What We Talk About When We Talk About The Poor

I know I haven't used this blog as much as I used to in the last little while. Moving and general life mayhem have kept me pretty busy. If I have time, maybe I'll start sharing some of it here again, like my mom keeps bugging me to do. Or at least post a picture of some of the crazy plants invading our new semi-tropical Florida lawn. But this week a topic has been heavy on my heart, so I wanted to take a few minutes and write about it, see if I can make any sense of it.

We moved last month, our sixth move in eleven years, this time from Texas to Florida. I like it here a lot. People are friendly to us, the weather is not quite so hot, there are tons of garage sales. It's an extremely politically conservative area, which we knew before we moved, so most of the people here do not share most of our views. Nevertheless, we've been getting on pretty well. I've been going to a new church the past couple of weeks, and this week I sat in on a Sunday School class, my first in years. (At our church in Texas, there was little emphasis on Sunday School, and at our church in Cincinnati, we already had to leave an hour before service to arrive on time!) The lesson for the day was on "What kind of justice does God require?" and it pulled verses from Zechariah 7. Here's the gist of it, in verses 9-11:

The Lord of heavenly forces proclaims:  Make just and faithful decisions; show kindness and compassion to each other! 10 Don’t oppress the widow, the orphan, the stranger, and the poor; don’t plan evil against each other! 11 But they refused to pay attention. They turned a cold shoulder and stopped listening.

The rest of the passage goes on to remind the people of what happened to them when they ignored these godly rules (spoilers: it wasn't pretty.) We had an interesting discussion about what it means to plan evil against each other, in the context of things like gentrification projects that force out the homeless without giving them anywhere to go. Not the evil that is planned qua evil, but the thoughtless evil, the evil that is perpetrated when people blind themselves to the pain of others. Despite what many awesome comic book movies tell us, real supervillains are very thin on the ground these days. There's almost nobody in any position of power or authority who plans and schemes to do evil. That doesn't mean they don't do evil things, often to the vulnerable groups God is telling us to protect! But evil isn't the targeted goal, just a side effect of what they wanted to accomplish.  That doesn't make it right, or godly, but it does make it human, and it brings it home. We can most of us be comfortable saying that we're not planning evil against anybody, but are we letting evil happen as a result of our other plans? Would God draw that kind of distinction?

The discussion wended its way around topics, like good Sunday School conversations tend to do, past the idea of strangers as immigrants (and isn't that a change in how we talk about it away from Laredo, with its heavy immigrant population!), and around the work that the church does in the community. This church I've been visiting has a strong community ministry presence, which is one of the things I like most about it. Some churches are very inward-focused, concentrating their efforts on growing the membership, nurturing the congregation, keeping the property in tip-top shape and ensuring that equipment is always in the best repair. I think that impulse is understandable. It's human nature, after all, to use limited time, energy and resources taking care of your own. But human nature is what we go to church to try and transcend, isn't it? I want a church that measures its influence not by how many members have a bumper sticker on their cars, but by how many of the widows, the orphans, the strangers, and the poor feel the love of God in the touch of the church, whether or not they even believe. It is my absolute rock-solid conviction that the influence of the church is waning worldwide not because of anything culture has done, or any fundamental change in society, but because we are not conveying the message of God's incredible, transcendant, life-renewing love to the world in our words and actions. Without that love, the church has very little to offer except entertainment, and you can get that from an iPad without having to put on nice clothes and sit in a pew.

Near the end of the hour, we worked our way around to the poor, which seems to be the place these conversations always end up. The question became who should help the poor, and how, and gradually it turned into "who are the deserving poor, and how can we help them exclusively?" If you look in the verse, you'll notice that God, through Zechariah, does not draw that distinction. It doesn't matter why someone is poor or how long they have been poor, or what you think about their poverty, it is wrong to oppress them, it is wrong to plan evil against them. But despite that, the discussion always comes up and will always come up, because again, human nature. Humans have a deeply ingrained conception of fairness, and an instinctive indignation at the thought that someone else might be cheating. I am certainly sympathetic to that instinct; it's not like I relish being taken advantage of any more than anybody else. But the fact that this indignation is turned on people on welfare is baffling to me.

One thing I've noticed when speaking to people about welfare, food stamps, medicaid, and that type of program, is that you tend to see a sharp correlation in how you feel about assistance programs and how many people you know who need or have needed them. I make no secret of the fact that we were on foodstamps for almost a year in 2009, when the bottom dropped out of the economy, I couldn't find a job (and then got pregnant) and my husband and I were living on a single grad student stipend. I was on Medicaid in 2009 and 2010 when I was pregnant, and my son was on Medicaid for the first three and a half years of his life. We received WIC benefits through his babyhood. The people I know, the people I've told, have never condemned me for this, no matter how conservative their politics, or their feelings on welfare in general. It might just be that they don't want to hurt my feelings, but I think there's more to it than that. The more people you know personally who need and use assistance, the less you are to see them as part of a monolithic block of "welfare people."

Welfare people are the ones folks talk about when you start talking about assistance programs. Welfare people are always anecdotal and almost never someone you know well. They tend to have lots and lots of kids, and very nice cell phones. They buy steaks with food stamps, which they receive exorbitant amounts of and are always looking for an opportunity to game the system. They have no interest in getting a job, and apparently plan on being on welfare forever. I do not know any of these people myself, but I know lots of people who know them. I have felt the eyes of the people who know welfare people on me many times, and it always makes me feel very, very small. The people who know welfare people would look into my cart when I was buying groceries with my EBT card and decide whether my purchases ($150 per month in food stamps, a princely sum to live on, if you really like macaroni) were worthy of their tax money. They were the ones who stared at me when I brought our iPad (secondhand, a lovely gift from a family member) to a doctor's appointment to keep my son entertained. Small, smaller, smallest, until I became nothing but the sum of my possessions, until the people who know welfare people argued on television about whether I deserved help because I had a refrigerator and a microwave in my home. Until I found excuses to leave the room at family holidays when my relatives began talking about welfare people, because I hadn't told them how bad things were for us, but they were still talking about me that way. Until I didn't even want to defend myself, because the best case scenario is that they would tell me I was nothing like "those people," because I didn't want to be on welfare forever and I wasn't a parasite on the system. So I closed my mouth (most of the time, though there were a few loud arguments here and there), raised my son, and hoped things would change. Which is, I think, what a lot of people on welfare do.

Here's some information about what the welfare people are really like, as a monolithic block. (The numbers are here if you'd like to see them, thank you internet!) Eighty percent of recipients of TANF, which is the non-food-stamp welfare program, are on it for five years or less. Almost twenty percent are on it for seven months or less. Thirty-nine percent of TANF recipients are white, forty are black, fifteen are Hispanic, and the rest are other races. The average benefit for a family on food stamps is $257 per month. (That figure is here.) Fourteen percent of the population is on food stamps at any given time, including 1 in every 4 children. 8.3 million women, infants and children use the WIC program. Crunch those numbers, and we were incredibly average in nearly every way for people on welfare.

My husband made 19,000 a year as a graduate student, so we never qualified for TANF, and never qualified for Medicaid except when I was pregnant and for our child. We qualified for food stamps for just under a year, until my husband took an adjunct professor job to get resume experience. The 200 dollars a month he made (almost all of which was eaten up by gas to get to the remote school where he taught) was enough to push us over the line and lose us our $150 dollars in benefits. That job, while important, substantially worsened our position. I thought seriously about picking up a part time job on weekends or in the evenings, but I didn't dare try for one of the McJobs that were all that was available. They paid minimum wage and didn't come with insurance. If our income got much higher, we'd risk losing Medicaid for the Bug, and I would rather eat macaroni and lose sleep over the bills than not be able to take him to the doctor. (There was no family insurance for graduate students, it wasn't even an option.) When I had a stroke in 2013, I didn't realize it at the time, because I hadn't been to a doctor in three years, and wouldn't have been able to go to a hospital without ruining our lives anyway.

