And the winner is...

#8 is Jenny! Who said "I subscribe in google reader."

Congrats Jenny, you should have an email from me. If I don't hear back from you in 24 hours, I'll redraw. Have fun shopping!

Thank you everyone for entering!

Motoring Away

Thanks to all who've entered the giveaway! I think spring is on everyone's mind, huh? Those of you who live in warmer climates, I'm totally jealous! We just got hit with another snowstorm and I ended up with a snow day at work. Almost three years I've worked there, I've never had a snow day. It was that bad!

We're still working on our basement. We're priming the walls today and hopefully get the electrician and contractor back to do the finishing work. Then we can move everything back and I can clean out the guest room. Once that room is done, we're moving to the bathroom. The only real difficult work will be tearing out the laminate floor and replacing it with tile. The rest is finishing work. Just trying to make our home nicer, one room and one project at a time.

If you're a shopper of Ikea, check out this great site, Ikea Hackers, for all hacked Ikea products. I love to see what people use to solve common problems. There are some really creative people out there!

Something Fun - A Giveaway!! (CLOSED)

All the snow is melting and it's still February! That can only mean I can see parts of my yard and its brown, water-soaked grass. Baby Jules loves to be outside even more now and that gets me thinking of him playing outside this summer.

He's well past the age of sitting under the tree on a blanket, crawling around, not wanting to touch the grass. He might not be old enough for swingsets yet, but he's old enough for something fun, just gotta figure out what.

And speaking of something fun...I've got a fun and easy way to win a $55$60 gift certificate from csnstores.com!

CSN Stores have over 200 online stores where you can find anything you need whether it be swingsets, fitness equipment, or even cute cookware! CSN Stores have given me a gift certificate worth $55 $60(!) for one of my readers! All you have to do is comment on what you can't wait to do when you can see your yard again.

Wanna earn extra entries? Sure you do!

1-extra entry for subscribing to my blog - leave a separate entry to say you subscribed (or if you already subscribe)
1-extra entry for blogging about this giveaway - leave a separate entry with your post link.
1-extra entry for tweeting: Enter to win $60 gift cert to @CSNstores via @jeeprsjessi's blog! http://xrl.in/78p5 Ends Mon, 2/28 - leave a separate entry when you have done this.

Now, the rules:

Contest ends February 28th, 5pm CST.
Must be a resident of the US or Canada (promotional codes cannot be used towards Canadian international fees)
18 years of age
Provide a valid email address so I can contact you if you win.
The winner will be chosen by Random.org and will have 24 hours to respond or I draw another name.
Gift card must be used by March 31st. (sorry such short notice)

Disclosure: I was not compensated for this giveaway from CSN Stores.

This One Time...

I join my sister-in-law at her sons hockey game. Apparently, there's a parents league that plays after the kids are done. Her team annihilates the other team. The other team never gets any new players because, well, I don't know the reason. I can see it in their faces; the faces of defeat every week.

At the end of the game, they do a race from mid ice to see who can get to the end the fastest. My sister-in-law says I should do it. So I lace up my skates and hesitantly get on the ice. Oh man, it's slippery! I take my place next to her and the wall at the end of the line. The bell goes off and the line of parents scramble to gain traction on the ice to propel them forward. I do the same. Soon, the fastest emerge from the starting line and I'm just behind them. I start passing parents right and left and my speed picks up. I can't decide if I'm really slow and these parents are even slower or I'm somehow a natural when it come to speed skating.

I'm in second place, eying the first place mom who's looking behind her. I easily skate past her and make my way full speed to the finish line (the wall). Surprised at my out-of-no-where finish, the announcer asks what team I'm part of and I answered back, "No team."

My sister-in-law steps in and says "She's on our team!"

The losing team look at each other and start to cry. I feel bad for them and can see how much a skater like me could help. I'm uncomfortable with my unexpected fame so I walk away.

20 Months

Only four short months until the big TWO. But you are still such a baby in my eyes. We still call you Baby Jules (as do other family members).



