Blinds? More like junk!

These are supposedly blinds:

At least, that's what some people call them.  I like to call them junk.  They are the stupidest blinds ever invented. We had these in our old house in Oklahoma as well.  As you can see, doesn't really keep the sun out.  See that sideways blind at the top that I guess is supposed to make it look pretty or something.  Yea, that falls off.  All the time.  And it's held on by the junky plastic things, which also break.  Which you can't replace. 

This is the little handle thingy.  It's stupid too, because if you have it turned the wrong way and you try to open or close the blinds, you will yank this little thing off.  What does this do you ask?  Well, then you can't do anything with the blinds until you get it put back on.  Not an easy task either.  I'm not tall enough to put this thing back on without a stool.  And even this is a pain!  It has some awkward hook on the end that you're supposed to try and get through a circle thingy at the top.  It's stupid.

These are the blinds themselves.  Equally as stupid.  They fall off if you just look at them wrong.  The holes at the top that are supposed to hook on to those weird plastic thingys up there.  Half the time, once they have fallen off, the hole becomes a "U" shape, thus rendering the blind useless.  So on about half of these blinds I've had to use packaging tape, tape up the broken hole, and poke a new hole into it, just to get them to hang precariously until the next gentle breeze blows them off.  

Those little plastic things that supposedly turn the blinds to open and closed positions.  They break.  All the time.  So then the blind just swings around freely, doing whatever it wants.  It doesn't open.  It doesn't close.  It just hangs there like a sad sack.  Also, if the little plastic thingys aren't all in the same position, you can't slide the blinds all the way open or closed, thus ripping off the handle thingy yet again.

So all in all, these are the stupidest blinds ever invented by man.  Oh and they're ugly.

I'm not embarassed....mostly

Before you judge me, STOP.  Think about your own houses.  Where is that pile of crap that is just sitting there?  I know you have it.  It's the garage.  Or the kitchen cabinets.  Or your closet in the extra bedroom, or maybe even your car.  It's there, staring at you, mocking you, embarassing you even though you don't let people see it.

First let me start off with my excuses.  

1. I'm pregnant in my 1st trimester so I'm beyond tired.  And the doc said that this time around I will probably be more tired than I was the last time.  And boy howdy she is right!  The last time I was preggers my first trimester I wasn't working (summertime-teaching) and I had no other kids.  So I got to lay on the sofa whenever I wanted.

2. I have a 9 month old son who I guess is teething.  He has 8 teeth right now and apparently 47 more are coming in.  That is the only thing I can think of why he's not sleeping well and is generally a crank ball all day long.  I mean whine all day and cling mercilessly describes it best.

3.  The hubs has been home a whopping 2 nights this week.  Monday and Wednesday night.  And we were out Wednesday night.  So it's been just me and the whiny Munchkin basically all week alone.  He's wearing me out.  I finally told the hubs that he wasn't allowed to go to work on Sunday or I warned I would slash his tires.  He's staying home. : )

So there you have them.  My excuses.  For what you might ask???

 This is our living room.  As you can see, the mess starts here.  The majority of it is from the Munchkin dragging everything out he possibly can and then leaving to tear something else up.  Oh and that's a pile of laundry I finally folded. 

This is our dining room.  As you can see, there is a little trail of junk leading towards Munchkins room. He's like a little tornado, blowing everything around, tearing half of it up on his way.  Now the kitchen table is full of crap because we moved a bunch of furniture around and there are a few shelves we need to put up so I can put that junk away.  

This is my living room/dining room on a typical day as of late.  I did clean all of this up that day.  I had a random bout of energy.

Lets go to today. 

 New day, new mess.  All from the pipsqueak.  Cheerios ALL OVER THE PLACE.  Because he found the box, ripped the bag open and flung them everywhere. 

