Queen Mother Blog

With the impending (and then not-so-impending) sale of my house, the holidays, and just stay-at-home toddler raisin' in general, I haven't been able to blog as much as I'd like to.  When I think of it...and by think of it, I mean look back at my post archives...my blogging frequency tapered off right about Rayna's one year birthday and her transition from two naps to one.  Back in the good ol' days of two naps, the morning nap was my time to do computer stuff and blog.  The second nap was my time to maybe scrape myself together, eat lunch, clean, etc.  Now that there's only one nap the blog has taken the back burner.

And that's fine, really.  I'm not someone who is going to plop my kid in front of a movie all morning so I can electronically hob-knob with blog friends.  I do take pride in the fact that Rayna & I have really full days of playdates, meeting friends and family and other totally off-line activities.  Yet why do I feel a lot of guilt about not squeezing in the time to write more here?

That was a rhetorical question, but really I have an answer.  I feel guilty because I started my blog as one venture and it has meandered its way into something completely different.  And I keep lamenting that "my blog really sucks" as a "deal" blog.  This is where I need to be brutally honest with myself: I am not your sole source of deals, freebies and coupons (and if I am, then dear, you should think about expanding your horizons!)  When I first started out I couldn't find another blogging soul who was posting Acme deals.  Every weekend I would agonize over my need to get my Acme deals post up in & it took me hours and hours of my time.  Then this summer I found Mindi's blog Moms Need to Know and not only was she putting up an Acme deals post every week days before I would, hers was way better than mine.  So I fizzled out the Acme deals.

I guess I'm rambling on to level with you and myself that I am not a super "deal blogger".  If you want a lot of really great posts about deals, freebies, coupons, etc. then start reading Money Saving Mom or Common Sense With Money, or like I mentioned for you Acme shoppers, Moms Need to Know (check the links on my Resources page).  If you've read here for a while you also know that I'm not "super giveaway girl".  I actually can't stand doing giveaways and reviews, but I'll do them once in a while if they are relevant to me.

So what am I?  I'm a first-time, stay-at-home mom who loves to nab good deals & try to stretch our money as far as possible.  I'm currently a girl on Weight Watchers, menu planning, trying out new recipes & trying to be overall "greener".  I'm a Lost fanatic who could talk your ear off about theories and easter eggs for hours and hours.  I'm constantly trying to scheme new ways to find more time to read, do cross-stitch (you can say it, dork!) and occasionally get out for happy hour with the girls.  And all of that my friends is what you can expect to hear about on my blog.  So be warned, you are going to hear a bit more from me about me in 2010.

And just by saying all that, I have released a lot of completely unnecessary weight off my shoulders. =)

Lately at least.  I wanted to give a little update as to why I have been so bloggy absent.  As you are probably already aware, we are in the process of selling our house & this time it looks like we might really be closing sometime in the very near future.  This has had me in the tailspin of packing, cleaning, vacating the house with kid and dog in tow, etc.

And now I'm sick. Blah.  The past couple of nights I haven't been feeling so hot (actually, that's wrong as I've been fever-y and definitely hot) and I think I've finally deduced that I have strep throat.  The enormously swollen tonsils with white patches (ew, sorry!) were what gave it away.

So now I'm on some strong antibiotics, but the packing and frenzied moving activities are still continuing (hopefully! Keep praying! I know the market is bad, but really? It is just so much harder to sell your darn house these days).

I should be back into the swing of things soon.

Queen Mother Blog is now 1 year old! The actual birthday was two days ago...yeah, I know...I'm such a slacker I missed my own blog-iversary!

Looking back over the last year, I'm pretty happy. Since my first post, I have set out to try to encourage and help my family and friends (both "real life" and the new, online ones) to get started saving money while passing along my random rantings, recipes and whatever else passes through my head and I have enough time to write about.

And the time! I knew that a blog takes a lot of time, but I didn't realize just how hard it would be to carve out that time. When I started blogging, Rayna was about 6 months old and still took two naps. I would work on the blog during the morning nap and then in the afternoon nap try to accomplish everything else I needed to. Since she went down to napping only once a day, my blog gets pushed aside a little (especially times like this; attempting to sell my house is a crazy time-sucker!).

But...I still love it. Thanks so much to anyone who reads my blog. I love, love, love you all and hope you stay tuned to another year of me! ;o)

It has been one WEEK since I've posted anything!

I have not given up blogging in any way, I have just had a very crazy week. It was my little one's first birthday, and along with that came parties and all of their havoc. Add in not feeling so well, and my blog was shoved to the bottom of the list.

So if you were wondering where the Acme deals were this week, I'm sorry for taking a week off and I'll be right back to regular blogging activity tomorrow with my recap of Lost ;)

Thanks for bearing with me!

