How we spent the evening...

(well, about a half hour of it)
We were under a tornado warning tonight -- with a radar tracking it right over our neighborhood. John pulled Caroline out of her bed, and I set up the powder bathroom floor with pillows for all of us. Caroline slept through the whole thing!

Friday Night Videos

Two commercials that made me laugh-out-loud.

Glad Force Flex Bags

The Most Sophisticated Technology

Drugstore Deals

Walgreens:
I got all this for $1.78!!

Walgreens has a deal this week -- buy 3 of certain items, get $4 in Register Rewards; buy 4, get $6; buy 5 to 8, get $10; buy 9 or more; get $20. The Ivory bar soap is not part of the deal but is on sale for .99. I had coupons for everything else!

Cascade -- 2 for $5 plus $1 off two coupon
Charmin wipes -- $1.99 (Walgreens coupon)
Covergirl Nail Polish (all CG, buy one, get one 50% off at Walgreens) plus $2.50 off two coupon
Crest Pro Health 2 for $5 (I bought one) plus $3 off coupon
Swiffer 2 for $7 plus $1 off two coupon

There are lots more items included on the list plus coupons for many of those items.

CVS:
I didn't find as many *great* CVS deals this week, but there are some nice treats.

Physicians Formula OrganicWear makeup is on sale buy one, get one 50% off. Since I just decided to reduce the parabens I'm putting on my body, this was great timing! Not cheap, but something I wanted anyway.

Whitman's Sampler (normally 8.99) is on sale for $3.99 with your CVS card. Today's paper has a $2 off coupon.

From my garden

It is so cool for me to write that -- my garden!

I've tried planting things -- bell peppers, tomotoes -- in the past, but they grew to be the size of my thumb. This year, John made me a really nice garden area, and I've planted the usual bell peppers and cucumbers, but I added some spinach, lettuce, and spring mix. Honestly, I had no idea that spring mix grew all together. I just thought that bag I'd sometimes buy was a mixture of several *different* plants. When my spring mix started growing, I was so excited. It actually looked like something you'd eat. (The peppers and cucumber aren't nearly there yet.)

This evening, I cut some of my spring mix and made a little salad for our dinner (I did have to supplement with some bagged salad, too, but the picture is all from my garden.)

I am learning the ways of the dirt, though. I clipped the veggies, washed them off, and patted them dry. Then I put them in a bowl and snapped this picture. After that, I discovered a tiny little inchworm creaping along the leaves. Since I had planned a different protein for our dinner, I soaked the leaves in water to drown any other living creatures before rinsing and patting dry again.

Drugstore Deals

This is a tricky week, in a good way, as the monthly sales are ending and starting in addition to new weekly deals. At Walgreens, you can use both the April and May EasySaver deals until tomorrow, 4/28. At CVS, the May deals will start on the 1st, so you can wrap up your April deals this week.

Here are some high points:
Walgreens
Con-Agra foods, buy $10, get a $5 rebate (May)
* I bought
--2 Orville Redenbacker popcorns for $5
-- 3 Hunt's Snack-Pack pudding 4 packs for $3
-- 4 cans Butterball chicken broth for $2

Reynolds Wrap aluminum foil is on sale 4 for $3. I am waiting on some coupon trades to arrive in the mail early this week for $.55 of each, making them 20 cents per roll.

April Deal ending this week -- free after rebate on Colgate 360 toothbrush + $1/off coupon in today's paper = $1 profit

CVS
The Softsoap deal has changed up a bit -- a bigger size and price, still free after ECB. There is a dollar coupon in today's paper, making for a $1 profit.

All (brand) detergents are buy one, get one. I am stocked up on detergent, but I peeked at the shelf anyway. The Small & Mighty free and clear had a tag for $1.59 (normal price is 6.49). That can't be right, I thought, but I stuck two in my basket. I had a $1/off coupon, too! I had the checker verify the price before she started scanning, and sure enough, on clearance for $1.59 minus my $1 coupon. Now, I did not get the second one free. Sure, I could have complained and had her fix that, but I felt like it was a good deal -- 4 cents / load, compared to my price point of 13 cents/load. If any are left tomorrow, I'll get two more and see if they'll honor the buy one get one since I don't have another coupon.

The CVS generic of Neosporin with pain-relief is on for buy two (3.99 each) get $5 in ECB. I need one for my purse now that skinned knee season is upon us, so I bought those and got my ECB.

Links
I've found two sites really helpful in planning ahead and getting ideas for savings:
Hot Coupon World and Slick Deals (forum). Check those out. For next week, I'll gather some links to my favorite frugal bloggers.

Friday Night Videos

I don't get to watch much SNL these days, but the Jeopardy parodies were fabulous. Funny or Die has them. (If you haven't seen the Landlord video on Funny or Die, check that out, too.)

