Minted Review

For the past few years i've been saying i'm going to send out holiday cards, but then I end up getting busy and forget to send them out. However, this year i'm determined to send them out, so i'm getting an early jump start on the process.  I have decided to go with an adorable online stationery shop by the name of Minted.  You can find so many fun paper products on Minted, such as wedding invitations, save the date cards, new baby announcements, birthday invites, and so much more!

The hardest part has been deciding on a design because I truly love them all.  You are sure to find a design that you love, as there are pages and pages of amazing designs to look through.  Another thing I found neat about Minted, is that it is powered by thousands of independent designers.  If you don't care for one designer's style, you are sure to love another.

Love this one! 

I'm really leaning towards the photo Christmas card, if (and this is a big if), we can get our five little darlings to cooperate long enough to get a picture that doesn't include closed eyes, crying, or nose picking.

For those of you who prefer non photo holiday cards, they also have traditional cards that are very lovely.

I absolutely adore this one! 

They even have holiday postcards! 

I love this idea!  

Check one thing off your holiday to do list by visiting Minted and ordering your cards today! 

*I was not compensated for this review but I did receive Minted credit in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own. 

That one time when I tried to breastfeed the dog

I know I keep repeating myself like a toddler these days..."Hey mom, you know what?  Hey mom, you know what?" Yeah, like that.  But seriously, my life feels like a cheesy horror flick and i'm the main character that just wont die off (but without the bonus of having oversized, perky breasts).  So once again, I find myself apologizing for not being around much to blog.

I'm exhausted.  I mean ex....haus....ted.   I've been going to bed earlier than I ever have in my life thanks to Olive waking me up at the butt crack of dawn, but i'm still dog ass tired in the morning.  And I even look and probably smell like a dog too because I can't even remember the last time I washed my hair, shaved my legs (or other parts), or put on make up, or wore clothes that didn't have remnants of last night's dinner.  Yep, i'm a sexy bitch all right.

I'm so exhausted that the other day I was sitting on the couch like a zombie, when Olive jumped up on the couch next to me. I instinctively lifted up my shirt to offer her boobs (habit from breastfeeding Peanut for so dang long).  She looked at me all confused and for a split second I was thinking, "Sweet, maybe she's finally ready to wean" and that's when it hit me that I was trying to breastfeed my dog.  That's gotta be cuttin it dangerously close to rock bottom, you think?

Is this chick serious?

*Pic borrowed from Google

On Wednesday (known as my hell day because Weds are half days in our district and they are crazy), I made it to the evening where the only thing I had left to do was take Bo's to soccer practice. Okay, I could handle that, so I thought.  I got her ready to go which is always a nightmare because she's super slow to do anything and therefore she's perpetually late to everything (like my husband).  We made it to the school and found her team (which happened to be playing in the far field so by the time I made it there I sounded like an 80 year old with emphysema because i'm fat and out of shape).

I noticed right away that all of the girls were dressed in their game jerseys, black shorts, hair pulled back, etc. My daughter was wearing a pink tank top with an ice cream cone on it.  I walked up to another parent and asked, "Do they have team pictures or something?"  He looked at me like I was a moron and said, "Um, no, they have a game."  And it started in 15 min! Awesome!  So, I ran back across the field towards my minivan and I called my husband to tell him they had a game (while I was attempting to run). I was panting heavily because I don't run, not even if you hold out a giant tray of donuts to tempt me (well, okay, maybe I would run for donuts).  He automatically assumed I had gotten mugged.  Out of breath wife, apparently means muggage.  I drove home, dug through the dirty laundry for the game jersey, got back into my van and raced back to the game.  Luckily I got there in time but I was sweating like a pig and completely out of breath.  I threw my mother f#@king fold out chair on the ground (while it was still in the bag) to catch my breath and it landed on my foot, nearly slicing off a toe.  I had to act tough while inside I was screaming, "Son of a f#@king monkey loving b$#ch!!!!!"

I'm not sure how this weekend could possibly top the week I had, but i'm already on a roll. I got woken up at 5 am by Olive trying to chew my hair right off my scalp and my period showed up as well. Did I mention we have an extra soccer practice tonight and an 8:30 am game on Saturday?

