Great Deals

Today my mother-in-law and I took the children on a trip to "look for deals." We went to Deseret Industries (DI) first. The problem I have with DI is that most of the stuff there is total C-R-A-P. And they want to much money for it-- it's like the people that do the pricing have never been to a real store where things are actually new. There are occasional good deals to be found, however. Like our built-like-a- Buick, orange, $35 hide-a-bed, for example. Love it-- great for guests. Another example-- I was making a casserole for a friend and I didn't want her to have to worry about cleaning the dish and getting it back to me, so I bought a glass casserole dish for $1. Smart. Today I bought two wicker baskets for S's room. $3 total. Great deal.

Next we went to Ross. We were looking for a picture or a mirror for our family room. I found a non-offensive, not-too-exciting-but-still-lovely, picture of a flower which will look great with the other pictures I wanted to hang there. $8.99. I did good today!

Work Poos

I thought this was funny. It's the text of an e-mail (memo to the crew) my husband was sent at work. He is a computer games programmer.

"As some of you have astutely pointed out, the lone bathroom in our office does not have a fan. Because of this and the fact that we have +35 people, we are having to implement an Olfactory Preservation Program (Otherwise known as a "No Dookie" rule).

What does this entail, you might ask? It's fairly simple: if in the course of using the restroom, you believe you might leave a stench that will offend someone after you leave, please go out and use the public restrooms around the corner from the elevators (go down a floor if it is really bad ;). These restrooms have industrial fans, marble-like tile, almost guaranteed no-waiting and great smelling soap...what more could you ask for?

Follow this simple guideline and everyone will be happy. Fail to do so and I will authorize Marty and Trevor to drag your sorry excuse for a non-house-broken developer out to the public restrooms and give you a swirly so that you can familiarize yourself with the restroom you should have used.

If any of this is unclear to you, please come see me. I will be more than happy to spell this out for you in more explicit terminology. =)

We all thank you for your compliance,

Matt"

My husband was glad about this memo, since the respective loo is right next to his office.

Things are looking up.

Today was a great day for Barefoot Books and me.

My friend Andrea hosted a party for me and it went wonderfully. I even booked another event.

When I placed my order today, I realized that I had earned back my initial investment.

Whoo-hoo. Whoo-hoo. Whoo-hoo.

Now I can sign up to do Creative Memories.

Confessions

Well, people, it's Monday morning. Confession time. Here are a couple of things I bet you didn't know about me:

1. I like cottage cheese.
I don't LOVE it. But I like it. It's a pretty good breakfast when combined with fruit from a can, it goes well in casseroles, and on salads. There I said it. I like it.

2. I am OCD when it comes to the way I load my dishwasher.
Prince Charming hates loading the dishwasher because he knows I will come in and rearrange everything to the way I feel is correct.

3. I wish more people would read and comment on my blog.
There it's out. I blame myself. I'm not all that willing to take the time to read and comment on tons of blogs, so why would anyone else?

4. I want a puppy
Yes, I want a dog. More than I want another child, I want a puppy. Sort of. I don't want to clean up dog poos, but I want one all the same.

Well, that's it for today. I guess you'll have to wait until next week to see what I fess up to next.

Hot pink dinos

So I saw a fannypack today. Hot pink, nonetheless. (Oh, yeah, and we went to the dinosaur park in Ogden, too-- the true highlight of the day.) When was the last time you saw a fannypack? In use? As I was contemplating this little marvel, I noticed that the woman's daughter also had one. (Hers was purple). And then not but a few minutes later, I saw another woman (totally unaffilliated with pinky pack) also wearing a fanny pack. Hers was leather, however. But she was wearing tapered jeans.

Yeah, so the dinosaur park was fun. My dad is in town and me and the hub took him and the kids up to Ogden, Utah. It's really quite cool-- this big park filled with giant fakey dinosaurs. It was good fun. I am glad we went-- I just wished I hadn't been so tired. Those people never did go back to bed, you know.

What is wrong with these people?

