Reason to love Summer #182

Family Fun Nights at the neighborhood Baptist church.

We look forward to these all year. Carnival games, hot dogs, train rides, cotton candy and the Reptile Man. And the best part, those crazy Baptists invite the whole neighborhood for FREE, yep not a collection jar in sight. We have so much fun! In the past they hosted multiple fun nights throughout the summer, with firetrucks or search and rescue trucks visiting to climb all over and different entertainers. Now they are just once, but just as much fun.

Dental on a Budget

The boys got some flouride varnish tonight, and an exam of course (it still counts when the dentist is sitting on the toilet, right?) Ashi's first offical Dental Visit, check that one off in the baby book. Christian got some on his one lone snaggle-tooth. There is no reason to pay good money for a check-up when the kid can't even produce a decent set of teeth.

See? These are my teeth. Auntie painted my teeth!

And I loved it so much I think I'll go play in this bag.

A Cautionary Tale

If you eat crap like this...

Your teeth will start falling right out of your head.Christian gets one visit with the "ice cream truck" per summer. Now if it wasn't really just a popsicle minivan selling frozen corn syrup and FD&C colors for THREE BUCKS A POP I might revisit this policy. But it's not hard to stay firm after he walks away with the Sponge Bob monstrousity (the same thing he picked last year- and he's not even allow to watch that hideous show).

We had to have a little chat about how much a whole box of popsicles goes for at the grocery store. Yep, about $3 buddy!

Midget Money

Taking the "boats" out for a spin in the woods at school.

Today is Wednesday, which is the day I often go to C's school to have lunch with him. I love going for our lunchdate because all of the kids are really excited for me to join them, and they all want to talk to me about everything, and I get to see what's going on around there, and I get a nice hot lunch to boot. After we all eat I get to read to a pile of children in my lap, and C gets to pick the book, which makes him very popular!

Today's lunch table conversation was a bit interesting The kids got to talking about money and their piggy banks and what they were saving up for. One of the boys (if you know us in real life he would be Tiny Tyrant, uh huh, that one) mentions that he gets $4 every week as allowance. Are you kidding me? He's five, and in kindergarten. What the heck is he getting $4 a week for? I know I'm cheap, but you've got to be kidding me. Please feel free to comment and tell me that this is insane, and I can continue giving my kid a dime from the tooth fairy and calling it good.

Also, don't forget to vote. Not for president, I mean right over there to the left, what do you think boy or girl???

Lessons Learned

I guess squirrels like apples. I'm not sure why that wasn't more of a "duh" moment for me. Now my squirrel issues definitely don't hold a candle to Dawn's, but I was not thrilled to have C show me today that the squirrels were dropping our freshly picked apples from the trees and then scampering off with them after they'd cracked open.


We had to rethink our storage situation, and it also provided encouragement to get moving on processing them. C was a great help peeling and cutting up apples, and apparently our applesauce was much more delicious than what they made at school (he thinks the school apples are too sour). We got 4 pints of sauce canned (easier to do than I thought) and a big bowl for eating. It worked out to under a dollar a jar (including buying the jars!) and is WAY better than store bought- and no added sugar.

Trading Up

Did you hear about that guy that traded a red paperclip for a house? Well, he made a bunch of trades in between, but essentially he started out with one red paperclip, and by the time he was done he had a 3 bedroom house in Canada. I find that pretty darn cool. In fact, I've done a little trading myself in the last week. I traded these three lovely wood crates (complete with dust bunnies and cobwebs from my garage floor) for a green piece of paper backed by the US government. I then took that EXACT same piece of green paper, and traded it for this.

This is a mini crib. I realized that I need the crib to be in my room, at least for a while- like years (who's kidding who, I still have company every morning). There is no way I can fit a full size crib in my room, so I recently discovered mini cribs (technically this is a portable crib because it even folds flat, but that sounds cheesy so I'll just keep calling it a mini crib). It's 30% smaller than a regular crib.

I've been trying to find one second hand for a while (and hemming and hawing because I could end up with the world's tallest baby that doesn't even fit in it). I found one fairly local on ebay a few weeks ago. It got bid up too high, then suddenly the auction was cancelled. So I contacted the seller who said it needed a repair and couldn't be sold on ebay. Coming from a family that loves wood glue and clamps I told her I was interested. She offered it for the same price I got for those lovely wood boxes above. It proved pretty easy to repair, and fits in the only empty space in my room just dandy. Then I folded it up and stuck it handily in the back of my closet (not a walk-in).

