An Almost Lunch

Posted on January 11, 2019 by admin

While I hadn’t really solidified a complete plan on eating out during our No Buy January challenge, The Hubs and I had a plan to reduce our monthly budget for restaurants. Clearly that’s a problem that we need to iron out. A plan is only going to work if it is clear and measurable.

In any case, here’s the almost that nearly was- I always pack my lunch after dinner, since mornings are evil and I want to avoid them for as long as possible. This lunch packing allows me 3 extra minutes in the morning. Whatever. It’s worth it. Okay, so I packed my lunch and brought it with me. Just as I was getting hungry for lunch, I got an email that a coworker was creating an online group order to Jason’s Deli. Yum-to-the-o!!

Without really thinking about it, I decided that if The Hubs was eating lunch out, then I could too. I found my order (Um seasonal crab soup? Yes please!) and set up an account. About midway through the process, I started to have doubts. I was thinking that it was a waste of money, especially because I already had a lunch sitting next to me. Next to me!

Regardless, I ignored those voices and ordered. And then had regret. Dang. It was only $7.80, but it was $7.80 that I had bought for a lunch that wasn’t important. I wasn’t eating with colleagues and having fellowship (something that is hard to get with our craze-o schedules at school). It wasn’t for someone’s birthday or even because I had mistakenly forgotten my lunch at home. I was looking at my lunch on the desk next to me.

I was going to take this as a lesson in living with less and move on. And then :ding: an email came through that the order had been canceled.

Well hot damn! I started eating the salad and cold spaghetti (I hadn’t heated it up when I was in the break room and wasn’t going to trek back down there for the microwave) with a feeling that I had saved a little but learned a lot.

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Oh balls!

Posted on January 9, 2019 by admin

I’ve done a magnificent job of making myself 3 days behind on this writing challenge. Whoopsie-do! (I adjust the post dates to show that I’ll have 365, but just know that I know {and you know} that I’m totally going to have ups and downs with my schedule.

What can you do other than say “oh balls!” and catch back up.

A couple updates from the past few days:

  • The million miles traveled shark’s tooth necklace? No one has worn or looked at them since we returned.
  • Chaos’ obsession with Minecraft? Getting strong.
  • No Buy January- It’s going well! Now that the family is back at their homes, we can start to look at our budget on a normal level. I’ve said no to a number of things already and I’m feeling good about that. We are setting up goals for the year and for the future. This is something we have never formally done, and I’m excited to make a plan.
  • Pregnancy- My chubby fingers no longer allow my rings to slide on. I was going to get a cheapy replacement ring, but…No Buy January.
  • I’m still digging cable- I’ve added the Tidying Up show (Ok, that’s Netflix, but whatever) to my list of shows to watch. I’ve become pretty gung-ho on minimalism and de-cluttering over the last few years. Now there’s a show I can watch too. Um, yes please!

And now we’re all up to speed!

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But This is Serious!

Posted on January 6, 2019 by admin

Chaos has suddenly become hooked on Minecraft. He doesn’t know what it is, exactly, but he knows it’s all about building and building stuff is basically all he eats and breathes. Like so many things, I’m sure he picked it up at school.

For his birthday we added the pocket version of Minecraft to his Kindle. There’s always a little fear when you expose your kid to the world since the world can be kinda jerky.

Despite the nervousness, the biggest issue we ran into was not anything to do with screen time or even anything about Minecraft at all. Our biggest challenge was trying to make Chaos’ Xbox screen name.

Now, I didn’t know this, but this is a HUGE deal. Remember those threats of your permanent record when you were in school? The fear of what really stays in your permanent record and how your life could be utterly destroyed  if the wrong thing is put in your file. Apparently this screen name thing is that level of important.

I used my expertise as a former middle school teacher and The Hubs’ knowledge of once being a teenage boy to try and find a name that will not be mortifying at 12.

Because, again, this.is.serious, people. Now what in the hell is a Mooshroom Glutton?

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A Long Way for a Shark’s Tooth

Posted on January 5, 2019 by admin

Today we celebrated Chaos’ birthday by hauling ourselves a billion miles to Sea World. Were we going for the orca show? Belugas (Who’s singing the Baby Beluga song right now? Anyone? Just me? Baaaaaaa Beeeeee Baaaaa LOOOOOUUUUUU guh!)? Fancy chickens (Formally known as penguins)?

Nope. Not a single one of those things were on the top hits list for our kiddo.

We traveled a billion miles for a shark’s tooth necklace.

I mean, it’s a mighty nice necklace, but….

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Tied to Cable

Posted on January 4, 2019 by admin

The Hubs and I spent a number of years without cable. In fact, we had 2 channels we picked up from local channels and Netflix. This was a-ok, but there were some things we missed.

