Just call me Franky Jane.

Can I be frank? My life for the past three weeks has been so ridiculously busy that the absolute last thing on earth I want to do is spend half an hour recapping why its been so ridiculously busy. Not that its been bad, we as a family have actually been really blessed with a lot of new opportunities and exciting little tidbits, but honestly yo, this girl be spent. So I'm skipping the blah blah blah and talking about something that makes my wee little heart flutter. Shall we?

On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do you love these Sam Edelman shoes? Do you love them $179 kind of love? I did, but then I found them at TJMaxx for $20. Just call me a Maxanista. Don't act like you don't know the commersh. p.s. these shoes are called the "frankie" which I realized AFTER I title this post. fate? i vote yes.

If you catch me poolside this Summer, you can bet your knickers I'll be sportin' this little beauty. I picked her up for a whopping $6.50 (plus tax of course) at Forever21 a few days ago while I was shopping with my main girl Chelsea and her main man Nixon.

This baby is one of thousands of pieces of turquoise I've been getting my bling on in these days. Seriously though, try to catch me not wearing turquoise. Betcha a DDP you can't. I've taken on my oldest sister's Indian ways and gone Turq. Oh and shout out once again to Forever 21 for pricing this bad boy at a mean $3.??, $3.50 maybe?

Soooo I know this little coral number isn't super flashy, but come on! Really? This baby could easily be dressed up or down and accessorized up the wazoo. I'm feeling like this Anthro number is a must for Spring/Summer/Forever.

Homemade pretzels?! Not a spring time accessory but definitely a great success in the domestification process. No Jo these guys were heavenly. And watching my husband toss them in the air and have them land in this pretzel shape? priceless. If you're wondering yes he was in fact part of the dream team that is Wetzel's Pretzels during his younger years. Ohhh yaaa boiii.

Because my heart simply wont let me do a post with out a Brooks pic, here is a loverly shot of my sweet boy doing some weird cuddle up with his sippy cup tucked in his blanky maneuver. He loves snuggling with the blanket his Aunt Rachel made him especially whilst watching Handy Manny and/or Sesame Street.

Vacuums, stocks, lacrosse, oh my!

Last week, Tyler and I decided it was time to sit down with Brooks and have a long hard talk about his future. We expressed our desire for him to find a career that he can enjoy his entire life, something he is passionate about. In the subsequent days, we found him testing out different career choices.

Monday he tried out a exhibitionist/janitor combo, opting to go pantless while vacuuming.

Tuesday he dabbled in the business world a bit, even buying and selling a few stocks.

Wednesday he tried his hand at lacrosse playing, as well as fashion stylist. Personally, I think he expertly paired his plaid jacket with his pajama shorts and cowboy hat.

After three days of career exploration, Brooks ultimately decided to just be...

an adorable little boy!



p.s. can you tell I'm enjoying learning my way around photo shop?

doin' hood rat things.

I am a lover of Rob and Big, I mean like really I love them both. So as soon as we decided on a name, and realized his initials would be BB, we had to buy him a Big Black onesie. Little did I know, it would influence the rest of his life...

The classy bum of Brooksy's Big Black onesie


Well let's flash forward nearly two years after this delightful number was purchased, shall we?

If you'll notice the letters that are clumped together at the bottom of the fridge, if arranged correctly, would spell out "Whats up G" Really Brooks? Really? We're going that route are we?

Sheesh. You can take a girl out of the Arrowhood but you can't take the hood out of her son...or something like that.

It's my party

Hi, my name is Janey and I'm addicted to celebs. There, I said it. I am as out of the closet as Elton John. Now that that is out of the way lets get right to it.

For an addict such as I, Oscars night is a big deal, so when the hubs revealed to me he had to work all night I was crushed. No Oscars party?! No homemade Oscars shaped chocolates?! No fake red carpet?! So, I did what any other respectable celeb addict would do. I came home, I slapped on my brightest red lipstick, lined my eyes with glittery green, threw on some fake gems, and put on my PJs to watch the glory unfold.

They like me! They really, really like me!


Oh dawwling I said shaken, not stirred.

I hope your Oscars night was far less pathetic than mine.

Indulge

As of late I have become a real cheap-o. Most everyone in my family is pretty thrifty, but unfortunately I didn't obtain the frugal gene. That being said, married life has slowly but surely turned me into a much more money conscience person. I say slowly but surely, because the first year of our marriage I was still withdrawing small amounts of money at a time to feed obsessions like $30 lip gloss and a never ending closet of brand-new-tag-still-on clothes. Its okay guys, Tyler knows about it now, and we survived so no harm no foul right? Anyway, back to the topic at hand.I really have been trying my hardest to save every extra nickel and dime lately, using coupons on top of coupons, not buying non-necessities, and unfortunately I have slowed down my clothes addiction considerably.

A few weeks ago, all this not buying things I don't need business was really getting me down. I'm telling you, I could practically hear SanTan Mall calling my name. To ease my pain a bit, I decided to go to Marshall's to wander around and see if there was anything I needed that was reasonably priced, and hello everything in that freaking store is reasonably priced! As soon as I walked in I started grabbing crap off the shelves, new dishes, perfume, shoes for me, clothes for Brooks, the works. I was completely relapsing. As I was walking to the checkout stand with probably $150 of crap I didn't need, a little book called "An Indulgence a Day" caught my eye. Hmm....indulge daily you say? I liked the sound of it. Even better, when I turned to look at the price it was only $1! So I ditched my cart of nothingness, spent my dollar and went home to start indulging.