Why is it that now that it is darker earlierin the evening and darker for longer in the morning that the children have recently decided that 5:00 am is a good time to awaken?

This is going to be an angry blog.

It is 7:00 am Saturday morning. As I type my children are upstairs in their rooms bawling their brains out. They (and their parents, consequently) have been awake since 5:30. Why? Heaven only knows. S woke up and wanted to nurse. Fine. She nursed, we put her back in her crib and she started crying 15 minutes later and hasn't stopped since. E got in our bad and wanted milk. Fine. We gave him milk, he stayed in our bed, then asked for more. Fine. We gave him more. He is now in his own room asking for more flipping milk.

Every time S stops crying, E starts up and vice versa.

What is wrong with these people? Why do they not value sleep in the same obsessive way that I do? It doesn't help that, against my better judgment, I stayed up past 11 playing Tiger Woods golf withMike and my dad (who's visiting-- nice night to sleep over, eh?). But that is beside the point. I now have gotten less than 6 hours of sleep (I need 9 or 10) and my kids are still screaming. Full throttle, by the way. Top of the lungs crying. These are not tiny whimpers, people. Giving in to them at this point would be useless. E has already proven that milk does not help him go back to bed, and I am pretty sure S just wants to get up. Not. Going. To. Happen.

It's 7:09. They are still at it. I just may win the award for worst mother of the year if this goes on much longer.

Here is something funny I found in our kitchen the other day:

Looks like E just stepped out of his socks and took off!

Also, I found myself saying this yesterday:

"Only poo-poo, pee-pee, and paper go in the toilet. And sometimes vomit. But never spoons or forks or hands. And we certainly never put a fork in our mouth that has been in the toilet!"

I am living with irrational people (aka toddlers) who need these kind of reminders.

Stephanie Needs

Having done the search "Stephanie needs" (try it with your own name) that Kathryn suggested on Google, this is what I cam up with:

1. Stephanie needs a strong manly shoulder to lean on. Stephanie needs the help of
kennel clubs and concerned citizens in her quest to protect

2.Stephanie needs cash-fast-but times are tough

3.Stephanie needs Ranger's savvy and expertise

4.Stephanie needs to be in a family where there are no other children or animals

5. I think Stephanie needs to post some of the "Excel Sonnets" Who's with me?

6.Stephanie needs to just stop asking him for favors

and my personal favorite:

7.Stephanie's Why She Needs Rhinoplasty Surgery Cyberbeggar, Epanhandler Page

Boy Parts

My oldest child, E, is a boy. My parents, who had no sons, and sisters were ecstatic upon learning his gender during my pregnancy. My husband put up the ultrasound pictures on the internet with a red circle around his "boyness." I started looking at kids books about trucks and cars, and secretly longed to be able to buy the books about Barbie and My Little Pony.

But really it's been great. I love that he is a boy. Boys are fun. When baby boys pee without a diaper on, it hits the wall, and sometimes gets you in the face.

This brings me to today's topic. I grew up in a penis-free household (can you read that without laughing, I couldn't) as my parents had divorced and I lived with my mom and my sister. So, I will be the first to admit, that I am a bit ignorant on the proper protocol in dealing with this male body part. When Ethan was a baby, I would laugh when I changed his diaper at what I affectionately called his "teenie weenie penie." Mike tried to put an end to this by telling me he didn't want Ethan to have any kind of confusion. He didn't want boys on the playground to say, "I have a (fill in your penis name of choice here)" and Ethan to say, "What? I don't have one of those!" But his plan was to no avail and soon he too was calling E's part a "penie." (But he refused to add teenie weenie).

Well, out of respect to my husband, after Ethan outgrew his infancy, I started using the proper term for the boyness. ( Although I still giggled when he would fiddle with it in the tub.) Recently, on some crude whim, I have started calling it a wiener. Ethan has also adopted this term for it. One night in the bath, this is the conversation that occurred:

E: This is my wiener
Mike: No, E, it's a penis.
E.: Not a penis! Wiener!
Me: (Giggles)
Mike: No, it's a penis.
E: (Really mad) NO PENIS! WIENER!
Me: (hysterical laughter)
Mike: (shuts door on me) See what you're teaching him?

