Pam's still in the hospital....maybe come home Friday or Saturday.

Hi All,

Pam's back in the hospital and should be home by Friday the 30th.

Chris

Madeleine Wickham Book Giveaway!

Click on over to my blog Read, Review, Repeat for a chance to win one of 5 copies of Madeleine Wickham's latest hardcover book, A Desirable Residence!

Umm...

Maybe I'm not the target demographic for this, but then who would be??



File this one under, "Things I Don't Understand."

Perfectly Dateless, Kristin Billerbeck

Publisher's Copy:
Daisy Crispin has 242 days to find the right date for the prom. There’s only one problem–her parents won’t let her date or even talk to a guy on the phone. Oh, and she’s totally invisible at school, has to wear lame homemade clothes, and has no social skills. Okay, so maybe there’s more than one problem.

Can she talk her parents into letting her go to the prom? Or will they succeed at their obvious attempt to completely ruin her life?

Perfectly Dateless is hilarious, shocking, and totally real. You'll fall in love with Daisy’s sharp wit and resourcefulness as she navigates the world of boys, fashion, family, and friendship.

My review:

This book is a great Chrisitan Young Adult read. Not only do you get the crazy family and friends, but Billerbeck also let's us see into the reasons behind why the characters do what they do.

As Daisy's list of potential prom dates grows shorter, her wisdom & confidence grow a little bigger. Any teen girl would love to read this book!

Kristin is a successful "chick-lit" author & her foray into YA books does not dissapoint.

Available July 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

"Baby" Jack

Well, it's been birthday season here in Mimi-ville. Today is my baby's birthday. My youngest boy Jack is 15 today.

As I keep saying, I'm not sure how this happened.

Look at those cheeks!!

We celebrated this afternoon at my parent's house. Here's Jack with my mom & dad.



And one with Chris & I.



Jack got tons of cash for his birthday, it's what he likes to ask for. Two years ago I got him $100 in one dollar bills, last year it was two dollar bills. This year I had to go with dollar coins.



Chris picked out the bag we put his money in. Jack loves rainbows & silly things that boys don't usually like. He says some people think he's gay, but he's not, just himself. He said the gift bag was his favorite part.


My Jack has been a huge, amazing blessing in my life. He's funny, smart, kind and goofy, just the way I like my boys!

Happy birthday Jack, we love you so much!

I'm Celebrating Me Today!

Today is my day, my birthday! I'm 43 years old. It's been a great day for me. For once my brain doesn't have a dark cloud hanging over my head.

My computer died a few weeks ago & my husband went out and got me an awesome new computer earlier this week, for my birthday present. The screen is huge & I think is HD because it's so crisp & clear! The tower part of the computer is tiny, about 1/3 the size of a regular tower. I'm in love with it.



This morning I got up & went in search of my birthday cake & a cake for my youngest son Jack, who will be 15 on Sunday. I hit Sam's club & this is what I found.



It's a luscious vanilla cake (the good, homemade tasting kind) with pink strawberry flavored icing and strawberries on top. That was my breakfast.

Then since Jack was at his dad's house & Chris was working I took my 18 year old, John David out to eat for my lunch. I got a plate full of carbo-goodness in the form of a hot roast beef sandwich and french fries all covered in gravy! Superb! Of course I couldn't eat all of it because of my gastroparesis, but I loved what I did have.



JD had an appetizer plate. This is him not wanting to have his picture taken, but humoring me because it's my birthday, lol!



Then JD & I went to Kroger for a few things & I found these.



Called Whimsical Whoopies, it's like a Nilla Wafer flavored muffin top with buttercream frosting & sprinkles! Half of one of these was my lunch dessert.



After a while hanging out John David came home with his girlfriend LeighAnne and my birthday present. It was honestly something that I really never expected!



As I posted on my FaceBook, I now the proud owner of the hugest giant monkey in the history of giant monkeys!



(Terrible picture of me, but who cares, right?)

Here's Jack with my giant monkey.



Just for perspective, Jack is about 5 ft. 7 inches!


On my birthday's I try to do whatever I want for that day and reflect on my life as it stands. I am so thankful for my beautiful sons, my amazing husband, who really is my best friend, my parents & in-laws and my blogging friends. I have made some really great friends, most whom I've never met, but bloggers who I consider every bit as much my friends as any person I know in real life, so thank you to all of you!

Now Chris is here & we're catching up on the last season of Psych & doing nothing much. Perfect!

Mini-Van Blessings!

My mom mini-van was dying a slow painful death. We got it used from my BIL & SIL a few years ago. It had over 100,000 miles on it but was in good shape and had been maintained well.


