Runaway October » Life

Winner, Winner!

Katie — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:04:38 +0000

Thanks to everyone for participating! We had 80+ comments.

Random.org tells me that #70 is our winner! Yay! *

And who is #70? Why, that would be Shawna.

So Ms Shawna, I will be emailing you soon. I hope you devour the book as quickly as I will!

Thank you to everyone for participating! Best of luck in the other giveaways. And a HUGE THANK YOU to Ms. Carey for being gracious enough to not only give away a signed edition, but to let me host the giveaway on my humble little blog.

*The numbers selected for Random.org started at comment #3 , because #1 and #2 were comments from my husband and I, so we don’t count.

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Saints Astray giveaway!

Katie — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:16:04 +0000

Hey hey guys.

Long time no blog. Things are always hectic in October here. I’ll have to get you all caught up in another post, because today I have something VERY exciting for you guys.

Jacqueline Carey, Author of the Kushiel’s Legacy series and companion Naamah Trilogy, has very graciously given me a signed copy of her latest book to give to one of my lovely readers! How exciting! Guys, this is the first giveaway I’ve had that I didn’t have to buy myself.

I think Carey is an amazing author. I’m not even sure where I picked up her first book. It could have possibly been Goodwill for all I know, but from there it was a mad dash to have ALL THE BOOKS! Saints Astray, and its predecessor Santa Olivia, are very different from the books that first made me love Carey… different like Nutella Vs Mac&Cheese different and you don’t see me turning either one down.

Here’s the book excerpt from Amazon:

Fellow orphans, amateur vigilantes, and members of the Santitos, Loup Garron-the fugitive daughter of a genetically engineered “wolf man”-and Pilar Ecchevarria grew up in the military zone of Outpost 12, formerly known as Santa Olivia. But now they’re free, and they want to help the rest of the Santitos escape. During a series of escapades, they discover that Miguel, Loup’s former sparring partner and reprobate surrogate brother, has escaped from Outpost 12 and is testifying on behalf of its forgotten citizens-at least until he disappears from protective custody. Honor drives Loup to rescue Miguel, even though entering the U.S could mean losing her liberty. Pilar vows to help her.
It will take a daring and absurd caper to extricate Miguel from the mess he’s created but Loup is prepared to risk everything… and this time she has help.

You can click here to read the first chapter or click here to order it on Amazon.

So, just leave me a comment, any comment — though preferably something about how pretty I am or that you’ll bring me gourmet coffee in bed every morning — and we’ll randomly select a winner.

Rules:

One entry per person. Double entries will be disqualified. Even particularly flattering comments only count as one.
Entries must be in by Midnight November 15th. Winner will be announced the following morning.
Winner has 48 hours to respond. If no response in said time frame, another random commenter will be drawn.

Good Luck guys!

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Oh my, it’s been a long time.

Katie — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:10:29 +0000

So it’s been roughly 6 months since I’ve posted here. That’s probably the longest break I’ve taken. I’ve just been busy, I guess.

Here’s a couple ~~excuses~~ reasons why:

Went back to school at the last minute. (Not recommended. Summer semester with science and math is not recommended either.)
Declan started Kindergarten.
Halloween party planning.
… Uhm, Pinterest?

Wow, that’s not nearly the list of impressive reasons I kept picturing in my mind. The good news is that I’m sure most of my followers know me somewhat in person and have been in touch on FaceBook.If you don’t know me personally… well, come say ‘Hi’. The worst thing that will happen is I end up with some crazy stalker and they leave dead animals on my porch. I already have a cat that does that, so you’ll have to try harder than that crazy, future, potential stalker.

Declan did surprisingly well with his first day. He seems genuinely excited to go.

Just a few days after starting school, he lost his first tooth!

I’ve been working on a whole lot of Halloween stuff. Here’s a quick Save The Date I made for the party so far.

I only edited this to fit different wording. When I find the original source again, I will give credit where credit is due.

And if I was any kind of GOOD blogger I’d promise pictures of my Halloween stuff and whatnot. But we all know I’m not a very GOOD blogger so maybe, just maybe, I might post again soon.