Ah yes.  The newspaper.  He LOVES the newspaper.  Loves to shred it.  Dance with it. Fling it around.  Eat it.  Whatever.  He LOVES the newspaper.  As you can see.  It's like the newspaper exploded.  Ah but look.  The kitchen table is (mostly) cleaned off!!  Will I clean any of this tonight?  Not really.  Only the dirty dishes and maybe the Cheerios (maybe).

I'm not really embarassed by this.  I feel I have pretty legit excuses for it looking like this.  Those of you without kids, I'm sure you're thinking I'm a total slacker mom, who lays on the couch watching baseball games, and The Office, eating candy.  But if you have/have had kids, you understand that some days, you're children are like little monkeys.  They come in, throw everything around, and wander off to poop somewhere.  I figure, I spent most of my energy playing with him and feeding/changing diapers, that I at least did my job as a good mom today.  Maybe not the maid/house keeper.  But she'll come back someday.  And some days, it's just not worth it to pick up.

El Pregarino

Yep, I'm pregnant.  That would explain the lack of posts.  I don't have the energy to get dressed in the morning sometimes, let alone, take care of Munchkin, keep the house up, and write on this thingy.  So posts might me a little sparse until I get out of this tired stage. 

Speaking of the tired stage.  I have had people tell me, "Oh, well you're tired now but you'll feel better after the 1st trimester."  Like I haven't had a baby before.  Almost as if the 2nd trimester is this magical cure for everything that ails you.  Unfortunately, for myself,  it's not.  My tiredness and morning/afternoon/evening sickness last until about the 5th month.  Ugg....come on!  Lets get this show on the road.

We have our first doc appointment on Friday.  The first one is always exciting because our doc gives us a sonogram to check out the baby.  So we're going to get to see "Coconut" soon!  Always makes it sink in to it's fullest when you actually see the heart beating, little legs and arms moving around.  It's awesome. 

And just for good measure, to remind myself of just how big I got, and to show you all:

Can't you see the thrill on my face!

FINALLY! GEEZ!

I have finally finished Munchkins curtains.  They were old curtains from our living room in the house we used to live in in Oklahoma.  I decided he needed some curtains in his room because the sun BLARES into his room in the mornings till about noon.  It's like a flood light from 6am till 12pm.  The curtains were a little too short so I added a brown runner on the bottom.  I hung them up but they were too thin.  The sun still blasted that room.  So I took some more of the brown that I had and sewed a panel to the back of the curtains.  Not complicated really.  Not super time consuming.  Assuming you don't have a Munchkin running around and you're not so friggin tired from being pregnant (yep I'm preggers again) that you do 10 minutes of work and you need a 30 minute break.  Since I did have those two things going for me they literally took months for me to finish.  I would pin the fabric, and Munchkin would want to come over and play with the pins.  Or I'd start sewing with the sewing machine and he would mess with my foot pedal, climb on me or bang his head on something to get my attention...or just on accident.  I'm still convinced he bumps his head for the attention.  Anyways, so the stupid sewing machine has been sitting on my kitchen table for a VERY long time.  VERY LONG TIME.  I wouldn't allow myself to put it away until I finished the curtains.  So we haven't had a meal at the kitchen table for that amount of time.  And so it turned into the dumping ground for anything I didn't have the energy to put away.  But today, despite my fatigued body waking me up, and the very whiny all day Munchkin, I finished the damn things.  Yea I cussed at them.  And my husband ended up not having to work tonight so he got home just in time to hang the curtain rod!!  And finally that project is finished.  But of course now...I'm pregnant and there are 1000 things to do before "Coconut" comes into our lives...at least on the outside.  We have a guest bedroom which I will be converting to "Coconuts" room.  No more guests here!  Well I'm sure we'll have guests but we are no longer a pseudo hotel.  We are full on family now!!

Here a look at my handy work!  I'm sure I will post more projects in the future seeing as though when I'm pregnant I come up with a list a mile long of things I want to get done before baby gets here and magically they all get done.  Usually in about a week when the stars align, Munchkin is happy and I have energy.  Oh I long for the day.....week.

It's official. I'm a mom. I got the van!

