New Year's resolves

At present the only thing I am absolutely set upon involving the course of the near future is the determination to go out to dinner tonight. That may not sound too ambitious, but considering how rarely we eat out, it could be a milestone.

Last year, for some reason (I can only assume we were given a gift card), we went out to Red Lobster on New Year's Eve, which is as good an excuse as any for establishing a tradition. While there, we used a coupon for a free appetizer (still good, by the way) and ended up getting charged $0.50 more than we should have. When I called the manager the next day, she was extremely gracious about it and mailed me a $10 Red Lobster gift card by way of apology. Which brings us around to this year. We have evidently not spent it yet, so I signed up Michael's email address for the Fresh Catch Club and we're going back for second helpings this year.

But you mustn't think that we never eat out at all. Why, just yesterday we actually went to Zaxby's for lunch (although, granted, we didn't spend any money there either, thanks to this). Hmm. In the eccentric spirit of last year's resolution to gain weight in 2007, perhaps a doable New Year's resolution for us would be to spend more money in 2008.

Christmas pics

Home again, home again, jiggity-jog

We're back again. We went to Ohio for Christmas, and I missed posting on the shortest day of the year, so I'll pause here to point out that the days are getting colder and longer now.

The Trip was fun but exhausting, and we remembered anew why we do not like long road trips. Jane was a perfect peach, but Ella the Cheerful One was peevish for much of the 12-hour drive back. Now that we're safely home again, we think we'll stay here forever.

The past few days have been devoted to catching up on laundry, unpacking, and writing thank you notes. Meanwhile I've played about with more kitchen alchemy. Upon my discovery that blue cornmeal is far superior to white or yellow in fiber and protein, I substituted blue cornmeal in this recipe with great success. I also snapped up five gallons of organic milk, which provided the perfect opportunity of trying out queso blanco, which actually worked:

Ten years ago

I have been writing a diary, more or less, for over ten years now. It was sporadic in the beginning, grew into an intense daily regimen for many years, and then, as Michael appeared on the scene and dispelled my superfluous angst, it dwindled away to brief and pragmatic updates at longer and longer intervals.

Recently I pulled an old volume from the shelf, dusted it off (not only has married life mostly dispelled my propensity to write down deep cogitations, it also seems to have removed my fascination with reading and re-reading my entries from the recent or distant past and contemplating whether I've changed much since then), and looked up December 1997, just on a lark, to see where I was ten years ago.

I had just read an article about double dactyls, a recently-invented (well, relatively speaking) poem form with very rigid parameters. I think the strictness of the rules fascinated me, because I popped off with one straight away:

Utterly uppity
Arrogant Aragorn
Knew that his shortcuts would
Never go wrong;

After a fight or a
Dawn he'd alight for a
Post-expeditional
Dinner and song.

Ha, ha! It still strikes me as terribly clever, although my far older and wiser self (who also happens to have access to high-speed internet for quick research purposes) realises that it was really more of a McWhirtle, because of the absence of a nonsense line.

Do they sell bigger ice cream scoops at CVS, too?

Due to a flush of sales and coupons at CVS, we're wallowing in Edy's ice cream this week. It always surprises me to discover that most people don't love ice cream quite as much as I do. No matter how not hungry I am, I will always be happy to spring for ice cream.

After a nice dinner, I got out the ice cream and prepared to shovel out the portions. Michael mentioned that he wasn't that hungry, and would probably just take a couple bites of mine. That would not do, so I offered to serve him a bowl of Small Helpings, to which he acquiesced. When I brought him a very modest portion, he exclaimed, 'That's Small Helpings?'

'Yes,' I explained, and pointed to my bowl: 'That's Regular Helpings.'

'No, my dear,' he told me, 'that's Rose Helpings.'

Can I help it that it was free? Free stuff makes me feel reckless and unrationing. I don't have to make it last because I can always go out and 'buy' more tomorrow.

Pictures and conversations

I have been trying to teach Jane the proper conjugation of verbs recently by phrasing things different ways in conversations with her, like this:

'Jane, did you go to class today? Yes, you went to class.'
'Jane, did you see the squirrel? Yes, you saw the squirrel!'

It makes for a bit of a repetitive monologue on my part, but it seems to help clarify the rules somewhat. Or at least it would, if English weren't so chock full of irregular verbs and exceptions to rules.

Last night I was winding her down for bedtime and asking her questions about her day. She remarked, 'Jane plew with Cate.' That one threw me for a loop, and it was only after further questioning that I figured out that she was applying the blow...blew/throw...threw rule to the word play. I can't say that I blame her.

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Ella, meanwhile, finally cut her third tooth on Monday. She is fond of pulling herself up on furniture and then panicking when she finds herself stuck there - kind of the opposite of the classic 'Help! I've fallen and I can't get up!' After disdaining solid food for months on end, consistently spitting out and spluttering over every single spoonful we tried to feed her, she has decided in the last week or so that she does actually like solids, on her terms. Meaning, she will still automatically spit out anything we try to put in her mouth, but if we put her in the high chair and hand her the goods, she'll dig in with a right good will. Having recently read the Little House books, I am reminded of Laura's comment on trying to teach the calf to drink from a bucket: 'In the end, some of the milk was inside the calf.'

Still scrambling

No matter how ardently I intend to be prepared for the Christmas season, it seems that every year finds me catching my breath and saying, 'Whoa! Is it December already?' I mean to have our tree up the day after Thanksgiving, promptly. I mean to play Christmas music every day, all day long. I mean to light the Advent candles, really and truly, this year, start an unforgettable family tradition and all that. And, most of all, I so want to hang up stockings on the night of December 5th, and have a jolly celebration of St. Nicholas Day, thus cleverly avoiding the whole Santa Clause dilemma once and for all.

Oops. Is it December 7th already? Well, at least I'm thinking about Pearl Harbor.

Still inspired

The kick has lasted all week. Now I want to go out and spend exorbitant amounts of money on real cookware with lifetime warranties. Well, actually, I'd like to find said cookware on craigslist for a modest amount of money, but anyway, either way, it's not happening in the near future. Still, at least I'll stop scoffing at people who put Calphalon on their wedding registries.

I've always despised non-stick pans because you can't use metal utensils (wire whisk? Hello! How else do you propose to make non-lumpy gravy?!) in them, but now I learn that you're not supposed to use metal utensils on cookware at all, period, because metal on metal causes tiny cuts and scrapes that eventually degrade the integrity of the pan. Wow! The answer is rubber, plastic, or reinforced nylon. So now the great question is, Does CVS sell high-quality reinforced nylon cooking utensils?

Cheapskate Gourmet, by Mary Hunt

Here is my book review of a book that I am currently all gaga over. Because this is not a serious blog, I am giving my off-the-cuff, top of the head, completely partial impression of a book I haven't even finished yet. But the parts I've read are so good that I know I'll like the rest of it. I'm already inspired to gather up all my knives and take them off to Kroger for a free sharpening (did you know that most grocery stores' meat departments offer free knife sharpening??)

Well, I started off by reading aloud a quote to Michael on the way home from church, and now he's reading the book to me. We are both thoroughly engrossed by it, the cheapskate bit being the part I like, and the gourmet bit being the part he likes.

I felt particularly moved by the author's account of how she used to dismiss exact measuring by reasoning that 1 cup plus 2 Tbls. flour just meant use a little more than a cup, and how her repeated cooking flops convinced her that following directions precisely was critical. Now, I haven't got a long history of cooking flops, exactly, but I still appreciate the detailed explanations of what can go wrong when the directions are not followed precisely.

Inspired by the call to excellence, I leaped up in the middle of a lemon muffin recipe and dashed to the kitchen to try it out. I even scrupulously followed the part about 1 cup plus 2 Tbls. sugar, going so far as to get the Tbls. measure out to get the job done properly. All was going well until I got to where it said that the 2 Tbls. sugar were for the topping.

