Going Home

I want to thank those of you who have followed me here, there and everyone around the Internet.  Means a great deal to me.  After some thinking and then some more thinking, I've decided to "return home" – as in return home to http://themadwhitewoman.blogspot.com.  I've had that name for the past four years, it is where people know me from, I have a large following there, and it's just like an old comfortable favorite pair of shoes.

I would be honored if you would follow me "home" and continue along my journey with me!

A Glimmer of Hope on the Horizon

As you know if you've been following this particular thread on my blog, 2012 has been – if nothing else – extremely tumultuous with J. and his ADHD and recent diagnosis of ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder).

February 7th J. returned to school, a few hours later landed himself on in-school suspension (ISS).  He managed to muddle through until the 16th of February after getting off his ISS when his impulsivity got the best of him once again.  He was given ten (10) days of OSS (out-of-school suspension) for fighting in the cafeteria.  Long story short – in the lunch line, another student (the one he punched, aka student #1) was picking at him, messing with his hair and poking him ... he asks student #1 to stop (which he does).  They all are instructed to back away from a hot counter, student #2 pushes student #1 into J., which makes J. believe that he did it on purpose, so he turns around and punches student #1 in the mouth and then again in the stomach.

Sigh.

Those of you with children with ADHD know that every day is a battle to make good choices, to control the impulsivity, to integrate into the "main stream" if you will – and no matter how much you talk, how much you teach, how much you pray – there are going to be days where things just DO NOT GO ACCORDING TO PLAN – and the challenge lies within to review, exam, and learn from the events of the day.

While there is no "one" thing that we can put our fingers on with regards to a 'trigger' that sets J. off into meltdown mode, we have noticed that he seems to have more issues arise in highly populated classrooms (although there have been instances where he's had issues as well with just one or two other students in the room).  So one alternative available to us is the Georgetown School here in Hanover County.  An alternative education center, the classrooms are much smaller, the school is much smaller, and we are hoping that J. will be able to turn his academics and his behavior around in this smaller setting, and learn some coping mechanisms as well while he is there which will enable him to be able to return to his home school and be able to integrate with the main stream once again and excel as we know that he can.

It is extremely disheartening to know that your bright, funny, talented child is failing just about every single class and not know how else to help him turn things around and succeed.  At first you want to blame the teachers (whom can only do so much) and then you blame your child for not "buckling down" and "doing the required work" but, when you are dealing with an ADHD child – its just not that simple sometimes.  The fact that their attention is non-existent with regards to subjects or lessons they have no interest in is an understatement.  The challenge lies, in my opinion, in finding a method that does make it interesting – not in placing blame elsewhere.  Dealing with an ADHD child is a combined and united effort between physicians, counselors, teachers, parents and the child.

So, for today, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon for my particular bright, funny, talented child.  His primary care physician has increased his dosage of Vyvanse which we will begin within the next week, and with the change of environment at school into something less "busy" I am hoping that the two will be a winning combination for J.

As always, I'll keep you posted!

Springtime Booster Bonanza!

 

Stonewall Jackson Middle School Presents Our 3rd Annual

Saturday – April 28, 2012

8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

(rain or shine)

COMMUNITY YARD SALE

Craft Vendors   -•-   Jewelry   -•-   Food and Drink

• Booth Rental Proceeds go directly to SJMS
• FREE to the Public!
• Come SUPPORT your LOCAL BUSINESSES!

10x10 spaces are available for $25 prior to March 30th or $35 after March 30th.  Add a table for $10 prior to March 30th; after March 30th its $15

If you are interested in becoming a part of the yard sale, or are a local vendor who would like a space, please contact Janet Newcomb, Event Coordinator at (804) 437-2975 or via email.

Sponsored by the Stonewall Jackson Middle School Booster Club

8021 Lee-Davis Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23111  -•-  Tel: 804.723.2260

Moving Creative Works....

Just wanted to let you all know that I am moving my creative posts to my Tumblr blog which you can find here.  It's super easy for me to upload everything there...and this way those of you who aren't here for the creative stuff don't have to be bombarded with it all!

