Not Me! Monday (#6): Health and Hygiene 101

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! For those of you that read MckMama, you've heard of this. For those of you that don't, feel free to check out her blog to get the background on how this started as a way to tell about some of the funny things that you generally would refuse to admit to doing.

Sixth Installment...

During the past 72 hours, it was certainly NOT ME who:

1) Wore the same gray sweatpants, non-stop, for 48 hours. Even in public on a trip to the grocery store. Even BACK to bed, as my pajamas, after a full 24 hours of wear.

2) Showered on Thursday night before bed. And not again until Sunday night before bed.

3) Found herself outside with the girls, tissue-less, when Macie's nose began running into her mouth and, rather than running inside to get a Kleenex, instead grabbed the neckline of Macie's shirt and promptly wiped her nose clean.

4) Allowed Ivie to grab some candy-coated pretzels out of the fridge for a snack and eat one before remembering that she'd been outside playing for an hour and her hands were nasty.

5) Doesn't remember the last time she changed her bedsheets.

6) Is fired up that her next houseguest might be the same person that was here last (yea, Stac!). Because it means she doesn't have to change those bedsheets, either.

7) After 2 straight weeks of dealing with Ivie's runny bowel movements for no apparent reason, finally was reminded of Florastor Kids (thanks to a trip to the doctor with Macie for an ear infection and a prescription for a medication that will cause the same), which is designed specifically for that reason, and which she already had in the cabinet. And, after 2 quick days of mixing it in Ivie's applesauce and yogurt, we saw signs of normalcy in the poop department on Saturday night.

8) Can't remember the last time she actually rinsed off Macie's pacifier before handing it back to her after picking it up off of any surface.

In summary, it is NOT ME that is sitting here typing this thinking that it really is a miracle that the girls aren't sick more often...

Not Me! Monday (#5): Facebook Photo Contest

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! For those of you that read MckMama, you've heard of this. For those of you that don't, feel free to check out her blog to get the background on how this started as a way to tell about some of the funny things that you generally would refuse to admit to doing.

Fifth Installment...

I'm not really a huge fan of Facebook, particularly lately when it seems that it's only good for spreading viruses and causing my co-workers' computers to be confiscated by UNC technology services for upwards of 4 weeks to get them "cleaned". (Which is a totally different story in and of itself. 4 to 6 weeks to get a virus off of a computer? Really? At one of the leading public institutions for higher education in the country? Okay. If you say so.)

In fact, I initially opened a Facebook account only so that I could have access to the pages of our student-athletes if I ever needed to "check in" with (or on) them. There were many times, during those early days, when I would deny friend requests from my actual friends, telling them that I did NOT want to get involved in the time-sucker that is the Facebook "News Feed".

But I eventually relented, started adding "friends", and am now a regular Facebook peruser. It's one of the four windows that I keep "open" in my browser all the time (with the other three being my email, my blog, and the NCAA database through which I find interps for work). It's certainly helpful for keeping up with what is going on in the lives of my friends and acquaintances, particularly those whom I know from my childhood in Owensville, Missouri and my college days at Westminster.

But I'm still not addicted. Or that's what I tell myself. I haven't yet been pulled into Pathwords. Or Farmville. Or the distribution of "gifts" or "flair". And I don't feel compelled to keep my status updated on a regular basis.

Which is why I would NEVER think about participating in a photo contest that is based entirely on (gasp!) "popular vote" via jasmere's Facebook fan site. Because, to take seriously the objective of winning the $250 jasmere shopping spree, I would have to actually solicit votes from my Facebook friends. Which is certainly not my style, and, admittedly, flies in the face of my goal to not devote much time to the site.

But I entered. Because, for goodness' sake, I COULD WIN $250. On JASMERE. And that, my friends, made it worth it.

But I would NEVER stoop to the level of keeping the window with my entry (a picture of Ivie holding several purchased-from-jasmere bags) open at all times from the beginning to the end of the contest. And, whenever time permitted (let's just say several occasions during the day), refreshing the window to see if any friends had voted.