But we were lucky. Strange as that seems to say, we were very lucky, because we had light at the end of our tunnel. My husband finished school and, after a year-long job search, found the holy grail of a full-time job with benefits. It required moving halfway across the country, yes, but it took us out of the ranks of the nearly-destitute and moved us into the lower middle class. That's not an option for a large percentage of people on welfare, who find themselves perpetually in the position where they could lose everything by trying to better themselves, and every road upward seems to be fraught or fraudulent. How do you do the calculus of whether it's better for your child to go to the doctor or be able to play sports and have school supplies? Is it better for them to be trapped in poverty with you there for them, or to have a chance at a slightly better life but never see you because you work two or three jobs? Do you try and save money for the future (bearing in mind that a savings account that is more than a pittance could cost you your food stamp benefits, no matter what you're saving for), or do you take that yearly tax return you don't dare hold onto and use it to buy a few nice things, even though you know people will sneer at you for them? Do you let yourself become small, smaller, smallest, or do you stand up and spit in the eye of people who judge you?

"Show kindness and compassion to each other, do not oppress the widows, the orphans, the strangers and the poor; don't plan evil against each other!" That's what God talked about when he talked about the poor. What, and who, do we talk about, and why?

Recipe: Hammy Sammy

My friend Robie posted this recipe to her blog last year and it was amaaaaaazing. The sweetness of the rolls, the saltiness of the ham, and the buttery, mustardy goodness of the sauce all come together into something that entirely transcends ham sandwichness. Robie's blog is closed now,  but she has given me permission to share the recipe, so I shall do so now. (The image is also not mine, but I always forget to take a picture before everyone starts eating!)

Hammy Sammy: 

Ingredients:
12 Hawaiian Sweet Rolls (1 package)
1 stick butter
2 tsp poppy seeds
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 lb sliced ham (approx 8 medium slices)
1/4 lb sliced swiss cheese (approx 6-7 thick slices)
(Note that there is some flex here, you don't need deli sliced ham. if you have leftover baked ham you want to use up, go for it! Quantity is also flexible, just so every sammy has ham and cheese.)

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take a rectangular pan large enough to fit the uncut package of rolls and line it with foil. Spray with cooking spray.
2. In a small saucepan, set the stick of butter to melt over low heat.
3. Take rolls out of package, all in one piece like a really awkward loaf of bread. With a long serrated knife, cut the entire loaf in half, so that you have a sheet of tops and a sheet of bottoms. It's like making layers in a cake. Put the bottom layer in the foil-lined pan, set top layer aside  for later.
4. When the butter is mostly melted in the pan, add Dijon, Worcestershire and poppyseeds and stir very thoroughly. Simmer, stirring very frequently, for about five minutes.
5. Spoon half of butter mixture over the bottom layer of rolls, making sure to get all the rolls pretty evenly covered.
6. Cover bottom half of rolls with sliced ham and cheese, layering as evenly as possible to cover all the rolls. Place top half of rolls on top, so you have a really enormous ham and cheese sandwich.
7. Spoon remaining butter mixture over top of rolls, as evenly as possible. Fold a second piece of aluminum foil around the top and sides of the sammies so they are covered completely.
6. Cook for 20 minutes, or longer if you've got thick layers of ham and cheese. You will know when they are done because they will smell amazing. Use your serrated knife to separate the sandwiches into individual rolls before serving. Makes 6 servings, 2 sammies each.

I Will Buy You a Garden, Where Your Flowers Can Bloom

Today I traded in my shiny new North Carolina driver's license for a newer, shinier, Texas driver's license! I only had the wretched thing for five months before ditching it, despite the eight years I had to pay for. We definitely cannot move for a long time now, because I am pretty much done with the DMV for the foreseeable future.

See, to get a license in Texas, you have to have your Texas registration and your Texas title all in order (expensive!) and to get your registration, you have to have your vehicle inspection done (annoying!) and then you will be granted the right to a) put stickers all over your car and b) sit at the DMV for a couple hours and wait until your ticket pops on the random number generator. Being as how I have been feeling lousy all this week, I put everything off until today and had to do it all at once, with Robert in tow. But it's done!

Laredo is a weird city for driving. It's a weird city for a lot of things, but today I was feeling the driving weirdness especially. It's a really long city, and we live at the very tippy top of the north end. The city is bisected by an interstate highway that terminates in a couple of international bridges that can sneak up on you quickly if you're not careful. (So far I have only had to do the oh-crap-there's-Mexico u-turn once, but I'm pretty sure it'll crop up again.) The interstate highway is a series of bridges we call the loopy-loops (interstate overpasses in Texas look like someone started tying a fancy bow and forgot what they were doing halfway through), with ground-level areas that are on-ramps and exits, then bridges that go over the actual streets. On each side of the loopy-loop highway runs a three-lane one-way surface street, where you have interstate traffic entering and exiting in the left lane and businesses and driveways laid out on the right. Every mile or so is an underpass with a dedicated u-turn lane so if you find you're going the wrong way (which is often) you can zip under the interstate and try again. As a result of this unique setup, many of the north-south roads stretch for miles through the city, with the result being that you can look at an address, think "hey, that street is near me!" and come to find out that your destination is six miles away.

While 35 and its loopy-loops complicate my life in the north-south direction, the rest of Laredo seems content to confuse me with the endless mysteries of the Bob Bullock Loop. This is (as you may have guessed) a loop road (though not a loopy-loop road) that runs from pretty much the northwest corner of the city, across the top, down around the eastern edge, then bisects the southern portion of the city 2/3rds of the way down. There are a ton of businesses and offices on this road, as well as the airport, so it's an important and very busy artery. And for some reason, neither Kathy the Tom-Tom or Siri the iPhone can make heads or tails of any of it. I think it's just too big and goes in too many directions. That time I mentioned, when we almost ended up in Mexico? That was a terribly unfortunate confluence of the Bob Bullock Loop, Interstate 35, and Kathy's total inability to understand Laredo's peculiar traffic. Doesn't really help that a lot of the time the streets are very busy, oftentimes with huge trucks. This is a very big area for huge trucks, it's not rare to go into a grocery store parking lot and find a few dozen semi trucks, with and without trailers, chilling at the back of the lot or along the driveways.

Honestly, the thing that makes this driver's license blogworthy may be the fact that it signifies me driving at all. Up until now, I have avoided driving in Laredo wherever possible. M has the car most of the time anyway, but even when it's available, I've been sticking close to home and the few shops near us. Just the fact that I can name the major streets that are flummoxing me is a step in the right direction. Sure, Robert and I spent a lot of time today chasing our tails down one way streets ("Mommy, we're going in circles!"), but we got to every place we needed to go! I even made time to get to Target and pick up a bunch of the things I need to finish unpacking the house. Maybe what I'm really doing is making a note of today because I hope I'll be able to look back and see when this strange land started to feel like home.