Drugstore Deals

CVS has improved upon their Speedstick deal from earlier this month, now offering it free after ECBs. I plan to get a few more later this week.

Walgreens April Easy Saver has a $5 rebate on a $10 purchase of Garnier products. I has several $2/off coupons plus an in-store $2/off coupon on hair color. I bought one hair color (7.99 - 2 coupon - 2 coupon = 3.99) and one hair conditioning masque (3.99 - 2 coupon = 1.99) Total out-of-pocket after $5 rebate = $.98)

My best deals this week are not from the drugstores, though, but from HEB.

(good only until 4/22, so hurry!)
Diet Coke (and other coke products) 12 packs
3 for $11
in-store coupon for buy 3 12 px, get a 24 px free
That makes 5 12 px for $11
GREAT DEAL (and if you sign up for mycokerewards, you're halfway to a free 12 pack with this purchase.)

Feline Pine Cat Litter (one of our two choice brands) is $4.99. There is a $3 in-store coupon, making it $1.99. There's also a mail-in rebate. I'll save that for a non-coupon purchase, though.

Friday Night Videos

I managed to remember to post videos two weeks in a row. :-) Here are some funnies for this week.

IT'S RAINING MCCAIN


And Colbert Report News Flash: White Men to Decide this Election
So, we get the EdWords from John Edwards on how to get the white male vote
(Since we don't have cable, I don't get to watch the Colbert Report much, but we were at a hotel last night and I got to watch and enjoy.)

Workout Update

Last week, my gym offered a free class on fitness and nutrition, and they were raffling off some personal training sessions. I'm a lucky girl on stuff like that, so I figured I'd go, maybe learn something, maybe get something for free. Well, honestly, I didn't learn anything and I didn't win, either. They did offer a discounted rate on their training, though, so I gave in to the marketing pressure and hired a personal trainer for twelve sessions. I've been working out for a couple of months now, and I'm just not feeling as fabulous as I did that first week or so. I think I've just been going through the motions without pushing myself. I met with my trainer today. She started with the measurements, and let me just say, OHMYGOSHDOIEVERNEEDTOGETMYBUTTINGEAR! The truth is humiliating!

Anyway, I'll be sore tomorrow, I know. My plan is to go with two sessions a week with her, at least for the first few weeks. I may stretch it to once a week after a few gos if I want to make the twelve session last a bit longer.

Drugstore Deals versus Costco Stock-up

I remember one of the first tips I read about couponing / bargain shopping was to have a target price list for the things you regularly buy. I know I already mentioned that it's important NOT to be brand loyal, but I do have a few things I prefer to be loyal on. Diet Cokes -- that's a must. Charmin toilet paper is strongly preferred. Bounty paper towels are preferred but are not a must. And my detergent must be stink-free -- I don't care what brand, but it must not have scents and dyes. (It is amazing how I didn't even notice the smells until I switched to scent-free. Now, I occasionally fine other people's clothing offensive.)

I'm slowly compiling my list, but since I often buy some of these things in bulk at Costco and they do not take manufacturer coupons, I needed to do some research there to determine if CVS / Walgreens / others were offering good deals. So today, while I enjoyed a lovely ladies' luncheon after church, John trudged through Costo with Caroline and my spiral notebook recording a few prices for me. (Thank you! Love you!)

Costco Price
* price to stockpile other sale / coupon deals
------
12 ct. BIG rolls Bounty paper towels................$16.99 (regularly see $2/off cpn)
*less than $1.25 per big roll (YIKES!! We don't use paper towels that often as I try to use washcloths mostly in the kitchen and cloth napkins at meals and rags for cleaning. But still -- I think I'll work on cutting back even more on the paper towels.)

30 rolls Charmin Ultra toilet paper.................$17.99 (regularly see $2/off cpn)
*less than 53 cents per big roll

Kirkland Free and Clear, 96 loads....................$12.99
*anything well below $.135 per load.

Diet Coke (32 12 oz cans) ...........................$ 8.09
*$3 or less per 12-pack

----
Last week, Walgreens had a sale on their Coke products, four for $12 / buy four get $2 register rewards, so I stocked up on diet cokes last week. (yes, I realize if I plan to skimp on paper towels that it would make sense to cut out the diet cokes, and I know I had tried that in the fall. I'm really enjoying my vices for a few months here, so cut me some slack!) Between Walgreens, CVS, and Target, I should be able to get my diet cokes at less than $3/pack anytime.

This week, Walgreens has their All detergents (including Free and Clear, regularly ~$6.50) on sale for $3.99. Plus, if you buy six select Unilever products (including All) you get $6 in Register Rewards, making the detergent $2.99 for a 2x ultra doing 32 loads. That came to $.093 per load, so I bought all they had. :-)

Walgreens is also offering their Charmin Ultra toilet paper (six rolls) 2 / $6. (Bounty is also on sale but didn't work out for a better deal.) I had a coupon for $1 off one pack and another coupon for .25 off one pack. I bought two packs, totalling twelve rolls, for $4.75 after coupon, which came to $.395 per roll. I only bought the two rolls as I only had the two coupons (and I think there was a limit anyway.)