Nor would I enter it as my Facebook status not once, twice, thrice, but, well, six (I think, but might have lost track) times during the course of the contest to make sure it rose to the top of my friends' "News Feeds". And I certainly did not ask my siblings, husband, and visiting friend, Stacy, to post it to THEIR Facebook statuses, as well.

And I would never create a Facebook "Note" and "tag" up to the limit of 25 friends so that they would get a personal email with a request to "Please Vote for Ivie!!!".

And sending Facebook messages out to dozens more Facebook friends to get them to click on the picture and vote? NO WAY.

Also, since I've never been very competitive (I hate games!), I promised myself that I would just focus on obtaining votes for Ivie. And see what happened. Because, seriously, there was no way that I was going to be able to actually win, anyway, right? I mean, how many times have I entered my children into online photo contests that were based on popular vote, knowing that it was a complete and utter waste of my time? So I would not pay any attention to the other contestants' pictures and vote count. It would just be something fun to try, and maybe, just maybe, I would be selected by the jasmere folks for one of the "runner-up" $50 credits that they were going to pick from the group of non-winners...

So, if you looked over my shoulder at my laptop at any point during the contest, which began late Tuesday night and continued through last night, you would NOT have seen four Facebook windows open. One to my "home page", one to Ivie's picture on the jasmere fan site, one to my friend Brooke's picture on the jasmere fan site (more on this later), and one to the general "fan photo" page on jasmere's fan site. And, had you observed me for an hour or so, you would NOT have seen me occasionally refresh these pages and count the number of votes received by the various pictures. Nope! Again, that would have been a total waste of valuable time.

And you also would NOT have found me actually emailing the jasmere folks to confirm that 1) a person could only "vote" one time for each entry, since there was one photo in the contest who had several obvious repeat "voters", and 2) a person did NOT have to be an actual "jasmere fan" in order for their vote to count. Nope. I did not take the time to do that. Because, remember, I went into this thing telling myself it was just for fun and I wasn't going to put much time into it...

So. Enough about this. Other than to show you the picture/caption I used for the contest (for those of you who read my blog but aren't my "friend" on Facebook).

Please help Ivie fill up our claire v and Coakley bags with more jasmere goodies!!!

I know you're all on the edge of your seats wondering what happened, aren't you?!? Well, wait no longer...

After all that STRESS and Facebook work, I ended up with 103 comments/votes. The next closest entry finished with 72.

So I won, right? Well, ultimately, yes. But, due to a glitch in the system initially, I didn't get the "official" win from jasmere. I won't go into details (no one other than me really cares, anyway), other than to say that when I brought it to their attention, they were quite professional (as they always are), very apologetic, and quickly corrected the mistake by giving me $251 of jasmere credit (an extra dollar to make up for the oversight).

They asked if I needed a "public" congratulations. I said, "HECK NO!". The jasmere credit is all I wanted out of this!!! Though I DID tell them that I already had this story planned for Herman Nation, even before the results were published, so I was going to need to comment about it on there. They were okay with this, given that they are fully aware that Herman Nation has a readership of about 15!

Anyway, moving on. To make this even better, Brooke was awarded one of the runner-up $50 credits by the jasmere judges! Her photos of Emerson were adorable. Here's her collage (which I jokingly told her was "cheating", since she used more than one photo, but I agree wholeheartedly that showing off these cute clothes would have been difficult to do in one picture without Emerson looking like a pink, unable to move (let alone jump!), amorphous being...):


And because Brooke and I are "in it together" when it comes to jasmere and social shopping websites, we agreed early on during the contest that if either of us won, we would share $100 of of the prize with the other. Win-win that way, right? So now we each have $150 of fun money to spend on jasmere! What a great weekend!

So. The moral of this looooong story? I still deny an addiction to Facebook. And I still believe that I'm not competitive by nature. Whether or not you agree with me, particularly after reading this post, is your call. But I'm certainly ecstatic that I can now go back to only having ONE Facebook browser window open at any given time.

