Thursday, August 5, 2010

Australi-yah!

We had a super fun time! We mostly were winging the whole trip but here are a few highlights!

We were flying standby so we drove to LAX to catch our flight. We could've flown from Vegas but we were a little nervous about not getting on in Vegas and thus, missing the flight to Sydney.

We didn't know we needed visas to visit Australia so we didn't get on the flight the first night we tried. Since we drove, we just picked up our truck and stayed in a dive motel. The next day, we purchased our visas online and went to the Santa Monica Pier. The weather was cool, about 75 so it was a nice break from 110.


Then we went to the Griffith Observatory up by the Hollywood sign.

The observatory has been in movies like Transformers, Charlie's Angels 2, Yes Man, The Rocketeer, etc. The inside is a museum about planets and space! Very cool and very free! I would recommend it to anyone with kids!


So that night we got on the flight to Sydney. Merril and I were still standby but were able to get seats next to each other. There were personal tv screens for each passenger and there was a ton of movies, tv episodes, music videos and games that you could pick from. Merril and I watched about 4 movies each. If I decided I didn't like the movie, I could stop it and pick a different one. Super great!

We got into Sydney early in the morning, picked up a rental car, and went to see the famous Opera House.


This is Sydney's Harbour Bridge. (I didn't spell harbor wrong, that's how the Aussies spell it.) Tourists can climb to the top of it. We would've but didn't have time. We drove to Brisbane.

This is me driving on the right side of the car, on the left hand side of the road. I had the hardest time making right-hand turns.

We met up with our friends, Nate and Sarah, and fell asleep.


Sarah Jensen Milne


I made Nate find me some kangaroos. These were out at Turnboll or Turnbull or some little coastal town like that.


The next day we went out to Bribie Island for fish and chips and to see the most beautiful beach ever! Miles of white, clean, soft sand. It was most excellent.
Another night we took the ferry to around the Brisbane river and saw the Brisbane Temple. (My picture didn't turn out, we were going fast and it was dark.)

Mostly we just goofed off and hung out with friends. We had dinner at friend's houses, saw all their American muscle cars they were rebuilding and had a great time together without the kids.

On the way home, I got bumped to business class and Merril didn't. He told me to take the seat so I did. I felt out of place the whole time. I really tried to mind my manners for 14 hours. I belong in coach with my peeps. But the food was great, I ate on real plates with real silverware, and the bathroom is huge in business class. Some of the passengers were pretty snooty. Here's the menu.


I also got socks, lotion, a chapstick, a pen, an eye cover for sleeping, mints, a real pillow and a nice comforter to sleep with. The seat laid totally flat. I don't think it's worth it.

Just a few things I want to remember about Australia:

-Burger King is called Hungry Jacks

-A burger Aussie style comes with a fried egg and beets on it
-Ketchup is called tomato sauce
-Breakfast is called Brekky
-Eggs have smiley faces

-Tim Tams are a type of cookie and so delicious!! (You can buy them in the states, Pepperidge Farm makes them. I bought a package at Wal-Mart yesterday.)
-The toilet is called a dunney
-Sticky date pudding should always be ordered for dessert
-Woolworth's is huge over there but they left the states long ago
-Everything is so expensive! A candy bar is $3! So is a can of soda!
-Meat pies are very popular
-Australia is very clean, looks like Hawaii and sounds like Britain
-It was awesome!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Take off eh...

Merril and I leave tomorrow to go on vacation for 9 days to Australia!! It's for our 10th anniversary! Wahoo!! Are we bringing the kids?? NOPE!! I'm so excited! I've been doing laundry like a mad woman to pack enough clothes for everyone. The hardest part has been underwear. I have a week's worth solid, but 9 days worth of clean underwear is hard to come by at our house. Thanks to all who are pitching in to watch the kids!! Without you, this trip wouldn't be possible!

We'll be back on the July 29th!

Friday, July 16, 2010

Wireless Mouse...

Seriously, a wireless mouse is one of my very favorite inventions ever! Until the batteries die and I don't have any more AAs. I like to keep my skills sharp and navigating with keyboard shortcuts is doable. That being said, sometimes I just want to point and click.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Lovin' some glasses...

I purchased some funny glasses for Young Women's the other day. My kids inherited the leftovers. Juliet LOVES them!


She wears them while watching tv.

