sorry to leave you guys hanging for so long. i'm posting real quick from my parents' house while the girls are in the bathtub-
first week back at work
girls back at school
work laptop not working- waiting on repair
very little time to fit everything in but tomorrow afternoon hopefully a real post!

xok8

we just got back and i am fried dude.
well it's embarrassing to tell ya what baseball team we saw last night- they're so bad right now. ok, we were here.
we had a good time anyway. i will post more tomorrow w pictures and man wait til you see the screaming middle-aged mullet guy who was in front of us- i snapped his pic w my cell so you can check him out!

afterwards we went here and here. both were fun. more fun than the game!

oh yeah and scott had set the dvr to record the pregame show and the game, so we waited outside the park where they always film live outside before the game and walked around casually behind the chick who was talking w/ the mic and all.

then tonight we got home and watched ourselves looking like idiots! it was awesome.

i will try to video the tv tomorrow and show you guys.

xok8

ps haloscan comments are malfunctioning off and on lately. if you click the time below you can make a blogger or an anonymous comment

um, can you believe people actually used to wash their clothes on these? my mom remembers my grandmom using this when she was a kid. dude, we have it so easy. you should go hug your washing machine.

you can tell how much it was used from the center- it's all shiny and new looking from the constant scrubbing. don't you love the brand- 'sunnyland?' like you're supposed to be all bright and cheery and happy while you're toiling away and sweating. but i guess makers of laundry related products use the same psychology on us modern folks right?

cheer
bounce
snuggle

and no AC back then either.

which reminds me, isn't it like totally gross to think back to the days when there was no deodorant, no toothpaste, stuff like that? yucko to the max especially in the summer!



ps haloscan comments are malfunctioning off and on lately. if you click the time below you can make a blogger or an anonymous comment

...from thurs. am til fri nite. to make up for my absence, i will post random thoughts that pop up in my head from now til i leave so you will have enough to read. feel welcome to make a remark transmitting whatever random thought you, in turn, have in response to the concept at hand.

also don't forget to if you haven't yet checked out the new stuff i added to the contest. it is only in hindsight that i can see how addicted i was to scrapbooking. or more like just acquiring the stuff. i only ever completed 1.5 scrapbooks.

i am still finding little scrapbook doodads tucked away here and there. so don't worry, i am already planning the next contest so if you don't win this one you can enter again! dude, i so wish i hadn't sold this for like super cheap at a yard sale bc someone gave it to me in like new condition and wow! what a prize that would have been.


ok bye.

i like this meme.

1) Go to Google. 2) Click on Google images. 3) Type in your name and search. 4) Re post (w/ a link) the picture of the oddest, craziest, strangest, coolest, oldest, etc. person that shares your name. Post multiples if you find a few you like. 5) Pass it on to at least 5 other people.



ps haloscan comments are malfunctioning off and on lately. if you click the time below you can make a blogger or an anonymous comment

i am missing my kids like crrrrrrrazy. now that the house is almost done i keep thinking about them and wondering what they're doing. but not like they're worried about me. they are having so much fun they can barely take a second out of their precious schedule to talk.

sue sent me this pic on my cell of them at a puppet show tonite.



i think they're bumrushing the dog puppet. this looks like a ghetto puppet show or something though. where are all the other puppets? good thing it was free. but you know, it's all the same to kids. i'm sure they had a blast. *sniff*

in cleaning i have come across random occurrences of these wooden word dice from some old game. i didn't want to chunk em out, then i remembered i had a bunch of little magnets from an old project and believe or not i knew exactly where they were!

i glued them on the dice randomly and added them to the confusion on my fridge door. how excited i was to find i could form a sentence- actually a question- with them!



of course, i know 'but' is different from 'butt', yet i snickered in my typical juvenile fashion.





ps haloscan comments are malfunctioning off and on lately. if you click the time below you can make a blogger or an anonymous comment

okay let's all listen to one of my favorite songs together.

click the link below, then click the third song down. think wistful end-of-summer thoughts.

then get up and dance to the second one. chair dancing is acceptable. when someone in your house walks by and asks you what the heck you're doing, tell them you are just doing what you were told to do.

