Last weekend was a busy one: fireworks on Friday night; Karate Kid with Jaiden and Jaylen Saturday afternoon, dinner and Eclipse with friends Saturday evening, a UFC fight after the movie; church, a trip to the zoo (photos forthcoming) and a BBQ on Sunday; and cleaning and swimming on Monday.

I really hated it when Tuesday showed up and I had to return to work. I wasn’t ready.

This weekend we’re going to try to work in another trip the library and Darin has a couple of softball games. I think this will likely be a low-key weekend because my dad’s having back surgery in a few hours and my mom’s going on travel in a few days, so my brother and I will have to take turns checking on Dad.

Then, the following week I have taken a couple of vacation days and we’re planning on going to a cabin in Paris, Tenn. (I think?) too. The next weekend we’ll be gearing up for school to begin (Aug. 5). Such a bummer. Here we are, just trying to enjoy ourselves, and school’s almost back in session. Sigh.

There is nothing softer than the skin of a brand new baby or the heart of a brand new aunt. (Taken August 18, 2007)

A few years ago (twice, actually) I participated in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and while I never fully lived up to the challenge of writing an entire novel in November, I’m going to try to post a new blog post every single day this month.

Yeah, I get it. I’m ridiculous. I know this.

To kick start this challenge, I’m going to need your input. I’ve been blogging for more than 8 years now and I have share a lot about myself and sometimes forget there are little bits and pieces people may not know. Or, perhaps you’re a new reader and have questions. Maybe a longtime reader who missed something?

Now’s your chance to ask. Leave me a comment with your questions and I’ll answer them this month! Of course I reserve the right to leave a question unanswered for the sake of privacy, but if you’ve been here long enough you know that I’m pretty open and honest.

You can also leave other requests for me – like the time we did a photo meme a few years ago and readers asked to see various things in my home (wish the photo links still worked – that was fun!) – or even writing prompts. What do you want me to talk about? Let me know!

My friend Dawn normally does “10 on 10″, meaning she takes 10 pictures on the tenth day of the month and shares them. She generally chronicles her day through photos. I’ve been waiting since April or May to do it (I usually forget!). I guess, technically, I could have done it in June, I just didn’t have time to post them on the 10th. lol.

But, without further ado, here they are.

Clean Sweep This morning when I got to work, I cleaned off my desk. It was very, very cluttered and embarrassing prior to this! Yesterday the district attorney popped in for a surprise visit and, like I said, I was embarrassed by it. Now you can see the top, though (not that you couldn’t before, you were just distracted by my piles of notebooks and press releases and whatever else). (And yes, Memphians, that is a picture of Shelby County Mayor A.C. Wharton on my desk; there is a press release about him speaking somewhere in Tipton County attached to the photo.) The photo on my screen is one I took in the Outer Banks on our honeymoon. See the ladybug and free art on that back wall? Jaylen’s Pre-K class made that; last school year each class adopted a business and his class chose us (also because one of his classmates is the niece of my co-worker Gwen). Each month we’d get something new.

Booster Board This is an idea I came up with in May – a wall where we post messages to build each other up, not tear each other down (this came in the wake of some pretty bad drama at work). Today I printed out and posted a picture of me and my coworkers, taken at my wedding. It looks so cute up on the wall with the colorful papers.

Post-Meeting This morning Justin and I had an interview with the district attorney and a new assistant district attorney. She was hired through a grant funded by the Recovery Act and will focus on the domestic violence caseload in Tipton County only. Can you understand my notes? Luckily I can. lol. They say she was hired through the Stop Violence Against Women grant, the domestic violence numbers are higher in Tipton County than the other four counties in our district and that the DA believes this high number to partly be a function of population growth and aggressive law enforcement. You can also see I’m currently favoring my purple pen! (And yes, I always use notebooks that size, which is like 5×8″ and spiral bound; they’re $1 at Dollar General!)

