Thrifty Mom in a Consumer World

Thrifty Tips and finding freebies

2009-07-09T09:04:00.000-04:00

I realised I'd not done a gratuitus picture post in a bit, so my next one will be a picture post, I promise!

In the meantime, let me share some great deals I've gotten recently and throw out some tips on your getting similar deals. Just the first 3 days of this week, I've gotten 13 bags of hamburger buns for free, 4 loaves of crusty french bread for free (from my thrift store); a fabulous victorian style lamp (with shade), a kitchen clock, and some yard art (all from the dump), and a beautiful oak hall table for $20.

Number one, and I've said it a million times; never, never refuse anything that's free! Srsly. Even if the old neighbour lady is trying to give you her maternity clothes from 1955, take them.

"Eww, yuck," you say. "Why should I be responsible for carting her crap to the thrift store or dump? I know I don't want those nasty old fashions!"

Well, Miss Priss, what if they're worth something on feeBay? Lots of people would kill for those old fashions; yes, even 70s polyester. You might be able to make a mint there (or Craigslist or eCrater.)

But most of all, even if you can't be arsed to resell (I'll confess to having precious little time to do that, myself) or the stuff is so manky that it has to be forwarded directly to the landfill, you would still be paying it forward by the simple RAOK (random act of kindness) of 1) making the old lady happy, and 2) doing a good deed.

I think good deeds come back to you. Also, if you graciously take the stuff (and spirit it off whilst she's not around), the next thing she gifts you with might be seasoned cast iron cookware, or antique furniture, or better.

This has happened to me many times. I have kitchen stuffs, gardening items, farm equipment, heirloom plant cuttings, and antiques all given to me by lovely older people to whom I was kind. Plus it just makes you feel wonderful to be sweet to people. Try it.

Tip number two is to keep your eyes open. Free things can be had all over. Both my regular thrift store and the local bread store have free bread on occasion. Restaurants have gallon jars, plastic buckets, etc that they throw away in quantities. Eyeball every single pile of rubbish that's been put out by the side of the road. If you're too scared to just jump out and grab stuff (be a polite scavenger: never scatter a person's rubbish or leave tyre tracks in someone's lawn, for example), then tap on the door and ask if you may haul off that overstuffed chair before the garbage truck arrives. Most folks don't care so long as it gets gone.

Cruise yard sales that are wrapping up, especially on hot days or if it's started to rain. Quickly make reasonably small offers for big and/or nice items. Lots of people will give you boxes of small or mixed stuff to keep from having to haul it to the dump. Of course a few nasty sorts will try to skin a few bucks off of you - cutting off their own noses to spite their faces - even though they're about to toss the items in a dumpster.

These people get a smile and my taillights*.

So keep your eyes peeled for freebies. I have gotten leftover food and bags of ice from catered events and school functions (after they are over, just ask the people doing the food. The worst thing they can say is "no".) , gorgeous antiques from the curb, and working electronics from dumpsters. Be observant!

Tip number three is be persistant.

The only thing on my list of aquisitions this week that I paid for was the table. It's a lovely thing, all blonde oak, long turned legs, two drawers side by side with brass pulls and nice dovetailing.

I have been stalking this piece at my regular thrift store for about 6 weeks. See, it was labled "sold" but many people pay for items and never return to pick them up. Lots of times their check bounces or their card fails to go through and the blokes in the back don't remove the sold stickers. Well, when I saw the piece still there after two weeks I asked to be notified if the 'owner' failed to pick it up. Two more weeks passed. I did a full court press and left my name and number again. When I went in yesterday, there it sat. I told the bloke that it had been 6 weeks (they give people 30 days to pick up furniture) and if he would make me a good deal, I'd get it out of his way. He was so ready to clear the space for new items that he gave it to me for $20.

The original asking price was $90.

Observation. Persistance.

Have any of you gotten any good deals this week? Freebies? How'd you manage it? Share!

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*I have had flabbergasted skinflints, folks who expect me to pay them $10 for a box of nameless crap that they will have to waste petrol hauling to the dump, chase after me as I walked to my car, offering lower and lower prices.

ZOMG! They did a LOLdog of me!

2009-07-05T15:14:00.000-04:00

see more dog and puppy pictures

Bwahahahahah ... ah ... *whew* is it bedtime yet?

In which much rambling and parentheses occur

2009-06-26T05:31:00.000-04:00

Good morning. It's gonna be a long day, I'm afraid. Farrah Fawcett is dead, Michael Jackson is dead, and it's like bits of my youth are slipping away. Apparently others feel the same judging my the meloncholy tweets and blog posts this morning.

To top it off, I was up at 3 a.m. after having a terrible nightmare (I have nightmares all the time - in fact I never 'dream' at all, I just have nightmares. I have the occasional one about the children [as I did this morning - Fiver was lost in a huge convention center-like place and Bodog and I were running everywhere among the crowds of strangers, calling his name] and those always leave me wide awake and jumpy. It takes several hours to get over the uneasy feeling. So I'm blogging! yay!)

Anyway, in persuit of my new Steampunk / Dieselpunk adventures, I've been collecting ephemera for possible art projects; old machines and watches for same (or, ohh, maybe jewelry!) and gleefully taking them apart (to my detriment. Managed to slash two fingers open AND bleed all over my dining room table and a watch movement yesterday. It did feel v. Sylar-ish, though, which was cool. Mmmm, Sylar ... )

Where was I?

Oh, anyway, I also found some excellent brushes and vectors for Graphic Designs (assuming I can come up with some) to try out on t-shirts.

Here's my Steampunk Gal:

Jules Verne and H. G. Wells would be proud. This vintage Victorian equestrienne, who is hurrying her horse along to catch the train, sports a nifty retro space helmet and ray gun. Cool! I had a lot of fun doing this one.

Here's the Victorian steampunk space girl on one of Zazzle's gorgeous, colourful mugs:

Hopefully I'll be able to come up with - and have the time to do - more steampunk soon.

Right. Enough with the pimping. How is your morning going? I know a lot of you do Etsy; how much of a pain in the backside is it? Jewelry makers, what do you suggest I use to stick together diverse materials like plastic and metal? I'm inordinately excited at the prospect of getting to use epoxy, lol! My next blog post will probably have me reporting that I glued my cut fingers together. *rolls eyes*

Steampunk -vs- Dieselpunk?

2009-06-20T08:03:00.000-04:00

So I have a new obsession ...

No, no, it's not a bloke, and so, no, Zachary Quinto's incredibly hot place in my heart has not been usurped.

Actually it's about writing. Yes, I know, this is my Mommy Blog, but it's also my personal blog so I get to ~~bore you with~~ share with you any miscellaneous stuffs that come up in my life.

I've written all my life, since I learnt how to write. My dream is to write novels (this has always been what I wanted to be, a novellist ... well, that and a jockey, but at 170lbs and 5'8" I've finally given that one up, LOL).

I have just recently returned to working on my fiction, have been enjoying it, and most of all have been delighted to share my passion with some close friends (If you are a reader or a writer please join me at my mate, Barb's, forum)*

I'm a Sci Fi sort of gal and of the 5 or so serious potential novels I have in my drawer, 2 are thrillers set in space, a third is fantasy with horror overtones, one is a ghost story, etc, etc, you get the picture. Well, whilst researching something science fiction-y, I came across the word "steampunk". I'd seen it on Twitter at some point in reference to fashion (I think) and it turns out that there is a whole steampunk lifestyle, a subculture - writing, fashion, decor, films, hairstyle, music, and on and on. How COOL!

I quickly discovered that many of me very fave films/books EVAR were steampunk or a similar genre that I had yet to define. In searching for the definition, I realised that MANY people on the 'net either aren't aware of or are misapplying the word steampunk.

Steampunk (in film or books) is generally set in a past time (often Victorian England) but one where some technological advances have occured earlier than they really did. For example: computers in the 1800s. The technology is portrayed as being constructed of period materials, wood, brass, etc, and is often run on the power of the time (in this case steam, thus the name).

From Wikipedia: "Steampunk is a sub-genre of fantasy and speculative fiction that came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history-style presentations of "the path not taken" of such technology as dirigibles, analog computers, or digital mechanical computers (such as Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine); these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or with a presumption of functionality."

Popular examples of steampunk works are: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Wild Wild West.

