WELCOME Blog Hop People!!!   I am THE one and only Mrs.007.  Well other than my mother in law and my husband’s Grandma Bond.  I guess that means I am NOT the one and only…whatever I am SO the coolest one.

ANYWAY…My name is Ashley and I am a 28 yr old wife and  stay at home mother of 2 girls.

This blog is my hobby.  I have always wanted to be a writer and I am just too lazy BUSY to make it happen.

I keep it real here at Mrs.007.com.  I am just a girl who got thrown into marriage and motherhood early (  BTW not necessarily in that order).

I write about lots of  extremely important things like how I sometimes suck at being a mom, how my daughter once stuck lip gloss in our dogs butt or the time she let one RIP right in the middle of a wedding.

I hope you don’t pass judgment too easily!

Leave me a comment and I will be your best friend…but totally NOT in an creepy online stalker kind of way.  *ahem*

When someone is gone forever it is a shock to the system.  Reality is warped.  Surrealism sets in almost immediately.  Then it starts to become normal.  But you feel guilty about that.  At least I do.

I want something tangible to remember.  Something I can see everyday.  A subtle reminder.  Not something that will send me to the floor sobbing.  Just something I can touch with my fingertips and admire.  And it should make me smile….not cry.  Well maybe it should make me cry sometimes.  Because once in a while I want to cry.  It makes me feel alive.    But mostly I just want it to help me remember the good things.  The beautiful things.

Butterflies make me think of freedom.  Freedom from fear and anguish.  Freedom from pain and from the unknown.  Freedom to be carefree and happy.  Blissful even.

And Dogwood trees.  My Aunt Missy loved them.

**”There is a Christian legend of unknown origin that proclaims that the cross used to crucify Jesus was constructed of dogwood^.  As the story goes, during the time of Jesus, the dogwood was larger and stronger than it is today and was the largest tree in the area of Jerusalem. After his crucifixion, Jesus changed the plant to its current form: he shortened it and twisted its branches to assure an end to its use for the construction of crosses. He also transformed its inflorescence into a representation of the crucifixion itself, with the four white bracts cross-shaped, which represent the four corners of the cross, each bearing a rusty indentation as of a nail and the red stamens of the flower, represents Jesus’ crown of thorns, and the clustered red fruit represent his blood.

Even though His body was taken from this earth, His spirit remains and every spring we are blessed with a reminder of the events that occurred on that fateful weekend.

I still want to get a tattoo of a dogwood branch and a butterfly in honor and memory of my beautiful Aunt Missy.  But in the meantime the painting above that a very close family friend painted for me will always bring me joy as well.  I feel so blessed to have it hanging in my home.

It makes me happy…joyful…sad…hopeful…wonderful…and most of all it helps to remember her.

Thank you Delores. Thank you Grandma.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogwood

This morning my friend Elizabeth called to chat on her way to work.  I was working on my first cup of coffee, the Wiggles were blaring annoyingly and I was just gearing my patience up for a day at home with my 21 month old and 8 yr old girls.  As soon as I got on the phone it was as if some signal was transmitted to their brains that prompted them to start using their outside voices and running crazy around the house with the dog.

Mass chaos ensued.  I tried to avoid yelling in Elizabeth’s ear.  We were having a lovely impromptu conversation and I really wanted to proceed uninterrupted. I scolded and threatened.

And then out of desperation I hid in the bathroom.  I grabbed my coffee and closed myself in.  But they were being so loud that I couldn’t concentrate even while hiding in the loo.  UGH  I was getting mad at this point. I don’t have enough patience most days.  It’s one of my greatest weaknesses.

So I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a wooden spoon and silently threatened  the older culprit.  She was the instigator.  She was obviously in need of attention…and she didn’t care if it was the negative type.  That was all it took.  I saw the look of understanding in her eyes.

I motioned with the wooden spoon for her to take her little self upstairs.  She nodded and climbed the stairs.  Behold the power of the wooden spoon!