Lunchtime! Next it was time for lunch! I had a root canal scheduled for 1 p.m. and my dentist’s office called me to come in early, but I was starving. I didn’t eat much dinner last night and skipped breakfast, so I wanted to eat just in case I couldn’t later on. Three of my co-workers and I went to Burger King. I ordered a cheeseburger and a 4-pc. tender, then another 4-pc tender and value fries when I was done with the first course. I was so hungry! Afterwards, I brushed my teeth in the BK bathroom to get ready for the procedure. If you’ve never brushed your teeth while a stranger was peeing in the stall five feet from you, I don’t recommended it. It’s just .. eww.

Self-Promotion I’m shameless, I admit it. I absolutely love going into businesses and seeing that they’ve framed a story I’ve done for them. It makes me feel appreciated and proud that they liked it enough to have it framed (or, in this case, put on a plaque). This is a story I did on this dentist’s office in January and it is hanging in their waiting room.

Root Canal This is what a root canal looks like! It was my first one. I’ve been looking forward to it for the past month because I knew it’d be the end of my chronic pain. About a quarter of this tooth was broken and a nerve was exposed, so it was very, very, very sensitive. During the last few months, I drink cold water as little as possible; I usually go for room temperature water because cold water HURTS my tooth terribly. I’m not one to take medicine, but over this past week I have taken an entire bottle of Advil; I take Advil when I get to work, I take Advil after lunch and I take Aleve before bed. In fact, one night I woke up in tears because of the pain; I went into the bathroom and dumped some Aleve into my hand and took it. It was THAT bad. It was bad enough that even I couldn’t pretend to be tough and not take medicine and bad enough to where I didn’t even google ‘root canal’ to see exactly what they were going to do.

However, by the time I’d arrived there, I was nervous. I knew they were supposed to hurt. I told myself, like I always do when I’m nervous about something, that I’d birthed three kids and so I could do anything I put my mind to. My dentist’s staff was very accommodating. They gave me gas (mind out of the gutter, please) to help relax me. I got shot after shot after shot (I think somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-8 shots because I could still feel pain) and while that was not comfortable the first few times, when they irrigated the tooth it was piercing with pain. At any rate, they got the job done. I kept snapping pictures when they’d take breaks (or checking Twitter or Facebook from the phone). Before they put the green rubber dam on, I looked like Miss Piggy. And because I was loopy from the gas, I sent Darin a picture message of me looking like Miss Piggy, telling him he was Kermit the Frog. I also told the staff that root canals should come with pedicures. lol. Um, yeah.

Word to the wise: use the bathroom before you sit down for dental procedures! I had half a bottle of mineral water and some unsweet tea before my appointment and while I was sitting in the chair I had to go. Normally I can hold it but today I couldn’t. During one of the breaks I decided I would just ask, so I texted “Bathroom?” on my phone and waited for someone to come back in the room. The dentist came over and asked if I was taking pictures of myself, then I showed her the screen. Ahh. It was so much more comfortable the bathroom break, of course, though it didn’t really hurt too much.

Familiar Faces While I was waiting for x-rays, I scanned the smiling faces on the No Cavities Club wall at my dentist’s office and found two little smiles I get to kiss each and every day (couldn’t find my other two girls though). They’re so sweet!

Office Chairs After the root canal was over, I stopped by my favorite antique store on a hunt for chairs. Hubby and I are in the process of many home projects, one of them being our new office space where our hot pink laundry closet once was.

The space is getting a makeover – silvery blue paint (Glidden’s Antique Silver), white shelving and a light, natural wood desk. Hubby’s been on me about purchasing chairs for the space so he knows how high to install the desktop (to me it doesn’t matter). I found these babies – exactly what I was looking for! Any suggestions on the color I should paint them? And fabric? We like light, airy and beachy without being cheesy.

Once I bought the chairs, I went back to work for a few minutes, dropped off my prescription, then went home, dropped off the chairs and picked up the dog, paid bills, picked up the prescription and went back home. Darin and the kids prepared for a camping trip, then left and I was all alone (I was already committed to a yard sale at the office tomorrow). My face was still numb, but once it wore off I was ready to eat. Blog-surfing, I saw homemade Hostess cupcakes and that developed a craving!

