Why is it

that when a woman shops and finds a good deal, it almost feels like you've won the freakin' lottery? I don't know why this is, but I most certainly know it is true. We picked up a king size bed (ALLELUIA) in December. This has been coming down the pike a looooooong time. So I bought 2 sets of new sheets last fall - prior to even shopping for the new matress. Those 2 sets were great deals. 1 was a jersey knit set for $12. Yes, you read that right. I was over the moon at finding a king size set of sheets for $12! The other set was 450 thread count damask for $35. Again, a great deal (both were found the same day in the same store.) Finding 1 of those deals is enough to make my entire week and I had found them on the same day! It was cool. Then we got the bed. And the jersey knit ones didn't go over so well with H. So now I think they'll become fort-making ingredients - & the pillow cases used for gunnysack jumping around the house.

So we were still short a set of sheets. Last Sunday night I was researching sheet prices online, again, refreshing my memory. Reading product reviews is always interesting. The one that I really liked the best was for "wrinkle free sheets". REALLY? People honestly believe there is such a thing? Do they actually LAY on their sheets? All I know is that once you sleep on them they look a wrinkled up anyway, so what is the point of that? And don't you cover them up with a blanket & comforter/quilt anyway? You don't even SEE them. This 1 lady was upset she had to go IRON her sheets. Now anyone who knows me knows that an iron has only resided in my home for less than a year and it was only used 1 time since (for a craft project). It is stored on the highest shelf in my house and I can't see it on a daily basis. I am in complete denial that it is really even here. So ironing a shirt is completely out of the question... let alone SHEETS. Why someone would do this is really and truly beyond me. They obviously have WAY too much time on their hands. If you know someone who does, in fact, do this - please tell me what the 'big idea' is. And if YOU do this? You must gimmie a call because you need some talking to!!!

Anyway, back to my online search for sheets. I was hunting for high thread count. OK, got what a 'deal' would be - done. Went shopping Monday and the deal of the week appeared for me again...at the same store the others were. I love that store and I've loved that store for over 30 years. Granted these babies were on clearance, but holy moly. I got... get this... I got 1,000 thread count sheets (yes, 1,000) for $49. $49!!! You know I still can't believe it. And they're light blue. For $49 they could have been some god-awful color and I probably STILL would have bought the darn things. But light blue is easily handled here. And H. His 1st comment was, God love him, 'But will they match?' Hehehehe. As he frequently likes to point out to me, you are sleeping & its dark in the bedroom - WHO CARES. A set of sheets that we've used for the past 11.5 years never matched for Pete's sake. It's still cute.

So my deal of the week is still great. I will probably love this deal for a loooooong time. I'll be telling my grandkids about this deal.

A new way to keep your youth...?

Vanity. It is an interesting concept. Americans are facinated in trying to look 25 when they're 75. Look at Hollywood: Cher, Dolly Parton, Joan Rivers, Joan Collins...OK most of these are examples of cases going bad. But you catch my drift.

So here I am in my mid-30s. Yeah, I've got some gray hair. Pregnancy does that to you. It sucks all your vitamins and minerals from your body & puts them to your baby. So all your lovely, natural hair color vitamins leave & gray hair sets in. This, I am surprisingly OK with. Like the 'war wounds' of stretch marks. Gray hair is my battle scar. I made the decision a few years ago to 'go with the flow' on the gray hair thing. Au natural. Let it be. Perhaps I am OK with this because my hair is lighter and the gray isn't noticeable unless you know its there. Oh, and in the summer when my hair is naturally sun-streaked, you can't see it at all. But I do kinda have the Jay Leno thing going on - a patch at my cowlick on my forehead. So now you know exactly where to look when I see you again! Or maybe the reason is that I wouldn't get my roots done when I should - and gray roots sticking out is ickyer than just having the gray hair to begin with. I dunno. But I'm sticking to my 1st story...I like it better...and I can!