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Desiderata

Katie — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 00:55:26 +0000

Just thought I’d share.

This poem shows up randomly in my life often and every time it does I, well…, feel like sharing. This last time was via Juste Venteux.

Click to embiggen

This was written in 1927 by Max Ehrmann. Check out the wiki here.

Maybe I should just tattoo it and be done with it?

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New Shiny Blog

Katie — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:20:52 +0000

I seem to do this every year around this time, don’t I?

How do you like it? Anything weird that you notice?

And speaking of shiny, or more appropriately, shiners, how do you like this baby? He, sadly, did it to himself when one of the stools he was balancing on slipped out from under him. Poor dude.

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Happy 2011!

Katie — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 19:55:08 +0000

We hope you had a wonderful 2010 and that 2011 only gets better from there!

Love and light from us!

{source}

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2010 Christmas Card

Katie — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 02:43:35 +0000

Aren’t these guys just too cute!?

Confetti Flowers Christmas Card

Make a statement with Shutterfly Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

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We are so thankful.

Katie — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 20:27:25 +0000

Declan, Rowan and Mom’s new kitten, Cataclysm

After explaining to Declan and Rowan what Thanksgiving is about, these are the things they have decided they are thankful for.

Rowan:

Kurt (My moms cat)
Lions
Horses
Cows
Vitamins
Books
Candy
Jalapeños
Mama
Our house

Declan:

Books
Meat
All that other stuff (Translation: I’m distracted and want to ride my bike, which I forgot to mention I was thankful for.

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On Being a Stay-At-Home Mama

Katie — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 19:32:20 +0000

“Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm.”

Peaceful by Joewong038

I’ll be the first person to admit that I dreamed about staying home with my kids. Homeschool, organic, nature walks, art projects, museums, a spotless beautifully decorated house, organized closets and more all floated through my head. I just knew that if I could work it out to stay home, everything would be perfect.

At the time, my husband and I were juggling our firstborn. I worked early early in the morning, and came home to trade off with Matt, who worked late at night. We thought that having one parent with Declan at all times was the best route. Except that neither of us were sleeping well and D wasn’t necessarily getting the attention he deserved. We were there with him, but not really. Many times I was so tired at work that I’d fall asleep on the phone with people.

Once I was pregnant with Rowan, we knew that we needed to do something. We got everything in line and I never returned to work after giving birth to Rowan.

That should be the end of the story right? Butterflies and homemade bread and rainbows.

Not really.

I struggle with staying at home.

Call me lazy, most days I don’t care if you do, but this is HARD.

Laundry is never done, dishes always pile up, the boys are always destroying something, someone always has a snide comment about people who don’t “work”, and there’s no monetary reward for doing it all.

It’s so easy to sit in front of the computer, revive those dying brain cells with random web browsing and just put it off for another day.

Or you can spend the day doing laundry, only to find out that while you were upstairs hanging business clothes, a 10 pound bag of flour was oh-so-quietly flung across the downstairs.

Or you can set out all the supplies for a craft project and be so excited to see what your kids make, just for it to turn into a brawlfest over one orange marker when there’s two others sitting right there.

Or it means trying to write a blog post only to hear a proud “I wiped my butt Mama!” come from the bathroom, where an investigation reveals that you need to dig half a roll of toilet paper out of the toilet. Again.

I’m not alone in this. I know I’m not the only one who has these days, or incidents, or chores. But most days and weeks, I am alone.

It’s hard to have friends when you have two little boys. Other families with kids are busy with their own issues and those without kids, well, don’t want to spend adult time dealing with someone else’s. I feel like a failure when I ask other people to watch my kids so I can run to the store, or have a date night, or just be alone.

Why? I don’t know. Maybe it’s Other Mom Syndrome.

Other Moms have perfect houses. Well behaved clean children. A spotless kitchen. Perfect outings.

But who are these Other Moms? Are you one? Can you please give me some pointers?

I can’t find motivation. Why do it now, if I just have to do it again with no thank you, no recognition, no reason?

