New clothes for baby

In honor of this afternoon's Bears/Packers game...

NOOOO! I can't believe you would do this to me!

Now, I feel much, much better.

Thanks to the J family for sending along the Packers outfit to add to our cloth diaper stash. :)

Photo Friday: Big Sur, Giant Tree

This is my first foray into the Delicious Baby Photo Friday. Here goes...

This picture was taken this past March in Big Sur, California. Our stop here was part of our family trip down the Pacific Coast Highway. B & E were really excited to actually be able to go inside a tree! To me, this picture really represents one part of the wide spectrum of environments we saw in California, which was everything from the hills and cable cars of San Francisco to the heat and desert atmosphere of Desert Springs.

Wordless Wednesday - Celebrating Fall

Find more Wordless Wednesday posts at http://5minutesformom.com

Free photo book

Just saw on Twitter that Snapfish is offering a free 8x11" photo book as a deal stemming from an Oprah show on organization. The book is normally $29.95, so this is quite a deal in spite of the fact that you have to pay postage ($6.99).

The catch is that you have to follow the link to request the credit to your new or existing Snapfish account by Friday, November 14th, and place the order by 11:59pm PT on Sunday, November 16th. You can find the deal at http://www2.snapfish.com/info18.

Enjoy!

Conflicted

I have been feeling pretty conflicted lately, out of my groove... aimless.

I have so many thoughts swirling in my head questioning what I really want to do with my time and my life. Where do I want to head? What is the plan supposed to be?

I hate being aimless.

Anyone that knows me will tell you that I am a planner. My friends make fun of me for keeping track of the calendar in my head. I have this crazy need to know what direction I am headed. A lot of that was broken when I had twins and then seven months later moved to a new state so my husband could go to business school full time. We didn't know until January what school he would be at in August, then we didn't know until the next February where we would be for his summer internship in June. Luckily, he got a full time job offer from that internship, so we knew where we would be moving this past April six months early.

Anyway, I digress...

Right now I feel like I don't know what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I am a teacher by training, with a bachelor degree in elementary education and a masters in administration and supervision. Right now, my plan is definitely to go back to teaching, but not for another five years or so, when my baby is in kindergarten.

So what do I do until then?

I hope no one takes this the wrong way when I say that I am not good at being a stay-at-home mom. Cooking, cleaning... none of it gives me any kind of feeling of pride or accomplishment. I know that I need to find something to do that is just for me. When the opportunity to blog at Polliwogged arrived, I jumped at it, and I have definitely been enjoying it. I am slowly but surely learning about the social media world and the circles of mom bloggers - it is way bigger than I ever anticipated. But is this what I want to do?

I have so many ideas in my head about things I could do. I could concentrate on blogging and writing. But what should the aim of my blog be? I am fairly clueless right now, although I have tons of ideas. I also have thought of starting my own business, but that seems so overwhelming right now. I love being able to be at home with my kids, so something I could do from home would be nice, but where do I begin?

Sorry for rambling, but I just have all of these scattered thoughts in my head and I really don't know where to turn with them. I am all discombobulated, distracted from my life.

I am conflicted.

Congratulations to the United States of America

I know this has been written about a million times this week, but my uncle wrote some sentiments after the election that I thought were spot-on. I am posting them here.

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I am proud to be an American today. I am proud that this nation could rise above its past and elect a person of color to the presidency of the United States; I am proud this nation has soundly rejected the mean-spiritness of the last eight years; I am proud that my countrymen still believe in the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln's second inaugural address, and Martin Luther King, Jr's 'I have a dream' speech. I am proud we have rejected the fortress mentality and brutalism of the out-going Administration. I am proud we will inaugurate on January 20th of the coming year a man who, like John Kennedy, calls us to stretch ourselves, calls us to believe that 'yes, we can.' Yes, we can embrace all our citizens and give them health care protection; yes,we can find ways to address the increase in poverty of the last eight years; yes, we are ready to face the grave crisis of our environment and difficult changes in our way of life we must make in order to guarantee life for future generations. Yes, we can find a way out of the quagmire of Iraq; yes, we can respect the lives of innocent people in other countries in the pursuit of those who would harm us; yes, we can reject the immoral justifications of torture and other indignities.

President-elect Obama faces a formidable task. Let us pray he will speak truth to the American people as promised in Grant Park. Let him have the courage to speak the truth, no matter how challenging the message may be. Let us have the strength and courage to engage with him in the great and exciting dialog we are entering upon. And Lord, please protect our soon-to-be president, his family, and all those around him.

SitterCity Giveaway on "Just a Mom's Take On Things"

Deb over at "Just a Mom's Take On Things" has a great giveaway going on right now - a membership to Sittercity for full year! You can check it out at http://tinyurl.com/6ggvbj.

For those of you who don't know about Sittercity, it is an online resource of childcare providers in your area (babysitters, au pairs, nannies, etc.) Each sitter has to be 17 or older and they are given background checks. The number of care providers in my area is astounding; there are 506 non-smoking babysitters with their own transportation within 5 miles of my zip code!

With a site like Sittercity, my husband and I might actually get out of the house. I am keeping my fingers crossed for this giveaway!