TGIF: Bees With Honey Edition

Another two weeks, another guest for....

Today I bring you the lovely, the sweet, my Canadian neighbor, Bruna of Bees With Honey!

And I think having her write a TGIF post in the summer was exactly how it was meant to work out. Because, as you will see, this girl loves summer!

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TGIFS: Thank God it’s Finally Summer!

I don’t know about anyone else or anywhere else, but the beginning of summer was long overdue here where I live in beautiful British Columbia, Canada.

Now that it’s here, I’m in my glory and it’s because summer, to me, is like it being Friday every day for 10 full weeks.  Summer, of course, is way longer than 10 weeks but once we’re back to school; summer is officially over even if the season still continues.  You know what I mean? Back to work, back to reality.

Some parents love summer break and others hate it. Some love having their children home for the long haul while other parents go bananas trying to keep them entertained and out of their hair.

As a teacher, I am one of those parents who feel blessed to be able to stay home with the kiddos

during the two month break from school and for oh so many reasons!

Summer means …

being able to keep the kids up later at night and sleeping past 8am every morning.

no mad rush to get anyone ready for school or work in the mornings including myself.

no making lunches every night and laying out clothes for the next day.

no homework to help with.

BBQ dinners every night and dining out on our back deck.

Sharing Corona’s, Bud-Light Limes, Sangria and margarita drinks with friends.

sprinklers,  slip and slides and swimming for the kids.

bike riding.

weekend road trips to the USA to visit my husband’s family and friends.

outlet mall shopping. Need I say more?

camping.

time spent at my parent’s summer home in Birch Bay, Washington.

wearing flip-flops, shorts and tank-tops and enjoying the wonderful warmth of the sun’s rays.

beautifully, coloured and manicured toes.

roasting marshmallows and making S’mores by the fire.

taking photos of my family with my digital SLR Nikon camera and playing around with different settings and lenses.

weekend getaways with just the hubby while grandparents watch our girls for us.

lots of rest and relaxation!

and so much more!

Summer is my favourite season of the year. I am truly at my happiest when the sun is shining, I am warm, surrounded by family and relaxed.

Life doesn’t get much better than this!

Thank you to Jennifer for having me as a guest on her blog.  I feel honoured she invited me to share her bloggy space today.  I love her TGIF meme and encourage all of you to link-up your happy every Friday.  Tell all your friends about it too!

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I think I must agree with much of what Bruna has said here. While I think there are things to love about all the seasons, summer in the Pacific Northwest is just such a treat.

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Now I want to hear YOUR happy, so write, include the button, link!

Nestle Juicy Juice #FruitforAll Project Giveaway!

Do you remember late last month when I wrote this post in which I mentioned the Juicy Juice Fruit for All Project?

Well I did, and I am very excited to be able to participate in something that will give my local food bank, and one of YOUR local food banks, 400 meals.

That's right, this right here, is a post for a CHARITABLE giveaway!

How awesome is that?

It's awesome because...

All of this is in partnership with

Food is a basic human need. No one should have to go without it. It's just logical to me.

My local food bank is the Marysville Community Food Bank, where visits there are up 8% over last year. The need is real, and it's right in our backyards.

So if you care about helping end hunger in your community, enter the Nestle Juicy Juice giveaway to win a donation of 400 meals to your local food bank!

Ways to Enter

Mandatory: Leave me a comment telling me a little something about the need in your community.

Extra entry: Tweet I just entered to win a donation of 400 meals for my local food bank from @JuicyJuiceUSA's #FruitforAll Project, hosted by @JenAnnHall! and leave a separate comment with the tweet URL.

You can connect with Nestle Juicy Juice and the Fruit for All Project on

Twitter and Facebook

I am not being compensated in any way for this post, except for the warmth in my heart knowing that I am doing something good. This giveaway will run for 10 days and is open to US residents. A winner will be selected from a count of the comments and the number plugged into random.org on Saturday, July 21, 2012.

GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

Talking to my daughter about sex on a random summer afternoon seems as good a time as any.

Today is my daughter's 12th birthday. Camryn is my Millennium Baby.

