Where Has October Gone?

It's amazing to me...before I had children, time moved relatively slow. But I guess time now moves at the same rate of speed that my children do these days...very, very quickly!!! I can't believe we're almost at the end of October already, but sure enough, November is less than a week away.
I found Halloween costumes for the kids, and half price to boot! I had to amend my plans...they're both going to be Elmo, but I think that this might be the only year that duplicate costumes will be "acceptable," so Steve and I decided we'd just do it. My friend Alyssa gave the kids trick-or-treat pails in the shape of Elmo's head, so they'll be matching top to bottom. :) I will make sure to post some photos once I have some. They're going to look so cute!
For anyone who hasn't already heard, I'm now an independent consultant for an international direct sales company that markets wonderful kitchen products (initials are PC). I've been a big fan of their products for years now, so it was basically inevitable. Through online training and demonstrations, I'm learning everything I can so that I'll be able to put together a very fun and educational presentation. And I've already got two shows booked...yikes! I'm a little nervous, but I think that's normal anytime someone starts a new business. So, if anyone wants to host a party, I'd be happy to help you out...and I would love to show you what the company has to offer! The host benefits are great, and the pricing is actually pretty reasonable.
OK, that's enough of a plug. :) Take care and talk to you soon.

Night Owl

No special reason for this blog, other than to document the fact that I am the ONLY one in the house awake at the moment. I have been trying to get caught up on some work, and I just looked around and noticed that the dog is sleeping next to me on the couch, and one of our two cats is sleeping soundly on the glider chair to my right. I'm willing to bet that the other cat is in my bedroom, sleeping on the cedar chest next to the window like she always does. I'm also willing to bet that if I were to get up and check, even the FISH would probably be sleeping at this point. I really need to get to bed, but I'll sleep better if I wait just a while longer to make sure Meg's not going to wake up crying again like she did last night.
My daughter has come down with some sort of viral thing. Nothing tragic, but it's caused some inflammation in her throat similar to strep that makes things really uncomfortable for her. She started running a temp last night, right around 101, and after being up with her half of last night I ended up taking her to the doctor this morning. Megan is VERY serious about getting her "beauty" sleep, so I knew that something wasn't right when she woke up screaming and sniffling not once, but twice in the middle of the night. There's no medication that will make it better, and no way to speed it along. The not-so-beautiful truth about viral ailments is that they have to run their course...I just hope that in the process, this doesn't run its course through Jeremy and then me and Steve as well! The good news is that her temp is back down, so the chances of her still being contagious are very low.
On another note, I'm hunting down Halloween costumes for the kids and I don't have a whole lot of time left! I promised myself I would do this weeks ago, but here I am, just over a week before it's time to dress up the kiddos, and no costumes to speak of. I was going to dress Meg as Elmo (her favorite creature of all time!) and Jeremy as Cookie Monster, but I might have to abandon those plans for something more economically sound. I'll keep you all posted on how that works out...until then, take care and talk to you soon!

Anyone have an extra laundry basket?

So I have a confession to make. Well, not so much a confession, because that would imply that it's something I have tried to hide. And I haven't tried to hide this, ever. But I am in the process of trying to tidy up my house and I despise it. I don't mean that in a "I don't like liver and onions" kind of sense. I mean it in a "what the heck was I thinking when I bought a house?" kind of sense. My husband is going to be spending all day Saturday with the kids because I have a scrapbook thing to attend, and he has invited his family down from Jacksonville to watch football at our house while I'm gone. That means, company.
Now, we aren't complete slobs. We have a place for everything, but everything is just not in its place. So it's my job today to work on getting everything moved around so that tomorrow I can work on the "stash and dash." Oh, come on, everyone does it once in a while. Company's coming, they'll be here in 30 minutes, and you take whatever is left lying around the living room and stuff it in a laundry basket to hide in the office or den or your bedroom closet. I've perfected this art...I just can't disclose how many laundry baskets I've stashed and not unstashed. Steve actually has put a stop to this by telling me I'm not allowed to buy any more laundry baskets, so every now and then I actually clean one out in order to use it for actual LAUNDRY (yet another thing I also despise, by the way). He laughs because whenever I sort out the junk that is in one and come out with a clean, empty basket, he takes a guess at how long it will be before it's "out of service" again.
I told a friend recently about this problem I seem to have, and she said (in that kind, loving way a friend has), "Oh, it can't be that bad. And you have two toddlers, so no one can blame you if your house isn't spotless." Ha! If I could blame the kids for some of the junk that I find lying around, I would. Unfortunately I suffer from packrat-itis, and I'm terribly paranoid of identity theft (since it happened to us earlier this year), so I don't throw much away. We have junk mail that I have every intention of shredding, I just need about a week of uninterrupted time to sit on the couch and feed it to the shredder. I just can't bring myself to throw it in the garbage, for fear that someone will find it and all of a sudden I get a bill for a Mastercard I don't own.
When we had new carpet installed in July, we had to move all of the furniture out of our living room. That also included the entertainment center, which is usually full of knick-knacks and dust collectors. My parents gave me the bright idea of taking them all and putting them up on the plant shelf in our living room, way up high so they couldn't get lost or broken. That was in JULY. I'm very ashamed to say that they're still up there. Come on people, it's October already. What is wrong with me? Hey, at least my folks gave me a good suggestion on where to store them...otherwise they would have ended up crammed into an unsuspecting laundry basket.

