Mother's Day/The Color Run

Hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Today we woke up at 4am to go catch a ferry at 5:20 this morning.  No, we aren't crazy.  Well maybe just a little, but who isn't!

Why did we get up so early?  To catch a ferry, I already told you.  Weren't you paying attention?  Oh you want to know where we were going so early.

We went here

to do this

Why?

Because we knew it was going to be exciting!

Here we are before the 5k

Add a little color

And this is what you get!

Here's our video from today :)

Can't wait to do it again next year!!!

Farmer's Market, Color Run, DC, and Disney!

Oh wow, it's been awhile since I posted!  I think this post will just be an update on what has been going on in the Neurotic List Making house.

Farmer's Market

I had my first day at the Poulsbo Farmer's Market.  I did better than I expected to.  Actually made money after all my fees were deducted, which is always nice!  Here's a few pictures of my booth.  Sorry I took them with the cell phone right as the market was opening so they aren't the best quality, but it will give you an idea.

Here's my tutu chalkboards.  Yes you can really write on them.  And yes, they do come on the hanger so they are ready to hang on the back of a door or hook on a wall :)

Here's some of the tutu's I made.  Kind of makes me wish I had a little girl!

Here's a picture of the booth.   Along with my helper (not by his choice, but hey he got paid! lol).  The things you have to do for your parents when you are a teenager ;)

Here's an up close of some of the things in the baskets.

The color run

Justin and I also registered for the color run.  We're going to do the one in Seattle on Mother's Day.  It looks like a ton of fun!

DC

And we've started getting things together for our summer vacation in Washington, DC.  We are staying at the cutest little cottage.  The guy that owns it seems really nice.  All the reviews are great about the place too.  I think it will be a nice break from the craziness of DC to be able to come back to the cottage to rest.  My mom is going to come with us too.  She likes to travel, but she's not as much of a walker as Justin and I are.  And yes I've got list for this trip!  

I'd show you a copy of the spreadsheet, but my computer isn't wanting to copy the screen and my tech geek is at school.

If I could copy it, you would see that the spreadsheet has tabs for daily schedule (and I have several different schedules to choose from, depending on how the day is going), grocery list, stuff to do before the trip, tour info, dining, packing list, flight info, lodging info, and car rental.  I told you I was a little neurotic about lists.

Disney

 We won't discuss the spreadsheet I have started for our vacation in approximately 844 days.  Yes, that's two years from now!  No, I don't see a problem with planning that far in advance.  Where are we going in two years?  Well, I'll tell you.  Why non other than one of our favorite places on earth.  

Disney World

I know, shocking surprise.  We were going to go right after Justin graduates from High School, but have decided to wait until the end of August after graduation.  Disney World has historically offered FREE dining the end of August and most of September.  So after crunching the numbers for what it would have cost us to stay at my parent's condo in orlando, the condo is free but once you factor in car rental, parking fees for the condo and all the parks, food (let's face it I'll be on vacation, am I really going to cook).  It wasn't that much more to stay on disney property during the free dining period.  I asked Justin where he wanted to stay (mind you some of those resorts are pricey!) and he chose.........

here!

This is where we stayed when we went in 2007 for Christmas.  

He wants to stay in the 50's section again.  They have the coolest pool.

If anyone is planning a Disney Vacation you should really check out the disboards.  Even if you've been to Disney World or Disneyland before, there are so many great tips on this board.  And if you're a little lot Disney crazy like I am, it's a great place to go so you don't drive your family crazy with all your disney talk!  Thankfully I have a kid that loves Disney almost as much as I do :)

I think that's about it for now.  I'm supposed to be finishing up a hat order right now.  A shop in town ordered several of my viking hats to sell at their store.  And since Viking Fest is in a couple weeks I need to get my behind in gear!

business card

It's official!  I am a small business owner. I got my business license a couple months ago, but these

came in the mail a couple weeks ago.  Makes it seem more of a reality with these little pieces of paper.  