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A grand day out

Today was the first nice day in ages, And it looks like more bad weather is coming up, so Robert and I went out to play. Robert got a little toy cart for Christmas so we took it outside the parking lot. We spent 10 minutes or so just running around. Robert was particularly pleased by the loud noise the cart made on the pavement. The dog at the house next-door was not quite as pleased. After a while it seemed appropriate that we go shopping, since we already had the shopping cart and all. We walked down the hill, and had a brief lesson about why letting the shopping cart roll into traffic would be a bad idea. Then we headed to the convenience store around the corner. The local convenience store is a United dairy farmers outlet so it's a little bit like a grocery store with very small aisles. Perfect for grocery shopping with a very small shopping cart. We picked out potato chips for everyone and split a single scoop of blue ice cream. Then we headed home, with Robert pushing his shopping cart full of groceries. next to the convenience store there is a bar, where people celebrated St. Patrick's Day. As we went by a woman used some very inappropriate language to talk to her friends, and then was horrified when they pointed out Robert and I passing by. This was funnier because she had on plastic St. Patrick's Day antennae.

 After we came home we got in the car with the shopping cart and went to the tractor supply company. This is the best time of year at tractor supply company because the baby chicks and ducks are there. We were not allowed to hold them, but they're so cute. We watched them for a while, then watched an adoption event for the local pitbull rescue. Robert spent some time looking at the toy tractors, then we bought our cat food and came home. By that point we were about ready for a nap. So we took one! Robert has not been napping as much as he used to when he was smaller, especially not since he started school, but today he was all tired out from exercise. He slept 2 1/2 hours! That was enough reward for me! After he woke up he came out the living room and sat on my lap for a while. I had to the iPad with me so I loaded up blogspot and made a post. Rather than use the keyboard, I use the microphone function, which is what I'm doing now. It is really strange to make a post with the microphone. You think differently about what you're saying. Luckily my flat Midwestern accent is perfectly suited to voice post and I don't get too many typos. I just wish this had been around back when Robert was a baby and I was trying to nurse or pump and use the computer at the same time. Technology marches on!

Use it Up, Wear it Out, Make it Do or Do Without

The title for today's post is an important one. I've tried for the past couple of years to make this saying my motto, hewing closer to it when money gets really tight, and maybe veering away a little in the interest of convenience when times are better. This week has definitely been a "make it do or do without" week. I spent the grocery money this month on birthday supplies and stocking up on meat, and while both of those were good things to do, it left us short in this last week of the month. We've been out of bread all week, and the fresh produce and milk were gone on Tuesday or so. It's just for a few days, tomorrow we're going shopping to get staples and February is coming soon. Since we're all still getting calcium, protein and fiber, I count it as less a crisis and more an exercise in innovation.

You learn things when you're cooking without the stuff you used to have. This week I learned that it's possible to sub in things like cream cheese or sour cream for milk in recipes and boxed dinners. Tuesday for lunch we had macaroni and cheese (and cheese) with diced hot dogs and frozen corn that was actually pretty good. Monday night I put the last few spoonfuls of sour cream in the microwave and used them to make an enchilada topping that was actually much better than if I'd used milk. Tortillas are easy to make with ingredients around the house, and you can use them instead of bread in lots of ways. I've been able to use quite a few of my stockpiled cans now that the pantry is organized and I can see everything I've got. Tonight I used a cheddar broccoli soup mix and added potatoes and ham to make it a full (and delicious) meal. Not too bad for the end of the month!

My motto serves me well in weeks like this, and things that I've done recently, like making a rag bag of one of M's destroyed pairs of pants and filling it with old clothes scraps, have worked out very well. Being able to repurpose and reuse things makes me feel good and thrifty. At the same time, though, I find that the motto can be my enemy when it comes to getting organized. Like many chronically disorganized (that's what they call it when you're not a hoarder quite yet) people, I like to hold on to things that are just a little bit broken or torn or expired, hoping that I can fix them or find a new use for them. Sometimes it's true. Robert had a good time using my old pans for drums, and I have replaced plenty of buttons and even repaired some small tears or ripped hems in our clothes. But much of the time, I find that I am unrealistic in my thinking, wanting to keep a broken lamp I have no skill in repairing, or thinking of a great use for some weird empty container that is so time and labor intensive I'm never going to get around to it.

At some point, you just have to say enough is enough and get out the trash bag, even if you're not 100% sure that you can't use a thing anymore. I have to be realistic about my own time and capability and even enthusiasm for reusing or repairing an item. Using Freecycle to get rid of these things is a good idea, but I have to be realistic about that, too. Is someone going to drive all the way to my house to collect this item from me? Am I going to find the time and make the effort to put it online? Or will I and my family be better off if I just put it in the trash and get on with my cleaning? It's the antithesis of using up and wearing out, but it's keeping house.

As with many housekeeping-related tasks, I use my Grandma J as the gold standard. She was both an excellent housekeeper and a frugal person, so I know it can be done. When I get up to my neck in items I can't decide whether to keep or toss, I ask myself what Grandma would do. Most of the time my imaginary Grandma-guide tells me to throw things out, and as a result, things are starting to get a little cleaner. We're still far from "a place for everything and everything in its place" the way she advocated, but it's a worthy goal.

I guess it's a matter of striking a balance between getting the most possible out of our things and not letting our things overwhelm us. For now, I'm trying to cultivate an attitude that lets me feel good when I find a new purpose for something that would've been waste, but at the same time lets me not feel guilt when I don't. Sometimes you just have to let go, and let that be okay.

UnFunChicken

Back a way long time ago when I was just a little girl, there was a grocery store across from the Lincoln Mall in Freeport. Is it where the Eagles Club is now? I can't remember, I was very small. I think it was a Logli's, maybe. Lee's? BRB, Googling.
...
Google is not helping! Gah. My mom reads this blog, she'll know. Anyway, there are only two things I remember about that store. They had a big ol' Brach's candy display with the honor-system box where you could put in a nickel and take a piece. When I went shopping with my grandma, she'd give me a quarter and I would get five little pieces of candy and that was awesome. The other thing I remember was the Fun Chicken.

Now the Fun Chicken was a vending machine at the front of the store, right by the exit doors. It was a big box with clear walls, and inside was a plastic hen in a nest of plastic eggs. If you put your money in, the hen would move around and cluck, and one of the plastic eggs would pop out of the machine with a toy inside. Good times. Waiting in the endless checkout lines was not so bad if you had the promise of Fun Chicken waiting. I'm sure the 2010s version of the Fun Chicken awaits us soon, whenever Robert catches on to the fact that the machines whose levers and doors he loves to manipulate actually produce something if money is put in.

Anyway, I'm only thinking of that tonight because I had to deal with whatever the opposite of a Fun Chicken is tonight. It was too bad, too, because I was really excited about the recipe I had. I've been experimenting with my new cast-iron Dutch Oven, and tonight I tried roasting a whole chicken in it, French Style. I put it on the stove and put a little olive oil in, salted and peppered my chicken, and set it in the pot to brown. I added onions, celery, garlic and bay leaf, flipped the chicken to get a little brown on the other side, then put foil over the pot, put the lid on over that, and put it in the oven on 250 to let the magic happen. Since it was a small chicken, only about 3.5 pounds, it wasn't supposed to take more than an hour or so, so I gave it 70 minutes.

When I went to take it out, it leaked red juices everywhere! Gross! I put it back in, twice, and finally had to put it on the cast iron skillet and just let it sit in the oven for ages till it would come to temp. 250 is stupidly low for cooking a chicken. The jus that was supposed to happen was nasty and oily, lacking in flavor. And when the chicken was finally done, the skin was gross and flabby and undelicious. The chicken meat was okay, but I've done far better with a simple beer can. Bummer! Anyway, my lovely chicken meal was ruined, since Robert was in bed by then (he got an alternative supper) and we'd already eaten the side dish, which was fried corn and quite tasty.

