My son, oh my son. This child has a knack for shedding light on situations and bringing truth to the table with innocence and blinding accuracy. My life is so much richer because of this boy who made me a mother. You must see the card he made me for Mother’s Day.

You can see how he captured motherhood in all its complexity, with rainbows, screams, ponies, and 800 miligram ibeprophen tablets surrounded by love and Elmer’s glue.

It is important to note that this card was created when I, deeply invloved in work, ok-ed the hauling out of the art supplies and glue to keep them busy. Earlier that day I had dropped a few pills as I battled a headache and instead of putting them back in their proper place, stashed them way up high in a cupboard, which apparently was very accessable when you’re five and climbing to get your art supplies.

Now, every mother tells their child that the Mother’s Day card he made for them is the best, but I got to mean it. If I live to be 100, I don’t think he will be able to top this.

Jonas, thank you. You will understand someday why I love you so.

Ok, I know I’ve been accepting a lot of reviews lately, please forgive me loyal readers, because this one is actually quite yummy. My fail safe plan for those nights where no one wants to cook has long involved Ragu sauce. Now Ragu has developed these new sauce pouches that are making me very happy on those days where I spend all day cleaning and the last thing I want is splattering sauce all over my stove. Now you can do it in the microwave and have pasta sauce in a 90 second microwavable pouch, leaving one less pot to clean. No sugar added and like the traditional Ragú® Sauces, no artificial additives or preservatives. So you can skimp on time, but not on nutrition. Pair it with some organic whole wheat pasta and you can feel pretty good about yourself!

Busy though- soon to come- the funniest Mother’s Day Card ever.

When I agreed to this bok tour, I really expected to find something different within the pages of this book. I thought it would be simple. I thought it would be very focused on the career driven powerhouse women I see strutting the streets of San Francisco sporting black heels and blackberries. I thought wrong.

The Working Woman’s Pregnancy Book by Marjorie Greenfieldis a remarkable resource for all pregnant women. Now, I am an information junkie. I research the fun right out of nearly every endeavor, and pregnancy was no different for me. I thought I knew what I was getting in to when I got knocked up with #1, and then discovered that all I knew about was typical. I am atypical. Very few of the usual rules applied to me, and being told what to expect was more like, “Ha, ha wouldn’t that have been nice! Welcome to the brutal reality!”

I have been pregnant three times. Twice I had debilitating hyperemesis, twice I had preterm labor, twice I had preemies, once I ran out of amniotic fluid, once I lost the baby. I have been educated on this rollercoaster, and I always found books on the topic to be lacking, or overly simplified, or directed so exclusively at one demographic that I felt it didn’t apply. This book manages to have it all, hit every demographic, and it is written from the perspective of an obstetrician. What’s more, it is written from the perspective of a woman.

I loved the part on eating during a pregnancy. My first time around I bought a book that told me exactly how many of every thing I needed to eat and how often. Then came about six months where the only thing that stayed down was being pumped directly into my veins. What to eat when you’re expecting? Anything that will stay down!

I know there are women who have stellar pregnancies. They were born to breed and sail through the trimesters like prize-fighters, while I languish by my toilet bowl and in my hospital bed as I fight to hold on to my babies. This book is good enough for both of us, and that is really something.

Some days everything is wrong.

My insides go from feeling puffy and painful to having no feeling at all. I wrap myself in a blanket of numbness, and even though I have many, many reasons to ache in the deepest pit of my gut, I almost can’t remember what exactly has brought about this particular day’s grief.

Surely, surely it is many things, and each silent theft of peace leaves a tiny hole until suddenly I am split wide, insides dark with blood spilling out for all to see. I see a movie and cry. The movie is a comedy. I spend $7.25 to weep in the dark, body in emotional overflow, and nothing concrete on my mind. I buy sewing tools and can barely walk through the isles. I spend twenty minutes staring at a display rack of something, but couldn’t tell you what it is. The money I spend is a gift, and there should be happiness attached, not this hollowness.

I am overwhelmed for honest reasons, and yet mad as hell at myself for feeling this way. I am not forgiving of today’s inability to cope. I am mad that I am in situations that require coping, that rob me of my peace of mind when I have done so little to be deserving of it. I am angry that these things are big enough to require my full attention, and cannot always be compartmentalized safely into a little box that I choose to open. Sometimes Pandora is in control, and I am left to pick up the pieces.

I cry. And then I don’t. I create new projects. I refocus, even though it takes every bit of me to do so. I pick up the bits of insanity and cram them into their place. They go unwillingly because they are real demons that need dealing with, but damn it all, they will go for today.

Congrats to Ami D. - you win the kit! Just send me an e-mail with your contact info so we can pop it in the mail!

Thanks for playing everyone!

I was recently asked to review the new Ocean Spray Cranergy drinks. I got them in the mail, put them in the fridge to chill, and came back two hours later to find two kids with red mustaches chugging them outside under the trampoline. They liked them very much.

I then went out and bought myself some more. The drinks themselves are really good. I don’t care for overly sugary, syrupy drinks and so I liked that this tasted more like natural fruits than sugar. It does have a great blend of vitamins and other natural antioxidants and good for you stuff, so you can feel like you’re doing something good for yourself when you’re drinking.

My only qualm with the juice is that it contains red dye #40. Considering the negative affects of additives, particularly red dye, I think Ocean Spray would do much better health-wise if they stuck to the natural color from the fruits. So all in all, better than most drinks, but still not healthy enough for me to want to drink regularly.

Hey people! As many of you guys know, I manage the scrapbook kit club over at www.myscrapbooknook.com. This means that I choose all of the products in the kits, buy them, and then manage a design team of talented women who all show off the kit each month. I also manage the message board, where people can come talk about scrapbooking or just life in general (I admit, as much as I like to scrap, I hang out on the everything else forum). It is a really fun little work from home job, and I’m glad to have it!

It recently came to my attention that even though I have been doing this for over a year and a half, I have never done a contest for you guys involving the kit! Time to remedy that, eh?

So here is the deal. If you would like to see this big box of scrappy goodness land on your doorstep absolutely free, leave me a comment here today and tell me what you think of the May Kit, and if you happen to register to chat with me on the message board- do let me know what your user name is!

Also- be warned- I will be holding new Design Team member auditions in just about a month, so if you’re crazy about scrapping, be sure to check back and try out!

I will randomly select a winner on Friday the 9th!