Well, here's a new one

Just when you think you've heard it all, people never cease to amaze you!

Mom #3 and I were working in the nursery together again this weekend. Another mom is apparently expecting her fourth, and at twenty weeks has less of a tummy than I do with only the previous night's supper in me. That's always nice to see.

So, as we know, no topic is off limits among nursery workers. Oh, nursery duty days... I just love how I never know what to expect from you!

So as the other two moms in the room were talking about their various delivery experiences (seven, between them) at different area hospitals, which had a good nursing staff, which did not, which nurseries were the nicest, which doctors they preferred, etc. I know this topic tends to come up among younger moms, and I do know that it's just one of those things I can't control, but also that I don't really have much to add to the conversation... obviously. :)

Finally, Mom #3 (see the linked post) asks me, "Where did you have Sassy?"

Um? Wasn't the whole "adoption" thing clear from previous conversations we've had?

Thinking she must have just forgotten, I smiled and said, "I didn't have Sassy." It was at this point that she looked at me like I had grown a third eye.

I filled her in on the fact that we had adopted Sassy, so I didn't actually birth her. :) The response was one that I can honestly say I had never gotten before. She told me I was wrong. I actually had someone tell me I was lying about Sassy being adopted. HUH??

Of course, she wasn't being mean... but apparently the adoption was just so incredulous to her that she sincerely thought I was telling her a story. I don't for the life of me know WHY I would lie about that, but okay then.

"No, you didn't! You HAD her! I know you did!" Exact. words. And repeated over and over... and over... and over...

I finally had to say, look, I was there, and it wasn't me she was coming out of. :) (Although I wasn't actually in the delivery room for a number of reasons, it was the only thing I could think of that seemed to get her to acknowledge that, yes, in fact, I was being completely honest!)

She never really indicated why she so strongly thought that Sassy was my biological child. I didn't ask... didn't seem productive.

Oh, it gets better though!

"So, whose is she then?" YES, REALLY!

"Mine!" was my reply, because that's the honest answer!

"No, I mean, who had her? Did you know her?"

"Well, we do now!" I said. I was into literal answers on this occasion, I guess!

I explained that we went through an agency, that we had a home study, that it was (ironically) about nine months from being approved to Sassy's birth, that Sassy's mom chose us from the profiles she had to view, that we have an open relationship with her, and that we do still visit when we have the opportunity.

I think she was still pretty shocked, though. I just didn't realize we were so... abnormal! Are we really that weird?!

I love a good project!

I lurve garage sales. Love, love, love. I'm very possibly the cheapest person you'd ever hope to meet, so finding unique pieces at ridiculous prices AND being able to bargain with them is right up my alley. And plus, half the fun is in the process. You never know what you might find! Worst case scenario, you'll certainly find something to laugh at. :)


So here is a recent purchase of mine! Want to guess how much I spent on this dresser (which, by the way, is NOT missing a drawer on the top left side... that drawer has been painted black for some reason)? $3. I'm not kidding... three dollars!!


Aren't the legs adorable? The casters came right out... with a little help from Mr. Incredible. As in, he did that part for me. :)


I've sanded the whole thing, and we've taken the old drawer pulls off. I'm planning to paint it white or an off-white and use it in Sassy's "big girl" room, which is a sloooow work in progress. It'd probably help to have a better "vision" of what I'm doing in there. Help, anyone? We like pink. And girly. And possibly some type of cute birdie/tree combination.


So this? Yeah, had to have this one, too. I nearly had a coronary over this thing before I even got out of the car. A little bargaining and $10 later, it was mine.


One slight problem. My sister has requested this dresser or similar for her new house. Blood might be thicker than water, but I think she's going to have to look past my offense on this one. Because it's mine!


It needs a little work, no? But it's got so much character. So much appeal. So much storage.


So here's the thing... my knee-jerk reaction was to sand it down, paint it black, and then distress it. It's not going to be anyone's actual dresser; I'm going to use it the living area and store office supplies, magazines, and yes, probably toys in it. But, thing is, I actually really like the color it is now. And now I'm sort of wondering if I should do something a little more "unpredictable" with it... something reminiscent of one of my favorite eye-candy blogs. And I'm seriously loving all shades of aqua these days. One look in Sassy's closet, and there's no doubt of that. But I just couldn't see a big piece of AQUA furniture in my house. Just not sure if it would "fit."