I think I see a new house in my future.

Craigslist

I just love craigslist, especially when I'm in the mood to purge. And if you've ever heard that little rumor about adoptions being a tad expensive, well that's generally a misconception.. They are insanely expensive! Especially when you start seeing airfare double ( no small potatoes on a $1800 ticket). So last week I started putting up many many ads on craigslist. Bellingham is the perfect place for this little wonder to work too, it's the perfect size, with a goodly population base either living within 15 minutes driving distance or living out in the county and needing to come into town regularly. So last Monday night I posted 20, count 'em 20 ads on Craigslist. By the time I went to bed 2 hours later I had sold 4 things and made $64. This of course stoked my fire and I continued to dig out more things I could part with. 10 days later I have well over $300 from stuff I would have given to Goodwill anyway.


These photos of C sleeping on the floor might make some think I have gone too far. But really, C LOVES sleeping on the floor. And I got $100 for his bed! And I met the nicest lady that bought his bed for her toddler. She offered me a free crib when I told her why C's bed was being sold. Then she sent me the link to her blog to see how adorable her little boy's new Big Boy room is now. Okay, calm down. I bought him another bed, a loft because I couldn't figure out any other way to get another human into either of our rooms without sacrificing the play table or my sanity (I mean computer desk). But I did come away ahead even after buying his loft bed (on craigslist of course) for only $50 in Arlington, ahem, just past the "Welcome to Granite Falls" sign. Let's pretend $20 in gas doesn't count.
I also got to have my faith in humanity stroked a bit, because everyone I met was so nice! The first person picking up some toys told me about how her parents adopted a little girl from Ethiopia recently. Another who bought some crafty things for her nanny job wanted to get together to talk about adoption (I pointed her to AGCI and some blogs to get started), and then of course the lady who offered me a free crib. Seriously, how generous was that? And then there were the countless people who came to my front porch to pick stuff up while I was at work, all of which actually left the money in my mailbox. I haven't ever been burned. But then, I live in a pretty cool place where people are still generally decent. I hear that's becoming less common.

Goodwill is Great!

Look who got a new bike! This 24" beauty is the next size up from C's current bicycle, and I happen to know these suckers cost almost $400 new. It's a Specialized Hot Rock.

I know, I know. He doesn't NEED a new bike. He could easily get one more year out of the one he's got. It's got six speeds and handbrakes afterall, and he's only been riding it for one year. But, it's not like there's any question about him out growing it eventually. And we put a lot of miles on our bikes. And the little teeny bike #1 is getting too small for his buddies to ride when they come over. And most importantly, I got a screaming good deal on this baby!

So here's how it went. After a very wonderful Saturday afternoon playing in Heather's hot tub and eating pizza in the backyard (thanks Heather!), we stopped by the blood bank on the way home (for the cookies you know). You know how you have to fill out that stupid long questionaire EVERYTIME you give blood? You know how it asks you all these dumb questions like "have you had sex with a man that has had sex with a man since 1972?" "have you been incarcerated for more than 72 hours in the last 12 months" "have you used needles for self injection in the last 12 months" "do you realize that you shouldn't give blood just to receive an AIDS test"...I hate that form. It's not like they're paying us for our blood. Do you really think the heroine junkies and prostitutes are lining up to donate blood? Heck no, they're across town at BioLife getting paid for it. Not that there's anything wrong with a little cash for plasma now and then, but you get a bag of saline instead of apple juice and cookies so it's not really my thing anymore (now that I have a job and all).

