The Tree House Craze

It started off as just a simple quip.  “Think daddy would build me a tree house?”  The roller coaster that one question started you would not believe. But…the stuff I have found is absolutely amazing. 

First we have the kids tree houses.  I was thinking, a square structure with a window, a door, a rope ladder, and a regular ladder.  Sounds good to me.  I would be wrong and apparently quite antiquated in my ideas of a tree house.  Take for instance:

http://www.barbarabutler.com/

Seriously?  These tree houses are better than my HOUSE!  Look at some of these:

Now this site then lead me to:

http://www.treehouses.org/design.php

And from there to here:

http://www.treehouses.com/treehouse/treesort/home.html

The best find however, and I suggest you take the time to visit them is:

http://freshome.com/2008/01/08/top-8-most-amazing-tree-houses/

These are my favorites. 

I am thinking about trading in my 3 bedroom, 2 bath, ranch for this one.  My daughter wont need a tree house of her own, she can just share mine!

Swiss Family Robinson here I come! 

ctny

Mother's Day - The Worst List!

So Mother’s Day is officially over.  With it came list after list of the WORST Mother’s Day Gifts across the nation and I got such kick out of reading them that I compiled my favorites out of all the lists and my reasons why they are definitely on the WORST gift list ever. 

10.  Mulch – Now I personally love getting mulch.  Birthdays or whenever I love mulch.  Not sure why this is on the worst list but maybe its because of the work involved with a delivery.  I guess I understand in that who wants to spend the one day of the year we are suppose to be pampered on our hands and knees spreading mulch by the truckload. 

9.   A Pet.  Nothing says, “Here, you don’t have enough to do with your time” than handing over a wiggly creature that not only needs love (the easy part) but also fed and watered and bathed and potty trained along with your children. 

8.   Fruit of the Month.  -  Now on the surface you are thinking:  Hey!  It’s free fruit and you love fruit.  Why is this a bad gift?  Because it’s a TON of fruit and not always the kind you like.  Plus it just keeps coming and coming and coming.  You are so overwhelmed in fruit that you start to hide every time you see the UPS guy.  You are tossing out rotten fruit every time you turn around.  Stop the madness!  No fruit!

7.   Bathroom Cleaning Supplies – The comments and posts from people that got toilet scrubbers was unreal.  Seriously guys?  When is this ever a good gift, let alone a Mother’s Day gift?  “Here, go clean the toilet” is what you are saying.  What is wrong with you people?

6.   Kitchen Appliances – I know, I know some people would LOVE to get a new refrigerator as a gift.  Not for Mother’s Day though if you ask me and apparently several other ladies.  We spend so much time in the kitchen as it is, do we need one more hint to get our butts in the kitchen and “Fix me something to eat” than having a new shinny fridge or stove staring us in the face, every time we walk by?  I don’t think so.  Or what about a new dish washer?  I don’t personally have a dishwasher.  I don’t get the draw of one as it is.  You have to wash off your dishes in order to have a machine wash them for you?  Why not just wash them yourself and be done?  Anyway, I digress.  Cleaning supplies in general, not a good idea as a gift to show how much you appreciate the mothers in your life.

5.   Automobile items – OF ANY TYPE.  Does this need an explanation?  Most women would say no, but I will give one anyway.  Mother’s day is about MOTHERS.  We don’t generally give a rats patoot about the rims of our cars, the shine of our hood, or the oiling and protecting of our dash.  I’m not saying we don’t pay attention when we do have to break down and clean our cars, but we don’t want mother’s day to be a lesson on the proper care of our upholstery.  Thanks.  You want to help us out?  Clean and detail the car for us!  We would love that.  LOVE it. 

4.   Tools.  – Again OF ANY TYPE.  I can swing a hammer with the best of them (I know, go figure right?) but I don’t want one as a gift.  Nor do I want a weed eater, or sander, or a chainsaw.  Mother’s day is not an excuse to hit the SEARS or the Home Depot and pick out the latest and greatest toy that you want!  EVER.

3.   Lingerie – Really?  This made the top 10 lists everywhere. All I can say is EW!  Unless you have a different relationship that I do with my mother, I am pretty sure this is the most inappropriate gift out there to buy for mothers.  For all you Dads that go out and buy gifts for moms from their children, I am pretty sure I never have and never ever will buy my mom panties.  Icky.  What is wrong with people? (I seem to be asking this question a lot lately).

2.   Self Help Book – Not sure what to say on this one except, this doesn’t really come across as saying:  “Mom I love you just the way you are…except you may want to work on __________.”  We love our moms. Yes they have issues and some are nuts as hell, but rubbing their nose in their imperfections or things you deem to be imperfections is not quite saying that.

And the #1 worst gift to give on Mother’s Day….