I laugh now as I type this. Yesterday at his well child visit the doctor tried to look "down there" and he said, "No, that's my wiener!" I just thought it was funny.

So at our house it's a wiener. My friend Andrea, who is from Australia, calls it a winky. A rose by any other name... we all know what it is. Even the proper name can cause the giggles, so does it really matter how we label it?

Pumpkin Service, Please

Many of my neighbors have recently gotten into the Halloween spirit by decorating their front porches and doorsteps. In an attempt to be festive (and keep up appearances) I bought a $5 scarecrow from Big Lots. By itself it looked silly, so I decided to buy some pumpkins to go with it. At Target, they had pumpkins for $3 a piece, which I thought was a bit steep, so I only bought one. The checkout lady gave me a coupon for a dollar off, so the pumpkin ended up being $2. Great deal.

That was Monday- I have been to Target two more times since then, but did not buy any pumpkins. I thought I could get cheaper pumpkins at the local nursery/fruit stand in Centerville, so today that is where we went. Ethan and Serena loved it. They were sitting on the pumpkins and just going nuts-- fun for them. For me, however, my great deal was not to be found. When the kid that worked there finally came up to greet us, I told him we wanted to get some pumpkins and asked him how much they were. I am not convinced that this kid was not on crack. He says, "Well, some of them are marked, and we base the price on size and appearance. Like this one, (a giant green pumpkin) is $24.50." Hmmm. "This one, since it has no stem is $1." That sounds good.

So I find two reasonable looking pumpkins, one has no stem, so I assume it will be a great deal. So while this green-shirted, lazy, eighteen or nineteen year-old kid goes and slumps in a chair by the cash register, I leave my children unattended and carry my pumpkins, one at a time, about 200 feet to where he is . He rings me up. One pumpkin is $3. The no stemmer is $2.75. Big savings, eh? So feeling thoroughly ripped off, but happy to have my pumpkins, I leave the pumpkins on the table to go take a quick look at their trees. The kid does not offer to help me.

When I come back he is still lounging there, and I ask if I can use one of their carts to take my pumpkins. He says yes, and starts messing with his cell phone. What service! What a fine pumpkin salesman! Did he not see that I had two very independent children transport to my car as well as the two pumpkins I had purchased? Apparently not. Perhaps it was his ball cap and his drug-induced haze that clouded his vision. I don't know, but I am certainly getting sick of these kids and their crappy attitudes and lack of customer service skills. I could go on and on about that topic, but that's a blog for another day.

Results: I got my pumpkins. I am semi-happy. Conclusion: I should have bought a pumpkin a day at Target, but in the end, the result is the same. I now have a mildly festive doorstep.

Tip Day Tuesday: Outside Help

Kathryn suggested we post useful tips about how we use outside help to make life easier. I myself don't use outside help that much, but here are some thoughts:

1. Find someone with kids around your kids' same age to swap babysitting with. This is great, because it helps out your friend, and you don't have to pay a sitter.

2. This doesn't involve outside help, but does make life easier. I often only cook three or four nights a week because I "plan" for leftovers. I make twice as much, or just the regular recipe amount depending on your family size and then eat it again the next night, either warmed up or in a new form. For example, we might have spaghetti one night, and then the next night have a noodle and red sauce casserole. It saves money and time-- and the hassle of planning!

That's it for me. Is today even Tuesday?

Addiction

I think I am officially addicted to the internet. This is a problem as, to coin a phrase from Strong Bad, "The internet is a place where absolutely nothing happens." I can really spend a lot of time on the internet-- checking e-mail, reading blogs, shopping for things I don't need... Some days I would say I log on to the internet up to 10 times. Most days I do about 5.

It's not a good addiction. It doesn't make me feel good to get on the internet, I often feel worse for having logged on. In fact, it's very possible that my self-esteem is somehow linked to whether or not I have email. I am trying to break myself of this habit. I need to limit myself to once a day. But this becomes a problem, since I rationalize that since it's been multiple hours since I logged on, that I must have more e-mail. Not so, my friends. And thus my self-esteem plummets.