Her due date was the 4th of July, but she was a week late. I was scheduled to be induced late on the 13th so when I went into labor on my own early in the morning on the 11th, I was in complete denial, and didn't make it to the hospital until I was dilated 8 centimeters. My baby girl came into the world at 11:05 AM looking exactly like her father. I still don't understand how that can make for a cute baby girl, but somehow it does.

Just as I teach Cami things, she teaches me too. I was not an incredibly patient person before she was born. There's something about pacing and pacing the house trying to get a tired baby to sleep that makes you patient. She is a lot like her dad, something I really didn't prepare myself for. Instead of butting heads with her because she sees things differently than I do, I'm learning to simply tell her my way of thinking, and let her determine her own way. Sometimes she's nice and decides to agree with me.

I mention a lot that Camryn has ADD. For her it manifests as "chatty cathy", shy, inattentive and naive. For years I have genuinely appreciated her naivete, because it meant many of the more adult things she may have been exposed to over the years went right over her head. For the most part she has remained a sweet and innocent girl. This does a mom's heart well.

However, since she started middle school last September I have been feeling increasingly concerned that she was still a little too innocent. I began to worry that the other kids could easily fill her head with wrong information, because they think they know stuff, and she would believe it.

I had a conversation with my friend Jessica, whose son is the same age, and who has known my daughter since she was 3. I wondered if Cami knew what sex was (because she hadn't asked me). Jessica replied that she thought she probably did, just because of kids at school.

Well that kind of freaked me out. I mean, I know about, and signed the permission slip for, the puberty videos and talks in 4th and 5th grade. I'm all for those because everyone needs to know about their bodies. I remember being grateful for them when I was a kid because it meant I could have a few less awkward talks with my parents!

So I knew Cami knew about puberty. But did she know anything about sex?

She turned 5 when I was pregnant with her little brother. I thought for sure she'd think to ask, "Mommy, how are babies made?" But she didn't, and I didn't offer the information. She did ask how the baby "gets out". When I started to tell her the truth, she was completely grossed out, so I ended up saying, "I will go to the hospital and my doctor will help me get the baby out."

Now here we are, Camryn is 12 and heading into 7th grade. I had decided after my little chat with Jessica that I just needed to talk to her, find out what she knows, and fill in any blanks. The perfect opportunity arose this past Saturday. It was just the two of us in the house; her reading on the couch.

We had The Talk. Turned out she didn't really know anything, except that boys have sperm and girls have eggs, but she didn't know how they got together. She had no idea about intercourse, and when I told her, she said, "Eeww!" I said I understood the eeww factor, but everyone eventually feels differently about it.

I told her that when a girl gets her period it means she's able to have babies, and that sex is how babies are made. I also told her about birth control, and threw in a little about being in love, that some people choose to wait until marriage and that you should be MUCH OLDER than she is now. She nodded her head vigorously.

I told Cami I hope she knows she can talk to me about anything, but that if she ever feels just too weird about it, that my best girlfriends would be there for her too. In closing I asked if she had any questions and she shook her head. I know she's the kind of person who needs new information to sink in before she's ready to talk about it. Thankfully, "Call Me Maybe" came on right at that moment, so I turned it up, told her I loved her, and left it at that.

Then I walked into the kitchen and took one helluva deep breath.

Hanging out at yeahwrite!

Did You Know? Blogger Comments and Replies

Houston, we have a problem.

Did you know that even though Blogger added the ability to reply to readers' comments (comment thread) that the commenter you're replying to may not know you did?

!@#$^&!

I recently discovered this little paradox when I checked to make sure I'm not a no-reply blogger. I am all set up to display my email address when I comment, yet I do not receive notification that a reply has been made on one of my comments using the Blogger comment thread.

Which means.... those who comment on MY posts are not being notified when I reply to them.

*^%$&((W#%$$*(!

ALL bloggers love getting comments, and we all know that REPLYING to them is good networking etiquette, not to mention good manners.

Because no one likes to say something only to hear crickets.

