Babies, babies everywhere and a shower every week. Here are my top gift picks:
1. Diaper Cake -
Sooo easy to make and who with a new baby doesn’t need diapers.
2. Anything from Earth Mama, Angel Baby but especially this:
Diaper rash doesn’t stand a chance.
3. This book
For the new parent who doesn’t have a clue what’s coming.
What are your favorite baby shower gifts?
Currently I’m thinking that online shopping is the greatest thing since sliced bread. I’ve been an Amazon shopper for a long while now and an Amazon Grocery shopper since they’ve had the program but recently I discovered that my local market finally, FINALLY offers its own online experience. Tonight while the children took baths and brushed teeth and got into their pajamas I did my shopping for the week. Tomorrow morning my “personal shopper” will transfer the order from computer to cart and by tomorrow noon I’ll have picked up my stash and be back home putting things away having never set foot in the grocery store. I love it. … I think. Any new experience carries with it some trepidation. This is no different. Will my eggs be cracked? Will my bread be squashed? We shall see.
Has anyone else done the online grocery store thing? What did you think?
I just wanted to make sure this one was not missed. Unless NBC has changed its mind, you will not see this ad during the game but in my opinion it is probably the best message that could have aired.
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It seems that this post was not as funny as I intended it to be. When I read Kim’s comment I drafted a long defensive reply about how it was supposed to be funny and how I did indeed spend $35 but now as I finally get a chance to type in my thoughts none of that really matters.
Kim - I am sorry to have offended you. I agree that the Boy Scouts are an excellent organization and I applaud the work they do. I would never have made a purchase from them had I thought otherwise. Thank you for the reminder that purchasing products is not the only way to give money to an organization. In the future, I will make my donations directly to the Scouts and will encourage others to do the same.
Me to my defensive self: “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
When the young man said he was with the Boy Scouts and would I like to buy some popcorn, I smiled. Of course, because it’s the BOY SCOUTS and it’s POPCORN. I ordered two tins even though the price seemed a bit steep. It was for a good cause and besides those popcorn tins are always as big as pumpkins.
It is true the tins that arrived were as big as pumpkins just not quite like I’d expected.
And to add insult to injury … they’re not even full or decorative. To whom could I possibly gift a half empty tin with smiling boy scouts on it?
Next year if I spend $35 on popcorn it will be here where the quality will be better and I’ll get three times as much.
Sorry, Boy Scouts. Next year I’ll be prepared.
If you buy an Intex Easy Set Pool you will perhaps believe set up to be easy. And why not!? It clearly states on the box that it is. See?
All you have to do is:
1 Make an offhand sort of promise to your daughter that the pool will be up before July 4th.
2 Realize July 4th is fast approaching.
3 Remember what a poor job your filter did last year.
4 Remember how you don’t want to add chemicals to something your children will be spending at least a quarter of their summer time in.
5 to 19 Spend an average of an hour each day for two weeks agonizing over how to keep this pool clean.
20 Settle on a saltwater filter.
21 Spend the next week looking for a good deal before finally deciding to bite the bullet and just get one already.
22 Wait for it to arrive before proceeding to the erroneously labeled “step 1″.
23 The “select level location” bit may be tricky if your yard is sloped. But no problem, that can be remedied in a few easy steps.
24 Stake out desired location for pool.
25 Run string around stakes and level with string level.
26 Realize you don’t have a string level - go to Lowe’s to get one.
27 While at Lowe’s pick up 20 of the 36 bags of filler you’ve determined you need to create your very own “level location” and 2 bags of salt for the filter.
28 Return home and level the previously strung string.
29 Carry 20 bags of top soil and 2 bags of salt to the back yard.
30 Wish you had a wheelbarrow.
31 Spread out 20 bags of top soil as evenly as possible.
32 Realize you are a bit shy of level.
33 Briefly consider returning to Lowe’s for more soil before realizing how tired you are.
34 Decide close is good enough.
35 Lay plastic tarp over your almost “level location.” (This is not explicitly stated in the instructions but experience will have taught you the value of this step.)