We got a puppy

I know I completed vanished off the face of the Earth, but I have a valid excuse.  We got a puppy! Two weeks ago, on a Saturday, the hubby and I drove three hours to Seattle to pick up Olive.  She's a purebred Hungarian Vizsla and pretty stinkin cute, which is good for her, since i'm not too thrilled about getting up with her at 6 am every morning. My life now consists of cleaning up pee and poop, making sure she's not destroying my house or getting into something that could hurt her, feeding her, playing with her, and breaking up wrestling matches with the boys.  Hmmmm, I guess you can say that not much has changed!

I feel terrible that I haven't been keeping up with this blog. It's not that I had so much more extra time last year to post, but I didn't have a dog, and I also wasn't homeschooling a Kindergartener.  I'm realizing that I just can't do it all.  I have five kids.  Sometimes I forget that.  Okay, no I don't, but I compare myself to other bloggers who don't have five kids and I really shouldn't do that.  I'm not saying i'm going to stop writing on Life On Peanut Layne.  Nope, sorry you can't get rid of me that easily. I just need to cut myself a break, while I try to figure out a realistic routine that doesn't involve me having a nervous breakdown where I find myself curled up in a ball on my dog pee stained rug.

Since this is our first dog, I decided to start a dog blog journaling our dog owning experiences.  A dog blog. Nerd alert! Yes, I could just use this blog, but I totally get that not everyone wants to read about my dog.  I have never been a dog person, until we got Olive and now i'm slightly obsessed with her.  Well, okay...I did have a brief moment of regret the other morning when I was running seriously late dropping my daughter off at school and I ran back in my room to grab my jacket and I stepped in a huge, steaming pile of fresh dog poop...and I was barefoot. 

And in case you don't feel like clicking on the link, this is our Olive. 

She's a keeper...even though she poops on my floor. 

How much is that doggy in Ohio?

Image found on Google 

Since we are all done having babies and our kids are getting older, we decided that now is the perfect time to get a dog to complete our family.  The kids have always wanted one and I feel a bit of a void because I never had a dog growing up.  I've actually never owned a dog, ever.  We were the crazy cat family growing up.  We typically had 4-5 cats at any given time.  My mom was not a fan of dogs, so we never got one despite my brother and I begging and pleading every year.  Well, okay we owned a puppy for about a week. Seriously.  Someone drove through our neighborhood and literally dropped a puppy off on our driveway and drove away.  He was adorable and my brother and I really wanted to keep him.  My mom briefly considered it, until the puppy chewed through her favorite lamp cord.  He was re-homed by the following day.

We knew we wanted a dog, and after many hours of research, my husband decided on a Vizsla.  These are not common dogs and are not easy to find. I painstakingly started the difficult process of finding us an adorable, female, Vizsla puppy.  Much to my surprise I found a breeder named "Peggy" who had not one, but multiple female Vizsla puppies in Hillsboro, which is a well known suburb of Portland.

I forwarded the ad to my husband who started emailing her right away.  My husband pretty much gave her our life story.  He wanted her to know that we were serious about getting a dog and that we've done our research and would love her and take care of her, etc.  I'm pretty sure the only piece of info he left out in his 10,000 page emails were our blood types. The breeders responses were kind of vague for the amount of info my husband was giving her, but she did say she still had a couple of females available and she sent us pictures.  We fell in love with one pup in particular.  We started picking out names.  The hubby was shopping for doggy supplies on his lunch break.  We started to prepare ourselves for the possibility that we would be bringing her home in a couple of weeks.   

We scheduled a meeting for this Sunday to come to her house to see the puppies.  We were beyond excited.  We had our deposit ready and we were prepared to fill out paperwork.  Our hope was that we would meet her this weekend and then be able to return on the 14th to pick her up.  That was our plan. We just needed her address and we were ready to go. 

On Thursday night after getting the kids in bed I heard my husband yell from the bathroom, "Babe" but not in a "Oh I love you so much, babe" tone. Rather it was the "we've been married way too long" tone.  Yeah, that one.  I rolled my eyes figuring maybe I bought the wrong toilet paper, or I forgot to do something, missed someone's birthday, etc. 