When I read about steampunk my first thought was: "so what's the opposite of Steampunk?", when you have a work set in the future but with retro technology? Some of my all-time fave films and books EVAR make use of this theme. What is it? It has to have a name. That name, my friends, is dieselpunk:

Dieselpunk from Wikipedia, again: "Several devices which are affiliated to the genre are generally linked to 1920s architecture, such as the introduction of the skyscraper, along with the automobile and aeroplane, and diesel as the prime resource for fuel. The genre also borrows influences from the 1950's, such as postmodernism and the googie design. The dieselpunk world is a post-Atomic dystopian world that is still stuck in the 1950s (a post-WWII environment) and is usually cast in the future capitalist-run world that relies on the nuclear values of an isolationist America. Its main source of influence would be from George Orwell's book Nineteen Eighty-Four along with Fritz Lang's 1927 film, Metropolis. Aspects of the Futurist art movement are also relevant to the development of the genre relating to dieselpunk"

The list of books and film in this genre is long so I'll just list the changed-my-life, wildly favourite ones: War of the Worlds, 1984, Brazil, Tim Burton's Batman, V for Vendetta, and the film that fascinated my early childhood mind: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

There's also Post Apocolyptic Dieselpunk, "(an) anarchistic world where there is no future or remnant of the past other than ruins and the left-over machines of mankind. The Apocalypse is usually blamed on a horrendous consequence of nuclear war or another terrible global disaster such as extreme climate change. This idea usually employs the elements of big, oily, smokey, rusty, machinery and the savage, tribal, neo-primitive, anarchic civilisation. "

Examples: Dr Strangelove, Mad Max, Waterworld. I'll also add another one of my film-loves: 12 Monkeys. Terry Gilliam totally has the genre nailed.

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So what am I going to do with all this info and obsession? Well, I might want to write a book set appropriately. Bodog and I had an exhilerating ~~knock-down drag-out argument~~ and thoughtful discussion on the concept and he insists that there must be a reason to use it. My argumant is why can't romances, mysteries, and dramas happen in the dieselpunk / steampunk setting?

I guess it all boils down to my doing it and seeing how it turns out. Perhaps it's all a visual thing. perhaps what I really love is the incredibly rich scenery and devices and gadgets. Hmm, maybe what will fulfill me is visually artistic rather than the written word.

Whatever it is, I am totally stoked about it. It's an amazingly satisfying feeling to have loved something so long and then discovered that it had a name and a whole community of folks who love it too!

Wish me luck on my Dieselpunk adventures! I'll keep you apprised.

*This is 'mate' as in 'my friend' in case you just wandered by and are not aware of my Anglophiliac tendencies. Though I adore Barb and would totally do her.

It's not a magic trick, it's parenting.

2009-05-24T12:09:00.000-04:00

So, I came across an article in my local newspaper (The State) about baby-proofing your home that made me so cross, I thought: "Ah, hah! Blog fodder!"

I happily continued my paper, setting aside the offending section.

Then I got to Rosemond. I read Rosemond religiously (LOL!) and am v. often outraged or angered by some of the stuff he writes about. Not at HIM, mind you, but at some of the bloody idiots who are parenting out there.

See, here's the thing. I don't give a flying fark at the moon how you parent your child. Srsly. They are YOUR kids and you should be allowed to raise them as you see fit. You can bottle feed, stuff 'em with carbs, co-sleep, give 'em a paci, let them drink Mt Dew straight out of the 20 oz bottle at age one, or wear your 4-year-old on your hip in an organically grown designer hand-woven hemp sling that costs $250.

I DON'T BLOODY CARE.

I might comment to myself, my friends, on Twitter, and snarkily in my blog - I welcome you to do the same about my parenting foibles - but I would never say you shouldn't do these things, only that *I* wouldn't do them.

BUT. And this but is almost as big as my own:

You are NOT allowed to parent in ways that affects me and my children adversly without criticism from me!

Did you get that?

This includes endless moaning on Twitter, Facebook, IRL and blogs about the results of your particular parenting. If that 4-year-old in the sling is hurting your back and you whine about it every day, well, this bitch is gonna finally tell you to put the damned spoilt kid down cuz even my 2 year old can walk on his own!

If you go on and on about weaning from a paci or being kicked in your co-sleep by a toddler, I reserve the right to sigh and roll my eyes and suggest you might just trash the paci (finally), kick the kid into her own bed (finally), be tough, ignore the crying, and go on about your lives. Jeez!

Look. I'm NOT a better mom than you, and my kids are NOT superior to yours, but when you make parenting choices then complain overly much about the results and do nothing to change it, well, it's not cute and is gonna elicit comment.

"Right, Blue," you're saying now, "So we get it, but what's this post about? What got yer knickers in a wad in the paper? Are we getting to some point?"

Yes. Yes, we are.

It's also not OK when your parenting methods affect me and mine. That's bad. that's v. bad.

The Rosemond article is about classroom sizes and how the idiots trying to 'reform' schools are basically pissing into the wind and using huge wodges of cash to prop the outhouse door open.

One of the 'reform' methods is to reduce class sizes and teacher/student ratios, yet, back in the day, classes were as much as twice as large and they were taught successfully by a single teacher. Rosemond nails the reason why this worked:

"The reason 1950s kids could be successfully taught in overcrowded classrooms is because they had been and were being properly disciplined in the home"

Let me pause here and say, emphatically, that I don't condone overcrowded classrooms. I also would never want my kid's teachers to have any more students. But the reason is exactly the one Rosemond pointed out.

I will share with you the last day of 4-year-old Kindergarten for my Bitty Girl (all the children in the class are 5 by now, of course). They had a wee little celebration with singing and such and it was loads of fun. Most of the 4K moms/grandmoms were there and several dads. Afterwards we retired to the cafeteria for sugary carbo-bomb snacks.

During the hour and a half that I was there I saw one child deliberately, and with forethought, stomp on another child's foot (during the singing!) This little creep never once attempted to join in the performance, but scowled around and messed with the other kids. Until he decided to stomp on Taylor.

Yes, I know. He is 5 and 5 year olds stomp on others every now and then. but this was viciously well-thought out. srsly. Yes, yes, I know, this is 4K, designed especially for kids with various needs. The only reason Bitty got in was because of our pathetic income and her Autism. I have no idea if this child has behavioral problems. Well ... yes, I do. He obviously does. I have no idea if they are developmental or the result of parenting.

But here's my thing. His mother was sitting right there. Right there! Two feet away. This kid stomped on Taylor's foot, deliberately and as hard as he could, pausing in between each to study Taylor's face for a reaction, and he did it SIX times as his mother just stared. I was this close to barking at him to knock it the fark off myself before one of the teachers spotted and 'redirected' him.

My child in this class is Autistic, and I would never, never allow her to harm another child. I parent her just like I parent her NT siblings - making adjustments for her needs, of course - but I still parent her! She still must abide by all the rules of polite society or I remove her from the situation.

One child during the entire thing would not stop talking and running around the room. His mother just smiled at him and encouraged him. One child threw a snit-fit in the middle of the room, lying on the floor and screaming (no he's not Autistic). His mother just gave us all a 'what're ya gonna do?' shrug and grin.

WTBF?!

Later on, in the cafeteria, while my own daughter sat quietly eating (as did her 4 year old brother and her 2 year old brother) at the table, a perfect storm of kids whirled around us, running, screaming, climbing on the tables. Not one child took his plate and threw it away except for mine (the 4 and the 2 year-olds as well, without being asked). Kids were shouting, kids were interrupting their parents' convos, kids were whining and dragging on their mother's sleeves, kids were throwing food.

It was a nightmare and all the while the parents stood around talking and ignoring the bad behaviour.

I understand that kids will be kids. Mine will be happy to run and scream, and can whine at the pro level, but I spend my time actually, oh, parenting. All the time. Every day. If mine step out of line, I am there in a heartbeat to nudge them back.

My kids must say and do at home as they say and do in public. Subsequently they require v. little overt parenting when we are out. I'm not some super mom. I'm just bloody consistant and insistant. I expect them to be quite and respectful. They have never been allowed to leave the table without permission in their lives. They are expected to tidy up after themselves, say "Yes, sir" and "No, Ma'am", and wash their hands after going to the bathroom. It's not some magic trick. It's parenting.

So, back to the classroom sizes: I understand completely why teachers need reduced class sizes these days and it's all because of parenting FAIL. And that's a damned shame.

It's a shame and it makes me angry the OTHER people are not parenting their own children and then are sending said children to school where they interfere - through their out-of-control behaviour - with MY kids' education.

This is wrong. You can coddle, you can cuddle, you can not spank, you can not discipline, you can buy your kid anything and everything, you can do his homework for him, not expect him to behave or be respectful, but this little monster YOU have created is interfereing with MY well behaved kids who want to learn.

Are any of your kids' classrooms filled with poorly behaved children? Does your child's teacher spend so much time dealing with out-of-control kids that she doesn't have time to teach? What should be done about this problem, do you think? Leave me your comments and let me know!

Friday Funneh

2009-05-15T08:55:00.001-04:00

I've just wasted an arse-load of time and laughed myself silly over this:

Go. Read the reviews. Read ALL the reviews.

Srsly. Trust me.

Regulate THIS. Parenting fail.

2009-05-11T11:11:00.001-04:00

I didn't know whether to put this turd of an article on childhood obesity and junk food ads on my Thrifty Dieter's Blog or may parenting blog. As a matter of fact, I'm typing this right now on my dieting blog but am fixin' to cut n paste it over ...

Stand by ...

There. Shiny.