Anyway. If anyone has any ideas on how I can save myself from this plague, let me know.

Tiny Violins

So my mom has been here this weekend. I think I have been the happiest and most content that I have been in a long time. I am kind of dried up as far as semi-interesting things to blog about. Not much time to ponder quirky thoughts when trying to spend quality time with a person you don't see very often.

I get so jealous of the girls whose moms live close by. They get to see their moms whenever they want, and their moms can even babysit. I almost kind of resent them, and sometimes don't like them. Why? Because they have what I want. Isn't that terrible? What kind of person am I?

I'll tell you what kind of person I am. I am a person who needs deep meaningful friendships in a place where I don't have my mommy nearby and no friends who I can call when I'm crying. I am making friends, and there are people here that I like-- but time is what makes friendships close, and I haven't been here that long. Okay, I am stopping now. I'm starting to depress myself. Can you hear the tiny violins?

Kitchen Item

Kathryn (and also Blackbird) had a post about the kitchen item she could not live without. As I thought about the kitchen item that would cause my sudden death were it to leave me, I struggled. If my entire kitchen were to vanish, I would probably still survive in this world of ours. But then my mind recalled an event from the previous evening.

I was making rice. I had already put 1 cup of rice into the pan of boiling water and I needed another half of a cup, but we were out. Well, we still had some of our food storage rice. Our food storage rice was in a big white container that looked like this:



Now for those unfamilar with food storage, let me just say that these are not the easiest types of bins to open. I called my husband and asked him how to open it. No clue. I did what I thought I was supposed to do to open it--I took a screwdriver and went around trying to break each of the little notches where the lid said "break here to open." I tried this several times. It absolutely was not working to the point that I was practically injuring myself. Now keep in mind that this is all while most of the rice is already on the stove cooking and Serena is sitting on the floor screaming, wanting me to open some bottled water for her to make a mess with. I am beginning to think that should we need our food storage, in an emergency or something, we are all going to starve. So I got pretty frustrated as I really needed that last half cup of rice quick if I didn't want to ruin the dinner's rice. So our rice bin now looks like this:



So, even though it is very boring, and not exciting, the kitchen item that I cannot live without is this:

Their name is Mud

Is it right to publishes 2 posts in one day? Within moments of each other? I just have to get this out so that my adoring fan can enjoy it all.

We had a muddy day today.

It rained a lot yesterday, and since our backyard is all dirt, today it was all mud. Why I decided to take them out in this, I don't know. It must have been the pleasurable, I mean the playgroup, that frazzled my brain. Anyway, so we are outside, and I decide to walk around the house to go in the garage and get the shovel, thinking ever so foolishly that my children will stay and wait for me. So as I am coming back from the garage, I see that Serena has trudged through the VERY muddy part along the side of our house where the sun hardly shines. Her shoes are caked. Well, at least one of them is. The other is about 10 feet behind her stuck in the mud. So she is not only very muddy, but shoeless to boot. Then Ethan follows up the same way she came, only he is crying because it is hard to walk where she has been. Duh, she lost a shoe!

So, I get the hose. My shoes are now caked with mud as well. I do not know how I am going to get back in the house without making a mess. (Did I mention that I mopped my floor two days ago for the first time in weeks?) I wash off my bare feet, leave the hose running, step on a cloth diaper (they're great!) and run upstairs to get a towel. My toddlers are yes, still outside. And having a good time too! Serena is now sitting in a mud puddle and Ethan is doing something else muddy. So I get them on our cement "patio" and go in to get a bucket of warm water. Yes, the hose is still on. When I come back Serena is spraying herself.

I sit down Ethan, and remove his shoes and wet pants. Into the bucket he goes. Onto the towel. I sit down Serena. Off come her shoes and ALL of her clothes. Into the bucket. She is up to her diaper, and Ethan comments that she is "sitting down." This should have triggered something in my mind, but no, I take her out of the bucket, leave them unattended and go up for some clean clothes for Serena. When I come down I hear a big sploosh, as Ethan "sits" in the bucket. He is rather upset when I take the bucket away.