What do you do with an entire mediocre cooked chicken? In our house, that's easy. Buffalo chicken wraps are one of M's favorites, and we have lots of whole wheat tortilla shells in the house lately. The problem I've always had is that it's a pain in the butt to shred all that chicken into the proper consistency, and after wrestling with the chicken for two hours already, I was in no mood. Then genius struck! I mentioned the other day that in my organizing, I found all the parts to the food processor and put them in one place, right? Now was the perfect time to break it out. I put on the basic blade and stripped the chicken, tossing white and dark meat in there alike, leaving out the nasty skin. When it was all in there, I buzzed it in the processor for about five seconds, and voila! Shredded chicken! It was almost chicken salad consistency, actually, but that's fine with me.

I dumped the chicken into a bowl and mixed in Frank's Red Hot Sauce and ranch dressing. (If I wasn't cooking for M, I'd have added celery or lettuce, but he's not a fan.) I spread the mix onto tortillas, rolled them up, and cut them into pieces about an inch thick. Delicious and fun, and a nice way to save a disappointing dinner. I guess nobody always has good luck with new recipes, and I've done really well lately, so I was due for a stinker. But I really do want to find a nice Dutch Oven chicken recipe. I'm sure there's one out there!

Since I'm already talking about kitchens, I should mention that Robert's birthday present of a wonderful play kitchen and accessories has arrived! We assembled it yesterday and stocked it today, and man is it a hit. He loves all the things he can do, and he'll love it even more when we get all the batteries, I'm sure. 12 batteries, sheesh. It's so entertaining to watch his little brain working, and to see him do things like put a piece of lettuce and an orange in a skillet on the burner, or shove all the utensils in the microwave at once. He's a funny guy!

It's Gonna Be A Happy New Year

We're back from our winter trip and getting back into the swing of things, after spending half of November, half of November and the first little chunk of January away from home. This is probably the only year we'll ever have the freedom of schedule to make such long trips, so I figured, why not take advantage of it? M scheduled research mini-trips both times, so it's not like we didn't get anything done. And Robert had such a good time spending big chunks of quality time with all the people who love him. He came down with Strep on New Year's Eve, which was a terrible bummer, and ended up in the emergency room for an antibiotic shot on New Year's Day when he couldn't swallow the oral ammoxicillin. I suspect that is a billing battle we are going to be tussling over in the future, but for now I'm just happy that it worked and he is so much better. He got a haircut today, but I haven't pinned him down for a picture yet.

One thing about the traveling is that I got totally spoiled over our Christmas time away. My mother in law, Melissa, is a wonderful person and keeps a beautiful house. I really enjoyed the time we spent there, for a lot of reasons, but partly because it's just so nice. It's neat and it's organized, tastefully decorated, always smells pretty. Even with Robert around (not to mention M and I!), nothing ever got too crazy messed-up, and she did it all while still seeming pretty relaxed about it. I aspire to that, seriously! Anyway, when we got home, after all that time away, things were pretty much how we left them, and that was a real letdown for me. I am a shabby housekeeper and our apartment is too small for all our stuff. That is the way it has always been.

But I can change! I've decided to start with small steps. The kitchen was already my project, so I did more in there. I finished more of the cleaning I hadn't yet gotten to, including the really icky places like that spot between the stove and the desk-counter where things fall down and are lost forever, and I swept and mopped and scrubbed the counters and the stove until everything looks great. (Melissa and I did our usual pre-homecoming shopping trip, but instead of the usual grocery staples, this time I got new cleaning supplies. They really help!)

Buoyed by my success in the kitchen, I moved on to a persistent filth-trap in the apartment, the master bathroom. Since the master bathroom, in this case, is a closet off the walk-in closet with a cloth curtain strung from a tension rod as a door, it has historically not gotten a lot of use, especially since the walk-in closet itself is overfull and often littered with dirty clothes waiting for laundry day. It was not only dirty and dusty, it was cluttered with stuff that didn't belong in a bathroom, and really the reason I never used it, even at night, was that it was unpleasant. Simply going in and getting all the trash out, all the empty containers and expired things, the books, the laundry, and everything that didn't belong, right there made a huge difference. The bathroom is so small there's hardly room to turn around, but when it's empty it seems considerably larger. I took my Glass Plus and my 409 and gave all the surfaces a scrub, then did the same to the toilet and swept the floor. Finally, I rearranged the plants I keep in there (the one redeeming virtue of that bathroom has been a counter with a sink underneath four powerful light bulbs, making it ideal for plants), and made sure the handwashing essentials were all in place for a homey look. Just a couple of hours of work, really, and it looks amazing, like new. I like going in there now!

As luck would have it, barely had I finished one bathroom than the other one caught my attention. Robert rubbed a surprising amount of jelly in his hair at breakfast, so M gave him a bath while I did my cleaning and other chores. Robert had been in the bath just a minute or two when I went down the hall to the neighbor to thank her for taking in our papers and to chat for a few minutes. I was surprised when M showed up at the door with a wet, pajamaed Robert and a harried expression. Robert, who had been constipated for several days after being sick, had solved that problem in a big way in the bathtub. Yuck!

Once the worst of the mess was dealt with, I realized that as long as I was scrubbing and disinfecting the bathtub, I might as well take care of the whole bathroom. This bathroom is the one we use, so it has all kinds of stuff in it, and though it gets a lot more of my fickle cleaning attention, it's hard to keep clean. The next morning, while supervising Robert in another bath in the newly cleaned tub, I wiped and scrubbed and tossed trash and put things away. Again, a couple hours of work got me a very nice bathroom. Riding the wave, I cleaned half the living room and vacuumed as well, getting up birdseed and remnants of Robert's past meals before breaking my momentum upon the shoal of a mountain of toys. That's okay, there are more days coming. I will get this place looking better!

The nicest thing about having a clean kitchen is how easy it is to cook. Yesterday I made a giant pot of chili that used three cans of tomatoes, two cans of beans, and a can of tomato sauce. You've seen my pantry in pictures, so you know this is a good thing. Served over potatoes, it was supper last night and tonight, with another full meal's worth in the freezer. Since dinner was taken care of tonight, I looked ahead and defrosted a (rather sad looking, honestly) pot roast from the deep freeze. It was freezer burned, but not so much that it couldn't be saved. I cut off a chunk and chopped it into little pieces, then put it into a marinade of rice wine vinegar and soy sauce. Beef stir fry this week! The rest of it I put into the crock pot for Grandma J's famous pot roast, along with plenty of carrots and potatoes. The resulting deliciousness wasn't done till midnight, but filled two big containers. With the liquid leftover in the pot, I rehydrated two cups of TVP for M's meatloaf sandwiches this week. I shouldn't have to make another serious cooking effort for days, and that's a really nice feeling. I like to give my family good things, whether it's good food or just a nice place to sit on the potty. I just need to keep reminding myself that the pleasure of the results is worth the hard work.

Less is More

It's a new day today, and I'm on a one-day blogging roll, so why not say more about cleaning my kitchen? (Not to mention posting this super-cute shot of Robert from our latest trip to the portrait studio!) Tomorrow we're heading to Asheville for the holidays, so now's a good time to discuss what I like about my kitchen, before I find myself consumed with envy for my mother-in-law's awesome kitchen.

The first step to organizing my kitchen was making sure I had plenty of trash bags. M was vital to this project, because whenever I finished filling a bag, he'd take it right out for me. No fuss, no chance to reconsider too heavily. Some stuff was easy, mostly things I knew I could throw away as soon as I took the time to consider them. A half-melted spatula, a bunch of old plastic bags, some mostly-empty spice containers where I already had new bottles. It took the first layer off, and is usually as far as I go when I clean the kitchen. But it's not enough.