So, here goes:

"AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Junk food ads account for two-thirds of televised advertisements for food that are shown when children are likely to be watching, researchers into obesity said Friday, based on a study of 11 countries.

Germany and the United States led the way at 90 percent, with Britain and Australia the lowest at about 50 percent, the researchers said, urging governments to limit such marketing in order to combat obesity.

"Internationally, children are exposed to high volumes of unhealthy food and beverage advertising on television," Bridget Kelly, a nutrition researcher at the Cancer Council NSW in Australia, and colleagues told the European Congress on Obesity in Amsterdam.

Uh, huh. Then thay show us the stats - just so we are aware of the problem - in case we've not stepped into a Wal Mart / Target/ K-Mart / whatever in the last decade:

''About 177 million children and teenagers under 18 years old worldwide are clinically overweight or obese. The figures include 22 million overweight children under five years old, according to the International Obesity Task Force."

Yep, yep, OK. Knew that. V. concerned about it, myself. Then we have:

""There is a lot of attention on unhealthy food marketing as an influence on childhood obesity and a lot of governments are reluctant to regulate," Kelly said in an interview. "So most countries in the study don't have regulations on food advertising."

The researchers, who looked at children in Australia, Asia, Eastern and Western Europe and North and South America, found that junk food ads mainly featuring fast food, confectionery and high-fat dairy foods increased during times young people were most likely to be watching
.
"Children see around 4,000 to 6,000 food advertisements on television a year and between 2,000 and 4,000 are for unhealthy foods," Kelly said. "So even if you are in countries that are advertising less to children, that is still a lot.""

And, finally:

"While establishing a direct link between advertising and obesity is difficult, it is clear marketing plays a big role in the kinds of food children prefer, the researchers said."

BIG FAT PARENTING FAIL, people!!

They're talking about CHILDREN! Children who, for the most part, do NOT purchase their own food!

"kinds of food children prefer"?! I'll bet every child on the planet would prefer to eat brownies, marshmallows, and a half pound of candy corn, drenched in syrup, and milkshakes to wash it down with.

You stupid idiots! These kids all have - what I like to call - "PARENTS" (use the air quotes, go on,) whose damned JOB it is to make an intelligent best-for-my-kids decision about what to purchase and prepare for their children!

These assholes want the government to regulate parenting some more?! Because a huge number of parents just can't be arsed to make smart food choices for their kids? How dare you suggest that we are all some sort of helpless victims, here. Unable to stop our weak, weak willed selves from giving wee Ymmah ("pronounced "Emma") and Jaysonne every little damned thing they want!

Or because mommy and daddy are, themselves, grotesque, bulging, sweating, wheezing, sedentary carbohydrate addicts (y'all know I had to squeeze in a low-carb pimp) who'd rather get their GUTS sewn up and eat 1/2 cup sized meals (and vomit quite a bit) for the rest of their lives (oh, and end up gaining the weight back anyway!)???

Did I get that right? Did I? Did I use enough exclaimation marks?

Seriously.

"Limiting this food marketing is an important preventative strategy for childhood obesity."

No, no, no, NO! I don't need a damned government nanny. I mom for a living, people. Like Dane Cook said in My Best Friend's Girl : "It's what I do."

(*pauses to wipe Dane Cook induced drool off of chin*)

I chose to be a mother. I wanted to be a mother. I am determined to be the best damned mother I can be. And that means being One Tough Mother. I'm not my kid's friend or buddy. I am his/her mother. I try to buy stuff they prefer, but fact is, there's just one rule at my table: Eat What I Fix, or Go Hungry.

No, wait, there's a second one: No Bitching.

I try to get the best, most healthy ingredients: fresh eggs, wholesome meats, real vegetables, real butter, cheese, whole milk, etc, etc, and I spend a lot of time shopping, planning, cooking and cleaning up afterwards. Eat or don't eat, your choice, and keep quiet about it. No one gets special meals, no one gets a PB and J if you just hate what I served. "My baby will only eat mac-n-cheese and chicken nuggets so that's all I serve!" has never been typed by me on a baby board.

If my babies (and I have five children with 5 v. different tastes) didn't like something, well, too bad. They got served that something 12 more times and had to eat at least one big bite every single damned time. After a while, when I determined that there were some things that certain kids just hated (oldest Boy, won't eat mashed potatoes, for instance), well, then I just leave that off his/her plate. Otherwise: supper as usual.

YOU are the mom. YOU make the food choices. BE the mom. Make GOOD choices.

See how simple that was?

Kids learn by example, folks. They learn by what you do and say. Your sweet babies will be exposed to cigarettes, drugs, sex, crime, commercialism, idiot victim-minded liberals, stupid closeminded conservatives, money-lenders, and high fructose corn syrup in their young lives. If YOU, mom and dad, actually pay attention and stand up and teach Bryttani and Kayde how to make good choices, well, you may actually produce some normal sized, normal lived, successful, and happy people.

Cuz, y'know, that HFCS will kill you.

Thrifty / green tip of the day

2009-05-04T08:16:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to share a thrifty tip with you that is a "duh" for me but might not have sunk in with those less used to being frugal. It's also quite eco-friendly and green. It is this:

Never, never, within reason, turn down anything free.

Srsly. Let's say your mother-in-law offers you leftovers after thanksgiving and you hate most of her cooking. What if you know for a fact she's just going to chuck it in the garbage disposal (like my Father-in-Law's wife does)?

Take it. Take the food. Not only does it give you a little bit of an 'in' w/ her, but you might be able to use it. Put the carrots or the green beans in soup. Freeze the cornbread to make your own delicious stuffing. If you have chickens, toss the rest to them and eat those fresh eggs with a superior smirk on your face. At the very least you could dump every speck into your compost heap. All of these things are better than it going down the disposal.

What if you find a huge bag of clothes in the dumpster? This happens to me ALL the time. "Eww" you say, "I don't want to wear other peoples old clothes!" Why not? How is this different from getting them from a consignment shop or a yard sale or the Goodwill?

"What if they're dirty?" you ask in horror. So what? You own a washing machine. Wasn't it Stephen King's Doloris Claiborne who said: "Shit washes off"?

A tremendous amount of what my family wears is top quality (Gap, Old Navy, Hillfiger, Land's End, etc) clothing gleaned by me from the local dump. Most of it is found in mass quantities and is actually CLEAN. Much of it is folded or still on hangers. Some is actually new with tags. No joke.

All this goes for clothes offered by friends and family. If you know for a fact that the stuff won't be the right size or style then politely decline ("Thank you, but I just got a huge bag from [fill in name of imaginary friend] that I havent gone through yet! Thanks anyway!") If there may be stuff you could use then take it.

Yes, it is a pain in the arse to sort these bags of clothes, but I grab a hamper, a trashbag, and a rubbish bin and sort dierctly into them. Rubbish (torn, stained, hideous) goes in the bin, Not-My-Style/Size goes in the trashbag to go to the thrift store, and the usable ones go into the hamper to be washed.

Don't overlook items that can be cut up for craft projects like quilts, or made into rags. I always slice the buttons off of trashed garments to put in my replacement button cache.

What if you find a piece of furniture, are offered a box of kitchen stuff, or see a pile of scrap wood by the road? Again, assuming you have room to store these things, they are ALL expensive and useful. Even if you only find ONE tupperware lid in that box of kitchen items that fits one of yours, you will still have gained. AND you can take pride in knowing that by your sending the rest to the thrift store, you've done some excellent good-for-our-planet recycling.

All for a few minutes of your time.

Take the freebies. You never know what you might find.

What's the best freebie you have every gotten? Was it given or did you find it? Leave a comment and share the story!

Quick catch-up

2009-04-30T12:57:00.000-04:00

Ugh! So sorry for the dearth of posts!

I had a financial re-boot in my life that I'm dealing with.

Briefly: last wednesday (April 22) due to some "downsizing", the fullfillment service that I use for some of my products (at Evil Genius Tees and Evil Genius Woman) will be making changes that will effectively halve my income.

Cut income in half.

Halvsies.

This sucks and it's wrong on many levels and I suspect they are either dancing around bankruptcy or being sold. But, bottom line is that it is what it is. I won't make further comment because it would nessessitate the use of Very. Very. Bad. Words.

So we're in a recession and I just got a 50% pay cut, so to speak. w00t.

Good thing I'm The Thrifty Mom, eh?

I'll keep you updated on how things are going. Meanwhile, the bubs (well, the oldest 4) are taking swimming lessons that I have no idea how I'm gonna pay for, but am determined not to cancel. Number 1) they are adoring it, and 2) I promised, damnit, and no effing company who can't get their effing poop in a group is gonna keep my wee ones from swimming lessons and make me go back on my word.

Deeeeeep breaths.

Right.

So, please check out the corresponding update on my Thrifty Dieter's blog (good news in diet land!) and run over to my newest webpage: The Thrifty Mom Dot Com where I bring together both blogs, plus the forum, and many many articles, tips, and general snarky-ness to come! Please feel free to leave comments and critiques for me in the comments here. If you see anything out of whack, let me know.