Oops. I should also be as enthralled by the instructions to read all recipes thoroughly to the end before beginning.

Serious blogging is not for me

Whenever I leave a comment about a controversial topic on a high-profile blog, I am reminded again and again (yeah, about all four times) why I do not blog for notoriety or pay. The time it takes me to craft my comment, thoroughly editing my work and restructuring my sentences for the utmost clarity and incontrovertibility, and providing ample documentation in the way of links and references, is overwhelmingly intense and somewhat reminiscent of writing a college paper. I just don't need that kind of stress in my life.

I come away from writing such a comment completely exhausted, and for days afterwards I can do nothing but hit the refresh button on the computer to see what came of it, and mope if it was taken ill. (See? See? Grand sweeping generalisations like this one are all well and good on a private blog such as this one, which I can still maintain the illusion that only about ten of my very closest friends ever read, but would be hacked to pieces in a matter of minutes by the sharks circling for fresh blood who will clutch at anything to de-bunk an opposing point of view.) Whew. Not that I'm taking this too seriously or anything.

So I continue to scoff at all the articles on how to make money off of your blog, and how to increase blog traffic and all that. Because that's all well and good for those mercenaries who care more about money than about freedom, but I'd rather live my online life light-hearted and lilting, unfettered by the need for comment moderation, painstaking revision, careful retractions, edits, and updates, and RSS feeds that notoriety demands.

To link or not to link?

When discussing and disparaging items of interest, it occurs to me to wonder whether it would be better form to link directly to the item in question, or not to do so. There seem to be compelling reasons both ways.

Pro:

* Linking enables the reader to check out the source directly, thus circumventing any unintentional slant given by a paraphrase or quote.
* Linking gives the reader direct access to the original writer, with which the reader may check out facts and ask for clarification.
* Linking provides accountability for the linker, who knows he or she may not misrepresent the piece to which he or she is linking, for the sake of making a straw man argument.

Con:

* Linking requires specific finger-pointing, leaving the shelter of vague platitudes for the out-on-a-limbishness of direct confrontation.
* Linking may provide unwarranted attention to a subject which had much better be left to die in peace.
* Linking may lead to the charge of gossip, in that it names names.

Why is this a subject matter of particular interest to me? Because I occasionally stumble across things which irk me, and I wish to point them out for the sake of waxing vexatious thereon. But, of course, I do not wish to gossip or launch personal attacks. But, then again, if I honestly disagree with or disapprove of something, wouldn't it be better to call it out in the open so all could judge for themselves instead of taking my word for it that I am right and the particular instance I am anonymously citing (for the sake of protecting such instance's privacy, of course) is wrong?

Consumer rave - Publix

Here is the why and wherefore of this post.

****************************************

November 15, 2007



Publix Super Markets Corporate Office
ATTN: Consumer Relations
PO Box 407
Lakeland, FL 33802-0407

To Whom It May Concern:

This letter is to report on a recent satisfactory exchange with your consumer relations department, and to commend you and your employees on an excellent level of customer service, both at the corporate and at the store level.

To give a bit of background, on a recent shopping trip I found a flyer at my local Publix (Store #xxx) with a great coupon inside. It was the last flyer on the rack, but the coupon, matched with the then-current sale, provided such a good deal that I asked at the customer service desk whether there were any more flyers in the back. The gentleman at the counter could not find any more, but told me that they should be getting more flyers in a week or two. He voluntarily offered to write me a rain check for the sale price, since the coupon, when it arrived, would be valid for several more weeks.

Over the next few weeks, I checked back, but never saw any more flyers in the store. Finally, this past Monday, I returned to the customer service desk and asked whether any more of those particular flyers had come in yet. I was told that the new frozen foods flyers had already arrived, but those were not the ones containing the coupon. It appeared that that flyer had not been replenished.

After I returned home and reviewed my copy of the flyer, I decided to call Publix Consumer Relations and see if they could offer me any assistance in determining whether there were any more copies available. I explained the situation to the representative handling the call, and she took my name and number and told me that she would look into it. I regret that I did not note her name, but she was very gracious and professional.

She was very efficient, too, because I received a message the very next day from Mr. xxx, the manager of my local Publix store. He stated that he had located one copy of the flyer in question, and was attempting to track down more copies from other locations. He left his name and number, asked me to call him if I had any questions, and assured me that he would see that I was informed when and if the other copies became available.

The next day I received a follow-up phone call from xxx at the local Publix. He verified that he had one copy of the flyer in hand, and stated that Mr. xxx had succeeded in locating a shipment of the flyers, which were being sent in from the Florida office and should be in the store the next day. He asked how many I needed, and said that I could come in the next day to pick them up.

I have been extremely impressed with the prompt and exemplary handling of this situation. My inquiry was immediately addressed, and all parties involved went above and beyond what might be considered routine customer service to provide outstanding assistance. The location of the extra flyers and the delivery of those flyers to my local store was an extraordinary courtesy.

This experience only serves to reinforce my positive impression of the level of service and courtesy I have experienced with my local Publix store. In previous interactions with the front desk staff, whether it be over a sale price, a returned item, or a rain check, I have always been met with competence and a sincere willingness to solve the issue at hand.

I write this letter to commend your employees on a good job well done, and to express my appreciation for a company where such a high quality of customer service is valued.

There are some things that money can’t buy. Publix has cemented its good reputation in my mind, and I will continue both to shop there and to recommend it to my family and friends.

Sincerely,



Rose Focht

Consumer rants and raves

And a word spoken in due season, how good is it!

I believe very firmly in speaking one's mind. (Well, aside from the convention of social repression where you don't blurt out your every thought. There are times when I'm a firm believer in the value of keeping your mouth shut.) So when something comes to my attention which demands address, I generally go about addressing it.

If I have a problem with a business or a product, I will take that problem to someone who should be informed, and who might be able to ameliorate the circumstance. I have generally had very good results with this course of action, as most companies have great PR standards and are sensible enough to realise the incalculable value of a satisfied customer.

By the same token, I want to make sure that I am properly acknowledging the brilliant success of Good Business, so I've long made it my habit to point out and commend instances of excellence. This is almost more important to me than the complaints department, and though not so personally lucrative (a concern/complaint about a product/person/situation usually nets me a free replacement/coupon/gift card by way of apology/please-don't-ditch-our-business), it's very emotionally gratifying.

I've read that humans tend to express negative feedback and positive feedback in a ratio of nine to one, and I'm not surprised by that statistic. From working in operations, one of the more thankless lines of duty, I've learned that people don't tend to express the good (mostly because it drops below their radar screen) but they will express the bad. (For instance, you would never get an email gushing about how well the toilets are working today and thanking you for all your hard work on the keeping-toilets-running front, but you sure as anything will get a lot of feedback if one of the toilets isn't working.)

So, to counteract this worldwide conspiracy of negativity, I've made a point to follow through with my opinions, both bad and good. I've always been an avid letter-writer, and the results have usually been satisfactory. And my latest resolve is to post these letters as occasion merits, for two purposes: to punish the evildoer, and to reward the good.

It's really just an expansion of the word-of-mouth principle, where a good reputation is priceless. If something is mishandled, and the situation is not satisfactorily resolved, then I need to carry through with my threat to discredit the foolish, short-sighted, penny-wise-pound-foolish manager who is unwilling to concede the point in order to retain a satisfied customer. And when something is handled exceptionally well, then I want to spread the word so that others can enjoy the same quality of service and satisfaction. Of course, there is no ulterior motive in publishing my experiences, and you may rest assured that I am not getting paid by any product or company to badmouth or compliment. All thoughts and opinions are expressly my own, independently arrived at, etc. etc.

Better eight than never

In which we list (you guessed it! but only because you read the rules on the other blogs already) eight random things:

1) I spent almost an hour online researching the title of this post. I was trying to find the correct spelling for the American pronunciation of the Egyptian number eight. Searches on Arabic numerals led me down some fascinating mathematical rabbit trails, but no closer to a clever title.