We sold my truck.  : (

I've had my little red Ranger for 10 years.  Got it when I was 18.  It has been a great truck, too.  I've wrecked it a few times, mostly other people fault but one time because I was driving like a bat out of hell.  I rarely ever washed it.  I hardly ever vacuumed out the inside.  The bed of the truck had silver paint all over it because I worked on a dairy farm one summer.  I was in charge of painting a really really really long fence with silver paint.  So I used my truck to get around with all my painting supplies.  I was really stupid back then as well, because apparently, if you have an open paint can on your tailgate and you try to drive across a dirt pen (for cows), EVEN IF YOU DRIVE REALLY SLOW, you will still spill lots of silver paint all over the bed of your truck.  I didn't really care though.  My husband, when we lived in Oklahoma, decided that to get the ice off the windshield, it is best to bang on the inside of the windshield to knock the ice off.  Let me be very clear here...it doesn't work.  It just cracks the windshield, and leaves the ice on there.  The tailgate handle didn't work, so we had to take off the plate cover and pull the two hooks that hold it closed every time we wanted to open it.  I could go on.  Yes, from the description, it was kind of a hunk of junk.  But it was such a great truck.  Never died on me.  Never gave us any major problems.  Still to this day, runs like the day we bought it.  The AC was SUPER cold, which was really nice here on this scalding island.  But it was time to let it go.  I have Munchkin now and couldn't put him in it.  The hubs always took the car because it gets amazing gas mileage (he drives a ton for his job).  So I always ended up not being able to go anywhere...EVER.

BUT!  I got something so stinking awesome!  A conversion van!  Oh yea baby!  And the price was RIGHT!

 Check out those rims!!  WHAT WHAT!

 Yep, it has a tv, AND A VCR!  YEA!!  I can finally watch some of my VHS tapes!  We have hooked up a DVD player, just so you don't think we're total in the dark kind of people.

 It's got super comfortable front seats and captains chairs, and they all recline.  When I was growing up we had a van and none of the seats reclined.  I can stand up straight in this thing too!

The back seat reclines too!  All the way!  With the touch of a button!  Get your mind out of the gutter.  The wonderful thing about this is that we are big campers.  And we haven't been able to go because of Munchkin.  Can you imagine taking a small baby under 1 camping in a tent.  HA!  And when we camp we don't do pansy camping.  We do real deal camping.  But this will make things so much easier!  TONS of room, places to sleep for everyone if the tent just doesn't work out.  We are even planning an actual camping trip next year!  SO EXCITED!! 

Yea, I know.  Having a baby actually make me officially a mom.  But there's always that little part of you that hangs on to your non-mom status when you still have your little truck from college.  Buying a van and selling the truck puts me so far into the mom category, there's no turning back.  I will say though, I will rock this van till the day it dies!  

I get paid to run

That's right.  I'm one of those runners.  I get paid to run.  I'm actually not very good at running.  But I still get paid to run.  I know!  It's crazy!  Now, let me be clear.  I don't get paid on every run.  Or every other run for that matter.  But I got paid for my run today! 