Also note my spiffy new RSS feed button in the sidebar and my donate button. Yeah, yeah, I know. I hate to do it but "needs must when the devil drives", right? So if you enjoy the blogs, consider dropping a quarter into the piggybank to help pay for hosting ... and swimming lessons, LOL!

What did I do over Spring Break? Lemme TELL ya ...

2009-04-10T06:30:00.000-04:00

Right. Is Thursday over? Can I come out now?

*whew* What a day.

What a week!

It's been Spring Break here and we all here at The Burrow have been trying our best to relax.

NOT happenin'!

First, I decided to take advantage of the break and test Fiver's readiness for toilet learning. He's doing surprisingly well, but, like anything, it has to be, well ... learned. Plus wee willies tend to repose at a barely acute angle. It's like living with a tiny, fast, and highly mobile, fire hose.

Second, Tuesday was The Human Crash Test Dummy's birthday. Daddy waited till the last second to get gifts and a balloon (that day!), and I was stuck at home baking and decorating the cake and dealing with the tow truck guy, twice. (*grits teeth* cuz lovely, lovely FIL just farkin' HAD to move the boat and the car out of his yard THAT farkin' day - but that's another blog post.)

ANYway, I finally got the cake done, got the gifts wrapped, and the party and gorging went off without a hitch. (I'll post cake pics later.)

Wednesday was comic day, so, again, Bodog was gone for a long stretch. All of the kids seemed to suddenly not feel well, they all were sniffly, snotty, red-faced, and feverish. Super.

Then came yesterday.

Everyone, including Bodog and omitting myself and THCTD (who is easily has the best immune system of all of mine), was miserable. Sore throtes, high fevers, rashes.

Wait ... did she say "rashes"?

Yes. Yes, I farkin' did.

Remember Boy's bout with Scarlet Fever?

Well, apparently, it's worked its way back around and is visiting a few more of the siblings. w00t.

So, we needed feed, we needed groceries, and we needed meds. I rang the best pediatrician's office on the planet (Sandhills Pediatrics in Columbia SC) and spoke with our lovely Dr. Clemson's lovely Nurse Cheerful who called in scripts because she RAWKS.

(Incidentally, in case you were curious, my plans for the holiday [for myself] were - since the rest of the family would be sleeping late each morning - to get an arseload of work done. Get my webpages up, maybe actually work on my stores. Plus do some cleaning. Maybe work out in the barnyard.

*pauses to roll about helplessly on the floor, laughing*

Yeah. Right. All THAT happened.

Hmmph.)

So, it's Thursday, I'm sat at the computer, trying to do some coding whilst everyone else has a nice long snooze - including Bodog, who's snoring loudly on the couch right next to my desk (I really, really need some noise cancelling headphones. Really.) - and eyeballing the clock because I don't want to be out the whole rest of the damned day at the bloody buggery Wal-Mart when there's a thousand things that want doing around the hou--

... and I hear a crash.

Well, crashes are not uncommon, even during naptime (The bubs are not required to actually sleep. They simply must be quiet and in their rooms for the allotted time period.), so I turn around, and Boy strolls into the family room.

"Hey, Momma?"

(Why do they all do this? If I'm staring right at you, then I must be paying attention. Don't start each convo with "Hey, Momma?")

"I think Fiver might have hurt himself."

"Yeah?" (I listen for weeping but hear none.) "What part did he hurt?"

(Another 'in case you are curious' note here. We try to teach our kids to not overreact to any situation, that the key to dealing with emergencies or crises is to remain calm. You can't deal with stuff if you are crying, panicked, irrational, crazy. Just settle down and do what needs to be done. I abhore people - especially women - who weep, wring their hands, and freak out over things, expecting someone else to deal with it. You are NOT doing anyone any good and the whole "I'm so helpless and don't know what to do" victim mindset is STUPID. My children will not learn this.)

ANYway, at this juncture, boy calmly begins a rambling recital of the steps that lead up to the whatever-it-was. I'm rising to my feet to go check on my baby as he's talking.

Then, from the darkened foyer, behind Boy, just like a classic B-movie zombie, staggers Fiver. He's got a mouthfull of blood, blood down his chin, and blood all over the front of his shirt. Only when he sees me does he start crying.

I almost screamed like a girl.

But true to my calm-in-emergencies nature I just snatched him up (I did do one thing: I barked at Boy something hurried along the lines of 'don't stand about jaw-jackin' if your brother is bleeding'*) and swept Fiver off to the bathroom for cleaning and inspection.

His lip was well and truely split, something that in retrospect could have done with a stitch, but it was so swollen and tattered (his teeth were involved somehow, but I can't figure if he bit his lip or just smashed it against his bottom teeth.) that I didn't realise. At any rate he was quiet and calm and even held his own washrag full of ice against his lip while I cleaned up and Boy fetched the ibuprofen.

So alls well that ends well. His lip is a bit puffy but not too bad and he's happy as a clam. I got everyone's scripts (and the groceries and the feed and, yes, I got back pretty late) so all the sickies should begin to feel better soon. Oh, and at some point either Wednesday or yesterday Fiver actually did a wee in the toilet! I was so proud!

Gosh. I wonder what today will bring?

*I apologised to Boy later for snapping at him, explaining that I was just shocked at the sight of his brother. We conferred and realised that when he left the bedroom the bleeding wasn't nearly so bad and that the sight of Fiver with all the blood startled him, too!

-----

Do you have any stories of terrifying kid hurts? How did you deal with it? How did your child handle it? I'd love to hear your experiences!

Self control, obesity, parenting, and BMI

2009-04-07T08:05:00.000-04:00

Straight from the news today:

And here's a "duh" one for you today: kids who lack self control may be prone to weight gain.

Ya think?

"Small children who can't keep their hands out of the cookie jar -- in other words, those who have more difficulty delaying gratification -- appear more likely to be overweight as they get older."

""We don't know if it's parenting or something innate to the kid," said Dr. Julie C. Lumeng, lead author of the food study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Michigan Medical School."

I propose that there's a great deal of bad parenting involved (which doesn't mean that I discount there being a genetic factor as well).

Let's look at it. How overindulged are today's kids? How many times have you seen anxious parents with their 3 year old securely strapped into the shopping cart (which has one of those ridiculous covers, natch!) hurrying around the grocery whilst little Steele or wee Emylee whines, cries, shouts, begs, and generally shows his/her arse? How often do you see Jeff and Jennifer dancing frantically around, placating, begging, and bribing said child to be quiet/patient? How often does that child end up at the check out with a toy (or usually) some crap sweet food?

How often are today's kids showered with gifts and food on almost every major holiday? How many kids get insanely complex and expensive birthday parties?

Self centeredness is learned.

When you give Zohee or PJ, Trynitee or Trey, anything and everything because you "want them to have everything I didn't", when you make them the almighty nucleus of the family and never enforce any rules because it's easier to just give in, well, you produce a little tyrant with NO self control. Why should Ky'lah delay gratification? She's a princess! A diva! She gets what she wants, when she wants it.

And always has.

Thankfully, the article ends on a sane note to this effect:

""If you have a child that has difficulty delaying gratification, you could help that child learn those skills," said Lumeng, an assistant research scientist at the university's Center for Human Growth and Development.

[snip]
"This really gives people who are looking at obesity prevention, which is so critical at this time, something to develop an intervention around," Zeller added. "Pediatricians can do it, and parents understand the idea of delaying gratification. We live in such an immediate gratification environment." "

You said it sister. But we, as parents, can attempt to control the environment to which our kids are exposed. Of course that means we must parent.

-----

And on a similar topic: study finds 1 in 5 4 year olds obese.

Now, before I get started on this one, let me state, for the record, that I do NOT believe that the BMI is accurate. BUT, you have to admit that a 4 year old whose BMI is in the obese range (not overweight, obese) is unhealthily fat.

I've seen a disturbing trend, especially amongst folks on Twitter, of people who say the BMI is hogwash (true) and so there are really not hardly any overweight people at all (dangerously, stupidly NOT true, people. Wake up.) Yes, yes, I know all about the media and how healthy, lucious, zaftig women like Mae West and Betty Grable have fallen out of favour and been replaced by stick insects.

I AGREE that this is stupidity, but you cannot, if you've any sense at all, tell me that we do NOT have an obesity/ill health problem in America. There is a difference between pleasently plump and healthy; and obese, sweating, wheezing, and/or ILL.

Sticking your fingers in your ears and going "La, la, laaaa, I can't heeeear you!" is NOT helping.

Right. Rant over. On to snippets from the article:

"A striking new study says almost 1 in 5 American 4-year-olds is obese, and the rate is alarmingly higher among American Indian children, with nearly a third of them obese. Researchers were surprised to see differences by race at so early an age."

"Overall, more than half a million 4-year-olds are obese, the study suggests."

