Saturday, Aug 14, 2010

The Sunday Salon: How Important is a Clean Home?

I lie there glaring, staring, fuming… somthing gross smudged on the wall.  What is that? 

There are 8 tufts of Oliver’s cat fur about the floor of the house.  8.  I counted them.  8.

The handles on the refrigerator door are sticky… why don’t the twins wash their hands more when they are cooking?

The dog scratched another hole in the window screen AGAIN!

There is an empty soda can on the couch.

My room is not picked up.

There is a pile of clean clothes that have to be put away.

The carpet needs shampoo’ing. 

The garage is a nuclear disaster zone.

I’m overwhelmed.

This disaster zone is my house.  And, as I look around I also see two teenagers laying down watching television, one lazy yellow dog, and three sleeping cats.  They could CARE LESS what the house looks like.  Dust or no dust, the house is fine.  I go to my sister’s house and feel completely incompetent.  Her house is spotless.  And, she has 2 dogs, 2 cats, 3 kids and a husband.  She works more hours than me.  It’s like she is magical.

I am feeling so disappointed in myself.  I don’t know why, but I have no desire to get up and start cleaning the garage.  I know that I should, but I don’t want to.  I’d rather read… or do work from the office… or blog… or watch tv.  I don’t want to clean it.  I want a magical fairy to come and clean it all for me. 

Oh.

If only I were rich.  Or, like my sister, able to do it all.  How do some women do it all? 

Well, I was wondering this Sunday… how important is it to have a clean house?  On a scale of 1-10, how important is it to you? 

Give me your thoughts in the the voting booth below.

Books I Am Still Currently Reading

Current Book Giveaway
  

Broken: A Love Story by Lisa Jones
 

Three copies are up for grabs! See this post for more information! Rated 9.5 by ANM!

OH…. and, keep your eyes peeled for a giveaway of WAXED.  The post is tomorrow.

The Rest

The new job is keeping me busy  I’m behind on all of my television and movie gossip.  But, I love my new boss and that’s super cool.  I’m a tad overwhelmed with the amount of work that we need to get done in a short amount of time and am hopeful that I can do it… and not let them down!

Other than that… we had our first soccer meeting and I was a total embarressment to my children when I gave my little speech.  We start pactices next week. 

I’m peeling from my sunburn and still haven’t dated in a millennium!

That’s all folks!

Best wishes for you all to have a wonderful week!

7 Comments

Saturday, Aug 7, 2010

The Sunday Salon: Sunburnt Soccer Mom Ponders Those Little White Lies

We talk about telling white lies, to spare the feelings of others.  Let me share with you that I am most definitely saying those little white lies over the past two days by saying that I am enjoying my Intermediate Soccer Coach Training.  Burnt to a pulp and 11 hours later, I am dreaming of any plausible white lie that I can tell to get out of tomorrow’s 4 hour final hours of classes for the accreditation.  But, I know that it will just catch up with me in the end and I’ll have to suffer the consequences sooner or later.  So, I won’t lie and I’ll go.

We all try not to tell  those nasty little white lies (and, BTW… why are they called “white” when they are a tad dirty?) and yet many of us do…  Some think nothing of it, others they seem  to bother and stick with.  It just eats them up.

I’ve told my share, that’s for sure.  I have also came clean on many of them.  To my surprise, most of the time that I come clean, it didn’t really bother the person at all.  For example, I exchanged my sister’s Christmas gift from jammies to a duvet cover.  She didn’t seem to mind at all.  I felt so much better after I told her.  And, what about telling our children “those little lies” to protect them?    As a mother, I have to tell them those little lies about my past…right?  I mean, God forbid they learn EVERYTHING that I did, right? 

So where is the dividing line?  Where do the little white lies or lies via ommission go from being harmless to harmful?  Is it okay to say that you had a flat tire when you are late for work, but not acceptable to say “Oh, no… don’t worry about it” when you really wanted to say, “damn, that really hurt me?”  If you are religious, do you believe that God views all the lies as equal?  If so, which ones do you actually take the time to repent for?  All of them?  What if I can’t remember them all?

I guess tonight I have to say my prayers for forgiveness for my little white lies today.   They most likely hurt nobody, but I should try to get in the habit of not saying them at all. 