My annoyance quickly turned to shock. This was our conversation: 

Him: BABE, did you NOT think to check which state this lady lives in? 

Me: Huh? What do you mean?

Him: She lives in Ohio.  OHIO.  

Me: What do you mean Ohio.  The ad said HILLSBORO. She lives in Oregon. 

Him: Yeah, Hillsboro, OHIO. 

Me: Oh. 

Him: Closes bathroom door. 

Me: Walks away to sulk. 

I knew my husband needed some time to himself.  He was so excited about meeting the dogs this Sunday that this was a devastating blow.  I was extremely upset and disappointed as well. I had a migraine headache and was out of soda which is my stress reliever.  I got in the car and drove to McDonald's to get my dollar soda. 

I get a text from the husband.  "Get me a hot fudge sundae"  Then a few minutes later I get another text. "And a Vizsla".  

By the time I got home, things were a little better.  We began to joke about the situation because really, what else can you do? 

This is how we get over the bad stuff: 

Him: The worst part about all of this is not getting to email with Peggy again. I'm going to miss the old lady. 

Me: She's probably working on a restraining order right now.  

Him: Every time she hears about Portland, she's going to think of us. And think we're nuts.  Maybe she thought we were really rich and that's how we were able to travel from OR to OH to get a dog.  I did tell her you were a writer.  Perhaps she thinks you're a sexy writer. 

That was it.  I lost it. I began to laugh so hysterically that a piece of tortilla chip became lodged in my esophagus and I even peed my pants a little.   Me, a sexy writer? I'm not sure what that even means, but I can't even type or say that out loud without rupturing an organ from laughing so hard. 

We spent the rest of the evening drooling over pictures of cute little doggies online and joking over our unfortunate mistake.  We learned a valuable lesson that night. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.  And if you live in Hillsboro, Ohio and are looking for a Vizsla, then you're in luck!  

Our Little Peanut

As someone recently diagnosed with a very rare medical disorder, I should not be surprised that my own son is gearing up for his own mystery diagnosis.

It all started about 2-3 months ago.  Peanut started crying one night before bed that his neck hurt.  Thinking perhaps he strained his neck earlier in the day I was concerned, but didn't think much of it. He was a very healthy little guy and didn't complain much.  I gave him some children's pain reliever medicine and he went to bed.  The next day he seemed fine and all was well again, until the evening.  Then came the crying and more complaining of a sore neck.  By the next morning he was fine again and I was confused.  

Then the complaining completely stopped.  He seemed normal again.  We assumed it was a strained neck from sleeping wrong, or perhaps his much larger 5 year old brother had tackled him (hey anything is possible with five kids).  Then one day as I was buckling him into his carseat, he suddenly started grabbing at his neck and screaming.  He screamed bloody murder all the way home and didn't stop once we got home. He was in pain and I knew this was something more than a strained neck.  

I called his doctor and scheduled an appointment.  His doctor examined him and said, "Well, he's still rather small for his age, and his growth has been on the slow side.  I think it's his thyroid".  So off to the lab we went for some blood work.  Then we waited.   The results were pretty typical and the thyroid looked good.  The nurse advised me to try some children's allergy medicine and that his throat most likely hurt from seasonal allergies.  Okay.  I was skeptical since he doesn't really have any signs of seasonal allergies, but desperate to find a solution, we loaded up with various, expensive brands of children's allergy liquid medicine.  

The next month was blissfully normal.  He seemed happy and healthy again and was back to his regular Peanut shenanigans.  I started to feel confident that we could put this mysterious "neck pain" behind us.  My husband decided to take a couple of weeks off of work in August.  We planned our annual family trip to my dad's cabin in Bend.  We went shopping for the trip, we planned out our vacation days, we got all excited and then as quickly as his pain went away, it suddenly came back. Peanut once again began to scream, "Owww, owww, my neck hurts" only this time things weren't fine by the next morning and they weren't fine by the next evening and it became crystal clear that something was really wrong. I scheduled another appointment with his doctor, but unfortunately his doctor was out of town that following week and we were also supposed to be leaving town.  So I scheduled the first appointment he had once he returned from vacation, and we crossed our fingers that his pain would go away quickly as it had in the past.  

