It's Moving Day!!!

Go to The Big Bloggy Move!

I am now at my new blog at http://afteracupofcoffee.net. If you have a minute, please update your feeds and blogrolls :)

Three times as excellent!

I've been so busy getting ready for the big move that I haven't thanked anyone for new award!

A big thank you to Tiffany, MamaBugs and Laura for gifting me with the Excellent Blog Award!



I'll see you later! I have to get back to some last minute blog clean up. You can get a sneak peek at afteracupofcoffee.net!

It's a good thing I'm moving

Ya'll have been so sweet in your comments on my roll call. If you haven't commented there, please do, and let me know what your favorite indulgence is! So far it looks like books, coffee and chocolate are in the lead.

But it's a really good thing I'm moving to a new blog because I kept responding to each of your comments through my email...even though a lot of you don't have an email address associated with your comments! You don't even want to know how many emails got sent back to me yesterday.

To be really honest, there are some of you that I do this with almost every time you comment. You'd think I'd learn my lesson and check before I email you.

But I don't.

Isn't there some saying that insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results?

Welcome to my world.

But my new blog should enable me to be able to respond to you all personally better. And it's almost finished. I won't be around much between now and Monday as it gets finished, but I will be here.

And I'll see you for The Big Bloggy Move on Monday!

How about a roll call?

I must admit I am totally, unapologetically stealing this idea from Megan.

But The Big Bloggy Move is coming up on Monday and I think I will be offering two, TWO prizes and I need some ideas.

Plus, my readers seem to have doubled since about November, and I'd like to get to know you all. My husband has been working 14-18 hour days and I'm a tad bit little completely starved for adult interaction.

So please, leave a comment telling me if you have children and how many, and what your favorite indulgence is.

And I don't mean indulgence like reading blogs at midnight, like I am doing right now. I'm talking Starbucks, Godiva, Lush bath products...something for which I can buy a gift card and give a little back to you, who provide me with some much needed sanity.

And if you haven't commented here before, I give you my blessing to de-lurk for this one post and then go right back to lurkville.

Because chances are I lurk on your blog, too.

Any Mac People?

I desperately need a new computer. The one I have now seems like it should have plenty of memory and speed, but it just can't handle editing my picture files.

And I don't have the time in my day to restart my computer four times just to Photoshop a picture or two.

So I'm thinking of switching to a Mac. It seems like all the people I know who work with photographs and scrapbooking have them.

Do you? What do you think of yours? Is it a desktop or a laptop?

30 Tiny Moments- Day 1

Photography and scrapbooking are two of my favorite hobbies, so I was excited when I found several bloggers participating in a 30 Tiny Moments challenge. You can read more about it at Kerflop, but the idea is to notice- and photograph - the tiny moments of your day.

The moments that I have to admit I often miss because I'm focused on me. I know I have been in survival mode lately and haven't been truly enjoying the little things. But the idea of really focusing on these moments appealed to me.

So for the next 30 days I'm looking for and enjoying the tiny moments.

Sometimes they're so cute I could just bite them

Chloe: Mommy, are these jeans?
Me: No, they're cords.
Chloe: But they don't have any plugs.

*****************************************************************************

Luke: Mommy, can I go outside?
Me: Are you going out in your bare feet?
Luke: I have boy feet! I not a bear!

The winner is...

Michelle from Big Blueberry Eyes!

Random.org picked a great winner, as she is a military spouse just like me!

Congratulations, Michelle. I hope you get a chance to enjoy the relaxation with a baby coming soon!

Email me at afteracupofcoffee (at) gmail (dot) com

My inner snob

One thing I haven't written about very much here is my "crunchy" side- the side of me that loves all things natural and organic and wants to do my part to be responsible with our resources.

Ever since Jen posted about The Story of Stuff, I have been thinking about the changes I have made and the changes I want to make in my stuff.

Then, I was challenged today by Megan's post Another Way, in which she resolves to buy used clothing for her children instead of new.

I won't even tell you the amount of money I just spent on clothes for Chloe minutes before reading her post! I have always appreciated when people hand clothes down to me for the kids. But I have never once gone to a store to buy clothes that weren't new. And here is where the snob in me comes out- if there were a really cute consignment boutique or something around here, I could totally see myself shopping there. But not a Goodwill or thrift store. I don't even want to go in one!

Another place my inner snob shows herself?

My haircare products.

