and so it goes.

yesterday was a doozy. plain & simple. if i woulda had a re-do card, it would surely have been redeemed.

i should have known the night before when i couldn't get to sleep until after 3AM that it was going to be a rough ride the next morning. i just have so much creative energy right now that it's hard to turn my brain off and just rest. such is the life of a freelance designer weeks before the tradeshow.

so i was in a nice sleepy slumber when my alarm clock, otherwise known as a pesky 4-year old girl named emma grace---who is nothing close to graceful lately, more like a emma, the royal klutz--starts jumping on my bed at 6 o'clock in the morning. the time i so lovingly call "the butt-crack of dawn", thanks to my friend loretta.

anywho. on with the story.

so at the butt-crack of dawn, miss emma, the royal klutz, is jumping up and down and hollering in a somewhat loud singsong voice "sun's up mommy........wake up, wake up. i gotta goooooooo to school!" yes, she is this excited to get up and go. every.single.morning. at this point all i can do is laugh and marvel at how very different the two of my girls are. i'm always wishing a bit that ashlyn was excited and energetic in the mornings before school and here i am wishing emma was a little more timid and calm. oh, the irony.

needless to say, 6AM is waaaaaay too early for this mama to rise---especially after a long night awake with the same little one, doling out breathing treatments for repeated bouts of wheezing.(anyone know of an inhaler that doesn't make kids jumpy? do tell. please.)

so yeah. at 3AM i fell asleep remember. thanks only to the constant hum of the furnace. it's run non-stop the past 3 days as we've dipped into temperatures below ZERO. it's cold.

so, after being bounced around like a floppy doll on a trampoline, i rolled myself out of bed and got her all cozy on the davenport with her spiderman blankie and pillow and turned on her favorite toons on the tube. and then i put my hiney back in bed. just to lay there, though. she was up and down the steps at least a dozen times in the next hour begging to go to school. she doesn't quite understand the concept of time yet. the extra hour lying around did nothing for me. i was dragging bottom. all day.

anywho. fast forward to 8:30. at this point i've showered, painted my face, got dressed and been through the wrestling match that ensues when trying to cloth two spunky drama queens. so, 8:30, we're ready to bundle up and brave the temps to get miss klutz to preschool & ash was to stay also since her school was canceled----she just didn't know it yet.

so i started my car to warm it up a bit so we didn't freeze or tooshkas off. my car has a special feature on it that if the ignition is running and you open the door and try to lock it, it will immediately unlock again so you don't lock yourself out of your car. pretty neat, huh? well, the electronics in the car have been doing some crazy things--like the cd player coming on without turning it on, the radio turning on for no reason. creepy. as soon as i shut the door, i hear the locks, which i did not touch.......lock, unlock, lock, unlock, lock, unlock, lock.....but instead of just opening up the door and leaving it cracked a bit, i went inside to finish buddling them up and let it do it's crazy nonsense. (i know you're all mumbling to yourself.......stooooooooopid.)by the time we came back outside, i had forgotten about the locks. i have that whole short-term memory loss going for me, ya know. anywho. ashlyn pulled the front door shut and we all took the jaunt out to the car.

uh oh, houston, we have a problem! can you guess? yep. it's no longer in the lock, unlock, lock, unlock mode. it's just plain LOCKED. with the car running. with ALL my keys in the ignition. including the house key. crapdangit. what am i gonna do now? it's 5 below outside and we're locked out and all the neighbors are at work. thank the Lord i decided to actually grap my cell phone this morning. i have this theory that cell phones are nothing but a nuisance. and much to the dismay of my husband, i hardly ever remember to actually keep the thing on my being. today, i made him proud.

"never fear kids............mama has the cell phone. we'll call daddy! he'll save us." to which emma says......"hooooooray! daddy to the rescue!" except she can't quite say res-cue. it's more like res-coo. it's funny. i promise.

so we call and tell him our dilema and he doesn't hesitate to say he'll be right home. although, even so it would take him 20 minutes. then i remembered all the times as kids being locked out of the house, so i put that experience to good use. i ripped out the screen to a window and was able to get ashlyn shoved through to let us back in, then waited for doug to come home with the spare key & some tools to get my car open. turns out there was a third spare key inside the house. i just didn't know it. HA. story of my life people.

about the time doug was ready to walk out the door, ashlyn discovered that she indeed didn't have school, so that meant she had to go to daycare. all.day.long. daycare + sensory disorder = major meltdowns. it was bad.

i then made the executive decision that working yesterday just wasn't going to happen. my girl needed a break from all the chaos.

so we stayed home. together. just the two of us.

where we did crazy things like eat grilled cheese and tomato soup. and proceeded to watch it boil over and make a nice little mess on my stovetop. then, when the soup didn't warm our souls, we sat on the floor and thawed out our feet with the hairdryer. oh no, she didn't?

oh, YES. yes, we did.

and she thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread. she laughed and giggled and giggled and laughed. and then she did it all over again.

we won't talk about the entire bag of chex mix that dumped out behind the computer desk, or how every toy in the playroom was in the middle of the floor, or how the knob on the washer doesn't move. no. we won't.

i put myself to bed at 1 o'clock for a 3 hour nap. and all was good in the world again.

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THANK YOU all for the sweet comments on the Equestrian samples. the winner will be announced right here tomorrow. you have until 11:59, EST to enter.

today's peeks are for the new CRUISE collection, you can see the whole collection HERE. you can see samples using these products HERE on Josee's blog (her blog in is both French & English), and HERE on Maryfrancis' blog.

JOSEE is hosting today's contest! go to her blog(link in that sentence above) and leave a comment for your chance to win the entire collection of CRUISE products. more details on her blog.

PS.........winner for Equestrian announced tomorrow!