All in all, nothing FREE this week, but some good deals. Oh, and CVS brand diapers and pull-ups are buy one get one free this week. So I got two 26 packs of pull-ups (Caroline still wears one at night, even though she's dry about 1/3 of the time the next morning...maybe we'll be out of pull-ups soon) for $8.99. I like that these just have pictures of little girls and not princesses or other characters, too. Added bonus for Ms. Anti-Marketing-Aimed-at-Tots.

I also used the Walgreens coupon for two Crest toothpastes for $3 and coupled it with a $1 / off two manufacturer coupon I had, getting two toothpastes for .75 each. I have quite a bit of toothpaste here already, so I'm donating those, along with some shampoo and conditioner I got on sale, to a mission our church serves. In my reading about working the CVS/Walgreens deals, I see lots of encouragement to donate your deals because, really, I don't need to stockpile more than a few months worth of stuff, right? :-)

Friday Night Videos

Who knows if I'm cool and savvy enough to do this EVERY week, but *this* week, I have some videos to share.
I love Hillary! (I especially like the part that starts at 4:32) but I realize that we, the press, are a mighy sword.


and

I *heart* Weird Al!


And check out this one, too,"White and Nerdy"

Totally unrelated, I know, but videos that made me laugh a lot and cry a little this week.

What color is your sun?

Watercoloring with Caroline this afternoon, I realized that we all really do see the world differently. I was creating a lovely watercolor landscape (trying to get across the idea of rinsing the brush in the water between colors) when I started to add a sun to my painting. A yellow sun. I narrated as I drew the sun but was quickly cut off with the directive that I should be using orange. The moon is yellow; the sun is orange. Now, I disagree, seeing for myself that the moon is white, and the sun is yellow, but I can see her point. I vividly remember disagreeing with my kindergarten teacher over the color of trees. We were given coloring pages, poorly mimeographed so that the words were hardly legible. Each item on the page was labeled with a color. The label for the tree trunks was totally illegible, save for the first letter B. Well, I knew that one and didn't need to ask for clarification. Tree trunks are black. My teacher disagreed with me (as she so often did. I could probably write a years' worth of blog entries about my kindergarten challenges.) I grew up surrounded by pine trees, which certainly have black trunks. If she wanted brown trunks, she should have made better copies or moved herself somewhere north.

So, I decided not to argue with my daughter about the orange-ness of the sun. And I'll never take away her chair just because she doesn't sit in it or ridicule her for finding a clever shortcut for a ridiculously mundane task1. (But enough of my own K-bitterness.)

1 - In kindergarten, EVERY SINGLE DAY, we had to write our numbers on Big Chief tablets. It just took FOREVER. I just hated writing those numbers, over and over again. One day, I realized what a waste writing the tens digit for all the teens was, since it was the same number over and over,1-0, 1-1, 1-2... and that tens digit was just a line after all. I got out my ruler, drew a line right down the page, and then proceeded to add the second digit to all the teens. Pretty smart, I think. My teacher did not agree.

Drugstore Deals

This week's deal
-- free toothpaste
Location
-- Walgreen's (also right on the corner. right across from the CVS mentioned last week)
Details
-- Aquafresh on sale this week $2 / each
-- had two different coupons on file -- $1 / off Aquafresh Extreme Clean; $1 / Aquafresh Advanced
-- bought one of each
-- Walgreen's is offering an EasySaver mail-in rebate off of one Aquafresh purchase (up to 3.99 value) this month, so at the end of the month, I'll compile this receipt with any other rebate items I buy this month and get my $2 back.

FREE TOOTHPASTE!

Fun with Doll Pins

I try to introduce the upcoming week's Gospel reading to Caroline in some way the prior week, and this week's reading is the walk to Emmaus. As a youth, we had an annual weekend retreat / conference named Hot Hearts after this event (and a quick google search shows that it is still going on.)

Caroline and I used some doll pins I had bought during that Joanne's moving clearance sale months ago and made a few people (or disciples as was our original intent.) The day we made them, I mentioned that I'd need to look online again to figure out how to make them stand on their own as ours were not very stable.

The next day, I told her the story of the men walking and talking about the resurrection, then being joined by Jesus. I had picked out a few heart stickers to give her as I read the part about their "hearts burn(ing) within us." She had the men prance about, and Jesus join them. Then I handed her a heart sticker to put on her shirt. She moved as if to put it on the doll pin, and I told her that would be fine. Then she put it on the bottom of the pin, sticky side up, and told me that "Now he can stand up."

Out of the minds of babes! Why didn't I think of that?

FREE!

