Life Imitating Art

This is what happens when you leave your husband in charge of the kids for 36 hours (and this was after soaping up). Do the words 'The Dog' mean anything to you? Take a look here.

Ugh...My Appetite is Ruined

I mentioned several weeks ago that our hamster had two babies. Unfortunately, one died due to a wound on its back and the other was apparently consumed by its mommy. I've heard of something being so cute you wanted to eat it up, but this was ridiculous. We reunited mom and dad hamster shortly after this incident due to dad hamster constantly escaping and winding up in mom hamster's cage any way. And, what do you know!....now we have seven baby hamsters. A week later, I am happy to report that all are accounted for and appear to be doing well! We finally figured out how to keep dad hamster away, and I think it will remain that way forever. And ever.

Transportation Tracker

I recently joined SparkPeople at the recommendation of a friend. I mainly used the fitness tracking feature to keep up with my daily exercise, but decided I would get a lot more out of it if I would use the nutrition tracker to keep tabs on my calorie consumption each day. WHAT AN EYE OPENER! I think I cut my consumption by around 1/3 to 1/2 after only a few days of using this feature. No wonder I was gaining weight these last several months! I've lost a few pounds (in conjunction with also starting a regular exercise program that includes two BodyPump classes each week) since I joined.

So, what does this have to do with transportation? My household was recently selected by the federal Department of Transportation to participate in a one day survey of our travel habits. No biggie, I thought. I'm game. (The small monetary incentive certainly didn't hurt.) So, for one day I wrote down every bit of travel for our household for a 20-hour period including bike rides and walks. Let me tell you--it was another eye opener! In one typical Friday I made 17 stops, only one of which included a short walk and there were no bike rides to be had among any of us. The bike riding part wasn't the shocker though, as we live on a fairly busy street. But, the number of stops seemed completely ridiculous! By the end of my 1.5 hour call with the DOT representative where she recorded all of my information such as miles between stops and time it took to drive there (this 1.5 hours didn't even include my husband's or kids interviews), I was completely embarrassed. I was told it typically only takes about 20-30 minutes.

This got me thinking--while I do not consider myself a particularly "earthy-crunchy" person, I am sure I can do better than 17 trips per day where 16 of those involved cranking up my car. I got tired just talking about all of those trips. So, SparkPeople...are you listening? Could you possibly add another feature to your site that helps me track my car mileage? It'd be nice to have it all in one place so I can work on trimming that as well!

The Great Sunflower Project Begins Again!

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Another Mouth to Feed

As many others are feeling the crunch of the economy, it finally hit close to home this past week. My husband's employer has decided to put everyone on lay off for a period of time with hopes of bringing them back in several weeks, but at part-time status. He has suspected this was going to happen after a major lay off occurred last year, so it wasn't a complete shock. We are disappointed but not devastated.

All in all, we try to be prepared for the unexpected or inconvenient circumstances. For instance, how could we know that in this time of semi-crisis, we would have another mouth to feed? Earlier this year the girls used their Christmas money to buy some hamsters. While we asked the gentleman at the pet store to kindly give us two of the same gender, we learned quickly from the look of things that he had not. Our suspicions (and fears!) were confirmed on Thursday of this past week when the 8 year old started screaming, "Baby hamsters!!" Two baby hamsters, actually. Here Charlie is seen holding mommy hamster, Brownie. 

And, who can resist taking in this little guy? Or is it a gal? I suppose there is only one way to know for sure. Hamsters anyone?

Feeling a Little Guilty...

Why? Because I just made $4 off hubby being sick! He's had an awful cold/congestion and finally broke down and went to the doctor today. He came home with THREE prescriptions. I quickly tracked down some KMart new Rx coupons (thanks, The Bargainist!) that my local CVS will accept, used a $20 off coupon for one of the medicines given to us by the doctor, and by the time all was said and done (including paying our co-pay for the visit)...I made $4! I probably could have found a better coupon for the scripts, but as I was typing away on the computer looking for one, I could feel sickly eyes boring into the back of my head...I didn't need any more guilt on my hands, so I cut the search short and headed out the door.

Moral of the story? If you are sickly right now like so many others, don't forget to inquire about samples or patient discount coupons for your medicine at your doctor's office and check around online for some pharmacy coupons!

Thanks, honey! Though I do hope you feel better soon. :)

I Can Can!

Last year, I learned how to can meat in a pressure cooker. I had some wonderful friends walk me through the process. Tonight, I went solo! I canned 18 lbs of chicken and prepared several jars of hamburger for canning tomorrow. I look at the jars and get all giddy. While I hope we never have to use them in an emergency situation, it's nice to know we have a little something on hand just in case. While there are some really good blogs with canning instructions and tutorials, be sure to also check out the National Center for Home Food Preservation, as it includes gobs of information that is updated with current food safety handling information.