So that was pretty much it. It's really quite funny when I think about it. They are so dear, and so mischievous together. I love 'em to pieces. I'm still not ready to have another one though. I saw a cute four month old baby today at the playgroup and all I could think of when I looked at her was how much work she must be. I thought of sleepless nights and not being able to get anything done and I shuddered.

So tonight I've been spraying off muddy shoes in the sink, prying out mud chunks with a screwdriver and then drying the shoes with a hairdryer. And writing two too many blog entries. Fun for me.

Little Devil

I wonder about Ethan sometimes. He has a bit of a dark side-- a sometimes delightedness in the sadness of others, and a lack of remorse for his own wrongdoing. For example, we had a playgroup today and one little girl was very, very upset. (She didn't want to share). Her mom took her over by the front door to do a little "discipline," when Ethan runs over to me, his face full of glee, and says, "She's going home!" Then at the end of the playgroup, one little boy fell and hit his head and started to cry. Ethan looks up at him, and while smiling, says "Carston is sad."

Later Ethan decided to push his little sister. I sent him to his room-- he screamed and cried, but dutifully went. When the time out was over, our conversation went like this:

Me: Do you know why you went to your room?

E: Yes.

Me: Why did you go to your room?

E: (matter of factly) I pushed Serena.

Me: (Surprised that he understands) And do we push Serena?

E: Yes.

Me: Tell Serena that you aren't going to push her anymore.

E: (after looking at me like he knows he shouldn't lie) Serena, I not push you anymore.

I just wonder about him sometimes. The other day I noticed that he has stopped eating the crust on his sandwiches. I don't know if he does it because he does not like them, or because he has noticed that his mommy is guilty of leaving the crusts on her plate. Hard to say.

In other news, I just ran the spell check on this blog. It didn't recognize the word playgroup, and thought that perhaps I should replace it with the word pleasurable. Hmmmm....

Book party complaints

I recently signed up to be one of those people that does home-parties, trying to sell things to my friends and neighbors. The choice I have made is to sell children's books. Beautiful children's books that are fun to read, and draw their inspiration from other cultures. Tonight at my home, I had the second of these "home parties." The first one, my debut, I thought turned out okay. Of all my friends and neighbors, four people came. But everyone bought a couple books and I sold about $130 worth of books. Not great, not bad.

Tonight pretty much stunk.

I can say that without fear since the people that came to my event don't read this blog. Or anyone else really, for that matter.

So after shooting for ten people by calling 20, I got four guests. I couldn't give my presentation because I initially had 2 people show up, and numbers 3 & 4 came later. Only two people ordered anything.

Okay, now understand, I myself have a bit of hard time buying into these kind of businesses. (Makes you wonder why I signed on, eh?) I don't really like asking people to buy stuff from me. "Buy this book, so I get dough," just doesn't have the right ring to it. "You don't need it, and probably haven't budgeted for it, but buy it anyway," also makes me a little uncomfortable. It would be much easier if they were strangers. I could pry the money out of the hands of unknowns. The problem is, I invited people who are more or less, like me. If I went to one of these parties, for example, I would have spent, well maybe less than they did, if I could manage it. $10, max. And I probably wouldn't want to host one either-- but no, maybe I would because you can earn free books if you do. Yeah, no one wants to host either. They all say that they like to come to parties, but not host them. Well, if no one hosts, no parties will happen.

I didn't even make enough money on this party to cover the shipping. I can't order this stuff until I have another party, or I will LOSE money on tonight's festivities. I mean, I made like $8. Considering all the planning and phone calls I made, not to mention the actual party itself-- to quote Napoleon Dynamite- that's like a dollar an hour.

So I ask myself, am I an idiot?