I am a non-competative (meaning, not-too-serious) player in the coupon game. I did my $1 one month trial with the Grocery Game to get the gist of the strategies, but I am not a die-hard stock-piler or a coupon-junkie. I must admit, though, that there are weeks that I get the adrenalin rush. AND THIS IS ONE OF THOSE WEEKS!

Softsoap Spa Radiant $4.99 at CVS -- buy one, get $4.99 ECB = FREE -- limit five
I had a coupon for $1.00 off and for $1.50 off

Speed Stick 2 for $5 and get $3 ECB = $1 each
I had coupons for $1.00 off one and $.75 off two

So, the above cost me, minus ECB plus coupons, -$.25. That means I MADE 25 cents buying this stuff! I suppose technically, the gas to the corner may have cost that (but both stops were in route somewhere I was going anyway).

A few tips on making couponing and the drugstores work for you:
-- clip the Sunday coupons every week for any product (regardless of brand) that you might need
-- live near both a CVS and Walgreens (you'll have to make multiple trips to get your ECBs and rebates to work for you.)
-- match your coupons with the drugstore sales fliers
-- don't be brand loyal
-- keep track of what you can get for free or really cheap (and stock up on those items during that time.) According to the Grocery Game, the sales and coupons run with a regular routine, so, for instance, March is the time to stock up on soap and deodorant. Perhaps, April will be shampoo and conditioner, etc. The Grocery Game tracks all of that for you, so it is definitely worth the trial.

HAPPY SHOPPING!

What is in a name?

As parents, we put so much emphasis on the names we choose for our kids. There are some fabulous web sites out there to help with the decisions -- my two favorites being Nymber (where you can input a favorite name and get suggestions of names with a similar style) and NameVoyager (which tracks popularity through the years).

Caroline Joyce's name was chosen because 1) I really like the name Caroline, 2) John's mother's name was Carolyn, and 3) Joyce is a family name passed from both of my grandmothers to my mom (Velda Joyce) to me (Amanda Joyce) and shared by my nieces.

Our names for any hypothetical future children both include names we like (tending to what many consider traditional or classic) and family names.

What has NEVER crossed my mind (because today, I suppose, we'd fix any clerical errors right away) is that my child's name could be influenced by a mistake. Take my grandparents. I mentioned that my middle name and that of my daughter honor my grandmothers -- Joyce Faye and Joyce B. But, if you hear folks talk about my nanny (Joyce B.) you'd distinctly hear them say Joyca B. I asked about that as a child. It seems that my Ma Susan (my great grandma) meant to name my nanny (Joyce B.) Joyca. But the midwives who delivered her goofed up on the paperwork and wrote Joyce. So, her family all still called her Joyca B, but legally, she is Joyce B.

This week, we buried my Paw Paw Jenkins. He's always been Paw Paw to me, but I knew he was called KC by everyone else. Nanny has always called Paw Paw KC. And I knew his name was Carl...Karl...My uncle and cousin share his first name of Carl. It was not until I pulled up his obituary online that I saw that his name was spelled Carl Clayton. How do you get KC from that? Did the paper make a mistake? Maybe the funeral home?

Nope, turns out, it was that midwife, 81 years ago. Grandma Jenkins wanted to name Paw Paw Karl Clayton Jenkins. The midwife filled out the paperwork and wrote Carl Clayton. Well, by the time anyone realized it, they'd been calling the boy KC, so they just continued that. Kinda like Joyca B.

I am amazed that the "legal paperwork" meant so little to these folks so many years ago that they just let it be. I am glad, at least, that they continued to call folks by the name they had intended, though. Is this just a Louisiana thing? I know we like to think Texas is a whole other country and all, but man, Louisiana seems to have its own rules as well.

Spring Cleaning

Spring has sprung! Without really planning the timing, I managed to hit much of my spring cleaning list this week -- the last days of winter and first days of spring and Holy Week, a traditional week for spring cleaning. In reality, I managed to convince my husband to hire someone to clean our windows this weekend, and that was just the motivation we needed to get cleaning. I also had some extra time on my hands since we're off from the preschool co-op this week and have just finished up our music class session.

I am amazed at the details I notice that need to be cleaned now that I am a stay-at-home mom with a pretty independent kiddo. I no longer have the excuse of a newborn, young toddler, pregnancy, etc. I have to have a clean house!)

WINDOWS
-- outsource cleaning of interior and exterior of all windows -- ($100 -- even though they quoted us $80. I made $100 for a one hour web site usability study last week, so it seemed like great use of that cash. Let's see, one hour of my time with a free diet coke in an air-conditioned office in front of a computer versus two adults cleaning my windows for 3 1/2 hours.)
-- dust blinds
-- wash curtains
-- clean screens (some of them...haven't gotten to all yet.)

