Madison late last night. We had put her bed, and about an hour later, she came screaming out of her room. She was crying so hard that we had no idea what happened. All I know is that I saw she had a mouth full of blood, and I ran her into the bathroom. We still couldn’t figure out what had happened, but we had her rinse her mouth out with water and calmed her down a bit. What we learned was that somehow she took her Pumpkin flashlight, and whacked herself in the face. You can’t tell from this picture, but she actually somehow cut two little spots below her lip, and her entire lip is swollen. She also had some black and blue marks show up instantly. After we calmed her down and found out what happened, she says to me “mommy, do you want to take a picture?”. That’s my blogging girl! LOL She knew I was going to write about this. LOL
The good news is that she is okay today. The swelling went down, and she just has 2 little cuts below her lip.
I have been writing a lot about Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software lately. I absolutely love how it saves me time writing posts. If you see the post before this one, it is almost 700 words. I used the software and with editing (mainly because I decided to reword things), it took less than 10 minutes. This software is a bloggers dream. Life is so much easier when I can write a 700 word post in the little bit of time I catch here and there during the day. The best thing is that I am not the only one who thinks so:
Drew of the BenSpark has put together a great little video demonstrating Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Drew has been blogging for quite some time and he might just be one of the best mobile bloggers that I know. He is probably more famous for his picture a day work as he is an excellent photographer. But I can’t help be amazed at how much content he creates and the high level of quality in that content.
He’s definitely a blogger that employs best practices when he finds them. And based on this video, it looks like he might see some potential in Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Now I am not trying to put an endorsement in Drew’s mouth. Time will tell, but I do think he is off to an excellent start.
You’ll notice in his video, that the sound quality of his video is excellent. That’s actually an important aspect for Dragon NaturallySpeaking. I don’t mean that you need good video quality or sound quality in a video to make Dragon NaturallySpeaking work. However you do need a good microphone, and it should be a noise canceling microphone at that. The better the sound quality, and the better able your microphone is to remove other background noises, the better your system will be able to recognize the words that you say as fast as you say them and transcribe them accurately.
Now Dragon NaturallySpeaking comes with a noise cancellation microphone that works very well when you buy it out of the box. Drew is working with a download version that does not come with a microphone, and so he had to supply his own.
As I write this article, I am using a wireless headset microphone from Logitech. I’ve been using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for almost two years now, but I’ve just recently untethered myself from Dragon NaturallySpeaking and started using a wireless headset microphone with noise cancellation capabilities. Dragon NaturallySpeaking 10 does have the capability of working with Bluetooth wireless microphones, but my particular microphone runs on 2.4 GHz wireless technology. Now if you live in a household or work in an office environment where there are a number of systems or phones or microwaves, you may experience some interference with this particular headset. In that case, you will probably be better served with either a Bluetooth headset or a headset that is capable of being plugged directly into your computer through the microphone plug or through USB. I don’t have that issue, and so I do get excellent quality with little to no interference at all.
So if you take an interest in Dragon NaturallySpeaking and want to try it for yourself, I highly recommend that you get a boxed version of the software which you can order from Nuance online. You can even get a good deal on a Bluetooth wireless headset and a bundled option from Nuance. If you’re looking for entry level pricing, you can start using the software and get a headset microphone for as little as $99.
To put that in context, I’ve taken three typing classes over the years to boost my typing speed and spent essentially three semesters practicing at typing. It wasn’t the only thing that I studied, but I spent a lot of time building up my typing skill. With Dragon NaturallySpeaking, you can invest $99, invest an hour installing the software (I’m being very conservative with that time estimate) and as little as 10 minutes training the software to recognize your voice before you can be off and running typing at 150 words per minute!
That is pretty amazing, and well worth the value of $99. Not to mention if you spend a little extra and get a wireless headset microphone, you can pace around your room or your office, you can exercise, or do a number of different things other than sit at a computer desk staring at your computer all day long. $99 basically gives you your freedom,and who wouldn’t want to type at 150 WPM for $99?
Best regards,
Brett Bumeter
www.softduit.com
My name is Brett Bumeter, and I wrote the article above and 4 1/2 minutes. The article is about 659 words long, and that translates into 144 words per minute. Add in two minutes for editing, and that’s still 100 words per minute!