okay that's all.

click here now. aren't i bossy?

i didn't run fast enough and i got tagged by laura. i have to show you my tattoos and tell you the stories behind them.

this is the best pic i can get of the first tattoo i got bc it's on my lower back and i'm home alone. it's blurry, but it wouldn't look any better if it was focussed.


re: the location- i got this tattoo before the term 'tramp stamp' came into use, i promise. the story is, both me and my sister who is 4 years younger always wanted a tattoo, but she made me wait til she was 18 so we could go together.

i made her go first so i could measure the pain on her face to see if i wanted to chicken out or not. my best friend at the time was with us too. she got a fairy sitting on a mushroom. my sister got a chinese dragon on her groingroin.

it's a celtic cross bc i wanted a cross and my grandmother's family is from scotland hence the celtic thing. it was supposed to look more like this. the lesson to be learned here kids is, don't get a tattoo from a guy who learned the craft in prison, even if he's working in a tattoo parlor and he's 'legal' now.

i have considered having it covered with a bigger better cross. maybe.

the second one is larger and is on the front of my right thigh.


it says 'hope' in spanish and i got it after my granddad died. the sun doesn't have any meaning i just thought it was cool looking. i still like it though.

i still want one more big tattoo on the middle of my back between my shoulder blades but i probably never will be able to afford it, at least not anytime soon. maybe when all my kids are grown i will limp into the tattoo parlor on my cane and get it.



okay now who can i tag? i'm not sure who reads this blog that might have a tattoo?
christi???
if you have a tattoo and you're reading this i tag ya. i would love to see whatcha got!

well, the cleanout carnival is rocking here in monkeyville kids. today i tackled the garage and part of the laundry room and i will continue to press on after dinner. this was my grandparents' house and i had to move in here really fast- bc i had to get out of my old house but it's a long story- before alot of cabinets and drawers were cleaned out.

my grandmother kept everything bc she grew up really poor during the depression. to give you an idea of the type of situations i am dealing with, let me show you the drawer in the laundry room where my grandmom who never threw anything away put all the home improvement nailscrewmetalpartstapethingies.

please keep in mind this is just the surface of the drawer; the drawer is about 4-5 inches deep. there are layers and layers.

click to enlarge then click 'all sizes' and view it large! to get the full effect. if there is something in the drawer you need or could really use, maybe i can help you. ok just kidding.



the good thing about it is if i need something that falls into this category of doodad, all i have to do is go to the drawer. i have to dig around a long time and sometimes accidentally poke myself with something sharp. but i usually always find it.

your living room could look like this.


click to biggify.
right now i am procrastinatingtaking a break from finishing the first room of my multi-step 'residential enema' plan for this week.

HOW THE HECK DID I ACCUMULATE ALL THIS STUFF? good googly moogly batman. the scariest part is that this is mainly just the stuff i had jammed under a table in my dining room hidden by a long tablecloth. i thought that i would be throwing away/ yardsaling more but i guess i will have to do a second elimination round after everything is emptied out. i'm not even done yet. i'm still going through the amazing amount of crud-ola i have jammed into this sideboard since i moved in here.





the only question is, where will i put everything i have taken out i want to save that can't fit back in the sideboard? i think i will have to leave it out til i finish cleaning the laundry room and then i will maybe, hopefully, have some storage space in there.

see, don't you feel much better about the state of your house now?

um, did you know i'm having a contest? i am meeting some cool new people bc of it too. these are exciting times we are living in!

that's right, even if this is the first time ever you have read my blog, you can enter the contest! everybody loves scrapbooking!

scrapbooking breaks down racial, religious, and cultural walls. anyone can do it and love it. now that i think about it, scrapbooking could be the secret to world peace.

hate it you say? well i bet somebody you know loves it and what a christmas present this would be for that same person!

click the link above to enter, k?

this is gonna be my disclosure notice. i'm posting it so i can link it on my sidebar for future reference.

i am not rich so i blog for bucks sometimes. it's not like, a big secret or anything. in fact, i try to make it as easy as possible to distinguish paid posts by publishing them in blue text and non-paid ones in purple.

