Another Notch On My "I'm A Geek" Belt

If you haven't already subscribed to receive newsletters from
this site, you're missing out! She seriously puts together the best articles and quotes, shares great ideas, and has a wealth of information to share.

Recently, that information included everything you need to know about dehydrating. It's not some boring article, it's a series of
short videos a lady put on youtube showing you just what to do and how easy it is. Can you believe her fabulous jar wall?? It's beautiful AND it will feed you too!

This lady is AMAZING! She's got a bit of a different philosophy for having a food storage. In one of her videos, she lists a bunch of different people she listens to. I was curious of the one she said she believed "right from her heart", so I looked it up. OK, so she believes that the reason for Earth's unrest is because aliens have infiltrated the human race and are causing turmoil. The aliens are waiting for humankind to destroy itself so they can come in and take all of the resources from our planet. Hmmm. Interesting.

But then again, I believe that God and Jesus came and talked to a 14 year old kid, who later went on to translate the Book of Mormon from gold plates despite having very little education. Touche. The point is, even though people believe very differently, you can still learn a lot from each other.My mom got me a dehydrator a few months ago. I had been wanting to use it, but had no idea how to get started. The dehydrator I got came with this weird jerky-making mechanism I have no interest in using. Jerky out of a syringe? It just doesn't seem natural, and an insult to beef. When I got the newsletter with the videos and all of the information I needed, I totally got the dehydrating itch. I LOVE it!
Aaron is a bit weary of me stockpiling #10 cans of food everywhere, so I needed a new way of adding to our food storage without him knowing I was adding to our food storage.

Aaron: What are you dehydrating?
Me: Corn.
Aaron: What for?
Me: To put in soups 'n' stuff.
Aaron: Let me get this straight, you're taking all the moisture out of food so you can turn around and put it back in?
Me: Yup.

He thinks I'm weird sometimes. Someday, he will thank me.

So here's my little collection of what I've dehydrated this week:Corn, peas, carrots, and bananas. I find myself looking in the fridge and freezer to see what else I can dehydrate. I'm on a roll.

Bittersweet

Last weekend, Aaron put out a bunch of For Rent signs up around town. Within a half hour, we had someone walking through our house. I was ill prepared for such results and about had a heart attack. Dishes in the sink, laundry piles, and I hadn't cleaned the bathrooms. I guess the rest of our house looked good enough, because she left us a deposit and is due to move in August 1st. Woo hoo! Having a renter for the house is such a relief. We'd be able to keep the house and keep our credit intact.

I should have known better than to relax. This year, nothing has been easy. Just when I get the puzzle pieces to come together, a new piece is thrown in and I'm forced to take everything apart and start over.

Yesterday, my boss informed me that business just isn't getting better and that my hours (and paycheck) will be cut in half. For someone who desperately needs the money, it's not what you want to hear. I'll still be making more than at any lame minimum wage job, so I'm going to keep working part time.

On the VERY up side...Guess who I get to spend an extra 4 hours with a day? My favorite little kidlet in the whole wide world. He makes my day better.

We Should Have Named Him Houdini

From birth, you couldn't keep this kids' arms in a swaddle. That left arm always broke free no matter how good a job I did. Now it seems that his pajamas are confining him. Perhaps he has inherited a bit of his mama's claustrophobia. What ever the reason, this boy will not conform and cannot be held down in any way. I'm sure this is just the beginning of plenty of pajama mishaps.

Online Shopping FAIL

I stumbled on the site, www.failblog.org. In my opinion, I think it is the funniest site I have ever seen. My mom on the other hand didn't get it. It's about life's attempts that go horribly wrong, or just don't quite meet the mark.

Which brings me to my story.

If I receive a gift card, I rarely use it right away. I usually save them for a rainy day when I'm broke and need some retail therapy without spending money. Besides, shopping isn't as much fun as it used to be. I don't get to go shopping by myself anymore. Actually, physically GOING to the store to shop is almost more trouble than it's worth. This week I had a little extra "quiet time" while Ev was sleeping, so I got out some old gift cards that still had balances to do a little online shopping. First up was my Ritz Camera gift certificate for $50. Aaron got this for me a couple of years ago, but I forgot I had it. All of the stores are now closed, but online was open! I scoured through pages and pages of options and painfully narrowed my selection down to the amount of the card. I joyfully plugged in the gift card account number...it showed a balance of:What? How could that be? I called to check and found myself on hold for an insane amount of time. I suppose there must be a crazy amount of people trying to get a hold of Ritz Camera at 9pm. I decided to try their online "Live Chat" and was connected with someone named Thomas Miller.
Thomas Miller: Welcome to Ritz Camera online! How can I help you?
Caroline: I got this $50 gift card from a Ritz Camera Store that's showing a zero balance, it was never used. How could that be?
Thomas Miller: Ritz Camera stores and Ritz Camera online are two different stores. We have nothing to do with each other.
Caroline: So, even though the back of the card says visit us at Ritz Camera online, the card is useless?
Thomas Miller: That is correct.
??? I still don't get it.
Utter shopping FAILURE. I had spent upwards of 45 minutes making my retail therapy selection only to have it ripped away. I didn't let that get me down too much though, I still had two more gift cards. Next up was a Jo-Ann gift card. A little smarter this time, I checked the balance FIRST. I knew I had used a bit of the card, but when I went to check the balance, this is what I had left:That didn't even cover the cost of shipping - FAIL! My last ray of hope a Kohl's certificate. The golden balance on this card?Well, if you subtract the cost of shipping, I suppose I could buy a really super cool pair of socks. So anti-climactic. I think I need to find a new therapeutic outlet.

The Wave

This morning Everett had his check up at the doctor office. Aaron was able arrange his work schedule and was able to go with me. Everett had gained a whopping 4 lbs. 10 oz. since his last appointment just over 2 months ago. He's now at 19 lbs. 14 oz. After the doctor finished her exam, she turned to leave and waved "goodbye" to Everett. To our surprise, Everett waved back!

My mom has been working with him for the last couple of months with the "Your Baby Can Read" program. It has a series of different words such as arms up, nose, tiger, clap, eyes, elephant, reach, gorilla, toes, etc. Ev loves watching the videos, and every once in a while he would make the clapping or reach motion - but it has to be HIS idea. If you try to coax it out if him, forget it. A bit like dad, eh??

Just a few minutes ago I got a call from my mom. She had taken Everett over to Aarons' grandparents for the afternoon, and when she left she waved "goodbye" and sure enough, Everett waved back! It's pretty cool to see your kid learning and understanding. Once again, I lucked out and I was there to catch the first "wave". He's progressing so quickly, It's still hard for me to believe in just a couple of months he'll already be one. I wish I could freeze time, at least just for a little while.

I Won't Tell Your Dad

This last week Ev has really taken off in the crawling and pulling himself up on everything department. He figured out how to climb up stairs, and is ALMOST faster than me at getting into what he shouldn't before I can grab it away or pull him off of where he shouldn't be.

From almost the beginning Ev has been fascinated with remote controls, and telephones. This last week Everett discovered Aaron's electronics. Most good moms would pull their kid away and direct their attention elsewhere. Not me. He wasn't squirting water into the TV (Krista!) or stuffing toys in the speakers (Colleen, didn't Tyler do that?) so, I just let him explore, climb and throw the remotes around. That kept him busy for a solid 10 minutes two days in a row. So you go ahead and check out that TV, the remotes and your dad's XBOX. If it gives me 10 minutes of peace, it was well worth the risk.