Oh, and I almost forgot. For the record, I'm very glad I didn't ship the bags featured in the photo off to their intended recipients (my sister and sisters-in-law) until after they were able to help me win a shopping spree! But girls, they'll be on their way to you later this week, I hope, if I can get my act together...

Lastly, a HEARTY THANK YOU to all my Facebook friends/blog readers that took the time to "Vote for Ivie!!!". You guys rock. And, now, I'll leave you alone.

Not Me! Monday (#4): Pop-Tarts

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! For those of you that read MckMama, you've heard of this. For those of you that don't, feel free to check out her blog to get the background on how this started as a way to tell about some of the funny things that you generally would refuse to admit to doing.

Fourth Installment...

I love Pop-Tarts for breakfast. Not even on Not Me! Monday can I deny it. My favorite kind? Frosted Chocolate Vanilla Creme. Sadly, the only place I can find them is at Food Lion (even though Dale requests them on the silly Target surveys EVERY TIME we get one!). But, even more sadly, since this is the only item that I need to purchase at Food Lion, I don't take the time to go. Which means I just don't ever get this flavor of Pop-Tart. Tragic, I know.

(Side note. After finishing this post, I did a little research on the lack of presence of Frosted Chocolate Vanilla Creme in our local stores and found this. Shows you how long it's been since I made the trip to Food Lion, I guess. And I guess I should tell Dale to stop requesting them on the Target surveys, since he's just showing his ignorance (sorry, Sweetie!) and the survey readers probably wish there was a way to respond and say, "Enough already, joker! Kellogg's doesn't MAKE them any more! Leave us alone!" without losing their jobs for not being customer-friendly.)

So I've learned to be satisfied with my second favorite flavor. Frosted Cookies & Creme (complete with a new-and-improved package "look", I noticed yesterday).

I have a Pop-Tart for breakfast probably 4 of the 7 days each week. You know, when I'm not having Lucky Charms, or Cocoa Puffs, or Fruit Loops, or, on extremely rare occasions when I'm feeling like eating a bit healthier, yogurt and turkey bacon.

So it is not me, a grown woman, that, on most trips to Harris Teeter (our grocery store out here), puts 3-4 boxes of Pop-Tarts in the cart. And, when people (usually those who are still in their exercise gear after leaving the gym that is right next to the grocery store) see me do this and look at me funny, it is not me that gives them the "I swear this is the only even remotely unhealthy thing I let my children eat" nod, while frantically trying to use the 5 bananas and 6 cartons of yogurt in the cart to cover up the chips, cookies, boxed macaroni, and processed-and-way-too-heavily-sodiumized Progresso chicken noodle soup. And what bums me out the absolute most about this is that I really think I would be successful with this facade if my kids didn't blow my cover by choosing this very moment to exclaim, quite loudly, that they want to go to the bakery section of the store and get the "One Free Cookie" that is permitted each individual who shops there. And we want the "good" ones, Mommy, not the healthier, low-fat option.

Sigh.

Oh, yes. About my two kids (and how they relate to this post). Have I mentioned yet that they love Pop-Tarts, too? Mostly Ivie. I can still convince Macie to have the MUCH HEALTHIER Eggo frozen mini-pancakes (or the waffles, before the national shortage) most mornings after her fruit cup. (At least I make them both start with a fruit cup, right?!?) But not Ivie. This is yet another way that she appears to be just like her mommy. She even likes my "brown" ones the best, too! (Which usually means we have to brush her teeth twice to get all the chocolate out.)

This story might (might?) end up being longer than it should. You can blame the stinkin' background info that I have to provide in an effort to make the end result even remotely funny and worth your time.

So sometimes when we grocery shop at Target, instead of Harris Teeter, I have to settle for a different flavor of Pop-Tart (because most of the time they don't carry EITHER of my top two choices). Not long ago when this happened, I made the mistake of deciding to give Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough a try. I mean, how could that be bad? I love cookie dough!

Well, wrong choice. I'm not a fan.

But now I'm stuck with them in my pantry. Along with a box of Strawberry that I can certainly stomach if necessary, even though they're not my favorite.