Now when people ask me if I have a business card I can say "yes I do"!  

I now have 500 of these pretty little cards (hey it was a great deal.  250 cards for $8 and you get another 250 free and free shipping!)

I think I am going to print out stickers for the back of some of the cards with the dates I'll be at the farmers market in the hopes that maybe some people will make a return trip :)

Farmer's Market

I am so excited for the Poulsbo Farmer's Market to open!  For all of you local people the market will open April 7th, and be open each Saturday (with the exception of Viking Fest Weekend) from 9am-1pm.  My first day will be April 28th and the second day will be May 12th.  Also on May 12 KMPS will be out there, so we'll have some good music that day!

Here's some of what I've been working on lately for selling at the market

Smudge's Boo-Boo Friends (smudge is my son's bunny)

 

Infant Girl Hat

Infant Girl Hat

Baby Girl Bear Hat

Pig Tail Hat

 

Striped Baby Girl Hat

Baby boy hat

Catepillar (This is for a lady that takes pictures of babies - I will be selling the hat at the farmer's market, but not the body part)

It's been a busy week!  I also finished the first couple of Menu boards.  I'll put up some pictures as soon as I take some.  I think I need to actually pull out the "real" camera to use for pictures, the ones from the cell are a little fuzzy.

Handmade From the Heart

Those that know me know I am on Facebook a lot!  While it may look like I am constantly on there, it's really just on in the background of whatever else I'm working on (ok looking at on Pinterest).  Today I realized that facebook hasn't been giving me notifications when people look at my other pages.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that I had people "like" my page who I didn't even know!  And what's even better I had someone requesting hats.  Yes that's right HATS, as in more than one!!

I know all of you are excited to see what I've been up to with my little business.  By the way my first day at the Poulsbo Farmer's Market will be April 28th!

Here's a couple things I've been working on:

Burp Rag Babies

 

Baby Girl Beanies

Hello Kitty, Sock monkey, and Car hats (Imaging little car buttons on the road)

 

Found one of the finished Car hats

 

Viking hats

I'm also going to be making this hat.  Everyone should check out her site, she has some really cute stuff!

Hope to see you all at the Market!

Week 3 update

Made it through week three!!  So far I've lost 6 pounds and 6 inches, yea me!  Today I decided to time how fast I can walk a mile.  Started out just wanting to walk a mile then go sit in the hot tub, I wasn't feeling too motivated this morning.  But once I got started and finished my mile I wasn't ready to stop.  I know crazy huh!  So I decided to keep going and finished a second mile.  Altogether my two miles took 30 minutes and 33 seconds.  Not too shabby for walking.  Then I was going to go sit in the hot tub, but figured why stop I was on a roll.  So 10 minutes of jogging in the lazy river and 10 minutes of crunches in the lazy river (trust me it's harder than it sounds!) and then a 15 minute soak in the hot tub, no sauna for me today.  I think exercising must be addicting, I'm actually kind of sad I don't have time to go tomorrow morning.  Such a change from the old me.  Guess I just needed 36 years to grow up and realize exercising was something fun!  I think I've even convinced Justin to go with me on Saturday to walk on the track (have to get him ready for the color run too).

Love a good deal

I'm sure everyone loves a good deal, I know I do!

Here's my latest deal I've found

Joann Fabrics

Did you know you can stack coupons there???  I didn't!  You can stack the following coupons all in the same purchase as long as you have 1 item for each coupon:

Joann's internet coupon

Joann's newspaper coupon

Joann's mailer coupon

Joann's e-mail coupon

Joann's app coupon

Michael's coupon

AND on top of that.................you can put a X% off entire purchase coupon!

I think Joann's may be my new favorite store!

Happy Shopping

Leap Day = aka Justin's Birthday!

Happy Leap Day to everyone!

But more importantly

Happy 16th Birthday to my son Justin!!!