And then, this morning, I came across this. Quite accidentally. I was on my way to drop some things off at Goodwill and totally missed the turn. There was a garage sale at the turn-around. ONE. DOLLAR. Hello, lover!


LOVE these glass knobs. Love, love, love!


I wasn't sure about the print at first (and the little rose buds are actually magnets... the picture part is magnetic), but it kind of grew on me. I still may give some chalkboard spray paint eventually, but for now, I think I'm keeping it as "inspiration" for Sassy's new room. Maybe not quite so Victorian, though. But the frame color? Ooh, la, la! I could maybe see that color on my green dresser. Thoughts?! If it helps, it's likely going against that caramel colored wall...

She's ASLEEP!

After a week-long nap strike, Sassy is NAPPING!!!!! I put her down earlier than usual today (easier said than done), and it worked like a charm.

I feel like singing! But I won't because I don't want to wake her up. :)

Could I possibly be so lucky as to have naptime back in our normal routine?!

Disgusting

I got a new vacuum cleaner last week. It was overdue.

We'd shopped around and I had surprisingly (for me) sold myself on an Oreck. Gosh, they're nice, aren't they? Crazy power and light enough to lift one-handed without breaking a sweat. That little old wrinkly man sure does know what he's doing, I'll tell you that.

Downside? The pricetag. Ouch. And then our garage door spring broke. And our air conditioning went out. And some part on the TV blew a fuse and had to be replaced. All in the same week. Double, triple, and quadruple ouch.

Bye-bye, Oreck money. Hello, Target vacuum aisle.

I checked out the reviews, and finally decided on a Bissell that everyone seemed to have awesome things to say about. It was in the price range I was planning to spend, and let's face it -- the only other choices out there are the Hummers of the vacuum world and the $30 joke that you're afraid will break after two uses.

So, hooray for making a decision! I was actually pretty excited to test it out. I've never had a bagless vacuum before, and I will say that this is the #1 quality I hate about it, but there really aren't many bagged upright vacuums on the market these days that don't cost an arm, a leg, and a kidney.


THIS is what I found after vacuuming one room. Seriously?!? What disgustingness we've been walking and playing on without even realizing it!

Even my husband, who shall thus forth be acknowledged as "Mr. Incredible" (per his new toy -- uh, phone), noted that the carpet seemed softer... "fluffy" almost. I won't say it's turned my beige carpet three shades whiter or made it look brand new again... but for eighty bucks? I'm happy.

Sigh of relief

I love finding new blogs about motherhood, adoption, teaching your children... anything I feel has a pretty big place in my life. Months and months ago, I stumbled across an adoption blog -- I can't even remember where -- and found myself nodding along with what the writer was saying. I felt like she really got the loss aspect of adoption, something that's traditionally swept under the rug by most.

I'll admit I'm not the most faithful blogger or blog-reader anymore. I just don't feel good about putting in the amount of time it takes. I flip through a few favorite reads quickly on a pretty much daily basis, and I try to do one "clean out the reader" session about once a week. But a lot of times, I just "click, click, click" without paying TOO much attention, unless it's a blog I know that I love and will glean something from.

After skimming through a post recently on the aforementioned adoption blog, I did what I've been meaning to do for quite a while. I deleted this particular blog from my reader. It was overdue, and I finally found the two-and-a-half seconds to search for it in my list and hit "delete." And you know what? I honestly breathed a sigh of relief. It felt wonderful, and I'm not sure what took me so long to fix this oversight.

The point of this post is not to be ugly -- as you can see, I'm not naming names, and I'm not even giving details about what finally pushed me to the limit. I guess I'm just saying that, when you live with adoption in any form, there's bound to be a measure of grief/loss/stress that come along with it. Why have I been allowing my blood pressure to be raised when it's completely and totally unnecessary? Why am I allowing a stranger to make me cringe with, what I believe, is a completely skewed view of adoption, loss, and healing?

I will say this alone, and then I'm done with this topic. It literally pains me when the very thing I wish NEVER had to happen is the thing that some others are hoping and praying for.

Grocery store bargains

A few months ago, I was introduced to Five Dollar Dinners. I'd like to say I'm good at saving money at the grocery store, but wow! I'm always so impressed at what Erin comes up with for only five dollars!