36 Place pool over plastic tarp making sure to center it on your fabricated “level location”.
37 
38 Notice the word “optional”.
39 Recall last summer when you blew up the top ring With. Your. Mouth.
40 Refrain from cursing.
41 Listen to your genius daughter who reminds you of your bicycle pump.
42 Discover the bicycle pump doesn’t fit.
43 Refrain from cursing.
44 Watch your genius daughter jerry-rig an adapter from some random black garden tube thing.
45 Request an application to MIT.
46 to 49 Watch filter instructional video at least 4 times.
50 Install filter/saltwater chlorination unit that you spent weeks researching, Do this in the near darkness while your flashlight holding daughter skips away periodically crying, “Oooh look! A firefly!”
51 Reconsider the MIT application.
52 Go to bed.
53 The next morning (or later) re-center pool on plastic tarp.
54 Turn on hose and begin to fill the pool with an inch of water.
55 Turn off hose and carefully smooth out all wrinkles.
56 Notice that one side of the pool has an inch of water and the other side has about a foot more than an inch.
57 Disregard this discrepancy.
58 When all wrinkles are smoothed out, turn the hose back on.
59 Allow children to splash about as pool fills.
60 Make the children get out so you can go bake a cake or read some blogs or write a dissertation. (Any or all of these can easily be finished in the time it takes the pool to fill.)
61 Turn the hose off.
62 Congratulations your pool is now *almost* ready to use.
63 Add 60 lbs of salt to the pool.
64 Allow filter to run for 24 hrs.
65 Set chlorination unit to run for 3 hrs.
66 Test water.
67 Use pool. For 4 days. It will look something like this:
68 Skip swimming on the 5th day because of rain.
69 Skip swimming on the 6th day because of rain.
70 Skip swimming on the 7th day because of rain.
71 Wake up day 8 to find this:
72 Watch helplessly as your dreams of summer coolness roll slowly down the slope of your *almost* “level location”
73 Wait for the sun to return.
74 Empty pool.
75 Move pool.
76 Roll back tarp.
77 Remember why you put down the tarp in the first place.
78 Try not to faint from the smell of rotting grass.
79 Pack up the kiddos and head to Lowe’s.
80 Purchase the remaining 16 bags of filler you should have gotten the first time and another bag of salt.
81 Purchase a wheelbarrow because by golly you’re not carrying that many bags of anything to the backyard ever again.
82 Get completely home before realizing you have purchased a wheelbarrow with a flat wheel.
83 Refrain from cursing.
84 Don’t remember that you have a bicycle pump.
85 Carry 16 bags of sand and a bag of salt to the back yard.
86 Silently remind yourself that God tells us to forgive others.
87 to 104 Forgive the people at Lowe’s for selling you a defective wheelbarrow. - Repeat once for each bag.
105 Spread the sand around to create a new and improved “level location”
106 Replace the tarp over the sand and fetid grass.
107 Replace the pool on the tarp.
108 Go to bed.
109 Re-install the filter/saltwater chlorination unit.
110 Center pool on the the new “level location.
111 Turn on hose and begin to fill the pool with an inch of water.
112 Turn off hose and carefully smooth out all wrinkles.
113 When all wrinkles are smoothed out, turn the hose back on.
114 Allow children to splash about as pool fills.
115 Shake your head as you try to overcome an overwhelming feeling of dejavu.
116 Make the children get out so you can go bake a cake or read some blogs or write a dissertation take a nap while the pool fills.
117 Turn the hose off.
118 Congratulations your pool is now *almost* ready to use…again
119 Add 60 lbs of salt to the pool.
120 Allow filter to run for 24 hrs.
121 Set chlorination unit to run for 3 hrs.
122 Test water.
123 Use pool.
See? Exactly one hundred twenty-three steps. 1-2-3.
Marketing. Genius.