CHECK IT OUT!!!  Yea baby!  So I'm on my run.  By myself today too!!  Thanks honey!  I always feel weird running by myself.  For years and years, I have ran with something.  The dogs (one or two...usually both), or now my running stroller with my sweet Munchkin in it.  But the past two days have gloriously weird.  I've gotten to run by myself while the hubs watches Munchkin and works from home.  Anyways, I'm on my run, and I'm just tearing it up.  It's amazing how much more stamina you have when you're not pushing a running stroller into the wind!  I'm headed out of a cul-de-sac and I look down and see lots of shiny, round coins ahead of me.  I quickly debate if I should look desperate and poor and stoop over and pick up the change, or if I should keep my pride and dignity and keep on running.  OH....I stopped!!  I have no pride.   After having my son poop on my crotch in the middle of Academy (a whole, squishy turd, although he was wearing a diaper...not sure how he keeps pooping outside of his diapers, but I"m starting to notice a pattern) I have no pride or dignity left.  I just don't care anymore.  I would never be able to leave the house if I had any, because of the goldfish goo he just wiped on my pants, the slobber stain on my shoulder, the film on my teeth because I haven't had a chance to brush my teeth yet today, the glob of dried, white milk on my black skirt, the fart noises he now likes to make on my neck, and the funky "I just cooked something in the frying pan this morning" smell that you sometimes get on your clothes.  I ended up picking up $0.99 cents!!  I thought that was so awesome!  Then I continued my run, thinking to myself, "Man it sure would be cool to find one more penny to get a whole dollar!!"  I have no clue why I wanted another penny but whatever.  So I spend the rest of my run with my head down in the gutter (yes...where I threw my son the other day) trying to find another penny.  And wouldn't you know it, NO PENNYS!  Apparently, they're not as common as you would think.  So walking home (because of my cool down time not because I'm a lame runner) I was somewhat bummed I couldn't find another penny.  Then I walked into our driveway.  LO AND BEHOLD!  A PENNY!  So I walked into the front door, getting paid $1.00 for my run! So I took a picture and put it in Munchkins piggy bank! 

Leave the Poop! Play with the baby!

How does a baby poop on the carpet, while still wearing a diaper?  I don't really know.  My 8 month old son will now come crawl to me to basically let me know he's poopy.  Which is really nice if I figure it out.  So in crawls the Munchkin while I was cleaning up the bathroom.  I picked him up and smelled it.  So I went to the living room to change his diaper.  I took off his diaper and thought..."Hey...that's weird...the poop is only on one side of the diaper and there's not much of it."  Then I look over to my left!  There a nice brown poop smear on the carpet by his basket of toys.  Then I look to my right and see yet another smear near the chair he likes to pull up on.  So I start yelling,
"YOU POOPED ON THE FLOOR." 
To which he thought this was just hilarious.  So instead of cleaning up the poop right away I continued to yell at him and he continued to giggle a sweet, happy big giggle I've never heard before.

I will happily clean up the poop later for that kind of giggle.  Once that was over I figured out what happened.

         As you can see, on the left is a normal diaper on a baby.  On the Right is what I came across this evening.  Notice the diaper had gotten squished over to the side somehow, allowing part of his crack to hang out.  This also caused him to get poop smears all over himself.  Not to mention the poop smears that were on the carpet.  I'm starting to wonder if I missed anymore smears.  We will find out later now won't we.  When we step in it unknowingly and keep wondering how it's possible for our foot to smell like poop!

Leave me alone

For some reason, strange women have decided to comment on the size of my son.  I was in the grocery store the other day and some weirdo woman right when I walked in said,
"Oh...how old is he?"
"8 months old."
"REALLY?!?!?!  He's so SMALL!  He's small isn't he?"  In a very suprised tone.
"Uh.....well...."  What was she talking about?  My kid isn't tiny...he's actually average.  Ya know...right in the middle for size.
"My kids were big.  He's just so small.  He's doing really well isn't he?"  Looking flabbergasted that my miniscule baby can hold his head up, let alone sit up in the shopping cart and play.
"Yea, he's doing well.  What the hell is your problem?  You think he's an idiot or something?"  I didn't say that last part but I wanted to.


Ok...so whatever, people say weird things all the time.  I walked off to continue my shopping, with my apparently highly developed yet tiny son.