How do y’all handle this topic… or sunburns?  ~

Books I Read This Week

For the TLC Book Tour

Books I Am Currently Reading
 

Current Book Giveaway
  

Broken: A Love Story by Lisa Jones
 

Three copies are up for grabs! See this post for more information! Rated 9.5 by ANM!
 

TV Mania
 

Well, with The Bachelorette over, I’m going to have eyes peeled to Bachelor Pad. I’m hoping for Kent in SYTYCD.   Whale Wars has me hooked.  I’ve fallen away from America’s Got Talent and must catch up.  BUT, Jersey Shore 2 is on and the finale of The Real Housewives has been my guilty pleasure watching of the week.  I’m sooo bad!   

The Rest
 

I got a brand new job and I couldn’t be more thrilled.  This means that I won’t be underwater financially anymore (thank The LORD!)  The twins were away at girl scout camp this past week, so it will be nice to have them back tomorrow.  But, it has been fun sending them those bunk notes!  

Other than that… we’re just preparing for the upcoming soccer season in which I will be the Asst. Coach for the twins’ team.  So, there will be a’plenty o’ mommy-braggy posts about that coming up.

Best wishes for you all to have a wonderful week!

5 Comments

Sunday, Jul 25, 2010

The Sunday Salon: Do You Dare To Live Your Dream?

I’ve recently crossed paths with a beautiful and brave soul.  She’s taken chances that have led her to be able to live a life that fills her spirit.  At the same time, she is passionately saving lives.  She is not a doctor, not a nurse, but definitely is a healer.  Through knowing her briefly, I have taken a closer look at how far I’m willing to go to chase my own dream.

My new friend Miki has trusted her faith and has dared to live her dream. But, her dream isn’t the typical one… being a movie star, a prize-winning author, nor a famous politician. Rather, her dream was to save animals. Not just the little ones that most of us try to do via adoption, but the big ones too. Miki and her husband Clayton dreamt of rescuing draft horses. As she shares on her website:

“This dream of ours was kept in our prayers for many years. We always knew however, that one-day, when the time is right, we would move and make this dream of ours come true. And that indeed happened. In March of 2006, we moved to a ranch in Murrieta, California. It is a beautiful property surrounded by nature with a lot of flat space for the horses to roam around and be happy. A place were a horse can be a horse…”

Miki’s dream had a greater vision than just giving a sanctuary to horses who no longer served the use their owner intended. Rather, there is a large number of horses that were being bred to produce Premarin. The hormones excreted from pregnant mares were largely used in the production of this menapause pill in the early 1990′s and 2000′s. For the foals of these mistreated mares who were not sold at auction nor retained for the purpose of continued breeding for the collection of the hormones, they were sold to slaughter houses for meat distribution. If you click over to this page on the Gentle Giant Sanctuary Website, you can read much more about this industry. It seems that the practice is slowing due to lawsuits which ensued 2005+ due to side effects of Premarin. However, there are still many baby foals (mainly, from what I’ve read, up in Canada), who need adoption.

Miki and Clayton adopted the most gorgeous babies… (Click on the horse and read their story)

TESS

WILLOW

EMMA

OLIVER

ELLIOT

After you read these tender stories, you just can’t help but to smile and be proud of Miki and Clayton for living their dream. You can see on their website that they are a normal couple, living just outside a normal urban area… but, they are living their dream.

I got so inspired that I asked some friends of mine who run local stables if they had anything that they could donate on Miki’s wishlist. They told me they’d check and gave me a lead on a sale. But, what inspired me was just the pure fact that, despite this scary economy, money being tight, not knowing how you will support 5 very large horses (don’t get me started on the rest of her menagerie), they just prayed about it for a very long time. After a while, their dreams were realized. All they had to do was do the footwork and keep the faith. To me… that is so brave and so trusting.

I am sometimes so trapped in fear of losing what I have, focused on work and putting forethought into what I need to manage next for our livelihood, that I forget to dream. I think often tell myself that the dreams that I have will “happen someday.” But someday won’t come if I don’t believe enough in myself and in my faith that God will provide when I honor him and when I care for the earth and its many beautiful creations, large and small.

Rather than reading about my thoughts on books today.. what’s cool on TV.. the radical sunburn I got at soccer camp.. and my typical rantings on the Sunday Salon post, can you just take a minute and think about your dream? What is it that you really want to do? How do you get there? Remind yourself not to put off until tomorrow what you can do today, as cliche as it may sound. And, pray to your God & don’t be afraid to ask how to accomplish your dream and fill your spirit.

