potty mouth

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Isn't that hilarious??

reality check

Afternoon at Starved Rock State Park


I discovered something about myself the other day: at this point in time, I have very limited interests. I am thinking now that I am a very boring person.

A week ago Kevin and I were both supposed to play a gig together, so we dropped Maddi off at my parents' house a little early so we could have an hour or so of "free" time beforehand. We had dinner (gourmet McDonalds, I'm ashamed to say) and then headed to Barnes & Noble for coffee and leisure reading. Except I couldn't come up with a topic that interested me. In that huge store, the only thing that appealed to me were parenting books and mothering magazines. And I refused to look at any of them, because I felt like since this was my one night out in, like, forever, I needed to focus on something other than being a mom.

Don't get me wrong. I love being a mom, and I love being the nurturing figure in our little family. But I'm more than that, too...or at least I used to be. So now I'm on the lookout for a new hobby or interest, or something. I don't want to be that person who has nothing to say, the conversation killer. I guess it's time to take a look at life and find something to kick my @$$ into gear, eh?

going...going...green!

Adventures with Play-Doh


I guess I've jumped on the green bandwagon. I don't mean to make it sound like a fad as I sincerely hope it's not. But I was just thinking about some of the changes we've made in the last few months and I'm pretty happy with what we're doing. We may not be able to afford a new hybrid car or a solar-paneled house but why not do what we can with what we've got? Here are a few of our green achievements:

- Kevin made a rain barrel this fall. Although it's a little late to use it this season, we're both excited about next spring, and how we'll use it to use rainwater to feed our veggies and flowers. We also intend to put up a clothesline in the spring so I can put out some of the laundry instead of using the dryer for everything.

- If you've read my previous posts, you'll know that we've begun cloth diapering. I have built up a pretty nice stash of dipes for Miss M and I am feeling good about not putting as many disposables in the garbage. We still use them for bedtime, naptime, and some longer outings, but at home we're cloth almost all the way.

- I've started saving plastic bags from the store to send to the recycling center. I would like to start using some of the reusable bags in the future. I've also stopped throwing away cardboard boxes from cereal and cracker packages and started putting them in with our recycling pile for newspapers.

- Compact flourescent light bulbs are slowly taking over our house.

I know there's probably a lot more we could be doing (like fixing the leaky faucet in the tub) but one day at a time, right?