Then yesterday, my husband and I are out on a walk in the evening in our neighborhood, minding our own business.  Here come this woman, running on the other side of the street.  Wrong side for pedestrians mind you, just so you know who we're working with.
"OH HI GUYS!"
"Uh....Hey?" Who is this stinky sweaty woman who seems to know us well enough to stop her run and come across the street.
"How's the baby doing?  How's the puppy doing?"  Then it hit us.  No pun intended.  This is the woman who hit our dog with her car and ran over him.  Yanked his hip out of socket and whatnot.  He made a full recovery to the suprise of the vet.  Anyways....
"He's good.  He's good."  They're both he's, my son and dog.
"Oh....he's cute!  He's small isn't he?  Is he small for his age?  I don't know, we didn't have any kids.  He just looks small."
"No...he's right in the middle.  Average size."
"Oh well he just seemed small.  Well if you ever want me to watch him just give me a call.  We're right down the street..."  Um...don't have your phone number you crazy, dog running over lady.  Nor would I let you watch my son because I have NO CLUE who you are.  For all I know you are going to kidnap my son and send him off to be a carney.
"Well, have a good run." 


So now there are two crazy women who think my son is small and apparently had to tell me about it because I guess we didn't notice the size of our tiny son.  Although, he's not actually tiny.  So I'm confused now.

Brownie Frosting

My husband wanted cookies tonight.  But we were out of store bought kind.  I offered to make cookies, because I'm just that kind of wife. : D  Then I decided I would make brownies because how can you really go wrong with brownies!  I like to make my brownies from scratch.  They're super simple, and actually really soothing to make.  You melt the butter in a saucepan, then mix in all the ingredients and then just pour it in a pan.  Seriously, that's all there is to homemade brownies.  However, a few years ago I decided, I just don't like brownies without frosting.  Some may say I'm crazy.  Brownies are perfect without frosting.  But I beg to differ.  I found this recipe for brownie frosting one night about a year ago on Allrecipes.com.  It reminded me of Little Debbie brownies.  The frosting they have on Little Debbie brownies is a thick fudge like pile of goo that I would eat off first before I ate the rest of the brownie that was in my lunch box.  So stinking good.  And now, I have become Little Debbie on "De Island."  I can make my own brownies with the thick fudge like pile of goo on top.

Disclaimer:  As with many of my posts, they are done late at night.  After I've had a long day of wrangling the Munchkin, I'm worn out.  I will happily admit that the pictures below are sub-par.  Heck, they're just plain crappy!  I mean seriously, a monkey could have taken better pictures.  Maybe sometime, when I'm not so worn out, I'll be able to take better pictures, but until then...work with me.

Brownie Frosting:

3T. butter softened

3T. cocoa powder

1T. honey

1t. vanilla

1c. powdered sugar

Mix all this together.  I used a stand mixer.  I only have a stand mixer.  The thing is the best present my husband has ever gotten me.  If you cook or bake at all I forbid you to continue reading this post and looking at these crappy pictures until you go and get a stand mixer.  You will love it!  LOVE IT!

 The frosting will be really really think.  You will look at it and think, "This woman is crazy.  I'm going to add some milk or something because this is like playdough."  DON"T....leave it.

 Pull your homemade brownies out of the oven.  I know you made homemade brownies because I just touted earlier that they were really simple and stuff.  I KNOW you didn't just open a package and add oil and eggs, thrown it in the oven and are going to pass it off as homemade brownies.

 Immediately after you pull the hot brownies out of the oven, dollop the frosting onto the brownies.  Yes, it looks like poop.  I know.  Moving on.

 Let the frosting sit for a couple minutes to get warm and soft on the brownies.  Then spread the goo all over the brownies very gently until it's all covered.  See I told you these were crappy pictures.  But pictures aside, this is so stinking good!  We ate half the pan in about 20 minutes.  They're really good when they cool off too because it gets this and fudge like on top.  Oh man, I'm drooling right now.  So go now, make some brownies with this frosting.  I promise soon you will forget the pictures and only want to think about the deliciousness you are eating!

