I’m sorry I haven’t been updating Kitty.nu as much over the last month or so. My explanation? I’m insanely busy. It’s hard to believe BlogHer was almost a month ago! Time has flown just that fast. And here I am, thrown into the back-to-school madness with the kids, and I now have a very full, crazy September calendar staring at me. I’m doing something that involves going out of town for at least half of a day or more every single weekend of this month. The craziest weekend will be the last one of the month, which involves me leaving for a three day trip — and flying on an air plane. Whoo boy. I’m not thinking about that one much, because if I do I will wind up going crazy!

Anyway, with all of the rushing and madness that has been going on in my life, there has been no time for a vacation, the one thing I could really use! Right now anywhere is looking appealing, but I’m especially liking the idea of a Branson Missouri vacation. Missouri may be smack in the middle of the US and completely landlocked, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty to do! In Missouri there is Branson Landing, which is a great convention/shopping area, the scene of The Titanic (yes, the actual ship), and Silver Dollar City, which features some amazing amusement park rides!

In general, here’s what Missouri has to offer: live shows and entertainment, various attractions, and shopping! You can use the bransongetaways.com website to look over packages, plan out what you would like to do in Branson, Missouri, and then start reserving and planning!

Learn more at BransonGetaways.com.

I remarked to Dan last night — and on several other occasions — that I can’t stand to go to bed without the house being cleaned up and picked up after. It doesn’t matter if I’m dead tired, I’d much rather spend the extra ten to fifteen minutes cleaning crap up and putting things away than having to face it first thing in the morning. Case in point? Last Friday night. I had six hours of sleep Thursday night, spent the entire day at the beach on Friday, came home at midnight utterly exhausted, yet I forced myself to stay up until almost 1:00am in order to sweep, vacuum, sort out the dirty clothes, start a load of wash, and even run the dishwasher. Crazy, I know. But that’s how I operate.

I generally do a quick run-through of the house in the morning, and again at night, before going to bed. In between I tackle chores and tasks as they come up. I also make sure to have air fresheners on hand all of the time. I have the plug-in variety, the standalone variety, the battery- and non-battery operated variety, and of course, sprays. A lot of them are great for masking the smell of cigars and smelly kids, I’m sure, but I use ours to freshen up the smells of our house. Four people + four cats + a dog = funky odors at times, I’m sure. But since I’m such a neat freak, I’m sure our house smells pristine compared to some others out there!

So back to my original question. How do you clean your house? Do you do things as they come up, or do you have some kind of schedule worked out?

This week’s Lensday theme is softness.

I took a picture of this flower last June (that’s 2009, not 2010). I forget what type of flower it was. I do remember that Ryan brought it home from preschool in a cute little painted pot, and it flourished for several weeks in our windowsill, with no special water from a water filter or even that powdered stuff floral arrangements sometimes come with. Come to think of it, that flower may be the marigolds that are now planted beneath the tree in front of our house? Hmm. I’ll have to ask Dan about that…

Anyway, I love photos of flowers. They’re always so soft looking! ♥

At Become.com, you can:

• find out the latest and hottest items
• go through lists of holiday must-haves
• compare prices on everything from sunglasses to sun visors
• find out the highest rated and best priced Messenger bags

I am a big fan of knowing what’s hot and highly-coveted, but I also like being able to get great deals on my purchases. I very rarely purchase anything over $25 in value without first researching it to make sure I’m getting the best deal. You can do all this and more at Become.com!

With that said, do you shop online often? If so, what influences your decision to make a purchase? Is it the convenience of not having to run around to stores? The enjoyment of having mail arrive on your doorstep? The ability to use coupon codes and special promos to save even more? Spill the beans!

I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that I have been using premade themes here and on Mamahood.org for the last 2+ years. Gah. :/ I’m pretty sure this current theme has been up for well over a year. Double gah. Anyway, over the last few weeks I have found the time to put together an original layout for In My Bag, so I’m going to focus on Kitty.nu and Mamahood.org next!

I would have put together a new layout for one or even both this weekend, but I was too tired and drippy from being a) tired and b) on my period to do it and c) writing about plus size swimwear. Yesterday I caught up on personal/freelance email, and today I tackled work stuff and a bit of blogging and a bit of SEO work for wedding favors. Tomorrow is MONDAY. I heart Mondays, but I know it’s going to be a busy one. Blech.

It has been three months since I wrote Blog Advertising Store AKA Paying Post is a scam, and I’m updating everyone to report that despite multiple blog entries, Blog Advertising Store AKA Paying Post still has not paid me. They have ignored dozens of email requests and PayPal requests from me, and continue to go on duping new bloggers who are ignorant of their scamming ways.

It has been three and a half months since I have been due $109.00, and I have not seen a penny of it.

Whether you’ve been personally burned by Blog Advertising Store AKA Paying Post, or are simply commiserating with me, PLEASE re-tweet, Stumble, Digg, whatever, to spread the word. Protect other bloggers from being scammed, and make sure this company goes down.

I usually don’t have a “thing” for numbers, letters, colors, or dates, but the 18th is a number that has definitely made its presence known to us. It’s weird, and I only recently began to connect the dots between all of the times in which the number 18 has come up.

October 18th, 2004 – my original due date with Alyssa. She was born nine days later. October 18th was also my grandmother’s birthday.

December 18th, 2004 – the day I started back at work after having Alyssa; also the day my grandmother went into the hospital to die comfortably (she passed away five days later).

July 18th, 2005 – the day I got into a car accident and totaled our car. Car accidents are never fun, but thankfully my auto insurance claim went through smoothly. The other auto insurance company accepted responsibility for the accident, no problem, and quickly cut us a check for the BB value of our totaled car ($4900; not bad for a three year old Kia Spectra with 85,000 miles on it).

July 18th, 2006 – my original due date for Ryan. It was moved up to the 22nd, and he was born via c-section on the 26th.

September 18th, 2008 – the day my brothers were taken into state custody.

November 18th, 2009 – the day I had my gastric bypass surgery.

January 18th, 2010 – legal stuff (good).

June 18th, 2010 – legal stuff (bad).

July 18th, 2010 – legal stuff (good).

Maybe I’m just looking for similarities and consistency. Who knows. Regardless, 18 is a number that does keep appearing in our lives, in significant ways!