I'm a grown up

Rowan and I this evening in the bath:

"What's this?"

"Neutrogena face soap."

"Can I have some?"

"No, it's for grown ups."

"I wanna be a grown up."

"There's more to being a grown up than just wanting to be a grown up. You have to be like 20 years old, not 4. You need to have a job and pay your bills."

Bubbles

"And you can't fart in the tub."

Momma!!!

That's the word you'll hear very loudly around here today. As we are enduring our long 65 degree winter, I decide it's time to clean Rowan's room. This is always met with crying and whining and begging. Because after all I am throwing away her identity in some small way.

Spring cleaning her room involves 1 large garbage bag, 1 bottle of cleaner, and 1 cleaning towel/cloth. This is the point where Rowan starts to get nervous. I tell her to stay out of her room because I am cleaning. In the corner of my eye I can see her furtively "rescuing" an armload of toys from the hideous gaping mouth of the trash bag.

When I clean her room (or any room for that matter)it involves starting in one corner and wiping down everything. Then comes the bad part. I pick up and inspect EVERY SINGLE ITEM. I'm looking for any rips, tears, breaks, dirt, missing pieces. I ask myself, "does she play with this anymore?" If there's any defects or missing pieces it goes in the garbage bag. If it's just something she doesn't play with it goes into a donate pile. I have to watch that pile very closely or a devious child will sneak back in and try to give it a second chance.

This is about the time I start hearing, "Momma don't throw that away. It's miiinnnee." Really? You need this? This old broken McDonald's toy that's a boys toy because they were out of the girl's toys that day that you don't even play with because it might go up in value to what...negative five cents? Oh yeah, we let her eat McDonald's. I have to. It's in my contract under "sucker clause." She gets one bad meal a week and I get to throw her toys away a few times a year.

Luckily we made it through another cleaning spree. She's getting better at accepting her fate. It makes more room for new toys.

And I didn't have anything else to write about today.

Another brilliant idea...

I wanted to show y'all what went on last night...
Luckily I did not do this. We went to see some old friends who moved out of town. She was so nervous about making a good dinner that she forgot some of the bread was in the oven. Fast forward to billowing smoke and opening all the doors. Of course we didn't let it go. "You throw such memorable dinner parties. We'll never forget it." This is par for the course. Whenever we go to someone's house something always happens. Remember this in case you invite me to your's.

The kids played dress up or dress weird. This was a winner. A Barbie dress with a swimming mask and a gun holster.

Now ladies, you know you have to occasionally change things up to keep your man interested. Or so I'm told. Here's what I did today. I was walking around the house with these eyebrow waxing guide stickers. Jace was cleaning the kitchen and turned around saying, "what are you doing?" Then he decided he didn't even want to know and walked off. In his head I knew he was thinking, "she's doing something weird for the blog again. *sigh* I wonder if they have that opening at The Nut House Ranch yet?"

I had been planning this idiotic brilliant idea for the last 2 weeks. I was going to wax my eyebrows. This should be easy. I've plucked them. I can stand pain. So I melted the wax and glopped in on all over my two brows. And waited. Only took a couple minutes to work up the courage to pull fast like a bandaid. I got the right brow done. Not bad. Man it hurts. Just a hint of tears. I still have to pull off the other side and there's no going back. It has to come off but I don't want to because the first side is really stinging. I'm going to have to find some guts somewhere or I'll have a finely shaped brow and one that looks like it has the plague/fungus growing off it. So I hold my breath and rip rip rip as fast as I can before my brain has a chance to register what I'm doing. Done. Then OOOOOWWWWWW!!!!! Big pain. Nice eyebrows.

I sit here this evening eight hours later and my eyebrows still haven't forgiven me. It's a dulled pain now. I vaguely remember the box saying I could use it for the bikini area. Fat chance that is ever going to happen.

Knitting a midlife crisis...

I will start by saying that I have been busy and I wanted to post because so many things were happening. Instead I procrastinated. But I finally decided I better get this up or it was going to become an epic long post with too many topics. It's going to have too many topics as it is, but we have some catching up to do.

First, I went to the Farmer's Market here in town. There's not as many sellers (vendors/farmers?) as I would like but they are a shy bunch and don't want to show up too early and get stuck standing around outside in bad weather.

I bought brocolli, spinach, and onions from this lady, Julie Braune of Braune Farms. Let me just say that these people are nice if not just a wee, tad sensitive. Don't get me started on when I asked to take a picture because I'm doing a blog and her response got very...animated. "Oh thank you for asking. You don't know how many times people take a picture of my table withOUT ASKING AND THEN IT ENDS UP IN SOME MAGAZINE AND I DON'T GET COMPENSATED OR ANY CREDIT!!!" (me wanting to cower under her table) And I told her I would definitely mention her in my blog and give her credit. Ahem. Nice veggies, though.

This stand had preserves, honey, organic protein bars, and awesome aprons. I got the honey.