While we waited for his appointment we tried to go about our lives as normally as possible. The day before our trip we had a birthday party to attend for a close friend who's daughter was turning one.  My husband had to work so I took all five kids alone.  It was one of those moments where as soon as you get to the party, you quickly realize you should've just stayed home because Peanut was just not happy at all.  He was crying and hurting and fussing and I spent the entire party trying to bounce him up and down on my hip to comfort him. Yeah.  

He spent most of the party hiding in their playhouse and screaming at other kids to get out.  What can I say? He's socially gifted like his parents.

I got him home and noticed he felt a little warm.  Up until this point he had not had a fever at all.  He fell asleep rather early and the morning of our trip he woke up with a 103.5 fever.   The trip was off and to urgent care we went.  Unfortunately the doctor at urgent care couldn't help much because they don't deal with chronic medical issues, but she gave us the number for a pediatric ENT (ears, nose and throat specialist).  We called him as soon as we got home and were able to get him in for an appointment within two days. However, those two days were hell on earth for us.  Peanut was so uncomfortable and I was pretty much camped out with him on my bed.  We watched his favorite movie, Cat in the Hat about 10 billion times.  He wasn't eating, wasn't sleeping and we were counting down the minutes until his ENT appointment.  We were hoping to get some answers at the ENT, but he didn't give us any hints or clues as to what he suspected was wrong with Peanut.

However, he did send us to a children's hospital for a barium swallow study.  With a barium swallow test you cannot have anything to eat or drink for at least 4 hours before the test.  Peanut was pretty mad. Okay, he was pissed!  It was not a fun morning trying to explain to a 3 year old why they can't have anything to eat or drink.   The barium test went surprisingly easy.  The tech mixed his shake with cherry Torani syrup, which made J and I laugh because we love Torani syrup in our coffee.  I was nervous that he was going to refuse the shake, but he actually loved it and wanted to drink more...gross.  His swallow study test came back normal, which is awesome, but a tiny bit frustrating in a small way because now we are back to square one.  We were hoping to avoid the more invasive tests where he would have to put under with anesthesia, but that may not be possible at this point.

He was not happy about the no food rule

Modeling our sexy lead aprons with thyroid shields

We do not have any idea what's going on and why he's having these random cycles of pain.  We've Googled his symptoms until our fingers cramped and had many late night conversations of what we think is wrong, but we are just normal people, not doctors.  At this point the next step is another referral to a specialist for more testing.  This time he'll be seeing a gastroenterologist.  I'm also hoping he will be allergy tested.  

I've been so incredibly busy and stressed out this summer that I haven't had the time to blog like I did last summer. It seems like the older the kids get, the busier I get.  School starts back up in a week and honestly I don't even feel like I got a summer break yet.  This summer has flown by faster than any other summer I can ever remember.  I'm not ready for school at all.  My 8 year old needs uniforms purchased, I still have some random school supplies on the list to find, bills to catch up, phone calls to make, and just dozens of things that I put on the back burner when Peanut got sick.  

I have a few more posts to write and hopefully post this week.  Despite all of the drama, we did manage to escape to my dad's cabin for a few days last week so I will be blogging about our trip next.  We got home from our trip late Thursday night and my husband woke up Friday morning with a horrible case of food poisoning and spent most of the weekend puking his guts out.  I know, I know...you are all dying to be me right about now.  I get it.

Peanut seems to be doing okay for now.  He's had a couple of good weeks with minimal pain so we are happy about that.  At this point I don't have any answers to give so here is a really cute picture of him at the hospital.

and another one.....

Oh and I almost forgot....while we were at the hospital with Peanut, my soccer obsessed husband saw Diego Chara from the Portland Timbers (MLS soccer team).  He was walking in front of us and held the elevator door open for us, but he was going down and we were going up.  I held my breath thinking my hubby was going to humiliate us by following Chara around the hospital like a stalker (which the hubby later admitted he almost did), but luckily all he said to him was, "Go Timbers" and Chara smiled at us and said "Thank you".  Of course i've been teasing him as it was kind of dorky and funny that all my star struck hubby could muster up was "Go Timbers".   

Slutty Goats

Clipart provided by Clker.com

My husband and I both suffer from insomnia. This typically leads to him pestering me about sex, and me lying on the couch like a vegetable whining about being tired.

