As Time Goes By

2005

2006

2007

Vacation Bible School

This is my third year at VBS; the first year, I was a crew leader. Too much "sit down on the floor, stand up to dance, sit down for a craft, get up to go to another station, etc."

Last year, I did the video station, which featured a goofy chipmunk. That was ok, but this year, I offered to take pictures and put them in an album. As it turns out, there is even a specific photographer's job this year! Not to take pictures for an album, but to take posed pictures in the morning that relate to the Bible Story and drop them into a Power Point presentation to see at the end of the day.

Either of these jobs would be fine. Both of them together are a pain. I'm hoping that tomorrow, I'll be able to get more of the pictures I need early, before the regular stuff starts. It's fun, but I'm tired.

No Meatballs For You!

The crib we got before Sarah was born converted to a day bed, then to the headboard of (I thought) a twin sized bed. I realized a few months ago that there's no way that was the width of a twin--it was easily a full, and when I measure it, I was right. Lauren really doesn't fit in it anymore, and we told her she'd get a new bed this summer. We could just get a full sized frame & mattress, but then I'd have to get new bedding to go with it, and I'd need to keep her linens distinct from Sarah's, and everyone knows I'm way too lazy for that.

My Dad (who worked in a furniture store for most of my life) suggested we check out IKEA. We got an IKEA store here last year, to great fanfare and madness, but I hadn't had a chance to check it out. Also, when I looked on their website, I saw a bed I knew Lauren would go crazy for.

It's got that loft/bunk bed feel, but it's not as high as one of those. The tent would just be gilding the lily, and she'd probably never leave her room. Sadly, they didn't have it at our local store, and you can't order it online, but we went to check out the store itself anyway.

We dropped the kids off in the play area (Sarah is just shy of being too tall), and started to look around. We saw some kid's beds that looked like they had potential, but then I noticed the size. When I asked, the sales person told me that it was "European Youth" size. Um, yeah. That's not going to work. (I think the bed above is a standard twin size, but I'm not positive) Then we went to look at other beds, that came in the size we wanted. We found a couple things that would work, but come on--it's IKEA. It's all very plain. I could get some boards and cinder blocks and make something comparable. I think that's fine if you choose that style as an adult, but I know Lauren would like something a little "more." Not necessarily frilly, but not just a plain box. So the search continues.

As for the famous meatballs, we glanced over at the cafeteria, but didn't stop to get anything. Also, I could drag Jeff through housewares to save my life. I'm going to have to go back sometime (maybe I'll take my mom when she comes for her September visit) and have a good long browse.

I forgot how much I like steak

I have a freezer full of meat. My stepsister and I split a quarter of a cow from a guy my stepbrother gets meat from. He gets a lot more meat than we did, although he has to feed a lot more people--he has an assisted living facility, and his mom & grandparents live right next door. He'd mentioned it before, but I balked at the price. $400 for meat at one shot? That's hard to budget. But when my sis offered to split it, I decided to try it out.

So last weekend, we took three coolers up to his house (only needed two), and brought home 46 pounds of meat--boneless--26 pounds of it very lean ground beef. Seriously, when I made Sloppy Joes the other day, I had to add a couple pieces of bacon!

There are a couple of roasts, and quite a few steaks. I rarely buy steaks. When we grilled a couple of strip steaks last night, and I couldn't believe how good they were. It was cooked exactly the way I like it, although I think it might have been a little rare for Jeff. Lauren ate it up (gave her mostly from the outer edges, so cooked more), and Sarah had some tilapia, which she likes. There's only one strip steak left, but that means that I'll make a chicken dinner for me and the girls, and Jeff can have the steak. For me, that will be a treat in and of itself. I just have to try and remember some good chicken recipes!

I still need to go and price out steaks/roasts to see how much I would have spent if I'd bought them individually, but it's diffucult. Do I check the sale price at the mega mart, or the regular price at a butcher shop? I'm pretty sure that a $4.80 price per pound average is pretty good, especially when you consider that the ground beef is so lean, but I'd like some more specific numbers.

