If she had the proper words to say,

As I've mentioned before, I am collecting Coca-Cola® Rewards Points. If you're not playing along yourself, and you've got some codes you can toss my way, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'm going to leave this entry at the top of my journal for a while, so it'll be easy to find. Also, I'll screen comments. :-)

Thanks for any help!

I cut my nose? cheek? last night while I was sleeping. I must've reached up and wiped the side of my nose for some reason (likely, a kitty "fluff" drifted by from the ceiling fan), and I cut the side of my nose with my fingernail.

I even remember working it into my dream. I was speaking to someone, and I said, "Excuse me, but I think the side of my nose is bleeding, and I'm afraid I just cut it with my fingernail..." And then I proceeded to sleep & dream on.

And when I woke this morning, that was the first thought I had, to check & see if it had indeed happened. I reached up, and much like sleep "crusties" for the eyes, I had red/pink "crusties" on the side of my nose. And it hurts. It almost stings like a papercut, actually. Even worse, the scab it forms is constantly being re-opened by my facial movements as I talk or eat.

And my fingernail isn't even long!

(The scene: Me, mixing icing in the kitchen. Jack, lying on the couch with his Kindle, earbuds plugged in. A.J., upstairs in his bedroom, on his computer.)

Me: A.J., do you need to start some laundry?
A.J.: (faintly) Yeah, probably.
Me: Why don't you do that? Go ahead & change into your pajamas & then wash everything else. Don't forget to put on fresh deodorant, too.
Jack: *removes earbuds*
A.J.: Okay. *squeaks off bed*
Me: ... (*mix, mix, mix*)
Jack: ...
Me: Jack, did you put YOUR laundry away yesterday when it was finished?
Jack: No...
Me: Go do that now, please.
Jack: Man, I *knew* that was coming as soon as you asked A.J. to do his!
Me: (smiling) And yet, you weren't going to just go do it, were you?
Jack: (grinning sheepishly as he starts up the stairs) No way!

Boys. :-)

Again, just for our records, so please feel free to skip along. :-)

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Just for our records, so please feel free to skip along. :-)

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We've been working all weekend, and we will continue to do so through Tuesday. The movers will be here on Wednesday!

The house stuff is falling into place, albeit slowly. Please keep your fingers crossed on that front. Our realtor is optimistic we'll be able to be in the house immediately upon our arrival (the 13th), and then closing will be about the second week of November or so. I just keep praying things go smoothly.

We've done a phenomenal job cleaning out the pantry food items. So much so, in fact, that we had to go shopping for the last six meals here, haha! I've got everything planned for quick, easy meals through Thursday. We have packed all my baking stuff and the entire kitchen ourselves, as we're bringing it with us in a U-Haul truck. (I need my cookie supplies the *second* we arrive, and I worried about all my Longaberger dishes too much to trust our movers with them.) We have a covered skillet, nylon spoon & spatula, and measuring glass kept out for now, and those will be packed at the last second. I just baked a Cheeseburger Pie half an hour ago, and that will be reheated on paper plates for dinner on Thursday night (amidst the boxes). Friday night, Jack and I are off to a Pampered Chef party at one of my closest friend's house (and Jack's best bud as well), and Philip and A.J. will use up a $10 credit at our local Pizza Hut. Saturday night, other friends have invited us for dinner, and our going-away party is set for Sunday night at J.R. Rockers here on base. I honestly think the only food we'll be passing on to our friends when we leave is a bit of lemon & lime juice, as well as 2 pounds of butter. Success!

I've got Key Lime pies and Chocolate Peanut Butter Nutella pies chilling in the fridge right now, and we'll leave in a little while to go and gift them to our favorite bagger boys at the commissary. It will be our last time to see them, and three of these guys are just the sweetest kids around. Two love peanut butter, and one is allergic to it, so I made two different desserts. (And used all new equipment for the Key Lime pie, just in case.)

