Sunday, July 31, 2011

We're Gonna Need A Bigger Boat...

"We're gonna need a bigger boat..."

This famous line was uttered by Roy Scheider's character, Chief of Police Martin Brody, in the first JAWS movie in 1975, after he gets his first good look at the size of the shark that is circling the tiny fishing boat he's on. 

I'm not known to quote movies (mostly because I have a terrible memory), but this one line from JAWS is one that I've repeated over and over again since I was 5 years old whenever something seemingly insurmountable comes along in my life. 

I have a clear recollection of sitting on my Dad's lap in the recliner chair in our living and watching JAWS with him in absolute horror and amazement. I witnessed that same horror and amazement in faces of my boys as we watched the kick-off of the Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week tonight. I'm sure we weren't alone...last year's Shark Week brought in over 30 million viewers!! 



I have no doubt that sharks will be the main topic of conversation in our house this week as we learn more and more about them each night. 

Here are some fun shark facts you can share with your kids:


  • Sharks live in all of the Earth's oceans. They have been on Earth for millions of years. Sharks ruled the sea even before dinosaurs ruled the land.
  • Sharks have 5 rows of teeth. They lose and replace more than 10,000 teeth in their lifetime.
  • Sharks are fish, but they are not like other fish. Instead of bones, sharks have cartilage. Cartilage allows sharks to glide, twist and turn. It helps them move and bend.
  • Shark skin is rough and bumpy like sandpaper. Their skin both protects them and helps them swim faster. 
  • Sharks eyes are even better than humans eyes. Even in deep, dark water, a shark can see clearly.
  • A shark can smell a single drop of blood in more than 25 million drops of ocean.
  • There are about 375 different types of sharks known. 
  • The smallest shark is the spined pygmy shark. It is about 8 inches long and has a glow in the dark belly.
  • The largest shark is the whale shark. It can be up to 50 feet long.
  • The fastest shark is the mako shark. It can swim up to 20 mph.

  
 

Saturday, July 30, 2011

I joined the MOB.

M.O.B. Society, a blog by Moms of Boys for Moms of Boys, is hosting their very First Annual Boy Mom BlogHop, and I'm jumping (or hopping?) on board.

Mothers of Boys

If this is your first time here at my little corner of the web, welcome! Bonus points if you brought Prozac with you. I get a lot of hits from folks searching Google looking for places to buy Prozac online. If that's how you found me, your on the wrong page, Sister. 

I'm not on Prozac...though I probably should be. It will be a miracle if I make it through the journey that is motherhood without some type of ongoing  medical intervention in the form of a prescription. (For instance, my oldest just broke his arm this week...for the 2ND TIME in 4 months.)

I'm Erin, Mom to two of the most incredible little boys the world has ever known. Daniel turned 3 in March and Sean will be 5 next month. They're 19 months apart. I could tell you that I loved being a mom so much, that I couldn't wait to get pregnant again when my first little guy was only 9 months old. But that would be a lie. It wasn't part of my plan, but it was part of God's plan. I wouldn't trade my life with anyone for anything. Even on my worst day when I'm ready to run screaming from the house, I thank God for choosing me to be their Mom. 

I'm fairly new to the blogging world, I blog about my life as a mom, couponing, cooking and all sorts of other "stuff"

I write here at Pass The Prozac and also for Cape May County Moms, a website for local Moms by local Moms.

Here is a recent picture of my precious baby boys, getting ready for an afternoon of puddle jumping: 




And no, they don't generally wear matching clothes. It just so happened to be Dinosaur Day at our house and they just so happen to both have that shirt. :) 

Puddle jumping is one of my favorite things to do with my boys. How much more BOY can you get than playing in the rain and jumping in mud puddles? 

Looking forward to meeting other M.O.B.'s! Leave a comment and tell me your favorite thing to do with your boys. 

Thanks for stopping by! :) 

Friday, July 29, 2011

Ya'll...

I don't have to tell ya'll that life is crazy and busy.

But ya'll...life is crazy. And busy. 

And I don't have to tell you that sometimes it just plain old sucks. Because we've all been there. Sometimes it doesn't go the way it's supposed to...or the way we think it's supposed to. Sometimes it's just all too much at once.

Sometimes your rabbit dies...and your dryer explodes...and your bank account goes in the negative...and your kid breaks his arm for the second time in 4 months...

And sometimes if you're really special...it all happens in the same week. 

God has this all mapped out, it's all part of his plan. 

But I'll be damned if I can figure out what his plan is.

Maybe that's the point.

I'm here. I'm dealing. I'm breathing. I'm praying.