We have some very interesting conversations late at night.  A few nights ago we started talking about Bengay, which somehow lead to the topic of men putting Bengay on their balls.  I just had to Google it to believe it. I Google everything and I do mean everything.

I especially love Yahoo questions and answers though. This is what I found when I Googled, "Do men really put Bengay on their balls" (They do by the way)

Question: 
"When I put bengay on my balls, it hurts. Is that normal?"

Best Answer (by arkleseizure):
"Normal that you're putting it on (no) or normal that it hurts (I don't think normal has been established, as people don't generally do this)"

Other Awesome Answers: 
"Burning, yes....putting it on, no"

"Try putting some of your rectum. It might help you forget you have it on your balls"

"Why would you put Bengay on your balls to begin with? Usually it's used for sore muscles and clearly your balls are not a muscle".

As if the conversation couldn't possibly get more intense, we started watching Animal Planet.  Slutty goats is what happens when the husband and I try to watch an evening of educational programming together.  I'm not even sure they were actual goats but they had horns and were ramming each other and the husband said, "Wow, talk about some slutty goats.  Look at that one.  She doesn't use the old 'I have a headache excuse'.  She's ready to get some."

I have some issues with this.  For one, I highly doubt that female goat has five children to take care, a mounting pile of medical bills, and an autoimmune disorder that affects her sex drive.  However, I could be totally wrong and if I am, i'm deeply sorry. I'm sure goats have their own set of problems.  And yes, I just Googled, "Common goat problems" in case you're wondering.  It turns out goats don't have it all that great either.  They often have twins.  Egads! No wonder they suffer from chronic urinary problems.

I feel your pain goat, I do.  If you weren't a goat, and didn't smell so horrifically funky, and I could get it in writing that you wouldn't take a dump on my couch, I would so have you over for some coffee, scones and girl talk.

Facing your phobias and no this is not a how to guide

What do you do when you have an enormous phobia?  You face it head on.  And then you curl up in the fetal position and cry until you stop foaming at the mouth and can put a coherent sentence together.

This has been my life this past week, which is why I haven't been around to post.  I've been trapped in my own personal hell called downtown Portland.

My dear, sweet, wonderful hubby wanted to do something nice for our teenage daughter so he signed her up for a singing, dancing and acting class. Our daughter wants to be an actress/singer, plus that's just what we parents in Portland do. We sign our kids up for artsy fartsy stuff, while secretly hoping that they will rebel and go into a different career field that will actually pay the bills.  He signed her up at a local theatre on our side of town and assumed (you know what they say about people who assume things) that the class was going to be at the same location he signed her up at. Um, NO.

I was already nervous about driving her back and forth to and from the theatre when I thought it was near his work (actually it's close to Voodoo Doughnuts which I can totally live with), however, the night before the class on a Sunday night at 10 pm, I heard him say these dreaded words, "Hey babe. I was wrong.  Her class is actually downtown."  I froze.  I cringed. I prayed to sweet baby Jesus that he was just messing with me.  But he wasn't.  I fearfully asked him where downtown and he made a grimace and said, "Downtown, downtown. As in smack in the middle of the city".

I will admit, I freaked the hell out.  I technically already live in the city where we have a lot of heavy traffic, but it's not like downtown city traffic with one way streets and pedestrians everywhere.  I can literally count the number of times i've driven downtown alone and each time i've had a horrendous panic attack.  Hearing the news that I was going to have to not only drop her off around lunch time but pick her up at 3:30 so that meant TWO trips into the city every single day for TWO flipping weeks, sent me over the edge.

Needless to say I didn't sleep very well on Sunday night and by Monday morning I was ready to barf...I mean drive my daughter to her class.   I hit a few snags along the way, but it was a fairly smooth drive and thanks to my GPS on my iPhone, I figured out how to get home.  When I got home, I bragged to my husband about how victorious I was for making the round trip twice....TWICE PEOPLE!  He responded with a sly, "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that Mondays aren't that bad at all. Tomorrow will be much worse".  Say what motherfucker?