'The study is an analysis of nationally representative height and weight data on 8,550 preschoolers born in 2001."

"The cumulative evidence is alarming because within just a few decades, America will become a 'minority majority' nation," he said. Without interventions, the next generation "will be at very high risk" for heart disease, high blood pressure, cancers, joint diseases and other problems connected with obesity, said Flores, who was not involved in the new research."
On the subject of BMI:

"Children were considered obese if their body-mass index, a height-weight ratio, was in the 95th percentile or higher based on government BMI growth charts. For 4-year-olds, that would be a BMI of about 18.

For example, a girl who is 4 1/2 years old, 40 inches tall and 42 pounds would have a BMI of about 18, weighing 4 pounds more than the government's upper limit for that age, height and gender."

My youngest daughter, Bitty Girl, turned 5 in March, is 40 inches tall, and weighs 37lbs. I consider her to be of average weight and build. If she weighed 5 more lbs she would be unhealthily overweight in my opinion. i consider this BMI assessment to be fairly accurate.

Here's a breath of fresh air. Finally an intelligent opinion:

""Jessica Burger, a member of the Little River Ottawa tribe and health director of a tribal clinic in Manistee, Mich., said many children at her clinic are overweight or obese, including preschoolers.

Burger, a nurse, said one culprit is gestational diabetes, which occurs during a mother's pregnancy. That increases children's chances of becoming overweight and is almost twice as common in American Indian women, compared with whites.

She also blamed the federal commodity program for low-income people that many American Indian families receive. The offerings include lots of pastas, rice and other high-carbohydrate foods that contribute to what Burger said is often called a "commod bod."

"When that's the predominant dietary base in a household without access to fresh fruits and vegetables, that really creates a better chance of a person becoming obese," she said."

Well said, Ms Burger.

Autism, smoking, and ... vinyl floors?

2009-04-01T13:02:00.000-04:00

Intriguing study discoveres a link between autism and vinyl flooring.

"Bernard Weiss, a professor of environmental medicine at University of Rochester, said the connection between vinyl flooring and autism "turned up virtually by accident." He called it "intriguing and baffling at the same time."

Experts suspect that genetic and environmental factors combine to cause autism, a neurodevelopmental disorder that has increased dramatically in children over the past 20 years.

In the new study, Swedish families were asked questions about flooring as part of research investigating allergies and indoor air pollutants. Phthalates, used to make soft plastic, have in previous studies been connected to allergies and asthma."

Bizarre. Of course, like any study, this one must be taken with a grain of salt. It may be, for instance, that people of a certain economic status happened to have the vinyl flooring, or folks from a particular part of the country. Still, it's fascinating.

I find this tid-bit a lot more compelling:

"Children in the study also were twice as likely to have autism if their mothers smoked cigarettes. The autistic children also were more likely to have asthma."

I wonder if there is a whole tie-in to allergies/asthma and autism?

Daddy calls him the Scarlet Pimpernel

2009-03-28T06:10:00.002-04:00

(This is a long one, I apologise in advance)

So ...

Wednesday morning, I'm making breakfast, Boy wanders in, and hear those 4 words guaranteed to chill an otherwise upbeat mother to the bone: "Momma ... I threw up."

Crap.

So I run him to the couch, nest him in a mass of pillows, blankets, and many many towels to cover all, tuck a puke rubbish bin next to his head, and sail back in to finish breakfast and get everyone else off to work/school.

He threw up all day and by evening was just retching painfully into the bin. The next morning he was feverish, dehydrated. I tried a bit of ginger ale. Nope. Right back up.

By noon he was able to sip a bit of liquids but his fever was sky high. In the afternoon I noticed the rash. It was a fine bright red rash over the tops of his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. I'd never seen anything like it.

I Tweeted my Twitterlings and got back "Fifth Disease"* I had thought of that first but, damnit, the rash just looked wrong. It was a malar rash, a 'butterfly' rash. Fifth Disease produced a rash on the cheeks, like they've been slapped. It just wasn't right.

Here's a pic of Boy's rash:

Well, by mid afternoon it had spread downward and I gave up and decided Fifth Disease. I emailed his teacher, who is pregnant, and rang my husband.

In the meantime, Boy's fever raged on. I gave him Tylenol and that helped a good bit. He was drinking pretty well, so I decided to see how things went.

Then, late afternoon, the breakthrough came. Boy had been sleeping pretty much all day. He woke up and, to my delight, his fever had broken. I asked him if he wanted something to drink and asked him if anything hurt. He said: "only my throte".

"Your throte hurts?"

(nod)

"Let me see your tongue!"

(He shows me a tongue, bright red, with the classic white coating.) I quickly searched under his shirt and sure enough the fine lacy rash was everywhere. Scarlet Fever!

More phone calls and emails, one to the doctor for an appointment, and the mystery was resolved. But our own Hell Week wasn't over. Friday turned out to be a DAY.

Ever had one of those days where Every. Farkin. Wee. Thing seems to go wrong? That was my Friday.

I had been sleeping badly since Boy was ill. He was sleeping on the couch and I'd get up 10 times in the night to check on him. So Friday morning I was groggy and bumping along in low gear. I was trying to catch up on my tweets/emails when I realised that it was 20 minutes after Bodog should have been up. I dashed upstairs to find him having a low blood sugar episode.

(If you've never experienced this, it's disconcerting. He can't control his muscles so he can't sit up in bed or stand or walk. He'll look at me but can't respond. Once I get his blood sugar back up he's shakey and confused for a half hour afterwards.)

I finally got Bodog going and he'd made it into the shower so I could start breakfast and make lunches. I got the rest of The Brood up and managed to burn breakfast trying to run down the hall and tend to Boy. Finally I got all the schoolies fed breakfast #2 and dressed and then basically shoved my husband and daughters out the door (they were terribly late by that point). *whew*

Then I dressed the baby, helped Boy get dressed (He was so weak. He hadn't eaten in 2 days.), and the boys and I jumped in V for Vandetta and headed for Columbia.

Two hours later (waiting in rush hour traffic, waiting in the doctor's office, all on top of a 45 min drive), the doctor confirms that it's Scarlet Fever. Whee.

Now here's the catch. I live between two tiny towns on a big lake. Go around the lake one way and you get to our local 'City', Columbia SC. Go the other direction from my house, toward the upstate, and you get to our local 'big town', Newberry SC. Opposite directions. AND the only way to get from one to the other is to track back, basically through both tiny towns and almost right past my house. You can't shoot straight in between because the lake is in the way.

So, I'm in Columbia, but my pharmacy is in Newberry. PLUS I needed to get more children's Tylenol and gingerale for Boy and we needed feed.

So off we go, back the way me came, and onward into Newberry.

An hour later we're there. 20 min after that we're in the Wal Mart. I'm thinking I might have to carry my 7 year old Boy. He's exhausted and dragging along behind us.

Then came the clincher: It would take an HOUR to fill our scripts.

So we wanderd around the store. Boy refused to either be carried or ride in the cart. I bought waaaay too many garden plants. I examined dairy products at great length that I couldn't eat because of the sugar content. I watched with undisguised awe some of the grotesquely overweight, wheezing, limping denizens of Newberry county**, buy chips, frozen convenience foods, snack cakes, and loads and loads of sodas.

I wandered back by the pharmacy. "20 more minutes," they said. We chose to just sit. Boy was as limp and pale as uncooked bacon with that bright red rash standing out on each cheek. The small boys, Bulk and Fiver were bored and wound up and being gleefully bad. My Blackberry battery was dead.

Finally I stood up and went purposefully over to the clerk. Resisting the urge to grab him by the throte and drag him closer, I leaned in and said, quietly, in my best Dark Knight Joker voice: "Y'know, I understand that it's only fair to fill scripts in the order they came in, but if you're filling a script for someone who won't be picking it up for 3 days and I'm standing here with my sick, contagious child ... well, that just doesn't make sense, does it?"

It'd have been great to have some dynamite strapped to my ribs, y'know, to use for emphasis, but it did the trick anyway (I was wearing my Evil Genius logo t-shirt which has a bomb on it, LOL). Miraculously, mine were the next 2 scripts filled.

So that was my crap week. I didn't mention almost running out of petrol (twice!), dropping my CD player AND the camera, and spilling my coffee (twice, again!), but this post is just too long as it is.

I hope your week went better than mine! Here's a comparison pic of a Scarlet Fever rash, advanced down the face and mimicking Fifth Disease:

*For the record people, It's FIFTH disease not Fifth'S. Just like it's DOWN syndrome not Down'S.
**This is by no means unique to my own county. You see it everywhere. Go to the Lexington SC Wal Mart. Dear god. The horror.

PS: Fifth, parvovirus b19, is not generally harmful to infected kids (it IS dangerous for pregnant women, though). It runs it's course uneventfully in most kids. If, however, you suspect your child has Scarlet fever, which is a group A strep (a bacterial infection), you should take said child to the doctor for antibiotics.