We have already had the family birthday party for him, and we will be going to Seaside at the end of March to celebrate his birthday.  He doesn't care much for the birthday party with friends so I usually take him on a long weekend trip instead.  Usually we do it the weekend around his birthday, but thought we'd push it out a month this year in the hopes of better weather and more shops being open at the ocean since it will be spring break.  We're going to do a little mini road trip as part of the vacation so stay tuned for all our fun shenanigans!

change of plans........

Everyone already knows that I like love to plan vacations.  So this may not come as a shock to some of you, but I am thinking of changing our vacation plans for next year.  *gasp* I know, putting off Disneyland once again.  While I would love to be able to go next year, I don't know if I will be able to.  I still don't have  a job yet and while I hope to have one in the next couple months, I don't know if they would be willing to give me that week off (we have to book 13 months out to get the condo).  So........we are now looking at a road trip across Washington State.  I LOVE road trips!!!!!  We would still get to go to a theme park of sorts, Silverwood.  We are probably going to stay in a combination of hotels and camping.  This will probably be the end of June 2013.

So my question is:

• What should we do on our road trip?
• Where in Washington have you been that was fun and unique?
• We love going to see oddities, like the HUGE frying pan in long beach.

30 pound challenge

I've decided to give myself a goal/challenge of loosing 30 pounds by June 23.  Why June 23?  The answer to that is simple............I'm going on vacation, why else do girls want to loose weight!  Overall goal/challenge is 60 pounds by the end of the year.

We're still in the beginning days of this challenge, but I'll let you know how I've done so far (we won't talk about the brownie I just ate though).   Sunday was two weeks since my challenge began.  As of yesterday (2 weeks 1 day) I've lost 5 pounds, 1 inch off my chest, 2 1/4 off my waist, 1 inch off my hips.

What does 5 pound of fat look like????

(this isn't me, but it does show a lovely picture of a 5 pound lump of fat)

Only 5 more of these lumps and I've met my first challenge!!


***on a side note I just learned how to move pictures and have text next to the picture, not just on top or below the picture.  Pretty cool trick!  I figured it out by accident when I was trying to center the picture.

Back to the challenge.
How are you going to loose all that weight you ask?
Why changing the way I eat silly!  I've already cut out soda (oh how I miss you Coke) and cut by salt intake in half.  I am trying to make sure I drink at least 6 12 ounce glasses of water each day and going to the Y 3 times a week.  So far I've made it two weeks and they say after three weeks of doing something it becomes a habit.......we'll see.

Oh almost forgot!  I've decided to do a 5k in May.  This one looks like so much fun!!  I actually found it on Pinterest of all places.  It's called the Color Run.  Never heard of it?  Well let me fill you in on something that looks absolutely amazing to participate in!  You have to wear a mostly white shirt to participate.  Along the route they throw different colors at you, I know sounds a little weird but stay with me here.  After each k you get a different color thrown at you  -   5k=5 colors, with me so far?  At the end of the race everyone throws up their little packet of color and you get even more colors all over you. Watch the video below and you'll see what I mean.  And best of all the entry fee goes to help a charity.  So I get to have fun and a charity gets some help.  Win win situation!

Here's that link
color run video


If you want to check out their site
the color run

If anyone would like to join in the fun, the race in Seattle will be on May 13th.  They haven't opened up registration, but I will post on here when they do and the name of our team.  I kind of like 'paint by numbers' for a team name.  What do you guys think????

let's try a new recipe!

As part of my effort to loose weight I am trying to eat healthier.  Which is so hard for me because I am a junk food junkie (probably how I got the way I am today.....).  So tonight we are having Chicken Nacho Bake.  The recipe calls for boneless skinless chicken breast, but I like thighs better so I will be using boneless skinless thighs.  We will also be having steamed asparagus with it.  Keeping my fingers crossed it comes out as good as the picture looks!

