two things

And I'm not sure I want either.

1. I discovered a possum living between our shed and our house tonight. Yuck. It looked at me with it's beady black eyes from the spot it has commandeered. He/she is definitely a most unwelcome guest, and can go away at any time. My biggest hope is that it isn't a pregnant female, ready to populate my yard with her beady eyed littles.

--- and ---

2. Our family now owns a Hannah Montana cd. The Bee is 4, and has never watched this show before, but every time we go out and she sees her, she yells out her name. And believe me, Hannah/Miley is everywhere - tshirts, folders, backpacks, signs in the store. The Bee has been saving her money, and when Q used his money to buy a computer game tonight, she decided she wanted to go and buy the HM cd. So, as much as I am opposed to the marketing machine and all that, we agreed to let our 4 year old buy a cd. The music isn't bad, and the message seems to be pretty positive, but why do I feel like such a crap parent over this one, like it wasn't the best decision we could have made?

can you be too green?

Okay, so my green-ness may be getting away from me. I don't even know what posessed me to do this, it just sort of popped into my head.

I have just cut up my grandma's old living room shears and turned them into five reusable produce bags for the grocery store.

The shears were in the fabric bin already, and there was no intense emotional connection to them - it was just pretty, lightweight fabric that I figured I'd use one day. Well, today was the day.

I also weighed a plastic bag with three peaches and my fabric bag with three peaches, and the weight difference was only 0.4 ounces. It's not a huge difference at all. Even if I use all five bags in one shopping trip, it will only be a two ounce difference. Not enough to notice for me.

I wonder how many goofy looks I'll get when I go to the grocery store in two weeks? Reactions from the cashiers?

What is the Mother of Invention?

Or maybe it should be, Who Is?

Actually, I don't know who it is or what it is. All I know is that I'm too cheap to get what I really want, one of these. So, I bought a $0.99 Tazo Iced Tea, which is a treat for me these days, and I turned it into my reusable water bottle.

Reduced - yes
Reused - yes
Recycled - in the end, when it has lived it's life, yes
Repurposed - sure did

Since, in reality, it's an empty tea bottle, I don't care if it gets left behind on accident.

Not that we ever leave anything behind.

No, not us.

And, for the ultimate in Cheap Mommy Fashion, I took one of the 942 errant kids socks I have, and turned it into a koozie for my water bottle. And, since I have a few additional socks laying in a pile upstairs in my room, I could probably coordinate my bottle cover with my clothing, should I choose to.

Not bad for a $0.99 tea bottle.

Any other resourceful, repurpose it, reuse it ideas out there?

The Husband ...

He may be getting a little bit green!

We were at Hobby Lobby yesterday, killing time between dinner and picking up the kids from a birthday party, and of course I headed back into the fabric department. They have their Christmas prints out already, and I saw a plaid that I already have in a pair of pajamas. They happened to be in the Christmas rack, although I don't think my pajamas are particularly Christmas-y. Any hoo ... he looked at me and said, "You know what would be cool? If we bought this fabric and made bags for our Christmas gifts with it." And he had this really sort of dreamy, don't-I-have-a-good-idea look on his face.

Then I broke it to him that I bought a bunch of fabric this past January (one yard of five different fabrics for $5) for that exact purpose - I just haven't gotten that far yet. And, since I'm on a finish what you've got before you get anything new kick, I suppose I'll be working on those things this fall too.

It's funny ... the last time I made a bunch of fabric gift bags he looked at me like I was weird. I wonder what the difference is this time, other than the idea was his?

Maybe my green goings on are having an impact.

Next, he'll probably hope his "save for retirement" goings on will do the same for me.

Who'd a thunk it?

The kids and I stopped at Michael's today, looking for something to paint - their request. We found what we were looking for, and wandered our way over to the clearance aisle, just in case.

The end cap next to the clearance aisle, and that whole aisle next to it - Halloween Decorations! And I'm not talking craft supplies to gear up for it, but the actual chotchkis and battery powered decorations and spooky ghosts and all.

Poor Q - he wanted to go in there and look, but I told him no. I told him, as I have every other year, that I am not going to start celebrating Halloween in July. Seriously - the 4th of July was LAST WEEK PEOPLE. By the time the real thing gets here, we'll be sick of it. Nope, we celebrate on a time line here. It goes something like this:

August & September - full of birthdays, carnivals and back to school
October - my birthday falls early in the month and then, after my birthday, we can get out Halloween decorations. By the time November gets here, they've been out for almost three weeks.
November - Thanksgiving comes out after Halloween goes away.
December - Christmas comes out the day after Thanksgiving, and no sooner. It stays up until the 1st or 2nd weekend in January, depending on when the holidays fall.

I am a one holiday at a time type of gal. That's not to say if I see something on sale that I know someone would like for a Christmas gift, I won't buy it in July, and I've been known to get the "stuff" to make a project several weeks in advance, but my decorations. No way. Those stay in the basement until my appointed timer says they can come up.

I'd rather enjoy something for a shorter amount of time as opposed to celebrate it for months on end. To me, it's a bit more special and enjoyable to do it that way. If it drags on forever, I don't think you like it as much by the time the actual holiday day gets here.

So am I crazy and uptight, or what? I'm waiting for someone to tell me I'm wrecking it for my kids, or that I'm raising a couple of cynics. And if I am, at least we'll celebrate it in a timely fashion and won't drag it out.

care to take a trip?

So ... you may be wondering why I would be sharing a picture of my very messy living room today. No, it's not to make anyone feel better, but if it does that too, then good. My house is trashed, yours is trashed, we've probably both got kids, and it'll only be clean again after they move out. Then, though, we'll be wishing for just one more mess, and just one more run through the house with dirty, sandy feet, yelling "Moooooooooom!"

The actual reason for the picture of my very - messy living room is to show what my kids did this morning. Trash the living room - yes. But, while they were doing that, they actually made a ship. Technically, it's an airplane, underwater ship that also has the ability to turn into a train.

This morning, Q sat on the big bendy cushion on the floor, The Bee sat behind him as the co-pilot, and I sat to her right, under the red blanket. The two big rectangle pillows on the floor are the wings. You can stand on them if you need to, and it won't break your plane.

We went to Arizona, then to Minnesota. While we were in Minnesota, we traveled under water, and then converted to a train. And, because my son may have watched too much Star Wars, we had to defend ourselves from the bad guys as they were attacking our train. Good thing for us, we survived, and managed to get away and make it back home.

So, while my living room may look like a cyclone hit, their imaginations were in full gear this morning, and we had a bit of an adventure without having to get dressed or leave our living room.