Over Christmas break The Hubs signed us up for a free trial of Directv Now which streams from the internet. He knew I was going to be home from work for two weeks (and I’ve got to be honest here- I’m a sucker for those really terrible Christmas shows they play on cable) and thought I would really enjoy having it.

I don’t know what happened to me, but I’ve completely fallen apart over the last two weeks. I expected to see some Christmas shows, catch up on some historical shows, and then continue on with my life. Somewhere along the way though, my plan went awry. Like really, really awry.

Now I find myself falling down these weird rabbit holes of dermatological shows that leave me fascinated and disgusted simultaneously. It’s a true “I can’t look. I have to look. I can’t look” sort of thing. If lipomas aren’t being smushed out, I’m watching morbidly obese folks or hoarders trying to sort out their lives. I’m not even sure where I fell apart.

Usually I spend Friday nights solving mysteries with Dateline. It’s my thing. Okay, I don’t really do anything but try to stay awake through the end of the show, but since getting pregnant with Baby Sprocket, I can barely make it to the start of the episode. But cable has solved that problem…in a way. Now I can watch Dateline all the time! Or one of the other various forensic shows that I always find my way to on tv. I’ve got to tell you though, it does start to mess with your brain after a while. I’m a jumpy person by nature, but watching a few murdery shows in a row and even the dog starts to be a person of interest.

And I’m going to change this problem… this new love… after this show.

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Day 3… I Quit

Posted on January 3, 2019 by admin

Admittedly there have been a lot of things in my life that I’ve started…been REALLY enthusiastic about… and then totally fizzled out on.

Like a lot of things.

Lettuce do a quick recap:

  • Sewing
  • Scrapbooking
  • Photography
  • Camp Gladiator
  • Vegetarianism
  • Calligraphy/Typography
  • Girl Scouts
  • Weight Loss (Whole30, 21 Day Fix, Keto, Food Tracking)
  • Writing a book
  • Training our dawg
  • Um- probably a lot more than this list

Today is Day 3/365 Day Challenge and I was struggling to think of what to write about. I jokingly told The Hubs that I quit the challenge. It was a joke, but sorta. I know myself. I know that I’m going to spend a lot of time limping through this whole thing. Just wanted to let you know that it only took two posts to get hard.

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Buy Nothing January-ish

Posted on January 2, 2019 by admin

2018 was a galvanizing year in that I really began to explore the concepts of “less is more” within my life. I’m not what would be considered a true minimalist, but I’ve learned that I love clutter-free space. I need places in my house that are chaos-free. And I like having less. Less everything- less stuff, less “have tos”, and (again) less stuff.

I’ve done a lot of reading on minimalism, living clutter-free, and whatever other phrases are used to describe the concept of “I have less shit than I had before and I like it.” There are so many people out there that have gotten themselves into a life full of stuff, but feel like they’re still missing something.

As I started reading more blogs, more magazines, and more books on the subject of less, I started to change the way we lived. It was easy to start with things like kitchen gadgets- if we don’t use them or we have multiples, they went in a box. Clothes I hate, crap that has been stored in closets but never used, and junk toys all found their way out of the house. The more I got rid of, the more joy I felt with my new found space. More rewarding was the more we got rid of, the less we brought in. Joy of joys!

With the new year, a few of number of the minimalist groups were discussing the idea of “buy nothing” challenges. Some folks have gotten themselves to successfully do a 365 Buy Nothing Challenge. I’m impressed by this lifestyle and may eventually drag my family into something like that. Since The Hubs and I have started sifting through our stuff, we have noticed how much less we bring in to the house. We are nowhere near where I would like to be, but it’s a start.

In any case, the idea of a Buy Nothing Challenge has stayed with me. I’m going to drag The Hubs through a January of less. We have family in town, so eating out and such may be a case where I’ll have to go with the crowd/ be a good host. We also promised Chaos that we would get him a shark tooth necklace from Sea World for his birthday. But otherwise, I think we can do it.

Here’s what I’m outlining for our exciting foray into Buy Nothings. As this is our first challenge and The Hubs may be a reluctant participant (:read: dragged along through the month. Sorry not sorry?) this is what I’m thinking:

  1. Dining out 1x a week only. We don’t eat out very often, but we can work to cut it out. I would like to see if we could cut it down even more.
  2. We’ll buy necessities, but nothing extra. We’ll work our way through the pantry and deep freezer for the majority of our meals, but supplement our fresh foods from the grocery store.
  3. Chaos and Mayhem are included in this challenge, which means that we won’t buy anything for them this month. They can buy using their allowance however.
  4. A shark tooth necklace has been promised long before this came about.
  5. All bets are off if the roof caves in or something equally bizarre happens in our lives.