I’m also putting a “pretty-please” call out to all dreamers, horse fanatics, animal lovers, and book-bloggers who follow my blog, to donate $1 to the Gentle Giants Sanctuary. The link to the PayPal donate button is here at the bottom left corner of the page.

Now you may recall that I recently gave a 9.5 rating on a wonderful story about horses by Lisa Jones entitled Broken: A Love Story. I am so completely thrilled to tell you that she was generous enough to donate 3 copies of her amazing story to A Novel Menagerie Readers. I am so unbelievably excited!

For a refresher on my review of this story about redemption and the power of love, please click HERE and read all about this amazing book.

To enter the contest, you must be located in either the United States or Canada. For one entry, simply leave a comment below and tell me about the animal that most changed your life. For two entries, please leave two comments (the one above) and the second telling me that you have either twittered about the contest, posted about the contest on your site, or posted about it on Facebook. For 4 entries, tell others about the Gentle Giant Sanctuary on Twitter, Facebook, or your blog. FOR 5 (YES, COUNT ‘EM 5) entries, please donate $1 or more to the Gentle Giant Sanctuary and email me about it at anovelmenagerie@aol.com or you may leave a comment about it below. Since I have 3 copies to give away, there are many chances to win!!!!!

CONTEST ENDS AUGUST 31ST, 2010

I hope that, just for today, you took that minute to think about your dream(s) and encourage others who live theirs.

God Bless!

As always, my thanks to all of you for reading not only this post, but the others as well. Your readership means the world to me! AND, your comments are invaluable to me!

25 Comments

Sunday, Jul 11, 2010

The Sunday Salon: A Little of This… and A Little of That

Summer is in full swing and the twins are officially “bored already, MOM~!!” 

Go fly a kite.

Go catch a bug.

Go climb a tree

Play cards.

Please just stop fighting and driving me crazy.  Yeah, like that would ever happen in a million years.  NOT!

Well, this afternoon they are at a church event and perhaps God can whip their little tushies into shape. 

It’s a thought.

Me?

Working to put milk in the fridge and am struggling to find anything about my job that gives me an ounce of pride in my work or that I’m contributing to a team who wants me there.  I’ve asked God to scrub me back to a smooth flat rock so that I can build right back up again.  I think he’s pretty cool about that stuff as long as I put the work in.  So, I am.

Between work, kids and home, I’ve become a bit of a hermit.  I don’t feel motivated to hit the beach, hike, bicycle, go to the park.  But, in a couple of weeks, I’m going to “coach training camp” where they will teach me how to officially coach a team of  twelve 14-year old girls.  That, I am looking forward to.

My sissie and I went to an Angels Game and had the best seats ever… like one row away from the 1st base line.  The Angels were playing the Colorado Rockies… some of them boys are very cute… yes-er-ree!  Here’s a pic where a jammed a camera in our face:

So, my sister is really nice to my badly behaved children.  It is our family ritual for girls to wait until they are 13 to get their ears pierced.  So, my sissie went along and we did the mall ear piercing thing.  It was kinda funny… here are these 5’6″ & 127lb girls afraid of actually getting it done.  Can you believe it?  After they suffered through the horror of it, we got the fun mall pictures taken of the 4 of us afterwards:

So…  summer is moving along and I’m just so glad to be spending it with my Sissie and her family.  Her 3 kids and husband are awesome and I always feel at home when I’m with her.  I have also recently started a reconciliation with my mother.  We have been estranged for years.  We’ve spent considerable time together over the past few weeks and it’s nice to see it going in a positive direction.  It’s been many years since I’ve had a mom… it has felt rather good to start feeling like I have one back. 

Now… if only she could turn the twins into angels… then, life would be golden!

This Week’s Reads

This week, I reviewed

and

Now, I loved Broken: A Love Story so much that I wrote the author.    I asked her about doing a givaway of her amazing story to my readers and fellow book bloggers.  She agreed!  So, I will posting a contest with a recap of her terrific book this week. 

I also downloaded Kathy Griffin’s Bestselling memoir Official Book Club Selection onto my Kindle and read it this week.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE her show on Bravo, My Life on the D-List.  Her mother Maggie is my absolute favorite on the show!  I absolutely loved reading the book.  It starts with her childhood, walks the reader through her climb up the ladder to stardom, and brings us to her current day situation.  Personally, I don’t think she gets to keep herself on the D-List status with sold out live comedy shows, a NY Times Best-Seller, and a double emmy winner. 