Nothing Bundt Delicious Off I went to Sonic! I was a good girl and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich on wheat bread and cheese tots to eat before the strawberry bundt cake sundae. These bundt cake sundaes? VERY GOOD. I first tried one on our wedding night and now I’m hooked! I could do without all of the redneck teenagers revving the engines in their 4x4s while sitting idle in a stall, but I digress.

Eat, Pray, Love After Sonic, I drove to Wal-Mart to look around for a bit (which turned into an hour and a half!) without children getting on my nerves and without my husband rushing me and complaining that I’m looking at every item in Wal-Mart’s inventory. All I ended up buying was a copy of Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and a desk calendar. I’ve had more exciting trips to Wal-Mart, I have to say.

And now? I’m home. Still waiting on this pain from the root canal. I have a little bit of dull pain and then pain in my joint where my jaw meets my skull (by my ear); I have TMJ and I believe it was aggravated by the stress of the root canal and also my jaw being open for about two hours, so it hurts more than anything. I keep wondering if the dull pain is the pain she was talking about? If so, I got this down. The pain was MUCH worse prior to going in there today. Of course it might be worse tonight; I guess we’ll see.

Goodness, I’ve been tagged by Manda, so here we go with the seven random facts …

1. Every day when I look in the mirror I ask myself how it’s possible that I’m 27 already. Not that 27 is old, but when you’re 17 or 21 or 23, 27 seems so far away. It’s hard to believe how quickly time flies – my kids are 5.5, 4 and 2 already!
2. I’ve finally found a career I enjoy, that I am good at, but I can’t stand the pay. The only things that keep me here are my relationships with people and the community in which I live. Love both and not ready to move on yet.
3. I was so tired of looking at Paula’s mullet on American Idol last night that I had to step away from the TV for a good bit of the show. It was driving me nuts.
4. I like living in a small town.
5. I have lots of bad habits – like being late, having a lead foot, not sticking to a routine (i.e. in the morning) and I have been actively working on these things over the last several weeks. I didn’t give up a material possession or food for Lent, just trying to give up my bad habits. And we’ve been doing pretty well.
6. I am usually a night owl, but for a few weeks last month I was dead tired and in bed before 9 or 10 p.m. many nights. I miss that.
7. I hate answering questions about my favorites – favorite book, favorite movie, favorite color, favorite candy, favorite food, favorite group, favorite song, etc. I don’t have just one favorite! I have tons. And my favorites change constantly.

Those things said, here are the rules:
*Link to the person that tagged you.
*Post the rules on your blog.
*Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog.
*Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
*Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Really hate to tag folks, but here we go: Shanee, Emily, Meghan, Nikki, Rebecca, Amy and Jayme. Have fun, ladies!

So anyway.

I started this last night and went to finish watching Idol while talking to Darin, but I ended up falling asleep on the couch, still in my work clothes. lol. The night before, Jaiden was up at about 2:45 a.m. with an upset stomach and when she was finished, she went back to bed and I couldn’t get back to sleep until after 4 a.m. I watched three episodes of The Cosby Show – you gotta love Nick at Nite. That channel is such a lifesaver – keeps you from having to watch stupid infomercials that late! When Jaylen was a wee little one, he was up all night, every night, and so I have seen every episode of Roseanne (yes, every single one!), I think every episode of Fresh Prince (that was when it debuted on Nick at Nite, so it was ALWAYS on), most episodes of Who’s the Boss and started to get into Wings. Anyway. Jaiden’s fine, dinner just didn’t agree with her. She blamed it on my dad, said he cooks vegetable soup too much, but she didn’t even eat vegetable soup, she had something else. lol.

By the way – Jenna peed in the potty for the first time on Tuesday morning! She did it again yesterday morning. She constantly asks to use the potty since she sees the rest of us on it. Actually, when she sees us using the potty she comes in and tears off some toilet paper for us. (It’s always about one square. lol.) I’ve put her on it several times and usually nothing happens, she just wants to sit there, then wipe and get down, but she did actually pee in the potty twice, so yay for Jenna. I put some teeny-sized panties on her Tuesday night for a few hours and she stayed dry.

Tuesday was also our two-year anniversary of moving here. Hard to believe it’s been that long. (And, for what it’s worth, we’ve now been separated longer than we were together after we got married. It’s weird to me because this time has flown pretty quickly, but it didn’t seem to go this fast when we were in South Carolina.)