So right now, I have 3 total boxes on the shelf, listed here in order of my preferences: Cookies & Creme, Strawberry, and Cookie Dough. I believe Ivie would wholeheartedly agree with this order of ranking.

Therefore, KNOWING that my lovely daughter much prefers the Cookies & Creme Pop-Tarts to the others, it is certainly not me that tries, each morning, to convince her to eat one of the other two flavors so we can rid our pantry of them without having to eat them myself. And, finding myself to be unsuccessful day-after-day in this quest, there is no way that I would stoop so low as to hide the Cookies & Creme from her line of sight when she opens the pantry and tell her that we are "out" of them...


...knowing full well that if I were to separate the boxes only slightly, she would see the box of "brown" ones in the back and request one.


And then I'd have to give her one. And then I'd be the one stuck eating the yucky cookie dough kind to GET THEM OUT OF MY PANTRY.

Nope. Not me.

Not Me! Monday (#3): Jasmere Shapewear

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! For those of you that read MckMama, you've heard of this. For those of you that don't, feel free to check out her blog to get the background on how this started as a way to tell about some of the funny things that you generally would refuse to admit to doing.

Third Installment...

It was not me who spent at least 15 minutes (we'll call it the first part of my lunch break) walking around the 2nd floor of our office building telling my 4 fellow compliance officers the following story:

I'm pretty sure most of you are not familiar with jasmere.com. I wasn't either, until a couple of months ago. And I'm not even sure who brought it to my attention.

Anyway, jasmere is an online shopping website that "seeks out lesser-known specialty retailers that deserve national attention" and offers buyers wonderful deals on said retailers' products. In exchange, obviously, the retailers get a national audience that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise. So they're happily willing to participate with jasmere in one day of huge sales with the hope of becoming more widely-known. The idea is that the more people that buy the day's (each day there is a new one) feature product at an already-crazy-low price, the more the price drops. So that ultimately, at the end of the 24-hour feature, everyone who purchased the item pays the price to which the feature dropped during its time as a feature item.

I've made a few purchases on jasmere since my discovery of how fun it is. One of them is a little surprise for my mom (so I can't give details), and the other is a semi-surprise that my sister, Sarah, sister-in-law, Bobbie, and soon-to-be-sister-in-law, Carla, will be receiving as soon as I can get to the post office to mail them (or until I procrastinate long enough to just send them home with my mom and dad this weekend!). At the moment, said sisters are probably a little befuddled as to why in the world I asked them to pick out their favorite bags on clairev.com and then never brought it up again. After reading this post, I guess they will no longer be confused.

But back to jasmere. This weekend, I was on their site perusing the weekend feature item. Though I wasn't interested in purchasing it, I did see a button on their home page that advertised a way to "get the feature item for free!". Always eager to get something for free, I clicked on the button and found that, beginning this weekend and every day thereafter, jasmere was going to do random drawings amongst their "fans" on Facebook. So all you had to do was "Become a Fan", and you would be entered into their daily drawings. Sounds like a no-brainer to me! Once I got to their site, I saw that they only had 441 fans. That's not bad odds to maybe someday win a prize, I thought to myself, promptly returned to my weekend blogging and forgetting about jasmere.

Until today at 12:21p. When I received an email from Facebook notifying me that, you guessed it, I was the random drawing winner for jasmere today! Eager to see what I'd won, I headed immediately to the site. To see this:

And here's what jasmere's Facebook status reported:


Now, for those of you that know me well, you're probably just now getting back up into your chair after having fallen out from laughing so hard. I will be the first to admit (and Dale will be the first to second the fact) that I hardly EVER wear clothes that would warrant the donning of this type of undergarment. I mean, I didn't even know what "spanx" were until a couple months ago at a "girls' night" party when it came up and, seeing the blank look on my face, my friends educated me.

Nonetheless, I am fired up about the "shapewear" that will be arriving in my mailbox in the near future. Maybe I'll have to buy some tight-fitting clothes so I can justify wearing it!

To summarize, it was also not me who just spent 30 minutes writing this post. We'll call it the "rest" of my lunch break.

Back to prepping Football National Letters of Intent. And eating some Starburst.