2) I can count to ten in Arabic.

3) I flew on the flying trapeze in a real live circus show.

4) The only TV show I ever watched live (well, not actually live, as in the studio: live, as in, when it first aired) was the premier of House (and that only because we had just spotted Bertie in Sense and Sensibility, and were curious to see him in an American role. I hear the series isn't that great, despite being wildly popular with the masses). Every single other TV show I have ever seen was a re-run or the DVD.

5) CVS is my new favourite place to shop.

6) When Jane and I stand on the scales together, we still weigh less, combined, than I did by the end of my pregnancy with her.

7) Michael was always one of my favourite names, but I knew I could never name a son Michael because, well, it kept making the top 10 lists. Falling for MLF was a convenient way to have a legitimate excuse to name a son Michael.

8) I used to like worms, but now I don't. On the other hand, I used to hate onions, and now I don't.

Thanks to the Queen for that little diversion! Due to my late-night lethargy and lacklustre linking skills, this is a self-tagging post, meaning that if you want to join in the fun, then consider yourself tagged by all means.

Cooking for control freaks

Sometimes I amuse myself by reading those tips in various magazines and cookbooks on the proper way to cook and bake, and I can barely repress snickers and sneers at some of the totally impractical suggestions they come up with. For your edification, I provide you with the following silly rules, and the obvious logical reasons why you should disregard them:

- You must gently spoon flour into the measuring cup, and then carefully level it off with the back of a knife, thus getting three implements dirty instead of one. Do not scoop it directly with the measuring cup, or you will compress the flour ever so slightly, causing you to end up with more flour than you need. (When you are scraping the excess flour off with the knife, of course, that will not compress the rest of the flour into the measuring cup quite so erroneously.) Ha! We all know that there are a very few such recipes out there in which a few grains of flour one way or the other makes all the difference in the world as to how the final texture turns out, but most recipes are flexible enough to stand the slight variation that the tiniest bit of compression would allow.

- You must break eggs into a bowl, one by one, before adding them to the melange in the mixing bowl. This will enable you to pick out bits of shell, should they fall in. Ha! And we all know that you can only pick eggshell out of a bowl that has only eggs in it, as opposed to a mixing bowl that has oil and butter and sugar in it as well! Eggshells that fall into mixing bowls instantly sink to the bottom of the batter, while they magically float on the top of raw eggs, thus allowing you to pick them out all the more easily! Right.

- You must melt chocolate in a double boiler. Now we all know that extreme heat does weird things to chocolate. So obviously, you're not going to want to melt chocolate over a boiling hot burner. But if you don't have a double-boiler (which, in my opinion, is one of those specialty items - like escargot forks - with a very narrow range of usefulness - actually, escargot forks probably come out ahead in the narrowness-of-usage-to-difficulty-of-storage/hassle-of accessibility ratio), and you don't want to bother rigging up a pot of boiling water atop which you balance a metal bowl in which to melt the chocolate, then you will find that melting chocolate in the microwave works like a charm. Really, it does.

Time for another post

The house is once again free of guests, and I'm reveling in the free use of the computer once more. You can't just plop down to check email and read blogs when there are guests about, especially when said guest is already at the computer checking his/her email.

Much has been happening around here, which thought I'll put on hold until I have finished pondering the construct of that sentence and why it is that I always fall back on the 'much' approach rather than the 'lots [of]' approach. 'Lots has been happening' or 'lots has happened' works, but only on the presumption that you were going to fill in an indeterminate amount, the implied 'lots of stuff has been happening.' And 'stuff,' especially 'lots' of it, just sounds clunky and uninformed. Or you could pretend that you were going to say 'lots of things have been happening' (ooh! That's helpful and specific!), and then you feel silly for going to all that trouble to spell out the phrase, proving that it works grammatically, and still end up with a vague platitude that needs to be expounded upon.

I have therefore concluded that 'much' just about always sounds more elegant and polished than 'lots,' despite their being pretty well synonymous (unlike 'I' and 'me,' which people insist on believing to be interchangeable, with the vague impression that 'I' has the slight grammatical edge, leading them to use it whenever in doubt of the two). For proof positive of this newfound theory, let's just experiment with a few literary examples:

****

'What do you want with me, Spirit?' asked Scrooge.

'Lots.' It was Marley's voice.

****
For unto whomsoever lots is given, of him shall be lots required: and to whom men have committed lots, of him they will ask the more.

****

The sun is up; why aren't you?
The Jaize A'Castles have lots to do!

****

Yes, quite; just doesn't have quite the same ring to it, does it? And that concludes my grammar check. Back to the stuff and things.

So between houseguests last week, and Thanksgiving next week, and babysitting this week, and church and choir practise and play group and trying madly to spend up all the money in our FSA before the end of the year (does ANYone else out there need another free blood glucose monitor? Specifically someone in VA, whom I can send it to by courier next week?), we've been keeping pretty busy. That's all for now. Off to eat more free ice cream and hazelnut chocolates.

A bit of history, a goods and services review, and a diatribe on consumerism

When we traveled to NJ for Eric's wedding in June, we stayed overnight in an hotel. And when I made the reservation, we got some information on a rewards program called Traveler's Advantage, which put us on the mailing list for a few other similar rewards programs.

I am always very cautious about any membership clubs where money changes hands, especially where a free trial is offered to lure me in. I did my homework and discovered that this program (and many others) is run by Trilegiant Corporation (TLC), a company which doesn't seem to have done anything technically illegal, though there have been many complaints filed against it with the Better Business Bureau, mainly to do with deceptive advertising and unscrupulous collections. It seems to be mainly an issue with fine print, where people can very easily get ripped off. I don't blame them for being confused, but neither can I blame TLC for taking advantage of people's forgetfulness and carelessness. After all, that's how manufacturers make money on rebate products: they count on a certain percentage of fallout in the follow-through.

So I agreed to the trial period, and ended up with a complicated set of instructions for gasoline rebates, which I did follow through on, and I did remember to cancel the membership before the free trial period ended. This sort of thing, by the by, is like playing with matches, along the lines of listening to time share pitches with the intention of not buying just to get your free gift: you must have iron determination and nerves of steel or you will get caught. Do not enter into it lightly.

Later, I got another offer for anther one of their fronts, called Great Fun. The premise of this little program is that you sign up (for free, of course), and get a membership card which entitles you to all kinds of discounts on dining and entertainment. Trouble is, once the annual fees start kicking in after your trial period runs out, you'd have to be spending a whole lot of money (and at their participating retailers, too) to justify the membership fee. Five percent off an admission to a particular movie theater bears a striking similarity to using a manufacturer's coupon on a name-brand item: it's probably tricking you into spending more money on something you didn't really need anyway.

After I got all the membership information, I decided that there was no way we could ever come out ahead with this program, and we didn't need any temptations to spend more money on dining and entertainment. I called the company and asked to cancel our membership.

But wait! There's more! After I listened to spiel after spiel about how much money this program could save me, and I insisted again that it wasn't for me, I was offered an extension of the free trial so I could take advantage of one more special offer: a set of rebates totaling up to $40, just for giving Great Fun one more try!

So I waited again, and found that these rebates were even more complicated than the gas forms: there were four $10 rebate forms, to be sent in with any eligible receipt, each one good for only one quarter of the year. So right there, I would have to be a member for the whole year to cash in on this, and not cancel my free membership as soon as I got my payout. Not only that, but the rebate form for this quarter was the entertainment one: I had to send in a receipt over $10 for a movie ticket, video rental, concert, or other cultural event, to receive my $10 rebate.

I thought about that one. I looked up our records in Microsoft Money to verify my suspicion: We have not spent any money in the leisure category for the last three months. No movies, no rentals, no admissions, no tickets. I guess we don't have any fun.