So here I am on Wednesday, getting a retainer. For my teeth. I never had braces or retainers growing up. Nope, lucky me & I had great teeth until 2 years ago. I did not know that your teeth kept moving around as you age. For me, they kept squishing together, so my bottom teeth started getting crooked as they had no other spaces to take up. Some people spend thousands of dollars to have straight teeth. Neither I, nor my parents had to go down that road. And I certainly didn't want to go down that road in my 40s. So here I am in retainer-ville. I shook my head in disbelief all the way to the dentist office on Wednesday. I even expressed my dismay in the office. The response was 'Hey - it could be a new way of looking and feeling younger.' Well this really isn't 'me'. (As evidenced by the gray hair thing above.) To me, 'feeling young' is a mental state - I reach this several times daily acting silly with my kids. I certainly don't need a retainer to feel young. And really, the retainer doesn't make me feel young at all. If anything, it makes me feel OLD. But for those of you out there who need a kick - it may work for you! If you try it, you'll have to let me know if it 'worked' for ya.

Puke, boogers & infections

Ahhhhh the joys of parenthood. You aren't a parent unless you've had ALL your child's bodily fluids & solids placed upon your body in some way, shape or form. And the great part is telling the stories about it. Really, that is the only great part. But depending on the scenario, they can be funny too.

K2 excavated a booger this evening. He proudly showed it to me on his index finger. Nice job bud! OK, it's almost PJ time, your woobie is dirty, put it on there while we finish this scene in the movie & we'll get a clean one in 2 minutes when jammies go on. OK in theory, right? Next - remember the old 'Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors & see all the people' game? Next time I look down at K2, who is sitting on my lap on the floor, he's got the steeple all set up.
"Hey Mom, did you know that when you get the steeple up, a booger can hold the top together?"
"What? Show me what you've got there."
Index fingers slowly part & the booger is indeed there - & it held the steeple up.
Nice.
And funny.

Puke. K1 started in on Saturday evening. We thought she was done because we had nothing on Sunday...until 4. Gotta stay home from school Monday with that one. But at least it all made it into the infamous 'bucket' this go-round. YEA!

Prior to the puke-fest, K1 was playing with those plastic dress up shoes. We've had them for years without incident. Until now. I have no idea how long she was wearing them. But on her left big toe a blister formed & popped. Sunday night we had red streaking up her foot - infection. So off to the Dr. this morning. I had a quite brilliant idea - since we'd yet to have any 'real' food down. I thought she could get her 1st dose of antibiotics as an injection at the Dr. office. I even prepped the kid. Of course, what child wants a shot. So then I told her:
"You wanna keep your toe or do you want it cut off?"
"Well YEA I want my toe!"
"It's your toe, or a shot. Your choice." Because that IS the bottom line here.
"Well I guess a shot isn't so bad."
Ya think????
Well, this isn't how it works. Nope. No go. We would have to go in daily for injections. Not going to happen. We were able to wait until this evening after getting real food to stay down to take her antibiotics - and all stayed down... so far. I'll keep you posted there because I know that you really wanna hear more puke stories. Color & consistency can be discussed by email or phone - your choice. hehehe.

I must say, K1 did a most excellent job at the Dr. office. Her poor toe looked rather bad and she put up with poking, prodding, squeezing (all to get 4 cultures), and didn't say or do anything to the Dr. And yes, I did say 4, FOUR cultures. OK, I realize you wanna avoid false-positives, but 4???? And people wonder why health care costs are so high. Jeez.

So all this health stuff was on top of a little renovation weekend here. H texturized the stairwell to the basement, primed & painted it. I painted a few walls in our TV room in the basement as well. Now our basement STINKS. The stairwell stinks bad enough that we haven't been down there much to enjoy the fruits of our labor. Note to self, only do this stuff when windows can be opened and we can ventilate without letting in below zero air. So the stairwell does need another coat of paint. I say, wait until the deep freeze is done. We'll see. The good part is, well I guess it could be part of the problem too, we have in-floor heat so that the stink doesn't get really circulated through the house. Live & learn.

Kids are the darndest things

So the saying goes 'Kids say the darndest things.' Yeah, they also DO the darndest things. So I just say 'Kids ARE the darndest things.' I don't mean 'things' as being derogatory here - but saying 'Kids are the darndest people' just looses something... a je ne sais cois.

So K3 has been trudging into those terrible 2s I mentioned last week. Frankly if she's not in trouble, walking towards trouble or thinking about trouble, there's something wrong about the situation.