Not Me! Monday (#2): Christmas Angel and Dishwasher

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! For those of you that read MckMama, you've heard of this. For those of you that don't, feel free to check out her blog to get the background on how this started as a way to tell about some of the funny things that you generally would refuse to admit to doing.

For my second installment...

1. We took down our Christmas decorations on Saturday. While a couple of breakable decorations (mostly ornaments) fell victim to the unsteady grasp of one Macie Jane Herman during the holiday season, I, being a responsible adult, was always super careful when handling such items. Which is why it was certainly not me that somehow (still not sure what happened) allowed a wiry decoration to slip and disturb the hand-crafted-by-yours-truly, 29-year-old (yes, I made it in Sunday School in 1980 when I was 4), deliberately-placed-with-care-each-year-in-a-spot-of-honor-on-the-mantel angel.

It was also not me who, seconds later, seeing the angel lying in 2 pieces (her head broken off) on the marble (ouch!) base of the fireplace, became immediately teary-eyed and later broke into a full-out sob that lasted for several minutes while I tried unsuccessfully to put the angel back together with a "Krazy Glue" pen.


But it was me who added "super glue brush" to our shopping list. Because I'm confident my angel will live to see many more Christmases...

2. Dale and I are firm believers in hand-washing our pots and pans. That's why it was not us that, after making cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve (and a couple dozen extra for the rest of us), put the cookie pan in the dishwasher before running a very full load. And even if we were lazy enough to do that, it certainly did not take us 5 cycles to finally figure out that the reason the soap dispenser in the dishwasher was malfunctioning was because said cookie pan was placed in the perfect position to keep the dispenser door from opening.

Not Me! Monday (#1): Our House

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! For those of you that read MckMama, you've heard of this. For those of you that don't, feel free to check out her blog to get the background on how this started. (Watch out, though, or you might fall in love with her family, despite never having met them, and become addicted to her stories. Trust me. It's been known to happen.)

Anyway, Not Me! Monday is essentially a fun way to tell about some of the funny things that you generally would refuse to admit to doing. But since you do it in this "not me" setting, it becomes a little less, well, awful!

So here's my first installment....

1) Dale and I are firm believers in child-proofing. That's why it is not us that rely on a Pack-n-Play, instead of a drilled-into-the-wall-for-added-security safety gate to keep our 15-month old from climbing the stairs.


2) I hate clutter. That's why it is not me that has a toy corner in the living room that looks like this,


a Dining Room table that looks like this,


and a guest bed (affectionately known to Dale and me as "Dining Room Table - North") that looks like this.


3) While I'm on the clutter topic, I believe that shoes should always be placed neatly in one's closet. On shoe racks, specifically. That is why my clothes dryer most definitely does not look like this:


4) Even though Macie loves to climb, I am very careful to not let her do anything that could result in her being injured. So I would never allow her to climb on the bench or chairs in the kitchen. And, even if I did, I would stand VERY close to her, holding her hand, and would never back away from her to catch her extremely funny face with my camera...



5) Although I love ice cream, I limit my children's exposure. So much so that Macie doesn't even really know what it is. That's why I'm not really sure why a small carton of it would elicit the following response...


And when it was time to give her a tiny sampling, I did not send Dale after the camera to get some shots of her bird face...


6) Over the past several weeks, as Dale and I have been spending our late evenings making "Magic Bars" for his customers (we're at 20 batches and counting), I have not required that he put the chocolate chips on before the butterscotch. Because that would be plum silly. Particularly since the only reason is that I think they "look more festive" that way. In fact I did not pound it into his brain so often that when I exclaimed "Seriously?!?" (for an entirely unrelated reason) while he was distributing the chocolate chips in batch #19, his heart did not skip a beat and he did not do a double-take to make sure that he had the right chips in his hand, for fear of having to deal with the wrath of Amy.


7) Finally, saving the worst for last, I did not spend time yesterday disinfecting Macie's humidifier that has been sitting unused in her room for nine months with about 2 inches of stagnate water inside. Because that would just be gross.