So I called the company back again to cancel in earnest, and explained that it just wasn't the right program for us, because we spend so little on entertainment that the cost of membership wouldn't be justified. When the representative started in with the 'But have you considered all the savings and advantages...?' plea, I replied, 'Let's take the rebate that's valid for this quarter. I don't have any receipts that would qualify. We have not made one single entertainment purchase in three months.'

That stopped him cold, and he quickly canceled my membership for me. He simply had nothing in his notes to counter that scenario.

The first weekend away in two and a half years

On Thursday, my mom drove down and stayed with the girls so that Michael and I could get away for the weekend. It was the first time we've spent a night without kids since Jane arrived.

We attended our choir retreat in the lovely Callaway Gardens, where we spent several sessions learning music for our December Christmas program. This retreat had all the classic elements of a perfect retreat, including good fellowship, wonderful food, plush accommodations, lovely scenery, productive and inspiring sessions, and a very entertaining magic show. During our downtime we walked through parts of the lovely gardens, and took in the live butterfly hothouse and the birds of prey demonstration.

It was so fun to get away, and though we missed the girls, we knew they were in good hands. We must do this every year.

Y'all already know about this, right?

Because free food is a Very Good Thing.

Overheard last week

Me: I am so sorry that I didn't make you any Special K bars today, but I was out of peanut butter.
Michael (solemnly): Thank you.
Me (puzzled): Thank me for what? For not making you a surprise when I wanted to?
Michael: Thank you for not making something when you didn't have all the ingredients. For not saying, 'Oh, peanut butter? I'm sure jelly would work just as well.'

This isn't much of an exaggeration, either. I just typed up a recipe for something I made, in which I realised that '1 cup water' was the only ingredient I actually followed.

Coupon craze

I have never been one for coupons. I read accounts of ladies who clip coupons vigilantly, matching coupons with sales prices each week and saving hundreds of dollars, and my response is one of admiration and amusement. ('It only takes me 30-45 minutes a week to read the fliers and clip the coupons, and I can do it while I watch TV!' Yes, but I don't watch TV. So there you have it.) That is way too calculating and mathematical for my taste.

Then I started noticing that our Kroger doubles coupons up to $0.50. Interesting. We do get the paper, which is just full of coupons on Sunday mornings, despite our not having paid any subscription dues for the four years we've lived here. Convenient. I started spotting items on sale for a dollar, and thinking to myself that if only I had a $0.50 coupon for it, it'd be free!

So, here and there, I started clipping a coupon or two, only if it looked interesting and only if it was something that looked as if it might go on sale at some point. I was determined not to let coupons trick me into buying something I did not need, or into paying more for a name brand item than the store brand item would have been. I kept the small handful of coupons in my wallet, checked every so often to weed out the expired ones, and bought a few items here and there when it was a good bargain. (Hello, Chex mix!) But that was all extremely superficial, unstudied, haphazard, and didn't really affect our grocery budget.

But all that changed recently, when I discovered a treasure trove. A veritable treasure. 'Lady Catherine,' she said, 'you have given me a treasure.'

I am now an avid coupon fiend, the kind who hits up friends on Sunday mornings to ask if they are done with their Sunday paper and may I please have the coupons, the kind who walks over to the neighbors' porch under the ostensible excuse of delivering a plate of cookies, having thoughtfully picked up the paper on the way up the driveway, and casually asking if you'd mind sparing the coupon section, the kind who asks her eye-rolling husband to ask all the other guys in the carpool if they wouldn't mind sharing their coupons, because they really weren't going to use them anyway, were they?

Two weeks of dabbling, and I've gotten:

Stocks and stores of medical supplies, the receipts for which will help drain our FSA
Enough toothpaste to last the year out
Diapers and more diapers
One half gallon of Blue Bell ice cream!!! (And at $5.99, you have to know that was a splurge)
Any amount of Useful Things such as disposable pans, dark chocolates, and the like

No, I am not in over my head. I started this all with a $25 gift card, so I know I haven't wasted any real money. This is so fun. And I thought I was good at bargains before now! Ha, what did I know then?

Grace and salt

Recently I read a blog post on a topic of great interest (well, at least to me). One commenter asked an open-ended question, seeking for advice. Another commenter weighed in with her opinion. I felt that I had something to say on the topic, so I posted my two cents' worth, being careful to lace my post with disclaimers, non-universal principles, and 'but that's just me' comments. All of this exchange was very gracious and non-confrontational. I felt that I had contributed something worthwhile to the discussion - especially since the original comment solicited feedback - and preserved a spirit of friendliness and positive encouragement.

Later on, I checked back on the thread, and found a comment from someone who seemed to be pretty obviously directing a rebuttal at my comment. She disagreed with my opinion, insisted on her right to defend her position, and made a general remark against arrogance and speaking to situations about which we knew nothing.

I was floored. I thought my comment was as passive, tolerant, nonjudgmental, and personable as it could have been. Furthermore, I would have thought, before I read this comment, that my comment expressed my true stance on the matter, through and through: I can't give a decisive answer on the topic, because that's for your conscience, but here's what I believe and why. Hope that helps.

Suddenly confronted with a challenge and attack, I find that I'm not nearly so laissez-faire as all that. I'm struck with the profound rightness of my original position. When disagreed with so belligerently and stridently, it makes me want to go back and re-hash more thoroughly my stance on the topic, such that I can either correct my misinformation and change my views, or staunchly defend them. If there's going to be an argument (not a spat, but a debate), then I want to be on the right side of it. And furthermore, I want to disseminate that correct viewpoint, whichever it may be, so that others are not going to be misled.

It occurred to me that my approach to this kind of discussion boils down to this: I would like to keep this as civil as possible. I respect your right to hold your opinion and I would be happy to agree to disagree. But if you are going to make an issue out of it, then I will man the defenses with all flags flying and leave no stone unturned in my quest for truth. If you challenge me, then I will answer the challenge to the best of my ability, and hopefully we will both learn something from the exchange. Hopefully everyone else will, too.

But that attitude rather collides with my original overtures of graciousness and non-confrontation. If I go and enter the fray, then I'm going to come across as argumentative, defensive, and uncompassionate. Which is a pity, because being accurate, logical, coolly reasoning, and truthful shouldn't have to negate kindness of heart.

When people hear something they don't like to hear, it's easy to squawk about how we need to speak the truth in love. I agree. I'm all for that. But there's a difference between speaking to a person, and speaking to a principle. When addressing a specific person, of course we have to speak in love. (Like finding a tactful way to say, 'You need to lose weight.' Or not!) When addressing a principle, we need to focus on speaking the truth. (Like saying, 'Murder is wrong.' Not getting overly concerned with being all nicey-nice, along the lines of: 'I'm so sorry if this is going to inconvenience any of you, but that just isn't right, and you really must not murder someone. Oh, believe me, I've been there too, and I know how tempting it can feel, but please just trust God on this one.')

Just Jane

Jane is still learning the art of conversation. Questions seem a bit difficult for her. 'No' she learned long ago, of course, but she doesn't know that you can just say 'Yes' as a shortcut to repeating the question. If I ask her, 'Would you like some yogurt, Jane?' she will gleefully proclaim, 'Like some yogurt, Jane?' and run to the kitchen to await the payoff.

She also uses questions in place of dialogue. Often, she'll bring up a topic by telling me, 'Would you like a cookie, Jane?' or 'Would you like to draw, Jane?' Like Lady Catherine, she doesn't seem to have a problem both asking and answering all her own questions.

Recently we stopped by the bank, where a very nice teller gave Jane a plastic piggy bank. Jane was fascinated by it. At one point I was in the kitchen with Ella, and heard Jane start crying. I came running, and began asking questions to ascertain what was wrong. Jane sobbed, 'Did you bite piggy's ear, Jane?' Hmm, I never would have thought to ask that one.


Her imagination is vivid and varied. She will hold any toy up to her eyes, pretend to click, and say, 'Take a picture!' Sometimes she'll instruct me to say cheese. She'll tell Ella, too, and never seems to mind that Ella doesn't follow her instructions. Her conversations with Ella are really quite amusing.