*This isn’t the same as Buy Nothing community- those are absolutely fascinating and essentially folks work together to give to each other and live in financial conservatism. I’m doubly impressed by people who can find a network of frugal folks to be part of their lives.

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365 Day Challenge

Posted on January 1, 2019 by admin

January 1, 2019- What a delightfully cliched day to start a new challenge. But, here we are. Yay cliches!

So it’s been a while…

I haven’t written on here in a bajillion years. Really, I haven’t done much writing at all since we returned from Nigeria. I ran into an issue where I just didn’t have a path of what I wanted to write about. There were a variety of things that I didn’t feel expert enough to write a blog about and since our exotic location was no longer a thing- I ended up pretty lost in the world of blog writing.

Such as:

Parenting- I have no earthly idea how to raise these heathens. I mean, they’re cute and sorta smell like hamsters. They seem like good humans so far, so I’m digging that. My only claim of parenting prowess is that they eat vegetables.

Cooking- :Insert hysterical laughter: Anyone want hundreds of recipes on how to throw random items together to keep your family alive? Cheese chunks and raw baby carrots for everyone!

Finances- There are far smarter folks who spend their time working on inner workings of finances. They even get to use fancy words and neat numbers. However, there’s always “Deal or No Deal” as a financial option. :shrugs:

Weight Loss/ Fitness- Maybe if readers really enjoy reading about someone’s start of a journey with weight loss or finding joy in fitness…and then never seeing any results because 1. I’m always going to be fluffy 2. I really hate exercise (Like hate-hate) then this may be a theme I can roll with. And yet… I’m thinking this is better left to the motivated folks.

So, what does that leave me with? This will just be random ramblings that will strengthen my writing. I dream of writing a book. And I also know that without practice, I will never have the skills to get there.

On my Bucket List, I have a goal of doing a 365 Day Challenge though I hadn’t decided what type of challenge I wanted to try. Since I managed to cross off “Learn How to Do the Thriller Dance” at Halloween with my group of galfriends, I’ve started to focus on crossing off more from my Bucket List.

Check out that “Thriller” success, baby! It’s ugly, but I can do it.

365 Day Challenge

  1. It’s does not have to be done on the actual day, so long as I have 365 posts at the end of the year. (Such as, I will be busy for a few days in April giving birth to a new kid, so… I might have to do some pre-writing or post-writing to get my goal done.)
  2. Writing is writing, so the posts don’t have to a certain length or style. No poems though. The world doesn’t deserve that.
  3. Um, that’s it, I think.

(On a side note, I just did a Google search of 365 Day Writing Challenge. I see that there’s a whole bunch of them on Tumblr, but uh, I don’t know what Tumblr is, so maybe I need to try and get a little more hip in 2019 too.)

Write every day this year… then I’m hopping in my car.
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Dear Mums,

Posted on November 16, 2013 by admin

I just don’t understand…

Since becoming pregnant, I’ve run into many women (occasionally men, but mostly women) who have seemed to revel in exclaiming all the known downsides of being a mother.  Of course, this is done without me asking any advice or wanting to know about their birthing experiences. Or life as a mum. Or their marriages woes. Or…um.. anything.

  • Sleep now, because you never will again. Ever. No seriously. You may as well just slit your wrists now (okay, the last part was implied).
  • I’d rather die than go through labor again. (This is usually said with a grin that screams something like, “Sucker. You’re eff’ed.”)
  • There goes your figure. Hah, good luck getting that back! And your who-ha, good Lord, she’ll really never be the same. My husband… (this is usually where I escape, screaming, into my own mind)
  • My husband said he would help, but men just don’t get it. You’ll be on your own until your kid can survive on his own. Then your husband may be interested in helping. But probably not. He’ll probably start cheating on you too.
  • I labored for 72 days, yes days, but I was tough enough not to take medicine :proudly puffs up: You look like you’ll want to be medicated though. Hm.
  • My nine year old hates to do homework. He hates it. He hates me. We battle for hours. I cry every day from 2-3:30, knowing that the rest of my day will be hell-on-Earth. Then I take a pill and get Mommy’s “special juice”.
  • Etc. etc. etc. ( I realize that et cetera isn’t actually a bullet-point worthy addition, but I figured you would take that opportunity to think of the worst unsolicited advice you ever received. Feel free to leave that advice in the comment section. Sharing is caring.)

So why is it seemingly appropriate for them to announce the negatives of a given situation and I’m supposed to just smile and glow (don’t get me started on the pregnancy glow thing) and be happy for the sage experiences of those that bred before me?

It’s acceptable to announce the negatives of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, without being asked, but I have to bite my tongue when it comes to all the other well-known negatives of a given situation?