Outdoors
--start garden (John did the prep work. I just put in the seeds and seedlings. Will we have lettuce, cucumbers, peppers, and strawberries come summer? Or will this be time and money down the drain?)
-- clean front door
-- clean back door (still need to do this...later this week)

Indoors
--wipe down all doors
-- wipe down all baseboards (in progress...finish Thursday and Friday)
-- wipe down all cabinet fronts and top of fridge
-- wipe down all switchplates
-- clean all light fixtures and ceiling fan blades (John did the fans!)
-- clean oven (though I admit it is a self-cleaning oven. It is still work because we need to vacate the house for a couple of hours due to burning plastic smell.)

I don't classify organizational projects (closets and such) in my spring cleaning plan as I tackle those throughout the year. So, what am I missing? Steam-cleaning the carpets, yes, I know. We do plan to install laminate in the rest of the carpeted rooms in the next few months, so that isn't a high priority.

Seeing how quickly most of these little tasks have gone, I wonder if I should just scrap "spring cleaning" and add these details to my housekeeping rotation. I'm torn. It seems easier to tackle all of the ceiling fans at once, when we have the ladder out. And to do all of the exterior windows at once with the supplies. But, the oven, the doors and cabinets, etc. That can all be incorporated in to my regularly scheduled tasks in those rooms. I think I'll leave the windows and light fixtures/ceiling fans for that once a season (who am I kidding, I'm no FlyBaby!) once a year project and just put the other stuff into my regular rotation. (And I absolutely think I'll hire these folks to clean my windows every year! If you want their number, let me know.)

Holy Week 2008

HOLY WEEK IS UPON US! Easter falls early this year, but I am ready! Ready for spring. Ready to begin life anew!

I will confess, our Lenten activities have been hit or miss. Caroline is more interested in playing with the coins than putting them in the Heifer Ark Bank. The coloring book has only been used a bit. And we don't get to the Tree or Lenten Story Board everyday, but Caroline certainly "gets" the stories and remembers them, and she always has a name to offer for a special blessing and ribbon on the tree.

And she enjoys playing with it all. (I do really like the story board, though, so consider that a recommendation. It will last us many years.)

I'm excited to decorate (and clean -- another blog post, I'm sure) the house for spring and have family visit this weekend. Here's our plan:

Saturday (not really Holy Week yet) -- Neighborhood Egg Hunt and Picnic

Palm Sunday -- palms processional with instruments at church; use story board to reenact Jesus riding in to town on donkey with crowd waving palms and crying "Hosanna!"

Monday -- introduce Resurrection Eggs (and leave out for her to play with all week)

Tuesday -- Easter lunch and egg-decorating with friends

Wednesday -- eat Matzo and Charsoseth and discuss Passover and its significance for our Holy Communion

Maundy Thursday -- read story of Jesus's washing disciples' feet and have our own foot washing at home (the church's services are too late for a two-year-old.)

Good Friday -- bake pretzels (reminiscent of arms folded in prayer and of the cross)

Holy Saturday -- bake and decorate cookies; dye more eggs

SUNDAY -- EASTER! Alleluia, He is Risen! -- Easter basket goodies; egg hung at home and at church; feast with family

Stuff

I spent some time this week, once again, rummaging through junk in the storage junk guest room in order to get it ready for guests. This spare room in our house is a necessity since all of our family members live out of town, but it does become the stashing spot during the weeks we aren't expecting guests. Right now, the bed is covered with Easter basket stuff and spring decor. As Caroline and I loaded the CR-V with "stuff" to take to Goodwill, I felt a relief to be getting rid of the things cluttering up this room. Things I had no need for elsewhere in my house but felt, for some reason, that I needed to keep them, just in case I decided I needed or wanted them. Enough! I got rid of the stuff. But, as we dropped the stuff off in the Goodwill drive-thru, I mentioned to Caroline that we should go check out what they have in the store. "Yeah," she said, "We can get more stuff." Then it hit me. We just dropped off this junk, and we certainly don't need more of it. (Of course, we did make a run through of the store, just in case they might have a trivet for my kitchen collection.) I explained to Caroline that, though we often think it does, stuff does not make us happy. In fact, stuff stressed us out--how to keep it clean, where to put it, how much it cost us, etc. I don't know that she was listening, but I was mostly talking for my own benefit.

Then, that night, I read this blog post on Frugal Hacks, a site that I just this week added to my google reader. In quick summary, think of the space that junk in your house occupies in terms of the square footage value of your home. That 10x10 guest room that a guest can never use because the hundred square feet is chock full of junk is costing $$. Those big storage facilities on every other corner charge $1-$7 per square foot. In Austin, your junk storage home value is more in the $100 square foot range!

I can't stop thinking about it. And looking at the stuff in my house in a totally different light. This stuff is occupying precious real estate. I don't need to save things in the hopes of being frugal. I need to NOT BUY things in respect for the value of the space that is my home.