Anyway, just as I'm thinking how annoying it is to have to fill out this dumb form again, I read "have you experienced cold symptoms in the past 3 days?" DUH! I've been b#tching about being sick ALL week. Sorry buddy, no cookie.
So as the consolation prize we headed over to Goodwill to look for treasures! Picked up a basically new REI jacket for the little fella, Gymboree overalls for the mystery peanut, a back-up set of my favorite set of curlers (from 1975 I think,with the yellow plastic to prove it, they've been in the family two generations now and still going strong every morning at 6:30am SCORE!). Then C stumbled upon the bike. Because it has flames on the seat just like his, only it's bigger and grey.
It didn't have a price so he asked this really sweet older guy. His boss told him $50, at which I cringed because the front brake is broken and the tires were pancakes, and well, we didn't actually NEED it anyway. So I tell Christian that we can't spend that much on it, and he of course is really sweet about that and starts to park it again, when the old guy comes over and says he's changing the price to $30 because that little boy should have this bike "This little boy here makes your heart kinda melt" Huh? I'm really not sure what all happened there, but next thing I know this younger guy is down there with an allen wrench adjusting the seat to fit C perfectly. Now I don't usually find myself all that impressed with the staff at Goodwill, usually the folks I run into are most likely doing their mandatory community service and don't give a darn about anything. But these two guys were the nicest fellas, and you could tell they were just so happy to get to make a little kid's day.
Then on Sunday we stopped by Fairhaven Bike (which was the sticker on the bike frame) to buy the parts for the brake job. Well, it was pouring down rain and pretty slow in there. So they just swiped the bike away from me, ran it downstairs and fixed it up good as new.

Fancy 2nd hand bike $30
Brake job $20
Bag 'o reflectors $9
Seeing your 5-year-old hopping over the curbs on a 24" mountainbike: Priceless

Strawberry Pickin'

This is 11 pounds of delicious, local, organic strawberry goodness. Not to be confused with those snobby organic berries you might find at Whole Foods, these are good old fashioned, dirt under your fingernails, slugs and thistles amongst the bushes, tiny little organic berries. They are so small in fact that merely processing them for freezing will give you carpal tunnel because there are 3 times as many stems per pound to remove.

My dear friend Elody, who kept me sane in grad school, invited us out to pick berries with her this weekend. She has this favorite farm she likes to go to, so we were up for trying a new place. Elody's "cute little organic farm out by Everson" was most assuredly 100% organically farmed. One look, I mean, one step through the waist high weeds, and you could clearly see that these folks certainly weren't wasting any time or money on herbicide, fungicide, fertilizer, or say... farm labor. These were clean berries ( in between the slugs, snails, and other gooey farm goodness). Elody, ever the good sport, even got into the spirit with a bit of slug tossing. Go girl!

By the time we each had almost four gallon sized freezer bags of berries, and C was seriously tired of being told not to destroy his berries by tossing his bucket between his hands and swinging it over his head, I spent all of $27 and headed off to get some milk at Breckenridge Farm.

Isn't it cute! This is an old photo from before they opened, they actually have signs now :) These guys were my last client before I took my new job, and they are doing really well. They are hardly keeping up with business. I usually buy their milk from the Starvin' Sams across from my office, but it's freshest at the farm. Since it was Sunday, the store was closed, but luckily Mike was just hopping onto his motorcycle to go check the cows, so I sweet talked him with the magic word "Creamtop" and he let us in. We've been buying the non-homogenized creamtop from them, which no one else makes. It's $2.75 a gallon, and I can pour the cream off the top for my coffee. Talk about a deal!

So, Strawberries and Cream for dessert tonight. And three extra little boys too.

Dreaming of High Speed Internet

Warning: Photo is unrelated to post. Because no one wants to read this lousy blog without photos. A little boy and a big gun at our campground on Lopez Island.

Many of my blog friends out in cyberspace have such lovely blogs to explore. I know this because I like to visit them...at work...on my lunch break of course. They play music when the page loads, there are video clips from You Tube and One True Media, they put nice big sharp photos up. They are lovely blogs really. Then I come home an work on my own sad little blog. And I go check in on all the blogs I like to stalk (someday I'll put a fancy list of them on the sidebar). I click on these lovely blogs, and then I curse them for the random jags of music they try to play, the empty boxes where nice large photos should appear, and the video posts that just stare back and taunt me to click on them.
Dial-up internet isn't so bad. I mean, for $6.99 a month for six months. I'm really having trouble with the thought of paying like $50 a month for better internet (they always have all those extra fees hidden in there too). But, then again, I'm also having a hard time spending 6 hours on the computer to upload a half dozen highly compressed images to my blog. Or not being able to purchase anything from half.com because my connection times out and my cart empties itself. The whole point of springing for internet was that I could keep up with photos that don't seem to get scrapbooked anymore, and maybe create a blog book every year. But what really would be the point of that when all my photos are compressed beyond printability ( I think I just made that word up).
So here I am debating over the offer from Comcast for "Economy High Speed" (okay am I just going to slowly inch up the speed and price til I finally get to the top, because will I really be happy with 768 Kbps?) or the Quest "guaranteed price for life" Silver Speed offer *with qualifying phone package (uh, I don't think my economy phone plan qualifies), or maybe I'll just cancel my home phone to make up the difference and spring for the good stuff (referring to the fast internet in case that wasn't clear).
Damn, it's stressful being a cheap skate!
Suggestions welcome.