I began correcting her pronunciation a few weeks ago, and now she runs riot with it. She will say a word, any word, even a word that she was going to pronounce correctly anyway, and add how not to pronounce it. A common exchange:

Jane: Put on the yellow pajamas.
Mama: Yes, I'll help you put those on. Bring them to me.
Jane: Not yewwow.
Mama: No, not yewwow. Yellow.
Jane: Not lellow.
Mama: No, not lellow.
Jane: Not wellow.

And so it goes. Practically everything she says has to be followed up with a disclaimer now.

She loves hairbows and ponytails. She still wears socks on her hands and calls them gloves. She loves to get dressed up, and goes hunting in her dresser for new clothes to try on. Every time I put a new dress on her, I give her the old one to put away, and she'll come running back with another one that caught her fancy. She is all girl, this one.

Lying low

It tried to be a busy week for us, but I think we have outsmarted it at last. Ella developed a sniffle last week, which I hoped might be related to teething, but she came down with a cough over the weekend and then Jane began to sniffle and sneeze. So we stayed home from church last night and from play group this morning, and oh my word this week is dragging on forever. Michael went to choir as usual, so yesterday was one long day of holding fragile children and wiping runny noses.

I think I'm a better mother when they're sick, though. It forces me to be attentive to them (none of that 'You sit in your high chair and draw while I check email really quick...hmmm...what's that Jane....yes you're right....mmm...I'll be right there...okay, you can spill your water WAIT! DON'T spill your water!-'), and somehow when they do go down for naps I feel more motivated to bustle about briskly and catch up on chores. Well, things get so untidy when there's sickness in the house that the tasks seem obvious and simple. It takes just a minute to run through the rooms collecting all the crumpled tissues, for instance.

So. Now they're down, both humidifiers are running full blast, the breakfast dishes are done, and I am not going to spend any more time on the computer but go curl up with a good book. Well, just as soon as I check email.

Sisters

Ye Have Heard That It Hath Been Said....Or, De-bunking Institute Myths

Although I make the occasional satirical reference to my Institute upbringing, I don't really feel all that scarred. I know there are some people out there who feel rather messed up by various incorrect teachings, but I've felt that I tend to be able to appreciate the good stuff and laugh off the parts I don't agree with.

It distresses me the least little bit, therefore, that there seem to be so few people who hold as ambivalent a viewpoint as I do. There are those who are still caught up in the New Approach To Life such that they whole-heartedly champion all the propaganda, and then there are those whose aversion to the teachings has caused such a backlash that they throw the baby out with the bathwater. It becomes difficult to find a rational way of separating the wheat from the chaff, because any such conversation between interested parties would inevitably deteriorate.

The world, of course, would only scoff and sneer. The disenchanted would wax sarcastic. The naive would go on insisting the merits of all that they had been taught. So who can tell me, plainly, scientifically, scripturally, and with no ulterior motives, the truth value of the following statements?

Having many children is good for the body and keeps a woman looking/acting/feeling younger.

I've heard this one so many times, both anecdotally - in reference to specific poster mothers of large families, who certainly looked vibrant, healthy, and happy - and prescriptively: childbearing was God's design for a woman's body, prolonged barrenness is unhealthy and unnatural, multiple pregnancies deliver necessary doses of estrogen and prolong youthfulness, etc. etc.

I don't want to accept the world's line that pregnancy is hard on the body, because right now we live in a culture of death, and Satan hates the idea of a godly generation. After all, right now, it is accepted practise in mainstream medicine to perform abortions, and we know that is not right. So I'm not just accepting mainstream medicine's take on this one.

On the other hand, I've gone through two pregnancies, and I certainly didn't feel youthful and energised by them. While I'm all right health-wise, I definitely feel aged and worn out by them, and I think that if you could split into a parallel universe and take my current self, as is, and place her side by side with my current self, had I never gotten married and had kids, and compare the two, you would find the other specimen to appear more youthful, energetic, and possibly more put-together and beautiful. (Definitely smoother skin and better belly muscles.) But that's just my top-of-the-head opinion at the end of a very long day. There's really no way to scientifically measure the long-term effect of child-bearing on any given person.

When pulled over by a cop, don't protest your innocence. Instead, cheerfully admit to wrongdoing and sincerely thank him for correcting you. This will properly affirm the authority structure ordained by God, and will likely diffuse the situation entirely.

However, in Real Life, I've read the solid-sounding advice that you are best served by not admitting to guilt, and contesting the ticket. Agreeing that you are in error, or cheerfully volunteering what traffic law you violated, will only seal your fate. On the other hand, we should certainly tell the truth, right? That means not lying if asked whether we were speeding, right?

When eating out in a restaurant, well-behaved children should attract the attention of observant fellow diners, who will approach you at the end of their meal and tell you that they were so impressed with your children that they felt compelled to pay your bill.

This one is largely anecdotal - they don't actually promise it will happen to you, but it seemed to have happened to so many prominent families who go on to share their testimonies about it at Knoxville that you might think it should happen to everyone. It doesn't. I myself have been well-behaved a number of times in restaurants, and nobody has ever paid my bill on that account. Nor have I ever personally met anyone to whom this has happened.

Sleep gotten before midnight is more healthy for your body. Early rising is a Christian virtue.

Now, how is your body supposed to know what time it is by the clock? And how does it somehow manage to adjust to daylight savings time? Really, I think that the most that can be said for this is to make sure you get plenty of sleep, and to try to make it as dark (i.e. restful, peaceful) as possible while you're at it.

Full circle

In my early teens, I began wearing lipstick, but it was a rare tube that survived the plundering hordes of little brothers that thronged the house. Usually I would end up throwing away a half-eaten tube every few months or so, which was good, because it was probably past the expiration date anyway.

By about the time that the youngest brother was outgrowing the chewing-on-all-things-brightly-coloured and poaching-on-forbidden-territory stage, I moved out of the home anyway, so it became a moot point. For once in my life I began finishing my lipsticks, and I finally got to put to practical use those helpful tips about using toothpicks to finish out the tube and not let a single bit go to waste.

Last week in the store, I was pushing the cart haphazardly down the aisle, unmindful of the fact that my purse lay unprotected within easy reach of midget fingers, distractedly scanning the shelves for I know not what, when out of my fog of concentration I heard a little voice chirping, 'Jane is pretty!' I looked down, and saw my little angel holding my tube of lipstick open in her hands, her mouth, lips, and teeth liberally besmeared with pinkish goo. She was so pleased with herself for knowing what lipstick was for, and so happy at the thought that she looked just like Mama, that I didn't bother to disillusion her. And so it begins.

Gracious southern living

It is no secret that I am a firm believer in the importance of efficiency. I am a great advocate of the notion that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, and my life tends to reflect that philosophy. I try to streamline my habits, and those of the general household, for a maximum of usefulness and a minimum of waste.

Of late, I have begun to observe this passionate efficiency teetering on the brink of barbarism. ('Why bother getting out another clean bowl? Jane won't mind eating her breakfast out of my bowl, and that will waste fewer molecules of granola.' 'Oh, here's another clean corner of the tissue. Good thing I didn't throw it away last nose wipe!')

In the Little House books, we read about a time when people were concerned more with survival than with frills. They raised their own food, they made their own furniture, they invented their own fun. Yet, in the midst of all the (what we would consider) privations and hardships, they prized beauty. In the winter Ma went to the extra trouble of grating, boiling, and squeezing out carrot pulp to colour the butter, because the butter was paler then and not so pretty, and 'Ma liked all the things on her table to be pretty.' In a time when Monday was wash day and just doing the laundry took a whole day, Ma still made the time to brighten her home with an extra touch.

While living without an operable dishwasher for several weeks has indeed brought home to me the monstrous reality of what a bother an extra dish or two in the sink can be, I must remember that this time is only an exception to the rule, and that usually, my mechanised servants are at my beck and call to smoothly whisk away the occasional extra inconvenience that civilised living imposes on us.