She even wore them to her nap. She fell asleep with them on.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

About me...

I'm the type of person who doesn't like to make phone calls. But a text is somehow different!! I would much prefer sending a text to ask a question, rather than call.

I'm not a huge fan of Tai Pan Trading Co. (except for a small cookwares section.)

I love to peruse the Harbor Freight Tools catalog.

I love to fix things (think Tinker Bell but without the outfit).

I like to learn and try new things. I strive to be smarter.

I love good food! Especially dessert.

I love my husband, in a crazy "can't live without you" kind of way.

I have to have a shower EVERY day!

I have no ambition to get a job, ever.

I love to travel! It gives perspective.

I love the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

I miss my motorcycle.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Super Summer Tip of the Day...

I love to make homemade ice cream. I think it's super delicious! Creamy smooth! Yummy! So anyways, homemade ice cream requires rock salt. You can buy it at any grocery store and can get a 4-5 lb. bag for around $2-4 depending on the brand and the store.

Our water softener requires salt crystals, not the pellets. The first time I cracked open a bag I thought to myself, "That looks just like rock salt." So when I made ice cream last time, I checked on the salt crystal manufacturer's website to see if it could be used to make ice cream as well. Checks out it's perfectly fine for ice cream. The great thing is, you can get a 40 lb. bag of water softener salt crystals at Wal-Mart for $4.28. Now that's a whole lot of ice cream!

So when my water softener needs salt, I just save the bottom of the bag for ice cream!


Thursday, July 1, 2010

Do you food storage?

I happen to love food storage lately. It's all due to my friend, Shauna, because she was the first person my age that had a sizable store of food in her house. Up until then, it had kind of been an abstract concept that I'd get to someday. She even gave me the idea of using tax return money to fund it! I started a year and a half ago. It loiters in the corners of my basement.


My favorite finds have been canned butter and canned cheese. I just think it seems awesome that butter can be canned. I have a recipe to bottle it at home with a pressure or water bath canner but haven't tried it yet. I want to try that and chicken!!


Food storage is like a huge insurance policy for me. I feel like saying, "Bring on the apocalypse!! I've got like beans and stuff!!" We use the beans, oatmeal and dehydrated onions pretty regularly. Wheat and apple slices less often.

Happy 4th of July weekend!!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Yeah! My garden is growing!

My garden got a late start this year because I made it bigger. Since I was digging out rocks, instead of planting seeds, it got planted around May. Around here, that's a pretty late start but it's starting to look great!

I planted tomatoes, onions, carrots, zucchini, green beans, yellow beans, jalapeno peppers (those were an accident, I meant to get bell peppers but still yummy), and russet potatoes. The potatoes were an afterthought. I finished planting everything I wanted to plant and had extra space, a rarity in year's past. The potatoes came up last week. Some things are still small; we had huge wind storms and then hail. Everything has been battered but a few weeks of nice weather has helped immensely.


Also, Juliet fell asleep on me after church. She still needs a nap but 1 o'clock church makes it hard to squeeze in a nap.


Other than that, I went to girl's camp last week and we had the best time. I was there from Wednesday to Saturday and the weather was great and the girls were too! Today I'm cleaning my house and doing a mountain of laundry! Yippee!

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

She's a thumb sucker no more...

Other than Juliet being a little grumpier than usual, she's doing very well! I can tell she's trying to figure out a new way to comfort herself without sucking her thumb, poor thing. But she hasn't sucked her thumb at all in days! The only side effects are she's the last kid to fall asleep and has a harder time getting over a upsetting situation. Even then, I'm sure those things will fade over the next few weeks as she adjusts.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Update: Day 2 of ceased thumb sucking...

Today Juliet threw a fit while trying to go down for an afternoon nap. Mostly from being overtired. I waited too long and she was tired from all the crying the night before. But, it was only 15 minutes and then she was off to dream land.

Tonight, she played around in her bed for a little longer than usual but then fell asleep without any crying or fussing or thumb sucking! Yeah! (I kept peeking in on her every 5 minutes and she kept smiling from bed like, "Why are you spying on me all the time?")