One day last week she felt the sting of the spoon on her bottom after an episode of incredibly bad behavior.  I don’t spank often. I yell. (another weakness)  I do time out and I take things away. But those things are losing their effect on Addison.  Sometimes  she will do something she knows will get her in trouble and accept the time out. Sometimes it appears she thinks it’s worth it.

So that is why I spanked her with a wooden spoon last week.  Nothing else was working.  I wasn’t mad and I made her go in my room and wait for me.  I calmly walked in there and gave her 3 good swats on the bum.  She sat up on my bed looked me straight in the face and yelled “I HATE YOU!!!”

OUCH.  That one hurt.

I told her to stay in there until I came to get her and not to think about turning on the tv.  I closed the door and another “I hate you” was hurled in my direction.  That one hit the door and didn’t pierce me as deeply.   I called my friend Aimee to talk about it and soothe the mommy guilt that was quickly setting in. She has an 9 year old son and is familiar with this age group and it’s challenges.

Addison needed something to jolt her.  She needed a reminder that I am to be respected and obeyed and I am pretty sure the wooden spoon incident made an impact.

After we had both had some time apart I went in to talk to her about the actions that had caused the spanking in the first place.  I also explained the definition of the word hate.  I don’t think she realized how strong of a word she was using.  She asked me if we could start over and apologized to me.  We hugged and reassured each other that our love is unconditional.

She is a really good girl.  She wants to behave and for the most part she does.  Honestly parenting has been hard for me at every stage.  I have read countless books and tried many  methods.  Which may be the root of the problem.  She is my first child and earlier in her life I probably wasn’t as consistent as I could have been.  But she is loved immeasurably and I know she feels that.

And I know she loves me because she helped me put away towels the next day.  And I have a picture to prove it.  Oh and I left it like this for days until we put the house on the market.

*I think spanking has it’s place in the world of discipline.  And obviously it is a very controversial subject with a lot of parents.  I respectfully disagree with people who believe spanking is wrong and somehow damages a child’s self esteem.  If you are one of those people feel free to comment at will.  But please be nice.

“Blonde Bather” by Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1881

It used to be considered beautiful to  look like the woman in this work of art.

Now we are all supposed to look like this

Which is clearly a conspiracy to make me and millions of other women feel like big fat fatties.

I took a shower several hours ago and let my hair air dry.  It looked raggedy so I brought out the hot rollers I haven’t used in years.  Adam is out of town and I didn’t have any plans so I did it just for me. I also put on eyeliner, mascara and lipstick.

I used to do that all the time back when I couldn’t stop looking at myself in the mirror.  I have never been an exceptional beauty.  But I used to really like the way I looked.  Of course I had my gripes about my physical appearance.  I even used to think I was fat when I was a size 6.

Now I look back on what I used to look like and I can barely remember what if feels like to feel cute and sexy and attractive.  I know becoming a mother changes our bodies.  But after 2 pregnancies and nursing both my girls for a little over a year each I don’t even recognize myself anymore.

The other day I asked a friend if  a DR would suck the fat out of my belly and put it into my butt because I have no butt and I have plenty of extra belly.  I also told her that I  wish I could just be “fat and happy”.   Wouldn’t that be great?  It’s just not possible for me.  It affects every aspect of my life.  It isn’t fun to shop, I feel the disapproval from “fit people” and I am just unhappy with my body.

I have a host of excuses.

I have  PCOS and that doesn’t help at all plus I am just extra short.  Like not even 5 feet tall short. Like  I totally lied on my drivers license short.  Like my inner theme song is “I wish I was a little bit taller” by Skee-Lo  short.

Nobody WANTS to be 4′11.   In our state you have to ride in a booster seat until you are 9 years old AND 4′9.  And I am 4′11.  Can you just picture me driving my kids around town in my minivan all while sitting in a booster seat?  Yeah well I’m not far from it.

And I really hate that I have such a bad self image.  People with low self esteem make  me uncomfortable.  So I really don’t want to be like that.  All down on myself or overly self critical.  But I have to admit it’s hard to stay confident.  Really hard.

So why can’t I just be happy with the way I look?  Or why can’t I just get up early and exercise more often?  I guess I know the answer to my own question.

