Katie had a late start today. Once or twice a month school doesn’t start until after 9am. On those days the girls and I run through Starbucks on the way to drop Katie off at school. The girls and I have the Starbucks routine down to a science. We actually have 2 sets of orders, the order I am capable of reciting at the drive-thru speaker and the order Mike is capable of reading off a list at the drive-thru speaker.

We always manage to maintain a conversation through the drive-thru and in between the drive-up window opening and closing. This morning Katie was discussing the music playing on the radio and I assured her it wasn’t nearly as bad as waking up to “The Bob and Tom Show” with the song “It’s A Great Day…” (see below)

Funny song, but at 6:30am it made me want to beat Mike to death with the television remote. As I explained it to Katie, I prefer to wake up to the Today Show. The tv is set to switch on 2 minutes before the Today Show starts because the initial tones they play as the start to the show wakes me up, then I can ease into my morning. There is just something soothing about Ann Curry and Matt Lauer telling you about all the awful things that happened while you were sleeping.

If you wake up to “The Bob and Tom Show” the rest of the day, whether you like it or not (not, in my book) is just a giant fart joke.

I love this idea. A wine cork board, the possibilities are really almost endless in the design or pattern you could use to create this. Combine it with some super cute pins from Etsy and you’d be good to go.

I have a large cork board in the upstairs hall for the kids and each kid has their own dry erase board as well. Downstairs I have a dry erase calendar with a cork board on the bottom and it sits just above my mail organizer. Everyone is constantly using all of these boards whether it’s to leave funny notes, birthday wishes, countdowns to important dates (like my Blake Shelton countdown up there? Kate was stoked, she’ll probably put one up on her site!) or general reminders.

I’ve also discovered (not sure what took me so long) that dry erase markers work great on mirrors! One night before Christmas while the kids were asleep I decorated the big mirror in their bathroom with a funny Christmas mural and lyrics from Christmas songs.

It saves on post-it notes and it’s easy to write a quick reminder too. “Don’t forget this…” “Wipe down the counter!” Throw in a funny face and most of the time the kids don’t even mind being reminded to do stuff they don’t like doing anyway.

My kids have grown up around a wide variety of music. Everything from old standards to jazz and big band to rockabilly, country and Bob Marley. I’m a die-hard Harry Connick Jr. fan and I love Frank Sinatra. My husband is an old school metal head and it’s no secret that the whole family loves Queen and Zeppelin. But, I was born and raised in Bako and my grandparents listened to Willie Nelson, my grandpa was a big Vince Gill fan so I have an affinity for country music. I think unless you are hell-bent on resisting it, that country kind of gets into your blood around here, just a bit.

Over the last year my Kate has gotten into country music and not only is she diggin’ current cutie pies like Blake Shelton (especially Blake, she’s been on a die-hard crusade to get Blake’s attention on Twitter for months), Keith Urban, Billy Currington and Brad Paisley, but she’s even pulled out a few of her mama’s favorites too. Nothing cooler than seeing your daughter singing along to Lorrie Morgan or kicking back listening to David Lee Murphy. Even better is to find out that songs she loves by current performers were written by guys I loved back then. And, she loves George Strait… the really old stuff. She’s also a big fan of Willie Nelson and I think her great grandpa would be pretty proud of that.

We spent most of the summer with the stereo blaring over our home made Bocce Ball court the playlist hopping from Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, stuff my grandpa loved to Jason Aldean, Zac Brown Band, Kenny Chesney and tons of Blake Shelton.

I wasn’t too surprised when Katie begged for tickets to see Blake in concert this March at our local concert venue, Rabobank Arena. Santa bought Katie and mom tickets and for Katie, a membership in the fan club… that’s right, my girl is an official BS’er.

In case you are interested, these songs are topping our play list currently:

Honeybee

People Are Crazy

Take a Back Road

Chicken Fried

Out Last Night

Dirt Road Anthem

That Ain’t My Truck

Party Crowd

Alternate post title: He Did It To Me Again.

The butterfly bush (or as my husband refers to it… “that butterfly monster”) turned out to be the fastest growing, most furiously blooming plant I have ever encountered. It smells wonderful, attracts butterflies by the hundreds through the spring/summer but has to be trimmed back several times a year. Emphasis on “several times a year.”

We’ve had an unusually warm January with some beautiful sunny days and since we had a new lilac tree to plant we spent last Saturday in the yard.

We cleaned up anything dead-ish, dug up an old rosemary plant that had died, cleaned out weeds that were trying to poke up and trimmed some trees and bushes. Then my husband said, “Oh, I trimmed up the butterfly bush…” I don’t recall anything he said after that because I took one look at my butterfly bush and made this face:

My butterfly bush should look like this (not now, it’s winter, but when it’s not winter it should):

Remember the last time he did this to me?

“YOU’RE TRYING TO KILL HER!!!!!!” I might have said a little too loudly, I think I could hear the neighbor’s curiosity pique from two, possibly more, yards away.

“I am not trying to kill it.” He said in a that stop-being-so-dramatic tone. “Your butterfly bush was trying to eat my redwoods… again.”

Admittedly, the first time those redwoods were still a little on the scrawny side and I could see why Mike was being overly ridiculous, dramatic and a complete sissy la la concerned about my beautiful butterfly bush appearing to attempt to dwarf his beloved redwoods.

This time? Those redwoods are HUGE. They are easily as tall as a two-story house and my precious butterfly bush?

NOT SO MUCH.

I stopped talking to him. I might have muttered something about doing a little pruning of my own on his precious sago palm which looks like this:

Compared to my butterfly bush, which for reference, looks LIKE THIS:

A little while later my husband said, “I put fertilizer on all the plants. I fertilized the butterfly bush too, I just wanted to make sure you know that I am NOT trying to kill your plant.”

I can’t say the same for the plant, Mike. I suggest you start sleeping with one eye open.