Tuesday K1 gets home from school - Ks 2 & 3 were playing upstairs nicely and I was finishing something up on the main floor before heading up. K1 went up ASAP to join in the fun (whatever the game fully was - I have no idea! I am not certain they knew. But they were having a great time without killing each other - life was GOOD...REAL good...for about 10 minutes.) All 3 were hiding at times. K3 has become a VERY good hider. So I never knew where all 3 were at the same time - and that's OK with me. They'd pop up & run again playing whatever 'game' it was. But a while later I realized I hadn't seen K3 in awhile - and by this time we had all been on the main floor. So I tell Ks 1 & 2 to look for K3. Nope - not on the main floor. I had K1 check the basement because I wasn't sure if the door had been shut. Nope, not down there either. So as I have Ks 1 & 2 re-check the main floor. I start to go upstairs, listening for anything as I go. I hear nothing. I just hit the top step, and I hear the water start to run in our bathtub. So I walk in there, and K3 is standing in our tub, fully dressed, playing with the water coming out of the faucet. "K3, what are you doing??" Her response:
"Water, water"
"Yeah, honey, I know. Let's get you outta there."
Socks off - they were drenched. Pants off - the bottoms were drenched. So l'il miss 1/2 streaker ran for a bit. I still have no idea where she was prior to the tub. And we'll never know, either!! If I HAD to guess, I'd say she was either hiding in our closet in the shirts - or hiding in her own closet. Those are the present faves anyway.

Now for today's drama. I was putting makeup on in our bathroom & K3 was playing in our shower having her diaper time prior to getting dressed (that's another topic). This is a very typical occurrence. It is rather cool that you can go into a little cubby place and close a curtain and nobody can see you but you can still see stuff and hear stuff too - don't ya know? Anyway, I hadn't seen her go get the step stool from the other bathroom upstairs and put it in there until it was too late. I had just turned to check on her when she had reached up and turned the faucet on in the shower.

Oh. My. Gosh!

I don't think that she thought:
that water would come out WAY up THERE, or
that the water would go on her HEAD to boot, or
that the water would be that friggin' COLD!

We had shock and awe in its truest form. The look on that poor girl's face was truly priceless and the tears were hugeungous. (Yeah it IS a word! HA! Well spell checker didn't catch it anyway... hehehe)

So the issue of the week happens to be water: l'eau, agua, wasser, acqua, woda, apa, voda, vepo. (Say that 3 times with a beat & it could be a song!) OK, I can handle the water part. We'll just have to see what it turns into next week. I can't wait!

Banks

There are a few business that really 'tweak my hide'. Car dealers. Their job is to screw you & you are to enjoy it & then brag about it to your friends and family so they can go to the same dealer and get screwed too. There are others - I'm certain I'll eventually discuss them all, but today the victim is: BANKS.

Yes, banks.

When you make an error on any account at a bank, you are immediately charged fees of any and every sort & interest on top of it all. However, when a bank makes an error on your accounts, nothing. You MAY get a 'Sorry' - but only if you're lucky. And that would be the best-case scenario. Why can't we charge fees back to the banks for their errors? If they were charged for errors, I'd bet their errors would decrease and WE would be much happier people.

Let's look at a few scenarios that have happened to us. We are currently in house #3. 3rd mortgage through the same bank. I won't name names, but if you call or email me I will tell you who it is. The bank is a well-known national bank that doesn't happen to be in financial distress at the moment - as far as the public is aware of anyway. OK, so back to the mortgages. Each and every one of these mortgages, once taxes were added in (all were new buildings, so 1st year taxes were only on the lot), were done WRONG. All were short. So it's the "Oops" letter - 'your mortgage is going up $XXX/mo. until the difference is made up.' Then after the difference was made up another letter arrives "Oops - we over charged you." Seriously. What is this crap? ALL 3 HOUSES. And isn't it sad that we will now expect this behavior from our bank in the future and actually PLAN for it? How crazy is this?

So let's look at another bank issue. Refinancing. We had a responsible 5 year arm that expired last year and with rates that are currently very low, we are looking at refinancing. If you are 1 of those people who really need to refinance, you can do this without closing costs, but your interest rate will be higher to compensate. Now, exactly, how does this really help those people who need to refinance? We'll give them a break here, but screw them there. Nice. I am not opposed to banks making money - but let's be responsible here. You actually WANT people to make their payments, so you better not be hitting them up too hard Mr. Bank-man.