Recently I read a description of setting a pretty breakfast table, involving glass jars, plated butter, and milk from a glass pitcher. While the pictures looked lovely and I admired the creativity it took to transform an otherwise humdrum affair into a special treat, my immediate reaction was: 1) extra dishes to wash out; 2) wasted molecules of milk from pouring into additional containers. What a short-sighted response. If our ultimate goal were to muddle along through life conserving as much energy, money, and molecules as possible, we wouldn't be nearly so happy at the end of it with all the extra time and money we managed to save.

It is partly a horror of falling into the dark ages (where, arguably, trenchers were a very efficient way of not having dirty dishes to wash at the end of the meal), and partly a reading of blogs and books that show a true appreciation for beauty, that has motivated me to strive for excellence in our home, and place beauty and graciousness on a par with efficiency for the time being.

There has to be a balance, of course. I'm no Martha Stewart, and I simply can't justify spending three hours on a finishing touch when there's dinner to be gotten. On the other hand, how much more water would it waste over the course of a year to wash out an extra dish or two a day? Could it even be measured, like the long-term effects of habitually turning off light bulbs? And even if it could, and I figured out that one extra serving dish a day ended up costing, say, $3 a year extra, wouldn't it be worth it for the pleasure it would bring us every day?

That's my new perspective, and also my new project for this fall: I'm going to explore the appropriate balance between efficiency and beauty, and incorporate a hearty dose of graciousness into our lives. Maybe as soon as we get the dishwasher replaced.

Laziness and labour-saving devices

There's a telling contrast between worldviews in Farmer Boy and Little House in the Big Woods. Laura's Pa jubilantly recounts to Ma the efficiency of the new threshing machine, which he took the initiative to hire out and bring to the farms in the area: 'It threshed as much wheat in a morning as Henry and I could have threshed in a week, and the straw's cleaner and the wheat better than we could have done using winnows.' Pa is all for progress and efficiency.

Almanzo's Father, on the other hand, disdains those modern farmers who employ new-fangled contraptions: 'All it saves is time, son, and what are you going to do with time on those long, winter evenings? Sit by the fire and twiddle your thumbs?'

In the spirit of scientific research, I think I have determined exactly the right formula to measure whether an invention is an efficient, time-saving device, or a silly, lazy shortcut: whether or not I would do it.

For instance, I use microwaves, washing machines, and dishwashers. Those are clearly marvels of modern invention, and well worth the investment. Doing all the tasks manually that these machines accomplish for me would require far more time, effort, and materials than I am willing to put forth, and besides, these machines use far less energy than it would take to do it the long way. It's definitely a cost-effective solution.

On the other hand, there are things like pre-cooked bacon, no-rub contact solution, and detergent balls.

I have the unique opportunity to review such an impractical and wasteful system as the contact solution because it came free in last month's Walgreen's rebate. And, while it worked nicely and saved maybe a few seconds of my life every night, I must reiterate again and again that the only reason it worked for me was because it was free. Otherwise, I would never have tried it.

The premise is that instead of pouring contact solution into your palm and rubbing the lenses for five seconds, you pop the lenses into the special upright case, fill the bottle to the fill line, and soak the lenses overnight, where an intense solution that includes hydrogen peroxide cleans the lenses for you. If your time is so valuable that you can't spare five seconds to clean your lenses like the rest of us peasants do, then this product might be for you. On the other hand, you spend about that long fitting the lenses into the special case, filling the bottle, and screwing it together, so I guess this really only works for those people that, for some reason, really hate washing their contacts. But you still have to stick your finger in your eye.

The 4-oz bottle lasted me less than a week, so for $6.99/bottle, that comes to over a dollar a day, just to get out of washing your contact lenses. This strikes me as a very expensive way to get out of doing work.

Then there are the laundry balls, which I haven't actually tried yet, but which I can't help feeling must fall far short of their touted ability to help you keep up with the wash. I can't speak for the majority of the desperate housewives out there, but as for me and my house, the thing that prevents us from keeping up with the laundry better comes in the putting-away department, not in the loading-the-washing-machine stage. How many times have you found yourself thinking, 'I really must run a load of laundry today!' and then followed up that thought with, 'Oh, but that would entail measuring and pouring a capful of detergent! Oh me, the very thought is exhausting! Perhaps I can put it off for another day'? No, nor I. How lazy would you have to be to be daunted by the prospect of measuring and pouring laundry detergent??

Modesty and strange men

A long time ago, when I was thickly steeped in Institute teaching, I heard the testimony of one prominent lady, in which she shared how she had arrived at her conviction regarding pants.

Apparently her husband wanted her to wear only skirts, but she resisted as much as she could, wearing skirts when out and about but wearing pants at home because she thought they were so much more comfortable, practical, etc.

One day she was wearing jeans and had to run a quick errand. Rather than bother changing, she decided to run out just this once. While at the dry cleaner, she noticed a man staring at her such that it made her feel uncomfortable. Then he asked her, 'Are those new blue jeans?'

'No,' she answered, feeling embarrassed. 'They're just some old ones I was wearing.'

This strange man then remarked, 'I wish my jeans looked as good after a few wearings and washings!'

This conversation made her feel so uncomfortable that she instantly repented of wearing pants and decided to completely obey her husband in the area of modesty henceforth. Now, at the time I heard this testimony, I accepted it as proof positive that Pants Were Evil, but it has now been many years since I dismissed that little story as mere propaganda. Surely such a conversation must be contrived for the sole purpose of brainwashing gullible young girls into impressionable tastes in clothing. After all, no one could be that lame.

Well. Fast-forward a few years, by which time I have gradually formed some new opinions about clothing, among which the daring notion that knees may not necessarily be immodest, backed up by my husband's approval, of course.

We were looking over some pictures last week, and I was internally whining at how good I looked five months out from Jane v. how I look now seven months out from Ella. The looking good was probably due in part to the pretty little skirt* I was wearing in the picture, not actually too short to wear, but just a tad too close to the line to remain in general circulation. I decided to pull it out of the closet and give it another try.

And then, of course, I had to run out for gas. And this is where history gets ironic.

I was standing at the pump, filling the tank of Michael's truck, because he had just told me it was empty and if I was going out at all could I please take the truck and fill it before the next time he needed to drive it, when the guy standing at the next pump over asked me, 'Is that your truck?'

What a stupid question. With the price of gas what it is, is it likely I'd be filling up anyone else's tank? Of course not. This guy was seriously weird and needed to be repelled with utmost magnitude. I replied, 'No, it's my husband's truck.'

But that didn't stop him. He went into some rigamarole about a friend of his who had the identical truck to mine, but got into an accident with it and was so rattled that he decided to get the same kind of truck as this guy (the one who was telling me all this) because it is so much bigger and safer. During which this guy was pointing out the bigness of his personal truck so that I could admire its largeness and consequent safety.

Yes, well, I'd personally rather take my chances with the road hazards and settle for the better gas mileage, but that's neither here nor there. I don't go about accosting strange people at gas stations and chiding them for their gas consumption and safety choices, either as an environmental/public service crusade OR as a social outlet.

So I came home and told Michael about it, who did not tell me that the skirt was inappropriate for public viewing, but laughed and told me that the guy's attempt at witty conversation was no more clumsy than might be expected. In fact, guys can apparently be incredibly lame when attempting to strike up conversation with an object of passing fancy.

I guess New-Blue-Jean-Dry-Cleaner Weirdo wasn't necessarily a fabrication after all.

*

Solved mysteries

- Finally I discovered where socks and other small oddments disappear to in the wash. This had puzzled me for some time, as I knew I wasn't leaving them in the washer or the dryer, and I knew they did not drop down behind. When I pulled a sheet out of the closet recently, a sock shook out of the corner. Aha! Of course, while fitted sheets remain the prime abductors of small odds and ends, they are by no means the only offenders. I remember now that once, as we were walking through an airport, Michael pulled off his sweater and a small unmentionable fell to the floor. How it hitchhiked all the way to the airport without his knowledge I will never know. But at least now I know to shake out every item thoroughly before putting it away.