Saturday Awh Moments

Everyone of us have seen a picture that just steals your breathe away or makes you go "Awh..." at least once in our lives.  I love to share things with my readers that they might not find elsewhere – to always be unique and original (or try to anyway!) so I'm going to be starting up a Saturday Awh Moments meme for those of you that would like to follow along.  Would love it if you leave a comment and let me know which your favorite is!

All copyrights to these images belong to the original photographers.  I take no credit for their beauty whatsoever.

I love having the opportunity to remind people of the real reason that we are on this earth – to enjoy the simple things in life, to live each day to the fullest, to find some small spark of joy in each and every day, to 'stop and smell the roses' along your travels.  So take a moment today to just stop and ENJOY this beautiful world around us that we are blessed to be a part of.  Forget about the bills, the arguments, the neighbor you can't stand, the broken dishwasher ... forget about the economy, the gas prices, the wars, the sex trafficking, the drug epidemic ... just stop and enjoy the SIMPLE, the BEAUTIFUL, the MAGICAL world that you live in.

May you all have a blessed day today and find that one spark of joy in YOUR day today.

Easily Share Your Blog Button with Readers

Ever wonder how to share that pretty blog button you designed and slaved over for hours with others so they could post it on their blogs as well?  Well here's the easy way to share (and more people will share your blog button if you 'do the work' for them!) your blog button!

First, you need to upload your blog button to a photo sharing site such as Photobucket.  Once your button has been uploaded to your account, it should look like this:

The information you see below will appear when you hover your mouse over the uploaded image.  Move your mouse down to the IMG code box and click on the link in the space to the right which will automatically copy this string of code for you.

Open a Notepad or WordPad window (or any program you have that will let you do simple unformatted text) and paste your copied code into that document.  It should now look similar to this (only with your links):

[IMG]http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv209/themadwhitewoman/LifeInAHouseOfTestosterone1-1.gif[/IMG]

Hit enter a few times to put some space between your copied code and the following.  Copy this exactly as is and we will change the highlighted parts to be specific to your blog and blog button:

<a href="http://YOUR BLOG LINK HERE.COM" target="new"><img src="INSERT THE IMG LINK FROM ABOVE HERE" border="0" title="YOUR BLOG NAME"></a><br>
<br>
<textarea rows="06" cols="20"><a target="new" href="http://YOUR BLOG NAME HERE.COM"><img src="INSERT THE IMG LINK FROM ABOVE HERE" title="YOUR BLOG NAME" /></a></textarea>

So, my image link would be: http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv209/themadwhitewoman/LifeInAHouseOfTestosterone1-1.gif and my blog link would be http://lifeinahouseoftestosterone.blogspot.com.  So using these links and changing the information highlighted in RED above, my completed code would look like this:

<a href="http://lifeinahouseoftestosterone.blogspot.com" target="new"><img src="http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv209/themadwhitewoman/LifeInAHouseOfTestosterone1-1.gif " border="0" title="Life in a House of Testosterone"></a><br>
<br>
<textarea rows="06" cols="20"><a target="new" href="http://lifeinahouseoftestosterone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://i684.photobucket.com/albums/vv209/themadwhitewoman/LifeInAHouseOfTestosterone1-1.gif " title="Life in a House of Testosterone" /></a></textarea>

Change the links in red above as I did to reflect YOUR personal blog address and YOUR personal blog button image code.

Next, go to your Blogger dashboard and find your blog and click on Design and then we are going to Add a Gadget.  Look for the HTML/JavaScript gadget and click on that.  When your gadget opens you are going to give it a name and then paste your completed information from above into the Content area.

Your gadget should now look like this:

Now before you hit "save" and add this to your blog design – at the very beginning you need to add <center> and then at the very end directly after </textarea> you need to add </center>.  Once you have done that, hit "save" and then move your gadget to where you would like it to appear on your blog.