The books I own are weighing heavily on my mind. My husband, though frugal in most ways, loves his books and wants to keep them always and forever. But, man, books take up a lot of room. The library (and thanks to TexShare, I have access to Austin, Cedar Park, and Leander libraries plus Interlibrary Loan) has almost everything I could want, and the Internet offers what I need in terms of reference materials. I'm really struggling with acquiring books. Of course, I adore books, and it is always a great default gift idea that I offer up anytime a loved one asks. But, do I need them? Do I need to own them and then have to store them? Do I need to continue buying more and more bookshelves on which to store them?

Someone remind me of this the next time I am in Half Price Books. :-)

My attempt at a frugal, fun dinner

I love reading others' blogs and their frugal finds, and I drool reading the fun dinners others are preparing. It's not often that I, myself, have anything fun and frugal to contribute. But here's my attempt.

A friend told me that HEB had their pre-seasoned fajita chicken meat (thighs) on sale for .99 / pound. I saw them when I shopped last Thursday and picked up a four pound bag. Now, thigh meat is fatty, so I didn't use near the full four pounds. (I read it is also higher in iron than other cuts.) I grilled it all and sliced it up. I made a batch of pizza dough in the breadmaker -- all ingredients on hand (WW flour, oil, salt, honey, yeast). I topped one with some store-bought pesto I had in the fridge, added the chicken, and topped all of that with Just Tomatoes sun-dried tomatoes that I had bought with a co-op. The other, I used some pizza sauce I had in the pantry, put on the chicken, and a few roasted bell peppers from a jar, and topped it with Mozzarella and Parmesan. All ingredients were already around the house. Since I won't count what was already hanging around, that comes to $2 per pizza. I served it with a green salad.


Now, to be honest, the chicken was really so-so. It was the other stuff that made the pizza so yummy. We ate the roasted bell pepper/chicken/mozzarella tonight. The pesto pizza is in the freezer for another day.

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

Reading the mommy blogs that I often read (blogs that tend to be written by moms, but a diverse group of moms -- natural parenting types, Christians, frugal moms, and homeschoolers) I've come across several different views on feminism -- some who outright reject feminism, which I don't quite understand. I mean, they are women, expressing opinions. Doesn't that make them feminists? I researched a bit and found that there are many forms of feminism today. The first wave of feminism dates to Suffrage. Then the second wave in the sixties, a la Gloria Steinem, rubbed many the wrong way. Now feminism is quite divided, with third-wave feminists, post modern feminists, these opinionated women who claim they are against feminism, all wanting different things. It's nice to have options, though, isn't it. Thanks to those first-wavers and second-wavers, we have a lot more choices than we used to. We can work, or we can stay home. Whatever we choose, we do have a choice.

My favorite professor at A&M once asked our class (a women's study class in anthropology) to raise our hands if we were a feminist. I couldn't believe not every one raised her hand! My professor talked about that being the case year after year, but the mere fact that we were women attending college made us feminists.

I once had a shirt that said "This is what a feminist looks like" on the front, so I was intrigued to see this quiz about the history of feminism on another blog today. I scored nine out of ten (missing the Supreme Court question.)

That got me wondering more about the different types of feminism today (and wondering why we have to be so divisive about everything today...but that's a blog post for another day.) I found this quiz, What type of feminist are you? I am a Marxist feminist, according to this quiz.

Let me know how you do on the history quiz, and share which type of feminist you are.

Texas Two-Steppin' Tonight

Wow, democracy is complicated! I've always considered myself somewhat politically informed, but this whole prima-caucus deal in Texas is new to me. I guess we've just never talked about it much since by the time the presidential primaries come up for Texas, the candidate is already decided. But this year, it is still so close.

I voted early. John voted today. He had told me he'd take care of putting Caroline to bed if I wanted to go to the precinct caucus tonight, but instead, I managed to get Caroline down for a very late nap so that we could all go. Wow! (I know I said that once already.) We waited in line for a very long time, not moving. You see, nobody can predict how many folks will show up to these things, so the one little person sitting at a table to take each voter's information and candidate choice was a bit overwhelmed with the 230+ people in line at 7:15 tonight. (I say + because many people got frustrated at the line and left.) She quickly called for back-ups, and we ended up with a roomful (20, I think) of volunteers tabulating our votes. John and I signed up to be alternate delegates for the county convention. I doubt we'll need to go, and I didn't want to stay and campaign for myself, and then vote again on the delegates. We left at 9:45, knowing that 16 delegates from our precinct will cast votes for Clinton with 22 voting for Obama.

As we divided into our caucuses based on our candidates, I observed the way our groups each mirrored our candidate. The Obama group was passionate and articulate, lots of cheering. Our group was composed and efficient (but we cheered once in retaliation).