Now we can get the good stuff! I will once again blame my friend for this. She knitted the cutest hat and of course will not make one for me. So I have to learn how to knit. Off I go to Hobby Lobby and here's what I found. Yeah, there's some yarn, needles, a little basket, and a one page instruction guide to learn how to knit. That's all I need, one page. But the real treasure is the tin boxes. They were on clearance (favorite word) and cost me $2 or less each. Right now one is holding my knitting tools, one is empty, and one is filled with chocolate, wrapped, and ready to go into the mail for another very nice blogger. But I digress...And I just figured out one of my pictures is out of order. I really need to get this post up so we will leave the knitting for just a moment.

The other night Rowan's school had "Math Night." She came home from school that day with a Sad Face in her folder. Which means she was a bad girl and couldn't shut her mouth or follow directions. I told Jace that this was the beginning of her life of crime. Because we all know it starts when you're young and it's something small. (Her dad is a criminal, too. $7.60 in late fines at the library!!)

She wasn't having too much fun at Math Night because she thought she was going to get punished any minute for getting the Sad Face. She did let loose at this bowling game. So there's the pitch...

And it's a success. She wiped out almost all the penguins. Yea! After about 15 minutes we were ready to go. We just don't do well in these situations. Most times it feels fake standing around with other parents who don't want to be there either but feel it's their obligation. But they're really wondering So You Think You Can Dance, Lost, American Idol, or Grey's Anatomy. Or there's some parents who are looking around to see if they're serving beer at this thing. I'm making a case for homeschooling and we are getting closer. Rowan is doing well with our at home kindergarten math and so far I know all the answers. A little more research about local groups and regulations and we'll be there.

O.k. back to the knitting. I found this book at Half Price Books. It's That book you're always looking for when you want to do something. You find lots of books with pieces of information but there's only one with all of it. This book has over 250 stitches with charts and pictures so you can compare your work. Last night I was working on technique and tightness of the thread and generally zoning out. I was thinking of the patterns and said (in my head), "I wonder what it would look like if I do this..." I made up my own pattern and it worked. My friend is going to be jealous because you shouldn't be able to do this with less than a week of knitting experience. But I needed to get her back because she put something on my locker at work and now I have to make her crazy.

Deep Breath...sigh... O.k. now why is this post called Knitting a Midlife Crisis? I started thinking of all the things I'm doing right now (see side bar for Things I'm Working On and Things Accomplished). Why am I doing all these things? And what's the hurry? Then it dawned on me that I'm feeling my fleeting youth. I have a desire to cram in as much stuff before I am too old to do/learn these things. I consider it a midlife crisis without the little red sports car. I also noticed that besides the jogging I have cultivated a number of hobbies that I can do while sitting or laying in bed. This is handy for when I either blackout on the treadmill, trip and fall on the treadmill, or trip and fall and then blackout on the treadmill. I will have plenty to do while I'm recovering from my near death injuries. On the good side we are loaded up with Dora, Hello Kitty, and Scooby Doo bandaids so I expect a full recovery.

Thanks for catching up with me today.

Shopping Secrets

Recently I was asked if I posted any of my shopping deals on here. I haven’t because sometimes it’s a real labor to type it all out. I did a little shopping yesterday and I’ll go through and list what I got and some little tricks of the trade. These can also be found at CouponMom. You don’t have to be completely immersed into it to save money. Even tiny adjustments will have big rewards.

Here’s what I did at CVS:
6- 12 packs of Pepsi for $20.
I used $18 in Extra Bucks and paid $2.17 out of pocket. I saved $27.94. 93%. I received $10 in Extra Bucks. Extra Bucks is like cash back for buying specified things. They are good for about a month so you can accumulate them and use them little by little or in bulk. I get a lot of free stuff this way.

1- ROC age diminishing cream clearance priced $7.50-$3.00 coupon.
1- Aveeno Body Wash clearance $3.75-$2 coupon.
2- Glade Fabric and Air freshener $3.99ea-(2) $2.00 coupons. Received $6 Extra Bucks
2- Veet gel cream clearance $2.75ea
2- Duracell Batteries $2.99 ea-(2) $.75 coupons
1- Bubble lip smacker pink strawberry $5.99
I also used a $9 Extra Buck and the previous $10 Extra Buck. My out of pocket was $11.04. My savings was $48.21. 81%

At Target:
Clearance priced clothes. They beat the pants off of Walmart for clearance prices. I almost always pick up items for $2 and $3. You can also stack a Target coupon and a manufacturer coupon. Target coupons can be found at Target.com at the bottom of the page as “Grocery Coupons.” Just check off the ones you want and print.