I say nay. Here we go:

  • Oooh, divorce huh?  He’ll have another woman within two weeks. You? Well, you’re of “a certain age” so how do you feel about cats?
  • Yep. That’s terminal.
  • Yeah, hating your job is usually a side effect of not putting any effort into furthering yourself.
  • And hating your life is generally a result of your poor decision making.
  • Your health is failing? Probably because you’re obese and mock those of us that like to make healthy choices. Sorry-o.
  • Maybe you hate your kids because you have so many, in addition to a consistent tendency of choosing poor breeding partners.

Of course, it would only be fair to say these things when not being asked for advice on the situation. It would be best if you could deliver this unwanted “advice” when the other person is completely taken aback.  Like, in the grocery store. I’ve spent many shopping trips trying to avoid the stranger that is making eye contact with my baby bump. Because that’s when I’ve had the most inane conversations with women about my impending “doom” as a mother. I just want to choose a green pepper and be on my way…

So we can continue this way… OR:

  • OR we can all assume that the mother-to-be has read, at least once or twice, that her new kid needs to eat every 2 hours and the mom has figured out that she probably can’t just hit the snooze button on that one. She may have to get up. She may lose sleep. She has to train a new human that we sleep at night and are awake during the day. The process may take a long time. She may lose sleep.
  • OR she may be a different weight for a while or forever after the birth. And she probably knew that ahead of time and chose to forge ahead. (OR she has carefully ignored the advice of everyone that suggests she eats an extra 1500 calories a day, just because she’s pregnant and may not gain much weight at all.)
  • OR her husband/partner/fella’ is actually interested in fatherhood and while he may need guidance and probably won’t care for the kid like she would, will still make an effort to be part of the team. Not all men are the same. And if a man is forever being yelled at and belittled for his parenting skills, perhaps he is less inclined to help out and to learn the preferred way of doing certain parenting chores. :shrugs: Just sayin’.
  • OR maybe medication is her choice. And she believes that advances in labor and delivery have been made so that women don’t have to labor for 18 hours in pain. It is also her choice whether or not she’s going to breastfeed or bottle feed her offspring. As is whether she hopes for a natural birth or is requesting a c-section.  And all of these things are personal and should not be brought up 1. In mixed company. The word “vaginal” tend to make men act weird 2. If you and the knocked-up mum aren’t extremely close. (Really? Did my hairdresser just say vagina to me?)

Of course, all of this is null-and-void if the mum-to-be has asked your advice or wants a retelling of your birthing experience. If she’s asked, then by all means, grab out your scrapbook that contains pictures from everything from the pee-stick to your episiotomy scar.

Sincerely,

Extremely Pregnant and Not Looking for Advice. No really, I’m good. But thanks. I appreciate it. Sorta.

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A bushel? A bunch? A Whole Lotta Bananas

Posted on October 22, 2013 by admin

Initially, this was going to be a very simple Facebook status alerting my friends and family about The Hubs’ recent kill. True hunter/gatherer that he is, The Hubs proudly came home a few days ago, toting a large, black plastic bag. He gives it to me without a word- just a proud grin.

Inside the bag…

Bananas.

I know, I know, whoop-dee-do.  But apparently these bananas were straight off the tree and are from a different area in Nigeria, known for their yummy ‘nanas.

Okay, so I have bananas now. Not like bananas, but bananas (please read that with a deep voice for emphasis. Thanks).

I know that in the US, when I buy bananas (which isn’t very often. They’re rather low on my foods-that-are-enjoyed list), that a couple must get eaten, then a majority of them will linger and start to rot. I’ll vacillate between pitching them, suffering through the agony of eating a soft banana, or throw them in the freezer for future banana bread.

Future banana bread never happens. When we moved from Houston, The Hubs through out an embarrassingly large amount of blackened bananas.

But, when I buy bananas in Houston, I buy a small amount…5 or 6, maybe.

When The Hubs moved into caveman mode, he hunted down and bagged a ______ of bananas.

Here’s where my original status came in. I was going to talk about The Hubs bringing in a bushel of bananas and me having no idea what to do with them all. Then it all went downhill.

Bushel?

Bunch?

Because, yes, there is a bunch of bananas, as in a metric-crap-ton of them. But is it an actual bunch of bananas?  The internet experts are undecided.  Bushel is correct. Bunch is correct. So no matter, how I say it, I have 40 bananas that must have an ultimate purpose.

 

On a side note, I had horrifically anxiety-filled moments in which I had to bring the bananas out of their black bag, peel back (pun intended) the newspaper they were wrapped in, and clean off the bananas. I’ve seen tv shows. I read stories. I knew that the chances of me finding a snake or tarantula hidden amongst the bananas was terrifyingly high.  I don’t know if they have tarantulas here.  I refuse to learn.

I didn’t know I had so many thinks about bananas.

 

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