The One Where She Rambles On and On

Late last night I finally had a chance to sit down at the computer and catch up on my blog reading. I posted a comment on Kerflop and Jessica replied via email immediately so I sent her another message really quick and it made me feel special like I had a new friend. Then I read a comment on my own blog from someone I didn't recognize and I went to her blog and saw that I was listed on her "Favorite Reads" column and gosh, if that didn't make me feel special, too.

Then I started musing on how I was starting to have blog readers who I didn't actually "know" and it made me feel a little pressure to have funny, interesting content. And how in high school how I wasn't part of the "popular" crowd for whatever reason. Was is because I was a Mormon, because I made good grades, because I didn't hangout and party with the in-crowd? It doesn't actually matter to me, not that it did then, either, especially because I still feel like I'm on the outside when it comes to most groups. I've never had a big circle of friends and I think that's just part of who I am.

But at any rate*, I started thinking about new and exciting posts for my little blog and thought I could do something like "Frugal Things I Did Today" and that sent my mind to one of my favorite books, The Tightwad Gazette. There is actually an article that talks about this very thing. Amy mentions how people were always wanting to come to their house to do photo shoots, but she had a hard time thinking of "poses" for them to do. Because most of being frugal is not things that you DO, it's things that you DON'T do. So I thought of some of the things that I didn't do recently.

On my birthday, which turned out to be a rotten day, partly because I had high expectations for the amount of things I would actually get done and then didn't because I ended up running unplanned errands, I had planned on getting takeout from a local barbecue restaurant. The owners are fellow Texans and their food is great. I got on the phone at dinnertime to call in my order and got their voicemail, and they were closed still for the holidays. So my fabulous non-cooking birthday dinner plans were shot. I didn't want to call the local Chinese place because I had tossed the menu in a decluttering attempt, and I wasn't dragging 4 kids there to wait for 20 minutes for my food. I didn't want pizza and everyone was getting hungry. I called Frugaldad and told him to pick up Baja Fresh but then changed my mind because I didn't know what I'd feed the kids from there without complaint. So I found corn dogs in the freezer and stuck them in the oven.

So by cooking corn dogs I saved like $30.

(And by the way, I skipped dinner, and the second I had all the kids in bed I joined my cloth diapering group for our monthly MNO and I ate a sandwich at IHOP while I knitted my frustrations away.)

When I run out of milk or bread, I mix up a gallon of powdered milk or bake up a batch. So I save like $20 because if you're anything like me, you can't walk all the way back to the milk without picking up anything else, since you're already at the store. So by not going shopping I save money, pure and simple.

Another thing that happened yesterday was I went to a church luncheon. Once a month a different woman hosts a pot-luck lunch at her home to give the ladies a chance to visit. There was another mom there with a baby who was wearing a pair of Robeez shoes. Frugalbaby was wearing a pair of knock-offs from Target and I mentioned how great these soft-soled shoes are, and that I had found some patterns online and had also bought some leather and was going to make a pair. Another woman said something to the effect of "You are so crafty. Is there anything you don't do?" The answer to that is yes, because I don't do the things I don't do well. I just happen to be interested in a lot of different things, and hate to pay retail for something I can make myself. So I pile up project after project and all these supplies and then nothing ever gets done**. But I'm working on it, and as the baby gets older it is both easier and harder to do things. Easier because she not attached to my boob all day long, and keeps herself occupied, and harder because she's transitioning to one nap and that leaves me with less time.

Anyway, did I ramble enough? Post a comment, if you haven't, so I know who is reading!





*When I was a junior in high school, my English teacher was Mrs. Thompson (who happens to be Dan Rather's sister) and she was a funny lady who would ramble on, and on, and on. Then when she was ready to get back to her lecture, she'd say "At any rate". My friends Rachelle, Jenn, and Lanny and I had a tally in someone's notebook to keep track of how many times she said "At any rate," and I think the record was like 12 times in one day.

**It's not completely true that I don't do anything. I am actually stash-busting some of my diaper fabric. Last week I made some night-time pants (Pull-up style) for Frugalgirl2 and last night I cut out 3 more pair since the first ones were a success. Pics to come. I am down to only 1 yard of hemp fleece after starting with 7, and I used up the entire yard of Windpro that I bought.

New Version of Blogger

Have you switched yet? I am kind of chicken. I am afraid I will lose something in the process and haven't backed anything up here. Anyone, anyone?

When two worlds collide

I had one of those weird experiences where two seemingly unrelated parts of life somehow merge. The last few weeks I have had my kids in swimming lessons. There is a woman whose parents are in our ward at church, and they have a pool, so for the last few summers she has come home and taught lessons. This is the first year that Frugalgirl2 has gotten to take lessons, and she was in the same class with three little boys. One of the moms of one of the boys was really nice and she had another younger boy, too. Last week we finally introduced ourselves to each other and her name sounded vaguely familiar but the way the world is today people have the same and similar names and I figured it was nothing.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I used to read this bulletin board for LDS women over at Babycenter. I met some of the women irl (that's In Real Life) at the park a few times and we had fun Girls' Nights Out and stuff. But then I was just feeling like I couldn't keep up with the message boards and honestly, I didn't really feel like I fit into the group. My values and ideals were just a little different and I didn't want to devote the time to keeping up with the messages so I quit going there, and consequently lost touch with most of them. Then I stumbled across their blogs one day when one of them commented over at Very Mom, (which, by the way, is the only blog I read for a couple years until I started blogging myself) A couple months ago I read this post over at The Constant Gardener, and this post over at Here Today...Probably Tomorrow Too. Then a little while later I read this one from the Constant Gardener again. And I clicked on this link.

Then yesterday, Friendly Mom from swimming lessons was wearing a T-shirt that said "Daring Young Mom." Well, I've been around enough to see links to Daring Young Mom and the wheels in my brain started turning faster that I can explain and you know how you can't really put into words how things come together? Friendly Mom from swimming lessons is Erin from Erin's Third Law and she is friends with Daring Young Mom and she knows all these other ladies too!

How strange is that how it all came together?

So after I put it all together in my head and found all those posts in the archives and stuff, to make sure I wouldn't make a fool of myself, and this morning I asked Erin if she had a blog and we had a nice chat!