Hooray!

I had mentioned this earlier, but here it is! My new, professionally-designed blog! I think it looks great, and has a lot of cool features. You can now add my button to your site (copy the code where it says "Grab this button" and paste it where you want!). There is even a cute little logo up by your address bar to tell you that you are on my site. It's called a favicon, and I think it is the cutest thing ever.

Can you tell I'm excited! And just in time for the giveaway carnival tomorrow. Can't wait!

Thanks a bunch to Vanessa at Paperback Designs for working with me and designing this for me. I love it!

So please de-lurk and throw me a comment to let me know how you like the design. I also added a new site search feature so you can search for posts instead of having to click through the labels.

*PS- I know the "resources" link up top isn't working yet--I'm putting together a list of all of my favorite deal-seeking, money-saving resources and it will be there for your reference soon!

image by Pamela Haywood

Hooray! My 100th post! It went by really quickly, I guess I am a very prolific blogger. Not only is it a kind of blog tradition to celebrate your 100th post, but it is customary to post a list of 100 totally random things about yourself. This is where my mom is reading and getting very nervous, lol. Feel free to just skip over this if you're tired. I understand.

1. My favorite color is brown.
2. My first job ever was working under the table for a now-defunct Indian food caterer. Food was great, but always made me sick.
3. When I was a teenager everything used to make me sick, I couldn't eat french fries.
4. When I was pregnant I loved me some french fries. Especially pizza fries.
5. I have been to Washington DC three times.
6. Star Trek, the original series, is my favorite show of all time.
7. Lost is my current favorite show.
8. I have to go on message boards after each new Lost episode so I can see all the easter eggs I missed.
9. In the Star Trek episode "Requiem for Methuselah", Kirk falls in love with a "perfect" woman (really an android) named Rayna.
10. I had already liked the name Reyna, but chose the Star Trek spelling instead.
11. Marc was not aware of this until after the name was chosen.
12. My coffee table top is made of tiles so you never need to use a coaster or a hot pad.
13. I used to be in love with David Cassidy.
14. It didn't make me popular, considering this was the 90's, not the 70's!
15. I have a Master's degree. Just threw that one in to impress.
16. My all-time favorite movie is The Scarlet Pimpernel with Anthony Andrews and Jane Seymour.
17. I first saw it on the last day of school my junior year of high school. How's that for a memory?
18. I wear jeans almost every day.
19. My favorite cereal is Lucky Charms.
20. I can't eat just one bowl.
21. I once rescued a goldfish. I worked next to a preschool that shut down, and the goldfish was left in his tank, and everything else was cleared out. Once I discovered him, I took him home.
22. I called him Libaninho.
23. My first car was a light brown '87 Thunderbird.
24. I liked to look 'goth' in high school.
25. That generally doesn't fly in Christian school.
26. I could watch the Food Network all night long.
27. I really watch almost no tv, however, except for scheduled shows.
28. I love dalmatians.
29. Mojitos taste even better to me when in Miami.
30. I've never been to California.
31. My honeymoon was in Mexico.
32. My makeup collection is huge, but I almost never wear the stuff.
33. I love to play games.
34. My favorite are card games, like rummy 500.
35. When my friends are getting married or having a baby I stalk their registries and make suggestions.
36. My wedding dress was white and red.
37. When Marc proposed I never said yes.
38. The ring didn't fit, so that was my main concern.
39. I have an addiction to cheese. Especially stinky ones.
40. A perfect meal for me might just be cheese, crackers, wine and chocolate.
41. The saddest movie I can think of is Imitation of Life.
42. My mom always had me watching a lot of old movies.
43. My first-ever internet handle was Dragongurl.
44. I cried a lot when Sonny Bono died.
45. I look like my dad. It was more obvious before I started having my brows waxed.
46. Every season I watch Survivor.
47. I wasn't allowed to listen to the Beatles as a kid, but I did anyway.
48. My mom says I have a problem with authority.
49. I do not dispute that.
50. Frida Kahlo fascinates me.
51. I have the same birthday as Frida.
52. And George W. Bush, Sylvester Stallone and 50 Cent.
53. I only wear really long earrings.
54. It took my husband a long time to realize this.
55. Marc is a notoriously bad gift giver.
56. The nickname Bay is short for "baby".
57. I was the baby of the family.
58. I only like cooked onions.
59. My bedroom furniture is from Ikea.
60. I could play the original Nintendo Legend of Zelda for hours.
61. I know that I am a huge nerd.
62. I think nerds are cool.
63. The only food I really don't like is blueberries.
64. Everything I like gets discontinued.
65. My Starbucks drink is the White Chocolate Mocha.
66. Getting comments on my blog are as exciting as presents on Christmas.
67. I have an all-too-strange fascination with the Borgia family.
68. I do not have a set opinion of Lucrezia Borgia.
69. If I were making a Borgia movie, Ryan Reynolds would be Cesare and Scarlett Johanson would be Lucrezia. I also think that makes it more interesting.
70. The only celebrity I'm told I look like is Phoebe Cates.
71. If I could go any place it would be Rome, Paris and Disney World. In that order.
72. I don't know if there is anyone who loves Epcot's World Showcase more than me.
73. My first trip to Disney wasn't until I was 18.
74. Marc and I met in a mall.
75. I used to see him everyday when I bought my large Cherry Coke.
76. He initiated conversation by showing me a special nickel.
77. He will be very mad that I wrote that here.
78. When I was little, my brother and I used to play Nintendo together, but he'd have to have some type of serious handicap to make it fair.
79. I could also just watch him play for hours.
80. A Dyson vacuum is worth the money for its bug-sucking-from-a-distance capability.
81. I used to cue up Dark Side of the Rainbow and watch it with my dad. It is now available easily on youtube, saving lots of effort, but lacking the theatrics.
82. My favorite part is "Great Gig in the Sky" with the tornado. Rocks my world.
83. I get "rocks my world" from Bret Michaels. Watching the Rock of Love shows is my one guilty confession.
84. The heat doesn't work right in my house and the kitchen is refrigerator-cold in winter.
85. I was never any good at sports.
86. Or music.
87. I didn't like school until college.
88. My first class was History 101. I was 16.
89. I somehow managed to scrape through all of my college with only one math class, and I got a D grade, no less!
90. I never took the SATs.
91. When I was 17 I sold a beanie baby on ebay for $300.
92. I own 3 red coats.
93. Reading is my favorite thing to do.
94. I am really bad about communicating with friends.
95. I still sleep with my blankie!
96. I don't ever take the "biggest and best" for myself. Thanks to a little childhood story called The Hollow Pie.
97. One time I pulled my sister's earrings right out of her ears. You might say I have a temper.
98. My baby has the same temper.
99. I love monkeys.
100. I really didn't think I would reach 100. I kept thinking, I'll just do 33. 41. 66. I made it!