I'll be honest and say that not all of the ideas in the book are great, or can even be done in one day, (umm should we talk about the fact they suggest backpacking through Europe? like seriously in a day?) but the idea of the book is fabulous. Instead of retail therapy, as of late I have been experimenting in indulgence therapy. Most often it means nothing more than a bubble bath, a diet dr.pepp, and a good book, but hey it keeps me sane and my wallet fat!



Overall, what I'm trying to say here people is indulge yourself. Especially you mothers or students or generally hardworking people. Put the kids to bed 30 mins early, tell your husband to shoo, and just be. I am telling you it is uh-may-zing. I mean check out these hot pics of me indulging. A face mask, a mayo and olive oil hair treatment, and some treats? yes please!

Piles and Puddles

Today was just one of those days. There were piles and piles and piles to get through.

First, there was a overly obnoxious pile of laundry to fold.

Next, came the seriously distressing pile of mail a.k.a bills to sort.

Lastly, there was my personal favorite, and by favorite I mean least favorite pile. dishes.
By this time of the day my patience was running thin. My sweet baby boy is becoming a little bit less sweet and a lot more boy and this combined with my piles of piles put me in a bit of a mood, if you will.

I really didn't want the mundane to ruin my day so I grabbed a few essentials, headed outside with B, and said goodbye to piles and hello to puddles!

How could this face not cheer you up?

puddles.

let's be real. this little gem is a mom essential.

Petunia Summer

Growing up I was a very strange child. Not that I'm not a bit off now, but when I was growing up I was seriously "different". I remember specifically waking up in the morning as a kid, probably in 1st or 2nd grade, getting dressed in a cheetah Halloween costume, a pair of tap shoes, and bright red lipstick and walking down to the kitchen to get breakfast like it aint no thang. Not only that but I was extreeeeemely dramatic. I used to write story after story about family members that didn't exist, family turmoil that never happened, chauffers and butlers that I never had, and the list goes on and on.

Ask any of my siblings and they could probably spout off a dozen or so tales of me wearing my red lipstick and fishnet stockings to Elementary school, writing poetry about my parent's divorce (my parents are not divorced, never were divorced, and as far as I know were never close to divorce) in 2nd grade, my imaginary friend Sanda who died in several different tragic accidents, or sobbing about the death of my grandpa in 5th grade when mind you he died when I was 3, therefore I had no real memory of him or his death at all. I really was a weird little kid.


The great thing about all of this, is that my mother always encouraged me to write out all the crazy little thoughts in my head. My first journal ever dates back to 1994 when I was only 5 years old, and the daily writings continued all the way through high school. It is so fascinating to look back at the innerworkings of a 7-year-old nut job and see just how kooky I really was. Because I find them to be so hilarious I feel that its necessary to share with the blog world some samplings from my journals. About once a week I'll be sharing an entry from volumes 1-11 of my journals and hopefully a photo to boot! Since this post is so annoyingly long I will leave today with the names I picked out for my future children on May 8, 2000.

Names for Girls:

1. Petunia Summer
2. Dominique Arella
3. Althea Cali
4. Odelia Alexandra
5. Kamilah Noble

If you're wondering how I came up with such beautiful names, they are all courtesy of the baby name book I checked out of the library as a 10-year-old. Who does that?

Happy Things

Without getting into too much detail, lets just say 2011 has not started out quite as lovely as I thought it would. To give you a small idea of the occurrences at the Bowyer home that are making me blue, I have been sick 3 times, Ty's less than 5 year old truck needs thousands of dollars of transmission repair, and through all of my running and new working out (and being sick!) I have gained four pounds. Awesome!

Like always though, with the bad there is always a bit of light. Here are some things bringing me invaluable joy.

My ABC wall!

It's not quite finished and I am definitely swapping out some of the letters, but here is a peek (quite literally, as I took the picture with my craft room door not even fully open) of one of my fave areas in our house. I think its loverly.


Brooks Everest Bowyer, such a gem!

As I learned with this little experience, sometimes little boys doing little naughty things are okay, and can actually be....dare I say it? cute! He emptied a container of baby powder, then pranced his little footsies through it, making adorable white foot prints throughout our house. How could I be mad?!

The Insomniac


My poor husband has serious sleep issues, it started after pulling one too many all nighters for school, and now he is rarely seen in bed with me before 1 or 2 am. I will admit that sometimes it causes deep frustration, but when your sick baby boy can't sleep, its nice to have a hubby who can stay up with him and cuddle him.

Snowilicious

I'm going to go ahead and try to skip over the fact I haven't blogged in three weeks and jump right into the fun the Bowyer fam has been having as of late.

A few days after Christmas, we made a last minute decision to head up to Tyler's parents cabin in Greer with our dear old friends the Farnsworths! On the way it started storming super hard, and at one point we slid off the road into an embankment and were stuck there until AAA came to pick us up. It was too snowy even for the tow truck so we had to shuttle back and forth from Pinetop to Greer in literally the worst storm I have ever seen. It was quite a scary experience but once we got to the cabin we were able to sit back, relax, and have a good time!

Okay don't judge me by this picture, it was actually snowing pretty hard so don't hate on my squinty eyes, strange outfit, and poor facial expression.

Brooks absolutely L.O.V.E.D playing in the snow. He and Ty could've spent the whole day out there despite the freezing temps, wind, and constand snowfall.

After the big storm died down, the cabin was left with monster icicles! Tyler broke one off to demonstrate the size of these beasts!

Our cute friends, chowing down at the Rendezvous Diner! Side note, while we were eating the waitress asked all the families at the restaurant where we were from, turns out everyone eating at the restaurant we were there was from Gilbert! Weird!

My cute husband posing for a picture outside the diner. Such beautiful scenery!

Overall it was a smashing time, however I don't think I'll be heading back to the cabin until all the snow has melted! Snowy car accidents aren't my fave!