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.