Thanks for sticking around. :) 

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Book Review: The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs

I recently joined a little book club on Facebook. The first book was The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs. One of the benefits of participating in a book club is the opportunity to read something you may have never read or even heard about otherwise. The Friday Night Knitting Club was that book for me. I hadn't heard of it prior to it being mentioned in the book club and had I seen it on the shelf in the store, I probably wouldn't have given it a second glance. 

I read a lot, quite a lot. If you ask me how a book was, I'm going to have more to say than "It was good." or "It was bad." This is the first book review I'm doing here on my blog, it probably won't be the last.




Before I give you my thoughts on the book, let me tell you a little bit about it and it's characters. The main character is Georgia Walker. She's funny, smart, successful, a good mom and a good friend. Georgia found herself pregnant and alone at 24. The thought of going back home to her parents is enough to drive her mad. Sitting on a park bench, crying and knitting a baby blanket for the life growing inside of her, she meets Mrs. Lowenstein...and her life changes forever. 


The story of The Friday Night Knitting Club actually starts 13 years later. Georgia has opened up a knitting boutique downstairs from her apartment. Her daughter, Dakota, is smart and beautiful and full of spunk. Georgia's heart was broken 13 years prior by Dakota's father James. His mother told him to never bring a white woman home...and he left pregnant Georgia without a word. 


Mrs. Lowenstein is Georgia's stand-in mother, mentor and financier. She lost her husband to a heart attack. She has no need for money, but works at Georgia's shop, Walker and Daughter. 


Cat is Georgia's estranged best friend from high school. She's become a socialite and is in an unhappy marriage. She's returned to Georgia's life trying to make amends for the past.


Also trying to make amends for the past is James. He returns out of the blue one day to "fall in love with his family". 


There's a HUGE cast of secondary characters who each have their own stories. What results is a group of women who meet every Friday night in the name of knitting. When the unthinkable happens, these women discover they haven't just created a knitting club...they've created a sisterhood.


Here's what reading The Friday Night Knitting Club reminded me of: Every once in a while I get the chance to eat out at a diner. There's always so many choices on the menu, I have a hard time making up my mind. I end up going with a cheese steak. It shows up on a plate and it looks okay, but it's not the best looking cheese steak I've ever seen and I mentally kick myself for not going with a safer diner choice, like an omelette. I take a bite of my diner cheese steak and decide it isn't as bad as it looks. Long about bite number three, I begin to think about what else I could have ordered, so I squirt a puddle of ketchup on my plate and dip the cheese steak into it after each bite. Then I start to like my diner cheese steak again. Ketchup can fix just about anything. 


There was just enough ketchup in this book to keep me reading it. It wasn't as good as it could have been. The writing is okay. There's so many damn characters and so much attention to developing every character that I wondered if the story would ever go anywhere. The book is full of overdone fragments and inconsistencies, which annoys the hell out of me. All in all, it was a so-so diner cheese steak kind of book. It's your classic chick lit. It's a very easy read and has a feel-good story. Without giving anything away, there's a twist thrown in at the end that isn't very feel-good, but even still I finished the book with that feel-good feeling.

Would I recommend it to a friend? Eh...probably. Would I recommend it to my mother? Probably not. I don't think she could get past all the 4 letter words. I can have a pretty filthy mouth when it suits me, but the foul language was seriously overdone in The Friday Night Knitting Club.  


Want to learn to knit yourself? Check out Home Made! There's even a Yarn Club. :)















*Image credit: TheFridayNightKnittingClub.com

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Move over, Beef...there's a new burger in town...

Just in time for your next BBQ, the burger got a makeover, and pork lovers everywhere are celebrating!

Move over, Beef...

Tired of Turkey?

I'd like to introduce you to the newest meat on the grill...

Johnsonville's Pork Burger! 



Enter the "No Ordinary Burger Recipe Contest", sponsored by The National Pork Board (Betcha didn't know there was a National Pork Board?) and Johnsonville Sausage for your chance to win a YEAR'S WORTH OF GROCERIES from WALMART!



Take a new spin in the traditional burger using Johnsonville Brat or Italian Sausage Patties, log on to www.johnsonville.com/burgercontest and submit your recipe and vote for your favorite pork burger. Two grand prize winners will each receive a year's worth of groceries from Walmart and will have their recipe featured on Johnsonville Brat and Italian Sausage Patty boxes. (Official contest rules can be found here. Contest ends September 6th.)

Need some inspiration? Visit Pork Be Inspired on the web and on Facebook.

Be sure to "like" Johnsonville on Facebook too!