I hate when your day starts off so well and then quickly goes downhill from there. Sunday morning was one of those days. Sunday started with the kids sleeping in till ten. Yes, ten. I was just as surprised. I also decided that we were going to go to church. I swear my husband is sometimes worse than the kids because he whined more than they did. My kids have not gone to church very often which I know is my fault. However, since Madison might go to Catholic school next year, I felt we should definitely go to mass. Mass was at 11:30 AM, so we had plenty of time to get ready and go. We made it to church with plenty of time to spare. Will made it about three fourths of the way through the mass before I had to take him out. Madison lasted till about five minutes left. However, she had to go to the bathroom, so she had a good excuse. we liked the church. Madison told us she loved it and wanted to go back. After that, Madison wanted to go to Denny’s and get alien pancakes. That is her favorite food. Since she was good in church, we decided to go there and eat dinner. lunch took forever but it was good. After that, we decided to go get Bill, Will, and Madison’s hair cut. That also went well. We came home, and Bill noticed that Madison seem to have gone to the bathroom quite a bit while we were out. After being home for about 30 minutes, Madison was in the bathroom about four times. I asked her if it hurt, and she told me she had “hot pee”. as a woman, this definitely sounded like an urinary tract infection. I personally have had a ton of them. Now, it is Sunday afternoon, so there was not a whole lot of places we could go. I first tried CVS minute clinic, but they would not treat her because she was under 12. I took her to the local urgent care. We got there one minute before they closed. However, at CVS, Madison had went to the bathroom. She did not have to go when we got to urgent care. She also was refusing to drink any water. While we were there she went four times, each time she only went about four drops. the ended up giving us an antibiotic and sent us home. However, Bill and I had a dinner downtown at Navy Pier for his work. It started at six. I got out of the doctor’s office at six. Downtown is over a half hour for us to get there. Seriously. in my area, I went to the only Walgreen that was still open. I hate that Walgreens, because they have horribly slow service. They told me two hours, I told him I would be back in a half hour. I went home and got ready in about 20 minutes. While we were gone, Bill had packed the kids bags to spend the night at grandmas. we packed the kids in the car and headed back to our brains. Of course, her prescription was not built yet. Also, while we were waiting in the car, Madison had to go to back them. I then had to take both kids out of the car and go into Walgreens. In the meantime, Bill had gotten her prescription and could not figure out where we went. we finally caught up to him, and we were on our way. Bill and I ended up being around an hour and a half wait for his dinner. However, they had just sat down to dinner when we got there, so our timing was great. The party was actually pretty fun. All in all, I guess it was not that bad of a day — the afternoon just stunk. Madison is doing well now. I swear, my kids never get sick during the week — the only get sick after hours or on the weekends.
I took this picture of Madison late last night. We had put her bed, and about an hour later, she came screaming out of her room. She was crying so hard that we had no idea what happened. All I know is that I saw she had a mouth full of blood, and I ran her into the bathroom. We still couldn’t figure out what had happened, but we had her rinse her mouth out with water and calmed her down a bit. What we learned was that somehow she took her Pumpkin flashlight, and whacked herself in the face. You can’t tell from this picture, but she actually somehow cut two little spots below her lip, and her entire lip is swollen. She also had some black and blue marks show up instantly. After we calmed her down and found out what happened, she says to me “mommy, do you want to take a picture?”. That’s my blogging girl! LOL She knew I was going to write about this. LOL![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=3510828d-8bf6-420d-84d5-43cdc2c8784d)
$99 basically gives you your freedom,and who wouldn’t want to ![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=1a26ea03-a73f-4039-ba35-235ea75be4f9)
Granting Wishes at Sears
Tuesday, December 16th, 2008TThis post is sponsored, but the ideas, thoughts and ramblings are my own.
Since having kids, I turned into a big softie. Yes, I’ll actually admit it. I cry at things I never would have before, and I think about things that never would have crossed my mind before having kids. I’ll be honest here — I get all teary eyed at Sears new commercials. Their new campaign is about how one gift can change someone’s life. Since I absolutely love Ty Pennington, I thought I’d show you what he had to say:
Bill and I bundled the kids off early yesterday morning and headed off to Sears. I luck out since Sears is actually walking distance from my house, and we actually shop their quite a bit — off the top of my head, we got a bench, our snowblower, and our lawnmower from there. However, on this trip, we had no idea what we were going to get. My Christmas shopping is pretty much done, so we were going to try to find something for the kids.
Now, the school district I live in has cut the art and music programs from the curriculum and will not be adding them back. I have written many posts on this blog about how awful I think this situation is and how I feel that music definitely is a class that should not be cut. My daughter loves to play instruments and sing. I can’t imagine depriving her of it. With the $100 Sears gift card, we will be able to fulfill her wish and give her the additional music support she will not be getting from our school. Who knows — Madison may end up to be talented singer, dancer, in a band, etc. However, I’d love to give her the stepping stones she needs to reach her full potential. (Plus, well, Guitar Hero is fun for mom and dad too. Dad was all over getting it when I told him there was 3 Tool songs and Freak On A Leash by Korn. I also need to add that the gift card paid for a portion of the cost of this bundle. I paid the rest.)
Since we got such an awesome family gift from Sears, I’d like to extend this awesome opportunity to one of my readers. Yes, I’d like to give you a $100 gift card to Sears to use however you like.
You can enter via blog comment, tweet or blog post:
Blog Comment:
I just need you to tell me what you think you’d want to spend your $100 on. Head on over to Sears and let me know the item number of what you like.
Twitter:
I’ve made it super easy for you to Twitter about this contest. Just tweet out this message:
RT @blm03 please grant my wish to win a $100 #Sears gift card – tweet to make your own wish: http://urlbrief.com/8e0599
Blog Post:
You can also enter by writing a post about the contest and linking back to this post. Make sure you leave a comment with the URL to your post, so I can count it as an entry.
Each tweet, comment or post counts as one registration. You can register up to three times by tweeting, leaving a comment, and doing a post on your blog. The winner will be chosen at random by IZEA based on all entries. This contest goes until December 23 at midnight EST. Good Luck!
Check out the other Izea Insiders for more chances to win:
BenSpark
Steven Sanders
Corrin Renee
Elizabeth
Laurie
Kat
Heather
Brett
Tags: bench, Bill, bit, blog, bundle, camera, campaign, card, christmas, comment, contest, dad, decoration, Department, distance, family, floor, gift, Guitar, head, hero, house, Husband, idea, lawnmower, life, lot, luck, madison, mind, money, morning, music, picture, place, Plus, post, school, sears, Shop, shopping, snowblower, Someone, something, talk, top, trip, tweet, Twitter, Ty Pennington, weekend, yard, yesterday
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