Links for more information:
numbers going into today's primaries/caucuses

how the Texas process works

Sick Baby

I know that compared to many kids, Caroline has not had many illnesses. Maybe that is why I still feel so lost when she is sick. I doubt it, though. I think that you never get used to your baby being sick -- no matter how old that baby is or how many times she has been sick. Right now, we're battling Caroline's second fever in 2.75 years. The first came on right after a morning playgroup. I called and got a dr. appt. immediately, and he couldn't find anything wrong and wrote it off as teething. That was, oh, right about two years ago, I think!

Motrin seems to be a miracle drug -- for five hours. Then the lethargy and fever, 102+, return. Early this morning, Caroline told us she spun around too much and hurt her head. I guess that translates to dizziness and headache. She doesn't complain of pain anymore, but the fever is still around, and she is not herself by any means! She's heard me describe her symptoms numerous times today to friends and family via phone. And I've offered her a cool washcloth for her head a few times. This evening, she told me that she needed to go to the doctor tomorrow. And she said, "I need a washcloth for my head. I sick." (But when I brought a wet washcloth, she balked. "NO! DRY!!")

I am not prepared for her to have to have her first dose of antibiotics, yet!! She's not even three years old! Her little body doesn't need to start down that path just yet. I sure miss that dried up human milk supply that served us so well, so incredibly, for two plus years!!

She really isn't complaining much. Just resting and sleeping a lot with that high fever. That's what her body is supposed to do, right? The fever fights off the infection, and the sleep and rest repair her little system.


Get well, big, baby girl!

Updates from Doctor

I had my six-week post-miscarriage follow-up with my doctor Friday. I went in nervous, unsure what she'd tell me, but I left loving my doctor even more! The cause of the baby's death was hypoxia. His umbilical cord was far, far too small for adequate circulation and that (I assume) caused syncytial knots to develop in the placenta. The autopsy noted that those usually occur in pre-eclamptic mothers but that I had not had high blood pressure. A google search showed that the increased syncytial knots also occur in smoking mothers (which I am not, of course). I draw the conclusion that both of those things, pre-eclampsia and smoking, hinder the circulation which causes the syncytial knots. In this case, the cord caused the poor circulation which caused the knots. My doctor had no explanation for the small cord. She said this was just something that happened. And that it shouldn't happen again. She said I can get pregnant again whenever I want. She'll send me to a high-risk OB for a detailed ultrasound when I am 10-13 weeks along next time. That doctor will have a copy of the autopsy report so he knows exactly what to look for. I commented that there's nothing that could be done anyway, and my doctor assured me that the scan would be for my peace of mind. I ran through my list of the "sins" I committed this pregnancy -- diet coke, deli meat, a sip of wine at communion. She assured me that nothing I did caused the miscarriage. I knew that already, but it was good to hear it from my doctor.

Throughout my pregnancy with Caroline, I was reassured by the experiences my doctor had with her own pregnancy -- one year before mine. She had severe nausea, too, and took Zofran. She developed PUPPPS and assured me that even though there was nothing I could do then, it would go away after I delivered. This time, the shared stories are of her miscarriage a few months ago. She told me that she starting "trying again" right away, but it did take a few months to get pregnant again. She told me how she was worried about how she'd handle herself emotionally as the due date of the pregnancy she lost approached. She said that date is approaching, and she hadn't even thought about it until she started talking to me.

I knew "he" was Aaron!

As soon as Kate resisted holding Aaron when she and Claire were hanging clothes, I knew that Aaron was the baby she was raising back in the future. I told John, and he asked "Why would she be raising Aaron?" Oh, dear, dear husband. That is the question one could ask all day long about this crazy show. "Why?" Why Why Why???

Workin' Out Update

I didn't hire the personal trainer, but I'm still sticking with working out. My motivation is still high. I'm not seeing the weight fall off of me or anything, but I do feel a bit less jiggly. And when I'm not feeling especially motivated, my free trainer (Caroline) motivates me to get to the gym by um...begging. Mommy, let's go to your gym...Mommy when are we going to your gym?...When we go to your gym, I'm going to watch John the Builder. (Now, I can read, so I know the show is actually called BOB, the Builder.) But, that TV and that huge supply of dvds motivates my little trainer to motivate me to get to the gym.

I've got a jacket

And I don't mean for cool weather. If you watch enough Law & Order, you know what a jacket is.

I got a ticket a few weeks ago for "disregarding a red light." You know you all do it, too. The light was red; I was turning right. No cars were coming. I YIELDED! Well, yes officer, I realize red means stop, not yield.

I was in the City of Cedar Park, and rather than mail the ticket and my request for defensive driving, which would require a trip to a Notary, I just went to the Municipal Court in person. It's right by the Cedar Park Library, which Caroline and I are at weekly. I was shocked when the clerk came out with a white folder, my "jacket," with my personal information filled out on the front. Shocked, I said, "I have a file?!" The clerk assured me white is good. If it was colorful, that'd be bad.