You still love your train set and will play in your room without problems. You realized I've been keeping toys from various holidays - that I haven't given to you yet - in your closet and you try to open the doors to get to them. Don't worry, you'll get them soon enough.

You added some new words this month! Hi, bye bye and night night. We've only been saying these to you for over a year :) To hear you say "hi" is really sweet. You'll come into the room or look for us and say "Hi-eee". It's really cute. You also added two new signs: bike and cheese. Bike was easy, it's like pedaling with your hands and we figured we'd teach you cheese, your favorite food. You picked it up within a day. You're getting good at doing two signs. You'll sign "more" and "train" and that means you want to watch "Thomas the Tank Engine". Or "more" and "milk". Guess we should teach you more signs!



You have nine teeth on top and six on bottom. Poor you, they come in two at a time. But I think you're set on teeth for a while. You still sleep 12 hours at night but your afternoon nap is about 2 hours. Dad isn't getting as much work done. But my day off helps him get caught up and you and I get to hang out all day.

On my day off, I take you to the Y with me. You cry when I drop you off to play, but the second they show you the train table, you're fine. You do the same thing when the Babysitter comes over. The second you see her, we see your anxiety level increase. You start to pout and cry. Here's to hoping you grow out of that!


You love to visit our neighbor, Donna. She's older and lives alone. Daddy tells me that you walk up to her door, pound on the glass and she opens it to let you in. Scully goes with you. She loves it when you visit her! She'll watch you while Daddy is working in the garage or needs to get something done. She's very, very nice and loves you like your other Grandmas.


Your hair was getting too long so I decided to cut it. Dad had to hold you and we gave you a tootsie roll to chew on. No dice. You didn't like me combing your hair, you didn't like the scissors, and you especially didn't like sitting still. But, I did manage to cut off the mullet even if it was a little uneven.

Happy 20 months, Baby Jules!

January Burns

Since moving to Minnesota, I knew that January would be a difficult month when it came to weather.
Actually, it's January through May with February or March being the really difficult months.
It's spring, and snow is still falling. That's hard to swallow when all your friends in ALL THE OTHER STATES are out having a good time in spring-like weather.

Can you tell Justin's bitterness has rubbed off?

It's been a really rough winter. So Justin took me to Kauai with another couple for my birthday. Hawaii in January. I didn't care if it was going to rain or be in the 70's. It wasn't snow and I didn't have to take a jacket.

Hawaii in January!

We were going to sail, kayak, surf, eat, drink and relax by the ocean. And we did and it was awesome!

But, there was a drawback. Our pasty white skin. It burned. We were diligent about using spf 50 and above. Our Indian friends didn't want to get "darker" (their words, not mine) either and were slathering spf 70. But us white folks burned areas of our body that we didn't expect. Legs, feet, hands, lips. And nothing would soothe the pain. Then I thought of this:

Back in Junior High School, 90210 was new and all the cool kids were watching it. I could NEVER get into it. The adult-like (fake) situations, the sex, a dj in a high school (pu-leeese!). I get they were trying to relate to people my age with issues of our generation but it was done in such a way that it made you feel shittier about yourself.

So I turned it off.

BUT! I did see an episode that officially gave me the green light to never watch the show again. The main, dark-haired chick (Brenda?) is out sunbathing before the big dance, naturally. But, oh noes! She got burned bigtime! WTH was she gonna do?

Don't worry, cool mom from the 90's used granny's sunburn aftercare, secret remedy and came to the rescue. Brenda came walking down the stairs in her poofy sleeved, black dress all ghost-like. Pasty skin restored back to normal.

YA RIGHT, 90210. Why do I get so angry about this story line?

So anyway, the sun is damaging and burns are painful. I could barely put socks on for my 9 hour flight home. Surprinsly, just my feet were affected and are now a beautiful tan color (3 weeks later).

I'm now the only Minnesotan with tan feet - that no one will ever see. Not til May, at least.


Hiding behind bikes. Even flip-flops hurt my feet. :(