Quick Take #3 2-25

1. We joined the local Y a few weeks ago. Last week I did great. I went 3 mornings and Teresa went to the babysitting there. She loved it and I got exercise. This week not once. Our schedule is off and the Y doesn't have childcare in the afternoons when I've been available. Next week I will try again.

2. The other night Andrea came in my room asking for a bandaid. I was helping get Teresa's PJ's on. The only bandaid I could find was a scoobydoo one. Teresa upon seeing these bandaids promptly states "I have a boo-boo somewhere, let me find it, I know it hurts." She did find one on the back of her heel.

3. My post foster children placement nesting cleaning urges have ceased. I got nasty decluttering left. I started on one of the ancient boxes in the garage the other day while Teresa was playing. I tossed old prom pictures (not my dear David) but was stuck on things like the 1st Father's day card I gave David right before Andrea was born and Andrea's little card from her hospital bassinet.

4. I have a new cell phone. It's from http://www.sienna-group.com/ I need to get numbers programmed in it and get the ringer changed. Right now when it rings I take me too long to remember that's my phone ringing.

5. Our taxes seem so time consuming this year. Mostly due to changes in the adoption credit that should mean we get a very large refund this year. Turbo Tax finally got the form updated completely yesterday. We have to attach documentation from the adoption so Wednesday I picked up some copies of our adoption paperwork from our caseworker . Thursday Teresa and I went to the court house to get an official copy of her adoption decree. I wasn't sending our only copy to the IRS. We're not eligible to efile so before we print out our return we need to get toner for the laser printer. Then of course the envelope will need weighed so a trip to the post office.

6. Megan was home last weekend from Franciscan. We spent the weekend eating lots of meat.We had salmon Friday night. I've been looking for something to do with plain frozen salmon since Walmart stopped carrying the creamy dill salmon we loved. Well all we did Friday was bake the salmon with lots of BUTTER. It was quite tasty. Saturday was another simple but yummy meal. Put onion soup mix and some water in crockpot with roast. Let it cook all day. Boil noodles. Shred roast with a fork add a bit more beef broth. We ate it with green beans and bacon and applesauce. Our family requires bacon for green beans.

7. I'm off tonight for a local moms' retreat. Just 24 hrs but I'm looking forward to it. I'm also hoping that the weather doesn't ruin it. Last year I decided not to stay overnight at the retreat house and I had to cancel since the weather was too bad to drive back home on the dark rural roads. Overnight we've had our too frequent recent combination of rain, freezing rain, and snow. It is all supposed to stop by 11am. I'm hoping that forecast is correct.

For more quick takes see Jen at Conversion Diary.

Quick Takes #2 Weather

1. We were in the area that had a lot of ice and some snow this week, our yard and driveway are somewhat like a 4 inch thick snowcone.

2. Since Mass Sunday I had only left the house to go to an eye doctor appt Monday at lunchtime until this morning.

3. This morning I managed to motivate Teresa to be ready for the day by 8:30am with promises of storytime at the library. When we got there at 10 there was a sign posted that they weren't opening to noon. She handled it remarkably well.

4. The next stop was Kroger. It was very busy mostly with senior citizens. I indulged Teresa with her own little cart. She piled it high with groceries. She rejected the raisins though, "I don't like them, put them in YOUR cart!" Also when she found one aisle empty of people she took off at a run pushing her cart and giggling.

5. I'm trying to keep to the weekly grocery budget which is nothing new but I'm also trying to see if I can do while just going to Kroger each week. I generally go to several stores (Aldi, the bread store, dollar store, Save A Lot, Walmart). Not all of them every week but several generally. They are all close together but unbuckling carseats etc takes a lot of effort and Teresa's behavior goes way down with more than 2 stops. Kroger seems more expensive than Walmart but with sales and not adding other items which is easy to do at Walmart I'm hoping it will work. Some other advantages to Kroger are that we get our RXs there already, the store is smaller, and I greatly appreciate their customer service. They bag, they will go get a new item if somehow one got smushed, they will even volunteer to take your cart and unload your groceries for you. Our Kroger also just got a gas station and with their points I can save quite a bit on gas. I've done well with the grocery budget the last 2 weeks so if that continues it could be one way to simplify life.

5. We went to the library to return an item that our small city library requires that it be returned to the children's desk downstairs. This library has a lot of rules but no overdue fines. The item is part of this series. We really liked the 1st one we had which was counting.

6 I just got the ice off of my van. The van roof had ice as thick as the luggage rack in places. I was worried this morning when I was driving that the ice would come off and hit the car behind me. I've been chiseling (really using my scraper) for about 2 days getting a few feet here and there.

7. Teresa keeps seeing dump trucks and bulldozers downtown moving snow. She wants to do that when she grows up and she wants toy ones for her birthday. "Put it on my list." She says that almost every day now. "Can I put that on my birthday list?" Her birthday is in October.

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