This memoir was heartfelt and hilarious.  I looked forwad to picking up every day.  Love her or leave her, after reading her book you would still find a woman of determination and strength who never gave up on her  goals and was always held true to her beliefs.  I LOVED LOVED LOVED the book and recommend it to all Kathy Griffin fans.

One of my favorite episodes of her show is the one where she hangs out with Paris Hilton.  Check out this pic:

(not too shabby for 48!)  My favorite character on her show is her beloved mother, Maggie.  She’s recently come out with a book of her own entitled Tip It!  That’s a sure Kindle download for me!  Personally, this book is my kind of dish and I’m giving it a rating of:

Contests

As mentioned above, I wil be hosting a multiple book give away of Broken: A Love Story.  Details will be published this week.

The winner forJune’s giveaway of Jen Lancaster’s Pretty in Plaid goes to Cassandra at Words on Paper.  Congratulations!

On TV 

The Bachelorette

I  am so completely sickened by this entire season that I can’t even complete my full course of recaps.   This is so unlike me.. nothing usually gives me more joy.  But the corny, staged antics of this season are making me sick.  The tabloids have reported that she ends up alone, found a new boyfriend whom she has already broken up with   Disgusting.  The entire thing.

I will, however, share with you, the shows that have caught my eye this summer:

 * Whale Wars

* Living With The Sextuplets

* America’s Got Talent

* So You Think You Can Dance

* Housewives of New Jersey

* Wipeout

* Kathy Griffin: Life On The D-List

* True Beauty  

The Rest… 

I’ve began mediating as a source of stess relief.  Any tips out there?    I’m only seeming to get 2 books read per week now as apposed to 4-5 that I was pulling last year… so I’m a little sad about that.     Too broke to go on vacation, but have the beach next door… so I should take advantage of that. 

As always, my thanks to all of you for reading not only this post, but the others as well.   Your readership means the world to me!  AND, your comments are invaluable to me!

6 Comments

Wednesday, Jun 9, 2010

Book Review: My Fair Lazy by Jen Lancaster

Author: Jen Lancaster 

Publisher:  New American Library 

Yes.  Jen Lancaster is a self-admitted realty television junkie.  And, so am I.

Now that we’ve got that out in the open, I feel much better.

While I am perfectly happy with my addiction and semi-culturedness (*if that is even a word*), Jen isn’t so sure of hers after her interview with Candace Bushnell, her favorite author.  Candace uses the work “Baudelaire” and Jen doesn’t know if that is some type of food, exercise, or fashion craze.  This gets Jen to consider how her readers view her as many have expressed to her that her books are their “guilty pleasure.” (*now, on this point I totally disagree because I don’t feel guilty about reading her books and I definitely love reading them*).  If her readers view her in that way, perhaps she should venture away from the TV and expand her horizons… try exotic foods, see plays, and get “culture-ized.” (*for lack of a better word*)

Jen’s adventures with foreign foods bring the readers some great laughs along the way.  Her exposure to some eclectic performing art might shock you  just a bit.  In the end, you just might feel like a sister or a good friend as well.  Her female vantage point/view of the world mirrors mine and reading her books is like cozying up with a Snuggie!

You can check out my reviews of Such a Pretty Fat and Pretty in Plaid here on A Novel Menagerie.  

I have wonderful news… New American Library/Penguin has graciously sent me a copy of Pretty in Plaid.  I’m giving it away to one lucky reader.  All entries for the contest are due in by June 30th, 2010.  Just leave a comment below.  Make sure that you leave your email address so that I can contact the lucky winner.   For an extra entry, you may make mention of it on your blog. 

On Sher’s “Out of Ten Scale:” 

Jen Lancaster is one of my favorite authors.  Her books are unlike any others that I read.  She is the best at what she does… modern day memoirs for women!   She writes from a place of truth and doesn’t take herself too seriously.  I love that about her.  I know that many others feel the same connection to her as I do because of that, but I can always secretly wish that I meet her at a book signing one day!

my favorite part of the book… look for the scene in the fancy hotel with the lamp…

FTC Disclosure:  This book was provided to me from the publisher.  Clicking on the either the photo of the book cover or the link next to the purchase price stated above will bring you to my Amazon Affiliate page.  No purchases are necessary. 

22 Comments