Dumpster Diving

Who doesn't like dumpster diving? Or what I did, curbside trash shopping!  I'm out on a walk this evening with Munchkin to get out of the house for a little bit.  I go down a road I wasn't really planning on going down, but I was following this loose dog to try and grab it and see who's it was.  It had tags so I was going to attempt to bring back some lonely old lady's dog.  It never came to me and just ran off but anyways.  I'm walking down the road and I see a pile of garbage in the distance.  Didn't look like your regular black garbage bags so I continued on to see what it was.  It was on the other side of the road, and to not look suspicious I continued on until the turn around/cul-de-sac and walked by it.  There was a dresser, ladder, and some other junk.  I was thrilled!  I've been looking for a small dresser and lo and behold, I found one!!  And I was even going to pay for one!  YIKES!  As I gandered over this stuff I hurried my pace to round up the hubs to make him go back with our truck and get the free prizes.  I even made him go out before the Cowboys game was over.  And he missed the winning field goal.  He's such a great guy!  Here's what we got:

A propane flamey thingy.  Not 100% sure what exactly these are called but I refer to them as turkey deep fryers.  My husband was thrilled.  Already making plans to fry our house...I mean a turkey.

Here is the 8 foot wooden ladder.  We don't have a ladder at all.  We went and priced them when we had a little extra spending money (that RARELY happens) and they were quite expensive (metal ones).  Let me tell you why this is such a huge find for us.  We love Christmas.  And what I mean by that is we prefer to turn our Christmas into the Griswolds and if our neighbors don't make a comment about our Christmas lights, we obviously didn't put up enough and we go out and buy more until they comment.  We have giant Rubbermaid tubs FULL of lights.  Two of them.  Last year, we parked our truck close to the house under the eave of the house and my husband climbed the truck to get up to the roof to apply our Christmas lights.  I wish I had taken a picture because the caption would have been "White Trash does Christmas."  Anyways,  we're excited because now he has a normal way to get to the roof.  

Here he is showing off his fantastic find.

This was the first thing I saw.  The 2nd drawer actually isn't really like that...we just pulled it out to look at it and didn't put it back in correctly.  It may be ugly now.  Nothing a little sanding, painting, and new pulls won't fix.  We did it for Munchkins dresser!

Last but not least, a pretty cool garden tool that I didn't even see.  I'm hoping to have a raised garden next year.  Raised because unless I want to grow sticker burrs and sand castles, ain't nothing good gonna grow in our backyard sand trap.

So moral of the story, keep your eyes out for your neighbors trash.  There's no shame in dumpster diving/curbside trashpile shopping.  And if there is...go at night.

Seventy Five Cents

I paid $0.25 for this stuff.  TWENTY-FIVE CENTS PEOPLE!

Yea..that's 3 packages of fancy pants diapers, 3 Hershey's Air Delights (which really are delighful!) and candy pumpkins which I always have to get a bag every fall!

Chrorizo and Brown Rice Stuffed Peppers

1 lb. Chorizo (uncooked)
2c. cooked brown rice (although I think next time I will try uncooked, there was a lot of liquid)
2 cans tomatos with green chilies (like Rotel, but I used RedGold)
1/2 onion, chopped (I just had this sitting around in the fridge needing to be used.
1t. worchestershire sauce (I think I'll add a little more next time)
1T. ketchup (I saw this ingredient in another recipe...I probably should have used tomato paste)
pepper and salt (I didn't add any salt because I figured there was enough in the tomatos and chorizo...WRONG!)
1/3 c. veggie juice, or water

Clean out your peppers....save your tops.  They're pretty when you put them back on.  

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl. 

Stuff your peppers.

Put all your peppers in your crock pot.  I used 6 because I have a large crock pot.  It's better to fill up your crock pot.  I might have even been able to put another small one in here.  I just dumped the rest of the filling in the bottom of the pot.  Then I added the veggie juice to the bottom.  This recipe produced enough liquid I probably didn't need to do this step. Put the lid on, turn the pot on low and let-her rip for 8 hours.

 Here is the finished product.  

These were ok.  I'm not a huge fan of bell peppers either.  They cooked alright.  I just don't think I liked the filling.  It ended up being way too soggy.  I still think I'll try uncooked brown rice next time.