I CAN.  I can love myself and I can be happy with the way I look.  I can forget about what people think about me and I can focus on how freaking awesome I am.

Yeah. awesome.  Here I am…me.

And I made these people….

Of course I can’t take all the credit for creating these beautiful children…Adam’s is  pretty darn good looking and he has the most beautiful eyes.

Plus he wears really cool hats.

Trying to keep the house showroom ready is a task.  When I wake up in the morning I immediately make up the beds.  I walk around the house and make sure every toy is in it’s basket, that there are no stray crumbs on the counter or floor and I dry all the water droplets out of the sinks. When the phone rings my heart speeds up a little.  If the voice on the other line wants to schedule a showing I immediately go into a state of hurried frenzy.

I vacuum the floors, make sure everything is perfect and pack up the kids and the dog.  When we’ve been gone long enough I breath a sigh of relief and I am so happy to come home.

It’s very satisfying that the house is clean.  Everything is in it’s place and everything is done.  At that point I am actually kind of bored.  That is the one nice thing about all of this.  Until the next phone call.

When we go to bed at night I lie there awake.  I try and think about other things but my mind is anxious.  I think about the houses we have looked at, I wonder how long ours will be on the market.  I wonder what school Addie will start 3rd grade.  Chances are she will start one place and have to change schools after we move.

I know people do this all the time but it’s our first experience with selling and buying at the same time.  The timing has to be perfect.  I don’t want to get too excited about any particular house until someone makes an offer on ours.  So we will have to be patient and wait.

Oh and have I mentioned I am not very good at being patient and waiting?

Hey there stranger!… Looking GOOD!

Yeah Hi remember me?  I am Ashley and I used to post here once in a while…ya’ll remember that right?  I used to write here ALL the time.

Then the 007’s  got this great idea…we’ll call it let’s do a thousand home improvement projects and put our house on the market.  So I haven’t had much time for the internet OR my Tivo.  Which means I have a bunch of episodes of Kathy Griffin to watch, I haven’t written in forever, my inbox is overwhelming,  and my Google reader is FULL of blogs to read.  Blogs by actual bloggers who actually post content on their actual blog.

Wow what a concept.

It makes me feel a little out of sorts when I don’t write often.  But with all of our projects and cleaning and packing it’s been hard to find the time.

Soon I hope to be able to write more often.  Our house has a for sale sign in the front yard and tomorrow we will be officially on the market.

Now all I have to do is try to keep everything clean with an 8 yr old, a 21 month old, a 95 lb dog and 2 indoor/outdoor cats (one of which has kitty dreadlocks and likes to pull them out all over the house).

Ya’ll wish me luck on that.

We did pack up a TON of stuff and we rented a  storage unit.   Everything looks so nice and feels like everything has a place.

Why in the SAM HILL WORLD do I need all of that stuff?  If I can pack it up and live without it for 6 months or so then why do we keep it around?

It’s made me realize that during this move I want to simplify.  I have always been pretty good about cleaning out and getting rid of stuff but I still have needless crap in storage.  So when we move I am going to be really careful about getting rid of things we are holding onto for no good reason.

So that’s what’s going on here…and I am doing a pretty good job of  staying sane.  Staying up too late and drinking a quart of coffee every morning.  It’s all worth it.

This July it will be 4 years since we bought our house.  We moved in as a family of 3 and now we are a foursome.  Although I will always feel attached to this house because of the history I have here and the memories we have created here we are ready to move on.

Mainly because we want more than one bathroom and we would LURVE to have a garage.  Usually we aren’t fighting for the bathroom but there are times when one of us is taking a shower and somebody needs to go poo.  And no matter how much we love each other here in the 007 house we just don’t poo in front of each other.  No offense to the open door poo-ers out there.

It’s just too personal.  Plus we don’t have a fart fan.  See now there is another reason to move.  No fart fan to suck the unpleasant odors out.

Was that too much?  Sorry if that was too much.