1.   A membership to a gym or a diet plan – Hey mom, I know you gave birth to 3 kids, and that you have done everything for us and loved us unconditionally all our lives, buuuuut, you have put on a bit of weight and MAN.  You gotta do something about it.  I mean your ass is the size of truck.  Don’t you see it back there?  I decided to take your health into hand and buy you a 6 months membership into Jenny Craig.  I expect results now.  This was not cheap.  I want you down to a size 2 by Thanksgiving or you know what your Christmas gift is going to be?

I personally had a lovely Mother’s Day.  I got a bouquet of Tulips, which are my favorite, along Starbucks Coffee.  For dinner, I didn’t have to cook, as my husband went and picked up KFC.  I spent the day with my girls and my husband and all in all it was a nice day.  What more can you ask for really? 

How was your weekend everyone?  Can you top any of the worst on my list? 

ctny

A Monday in the Life of Me.

A Day in the Life of Me – Courtney Rene

I am a writer.  You already knew that right?  Well I am also a wife, and mother, and employee, and daughter, and sister, and aunt, and, and, and…..  One of the big questions I get asked (all the time) is when do you write?  How do you find the time?  On any given day, that answer changes. 

Today, right now, this is how I find the time.  It’s Monday, so that means I am up at the butt crack of dawn to make sure that my oldest daughter makes it out the door to school on time, which is a still dark 6:45 a.m.  I drag my bleary eyed myself, with my still warm afghan to the couch, where I promptly flop down and pretend to watch the news, actually I am dozing.  I never once said I was a morning person.  Ever.  I hear my daughter making all sorts of noise so I continually peel open my eyes to check the clock.  At 7:00 I get up and say, “You leaving?”  The snarled reply I usually get is “I’m working on it.”  By 7:05, I am pacing around her door, being spritz’d with gallons of PINK perfume and Suave hairspray until the girl is finally ready at 7:10 (usually).  She grabs her bag, flies by me with a quick, “Bye!  Love Ya!  I’ll text you when I get there.” Then she is out the door and I think, “One down….”

My husband heads out usually right after and the house is quiet…for a moment.  At this point I hop in the shower, with my cell phone on the counter as I wait to hear the ‘ding ding ding’ of a text saying my daughter made it safe to school.  Having a new teen driver is harder than I thought it would be.  After I am dressed, hair still wrapped in a towel, I go and tickle my little one out of her own warm cushy bed.  I haul her to my room, where she quickly snuggled down into my bed and turns on the tv.  I grab her clothes and toss them on her head.  I head out of the room to the kitchen usually yelling, “Get dressed while I make you something to eat!”  The bad mommy that I am, this will consist of toast with any number of toppings, bagels, English muffins, yogurt, cereal, quick muffins, instant oatmeal, or a pop-tart.  Rare occasions you get an egg or pancakes, or French toast, or waffles.  Usually, though, nope. 

While the breakfast is “cooking” I put away the clean dishes, do a quick re-pickup, and counter wipe and run downstairs to toss a load of laundry in the wash.  While Seren is eating, I do my hair, then her hair, which is 3 feet long…maybe more at this point.  Tv is off, beds are made, dogs are fed, lunches are packed, and we are finally out the door.

Seren is dropped off at school, I then head to work.  I will not drone on about how hard my work is.  It’s work, it’s not suppose to be fun.  I check email all day….I do.  I need to stop doing that, but it’s a habit.  Then I get an hour for lunch.  I use this hour for research and administrative stuff, which surprisingly there is a TON of admin crap when you are a writer.  Who knew?  Some days I will hit the library.  There are 3 that are right by my office.  Or I just hit google.  After that I will do my emailing, blogging, updating, whatever I can squeeze in, in an hours worth of time all while oinking down my lunch.  Then, I get back to work. 

After work, it’s pick-up the little one from after-school care, run home, make dinner, eat dinner, clean up dinner, do Seren’s hair again, up in a firm bun this time, and it’s off to dance class where I have another whole hour of quiet time.  Yup, you guessed it.  Writing time…..

After dance, it’s home again, bath time, laundry time, house pick-up time, and then bed time for one child, and then an hour later, its bed time for the other.  It’s 10:00….do you know where your children are?  I do, both of mine are finally in bed and quiet.  I open up my laptop; sit down in my office (Oh all right!  My dining room table), plug in my ipod, and I am zoned for as long as I can keep my eyes open, writing, and creating. 

Some days this is for a short half an hour.  Sometimes it’s till after midnight.  That….right there is how I “find” the time.  It’s all I can do.  I won’t give up my time with the girls or my husband and I can’t give up my paying job (I so wish!), but writing is important to me so I take time, make time, from myself.  Yes, I don’t get as much sleep some days as I would like, but it’s worth it to me.  I am a writer.  It’s what I do.

(Sorry everyone, my photos would not post from this computer, so I will try to post from my laptop once I get home tonight).

ctny