Someone asked what we're doing to keep her from sucking her thumb. She has a silky blankie that she would rub between her fingers while she sucked her thumb. For about 2 months, I said that the blankie would be taken back to its Mommy by the "blankie fairy" and then she'd have to stop sucking her thumb. The "blankie fairy" arrived on the eve of her 3rd birthday. She seemed okay with the idea until it went away, then she was very sad and said she wanted it back. We've also been painting her thumb with stuff specifically designed to make thumbs taste yucky. She likes to paint it herself, because it's like her own nail polish. I tried to put a sock on her hand before bed but she didn't want it. Mostly, she just knows she's not supposed to suck her thumb anymore. So she's thrown a few fits because she doesn't like the decision but is getting over it and hasn't sucked her thumb at all today.

So far things are looking good. It only took 3 days to break Maxine. Juliet appears to be on the same track! Keep your fingers crossed.

And Juliet had a birthday...

So I cleaned most of the day for my anniversary because it's also Juliet's birthday. When she turned 3, we told her she was going to stop sucking her thumb. We went to the store to get a present in celebration of the momentous occasion. She picked out a crown.

For her birthday she wanted, "shoes and a phone" and requested a pink cake with purple icing.


She did fine without sucking her thumb until bedtime. Then she cried for about an hour and a half. Hopefully tonight will be better.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Someone lost a bet...

10 years ago today, Merril and I got married!!

We were hanging out here in the shade, waiting for the photographer to load our whole families on the steps of the temple so we could stand in the front and take the traditional "family on the steps of the temple with the bride and groom in front" picture.

I'm sure there was someone out there who thought we wouldn't make it this far. I think we're happier than ever! Seriously though, we look like children. If my kids come to me when they're 20 and say they want to get married, I'm gonna roll my eyes and say, "Sure sweetie. Maybe when you grow up."

I'm amazed we didn't have to get legal guardians to sign the marriage license.


Anyhoo, I think getting married younger has advantages. We grew up together.


Wahoo 10 years! It's been a fun ride!!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Been busy...

So here's some picture catch up!

We went to the sand dunes with some friends to barbeque some dinner and have smores.

We went swimming.

And then I decided to take on a yard project!! The north side of my yard slopes badly towards the rear of the house. I went to the BLM and purchased a $14.50 permit for 1 ton of flagstone from a community pit. Then I made some stone stairs down the slope so the kids would stop sliding down. Jack snagged this picture of my working without telling me. My children must be terrified of me all the time because I furrow my eyebrows when I'm thinking or working. I look mean, but true to life.

Here's Jack standing on the stairs in his pajamas. If you can't tell by the sun, it's actually late afternoon in this picture. When I get involved in a project, I kind of let them do whatever. I'll attend to meals and naps, other daily routines are optional.


Then I decided I was sick of the slope and decided to make terraced levels down to the backyard!! I figured this would also help with the huge amounts of rain that collects in the backyard when it rains. And along the one side I decided to make raised bed grow boxes and plant blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries. And then 2 more grape vines in the back yard.


Luckily I have a million rocks in my backyard to hold up the terrace levels.

So I did this all last week. May has been so mild but as soon as I planted, it decided to turn into a blast furnace. I might lose a few strawberries. Here are the bushes in the ground.


The blueberry bushes had some blueberries on them. I've been eating them just as fast as they turn blue!!


Holy moly. It was A LOT of work. Fortunately, I didn't have to get any new dirt but just rearranged the existing dirt!! The whole project was pretty cheap and looks 500 times better! Now if I could just find a way to hang out in the side yard all the time!!

Friday, May 28, 2010

I like welding, welding is fun...

I have a little spade that I use in the garden. It's a metal shovel tip with a wooden handle. Lately, the wood handle is breaking off because it has always been outside. I told Merril I need a new handle built for it. He had a piece of leftover pipe and said I could have it and weld it to the spade tip. He offered to weld it for me but I've always been intrigued by the welder and wanted to give it a go. The whole idea of passing electric current through metal and getting it so hot that it melts and fuses together. Very fun. Plus it throws pretty sparks. :)

(Welding helmets are important, we don't want burned retinas.)


And here's my new garden shovel. It'll take a million years for that handle to corrode off.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

My bountiful basket ran dry this week...

So I've been participating in a produce co-op for a couple of months called Bountiful Baskets www.bountifulbaskets.org. It's been great for us because we get a lot of fruits and veggies for at least half of what I normally pay at the stores. Pick-up times are not negotiable, I don't get to choose the produce, and the website is a little wonky at times. That being said, I'm overwhelmingly satisfied with the amount of produce for $16.50. I can deal with the rest.