i don't do any paid posts about things that go against my personal beliefs, and i always review the site as thoroughly as possible before i decide to take advantage of any offer.

i don't feel guilty about any of this bc i give 10% of what i make as a tithe and i'm going to buy christmas presents with the rest.

please keep arms and legs inside the ride at all times and enjoy your day here at monkeyworld.

like me, for example.

a long long time ago the girls' godparents (bob and sue) asked if the monkeys could go with them on vacation this year. a week away? sure! i said without hesitation.

i was even okay last week.

but now they're leaving for a whole week? no monkey-ness for 7 days?
none of this?



or this?




i can feel the panic rising people. how will i survive this long without hearing "MOMMY!!!!" screamed every 30 seconds or more? (i am getting a dollar for every time they say that word, right?)

well, next thursday morning scott and i are leaving travkins with my mom and his mom and we're travelling about 3.5 hours from monkeyville to see a major league baseball game and coming back friday afternoon.

until then, i am planning to occupy myself by going through every room in my house and getting rid of JUNK and CRUD. we're having a townwide yardsale sept 8th and i'm gonna pack up all unnecessary and unused items to get ready. maybe you are a super organized person but i am not and my house is filled with stacks and piles, some of which haven't seen the light of day in many many moons. i am looking forward to what i call a residential enema-( sorry if that imagery grosses you out, but you get the picture.)

i would take some before pictures but then you would see how messy i am and you would feel like you were getting cooties just by reading this blog and you'd never come back again.

since the girls leave at 6am tomorrow i cancelled their speech therapy appointment this afternoon and got a babysitter so we can go to the beach.

what would you do if you had no kids for a week*? or is the concept too foreign to even grasp?

*i say no kids but of course i will still have travis but he's so good he will be happy to sit in his bouncy seat and watch me.
_______________________________________________
hey have you heard about the scrapbooking contest i'm having? you can win a ton of supplies...just click the link up there!

i tell ya it's a crazy world our kids live in. when i started teaching back in '94, i was in a high school in a semi-urban area and you heard very little about kids using drugs. i mean, i'm sure they were there to some extent, but just not super- prevalent.

i had a break of over 7 years before i started back teaching again, and this time it's in a couple of middle schools in a rural area. believe it or not, i hear more about kids and drugs here and now than i ever did back then.

i will not go into the painful details bc i know some family members read this blog, but a few years ago a very closely related relative of mine passed away due to the long term effects of drug and alcohol abuse.

he was in his 30's and he had a 1 month old son.

from what i see as a teacher, the best way to keep your kids off drugs is to know where they are, who they are with, and what they are doing 24/7. sure it may bug the heck out of em but oh well. many parents are not realistic about what their kids may or may not do when they are subject to peer pressure.

i remember my first year teaching, a girl was showing off in front of the class and called me a b*tch. we had phones in our rooms we could use to call outside the school, so i made her stay after class and called her mom at work as soon as the other students left. when i told her mom what happened, her mom told me "i don't believe you. my daughter would never use that word."

um, it was in front of the whole class. can you say denial?

my point is, we need resources as parents and educators to be able to direct people for help. hopefully you will never ever need this link for a rehab facility for anyone you know who has addiction, but it also has alot of other great info you can use to educate yourself.

i normally don't click on youtube videos when i'm browsing but i have seen this before and every time i die laughing. take a minute and listen to this!

i was checking out a site today that i have bookmarked bc it has alot of relevance for me, and maybe you too, if you have kids or grandkids. teaching kids about money and all the stuff that goes with it is a major task and this blog has tons of informative resources. though the monkeys are still young it doesn't hurt to start thinking about a plan for allowances, smart saving, etc. go have a look!

today's project was a no-brainer- keeps em busy and comes out cute, but all you have to do is print it out and give them scissors and gluesticks. we glued ours on recycled cardboard from an old gift box. click on the pix above to print in real size.

i was thinking that there are alot of things you could do with this craft. it would a cute quick craft for a b-day party- if the kids are too young, just precut the pieces. this would also be a good sunday school craft too- you could use it with Psalm 38- 'taste and see that the Lord is good.'







in unrelated news, travis is excited that the redskins won their first preseason game.


