Let's Get Cheap.

Ok, so over at moneycentral they are taking about 8 extreme ways to save money.

My question is... who DOESN'T reuse sandwich bags? Seriously? Those things are pricey.... for a few crumbs you toss them? Really?

The rest of the list, besides the reusing sandwich bags:

Turn your car off -- while it's moving. Ok, well, I don't do that... but I do make it a game to see how long I can go down the pass without stepping on the gas or the brake.

Stop saving money. I'm pleased to report we don't have to do this one... at least not yet.

Make your own cleaning supplies. We do this. It works just fine... it is cheap and enviro. I do miss softscrub. And I do confess to not giving up bleach... I've tried. I can't do it. Not yet. My sister swears by the greenworks toilet cleaner... she says it works so well she seriously doubts it is actually "green" at all. I don't use toilet cleaner because sometimes the dog drinks out of the toilet (sorry, tmi, I know) but I do sometimes give in and bleach it.... she's so lucky her dogs are too short to drink out of the toilet....

Stop drinking soda. I don't drink soda or "pop" very often. But try to pry a diet, caffeine free pepsi out of my husband's hand... go ahead. The compromise it buying it on sale at CVS with ECB's.

Move back home with your parents, at any age. Ha. Ha. Ha. If they saw us coming they'd lock the doors... if they had locks on their doors.

Get rid of your carpet. Trying. Can't talk Hot into it. But trying.

Hold a no-spend month. This is a clever idea. Maybe a winner for January when we are recovering from the holidays.

Anybody else? Clever ideas?

Pink is my favorite color.

Crayola makes a multicultural pack of markers with various shades of tan.

Why don't they make a multipinkeral pack? With various shades of pink? With what is going on at our house this makes perfect sense to me. Because Tuff is suddenly obsessed with pink and princesses. All the pink markers we own are dang near used up....

What is it with little girls and pink? It has to be the hormones her brain is stewing in because it certainly isn't anything I've done. I don't even really like pink. Her room is decorated in retro cowgirl & raggety ann.... she doesn't even have pink sheets....

She got a Disney princess word book for her first birthday which I promptly stashed in the back of the book baskets and out of rotation. She has no barbies. She had no character-princess stuff and, still, she figured it out. She now has princess and tinkerbell jammies, princess stickers and she found the princess word book and sleeps with it every night.

She's asking for pink princess panties.

What's a mom to do?

These Days.

So what do you do when you have sinus surgery and get your tonsils out?? To document.

Well... you watch a lot of movies.
And you read some magazines.
And you organize little bits of things in your life like the drawer with the random bits of ribbon and sewing supplies.
And your husband gets mad at you for "doing to much."
And you nap.
And you eat soup and refried beans and ice cream.
And you super-glue all the little broken things in the "to do" drawer.
And you sit on the porch in the rocker and drink smoothies.
And then you nap again.

I can't tell you all the movies I've watched or half-watched in the last 3 weeks.... The Princess Bride, Billy Elliot, Transformers, Girl Interrupted, Juno, Hero Wanted, The Take, The Little Mermaid, The Great Debators, PS I Love You, Bob the Builder, Red Wall, 300, The first two Bourne movies, GI Jane, Blazing Saddles....

For the first two weeks I wasn't supposed to bend over and lift things. Which is really great when you are trying to put a 2-year-old on time-out..... "Come here and climb on this stool so I can pick you up and put you in your room until you can be nice." It just doesn't work so well.

I'm rinsing my nose with Wilson's solution.... which is saline & gentamicin as far as I can tell..... it reminds me of the horse meds my dad kept in the orange cupboard in the basement when I was a kid.... same smell.

The best foods are Bear Creek creamy potato soup and refried beans with melted cheese & sour cream. Also the green "super food" juice from Odwalla (sp?) is wonderful and sweet. Smoothies are a good thing.... although the first few days citrus and anything acidic (like tomato soup) was not good. Milkshakes. Pudding. The portabella soup I got was horrible. The all-you-can-eat soup bar at Jaker's is wonderful.... we hit that for lunch after my second doc appt to get the "upper packs" taken out and I even managed to gum one of their honey scones enough to make it work for me. It's funny because we don't have Jaker's but it seems to be our post-surgery-of-choice place to eat.... we went there after Hot Stuff's cataract surgery and appointments all the time in another town (GF) and now we go there after mine im MS. Funny.

I am eating pretty much what I want now although it will be another week or so (according to the doc) before I'm ready for nachos. Popcorn and carbonated beverages are the other big no-no's right now. I also accidentally ordered some balsamic vinagrette and it was really heavy on the vinager and it hurt.

Where I been.

So I had sinus surgery. And my tonsils out. And I was doing really well and healing quickly.... as I expected to do. Then my kids got colds. And I was very careful to wash my hands and not get too intimate with their bodily fluids. But I caught my daughter blowing bubbles in my water glass. The girl has an obsession with straws. And then I got the cold. And that sucks. The end.