Here's another thing. And this is a HUGE issue for me because I think it is a huge scam-ola. When you refinance a home - should you really need to re-do a title search? It's been done the last time when you bought the darn house. If something would have come up, you would have known about it since you've been living in the home for 'x' number of YEARS. Come on people, gimmie a break. And those are not the only 'fees' and 'services' tacked onto the end. They're all similar to the title search and all redundant crapola that adds up to anywhere from $500-$1,000. Well in this house, and in most houses in America today, that isn't small potatoes.

Bank people take note - if you are refinancing a home for people who make their payments on time and aren't late - you really should re-asses all the paperwork crapola 'required' for the refinance gig. There should be something for responsible behavior for heaven's sake. Oh, that's right. We're getting a better rate.

Sheesh, poor trees.

We made it

Through what? "Winter break", of course.

Tomorrow K1 goes back to school, and I must say, the last 2 weeks have been great. Which was definitely unexpected. Day 3 didn't start out so well. Day 3 you say? Yes, Day 3. I put an ad hoc system into place that worked magnificently. And only had to use it on Day 3. 3 warnings and you're in your room by yourself until supper. She was at 2 warnings at 8:30am and stayed that way the rest of the day. Of course the warnings could have been taken away with excellent behavior. We had good behavior though and for that I won't argue.

The rest of the 1st week, behavior was rather well controlled by the threat of waiting longer to open gifts, or taking gifts away. It's hard, and it isn't like we would have really followed through with it (which just means it was a very bad threat to make as a parent.) But it worked. Probably only works on young kids. So we'll just have to keep that one in mind unless we really are ready to follow through on that one.

So what worked on week 2? Well, we weren't around for a few days - got about 15" of snow visiting in-laws and decided the icy roads weren't worth it w/3 small kids to get home so H could get to work. H did get to work the next day. But the Ks and I just ended up playing. Its so great watching little kids play in the snow. K2 was up to his theighs. Of course he couldn't use the tracks he already had made. He always had to make new ones. Boy did he sleep good that night!

So now its only January and the mere thought of taking down Christmas decorations makes me sad. I've got about 2 weeks here. Drives me nuts that people don't leave their stuff up longer. Technically it is the Christmas season NOW. Not in November. Drive around now and it takes a bit before you see a tree lit up. Ours is lit from the time its dark out until I go to bed. From the Friday after Thanksgiving, until I absolutely HAVE to take it down. I hate taking them down. The house looks naked. Even if I leave snowman decor up for another month. It helps, but there isn't a twinkling tree in the corner. If I had clear lights on my tree, I'd consider making it a Valentine tree and redecorate the darn thing. Huh. Maybe next year! I could have the kids start making decorations this year. This could be fun. Then we could make it an St. Patrick's Day tree - not a drop of Irish blood in this house. But as they say, on St. Pats day, EVERYONE is Irish! Cheers! Then it could be an Easter Tree. But after that, I'm afraid it'd have to come down. Darn it all anyway. But you know, I think that'd be enough to get me through my 'funk' and into spring past the cabin fever that inhabits this part of the country. This needs more thought. We'll see what else I can come up with.

It's heeeerrrreeee....

I am referring to the terrible twos. K3 has officially entered the realm of trouble maker. Yea. I'm soooooo excited.

First the good part. She's too young to lie. I hear her into something she isn't supposed to be into:
"Where are you?"
"What."
"Are you being naughty?"
"Yep."
"Come here."
"OK."

Pretty simple, really. For now anyway. Then there's the other scenario that happens a few times daily.
"Are your pants stinky?"
"Yep."
"OK, let's go change your diaper."
"Nope. RUN!!"
And it's off the the races for a few minutes. At least she's straight forward about it - like I said, she can't lie....yet. I don't recall when the older siblings 'teach' that one. It'll be here all too soon, I am certain of that.

Now the bad part.

We'll be there, in trouble-maker mode, for a good 18 to 24 mos. Yeah, 'they' don't tell you that part when you 'sign up' for parenthood. Terrible twos isn't 12 mos. long. It starts early and ends late. And why don't 'they' tell you this? It isn't like we wouldn't sign up anyway. But lets just be a bit more honest about it, shall we?

It stinks.

It's funny. I'll be needing to beef up my stoic face because I just burst out into laughter all too easily when I'm not supposed to. For me, truly, it's best if I just turn around and hide my face. I'd best get ready.

And the good part for you? You'll be hearing all about it right here. So fasten your seat belts - 2009 should be a good ride!