"go skins!"

scott and i have been talking forever about organizing our garage. it is supposed to be a 2 car garage but it's so jam packed full of junk there's no way you could get even one car in there. i was drooling over the garage organization products on this website.

i've never seen anything like this overhead storage thing before but i can imagine one in my garage. it would be awesome to have to lift stuff out of the way w/out killing my back!

while i was browsing the website, scott saw this and thought i was looking at it for him. bwah ha ha!! i will have to bookmark this site for holiday gift ideas.

sponsored by payperpost.

a super quick monday morning hello to ya...




poor travi-travkins had his 2 months physical on friday. he had three shots and one has given him a big ole sore bright red knot on his fat thigh. the day of the shots he was fussy but he's ok since.

guess how much he weighs now...15 pounds 6 ounces!! good googly moogly! he's in the 97% exactly for height weight and head circumference. in case you don't know they give your kid a score on a scale of 100 for his length and weight based on averages for his age.

scott's aunt is keeping travis on mondays when i go back to work and she wants him today even though i'm still off- i am so blessed to have so many peeps fighting over who's gonna keep the chubchub.

ok now i must treadmill it bc i'm on a mission to get this big fat gut off of me- i'm on a super low carb diet- more on that later.

have a thuper duper day guys. i think we might do a craft project. how bout you?

xok8


hey don't forget about the scrapbook contest- have you entered?

(if you know the line of the song that comes before that one, and when you read it, in your head, you can picture yourself dancin' like a fool to it, you're ok in my book.)

no seriously, for whatever wacked out reason, deep thoughts with jack handey popped in to my head today. weren't those the good ole snl days? the happy pleasant flower field and self-affirmation new age music playing? and the deep voice saying so seriously...

"We like to praise birds for flying. But how much of it is actually flying, and how much of it is just sort of coasting from the previous flap?"

and how about

"When I found the skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police. But then I got curious about it. I picked it up, and started wondering who this person was, and why he had deer horns."

or

"We tend to scoff at the beliefs of the ancients, but we can't scoff at them personally, to their faces, and this is what annoys me."

and let's not forget my brother's favorite one-

"If you ever fall off the Sears Tower, just go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy, and people will try to catch you, because hey, free dummy."

it's summertime. let's get crazy people.


*skip to end of post to see new items added to the prize.*

would you like to win ALL THESE FAB PRIZES??????

do you love scrapbooking? does your wife love scrapbooking? does your husband love scrapbooking? how's about your sister or your mom or your other personality? well, blogging buddy, this is the contest for you!

a long time ago (actually a few years) when i was single and had more money than sense, i got completely obsessed with scrapbooking. in the course of my obsession i amassed a massive quantity of scrapbook supplies. tubs and tubs of storage containers full. i mean, i had to have everything i saw. it was sick, very sick.

now that i'm giving my house a residential enema, i need to start getting rid of alot of this stuff that i will probably never use. i thought about selling it on ebay, but then i had this idea! it would be so much lovelier to send it out into the blogosphere.

here's what you will get if you win:
this is a box of assorted 12x12 scrapbook paper- and boy is it chock full of wonderful patterns- something for everybody! all brands and colors- not the cheap stuff either!

(no my kids are not wild feral children- this is what they look like when they just got up and their mom shoves a box of stuff in their laps and says hold it and smile pretty)

how many pieces of paper? alot.



i tried to count but my kids kept interrupting so let's just say over 120 pieces. a huge stack. i took out a bunch of sheets to show ya- these are not all you get- just a fair representation of the variety. there's lots of neutrally stuff, but also tons of colorful designs.



you will also get these:
if you're into scrapbooking you may have seen them before:


they're called alphadotz and hugs- nice little words that go in the metal frames and attach to your page here's a closeup:



here's a scrapbook page someone made using the round ones.

but wait...THERE'S MORE!!!!
lastly you will get a bunch of stickers and other embellishments- most are 3d- all new.



all you have to do to enter this unbelievably awesome contest is either put the monkey graphic you see above as a post by itself or at the end of a post. (the code to copy and paste is in the pink box down there) and say something like- i have a blogfriend named k8 and she's having a big ole scrapbook contest- have you ever seen her blog? it's cool check it out and you can enter too.

or anything like that.

each time you post it on your blog counts as an entry. if you want to put it at the end of every post, (probably not but if you do) each time is an entry.

if you put it in your sidebar in a visible location (near the top) and mention it in a post, that's good for a whopping 10 entries! and you can take it off when the contest is over.

okay now here's the code. (just click once inside the box, then press control-a to highlight all of it, and right click to copy it. then right click and paste it where you're putting it.)