Some things were harder, and I had to start reminding myself of the sort of lessons they teach people on Hoarders. Sure, I don't have the lid for all my plastic containers, but they might still be useful! Yeah, but you have way too many and they're overwhelming the cupboard. Throw away everything disposable, and everything that doesn't have a lid. Throw away the teas you got several years ago and haven't used because you have other tea you like more. Throw away that leaky jar of honey instead of putting it in a baggie, you've got lots more. You have a whole shaker of pepper, you don't need those peppercorns you put in a Ziploc when your grinder broke. Yes, you love the idea of having an espresso machine, yes you love coffee, but you haven't used that espresso machine since you moved here, and you bought it used at a garage sale. You have a Starbucks gift card if you ever need an espresso so very badly.

That was the layer where scraping off my excess stuff started to be like scraping off a layer of skin. We don't have a lot of money, so for most of these things, I knew I couldn't replace it if I made a mistake. What if I was wrong and I needed those plastic containers? What if I wanted an espresso and can't get one? What if I run out of spices because I threw away what I thought was excess? My toaster is broken, but we need a toaster. (This one actually kept that stupid toaster out of the trash for close to six months, which is totally ridiculous.)

All those thoughts were real to me, but I know that they come from a deeper source. The fact that I have more things than I can handle is a sign of sufficiency, even of affluence. We don't have money or insurance or security, but I have more honey than a bear could eat in a year, so something is going all right. I don't need these old vitamins, but vitamins keep you healthy. If I have so much food I can't fit it on the shelves, my son will never go hungry. It's wrong thinking, but it's very seductive.

During this process, it helped to remind myself what I was gaining. The number one thing was work space. I have all these neat kitchen gadgets, but I rarely use them because I don't have the counter space. I don't have the counter space because I had a stupid broken toaster that I couldn't throw away, and many other things in that same vein. Every time I tossed away what wasn't necessary, I won that much space for myself. Counter space, cupboard space, refrigerator space. Eventually the kitchen began to take shape as an area where things have places to be, not just places where I've shoved them. Things like fresh produce and bread, which were previously tossed wherever there was room, now have shelves of their own. The top of the freezer is clear, so I can get into it and rummage around whenever I want. I even found all the parts to the food processor and stuck them together in a bin for easy access! It's pretty cool.

Now ask me if the kitchen is done. It's not, admittedly. I've got more work to do, and it still needs deep cleaning and a thorough scrub everywhere when I get some better cleaning supplies together. There are more things I can get rid of. But it's progress, and it's kind of thrilling to me. It's a sign that I am capable of doing it at all. If I can take the same ethos and carry it (and the trash bags) into the rest of the house, I might be able to get something good going on. And someday, when I move into a bigger place with a nicer kitchen, if I start with only the stuff I need here, think of all the wonderful room I will have!

Home Improvement

I haven't been blogging much lately, I know. This blog was a lifeline back in Robert's first year, when I was totally cut off and needed any form of grownup contact, no matter how tenuous. Now that he's almost two years old, there's no time to sit down and write! Ah well, time marches on. I do want to pick up again, but I make no guarantees as to my reliability. I'll just have to make the entries I do post extra-good.

So lately I've been watching Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive on Netflix. It's not for the schaenfreude, which is the reason I watch most reality shows, but because the problems these people have resonate with me. I don't have a houseful of cats or garbage piled to table level, but I am chronically disorganized and I recognize thought and behavior patterns in the people they profile that I see in myself. If you watch enough episodes, you start to realize how many normal people, people who like keepsakes and collectibles, may be just one tragedy, one dollop of despair away from hoarding. It often seems like there are one or two events that precipitate hoarding, and I know that feeling too. When I found I was pregnant with Robert, there was a period of time when I couldn't gather things fast enough. More food, more baby clothes, more blankets, more whatever, even though it was a time in our lives when we were trying to clear out our storage spaces and needed less, not more. I got over it, but I think it reveals a tendency.

That's not as depressing as it sounds, though. Watching these shows helps me, because I can take the coping skills, the decision-making skills that the folks on the show learn and apply it to my own stuff. And it's helping! Recognizing the problem and wanting to change is the biggest step to actually changing. These past couple weeks, I've been downing an episode or two, then attacking my kitchen. My kitchen is small, it's cramped, and it is full of stuff I love, which makes it a huge target for clutter and jumble and mess. I love cooking, and I especially love kitchen gadgets. Even if I haven't used it yet, the idea that I could use something to make a cool recipe or to make some task easier is just awesome to me. That makes collecting easy, and letting go hard.

In the kitchen, I started with my pantry. Since before Robert was born, we've had a cinderblock pantry against the living room wall, because I coupon and we have such limited cupboard and closet space. Our kitchen also has two doors, a normal size door to the hallway and a giant opening to the living room. Robert is not allowed in the kitchen (nothing in the world could make that space babyproof), since he became mobile we've blocked it off, first with the Pack 'n Play, more recently with random boxes and baskets and whatever is handy. It was messy and non-utilitarian and it blocked me from access to my pantry, so it kept things from getting put away. I decided to make a major change, and embarked on our biggest home improvement project in ages.

M and Robert and I went to the hardware store, which is always exciting. We got a 48x16 board to replace the top pantry shelf, where my Cansolidators sit. On the old shelf, the cansolidators didn't sit nicely, they hung off a bit at the front and the back, and I worried about loading them fully. The new board was wider, longer, and substantially stronger, so the Cansolidators could be fully assembled and loaded the way I'd always wanted them. At home, we totally emptied the pantry shelves, threw away anything that wasn't good anymore, and wiped down the shelves, then disassmbled it and reassembled it in the opening between the living room and the kitchen, to make a permanent barrier between the two rooms. The shelves open right onto the kitchen, so I have easy access, and Robert can't get into the kitchen.

The back of the unit was a problem, though. It used to be against the wall, and a block and board shelf typically doesn't have a back. Leaving the pantry shelves wide open and next to the toybox is asking for trouble, though. After talking with my mom, I had a brainstorm for Robert's birthday present. I went back to the hardware store, and this time got a sheet of plywood cut to order, some blackboard paint, a brush, and some nails. I painted the plywood with blackboard paint and nailed it to the back of the pantry. Voila! A back for the shelves, a giant chalkboard for Robert, who loves chalk drawing. With everything organized back into the pantry, I have never been happier with that part of our apartment.

I've done a lot more work as well, a lot of organizing and a lot of sometimes painful throwing away, but this entry is long enough. Anyway, here's a picture of the front and back of the new pantry.

Keeping Things Safe

From time to time on my blog, I will do reviews of websites I've been asked to look at, sort of like a survey where I share the results with people. I receive compensation for doing these reviews, but they don't tell me what I have to say, or even that I have to say nice things. All the opinions contained herein are entirely my own.

I save a lot of money on groceries and other items is by shopping for deals online. It's a great way to find sales and bulk discounts, but you do have to be careful. The great majority of shopping sites are trustworthy and do their best to protect your sensitive information, but if we've seen anything this past year, it's that even the biggest companies are vulnerable to determined hackers. It's important to shop safe, but it's also a good idea to take other steps to protect against identity theft.

One way to protect yourself against identity theft is by using the services of a company like Identity Hawk. Identity Hawk offers comprehensive services for identity theft protection, starting with a risk analysis so you can tell whether you're doing all the right things to protect yourself. They'll monitor your personal information and look for suspicious patterns that might indicate identity theft, and keep you appraised of any changes in your credit score. If the worst happens and your identity is compromised, they'll cover your losses and help you to recover your identity. It's a nice service that can give you a lot of peace of mind. Most of what they do is stuff you can do on your own, if you have plenty of time and a decent knowledge of what to look for, but if you're very busy or don't know much about identity theft, it's nice to have someone looking out for you.