Yesterday was a busy one for me. My morning engagement was postponed until today – Showtime (the cable channel) is in town and will be filming a local boxer for their television show “This American Life” – so I worked on stories until about noon. I set up a luncheon with our five police chiefs and our sheriff (plus my boss, coworkers and a friend from Channel 5). Our good friend, Justin, who was recently promoted at Channel 5 and will be on-air soon (YAY for Justin!) came to pick us up at work and we all drove to the country club for the lunch. We (Dale and I) wanted to meet with them to talk to them about our objective – yes, we need and want the bad news, but with the bad news also comes good news, like good police work or whatever. For example, early Tuesday morning we heard there was a murder in Brighton, but as it turns out, it was the shooting death of a repeat sex offender who broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home and tried to rape her two daughters. See? GOOD NEWS. The bad guy is DEAD. Anyway, so it went very, very well, especially with my police chiefs in the south end of the county. We’re going to do this quarterly, so says my publisher.

Afterwards, I had to go to Millington for a meeting with a realtor for our real estate guide. The meeting itself ran late and then we had to go get pictures of one of his properties. While we were there, a couple and two of their children called and wanted to see the house. They were driving by and didn’t know we were there. Since I rode with the realtor, I had to stay through all of that, but I didn’t mind too much as I got some great pictures and the family LOVED the house. I was 30 minutes late for my next meeting, which was all the way on the square in Covington (Turner’s, Emily!). That meeting ran late as well, which made me run late getting my younger two kids (they are supposed to be picked up by 5 p.m., and they were half an hour away). Just a busy, busy day. Then I hear the server crashed at work, which is NOT GOOD. Hopefully they were able to fix it last night and hopefully we didn’t just lose a month and a half worth of newspapers and such, especially the stuff we did for the paper we’re putting together today. Along with that, hopefully we didn’t lose everything on the graphics side of the house because THAT is another pain in the backside. (Right, Emily? lol! Remind you of September and November?!)

Alrighty, I’m gonna go and get the girls up (Jaylen’s already brushing his teeth). I usually try to have them up by 6:30-6:45 a.m. so that they can get their clothes on (which I did not lay out last night before I conked out on the couch!), their hair and teeth brushed by 7 a.m. so that they can eat breakfast and watch the monster trucks cartoon on TLC. They love that show. lol.

Jayme tagged me to do the Eight Things Meme, so here we go.

The rules:

- Share 8 random facts/habits about yourself
- Tag 8 people to do the same
- People who are tagged should write their 8 things on their own blogs, and link back here.

Here are eight things that you may or may not know about me:

1. I love living in the country. As a matter of fact, I was just sharing a story that when we were in Columbia we had to go outside to use the cell phone as we didn’t get a signal in the apartment. And here, sometimes, I still don’t get a signal in the house, so I go out on my balcony. In Columbia I got weird looks if I was outside in my PJ pants and a t-shirt, no matter what time it was. Here? I can walk out on my balcony in my underwear (our A/C is not working properly upstairs) and no one but the flora and fauna can see. (And the occasional airplane, but that’s kind of an inside joke.) Not that, you know, I am actually talking on the phone in my underwear or anything.

2. I was inducted into Motherhood five years, one week and two days ago. I have changed diapers every single day for 1831 days, and 18 months of that was double diaper duty. The only break I had was my four-day honeymoon in May 2003.

3. I am very much looking forward to going to Virginia in October for Shanee’s wedding. I am buying my plane ticket once Jaiden goes back to school and I start saving a little money in childcare. Only 89 more days until I leave! (But who’s counting?) I am [not-so-secretly] looking forward to five days away from my normal life.

4. I drink a lot of water. I am to the point where I rarely drink anything but water and the occasional frappucino or caramel macchiato. Drinking anything else makes me thirstier than I already was.

5. My music tastes are all over the place. I can listen to Rascal Flatts, then Li’l Boosie and P. Diddy and Keisha Cole, then Snow Patrol and Def Leppard, some John Mayer, classic rock, 80s stuff, old 90s stuff, etc. The only thing I really don’t listen to too much is classical, though I do turn it on for the kids at sleepytime sometimes. I think this sometimes surprises people.