Here's the recipe if anyone else wants to try it too!  The picture is the one from the online recipe.  Sorry camera is dead so I didn't take any pictures

Ingredients

• 4 small boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 1/2 cup chunky salsa
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup crushed tortilla chips
• 1/2 cup KRAFT Tex Mex Shredded Cheese

Directions

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Place chicken on foil-covered baking sheet. Slice 3 cuts on top of each chicken breast with sharp knife.
3. Top each chicken breast evenly with salsa, sour cream and tortilla chips.
4. Bake 20 minutes. Remove from oven; sprinkle with cheese. Bake 10 minutes or until chicken is done (170 degrees F).

Footnotes

• Cooking Know How: Making cuts in the chicken helps to flatten the breast so that the topping stays on.
• Serving Suggestion: Serve with hot cooked rice and a side of corn.
  
  
  Nutritional Information

  Chicken Nacho Bake

  Servings Per Recipe: 4

  Amount Per Serving

  Calories: 231

  • Total Fat: 11g
  • Cholesterol: 83mg
  • Sodium: 367mg
  • Total Carbs: 5.3g
  •     Dietary Fiber: 0.7g
  • Protein: 27.8g

Exercise.....

Now that Chuck the kidney stone is gone (sorry Chuck, I don't miss you one little bit!) and I have the ok to do "whatever you want" from my doctor, it's time to get healthy!  Growing up I had no trouble with weight.  When I graduated from basic training at 19 I was 5'2, ok 5'1 3/4, and 101 pounds with my BDU's and combat boots on.  Then I got pregnant and gained 75 pounds!  I quickly lost a lot of that and was down to 125.  Still more than pre-baby, but I could find clothes.  Back in the mid 90's there weren't size 0 clothes, and finding a size 3 was a stretch sometimes.  Fast forward to today, and 20 pounds more than when I was pregnant (ugh!), it's time for this weight to go find a new home.

 So this week I worked out at the Y, also known as the YMCA but I'm too lazy to write that each time, 3 times.  Pretty proud of myself for actually going.  Who am I kidding, I worked out so I could go sit in the sauna and hot tub and not feel guilty about it!  But hey, I put full effort into my workout, even ran two of the laps on the track today instead of just my normal fast walk.  So far I am just using the indoor track, that's so nice to have in Washington where it rains 49 weeks of the year, and water classes.  I'm still afraid of the weight machines and I don't like the treadmill or stationary bikes because I can't help but constantly adjust the settings.  I'm like the kid you put in front of the big red button and tell them not to push it!  My goal is in 4 weeks to go ask the little trainer dudes for help and have them show me the machines, once I've mastered those it's on to the really scary free weights!  Have you seen the guys that work out in there???  Scary!  I know if I walked in there they would be like 'who does she thing she is?  she can't even lift the bar let alone any weight on it!' I'm telling you, it's a very scary place!

Goals for next week:

•  no soda.  not really supposed to drink it anyway, at least not the brown soda (per the doctor), but I have been drinking ginger ale
• try not to put any extra salt on my food.  it already has enough salt in it from cooking, I don't need to add more. but it tastes so good with it!  no no I will not add any extra salt!  
• drink more water.  I already drink several glasses, but I'm going to try to drink 1 glass before each meal in addition to the 1 I drink with the meal and the bottles I sip on during the day
• more fruits and veggies.  raise your hand if you really get all the fruit and vegetable servings that the food pyramid says you should have.........yeah me either
• less chocolate.  but it screams at me to eat it!  I swear it does.  do you hear it????
• less carbs.  like a knife to the heart.  I love my carbs!
• more fiber.  did you know fruits have fiber in them?  they do.  I can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, with eating more fruits :)  bonus!
• try to go to bed before midnight at least 5 nights next week. 

4H

4H is a BIG part of our family.  My son is more of a Bill Gates than a Peyton Manning (or whatever sports star you choose).  Since he doesn't care for sports, and he had to choose some sort of activity, we are involved in 4H.  Justin's project of choice..........Cavies (commonly known as guinea pigs).  Who knew you could take a guinea pig to fair!  You can, and we do :)

Here's Justin with his favorite guinea pig, Lily.  She is such a good pig.  She will sit on the table for fit & show and not move.  Some of the other pigs are not as well behaved, or maybe the are just social butterflies.  