Alone At Home

Today we say M off for his conference in Buffalo, which is very exciting! It's his first presentation at an academic conference for a school he does not attend. He's going to deliver a paper on "something about Antimasons," or at least that was about as far as I got in my understanding of it. ;-) I am a bad historian, but I will say that I do know a whole lot more about Anti-Masons now than I did five years ago. (Do I know how to spell it? No, I do not.) The conference is free, and a very gracious graduate student there is letting him sleep over, but there are still definite costs associate with a three day round trip of 900 miles.

We decided that since Robert and I can't really be without a car for three days and we don't want to take the nearly 200k mile Civic on a third 700+ mile trip in thirty days, we would rent a car for M's trip. I found a coupon in my new Entertainment Book that took a very nice chunk off the price to rent from Hertz, so that's what we did. The economy car we rented doesn't get quite the same excellent gas mileage as the Honda, but it's done all right so far, and gotten him safely there. To further trim expenses, I went grocery shopping and found some sales on snack food and deli meat, so he embarked with twelve sandwiches, a box of Poptarts, a box of day-old apple pastries, three big bags of chips, and thirty cans of pop. No trip snacks needed, and he should only have to buy maybe one meal the whole weekend. A little preparation can help save lots of money, and he's hardly suffering from not buying overpriced convenience store snacks.

Anyway, he's gone till Sunday, and Robert and I are on our own. I came to the strange realization today that this is the first time I have ever been on my own with Robert for days at a time. M and I rarely travel alone, and when I have, I've gone up to see my parents, where there is plenty of willing help to watch him. Taking care of the Minature Annihilation Machine from dawn till dusk by myself is quite a daunting endeavor! He was good today, mostly, and things weren't too crazy, but we'll see how it goes tomorrow. I am developing more and more respect for single parents. I do not know where I would find the strength and stamina. It really makes me appreciate M and his willing assumption of an equal partnership in parenting even more than I already did.

Staying Safe When Shopping Online

From time to time on my blog, I will do reviews of websites I've been asked to look at, sort of like a survey where I share the results with people. I receive compensation for doing these reviews, but they don't tell me what I have to say, or even that I have to say nice things. All the opinions contained herein are entirely my own.

If you've been following my blog for awhile, or talked to me about couponing and finding bargains, you probably already know that I do a lot of shopping online. There are so many sales you can get by shopping online, not only on things like books and music, but on all sorts of stuff. I went online to book our rental car reservation for M's trip this weekend, and saved quite a bit of money. I buy almost all of Robert's baby snacks online, not to mention his diapers! Social bargain sites like Groupon and DealPulp are a good way to get big deals on local stores and restaurants.

The problem, of course, is how do you keep your information secure when you're shopping? Identity theft is a major problem all over the world these days, and you see it all the time on the news. I know some people who won't shop online at all because of it. I can understand the concern, but I think they're missing the point. Plenty of identity theft is decidedly low tech, from a waitress copying your info when she takes your credit card in a restaurant, to someone digging through your trash to find a credit card statement. Not shopping online isn't going to keep you safe. In fact, if you're careful, shopping online is every bit as safe as going to the store, and maybe even safer!

The first thing you need to keep in mind when shopping online is to make sure you're shopping in the right place. Be especially careful if you get a link by email. You wouldn't accept a ride from someone to take you shopping at Tarjet, and you should make sure that the links you follow are going where you expect. When you are shopping, always check the address bar on your browser to make sure you're at the site you want to be at. Just as importantly, when it comes time to check out, make sure that the page you'll be submitting your credit card on is an "HTTPS" site, rather than simply "HTTP." You can tell by looking for those letters at the front of the address, plus your browser will almost certainly have a padlock icon somewhere to indicate that the site you're on is secure. Never enter personal information on an unsecured web page!

If you are very worried about shopping online, you can get started by shopping only at the very biggest of online retailers. My favorite online retailer right now is Amazon.com, partially because they've had ridiculously fabulous coupons for mommies lately, but mostly because they are extremely reliable. Typically, the bigger the company is, the more reliance you can place on them when shopping online. That doesn't mean you won't find awesome deals at smaller stores, but you can easily get your feet wet at bigger stores, just to get used to online shopping. Many smaller stores also accept Paypal, where you can enter credit card information with Paypal and then have them pay the vendor without ever giving the vendor your card information. When you  shop online, use a credit card and never a debit card. Credit cards offer far more protection against fraud, and if you pay it off in full each month, you won't be dinged by extra interest charges.

Despite taking every precaution, online and off, identity theft sometimes happens. Thieves are just very determined. You can act preemptively by signing up for an identity theft protection service, if that will give you more peace of mind. These services monitor your credit for you to report on any changes that may occur, and some also offer insurance in case of identity theft, to cover any costs associated with recovering your personal information. Services such as IdentityHawk offer this protection for a monthly fee after a short free trial period. They can be valuable, especially if you've lost an especially vital piece of data like a social security card, just to make sure you know as soon as possible if anything happens. They can also advise you in case anything does happen, and guide you through the steps you need to take in order to recover your credit.

For most people, though, you should check first with your credit card to see what protection they offer. Most credit cards do not hold customers liable for any fraudulent charges made anyway. As long as you're sure of that, and you're monitoring your credit reports three times a year anyway, you probably don't need a lot of extra protection. Use your common sense and good credit habits, and be careful of your personal information online and off, and you can bargain shop with peace of mind.

That's the Way the Money Goes

It's been a little while since I updated, but we've been keeping very busy. I really need to take a new batch of photos. Robert has a cute new haircut that makes him look much less baby and more little boy. It's super cute and I will try to get something up here. The weather's been pretty nice here, so we've been getting outside more, just walking around for the most part. Robert is getting good at walking! He can make it across the living room on his own, and outside he does well when holding onto a hand. Soon he'll be running, I know, and then climbing, and then I just don't know what I'm going to do.

The financial front lately has been a mix of good and bad news. We got our tax return and did many responsible things with it, adding to our IRAs, adding to Robert's school fund, paying down some debt, and refilling the emergency fund. That was good. M got a grant for next year so he can work on his dissertation without having to teach. That is good! The grant is for fifteen thousand dollars before taxes, so it's a pay cut. That's bad! He is prohibited by the terms of the grant from doing anything else for money for that entire year. That's also bad! But I've crunched the numbers till they started cracking around the edges, and if we have no unexpected expenses and make no frivolous purchases all next year, and gas doesn't climb too high, and all our costs remain about the same, we should be able to live on that. That's... well, it's hopeful, I guess. It's better to be inevitably sunk by the unexpected than to start out in the hole.

My problem is what do I do right now to prepare for the financial burden I know is coming? Look for a job, obviously, but that's not without plenty of problems. Robert is still young enough to be on the high end of daycare costs, for one thing, so a job has to be pretty good to even be worth my while. And those aren't easy to come by around here. They're _really_ not easy to come by for someone who has been out of law school as long as she was in, and has never had a real paying law job. I'm going to be taking training this spring that will hopefully let me become a Court Appointed Special Advocate, which is both really important volunteer work and legal work that will hopefully help polish me up for jobs, but that's down the road a little ways. I can't count on finding a job that's going to bring in more than it would cost in terms of daycare, gas, and loss of couponing time.