So fast forward to this week: The two volunteer gals who run the thing decided to take a week off for scheduled website maintenance and just because. I understand that. I see the need. If I were volunteering all those hours so a bunch of strangers could get a good deal, I'd be tired too. But ohmigoodness I went to the Wally World and got a package of blueberries and some grapes and spent $5! I felt so ripped off because I've really gotten used to paying $16.50 and getting an amazing amount of food. Amazing! So take the week off girls, but I need you next week!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Playing make believe...

Jack and Juliet love to play in the basement. It's generally a mess and there's cool stuff down there to get into. Today, they found a box of winter gear and a whole expedition was spawned. I'm not quite sure what it was all about but I know they were trekking long distances in the game.

Apparently Jack needed a walking stick to make it but Juliet was able to do it without shoes. This evolved from an earlier game where Jack was a farmer, thus the overalls. :)

Sunday, May 16, 2010

Only a week and a half until school is out!

I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the summer. Some of you may say, "What am I going to do with all my kids when they're out of school?" Personally, I'm focusing on the mornings where I won't have to drag myself out of bed in order to drag Maxine out of bed. I can tell she's done for the year. I'm looking forward to a few months without so many schedules. More time hanging out and less time screaming, "Get your shoes on RIGHT NOW, or we're going to miss the bus!!" True, we'll have to come up with more activities to keep the kids occupied, but......I.......seriously.........can't........wait!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Moabites...

Every time we go to Moab, I wonder if natives call themselves Moabites. (Ruth, Moabite daughters-in-law, etc.) Anyhoo, we went camping in Moab with some friends. I had the best time! I think some other people did too.

We got there late Thursday night and had a hard time finding a spot to camp. So we camped at an overflow spot and then changed to a nice camp spot the next morning. We decided to go on a trail in the Scout. Merril and I built this shade top to keep the kids out of the sun. That PVC would not hold up in a roll, believe me.


Since the Scout has run beautifully for a year, it decided to act up while we were in Moab. Urg. Darryl and Shauna towed us on a couple of occasions!! You guys are the best! (Seriously, if you guys don't ever want to camp with such needy friends again, we'll understand.)

The kids had a great time playing in the dirt. Juliet rarely had a pair of shoes on. She also stood a little too close to the fire on a windy morning and singed the back of her hair.


We went hiking to Landscape Arch and had a few meltdowns on the way back to the truck. They seem happy in the picture.


And of course we had to try Potato Salad Hill. The Scout kept dying because of the incline. It was battling a fuel system problem.


Jack and Will, Shauna's son, fell asleep in the back of the Darryl's Jeep at one point.


Then one night a bunch of friends came to visit around the campfire and burn smores. Good times. I've never seen so many flaming marshmallows and kids whipping hot, poker sticks. I think we all kept our eyes.

Maxine made me a Mother's Day gift at school. We brought it so I could open it on Mother's Day. Merril surprised me with an egg slicer as a gift. Yeah!! Some of you might be thinking, "Egg slicer? What's up with that??" First of all, I LOVE to make egg salad sandwiches!! A few months ago, Jack bent and pulled all the wires on my old egg slicer. I haven't purchased a new one since. Merril saw me making egg salad a couple of days before we left for Moab and knew it was the perfect gift! He's REALLY good at thinking of gifts that I really want!

We went to church the next day and came home. I feel bad for the people we sat next to in church. I'm sure we stunk like campfire smoke.

I LOVE CAMPING!!

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

I keep waiting for Spring to warm up...

Brrrr...Why is it so cold today?? It's May!! The sun was shining for a moment and I snapped some of my flowers in the front yard.


Monday, May 10, 2010

Learning something new every day...

I'm often surprised at how long I've been doing something incorrectly.

I realized today that I've been misspelling the number 40. It's not fourty like I thought, but forty (no U after the O.)

Just to make sure. I spelled twenty, thirty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, and one hundred into spell checker as well. :) I'm bound and determined to correctly spell 40 from now on.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

District Science Fair...

Maxine advanced to the district science fair and competed today. She had to stay there from 9:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and then I picked her up for lunch. Afterwards, the fair was open to the public for a half hour and then the awards ceremony. Maxine didn't win 3rd, or 2nd, or 1st place in her age division. So I gave her a hug and told her she did great! She seemed a little bummed. So I started to sneak back to her exhibit to clean it up. So after I got it cleaned up, I started to walk back to where Merril and the kids were standing around waiting for the rest of the awards to finish up. Then they announced the award for Best of Fair and Maxine won it!