Random Thoughts

So I'm convinced now that Megan would be happier if Elmo was taking care of her instead of me. I can often get her to repeat fun phrases (I love the doggie, I love my daddy, I love Jeremy). But lately when I try to get her to say "I love my mommy," she replies with "I love ELMO!!!" And she truly adds the additional exclamation points. This little lady is completely infatuated with the little red monster. Maybe I'll buy an Elmo costume and she'll love me, too!
No, really, she loves me...I know she does. Probably only because I'm the primary caregiver most of the time, and she knows she has to rely on me in order to get meals, but I'll take whatever I can get! :)
Jeremy woke up from his afternoon nap about half an hour earlier than Megan today, so we got some one-on-one time in before Megan was up and looking for attention, too. He's quite possibly one of the most affectionate children ever. They're both very loving and cuddly, but I think Jeremy would probably prefer to spend the largest majority of his day just sitting in my lap.
I actually had a pretty productive day. Finished writing a story for the paper, set up an appointment to interview someone for another article on Thursday, designed two flyers, and started working on a logo for my friend's new pet-sitting service. I have a LOT to get done this week, but if I keep up my current pace I should be OK.
Time to go raid the fridge and figure out what we'll be dining on tonight. Steve's on night shift for one more week, so it won't be long before he's back home in the evenings again. I hope everyone's doing well...take care and keep in touch.

Pilot

Most of the people who will come to read this blog at some point are people who know me, but just in case it finds its way to someone who doesn't, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Katie, and my family and I live in St. Augustine, FL...the Nation's Oldest City. My husband works in law enforcement as a Deputy Sheriff for the St. Johns County Sheriff's Department. I worked at the hospital here in town up until our twins were born in December 2005, and then took time out from full-time work outside the house so I could be home with them. I tried my hand at working in an early education center this past May, and things worked out very well until recently when my son decided his biting habit (at school) wasn't going to diminish in any way (in his defense, he only started biting after he started school...it's not a habit he had before that!). As of last week, I'm back to staying home with the kids again...and looking for freelance work to help keep me busy in the meantime!
My children are the lights of my life, the centers of my universe, and the keepers of this castle. My daughter Megan is the older of the two by only 45 seconds, yet she somehow translates those seconds into years. She is the "little mother" to her brother, Jeremy. Jeremy has no trouble allowing Megan to boss him around, and he would honestly follow her to the end of the Earth, content to do whatever it would take to keep her happy. They will be turning two years old in less than three months, and I must admit that I am in denial about that little fact. I am gradually planning out their birthday party for December...not in an obsessive way, but I know how crazy things were with planning for last year, and I don't want to stress out about it by not getting the "easy" details nailed down now (time, date, location...).
I hope that my friends will find this to be a good way to keep up with us...I know that sometimes life pulls us in about 18,000 different directions at once, and the beauty of blogging and using modern technology is that we can keep up to date at any time just by logging on and checking things out. Take care and PLEASE let me know your blog address(es) so that I can return the favor by reading about YOU!