6. I have been slacking with Purpose-Driven Life lately. I’m thinking I am going to sit down and catch up this weekend. It’s been helping me, though. I can tell.

7. I did not renew the creative-echoes.com domain when it expired on 30 June. I just don’t have time for any of that anymore. It makes me sad, because I loved it, but it was time to let it go.

8. I would rather give birth over and over again than be seen in a bathing suit. And if you saw that at True Mom Confessions, yes, that was me. I admit it. After three kids .. well, things don’t look quite as they should anymore. lol.

I’m supposed to tag eight people, but you just go ahead and do it if you want to and link to it in my comments.

Yes, today was a good, good day.

We got off at 11:30 am. Kids were typical junior high kids.

It was GORGEOUS out today!

I slowly made my way back home, stopping first at a different Wal-Mart and leaving without having spent a penny. (Odd for me, yes.) (I am looking for a play kitchen and found one at an ‘antique store’, except that it was not an antique of course and they want $36 for it; there was one at Wal-Mart around Christmas brand new for $39, so I have been to two Wal-Marts looking for one. They don’t carry them anymore.) I stopped at the antique store here in town where I first saw the antique cameras. They don’t have anything but a Baby Brownie and Polaroid left. (Darn.) I also stopped by a local children’s boutique/consignment store and left with nothing because they are expensive. So yes, I went to three stores and bought nothing. My kids were already down for their naps by the time I’d get to them and I hate waking them up because then they are grouchy all day, so I just came home for a bit until it was time to get Jaiden from school.

We stopped by our Wal-Mart on the way home and got Jaylen and Jaiden outfits to wear tomorrow – we received a gift certificate for a family portrait because my dad gave money to the highway patrol or something. The girls needed dress shoes, too. These dresses will be their Easter dresses unless we can somehow find shoes to match the dresses my mom bought them for Christmas ’05. The girls’ dresses are hot pink and white and Jaylen will wear a white polo. I think I am going to bow out of this one, even though I love family portraits. I look awful in white and I didn’t find anything hot pink, so yeah, I’ll just sit on the sidelines this time. (Really, I’m sure there is something hot pink in my closet because I love hot pink.) We also came home with the new release of Peter Pan. We have movie night on Friday and Saturdays here and while I’d love to take the little munchkins out to the movies, buying DVDs is cheaper and less stressful.

I’m getting ready to finish painting and then I need to get our rooms ready to move; Tyrel and Katie should be here tomorrow. I was planning on them coming Sunday and can’t bother to have anything ready ahead of time, so yeah, gotta scramble like every other time I’ve moved. Anyway, here are the answers for the one person who was nice enough to attempt my questions. Speak volumes for my friends who didn’t even take a stab at it (meaning those I talk to all the time). lol.

1. I have been a Y&R fan since I was pre-pubescent. I watch the entire week’s episodes on SoapNet and read the daily updates online.
This is true! When I can, I will turn on SoapNet and catch a week’s worth of Y&R and I do subscribe to Soap.com’s daily Y&R updates. If you can’t afford TiVo or DVR, which I can’t, and you want updates on your soaps, check out Soaps.com! It’s free and the updates are really, really good! (I also read two different daily devotionals so, you know, I’m not committing more of myself to Y&R than God or anything. lol. That’s what today’s devotional was about (the Episcopalian version, anyway) – getting your priorities in check when it comes to reading the Bible vs. emails and forums.)

2. I love talking. Always have. I used to get notes on my report card noting this and I am surprised my boss doesn’t write it on my pay stubs as well.
YES! TRUE! I talk people to sleep, to death, everything! I talk to my coworkers SO MUCH. I swear I am the second most talkative person I’ve ever met. Second only to a guy named Jason who lives here in town. (That’s a big prize for him. No one else has EVER met anyone more talkative than me until we met him. lol.)

3. I believe in love at first sight.
False, I don’t. I don’t believe it’s possible to be truly in love with someone the first time you see them. Real love comes with time.