Each week, she posts about her grocery shopping trip and takes a picture of everything she bought and explains how much she spent. I'm always so intrigued by this, especially because she uses the same grocery store chain that I do. While we don't live in the same area, a lot of the sale prices are the same, so I like to get tips from her when I can! :)

I thought I would post about some of the great deals I found during our shopping trip today. I was quite excited about a few of them! Hey, everybody needs a hobby! This is mine.

Stop laughing.


Bought today at Kroger:

• Two loaves Healthy Life bread, on sale for $1.39/loaf, plus $0.35 off coupons, which doubles to $0.70 off (two coupons means I bought two loaves of bread) = $0.69/loaf of bread
• Bisquick pancake mix, regular price of $3.59, with $0.60 off Shortcuts e-coupon, plus $0.50 off coupon, which doubles to $1 off = $1.99 for the box (40 oz.)
  
• Dole salad mix, on sale for $1 {with what I assumed was a $0.75 off e-coupon, but apparently was for a different flavor... maybe? Going to have to look into this...} = $1/bag of salad... FAIL. Thought it was $0.25!
• Yoplait Greek yogurt cups, on sale for $1, plus $0.45 off coupon, which doubles to $0.90 off = $0.10/yogurt cup!!
• Two packages of hummus, on sale for $1 each (regular price is 3.99!)
• Dawn dish soap, marked down to $1.39?!?, plus $0.50 off coupon, which doubles to $1 off = $0.39 dish soap!
• No Sugar Added Del Monte fruit cups, marked down to $1.39, plus $0.75 off coupon = $0.64 (This is the kind of thing I won't usually buy because individual packages are almost always more expensive... but for sixty-four cents, it'll be handy to grab and go!)

The last item pictured is this trail mix from the produce section. I never EVER buy these unless I have a coupon, but I love me some trail mix! It ended up being on sale for $3.99 (regular price is $4.49) and I had a store coupon for $0.75 off, making this good and healthy snack $3.24. Not too shabby, considering how spendy these "specialty" mixes typically are!


Last but not least of my good deals today -- two whole chickens for $0.98/pound. Every once in a while, I like to make a roast chicken in the crock pot. It's so moist and delicious, but I absolutely DETEST the clean-up! However, when I wanted to make a roast chicken a few weeks ago (and use up some of my produce drawer for flavorings), I bit the bullet. I threw some things together and was very pleased with the honey citrus chicken that resulted. I was not pleased, however, when I got home from the store and realized the bag was leaking chicken juices all over my kitchen. Yuck! So, it went straight into the crock pot for dinner the following night. Because it wasn't done cooking until it was time for me to go to bed, I just stuck it in the fridge overnight and sliced it up the following day. I could not believe how much easier it was slicing the bird COLD rather than freshly cooked! I feel like I always waste so much meat when I'm trimming it off while still warm... like it's hard to tell what's good meat and what's yucky parts. By letting it sit in the fridge overnight, I could get entire chicken breasts and tenderloins off whole, and just sliced them up from there. So easy! I also felt like I got a TON more meat off of it than usual. It was enough for dinner for three PLUS a small Pyrex dish full of leftovers that were frozen (which are going to be chicken enchiladas tonight... yum!). So I'm going to try that method again and just freeze the meat in bags this time. I'll just pull a bag out as I need it.

TWO CORRECTIONS:

1. The price for the whole chickens was $0.88/lb., not $0.98. Even better!
2. After posting, I filled out a dispute form at Shortcuts about the coupon that wasn't applied to my bill today, and I already received a response. They've credited my account with $0.80 (five cents higher than the value of the unused coupon), which will be applied to my next grocery bill. Woo!
   

One's company... two's a crowd?

I'm sitting here with the windows open on a lovely 72-degree day... and hearing the neighbor kids argue with each other. A 12-ish year old girl is screaming at her 3-ish year old brother because he broke the rules of some bike racing game they were playing. Seriously? How old are you?

And more importantly for me, why exactly would I want to listen to these kinds of shenanigans in my own home? I'm sorry, but when I can sit here and listen to my two-year-old quietly playing and making me laugh with the funny things she says, the idea of siblings (you know, the live-in kind) just doesn't make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

It's a good thing, too, because I saw a high school friend's newborn this weekend, and wow... that didn't do me any favors. I'm pretty sure my uterus started twitching.