I have been wanting to make the switch to shampoo bars in order to save on the packaging. But I have been too scared of having bad hair. I have already made the switch to a natural deodorant from Lush that has no packaging, but ignore all the shampoo bars when I shop there. If I don't see them, they don't exist and I don't have to make the change right?

But just check out the amount of plastic bottles I have out (not counting any hiding in cabinets!)

My shower:


Kids' Bath:


My bath (even though I love Lush bath bombs and bubble bars, I still keep these around):


That's a lot of packaging, ya'll.

So, I sucked it up and went shopping. I know that there are people who use vinegar and baking soda and things like that to wash their hair, but I hate the smell of vinegar. Unless it is a good balsamic and I'm dipping some hot, crusty bread in it. I however, am neither crusty nor hot (although I am working on losing weight and being hot)! And that snob in me protests that if I don't use expensive packaged hair products that you can only buy from a salon, then my hair will most assuredly be crusty. So I bribed myself with some new bath bombs and got two shampoo bars while I was at Lush. I ordered a Godiva bar and an Ultimate Shine bar (If you order two shampoo bars, they give you a free tin to store them in).

Coming soon: The Big Shampoo Bar Test. We'll see how those solid shampoos compare to my favorite Redken All Soft.

If you have time, head over to Jen's place to read about her story of stuff and watch the video.

WW- Tastes like rain

The power of the will

I made some chocolate chip cookies for the family last night. The kind that you actually mix together in a bowl, not the kind you take out of the package.

And I was really, really tempted to grab a spoon and sit down in front of a movie and eat the cookie dough right out of the bowl.

But I fought the temptation, and I was victorious.

I ate it with my fingers, standing up in the kitchen instead.

The Bloggy Giveaways Carnival!

*************Comments are now closed. The winner will be announced just as soon as Random.org picks you.**************

I know I'm putting this post up early, but any minute now I'm going to sneeze so hard that my eyeballs pop out, and then I'll really need a nap. So welcome to my giveaway!

Today I am giving away this Starbucks mug, filled with a LUSH bath bomb and a $25 Starbucks gift certificate! All of my favorite things. To enter to win, leave a comment and tell me:

If you had to choose between a nice, relaxing bath with no interruptions, or a nice hot cup of coffee (or tea) with no interruptions, which would you choose?

This contest will close and the winner will be announced on Feb 1st, and is open to residents of the US or Canada only.

And don't forget to come back on Monday, February 11 for The Big Bloggy Move. There will be more prizes!!!


Check out the other giveaways!

The Big Bloggy Move!

Don't forget to be here on Monday, February 11th! You can showcase your new or redesigned blog, or visit new blogs for the chance to win prizes.

Sign the Mr. Linky on Monday if one of these is true:
a) You started your blog no earlier than December 2007
b) You moved to a new blogging platform or started self-hosting no earlier than December 2007
c) You completely redesigned your blog no earlier than December 2007

You are welcome to offer prizes to your visitors, but that is up to you. Megan and I will be!

Get your move on!

Copy this code to get the button and spread the word:
<a href="http://afteracupofcoffee.blogspot.com/2007/12/big-bloggy-move_19.html" title="big bloggy move2 by christyofwoc, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2158/2122309820_c0ed6222a1_m.jpg" width="171" height="240" alt="big bloggy move2" /></a>

Isaac (part 19)

The benefit of being a man is that you get to have a really bad memory. Isaac barely remembers conversations we had yesterday, while I remember every embarassing incident in my whole life in such minute detail that I get embarrassed all over again when I remember it.

Although, since having kids I can no longer remember what I went to the grocery store to buy, or why I opened the refrigerator door.

But it's a good bet that chocolate answers both those questions.

If I ask Isaac today why he broke up with me 10 years ago, he really doesn't remember. It had something to do with me graduating.

And really, that's about as much as I understood when he broke up with me.

It was sudden, and oh-so-unexpected. It was March or April of my senior year. I had agreed to be part of an intern program with my college pastor after graduating, and was starting a new Christian fellowship at a university in Orange County. I also decided to get my Master's Degree while I was there, since we really needed a student to participate in starting the group. Isaac had one more year of school, then had to go to Rhode Island for training, and after that we didn't know where he'd be.

And somehow in his mind this translated to us taking separate paths in life.

It was absolutely shocking to me. We had known since before we started dating that we wouldn't be getting married any time soon, and that he would be going into the Navy right after graduation. I was only moving 50 miles away from him. Granted, in Southern California traffic that is more like 200 miles, but still, I couldn't wrap my brain around the concept that the person I thought I was going to marry had changed his mind.