Here's the thing: if you're on the Blogger platform using Blogger's comment thread, your readers will only know that you've replied to their comment if....

• They come back to the post and see it, or
• You reply to them via email, instead of on the post.

Furthermore, it would seem that replying to comments via the comment thread is really only beneficial for adding something more to the post. Like, say, if someone asked a question in their comment and you anticipate others may wonder the same thing, hence you answer it under the comment for everyone to see.

So I uninstalled Disqus when Blogger gave us the comment thread months ago, and have been assuming the replies I leave are being sent to the reader. ALL. THIS. TIME.

And speaking of those who ARE no-reply, that makes it even harder to let you know I saw, read and appreciated your comment, because neither can I respond to the comment email I get, nor can I rely on the comment thread to let you know.

Which means.... I have to let it go or try to hunt you down on Twitter or something. Because what if you said something really great that totally deserves a response?? And what if when you don't get anything back you think I'm some kind of snob?

I am so NOT a snob!

So, if you leave comments on Blogger blogs with your Blogger profile, please go check to see if you have your email address set to be displayed. HERE is where I found out how to check. It's super easy.

Do you have a bit of info, or maybe something a little cheeky, to share?

Grab the button and link up to the blog hop here and motherhood: Truth!
(Open for 48 hours, so get on it!)

TGIF: Wine Tasting & Guest Posting

No, wine tasting and guest posting normally have nothing to do with each other. But today, they do....

....because....I am happy about these two things today.

My friend Carin is a sales consultant for Wine Shop at Home. And our friend Jessica is hosting a wine tasting party tonight. Carin's Weier Wine Shop brings wine tasting TO YOUR HOME!  You don't have to dress up to go to a fancy winery, which is so nice for a casual gal like me. I'm really looking forward to trying the wine too, because I've heard nothing but good things about it. This is going to be an awesome GNO!

So ummm, if you notice some drunk tweets from me later on tonight, it's the wine talking.


The other thing I'm happy about today is a guest post I've written for Brandy at Momwich.

It's called Complicated Cool and it should be up RIGHT NOW! It's about how my family may be somewhat different from other families, but we're still a family just like yours. I hope you will go read it and say hi to me over there.

But first, share some happy with me by linking up below! 

PS: Danielle and I will be hosting a belated Did You Know? blog hop next Tuesday the 10th. We hope you'll want to share something interesting and link up!

Half-Assed Housework

I think I'm really going to need that top to bottom housecleaning I said I wanted.

Because I have decided that this summer, I'm totally half-assing it.

I mean seriously, with the kids home 24/7, the house doesn't stay clean for more than five minutes anyway.

And that may be a generous estimate.

There's a well-known quote that goes....

That is 100% true!

I mean, I'm not planning to live in filth. I'm just saying, why take on any uphill battle that I don't have to?

There are things I cannot take a vacation from. Stressing about housework IS something I think I can take a break from.

I will keep up with the basics and the kids don't get off scot-free. 

I know! I'll do housework when Mark is at work. That's fair, right?

So if you come over and my house isn't spic 'n span, it's not that I'm a terrible homemaker. It's simply that I've decided not to care. For just the next two months*.

In July and August, while my kids are home and the sun is shining, I am NOT going to make cleaning a priority!

Is that wrong?

Ask me if I care.

Instead of fretting over a clean house, I will do things like read a book, go for walks, learn to crochet a hat, ride the bus somewhere and maybe take a few naps.

I will invite my friends and their kids over for play dates and I will go to their houses to cool off in their pool or have a glass of wine.

We will take mini road trips with my dad, getting to know our surroundings better.

We will go to the freaking beach because if we don't, my son might kill me in my sleep! (Yes, there are beaches in Washington. I've heard. Somewhere. Dad?)

We will garden and grill. We will make smoothies and eat our weight in watermelon and corn on the cob. I will take lots of pictures.

I am going to enjoy this summer.

Because after having two hellacious crises in two years, I, and we, deserve it.

UPDATE: I have decided on a hashtag for this little endeavor. It is #SummerSlackers! So who's with me??

*I honestly don't know if I'll mentally be able to do this.