- I also figured out why cars tend to creep forward when stopped at a light, a phenomenon which has highly annoyed me for some time. Either they creep up behind me, making me nervous of a collision, or they creep away in front of me, leaving an ever-widening gap that makes it look as if I stopped too short and potentially irritating the cars behind me. I couldn't figure out why people would do this, as they aren't liable to cross the light any sooner and it simply wastes gas to gun the engine. But my brush with the rental car after our last accident cleared this one up for me. This car was an automatic, and I found that when you lift your foot ever so lightly off the brake, the car creeps forward because the engine idles with a slight forward motion. Of course you don't switch an automatic to neutral when you're stopped at a light. So that's why it keeps happening: almost everybody else out there is driving an automatic now.

There and back again

We have returned from yet another whirlwind weekend trip, and we're glad to have no more travel plans until Christmas. It was great fun to see family and friends again, and the driving went pretty well, considering, but it's no picnic to be cooped up in a car for 10 hours straight. The girls were absolute troopers and bore their constraints bravely. But we're glad to be home.

Large bills, please; I'm a man of few words

(That's a line from an O. Henry story that has always caught my fancy.)

- We are now two payment cycles into the mystery shopping adventure, and I'm happy to report that the business is legit.

- The perfect house, in my opinion, would have two and a half baths: a full bath for the master bedroom, a full bath for the use of the family and overnight guests, and a powder room for the use of those just passing through. I like our home, and I'm not complaining a bit, but it would be nice if the bathroom we have to proffer our guests didn't also have to house the children's towels, toothbrushes, and potty chairs.

- While we're building castles in the air, the perfect house would also have a demand (as opposed to tank) hot water heater, a water filter/purifier for the whole house, hardwood flooring, an industrial sink in the laundry room, a pellet stove, an immense pantry, and a dishwasher that doesn't leak.

- I'm very much annoyed at the unavailability of cloth training pants for toddlers. I've scoured the stores, including those claiming to specialise in baby products, and there are none to be found. Are people today so incredibly lazy that there simply is no market for non-disposables?? I won't pay the ridiculous price for pull-ups, and I'm convinced that wet cloth gives an extra boost of motivation which moisture-wicking paper diapers simply cannot provide.

Stuff, again

I've decided that I have too much stuff, and I'm on a rampage to clear it out. It's always such a horrible dilemma between not wanting to hoard and not wanting to fall afoul of an unexpected famine. But I've determined that I must get rid of stuff, once and for all, and simply bear the consequences of discovering, two months later, that the thing I threw out fits this thing which now I have to throw out and buy a new one of.

This is hitting me hardest in the food department. I've gotten rather attached to my stockpile of food, and my pantry has slowly been outgrowing its space until I've concluded that I'm not going to do any more shopping, except for absolutely unbeatable and irresistible bargains. Still, where would I put said bargains? The pantry shelves are stocked high and bowing under the weight, and the freezer has undergone yet another compacting re-arrangement. I even threw out the popsicles (cheap sugar water; easily replaced) to make room for the latest conquest.

The problem is that I have gotten burned from not having enough on hand. I hate the inconvenience and expense of a last-minute necessity (gas wasted running out to the store; recipe interrupted and probably ruined; item not on sale and definitely cheaper at Aldi), so it provides tremendous peace of mind to survey my well-stocked pantry shelves and note that I'm in no danger of running out.

But I need no such peace of mind in the shampoo department, when I'm not likely to use up the sixteen bottles which accumulated on my watch, or the make-up department, where the various cosmetics will probably expire long before I even finish the one stick of mascara that I actually paid money for.

Never mind if it was free. I'm not going to waste any more money paying sales tax on unnecessary stuff. As for the current situation, if I can use it, I will use it, and if I can't, I will give it away. That was, I think, my original intention anyway, only I seem to have gotten sidetracked in my mission to deliver the goods to the poor. Missionary Care Center, here I come. Meanwhile I've had very creamy hands and feet this week.

Economies of scale

As I was trying to put a specific label on my attitude toward our level of comfort with our current standard of living, it occurred to me that 'frugal' falls far short of encompassing our lifestyle decisions. So often we think of frugal in terms of less, smaller, simpler, but that concept only works as a means of comparison. Here's a rather haphazardly scientific and quasi-mathematical way of looking at it:

People manage to make do with very little, and they even manage to be happy about it. We as humans are incredibly adaptable, and we can quickly accustom ourselves to new habits and tastes. A study in something-or-other I read recently tracked a massive increase in what people considered a necessity vs. a luxury item now as opposed to three years ago. In other words, as such trinkets as ipods and mp3 players become increasingly common, more and more people will come to assume that yesteryear’s cutting-edge gadgets are indispensable. Even so have the VCR and microwave crept into pretty much every home, when I personally can remember a time when they were an expensive novelty.

So if it's just a matter of learning to like our circumstances, then it makes sense to choose a lifestyle way down on the cost-of-living meter, and then make it our business to enjoy it.

Sound a bit Pollyanna-ish and trite? Look at it this way. Perhaps you are comfortably happy with your life right now. Contentment is great. But isn't there anything you might possibly find it in your heart to desire, anything at all? Maybe a trip to England? There probably is. There always will be. That's just human nature. We will always want more than we have, and no matter how much we have, we will go on wanting just a bit more. So we might as well start small, because we can always go up from there.

Say your standard of living is exactly average, whatever that means. You take your microwave and your dishwasher and your Starbucks coffee for granted. You spend $800 on Christmas presents (that actually was the national average last year), and presumably rake in about the same. Whenever reality falls short of your expectations - you have to cut back expenses one month, or something - you feel deflated. Whenever you have a bonus month, you get to splurge, and you feel thrilled.

The higher up on the scale of living you are, the more it takes to thrill you, and consequently the fewer the possibilities are of finding something truly out of the ordinary. After all, eating out every day means that eating out is an everyday occurrence, so there is no thrill value there.

Living with delayed gratification and self-denial doesn't mean that I never get what I want. No, in my case, it usually means that I very much want and appreciate what I do get. I find that the potential for happiness is so much greater when my 'thrill threshold' is set low. Gotta love those cheap thrills!

Overheard last night

As I was pouring out my woes to Michael:

Me: So I'm just feeling very overwhelmed by all the looming responsibilities.
Michael: I'm sorry, Love. What can I do to encourage you?
Me: Well, you can always say encouraging things.
Michael: Oh, babe, you are so pretty!

*******************************************

Regarding a new recipe for coffee cake, which didn't turn out as sweet as hoped but which I am trying to get eaten for breakfasts as it is very nutritious:

Me: I saw that you ate some more coffee cake this morning. Thank you!
Michael: Did you eat some too? How did you serve it up?
Me: Well, I just had it plain, but I think if you warmed it up and spread butter on it, it would be very palatable.
Michael: How do you like it?
Me: It depends on your perspective. As coffee cake, it's not that great, but as a zucchini muffin, it's quite good.

On the warpath again

One might think that Horizon milk is so expensive by virtue of its quality. After all, organic always costs more, doesn’t it? If it’s important to you to pay for organic and brand names, then you might swing for the high price tag without a second thought. Personally, I’m not into organic milk (indeed, I’m very rapidly getting away from drinking milk at all), so I would never have given the Horizon shelf a second thought had it not been for a little experience recently.

As I was cruising the dairy aisle early on a Monday morning, I spotted several gallons of Horizon milk that expired that day, and asked for the dairy manager so I could request a discount.

