hi, my name is

is rochelle and i am a caffeine addict. i am here today to publicly acknowledge that i have a problem and i need help. i was only caffeine free for 24 hours and by 12 hours in i had a raging headache and i was snapping everyone's head off.


so in an effort to try and lose some more weight, which has not been easy. (still think that i may have some sort of medical issue, since i work out all the time and i eat mostly healthy and can manage to lose some water weight, but that is the extent. although i must say that inches is really where it matters and i lost a bunch of inches last spring/summer) but i digress.


so i decided to go forward with my no coffee/pop combination that had been in affect since tuesday when i woke up with a pukey tummy. so for three days this week i had no caffeine, no coffee, no pop, no headaches! i thought to myself very stupidly that this might be the time to try and kick the pop habit once and for all. now let me clarify with you all that i only have one 12oz pop a day. not a bad thing and i drink at least 60-80 oz of water everyday.

so i had a small cup of coffee on friday morning before work and felt really shaky by the time 10:30 came. hum? but i was determined to not fall back into the rut of pop. so i ate my lunch, pop free and worked some sub hours until the kids got out of school. by the time dinner arrived i was a complete bear! literally i felt like i was growling at my kids and my husband. so i went to bed with the hopes of alleviating the grumpies. woke up this morning ready to bite someones head off. we had no coffee creamer left in our house, therefore no coffee. i was to grumpy to go and to get some and thad pretty much avoided me all morning. lol.

needless to say on the way to basketball this morning i stopped and picked up a grande latte! hello lover!! my headache finally went away and i started to feel a little more normal. of course i followed that up with a chaser of pop so I have completely fallen off the wagon in one days time! oh well, this is my life and that is okay by me!

My Wonders..........

I wonder why it is that Exxon posted $45B profit this year and yet people could not fill their cars with gas because it had skyrocketed to $4 a gallon. I wonder why they finally gave us some relief. I wonder why no one is blaming the gas companies for helping to put us in this economic hard time. I wonder why people are dying in their freezing cold homes because they cannot afford to heat them, but no one regulates the gas companies? Why are people paying over $200 a month for NW Natural? I wonder why NW can blow money like they own the world and no one monitors them? I wonder does this "stimulus" package include something to help homeowners who are literally dying because they are cold? I wonder does it involve government regulations to control cost increases? I wonder does it put it's foot down on cable companies who are increasing prices left and right, when all's they need to do is flip a switch for some of this stuff?

I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and when I saw the headline about Exxon I just about blew a gasket! I need to watch some glenn beck today and get more riled up. lol. These are my wonders on a friday morning.

My Life Would Suck Without You

Kelly Clarkson - New Music - More Music Videos

this song is great.....I love this approach to a love song. when you miss someone you miss so much more than the love part, you miss the fights, the silly little things, hanging out together, fighting over the remote. It is not all about being in love. it was a clever video and a great return song for her. And I would much rather sing about my life sucking than kissing a girl. awwwwwwwwwww, come on you know you were all addicted to that song this summer!

Bad Blogger

I know, I know. I am a bad blogger. I honestly don't know where my head is these days. I find myself thinking, that would be a great blog post but then I totally forget about it and well there you go. The reality is that when I get off work, I go workout, come home check facebook, shower, check facebook, pick up the kids from school, check facebook, do homework, make dinner, check facebook, read with the kids, check facebook, put the kids to bed, check facebook, watch tv, check facebook, go to bed. My heart says blog, my head says facebook!! lol. So sadly this little facet of my existence has taken a hit in the last month, but I will be back. I have upward to post about, more blackmail stories to write about and well just general non-interesting life stories! I will be back. (think arnold when reading the last comment)

Boys!

I know that I have shared many stories of my youngest with you throughout the years and he will probably want to destroy this blog when he is old enough to sit down and read all the posts about him. But I have another doozey for you!

This morning it was routine as normal. Get up, whine about taking a bath, whine about what to wear, whine about that he wants to stay home and play....sad, but true, we have a lot of wine (did i type that right, maybe it is my mind telling me to drink more wine in our whiney house). Noah had taken his bath and was whining that it was freezing cold and I was in his closet getting his clothes out for him...cuz lets face it he is a guy and well, he needs help getting clothes picked out! I threw his cute little undies, excuse me, I threw his boxers out to him and was sitting there deciding what shirt would look the best on my adorable little man, when I look up to find my son at his lego table happily building his newest creation with his underwear just up to his knees. He literally forgot that he was putting on his boxers and stopped midway up to start to build!!!! Ummmmmm.......Heeellllooooo!!! I know that the boy loves his legos and he builds some amazing creations, but honestly child, pull up your boxers! When I got his attention, he just looked at me completely innocently and then when he figured out what I was laughing at he just simply says "ooppss, I forgot I was doing that!" and of course laughs his cute little laugh.