I have money set aside, for things that I wanted to do. I wanted to do sessions with a professional organizer to help me get the house in order. I think it's really important, and I'm not making progress on my own. I got a great deal on two months of Jazzercise classes, and I've been doing that and was sort of hoping to continue. I have plans to put some money in our Roth IRAs, now that we're going to be looking down the barrel of 30. I could scrap all those plans and sock all that money into the emergency fund. That's what my squirrel-brain wants me to do. I know a financial winter is coming, and I must save all I possibly can. On the other hand, all these plans are good things to do, things that will improve our quality of life for a long time, and hopefully our health as well. It's not like a new TV set or something. I just don't know what to do.

I tell myself that at least we know now. It's not like a sudden layoff where the decrease comes with no warning. Sure, this summer was already going to be tight, but at least we know that things aren't going to get better when we hit the school year like usual. We can plan! And in the spring, M will still be getting paid like usual, so I can do things with that money. I'm going to toss everything we can spare into paying down the one remaining credit card debt, that's for sure. The more I pay of that before September, the fewer months that it will be a line-item in the budget. Man, will I be happy to see the end of that! And we have an emergency fund that's in decent shape, given our income. Dipping into it just to get through the year is not a sustainable plan, obviously, but it's good to know that when the inevitable small disasters happen, we aren't totally sunk. So it's not all misery and woe. I just have to keep reminding myself of that. We've got a lot of things going for us, even now! Things are going to be okay.

Guest Post: DIY Cubby Wall for My Craft Room

Guest post written by Shannon Woods

One of my favorite hobbies is crafting and I've actually converted our guest bedroom into our craft room. But that basically meant that I had a desk with a sewing machine on top of it, along with some plastic containers that have all my stuff in it. That really isn't a great organizational thing though. I was at first afraid of doing anything because once we start our own family, we're going to change that room into a nursery.

I went online to try and find some ideas for organizational stuff that would also work in a nursery too. When I went online to get some ideas, I came across some information about Sacramento Clear internet packages and after I looked through it some, I came across some information about and decided to change over our home internet service by ordering one of the packages.

The best idea that I found was a DIY cubby wall that my husband told me he could put together. So we're going to start working on putting that together for the guest bedroom.

Beds, Baths, and Blustery Days

From time to time on my blog, I will do reviews of websites I've been asked to look at, sort of like a survey where I share the results with people. I receive compensation for doing these reviews, but they don't tell me what I have to say, or even that I have to say nice things. All the opinions contained herein are entirely my own.


I just can't believe that a mere two days ago it was sixty degrees here in Kentucky! Today it's back in the thirties, and we woke up to freezing rain. Ugh. It's a perfect day to stay inside, work on a few projects, and of course, shop on the internet! One of my favorite pastimes! In a happy coincidence, I was just asked to review a website called BedBathStore, which is exactly my cup of tea. I love beds, and baths, and I really love the clever little gizmos and space-savers and thing-holders that stores like this sell. The site itself has a nice clean layout and is easy to navigate, which always makes me want to poke around more. The free shipping ceiling is pretty high, $89, but the president's day sale going on now make it a bit better. I dove right in!


My first stop was at the party food and beverage machines section of the site. Now these are way too big and expensive for me to have, at least while we're still in our little bitty apartment, but I love these things. They have a cotton candy cart for sale, for pity's sake! Too awesome. Popcorn carts, hot dog carts, plus countertop versions of those as well. The selection was great. Unfortunately, although there was space for product reviews on each product, every one I looked at in this section was empty. These are luxury items, though, so maybe not as many people have bought them yet. The other big issue was definitely the price There were no deals to be had here. I looked a couple of the products, namely the popcorn cart and the tabletop nostalgia popper, up on Google, and found substantially better prices both on Amazon and at Kohl's. That was a bit disappointing for me, since I'm always out for a bargain. 


For my next foray into the site, I decided I'd look at something I've already shopped for and bought, to see how it stacks up. I found the Premium Solid Insulated Thermal Blackout Curtain Panel Pair, a set of insulated blackout curtains that are quite similar to the ones we bought for Robert's room this summer. (Take it from this mommy, blackout curtains in the nursery are worth their substantial weight in gold.) The price here was a lot more in line with what I paid for my curtains at the department store, and they come in a wider variety of colors as well. Still no reviews in the reviews section, but it was an overall more appealing offering. I've been thinking about getting blackout curtains for the other bedroom too, so I'll keep that one in mind. 


It occurred to me that by now I have not looked at any products that are technically for either bed or bath, so for my last dip in the pool, I decided to look at bedrest pillows, those big firm pillows with the arms that you use to prop yourself up for study or TV. BedBathStore did not have spectacular prices, though they didn't seem outrageous, but their main strength was in the wide variety of styles! They have eleven different kinds of pillows (all basically the same shape) but in different fabrics, colors, and patterns. Every single one had its own picture, which I really liked. Sometimes you can be browsing a store and look at different colors on an item, and you can tell that the second color was simply photoshopped on. These were genuine pictures showing the variety, and I appreciated that. Someone looking to match their bedroom would have an easy time if they looked here. 


Overall, I think BedBathStore is a decent shopping site, with things to recommend it despite the fact that it's not a mecca for bargain hunters. Sometimes finding just the right style or color for something in your house is more important than saving a couple bucks, and the selection here was always good. Just make sure you always remember to shop around! 


Oh, and because I never got around to actually doing anything bath-related, here is an oldie, but a goodie: 

Mailbox Fun

One great thing about all the shopping and couponing I do online these days is that it's fun to get mail again. When I was a little kid, I used to always be excited whenever I got mail, even if it was just my bank statement, because it was addressed to me! Then there were magazines, birthday cards, the occasional present, all that fun stuff! As I got older, though, and got my own mailboxes, the novelty sort of wore off. Most of what I got in the mail was bills or spam, and collecting the mail was just one more chore. But lately, what with so many companies trying to integrate the internet and Facebook with their more traditional techniques, I've been getting all sorts of cool stuff in the mail.

Today we got an especially fun package in the mail. Snuggle Fabric Softener did a contest on Facebook a little while back where you could upload a picture of snuggling and win a Snuggle Bear. I uploaded a picture from when Robert was a newborn, of him zipped into my bathrobe and cuddled right up to my chest. We won one of the bears, and it arrived yesterday! Robert was watching me open the box, and you should've seen his face when he realized there was a toy in there. Snuggle Bear was an immediate hit, and even M was a bit envious, remarking how he'd always wanted one when he was a kid, but hadn't gotten one. The new bear is in the crib now, where he is not as loved as the lovey, but a nice soft second choice.

I've also gotten lots of coupons for free things in the mail, which is awesome. In my coupon pocket now, I've got coupons for two bottles of Excedrin, three half gallons of soymilk, and a yogurt cup, all of which came in the mail. I also get some magazines where the subscriptions were free or very cheap. The best ones come with coupons of their own! It's amazing what you can find online. It certainly makes checking the mail a lot more fun!

Oh, and here's the picture I entered in the contest. Very snuggly! It's amazing how much he's grown.

The Baby Contest

This morning Robert and M and I went out to take part in a competition! Robert raced in the Huggies Diaper Dash at Babies R Us. He was on the high end of qualification age, but still legal, as long as he didn't stand up during the race. Babies who walk in a crawling race get disqualified! Since Robert still doesn't stand up without pulling up, this wasn't much of a problem. The races started at 11, and technically all the competitors were supposed to show up then, but because of a quick freak snowstorm, it was just us and one other family (twin girls!) Robert raced against the bigger one in the first heat and won handily because the competition was content to sit at the starting line and grin about how much attention everyone was paying her. It was very cute! Robert raced for the love of his lovey and the pretzel stick I was holding down at the finish line.