The thing I love the most about this recipe was that it took me about 5 minutes to mix everything, clean and stuff the peppers and get it in the crock pot.  That's my kind of dinner!  Maybe I'll play with it and try it again.  This time with hamburger and uncooked brown rice.  Maybe some sort of different pepper like poblanos.

Mischiveous Boy

This is our cable.  It runs from across this threshold because on the left we have our desk with the computer and on the right is our tv.  Don't even ask why it's like this (we rent f.y.i.).  I have it taped down to the ground so we won't trip over it.  Although lately I've been hearing tape being ripped off the floor.  And when I hear that, this is what I see:

Ah...my sweet little munchkin.  Ripping up our cable.  Let me tell you, I used heavy duty packing tape.  Like name brand stuff too. 

Here he is ripping up the next section I have taped down.  

This is what he likes to do with the cable.  I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think you can get shocked from a cable wire.  Of course...not a good thing to have him chewing on wires anyways.  Just today I found him chewing on an extension cord we had in our bedroom that connected the VCR (yes we still have a VCR) to the plug.  Luckily it was unplugged (because the VCR isn't working for some reason [probably because NO VCR should be working in 2011]).  Anyways:

So by this time, I thought it was hilarious because this is probably the 3rd time he has ripped up our cable wire after I taped it better and better.  So I told him to turn around and smile at me.  

Once he was done ripping up the cable, he scurried away and this is what I was left with.  I have yet to tape it back.

Desperation

Sometimes you just need junk food.  It sounds silly, but seriously.  We are out of groceries and I can't go to the grocery store till Thursday.  And all we really have around the house is healthy food like fruit and veggies, tabbouleh, whole wheat spaghetti, etc.  And SOMETIMES, that kind of food just ain't gonna cut it.  I want something that's totally terrible for me, and I was desperate.  Celery sticks and applesauce weren't going to work this time.  So I got creative.  

Yea...that queso.  And we ate it with croutons and carrots.  I told you I need to go to the grocery store!

Potato Salad

I've been looking for ways to save money lately.  Magically, I did two of them today without too much effort.  The first was line drying our clothes.  It's usually WAY too humid to line dry our clothes around here because we live on an island.  However lately it's been pretty dry.  It worked like a charm.  I hung them out to dry and then tossed them into the dryer for about 5 minutes to fluff them up.

You can see the tarp in the background (that I mentioned in a past post) as well hanging from our house to shade the windows of our house.  It works so well too.  You can quickly tell a different in temperature in the living room when we have that thing hung up.  Ugly yes, saves us money, YES!

Also, this afternoon, I made potato salad.  I know, not super exciting.  But I haven't made potato salad in probably 2 years.  Oddly enough, I happened to have everything I needed to make an awesome batch today.  it was so so good.  I ate WAY too much of it.  I then realized how cheap it is to make potato salad and just how much it makes.  I think it's on my list of go to cheapo things to make.

I heart CVS

$4.76 Out of Pocket
$8.79 back in Extra Care Bucks
$26.57 Retail

I LOVE COUPONING!

One is silver and the other gold

(Literally.  On my old shoes there was gold.  And my new shoes are silver.)

A letter to my old shoes:

Dear Old Shoes,

I will miss you.  You have been good to my feet for many years.  We have ran many miles together.  From the Red Dirt of Oklahoma to the beaches of "de island."  You have watched me fall a few times while we were together (gracefully I might add.)  You have carried me away from creepy old men in cadillacs and we have ran away from coyotes (that weren't chasing us.)  There are holes in you now, from my bunions.  I know, I know.  A woman my age shouldn't have bunions.  You though, my friend, accomadated for my deformity by wearing a hole in yourself.  But don't be sad.  I will keep you around.  Alas, therein lies the sad news.  No longer will you carry me to thinness and endurance.  You will now be my go to pair for dog doo doo raking and cleaning the garage.  I know, not a very prestigious retirement.  But always remember, you are gold.

Sincerely,

Me (and my feet)

Opposites do attract

This is my laundry pile that greeted me this morning with a sinister laugh.