Now, don't you all wonder what color your jacket is?

Lenten Reflections

Not deep reflections--I'm the mother of a two-year-old!

I have a box set of books that I found on paperbackswap. Normally, these books are on the our bookshelves in the dining room, and Caroline can sit through a reading of the full set of twelve and want more. I chose two -- Stories Jesus Told and Miracles of Christ -- to put on our seasonal table. Well, Caroline, my little OCD-child, KNOWS WHERE THEY BELONG. After three days of putting them on the seasonal shelf only to have her put them back in the boxed set on the shelf in the dining room where they normally belong, I gave up and decided to leave them. We have other books on the seasonal table.

Since I'm still waiting on that Lenten Story Board to ship from amazon, I have made the Heifer Project Bank the center of our Lenten table. I made it into more of a Montessori-type activity. I taped a sample coin of a quarter, dime, nickle, and penny to a card as an example. Then I put those same coins on a plate. Caroline matches each coin as she puts it into her ark bank. We started with just the four coins, but now I can put a handful of miscellaneous coins in and she can choose the right denomination.

Along those book lines, I ordered a Lenten coloring book off of amazon for $1.25. It arrived last week in a bundled set of ten coloring books packaged together with a sticker that said "Do not separate!" I guess somebody in the shipping department follows directions a bit too well. So, I have ten coloring books on Lent.

After music class on Friday, the first Friday of Lent, Caroline and I headed to the mall. I asked her what she wanted for lunch -- maybe peanut butter and jelly or a grilled cheese. She said, "Chick-a-Lay" (that's Chick-Fil-A). I reminded her that we don't eat meat on Fridays during Lent. She replied, "Yeah, just pancakes."

OK, this one is deep, or at least a tear-jerker. We tie a new ribbon onto our blessing tree each night during Lent, praying for a different person each night. The first night, John wasn't home, so Caroline and I decided to pray for him. The next night, we were all here, but she decided it was the night to pray for mommy. She said something along these lines: "God bless mommy. Keep her safe. Make her not be sad." Oh, she is so astute! She often tells me that I won't be sad when there's another baby in my tummy. This is not something we've ever explicitly spelled out for her, but she just gets it! (And honestly, I'm not crying all the time or anything! She just hears people every day ask me how I'm doing and such. My standard response is that we are fine, sad, but fine. She hears everything, this girl!)

Lenten Traditions 2008 and Week One

Last year, we began a few traditions for our family's Lenten observances. We'll continue some of those this year and add some more discussion and instruction for Caroline. We'll continue our Blessing Tree (a tree branch that we add a ribbon to each evening while saying a blessing for a loved one), the ark bank for the Heifer Project, and the Wednesday Night Lenten Dinners at church. I'm adding in weekly stories for Caroline, stories of Jesus's life and teachings as well as a few crafts.

I have ordered a story board on Jesus's Life that I'm pretty excited about using over the 40+ days of Lent. It has not shipped yet, though, so I probably won't start it until Week Two or Three.

Week One of Lent:
-- Ash Wednesday -- use black finger paint to paint ashes on a picture of face
-- set up table for Lent (purple cloth, stories of Jesus's life, blessing tree, and ark bank)
-- plant a bulb to watch what happens between now and Easter

Shrove Tuesday

Fat Tuesday. Mardi Gras!

Since the day was set to be a busy one, we started the morning with our holiday activity -- mixing colors and painting a Mardi Gras mask. We mixed yellow and blue to make green, mixed blue and red to make purple, and added yellow to the palate to round out the Mardi Gras colors. Then Caroline painted her mask. As she did, I talked about Mardi Gras being one last celebration before Lent begins, that Lent is a period of reflection that starts tomorrow. I told her tonight we'd have pancakes and a party at church.

And she mentioned that people will say, "Oh, you are so cute!" to her when she wears her mask and dress. She knows. :-) I made her a Mardi Gras dress -- I really am getting better at it -- to wear tonight.

LAISSEZ LES BON TEMPS ROULEZ!

Preschool Coop Updates

Our little school coop is still going strong and having fun! A couple of weeks ago, we visited the fire station on a field trip, and this week we had a belly dancer visit and entertain us. We have moved from rotating homes for our location to our permanent home at "'Milla's house". Her family converted their tandem garage space into an extra room that is now our classroom. We have added a number of the week, too. We continue with weekly themes, emphasizing books, crafts, and games/activities based on that theme. We did loose one of our four students and are looking to add another student or two (potty trained and at least 2 1/2). Any takers?

Caroline has known the basic academic things (number, shapes, colors, alphabet -- that was not what I wanted for her) -- but she is picking up on some Spanish counting and has definitely grown in her social skills with sharing and taking turns and empathy. And she's having fun and I'm getting a little break, which is what I wanted for us.