<a href="http://2wildmonkeys.blogspot.com"> <img border="0" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v677/doubletroublemommy/scrapmonkeys.jpg" /></a>

pretty please leave a comment on this post so i will know you like me you're in the running. at the end of the contest i will check and see how many entries you have. the contest will run for 3 weeks from today- that's Sept 1st!

no blog? :(
email me and you will be entered. or do a myspace blog and let me know what the link is!

if you win i will ship you all this lovely stuff. (the cheapest way possible of course.) how exciting it will be to receive this in the mail dontcha think?

any questions leave em here or email me! good luck!

xok8

MORE STUFF ADDED TO MEGA- PRIZE PACKAGE!!!!

click to enlarge



yeah, i'm just a little bit crazy. i've been cleaning out every nook and cranny in my house and i keep finding more scrapbook stuff everywhere. i may have to have another contest after this one even. i 'm adding the following items sent by my sister who i tried to hypnotize into loving scrapbooking but it didn't take. click through to the set on flickr for close-ups.

no jellyfish today.

the windnoise on the mic is really bad- you couldn't hear the wind at all in real life- only the water. at the very end when i point the camera down and the wind is blocked, you can hear what it really sounded like.

it was hot as b-b-b-b-blue blazes out there today people- 100 degrees or more.

we are really blessed to live in the beautiful coastal area of monkeyville, usa.

i had to break down and get a new digital camera even though i can't really afford it. i've been using my mom's almost new one and i've been scared to death that i will forget and leave it in monkey reach and one of them will seek and destroy.

i got the fuji finepix A800 bc i love me some fuji finepix cameras. some people hate them but it's the only kind i've ever had so i just upgrade to the new model when the old one dies. this one has alot of cool new features and is super easy to use. also it's about 2/3 the size of my old one and alot thinner and lighter so i was pleasantly surprised with that.

you know when you get a new camera you want to take pictures? the monkeys were spending the night at bob and sue's last night so i went around my house and took some random pictures of stuff. have a look.

here's what i bought at walmart yesterday. it was the first time i had been back since the incident. no one threw me up against the wall and frisked me, darnitall.



here's my willow tree people on my living room mantel.



this is a purple butterfly bag my mommy bought me to carry my work laptop bc the case they give you is like, so unfashionable. no really, it's heavy and it hurts my back. (i'm a travelling salesman teacher.)
the thing it's hanging on is supposed to be a wine rack but i got it on clearance (preassembled- thank goodness bc i'm assembly disabled) and it's now a shoe cubby.




some kid was laying on my living room floor so i took his picture too.



and lastly here's a shelf in my fridge door. i would show you the whole inside of my fridge but i don't want to scare you. no seriously. note the big unidentified blob at bottom left.



today is big people happy day. scott and i are going to the beach ALONE.

niiiiiiiiice.

the end.

thought you might like to see travis's birth announcements. they're 5x7 and they open like a greeting card. i made them through sh*tterfly and when i got them the cardstock was awesome- really heavy. and they have a matte finish. only, after i got em i realized i didn't capitalize Him in the second line of the bible verse. hopefully no one will notice.

please scroll down and read my post titled "have you read this one yet?"

gracias
k8

...without saying anything! i was checking out the Holmes Stamp website- they have alot of useful stuff for businesses- quite a few of which i would have loved to have known about when i was in the semi- corporate business world doing marketing and office stuff for a doctor.

check out their election stamps. although i don't like the disses to my republican peeps, i can see the humor,and it's a free country; everybody is entitled to their opinion. i know quite a few vocal supporters of both parties who would love to irritate their opponents by stamping their mail and whatever else with one of these!