Where can I find the motivation to do what I need to do without sacrificing myself?

My husband and I have somewhat regular date nights, but little to talk about other than running the house. The things that he gets excited about go over my head. I’ve been out of his industry for 3 years now, and who really wants to talk about decorating and potty training? He, understandably, has no idea what mitered hems are and what’s the best ratio of borax to Fels Naptha for the next batch of homemade laundry soap. We end up worrying about money, because there never seems to be enough and I get angry because Matt’s company has owed him a raise for a year now and the missing 10k is unlikely to ever be seen.

I try to find people to connect with on the blog-o-sphere, but am easily intimidated by their seemingly perfect lives, beautiful pictures and well-written, thought provoking posts. I can’t find a niche.

Occasionally, we’ll be invited to a party or event but by the time it rolls around I have so much anxiety about going that we don’t. Which typically leads to less and less invites to begin with.

I really want to go back to college, to do something taxing with my mind, to graduate, to have a career, to save lives, to be important. Financially and time management-wise, it’s impossible.

How will I ever find the patience to homeschool? Jeebus, am I even smart enough to homeschool these boys? I really hate math.

Should I just give up on wishing for that beautiful room and buy some plywood and cinder blocks to just get the clutter off the ground?

Unlike most mommy bloggers, I have no solution. I don’t have any encouraging links or action plans. I just really really need to hear from someone, anyone, who has the same doubts and issues.

As I get closer to wrapping this whinefest up, I doubt I’ll click that taunting little ‘Publish’ button up there. It’s just more proof for people to consider me a failure. But, ya know what? Whatever, I can’t hide who I am and the perceived issues I face.

So fire away. I know Momma M would just tell me to ‘Get Over It’, but it doesn’t seem to work like that, as far as I can tell.

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Garden Catchup

Katie — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:28:42 +0000

Hey guys. Remember me? No? Dangit. I don’t blame you.

I have lots of excuses, but no real reasons. Maybe it’s my short attention span?

Summer is on full blast here in Arizona. When I say full blast I mean you walk out the front door and are literally blasted with Summer Heat. My poor garden has seen better days.

Today

Considering we get to plant sometimes as much as a whole season earlier than other parts of the country, I can’t complain. We ended up with more tomatoes then we knew what to do with. We made many batches of salsa and lots and lots of fresh tomato slices. I even experimented with ketchup, but it turned out way way too sweet and pretty much inedible. Boo.

The boys wanted in on these pictures.

This is one of a few big harvests. We basically ended up with a lot of squash, jalapeños and tomatoes.

Does this look like a zombie version of that guy from VeggieTales to you? Me too!

We also planted ONE “honeydew” plant and ended up with a few good sized melons off of it. It’s still going strong though. It LOVES the heat apparently. It takes up a huge amount of space still. It’s not a honeydew by the way, I’m thinking maybe a Crenshaw or Casaba melon.

Those leaves are about hand sized, for reference. In the bottom right, is my Spanish lavender bush. It seems happy to have a little bit of shade.

The heat is causing the jalapenos to be red and small from the start.

Some straggler tomatoes. About 70% of the cherry tomatoes ripen okay, the others succumb to the sun and shrivel up.

I’d say all in all, the garden was totally worth it. There’s nothing quite like finding your boys nestled in your garden filling up on tomatoes.

Some things I’ll do differently next spring:

Space out the tomatoes a smidgen more.
Cage them immediately, and continue to support them as they grow.
Read up on cucumbers. I think that by the time my pickling cucumbers came up, it was too hot. You can find itty-bitty inch long cumbers one day and the next they’re shriveled and gone.
Plan for sprawl more. The tomatoes overtook the green beans, dill and carrots. The one squash plant took out the lemon thyme, cilantro and most of the spearmint.
Possibly plant a week or two earlier. I don’t have to worry about frost much, but I do have to worry about the sun killing things right as the fruit matures.
Possibly some kind of shade cloth over the whole thing too.

So, that was our garden this year. Still debating on when to rip things out to prepare for the winter garden.

How did yours come along?

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