Tuesday rolled around and he was right. Traffic was bad. The streets are short and my extended minivan is not exactly city friendly, but I did it.  Then Wednesday rolled around and I nearly lost my shit.  I ended up flipping the bird while trying to merge onto the Morrison Bridge.  The other driver freaked out and slammed on his breaks and then refused to let me in.  I waited until he finally decided to move his arse into the right lane and then I merged over.  Then came the fun part.  Making it across those damn city street intersections!  The blocks are so short and traffic backs up so even though there is a green light, you can't go through the green light or you're stuck in the middle of the intersection like a sitting duck.  And people don't like sitting ducks shaped like giant ass Dodge Caravans that block the entire intersection.  NO, they don't!  In fact people get pretty snarly with you and shake their heads as they gawd forbid have to walk around your van while you are hogging up their precious cross walk.

So, yeah, i'm blocking the crosswalk while a group of rebellious looking youth (geez, i'm getting old and turning into my parents) start to walk in front of my van to cross the street. I must say that flop sweats and slip on shoes do not go together well.  I lost my grip on the break pedal and accidentally lurched forward at the group of street kids. It was a total accident and in reality I didn't really even come close to hitting them, but it scared me and i'm sure deep down they were scared too even though they had to act tough.  Scared or not they didn't find it very amusing and I probably came close to getting the poop beat out of me.  One of them stopped right in front of my van with her arms crossed in front of her.  She was really mad and I was a little scared because i'm not a fighter kind of chick.  I'm more of a cry and lose bodily functions kind of girl.  However, I have this anxiety/temper thing that comes out when i'm feeling really stressed so instead of ignoring her I held up my hands and waved them at her and mouthed the words "You can go now" and I rolled my eyes at her. I don't know why I do the things I do. Seriously. It was dumb and i'm lucky she didn't break my face into pieces.  Either way, I managed to get my daughter to where she needed to be and then I sobbed like a newborn baby when I finally got out of the city and had merged onto the freeway to head home.  Cause that's totally normal to cry when you get out of the city, right?  Right?  Okay, moving on...

Thursday's drive was actually not that bad.  I was starting to get my groove back and feeling like I was earning my city driving stripes and then Friday happened.  I was trying to merge onto I-84 West and I couldn't even merge because traffic was backed up onto the off ramp which basically means, "You ain't  going anywhere".  We sat in traffic for over 30 minutes because there was an accident that had two of the three lanes blocked.  By the time we passed the accident, the lanes just opened up and we made it to her class, but she was really late. Feeling stressed to the max, I made it out of downtown and I raced over to Trader Joe's, fought like hell for a parking spot and then drove to Winco cause when you're already in hell, why not just stay for awhile?  I barely had enough time to go home and unload all of the groceries before I had to drive back into the city to pick up my daughter.  Getting into the city wasn't so bad, but getting out was another story.  The freeway was a parking lot.  Luckily I know a shortcut thanks to my hubby so it could've been much worse. We had to stop at another store on the way home to get medicine because my 8 y/o broke her toe by doing gymnastics in the house (after I told her numerous times she was going to break something but no one listens to me) and I was a dummy and forgot to buy it earlier. I got home just before 5 pm.  I felt like collapsing onto the floor in the fetal position and drooling on myself, but my joints were throbbing so I lathered myself up with joint cream instead.

I admire anyone who can drive around big cities like it's no big deal.  It is a big deal for me.  I'm tempted to move to a small, country town out in the middle of nowhere where the only other residents are some sheep and maybe a couple of goats.   I'm also in awe of bus drivers.  They are like rockstars to me now.  Forget the Biebs.  Do you honestly think he could drive a gigantic bus in downtown Portland without plowing people over or peeing his pants?  I don't think so!  Seriously though, I would rather clean public toilets using my own toothbrush than to be a TriMet driver in Portland.  Okay, so maybe I would use my husband's toothbrush instead, but still, that would be the most terrifying job in the world. Forget Deadliest Catch (okay don't cause I freaking love that show) but there needs to be a show about bus drivers who drive around in the city.  Is there a show like that?  I would totally watch it, on my couch with my brown paper bag and the flop sweats.

This is a TriMet bus in case you're wondering what the hell TriMet is (image courtesy of Google):

Five days of this torture left (not that i'm counting down or anything).