For those that like specifics, Lily is an American guinea pig and her variety (ie color) is Lilac.

Justin works hard and does pretty good at our county fair.  This is from about 2 years ago.  

Going to fair is not all fun and games.  Here's Justin trying to get in a quick study session between barn cleanings, cage cleanings (he brings 5 of his guinea pigs to fair, so that's 5 cages to clean daily), herdsmanship (greeting the public and answering their questions), contests, and more contests.  The kids have fun, but at the end of the week we are all ready to go home!

Here's some of Justin's pigs waiting to be vet checked and get in their cages for a week at fair.  From left to right, starting at the top left corner we have Autumn, Huey, Isabelle, Pierre, Thing 2, Lily (the light grey one) and Violet (the little dark one).  Violet is Lily's baby, so is Huey.

Right now Justin has 10 cavies.  He can only take up to 5 to fair.  Wonder who will make the cut?????

First Big Step

I took the first big step toward selling my handmade crafts at the local Farmer's Market yesterday.  I applied for my business license!  My little side business finally has a name too, Handmade From the Heart.  Once I get my license number I can finish filling out all the paperwork or becoming a vendor at the farmer's market.  Still working on figuring out exactly what I want to sell.  As part of the application process you have to list and submit a picture of EVERYTHING you plan on selling.  If it's not on the list you can't sell it this year.  I've got a running list, with pictures, on my computer so as I remember or come across a picture of something I am going to be making I can copy and past to the list.  I've decided to only do one weekend a month at the farmer's market.  I'm afraid that if I do more than that I may not be able to keep up with demand.  I can only crochet so many hats a week before I go crazy!

I've attempted a new craft today, reusable dryer balls.  They take the place of dryer sheets.  You can add a couple drops of whatever scent of essential oil you like and then you have a environmental friendly dryer ball.  If they come out like I'm hoping they will I'll post a picture to show you.

I also need to get my big girl panties on and pull out the flannel I bought a couple weeks ago and make boo-boo bags.  I have a 50 pound bag of corn sitting in my trunk that needs to come out (yes for those that know me, I've decided to try to keep my car clean! We'll see how long that lasts).  Boo-boo bags are little bags filled with feed corn (yes the stuff for cows) and you keep them in the freezer until you need them.  Then you have a soft cold bag for your little one's boo-boo.  I'll post pictures of those too, when I finally learn how to sew.  It's pretty sad that my almost 16 year old has been able to sew for a few years and at 36 I can't even thread the sewing machine!  Maybe I can get him to make them for me..........

514

514?  No it's not just a random number.  It's the number of days until we are here

And of course we will have to ride this

A trip to the happiest place isn't complete without a ride on It's a Small World!

I think I've been driving my family nuts with talk of Disney plans.  I think unless you've been there you just don't understand it's magic.  Well, I guess that's not entirely true.  My parents have been there, they took us 6 times when we were little.  In fact I used to get excited when my grandma came down to visit because that meant a trip to see Mickey!  Of course Disneyland was much different almost 30 (good grief  I'm getting old!) years ago.  I don't know why, but Disney is like a drug to me.  

In the United States you can get a 6 day ticket to visit my friend Mickey.  **little tidbit of info for you - if you have a 6 day ticket and you want to go for 7 days, take your ticket to the ticket booth and tell them you want to add a 7th day and it will only cost you about $5 per ticket**  Back to our regularly scheduled program - so we will be getting a 6 day ticket and possibly upgrading it to 7 days.  Still trying to figure out how we are going to fit everything in.  We want to be able to do a day in Los Angeles while we are there, and Medieval Times.  

I've been researching dining options.  Here's what I have so far:

Blue Bayou (how can you resist eating in the Pirates ride??)