Results

Today, Purple Heart gets three bags of kids' clothes, one bag of adult clothes, one box of books, one box of toys, and a computer monitor that may or may not be working. It's not much, and it hasn't made a dent in the basement, but it's a start. The three biggest things right now are organizing my sewing stuff, organizing the kids' clothes, and throwing lots of stuff away.

Sarah had a hard time getting rid of stuff--she snuck a few things out of the toy box, and when I told her she had to replace it with an equal volume (she tried putting a tiny toy back in place of a big one--no luck, sister!), she ended up putting at least one of the toys that I'd originally had in there back.

New Toy

Last year, I tried putting my camera in a zip lock bag in order to protect it in the pool. Didn't work so well! I also got a disposable underwater camera, but was very disappointed with the results. When I saw the Aquapac, I thought it might be a good solution. I ordered it a week ago, and when it arrived Friday, I was really excited. I finally got to give it a test run today.

Overall, I'm glad I got it. Definitely worth the $35. However, it's not perfect. Getting good underwater pictures is incredibly difficult, although that isn't because of the bag, really. You can't really look through the viewfinder, so it's hard to see if your subject is in the frame. I got at least 5 pictures of Sarah's body--no head. And even if you do get the subject reasonably centered, chances are good it will look distorted.
If I only wanted to be able to get underwater pictures, I'd be somewhat disappointed. But the other aspect to taking the camera in the pool is that I can get closer to the kids, and get different angles. Last year, I was really limited by being on the sides, even with the zoom.
I could never have gotten this shot last year. I also got some close ups that I like.

It was almost impossible to see if I'd gotten a shot or not--the bag combined with the sunshine made it hard to see the LCD screen. Taking the camera in and out of the bag was a little unwieldy, but not too difficult. I did leave it open on the table for a while, because even though I had a bag of silica gel desiccant in there, I did get some condensation, which I was trying to avoid.

Overall, I'm glad I got it, and I'll keep using it at the pool. It's going to be hard to narrow down the swim pictures for this year's Christmas album!

Synchronicity

Last night, I got a call from Purple Heart. "We'll be out on x day, do you have anything to donate?" "Absolutely!"

Also last night, I watched the super-sized Clean House, "Messiest House in America." Holy moly, what a dump. Not one, not two, not three, but FIVE dumpsters. Yeah, it was a good sized house, but when you have more dumpsters than bedrooms (four), that's a problem.

My house is not nearly that bad, but it has inspired me to make my Purple Heart Goal:

• 1 box of books
• 2 boxes of toys
• 1 bag of kids' clothes
• 1 bag of adults' clothes

What would be really great is if I could throw out an equivalent amount of garbage.

The Happiness Budget

Whoever says money can't buy happiness doesn't know where to shop, right? Yeah, ha ha ha, the best things in life are free, etc.

For the most part, I'm quite the tightwad. Some of this is out of necessity, some of it is out of habit.

Yesterday, I went to a local farmer's market, with naught but $14 in my pocket (the amount left from what we gave Sarah to take to the water park with her Brownie troop last weekend). The first thing to catch my eye was a basil plant. I love basil, and try to grow it, but don't use it as much as I like. And since I seriously procrastinated on the garden, I hadn't been able to find any. I also got some red leaf lettuce, and small containers of blueberries and black raspberries. All for the low price of $11. I thought about getting some flowers, too, but the gladiolas were $4, and the bouquets I really liked were $5. "Next week!" I thought. While I was driving home, the smell of basil filled the car, and it made me so happy, I couldn't believe it. I've already added some of the bigger leaves to pasta & garlic, yum.

I realized that I like being able to splurge on things like fresh flowers. When I was doing my au pair thing, the mom always had fresh flowers in the house. She had a huge shelf devoted just to vases. I loved that. I rarely have fresh flowers around now, because most of the time, I find crappy bouquets or overpriced arrangements.

I'm going to set aside $10 or $15 a week to splurge on little things like that. I'm not going to include it in the grocery budget, and it's going to be for little things that I really like. Jeff gets $12/week for his lunch out with work buddies. I did have a twinge of, "Crap, that's almost $100 a month!" I try to have our budget down to the bone as much as possible, but I think that investing in happy little luxuries is worthwhile.