What these two codes do is tell it to center all of the information between.  This way your information shows up neatly centered on your blog – like this:

That's it!  If you wish to adjust the width of your text box – you can play with the area that says "cols=20" and just adjust the numbers higher (like 40) to make it wider if you would like.  Now anyone can snag your blog button you spent so much time on and easily paste the code into an HTML/JavaScript gadget on their blog and share the love!

This tutorial is of my own design and creation and copyrighted to ©Kimberly Miller.  This tutorial was written by me on February 28, 2012.  Any similarity to any other tutorial is purely coincidental.  If you wish to share this tutorial with others, please only share the link to this tutorial in your Yahoo/Google groups and direct others to my blog to view the tutorial post.  Thank you!

Katie Morris – Mary Kay Consultant Extraordinaire!

Many, many, MANY moons ago – I had the pleasure of attending a Mary Kay party that a friend of mine had.  She was just starting out as a consultant and told me that if I helped her get some bodies to her first party she'd give me a little makeup kit of my own to play with – so I did.  That was the extent of my experience with Mary Kay.  At the time of her party, I tossed around the idea of becoming a consultant myself – but I'm not one to go door-to-door or to have parties and constantly be looking for people to drag to a party – so I never bothered with it afterwards.

Well back on January 20, 2012, I was hopping around the internet like I normally do, checking messages and tweets and reading up on some new blog posts, when I happened upon this tweet:

"@tmww If you're in the Richmond area I'd love to give you a FREE facial & a gift just for helping! Promise this isn't spam!"

Now you know me – I am ALWAYS up for a freebie – and a gift to boot?  Shoot!  So I sent her a tweet back and asked her to email me with some specifics.  Thus started our little journey together.  Over the next few weeks, we emailed each other back and forth attempting to set up a date and time when I could host a party and get some friends either here at my home or to her studio.  Being a stay at home mom with the majority of my friends inside this little box on my desk – I had to put my thinking cap on and see which of my neighbors might be interested in coming.

So finally the date was set – Monday, February 27.  Well Monday came and I discovered that my daughter could not come (she was scheduled to work) and another friend could not come (she was scheduled to work), so that left just four of us.  Not a problem.  I had my *game plan* all worked out for the day...I had until noon to be on the computer and do what I needed to do online and then it was time to buckle down and get the house in ship-shape condition (not a fun or easy task with the mess that the Testosterone make on a daily basis!).  I sent text messages out to everyone who had said that they would attend around 8am yesterday morning to remind them about the party last night and to RSVP and assure this crazy lady that they were definitely going to be there.  So I busted my hump scrubbing and dusting and sweeping and mopping every surface that did not move until the house sparkled for the next 6 hours.  Yes, it took me 6 hours to get my house into what I call "acceptable" condition for company (I'm totally anal like that about making sure my house is just about spotless when I have people coming over). 

Katie arrived and I hit it off with her instantly.  She is a truly wonderful young lady, and I am very pleased to know her and have worked with her.  We chatted about family and college and life in general and discovered we both worked for law firms – it was really nice to be able to connect with her and find out that we had much in common.

As my guests arrived, Katie set up and we were ready for our pampering – and pampering we GOT.  The Mary Kay products of today are nothing like I remember them being from 25 years ago.  We started off with the Satin Hands products (which, after cleaning house all day with bleach and Lysol I desperately needed!) and I fell in love instantly.  Satin is exactly the word to describe how my hands felt.  Absolute heaven and the peach smell? Oh my gosh – absolutely DIVINE.

Next we moved on to our facials and had the pleasure of experiencing the TimeWise Miracle.  If you closed your eyes, you would have sworn you were at a day spa being pampered – that's how incredibly wonderful this product is!  I have noticed the older I get, the drier my skin gets, and I literally feel as though I am using GALLONS of moisturizer on my face to make it feel normal again and not like the Sahara desert!  With just a little tiny dab of the TimeWise moisturizer – I was sold.  My face felt like pure satin and I can honestly say that I have never ever ever felt my face be that soft ever before.  It was wonderful!