After that, we had to spend an hour and a half or so sitting around and waiting for the championship race. A few other competitors trickled in, which the store allowed and even strongly encouraged so they could get enough competition for the championship race. In the meantime, we wrangled our contender baby and tried to keep him from burning all his energy or getting so frustrated by waiting that he wasn't having fun anymore. In the last preliminary heat, the winner was a baby about Robert's age, who was a pretty good crawler. His dad cheated by putting his hands down in the field of play during the race, but it wasn't our race and the other competitors didn't complain. All the winners of the heats got gift cards, and that was very cool!

The championship ended up being between Robert, this other kid almost his age, and funnily enough, the tiny twin of the baby Robert beat in the first round. She raced in the second round, and because her much larger competitor couldn't figure out the "Now it's time to crawl" thing, she managed to army crawl her way across the mat to victory. She was not really a contender in this one, but she was just as cute as could be. The race began, and Robert made it halfway down very quickly before hesitating. I think he was a little scared by the mom next to me who was clapping and yelling pretty loudly. The other baby crawled entirely off the mat, but ended up making it to the end of the line first. They called it a victory, but the fact of the matter was that it was a disqualification. The rules of the competition were absolutely clear that the babies must stay on the mat that marked the field of play. (Again, these were the people who entered the field of play illegally in the earlier race.) This time, since I had a stake in things, I pointed out the rules.

The other baby's parents and grandparent were not very happy about not getting their victory, but as a compromise, instead of the disqualification, we ran the race over again. This time, for whatever reason, Robert was like a ball out of a cannon, and just barreled across the mat when I waved his sippy cup at him. The other family were very sore losers about it, which tarnished it a little bit, despite the fact that their baby hadn't been in the store for 90 minutes sitting around already, and they'd gotten away with several rules violations before being called on one. Anyway! We were still happy to win, and Robert had a great time, which was the main thing. He enjoyed socializing with the other babies, and getting to crawl around Babies R Us with no pants on for a couple of hours. And for the grand prize, we got three coupons for big boxes of diapers, which is great! Right now I've got a thousand Size 4 diapers stockpiled, but there is always Size 5 coming sooner than we think.

Dreams of Vacation

Man, it's cold and gross out. We're lucky here, because we didn't get the Snowpocalypse descending upon our heads, but February 1 is still not a pretty day in our corner of the world. I remember how it was last year, this first week of being alone with Robert after all the grandparents had gone home, when the world was covered with snow and M was gone all day at school. It's an easy time of year to get depressed! This year is a little better. Instead of snow we have rain, and instead of a wailing bundle of newborn, I've got my guy throwing lettuce and peapods off his high chair and demanding more pretzels instead (we are working on the food thing). Still it's hard not to imagine heading off someplace warm for awhile, maybe a visit to Santa Cruz or a vacation in Jamaica. Warm weather and beaches, shopping and tourism. Yes please!

Of course, that's not too likely to happen for awhile yet. I got our taxes filed, and we're getting a pretty decent return, but it's pretty much all allocated already. Since we're getting even less income this summer than last, I need to put more money into our summer emergency fund, and I'm going to get all crazy and put some money into our teeny-tiny IRAs as well. With anything left, we're going to get super-indulgent and hit the dentist! Woo! This doesn't leave a lot of money for other things, especially not trips. But I've been looking into other ways to beat the winter blues. The sun may not shine, and it's too wet to play outside, but I can still take care of myself. Today I'm having a big salad for lunch, and this afternoon, Robert and I are going to try and get some exercise, even if it's just perambulating up and down the halls. Eating well and exercising are two good ways to perk yourself up in winter, and heck, they're good for any time of year. I figure I can't really go wrong.

Another option I've been thinking about is maybe getting a sun lamp. I have a friend whose seasonal affective disorder was improved by simulated sunlight, so it might be worth a shot. Plus, I have extreme amounts of hate for our only lamp, which is old and has two non-working sockets and doesn't have a secure fitting shade anymore. Really, replacing that old thing with anything that doesn't drop its shade when I bump it would be a lift to my mood! And of course, I've got my guys, who are usually good for a mood lift (when they aren't the ones driving me crazy!) One of these years we'll take a winter vacation somewhere warm, but for now, I think we're all right.

Where Does the Time Go?

This will probably be a quick one tonight, because it's late and I'm tired, but I know I've said that before and been wrong. This day just disappeared out from under my feet, it seems. We all spent the day at home, because there was a lot of snow today, though little of it accumulated, and classes were cancelled. I spent time catching up on phone calls and doing a marginal amount of organizing, playing some with the baby and... I don't know what else. It's bad when you look back on your day and don't really know where it all went.

A lot of my time has been like that lately, feeling wasted, feeling lost. I haven't done projects I wanted because of it, some of them which  I regret a lot. Way back in November, I wanted to do a book for my folks' anniversary because I knew we couldn't throw them a party for their 35th this year and I wanted to do something. I put up a big message on Facebook and tagged everyone I could think of to ask them for pictures and memories and stuff.  I needed to do personal followups with people, because it was a busy season and people forget or get busy and stuff like that, but all my time disappeared and I didn't get to it, so I didn't get the feedback I was hoping for, and the project didn't get done. My little sister made them a wonderful photo collection, something she is very talented at, and it was beautiful, but I didn't do anything but wish them a happy day. Ugh.

This site has been another project that disappears into my lost days. I have photos and videos that I want to upload and edit to show you, but it's complicated and takes a long time to edit videos, and my patience is short. I can read one book to the baby twenty times without much problem, but don't ask me to watch the same five seconds of video ten times to figure out where it's supposed to go in my fifteen minutes of footage. And when I don't have new pictures, I'm less likely to post, and when I get out of the posting groove, I'm less likely to post, and you see how it goes.

Okay, I don't think this is helping. I have focused enough on my unmedicated ADD brain for a little while, maybe it's time to accentuate the positive. Like I just said, if I get into a good groove, it's easier to stay in it. One thing I did today was spend a lot of time moving money around. M got paid for his study term, so that's a lot of money all at once that needs to be budgeted and saved carefully. Yesterday, Robert and I went to the bank and talked with a personal banker about my bank account and what we're going to do with it. We don't like Chase Bank anymore because they slapped their "free" account holders with literally a booklet full of new fees this year. Switching banks is a big hassle though, so a lot of today was putting money into savings, into new checking, activating new cards, switching autopay options, things like that. I went through months worth of bank statements and made sure that every autopay I saw was accounted for and changed. It took awhile, but I did that! I also called the doctor and got a question answered about Robert's physical, (yes, we have to buy vitamin drops over the counter because Medicaid won't pay, no there are no other options), and cleaned up the living room again, including scrubbing honey off the carpet. I did do some things today!

Another thing I've actually managed to accomplish lately is some menu planning. Our meals have been awful lately, repetitive, boring, and not very healthy. Robert's the only one who's been getting his fruits and veggies every day, which is a bad example for Mommy and Daddy to set. So the other day I sat down with six months of All You Magazine and planned meals out of the recipe sections there. I like it because they always include a projected cost per serving, and that helps a lot. I got thirty days of dinners planned out, and a shopping list. I've started looking for sales where I can pick up items on that shopping list for cheap, things that I haven't got in the pantry already, anyway. It's a really ambitious plan that involves a lot of cooking, so we'll see how it goes. Starting February 1, watch this station!

Well, I think I feel a little better now, or at least a little bit more capable. I need to spend more time planning my days like I plan my menus, even if they often get thrown off course. There's so much that I want to do, and so little time to do it!