It's hard to give up my meal-planning ways, and I'm already excited about the drive. A.J. is going to help me brainstorm a typical 2-3 week meal plan while we're driving, and then when I have Jack with me (Philip and I intend to switch the boys over the 4 days' drive), he will write out the shopping list items for the meals planned. When we arrive, we should be ready to go shopping! I figure it will save us money in the long-run, not heading out every day for 3-4 things. Plus, since we packed the kitchen to come with us, we can jump right into making real meals immediately, and not have to keep eating out. (I imagine we'll be kinda sick of restaurant food for a while, after the move/drive.)

Jack's headed swimming with a friend, and then a sleepover after that as well. A.J. was a huge help to me and Philip last night while we boxed up all of the pictures, scrapbooks, and craft items. Tonight, we'll sort through all the things we've pulled to get rid of, and then put some in a "sell" pile, and the rest in a "Goodwill" pile. We sold the snowblower yesterday, as well as a few brand-new pairs of snow bib overalls, but we've got lots more to put up online, and Philip is going to take care of that for me.

We leave Minot in just 8 days!

Anyone here still think of me as "buttonmommy" (with or without the "1998" part, haha) in their head? It's been so long, but I remember back when I first changed it (March 2006!) that so many swore I would always be "buttonmommy." :-D

Cookies. Well, my cookies have gotten some mega-attention in the past week. I made these "Magic Mike" cookies just for fun, and now they have traveled everywhere. Serious biz - EVERYWHERE.

First, the 'Magic Mike' Facebook fanpage posted the cookies. That page has over half a million followers, so the craziness that ensued was unreal. By the time 24 hours had passed, over 13,000 fans had "liked" the post & 2,000 people had "shared" the photo. (Thank goodness it was watermarked!) That same night, the AMC Theatres fanpage (with an audience of over 3.5 million fans!) also posted my cookies, and that resulted in another almost 12,000 "likes" and over 2,000 "shares." Wow!

And THEN, Channing Tatum Unwrapped's fanpage promoted the cookies, too! I was really impressed that someone took the time to turn all of the photos into a collage to promote them - sweet. :-)

Additionally, both 'BakeBakeBake' and Livejournal featured the cookies on their own FB fanpages. Since last Friday, I've had requests up the wazoo, and my email has exploded! And not just requests for more Magic Mike cookies - half of the requests are for other stuff from people who found me through MM. It's insanity!

Lastly, and most exciting, I was contacted by the social media rep for CHANNING TATUM, and she has asked me to make a gift set of cookies for both him & his producing partner, Steven Soderbergh.

!!!

With all of the cookies featured in the MM set, she also has me adding extra name cookies for the celebs that he will be in contact with next week, as well as all of the members of the MM press team. She even wants a special "Team Tatum" cookie, haha! I'm beginning his cookies tomorrow, and I hope to have a picture of Chan with a cookie by next week. ;-)

UNREAL, folks. Simply UNREAL.

So there's this movie that came out this weekend. I've even heard it's based on a book or three. "The Starvation Activities," I think... right? (Synonyms provided by my boys, by the way.)

...

Nah, it's The Hunger Games!

Actually, I did read the books, after hearing about them for so long. And once I did, then I campaigned all of my closest friends to read them as well. Only some of them did, and the rest I'm "unfriending" shortly. ;-)

Soooooo, that meant that I needed to share these cookies with the world, where I could find even more "Hunger Games Diehards" like myself! And like my "Breaking Dawn" cookies, I wanted to share them with the fans at the movie theatre, too!

I had tickets to the midnight premiere on Thursday evening/Friday morning, and it was such a great time! I love the midnight premieres for big "fandom" movies. The crowd is usually super-quiet, as every is a big fan & wants to hear every word. They laugh at all the right moments, and they cry right along with me in the sad parts, too. In my opinion, midnight shows are a MUST!

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I'm ridiculously sleep-deprived at the moment, so I sure as heck shouldn't be posting. Still, there's so much I've been wanting to say, and at the same time, I just don't have it in me.

I appreciate that some of you have been flocking back to LJ. I'm still reading at least every other day, though I need to comment oh-so-much more. With that, I say "Hello" again!

*waves*