Here she is climbing the stairs to get her award.


Here she is standing in front of her project holding the plaque and certificate.

She won a $100 dollar savings bond too! Seriously, that's why she looks so happy. She wanted to go cash it in right away but we had to head back to the school. Wahoo!

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Merril's birthday and some other stuff...

Merril's birthday was last week. He turned 32. Merril and I, and Jared and Amy went out for all-you-can-eat sushi! Yum!

On Sunday, we had some friends from the ward over for pumpkin cheesecake. (Don't ask me, Merril wanted it for his birthday. I feel like pumpkin cheesecake is more of a fall dessert. Whatever.) Unfortunately, I realized on Sunday morning that I only had 1 candle. So I made these candles with kite string and leftover Halloween candles.


They were cute but didn't really work out. The flame would accelerate too fast. We were only able to light 3 or 4 before we had an inferno going. So he blew out 4 candles and we just ate cake.

I purchased the rest of my garden dirt today. I used to have on garden box that was 6 feet wide by 11 feet deep. It was too wide so this year I decided to enlarge it and split it in half to end with 2 boxes of 4'x11', adding 22 square feet of growing space.


I'm going to make a path down the middle. The path isn't quite finished yet. Hopefully I can plant tomorrow or Thursday. I can't believe it's almost May and I don't even have my garden veggies in yet. Urg.

Some people have a raised bed with boards or railroad ties holding them together. Not me. I use all the rocks I dug out of the garden. :) Half the trench needs to be covered back up too.

And on a happy note: Our boat cover ripped pretty bad over the winter. We spent close to $300 on it and I remembered that it had a warranty but figured it had expired by now. So I called the place and they said that it had a 5-year warranty!! They said if I ship the old one back, they'll send me a new one. And then the warranty period will start over again! I don't know if they realize how windy and sunny it is here. I could be getting a new boat cover every couple of years for the rest of my life!!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Feeling like a bonehead...

Our computers are aged. We've been limping them along for a while. A couple of weeks ago, the time/date battery started to die so the computer clock would reset when I'd cut power to it. Then it started freezing up so I uninstalled our web browser, ran registry cleaner and installed the browser again. Since then, everything seemed to be running smoothly.

Then I walked downstairs a couple of days ago and saw a weired box floating on the screen. It said something like, "Dell monitor check, digital input 2." and then had 4 colors green, red, blue and white. The computer seemed to be on and running but it wouldn't respond or wake up when I touched the mouse. So I started thinking, "Has the video card gone out? or worse, the motherboard?"

So I did what I usually do and just turned it off and left it alone for a day. When I turned it back on, same deal. So I left it alone for a few more days, hoping it would feel guilty and cure itself. I came downstairs today and started poking around, looking for some obvious glitch, i.e. kids pulled the cord out of the back or something. No dice. Then I started thinking, "The input to the monitor shouldn't be digital input 2. It's analog input 1." So then I just started pushing all the buttons on the front of the monitor (the ones so tempting to little children's fingers.) I found one that resets the input to the monitor and voila! I should've poked around sooner instead of ignoring the problem for days. :) It's my way.

Update on water line to the backyard:

Completed digging 120 feet of trench!
Glued 120 feet of pipe!
Only had to run to Home Depot and Ace 4 times to get all the stuff I needed!
Only soaked Merril and the kids once with 1 faulty junction!
System is now holding water pressure with no leaks!!

As soon as the weather gets a little nicer, I'll go cover up all the pipe. The inclement weather has given me an excuse to stay inside and clean my house, which has been neglected for weeks from the said project.

Have a great day!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

It worked! I made cheese!!

Okay. Last girl's night, a friend of mine wanted to try making mozzarella cheese from scratch. Using a not so accurate thermometer, 3 different friends tried to make the cheese. All 3 failed and made more of a ricotta/cottage cheese. I mentioned that I had a digital thermometer at home that might be more accurate so I was sent with the ingredients to try again!

Six days later...

Okay, so I got busy and didn't run right home and make cheese. In the meantime, Shelly found some better instructions that made more sense. Armed with my digital thermometer and new instructions, I set to work. The results, a little ball of cheese!