"I wish I had your motivation!"

2009-03-25T09:07:00.000-04:00

Here's a great post by Lynn, over at the Hungry Little Catapillar, on motivation - (via Rebecca at Skinny Dreaming.)

I love her insight on motivation in dieting!

The reason I posted this here instead of over on my Thrifty Dieters Blog, is that this whole concept applies to every part of our lives - not just our diet.

Lynn writes:

"Motivation isn't like an energy shot. You don't drink a tiny bottle of expensive, foul-flavored liquid and suddenly feel inspired. Hells bells, I don't feel inspired most of the time either."

"Where do I get the motivation to walk nine miles?

I don't. I just go. If I sat around waiting to feel enthusiastic about exercise or waited until I really wanted that dry-chicken salad... I'd still be sitting around."

Amen! You can't overthink it or it will never get done. Best quote:

"How many of you leap out of bed in the morning and say, "God, I really am looking forward to taking out the trash!" "I just can't wait for my 10am meeting!" "Oh, I totally adore my hour and a half commute time, sitting in traffic! And I just bet someone will cut me off at the light, won't that be great!""

And that's the (humorously put) point. As I said in her comments, dieting is HARD. Sometimes it just blows. But so does parenting, or farming, or home ownership. So does being self employed. Or unemployed in a tough economy.

Life is hard. But we do what we have to do and don;t spend too much time mulling it over, waiting for inpiration or motivation to strike.

I have to get up from the computer at 5 a.m. (where I've been working since 4 a.m.) every morning and cook my family breakfast. It's a huge chore, but one that I feel is SO important that I do it without (too much) thought or grumbling every single morning.

I have to feed a whole farmfull of animals every day. I can't blow them off. It's dirty, time-consuming, and hard. But I took on the obligation of careing for them and so I must do it. Even if I'm tired. Even if I'm busy. Even if I've had a bad day.

I breastfed 5 children to at least 6 months of age and I had them all in 6 years. Often I would be breastfeeding a newborn, fending off a baby, and watching a toddler all at the same time whilst trying to keep up with my house, my business, my husband, and my farm.

If I had waited for motivation, I would have thrown in the towel, as many do. But I wanted it badly enough to endure the pain, the discomfort, the inconvenience, and the clingy next-oldest baby, because I felt it was best for my child.

The point is, do you want to lose weight and get healthy or don't you? Either you do or you don't. Since there's no magic pill, if you do, then you're gonna have to hunker down and get to it.

As Lynn says:

"What's going to get you where you want to be isn't motivation. It's not inspiration. It's not willpower. It's not even determination.

It's simple drudgery. You do it because it has to be done, and if you don't do it, no one's going to do it for you."

I did and 140lbs+ later am still losing weight. Lynn did (over 70 lbs so far), Rebecca did (over 80lbs so far).

And you can too.

What the HELL?

2009-03-18T07:53:00.001-04:00

Alternate title: Government Epic FAIL!

I am so not making this up and it's totally TWIGI. Totally.

Family "too fat to work" seek more benefits.

OK, no. I'll adress the food issue on my Diet Blog, but just generally ... NO.

"Philip Chawner, 53, and his 57-year-old wife Audrey weigh 24st. Their daughter Emma, 19, weighs 17st, while her older sister Samantha, 21, weighs 18st.

The family from Blackburn claim £22,508 a year in benefits, equivalent to the take-home pay from a £30,000 salary.

The Chawners, haven't worked in 11 years, claim their weight is a hereditary condition and the money they receive is insufficient to live on.

Mr Chawner said: "What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."

The family claim to spend £50 a week on food and consume 3,000 calories each a day. The recommended maximum intake is 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men.

"We have cereal for breakfast, bacon butties for lunch and microwave pies with mashed potato or chips for dinner," Mrs Chawner told Closer magazine.

"All that healthy food, like fruit and veg, is too expensive. We're fat because it's in our genes. Our whole family is overweight," she added.

Each week, Mr and Mrs Chawner, who have been married for 23 years, receive £177 in income support and incapacity benefit. Mrs Chawner is paid an extra £330-a-month disability allowance for epilepsy and asthma, both a result of being overweight.

Mr Chawner gets £71 a month after developing Type 2 diabetes because of his size. He was on a waiting list for a gastric band last year, but a heart condition made the operation unsuitable. Their daughter Samantha receives £84 in Jobseekers' Allowance each fortnight while Emma, who is training to be a hairdresser, gets £58 every two weeks under a hardship fund for low-income students.

Emma, said: "I'm a student and don't have time to exercise" she said "We all want to lose weight to stop the abuse we get in the street, but we don't know how." "

That's over $31,300 per year, people. This is OUR income. I feed my husband, myself, 5 children, 6 dogs, 4 cats, and a farm full of animals on this! $69 per week for groceries? Outrageous.

That's less than $4000/year. What are they spending the rest of that dosh on?

Did I say: What the HELL?

Now, leaving the thrift part alone, what's up with the British government? I know it's a welfare state and all, but this is insane. You get paid if you have diabetes? Bodog has Type 1 diabetes and is not only regular sized and in shape, but goes to work 5 days a week. Paid for epilepsy and asthma? I have a seizure disorder and asthma. I managed to lose 140+ lbs and spend each day busy working and taking care of my farm and family!

My favourite jaw-dropping quote: "What we get barely covers the bills and puts food on the table. It's not our fault we can't work. We deserve more."

I say take away about 10k of income. I'll bet you'd be shocked at how quickly their "hereditary" fat melted off.

(Here's the accompanying post on the subject on the Thrifty Dieter's Blog if you need a bit more snark, lol.)

Thrifty, easy Apple Brown Betty

2009-03-16T12:43:00.000-04:00

OK, I'm posting my first ever recipe just for my Tweeps on Twitter.

This recipe is neither low carb nor Paleo but is v. v. thrifty, so I'm posting it here (rather than on my diet blog). It's also v. easy and is a slow cooker recipe (I have an old Rival 5-Quart Crock-Pot that I found in a thrift store, way back in the way back time, when I first set up housekeeping, and it's been going strong ever since.)

This recipe is perfect for when you have apples or hard type pears going bad on you and you don't want to waste them. I suspect that you could experiment with other 'baking' fruits like apricots, cherries, etc with excellent results. It's also good for using up any bread that's getting stale. If I have a loaf of bread that's just getting a bit too stiff to foist off on my family (I don't eat bread), then I'll toss it into the freezer to use as breadcrumbs or in recipes like this Apple Brown Betty.

Right. Here we go. Oh, this recipe is so easy that you could follow it in print, but being the bad cook that I am and a visual person, I love pics in with recipes, so I shot ya a bunch of pics.

Blue's Thrifty Crock-Pot Apple Brown Betty

5-6 apples or hard pears abt the size of your fist (not those jumbo kind!)
1 1/2 slices bread per apple
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
pinch of salt
abt 5 tsp butter or oleo

Peel, core, and slice your apples and butter your crock pot. I used 6 pears in these pics and oleo because I need to use it all up (trying to get rid of all the hydrogenated soy oil in my children's diets. Switching to butter.) Break up your bread slices pretty small - fingertip sized. I used 9 slices of whole wheat bread with the crusts on (don't feed my kids that bleached flour crap white 'bread' - not that I'm opinionated about it, LOL!)

Now comes the fun part. If you're like me, you have a drawer full of bread bags. If not, then go fish that bread bag out of the rubbish bin. If you're one of those posh money-burners who buys zippered bags ("Burn her! Burn the witch!"*) then I guess you can use one of those, lol.

Anyway, roll down the top of your bread bag, set the bottom on the table and carefully pour your apple slices into the bag. You have to keep track of the edges and keep 'em tight on the sides. Spoon them in if it makes you really nervous.

Here's our bread bag o' pears:

Now keep the bag rolled down (it should sit, open on the table, now that the fruit is in it) and add your salt, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

When all the sugar and spices are in, twirl the bag closed at the top, trapping the air inside - like the guys at the WalMart do when they bag a goldfish for your kid. You should have a pillow of spicey goodness:

Hang onto the twisted part with one hand and use the other to gently lift, knead, tumble and generally massage the ingredients together. It's the super easy and quick way to blend everything WELL without getting another bowl and spoon dirty - works for apple pies as well! Here's the results:

Now just upend the breadbag into the bowl with the breadpieces in and mix well:

Dump into the crockpot, lavishly dot the top w/ teaspoonfuls of butter:

(I'm holding the pot so awkwardly because I almost scooted it off the table!)

Put your crock in your crock-pot, cover, and cook on LOW for 3 hours. Finished Apple Brown Betty:

NOM! The pear version gets the girl seal of approval from Bitty and THCTD (who had already taken a huge bite):

And that opinion was shared by Boy and Bulk (Fiver refused to taste it until he'd finished his milk, so no pic of him).