No. I am not, because you know what? Even if I don't earn my money back, and never make a profit, I still have $300 worth of beautiful books that my kids love and that I love, and I only paid $125 for them. And I am enjoying this difficult business. It gives me something to do, and I love filling out order forms and delivering orders. (I'm sick, just like the people who love the taste of envelope glue or the smell of tape.) It's helping me step out of my comfort zone and forcing me to talk to people who may reject me. I am learning from it. So it's good. Tonight made me want to cry, but I am okay. I'm fine.

Oh, what was I thinking?

Cookie Triumph

Today was a great day.

Maybe it's because we started off with family scripture study and prayer. Whatever the reason, for being a pretty average day, it was a dang good day.

At the top of the day's events were some pretty near-perfect chocolate chip cookies that I baked myself. From scratch. In the past I have been fairly chocolate-chip-cookie-making-challenged: my cookies either turn out very flat or very burnt. This is probably because I have a set of air-bake cookie sheets that I love, but are inappropriate for chocolate chip cookies. Using the air- bakes creates flat cookies that take a long time to bake. So when I switch from air-bakes to regular cookie sheets mid-cookie making session, I don't adjust the cooking time, and thus get burnt cookies, in addition to my too-flat cookies.

Today's cookies, however, were close to perfection.

I forsook my beloved air-bake sheets and went with the jelly-roll type cookie sheet. The first batch was beautiful. Fairly uniform in size, not too flat, not too round and golden brown. (Yes, truly golden brown, I wept with joy.) I kept the same cooking time with the second, third and fourth batches. All beautiful. It was a wonderful moment. They tasted great too, and since I had used the reduced fat, reduced calorie recipe you can imagine how I felt. (No, you cannot taste the difference. Seriously.) So now today can officially go down in the history books as the day that Stephanie Marie Smith overcame her cookie-making retardedness. Hallelujah, I have arrived.

In Praise of Cloth Diapers

Do not be deceived by the title of this entry. My kids wear disposable diapers because they keep their bums dry, I don't want to pay a diaper service and I sure as heck don't want to be standing over the toilet shaking poos off of cloth diapers on a regular basis.

That said, I love cloth diapers. They have so many uses. For the environment friendly types, they can be used as well, a diaper. For anyone else with a baby, they are burp rags in the early months. They are also good for cleaning. For me, they are great for soaking up pee off of the carpet.

Ethan can hold his pee in for up to 5 hours or more. This means that when has an "accident" (or rather, an "on purpose") he really has an accident. He holds it in until he can hold it no longer and once started, he cannot stop. (This is really embarassing when he does it at other people's homes.) Anyway. You get the point. Lots of pee. So I need something ultra-absorbent to soak it all up out of my carpet. What better than something originally intended for holding in lots of pee? They work great, yes cloth diapers are the best. They get an A+ in the reinvention department.

Hold onto your butts (and your nose)

The first thing Serena did yesterday morning was dump out the box of the Game of Life.

I have a confession to make-- I have a smelly bathroom. Well, I did, until this morning. I mean, I still have the bathroom, but the smell is gone because I cleaned EVERYTHING. But, as I am fairly certain the smell will return, I feel honest in making this confession. The smell in there was so bad that I hadn't even used the bathroom one day, and my husband said, "what did you DO?" It was bad.

I guess I always naively believed that I would never have a smelly bathroom. That smelly bathrooms were something that other people had. Stinky people. Naughty people. People who don't drink enough water. Having been in a few smelly bathrooms before, I wondered how they got to be so stinky, and even though I now have my own smelly bathroom to speak of, I am still unenlightened as to the origins of the odors. I clean my bathroom once a week, so I don't know why it smells so bad. Maybe it's because it's a half bath, or maybe kid pee just really stinks. Poor ventilation? Diapers? Stink phantoms? I wish I knew.

So after I got the bathroom cleaned, I watched the Saturday sessions of General Conference. They were really good. Made me feel more grateful for everything we have--especially the Gospel. We have food, clothes, good health, children-- you name it, we got it. And even though lately, I have been wishing we had more money so I could do more decorative things to our house, I felt really blessed that we even have a house. Even if it does have one mysteriously smelly bathroom.