And boy is it squeaky!

Monday, April 19, 2010

Remember This Pile? By merril

Enter the handiest woman alive(Shown here torquing the rod bolts of the jeep engine.(Google it if you need to))

Ta Da!

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Science Fair...

The Science Fair was today. I thought Science Fairs were fun when I was a kid. I guess I didn't realize how much work they are as a parent. Maxine did the experiment but the board was kind of a pain to put together. (It didn't help that we procrastinated the board until the last possible second and then the printer ran out of ink half way through.)

Maxine loves rocks and crystals. Her experiment was to determine which rock from our backyard was the hardest. We collected 5 samples. Here's Maxine performing a scratch test with a rock and a piece of glass.


Here's Maxine in front of her board after we set up this morning.


We must have done a bang up job because she won 1st place in her grade level! Now she gets to advance to district level. I'm glad the board is already done! :)

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Today...

Picked up basket of fruits and veggies from local co-op at 7 a.m.

Made waffles for breakfast.

Dug a 25-foot long by 1-foot deep trench for backyard water line with a pick ax.

Sold 1 Sega Genesis game system on Ebay.

Pulled out 2 dead bushes in the front yard.

Planted 2 bushes in the front yard.

Did 1 round of dishes.

Made dinner.

Made 3 batches of strawberry freezer jam.

Got 3 kids in bed on time.

Watched 1 movie on YouTube.

THE END

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Bunnies and finished projects...

Around Easter, I was reading the baking blog that I follow and saw the cutest idea for a cupcake! Make cupcakes, frost with green frosting, dye coconut green for grass, make chocolate bunny shapes and add jelly beans! They were so much fun.


Maxine and I are were thinking about it later and the cupcake could easily be made to look like baskets, using licorice or something for a handle.

And today I dropped off some stuff to the D.I. and walked in to look at books and picture frames. I found one to fit Jack's Mini Cooper poster and laid down 4 bucks. We came home, painted it, and mounted it on the wall. Ta-da! Yeah, that's done!



It looks awesome hanging on the wall! But I boneheaded Maxine's soccer game this afternoon and totally forgot. We just sat at home when she should've been playing. So lame.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Renting woes...

I tried to rent Sherlock Holmes from Redbox tonight. It's totally unavailable. Not because they're sold out but because Redbox won't be carrying the title for another month. Apparently, Blockbuster video stores are close to bankruptcy and some suit in the corporate office is buddies with the head of Warner Brothers. So Warner Brothers signed a deal with Blockbuster to limit their DVD rental releases exclusively to Blockbuster for the first 28 days after it comes out. So places like Netflix and Redbox will not be able to carry Warner Bros. titles for a month so the guys at Blockbuster can catch a break. Warner Bros. is also hoping to boost DVD sales because if I can't rent it, I should just go out and buy it, right?

Personally, I think it stinks. Mostly because the closest Blockbuster video store is 2 hours away. There have to be at least 15 Redbox kiosks in my general vicinity but I won't be able to rent the movie I wanted to see for another month.

I noticed that Sherlock Holmes is still at the cheap movie theater in town and I'm seriously considering dropping the 2 bucks to go see it. Lousy, Hollywood producers. Out.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Who knew I was raising such a food snob?

For school, Maxine needed plastic eggs filled with candy for the class egg hunt. At Wal-Mart, I cheaped out and bought knock-off brand of foil-wrapped chocolate eggs. I had a few and thought, "These taste like shortening flavored with sugar and cocoa. But the kids won't notice." So I got all the eggs with candy in them and had a few left over for the kids to eat. Maxine had a bite and said,

"Mom, Hersey chocolate is way better than this stuff."

*sigh* I know, I know. I cheaped out!! So I downloaded a coupon so I could spring for Nestle NestEggs in ButterFinger and Crunch varieties. What I really want to get are those Kinder Eggs from Europe but I thought about it too late. They can't guarantee delivery by Easter.

And then today she came home from the Easter hunt at school and said, "I ate some candy on the way home. Not the jelly beans though because they aren't Jelly Belly's. The jelly beans I got were gross." So it seems I must purchase Jelly Belly brand jelly beans as well. When did she get to be such a food snob?


I guess it's hard to go back to single-ply toilet paper when you've been living the double-ply lifestyle. Happy Easter!