It got kind of sad after JD started driving and accidentally got a side mirror ripped off. We kept having to dump more & more money into it and knew it was on our last legs. The air conditioning is also dead, a big dent in the side, and it gets about 10 miles to the gallon. Since Chris is the only one working we really didn't have the money to get a "new" or new to us van.





God stepped in and made my dad decide it was time for him to get a new vehicle. He was generous to sell us his used mini van for a fantastic price. It's a 2008 with only 56,000 miles on it!





There's not one stain, one spot, one scratched part on this van!





If I have to drive a mom-van, I'm glad to have a really nice one again.


It's got all the bell's & whistles and has been impeccably maintained. I couldn't be happier with a brand new vehicle. This has the drivers side sliding door, rear heat & radio controls, working air & no parts ripped off accidentally by teenage boys. (Of course I share this with JD & Jack starts drivers training on Monday [EEEK].)


Now if I could just get brave enough to driver it over 35 miles an hour out of fear that I might mess it up it would be great!

How Do Grown Women Make A Friend?

Since I suffer from bi-polar and social anxiety, I don't have too many real-life friends that I do things with. Now I'm in the position of wanting to make new friends and unsure how to go about it without coming off as a stalker!

When I worked outside of the house, I could make friends organically at work. You get to know someone, have lunch, share stories and it can move on easily from there. Since that's not an option I have to just approach people who I am only acquaintances with, to try and pursue a friendship.

There's a cashier at my local Kroger who I really like. We've talked for years while I'm checking out about family, life, our boys. She's seen the boys grow over the past few years and I really like talking to her. Also, the receptionist at my boys orthodontic office is really great to talk to. We have kids the same ages and face a lot of the same challenges and questioning when it comes to raising teenagers who may not follow the path we want for them.

The awkward part is taking these to the next level. Do I just ask if they'd like to go out for coffee sometime? What if I'm just rejected & then have to face these people on a regular basis afterwards, that could be weird.

Any advice Mimi-readers? I would love to hear from you.

I wish I lived closer to some of my dear bloggie friends!

Birthday Trees!

First off, I haven't been blogging much. Part of the reason is that I'm still having computer problems. The second reason is that I haven't felt like blogging. Not because I don't like it, but because I decided that the next post I do "should" be a picture-laden big post about my hubby's birthday and it seemed like a hassle so I've been avoiding it.

Then today I realized that I can post whatever. There's no right or wrong type of posts, so instead of stressing over what I didn't want to do, I'm just gonna do a post I do want to do!

Chris did have a nice birthday. He got Del Monico steaks and fancy cupcakes at a work picnic & was able to bring some of them home. It was heavenly.

With my favorite author, Jen Lancaster raving about "designer" cupcakes I was thrilled to try some of my own. They were cherry, super-rich chocolate, vanilla confetti & buckeye, which was chocolate and peanut butter. I included a pic of a half of a cherry cupcake with some frozen yogurt & chocolate sauce. Drool away.

I can't even describe the difference in these cupcakes from regular or grocery store ones. Even the vanilla with confetti, was absolutely delicious.

John, our oldest boy, is working at a landscaping place and found some clearance trees he liked. I told him they would be a perfect present for Chris' birthday, so John (JD) arranged for his real dad, (Asshat) to meet him at the place where he works & bring home the biggest tree in his pick-up truck. John & his girlfriend LeighAnne brought home the 2 smaller trees in our old mini-van.

They were going away for the weekend, so JD wanted to get the trees planted last Friday before Chris came home from work.

I loved that JD planned all this out and made sure they were taken care of before he left to surprise Chris, his step-dad. When Chris came home he was thrilled with his trees. JD had picked out 3 different trees that will blossom with beautiful colors in the spring, and he figured which ones should go where based on how much shade and or sun they needed.

Since we had to cut down our dying ash trees a couple of years ago, this was great. This one is a Japanese flowering cherry that will bloom white in our side yard.

A prariefire flowering crab that will bloom pink & attract hummingbirds.

And a huge Eastern redbud for the back yard. Look how tall it is next to our motorhome!

In case you can't tell it's about 4 feet above the motorhome. What normally would have been a very expensive tree. It will bloom pink also. Chris had to dig the hole next to this one, cause JD ran out of time.

Chris ended up having a great birthday weekend, with presents that he will enjoy for years.

Oskar also had his birthday on Monday and we kind of forgot until the last minute. I'll be updating his blog in a few minutes with his birthday story.

I hope you all have a great Fourth of July and remember that no matter how bad times are, we still live in the best country in the world!