Anyway we are getting ready to put the crooked blue house up for sale.  I will miss a lot of things about it.  It has a great amount of charm and warmth and I feel very cozy living here.  It has good light and it has all of these little built-in shelves and cabinets that I will miss.  But 2 1/2 bathrooms are calling my name!!

My dad (a fabulous real estate agent if you live in Middle TN) came over and gave us a list of things we might want to do before we list the house.  We have pressure washed and stained the deck, washed the windows inside and out, painted the front porch, planted landscaping in several different areas, pressure washed a bunch of other stuff and touched up some paint inside the house.  The deck looks so nice without our patio furniture that I don’t want to put it back up there!

And we still have A LOT to do.  There will be lots more painting and a few more things to do outside.  We are also thinking about renting a storage unit to make the house look less like a toy store threw up in here.  I was thinking about storing the treadmill and packing up various odds and ends to declutter and simplify moving.  Plus I was thinking that it will make it easier to keep the house clean for showings.  There are these two small people I live with who like to take out every toy they own at the same time.

Does anyone have any tips for selling your house with small children? Because I am pretty sure potential home buyers won’t find our Fisher Price toy selection a selling point.

So apparently it has been 2 weeks since I have posted anything. I got an email from BlogHer (my ad company) that it had been a while since I posted.  OOPS!  I have never gone that long without writing and actually not writing came a little too easy for me.

What’s up with that?

Well for one of those weeks the Double Oh Seven family went on vacation.  We traveled down in our trusty Odyssey “Magic” to THE Redneck Riviera.  Yes we vacationed in trusty ol’ Panama City, FL.  We somehow managed to NOT get a picture of the 4 of us together.

Mr.007’s parents and sister met us down there and his parents generously paid for the condo we all stayed in.

In all fairness it is not as redneck as people make it out to be.   I mean there ARE rednecks everywhere but there are also just regular people spending some quality time with each other at the beach.  And plus I live in TN so frankly I am used to rednecks and I have become slightly desensitized.

And speaking of the beaches they are really beautiful and the water was absolutely crystal clear blueish green while we were there.  We had GREAT weather and where we stayed we were pretty separated from the Senior tripping, booby flashing, girls gone wild, beer funneling Whoooers.

What is a Whoooer you might ask?

People who are riding around just for the heck of it yelling as loud as they can out of their car or truck window.  They tend to make a WHOOOO!  sound and this prompts other people from other cars and trucks to WHOOO! back at them in response to the aforementioned WHOOOING sound.  I even saw a minvan FULL of teenage girls driving down the road with both sliding doors open.  Of course someone honked  loudly at the girls in the van and the only response to honking in Panama City is to WHOOOOO! as loud as you can.

If you hear a honking sound you don’t even look to see where it’s coming from.   You just immediately WHOOOO! and move on to the next shot of Jose’ Quervo.

In fact once upon a time I may or may not have been a Senior tripping Whoooer.  I may or may not have peirced my bellybutton  in a store that sold airbrushed t-shirts and pool noodles.  I have always maintained a high level of class and decorum.  Yeah right.

I can freely admit that at one time I might have been somewhat of  a hoodlum.  I drank  Zima and smoked Marlboro Lights and gasp! WHOOOED out of car windows.  But now here I am at the old age of 28 and I have two small children and hoodlum’s get on my nerves.  They cuss too much, they are loud and they can lay on the beach without worrying that their 8 yr old and 19 month old daughters need more sunscreen.

Oh to be 18 again…I wouldn’t go back if you paid me.  Nope.  I like being 28 and I like that I don’t WHOO on a regular basis.  But I do smile and laugh because life is pretty darn good right now.  Crazy and messy and loud and inconvenient but still really good.

I want to enter Alivia in our local newspaper’s baby photo contest.  I happen to think she is the cutest baby EVER.  I know, I know I am biased but whatever…so the only problem is that I can’t choose a picture.  I have narrowed it down to a few and I need your help!

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

I have a few favorites in this bunch but I would love to hear what you guys think.  I am not indecisive at all…nope.  I just value your opinions that much.

In other news we are leaving for the beach tomorrow and I have about eleventy hundred things to accomplish before tonight.  I maybe probably should be productive today instead of playing on the computer.