Gas Free Weekends

6-1-08
I wish that said “free gas weekends” instead! But no, on Saturday I swung by the Skagit Casino gas station to fill up. But at $4.159 I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it. I can’t believe I was actually relieved to fill up for $4.049 later in the day. This is sad! So for the past couple weeks I’ve been trying really hard to not drive the car on the weekends. There’s no way in heck I can give up gas during the week, but since I live within walking distance of three grocery stores and the Go Line, it is totally worth a shot over the weekend. Two weeks ago we were 100% successful (okay, I did ride my bike to the gas station to buy 1 gallon for the mower, but come on, I have to draw the line somewhere and I and not going to get a manual mower. I use 2 gallons a year mowing the lawn and that is eight bucks well spent).

These photos are from the Jr. Ski to Sea Parade in May. We met up with the Blossom Bunch and had a great time. Every kid needs to be in a few parades.

We rode our bikes to the beach twice, the school and park, walked to the grocery store and Little Caesar’s, rode the bikes to church and Fred Meyer for sandals and sunscreen and even went out to breakfast. All without starting the car once. I was pretty proud of myself.
That is until Christian wiped out in a blind gutter as we were racing home from the store to meet a friend. Blood everywhere! Luckily these sweet ladies saw the whole thing happen and stopped their car (which, being driven by proper hamsters was equipped with a bike rack of course) and they gave us a ride home- all three blocks. I had Christian’s arm wrapped up in my sweater, his face was cut and his knee. I am such a woos! When we got home the little trooper was like “Mama my arm really hurts”, and I’m like “no shit it hurts there’s a nice chuck of flesh hanging out in the sweater I just pulled off you” and just trying to look at the ground because I’m going to faint if I see it flopping open, blood spilling all over the place.

Of course Kim shows up right about then with her son who is going to spend the day with us. I employ my vast knowledge of first aid (get the biggest gauze pad in the box, liberally pour antibiotic ointment on it, and quickly stick to wound before you have to look at it) and Christian is quickly wrapped up and on his way. Kim is marveling at my cool headed care of a wounded child, and I’m praying there wasn’t some chunk of road in there that I just sealed in for the rest of his life.

So this weekend went much better. We got to church by bike (which is a feat in itself since we have to be there at 8:30 am), then out to IHOP for breakfast, over to Dairy Queen for our free Blizzard (they had a special if you brought in your church bulletin) and back home. Christian is so good at handling himself along the busy roads. We have to cross over or under the freeway, and there are a lot of sections without sidewalks along out routes. But he is great on his bike and really pays attention and follows directions to stay safe (not that I’m not freaking out most of the time).

A Blog

I can't believe I'm doing this. It's bad enough that I can't seem to keep up with my pitiful scrapbooking (unless being within the last decade counts), the house is a mess, the lawn needs mowing and what do I think I should do. Hmm, how about start a blog. Normal people would at least get an internet connection in their home first, but if you know me in real life you know that I'm a pretty hardcore cheapskate. My nice friends use kind words like sensible and frugal, my real friends call it what it is. And they still love me anyway. I figure, since I'm not getting a craft room anytime soon, this may just be the only way I'll manage to keep track of all the little things I don't want to forget. Christian is hardly a little boy anymore, and I'm not as good about getting out the camera regularly anymore- I even gave up on printing photos some time ago because I'm so pathetically behind getting them into the scrapbook. So here's my new "mess free" idea for keeping track of the daily (okay- that's a bit ambitious, maybe weekly) moments worth remembering around here. If I can figure out how to just download photos from the camera to this blog I might even start taking more of them. Anything to keep life's clutter down to a manageable pile. Who knows, I might even spring for that fancy dial-up internet service. I should be getting more mileage out of that land-line phone my parents insist I have anyway. I can certainly tie that sucker up, my social life won't exactly suffer.