Carnation Cafe

Cafe Orleans

Corn Dog from the little red wagon

churro

Dole Whip

Fantasmic Dessert package

Medieval Times (I know not Disney, but still dining)

Pinks (not Disney again, but a must do)

In and out burger (I know, I know, not Disney)

Breakfast with Minnie and Friends (see here's a Disney one!)

If anyone has any suggestions on other must try places, please let me know!

If anyone else is planning a Disneyland or Disney World trip I came across the most wonderful website a few years ago.  There is a lot of information on there about Disney World, not nearly as much about Disneyland, but the people on the boards are nice for the most part and will answer just about any question you have.

Here's the place

WARNING - the site can be addicting!

Commuting

Monday I had a job interview in Bellevue, so I decided to take the ferry.  25 minutes from my house to the ferry, 35 minute ferry ride, 15 minute drive to Bellevue.  Easy peasy, right?  Yeah, not so much.  The wait for the ferry there wasn't bad because it was during the slow part of the day.  But if I was to take it to work every morning I'd probably have to take the 6:20 boat which means leaving my house by 5:10 at the latest to make sure I made it on the boat. would get off the boat about 7 and then at that time of the morning it would probably take almost 30 minutes to get to Bellevue. So almost 2 1/2 hours of travel time.  But that's just the morning.  I left Bellevue at 4:45, made it to the ferry by 5:00 (next boat was 5:30), missed that ferry because it was too full and had to wait until the 6:20 boat that night.  Got to Bainbridge Island at 7 and then home at 7:40 because of an accident blocking the road.  so another almost 3 hours! That's just crazy to me!!

SNOW!

It's a whopping 27* outside.  According to the weather forecast from Tuesday all this snow was supposed to be gone by now.  It's supposed to be raining and almost 40* right now.  Guess the weather man was wrong.....

This is the view down my driveway.  Yes, I live all the way at the end and around the corner (it's 1/3 of a mile from the main road).  In fact it's such a pain to get in and out of the end of the driveway, closest to my house, that I had to borrow my moms car to go feed my animals today.  There was no way my car was going to make it without chains.  

I love watching the snow, but mother nature seems to be confused this week.  This is not the way it's supposed to snow around here.  We don't usually get tons of snow at one time and our county just doesn't have the equipment to deal with all this snow.  What usually happens is it snows one day and the next day it warms up and rains and all the snow is gone.  We get to see the snow and enjoy it for the day and the next day get on with our lives.  Well that's not what happened this time!  The poor people in olympia (about an hour from us) have over 2 feet of snow that fell in 2 days!  They have roofs collapsing due to the weight of the snow, trees coming down, and no power!  Thankfully, knock on wood, we have power.  But it's still cold as heck.  The horses have their winter blankets on, so they're nice and warm, but still have ice hanging off the bottom of the blankets and their manes.  

Looks like the kids will be going to school a little longer in June.  My son's school has been closed for two days and it wouldn't surprise me if they were closed again tomorrow.  Thankfully I gave us a week buffer between the last day of school and our vacation to DC this summer!     

Pinterest

I don't know who thought of Pinterest.com, but they need to be shot!  I can't tell you how many hours (yes hours!) I've spent on that site the past couple of weeks.

For those that don't know what pinterest is, it's a website for all your favorite things.  People "pin" pictures, websites, etc and then you can "repin" them onto one of your boards so you have them for future reference.  For example:  I have boards with crafts, crochet items, sewing items, food (oh my gosh there are some yummy foods people post on there!), travel, and just other things in general that I like.  Once you've pinned something your friends that are on pinterest can also see the item and pin it on their own boards if they like it as well.

If you haven't checked pinterest out already you should.  However, you should proceed with caution as it is quite addicting!!

Vacation planning confession

I'm a planner.  I plan down to the smallest detail.  Now we may not, and usually don't, do everything I have on my to-do list for the vacation - but I like to know what our options are.