And this is the crock 15 minutes later:

So give it a try, if you'd like. It's insanely popular here at The Burrow and a fast, cheap alternative to apple pie. Oh, and it makes a FAB breakfast!

*Xtra points for getting this reference w/out Googling!

Hee, hee, hee!

2009-03-13T03:56:00.001-04:00

I have this 3 year old in my house:

see more Funny Graphs

Poor child health and parents' choices

2009-03-12T08:24:00.000-04:00

Lazy parenting and our poor food choices for our kids is putting them on the road to poor health.

Vitamin D lacking in many American teens.

"Teens in the study with the lowest vitamin D levels were more than twice as likely to have high blood pressure and high blood sugar. They were also four times more likely to have metabolic syndrome, defined as have three of more conditions that contribute to heart disease and diabetes — including high blood pressure, high blood sugar, big waists and high cholesterol."

And WHY are our kids not getting enough vitamin D? When our own bodies make it from good ol' sunshine?

"Dr. Randal Thomas, director of the cardiovascular health clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said that it's likely that vitamin D deficiencies in teens stem from unhealthy diets and lack of exercise outdoors.

"If their diet includes chips and soft drinks, they're probably not getting enough vitamin D," said Thomas."

Ignoring the food factor (!!)( for now), it's tragic that something as simple as taking away the gameboy, the ipod, and the cellphone; turning off the computer, the Wii, and the television could help keep our kids from being predisposed to diabetes and heart disease! All because some of today's parents can't be arsed to actually parent and have been parking Brisynne and Colt in front of some electronic device "just for a minute while I (fill in the blank)" since they were toddlers?

Shut it off, mom. Take it away. Kennydeigh Skyee will NOT die if she can't text her friends for a half hour and Ian Noah Tristan won't perish from lack of his iPod shuffle. Shove 'em outside. Better yet, get up from in front of that computer yourself and take everyone for a little walk - down the street, in a park, at the zoo - something.

Pack a healthy lunch (stopping for fast food gets you negative karma) and eat on a bench in the shade.

You'll get to actually converse with your child (no earbuds or button-pushing!) and you'll feel better, too.

Moms of kids between 18 months and 4: no fair powerwalking your own arse fat off whilst pushing that Mountain Buggy Urban Elite. Take Reivynne ("pronounced 'Raven'") OUT of the stroller and walk along at a toddler's pace for once. Let her look at bugs and put rocks in her pockets. Relax. It's kinda cool.

And yes, I practice what I preach, and I've got five. Yes, it sucks sometimes when you are as busy as we all are. But it's good for my babies and what's good for my babies take precedence over everything else in my life.

Yours too, I'll wager.

C'mon. I challenge ya. Give it a try.

Healthy food choices for kids, FAIL, really

2009-03-10T12:52:00.000-04:00

I found this fascinating article: finding healthy choices in fast food. *ahem*

Ok, isn't that a bit of an oxymoron?

Yeah, well, we'll get to that later. First off, I was stunned that she's reporting the calorie and FAT content of fast food. Fat? Does anyone still believe that fat matters so much? She doesn't even acknowledge carbohydrate contents.

Her whipping boy is McDonalds and she asks us to guess which has the lowest calories and fat. Her list comprises the Filet o' Fish, the hamburger, the 4 piece chicken nuggets (with sweet n sour sauce) and, choice number 4 (let me quote): "I don't care because I wouldn't get caught dead eating fast food or letting my kids eat fast food."

(Don't get excited, I'm coming back to this. Trust me.)

Her healthy fast food choice conclusion? C. The four-piece chicken nugget.

Hmm. Let's break this down, shall we?

Nuggets / sauce -240 calories -12 g fat - 23 carbs -10g sugars - 10g protein - 0 calcium - 4 iron
Cheeseburger -300 calories -12 g fat -33 carbs - 6g sugars - 12g protein -20 calcium -15 iron
Filet o' Fish -380 calories -18 g fat -38 carbs - 5g sugars - 15g protein -15 clacium -10 iron

Now, remember that this article is about making good choices for your kids. Not unhealthy, overweight adults.

The filet o fish is obviously a food bomb, but the cheeseburger to me is the sane(er) choice. Just look at the sugars in the nuggets! This comes from the sauce which, I'm pretty sure, is mostly corn syrup and contains soy and, most likely, lots of lovely chemicals to give it that colour and preserve it.

Yep, I would, and do, choose the cheeseburger when we go to Micky Ds.

"Wait ... what?" you gasp, "Blue gives her kids fast food?! The horror!"

And this brings me to the other thing I wanted to say about this article: Uhm, would you like some snark with that?

I mean, really. Ignoring the snooty "I generally prefer my burgers flame-broiled" , (cuz we all know that more carcinogens would be ideal), there's the whole "choice D" thing and the nasty little aside: "As for those who pick D? Well, let's just say this posting's not for you. Or maybe you just don't know it yet."

Uhm, I'm 45 years old and have 5 kids, the oldest of whom just turned 7. I'm fairly settled in to my mommying routine, thnx.

The expert whom she quotes (who has some good ideas buried in there BTW), Roberta Anding, a registered dietitian with Baylor College of Medicine and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association, goes so far as to say: "to say you'll never go to a fast food or quick-service restaurant doesn't make much sense."

No? Why not? I can say that I will never smoke cigarettes. I can say that, barring some condition or medication causing it, I will never be obese again. I can say that I will never voluntarily go to France. (OK, I pulled that last one out of my backside.) My point is that if one feels that fast food is really bad for one's family the one can choose never never never to go there.

"She (Ms Anding) wants to help parents know how to make better choices within the context of their hectic lives."

Soooo ... is the American blamecasting again? "I can't make good choices for my family's meals because ... my life is busy and McDonalds exists?" What?

I can say, with absolute sincerity, that I have never taken my children to a fast food restaurant for any other reason than a treat. We go about every 3-6 months. The last time my kids ate fast food was in November when their father was in hospital.

Am I casting stones from up on my high horse? (How was that for a mixed metaphore, lol?)

Nope. Just being truthful. srsly.
I mean, really. Why write this article? To placate the scores of women who claim to have so little time that they cannot feed their kids healthy stuffs? I'm calling bullshit. If you are doing so much in a day that you cannot manage to make healthier choices for your kids food multiple times a week, well, then you need to bloody well cut out some activities.

Do you think I'm not busy? Do you think I'm sitting around on my cavewoman arse (it's not THAT hairy) eating bacon and watching my guineas?

Sorry! I've got a bunch of young kids, an old house that requires constant repair (and I don't mean by "calling a guy out"), scads of 20+ year old vehicles, I farm, and I'm self employed. Great gravy, I can hardly find time to shower every few days!

But we don't eat fast food but every few months because I feel it's not healthy (or a good message!) for my kids.

How do I do it? By planning ahead and saying "no" to my children. I pack snacks and refillable Rubbermaid juice boxes; even a whole, quick lunch of sandwiches and fruit if we need it. I acknowledge the fact that my toddler might get hungry if we've been out too long, but also know that he won't die of hunger on the 30 min drive home. Yeah, sometimes I have to listen to whining and sobs if it's been a long, hectic day, but again, nowhere on earth is a minivan by the side of the motorway, full of wee skeletons - ghost pirate ship-like - who perished on the half hour ride home because they didn't get to stop at McDonalds.

My whole point is that there's absolutely nothing wrong with grabbing some fast foods for your kids every once in a while. Mine consider it a wildly exciting deal. Throw in playing in the playplace with rude, spoiled kids whilst mommy yaps loudly and vacuously on her Bluetooth* and it's heaven on earth according to them. But it shouldn't be "two out of a week's 21 meals" or more.

*Yeah, OK, that was a teensy bit snarky. But, really**, honey, we don't wanna hear your stupid convo.

** I think I said "really" (oh, fur shur!) at least 3-4 times in this post.

Slash costs! Dump wasteful stuffs!

2009-03-10T03:18:00.011-04:00

Excellent article on saving money by cutting out crap you don't need and axing fees for services.

These articles normally don't impress me, but this one is well thought out. None apply to us hard core frugals, of course, lol, but are worth the read.

The writer suggests DYI snacks, bottled water, coffee, and fruits and veg. All sound advice, especially the produce tip. I am often stunned at how much more people will pay for pre-cut, pre-washed, tiny packaged, foods. Does it realy save you THAT much time? It takes me about 3 minutes to prepare a salad from scratch. srsly.

Credit card and ATM fees. These are no brainers, to me. Just don't do it. Pay off that plastic (if you MUST have one), every month. If you can't, then you need to cut those suckers up.

S/he extolls the virtues of buying MPG online (rather than the whole CD) and Netflixing films. Wonderful thoughts! Especially the Netflix. No lie, Netflix rawks. You can get ALL the films you can consume in a month for 9 bucks? Heaven for a movie freak! Not to mention great Brit comedy, telly shows, nature films, etc. No driving. No running that DVD back to the store. NO late fees. Plus you get to try it out for two weeks totally free.