Are you sleeping? Lol...Love, Bay

I'm coming out of holiday hibernation and have a bunch of cool stuff starting up soon. This is #1!

It is going to be so much easier for you to tell everyone you know about my blog ;) ... just type queenmotherblog.com! No more messing with this .blogspot.com stuff.

So whenever you want to pop in and leave me a comment, just go to www.queenmotherblog.com Hint, hint!

So if last week was a light posting week for me, this week is extra so! There are the doctors appointments, meeting with friends, and Christmas shopping going on, and then I will be back in full swing again.

So hang tight! I have a pantry project I've been working on that I'm going to put up here soon that might really help you.

Also, I put up a couple of really quick freebies in the post below.

So this morning I had my weigh in. I didn't go last week, just because I was slacking a bit and it was pouring rain. Earlier this week I heard the weather forecast that it was going to rain again on Thursday, but this time I knew I couldn't skip. So I dragged cranky Rayna out to the meeting and...

...I was down 1.4!! What?? Over a lb.!!?? When I was off the wagon this week? It is a miracle, I tell ya. Maybe it was all my running around cleaning this week. Or maybe it is that when I don't journal what I'm eating, I actually eat *less* because I'm nervous about how "bad" I am doing.

So I am 2 lbs. away from my goal weight! Hooray!

On a side note, you know it's not cool to be a follower, right? BUT I added the "followers" feature to my blog, and that IS cool. I still thought "follower" didn't sound very nice so I changed it to "my loyal subjects"...hehe, like that is so much better! But seriously, please sign up to follow my blog. I would love you forever :) (It is down on the right below the post archive & labels, but it doesn't seem to be working right now. You can also just click here)...I think you have to have a blog yourself? I don't get it! But thanks for those who are trying!

Love, Bay

I've had a "diary type" blog before, but my audience was limited to the few interested friends and family that felt like reading my rantings and ravings. I decided to spend my time doing something a bit more productive and write a blog about things that I am doing and hopefully reach more people in the process.

In this blog I hope to write about my brand new experiences as a first time mom, a new stay-at-home mom, someone attempting to save money while living in the expensive northeast (South Jersey, specifically), and anything else that comes up along the way.

If you don't already know me personally, my name is Rebekah, but family and a few friends call me Bay. Can you believe there are about 1,000 Rebekah's out there blogging about similar subjects? So I'm going to post here as Bay. The name of this blog is just something cute I call myself since I don't have a "little princess" I have a little queen! :)

Yay, let's get started!