We then moved on to the Mary Kay Foundation Primer and the Mary Kay Mineral Powder Foundation.  When you paint the walls in your home, you always use a primer first to ensure that the paint lasts longer and stays beautiful looking – well the Mary Kay Foundation Primer does the same thing – it keeps your makeup in place and beautifully flawless all day long, and you only need a teeny tiny dab to cover your entire face (another product that I absolutely adored and purchased) which I love.  I like makeup that is going to go a long way and not be gone within two or three weeks.

About this time I had some new unexpected guests arrive (hubby grabbed some additional warm bodies to add to the mayhem for me – wasn't that sweet of him?) and Katie took things all in stride ... she didn't miss a beat!  We got a chance to experiment with the Eye Makeup Remover, the Crème Eye Color, the Mineral Cheek Color, the mascara and the beautiful selection of lip colors and the Satin Lips products!  (I tried to coerce The Man Thing into trying the Satin Lips but he was being a stick-in-the-mud and said he'd stick with his trusty Chapstick lol!)

What completely amazed me is that Katie gave both myself and a neighbor of mine (a beautiful African-American woman) the exact same crème eye color to use – and they looked completely different on each of us.  You would NEVER have been able to tell that we were using the same makeup on our eyes.  Completely amazing.

I felt like a princess when all was said and done, and I believe the other ladies did as well.  I didn't want to wash any of it off last night it felt so good LOL! 

I want to thank all of the ladies who attended last night and enjoyed themselves, and thank each of you from the bottom of my heart for helping Katie out as well!  While I am still not "that type" to become a Mary Kay consultant at this point in my life – I am going to do everything within my power to help Katie become a raging success with HER business!

You will find the Mary Kay Cosmetics logo on my blog with a link to Katie's website.  You can also follow her on Twitter (she tweets the most awesome inspirational messages all the time!) and she also has a Facebook fan page. 

If you would like to become a consultant or host your own party in the metro Richmond area – please let her know!  She would be more than happy to come out and give you and your friends the royal princess treatment just like she did for mine!  In addition, if you are interested in purchasing some Mary Kay products but do not have a consultant in your area, you can order yours directly from Katie and she'll get them out to you in no time at all!

A special thanks to Katie as well – for putting up with this crazy stay-at-home mom who changed dates and times a gazillion times before finally settling on a date – and for being such a sweet and wonderful young lady and letting your enthusiasm and energy shine through! 

 

Happiness Resides in Your Soul

I am extremely thankful for the blessing that is my friends today.  No matter what they are going through, their hearts – like mine – always go out to those who are having a rough time or dealing with something truly upsetting to them.  I just want these particular friends to know that you are always in my heart, thoughts, and prayers. 

I have so much going on today it isn't even funny!  I am hosting my first ever Mary Kay facial/makeover party this evening at 7pm – at my completely TRASHED apartment!  Aye carumba!  I've given myself till noon to be on the computer and get caught up with some things I needed to get taken care of – and then its off to clean and get the house tidied up as much as possible before Katie Morris appears at 6pm to begin setting up her magic!  I am so excited!!!

I also want to share that my daughter is hosting her first ever giveaway on her blog, A +Girl Life!  You have got to check out the beautiful item she is giving away – I'm not going to tell you what it is either!  You have to go and see for yourself!  The giveaway ends on March 25th at 12pm EST – so don't wait!!!

In addition – she has this great little gizmo on her blog that I stole too!  It's called PunchTab and it is what she is using to reward visitors and also what she is using to run her giveaway.  Nifty little gadget – check it out – and it is now part of the LIAH blog as well!  So you can earn rewards and loyalty program points just by visiting our blogs!  Your badges that you earn will be displayed at the bottom and the rewards tab is on the left of each post – just click to find out what your reward is!

Finally, I would like to share some touching photos with you all.  As you know, our four-legged family member, Mollyanna, is the absolute joy of our household with her love and antics and playfulness.  We would be lost without her.  Dogs bring so much unconditional love and understanding to their owners, so this is my tribute to her as well as to all of these dogs showcased below. 

Go hug the pooch who loves you...