• I confess that I have excel spreadsheets of my vacations
• I confess that I map out the routes for our vacation (even though we've been there a dozen times)
• I confess that not only do I look up places to eat in the area, but I price out what I think we are going to eat so I know how much it may be
• I confess that I currently have 3 vacations I am planning
• I confess that I start researching airline prices 12+ months in advance
• I confess that I log onto mom and dads timeshare account to see how many points they have to see if there's enough for a vacation (it's not like they use their points anyway lol).  Why not get a room for free if you can.  And a room with a kitchen is even better!
• I confess for my Disneyland vacation in 2013 I have a huge spreadsheet with 5 tabs and I'm nowhere near done with it
• I confess that I have a trip planning binder for my bigger vacations.  And yes I use my cricut to make it!
• I confess that I plan events/places to see while on vacation for the pure purpose of taking a picture for my scrapbooking addiction!  Yes, I would be the person who goes to the tulip festival for 2 hours and comes back with 150+ pictures.  I can't help myself!

School Website

Let me ask you this, why do schools have websites if the teachers aren't going to use them???

My son's school has a very nice website, but very few teachers use it.  I find this extremely frustrating!  Why have a page for each teacher if they aren't going to use it.  My son has a 504 plan for his Asperger's that says each of his teachers are to put daily homework assignments on it.  This way I can go back and ask him did you do such and such assignment.  But only one of his teachers use it! So frustrating!

They also have links for all the clubs at the school, but do you think those are used? Nope!  It's a requirement for the students to belong to some sort of club, sport, band, or whatever, which I think is great.  But it would be nice to know when the clubs meet and what they do so the kids know if they want to join or not.

Font

Who knew a simple little word could cause so many problems!  I laugh to myself when I see couples on TV arguing over what font to use.  Is it really that big of a deal what font you choose??  I used to think it didn't really matter what you chose so long as people could read it.  Boy was I wrong!  I've just spent the better part of the last 40.....yes I said 40.....minutes deciding on font for this blog.  Still not sure if I'm completely happy with my decision.  At least it's not permanent like a tattoo :)

It's picture time!

Let's see if I've figured this out. Looks like it worked! I can post pictures :)

This is my son Justin. I don't really have any of me. That was my New Years Resolution - make sure I'm in some of the pictures!

Justin doing what he does best :) Justin wants to go to University of Washington to be a video game inventor - I don't know what the degree is called.

Introductions

My mother taught me that I should always introduce myself when I meet new people. So here's a little about me.

For those that may not already know me, my name is Nanette. Yes, as in No No Nanette. If you don't know what I'm talking about google it. I live in Washington and as the title of my blog states I'm a neurotic list maker. I make list for everything. Now I'm not just talking one list for a trip, I'm talking 15 packing list for a trip. I plan my vacations out months (ok really it's years) in advance. Some people may see this as a problem, but I don't. It's just what makes me me.

I should probably introduce the rest of the cast of characters that live with me since I'm sure they will come up in conversations. I feel a list coming on!

*Justin - my 15 year old. How to describe Justin.......Have you ever watched Big Bang Theory? My son is the teenage version of Sheldon. He walks like him, his mannerisms are just like Sheldon, he even says some of the same things Sheldon says. And no he doesn't act like him because he watched him on TV, he's been like this his entire life. He's actually quite funny to be around. He is my travel buddy.

*Calee, Mini, Garfield - the cats. Mini and Garfield are Calee's babies, well they aren't babies anymore they're 6 and Calee is 7.

*This one is a long list - Lily, Violet, Oreo's baby, Pierre, Penny, Fritter, Isabelle, Autumn, Thing 2, Experiment 858, Huey. I think that's all of them. These would be our guinea pigs (in our world they are called cavies). My son shows some of them in 4H, and some of them we show together in open class shows (think dog show, but with guinea pigs and they are judged in little coops on a long table).

*one last character - he's part of our family but lives through the woods at my parent's house - my son's rabbit, Smudge.

That seems to complete our cast. I'm sure more people will pop up along the way.

Now to figure out how to post pictures..........