And until that day I never understood that a broken heart isn't a figurative description, that your chest can actually hurt, you can feel like you can't breathe, that you are drowning in a sea of pain and don't know how to get out. For months I would beg God to just let me get over Isaac, because no other guy I met or knew or who asked me out after that compared to him.

About four or five months after we had broken up, Isaac asked me to go to dinner with him so we could talk. We still attended the same church, so we'd seen each other fairly regularly.

He wanted to get back together.

And I told him no.

You might want to take notes on my technique

In surfing the blogosphere I have at times come across those mothers...you might even be one.

They are the mothers who post pictures of their three-year-olds learning how to iron, or already ironing proficiently, happy to contribute to the well-run household. They have from 1-3:00 on Tuesdays set aside for ironing each week.

Well, the other day (oh, ok, it was back in December before Isaac came back from deployment), I pulled out the iron and ironing board and Chloe walked up, and looked at me and said, "Mommy, what is that?"

"It's an iron and an ironing board."

"Oh. What do you do with it?"

And just a few minutes later, Luke walked up and said, "Mommy, what is that?"

And so it is my solemn goal that sometime in the next two years Audrey will see an iron and an ironing board, and will walk up and say, "Mommy, what is that?"

Because I'm going to try really hard not to get it out again until then.

It only seems organized because it's in list form

A few things to catch up:

1. The chocolate was gone by Monday night. Let's not speak of it ever again.
2. My sister had a slight cold when she got on her plane on Thursday. By Friday night she had bronchitis.
3. It's after 2pm and I'm still in my pajamas.
4. I don't plan to rectify this until just before Isaac comes home from work.
5. So far none of us are sick. Yet.
6. The only productive thing I've done today is to buy this clock from Pottery Barn Kids.
7. I told myself that it's a homeschool expense since it will help teach time.
8. I really did buy some real homeschool stuff, too. I bought the Math-U-See primer program for Chloe. She has been driving me crazy lately with, "Mommy, what's 9+1? 5+3? 63+102?" She was watching the promotional dvd with me and suddenly could answer for herself what 9+1 was, even though she didn't understand it at all the 217 times I tried to explain it to her.
9. I think I will post the next installment in the story of me tomorrow. It might just be the last one. Of course, when I started writing, I thought it would be three posts long and not eleventy-three, so I could also have twelve more parts to go.
10. I just bought Chloe some new clothes, and they're all falling off her. She is so skinny that she needs a 6 in the waist but a 7 for length. Any ideas on cute brands that have skinny sizes?

No more full feeds...

I apologize to those of you who subscribe in a feeder and and no longer are able to view full posts! I hope you'll decide to click through and keep on reading. But I am getting linked to way too many spam blogs lately.

Is it called splogging when they do that? I'm not sure.

I don't know if it's because I have been posting often or what, but I know I appreciate it when I can read the full feed, and I hate to change that, but if the spammers are going to use my posts, at least I can make them work for it!

Pray for strength

My sister is in town for the long weekend, so I'm going to take a few days away from the blog.

When you read this, you can pray for me, though.

She brought a 70-piece box of Godiva with her.

If you don't hear from me by early next week, you'll know that my strength failed me and I'm in a sugar coma.

I ask out of curiosity...

If you inherited some money, a nice chunk of it, and you had no monetary responsibilities, what would you do with it?

We did inherit some recently, and since we do have responsibilities, we are paying off our debt. Most of it is student loans, but there's some credit card debt. It will be the first time in seven years of marriage that we aren't living under a cloud of college debt.

If we didn't have that, then I'd probably want to set the money aside for possibly adopting a child from another country in a couple years.

But if I'm just dreaming?

Well, I'd pay to have "the girls" lifted back to where God originally placed them. Because they are on a slippery slope downwards, my friends.

And I might just toss a little tummy tuck in there, too, to finally get rid of that persistent little pooch.

So now I've exposed my inner shallowness...what would you do?

American Idol

I hadn't planned on blogging about American Idol, but the first contestant, the SAHM?

How CUTE is her hair???

And why can't I get my bangs to look like that?

And while we're talking about things I can't do, why do I look like a clown when I put on heavy eye makeup, yet she looks hot?

And she can sing.



This is kind of hard to see her hair and face, but it gives you an idea!