Does this make sense to any woman out there? Maybe this is only a story that a mommy could love, but I was dying. I was laughing so hard and yet totally perplexed as to why he would do that? So I had to share another completely embarrassing story on my sons behalf and I am sure that there will be more as the days go by, so stay tuned!

Distant Memories

the jet crash today certainly has brought back memories of the crash 20 years ago. I don't remember the name of the flight or the river they went into, just that the plane went down in a river in new york. it was horrible. people in the water. the water was freezing. Iwas young and it affected me.

but the one image that is forever locked into my head is the brave gentleman who lost his life that day because he helped many others. He would continually hand over the helicopter rope to the people around him so that they could be rescued. One after one they were plucked from their deaths and one by one he watched them be airlifted away. But when they came back for him, he was gone. Not a trace.

i am so thankful that everyone aboard was able to get out today and that the pilots quick thinking and his crew's fast responses were able to save everyone.

Terrifying

Something has taken over my mind and I don't quite know how to describe it. It is a sickness really. This thing. Since the first time I picked up my favorite book "twilight" last year, you have seen me blog about it, terrorize poor teresa into reading them and post obsessively about the movie release. But now I find this new and more terrifying thought come to the forefront.

When the heck did I start liking Vampires???

As a child there was nothing more terrorizing to me than the thought of someone taking a bite out of my neck, but now I am like bring it on!!!! I remember once as a child I had a sleepover at a trusted families house and we snuck into the living room to watch what was on tv, my life was forever changed by the movie Salem's Lot. From that night on I was terrified to turn off my lights, I would count to 10, turn them off, run and dive into my bed, where I proceeded to bundle my head under the covers for fear that some unwanted companion would seek me out. To this day I still sleep with the covers firmly up against my neck. lol.

But back to my new obsession. I love vampires now. I read a new vampire series over Christmas break, House of Night. Not bad. Easy reads, but a lot darker than the twilight series. And a friend at school recently got me hooked on the sookie stackhouse series. Those are not as dark, but more graphic than twilight. Now I cannot wait to watch true blood, the hbo series based on the stackhouse series, as soon as it releases on dvd.

This is all well and good, but vampires..........honestly?????

a little something for today

just a little something to get you in the mood for JACK!!! because nothing gets you more ready than hearing DAMN IT, over and over again. jack bauer rules.

Jack Is Back!

Jack Bauer once won a game of Connect 4 in 3 moves

If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.

Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas

When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer hates lemonade.

1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.

If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

When bad things happen to good people, its probably fate. When bad things happen to bad people, it’s probably Jack Bauer

...and on the seventh day Jack Bauer said, "I'll take it from here."

When Jack Bauer ran out of ammo, he caught 3 bullets in his chest and used them to reload

Jack Bauer sleeps with a pillow under his gun.

You can tell how much Jack Bauer likes you by how far above your kneecap he shoots you.

Lets get one thing straight, the only reason you are conscious right now is because Jack Bauer does not feel like carrying you.

Release

this is my word for the year. It is appropriate right now as I am dealing with a huge struggle that is going to take a long time to "let go" of. It has built up through the years and it has taken its toll. I want to be a whole me again. I thank my dear friends who are praying me through this and know that it will take some time. Just like "it takes a long time to take off the baby weight" this release does not happen overnight. That qoute has hit me to my core. It is that final acknowledgement that I need to take it one prayer at a time. As I have regained part of myself back this year...going back to work again, it has really put so many things in perspective and I want to follow God's leading in this time.

Word for the Year

I am not a resolution maker. I always fail at those. I like to make goals and then forget about them. I could tell myself every year that I am going to work out more, but a resolution won't make me do that any better than I had before. I have loved reading everyone else's list. More power to you ladies and I will support you 100%, but me...........no can do.

I like the approach of one word to summarize my year and how I want to live it. In the past I have chosen Balance and Vitality. Both words seemed to really come into play for me the years I chose them. This year I am still searching for a word. I have a few in mind and once I have figured it out I will blog it.

It feels like once I have chosen that word I purposely set out to have it be a part of my everyday life. It becomes a part of who I am. I seek out those options or choices that bring that word to the forefront.

So here is to a new year, finding that one word to summarize my life for that year. wish me luck.