Long ago in a life far away, I needed some contact cards for my doula business. Now anyone who’s ever been a doula knows it’s not a particularly lucrative field (though the intrinsic rewards are outstanding). Anyway, I was looking for inexpensive business cards that I didn’t have to buy by the thousands. A little bit of searching led me to VistaPrint. Since that time I’ve used their service for address stamps, more business cards, notepads and most recently postcards (of the “We have moved” variety) The quality is great. The service is outstanding. Any product can be personalized with ease and best of all, I got everything for the price of shipping. Cool, huh?
In case you were wondering, this is not a sponsered post. I just found a print company that works for me.
Click on over here to find out what’s working for other bloggers this week.
Did you have a good holiday? I hope so. We took it easy this year. Hung out with the family, roasted some hot dogs, set off a few fireworks. Okay, that last bit is a complete understatement. Independance Day ranks right next to Christmas on our favorite holiday list. In fact for us, it is very much like Christmas. We go to the store with our budget in hand and leave the store with our budget in the trash. See.
I should tell you that we didn’t set all of these off… yet. We usually do two shows each year. One on the Fourth for our Tulsa family and friends and then another sometime in August for the family out in Gate. This year we are adding a show in Arkansas for a different group of relatives. …. because we are crazy people, I tell you.
To our credit we only go crazy like this on special occasions. It’s not an everyday sort of thing (so you can just stop looking for that insane asylum number right now). And for Independance day the craziness seems limited to the four walls of the TNT Fireworks Superstore. This is why:
Disclaimer: If this post reads like an advice column it’s because it was written for the WFMW that wasn’t.
And I am writing this from my super secret remote hide-out while my regular posting location is, you know, FLOODED! We came to Tulsa this past weekend and as usual returned to B’ville Sunday evening in time to watch the only show on TV that matters right now. Anyway, leaving on Friday we noticed the Go Kart place was flooded. “That’s too bad.” We sympathized and drove on. Driving back into town on Sunday we noticed the soccer fields were flooded (as in you could only see the tops of the goals). Nearing downtown we saw streets three blocks from our apartment covered in water. We also ran into traffic which wouldn’t be that unusual in many downtowns but on most Sunday nights in B’ville cars are sparse. We got into our apartment (2nd Floor) and stepped out onto the balcony to watch a constant trail of cars, SUV’s and pickups loaded to the hilt with mattresses and other misc furniture. It was like some eerie, mass exodus. We went inside to watch our show. Half an our later my mom calls to say parts of I-75 are closed and the floodwaters in B-ville are rising.
“Oh, mom we’re on the second floor. It’s no big deal.” I step outside to survey the situation and calm her silly concerns.
“Uh, mom…. we’ll be home soon. I gotta go.”
Why the sudden change? Floodwaters that had been three blocks away are now visible at two. Will and I quickly pack (again). Within another 30 minutes we’ve gathered enough clothes and other sundry items to last a week. I peak out the balcony one last time. The new shoreline has advanced from two blocks to one. That averages out to about a block an hour.
Today we are in Tulsa at Grandma’s (oops, I mean a secure remote location). Since our B’ville place is on the second floor and the building itself is on a bit of a rise, I don’t have much concern for our stuff but we recieved word that today downtown is basically closed which means that had we stayed we probably would have been stuck there. Four people and a cat in less than 700sq ft for an indeterminate amount of time is not on my list of fun things to do for Independance Day.
Anyway this experience has gotten me to thinking about a few things:
I invite you do do an evacuation check. Could you leave your house in 30 minutes without worry? I hope so.
Here’s a picture of Brother from September 2005. He had just recently started walking so I ordered a pair of Bobux.
I cannot say enough good things about these shoes. People seemed to constantly remark on how well he walked in these. But when he wore “regular” shoes the comments ranged from nothing at all to “just learning how to walk, huh?”
There are a lot of knock-offs available now for much less but they all have one major benefit in common: they stay on. If you have a toddler - you need these shoes.
Did you play?
ever practical and slightly crunchy; the wife of my best friend and the mother of three incredible little teachers. Each day we explore our world and when there is time I come here to share our discoveries with you. My name is Toni. Thanks for stopping by.