The last two are fresh flowers and mail/fax services. Again, a no-brainer for me. Why would you even use a mail service? Send 'em yourself. I adore fresh flowers but content myself with a birthday bouquet and my lovely garden which is blooming right now with daffs, hyacynth and tulips(soon). In the summer it's an oasis of colour. All for free or the cost of a few seeds.

All in all a great article for us tightwads, LOL. Which tip is your fave? Any others you'd like to contribute?

Cake!

2009-03-09T12:20:00.000-04:00

So the Birthdays have begun.

Boy had his in mid-February:

My big 7 year old.

He asked for a snake cake and I did my best:

I originally wanted to do the snake in icing but the cake was pretty small and he had wanted all those words on it - I think he just loves eating the candy letters, lol.

Bitty Girl had hers in early March:

And the newly 5 year old asked, nay, demanded a girly frou-frou white-and-pink-with-hearts confabulation. Yuck. Well, again, I did my best.

She chose a chocolate fudge cake:

My oven is aproximately my age and heats v. unevenly (and I suspect the temps are not accurate). Subsequently all cakes come out a bit uneven. I decided to level this one a bit.

Here's the base white icing leaving the main heart shape blank:

And here's the finished frilly-hearty-pinky-ribbony thingy:

The big heart is done in pink strawberry icing and, yes, those are supposed to be ribbons. Bitty literally squealed with delight when she saw it.

Several of my online friends are bakers and skilled cake makers, like BarbD:

Extra cool!

One even has her own cake website stuffed with great cakes, cooking and decorating tips, and more. here's her version of the Other Mother cake from Coraline:

How awesome is THAT? Obviously, I'm seriously outclassed here.

But I got to thinking, and the cake website above (http://www.hurryupcakes.com/) really inspired me, that perhaps I might invest in some cool cake decorating tools. I mean I'm using spoons and knives here. The cool turntable thingy that spins the cake springs to mind.

What do you think? Not worth the expense since I only do 5 cakes a year? (Remember Bodog and I don't eat cake.) Or totally worth it?

Perserverence, let me show u itz

2009-03-07T14:03:00.000-05:00

A moving, triumphant blog post on playing the cards you are delt without whinging, an perhaps even winning the hand.

As a commenter said: "excuse me while I go and take on the world'.

Today's parenting FAIL!

2009-02-28T07:35:00.000-05:00

Prepare to be floored.

I got this via @parenting whom I follow on Twitter (thanks, guys!); check it.

The BBC hires a host for a childrens programme who happens to have been born with only one arm. Stupid, frightened, prejudiced parents write in and flood message boards with hysterical crap. Be sure to watch the vid about half way down.

STEP UP parents!

"How do I explain this to a 3 year old?"

Well, just farkin' explain it, dumbarse. How do you explain a pregnant woman? A black woman? A woman in a wheelchair?

Here, let me help you:

"Mummy, what happened to that lady's hand?"
"Nothing, Drusilla, darling. She only has one. She was born that way, just like you were born with blonde hair and the cutest dimples evar!"
"Does it hurt? It looks funny!"
"Do your dimples hurt, silly? No, it's just an arm. It does look odd, but so does daddy's hair when he first gets up in the morning, LOL. Now come eat your bickie so we can run down to the shops."

SEE? Easy peasy. Now quit slinking along the edge of motherhood and step up and do your jobs, Moms.

Professor, can I talk to you about my grade?

2009-02-18T13:09:00.000-05:00

Well, this week seems to be article posting week!

I blame my lovely and intelligent friends on all of my various boards and on Twitter. They are an amazing, interesting, and varied bunch.

Anyway, here's the article on the inflated sense of entitlement in today's college students.

"“Many students come in with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark,” Professor [Marshall] Grossman [U of Maryland] said. “Some assert that they have never gotten a grade as low as this before.”

He attributes those complaints to his students’ sense of entitlement.

“I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C,” he said. “That is the default grade. They see the default grade as an A.”"

[snip]

"James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, said: “Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’"

And these quotes by students just floored me:

"Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.

“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. “If someone goes to every class and reads every chapter in the book and does everything the teacher asks of them and more, then they should be getting an A like their effort deserves. If your maximum effort can only be average in a teacher’s mind, then something is wrong.”

Yes, Jason, honey. What's wrong is that you HAVE NOT ACHEIVED ANYTHING.

Let's say you're stranded on a desert island and there's a cache of food under a large stone. You go out every day and struggle against that stone - go out 10 times a day and push and groan and really really really make an effort to move that bloody great stone so that you can eat. But no matter how hard you try, the basic fact is: if you don't move that stone - if you are too small or too weak or whatever other reason - you will not eat.

Just because you pay your money and show up and read the books and attend class doesn't guarantee you an education. You gotta LEARN shit. When you get out in the real world knowing nothing about kinesiology (what IS that anyway?) you won't be able to tell your boss "Well, I tried really hard!"

Would you like a surgeon operating on you who couldn't recall the basics of gross anatomy but he got good grades cuz he TRIED really hard?!

More student nuggets of wisdom:

"Sarah Kinn, a junior English major at the University of Vermont, agreed, saying, “I feel that if I do all of the readings and attend class regularly that I should be able to achieve a grade of at least a B.”

Yes, Sarah, you should be able to, but you have to show your professor that you actually know something about English not just that you could be arsed to show up for class.

Best quote from article: “Instead of getting an A, they make an A,”

That's right. We earn what we get. What a concept.

Parents you are SO falling down on the job. I swear it starts with kindergarten graduations and peewee soccer games where everyone gets a trophy whether they played well or stood on the sidelines whinging. It starts with parents expecting their little perfect miraculous angels to be responsible for their own farking actions.

(PS: yes, I Googled kinesiology.)

Penny Pinching Popularity and the Faux Frugal

2009-02-10T10:46:00.125-05:00

Brilliant, brilliat post from Midwest Mom (whom I follow on Twitter) regarding the town of Frugal (where I live). Do you see yourself? I'm there in several guises: the Halver, the Saver, the Scavenger, and the Scrimper. I am these and shamelessly so. I might also Cluck. Just a bit. ;)

But her closing comment about how crowded Frugal was getting is what spurred me to post - I was fixin' to post on this very subject.

How it's now Cool To Be Frugal.

Yeah ... all those folks who sniffed at our tightwad ways, looked down their noses at our dumpster diving, outright laughed at us for wearing thrift store clothing, whose children ask my children why they don't bring Pop Tarts and Lunchables and brand name individual juices every day to school, THOSE people are suddenly into thrift.

And you know what the crazy part is? Clever marketing types who buy $1200 handbags and only eat the most expensive 'organic free range natural' eggs from happy chickens are the ones slapping up all these money saving websites and writers who aren't even aware that water comes in gallon jugs with *gasp* no flavouring or added minerals and who live off of single serving lo-cal lo-fat snack bags are rolling out articles detailing where to cut corners on your bloody grocery bill!

The old thrifty sites, and us long-time frugal bloggers - I'll bet - are not seeing so much increased traffic.

And why's that?

Well, because Americans, even Americans in a recession, want easy. Fast simple easy. And they are NOT going to give up their wasteful consumerism without a fight. They want you to tell them how to save money (lose weight! find the man of your dreams! get rich quick from home!) right now, and don't make it too complex.

They don't want to give up their triple caramel lattes or their expensive shoes or their *OMGOMGGASP* cable television.

They want to be told that all they have to do is turn off a few lights and maybe buy family packs of meat and they get to keep all the other indulgences.

All the time now I get the phrase: "Gosh, it must be really tough for you!" followed by almost eager expectation. I get the feeling folks want me to vent about how horrible our lives are in this economy what with five kids and the farm and the 10+ year old cars and my wearing the same pair of blue jeans all week.

Well it's not. It's really no different. Us permanent residents of Frugal - the lower income ones like me, all the way up to millionaires - have trimmed all the waste from our lives already. We live more simply. We have a cupboard full of tinned goods, firewood stacked on the porch, a bit of pin money put away. When the going gets tough, we tighten our belts a notch and keep on keepin' on in a practiced fashion.

This is not a brag, by the way, it's just how it is. Frugality is a lifestyle choice just like a diet. If you stuff your face every single year over the holidays and put on 10lbs then go on the latest Cashews-and-eggwhite-omlette diet every spring only to agonise over how you're not losing weight, well you have a problem.

To stay physically healthy you have to watch your food intake and exercise a bit all the time. To stay financially healthy you have to watch your spending habits and curtail waste all the time. This doesn't mean that you can't have a slice of Gramma's Nut Cake Delight at Thanksgiving or that you can't buy that perfect leather bag to keep your work papers and laptop in. It just means that you have to allow for these small things and watch the rest of your eating / spending.

I sincerely hope that a lot of people are really learning how to be thrifty. Being thrifty doesn't mean you have to suffer - any more than eating healthy does - but it does arm you against big, bad things like recessions (and Aunt Jo's homemade baklava!)