As you can see it's about 27 inches tall, by the yard stick I inserted into the pile.  I didn't measure how wide.  It would just be too much for me.

These are the folded piles sitting on the living room floor:

Here is the pile of stuff to hang (it needs to be ironed but that would be like me learning to speak Farsi in about a day...ain't gonna happen).  Also in there are sheets that need to be put back on the guest bed all flung over the recliner.

Here in lies the problem.  I don't mind washing or drying clothes.  I actually like it because since I got a lot of Gain cheap through my couponing, which I LOVE the smell, it's fun to see fluffy clean clothes come out.  I really don't mind folding either.  It's calming.  I HATE putting clothes away.  I hate picking up the  piles and walking them to the rooms they go in.  I hate putting them in the correct drawers.  I hate hanging stuff up.  I hate putting sheets on.  I hate putting the clothes away.  Period.  There have been times where I leave the piles sitting on the floor for so long, and they got trampled on so much by us, the dogs, or Munchkin that I've had to refold them.  

Luckily, I have the solution.  My husband.  He puts the clothes away.  I don't even have to ask.  Not sure how that happened, or why, but I'm not going to ask questions.  He just comes home, and puts them away.  Maybe it's because he realizes that it would take an act of Congress to get me to do it.  Maybe it's because he would like to actually go to his dresser and find clothes there instead of on the living room floor. Maybe it's because he would like to actually have a living room floor to walk on and a recliner to sit on instead of a giant laundry pile.  Maybe because he doesn't mind doing it where as I hate it.  No matter the answer, I love him for the fact that he puts the laundry away.  

My hero!

I'm back baby

Recently I have been laying off the couponing thing.  For many reasons really.  But I got back into it this weekend and tore it up yet again!

$2.98 out of pocket
$3.99 back in extra care bucks
$25.92 Retail

...and the award goes to..........

This is a gutter.

This is not the actual gutter....but for the sake of the story.

This is my running stroller.  I love this thing.  Munchkin loves this thing.  We go out running often.  But today was "Mother of the Year" award day.  AND I WON!!!

We're running.  Well, I'm running, he's chillin' in the stroller messing with his toys, sucking his fingers, etc.  We're running in the bike lane on the side of the road.  All of a sudden I run over something with the stroller...

Mr. Musical Octopus.  He got pitched out of the stroller and I ran over him.  So what else would you do when you're running and a toy gets pitched out?  Stop!  And stop I did.  And I stopped so quickly I flung Munchkin out into the gutter...

(again...not said gutter)

Munchkin has taken to rolling over on his stomach in his stroller and dangling his legs off the edge.  I didn't see him doing this because of the sun shade.  Gotta protect my little pale skinned baby from the mean ol' sun.  (Yes, I know what you're asking.  "Why wasn't he strapped in? They have seat belts/straps for a reason you moron!"  Well quite frankly, nothing like this has ever happened before so in my professional opinion, they were just something uncomfortable he had to lay on.)

This is a picture of the unused but in the future will be used straps.  5 points baby!

So when I stopped short to get Mr. Musical Octopus that was pitched out of the stroller, Munchkin went feet first and rolled into the gutter.  I just looked at him lying face up in the gutter and was in shock.  As was he.  I picked up the poor thing (the baby not the octopus) and snuggled with him until he stopped crying.  He wasn't even hurt, not even a bump or red spot on his head.  He was more scared than anything.  Then I started crying because I couldn't believe that I just flung my baby out into the gutter.  My sister thought it was funny.  She even said "well the gutter was clean wasn't it?"  Yea...it was really clean.  No water or gunk.  She said that every mother has to have some story of "dropping the baby" for each of their kids.  Then we recalled our own childhood stories of our mother winning the "Mother of the Year award."  They're funny now.  And I'm sure the Munchkin and I will laugh about this later.    But until then, I walked back home, put my pajamas back on, and I'm going to start the day over...or I may just stay in my pajamas and call it a day.  

It's tough being Mother of the Year!