In other other news our fabulous real estate agent (also known as  my dad) is coming over tonight to discuss putting our house on the market.  Last night he sent us some listings to look at online and although the idea of moving into a new house is exciting I am getting really anxious for many reasons.   I am just a fretter and I fret about things and make 35 lists and call my mom and consult her about every little detail.

I am however really looking forward to going to look at bunches of houses.   I mean HELLO it will be like House Hunters in my own real life!  Now how fun is THAT?

12 days ago I started the BIG SPRING CLEANING PROJECT.  Otherwise known as clean out every dresser, closet and drawer and throw the junk in the dining room.  It was horrible nightmarish process.  There were piles of crap everywhere.

There were goodwill piles, consignment store piles and trash bag piles.  I finally got rid of the last load of things a couple of days ago.  I looked around at the house and it was FILTHY DIRTY!  It looked like a pack of wild dogs lived here. It was a pigsty.  Or a dogsty.  Whatever… I am not kidding.

So I spent the last few days vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing and Clorox wiping.  Mr. 007 and I even washed the windows inside and outside.  Actually he did the outside and I stood inside  scrubbing the  inside of the window yelling” You missed a spot”!

Hey I am nothing if not thorough.

So this morning I woke up to a spotless house and it felt so nice that I decided to make homemade sweet potato muffins for breakfast.  I honestly don’t know what I was thinking dirtying up my beautifully clean kitchen like that but I guess it was just one of those domestic impulses that I later regret and bitch about cleaning up.

While I was mixing up the batter for the muffins Alivia let out an ear piercing scream and Addison called out in a panicky voice “MOMMY IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD I AM SO SORRY IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD!” All the while Livie is crying and crying as Adam and I race into the room.

Then I saw it.  An electronic motorized gerbil was stuck in my baby’s hair.  It was attacking her head.  It had wrapped it’s little wheel feet things around and around her hair and she was freaking out.

It may look innocent enough...but this is the rare, hair eating, toddler attacking gerbil of North America. Approach with extreme caution!

I honestly breathed a sigh of relief.  As I found the off switch I was just so happy it was only her hair and not as bad as I was picturing.  When Addison said something was stuck in Livie’s head I honestly pictured blood and an emergency room visit.  Adam took the gerbil apart and we only had to cut a tiny bit out of her hair to detach it from her head.

just minutes before the attack

They didn't even see it coming...so innocent.

Anyway after the motorized gerbil attack I finished the muffins and waited for them to bake. When they were finished I thought I would sprinkle a little powdered sugar over the tops for a bit of sweetness.  I only did this because Addison had groaned about how GROSS sweet potato muffins are even though she had never even heard of such a thing. I figured powdered sugar would make them a little more appetizing to her.

I have one of these Pampered Chef flour/sugar shaker things so I found the Ziploc bag filled with the sugar, put it in the shaker and sprinkled the tops of the warm muffins.

I got a little sugar on my finger in the process so I licked it off.

Something was wrong.

%&#@!!! ACK!   It wasn’t powdered sugar!  It was cornstarch! $#@$!!!

And let me just tell you I was IRATE.  I was so mad I could have SPIT NAILS!  I might have said an ugly word or two.

Enter Adam who actually saw humor in this situation.  He grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of the muffins despite my EXPLICIT OBJECTIONS! He told me that I needed to laugh at myself.

Yeah that's not powdered sugar.

You know what?  I have no problem finding humor in my stupidity.  I just need a buffer of a little bit longer than um 30 seconds after I do the stupid thing.  I need a buffer!

I was able to get most of the cornstarch off the muffins with a wet paper towel and sprinkle the real powdered sugar on top.  We added a little butter and they actually tasted pretty good.  And now I know that you should label your Ziploc bags when you put unidentifiable white powders inside.  Because cornstarch tastes like you licked the bottom of a shoe.  I am just saying.

So the bottom line is if you haven’t blogged in 12 days all it takes is a baby eating gerbil crisis and a ridiculous baking blunder to kick start your writers block.

Yay me!