4. I was once hit in the nose while dressed as the Michelin Man for work.
True! I need to find these pictures! This may have been before I had my digital because I don’t have the pictures on my computers, but I once dressed up as Bibs, the Michelin Man, for a Super Saturday promotion when I worked for Sears Auto Center. May in National Tire Month, so we rented the costume and I wore it during my shift. I stood out on a busy, busy, busy road in Newport News waving at folks. We (my escort and I) walked back towards our building, stopping first at Bally’s Total Fitness to say hi (and get some interest in our store). One man was mad for some reason and hit me, thinking I was a man. I had a big scratch on my nose from where the inside of the costume (the eyes) hit me.

5. I put a Michael Vick figurine in the kitchen. And Aunt Bee is in there as well.
True! There is a Michael Vick figure on the shelf above our fridge and a metal ‘poster’ of Aunt Bee, Opie and Andy that says ‘Aunt Bee’s Kitchen’ and some other stuff.

6. My best friend is, in a lot of ways, very much my opposite.
Very true. lol. But we love each other anyway.

7. My favorite color is pink.
False, it’s red, but pink comes in a very close second.

8. My first photographs were of my Barbie paper dolls.
True! If you read my Flickr profile you’d know that one. (I also need to scan these pictures!) I had them all set up – against the brick wall on the front porch, on the concrete of the front porch, against the bushes, in the grass, against the side of the sandbox. I pretended they were models. The other pictures were of Grannie’s flowerbeds. I was 10 and trying to recreate the photos of flowers my dad took in Okinawa with his macro lens. My camera didn’t come close. lol.

9. I cried when 1989 became 1990.
True! I didn’t want it to be 1990. I wanted the ’80s to stay around forever. Good thing for me they are back in style. (Ha.)

10. I peed my pants in a store, twice, when I was seven.
False, I was eight. It was the store clerk’s fault because she wouldn’t let me use the bathroom.

11. After I post a blog I visit my site to see the entry the way everyone else does. I alternate back and forth between skipping the typos and being completely OCD about them.
True and true! If I’m really tired I won’t fix the typos, or all of them anyway. Other times I will edit the entry a million times until it’s perfect. lol.

12. All of my children were born in under two minutes.
False, only two of them were. I pushed Jaiden for 2 hours, Jaylen for one minute (2-3 pushes), and Jenna was delivered via c-section two minutes after the first cut was made.

13. My favorite restaurant is 12 hours away.
True! Plaza Azteca, back home in Newport News, is my favorite place. One of these days I will be back. And that will be a definite good day.

14. My favorite character from Saturday Night Live is the Church Lady.
False, it’s Mary Katherine Gallagher, the ‘Supastah!’ girl. lol! I love that chick! I also love Wayne & Garth and Mike & Steve Butabi (however you spell it!).

15. I have a weakness for mini Snickers bars.
False. I actually have a weakness for Ferrero Rocher if we’re talking chocolate, but Cheddr Peppers and a medium Cranberry Juice slush from Sonic are really my weaknesses! I’m there just about every single day. Except for today because I am tired of giving Sonic my paycheck. I just came home and ate a little mini bag of Cheetos. I am really not that big on chips, but I crave Cheetos sometimes.

And now you know!

A funny story before I quit procrastinating: Jaiden knows how to spell ‘stop’ and ‘go’ and a few other things. And while I am proud of her, I wish she would stop saying, ‘S-T-O-P spells ‘stop’!’ every single time we see a stop sign. One road we use to come home has three stop signs right in a row and she says it every single time along with, ‘… and ‘G-O’ spells ‘go’!’ Today I asked her to please stop saying that all the time, so then she says, “Well one word I am ‘ra-dic-a-liss’ about … that’s ‘PUPPY!’ It doesn’t have three letters!” She cracks me up! I know that ‘puppy’ doesn’t have three letters, but the word she is really talking about is ‘dog’. She can’t quite grasp the spelling of that word for some reason. lol. And ‘ridiculous’?! Ha ha.

Tonight Jenna fell asleep so funny! I’ll post a picture later … when I get around to procrastinating again. Some company and a cranberry & vodka would be great right about now, too.