Cold, Rainy Weather = A cup of Tea

So after an amazing lunch at Wild Pear today, a shared birthday meal between a friend and I, I was cold and felt like something warm to drink. What better place to stop than starbucks. I had just picked up a card yesterday to try their new tazo tea lattes. I love tea. I love milk and tea together, well maybe half and half (which explains why i never drink it that way). But I thought these sounded good. I got the Vanilla Rooibos Latte. Yum. Unexpected. When you take a sip from a starbucks cup you always expect that coffee taste? It was super yummy, but a little sweet which I thought was odd since it was just tea and milk? I thought to myself that this must be fairly low in calories, right. tea/milk??? Well I could not have been more wrong. It is 150 calories for a tall, okay that is better than some coffee drinks..but what shocked me was the sugar and carbs counts. WOW. 24g of sugar!!!! in that little tiny cup. It turns out that they sweeten that beautiful little drink with their classic syrup! I started ordering my Passion Tea's without the syrup and just subbed in a package of splenda, works out pretty good for me. So I think next time I try it I will order it without the syrup and see if I like it. So for all of you starbucks lovers out there....be warned!

another 12 year wait?

this bad boy right here..........it is my dream. My ultimate wish. My 50mm fixed lens with a 1.4 apeture. Perfect for those adorable little close ups in my house, just standard pix of my kids. I stopped at a camera store the other day just to play with it, yummy. Way beyond my price point and it is brand new so it will be awhile until I can find it a little cheaper. Since I have a Nikon D40 I have to use a specific lens that auto focuses and well, they cost more. I have a couple of better zoom lenses for my old nikon, but i have to manually adjust them, but for now they will do. I still get great shots out of them and I really only use them for sports where I need the zoom to get those shots of noah out on the baseball field or football field. Just thought I would share the object of my lust these days. It is always something, right........I wonder what that says about me?? lol.

Spoon hits the bottom.....

i could post a video of his everyday just because..........

i personally like to leave oreo shavings, not fig newtons.

A New Addition

for twelve years i have waited, with baited breathe and growing anticipation. It has been so hard, knowing that it would be a grown up addition, something that would really complete our house. It would allow us to have friends over and actually all sit at the table together. It has been a sticking point in my husband and I's relationship. I wanted to buy a table, he wanted to build one. We had gone both routes researching tables that I loved (hello pottery barn fransisco table, square and beautiful) to researching all the components and wood that would make us a beautiful table. Thad is an amazing wood worker. He has built many beautiful pieces of furniture throught the years, but let's just say that his time to make these creations has been limited to an hour here or 20 minutes there. It would take the rest of our lives for him to build one. lol.

For the last year I have wanted a counter high table with 8 chairs and a dark finish. He did not. He thought they were uncomfortable for a tall man, he wanted to be able to put his feet on the floor and lean back. I found a table recently that I really loved, it was not square or high but it had big turned legs and it seated 8. But when we went to look at it, thad could not get his legs under the table because the apron underneath the top was too low. Dreams dashed again.

So we decided to look in earnest this last friday. We hit a local store first, not expecting to find much except for oak furniture and we actually found a table that we both liked. It was a high table, square and it seated 8. But it was a floor model and the chairs that went with it were gone, so we would end up ordering some that would take 6 weeks to arrive, but we would have a table in that time and no way to sit at it. But the most important thing to note is that it was high and Thad suddenly, miraculously loved it.

So we shopped around the rest of the afternoon, thinking we would buy the one that we would have to order chairs for until we got a call from my mom who told us to look at costco. I was talking to Julanne and she was at Costco and said that it was a nice table and we might like it. So we headed over, walked in the door and Thad sees it and immediately says that it is the table. He absolutely loves it, there is no other table. I am secretly laughing inside, thinking about his stubborn refusal to look at high tables, to look at any table that was not hand made.....12 years of this struggle and in two seconds he has decided that this table is the only one for us.

I guess the moral of this story is be patient and eventually your husband will come around to your way of thinking. lol.

How Do I Get That Goodness In Me????

this is one of my favorite comedians!!! He cracks me up everytime. I have him on my ipod and die laughing in the middle of everyone. As I was watching him on youtube this morning sydnie watched the poptart one with me and asks.....can i have a poptart? i said sure. she literally just came back in with the box and says, "i don't know how you toast them. read the directions mom." if that is not funny i don't know what it is.

Wise

Last night as we were leaving a new years eve party the kids were both dying to stay up until midnight this year. Usually we are just at home hanging out and we kind of slide in that 9pm it's new years in new york thing.......they buy it every year and then they go to bed. But this year they both knew that it needed to be midnight our time, so they were both chattering about it and thad and i told them that they were more than welcome to stay up until 12am. When suddenly noah says:

"I think I am going to make a wise decision tonight and go to bed when we get home because I don't want to have a bad attitude tomorrow!"

Seriously love that kid. he says the best stuff.