Chore Avoidance that Gave The Hubs and I a Laugh This Morning

B goes through an obscene amount of clothes each week.  He owns more clothes than me or the hubs and he seems to wear way too many of them.  And we can't figure out how he is going through so many clothes each week because if we don't leave the house, he doesn't get dressed!  He is in his PJs until he goes outside to play for a couple of hours in the afternoon.  And we've told him that unless he gets those clothes dirty from rolling around on the ground or sweats in them, he can set them on his butler and wear them again the next day.  I have a sneaking suspicion of what happens - he takes a bunch of clothes out of his drawers onto the floor to find the article of clothing he is looking for and then leaves the rest of the clothes on the floor.  When he goes to bed at night, I think he just picks all those clothes up off the floor and puts them in the hamper.

Anywho, he washed his clothes yesterday.  Three loads of clothes used in the last week!  My clothes all fit in one load, BTW.  The hubs and B were doing something from 6 - 9pm last night so he didn't put his clothes away.  I told him he could wait until the morning, but that he was not to leave his room in the morning without first putting the 2 baskets full of clothes away.  The boy is usually up right before or right after the hubs leaves for work at 6am.  Some days he'll sleep in until 7am or 7:30am if he was really tired.  These pictures were taken at 8:10am this morning.  He had not left his room and had not put the clothes away.  LOL  He'd rather go hungry and forgo TV just to put off putting those clothes away a little longer.  He's a nut!  ;o)  I called the hubs and told him and he had a good laugh, too.

The Solution to World Peace, According to My 10 Year Old

"If everyone in the world had a balloon, Mama, there wouldn't be any wars.  How can you be anything but happy when you have a balloon in your hand?  And even if people did go to war, no would die or get hurt since the only thing they'd have to fight with would be balloons.  Even if there was a big battle, where everyone hit each other with their balloons, it would be alright!  No one would get hurt and everyone would end up laughing.  How can you not end up laughing in a balloon fight?!  That's the way it always ends in our house.  And we're regular people just like everybody else in the world."

I think he needs to take his brilliant idea to the UN.  :oD

Easter Egg Decoration with Craft Club

Last week I hosted March's Craft Club and we did Easter egg decoration.  We had so much fun!  We had some younger sibling present, so the kids ranged from 4 yrs - 10 yrs.  After decorating eggs as characters, I don't think I can go back to just plain 'ole egg dying.  However, B says that his favorite egg was the Smiley Face, where he could just free draw on the egg.  So, I'll have to wait and see what he's in the mood to do next year.

There were four kinds of eggs that the kids created:

• Smiley Faces
• Snorkelers
• Toy Story Aliens
• Phineas & Ferb's Perry the Platypus

I hope you and your family have as much fun as we did decorating eggs this year.  And I'd love to hear about or see your pix, too!

A Romantic Date With A Purpose Courtesy of Our 10 Year Old

Monday afternoon, I was on the phone with my brother.  I told him that our church sponsors a Date with a Purpose several months each year and the hubs and I had not been to one in probably a year.  I want to go to next month's and asked if he would watch B while the hubs and I went out.  When I got off the phone, I found the set table in the picture to the left.  That table is currently B's coloring/LEGO building/cars racing/lapbook creating/meal taking/action figure stage table, and when I got on the phone, it was covered with books, crayons, action figures, LEGOs and crumbs.

"What is this?" I asked B.  "It's a romantic, date-with-a-purpose dinner for you and Daddy tonight," he replied, with a big smile.  I just wrapped that sweet boy up into my arms, hugged him and tried, unsuccessfully, not to cry.  When I knew I could speak, I asked, "And where will you be while Daddy and I are having this romantic, date-with-a-pupose?"  "Eating in the kitchen.  And I won't say a word," he promised.

We not only had a romantic, date-with-a-purpose dinner with just the two of us at the table, we had dinner and a show.  B kindly selected the oh-so-romantic movie, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.  LOL!  It was perfect!  The candle on the table was lit, the hubs and I held hands while we ate dinner and all but two Jedis were wiped off the face of the galaxy.  It's OK, though; The One Who Will Bring Balance to The Force was born in the end.

"The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, A Christmas Story" by Lemony Snicket

Until yesterday, I had never read a Lemony Snicket book.  Do you read any of his books to your children or do your children read them?  After B's gymnastics class yesterday afternoon, we stopped at the library to pick up a book I had placed on hold.  B wanted to peruse the children's section, so we headed over there.  I found this book, The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, A Christmas Story, on display and decided to check it out - it was short, I was intrigued and B kept laughing over his own attempts to pronounce the word "latke".  I read it as soon as we got home and we were both laughing hysterically!  Fun way for children to learn about Hanukkah and why it's celebrated.  I recommend you check it out!

Hi, I'm Jess, and I'm an e-Book Downloading Addict

That's me!  I am addicted to downloading free e-books, mostly from Amazon.  Notice I didn't say reading free e-books, but downloading them.  I have downloaded 134 books and haven't read a single one!  I have read approx 20 pages of one book, but that's it.  After downloaded another book today, I opened up the Kindle application on my computer (I don't have a Kindle and truly appreciate that Kindle lets people like me have access to their application) to peruse my books and I was reminded, again, why I don't read any of my books - I'm overwhelmed.

I get overwhelmed quite easily and, because of that, I am not a good multi-tasker.  The only time I multi-task is when I'm on the computer and listening to the TV at the same time or cooking dinner (an entree and a side or two at the same time).  This long list of of books, with varying topics, leave me overwhelmed and after a couple of scrolls down, I inevitably close out the application.  But today, I noticed the word "Collections" on the left-hand side and clicked on the +.  Ta-da!  Lists!  I can organize my e-books into like files, making it less overwhelming for me.  Now, instead of scrolling through 134 books which can only be sorted by title, author or recently viewed, I can look at my 16 Collections, which only take up half of the main page!  Woohoo!  Much easier to go right to the subject I'm interested in to select a book.  :o)

In case you're interested, my Collections are History/Social Studies; Recipes; Health; Animals; Religious; Fun; Fiction; Non-Fiction for The Hubs & Me; Non-Fiction for B; Business; Money-Saving; Homeschool; For the Home; Math; Gardening; Language Arts.

DIY Ziploc Perfect Portions Bag

Have you seen or do you use Ziploc Perfect Portions?  Brilliant!  I must admit that when I saw the commercial for the first time, I did a "Doh!" face palm.  So simple, yet so needed, why didn't I ever think of that?  Oh, well, no matter.  They came up with the idea, I do it cheaper.  :o)  Very simple to do yourself with plastic wrap.

I made a white chili the other day with chicken thighs and needed to freeze the rest of the package.  I ripped off about 1 square foot of plastic wrap, covered my hand with it, picked up a chicken thigh, used my other hand to wrap the plastic completely around the piece of meat and put it in a freezer bag.  Voila!

According to Ziploc's website today, you can buy a 75 count box of their Perfect Portions at Target for $3.07 ($0.04/ea) or at Amazon for $4.74 ($0.06/ea).  I don't know what my 3,000 sq ft container of Kirkland plastic wrap from Costco cost me because I got it a while ago.  However, Amazon is selling it today for $25.34.  That's only $0.008/sq ft!  Even if I bought the 100 sq ft package at Wegmans grocery store for $1.99, that's still only $0.02/sq ft!  And plastic wrap is something most of have on hand already.  Thank you, Ziploc, for your inspiration!