1- Gatorade G2 $.96-$.50 coupon
1- Purina Cat Chow $3.99-$1 Target Coupon & $1 manufacturer coupon
6- Purina canned dog food $.99ea-(3) Buy one get one free coupons
2- Cat Treats $1.49ea-$1 Target coupon and a Buy one get one free manufacturer coupon
1- Dog Treat $2.99-$1 Target coupon and $1 manufacturer coupon
2- Cat appetizers $1.27ea-$1 Target coupon and Buy one get one free manufacturer coupon
1- Prilosec $10.49-$3 coupon. This is now cheaper than the store brand version.
Some other odds and ends. My total was $44.81 and I saved $28.27. 39%

This whole saving process takes only as much time as you can put into it. If you read through this whole post then you are already ten times more educated than someone who doesn’t use coupons. I’ll be going to a couple of stores today and I’ll report back what I get.

Write if you have any questions about this or other shopping questions.

Helpful Blog Advice

I’m reposting some blogging advice I read on CarrotSpeak last September. It’s kinda stuck with me and I thought I would pass it on. If it will benefit you then copy and save it. If you repost it please give credit of where it came from.

This is the original post in its’ entirety:

Monday, September 14, 2009
Making a Difference Monday #5 -- (FAQ)
　
http://address-the-world.blogspot.com/2009/09/making-difference-monday-5-faq.html

How can I gain more followers?

There is no one answer to this question. The easiest way to gain followers is to establish a small base following and let your popularity grow from there. Find a few blogs you like, follow them, and comment. Most blog owners will respond to commenters. If they like what they see on your blog, they'll follow you. If they're really impressed, they'll add your blog to their "Blog-roll," leading their followers to your page. Eventually, you'll find some blogging "friends." Strange as it sounds, you really begin to develop bonds with some of these people, even though you may have never met. These bloggers are your "base," and are the platform from which you can begin to build a larger following. Do not be discouraged if it takes a while for your blog to take off. There are tons of blogs on the internet, and therefore tons of potential followers. There is a circle for everyone; it just may take a while for you to find yours. :) Also, participating in memes (like my Making a Difference Mondays) is a good way to increase the traffic on your blog and have some fun. :)And finally: To keep followers, always make your readers feel at home. Answer their comments and emails. Treat them as friends, and you'll find that is exactly what they'll become.

Do you have any advice for new bloggers?

1 -- Do not, under any circumstances, try to be someone you are not. The thing that makes blogging intriguing is that everyone can be rewarded for being their self. A blog is only interesting if it is unique somehow, and it can only be unique if you aren't trying to mimic someone. Don't be afraid to let your personality shine.

2 -- Do not blog only for publicity. You won't find it rewarding in the least. Blogging is a personal thing. It's a way to share your ideas and interests with others, meet new people, and voice your opinions into the world. In the blogging world, we are all equals in a way we cannot be elsewhere. We all have the same tools, and all have the same opportunity to be heard. We can form communities that couldn't exist outside of the internet because of distance and language barriers. Take advantage of that and enjoy yourself. Don't stress over numbers...just smile as they grow. =)

3 -- Use ads in moderation. They're bulky and distract readers from the rest of your blog. A few tasteful advertisements would be much more effective in giving your blog a polished and professional look while helping you earn a few extra bucks.

How to knock off your friend without getting caught...

A million or so years ago I was a girl scout. Now that it is cookie season I feel compelled to support the cause. In the past years I haven’t known any girl scouts per se and I usually throw the $3.50 at them at their booth at Walmart and waltz off with my box of Samoas (oops they are now PC caramel delights).

This year I know one girl scout. When she isn’t grounded for being a teenager then she’s out doing girl scouting stuff. (spelunking, rock climbing, camping, and tea party) So this year I feel ten times more compelled to support the cause. (and I work with her mom who will drill laser burns into the back of my head if I don’t buy a box or ten)

After buying my case of cookies I came home all warm hearted. Until I read the labels. Have you seen how many calories are in these things? Of course I didn’t read it until after I had eaten too many to possibly work off all those calories. I mean what are these things made of? I’ll tell you what I think they are made of. Lard, lead, and dark matter. How else can you fit that many calories into such a seemingly small innocent object. So delicious by the way.

Then it dawned on me. Eureka! My friend is trying to bump me off. We have a great friendship based on me making light hearted jabs at her blog and life in general and she tries to kill me in return. It’s all in fun of course. (if I’m found dead she did it) There’s no other way to explain the short course of events that have happened. Here I am trying to get healthy and she just happens to show up with cookies. She has deduced that I won’t refuse to buy girl scout cookies. So she loads me up with 10 boxes and about a million calories. Next, she knows I’ll get on the treadmill in a vain effort to run all those calories off. So I will either die of clogged arteries or a coronary. And all of you will not be the wiser.

However, I have found a way, or two, to get her back. First, I won’t eat all the cookies myself. I’m going to give some as gifts to people I would like to see get fat. And if I have any left after that there's always a market when the cookie sales stop. You know who you are. You bought the 2 boxes of thin mints and just when you got addicted they stopped selling them. Well, I’ll hook you up. For a small price increase of course. Is that illegal? That would suck to end up in the “pen” telling my new cell mate I’m here for selling the hard stuff. I’ll have to work on that aspect of my plan.

But for now, my friend, just know that your plan is...foiled!