I always ask for a discount if I spot expiring milk, and I almost always get it. Even if it’s already been marked down (usually stores mark down about two or three days out from the expiration date), I will ask the dairy manager if he will mark it down further, since it has to be thrown out otherwise. (Once I snapped up twenty pints of heavy whipping cream for fifteen cents each. We reveled in ice cream for weeks.)

However, when I proffered my request, the dairy manager explained that he couldn’t mark down the Horizon milk at all, because the manufacturer gave him 100% credit on unsold product.

This isn’t an unusual arrangement for specialty manufacturers, although usually the credit is in the 25%-50% range. Manufacturers offer these credits to encourage stores to stock more of their product, thereby assuring the store manager that the product is backed in case sales don’t match expectations. Because of this, I usually have better success getting store brands marked down, as they’re just glad to sell it for something. If the store is going to get a 50% credit from the manufacturer for all unsold product, however, then he’s not going to sell it for any less than that.

So now I know that Horizon guarantees its product 100% to this retailer. That’s lovely for the store manager, who doesn’t have to assume any risk in stocking a surplus of milk, but it suggests that Horizon is building this money-back guarantee into the price of its milk. Why would Horizon offer such a generous buy-back percentage and why would it be so eager to get stores to stock more than the store manager would otherwise feel confident of selling? More shelf space, more product visibility, greater edge over the competition.

In other words, if I buy Horizon products, I’m buying a product with an added mark-up that subsidises a marketing ploy.

This isn’t like, say, Eddie Bauer, which offers a lifetime warranty on all their clothing. That’s my kind of money-back guarantee, because it goes directly to me, the consumer, and it simply guarantees the quality of their product. Horizon isn’t guaranteeing the quality of their milk. Any self-respecting manufacturer would give you your money back if the product turned up rotten. What Horizon is guaranteeing is the popularity of their product, according to their calculations and expectations. And I’m just not willing to subsidise that.

Midnight chocolate buffets and silver whale tail charms

Well, the trip was a success, all told. It's been in the works since last October, when my mom first had the idea to surprise my dad with an Alaskan cruise for his birthday. The only possible hitch was the prospective baby, as many cruises won't allow any children on board younger than six months. The cruise left Seattle on July 29th, so when Ella turned up this year on January 29th, my mom knew it was a go.

It's been a long and complicated campaign of subterfuge. My dad thought they were going to Oregon to visit relatives, which they were, at first. The day after they left, we flew out and arrived that night at my aunt's house. The whole family was there when he walked in the next morning, and my, was he surprised! Then came the next surprise when we told him that the next day, we were going on a cruise. That's the background. Now for the cruise.

Well, the food was wonderful, of course. There were lots of restaurants on board, and we took turns eating at the general buffet restaurant and the nicer, sit-down places. The staff were overwhelmingly friendly, and made us feel so pleased by admiring the lovely little girls, who were absolutely adorable. Jane and Ella had a fabulous time with family, of course. We brought the backpack and the snugli, and carted them around with us on all of our hikes.

The ship docked at three places in Alaska, not counting the day we spent cruising around in Glacier Bay and not actually making landfall: Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan. Skagway is now officially the farthest north I've been. On each stop we wandered away from the pre-arranged (and overpriced) tours and all the tourist traps, and found our own adventures on mountain trails.

Most of the pictures on our camera were taken by Michael, which means that they will consist mainly of scenery. That's nice, but I tend to like scenery a bit better if there's someone I recognise standing out in front. (My idea of taking vacation pictures is along the lines of, 'Oooh, what a pretty pile of rocks! Here, take a picture of me standing in front of it!' Very few pictures from our England trip have any clear shot at the countryside. Castle? There's me in front of it. Stonehenge? There we are in the foreground. White Cliffs of Dover? That's me, there in the front. English rental car? Me, leaning against the hood.) So most of the best human interest pictures will have to wait until I can get my family's copies.

The highlight on the food front came on the next-t0-last night, when there was a chocolate buffet at midnight. (Whatever.) The spread was amazing. There were chocolate miniatures of everything, not to mention the actual food, which included an incredible array of black forest cake, chocolate pecan cake, chocolate decadence, chocolate-covered strawberries, pastries, cheesecakes, mocha tortes, and the like. I felt like the Cabbie: 'If I'd'a known this was coming, I'd'a lived a better life!'

At every stop, there were various trinkets advertised aboard ship, proffered by the local shops in an effort to get the tourists ashore and in the store. We planned our routes, carefully allocated our one-per-stateroom coupons, handed out the general coupons down to the littlest brother, and raced around the town to collect our freebies. It felt like scavenger hunting, thrift shopping, and Christmas all at once. The highlights were the cultured pearl earrings and stud. The lowest score was the colour-changing-in-the-sun ring. But it was all great fun.

The return journey was eventful and long, and it's taken us pretty much all week to recover from it. In fact I'm going off to take another nap now.

Back, again

We have returned from our inspection of the continent at large, and are happy to report that Alaska is very pretty, very breezy, very steep, and very, very many hours away.

If you happened to be watching the local news in Lincoln, Nebraska, yesterday, you may have noticed that a Boeing 767, en route from Seattle to Atlanta, was suddenly diverted there for an emergency landing when one of its engines gave out, which is apparently big news for the small town airport of Lincoln, whose terminal snack bar is woefully unprepared to sustain 250+ people for the 12 hours it takes for the airline to come up with a plan to rescue them. We were part of this exciting caper, and so had a good chance to lose all the vacation weight in one fell swoop by pretty much eating nothing all day Sunday. Our flight got in at last at 5 this morning, and we staggered off to bed with the sunrise, having but two goals for the day: sleep and laundry. We'll post pictures whenever we unpack the camera.

Fashion tips from the trenches

* When Baby has a cold, wear a print top as opposed to a solid. You will get sniveled upon, and the pattern will camouflage the slime better.

* And wear a ponytail if you absolutely cannot get your hair cut short. Sickness makes babies want to pull and eat hair more than usual.

* When cooking dinner, wear an apron, for goodness sake. Don't think for a minute, no matter how clever, agile, or long of arms you are, that you can manage to stir anything on the stove without getting spattered on.

Driving up the cost

Finally we settled with the insurance company for the car, which was of course ruled a total loss. As of yesterday the wreck is out of our driveway, leaving me to ponder just what an expensive luxury owning a car is. I read once that depreciation alone is the most expensive cost to owning a car, far outstripping maintenance, insurance, and even gasoline (although maybe that was written before the latest surge in gas prices).

So I did the math. We bought that car just two years ago, at about the blue book value. We received a settlement for the car at approximately the current blue book value. Certainly we would have liked it if the settlement had been a bit on the higher end of the range, but my point is that the cost was about average each time, sans any bargains or rip-offs.

We took good care of that car, giving it all the regular check-ups and oil changes, and until the fateful crash it was never involved in any other accident. Yet the total loss in value of that car averaged over $100/month during the time that we owned it! Talk about depreciating assets! When you actually do factor in all the other costs associated with running a vehicle, then it becomes a very pricey convenience indeed.

Potter, r.i.p. (or not)

At some point I've got to write up a long, philosophical bit about all the things wrong with Harry Potter (and no, it has nothing to do with the fact that the books involve magic) and why I dislike the series. But for now, with all the hoopla about the final book coming out (finally! Can we just get over the fad already??), I'll just fall back on my main gripe, which is that the books are simply too lame to justify the level of the craze.

I feel pretty much the same way I did about Michael Crichton and his smash hit with Jurassic Park: That's all?? Dinosaurs coming back to life? Come on, I could have thought of that one! Same thing with a kid who discovers that he's got magical powers. Of course kids will lap this up!

One good thing about this, though, is the number of people who tend to go gaga over the books. These fans include people whose opinion I respect, so it makes me a more sympathetic person to see otherwise sensible people find enjoyment in things that I can see right through. It makes me appreciate their good-humoured forbearance with me when I was just a little bit excessively fond of Star Wars a decade or so ago. For what do we live, but to make sport of our neighbours, and to laugh at them in our turn? =)