they also have alot of personalized gifts i noticed- perfect for bosses day, secretaries day, for pastor appreciation, etc. and they have free shipping if you order over 75 bucks- you can't beat that!


sponsored by payperpost.

that blogging on the weekend in the summer is just like talking to yourself?

i'm a spanish teacher; my husband is a butcher. we ain't rolling in the dough. we are not rich by any stretch of the imagination. believe me, i know that we are waaaaay better off financially than the majority of the world's population. one thing i am especially thankful for these hot hot days is the fact that we have central AC.

however, like most middle class americanos, times get tight. the girls are both going to all day preschool this year. health insurance is going up for us. i don't even have to go there on gas and grocery prices, do i?

i started this blog in january 2005 as a whim- something to keep far away friends and family appraised of current monkey situations and cuteness levels (always sky high of course.) in the process i have made soooooo many friends and "met" tons of different people. who knew there were so many other humans as cool as me or dare i say it- even cooler??

although we have never met face to face, christi is my homegirl. b4 we got all knocked up and had a million chull-dren running around we used to im each other- now we email, call, comment each other, etc. i know that eventually we will meet in person and the universe will align.

um, where was i going with this? oh yeah. the blog. i started noticing g**gle ads on folks' sites, but i investigated and found out that unless you have a site with like a billion hits a day you don't really make that much off of em. then i saw that a few blogs i read were writing reviews about websites and products as actual posts on their blogs, in between their other posts. when i investigated, i found payperpost.

the way it works is you register and submit your blog, then if you are approved, you log on and check out the different opportunities available. what this means is you can see what the advertiser wants you to review or talk about; you can go to their website and investigate and see if you think you could fulfill their requirements. they give you a minimum word count and details on what they want you to link to in your post.

i like this system bc i can accept or reject any of the post opportunities. i will never blog about anything i don't agree with, or about a website i think is shady. i can always give my true opinion.

after you write your post and submit it and it gets approved, you wait 30 days. then they check back to make sure the post is still there and if it is, you get the moolah deposited in ye olde paypal account.

a complicated process- no! super easy. and i've decided to try it as a way to buy christmas presents this year bc believe me folks, santa's budget is tighter than his belt after 10 plates of cookies.

i mentioned this to my sister and she said "you will lose your regular readers. nobody wants to read that crap. they want personal stuff."

BUUUUUUUUUTTTTTT...one of the requirements of payperpost is that you have to have a minimum number of non paid posts along with the paid ones on your blog. so in all actuality i will be doing more personal posting too.

and if you're an old friend here (or a new friend here), i'm sure you can just overlook the paid posts in between and keep on loving me, can't ya, knowing that it's for the monkeys' christmas????? who knows- if you read one now and then you might actually find out about a product you didn't know about, or a website you actually like.

and you will always, i repeat, always, get your minimum required dosage of monkeycute.





couldn't you just squeeze the heck out of these fat cheeks??



if you are interested in signing up too or just want more info, click this link:

ps i have decided to color code my posts- blue writing means a paid post, purple means a regular post. except my little movies like the one below bc i cant control the text color when i post it from the video website.


ok, that's all.

sorry this is so dark but you can still see the irresistible smile and hear the sweet little baby noises!

okay so i'm not ashamed (well, maybe just a little) to admit that yes, i read those trashy celebrity rags at the checkout. i also have more than a small weakness for celebrity gossip websites. i love the style column in people magazine and i dig those sections in magazines and on websites where they show the best and worst dressed celebs!

if you're a celeb style junky too, one brand you will constantly see mentioned on the best dressed list is true religion jeans. i've seen everybody from jessica simpson to alyssa milano to madonna with these jeans on. (well not personally of course! :))

if you're like me and you live in an area where celeb styles aren't available in local stores, or if you want an awesome selection to choose from ... check out this site- www.kultic.com.

True Religion Jeans

ps guys- they make men's jeans too!

THIS IS A PAID REVIEW THRU PAYPERPOST.

click to biggify.

crazy flower clown people created by wildmonkeys